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diff --git a/37185.txt b/37185.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60847e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/37185.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8194 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Adventures of a Widow, by Edgar Fawcett + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Adventures of a Widow + A Novel + + +Author: Edgar Fawcett + + + +Release Date: August 23, 2011 [eBook #37185] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF A WIDOW*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made +available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://www.archive.org/details/adventuresofwido00fawciala + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF A WIDOW + +A Novel + +by + +EDGAR FAWCETT + +Author of "A Gentleman of Leisure," "A Hopeless Case," "An Ambitious +Woman," "Tinkling Cymbals," etc. + + + + + + + +Boston +James R. Osgood and Company +1884 + +Copyright, 1883 and 1884, +By Edgar Fawcett. + +All Rights Reserved. + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF A WIDOW. + + + + +I. + + +It is not long ago that the last conservative resident of Bond Street, +proud of his ancient possessorship and no doubt loving the big brick +structure with arched doorway and dormer windows in which he first saw +the light, felt himself relentlessly swept from that interesting quarter +by the stout besom of commerce. Interesting the street really is for all +to whom old things appeal with any charm. It is characteristic of our +brilliant New York, however, that few antiquarian feet tread her +pavements, and that she is too busy with her bustling and thrifty +present to reflect that she has ever reached it through a noteworthy +past. Some day it will perhaps be recorded of her that among all cities +she has been the least preservative of tradition and memorial. The hoary +antiquity of her transatlantic sisters would seem to have made her +unduly conscious of her own youth. She has so long looked over seas for +all her history and romance, that now, when she can safely boast two +solid centuries of age, the habit yet firmly clings, and she cares as +little for the annals of her fine and stately growth as though, like +Troy, she had risen, roof and spire, to the strains of magic melody. + +It might be of profit, and surely it would be of pleasure, were she to +care more for the echoes of those harsh and sometimes tragic sounds that +have actually blent their serious music with her rise. As it is, she is +rich in neglected memories; she has tombs that dumbly reproach her +ignoring eye; she has nooks and purlieus that teem with reminiscence and +are silent testimonials of her indifference. Her Battery and her Bowling +Green, each bathed in the tender glamour of Colonial association, lie +frowned upon by the grim scorn of recent warehouses and jeered at by the +sarcastic shriek of the neighboring steam-tug. She can easily guide you +to the modern clamors of her Stock-Exchange; but if you asked her to +show you the graves of Stuyvesant and Montgomery she might find the task +a hard one, though thousands of her citizens daily pass and re-pass +these hallowed spots. Boston, with its gentle ancestral pride, might +well teach her a lesson in retrospective self-esteem. Her own harbor, +like that of Boston, has had its "tea-party," and yet one whose +anniversary now remains a shadow. On Golden Hill, in her own streets, +the first battle of our Revolution was fought, the first blood in the +cause of our freedom was spilled; yet while Boston stanchly commemorates +its later "massacre," what tribute of oratory, essay or song has that +other momentous contest received? This metropolitan disdain of local +souvenir can ill excuse itself on the plea of intolerance toward +provincialism; for if the great cities of Europe are not ashamed to +admit themselves once barbaric, Hudson in fray or traffic with the +swarthy Manhattans, or old Van Twiller scowling at the anathemas of +Bogardus, holds at least a pictorial value and significance. + +Bond Street has always been but a brief strip of thoroughfare, running +at right angles between the Bowery and Broadway. Scarcely more than +thirty years ago it possessed the quietude and dignity of a patrician +domain; it was beloved of our Knickerbocker social element; it was the +tranquil stronghold of caste and exclusiveness. Its births, marriages +and deaths were all touched with a modest distinction. Extravagance was +its horror and ostentation its antipathy. The cheer of its +entertainments would often descend to lemonade and sponge-cake, and +rarely rise above the luxury of claret-punch and ice-cream. Its belles +were of demurer type than the brisk-paced ladies of this period, and its +beaux paid as close heed to the straight line in morals as many of their +successors now bestow upon it in the matter of hair-parting. Bond Street +was by no means the sole haunt of the aristocracy, but it was very +representative, very important, very select. There was even a time when +to live there at all conferred a certain patent of respectability. It +was forgiven you that your daughter had married an obscure Smith, or +that your son had linked his lot with an undesirable Jones, if you had +once come permanently to dwell there. The whole short, broad street was +superlatively genteel. Nothing quite describes it like that pregnant +little word. It dined at two o'clock; it had "tea" at six; its parties +were held as dissipated if they broke up after midnight; its young men +"called" on its young women of an evening with ceremonious regularity, +never at such times donning the evening-coat and the white neck-tie +which now so widely obtain, but infallibly wearing these on all +occasions of afternoon festivity with an unconcern of English usage that +would keenly shock many of their descendants. + +But by degrees the old order changed. Commerce pushed northward with +relentless energy. Its advance still left Bond Street uninvaded, but +here and there the roomy brick dwellings received distinctly plebeian +inmates. One night, in this street formerly so dedicated to the calm of +refinement, a frightful murder occurred. No one who lived in New York at +that time can fail to remember the Burdell assassination. It was +surrounded by all the most melodramatic luridness of commission. Its +victim was a dentist, slaughtered at midnight with many wounds from an +unknown hand. The mysterious deed shook our whole city with dismay. For +weeks it was a topic that superseded all others. To search through old +newspapers of the excited days that followed is to imagine oneself on +the threshold of a thrilling tale, in which the wrong culprits are +arraigned and the real offender hides himself behind so impregnable an +ambush that nothing but a final chapter can overthrow it. Yet in this +ghastly affair of the stabbed dentist a protracted trial resulted in a +tame acquittal and no more. The story ended abruptly and midway. It lies +to-day as alluring material for the writer of harrowing fiction. It +still retains all the ghastly piquancy of an undiscovered crime. + +The vast surrounding populace of New York have long ago learned to +forget it, but there would be truth in the assertion that Bond Street +recalls it still. Its garish publicity scared away the last of her +fine-bred denizens. The retreat was haughty and gradual, but it is now +absolute. Where Ten Eyck and Van Horn had engraved their names in burly +letters on sheeny door-plates, you may see at present the flaunting +signs of a hair-dresser, a beer-seller, a third-rate French +_restaurateur_, a furrier, a flower-maker, and an intercessor between +despairing authors and obdurate publishers. The glory of Bond Street has +departed. Its region has become lamentably "down town." The spoilers +possess it with undisputed rule. It is in one sense a melancholy ruin, +in another a sprightly transformation. + +But several years before its decadence turned unargued fact (and now we +near a time that almost verges upon the present), Mr. Hamilton Varick, a +gentleman well past fifty, brought into perhaps the most spacious +mansion of the street a bride scarcely eighteen. Mr. Varick had lived +abroad for many years, chiefly in Paris. He was a tall, spare man, with +a white jaunty mustache and a black eye full of fire. He was extremely +rich, and unless remote relations were considered, heirless. It was +generally held that he had come home to end his days after a life of +foreign folly and gallantry. This may at first have seemed wholly true, +but it also occurred that he had chosen to end them in the society of a +blooming young wife. + +His Bond Street house, vacant for years, suddenly felt the embellishing +spell of the upholsterer. Mr. Varick had meanwhile dropped into the +abodes of old friends not seen in twenty years, had shaken hands, with a +characteristic lightsome cordiality, right and left, had beamingly taken +upon his lap the children of mothers and fathers who were once his +youthful comrades in dance and rout, had reminded numerous altered +acquaintances who he was, had been reminded in turn by numerous other +altered acquaintances who they were, had twisted his white mustache, had +talked with airy patriotism about getting back to die in one's native +land, had deplored his long absence from the dear scenes of youth, had +regretted secretly his transpontine Paris, had murmured his bad, witty +French _mots_ to whatever matron would hear them, had got himself +re-made a member of the big, smart Metropolitan Club which he thought a +mere tiresome sort of parochial tavern when he last left it, and had +finally amazed everyone by marrying the young and lovely Miss Pauline +Van Corlear. + +Pauline herself had very little to do with the whole arrangement. She +was the only child of a widowed mother who had long ago designed to +marry her notably. Mrs. Van Corlear lived upon a very meagre income, and +had been an invalid since Pauline was eight. But she had educated her +daughter with a good deal of patient care, and had ultimately, at the +proper age, relegated her to the chaperonage of a more prosperous +sister, who had launched her forth into society with due _elan_. Pauline +was not a good match in the mercenary sense; she was perfectly well +aware of the fact; she had been brought up to understand it. But she was +fair to see, and perhaps she understood this a little too well. + +New York was then what so many will remember it to have been about +twelve years ago. The civil war had left few traces of disaster; it was +the winter of seventy-one. Wall Street was in a hey-day of hazardous +prosperity; sumptuous balls were given by cliques of the most careful +entertainers; a number of ladies who had long remained unfashionable, +yet who had preserved an inherited right to assert social claim when +they chose, now came to the front. These matrons proved a strong force, +and resisted in sturdy confederacy all efforts of outsiders to break +their dainty ranks. They shielded under maternal wings a delightful bevy +of blooming young maidens, among whom was Pauline Van Corlear. + +It was a season of amusing conflict. Journalism had not yet learned to +fling its lime-light of notoriety upon the doings and mis-doings of +private individuals. Young girls did not wake then, as now, on the +morning after a ball, to read (or with jealous heart-burning _not_ to +read) minute descriptions of their toilets on the previous night. The +"society column" of the New York newspaper was still an unborn +abomination. Had this not been the case, a great deal of pungent scandal +might easily have found its way into print. The phalanx of assertive +matrons roundly declared that they had found society in a deplorable +condition. The balls, receptions and dinners were all being given by a +horde of persons without grandfathers. The reigning belles were mostly a +set of loud, rompish girls, with names that rang unfamiliarly. The good +old people had nearly all been drowsing inactive during several winters; +one could hardly discover an Amsterdam, a Spuytenduyvil, a Van +Schuylkill, among this unpleasant rabble. There had been quite too many +of these spurious pretenders. Legitimacy must uplift its debased +standards. + +Legitimacy did so, and with a will. Some very fine and spacious mansions +in districts bordering or approximate to Washington Square were +hospitably thrown open, besides others of a smarter but less +time-honored elegance in "up-town" environments. The new set, as it was +called, carried things by storm. They were for the most part very rich +people, and they spent their wealth with a lavish freedom that their +lineage saved from the least charge of vulgarity. No display of money is +ever considered vulgar when lineage is behind it. If you are unblessed +with good descent you must air your silver dishes cautiously and heed +well the multiplicity of your viands; for though your cook possess an +Olympian palate and your butler be the ex-adherent of a king, the +accusation of bad taste hangs like a sword of threat in your banquet +hall. + +Among all the winsome _debutantes_ of that season, Pauline Van Corlear +was the most comely. She had a sparkling wit, too, that was at times +mercilessly acute. Most of the young friends with whom she had +simultaneously "come out" were heiresses of no mean consideration; but +Pauline was so poor that an aunt would present her with a few dozens of +gloves, a cousin would donate to her five or six fresh gowns, or perhaps +one still more distant in kinship would supply her with boots and +bonnets. The girl sensitively shrank, at first, from receiving these +gifts; but her plaintive, faded mother, with her cough and querulous +temper, would always eagerly insist upon their acceptance. + +"Of course, my dear," Mrs. Van Corlear would say, in her treble pipe of +a voice, while she rocked to and fro the great chair that bore her +wasted, shawl-wrapped body--"of course it is quite right that your +blood-relations should come forward. They all have plenty of money, and +it would be dreadful if they let you go out looking shabby and forlorn. +For my part, I'm only surprised that they don't do more." + +"I expect nothing from them, mamma," Pauline would say, a little sadly. + +"_Expect_, my dear? Of course you don't. But that doesn't alter the +_obligation_ on their part. Now please do not be obstinate; you know my +neuralgia always gets worse when you're obstinate. You are very +pretty--yes, a good deal prettier than Gertie Van Horn or Sallie +Poughkeepsie, with all their millions--and I haven't a doubt that before +the winter is over you'll have done something really handsome for +yourself. If you haven't, it will be your own fault." + +Pauline clearly understood that to do something handsome for herself +meant to marry a rich man. From a tender age she had been brought up to +believe that this achievement was the goal of all hopes, desires and +aims. Everybody expected it of her, as she grew prettier and prettier; +everybody hinted or prophesied it to her long before she "came out." The +little contracted and conventional world in which it was her misfortune +to breathe and move, had forever dinned it into her ears until she had +got to credit it as an article of necessitous faith. There are customs +of the Orient that shock our Western intelligences when we read of women +placidly accepting their tyrannies; but no almond-eyed daughter of pasha +or vizier ever yielded more complaisantly to harem-discipline than +Pauline now yielded to the cold, commercial spirit of the marriage +decreed for her. + +She was popular in society, notwithstanding her satiric turn. She always +had a nosegay for the German, and a partner who had pre-engaged her. It +was not seldom that she went to a ball quite laden with the floral boons +of male admirers. Among these latter was her third cousin, then a +gentleman of thirty, named Courtlandt Beekman. Courtlandt had been +Pauline's friend from childhood. She had always been so fond of him that +it had never occurred to her to analyze her fondness now, when they met +under the festal glare of chandeliers instead of in her mother's plain, +dull sitting-room. Nor had it ever occurred to any of her relations to +matrimonially warn her against Courtlandt. He was such a nice, quiet +fellow; naturally he was good to his little cousin; he was good to +everybody, and now that Pauline had grown up and begun to go to places, +his devotion took a brotherly form. Of course he was poor, and, if +sensible, would marry rich. He had been going about for an age in "that +other set." He knew the Briggs girls and the Snowe girls, and all the +_parvenu_ people who had been ruling at assemblies and dancing-classes +during the dark interregnum. Perhaps he would marry a Briggs or a Snowe. +If he did, it would be quite proper. He was Courtlandt Beekman, and his +name would sanctify nearly any sort of Philistine bride. But no one ever +dreamed of suspecting that he might want to marry the cousin, twelve +years his junior, who had sat on his knee as a school-girl, munching the +candies he used to bring her and often pelting him with childish +railleries at the same ungrateful moment. + +In person Courtlandt was by no means prepossessing. He had a tall, +brawny figure, and a long, sallow face, whose unclassic irregularities +might have seemed dull and heavy but for the brown eyes, lucid and +variant, that enlivened it. He was a man of few words, but his silences, +though sometimes important, were never awkward. No one accused him of +stupidity, but no one had often connected him with the idea of +cleverness. He produced the impression of being a very close observer, +you scarcely knew why. Possibly it was because you felt confident that +his silences were not mentally vacuous. He had gone among the gay +throngs almost since boyhood; if he had not so persistently mingled with +ladies (and in the main very sweet and cultured ones, notwithstanding +the denunciations hurled against "that other set") it is probable that +he would continuously have merited the title of ungainly and graceless. +But ease and polish had come to him unavoidably; he was like some +rough-shapen vessel that has fallen into the hands of the gilder and +decorator. It would have been hard to pick a flaw in his manners, and +yet his manners were the last thing that he made you think about. He was +in constant social demand; his hosts and hostesses forgot how valuable +to them he really was; he almost stood for that human miracle, a man +without enemies. He made a kind of becoming background for nearly +everybody; he had no axe to grind, no ladder to climb, no prize to win; +he stood neither as debtor nor creditor toward society; he was, in a +way, society itself. There were very few women who did not enjoy a chat +with him _a deux_; and in all general conversation, though his attitude +was chiefly that of listener, the talkers themselves were unaware how +often they sought the response of his peculiar serious smile, or the +intelligent gleam of his look. + +Pauline had not been greatly troubled, on her advent among the +merry-makers, with that timidity which is so keen a distress to so many +callow maids. Bashfulness was not one of her weak points; she had borne +the complex stare levelled at her in drawing-rooms with excellent +_aplomb_. Still, she could not help feeling that her kinsman, +Courtlandt, had comfortably smoothed her path toward an individual and +secure foothold. Those early intervals, dire to the soul of every novice +like herself, when male adherence and escort failed through meagreness +of acquaintanceship, Courtlandt had filled with the supporting relief of +his presence and his attentions. There had been no _mauvais quart +d'heure_ in Pauline's evenings; her cousin had loyally saved her from +even the momentary chagrin of being left without a courtier. Later on, +his kindly vigilance had become needless; but he was always to be +trusted, nevertheless, as a safeguard against possible desertion. + +The occasion on which Mr. Hamilton Varick first saw Pauline was at a +ball given in the February of her first season, two full months after +she had modestly emerged with her little sisterhood of rosebud damsels. +It was a very beautiful ball, given in a stately and lovely house +adjacent to the Park, and by a lady now old and wrinkled, who had held +her own, forty years ago, as a star in our then limited firmament of +fashion. The dancers, among whom was her fair and smiling granddaughter +of eighteen, chased the jolly hours in a spacious apartment, brilliant +with prismatic candelabra and a lustrous floor of waxed wood. The +rosy-and-white frescoes on the ceiling, the silver-fretted delicacy of +frieze and cornice, the light, pure blues and pinks of tapestries, the +airy and buoyant effects in tint and symmetry, made the whole +quick-moving throng of revellers appear as if the past had let them live +again out of some long-vanished French court-festival. + +"These young people only need powdered heads to make it look as if Louis +Quinze were entertaining us in dead earnest," said Mr. Varick, with his +high-keyed, nonchalant voice. He addressed an elderly matron as he +spoke, but he gave a covert glance at Pauline, to whom he had just +received, through request, the honor of a presentation. + +"I think it would be in very dead earnest if he did," said Pauline, +speaking up with a gay laugh; and Mr. Varick laughed, too, relishing her +pert joke. He paid her some gallant compliments as he stood at her side, +though she thought them stiff and antique in sound, notwithstanding the +foreign word or phrase that was so apt to tinge them. She found Mr. +Varick pleasantest when he was asking after her sick mother, and telling +her what New York gayeties used to be before the beginning of his long +European absence. He had a tripping, lightsome mode of speech, that +somehow suited the jaunty upward sweep of his white mustache. He would +oscillate both hands in a graceful style as he talked. Elegant +superficiality flowed from him without an effort. It needed no keenness +to tell that he had been floating buoyantly on the top crest of the +wave, and well amid its froth, all his life. He made no pretense to +youth; he would, indeed, poke fun at his own seniority, with a +relentless and breezy sort of melancholy. + +"Did you ever hear of a French poet named Francois Villon," he said to +Pauline, dropping into a seat at her side that some departure had just +left vacant. "No, I dare say you've not. He was a dreadful chap--a kind +of _polisson_, as we say, but he wrote the most charming ballads; I +believe he was hanged afterward, or ought to have been--I forget which. +One of his songs had a sad little refrain that ran thus: '_Ou sont les +neiges d'antan?_'--'Where are the snows of last year?' you know. Well, +mademoiselle--no, Miss Pauline, I mean--that line runs in my head +to-night. _Ca me gene_--it bothers me. I want to have the good things of +youth back again. I come home to New York, and find my snow all melted. +Everything is changed. I feel like a ghost--a merry old ghost, however. +_Tenez_--just wait a bit. Do you think those nice young gentlemen will +have anything to say to you after they have seen you a little longer in +my company? I'm sure I have frightened four or five of them away. +They're asking each other, now, who is that old _epouvantail_--what is +the word?--scarecrow. Ah! _voila_--here comes one much bolder than the +rest. I will have mercy on him--and retire. But before my _depart_ I +have a favor to request of you. You will give mamma my compliments? You +will tell her that I shall do myself the honor of calling upon her? +Thanks, very much. We shall be ghosts together, poor mamma and I; you +need not be _chez vous_ when I call, unless you are quite willing--that +is, if you are afraid of ghosts." + +"Oh, I'm not," laughed Pauline. "I don't believe in them, Mr. Varick." + +"That is delightful for you to say!" her companion exclaimed. "It means +that you will listen for a little while to our spectral conversation and +not find it too _ennuyeuse_. How very kind of you! Ah! we old fellows +are sometimes very grateful for a few crumbs of kindness!" + +"You can have a whole loaf from me, if you want," said Pauline, with an +air of girlish diversion. + +Not long afterward she declared to her cousin, Courtlandt: "I like the +old gentleman ever so much, Court. He's a refreshing change. You New +York men are all cut after the same pattern." + +"I'm afraid he's cut with a rather crooked scissors," said Courtlandt, +who indulged in a sly epigram oftener than he got either credit or +discredit for doing. + +"Oh," said Pauline, as if slowly understanding. "You mean he is +_French_, I suppose." + +"Quite French, they report." + +Mr. Varick made his promised visit upon Pauline and her mother sooner +than either of them expected. Mrs. Van Corlear was rather more ill than +usual, on the day he appeared, and almost the full burden of the ensuing +conversation fell upon her daughter. + +The next evening, at the opera, he dropped into a certain box where +Pauline was seated with her aunt, Mrs. Poughkeepsie. On the following +day Pauline received, anonymously, an immense basket of exquisite +flowers. Twice again Mr. Varick called upon her mother, in the charmless +upstairs sitting-room of their boarding house. As it chanced, Pauline +was not at home either time. + +An evening or two afterward she returned at about eleven o'clock from a +theatre party, to find that her mother had not yet retired. Mrs. Van +Corlear's usual bed-time was a very exact ten o'clock. + +The mother and daughter talked for a little while together in low tones. +When Pauline went into her own chamber that night, her face was pale and +her heart was beating. + +At a great afternoon reception which took place two days later, +Courtlandt, who made his appearance after five o'clock, coming up town +from the law-office in which he managed by hard work to clear a yearly +two thousand dollars or so, said to his cousin, with a sharpened and +rather inquisitive look: + +"What's the matter? You don't seem to be in good spirits." + +Pauline looked at him steadily for a moment. It was a great crush, and +people were babbling all about them. "There's something I want to speak +of," the girl presently said, in a lingering way. + +A kind of chill stole through Courtlandt's veins at this,--he did not +know why; he always afterward had a lurking credence in the truth of +presentments. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +Pauline told him what it was. He grew white as he listened, and a +glitter crept into his eyes, and brightened there. + +"You're not going to _do_ it?" he said, when she had finished. + +She made no answer. She had some flowers knotted in the bosom of her +walking dress, and she now looked down at them. They were not the +flowers Mr. Varick had sent; they were a bunch bestowed by Courtlandt +himself at a little informal dance of the previous evening, where the +cotillon had had one pretty floral figure. She regarded their petals +through a mist of unshed tears, now, though her cousin did not know it. + +He repeated his question, bending nearer. It seemed to him as if the sun +in heaven must have stopped moving until she made her answer. + +"You know what mamma is, Court," she faltered. + +"Yes, I do. She has very false views of many things. But you have not. +You can't be sold without your own consent." + +"Let us go away from here together," she murmured. "These rooms are so +hot and crowded that I can hardly breathe in them." + +He gave her his arm, and they pushed their way forth into a neighboring +hall through one of the broad yet choked doorways. + +Outside, in Fifth Avenue, the February twilight had just begun to +deepen. The air was mild though damp; a sudden spell of clemency had +enthralled the weather, and the snow, banked in crisp pallor along the +edge of either sidewalk, would soon shrink and turn sodden. At the far +terminus of every western street burned a haze of dreamy gold light +where the sun had just dropped from view, but overhead the sky had that +treacherous tint of vernal amethyst which is so often a delusive snare +to the imprudent truster of our mutable winters. Against this vapory +mildness of color the house-tops loomed sharp and dark; a humid wind +blew straight from the south; big and small sleighs were darting along, +with the high, sweet carillons of their bells now loud and now low; +through the pavements that Courtlandt and Pauline were treading, great +black spots of dampness had slipped their cold ooze, to tell of the thaw +that lay beneath. Yesterday the sky had been a livid and frosty azure, +and the sweep of the arctic blast had had the cut of a blade in it; +to-day the city was steeped in a languor of so abrupt a coming that you +felt its peril while you owned its charm. Courtlandt broke the silence +that had followed their exit. He spoke as if the words forced themselves +between his shut teeth. + +"I can't believe that you really mean to do it," he said, watching +Pauline's face as she moved onward, looking neither to right nor left. +"It would be horrible of you! He is over sixty if he's a day, besides +having been mixed up in more than one scandal with women over there in +Paris. I think it must be all a joke on your part. If it is, I wish for +God's sake that you'd tell me so, Pauline!" + +"It isn't," she said. She turned her face to his, then, letting him see +how pale and sad it was. "I must do it, Court," she went on. "It's like +a sort of fate, forcing and dragging me. I had no business to mention +mamma in the matter, I suppose. She couldn't _make_ me consent, of +course, although, if I did not, her lamentations would take a most +distracting form for the next year or two. No; it's not she; it's +myself. I don't live in a world where people hold very high views of +matrimony. And I hate the life I'm living now. The other would be +independence, even if bought at a dear price. And how many girls would +envy me my chance? What am I at present but a mere pensioner on my +wealthy relatives? I can't stay in; I've started with the whirl, and I +can't stop. Everybody whom I know is dancing along at the same pace. If +I declined invitations; if I didn't do as all the other girls are doing; +if I said 'No, I'm poor and can't afford it,'--then mamma would begin +tuning her harp and sending up her wail. And I should be bored to death, +besides." Here Pauline gave a hollow laugh, and slightly threw back her +head. "Good Heavens!" she continued, "there's nothing strange in it. +I've been brought up to expect it; I knew it would probably come, and I +was taught, prepared, warned, to regard it when it did come in only one +way. If he hadn't been old he might have been shocking. What a piercing +pertinence there is to my case in that little proverb, 'Beggars mustn't +be choosers!' I'm a beggar, you know: ask Aunt Cynthia Poughkeepsie if +she doesn't think I am. And _he's_ quite the reverse of shocking, truly. +His hair may be rather white, but his teeth are extremely so, and I +think they're indigenous, aboriginal; I hope if they're not he will +never tell me, anyway." + +She gave another laugh, as mirthless as if the spectre of herself had +framed it. She had turned her face away from him again, and slightly +quickened her walk. + +"You mean, then, that your mind is really made up!" said Courtlandt, +with an ire, a fierceness, that she had never seen in him before. "You +mean that for a little riches, a little power, you'll turn marriage, +that should be a holy usage, into this wicked mockery?" + +Pauline bit her lip. Such a speech as this from her equanimous cousin +was literally without precedent. She felt stung and guilty as she said, +with cool defiance,-- + +"Who holds marriage as a holy usage? I've never seen anyone who did." + +"I do!" he asseverated, with clouding face. "You do, too, Pauline in +your heart." + +"I haven't any heart. They're not worn nowadays. They're out of +fashion. We carry purses instead--when we can." + +"I think I will tell Mr. Varick you said that," he answered, measuring +each word grimly. + +"Oh, do!" Pauline exclaimed. A weary and mournful bravado filled her +tones. "How he would laugh! Do you fancy he thinks I care a button for +him? Why, nearly the first sentence he spoke to mamma on this weighty +subject concerned the number of yearly thousands he was willing to +settle upon me." + +"So, it is all arranged?" + +"It only awaits your approval." + +"It can only get my contempt!" + +"That is too bad. I thought you would anticipate some of the charming +little dinners I intend to give. He has dreadful attacks of the gout, I +have learned, and sometimes I'll ask you to preside with me in his +vacant chair. That is, if you"-- + +But he would hear no more. He turned on his heel and left her. He +bitterly told himself that her heart was ice, and not worth wasting a +thought upon. But he wasted a good many that night, and days afterward. + +Whether ice or not, it was a very heavy heart as Pauline went homeward. +Just in proportion as the excuses for her conduct were ready on her +lips, so they were futile to appease her conscience. + +And yet she exulted in one justifying circumstance, as she herself named +it. "If I _loved_ anybody--Court, or anybody else," she reflected, "I +never _could_ do it! But I don't. It's going to make a great personage +of me. I want to find out how it feels to be a great personage. I want +to try the new sensation of not wearing charity gloves...." She had +almost a paroxysm of nervous tears, alone in her own room, a little +later. That evening Mr. Varick once more presented himself.... + +At about eleven o'clock he jumped into a cab which he had kept waiting +an interminable time, and lighted a very fragrant cigar as he was being +driven off. + +"_Elle est belle a faire peur_," he muttered aloud. And the next moment +a thought passed through his mind which would resemble this, if put into +English, though he always thought in French:-- + +"I will write to Madeleine to-morrow, and send her ten thousand francs. +That will end everything--and if the gout spares me five years longer I +shan't see Paris while it does." + +He had not by any means come home to die. He had said so because it had +a neat sound, throwing a perfume of sentiment about his return. And he +was always fond of the perfume of sentiment. In reality he had come home +to look after his affairs, which had grown burdensomely prosperous, and +then sail back with all the decorous haste allowable. + +Perhaps he had come home with a few other trifling motives. But of every +conceivable motive, he had _not_ come with one. That one was--to marry. +And yet he had to-night arranged his alliance (satisfactorily on both +sides, it was to be hoped) with Miss Pauline Van Corlear. + +He leaned back in the dimness of the speeding cab, and reflected upon +it. His reflections made him laugh, and as he laughed his lip curled up +below his white mustache and showed his white teeth, with the good, dark +cigar between them--the teeth of which Pauline had said that if they +were false she did not wish to know it. + + + + +II. + + +The marriage was a quiet one, and took place in the early following +spring. Pauline made a very lovely bride, but as this comment is +delivered upon a most ample percentage of all the brides in Christendom, +it is scarcely worth being recorded. The whole important constituency of +her kindred were graciously pleased at the match, with a single +exception. This was Courtlandt Beekman, who managed to be absent in +Washington at the time of the wedding. Pauline's presents were superb; +the Poughkeepsies, Amsterdams, and all the rest, came forth in expensive +sanction of the nuptials. After a brief Southern tour the wedded pair +took up their abode in the newly appointed Bond Street mansion. Mrs. Van +Corlear, already ensconced there, welcomed them with as beaming a smile +as her invalid state would permit. Pauline, as she kissed her, wondered +if those same bloodless lips would ever have any further excuse for +querulous complaint. It was pathetic to note the old lady's gratified +quiver while her thin hand was gallantly imprinted, as well, by the +kiss of her new son-in-law. She had surely reached the goal of all her +earthly hopes. She had a silken chair to rock in, and a maid as her +special attendant, and a doctor to be as devoted and exorbitant as he +chose. Her neuralgia, her asthma, her rheumatism, her thousand and one +ailments, were henceforth to wreak their dolorous inflictions among the +most comfortable and sumptuous surroundings. And yet, as if in mockery +of her new facilities for being the truly aristocratic invalid, this +poor lady, after a few weeks of the most encouraging opportunity, +forsook all its commodious temptations and quietly died in her bed of a +sudden heart-seizure. + +On the occasion of her death Pauline's husband, who had thus far been +scrupulously polite, made a remark which struck his wife as brutal, and +roused her resentment. He was a good deal more brutal, in a glacial, +exasperating way, as Pauline's anger manifested itself. But shortly +after the funeral he was prostrated by a sharp attack of his gout, +during which Pauline nursed him with forgiving assiduity. + +The young wife was now in deep mourning. Her husband's attack had been +almost fatal. His recovery was slow, and a voyage to Europe was urgently +recommended by his physicians. They sailed in latter June. Courtlandt +was among those who saw Pauline off in the steamer. He looked, while +taking her hand in farewell, as if he felt very sorry for her. Pauline +seemed in excellent spirits; her black dress became her; she was so +blonde that you saw the gold hair before you marked the funereal garb; +and then she had her smile very ready, which had always won nearly +everybody. Perhaps only Courtlandt, in his wise, grave taciturnity, saw +just how factitious the smile was. + +Mr. Varick quite recovered from this attack. Pauline's letters said so. +They had soon left London, near which the Cunarder had brought them, and +gone to Paris; Mr. Varick was feeling so much better from the voyage, +and had always felt so at home in Paris. For several months afterward +Pauline's letters were sent over-sea in the most desultory and irregular +fashion. And what they contained by no means pleased their recipients. +She appeared to tell nothing about herself; she was always writing of +the city. As if one couldn't read of the Tuileries and Notre Dame in a +thousand books! As if one hadn't been there oneself! Why did she not +write _how they were getting on together_? That was the one imperative +stimulus for curiosity among all Pauline's friends and kindred--how +they were getting on together. All, we should add, except Courtlandt, +who seemed to manifest no curiosity of whatever sort. Of course one +could not write and ask her, point blank! What was one to do? Did +rambling essays upon the pleasures of a trip to Versailles, or the +recreation of a glimpse of Fontainebleau, mean that Mr. Varick had or +had not broken loose in a mettlesome manner from his latter-day +matrimonial traces? + +"We are prepared for anything, you know," Mrs. Poughkeepsie, Pauline's +aunt and former patron, had once rather effusively said to Courtlandt. +"Now that Hamilton Varick is well, he might be larking over there to any +dreadful extent. And Pauline, from sheer pride, mightn't be willing to +tell us." + +"Very cruel of her, certainly," Courtlandt had responded, laconic and +not a little sarcastic as well. + +But as months went by, Pauline's correspondents forgot, in the +absorption engendered by more national incentives for gossip, the +unsatisfactory tone of her letters. Once, however, Pauline wrote that +she wished very much to return, but that her husband preferred remaining +in Paris. + +"He won't come back!" immediately rose the cry on this side of the +water. "He's keeping her over there against her will! How perfectly +horrible! Well, she deserves it for marrying a _vieux galant_ like that! +Poor Pauline! With her looks she might have married somebody of +respectable age. But she wouldn't wait. She was so crazy to make her +market, poor girl! It's to be hoped that he doesn't beat her, or +anything of that frightful sort!" + +One auditor of these friendly allusions would smile at them with furtive +but pardonable scorn. This auditor was Courtlandt; and he remembered how +the same compassionate declaimers had been the first to applaud +Pauline's astounding betrothal. + +After two years of absence on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Varick, certain +rumors drifted to America. This or that person had seen them in Paris. +Pauline was still pretty as ever, but living quite retired. It was said +she had taken to books and general mental improvement. No one ever saw +her with her husband. She never alluded to him in any way. There were +queer stories about his goings on. It was hard to verify them; Paris was +so big, and so many men were always doing such funny things there. + +The conclave on these shores heard and sympathetically shuddered. The +"new set" had now healed all its old feuds. New York society was in a +condition of amicably cemented factions. The Briggs girls and the Snowe +girls had married more or less loftily, and had proved to the Amsterdams +and others that they were worthy of peaceable affiliation. "Poor Pauline +Varick" began to be a phrase, though a somewhat rare one, for without +anybody actually wakening to the fact, she had been living abroad four +whole years. And then, without the least warning, came the news that she +was a widow. + +She was universally expected home, then, after the tidings that her +husband was positively dead had been confirmed beyond the slightest +doubt. But perhaps for this reason Pauline chose to remain abroad +another year. When she did return her widowhood was an established fact. +Her New York _clientele_ had grown used to it. Mr. Varick had left her +all his fortune; she was a very wealthy young widow. Aggressive queries +respecting his death, or his deportment during the foreign sojourn that +preceded his death, were now quite out of order. She had buried him, as +she had married him, decently and legally. He slept in Pere la Chaise, +by his own _ante mortem_ request. No matter what sort of a life he had +led her; it was nobody's business. She returned home, two years later, +to take a high place and hold a high head. Those merciful intervening +years shielded her from a multitude of stealthy interrogatories. She did +not care to be questioned much regarding her European past as the wife +of Mr. Varick, and she soon contrived to make it plain that she did not. +There was no dissentient voice in the verdict that she had greatly +changed. And in a physical sense no one could deny that she had changed +for the better. + +Her figure, which had before been quite too thin despite its pliant +grace, was now rounded into soft and charming curves. Her gray eyes +sparkled less often, but they glowed with a steadier light for perhaps +this reason; they looked as if more of life's earnest actualities had +been reflected in them. Her face, with its chiselled features all +blending to produce so high-bred and refined an expression, rarely broke +into a smile now, but some unexplained fascination lay in its acquired +seriousness, that made the smile of brighter quality and deeper import +when it really came. She wore her copious and shining hair in a heavy +knot behind, and let it ripple naturally toward either pure temple, +instead of having it bush low down over her forehead in a misty turmoil, +as previously. Her movements, her walk, her gestures, all retained the +volatile briskness and freedom they had possessed of old; there was not +even the first matronly hint about her air, and yet it was more +self-poised, more emphatic, more womanly. + +"I really must move out of this dreadful Bond Street," she said to +Courtlandt, rather early in the conversation which took place between +them on the day of their first meeting. "I think I could endure it for +some time longer if that immense tailor-shop had not gone up there at +the Broadway corner, where such a lovely, drowsy old mansion used to +stand. Yes, I must let myself be compliantly swept further up town. +There is a kind of Franco-German tavern just across the way that +advertises a 'regular dinner'--whatever that is--from twelve o'clock +till three, every day, at twenty-five cents." + +"I see you haven't forgotten our national currency," said Courtlandt, +with one of his inscrutable dispositions of countenance. + +Pauline tossed her head in a somewhat French way. "I have forgotten very +little about my own country," she said. + +"You are glad to get back to it, then?" + +"Yes, very. I want to take a new view of it with my new eyes." + +"You got a new pair of eyes in Europe?" + +"I got an older pair." She looked at him earnestly for a moment. "Tell +me, Court," she went on, "how is it that I find you still unmarried?" + +He shifted in his chair, crossing his legs. "Oh," he said, "no nice girl +has made me an offer." + +Pauline laughed. "As if she'd be nice if she had! Do you remember how +they used to say you would marry in the other set? Is there another set +now?" + +"There is a number of fresh ones. New York is getting bigger every day, +you know. Young men are being graduated from college, young girls from +seminaries. I forget just what special set you mean that you expected me +to marry into." + +"No, you don't!" cried Pauline, with soft positiveness. She somehow felt +herself getting quietly back into the old easy terms with Courtlandt. +His sobriety, that never echoed her gay moods, yet always seemed to +follow and enjoy them, had re-addressed her like a familiar though +alienated friend. "You recollect perfectly how Aunt Cynthia Poughkeepsie +used to lift that Roman nose of hers and declare that she would never +allow her Sallie to know those fast Briggs and Snowe girls, who had got +out because society had been neglected by all the real gentry in town +for a space of at least five years?" + +Courtlandt gave one of his slow nods. "Oh, yes, I recollect. Aunt +Cynthia was quite wrong. She's pulled in her horns since then. The +Briggses and the Snowes were much too clever for her. They were always +awfully well-mannered girls, too, besides being so jolly. They needed +her, and they coolly made use of her, and of a good many revived leaders +like her, besides. Most of the good men like them; that was their strong +point. It was all very well to say they hadn't had ancestors who knew +Canal Street when it was a canal, and shot deer on Twenty-Third Street; +but that wouldn't do at all. No matter how their parents had made their +money, they knew how to spend it like swells, and they had pushed +themselves into power and were not to be elbowed out. The whole fight +soon died a natural death. They and their supporters are nearly all +married now and married pretty well." + +"And you didn't marry one of them, Court?" + +Courtlandt gave a slight, dry cough. "I'm under the impression, +Pauline," he said, "that I did not." + +"How long ago it all seems!" she murmured, drooping her blond head and +fingering with one hand at a button on the front of her black dress. +"It's only four years, and yet I fancy it to be a century." She raised +her head. "Then the Knickerbockers, as we used to call them, no longer +rule?" + +Courtlandt laughed gravely. "I don't know that they ever did," he +answered. + +"Well, they used to give those dancing-classes, you know, where nobody +was ever admitted unless he or she had some sort of patrician claim. +Don't you recollect how Mrs. Schenectady, when she gave Lily a Delmonico +Blue-Room party (do they have Delmonico Blue-Room parties, now?), +instructed old Grace Church Brown to challenge at the Fourteenth Street +entrance (where he would always wait as a stern horror for the coachmen +of the arriving and departing carriages) anybody who did not present a +certain mysterious little card at the sacred threshold?" + +"Oh, yes," returned Courtlandt ruminatively. + +"And how," continued Pauline, "that democratic Mrs. Vanderhoff happened +to bring, on this same evening, some foreign gentleman who had dined +with her, and whom she meant to present with an apologetic flourish to +the Schenectadys, when suddenly the corpulent sentinel, Brown, desired +from her escort the mysterious card, and finding it not to be +forthcoming sent a messenger upstairs? And how Mr. Schenectady presently +appeared and informed Mrs. Vanderhoff, with a cool snobbery which had +something sublime about it, that he was exceedingly sorry, but the rule +had been passed regarding the admission of any non-invited guest to his +entertainment?" + +"Oh, yes; I remember it all," said Courtlandt. "Schenectady behaved like +a cad. Nobody is half so strict, nowadays, nor half so grossly uncivil. +You'll find society very much changed, if you go out. You'll see people +whose names you never heard before. I sometimes think there's nothing +required to make one's self a great swell nowadays except three +possessions, all metallic--gold, silver, and brass." + +"How amusing!" said Pauline. "And yet," she suddenly added, with a swift +shake of the head, "I'm sure it will never amuse _me_! No, Court, I have +grown a very different person from the ignorant girl you once saw me!" +She lowered her voice here, and regarded him with a tender yet +impressive fixity. "When I look back upon it all now, and think how I +used to hold the code of living which those people adopt as something +that I must respect and even reverence, I can scarcely believe that the +whole absurd comedy did not happen in some other planet. You don't know +how much I've been through since you met me last. I'm not referring to +my husband. It isn't pleasant for me to talk about _that_ part of the +past. I wouldn't say even this much to any one except you; but now that +I have said it, I'll say more, and tell you that I endured a good deal +of solid trial, solid humiliation, solid heart-burning.... There, let us +turn that page over, you and myself, and never exchange another word on +the subject. You were perfectly right; the thing I did _was_ horrible, +and I've bought my yards of sackcloth, my bushels of ashes. If it were +to do over again, I'd rather beg, starve, die in the very gutter. +There's no exaggeration, here; I have grown to look on this human +destiny of ours with such utterly changed vision--I've so broadened in a +mental and moral sense, that my very identity of the past seems as if it +were something I'd moulted, like the old feathers of a bird. Feathers +make a happy simile; I was lighter than a feather, then--as light as +thistledown. I had no principles; I merely had caprices. I had no +opinions of my own; other people's were handed to me and I blindly +accepted them. My chief vice, which was vanity, I mistook for the virtue +of self-respect, and kept it carefully polished, like a little +pocket-mirror to look at one's face in. I was goaded by an actually +sordid avarice, and I flattered myself that it was a healthy matrimonial +ambition. I swung round in a petty orbit no larger than a saucer's rim, +and imagined it to have the scope of a star's. I chattered gossip with +fops of both sexes, and called it conversation. I bounced and panted +through the German for two hours of a night, and declared it to be +enjoyment. I climbed up to the summit of a glaring yellow-wheeled drag +and sat beside some man whose limited wit was entirely engrossed by the +feat of driving four horses at once; and because poor people stopped to +sigh, and silly ones to envy, and sensible ones to pity, as we rumbled +up the Avenue in brazen ostentation, I considered myself an elect and +exceptional being. Of course I must have had some kind of a better +nature lying comatose behind all this placid tolerance of frivolity. +Otherwise the change never would have come; for the finest seed will +fail if the soil is entirely barren." + +"You have taken a new departure, with a vengeance," said Courtlandt. He +spoke in his usual tranquil style. He considered the sketch Pauline had +just drawn of her former self very exaggerated and prejudiced. He had +his own idea of what she used to be. He was observing her with an +excessive keenness of scrutiny, now, underneath his reposeful demeanor. +But he aired none of his contradictory beliefs. It is possible that he +had never had a downright argument with any fellow-creature in his life. +Somehow the brief sentence which he had just spoken produced the +impression of his having said a great deal more than this. It was always +thus with the man; by reason of some unique value in his silence any +terse variation of it took a reflected worth. + +Pauline's hands were folded in her lap; she was looking down at them +with a musing air. She continued to speak without lifting her gaze. +"Yes," she went on, "the reformatory impulse must have been latent all +that time. I can't tell just what quickened it into its present +activity. But I am sure, now, that it will last as long as I do." + +"What are the wonders it is going to accomplish?" + +"Don't satirize it," she exclaimed, looking up at him with a start. "It +is a power for good." + +"I hope so," he said. + +"_I_ know so! Courtlandt, I've come back home to live after my own +fashion. I've come back with an idea, a theory. Of course a good many +people will laugh at me. I expect a certain amount of ridicule. But I +shall despise it so heartily that it will not make me swerve a single +inch. I intend to be very social--yes, enormously so. My drawing-rooms +shall be the resort of as many friends as I can bring together--but all +of a certain kind." + +"Pray, of what kind?" + +"You shall soon see. They are to be men and women of intellectual +calibre; they are to be workers and not drones; they are to be thinkers, +writers, artists, poets, scholars. They can come, if they please, in +abnormal coats and unconventional gowns; I sha'n't care for that. They +can be as poor as church mice, as unsuccessful as talent nearly always +is, as quaint in manner as genius incessantly shows itself." Here +Pauline rose, and made a few eloquent little gestures with both hands, +while she moved about the room in a way that suggested the hostess +receiving imaginary guests. "I mean to organize a _salon_," she +continued--"a veritable _salon_. I mean to wage a vigorous crusade +against the aimless flippancy of modern society. I've an enthusiasm for +my new undertaking. Wait till you see how valiantly I shall carry it +out." + +"Am I to understand," said Courtlandt, without the vestige of a smile, +"that you mean to begin by cutting all your former friends?" + +She glanced at him as if with a suspicion of further satire. But his +sedate mien appeared to reassure her. "Cutting them?" she repeated. "No; +of course not." + +"But you will not invite them to your _salon_?" + +She tossed her head again. "They would be quite out of place there. They +are not in earnest about anything. Everybody whom I shall have must be +in earnest. I intend to lay great stress upon that one requirement. It +is to be a passport of admission. My apartments are to be at once easy +and difficult of entrance. I shall not object to the so-called +aristocratic class, although if any applicant shall solicit my notice +who is undoubtedly a member of this class, I shall in a certain way hold +the fact as disqualifying; it shall be remembered against him; if I +admit him at all I shall do so in spite of it and not because of it.