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diff --git a/old/5421-8.txt b/old/5421-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..02b7c3e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/5421-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10574 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Metropolis, by Upton Sinclair + +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.net + + +Title: The Metropolis + +Author: Upton Sinclair + +Posting Date: March 20, 2009 [EBook #5421] +Release Date: April, 2004 +First Posted: July 14, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METROPOLIS *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +THE METROPOLIS + + +BY + +UPTON SINCLAIR + + + +FIRST PUBLISHED 1908 + +PRINTED BY OFFSET IN GREAT BRITAIN + + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"Return at ten-thirty," the General said to his chauffeur, and then +they entered the corridor of the hotel. + +Montague gazed about him, and found himself trembling just a little +with anticipation. It was not the magnificence of the place. The quiet +uptown hotel would have seemed magnificent to him, fresh as he was from +the country; but, he did not see the marble columns and the gilded +carvings-he was thinking of the men he was to meet. It seemed too much +to crowd into one day-first the vision of the whirling, seething city, +the centre of all his hopes of the future; and then, at night, this +meeting, overwhelming him with the crowded memories of everything that +he held precious in the past. + +There were groups of men in faded uniforms standing about in the +corridors. General Prentice bowed here and there as they retired and +took the elevator to the reception-rooms. In the doorway they passed a +stout little man with stubby white moustaches, and the General stopped, +exclaiming, "Hello, Major!" Then he added: "Let me introduce Mr. Allan +Montague. Montague, this is Major Thorne." + +A look of sudden interest flashed across the Major's face. "General +Montague's son?" he cried. And then he seized the other's hand in both +of his, exclaiming, "My boy! my boy! I'm glad to see you!" + +Now Montague was no boy--he was a man of thirty, and rather sedate in +his appearance and manner; there was enough in his six feet one to have +made two of the round and rubicund little Major. And yet it seemed to +him quite proper that the other should address him so. He was back in +his boyhood to-night--he was a boy whenever anyone mentioned the name +of Major Thorne. + +"Perhaps you have heard your father speak of me?" asked the Major, +eagerly; and Montague answered, "A thousand times." + +He was tempted to add that the vision that rose before him was of a +stout gentleman hanging in a grape-vine, while a whole battery of +artillery made him their target. + +Perhaps it was irreverent, but that was what Montague had always +thought of, ever since he had first laughed over the tale his father +told. It had happened one January afternoon in the Wilderness, during +the terrible battle of Chancellorsville, when Montague's father had +been a rising young staff-officer, and it had fallen to his lot to +carry to Major Thorne what was surely the most terrifying order that +ever a cavalry officer received. It was in the crisis of the conflict, +when the Army of the Potomac was reeling before the onslaught of +Stonewall Jackson's columns. There was no one to stop them-and yet they +must be stopped, for the whole right wing of the army was going. So +that cavalry regiment had charged full tilt through the thickets, and +into a solid wall of infantry and artillery. The crash of their volley +was blinding--and horses wore fairly shot to fragments; and the Major's +horse, with its lower jaw torn off, had plunged madly away and left its +rider hanging in the aforementioned grape-vine. After he had kicked +himself loose, it was to find himself in an arena where pain-maddened +horses and frenzied men raced about amid a rain of minie-balls and +canister. And in this inferno the gallant Major had captured a horse, +and rallied the remains of his shattered command, and held the line +until help came-and then helped to hold it, all through the afternoon +and the twilight and the night, against charge after charge.--And now +to stand and gaze at this stout and red-nosed little personage, and +realize that these mighty deeds had been his! + +Then, even while Montague was returning his hand-clasp and telling him +of his pleasure, the Major's eye caught some one across the room, and +he called eagerly, "Colonel Anderson! Colonel Anderson!" + +And this was the heroic Jack Anderson! "Parson" Anderson, the men had +called him, because he always prayed before everything he did. Prayers +at each mess,--a prayer-meeting in the evening,--and then rumour said +the Colonel prayed on while his men slept. With his battery of +artillery trained to perfection under three years of divine guidance, +the gallant Colonel had stood in the line of battle at Cold +Harbour--name of frightful memory!--and when the enemy had swarmed out +of their intrenchments and swept back the whole line just beyond him, +his battery had stood like a cape in a storm-beaten ocean, attacked on +two sides at once; and for the half-hour that elapsed before infantry +support came up, the Colonel had ridden slowly up and down his line, +repeating in calm and godly accents, "Give 'em hell, boys--give 'em +hell!"--The Colonel's hand trembled now as he held it out, and his +voice was shrill and cracked as he told what pleasure it gave him to +meet General Montague's son. + +"Why have we never seen you before?" asked Major Thorne. Montague +replied that he had spent all his life in Mississippi--his father +having married a Southern woman after the war. Once every year the +General had come to New York to attend the reunion of the Loyal Legion +of the State; but some one had had to stay at home with his mother, +Montague explained. + +There were perhaps a hundred men in the room, and he was passed about +from group to group. Many of them had known his father intimately. It +seemed almost uncanny to him to meet them in the body; to find them old +and feeble, white-haired and wrinkled. As they lived in the chambers of +his memory, they were in their mighty youth-heroes, transfigured and +radiant, not subject to the power of time. + +Life on the big plantation had been a lonely one, especially for a +Southern-born man who had fought in the Union army. General Montague +had been a person of quiet tastes, and his greatest pleasure had been +to sit with his two boys on his knees and "fight his battles o'er +again." He had collected all the literature of the corps which he had +commanded--a whole library of it, in which Allan had learned to find +his way as soon as he could read. He had literally been brought up on +the war--for hours he would lie buried in some big illustrated history, +until people came and called him away. He studied maps of campaigns and +battle-fields, until they became alive with human passion and struggle; +he knew the Army of the Potomac by brigade and division, with the names +of commanders, and their faces, and their ways-until they lived and +spoke, and the bare roll of their names had power to thrill him.--And +now here were the men themselves, and all these scenes and memories +crowding upon him in tumultuous throngs. No wonder that he was a little +dazed, and could hardly find words to answer when he was spoken to. + +But then came an incident which called him suddenly back to the world +of the present. "There is Judge Ellis," said the General. + +Judge Ellis! The fame of his wit and eloquence had reached even far +Mississippi--was there any remotest corner of America where men had not +heard of the silver tongue of Judge Ellis? "Cultivate him!" Montague's +brother Oliver had laughed, when it was mentioned that the Judge would +be present--"Cultivate him--he may be useful." + +It was not difficult to cultivate one who was as gracious as Judge +Ellis. He stood in the doorway, a smooth, perfectly groomed gentleman, +conspicuous in the uniformed assembly by his evening dress. The Judge +was stout and jovial, and cultivated Dundreary whiskers and a beaming +smile. "General Montague's son!" he exclaimed, as he pressed the young +man's hands. "Why, why--I'm surprised! Why have we never seen you +before?" + +Montague explained that he had only been in New York about six hours. +"Oh, I see," said the Judge. "And shall you remain long?" + +"I have come to stay," was the reply. + +"Well, well!" said the other, cordially. "Then we may see more of you. +Are you going into business?" + +"I am a lawyer," said Montague. "I expect to practise." + +The Judge's quick glance had been taking the measure of the tall, +handsome man before him, with his raven-black hair and grave features. +"You must give us a chance to try your mettle," he said; and then, as +others approached to meet him, and he was forced to pass on, he laid a +caressing hand on Montague's arm, whispering, with a sly smile, "I mean +it." + +Montague felt his heart beat a little faster. He had not welcomed his +brother's suggestion--there was nothing of the sycophant in him; but he +meant to work and to succeed, and he knew what the favour of a man like +Judge Ellis would mean to him. For the Judge was the idol of New York's +business and political aristocracy, and the doorways of fortune yielded +at his touch. + +There were rows of chairs in one of the rooms, and here two or three +hundred men were gathered. There were stands of battle-flags in the +corners, each one of them a scroll of tragic history, to one like +Montague, who understood. His eye roamed over them while the secretary +was reading minutes of meetings and other routine announcements. Then +he began to study the assemblage. There were men with one arm and men +with one leg--one tottering old soldier ninety years of age, stone +blind, and led about by his friends. The Loyal Legion was an officers' +organization, and to that extent aristocratic; but worldly success +counted for nothing in it--some of its members were struggling to exist +on their pensions, and were as much thought of as a man like General +Prentice, who was president of one of the city's largest banks, and a +rich man, even in New York's understanding of that term. + +The presiding officer introduced "Colonel Robert Selden, who will read +the paper of the evening: 'Recollections of Spottsylvania.'" Montague +started at the name--for "Bob" Selden had been one of his father's +messmates, and had fought all through the Peninsula Campaign at his +side. + +He was a tall, hawk-faced man with a grey imperial. The room was still +as he arose, and after adjusting his glasses, he began to read his +story. He recalled the situation of the Army of the Potomac in the +spring of 1864; for three years it had marched and fought, stumbling +through defeat after defeat, a mighty weapon, lacking only a man who +could wield it. Now at last the man had come--one who would put them +into the battle and give them a chance to fight. So they had marched +into the Wilderness, and there Lee struck them, and for three days they +groped in a blind thicket, fighting hand to hand, amid suffocating +smoke. The Colonel read in a quiet, unassuming voice; but one could see +that he had hold of his hearers by the light that crossed their +features when he told of the army's recoil from the shock, and of the +wild joy that ran through the ranks when they took up their march to +the left, and realized that this time they were not going back.--So +they came to the twelve days' grapple of the Spottsylvania Campaign. + +There was still the Wilderness thicket; the enemy's intrenchments, +covering about eight miles, lay in the shape of a dome, and at the +cupola of it were breastworks of heavy timbers banked with earth, and +with a ditch and a tangle of trees in front. The place was the keystone +of the Confederate arch, and the name of it was "the Angle"--"Bloody +Angle!" Montague heard the man who sat next to him draw in his breath, +as if a spasm of pain had shot through him. + +At dawn two brigades had charged and captured the place. The enemy +returned to the attack, and for twenty hours thereafter the two armies +fought, hurling regiment after regiment and brigade after brigade into +the trenches. There was a pouring rain, and the smoke hung black about +them; they could only see the flashes of the guns, and the faces of the +enemy, here and there. + +The Colonel described the approach of his regiment. They lay down for a +moment in a swamp, and the minie-balls sang like swarming bees, and +split the blades of the grass above them. Then they charged, over +ground that ran with human blood. In the trenches the bodies of dead +and dying men lay three deep, and were trampled out of sight in the mud +by the feet of those who fought. They would crouch behind the works, +lifting their guns high over their heads, and firing into the throngs +on the other side; again and again men sprang upon the breastworks and +fired their muskets, and then fell dead. They dragged up cannon, one +after another, and blew holes through the logs, and raked the' ground +with charges of canister. + +While the Colonel read, still in his calm, matter-of-fact voice, you +might see men leaning forward in their chairs, hands clenched, teeth +set. They knew! They knew! Had there ever before been a time in history +when breastworks had been charged by artillery? Twenty-four men in the +crew of one gun, and only two unhurt! One iron sponge-bucket with +thirty-nine bullet holes shot through it! And then blasts of canister +sweeping the trenches, and blowing scores of living and dead men to +fragments! And into this hell of slaughter new regiments charging, in +lines four deep! And squad after squad of the enemy striving to +surrender, and shot to pieces by their own comrades as they clambered +over the blood-soaked walls! And heavy timbers in the defences shot to +splinters! Huge oak trees--one of them twenty-four inches in +diameter--crashing down upon the combatants, gnawed through by +rifle-bullets! Since the world began had men ever fought like that? + +Then the Colonel told of his own wound in the shoulder, and how, toward +dusk, he had crawled away; and how he became lost, and strayed into the +enemy's line, and was thrust into a batch of prisoners and marched to +the rear. And then of the night that he spent beside a hospital camp in +the Wilderness, where hundreds of wounded and dying men lay about on +the rain-soaked ground, moaning, screaming, praying to be killed. Again +the prisoners were moved, having been ordered to march to the railroad; +and on the way the Colonel went blind from suffering and exhaustion, +and staggered and fell in the road. You could have heard a pin drop in +the room, in the pause between sentences in his story, as he told how +the guard argued with him to persuade him to go on. It was their duty +to kill him if he refused, but they could not bring themselves to do +it. In the end they left the job to one, and he stood and cursed the +officer, trying to get up his courage; and finally fired his gun into +the air, and went off and left him. + +Then he told how an old negro had found him, and how he lay delirious; +and how, at last, the army marched his way. He ended his narrative the +simple sentence: "It was not until the siege of Petersburg that I was +able to rejoin my Command." + +There was a murmur of applause; and then silence. Suddenly, from +somewhere in the room, came the sound of singing--"Mine eyes have seen +the glory of the coming of the Lord!" The old battle-hymn seemed to +strike the very mood of the meeting; the whole throng took it up, and +they sang it, stanza by stanza. It was rolling forth like a mighty +organ-chant as they came to the fervid closing:-- + +"He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is +sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat; Oh! be swift, +my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet,--Our God is marching on!" + +There was a pause again; and the presiding officer rose and said that, +owing to the presence of a distinguished guest, they would forego one +of their rules, and invite Judge Ellis to say a few words. The Judge +came forward, and bowed his acknowledgment of their welcome. Then, +perhaps feeling a need of relief after the sombre recital, the Judge +took occasion to apologize for his own temerity in addressing a roomful +of warriors; and somehow he managed to make that remind him of a story +of an army mule, a very amusing story; and that reminded him of another +story, until, when he stopped and sat down, every one in the room broke +into delighted applause. + +They went in to dinner. Montague sat by General Prentice, and he, in +turn, by the Judge; the latter was reminded of more stories during the +dinner, and kept every one near him laughing. Finally Montague was +moved to tell a story himself--about an old negro down home, who passed +himself off for an Indian. The Judge was so good as to consider this an +immensely funny story, and asked permission to tell it himself. Several +times after that he leaned over and spoke to Montague, who felt a +slight twinge of guilt as he recalled his brother's cynical advice, +"Cultivate him!" The Judge was so willing to be cultivated, however, +that it gave one's conscience little chance. + +They went back to the meeting-room again; chairs were shifted, and +little groups formed, and cigars and pipes brought out. They moved the +precious battle-flags forward, and some one produced a bugle and a +couple of drums; then the walls of the place shook, as the whole +company burst forth:-- + +"Bring the good old bugle, boys! we'll sing another song--Sing it with +a spirit that will start the world along--Sing it as we used to sing +it, fifty thousand strong,--While we were marching through Georgia!" + +It was wonderful to witness the fervour with which they went through +this rollicking chant--whose spirit we miss because we hear it too +often. They were not skilled musicians--they could only sing loud; but +the fire leaped into their eyes, and they swayed with the rhythm, and +sang! Montague found himself watching the old blind soldier, who sat +beating his foot in time, upon his face the look of one who sees +visions. + +And then he noticed another man, a little, red-faced Irishman, one of +the drummers. The very spirit of the drum seemed to have entered into +him--into his hands and his feet, his eyes and his head, and his round +little body. He played a long roll between the verses, and it seemed as +if he must surely be swept away upon the wings of it. Catching +Montague's eye, he nodded and smiled; and after that, every once in a +while their eyes would meet and exchange a greeting. They sang "The +Loyal Legioner" and "The Army Bean" and "John Brown's Body" and "Tramp, +tramp, tramp, the boys are marching"; all the while the drum rattled +and thundered, and the little drummer laughed and sang, the very +incarnation of the care-free spirit of the soldier! + +They stopped for a while, and the little man came over and was +introduced. Lieutenant O'Day was his name; and after he had left, +General Prentice leaned over to Montague and told him a story. "That +little man," he said, "began as a drummer-boy in my regiment, and went +all through the war in my brigade; and two years ago I met him on the +street one cold winter night, as thin as I am, and shivering in a +summer overcoat. I took him to dinner with me and watched him eat, and +I made up my mind there was something wrong. I made him take me home, +and do you know, the man was starving! He had a little tobacco shop, +and he'd got into trouble--the trust had taken away his trade. And he +had a sick wife, and a daughter clerking at six dollars a week!" + +The General went on to tell of his struggle to induce the little man to +accept his aid--to accept a loan of a few hundreds of dollars from +Prentice, the banker! "I never had anything hurt me so in all my life," +he said. "Finally I took him into the bank--and now you can see he has +enough to eat!" + +They began to sing again, and Montague sat and thought over the story. +It seemed to him typical of the thing that made this meeting beautiful +to him--of the spirit of brotherhood and service that reigned +here.--They sang "We are tenting to-night on the old camp ground"; they +sang "Benny Havens, Oh!" and "A Soldier No More"; they sang other songs +of tenderness and sorrow, and men felt a trembling in their voices and +a mist stealing over their eyes. Upon Montague a spell was falling. + +Over these men and their story there hung a mystery--a presence of +wonder, that discloses itself but rarely to mortals, and only to those +who have dreamed and dared. They had not found it easy to do their +duty; they had had their wives and children, their homes and friends +and familiar places; and all these they had left to serve the Republic. +They had taught themselves a new way of life--they had forged +themselves into an iron sword of war. They had marched and fought in +dust and heat, in pouring rains and driving, icy blasts; they had +become men grim and terrible in spirit-men with limbs of steel, who +could march or ride for days and nights, who could lie down and sleep +upon the ground in rain-storms and winter snows, who were ready to leap +at a word and seize their muskets and rush into the cannon's mouth. +They had learned to stare into the face of death, to meet its fiery +eyes; to march and eat and sleep, to laugh and play and sing, in its +presence--to carry their life in their hands, and toss it about as a +juggler tosses a ball. And this for Freedom: for the star-crowned +goddess with the flaming eyes, who trod upon the mountain-tops and +called to them in the shock and fury of the battle; whose trailing +robes they followed through the dust and cannon-smoke; for a glimpse of +whose shining face they had kept the long night vigils and charged upon +the guns in the morning; for a touch of whose shimmering robe they had +wasted in prison pens, where famine and loathsome pestilence and raving +madness stalked about in the broad daylight. + +And now this army of deliverance, with its waving banners and its +prancing horses and its rumbling cannon, had marched into the +shadow-world. The very ground that it had trod was sacred; and one who +fingered the dusty volumes which held the record of its deeds would +feel a strange awe come upon him, and thrill with a sudden fear of +life--that was so fleeting and so little to be understood. There were +boyhood memories in Montague's mind, of hours of consecration, when the +vision had descended upon him, and he had sat with face hidden in his +hands. + +It was for the Republic that these men had suffered; for him and his +children--that a government of the people, by the people, for the +people, might not perish from the earth. And with the organ-music of +the Gettysburg Address echoing within him, the boy laid his soul upon +the altar of his country. They had done so much for him--and now, was +there anything that he could do? A dozen years had passed since then, +and still he knew that deep within him--deeper than all other purposes, +than all thoughts of wealth and fame and power--was the purpose that +the men who had died for the Republic should find him worthy of their +trust. + +The singing had stopped, and Judge Ellis was standing before him. The +Judge was about to go, and in his caressing voice he said that he would +hope to see Montague again. Then, seeing that General Prentice was also +standing up, Montague threw off the spell that had gripped him, and +shook hands with the little drummer, and with Selden and Anderson and +all the others of his dream people. A few minutes later he found +himself outside the hotel, drinking deep draughts of the cold November +air. + +Major Thorne had come out with them; and learning that the General's +route lay uptown, he offered to walk with Montague to his hotel. + +They set out, and then Montague told the Major about the figure in the +grape-vine, and the Major laughed and told how it had felt. There had +been more adventures, it seemed; while he was hunting a horse he had +come upon two mules loaded with ammunition and entangled with their +harness about a tree; he had rushed up to seize them--when a solid shot +had struck the tree and exploded the ammunition and blown the mules to +fragments. And then there was the story of the charge late in the +night, which had recovered the lost ground, and kept Stonewall Jackson +busy up to the very hour of his tragic death. And there was the story +of Andersonville, and the escape from prison. Montague could have +walked the streets all night, exchanging these war-time reminiscences +with the Major. + +Absorbed in their talk, they came to an avenue given up to the poorer +class of people; with elevated trains rattling by overhead, and rows of +little shops along it. Montague noticed a dense crowd on one of the +corners, and asked what it meant. + +"Some sort of a meeting," said the Major. + +They came nearer, and saw a torch, with a man standing near it, above +the heads of the crowd. + +"It looks like a political meeting," said Montague, "but it can't be, +now--just after election." + +"Probably it's a Socialist," said the Major. "They're at it all the +time." + +They crossed the avenue, and then they could see plainly. The man was +lean and hungry-looking, and he had long arms, which he waved with +prodigious violence. He was in a frenzy of excitement, pacing this way +and that, and leaning over the throng packed about him. Because of a +passing train the two could not hear a sound. + +"A Socialist!" exclaimed Montague, wonderingly. "What do they want?" + +"I'm not sure," said the other. "They want to overthrow the government." + +The train passed, and then the man's words came to them: "They force +you to build palaces, and then they put you into tenements! They force +you to spin fine raiment, and then they dress you in rags! They force +you to build jails, and then they lock you up in them! They force you +to make guns, and then they shoot you with them! They own the political +parties, and they name the candidates, and trick you into voting for +them--and they call it the law! They herd you into armies and send you +to shoot your brothers--and they call it order! They take a piece of +coloured rag and call it the flag and teach you to let yourself be +shot--and they call it patriotism! First, last, and all the time, you +do the work and they get the benefit--they, the masters and owners, and +you--fools--fools--fools!" + +The man's voice had mounted to a scream, and he flung his hands into +the air and broke into jeering laughter. Then came another train, and +Montague could not hear him; but he could see that he was rushing on in +the torrent of his denunciation. + +Montague stood rooted to the spot; he was shocked to the depths of his +being--he could scarcely contain himself as he stood there. He longed +to spring forward to beard the man where he stood, to shout him down, +to rebuke him before the crowd. + +The Major must have seen his agitation, for he took his arm and led him +back from the throng, saying: "Come! We can't help it." + +"But--but--," he protested, "the police ought to arrest him." + +"They do sometimes," said the Major, "but it doesn't do any good." + +They walked on, and the sounds of the shrill voice died away. "Tell +me," said Montague, in a low voice, "does that go on very often?" + +"Around the corner from where I live," said the other, "it goes on +every Saturday night." + +"And do the people listen?" he asked. + +"Sometimes they can't keep the street clear," was the reply. + +And again they walked in silence. At last Montague asked, "What does it +mean?" + +The Major shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps another civil war," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Allan Montague's father had died about five years before. A couple of +years later his younger brother, Oliver, had announced his intention of +seeking a career in New York. He had no profession, and no definite +plans; but his father's friends were men of influence and wealth, and +the doors were open to him. So he had turned his share of the estate +into cash and departed. + +Oliver was a gay and pleasure-loving boy, with all the material of a +prodigal son in him; his brother had more than half expected to see him +come back in a year or two with empty pockets. But New York had seemed +to agree with Oliver. He never told what he was doing--what he wrote +was simply that he was managing to keep the wolf from the door. But his +letters hinted at expensive ways of life; and at Christmas time, and at +Cousin Alice's birthday, he would send home presents which made the +family stare. + +Montague had always thought of himself as a country lawyer and planter. +But two months ago a fire had swept away the family mansion, and then +on top of that had come an offer for the land; and with Oliver +telegraphing several times a day in his eagerness, they had taken the +sudden resolution to settle up their affairs and move to New York. + +There were Montague and his mother, and Cousin Alice, who was nineteen, +and old "Mammy Lucy," Mrs. Montague's servant. Oliver had met them at +Jersey City, radiant with happiness. He looked just as much of a boy as +ever, and just as beautiful; excepting that he was a little paler, New +York had not changed him at all. There was a man in uniform from the +hotel to take charge of their baggage, and a big red touring-car for +them; and now they were snugly settled in their apartments, with the +younger brother on duty as counsellor and guide. + +Montague had come to begin life all over again. He had brought his +money, and he expected to invest it, and to live upon the income until +he had begun to earn something. He had worked hard at his profession, +and he meant to work in New York, and to win his way in the end. He +knew almost nothing about the city--he faced it with the wide-open eyes +of a child. + +One began to learn quickly, he found. It was like being swept into a +maelstrom: first the hurrying throngs on the ferry-boat, and then the +cabmen and the newsboys shouting, and the cars with clanging gongs; +then the swift motor, gliding between trucks and carriages and around +corners where big policemen shepherded the scurrying populace; and then +Fifth Avenue, with its rows of shops and towering hotels; and at last a +sudden swing round a corner--and their home. + +"I have picked a quiet family place for you," Oliver had said, and that +had greatly pleased his brother. But he had stared in dismay when he +entered this latest "apartment hotel"--which catered for two or three +hundred of the most exclusive of the city's aristocracy--and noted its +great arcade, with massive doors of bronze, and its entrance-hall, +trimmed with Caen stone and Italian marble, and roofed with a vaulted +ceiling painted by modern masters. Men in livery bore their wraps and +bowed the way before them; a great bronze elevator shot them to the +proper floor; and they went to their rooms down a corridor walled with +blood-red marble and paved with carpet soft as a cushion. Here were six +rooms of palatial size, with carpets, drapery, and furniture of a +splendour quite appalling to Montague. + +As soon as the man who bore their wraps had left the room, he turned +upon his brother. + +"Oliver," he said, "how much are we paying for all this?" + +Oliver smiled. "You are not paying anything, old man," he replied. +"You're to be my guests for a month or two, until you get your +bearings." + +"That's very good of you," said the other; "--we'll talk about it +later. But meantime, tell me what the apartment costs." + +And then Montague encountered his first full charge of New York +dynamite. "Six hundred dollars a week," said Oliver. + +He started as if his brother had struck him. "Six hundred dollars a +week!" he gasped. + +"Yes," said the other, quietly. + +It was fully a minute before he could find his breath. "Brother," he +exclaimed, "you're mad!" + +"It is a very good bargain," smiled the other; "I have some influence +with them." + +Again there was a pause, while Montague groped for words. "Oliver," he +exclaimed, "I can't believe you! How could you think that we could pay +such a price?" + +"I didn't think it," said Oliver; "I told you I expected to pay it +myself." + +"But how could we let you pay it for us?" cried the other. "Can you +fancy that _I_ will ever earn enough to pay such a price?" + +"Of course you will," said Oliver. "Don't be foolish, Allan--you'll +find it's easy enough to make money in New York. Leave it to me, and +wait awhile." + +But the other was not to be put off. He sat down on the embroidered +silk bedspread, and demanded abruptly, "What do you expect my income to +be a year?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," laughed Oliver; "nobody takes the time to add +up his income. You'll make what you need, and something over for good +measure. This one thing you'll know for certain--the more you spend, +the more you'll be able to make." + +And then, seeing that the sober look was not to be expelled from his +brother's face, Oliver seated himself and crossed his legs, and +proceeded to set forth the paradoxical philosophy of extravagance. His +brother had come into a city of millionaires. There was a certain group +of people--"the right set," was Oliver's term for them--and among them +he would find that money was as free as air. So far as his career was +concerned, he would find that there was nothing in all New York so +costly as economy. If he did not live like a gentleman, he would find +himself excluded from the circle of the elect--and how he would manage +to exist then was a problem too difficult for his brother to face. + +And so, as quickly as he could, he was to bring himself to a state of +mind where things did not surprise him; where he did what others did +and paid what others paid, and did it serenely, as if he had done it +all his life. He would soon find his place; meantime all he had to do +was to put himself into his brother's charge. "You'll find in time that +I have the strings in my hands," the latter added. "Just take life +easy, and let me introduce you to the right people." + +All of which sounded very attractive. "But are you sure," asked +Montague, "that you understand what I'm here for? I don't want to get +into the Four Hundred, you know--I want to practise law." + +"In the first place," replied Oliver, "don't talk about the Four +Hundred--it's vulgar and silly; there's no such thing. In the next +place, you're going to live in New York, and you want to know the right +people. If you know them, you can practise law, or practise billiards, +or practise anything else that you fancy. If you don't know them, you +might as well go practise in Dahomey, for all you can accomplish. You +might come on here and start in for yourself, and in twenty years you +wouldn't get as far as you can get in two weeks, if you'll let me +attend to it." + +Montague was nearly five years his brother's senior, and at home had +taken a semi-paternal attitude toward him. Now, however, the situation +seemed to have reversed itself. With a slight smile of amusement, he +subsided, and proceeded to put himself into the attitude of a docile +student of the mysteries of the Metropolis. + +They agreed that they would say nothing about these matters to the +others. Mrs. Montague was half blind, and would lead her placid, indoor +existence with old Mammy Lucy. As for Alice, she was a woman, and would +not trouble herself with economics; if fairy godmothers chose to shower +gifts upon her, she would take them. + +Alice was built to live in a palace, anyway, Oliver said. He had cried +out with delight when he first saw her. She had been sixteen when he +left, and tall and thin; now she was nineteen, and with the pale tints +of the dawn in her hair and face. In the auto, Oliver had turned and, +stared at her, and pronounced the cryptic judgment, "You'll go!" + +Just now she was wandering about the rooms, exclaiming with wonder. +Everything here was so quiet and so harmonious that at first one's +suspicions were lulled. It was simplicity, but of a strange and +perplexing kind--simplicity elaborately studied. It was luxury, but +grown assured of itself, and gazing down upon itself with aristocratic +disdain. And after a while this began to penetrate the vulgarest mind, +and to fill it with awe; one cannot remain long in an apartment which +is trimmed and furnished in rarest Circassian walnut, and "papered" +with hand-embroidered silk cloth, without feeling some excitement--even +though there be no one to mention that the furniture has cost eight +thousand dollars per room, and that the wall covering has been imported +from Paris at a cost of seventy dollars per yard. + +Montague also betook himself to gazing about. He noted the great double +windows, with sashes of bronze; the bronze fire-proof doors; the bronze +electric candles and chandeliers, from which the room was flooded with +a soft radiance at the touch of a button; the "duchesse" and "marquise" +chairs, with upholstery matching the walls; the huge leather +"slumber-couch," with adjustable lamp at its head. When one opened the +door of the dressing-room closet, it was automatically filled with +light; there was an adjustable three-sided mirror, at which one could +study his own figure from every side. There was a little bronze box +near the bed, in which one might set his shoes, and with a locked door +opening out into the hall, so that the floor-porter could get them +without disturbing one. Each of the bath-rooms was the size of an +ordinary man's parlour, with floor and walls of snow-white marble, and +a door composed of an imported plate-glass mirror. There was a great +porcelain tub, with glass handles upon the wall by which you could help +yourself out of it, and a shower-bath with linen duck curtains, which +were changed every day; and a marble slab upon which you might lie to +be rubbed by the masseur who would come at the touch of a button. + +There was no end to the miracles of this establishment, as Montague +found in the course of time. There was no chance that the antique +bronze clock on the mantel might go wrong, for it was electrically +controlled from the office. You did not open the window and let in the +dust, for the room was automatically ventilated, and you turned a +switch marked "hot" and "cold." The office would furnish you a guide +who would show you the establishment; and you might see your bread +being kneaded by electricity, upon an opal glass table, and your eggs +being tested by electric light; you might peer into huge refrigerators, +ventilated by electric fans, and in which each tiny lamb chop reposed +in a separate holder. Upon your own floor was a pantry, provided with +hot and cold storage-rooms and an air-tight dumb-waiter; you might have +your own private linen and crockery and plate, and your own family +butler, if you wished. Your children, however, would not be permitted +in the building, even though you were dying--this was a small +concession which you made to a host who had invested a million dollars +and a half in furniture alone. + +A few minutes later the telephone bell rang, and Oliver answered it and +said, "Send him up." + +"Here's the tailor," he remarked, as he hung up the receiver. + +"Whose tailor?" asked his brother. + +"Yours," said he. + +"Do I have to have some new clothes?" Montague asked. + +"You haven't any clothes at present," was the reply. + +Montague was standing in front of the "costumer," as the elaborate +mirror was termed. He looked himself over, and then he looked at his +brother. Oliver's clothing was a little like the Circassian walnut; at +first you thought that it was simple, and even a trifle careless--it +was only by degrees you realized that it was original and +distinguished, and very expensive. + +"Won't your New York friends make allowance for the fact that I am +fresh from the country?" asked Montague, quizzically. + +"They might," was the reply. "I know a hundred who would lend me money, +if I asked them. But I don't ask them." + +"Then how soon shall I be able to appear?" asked Montague, with visions +of himself locked up in the room for a week or two. + +"You are to have three suits to-morrow morning," said Oliver. "Genet +has promised." + +"Suits made to order?" gasped the other, in perplexity. + +"He never heard of any other sort of suits," said Oliver, with grave +rebuke in his voice. + +M. Genet had the presence of a Russian grand duke, and the manner of a +court chamberlain. He brought a subordinate to take Montague's measure, +while he himself studied his colour-scheme. Montague gathered from the +conversation that he was going to a house-party in the country the next +morning, and that he would need a dress-suit, a hunting-suit, and a +"morning coat." The rest might wait until his return. The two discussed +him and his various "points" as they might have discussed a horse; he +possessed distinction, he learned, and a great deal could be done with +him--with a little skill he might be made into a personality. His +French was not in training, but he managed to make out that it was M. +Genet's opinion that the husbands of New York would tremble when he +made his appearance among them. + +When the tailor had left, Alice came in, with her face shining from a +cold bathing. "Here you are decking yourselves out!" she cried. "And +what about me?" + +"Your problem is harder," said Oliver, with a laugh; "but you begin +this afternoon. Reggie Mann is going to take you with him, and get you +some dresses." + +"What!" gasped Alice. "Get me some dresses! A man?" + +"Of course," said the other. "Reggie Mann advises half the women in New +York about their clothes." + +"Who is he? A tailor?" asked the girl. + +Oliver was sitting on the edge of the canapé, swinging one leg over the +other; and he stopped abruptly and stared, and then sank back, laughing +softly to himself. "Oh, dear me!" he said. "Poor Reggie!" + +Then, realizing that he would have to begin at the beginning, he +proceeded to explain that Reggie Mann was a cotillion leader, the idol +of the feminine side of society. He was the special pet and protege of +the great Mrs. de Graffenried, of whom they had surely heard--Mrs. de +Graffenried, who was acknowledged to be the mistress of society at +Newport, and was destined some day to be mistress in New York. Reggie +and Oliver were "thick," and he had stayed in town on purpose to attend +to her attiring--having seen her picture, and vowed that he would make +a work of art out of her. And then Mrs. Robbie Walling would give her a +dance; and all the world would come to fall at her feet. + +"You and I are going out to 'Black Forest,' the Wallings' +shooting-lodge, to-morrow," Oliver added to his brother. "You'll meet +Mrs. Robbie there. You've heard of the Wallings, I hope." + +"Yes," said Montague, "I'm not that ignorant." + +"All right," said the other, "we're to motor down. I'm going to take +you in my racing-car, so you'll have an experience. We'll start early." + +"I'll be ready," said Montague; and when his brother replied that he +would be at the door at eleven, he made another amused note as to the +habits of New Yorkers. + +The price which he paid at the hotel included the services of a valet +or a maid for each of them, and so when their baggage arrived they had +nothing to do. They went to lunch in one of the main dining-rooms of +the hotel, a room with towering columns of dark-green marble and a maze +of palms and flowers. Oliver did the ordering; his brother noticed that +the simple meal cost them about fifteen dollars, and he wondered if +they were to eat at that rate all the time. + +Then Montague mentioned the fact that before leaving home he had +received a telegram from General Prentice, asking him to go with him +that evening to the meeting of the Loyal Legion. Montague wondered, +half amused, if his brother would deem his old clothing fit for such a +function. But Oliver replied that it would not matter what he wore +there; he would not meet anyone who counted, except Prentice himself. +The General and his family were prominent in society, it appeared, and +were to be cultivated. But Oliver shrewdly forbore to elaborate upon +this, knowing that his brother would be certain to talk about old +times, which would be the surest possible method of lodging himself in +the good graces of General Prentice. + +After luncheon came Reggie Mann, dapper and exquisite, with slender +little figure and mincing gait, and the delicate hands and soft voice +of a woman. He was dressed for the afternoon parade, and wore a +wonderful scarlet orchid in his buttonhole. Montague's hand he shook at +his shoulder's height; but when Alice came in he did not shake hands +with her. Instead, he stood and gazed, and gazed again, and lifting his +hands a little with excess of emotion, exclaimed, "Oh, perfect! +perfect!" + +"And Ollie, I told you so!" he added, eagerly. "She it tall enough to +wear satin! She shall have the pale blue Empire gown--she shall have +the pale blue Empire gown if I have to pay for it myself! And oh, what +times we shall have with that hair! And the figure--Reval will simply +go wild!" + +So Reggie prattled on, with his airy grace; he took her hand and +studied it, and then turned her about to survey her figure, while Alice +blushed and strove to laugh to hide her embarrassment. "My dear Miss +Montague," he exclaimed, "I bring all Gotham and lay it at your feet! +Ollie, your battle is won! Won without firing a shot! I know the very +man for her--his father is dying, and he will have four millions in +Transcontinental alone. And he is as handsome as Antinous and as +fascinating as Don Juan! Allons! we may as well begin with the +trousseau this afternoon!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Oliver was not rooming with them; he had his own quarters at the club, +which he did not wish to leave. But the next morning, about twenty +minutes after the hour he had named, he was at the door, and Montague +went down. + +Oliver's car was an imported French racer. It had only two seats, open +in front, with a rumble behind for the mechanic. It was long and low +and rakish, a most wicked-looking object; whenever it stopped on the +street a crowd gathered to stare at it. Oliver was clad in a black +bearskin coat, covering his feet, and with cap and gloves to match; he +wore goggles, pushed up over his forehead. A similar costume lay ready +in his brother's seat. + +The suits of clothing had come, and were borne in his grips by his +valet. "We can't carry them with us," said Oliver. "He'll have to take +them down by train." And while his brother was buttoning up the coat, +he gave the address; then Montague clambered in, and after a quick +glance over his shoulder, Oliver pressed a lever and threw over the +steering-wheel, and they whirled about and sped down the street. + +Sometimes, at home in Mississippi, one would meet automobiling parties, +generally to the damage of one's harness and temper. But until the day +before, when he had stepped off the ferry, Montague had never ridden in +a motor-car. Riding in this one was like travelling in a dream--it slid +along without a sound, or the slightest trace of vibration; it shot +forward, it darted to right or to left, it slowed up, it stopped, as if +of its own will--the driver seemed to do nothing. Such things as car +tracks had no effect upon it at all, and serious defects in the +pavement caused only the faintest swelling motion; it was only when it +leaped ahead like a living thing that one felt the power of it, by the +pressure upon his back. + +They went at what seemed to Montague a breakneck pace through the city +streets, dodging among trucks and carriages, grazing cars, whirling +round corners, taking the wildest of chances. Oliver seemed always to +know what the other fellow would do; but the thought that he might do +something different kept his companion's heart pounding in a painful +way. Once the latter cried out as a man leapt for his life; Oliver +laughed, and said, without turning his head, "You'll get used to it by +and by." + +They went down Fourth Avenue and turned into the Bowery. Elevated +trains pounded overhead, and a maze of gin-shops, dime-museums, cheap +lodging-houses, and clothing-stores sped past them. Once or twice +Oliver's hawk-like glance detected a blue uniform ahead, and then they +slowed down to a decorous pace, and the other got a chance to observe +the miserable population of the neighbourhood. It was a cold November +day, and an "out of work" time, and wretched outcast men walked with +shoulders drawn forward and hands in their pockets. + +"Where in the world are we going?" Montague asked. + +"To Long Island," said the other. "It's a beastly ride--this part of +it--but it's the only way. Some day we'll have an overhead speedway of +our own, and we won't have to drive through this mess." + +They turned off at the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge, and found +the street closed for repairs. They had to make a detour of a block, +and they turned with a vicious sweep and plunged into the very heart of +the tenement district. Narrow, filthy streets, with huge, canon-like +blocks of buildings, covered with rusty iron fire-escapes and decorated +with soap-boxes and pails and laundry and babies; narrow stoops, +crowded with playing children; grocery-shops, clothing-shops, saloons; +and a maze of placards and signs in English and German and Yiddish. +Through the throngs Oliver drove, his brows knitted with impatience and +his horn honking angrily. "Take it easy,"--protested Montague; but the +other answered, "Bah!" Children screamed and darted out of the way, and +men and women started back, scowling and muttering; when a blockade of +wagons and push-carts forced them to stop, the children gathered about +and jeered, and a group of hoodlums loafing by a saloon flung ribaldry +at them; but Oliver never turned his eyes from the road ahead. + +And at last they were out on the bridge. "Slow vehicles keep to the +right," ran the sign, and so there was a lane for them to the left. +They sped up the slope, the cold air beating upon them like a +hurricane. Far below lay the river, with tugs and ferry-boats ploughing +the wind-beaten grey water, and a city spread out on either bank--a +wilderness of roofs, with chimneys sticking up and white jets of steam +spouting everywhere. Then they sped down the farther slope, and into +Brooklyn. + +There was an asphalted avenue, lined with little residences. There was +block upon block of them, mile after mile of them--Montague had never, +seen so many houses in his life before, and nearly all poured out of +the same mould. + +Many other automobiles were speeding out by this avenue, and they raced +with one another. The one which was passed the most frequently got the +dust and smell; and so the universal rule was that when you were behind +you watched for a clear track, and then put on speed, and went to the +front; but then just when you had struck a comfortable pace, there was +a whirring and a puffing at your left, and your rival came stealing +past you. If you were ugly, you put on speed yourself, and forced him +to fall back, or to run the risk of trouble with vehicles coming the +other way. For Oliver there seemed to be but one rule,--pass everything. + +They came to the great Ocean Driveway. Here were many automobiles, +nearly all going one way, and nearly all racing. There were two which +stuck to Oliver and would not be left behind--one, two, three--one, +two, three--they passed and repassed. Their dust was blinding, and the +continual odour was sickening; and so Oliver set his lips tight, and +the little dial on the indicator began to creep ahead, and they whirled +away down the drive. "Catch us this time!" he muttered. + +A few seconds later Oliver gave a sudden exclamation, as a policeman, +concealed behind a bush at the roadside, sprang out and hailed them. +The policeman had a motor-cycle, and Oliver shouted to the mechanic, +"Pull the cord!" His brother turned, alarmed and perplexed, and saw the +man reach down to the floor of the car. He saw the policeman leap upon +the cycle and start to follow. Then he lost sight of him in the clouds +of dust. + +For perhaps five minutes they tore on, tense and silent, at a pace that +Montague had never equalled in an express train. Vehicles coming the +other way would leap into sight, charging straight at them, it seemed, +and shooting past a hand's breadth away. Montague had just about made +up his mind that one such ride would last him for a lifetime, when he +noticed that they were slacking up. "You can let go the cord," said +Oliver. "He'll never catch us now." + +"What is the cord?" asked the other. + +"It's tied to the tag with our number on, in back. It swings it up so +it can't be seen." + +They were turning off into a country road, and Montague sank back and +laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. "Is that a common trick?" +he asked. + +"Quite," said the other. "Mrs. Robbie has a trough of mud in their +garage, and her driver sprinkles the tag every time before she goes +out. You have to do something, you know, or you'd be taken up all the +time." + +"Have you ever been arrested?" + +"I've only been in court once," said Oliver. "I've been stopped a dozen +times." + +"What did they do the other times--warn you?" + +"Warn me?" laughed Oliver. "What they did was to get in with me and +ride a block or two, out of sight of the crowd; and then I slipped them +a ten-dollar bill and they got out." + +To which Montague responded, "Oh, I see!" + +They turned into a broad macadamized road, and here were more autos, +and more dust, and more racing. Now and then they crossed a trolley or +a railroad track, and here was always a warning sign; but Oliver must +have had some occult way of knowing that the track was clear, for he +never seemed to slow up. Now and then they came to villages, and did +reduce speed; but from the pace at which they went through, the +villagers could not have suspected it. + +And then came another adventure. The road was in repair, and was very +bad, and they were picking their way, when suddenly a young man who had +been walking on a side path stepped out before them, and drew a red +handkerchief from his pocket, and faced them, waving it. Oliver +muttered an oath. + +"What's the matter?" cried his brother. + +"We're arrested!" he exclaimed. + +"What!" gasped the other. "Why, we were not going at all." + +"I know," said Oliver; "but they've got us all the same." + +He must have made up his mind at one glance that the case was hopeless, +for he made no attempt to put on speed, but let the young man step +aboard as they reached him. + +"What is it?" Oliver demanded. + +"I have been sent out by the Automobile Association," said the +stranger, "to warn you that they have a trap set in the next town. So +watch out." + +And Oliver gave a gasp, and said, "Oh! Thank you!" The young man +stepped off, and they went ahead, and he lay back in his seat and shook +with laughter. + +"Is that common?" his brother asked, between laughs. + +"It happened to me once before," said Oliver. "But I'd forgotten it +completely." + +They proceeded very slowly; and when they came to the outskirts of the +village they went at a funereal pace, while the car throbbed in +protest. In front of a country store they saw a group of loungers +watching them, and Oliver said, "There's the first part of the trap. +They have a telephone, and somewhere beyond is a man with another +telephone, and beyond that a man to stretch a rope across the road." + +"What would they do with you?" asked the other. + +"Haul you up before a justice of the peace, and fine you anywhere from +fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars. It's regular highway +robbery--there are some places that boast of never levying taxes; they +get all their money out of us!" + +Oliver pulled out his watch. "We're going to be late to lunch, thanks +to these delays," he said. He added that they were to meet at the +"Hawk's Nest," which he said was an "automobile joint." + +Outside of the town they "hit it up" again; and half an hour later they +came to a huge sign, "To the Hawk's Nest," and turned off. They ran up +a hill, and came suddenly out of a pine-forest into view of a hostelry, +perched upon the edge of a bluff overlooking the Sound. There was a +broad yard in front, in which automobiles wheeled and sputtered, and a +long shed that was lined with them. + +Half a dozen attendants ran to meet them as they drew up at the steps. +They all knew Oliver, and two fell to brushing his coat, and one got +his cap, while the mechanic took the car to the shed. Oliver had a tip +for each of them; one of the things that Montague observed was that in +New York you had to carry a pocketful of change, and scatter it about +wherever you went. They tipped the man who carried their coats and the +boy who opened the door. In the washrooms they tipped the boys who +filled the basins for them and those who gave them a second brushing. + +The piazzas of the inn were crowded with automobiling parties, in all +sorts of strange costumes. It seemed to Montague that most of them were +flashy people--the men had red faces and the women had loud voices; he +saw one in a sky-blue coat with bright scarlet facing. It occurred to +him that if these women had not worn such large hats, they would not +have needed quite such a supply of the bright-coloured veiling which +they wound over the hats and tied under their chins, or left to float +about in the breeze. + +The dining-room seemed to have been built in sections, rambling about +on the summit of the cliff. The side of it facing the water was all +glass, and could be taken down. The ceiling was a maze of streamers and +Japanese lanterns, and here and there were orange-trees and palms and +artificial streams and fountains. Every table was crowded, it seemed; +one was half-deafened by the clatter of plates, the voices and +laughter, and the uproar of a negro orchestra of banjos, mandolins, and +guitars. Negro waiters flew here and there, and a huge, stout +head-waiter, who was pirouetting and strutting, suddenly espied Oliver, +and made for him with smiles of welcome. + +"Yes, sir--just come in, sir," he said, and led the way down the room, +to where, in a corner, a table had been set for sixteen or eighteen +people. There was a shout, "Here's Ollie!"--and a pounding of glasses +and a chorus of welcome--"Hello, Ollie! You're late, Ollie! What's the +matter--car broke down?" + +Of the party, about half were men and half women. Montague braced +himself for the painful ordeal of being introduced to sixteen people in +succession, but this was considerately spared him. He shook hands with +Robbie Walling, a tall and rather hollow-chested young man, with slight +yellow moustaches; and with Mrs. Robbie, who bade him welcome, and +presented him with the freedom of the company. + +Then he found himself seated between two young ladies, with a waiter +leaning over him to take his order for the drinks. He said, a little +hesitatingly, that he would like some whisky, as he was about frozen, +upon which the girl on his right, remarked, "You'd better try a +champagne cocktail--you'll get your results quicker." She added, to the +waiter, "Bring a couple of them, and be quick about it." + +"You had a cold ride, no doubt, in that low car," she went on, to +Montague. "What made you late?" + +"We had some delays," he answered. "Once we thought we were arrested." + +"Arrested!" she exclaimed; and others took up the word, crying, "Oh, +Ollie! tell us about it!" + +Oliver told the tale, and meantime his brother had a chance to look +about him. All of the party were young--he judged that he was the +oldest person there. They were not of the flashily dressed sort, but no +one would have had to look twice to know that there was money in the +crowd. They had had their first round of drinks, and started in to +enjoy themselves. They were all intimates, calling each other by their +first names. Montague noticed that these names always ended in +"ie,"--there was Robbie and Freddie and Auggie and Clarrie and Bertie +and Chappie; if their names could not be made to end properly, they had +nicknames instead. + +"Ollie" told how they had distanced the policeman; and Clarrie Mason +(one of the younger sons of the once mighty railroad king) told of a +similar feat which his car had performed. And then the young lady who +sat beside him told how a fat Irish woman had skipped out of their way +as they rounded a corner, and stood and cursed them from the +vantage-point of the sidewalk. + +The waiter came with the liquor, and Montague thanked his neighbour, +Miss Price. Anabel Price was her name, and they called her "Billy"; she +was a tall and splendidly formed creature, and he learned in due time +that she was a famous athlete. She must have divined that he would feel +a little lost in this crowd of intimates, and set to work to make him +feel at home--an attempt in which she was not altogether successful. + +They were bound for a shooting-lodge, and so she asked him if he were +fond of shooting. He replied that he was; in answer to a further +question he said that he had hunted chiefly deer and wild turkey. "Ah, +then you are a real hunter!" said Miss Price. "I'm afraid you'll scorn +our way." + +"What do you do?" he inquired. + +"Wait and you'll see," replied she; and added, casually, "When you get +to be pally with us, you'll conclude we don't furnish." + +Montague's jaw dropped just a little. He recovered himself, however, +and said that he presumed so, or that he trusted not; afterward, when +he had made inquiries and found out what he should have said, he had +completely forgotten what he HAD said.--Down in a hotel in Natchez +there was an old head-waiter, to whom Montague had once appealed to +seat him next to a friend. At the next meal, learning that the request +had been granted, he said to the old man, "I'm afraid you have shown me +partiality"; to which the reply came, "I always tries to show it as +much as I kin." Montague always thought of this whenever he recalled +his first encounter with "Billy" Price. + +The young lady on the other side of him now remarked that Robbie was +ordering another "topsy-turvy lunch." He inquired what sort of a lunch +that was; she told him that Robbie called it a "digestion exercise." +That was the only remark that Miss de Millo addressed to him during the +meal (Miss Gladys de Mille, the banker's daughter, known as "Baby" to +her intimates). She was a stout and round-faced girl, who devoted +herself strictly to the business of lunching; and Montague noticed at +the end that she was breathing rather hard, and that her big round eyes +seemed bigger than ever. + +Conversation was general about the table, but it was not easy +conversation to follow. It consisted mostly of what is known as +"joshing," and involved acquaintance with intimate details of +personalities and past events. Also, there was a great deal of slang +used, which kept a stranger's wits on the jump. However, Montague +concluded that all his deficiencies were made up for by his brother, +whose sallies were the cause of the loudest laughter. Just now he +seemed to the other more like the Oliver he had known of old--for +Montague had already noted a change in him. At home there had never +been any end to his gaiety and fun, and it was hard to get him to take +anything seriously; but now he kept all his jokes for company, and when +he was alone he was in deadly earnest. Apparently he was working hard +over his pleasures. + +Montague could understand how this was possible. Some one, for +instance, had worked hard over the ordering of the lunch--to secure the +maximum of explosive effect. It began with ice-cream, moulded in fancy +shapes and then buried in white of egg and baked brown. Then there was +a turtle soup, thick and green and greasy; and then--horror of +horrors--a great steaming plum-pudding. It was served in a strange +phenomenon of a platter, with six long, silver legs; and the waiter set +it in front of Robbie Walling and lifted the cover with a sweeping +gesture--and then removed it and served it himself. Montague had about +made up his mind that this was the end, and begun to fill up on +bread-and-butter, when there appeared cold asparagus, served in +individual silver holders resembling andirons. Then--appetite now being +sufficiently whetted--there came quail, in piping hot little +casseroles--; and then half a grape-fruit set in a block of ice and +filled with wine; and then little squab ducklings, bursting fat, and an +artichoke; and then a _café parfait_; and then--as if to crown the +audacity--huge thick slices of roast beef! Montague had given up long +ago--he could keep no track of the deluge of food which poured forth. +And between all the courses there were wines of precious brands, +tumbled helter-skelter,--sherry and port, champagne and claret and +liqueur. Montague watched poor "Baby" de Mille out of the corner of his +eye, and pitied her; for it was evident that she could not resist the +impulse to eat whatever was put before her, and she was visibly +suffering. He wondered whether he might not manage to divert her by +conversation, but he lacked the courage to make the attempt. + +The meal was over at four o'clock. By that time most of the other +parties were far on their way to New York, and the inn was deserted. +They possessed themselves of their belongings, and one by one their +cars whirled away toward "Black Forest." + +Montague had been told that it was a "shooting-lodge." He had a vision +of some kind of a rustic shack, and wondered dimly how so many people +would be stowed away. When they turned off the main road, and his +brother remarked, "Here we are," he was surprised to see a rather large +building of granite, with an archway spanning the road. He was still +more surprised when they whizzed through and went on. + +"Where are we going?" he asked. + +"To 'Black Forest,'" said Oliver. + +"And what was that we passed?" + +"That was the gate-keeper's lodge," was Oliver's reply. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +They ran for about three miles upon a broad macadamized avenue, laid +straight as an arrow's flight through the forest; and then the sound of +the sea came to them, and before them was a mighty granite pile, +looming grim in the twilight, with a draw-bridge and moat, and four +great castellated towers. "Black Forest" was built in imitation of a +famous old fortress in Provence--only the fortress had forty small +rooms, and its modern prototype had seventy large ones, and now every +window was blazing with lights. A man does not let himself be caught +twice in such a blunder; and having visited a "shooting-lodge" which +had cost three-quarters of a million dollars and was set in a preserve +of ten thousand acres, he was prepared for Adirondack "camps" which had +cost half a million and Newport "cottages" which had cost a million or +two. + +Liveried servants took the car, and others opened the door and took +their coats. The first thing they saw was a huge, fireplace, a +fireplace a dozen feet across, made of great boulders, and with whole +sections of a pine tree blazing in it. Underfoot was polished hardwood, +with skins of bear and buffalo. The firelight flickered upon shields +and battle-axes and broad-swords, hung upon the oaken pillars; while +between them were tapestries, picturing the Song of Roland and the +battle of Roncesvalles. One followed the pillars of the great hall to +the vaulted roof, whose glass was glowing blood-red in the western +light. A broad stairway ascended to the second floor, which opened upon +galleries about the hall. + +Montague went to the fire, and stood rubbing his hands before the +grateful blaze. "Scotch or Irish, sir?" inquired a lackey, hovering at +his side. He had scarcely given his order when the door opened and a +second motor load of the party appeared, shivering and rushing for the +fire. In a couple of minutes they were all assembled--and roaring with +laughter over "Baby" de Mille's account of how her car had run over a +dachshund. "Oh, do you know," she cried, "he simply POPPED!" + +Half a dozen attendants hovered about, and soon the tables in the hall +were covered with trays containing decanters and siphons. By this means +everybody in the party was soon warmed up, and then in groups they +scattered to amuse themselves. + +There was a great hall for indoor tennis, and there were half a dozen +squash-courts. Montague knew neither of these games, but he was +interested in watching the water-polo in the swimming-tank, and in +studying the appointments of this part of the building. The tank, with +the walls and floor about it, were all of marble; there was a bronze +gallery running about it, from which one might gaze into the green +depths of the water. There were luxurious dressing-rooms for men and +women, with hot and cold needle-baths, steam-rooms with rubbers in +attendance and weighing and lifting machines, electric machines for +producing "violet rays," and electric air-blasts for the drying of the +women's hair. + +He watched several games, in which men and women took part; and later +on, when the tennis and other players appeared, he joined them in a +plunge. Afterward, he entered one of the electric elevators and was +escorted to his room, where he found his bag unpacked, and his evening +attire laid out upon the bed. + +It was about nine when the party went into the dining-room, which +opened upon a granite terrace and loggia facing the sea. The room was +finished in some rare black wood, the name of which he did not know; +soft radiance suffused it, and the table was lighted by electric +candles set in silver sconces, and veiled by silk shades. It gleamed +with its load of crystal and silver, set off by scattered groups of +orchids and ferns. The repast of the afternoon had been simply a lunch, +it seemed--and now they had an elaborate dinner, prepared by Robbie +Walling's famous ten-thousand-dollar chef. In contrast with the uproar +of the inn was the cloistral stillness of this dining-room, where the +impassive footmen seemed to move on padded slippers, and the courses +appeared and vanished as if by magic. Montague did his best to accustom +himself to the gowns of the women, which were cut lower than any he had +ever seen in his life; but he hesitated every time he turned to speak +to the young lady beside him, because he could look so deep down into +her bosom, and it was difficult for him to realize that she did not +mind it. + +The conversation was the same as before, except that it was a little +more general, and louder in tone; for the guests had become more +intimate, and as Robbie Walling's wines of priceless vintage poured +forth, they became a little "high." The young lady who sat on +Montague's right was a Miss Vincent, a granddaughter of one of the +sugar-kings; she was dark-skinned and slender, and had appeared at a +recent lawn fete in the costume of an Indian maiden. The company amused +itself by selecting an Indian name for her; all sorts of absurd ones +were suggested, depending upon various intimate details of the young +lady's personality and habits. Robbie caused a laugh by suggesting +"Little Dewdrop"--it appeared that she had once been discovered writing +a poem about a dewdrop; some one else suggested "Little Raindrop," and +then Ollie brought down the house by exclaiming, "Little Raindrop in +the Mud-puddle!" A perfect gale of laughter swept over the company, and +it must have been a minute before they could recover their composure; +in order to appreciate the humour of the sally it was necessary to know +that Miss Vincent had "come a cropper" at the last meet of the Long +Island Hunt Club, and been extricated from a slough several feet deep. + +This was explained to Montague by the young lady on his left--the one +whose half-dressed condition caused his embarrassment. She was only +about twenty, with a wealth of golden hair and the bright, innocent +face of a child; he had not yet learned her name, for every one called +her "Cherub." Not long after this she made a remark across the table to +Baby de Mille, a strange jumble of syllables, which sounded like +English, yet was not. Miss de Mille replied, and several joined in, +until there was quite a conversation going on. "Cherub" explained to +him that "Baby" had invented a secret language, made by transposing +letters; and that Ollie and Bertie were crazy to guess the key to it, +and could not. + +The dinner lasted until late. The wine-glasses continued to be emptied, +and to be magically filled again. The laughter was louder, and now and +then there were snatches of singing; women lolled about in their +chairs-one beautiful boy sat gazing dreamily across the table at +Montague, now and then closing his eyes, and opening them more and more +reluctantly. The attendants moved about, impassive and silent as ever; +no one else seemed to be cognizant of their existence, but Montague +could not help noticing them, and wondering what they thought of it all. + +When at last the party broke up, it was because the bridge-players +wished to get settled for the evening. The others gathered in front of +the fireplace, and smoked and chatted. At home, when one planned a +day's hunting, he went to bed early and rose before dawn; but here, it +seemed, there was game a-plenty, and the hunters had nothing to +consider save their own comfort. + +The cards were played in the vaulted "gun-room." Montague strolled +through it, and his eye ran down the wall, lined with glass cases and +filled with every sort of firearm known to the hunter. He recalled, +with a twinge of self-abasement, that he had suggested bringing his +shotgun along! + +He joined a group in one corner, and lounged in the shadows, and +studied "Billy" Price, whose conversation had so mystified him. +"Billy," whose father was a banker, proved to be a devotee of horses; +she was a veritable Amazon, the one passion of whose life was glory. +Seeing her sitting in this group, smoking cigarettes, and drinking +highballs, and listening impassively to risqué stories, one might +easily draw base conclusions about Billy Price. But as a matter of fact +she was made of marble; and the men, instead of falling in love with +her, made her their confidante, and told her their troubles, and sought +her sympathy and advice. + +Some of this was explained to Montague by a young lady, who, as the +evening wore on, came in and placed herself beside him. "My name is +Betty Wyman," she said, "and you and I will have to be friends, because +Ollie's my side partner." + +Montague had to meet her advances; so had not much time to speculate as +to what the term "side partner" might be supposed to convey. Betty was +a radiant little creature, dressed in a robe of deep crimson, made of +some soft and filmy and complicated material; there was a crimson rose +in her hair, and a living glow of crimson in her cheeks. She was bright +and quick, like a butterfly, full of strange whims and impulses; +mischievous lights gleamed in her eyes and mischievous smiles played +about her adorable little cherry lips. Some strange perfume haunted the +filmy dress, and completed the bewilderment of the intended victim. + +"I have a letter of introduction to a Mr. Wyman in New York," said +Montague. "Perhaps he is a relative of yours." + +"Is he a railroad president?" asked she; and when he answered in the +affirmative, "Is he a railroad king?" she whispered, in a mocking, +awe-stricken voice, "Is he rich--oh, rich as Solomon--and is he a +terrible man, who eats people alive all the time?" + +"Yes," said Montague--"that must be the one." + +"Well," said Betty, "he has done me the honour to be my granddaddy; but +don't you take any letter of introduction to him." + +"Why not?" asked he, perplexed. + +"Because he'll eat YOU," said the girl. "He hates Ollie." + +"Dear me," said the other; and the girl asked, "Do you mean that the +boy hasn't said a word about me?" + +"No," said Montague--"I suppose he left it for you to do." + +"Well," said Betty, "it's like a fairy story. Do you ever read fairy +stories? In this story there was a princess--oh, the most beautiful +princess! Do you understand?" + +"Yes," said Montague. "She wore a red rose in her hair." + +"And then," said the girl, "there was a young courtier--very handsome +and gay; and they fell in love with each other. But the terrible old +king--he wanted his daughter to wait a while, until he got through +conquering his enemies, so that he might have time to pick out some +prince or other, or maybe some ogre who was wasting his lands--do you +follow me?" + +"Perfectly," said he. "And then did the beautiful princess pine away?" + +"Um--no," said Betty, pursing her lips. "But she had to dance terribly +hard to keep from thinking about herself." Then she laughed, and +exclaimed, "Dear me, we are getting poetical!" And next, looking sober +again, "Do you know, I was half afraid to talk to you. Ollie tells me +you're terribly serious. Are you?" + +"I don't know," said Montague--but she broke in with a laugh, "We were +talking about you at dinner last night. They had some whipped cream +done up in funny little curliques, and Ollie said, 'Now, if my brother +Allan were here, he'd be thinking about the man who fixed this cream, +and how long it took him, and how he might have been reading "The +Simple Life."' Is that true?" + +"It involves a question of literary criticism"--said Montague. + +"I don't want to talk about literature," exclaimed the other. In truth, +she wanted nothing save to feel of his armour and find out if there +were any weak spots through which he could be teased. Montague was to +find in time that the adorable Miss Elizabeth was a very thorny species +of rose--she was more like a gay-coloured wasp, of predatory +temperament. + +"Ollie says you want to go down town and work," she went on. "I think +you're awfully foolish. Isn't it much nicer to spend your time in an +imitation castle like this?" + +"Perhaps," said he, "but I haven't any castle." + +"You might get one," answered Betty. "Stay around awhile and let us +marry you to a nice girl. They will all throw themselves at your feet, +you know, for you have such a delicious melting voice, and you look +romantic and exciting." (Montague made a note to inquire whether it was +customary in New York to talk about you so frankly to your face.) + +Miss Betty was surveying him quizzically meantime. "I don't know," she +said. "On second thoughts, maybe you'll frighten the girls. Then it'll +be the married women who'll fall in love with you. You'll have to watch +out." + +"I've already been told that by my tailor," said Montague, with a laugh. + +"That would be a still quicker way of making your fortune," said she. +"But I don't think you'd fit in the rôle of a tame cat." + +"A _what_?" he exclaimed; and Miss Betty laughed. + +"Don't you know what that is? Dear me--how charmingly naive! But +perhaps you'd better get Ollie to explain for you." + +That brought the conversation to the subject of slang; and Montague, in +a sudden burst of confidence, asked for an interpretation of Miss +Price's cryptic utterance. "She said"--he repeated slowly--"that when I +got to be pally with her, I'd conclude she didn't furnish." + +"Oh, yes," said Miss Wyman. "She just meant that when you knew her, +you'd be disappointed. You see, she picks up all the race-track +slang--one can't help it, you know. And last year she took her coach +over to England, and so she's got all the English slang. That makes it +hard, even for us." + +And then Betty sailed in to entertain him with little sketches of other +members of the party. A phenomenon that had struck Montague immediately +was the extraordinary freedom with which everybody in New York +discussed everybody else. As a matter of fact, one seldom discussed +anything else; and it made not the least difference, though the person +were one of your set,--though he ate your bread and salt, and you ate +his,--still you would amuse yourself by pouring forth the most painful +and humiliating and terrifying things about him. + +There was poor Clarrie Mason: Clarrie, sitting in at bridge, with an +expression of feverish eagerness upon his pale face. Clarrie always +lost, and it positively broke his heart, though he had ten millions +laid by on ice. Clarrie went about all day, bemoaning his brother, who +had been kidnapped. Had Montague not heard about it? Well, the +newspapers called it a marriage, but it was really a kidnapping. Poor +Larry Mason was good-natured and weak in the knees, and he had been +carried off by a terrible creature, three times as big as himself, and +with a temper like--oh, there were no words for it! She had been an +actress; and now she had carried Larry away in her talons, and was +building a big castle to keep him in--for he had ten millions too, alas! + +And then there was Bertie Stuyvesant, beautiful and winning--the boy +who had sat opposite Montague at dinner. Bertie's father had been a +coal man, and nobody knew how many millions he had left. Bertie was +gay; last week he had invited them to a brook-trout breakfast--in +November--and that had been a lark! Somebody had told him that trout +never really tasted good unless you caught them yourself, and Bertie +had suddenly resolved to catch them for that breakfast. "They have a +big preserve up in the Adirondacks," said Betty; "and Bertie ordered +his private train, and he and Chappie de Peyster and some others +started that night; they drove I don't know how many miles the next +day, and caught a pile of trout--and we had them for breakfast the next +morning! The best joke of all is that Chappie vows they were so full +they couldn't fish, and that the trout were caught with nets! Poor +Bertie--somebody'll have to separate him from that decanter now!" + +From the hall there came loud laughter, with sounds of scuffling, and +cries, "Let me have it!"