--Is +my meaning quite clear on this point?" + +"Oh, excessively," said Courtlandt; "you could not have made it more so. +All ladies and gentlemen are to be received under protest." + +He let one of his odd, rare laughs go with the last sentence, and for +this reason Pauline merely gave him a magnificent frown instead of +visiting upon him more wrathful reprimand. At the same time she said: +"It's a subject, Court, on which I am unprepared for trivial levity. If +you can't treat it with respect I prefer that you should warn me in +time, and I will reserve all further explanations of my project." + +He gave a slight, ambiguous cough. "If I seem disrespectful you must lay +it to my ignorance." + +"I should be inclined to do that without your previous instructions." +Here she regarded him with a commiseration that he thought delicious; it +was so palpably genuine; she so grandly overlooked the solemn roguery +that ambuscaded itself behind his humility. + +"You see," he went on, "I haven't learned the vocabulary of radicalism, +so to speak. I think I know the fellows you propose to have; they wear +long hair, quite often, and big cloaks instead of top-coats, and collars +low enough in the neck to show a good deal of wind-pipe. As for the +women, they"-- + +"It is perfectly immaterial to me how any of them may dress!" she +interrupted, with majestic disapproval. "I ought to be very sorry for +you, Courtlandt, and I am. You're clever enough not to let yourself +rust, like this, all your days. I don't believe you've ever read one of +the works of the great modern English thinkers. You're sluggishly +satisfied to go jogging along in the same old ruts that humanity has +worn deep for centuries. Of course you never had, and never will have, +the least spark of enthusiasm. You're naturally lethargic; if a person +stuck a pin into you I don't believe you would jump. But all this is no +reason why you shouldn't try and live up to the splendid advancements of +your age. When my constituents are gathered about me--when I have fairly +begun my good work of centralizing and inspiriting my little band of +sympathizers--when I have defined in a practical way my intended +opposition to the vanities and falsities of existing creeds and tenets, +why, then, I will let you mingle with my assemblages and learn for +yourself how you've been wasting both time and opportunity." + +"That is extremely good of you," murmured Courtlandt imperturbably. "I +supposed your doors were to be closed upon me for good and all." + +"Oh, no. I shall insist, indeed, that you drop in upon us very often. I +shall need your presence. You are to be my connecting link, as it were." + +"How very pleasant! You have just told me that I was benighted. Now I +find myself a connecting link." + +"Between culture and the absence of it. I have no objection to your +letting the giddy and whimsical folk perceive what a vast deal they are +deprived of. Besides, I should like you to be my first conversion--a +sort of bridge by which other converts may cross over into the happy +land." + +"You are still most kind. I believe that bridges are usually wooden. No +doubt you feel that you have made a wise selection of your material. May +I be allowed to venture another question?" + +"Yes--if it is not too impudent." + +She was watching him with her head a little on one side, now, and a +smile struggling forth from her would-be serious lips. She was +recollecting how much she had always liked him, and considering how much +she would surely like him hereafter, in this renewal of their old +half-cousinly and half-flirtatious intimacy. She was thinking what deeps +of characteristic drollery slept in him--with what a quiet, funny sort +of martyrdom he had borne her little girlish despotisms, before that +sudden marriage had wrought so sharp a rupture of their relations, and +how often he had forced her into unwilling laughter by the slow and +almost sleepy humor with which he had successfully parried some of her +most vigorous attacks. + +"I merely wanted to ask you," he now said, "where all these +extraordinary individuals are to be found." + +"Ah, that is an important question, certainly," she said, with a solemn +inclination--or at least the semblance of one. "I intend to collect +them." + +"Good gracious! You speak of them as if they were minerals or mummies +that you were going to get together for a museum. I have no doubt that +they will be curiosities, by the bye." + +"I am afraid _you_ will find them so." + +"Are they to be imported?" + +"Oh, no. That will not be necessary." + +"I see; they're domestic products." + +"Quite so. In this great city--filled with so much energy, so much +re-action against the narrow feudalisms of Europe--I am very certain of +finding them." She paused for a moment, and seemed to employ a tacit +interval for the accumulation of what she next said. "I shall not be +entirely unassisted in my search, either." + +A cunning twinkle became manifest in the brown eyes of her listener. He +drew a long breath. "Ah! now we get at the root of the matter. There's a +confederate--an accomplice, so to speak." + +"I prefer that you should not allude to my assistant in so rude a style. +Especially as, in the first place, you have never met him, and, in the +second, he is a person of the most remarkable gifts." + +"Is there any objection to my asking his name? Or is it still a dark +mystery?" + +She laughed at this, as if she thought it highly diverting. "My dear +cousin," she exclaimed, "how absurd you can be at a pinch! What on earth +should make the name of Mr. Kindelon a dark mystery?" + +"Um-m-m. Somebody you met abroad, then?" + +"Somebody I met on the steamer, while returning." + +"I see. An Englishman?" + +"A gentleman of Irish birth. He has lived in New York for a number of +years. He knows a great many of the intellectual people here. He has +promised to help me in my efforts. He will be of great value." + +Courtlandt rose. "So are your spoons, Pauline," he said rather gruffly, +not at all liking the present drift of the information. "Take my advice, +and lock them up when you give your first _salon_." + + + + +III. + + +Pauline had not been long in her native city again before she made the +discovery that a great deal was now socially expected of her. The news +of her return spread abroad with a rapidity more suggestive of bad than +of good tidings; her old acquaintances, male and female, flocked to the +Bond Street house with a most loyal promptitude. The ladies came in +glossy _coupes_ and dignified coaches, not seldom looking about them +with _dilletante_ surprise at the mercantile glare and tarnish of this +once neat and seemly crossway, as they mounted Mrs. Varick's antiquated +stoop. Most of them were now married; they had made their market, as +Pauline's deceased mother would have said, and it is written of them +with no wanton harshness that they had in very few cases permitted +sentiment to enact the part of salesman. There is something about the +fineness of our republican ideals (however practice may have +determinedly lowered and soiled them) that makes the mere worldly view +of marriage a special provocation to the moralist. Regarded as a +convenient mutual barter in Europe, there it somehow shocks far less; +the wrong of the grizzled bridegroom winning the young, loveless, but +acquiescent bride bears a historic stamp; we recall, perhaps, that they +have always believed in that kind of savagery over there; it is as old +as their weird turrets and their grim torture-chambers. But with +ourselves, who broke loose, in theory at least, from a good many tough +bigotries, the sacredness of the marriage state presents a much more +meagre excuse for violation. It was not that the husbands of Pauline's +wedded friends were in any remembered instance grizzled, however; they +were indeed, with few exceptions, by many years the juniors of her own +dead veteran spouse; but the influences attendant upon their unions with +this or that maiden had first concerned the question of money as a +primary and sovereign force, and next that of name, prestige, or +prospective elevation. These young brides had for the most part sworn a +much more sincere fidelity to the carriages in which they now rode, and +the pretty or imposing houses in which they dwelt, than to the +important, though not indispensable, human attachments of such prized +commodities. + +Pauline found them all strongly monotonous; she could ill realize that +their educated simpers and their regimental sort of commonplace had ever +been potent to interest her. One had to pay out such a small bit of line +in order to sound them; one's plummet so soon struck bottom, as it were. +She found herself silently marvelling at the serenity of their +contentment; no matter how gilded were the cages in which they made +their decorous little trills, what elegance of filigree could atone for +the absence of space and the paucity of perches? + +The men whom she had once known and now re-met pleased her better. They +had, in this respect, the advantage of their sex. Even when she +condemned them most heartily as shallow and fatuous, their detected +admiration of her beauty or of their pleasure in her company won for +them the grace of a pardoning afterthought. They were still bachelors, +and some of them more maturely handsome bachelors than when she had last +looked upon them. They had niceties and felicities of attitude, of +intonation, of tailoring, of boot or glove, to which, without confessing +it, she was still in a degree susceptible. + +But she did not encourage them. They were not of her new world; she had +got quite beyond them. She flattered herself that she always affected +them as being gazed down upon from rather chilly heights. She insisted +on telling herself that they were much more difficult to talk with than +she really found them. This was one of the necessities of her +conversion; they must not prove agreeable any longer; it was +inconsequent, untenable, that they should receive from her anything but +a merely hypocritic courtesy. She wanted her contempt for the class of +which they were members to be in every way logical, and so manufactured +premises to suit its desired integrity. Meanwhile she was much more +entertaining than she knew, and treated Courtlandt, one day, with quite +a shocked sternness for having informed her that these male visitors had +passed upon her some very admiring criticisms. + +"I have done my best to behave civilly," she declared. "I was in my own +house, you know, when they called. But I cannot understand how they can +possibly _like_ me as they no doubt used to do! I would much rather have +you bring me quite a contrary opinion, in fact." + +"If you say so," returned Courtlandt, with his inimitable repose, "I +will assure them of their mistake and request that they correct it." + +Pauline employed no self-deception whatever in the acknowledgment of +her real feelings toward Courtlandt. She cherished for him what she +liked to tell herself was an inimical friendliness. In the old days he +had never asked her to marry him, and yet it had been plain to her that +under favoring conditions he might have made her this proposal. She was +nearly certain that he no longer regarded her with a trace of the former +tenderness. On her own side she liked him so heartily, notwithstanding +frequent antagonisms, that the purely amicable nature of this fondness +blurred any conception of him in the potential light of a lover. + +But, indeed, Pauline had resolutely closed her eyes against the +possibility of ever again receiving amorous declaration or devotion. She +had had quite enough of marriage. Her days of sentiment were past. True, +they had never actually been, but the phantasmal equivalent for them had +been, and she now determined upon not replacing this by a more +accentuated experience. Her path toward middle life was very clearly +mapped out in her imagination; it was to be strewn with nicely sifted +gravel and bordered by formally clipped foliage. And it was to be very +straight, very direct; there should be no bend in it that came upon a +grove with sculptured Cupid and rustic lounge. The "marble muses, +looking peace" might gleam now and then through its enskirting boskage, +but that should be all. Pauline had read and studied with a good deal of +fidelity, both during her marriage and after her widowhood. She had gone +into the acquisition of knowledge and the development of thought as some +women go into the intoxication of a nervine. Her methods had been +amateurish and desultory; she had not been taught, she had learned, and +hence learned ill. "The modern thinkers," as she called them, delighted +her with their liberality, their iconoclasm. She was in just that +receptive mood to be made an extremist by their doctrines, the best of +which so sensibly warn us against extremes. Her husband's memory, for +the sake of decency if for no other reason, deserved the reticence which +she had shown concerning it. He had revealed to her a hollow nature +whose void was choked with vice, like some of those declivities in +neglected fields, where the weed and the brier run riot. The pathos of +her position, in a foreign land, with a lord whose daily routine of +misconduct left her solitary for hours, while inviting her, had she so +chosen, to imitate a course of almost parallel license, was finally a +cogent incentive toward that change which ensued. The whole falsity of +the educational system which had resulted in her detested marriage was +slowly laid bare to her eyes by this shocking and salient example of it. + +There was something piteous, and yet humorous as well, in her present +intellectual state. She was a young leader in the cause of culture, +without a following. She believed firmly in herself, and yet deceived +herself. Much in the world that it was now her fixed principle to shun +and reprobate, she liked and clung to. These points of attraction were +mostly superficialities, it is true, like the fashion of clothes or the +conventionalism of accepted social customs. But even these she had more +than half persuaded herself that she despised, and when she observed +them in others they too often blinded her to attractions of a less +flimsy sort. She had verged upon a sanguine and florid fanaticism, and +was wholly unconscious of her peril. Some of Courtlandt's sober comments +might effectually have warned her, if it had not been for a marked +contrary influence. This was represented by the gentleman whom we have +already heard her name as Mr. Kindelon. + +She had been presented to him on the steamer during her recent homeward +voyage, by an acquaintance who knew little enough regarding his +antecedents. But Ralph Kindelon had been at once very frank with her. +This was the most prominent trait that usually disclosed itself in him +on a first acquaintance; he always managed to impress you by his +frankness. He had a large head set on a large frame of splendid, virile +proportions. His muscular limbs were moulded superbly; his big hands and +feet had the same harmony of contour, despite their size; his grace of +movement was extraordinary, considering his height and weight; the noble +girth and solidity of chest struck you as you stood close to him--men +found it so substantially, women so protectively, human. A kind of +warmth seemed to diffuse itself from his bodily nearness, as if the +pulse of his blood must be on some exceptionally liberal scale. But for +those whom he really fascinated his real fascinations lay elsewhere. You +met them in the pair of facile dimples that gave genial emphasis to his +sunny smile; in the crisp, coarse curl of his blue-black hair, which +receded at either temple, and drooped centrally over a broad, full brow; +in the sensuous, ample, ruddy mouth, which so often showed teeth of +perfect shape and unflawed purity, and was shaded by a mustache tending +to chestnut in shade, with each strong crinkled hair of it rippling away +to the smooth-sloping cheeks; and lastly in the violet-tinted Irish +eyes, whose deep-black lashes had a beautiful length and gloss. + +Kindelon spoke with a decided brogue. It was no mere Celtic accent; it +was the pure and original parlance of his native island, though shorn of +those ungrammatical horrors with which we are prone by habit to +associate it. His English was Irish, as one of his own countrymen might +have said, but it was very choice and true English, nevertheless. Well +as he spoke it, he spoke it immoderately, even exorbitantly, when the +mood was upon him, and the mood was upon him, in a loquacious sense, +with considerable pertinacity. He was the sort of man concerning whom +you might have said, after hearing him talk three minutes or so, that he +talked too much; but if you had listened to him five minutes longer, +your modified opinion would probably have been that he scarcely talked +too much for so good a talker. + +It has been chronicled of him that he was extremely frank. Before he had +enlivened during more than an hour, for Pauline, the awful tedium of an +Atlantic voyage in winter, she discovered herself to be in a measure +posted concerning his personal biography. His parents had been farmers +in his native Ireland, and he was the fourth of a family of eleven +children. At the age of twelve years a certain benevolent baronet, whose +tenant his father was, had sent him to school in Dublin with a view +toward training and encouraging a natural and already renowned +precocity. At school he had done well until seventeen, and at seventeen +he had suddenly found himself thrown on the world, through the death of +his patron. After that he had revisited his somewhat distant home for a +brief term, and soon afterward had taken passage for America, aided by +the funds of an admiring kinsman. He had even then developed evidence of +what we call a knack for writing. After severe hardships on these +shores, he had drifted into an editorial office in the capacity of +printer. This had been a godsend to him, and it had fallen from the +skies of Chicago, not New York. But New York had ultimately proved the +theatre of those triumphs which were brilliant indeed compared with the +humdrum humility of his more Western pursuits. Here he had written +articles on many different subjects for the local journals; he had +served in almost every drudging department of reportorial work; he had +risen, fallen, risen, and at last risen once and for all, durably and +honorably, as an associate-editor in a popular and prominent New York +journal. He told Pauline the name of his journal--the New York +"Asteroid"--and she remembered having heard of it. He laughed his +affluent, mellow laugh at this statement, as though it were the most +amusing thing in the world to find an American who had only "heard of" +the New York "Asteroid." + +In a political sense, and moreover in all senses, he was a zealous +liberal. How he had managed to scrape together so remarkable an amount +of knowledge was a mystery to himself. Everything that he knew had been +literally "scraped together;" the phrase could not be apter than when +applied to his mental store of facts. He read with an almost phenomenal +swiftness, and his exquisite memory retained whatever touched it with a +perfection like that of some marvellously sensitive photographic agent. +He never forgot a face, a book, a conversation. He hardly forgot a +single one of his newspaper articles, and their name was legion. His +powers just stopped short of genius, but they distinctly stopped there. +He did many things well--many things, in truth, which for a man so +hazardously educated it was surprising that he did at all. But he did +nothing superlatively well. It was the old story of that fatal facility +possessed by numbers of his own countrymen who have migrated to these +shores. Perhaps the one quality that he lacked was a reflective +patience--and this is declared of his brains alone, having no reference +to his moral parts. He leaped upon subjects, and devoured them, so to +speak. It never occurred to him that there is a cerebral digestion, +which, if we neglect its demands, inevitably entails upon us a sort of +dyspeptic vengeance. In crushing the fruit with too greedy a speed we +get to have a blunted taste for its finer flavor. + +Within certain very decided limits he had thus far made an easy conquest +of Pauline. She had never before met any one whom he remotely resembled. +In the old days she would have shrank from him as being unpatrician; +now, his fleet speech, his entire lack of repose, his careless, +unmodish, though scrupulously clean dress, all had for her an appealing +and individual charm. After parting on the arrival in New York, she and +Kindelon had soon re-met. He bore the change from oceanic surroundings +admirably in Pauline's eyes. With characteristic candor he told her that +he had come back from the recent visit to his old parents in Ireland +(Pauline knowing all about this visit, of course) to find himself +wofully poor. She was wondering whether he would resent the offer of a +loan if she made him one, when he suddenly surprised her by a statement +with regard to "present funds," that certainly bore no suggestion of +poverty. The truth was, he lacked all proper appreciation of the value +of money. Economy was an unknown virtue with him; to have was to spend; +he was incapable of saving; no financial to-morrow existed for him, and +by his careless and often profuse charities he showed the same absence +of caution as that which marked all other daily expenditures. + +In her immediate purchase of a new residence she consulted with him, and +allowed herself to be guided by his counsels. This event brought them +more closely together for many days than they would otherwise have been. +His artistic feeling and his excellent taste were soon a fresh surprise +to her. "I begin to think," she said to him one day, "that there is +nothing you do not know." + +He laughed his blithe, bass laugh. "Oh," he said, "I know a lot of +things in a loose, haphazard way. We newspaper men can't escape general +information, Mrs. Varick. We breathe it in, naturally, and in spite of +ourselves." + +"But tell me," Pauline now asked, "are these other people to whom I +shall soon be presented as clever as you are?" + +He looked at her with merriment twinkling in his light-tinted eyes. +"They're a good deal cleverer--some of them," he replied. "They could +give me points and beat me, as we say in billiards." + +"You make me very anxious to know them." + +"When you talk like that I feel as if I might be tempted to postpone all +introductions indefinitely," he responded. He spoke with sudden +seriousness, and she felt that mere gallantry had not lain at the root +of this answer. + +As a matter of course, Kindelon and Courtlandt soon met each other in +Pauline's drawing-room. Courtlandt was quite as quiet as usual, and the +Irishman perhaps rather unwontedly voluble. Pauline thought she had +never heard her new friend talk better. He made his departure before her +cousin, and when he had gone Pauline said, with candid enthusiasm: + +"Isn't he a wonderful man?" + +"Wonderful?" repeated Courtlandt, a trifle drowsily. + +She gave him a keen look, and bristled visibly while she did so. +"Certainly!" she declared. "No other word just expresses him. I didn't +observe you very closely, Court," she went on, "but I took it for +granted that you were being highly interested. I can't imagine your +_not_ being." + +"He gave me a kind of singing in the ears," said Courtlandt. "I've got +it yet. He makes me think of one of those factories where there's a +violent hubbub all the time, so that you have to speak loud if you want +to be heard." + +Pauline was up in arms, then. "I never listened to a more scandalously +unjust criticism!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to tell me, unblushingly, +that you do not think him a _very_ extraordinary person?" + +"Oh, very," said her cousin. + +Pauline gave an exasperated sigh. "I am so used to you," she said, "that +I should never even be surprised by you. But you need not pretend that +you can have any except one _truthful_ opinion about Mr. Kindelon." + +"I haven't," was the reply. "He's what they call a smart newspaper man. +A Bohemian chap, you know. They're nearly all of them just like that. +They can talk you deaf, dumb, and blind, if you only give them a +chance." + +"I don't think the dumbness required any great effort, as far as _you_ +were concerned!" declared Pauline, with sarcastic belligerence. + +She never really quarrelled with Courtlandt, because his impregnable +stolidity made such a result next to impossible. But she was now so +annoyed by her cousin's slighting comments upon Kindelon that her +treatment was touched with a decided coolness for days afterward. + +Meanwhile her aunt, Mrs. Poughkeepsie, had undergone considerable +discomforting surprise. Mrs. Poughkeepsie had been prepared to find +Pauline changed, but by no means changed in her present way. On hearing +her niece express certain very downright opinions with regard to the +life which she was bent upon hereafter living, this lady at first +revealed amazement and afterward positive alarm. + +"But my dear Pauline," she said, "you cannot possibly mean that you +intend to get yourself talked about?" + +"Talked about, Aunt Cynthia? I don't quite catch your drift, really." + +"Let me be plainer, then. If you remain out of society, that is one +thing. I scarcely went anywhere, as you know, for ten years after my +husband's death--not, indeed, until Sallie had grown up and was ready to +come out. There is no objection, surely, against closing one's doors +upon the world, provided one desires to do so--although I should say +that such a step, Pauline, at your age, and after two full years of +widowhood, was decidedly a mistake. Still"-- + +"Pardon me, Aunt Cynthia," Pauline here broke in. "Nothing is further +from my wish than to close my doors upon the world. On the contrary, I +want to open them very wide indeed." + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie lifted in shocked manner both her fair, plump, dimpled +hands. She was a stout lady, with that imposing, dowager-like effect of +_embonpoint_ which accompanies a naturally tall and majestic stature. +Her type had never in girlhood been a very feminine one, and it now +bordered upon masculinity. Her eyes were hard, calm and dark; her +arching nose expressed the most serene self-reliance. She was indeed a +person with no doubts; she had, in her way, settled the universe. All +her creeds were crystallized, and each, metaphorically, was kept in +cotton, as though it were a sort of family diamond. She had been a Miss +Schenectady, of the elder, wealthy and more conspicuous branch; it was a +most notable thing to have been such a Miss Schenectady. She had married +a millionaire, and also a Poughkeepsie; this, moreover, was something +very important and fine. She had so distinct a "position" that her +remaining out of active participation in social pursuits made no +difference whatever as regarded her right to appear and rule whenever +she so chose; it had only been necessary for her to lift her spear, +when Miss Sallie required her chaperonage, and the Snowes and Briggses +had perforce to tremble. And this fact, too, she held as a precious, +delectable prerogative. + +In not a few other respects she was satisfied regarding herself. There +was nothing, for that matter, which concerned herself in any real way, +about which she did not feel wholly satisfied. Her environment in her +own opinion was of the best, and doubtless in the opinion of a good many +of her adherents also. From the necklace of ancestral brilliants which +she now wore, sparkling at ball or dinner, on her generous and creamy +neck, to the comfortably-cushioned pew in Grace Church, where two good +generations of Poughkeepsies had devoutly sat through many years of +Sundays, she silently valued and eulogized the gifts which fate had +bestowed upon her. + +Pauline's present attitude seemed to her something monstrous. It had not +seemed monstrous that her niece should give the bloom and vital purity +of a sweet maidenhood to a man weighted with years and almost decrepid +from past excesses. But that she should seek any other circle of +acquaintance except one sanctioned by the immitigable laws of caste, +struck her as a bewildering misdemeanor. + +"My dear Pauline," she now exclaimed, "you fill me with a positive fear! +Of course, if you shut your doors to the right people you open them to +the wrong ones. You have got some strange idea abroad, which you are now +determined to carry out--to _exploiter_, my dear! With your very large +income there is hardly any dreadful imprudence which you may not commit. +There is no use in telling me that the people whom one knows are not +worth knowing. If you have got into that curious vein of thought you +have no remedy for it except to refrain from all entertaining and all +acceptance of courtesies. But I beg, Pauline, that you will hesitate +before you store up for yourself the material of ugly future repentance. +Sallie and I have accepted the Effinghams' box at the opera to-night. +Those poor Effinghams have been stricken by the death of their father; +it was so sudden--he was sitting in his library and literally fell +dead--he must certainly have left two millions, but of course that has +nothing to do with their bereavement, and it was so kind of them to +remember us. They know that I have always wanted a proscenium, and that +there are no prosceniums, now, to be had for love or money. I have sent +our box in the horse-shoe to cousin Kate Ten Eyck; she is so wretchedly +cramped in her purse, you know, and still has Lulu on her hands, and +will be so grateful--as indeed she wrote me quite gushingly that she +_was_, this very afternoon. Now, Pauline, won't you go with us, my +dear?" + +Pauline went. A noted _prima donna_ sang, lured by an immense nightly +reward to disclose her vocal splendors before American audiences. But +her encompassment, as is so apt to be the case here, was pitiably +mediocre. She sang with a presentable contralto, a passable baritone, an +effete basso, and an almost despicable tenor. The chorus was +anachronistic in costume, sorry in voice, and mournfully undrilled. But +the _diva_ was so comprehensively talented that she carried the whole +performance. At the same time there were those among her hearers who +lamented that her transcendent ability should be burlesqued by so shabby +and impotent a surrounding. The engagement of this famous lady was +meanwhile one of those sad operatic facts for which the American people +have found, during years past, no remedy and no preventive. The fault, +of course, lies with themselves. When they are sufficiently numerous as +true lovers of music they will refuse their countenance to even a great +singer except with creditable artistic and scenic support. + +Pauline sat in the Effinghams' spacious proscenium-box, between Mrs. +Poughkeepsie and her daughter. Sallie Poughkeepsie was a large girl, +with her mother's nose, her mother's serenity, her mother's promise of +corpulent matronhood. She had immense prospects; it was reported that +she had refused at least twenty eligible matrimonial offers while +waiting for the parental nod of approval, which had not yet come. + +During the first _entr'acte_ a little throng of admirers entered the +box. Some of these Pauline knew; others had appeared, as it were, after +her time. One was an Englishman, and she presently became presented to +him as the Earl of Glenartney. The title struck her as beautiful, +appealing to her sense of the romantic and picturesque; but she wondered +that it had done so when she subsequently bent a closer gaze upon the +receding forehead, flaccid mouth and lank frame of the Earl himself. He +had certainly as much hard prose about his appearance as poetry in his +name. Mrs. Poughkeepsie beamed upon him in a sort of sidelong way all +the time that he conversed with Sallie. A magnate of bountiful +shirt-bosom and haughty profile claimed her full heed, but she failed to +bestow it entirely; the presence of this unmarried Scotch peer at her +child's elbow was too stirring an incident; her usual equanimity was in +a delightful flutter; ambition had already begun its insidious whispers, +for the Earl was known to be still a bachelor. + +Pauline, who read her aunt so thoroughly, felt the mockery of this +maternal deference. She told herself that there was something dreary and +horrible about a state of human worldliness which could thus idolize +mere rank and place. She knew well enough that so long as Lord +Glenartney were not a complete idiot, and so long as his moral character +escaped the worst depravity, he would be esteemed a magnificent match +for her cousin. + +The Earl remained at Sallie's side all through the succeeding act. When +the curtain again fell he still remained, while other gentlemen took the +places of those now departing. And among these, to her surprise and +pleasure, was Ralph Kindelon. + +She almost rose as she extended her hand to her friend. A defiant +satisfaction had suddenly thrilled her. She pronounced Kindelon's name +quite loudly as she presented him to her aunt. Instead of merely bowing +to Mrs. Poughkeepsie, Kindelon, with effusive cordiality, put forth his +hand. Pauline saw a startled look creep across her aunt's face. The +handsome massive-framed Irishman was not clad in evening dress. He +towered above all the other gentlemen; he seemed, as indeed he almost +was, like a creature of another species. His advent made an instant +sensation; a universal stare was levelled upon him by these sleek +devotees of fashion, among whom he had the air of pushing his way with a +presumptuous geniality. He carried a soft "wide-awake" hat in one hand; +his clothes were of some dark gray stuff; his neatly but heavily booted +feet made dull sounds upon the floor as he now moved backward in search +of a chair. There was no possible doubt regarding his perfect +self-possession; he had evidently come to remain and to assert himself. + +"Who on earth is he?" Mrs. Poughkeepsie found a chance to swiftly +whisper in the ear of her niece. There was an absolutely dramatic touch +in the agitation which went with her questioning sentence. + +Pauline looked steadily at her aunt as she responded: "A very valued +friend of mine." + +"But, my dear!" faltered Mrs. Poughkeepsie. The fragmentary little +vocative conveyed a volume of patrician dismay. + +By this time Kindelon had found a chair. He placed it close to Pauline. + +"I am so very glad that you discovered me," said Pauline. She spoke in +quite loud tones, while everybody listened. Her words had the effect of +a distinct challenge, and as such she intended them. + +"I am flinging down a gauntlet," she thought, "to snobbery and +conservatism. This slight event marks a positive era in my life." + +"I saw you from the orchestra," now said Kindelon, in his heartiest +tones. "The distance revealed you to me, though I cannot say it lent the +least enchantment, for that would surely be impossible." He now looked +towards Mrs. Poughkeepsie, without a trace of awe in his mirthful +expression. "You must pardon my gallantry, madam," he proceeded. "Your +niece and I, though recent friends, are yet old ones. We have crossed +the Atlantic together, and that, in the winter season, is a wondrous +promoter of intimacy, as you perhaps know. Perhaps Mrs. Varick has +already done me the honor of mentioning our acquaintance." + +"Not until now," said Mrs. Poughkeepsie, with a smile that had the +glitter of ice in it. + + + + +IV. + + +The orchestra had not yet recommenced, and the curtain would not +reascend for at least ten good minutes. A vigorous babble of many voices +rose from the many upstairs boxes. In some of these Kindelon's +appearance might not have created the least comment. Here it was a +veritable bombshell. + +The "Poughkeepsie set" was famed for its rigid exclusiveness. Wherever +Miss Sallie and her mother went, a little train of courtiers invariably +followed them. They always represented an ultra-select circle inside of +the larger and still decidedly aristocratic one. Only certain young men +ever presumed to approach Sallie at all, and these were truly the +darlings of fortune and fashion--young gentlemen of admitted ascendency, +whose attentions would have made an obscure girl rapidly prominent, and +who, while often distinguished for admirable manners, always contrived +to hover near those who were the sovereign reverse of obscure. They +would carry only her bouquets, or those of other girls who belonged to +the same special and envied clique; they would "take out in the German" +only Sallie and her particular intimates. Bitter jealousies among the +contemplating dowagers were often a result of this determined +eclecticism. "Why _is_ it that my Kate has to put up with so many +second-rate men?" would pass with tormenting persistence through the +mind of this matron. "Why can't my Caroline get any of the great swells +to notice her?" would drearily haunt another. And between these two +distressed ladies there might meanwhile be seated a third, whose +daughter, for reasons of overwhelming wealth or particular +attractiveness, always moved clad in a nimbus of sanctity. + +Pauline was perfectly well aware that the coming of her friend had +seemed an audacity, and that his unconventionally garrulous tongue was +now regarded as a greater one. Courtlandt may have told her that the +rival factions had cemented their differences and that all society +in New York was more democratic than formerly. Still, it was +unimaginable that her aunt Cynthia could ever really change her spots. +Where she trod, there, too, must float the aroma of an individual +self-glorification. Pauline was as much delighted by Kindelon's easy +daring as by the almost glacial answer of her stately kinswoman; and she +at once hastened to say, while looking with a smile at the unembarrassed +Kindelon himself,-- + +"I have scarcely had a chance to tell either my aunt or my cousin how +good you were to me on the 'Bothnia.'" Then she lifted her fan, and +waved it prettily toward Sallie. "This _is_ my cousin, Miss +Poughkeepsie," she went on; she did not wait for the slow accomplishment +of Sallie's forced and freezing bow, but at once added: "and here is +Lord Glenartney, here Mr. Fyshkille, here Mr. Van Arsdale, here Mr. +Hackensack. Now, I think you know us all, Mr. Kindelon." + +As she ended her little speech she met Mrs. Poughkeepsie's eyes fixed +upon her in placid consternation. Of course this wholesale introduction, +among the chance occupants of an opera box, was a most unprecedented +violation of usage. But that was precisely Pauline's wish--to violate +usage, if she could do it without recourse to any merely vulgar rupture. +They had all stared at Ralph Kindelon, had treated him as if he were +some curious animal instead of a fellow-creature greatly their own +superior, and they should have a chance now of discovering just how well +he could hold his own in their little self-satisfied assemblage. + +Kindelon bowed and smiled in every direction. He appeared unconscious +that everybody did not bow and smile with just the same reciprocal +warmth. + +"This is the most luxurious way of enjoying the opera," he exclaimed, +with an upward gesture of both hands to indicate the walls of the +commodious box. "But, ah! I am afraid that it possesses its drawbacks as +well! One would be tempted to talk too much here--to discountenance the +performance. Now, I am an irreclaimable talker, as Mrs. Varick can +testify; she has hardly done anything but listen since the beginning of +our acquaintance. And yet I should like to feel that I had my tribute of +silence always ready for the great musical masters. Among these I rank +the Italian composers, whom it has now become fashionable to despise. +Pray, Mrs. Poughkeepsie, are you--or is your daughter?--a convert to +what they term the new school?" + +There was no ignoring the felicitous, rhythmic voice that pronounced +these hurried and yet clearly enunciated sentences, unless by means of +an insolence so direct and cruel that it would transgress all bounds of +civil decency. Mrs. Poughkeepsie was capable of not a little insolence +at a pinch; her ramparts were spiked, and could deal no gentle hurts to +those who sought anything like the scaling of them. But here the +overtures made were alike too suave and too bold. She felt herself in +the presence of a novel civility--one that assumed her rebuff to be +impossible. + +"I have always preferred the Italian music," she now said. "But then my +knowledge of the German is limited." + +"Oh, German music is the most dreadful baw!" here struck in Lord +Glenartney. He had taken an immediate fancy to Kindelon; he liked people +who were in a different sphere from himself; he usually went with +jockeys and prize-fighters, whenever the demands of his great position +permitted such association, in his native country. Here in America he +knew only the Poughkeepsie set, which had seized upon him and kept close +watch over him ever since he had landed in New York. + +"No, I don't at all agree with you there," said Kindelon. "Undoubtedly +German music is based upon a grand idea. I should be sorry not to +believe so." + +"Bless my soul!" laughed his lordship; "I don't know anything about +grand ideahs. The small ones are quite as much as I can manage +comfortably." + +"Mr. Kindelon will be shocked by such a confession, I'm sure," said the +gentleman named Fyshkille, who was strikingly slim, who gazed at people +condescendingly over a pale parapet of very stiff shirt-collar, and who +considered himself to have a natural turn for satire. "He appears to be +a person of such grand ideas himself." + +This airy bit of impudence caused Mr. Van Arsdale to twirl one end of a +dim, downy mustache and perpetrate a rather ambiguous giggle. But Mr. +Hackensack, who was stout, with a pair of large black eyes set in a fat, +colorless, mindless face, whipped forth a silk pocket-handkerchief and +gave an explosive burst of merriment within its soft folds. + +"You seem to be very much amused at something," drawled Sallie, while +she looked in her languid way toward her trio of admirers. + +"We are," said the satirical Mr. Fyshkille, who prided himself on always +keeping his countenance. His two friends, who thought him a devilish +clever fellow, both produced another laugh, this time suppressed on the +part of each. + +Pauline felt keenly annoyed. She glanced at Kindelon, telling herself +that he must surely see the pitiable ridicule of which he was being +made the butt. + +She had, however, quite miscalculated. The self-esteem of Kindelon as +utterly failed to realize that he was an object of the slightest banter, +whether overt or covert, as though he had been both near-sighted and +deaf. He knew nothing of the idle autocracy with which accident had now +brought him into contact. He was opposed to it on principle, but he had +had no experience of its trivial methods of arrogance. He had come into +the box to see Pauline, and he took it broadly for granted that he would +be treated with politeness by her surrounders, and listened to (provided +he assumed that office of general spokesman which he nearly always +assumed wherever chance placed him) with admiring attention. + +A few minutes later he had stripped his would-be foes of all sting by +effectively and solidly manifesting unconsciousness that they had +intended to be hostile. He talked of Wagner and his followers with a +brilliant force that did not solicit heed and yet compelled it. He +discoursed upon the patent absurdities of Italian opera with a nimble +wit and an incisive severity. Then he justified his preference for +Donizetti and Rossini with a readiness that made his past sarcasm on +their modes quickly forgotten. And finally he delivered a eulogy upon +the German motive and ideal in music which showed the fine liberality of +a mind that recognizes the shortcomings in its own predilection, and +foresees the inevitable popularity of a more advanced and complicated +system. + +He had silenced everybody before he finished, but with the silence of +respect. He had forced even these petty triflers who dwelt on the mere +skirts of all actual life, to recognize him as not simply the comer from +a world which they did not care to know about, but from a world greater +and higher than any which they were capable of knowing about. And +finally, in the flush of this handsome little triumph, he made his exit, +just as the curtain was again rising, after a few murmured words to +Pauline regarding certain night-work on the New York "Asteroid," which +must prevent him from seeing the remainder of the performance. + +Nobody heeded the opera for at least five minutes after his departure. +He had left his spell behind him. Pauline at first marked its cogency, +and then observed this gradually dissolve. The flimsiness of their +thinking and living returned to them again in all its paltry reality. + +"Of course," murmured Mrs. Poughkeepsie to Pauline, "he is a person who +writes books, of one sort or another." + +"If they're novels," said Lord Glenartney, "I'd like awfully to know +abaout 'em. I'm fond of readin' a good novel. It's so jolly if one's +lyin' daown and carn't sleep, but feels a bit seedy, ye know." + +"I fancy they must be rather long novels," said Sallie, with a drowsy +scorn that suited her big, placid anatomy. + +"I wish he'd not run off so; I wanted the address of his hatter," +declared the envenomed Mr. Fyshkille. + +"Or his tailor," amended Mr. Van Arsdale, with the auxiliary giggle. + +"I guess you'd find both somewhere in the Bowery," pursued the fleshy +Mr. Hackensack, who always said "I guess," for "I fancy," and had a +nasal voice, and an incorrigible American soul inside his correct +foreign garments. + +Pauline now swept a haughty look at Mr. Fyshkille and his two allies, +and said, with open displeasure,-- + +"I suppose you think it an unpardonable sin for any gentleman to suit +his own taste in dress, and not copy that of some English model. But +your uncivil comments on Mr. Kindelon before myself, his admitted +friend, show me that he might easily teach you a lesson in good +manners." + +All three of the offenders were now forced to utter words of apology, +while Lord Glenartney looked as if he thought Mrs. Varick's wrath great +fun, and Sallie exchanged a look of ironical distress with her mother, +that seemed to inquire: "What uncomfortable absurdity will Pauline next +be guilty of?" + +But Mrs. Poughkeepsie and Sallie left their kinswoman at her Bond Street +residence that night with very agreeable adieus. True, Lord Glenartney +occupied a seat in their carriage, but even if this had not been the +case, neither mother nor daughter would have vented upon Pauline any of +the disapproval she had provoked in them. She was now a power in the +world, and besides being near to them in blood, even her follies merited +the leniency of a Poughkeepsie. + +But after Sallie and her mother had said good-night to his lordship and +were alone at home together, the young lady spoke with querulous disgust +of her cousin's behavior. + +"She will lose caste horribly, mamma, if she goes on in this way. It's +perfectly preposterous! If there is one thing on earth that is really +_low_, it's for a woman to become strong-minded!" + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie nodded. "You are quite right. But she's her own +mistress, and there is no restraining her." + +"People _ought_ to be restrained," grumbled Sallie, loosening her opera +cloak, "when they want to throw away their positions like that." + +"Oh, Pauline can't throw hers away so easily," affirmed Mrs. +Poughkeepsie with sapient composure. "No, not with her name and her big +income. She will merely get herself laughed at, you know--_encanailler_ +herself most ludicrously; that is all. We must let her have her head, as +one says of a horse. Her father was always full of caprices; he wouldn't +have died a poor man if he had not been. She merely has a caprice now. +Of course she will come to terms again with society sooner or later, and +repent having made such a goose of herself. That is, unless"--And here +Mrs. Poughkeepsie paused, while a slight but distinct shudder ended her +sentence. + +Sallie gave a faint, harsh laugh. "Oh, I understand you thoroughly, +mamma," she exclaimed. "You mean unless some common man like that Mr. +Kindelon should induce her to marry him. How awful such a thing would +be! I declare, the very thought of it is sickening! With that superb +fortune, too! I shouldn't be surprised if he had proposed already! +Perhaps she has only been preparing us gradually for the frightful news +that she has accepted him!" + +But no such frightful news reached the Poughkeepsies, as day succeeded +day. Pauline went little into the fashionable throngs, which were at the +height of their winter gayeties. She soon quitted her Bond Street +residence for good, and secured a small basement-house on a side street +near Fifth Avenue, furnishing it with that speed in the way of luxurious +appointment which a plethoric purse so readily commands. + +"I am quite prepared now," she said to Kindelon one morning, after +having received him in her new and lovely sitting-room, where everything +was unique and choice, from the charming chandelier of twisted silver to +the silken Japanese screen, rich with bird and flower in gold and +crimson. "Of course you understand what I mean." + +He affected not to do so. "Prepared?" he repeated, with the gay gleam +slipping into his eyes. "For what?" + +"My _salon_, of course." + +"Oh," he said. "I confess that I suspected what you meant, though I was +not quite sure. I almost feared lest your resolution might have +undergone a change of late." + +"And pray, why?" asked Pauline, raising her brows, with a little +imperious smile. + +"You have not mentioned the project for surely a good fortnight," he +returned. "I had wondered whether or no it had weakened with you." + +"It is stronger than ever," Pauline asseverated. She folded her hands in +her lap and tried to look excessively firm and resolute. She was always +particularly handsome when she tried to look thus; she was just slender +and feminine enough in type to make the assumption of strength, of +determination, especially becoming. + +"Ah, very well," replied Kindelon, with one of his richly expressive +smiles. "Then I have a proposition to make you. It concerns an immediate +course of action on your part. Have you ever heard of Mrs. Hagar +Williamson Dares?" + +Pauline burst into a laugh. "No. It sounds more like an affirmation than +a name--'Mrs. Hagar Williamson Dares.' One feels like saying, 'Does +she?' Don't think me irredeemably trifling, and please continue. Please +tell me, I mean, what remarkable things has this remarkably-named lady +done?" + +"Nothing." + +Pauline's face, full of a pleased anticipation, fell. "Nothing! How +tiresome!" + +"I mean nothing remarkable," Kindelon went on, "in the luminously +intellectual sense. And yet she is a very extraordinary woman. At +twenty-five she was divorced from her husband." + +Pauline shook her head troubledly. "That does not sound at all +promising." + +"He was a dissolute wretch. The courts easily granted her a release from +him. At this time she was almost penniless. The question, as she had two +little children, naturally arose: 'How are we three to live?' She had +been reared in a New England home; her dead father had been a man of +extensive learning, and at one time the principal of a successful +school. Hagar had always had 'a taste for writing,' as we call it. She +began by doing criticisms for a New York journal of rather scholarly +tendency, whose editor had combined pity for her almost starving +condition with appreciation of her undoubted talents. But the prices +that the poor struggling young mother received were necessarily very +meagre. She became practical. She asked herself if there was no other +way of earning money by her pen. She soon discovered a way; it did not +require her to know about Diderot and Strauss and Spinoza, with all of +whose writings (and with many classics more of equal fame) she was +finely familiar; it simply required that she should lay aside every +vestige of literary pride and write _practically_. Good Heavens! what a +word that word 'practical' is in literature! You must tell the people +how to bake a pie, to cure a headache, to bleach a shirt, to speak the +truth, to clean silverware, to make a proposal of marriage. Mrs. Dares +did it in country letters, in city letters, in newspaper editorials, in +anonymous fine-print columns, in the back parts of fashion and household +magazines--and she does it still. For a number of years past she has +superintended a periodical of the popular sort, which I dare say you +have never heard of. The amount of work that she accomplishes is +enormous. A strong man would stagger under it, but this frail woman +(you'll think her frail when you see her) bears it with wondrous +endurance. Her life has been a terrible failure, looked at from one +point of view--for it is scarcely exaggeration to say that had she not +been handicapped by poverty in the beginning she might have swayed and +charmed her generation with great books. But from another point of view +her life has been a sublime success; she has trampled all aspiration +under foot, forsworn every impulse of honorable egotism, and toiled for +the maintenance of a home, for the education of her two daughters. They +are both grown up, now--girls who are themselves bread-winners like +their mother, and bearing their yoke of labor as cheerfully, though not +with the same splendid strength, as she. One is a school-teacher in a +well-known _kindergarten_ here, and one has become an artist of no +contemptible ability. Meanwhile Mrs. Dares has not merely established a +pleasant and refined household; she has caused to be diffused from it, +as a social centre, the warm radiations of a sweet, wholesome +hospitality. Like some of the high-born Fifth Avenue leaders of fashion, +she has her 'evenings.' But they are of a totally different character. +They are not 'select;' I don't claim that grace for them. And yet they +are very interesting, very typical. Some shabby people meet +there--shabby, I mean, in mental ways no less than in character and +costume. But the prevailing element is of a higher order than they. +Anyone whom Mrs. Dares believes to be an earnest worker in the field of +letters will have no difficulty about gaining her favor. I think she +would rather greet in her rooms some threadbare young poet who had +published at his own expense a slim little volume of poems possessing +distinct merit and having received the snubs of both critics and public, +than welcome some rich and successful writer whose real claim upon +recognition she honestly doubted. And for this reason she makes +mistakes. I have no doubt she is aware of making them. When we search +the highways and hedges for cases of deserving charity, we cannot but +light upon at least an occasional impostor--to put the matter as +optimistically as possible. And now let me tell you that if my mighty +explanatory outburst has roused your desire to meet Mrs. Dares, the +opportunity to do so lies well within your reach." + +"How?" said Pauline. And then, as if abashed by the brusque abruptness +of her own question, she added, with a little penitent nod: "Oh, yes; +you mean that she has kindly consented to let you bring her here." + +"Not at all," said Kindelon. "It is true that she goes about a good +deal. Her position as a journalist gives her, of course, the _entree_ to +many theatres, and as she is passionately fond of the drama, her face is +seldom missed on a _premiere_ at any reputable house--Daly's, the Union +Square, the Madison Square, or Wallack's. She takes delight, too, in +appearing at the entertainments of her various friends, and she always +does so clad elegantly, richly, but without a shadow of ostentatious +display. On these occasions her society is eagerly sought. I have +sometimes wondered why; for her conversation, though invariably full of +sound sense and pithy acumen, lacks the cheerful play of humor which is +so widely demanded to generate anything like popularity wherever men and +women are socially met. But she is very popular, and I suppose it is her +striking simplicity, her gift of always being sincerely and unaffectedly +_herself_, which has made her so. Still, for all this gregarious +impulse, if I may thus name it, I do not believe she would take the +first step, where you are concerned, to establish an acquaintance." + +"And for what reason?" asked Pauline. Her tones, while she put this +query, were full of a hurt bewilderment. Kindelon seemed to muse for a +brief space; and any such unconversational mood was rare, as we know, +with his mercurial lightsomeness of manner. "She would be sensitive," he +presently said, "about making an advance of this sort." + +"Of this sort?" repeated Pauline, with a somewhat irritated inflection. +"Of what sort?" + +Her companion watched her with fixity for a moment. Then he raised his +large forefinger, and slowly shook it, with admonitory comedy of +gesture. "You must not tell me that you don't understand," he said. +"Put yourself in this lady's place. Suppose that you, in spite of fine +brains and noble character, lacked the social standing"-- + +Pauline broke in quite hotly at this. Her eyes had taken a quick +sparkle, and the color was flying rosy and pure into her fair face. +"Pshaw!" she exclaimed. "It is not any question of social standing. I +want to know these people"--She suddenly paused, as though her tongue +had betrayed her into some regrettable and unseemly phrase. "I want to +pass," she continued more slowly, "from an aimless world into one of +thought and sense. Mrs. Dares is prominent in this other world. From +what you say I should judge that she is a very representative and +influential spirit there. Why should she not be benign and gracious +enough to seek me here? Why should she require that I shall emphatically +pay her my court? Your description makes me glad and happy to know her. +If she learned this, would she hold aloof from any absurd scruples about +a disparity in social standing?--Well, if she did," declared Pauline, +who by this time was quite excitedly flushed and fluttered, "then I +should say that you had over-painted her virtues and too flatteringly +concealed her faults!" + +Kindelon threw back his head, as she finished, and laughed with such +heartiness that more of his strong white teeth were transiently visible +than would have pleased a strict judge of decorum. + +"Oh, how amusing you are!" he cried. "You are really superb and don't +perceive it!--Well," he proceeded, growing graver, "I suppose you would +be far less so if you had the vaguest inkling of it. Now, pray listen. +Does it enter your conscience at all that you are disguising a kind of +royal patronage and condescension behind a gentle and saint-like +humility? No--of course it doesn't. But, my dear lady, this is +unequivocally true. You scoff at social standing, and yet you +complacently base yourself upon it. You want to desert all your old +tenets, and yet you keep a kind of surreptitious clasp about them. You +would not for the world be considered a person who cared for the +aristocratic purple, and yet you wrap it round you in the most illogical +fashion. Mrs. Dares has her evenings; to-night is one of them. You, as +yet, have no evenings; your _salon_ is still in embryo. You want to +affiliate with her, to be one of her set, her surroundings, her _monde_. +And yet you quietly bid her to your house, as though she were proposing +your co-operation, your support, your intimacy, and not you hers!" + +Pauline, with perhaps a deepened tinge of color in her cheeks, was +staring at the floor when Kindelon ended. And from beneath her gown came +the impatient little tap of a nervous foot. After an interval of +silence, during which her friend's gaze watched her with a merry +vivacity of expression, she slowly lifted her shapely blond head, and +answered in grave, even saddened tones,-- + +"Then my _salon_ is to be a failure?--an unrealizable castle in Spain?" + +"Oh, no," promptly said Kindelon, with one of those sympathetic laughs +which belonged among his elusive fascinations. "By no means--unless you +so will it." + +"But I don't will it," said Pauline. + +"Very well. Then it will be a castle in--in New York. That sounds +tangible enough, surely. It is the first step that counts, and you have +only to take your first step. It will certainly look much better to know +some of your courtiers before you ascend your throne. And meanwhile it +would be far more discreet to cultivate an acquaintance with your +probable prime minister." + +"All of which means--?" she said. + +"That you had best let me accompany you to Mrs. Dares's house this +evening." + +"But I am not invited!" exclaimed Pauline. + +"Oh yes, you are," said Kindelon, with easy security in the jocund +contradiction. "Miss Cora, the youngest daughter of Mrs. Dares, told me +last night that she and her mother would both be very glad to have you +come." + +There was a momentary intonation in Kindelon's voice that struck his +listener as oddly unexpected. "So you have already spoken of me?" she +said lingeringly, and looking at him with more intentness than she +herself knew of. + +"Yes," he replied, with a certain speed, and with tones that were not +just set in an unembarrassed key. "I go there now and then." + +"And you have mentioned me to Mrs. Dares?" + +"Yes--more than once, I think. She knows that you may be induced to come +this evening." + +His glance, usually so direct, had managed to avoid Pauline's, which was +then very direct indeed. + +"Tell me," Pauline said, after another silence had somehow made itself +felt between them. "Are you a very good friend of this girl--Miss Cora?" + +He returned her look then, but with an unwonted vacillation of his +own--or so she chose to think. + +"Yes," he responded, fluently frank, as it seemed. "We are very good +friends--excellent friends, I may say. You will find her quite as +charming, in a different way, as her mother. I mean, of course, if you +will go with me this evening--or any future evening." + +Pauline put forth her hand, and laid it for an instant on his +full-moulded arm. + +"I will go with you this evening," she said. + + + + +V. + + +Kindelon found Pauline in a very lightsome and animated state of mind +when he called at her house that evening. She had a touch of positive +excitement in her way of referring to the proposed visit. He thought he +had never seen her look more attractive than when she received him, +already wrapped in a fleecy white over-garment and drawing on her +gloves, while a piquant smile played at the corners of her mouth and a +vivacious glitter filled her gray eyes. + +"You are here before the carriage," she said to him, "though we shan't +have to wait long for that.--Hark--there is the bell, now; my men would +not presume to be a minute late this evening. The footman must have +detected in my manner a great seriousness when I gave him my order; I +felt very serious, I can assure you, as I did so. It meant the first +step in a totally new career." + +"Upon my word, you look fluttered," said Kindelon, in his mellow, jocose +voice. + +"Naturally I do!" exclaimed Pauline, as she nodded to the servant who +now announced that the carriage was in readiness. "I am going to have a +fresh, genuine sensation. I am going to emancipate myself--to break my +tether, as it were. I've been a prisoner for life; I don't know how the +sunshine looks, or how it feels to take a gulp of good, free air." + +He watched her puzzledly until the outer darkness obscured her face, and +they entered the carriage together. She mystified him while she talked +on, buoyant enough, yet always in the same key. He was not sure whether +or no her sparkling manner had a certain sincere trepidation behind it. +Now and then it seemed to him as if her voluble professions of anxiety +rang false--as if she were making sport of herself, of him, or of the +projected diversion. + +"Do you really take the whole matter so much to heart," he presently +said, while the vehicle rolled them along the wintry, lamplit streets, +"or is this only some bit of dainty and graceful masquerading?" + +"Masquerading?" she echoed, with a shocked accent. + +"Oh, well, you are accustomed to meeting all sorts of people. You can't +think that any human classes are so sharply divided that to cross a new +threshold means to enter a new world." + +She was silent, and he could see her face only vaguely for some little +time; but when a passing light cast an evanescent gleam upon it he +thought that he detected something like a look of delicate mischief +there. Her next words, rather promptly spoken, bore with them an +explanatory bluntness. + +"I am convinced that if everybody else disappoints me Miss Dares will +not." + +"Miss Dares?" he almost faltered, in the tone of one thrown off his +guard. + +"Miss Cora Dares," Pauline continued, with a self-correcting precision. +"The younger of the two daughters, the one who paints. Oh, you see," she +continued, after a little laugh that was merry, though faint, "I have +forgotten nothing. I've a great curiosity to see this young artist. You +had not half so much to tell me about her as about her mother, and yet +you have somehow contrived to make her quite as interesting." + +"Why?" Kindelon asked, with a soft abruptness to which the fact of his +almost invisible face lent a greater force. "Is it because you think +that I like Cora Dares? I should like to think that was your reason for +being interested in her." + +Another brief silence on Pauline's part followed his words, and then she +suddenly responded, with the most non-committal innocence of tone: + +"Why, what other reason could I possibly have? Of course I suppose that +you like her. And of course that is why I am anxious to meet her." + +There was a repelling pleasantry in these three short sentences. If +Kindelon had been inclined to slip any further into the realm of +sentiment, the very reverse of encouragement had now met him. Pauline's +matter-of-course complacency had a distinct chill under its superficial +warmth. "Don't misunderstand me, please," she went on, with so altered a +voice that her listener felt as if she had indeed been masquerading +through some caprice best known to herself, and now chose once and for +all to drop masque and cloak. "I really expect a most novel and +entertaining experience to-night. You say that I have met all sorts of +people. I have by no means done so. It strikes me that our acquaintance +is not so young that I should tell you this. It is true that I made a +few pleasant and even valuable friendships in Europe; but these have +been exceptional in my life, and I now return to my native city to +disapprove everybody whom I once approved." + +"And you expect to approve all the people whom you shall meet to-night?" + +"You ask that in a tone of positive alarm." + +"I can't help betraying some nervous fear. Your expectations are so +exorbitant." + +Pauline tossed her head in the dimness. "Oh, you will find me more +easily suited than you suppose." + +Kindelon gave a kind of dubious laugh. "I'm not so sure that you will be +easily suited," he said. "You are very pessimistic in your judgments of +the fashionable throng. It strikes me that you are a rigid critic of +nearly everybody. How can I tell that you will not denounce me, in an +hour or so, as the worst of impostors, for having presumed to introduce +you among a lot of objectionable bores?" + +"I think you will admit," said Pauline, in offended reply, "that most of +Mrs. Dares's friends have brains." + +"Brains? Oh, yes, all sorts of brains." + +"That is just what I want to meet," she rapidly exclaimed--"all sorts of +brains. I am accustomed, at present, to only two or three sorts.--Oh, +you need not be afraid that I shall become bored. No, indeed! On the +contrary, I expect to be exhilarated. I shall fraternize with most of +them--I shall be one of them almost immediately. Wait until you see!" + +"I shan't see that," said Kindelon, with an amused _brusquerie_. + +"What do you mean?" she questioned, once more offendedly. + +He began to speak, with his old glib fleetness. "Why, my dear lady, +because you are _not_ one of them, and never can be. You are a +patrician, reared differently, and you will carry your stamp with you +wherever you go. Your very voice will betray you in ten seconds. You may +show them that you want to be their good friend, but you can't convince +them that you and they are of the same stock. Some of them will envy +you, others may secretly presume to despise you, and still others may +very cordially like you. I don't think it has ever dawned upon me until +lately how different you are from these persons whom you wish to make +your allies and supporters. That night, when I went into your aunt's +opera-box, I had a very slight understanding of the matter. I've always +scoffed at the idea of a New York aristocracy. It seemed so absurd, so +self-contradictory. And if it existed at all, I've always told myself, +it must be the merest nonsensical sham. But now I begin to recognize it +as an undeniable fact. There's a sort of irony, too, in my finding it +out so late--after I have knocked about as a journalist in a city which +I believed to be democratic if it was anything. However, you've made the +whole matter plain to me. You didn't intend to open my plebeian eyes, +but you have done so. It is really wonderful how you have set me +thinking. I've often told myself that America was a political failure as +a republic, but I never realized that it was a social one." + +Just then the carriage stopped. "I am sorry," said Pauline, "to have +unconsciously made you think ill of the literary society of New York." +She paused for a moment, and there was a rebuking solemnity in her voice +as she added: "I believe--I insist upon believing till I see +otherwise--that it does not deserve to be condemned." + + + + +VI. + + +The footman was now heard, as he sprang from the box. "Good gracious!" +exclaimed Kindelon; "I haven't condemned it! It condemns itself." + +Pauline gave a laugh full of accusative satire. "Oh!" she burst forth. +"I should like to hear you speak against it before Mrs. Dares--and your +friend Miss Cora, too--as you have just done before me!" + +The footman had by this time opened the carriage door. He kept one +white-gloved hand on the knob, standing, with his cockaded hat and his +long-skirted coat, motionless and respectful in the outer gloom. + +Kindelon threw up both hands, and waved them in a burlesque of despair. +"There is _no_ literary society in New York," he murmured, as if the +admission had been wrung from him. "Don't go inside there with any idea +of meeting it, for it is not to be found! Mrs. Dares herself will tell +you so!" + +Pauline shook her head vigorously. "I'm sure you can't mean that," she +exclaimed, in grieved reproach. + +Kindelon gave one of his laughs, and jumped out of the carriage. Pauline +took the hand which he offered her, while the displaced footman +decorously receded. + +"I do mean it," he said, as they went up a high, narrow stoop together, +and saw two slim, lit windows loom before them. + +"I hope I am not responsible for this last change of faith in you," she +answered, while Kindelon was ringing the bell. + +"Well," he at once said, "I believe you are. There is no kind of real +society here except one. Mind you, I don't say this in any but the most +dispassionate and critical way. And I'm not glad to say it, either; I'm +sorry, in fact. But it is true"--And then, after a second of silence, he +repeated--"no kind of society except one." + +Pauline smiled as she watched him, but there was both exasperation and +challenge in the smile. + +"What kind is that?" she queried. + +"Ask your aunt, Mrs. Poughkeepsie," he replied. + +Pauline gave an irritated sigh. As she did so the door of Mrs. Dares's +house was opened by a spruce-looking young negress, and they both +passed into the little limited hall beyond. Tapestries of tasteful +design were looped back from the small doors which gave upon the hall. +Their blended stuffs of different colors produced a novel effect, wholly +disproportioned to the real worth of the fabrics themselves. The deft +skill of Mrs. Dares's younger daughter was responsible, not alone for +these, but for other equally happy embellishments throughout this +delightful miniature dwelling. In every chamber there was to be found +some pretty decorative stratagem whereby a maximum of graceful and even +brilliant ornamentation had been won from a minimum of pecuniary +expense. Pauline's eye had swept too many costly objects of upholstery +not to recognize that a slender purse had here gone with a keen artistic +sense. The true instinct of beauty seemed never to err, and its constant +accompaniment of simplicity in the way of actual material lent it a new +charm. Screen, rug, panelling, mantel-cover, tidy, and chair-cushion +took for her a quick value because of their being wrought through no +luxurious means. It was so easy to buy all these things in velvet, in +silk, in choice woods; it was so hard, so rare, to be able to plan them +all from less pretentious resources. Before she had been five minutes +in Mrs. Dares's abode, Pauline found herself affected by the mingled +attractiveness and modesty of its details, as we are allured by the +tints, contours, and even perfumes of certain wildflowers which glow +only the more sweetly because of their contrast with cultured blooms. + +Mrs. Dares herself had a look not unlike that of some timid little +wildflower. She was short of stature and very fragile; Kindelon's past +accounts of her incessant accomplishments took the hue of fable as +Pauline gazed upon her. She was extremely pale, with large, warm, dark +eyes set in a face of cameo-like delicacy. Her dress hung in folds about +her slight person, as if there had been some pitying motive in the +looseness of its fit. But she wore it with an air of her own. It was a +timid air, and yet it was one of ease and repose. The intelligence and +earnestness of her clear-cut face gave her an undeniable dignity; you +soon became sure that she was wholly unassuming, but you as soon +realized that this trait of diffidence had no weakness in mind or +character for its cause. It seemed, in truth, to correspond with her +bodily frailty, and to make her individualism more complete while none +the less emphatic. The personality that pushes itself upon our heed +does not always make us notice it the quickest. Mrs. Dares never pushed +herself upon anybody's heed, yet she was seldom unnoticed. Her voice +rarely passed beyond a musical semitone, and yet you rarely failed to +catch each word it uttered. Pauline not only caught each word, as her +new hostess now stood and addressed her, leaving for the time all other +guests who were crowding the rather meagre apartments, but she tacitly +decided, as well, that there was an elegance and purity in the +expressions used by this notable little lady which some of the +grander-mannered dames whom she had intimately known might have copied +with profit. One peculiarity about Mrs. Dares, however, was not slow to +strike her: the pale, delicate face never smiled. Not that it was +melancholy or even uncheerful, but simply serious. Mrs. Dares had no +sense of humor. She could sometimes say a witty thing that bit hard and +sharp, but she was without any power to wear that lazier mental +fatigue-dress from which some of the most vigorous minds have been +unable, before hers, to win the least relaxation. This was probably the +true reason why her small drawing-room often contained guests whose +eccentricity of garb or deportment would otherwise have excluded them +from her civilities. She could not enjoy the foibles of her +fellow-creatures; she was too perpetually busy in taking a grave view of +their sterner and more rational traits. She found something in nearly +everybody that interested her, and it always interested her because it +was human, solemn, important--a part, so to speak, of the great +struggle, the great development, the great problem. This may, after all, +be no real explanation of why she never smiled; for a smile, as we know, +can hold the sadness of tears in its gleam, just as a drop of morning +dew will hold the moisture of the autumn rainfall. But the absence of +all mirthful trace on her gentle lips accorded, nevertheless, with the +inherent sobriety of her nature, and they who got to know her well would +unconsciously assign for both a common origin. + +"My dear Mrs. Varick," she said to Pauline, "I am very glad that you +chose to seek my poor hospitality this evening. Mr. Kindelon has already +prophesied that we shall be good friends, and as I look at you I find +myself beginning to form a most presumptuous certainty that he will not +prove a false prophet. He tells me that you are weary of the fashionable +world; I have seen nothing of that, myself, though I fancy I know what +it is like.--A great Castle of Indolence, I mean, where there are many +beautiful chambers, but where the carpets yield too luxuriously under +foot, and the couches have too inviting a breadth. Now, in this little +drawing-room of mine you will meet few people who have not some daily +task to perform--however ill many of us may accomplish it. In that way +the change will have an accent for you--the air will be fresher and more +tonic, though shifting from warm to chilly in the most irregular manner. +I want to warn you, my dear lady, that you will miss that evenness of +temperature which makes such easy breathing elsewhere. Be prepared for a +decided atmospheric shock, now and then: but you will find it rather +stimulating when it arrives, and by no means unwholesome." + +Pauline could scarcely repress her astonishment at this very original +speech of welcome. She and Mrs. Dares were separated from all other +occupants of the room while it was being delivered; Kindelon had moved +away after making his two friends known to each other, and doubtless +with the intention of letting his hostess stand or fall on her own +conversational merits, as far as concerned the first impression which +Pauline should receive from her. But this impression was one in which +admiration and approval played quite as strong a part as surprise. +Pauline had wanted just such a spur and impetus as her faculties were +now receiving; she kept silent for a few brief seconds, in silent +enjoyment of the complex emotions which Mrs. Dares had wakened. Then she +said, with a low laugh that had not the least suspicion of frivolity,-- + +"If it is a social temperature with those barometric tricks and freaks, +Mrs. Dares, I promise you that I shan't catch cold in it. But I fear Mr. +Kindelon has wasted too many premonitory words upon me. He should have +politely allowed me to betray myself, as a specimen of harmless and +humble commonplace. I am sure to do it sooner or later." + +"Oh, he has told me of your aim, your purpose," said Mrs. Dares. + +Pauline colored, and laid one hand on the lady's slender arm. "Then we +are rivals, I suppose?" she murmured, with an arch smile. + +Mrs. Dares turned and looked at her guest before answering; there was a +mild, dreamy comprehensiveness in the way she seemed to survey their +many shapes, letting her large, soft, dusky eyes dwell upon no special +one of them. A little later she regarded Pauline again. She now shook +her head negatively before replying. + +"Oh, no, no," she said. "What you see here is not in any sense a +representative assemblage. I have often wished that some one would +establish a stricter and more definite standard than mine. We need it +sadly. There are no entertainments given in New York where the mentally +alert people--those who read, and think, and write--can meet with an +assurance that their company has been desired for reasons of an +exceptional personal valuation. The guest without the wedding-garment is +always certain to be there. I fear that I have paid too little heed to +the wedding-garment; my daughters--and especially my eldest daughter, +Martha--are always telling me that, in various ways.--Oh, no, Mrs. +Varick, we shall not be rivals. You will have the leisure to sift, to +weigh, to admit or exclude, to label, to indorse, to classify--to make +order, in short, out of chaos. This _I_ have never had the leisure to +do." She looked at Pauline with an almost pensive gravity. Then she +slowly repeated the word, "Never." + +"I fancy you have never had the cruelty," said Pauline. + +"There would be considerable solid mercy in it," was the firm answer. + +"Yes. To those who were both called and chosen. But how about the +repulsed candidates for admission?" + +"They would deserve their defeat," said Mrs. Dares, with thoughtful +deliberation. "Morals and manners properly combined would be their sole +passport." + +"And ability," amended Pauline. + +"Ability? Oh, they all have ability who care to mingle night after night +where that qualification is the dominating necessity for mutual +enjoyment. Remember, an organized literary and intellectual society +would not demand what that other society, of which you have seen so +much, imperatively demands. I mean wealth, position, modishness, _ton_. +All these would go for nothing with an aristocracy of talent, of high +and true culture, of progress, of fine and wise achievement in all +domains where human thought held rule. There, gross egotism, +priggishness, raw eccentricity, false assumption of leadership, facile +jealousy, dogmatic intolerance--these, and a hundred other faults, would +justly exert a debarring influence." + +Pauline did not know how her cheeks were glowing and her eyes were +sparkling as she now quickly said, after having swept her gaze along the +groups of guests not far away. + +"And this is what you call making order out of chaos? Ah, yes, I +understand. It is very delightful to contemplate. It quite stirs one +with ambition. It is like having the merciless and senseless snobbery of +mere fashionable life given a reasonable, animating motive. I should +like to take upon myself such a task." Here she suddenly frowned in a +moderate but rather distressed way. "Not long ago," she went on, "Mr. +Kindelon told me that I would find no literary society in New York. But +I contested this point. I'm inclined to contest it still, though you +have shaken my faith, I admit." + +"The word 'literary' is very specializing," said Mrs. Dares. She had +drooped her large, musing eyes. + +"Do you mean that for an evasion?" asked Pauline with a tart pungency +that she at once regretted as almost discourteous. "Allow," she went on, +promptly softening her tone, "that the word does cover a multitude of +definitions as I use it--that it is used _faute de mieux_, and that no +society has ever existed anywhere which one could call strictly +literary. Come, then, my dear Mrs. Dares, allowing all this, do you +consider that Mr. Kindelon was right? Is it all chaos to-day in New +York? Is there no gleam of order?" And here Pauline broke into a furtive +tremor of laughter. "Must I begin my good work at the very earliest +possible beginning if I am to commence at all?" + +Mrs. Dares's dark eyes seemed to smile now, if her lips did not. "Yes," +she said. "Mr. Kindelon was right. You are to begin at the very +beginning.--In London it is so different," she went on, lapsing into the +meditative seriousness from which nothing could permanently distract +her. "I spent a happy and memorable month there not many years ago. It +was a delicious holiday, taken because of overwork here at home, and a +blessed medicine I found it. I had brought with me a few lucky letters. +They opened doors to me, and beyond those doors I met faces and voices +full of a precious welcome. You would know the names of not a few of +those who were gracious to me; they are names that are household words. +And there, in London, I saw, strongly established, a dignified, +important and influential society. Rarely, once in a while, I met some +man or woman with a title, but he or she had always either done +something to win the title, or something--if it was inherited--to +outshine it. I did not stay long enough to pick flaws, to cavil; I +enjoyed and appreciated--and I have never forgotten!" + +Just at this point, and somewhat to Pauline's secret annoyance, Kindelon +returned with a lady at his side. Pauline was soon told the lady's +name, and as she heard it her annoyance was swiftly dissipated by a new +curiosity. She at once concluded that Miss Cora Dares bore very slight +resemblance to her mother. She was taller, and her figure was of a full +if not generous moulding. Her rippled chestnut hair grew low over the +forehead; almost too low for beauty, though her calm, straight-featured +face, lit by a pair of singularly luminous blue eyes, and ending in a +deep-dimpled chin of exquisite symmetry, needed but a glance to make +good its attractive claim. Miss Cora Dares was quite profuse in her +smiles; she gave Pauline, while taking the latter's hand, a very bright +and charming one, which made her look still less like her mother. + +"We saw you and mamma talking very earnestly together, Mrs. Varick," she +said, with a brief side-glance toward Kindelon, "and so we concluded +that it would be safe to leave you undisturbed for at least a little +while. But mamma is curiously unsafe as an entertainer." This was said +with an extremely sweet and amiable look in Mrs. Dares's direction. "She +sometimes loses herself in gentle rhapsodies. My sister Martha and I +have to keep watch upon her by turns, out of pity for the unliberated +victims." + +"I need not tell you how I scorn the injustice of that charge, my dear +Mrs. Dares!" here cried Kindelon. "It would be late in the day to inform +you of my devoted admiration!" + +"I fear it is early in the day for me to speak of mine," said Pauline; +but the laugh that went with her words (or was it the words themselves?) +rang sincerely, and took from what she said the levity of mere idle +compliment. + +"But you will surely care to meet some of our friends, Mrs. Varick," now +said Cora Dares. + +"Oh, by all means, yes!" exclaimed Pauline. The girl's limpid, steadfast +eyes fascinated her, and she gazed into their lucent depths longer than +she was perhaps aware. It was almost like an abrupt awakening to find +that she and Mrs. Dares's youngest daughter were standing alone +together, Kindelon and the elder lady having gone. "I want very much to +meet many of your friends," Pauline proceeded. She put her head a little +on one side, while her lips broke into a smile that her companion +appeared to understand perfectly and to answer with mute, gay +intelligence. "I suppose you have heard all about me and my grand +project, just as your charming mother has heard, Miss Dares?" + +"Oh, yes," returned Cora. + +"And you think it practicable?" + +"I think it praiseworthy." + +"Which means that I shall fail." + +Cora looked humorously troubled. "If you do, it will not be your fault. +I am not doubtful on that point." + +"Your mother has by no means encouraged me. She says that I must be +careful in my selections, but she gives me very little hope of finding +many worthy subjects to select. She seems to think that when the wheat +has been taken from the tares, as it were, there will be very little +wheat left." + +"Yes, I know mamma's opinions. I don't quite share them. My sister +Martha does, however, thoroughly.