--"That's Baby de Mille," said Miss Wyman. +"She's always wanting to rough-house it. Robbie was mad the last time +she was down here; she got to throwing sofa-cushions, and upset a vase." + +"Isn't that supposed to be good form?" asked Montague. + +"Not at Robbie's," said she. "Have you had a chance to talk with Robbie +yet? You'll like him--he's serious, like you." + +"What's he serious about?" + +"About spending his money," said Betty. "That's the only thing he has +to be serious about." + +"Has he got so very much?" + +"Thirty or forty millions," she replied; "but then, you see, a lot of +it's in the inner companies of his railroad system, and it pays him +fabulously. And his wife has money, too--she was a Miss Mason, you +know, her father's one of the steel crowd. We've a saying that there +are millionaires, and then multi-millionaires, and then Pittsburg +millionaires. Anyhow, the two of them spend all their income in +entertaining. It's Robbie's fad to play the perfect host--he likes to +have lots of people round him. He does put up good times--only he's so +very important about it, and he has so many ideas of what is proper! I +guess most of his set would rather go to Mrs. Jack Warden's any day; +I'd be there to-night, if it hadn't been for Ollie." + +"Who's Mrs. Jack Warden?" asked Montague. + +"Haven't you ever heard of her?" said Betty. "She used to be Mrs. van +Ambridge, and then she got a divorce and married Warden, the big lumber +man. She used to give 'boy and girl' parties, in the English fashion; +and when we went there we'd do as we please--play tag all over the +house, and have pillow-fights, and ransack the closets and get up +masquerades! Mrs. Warden's as good-natured as an old cow. You'll meet +her sometime--only don't you let her fool you with those soft eyes of +hers. You'll find she doesn't mean it; it's just that she likes to have +handsome men hanging round her." + +At one o'clock a few of Robbie's guests went to bed, Montague among +them. He left two tables of bridge fiends sitting immobile, the women +with flushed faces and feverish hands, and the men with cigarettes +dangling from their lips. There were trays and decanters beside each +card-table; and in the hall he passed three youths staggering about in +each other's arms and feebly singing snatches of "coon songs." Ollie +and Betty had strolled away together to parts unknown. + +Montague had entered his name in the order-book to be called at nine +o'clock. The man who awakened him brought him coffee and cream upon a +silver tray, and asked him if he would have anything stronger. He was +privileged to have his breakfast in his room, if he wished; but he went +downstairs, trying his best to feel natural in his elaborate hunting +costume. No one else had appeared yet, but he found the traces of last +night cleared away, and breakfast ready--served in English fashion, +with urns of tea and coffee upon the buffet. The grave butler and his +satellites were in attendance, ready to take his order for anything +else under the sun that he fancied. + +Montague preferred to go for a stroll upon the terrace, and to watch +the sunlight sparkling upon the sea. The morning was +beautiful--everything about the place was so beautiful that he wondered +how men and women could live here and not feel the spell of it. + +Billy Price came down shortly afterward, clad in a khaki hunting suit, +with knee kilts and button-pockets and gun-pads and Cossack +cartridge-loops. She joined him in a stroll down the beach, and talked +to him about the coming winter season, with its leading personalities +and events,--the Horse Show, which opened next week, and the prospects +for the opera, and Mrs. de Graffenried's opening entertainment. When +they came back it was eleven o'clock, and they found most of the guests +assembled, nearly all of them looking a little pale and uncomfortable +in the merciless morning light. As the two came in they observed Bertie +Stuyvesant standing by the buffet, in the act of gulping down a tumbler +of brandy. "Bertie has taken up the 'no breakfast fad,'" said Billy +with an ironical smile. + +Then began the hunt. The equipment of "Black Forest" included a granite +building, steam-heated and elaborately fitted, in which an English +expert and his assistants raised imported pheasants--magnificent +bronze-coloured birds with long, floating black tails. Just before the +opening of the season they were dumped by thousands into the +covers--fat, and almost tame enough to be fed by hand; and now came the +"hunters." + +First they drew lots, for they were to hunt in pairs, a man and a +woman. Montague drew Miss Vincent--"Little Raindrop in the Mud-puddle." +Then Ollie, who was master of ceremonies, placed them in a long line, +and gave them the direction; and at a signal they moved through the +forest; Following each person were two attendants, to carry the extra +guns and reload them; and out in front were men to beat the bushes and +scare the birds into flight. + +Now Montague's idea of hunting had been to steal through the bayou +forests, and match his eyes against those of the wild turkey, and shoot +off their heads with a rifle bullet. So, when one of these birds rose +in front of him, he fired, and the bird dropped; and he could have done +it for ever, he judged--only it was stupid slaughter, and it sickened +him. However, if the creatures were not shot, they must inevitably +perish in the winter snows; and he had heard that Robbie sent the game +to the hospitals. Also, the score was being kept, and Miss Vincent, who +was something of a shot herself, was watching him with eager +excitement, being wild with desire to beat out Billy Price and Chappie +de Peyster, who were the champion shots of the company. Baby de Mille, +who was on his left, and who could not shoot at all, was blundering +along, puffing for breath and eyeing him enviously; and the attendants +at his back were trembling with delight and murmuring their applause. +So he shot on, as long as the drive lasted, and again on their way +back, over a new stretch of the country. Sometimes the birds would rise +in pairs, and he would drop them both; and twice when a blundering +flock took flight in his direction he seized a second gun and brought +down a second pair. When the day's sport came to an end his score was +fifteen better than his nearest competitor, and he and his partner had +won the day. + +They crowded round to congratulate him; first his partner, and then his +rivals, and his host and hostess. Montague found that he had suddenly +become a person of consequence. Some who had previously taken no notice +of him now became aware of his existence; proud society belles +condescended to make conversation with him, and Clarrie Mason, who +hated de Peyster, made note of a way to annoy him. As for Oliver, he +was radiant with delight. "When it came to horses and guns, I knew +you'd make good," he whispered. + +Leaving the game to be gathered up in carts, they made their way home, +and there the two victors received their prizes. The man's consisted of +a shaving set in a case of solid gold, set with diamonds. Montague was +simply stunned, for the thing could not have cost less than one or two +thousand dollars. He could not persuade himself that he had a right to +accept of such hospitality, which he could never hope to return. He was +to realize in time that Robbie lived for the pleasure of thus +humiliating his fellow-men. + +After luncheon, the party came to an end. Some set out to return as +they had come; and others, who had dinner engagements, went back with +their host in his private car, leaving their autos to be returned by +the chauffeurs. Montague and his brother were among these; and about +dusk, when the swarms of working people were pouring out of the city, +they crossed the ferry and took a cab to their hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +They found their apartments looking as if they had been struck by a +snowstorm-a storm of red and green and yellow, and all the colours that +lie between. All day the wagons of fashionable milliners and costumiers +had been stopping at the door, and their contents had found their way +to Alice's room. The floors were ankle-deep in tissue paper and tape, +and beds and couches and chairs were covered with boxes, in which lay +wonderful symphonies of colour, half disclosed in their wrappings of +gauze. In the midst of it all stood the girl, her eyes shining with +excitement. + +"Oh, Allan!" she cried, as they entered. "How am I ever to thank you?" + +"You're not to thank me," Montague replied. "This is all Oliver's +doings." + +"Oliver!" exclaimed the girl, and turned to him. "How in the world +could you do it?" she cried. "How will you ever get the money to pay +for it all?" + +"That's my problem," said the man, laughing. "All you have to think +about is to look beautiful." + +"If I don't," was her reply, "it won't be for lack of clothes. I never +saw so many wonderful things in all my life as I've seen to-day." + +"There's quite a show of them," admitted Oliver. + +"And Reggie Mann! It was so queer, Allan! I never went shopping with a +man before. And he's so--so matter-of-fact. You know, he bought +me--everything!" + +"That was what he was told to do," said Oliver. "Did you like him?" + +"I don't know," said the girl. "He's queer--I never met a man like that +before. But he was awfully kind; and the people just turned their +stores inside out for us--half a dozen people hurrying about to wait on +you at once!" + +"You'll get used to such things," said Oliver; and then, stepping +toward the bed, "Let's see what you got." + +"Most of the things haven't come," said Alice. "The gowns all have to +be fitted.--That one is for to-night," she added, as he lifted up a +beautiful object made of rose-coloured chiffon. + +Oliver studied it, and glanced once or twice at the girl. "I guess you +can carry it," he said. "What sort of a cloak are you to wear?" + +"Oh, the cloak!" cried Alice. "Oliver, I can't believe it's really to +belong to me. I didn't know anyone but princesses wore such things." + +The cloak was in Mrs. Montague's room, and one of the maids brought it +in. It was an opera-wrap of grey brocade, lined with unborn baby +lamb--a thing of a gorgeousness that made Montague literally gasp for +breath. + +"Did you ever see anything like it in your life?" cried Alice. "And +Oliver, is it true that I have to have gloves and shoes and +stockings--and a hat--to match every gown?" + +"Of course." said Oliver. "If you were doing things right, you ought to +have a cloak to match each evening gown as well." + +"It seems incredible," said the girl. "Can it be right to spend so much +money for things to wear?" + +But Oliver was not discussing questions of ethics; he was examining +sets of tinted crepe de chine lingerie, and hand-woven hose of spun +silk. There were boxes upon boxes, and bureau drawers and closet +shelves already filled up with hand-embroidered and lace-trimmed +creations-chemises and corset-covers, night-robes of "handkerchief +linen" lawn, lace handkerchiefs and veils, corsets of French coutil, +dressing-jackets of pale-coloured silks, and negligees of soft +batistes, trimmed with Valenciennes lace, or even with fur. + +"You must have put in a full day," he said. + +"I never looked at so many things in my life," said Alice. "And Mr. +Mann never stopped to ask the price of a thing." + +"I didn't think to tell him to," said Oliver, laughing. + +Then the girl went in to dress--and Oliver faced about to find his +brother sitting and staring hard at him. + +"Tell me!" Montague exclaimed. "In God's name, what is all this to +cost?" + +"I don't know," said Oliver, impassively. "I haven't seen the bills. +It'll be fifteen or twenty thousand, I guess." + +Montague's hands clenched involuntarily, and he sat rigid. "How long +will it all last her?" he asked. + +"Why," said the other, "when she gets enough, it'll last her until +spring, of course--unless she goes South during the winter." + +"How much is it going to take to dress her for a year?" + +"I suppose thirty or forty thousand," was the reply. "I don't expect to +keep count." + +Montague sat in silence. "You don't want to shut her up and keep her at +home, do you?" inquired his brother, at last. + +"Do you mean that other women spend that much on clothes?" he demanded. + +"Of course," said Oliver, "hundreds of them. Some spend fifty +thousand--I know several who go over a hundred." + +"It's monstrous!" Montague exclaimed. + +"Fiddlesticks!" was the other's response. "Why, thousands of people +live by it--wouldn't know anything else to do." + +Montague said nothing to that. "Can you afford to have Alice compete +with such women indefinitely?" he asked. + +"I have no idea of her doing it indefinitely," was Oliver's reply. "I +simply propose to give her a chance. When she's married, her bills will +be paid by her husband." + +"Oh," said the other, "then this layout is just for her to be exhibited +in." + +"You may say that," answered Oliver,--"if you want to be foolish. You +know perfectly well that parents who launch their daughters in Society +don't figure on keeping up the pace all their lifetimes." + +"We hadn't thought of marrying Alice off," said Montague. + +To which his brother replied that the best physicians left all they +could to nature. "Suppose," said he, "that we just introduce her in the +right set, and turn her loose and let her enjoy herself--and then cross +the next bridge when we come to it?" + +Montague sat with knitted brows, pondering.' He was beginning to see a +little daylight now. "Oliver," he asked suddenly, "are you sure the +stakes in this game aren't too big?" + +"How do you mean?" asked the other. + +"Will you be able to stay in until the show-down? Until either Alice or +myself begins to bring in some returns?" + +"Never worry about that," said the other, with a laugh. + +"But hadn't you better take me into your confidence?" Montague +persisted. "How many weeks can you pay our rent in this place? Have you +got the money to pay for all these clothes?" + +"I've got it," laughed the other--"but that doesn't say I'm going to +pay it." + +"Don't you have to pay your bills? Can we do all this upon credit?" + +Oliver laughed again. "You go at me like a prosecuting attorney," he +said. "I'm afraid you'll have to inquire around and learn some respect +for your brother." Then he added, seriously, "You see, Allan, people +like Reggie or myself are in position to bring a great deal of custom +to tradespeople, and so they are willing to go out of their way to +oblige us. And we have commissions of all sorts coming to us, so it's +never any question of cash." + +"Oh!" exclaimed the other, opening his eyes, "I see! Is that the way +you make money?" + +"It's one of the ways we save it," said Oliver. "It comes to the same +thing." + +"Do people know it?" + +"Why, of course. Why not?" + +"I don't know," said Montague. "It sounds a little queer." + +"Nothing of the kind," said Oliver. "Some of the best people in New +York do it. Strangers come to the city, and they want to go to the +right places, and they ask me, and I send them. Or take Robbie Walling, +who keeps up five or six establishments, and spends several millions a +year. He can't see to it all personally--if he did, he'd never do +anything else. Why shouldn't he ask a friend to attend to things for +him? Or again, a new shop opens, and they want Mrs. Walling's trade for +the sake of the advertising, and they offer her a discount and me a +commission. Why shouldn't I get her to try them?" + +"It's quite intricate," commented the other. "The stores have more than +one price, then?" + +"They have as many prices as they have customers," was the answer. "Why +shouldn't they? New York is full of raw rich people who value things by +what they pay. And why shouldn't they pay high and be happy? That +opera-cloak that Alice has--Reval promised it to me for two thousand, +and I'll wager you she'd charge some woman from Butte, Montana, +thirty-five hundred for one just like it." + +Montague got up suddenly. "Stop," he said, waving his hands. "You take +all the bloom off the butterfly's wings!" + +He asked where they were going that evening, and Oliver said that they +were invited to an informal dinner-party at Mrs. Winnie Duval's. Mrs. +Winnie was the young widow who had recently married the founder of the +great banking-house of Puval and Co.--so Oliver explained; she was a +chum of his, and they would meet an interesting set there. She was +going to invite her cousin, Charlie Carter--she wanted him to meet +Alice. "Mrs. Winnie's always plotting to get Charlie to settle down," +said Oliver, with a merry laugh. + +He telephoned for his man to bring over his clothes, and he and his +brother dressed. Then Alice came in, looking like the goddess of the +dawn in the gorgeous rose-coloured gown. The colour in her cheeks was +even brighter than usual; for she was staggered to find how low the +gown was cut, and was afraid she was committing a faux pas. "Tell me +about it," she stammered. "Mammy Lucy says I'm surely supposed to wear +some lace, or a bouquet." + +"Mammy Lucy isn't a Paris costumier," said Oliver, much amused. "Dear +me--wait until you have seen Mrs. Winnie!" + +Mrs. Winnie had kindly sent her limousine car for them, and it stood +throbbing in front of the hotel-entrance, its acetylenes streaming far +up the street. Mrs. Winnie's home was on Fifth Avenue, fronting the +park. It occupied half a block, and had cost two millions to build and +furnish. It was known as the "Snow Palace," being all of white marble. + +At the curb a man in livery opened the door of the car, and in the +vestibule another man in livery bowed the way. Lined up just inside the +door was a corps of imposing personages, clad in scarlet waistcoats and +velvet knee-breeches, with powdered wigs, and gold buttons, and gold +buckles on their patent-leather pumps. These splendid creatures took +their wraps, and then presented to Montague and Oliver a bouquet of +flowers upon a silver salver, and upon another salver a tiny envelope +bearing the name of their partner at this strictly "informal" +dinner-party. Then the functionaries stood out of the way and permitted +them to view the dazzling splendour of the entrance hall of the Snow +Palace. There was a great marble staircase running up from the centre +of the hall, with a carved marble gallery above, and a marble fireplace +below. To decorate this mansion a real palace in the Punjab had been +bought outright and plundered; there were mosaics of jade, and +wonderful black marble, and rare woods, and strange and perplexing +carvings. + +The head butler stood at the entrance to the salon, pronouncing their +names; and just inside was Mrs. Winnie. + +Montague never forgot that first vision of her; she might have been a +real princess out of the palace in the Punjab. She was a brunette, +rich-coloured, full-throated and deep-bosomed, with scarlet lips, and +black hair and eyes. She wore a court-gown of cloth of silver, with +white kid shoes embroidered with jewelled flowers. All her life she had +been collecting large turquoises, and these she had made into a tiara, +and a neck ornament spreading over her chest, and a stomacher. Each of +these stones was mounted with diamonds, and set upon a slender wire. So +as she moved they quivered and shimmered, and the effect was dazzling, +barbaric. + +She must have seen that Montague was staggered, for she gave him a +little extra pressure of the hand, and said, "I'm so glad you came. +Ollie has told me all about you." Her voice was soft and melting, not +so forbidding as her garb. + +Montague ran the gauntlet of the other guests: Charlie Carter, a +beautiful, dark-haired boy, having the features of a Greek god, but a +sallow and unpleasant complexion; Major "Bob" Venable, a stout little +gentleman with a red face and a heavy jowl; Mrs. Frank Landis, a +merry-eyed young widow with pink cheeks and auburn hair; Willie Davis, +who had been a famous half-back, and was now junior partner in the +banking-house; and two young married couples, whose names Montague +missed. + +The name written on his card was Mrs. Alden. She came in just after +him--a matron of about fifty, of vigorous aspect and ample figure, +approaching what he had not yet learned to call embonpoint. She wore +brocade, as became a grave dowager, and upon her ample bosom there lay +an ornament the size of a man's hand, and made wholly out of blazing +diamonds--the most imposing affair that Montague had ever laid eyes +upon. She gave him her hand to shake, and made no attempt to disguise +the fact that she was looking him over in the meantime. + +"Madam, dinner is served," said the stately butler; and the glittering +procession moved into the dining-room--a huge state apartment, finished +in some lustrous jet-black wood, and with great panel paintings +illustrating the Romaunt de la Rose. The table was covered with a cloth +of French embroidery, and gleaming with its load of crystal and gold +plate. At either end there were huge candlesticks of solid gold, and in +the centre a mound of orchids and lilies of the valley, matching in +colour the shades of the candelabra and the daintily painted menu cards. + +"You are fortunate in coming to New York late in life," Mrs. Alden was +saying to him. "Most of our young men are tired out before they have +sense enough to enjoy anything. Take my advice and look about +you--don't let that lively brother of yours set the pace for you." + +In front of Mrs. Alden there was a decanter of Scotch whisky. "Will you +have some?" she asked, as she took it up. + +"No, I thank you," said he, and then wondered if perhaps he should not +have said yes, as he watched the other select the largest of the +half-dozen wine-glasses clustered at her place, and pour herself out a +generous libation. + +"Have you seen much of the city?" she asked, as she tossed it +off--without as much as a quiver of an eyelash. + +"No," said he. "They have not given me much time. They took me off to +the country--to the Robert Wallings'." + +"Ah," said Mrs. Alden; and Montague, struggling to make conversation, +inquired, "Do you know Mr. Walling?" + +"Quite well," said the other, placidly. "I used to be a Walling myself, +you know." + +"Oh," said Montague, taken aback; and then added, "Before you were +married?" + +"No," said Mrs. Alden, more placidly than ever, "before I was divorced." + +There was a dead silence, and Montague sat gasping to catch his breath. +Then suddenly he heard a faint subdued chuckle, which grew into open +laughter; and he stole a glance at Mrs. Alden, and saw that her eyes +were twinkling; and then he began to laugh himself. They laughed +together, so merrily that others at the table began to look at them in +perplexity. + +So the ice was broken between them; which filled Montague with a vast +relief. But he was still dimly touched with awe--for he realized that +this must be the great Mrs. Billy Alden, whose engagement to the Duke +of London was now the topic of the whole country. And that huge diamond +ornament must be part of Mrs. Alden's million-dollar outfit of +jewellery! + +The great lady volunteered not to tell on him; and added generously +that when he came to dinner with her she would post him concerning the +company. "It's awkward for a stranger, I can understand," said she; and +continued, grimly: "When people get divorces it sometimes means that +they have quarrelled--and they don't always make it up afterward, +either. And sometimes other people quarrel--almost as bitterly as if +they had been married. Many a hostess has had her reputation ruined by +not keeping track of such things." + +So Montague made the discovery that the great Mrs. Billy, though. +forbidding of aspect, was good-natured when she chose to be, and with a +pretty wit. She was a woman with a mind of her own--a hard-fighting +character, who had marshalled those about her, and taken her place at +the head of the column. She had always counted herself a personage +enough to do exactly as she pleased; through the course of the dinner +she would take up the decanter of Scotch, and make a pass to help +Montague--and then, when he declined, pour out imperturbably what she +wanted. "I don't like your brother," she said to him, a little later. +"He won't last; but he tells me you're different, so maybe I will like +you. Come and see me sometime, and let me tell you what not to do in +New York." + +Then Montague turned to talk with his hostess, who sat on his right. + +"Do you play bridge?" asked Mrs. Winnie, in her softest and most +gracious tone. + +"My brother has given me a book to study from," he answered. "But if he +takes me about day and night, I don't know how I'm to manage it." + +"Come and let me teach you," said Mrs. Winnie. "I mean it, really," she +added. "I've nothing to do--at least that I'm not tired of. Only I +don't believe you'd take long to learn all that I know." + +"Aren't you a successful player?" he asked sympathetically. + +"I don't believe anyone wants me to learn," said Mrs. Winnie.--"They'd +rather come and get my money. Isn't that true, Major?" + +Major Venable sat on her other hand, and he paused in the act of +raising a spoonful of soup to his lips, and laughed, deep down in his +throat--a queer little laugh that shook his fat cheeks and neck. "I may +say," he said, "that I know several people to whom the status quo is +satisfactory." + +"Including yourself," said the lady, with a little moue. "The wretched +man won sixteen hundred dollars from me last night; and he sat in his +club window all afternoon, just to have the pleasure of laughing at me +as I went by. I don't believe I'll play at all to-night--I'm going to +make myself agreeable to Mr. Montague, and let you win from Virginia +Landis for a change." + +And then the Major paused again in his attack upon the soup. "My dear +Mrs. Winnie," he said, "I can live for much more than one day upon +sixteen hundred dollars!" + +The Major was a famous club-man and bon vivant, as Montague learned +later on. "He's an uncle of Mrs. Bobbie Walling's," said Mrs. Alden, in +his ear. "And incidentally they hate each other like poison." + +"That is so that I won't repeat my luckless question again?" asked +Montague, with a smile. + +"Oh, they meet," said the other. "You wouldn't be supposed to know +that. Won't you have any Scotch?" + +Montague's thoughts were so much taken up with the people at this +repast that he gave little thought to the food. He noticed with +surprise that they had real spring lamb--it being the middle of +November. But he could not know that the six-weeks-old creatures from +which it had come had been raised in cotton-wool and fed on milk with a +spoon--and had cost a dollar and a half a pound. A little later, +however, there was placed before him a delicately browned sweetbread +upon a platter of gold, and then suddenly he began to pay attention. +Mrs. Winnie had a coat of arms; he had noticed it upon her auto, and +again upon the great bronze gates of the Snow Palace, and again upon +the liveries of her footmen, and yet again upon the decanter of Scotch. +And now--incredible and appalling--he observed it branded upon the +delicately browned sweetbread! + +After that, who would not have watched? There were large dishes of rare +fruits upon the table--fruits which had been packed in cotton wool and +shipped in cold storage from every corner of the earth. There were +peaches which had come from South Africa (they had cost ten dollars +apiece). There were bunches of Hamburg grapes, dark purple and bursting +fat, which had been grown in a hot-house, wrapped in paper bags. There +were nectarines and plums, and pomegranates and persimmons from Japan, +and later on, little dishes of plump strawberries-raised in pots. There +were quail which had come from Egypt, and a wonderful thing called +"crab-flake a la Dewey," cooked in a chafing-dish, and served with +mushrooms that had been grown in the tunnels of abandoned mines in +Michigan. There was lettuce raised by electric light, and lima beans +that had come from Porto Rico, and artichokes brought from France at a +cost of one dollar each.--And all these extraordinary viands were +washed down by eight or nine varieties of wines, from the cellar of a +man who had made collecting them a fad for the last thirty years, who +had a vineyard in France for the growing of his own champagne, and kept +twenty thousand quarts of claret in storage all the time--and procured +his Rhine wine from the cellar of the German Emperor, at a cost of +twenty-five dollars a quart! + +There were twelve people at dinner, and afterward they made two tables +for bridge, leaving Charlie Carter to talk to Alice, and Mrs. Winnie to +devote herself to Montague, according to her promise. "Everybody likes +to see my house," she said. "Would you?" And she led the way from the +dining-room into the great conservatory, which formed a central court +extending to the roof of the building. She pressed a button, and a soft +radiance streamed down from above, in the midst of which Mrs. Winnie +stood, with her shimmering jewels a very goddess of the fire. + +The conservatory was a place in which he could have spent the evening; +it was filled with the most extraordinary varieties of plants. "They +were gathered from all over the world," said Mrs. Winnie, seeing that +he was staring at them. "My husband employed a connoisseur to hunt them +out for him. He did it before we were married--he thought it would make +me happy." + +In the centre of the place there was a fountain, twelve or fourteen +feet in height, and set in a basin of purest Carrara marble. By the +touch of a button the pool was flooded with submerged lights, and one +might see scores of rare and beautiful fish swimming about. + +"Isn't it fine!" said Mrs. Winnie, and added eagerly, "Do you know, I +come here at night, sometimes when I can't sleep, and sit for hours and +gaze. All those living things; with their extraordinary forms-some of +them have faces, and look like human beings! And I wonder what they +think about, and if life seems as strange to them as it does to me." + +She seated herself by the edge of the pool, and gazed in. "These fish +were given to me by my cousin, Ned Carter. They call him Buzzie. Have +you met him yet?--No, of course not. He's Charlie's brother, and he +collects art things--the most unbelievable things. Once, a long time +ago, he took a fad for goldfish--some goldfish are very rare and +beautiful, you know--one can pay twenty-five and fifty dollars apiece +for them. He got all the dealers had, and when he learned that there +were some they couldn't get, he took a trip to Japan and China on +purpose to get them. You know they raise them there, and some of them +are sacred, and not allowed to be sold or taken out of the country. And +he had all sorts of carved ivory receptacles for them, that he brought +home with him--he had one beautiful marble basin about ten feet long, +that had been stolen from the Emperor." + +Over Montague's shoulder where he sat, there hung an orchid, a most +curious creation, an explosion of scarlet flame. "That is the +odonto-glossum," said Mrs. Winnie. "Have you heard of it?" + +"Never," said the man. + +"Dear me," said the other. "Such is fame!" + +"Is it supposed to be famous?" he asked. + +"Very," she replied. "There was a lot in the newspapers about it. You +see Winton--that's my husband, you know--paid twenty-five thousand +dollars to the man who created it; and that made a lot of foolish +talk--people come from all over to look at it. I wanted to have it, +because its shape is exactly like the coronet on my crest. Do you +notice that?" + +"Yes," said Montague. "It's curious." + +"I'm very proud of my crest," continued Mrs. Winnie. "Of course there +are vulgar rich people who have them made to order, and make them +ridiculous; but ours is a real one. It's my own--not my husband's; the +Duvals are an old French family, but they're not noble. I was a Morris, +you know, and our line runs back to the old French ducal house of +Montmorenci. And last summer, when we were motoring, I hunted up one of +their chateaux; and see! I brought over this." + +Mrs. Winnie pointed to a suit of armour, placed in a passage leading to +the billiard-room. "I have had the lights fixed," she added. And she +pressed a button, and all illumination vanished, save for a faint red +glow just above the man in armour. + +"Doesn't he look real?" said she. (He had his visor down, and a +battle-axe in his mailed hands.) "I like to imagine that he may have +been my twentieth great-grandfather. I come and sit here, and gaze at +him and shiver. Think what a terrible time it must have been to live +in--when men wore things like that! It couldn't be any worse to be a +crab." + +"You seem to be fond of strange emotions," said Montague, laughing. + +"Maybe I am," said the other. "I like everything that's old and +romantic, and makes you forget this stupid society world." + +She stood brooding for a moment or two, gazing at the figure. Then she +asked, abruptly, "Which do you like best, pictures or swimming?" + +"Why," replied the man, laughing and perplexed, "I like them both, at +times." + +"I wondered which you'd rather see first," explained his escort; "the +art gallery or the natatorium. I'm afraid you'll get tired before +you've seen every thing." + +"Suppose we begin with the art-gallery," said he. "There's not much to +see in a swimming-pool." + +"Ah, but ours is a very special one," said the lady.--"And some day, if +you'll be very good, and promise not to tell anyone, I'll let you see +my own bath. Perhaps they've told you, I have one in my own apartments, +cut out of a block of the most wonderful green marble." + +Montague showed the expected amount of astonishment. + +"Of course that gave the dreadful newspapers another chance to gossip," +said Mrs. Winnie, plaintively. "People found out what I had paid for +it. One can't have anything beautiful without that question being +asked." + +And then followed a silence, while Mrs. Winnie waited for him to ask +it. As he forebore to do so, she added, "It was fifty thousand dollars." + +They were moving towards the elevator, where a small boy in the +wonderful livery of plush and scarlet stood at attention. "Sometimes," +she continued, "it seems to me that it is wicked to pay such prices for +things. Have you ever thought about it?" + +"Occasionally," Montague replied. + +"Of course," said she, "it makes work for people; and I suppose they +can't be better employed than in making beautiful things. But +sometimes, when I think of all the poverty there is, I get unhappy. We +have a winter place down South--one of those huge country-houses that +look like exposition buildings, and have rooms for a hundred guests; +and sometimes I go driving by myself, down to the mill towns, and go +through them and talk to the children. I came to know some of them +quite well--poor little wretches." + +They stepped out of the elevator, and moved toward the art-gallery. "It +used to make me so unhappy," she went on. "I tried to talk to my +husband about it, but he wouldn't have it. 'I don't see why you can't +be like other people,' he said--he's always repeating that to me. And +what could I say?" + +"Why not suggest that other people might be like you?" said the man, +laughing. + +"I wasn't clever enough," said she, regretfully.--"It's very hard for a +woman, you know--with no one to understand. Once I went down to a +settlement, to see what that was like. Do you know anything about +settlements?" + +"Nothing at all," said Montague. + +"Well, they are people who go to live among the poor, and try to reform +them. It takes a terrible lot of courage, I think. I give them money +now and then, but I am never sure if it does any good. The trouble with +poor people, it seems to me, is that there are so many of them." + +"There are, indeed," said Montague, thinking of the vision he had seen +from Oliver's racing-car. + +Mrs. Winnie had seated herself upon a cushioned seat near the entrance +to the darkened gallery. "I haven't been there for some time," she +continued. "I've discovered something that I think appeals more to my +temperament. I have rather a leaning toward the occult and the +mystical, I'm afraid. Did you ever hear of the Babists?" + +"No," said Montague. + +"Well, that's a religious sect--from Persia, I think--and they are +quite the rage. They are priests, you understand, and they give +lectures, and teach you all about the immanence of the divine, and +about reincarnation, and Karma, and all that. Do you believe any of +those things?" + +"I can't say that I know about them," said he. + +"It is very beautiful and strange," added the other. "It makes you +realize what a perplexing thing life is. They teach you how the +universe is all one, and the soul is the only reality, and so bodily +things don't matter. If I were a Babist, I believe that I could be +happy, even if I had to work in a cotton-mill." + +Then Mrs. Winnie rose up suddenly. "You'd rather look at the pictures, +I know," she said; and she pressed a button, and a soft radiance +flooded the great vaulted gallery. + +"This is our chief pride in life," she said. "My husband's object has +been to get one representative work of each of the great painters of +the world. We got their masterpiece whenever we could. Over there in +the corner are the old masters--don't you love to look at them?" + +Montague would have liked to look at them very much; but he felt that +he would rather it were some time when he did not have Mrs. Winnie by +his side. Mrs. Winnie must have had to show the gallery quite +frequently; and now her mind was still upon the Persian +transcendentalists. + +"That picture of the saint is a Botticelli," she said. "And do you +know, the orange-coloured robe always makes me think of the swami. That +is my teacher, you know--Swami Babubanana. And he has the most +beautiful delicate hands, and great big brown eyes, so soft and +gentle--for all the world like those of the gazelles in our place down +South!" + +Thus Mrs. Winnie, as she roamed from picture to picture, while the +souls of the grave old masters looked down upon her in silence. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Montague had now been officially pronounced complete by his tailor; and +Reval had sent home the first of Alice's street gowns, elaborately +plain, but fitting her conspicuously, and costing accordingly. So the +next morning they were ready to be taken to call upon Mrs. Devon. + +Of course Montague had heard of the Devons, but he was not sufficiently +initiated to comprehend just what it meant to be asked to call. But +when Oliver came in, a little before noon, and proceeded to examine his +costume and to put him to rights, and insisted that Alice should have +her hair done over, he began to realize that this was a special +occasion. Oliver was in quite a state of excitement; and after they had +left the hotel, and were driving up the Avenue, he explained to them +that their future in Society depended upon the outcome of this visit. +Calling upon Mrs. Devon, it seemed, was the American equivalent to +being presented at court. For twenty-five years this grand lady had +been the undisputed mistress of the Society of the metropolis; and if +she liked them, they would be invited to her annual ball, which took +place in January, and then for ever after their position would be +assured. Mrs. Devon's ball was the one great event of the social year; +about one thousand people were asked, while ten thousand disappointed +ones gnashed their teeth in outer darkness. + +All of which threw Alice into a state of trepidation. + +"Suppose we don't suit her!" she said. + +To that the other replied that their way had been made smooth by Reggie +Mann, who was one of Mrs. Devon's favourites. + +A century and more ago the founder of the Devon line had come to +America, and invested his savings in land on Manhattan Island. Other +people had toiled and built a city there, and generation after +generation of the Devons had sat by and collected the rents, until now +their fortune amounted to four or five hundred millions of dollars. +They were the richest old family in America, and the most famous; and +in Mrs. Devon, the oldest member of the line, was centred all its +social majesty and dominion. She lived a stately and formal life, +precisely like a queen; no one ever saw her save upon her raised chair +of state, and she wore her jewels even at breakfast. She was the +arbiter of social destinies, and the breakwater against which the +floods of new wealth beat in vain. Reggie Mann told wonderful tales +about the contents of her enormous mail--about wives and daughters of +mighty rich men who flung themselves at her feet and pleaded abjectly +for her favour--who laid siege to her house for months, and intrigued +and pulled wires to get near her, and even bought the favour of her +servants! If Reggie might be believed, great financial wars had been +fought, and the stock-markets of the world convulsed more than once, +because of these social struggles; and women of wealth and beauty had +offered to sell themselves for the privilege which was so freely +granted to them. + +They came to the old family mansion and rang the bell, and the solemn +butler ushered them past the grand staircase and into the front +reception-room to wait. Perhaps five minutes later he came in and +rolled back the doors, and they stood up, and beheld a withered old +lady, nearly eighty years of age, bedecked with diamonds and seated +upon a sort of throne. They approached, and Oliver introduced them, and +the old lady held out a lifeless hand; and then they sat down. + +Mrs. Devon asked them a few questions as to how much of New York they +had seen, and how they liked it, and whom they had met; but most of the +time she simply looked them over, and left the making of conversation +to Oliver. As for Montague, he sat, feeling perplexed and +uncomfortable, and wondering, deep down in him, whether it could really +be America in which this was happening. + +"You see," Oliver explained to them, when they were seated in their +carriage again, "her mind is failing, and it's really quite difficult +for her to receive." + +"I'm glad I don't have to call on her more than once," was Alice's +comment. "When do we know the verdict?" + +"When you get a card marked 'Mrs. Devon at home,'" said Oliver. And he +went on to tell them about the war which had shaken Society long ago, +when the mighty dame had asserted her right to be "Mrs. Devon," and the +only "Mrs. Devon." He told them also about her wonderful dinner-set of +china, which had cost thirty thousand dollars, and was as fragile as a +humming-bird's wing. Each piece bore her crest, and she had a china +expert to attend to washing and packing it--no common hand was ever +allowed to touch it. He told them, also, how Mrs. Devon's housekeeper +had wrestled for so long, trying to teach the maids to arrange the +furniture in the great reception-rooms precisely as the mistress +ordered; until finally a complete set of photographs had been taken, so +that the maids might do their work by chart. + +Alice went back to the hotel, for Mrs. Robbie Walling was to call and +take her home to lunch; and Montague and his brother strolled round to +Reggie Mann's apartments, to report upon their visit. + +Reggie received them in a pair of pink silk pyjamas, decorated with +ribbons and bows, and with silk-embroidered slippers, set with +pearls--a present from a feminine adorer. Montague noticed, to his +dismay, that the little man wore a gold bracelet upon one arm! He +explained that he had led a cotillion the night before--or rather this +morning; he had got home at five o'clock. He looked quite white and +tired, and there were the remains of a breakfast of brandy-and-soda on +the table. + +"Did you see the old girl?" he asked. "And how does she hold up?" + +"She's game," said Oliver. + +"I had the devil's own time getting you in," said the other. "It's +getting harder every day." + +"You'll excuse me," Reggie added, "if I get ready. I have an +engagement." And he turned to his dressing-table, which was covered +with an array of cosmetics and perfumes, and proceeded, in a +matter-of-fact way, to paint his face. Meanwhile his valet was flitting +silently here and there, getting ready his afternoon costume; and +Montague, in spite of himself, followed the man with his eyes. A +haberdasher's shop might have been kept going for quite a while upon +the contents of Reggie's dressers. His clothing was kept in a room +adjoining the dressing-room; Montague, who was near the door, could see +the rosewood wardrobes, each devoted to a separate article of +clothing-shirts, for instance, laid upon sliding racks, tier upon tier +of them, of every material and colour. There was a closet fitted with +shelves and equipped like a little shoe store--high shoes and low +shoes, black ones, brown ones, and white ones, and each fitted over a +last to keep its shape perfect. These shoes were all made to order +according to Reggie's designs, and three or-four times a year there was +a cleaning out, and those which had gone out of fashion became the prey +of his "man." There was a safe in one closet, in which Reggie's +jewellery was kept. + +The dressing-room was furnished like a lady's boudoir, the furniture +upholstered with exquisite embroidered silk, and the bed hung with +curtains of the same material. There was a huge bunch of roses on the +centre-table, and the odour of roses hung heavy in the room. + +The valet stood at attention with a rack of neckties, from which Reggie +critically selected one to match his shirt. "Are you going to take +Alice with you down to the Havens's?" he was asking; and he added, +"You'll meet Vivie Patton down there--she's had another row at home." + +"You don't say so!" exclaimed Oliver. + +"Yes," said the other. "Frank waited up all night for her, and he wept +and tore his hair and vowed he would kill the Count. Vivie told him to +go to hell." + +"Good God!" said Oliver. "Who told you that?" + +"The faithful Alphonse," said Reggie, nodding toward his valet. "Her +maid told him. And Frank vows he'll sue--I half expected to see it in +the papers this morning." + +"I met Vivie on the street yesterday," said Oliver. "She looked as +chipper as ever." + +Reggie shrugged his shoulders. "Have you seen this week's paper?" he +asked. "They've got another of Ysabel's suppressed poems in."--And then +he turned toward Montague to explain that "Ysabel" was the pseudonym of +a young débutante who had fallen under the spell of Baudelaire and +Wilde, and had published a volume of poems of such furious eroticism +that her parents were buying up stray copies at fabulous prices. + +Then the conversation turned to the Horse Show, and for quite a while +they talked about who was going to wear what. Finally Oliver rose, +saying that they would have to get a bite to eat before leaving for the +Havens's. "You'll have a good time," said Reggie. "I'd have gone +myself, only I promised to stay and help Mrs. de Graffenried design a +dinner. So long!" + +Montague had heard nothing about the visit to the Havens's; but now, as +they strolled down the Avenue, Oliver explained that they were to spend +the weekend at Castle Havens. There was quite a party going up this +Friday afternoon, and they would find one of the Havens's private cars +waiting. They had nothing to do meantime, for their valets would attend +to their packing, and Alice and her maid would meet them at the depot. + +"Castle Havens is one of the show places of the country," Oliver added. +"You'll see the real thing this time." And while they lunched, he went +on to entertain his brother with particulars concerning the place and +its owners. John had inherited the bulk of the enormous Havens fortune, +and he posed as his father's successor in the Steel Trust. Some day +some one of the big men would gobble him up; meantime he amused himself +fussing over the petty details of administration. Mrs. Havens had taken +a fancy to a rural life, and they had built this huge palace in the +hills of Connecticut, and she wrote verses in which she pictured +herself as a simple shepherdess--and all that sort of stuff. But no one +minded that, because the place was grand, and there was always so much +to do. They had forty or fifty polo ponies, for instance, and every +spring the place was filled with polo men. + +At the depot they caught sight of Charlie Carter, in his big red +touring-car. "Are you going to the Havens's?" he said. "Tell them we're +going to pick up Chauncey on the way." + +"That's Chauncey Venable, the Major's nephew," said Oliver, as they +strolled to the train. "Poor Chauncey--he's in exile!" + +"How do you mean?" asked Montague. + +"Why, he daren't come into New York," said the other. "Haven't you read +about it in the papers? He lost one or two hundred thousand the other +night in a gambling place, and the district attorney's trying to catch +him." + +"Does he want to put him in jail?" asked Montague. + +"Heavens, no!" said Oliver. "Put a Venable in jail? He wants him for a +witness against the gambler; and poor Chauncey is flitting about the +country hiding with his friends, and wailing because he'll miss the +Horse Show." + +They boarded the palatial private car, and were introduced to a number +of other guests. Among them was Major Venable; and while Oliver buried +himself in the new issue of the fantastic-covered society journal, +which contained the poem of the erotic "Ysabel," his brother chatted +with the Major. The latter had taken quite a fancy to the big handsome +stranger, to whom everything in the city was so new and interesting." + +"Tell me what you thought of the Snow Palace," said he. "I've an idea +that Mrs. Winnie's got quite a crush on you. You'll find her dangerous, +my boy--she'll make you pay for your dinners before you get through!" + +After the train was under way, the Major got himself surrounded with +some apollinaris and Scotch, and then settled back to enjoy himself. +"Did you see the 'drunken kid' at the ferry?" he asked. "(That's what +our abstemious district attorney terms my precious young +heir-apparent.) You'll meet him at the Castle--the Havens are good to +him. They know how it feels, I guess; when John was a youngster his +piratical uncle had to camp in Jersey for six months or so, to escape +the strong arm of the law." + +"Don't you know about it?" continued the Major, sipping at his +beverage. "Sic transit gloria mundi! That was when the great Captain +Kidd Havens was piling up the millions which his survivors are spending +with such charming insouciance. He was plundering a railroad, and the +original progenitor of the Wallings tried to buy the control away from +him, and Havens issued ten or twenty millions of new stock overnight, +in the face of a court injunction, and got away with most of his money. +It reads like opera bouffe, you know--they had a regular armed camp +across the river for about six months--until Captain Kidd went up to +Albany with half a million dollars' worth of greenbacks in a satchel, +and induced the legislature to legalize the proceedings. That was just +after the war, you know, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. It +seems strange to think that anyone shouldn't know about it." + +"I know about Havens in a general way," said Montague. + +"Yes," said the Major. "But I know in a particular way, because I've +carried some of that railroad's paper all these years, and it's never +paid any dividends since. It has a tendency to interfere with my +appreciation of John's lavish hospitality." + +Montague was reminded of the story of the Roman emperor who pointed out +that money had no smell. + +"Maybe not," said the Major. "But all the same, if you were +superstitious, you might make out an argument from the Havens fortune. +Take that poor girl who married the Count." + +And the Major went on to picture the denouement of that famous +international alliance, which, many years ago, had been the sensation +of two continents. All Society had attended the gorgeous wedding, an +archbishop had performed the ceremony, and the newspapers had devoted +pages to describing the gowns and the jewels and the presents and all +the rest of the magnificence. And the Count was a wretched little +degenerate, who beat and kicked his wife, and flaunted his mistresses +in her face, and wasted fourteen million dollars of her money in a +couple of years. The mind could scarcely follow the orgies of this +half-insane creature--he had spent two hundred thousand dollars on a +banquet, and half as much again for a tortoise-shell wardrobe in which +Louis the Sixteenth had kept his clothes! He had charged a diamond +necklace to his wife, and taken two of the four rows of diamonds out of +it before he presented it to her! He had paid a hundred thousand +dollars a year to a jockey whom the Parisian populace admired, and a +fortune for a palace in Verona, which he had promptly torn down, for +the sake of a few painted ceilings. The Major told about one outdoor +fete, which he had given upon a sudden whim: ten thousand Venetian +lanterns, ten thousand metres of carpet; three thousand gilded chairs, +and two or three hundred waiters in fancy costumes; two palaces built +in a lake, with sea-horses and dolphins, and half a dozen orchestras, +and several hundred chorus--girls from the Grand Opera! And in between +adventures such as these, he bought a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, +and made speeches and fought duels in defence of the Holy Catholic +Church--and wrote articles for the yellow journals of America. "And +that's the fate of my lost dividends!" growled the Major. + +There were several automobiles to meet the party at the depot, and they +were whirled through a broad avenue up a valley, and past a little +lake, and so to the gates of Castle Havens. + +It was a tremendous building, a couple of hundred feet long. One +entered into a main hall, perhaps fifty feet wide, with a great +fireplace arid staircase of marble and bronze, and furniture of gilded +wood and crimson velvet, and a huge painting, covering three of the +walls, representing the Conquest of Peru. Each of the rooms was +furnished in the style of a different period--one Louis Quatorze, one +Louis Quinze, one Marie Antoinette, and so on. There was a drawing-room +and a regal music-room; a dining-room in the Georgian style, and a +billiard-room, also in the English fashion, with high wainscoting and +open beams in the ceiling; and a library, and a morning-room and +conservatory. Upstairs in the main suite of rooms was a royal bedstead, +which alone was rumoured to have cost twenty-five thousand dollars; and +you might have some idea of the magnificence of things when you learned +that underneath the gilding of the furniture was the rare and precious +Circassian walnut. + +All this was beautiful. But what brought the guests to Castle Havens +was the casino, so the Major had remarked. It was really a private +athletic club--with tan-bark hippodrome, having a ring the size of that +in Madison Square Garden, and a skylight roof, and thirty or forty +arc-lights for night events. There were bowling-alleys, billiard and +lounging-rooms, hand-ball, tennis and racket-courts, a completely +equipped gymnasium, a shooting-gallery, and a swimming-pool with +Turkish and Russian baths. In this casino alone there were rooms for +forty guests. + +Such was Castle Havens; it had cost three or four millions of dollars, +and within the twelve-foot wall which surrounded its grounds lived two +world-weary people who dreaded nothing so much as to be alone. There +were always guests, and on special occasions there might be three or +four score. They went whirling about the country in their autos; they +rode and drove; they played games, outdoor and indoor, or gambled, or +lounged and chatted, or wandered about at their own sweet will. Coming +to one of these places was not different from staying at a great hotel, +save that the company was selected, and instead of paying a bill, you +gave twenty or thirty dollars to the servants when you left. + +It was a great palace of pleasure, in which beautiful and graceful men +and women played together in all sorts of beautiful and graceful ways. +In the evenings great logs blazed in the fireplace in the hall, and +there might be an informal dance--there was always music at hand. Now +and then there would be a stately ball, with rich gowns and flashing +jewels, and the grounds ablaze with lights, and a full orchestra, and +special trains from the city. Or a whole theatrical company would be +brought down to give an entertainment in the theatre; or a minstrel +show, or a troupe of acrobats, or a menagerie of trained animals. Or +perhaps there would be a great pianist, or a palmist, or a trance +medium. Anyone at all would be welcome who could bring a new thrill--it +mattered nothing at all, though the price might be several hundred +dollars a minute. + +Montague shook hands with his host and hostess, and with a number of +others; among them Billy Price who forthwith challenged him, and +carried him off to the shooting-gallery. Here he took a rifle, and +proceeded to satisfy her as to his skill. This brought him to the +notice of Siegfried Harvey, who was a famous cross-country rider and +"polo-man." Harvey's father owned a score of copper-mines, and had +named him after a race-horse; he was a big broad-shouldered fellow, a +favourite of every one; and next morning, when he found that Montague +sat a horse like one who was born to it, he invited him to come out to +his place on Long Island, and see some of the fox-hunting. + +Then, after he had dressed for dinner, Montague came downstairs, and +found Betty Wyman, shining like Aurora in an orange-coloured cloud. She +introduced him to Mrs. Vivie Patton, who was tall and slender and +fascinating, and had told her husband to go to hell. Mrs. Vivie had +black eyes that snapped and sparkled, and she was a geyser of animation +in a perpetual condition of eruption. Montague wondered if she would +have talked with him so gaily had she known what he knew about her +domestic entanglements. + +The company moved into the dining-room, where there was served another +of those elaborate and enormously expensive meals which he concluded he +was fated to eat for the rest of his life. Only, instead of Mrs. Billy +Alden with her Scotch, there was Mrs. Vivie, who drank champagne in +terrifying quantities; and afterward there was the inevitable grouping +of the bridge fiends. + +Among the guests there was a long-haired and wild-looking foreign +personage, who was the "lion" of the evening, and sat with half a dozen +admiring women about him. Now he was escorted to the music-room, and +revealed the fact that he was a violin virtuoso. He played what was +called "salon music"--music written especially for ladies and gentlemen +to listen to after dinner; and also a strange contrivance called a +concerto, put together to enable the player to exhibit within a brief +space the utmost possible variety of finger gymnastics. To learn to +perform these feats one had to devote his whole lifetime to practising +them, just like any circus acrobat; and so his mind became atrophied, +and a naive and elemental vanity was all that was left to him. + +Montague stood for a while staring; and then took to watching the +company, who chattered and laughed all through the performance. +Afterward, he strolled into the billiard-room, where Billy Price and +Chauncey Venable were having an exciting bout; and from there to the +smoking-room, where the stout little Major had gotten a group of young +bloods about him to play "Klondike." This was a game of deadly hazards, +which they played without limit; the players themselves were silent and +impassive, but the spectators who gathered about were tense with +excitement. + +In the morning Charlie Carter carried off Alice and Oliver and Betty in +his auto; and Montague spent his time in trying some of Havens's +jumping horses. The Horse Show was to open in New York on Monday, and +there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement because of this +prospect; Mrs. Caroline Smythe, a charming young widow, strolled about +with him and told him all about this Show, and the people who would +take part in it. + +And in the afternoon Major Venable took him for a stroll and showed him +the grounds. He had been told what huge sums had been expended in +laying them out; but after all, the figures were nothing compared with +an actual view. There were hills and slopes, and endless vistas of +green lawns and gardens, dotted with the gleaming white of marble +staircases and fountains and statuary. There was a great Italian walk, +leading by successive esplanades to an electric fountain with a basin +sixty feet across, and a bronze chariot and marble horses. There were +sunken gardens, with a fountain brought from the South of France, and +Greek peristyles, and seats of marble, and vases and other treasures of +art. + +And then there were the stables; a huge Renaissance building, with a +perfectly equipped theatre above. There was a model farm and dairy; a +polo-field, and an enclosed riding-ring for the children; and +dog-kennels and pigeon-houses, greenhouses and deer-parks--one was +prepared for bear-pits and a menagerie. Finally, on their way back, +they passed the casino, where musical chimes pealed out the +quarter-hours. Montague stopped and gazed up at the tower from which +the sounds had come. + +The more he gazed, the more he found to gaze at The roof of this +building had many gables, in the Queen Anne style; and from the midst +of them shot up the tower, which was octagonal and solid, suggestive of +the Normans. It was decorated with Christmas-wreaths in white stucco, +and a few miscellaneous ornaments like the gilded tassels one sees upon +plush curtains. Overtopping all of this was the dome of a Turkish +mosque. Rising out of the dome was something that looked like a +dove-cot; and out of this rose the slender white steeple of a Methodist +country church. On top of that was a statue of Diana. + +"What are you looking at?" asked the Major. + +"Nothing," said Montague, as he moved on. "Has there ever been any +insanity in the Havens family?" + +"I don't know," replied the other, puzzled. "They say the old man never +could sleep at night, and used to wander about alone in the park. I +suppose he had things on his conscience." + +They strolled away; and the Major's flood-gates of gossip were opened. +There was an old merchant in New York, who had been Havens's private +secretary. And Havens was always in terror of assassination, and so +whenever they travelled abroad he and the secretary exchanged places. +"The old man is big and imposing," said the Major, "and it's funny to +hear him tell how he used to receive the visitors and be stared at by +the crowds, while Havens, who was little and insignificant, would +pretend to make himself useful. And then one day a wild-looking +creature came into the Havens office, and began tearing the wrappings +off some package that shone like metal--and quick as a flash he and +Havens flung themselves down on the floor upon their faces. Then, as +nothing happened, they looked up, and saw the puzzled stranger gazing +over the railing at them. He had a patent churn, made of copper, which +he wanted Havens to market for him!" + +Montague could have wished that this party might last for a week or +two, instead of only two days. He was interested in the life, and in +those who lived it; all whom he met were people prominent in the social +world, and some in the business world as well, and one could not have +asked a better chance to study them. + +Montague was taking his time and feeling his way slowly. But all the +time that he was playing and gossiping he never lost from mind his real +purpose, which was to find a place for himself in the world of affairs; +and he watched for people from whose conversation he could get a view +of this aspect of things. So he was interested when Mrs. Smythe +remarked that among his fellow-guests was Vandam, an official of one of +the great life-insurance companies. "Freddie" Vandam, as the lady +called him, was a man of might in the financial world; and Montague +said to himself that in meeting him he would really be accomplishing +something. Crack shots and polo-players and four-in-hand experts were +all very well, but he had his living to earn, and he feared that the +problem was going to prove complicated. + +So he was glad when chance brought him and young Vandam together, and +Siegfried Harvey introduced them. And then Montague got the biggest +shock which New York had given him yet. + +It was not what Freddie Vandam said; doubtless he had a right to be +interested in the Horse Show, since he was to exhibit many fine horses, +and he had no reason to feel called upon to talk about anything more +serious to a stranger at a house party. But it was the manner of the +man, his whole personality. For Freddie was a man of fashion, with all +the exaggerated and farcical mannerisms of the dandy of the comic +papers. He wore a conspicuous and foppish costume, and posed with a +little cane; he cultivated a waving pompadour, and his silky moustache +and beard were carefully trimmed to points, and kept sharp by his +active fingers. His conversation was full of French phrases and French +opinions; he had been reared abroad, and had a whole-souled contempt +for all things American-even dictating his business letters in French, +and leaving it for his stenographer to translate them. His shirts were +embroidered with violets and perfumed with violets--and there were +bunches of violets at his horses' heads, so that he might get the odour +as he drove! + +There was a cruel saying about Freddie Vandam--that if only he had had +a little more brains, he would have been half-witted. And Montague sat, +and watched his mannerisms and listened to his inanities, with his mind +in a state of bewilderment and dismay. When at last he got up and +walked away, it was with a new sense of the complicated nature of the +problem that confronted him. Who was there that could give him the key +to this mystery--who could interpret to him a world in which a man such +as this was in control of four or five hundred millions of trust funds? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was quite futile to attempt to induce anyone to talk about serious +matters just now--for the coming week all Society belonged to the +horse. The parties which went to church on Sunday morning talked about +horses on the way, and the crowds that gathered in front of the church +door to watch them descend from their automobiles, and to get "points" +on their conspicuous costumes--these would read about horses all +afternoon in the Sunday papers, and about the gowns which the women +would wear at the show. + +Some of the party went up on Sunday evening; Montague went with the +rest on Monday morning, and had lunch with Mrs. Robbie Walling and +Oliver and Alice. They had arrayed him in a frock coat and silk hat and +fancy "spats"; and they took him and sat him in the front row of +Robbie's box. + +There was a great tan-bark arena, in which the horses performed; and +then a railing, and a broad promenade for the spectators; and then, +raised a few feet above, the boxes in which sat all Society. For the +Horse Show had now become a great social function. Last year a visiting +foreign prince had seen fit to attend it, and this year "everybody" +would come. + +Montague was rapidly getting used to things; he observed with a smile +how easy it was to take for granted embroidered bed and table linen, +and mural paintings, and private cars, and gold plate. At first it had +seemed to him strange to be waited upon by a white woman, and by a +white man quite unthinkable; but he was becoming accustomed to having +silent and expressionless lackeys everywhere about him, attending to +his slightest want. So he presumed that if he waited long enough, he +might even get used to horses which had their tails cut off to stumps, +and their manes to rows of bristles, and which had been taught to lift +their feet in strange and eccentric ways, and were driven with burred +bits in their mouths to torture them and make them step lively. + +There were road-horses, coach-horses, saddle-horses and hunters, +polo-ponies, stud-horses--every kind of horse that is used for +pleasure, over a hundred different "classes" of them. They were put +through their paces about the ring, and there was a committee which +judged them, and awarded blue and red ribbons. Apparently their highly +artificial kind of excellence was a real thing to the people who took +part in the show; for the spectators thrilled with excitement, and +applauded the popular victors. There was a whole set of conventions +which were generally understood--there was even a new language. You +were told that these "turnouts" were "nobby" and "natty"; they were +"swagger" and "smart" and "swell." + +However, the horse was really a small part of this show; before one had +sat out an afternoon he realized that the function was in reality a +show of Society. For six or seven hours during the day the broad +promenade would be so packed with human beings that one moved about +with difficulty; and this throng gazed towards the ring almost +never--it stared up into the boxes. All the year round the discontented +millions of the middle classes read of the doings of the "smart set"; +and here they had a chance to come and see them-alive, and real, and +dressed in their showiest costumes. Here was all the grand monde, in +numbered boxes, and with their names upon the programmes, so that one +could get them straight. Ten thousand people from other cities had come +to New York on purpose to get a look. Women who lived in +boarding-houses and made their own clothes, had come to get hints; all +the dressmakers in town were present for the same purpose.. Society +reporters had come, with notebooks in hand; and next morning the +imitators of Society all over the United States would read about it, in +such fashion as this: "Mrs. Chauncey Venable was becomingly gowned in +mauve cloth, made with an Eton jacket trimmed with silk braid, and +opening over a chemisette of lace. Her hat was of the same colour, +draped with a great quantity of mauve and orange tulle, and surmounted +with birds of paradise to match. Her furs were silver fox." + +The most intelligent of the great metropolitan dailies would print +columns of this sort of material; and as for the "yellow" journals, +they would have discussions of the costumes by "experts," and half a +page of pictures of the most conspicuous of the box-holders. While +Montague sat talking with Mrs. Walling, half a dozen cameras were +snapped at them; and once a young man with a sketch-book placed himself +in front of them and went placidly to work.--Concerning such things the +society dame had three different sets of emotions: first, the one which +she showed in public, that of bored and contemptuous indifference; +second, the one which she expressed to her friends, that of outraged +but helpless indignation; and third, the one which she really felt, +that of triumphant exultation over her rivals, whose pictures were not +published and whose costumes were not described. + +It was a great dress parade of society women. One who wished to play a +proper part in it would spend at least ten thousand dollars upon her +costumes for the week. It was necessary to have a different gown for +the afternoon and evening of each day; and some, who were adepts at +quick changes and were proud of it, would wear three or four a day, and +so need a couple of dozen gowns for the show. And of course there had +to be hats and shoes and gloves to match. There would be robes of +priceless fur hung carelessly over the balcony to make a setting; and +in the evening there would be pyrotechnical displays of jewels. Mrs. +Virginia Landis wore a pair of simple pearl earrings, which she told +the reporters had cost twenty thousand dollars; and there were two +women who displayed four hundred thousand dollars' worth of +diamonds--and each of them had hired a detective to hover about in the +crowd and keep watch over her! + +Nor must one suppose, because the horse was an inconspicuous part of +the show, that he was therefore an inexpensive part. One man was to be +seen here driving a four-in-hand of black stallions which had cost +forty thousand; there were other men who drove only one horse, and had +paid forty thousand for that. Half a million was a moderate estimate of +the cost of the "string" which some would exhibit. And of course these +horses were useless, save for show purposes, and to breed other horses +like them. Many of them never went out of their stables except for +exercise upon a track; and the cumbrous and enormous; expensive coaches +were never by any possibility used elsewhere--when they were taken from +place to place they seldom went upon their own wheels. + +And there were people here who made their chief occupation in life the +winning of blue ribbons at these shows. They kept great country estates +especially for the horses, and had private indoor exhibition rings. +Robbie Walling and Chauncey Venable were both such people; in the +summer of next year another of the Wallings took a string across the +water to teach the horse-show game to Society in London. He took twenty +or thirty horses, under the charge of an expert manager and a dozen +assistants; he sent sixteen different kinds of carriages, and two great +coaches, and a ton of harness and other stuff. It required one whole +deck of a steamer, and the expedition enabled him to get rid of six +hundred thousand dollars. + +All through the day, of course, Robbie was down in the ring with his +trainers and his competitors, and Montague sat and kept his wife +company. There was a steady stream of visitors, who came to +congratulate her upon their successes, and to commiserate with Mrs. +Chauncey Venable over the sufferings of the un-happy victim of a +notoriety-seeking district attorney. + +There was just one drawback to the Horse Show, as Montague gathered +from the conversation that went on among the callers: it was public, +and there was no way to prevent undesirable people from taking part. +There were, it appeared, hordes of rich people in New York who were not +in Society, and of whose existence Society was haughtily unaware; but +these people might enter horses and win prizes, and even rent a box and +exhibit their clothes. And they might induce the reporters to mention +them--and of course the ignorant populace did not know the difference, +and stared at them just as hard as at Mrs. Robbie or Mrs. Winnie. And +so for a whole blissful week these people had all the sensations of +being in Society! "It won't be very long before that will kill the +Horse Show," said Mrs. Vivie Patton, with a snap of her black eyes. + +There was Miss Yvette Simpkins, for instance; Society frothed at the +mouth when her name was mentioned. Miss Yvette was the niece of a +stock-broker who was wealthy, and she thought that she was in Society, +and the foolish public thought so, too. Miss Yvette made a speciality +of newspaper publicity; you were always seeing her picture, with some +new "Worth creation," and the picture would be labelled "Miss Yvette +Simpkins, the best-dressed woman in New York," or "Miss Yvette +Simpkins, who is known as the best woman whip in Society." It was said +that Miss Yvette, who was short and stout, and had a rosy German face, +had paid five thousand dollars at one clip for photographs of herself +in a new wardrobe; and her pictures were sent to the newspapers in +bundles of a dozen at a time. Miss Yvette possessed over a million +dollars' worth of diamonds--the finest in the country, according to the +newspapers; she had spent a hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars +this year upon her clothes, and she gave long interviews, in which she +set forth the fact that a woman nowadays could not really be well +dressed upon less than a hundred thousand a year. It was Miss Yvette's +boast that she had never ridden in a street-car in her life. + +Montague always had a soft spot in his heart for the unfortunate Miss +Yvette, who laboured so hard to be a guiding light; for it chanced to +be while she was in the ring, exhibiting her skill in driving tandem, +that he met with a fateful encounter. Afterward, when he came to look +back upon these early days, it seemed strange to him that he should +have gone about this place, so careless and unsuspecting, while the +fates were weaving strange destinies about him. + +It was on Tuesday afternoon, and he sat in the box of Mrs. Venable, a +sister-in-law of the Major. The Major, who was a care-free bachelor, +was there himself, and also Betty Wyman, who was making sprightly +comments on the passers-by; and there strolled into the box Chappie de +Peyster, accompanied by a young lady. + +So many people had stopped and been introduced and then passed on, that +Montague merely glanced at her once. He noticed that she was tall and +graceful, and caught her name, Miss Hegan. + +The turnouts in the ring consisted of one horse harnessed in front of +another; and Montague was wondering what conceivable motive could +induce a human being to hitch and drive horses in that fashion. The +conversation turned upon Miss Yvette, who was in the ring; and Betty +remarked upon the airy grace with which she wielded the long whip she +carried. "Did you see what the paper said about her this morning?" she +asked. "' Miss Simpkins was exquisitely clad in purple velvet,' and so +on! She looked for all the world like the Venus at the Hippodrome!" + +"Why isn't she in Society?" asked Montague, curiously. + +"She!" exclaimed Betty. "Why, she's a travesty!" + +There was a moment's pause, preceding a remark by their young lady +visitor. "I've an idea," said she, "that the real reason she never got +into Society was that she was fond of her old father." + +And Montague gave a short glance at the speaker, who was gazing fixedly +into the ring. He heard the Major chuckle, and he thought that he heard +Betty Wyman give a little sniff. A few moments later the young lady +arose, and with some remark to Mrs. Venable about how well her costume +became her, she passed on out of the box. + +"Who is that?" asked Montague. + +"That," the Major answered, "that's Laura Hegan--Jim Hegan's daughter." + +"Oh!" said Montague, and caught his breath. Jim Hegan--Napoleon of +finance--czar of a gigantic system of railroads, and the power behind +the political thrones of many states. + +"His only daughter, too," the Major added. "Gad, what a juicy morsel +for somebody!" + +"Well, she'll make him pay for all he gets, whoever he is!" retorted +Betty, vindictively. + +"You don't like her?" inquired Montague; and Betty replied promptly, "I +do not!" + +"Her daddy and Betty's granddaddy are always at swords' points," put in +Major Venable. + +"I have nothing to do with my granddaddy's quarrels," said the young +lady. "I have troubles enough of my own." + +"What is the matter with Miss Hegan?" asked Montague, laughing. + +"She's an idea she's too good for the world she lives in," said Betty. +"When you're with her, you feel as you will before the judgment throne." + +"Undoubtedly a disturbing feeling," put in the Major. + +"She never hands you anything but you find a pin hidden in it," went on +the girl. "All her remarks are meant to be read backward, and my life +is too short to straighten out their kinks. I like a person to say what +they mean in plain English, and then I can either like them or not." + +"Mostly not," said the Major, grimly; and added, "Anyway, she's +beautiful." + +"Perhaps," said the other. "So is the Jungfrau; but I prefer something +more comfortable." + +"What's Chappie de Peyster beauing her around for?" asked Mrs. Venable. +"Is he a candidate?" + +"Maybe his debts are troubling him again," said Mistress Betty. "He +must be in a desperate plight.--Did you hear how Jack Audubon proposed +to her?" + +"Did Jack propose?" exclaimed the Major. + +"Of course he did," said the girl. "His brother told me." Then, for +Montague's benefit, she explained, "Jack Audubon is the Major's nephew, +and he's a bookworm, and spends all his time collecting scarabs." + +"What did he say to her?" asked the Major, highly amused. + +"Why," said Betty, "he told her he knew she didn't love him; but also +she knew that he didn't care anything about her money, and she might +like to marry him so that other men would let her alone." + +"Gad!" cried the old gentleman, slapping his knee. "A masterpiece!" + +"Does she have so many suitors?" asked Montague; and the Major replied, +"My dear boy--she'll have a hundred million dollars some day!" + +At this point Oliver put in appearance, and Betty got up and went for a +stroll with him; then Montague asked for light upon Miss Hegan's remark. + +"What she said is perfectly true," replied the Major; "only it riled +Betty. There's many a gallant dame cruising the social seas who has +stowed her old relatives out of sight in the hold." + +"What's the matter with old Simpkins?" asked the other. + +"Just a queer boy," was the reply. "He has a big pile, and his one joy +in life is the divine Yvette. It is really he who makes her +ridiculous--he has a regular press agent for her, a chap he loads up +with jewellery and cheques whenever he gets her picture into the +papers." + +The Major paused a moment to greet some acquaintance, and then resumed +the conversation. Apparently he could gossip in this intimate fashion +about any person whom you named. Old Simpkins had been very poor as a +boy, it appeared, and he had never got over the memory of it. Miss +Yvette spent fifty thousand at a clip for Paris gowns; but every day +her old uncle would save up the lumps of sugar which came with the +expensive lunch he had brought to his office. And when he had several +pounds he would send them home by messenger! + +This conversation gave Montague a new sense of the complicatedness of +the world into which he had come. Miss Simpkins was "impossible"; and +yet there was--for instance--that Mrs. Landis whom he had met at Mrs. +Winnie Duval's. He had met her several times at the show; and he heard +the Major and his sister-in-law chuckling over a paragraph in the +society journal, to the effect that Mrs. Virginia van Rensselaer Landis +had just returned from a successful hunting-trip in the far West. He +did not see the humour of this, at least not until they had told him of +another paragraph which had appeared some time before: stating that +Mrs. Landis had gone to acquire residence in South Dakota, taking with +her thirty-five trunks and a poodle; and that "Leanie" Hopkins, the +handsome young stock-broker, had taken a six months' vow of poverty, +chastity, and obedience. + +And yet Mrs. Landis was "in" Society! And moreover, she spent nearly as +much upon her clothes as Miss Yvette, and the clothes were quite as +conspicuous; and if the papers did not print pages about them, it was +not because Mrs. Landis was not perfectly willing. She was painted and +made up quite as frankly as any chorus-girl on the stage. She laughed a +great deal, and in a high key, and she and her friends told stories +which made Montague wish to move out of the way. + +Mrs. Landis had for some reason taken a fancy to Alice, and invited her +home to lunch with her twice during the show. And after they had got +home in the evening, the girl sat upon the bed in her fur-trimmed +wrapper, and told Montague and his mother and Mammy Lucy all about her +visit. + +"I don't believe that woman has a thing to do or to think about in the +world except to wear clothes!" she said. "Why, she has adjustable +mirrors on ball-bearings, so that she can see every part of her skirts! +And she gets all her gowns from Paris, four times a year--she says +there are four seasons now, instead of two! I thought that my new +clothes amounted to something, but my goodness, when I saw hers!" + +Then Alice went on to describe the unpacking of fourteen trunks, which +had just come up from the custom-house that day. Mrs. Virginia's +couturiere had her photograph and her colouring (represented in actual +paints) and a figure made up from exact measurements; and so every one +of the garments would fit her perfectly. Each one came stuffed with +tissue paper and held in place by a lattice-work of tape; and attached +to each gown was a piece of the fabric, from which her shoemaker would +make shoes or slippers. There were street-costumes and opera-wraps, +robes de chambre and tea-gowns, reception-dresses, and wonderful ball +and dinner gowns. Most of these latter were to be embroidered with +jewellery before they were worn, and imitation jewels were sewn on, to +show how the real ones were to be placed. These garments were made of +real lace or Parisian embroidery, and the prices paid for them were +almost impossible to credit. Some of them were made of lace so filmy +that the women who made them had to sit in damp cellars, because the +sunlight would dry the fine threads and they would break; a single yard +of the lace represented forty days of labour. There was a pastel +"batiste de soie" Pompadour robe, embroidered with cream silk flowers, +which had cost one thousand dollars. There was a hat to go with it, +which had cost a hundred and twenty-five, and shoes of grey +antelope-skin, buckled with mother-of-pearl, which had cost forty. +There was a gorgeous and intricate ball-dress of pale green chiffon +satin, with orchids embroidered in oxidized silver, and a long court +train, studded with diamonds--and this had cost six thousand dollars +without the jewels! And there was an auto-coat which had cost three +thousand; and an opera-wrap made in Leipsic, of white unborn baby lamb, +lined with ermine, which had cost twelve thousand--with a thousand +additional for a hat to match! Mrs. Landis thought nothing of paying +thirty-five dollars for a lace handkerchief, or sixty dollars for a +pair of spun silk hose, or two hundred dollars for a pearl and +gold-handled parasol trimmed with cascades of chiffon, and made, like +her hats, one for each gown. + +"And she insists that these things are worth the money," said Alice. +"She says it's not only the material in them, but the ideas. Each +costume is a study, like a picture. 