--Ah, here is Martha now. Let me make +you acquainted." + +Martha Dares proved to be still more unlike her mother than Cora, save +as regarded her stature, which was very short. She had a plump person, +and a face which was prepossessing solely from its expression of honest +good-nature. It was a face whose fat cheeks, merry little black eyes and +shapeless nose were all a stout defiance of the classic type. Pauline at +once decided that Martha was shrewd, energetic and cheerful, and that +she might reveal, under due provocation, a temper of hot flash and acute +sting. + +"And now you know the whole family, Mrs. Varick," said Cora, when her +sister had been presented. + +"Yes, I complete the group," said Miss Dares, with a jocund trip of the +tongue about her speech, that suggested a person who did all her +thinking in the same fleet and impetuous way. "I hope you find it an +interesting group, Mrs. Varick?" + +"Very," said Pauline. "Its members have so much individuality. They are +all three so different." + +"True enough," hurried Martha. "We react upon each other, for this +reason, in a very salutary way. You've no idea what a corrective agent +my practical turn is for this poetic sister of mine, who would be up in +the clouds nearly all the time, trying to paint the unpaintable, but for +an occasional downward jerk from me, you know, such as a boy will give +to a refractory kite. But I'll grant you that Cora has more than +partially convinced me that life isn't entirely made up of spelling, +arithmetic, geography and the use of the globes--for I'm a +school-teacher, please understand, though in a rather humble way. And +there's poor dear mamma. Goodness knows what would become of _her_ if it +were not for both of us. She hasn't an idea how to economize her +wonderful powers of work. Cora and I have established a kind of military +despotism; we have to say 'halt' and 'shoulder your pen,' just as if she +were a sort of soldier. But it will never do for me to rattle on like +this. I'm as bad, after my own fashion, as our mutual friend, Mr. +Kindelon, when I once really get started. By the way, you know Mr. +Kindelon very well indeed, don't you?" + +"Very well, though I have not known him very long," answered Pauline. + +She somehow felt that Martha's question concealed more interest than its +framer wished to betray. The little black eyes had taken a new keenness, +but the genial face had sobered as well. And for some reason just at +this point both Martha and Pauline turned their looks upon Cora. + +She had slightly flushed; the change, however, was scarcely noticeable. +She at once spoke, as though being thus observed had made her speak. + +"He always has something pleasant to say of you," softly declared Cora. +Here she turned to her sister. "Will you bring up some people to Mrs. +Varick," she asked, "or shall I?" + +"Oh, just as you choose," answered Martha. She had fixed her eyes on +Pauline again. The next moment Cora had glided off. + +"What my sister says is quite true," affirmed Martha. + +"You mean--?" Pauline questioned, with a faint start which she could +scarcely have explained. + +"That Mr. Kindelon admires you very much." + +"I am glad to hear it," returned Pauline, thinking how commonplace the +sentence sounded, and at the same time feeling her color rise and deepen +under the persistent scrutiny of those sharp dark eyes. + +"Don't you think him intensely able?" said Martha, much more slowly than +usual. "We do." + +Pauline bowed assent. "Brilliantly able," she answered. "Tell me, Miss +Dares, with which of you is he the more intimate, your sister or +yourself?" + +Martha gave a laugh that was crisp and curt. She looked away from +Pauline as she answered. "Oh, he's more intimate with me than with +Cora," she said. "We are stanch friends. He tells me nearly everything. +I think he would tell me if he were to fall in love." + +"Really?" laughed Pauline. Her face was wreathed in smiles of apparent +amusement. She looked, just then, as she had often looked in the +fashionable world, when everything around her seemed so artificial that +she took the tints of her environment and became as artificial herself. + +But it pleased her swiftly to change the subject. "I am quite excited +this evening," she went on. "I am beginning a new career; you +understand, of course. Tell me, Miss Dares, how do _you_ think I shall +succeed in it?" + +Martha was watching her fixedly. And Martha's reply had a short, odd +sound. "I think you are almost clever enough not to fail," she said. + + + + +VII. + + +Before Pauline had been an hour longer in the Dares's drawing-room she +had become acquainted with many new people. She could not count them all +when she afterward tried to do so; the introductions had been very rapid +for some little time; one, so to speak, had trodden upon the heel of +another. Her meditated project had transpired, and not a few of her +recent acquaintances eyed her with a critical estimate of her capability +to become their future leader. + +She soon found herself an object of such general scrutiny that she was +in danger of growing embarrassed to the verge of actual bewilderment. +She was now the centre of a little group, and every member of it +regarded her with more or less marked attentiveness. + +"I've a tragic soul in a comic body, Mrs. Varick," said a fat little +spinster, with a round moon of a face and a high color, whose name was +Miss Upton. "That is the way I announce myself to all strangers. I +should have gone on the stage and played _Juliet_ if it hadn't been for +my unpoetic person. But imagine a bouncing, obese Juliet! No; I realized +that it would never do. I shall have to die with all my music in me, as +it were." + +"A great many poets have done that," said a pale young gentleman with +very black hair and eyes, and an expression of ironical fatigue which +seldom varied. He was Mr. Leander Prawle, and he was known to have +written verses for which he himself had unbounded admiration. "Indeed," +the young poet continued, lifting one thin, white hand to where his +moustache was not yet, "it is hard to sing a pure and noble song with +the discords of daily life about one." + +"Not if you can make the world stop its discords and listen to you, Mr. +Prawle," said Pauline. + +"Oh, Prawle can never do that," said a broad-shouldered young blond, +with a face full of drowsy reverie and hair rolled back from it in a +sort of yellow mane. "He's always writing transcendental verses about +Man with a capital M and the grand amelioration of Humanity with a +capital H. Prawle has no color. He hates an adjective as if it were a +viper. He should have lived with me in the _Quartier Latin_; he should +have read, studied and loved the divine Theophile Gautier--most perfect +of all French poets!" + +The speaker fixed his sleepy blue eyes upon Leander Prawle while he thus +spoke. A slight smile touched his lips, leaving a faint dimple in either +smooth oval cheek. He was certainly very handsome, in an unconventional, +audacious way. His collar gave a lower glimpse of his firm yet soft +throat than usage ordinarily sanctions; the backward wave of his hair +was certainly against any conceded form. He had been made known to +Pauline as Mr. Arthur Trevor, and she had felt surprised at his name +being so English; she had expected to find it French; Mr. Trevor had +appeared to her extremely French. + +"When you speak of Paris and of Gautier," she now said to him, "you +really relieve me, Mr. Trevor. I was so prepared, on first meeting you, +to find that you were not an American." + +"Oh, Trevor is very French," said Leander Prawle coldly. + +Trevor laughed, lifting one hand, on the middle finger of which was the +tawny tell-tale mark of the confirmed cigarette-smoker. + +"And my friend, Prawle," he said, "is enormously English." + +"Not English--American," slowly corrected Leander Prawle. + +"It is the same thing!" cried Arthur Trevor. "He is cold-blooded, Mrs. +Varick," the young gentleman continued, with emphasis and a certain +excitement. "We are always fighting, Prawle and I. I tell Prawle that in +his own beloved literature, he should have but one model outside of +Shakespeare. That is Keats--the sweet, sensuous, adorable Keats." + +"I loathe Keats," said Leander Prawle, as if he were repeating some +fragment of a litany. "I think him a word-monger." + +"Aha," laughed Arthur Trevor, showing his white, sound teeth, "Keats was +an immense genius. He knew the art of expression." + +"And he expressed nothing," said Leander Prawle. + +"He expressed beauty," declared Trevor. "Poetry is that. There is +nothing else. Even the great master, Hugo, would tell you so." + +"Hugo is a mere rhapsodist," said Leander Prawle. + +Trevor laughed again. He gave a comic, exaggerated shudder while he did +so. He now exclusively addressed Pauline. "My dear Mrs. Varick," he +said, "are you not horrified?" + +Before Pauline could answer, the fat little Miss Upton spoke. "Oh, Mr. +Trevor," she said, "you know that though you and Mr. Prawle are always +quarrelling about poetry, and belong to two different schools, still, +each of you, in his way, is admirable. You are the North and South +poles." + +"No," said Arthur Trevor, "for the North and South poles never come +together, while Prawle and I are continually clashing." + +"It looks very much as if chaos were the result," said Pauline. + +Arthur Trevor gazed at her reproachfully. "I hope you don't mean that," +he said. He put his arm while he spoke, about the neck of a short and +fleshy man, with a bald, pink scalp and a pair of dull, uneasy eyes. +"Here is our friend, Rufus Corson," he continued. "Rufus has not spoken +a word to you since he was presented, Mrs. Varick. But he's a +tremendously important fellow. He doesn't look it, but he is the poet of +death, decay, and horror." + +"Good Heavens!" murmured Pauline playfully. + +"It is true," pursued Arthur Trevor. "Rufus, here, is a wonderful +fellow, and he has written some verses that will one day make him famous +as the American Baudelaire." + +"I have not read Baudelaire," said Pauline. + +Mr. Corson at once answered her. He spoke in a forced, loitering way. He +wore the dress of a man who scorns all edicts of mode, and yet he was +very commonplace in appearance. + +"The literature of the present age is in a state of decadence," he said. +Mr. Corson, himself, looked to be in a state of plump prosperity; even +his rosy baldness had a vivid suggestion of youth and of the enjoyments +which youth bestows. "I write hopelessly," he continued, "because I live +in a hopeless time. My 'Sonnet to a Skull' has been praised, because"-- + +"It has _not_ been praised," said Leander Prawle firmly and severely. + +Mr. Corson regarded Prawle with an amused pity. "It has been praised by +people whom you don't know," he said, "and who don't want to know you." + +"It is horrible," enunciated Leander Prawle, while he appealingly rolled +toward Pauline his dark eyes, which the confirmed pallor of his face +made still darker. "Mrs. Varick," he went on, "I am sure that you will +agree with me in asserting that skulls and skeletons and disease are not +fit subjects for poetical treatment." + +"Yes," answered Pauline, "I think that they are not beautiful--and for +this reason I should condemn them." + +"Then you will make a great mistake, Mrs. Varick," now quickly +interposed Arthur Trevor. He passed one hand backward along the yellow +mane of his hair while he thus spoke. But he still kept an arm about the +neck of his friend, Corson. "I maintain," he continued, "that Corson has +a perfect right to sing of autumnal things. A corpse is as legitimate a +subject as a sunset. They are both morbid; they both mean what is +moribund." + +"Oh, but they are so different!" exclaimed the fat Miss Upton. "One is +the work of Gawd, to delight man, and the other is--oh, dear! the other +is--well, it's only a mere dead body! None of the great poets have ever +written in that dreadful style, Mr. Trevor. Of course, I know that Mr. +Corson has done some _powerful_ work, but is it right to give people the +shudders and horrors, as he does? Why not have sunshine in poetry, +instead of gloom and misery?" + +"Sunshine is commonplace," said Arthur Trevor. + +"Very," said Mr. Corson. + +"Sunshine means hope," declared Leander Prawle. "It means evolution, +development, progress." + +"Art is art!" cried Trevor. "Sing of what you please, so long as your +_technique_ is good, so long as you have the right _chic_, the right +_facon_, the right way of putting things!" + +"True," said Corson. "I write of skulls and corpses because you can get +new effects out of them. They haven't been done to death, like faith, +and philanthropy, and freedom. Optimism is so tiresome, nowadays. All +the Greeks are dead. Notre Dame stands intact, but the Parthenon is a +ruin." + +Leander Prawle shivered. "You can make clever rhymes about +charnel-houses," he said, "but that is not poetry. You can deplore the +allurements of women with green eyes and stony hearts, but you degrade +womanhood while you do so. You"-- + +"Are you not bored?" whispered Kindelon, in his mellow Irish brogue to +Pauline, as he just then stole to her side. "If so, let us walk away +together." + +Pauline slipped her hand into his proffered arm. "I was not bored," she +said, as they moved off, "but I was just beginning to be. Are there +nothing but belligerent poets here to-night?" + +"Oh, you will find other sorts of people." + +"But, who are these three wranglers, Mr. Trevor, Mr. Prawle, and Mr. +Corson?" + +Kindelon laughed. "They are fanatics," he said. "Each one believes +himself a Milton in ability." + +"Are they successful?" + +"They send poems (with stamps inclosed) to the magazines, and have them +rejected. They make believe to despise the magazines, but secretly they +would give worlds to see their names in print. Heaven knows, the +magazines print rubbish enough. But they are sensible in rejecting +Arthur Trevor's poems, which are something in this style--I quote from +memory:-- + + "'The hot, fierce tiger-lily madly yearns + To kill with passionate poison the wild moth + That reels in drunken ecstasy above + Its gorgeous bosom....' + +"Or in rejecting that bald-pated posing Corson's trash, which runs like +this:-- + + "'Death is far better than the loathsome lot + Of kissing lips that soon must pale and rot, + Of clasping forms that soon must cease their breath + Within the black embrace of haughty death!' + +"Or in declining to publish Mr. Leander Prawle's buncombe, which sounds +somewhat after this fashion: + + "'Man shall one day develop to a god, + Though now he walks unwinged, unaureoled.... + To-day we moil and mope--to-morrow's dawn + Shall bring us pinions to outsoar the stars.' + +"That's the sort of the thing this brave trio does. All poets are +partially mad, of course. But then _they_ are mad without being poets; +it's this that makes their lunacy so tiresome." + +"And are they always quarrelling when they meet?" + +"Oh, they do it for effect. They are privately very good friends. They +are all equally obscure; they've no cause, yet, to hate one another. If +one of them should get a book published before either of the other two, +they would probably both abominate him in good earnest." + +Just then a tall, sallow gentleman, with small, gray eyes and a nose +like the beak of a carnivorous bird, laid his hand on Kindelon's sleeve. + +"Powers has just asked me to write the Fenimore Cooper article for his +new American Cyclopaedia," declared this gentleman, whose name was +Barrowe, and whom Pauline had already met. + +"Well, you're precisely the man," replied Kindelon. "Nobody can do it +better." + +"Precisely the man!" exclaimed Mr. Barrowe. "Perhaps I would be if I +were not so overwhelmed with other duties--so unmercifully handicapped." +He turned to Pauline. "I am devoted to literature, madam," he went on, +"but I am forced into commerce for the purpose of keeping starvation +away from my family and myself. There is the plain, unvarnished truth. +And now, as it is, I return home after hours of hard, uncongenial work, +to snatch a short interval between dinner-time and bed-time for whatever +I can accomplish with my poor tired pen. My case is a peculiar and +pathetic one--and this Powers ought to understand it. But, no; he comes +to me in the coolest manner, and makes my doing that article for him a +question of actual good-nature and friendly support. So, of course, I +consent. But it shows a great want of delicacy in Powers. He knows well +enough that I am obliged to neglect many social duties--that I should +not even be here at this moment--that besides my daily business I am +besieged with countless applications from literary people for all sorts +of favors. Why, this very week, I have received no less than fourteen +requests for my autograph. How are my wife and little ones to live if I +am perpetually to oblige inconsiderate and thoughtless friends?" + +"Your complaints would indicate," said Kindelon, rather dryly, "that +Powers has not offered you the requisite cheque for proposed services." + +Mr. Barrowe gave an irritated groan. "Kindelon!" he exclaimed, "do you +know you can be a very rude man when you want?" + +"You've told me that several times before, Barrowe," said Kindelon, +quite jovially, moving on with Pauline. + +He did this briskly enough to prevent the indignant Mr. Barrowe from +making any further reply. + +"I'm afraid you'll have trouble with that man," he said to Pauline, +presently, "if you admit him into your _salon_." + +"I have read some of his essays," she answered. "They are published +abroad, you know. I thought them very clever." + +"So they are--amazingly. But Barrowe himself is a sort of monomaniac. He +believes that he is the most maltreated of authors. He is forever boring +his friends with these egotistic lamentations. Now, the truth of the +matter is that he has more to solidly congratulate himself upon than +almost any author whom I know. He was sensible enough, years ago, to +embark in commercial affairs. I forget just what he does; I think he is +a wholesale druggist, or grocer. He writes brilliantly and with +extraordinary speed. His neglect of social duties, as he calls them, is +the purest nonsense. He goes wherever he is asked, and finds plenty of +time for work besides. This request from Powers secretly pleases him. +The new Cyclopaedia is going to be a splendid series of volumes. But +Barrowe must have his little elegiac moan over his blighted life." + +"And the applications from fellow-authors?" asked Pauline. "The requests +for autographs?" + +"Pshaw! those are a figment of his fancy, I suspect. He imagines that he +is of vast importance in the literary world. His sensitiveness is +something ridiculous. He's a far worse monologuist than I am, which is +surely saying a great deal; but if you answer him he considers it an +interruption, and if you disagree with him he ranks it as impertinence. +I think he rather likes me because I persistently, fearlessly, and +relentlessly do both. But with all his faults, Barrowe has a large, warm +heart. Still, it's astonishing how a fine and true character can often +enshroud itself with repellent mannerisms, just as a firm breadth of +sea-rock will become overcrusted with brittle barnacles.... Ah, +Whitcomb, good evening." + +A corpulent man, with silver-gray hair and a somewhat pensive +expression, was the recipient of Kindelon's last cordial sentence of +salutation. After he had made the needful introduction, Kindelon said, +addressing Pauline while he regarded Mr. Whitcomb,-- + +"This is the author of no less than five standard histories." + +"Kindelon is very good to call them standard, Mrs. Varick," said Mr. +Whitcomb, in a voice quite as pensive as his face. "I wish that a few +thousands more would only share his opinion." + +"Oh, but they are gradually getting to do it, my dear Whitcomb!" +declared Kindelon. "Don't make any mistake on that point. A few days ago +I chanced to meet your publisher, Sours. Now, an author must stand +pretty sure of success when his publisher pays him a round compliment." + +"What did Sours say?" asked Mr. Whitcomb, with an almost boyish +eagerness. + +"He said," exclaimed Kindelon, "that Whitcomb was our coming American +historian. There, my dear sir, what do you think of that?" + +Mr. Whitcomb sadly shook his silver-gray head. "I've been coming," he +murmured, "ever since I was twenty-eight, and I shall be fifty-seven +next May. I can't say that I think Sours's compliment meant much. It's +got to be a sort of set phrase about me, that I'm coming. It never +occurs to anybody to say that I've come, and I suppose it will not if I +live to be eighty and totter round with white hair. No, I shall always +be coming, coming...." + +As the gentleman repeated this final word he smiled with a kind of weary +amiability, still shaking his gray head; and a moment later he had +passed from sight. + +"Mrs. Varick," now said a cold, rasping voice to Pauline, "have you +managed to enjoy yourself, thus far? If you recollect, we were +introduced a little while ago ... Miss Cragge, you know." + +"Oh, yes, I remember, Miss Cragge," said Pauline. "And I find it very +pleasant here, I assure you." + +Miss Cragge had given Kindelon a short nod, which he returned somewhat +faintly. She was a lady of masculine height, with a square-jawed face, a +rather mottled complexion, and a pair of slaty-blue eyes that looked at +you very directly indeed from beneath a broad, flat forehead. She was +dressed in a habit of some shabby gray stuff, and wore at her throat a +large antique cameo pin, which might have been unearthed from an +ancestral chest near the lavendered laces and faded love-letters of a +long-dead grandmother. She was by no means an agreeable-looking lady; +she was so ungentle in her quick, snapping speech and so unfeminine in +her gaunt, bony, and almost towering figure, that she promptly impressed +you with an idea of Nature having maliciously blended the harsher traits +of both sexes in one austere personality, and at the same time leaving +the result sarcastically feminine. She seldom addressed you without +appearing to be bent on something which she thought you might have to +tell her, or which she would like you very much to reveal. Her +affirmations often had the sound of interrogatories. She had none of the +tact, the grace, the _finesse_ of the ordinary "interviewer;" she went +to her task rough-handed and undexterous. + +"I'm glad you like it," she at once said to Pauline. "I know you've +moved a good deal in fashionable society, and I should be gratified to +learn how this change affects you." + +"Quite refreshingly," returned Pauline. + +"You don't feel like a fish out of water, then?" said Miss Cragge, with +a sombre little laugh. "Or like a cat in a strange garret?... I saw you +at the opera the other evening. You were with Mrs. Poughkeepsie and her +daughter; I was down stairs in the orchestra. I go a good deal to places +of amusement--in a professional way, you know; I'm a dead-head, as the +managers call it--I help to paper the house." + +"You are rather too idiomatic, I fear," now said Kindelon, with a chilly +ring in his tones, "for Mrs. Varick to understand you." + +"Idiomatic is very good--excellent, in fact," replied Miss Cragge, with +a pleasantry that barely missed being morose. "I suppose you mean that I +am slangy. You're always trying to snub me, Kindelon, but I don't mind +you. You can't snub me--nobody can. I'm too thick-skinned." Here the +strangely self-poised lady laughed again, if the grim little sound that +left her mirthless lips could really be called a laugh. "I know the +Poughkeepsies by sight," she continued, re-addressing Pauline, "because +it's my business as a newspaper correspondent to get all the fashionable +items that I can collect, and whenever I'm at any public place of +amusement where there's a chance of meeting those upper-ten people, I +always keep my eyes and ears open as wide as possible. I'm correspondent +for eight weekly papers outside of New York, besides doing work for two +of the city dailies. I never saw anything like the craze for society +gossip nowadays. One good story from high life, with a moderate spice of +scandal in it, will pay me six times as well as anything else. They say +I'm always hunting about for material, and no wonder that I am. The +thing is bread and butter to me--and not much butter, either. You see, +the rich classes here are getting to represent so large a body; so many +people are trying to push themselves into society. And when they can't +elbow their way into the swell balls and parties, why, the next best +thing is to read about who were there, and what they had on, and who led +the German, and what they ate and drank, and how the house was +decorated. It seemed a queer enough business for me, at first; I started +with grand ideas, but I've had to come down a good many pegs; I've had +to pull in my horns. And now I don't mind it a bit; I suppose Kindelon +would say that I enjoyed it ... eh, Kindelon? Why, Mrs. Varick, I used +to write book-reviews for the New York 'Daily Criterion,' and my pay +kept growing less and less. One day I wrote a very careful review of a +book that I admired greatly--it was George Eliot's 'Middlemarch,' in +fact. The editor-in-chief sent for me. He named the article, and then +said, 'I hear that you wrote it. It's a very fine piece of work.' +'Thank you, sir,' I replied, with a tingle of gratification. 'Yes, a +very fine piece of work, indeed,' continued the editor; 'I read it with +much pleasure. But don't do that sort of thing again, Miss Cragge--we've +no use for it on the 'Criterion.' After that I became less ambitious and +more mercenary. There's no use pounding against stone walls. The reading +public will have what it wants, and if I don't give it to them, somebody +else will be only too glad to take my place.... By the way, Mrs. Varick, +do you think that Miss Poughkeepsie is going to marry that Scotch +earl--Lord Glenartney?" + +"I can't tell you, really," said Pauline. She had made up her mind to +dislike Miss Cragge very much indeed. At the same time she felt a +certain pity for her. + +Kindelon began to press quietly forward, and Pauline, who still had his +arm, by no means resisted this measure. + +"I've been very candid," called Miss Cragge, while the two were slipping +away from her. She spoke with even more than her usual blunt, curt +manner. "It was because I knew Kindelon would be apt to say hard things +of me, and I wanted to spike a few of his guns. But I hope I haven't +shocked you, Mrs. Varick." + +"Oh, not at all," said Pauline, as blandly as her feelings would +permit.... + +"You were a good deal disgusted, no doubt," said Kindelon, when they +were beyond Miss Cragge's hearing. + +"She isn't the most charming person I have ever met," replied Pauline. +"I will grant you that." + +"How amiably you denounce her! But I forget," he added. "Such a little +time ago you were prepared to be exhilarated and ... what was the other +word?... to fraternize with most of the company here." + +She chose not to heed the last stroke of light irony. + +"Are you and Miss Cragge enemies?" she asked. + +"Well, I abominate her, and she knows it. I rarely abominate anybody, +and I think she knows that also. To my mind she is a conscienceless, +hybrid creature. She is a result of a terrible modern license--the +license of the Press. There is a frank confession, for a newspaper man +like myself. But, between ourselves, I don't know where modern +journalism, in some of its ferocious phases, is going to stop, unless it +stops at a legislative veto. Miss Cragge would sacrifice her best +friend (if she had any friends--which she hasn't) to the requirements +of what she calls 'an item.' She thinks no more of assailing a +reputation, in her quest for so-termed 'material,' than a rat would +think of carrying off a lump of cheese. She knows very well that I will +never forgive her for having printed a lot of libellous folly about a +certain friend of mine. He had written a rather harmless and weak novel +of New York society, New York manners. Miss Cragge had some old grudge +against him; I think it was on account of an adverse criticism which she +believed him to have written regarding some dreary, amateurish poems for +whose author she had conceived a liking. This was quite enough for Miss +Cragge. She filled a column of the Rochester "Rocket," or the Topeka +"Trumpet," or some such sheet, with irate fictions about poor Charley +Erskine. He had no redress, poor fellow; she declared that he had +slandered a pure, high-minded lady in society here by caricaturing her +in his novel. She parodied some of poor Charley's rather fragile verses; +she accused him of habitually talking fatuous stuff at a certain +Bohemian sort of beer-garden which he had visited scarcely five times +within that same year. Oh, well, the whole thing was so atrocious that I +offered my friend the New York "Asteroid" in which to hurl back any +epistolary thunderbolt he should care to manufacture. But Charley +wouldn't; he might have written a bad novel and worse poems, but he had +sense enough to know that his best scorn lay in severe silence. Still, +apart from all this, I have excellent reasons for shunning Miss Cragge, +and I have told you some of them. She is the most aggravated form of the +American newspaper correspondent, prowling about and seeking whom she +may devour. I consider her a dangerous person, and I advise you not to +allow her within your _salon_." + +"Oh, I shan't," quickly answered Pauline. "You need not have counselled +me on that point. It was quite unnecessary. I intend to pick and +choose." She gave a long, worried sigh, now, which Kindelon just heard +above the conversational hum surrounding them. "I am afraid it all comes +to picking and choosing, everywhere," she went on. "Aunt Cynthia +Poughkeepsie is perpetually doing it in _her_ world, and I begin to +think that there is none other where it must not be done." + +Kindelon leaned his handsome crisp-curled head nearer to her own; he +fixed his light-blue eyes, in which lay so warm and liquid a sparkle, +intently upon the lifted gaze of Pauline. + +"You are right," he said. "You will learn that, among other lessons, +before you are much older. There is no such thing as not picking and +choosing. Whatever the grade of life, it is always done by those who +have any sort of social impulse. I believe it is done in Eighth Avenue +and Avenue A, when they give parties in little rooms of tenement houses +and hire a fiddler to speed the dance. There is always some Michael or +Fritz who has been ostracized. The O'Haras and the Schneiders follow the +universal law. Wherever three are gathered together, the third is pretty +sure to be of questionable welcome. This isn't an ideal planet, my dear +lady, and 'liberty' and 'fraternity' are good enough watchwords, but +'equality' never yet was one;--if I didn't remember my Buckle, my +Spencer, my Huxley, and my dear old Whig Macaulay, I should add that it +never _would_ be one." + +Just at this point Kindelon and Pauline found themselves face to face +with two gentlemen who were both in a seemingly excited frame of mind. +Pauline remembered that they had both been presented to her not long +ago. She recollected their names, too; her memory had been nerved to +meet all retentive exigencies. The large, florid man, with the bush of +sorrel beard, was Mr. Bedlowe, and the smaller, smooth-shaven man, with +the consumptive stoop and the professorial blue spectacles, was Mr. +Howe. + +Mr. Howe and Mr. Bedlowe were two novelists of very opposite repute. +Kindelon had already caught a few words from the latter, querulously +spoken. + +"Ah, so you think modern novel-writing a sham, my dear Howe?" he said, +pausing with his companion, while either gentleman bowed recognition to +Pauline. "Isn't that rank heresy from the author of a book that has just +been storming the town?" + +"My book didn't storm the town, Kindelon," retorted Mr. Howe, lifting a +hand of scholarly slimness and pallor toward his opaque goggles. "I wish +it had," he proceeded, somewhat wearily. "No; Bedlowe and I were having +one of our old quarrels. I say that we novelists of the Anglo-Saxon +tongue are altogether too limited. That is what I mean by declaring that +modern novel-writing is a sham." + +"He means a great deal more, I'm sorry to say," here cried Mr. Bedlowe, +who had a habit of grasping his sorrel beard in one hand and thrusting +its end toward his hirsute lips as though they were about to be allured +by some edible mouthful. + +"He means, Kindelon, that because we haven't the shocking immoral +latitude of the French race, we can't properly express ourselves in +fiction. And he goes still further--Howe is always going still further +every fresh time that I meet him. He says that if the modern novelist +dared to express himself on religious subjects, he would be an +agnostic." + +"Precisely!" cried Mr. Howe, with the pale hand wavering downward from +the eerie glasses. "But he doesn't dare! If he did, his publisher +wouldn't publish him!" + +"My publisher publishes _me_!" frowned Mr. Bedlowe. + +"Oh, you're a pietist," was the excited answer. "At least, you go in for +that when you write your novels. It pays, and you do it. I don't say +that you do it _because_ it pays, but ..." + +"You infer it," grumbled Mr. Bedlowe, "and that's almost the same as +saying it." He visibly bristled here. "I've got a wholesome faith," he +proceeded, with hostility. "That's why I wrote 'The Christian Knight in +Armor' and 'The Doubtful Soul Satisfied.' Each of them sold seventy +thousand copies apiece. There's a proof that the public wanted +them--that they filled a need." + +"So does the 'Weekly Wake-Me-Up,'" said Mr. Howe, with mild disdain. "My +dear Bedlowe, you have two qualities as a modern novel-writer which are +simply atrocious--I mean, plot and piety. The natural result of these is +popularity. But your popularity means nothing. You utterly neglect +analysis"-- + +"I despise analysis!" + +"You entirely ignore style"-- + +"I express my thoughts without affectation." + +"Your characters are wholly devoid of subtlety"-- + +"I abhor subtlety!" + +"You preach sermons"-- + +"Which thousands listen to!" + +"You fail completely to represent your time"-- + +"My readers, who represent my time, don't agree with you." + +"You end your books with marriages and christenings in the most absurdly +old-fashioned way"-- + +"I end a story as every story _should_ end. Sensible people have a +sensible curiosity to know what becomes of hero and heroine." + +"Curiosity is the vice of the vulgar novel-reader. Psychological +interest is the one sole interest that should concern the more cultured +mind. And though you may sell your seventy thousand copies, I beg to +assure you that ..." + +"Had we not heard quite enough of that hot squabble?" said Kindelon to +Pauline, after he had pressed with her into other conversational +regions, beyond the assault and defence of these two inimical novelists. + +"I rather enjoyed it," said Pauline. + +"They would have presently dragged us into their argument," returned +Kindelon. "It was just as well that we retired without committing +ourselves by an opinion. I should have sided with Howe, though I think +him an extremist." + +"I know some of Mr. Bedlowe's novels," said Pauline. "They are very +popular in England. I thought them simply dire." + +"And Howe is a real artist. He has a sort of cult here, though not a +large one. What he says is true enough, in the main. The modern novelist +dares not express his religious views, unless they be of the most +conventional and tame sort. And how few fine minds are there to-day +which are not rationalistic, unorthodox? A man like Bedlowe coins money +from his milk-and-water platitudes, while Howe must content himself with +the recognition of a small though devout circle.... Did you meet the +great American dramatist, by the way? I mean Mr. Osgood Paiseley. He is +standing over yonder near the mantel ... that slender little man with +the abnormally massive head." + +"Yes, I met him," returned Pauline. "He is coming this way." + +"Have you any new dramatic work in preparation, Paiseley?" asked +Kindelon, as the gentleman who had just been mentioned now drew near +himself and Pauline. + +"Yes," was Mr. Paiseley's reply. He spoke with a nasal tone and without +much grammatical punctilio. "I've got a piece on hand that I'm doing for +Mattie Molloy. Do you know her at all? She does the song-and-dance +business with comedy variations. I think the piece'll be a go; it'll +just suit her, I guess." + +"Your last melodrama, 'The Brand of Cain,' was very successful, was it +not?" pursued Kindelon. + +"Well," said Mr. Paiseley, as he threw back an errant lock or two from +his great width of swollen-looking forehead, "I'm afraid it isn't going +to catch on so very well, after all. The piece is all right, but the +company can't play it. Cooke guys his part because he don't like it, and +doesn't get a hand on some of the strongest lines that have been put +into any actor's mouth for the past twenty years--fact! as sure as +you're born! Moore makes up horribly, and Kitty Vane is so over-weighted +that Miss Cowes, in a straight little part of only a few lengths, gets +away with her for two scenes; and Sanders is awfully preachy. If I could +have had my own say about casting the piece, we'd have turned away money +for six weeks and made it a sure thing for the road. I mean for the big +towns, not the one-night places; it's got too many utility-people to +make it pay there. But I shan't offer anything more to the +stock-theatres; after this, I'm going to fit stars." + +Pauline turned a covertly puzzled look upon her companion. She seemed to +be hearing a new language. And yet, although the words were all familiar +enough, their collocation mystified her. + +"You think there is more profit, then, in fitting stars," said Kindelon, +"if there is less fame?" + +Mr. Paiseley laughed, with not a little bitterness. "Oh, fame," he said, +"is the infirmity of the young American dramatist. I've outgrown it. I +used to have it. But what's the use of fighting against France and +England in the stock-theatres? Give me a fair show there, and I can draw +bigger money than Dennery or Sardou--don't you make any mistake! But +those foreign fellows are always crowding us natives out of New York. +The managers hem and smirk over our pieces, and say they're good enough, +but they've got something that's running well at the Porte Sang Martang +or the Odeun in Paris. The best we can do is to have our plays done by a +scratch company at some second-rate house, or, if it's a first-class +house, they give us bad time. No, I fit travelling stars at so much cash +down, and so much royalty afterward--that is, when I can't get a +percentage on the gross. I don't work any more for fame; I want my +dinner...." + +"Your friend takes a rather commercial view of the American stage," said +Pauline to Kindelon, after they had again moved onward. + +"I am sorry to say that it is almost the only view taken by any of our +dramatists. Paiseley is thoroughly representative of his class. They +would all like to write a fine play, but they nearly all make the +getting of money their primary object. Now, I do not believe that the +lust of gain has ever been a foremost incentive in the production of any +great mental achievement. Our novels and poems are to-day better than +our plays, I think, because they are written with a more artistic and a +less monetary stimulus. The rewards of the successful playwright may +mean a fortune to him; he always remembers that when he begins, and he +usually begins for the reason that he does remember it...." + +Pauline had glimpses of not a few more individualities, that evening, +before she at length took her leave. + +"Well, how have you enjoyed it?" asked Kindelon, as they were being +driven home together. + +"I have not entirely enjoyed it," was the slow answer. + +"You have been disappointed?" + +"Yes." + +"But your purpose of the _salon_ still remains good?" + +"Indeed it does!" she exclaimed with eagerness. "I shall begin my +work--I shall issue my invitations in a few days. Mrs. Dares will no +doubt supply me with a full list of names and addresses." + +"And you will invite everybody?" + +"Oh, by no means. I shall pick and choose." + +"Beware of calamity!" said Kindelon. And his voice was so odd a blending +of the jocose and serious that she could ill guess whether he were in +earnest or not. + + + + +VIII. + + +Pauline now began in excellent earnest the preparations for embarking +upon her somewhat quaint enterprise. During the next three or four days +she saw a good deal of Kindelon. They visited together the little +editorial sanctum in Spruce Street, where Mrs. Dares sat dictating some +of her inexhaustible "copy" to a pale and rather jaded-looking female +amanuensis. The lady received her visitors with a most courteous +hospitality. Pauline had a sense of shocking idleness as she looked at +the great cumbrous writing-desk covered with ink-stains, files or +clippings of newspapers, and long ribbon-like rolls of "proof." Her own +fine garments seemed to crackle ostentatiously beside the noiseless +folds of Mrs. Dares's work-day cashmere. + +"We shall not take up much of your valuable time," she said to the +large-eyed, serious little lady. "We have called principally to ask a +favor of you, and I hope you will not think it a presumptuous request." + +"I hope it is presumptuous," said Mrs. Dares, "for that, provided I can +grant it at all, will make it so much pleasanter to grant." + +"You may be sure," cried Kindelon gayly to Pauline, "that you have made +a complete conquest of Mrs. Dares. She is usually quite miserly with her +compliments. She puts me on the wretched allowance of one a year." + +"Perhaps you don't deserve a more liberal income," said Pauline. Then +she re-addressed Mrs. Dares. "I want to ask you," she proceeded, with a +shy kind of venture in her tone, "if you will kindly loan me your +visiting-book for a little while." + +"My visiting-book?" murmured Mrs. Dares. Then she slowly shook her head, +while the pale girl at the desk knitted her brows perplexedly, as though +she had encountered some tantalizing foreign word. "I would gladly lend +it if I had one," Mrs. Dares went on; "but I possess no such article." + +"Good gracious!" exclaimed Pauline, with an involuntary surprise that +instantly afterward she regretted as uncivil. "You _have_ none!" + +But Mrs. Dares did not seem to detect the least incivility in Pauline's +amazement. + +"No, my dear Mrs. Varick, I have no need of a visiting-book, for I have +no time to visit." + +"But you surely have some sort of list, have you not?" now inquired +Kindelon. + +Mrs. Dares lightly touched her forehead. "Only here in my memory," she +said, "and that is decidedly an imperfect list. My guests understand +that to be invited to one of my evenings is to be invited to all. I +suppose that in the fashionable world," she proceeded, fixing her great +dark eyes on Pauline, "it is wholly different. There, matters of this +sort are managed with much ceremony, no doubt." + +"With much trivial ceremony," said Pauline. "A little scrap of +pasteboard there represents an individuality--and in just as efficient +manner as if it were truly the person represented. To be in society, as +it is called, is to receive a perpetual shower of cards. I strongly +doubt if many people ever care to meet in a truly social way those whose +company they pretend to solicit. There are few more perfect mockeries in +that most false and mocking life, than the ordinary visit of etiquette." +Pauline here gave a little meaning smile as she briefly paused. "But I +suppose you will understand, Mrs. Dares," she continued, "that I regret +your having no regular list. I wanted to borrow it--and with what +purpose I am sure you can readily imagine." + +"Yes," was the reply. "My daughter Cora shall prepare you one, however. +She has an admirable memory. If she fails in the matter of addresses, +there is the directory as a help, you know. And so your idea about the +_salon_ is unchanged?" + +"It is unalterable," said Pauline, with a laugh. "But I hate so to +trouble your daughter." + +"She will not think it any trouble," said Kindelon quickly. + +Pauline looked at him with a slight elevation of the brows. "You speak +confidently for Miss Cora," she said. + +Kindelon lifted one hand, and waved it a trifle embarrassedly. "Oh, I +have always found her so accommodating," he answered. + +"Yes, Cora is always glad to please those whom she likes," said Mrs. +Dares.... + +A little later Pauline and Kindelon took leave of their hostess. They +had been driven to Spruce Street in the carriage of the former, and as +they quitted the huge building in which Mrs. Dares's tiny sanctum was +situated, Kindelon said to his companion: "You shall return home at +once?" + +Pauline gave a careless laugh. She looked about her at all the +commercial hurry and bustle of the placarded, vehicle-thronged street. +"I have nowhere else to go just at present," she said. "Not that I +should not like to stay down town, as you call it, a little longer. The +noise and activity please me.... Oh, by the way," she added, "did you +not say that you must repair to your office?" + +"The 'Asteroid' imperatively claims me," said Kindelon, taking out his +watch. "Only twelve o'clock," he proceeded; "I thought it later. Well, I +have at least an hour at your service still. Have you any commands?" + +"Where on earth could we pass your hour of leisure?" said Pauline. "It +would probably not be proper if I accompanied you into the office of the +'Asteroid.'" + +"It would be sadly dull." + +"Then I will drive up town after I have left you there." + +"Why not remain _down_ town, since the change pleases you?" + +"Driving aimlessly about for a whole hour?" + +"By no means. I have an idea of what we might do. I think you might not +find the idea at all disagreeable. If you will permit, I will give your +footman an order, and plan for you a little surprise." + +"Do so, by all means," said Pauline lightsomely, entering the carriage. +"I throw myself upon your mercy and your protection." + +Kindelon soon afterward seated himself at her side, and the carriage was +immediately borne into the clamorous region of what we term lower +Broadway. + +"I hope I shall like your surprise," said Pauline, as she leaned back +against the cushions, not knowing how pretty she looked in her patrician +elegance of garb and person. "But we will not talk of it; I might guess +what it is if we did, and that would spoil all. My faith in you shall be +blind and unquestioning, and I shall expect a proportionately rich +reward.... What gulfs of difference lie between that interesting little +Mrs. Dares and most of the women whom I have met! People tell us that we +must travel to see life. I begin to think that one great city like New +York can give us the most majestic experience, if only we know how to +receive it. Take my Aunt Cynthia Poughkeepsie, for example, and compare +her with Mrs. Dares! A whole continent seems to lie between them, and +yet they are continually living at scarcely a stone's-throw apart." + +Kindelon gave a brisk, acquiescent nod. + +"True enough," he said. "Travel shows us only the outsides of men and +women. We go abroad to discover better what profits of observation lie +at home...." + +The carriage at length stopped. + +"Is my surprise all ready to burst upon me?" asked Pauline, at this +point. + +"Yes. Its explosion is now imminent," said Kindelon, with dry solemnity +of accent. + +Pauline, after she had alighted, surveyed her surroundings for a moment, +and then said,-- + +"I knew we were approaching the Battery, but I did not suppose you meant +to stop there. And why _have_ you stopped, pray?" + +Kindelon pointed toward a distant flash of water glimpsed between the +nude black boughs of many high trees. "You can't think what a delightful +stroll we could take over yonder," he said, "along the esplanade. The +carriage could wait here for us, you know." + +"Certainly," acceded Pauline. + +They soon entered the noble park lying on their right. It was a day of +unusual warmth for that wintry season, but the air freshened and +sharpened as they drew further seaward. There are many New Yorkers to +whom our beautiful Battery is but a name, and Pauline was one of them. +As she neared the rotund wooden building of Castle Garden, a wholly +novel and unexpected sight awaited her. Not long ago one of the great +ocean-steamers had discharged here many German immigrants, and some of +these had come forth from the big sea-fronting structure beyond, to meet +the stares of that dingy, unkempt rabble which always collects, on such +occasions, about its doorways. Pauline and Kindelon paused to watch the +poor dazed-looking creatures, with their pinched, vacuous faces, their +timid miens, their coarse, dirty bundles. The women mostly had blond +braids of hair matted in close coils against the backs of their heads; +they wore no bonnets, and one or two of them led a bewildered, dull-eyed +child by the hand, while one or two more clasped infants to their +breasts, wrapped in soiled shawls. The men had a spare, haggard, slavish +demeanor; the liberal air and sun, the very amplitude and brilliancy of +sky and water, seemed to cow and depress them; they slunk instead of +walking; there was something in their visages of an animal suggestion; +they did not appear entirely human, and made you recall the mythic +combinations of man and beast. + +"They are Germans, I suppose," said Kindelon to Pauline; "or perhaps +they hail from some of the Austrian provinces. Many of my own country +people, the Irish, are not much less shocking to behold when they first +land here." + +"These do not shock me," said Pauline; "they sadden me. They look as if +they had not wit enough to understand whither they had come, but quite +enough to feel alarmed and distrustful of their present environment." + +"This drama of immigration is constantly unfolding itself here, day +after day," answered Kindelon. "It surely has its mournful side, but +you, as an American, ought by all means to discern its bright one. These +poor souls are the social refuse of Europe; they are the pathetic +fugitives from vile and time-honored abuses; they are the dreary +consequences of kingdoms and empires. Their state is almost brutish, as +you see; they don't think themselves half as far above the brute as you +think them, depend upon it. They have had manhood and womanhood crushed +into the dust for generations. It is as much their hereditary instinct +to fawn and crawl as it is for a dog to bark or a cat to lap milk. They +represent the enlightened and thrifty peasantry over-sea. Bah! how it +sickens a man to consider that because a few insolent kings must have +their hands kissed and their pride of rule glutted, millions of their +people are degraded into such doltish satires upon humanity! But I +mentioned the bright side of this question, from the American +standpoint." + +"Yes," said Pauline quickly, lifting her face to his. "I hope it is +really a bright side." + +"It is--very. America receives these pitiful wretches, and after a few +short months they are regenerated, transformed. There has never, in the +history of the world, been a nation of the same magnificent hospitality +as this. Before such droves of deplorable beings any other nation would +shut her ports or arm her barriers, in strong affright. But America +(which I have always thought a much more terse and expressive name than +the United States) does nothing of the sort. With a superb kindness, +which has behind it a sense of unexampled power, she bids them all +welcome. And in a little while they breathe her vitalizing air with a +new and splendid result. They forget the soldiers who kicked them, the +tyrants who made them shoulder muskets in defence of thrones, the taxes +wrung from their scant wages that princes might dance and feast. They +forget all this gross despotism; they begin to live; their very frames +and features change; their miserable past is like a broken fetter flung +gladly away. And America does all this for them--this, which no other +country has done or can do!" + +He spoke with a fine heat, an impressive enthusiasm. Pauline, standing +beside him, had earnestly fixed her look upon his handsome, virile face, +noting the spark that pierced his light-blue eyes, between the black +gloss of their lashes, and the little sensitive tremor that disturbed +his nostril. She had never felt more swayed by his force of personality +than now. She had never felt more keenly than now that his manful +countenance and shape were both fit accompaniments of an important and +robust nature. + +"And what does America really do with these poor, maltreated creatures, +after having greeted and domesticated them?" came her next words, filled +with an appealing sincerity of utterance. + +Something appeared suddenly to have changed Kindelon's mood. He laughed +shortly and half turned away. + +"Oh," he said, in wholly altered voice, "if they are Irish she sometimes +makes Tammany politicians of them, and if they are Germans she sometimes +turns them into howling socialists." + +"Do you mean what you say?" exclaimed Pauline almost indignantly. + +He bent his head and looked at her intently, for a moment, with a covert +play of mirth under the crisp, dark flow of his mustache. + +"I am afraid that I do," he replied, with another laugh. + +"Then you think this grand American hospitality of which you have just +spoken to be a failure--a sham?" + +"No, no--far from that," he said rapidly, and with recurring +seriousness. "I was only going back to the dark side of the +question--that is all. You know, I told you it had both its dark and its +bright side.... Come, let us leave this rabble. You have not really seen +the Battery yet. Its true splendors lie just beyond...." + +They were presently strolling along the stone-paved esplanade, with its +granite posts connected by loops of one continuous iron chainwork. To +the south they had a partial view of Brooklyn, that city which is a sort +of reflective and imitative New York, with masts bristling from her +distant wharves and more than a single remote church-spire telling of +the large religious impulse which has given her a quaint ecclesiastical +fame. But westward your eye could traverse the spacious bay until it met +the dull-red semicircle of Fort Columbus, planted low and stout upon the +shore of Governor's Island, and the soft, swelling, purplish hills of +Staten Island, where they loomed still further beyond. Boats of all +shapes and kinds were passing over the luminous waters, from the squat, +ugly tug, with its hoarse whistle, to the huge black bulk of an Atlantic +steamer, bound for transpontine shores and soon to move majestically +oceanward through the fair sea-gate of the Narrows. A few loiterers +leaned against the stone posts, and a few more lounged upon the seats +ranged further inland along this salubrious marine promenade. Back among +the turfy levels that stretched broadly between the flagged pathways, +you saw the timorous green of hardy grass, where an occasional pale +wreath of unmelted snow yet lingered. People were passing to and fro, +with steps that rang hollow on the hard pavement. If you listened +intently you could catch a kind of dreamy hum from the vast city, which +might almost be said to begin its busy, tumultuous life here in this +very spot, thence pushing through many a life-crowded street and avenue, +sheer on to the rocky fields and goat-haunted gutters of dreary Harlem. + +"What a glorious bay it is!" exclaimed Kindelon, while he and Pauline +stood on the breezy esplanade. "There never was a city with more royal +approaches than New York." + +"That fort yonder," said Pauline, "will perhaps thunder broadsides, one +day, at the fleet of an invading enemy. This is still such a young city +compared with those of other lands.... I suppose these waters, centuries +later, will see grand sights, as civilization augments." + +"Perhaps they may see very mournful ones," objected Kindelon. + +"But you are an evolutionist," declared Pauline, with a priggish little +pursing of the lips that he found secretly very amusing. "You believe +that everything is working toward nobler conditions, though you laughed +at Leander Prawle, the optimistic poet, the other evening, for his +roseate prophecies about the human race." + +"Oh, I'm an evolutionist," answered Kindelon. "I believe it will all +come right by-and-by, like the gigantic unravelling of a gigantic +skein.... But such views don't prevent me from feeling the probability of +New York being reduced to ashes more than once in the coming centuries." + +"Oh, yes, I remember," said Pauline. "There are often the apparent +retrogressions--rhythmic variations of movement which temporarily retard +all progress in societies." + +Kindelon burst into one of his mellowest and heartiest laughs. "You are +delicious," he said, "when you try to recollect your Herbert Spencer. +You make me think of a flower that has been dropped among the leaves of +an Algebra." + +"I am not at all sure that I like your simile," said Pauline, tossing +her head somewhat. "It is pleasant to be likened to a flower, but in +this case it is rather belittling. And if it comes to recollecting my +Herbert Spencer, perhaps the process is not one of very violent +_effort_, either." + +"Oh," said Kindelon ruefully, "I have offended you." + +A sunny smile broke from her lips the next moment. "I can't be +offended," she replied, "when I think how you rebuked my absurd outburst +of pedantry. Ah! truly a little knowledge _is_ a dangerous thing, and I +am afraid I have very little.... How lovely it all is, here," she +proceeded, changing the subject, as they now began to move onward, while +they still kept close to the edge of the smooth-paven terrace. "And what +a pity that our dwelling-houses should all be away from the water! My +grandparents--or my great-grandparents, I forget which--once lived close +to the Battery. I recollect poor mamma telling me that I had an +ancestress whom they used to call the belle of Bowling Green." + +"That was certainly in the days before commerce had seized every yard of +these unrivalled water-fronts," laughed Kindelon. "Babylon on its +Euphrates, or Nineveh on its Tigris, could not eclipse New York in +stately beauty if mansions were built along its North and East rivers. +But trade is a tyrant, as you see. She concedes to you Fifth Avenue, but +she denies you anything more poetic." + +"I wonder who is the belle of Bowling Green now?" said Pauline, looking +up at her companion with a serio-comic smile. + +He shook his head. "I am afraid your favored progenitress was the last +of the dynasty." + +"Oh, no," dissented Pauline, appearing to muse a trifle. "I fancy there +is still a belle. Perhaps she has a German or an Irish name." + +"It may be Kindelon," he suggested. + +"No--it is something more usual than that. If she is not a Schmitt I +suspect that she is an O'Brien. I picture her as pretty, but somewhat +delicate; she works in some dreadful factory, you know, not far away, +all through the week. But on Sunday she emerges from her narrow little +room in a tenement-house, brave and smart as you please. The beaux fight +for her smiles as they join her, and she knows just how to distribute +them; she is a most astute little coquette, in her way." + +"And the beaux? Are they worthy of her coquetries?" + +"Oh, well, she thinks them so. I fear that most of them have soiled +finger-nails, and that their Sunday coats fit them very ill.... But now +let me pursue my little romance. The poor creature is terribly fond of +one of them. There is always one, you know, dearer than the rest." + +"Is there?" said Kindelon oddly. "You're quite elucidating. I didn't +know that." + +"Don't be sarcastic," reproved Pauline with mock grimness. "Sarcasm is +always the death of romance. I have an idea that the secretly-adored one +is more of a convert than all his fellows to the beautifying influences +of soap. His Sunday face is bright and fresh; it looks conscientiously +washed." + +"And his finger-nails? Does your imagination also include those, or do +they transcend its limits?" + +"I have a vague perception of their relative superiority.... Pray let me +continue without your prosaic interruptions. Poor little Mary.... Did I +not say that her first name was Mary, by-the-by?" + +"I have been under the impression for several seconds that you called +her Bridget." + +"Very well. I will call her so, if you insist. Poor little Bridget, who +steals forth, _endimanchee_ and expectant, fails for an hour or two to +catch a glimpse of her beloved. She is beginning to be sadly bored by +the society of her present three, four, or five admirers, when suddenly +she sees the Beloved approaching. Then she brightens and becomes quite +sparklingly animated. And when her Ideal draws near, twirling a licorice +cane--I insist upon having her Ideal twirl a licorice cane--she receives +him with an air of the most unconcerned indifference. It is exquisite to +observe the calm, careless way in which she asks him...." + +"Pardon me," interrupted Kindelon, with a short and almost brusque tone, +"but is not this gentleman coming toward us your cousin?" + +"My cousin?" faltered Pauline. + +"Yes--Mr. Courtlandt Beekman." + +Pauline did not answer, for she had already caught sight of Courtlandt, +advancing in her own direction from that of the South Ferry, which she +and Kindelon were now rather near. She stopped abruptly in her walk, and +perceptibly colored. + +A moment afterward Courtlandt saw both herself and her escort. He showed +great surprise, and then quickly conquered it. As he came forward, +Pauline gave a shrill, nervous laugh. "I suppose you feel like asking me +what on earth I am doing here," she said, in by no means her natural +voice, and with a good deal of fluttered insecurity about her demeanor. + +"I shouldn't think that necessary," replied Courtlandt. His sallow face +had not quite its usual hue, but nothing could be steadier than the cool +light of his eye. "It's very evident that you are taking a stroll with +Mr. Kindelon." He then extended his hand, cased in a yellow dogskin +glove, to Kindelon. "How are you?" he said to the man whom he entirely +disliked, in a tone of neutral civility. + +"Very well, this pleasant day," returned Kindelon, jovially +imperturbable. "And you, Mr. Beekman?" + +"Quite well, thanks." He spoke as if he were stating a series of brief +commercial facts. "I had some business with a man over in Brooklyn, and +took this way back to my office, which is only a street or two beyond." +He turned toward the brilliant expanse of the bay, lifting a big +silver-knobbed stick which he carried, waving it right and left. "Very +nice down here, isn't it?" he went on. His look now dwelt in the most +casual way upon Pauline. "Well, I must be off," he continued. "I've a +lot of business to-day." + +He had passed them, when Pauline, turning, said composedly but sharply: + +"Can't I take you to your office, Court?" + +"Thanks, no. I won't trouble you. It's just a step from here." He lifted +his hat--an act which he had already performed a second or so +previously--and walked onward. He had not betrayed the least sign of +annoyance all through this transient and peculiarly awkward interview. +He had been precisely the same serene, quiescent, demure Courtlandt as +of old. + +Pauline stood for some little time watching him as he gradually +disappeared. When the curve near Castle Garden hid him, she gave an +impatient, irritated sigh. + +"You seem vexed," said Kindelon, who had been intently though furtively +regarding her. + +"I am vexed," she murmured. Her increased color was still a deep rose. + +"Is there anything very horrible in walking for a little while on the +Battery?" he questioned. + +She gave a broken laugh. "Yes," she answered. "I'm afraid there is." + +Kindelon shrugged his shoulders. "But surely you are your own +mistress?" + +"Rather too much so," she said, with lowered eyes. "At least that is +what people will say, I suppose." + +"I thought you were above idle and aimless comments." + +"Let us go back to the carriage." + +"By all means, if you prefer it." + +They reversed their course, and moved along for some time in silence. "I +think you must understand," Pauline suddenly said, lifting her eyes to +Kindelon's face. + +"I understand," he replied, with hurt seriousness, "that I was having +one of the pleasantest hours I have ever spent, until that man accosted +us like a grim fate." + +"You must not call my cousin Courtlandt 'that man.' I don't like it." + +"I am sorry," he said curtly, and a little doggedly. "I might have +spoken more ill of him, but I didn't." + +Pauline was biting her lips. "You have no right to speak ill of him," +she retorted. "He is my cousin." + +"That is just the reason why I held my tongue." + +"You don't like him, then?" + +"I do not." + +"I can readily comprehend it." + +Kindelon's light-blue eyes fired a little under their black lashes. "You +say that in a way I do not understand," he answered. + +"You and Courtlandt are of a different world." + +"I am not a combination of a fop and a parson, if you mean that." + +Pauline felt herself grow pale with anger as she shot a look up into her +companion's face. + +"You would not dare say that to my cousin himself," she exclaimed +defiantly, "though you dare say it to me!" + +Kindelon had grown quite pale. His voice trembled as he replied. "I dare +do anything that needs the courage of a man," he said. "I thought you +knew me well enough to be sure of this." + +"Our acquaintance is a recent one," responded Pauline. She felt nearly +certain that she had shot a wounding shaft in those few words, but she +chose to keep her eyes averted and not see whether wrath or pain had +followed its delivery. + +A long silence followed. They had nearly reached her carriage when +Kindelon spoke. + +"You are in love with your cousin," he said. + +She threw back her head, laughing ironically. "What a seer you are!" she +exclaimed. "How did you guess that?" + +"Ah," he answered her, with a melancholy gravity, "you will not deny +it!" + +She repeated her laugh, though it rang less bitterly than before. She +had expected him to meet her irony in a much more rebellious spirit. + +"I don't like to have my blood-relations abused in my hearing," she +said. "I am in love with all of them, that way, if that is the way you +mean." + +"That is not the way I mean." + +They were now but a few yards from the waiting carriage. The footman, +seeing them, descended from his box, and stood beside the opened door. + +"I shall not return with you," continued Kindelon, "since I perceive you +do not wish my company longer. But I offer you my apologies for having +spoken disparagingly of your cousin. I was wrong, and I beg your +pardon." + +With the last words he extended his hand. Pauline took it. + +"I have not said that I did not wish your company," she answered, "but +if you choose to infer so, it is your own affair." + +"I do infer so, and I infer more.... It is best that I--I should not see +you often, like this. There is a great difference between you and me. +That cousin of yours hated me at sight. Your aunt, Mrs. Poughkeepsie, +hated me at sight as well. Perhaps their worldly wisdom was by no means +to blame, either.... Oh, I understand more than you imagine!" + +There was not only real grief in Kindelon's voice, but an under-throb of +real passion. + +"Understand?" Pauline murmured. "What do you understand?" + +"That you are as stanch and loyal as ever to your old traditions. That +this idea of change, of amelioration, of casting aside your so-called +patrician bondage, has only the meaning of a dainty gentlewoman's dainty +caprice ... that"-- + +His voice broke. It almost seemed to her as if his large frame was +shaken by some visible tremor. She had no thought of being angry at him +now. + +She pitied him, and yet with an irresistible impulse her thought flew to +Cora Dares, the sweet-faced young painter, and what she herself had of +late grown to surmise, to suspect. A sort of involuntary triumph blent +itself with her pity, on this account. + +She spoke in a kind voice, but also in a firm one. She slightly waved +her hand toward the adjacent carriage. "Will you accompany me, then?" +she asked. + +He looked at her fixedly for an instant. Then he shook his head. "No," +he answered. "Good-by." He lifted his hat, and walked swiftly away. + +She had seen his eyes just before he went. Their look haunted her. She +entered the carriage, and was driven up town. She told herself that he +had behaved very badly to her. But she did not really think this. She +was inwardly thrilled by a strange, new pleasure, and she had shed many +tears before reaching home. + + + + +IX. + + +The excitement of Pauline had by no means passed when she regained her +home. Kindelon's last words still rang in her ears. + +She declared to herself that it was something horrible to have been +called a dainty gentlewoman. At the same time, she remembered the +impetuosity of his address, and instinctively forgave even while she +condemned. Still, there remained with her a certain severe resentful +sense. "What right," she asked herself, "has this man to undervalue and +contemn my purpose? Is it not based upon a proper and worthy impulse? Is +egotism at its root? Is not a wholesome disgust there, instead? Have I +not seen, with a radical survey, the aimless folly of the life led by +men and women who presume to call themselves social leaders and social +grandees? Has Kindelon any shred of excuse for telling me to my face +that I am a mere politic trimmer?" + +She had scarcely been home an hour before she received a note from Cora +Dares. The note was brief, but very accurate in meaning. It informed +Pauline that Mrs. Dares had just sent a message to her daughter's +studio, and that Cora would be glad to receive Mrs. Varick on that or +any succeeding afternoon, with the view of a consultation regarding the +proposed list of guests. + +Pauline promptly resolved to visit Cora that same day. She ordered her +carriage, and then countermanded the order. Not solely because of the +pleasant weather, and not solely because she was in a mood for walking, +did she thus alter her first design. She reflected that there might be a +touch of apparent ostentation in the use of a carriage to call upon this +young self-supporting artist. She even made a change of toilet, and +robed herself in a street costume much plainer than that which she had +previously worn. + +Cora Dares's studio was on Fourth Avenue, and one of many others in a +large building which artists principally peopled. It was in the top +floor of this structure, and was reached, like her mother's sanctum, by +that most simplifying of modern conveniences, the elevator. Pauline's +knock at a certain rather shadowy door in an obscure passage was at once +answered by Cora herself. + +The studio was extremely pretty; you saw this at a glance. Its one +ample window let in a flood of unrestricted sunlight. Its space was +small, and doubtless for this reason a few brilliant draperies and +effective though uncostly embellishments had made its interior bloom and +glow picturesquely enough. But it contained no ornament of a more +alluring pattern than Cora herself, as Pauline soon decided. + +"Pray don't let me disturb you in your painting," said the latter, after +an exchange of greetings had occurred. "I see that you were busily +engaged at your easel. I hope you can talk and paint at the same time." + +"Oh, yes," said Cora, with her bright, winsome smile. She was dressed in +some dark, soft stuff, whose sombre hue brought into lovely relief the +chestnut ripples of her hair and the placid refinement of her +clear-chiselled face. "But if I am to give you a list of names," she +went on, "that will be quite another matter." + +"Oh, never mind the list of names," replied Pauline, who had just seated +herself. "I mean, not for the present. It will be more convenient for +you, no doubt, to send me this list to-morrow or next day. Meanwhile I +shall be willing to wait very patiently. I am in no great hurry, Miss +Dares. It was exceedingly kind of you to communicate with me in this +expeditious way. And now, if you will only extend your benevolence a +little further and give an hour or two of future leisure toward the +development of my little plan, I shall feel myself still more in your +debt." + +Cora nodded amiably. "Perhaps that _would_ be the better arrangement," +she said. Her profile was now turned toward Pauline, as she stood in +front of her canvas and began to make little touches upon it with her +long, slim brush. "I think, Mrs. Varick, that I can easily send you the +list to-morrow. I will make it out to-night; I shall not forget anybody; +at least I am nearly sure that I shall not." + +"You are more than kind," said Pauline. She paused for a slight while, +and then added: "You spend all day here, Miss Dares?" + +"All day," was Cora's answer; and the face momentarily turned in +Pauline's direction, with its glimpse of charming, dimpled chin, with +the transitory light from its sweet, blue, lustrous eyes, affected her +as a rarity of feminine beauty. "But I often have my hours of +stupidity," Cora continued. "It is not so with me to-day. I have somehow +seized my idea and mastered it, such as it is. You can see nothing on +the canvas as yet. It is all obscure and sketchy." + +"It is still very vague," said Pauline. "But have you no finished +pictures?" + +"Oh, yes, five or six. They are some yonder, if you choose to look at +them." + +"I do choose," Pauline replied, rising. She went toward the wall which +Cora had indicated by a slight wave of her brush. + +The pictures were four in number. They were without frames. Pauline +examined each attentively. She knew nothing of Art in a technical and +professional way; but she had seen scores of good pictures abroad; she +knew what she liked without being able to tell why she liked it, and not +seldom it befell that she liked what was intrinsically and solidly good. + +"You paint figures as if you had studied in foreign schools," she said, +quite suddenly, turning toward her hostess. + +"I studied in Paris for a year," Cora replied. "That was all mamma could +afford for me." And she gave a sad though by no means despondent little +laugh. + +"You surely studied to advantage," declared Pauline. "Your color makes +me think of Henner ... and your flesh-tints, too. And as for these two +landscapes, they remind me of Daubigny. It is a proof of your remarkable +talent that you should paint both landscapes and figure-pieces with so +much positive success." + +Cora's face was glowing, now. "You have just named two artists," she +exclaimed, "whose work I have always specially admired and loved. If I +resemble either of them in the least, I am only too happy and thankful!" + +Pauline was silent for several minutes. She was watching Cora with great +intentness. "Ah! how I envy you!" she at length murmured, and as she +thus spoke her voice betrayed excessive feeling. + +"I thought _you_ envied nobody," answered Cora, somewhat wonderingly. + +Pauline gave a little soft cry. "You mean because I am rich, no doubt!" +she said, a kind of melancholy sarcasm tinging her words. + +"Riches mean a great deal," said Cora. + +"But if you have no special endowment that separates you from the rest +of the world, you are still a woman." + +"I am not sorry to be a woman." + +"No! because you are a living protest against the inferiority of our +sex. You can do something; you need not forever have men doing something +for you, like the great majority of us!" Pauline's gray eyes had +kindled, and her lips were slightly tremulous as they began to shape +her next sentence. "Most of us _are_ sorry to be women," she went on, +"but I think a great many of us are sorry to be the sort of women fate +or circumstance makes us. There is the galling trouble. If we have no +gift, like yours, that can compel men's recognition and respect, we must +content ourselves with being merged into the big commonplace multitude. +And to be merged into the big commonplace multitude is to be more or +less despised. This may sound like the worst kind of cynicism, but I +assure you, Miss Dares, that it is by no means as flippant as that. I +have seen more of life than you ... why not? You perhaps have heard a +fact or two about my past. I have _had_ a past--and not a pleasant one, +either. And experience (which is the name we give our disappointments, +very often) has taught me that if we could see down to the innermost +depth of any good man's liking for any good woman, we would find there +an undercurrent of real contempt." + +"Contempt!" echoed Cora. She had slightly thrown back her head, either +in dismay or denial. + +"Yes--contempt," asseverated Pauline. "I believe, in all honesty, at +this hour, that if the charm which our sex exerts over the other--the +physical fascination, and the fascination of sentiment, tenderness, +idealization--had never existed, we would have been literally crushed +out of being long ago. Men have permitted us to live thus far through +the centuries, not because we are weaker than they, but because some +extraordinary and undiscoverable law has made them bow to our weakness +instead of destroying it outright. They always destroy every other thing +weaker than themselves, except woman. They have no compunction, no +hesitation. History will show you this, if you accept its annals in an +unbiased spirit. They either eat the lower animals, or else put them +into usages of the most severe labor. They leave woman unharmed because +Nature has so commanded them. But here they are the slaves of an edict +which they obey more blindly, more instinctively, than even the best of +them know." + +"I can't believe that these are your actual views!" now exclaimed Cora. +"I can't believe that you rate the sacred emotion of love as something +to be discussed like a mere scientific problem!" + +Pauline went up to the speaker and stood close beside her while she +responded,-- + +"Ah! my dear Miss Dares, the love between man and woman is entitled to +no more respect than the law of gravitation. Both belong to the great +unknown scheme. We may shake our heads in transcendental disapprobation, +but it is quite useless. The loftiest affection of the human heart is no +more important and no more mysterious than the question of why Newton's +apple fell from the tree or why a plant buds in spring. All causes are +unknown, and to seek their solution is to idly grope." + +Cora was regarding Pauline, as the latter finished, with a look full of +sad interest. "You speak like ... like some one whom we both know," she +said hesitatingly. "You speak as if you did not believe in God." + +"I do not disbelieve in God," quickly answered Pauline. "The +carelessly-applied term of 'atheist' is to my thinking a name fit only +for some pitiable braggart. He who denies the existence of a God is of +no account among people of sense; but he who says, 'I am ignorant of all +that concerns the conceivability of a God' has full right to express +such ignorance." + +Cora slowly inclined her head. "That is the way I have heard _him_ +talk," she said, almost musingly. Then she gave a quick glance straight +into Pauline's watchful eyes. "I--I mean," she added, confusedly, as if +she had betrayed herself into avowing some secret reflection, "that Mr. +Kindelon has more than once spoken in a similar way." + +"Mr. Kindelon?" replied Pauline, with a gentle, peculiar, interrogative +emphasis. "And did you agree with him?" + +"No," swiftly answered Cora. "I have a faith that he cannot shake--that +no one can shake! But he has not tried to do so; I must render him that +justice." + +Pauline turned away, with a faint laugh. "The wise men, who have thought +and therefore doubted," she returned, "are often fond of orthodoxy in +the women whom they like. They think it picturesque." + +She laughed again, and Cora's eyes followed her as she moved toward the +pictures which she had previously been examining. "Let us change the +subject," she went on, with a note of cold composure in her voice. "I +see that you don't like rationalism.... Well, you are a poet, as your +pictures tell me, and few poets like to do more than feel first and +think afterward.... Are these pictures for sale, Miss Dares?" + +Cora's answer came a trifle tardily. "Three of them," she said. + +"Which three?" Pauline asked, somewhat carelessly, as it seemed. + +"All but that study of a head. As you see, it is scarcely finished." + +"It is the one I should like to purchase. You say it is not for sale?" + +"No, Mrs. Varick." + +"It is very clever," commented Pauline, almost as though she addressed +her own thoughts. She turned her face toward Cora's; it wore an +indefinite flickering sort of smile. "Has it any name?" + +"Oh, no; it is a mere study." + +"I like it extremely.... By the way, is it a portrait?" + +Cora did not reply for several seconds. She had begun to put little +touches upon her canvas again--or to seem as if she were so putting +them. + +"It's not good enough to be called anything," she presently replied. + +"I want it," said Pauline. She was looking straight at the picture--a +small square of rather recklessly rich color. "I want it very much +indeed. I ... I will give you a considerable sum for it." + +She named the sum that she was willing to give, and in an admirably +cool, loitering voice. It was something that surpassed any price ever +proposed to Cora Dares for one of her paintings, by several hundreds of +dollars. + +Cora kept silent. She was touching her canvas. Pauline waited. Suddenly +she turned and regarded her companion. + +"Well?" she said. + +Cora flung aside her brush. The two women faced each other. + +"I think you are cruel!" cried Cora. It was evident that she was nearly +in straits for speech, and her very lovely blue eyes seemed to sparkle +through unshed tears. "I--I told you that I did not wish to sell the +picture," she hurried on. "I--I don't call it a picture at all, as I +also told you. It--it is far from being worth the price that you have +offered me. It ... it ... And," here Cora paused. Her last words had a +choked sound. + +Pauline was looking at her fixedly but quite courteously. + +"It is Ralph Kindelon's portrait," she said. + +Cora started. "Well! and if it is!" she exclaimed. + +Instantly, after that, Pauline went over to her and took one of her +hands. + +"My dear Miss Dares," she said, with that singular sweetness which she +could always throw into her voice, "I beg you to forgive me. If you +really wish to retain that picture--and I see that you do--why, then I +would not take it from you even as a voluntary gift. Let us speak no +more on the subject." + +Cora gave a pained, difficult smile, now. She looked full into Pauline's +steady eyes for a brief space, and then withdrew her own. + +"Very well," she almost faltered, "let us speak no more on the +subject...." + +"I have been horribly merciless," Pauline told herself, when she had +quitted Cora Dares's studio about ten minutes later. "I have made that +poor girl confess to me that she loves Ralph Kindelon. And how suited +they are to each other! She has actual genius--he is brimming with +intellectual power. I have made a sad failure in my visit to Cora +Dares.... I hope all my vain exploits among these people, who are so +different from the people with whom my surroundings of fortune and +destiny have thus far brought me into natural contact, will not result +so disastrously." + +Her thoughts returned to Kindelon, as she walked homeward, and to the +hostile terms on which they had parted but a few hours ago. + +"My project begins badly," she again mused. "Everything about it seems +to promise ill. But it is too late to draw back. Besides, I am very far +from wishing to draw back. I am like an enthusiastic explorer; I want +to face new discoveries in the very teeth of disaster." + +On reaching home she had scarcely time to take off her bonnet before the +name of her cousin Courtlandt was brought to her by a servant. She went +down into the little reception-room to meet him, with rather lively +anticipations of being forced to put herself on the defensive. Her +sensations had not been unlike those with which we regard the lowering +of the mercury in a thermometer, while ordering extra fuel so as to be +on guard against a sudden chill. + +Courtlandt was standing before the silver-grated hearth-place; he +watched the black, tumbled blocks of coal with eyes bent down upon their +snapping and crackling flames as Pauline appeared. He did not +immediately raise his eyes as her entering step sounded. But when he did +raise them, she saw that he was clad in his old impregnable calm. + +She sank into a chair, not far from the fire. "Well," she said, with an +amused smile playing about her lips, "I suppose you have come to scold +me dreadfully." + +"What makes you suppose so?" he asked. + +"You darted away, there at the Battery, as if you were fearfully +shocked." + +"I don't think I darted away." + +"Oh, well, we won't split hairs. You wouldn't stay, and you might easily +have stayed. You pleaded stress of business, and you hadn't any, or this +appearance up-town at so early an hour couldn't have taken place." + +"It is remarkable," said Courtlandt, with his gravest serenity, "how you +pierce through people's pitiful disguises. You make me feel +conscience-stricken by a realization of my own deceit." + +"That is fortunate," said Pauline, with a slight, curt laugh. "For then +you will, perhaps, express your disapprobation less impudently." + +"I might speak pretty plainly to you and yet not be at all impudent." + +Pauline threw back her head with a defiant stolidity. "Oh, speak as +plainly as you please," she said. "I shall have my own views of just how +impudent you are. I generally have." + +"You did something that was a good deal off color for a woman who wants +herself always regarded as careful of the proprieties. I found you doing +it, and I was shocked, as you say." + +Pauline straightened herself in her chair. "I don't know what you mean," +she replied, a little crisply, "by 'off color.' I suppose it is slang, +and I choose, with a good reason, to believe that it conveys an +unjustly contemptuous estimate of my very harmless act. I took a stroll +along that beautiful Battery with a friend." + +"With an adventuring newspaper fellow, you mean," said Courtlandt, cool +as always, but a little more sombre. + +Pauline rose. "I will stand a certain amount of rudeness toward myself," +she declared, "but I will not stand sneers at Mr. Kindelon. No doubt if +you had met me walking with some empty-headed fop, like Fyshkille, or +Van Arsdale, you would have thought my conduct perfectly proper." + +"I'd have thought it devilish odd," said Courtlandt, "and rather bad +form. I've no more respect for those fellows than you have. But if you +got engaged to one of them I shouldn't call it a horrible disaster." + +Pauline smiled, with a threat of rising ire in the smile. "Who thought +of my becoming 'engaged' to anybody?" she asked. And her accentuation of +the word which Courtlandt had just employed produced the effect of its +being scornfully quoted. + +He was toying with the links of his watch-chain, and he kept his eyes +lowered while he said: "Are you in love with this Kindelon chap?" + +She flushed to the roots of her hair. "I--I shall leave the room," she +said unsteadily, "if you presume to talk any further in this strain." + +"You are a very rich woman," pursued Courtlandt. What he said had +somehow the effect of a man exploding something with a hand of admirable +firmness. + +Pauline bit her lips excitedly. She made a movement as if about to quit +the chamber. Then some new decision seemed to actuate her. "Oh, Court!" +she exclaimed reproachfully, "how can you treat me in this unhandsome +way?" + +He had lifted his eyes, now. "I am trying to save you from making a +ridiculous marriage," he said. "I tried once before--a good while +ago--to save you from making a frightful one. My attempt was useless +then. I suppose it will be equally useless now." + +Pauline gave an agitated moan, and covered her face with both hands.... +Hideous memories had been evoked by the words to which she had just +listened. But immediately afterward a knock sounded at the partly closed +door which led into the hall. She started, uncovered her face, and moved +toward this door. Courtlandt watched her while she exchanged certain low +words with a servant. Then, a little later, she approached him, and he +saw that her agitation had vanished, and that it appeared to have so +vanished because of a strong controlling effort. + +"Mr. Kindelon is here," she said, in abrupt undertone. "If you do not +wish to meet him you can go back into the dining-room." She made a +gesture toward a _portiere_ not far away. "That leads to the +dining-room," she went on. "Act just as you choose, but be civil, be +courteous, or do not remain." + +"I will not remain," said Courtlandt. + +He had passed from the room some little time before Kindelon entered it. + +"You did not expect to see me," said the latter, facing Pauline. His big +frame had a certain droop that suggested humility and even contrition. +He held his soft hat crushed in one hand, and he made no sign of +greeting with the other. + +"No," said Pauline softly, "I did not expect to see you." She was +waiting for the sound of the hall-door outside; she soon heard it, and +knew that it meant the exit of Courtlandt. Then she went on: "but since +you are here, will you not be seated?" + +"Not until you have forgiven me!" Kindelon murmured. Between the rich, +fervent, emotional voice which now addressed her and the even +regularity of the tones she had just heard, what a world of difference +lay! + +"You were certainly rude," she said, thinking how chivalrously his +repentance became him, and how strong a creature he looked in this +weaker submissive phase. "You know that I had only the most friendly +feelings toward you. You accused me of actual hypocrisy. But I will +choose to believe that you did not mean to lose your temper in that +positively wild way. Yes, I forgive you, and, in token of my forgiveness +there is my hand." + +She extended her hand, and as she did so he literally sprang forward, +seizing it. The next instant he had stooped and kissed it. After that he +sank into a near chair. + +"If you had not forgiven me," he said, "I should have been a very +miserable man. Your pardon makes me happy. Now I am ready to turn over a +new page of--of friendship--yes, friendship, of course. I shall never +say those absurd, accusatory things again. What right have I to say +them? What right have I to anything more than the honor of your notice, +as long as you choose to bestow it? I have thought everything over; I've +realized that the fact of your being willing to know me at all is an +immense extended privilege!" + +Pauline still remained standing. She had half turned from him while he +thus impetuously spoke; she was staring down into the ruddy turmoil of +the fire. + +"Don't say anything more with regard to the little disagreement," she +answered. "It is all ended. Now let us talk of other things." + +He did not answer, and she let quite a long pause ensue while she still +kept her eyes upon the snapping coal-blocks. At length she continued,-- + +"I shall have the full list of Mrs. Dares's guests quite soon. It has +been promised me." + +"Yes?" she heard him say, a little absently. + +"I shall, no doubt, have it by to-morrow morning," she went on. "Then I +shall begin my arrangements. I shall issue invitations to those whom I +wish for my guests. And I shall expect you to help me. You promised to +help me, as you know. There will be people on the list whom I have not +yet met--a good many of them. You shall tell me all about these, or, if +you prefer, you shall simply draw your pen through their names--Why +don't you ask me how I shall obtain this boasted list?" + +"You mean that Mrs. Dares will send it?" she heard him ask. + +"No, I mean that I shall secure it from her daughter." + +"Her daughter?" + +"Yes--Cora. I have been to see Cora. I visited her studio--By the way, +what a good portrait she has there of you. It is really an excellent +likeness." + +She slowly turned and let a furtive look sweep his face. It struck her +that he was confused and discomfited in a wholly new way. + +"I think it a fair likeness," he returned. "But I did not sit for it," +he added quickly. "She painted it from memory. It--it is for sale like +her other things." + +"Oh, no, it is not for sale," said Pauline. She saw his color alter a +little as her gaze again found stealthy means of scrutinizing it. "Miss +Cora told me that very decidedly. She wants to keep it--no doubt as a +precious memento. I thought the wish very flattering--I--I wondered why +you did not ask Cora Dares to marry you." + +She perceived that he had grown pale, now, as he rose and said,-- + +"I think I shall never ask any woman to marry me." He walked slowly +toward the door, pausing at a little distance from its threshold. "When +you want me," he now proceeded, "will you send for me? Then I will most +gladly come." + +"You mean--about the _salon_?" she questioned. + +"Yes--about the _salon_. In that and all other ways I am yours to +command--" + +When he had gone she sat musing before the fire for nearly an hour. That +night, at a little after nine o'clock, she was surprised to receive a +copious list of names from Cora Dares, accompanied by a brief note. + +She sent for Kindelon on the following day, and they spent the next +evening together from eight until eleven. He was his old, easy, gay, +brilliant self again. What had occurred between them seemed to have been +absolutely erased from his memory. It almost piqued her to see how +perfectly he played what she knew to be a part. + +Soon afterward her invitations were sent out for the following Thursday. +Each one was a simple "At Home." She awaited Thursday with much interest +and suspense. + + + + +X. + + +By nine o'clock on Thursday evening all her guests had arrived. They +comfortably filled her two smart and brilliant drawing-rooms, but quite +failed to produce the crowded effect noticeable in Mrs. Dares's less +ample quarters. + +Pauline saw with pleasure that the fine pictures, bronzes, and +bric-a-brac which she had brought from Europe were most admiringly +noticed. Small groups were constantly being formed before this canvas or +that cabinet, table, and pedestal. She had kept for some time quite +close to Mrs. Dares, having a practical sense of the little lady's +valuable social assistance on an occasion like the present, apart from +all personal feelings of liking. + +"You make it much easier for me," she said at length, after the +assemblage appeared complete and no new arrivals had occurred for at +least ten minutes. "It was so kind of you to come, when I know that you +make a rule of not going anywhere." + +"This was a very exceptional invitation, my dear," answered Mrs. Dares. +"It was something wholly out of the common, you know." + +"I understand," said Pauline, with her sweetest laugh. "You wanted to +see your mantle descend, after a manner, upon my younger shoulders. You +wanted to observe whether I should wear it gracefully or not." + +"I had few doubts on that point," was the slow, soft reply. + +"So you really think me a worthy pupil?" continued Pauline, glancing +about her with an air of pretty and very pardonable pride. + +"You have a most lovely home," said Mrs. Dares, "and one exquisitely +designed for the species of entertainment which you are generous enough +to have resolved upon." + +"Ah, don't say 'generous,'" broke in Pauline. "You give me a twinge of +conscience. I am afraid my motive has been quite a selfishly ambitious +one. At least, I sometimes fancy so. How many human motives _are_ +thoroughly disinterested? But if I succeed with my _salon_--which before +long I hope to make as fixed and inevitable a matter as the day of the +week on which it is held--the result must surely be a most salutary and +even reformatory one. In securing my guerdon for work accomplished I +shall have done society a solid benefit; and when I wear my little crown +I shall feel, unlike most royal personages, that it is blessed by +friends and not stained by the blood of enemies." + +Her tone was one of airy jest, but a voice at her side instantly said, +as she finished,-- + +"Do not be too sure of that. Very few crowns are ever won without some +sort of bloodshed." + +She turned and saw Kindelon, who had overheard nearly all her last +speech to Mrs. Dares. Something in his manner lessened the full smile on +Pauline's lips without actually putting it to flight. + +"You speak as if you bore gloomy tidings," she said. + +Kindelon's eyes twinkled, though his mouth preserved perfect sobriety. +"You have done precisely what I expected you would do," he said, "in +undertaking an arbitrary selection of certain guests and an arbitrary +exclusion of certain others. You have raised a growl." + +"A growl!" murmured Mrs. Dares, with a slight dismayed gesture. + +Pauline's face grew serious. "Who, pray, are the growlers?" she asked. + +"Well, the chief one is that incorrigible and irrepressible Barrowe. He +has his revolutionary opinions, of course. He is always having +revolutionary opinions. He makes me think of the Frenchman who declared +that if he ever found himself in Heaven his first impulse would be to +throw up barricades." + +Pauline bit her lip. "Barricades are usually thrown up in streets," she +said, with a faint, ired ring of the voice. "Mr. Barrowe probably +forgets that fact." + +"Do you mean that you would like to show him the street now?" asked +Kindelon. + +"I have not heard of what his alleged growl consists." + +"I warned you against him, but you thought it best that he should be +invited. Since you had decided upon weeding, there was no one whom you +could more profitably weed." + +"Mr. Barrowe has a very kind heart," here asserted Mrs. Dares, with tone +and mien at their gentlest and sweetest. "He is clad with bristles, if +you please, but the longer you know him the more clearly you recognize +that his savage irritability is external and superficial." + +"I think it very appropriate to say that he is clad with bristles," +retorted Kindelon. "It makes me wish that I had reported him as grunting +instead of growling. In that case the simile would be perfect." + +Mrs. Dares shook her head remonstratingly. "Don't try to misrepresent +your own good heart by sarcasm," she replied. She spoke with her +unchangeable gravity; she had no lightsome moments, and the perpetually +serious views which she took of everything made you sometimes wonder how +and why it was that she managed to make her smileless repose miss the +austere note and sound the winsome one. + +"I am certain of not losing your esteem," exclaimed Kindelon, with all +his most characteristic warmth. "Your own heart is so large and kind +that everybody who has got to know it can feel secure in drawing +recklessly upon its charity." + +Mrs. Dares made him no answer, for just then a gentleman who had +approached claimed her attention. And Pauline, now feeling that she and +Kindelon were virtually alone together, said with abrupt speed,-- + +"You told me that this Mr. Barrowe had a kind heart, in spite of his +gruff, unreasonable manners. You admitted as much, and so, remembering +how clever his writings are, I decided to retain him on the list. But +please tell me just what he has been saying." + +"Oh, he's tempestuous on the subject of your having done any weeding at +all. He thinks it arrogant and patronizing of you. He thinks that I am +at the bottom of it; he always delights in blaming me for something. He +positively revels, I suppose, in his present opportunity." + +"But if he is indignant and condemnatory," said Pauline, "why does he +not remain away? He has the right of discountenancing my conduct by his +absence." + +"Ah, you don't know him! He never neglects a chance for being turbulent. +I heard him assert, just now, that Miss Cragge had received a most cruel +insult from you." + +"Miss Cragge!" exclaimed Pauline, with a flash of her gray eyes. "I +would not have such a creature as that in my drawing-rooms for a very +great deal! Upon my word," she went on, with a sudden laugh that had +considerable cold bitterness, "this irascible personage needs a piece of +my mind. I don't say that I intend giving it to him, for I am at home, +and the requirements of the hostess mark imperative limits. But I have +ways left me of showing distinct disfavor, for all that. Are there any +other acts of mine which Mr. Barrowe does me the honor to disapprove?" + +"Oh, yes. I hear that he considers you have acted most unfairly toward +the triad of poets, Leander Prawle, Arthur Trevor, and Rufus Corson." + +Pauline gave a smile that was really but a curl of the lip. "Indeed!" +she murmured. "I was rather amused by Mr. Prawle's poetic prophecy of a +divine future race; it may be bad poetry, as he puts it, but I thought +it rather good evolution. Then the _Quartier Latin_ floridity of Mr. +Trevor amused me as well: I have always liked fervor of expression in +verse, and I am not prepared to say that Mr. Trevor has always written +ludicrous exaggeration--especially since he reveres Theophile Gautier, +who is an enchanting singer. But when it comes to treating with that +morbid _poseur_, Mr. Corson, who affects to see beauty in decay and +corruption, and who makes a silly attempt to deify indecency, I draw my +line, and shut my doors." + +"Of course you do," said Kindelon. "No doubt if you had opened them to +Mr. Corson, Barrowe would have been scandalized at your doing so. As it +is, he chooses to championize Mr. Corson and Miss Cragge. He is a +natural grumbler, a constitutional fighter. By the way, he is coming in +our direction. Do you see him approaching?" + +"Oh, yes, I see him," said