'I pay for the creative genius of +the artist,' she said to me--'for his ability to catch my ideas and +apply them to my personality--my complexion and hair and eyes. +Sometimes I design my own costumes, and so I know what hard work it +is!'" + +Mrs. Landis came from one of New York's oldest families, and she was +wealthy in her own right; she had a palace on Fifth Avenue, and now +that she had turned her husband out, she had nothing at all to put in +it except her clothes. Alice told about the places in which she kept +them--it was like a museum! There was a gown-room, made dust-proof, of +polished hardwood, and with tier upon tier of long poles running +across, and padded skirt-supporters hanging from them. Everywhere there +was order and system--each skirt was numbered, and in a +chiffonier-drawer of the same number you would find the waist--and so +on with hats and stockings and gloves and shoes and parasols. There was +a row of closets, having shelves piled up with dainty lace-trimmed and +beribboned lingerie; there were two closets full of hats and three of +shoes. "When she went West," said Alice, "one of her maids counted, and +found that she had over four hundred pairs! And she actually has a +cabinet with a card-catalogue to keep track of them. And all the +shelves are lined with perfumed silk sachets, and she has tiny sachets +sewed in every skirt and waist; and she has her own private +perfume--she gave me some. She calls it Occur de Jeannette, and she +says she designed it herself, and had it patented!" + +And then Alice went on to describe the maid's work-room, which was also +of polished hardwood, and dust-proof, and had a balcony for brushing +clothes, and wires upon which to hang them, and hot and cold water, and +a big ironing-table and an electric stove. "But there can't be much +work to do," laughed the girl, "for she never wears a gown more than +two or three times. Just think of paying several thousand dollars for a +costume, and giving it to your poor relations after you have worn it +only twice! And the worst of it is that Mrs. Landis says it's all +nothing unusual; you'll find such arrangements in every home of people +who are socially prominent. She says there are women who boast of never +appearing twice in the same gown, and there's one dreadful personage in +Boston who wears each costume once, and then has it solemnly cremated +by her butler!" + +"It is wicked to do such things," put in old Mrs. Montague, when she +had heard this tale through. "I don't see how people can get any +pleasure out of it." + +"That's what I said," replied Alice. + +"To whom did you say that?" asked Montague. "To Mrs. Landis?" + +"No," said Alice, "to a cousin of hers. I was downstairs waiting for +her, and this girl came in. And we got to talking about it, and I said +that I didn't think I could ever get used to such things." + +"What did she say?" asked the other. + +"She answered me strangely," said the girl. "She's tall, and very +stately, and I was a little bit afraid of her. She said, 'You'll get +used to it. Everybody you know will be doing it, and if you try to do +differently they'll take offence; and you won't have the courage to do +without friends. You'll be meaning every day to stop, but you never +will, and you'll go on until you die.'" + +"What did you say to that?" + +"Nothing," answered Alice. "Just then Mrs. Landis came in, and Miss +Hegan went away." + +"Miss Hegan?" echoed Montague. + +"Yes," said the other. "That's her name--Laura Hegan. Have you met her?" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The Horse Show was held in Madison Square Garden, a building occupying +a whole city block. It seemed to Montague that during the four days he +attended he was introduced to enough people to fill it to the doors. +Each one of the exquisite ladies and gentlemen extended to him a +delicately gloved hand, and remarked what perfect weather they were +having, and asked him how long he had been in New York, and what he +thought of it. Then they would talk about the horses, and about the +people who were present, and what they had on. + +He saw little of his brother, who was squiring the Walling ladies most +of the time; and Alice, too, was generally separated from him and taken +care of by others. Yet he was never alone--there was always some young +matron ready to lead him to her carriage and whisk him away to lunch or +dinner. + +Many times he wondered why people should be so kind to him, a stranger, +and one who could do nothing for them in return. Mrs. Billy Alden +undertook to explain it to him, one afternoon, as he sat in her box. +There had to be some people to enjoy, it appeared, or there would be no +fun in the game. "Everything is new and strange to you," said she, "and +you're delicious and refreshing; you make these women think perhaps +they oughtn't to be so bored after all! Here's a woman who's bought a +great painting; she's told that it's great, but she doesn't understand +it herself--all she knows is that it cost her a hundred thousand +dollars. And now you come along, and to you it's really a painting--and +don't you see how gratifying that is to her?" + +"Oliver is always telling me it's bad form to admire," said the man, +laughing. + +"Yes?" said the other. "Well, don't you let that brother of yours spoil +you. There are more than enough of blase people in town--you be +yourself." + +He appreciated the compliment, but added, "I'm afraid that when the +novelty is worn off, people will be tired of me." + +"You'll find your place," said Mrs. Alden--"the people you like and who +like you." And she went on to explain that here he was being passed +about among a number of very different "sets," with different people +and different tastes. Society had become split up in that manner of +late--each set being jealous and contemptuous of all the other sets. +Because of the fact that they overlapped a little at the edges, it was +possible for him to meet here a great many people who never met each +other, and were even unaware of each other's existence. + +And Mrs. Alden went on to set forth the difference between these +"sets"; they ran from the most exclusive down to the most "yellow," +where they shaded off into the disreputable rich--of whom, it seemed, +there were hordes in the city. These included "sporting" and theatrical +and political people, some of whom were very rich indeed; and these +sets in turn shaded off into the criminals and the demi-monde--who +might also easily be rich. "Some day," said Mrs. Alden "you should get +my brother to tell you about all these people. He's been in politics, +you know, and he has a racing-stable." + +And Mrs. Alden told him about the subtle little differences in the +conventions of these various sets of Society. There was the matter of +women smoking, for instance. All women smoked, nowadays; but some would +do it only in their own apartments, with their women friends; and some +would retire to an out-of-the-way corner to do it; while others would +smoke in their own dining-rooms, or wherever the men smoked. All agreed +however, in never smoking "in public"--that is, where they would be +seen by people not of their own set. Such, at any rate, had always been +the rule, though a few daring ones were beginning to defy even that. + +Such rules were very rigid, but they were purely conventional, they had +nothing to do with right or wrong: a fact which Mrs. Alden set forth +with her usual incisiveness. A woman, married or unmarried, might +travel with a man all over Europe, and every one might know that she +did it, but it would make no difference, so long as she did not do it +in America. There was one young matron whom Montague would meet, a +raging beauty, who regularly got drunk at dinner parties, and had to be +escorted to her carriage by the butler. She moved in the most exclusive +circles, and every one treated it as a joke. Unpleasant things like +this did not hurt a person unless they got "out"--that is, unless they +became a scandal in the courts or the newspapers. Mrs. Alden herself +had a cousin (whom she cordially hated) who had gotten a divorce from +her husband and married her lover forthwith and had for this been +ostracized by Society. Once when she came to some semi-public affair, +fifty women had risen at once and left the room! She might have lived +with her lover, both before and after the divorce, and every one might +have known it, and no one would have cared; but the convenances +declared that she should not marry him until a year had elapsed after +the divorce. + +One thing to which Mrs. Alden could testify, as a result of a +lifetime's observation, was the rapid rate at which these conventions, +even the most essential of them, were giving way, and being replaced by +a general "do as you please." Anyone could see that the power of women +like Mrs. Devon, who represented the old regime, and were dignified and +austere and exclusive, was yielding before the onslaught of new people, +who were bizarre and fantastic and promiscuous and loud. And the +younger sets cared no more about anyone--nor about anything under +heaven, save to have a good time in their own harum-scarum ways. In the +old days one always received a neatly-written or engraved invitation to +dinner, worded in impersonal and formal style; but the other day Mrs. +Alden had found a message which had been taken from the telephone: +"Please come to dinner, but don't come unless you can bring a man, or +we'll be thirteen at the table." + +And along with this went a perfectly incredible increase in luxury and +extravagance. "You are surprised at what you see here to-day," said +she--"but take my word for it, if you were to come back five years +later, you'd find all our present standards antiquated, and our present +pace-makers sent to the rear. You'd find new hotels and theatres +opening, and food and clothing and furniture that cost twice as much as +they cost now. Not so long ago a private car was a luxury; now it's as +much a necessity as an opera-box or a private ball-room, and people who +really count have private trains. I can remember when our girls wore +pretty muslin gowns in summer, and sent them to wash; now they wear +what they call lingerie gowns, dimity en princesse, with silk +embroidery and real lace and ribbons, that cost a thousand dollars +apiece and won't wash. Years ago when I gave a dinner, I invited a +dozen friends, and my own chef cooked it and my own servants served it. +Now I have to pay my steward ten thousand a year, and nothing that I +have is good enough. I have to ask forty or fifty people, and I call in +a caterer, and he brings everything of his own, and my servants go off +and get drunk. You used to get a good dinner for ten dollars a plate, +and fifteen was something special; but now you hear of dinners that +cost a thousand a plate! And it's not enough to have beautiful flowers +on the table--you have to have 'scenery'; there must be a rural +landscape for a background, and goldfish in the finger-bowls, and five +thousand dollars' worth of Florida orchids on the table, and floral +favours of roses that cost a hundred and fifty dollars a dozen. I +attended a dinner at the Waldorf last year that had cost fifty thousand +dollars; and when I ask those people to see me, I have to give them as +good as I got. The other day I paid a thousand dollars for a +tablecloth!" + +"Why do you do it?" asked Montague, abruptly. + +"God knows," said the other; "I don't. I sometimes wonder myself. I +guess it's because I've nothing else to do. It's like the story they +tell about my brother--he was losing money in a gambling-place in +Saratoga, and some one said to him, 'Davy, why do you go there--don't +you know the game is crooked?' 'Of course it's crooked,' said he, 'but, +damn it, it's the only game in town!'" + +"The pressure is more than anyone can stand," said Mrs. Alden, after a +moment's thought. "It's like trying to swim against a current. You have +to float, and do what every one expects you to do--your children and +your friends and your servants and your tradespeople. All the world is +in a conspiracy against you." + +"It's appalling to me," said the man. + +"Yes," said the other, "and there's never any end to it. You think you +know it all, but you find you really know very little. Just think of +the number of people there are trying to go the pace! They say there +are seven thousand millionaires in this country, but I say there are +twenty thousand in New York alone--or if they don't own a million, +they're spending the income of it, which amounts to the same thing. You +can figure that a man who pays ten thousand a year for rent is paying +fifty thousand to live; and there's Fifth Avenue--two miles of it, if +you count the uptown and downtown parts; and there's Madison Avenue, +and half a dozen houses adjoining on every side street; and then there +are the hotels and apartment houses, to say nothing of the West Side +and Riverside Drive. And you meet these mobs of people in the shops and +the hotels and the theatres, and they all want to be better dressed +than you. I saw a woman here to-day that I never saw in my life before, +and I heard her say she'd paid two thousand dollars for a lace +handkerchief; and it might have been true, for I've been asked to pay +ten thousand for a lace shawl at a bargain. It's a common enough thing +to see a woman walking on Fifth Avenue with twenty or thirty thousand +dollars' worth of furs on her. Fifty thousand is often paid for a coat +of sable, and I know of one that cost two hundred thousand. I know +women who have a dozen sets of furs--ermine, chinchilla, black fox, +baby lamb, and mink and sable; and I know a man whose chauffeur quit +him because he wouldn't buy him a ten-thousand-dollar fur coat! And +once people used to pack their furs away and take care of them; but now +they wear them about the street, or at the sea-shore, and you can +fairly see them fade. Or else their cut goes out of fashion, and so +they have to have new ones!" + +All that was material for thought. It was all true--there was no +question about that. It seemed to be the rule that whenever you +questioned a tale of the extravagances of New York, you would hear the +next day of something several times more startling. Montague was +staggered at the idea of a two-hundred-thousand-dollar fur coat; and +yet not long afterward there arrived in the city a titled Englishwoman, +who owned a coat worth a million dollars, which hard-headed insurance +companies had insured for half a million. It was made of the soft +plumage of rare Hawaiian birds, and had taken twenty years to make; +each feather was crescent-shaped, and there were wonderful designs in +crimson and gold and black. Every day in the casual conversation of +your acquaintances you heard of similar incredible things; a tiny +antique Persian rug, which could be folded into an overcoat pocket, for +ten thousand dollars; a set of five "art fans," each blade painted by a +famous artist and costing forty-three thousand dollars; a crystal cup +for eighty thousand; an edition de luxe of the works of Dickens for a +hundred thousand; a ruby, the size of a pigeon's egg, for three hundred +thousand. In some of these great New York palaces there were fountains +which cost a hundred dollars a minute to run; and in the harbour there +were yachts which cost twenty thousand a month to keep in commission. + +And that same day, as it chanced, he learned of a brand-new kind of +squandering. He went home to lunch with Mrs. Winnie Duval, and there +met Mrs. Caroline Smythe, with whom he had talked at Castle Havens. +Mrs. Smythe, whose husband had been a well-known Wall Street plunger, +was soft and mushy, and very gushing in manner; and she asked him to +come home to dinner with her, adding, "I'll introduce you to my babies." + +From what Montague had so far seen, he judged that babies played a very +small part in the lives of the women of Society; and so he was +interested, and asked, "How many have you?" + +"Only two, in town," said Mrs. Smythe. "I've just come up, you see." + +"How old are they?" he inquired politely; and when the lady added, +"About two years," he asked, "Won't they be in bed by dinner time?" + +"Oh my, no!" said Mrs. Smythe. "The dear little lambs wait up for me. I +always find them scratching at my chamber door and wagging their little +tails." + +Then Mrs. Winnie laughed merrily and said, "Why do you fool him?" and +went on to inform Montague that Caroline's "babies" were griffons +Bruxelloises. Griffons suggested to him vague ideas of dragons and +unicorns and gargoyles; but he said nothing more, save to accept the +invitation, and that evening he discovered that griffons Bruxelloises +were tiny dogs, long-haired, yellow, and fluffy; and that for her two +priceless treasures Mrs. Smythe had an expert nurse, to whom she paid a +hundred dollars a month, and also a footman, and a special cuisine in +which their complicated food was prepared. They had a regular dentist, +and a physician, and gold plate to eat from. Mrs. Smythe also owned two +long-haired St. Bernards of a very rare breed, and a fierce Great Dane, +and a very fat Boston bull pup--the last having been trained to go for +an airing all alone in her carriage, with a solemn coachman and footman +to drive him. + +Montague, deftly keeping the conversation upon the subject of pets, +learned that all this was quite common. Many women in Society +artificially made themselves barren, because of the inconvenience +incidental to pregnancy and motherhood; and instead they lavished their +affections upon cats and dogs. Some of these animals had elaborate +costumes, rivalling in expensiveness those of their step-mothers. They +wore tiny boots, which cost eight dollars a pair--house boots, and +street boots lacing up to the knees; they had house-coats, +walking-coats, dusters, sweaters, coats lined with ermine, and +automobile coats with head and chest-protectors and hoods and +goggles--and each coat fitted with a pocket for its tiny handkerchief +of fine linen or lace! And they had collars set with rubies and pearls +and diamonds--one had a collar that cost ten thousand dollars! +Sometimes there would be a coat to match every gown of the owner. There +were dog nurseries and resting-rooms, in which they might be left +temporarily; and manicure parlours for cats, with a physician in +charge. When these pets died, there was an expensive cemetery in +Brooklyn especially for their interment; and they would be duly +embalmed and buried in plush-lined casket, and would have costly marble +monuments. When one of Mrs. Smythe's best loved pugs had fallen ill of +congestion of the liver, she had had tan-bark put upon the street in +front of her house; and when in spite of this the dog died, she had +sent out cards edged in black, inviting her friends to a "memorial +service." Also she showed Montague a number of books with very costly +bindings, in which were demonstrated the unity, simplicity, and +immortality of the souls of cats and dogs. + +Apparently the sentimental Mrs. Smythe was willing to talk about these +pets all through dinner; and so was her aunt, a thin and angular +spinster, who sat on Montague's other side. And he was willing to +listen--he wanted to know it all. There were umbrellas for dogs, to be +fastened over their backs in wet weather; there were manicure and +toilet sets, and silver medicine-chests, and jewel-studded whips. There +were sets of engraved visiting-cards; there were wheel-chairs in which +invalid cats and dogs might be taken for an airing. There were shows +for cats and dogs, with pedigrees and prizes, and nearly as great +crowds as the Horse Show; Mrs. Smythe's St. Bernards were worth seven +thousand dollars apiece, and there were bull-dogs worth twice that. +There was a woman who had come all the way from the Pacific coast to +have a specialist perform an operation upon the throat of her Yorkshire +terrier! There was another who had built for her dog a tiny Queen Anne +cottage, with rooms papered and carpeted and hung with lace curtains! +Once a young man of fashion had come to the Waldorf and registered +himself and "Miss Elsie Cochrane"; and when the clerk made the usual +inquiries as to the relationship of the young lady, it transpired that +Miss Elsie was a dog, arrayed in a prim little tea-gown, and requiring +a room to herself. And then there was a tale of a cat which had +inherited a life-pension from a forty-thousand-dollar estate; it had a +two-floor apartment and several attendants, and sat at table and ate +shrimps and Italian chestnuts, and had a velvet couch for naps, and a +fur-lined basket for sleeping at night! + +Four days of horses were enough for Montague, and on Friday morning, +when Siegfried Harvey called him up and asked if he and Alice would +come out to "The Roost" for the week-end, he accepted gladly. Charlie +Carter was going, and volunteered to take them in his car; and so again +they crossed the Williamsburg Bridge--"the Jewish passover," as Charlie +called it--and went out on Long Island. + +Montague was very anxious to get a "line" on Charlie Carter; for he had +not been prepared for the startling promptness with which this young +man had fallen at Alice's feet. It was so obvious, that everybody was +smiling over it--he was with her every minute that he could arrange it, +and he turned up at every place to which she was invited. Both Mrs. +Winnie and Oliver were quite evidently complacent, but Montague was by +no means the same. Charlie had struck him as a good-natured but rather +weak youth, inclined to melancholy; he was never without a cigarette in +his fingers, and there had been signs that he was not quite proof +against the pitfalls which Society set about him in the shape of +decanters and wine-cups: though in a world where the fragrance of +spirits was never out of one's nostrils, and where people drank with +such perplexing frequency, it was hard to know where to draw a line. + +"You won't find my place like Havens's," Siegfried Harvey had said. "It +is real country." Montague found it the most attractive of all the +homes he had seen so far. It was a big rambling house, all in rustic +style, with great hewn logs outside, and rafters within, and a winding +oak stairway, and any number of dens and cosy corners, and broad +window-seats with mountains of pillows. Everything here was built for +comfort--there was a billiard-room and a smoking-room, and a real +library with readable books and great chairs in which one sank out of +sight. There were log fires blazing everywhere, and pictures on the +walls that told of sport, and no end of guns and antlers and trophies +of all sorts. But you were not to suppose that all this elaborate +rusticity would be any excuse for the absence of attendants in livery, +and a chef who boasted the cordon bleu, and a dinner-table resplendent +with crystal and silver and orchids and ferns. After all, though the +host called it a "small" place, he had invited twenty guests, and he +had a hunter in his stables for each one of them. + +But the most wonderful thing about "The Roost" was the fact that, at a +touch of a button, all the walls of the lower rooms vanished into the +second story, and there was one huge, log-lighted room, with violins +tuning up and calling to one's feet. They set a fast pace here--the +dancing lasted until three o'clock, and at dawn again they were dressed +and mounted, and following the pink-coated grooms and the hounds across +the frost-covered fields. + +Montague was half prepared for a tame fox, but this was spared him. +There was a real game, it seemed; and soon the pack gave tongue, and +away went the hunt. It was the wildest ride that Montague ever had +taken--over ditches and streams and innumerable rail-fences, and +through thick coverts and densely populated barnyards; but he was in at +the death, and Alice was only a few yards behind, to the immense +delight of the company. This seemed to Montague the first real life he +had met, and he thought to himself that these full-blooded and +high-spirited men and women made a "set" into which he would have been +glad to fit--save only that he had to earn his living, and they did not. + +In the afternoon there was more riding, and walks in the crisp November +air; and indoors, bridge and rackets and ping-pong, and a fast and +furious game of roulette, with the host as banker. "Do I look much like +a professional gambler?" he asked of Montague; and when the other +replied that he had not yet met any New York gamblers, young Harvey +went on to tell how he had gone to buy this apparatus (the sale of +which was forbidden by law) and had been asked by the dealer how +"strong" he wanted it! + +Then in the evening there was more dancing, and on Sunday another hunt. +That night a gambling mood seemed to seize the company--there were two +bridge tables, and in another room the most reckless game of poker that +Montague had ever sat in. It broke up at three in the morning, and one +of the company wrote him a cheque for sixty-five hundred dollars; but +even that could not entirely smooth his conscience, nor reconcile him +to the fever that was in his blood. + +Most important to him, however, was the fact that during the game he at +last got to know Charlie Carter. Charlie did not play, for the reason +that he was drunk, and one of the company told him so and refused to +play with him; which left poor Charlie nothing to do but get drunker. +This he did, and came and hung over the shoulders of the players, and +told the company all about himself. + +Montague was prepared to allow for the "wild oats" of a youngster with +unlimited money, but never in his life had he heard or dreamed of +anything like this boy. For half an hour he wandered about the table, +and poured out a steady stream of obscenities; his mind was like a +swamp, in which dwelt loathsome and hideous serpents which came to the +surface at night and showed their flat heads and their slimy coils. In +the heavens above or the earth beneath there was nothing sacred to him; +there was nothing too revolting to be spewed out. And the company +accepted the performance as an old story--the men would laugh, and push +the boy away, and say, "Oh, Charlie, go to the devil!" + +After it was all over, Montague took one of the company aside and asked +him what it meant; to which the man replied: "Good God! Do you mean +that nobody has told you about Charlie Carter?" + +It appeared that Charlie was one of the "gilded youths" of the +Tenderloin, whose exploits had been celebrated in the papers. And after +the attendants had bundled him off to bed, several of the men gathered +about the fire and sipped hot punch, and rehearsed for Montague's +benefit some of his leading exploits. + +Charlie was only twenty-three, it seemed; and when he was ten his +father had died and left eight or ten millions in trust for him, in the +care of a poor, foolish aunt whom he twisted about his finger. At the +age of twelve he was a cigarette fiend, and had the run of the +wine-cellar. When he went to a rich private school he took whole trunks +full of cigarettes with him, and finally ran away to Europe, to acquire +the learning of the brothels of Paris. And then he came home and struck +the Tenderloin; and at three o'clock one morning he walked through a +plate-glass window, and so the newspapers took him up. That had +suddenly opened a new vista in life for Charlie--he became a devotee of +fame; everywhere he went he was followed by newspaper reporters and a +staring crowd. He carried wads as big round as his arm, and gave away +hundred-dollar tips to bootblacks, and lost forty thousand dollars in a +game of poker. He gave a fete to the demi-monde, with a jewelled +Christmas tree in midsummer, and fifty thousand dollars' worth of +splendour. But the greatest stroke of all was the announcement that he +was going to build a submarine yacht and fill it with +chorus-girls!--Now Charlie had sunk out of public attention, and his +friends would not see him for days; he would be lying in a "sporting +house" literally wallowing in champagne. + +And all this, Montague realized, his brother must have known! And he +had said not a word about it--because of the eight or ten millions +which Charlie would have when he was twenty-five! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +In the morning they went home with others of the party by train. They +could not wait for Charlie and his automobile, because Monday was the +opening night of the Opera, and no one could miss that. Here Society +would appear in its most gorgeous raiment, and, there would be a show +of jewellery such as could be seen nowhere else in the world. + +General Prentice and his wife had opened their town-house, and had +invited them to dinner and to share their box; and so at about +half-past nine o'clock Montague found himself seated in a great balcony +of the shape of a horseshoe, with several hundred of the richest people +in the city. There was another tier of boxes above, and three galleries +above that, and a thousand or more people seated and standing below +him. Upon the big stage there was an elaborate and showy play, the +words of which were sung to the accompaniment of an orchestra. + +Now Montague had never heard an opera, and he was fond of music. The +second act had just begun when he came in, and all through it he sat +quite spellbound, listening to the most ravishing strains that ever he +had heard in his life. He scarcely noticed that Mrs. Prentice was +spending her time studying the occupants of the other boxes through a +jewelled lorgnette, or that Oliver was chattering to her daughter. + +But after the act was over, Oliver got him alone outside the box, and +whispered, "For God's sake, Allan, don't make a fool of yourself." + +"Why, what's the matter?" asked the other. + +"What will people think," exclaimed Oliver, "seeing you sitting there +like a man in a dope dream?" + +"Why," laughed the other, "they'll think I'm listening to the music." + +To which Oliver responded, "People don't come to the Opera to listen to +the music." + +This sounded like a joke, but it was not. To Society the Opera was a +great state function, an exhibition of far more exclusiveness and +magnificence than the Horse Show; and Society certainly had the right +to say, for it owned the opera-house and ran it. The real music-lovers +who came, either stood up in the back, or sat in the fifth gallery, +close to the ceiling, where the air was foul and hot. How much Society +cared about the play was sufficiently indicated by the fact that all of +the operas were sung in foreign languages, and sung so carelessly that +the few who understood the languages could make but little of the +words. Once there was a world-poet who devoted his life to trying to +make the Opera an art; and in the battle with Society he all but +starved to death. Now, after half a century, his genius had triumphed, +and Society consented to sit for hours in darkness and listen to the +domestic disputes of German gods and goddesses. But what Society really +cared for was a play with beautiful costumes and scenery and dancing, +and pretty songs to which one could listen while one talked; the story +must be elemental and passionate, so that one could understand it in +pantomime--say the tragic love of a beautiful and noble-minded +courtesan for a gallant young man of fashion. + +Nearly every one who came to the Opera had a glass, by means of which +he could bring each gorgeously-clad society dame close to him, and +study her at leisure. There were said to be two hundred million +dollars' worth of diamonds in New York, and those that were not in the +stores were very apt to be at this show; for here was where they could +accomplish the purpose for which they existed--here was where all the +world came to stare at them. There were nine prominent Society women, +who among them displayed five million dollars' worth of jewels. You +would see stomachers which looked like a piece of a coat of mail, and +were made wholly of blazing diamonds. You would see emeralds and rubies +and diamonds and pearls made in tiaras--that is to say, imitation +crowns and coronets--and exhibited with a stout and solemn dowager for +a pediment. One of the Wallings had set this fashion, and now every one +of importance wore them. One lady to whom Montague was introduced made +a speciality of pearls--two black pearl ear-rings at forty thousand +dollars, a string at three hundred thousand, a brooch of pink pearls at +fifty thousand, and two necklaces at a quarter of a million each! + +This incessant repetition of the prices of things came to seem very +sordid; but Montague found that there was no getting away from it. The +people in Society who paid these prices affected to be above all such +considerations, to be interested only in the beauty and artistic +excellence of the things themselves; but one found that they always +talked about the prices which other people had paid, and that somehow +other people always knew what they had paid. They took care also to see +that the public and the newspapers knew what they had paid, and knew +everything else that they were doing. At this Opera, for instance, +there was a diagram of the boxes printed upon the programme, and a list +of all the box-holders, so that anyone could tell who was who. You +might see these great dames in their gorgeous robes coming from their +carriages, with crowds staring at them and detectives hovering about. +And the bosom of each would be throbbing with a wild and wonderful +vision of the moment when she would enter her box, and the music would +be forgotten, and all eyes would be turned upon her; and she would lay +aside her wraps, and flash upon the staring throngs, a vision of +dazzling splendour. + +Some of these jewels were family treasures, well known to New York for +generations; and in such cases it was becoming the fashion to leave the +real jewels in the safe-deposit vault, and to wear imitation stones +exactly like them. From homes where the jewels were kept, detectives +were never absent, and in many cases there were detectives watching the +detectives; and yet every once in a while the newspapers would be full +of a sensational story of a robbery. Then the unfortunates who chanced +to be suspected would be seized by the police and subjected to what was +jocularly termed the "third degree," and consisted of tortures as +elaborate and cruel as any which the Spanish Inquisition had invented. +The advertising value of this kind of thing was found to be so great +that famous actresses also had costly jewels, and now and then would +have them stolen. + +That night, when they had got home, Montague had a talk with his cousin +about Charlie Carter. He discovered a peculiar situation. It seemed +that Alice already knew that Charlie had been "bad." He was sick and +miserable; and her beauty and innocence had touched him and made him +ashamed of himself, and he had hinted darkly at dreadful evils. Thus +carefully veiled, and tinged with mystery and romance, Montague could +understand how Charlie made an interesting and appealing figure. "He +says I'm different from any girl he ever met," said Alice--a remark of +such striking originality that her cousin could not keep back his smile. + +Alice was not the least bit in love with him, and had no idea of being; +and she said that she would accept no invitations, and never go alone +with him; but she did not see how she could avoid him when she met him +at other people's houses. And to this Montague had to assent. + +General Prentice had inquired kindly as to what Montague had seen in +New York, and how he was getting along. He added that he had talked +about him to Judge Ellis, and that when he was ready to get to work, +the Judge would perhaps have some suggestions to make to him. He +approved, however, of Montague's plan of getting his bearings first; +and said that he would introduce him and put him up at a couple of the +leading clubs. + +All this remained in Montague's mind; but there was no use trying to +think of it at the moment. Thanksgiving was at hand, and in countless +country mansions there would be gaieties under way. Bertie Stuyvesant +had planned an excursion to his Adirondack camp, and had invited a +score or so of young people, including the Montagues. This would be a +new feature of the city's life, worth knowing about. + +Their expedition began with a theatre-party. Bertie had engaged four +boxes, and they met there, an hour or so after the performance had +begun. This made no difference, however, for the play was like the +opera-a number of songs and dances strung together, and with only plot +enough to provide occasion for elaborate scenery and costumes. From the +play they were carried to the Grand Central Station, and a little +before midnight Bertie's private train set out on its journey. + +This train was a completely equipped hotel. There was a baggage +compartment and a dining-car and kitchen; and a drawing-room and +library-car; and a bedroom-car--not with berths, such as the ordinary +sleeping-car provides, but with comfortable bedrooms, furnished in +white mahogany, and provided with running water and electric light. All +these cars were built of steel, and automatically ventilated: and they +were furnished in the luxurious fashion of everything with which Bertie +Stuyvesant had anything to do. In the library-car there were velvet +carpets upon the floor, and furniture of South American mahogany, and +paintings upon the walls over which great artists had laboured for +years. + +Bertie's chef and servants were on board, and a supper was ready in the +dining-car, which they ate while watching the Hudson by moonlight. And +the next morning they reached their destination, a little station in +the mountain wilderness. The train lay upon a switch, and so they had +breakfast at their leisure, and then, bundled in furs, came out into +the crisp pine-laden air of the woods. There was snow upon the ground, +and eight big sleighs waiting; and for nearly three hours they drove in +the frosty sunlight, through most beautiful mountain scenery. A good +part of the drive was in Bertie's "preserve," and the road was private, +as big signs notified one every hundred yards or so. + +So at last they reached a lake, winding like a snake among towering +hills, and with a huge baronial castle standing out upon the rocky +shore. This imitation fortress was the "camp." + +Bertie's father had built it, and visited it only half a dozen times in +his life. Bertie himself had only been here twice, he said. The deer +were so plentiful that in the winter they died in scores. Nevertheless +there were thirty game-keepers to guard the ten thousand acres of +forest, and prevent anyone's hunting in it. There were many such +"preserves" in this Adirondack wilderness, so Montague was told; one +man had a whole mountain fenced about with heavy iron railing, and had +moose and elk and even wild boar inside. And as for the "camps," there +were so many that a new style of architecture had been developed +here--to say nothing of those which followed old styles, like this +imported Rhine castle. One of Bertie's crowd had a big Swiss chalet; +and one of the Wallings had a Japanese palace to which he came every +August--a house which had been built from plans drawn in Japan, and by +labourers imported especially from Japan. It was full of Japanese +ware--furniture, tapestry, and mosaics; and the guides remembered with +wonder the strange silent, brown-skinned little men who had laboured +for days at carving a bit of wood, and had built a tiny pagoda-like +tea-house with more bits of wood in it than a man could count in a week. + +They had a luncheon of fresh venison and partridges and trout, and in +the afternoon a hunt. The more active set out to track the deer in the +snow; but most prepared to watch the lake-shore, while the game-keepers +turned loose the dogs back in the hills. This "hounding" was against +the law, but Bertie was his own law here--and at the worst there could +simply be a small fine, imposed upon some of the keepers. They drove +eight or ten deer to water; and as they fired as many as twenty shots +at one deer, they had quite a lively time. Then at dusk they came back, +in a fine glow of excitement, and spent the evening before the blazing +logs, telling over their adventures. + +The party spent two days and a half here, and on the last evening, +which was Thanksgiving, they had a wild turkey which Bertie had shot +the week before in Virginia, and were entertained by a minstrel show +which had been brought up from New York the night before. The next +afternoon they drove back to the train. + +In the morning, when they reached the city, Alice found a note from +Mrs. Winnie Duval, begging her and Montague to come to lunch and attend +a private lecture by the Swami Babubanana, who would tell them all +about the previous states of their souls. They went--though not without +a protest from old Mrs. Montague, who declared it was "worse than Bob +Ingersoll." + +And then, in the evening, came Mrs. de Graffenried's opening +entertainment, which was one of the great events of the social year. In +the general rush of things Montague had not had a chance properly to +realize it; but Reggie Mann and Mrs. de Graffenried had been working +over it for weeks. When the Montagues arrived, they found the Riverside +mansion--which was decorated in imitation of an Arabian palace--turned +into a jungle of tropical plants. + +They had come early at Reggie's request, and he introduced them to Mrs. +de Graffenried, a tall and angular lady with a leathern complexion +painfully painted; Mrs. de Graffenried was about fifty years of age, +but like all the women of Society she was made up for thirty. Just at +present there were beads of perspiration upon her forehead; something +had gone wrong at the last moment, and so Reggie would have no time to +show them the favours, as he had intended. + +About a hundred and fifty guests were invited to this entertainment. A +supper was served at little tables in the great ball-room, and +afterward the guests wandered about the house while the tables were +whisked out of the way and the room turned into a play-house. A company +from one of the Broadway theatres would be bundled into cabs at the end +of the performance, and by midnight they would be ready to repeat the +performance at Mrs. de Graffenried's. Montague chanced to be near when +this company arrived, and he observed that the guests had crowded up +too close, and not left room enough for the actors. So the manager had +placed them in a little ante-room, and when Mrs. de Graffenried +observed this, she rushed at the man, and swore at him like a dragoon, +and ordered the bewildered performers out into the main room. + +But this was peering behind the scenes, and he was supposed to be +watching the play. The entertainment was another "musical comedy" like +the one he had seen a few nights before. On that occasion, however, +Bertie Stuyvesant's sister had talked to him the whole time, while now +he was let alone, and had a chance to watch the performance. + +This was a very popular play; it had had a long run, and the papers +told how its author had an income of a couple of hundred thousand +dollars a year. And here was an audience of the most rich and +influential people in the city; and they laughed and clapped, and made +it clear that they were enjoying themselves heartily. And what sort of +a play was it? + +It was called "The Kaliph of Kamskatka." It had no shred of a plot; the +Kaliph had seventeen wives, and there was an American drummer who +wanted to sell him another--but then you did not need to remember this, +for nothing came of it. There was nothing in the play which could be +called a character--there was nothing which could be connected with any +real emotion ever felt by human beings. Nor could one say that there +was any incident--at least nothing happened because of anything else. +Each event was a separate thing, like the spasmodic jerking in the face +of an idiot. Of this sort of "action" there was any quantity--at an +instant's notice every one on the stage would fall simultaneously into +this condition of idiotic jerking. There was rushing about, shouting, +laughing, exclaiming; the stage was in a continual uproar of +excitement, which was without any reason or meaning. So it was +impossible to think of the actors in their parts; one kept thinking of +them as human beings--thinking of the awful tragedy of full-grown men +and women being compelled by the pressure of hunger to dress up and +paint themselves, and then come out in public and dance, stamp, leap +about, wring their hands, make faces, and otherwise be "lively." + +The costumes were of two sorts: one fantastic, supposed to represent +the East, and the other a kind of reductio ad absurdum of fashionable +garb. The leading man wore a "natty" outing-suit, and strutted with a +little cane; his stock-in-trade was a jaunty air, a kind of perpetual +flourish, and a wink that suggested the cunning of a satyr. The leading +lady changed her costume several times in each act; but it invariably +contained the elements of bare arms and bosom and back, and a skirt +which did not reach her knees, and bright-coloured silk stockings, and +slippers with heels two inches high. Upon the least provocation she +would execute a little pirouette, which would reveal the rest of her +legs, surrounded by a mass of lace ruffles. It is the nature of the +human mind to seek the end of things; if this woman had worn a suit of +tights and nothing else, she would have been as uninteresting as an +underwear advertisement in a magazine; but this incessant +not-quite-revealing of herself exerted a subtle fascination. At +frequent intervals the orchestra would start up a jerky little tune, +and the two "stars" would begin to sing in nasal voices some words +expressive of passion; then the man would take the woman about the +waist and dance and swing her about and bend her backward and gaze into +her eyes--actions all vaguely suggestive of the relationship of sex. At +the end of the verse a chorus would come gliding on, clad in any sort +of costume which admitted of colour and the display of legs; the +painted women of this chorus were never still for an instant--if they +were not actually dancing, they were wriggling their legs, and jerking +their bodies from side to side, and nodding their heads, and in all +other possible ways being "lively." + +But it was not the physical indecency of this show that struck Montague +so much as its intellectual content. The dialogue of the piece was what +is called "smart"; that is, it was full of a kind of innuendo which +implied a secret understanding of evil between the actor and his +audience--a sort of countersign which passed between them. After all, +it would have been an error to say that there were no ideas in the +play--there was one idea upon which all the interest of it was based; +and Montague strove to analyze this idea and formulate it to himself. +There are certain life principles-one might call them moral +axioms--which are the result of the experience of countless ages of the +human race, and upon the adherence to which the continuance of the race +depends. And here was an audience by whom all these principles +were--not questioned, nor yet disputed, nor yet denied--but to whom the +denial was the axiom, something which it would be too banal to state +flatly, but which it was elegant and witty to take for granted. In this +audience there were elderly people, and married men and women, and +young men and maidens; and a perfect gale of laughter swept through it +at a story of a married woman whose lover had left her when he got +married:-- + +"She must have been heartbroken," said the leading lady. + +"She was desperate," said the leading man, with a grin. + +"What did she do?" asked the lady "Go and shoot herself?" + +"Worse than that," said the man. "She, went back to her husband and had +a baby!" + +But to complete your understanding of the significance of this play, +you must bring yourself to realize that it was not merely a play, but a +kind of a play; it had a name--a "musical comedy"--the meaning of which +every one understood. Hundreds of such plays were written and produced, +and "dramatic critics" went to see them and gravely discussed them, and +many thousands of people made their livings by travelling over the +country and playing them; stately theatres were built for them, and +hundreds of thousands of people paid their money every night to see +them. And all this no joke and no nightmare--but a thing that really +existed. Men and women were doing these things--actual flesh-and-blood +human beings. + +Montague wondered, in an awestricken sort of way, what kind of human +being it could be who had flourished the cane and made the grimaces in +that play. Later on, when he came to know the "Tenderloin," he met this +same actor, and he found that he had begun life as a little Irish +"mick" who lived in a tenement, and whose mother stood at the head of +the stairway and defended him with a rolling-pin against a policeman +who was chasing him. He had discovered that he could make a living by +his comical antics; but when he came home and told his mother that he +had been offered twenty dollars a week by a show manager, she gave him +a licking for lying to her. Now he was making three thousand dollars a +week--more than the President of the United States and his Cabinet; but +he was not happy, as he confided to Montague, because he did not know +how to read, and this was a cause of perpetual humiliation. The secret +desire of this little actor's heart was to play Shakespeare; he had +"Hamlet" read to him, and pondered how to act it--all the time that he +was flourishing his little cane and making his grimaces! He had chanced +to be on the stage when a fire had broken out, and five or six hundred +victims of greed were roasted to death. The actor had pleaded with the +people to keep their seats, but all in vain; and all his life +thereafter he went about with this vision of horror in his mind, and +haunted by the passionate conviction that he had failed because of his +lack of education--that if only he had been a man of culture, he would +have been able to think of something to say to hold those +terror-stricken people! + +At three o'clock in the morning the performance came to an end, and +then there were more refreshments; and Mrs. Vivie Patton came and sat +by him, and they had a nice comfortable gossip. When Mrs. Vivie once +got started at talking about people, her tongue ran on like a windmill. + +There was Reggie Mann, meandering about and simpering at people. Reggie +was in his glory at Mrs. de Graffenried's affairs. Reggie had arranged +all this-he did the designing and the ordering, and contracted for the +shows with the agents. You could bet that he had got his commission on +them, too--though sometimes Mrs. de Graffenried got the shows to come +for nothing, because of the advertising her name would bring. +Commissions were Reggie's speciality--he had begun life as an auto +agent. Montague didn't know what that was? An auto agent was a man who +was for ever begging his friends to use a certain kind of car, so that +he might make a living; and Reggie had made about thirty thousand a +year in that way. He had come from Boston, where his reputation had +been made by the fact that early one morning, as they were driving home +from a celebration, he had dared a young society matron to take off her +shoes and stockings, and get out and wade in the public fountain; and +she had done it, and he had followed her. On the strength of the eclat +of this he had been taken up by Mrs. Devon; and one day Mrs. Devon had +worn a white gown, and asked him what he thought of it. "It needs but +one thing to make it perfect," said Reggie, and taking a red rose, he +pinned it upon her corsage. The effect was magical; every one exclaimed +with delight, and so Reggie's reputation as an authority upon dress was +made for ever. Now he was Mrs. de Graffenried's right-hand man, and +they made up their pranks together. Once they had walked down the +street in Newport with a big rag doll between them. And Reggie had +given a dinner at which the guest of honour had been a monkey--surely +Montague had heard of that, for it had been the sensation of the +season. It was really the funniest thing imaginable; the monkey wore a +suit of broad-cloth with collar and cuffs, and he shook hands with all +the guests, and behaved himself exactly like a gentleman--except that +he did not get drunk. + +And then Mrs. Vivie pointed out the great Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden, who +was sitting with one of her favourites, a grave, black-bearded +gentleman who had leaped into fame by inheriting fifty million dollars. +"Mrs. R.-C." had taken him up, and ordered his engagement book for him, +and he was solemnly playing the part of a social light. He had +purchased an old New York mansion, upon the decoration of which three +million dollars had been spent; and when he came down to business from +Tuxedo, his private train waited all day for him with steam up. Mrs. +Vivie told an amusing tale of a woman who had announced her engagement +to him, and borrowed large sums of money upon the strength of it, +before his denial came out. That had been a source of great delight to +Mrs. de Graffenried, who was furiously jealous of "Mrs. R. C." + +From the anecdotes that people told, Montague judged that Mrs. de +Graffenried must be one of those new leaders of Society, who, as Mrs. +Alden said, were inclined to the bizarre and fantastic. Mrs. de +Graffenried spent half a million dollars every season to hold the +position of leader of the Newport set, and you could always count upon +her for new and striking ideas. Once she had given away as cotillion +favours tiny globes with goldfish in them; again she had given a dance +at which everybody got themselves up as different vegetables. She was +fond of going about at Newport and inviting people haphazard to +lunch--thirty or forty at a time--and then surprising them with a +splendid banquet. Again she would give a big formal dinner, and perplex +people by offering them something which they really cared to eat. "You +see," explained Mrs. Vivie, "at these dinners we generally get thick +green turtle soup, and omelettes with some sort of Florida water poured +over them, and mushrooms cooked under glass, and real hand-made +desserts; but Mrs. de Graffenried dares to have baked ham and sweet +potatoes, or even real roast beef. You saw to-night that she had green +corn; she must have arranged for that months ahead--we can never get it +from Porto Rico until January. And you see this little dish of wild +strawberries--they were probably transplanted and raised in a hothouse, +and every single one wrapped separately before they were shipped." + +All these labours had made Mrs. de Graffenried a tremendous power in +the social world. She had a savage tongue, said Mrs. Vivie, and every +one lived in terror of her; but once in a while she met her match. Once +she had invited a comic opera star to sing for her guests, and all the +men had crowded round this actress, and Mrs. de Graffenried had flown +into a passion and tried to drive them away; and the actress, lolling +back in her chair, and gazing up idly at Mrs. de Graffenried, had +drawled, "Ten years older than God!" Poor Mrs. de Graffenried would +carry that saying with her until she died. + +Something reminiscent of this came under Montague's notice that same +evening. At about four o'clock Mrs. Vivie wished to go home, and asked +him to find her escort, the Count St. Elmo de Champignon--the man, by +the way, for whom her husband was gunning. Montague roamed all about +the house, and finally went downstairs, where a room had been set apart +for the theatrical company to partake of refreshments. Mrs. de +Graffenried's secretary was on guard at the door; but some of the boys +had got into the room, and were drinking champagne and "making dates" +with the chorus-girls. And here was Mrs. de Graffenried herself, +pushing them bodily out of the room, a score and more of them--and +among them Mrs. Vivie's Count! + +Montague delivered his message, and then went upstairs to wait until +his own party should be ready to leave. In the smoking-room were a +number of men, also waiting; and among them he noticed Major Venable, +in conversation with a man whom he did not know. "Come over here," the +Major called; and Montague obeyed, at the same time noticing the +stranger. + +He was a tall, loose-jointed, powerfully built man, a small head and a +very striking face: a grim mouth with drooping corners tightly set, and +a hawk-like nose, and deep-set, peering eyes. "Have you met Mr. Hegan?" +said the Major. "Hegan, this is Mr. Allan Montague." Jim Hegan! +Montague repressed a stare and took the chair which they offered him. +"Have a cigar," said Hegan, holding out his case. + +"Mr. Montague has just come to New York," said the Major. "He is a +Southerner, too." + +"Indeed?" said Hegan, and inquired what State he came from. Montague +replied, and added, "I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter last +week, at the Horse Show." + +That served to start a conversation; for Hegan came from Texas, and +when he found that Montague knew about horses--real horses--he warmed +to him. Then the Major's party called him away, and the other two were +left to carry on the conversation. + +It was very easy to chat with Hegan; and yet underneath, in the other's +mind, there lurked a vague feeling of trepidation, as he realized that +he was chatting with a hundred millions of dollars. Montague was new +enough at the game to imagine that there ought to be something strange, +some atmosphere of awe and mystery, about a man who was master of a +dozen railroads and of the politics of half a dozen States. He was +simple and very kindly in his manner, a plain man, interested in plain +things. There was about him, as he talked, a trace of timidity, almost +of apology, which Montague noticed and wondered at. It was only later, +when he had time to think about it, that he realized that Hegan had +begun as a farmer's boy in Texas, a "poor white"; and could it be that +after all these years an instinct remained in him, so that whenever he +met a gentleman of the old South he stood by with a little deference, +seeming to beg pardon for his hundred millions of dollars? + +And yet there was the power of the man. Even chatting about horses, you +felt it; you felt that there was a part of him which did not chat, but +which sat behind and watched. And strangest of all, Montague found +himself fancying that behind the face that smiled was another face, +that did not smile, but that was grim and set. It was a strange face, +with its broad, sweeping eyebrows and its drooping mouth; it haunted +Montague and made him feel ill at ease. + +There came Laura Hegan, who greeted them in her stately way; and Mrs. +Hegan, bustling and vivacious, costumed en grande dame. "Come and see +me some time," said the man. "You won't be apt to meet me otherwise, +for I don't go about much." And so they took their departure; and +Montague sat alone and smoked and thought. The face still stayed with +him; and now suddenly, in a burst of light, it came to him what it was: +the face of a bird of prey--of the great wild, lonely eagle! You have +seen it, perhaps, in a menagerie; sitting high up, submitting +patiently, biding its time. But all the while the soul of the eagle is +far away, ranging the wide spaces, ready for the lightning swoop, and +the clutch with the cruel talons! + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The next week was a busy one for the Montagues. The Robbie Wallings had +come to town and opened their house, and the time drew near for the +wonderful débutante dance at which Alice was to be formally presented +to Society. And of course Alice must have a new dress for the occasion, +and it must be absolutely the most beautiful dress ever known. In an +idle moment her cousin figured out that it was to cost her about five +dollars a minute to be entertained by the Wallings! + +What it would cost the Wallings, one scarcely dared to think. Their +ballroom would be turned into a flower-garden; and there would be a +supper for a hundred guests, and still another supper after the dance, +and costly favours for every figure. The purchasing of these latter had +been entrusted to Oliver, and Montague heard with dismay what they were +to cost. "Robbie couldn't afford to do anything second-rate," was the +younger brother's only reply to his exclamations. + +Alice divided her time between the Wallings and her costumiers, and +every evening she came home with a new tale of important developments. +Alice was new at the game, and could afford to be excited; and Mrs. +Robbie liked to see her bright face, and to smile indulgently at her +eager inquiries. Mrs. Robbie herself had given her orders to her +steward and her florist and her secretary, and went on her way and +thought no more about it. That was the way of the great ladies--or, at +any rate, it was their pose. + +The town-house of the Robbies was a stately palace occupying a block +upon Fifth Avenue--one of the half-dozen mansions of the Walling family +which were among the show places of the city. It would take a catalogue +to list the establishments maintained by the Wallings--there was an +estate in North Carolina, and another in the Adirondacks, and others on +Long Island and in New Jersey. Also there were several in Newport--one +which was almost never occupied, and which Mrs. Billy Alden +sarcastically described as "a three-million-dollar castle on a desert." + +Montague accompanied Alice once or twice, and had an opportunity to +study Mrs. Robbie at home. There were thirty-eight servants in her +establishment; it was a little state all in itself, with Mrs. Robbie as +queen, and her housekeeper as prime minister, and under them as many +different ranks and classes and castes as in a feudal principality. +There had to be six separate dining-rooms for the various kinds of +servants who scorned each other; there were servants' servants and +servants of servants' servants. There were only three to whom the +mistress was supposed to give orders--the butler, the steward, and the +housekeeper; she did not even know the names of many of them, and they +were changed so often, that, as she declared, she had to leave it to +her detective to distinguish between employees and burglars. + +Mrs. Robbie was quite a young woman, but it pleased her to pose as a +care-worn matron, weary of the responsibilities of her exalted station. +The ignorant looked on and pictured her as living in the lap of ease, +endowed with every opportunity: in reality the meanest kitchen-maid was +freer--she was quite worn thin with the burdens that fell upon her. The +huge machine was for ever threatening to fall to pieces, and required +the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job to keep it running. One +paid one's steward a fortune, and yet he robbed right and left, and +quarrelled with the chef besides. The butler was suspected of getting +drunk upon rare and costly vintages, and the new parlour-maid had +turned out to be a Sunday reporter in disguise. The man who had come +every day for ten years to wind the clocks of the establishment was +dead, and the one who took care of the bric-a-brac was sick, and the +housekeeper was in a panic over the prospect of having to train another. + +And even suppose that you escaped from these things, the real problems +of your life had still to be faced. It was not enough to keep alive; +you had your career--your duties as a leader of Society. There was the +daily mail, with all the pitiful letters from people begging +money--actually in one single week there were demands for two million +dollars. There were geniuses with patent incubators and stove-lifters, +and every time you gave a ball you stirred up swarms of anarchists and +cranks. And then there were the letters you really had to answer, and +the calls that had to be paid. These latter were so many that people in +the same neighbourhood had arranged to have the same day at home; thus, +if you lived on Madison Avenue you had Thursday; but even then it took +a whole afternoon to leave your cards. And then there were invitations +to be sent and accepted; and one was always making mistakes and +offending somebody--people would become mortal enemies overnight, and +expect all the world to know it the next morning. And now there were so +many divorces and remarryings, with consequent changing of names; and +some men knew about their wives' lovers and didn't care, and some did +care, but didn't know--altogether it was like carrying a dozen chess +games in your head. And then there was the hairdresser and the +manicurist and the masseuse, and the tailor and the bootmaker and the +jeweller; and then one absolutely had to glance through a newspaper, +and to see one's children now and then. + +All this Mrs. Robbie explained at luncheon; it was the rich man's +burden, about which common people had no conception whatever. A person +with a lot of money was like a barrel of molasses--all the flies in the +neighbourhood came buzzing about. It was perfectly incredible, the +lengths to which people would go to get invited to your house; not only +would they write and beg you, they might attack your business +interests, and even bribe your friends. And on the other hand, when +people thought you needed them, the time you had to get them to come! +"Fancy," said Mrs. Robbie, "offering to give a dinner to an English +countess, and having her try to charge you for coming!" And incredible +as it might seem, some people had actually yielded to her, and the +disgusting creature had played the social celebrity for a whole season, +and made quite a handsome income out of it. There seemed to be no limit +to the abjectness of some of the tuft-hunters in Society. + +It was instructive to hear Mrs. Robbie denounce such evils; and +yet--alas for human frailty--the next time that Montague called, the +great lady was blazing with wrath over the tidings that a new foreign +prince was coming to America, and that Mrs. Ridgely-Clieveden had +stolen a march upon her and grabbed him. He was to be under her +tutelage the entire time, and all the effulgence of his magnificence +would be radiated upon that upstart house. Mrs. Robbie revenged herself +by saying as many disagreeable things about Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden as +she could think of; winding up with the declaration that if she behaved +with this prince as she had with the Russian grand duke, Mrs. Robbie +Walling, for one, would cut her dead. And truly the details which Mrs. +Robbie cited were calculated to suggest that her rival's hospitality +was a reversion to the customs of primitive savagery. + +The above is a fair sample of the kind of conversation that one heard +whenever one visited any of the Wallings. Perhaps, as Mrs. Robbie said, +it may have been their millions that made necessary their attitude +toward other people; certain it was, at any rate, that Montague found +them all most disagreeable people to know. There was always some +tempest in a teapot over the latest machinations of their enemies. And +then there was the whole dead mass of people who sponged upon them and +toadied to them; and finally the barbarian hordes outside the magic +circle of their acquaintance--some specimens of whom came up every day +for ridicule. They had big feet and false teeth; they ate mush and +molasses; they wore ready-made ties; they said: "Do you wish that I +should do it?" Their grandfathers had been butchers and pedlars and +other abhorrent things. Montague tried his best to like the Wallings, +because of what they were doing for Alice; but after he had sat at +their lunch-table and listened to a conversation such as this, he found +himself in need of fresh air. + +And then he would begin to wonder about his own relation to these +people. If they talked about every one else behind their backs, +certainly they must talk about him behind his. And why did they go out +of their way to make him at home, and why were they spending their +money to launch Alice in Society? In the beginning he had assumed that +they did it out of the goodness of their hearts; but now that he had +looked into their hearts, he rejected the explanation. It was not their +way to shower princely gifts upon strangers; in general, the attitude +of all the Wallings toward a stranger was that of the London +hooligan--"'Eave a 'arf a brick at 'im!" They considered themselves +especially appointed by Providence to protect Society from the vulgar +newly rich who poured into the city, seeking for notoriety and +recognition. They prided themselves upon this attitude--they called it +their "exclusiveness"; and the exclusiveness of the younger generations +of Wallings had become a kind of insanity. + +Nor could the reason be that Alice was beautiful and attractive. One +could have imagined it if Mrs. Robbie had been like--say, Mrs. Winnie +Duval. It was easy to think of Mrs. Winnie taking a fancy to a girl, +and spending half her fortune upon her. But from a hundred little +things that he had seen, Montague had come to realize that the Robbie +Wallings, with all their wealth and power and grandeur, were actually +quite stingy. While all the world saw them scattering fortunes in their +pathway, in reality they were keeping track of every dollar. And Robbie +himself was liable to panic fits of economy, in which he went to the +most absurd excesses--Montague once heard him haggling over fifty cents +with a cabman. Lavish hosts though they both were, it was the literal +truth that they never spent money upon anyone but themselves--the end +and aim of their every action was the power and prestige of the Robbie +Wallings. + +"They do it because they are friends of mine," said Oliver, and +evidently wished that to satisfy his brother. But it only shifted the +problem and set him to watching Robbie and Oliver, and trying to make +out the basis of their relationship. There was a very grave question +concerned in this. Oliver had come to New York comparatively poor, and +now he was rich--or, at any rate, he lived like a rich man. And his +brother, whose scent was growing keener with every day of his stay in +New York, had about made up his mind that Oliver got his money from +Robbie Walling. + +Here, again, the problem would have been simple, if it had been another +person than Robbie; Montague would have concluded that his brother was +a "hanger-on." There were many great families whose establishments were +infested with such parasites. Siegfried Harvey, for instance, was a man +who had always half a dozen young chaps hanging about him; good-looking +and lively fellows, who hunted and played bridge, and amused the +married women while their husbands were at work, and who, if ever they +dropped a hint that they were hard up, might be reasonably certain of +being offered a cheque. But if the Robbie Wallings were to write +cheques, it must be for value received. And what could the value be? + +"Ollie" was rather a little god among the ultra-swagger; his taste was +a kind of inspiration. And yet his brother noticed that in such +questions he always deferred instantly to the Wallings; and surely the +Wallings were not people to be persuaded that they needed anyone to +guide them in matters of taste. Again, Ollie was the very devil of a +wit, and people were heartily afraid of him; and Montague had noticed +that he never by any chance made fun of Robbie--that the fetiches of +the house of Walling were always treated with respect. So he had +wondered if by any chance Robbie was maintaining his brother in +princely state for the sake of his ability to make other people +uncomfortable. But he realized that the Robbies, in their own view of +it, could have no more need of wit than a battleship has need of +popguns. Oliver's position, when they were about, was rather that of +the man who hardly ever dared to be as clever as he might, because of +the restless jealousy of his friend. + +It was a mystery; and it made the elder brother very uncomfortable. +Alice was young and guileless, and a pleasant person to patronize; but +he was a man of the world, and it was his business to protect her. He +had always paid his own way through life, and he was very loath to put +himself under obligations to people like the Wallings, whom he did not +like, and who, he felt instinctively, could not like him. + +But of course there was nothing he could do about it. The date for the +great festivity was set; and the Wallings were affable and friendly, +and Alice all a-tremble with excitement. The evening arrived, and with +it came the enemies of the Wallings, dressed in their jewels and fine +raiment. They had been asked because they were too important to be +skipped, and they had come because the Wallings were too powerful to be +ignored. They revenged themselves by consuming many courses of +elaborate and costly viands; and they shook hands with Alice and beamed +upon her, and then discussed her behind her back as if she were a +French doll in a show-case. They decided unanimously that her elder +cousin was a "stick," and that the whole family were interlopers and +shameless adventurers; but it was understood that since the Robbie +Wallings had seen fit to take them up, it would be necessary to invite +them about. + +At any rate, that was the way it all seemed to Montague, who had been +brooding. To Alice it was a splendid festivity, to which exquisite +people came to take delight in each other's society. There were +gorgeous costumes and sparkling gems; there was a symphony of perfumes, +intoxicating the senses, and a golden flood of music streaming by; +there were laughing voices and admiring glances, and handsome partners +with whom one might dance through the portals of fairyland.--And then, +next morning, there were accounts in all the newspapers, with +descriptions of one's costume and then some of those present, and even +the complete menus of the supper, to assist in preserving the memories +of the wonderful occasion. + +Now they were really in Society. A reporter called to get Alice's photo +for the Sunday supplement; and floods of invitations came--and with +them all the cares and perplexities about which Mrs. Robbie had told. +Some of these invitations had to be declined, and one must know whom it +was safe to offend. Also, there was a long letter from a destitute +widow, and a proposal from a foreign count. Mrs. Robbie's secretary had +a list of many hundreds of these professional beggars and blackmailers. + +Conspicuous at the dance was Mrs. Winnie, in a glorious electric-blue +silk gown. And she shook her fan at Montague, exclaiming, "You wretched +man--you promised to come and see me!" + +"I've been out of town," Montague protested. + +"Well, come to dinner to-morrow night," said Mrs. Winnie. "There'll be +some bridge fiends." + +"You forget I haven't learned to play," he objected. + +"Well, come anyhow," she replied. "We'll teach you. I'm no player +myself, and my husband will be there, and he's good-natured; and my +brother Dan--he'll have to be whether he likes it or not." + +So Montague visited the Snow Palace again, and met Winton Duval, the +banker,--a tall, military-looking man of about fifty, with a big grey +moustache, and bushy eyebrows, and the head of a lion. His was one of +the city's biggest banking-houses, and in alliance with powerful +interests in the Street. At present he was going in for mines in Mexico +and South America, and so he was very seldom at home. He was a man of +most rigid habits--he would come back unexpectedly after a month's +trip, and expect to find everything ready for him, both at home and in +his office, as if he had just stepped round the corner. Montague +observed that he took his menu-card and jotted down his comments upon +each dish, and then sent it down to the chef. Other people's dinners he +very seldom attended, and when his wife gave her entertainments, he +invariably dined at the club. + +He pleaded a business engagement for the evening; and as brother Dan +did not appear, Montague did not learn any bridge. The other four +guests settled down to the game, and Montague and Mrs. Winnie sat and +chatted, basking before the fireplace in the great entrance-hall. + +"Have you seen Charlie Carter?" was the first question she asked him. + +"Not lately," he answered; "I met him at Harvey's." + +"I know that," said she. "They tell me he got drunk." + +"I'm afraid he did," said Montague. + +"Poor boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Winnie. "And Alice saw him! He must be +heartbroken!" + +Montague said nothing. "You know," she went on, "Charlie really means +well. He has honestly an affectionate nature." + +She paused; and Montague Said, vaguely, "I suppose so." + +"You don't like him," said the other. "I can see that. And I suppose +now Alice will have no use for him, either. And I had it all fixed up +for her to reform him!" + +Montague smiled in spite of himself. + +"Oh, I know," said she. "It wouldn't have been easy. But you've no idea +what a beautiful boy Charlie used to be, until all the women set to +work to ruin him." + +"I can imagine it," said Montague; but he did not warm to the subject. + +"You're just like my husband," said Mrs. Winnie, sadly. "You have no +use at all for anything that's weak or unfortunate." + +There was a pause. "And I suppose," she said finally, "you'll be +turning into a business man also--with no time for anybody or anything. +Have you begun yet?" + +"Not yet," he answered. "I'm still looking round." + +"I haven't the least idea about business," she confessed. "How does one +begin at it?" + +"I can't say I know that myself as yet," said Montague, laughing. + +"Would you like to be a protege of my husband's?" she asked. + +The proposition was rather sudden, but he answered, with a smile, "I +should have no objections. What would he do with me?" + +"I don't know that. But he can do whatever he wants down town. And he'd +show you how to make a lot of money if I asked him to." Then Mrs. +Winnie added, quickly, "I mean it--he could do it, really." + +"I haven't the least doubt of it," responded Montague. + +"And what's more," she went on, "you don't want to be shy about taking +advantage of the opportunities that come to you. You'll find you won't +get along in New York unless you go right in and grab what you can. +People will be quick enough to take advantage of you." + +"They have all been very kind to me so far," said he. "But when I get +ready for business, I'll harden my heart." + +Mrs. Winnie sat lost in meditation. "I think business is dreadful," she +said. "So much hard work and worry! Why can't men learn to get along +without it?" + +"There are bills that have to be paid," Montague replied. + +"It's our dreadfully extravagant way of life," exclaimed the other. +"Sometimes I wish I had never had any money in my life." + +"You would soon tire of it," said he. "You would miss this house." + +"I should not miss it a bit," said Mrs. Winnie, promptly. "That is +really the truth--I don't care for this sort of thing at all. I'd like +to live simply, and without so many cares and responsibilities. And +some day I'm going to do it, too--I really am. I'm going to get myself +a little farm, away off somewhere in the country. And I'm going there +to live and raise chickens and vegetables, and have my own +flower-gardens, that I can take care of myself. It will all be plain +and simple--" and then Mrs. Winnie stopped short, exclaiming, "You are +laughing at me!" + +"Not at all!" said Montague. "But I couldn't help thinking about the +newspaper reporters--" + +"There you are!" said she. "One can never have a beautiful dream, or +try to do anything sensible--because of the newspaper reporters!" + +If Montague had been meeting Mrs. Winnie Duval for the first time, he +would have been impressed by her yearnings for the simple life; he +would have thought it an important sign of the times. But alas, he knew +by this time that his charming hostess had more flummery about her than +anybody else he had encountered--and all of her own devising! Mrs. +Winnie smoked her own private brand of cigarettes, and when she offered +them to you, there were the arms of the old ducal house of Montmorenci +on the wrappers! And when you got a letter from Mrs. Winnie, you +observed a three-cent stamp upon the envelope--for lavender was her +colour, and two-cent stamps were an atrocious red! So one might feel +certain that it Mrs. Winnie ever went in for chicken-raising, the +chickens would be especially imported from China or Patagonia, and the +chicken-coops would be precise replicas of those in the old Chateau de +Montmorenci which she had visited in her automobile. + +But Mrs. Winnie was beautiful, and quite entertaining to talk to, and +so he was respectfully sympathetic while she told him about her +pastoral intentions. And then she told him about Mrs. Caroline Smythe, +who had called a meeting of her friends at one of the big hotels, and +organized a society and founded the "Bide-a-Wee Home" for destitute +cats. After that she switched off into psychic research--somebody had +taken her to a seance, where grave college professors and ladies in +spectacles sat round and waited for ghosts to materialize. It was Mrs. +Winnie's first experience at this, and she was as excited as a child +who has just found the key to the jam-closet. "I hardly knew whether to +laugh or to be afraid," she said. "What would you think?" + +"You may have the pleasure of giving me my first impressions of it," +said Montague, with a laugh. + +"Well," said she, "they had table-tipping--and it was the most uncanny +thing to see the table go jumping about the room! And then there were +raps--and one can't imagine how strange it was to see people who really +believed they were getting messages from ghosts. It positively made my +flesh creep. And then this woman--Madame Somebody-or-other--went into a +trance--ugh! Afterward I talked with one of the men, and he told me +about how his father had appeared to him in the night and told him he +had just been drowned at sea. Have you ever heard of such a thing?" + +"We have such a tradition in our family," said he. + +"Every family seems to have," said Mrs. Winnie. "But, dear me, it made +me so uncomfortable--I lay awake all night expecting to see my own +father. He had the asthma, you know; and I kept fancying I heard him +breathing." + +They had risen and were strolling into the conservatory; and she +glanced at the man in armour. "I got to fancying that his ghost might +come to see me," she said. "I don't think I shall attend any more +seances. My husband was told that I promised them some money, and he +was furious--he's afraid it'll get into the papers." And Montague shook +with inward laughter, picturing what a time the aristocratic and +stately old banker must have, trying to keep his wife out of the papers! + +Mrs. Winnie turned on the lights in the fountain, and sat by the edge, +gazing at her fish. Montague was half expecting her to inquire whether +he thought that they had ghosts; but she spared him this, going off on +another line. + +"I asked Dr. Parry about it," she said. "Have you met him?" + +Dr. Parry was the rector of St. Cecilia's, the fashionable Fifth Avenue +church which most of Montague's acquaintances attended. "I haven't been +in the city over Sunday yet," he answered. "But Alice has met him." + +"You must go with me some time," said she. "But about the ghosts--" + +"What did he say?" + +"He seemed to be shy of them," laughed Mrs. Winnie. "He said it had a +tendency to lead one into dangerous fields. But oh! I forgot--I asked +my swami also, and it didn't startle him. They are used to ghosts; they +believe that souls keep coming back to earth, you know. I think if it +was his ghost, I wouldn't mind seeing it--for he has such beautiful +eyes. He gave me a book of Hindu legends--and there was such a sweet +story about a young princess who loved in vain, and died of grief; and +her soul went into a tigress; and she came in the night-time where her +lover lay sleeping by the firelight, and she carried him off into the +ghost-world. It was a most creepy thing--I sat out here and read it, +and I could imagine the terrible tigress lurking in the shadows, with +its stripes shining in the firelight, and its green eyes gleaming. You +know that poem--we used to read it in school--'Tiger, tiger, burning +bright!'" + +It was not very easy for Montague to imagine a tigress in Mrs. Winnie's +conservatory; unless, indeed, one were willing to take the proposition +in a metaphorical sense. There are wild creatures which sleep in the +heart of man, and which growl now and then, and stir their tawny limbs, +and cause one to start and turn cold. Mrs. Winnie wore a dress of filmy +softness, trimmed with red flowers which paled beside her own intenser +colouring. She had a perfume of her own, with a strange exotic +fragrance which touched the chorus of memory as only an odour can. She +leaned towards him, speaking eagerly, with her soft white arms lying +upon the basin's rim. So much loveliness could not be gazed at without +pain; and a faint trembling passed through Montague, like a breeze +across a pool. Perhaps it touched Mrs. Winnie also, for she fell +suddenly silent, and her gaze wandered off into the darkness. For a +minute or two there was stillness, save for the pulse of the fountain, +and the heaving of her bosom keeping time with it. + +And then in the morning Oliver inquired, "Where were you, last night?" +And when his brother answered, "At Mrs. Winnie's," he smiled and said, +"Oh!" Then he added, gravely, "Cultivate Mrs. Winnie--you can't do +better at present." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Montague accepted his friend's invitation to share her pew at St. +Cecilia's, and next Sunday morning he and Alice went, and found Mrs. +Winnie with her cousin. Poor Charlie had evidently been scrubbed and +shined, both physically and morally, and got ready to appeal for "one +more chance." While he shook hands with Alice, he was gazing at her +with dumb and pleading eyes; he seemed to be profoundly grateful that +she did not refuse to enter the pew with him. + +A most interesting place was St. Cecilia's. Church-going was another of +the customs of men and women which Society had taken up, like the +Opera, and made into a state function. Here was a magnificent temple, +with carved marble and rare woods, and jewels gleaming decorously in a +dim religious light. At the door of this edifice would halt the +carriages of Society, and its wives and daughters would alight, +rustling with new silk petticoats and starched and perfumed linen, each +one a picture, exquisitely gowned and bonneted and gloved, and carrying +a demure little prayer-book. Behind them followed the patient men, all +in new frock-coats and shiny silk hats; the men of Society were always +newly washed and shaved, newly groomed and gloved, but now they seemed +to be more so--they were full of the atmosphere of Sunday. Alas for +those unregenerate ones, the infidels and the heathen who scoff in +outer darkness, and know not the delicious feeling of Sunday--the joy +of being washed and starched and perfumed, and made to be clean and +comfortable and good, after all the really dreadful wickedness of six +days of fashionable life!--And afterward the parade upon the Avenue, +with the congregations of several score additional churches, and such a +show of stylish costumes that half the city came to see! + +Amid this exquisite assemblage at St. Cecilia's, the revolutionary +doctrines of the Christian religion produced neither perplexity nor +alarm. The chance investigator might have listened in dismay to solemn +pronouncements of everlasting damnation, to statements about rich men +and the eyes of needles, and the lilies of the field which did not +spin. But the congregation of St. Cecilia's understood that these +things were to be taken in a quixotic sense; sharing the view of the +French marquis that the Almighty would think twice before damning a +gentleman like him. + +One had heard these phrases ever since childhood, and one accepted them +as a matter of course. After all, these doctrines had come from the +lips of a divine being, whom it would be presumptuous in a mere mortal +to attempt to imitate. Such points one could but leave to those whose +business it was to interpret them--the doctors and dignitaries of the +church; and when one met them, one's heart was set at rest--for they +were not iconoclasts and alarmists, but gentlemen of culture and tact. +The bishop who presided in this metropolitan district was a stately +personage, who moved in the best Society and belonged to the most +exclusive clubs. + +The pews in St. Cecilia's were rented, and they were always in great +demand; it was one of the customs of those who hung upon the fringe of +Society to come every Sunday, and bow and smile, and hope against hope +for some chance opening. The stranger who came was dependent upon +hospitality; but there were soft-footed and tactful ushers, who would +find one a seat, if one were a presentable person. The contingency of +an unpresentable person seldom arose, for the proletariat did not swarm +at the gates of St. Cecilia's. Out of its liberal income the church +maintained a "mission" upon the East Side, where young curates wrestled +with the natural depravity of the lower classes--meantime cultivating a +soul-stirring tone, and waiting until they should be promoted to a real +church. Society was becoming deferential to its religious guides, and +would have been quite shocked at the idea that it exerted any pressure +upon them; but the young curates were painfully aware of a process of +unnatural selection, whereby those whose manner and cut of coat were +not pleasing were left a long time in the slums.--On one occasion there +had been an amusing blunder; a beautiful new church was built at +Newport, and an eloquent young minister was installed, and all Society +attended the opening service--and sat and listened in consternation to +an arraignment of its own follies and vices! The next Sunday, needless +to say, Society was not present; and within half a year the church was +stranded, and had to be dismantled and sold! + +They had elaborate music at St. Cecilia's, so beautiful that Alice felt +uncomfortable, and thought that it was perilously "high." At this Mrs. +Winnie laughed, offering to take her to an afternoon service around the +corner, where they had a full orchestra, and a harp, and opera music, +and incense and genuflexions and confessionals. There were people, it +seemed, who like to thrill themselves by dallying with the wickedness +of "Romanism"; somewhat as a small boy tries to see how near he can +walk to the edge of a cliff. The "father" at this church had a jewelled +robe with a train so many yards long, and which had cost some +incredible number of thousands of dollars; and every now and then he +marched in a stately procession through the aisles, so that all the +spectators might have a good look at it. There was a fierce controversy +about these things in the church, and libraries of pamphlets were +written, and intrigues and social wars were fought over them. + +But Montague and Alice did not attend this service--they had promised +themselves the very plebeian diversion of a ride in the subway; for so +far they had not seen this feature of the city. People who lived in +Society saw Madison and Fifth Avenues, where their homes were, with the +churches and hotels scattered along them; and the shopping district +just below, and the theatre district at one side, and the park to the +north. Unless one went automobiling, that was all of the city one need +ever see. When visitors asked about the Aquarium, and the Stock +Exchange, and the Museum of Art, and Tammany Hall, and Ellis Island, +where the immigrants came, the old New Yorkers would look perplexed, +and say: "Dear me, do you really want to see those tilings? Why, I have +been here all my life, and have never seen them!" + +For the hordes of sightseers there had been provided a special +contrivance, a huge automobile omnibus which seated thirty or forty +people, and went from the Battery to Harlem with a young man shouting +through a megaphone a description of the sights. The irreverent had +nicknamed this the "yap-wagon"; and declared that the company +maintained a fake "opium-joint" in Chinatown, and a fake "dive" in the +Bowery, and hired tough-looking individuals to sit and be stared at by +credulous excursionists from Oklahoma and Kalamazoo. Of course it would +never have done for people who had just been passed into Society to +climb upon a "yap-wagon"; but they were permitted to get into the +subway, and were whirled with a deafening clatter through a long tunnel +of steel and stone. And then they got out and climbed a steep hill like +any common mortals, and stood and gazed at Grant's tomb: a huge white +marble edifice upon a point overlooking the Hudson. Architecturally it +was not a beautiful structure--but one was consoled by reflecting that +the hero himself would not have cared about that. It might have been +described as a soap-box with a cheese-box on top of it; and these +homely and familiar articles were perhaps not altogether out of keeping +with the character of the humblest great man who ever lived. + +The view up the river was magnificent, quite the finest which the city +had to offer; but it was ruined by a hideous gas-tank, placed squarely +in the middle of it. And this, again, was not inappropriate--it was +typical of all the ways of the city. It was a city which had grown up +by accident, with nobody to care about it or to help it; it was huge +and ungainly, crude, uncomfortable, and grotesque. There was nowhere in +it a beautiful sight upon which a man could rest his eyes, without +having them tortured by something ugly near by. At the foot of the +slope of the River Drive ran a hideous freight-railroad; and across the +river the beautiful Palisades were being blown to pieces to make paving +stone--and meantime were covered with advertisements of land-companies. +And if there was a beautiful building, there, was sure to be a tobacco +advertisement beside it; if there was a beautiful avenue, there were +trucks and overworked horses toiling in the harness; if there was a +beautiful park, it was filled with wretched, outcast men. Nowhere was +any order or system--everything was struggling for itself, and jarring +and clashing with everything else; and this broke the spell of power +which the Titan city would otherwise have produced. It seemed like a +monstrous heap of wasted energies; a mountain in perpetual labour, and +producing an endless series of abortions. The men and women in it were +wearing themselves out with toil; but there was a spell laid upon them, +so that, struggle as they might, they accomplished nothing. + +Coming out of the church, Montague had met Judge Ellis; and the Judge +had said, "I shall soon have something to talk over with you." So +Montague gave him his address, and a day or two later came an +invitation to lunch with him at his club. + +The Judge's club took up a Fifth Avenue block, and was stately and +imposing. It had been formed in the stress of the Civil War days; lean +and hungry heroes had come home from battle and gone into business, and +those who had succeeded had settled down here to rest. To see them now, +dozing in huge leather-cushioned arm-chairs, you would have had a hard +time to guess that they had ever been lean and hungry heroes. They were +diplomats and statesmen, bishops and lawyers, great merchants and +financiers--the men who had made the city's ruling-class for a century. +Everything here was decorous and grave, and the waiters stole about +with noiseless feet. + +Montague talked with the Judge about New York and what he had seen of +it, and the people he had met; and about his father, and the war; and +about the recent election and the business outlook. And meantime they +ordered luncheon; and when they had got to the cigars, the Judge +coughed and said, "And now I have a matter of business to talk over +with you." + +Montague settled himself to listen. "I have a friend," the Judge +explained--"a very good friend, who has asked me to find him a lawyer +to undertake an important case. I talked the matter over with General +Prentice, and he agreed with me that it would be a good idea to lay the +matter before you." + +"I am very much obliged to you," said Montague. + +"The matter is a delicate one," continued the other. "It has to do with +life insurance. Are you familiar with the insurance business?" + +"Not at all." + +"I had supposed not," said the Judge. "There are some conditions which +are not generally known about, but which I may say, to put it mildly, +are not altogether satisfactory. My friend is a large policy-holder in +several companies, and he is not satisfied with the management of them. +The delicacy of the situation, so far as I am concerned, is that the +company with which he has the most fault to find is one in which I +myself am a director. You understand?" + +"Perfectly," said Montague. "What company is it?" + +"The Fidelity," replied the other--and his companion thought in a flash +of Freddie Vandam, whom he had met at Castle Havens! For the Fidelity +was Freddie's company. + +"The first thing that I have to ask you," continued the Judge, "is +that, whether you care to take the case or not, you will consider my +own intervention in the matter absolutely entre nous. My position is +simply this: I have protested at the meetings of the directors of the +company against what I consider an unwise policy--and my protests have +been ignored. And when my friend asked me for advice, I gave it to him; +but at the same time I am not in a position to be publicly quoted in +connexion with the matter. You follow me?" + +"Perfectly," said the other. "I will agree to what you ask." + +"Very good. Now then, the condition is, in brief, this: the companies +are accumulating an enormous surplus, which, under the law, belongs to +the policy-holders; but the administrations of the various companies +are withholding these dividends, for the sake of the banking-power +which these accumulated funds afford to them and their associates. This +is, as I hold, a very manifest injustice, and a most dangerous +condition of affairs." + +"I should say so!" responded Montague. He was amazed at such a +statement, coming from such a source. "How could this continue?" he +asked. + +"It has continued for a long time," the Judge answered. + +"But why is it not known?" + +"It is perfectly well known to every one in the insurance business," +was the answer. "The matter has never been taken up or published, +simply because the interests involved have such enormous and widely +extended power that no one has ever dared to attack them." + +Montague sat forward, with his eyes riveted upon the Judge. "Go on," he +said. + +"The situation is simply this," said the other. "My friend, Mr. +Hasbrook, wishes to bring a suit against the Fidelity Company to compel +it to pay to him his proper share of its surplus. He wishes the suit +pressed, and followed to the court of last resort." + +"And do you mean to tell me," asked Montague, "that you would have any +difficulty to find a lawyer in New York to undertake such a case?" + +"No," said the other, "not exactly that. There are lawyers in New York +who would undertake anything. But to find a lawyer of standing who +would take it, and withstand all the pressure that would be brought to +bear upon him--that might take some time." + +"You astonish me, Judge." + +"Financial interests in this city are pretty closely tied together, Mr. +Montague. Of course there are law firms which are identified with +interests opposed to those who control the company. It would be very +easy to get them to take the case, but you can see that in that event +my friend would be accused of bringing the suit in their interest; +whereas he wishes it to appear, as it really is, a suit of an +independent person, seeking the rights of the vast body of the +policy-holders. For that reason, he wished to find a lawyer who was +identified with no interest of any sort, and who was free to give his +undivided attention to the issue. So I thought of you." + +"I will take the case," said Montague instantly. + +"It is my duty to warn you," said the Judge, gravely, "that you will be +taking a very serious step. You must be prepared to face powerful, and, +I am afraid, unscrupulous enemies. You may find that you have made it +impossible for other and very desirable clients to deal with you. You +may find your business interests, if you have any, embarrassed--your +credit impaired, and so on. You must be prepared to have your character +assailed, and your motives impugned in the public press. You may find +that social pressure will be brought to bear on you. So it is a step +from which most young men who have their careers to make would shrink." + +Montague's face had turned a shade paler as he listened. "I am +assuming," he said, "that the facts are as you have stated them to +me--that an unjust condition exists." + +"You may assume that." + +"Very well." And Montague clenched his hand, and put it down upon the +table. "I will take the case," he said. + +For a few moments they sat in silence. + +"I will arrange," said the Judge, at last, "for you and Mr. Hasbrook to +meet. I must explain to you, as a matter of fairness, that he is a rich +man, and will be able to pay you for your services. He is asking a +great deal of you, and he should expect to pay for it." + +Montague sat in thought. "I have not really had time to get my bearings +in New York," he said at last. "I think I had best leave it to you to +say what I should charge him." + +"If I were in your position," the Judge answered, "I think that I +should ask a retaining-fee of fifty thousand dollars. I believe he will +expect to pay at least that." + +Montague could scarcely repress a start. Fifty thousand dollars! The +words made his head whirl round. But then, all of a sudden, he recalled +his half-jesting resolve to play the game of business sternly. So he +nodded his head gravely, and said, "Very well; I am much obliged to +you." + +After a pause, he added, "I hope that I may prove able to handle the +case to your friend's satisfaction." + +"Your ability remains for you to prove," said the Judge. "I have only +been in position to assure him of your character." + +"He must understand, of course," said Montague, "that I am a stranger, +and that it will take me a while to study the situation." + +"Of course he knows that. But you will find that Mr. Hasbrook knows a +good deal about the law himself. And he has already had a lot of work +done. You must understand that it is very easy to get legal advice +about such a matter--what is sought is some one to take the conduct of +the case." + +"I see," said Montague; and the Judge added, with a smile, "Some one to +get up on horseback, and draw the fire of the enemy!" + +And then the great man was, as usual, reminded of a story; and then of +more stories; until at last they rose from the table, and shook hands +upon their bargain, and parted. + +Fifty thousand dollars! Fifty thousand dollars! It was all Montague +could do to keep from exclaiming it aloud on the street. He could +hardly believe that it was a reality--if it had been a less-known +person than Judge Ellis, he would have suspected that some one must be +playing a joke upon him. Fifty thousand dollars was more than many a +lawyer made at home in a lifetime; and simply as a retaining-fee in one +case! The problem of a living had weighed on his soul ever since the +first day in the city, and now suddenly it was solved; all in a few +minutes, the way had been swept clear before him. He walked home as if +upon air. + +And then there was the excitement of telling the family about it. He +had an idea that his brother might be alarmed if he were told about the +seriousness of the case; and so he simply said that the Judge had +brought him a rich client, and that it was an insurance case. Oliver, +who knew and cared nothing about law, asked no questions, and contented +himself with saying, "I told you how easy it was to make money in New +York, if only you knew the right people!" As for Alice, she had known +all along that her cousin was a great man, and that clients would come +to him as soon as he hung out his sign. + +His sign was not out yet, by the way; that was the next thing to be +attended to. He must get himself an office at once, and some books, and +begin to read up insurance law; and so, bright and early the next +morning, he took the subway down town. + +And here, for the first time, Montague saw the real New York. All the +rest was mere shadow--the rest was where men slept and played, but +there was where they fought out the battle of their lives. Here the +fierce intensity of it smote him in the face--he saw the cruel waste +and ruin of it, the wreckage of the blind, haphazard strife. + +It was a city caught in a trap. It was pent in at one end of a narrow +little island. It had been no one's business to foresee that it must +some day outgrow this space; now men were digging a score of tunnels to +set it free, but they had not begun these until the pressure had become +unendurable, and now it had reached its climax. In the financial +district, land had been sold for as much as four dollars a square inch. +Huge blocks of buildings shot up to the sky in a few months--fifteen, +twenty, twenty-five stories of them, and with half a dozen stories hewn +out of the solid rock beneath; there was to be one building of +forty-two stories, six hundred and fifty feet in height. And between +them were narrow chasms of streets, where the hurrying crowds +overflowed the sidewalks. Yet other streets were filled with trucks and +heavy vehicles, with electric cars creeping slowly along, and little +swirls and eddies of people darting across here and there. + +These huge buildings were like beehives, swarming with life and +activity, with scores of elevators shooting through them at bewildering +speed. Everywhere was the atmosphere of rush; the spirit of it seized +hold of one, and he began to hurry, even though he had no place to go. +The man who walked slowly and looked about him was in the way--he was +jostled here and there, and people eyed him with suspicion and +annoyance. + +Elsewhere on the island men did the work of the city; here they did the +work of the world. Each room in these endless mazes of buildings was a +cell in a mighty brain; the telephone wires were nerves, and by the +whole huge organism the thinking and willing of a continent were done. +It was a noisy place to the physical ear; but to the ear of the mind it +roared with the roaring of a thousand Niagaras. Here was the Stock +Exchange, where the scales of trade were held before the eyes of the +country. Here was the clearing-house, where hundreds of millions of +dollars were exchanged every day. Here were the great banks, the +reservoirs into which the streams of the country's wealth were poured. +Here were the brains of the great railroad systems, of the telegraph +and telephone systems, of mines and mills and factories. Here were the +centres of the country's trade; in one place the shipping trade, in +another the jewellery trade, the grocery trade, the leather trade. A +little farther up town was the clothing district, where one might see +the signs of more Hebrews than all Jerusalem had ever held; in yet +other districts were the newspaper offices, and the centre of the +magazine and book-publishing business of the whole country. One might +climb to the top of one of the great "sky-scrapers," and gaze down upon +a wilderness of houses, with roofs as innumerable as tree-tops, and +people looking like tiny insects below. Or one might go out into the +harbour late upon a winter afternoon, and see it as a city of a million +lights, rising like an incantation from the sea. Round about it was an +unbroken ring of docks, with ferry-boats and tugs darting everywhere, +and vessels which had come from every port in the world, emptying their +cargoes into the huge maw of the Metropolis. + +And of all this, nothing had been planned! All lay just as it had +fallen, and men bore the confusion and the waste as best they could. +Here were huge steel vaults, in which lay many billions of dollars' +worth of securities, the control of the finances of the country; and a +block or two in one direction were warehouses and gin-mills, and in +another direction cheap lodging-houses and sweating-dens. And at a +certain hour all this huge machine would come to a halt, and its +millions of human units would make a blind rush for their homes. Then +at the entrances to bridges and ferries and trams, would be seen sights +of madness and terror; throngs of men and women swept hither and +thither, pushing and struggling, shouting, cursing--fighting, now and +then, in sudden panic fear. All decency was forgotten here--people +would be mashed into cars like football players in a heap, and guards +and policemen would jam the gates tight--or like as not be swept away +themselves in the pushing, grunting, writhing mass of human beings. +Women would faint and be trampled; men would come out with clothing +torn to shreds, and sometimes with broken arms or ribs. And thinking +people would gaze at the sight and shudder, wondering--how long a city +could hold together, when the masses of its population were thus forced +back, day after day, habitually, upon the elemental brute within them. + +In this vast business district Montague would have felt utterly lost +and helpless, if it had not been for that fifty thousand dollars, and +the sense of mastery which it gave him. He sought out General Prentice, +and under his guidance selected his suite of rooms, and got his +furniture and books in readiness. And a day or two later, by +appointment, came Mr. Hasbrook. + +He was a wiry, nervous little man, who did not impress one as much of a +personality; but he had the insurance situation at his fingers' +ends--his grievance had evidently wrought upon him. Certainly, if half +of what he alleged were true, it was time that the courts took hold of +the affair. + +Montague spent the whole day in consultation, going over every aspect +of the case, and laying out his course of procedure. And then, at the +end, Mr. Hasbrook remarked that it would be necessary for them to make +some financial arrangement. And the other set his teeth together, and +took a tight grip upon himself, and said, "Considering the importance +of the case, and all the circumstances, I think I should have a +retainer of fifty thousand dollars." + +And the little man never turned a hair! "That will be perfectly +satisfactory," he said. "I will attend to it at once." And the other's +heart gave a great leap. + +And sure enough, the next morning's mail brought the money, in the +shape of a cashier's cheque from one of the big banks. Montague +deposited it to his own account, and felt that the city was his! + +And so he flung himself into the work. He went to his office every day, +and he shut himself up in his own rooms in the evening. Mrs. Winnie was +in despair because he would not come and learn bridge, and Mrs. Vivie +Patton sought him in vain for a week-end party. He could not exactly +say that while the others slept he was toiling upward in the night, for +the others did not sleep in the night; but he could say that while they +were feasting and dancing, he was delving into insurance law. Oliver +argued in vain to make him realize that he could not live for ever upon +one client; and that it was as important for a lawyer to be a social +light as to win his first big case. Montague was so absorbed that he +even failed to be thrilled when one morning he opened an invitation +envelope, and read the fateful legend: "Mrs. Devon requests the honour +of your company"--telling him that he had "passed" on that critical +examination morning, and that he was definitely and irrevocably in +Society! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Montague was now a capitalist, and therefore a keeper of the gates of +opportunity. It seemed as though the seekers for admission must have +had some occult way of finding it out; almost immediately they began to +lay siege to him. + +About a week after his cheque arrived, Major Thorne, whom he had met +the first evening at the Loyal Legion, called him up and asked to see +him; and he came to Montague's room that evening, and after chatting +awhile about old times, proceeded to unfold a business proposition. It +seemed that the Major had a grandson, a young mechanical engineer, who +had been labouring for a couple of years at a very important invention, +a device for loading coal upon steamships and weighing it automatically +in the process. It was a very complicated problem, needless to say, but +it had been solved successfully, and patents had been applied for, and +a working model constructed. But it had proved unexpectedly difficult +to interest the officials of the great steamship companies in the +device. There was no doubt about the practicability of the machine, or +the economies it would effect; but the officials raised trivial +objections, and caused delays, and offered prices that were +ridiculously inadequate. So the young inventor had conceived the idea +of organizing a company to manufacture the machines, and rent them upon +a royalty. "I didn't know whether you would have any money," said Major +Thorne, "--but I thought you might be in touch with others who could be +got to look into the matter. There is a fortune in it for those who +take it up." + +Montague was interested, and he looked over the plans and descriptions +which his friend had brought, and said that he would see the working +model, and talk the proposition over with others. And so the Major took +his departure. + +The first person Montague spoke to about it was Oliver, with whom he +chanced to be lunching, at the latter's club. This was the "All Night" +club, a meeting-place of fast young Society men and millionaire +Bohemians, who made a practice of going to bed at daylight, and had +taken for their motto the words of Tennyson--"For men may come and men +may go, but I go on for ever." It was not a proper club for his brother +to join, Oliver considered; Montague's "game" was the heavy +respectable, and the person to put him up was General Prentice. But he +was permitted to lunch there with his brother to chaperon him--and also +Reggie Mann, who happened in, fresh from talking over the itinerary of +the foreign prince with Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden, and bringing a +diverting account of how Mrs. R.-C. had had a fisticuffs with her maid. + +Montague mentioned the invention casually, and with no idea that his +brother would have an opinion one way or the other. But Oliver had +quite a vigorous opinion: "Good God, Allan, you aren't going to let +yourself be persuaded into a thing like that!" + +"But what do you know about it?" asked the other. "It may be a +tremendous thing." + +"Of course!" cried Oliver. "But what can you tell about it? You'll be +like a child in other people's hands, and they'll be certain to rob +you. And why in the world do you want to take risks when you don't have +to?" + +"I have to put my money somewhere," said Montague. + +"His first fee is burning a hole in his pocket!" put in Reggie Mann, +with a chuckle. "Turn it over to me, Mr. Montague; and let me spend it +in a gorgeous entertainment for Alice; and the prestige of it will +bring you more cases than you can handle in a lifetime!" + +"He had much better spend it all for soda water than buy a lot of coal +chutes with it," said Oliver: "Wait awhile, and let me find you some +place to put your money, and you'll see that you don't have to take any +risks." + +"I had no idea of taking it up until I'd made certain of it," replied +the other. "And those whose judgment I took would, of course, go in +also." + +The younger man thought for a moment. "You are going to dine with Major +Venable to-night, aren't you?" he asked; and when the other answered in +the affirmative, he continued, "Very well, then, ask him. The Major's +been a capitalist for forty years, and if you can get him to take it +up, why, you'll know you're safe." + +Major Venable had taken quite a fancy to Montague--perhaps the old +gentleman liked to have somebody to gossip with, to whom all his +anecdotes were new. He had seconded Montague's name at the +"Millionaires'," where he lived, and had asked him there to make the +acquaintance of some of the other members. Before Montague parted with +his brother, he promised that he would talk the matter over with the +Major. + +The Millionaires' was the show club of the city, the one which the +ineffably rich had set apart for themselves. It was up by the park, in +a magnificent white marble palace which had cost a million dollars. +Montague felt that he had never really known the Major until he saw him +here. The Major was excellent at all times and places, but in this club +he became an edition de luxe of himself. He made his headquarters here, +keeping his suite of rooms all the year round; and the atmosphere and +surroundings of the place seemed to be a part of him. + +Montague thought that the Major's face grew redder every day, and the +purple veins in it purpler; or was it that the old gentleman's shirt +bosom gleamed more brightly in the glare of the lights? The Major met +him in the stately entrance hall, fifty feet square and all of Numidian +marble, with a ceiling of gold, and a great bronze stairway leading to +the gallery above. He apologized for his velvet slippers and for his +hobbling walk--he was getting his accursed gout again. But he limped +around and introduced his friend to the other millionaires--and then +told scandal about them behind their backs. + +The Major was the very type of a blue-blooded old aristocrat; he was +all noblesse oblige to those within the magic circle of his +intimacy--but alas for those outside it! Montague had never heard +anyone bully servants as the Major did. "Here you!" he would cry, when +something went wrong at the table. "Don't you know any better than to +bring me a dish like that? Go and send me somebody who knows how to set +a table!" And, strange to say, the servants all acknowledged his +perfect right to bully them, and flew with terrified alacrity to do his +bidding. Montague noticed that the whole staff of the club leaped into +activity whenever the Major appeared; and when he was seated at the +table, he led off in this fashion--"Now I want two dry Martinis. And I +want them at once--do you understand me? Don't stop to get me any +butter plates or finger-bowls--I want two cock-tails, just as quick as +you can carry them!" + +Dinner was an important event to Major Venable--the most important in +life. The younger man humbly declined to make any suggestions, and sat +and watched while his friend did all the ordering. They had some very +small oysters, and an onion soup, and a grouse and asparagus, with some +wine from the Major's own private store, and then a romaine salad. +Concerning each one of these courses, the Major gave special +injunctions, and throughout his conversation he scattered comments upon +them: "This is good thick soup--lots of nourishment in onion soup. Have +the rest of this?--I think the Burgundy is too cold. Sixty-five is as +cold as Burgundy ought ever to be. I don't mind sherry as low as +sixty.--They always cook a bird too much--Robbie Walling's chef is the +only person I know who never makes a mistake with game." + +All this, of course, was between comments upon the assembled +millionaires. There was Hawkins, the corporation lawyer; a shrewd +fellow, cold as a corpse. He was named for an ambassadorship--a very +efficient man. Used to be old Wyman's confidential adviser and buy +aldermen for him.--And the man at table with him was Harrison, +publisher of the Star; administration newspaper, sound and +conservative. Harrison was training for a cabinet position. He was a +nice little man, and would make a fine splurge in Washington.--And that +tall man coming in was Clarke, the steel magnate; and over there was +Adams, a big lawyer also--prominent reformer--civic righteousness and +all that sort of stuff. Represented the Oil Trust secretly, and went +down to Trenton to argue against some reform measure, and took along +fifty thousand dollars in bills in his valise. "A friend of mine got +wind of what he was doing, and taxed him with it," said the Major, and +laughed gleefully over the great lawyer's reply--"How did I know but I +might have to pay for my own lunch?"--And the fat man with him--that +was Jimmie Featherstone, the chap who had inherited a big estate. "Poor +Jimmie's going all to pieces," the Major declared. "Goes down town to +board meetings now and then--they tell a hair-raising story about him +and old Dan Waterman. He had got up and started a long argument, when +Waterman broke in, 'But at the earlier meeting you argued directly to +the contrary, Mr. Featherstone!' 'Did I?' said Jimmie, looking +bewildered. 'I wonder why I did that?' 'Well, Mr. Featherstone, since +you ask me, I'll tell you,' said old Dan--he's savage as a wild boar, +you know, and won't be delayed at meetings. 'The reason is that the +last time you were drunker than you are now. If you would adopt a +uniform standard of intoxication for the directors' meetings of this +road, it would expedite matters considerably.'" + +They had got as far as the romaine salad. The waiter came with a bowl +of dressing--and at the sight of it, the old gentleman forgot Jimmie +Featherstone. "Why are you bringing me that stuff?" he cried. "I don't +want that! Take it away and get me some vinegar and oil." + +The waiter fled in dismay, while the Major went on growling under his +breath. Then from behind him came a voice: "What's the matter with you +this evening, Venable? You're peevish!" + +The Major looked up. "Hello, you old cormorant," said he. "How do you +do these days?" + +The old cormorant replied that he did very well. He was a pudgy little +man, with a pursed-up, wrinkled face. "My friend Mr. Montague--Mr. +Symmes," said the Major. + +"I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Montague," said Mr. Symmes, peering +over his spectacles. + +"And what are you doing with yourself these days?" asked the Major. + +The other smiled genially. "Nothing much," said he. "Seducing my +friends' wives, as usual." + +"And who's the latest?" + +"Read the newspapers, and you'll find out," laughed Symmes. "I'm told +I'm being shadowed." + +He passed on down the room, chuckling to himself; and the Major said, +"That's Maltby Symmes. Have you heard of him?" + +"No," said Montague. + +"He gets into the papers a good deal. He was up in supplementary +proceedings the other day--couldn't pay his liquor bill." + +"A member of the Millionaires'?" laughed Montague. + +"Yes, the papers made quite a joke out of it," said the other. "But you +see he's run through a couple of fortunes; the last was his +mother's--eleven millions, I believe. He's been a pretty lively old boy +in his time." + +The vinegar and oil had now arrived, and the Major set to work to dress +the salad. This was quite a ceremony, and Montague took it with amused +interest. The Major first gathered all the necessary articles together, +and looked them all over and grumbled at them. Then he mixed the +vinegar and the pepper and salt, a tablespoonful at a time, and poured +it over the salad. Then very slowly and carefully the oil had to be +poured on, the salad being poked and turned about so that it would be +all absorbed. Perhaps it was because he was so busy narrating the +escapades of Maltby Symmes that the old gentleman kneaded it about so +long; all the time fussing over it like a hen-partridge with her +chicks, and interrupting himself every sentence or two: "It was Lenore, +the opera star, and he gave her about two hundred thousand dollars' +worth of railroad shares. (Really, you know, romaine ought not to be +served in a bowl at all, but in a square, flat dish, so that one could +keep the ends quite dry.) And when they quarrelled, she found the old +scamp had fooled her--the shares had never been transferred. (One is +not supposed to use a fork at all, you know.) But she sued him, and he +settled with her for about half the value. (If this dressing were done +properly, there ought not to be any oil in the bottom of the dish at +all.)" + +This last remark meant that the process had reached its climax--that +the long, crisp leaves were receiving their final affectionate +overturnings. While the waiter stood at respectful attention, two or +three pieces at a time were laid carefully upon the little silver plate +intended for Montague. "And now," said the triumphant host, "try it! If +it's good, it ought to be neither sweet nor bitter, but just +right."--And he watched anxiously while Montague tasted it, saying, "If +it's the least bit bitter, say so; and we'll send it out. I've told +them about it often enough before." + +But it was not bitter, and so the Major proceeded to help himself, +after which the waiter whisked the bowl away. "I'm told that salad is +the one vegetable we have from the Romans," said the old boy, as he +munched at the crisp green leaves. "It's mentioned by Horace, you +know.--As I was saying, all this was in Symmes's early days. But since +his son's been grown up, he's married another chorus-girl." + +After the salad the Major had another cocktail. In the beginning +Montague had noticed that his hands shook and his eyes were watery; but +now, after these copious libations, he was vigorous, and, if possible, +more full of anecdotes than ever. Montague thought that it would be a +good time to broach his inquiry, and so when the coffee had been +served, he asked, "Have you any objections to talking business after +dinner?" + +"Not with you," said the Major. "Why? What is it?" + +And then Montague told him about his friend's proposition, and +described the invention. The other listened attentively to the end; and +then, after a pause, Montague asked him, "What do you think of it?" + +"The invention's no good," said the Major, promptly. + +"How do you know?" asked the other. + +"Because, if it had been, the companies would have taken it long ago, +without paying him a cent." + +"But he has it patented," said Montague. + +"Patented hell!" replied the other. "What's a patent to lawyers of +concerns of that size? They'd have taken it and had it in use from +Maine to Texas; and when he sued, they'd have tied the case up in so +many technicalities and quibbles that he couldn't have got to the end +of it in ten years--and he'd have been ruined ten times over in the +process." + +"Is that really done?" asked Montague. + +"Done!" exclaimed the Major. "It's done so often you might say it's the +only thing that's done.--The people are probably trying to take you in +with a fake." + +"That couldn't possibly be so," responded the other. "The man is a +friend--" + +"I've found it an excellent rule never to do business with friends," +said the Major, grimly. + +"But listen," said Montague; and he argued long enough to convince his +companion that that could not be the true explanation. Then the Major +sat for a minute or two and pondered; and suddenly he exclaimed, "I +have it! I see why they won't touch it!" + +"What is it?" + +"It's the coal companies! They're giving the steamships short weight, +and they don't want the coal weighed truly!" + +"But there's no sense in that," said Montague. "It's the steamship +companies that won't take the machine." + +"Yes," said the Major; "naturally, their officers are sharing the +graft." And he laughed heartily at Montague's look of perplexity. + +"Do you know anything about the business?" Montague asked. + +"Nothing whatever," said the Major. "I am like the German who shut +himself up in his inner consciousness and deduced the shape of an +elephant from first principles. I know the game of big business from A +to Z, and I'm telling you that if the invention is good and the +companies won't take it, that's the reason; and I'll lay you a wager +that if you were to make an investigation, some such thing as that is +what you'd find! Last winter I went South on a steamer, and when we got +near port, I saw them dumping a ton or two of good food overboard; and +I made inquiries, and learned that one of the officials of the company +ran a farm, and furnished the stuff--and the orders were to get rid of +so much every trip!" + +Montague's jaw had fallen. "What could Major Thorne do against such a +combination?" he asked. + +"I don't know," said the Major, shrugging his shoulders. "It's a case +to take to a lawyer--one who knows the ropes. Hawkins over there would +know what to tell you. I should imagine the thing he'd advise would be +to call a strike of the men who handle the coal, and tie up the +companies and bring them to terms." + +"You're joking now!" exclaimed the other. + +"Not at all," said the Major, laughing again. "It's done all the time. +There's a building trust in this city, and the way it put all its +rivals out of business was by having strikes called on their jobs." + +"But how could it do that?" + +"Easiest thing in the world. A labour leader is a man with a great deal +of power, and a very small salary to live on. And even if he won't sell +out--there are other ways. I could introduce you to a man right in this +room who had a big strike on at an inconvenient time, and he had the +president of the union trapped in a hotel with a woman, and the poor +fellow gave in and called off the strike."' + +"I should think the strikers might sometimes get out of hand," said +Montague. + +"Sometimes they do," smiled the other. "There is a regular procedure +for that case. Then you hire detectives and start violence, and call +out the militia and put the strike leaders into jail." + +Montague could think of nothing to say to that. The programme seemed to +be complete. + +"You see," the Major continued, earnestly, "I'm advising you as a +friend, and I'm taking the point of view of a man who has money in his +pocket. I've had some there always, but I've had to work hard to keep +it there. All my life I've been surrounded by people who wanted to do +me good; and the way they wanted to do it was to exchange my real money +for pieces of paper which they'd had printed with fancy scroll-work and +eagles and flags. Of course, if you want to look at the thing from the +other side, why, then the invention is most ingenious, and trade is +booming just now, and this is a great country, and merit is all you +need in it--and everything else is just as it ought to be. It makes all +the difference in the world, you know, whether a man is buying a horse +or selling him!" + +Montague had observed with perplexity that such incendiary talk as this +was one of the characteristics of people in these lofty altitudes. It +was one of the liberties accorded to their station. Editors and bishops +and statesmen and all the rest of their retainers had to believe in the +respectabilities, even in the privacy of their clubs--the people's ears +were getting terribly sharp these days! But among the real giants of +business you might have thought yourself in a society of +revolutionists; they would tear up the mountain tops and hurl them at +each other. When one of these old war-horses once got started, he would +tell tales of deviltry to appall the soul of the hardiest muck-rake +man. It was always the other fellow, of course; but then, if you pinned +your man down, and if he thought that he could trust you--he would +acknowledge that he had sometimes fought the enemy with the enemy's own +weapons! + +But of course one must understand that all this radicalism was for +conversational purposes only. The Major, for instance, never had the +slightest idea of doing anything about all the evils of which he told; +when it came to action, he proposed to do just what he had done all his +life--to sit tight on his own little pile. And the Millionaires' was an +excellent place to learn to do it! + +"See that old money-bags over there in the corner," said the Major. +"He's a man you want to fix in your mind--old Henry S. Grimes. Have you +heard of him?" + +"Vaguely," said the other. + +"He's Laura Hegan's uncle. She'll have his money also some day--but +Lord, how he does hold on to it meantime! It's quite tragic, if you +come to know him--he's frightened at his own shadow. He goes in for +slum tenements, and I guess he evicts more people in a month than you +could crowd into this building!" + +Montague looked at the solitary figure at the table, a man with a +wizened-up little face like a weasel's, and a big napkin tied around +his neck. "That's so as to save his shirt-front for to-morrow," the +Major explained. "He's really only about sixty, but you'd think he was +eighty. Three times every day he sits here and eats a bowl of graham +crackers and milk, and then goes out and sits rigid in an arm-chair for +an hour. That's the regimen his doctors have put him on--angels and +ministers of grace defend us!" + +The old gentleman paused, and a chuckle shook his scarlet jowls. "Only +think!" he said--"they tried to do that to me! But no, sir--when Bob +Venable has to eat graham crackers and milk, he'll put in arsenic +instead of sugar! That's the way with many a one of these rich fellows, +though--you picture him living in Capuan luxury, when, as a matter of +fact, he's a man with a torpid liver and a weak stomach, who is put to +bed at ten o'clock with a hot-water bag and a flannel night-cap!" + +The two had got up and were strolling toward the smoking-room; when +suddenly at one side a door opened, and a group of men came out. At the +head of them was an extraordinary figure, a big powerful body with a +grim face. "Hello!" said the Major. "All the big bugs are here +to-night. There must be a governors' meeting." + +"Who is that?" asked his companion; and he answered, "That? Why, that's +Dan Waterman." + +Dan Waterman! Montague stared harder than ever, and now he identified +the face with the pictures he had seen. Waterman, the Colossus of +finance, the Croesus of copper and gold! How many trusts had Waterman +organized! And how many puns had been made upon that name of his! + +"Who are the other men?" Montague asked. + +"Oh, they're just little millionaires," was the reply. + +The "little millionaires" were following as a kind of body-guard; one +of them, who was short and pudgy, was half running, to keep up with +Waterman's heavy stride. When they came to the coat-room, they crowded +the attendants away, and one helped the great man on with his coat, and +another held his hat, and another his stick, and two others tried to +talk to him. And Waterman stolidly buttoned his coat, and then seized +his hat and stick, and without a word to anyone, bolted through the +door. + +It was one of the funniest sights that Montague had ever seen in his +life, and he laughed all the way into the smoking-room. And, when Major +Venable had settled himself in a big chair and bitten off the end of a +cigar and lighted it, what floodgates of reminiscence were opened! + +For Dan Waterman was one of the Major's own generation, and he knew all +his life and his habits. Just as Montague had seen him there, so he had +been always; swift, imperious, terrible, trampling over all opposition; +the most powerful men in the city quailed before the glare of his eyes. +In the old days Wall Street had reeled in the shock of the conflicts +between him and his most powerful rival. + +And the Major went on to tell about Waterman's rival, and his life. He +had been the city's traction-king, old Wyman had been made by him. He +was the prince among political financiers; he had ruled the Democratic +party in state and nation. He would give a quarter of a million at a +time to the boss of Tammany Hall, and spend a million in a single +campaign; on "dough-day," when the district leaders came to get the +election funds, there would be a table forty feet long completely +covered with hundred-dollar bills. He would have been the richest man +in America, save that he spent his money as fast as he got it. He had +had the most famous racing-stable in America; and a house on Fifth +Avenue that was said to be the finest Italian palace in the world. Over +three millions had been spent in decorating it; all the ceilings had +been brought intact from palaces abroad, which he had bought and +demolished! The Major told a story to show how such a man lost all +sense of the value of money; he had once been sitting at lunch with +him, when the editor of one of his newspapers had come in and remarked, +"I told you we would need eight thousand dollars, and the check you +send is for ten." "I know it," was the smiling answer--"but somehow I +thought eight seemed harder to write than ten!" + +"Old Waterman's quite a spender, too, when it comes to that," the Major +went on. "He told me once that it cost him five thousand dollars a day +for his ordinary expenses. And that doesn't include a million-dollar +yacht, nor even the expenses of it. + +"And think of another man I know of who spent a million dollars for a +granite pier, so that he could land and see his mistress!--It's a fact, +as sure as God made me! She was a well-known society woman, but she was +poor, and he didn't dare to make her rich for fear of the scandal. So +she had to live in a miserable fifty-thousand-dollar villa; and when +other people's children would sneer at her children because they lived +in a fifty-thousand-dollar villa, the answer would be, 'But you haven't +got any pier!' And if you don't believe that--" + +But here suddenly the Major turned, and observed a boy who had brought +him some cigars, and who was now standing near by, pretending to +straighten out some newspapers upon the table. "Here, sir!" cried the +Major, "what do you mean--listening to what I'm saying! Out of the room +with you now, you rascal!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Another week-end came, and with it an invitation from the Lester Todds +to visit them at their country place in New Jersey. Montague was buried +in his books, but his brother routed him out with strenuous protests. +His case be damned--was he going to ruin his career for one case? At +all hazards, he must meet people--"people who counted." And the Todds +were such, a big money crowd, and a power in the insurance world; if +Montague were going to be an insurance lawyer, he could not possibly +decline their invitation. Freddie Vandam would be a guest--and Montague +smiled at the tidings that Betty Wyman would be there also. He had +observed that his brother's week-end visits always happened at places +where Betty was, and where Betty's granddaddy was not. + +So Montague's man packed his grips, and Alice's maid her trunks; and +they rode with a private-car party to a remote Jersey suburb, and were +whirled in an auto up a broad shell road to a palace upon the top of a +mountain. Here lived the haughty Lester Todds, and scattered about on +the neighbouring hills, a set of the ultra-wealthy who had withdrawn to +this seclusion. They were exceedingly "classy"; they affected to regard +all the Society of the city with scorn, and had their own +all-the-year-round diversions--an open-air horse show in summer, and in +the fall fox-hunting in fancy uniforms. + +The Lester Todds themselves were ardent pursuers of all varieties of +game, and in various clubs and private preserves they followed the +seasons, from Florida and North Carolina to Ontario, with occasional +side trips to Norway, and New Brunswick, and British Columbia. Here at +home they had a whole mountain of virgin forest, carefully preserved; +and in the Renaissance palace at the summit-which they carelessly +referred to as a "lodge"--you would find such articles de vertu as a +ten-thousand-dollar table with a set of two-thousand-dollar chairs, and +quite ordinary-looking rugs at ten and twenty thousand dollars +each.--All these prices you might ascertain without any difficulty at +all, because there were many newspaper articles describing the house to +be read in an album in the hall. On Saturday afternoons Mrs. Todd +welcomed the neighbours in a pastel grey reception-gown, the front of +which contained a peacock embroidered in silk, with jewels in every +feather, and a diamond solitaire for an eye; and in the evening there +was a dance, and she appeared in a gown with several hundred diamonds +sewn upon it, and received her guests upon a rug set with jewels to +match. + +All together, Montague judged this the "fastest" set he had yet +encountered; they ate more and drank more and intrigued more openly. He +had been slowly acquiring the special lingo of Society, but these +people had so much more slang that he felt all lost again. A young lady +who was gossiping to him about those present remarked that a certain +youth was a "spasm"; and then, seeing the look of perplexity upon his +face, she laughed, "I don't believe you know what I mean!" Montague +replied that he had ventured to infer that she did not like him. + +And then there was Mrs. Harper, who came from Chicago by way of London. +Ten years ago Mrs. Harper had overwhelmed New York with the millions +brought from her great department-store; and had then moved on, sighing +for new worlds to conquer. When she had left Chicago, her grammar had +been unexceptionable; but since she had been in England, she said "you +ain't" and dropped all her g's; and when Montague brought down a bird +at long range, she exclaimed, condescendingly, "Why, you're quite a dab +at it!" He sat in the front seat of an automobile, and heard the great +lady behind him referring to the sturdy Jersey farmers, whose ancestors +had fought the British and Hessians all over the state, as "your +peasantry." + +It was an extraordinary privilege to have Mrs. Harper for a guest; "at +home" she moved about in state recalling that of Queen Victoria, with +flags and bunting on the way, and crowds of school children cheering. +She kept up half a dozen establishments, and had a hundred thousand +acres of game preserves in Scotland. She made a speciality of +collecting jewels which had belonged to the romantic and picturesque +queens of history. She appeared at the dance in a breastplate of +diamonds covering the entire front of her bodice, so that she was +literally clothed in light; and with her was her English friend, Mrs. +Percy, who had accompanied her in her triumph through the courts and +camps of Europe, and displayed a famous lorgnette-chain, containing one +specimen of every rare and beautiful jewel known. Mrs. Percy wore a +gown of cloth of gold tissue, covered with a fortune in Venetian lace, +and made a tremendous sensation--until the rumour spread that it was a +rehash of the costume which Mrs. Harper had worn at the Duchess of +London's ball. The Chicago lady herself never by any chance appeared in +the same costume twice. + +Alice had a grand time at the Todds'; all the men fell in love with +her--one in particular, a young chap named Fayette, quite threw himself +at her feet. He was wealthy, but unfortunately he had made his money by +eloping with a rich girl (who was one of the present party), and so, +from a practical point of view, his attentions were not desirable for +Alice. + +Montague was left with the task of finding these things out for +himself, for his brother devoted himself exclusively to Betty Wyman. +The way these two disappeared between meals was a jest of the whole +company; so that when they were on their way home, Montague felt called +upon to make paternal inquiries. + +"We're as much engaged as we dare to be," Oliver answered him. + +"And when do you expect to marry her?" + +"God knows," said he, "I don't. The old man wouldn't give her a cent." + +"And you couldn't support her?" + +"I? Good heavens, Allan--do you suppose Betty would consent to be poor?" + +"Have you asked her?" inquired Montague. + +"I don't want to ask her, thank you! I've not the least desire to live +in a hovel with a girl who's been brought up in a palace." + +"Then what do you expect to do?" + +"Well, Betty has a rich aunt in a lunatic asylum. And then I'm making +money, you know--and the old boy will have to relent in the end. And +we're having a very good time in the meanwhile, you know." + +"You can't be very much in love," said Montague--to which his brother +replied cheerfully that they were as much in love as they felt like +being. + +This was on the train Monday morning. Oliver observed that his brother +relapsed into a brown study, and remarked, "I suppose you're going back +now to bury yourself in your books. You've got to give me one evening +this week for a dinner that's important." + +"Where's that?" asked the other. + +"Oh, it's a long story," said Oliver. "I'll explain it to you some +time. But first we must have an understanding about next week, also--I +suppose you've not overlooked the fact that it's Christmas week. And +you won't be permitted to do any work then." + +"But that's impossible!" exclaimed the other. + +"Nothing else is possible," said Oliver, firmly. "I've made an +engagement for you with the Eldridge Devons up the Hudson--" + +"For the whole week?" + +"The whole week. And it'll be the most important thing you've done. +Mrs. Winnie's going to take us all in her car, and you will make no end +of indispensable acquaintances." + +"Oliver, I don't see how in the world I can do it!" the other protested +in dismay, and went on for several minutes arguing and explaining what +he had to do. But Oliver contented himself with the assurance that +where there's a will, there's a way. One could not refuse an invitation +to spend Christmas with the Eldridge Devons! + +And sure enough, there was a way. Mr. Hasbrook had mentioned to him +that he had had considerable work done upon the case, and would have +the papers sent round. And when Montague reached his office that +morning, he found them there. There was a package of several thousand +pages; and upon examining them, he found to his utter consternation +that they contained a complete bill of complaint, with all the +necessary references and citations, and a preliminary draught of a +brief--in short, a complete and thoroughgoing preparation of his case. +There could not have been less than ten or fifteen thousand dollars' +worth of work in the papers; and Montague sat quite aghast, turning +over the neatly typewritten sheets. He could indeed afford to attend +Christmas house parties, if all his clients were to treat him like this! + +He felt a little piqued about it--for he had noted some of these points +for himself, and felt a little proud about them. Apparently he was to +be nothing but a figure-head in the case! And he turned to the phone +and called up Mr. Hasbrook, and asked him what he expected him to do +with these papers. There was the whole case here; and was he simply to +take them as they stood? + +No one could have replied more considerately than did Mr. Hasbrook. The +papers were for Montague's benefit--he would do exactly as he pleased +with them. He might use them as they stood, or reject them altogether, +or make them the basis for his own work--anything that appealed to his +judgment would be satisfactory. And so Montague turned about and wrote +an acceptance to the formal invitation which had come from the Eldridge +Devons. + +Later on in the day Oliver called up, and said that he was to go out to +dinner the following evening, and that he would call for him at eight. +"It's with the Jack Evanses," Oliver added. "Do you know them?" + +Montague had heard the name, as that of the president of a chain of +Western railroads. "Do you mean him?" he asked. + +"Yes," said the other. "They're a rum crowd, but there's money in it. +I'll call early and explain it to you." + +But it was explained sooner than that. During the next afternoon +Montague had a caller--none other than Mrs. Winnie Duval. Some one had +left Mrs. Winnie some more money, it appeared; and there was a lot of +red tape attached to it, which she wanted the new lawyer to attend to. +Also, she said, she hoped that he would charge her a lot of money by +way of encouraging himself. It was a mere bagatelle of a hundred +thousand or so, from some forgotten aunt in the West. + +The business was soon disposed of, and then Mrs. Winnie asked Montague +if he had any place to go to for dinner that evening: which was the +occasion of his mentioning the Jack Evanses. "O dear me!" said Mrs. +Winnie, with a laugh. "Is Ollie going to take you there? What a funny +time you'll have!" + +"Do you know them?" asked the other. + +"Heavens, no!" was the answer. "Nobody knows them; but everybody knows +about them. My husband meets old Evans in business, of course, and +thinks he's a good sort. But the family--dear me!" + +"How much of it is there?" + +"Why, there's the old lady, and two grown daughters and a son. The +son's a fine chap, they say--the old man took him in hand and put him +at work in the shops. But I suppose he thought that daughters were too +much of a proposition for him, and so he sent them to a fancy +school--and, I tell you, they're the most highly polished human +specimens that ever you encountered!" + +It sounded entertaining. "But what does Oliver want with them?" asked +Montague, wonderingly. + +"It isn't that he wants them--they want him. They're cumbers, you +know--perfectly frantic. They've come to town to get into Society." + +"Then you mean that they pay Oliver?" asked Montague. + +"I don't know that," said the other, with a laugh. "You'll have to ask +Ollie. They've a number of the little brothers of the rich hanging +round them, picking up whatever plunder's in sight." + +A look of pain crossed Montague's face; and she saw it, and put out her +hand with a sudden gesture. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I've offended you!" + +"No," said he, "it's not that exactly--I wouldn't be offended. But I'm +worried about my brother." + +"How do you mean?" + +"He gets a lot of money somehow, and I don't know what it means." + +The woman sat for a few moments in silence, watching him. "Didn't he +have any when he came here?" she asked. + +"Not very much," said he. + +"Because," she went on, "if he didn't, he certainly managed it very +cleverly--we all thought he had." + +Again there was a pause; then suddenly Mrs. Winnie said: "Do you know, +you feel differently about money from the way we do in New York. Do you +realize it?" + +"I'm not sure," said he. "How do you mean?" + +"You look at it in an old-fashioned sort of way--a person has to earn +it--it's a sign of something he's done. It came to me just now, all in +a flash--we don't feel that way about money. We haven't any of us +earned ours; we've just got it. And it never occurs to us to expect +other people to earn it--all we want to know is if they have it." + +Montague did not tell his companion how very profound a remark he +considered that; he was afraid it would not be delicate to agree with +her. He had heard a story of a negro occupant of the "mourners' bench," +who was voluble in confession of his sins, but took exception to the +fervour with which the congregation said "Amen!" + +"The Evanses used to be a lot funnier than they are now," continued +Mrs. Winnie, after a while. "When they came here last year, they were +really frightful. They had an English chap for social secretary--a +younger son of some broken-down old family. My brother knew a man who +had been one of their intimates in the West, and he said it was +perfectly excruciating--this fellow used to sit at the table and give +orders to the whole crowd: 'Your ice-cream fork should be at your right +hand, Miss Mary.--One never asks for more soup, Master Robert.--And +Miss Anna, always move your soup-spoon from you--that's better!'" + +"I fancy I shall feel sorry for them," said Montague. + +"Oh, you needn't," said the other, promptly. "They'll get what they +want." + +"Do you think so?" + +"Why, certainly they will. They've got the money; and they've been +abroad--they're learning the game. And they'll keep at it until they +succeed--what else is there for them to do? And then my husband says +that old Evans is making himself a power here in the East; so that +pretty soon they won't dare offend him." + +"Does that count?" asked the man. + +"Well, I guess it counts!" laughed Mrs. Winnie. "It has of late." And +she went on to tell him of the Society leader who had dared to offend +the daughters of a great magnate, and how the magnate had retaliated by +turning the woman's husband out of his high office. That was often the +way in the business world; the struggles were supposed to be affairs of +men, but oftener than not the moving power was a woman's intrigue. You +would see a great upheaval in Wall Street, and it would be two of the +big men quarrelling over a mistress; you would see some man rush +suddenly into a high office--and that would be because his wife had +sold herself to advance him. + +Mrs. Winnie took him up town in her auto, and he dressed for dinner; +and then came Oliver, and his brother asked, "Are you trying to put the +Evanses into Society?" + +"Who's been telling you about them?" asked the other. + +"Mrs. Winnie," said Montague. + +"What did she tell you?" + +Montague went over her recital, which his brother apparently found +satisfactory. "It's not as serious as that," he said, answering the +earlier question. "I help them a little now and then." + +"What do you do?" + +"Oh, advise them, mostly--tell them where to go and what to wear. When +they first came to New York, they were dressed like paraquets, you +know. And"--here Oliver broke into a laugh--"I refrain from making +jokes about them. And when I hear other people abusing them, I point +out that they are sure to land in the end, and will be dangerous +enemies. I've got one or two wedges started for them." + +"And do they pay you for doing it?" + +"You'd call it paying me, I suppose," replied the other. "The old man +carries a few shares of stock for me now and then." + +"Carries a few shares?" echoed Montague, and Oliver explained the +procedure. This was one of the customs which had grown up in a +community where people did not have to earn their money. The recipient +of the favour put up nothing and took no risks; but the other person +was supposed to buy some stock for him, and then, when the stock went +up, he would send a cheque for the "profits." Many a man who would have +resented a direct offer of money, would assent pleasantly when a +powerful friend offered to "carry a hundred shares for him." This was +the way one offered a tip in the big world; it was useful in the case +of newspaper men, whose good opinion of a stock was desired, or of +politicians and legislators, whose votes might help its fortunes. When +one expected to get into Society, one must be prepared to strew such +tips about him. + +"Of course," added Oliver, "what the family would really like me to do +is to get the Robbie Wallings to take them up. I suppose I could get +round half a million of them if I could manage that." + +To all of which Montague replied, "I see." + +A great light had dawned upon him. So that was the way it was managed! +That was why one paid thirty thousand a year for one's apartments, and +thirty thousand more for a girl's clothes! No wonder it was better to +spend Christmas week at the Eldridge Devons than to labour at one's law +books! + +"One more question," Montague went on. "Why are you introducing me to +them?" + +"Well," his brother answered, "it won't hurt you; you'll find it +amusing. You see, they'd heard I had a brother; and they asked me to +bring you. I couldn't keep you hidden for ever, could I?" + +All this was while they were driving up town. The Evanses' place was on +Riverside Drive; and when Montague got out of the cab and saw it +looming up in the semi-darkness, he emitted an exclamation of wonder. +It was as big as a jail! + +"Oh, yes, they've got room enough," said Oliver, with a laugh. "I put +this deal through for them--it's the old Lamson palace, you know." + +They had the room; and likewise they had all the trappings of +snobbery--Montague took that fact in at a glance. There were +knee-breeches and scarlet facings and gold braid--marble balconies and +fireplaces and fountains--French masters and real Flemish tapestry. The +staircase of their palace was a winding one, and there was a white +velvet carpet which had been specially woven for it, and had to be +changed frequently; at the top of it was a white cashmere rug which had +a pedigree of six centuries--and so on. + +And then came the family: this tall, raw-boned, gigantic man, with +weather-tanned face and straggling grey moustache--this was Jack Evans; +and Mrs. Evans, short and pudgy, but with a kindly face, and not too +many diamonds; and the Misses Evans,--stately and slender and perfectly +arrayed. "Why, they're all right!" was the thought that came to +Montague. + +They were all right until they opened their mouths. When they spoke, +you discovered that Evans was a miner, and that his wife had been cook +on a ranch; also that Anne and Mary had harsh voices, and that they +never by any chance said or did anything natural. + +They were escorted into the stately dining-room--Henri II., with a +historic mantel taken from the palace of Fontainebleau, and four great +allegorical paintings of Morning, Evening, Noon, and Midnight upon the +walls. There were no other guests--the table, set for six, seemed like +a toy in the vast apartment. And in a sudden flash--with a start of +almost terror--Montague realized what it must mean not to be in +Society. To have all this splendour, and nobody to share it! To have +Henri II. dining-rooms and Louis XVI. parlours and Louis XIV. +libraries--and see them all empty! To have no one to drive with or talk +with, no one to visit or play cards with--to go to the theatre and the +opera and have no one to speak to! Worse than that, to be stared at and +smiled at! To live in this huge palace, and know that all the horde of +servants, underneath their cringing deference, were sneering at you! To +face that--to live in the presence of it day after day! And then, +outside of your home, the ever widening circles of ridicule and +contempt--Society, with all its hangers-on and parasites, its imitators +and admirers! + +And some one had defied all that--some one had taken up the sword and +gone forth to beat down that opposition! Montague looked at this little +family of four, and wondered which of them was the driving force in +this most desperate emprise! + +He arrived at it by a process of elimination. It could not be Evans +himself. One saw that the old man was quite hopeless socially; nothing +could change his big hairy hands or his lean scrawny neck, or his +irresistible impulse to slide down in his chair and cross his long legs +in front of him. The face and the talk of Jack Evans brought +irresistibly to mind the mountain trail and the prospector's pack-mule, +the smoke of camp-fires and the odour of bacon and beans. Seventeen +long years the man had tramped in deserts and mountain wildernesses, +and Nature had graven her impress deep into his body and soul. + +He was very shy at this dinner; but Montague came to know him well in +the course of time. And after he had come to realize that Montague was +not one of the grafters, he opened up his heart. Evans had held on to +his mine when he had found it, and he had downed the rivals who had +tried to take it away from him, and he had bought the railroads who had +tried to crush him--and now he had come to Wall Street to fight the men +who had tried to ruin his railroads. But through it all, he had kept +the heart of a woman, and the sight of real distress was unbearable to +him. He was the sort of man to keep a roll of ten-thousand-dollar bills +in his pistol pocket, and to give one away if he thought he could do it +without offence. And, on the other hand, men told how once when he had +seen a porter insult a woman passenger on his line, he jumped up and +pulled the bell-cord, and had the man put out on the roadside at +midnight, thirty miles from the nearest town! + +No, it was the women folks, he said to Montague, with his grim laugh. +It didn't trouble him at all to be called a "noovoo rich"; and when he +felt like dancing a shakedown, he could take a run out to God's +country. But the women folks had got the bee in their bonnet. The old +man added sadly that one of the disadvantages of striking it rich was +that it left the women folks with nothing to do. + +Nor was it Mrs. Evans, either. "Sarey," as she was called by the head +of the house, sat next to Montague at dinner; and he discovered that +with the very least encouragement, the good lady was willing to become +homelike and comfortable. Montague gave the occasion, because he was a +stranger, and volunteered the opinion that New York was a shamelessly +extravagant place, and hard to get along in; and Mrs. Evans took up the +subject and revealed herself as a good-natured and kindly personage, +who had wistful yearnings for mush and molasses, and flap-jacks, and +bread fried in bacon-grease, and similar sensible things, while her +chef was compelling her to eat _paté de foie gras_ in aspic, and +milk-fed guinea-chicks, and _biscuits glacées Tortoni_. Of course she +did not say that at dinner,--she made a game effort to play her +part,--with the result of at least one diverting experience for +Montague. + +Mrs. Evans was telling him what a dreadful place she considered the +city for young men; and how she feared to bring her boy here. "The men +here have no morals at all," said she, and added earnestly, "I've come +to the conclusion that Eastern men are naturally amphibious!" + +Then, as Montague knitted his brows and looked perplexed, she added, +"Don't you think so?" And he replied, with as little delay as possible, +that he had never really thought of it before. + +It was not until a couple of hours later that the light dawned upon +him, in the course of a conversation with Miss Anne. "We met Lady +Stonebridge at luncheon to-day," said that young person. "Do you know +her?" + +"No," said Montague, who had never heard of her. + +"I think those aristocratic English women use the most abominable +slang," continued Anne. "Have you noticed it?" + +"Yes, I have," he said. + +"And so utterly cynical! Do you know, Lady Stonebridge quite shocked +mother--she told her she didn't believe in marriage at all, and that +she thought all men were naturally polygamous!" + +Later on, Montague came to know "Mrs. Sarey"; and one afternoon, +sitting in her Petit Trianon drawing-room, he asked her abruptly, "Why +in the world do you want to get into Society?" And the poor lady caught +her breath, and tried to be indignant; and then, seeing that he was in +earnest, and that she was cornered, broke down and confessed. "It isn't +me," she said, "it's the gals." (For along with the surrender went a +reversion to natural speech.) "It's Mary, and more particularly Anne." + +They talked it over confidentially--which was a great relief to Mrs. +Sarey's soul, for she was cruelly lonely. So far as she was concerned, +it was not because she wanted Society, but because Society didn't want +her. She flashed up in sudden anger, and clenched her fists, declaring +that Jack Evans was as good a man as walked the streets of New +York--and they would acknowledge it before he got through with them, +too! After that she intended to settle down at home and be comfortable, +and mend her husband's socks. + +She went on to tell him what a hard road was the path of glory. There +were hundreds of people ready to know them--but oh, such a riffraff! +They might fill up their home with the hangers-on and the yellow, but +no, they could wait. They had learned a lot since they set out. One +very aristocratic lady had invited them to dinner, and their hopes had +been high--but alas, while they were sitting by the fireplace, some one +admired a thirty-thousand-dollar emerald ring which Mrs. Evans had on +her finger, and she had taken it off and passed it about among the +company, and somewhere it had vanished completely! And another person +had invited Mary to a bridge-party, and though she had played hardly at +all, her hostess had quietly informed her that she had lost a thousand +dollars. And the great Lady Stonebridge had actually sent for her and +told her that she could introduce her in some of the very best circles, +if only she was willing to lose always! Mrs. Evans had possessed a very +homely Irish name before she was married; and Lady Stonebridge had got +five thousand dollars from her to use some great influence she +possessed in the Royal College of Heralds, and prove that she was +descended directly from the noble old family of Magennis, who had been +the lords of Iveagh, way back in the fourteenth century. And now Oliver +had told them that this imposing charter would not help them in the +least! + +In the process of elimination, there were the Misses Evans left. +Montague's friends made many jests when they heard that he had met +them--asking him if he meant to settle down. Major Venable went so far +as to assure him that there was not the least doubt that either of the +girls would take him in a second. Montague laughed, and answered that +Mary was not so bad--she had a sweet face and was good-natured; but +also, she was two years younger than Anne; and he could not get over +the thought that two more years might make another Anne of her. + +For it was Anne who was the driving force of the family! Anne who had +planned the great campaign, and selected the Lamson palace, and pried +the family loose from the primeval rocks of Nevada! She was cold as an +iceberg, tireless, pitiless to others as to herself; for seventeen +years her father had wandered and dug among the mountains; and for +seventeen years, if need be, she would dig beneath the walls of the +fortress of Society! + +After Montague had had his heart to heart talk with the mother, Miss +Anne Evans became very haughty toward him; whereby he knew that the old +lady had told about it, and that the daughter resented his presumption. +But to Oliver she laid bare her soul, and Oliver would come and tell +his brother about it: how she plotted and planned and studied, and +brought new schemes to him every week. She had some of the real people +bought over to secret sympathy with her; if there was some especial +favour which she asked for, she would set to work with the good-natured +old man, and the person would have some important money service done +him. She had the people of Society all marked--she was learning all +their weaknesses, and the underground passages of their lives, and +working patiently to find the key to her problem--some one family which +was socially impregnable, but whose finances were in such a shape that +they would receive the proposition to take up the Evanses, and +definitely put them in. Montague used to look back upon all this with +wonder and amusement--from those days in the not far distant future, +when the papers had cable descriptions of the gowns of the Duchess of +Arden, nee Evans, who was the bright particular star of the London +social season! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Montague had written a reluctant letter to Major Thorne, telling him +that he had been unable to interest anyone in his proposition, and that +he was not in position to undertake it himself. Then, according to his +brother's injunction, he left his money in the bank, and waited. There +would be "something doing" soon, said Oliver. + +And as they drove home from the Evanses', Oliver served notice upon him +that this event might be expected any day. He was very mysterious about +it, and would answer none of his brother's questions--except to say +that it had nothing to do with the people they had just visited. + +"I suppose," Montague remarked, "you have not failed to realize that +Evans might play you false." + +And the other laughed, echoing the words, "Might do it!" Then he went +on to tell the tale of the great railroad builder of the West, whose +daughter had been married, with elaborate festivities; and some of the +young men present, thinking to find him in a sentimental mood, had +asked him for his views about the market. He advised them to buy the +stock of his road; and they formed a pool and bought, and as fast as +they bought, he sold--until the little venture cost the boys a total of +seven million and a half! + +"No, no," Oliver added. "I have never put up a dollar for anything of +Evans's, and I never shall.