Pauline resolutely, "and I am quite prepared +for him." + +Mr. Barrowe presented himself at her side in another minute or two. His +tall frame accomplished a very awkward bow, while his little eyes +twinkled above his beak-like nose, with a suggestion of restrained +belligerence. + +"Your entertainment is very successful, Mrs. Varick," he began, ignoring +Kindelon, who had already receded a step or two. + +"Have you found it so?" returned Pauline coolly. "I had fancied +otherwise." + +Mr. Barrowe shrugged his frail shoulders. "Your rooms are beautiful," he +said, "and of course you must know that I like the assemblage; it +contains so many of my good friends." + +"I hope you miss nobody," said Pauline, after a slight pause. + +Mr. Barrowe gave a thin, acid cough. "Yes," he declared, "I miss more +than one. I miss them, and I hear that you have not invited them. I am +very sorry that you have not. It is going to cause ill-feeling. +Everybody knows that you took Mrs. Dares's list--my dear, worthy +friend's list. It is too bad, Mrs. Varick; I assure you that it is too +bad." + +"I do not think that it is too bad," said Pauline freezingly, with the +edges of her lips. "I do not think that it is bad at all. I have invited +those whom I wished to invite." + +"Precisely!" cried Mr. Barrowe, with a shrill, snapping sound in the +utterance of the word. "You have been wrongly advised, however--horribly +advised. I don't pretend to state _who_ has advised you, but if you had +consulted me--well, handicapped as I am by a hundred other duties, bored +to death as I am by people applying for all sorts of favors, I would +nevertheless, in so good a cause, have willingly spared you some of my +valuable time. I would have told you by no means to exclude so excellent +a person as poor, hard-working Miss Cragge. To slight her like that was +a very unkind cut. You must excuse my speaking plainly." + +"I must either excuse it or resent it," said Pauline, meeting the +glitter of Mr. Barrowe's small eyes with the very calm and direct gaze +of her own. "But suppose I do the latter? It has usually been my custom, +thus far through life, to resent interference of any sort." + +"Interference!" echoed Mr. Barrowe, with querulous asperity. "Ah, madam, +I think I recognize just who _has_ been advising you, now; you make my +suspicion a certainty." He glanced irately enough toward Kindelon as he +spoke the last words. + +Kindelon took a step or two forward, reaching Pauline's side and +pausing there. His manner, as he began to speak, showed no anger, but +rather that blending of decision and carelessness roused by an adversary +from whom we have slight fear of defeat. + +"Come, Barrowe," he said, "if you mean me you had better state so +plainly. As it happens, Mrs. Varick was advised, in the matter of not +sending Miss Cragge an invitation, solely by herself. But if she had +asked my counsel it would entirely have agreed with her present course." + +"No doubt," almost snarled Mr. Barrowe. "The ill turn comes to the same +thing. We need not split hairs. I made no personal reference to you, +Kindelon; but if the cap fits you can wear it." + +"I should like to hand it back to you with a bunch of bells on it," said +Kindelon. + +"Is that what you call Irish wit?" replied Mr. Barrowe, while his lips +grew pale. "If so, you should save it for the columns of the 'Asteroid,' +which sadly needs a little." + +"The 'Asteroid' never prints personalities," returned Kindelon, with +nonchalant mockery. "It leaves that kind of journalism to your friend +Miss Cragge." + +"Miss Cragge, sir," muttered Barrowe, "is a lady." + +"I did not say she was a gentleman," retorted Kindelon, "though her +general deportment has more than once cast a doubt upon her sex." + +Mr. Barrowe gave a faint shiver. "I'm glad I haven't it on my +conscience," he declared, "that I injured an honest girl to gratify a +mere spite." He at once turned to Pauline, now. "Madam," he pursued, "I +must warn you that your project will prove a dire failure if you attempt +to develop it on a system of despotic preferences. We were all glad to +come to you, in a liberal, democratic, intellectual spirit. But the very +moment you undertake the establishment of a society formed on a basis of +capricious likes and dislikes, I assure you that you are building on +sand and that your structure will fall." + +"In that case, Mr. Barrowe," said Pauline, stung by his unwarranted +officiousness into the employment of biting irony, "you can have no +excuse if you allow yourself to be buried in my ruins." + +She passed rapidly away, while Kindelon accompanied her. "You were quite +right," came his speedy encouragement, as they moved onward together. +"You showed that insufferable egotist the door in the politest and +firmest manner possible." + +"I was in my own house, though," said Pauline, with an intonation that +betokened the dawn of repentance. "He was very exasperating, truly, +but--I was in my own house, you know." + +"Of course you were," exclaimed Kindelon, "and he treated you as if it +belonged to somebody else. We are all apt to assert a proprietary right +when a fellow-citizen ventures to relieve us of our purse, and I think a +similar claim holds good with regard to our self-respect." + +Pauline presently came to a standstill. She looked troubled, and her +gaze remained downcast for a little while. But soon she lifted it and +met Kindelon's eyes steadily watching her. + +"You don't think I was unjustifiably rude?" she asked. + +"No; indeed I do not. I don't think you were rude at all." + +She was silent for a brief interval. Then she said, without taking her +eyes in the least from her companion's face,-- + +"Do you believe that most women would have acted the same?" + +"No," he said, with a quick, slight laugh, "because most women have +neither your brains nor your independence." + +"And you like both in a woman?" + +"I like both in you," he said, lowering his handsome head a little as he +uttered the words. + +"Do you think Cora Dares would have acted as I have done?" Pauline +asked. + +He made an impatient gesture; he appeared for a moment distressed and +embarrassed. + +"You and Cora Dares are--are not the same," he said, almost +stammeringly. + +"Oh, I know that very well," answered Pauline. "I have had very good +reason to know that we are not the same. We are extremely different. By +the way, she is not here to-night." + +"Not here?" he repeated interrogatively, but with a suggestion of drolly +helpless duplicity. + +Pauline raised one finger, shaking it at him for an instant and no more. +The gesture, transient as it was, seemed to convey a world of +significance. No doubt Kindelon tacitly admitted this, though his face +preserved both its ordinary color and composure. + +"You are well aware that she is not here," Pauline said. + +"Why do you say that?" he asked. + +"I think so." + +"But perhaps you may be mistaken. Perhaps you have merely fancied that I +have noticed Miss Cora's non-appearance." + +"Perhaps," Pauline repeated. She seemed to be saying the word to her own +thoughts. But suddenly her manner became far less absent. "Mrs. Dares +told me that Miss Cora had a headache to-night," she said, with brisk +activity. "We can all have headaches, you know," she went on, "when we +choose." + +Kindelon nodded slowly. "I have heard that it is an accommodating +malady," he said, in tones that were singularly lifeless and neutral. + +Pauline put forth her hand, and let it rest on his broad, strong arm for +a second or two. + +"Did Miss Cora have a headache?" she asked. + +He threw back his head, and shook it with a sudden sound of his breath +which resembled a sigh of irritation, and yet was not quite that. + +"Upon my word, I don't know!" he cried softly. + +Just then Pauline found herself confronted by Mr. Howe, the novelist. +His stoop was very apparent; it seemed even more consumptive than usual; +his slim hand was incessantly touching and retouching his blue +spectacles, which gleamed opaque and with a goblin suggestion from the +smooth-shaven, scholarly pallor of his visage. + +"Excuse me, Mrs. Varick," he began, "but I--I wish to speak a word with +you." + +Pauline smiled and assumed an affable demeanor. It cost her an effort to +do so, for certain acute reasons; but she nevertheless achieved good +results. + +"A great many words, Mr. Howe," she answered, "if you wish." + +Mr. Howe gave a sickly smile. "Oh, I don't ask a great many," he +faltered; and it at once became evident that he was for some reason ill +at ease, disconsolate, abysmally depressed. + +"You are annoyed," said Pauline, chiefly because she found nothing else, +as a would-be courteous hostess, to say. + +"Annoyed?" came the hesitant reply, while Mr. Howe rearranged his blue +spectacles with a hand that seemed to assume a new momentary +decisiveness. "I am grieved, Mrs. Varick. I am grieved because a friend +of mine has received a slight from you, and I hope that it is an +unintentional slight. I--I want to ask you whether it cannot be +corrected. I allude to Mr. Bedlowe." + +"Mr. Bedlowe!" repeated Pauline amazedly. She turned to Kindelon as she +spoke. + +"Oh, yes," came Kindelon's ready answer; "you remember Bedlowe, of +course." + +"I remember Mr. Bedlowe," said Pauline, sedately. + +"Ah! you seem to have forgotten him!" exclaimed Mr. Howe, with a great +deal of gentlemanly distress. He had discontinued all manual connection +with his blue glasses; he had even pressed both hands together, in a +rotatory, nervous way, while he went on speaking. "I hope you did not +mean to leave poor Bedlowe out," he proceeded, with quite a funereal +pathos. "The poor fellow feels it dreadfully. I promised him I would say +nothing about the matter, and yet (as you see) I have broken my +promise." + +"I think Mrs. Varick is sorry to see that you have broken your promise," +said Kindelon, shortly and tepidly. + +Mr. Howe glanced at Kindelon through his glasses. He was obliged to +raise his head as he did so, on account of their differing statures. + +"Kindelon!" he cried, in reproach, "I thought you were one of my +friends." + +"So I am," came Kindelon's reply, "and that is why I don't like the +pietistic novelist, Bedlowe, who wrote 'The Christian Knight in Armor' +and the 'Doubtful Soul Satisfied.'" + +If there could be the ghost of a cough, Mr. Howe gave it. He again +lifted his wan, lank hand toward his spectacles. + +"Oh, Kindelon," he remonstrated, "you must not be as uncharitable as +that. Bedlowe does the best he can--and really, between ourselves, his +best is remarkably good. Think of his great popularity. Think of the way +he appeals to the large masses. Think"-- + +But here Pauline broke in, with the merriest laugh that had left her +lips that night. + +"My dear Mr. Howe!" she exclaimed, "you forget that I heard a bitter +wrangle between you and Mr. Bedlowe only a few days ago. You had a great +many hard things to say of him then. I hope you have not so easily +altered your convictions." + +"I--I haven't altered my convictions at all," stammered Mr. Howe, quite +miserably. "But between Bedlowe as a literary man, and--and Bedlowe as a +social companion--I draw a very marked line." + +Kindelon here put his big hand on Mr. Howe's slight shoulder, jovially +and amicably, while he said,-- + +"Come, now, my dear Howe, you mean that the analytical and agnostic +novelist wants the romantic and pietistic novelist, only for the purpose +of breaking a lance with him. You want him for that reason and no +other." + +Mr. Howe removed his spectacles, and while he performed this act it was +evident that he was extremely agitated. The removal of his spectacles +revealed two very red-rimmed eyes, whose color escaped all note because +of their smallness. + +"I--I want Mr. Bedlowe for no such reason," he asserted. "But I--I do +not want to attend a--so-called _salon_ at which mere fashionable fancy +takes the place of solid hospitality." + +"You forget," said Pauline, with rapid coolness, "that you are speaking +in the presence of your hostess." + +"He remembers only," came the fleet words of Kindelon, "that he speaks +at the prompting of Barrowe." + +Pauline tossed her head; she was angry again. "I don't care anything +about Mr. Barrowe," she asserted, with a very positive glance at the +unspectacled Mr. Howe. "I should prefer to believe that Mr. Howe +expresses his own opinions. Even if they are very rude ones, I should +prefer having them original." + +"They are original," said Mr. Howe feebly, but somehow with the manner +of a man who possesses a reserve of strength which he is unable to +readily command. "I do not borrow my opinions. I--I think nearly all +people must know this." + +"I know it," said Pauline very tranquilly, and with an accent suave yet +sincere. "I have read your novels, Mr. Howe, and I have liked them very +much. I don't say that this is the reason why I have asked you here +to-night, and I don't say that my dislike of Mr. Bedlowe's novels is the +reason why I have not asked Mr. Bedlowe here to-night. But I hope you +will let my admiration of your talent cover all delinquencies, and +permit me to be the judge of whom I shall choose and whom I shall not +choose for my guests." + +Mr. Howe put on his spectacles. While he was putting them on, he said in +a voice that had a choked and also mournfully reproachful sound,-- + +"I have no social gifts, Mrs. Varick. I can't measure swords with you. I +can only measure pens. That is the trouble with so many of us writers. +We can only write; we can't talk. I--I think it grows worse with us, in +these days when one has to write with the most careful selection of +words, so as to escape what is now called commonplace diction. We get +into the habit of striving after novelty of expression--we have to use +our 'Thesaurus,' and search for synonyms--we have to smoke excessively +(a good many of us) in order to keep our nerves at the proper literary +pitch--we have to take stimulants (a good many of us--though I don't +understand that, for I never touch wine) in order to drag up the words +and ideas from an underlying stagnancy. Frankly, for myself, I talk +quite ill. But I don't want to have you think that I am talking in +another voice than my own. I don't want, in spite of my failure as a man +of words, that you should suppose"-- + +"I suppose nothing, Mr. Howe," broke in Pauline, while she caught the +speaker's hand in hers, gloved modishly up to the elbow with soft, tawny +kid. "I insist upon supposing nothing except that you are glad to come +here and will be glad to come again. I know three or four of your novels +very well, and I know them so well that I love them, and have read them +twice or thrice, which is a great deal to say of a novel, as even you, a +novelist, will admit. But I don't like Mr. Bedlowe's novels any more +than you do; and if Mr. Barrowe has tried to set you on fire with his +incendiary feelings, I shall be excessively sorry. You have written +lovely and brilliant things; you know the human soul, and you have shown +that you know it. You may not have sold seventy thousand copies, as the +commercial phrase goes, but I don't care whether you have sold seventy +thousand or only a plain seventy; you are a true artist, all the +same.... And now I am going to leave you, for my other guests claim me. +But I hope you will not care for anything severe and bitter which that +dyspeptic Mr. Barrowe may say; for, depend upon it, he only wins your +adherence because he is a clever man on paper, and not because he is +even tolerable in the stern operations of real life. Frankly, between +ourselves, I am sure that he makes a very bad husband, though he is +always talking of being handicapped by autograph-bores and interviewers +who keep him away from Mrs. Barrowe. I suspect that Mrs. Barrowe must be +a very unhappy lady. And I'm sure, on the other hand, that Mrs. Howe is +very happy--for I know there is a Mrs. Howe, or you couldn't describe +the American women as ably as you do...." Pauline passed onward as she +ended her final sentence. Kindelon, still at her side, soon said to +her,-- + +"What a clever farewell you made: you have won Howe. You flattered him +very adroitly. It's an open secret that his wife helps him in those +exquisite novels of his. She is his one type of woman. I think that is +why Howe will never be great; he will always be exquisite instead. He +adores his wife, who hates society and always stays at home. If Howe had +once committed a genuine fault it might have served posterity as a +crystallized masterpiece." + +Pauline shook her head with negative emphasis. "I like him just as he +is," she murmured. She was silent for a moment, and then added, almost +plaintively: "My entertainment looks pleasant enough, but I fear that it +is all a disastrous failure." + +"A failure?" echoed Kindelon, with no sympathy in the interrogation. + +"Yes, everybody is grumbling. I distinctly feel it. It is not only that +Barrowe has infected everybody; it is that everybody has a latent +hostility towards anything like harmonious reunion." + +"Isn't there a bit of pure imagination in your verdict?" Kindelon asked. + +"Premonition," answered Pauline, "if you choose to call it by that +name." She stood, while she thus spoke, under an effulgent chandelier, +whose jets, wrought in the semblance of candles, dispersed from ornate +metallic sconces a truly splendid glow. + +"We have a new arrival," he said. He was glancing toward a near doorway +while he spoke. Pauline's eyes had followed his own. + +"My aunt!" she exclaimed. "And Sallie--and Courtlandt, too!" + +"Yes, Courtlandt, too--my friend, Courtlandt," said Kindelon oddly. + +"I told Aunt Cynthia she had best not come," murmured Pauline. + +"And your cousin, Courtlandt?" said Kindelon. "Did you tell _him_ not to +come?" + +"I am sorry that they came--I somehow can't help but be sorry!" +exclaimed Pauline, while she moved towards the door by which she had +seen her kindred enter. + +"Sorry? So am I," said Kindelon. He spoke below his breath, but Pauline +heard him. + + + + +XI. + + +"I am very glad to see you," Pauline was telling her aunt, a little +later. She felt, while she spoke them, that her words were the merest +polite falsehood. "I did not suppose you would care to honor me this +evening--I mean all three of you," she added, with a rather mechanical +smile in the direction of Miss Sallie and Courtlandt. + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie promptly spoke. She was looking about her through a +pair of gold-rimmed glasses while she did so. Her portliness was not +without a modish majesty; folds of a black, close-clinging, lace-like +fabric fell about her large person with much grace of effect; her severe +nose appeared to describe an even more definite arc than usual. + +"Sallie and I had nothing for to-night," said Mrs. Poughkeepsie. "Lent +began to-day, you know, and there wasn't even a dinner to go to." + +"I am pleased to afford you a refuge in your social distress," returned +Pauline. It flashed through her mind that circumstance was drawing upon +her, to-night, for a good deal of bitter feeling. What subtle thunder +was in the air, ready to sour the milk of human kindness to its last +drop? + +"My dear," murmured her aunt, temporarily discontinuing her stares, and +speaking more in reproach than conciliation, "you must not be so very +quick to take offence when none is intended." + +Pauline gave a laugh which she tried to make amiable. "It pleases me to +think that no offence was intended," she declared. + +"Your little party was by no means a _pis-aller_ with _me_, +dear Pauline," here stated Sallie, "whatever it may have been +in mamma's case. I really wanted so much, don't you know, to see +these--a--persons." The peculiar pause which Sallie managed to make +before she pronounced the word "persons," and the gentle yet assertive +accent which she managed to place upon the word itself, were both, in +their way, beyond description. Not that either was of the import which +would render description requisite, except from the point of view which +considers all weightless trifles valuable. + +Pauline bit her lip. She had long ago thought Sallie disqualified for +contest by her native silliness. The girl had not a tithe of her +mother's brains; she possessed all the servitude of an echo and all the +imitativeness of a reflection. But like most weak things she had the +power to wound, though her little sting was no doubt quite unintentional +at present. + +Courtlandt here spoke. He was perfectly his ordinary sober self as he +said,-- + +"I happened to drop in upon Aunt Cynthia to-night, and she brought me +here. I believe that I come without an invitation. Don't I? I've +forgotten." + +"You haven't forgotten," contradicted Pauline, though not at all +unpleasantly. "You know I didn't invite you, because I didn't think you +would care to come. You gave me every reason to think so." + +"That was very rude," commented Sallie, with a rebuking look at +Courtlandt. She had a great idea of manners, but her reverence was quite +theoretical, as more than one ineligible and undesirable young gentleman +knew, when she had chosen to freeze him at parties with the blank, +indifferent regard of a sphinx. "It is so odd, really, Pauline," she +went on, with her supercilious drawl, which produced a more irritating +effect upon her cousin because apparently so spontaneous and +unaffected--"it is so odd to meet people whom one does not know. I have +always been accustomed to go to places where I knew everybody, and +bowed, and had them come up and speak." + +Pauline busied herself for an instant in smoothing the creases of her +long gloves between wrist and elbow. "Don't you find it rather pleasant, +Sallie," she said, "to procure an occasional change?" + +"It ought to be refreshing," struck in Courtlandt, neutrally. + +"You can have people to talk to you this evening, if you wish," pursued +Pauline, while a certain sense that she was being persecuted by her +relatives waged war with a decorous recognition of who and where she +was. + +Before Sallie could answer, Mrs. Poughkeepsie, who had ceased her +determined survey, said in her naturally high, cool, suave tones,-- + +"Oh, of course we want you to present some of them to us, Pauline, dear. +We came for that, Sallie and I. We want to see what has made you so fond +of them. They are all immensely clever, of course. But one can listen +and be instructed, if one does not talk. Do they expect you to talk, by +the way? Will they not be quite willing to do all the talking +themselves? I have heard--I don't just remember when or how--that they +usually _are_ willing." + +"My dear Aunt Cynthia," said Pauline, in a low but not wholly composed +voice, "you speak of my guests as if they were the inmates of a +menagerie." + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie threw back her head a very little. The motion made a +jewel of great price and fine lustre shoot sparks of pale fire from the +black lace shrouding her ample bosom. She laughed at the same moment, +and by no means ill-naturedly. "I am sure they wouldn't like to have you +suggest anything so dreadful," she said, "you, their protectress and +patroness." + +"I am neither," affirmed Pauline stoutly. + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie lifted her brow in surprise. She almost lifted her +august shoulders as well. "Then pray what are you, my dear?" she asked. + +"Their hostess--and their equal," asserted Pauline. She spoke with +momentary seriousness, but immediately afterward she chose to assume an +air of careless raillery. + +"Ah, Aunt Cynthia," she went on, "you don't know how you make me envy +you!" + +"Envy me, Pauline?" + +"Oh, yes; you have settled matters so absolutely. You have no +misgivings, no distrusts. You are so magnificently secure." + +"I don't understand," politely faltered Mrs. Poughkeepsie. She looked +inquiringly at Courtlandt. + +"It is metaphysics," Courtlandt at once said. "They are a branch of +study in which Pauline has made great progress." His face remained so +completely placid and controlled that he might have been giving the +number of a residence or recording the last quotation in stocks. + +Sallie had become absorbed in staring here and there, just as her mother +had been a brief while ago; Mrs. Poughkeepsie was at a little distance +from her niece; Courtlandt stood close at Pauline's side, so that the +latter could ask him, in an undertone full of curt, covert +imperiousness,-- + +"Did you come here to say and do rude things?" + +"I never say nor do rude things if I can help it," he answered, with a +leaden stolidity in his own undertone. + +"Why did _they_ come?" continued Pauline, lowering her voice still more. + +"You invited them, I believe. That is, at least, my impression." + +"I mentioned the affair. I never imagined they would wish to come." + +"You see that you were mistaken. If I had been you I wouldn't have given +them the awful opportunity." + +"What awful opportunity?" queried Pauline, furtively bristling. + +"Of coming," said Courtlandt. + +"My dear Pauline," here broke in Mrs. Poughkeepsie, "shall you not +present anybody to us?" + +"Anyone whom you please to meet, Aunt," responded Pauline. + +"But, my _dear_, we please to meet _anyone_. We have no preferences. How +_can_ we have?" + +"This is torment," thought poor Pauline. She glanced toward Courtlandt, +but she might as well have appealed to one of her chairs. "What shall I +do?" her thoughts sped fleetly on. "This woman and this girl would shock +and repel whomever I should bring to them. It would be like introducing +the North Pole and the South." + +But her face revealed no sign of her perplexity. She quietly put her +hand within Courtlandt's arm. "Come, Court," she said, with a very +creditable counterfeit of gay sociality, "let us find a few devotees for +Aunt Cynthia and Sallie." + +"We shall find a good many," said Courtlandt, as they moved away. "Have +no fear of that." + +"I am by no means sure that we shall find _any_," protested Pauline, +both with dismay and antagonism. + +"Pshaw," retorted Courtlandt. "Mention the name. It will work like +magic." + +"The name? What name?" + +"Poughkeepsie. Do you suppose these haphazard Bohemians wouldn't like to +better themselves if they could?" + +Pauline took her hand from his arm, though he made a slight muscular +movement of detention. + +"They are not haphazard Bohemians," she said. "You know, too, that they +are not. They are mostly people of intellect, of culture, of high and +large views. I don't know what you mean by saying that they would 'like +to better themselves.' Where have they ever heard of Aunt Cynthia? Her +name would be simply a dead letter to them." + +Courtlandt gave a low laugh, that was almost gruff, and was certainly +harsh. "Where have they ever heard of Aunt Cynthia?" he repeated. "Why, +she never dines out that the society column of half-a-dozen newspapers +does not record it, and her name would be very far from a dead letter. +It would be a decidedly living letter." + +"But you don't understand," insisted Pauline, exasperatedly. "These +people have no aims to know the so-called higher classes." + +"Excuse me," said Courtlandt, with superb calm. "Everybody has aims to +know the so-called higher classes--if he or she possibly can. Especially +'she'," he added in his colorless monotone. + +Just then Pauline found herself confronted by Miss Upton. The moon-like +face of this diminutive lady wore a flushed eagerness as she began to +speak. + +"Oh, Mrs. Varick," she said, "I've a great, _great_ favor to ask of you! +I want you to introduce me to your aunt, Mrs. Poughkeepsie." + +"With pleasure," answered Pauline, feeling as if the request had been a +sort of jeer. "You know my aunt by sight, then, Miss Upton?" + +"Oh, yes, I've known her for some time by sight, Mrs. Varick. Miss +Cragge pointed her out to me one night at Wallack's. She had a box, with +her daughter and several other people. One of them was an English +lord--or so Miss Cragge said.... But excuse my mentioning my friend's +name, as you don't like her." + +"Who told you that I did not like Miss Cragge?" asked Pauline, with +abrupt crispness. + +"Oh, nobody, nobody," hurried Miss Upton. "But you haven't invited her +here to-night--you left her out, you know. That was all. And I +thought...." + +"Are you a friend of Miss Cragge's?" asked Pauline. + +"Oh, yes ... that is, I know her quite well. She writes dramatic +criticisms, you know, and she has seen me in amateur theatricals. She's +kind enough to tell me that she _doesn't_ think that I have a tragic +soul in a comic body." Here Miss Upton gave a formidably resonant laugh. +"But I'm convinced that I have, and so I've never gone on the stage. But +if I could get a few of the _very_ aristocratic people, Mrs. +Varick,--like yourself, and your aunt, Mrs. Poughkeepsie--to hear me +give a private reading or two, from 'Romeo and Juliet' or 'The +Hunchback' or 'Parthenia', why, I should be prepared to receive a _new +opinion_, don't you understand, with regard to my abilities. There is +nothing like being endorsed at the start by people who belong to the +real upper circles of society." + +"Of course there isn't," said Courtlandt, speaking too low for Miss +Upton to catch his words, and almost in the ear of Pauline. "Introduce +me," he went swiftly on. "I will save you the bore of further +introductions. You will soon see how they will all flock about the +great nabob, though she may be ignorant of aesthetics, philosophy, +Emerson, Herbert Spencer, Carlyle, and anybody you please." + +Pauline turned and looked at him. There was the shadow of a sparkle in +the familiar brown eyes--the eyes that she never regarded closely +without being reminded of her girlhood, even of her childhood as well. + +"It is a challenge then?" she asked softly. + +For a second he seemed not to understand her. Then he nodded his head. +"Yes--a challenge," he answered. + +She gave an inward sigh.... A little later she had made the desired +introduction.... Presently, as Miss Upton moved away on Courtlandt's arm +in the direction of her aunt and Sallie, she burst into a laugh, of +whose loudness and acerbity she was equally unconscious. + +Martha Dares, appearing at her side, arrested the laugh. Pauline grew +promptly serious as she looked into Martha's homely face, with its +little black eyes beaming above the fat cheeks and the unclassic nose, +but not beaming by any means so merrily as when she had last given all +its features her full heed. + +"You don't laugh a bit as if you were pleased," said Martha, in her +short, alert way. "I hope nothing has gone wrong." + +"It seems to me as if everything were going wrong," returned Pauline, +with a momentary burst of frankness which she at once regretted. + +"Good gracious!" said Martha. "I'm astonished to hear you tell me so." + +"Forget that I have told you so," said Pauline, throwing a little +delicate repulsion into voice and mien. "By the way, your sister is not +here to-night, Miss Dares." + +Martha's plump figure receded a step or two. + +"No," she replied, in the tone of one somewhat puzzled for a reply. "I +came with my mother." + +"And your sister had a headache." + +"A headache," repeated Martha, showing what strongly resembled +involuntary surprise. + +"Yes. So your mother told me." + +"Well, it's true," said Martha. Pauline was watching her more closely +than she perhaps detected. "Cora's been working very hard, of late. She +works altogether too hard. I often tell her so--Here comes Mr. +Kindelon," Martha pursued, very abruptly changing the subject, while her +gaze seemed to fix itself on some point behind her companion. "He wants +to speak with you, I suppose. I'll move along--you see, I go about just +as I choose. What's the use of my waiting for an escort? I'm not +accustomed to attentions from the other sex, so I just behave as if it +didn't exist. That's the wisest plan." + +"But you surely need not be afraid of Mr. Kindelon," said Pauline. + +"Oh, we're not the best of friends just now," returned Martha.... She +had passed quite fleetly away in another instant. And while Pauline was +wondering at the oddity of her departure, Kindelon presented himself. + +"You and Martha Dares are not good friends?" she quickly asked. She did +not stop to consider whether or no her curiosity was unwarrantable, but +she felt it to be a very distinct and cogent curiosity. + +Kindelon frowned. "I don't want to talk of Martha Dares," he said, "and +I hope that you do not, either. She is a very unattractive topic." + +"Isn't that a rather recent discovery?" + +"Oh, no--Shall we speak of something else? Your aunt's arrival, for +instance. I see that she is quite surrounded." + +"Surrounded?" replied Pauline falteringly. Her eyes turned in the +direction of Mrs. Poughkeepsie and Sallie. + +It was true. Seven or eight ladies and gentlemen were gathered about +the stately lady and her daughter. Both appeared to be holding a little +separate and exclusive reception of their own. + +"Courtlandt was right!" exclaimed Pauline ruefully, and with a stab of +mortification. She turned to meet the inquiring look of Kindelon. "I +thought Aunt Cynthia would be unpopular here," she continued. "I +supposed that no one in my rooms to-night would care to seek her +acquaintance." + +"This is a grandee," said Kindelon, "and so they are glad enough to know +her. If your cousin, Mr. Beekman, prophesied anything of that sort, he +was indeed perfectly right." + +Pauline shook her head musingly. "Good heavens!" she murmured, "are +there any people in the world who can stand tests? I begin to think +not." Her speech grew more animated, her eyes began to brighten +indignantly and with an almost tearful light. "Here am I," she went on, +"determined to encourage certain individuals in what I believed was +their contempt of social frivolity and the void delusion which has been +misnamed position and birth. With a sort of polite irony Aunt Cynthia +appears and shows me that I am egregiously wrong--that she can hold her +court here as well as at the most giddily fashionable assemblage.... +Look; my cousin has just presented Mr. Whitcomb, the 'coming historian' +with the pensive face, and Mr. Paiseley, the great American dramatist +with the abnormal head. How pleased they both seem! They appear to +tingle with deference. Aunt Cynthia is patronizing them, I am sure, as +she now addresses them. She thinks them entirely her inferiors; she +considers them out of her world, which is the correct world to be in, +and there's an end of it. You can lay the Atlantic cable, you can build +the Brooklyn Bridge, but you can't budge the granitic prejudices of Aunt +Cynthia.... Yet why do they consent to be patronized by her? Do they not +know and feel that she represents a mere sham? Do they value her for +what she is, or misvalue her for something that she is not?" + +Kindelon laughed a little gravely as he answered: "I am afraid they do +the former. And in being what she is, she is a great deal." + +"Surely not in the estimate of those who are at all serious on the +subject of living--those whom superficialities in all conduct or thought +weary and even disgust." + +"But these," said Kindelon, with one of his hand-sweeps, "are not that +sort of people." + +"I supposed a great many of them were." + +"You supposed wrongly." + +Pauline gave a momentary frown, whose gloom meant pain. And before her +face had re-brightened she had begun to speak. "But they cannot care to +do as Aunt Cynthia does--to trifle, to idle." + +"I fancy that a good many of them would trifle and idle if they had your +aunt's facilities for that employment--or lack of it." + +"But they paint, they read, they write, they think; they make poems, +novels, dramas. They are people with an occupation, an ideal. How can +they be interested in a fellow-creature who does nothing with her time +except waste it?" + +"She wastes it very picturesquely," replied Kindelon. "She is Mrs. +Poughkeepsie; she represents great prosperity, aristocratic ease, lofty +security above need. They read about her; they should not do so, but +that they do is more the fault of modern journalism than theirs. +Theoretically they may consider that she deserves their hardest +feelings; but this has no concern whatever with their curiosity, their +interest, their hope of advancement." + +"Their hope of advancement!" echoed Pauline, forlornly, almost aghast. +"What possible hope of advancement could _they_ have from such a +source?" + +Her querulous question had scarcely ended when she perceived that Arthur +Trevor had presented himself at her side. The young poet was exceedingly +smart to-night. His tawny hair was rolled off his wide brow with a sort +of precise negligence; it looked as if a deliberative brush and not a +careless hand had so rolled it. He fixed his dreamy blue eyes with +steadfastness upon Pauline's face before speaking. + +"I am so sorry, Mrs. Varick," he began, giving a distinct sigh and +slowly shaking his head from side to side. "I wonder if you know what I +am sorry about." + +"Oh, yes," returned Pauline, with a nervous trill of laughter. "You have +come to me with a complaint on the subject of Mr. Rufus Corson. You see, +Mr. Trevor, rumor has forestalled you. I heard that you were furious +because I omitted to ask your intimate enemy." + +Arthur Trevor gave an exaggerated start; it was a very French start; he +lifted his blond eyebrows as much as his shoulders. And he looked at +Kindelon while he responded: + +"Ah! I see! Kindelon has been telling you horrid things. Kindelon hates +us poets. These men of the newspapers always do. But there is a wide +gulf between the poetry of to-day and the newspapers of to-day." + +"Of course there is," quickly struck in Kindelon. "That is why the +modern newspaper is read so much and the modern poetry so little." + +Arthur Trevor chose to ignore this barbed rejoinder. His dreamy eyes and +general air of placid reverie made such an attitude singularly easy of +assumption. + +"Poor Rufus feels your slight," he said, addressing Pauline solely. "Why +do you call him my intimate enemy? We are the dearest of friends. He +adores decay, and sings of it. I do not sing of it, but I adore it for +its color. There is always color in decay." + +"Discolor," said Kindelon, with better wit than grammar. + +"Decay," pursued Arthur Trevor, "is the untried realm of the future +poet. Scarcely anything else is left him. He is driven to find a beauty +in ugliness, and there is an immense beauty in ugliness, if one can only +perceive it. The province of the future poet shall be to make one +perceive it." + +"That is like saying," declared Kindelon, "that the province of the +future gentleman shall be to make one perceive the courtesy in +discourtesy or the refinement in vulgarity." + +Again Mr. Trevor ignored Kindelon. "Poor Rufus was so much less to blame +than Leander Prawle," he continued. "And yet you invited Leander +Prawle. Prawle is so absurdly optimistic. Prawle has absolutely no +color. Prawle is irretrievably statuesque and sculpturesque. It is so +nonsensical to be that in poetry. Sculpture is the only art that gives +an imperious _rien ne va plus_ to the imagination. Prawle should have +been a sculptor. He would have made a very bad one, because his ideas +are too cold even for marble. But his poetry would not have been such an +icy failure if it had been carved instead of written." + +"You need not put up with this kind of thing any longer than you want," +whispered Kindelon to Pauline. "Hostship, like Mr. Prawle's poetry, +remember, has its limitations." + +Pauline pretended not to hear this audacious aside. "Mr. Trevor," she +said, making her voice very even and collected, "I regret that I could +not quite bring myself to ask your friend. The Egyptians, you recollect, +used to have a death's-head at their banquets. But that was a good many +years ago, and New York isn't Thebes.... Please pardon me if I tell you +that I must leave you for a little while." + +As Pauline was passing him, Trevor lifted his eyes toward the ceiling. +He did so without a hint of rhapsody, but in a sort of solemn +exaltation. "New York is surely not Thebes!" he exclaimed. "Ah, if it +only were! To have lived in Thebes for one day, to have got its real and +actual color, would be worth ten years of dull existence here!" + +"How I wish fate had treated him more to his taste!" said Kindelon, when +Pauline and himself were a little distance off. "He meant to make an +appeal for that mortuary Corson. He might better have tried to +perpetuate his own welcome at your next _salon_." + +"My next _salon_!" echoed Pauline, with a laugh full of fatigue and +derision. + +"What do you mean?" he asked shortly. + +"I mean that I had best give no other _salon_," she replied. "I mean +that this is a failure and a mockery." + +She looked full up into his eyes as she spoke. They both paused. "So +soon?" questioned Kindelon, as if in soft amazement. + +"Yes--so soon," she answered, with a quiver in her voice and a slight +upward movement of both hands. "What is it all amounting to?" + +"What did I tell you?" he said. + +"Oh, confirm your prophecy?" she broke forth, somewhat excitedly. "I +know you warned me against disappointment. Enjoy your satisfaction--Look +at Aunt Cynthia now. She is holding a perfect court. How they _do_ +flock round Sallie and herself, just as Courtlandt said that they would! +I feel that this is the beginning and the end. I have misjudged, +miscalculated, misinterpreted. And I am miserably dejected!" + +Just then Martha Dares approached Pauline. "Will you please introduce me +to your aunt?" said Martha. + +"With the greatest pleasure, Miss Dares," returned Pauline. + +"_Et tu Brute?_" said Kindelon, under his breath. Pauline heard him, but +Martha did not.... + +A little later Courtlandt had joined her, and Kindelon had glided away. + +"Are you convinced?" said Courtlandt. + +"Convinced of what?" she retorted, with an almost fierce defiance. + +"Oh, of nothing, since you take it so ferociously." She saw that his +calm brown eyes were coolly watching her face. + +"When is your next _salon_?" he asked. "Is it to be a week from +to-night?" + +"It is never to be again," she answered. + +She meant the words, precisely as she spoke them. She longed for the +entertainment to end, and when it had ended she felt relieved, as if +from a painful tension and strain. Musing a little later in her +bed-chamber, before retiring, she began to feel a slight change of mood. +Had she not, after all, expected, demanded, exacted, too much? Was she +justified in giving way to this depression and disappointment? Was she +not more blamable in deceiving herself than these people were in +surprising her? She had been warned by Kindelon; she had, in a certain +way, been warned by Mrs. Dares. But these were not her desired band of +plain livers and high thinkers. They were very far below any such +elevated standard. They had seemed to make a sort of selfish rush into +her drawing-rooms for the purpose of getting there, and afterward +boasting that they had got there. She was by no means sure if the very +quality and liberality of her refreshments had not made for them the +prospect of another Thursday evening offer increased allurements. Many +of them were full of the most distressing trivialities. The conduct of +Mr. Barrowe had seemed to her atrociously unpleasant. His action with +regard to the excluded Miss Cragge struck her as a superlative bit of +impudence. If she went on giving more receptions she would doubtless +only accumulate more annoyances of a similar sort. + +No; the intellectual life of the country was young, like the country +itself. It was not only young; it was raw and crude. To continue in her +task would be to fail hopelessly. She had best not continue in it. She +might be wrong in abandoning it so soon; there might be hope yet. But, +after all, she was undertaking no holy crusade; conscience made no +demands upon her for the perpetuation and triumph of her project. Let it +pass into the limbo of abortive efforts. Let it go to make another stone +in that infernal pathway proverbially paved by good intentions.... + +She slept ill that night, and breakfasted later than usual. And she had +scarcely finished breakfasting when a card was handed her, which it +heightened her color a little to peruse. + +The card bore Miss Cragge's name, and one portion of its rather imposing +square was filled with the names of many Eastern and Western journals +besides, of which the owner evidently desired to record that she was a +special correspondent. It seemed to Pauline, while she gazed at the +scrap of pasteboard, that this was exactly the sort of card which a +person like Miss Cragge would be apt to use for presentation. She was at +a loss to understand why Miss Cragge could have visited her at all, and +perhaps the acquiescing answer which she presently gave her servant was +given because curiosity surpassed and conquered repulsion. + +But after the servant had departed, Pauline regretted that she had +agreed to see Miss Cragge. "What can the woman want of me?" she now +reflected, "except to abuse and possibly insult me?" + +Still, the word had been sent. She must hold to it. + +Pauline gave Miss Cragge a cool yet perfectly courteous bow, as they met +a little later. + +"You are Miss Cragge, I believe," she said, very quietly and amiably. + +"Oh, I didn't suppose you'd forgotten me so soon!" came the reproachful +and rather unsteady answer. Miss Cragge had risen some time before +Pauline entered the room, and her gaunt shape, clad in scant gear, +looked notably awkward. Her street costume was untidy, shabby, and even +bedraggled. She held a bundle of newspapers, which she shifted nervously +from hand to hand. + +"You wish to speak with me, then?" said Pauline, still courteously. + +"Yes," returned Miss Cragge. It was evident that she underwent a certain +distinct agitation. "I have called upon you, Mrs. Varick, because I felt +that I ought to do so." + +"It is, then, a matter of duty, Miss Cragge?" + +"Yes--a matter of duty. A matter of duty toward myself. Toward myself +as a woman, you know--I think that I have been wronged--greatly +wronged." + +"Not wronged by me, I hope." + +"Through you, by someone else." + +"I do not understand you." + +"I--I shall try to make myself plain." + +"I trust you will succeed." + +"Oh, I shall succeed," declared Miss Cragge, gasping a little for breath +as she now continued. "I have an enemy, Mrs. Varick, and that enemy is +your friend. Yes, I mean Mr. Kindelon, of course. He has set you against +me. He has made you shut your doors upon me. Oh, you need not deny that +this is true. I am perfectly certain of its truth. I am always received +by Hagar Williamson Dares. She is a noble, true woman, and she lets me +come to her house because she knows I have my battle to fight, just as +she has always had her own, and that I deserve her sympathy and her +friendship. I don't maintain that I've been always blameless. A +newspaper woman can't always be that. She gives wounds, just as she gets +wounds. But I never did Ralph Kindelon any harm in my life. He hates me, +but he has no business to hate me. I never cared much about his hatred +till now. But now he has shown me that he is an active and dangerous +enemy. I mean, of course, about this affair of yours. I wanted to be +invited to your house last evening; I expected to be invited. I was on +the Dareses' list. I'm going to be perfectly candid. It would have been +a feather in my cap to have come here. I know exactly what your position +in society is, and I appreciate the value of your acquaintance. If you +had snubbed me of your own accord, I would have pocketed the snub +without a murmur. I'm used to snubbings; I have to be, for I get a good +many. Nobody can go abroad picking up society-items as I do, and not +receive the cold shoulder. But in this case it was no spontaneous rebuff +on your part; it was the malicious interference of a third party; it was +Kindelon's mean-spirited persuasion used against me behind my back. And +it has been an injury to me. It's going to hurt me more than you think. +It has been found out and talked over that I was dropped by you.... Now, +I don't want to be dropped. I want to claim my rights--to ask if you +will not do me justice--if you will not waive any personal concern with +a private quarrel and allow me to have the same chance that you have +given so many others. To put it plainly and frankly, Mrs. Varick, I have +come here this morning for the purpose of asking you if you will not +give me an invitation to your next entertainment." + +All the time she had thus spoken, Miss Cragge had remained standing. +Pauline, who also stood, had shown no desire that her visitor should +sit. She was biting her lip as Miss Cragge ended, and her tones were +full of a haughty repulsion as she now said,-- + +"Really, I am unprepared to give you any answer whatever. But you seem +to demand an answer, and therefore I shall give you one. You are very +straightforward with me, and so I do not see why I should not be equally +straightforward with you." + +Miss Cragge gave a bitter, crisp little laugh. "I see what is coming," +she said. "You think me abominable, and you are going to tell me so." + +"I should not tell you if I thought it," replied Pauline. "But I must +tell you that I think you unwarrantably bold." + +"And you refuse me any other explanation?" now almost panted Miss +Cragge. "You will not give me even the satisfaction of knowing why you +have dropped me?" + +Pauline shook her head. "I do not recognize your right to question me on +that point," she returned. "You assume to know my reason for not having +asked you here. I object to the form and the quality of your question. I +deny that I have dropped you, as you choose to term it. I think your +present course a presumptuous one, and I am ignorant of having violated +any rights of your own by not having sent you a card to my reception. +There are a great many other people in New York besides yourself to whom +I did not send a card. Any quarrel between you and Mr. Kindelon is a +matter of no concern to me. And as for my having dealt you an injury, +that assertion is quite preposterous. I do not for an instant admit it, +and since your attitude toward me is painfully unpleasant, I beg that +this conversation may be terminated at once." + +"Oh, you show me the door, do you?" exclaimed Miss Cragge. She looked +very angry as she now spoke, and her anger was almost repulsively +unbecoming. Her next words had the effect of a harsh snarl. "I might +have expected just this sort of treatment," she proceeded, with both her +dingy-gloved hands manipulating the bundle of newspapers at still +brisker speed. "But I'm a very good hater, Mrs. Varick, and I'm not +stamped on quite so easily as you may suppose. I usually die pretty hard +in such cases, and perhaps you'll find that your outrageous behavior +will get the punishment it merits. Oh, you needn't throw back your proud +head like that, as if I were the dirt under your feet! I guess you'll be +sorry before very long. I intend to make you so if I can!" + +Pauline felt herself turn pale. "You are insolent," she said, "and I +desire you to leave my house immediately." + +Miss Cragge walked to the door, but paused as she reached its threshold, +looking back across one of her square shoulders with a most malevolent +scowl. + +"You've got no more heart than a block of wood," she broke forth. "You +never had any. I know all about you. You married an old man for his +money a few years ago. He was old enough to be your grandfather, and a +wretched libertine at that. You knew it, too, when you married him. So +now that you've got his money you're going to play the literary patron +with it. And like the cold-blooded coquette that you are, you've made +Ralph Kindelon leave poor Cora Dares, who's madly in love with him, and +dance attendance on yourself. I suppose you think Kindelon really cares +for you. Well, you're mightily mistaken if you do think so, and if he +ever marries you I guess it won't be long before he makes you find it +out!" + +Miss Cragge disappeared after the delivery of this tirade, and as she +closed the outer hall-door with a loud slam Pauline had sank into a +chair. She sat thus for a longer time than she knew, with hands knotted +in her lap, and with breast and lips quivering. + +The vulgarity, the brutality of those parting words had literally +stunned her. It is no exaggeration to state that Miss Cragge's reference +to her marriage had inflicted a positive agony of shame. But the +allusion to Cora Dares's love for Kindelon, and to Kindelon's merely +mercenary regard for herself, had also stabbed with depth and suffering. +Was it then true that this man's feelings toward her were only the +hypocritical sham of an aim at worldly advancement? "How shall I act to +him when we again meet?" Pauline asked herself. "If I really thought +this charge true, I should treat him with entire contempt. And have I +the right to believe it true? This Cragge creature has a viperish +nature. Should I credit such information from such a source?" + +That was a day of days with poor Pauline. She seemed to look upon Ralph +Kindelon in a totally new light. She realized that the man's brilliant +personality had made his society very dear to her. She told herself that +she cared for him as she had cared for none other in her life. But the +thought that personal ambition was solely at the root of his devotion +affected her with something not far from horror. + +By degrees the memory of Miss Cragge's final outburst stung her less and +less. The whole speech had been so despicable, the intention to wantonly +insult had been so evident. After a few hours had passed, Pauline found +that she had regained nearly all her customary composure. She felt that +if Kindelon should come that evening she could discuss with him calmly +and rationally the almost hideous occurrence of the morning. + +He did come, and she told him a great deal, but she did not tell him +all. No mention of Cora Dares left her lips, nor of the acrid slur at +his own relations toward herself. He listened to the recital with a face +that wrath paled, while it lit a keener spark in his eyes. But he at +length answered in tones thoroughly controlled, if a little husky and +roughened: + +"I can scarcely express to you my disgust for that woman's conduct. I +did not think her capable of it. She represents one of the most baleful +forces of modern times--the nearly unbridled license of the newspaper. +She has dipped her pen for years into poisonous ink; she is one of our +American monstrosities and abominations. Her threat of punishment to you +would be ridiculous if it were not so serious." + +"You think that she will carry it out?" asked Pauline. + +"I should not be at all surprised if she did so." + +"Do you mean that she may write some slanderous article about me?" + +"It is quite possible." + +Pauline gave a plaintive sigh. "Oh, have I no means of preventing her?" +she exclaimed. + +Kindelon shook his head negatively. "She attacks from an ambuscade, +nearly always," he answered. "There is no such thing as spiking her +guns, for they are kept so hidden. Still, let us hope for the best." + +Pauline burst into tears. "What a wretched failure I have made of it +all!" she cried. "Ah, if I had only known sooner that my project would +bring such disaster upon me!" + +"It has brought no disaster as yet," said Kindelon, with a voice full of +the most earnest sympathy. + +"It has brought distress, regret, torment!" asseverated Pauline, still +struggling with her tears. + +"Have you told me all?" he suddenly asked, with an acute, anxious look. + +"All?" murmured Pauline. + +"Yes. Did that woman say anything more?" + +"Yes," Pauline answered, after a little silence, with lowered eyes. + +"Ah!" sounded Kindelon's exasperated sigh. "I can almost guess what it +was," he went on. "She was not content, then, with saying atrocious +things of your marriage; she must couple our names together--yours and +mine." + +"She mentioned another name still," said Pauline, who continued to gaze +at the floor. "It was the name of Cora Dares." Pauline lifted her eyes, +now; they wore a determined, glittering look. "She said that Cora Dares +was madly in love with you. 