--They are simply a side issue, anyway," he +added carelessly. + +A couple of mornings later, while Montague was at breakfast, his +brother called him up and said that he was coming round, and would go +down town with him. Montague knew at once that that meant something +serious, for he had never before known his brother to be awake so early. + +They took a cab; and then Oliver explained. The moment had arrived--the +time to take the plunge, and come up with a fortune. He could not tell +much about it, for it was a matter upon which he stood pledged to +absolute secrecy. There were but four people in the country who knew +about it. It was the chance of a lifetime--and in four or five hours it +would be gone. Three times before it had come to Oliver, and each time +he had multiplied his capital several times; that he had not made +millions was simply because he did not have enough money. His brother +must take his word for this and simply put himself into his hands. + +"What is it you want me to do?" asked Montague, gravely. + +"I want you to take every dollar you have, or that you can lay your +hands on this morning, and turn it over to me to buy stocks with." + +"To buy on margin, you mean?" + +"Of course I mean that," said Oliver. Then, as he saw his brother +frown, he added, "Understand me, I have absolutely certain information +as to how a certain stock will behave to-day." + +"The best judges of a stock often make mistakes in such matters," said +Montague. + +"It is not a question of any person's judgment," was the reply. "It is +a question of knowledge. The stock is to be MADE to behave so." + +"But how can you know that the person who intends to make it behave may +not be lying to you?" + +"My information does not come from that person, but from a person who +has no such interest--who, on the contrary, is in on the deal with me, +and gains only as I gain." + +"Then, in other words," said Montague, "your information is stolen?" + +"Everything in Wall Street is stolen," was Oliver's concise reply. + +There was a long silence, while the cab rolled swiftly on its way. +"Well?" Oliver asked at last. + +"I can imagine," said Montague, "how a man might intend to move a +certain stock, and think that he had the power, and yet find that he +was mistaken. There are so many forces, so many chances to be +considered--it seems to me you must be taking a risk." + +Oliver laughed. "You talk like a child," was his reply. "Suppose that I +were in absolute control of a corporation, and that I chose to run it +for purposes of market manipulation, don't you think I might come +pretty near knowing what its stock was going to do?" + +"Yes," said Montague, slowly, "if such a thing as that were +conceivable." + +"If it were conceivable!" laughed his brother. "And now suppose that I +had a confidential man--a secretary, we'll say--and I paid him twenty +thousand a year, and he saw chances to make a hundred thousand in an +hour--don't you think he might conceivably try it?" + +"Yes," said Montague, "he might. But where do you come in?" + +"Well, if the man were going to do anything worth while, he'd need +capital, would he not? And he'd hardly dare to look for any money in +the Street, where a thousand eyes would be watching him. What more +natural than to look out for some person who is in Society and has the +ear of private parties with plenty of cash?" + +And Montague sat in deep thought. "I see," he said slowly; "I see!" +Then, fixing his eyes upon Oliver, he exclaimed, earnestly, "One thing +more!" + +"Don't ask me any more," protested the other. "I told you I was +pledged--" + +"You must tell me this," said Montague. "Does Bobbie Walling know about +it?" + +"He does not," was the reply. But Montague had known his brother long +and intimately, and he could read things in his eyes. He knew that that +was a lie. He had solved the mystery at last! + +Montague knew that he had come to a parting of the ways. He did not +like this kind of thing--he had not come to New York to be a +stock-gambler. But what a difficult thing it would be to say so; and +how unfair it was to be confronted with such an issue, and compelled to +decide in a few minutes in a cab! + +He had put himself in his brother's hands, and now he was under +obligations to him, which he could not pay off. Oliver had paid all his +expenses; he was doing everything for him. He had made all his +difficulties his own, and all in frankness and perfect trust--upon the +assumption that his brother would play the game with him. And now, at +the critical moment, he was to face about, and say; "I do not like the +game. I do not approve of your life!" Such a painful thing it is to +have a higher moral code than one's friends! + +If he refused, he saw that he would have to face a complete break; he +could not go on living in the world to which he had been introduced. +Fifty thousand had seemed an enormous fee, yet even a week or two had +sufficed for it to come to seem inadequate. He would have to have many +such fees, if they were to go on living at their present rate; and if +Alice were to have a social career, and entertain her friends. And to +ask Alice to give up now, and retire, would be even harder than to face +his brother here in the cab. + +Then came the temptation. Life was a battle, and this was the way it +was being fought. If he rejected the opportunity, others would seize +it; in fact, by refusing, he would be handing it to them. This great +man, whoever he might be, who was manipulating stocks for his own +convenience--could anyone in his senses reject a chance to wrench from +him some part of his spoils? Montague saw the impulse of refusal dying +away within him. + +"Well?" asked his brother, finally. + +"Oliver," said the other, "don't you think that I ought to know more +about it, so that I can judge?" + +"You could not judge, even if I told you all," said Oliver. "It would +take you a long time to become familiar with the circumstances, as I +am. You must take my word; I know it is certain and safe." + +Then suddenly he unbuttoned his coat, and took out some papers, and +handed his brother a telegram. It was dated Chicago, and read, "Guest +is expected immediately.--HENRY." "That means, 'Buy Transcontinental +this morning,'" said Oliver. + +"I see," said the other. "Then the man is in Chicago?" + +"No," was the reply. "That is his wife. He wires to her." + +"--How much money have you?" asked Oliver, after a pause. + +"I've most of the fifty thousand," the other answered, "and about +thirty thousand we brought with us." + +"How much can you put your hands on?" + +"Why, I could get all of it; but part of the money is mother's, and I +would not touch that." + +The younger man was about to remonstrate, but Montague stopped him, "I +will put up the fifty thousand I have earned," he said. "I dare not +risk any more." + +Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said. "You may never +have another such chance in your life." + +He dropped the subject, or at least he probably tried to. Within a few +minutes, however, he was back at it again, with the result that by the +time they reached the banking-district, Montague had agreed to draw +sixty thousand. + +They stopped at his bank. "It isn't open yet,--" said Oliver, "but the +paying teller will oblige you. Tell him you want it before the Exchange +opens." + +Montague went in and got his money, in six new, crisp, +ten-thousand-dollar bills. He buttoned them up in his inmost pocket, +wondering a little, incidentally, at the magnificence of the place, and +at the swift routine manner in which the clerk took in and paid out +such sums as this. Then they drove to Oliver's bank, and he drew a +hundred and twenty thousand; and then he paid off the cab, and they +strolled down Broadway into Wall Street. It lacked a quarter of an hour +of the time of the opening of the Exchange; and a stream of +prosperous-looking men were pouring in from all the cars and ferries to +their offices. + +"Where are your brokers?" Montague inquired. + +"I don't have any brokers--at least not for a matter such as this," +said Oliver. And he stopped in front of one of the big buildings. "In +there," he said, "are the offices of Hammond and Streeter--second floor +to your left. Go there and ask for a member of the firm, and introduce +yourself under an assumed name--" + +"What!" gasped Montague. + +"Of course, man--you would not dream of giving your own name! What +difference will that make?" + +"I never thought of doing such a thing," said the other. + +"Well, think of it now." + +But Montague shook his head. "I would not do that," he said. + +Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "All right," he said; "tell him you +don't care to give your name. They're a little shady--they'll take your +money." + +"Suppose they won't?" asked the other. + +"Then wait outside for me, and I'll take you somewhere else." + +"What shall I buy?" + +"Ten thousand shares of Transcontinental Common at the opening price; +and tell them to buy on the scale up, and to raise the stop; also to +take your orders to sell over the 'phone. Then wait there until I come +for you." + +Montague set his teeth together and obeyed orders. Inside the door +marked Hammond and Streeter a pleasant-faced young man advanced to meet +him, and led him to a grey-haired and affable gentleman, Mr. Streeter. +And Montague introduced himself as a stranger in town, from the South, +and wishing to buy some stock. Mr. Streeter led him into an inner +office and seated himself at a desk and drew some papers in front of +him. "Your name, please?" he asked. + +"I don't care to give my name," replied the other. And Mr. Streeter put +down his pen. + +"Not give your name?" he said. + +"No," said Montague quietly. + +"Why?"--said Mr. Streeter--"I don't understand--" + +"I am a stranger in town," said Montague, "and not accustomed to +dealing in stocks. I should prefer to remain unknown." + +The man eyed him sharply. "Where do you come from?" he asked. + +"From Mississippi," was the reply. + +"And have you a residence in New York?" + +"At a hotel," said Montague. + +"You have to give some name," said the other. + +"Any will do," said Montague. "John Smith, if you like." + +"We never do anything like this," said the broker. + +"We require that our customers be introduced. There are rules of the +Exchange--there are rules--" + +"I am sorry," said Montague; "this would be a cash transaction." + +"How many shares do you want to buy?" + +"Ten thousand," was the reply. + +Mr. Streeter became more serious. "That is a large order," he said. + +Montague said nothing. + +"What do you wish to buy?" was the next question. + +"Transcontinental Common," he replied. + +"Well," said the other, after another pause-,-"we will try to +accommodate you. But you will have to consider it--er--" + +"Strictly confidential," said Montague. + +So Mr. Streeter made out the papers, and Montague, looking them over, +discovered that they called for one hundred thousand dollars. + +"That is a mistake," he said. "I have only sixty thousand." + +"Oh," said the other, "we shall certainly have to charge you a ten per +cent, margin." + +Montague was not prepared for this contingency; but he did some mental +arithmetic. "What is the present price of the stock?" he asked. + +"Fifty-nine and five-eighths," was the reply. + +"Then sixty thousand dollars is more than ten per cent, of the market +price," said Montague. + +"Yes," said Mr. Streeter. "But in dealing with a stranger we shall +certainly have to put a 'stop loss' order at four points above, and +that would leave you only two points of safety--surely not enough." + +"I see," said Montague--and he had a sudden appalling realization of +the wild game which his brother had planned for him. + +"Whereas," Mr. Streeter continued, persuasively, "if you put up ten per +cent., you will have six points." + +"Very well," said the other promptly. "Then please buy me six thousand +shares." + +So they closed the deal, and the papers were signed, and Mr. Streeter +took the six new, crisp ten-thousand-dollar bills. + +Then he escorted him to the outer office, remarking pleasantly on the +way, "I hope you're well advised. We're inclined to be bearish upon +Transcontinental ourselves--the situation looks rather squally." + +These words were not worth the breath it took to say them; but Montague +was not aware of this, and felt a painful start within. But he +answered, carelessly, that one must take his chance, and sat down in +one of the customer's chairs. Hammond and Streeter's was like a little +lecture-hall, with rows of seats and a big blackboard in front, with +the initials of the most important stocks in columns, and yesterday's +closing prices above, on little green cards. At one side was a ticker, +with two attendants awaiting the opening click. + +In the seats were twenty or thirty men, old and young; most of them +regular habitues, victims of the fever of the Street. Montague watched +them, catching snatches of their whispered conversation, with its +intricate and disagreeable slang. He felt intensely humiliated and +uncomfortable--for he had got the fever of the Street into his own +veins, and he could not conquer it. There were nasty shivers running up +and down his spine, and his hands were cold. + +He stared at the little figures, fascinated; they stood for some vast +and tremendous force outside, which could not be controlled or even +comprehended,--some merciless, annihilating force, like the lightning +or the tornado. And he had put himself at the mercy of it; it might do +its will with him! "Tr. C. 59 5/8" read the little pasteboard; and he +had only six points of safety. If at any time in the day that figure +should be changed to read "53 5/8"--then every dollar of Montague's +sixty thousand would be gone for ever! The great fee that he had worked +so hard for and rejoiced so greatly over--that would be all gone, and a +slice out of his inheritance besides! + +A boy put into his hand a little four-page paper--one of the countless +news-sheets which different houses and interests distributed free for +advertising or other purposes; and a heading "Transcontinental" caught +his eye, among the paragraphs in the Day's Events. He read: "The +directors' meeting of the Transcontinental R.R. will be held at noon. +It is confidently predicted that the quarterly dividend will be passed, +as it has been for the last three quarters. There is great +dissatisfaction among the stock-holders. The stock has been decidedly +weak, with no apparent inside support; it fell off three points just +before closing yesterday, upon the news of further proceedings by +Western state officials, and widely credited rumours of dissensions +among the directors, with renewed opposition to the control of the +Hopkins interests." + +Ten o'clock came and went, and the ticker began its long journey. There +was intense activity in Transcontinental, many thousands of shares +changing hands, and the price swaying back and forth. When Oliver came +in, in half an hour, it stood at 59 3/8. + +"That's all right," said he. "Our time will not come till afternoon." + +"But suppose we are wiped out before afternoon?" said the other. + +"That is impossible," answered Oliver. "There will be big buying all +the morning." + +They sat for a while, nervous and restless. Then, by way of breaking +the monotony, Oliver suggested that his brother might like to see the +"Street." They went around the corner to Broad Street. Here at the head +stood the Sub-treasury building, with all the gold of the government +inside, and a Gatling gun in the tower. The public did not know it was +there, but the financial men knew it, and it seemed as if they had +huddled all their offices and banks and safe-deposit vaults under its +shelter. Here, far underground, were hidden the two hundred millions of +securities of the Oil Trust--in a huge six-hundred-ton steel vault, +with a door so delicately poised that a finger could swing it on its +hinges. And opposite to this was the white Grecian building of the +Stock Exchange. Down the street were throngs of men within a roped +arena, pushing, shouting, jostling; this was "the curb," where one +could buy or sell small blocks of stock, and all the wild-cat mining +and oil stocks which were not listed by the Exchange. Rain or shine, +these men were always here; and in the windows of the neighbouring +buildings stood others shouting quotations to them through megaphones, +or signalling in deaf and dumb language. Some of these brokers wore +coloured hats, so that they could be distinguished; some had offices +far off, where men sat all day with strong glasses trained upon them. +Everywhere was the atmosphere of speculation--the restless, feverish +eyes; the quick, nervous gestures; the haggard, care-worn faces. For in +this game every man was pitted against every other man; and the dice +were loaded so that nine out of every ten were doomed in advance to +ruin and defeat. They procured passes to the visitors' gallery of the +Exchange. From here one looked down into a room one or two hundred feet +square, its floor covered with a snowstorm of torn pieces of paper, and +its air a babel of shouts and cries. Here were gathered perhaps two +thousand men and boys; some were lounging and talking, but most were +crowded about the various trading-posts, pushing, climbing over each +other, leaping up, waving their hands and calling aloud. A "seat" in +this exchange was worth about ninety-five thousand dollars, and so no +one of these men was poor; but yet they came, day after day, to play +their parts in this sordid arena, "seeking in sorrow for each other's +joy": inventing a thousand petty tricks to outwit and deceive each +other; rejoicing in a thousand petty triumphs; and spending their +lives, like the waves upon the shore, a very symbol of human futility. +Now and then a sudden impulse would seize them, and they would become +like howling demons, surging about one spot, shrieking, gasping, +clawing each other's clothing to pieces; and the spectator shuddered, +seeing them as the victims of some strange and dreadful enchantment, +which bound them to struggle and torment each other until they were +worn out and grey. + +But one felt these things only dimly, when he had put all his fortune +into Transcontinental Common. For then he had sold his own soul to the +enchanter, and the spell was upon him, and he hoped and feared and +agonized with the struggling throng. Montague had no need to ask which +was his "post"; for a mob of a hundred men were packed about it, with +little whirls and eddies here and there on the outside. "Something +doing to-day all right," said a man in his ear. + +It was interesting to watch; but there was one difficulty--there were +no quotations provided for the spectators. So the sight of this +activity merely set them on edge with anxiety--something must be +happening to their stock! Even Oliver was visibly nervous--after all, +in the surest cases, the game was a dangerous one; there might be a big +failure, or an assassination, or an earthquake! They rushed out and +made for the nearest broker's office, where a glance at the board +showed them Transcontinental at 60. They drew a long breath, and sat +down again to wait. + +That was about half-past eleven. At a quarter to twelve the stock went +up an eighth, and then a quarter, and then another eighth. The two +gripped their hands in excitement. Had the time come? + +Apparently it had. A minute later the stock leaped to 61, on large +buying. Then it went three-eighths more. A buzz of excitement ran +through the office, and the old-timers sat up in their seats. The stock +went another quarter. + +Montague heard a man behind him say to his neighbour, "What does it +mean?" + +"God knows," was the answer; but Oliver whispered in his brother's ear, +"I know what it means. The insiders are buying." + +Somebody was buying, and buying furiously. The ticker seemed to set all +other business aside and give its attention to the trading in +Transcontinental. It was like a base-ball game, when one side begins to +pile up runs, and the man in the coacher's box chants exultantly, and +the dullest spectator is stirred--since no man can be indifferent to +success. And as the stock went higher and higher, a little wave of +excitement mounted with it, a murmur running through the room, and a +thrill passing from person to person. Some watched, wondering if it +would last, and if they had not better take on a little; then another +point would be scored, and they would wish they had done it, and +hesitate whether to do it now. But to others, like the Montagues, who +"had some," it was victory, glorious and thrilling; their pulses leaped +faster with every new change of the figures; and between times they +reckoned up their gains, and hung between hope and dread for the new +gains which were on the way, but not yet in sight. + +There was little lull, and the boys who tended the board had a chance +to rest. The stock was above 66; at which price, owing to the device of +"pyramiding." Montague was on "velvet," to use the picturesque phrase +of the Street. His earnings amounted to sixty thousand dollars, and +even if the stock were to fall and he were to be sold out, he would +lose nothing. + +He wished to sell and realize his profits; but his brother gripped him +fast by the arm. "No! no!" he said. "It hasn't really come yet!" + +Some went out to lunch--to a restaurant where they could have a +telephone on their table, so as to keep in touch with events. But the +Montagues had no care about eating; they sat picturing the directors in +session, and speculating upon a score of various eventualities. Things +might yet go wrong, and all their profits would vanish like early +snow-flakes--and all their capital with them. Oliver shook like a leaf, +but he would not stir. "Stay game!" he whispered. + +He took out his watch, and glanced at it. It was after two o'clock. "It +may go over till to-morrow!" he muttered.--But then suddenly came the +storm. + +The ticker recorded a rise in the price of Transcontinental of a point +and a half, upon a purchase of five thousand shares; and then half a +point for two thousand more. After that it never stopped. It went a +point at a time; it went ten points in about fifteen minutes. And babel +broke loose in the office, and in several thousand other offices in the +street, and spread to others all over the world. Montague had got up, +and was moving here and there, because the tension was unendurable; and +at the door of an inner office he heard some one at the telephone +exclaiming, "For the love of God, can't you find out what's the +matter?"--A moment later a man rushed in, breathless and wild-eyed, and +his voice rang through the office, "The directors have declared a +quarterly dividend of three per cent, and an extra dividend of two!" + +And Oliver caught his brother by the arm and started for the door with +him. "Get to your broker's," he said. "And if the stock has stopped +moving, sell; and sell in any case before the close." And then he +dashed away to his own headquarters. + +At about half after three o'clock, Oliver came into Hammond and +Streeter's, breathless, and with his hair and clothing dishevelled. He +was half beside himself with exultation; and Montague was scarcely less +wrought up--in fact he felt quite limp after the strain he had been +through. + +"What price did you get?" his brother inquired; and he answered, "An +average of 78 3/8." There had been another sharp rise at the end, and +he had sold all his stock without checking the advance. + +"I got five-eighths," said Oliver. "O ye gods!" + +There were some unhappy "shorts" in the office; Mr. Streeter was one of +them. It was bitterness and gall to them to see the radiant faces of +the two lucky ones; but the two did not even see this. They went out, +half dancing, and had a drink or two to steady their nerves. + +They would not actually get their money until the morrow; but Montague +figured a profit of a trifle under a quarter of a million for himself. +Of this about twenty thousand would go to make up the share of his +unknown informant; the balance he considered would be an ample reward +for his six hours' work that day. + +His brother had won more than twice as much. But as they drove up home, +talking over it in awe-stricken whispers, and pledging themselves to +absolute secrecy, Oliver suddenly clenched his fist and struck his knee. + +"By God!" he exclaimed. "If I hadn't been a fool and tried to save an +extra margin, I could have had a million!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +After such a victory one felt in a mood for Christmas festivities,--for +music and dancing and all beautiful and happy things. + +Such a thing, for instance, as Mrs. Winnie, when she came to meet him; +clad in her best automobile coat, a thing of purest snowy ermine, so +truly gorgeous that wherever she went, people turned and stared and +caught their breath. Mrs. Winnie was a picture of joyful health, with a +glow in her rich complexion, and a sparkle in her black eyes. + +She sat in her big touring-car--in which one could afford to wear +ermine. It was a little private self-moving hotel; in the limousine +were seats for six persons, with revolving easy chairs, and berths for +sleeping, and a writing-desk and a wash-stand, and a beautiful electric +chandelier to light it at night. Its trimmings were of South American +mahogany, and its upholstering of Spanish and Morocco leathers; it had +a telephone with which one spoke to the driver; an ice-box and a lunch +hamper--in fact, one might have spent an hour discovering new gimcracks +in this magic automobile. It had been made especially for Mrs. Winnie a +couple of years ago, and the newspapers said it had cost thirty +thousand dollars; it had then been quite a novelty, but now "everybody" +was getting them. In this car one might sit at ease, and laugh and +chat, and travel at the rate of an express train; and with never a jar +or a quiver, nor the faintest sound of any sort. + +The streets of the city sped by them as if by enchantment. They went +through the park, and out Riverside Drive, and up the river-road which +runs out of Broadway all the way to Albany. It was a macadamized +avenue, lined with beautiful and stately homes. As one went farther +yet, he came to the great country estates-a whole district of hundreds +of square miles given up to them. There were forests and lakes and +streams; there were gardens and greenhouses filled with rare plants and +flowers, and parks with deer browsing, and peacocks and lyre-birds +strutting about. The road wound in and out among hills, the surfaces of +which would be one unbroken lawn; and upon the highest points stood +palaces of every conceivable style and shape. + +One might find these great domains anywhere around the city, at a +distance of from thirty to sixty miles; there were two or three hundred +of them, and incredible were the sums of money which had been spent +upon their decoration. One saw an artificial lake of ten thousand +acres, made upon land which had cost several hundred dollars an acre; +one saw gardens with ten thousand rose-bushes, and a quarter of a +million dollars' worth of lilies from Japan; there was one estate in +which had been planted a million dollars' worth of rare trees, imported +from all over the world. Some rich men, who had nothing else to amuse +them, would make their estates over and over again, changing the view +about their homes as one changes the scenery in a play. Over in New +Jersey the Hegans were building a castle upon a mountain-top, and had +built a special railroad simply to carry the materials. Here, also, was +the estate of the tobacco king, upon which three million dollars had +been spent before the plans of the mansion had even been drawn; there +were artificial lakes and streams, and fantastic bridges and statuary, +and scores of little model plantations and estates, according to the +whim of the owner. And here in the Pocantico Hills was the estate of +the oil king, about four square miles, with thirty miles of model +driveways; many car-loads of rare plants had been imported for its +gardens, and it took six hundred men to keep it in order. There was a +golf course, a little miniature Alps, upon which the richest man in the +world pursued his lost health, with armed guards and detectives +patrolling the place all day, and a tower with a search-light, whereby +at night he could flood the grounds with light by pressing a button. + +In one of these places lived the heir of the great house of Devon. His +cousin dwelt in Europe, saying that America was not a fit place for a +gentleman to live in. Each of them owned a hundred million dollars' +worth of New York real estate, and drew their tribute of rents from the +toil of the swarming millions of the city. And always, according to the +policy of the family, they bought new real estate. They were directors +of the great railroads tributary to the city, and in touch with the +political machines, and in every other way in position to know what was +under way: if a new subway were built to set the swarming millions +free, the millions would find the land all taken up, and +apartment-houses newly built for them--and the Devons were the owners. +They had a score of the city's greatest hotels--and also slum +tenements, and brothels and dives in the Tenderloin. They did not even +have to know what they owned; they did not have to know anything, or do +anything--they lived in their palaces, at home or abroad, and in their +offices in the city the great rent-gathering machine ground on. + +Eldridge Devon's occupation was playing with his country-place and his +automobiles. He had recently sold all his horses, and turned his +stables into a garage equipped with a score or so of cars; he was +always getting a new one, and discussing its merits. As to Hudson +Cliff, the estate, he had conceived the brilliant idea of establishing +a gentleman's country-place which should be self-supporting--that is to +say, which should furnish the luxuries and necessities of its owner's +table for no more than it would have cost to buy them. Considering the +prices usually paid, this was no astonishing feat, but Devon took a +child's delight in it; he showed Montague his greenhouses, filled with +rare flowers and fruits, and his model dairy, with marble stables and +nickel plumbing, and attendants in white uniforms and rubber gloves. He +was a short and very stout gentleman with red cheeks, and his +conversation was not brilliant. + +To Hudson Cliff came many of Montague's earlier acquaintances, and +others whom he had not met before. They amused themselves in all the +ways with which-he had become familiar at house-parties; likewise on +Christmas Eve there were festivities for the children, and on Christmas +night a costume ball, very beautiful and stately. Many came from New +York to attend this, and others from the neighbourhood; and in +returning calls, Montague saw others of these hill-top mansions. + +Also, and most important of all, they played bridge--as they had played +at every function which he had attended so far. Here Mrs. Winnie, who +had rather taken him up, and threatened to supplant Oliver as his +social guide and chaperon, insisted that no more excuses would be +accepted; and so for two mornings he sat with her in one of the +sun-parlours, and diligently put his mind upon the game. As he proved +an apt pupil, he was then advised that he might take a trial plunge. + +And so Montague came into touch with a new social phenomenon; perhaps +on the whole the most significant and soul-disturbing phenomenon which +Society had exhibited to him. He had just had the experience of getting +a great deal of money without earning it, and was fresh from the +disagreeable memories of it--the trembling and suspense, the burning +lustful greed, the terrible nerve-devouring excitement. He had hoped +that he would not soon have to go through such an experience again-and +here was the prospect of an endless dalliance with it! + +For that was the meaning of bridge; it was a penalty which people were +paying for getting their money without earning it. The disease got into +their blood, and they could no longer live without the excitement of +gain and the hope of gain. So after their labours were over, when they +were supposed to be resting and enjoying themselves, they would get +together and torment themselves with an imitation struggle, mimicking +the grim and dreadful gamble of business. Down in the Street, Oliver +had pointed out to his brother a celebrated "plunger," who had +sometimes won six or eight millions in a single day; and that man would +play at stocks all morning, and "play the ponies" in the afternoon, and +then spend the evening in a millionaires' gambling-house. And so it was +with the bridge fiends. + +It was a social plague; it had run through all Society, high and low. +It had destroyed conversation and all good-fellowship--it would end by +destroying even common decency, and turning the best people into vulgar +gamblers.--Thus spoke Mrs. Billy Alden, who was one of the guests; and +Montague thought that Mrs. Billy ought to know, for she herself was +playing all the time. + +Mrs. Billy did not like Mrs. Winnie Duval; and the beginning of the +conversation was her inquiry why he let that woman corrupt him. Then +the good lady went on to tell him what bridge had come to be; how +people played it on the trains all the way from New York to San +Francisco; how they had tables in their autos, and played while they +were touring over the world. "Once," said she, "I took a party to see +the America's Cup races off Sandy Hook; and when we got back to the +pier, some one called, 'Who won?' And the answer was, 'Mrs. Billy's +ahead, but we're going on this evening.' I took a party of friends +through the Mediterranean and up the Nile, and we passed Venice and +Cairo and the Pyramids and the Suez Canal, and they never once looked +up--they were playing bridge. And you think I'm joking, but I mean just +literally what I say. I know a man who was travelling from New York to +Philadelphia, and got into a game with some strangers, and rode all the +way to Palm Beach to finish it!" + +Montague heard later of a well-known Society leader who was totally +incapacitated that winter, from too much bridge at Newport; and she was +passing the winter at Hot Springs and Palm Beach--and playing bridge +there. They played it even in sanitariums, to which they had been +driven by nervous breakdown. It was an occupation so exhausting to the +physique of women that physicians came to know the symptoms of it, and +before they diagnosed a case, they would ask, "Do you play bridge?" It +had destroyed the last remnants of the Sabbath--it was a universal +custom to have card-parties on that day. + +It was a very expensive game, as they played it in Society; one might +easily win or lose several thousand dollars in an evening, and there +were many who could not afford this. If one did not play, he would be +dropped from the lists of those invited; and when one entered a game, +etiquette required him to stay in until it was finished. So one heard +of young girls who had pawned their family plate, or who had sold their +honour, to pay their bills at the game; and all Society knew of one +youth who had robbed his hostess of her jewels and pawned them, and +then taken her the tickets--telling her that her guests had robbed him. +There were women received in the best Society, who lived as +adventuresses pure and simple, upon their skill at the game; hostesses +would invite rich guests and fleece them. Montague never forgot the +sense of amazement and dismay with which he listened while first Mrs. +Winnie and then his brother warned him that he must avoid playing with +a certain aristocratic dame whom he met in this most aristocratic +household--because she was such a notorious cheater! + +"My dear fellow," laughed his brother, when he protested, "we have a +phrase 'to cheat at cards like a woman.'" And then Oliver went on to +tell him of his own first experience at cards in Society, when he had +played poker with several charming young débutantes; they would call +their hands and take the money without showing their cards, and he had +been too gallant to ask to see them. But later he learned that this was +a regular practice, and so he never played poker with women. And Oliver +pointed out one of these girls to his brother--sitting, as beautiful as +a picture and as cold as marble, with a half-smoked cigarette on the +edge of the table, and whisky and soda and glasses of cracked ice +beside her. Later on, as he chanced to be reading a newspaper, his +brother leaned over his shoulder and pointed out another of the +symptoms of the craze--an advertisement headed, "Your luck will +change." It gave notice that at Rosenstein's Parlours, just off Fifth +Avenue, one might borrow money upon expensive gowns and furs! + +All during the ten days of this house-party, Mrs. Winnie devoted +herself to seeing that Montague had a good time; Mrs. Winnie sat beside +him at table--he found that somehow a convention had been established +which assigned him to Mrs. Winnie as a matter of course. Nobody said +anything to him about it, but knowing how relentlessly the affairs of +other people were probed and analyzed, he began to feel exceedingly +uncomfortable. + +There came a time when he felt quite smothered by Mrs. Winnie; and +immediately after lunch one day he broke away and went for a long walk +by himself. This was the occasion of his meeting with an adventure. + +An inch or two of snow had fallen, and lay gleaming in the sunlight. +The air was keen, and he drank deep draughts of it, and went striding +away over the hills for an hour or so. There was a gale blowing, and as +he came over the summits it would strike him, and he would see the +river white with foam. And then down in the valleys again all would be +still. + +Here, in a thickly wooded place, Montague's attention was arrested +suddenly by a peculiar sound, a heavy thud, which seemed to shake the +earth. It suggested a distant explosion, and he stopped for a moment +and then went on, gazing ahead. He passed a turn, and then he saw a +great tree which had fallen directly across the road. + +He went on, thinking that this was what he had heard. But as he came +nearer, he saw his mistake. Beyond the tree lay something else, and he +began to run toward it. It was two wheels of an automobile, sticking up +into the air. + +He sprang upon the tree-trunk, and in one glance he saw the whole +story. A big touring-car had swept round the sharp turn, and swerved to +avoid the unexpected obstruction, and so turned a somersault into the +ditch. + +Montague gave a thrill of horror, for there was the form of a man +pinned beneath the body of the car. He sprang toward it, but a second +glance made him stop--he saw that blood had gushed from the man's mouth +and soaked the snow all about. His chest was visibly crushed flat, and +his eyes were dreadful, half-started from their sockets. + +For a moment Montague stood staring, as if turned to stone. Then from +the other side of the car came a moan, and he ran toward the sound. A +second man lay in the ditch, moving feebly. Montague sprang to help him. + +The man wore a heavy bearskin coat. Montague lifted him, and saw that +he was a very elderly person, with a cut across his forehead, and a +face as white as chalk. The other helped him to a position with his +back against the bank, and he opened his eyes and groaned. + +Montague knelt beside him, watching his breathing. He had a sense of +utter helplessness--there was nothing he could think of to do, save to +unbutton the man's coat and keep wiping the blood from his face. + +"Some whisky," the stranger moaned. Montague answered that he had none; +but the other replied that there was some in the car. + +The slope of the bank was such that Montague could crawl under, and +find the compartment with the bottle in it. The old man drank some, and +a little colour came back to his face. As the other watched him, it +came to him that this face was familiar; but he could not place it. + +"How many were there with you?" Montague asked; and the man answered, +"Only one." + +Montague went over and made certain that the other man--who was +obviously the chauffeur--was dead. Then he hurried down the road, and +dragged some brush out into the middle of it, where it could be seen +from a distance by any other automobile that came along; after which he +went back to the stranger, and bound his handkerchief about his +forehead to stop the bleeding from the cut. + +The old man's lips were tightly set, as if he were suffering great +pain. "I'm done for!" he moaned, again and again. + +"Where are you hurt?" Montague asked. + +"I don't know," he gasped. "But it's finished me! I know it--it's the +last straw." + +Then he closed his eyes and lay back. "Can't you get a doctor?" he +asked. + +"There are no houses very near," said Montague. "But I can run--" + +"No, no!" the other interrupted, anxiously. "Don't leave me! Some one +will come.--Oh, that fool of a chauffeur--why couldn't he go slow when +I told him? That's always the way with them--they're always trying to +show off." + +"The man is dead," said Montague, quietly. + +The other started upon his elbow. "Dead!" he gasped. + +"Yes," said Montague. "He's under the car." + +The old man's eyes had started wild with fright; and he caught Montague +by the arm. "Dead!" he said. "O my God--and it might have been me!" + +There was a moment's pause. The stranger caught his breath, and +whispered again: "I'm done for! I can't stand it! it's too much!" + +Montague had noticed when he lifted the man that he was very frail and +slight of build. Now he could feel that the hand that held his arm was +trembling violently. It occurred to him that perhaps the man was not +really hurt, but that his nerves had been upset by the shock. + +And he felt certain of this a moment later, when the stranger suddenly +leaned forward, clutching him with redoubled intensity, and staring at +him with wide, horror-stricken eyes. + +"Do you know what it means to be afraid of death?" he panted. "Do you +know what it means to be afraid of death?" + +Then, without waiting for a reply, he rushed on--"No, no! You can't! +you can't! I don't believe any man knows it as I do! Think of it--for +ten years I've never known a minute when I wasn't afraid of death! It +follows me around--it won't let me be! It leaps out at me in places, +like this! And when I escape it, I can hear it laughing at me--for it +knows I can't get away!" + +The old man caught his breath with a choking sob. He was clinging to +Montague like a frightened child, and staring with a wild, hunted look +upon his face. Montague sat transfixed. + +"Yes," the other rushed on, "that's the truth, as God hears me! And +it's the first time I've ever spoken it in my life! I have to hide +it--because men would laugh at me--they pretend they're not afraid! But +I lie awake all night, and it's like a fiend that sits by my bedside! I +lie and listen to my own heart--I feel it beating, and I think how weak +it is, and what thin walls it has, and what a wretched, helpless thing +it is to have your life depend on that!--You don't know what that is, I +suppose." + +Montague shook his head. + +"You're young, you see," said the other. "You have health--everybody +has health, except me! And everybody hates me--I haven't got a friend +in the world!" + +Montague was quite taken aback by the suddenness of this outburst. He +tried to stop it, for he felt almost indecent in listening--it was not +fair to take a man off his guard like this. But the stranger could not +be stopped--he was completely unstrung, and his voice grew louder and +louder. + +"It's every word of it true," he exclaimed wildly. "And I can't stand +it any more. I can't stand anything any more. I was young and strong +once--I could take care of myself; and I said: I'll make money, I'll be +master of other men! But I was a fool--I forgot my health. And now all +the money on earth can't do me any good! I'd give ten million dollars +to-day for a body like any other man's--and this--this is what I have!" + +He struck his hands against his bosom. "Look at it!" he cried, +hysterically. "This is what I've got to live in! It won't digest any +food, and I can't keep it warm--there's nothing right with it! How +would you like to lie awake at night and say to yourself that your +teeth were decaying and you couldn't help it--your hair was falling +out, and nobody could stop it? You're old and worn out--falling to +pieces; and everybody hates you--everybody's waiting for you to die, so +that they can get you out of the way. The doctors come, and they're all +humbugs! They shake their heads and use long words--they know they +can't do you any good, but they want their big fees! And all they do is +to frighten you worse, and make you sicker than ever!" + +There was nothing that Montague could do save to sit and listen to this +outburst of wretchedness. His attempts to soothe the old man only had +the effect of exciting him more. + +"Why does it all have to fall on me?" he moaned. "I want to be like +other people--I want to live! And instead, I'm like a man with a pack +of hungry wolves prowling round him--that's what it's like! It's like +Nature--hungry and cruel and savage! You think you know what life is; +it seems so beautiful and gentle and pleasant--that's when you're on +top! But now I'm down, and I KNOW what it is--it's a thing like a +nightmare, that reaches out for you to clutch you and crush you! And +you can't get away from it--you're helpless as a rat in a +corner--you're damned--you're damned!" The miserable man's voice broke +in a cry of despair, and he sank down in a heap in front of Montague, +shaking and sobbing. The other was trembling slightly, and stricken +with awe. + +There was a long silence, and then the stranger lifted his tear-stained +face, and Montague helped to support him. "Have a little more of the +whisky," said he. + +"No," the other answered feebly, "I'd better not." + +"--My doctors won't let me have whisky," he added, after a while. +"That's my liver. I've so many don'ts, you know, that it takes a +note-book to keep track of them. And all of them together do me no +good! Think of it--I have to live on graham crackers and +milk--actually, not a thing has passed my lips for two years but graham +crackers and milk." + +And then suddenly, with a start, it came to Montague where he had seen +this wrinkled old face before. It was Laura Hegan's uncle, whom the +Major had pointed out to him in the dining-room of the Millionaires' +Club! Old Henry S. Grimes, who was really only sixty, but looked +eighty; and who owned slum tenements, and evicted more people in a +month than could be crowded into the club-house! + +Montague gave no sign, but sat holding the man in his arms. A little +trickle of blood came from under the handkerchief and ran down his +cheek; Montague felt him tremble as he touched this with his ringer. + +"Is it much of a cut?" he asked. + +"Not much," said Montague; "two or three stitches, perhaps." + +"Send for my family physician," the other added. "If I should faint, or +anything, you'll find his name in my card-case. What's that?" + +There was the sound of voices down the road. "Hello!"' Montague +shouted; and a moment later two men in automobile costume came running +toward him. They stopped, staring in dismay at the sight which +confronted them. + +At Montague's suggestion they made haste to find a log by means of +which they lifted the auto sufficiently to drag out the body of the +chauffeur. Montague saw that it was quite cold. + +He went back to old Grimes. "Where do you wish to go?" he asked. + +The other hesitated. "I was bound for the Harrisons'--" he said. + +"The Leslie Harrisons?" asked Montague. (They were people he had met at +the Devons'.) + +The other noticed his look of recognition. "Do you know them?" he asked. + +"I do," said Montague. + +"It isn't far," said the old man. "Perhaps I had best go there."--And +then he hesitated for a moment; and catching Montague by the arm, and +pulling him toward him, whispered, "Tell me--you-you won't tell--" + +Montague, comprehending what he meant, answered, "It will be between +us." At the same time he felt a new thrill of revulsion for this most +miserable old creature. + +They lifted him into the car; and because they delayed long enough to +lay a blanket over the body of the chauffeur, he asked peevishly why +they did not start. During the ten or fifteen minutes' trip he sat +clinging to Montague, shuddering with fright every time they rounded a +turn in the road. + +They reached the Harrisons' place; and the footman who opened the door +was startled out of his studied impassivity by the sight of a big +bundle of bearskin in Montague's arms. "Send for Mrs. Harrison," said +Montague, and laid the bundle upon a divan in the hall. "Get a doctor +as quickly as you can," he added to a second attendant. + +Mrs. Harrison came. "It's Mr. Grimes," said Montague; and then he heard +a frightened exclamation, and turned and saw Laura Hegan, in a walking +costume, fresh from the cold outside. + +"What is it?" she cried. And he told her, as quickly as he could, and +she ran to help the old man. Montague stood by, and later carried him +upstairs, and waited below until the doctor came. + +It was only when he set out for home again that he found time to think +about Laura Hegan, and how beautiful she had looked in her furs. He +wondered if it would always be his fate to meet her under circumstances +which left her no time to be aware of his own existence. + +At home he told about his adventure, and found himself quite a hero for +the rest of the day. He was obliged to give interviews to several +newspaper reporters, and to refuse to let one of them take his picture. +Every one at the Devons' seemed to know old Harry Grimes, and Montague +thought to himself that if the comments of this particular group of +people were a fair sample, the poor wretch was right in saying that he +had not a friend in the world. + +When he came downstairs the next morning, he found elaborate accounts +of the accident in the papers, and learned that Grimes had nothing +worse than a scalp wound and a severe shock. Even so, he felt it was +incumbent upon him to pay a visit of inquiry, and rode over shortly +before lunch. + +Laura Hegan came down to see him, wearing a morning gown of white. She +confirmed the good news of the papers, and said that her uncle was +resting quietly. (She did not say that his physician had come +post-haste, with two nurses, and taken up his residence in the house, +and that the poor old millionaire was denied even his graham crackers +and milk). Instead she said that he had mentioned Montague's kindness +particularly, and asked her to thank him. Montague was cynical enough +to doubt this. + +It was the first time that he had ever had any occasion to talk with +Miss Hegan. He noticed her gentle and caressing voice, with the least +touch of the South in it; and he was glad to find that it was possible +for her to talk without breaking the spell of her serene and noble +beauty. Montague stayed as long as he had any right to stay. + +And all the way as he rode home he was thinking about Laura Hegan. Here +for the first time was a woman whom he felt he should like to know; a +woman with reserve and dignity, and some ideas in her life. And it was +impossible for him to know her--because she was rich! + +There was no dodging this fact--Montague did not even try. He had met +women with fortunes already, and he knew how they felt about +themselves, and how the rest of the world felt about them. They might +wish in their hearts to be something else besides the keepers of a +treasure-chest, but their wishes were futile; the money went with them, +and they had to defend it against all comers. Montague recalled one +heiress after another--débutantes, some of them, exquisite and delicate +as butterflies--but under the surface as hard as chain-armour. All +their lives they had been trained to think of themselves as +representing money, and of every one who came near them as adventurers +seeking money. In every word they uttered, in every glance and motion, +one might read this meaning. And then he thought of Laura Hegan, with +the fortune she would inherit; and he pictured what her life must +be--the toadies and parasites and flatterers who would lay siege to +her--the scheming mammas and the affectionate sisters and cousins who +would plot to gain her confidence! For a man who was poor, and who +meant to keep his self-respect, was there any possible conclusion +except that she was entirely unknowable to him? + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Montague came back to the city, and dug into his books again; while +Alice gave her spare hours to watching the progress of the new gown in +which she was to uphold the honour of the family at Mrs. Devon's +opening ball. The great event was due in the next week and Society was +as much excited about it as a family of children before Christmas. All +whom Montague met were invited and all were going unless they happened +to be in mourning. Their gossip was all of the disappointed ones, and +their bitterness and heartburning. + +Mrs. Devon's mansion was thrown open early on the eventful evening, but +few would come until midnight. It was the fashion to attend the Opera +first, and previous to that half a dozen people would give big dinners. +He was a fortunate person who did not hear from his liver after this +occasion; for at one o'clock came Mrs. Devon's massive supper, and then +again at four o'clock another supper. To prepare these repasts a dozen +extra chefs had been imported into the Devon establishment for a +week--for it was part of the great lady's pride to permit no outside +caterer to prepare anything for her guests. + +Montague had never been able to get over his wonder at the social +phenomenon known as Mrs. Devon. He came and took his chances in the +jostling throngs; and except that he got into casual conversation with +one of the numerous detectives whom he took for a guest he came off +fairly well. But all the time that he was being passed about and +introduced and danced with, he was looking about him and wondering. The +grand staircase and the hall and parlours had been turned into tropical +gardens, with palms and trailing vines, and azaleas and roses, and +great vases of scarlet poinsettia, with hundreds of lights glowing +through them. (It was said that this ball had exhausted the flower +supply of the country as far south as Atlanta.) And then in the +reception room one came upon the little old lady, standing' beneath a +bower of orchids. She was clad in a robe of royal purple trimmed with +silver, and girdled about with an armour-plate of gems. If one might +credit the papers, the diamonds that were worn at one of these balls +were valued at twenty million dollars. + +The stranger was quite overwhelmed by all the splendour. There was a +cotillion danced by two hundred gorgeously clad women and their +partners--a scene so gay that one could only think of it as happening +in a fairy legend, or some old romance of knighthood. Four sets of +favours were given during this function, and jewels and objects of art +were showered forth as if from a magician's wand. Mrs. Devon herself +soon disappeared, but the riot of music and merry-making went on until +near morning, and during all this time the halls and rooms of the great +mansion were so crowded that one could scarcely move about. + +Then one went home, and realized that all this splendour, and the human +effort which it represented, had been for nothing but a memory! Nor +would he get the full meaning of it if he failed to realize that it was +simply one of thousands--a pattern which every one there would strive +to follow in some function of his own. It was a signal bell, which told +the world that the "season" was open. It loosed the floodgates of +extravagance, and the torrent of dissipation poured forth. From then on +there would be a continuous round of gaieties; one might have three +banquets every single night--for a dinner and two suppers was now the +custom, at entertainments! And filling the rest of one's day were +receptions and teas and musicales--a person might take his choice among +a score of opportunities, and never leave the circle he met at Mrs. +Devon's. Nor was this counting the tens of thousands of aspirants and +imitators all over the city; nor in a host of other cities, each with +thousands of women who had nothing to do save to ape the ways of the +Metropolis. The mind could not realize the volume of this deluge of +destruction--it was a thing which stunned the senses, and thundered in +one's ears like Niagara. + +The meaning of it all did not stop with the people who poured it forth; +its effects were to be traced through the whole country. There were +hordes of tradesmen and manufacturers who supplied what Society bought, +and whose study it was to induce people to buy as much as possible. And +so they devised what were called "fashions"--little eccentricities of +cut and material, which made everything go out of date quickly. There +had once been two seasons, but now there were four; and through window +displays and millions of advertisements the public was lured into the +trap. The "yellow" journals would give whole pages to describing "What +the 400 are wearing"; there were magazines with many millions of +readers, which existed for nothing save to propagate these ideas. And +everywhere, in all classes of Society, men and women were starving +their minds and hearts, and straining their energies to follow this +phantom of fashion; the masses were kept poor because of it, and the +youth and hope of the world was betrayed by it. In country villages +poor farmers' wives were trimming their bonnets over to be "stylish"; +and servant-girls in the cities were wearing imitation sealskins, and +shop-clerks and sempstresses selling themselves into brothels for the +sake of ribbons and gilt jewellery. + +It was the instinct of decoration, perverted by the money-lust. In the +Metropolis the sole test of excellence was money, and the possession of +money was the proof of power; and every natural desire of men and women +had been tainted by this influence. The love of beauty, the impulse to +hospitality, the joys of music and dancing and love--all these things +had become simply means to the demonstration of money-power! The men +were busy making more money--but their idle women had nothing in life +save this mad race in display. So it had come about that the woman who +could consume wealth most conspicuously--who was the most effective +instrument for the destroying of the labour and the lives of other +people--this was the woman who was most applauded and most noticed. + +The most appalling fact about Society was this utter blind materialism. +Such expectations as Montague had brought with him had been derived +from the literature of Europe; in a grand monde such as this, he +expected to meet diplomats and statesmen, scientists and explorers, +philosophers and poets and painters. But one never heard anything about +such people in Society. It was a mark of eccentricity to be interested +in intellectual affairs, and one might go about for weeks and not meet +a person with an idea. When these people read, it was a sugar-candy +novel, and when they went to the play, it was a musical comedy. The one +single intellectual product which it could point to as its own, was a +rancid scandal-sheet, used mainly as a means of blackmail. Now and then +some aspiring young matron of the "elite" would try to set up a salon +after the fashion of the continent, and would gather a few feeble wits +about her for a time. But for the most part the intellectual workers of +the city held themselves severely aloof; and Society was left a little +clique of people whose fortunes had become historic in a decade or two, +and who got together in each other's palaces and gorged themselves, and +gambled and gossiped about each other, and wove about their +personalities a veil of awful and exclusive majesty. + +Montague found himself thinking that perhaps it was not they who were +to blame. It was not they who had set up wealth as the end and goal of +things--it was the whole community, of which they were a part. It was +not their fault that they had been left with power and nothing to use +it for; it was not their fault that their sons and daughters found +themselves stranded in the world, deprived of all necessity, and of the +possibility of doing anything useful. + +The most pitiful aspect of the whole thing to Montague was this "second +generation" who were coming upon the scene, with their lives all +poisoned in advance. No wrong which they could do to the world would +ever equal the wrong which the world had done them, in permitting them +to have money which they had not earned. They were cut off for ever +from reality, and from the possibility of understanding life; they had +big, healthy bodies, and they craved experience--and they had +absolutely nothing to do. That was the real meaning of all this orgy of +dissipation--this "social whirl" as it was called; it was the frantic +chase of some new thrill, some excitement that would stir the senses of +people who had nothing in the world to interest them. That was why they +were building palaces, and flinging largesses of banquets and balls, +and tearing about the country in automobiles, and travelling over the +earth in steam yachts and private trains. + +And first and last, the lesson of their efforts was, that the chase +was futile; the jaded nerves would not thrill. The most conspicuous +fact about Society was its unutterable and agonizing boredom; of its +great solemn functions the shop-girl would read with greedy envy, but +the women who attended them would be half asleep behind their jewelled +fans. It was typified to Montague by Mrs. Billy Alden's yachting party +on the Nile; yawning in the face of the Sphinx, and playing bridge +beneath the shadow of the pyramids--and counting the crocodiles and +proposing to jump in by way of "changing the pain"! + +People attended these ceaseless rounds of entertainments, simply +because they dreaded to be left alone. They wandered from place to +place, following like a herd of sheep whatever leader would inaugurate +a new diversion. One could have filled a volume with the list of their +"fads." There were new ones every week--if Society did not invent them, +the yellow journals invented them. There was a woman who had her teeth +filled with diamonds; and another who was driving a pair of zebras. One +heard of monkey dinners and pyjama dinners at Newport, of horseback +dinners and vegetable dances in New York. One heard of fashion-albums +and autograph-fans and talking crows and rare orchids and reindeer +meat; of bracelets for men and ankle rings for women; of "vanity-boxes" +at ten and twenty thousand dollars each; of weird and repulsive pets, +chameleons and lizards and king-snakes--there was one young woman who +wore a cat-snake as a necklace. One would take to slumming and another +to sniffing brandy through the nose; one had a table-cover made of +woven roses, and another was wearing perfumed flannel at sixteen +dollars a yard; one had inaugurated ice-skating in August, and another +had started a class for the study of Plato. Some were giving tennis +tournaments in bathing-suits, and playing leap-frog after dinner; +others had got dispensations from the Pope, so that they might have +private chapels and confessors; and yet others were giving "progressive +dinners," moving from one restaurant to another--a cocktail and +blue-points at Sherry's, a soup and Madeira at Delmonico's, some +terrapin with amontillado at the Waldorf--and so on. + +One of the consequences of the furious pace was that people's health +broke down very quickly; and there were all sorts of bizarre ways of +restoring it. One person would be eating nothing but spinach, and +another would be living on grass. One would chew a mouthful of soup +thirty-two times; another would eat every two hours, and another only +once a week. Some went out in the early morning and walked bare-footed +in the grass, and others went hopping about the floor on their hands +and knees to take off fat. There were "rest cures" and "water cures," +"new thought" and "metaphysical healing" and "Christian Science"; there +was an automatic horse, which one might ride indoors, with a register +showing the distance travelled. Montague met one man who had an +electric machine, which cost thirty thousand dollars, and which took +hold of his arms and feet and exercised him while he waited. He met a +woman who told him she was riding an electric camel! + +Everywhere one went there were new people, spending their money in new +and incredible ways. Here was a man who had bought a chapel and turned +it into a theatre, and hired professional actors, and persuaded his +friends to come and see him act Shakespeare. Here was a woman who +costumed herself after figures in famous paintings, with arrangements +of roses and cherry leaves, and wreaths of ivy and laurel--and with +costumes for her pet dogs to match! Here was a man who paid six dollars +a day for a carnation four inches across; and a girl who wore a hat +trimmed with fresh morning-glories, and a ball costume with swarms of +real butterflies tied with silk threads; and another with a hat made of +woven silver, with ostrich plumes forty inches long made entirely of +silver films. Here was a man who hired a military company to drill all +day long to prepare a floor for dancing; and another who put up a +building at a cost of thirty thousand dollars to give a débutante dance +for his daughter, and then had it torn down the day after. Here was a +man who bred rattlesnakes and turned them loose by thousands, and had +driven everybody away from the North Carolina estate of one of the +Wallings. Here was a man who was building himself a yacht with a model +dairy and bakery on board, and a French laundry and a brass band. Here +was a million-dollar racing-yacht with auto-boats on it and a platoon +of marksmen, and some Chinese laundrymen, and two physicians for its +half-insane occupant. Here was a man who had bought a Rhine castle for +three-quarters of a million, and spent as much in restoring it, and +filled it with servants dressed in fourteenth-century costumes. Here +was a five-million-dollar art collection hidden away where nobody ever +saw it! + +One saw the meaning of this madness most clearly in the young men of +Society. Some were killing themselves and other people in automobile +races at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Some went in for +auto-boats, mere shells of things, shaped like a knife-blade, that tore +through the water at forty miles an hour. Some would hire professional +pugilists to knock them out; others would get up dog-fights and +bear-fights, and boxing matches with kangaroos. Montague was taken to +the home of one young man who had given his life to hunting wild game +in every corner of the globe, and would travel round the world for a +new species to add to his museum of trophies. He had heard that Baron +Rothschild had offered a thousand pounds for a "bongo," a huge +grass-eating animal, which no white man had ever seen; and he had taken +a year's trip into the interior, with a train of a hundred and thirty +natives, and had brought out the heads of forty different species, +including a bongo--which the Baron did not get! He met another who had +helped to organize a balloon club, and two twenty-four-hour trips in +the clouds. (This, by the way, was the latest sport--at Tuxedo they had +races between balloons and automobiles; and Montague met one young lady +who boasted that she had been up five times.) There was another young +millionaire who sat and patiently taught Sunday School, in the presence +of a host of reporters; there was another who set up a chain of +newspapers all over the country and made war upon his class. There were +others who went in for settlement work and Russian +revolutionists--there were even some who called themselves Socialists! +Montague thought that this was the strangest fad of all; and when he +met one of these young men at an afternoon tea, he gazed at him with +wonder and perplexity--thinking of the man he had heard ranting on the +street-corner. + +This was the "second generation." Appalling as it was to think of, +there was a third growing up, and getting ready to take the stage. And +with wealth accumulating faster than ever, who could guess what they +might do? There were still in Society a few men and women who had +earned their money, and had some idea of the toil and suffering that it +stood for; but when the third generation had taken possession, these +would all be dead or forgotten, and there would no longer be any link +to connect them with reality! + +In the light of this thought one was moved to watch the children of the +rich. Some of these had inherited scores of millions of dollars while +they were still in the cradle; now and then one of them would be +presented with a million-dollar house for a birthday gift. When such a +baby was born, the newspapers would give pages to describing its +layette, with baby dresses at a hundred dollars each, and lace +handkerchiefs at five dollars, and dressing-sets with tiny gold brushes +and powder-boxes; one might see a picture of the precious object in a +"Moses basket," covered with rare and wonderful Valenciennes lace. + +This child would grow up in an atmosphere of luxury and +self-indulgence; it would be bullying the servants at the age of six, +and talking scandal and smoking cigarettes at twelve. It would be +petted and admired and stared at, and paraded about in state, dressed +up like a French doll; it would drink in snobbery and hatefulness with +the very air it breathed. One might meet in these great houses little +tots not yet in their teens whose talk was all of the cost of things, +and of the inferiority of their neighbours. There was nothing in the +world too good for them.--They had little miniature automobiles to ride +about the country in, and blooded Arabian ponies, and doll-houses in +real Louis Seize, with jewelled rugs and miniature electric lights. At +Mrs. Caroline Smythe's, Montague was introduced to a pale and +anaemic-looking youth of thirteen, who dined in solemn state alone when +the rest of the family was away, and insisted upon having all the +footmen in attendance; and his unfortunate aunt brought a storm about +her ears by forbidding the butler to take champagne upstairs into the +nursery before lunch. + +A little remark stayed in Montague's mind as expressing the attitude of +Society toward such matters. Major Venable had chanced to remark +jestingly that children were coming to understand so much nowadays that +it was necessary for the ladies to be careful. To which Mrs. Vivie +Patton answered, with a sudden access of seriousness: "I don't know--do +you find that children have any morals? Mine haven't." + +And then the fascinating Mrs. Vivie went on to tell the truth about her +own children. They were natural-born savages, and that was all there +was to it. They did as they pleased, and no one could stop them. The +Major replied that nowadays all the world was doing as it pleased, and +no one seemed to be able to stop it; and with that jest the +conversation was turned to other matters. But Montague sat in silence, +thinking about it--wondering what would happen to the world when it had +fallen under the sway of this generation of spoiled children, and had +adopted altogether the religion of doing as one pleased. + +In the beginning people had simply done as they pleased spontaneously, +and without thinking about it; but now, Montague discovered, the custom +had spread to such an extent that it was developing a philosophy. There +was springing up a new cult, whose devotees were planning to make over +the world upon the plan of doing as one pleased. Because its members +were wealthy, and able to command the talent of the world, the cult was +developing an art, with a highly perfected technique, and a literature +which was subtle and exquisite and alluring. Europe had had such a +literature for a century, and England for a generation or two. And now +America was having it, too! + +Montague had an amusing insight into this one day, when Mrs. Vivie +invited him to one of her "artistic evenings." Mrs. Vivie was in touch +with a special set which went in for intellectual things, and included +some amateur Bohemians and men of "genius." "Don't you come if you'll +be shocked," she had said to him--"for Strathcona will be there." + +Montague deemed himself able to stand a good deal by this time. He +went, and found Mrs. Vivie and her Count (Mr. Vivie had apparently not +been invited) and also the young poet of Diabolism, whose work was just +then the talk of the town. He was a tall, slender youth with a white +face and melancholy black eyes, and black locks falling in cascades +about his ears; he sat in an Oriental corner, with a manuscript copied +in tiny handwriting upon delicately scented "art paper," and tied with +passionate purple ribbons. A young girl clad in white sat by his side +and held a candle, while he read from this manuscript his unprinted +(because unprintable) verses. + +And between the readings the young poet talked. He talked about himself +and his work--apparently that was what he had come to talk about. His +words flowed like a swift stream, limpid, sparkling, incessant; leaping +from place to place--here, there, quick as the play of light upon the +water. Montague laboured to follow the speaker's ideas, until he found +his mind in a whirl and gave it up. Afterward, when he thought it over, +he laughed at himself; for Strathcona's ideas were not serious things, +having relationship to truth--they were epigrams put together to dazzle +the hearer, studies in paradox, with as much relation to life as +fireworks. He took the sum-total of the moral experience of the human +race, and turned it upside down and jumbled it about, and used it as +bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. And the hearers would gasp, and +whisper, "Diabolical!" + +The motto of this "school" of poets was that there was neither good nor +evil, but that all things were "interesting." After listening to +Strathcona for half an hour, one felt like hiding his head, and denying +that he had ever thought of having any virtue; in a world where all +things were uncertain, it was presumptuous even to pretend to know what +virtue was. One could only be what one was; and did not that mean that +one must do as one pleased? + +You could feel a shudder run through the company at his audacity. And +the worst of it was that you could not dismiss it with a laugh; for the +boy was really a poet--he had fire and passion, the gift of melodious +ecstacy. He was only twenty, and in his brief meteor flight he had run +the gamut of all experience; he had familiarized himself with all human +achievement--past, present, and future. There was nothing any one could +mention that he did not perfectly comprehend: the raptures of the +saints, the consecration of the martyrs--yes, he had known them; +likewise he had touched the depths of depravity, he had been lost in +the innermost passages of the caverns of hell. And all this had been +interesting--in its time; now he was sighing for new worlds of +experience--say for unrequited love, which should drive him to madness. + +It was at this point that Montague dropped out of the race, and took to +studying from the outside the mechanism of this young poet's +conversation. Strathcona flouted the idea of a moral sense; but in +reality he was quite dependent upon it--his recipe for making epigrams +was to take what other people's moral sense made them respect, and +identify it with something which their moral sense made them abhor. +Thus, for instance, the tale which he told about one of the members of +his set, who was a relative of a bishop. The great man had occasion to +rebuke him for his profligate ways, declaring in the course of his +lecture that he was living off the reputation of his father; to which +the boy made the crushing rejoinder: "It may be bad to live off the +reputation of one's father, but it's better than living off the +reputation of God."--This was very subtle and it was necessary to +ponder it. God was dead; and the worthy bishop did not know it! But let +him take a new God, who had no reputation, and go out into the world +and make a living out of him! + +Then Strathcona discussed literature. He paid his tribute to the +"Fleurs de Mal" and the "Songs before Sunrise"; but most, he said, he +owed to "the divine Oscar." This English poet of many poses and some +vices the law had seized and flung into jail; and since the law is a +thing so brutal and wicked that whoever is touched by it is made +thereby a martyr and a hero, there had grown up quite a cult about the +memory of "Oscar." All up-to-date poets imitated his style and his +attitude to life; and so the most revolting of vices had the cloak of +romance flung about them--were given long Greek and Latin names, and +discussed with parade of learning as revivals of Hellenic ideals. The +young men in Strathcona's set referred to each other as their "lovers"; +and if one showed any perplexity over this, he was regarded, not with +contempt--for it was not aesthetic to feel contempt--but with a slight +lifting of the eyebrows, intended to annihilate. + +One must not forget, of course, that these young people were poets, and +to that extent were protected from their own doctrines. They were +interested, not in life, but in making pretty verses about life; there +were some among them who lived as cheerful ascetics in garret rooms, +and gave melodious expression to devilish emotions. But, on the other +hand, for every poet, there were thousands who were not poets, but +people to whom life was real. And these lived out the creed, and +wrecked their lives; and with the aid of the poet's magic, the glamour +of melody and the fire divine, they wrecked the lives with which they +came into contact. The new generation of boys and girls were deriving +their spiritual sustenance from the poetry of Baudelaire and Wilde; and +rushing with the hot impulsiveness of youth into the dreadful traps +which the traders in vice prepared for them. One's heart bled to see +them, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, pursuing the hem of the Muse's robe +in brothels and dens of infamy! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The social mill ground on for another month. Montague withdrew himself +as much as his brother would let him; but Alice, was on the go all +night and half the day. Oliver had sold his racing automobile to a +friend--he was a man of family now, he said, and his wild days were +over. He had got, instead, a limousine car for Alice; though she +declared she had no need of it--if ever she was going to any place, +Charlie Carter always begged her to use his. Charlie's siege was as +persistent as ever, as Montague noticed with annoyance. + +The great law case was going forward. After weeks of study and +investigation, Montague felt that he had the matter well in hand; and +he had taken Mr. Hasbrook's memoranda as a basis for a new work of his +own, much more substantial. Bit by bit; as he dug into the subject, he +had discovered a state of affairs in the Fidelity Company, and, indeed, +in the whole insurance business and its allied realms of banking and +finance, which shocked him profoundly. It was impossible for him to +imagine how such conditions could exist and remain unknown to the +public--more especially as every one in Wall Street with whom he talked +seemed to know about them and to take them for granted. + +His client's papers had provided him with references to the books; +Montague had taken this dry material and made of it a protest which had +the breath of life in it. It was a thing at which he toiled with deadly +earnestness; it was not merely a struggle of one man to get a few +thousand dollars, it was an appeal in behalf of millions of helpless +people whose trust had been betrayed. It was the first step in a long +campaign, which the young lawyer meant should force a great evil into +the light of day. + +He went over his bill of complaint with Mr. Hasbrook, and he was glad +to see that the work he had done made its impression upon him. In fact, +his client was a little afraid that some of his arguments might be too +radical in tone--from the strictly legal point of view, he made haste +to explain. But Montague reassured him upon this point. + +And then came the day when the great ship was ready for launching. The +news must have spread quickly, for a few hours after the papers in the +suit had been filed, Montague received a call from a newspaper +reporter, who told him of the excitement in financial circles, where +the thing had fallen like a bomb. Montague explained the purpose of the +suit, and gave the reporter a number of facts which he felt certain +would attract attention to the matter. When he picked up the paper the +next morning, however, he was surprised to find that only a few lines +had been given to the case, and that his interview had been replaced by +one with an unnamed official of the Fidelity, to the effect that the +attack upon the company was obviously for black-mailing purposes. + +That was the only ripple which Montague's work produced upon the +surface of the pool; but there was a great commotion among the fish at +the bottom, about which he was soon to learn. + +That evening, while he was hard at work in his study, he received a +telephone call from his brother. "I'm coming round to see you," said +Oliver. "Wait for me." + +"All right," said the other, and added, "I thought you were dining at +the Wallings'." + +"I'm there now," was the answer. "I'm leaving." + +"What is the matter?" Montague asked. + +"There's hell to pay," was the reply--and then silence. + +When Oliver appeared, a few minutes later, he did not even stop to set +down his hat, but exclaimed, "Allan, what in heaven's name have you +been doing?" + +"What do you mean?" asked the other. + +"Why, that suit!" + +"What about it?" + +"Good God, man!" cried Oliver. "Do you mean that you really don't know +what you've done?" + +Montague was staring at him. "I'm afraid I don't," said he. + +"Why, you're turning the world upside down!" exclaimed the other. +"Everybody you know is crazy about it." + +"Everybody I know!" echoed Montague. "What have they to do with it?" + +"Why, you've stabbed them in the back!" half shouted Oliver. "I could +hardly believe my ears when they told me. Robbie Walling is simply +wild--I never had such a time in my life." + +"I don't understand yet," said Montague, more and more amazed. "What +has he to do with it?" + +"Why, man," cried Oliver, "his brother's a director in the Fidelity! +And his own interests--and all the other companies! You've struck at +the whole insurance business!" + +Montague caught his breath. "Oh, I see!" he said. + +"How could you think of such a thing?" cried the other, wildly. "You +promised to consult me about things--" + +"I told you when I took this case," put in Montague, quickly. + +"I know," said his brother. "But you didn't explain--and what did I +know about it? I thought I could leave it to your common sense not to +mix up in a thing like this." + +"I'm very sorry," said Montague, gravely. "I had no idea of any such +result." + +"That's what I told Robbie," said Oliver. "Good God, what a time I had!" + +He took his hat and coat and laid them on the bed, and sat down and +began to tell about it. "I made him realize the disadvantage you were +under," he said, "being a stranger and not knowing the ground. I +believe he had an idea that you tried to get his confidence on purpose +to attack him. It was Mrs. Robbie, I guess--you know her fortune is all +in that quarter." + +Oliver wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "My!" he said.--"And +fancy what old Wyman must be saying about this! And what a time poor +Betty must be having! And then Freddie Vandam--the air will be blue for +half a mile round his place! I must send him a wire and explain that it +was a mistake, and that we're getting out of it." + +And he got up, to suit the action to the word. But half-way to the desk +he heard his brother say, "Wait." + +He turned, and saw Montague, quite pale. "I suppose by 'getting out of +it,'" said the latter, "you mean dropping the case." + +"Of course," was the answer. + +"Well, then," he continued, very gravely,--"I can see that it's going +to be hard, and I'm sorry. But you might as well understand me at the +very beginning--I will never drop this case." + +Oliver's jaw fell limp. "Allan!" he gasped. + +There was a silence; and then the storm broke. Oliver knew his brother +well enough to realize just how thoroughly he meant what he said; and +so he got the full force of the shock all at once. He raved and swore +and wrung his hands, and declaimed at his brother, saying that he had +betrayed him, that he was ruining him--dumping himself and the whole +family into the ditch. They would be jeered at and insulted--they would +be blacklisted and thrown out of Society. Alice's career would be cut +short--every door would be closed to her. His own career would die +before it was born; he would never get into the clubs--he would be a +pariah--he would be bankrupted and penniless. Again and again Oliver +went over the situation, naming person after person who would be +outraged, and describing what that person would do; there were the +Wallings and the Venables and the Havens, the Vandams and the Todds and +the Wymans--they were all one regiment, and Montague had flung a bomb +into the centre of them! + +It was very terrible to him to see his brother's rage and despair; but +he had seen his way clear through this matter, and he knew that there +was no turning back for him. "It is painful to learn that all one's +acquaintances are thieves," he said. "But that does not change my +opinion of stealing." + +"But my God!" cried Oliver; "did you come to New York to preach +sermons?" + +To which the other answered, "I came to practise law. And the lawyer +who will not fight injustice is a traitor to his profession." + +Oliver threw up his hands in despair. What could one say to a sentiment +such as that? + +--But then again he came to the charge, pointing out to his brother the +position in which he had placed himself with the Wallings. He had +accepted their hospitality; they had taken him and Alice in, and done +everything in the world for them--things for which no money could ever +repay them. And now he had struck them! + +But the only effect of that was to make Montague regret that he had +ever had anything to do with the Wallings. If they expected to use +their friendship to tie his hands in such a matter, they were people he +would have left alone. + +"But do you realize that it's not merely yourself you're ruining?" +cried Oliver. "Do you know what you're doing to Alice?" + +"That is harder yet for me," the other replied. "But I am sure that +Alice would not ask me to stop." + +Montague was firmly set in his own mind; but it seemed to be quite +impossible for his brother to realize that this was the case. He would +give up; but then, going back into his own mind, and facing the thought +of this person and that, and the impossibility of the situation which +would arise, he would return to the attack with new anguish in his +voice. He implored and scolded, and even wept; and then he would get +himself together again, and come and sit in front of his brother and +try to reason with him. + +And so it was that in the small hours of the morning, Montague, pale +and nervous, but quite unshaken, was sitting and listening while his +brother unfolded before him a picture of the Metropolis as he had come +to see it. It was a city ruled by mighty forces--money-forces; great +families and fortunes, which had held their sway for generations, and +regarded the place, with all its swarming millions, as their +birthright. They possessed it utterly--they held it in the hollow of +their hands. Railroads and telegraphs and telephones--banks and +insurance and trust companies--all these they owned; and the political +machines and the legislatures, the courts and the newspapers, the +churches and the colleges. And their rule was for plunder; all the +streams of profit ran into their coffers. The stranger who came to +their city succeeded as he helped them in their purposes, and failed if +they could not use him. A great editor or bishop was a man who taught +their doctrines; a great statesman was a man who made the laws for +them; a great lawyer was one who helped them to outwit the public. Any +man who dared to oppose them, they would cast out and trample on, they +would slander and ridicule and ruin. + +And Oliver came down to particulars--he named these powerful men, one +after one, and showed what they could do. If his brother would only be +a man of the world, and see the thing! Look at all the successful +lawyers! Oliver named them, one after one--shrewd devisers of +corporation trickery, with incomes of hundreds of thousands a year. He +could not name the men who had refused to play the game--for no one had +ever heard of them. But it was so evident what would happen in this +case! His friends would cast him off; his own client would get his +price--whatever it was--and then leave him in the lurch, and laugh at +him! "If you can't make up your mind to play the game," cried Oliver, +frantically, "at least you can give it up! There are plenty of other +ways of getting a living--if you'll let me, I'll take care of you +myself, rather than have you disgrace me. Tell me--will you do that? +Will you quit altogether?" + +And Montague suddenly leaped to his feet, and brought his fist down +upon the desk with a bang. "No!" he cried; "by God, no!" + +"Let me make you understand me once for all," he rushed on. "You've +shown me New York as you see it. I don't believe it's the truth--I +don't believe it for one single moment! But let me tell you this, I +shall stay here and find out--and if it is true, it won't stop me! I +shall stay here and defy those people! I shall stay and fight them till +the day I die! They may ruin me,--I'll go and live in a garret if I +have to,--but as sure as there's a God that made me, I'll never stop +till I've opened the eyes of the people to what they're doing!" + +Montague towered over his brother, white-hot and terrible. Oliver +shrank from him--he never had seen such a burst of wrath from him +before. "Do you understand me now?" Montague cried; and he answered, in +a despairing voice, "Yes, yes." + +"I see it's all up," he added weakly. "You and I can't pull together." + +"No," exclaimed the other, passionately, "we can't. And we might as +well give up trying. You have chosen to be a time-server and a +lick-spittle, and I don't choose it! Do you think I've learned nothing +in the time I've been here? Why, man, you used to be daring and +clever--and now you never draw a breath without wondering if these rich +snobs will like the way you do it! And you want Alice to sell herself +to them--you want me to sell my career to them!" + +There was a long pause. Oliver had turned very pale. And then suddenly +his brother caught himself together, and said: "I'm sorry. I didn't +mean to quarrel, but you've goaded me too much. I'm grateful for what +you have tried to do for me, and I'll pay you back as soon as I can. +But I can't go on with this game. I'll quit, and you can disown me to +your friends--tell them that I've run amuck, and to forget they ever +knew me. They'll hardly blame you for it--they know you too well for +that. And as for Alice, I'll talk it out with her to-morrow, and let +her decide for herself--if she wants to be a Society queen, she can put +herself in your hands, and I'll get out of her way. On the other hand, +if she approves of what I'm doing, why we'll both quit, and you won't +have to bother with either of us." + +That was the basis upon which they parted for the night; but like most +resolutions taken at white heat, it was not followed literally. It was +very hard for Montague to have to confront Alice with such a choice; +and as for Oliver, when he went home and thought it over, he began to +discover gleams of hope. He might make it clear to every one that he +was not responsible for his brother's business vagaries, and take his +chances upon that basis. After all, there were wheels within wheels in +Society; and if the Robbie Wallings chose to break with him--why, they +had plenty of enemies. There might even be interests which would be +benefited by Allan's course, and would take him up. + +Montague had resolved to write and break every engagement which he had +made, and to sever his connection with Society at one stroke. But the +next day his brother came again, with compromises and new +protestations. There was no use going to the other extreme: he, Oliver, +would have it out with the Wallings, and they might all go on their way +as if nothing had happened. + +So Montague made his début in the rôle of knight-errant. He went with +many qualms and misgivings, uncertain how each new person would take +it. The next evening he was promised for a theatre-party with Siegfried +Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at Delmonico's, and there +came Mrs. Winnie, resplendent as an apple tree in early April--and +murmuring with bated breath, "Oh, you dreadful man, what have you been +doing?" + +"Have I been poaching on YOUR preserves?" he asked promptly. + +"No, not mine," she said, "but--" and then she hesitated. + +"On Mr. Duval's?" he asked. + +"No," she said, "not his--but everybody else's! He was telling me about +it to-day--there's a most dreadful uproar. He wanted me to try to find +out what you were up to, and who was behind it." + +Montague listened, wonderingly. Did Mrs. Winnie mean to imply that her +husband had asked her to try to worm his business secrets out of him? +That was what she seemed to imply. "I told him I never talked business +with my friends," she said. "He can ask you himself, if he chooses. But +what DOES it all mean, anyhow?" + +Montague smiled at the naive inconsistency. + +"It means nothing," said he, "except that I am trying to get justice +for a client." + +"But can you afford to make so many powerful enemies?" she asked. + +"I've taken my chances on that," he replied. + +Mrs. Winnie answered nothing, but looked at him with wondering +admiration in her eyes. "You arc different from the men about you," she +remarked, after a while-and her tone gave Montague to understand that +there was one person who meant to stand by him. + +But Mrs. Winnie Duval was not all Society. Montague was amused to +notice with what suddenness the stream of invitations slacked up; it +was necessary for Alice to give her calling list many revisions. +Freddie Vandam had promised to invite them to his place on Long Island, +and of course that invitation would never come; likewise they would +never again see the palace of the Lester Todds, upon the Jersey +mountain-top. + +Oliver put in the next few days in calling upon people to explain his +embarrassing situation. He washed his hands of his brother's affairs, +he said; and his friends might do the same, if they saw fit. With the +Robbie Wallings he had a stormy half hour, about which he thought it +best to say little to the rest of the family. Robbie did not break with +him utterly, because of their Wall Street Alliance; but Mrs. Robbie's +feeling was so bitter, he said, that it would be best if Alice saw +nothing of her for a while. He had a long talk with Alice, and +explained the situation. The girl was utterly dumbfounded, for she was +deeply grateful to Mrs. Robbie, and fond of her as well; and she could +not believe that a friend could be so cruelly unjust to her. + +The upshot of the whole situation was a very painful episode. A few +days later Alice met Mrs. Robbie at a reception; and she took the lady +aside, and tried to tell her how distressed and helpless she was. And +the result was that Mrs. Robbie flew into a passion and railed at her, +declaring in the presence of several people that she had sponged upon +her and abused her hospitality! And so poor Alice came home, weeping +and half hysterical. + +All of which, of course, was like oil upon a fire; the heavens were +lighted up with the conflagration. The next development was a paragraph +in Society's scandal-sheet--telling with infinite gusto how a certain +ultra-fashionable matron had taken up a family of stranded waifs from a +far State, and introduced them into the best circles, and even gone so +far as to give a magnificent dance in their honour; and how the +discovery had been made that the head of the family had been secretly +preparing an attack upon their business interests; and of the tearing +of hair and gnashing of teeth which had followed--and the violent +quarrel in a public place. The paragraph concluded with the prediction +that the strangers would find themselves the centre of a merry social +war. + +Oliver was the first to show them this paper. But lest by any chance +they should miss it, half a dozen unknown friends were good enough to +mail them copies, carefully marked.--And then came Reggie Mann, who as +free-lance and gossip-gatherer sat on the fence and watched the fun; +Reggie wore a thin veil of sympathy over his naked glee, and brought +them the latest reports from all portions of the battle-ground. Thus +they were able to know exactly what everybody was saying about +them--who was amused and who was outraged, and who proposed to drop +them and who to take them up. + +Montague listened for a while, but then he got tired of it, and went +for a walk to escape it--but only to run into another trap. It was +dark, and he was strolling down the Avenue, when out of a brilliantly +lighted jewellery shop came Mrs. Billy Alden to her carriage. And she +hailed him with an exclamation. + +"You man," she cried, "what have you been doing?" + +He tried to laugh it off and escape, but she took him by the arm, +commanding, "Get in here and tell me about it." + +So he found himself moving with the slow stream of vehicles on the +Avenue, and with Mrs. Billy gazing at him quizzically and asking him if +he did not feel like a hippopotamus in a frog-pond. + +He replied to her raillery by asking her under which flag she stood. +But there was little need to ask that, for anyone who was fighting a +Walling became ipso facto a friend of Mrs. Billy's. She told Montague +that if he felt his social position was imperilled, all he had to do +was to come to her. She would gird on her armour and take the field. + +"But tell me how you came to do it," she said. + +He answered that there was very little to tell. He had taken up a case +which was obviously just, but having no idea what a storm it would +raise. + +Then he noticed that his companion was looking at him sharply. "Do you +really mean that's all there is to it?" she asked. + +"Of course I do," said he, perplexed. + +"Do you know," was her unexpected response, "I hardly know what to make +of you. I'm afraid to trust you, on account of your brother." + +Montague was embarrassed. "I don't know what you mean," he said. + +"Everybody thinks there's some trickery in that suit," she answered. + +"Oh," said Montague, "I see. Well, they will find out. If it will help +you any to know it, I've been having no end of scenes with my brother." + +"I'll believe you," said Mrs. Billy, genially. "But it seems strange +that a man could have been so blind to a situation! I feel quite +ashamed because I didn't help you myself!" + +The carriage had stopped at Mrs. Billy's home, and she asked him to +dinner. "There'll be nobody but my brother," she said,--"we're resting +this evening. And I can make up to you for my negligence!" + +Montague had no engagement, and so he went in, and saw Mrs. Billy's +mansion, which was decorated in imitation of a Doge's palace, and met +Mr. "Davy" Alden, a mild-mannered little gentleman who obeyed orders +promptly. They had a comfortable dinner of half-a-dozen courses, and +then retired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Billy sank into a huge +easy chair, with a decanter of whisky and some cracked ice in readiness +beside it. Then from a tray she selected a thick black cigar, and +placidly bit off the end and lighted it, and then settled back at her +ease, and proceeded to tell Montague about New York, and about the +great families who ruled it, and where and how they had got their +money, and who were their allies and who their enemies, and what +particular skeletons were hidden in each of their closets. + +It was worth coming a long way to listen to Mrs. Billy tete-a-tete; her +thoughts were vigorous, and her imagery was picturesque. She spoke of +old Dan Waterman, and described him as a wild boar rooting chestnuts. +He was all right, she said, if you didn't come under his tree. And +Montague asked, "Which is his tree?" and she answered, "Any one he +happens to be under at the time." + +And then she came to the Wallings. Mrs. Billy had been in on the inside +of that family, and there was nothing she didn't know about it; and she +brought the members up, one by one, and dissected them, and exhibited +them for Montague's benefit. They were typical bourgeois people, she +said. They were burghers. They had never shown the least capacity for +refinement--they ate and drank, and jostled other people out of the +way. The old ones had been boors, and the new ones were cads. + +And Mrs. Billy sat and puffed at her cigar. "Do you know the history of +the family?" she asked. "The founder was a rough old ferryman. He +fought his rivals so well that in the end he owned all the boats; and +then some one discovered the idea of buying legislatures and building +railroads, and he went into that. It was a time when they simply +grabbed things--if you ever look into it, you'll find they're making +fortunes to-day out of privileges that the old man simply sat down on +and held. There's a bridge at Albany, for instance, to which they +haven't the slightest right; my brother knows about it--they've given +themselves a contract with their railroad by which they're paid for +every passenger, and their profit every year is greater than the cost +of the bridge. The son was the head of the family when I came in; and I +found that he had it all arranged to leave thirty million dollars to +one of his sons, and only ten million to my husband. I set to work to +change that, I can tell you. I used to go around to see him, and +scratch his back and tickle him and make him feel good. Of course the +family went wild--my, how they hated me! They set old Ellis to work to +keep me off--have you met Judge Ellis?" + +"I have," said Montague. + +"Well, there's a pussy-footed old hypocrite for you," said Mrs. Billy. +"In those days he was Walling's business lackey--used to pass the money +to the legislators and keep the wheels of the machine greased. One of +the first things I said to the old man was that I didn't ask him to +entertain my butler, and he mustn't ask me to entertain his valet--and +so I forbid Ellis to enter my house. And when I found that he was +trying to get between the old man and me, I flew into a rage and boxed +his ears and chased him out of the room!" + +Mrs. Billy paused, and laughed heartily over the recollection. "Of +course that tickled the old man to death," she continued. "The Wallings +never could make out how I managed to get round him as I did; but it +was simply because I was honest with him. They'd come snivelling round, +pretending they were anxious about his health; while I wanted his +money, and I told him so." + +The valiant lady turned to the decanter. "Have some Scotch?" she asked, +and poured some for herself, and then went on with her story. "When I +first came to New York," she said, "the rich people's houses were all +alike--all dreary brownstone fronts, sandwiched in on one or two city +lots. I vowed that I would have a house with some room all around +it--and that was the beginning of those palaces that all New York walks +by and stares at. You can hardly believe it now--those houses were a +scandal! But the sensation tickled the old man. I remember one day we +walked up the Avenue to see how they were coming on; and he pointed +with his big stick to the second floor, and asked, 'What's that?' I +answered, 'It's a safe I'm building into the house.' (That was a new +thing, too, in those days.)--'I'm going to keep my money in that,' I +said. 'Bah!' he growled, 'when you're done with this house, you won't +have any money left.'--'I'm planning to make you fill it for me,' I +answered; and do you know, he chuckled all the way home over it!" + +Mrs. Billy sat laughing softly to herself. "We had great old battles in +those days," she said. "Among other things, I had to put the Wallings +into Society. They were sneaking round on the outside when I +came--licking people's boots and expecting to be kicked. I said to +myself, I'll put an end to that--we'll have a show-down! So I gave a +ball that made the whole country sit up and gasp--it wouldn't be +noticed particularly nowadays, but then people had never dreamed of +anything so gorgeous. And I made out a list of all the people I wanted +to know in New York, and I said to myself: 'If you come, you're a +friend, and if you don't come, you're an enemy.' And they all came, let +me tell you! And there was never any question about the Wallings being +in Society after that." + +Mrs. Billy halted; and Montague remarked, with a smile, that doubtless +she was sorry now that she had done it. + +"Oh, no," she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I find that all +I have to do is to be patient--I hate people, and think I'd like to +poison them, but if I only wait long enough, something happens to them +much worse than I ever dreamed of. You'll be revenged on the Robbies +some day." + +"I don't want any revenge," Montague answered. "I've no quarrel with +them--I simply wish I hadn't accepted their hospitality. I didn't know +they were such little people. It seems hard to believe it." + +Mrs. Billy laughed cynically. "What could you expect?" she said. "They +know there's nothing to them but their money. When that's gone, they're +gone--they could never make any more." + +The lady gave a chuckle, and added: "Those words make me think of +Davy's experience when he wanted to go to Congress! Tell him about it, +Davy." + +But Mr. Alden did not warm to the subject; he left the tale to his +sister. + +"He was a Democrat, you know," said she, "and he went to the boss and +told him he'd like to go to Congress. The answer was that it would cost +him forty thousand dollars, and he kicked at the price. Others didn't +have to put up such sums, he said--why should he? And the old man +growled at him, 'The rest have other things to give. One can deliver +the letter-carriers, another is paid for by a corporation. But what can +you do? What is there to you but your money?'--So Davy paid the +money--didn't you, Davy?" And Davy grinned sheepishly. + +"Even so," she went on, "he came off better than poor Devon. They got +fifty thousand out of him, and sold him out, and he never got to +Congress after all! That was just before he concluded that America +wasn't a fit place for a gentleman to live in." + +And so Mrs. Billy got started on the Devons! And after that came the +Havens and the Wymans and the Todds--it was midnight before she got +through with them all. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The newspapers said nothing more about the Hasbrook suit; but in +financial circles Montague had attained considerable notoriety because +of it. And this was the means of bringing him a number of new cases. + +But alas, there were no more fifty-thousand-dollar clients! The first +caller was a destitute widow with a deed which would have entitled her +to the greater part of a large city in Pennsylvania--only unfortunately +the deed was about eighty years old. And then there was a poor old man +who had been hurt in a street-car accident and had been tricked into +signing away his rights; and an indignant citizen who proposed to bring +a hundred suits against the traction trust for transfers refused. All +were contingency cases, with the chances of success exceedingly remote. +And Montague noticed that the people had come to him as a last resort, +having apparently heard of him as a man of altruistic temper. + +There was one case which interested him particularly, because it seemed +to fit in so ominously with the grim prognosis of his brother. He +received a call from an elderly gentleman, of very evident refinement +and dignity of manner, who proceeded to unfold to him a most amazing +story. Five or six years ago he had invented a storage-battery, which +was the most efficient known. He had organised a company with three +million dollars' capital to manufacture it, himself taking a third +interest for his patents, and becoming president of the company. Not +long afterward had come a proposal from a group of men who wished to +organize a company to manufacture automobiles; they proposed to form an +alliance which would give them the exclusive use of the battery. But +these men were not people with whom the inventor cared to deal--they +were traction and gas magnates widely known for their unscrupulous +methods. And so he had declined their offer, and set to work instead to +organize an automobile company himself. He had just got under way when +he discovered that his rivals had set to work to take his invention +away from him. A friend who owned another third share in his company +had hypothecated his stock to help form the new company; and now came a +call from the bank for more collateral, and he was obliged to sell out. +And at the next stockholders' meeting it developed that their rivals +had bought it, and likewise more stock in the open market; and they +proceeded to take possession of the company, ousting the former +president--and then making a contract with their automobile company to +furnish the storage-battery at a price which left no profit for the +manufacturers! And so for two years the inventor had not received a +dollar of dividends upon his million dollars' worth of paper; and to +cap the climax, the company had refused to sell the battery to his +automobile company, and so that had gone into bankruptcy, and his +friend was ruined also! + +Montague went into the case very carefully, and found that the story +was true. What interested him particularly in it was the fact that he +had met a couple of these financial highwaymen in social life; he had +come to know the son and heir of one of them quite well, at Siegfried +Harvey's. This gilded youth was engaged to be married in a very few +days, and the papers had it that the father-in-law had presented the +bride with a cheque for a million dollars. Montague could not but +wonder if it was the million that had been taken from his client! + +There was to be a "bachelor dinner" at the Millionaires' on the night +before the wedding, to which he and Oliver had been invited. As he was +thinking of taking up his case, he went to his brother, saying that he +wished to decline; but Oliver had been getting back his courage day by +day, and declared that it was more important than ever now that he +should hold his ground, and face his enemies--for Alice's sake, if not +for his own. And so Montague went to the dinner, and saw deeper yet +into the history of the stolen millions. + +It was a very beautiful affair, in the beginning. There was a large +private dining-room, elaborately decorated, with a string orchestra +concealed in a bower of plants. But there were cocktails even on the +side-board at the doorway; and by the time the guests had got to the +coffee, every one was hilariously drunk. After each toast they would +hurl their glasses over their shoulders. The purpose of a "bachelor +dinner," it appeared, was a farewell to the old days and the boon +companions; so there were sentimental and comic songs which had been +composed for the occasion, and were received with whirlwinds of +laughter. + +By listening closely and reading between the lines, one might get quite +a history of the young host's adventurous career. There was a house up +on the West Side; and there was a yacht, with, orgies in every part of +the world. There was the summer night in Newport harbour, when some one +had hit upon the dazzling scheme of freezing twenty-dollar gold pieces +in tiny blocks of ice, to be dropped down the girls' backs! And there +was a banquet in a studio in New York, when a huge pie had been brought +on, from which a half-nude girl had emerged, with a flock of canary +birds about her! Then there was a damsel who had been wont to dance +upon the tops of supper tables, clad in diaphanous costume; and who had +got drunk after a theatre-party, and set out to smash up a Broadway +restaurant. There was a cousin from Chicago, a wild lad, who made a +speciality of this diversion, and whose mistresses were bathed in +champagne.--Apparently there were numberless places in the city where +such orgies were carried on continually; there were private clubs, and +artists' "studios"--there were several allusions to a high tower, which +Montague did not comprehend. Many such matters, however, were explained +to him by an elderly gentleman who sat on his right, and who seemed to +stay sober, no matter how much he drank. Incidentally he gravely +advised Montague to meet one of the young host's mistresses, who was a +"stunning" girl, and was in the market. + +Toward morning the festivities changed to a series of wrestling-bouts; +the young men stripped off their clothing and tore the table to pieces, +and piled it out of the way in a corner, smashing most of the crockery +in the process. Between the matches, champagne would be opened by +knocking off the heads of the bottles; and this went on until four +o'clock in the morning, when many of the guests were lying in heaps +upon the floor. + +Montague rode home in a cab with the elderly gentleman who had sat next +to him; and on the way he asked if such affairs as this were common. +And his companion, who was a "steel man" from the West, replied by +telling him of some which he had witnessed at home. At Siegfried +Harvey's theatre-party Montague had seen a popular actress in a musical +comedy, which was then the most successful play running in New York. +The house was sold out weeks ahead, and after the matinee you might +observe the street in front of the stage-entrance blocked by people +waiting to see the woman come out. She was lithe and supple, like a +panther, and wore close-fitting gowns to reveal her form. It seemed +that her play must have been built with one purpose in mind, to see how +much lewdness could be put upon a stage without interference by the +police.--And now his companion told him how this woman had been invited +to sing at a banquet given by the magnates of a mighty Trust, and had +gone after midnight to the most exclusive club in the town, and sung +her popular ditty, "Won't you come and play with me?" The merry +magnates had taken the invitation literally--with the result that the +actress had escaped from the room with half her clothing torn off her. +And a little while later an official of this trust had wished to get +rid of his wife and marry a chorus-girl; and when public clamour had +forced the directors to ask him to resign, he had replied by +threatening to tell about this banquet! + +The next day--or rather, to be precise, that same morning--Montague and +Alice attended the gorgeous wedding. It was declared by the newspapers +to be the most "important" social event of the week; and it took half a +dozen policemen to hold back the crowds which filled the street. The +ceremony took place at St. Cecilia's, with the stately bishop +officiating, in his purple and scarlet robes. Inside the doors were all +the elect, exquisitely groomed and gowned, and such a medley of +delicious perfumes as not all the vales in Arcady could equal. The +groom had been polished and scrubbed, and looked very handsome, though +somewhat pale; and Montague could not but smile as he observed the best +man, looking so very solemn, and recollected the drunken wrestler of a +few hours before, staggering about in a pale blue undershirt ripped up +the back. + +The Montagues knew by this time whom they were to avoid. They were +graciously taken under the wing of Mrs. Eldridge Devon--whose real +estate was not affected by insurance suits; and the next morning they +had the satisfaction of seeing their names in the list of those +present--and even a couple of lines about Alice's costume. (Alice was +always referred to as "Miss Montague"; it was very pleasant to be the +"Miss Montague," and to think of all the other would-be Miss Montagues +in the city, who were thereby haughtily rebuked!) In the "yellow" +papers there were also accounts of the trousseau of the bride, and of +the wonderful gifts which she had received, and of the long honeymoon +which she was to spend in the Mediterranean upon her husband's yacht. +Montague found himself wondering if the ghosts of its former occupants +would not haunt her, and whether she would have been as happy, had she +known as much as he knew. + +He found food for a good deal of thought in the memory of this banquet. +Among the things which he had gathered from the songs was a hint that +Oliver, also, had some secrets, which he had not seen fit to tell his +brother. The keeping of young girls was apparently one of the +established customs of the "little brothers of the rich"--and, for that +matter, of many of the big brothers, also. A little later Montague had +a curious glimpse into the life of this "half-world." He had occasion +one evening to call up a certain financier whom he had come to know +quite well-a man of family and a member of the church. There were some +important papers to be signed and sent off by a steamer; and the great +man's secretary said that he would try to find him. A minute or two +later he called up Montague and asked him if he would be good enough to +go to an address uptown. It was a house not far from Riverside Drive; +and Montague went there and found his acquaintance, with several other +prominent men of affairs whom he knew, conversing in a drawing-room +with one of the most charming ladies he had ever met. She was exquisite +to look at, and one of the few people in New York whom he had found +worth listening to. He spent such an enjoyable evening, that when he +was leaving, he remarked to the lady that he would like his cousin +Alice to meet her; and then he noticed that she flushed slightly, and +was embarrassed. Later on he learned to his dismay that the charming +and beautiful lady did not go into Society. + +Nor was this at all rare; on the contrary, if one took the trouble to +make inquiries, he would find that such establishments were everywhere +taken for granted. Montague talked about it with Major Venable; and out +of his gossip storehouse the old gentleman drew forth a string of +anecdotes that made one's hair stand on end. There was one all-powerful +magnate, who had a passion for the wife of a great physician; and he +had given a million dollars or so to build a hospital, and had provided +that it should be the finest in the world, and that this physician +should go abroad for three years to study the institutions of Europe! +No conventions counted with this old man--if he saw a woman whom he +wanted, he would ask for her; and women in Society felt that it was an +honour to be his mistress. Not long after this a man who voiced the +anguish of a mighty nation was turned out of several hotels in New York +because he was not married according to the laws of South Dakota; but +this other man would take a woman to any hotel in the city, and no one +would dare oppose him! + +And there was another, a great traction king, who kept mistresses in +Chicago and Paris and London, as well as in New York; he had one just +around the corner from his palatial home, and had an underground +passage leading to it. And the Major told with glee how he had shown +this to a friend, and the latter had remarked, "I'm too stout to get +through there."--"I know it," replied the other, "else I shouldn't have +told you!" + +And so it went. One of the richest men in New York was a sexual +degenerate, with half a dozen women on his hands all the time; he would +send them cheques, and they would use these to blackmail him. This +man's young wife had been shut up in a closet for twenty-four hours by +her mother to compel her to marry him.--And then there was the charming +tale of how he had gone away upon a mission of state, and had written +long messages full of tender protestations, and given them to a +newspaper correspondent to cable home "to his wife." The correspondent +had thought it such a touching example of conjugal devotion that he +told about it at a dinner-party when he came back; and he was struck by +the sudden silence that fell. "The messages had been sent to a code +address!" chuckled the Major. "And every one at the table knew who had +got them!" + +A few days after this, Montague received a telephone message from +Siegfried Harvey, who said that he wanted to see him about a matter of +business. He asked him to lunch at the Noonday Club; and Montague +went--though not without a qualm. For it was in the Fidelity Building, +the enemy's bailiwick: a magnificent structure with halls of white +marble, and a lavish display of bronze. It occurred to Montague that +somewhere in this structure people were at work preparing an answer to +his charges; he wondered what they were saying. + +The two had lunch, talking meanwhile about the coming events in +Society, and about politics and wars; and when the coffee was served +and they were alone in the room, Harvey settled his big frame back in +his chair, and began:-- + +"In the first place," he said, "I must explain that I've something to +say that is devilish hard to get into. I'm so much afraid of your +jumping to a wrong conclusion in the middle of it--I'd like you to +agree to listen for a minute or two before you think at all." + +"All right," said Montague, with a smile. "Fire away." + +And at once the other became grave. "You've taken a case against this +company," he said. "And Ollie has talked enough to me to make me +understand that you've done a plucky thing, and that you must be +everlastingly sick of hearing from cowardly people who want you to drop +it. I'd be very sorry to be classed with them, for even a moment; and +you must understand at the outset that I haven't a particle of interest +in the company, and that it wouldn't matter to me if I had. I don't try +to use my friends in business, and I don't let money count with me in +my social life. I made up my mind to take the risk of speaking to you +about this case, simply because I happen to know one or two things +about it that I thought you didn't know. And if that's so, you are at a +great disadvantage; but in any case, please understand that I have no +motive but friendship, and so if I am butting in, excuse me." + +When Siegfried Harvey talked, he looked straight at one with his clear +blue eyes, and there was no doubting his honesty. "I am very much +obliged to you," said Montague. "Pray tell me what you have to say." + +"All right," said the other. "It can be done very quickly. You have +taken a case which involves a great many sacrifices upon your part. And +I wondered if it had ever occurred to you to ask whether you might not +be taken advantage of?" + +"How do you mean?" asked Montague. + +"Do you know the people who are behind you?" inquired the other. "Do +you know them well enough to be sure what are their motives in the +case?" + +Montague hesitated, and thought. "No," he said, "I couldn't say that I +do." + +"Then it's just as I thought," replied Harvey. "I've been watching +you--you are an honest man, and you're putting yourself to no end of +trouble from the best of motives. And unless I'm mistaken, you're being +used by men who are not honest, and whom you wouldn't work with if you +knew their purposes." + +"What purposes could they have?" + +"There are several possibilities. In the first place, it might be a +'strike' suit--somebody who is hoping to be bought off for a big price. +That is what nearly every one thinks is the case. But I don't; I think +it's more likely some one within the company who is trying to put the +administration in a hole." + +"Who could that be?" exclaimed Montague, amazed. + +"I don't know that. I'm not familiar enough with the situation in the +Fidelity--it's changing all the time. I simply know that there are +factions struggling for the control of it, and hating each other +furiously, and ready to do anything in the world to cripple each other. +You know that their forty millions of surplus gives an enormous power; +I'd rather be able to swing forty millions in the Street than to have +ten millions in my own right. And so the giants are fighting for the +control of those companies; and you can't tell who's in and who's +out--you can never know the real meaning of anything that happens in +the struggle. All that you can be sure of is that the game is crooked +from end to end, and that nothing that happens in it is what it +pretends to be." + +Montague listened, half dazed, and feeling as if the ground he stood on +were caving beneath his feet. + +"What do you know about those who brought you this case?" asked his +companion, suddenly. + +"Not much," he said weakly. + +Harvey hesitated a moment. "Understand me, please," he said. "I've no +wish to pry into your affairs, and if you don't care to say any more, +I'll understand it perfectly. But I've heard it said that the man who +started the thing was Ellis." + +Montague, in his turn, hesitated; then he said, "That is +correct--between you and me." + +"Very good," said Harvey, "and that is what made me suspicious. Do you +know anything about Ellis?" + +"I didn't," said the other. "I've heard a little since." + +"I can fancy so," said Harvey. "And I can tell you that Ellis is mixed +up in life-insurance matters in all sorts of dubious ways. It seems to +me that you have reason to be most careful where you follow him." + +Montague sat with his hands clenched and his brows knitted. His +friend's talk had been like a flash of lightning; it revealed huge +menacing forms in the darkness about him. All the structure of his +hopes seemed to be tottering; his case, that he had worked so hard +over--his fifty thousand dollars that he had been so proud of! Could it +be that he had been tricked, and had made a fool of himself? + +"How in the world am I to know?" he cried. + +"That is more than I can tell," said his friend. "And for that matter, +I'm not sure that you could do anything now. All that I could do was to +warn you what sort of ground you were treading on, so that you could +watch out for yourself in future." + +Montague thanked him heartily for that service; and then he went back +to his office, and spent the rest of the day pondering the matter. + +What he had heard had made a vast change in things. Before it +everything had seemed simple; and now nothing was clear. He was +overwhelmed with a sense of the utter futility of his efforts; he was +trying to build a house upon quicksands. There was nowhere a solid spot +upon which he could set his foot. There was nowhere any truth--there +were only contending powers who used the phrases of truth for their own +purposes! And now he saw himself as the world saw him,--a party to a +piece of trickery,--a knave like all the rest. He felt that he had been +tripped up at the first step in his career. + +The conclusion of the whole matter was that he took an afternoon train +for Albany; and the next morning he talked the matter out with the +Judge. Montague had realized the need of going slowly, for, after all, +he had no definite ground for suspicion; and so, very tactfully and +cautiously he explained, that it had come to his ears that many people +believed there were interested parties behind the suit of Mr. Hasbrook; +and that this had made him uncomfortable, as he knew nothing whatever +about his client. He had come to ask the Judge's advice in the matter. + +No one could have taken the thing more graciously than did the great +man; he was all kindness and tact. In the first place, he said, he had +warned him in advance that enemies would attack him and slander him, +and that all kinds of subtle means would be used to influence him. And +he must understand that these rumours were part of such a campaign; it +made no difference how good a friend had brought them to him--how could +he know who had brought them to that friend? + +The Judge ventured to hope that nothing that anyone might say could +influence him to believe that he, the Judge, would have advised him to +do anything improper. + +"No," said Montague, "but can you assure me that there are no +interested parties behind Mr. Hasbrook?" + +"Interested parties?" asked the other. + +"I mean people connected with the Fidelity or other insurance +companies." + +"Why, no," said the Judge; "I certainly couldn't assure you of that." + +Montague looked surprised. "You mean you don't know?" + +"I mean," was the answer, "that I wouldn't feel at liberty to tell, +even if I did know." + +And Montague stared at him; he had not been prepared for this frankness. + +"It never occurred to me," the other continued, "that that was a matter +which could make any difference to you." + +"Why--" began Montague. + +"Pray understand me, Mr. Montague," said the Judge. "It seemed to me +that this was obviously a just case, and it seemed so to you. And the +only other matter that I thought you had a right to be assured of was +that it was seriously meant. Of that I felt assured. It did not seem to +me of any importance that there might be interested individuals behind +Mr. Hasbrook. Let us suppose, for instance, that there were some +parties who had been offended by the administration of the Fidelity, +and were anxious to punish it. Could a lawyer be justified in refusing +to take a just case, simply because he knew of such private motives? +Or, let us assume an extreme case--a factional fight within the +company, as you say has been suggested to you. Well, that would be a +case of thieves falling out; and is there any reason why the public +should not reap the advantage of such a situation? The men inside the +company are the ones who would know first what is going on; and if you +saw a chance to use such an advantage in a just fight--would you not do +it?" + +So the Judge went on, gracious and plausible--and so subtly and +exquisitely corrupting! Underneath his smoothly flowing sentences +Montague could feel the presence of one fundamental thought; it was +unuttered and even unhinted, but it pervaded the Judge's discourse as a +mood pervades a melody. The young lawyer had got a big fee, and he had +a nice easy case; and as a man of the world, he could not really wish +to pry into it too closely. He had heard gossip, and felt that his +reputation required him to be disturbed; but he had come, simply to be +smoothed down the back and made at ease, and enabled to keep his fee +without losing his good opinion of himself. + +Montague quit, because he concluded that it was not worth while to try +to make himself understood. After all, he was in the case now, and +there was nothing to be gained by a breach. Two things he felt that he +had made certain by the interview--first, that his client was a +"dummy," and that it was really a case of thieves falling out; and +second, that he had no guarantee that he might not be left in the lurch +at any moment--except the touching confidence of the Judge in some +parties unknown. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Montague came home with his mind made up that there was nothing he +could do except to be more careful next time. For this mistake he would +have to pay the price. + +He had still to learn what the full price was. The day after his return +there came a caller--Mr. John C. Burton, read his card. He proved to be +a canvassing agent for the company which published the scandal-sheet of +Society. They were preparing a de luxe account of the prominent +families of New York; a very sumptuous affair, with a highly exclusive +set of subscribers, at the rate of fifteen hundred dollars per set. +Would Mr. Montague by any chance care to have his family included? + +And Mr. Montague explained politely that he was a comparative stranger +in New York, and would not belong properly in such a volume. But the +agent was not satisfied with this. There might be reasons for his +subscribing, even so; there might be special cases; Mr. Montague, as a +stranger, might not realize the important nature of the offer; after he +had consulted his friends, he might change his mind--and so on. As +Montague listened to this series of broad hints, and took in the +meaning of them, the colour mounted, to his cheeks--until at last he +rose abruptly and bid the man good afternoon. + +But then as he sat alone, his anger died away, and there was left only +discomfort and uneasiness. And three or four days later he bought +another issue of the paper, and sure enough, there was a new paragraph! + +He stood on the street-corner reading it. The social war was raging +hotly, it said; and added that Mrs. de Graffenried was threatening to +take up the cause of the strangers. Then it went on to picture a +certain exquisite young man of fashion who was rushing about among his +friends to apologize for his brother's indiscretions. Also, it said, +there was a brilliant social queen, wife of a great banker, who had +taken up the cudgels.--And then came three sentences more, which made +the blood leap like flame into Montague's cheeks: + +"There have not been lacking comments upon her suspicious ardour. It +has been noticed that since the advent of the romantic-looking +Southerner, this restless lady's interest in the Babists and the trance +mediums has waned; and now Society is watching for the denouement of a +most interesting situation." + +To Montague these words came like a blow in the face. He went on down +the street, half dazed. It seemed to him the blackest shame that New +York had yet shown him. He clenched his fists as he walked, whispering +to himself, "The scoundrels!" + +He realized instantly that he was helpless. Down home one would have +thrashed the editor of such a paper; but here he was in the wolves' own +country, and he could do nothing. He went back to his office, and sat +down at the desk. + +"My dear Mrs. Winnie," he wrote. "I have just read the enclosed +paragraph, and I cannot tell you how profoundly pained I am that your +kindness to us should have made you the victim of such an outrage. I am +quite helpless in the matter, except to enable you to avoid any further +annoyance. Please believe me when I say that we shall all of us +understand perfectly if you think that we had best not meet again at +present; and that this will make no difference whatever in our +feelings." + +This letter Montague sent by a messenger; and then he went home. +Perhaps ten minutes after he arrived, the telephone bell rang--and +there was Mrs. Winnie. + +"Your note has come," she said. "Have you an engagement this evening?" + +"No," he answered. + +"Well," she said, "will you come to dinner?" + +"Mrs. Winnie--" he protested. + +"Please come," she said. "Please!" + +"I hate to have you--" he began. + +"I wish you to come!" she said, a third time. + +So he answered, "Very well." + +He went; and when he entered the house, the butler led him to the +elevator, saying, "Mrs. Duval says will you please come upstairs, sir." +And there Mrs. Winnie met him, with flushed cheeks and eager +countenance. + +She was even lovelier than usual, in a soft cream-coloured gown, and a +crimson rose in her bosom. "I'm all alone to-night," she said, "so +we'll dine in my apartments. We'd be lost in that big room downstairs." + +She led him into her drawing-room, where great armfuls of new roses +scattered their perfume. There was a table set for two, and two big +chairs before the fire which blazed in the hearth. Montague noticed +that her hand trembled a little, as she motioned him to one of them; he +could read her excitement in her whole aspect. She was flinging down +the gauntlet to her enemies! + +"Let us eat first and talk afterward," she said, hurriedly. "We'll be +happy for a while, anyway." + +And she went on to be happy, in her nervous and eager way. She talked +about the new opera which was to be given, and about Mrs. de +Graffenried's new entertainment, and about Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden's +ball; also about the hospital for crippled children which she wanted to +build, and about Mrs. Vivie Patton's rumoured divorce. And, meantime, +the sphinx-like attendants moved here and there, and the dinner came +and went. They took their coffee in the big chairs by the fire; and the +table was swept clear, and the servants vanished, closing the doors +behind them. + +Then Montague set his cup aside, and sat gazing sombrely into the fire. +And Mrs. Winnie watched him. There was a long silence. + +Suddenly he heard her voice. "Do you find it so easy to give up our +friendship?" she asked. + +"I didn't think about it's being easy or hard," he answered. "I simply +thought of protecting you." + +"And do you think that my friends are nothing to me?" she demanded. +"Have I so very many as that?" And she clenched her hands with a sudden +passionate gesture. "Do you think that I will let those wretches +frighten me into doing what they want? I'll not give in to them--not +for anything that Lelia can do!" + +A look of perplexity crossed Montague's face. "Lelia?" he asked. + +"Mrs. Robbie Walling!" she cried. "Don't you suppose that she is +responsible for that paragraph?" + +Montague started. + +"That's the way they fight their battles!" cried Mrs. Winnie. "They pay +money to those scoundrels to be protected. And then they send nasty +gossip about people they wish to injure." + +"You don't mean that!" exclaimed the man. + +"Of course I do," cried she. "I know that it's true! I know that Robbie +Walling paid fifteen thousand dollars for some trumpery volumes that +they got out! And how do you suppose the paper gets its gossip?" + +"I didn't know," said Montague. "But I never dreamed--" + +"Why," exclaimed Mrs. Winnie, "their mail is full of blue and gold +monogram stationery! I've known guests to sit down and write gossip +about their hostesses in their own homes. Oh, you've no idea of +people's vileness!" + +"I had some idea," said Montague, after a pause.--"That was why I +wished to protect you." + +"I don't wish to be protected!" she cried, vehemently. "I'll not give +them the satisfaction. They wish to make me give you up, and I'll not +do it, for anything they can say!" + +Montague sat with knitted brows, gazing into the fire. "When I read +that paragraph," he said slowly. "I could not bear to think of the +unhappiness it might cause you. I thought of how much it might disturb +your husband--" + +"My husband!" echoed Mrs. Winnie. + +There was a hard tone in her voice, as she went on. "He will fix it up +with them," she said,--"that's his way. There will be nothing more +published, you can feel sure of that." + +Montague sat in silence. That was not the reply he had expected, and it +rather disconcerted him. + +"If that were all--" he said, with hesitation. "But I could not know. I +thought that the paragraph might disturb him for another reason--that +it might be a cause of unhappiness between you and him--" + +There was a pause. "You don't understand," said Mrs. Winnie, at last. + +Without turning his head he could see her hands, as they lay upon her +knees. She was moving them nervously. "You don't understand," she +repeated. + +When she began to' speak again, it was in a low, trembling voice. "I +must tell you," she said; "I have felt sure that you did not know." + +There was another pause. She hesitated, and her hands trembled; then +suddenly she hurried on.--"I wanted you to know. I do not love my +husband. I am not bound to him. He has nothing to say in my affairs." + +Montague sat rigid, turned to stone. He was half dazed by the words. He +could feel Mrs. Winnie's gaze fixed upon him; and he could feel the hot +flush that spread over her throat and cheeks. + +"It--it was not fair for you not to know," she whispered. And her voice +died away, and there was again a silence. Montague was dumb. + +"Why don't you say something?" she panted, at last; and he caught the +note of anguish in her voice. Then he turned and stared at her, and saw +her tightly clenched hands, and the quivering of her lips. + +He was shocked quite beyond speech. And he saw her bosom heaving +quickly, and saw the tears start into her eyes. Suddenly she sank down, +and covered her face with her hands and broke into frantic sobbing. + +"Mrs. Winnie!" he cried; and started to his feet. + +Her outburst continued. He saw that she was shuddering violently. "Then +you don't love me!" she wailed. + +He stood trembling and utterly bewildered. "I'm so sorry!" he +whispered. "Oh, Mrs. Winnie--I had no idea--" + +"I know it! I know it!" she cried. "It's my fault! I was a fool! I knew +it all the time. But I hoped--I thought you might, if you knew--" + +And then again her tears choked her; she was convulsed with pain and +grief. + +Montague stood watching her, helpless with distress. She caught hold of +the arm of the chair, convulsively, and he put his hand upon hers. + +"Mrs. Winnie--" he began. + +But she jerked her hand away and hid it. "No, no!" she cried, in +terror. "Don't touch me!" + +And suddenly she looked up at him, stretching out her arms. "Don't you +understand that I love you?" she exclaimed. "You despise me for it, I +know--but I can't help it. I will tell you, even so! It's the only +satisfaction I can have. I have always loved you! And I thought--I +thought it was only that you didn't understand. I was ready to brave +all the world--I didn't care who knew it, or what anybody said. I +thought we could be happy--I thought I could be free at last. Oh, +you've no idea how unhappy I am--and how lonely--and how I longed to +escape! And I believed that you--that you might--" + +And then the tears gushed into Mrs. Winnie's eyes again, and her voice +became the voice of a little child. + +"Don't you think that you might come to love me?" she wailed. + +Her voice shook Montague, so that he trembled to the depths of him. But +his face only became the more grave. + +"You despise me because I told you!" she exclaimed. + +"No, no, Mrs. Winnie," he said. "I could not possibly do that--" + +"Then--then why--" she whispered.--"Would it be so hard to love me?" + +"It would be very easy," he said, "but I dare not let myself." + +She looked at him piteously. "You are so cold--so merciless!" she cried. + +He answered nothing, and she sat trembling. "Have you ever loved a +woman?" she asked. + +There was a long pause. He sat in the chair again. "Listen, Mrs. +Winnie"--he began at last. + +"Don't call me that!" she exclaimed. "Call me Evelyn--please." + +"Very well," he said--"Evelyn. I did not intend to make you unhappy--if +I had had any idea, I should never have seen you again. I will tell +you--what I have never told anybody before. Then you will understand." + +He sat for a few moments, in a sombre reverie. + +"Once," he said, "when I was young, I loved a woman--a quadroon girl. +That was in New Orleans; it is a custom we have there. They have a +world of their own, and we take care of them, and of the children; and +every one knows about it. I was very young, only about eighteen; and +she was even younger. But I found out then what women are, and what +love means to them. I saw how they could suffer. And then she died in +childbirth--the child died, too." + +Montague's voice was very low; and Mrs. Winnie sat with her hands +clasped, and her eyes riveted upon his face. "I saw her die," he said. +"And that was all. I have never forgotten it. I made up my mind then +that I had done wrong; and that never again while I lived would I offer +my love to a woman, unless I could devote all my life to her. So you +see, I am afraid of love. I do not wish to suffer so much, or to make +others suffer. And when anyone speaks to me as you did, it brings it +all back to me--it makes me shrink up and wither." + +He paused, and the other caught her breath. + +"Understand me," she said, her voice trembling. "I would not ask any +pledges of you. I would pay whatever price there was to pay--I am not +afraid to suffer." + +"I do not wish you to suffer," he said. "I do not wish to take +advantage of any woman." + +"But I have nothing in the world that I value!" she cried. "I would go +away--I would give up everything, to be with a man like you. I have no +ties--no duties--" + +He interrupted her. "You have your husband--" he said. + +And she cried out in sudden fury--"My husband!" + +"Has no one ever told you about my husband?" she asked, after a pause. + +"No one," he said. + +"Well, ask them!" she exclaimed. "Meantime, take my word for it--I owe +nothing to my husband." + +Montague sat staring into the fire. "But consider my own case," he +said. "_I_ have duties--my mother and my cousin--" + +"Oh, don't say any more!" cried the woman, with a break in her voice. +"Say that you don't love me--that is all there is to say! And you will +never respect me again! I have been a fool--I have ruined everything! I +have flung away your friendship, that I might have kept!" + +"No," he said. + +But she rushed on, vehemently--"At least, I have been honest--give me +credit for that! That is how all my troubles come--I say what is in my +mind, and I pay the price for my blunders. It is not as if I were cold +and calculating--so don't despise me altogether." + +"I couldn't despise you," said Montague. "I am simply pained, because I +have made you unhappy. And I did not mean to." + +Mrs. Winnie sat staring ahead of her in a sombre reverie. "Don't think +any more about it," she said, bitterly. "I will get over it. I am not +worth troubling about. Don't you suppose I know how you feel about this +world that I live in? And I'm part of it--I beat my wings, and try to +get out, but I can't. I'm in it, and I'll stay in till I die; I might +as well give up. I thought that I could steal a little joy--you have no +idea how hungry I am for a little joy! You have no idea how lonely I +am! And how empty my life is! You talk about your fear of making me +unhappy; it's a grim jest--but I'll give you permission, if you can! +I'll ask nothing--no promises, no sacrifices! I'll take all the risks, +and pay all the penalties!" + +She smiled through her tears, a sardonic smile. He was watching her, +and she turned again, and their eyes met; again he saw the blood mount +from her throat to her cheeks. At the same time came the old stirring +of the wild beasts within him. He knew that the less time he spent in +sympathizing with Mrs. Winnie, the better for both of them. + +He had started to rise, and words of farewell were on his lips; when +suddenly there came a knock upon the door. + +Mrs. Winnie sprang to her feet. "Who is that?" she cried. + +And the door opened, and Mr. Duval entered. + +"Good evening," he said pleasantly, and came toward her. + +Mrs. Winnie flushed angrily, and stared at him. "Why do you come here +unannounced?" she cried. + +"I apologize," he said--"but I found this in my mail--" + +And Montague, in the act of rising to greet him, saw that he had the +offensive clipping in his hand. Then he saw Duval give a start, and +realized that the man had not been aware of his presence in the room. + +Duval gazed from Montague to his wife, and noticed for the first time +her tears, and her agitation. "I beg pardon," he said. "I am evidently +trespassing." + +"You most certainly are," responded Mrs. Winnie. + +He made a move to withdraw; but before he could take a step, she had +brushed past him and left the room, slamming the door behind her. + +And Duval stared after her, and then he stared at Montague, and +laughed. "Well! well! well!" he said. + +Then, checking his amusement, he added, "Good evening, sir." + +"Good evening," said Montague. + +He was trembling slightly, and Duval noticed it; he smiled genially. +"This is the sort of material out of which scenes are made," said he. +"But I beg you not to be embarrassed--we won't have any scenes." + +Montague could think of nothing to say to that. + +"I owe Evelyn an apology," the other continued. "It was entirely an +accident--this clipping, you see. I do not intrude, as a rule. You may +make yourself at home in future." + +Montague flushed scarlet at the words. + +"Mr. Duval," he said, "I have to assure you that you are mistaken--" + +The other stared at him. "Oh, come, come!" he said, laughing. "Let us +talk as men of the world." + +"I say that you are mistaken," said Montague again. + +The other shrugged his shoulders. "Very well," he said genially. "As +you please. I simply wish to make matters clear to you, that's all. I +wish you joy with Evelyn. I say nothing about her--you love her. +Suffice it that I've had her, and I'm tired of her; the field is yours. +But keep her out of mischief, and don't let her make a fool of herself +in public, if you can help it. And don't let her spend too much +money--she costs me a million a year already.--Good evening, Mr. +Montague." + +And he went out. Montague, who stood like a statue, could hear him +chuckling all the way down the hall. + +At last Montague himself started to leave. But he heard Mrs. Winnie +coming back, and he waited for her. She came in and shut the door, and +turned toward him. + +"What did he say?" she asked. + +"He--was very pleasant," said Montague. + +And she smiled grimly. "I went out on purpose," she said. "I wanted you +to see him--to see what sort of a man he is, and how much 'duty' I owe +him! You saw, I guess." + +"Yes, I saw," said he. + +Then again he started to go. But she took him by the arm. "Come and +talk to me," she said. "Please!" + +And she led him back to the fire. "Listen," she said. "He will not come +here again. He is going away to-night--I thought he had gone already. +And he does not return for a month or two. There will be no one to +disturb us again." + +She came close to him and gazed up into his face. She had wiped her +tears away, and her happy look had come back to her; she was lovelier +than ever. + +"I took you by surprise," she said, smiling. "You didn't know what to +make of it. And I was ashamed--I thought you would hate me. But I'm not +going to be unhappy any more--I don't care at all. I'm glad that I +spoke!" + +And Mrs. Winnie put up her hands and took him by the lapels of his +coat. "I know that you love me," she said; "I saw it in your eyes just +now, before he came in: It is simply that you won't let yourself go. +You have so many doubts and so many fears. But you will see that I am +right; you will learn to love me. You won't be able to help it--I shall +be so kind and good! Only don't go away--" + +Mrs. Winnie was so close to him that her breath touched his cheek. +"Promise me, dear," she whispered--"promise me that you won't stop +seeing me--that you will learn to love me. I can't do without you!" + +Montague was trembling in every nerve; he felt like a man caught in a +net. Mrs. Winnie had had everything she ever wanted in her life; and +now she wanted him! It was impossible for her to face any other thought. + +"Listen," he began gently. + +But she saw the look of resistance in his eyes, and she cried "No +no--don't! I cannot do without you! Think! I love you! What more can I +say to you? I cannot believe that you don't care for me--you HAVE been +fond of me--I have seen it in your face. Yet you're afraid of me--why? +Look at me--am I not beautiful to look at! And is a woman's love such a +little thing--can you fling it away and trample upon it so easily? Why +do you wish to go? Don't you understand--no one knows we are here--no +one cares! You can come here whenever you wish--this is my place--mine! +And no one will think anything about it. They all do it. There is +nothing to be afraid of!" + +She put her arms about him, and clung to him so that he could feel the +beating of her heart upon his bosom. "Oh, don't leave me here alone +to-night!" she cried. + +To Montague it was like the ringing of an alarm-bell deep within his +soul. "I must go," he said. + +She flung back her head and stared at him, and he saw the terror and +anguish in her eyes. "No, no!" she cried, "don't say that to me! I +can't bear it--oh, see what I have done! Look at me! Have mercy on me!" + +"Mrs. Winnie," he said, "you must have mercy on ME!" + +But he only felt her clasp him more tightly. He took her by the wrists, +and with quiet force he broke her hold upon him; her hands fell to her +sides, and she stared at him, aghast. + +"I must go," he said, again. + +And he started toward the door. She followed him dumbly with her eyes. + +"Good-bye," he said. He knew that there was no use of any more words; +his sympathy had been like oil upon flames. He saw her move, and as he +opened the door, she flung herself down in a chair and burst into +frantic weeping. He shut the door softly and went away. + +He found his way down the stairs, and got his hat and coat, and went +out, unseen by anyone. He walked down the Avenue-and there suddenly was +the giant bulk of St. Cecilia's lifting itself into the sky. He stopped +and looked at it--it seemed a great tumultuous surge of emotion. And +for the first time in his life it seemed to him that he understood why +men had put together that towering heap of stone! + +Then he went on home. + +He found Alice dressing for a ball, and Oliver waiting for her. He went +to his room, and took off his coat; and Oliver came up to him, and with +a sudden gesture reached over to his shoulder, and held up a trophy. + +He drew it out carefully, and measured the length of it, smiling +mischievously in the meanwhile. Then he held it up to the light, to see +the colour of it. + +"A black one!" he cried. "Coal black!" And he looked at his brother, +with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "Oh, Allan!" he chuckled. + +Montague said nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was about a week from the beginning of Lent, when there would be a +lull in the city's gaieties, and Society would shift the scene of its +activities to the country clubs, and to California and Hot Springs and +Palm Beach. Mrs. Caroline Smythe invited Alice to join her in an +expedition to the last-named place; but Montague interposed, because he +saw that Alice had been made pale and nervous by three months of +night-and-day festivities. Also, a trip to Florida would necessitate +ten or fifteen thousand dollars' worth of new clothes; and these would +not do for the summer, it appeared--they would be faded and passe by +that time. + +So Alice settled back to rest; but she was too popular to be let +alone--a few days later came another invitation, this time from General +Prentice and his family. They were planning a railroad trip--to be gone +for a month; they would have a private train, and twenty five people in +the party, and would take in California and Mexico--"swinging round the +circle," as it was called. Alice was wild to go, and Montague gave his +consent. Afterward he learned to his dismay that Charlie Carter was one +of those invited, and he would have liked to have Alice withdraw; but +she did not wish to, and he could not make up his mind to insist. + +These train trips were the very latest diversion of the well-to-do; a +year ago no one had heard of them, and now fifty parties were leaving +New York every month. You might see a dozen of such hotel-trains at +once at Palm Beach; there were some people who lived on board all the +time, having special tracks built for them in pleasant locations +wherever they stopped. One man had built a huge automobile railroad +car, shaped like a ram, and having accommodation for sixty people. The +Prentice train had four cars, one of them a "library car," finished in +St. Iago mahogany, and provided with a pipe-organ. Also there were +bath-rooms and a barber-shop, and a baggage car with two autos on board +for exploring purposes. + +Since the episode of Mrs. Winnie, Oliver had apparently concluded that +his brother was one of the initiated. Not long afterward he permitted +him to a glimpse into that side of his life which had been hinted at in +the songs at the bachelors' dinner. + +Oliver had planned to take Betty Wyman to the theatre; but Betty's +grandfather had come home from the West unexpectedly, and so Oliver +came round and took his brother instead. + +"I was going to play a joke on her," he said. "We'll go to see one of +my old flames." + +It was a translation of a French farce, in which the marital +infidelities of two young couples were the occasion of many mishaps. +One of the characters was a waiting-maid, who was in love with a +handsome young soldier, and was pursued by the husband of one of the +couples. It was a minor part, but the young Jewish girl who played it +had so many pretty graces and such a merry laugh that she made it quite +conspicuous. When the act was over, Oliver asked him whose acting he +liked best, and he named her. + +"Come and be introduced to her," Oliver said. + +He opened a door near their box. "How do you do, Mr. Wilson," he said, +nodding to a man in evening dress, who stood near by. Then he turned +toward the dressing-rooms, and went down a corridor, and knocked upon +one of the doors. A voice called, "Come in," and he opened the door; +and there was a tiny room, with odds and ends of clothing scattered +about, and the girl, clad in corsets and underskirt, sitting before a +mirror. "Hello, Rosalie," said he. + +And she dropped her powder-puff, and sprang up with a cry--"Ollie!" 'In +a moment more she had her arms about his neck. + +"Oh, you wretched man," she cried. "Why don't you come to see me any +more? Didn't you get my letters?" + +"I got some," said he. "But I've been busy. This is my brother, Mr. +Allan Montague." + +The other nodded to Montague, and said, "How do you do?"--but without +letting go of Oliver. "Why don't you come to see me?" she exclaimed. + +"There, there, now!" said Oliver, laughing good-naturedly. "I brought +my brother along so that you'd have to behave yourself." + +"I don't care about your brother!" exclaimed the girl, without even +giving him another glance. Then she held Oliver at arm's length, and +gazed into his face. "How can you be so cruel to me?" she asked. + +"I told you I was busy," said he, cheerfully. "And I gave you fair +warning, didn't I? How's Toodles?" + +"Oh, Toodles is in raptures," said Rosalie. "She's got a new fellow." +And then, her manner changing to one of merriment, she added: "Oh, +Ollie! He gave her a diamond brooch! And she looks like a +countess--she's hoping for a chance to wear it in a part!" + +"You've seen Toodles," said Oliver, to his brother "She's in 'The +Kaliph of Kamskatka.'". + +"They're going on the road next week," said Rosalie. "And then I'll be +all alone." She added, in a pleading voice: "Do, Ollie, be a good boy +and take us out to-night. Think how long it's been since I've seen you! +Why, I've been so good I don't know myself in the looking-glass. +Please, Ollie!" + +"All right," said he, "maybe I will." + +"I'm not going to let you get away from me," she cried. "I'll come +right over the footlights after you!" + +"You'd better get dressed," said Oliver. "You'll be late." + +He pushed aside a tray with some glasses on it, and seated himself upon +a trunk; and Montague stood in a corner and watched Rosalie, while she +powdered and painted herself, and put on an airy summer dress, and +poured out a flood of gossip about "Toodles" and "Flossie" and "Grace" +and some others. A few minutes later came a stentorian voice in the +hallway: "Second act!" There were more embraces, and then Ollie brushed +the powder from his coat, and went away laughing. + +Montague stood for a few moments in the wings, watching the +scene-shifters putting the final touches to the new set, and the +various characters taking their positions. Then they went out to their +seats. "Isn't she a jewel?" asked Oliver. + +"She's very pretty," the other admitted. + +"She came right out of the slums," said Oliver--"over on Rivington +Street. That don't happen very often." + +"How did you come to know her?" asked his brother. + +"Oh, I picked her out. She was in a chorus, then. I got her first +speaking part." + +"Did you?" said the other, in surprise. "How did you do that?" + +"Oh, a little money," was the reply. "Money will do most anything. And +I was in love with her--that's how I got her." + +Montague said nothing, but sat in thought. + +"We'll take her out to supper and make her happy," added Oliver, as the +curtain started up. "She's lonesome, I guess. You see, I promised Betty +I'd reform." + +All through that scene and the next one Rosalie acted for them; she was +so full of verve and merriment that there was quite a stir in the +audience, and she got several rounds of applause. Then, when the play +was over, she extricated herself from the arms of the handsome young +soldier, and fled to her dressing-room, and when Oliver and Montague +arrived, she was half ready for the street. + +They went up Broadway, and from a group of people coming out of another +stage-entrance a young girl came to join them--an airy little creature +with the face of a doll-baby, and a big hat with a purple feather on +top. This was "Toodles"--otherwise known as Helen Gwynne; and she took +Montague's arm, and they fell in behind Oliver and his companion. + +Montague wondered what one said to a chorus-girl on the way to supper. +Afterward his brother told him that Toodles had been the wife of a +real-estate agent in a little town in Oklahoma, and had run away from +respectability and boredom with a travelling theatrical company. Now +she was tripping her part in the musical comedy which Montague had seen +at Mrs. Lane's; and incidentally swearing devotion to a handsome young +"wine-agent." She confided to Montague that she hoped the latter might +see her that evening--he needed to be made jealous. + +"The Great White Way" was the name which people had given to this part +of Broadway; and at the head of it stood a huge hotel with flaming +lights, and gorgeous marble and bronze, and famous paintings upon the +walls and ceilings inside. At this hour every one of its many +dining-rooms was thronged with supper-parties, and the place rang with +laughter and the rattle of dishes, and the strains of several +orchestras which toiled heroically in the midst of the uproar. Here +they found a table, and while Oliver was ordering frozen poached eggs +and quails in aspic, Montague sat and gazed about him at the revelry, +and listened to the prattle of the little ex-sempstress from Rivington +Street. + +His brother had "got her," he said, by buying a speaking part in a play +for her; and Montague recalled the orgies of which he had heard at the +bachelors' dinner, and divined that here he was at the source of the +stream from which they were fed. At the table next to them was a young +Hebrew, whom Toodles pointed out as the son and heir of a great +clothing manufacturer. He was "keeping" several girls, said she; and +the queenly creature who was his vis-a-vis was one of the chorus in +"The Maids of Mandalay." And a little way farther down the room was a +boy with the face of an angel and the air of a prince of the blood--he +had inherited a million and run away from school, and was making a name +for himself in the Tenderloin. The pretty little girl all in green who +was with him was Violet Pane, who was the artist's model in a new play +that had made a hit. She had had a full-page picture of herself in the +Sunday supplement of the "sporting paper" which was read here--so +Rosalie remarked. + +"Why don't you ever do that for me?" she added, to Oliver. + +"Perhaps I will," said he, with a laugh. "What does it cost?" + +And when he learned that the honour could be purchased for only fifteen +hundred dollars, he said, "I'll do it, if you'll be good." And from +that time on the last trace of worriment vanished from the face and the +conversation of Rosalie. + +As the champagne cocktails disappeared, she and Oliver became +confidential. Then Montague turned to Toodles, to learn more about how +the "second generation" was preying upon the women of the stage. + +"A chorus-girl got from ten to twenty dollars a week," said Toodles; +and that was hardly enough to pay for her clothes. Her work was very +uncertain--she would spend weeks at rehearsal, and then if the play +failed, she would get nothing. It was a dog's life; and the keys of +freedom and opportunity were in the keeping of rich men, who haunted +the theatres and laid siege to the girls. They would send in notes to +them, or fling bouquets to them, with cards, or perhaps money, hidden +in them. There were millionaire artists and bohemians who kept a +standing order for seats in the front rows at opening performances; +they had accounts with florists and liverymen and confectioners, and +gave carte blanche to scores of girls who lent themselves to their +purposes. Sometimes they were in league with the managers, and a girl +who held back would find her chances imperilled; sometimes these men +would even finance shows to give a chance to some favourite. + +Afterward Toodles turned to listen to Oliver and his companion; and +Montague sat back and gazed about the room. Next to him was a long +table with a dozen, people at it; and he watched the buckets of +champagne and the endless succession of fantastic-looking dishes of +food, and the revellers, with their flushed faces and feverish eyes and +loud laughter. Above all the tumult was the voice of the orchestra, +calling, calling, like the storm wind upon the mountains; the music was +wild and chaotic, and produced an indescribable sense of pain and +confusion. When one realized that this same thing was going on in +thousands of places in this district it seemed that here was a flood of +dissipation that out-rivalled even that of Society. + +It was said that the hotels of New York, placed end to end, would reach +all the way to London; and they took care of a couple of hundred +thousand people a day--a horde which had come from all over the world +in search of pleasure and excitement. There were sight-seers and +"country customers" from forty-five states; ranchers from Texas, and +lumber kings from Maine, and mining men from Nevada. At home they had +reputations, and perhaps families to consider; but once plunged into +the whirlpool of the Tenderloin, they were hidden from all the world. +They came with their pockets full of money; and hotels and restaurants, +gambling-places and pool-rooms and brothels--all were lying in wait for +them! So eager had the competition become that there was a tailoring +establishment and a bank that were never closed the year round, except +on Sunday. + +Everywhere about one's feet the nets of vice were spread. The head +waiter in one's hotel was a "steerer" for a "dive," and the house +detective was "touting" for a gambling-place. The handsome woman who +smiled at one in "Peacock Alley" was a "madame"; the pleasant-faced +young man who spoke to one at the bar was on the look-out for customers +for a brokerage-house next door. Three times in a single day in another +of these great caravanserais Montague was offered "short change"; and +so his eyes were opened to a new kind of plundering. He was struck by +the number of attendants in livery who swarmed about him, and to whom +he gave tips for their services. He did not notice that the boys in the +wash-rooms and coat-rooms could not speak a word of English; he could +not know that they were searched every night, and had everything taken +from them, and that the Greek who hired them had paid fifteen thousand +dollars a year to the hotel for the privilege. + +So far had the specialization in evil proceeded that there were places +of prostitution which did a telephone-business exclusively, and would +send a woman in a cab to any address; and there were high-class +assignation-houses, which furnished exquisite apartments and the +services of maids and valets. And in this world of vice the modern +doctrine of the equality of the sexes was fully recognized; there were +gambling-houses and pool-rooms and opium-joints for women, and +drinking-places which catered especially for them. In the "orange room" +of one of the big hotels, you might see rich women of every rank and +type, fingering the dainty leather-bound and gold-embossed wine cards. +In this room alone were sold over ten thousand drinks every day; and +the hotel paid a rental of a million a year to the Devon estate. Not +far away the Devons also owned negro-dives, where, in the early hours +of the morning, you might see richly-gowned white women drinking. + +In this seething caldron of graft there were many strange ways of +making money, and many strange and incredible types of human beings to +be met. Once, in "Society," Montague had pointed out to him a woman who +had been a "tattooed lady" in a circus; there was another who had been +a confederate of gamblers upon the ocean steamships, and another who +had washed dishes in a mining-camp. There was one of these great hotels +whose proprietor had been a successful burglar; and a department-store +whose owner had begun life as a "fence." In any crowd of these +revellers you might have such strange creatures pointed out to you; a +multimillionaire who sold rotten jam to the people; another who had +invented opium soothing-syrup for babies; a convivial old gentleman who +disbursed the "yellow dog fund" of several railroads; a handsome +chauffeur who had run away with an heiress. 