'Madly' struck me as an odd enough word to +apply to that gentle, dignified girl." + +"It might well do so!" burst from Kindelon, in a smothered voice. He +rose and began to pace the floor. She had never seen him show such an +excited manner; all his past volatility was as nothing to it. And yet he +was plainly endeavoring to repress his excitement. "However," he +proceeded, in a swift undertone, "this absurd slander need not concern +you." + +"You call it slander, as if you did not really think it so," she said. + +He paused, facing her. "Are you going to let the venomous spite of an +inferior win your respectful credence?" he questioned. + +"We can't help believing certain things," said Pauline, measuredly, "no +matter who utters them. I believed that Cora Dares was in love with you +before I heard Miss Cragge say it. Or, at least, I seriously suspected +as much. But of course this could not be a matter of the least concern +to myself, until"--And here she paused very suddenly. + +"Well?" he queried. "Until?"-- + +She appeared to reflect, for an instant, on the advisability of saying +more. Then she lifted both hands, with a tossing, reckless motion. "Oh," +she declared, "not until that woman had the audacity to accuse me of +heartlessly standing in the path of Cora Dares's happiness--of +alienating your regard from her--of using, moreover, a hatefully +treacherous means toward this end--a means which I should despise myself +if I ever dreamed of using!..." Pauline's voice had begun to tremble +while she pronounced the latter word. + +"I understand," he said. His own voice was unsteady, though the anger +had in great measure left it. To her surprise, he drew quite near her, +and then seated himself close at her side. "If you did truly care for +me," came his next sentence, "how little I should care what false +witness that woman bore against the attachment! But since that day down +at the Battery, when I wore my heart on my sleeve so daringly, I have +made a resolve. It will be your fault, too, if I fail to keep it. And if +I do fail, I shall fail most wretchedly. I--I shall make a sort of +desperate leap at the barrier which now separates you and me." + +"You say it will be my fault," was Pauline's response. The color had +stolen into her cheeks before she framed her next sentence, and with a +most clear glow. "How will it be my fault?" + +"You must have given me encouragement," he said, "or at least something +that I shall take for encouragement." + +A silence followed. She was looking straight at the opposite wall; her +cheeks were almost roseate now; a tearful light shone in her eyes as his +sidelong look watched them. "Perhaps," she faltered, "you might take for +encouragement what I did not mean as such." + +"Ah, that is cruel!" he retorted. + +She turned quickly; she put one hand on his arm. "I did not wish to be +cruel!" she affirmed, gently and very feelingly. + +It seemed to her, then, that the strong arm on which her hand rested +underwent a faint tremor. + +"It is easy for you to be cruel, where I am concerned." + +"Easy!" she repeated, rapidly withdrawing her hand, and using a hurt +intonation. + +He leaned closer to her, then. "Yes," he said. "And you know why. I have +told you of the difference between us. I have told you, because I am +incessantly feeling it." + +"There is a great difference," she answered, with a brisk little nod, as +though of relief and gratification. "You have more intellect than I--far +more. You are exceptional, capable, important. I am simply usual, +strenuous, and quite of the general herd. That is the only difference +which I will admit, although you have reproached me for practising a +certain kind of masquerade--for secretly respecting the shadow and +vanity called caste, birth, place. Yes," she went on, with a soft fervor +that partook of exultation, while she turned her eyes upon his face and +thought how extraordinary a face it was in its look of power and +manliness, "I will accede to no other difference than this. You are +above me, and I will not let you place yourself on my level!" + +She felt his breath touch her cheek, then, as he replied: "You are so +fine and high and pure that I think you could love only one whom you set +above yourself--however mistakenly." + +"My love must go with respect--always," she said. + +"I am not worthy of your respect." + +"Do you want me to credit Miss Cragge?" + +"Did _she_ say that I was unworthy of it?" + +"I--I cannot tell you what she said on that point. I would not tell you, +though you begged me to do so." + +She saw a bitter smile cross his face, but it lingered there merely an +instant. "I can guess," he avowed, "that she tried to make you believe I +do not really love you! It is so like her to do that." + +"I--I will say nothing," stammered Pauline, once more averting her eyes. + +Immediately afterward he had taken her hand in his own. She resisted +neither its clasp nor its pressure. + +"You know that I love you," she now heard him say, though the leap of +her heart made his words sound far off, confused, unreal. "You must +have known it days ago! There--my resolve is broken! But what can I do? +You have stooped downward from your high state by telling me that I am +better than you. I am not better than you, Pauline! I am below you--all +the world would say so except yourself. But you don't care for the +world. Well, then I will despise it, too, because you bid me. I never +respected what you represent until you made me respect it by making me +love you. Now I respect and love it, both, because you are a part of it. +This is what your project, your ambition, has come to. Ah! how pitiful a +failure! you're disgusted with your _salon_--you have been ill-treated, +rebuffed, deceived! The little comedy is played to the end--and what +remains? Only a poor newspaper-fellow, a sort of Irish adventuring +journalist, who offers you his worthless heart to do what you choose +with it! What _will_ you choose to do with it? I don't presume to +advise, to demand--not even to ask! If you said you would marry Ralph +Kindelon you would be making a horrible match! Don't let us forget that. +Don't let us forget how Mrs. Poughkeepsie would storm and scold!" + +He had both her hands in both his own, now. She looked at him with eyes +that sparkled and swam in tears. But though she did not withdraw her +hands, she receded from him while brokenly saying: + +"I--I don't care anything about Aunt Cynthia Poughkeepsie. But +there--there is something else that I do care about. It--it seems to +steal almost like a ghost between us--I can't tell why--I have no real +reason to be troubled as I am--it is like a last and most severe +distress wrought by this failure of mine with all those new people.... +It is the thought that you have made Cora Dares believe that you meant +to marry her." + +Pauline's voice died away wretchedly, and she drooped her head as the +final faint word was spoken. But she still let Kindelon hold her hands. +And his grasp tightened about them as she heard him answer: + +"I suppose Cora Dares _may_ have believed that.... But, good God! am I +so much to blame? I had never met _you_, Pauline. It was before I went +to Ireland the last time--I never asked her to marry me--It was what +they call a flirtation. Am I to be held to account for it? Hundreds of +men have been foolish in this way before myself--Have you raised me so +high only to dash me down?--Won't you speak? Won't you tell me that you +forgive a dead fancy for the sake of a living love? Are you so +cruel?--so exacting?" + +"I am not cruel," she denied, lifting her eyes.... + +It was a good many minutes later that she said to him, with the tears +standing on her flushed cheeks, and her fluttered voice in truly sad +case, + +"I--I am going to accept the Irish adventuring journalist (as--as he +calls himself) for my husband, though he--he has never really asked me +yet." + +"He could not ask you," affirmed Kindelon, with by no means his first +kiss. "Like every subject who wishes to marry a princess, he was forced +to recognize a new matrimonial code!" + + + + +XII. + + +Pauline was surprised, during the several ensuing days, to find how +greatly her indignation toward Miss Cragge had diminished. The new +happiness which had come to her looked in a way resultant, as she +reflected upon it, from that most trying and oppressive interview. + +"I could almost find it in my heart to forgive her completely," she told +Kindelon, with a beaming look. + +"I wish that my forgiveness were to be secured as easily," replied +Kindelon. + +"Your forgiveness from whom?" asked Pauline, with a pretty start of +amazement. + +"Oh, you know. From your aunt, the vastly conservative Mrs. +Poughkeepsie, and her equally conservative daughter." + +Pauline gave a laugh of mock irritation. She could not be really +irritated; she was too drenched with the wholesome sunshine of good +spirits. "It is so ridiculous, Ralph," she said, "for you to speak of my +relations as if they were my custodians or my patrons. I am completely +removed from them as regards all responsibility, all independence. I +wish to keep friends with them, of course; we are of the same blood, and +quarrels between kinspeople are always in odious taste. But any very +insolent opposition would make me break with them to-morrow." + +"And also with your cousin, Courtlandt Beekman?" asked Kindelon, +smiling, though not very mirthfully. + +Pauline put her head on one side. "I draw a sharp line between him and +the Poughkeepsies," she said, either seeming to deliberate or else doing +so in good earnest. "We were friends since children, Court and I," she +proceeded. "I should hate not to keep friends with Court always." + +"You must make up your mind to break with him," said Kindelon, with +undoubted gravity. + +"And why?" she quickly questioned. + +"He abominates me." + +"Oh, nonsense! And even if he does, he will change in time ... I thought +of writing him to-day," Pauline slowly proceeded. "But I did not. I have +put off all that sort of thing shamefully." + +"All that sort of thing?" + +"Yes--writing to people that I am engaged, you know. That is the +invariable custom. You must announce your intended matrimonial step in +due form." + +He looked at her with a pitying smile which she thought became him most +charmingly. "And you have procrastinated from sheer dread, my poor +Pauline!" he murmured, lifting her hand to his lips and letting it rest +against them. "Dread of an explosion--of a distressing nervous ordeal. +How I read your adroit little deceits!" + +She withdrew her hand, momentarily counterfeiting annoyance. "You absurd +would-be seer!" she exclaimed. "No, I'll call you a raven. But you can't +depress me by your ominous wing-flapping! I thought Aunt Cynthia would +drop in yesterday; I thought most _certainly_ that she would drop in +to-day. That is my reason for not making our engagement transpire +through letter." + +"I see," said Kindelon, with a comic, quizzical sombreness. "You didn't +want to open your guns on the enemy; you were waiting for at least a +show of offensive attack...." + +But, as it chanced, Mrs. Poughkeepsie did drop in upon Pauline at about +two o'clock the next day. She came unattended by Sallie, but she had +important and indeed momentous news to impart concerning Sallie. As +regarded Pauline's engagement, she was, of course, in total ignorance +of it. But she chose to deliver her own supreme tidings with no +suggestion of impulsive haste. + +"You are looking very well," she said to Pauline, as they sat on a +yielding cachemire lounge together, in the little daintily-decked lower +reception-room. "And, my dear niece," she continued, "you must let me +tell you that I am full of congratulations at your not being made ill by +what happened here the other evening. Sallie and I felt for you deeply. +It was so apparent to us that you would never have done it if you had +known how dreadfully it would turn out.... But there is no use of raking +up old by-gones. You have seen the folly of the whole thing, of course. +My dear, it has naturally got abroad. The Hackensacks know it, and the +Tremaines, and those irrepressible gossips, the Desbrosses girls. But +Sallie and I have silenced all stupid scandals as best we could, and +merely represented the affair as a capricious little pleasantry on your +part. You haven't lost caste a particle by it--don't fancy that you +have. You were a Van Corlear, and you're now Mrs. Varick, with a great +fortune; and such a whim is to be pardoned accordingly." + +Pauline was biting her lips, now. "I don't want it to be pardoned, Aunt +Cynthia," she said, "and I don't hold it either as a capricious +pleasantry or a whim. It was very serious with me. I told you that +before." + +"Truly you did, my dear," said Mrs. Poughkeepsie. She laughed a mellow +laugh of amusement, and laid one gloved hand upon Pauline's arm. "But +you saw those horrible people in your drawing-rooms, and I am sure that +this must have satisfied you that the whole project was impossible ... +_en l'air_, my dear, as it unquestionably was. Why, I assure you that +Sallie and I laughed together for a whole hour after we got home. They +were nearly all such droll creatures! It was like a fancy-ball without +the mask, you know. Upon my word, I enjoyed it after a fashion, Pauline; +so did Sallie. One woman always addressed me as 'ma'am.' Another asked +me if I '_resided_ on _the_ Fifth Avenue.' Still another ... (no, by the +way, that wasn't a woman; it was a man) ... inquired of Sallie whether +she danced the Lancers much in fashionable circles.... Oh, how funny it +all was! And they didn't talk of books in the least. I supposed that we +were to be pelted with quotations from living and dead authors, and +asked all kinds of radical questions as to what we had read. But they +simply talked to us of the most ordinary matters, and in a _very_ +extraordinary way.... However, let us not concern ourselves with them +any more, my dear. They were horrid, and you know they were horrid, and +it goes without saying that you will have no more to do with them." + +"I thought some of them horrid," said Pauline, with an ambiguous +coolness, "though perhaps I found them so in a different way from +yourself." + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie repeated her mellow laugh, and majestically nodded +once or twice as she did so. + +"Well, well, my dear," she recommenced, "let us dismiss them and forget +them.... I hope you are going out again. You have only to signify a +wish, you know. There will not be the slightest feeling in society--not +the slightest." + +"Really?" said Pauline, with an involuntary sarcasm which she could not +repress. + +But her aunt received the sarcasm in impervious good faith. "Oh, not the +slightest feeling," she repeated. "And I do hope, Pauline," she went on, +with a certain distinct yet unexplained alteration of manner, "that you +will make your _rentree_, as it were, at a little dinner I shall give +Sallie next Thursday. It celebrates an event." Here Mrs. Poughkeepsie +paused and looked full at her niece. "I mean Sallie's engagement." + +"Sallie's engagement?" quickly murmured Pauline. The latter word had +carried an instant personal force of reminder. + +"Yes--to Lord Glenartney. You met him once or twice, I believe." + +"Lord Glenartney!" softly iterated Pauline. She was thinking what a gulf +of difference lay, for the august social intelligence of her aunt, +between the separate bits of tidings which she and Mrs. Poughkeepsie had +been waiting to impart, each to each. + +"Yes, Glenartney has proposed to dear Sallie," began the lady, waxing +promptly and magnificently confidential. "Of course it is a great match, +even for Sallie. There can be no doubt of that. I don't deny it; I don't +for an instant shut my eyes to it; I consider that it would justly +subject me to ridicule if I did. Lord Glenartney was not expected to +marry in this country; there was no reason why he should do so. He is +immensely rich; he has three seats, in England and Scotland. He is twice +a Baron, besides being once an Earl, and is first cousin to the Duke of +Devergoil. Sallie has done well; I wish everybody to clearly understand, +my dear Pauline, that I _think_ Sallie has done brilliantly +and wonderfully well. A mother always has ambitious dreams for her +child ... can a mother's heart help having them? But in my very wildest +dreams I never calculated upon such a marriage for my darling child as +this!" + +Pauline sat silent before her aunt's final outburst of maternal fervor. +She was thinking of the silly caricature upon all manly worthiness that +the Scotch peer just named had seemed to her. She was thinking of her +own doleful, mundane marriage in the past. She was wondering what malign +power had so crooked and twisted human wisdom and human sense of +fitness, that a woman endowed with brains, education, knowledge of right +and wrong, should thus exult (and in the sacred name of maternity as +well!) over a union of this wofully sordid nature. + +"I--I hope Sallie will be happy," she said, feeling that any real doubt +on the point might strike her aunt as a piece of personal envy. +"Curiously enough," she continued, "_I_, also have to tell you of an +engagement, Aunt Cynthia." + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie raised her brows in surprise. "Oh, you mean poor dear +Lily Schenectady. I've heard of it. It has come at last, my dear, and he +is only a clerk on about two thousand a year, besides not being of the +_direct_ line of the Auchinclosses, as one might say, but merely a sort +of obscure relation. Still, it is said that he has fair expectations; +and then you know that poor dear Lily's freckles _are_ a drawback, and +that she has been called a _spotted_ lily by some witty persons, and +that it has really become a nickname in society, and"-- + +"I did not refer to Lily Schenectady," here interrupted Pauline. "I +spoke of myself." + +The mine had been exploded. Pauline and Mrs. Poughkeepsie looked at each +other. + +"Pauline!" presently came the faltered answer. + +"Yes, Aunt Cynthia, I spoke of myself. I am engaged to Mr. Kindelon." + +"Mr. Kindelon!" + +"Yes. I am sure you know who he is." + +"Oh, I know who he is." Mrs. Poughkeepsie spoke these words with a +ruminative yet astonished drawl. + +"Well, I am engaged to him," said Pauline, stoutly but not +over-assertively. She had never looked more composed, more simply +womanly than now. + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie rose. It always meant something when this lady rose. +It meant a flutter of raiment, a deliberation of readjustment, a kind of +superb, massive dislocation. + +"I am horrified!" exclaimed the mother of the future Countess +Glenartney. + +Pauline rose, then, with a dry, chill gleam in her eyes. "I think that +there is nothing to horrify you," she said. + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie gave a kind of sigh that in equine phrase we might +call a snort. Her large body visibly trembled. She rapidly drew forth a +handkerchief from some receptacle in her ample-flowing costume, and +placed it at her lips. Pauline steadily watched her, with hands crossed +a little below the waist. + +"I do so hope that you are not going to faint, Aunt Cynthia," she said, +with a satire that partook of strong belligerence. + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie, with her applied handkerchief, did not look at all +like fainting as she glanced above the snowy cambric folds toward her +niece. + +"I--I never faint, Pauline ... it is not my way. I--I know how to bear +calamities. But this is quite horrible ... it agitates me accordingly. +I--I have nothing to say and yet I--I have a great deal to say." + +"Then don't say it!" now sharply rang Pauline's retort. + +"Ah! you lose your temper? It is just what I might have thought--under +the circumstances!" + +Pauline clenched her teeth together for a short space, to keep from any +futile disclosure of anger. And presently she said, with a shrill yet +even directness,-- + +"What, pray, _are_ the circumstances? I tell you that I am to marry the +man whom I choose to marry. You advised me--you nearly _forced_ me, +once--to marry the man whom it was an outrage to make my husband!" + +"Pauline!" + +"What I tell you is true! He whom I select is not of your world! And, by +the way, what is your world? A little throng of mannerists, snobs, and +triflers! I care nothing for such a world! I want a larger and a better. +You say that I have failed in my effort to break down this barrier of +conservatism which hedged me about from my birth.... Well, allow that I +_have_ failed in that! I have not failed in finding some true gold from +all that you sneer at as tawdry dross!... Tawdry! I did well to chance +upon the word! What was that gentlemanly bit of vice whom you were so +willing I should marry a few years ago? You've just aired your tenets to +me; I'll air a few of mine to you now. We live in New York, you and I. +Do you know what New York means? It means what America means--or what +America _ought_ to mean, from Canada to the Gulf! And that is--exemption +from the hateful bonds of self-glorifying snobbery which have disgraced +Europe for centuries! You call yourself an aristocrat. How dare you do +so? You dwell in a land which was washed with the blood, less than a +century ago, of men who died to kill just what you boast of and exalt! +Look more to your breeding and your brains, and less to your so-called +caste! I come of your own race, and can speak with right about it. What +was it, less than four generations ago? You call it Dutch, and with a +grand air. It flowed in the veins of immigrant Dutchmen, who would have +opened their eyes with wonder to see the mansion you dwell in, the +silver forks you eat with! _They_ dwelt in wooden shanties and ate with +pewter forks.... Your objection to my marriage with Ralph Kindelon is +horrible--that and nothing more! He towers above the idiot whom you are +glad to have Sallie marry! What do I care for the little 'lord'? You bow +before it; I despise it. You call my project, my dream, my desire, a +failure ... I grant that it is. But it is immeasurably above that petty +worship of the Golden Calf, which _you_ name respectability and which +_I_ denounce as only a pitiful sham! The world is growing older, but you +don't grow old with it. You close your eyes to all progress. You get a +modish milliner, you keep your pew in Grace Church, you drop a big coin +into the plate when a millionaire hands it to you, and you are content. +Your contentment is a pitiful fraud. Your purse could do untold good, +and yet you keep it clasped--or, if you loose the clasp, you do it with +a flourish, a vogue, an _eclat_.... Mrs. Amsterdam has done the same for +this or that asylum or hospital, and so you, with fashionable +acquiescence, do likewise. And you--you, Cynthia Poughkeepsie, who tried +to wreck my girlish life and almost succeeded--you, who read nothing of +what great modern minds in their grandly helpful impulse toward humanity +are trying to make humanity hear--you, who think the fit set of a +patrician's gown above the big struggle of men and women to live--you, +who immerse yourself in idle vanities and talk of everyone outside your +paltry pale as you would talk of dogs--_you_ dare to upbraid me because +I announce to you that I will marry a man whom power of mind makes your +superior, and whom natural gifts of courtesy make far more than your +equal!" + +As Pauline hotly finished she saw her aunt recede many steps from her. + +"Oh, this--this is frightful!" gasped Mrs. Poughkeepsie. "It--it is the +_theatre_! You will go on the stage, I suppose. It seems to me you have +done everything but go on the stage, already! That would be the crowning +insult to yourself--to your family!" + +"I shan't go on the stage," shot Pauline, "because I have no talent for +it. If I had talent, perhaps I would go. I think it a far better life +for an American woman than to prate triumphantly about marrying her +daughter to a titled English fool!" + +Mrs. Poughkeepsie uttered a cry, at this point. She passed from the +room, and Pauline, overcome with the excess of her disclaimer, soon +afterward sank upon a chair.... + +An almost hysterical fit of weeping at once followed.... It must have +been a half-hour later when she felt Kindelon's face lowered to her own. +He had nearly always come, since their engagement, at more or less +unexpected hours. + +"Some hateful thing has happened," he said very tenderly; "whom have you +seen? Why do you sob so, Pauline? Have you seen _her_? Has Cora Dares +been here?" + +Pauline almost sprang from her chair, facing him. "Cora Dares," she +cried, plaintively and with passion. "Why do you mention her name now?" + +Kindelon folded her in his strong arms. "Pauline," he expostulated, "be +quiet! I merely thought of what you yourself had told me, and of what I +myself had told _you_? What is it, then, since it is not she? Tell me, +and I will listen as best I can." + +She soon began to tell him, leaning her head upon his broad breast, +falteringly and with occasional severe effort. + +"I--I was wrong," she at length finished. "I should not have spoken so +rashly, so madly.... But it was all because of you, Ralph--because of my +love for you!" + +He pressed her more closely within the arms that held her. + +"I don't blame you!" he exclaimed. "You were wrong, as you admit that +you were wrong ... but I don't blame you!" + + + + +XIII. + + +That night was an almost sleepless one for Pauline, and during the next +morning she was in straits of keen contrition. Theoretically she +despised her aunt, but in reality she despised far more her own loss of +control. Her self-humiliation was so pungent, indeed, that when, at +twelve o'clock on this same day, Courtlandt's card was handed to her, +she felt a strong desire to escape seeing him, through the facile little +falsehood of a "not at home." But she concluded, presently, that it +would be best to face the situation at once, since avoidance would be +simply postponement. Courtlandt was as inevitable as death; he must be +met sooner or later. + +She met him. She did not expect that he would offer her his hand, and +she made no sign of offering her own. He was standing near a small +table, as she entered, and his attention seemed much occupied with some +exquisitely lovely roses in a vase of aerial porcelain. He somehow +contrived not wholly to disregard the roses while he regarded Pauline. +It was very cleverly done, and with that unconscious quiet which stamped +all his clever doings. + +"These are very nice," he said, referring to the roses. He had a pair of +tawny gloves grasped in one hand, and he made an indolent, whipping +gesture toward the vase while Pauline seated herself. But he still +remained standing. + +"Yes," she replied, as we speak words automatically. "They are rare +here, but I know that kind of rose in Paris." + +"Did your future husband send them?" asked Courtlandt. His composure was +superb. He did not look at Pauline, but with apparent carelessness at +the flowers. + +"Yes," she said; and then, after a slight pause, she added: "Mr. +Kindelon sent them." + +Courtlandt fixed his eyes upon her face, here. "Wasn't it rather +sudden?" he questioned. + +"My engagement?" + +"Your engagement." + +"Sudden? Well, I suppose so." + +"I didn't expect it quite yet." + +She gave a little laugh which sounded thin and paltry to her own ears. +"That means you were prepared for it, then?" + +"Oh, I saw it coming." + +"And Aunt Cynthia has told you, no doubt." + +"Yes. Aunt Cynthia has told me. I felt that I ought to drop in with my +congratulations." + +Pauline rose now; her lips were trembling, and her voice likewise, as +she said:-- + +"I do hope that you give them sincerely, Court." + +"Oh, if you put it in that way, I don't give them at all." + +"Then you came here to mock me?" + +"I don't know why I came here. I think it would have been best for me +not to come. I thought so when I decided to come. Probably you do not +understand this. I can't help you, in that case, for I don't understand +it myself." + +"I choose to draw my own conclusions, and they are kindly and friendly +ones. Never mind how or what I understand. You are here, and you have +said nothing rude yet. I hope you are not going to say anything rude, +for I haven't the heart to pick a quarrel with you--one of our old, +funny, soon-healed quarrels, you know. I am too happy, in one way, and +too repentant in another." + +"Repentant?" + +"Yes. I said frightful things yesterday to Aunt Cynthia. I dare say she +has repeated them." + +"Oh, yes, she repeated every one of them." + +"And no doubt with a good deal of wrathful embellishment!" here +exclaimed Pauline, bristling. + +"Do you think they would bear decoration? Wouldn't it be like putting a +cupola on the apex of the Trinity Church steeple?" + +"Not at all!" cried Pauline. "I might have said a great deal worse! +Oceans and continents lie between Aunt Cynthia and myself! And I told +her so!" + +"Really? I thought you were at pretty _close_ quarters with each other, +judging from her account of the row." + +"There was no _row_!" declared Pauline, drawing herself up very finely. +"What did she accuse me of saying, please?" + +"Oh, I forget. She said you abused her like a pickpocket for not liking +the man you're engaged to." + +Pauline shrugged her shoulders, in the manner of one who thinks better +of the angry mood, and handsomely abjures it. "Positively, Courtlandt," +she said, "I begin to think you had no purpose whatever in coming here +to-day." + +His sombre brown eyes began to sparkle, though quite faintly, as he now +fixed them upon her. "I certainly had one purpose," he said. She saw +that his right hand had thrust itself into the breast of his coat, as +though it searched there for something. "I wanted to show you this, as I +imagined that you don't see the horrid little sheet called 'The Morning +Monitor,'" he proceeded. + +"'The Morning Monitor'!" faltered Pauline, with a sudden grievous +premonition, as she watched her cousin draw forth a folded newspaper. +"No, I never heard of it." + +"It has evidently heard of you," he answered. "I never read the vilely +personal little affair. But a kind friend showed me this issue of +to-day. Just glance at the second column on the second page--the one +which is headed 'The Adventures of a Widow'--and tell me what you think +of it." + +Pauline took the newspaper with unsteady hand. She sank into her chair +again, and began to read the column indicated. The journal which she now +held was one of recent origin in New York, and it marked the lowest ebb +of scandalous newspaper license. It had secured an enormous circulation; +it was already threatening to make its editor a Croesus. It traded, in +the most unblushing way, upon the curiosity of its subscribers for a +knowledge of the peccadilloes, imprudences, and general private +histories of prominent or wealthy citizens. It was a ferret that +prowled, prodded, bored, insinuated. It was utterly lawless, utterly +libellous. It left not even Launcelot brave nor Galahad pure. It was one +of those detestable opportunities which this nineteenth century, +notwithstanding a thousand evidences of progress, thrusts into the hands +of cynics and pessimists to rail against the human nature of which they +themselves are the most melancholy product. It had had suits brought +against it, but the noble sale of its copies rendered its heroic +continuation possible. Truth, crushed to earth, may rise again, but +scurrilous slander, in the shape of "The Morning Monitor," remained +capably erect. It fed and throve on its own dire poison. + +Pauline soon found herself reading, with misty eyes and indignant +heart-beats, a kind of baleful biography of herself, in which her +career, from her rash early marriage until her recent entertainment of +certain guests, was mercilessly parodied, ridiculed, vilified. These +pages will not chronicle in any unsavory details what she read. It was +an article of luridly intemperate style, dissolute grammar, and gaudy +rhetoric. It bit as a brute bites, and stung as a wasp stings, without +other reason that that of low, dull spleen. It mentioned no other name +than Kindelon's, but it shot from that one name a hundred petty shafts +of malign innuendo. + +"Oh, this is horrible!" at length moaned Pauline. She flung the paper +down; the tears had begun to stream from her eyes. "What shall I do +against so hideous an attack?" + +Courtlandt was at her side in an instant. He caught her hand, and the +heat of his own was like that of fever. + +"Do but one thing!" he said, with a vehemence all the more startling +because of his usual unvaried composure. "Break away from this folly +once and forever! You know that I love you--that I have loved you for +years! Don't tell me that you don't know it, for at the best you've only +taught yourself to forget it! I've never _said_ that I loved you before, +but what of that? You have seen the truth a hundred times--in my sober +way of showing it! I've never thought that you returned the feeling; I +don't even fancy so now. But I'm so fond of you, Pauline, that I want +you to be my wife, merely liking and respecting me. I hate to shame +myself by even speaking of your money, but you can sign that all away to +some hospital to-morrow, if you please--you can get it all together and +throw it into the North River, as far as I am concerned! Send Kindelon +adrift--jilt him! On my soul I beg this of you for your own future +happiness more than anything else! I don't say that it will be a square +or right thing to do. But it will save you from the second horrible +mistake of your life! You made one, that death saved you from. But this +will be worse. It will last your lifetime. Kindelon isn't of your +_monde_, and never can be. There is so much in that. I am not speaking +like a snob. But he has no more sense of the proprieties, the nice +externals, the way of doing all those thousand trifling things, which, +trifling as they are, make up three-quarters of actual existence, than +if he were an Indian, a Bedouin, or a gypsy! Before Heaven, Pauline, if +I thought such a marriage could bring you happiness, I'd give you up +without a murmur! I'm not fool enough to die, or pine, or even mope +because of any woman on the globe not caring for me! But now, by giving +me the right to guard you--by making me so grateful to you that only the +rest of my life can fitly show my gratitude, you will escape calamity, +distress, and years of remorse!" + +It had hardly seemed to her, at first, as if Courtlandt were really +speaking; this intensity was so entirely uncharacteristic of him; these +rapid tones and spirited glances were so remote from his accustomed +personality. Yet by degrees she recognized not alone the quality of the +change, but its motive and source. She could not but feel tenderly +toward him then. She was a woman, and he had told her that he loved her; +this bore its inevitable condoning results. + +And yet her voice was almost stern as she now said to him, rising, and +repelling the hand by which he still strove to clasp her own,-- + +"I think you admitted that if I broke my engagement with Ralph Kindelon +it would not be--I use your own words, Court--the square or right thing +to do.... Well, I shall not do it! There, I hope you are satisfied." + +He looked at her with a surpassing pain. His hands, while they hung at +his sides, knotted themselves. "Oh, Pauline," he exclaimed, "I am _not_ +satisfied!" + +She met his look steadily. The tears in her eyes had vanished, though +those already shed glistened on her cheeks. "Very well. I am sorry. I +love Ralph Kindelon. I mean to be his wife." + +"You meant to be Varick's wife." + +"It is horrible for you to bring that up!" she cried. "Here I commit no +mistake. He is a man of men! He loves me, and I love him. Do you know +anything against him--outside of the codes and creeds that would exclude +him from one of Aunt Cynthia's dancing-classes?" + +"I know this against him; he is not true. He is not to be trusted. He +rings wrong. He is not a gentleman--in the sense quite outside of Aunt +Cynthia's definition." + +"It is false!" exclaimed Pauline, crimsoning. "Prove to me," she went +on, with fleet fire, "that he is not true--not to be trusted. I dare you +to prove it." + +He walked slowly toward the door. "It is an intuition," he said. "I +can't prove it. I could as soon tell you who wrote that villainous thing +in the newspaper there." + +Pauline gave a laugh of coldest contempt. "Oh," she cried, "in a moment +more you will be saying that _he_ wrote it!" + +Courtlandt shook his head. The gesture conveyed, in some way, an +excessive and signal sadness. + +"In a moment more," he answered, "I shall be saying nothing to you. And +I don't know that I shall ever willingly come into your presence again. +Good-by." + +Pauline gave no answer, sinking back into her seat as he disappeared. + +Her eye lighted upon the fallen newspaper while she did so. Its +half-crumpled folds made her forget that her cousin was departing. She +suddenly sprang up again, and caught the sheet from the floor. A fire +was blazing near by. She hurried toward the grate, intending to destroy +the printed abomination. + +But, pausing half-way, she once more burst into tears. A recollection +cut her to the heart of how futile would be any attempt, now, to destroy +the atrocious wrong itself. That must live and work its unmerited ill. + +"And to this dark ending," she thought, with untold dejection, "has come +my perfectly honest ambition--my fair and proper and wholesome plan!" +And then, abruptly, her tearful eyes began to sparkle, while a bright, +mirthless smile touched her lips. + +"But I can at least have my retort," she decided. "_He_ will help +me--stand by me in this miserable emergency. I will send for him,--yes, +I will send for Ralph at once! He will do just as I dictate, and I know +what I _shall_ dictate! Miss Cragge wrote that base screed, and Miss +Cragge shall suffer accordingly!" + + + + +XIV. + + +She sent for Kindelon at once, but before her message could possibly +have reached the office of the "Asteroid," he presented himself. + +He had recently seen the article, and told her so with a lover-like +tenderness that she found balsamic, if not precisely curative. + +"It is fiendish," he at length said, "and if I thought any man had done +it I would thrash him into confessing so. But I am nearly sure that a +woman did it." + +"Miss Cragge?" + +"Yes." + +"You can't thrash her, Ralph. But you can punish her." + +"How?" + +"Through your own journal--the 'Asteroid.' You can show the world just +what a virago she is." + +"No," he replied, after a reflective pause, "that can't be." + +"Can't be!" exclaimed Pauline, almost hysterically reproachful. "The +'Asteroid' can call the 'Herald,' the 'Times' and the 'Tribune' every +possible bad name; it can fly at the throats of politicians whom it +doesn't indorse; it can seethe and hiss like a witch's caldron in +editorials about some recent regretted measure at Albany! But when I ask +it to defend me against slanderous ridicule it refuses--it"-- + +"Ah," cried Kindelon, interrupting her, "it refuses because it is +powerless to defend you." + +"Powerless!" + +"_Qui s'excuse s'accuse._ Any attempted vindication would be merely to +direct the public eye still more closely upon this matter. All evil +things hold within themselves the germ of their own destruction. Let +this villainy die a natural death, Pauline; to fight it will be to +perpetuate its power. In the meanwhile I can probably gain a clue to its +authorship. But I do not promise, mind. No, I do not promise!" + +"And this is all!" faltered Pauline. "Oh, Ralph, according to your +argument, every known wrong should be endured because of the notoriety +which attaches to the redressing of it." + +He looked very troubled and very compassionate as he answered her. "The +notoriety is in many cases of no importance, my love. If I were +coarsely assailed, for instance, I should not hesitate to openly +confront my assailant. But with a pure woman it is different; and with +_some_ pure women--yourself I quote as a most shining example of these +latter--it is unspeakably different! The chastity of some names is so +perfect that any touch whatever will soil it." + +"If so, then mine has been soiled already!" cried Pauline. "Oh," she +went on, "you men are all alike toward us women! Our worst crime is that +you yourselves should talk about us! To have your fellow-men say, 'This +woman has been rendered the object of a scandalous insult, but has +retaliated with courage,' is to make her seem in your eyes as if the +insult were really a deserved one! Whenever we are prominent, except in +a social way, we are called notorious. If our husbands are drunkards or +brutes who abuse us, and we fly to the refuge of the divorce-court, we +are notorious. If we go on the stage, no matter how well we may guard +our honest womanhood there, we are notorious. If we turn ministers, +doctors, lecturers, philanthropists, political agitators, it is all the +same; we are observed, discussed, criticised; hence we are notorious. +Now, I've never rebelled against this finely just system, though like +nearly all other yoked human beings I have indulged certain private +views upon my own bondage. And in my case it was hardly a bondage.... +Except for certain years where discontent was in a large measure +remorse, I have been lifted by exceptional circumstance above those +pangs and torments which I have felt certain must have beset many +another woman through no act of her own. But now an occasion suddenly +dawns when I find myself demanding a man's full justice. To tell me that +I can't get it because I am a woman is no answer whatever. I want it, +all the same." + +Kindelon gazed at her with a sort of woe-begone amazement. "I don't tell +you that you can't get it, as far as it is to be had," he almost +groaned. "I merely remind you that this is the nineteenth century, and +neither the twentieth nor the twenty-first." + +Pauline gave a fierce little motion of her shapely head. "I am reminded +of that nearly every day that I live," she retorted. "You fall back, of +course, upon public opinion. All of you always do, where a woman is +concerned, whenever you are cornered. And it is so easy to corner +you--to make you swing at us this cudgel of 'domestic retirement' and +'feminine modesty.' I once talked for two hours in Paris with one of +the strongest French radical thinkers of modern times. For the first +hour and a half he delighted me; he spoke of the immense things that +modern scientific developments were doing for the human race. For the +last half-hour he disgusted me. And why? I discovered that his 'human +race' meant a race entirely masculine. He left woman out of the question +altogether. She might get along the best way she could. When he spoke of +his own sex he was superbly broad; when he spoke of ours he was narrower +than any Mohammedan with a harem full of wives and a prospective +Paradise full of subservient houris." + +Kindelon rose and began to pace the floor, with his hands clasped behind +him. "Well," he said, in a tone of mild distraction, "I'm very sorry for +your famous French thinker. I hope you don't want me to tell you that I +sympathize with him." + +"I'm half inclined to believe it!" sped Pauline. "If my cousin +Courtlandt had spoken as you have done, I should have accepted such +ideas as perfectly natural. Courtlandt is the incarnation of +conventionalism. He is part of the rush in our social wheelwork, and yet +he makes it move more slowly. He could no more pull up his window-shades +and let in fresh sunshine than you could close your shutters and live +in his decorous _demijour_!" + +Kindelon still continued his impatient pacing. "I'm very glad of your +favorable comparison," he said, with more sadness than satire. He +abruptly paused, then, facing Pauline. "What is it, in Heaven's name, +that you want me to do?" + +"You should not ask; you should know!" she exclaimed. Her +clear-glistening eyes, her flushed cheeks, and the assertive, almost +imperious posture of her delicate figure made her seem to him a rarely +beautiful vision as he now watched her. "Reflect, pray reflect," she +quickly proceeded, "upon the position in which I now stand! I attempted +to do what if I had been a much better woman than I am it would not at +all have been a blameworthy thing to do. The result was failure; it was +failure through no fault of my own. I found myself in a clique of +wrangling egotists, and not in a body of sensible co-operative +supporters. Chief among these was Miss Cragge, whose repulsive traits I +foresaw--or rather you aided me to foresee them. I omitted her from my +banquet (very naturally and properly, I maintain), and this is the apple +of discord that she has thrown." Here Pauline pointed to the fatal +newspaper, which lay not far off. "Of course," she went on, with a very +searching look at Kindelon, "there can be no doubt that Miss Cragge _is_ +the offender! I, for my part, am certain of it; you, for yours, are +certain as well, unless I greatly err. But this makes your refusal to +publicly chastise her insolence all the more culpable!" + +"Culpable!" he echoed, hurrying toward her. "Pauline! you don't know +what you are saying! Have I the least pity, the least compunction toward +that woman?" + +Pauline closed her eyes for an instant, and shook her head, with a +repulsing gesture of one hand. "Then you have a very false pity toward +another woman--and a very false compunction as well," she answered. + +"How can I _act_, situated as I am?" he cried, with sharp excitement. +"You have not yet allowed our engagement to transpire. What visible or +conceded rights _have_ I to be your defender?" + +"You are unjust," she said. "I give you every right. That article +insinuates that I am a sort of high-bred yet low-toned adventuress. No +_lady_ could feel anything but shame and indignation at it. Besides, it +incessantly couples your name with mine.... And as for right to be my +champion in exposing and rebuking this outrage, I--I give you every +right, as I said." + +"I desire but one," returned Kindelon. His voice betrayed no further +perturbation. He seated himself at her side, and almost by force took +both her hands in the strong grasp of both his own. + +"What right?" she questioned. Her mood of accusation, of reproach, was +not yet quieted; her eyes still sparkled from it; her restless lips +still betrayed it. + +"The right," he answered, "of calling you my wife. As it is, what am I? +A man far below you in all worldly place, who has gained from you a +matrimonial promise. Marry me!