'Once a great scientist had +invented a new kind of underwear, and had endeavoured to make it a gift +to humanity; and here was a man who had seized upon it and made +millions out of it! Here was a "trance medium," who had got a fortune +out of an imbecile old manufacturer; here was a great newspaper +proprietor, who published advertisements of assignations at a dollar a +line; here was a cigar manufacturer, whose smug face was upon every +billboard--he had begun as a tin manufacturer, and to avoid the duty, +he had had his raw material cast in the form of statues, and brought +them in as works of art! + +And terrible and vile as were the sources from which the fortunes had +been derived, they were no viler nor more terrible than the purposes +for which they had been spent. Mrs. Vivie Patton had hinted to Montague +of a "Decameron Club," whose members gathered in each others' homes and +vied in the telling of obscene stories; Strathcona had told him about +another set of exquisite ladies and gentlemen who gave elaborate +entertainments, in which they dressed in the costumes of bygone +periods, and imitated famous characters in history, and the vices and +orgies of courts and camps. One heard of "Cleopatra nights" on board of +yachts at Newport. There was a certain Wall Street "plunger," who had +begun life as a mining man in the West; and when his customers came in +town, he would hire a trolley-car, and take a load of champagne and +half a dozen prostitutes, and spend the night careering about the +country. This man was now quartered in one of the great hotels in New +York; and in his apartments he would have prize fights and chicken +fights; and bloodthirsty exhibitions called "purring matches," in which +men tried to bark each other's shins; or perhaps a "battle royal," with +a diamond scarf-pin dangling from the ceiling, and half a dozen negroes +in a free-for-all fight for the prize. + +No picture of the ways of the Metropolis would be complete which did +not force upon the reluctant reader some realization of the extent to +which new and hideous incitements to vice were spreading. To say that +among the leisured classes such practices were raging like a pestilence +would be no exaggeration. Ten years ago they were regarded with +aversion by even the professionally vicious; but now the commonest +prostitute accepted them as part of her fate. And there was no height +to which they had not reached--ministers of state were enslaved by +them; great fortunes and public events were controlled by them. In +Washington there had been an ambassador whose natural daughter taught +them in the houses of the great, until the scandal forced the +minister's recall. Some of these practices were terrible in their +effects, completely wrecking the victim in a short time; and physicians +who studied their symptoms would be horrified to see them appearing in +the homes of their friends. + +And from New York, the centre of the wealth and culture of the country, +these vices spread to every corner of it. Theatrical companies and +travelling salesmen carried them; visiting merchants and sightseers +acquired them. Pack-pedlers sold vile pictures and books--the +manufacturing or importing of which was now quite an industry; one +might read catalogues printed abroad in English, the contents of which +would make one's flesh creep. There were cheap weeklies, costing ten +cents a year, which were thrust into area-windows for servant-girls; +there were yellow-covered French novels of unbelievable depravity for +the mistress of the house. It was a curious commentary upon the morals +of Society that upon the trains running to a certain suburban community +frequented by the ultra-fashionable, the newsboys did a thriving +business in such literature; and when the pastor of the fashionable +church eloped with a Society girl, the bishop publicly laid the blame +to the morals of his parishioners! + +The theory was that there were two worlds, and that they were kept +rigidly separate. There were two sets of women; one to be toyed with +and flung aside, and the other to be protected and esteemed. Such +things as prostitutes and kept women might exist, but people of +refinement did not talk about them, and were not concerned with them. +But Montague was familiar with the saying, that if you follow the chain +of the slave, you will find the other end about the wrist of the +master; and he discovered that the Tenderloin was wreaking its +vengeance upon Fifth Avenue. It was not merely that the men of wealth +were carrying to their wives and children the diseases of vice; they +were carrying also the manners and the ideals. + +Montague had been amazed by the things he had found in New York +Society; the smoking and drinking and gambling of women, their hard and +cynical views of life, their continual telling of coarse stories. And +here, in this under-world, he had come upon the fountain head of the +corruption. It was something which came to him in a sudden flash of +intuition;--the barriers between the two worlds were breaking down! + +He could picture the process in a hundred different forms. There was +Betty Wyman. His brother had meant to take her to the theatre, to let +her see Rosalie, by way of a joke! So, of course, Betty knew of his +escapades, and of those of his set; she and her girl friends were +whispering and jesting about them. Here sat Oliver, smiling and +cynical, toying with Rosalie as a cat might toy with a mouse; and +to-morrow he would be with Betty--and could anyone doubt any longer +whence Betty had derived her attitude towards life? And the habits of +mind that Oliver had taught her as a girl she would not forget as a +wife; he might be anxious to keep her to himself, but there would be +others whose interest was different. + +And Montague recalled other things that he had seen or heard in +Society, that he could put his finger upon, as having come out of this +under-world. The more he thought of the explanation, the more it seemed +to explain. This "Society," which had perplexed him--now he could +describe it: its manners and ideals of life were those which he would +have expected to find in the "fast" side of stage life. + +It was, of course, the women who made Society, and gave it its tone; +and the women of Society were actresses. They were actresses in their +love of notoriety and display; in their taste in clothes and jewels, +their fondness for cigarettes and champagne. They made up like +actresses; they talked and thought like actresses. The only obvious +difference was that the women of the stage were carefully +selected--were at least up to a certain standard of physical +excellence; whereas the women of Society were not selected at all, and +some were lean, and some were stout, and some were painfully homely. + +Montague recalled cases where the two sets had met as at some of the +private entertainments. It was getting to be the fashion to hobnob with +the stage people on such occasions; and he recalled how naturally the +younger people took to this. Only the older women held aloof; looking +down upon the women of the stage from an ineffable height, as belonging +to a lower caste--because they were obliged to work for their livings. +But it seemed to Montague, as he sat and talked with this poor +chorus-girl, who had sold herself for a little pleasure, that it was +easier to pardon her than the woman who had been born to luxury, and +scorned those who produced her wealth. + +But most of all, one's sympathies went out to a person who was not to +be met in either of these sets; to the girl who had not sold herself, +but was struggling for a living in the midst of this ravening +corruption. There were thousands of self-respecting women, even on the +stage; Toodles herself had been among them, she told Montague. "I kept +straight for a long time," she said, laughing cheerfully--"and on ten +dollars a week! I used to go out on the road, and then they paid me +sixteen; and think of trying to live on one-night stands--to board +yourself and stop at hotels and dress for the theatre--on sixteen a +week, and no job half the year! And all that time--do you know Cyril +Chambers, the famous church painter?" + +"I've heard of him," said Montague. + +"Well, I was with a show here on Broadway the next winter; and every +night for six months he sent me a bunch of orchids that couldn't have +cost less than seventy-five dollars! And he told me he'd open accounts +for me in all the stores I chose, if I'd spend the next summer in +Europe with him. He said I could take my mother or my sister with +me--and I was so green in those days, I thought that must mean he +didn't intend anything wrong!" + +Toodles smiled at the memory. "Did you go?" asked the man. + +"No," she answered. "I stayed here with a roof-garden show that failed. +And I went to my old manager for a job, and he said to me, 'I can only +pay you ten a week. But why are you so foolish?' 'How do you mean?' I +asked; and he answered, 'Why don't you get a rich sweetheart? Then I +could pay you sixty.' That's what a girl hears on the stage!" + +"I don't understand," said Montague, perplexed. "Did he mean he could +get money out of the man?" + +"Not directly," said Toodles; "but tickets--and advertising. Why, men +will hire front-row seats for a whole season, if they're interested in +a girl in the show. And they'll take all their friends to see her, and +she'll be talked about--she'll be somebody, instead of just nobody, as +I was." + +"Then it actually helps her on the stage!" said Montague. + +"Helps her!" exclaimed Toodles. "My God! I've known a girl who'd been +abroad with a tip-top swell--and had the gowns and the jewels to prove +it--to come home and get into the front row of a chorus at a hundred +dollars a week." + +Toodles was cheerful and all unaware; and that only made the tragedy of +it all one shade more black to Montague. He sat lost in sombre reverie, +forgetting his companions, and the blare and glare of the place. + +In the centre of this dining-room was a great cone-shaped stand, +containing a display of food; and as they strolled out, Montague +stopped to look at it. There were platters garnished with flowers and +herbs, and containing roast turkeys and baked hams, jellied meats and +game in aspic, puddings and tarts and frosted cakes--every kind of +food-fantasticality imaginable. One might have spent an hour in +studying it, and from top to bottom he would have found nothing simple, +nothing natural. The turkeys had paper curls and rosettes stuck over +them; the hams were covered with a white gelatine, the devilled crabs +with a yellow mayonnaise-and all painted over in pink and green and +black with landscapes and marine views--with "ships and shoes and +sealing-wax and cabbages and kings." The jellied meats and the puddings +were in the shape of fruits and flowers; and there were elaborate works +of art in pink and white confectionery--a barn-yard, for instance, with +horses and cows, and a pump, and a dairymaid--and one or two alligators. + +And all this was changed every day! Each morning you might see a +procession of a score of waiters bearing aloft a new supply. Montague +remembered Betty Wyman's remark at their first interview, apropos of +the whipped cream made into little curleques; how his brother had said, +"If Allan were here, he'd be thinking about the man who fixed that +cream, and how long it took him, and how he might have been reading +'The Simple Life'!" + +He thought of that now; he stood here and gazed, and wondered about all +the slaves of the lamp who served in this huge temple of luxury. He +looked at the waiters--pale, hollow-chested, harried-looking men: he +imagined the hordes of servants of yet lower kinds, who never emerged +into the light of day; the men who washed the dishes, the men who +carried the garbage, the men who shovelled the coal into the furnaces, +and made the heat and light and power. Pent up in dim cellars, many +stories under ground, and bound for ever to the service of +sensuality--how terrible must be their fate, how unimaginable their +corruption! And they were foreigners; they had come here seeking +liberty. And the masters of the new country had seized them and pent +them here! + +From this as a starting-point his thought went on, to the hordes of +toilers in every part of the world, whose fate it was to create the +things which these blind revellers destroyed; the women and children in +countless mills and sweatshops, who spun the cloth, and cut and sewed +it; the girls who made the artificial flowers, who rolled the +cigarettes, who gathered the grapes from the vines; the miners who dug +the coal and the precious metals out of the earth; the men who watched +in ten thousand signal-towers and engines, who fought the elements from +the decks of ten thousand ships--to bring all these things here to be +destroyed. Step by step, as the flood of extravagance rose, and the +energies of the men were turned to the creation of futility and +corruption--so, step by step, increased the misery and degradation of +all these slaves of Mammon. And who could imagine what they would think +about it--if ever they came to think? + +And then, in a sudden flash, there came back to Montague that speech +he had heard upon the street-corner, the first evening he had been in +New York! He could hear again the pounding of the elevated trains, and +the shrill voice of the orator; he could see his haggard and hungry +face, and the dense crowd gazing up at him. And there came to him the +words of Major Thorne: + +"It means another civil war!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Alice had been gone for a couple of weeks, and the day was drawing near +when the Hasbrook case came up for trial. The Saturday before that +being the date of the Mi-carême dance of the Long Island Hunt Club, +Siegfried Harvey was to have a house-party for the week-end, and +Montague accepted his invitation. He had been working hard, putting the +finishing touches to his brief, and he thought that a rest would be +good for him. + +He and his brother went down upon Friday afternoon, and the first +person he met was Betty Wyman, whom he had not seen for quite a while. +Betty had much to say, and said it. As Montague had not been seen with +Mrs. Winnie since the episode in her house, people had begun to notice +the break, and there was no end of gossip; and Mistress Betty wanted to +know all about it, and how things stood between them. + +But he would not tell her, and so she saucily refused to tell him what +she had heard. All the while they talked she was eyeing him +quizzically, and it was evident that she took the worst for granted; +also that he had become a much more interesting person to her because +of it. Montague had the strangest sensations when he was talking with +Betty Wyman; she was delicious and appealing, almost irresistible; and +yet her views of life were so old! "I told you you wouldn't do for a +tame cat!" she said to him. + +Then she went on to talk to him about his case, and to tease him about +the disturbance he had made. + +"You know," she said, "Ollie and I were in terror--we thought that +grandfather would be furious, and that we'd be ruined. But somehow, it +didn't work out that way. Don't you say anything about it, but I've had +a sort of a fancy that he must be on your side of the fence." + +"I'd be glad to know it," said Montague, with a laugh--"I've been +trying for a long time to find out who is on my side of the fence." + +"He was talking about it the other day," said Betty, "and I heard him +tell a man that he'd read your argument, and thought it was good." + +"I'm glad to hear that," said Montague. + +"So was I," replied she. "And I said to him afterward, 'I suppose you +don't know that Allan Montague is my Ollie's brother.' And he did you +the honour to say that he hadn't supposed any member of Ollie's family +could have as much sense!" + +Betty was staying with an aunt near by, and she went back before +dinner. In the automobile which came for her was old Wyman himself, on +his way home from the city; and as a snowstorm had begun, he came in +and stood by the fire while his car was exchanged for a closed one from +Harvey's stables. Montague did not meet him, but stood and watched him +from the shadows-a mite of a man, with a keen and eager face, full of +wrinkles. It was hard to realize that this little body held one of the +great driving minds of the country. He was an intensely nervous and +irritable man, bitter and implacable--by all odds the most hated and +feared man in Wall Street. He was swift, imperious, savage as a hornet. +"Directors at meetings that I attend vote first and discuss afterward," +was one of his sayings that Montague had heard quoted. Watching him +here by the fireside, rubbing his hands and chatting pleasantly, +Montague had a sudden sense of being behind the scenes, of being +admitted to a privilege denied to ordinary mortals--the beholding of +royalty in everyday attire! + +After dinner that evening Montague had a chat in the smoking-room with +his host; and he brought up the subject of the Hasbrook case, and told +about his trip to Washington, and his interview with Judge Ellis. + +Harvey also had something to communicate. "I had a talk with Freddie +Vandam about it," said he. + +"What did he say?" asked Montague. + +"Well," replied the other, with a laugh, "he's indignant, needless to +say. You know, Freddie was brought up by his father to regard the +Fidelity as his property, in a way. He always refers to it as 'my +company.' And he's very high and mighty about it--it's a personal +affront if anyone attacks it. But it was evident to me that he doesn't +know who's behind this case." + +"Did he know about Ellis?" asked Montague. + +"Yes," said the other, "he had found out that much. It was he who told +me that originally. He says that Ellis has been sponging off the +company for years--he has a big salary that he never earns, and has +borrowed something like a quarter of a million dollars on worthless +securities." + +Montague gave a gasp. + +"Yes," laughed Harvey. "But after all, that's a little matter. The +trouble with Freddie Vandam is that that sort of thing is all he sees; +and so he'll never be able to make out the mystery. He knows that this +clique or that in the company is plotting to get some advantage, or to +use him for their purposes--but he never realizes how the big men are +pulling the wires behind the scenes. Some day they'll throw him +overboard altogether, and then he'll realize how they've played with +him. That's what this Hasbrook case means, you know--they simply want +to frighten him with a threat of getting the company's affairs into the +courts and the newspapers." + +Montague sat for a while in deep thought. + +"What would you think would be Wyman's relation to the matter?" he +asked, at last. + +"I wouldn't know," said Harvey. "He's supposed to be Freddie's +backer--but what can you tell in such a tangle?" + +"It is certainly a mess," said Montague. + +"There's no bottom to it," said the other. "Absolutely--it would take +your breath away! Just listen to what Vandam told me to-day!" + +And then Harvey named one of the directors of the Fidelity who was well +known as a philanthropist. Having heard that the wife of one of his +junior partners had met with an accident in childbirth, and that the +doctor had told her husband that if she ever had another child, she +would die, this man had asked, "Why don't you have her life insured?" +The other replied that he had tried, and the companies had refused her. +"I'll fix it for you," said he; and so they put in another application, +and the director came to Freddie Vandam and had the policy put through +"by executive order." Seven months later the woman died, and the +Fidelity had paid her husband in full--a hundred thousand or two! + +"That's what's going on in the insurance world!" said Siegfried Harvey. + +And that was the story which Montague took with him to add to his +enjoyment of the festivities at the country club. It was a very +gorgeous affair; but perhaps the sombreness of his thoughts was to +blame; the flowers and music and beautiful gowns failed entirely in +their appeal, and he saw only the gluttony and drunkenness--more of it +than ever before, it seemed to him. + +Then, too, he had an unpleasant experience. He met Laura Hegan; and +presuming upon her cordial reception of his visit, he went up and spoke +to her pleasantly. And she greeted him with frigid politeness; she was +so brief in her remarks and turned away so abruptly as almost to snub +him. He went away quite bewildered. But later on he recalled the gossip +about himself and Mrs. Winnie, and he guessed that that was the +explanation of Miss Hegar's action. + +The episode threw a shadow over his whole visit. On Sunday he went out +into the country and tramped through a snowstorm by himself, filled +with a sense of disgust for all the past, and of foreboding for the +future. He hated this money-world, in which all that was worst in human +beings was brought to the surface; he hated it, and wished that he had +never set foot within its bounds. It was only by tramping until he was +too tired to feel anything that he was able to master himself. + +And then, toward dark, he came back, and found a telegram which had +been forwarded from New York. + +"Meet me at the Penna depot, Jersey City, at nine to-night. Alice." + +This message, of course, drove all other thoughts from his mind. He had +no time even to tell Oliver about it--he had to jump into an automobile +and rush to catch the next train for the city. And all through the +long, cold ride in ferry-boats and cabs he pondered this mystery. +Alice's party had not been expected for two weeks yet; and only two +days before there had come a letter from Los Angeles, saying that they +would probably be a week over time. And here she was home again! + +He found there was an express from the West due at the hour named; +apparently, therefore, Alice had not come in the Prentice's train at +all. The express was half an hour late, and so he paced up and down the +platform, controlling his impatience as best he could. And finally the +long train pulled in, and he saw Alice coming down the platform. She +was alone! + +"What does it mean?" were the first words he said to her. + +"It's a long story," she answered. "I wanted to come home."; + +"You mean you've come all the way from the coast by yourself!" he +gasped. + +"Yes," she said, "all the way." + +"What in the world--" he began. + +"I can't tell you here, Allan," she said. "Wait till we get to some +quiet place." + +"But," he persisted. "The Prentice? They let you come home alone?" + +"They didn't know it," she said. "I ran away." + +He was more bewildered than ever. But as he started to ask more +questions, she laid a hand upon his arm. "Please wait, Allan," she +said. "It upsets me to talk about it. It was Charlie Carter." + +And so the light broke. He caught his breath and gasped, "Oh!" + +He said not another word until they had crossed the ferry and settled +themselves in a cab, and started. "Now," he said, "tell me." + +Alice began. "I was very much upset," she said. "But you must +understand, Allan, that I've had nearly a week to think it over, and I +don't mind it now. So I want you please not to get excited about it; it +wasn't poor Charlie's fault--he can't help himself. It was my mistake. +I ought to have taken your advice and had nothing to do with him." + +"Go on," said he; and Alice told her story. + +The party had gone sight-seeing, and she had had a headache and had +stayed in the car. And Charlie Carter had come and begun making love to +her. "He had asked me to marry him already--that was at the beginning +of the trip," she said. "And I told him no. After that he would never +let me alone. And this time he went on in a terrible way--he flung +himself down on his knees, and wept, and said he couldn't live without +me. And nothing I could say did any good. At last he--he caught hold of +me--and he wouldn't let me go. I was furious with him, and frightened. +I had to threaten to call for help before he would stop. And so--you +see how it was." + +"I see," said Montague, gravely. "Go on." + +"Well, after that I made up my mind that I couldn't stay anywhere where +I had to see him. And I knew he would never go away without a scene. If +I had asked Mrs. Prentice to send him away, there would have been a +scandal, and it would have spoiled everybody's trip. So I went out, and +found there was a train for the East in a little while, and I packed up +my things, and left a note for Mrs. Prentice. I told her a story--I +said I'd had a telegram that your mother was ill, and that I didn't +want to spoil their good time, and had gone by myself. That was the +best thing I could think of. I wasn't afraid to travel, so long as I +was sure that Charlie couldn't catch up with me." + +Montague said nothing; he sat with his hands gripped tightly. + +"It seemed like a desperate thing to do," said Alice, nervously. "But +you see, I was upset and unhappy. I didn't seem to like the party any +more--I wanted to be home. Do you understand?" + +"Yes," said Montague, "I understand. And I'm glad you are here." + +They reached home, and Montague called up Harvey's and told his brother +what had happened. He could hear Oliver gasp with astonishment. "That's +a pretty how-do-you-do!" he said, when he had got his breath back; and +then he added, with a laugh, "I suppose that settles poor Charlie's +chances." + +"I'm glad you've come to that conclusion," said the other, as he hung +up the receiver. + +This episode gave Montague quite a shock. But he had little time to +think about it--the next morning at eleven o'clock his case was to come +up for trial, and so all his thoughts were called away. This case had +been the one real interest of his life for the last three months; it +was his purpose, the thing for the sake of which he endured everything +else that repelled him. And he had trained himself as an athlete for a +great race; he was in form, and ready for the effort of his life. He +went down town that morning with every fibre of him, body and mind, +alert and eager; and he went into his office, and in his mail was a +letter from Mr. Hasbrook. He opened it hastily and read a message, +brief and direct and decisive as a sword-thrust: + +"I beg to inform you that I have received a satisfactory proposition +from the Fidelity Company. I have settled with them, and wish to +withdraw the suit. Thanking you for your services, I remain, sincerely." + +To Montague the thing came like a thunderbolt. He sat utterly +dumbfounded--his hands went limp, and the letter fell upon the desk in +front of him. + +And at last, when he did move, he picked up the telephone, and told his +secretary to call up Mr. Hasbrook. Then he sat waiting; and when the +bell rang, picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Mr. Hasbrook's +voice, and to demand an explanation. But he heard, instead, the voice +of his own secretary: "Central says the number's been discontinued, +sir." + +And he hung up the receiver, and sat motionless again. The dummy had +disappeared! + +To Montague this incident meant a change in the prospect of his whole +life. It was the collapse of all his hopes. He had nothing more to work +for, nothing more to think about; the bottom had fallen out of his +career! + +He was burning with a sense of outrage. He had been tricked and made a +fool of; he had been used and flung aside. And now there was nothing he +could do--he was utterly helpless. What affected him most was his sense +of the overwhelming magnitude of the powers which had made him their +puppet; of the utter futility of the efforts that he or any other man +could make against them. They were like elemental, cosmic forces; they +held all the world in their grip, and a common man was as much at their +mercy as a bit of chaff in a tempest. + +All day long he sat in his office, brooding and nursing his wrath. He +had moods when he wished to drop everything, to shake the dust of the +city from his feet, and go back home and recollect what it was to be a +gentleman. And then again he had fighting moods, when he wished to +devote all his life to punishing the men who had made use of him. He +would get hold of some other policy-holder in the Fidelity, one whom he +could trust; he would take the case without pay, and carry it through +to the end! He would force the newspapers to talk about it--he would +force the people to heed what he said! + +And then, toward evening, he went home, bitter and sore. And there was +his brother sitting in his study, waiting for him. + +"Hello," he said, and took off his coat, preparing his mind for one +more ignominy--the telling of his misfortune to Oliver, and listening +to his inevitable, "I told you so." + +But Oliver himself had something to communicate something that would +not bear keeping. He broke out at once--"Tell me, Allan! What in the +world has happened between you and Mrs. Winnie?" + +"What do you mean?" asked Montague, sharply. + +"Why," said Oliver, "everybody is talking about some kind of a quarrel." + +"There has been no quarrel," said Montague. + +"Well, what is it, then?" + +"It's nothing." + +"It must be something!" exclaimed Oliver. "What do all the stories +mean?" + +"What stories?" + +"About you two. I met Mrs. Vivie Patton just now, and she swore me to +secrecy, and told me that Mrs. Winnie had told some one that you had +made love to her so outrageously that she had to ask you to leave the +house." + +Montague shrunk as from a blow. "Oh!" he gasped. + +"That's what she said," said he. + +"It's a lie!" he cried. + +"That's what I told Mrs. Vivie," said the other; "it doesn't sound like +you--" + +Montague had flushed scarlet. "I don't mean that!" he cried. "I mean +that Mrs. Winnie never said any such thing." + +"Oh," said Oliver, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe not," he +added. "But I know she's furious with you about something--everybody's +talking about it. She tells people that she'll never speak to you +again. And what I want to know is, why is it that you have to do things +to make enemies of everybody you know?" + +Montague said nothing; he was trembling with anger. + +"What in the world did you do to her?" began the other. "Can't you +trust me---" + +And suddenly Montague sprang to his feet. "Oh, Oliver," he exclaimed, +"let me alone! Go away!" + +And he went into the next room and slammed the door, and began pacing +back and forth like a caged animal. + +It was a lie! It was a lie! Mrs. Winnie had never said such a thing! He +would never believe it--it was a nasty piece of backstairs gossip! + +But then a new burst of rage swept over him What did it matter Whether +it was true or not--whether anything was true or not? What did it +matter if anybody had done all the hideous and loathsome things that +everybody else said they had done? It was what everybody was saying! It +was what everybody believed--what everybody was interested in! It was +the measure of a whole society--their ideals and their standards! It +was the way they spent their time, repeating nasty scandals about each +other; living in an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism, with endless +whispering and leering, and gossip of lew intrigue. + +A flood of rage surged up within him, and swept him, away--rage against +the world into which he had come, and against himself for the part he +had played in it. Everything seemed to have come to a head at once; and +he hated everything--hated the people he had met, and the things they +did, and the things they had tempted him to do. He hated the way he had +got his money, and the way he had spent it. He hated the idleness and +wastefulness, the drunkenness and debauchery, the meanness and the +snobbishness. + +And suddenly he turned and flung open the door of the room where Oliver +still sat. And he stood in the doorway, exclaiming, "Oliver, I'm done +with it!" + +Oliver stared at him. "What do you mean?" he asked. + +"I mean," cried his brother, "that I've had all I can stand of +'Society!' And I'm going to quit. You can go on--but I don't intend to +take another step with you! I've had enough--and I think Alice has had +enough, also. We'll take ourselves off your hands--we'll get out!" + +"What are you going to do?" gasped Oliver. + +"I'm going to give up these expensive apartments--give them up +to-morrow, when our week is up. And I'm going to stop squandering money +for things I don't want. I'm going to stop accepting invitations, and +meeting people I don't like and don't want to know. I've tried your +game--I've tried it hard, and I don't like it; and I'm going to get out +before it's too late. I'm going to find some decent and simple place to +live in; and I'm going down town to find out if there isn't some way in +New York for a man to earn an honest living!" + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Metropolis, by Upton Sinclair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METROPOLIS *** + +***** This file should be named 5421-8.txt or 5421-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/2/5421/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines. + +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. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/5421-8.zip b/old/5421-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e34e623 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/5421-8.zip diff --git a/old/5421.txt b/old/5421.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9bd3e9b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/5421.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10574 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Metropolis, by Upton Sinclair + +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.net + + +Title: The Metropolis + +Author: Upton Sinclair + +Posting Date: March 20, 2009 [EBook #5421] +Release Date: April, 2004 +First Posted: July 14, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METROPOLIS *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +THE METROPOLIS + + +BY + +UPTON SINCLAIR + + + +FIRST PUBLISHED 1908 + +PRINTED BY OFFSET IN GREAT BRITAIN + + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"Return at ten-thirty," the General said to his chauffeur, and then +they entered the corridor of the hotel. + +Montague gazed about him, and found himself trembling just a little +with anticipation. It was not the magnificence of the place. The quiet +uptown hotel would have seemed magnificent to him, fresh as he was from +the country; but, he did not see the marble columns and the gilded +carvings-he was thinking of the men he was to meet. It seemed too much +to crowd into one day-first the vision of the whirling, seething city, +the centre of all his hopes of the future; and then, at night, this +meeting, overwhelming him with the crowded memories of everything that +he held precious in the past. + +There were groups of men in faded uniforms standing about in the +corridors. General Prentice bowed here and there as they retired and +took the elevator to the reception-rooms. In the doorway they passed a +stout little man with stubby white moustaches, and the General stopped, +exclaiming, "Hello, Major!" Then he added: "Let me introduce Mr. Allan +Montague. Montague, this is Major Thorne." + +A look of sudden interest flashed across the Major's face. "General +Montague's son?" he cried. And then he seized the other's hand in both +of his, exclaiming, "My boy! my boy! I'm glad to see you!" + +Now Montague was no boy--he was a man of thirty, and rather sedate in +his appearance and manner; there was enough in his six feet one to have +made two of the round and rubicund little Major. And yet it seemed to +him quite proper that the other should address him so. He was back in +his boyhood to-night--he was a boy whenever anyone mentioned the name +of Major Thorne. + +"Perhaps you have heard your father speak of me?" asked the Major, +eagerly; and Montague answered, "A thousand times." + +He was tempted to add that the vision that rose before him was of a +stout gentleman hanging in a grape-vine, while a whole battery of +artillery made him their target. + +Perhaps it was irreverent, but that was what Montague had always +thought of, ever since he had first laughed over the tale his father +told. It had happened one January afternoon in the Wilderness, during +the terrible battle of Chancellorsville, when Montague's father had +been a rising young staff-officer, and it had fallen to his lot to +carry to Major Thorne what was surely the most terrifying order that +ever a cavalry officer received. It was in the crisis of the conflict, +when the Army of the Potomac was reeling before the onslaught of +Stonewall Jackson's columns. There was no one to stop them-and yet they +must be stopped, for the whole right wing of the army was going. So +that cavalry regiment had charged full tilt through the thickets, and +into a solid wall of infantry and artillery. The crash of their volley +was blinding--and horses wore fairly shot to fragments; and the Major's +horse, with its lower jaw torn off, had plunged madly away and left its +rider hanging in the aforementioned grape-vine. After he had kicked +himself loose, it was to find himself in an arena where pain-maddened +horses and frenzied men raced about amid a rain of minie-balls and +canister. And in this inferno the gallant Major had captured a horse, +and rallied the remains of his shattered command, and held the line +until help came-and then helped to hold it, all through the afternoon +and the twilight and the night, against charge after charge.--And now +to stand and gaze at this stout and red-nosed little personage, and +realize that these mighty deeds had been his! + +Then, even while Montague was returning his hand-clasp and telling him +of his pleasure, the Major's eye caught some one across the room, and +he called eagerly, "Colonel Anderson! Colonel Anderson!" + +And this was the heroic Jack Anderson! "Parson" Anderson, the men had +called him, because he always prayed before everything he did. Prayers +at each mess,--a prayer-meeting in the evening,--and then rumour said +the Colonel prayed on while his men slept. With his battery of +artillery trained to perfection under three years of divine guidance, +the gallant Colonel had stood in the line of battle at Cold +Harbour--name of frightful memory!--and when the enemy had swarmed out +of their intrenchments and swept back the whole line just beyond him, +his battery had stood like a cape in a storm-beaten ocean, attacked on +two sides at once; and for the half-hour that elapsed before infantry +support came up, the Colonel had ridden slowly up and down his line, +repeating in calm and godly accents, "Give 'em hell, boys--give 'em +hell!"--The Colonel's hand trembled now as he held it out, and his +voice was shrill and cracked as he told what pleasure it gave him to +meet General Montague's son. + +"Why have we never seen you before?" asked Major Thorne. Montague +replied that he had spent all his life in Mississippi--his father +having married a Southern woman after the war. Once every year the +General had come to New York to attend the reunion of the Loyal Legion +of the State; but some one had had to stay at home with his mother, +Montague explained. + +There were perhaps a hundred men in the room, and he was passed about +from group to group. Many of them had known his father intimately. It +seemed almost uncanny to him to meet them in the body; to find them old +and feeble, white-haired and wrinkled. As they lived in the chambers of +his memory, they were in their mighty youth-heroes, transfigured and +radiant, not subject to the power of time. + +Life on the big plantation had been a lonely one, especially for a +Southern-born man who had fought in the Union army. General Montague +had been a person of quiet tastes, and his greatest pleasure had been +to sit with his two boys on his knees and "fight his battles o'er +again." He had collected all the literature of the corps which he had +commanded--a whole library of it, in which Allan had learned to find +his way as soon as he could read. He had literally been brought up on +the war--for hours he would lie buried in some big illustrated history, +until people came and called him away. He studied maps of campaigns and +battle-fields, until they became alive with human passion and struggle; +he knew the Army of the Potomac by brigade and division, with the names +of commanders, and their faces, and their ways-until they lived and +spoke, and the bare roll of their names had power to thrill him.--And +now here were the men themselves, and all these scenes and memories +crowding upon him in tumultuous throngs. No wonder that he was a little +dazed, and could hardly find words to answer when he was spoken to. + +But then came an incident which called him suddenly back to the world +of the present. "There is Judge Ellis," said the General. + +Judge Ellis! The fame of his wit and eloquence had reached even far +Mississippi--was there any remotest corner of America where men had not +heard of the silver tongue of Judge Ellis? "Cultivate him!" Montague's +brother Oliver had laughed, when it was mentioned that the Judge would +be present--"Cultivate him--he may be useful." + +It was not difficult to cultivate one who was as gracious as Judge +Ellis. He stood in the doorway, a smooth, perfectly groomed gentleman, +conspicuous in the uniformed assembly by his evening dress. The Judge +was stout and jovial, and cultivated Dundreary whiskers and a beaming +smile. "General Montague's son!" he exclaimed, as he pressed the young +man's hands. "Why, why--I'm surprised! Why have we never seen you +before?" + +Montague explained that he had only been in New York about six hours. +"Oh, I see," said the Judge. "And shall you remain long?" + +"I have come to stay," was the reply. + +"Well, well!" said the other, cordially. "Then we may see more of you. +Are you going into business?" + +"I am a lawyer," said Montague. "I expect to practise." + +The Judge's quick glance had been taking the measure of the tall, +handsome man before him, with his raven-black hair and grave features. +"You must give us a chance to try your mettle," he said; and then, as +others approached to meet him, and he was forced to pass on, he laid a +caressing hand on Montague's arm, whispering, with a sly smile, "I mean +it." + +Montague felt his heart beat a little faster. He had not welcomed his +brother's suggestion--there was nothing of the sycophant in him; but he +meant to work and to succeed, and he knew what the favour of a man like +Judge Ellis would mean to him. For the Judge was the idol of New York's +business and political aristocracy, and the doorways of fortune yielded +at his touch. + +There were rows of chairs in one of the rooms, and here two or three +hundred men were gathered. There were stands of battle-flags in the +corners, each one of them a scroll of tragic history, to one like +Montague, who understood. His eye roamed over them while the secretary +was reading minutes of meetings and other routine announcements. Then +he began to study the assemblage. There were men with one arm and men +with one leg--one tottering old soldier ninety years of age, stone +blind, and led about by his friends. The Loyal Legion was an officers' +organization, and to that extent aristocratic; but worldly success +counted for nothing in it--some of its members were struggling to exist +on their pensions, and were as much thought of as a man like General +Prentice, who was president of one of the city's largest banks, and a +rich man, even in New York's understanding of that term. + +The presiding officer introduced "Colonel Robert Selden, who will read +the paper of the evening: 'Recollections of Spottsylvania.'" Montague +started at the name--for "Bob" Selden had been one of his father's +messmates, and had fought all through the Peninsula Campaign at his +side. + +He was a tall, hawk-faced man with a grey imperial. The room was still +as he arose, and after adjusting his glasses, he began to read his +story. He recalled the situation of the Army of the Potomac in the +spring of 1864; for three years it had marched and fought, stumbling +through defeat after defeat, a mighty weapon, lacking only a man who +could wield it. Now at last the man had come--one who would put them +into the battle and give them a chance to fight. So they had marched +into the Wilderness, and there Lee struck them, and for three days they +groped in a blind thicket, fighting hand to hand, amid suffocating +smoke. The Colonel read in a quiet, unassuming voice; but one could see +that he had hold of his hearers by the light that crossed their +features when he told of the army's recoil from the shock, and of the +wild joy that ran through the ranks when they took up their march to +the left, and realized that this time they were not going back.--So +they came to the twelve days' grapple of the Spottsylvania Campaign. + +There was still the Wilderness thicket; the enemy's intrenchments, +covering about eight miles, lay in the shape of a dome, and at the +cupola of it were breastworks of heavy timbers banked with earth, and +with a ditch and a tangle of trees in front. The place was the keystone +of the Confederate arch, and the name of it was "the Angle"--"Bloody +Angle!" Montague heard the man who sat next to him draw in his breath, +as if a spasm of pain had shot through him. + +At dawn two brigades had charged and captured the place. The enemy +returned to the attack, and for twenty hours thereafter the two armies +fought, hurling regiment after regiment and brigade after brigade into +the trenches. There was a pouring rain, and the smoke hung black about +them; they could only see the flashes of the guns, and the faces of the +enemy, here and there. + +The Colonel described the approach of his regiment. They lay down for a +moment in a swamp, and the minie-balls sang like swarming bees, and +split the blades of the grass above them. Then they charged, over +ground that ran with human blood. In the trenches the bodies of dead +and dying men lay three deep, and were trampled out of sight in the mud +by the feet of those who fought. They would crouch behind the works, +lifting their guns high over their heads, and firing into the throngs +on the other side; again and again men sprang upon the breastworks and +fired their muskets, and then fell dead. They dragged up cannon, one +after another, and blew holes through the logs, and raked the' ground +with charges of canister. + +While the Colonel read, still in his calm, matter-of-fact voice, you +might see men leaning forward in their chairs, hands clenched, teeth +set. They knew! They knew! Had there ever before been a time in history +when breastworks had been charged by artillery? Twenty-four men in the +crew of one gun, and only two unhurt! One iron sponge-bucket with +thirty-nine bullet holes shot through it! And then blasts of canister +sweeping the trenches, and blowing scores of living and dead men to +fragments! And into this hell of slaughter new regiments charging, in +lines four deep! And squad after squad of the enemy striving to +surrender, and shot to pieces by their own comrades as they clambered +over the blood-soaked walls! And heavy timbers in the defences shot to +splinters! Huge oak trees--one of them twenty-four inches in +diameter--crashing down upon the combatants, gnawed through by +rifle-bullets! Since the world began had men ever fought like that? + +Then the Colonel told of his own wound in the shoulder, and how, toward +dusk, he had crawled away; and how he became lost, and strayed into the +enemy's line, and was thrust into a batch of prisoners and marched to +the rear. And then of the night that he spent beside a hospital camp in +the Wilderness, where hundreds of wounded and dying men lay about on +the rain-soaked ground, moaning, screaming, praying to be killed. Again +the prisoners were moved, having been ordered to march to the railroad; +and on the way the Colonel went blind from suffering and exhaustion, +and staggered and fell in the road. You could have heard a pin drop in +the room, in the pause between sentences in his story, as he told how +the guard argued with him to persuade him to go on. It was their duty +to kill him if he refused, but they could not bring themselves to do +it. In the end they left the job to one, and he stood and cursed the +officer, trying to get up his courage; and finally fired his gun into +the air, and went off and left him. + +Then he told how an old negro had found him, and how he lay delirious; +and how, at last, the army marched his way. He ended his narrative the +simple sentence: "It was not until the siege of Petersburg that I was +able to rejoin my Command." + +There was a murmur of applause; and then silence. Suddenly, from +somewhere in the room, came the sound of singing--"Mine eyes have seen +the glory of the coming of the Lord!" The old battle-hymn seemed to +strike the very mood of the meeting; the whole throng took it up, and +they sang it, stanza by stanza. It was rolling forth like a mighty +organ-chant as they came to the fervid closing:-- + +"He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is +sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat; Oh! be swift, +my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet,--Our God is marching on!" + +There was a pause again; and the presiding officer rose and said that, +owing to the presence of a distinguished guest, they would forego one +of their rules, and invite Judge Ellis to say a few words. The Judge +came forward, and bowed his acknowledgment of their welcome. Then, +perhaps feeling a need of relief after the sombre recital, the Judge +took occasion to apologize for his own temerity in addressing a roomful +of warriors; and somehow he managed to make that remind him of a story +of an army mule, a very amusing story; and that reminded him of another +story, until, when he stopped and sat down, every one in the room broke +into delighted applause. + +They went in to dinner. Montague sat by General Prentice, and he, in +turn, by the Judge; the latter was reminded of more stories during the +dinner, and kept every one near him laughing. Finally Montague was +moved to tell a story himself--about an old negro down home, who passed +himself off for an Indian. The Judge was so good as to consider this an +immensely funny story, and asked permission to tell it himself. Several +times after that he leaned over and spoke to Montague, who felt a +slight twinge of guilt as he recalled his brother's cynical advice, +"Cultivate him!" The Judge was so willing to be cultivated, however, +that it gave one's conscience little chance. + +They went back to the meeting-room again; chairs were shifted, and +little groups formed, and cigars and pipes brought out. They moved the +precious battle-flags forward, and some one produced a bugle and a +couple of drums; then the walls of the place shook, as the whole +company burst forth:-- + +"Bring the good old bugle, boys! we'll sing another song--Sing it with +a spirit that will start the world along--Sing it as we used to sing +it, fifty thousand strong,--While we were marching through Georgia!" + +It was wonderful to witness the fervour with which they went through +this rollicking chant--whose spirit we miss because we hear it too +often. They were not skilled musicians--they could only sing loud; but +the fire leaped into their eyes, and they swayed with the rhythm, and +sang! Montague found himself watching the old blind soldier, who sat +beating his foot in time, upon his face the look of one who sees +visions. + +And then he noticed another man, a little, red-faced Irishman, one of +the drummers. The very spirit of the drum seemed to have entered into +him--into his hands and his feet, his eyes and his head, and his round +little body. He played a long roll between the verses, and it seemed as +if he must surely be swept away upon the wings of it. Catching +Montague's eye, he nodded and smiled; and after that, every once in a +while their eyes would meet and exchange a greeting. They sang "The +Loyal Legioner" and "The Army Bean" and "John Brown's Body" and "Tramp, +tramp, tramp, the boys are marching"; all the while the drum rattled +and thundered, and the little drummer laughed and sang, the very +incarnation of the care-free spirit of the soldier! + +They stopped for a while, and the little man came over and was +introduced. Lieutenant O'Day was his name; and after he had left, +General Prentice leaned over to Montague and told him a story. "That +little man," he said, "began as a drummer-boy in my regiment, and went +all through the war in my brigade; and two years ago I met him on the +street one cold winter night, as thin as I am, and shivering in a +summer overcoat. I took him to dinner with me and watched him eat, and +I made up my mind there was something wrong. I made him take me home, +and do you know, the man was starving! He had a little tobacco shop, +and he'd got into trouble--the trust had taken away his trade. And he +had a sick wife, and a daughter clerking at six dollars a week!" + +The General went on to tell of his struggle to induce the little man to +accept his aid--to accept a loan of a few hundreds of dollars from +Prentice, the banker! "I never had anything hurt me so in all my life," +he said. "Finally I took him into the bank--and now you can see he has +enough to eat!" + +They began to sing again, and Montague sat and thought over the story. +It seemed to him typical of the thing that made this meeting beautiful +to him--of the spirit of brotherhood and service that reigned +here.--They sang "We are tenting to-night on the old camp ground"; they +sang "Benny Havens, Oh!" and "A Soldier No More"; they sang other songs +of tenderness and sorrow, and men felt a trembling in their voices and +a mist stealing over their eyes. Upon Montague a spell was falling. + +Over these men and their story there hung a mystery--a presence of +wonder, that discloses itself but rarely to mortals, and only to those +who have dreamed and dared. They had not found it easy to do their +duty; they had had their wives and children, their homes and friends +and familiar places; and all these they had left to serve the Republic. +They had taught themselves a new way of life--they had forged +themselves into an iron sword of war. They had marched and fought in +dust and heat, in pouring rains and driving, icy blasts; they had +become men grim and terrible in spirit-men with limbs of steel, who +could march or ride for days and nights, who could lie down and sleep +upon the ground in rain-storms and winter snows, who were ready to leap +at a word and seize their muskets and rush into the cannon's mouth. +They had learned to stare into the face of death, to meet its fiery +eyes; to march and eat and sleep, to laugh and play and sing, in its +presence--to carry their life in their hands, and toss it about as a +juggler tosses a ball. And this for Freedom: for the star-crowned +goddess with the flaming eyes, who trod upon the mountain-tops and +called to them in the shock and fury of the battle; whose trailing +robes they followed through the dust and cannon-smoke; for a glimpse of +whose shining face they had kept the long night vigils and charged upon +the guns in the morning; for a touch of whose shimmering robe they had +wasted in prison pens, where famine and loathsome pestilence and raving +madness stalked about in the broad daylight. + +And now this army of deliverance, with its waving banners and its +prancing horses and its rumbling cannon, had marched into the +shadow-world. The very ground that it had trod was sacred; and one who +fingered the dusty volumes which held the record of its deeds would +feel a strange awe come upon him, and thrill with a sudden fear of +life--that was so fleeting and so little to be understood. There were +boyhood memories in Montague's mind, of hours of consecration, when the +vision had descended upon him, and he had sat with face hidden in his +hands. + +It was for the Republic that these men had suffered; for him and his +children--that a government of the people, by the people, for the +people, might not perish from the earth. And with the organ-music of +the Gettysburg Address echoing within him, the boy laid his soul upon +the altar of his country. They had done so much for him--and now, was +there anything that he could do? A dozen years had passed since then, +and still he knew that deep within him--deeper than all other purposes, +than all thoughts of wealth and fame and power--was the purpose that +the men who had died for the Republic should find him worthy of their +trust. + +The singing had stopped, and Judge Ellis was standing before him. The +Judge was about to go, and in his caressing voice he said that he would +hope to see Montague again. Then, seeing that General Prentice was also +standing up, Montague threw off the spell that had gripped him, and +shook hands with the little drummer, and with Selden and Anderson and +all the others of his dream people. A few minutes later he found +himself outside the hotel, drinking deep draughts of the cold November +air. + +Major Thorne had come out with them; and learning that the General's +route lay uptown, he offered to walk with Montague to his hotel. + +They set out, and then Montague told the Major about the figure in the +grape-vine, and the Major laughed and told how it had felt. There had +been more adventures, it seemed; while he was hunting a horse he had +come upon two mules loaded with ammunition and entangled with their +harness about a tree; he had rushed up to seize them--when a solid shot +had struck the tree and exploded the ammunition and blown the mules to +fragments. And then there was the story of the charge late in the +night, which had recovered the lost ground, and kept Stonewall Jackson +busy up to the very hour of his tragic death. And there was the story +of Andersonville, and the escape from prison. Montague could have +walked the streets all night, exchanging these war-time reminiscences +with the Major. + +Absorbed in their talk, they came to an avenue given up to the poorer +class of people; with elevated trains rattling by overhead, and rows of +little shops along it. Montague noticed a dense crowd on one of the +corners, and asked what it meant. + +"Some sort of a meeting," said the Major. + +They came nearer, and saw a torch, with a man standing near it, above +the heads of the crowd. + +"It looks like a political meeting," said Montague, "but it can't be, +now--just after election." + +"Probably it's a Socialist," said the Major. "They're at it all the +time." + +They crossed the avenue, and then they could see plainly. The man was +lean and hungry-looking, and he had long arms, which he waved with +prodigious violence. He was in a frenzy of excitement, pacing this way +and that, and leaning over the throng packed about him. Because of a +passing train the two could not hear a sound. + +"A Socialist!" exclaimed Montague, wonderingly. "What do they want?" + +"I'm not sure," said the other. "They want to overthrow the government." + +The train passed, and then the man's words came to them: "They force +you to build palaces, and then they put you into tenements! They force +you to spin fine raiment, and then they dress you in rags! They force +you to build jails, and then they lock you up in them! They force you +to make guns, and then they shoot you with them! They own the political +parties, and they name the candidates, and trick you into voting for +them--and they call it the law! They herd you into armies and send you +to shoot your brothers--and they call it order! They take a piece of +coloured rag and call it the flag and teach you to let yourself be +shot--and they call it patriotism! First, last, and all the time, you +do the work and they get the benefit--they, the masters and owners, and +you--fools--fools--fools!" + +The man's voice had mounted to a scream, and he flung his hands into +the air and broke into jeering laughter. Then came another train, and +Montague could not hear him; but he could see that he was rushing on in +the torrent of his denunciation. + +Montague stood rooted to the spot; he was shocked to the depths of his +being--he could scarcely contain himself as he stood there. He longed +to spring forward to beard the man where he stood, to shout him down, +to rebuke him before the crowd. + +The Major must have seen his agitation, for he took his arm and led him +back from the throng, saying: "Come! We can't help it." + +"But--but--," he protested, "the police ought to arrest him." + +"They do sometimes," said the Major, "but it doesn't do any good." + +They walked on, and the sounds of the shrill voice died away. "Tell +me," said Montague, in a low voice, "does that go on very often?" + +"Around the corner from where I live," said the other, "it goes on +every Saturday night." + +"And do the people listen?" he asked. + +"Sometimes they can't keep the street clear," was the reply. + +And again they walked in silence. At last Montague asked, "What does it +mean?" + +The Major shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps another civil war," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Allan Montague's father had died about five years before. A couple of +years later his younger brother, Oliver, had announced his intention of +seeking a career in New York. He had no profession, and no definite +plans; but his father's friends were men of influence and wealth, and +the doors were open to him. So he had turned his share of the estate +into cash and departed. + +Oliver was a gay and pleasure-loving boy, with all the material of a +prodigal son in him; his brother had more than half expected to see him +come back in a year or two with empty pockets. But New York had seemed +to agree with Oliver. He never told what he was doing--what he wrote +was simply that he was managing to keep the wolf from the door. But his +letters hinted at expensive ways of life; and at Christmas time, and at +Cousin Alice's birthday, he would send home presents which made the +family stare. + +Montague had always thought of himself as a country lawyer and planter. +But two months ago a fire had swept away the family mansion, and then +on top of that had come an offer for the land; and with Oliver +telegraphing several times a day in his eagerness, they had taken the +sudden resolution to settle up their affairs and move to New York. + +There were Montague and his mother, and Cousin Alice, who was nineteen, +and old "Mammy Lucy," Mrs. Montague's servant. Oliver had met them at +Jersey City, radiant with happiness. He looked just as much of a boy as +ever, and just as beautiful; excepting that he was a little paler, New +York had not changed him at all. There was a man in uniform from the +hotel to take charge of their baggage, and a big red touring-car for +them; and now they were snugly settled in their apartments, with the +younger brother on duty as counsellor and guide. + +Montague had come to begin life all over again. He had brought his +money, and he expected to invest it, and to live upon the income until +he had begun to earn something. He had worked hard at his profession, +and he meant to work in New York, and to win his way in the end. He +knew almost nothing about the city--he faced it with the wide-open eyes +of a child. + +One began to learn quickly, he found. It was like being swept into a +maelstrom: first the hurrying throngs on the ferry-boat, and then the +cabmen and the newsboys shouting, and the cars with clanging gongs; +then the swift motor, gliding between trucks and carriages and around +corners where big policemen shepherded the scurrying populace; and then +Fifth Avenue, with its rows of shops and towering hotels; and at last a +sudden swing round a corner--and their home. + +"I have picked a quiet family place for you," Oliver had said, and that +had greatly pleased his brother. But he had stared in dismay when he +entered this latest "apartment hotel"--which catered for two or three +hundred of the most exclusive of the city's aristocracy--and noted its +great arcade, with massive doors of bronze, and its entrance-hall, +trimmed with Caen stone and Italian marble, and roofed with a vaulted +ceiling painted by modern masters. Men in livery bore their wraps and +bowed the way before them; a great bronze elevator shot them to the +proper floor; and they went to their rooms down a corridor walled with +blood-red marble and paved with carpet soft as a cushion. Here were six +rooms of palatial size, with carpets, drapery, and furniture of a +splendour quite appalling to Montague. + +As soon as the man who bore their wraps had left the room, he turned +upon his brother. + +"Oliver," he said, "how much are we paying for all this?" + +Oliver smiled. "You are not paying anything, old man," he replied. +"You're to be my guests for a month or two, until you get your +bearings." + +"That's very good of you," said the other; "--we'll talk about it +later. But meantime, tell me what the apartment costs." + +And then Montague encountered his first full charge of New York +dynamite. "Six hundred dollars a week," said Oliver. + +He started as if his brother had struck him. "Six hundred dollars a +week!" he gasped. + +"Yes," said the other, quietly. + +It was fully a minute before he could find his breath. "Brother," he +exclaimed, "you're mad!" + +"It is a very good bargain," smiled the other; "I have some influence +with them." + +Again there was a pause, while Montague groped for words. "Oliver," he +exclaimed, "I can't believe you! How could you think that we could pay +such a price?" + +"I didn't think it," said Oliver; "I told you I expected to pay it +myself." + +"But how could we let you pay it for us?" cried the other. "Can you +fancy that _I_ will ever earn enough to pay such a price?" + +"Of course you will," said Oliver. "Don't be foolish, Allan--you'll +find it's easy enough to make money in New York. Leave it to me, and +wait awhile." + +But the other was not to be put off. He sat down on the embroidered +silk bedspread, and demanded abruptly, "What do you expect my income to +be a year?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," laughed Oliver; "nobody takes the time to add +up his income. You'll make what you need, and something over for good +measure. This one thing you'll know for certain--the more you spend, +the more you'll be able to make." + +And then, seeing that the sober look was not to be expelled from his +brother's face, Oliver seated himself and crossed his legs, and +proceeded to set forth the paradoxical philosophy of extravagance. His +brother had come into a city of millionaires. There was a certain group +of people--"the right set," was Oliver's term for them--and among them +he would find that money was as free as air. So far as his career was +concerned, he would find that there was nothing in all New York so +costly as economy. If he did not live like a gentleman, he would find +himself excluded from the circle of the elect--and how he would manage +to exist then was a problem too difficult for his brother to face. + +And so, as quickly as he could, he was to bring himself to a state of +mind where things did not surprise him; where he did what others did +and paid what others paid, and did it serenely, as if he had done it +all his life. He would soon find his place; meantime all he had to do +was to put himself into his brother's charge. "You'll find in time that +I have the strings in my hands," the latter added. "Just take life +easy, and let me introduce you to the right people." + +All of which sounded very attractive. "But are you sure," asked +Montague, "that you understand what I'm here for? I don't want to get +into the Four Hundred, you know--I want to practise law." + +"In the first place," replied Oliver, "don't talk about the Four +Hundred--it's vulgar and silly; there's no such thing. In the next +place, you're going to live in New York, and you want to know the right +people. If you know them, you can practise law, or practise billiards, +or practise anything else that you fancy. If you don't know them, you +might as well go practise in Dahomey, for all you can accomplish. You +might come on here and start in for yourself, and in twenty years you +wouldn't get as far as you can get in two weeks, if you'll let me +attend to it." + +Montague was nearly five years his brother's senior, and at home had +taken a semi-paternal attitude toward him. Now, however, the situation +seemed to have reversed itself. With a slight smile of amusement, he +subsided, and proceeded to put himself into the attitude of a docile +student of the mysteries of the Metropolis. + +They agreed that they would say nothing about these matters to the +others. Mrs. Montague was half blind, and would lead her placid, indoor +existence with old Mammy Lucy. As for Alice, she was a woman, and would +not trouble herself with economics; if fairy godmothers chose to shower +gifts upon her, she would take them. + +Alice was built to live in a palace, anyway, Oliver said. He had cried +out with delight when he first saw her. She had been sixteen when he +left, and tall and thin; now she was nineteen, and with the pale tints +of the dawn in her hair and face. In the auto, Oliver had turned and, +stared at her, and pronounced the cryptic judgment, "You'll go!" + +Just now she was wandering about the rooms, exclaiming with wonder. +Everything here was so quiet and so harmonious that at first one's +suspicions were lulled. It was simplicity, but of a strange and +perplexing kind--simplicity elaborately studied. It was luxury, but +grown assured of itself, and gazing down upon itself with aristocratic +disdain. And after a while this began to penetrate the vulgarest mind, +and to fill it with awe; one cannot remain long in an apartment which +is trimmed and furnished in rarest Circassian walnut, and "papered" +with hand-embroidered silk cloth, without feeling some excitement--even +though there be no one to mention that the furniture has cost eight +thousand dollars per room, and that the wall covering has been imported +from Paris at a cost of seventy dollars per yard. + +Montague also betook himself to gazing about. He noted the great double +windows, with sashes of bronze; the bronze fire-proof doors; the bronze +electric candles and chandeliers, from which the room was flooded with +a soft radiance at the touch of a button; the "duchesse" and "marquise" +chairs, with upholstery matching the walls; the huge leather +"slumber-couch," with adjustable lamp at its head. When one opened the +door of the dressing-room closet, it was automatically filled with +light; there was an adjustable three-sided mirror, at which one could +study his own figure from every side. There was a little bronze box +near the bed, in which one might set his shoes, and with a locked door +opening out into the hall, so that the floor-porter could get them +without disturbing one. Each of the bath-rooms was the size of an +ordinary man's parlour, with floor and walls of snow-white marble, and +a door composed of an imported plate-glass mirror. There was a great +porcelain tub, with glass handles upon the wall by which you could help +yourself out of it, and a shower-bath with linen duck curtains, which +were changed every day; and a marble slab upon which you might lie to +be rubbed by the masseur who would come at the touch of a button. + +There was no end to the miracles of this establishment, as Montague +found in the course of time. There was no chance that the antique +bronze clock on the mantel might go wrong, for it was electrically +controlled from the office. You did not open the window and let in the +dust, for the room was automatically ventilated, and you turned a +switch marked "hot" and "cold." The office would furnish you a guide +who would show you the establishment; and you might see your bread +being kneaded by electricity, upon an opal glass table, and your eggs +being tested by electric light; you might peer into huge refrigerators, +ventilated by electric fans, and in which each tiny lamb chop reposed +in a separate holder. Upon your own floor was a pantry, provided with +hot and cold storage-rooms and an air-tight dumb-waiter; you might have +your own private linen and crockery and plate, and your own family +butler, if you wished. Your children, however, would not be permitted +in the building, even though you were dying--this was a small +concession which you made to a host who had invested a million dollars +and a half in furniture alone. + +A few minutes later the telephone bell rang, and Oliver answered it and +said, "Send him up." + +"Here's the tailor," he remarked, as he hung up the receiver. + +"Whose tailor?" asked his brother. + +"Yours," said he. + +"Do I have to have some new clothes?" Montague asked. + +"You haven't any clothes at present," was the reply. + +Montague was standing in front of the "costumer," as the elaborate +mirror was termed. He looked himself over, and then he looked at his +brother. Oliver's clothing was a little like the Circassian walnut; at +first you thought that it was simple, and even a trifle careless--it +was only by degrees you realized that it was original and +distinguished, and very expensive. + +"Won't your New York friends make allowance for the fact that I am +fresh from the country?" asked Montague, quizzically. + +"They might," was the reply. "I know a hundred who would lend me money, +if I asked them. But I don't ask them." + +"Then how soon shall I be able to appear?" asked Montague, with visions +of himself locked up in the room for a week or two. + +"You are to have three suits to-morrow morning," said Oliver. "Genet +has promised." + +"Suits made to order?" gasped the other, in perplexity. + +"He never heard of any other sort of suits," said Oliver, with grave +rebuke in his voice. + +M. Genet had the presence of a Russian grand duke, and the manner of a +court chamberlain. He brought a subordinate to take Montague's measure, +while he himself studied his colour-scheme. Montague gathered from the +conversation that he was going to a house-party in the country the next +morning, and that he would need a dress-suit, a hunting-suit, and a +"morning coat." The rest might wait until his return. The two discussed +him and his various "points" as they might have discussed a horse; he +possessed distinction, he learned, and a great deal could be done with +him--with a little skill he might be made into a personality. His +French was not in training, but he managed to make out that it was M. +Genet's opinion that the husbands of New York would tremble when he +made his appearance among them. + +When the tailor had left, Alice came in, with her face shining from a +cold bathing. "Here you are decking yourselves out!" she cried. "And +what about me?" + +"Your problem is harder," said Oliver, with a laugh; "but you begin +this afternoon. Reggie Mann is going to take you with him, and get you +some dresses." + +"What!" gasped Alice. "Get me some dresses! A man?" + +"Of course," said the other. "Reggie Mann advises half the women in New +York about their clothes." + +"Who is he? A tailor?" asked the girl. + +Oliver was sitting on the edge of the canape, swinging one leg over the +other; and he stopped abruptly and stared, and then sank back, laughing +softly to himself. "Oh, dear me!" he said. "Poor Reggie!" + +Then, realizing that he would have to begin at the beginning, he +proceeded to explain that Reggie Mann was a cotillion leader, the idol +of the feminine side of society. He was the special pet and protege of +the great Mrs. de Graffenried, of whom they had surely heard--Mrs. de +Graffenried, who was acknowledged to be the mistress of society at +Newport, and was destined some day to be mistress in New York. Reggie +and Oliver were "thick," and he had stayed in town on purpose to attend +to her attiring--having seen her picture, and vowed that he would make +a work of art out of her. And then Mrs. Robbie Walling would give her a +dance; and all the world would come to fall at her feet. + +"You and I are going out to 'Black Forest,' the Wallings' +shooting-lodge, to-morrow," Oliver added to his brother. "You'll meet +Mrs. Robbie there. You've heard of the Wallings, I hope." + +"Yes," said Montague, "I'm not that ignorant." + +"All right," said the other, "we're to motor down. I'm going to take +you in my racing-car, so you'll have an experience. We'll start early." + +"I'll be ready," said Montague; and when his brother replied that he +would be at the door at eleven, he made another amused note as to the +habits of New Yorkers. + +The price which he paid at the hotel included the services of a valet +or a maid for each of them, and so when their baggage arrived they had +nothing to do. They went to lunch in one of the main dining-rooms of +the hotel, a room with towering columns of dark-green marble and a maze +of palms and flowers. Oliver did the ordering; his brother noticed that +the simple meal cost them about fifteen dollars, and he wondered if +they were to eat at that rate all the time. + +Then Montague mentioned the fact that before leaving home he had +received a telegram from General Prentice, asking him to go with him +that evening to the meeting of the Loyal Legion. Montague wondered, +half amused, if his brother would deem his old clothing fit for such a +function. But Oliver replied that it would not matter what he wore +there; he would not meet anyone who counted, except Prentice himself. +The General and his family were prominent in society, it appeared, and +were to be cultivated. But Oliver shrewdly forbore to elaborate upon +this, knowing that his brother would be certain to talk about old +times, which would be the surest possible method of lodging himself in +the good graces of General Prentice. + +After luncheon came Reggie Mann, dapper and exquisite, with slender +little figure and mincing gait, and the delicate hands and soft voice +of a woman. He was dressed for the afternoon parade, and wore a +wonderful scarlet orchid in his buttonhole. Montague's hand he shook at +his shoulder's height; but when Alice came in he did not shake hands +with her. Instead, he stood and gazed, and gazed again, and lifting his +hands a little with excess of emotion, exclaimed, "Oh, perfect! +perfect!" + +"And Ollie, I told you so!" he added, eagerly. "She it tall enough to +wear satin! She shall have the pale blue Empire gown--she shall have +the pale blue Empire gown if I have to pay for it myself! And oh, what +times we shall have with that hair! And the figure--Reval will simply +go wild!" + +So Reggie prattled on, with his airy grace; he took her hand and +studied it, and then turned her about to survey her figure, while Alice +blushed and strove to laugh to hide her embarrassment. "My dear Miss +Montague," he exclaimed, "I bring all Gotham and lay it at your feet! +Ollie, your battle is won! Won without firing a shot! I know the very +man for her--his father is dying, and he will have four millions in +Transcontinental alone. And he is as handsome as Antinous and as +fascinating as Don Juan! Allons! we may as well begin with the +trousseau this afternoon!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Oliver was not rooming with them; he had his own quarters at the club, +which he did not wish to leave. But the next morning, about twenty +minutes after the hour he had named, he was at the door, and Montague +went down. + +Oliver's car was an imported French racer. It had only two seats, open +in front, with a rumble behind for the mechanic. It was long and low +and rakish, a most wicked-looking object; whenever it stopped on the +street a crowd gathered to stare at it. Oliver was clad in a black +bearskin coat, covering his feet, and with cap and gloves to match; he +wore goggles, pushed up over his forehead. A similar costume lay ready +in his brother's seat. + +The suits of clothing had come, and were borne in his grips by his +valet. "We can't carry them with us," said Oliver. "He'll have to take +them down by train." And while his brother was buttoning up the coat, +he gave the address; then Montague clambered in, and after a quick +glance over his shoulder, Oliver pressed a lever and threw over the +steering-wheel, and they whirled about and sped down the street. + +Sometimes, at home in Mississippi, one would meet automobiling parties, +generally to the damage of one's harness and temper. But until the day +before, when he had stepped off the ferry, Montague had never ridden in +a motor-car. Riding in this one was like travelling in a dream--it slid +along without a sound, or the slightest trace of vibration; it shot +forward, it darted to right or to left, it slowed up, it stopped, as if +of its own will--the driver seemed to do nothing. Such things as car +tracks had no effect upon it at all, and serious defects in the +pavement caused only the faintest swelling motion; it was only when it +leaped ahead like a living thing that one felt the power of it, by the +pressure upon his back. + +They went at what seemed to Montague a breakneck pace through the city +streets, dodging among trucks and carriages, grazing cars, whirling +round corners, taking the wildest of chances. Oliver seemed always to +know what the other fellow would do; but the thought that he might do +something different kept his companion's heart pounding in a painful +way. Once the latter cried out as a man leapt for his life; Oliver +laughed, and said, without turning his head, "You'll get used to it by +and by." + +They went down Fourth Avenue and turned into the Bowery. Elevated +trains pounded overhead, and a maze of gin-shops, dime-museums, cheap +lodging-houses, and clothing-stores sped past them. Once or twice +Oliver's hawk-like glance detected a blue uniform ahead, and then they +slowed down to a decorous pace, and the other got a chance to observe +the miserable population of the neighbourhood. It was a cold November +day, and an "out of work" time, and wretched outcast men walked with +shoulders drawn forward and hands in their pockets. + +"Where in the world are we going?" Montague asked. + +"To Long Island," said the other. "It's a beastly ride--this part of +it--but it's the only way. Some day we'll have an overhead speedway of +our own, and we won't have to drive through this mess." + +They turned off at the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge, and found +the street closed for repairs. They had to make a detour of a block, +and they turned with a vicious sweep and plunged into the very heart of +the tenement district. Narrow, filthy streets, with huge, canon-like +blocks of buildings, covered with rusty iron fire-escapes and decorated +with soap-boxes and pails and laundry and babies; narrow stoops, +crowded with playing children; grocery-shops, clothing-shops, saloons; +and a maze of placards and signs in English and German and Yiddish. +Through the throngs Oliver drove, his brows knitted with impatience and +his horn honking angrily. "Take it easy,"--protested Montague; but the +other answered, "Bah!" Children screamed and darted out of the way, and +men and women started back, scowling and muttering; when a blockade of +wagons and push-carts forced them to stop, the children gathered about +and jeered, and a group of hoodlums loafing by a saloon flung ribaldry +at them; but Oliver never turned his eyes from the road ahead. + +And at last they were out on the bridge. "Slow vehicles keep to the +right," ran the sign, and so there was a lane for them to the left. +They sped up the slope, the cold air beating upon them like a +hurricane. Far below lay the river, with tugs and ferry-boats ploughing +the wind-beaten grey water, and a city spread out on either bank--a +wilderness of roofs, with chimneys sticking up and white jets of steam +spouting everywhere. Then they sped down the farther slope, and into +Brooklyn. + +There was an asphalted avenue, lined with little residences. There was +block upon block of them, mile after mile of them--Montague had never, +seen so many houses in his life before, and nearly all poured out of +the same mould. + +Many other automobiles were speeding out by this avenue, and they raced +with one another. The one which was passed the most frequently got the +dust and smell; and so the universal rule was that when you were behind +you watched for a clear track, and then put on speed, and went to the +front; but then just when you had struck a comfortable pace, there was +a whirring and a puffing at your left, and your rival came stealing +past you. If you were ugly, you put on speed yourself, and forced him +to fall back, or to run the risk of trouble with vehicles coming the +other way. For Oliver there seemed to be but one rule,--pass everything. + +They came to the great Ocean Driveway. Here were many automobiles, +nearly all going one way, and nearly all racing. There were two which +stuck to Oliver and would not be left behind--one, two, three--one, +two, three--they passed and repassed. Their dust was blinding, and the +continual odour was sickening; and so Oliver set his lips tight, and +the little dial on the indicator began to creep ahead, and they whirled +away down the drive. "Catch us this time!" he muttered. + +A few seconds later Oliver gave a sudden exclamation, as a policeman, +concealed behind a bush at the roadside, sprang out and hailed them. +The policeman had a motor-cycle, and Oliver shouted to the mechanic, +"Pull the cord!" His brother turned, alarmed and perplexed, and saw the +man reach down to the floor of the car. He saw the policeman leap upon +the cycle and start to follow. Then he lost sight of him in the clouds +of dust. + +For perhaps five minutes they tore on, tense and silent, at a pace that +Montague had never equalled in an express train. Vehicles coming the +other way would leap into sight, charging straight at them, it seemed, +and shooting past a hand's breadth away. Montague had just about made +up his mind that one such ride would last him for a lifetime, when he +noticed that they were slacking up. "You can let go the cord," said +Oliver. "He'll never catch us now." + +"What is the cord?" asked the other. + +"It's tied to the tag with our number on, in back. It swings it up so +it can't be seen." + +They were turning off into a country road, and Montague sank back and +laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. "Is that a common trick?" +he asked. + +"Quite," said the other. "Mrs. Robbie has a trough of mud in their +garage, and her driver sprinkles the tag every time before she goes +out. You have to do something, you know, or you'd be taken up all the +time." + +"Have you ever been arrested?" + +"I've only been in court once," said Oliver. "I've been stopped a dozen +times." + +"What did they do the other times--warn you?" + +"Warn me?" laughed Oliver. "What they did was to get in with me and +ride a block or two, out of sight of the crowd; and then I slipped them +a ten-dollar bill and they got out." + +To which Montague responded, "Oh, I see!" + +They turned into a broad macadamized road, and here were more autos, +and more dust, and more racing. Now and then they crossed a trolley or +a railroad track, and here was always a warning sign; but Oliver must +have had some occult way of knowing that the track was clear, for he +never seemed to slow up. Now and then they came to villages, and did +reduce speed; but from the pace at which they went through, the +villagers could not have suspected it. + +And then came another adventure. The road was in repair, and was very +bad, and they were picking their way, when suddenly a young man who had +been walking on a side path stepped out before them, and drew a red +handkerchief from his pocket, and faced them, waving it. Oliver +muttered an oath. + +"What's the matter?" cried his brother. + +"We're arrested!" he exclaimed. + +"What!" gasped the other. "Why, we were not going at all." + +"I know," said Oliver; "but they've got us all the same." + +He must have made up his mind at one glance that the case was hopeless, +for he made no attempt to put on speed, but let the young man step +aboard as they reached him. + +"What is it?" Oliver demanded. + +"I have been sent out by the Automobile Association," said the +stranger, "to warn you that they have a trap set in the next town. So +watch out." + +And Oliver gave a gasp, and said, "Oh! Thank you!" The young man +stepped off, and they went ahead, and he lay back in his seat and shook +with laughter. + +"Is that common?" his brother asked, between laughs. + +"It happened to me once before," said Oliver. "But I'd forgotten it +completely." + +They proceeded very slowly; and when they came to the outskirts of the +village they went at a funereal pace, while the car throbbed in +protest. In front of a country store they saw a group of loungers +watching them, and Oliver said, "There's the first part of the trap. +They have a telephone, and somewhere beyond is a man with another +telephone, and beyond that a man to stretch a rope across the road." + +"What would they do with you?" asked the other. + +"Haul you up before a justice of the peace, and fine you anywhere from +fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars. It's regular highway +robbery--there are some places that boast of never levying taxes; they +get all their money out of us!" + +Oliver pulled out his watch. "We're going to be late to lunch, thanks +to these delays," he said. He added that they were to meet at the +"Hawk's Nest," which he said was an "automobile joint." + +Outside of the town they "hit it up" again; and half an hour later they +came to a huge sign, "To the Hawk's Nest," and turned off. They ran up +a hill, and came suddenly out of a pine-forest into view of a hostelry, +perched upon the edge of a bluff overlooking the Sound. There was a +broad yard in front, in which automobiles wheeled and sputtered, and a +long shed that was lined with them. + +Half a dozen attendants ran to meet them as they drew up at the steps. +They all knew Oliver, and two fell to brushing his coat, and one got +his cap, while the mechanic took the car to the shed. Oliver had a tip +for each of them; one of the things that Montague observed was that in +New York you had to carry a pocketful of change, and scatter it about +wherever you went. They tipped the man who carried their coats and the +boy who opened the door. In the washrooms they tipped the boys who +filled the basins for them and those who gave them a second brushing. + +The piazzas of the inn were crowded with automobiling parties, in all +sorts of strange costumes. It seemed to Montague that most of them were +flashy people--the men had red faces and the women had loud voices; he +saw one in a sky-blue coat with bright scarlet facing. It occurred to +him that if these women had not worn such large hats, they would not +have needed quite such a supply of the bright-coloured veiling which +they wound over the hats and tied under their chins, or left to float +about in the breeze. + +The dining-room seemed to have been built in sections, rambling about +on the summit of the cliff. The side of it facing the water was all +glass, and could be taken down. The ceiling was a maze of streamers and +Japanese lanterns, and here and there were orange-trees and palms and +artificial streams and fountains. Every table was crowded, it seemed; +one was half-deafened by the clatter of plates, the voices and +laughter, and the uproar of a negro orchestra of banjos, mandolins, and +guitars. Negro waiters flew here and there, and a huge, stout +head-waiter, who was pirouetting and strutting, suddenly espied Oliver, +and made for him with smiles of welcome. + +"Yes, sir--just come in, sir," he said, and led the way down the room, +to where, in a corner, a table had been set for sixteen or eighteen +people. There was a shout, "Here's Ollie!"