--marry me at once!--to-morrow!--and +everything will be different! Then you shall have become mine to defend, +and I will show you how I can defend what is my own!" + +"To-morrow!" murmured Pauline. + +"Yes, to-morrow! You will say it is too soon. You will urge +conventionalism now, though a minute ago you accused _me_ of urging it! +When you are once my wife I shall feel empowered to lawfully befriend +you!" + +"Lawfully!" she repeated. "Can you not do so manfully, as it is?" + +"No--not without the interfering claims and assertions of your family!" + +"I _have_ no real family. And those whom you call such are without the +right of either claim or assertion, as regards any question of what I +choose or do not choose to do!" + +He still retained her hands; he put his lips against her cheek; he would +not let her withdraw, though she made a kind of aggrieved effort to do +so. + +"They have no rights, Pauline, and yet they would overwhelm me with +obloquy! As your husband--once as your wedded, chosen husband, what +should I care for them all? I would laugh at them! Make it to-morrow! +Then see how I will play my wife's part, and fight her battle!..." + +They talked for some time after this in lowered tones.... Pauline was in +a wholly new mood when she at length said,-- + +"To-morrow, then, if you choose." + +"You mean it? You promise it?" + +"I mean it--and I promise it, since you seem so doubtful." + +"I am doubtful," he exclaimed, kissing her, "because I can scarcely +dream that this sudden happiness has fallen to me from the stars!..." + +When he had left her, and she was quite alone, Pauline found her lips +murmuring over the words, in a sort of mechanical repetition: "I have +promised to marry him to-morrow." + +She had indeed made this vow, and as a very sacred one. And the more +that she reflected upon it the more thoroughly praiseworthy a course it +seemed. Her nearest living relations were the Poughkeepsies and +Courtlandt. She had quarrelled with both--or it meant nearly the same +thing. There was no one left to consult. Besides, even if there had +been, why should she consult any third party in this affair, momentous +though it was? She loved; she was beloved. She was a widow with a great +personal, worldly independence. She had already been assailed; what +mattered a little more assailance? For most of those who would gossip +and sneer she had a profound and durable contempt.... Why, then, should +she regret her spoken word? + +And yet she found herself not so much regretting it as fearing lest she +might regret it. She suddenly felt the need, and in keenest way, of a +near confidential, trustworthy friend. But her long residence abroad had +acted alienatingly enough toward all earlier American friendships. She +could think of twenty women--married, or widows like herself--who would +have received her solicited counsel with every apparent sign of +sympathy. But with all these she had lost the old intimate sense; new +ground must be broken in dealing with them; their views and creeds were +what her own had been when she had known and prattled platitudes with +them before her dolorous marriage: or at least she so chose to think, so +chose to decide. + +"There is one whom I could seek, and with whom I could seriously discuss +the advisability of such a speedy marriage," at length ran Pauline's +reflections. "That one is Mrs. Dares. Her large, sweet, just mind would +be quite equal to telling me if I am really wrong or right.... Still, +there is an obstacle--her daughter, Cora. Yet that would make no +difference with Mrs. Dares. She would be above even a maternal +prejudice. She is all gentle equity and disinterested kindliness. I +might see her alone--quite alone--this evening. Neither Cora nor the +sister, Martha, need know anything. I would pledge her to secrecy before +I spoke a word ... I will go to her! I will go to Mrs. Dares, and will +ask her just what I ought to do." + +This resolve strengthened with Pauline after she had once made it. The +hour was now somewhat late in the afternoon. She distrusted the time of +Mrs. Dares's arrival up-town from her work, and decided that the visit +had best be paid at about seven o'clock that same evening. + +A little later she was amazed to receive the card of Mr. Barrowe. She +went into her reception-room to see this gentleman, with mingled +amusement and awkwardness; she was so ignorant what fatality had landed +him within her dwelling. + +"I scarcely know how to greet you, Mr. Barrowe," she said, after giving +a hand to her guest. "You and I parted by no means peacefully last +night, and I--I am (yes, I confess it!) somewhat unprepared...." + +At this point Mr. Barrowe made voluble interruption. His little +twinkling eyes looked smaller and acuter than before, and his gaunt, +spheroidal nose had an unusual pallor as it rose from his somewhat +depressed cheeks. + +"You needn't say _you_ are unprepared, Mrs. Varick!" he exclaimed. "I am +unprepared myself. I had no idea of visiting you this afternoon. I had +no idea that you would again give me the pleasure of receiving me. +Handicapped as I am, myself, by visits, letters, applications, +mercantile matters, I have insisted, however, on getting rid of +all--yes, _all_ trammels." + +Here Mr. Barrowe paused, and Pauline gently inclined her head, saying,-- + +"That is very good of you. Pray proceed." + +"Proceed!" cried Mr. Barrowe. He had already seated himself, but he now +rose, approached Pauline, took her hand, and with an extravagant +gallantry which his lank body caused closely to verge upon the +ludicrous, lifted this hand ceremoniously to his pale lips. Immediately +afterward he resumed his seat. And at once he recommenced speaking. + +"I feel that I--I owe you the most profound of apologies," he declared, +with a hesitation that seemed to have a sincere emotional origin. +"Handicapped as I am by a hundred other matters, besieged as I am by +bores who want my autograph, by people who desire me to write for this +or that journal, by people who desire consultation with me on countless +literary or even commercial subjects, I nevertheless have felt it a +question of conscience to pay you this visit." + +"A question of conscience?" said Pauline, suavely. + +"Yes, Mrs. Varick. I--I have seen that stringently objectionable article +in the ... ahem ... the 'Morning Monitor.' May I ask if you also have +seen it? And pray be sure that when I thus ask I feel confident you +_must_ have seen it, since bad tidings travel quickly, and..." + +"Yes, Mr. Barrowe, I have seen it," said Pauline, interrupting another +thin, diplomatic sort of cough on the part of her visitor. "And I +should be glad if you could tell me what devoted foe wrote it." + +Mr. Barrowe now trembled with eagerness. "I--I _can_ tell you!" he +exclaimed. "It--it was that unhappy Miss Cragge! I had no sooner read +it, in my office this morning, than I was attacked by a conviction--an +absolute conviction--that _she_ wrote it. Handicapped, besieged as +I am ... but let that pass...." + +"Yes--let that pass," softly cried Pauline, meaning no discourtesy, yet +bent upon reaching the bare fact and proof. "You say that you are sure +that Miss Cragge wrote the article?" + +"Positively certain," asseverated Mr. Barrowe. "I went to the lady at +once. I found her at her desk in the office of--well, let us not mind +_what_ newspaper. I upbraided her with having written it! I was very +presumptuous, perhaps--very dictatorial, but I did not care. I had stood +up for the lady, not many evenings ago, at the risk of your +displeasure." + +"The _lady_!" repeated Pauline, half under her breath, and with a +distinct sneer. "Go on, please, Mr. Barrowe. Did Miss Cragge confess?" + +"Miss Cragge _did_ not confess. But she showed such a defiant tendency +_not_ to confess--she treated me with such an overbearing +pugnaciousness and disdain, that before I had been five minutes in her +society I had no doubts whatever as to the real authorship of the +shocking article. And now, Mrs. Varick, I wish to offer you my most +humble and deferential apologies. I wish to tell you how deeply and +sincerely sorry I am for ever having entered into the least controversy +with you regarding that most aggressive and venomous female! For, my +dear madam, besieged and handicapped though I may be by countless..." + +"Don't offer me a word of apology, Mr. Barrowe!" here struck in Pauline, +jumping up from her seat and seizing the hand of her guest. "It is quite +needless! I owe you more than you owe me! You have told me the name of +my enemy, of which I was nearly certain all along." And here Pauline +gave the gentleman's bony and cadaverous face one of those glances which +those who liked her best thought the most charming. + +"I had been told," she went on, with a very winning intonation, "that +you have a large, warm heart!" + +"Who--who told you that?" murmured Mr. Barrowe, evidently under the +spell of his hostess's beauty and grace. + +"Mr. Kindelon," Pauline said, gently. + +"Kindelon!" exclaimed Mr. Barrowe, "why he is my worst enemy, as--as I +fear, my dear madam, that Miss Cragge is yours!" + +"Oh, never mind Miss Cragge," said Pauline, with a sweet, quick laugh; +"and never mind Mr. Kindelon, either. I have only to talk about _you_, +Mr. Barrowe, and to tell you that I have never yet met a good, true man +(for I am certain that you are such) who stood in his own light so +persistently as you do. You have an immense talent for quarrelling," she +went on, with pretty seriousness. "Neglect it--crush it down--be +yourself! Yourself is a very honest and agreeable self to be. I am +always on the side of people with good intentions, and I am sure that +yours are of the best. A really bitter-hearted man ruffles people, and +so do you. But your motives for it are as different from his as malice +is different from dyspepsia. I am sure you are going to reform from this +hour." + +"Reform?" echoed Mr. Barrowe. + +Pauline gave a laugh of silver clearness and heartiest mirth. As often +happens with us when we are most assailed by care, she forgot all +present misery for at least the space of a minute or so. + +"Yes," she cried, with a bewitching glee quite her own and by no means +lost upon her somewhat susceptible listener, "you are going to conform +the Mr. Barrowe of real life to the Mr. Barrowe who writes those +brilliant, judicial, and trenchant essays. Oh, I have read them! You +need not fancy that I am talking mere foundationless flattery such as +you doubtless get from many of those people who ... well, who handicap +you, you know.... And your reformation is to begin at once. I am to be +your master. I have a lot of lessons to teach!" + +"When are your instructions to begin?" said Mr. Barrowe, with a certain +awkward yet positive gallantry. "I am very anxious to receive them." + +"Your first intimation of them will be a request to dine with me. Will +you accept?--you and your wife of course." + +"But my wife is an invalid. She never goes anywhere." + +"I hope, however, that she sometimes dines." + +"Yes, she dines, poor woman ... incidentally." + +"Then she will perhaps give me an incidental invitation to break +bread.... Oh, my dear Mr. Barrowe, what I mean is simply that I want to +know you better, and so acquire the right to tell you of a few +superficial faults which prevent all the world from recognizing your +kindly soul. I...." + +But here Pauline paused, for a servant entered with a card. She glanced +at the card, and made an actually doleful grimace. + +"Mr. Leander Prawle is here," she said to her visitor. + +Mr. Barrowe gave a start. "In that case I must go," he said. "I once +spoke ill of that young gentleman's most revered poem, and since then he +has never deigned to notice me." + +"But you will not forget the dinner, and what is to follow," said +Pauline, as she shook hands. + +"No," Mr. Barrowe protested. "If you cleave my heart in twain I shall +try to live the better with the other half of it." + +"I should not like to cleave it in twain," said Pauline. "It is too +capable and healthy a heart for that. I should only try to make it beat +with more temperate strokes.... _Au revoir_, then. If you should meet +Mr. Prawle outside, tell him that you are sorry." + +"Sorry? But his poem was abominable!" + +"All the more reason for you to be magnanimously sorry.... Ah, here he +is!" + +Here Mr. Leander Prawle indeed was, but as he entered the room Mr. +Barrowe slipped past him, and with a suddenness that almost prevented +his identification on the part of the new-comer.... + +"Mrs. Varick," exclaimed Leander Prawle, while he pressed the hand of +his hostess. "I came here because duty prompted me to come." + +"I hope pleasure had a little to do with the matter, Mr. Prawle," said +Pauline, while indicating a lounge on which they were both presently +seated. + +Mr. Prawle looked just as pale as when Pauline had last seen him, just +as dark-haired, and just as dark-eyed; but the ironical fatigue had +somehow left his visage; there was a totally new expression there. + +"I suppose," he began, with his black eyes very fixedly directed upon +Pauline's face, "that you have heard of the ... the 'Morning Monitor's' +outrageous...." + +"Yes, Mr. Prawle," Pauline broke in. "I have heard all about it." + +"And it has pained you beyond expression!" murmured the young poet. "It +must have done so!" + +"Naturally," replied Pauline. + +"It ... it has made _me_ suffer!" asserted the new visitor, laying one +slim, white hand upon the region of his heart. + +"Really?" was the answer. "That is very nice and sympathetic of you." + +Mr. Prawle regarded her with an unrelaxed and very fervid scrutiny. He +now spoke in lowered and emotional tones, leaning toward his hearer so +that his slender body made quite an exaggerated curve. + +"My whole soul," he said, "is brimming with sympathy!" + +Pauline conquered her amazement at this entirely unforeseen outburst. + +"Thanks very much," she returned. "Sympathy is always a pleasant thing +to receive." + +Mr. Prawle, still describing his physical curve, gave a great sigh. "Oh, +Mrs. Varick," he murmured, "I should like to kill the man who wrote that +horrible article." + +"Suppose it were a woman," said Pauline. + +"Then I should like to kill the woman!... Mrs. Varick, will you pardon +me if I read you ... a few lines which indignation com----yes, combined +with reverence--actual reverence--inspired me to write after reading +those disgraceful statements? The lines are--are addressed to yourself. +With--with your permission, I--I will draw them forth." + +Without any permission on Pauline's part, however, Mr. Prawle now drew +forth the manuscript to which he had referred. His long pale fingers +underwent a distinct tremor as he unrolled a large crackling sheet of +foolscap. And then, when all, so to speak, was ready, he swept his dark +eyes over Pauline's attentive countenance. "_Have_ I your permission?" +he falteringly inquired. + +"It is granted, certainly, Mr. Prawle." + +After a slight pause, and in a tone of sepulchrally monotonous quality, +the young gentleman read these lines:-- + + "White soul, what impious voice hath dared to blame + With virulent slander thine unsullied life? + Methinks that now the very stars should blush + In their chaste silver stateliness aloft! + Methinks the immaculate lilies should droop low + For very shame at this coarse obloquy. + The unquarried marble of Pentelicus + Deny its hue of snow, and even the dawn + Forget her stainless birthright for thy sake! + Cursed the hand that wrote of thee such wrong; + Cursed the pen such hand hath basely clasped; + Cursed the actual ink whose...." + +"My dear Mr. Prawle!" exclaimed Pauline, at this point; "I must beg you +not to make me the cause of so terrible a curse! Indeed, I cannot +sanction it. I must ask you to read no more." + +She was wholly serious. She forgot to look upon the humorous side of Mr. +Prawle's action; his poem, so called, addressed her jarred nerves and +wounded spirit as a piece of aggravating impudence. The whole event of +his visit seemed like a final jeer from the sarcastic episode recently +ended. + +He regarded her now with a sorrowful astonishment. "You--you wish me to +read no more!" he exclaimed. + +"Yes, if you please," said Pauline, controlling her impatience as best +she could. + +"But I--I wrote it especially _for_ you!" he proceeded. "I have put my +soul into it! I consider it in many ways the most perfect thing that I +have _ever_ done. I intended to include it in my forthcoming volume, +'Moonbeams and Mountain-Peaks,' under the title of 'Her Vindication.' +Even the grossly material poetic mind of Arthur Trevor, to whom I read +it a few hours ago, admitted its sublimity, its spirituality!" + +"I will admit both, also," said Pauline, whose mood grew less and less +tolerant of this self-poised fatuity. "Only, I must add, Mr. Prawle, +that it would have been better taste for you to have left this +exasperating affair untouched by your somewhat saintly muse. And I shall +furthermore request that you do not include the lines in your 'Moonbeams +and Hill-Tops,' or"-- + +"Mountain-Peaks!" corrected Mr. Prawle, rising with a visible shudder. +"Oh, Mrs. Varick," he went on, "I see with great pain that you are a +most haughty and ungenerous lady! You--you have smitten me with a +fearful disappointment! I came here brimming with the loftiest human +sympathy! I believed that to-day would be a turning-point in my +existence. I confidently trusted that after hearing my poem there would +be no further obstacle in my career of greatness!" + +Pauline now slowly left her seat. Unhappy as she was, there could be no +resisting such magnificent opportunities of amusement as were now +presented to her. + +"Your career of greatness?" she quietly repeated. "Did I hear you +properly, Mr. Prawle?" + +Her guest was refolding his manuscript with an aggrieved and perturbed +air. As he put the paper within a breast-pocket he rolled his dark eyes +toward Pauline with infinite solemnity. + +"You doubt, then," he exclaimed, "that I am born to be great--supremely +great? Ah, there is no need for me to put that question now! I had +thought otherwise _before_ ... when you smiled upon me, when you seemed +to have read my poems, to be familiar with my growing fame!" + +"You mistake," said Pauline: "I never meant to show you that I had read +your poems. If I smiled upon you, Mr. Prawle, it was from courtesy +only." + +"Horrible!" ejaculated the young poet. He clasped his hands together in +a somewhat theatrically despairing way, and for an instant lowered his +head. "I--I thought that you were prepared to indorse, to assist my +genius!" he soon proceeded, levelling a look of strong appeal at +Pauline. "I thought that you had separated my poetic veracity from the +sham of Trevor and Corson! I--I thought, Mrs. Varick, that in you I had +found a true worshipper!" + +Pauline was at last amused. "I usually reserve my worship for +divinities, Mr. Prawle," she said, "and I have found but a few of these +in all the history of literature." + +"I see!" cried her companion, "you mean that I am _not_ a genius!" + +"I did not say so. But you have given me no proof of it." + +"No proof of it! What was the poem I have just read?" + +"It was ... well, it was resonant. But I objected to it, as I have told +you, on personal grounds." As she went on, Pauline tried to deal with a +rather insubordinate smile of keen, sarcastic enjoyment. + +"So you really think," she continued, "that you possess absolute +genius?" + +"I am certain of it!" cried Mr. Prawle. + +"That is a very pleasant mental condition." + +"Do _you_ doubt it?... Ah! I see but too plainly that you do!" + +"Frankly," said Pauline, "I do." + +Mr. Prawle flung both his hands towards the ceiling. "It is Kindelon's +work," he cried, with an effect of very plaintive lamentation. "Kindelon +is among those who yet oppose me." + +"Mr. Kindelon is not responsible for my opinions," said Pauline. +"However, you probably have other opponents?" + +"Their name is legion! But why should I care? Do you join their +ranks?... Well, Shelley almost died because of being misunderstood! I +had hoped that you would assist me in--yes, in the publication of my +book of poems, Mrs. Varick. I do not mean that I wrote to you, for this +reason, the poem which you have just refused to hear me read. Far from +it! I only mean that I have cherished the idea of securing in you a +patron. Yes, a patron! I am without means to bring forth 'Moonbeams and +Mountain-Peaks.' And I had hoped that after hearing me read what I have +already told you is my most nobly able creation, you would ... consent, +as a lover of art, of genius, of...." + +"I understand," said Pauline. "You wish me to assist you in the +publication of your volume." She was smiling, though a trifle wearily. +"Well, Mr. Prawle, I will do it." + +"You will do it!" + +"Yes. You shall have whatever cheque you write me for...." She +approached Prawle and laid her hand upon his arm. "But you must promise +me to destroy 'Her Vindication'--not even to think of publishing it. Do +you?" + +"Yes ... if you insist." + +"I do insist.... Well, as I said, write to me for the amount required." + +Prawle momentarily smiled, as if from extreme gratitude. And then the +smile abruptly faded from his pale face. "I will promise!" he declared. +"But ... oh, it is so horrible to think that you help me from no real +appreciation of my great gifts--that you do so only from _charity_!" + +"Charity is not by any means a despicable virtue." + +"From a great millionaire to a poor poet--yes! The poet has a sensitive +soul! He wants to be loved for his verses, for his inspiration, if he is +a true poet like myself!" + +"And you believe yourself a true poet, Mr. Prawle?" + +"I?" + +It is impossible to portray the majesty of Mr. Prawle's monosyllabic +pronoun. "If I am not great," he enunciated slowly, "then no one _has_ +been or ever _will_ be great. I have a divine mission. A truly and +positively divine mission." + +Pauline gave a little inscrutable nod. "A divine mission is a very nice +thing to have. I hope you will execute it." + +"I _shall_ execute it!" cried Mr. Prawle. "All the poets, on every side +of me, are singing about The Past. I, and I alone, sing of The Future. I +set evolution to music ... what other poet has done that? I wrest from +Buckle, Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley--from all the grand modern thinkers, in +fact--their poetic and yet rationalistic elements! If you had heard my +poem to yourself _through_--if you had had the patience, I--I may add, +the kindliness, to hear it through, you would have seen that my terminus +was in accord with the prevailing theories of Herbert Spencer's noble +philosophy...." + +"Shall I ever cling to or love Herbert Spencer again?" thought Pauline, +"when I see him made the shibboleth of such intellectual charlatans as +this?" + +"In accord," continued Mr. Prawle, "with everything that is progressive +and unbigoted. I finished with an allusion to the Religion of Humanity. +I usually do, in all my poems. That is what makes them so unique, so +incomparable!" + +Pauline held out her hand in distinct token of farewell. + +"Belief in one's self is a very saving quality," she said. "I +congratulate you upon it." + +Mr. Prawle shrank offendedly toward the door. "You dismiss me!" he burst +forth. "After I have bared my inmost soul to you, you _dismiss_ me!" + +Pauline tossed her head, either from irritation or semi-diversion. "Ah, +you take too much for granted!" she said, withdrawing her hand. + +Mr. Prawle had raised himself to his full height. "I refuse your +assistance!" he ejaculated. "You offer it as you would offer it to a +pensioner--a beggar! And you--_you_, have assumed the right of +entertaining and fostering literary talent! I scarcely addressed you at +your last reception ... I _waited_. I supposed that in spite of +Kindelon's known enmity, some of your guests must have told you how +immense were my deserts--how they transcended the morbid horrors of +Rufus Corson, and the glaring superficialities of Arthur Trevor. But I +discover, plainly enough, that you are impervious to all intellectual +greatness of claim. I will accept _no_ aid from you!--none whatever! But +one day, when the name of Leander Prawle is a shining and a regnant one, +you will perhaps remember how miserably you failed to value his merits, +and shrink with shame at the thought of your own pitiable +misjudgment!..." + +"Thank Heaven that monstrosity of literary vanity has removed itself!" +thought Pauline, a little later, when Leander Prawle had been heard very +decisively to close the outer hall-door. "And now I must dwell no longer +on trifles--I must concern myself with far weightier matters." + +The coming marriage to Kindelon on the morrow seemed to her fraught with +untold incentive for reflection. "But I will not reflect," she soon +determined. "I will at once try to see Mrs. Dares, and let her reflect +for me. She is so wise, so capable, so admirable! I have consented +because I love! Let her, if she shall so decide, dissuade me because of +experiences weightier than even my own past bitter ones!" + +The hour of her resolved visit to Mrs. Dares had now arrived. In a +certain way she congratulated herself upon the distracting tendency of +both Mr. Barrowe's and Mr. Prawle's visits. "They have prevented me," +she mused, "from dwelling too much upon my own unhappy situation. Mr. +Barrowe is a very sensible fool, and Mr. Prawle is a very foolish fool. +They are both, in their way, taunting and satiric radiations from the +dying bonfire of my own rash ambition. They are both reminders to me +that I, after all, am the greatest and most conspicuous fool. Some other +woman, more sensible and clever than I, will perhaps seek to establish +in New York a social movement where intellect and education are held +above the last Anglomaniac coaching-drive to Central Park, or the last +vulgarly-select _cotillon_ at Delmonico's. But it will be decades hence. +I don't know how many ... but it will be decades.... All is over, now. I +face a new life; I have ended with my _salon_. Only one result has come +of it--Ralph Kindelon. Thank Heaven, he is a substantial result, though +all the rest are shadow and illusion!" + +Pauline soon afterwards started on foot for the residence of Mrs. Dares. +It was nearly dusk. She had determined to set before this good and +trusted woman every detail of her present discomfort, and while +confessing her matrimonial promise as regarded the marriage with +Kindelon on the morrow, to exhort counsel, advice, guidance, +justification. Being a woman, and having made up her mind, +justification may have been the chief stimulus of her devout pilgrimage. + +The great bustling city was in shadow as she rang the bell at Mrs. +Dares's residence. + +A strange, ominous, miserable fear was upon her while she did so. She +could not account for it; she strove to shake it off. She remembered her +own reflections: "All is over now. I face a new life." + +But she could not dismiss the brooding dread while she waited the answer +of her summons at Mrs. Dares's door. + + + + +XV. + + +The tidy young negress opened the door soon afterwards. Pauline asked +for Mrs. Dares. The answer came that Mrs. Dares was at home. + +"I wish to see her alone," said Pauline. + +"Miss Cora's got a gent'man in the back room," came the answer, "but +there's nobody right here." + +Between "right here" and the "back room," Pauline was soon shown the +difference. As she sat in a little prettily-furnished apartment, +awaiting the appearance of Mrs. Dares, she readily apprehended that some +sort of a chamber lay behind. This was, reasonably, the Dareses' +dining-room. But she heard voices from beyond the rough decorative +woollen tapestry which intervened in heavy concealing folds. + +At first, seated quietly and thinking of just what she should say to +Mrs. Dares, Pauline quite disregarded these voices. + +"I shall tell the plain, unvarnished truth," she reflected. "I shall +not leave a single detail. I shall trust her judgment absolutely." + +A moment later she started, with a recognizing sense that she had heard +a familiar tone from one of the voices behind the tapestry. Evidently a +man was speaking. She rose from her seat. She had approached the curtain +instinctively before realizing her act. A new impulse made her withdraw +several steps from it. But the voice had been Kindelon's, and she now +clearly heard Kindelon speak again. + +"Cora!" she heard him say, "there are certain wrongs for which no +reparations _can_ be given. I know that the wrong I have done you is of +this sort. I don't attempt to exculpate myself. I don't know why I came +here to bid you this farewell. It was kind of you to consent to see +me. Hundreds of other women would have refused, under like conditions. +But you have often said that you loved me, and I suppose you love me +still. For this reason you may find some sort of consolation hereafter +in the thought that I have made an ambitious marriage which will place +me high in the esteem of the world, which will give my talents a +brilliant chance, which will cause men and women to point to me as a man +who has achieved a fine and proud success.... Good-by, Cora.... Let me +take your hand once--just once--before I go. I'll grant you that I've +behaved like a scamp. I'll grant everything that can be said in my own +disfavor. Good heavens! don't look at me in that horribly reproachful +way, you--you make me willing to renounce this marriage wholly! Cora, I +will do so if you'll pardon the past! I'll come back to you, I'll devote +my future life to you! only tell me that you forgive and forget!" + +"No, no," Pauline now heard a struggling and seemingly agonized voice +reply. "There is no undoing what you have done. Keep your promise to +_her_, as you have broken your faith with _me_. I do not say that my +love is dead yet; I think it will not die for a long time ... perhaps +not for years. But my respect is wholly dead.... I will not touch your +hand; I will not even remain longer in your presence. I--I have no +vengeful feeling toward you. I wish you all future happiness. If you +shine hereafter as your talents deserve, I shall hear of your fame, your +triumph, with no shadow of bitterness in my soul. And my chief hope, my +chief anxiety, will be for the woman whom you have married. I know her +enough to know that she is full of good impulses, full of true and fine +instincts. You will go to her with an aching conscience and a stained +honor. But I pray that after she has lifted you into that place which +you seek to gain through her, she may never know you as I have known +you--never wake to my anguish of disappointment--never realize my depths +of disillusion!" + +Pauline waited to hear no more. She thrust aside the drapery of the +doorway and passed into the next room. + +Cora uttered a swift and smothered cry. Kindelon gave a terrible start. +Then a silence followed. It seemed to Pauline a most appreciable +silence. She meant and wished to break it, yet her speech kept defying +her will, and resisted her repeated effort at due control. But at length +she said, looking straight at Kindelon,-- + +"I have heard--I did not mean to hear--I don't want you to say a single +word--there is nothing for you to say. I simply appear before +you--before you both! I--I think that is enough. I know every thing now. +You ... must have been certain that if I had previously known--that if +you had not told me a falsehood I ... I ... should never...." + +And then poor Pauline reeled giddily, putting forth both hands in a +piteous, distraught way.... When Kindelon caught her she had already +lost consciousness.... + +The sense of blank was a most acute one when she awoke. Her first clear +thought was, "How long have I been unconscious?" ... And then came +remembrance, and with remembrance the pain of a deep-piercing hurt. + +No one was near by except Mrs. Dares. Pauline lay upon a lounge; she +felt the yielding of cushions beneath her head and shoulders. Her first +audible sign of revived consciousness was a little tremulous laugh. + +"That's you, Mrs. Dares?" she then said. "I--I must have fainted. How +funny of me! I--I never fainted before." + +Mrs. Dares put both arms about her, and kissed her twice, thrice, on the +cheek. + +"My poor, dear, unhappy lady!" she said. "I am sorry--so miserably +sorry." + +Pauline repeated her tremulous laugh. She was beginning to feel the +reassertion of physical strength. "I--I came here to see only you, Mrs. +Dares," she now said, "but it was fated otherwise. And ... and yet it +has all been better--far better." Here she laughed again, and a little +hysterically. "Oh, how superb a failure I've made of it, haven't I? I +thought the 'Morning Monitor' had dealt me my last _coup_. But one other +still remained!" + +She lay silent for some little time, after this, and when Mrs. Dares +presently spoke to her the lids which had dropped over her eyes did not +lift themselves. It was so sweet, so tender, so exquisitely gentle a +voice that it brought not the slightest exciting consequences. + +"He is greatly to blame. I do not excuse him any more than you will. But +you must not think the worst of him. You must think him weak, but you +must not think him entirely base. I look at his conduct with impartial +eyes. I try to look at everybody with impartial eyes. He was far below +you in the social scale--that is the phrase which means inferiority +nowadays, and I am afraid it will mean inferiority for many a year to +come. He had engaged himself to my dear Cora. He meant to marry her. +Then he met you. Everything about you dazzled and charmed him. It was +yourself as much as your position, your wealth, your importance. He +cared for you; he was enchanted by you; his nature is not a deep nature, +though his intellect is large and keen. He is almost the typical +Irishman, this Kindelon--the Irishman who, in statesmanship, in +governance, in administrative force, has left poor Ireland what she is +to-day. He meant well, but he had not enough _morale_ to make this +well-meaning active and cogent. The temptation came, and he yielded at +once. There was no premeditated dishonor. The strain was put upon him +and he could not bear the strain--that is all. Such men as he never can +bear such a strain. There was not a hint of coldbloodedness in his +conduct--there was none of the fortune-hunter's deliberate method. There +was, indeed, no method at all; there was nothing except an inherent +moral feebleness. Brilliant as he is, exceptional as he is, he can no +more help consent and acquiescence in any matter which concerns his +personal, selfish desires, than the chameleon can help taking the tints +of what surrounds it. And I do not believe that he knows, at this hour, +whether he loves you or my poor Cora the best. That is he--that is +Kindelon--that is the fascinating, distressing race that he represents. +He loved you both; his big, expansive Irish heart was quite capable of +doing that. But his insecure, precarious conscience was incapable of +pointing to him the one straight, imperative path. Hence your own +sorrow, my dear, ill-used lady, and hence the sorrow of my poor +unfortunate Cora!" + +Pauline's eyes slowly unclosed as Mrs. Dares's last words were spoken. + +"You speak like a sybil!" she murmured. + +"But you speak too late. If I had only talked with you a little sooner! +I should have been so prepared for such words _then_! Now they only come +to me like mockery and ... and sarcasm!" + +Again Mrs. Dares stooped and kissed her. + +"God knows," she said, "that I mean them for neither!" + +"God help me from believing that you do!" answered Pauline. She raised +herself, and flung both arms about Mrs. Dares's neck, while a sudden +paroxysm of sobs overmastered and swayed her. + + + + +XVI. + + +By a little after nine o'clock, this same evening, Pauline was driven in +a carriage to her own residence. + +She alighted with excellent composure, rang the bell and was promptly +admitted. + +But she had no sooner entered the hall than she found herself face to +face with Courtlandt. + +He was in evening dress; he looked thoroughly his old self-contained +self. Pauline passed at once into the little reception-room just off the +hall. Courtlandt followed her. She sank into a chair, slowly untying the +strings of her bonnet. A brisk fire crackled on the hearth; she stared +into it. + +"So you came to me," she said, with a kind of measured apathy. + +"Yes," said Courtlandt. "I obeyed the message that you sent me." + +Pauline impetuously turned and looked at him. The fire-light struck her +face as she did so, and he saw that her gray eyes were swimming in +tears. + +She made no attempt to master her broken voice. "O Court," she said, "it +was ever so good of you to come! I almost doubted if you would! I should +have remembered that you--well, that you cared for me in another than a +merely cousinly way. But there was no one else--that is, no one near me +in blood. It is wonderful how we think of that blood-kinship when +something dreadful happens to us. We may not recall it for years, until +the blow comes. Then we feel its force, its bond, its claim.... I want +you to sit down beside me, Court, and quietly listen. You were always +good at listening. Besides, you will have an immense satisfaction, +presently; you will learn that your prophecies regarding _him_ were +correct. My eyes are open--and in time. I shall never marry him. I shall +never marry any one again. And now, listen...." + +For a long time, after this, Courtlandt showed himself the most patient +of auditors. But he was silent for a good space after his cousin had at +length ended, while the fire sputtered and fumed behind the silver +filigrees that bordered its hearth, as though it were delivering some +adverse, exasperated commentary upon poor Pauline's late disclosures. + +But presently Courtlandt spoke. "I think you have had a very fortunate +escape," he said. "And I hope you mean, now, to come back and be one of +us, again." + +"What a way of putting it!" she exclaimed, with a great quivering sigh. + +"There's no other way to put it. Theory's one thing and practice +another. As long as the world lasts there will be a lot of people in +every land who are better and hold themselves better than a huge lot of +other people. One can argue about this matter till he or she is black in +the face; it's no use, though; the best way to get along is to take +things as you find them. You and I didn't make society, so we'd better +not try to alter it." + +Pauline gave a weary little smile. Her tears had ceased; she was staring +into the fire with hard, dry, bright eyes. + +"O Court," she said, with a pathetic little touch of her old cruelty, +"I'm afraid you don't shine as a philosopher. You are better as a +prophet; what do you say of Cora Dares and _him_? Will they marry?" + +"Yes," returned Courtlandt unhesitatingly. "And I dare say he will make +her an excellent husband. Didn't you tell me that she was an artist?... +Well, he's an editor, a sort of general scribbler, so they will be on a +delightful equality. They'll marry. You say I'm a prophet; depend upon +it, they'll marry sooner or later." + +"You make me recall that you are Aunt Cynthia's nephew," said Pauline, +with another weary smile. She was in a very miserable mood. Her wound +still bled, and would bleed, as she knew, for many a day. + +Courtlandt's preposterously trite and commonplace little axiom had +already begun to echo itself in a kind of rhythmical mockery through her +distressed brain: "The best way to get along is to take things as you +find them." + +_Was_ it the best way, after all? Was thinking for one's self and living +after one's own chosen fashion nothing but a forlorn folly? Was +passivity wisdom, and individualism a snare? + +The fire crackled on. There was more silence between the two cousins. +The hour was growing late; outside, in the streets, you heard only the +occasional rolling of carriage-wheels. + +"By the way, speaking of Aunt Cynthia, Court,--will she ever notice me +again?" + +"Certainly she will." + +"Isn't she furious?" + +"That newspaper article has repressed her fury. She's enormously sorry +for you. Aunt Cynthia would never find it hard, you know, to be +enormously sorry for a Van Corlear; she came so near to being one +herself; a Schenectady is next door to it." + +"Yes, I understand," mused Pauline. She was still staring into the fire. +"There is that clannish feeling that comes out strong at such a time ... +Court, I will write to her." + +"Do, by all means." + +"Not an apology, you know, but a ... well, a sort of pacific proposal." + +"Do, you'll find it will be all right, then. Aunt Cynthia would never +put on any grand airs to one of her own race; she has too much respect +for it...." + +The longest silence of all now ensued. The fire had ceased to crackle; +its block of crumbled coal looked like the fragments of a huge crushed +ruby. Pauline did not know that Courtlandt was watching her when she +suddenly heard him say,-- + +"You're going to have a hard fight, Pauline, but you'll come out of it +all sound--never fear. I suppose he _was_ the sort of chap to play the +mischief with a woman, if she once gave him a chance." + +"O Court," came the melancholy answer, "I wasn't thinking of _him_, just +then. I was thinking of what my life has meant! It seems to me, now, +like a broken staircase, leading nowhere. Such a strange, unsatisfactory +life, thus far!" + +"All lives are that, if we choose to look on them so," returned +Courtlandt. "It is the choosing or not choosing to look on them so that +makes all the difference.... Besides, you are young yet." + +"Oh, I am seventy years old!" she cried, with a little fatigued moan. + +"In a year from now you will have lapsed back into your normal age." + +"I can't believe it!" + +"Wait and see." + +"Ah, I shall have to do a good deal of waiting--for nothing whatever!" + +"I too shall wait," said Courtlandt grimly. + +She suddenly turned and scanned his face. "For what?" she sharply +questioned. + +"For you." + +Pauline threw back her head, with a brief, bitter laugh. "Then you will +have to wait a long time!" she exclaimed, with sorrowful irony. + +"I expect to do that," answered Courtlandt, more grimly still. "And I am +a good prophet. You told me so." + + * * * * * + + + + +EDGAR FAWCETT'S WRITINGS. + + + "_Mr. Fawcett was the man of whom Longfellow expected more than of + any of the other young American authors, both as a poet and a + novelist._"--American Queen. + + + +SONG AND STORY. + +1 vol. 12mo. Printed on imported hand-made paper, with gilt top. $1.50. + +"The _Revue des Deux Mondes_ gives high praise to Mr. FAWCETT'S poetry, +and compares his briefer lyrics to the famous _Emaux et Camees_ of +Theophile Gautier."--_Beacon._ + +"Possessed of the singing voice, the artist's intolerance of slovenly +workmanship, and an unerring sense of proportion, Mr. FAWCETT should +fulfil the most sanguine expectations.... They are filled with the charm +of suggestiveness; scarcely a poem but brings some new thought, some +strange analogy, to haunt the brain after reading it."--CHARLES G. D. +ROBERTS, in _The Week_. + + +TINKLING CYMBALS. + +1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. + +A brilliant novel of New York and Newport in the nineteenth century, by +one of its closest and most observing students. "Enchantingly +interesting."--_The Inter-Ocean_ (Chicago). + + + +ADVENTURES OF A WIDOW. + +1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. + +"Mr. FAWCETT is, without question, one of the best of our younger +novelists.... He is thoroughly at home among the people and the scenes +he chooses to depict."--_Beacon_ (Boston). + +"As a writer, Mr. FAWCETT is most enjoyable. He has wonderful command of +emotion, and in his recent novels there are many passages of singular +strength, hot passion, or most moving pathos.... He is irresistibly +attractive." + + +JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., BOSTON. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF A WIDOW*** + + +******* This file should be named 37185.txt or 37185.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/1/8/37185 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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