--and a pounding of glasses +and a chorus of welcome--"Hello, Ollie! You're late, Ollie! What's the +matter--car broke down?" + +Of the party, about half were men and half women. Montague braced +himself for the painful ordeal of being introduced to sixteen people in +succession, but this was considerately spared him. He shook hands with +Robbie Walling, a tall and rather hollow-chested young man, with slight +yellow moustaches; and with Mrs. Robbie, who bade him welcome, and +presented him with the freedom of the company. + +Then he found himself seated between two young ladies, with a waiter +leaning over him to take his order for the drinks. He said, a little +hesitatingly, that he would like some whisky, as he was about frozen, +upon which the girl on his right, remarked, "You'd better try a +champagne cocktail--you'll get your results quicker." She added, to the +waiter, "Bring a couple of them, and be quick about it." + +"You had a cold ride, no doubt, in that low car," she went on, to +Montague. "What made you late?" + +"We had some delays," he answered. "Once we thought we were arrested." + +"Arrested!" she exclaimed; and others took up the word, crying, "Oh, +Ollie! tell us about it!" + +Oliver told the tale, and meantime his brother had a chance to look +about him. All of the party were young--he judged that he was the +oldest person there. They were not of the flashily dressed sort, but no +one would have had to look twice to know that there was money in the +crowd. They had had their first round of drinks, and started in to +enjoy themselves. They were all intimates, calling each other by their +first names. Montague noticed that these names always ended in +"ie,"--there was Robbie and Freddie and Auggie and Clarrie and Bertie +and Chappie; if their names could not be made to end properly, they had +nicknames instead. + +"Ollie" told how they had distanced the policeman; and Clarrie Mason +(one of the younger sons of the once mighty railroad king) told of a +similar feat which his car had performed. And then the young lady who +sat beside him told how a fat Irish woman had skipped out of their way +as they rounded a corner, and stood and cursed them from the +vantage-point of the sidewalk. + +The waiter came with the liquor, and Montague thanked his neighbour, +Miss Price. Anabel Price was her name, and they called her "Billy"; she +was a tall and splendidly formed creature, and he learned in due time +that she was a famous athlete. She must have divined that he would feel +a little lost in this crowd of intimates, and set to work to make him +feel at home--an attempt in which she was not altogether successful. + +They were bound for a shooting-lodge, and so she asked him if he were +fond of shooting. He replied that he was; in answer to a further +question he said that he had hunted chiefly deer and wild turkey. "Ah, +then you are a real hunter!" said Miss Price. "I'm afraid you'll scorn +our way." + +"What do you do?" he inquired. + +"Wait and you'll see," replied she; and added, casually, "When you get +to be pally with us, you'll conclude we don't furnish." + +Montague's jaw dropped just a little. He recovered himself, however, +and said that he presumed so, or that he trusted not; afterward, when +he had made inquiries and found out what he should have said, he had +completely forgotten what he HAD said.--Down in a hotel in Natchez +there was an old head-waiter, to whom Montague had once appealed to +seat him next to a friend. At the next meal, learning that the request +had been granted, he said to the old man, "I'm afraid you have shown me +partiality"; to which the reply came, "I always tries to show it as +much as I kin." Montague always thought of this whenever he recalled +his first encounter with "Billy" Price. + +The young lady on the other side of him now remarked that Robbie was +ordering another "topsy-turvy lunch." He inquired what sort of a lunch +that was; she told him that Robbie called it a "digestion exercise." +That was the only remark that Miss de Millo addressed to him during the +meal (Miss Gladys de Mille, the banker's daughter, known as "Baby" to +her intimates). She was a stout and round-faced girl, who devoted +herself strictly to the business of lunching; and Montague noticed at +the end that she was breathing rather hard, and that her big round eyes +seemed bigger than ever. + +Conversation was general about the table, but it was not easy +conversation to follow. It consisted mostly of what is known as +"joshing," and involved acquaintance with intimate details of +personalities and past events. Also, there was a great deal of slang +used, which kept a stranger's wits on the jump. However, Montague +concluded that all his deficiencies were made up for by his brother, +whose sallies were the cause of the loudest laughter. Just now he +seemed to the other more like the Oliver he had known of old--for +Montague had already noted a change in him. At home there had never +been any end to his gaiety and fun, and it was hard to get him to take +anything seriously; but now he kept all his jokes for company, and when +he was alone he was in deadly earnest. Apparently he was working hard +over his pleasures. + +Montague could understand how this was possible. Some one, for +instance, had worked hard over the ordering of the lunch--to secure the +maximum of explosive effect. It began with ice-cream, moulded in fancy +shapes and then buried in white of egg and baked brown. Then there was +a turtle soup, thick and green and greasy; and then--horror of +horrors--a great steaming plum-pudding. It was served in a strange +phenomenon of a platter, with six long, silver legs; and the waiter set +it in front of Robbie Walling and lifted the cover with a sweeping +gesture--and then removed it and served it himself. Montague had about +made up his mind that this was the end, and begun to fill up on +bread-and-butter, when there appeared cold asparagus, served in +individual silver holders resembling andirons. Then--appetite now being +sufficiently whetted--there came quail, in piping hot little +casseroles--; and then half a grape-fruit set in a block of ice and +filled with wine; and then little squab ducklings, bursting fat, and an +artichoke; and then a _cafe parfait_; and then--as if to crown the +audacity--huge thick slices of roast beef! Montague had given up long +ago--he could keep no track of the deluge of food which poured forth. +And between all the courses there were wines of precious brands, +tumbled helter-skelter,--sherry and port, champagne and claret and +liqueur. Montague watched poor "Baby" de Mille out of the corner of his +eye, and pitied her; for it was evident that she could not resist the +impulse to eat whatever was put before her, and she was visibly +suffering. He wondered whether he might not manage to divert her by +conversation, but he lacked the courage to make the attempt. + +The meal was over at four o'clock. By that time most of the other +parties were far on their way to New York, and the inn was deserted. +They possessed themselves of their belongings, and one by one their +cars whirled away toward "Black Forest." + +Montague had been told that it was a "shooting-lodge." He had a vision +of some kind of a rustic shack, and wondered dimly how so many people +would be stowed away. When they turned off the main road, and his +brother remarked, "Here we are," he was surprised to see a rather large +building of granite, with an archway spanning the road. He was still +more surprised when they whizzed through and went on. + +"Where are we going?" he asked. + +"To 'Black Forest,'" said Oliver. + +"And what was that we passed?" + +"That was the gate-keeper's lodge," was Oliver's reply. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +They ran for about three miles upon a broad macadamized avenue, laid +straight as an arrow's flight through the forest; and then the sound of +the sea came to them, and before them was a mighty granite pile, +looming grim in the twilight, with a draw-bridge and moat, and four +great castellated towers. "Black Forest" was built in imitation of a +famous old fortress in Provence--only the fortress had forty small +rooms, and its modern prototype had seventy large ones, and now every +window was blazing with lights. A man does not let himself be caught +twice in such a blunder; and having visited a "shooting-lodge" which +had cost three-quarters of a million dollars and was set in a preserve +of ten thousand acres, he was prepared for Adirondack "camps" which had +cost half a million and Newport "cottages" which had cost a million or +two. + +Liveried servants took the car, and others opened the door and took +their coats. The first thing they saw was a huge, fireplace, a +fireplace a dozen feet across, made of great boulders, and with whole +sections of a pine tree blazing in it. Underfoot was polished hardwood, +with skins of bear and buffalo. The firelight flickered upon shields +and battle-axes and broad-swords, hung upon the oaken pillars; while +between them were tapestries, picturing the Song of Roland and the +battle of Roncesvalles. One followed the pillars of the great hall to +the vaulted roof, whose glass was glowing blood-red in the western +light. A broad stairway ascended to the second floor, which opened upon +galleries about the hall. + +Montague went to the fire, and stood rubbing his hands before the +grateful blaze. "Scotch or Irish, sir?" inquired a lackey, hovering at +his side. He had scarcely given his order when the door opened and a +second motor load of the party appeared, shivering and rushing for the +fire. In a couple of minutes they were all assembled--and roaring with +laughter over "Baby" de Mille's account of how her car had run over a +dachshund. "Oh, do you know," she cried, "he simply POPPED!" + +Half a dozen attendants hovered about, and soon the tables in the hall +were covered with trays containing decanters and siphons. By this means +everybody in the party was soon warmed up, and then in groups they +scattered to amuse themselves. + +There was a great hall for indoor tennis, and there were half a dozen +squash-courts. Montague knew neither of these games, but he was +interested in watching the water-polo in the swimming-tank, and in +studying the appointments of this part of the building. The tank, with +the walls and floor about it, were all of marble; there was a bronze +gallery running about it, from which one might gaze into the green +depths of the water. There were luxurious dressing-rooms for men and +women, with hot and cold needle-baths, steam-rooms with rubbers in +attendance and weighing and lifting machines, electric machines for +producing "violet rays," and electric air-blasts for the drying of the +women's hair. + +He watched several games, in which men and women took part; and later +on, when the tennis and other players appeared, he joined them in a +plunge. Afterward, he entered one of the electric elevators and was +escorted to his room, where he found his bag unpacked, and his evening +attire laid out upon the bed. + +It was about nine when the party went into the dining-room, which +opened upon a granite terrace and loggia facing the sea. The room was +finished in some rare black wood, the name of which he did not know; +soft radiance suffused it, and the table was lighted by electric +candles set in silver sconces, and veiled by silk shades. It gleamed +with its load of crystal and silver, set off by scattered groups of +orchids and ferns. The repast of the afternoon had been simply a lunch, +it seemed--and now they had an elaborate dinner, prepared by Robbie +Walling's famous ten-thousand-dollar chef. In contrast with the uproar +of the inn was the cloistral stillness of this dining-room, where the +impassive footmen seemed to move on padded slippers, and the courses +appeared and vanished as if by magic. Montague did his best to accustom +himself to the gowns of the women, which were cut lower than any he had +ever seen in his life; but he hesitated every time he turned to speak +to the young lady beside him, because he could look so deep down into +her bosom, and it was difficult for him to realize that she did not +mind it. + +The conversation was the same as before, except that it was a little +more general, and louder in tone; for the guests had become more +intimate, and as Robbie Walling's wines of priceless vintage poured +forth, they became a little "high." The young lady who sat on +Montague's right was a Miss Vincent, a granddaughter of one of the +sugar-kings; she was dark-skinned and slender, and had appeared at a +recent lawn fete in the costume of an Indian maiden. The company amused +itself by selecting an Indian name for her; all sorts of absurd ones +were suggested, depending upon various intimate details of the young +lady's personality and habits. Robbie caused a laugh by suggesting +"Little Dewdrop"--it appeared that she had once been discovered writing +a poem about a dewdrop; some one else suggested "Little Raindrop," and +then Ollie brought down the house by exclaiming, "Little Raindrop in +the Mud-puddle!" A perfect gale of laughter swept over the company, and +it must have been a minute before they could recover their composure; +in order to appreciate the humour of the sally it was necessary to know +that Miss Vincent had "come a cropper" at the last meet of the Long +Island Hunt Club, and been extricated from a slough several feet deep. + +This was explained to Montague by the young lady on his left--the one +whose half-dressed condition caused his embarrassment. She was only +about twenty, with a wealth of golden hair and the bright, innocent +face of a child; he had not yet learned her name, for every one called +her "Cherub." Not long after this she made a remark across the table to +Baby de Mille, a strange jumble of syllables, which sounded like +English, yet was not. Miss de Mille replied, and several joined in, +until there was quite a conversation going on. "Cherub" explained to +him that "Baby" had invented a secret language, made by transposing +letters; and that Ollie and Bertie were crazy to guess the key to it, +and could not. + +The dinner lasted until late. The wine-glasses continued to be emptied, +and to be magically filled again. The laughter was louder, and now and +then there were snatches of singing; women lolled about in their +chairs-one beautiful boy sat gazing dreamily across the table at +Montague, now and then closing his eyes, and opening them more and more +reluctantly. The attendants moved about, impassive and silent as ever; +no one else seemed to be cognizant of their existence, but Montague +could not help noticing them, and wondering what they thought of it all. + +When at last the party broke up, it was because the bridge-players +wished to get settled for the evening. The others gathered in front of +the fireplace, and smoked and chatted. At home, when one planned a +day's hunting, he went to bed early and rose before dawn; but here, it +seemed, there was game a-plenty, and the hunters had nothing to +consider save their own comfort. + +The cards were played in the vaulted "gun-room." Montague strolled +through it, and his eye ran down the wall, lined with glass cases and +filled with every sort of firearm known to the hunter. He recalled, +with a twinge of self-abasement, that he had suggested bringing his +shotgun along! + +He joined a group in one corner, and lounged in the shadows, and +studied "Billy" Price, whose conversation had so mystified him. +"Billy," whose father was a banker, proved to be a devotee of horses; +she was a veritable Amazon, the one passion of whose life was glory. +Seeing her sitting in this group, smoking cigarettes, and drinking +highballs, and listening impassively to risque stories, one might +easily draw base conclusions about Billy Price. But as a matter of fact +she was made of marble; and the men, instead of falling in love with +her, made her their confidante, and told her their troubles, and sought +her sympathy and advice. + +Some of this was explained to Montague by a young lady, who, as the +evening wore on, came in and placed herself beside him. "My name is +Betty Wyman," she said, "and you and I will have to be friends, because +Ollie's my side partner." + +Montague had to meet her advances; so had not much time to speculate as +to what the term "side partner" might be supposed to convey. Betty was +a radiant little creature, dressed in a robe of deep crimson, made of +some soft and filmy and complicated material; there was a crimson rose +in her hair, and a living glow of crimson in her cheeks. She was bright +and quick, like a butterfly, full of strange whims and impulses; +mischievous lights gleamed in her eyes and mischievous smiles played +about her adorable little cherry lips. Some strange perfume haunted the +filmy dress, and completed the bewilderment of the intended victim. + +"I have a letter of introduction to a Mr. Wyman in New York," said +Montague. "Perhaps he is a relative of yours." + +"Is he a railroad president?" asked she; and when he answered in the +affirmative, "Is he a railroad king?" she whispered, in a mocking, +awe-stricken voice, "Is he rich--oh, rich as Solomon--and is he a +terrible man, who eats people alive all the time?" + +"Yes," said Montague--"that must be the one." + +"Well," said Betty, "he has done me the honour to be my granddaddy; but +don't you take any letter of introduction to him." + +"Why not?" asked he, perplexed. + +"Because he'll eat YOU," said the girl. "He hates Ollie." + +"Dear me," said the other; and the girl asked, "Do you mean that the +boy hasn't said a word about me?" + +"No," said Montague--"I suppose he left it for you to do." + +"Well," said Betty, "it's like a fairy story. Do you ever read fairy +stories? In this story there was a princess--oh, the most beautiful +princess! Do you understand?" + +"Yes," said Montague. "She wore a red rose in her hair." + +"And then," said the girl, "there was a young courtier--very handsome +and gay; and they fell in love with each other. But the terrible old +king--he wanted his daughter to wait a while, until he got through +conquering his enemies, so that he might have time to pick out some +prince or other, or maybe some ogre who was wasting his lands--do you +follow me?" + +"Perfectly," said he. "And then did the beautiful princess pine away?" + +"Um--no," said Betty, pursing her lips. "But she had to dance terribly +hard to keep from thinking about herself." Then she laughed, and +exclaimed, "Dear me, we are getting poetical!" And next, looking sober +again, "Do you know, I was half afraid to talk to you. Ollie tells me +you're terribly serious. Are you?" + +"I don't know," said Montague--but she broke in with a laugh, "We were +talking about you at dinner last night. They had some whipped cream +done up in funny little curliques, and Ollie said, 'Now, if my brother +Allan were here, he'd be thinking about the man who fixed this cream, +and how long it took him, and how he might have been reading "The +Simple Life."' Is that true?" + +"It involves a question of literary criticism"--said Montague. + +"I don't want to talk about literature," exclaimed the other. In truth, +she wanted nothing save to feel of his armour and find out if there +were any weak spots through which he could be teased. Montague was to +find in time that the adorable Miss Elizabeth was a very thorny species +of rose--she was more like a gay-coloured wasp, of predatory +temperament. + +"Ollie says you want to go down town and work," she went on. "I think +you're awfully foolish. Isn't it much nicer to spend your time in an +imitation castle like this?" + +"Perhaps," said he, "but I haven't any castle." + +"You might get one," answered Betty. "Stay around awhile and let us +marry you to a nice girl. They will all throw themselves at your feet, +you know, for you have such a delicious melting voice, and you look +romantic and exciting." (Montague made a note to inquire whether it was +customary in New York to talk about you so frankly to your face.) + +Miss Betty was surveying him quizzically meantime. "I don't know," she +said. "On second thoughts, maybe you'll frighten the girls. Then it'll +be the married women who'll fall in love with you. You'll have to watch +out." + +"I've already been told that by my tailor," said Montague, with a laugh. + +"That would be a still quicker way of making your fortune," said she. +"But I don't think you'd fit in the role of a tame cat." + +"A _what_?" he exclaimed; and Miss Betty laughed. + +"Don't you know what that is? Dear me--how charmingly naive! But +perhaps you'd better get Ollie to explain for you." + +That brought the conversation to the subject of slang; and Montague, in +a sudden burst of confidence, asked for an interpretation of Miss +Price's cryptic utterance. "She said"--he repeated slowly--"that when I +got to be pally with her, I'd conclude she didn't furnish." + +"Oh, yes," said Miss Wyman. "She just meant that when you knew her, +you'd be disappointed. You see, she picks up all the race-track +slang--one can't help it, you know. And last year she took her coach +over to England, and so she's got all the English slang. That makes it +hard, even for us." + +And then Betty sailed in to entertain him with little sketches of other +members of the party. A phenomenon that had struck Montague immediately +was the extraordinary freedom with which everybody in New York +discussed everybody else. As a matter of fact, one seldom discussed +anything else; and it made not the least difference, though the person +were one of your set,--though he ate your bread and salt, and you ate +his,--still you would amuse yourself by pouring forth the most painful +and humiliating and terrifying things about him. + +There was poor Clarrie Mason: Clarrie, sitting in at bridge, with an +expression of feverish eagerness upon his pale face. Clarrie always +lost, and it positively broke his heart, though he had ten millions +laid by on ice. Clarrie went about all day, bemoaning his brother, who +had been kidnapped. Had Montague not heard about it? Well, the +newspapers called it a marriage, but it was really a kidnapping. Poor +Larry Mason was good-natured and weak in the knees, and he had been +carried off by a terrible creature, three times as big as himself, and +with a temper like--oh, there were no words for it! She had been an +actress; and now she had carried Larry away in her talons, and was +building a big castle to keep him in--for he had ten millions too, alas! + +And then there was Bertie Stuyvesant, beautiful and winning--the boy +who had sat opposite Montague at dinner. Bertie's father had been a +coal man, and nobody knew how many millions he had left. Bertie was +gay; last week he had invited them to a brook-trout breakfast--in +November--and that had been a lark! Somebody had told him that trout +never really tasted good unless you caught them yourself, and Bertie +had suddenly resolved to catch them for that breakfast. "They have a +big preserve up in the Adirondacks," said Betty; "and Bertie ordered +his private train, and he and Chappie de Peyster and some others +started that night; they drove I don't know how many miles the next +day, and caught a pile of trout--and we had them for breakfast the next +morning! The best joke of all is that Chappie vows they were so full +they couldn't fish, and that the trout were caught with nets! Poor +Bertie--somebody'll have to separate him from that decanter now!" + +From the hall there came loud laughter, with sounds of scuffling, and +cries, "Let me have it!"--"That's Baby de Mille," said Miss Wyman. +"She's always wanting to rough-house it. Robbie was mad the last time +she was down here; she got to throwing sofa-cushions, and upset a vase." + +"Isn't that supposed to be good form?" asked Montague. + +"Not at Robbie's," said she. "Have you had a chance to talk with Robbie +yet? You'll like him--he's serious, like you." + +"What's he serious about?" + +"About spending his money," said Betty. "That's the only thing he has +to be serious about." + +"Has he got so very much?" + +"Thirty or forty millions," she replied; "but then, you see, a lot of +it's in the inner companies of his railroad system, and it pays him +fabulously. And his wife has money, too--she was a Miss Mason, you +know, her father's one of the steel crowd. We've a saying that there +are millionaires, and then multi-millionaires, and then Pittsburg +millionaires. Anyhow, the two of them spend all their income in +entertaining. It's Robbie's fad to play the perfect host--he likes to +have lots of people round him. He does put up good times--only he's so +very important about it, and he has so many ideas of what is proper! I +guess most of his set would rather go to Mrs. Jack Warden's any day; +I'd be there to-night, if it hadn't been for Ollie." + +"Who's Mrs. Jack Warden?" asked Montague. + +"Haven't you ever heard of her?" said Betty. "She used to be Mrs. van +Ambridge, and then she got a divorce and married Warden, the big lumber +man. She used to give 'boy and girl' parties, in the English fashion; +and when we went there we'd do as we please--play tag all over the +house, and have pillow-fights, and ransack the closets and get up +masquerades! Mrs. Warden's as good-natured as an old cow. You'll meet +her sometime--only don't you let her fool you with those soft eyes of +hers. You'll find she doesn't mean it; it's just that she likes to have +handsome men hanging round her." + +At one o'clock a few of Robbie's guests went to bed, Montague among +them. He left two tables of bridge fiends sitting immobile, the women +with flushed faces and feverish hands, and the men with cigarettes +dangling from their lips. There were trays and decanters beside each +card-table; and in the hall he passed three youths staggering about in +each other's arms and feebly singing snatches of "coon songs." Ollie +and Betty had strolled away together to parts unknown. + +Montague had entered his name in the order-book to be called at nine +o'clock. The man who awakened him brought him coffee and cream upon a +silver tray, and asked him if he would have anything stronger. He was +privileged to have his breakfast in his room, if he wished; but he went +downstairs, trying his best to feel natural in his elaborate hunting +costume. No one else had appeared yet, but he found the traces of last +night cleared away, and breakfast ready--served in English fashion, +with urns of tea and coffee upon the buffet. The grave butler and his +satellites were in attendance, ready to take his order for anything +else under the sun that he fancied. + +Montague preferred to go for a stroll upon the terrace, and to watch +the sunlight sparkling upon the sea. The morning was +beautiful--everything about the place was so beautiful that he wondered +how men and women could live here and not feel the spell of it. + +Billy Price came down shortly afterward, clad in a khaki hunting suit, +with knee kilts and button-pockets and gun-pads and Cossack +cartridge-loops. She joined him in a stroll down the beach, and talked +to him about the coming winter season, with its leading personalities +and events,--the Horse Show, which opened next week, and the prospects +for the opera, and Mrs. de Graffenried's opening entertainment. When +they came back it was eleven o'clock, and they found most of the guests +assembled, nearly all of them looking a little pale and uncomfortable +in the merciless morning light. As the two came in they observed Bertie +Stuyvesant standing by the buffet, in the act of gulping down a tumbler +of brandy. "Bertie has taken up the 'no breakfast fad,'" said Billy +with an ironical smile. + +Then began the hunt. The equipment of "Black Forest" included a granite +building, steam-heated and elaborately fitted, in which an English +expert and his assistants raised imported pheasants--magnificent +bronze-coloured birds with long, floating black tails. Just before the +opening of the season they were dumped by thousands into the +covers--fat, and almost tame enough to be fed by hand; and now came the +"hunters." + +First they drew lots, for they were to hunt in pairs, a man and a +woman. Montague drew Miss Vincent--"Little Raindrop in the Mud-puddle." +Then Ollie, who was master of ceremonies, placed them in a long line, +and gave them the direction; and at a signal they moved through the +forest; Following each person were two attendants, to carry the extra +guns and reload them; and out in front were men to beat the bushes and +scare the birds into flight. + +Now Montague's idea of hunting had been to steal through the bayou +forests, and match his eyes against those of the wild turkey, and shoot +off their heads with a rifle bullet. So, when one of these birds rose +in front of him, he fired, and the bird dropped; and he could have done +it for ever, he judged--only it was stupid slaughter, and it sickened +him. However, if the creatures were not shot, they must inevitably +perish in the winter snows; and he had heard that Robbie sent the game +to the hospitals. Also, the score was being kept, and Miss Vincent, who +was something of a shot herself, was watching him with eager +excitement, being wild with desire to beat out Billy Price and Chappie +de Peyster, who were the champion shots of the company. Baby de Mille, +who was on his left, and who could not shoot at all, was blundering +along, puffing for breath and eyeing him enviously; and the attendants +at his back were trembling with delight and murmuring their applause. +So he shot on, as long as the drive lasted, and again on their way +back, over a new stretch of the country. Sometimes the birds would rise +in pairs, and he would drop them both; and twice when a blundering +flock took flight in his direction he seized a second gun and brought +down a second pair. When the day's sport came to an end his score was +fifteen better than his nearest competitor, and he and his partner had +won the day. + +They crowded round to congratulate him; first his partner, and then his +rivals, and his host and hostess. Montague found that he had suddenly +become a person of consequence. Some who had previously taken no notice +of him now became aware of his existence; proud society belles +condescended to make conversation with him, and Clarrie Mason, who +hated de Peyster, made note of a way to annoy him. As for Oliver, he +was radiant with delight. "When it came to horses and guns, I knew +you'd make good," he whispered. + +Leaving the game to be gathered up in carts, they made their way home, +and there the two victors received their prizes. The man's consisted of +a shaving set in a case of solid gold, set with diamonds. Montague was +simply stunned, for the thing could not have cost less than one or two +thousand dollars. He could not persuade himself that he had a right to +accept of such hospitality, which he could never hope to return. He was +to realize in time that Robbie lived for the pleasure of thus +humiliating his fellow-men. + +After luncheon, the party came to an end. Some set out to return as +they had come; and others, who had dinner engagements, went back with +their host in his private car, leaving their autos to be returned by +the chauffeurs. Montague and his brother were among these; and about +dusk, when the swarms of working people were pouring out of the city, +they crossed the ferry and took a cab to their hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +They found their apartments looking as if they had been struck by a +snowstorm-a storm of red and green and yellow, and all the colours that +lie between. All day the wagons of fashionable milliners and costumiers +had been stopping at the door, and their contents had found their way +to Alice's room. The floors were ankle-deep in tissue paper and tape, +and beds and couches and chairs were covered with boxes, in which lay +wonderful symphonies of colour, half disclosed in their wrappings of +gauze. In the midst of it all stood the girl, her eyes shining with +excitement. + +"Oh, Allan!" she cried, as they entered. "How am I ever to thank you?" + +"You're not to thank me," Montague replied. "This is all Oliver's +doings." + +"Oliver!" exclaimed the girl, and turned to him. "How in the world +could you do it?" she cried. "How will you ever get the money to pay +for it all?" + +"That's my problem," said the man, laughing. "All you have to think +about is to look beautiful." + +"If I don't," was her reply, "it won't be for lack of clothes. I never +saw so many wonderful things in all my life as I've seen to-day." + +"There's quite a show of them," admitted Oliver. + +"And Reggie Mann! It was so queer, Allan! I never went shopping with a +man before. And he's so--so matter-of-fact. You know, he bought +me--everything!" + +"That was what he was told to do," said Oliver. "Did you like him?" + +"I don't know," said the girl. "He's queer--I never met a man like that +before. But he was awfully kind; and the people just turned their +stores inside out for us--half a dozen people hurrying about to wait on +you at once!" + +"You'll get used to such things," said Oliver; and then, stepping +toward the bed, "Let's see what you got." + +"Most of the things haven't come," said Alice. "The gowns all have to +be fitted.--That one is for to-night," she added, as he lifted up a +beautiful object made of rose-coloured chiffon. + +Oliver studied it, and glanced once or twice at the girl. "I guess you +can carry it," he said. "What sort of a cloak are you to wear?" + +"Oh, the cloak!" cried Alice. "Oliver, I can't believe it's really to +belong to me. I didn't know anyone but princesses wore such things." + +The cloak was in Mrs. Montague's room, and one of the maids brought it +in. It was an opera-wrap of grey brocade, lined with unborn baby +lamb--a thing of a gorgeousness that made Montague literally gasp for +breath. + +"Did you ever see anything like it in your life?" cried Alice. "And +Oliver, is it true that I have to have gloves and shoes and +stockings--and a hat--to match every gown?" + +"Of course." said Oliver. "If you were doing things right, you ought to +have a cloak to match each evening gown as well." + +"It seems incredible," said the girl. "Can it be right to spend so much +money for things to wear?" + +But Oliver was not discussing questions of ethics; he was examining +sets of tinted crepe de chine lingerie, and hand-woven hose of spun +silk. There were boxes upon boxes, and bureau drawers and closet +shelves already filled up with hand-embroidered and lace-trimmed +creations-chemises and corset-covers, night-robes of "handkerchief +linen" lawn, lace handkerchiefs and veils, corsets of French coutil, +dressing-jackets of pale-coloured silks, and negligees of soft +batistes, trimmed with Valenciennes lace, or even with fur. + +"You must have put in a full day," he said. + +"I never looked at so many things in my life," said Alice. "And Mr. +Mann never stopped to ask the price of a thing." + +"I didn't think to tell him to," said Oliver, laughing. + +Then the girl went in to dress--and Oliver faced about to find his +brother sitting and staring hard at him. + +"Tell me!" Montague exclaimed. "In God's name, what is all this to +cost?" + +"I don't know," said Oliver, impassively. "I haven't seen the bills. +It'll be fifteen or twenty thousand, I guess." + +Montague's hands clenched involuntarily, and he sat rigid. "How long +will it all last her?" he asked. + +"Why," said the other, "when she gets enough, it'll last her until +spring, of course--unless she goes South during the winter." + +"How much is it going to take to dress her for a year?" + +"I suppose thirty or forty thousand," was the reply. "I don't expect to +keep count." + +Montague sat in silence. "You don't want to shut her up and keep her at +home, do you?" inquired his brother, at last. + +"Do you mean that other women spend that much on clothes?" he demanded. + +"Of course," said Oliver, "hundreds of them. Some spend fifty +thousand--I know several who go over a hundred." + +"It's monstrous!" Montague exclaimed. + +"Fiddlesticks!" was the other's response. "Why, thousands of people +live by it--wouldn't know anything else to do." + +Montague said nothing to that. "Can you afford to have Alice compete +with such women indefinitely?" he asked. + +"I have no idea of her doing it indefinitely," was Oliver's reply. "I +simply propose to give her a chance. When she's married, her bills will +be paid by her husband." + +"Oh," said the other, "then this layout is just for her to be exhibited +in." + +"You may say that," answered Oliver,--"if you want to be foolish. You +know perfectly well that parents who launch their daughters in Society +don't figure on keeping up the pace all their lifetimes." + +"We hadn't thought of marrying Alice off," said Montague. + +To which his brother replied that the best physicians left all they +could to nature. "Suppose," said he, "that we just introduce her in the +right set, and turn her loose and let her enjoy herself--and then cross +the next bridge when we come to it?" + +Montague sat with knitted brows, pondering.' He was beginning to see a +little daylight now. "Oliver," he asked suddenly, "are you sure the +stakes in this game aren't too big?" + +"How do you mean?" asked the other. + +"Will you be able to stay in until the show-down? Until either Alice or +myself begins to bring in some returns?" + +"Never worry about that," said the other, with a laugh. + +"But hadn't you better take me into your confidence?" Montague +persisted. "How many weeks can you pay our rent in this place? Have you +got the money to pay for all these clothes?" + +"I've got it," laughed the other--"but that doesn't say I'm going to +pay it." + +"Don't you have to pay your bills? Can we do all this upon credit?" + +Oliver laughed again. "You go at me like a prosecuting attorney," he +said. "I'm afraid you'll have to inquire around and learn some respect +for your brother." Then he added, seriously, "You see, Allan, people +like Reggie or myself are in position to bring a great deal of custom +to tradespeople, and so they are willing to go out of their way to +oblige us. And we have commissions of all sorts coming to us, so it's +never any question of cash." + +"Oh!" exclaimed the other, opening his eyes, "I see! Is that the way +you make money?" + +"It's one of the ways we save it," said Oliver. "It comes to the same +thing." + +"Do people know it?" + +"Why, of course. Why not?" + +"I don't know," said Montague. "It sounds a little queer." + +"Nothing of the kind," said Oliver. "Some of the best people in New +York do it. Strangers come to the city, and they want to go to the +right places, and they ask me, and I send them. Or take Robbie Walling, +who keeps up five or six establishments, and spends several millions a +year. He can't see to it all personally--if he did, he'd never do +anything else. Why shouldn't he ask a friend to attend to things for +him? Or again, a new shop opens, and they want Mrs. Walling's trade for +the sake of the advertising, and they offer her a discount and me a +commission. Why shouldn't I get her to try them?" + +"It's quite intricate," commented the other. "The stores have more than +one price, then?" + +"They have as many prices as they have customers," was the answer. "Why +shouldn't they? New York is full of raw rich people who value things by +what they pay. And why shouldn't they pay high and be happy? That +opera-cloak that Alice has--Reval promised it to me for two thousand, +and I'll wager you she'd charge some woman from Butte, Montana, +thirty-five hundred for one just like it." + +Montague got up suddenly. "Stop," he said, waving his hands. "You take +all the bloom off the butterfly's wings!" + +He asked where they were going that evening, and Oliver said that they +were invited to an informal dinner-party at Mrs. Winnie Duval's. Mrs. +Winnie was the young widow who had recently married the founder of the +great banking-house of Puval and Co.--so Oliver explained; she was a +chum of his, and they would meet an interesting set there. She was +going to invite her cousin, Charlie Carter--she wanted him to meet +Alice. "Mrs. Winnie's always plotting to get Charlie to settle down," +said Oliver, with a merry laugh. + +He telephoned for his man to bring over his clothes, and he and his +brother dressed. Then Alice came in, looking like the goddess of the +dawn in the gorgeous rose-coloured gown. The colour in her cheeks was +even brighter than usual; for she was staggered to find how low the +gown was cut, and was afraid she was committing a faux pas. "Tell me +about it," she stammered. "Mammy Lucy says I'm surely supposed to wear +some lace, or a bouquet." + +"Mammy Lucy isn't a Paris costumier," said Oliver, much amused. "Dear +me--wait until you have seen Mrs. Winnie!" + +Mrs. Winnie had kindly sent her limousine car for them, and it stood +throbbing in front of the hotel-entrance, its acetylenes streaming far +up the street. Mrs. Winnie's home was on Fifth Avenue, fronting the +park. It occupied half a block, and had cost two millions to build and +furnish. It was known as the "Snow Palace," being all of white marble. + +At the curb a man in livery opened the door of the car, and in the +vestibule another man in livery bowed the way. Lined up just inside the +door was a corps of imposing personages, clad in scarlet waistcoats and +velvet knee-breeches, with powdered wigs, and gold buttons, and gold +buckles on their patent-leather pumps. These splendid creatures took +their wraps, and then presented to Montague and Oliver a bouquet of +flowers upon a silver salver, and upon another salver a tiny envelope +bearing the name of their partner at this strictly "informal" +dinner-party. Then the functionaries stood out of the way and permitted +them to view the dazzling splendour of the entrance hall of the Snow +Palace. There was a great marble staircase running up from the centre +of the hall, with a carved marble gallery above, and a marble fireplace +below. To decorate this mansion a real palace in the Punjab had been +bought outright and plundered; there were mosaics of jade, and +wonderful black marble, and rare woods, and strange and perplexing +carvings. + +The head butler stood at the entrance to the salon, pronouncing their +names; and just inside was Mrs. Winnie. + +Montague never forgot that first vision of her; she might have been a +real princess out of the palace in the Punjab. She was a brunette, +rich-coloured, full-throated and deep-bosomed, with scarlet lips, and +black hair and eyes. She wore a court-gown of cloth of silver, with +white kid shoes embroidered with jewelled flowers. All her life she had +been collecting large turquoises, and these she had made into a tiara, +and a neck ornament spreading over her chest, and a stomacher. Each of +these stones was mounted with diamonds, and set upon a slender wire. So +as she moved they quivered and shimmered, and the effect was dazzling, +barbaric. + +She must have seen that Montague was staggered, for she gave him a +little extra pressure of the hand, and said, "I'm so glad you came. +Ollie has told me all about you." Her voice was soft and melting, not +so forbidding as her garb. + +Montague ran the gauntlet of the other guests: Charlie Carter, a +beautiful, dark-haired boy, having the features of a Greek god, but a +sallow and unpleasant complexion; Major "Bob" Venable, a stout little +gentleman with a red face and a heavy jowl; Mrs. Frank Landis, a +merry-eyed young widow with pink cheeks and auburn hair; Willie Davis, +who had been a famous half-back, and was now junior partner in the +banking-house; and two young married couples, whose names Montague +missed. + +The name written on his card was Mrs. Alden. She came in just after +him--a matron of about fifty, of vigorous aspect and ample figure, +approaching what he had not yet learned to call embonpoint. She wore +brocade, as became a grave dowager, and upon her ample bosom there lay +an ornament the size of a man's hand, and made wholly out of blazing +diamonds--the most imposing affair that Montague had ever laid eyes +upon. She gave him her hand to shake, and made no attempt to disguise +the fact that she was looking him over in the meantime. + +"Madam, dinner is served," said the stately butler; and the glittering +procession moved into the dining-room--a huge state apartment, finished +in some lustrous jet-black wood, and with great panel paintings +illustrating the Romaunt de la Rose. The table was covered with a cloth +of French embroidery, and gleaming with its load of crystal and gold +plate. At either end there were huge candlesticks of solid gold, and in +the centre a mound of orchids and lilies of the valley, matching in +colour the shades of the candelabra and the daintily painted menu cards. + +"You are fortunate in coming to New York late in life," Mrs. Alden was +saying to him. "Most of our young men are tired out before they have +sense enough to enjoy anything. Take my advice and look about +you--don't let that lively brother of yours set the pace for you." + +In front of Mrs. Alden there was a decanter of Scotch whisky. "Will you +have some?" she asked, as she took it up. + +"No, I thank you," said he, and then wondered if perhaps he should not +have said yes, as he watched the other select the largest of the +half-dozen wine-glasses clustered at her place, and pour herself out a +generous libation. + +"Have you seen much of the city?" she asked, as she tossed it +off--without as much as a quiver of an eyelash. + +"No," said he. "They have not given me much time. They took me off to +the country--to the Robert Wallings'." + +"Ah," said Mrs. Alden; and Montague, struggling to make conversation, +inquired, "Do you know Mr. Walling?" + +"Quite well," said the other, placidly. "I used to be a Walling myself, +you know." + +"Oh," said Montague, taken aback; and then added, "Before you were +married?" + +"No," said Mrs. Alden, more placidly than ever, "before I was divorced." + +There was a dead silence, and Montague sat gasping to catch his breath. +Then suddenly he heard a faint subdued chuckle, which grew into open +laughter; and he stole a glance at Mrs. Alden, and saw that her eyes +were twinkling; and then he began to laugh himself. They laughed +together, so merrily that others at the table began to look at them in +perplexity. + +So the ice was broken between them; which filled Montague with a vast +relief. But he was still dimly touched with awe--for he realized that +this must be the great Mrs. Billy Alden, whose engagement to the Duke +of London was now the topic of the whole country. And that huge diamond +ornament must be part of Mrs. Alden's million-dollar outfit of +jewellery! + +The great lady volunteered not to tell on him; and added generously +that when he came to dinner with her she would post him concerning the +company. "It's awkward for a stranger, I can understand," said she; and +continued, grimly: "When people get divorces it sometimes means that +they have quarrelled--and they don't always make it up afterward, +either. And sometimes other people quarrel--almost as bitterly as if +they had been married. Many a hostess has had her reputation ruined by +not keeping track of such things." + +So Montague made the discovery that the great Mrs. Billy, though. +forbidding of aspect, was good-natured when she chose to be, and with a +pretty wit. She was a woman with a mind of her own--a hard-fighting +character, who had marshalled those about her, and taken her place at +the head of the column. She had always counted herself a personage +enough to do exactly as she pleased; through the course of the dinner +she would take up the decanter of Scotch, and make a pass to help +Montague--and then, when he declined, pour out imperturbably what she +wanted. "I don't like your brother," she said to him, a little later. +"He won't last; but he tells me you're different, so maybe I will like +you. Come and see me sometime, and let me tell you what not to do in +New York." + +Then Montague turned to talk with his hostess, who sat on his right. + +"Do you play bridge?" asked Mrs. Winnie, in her softest and most +gracious tone. + +"My brother has given me a book to study from," he answered. "But if he +takes me about day and night, I don't know how I'm to manage it." + +"Come and let me teach you," said Mrs. Winnie. "I mean it, really," she +added. "I've nothing to do--at least that I'm not tired of. Only I +don't believe you'd take long to learn all that I know." + +"Aren't you a successful player?" he asked sympathetically. + +"I don't believe anyone wants me to learn," said Mrs. Winnie.--"They'd +rather come and get my money. Isn't that true, Major?" + +Major Venable sat on her other hand, and he paused in the act of +raising a spoonful of soup to his lips, and laughed, deep down in his +throat--a queer little laugh that shook his fat cheeks and neck. "I may +say," he said, "that I know several people to whom the status quo is +satisfactory." + +"Including yourself," said the lady, with a little moue. "The wretched +man won sixteen hundred dollars from me last night; and he sat in his +club window all afternoon, just to have the pleasure of laughing at me +as I went by. I don't believe I'll play at all to-night--I'm going to +make myself agreeable to Mr. Montague, and let you win from Virginia +Landis for a change." + +And then the Major paused again in his attack upon the soup. "My dear +Mrs. Winnie," he said, "I can live for much more than one day upon +sixteen hundred dollars!" + +The Major was a famous club-man and bon vivant, as Montague learned +later on. "He's an uncle of Mrs. Bobbie Walling's," said Mrs. Alden, in +his ear. "And incidentally they hate each other like poison." + +"That is so that I won't repeat my luckless question again?" asked +Montague, with a smile. + +"Oh, they meet," said the other. "You wouldn't be supposed to know +that. Won't you have any Scotch?" + +Montague's thoughts were so much taken up with the people at this +repast that he gave little thought to the food. He noticed with +surprise that they had real spring lamb--it being the middle of +November. But he could not know that the six-weeks-old creatures from +which it had come had been raised in cotton-wool and fed on milk with a +spoon--and had cost a dollar and a half a pound. A little later, +however, there was placed before him a delicately browned sweetbread +upon a platter of gold, and then suddenly he began to pay attention. +Mrs. Winnie had a coat of arms; he had noticed it upon her auto, and +again upon the great bronze gates of the Snow Palace, and again upon +the liveries of her footmen, and yet again upon the decanter of Scotch. +And now--incredible and appalling--he observed it branded upon the +delicately browned sweetbread! + +After that, who would not have watched? There were large dishes of rare +fruits upon the table--fruits which had been packed in cotton wool and +shipped in cold storage from every corner of the earth. There were +peaches which had come from South Africa (they had cost ten dollars +apiece). There were bunches of Hamburg grapes, dark purple and bursting +fat, which had been grown in a hot-house, wrapped in paper bags. There +were nectarines and plums, and pomegranates and persimmons from Japan, +and later on, little dishes of plump strawberries-raised in pots. There +were quail which had come from Egypt, and a wonderful thing called +"crab-flake a la Dewey," cooked in a chafing-dish, and served with +mushrooms that had been grown in the tunnels of abandoned mines in +Michigan. There was lettuce raised by electric light, and lima beans +that had come from Porto Rico, and artichokes brought from France at a +cost of one dollar each.--And all these extraordinary viands were +washed down by eight or nine varieties of wines, from the cellar of a +man who had made collecting them a fad for the last thirty years, who +had a vineyard in France for the growing of his own champagne, and kept +twenty thousand quarts of claret in storage all the time--and procured +his Rhine wine from the cellar of the German Emperor, at a cost of +twenty-five dollars a quart! + +There were twelve people at dinner, and afterward they made two tables +for bridge, leaving Charlie Carter to talk to Alice, and Mrs. Winnie to +devote herself to Montague, according to her promise. "Everybody likes +to see my house," she said. "Would you?" And she led the way from the +dining-room into the great conservatory, which formed a central court +extending to the roof of the building. She pressed a button, and a soft +radiance streamed down from above, in the midst of which Mrs. Winnie +stood, with her shimmering jewels a very goddess of the fire. + +The conservatory was a place in which he could have spent the evening; +it was filled with the most extraordinary varieties of plants. "They +were gathered from all over the world," said Mrs. Winnie, seeing that +he was staring at them. "My husband employed a connoisseur to hunt them +out for him. He did it before we were married--he thought it would make +me happy." + +In the centre of the place there was a fountain, twelve or fourteen +feet in height, and set in a basin of purest Carrara marble. By the +touch of a button the pool was flooded with submerged lights, and one +might see scores of rare and beautiful fish swimming about. + +"Isn't it fine!" said Mrs. Winnie, and added eagerly, "Do you know, I +come here at night, sometimes when I can't sleep, and sit for hours and +gaze. All those living things; with their extraordinary forms-some of +them have faces, and look like human beings! And I wonder what they +think about, and if life seems as strange to them as it does to me." + +She seated herself by the edge of the pool, and gazed in. "These fish +were given to me by my cousin, Ned Carter. They call him Buzzie. Have +you met him yet?--No, of course not. He's Charlie's brother, and he +collects art things--the most unbelievable things. Once, a long time +ago, he took a fad for goldfish--some goldfish are very rare and +beautiful, you know--one can pay twenty-five and fifty dollars apiece +for them. He got all the dealers had, and when he learned that there +were some they couldn't get, he took a trip to Japan and China on +purpose to get them. You know they raise them there, and some of them +are sacred, and not allowed to be sold or taken out of the country. And +he had all sorts of carved ivory receptacles for them, that he brought +home with him--he had one beautiful marble basin about ten feet long, +that had been stolen from the Emperor." + +Over Montague's shoulder where he sat, there hung an orchid, a most +curious creation, an explosion of scarlet flame. "That is the +odonto-glossum," said Mrs. Winnie. "Have you heard of it?" + +"Never," said the man. + +"Dear me," said the other. "Such is fame!" + +"Is it supposed to be famous?" he asked. + +"Very," she replied. "There was a lot in the newspapers about it. You +see Winton--that's my husband, you know--paid twenty-five thousand +dollars to the man who created it; and that made a lot of foolish +talk--people come from all over to look at it. I wanted to have it, +because its shape is exactly like the coronet on my crest. Do you +notice that?" + +"Yes," said Montague. "It's curious." + +"I'm very proud of my crest," continued Mrs. Winnie. "Of course there +are vulgar rich people who have them made to order, and make them +ridiculous; but ours is a real one. It's my own--not my husband's; the +Duvals are an old French family, but they're not noble. I was a Morris, +you know, and our line runs back to the old French ducal house of +Montmorenci. And last summer, when we were motoring, I hunted up one of +their chateaux; and see! I brought over this." + +Mrs. Winnie pointed to a suit of armour, placed in a passage leading to +the billiard-room. "I have had the lights fixed," she added. And she +pressed a button, and all illumination vanished, save for a faint red +glow just above the man in armour. + +"Doesn't he look real?" said she. (He had his visor down, and a +battle-axe in his mailed hands.) "I like to imagine that he may have +been my twentieth great-grandfather. I come and sit here, and gaze at +him and shiver. Think what a terrible time it must have been to live +in--when men wore things like that! It couldn't be any worse to be a +crab." + +"You seem to be fond of strange emotions," said Montague, laughing. + +"Maybe I am," said the other. "I like everything that's old and +romantic, and makes you forget this stupid society world." + +She stood brooding for a moment or two, gazing at the figure. Then she +asked, abruptly, "Which do you like best, pictures or swimming?" + +"Why," replied the man, laughing and perplexed, "I like them both, at +times." + +"I wondered which you'd rather see first," explained his escort; "the +art gallery or the natatorium. I'm afraid you'll get tired before +you've seen every thing." + +"Suppose we begin with the art-gallery," said he. "There's not much to +see in a swimming-pool." + +"Ah, but ours is a very special one," said the lady.--"And some day, if +you'll be very good, and promise not to tell anyone, I'll let you see +my own bath. Perhaps they've told you, I have one in my own apartments, +cut out of a block of the most wonderful green marble." + +Montague showed the expected amount of astonishment. + +"Of course that gave the dreadful newspapers another chance to gossip," +said Mrs. Winnie, plaintively. "People found out what I had paid for +it. One can't have anything beautiful without that question being +asked." + +And then followed a silence, while Mrs. Winnie waited for him to ask +it. As he forebore to do so, she added, "It was fifty thousand dollars." + +They were moving towards the elevator, where a small boy in the +wonderful livery of plush and scarlet stood at attention. "Sometimes," +she continued, "it seems to me that it is wicked to pay such prices for +things. Have you ever thought about it?" + +"Occasionally," Montague replied. + +"Of course," said she, "it makes work for people; and I suppose they +can't be better employed than in making beautiful things. But +sometimes, when I think of all the poverty there is, I get unhappy. We +have a winter place down South--one of those huge country-houses that +look like exposition buildings, and have rooms for a hundred guests; +and sometimes I go driving by myself, down to the mill towns, and go +through them and talk to the children. I came to know some of them +quite well--poor little wretches." + +They stepped out of the elevator, and moved toward the art-gallery. "It +used to make me so unhappy," she went on. "I tried to talk to my +husband about it, but he wouldn't have it. 'I don't see why you can't +be like other people,' he said--he's always repeating that to me. And +what could I say?" + +"Why not suggest that other people might be like you?" said the man, +laughing. + +"I wasn't clever enough," said she, regretfully.--"It's very hard for a +woman, you know--with no one to understand. Once I went down to a +settlement, to see what that was like. Do you know anything about +settlements?" + +"Nothing at all," said Montague. + +"Well, they are people who go to live among the poor, and try to reform +them. It takes a terrible lot of courage, I think. I give them money +now and then, but I am never sure if it does any good. The trouble with +poor people, it seems to me, is that there are so many of them." + +"There are, indeed," said Montague, thinking of the vision he had seen +from Oliver's racing-car. + +Mrs. Winnie had seated herself upon a cushioned seat near the entrance +to the darkened gallery. "I haven't been there for some time," she +continued. "I've discovered something that I think appeals more to my +temperament. I have rather a leaning toward the occult and the +mystical, I'm afraid. Did you ever hear of the Babists?" + +"No," said Montague. + +"Well, that's a religious sect--from Persia, I think--and they are +quite the rage. They are priests, you understand, and they give +lectures, and teach you all about the immanence of the divine, and +about reincarnation, and Karma, and all that. Do you believe any of +those things?" + +"I can't say that I know about them," said he. + +"It is very beautiful and strange," added the other. "It makes you +realize what a perplexing thing life is. They teach you how the +universe is all one, and the soul is the only reality, and so bodily +things don't matter. If I were a Babist, I believe that I could be +happy, even if I had to work in a cotton-mill." + +Then Mrs. Winnie rose up suddenly. "You'd rather look at the pictures, +I know," she said; and she pressed a button, and a soft radiance +flooded the great vaulted gallery. + +"This is our chief pride in life," she said. "My husband's object has +been to get one representative work of each of the great painters of +the world. We got their masterpiece whenever we could. Over there in +the corner are the old masters--don't you love to look at them?" + +Montague would have liked to look at them very much; but he felt that +he would rather it were some time when he did not have Mrs. Winnie by +his side. Mrs. Winnie must have had to show the gallery quite +frequently; and now her mind was still upon the Persian +transcendentalists. + +"That picture of the saint is a Botticelli," she said. "And do you +know, the orange-coloured robe always makes me think of the swami. That +is my teacher, you know--Swami Babubanana. And he has the most +beautiful delicate hands, and great big brown eyes, so soft and +gentle--for all the world like those of the gazelles in our place down +South!" + +Thus Mrs. Winnie, as she roamed from picture to picture, while the +souls of the grave old masters looked down upon her in silence. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Montague had now been officially pronounced complete by his tailor; and +Reval had sent home the first of Alice's street gowns, elaborately +plain, but fitting her conspicuously, and costing accordingly. So the +next morning they were ready to be taken to call upon Mrs. Devon. + +Of course Montague had heard of the Devons, but he was not sufficiently +initiated to comprehend just what it meant to be asked to call. But +when Oliver came in, a little before noon, and proceeded to examine his +costume and to put him to rights, and insisted that Alice should have +her hair done over, he began to realize that this was a special +occasion. Oliver was in quite a state of excitement; and after they had +left the hotel, and were driving up the Avenue, he explained to them +that their future in Society depended upon the outcome of this visit. +Calling upon Mrs. Devon, it seemed, was the American equivalent to +being presented at court. For twenty-five years this grand lady had +been the undisputed mistress of the Society of the metropolis; and if +she liked them, they would be invited to her annual ball, which took +place in January, and then for ever after their position would be +assured. Mrs. Devon's ball was the one great event of the social year; +about one thousand people were asked, while ten thousand disappointed +ones gnashed their teeth in outer darkness. + +All of which threw Alice into a state of trepidation. + +"Suppose we don't suit her!" she said. + +To that the other replied that their way had been made smooth by Reggie +Mann, who was one of Mrs. Devon's favourites. + +A century and more ago the founder of the Devon line had come to +America, and invested his savings in land on Manhattan Island. Other +people had toiled and built a city there, and generation after +generation of the Devons had sat by and collected the rents, until now +their fortune amounted to four or five hundred millions of dollars. +They were the richest old family in America, and the most famous; and +in Mrs. Devon, the oldest member of the line, was centred all its +social majesty and dominion. She lived a stately and formal life, +precisely like a queen; no one ever saw her save upon her raised chair +of state, and she wore her jewels even at breakfast. She was the +arbiter of social destinies, and the breakwater against which the +floods of new wealth beat in vain. Reggie Mann told wonderful tales +about the contents of her enormous mail--about wives and daughters of +mighty rich men who flung themselves at her feet and pleaded abjectly +for her favour--who laid siege to her house for months, and intrigued +and pulled wires to get near her, and even bought the favour of her +servants! If Reggie might be believed, great financial wars had been +fought, and the stock-markets of the world convulsed more than once, +because of these social struggles; and women of wealth and beauty had +offered to sell themselves for the privilege which was so freely +granted to them. + +They came to the old family mansion and rang the bell, and the solemn +butler ushered them past the grand staircase and into the front +reception-room to wait. Perhaps five minutes later he came in and +rolled back the doors, and they stood up, and beheld a withered old +lady, nearly eighty years of age, bedecked with diamonds and seated +upon a sort of throne. They approached, and Oliver introduced them, and +the old lady held out a lifeless hand; and then they sat down. + +Mrs. Devon asked them a few questions as to how much of New York they +had seen, and how they liked it, and whom they had met; but most of the +time she simply looked them over, and left the making of conversation +to Oliver. As for Montague, he sat, feeling perplexed and +uncomfortable, and wondering, deep down in him, whether it could really +be America in which this was happening. + +"You see," Oliver explained to them, when they were seated in their +carriage again, "her mind is failing, and it's really quite difficult +for her to receive." + +"I'm glad I don't have to call on her more than once," was Alice's +comment. "When do we know the verdict?" + +"When you get a card marked 'Mrs. Devon at home,'" said Oliver. And he +went on to tell them about the war which had shaken Society long ago, +when the mighty dame had asserted her right to be "Mrs. Devon," and the +only "Mrs. Devon." He told them also about her wonderful dinner-set of +china, which had cost thirty thousand dollars, and was as fragile as a +humming-bird's wing. Each piece bore her crest, and she had a china +expert to attend to washing and packing it--no common hand was ever +allowed to touch it. He told them, also, how Mrs. Devon's housekeeper +had wrestled for so long, trying to teach the maids to arrange the +furniture in the great reception-rooms precisely as the mistress +ordered; until finally a complete set of photographs had been taken, so +that the maids might do their work by chart. + +Alice went back to the hotel, for Mrs. Robbie Walling was to call and +take her home to lunch; and Montague and his brother strolled round to +Reggie Mann's apartments, to report upon their visit. + +Reggie received them in a pair of pink silk pyjamas, decorated with +ribbons and bows, and with silk-embroidered slippers, set with +pearls--a present from a feminine adorer. Montague noticed, to his +dismay, that the little man wore a gold bracelet upon one arm! He +explained that he had led a cotillion the night before--or rather this +morning; he had got home at five o'clock. He looked quite white and +tired, and there were the remains of a breakfast of brandy-and-soda on +the table. + +"Did you see the old girl?" he asked. "And how does she hold up?" + +"She's game," said Oliver. + +"I had the devil's own time getting you in," said the other. "It's +getting harder every day." + +"You'll excuse me," Reggie added, "if I get ready. I have an +engagement." And he turned to his dressing-table, which was covered +with an array of cosmetics and perfumes, and proceeded, in a +matter-of-fact way, to paint his face. Meanwhile his valet was flitting +silently here and there, getting ready his afternoon costume; and +Montague, in spite of himself, followed the man with his eyes. A +haberdasher's shop might have been kept going for quite a while upon +the contents of Reggie's dressers. His clothing was kept in a room +adjoining the dressing-room; Montague, who was near the door, could see +the rosewood wardrobes, each devoted to a separate article of +clothing-shirts, for instance, laid upon sliding racks, tier upon tier +of them, of every material and colour. There was a closet fitted with +shelves and equipped like a little shoe store--high shoes and low +shoes, black ones, brown ones, and white ones, and each fitted over a +last to keep its shape perfect. These shoes were all made to order +according to Reggie's designs, and three or-four times a year there was +a cleaning out, and those which had gone out of fashion became the prey +of his "man." There was a safe in one closet, in which Reggie's +jewellery was kept. + +The dressing-room was furnished like a lady's boudoir, the furniture +upholstered with exquisite embroidered silk, and the bed hung with +curtains of the same material. There was a huge bunch of roses on the +centre-table, and the odour of roses hung heavy in the room. + +The valet stood at attention with a rack of neckties, from which Reggie +critically selected one to match his shirt. "Are you going to take +Alice with you down to the Havens's?" he was asking; and he added, +"You'll meet Vivie Patton down there--she's had another row at home." + +"You don't say so!" exclaimed Oliver. + +"Yes," said the other. "Frank waited up all night for her, and he wept +and tore his hair and vowed he would kill the Count. Vivie told him to +go to hell." + +"Good God!" said Oliver. "Who told you that?" + +"The faithful Alphonse," said Reggie, nodding toward his valet. "Her +maid told him. And Frank vows he'll sue--I half expected to see it in +the papers this morning." + +"I met Vivie on the street yesterday," said Oliver. "She looked as +chipper as ever." + +Reggie shrugged his shoulders. "Have you seen this week's paper?" he +asked. "They've got another of Ysabel's suppressed poems in."--And then +he turned toward Montague to explain that "Ysabel" was the pseudonym of +a young debutante who had fallen under the spell of Baudelaire and +Wilde, and had published a volume of poems of such furious eroticism +that her parents were buying up stray copies at fabulous prices. + +Then the conversation turned to the Horse Show, and for quite a while +they talked about who was going to wear what. Finally Oliver rose, +saying that they would have to get a bite to eat before leaving for the +Havens's. "You'll have a good time," said Reggie. "I'd have gone +myself, only I promised to stay and help Mrs. de Graffenried design a +dinner. So long!" + +Montague had heard nothing about the visit to the Havens's; but now, as +they strolled down the Avenue, Oliver explained that they were to spend +the weekend at Castle Havens. There was quite a party going up this +Friday afternoon, and they would find one of the Havens's private cars +waiting. They had nothing to do meantime, for their valets would attend +to their packing, and Alice and her maid would meet them at the depot. + +"Castle Havens is one of the show places of the country," Oliver added. +"You'll see the real thing this time." And while they lunched, he went +on to entertain his brother with particulars concerning the place and +its owners. John had inherited the bulk of the enormous Havens fortune, +and he posed as his father's successor in the Steel Trust. Some day +some one of the big men would gobble him up; meantime he amused himself +fussing over the petty details of administration. Mrs. Havens had taken +a fancy to a rural life, and they had built this huge palace in the +hills of Connecticut, and she wrote verses in which she pictured +herself as a simple shepherdess--and all that sort of stuff. But no one +minded that, because the place was grand, and there was always so much +to do. They had forty or fifty polo ponies, for instance, and every +spring the place was filled with polo men. + +At the depot they caught sight of Charlie Carter, in his big red +touring-car. "Are you going to the Havens's?" he said. "Tell them we're +going to pick up Chauncey on the way." + +"That's Chauncey Venable, the Major's nephew," said Oliver, as they +strolled to the train. "Poor Chauncey--he's in exile!" + +"How do you mean?" asked Montague. + +"Why, he daren't come into New York," said the other. "Haven't you read +about it in the papers? He lost one or two hundred thousand the other +night in a gambling place, and the district attorney's trying to catch +him." + +"Does he want to put him in jail?" asked Montague. + +"Heavens, no!" said Oliver. "Put a Venable in jail? He wants him for a +witness against the gambler; and poor Chauncey is flitting about the +country hiding with his friends, and wailing because he'll miss the +Horse Show." + +They boarded the palatial private car, and were introduced to a number +of other guests. Among them was Major Venable; and while Oliver buried +himself in the new issue of the fantastic-covered society journal, +which contained the poem of the erotic "Ysabel," his brother chatted +with the Major. The latter had taken quite a fancy to the big handsome +stranger, to whom everything in the city was so new and interesting." + +"Tell me what you thought of the Snow Palace," said he. "I've an idea +that Mrs. Winnie's got quite a crush on you. You'll find her dangerous, +my boy--she'll make you pay for your dinners before you get through!" + +After the train was under way, the Major got himself surrounded with +some apollinaris and Scotch, and then settled back to enjoy himself. +"Did you see the 'drunken kid' at the ferry?" he asked. "(That's what +our abstemious district attorney terms my precious young +heir-apparent.) You'll meet him at the Castle--the Havens are good to +him. They know how it feels, I guess; when John was a youngster his +piratical uncle had to camp in Jersey for six months or so, to escape +the strong arm of the law." + +"Don't you know about it?" continued the Major, sipping at his +beverage. "Sic transit gloria mundi! That was when the great Captain +Kidd Havens was piling up the millions which his survivors are spending +with such charming insouciance. He was plundering a railroad, and the +original progenitor of the Wallings tried to buy the control away from +him, and Havens issued ten or twenty millions of new stock overnight, +in the face of a court injunction, and got away with most of his money. +It reads like opera bouffe, you know--they had a regular armed camp +across the river for about six months--until Captain Kidd went up to +Albany with half a million dollars' worth of greenbacks in a satchel, +and induced the legislature to legalize the proceedings. That was just +after the war, you know, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. It +seems strange to think that anyone shouldn't know about it." + +"I know about Havens in a general way," said Montague. + +"Yes," said the Major. "But I know in a particular way, because I've +carried some of that railroad's paper all these years, and it's never +paid any dividends since. It has a tendency to interfere with my +appreciation of John's lavish hospitality." + +Montague was reminded of the story of the Roman emperor who pointed out +that money had no smell. + +"Maybe not," said the Major. "But all the same, if you were +superstitious, you might make out an argument from the Havens fortune. +Take that poor girl who married the Count." + +And the Major went on to picture the denouement of that famous +international alliance, which, many years ago, had been the sensation +of two continents. All Society had attended the gorgeous wedding, an +archbishop had performed the ceremony, and the newspapers had devoted +pages to describing the gowns and the jewels and the presents and all +the rest of the magnificence. And the Count was a wretched little +degenerate, who beat and kicked his wife, and flaunted his mistresses +in her face, and wasted fourteen million dollars of her money in a +couple of years. The mind could scarcely follow the orgies of this +half-insane creature--he had spent two hundred thousand dollars on a +banquet, and half as much again for a tortoise-shell wardrobe in which +Louis the Sixteenth had kept his clothes! He had charged a diamond +necklace to his wife, and taken two of the four rows of diamonds out of +it before he presented it to her! He had paid a hundred thousand +dollars a year to a jockey whom the Parisian populace admired, and a +fortune for a palace in Verona, which he had promptly torn down, for +the sake of a few painted ceilings. The Major told about one outdoor +fete, which he had given upon a sudden whim: ten thousand Venetian +lanterns, ten thousand metres of carpet; three thousand gilded chairs, +and two or three hundred waiters in fancy costumes; two palaces built +in a lake, with sea-horses and dolphins, and half a dozen orchestras, +and several hundred chorus--girls from the Grand Opera! And in between +adventures such as these, he bought a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, +and made speeches and fought duels in defence of the Holy Catholic +Church--and wrote articles for the yellow journals of America. "And +that's the fate of my lost dividends!" growled the Major. + +There were several automobiles to meet the party at the depot, and they +were whirled through a broad avenue up a valley, and past a little +lake, and so to the gates of Castle Havens. + +It was a tremendous building, a couple of hundred feet long. One +entered into a main hall, perhaps fifty feet wide, with a great +fireplace arid staircase of marble and bronze, and furniture of gilded +wood and crimson velvet, and a huge painting, covering three of the +walls, representing the Conquest of Peru. Each of the rooms was +furnished in the style of a different period--one Louis Quatorze, one +Louis Quinze, one Marie Antoinette, and so on. There was a drawing-room +and a regal music-room; a dining-room in the Georgian style, and a +billiard-room, also in the English fashion, with high wainscoting and +open beams in the ceiling; and a library, and a morning-room and +conservatory. Upstairs in the main suite of rooms was a royal bedstead, +which alone was rumoured to have cost twenty-five thousand dollars; and +you might have some idea of the magnificence of things when you learned +that underneath the gilding of the furniture was the rare and precious +Circassian walnut. + +All this was beautiful. But what brought the guests to Castle Havens +was the casino, so the Major had remarked. It was really a private +athletic club--with tan-bark hippodrome, having a ring the size of that +in Madison Square Garden, and a skylight roof, and thirty or forty +arc-lights for night events. There were bowling-alleys, billiard and +lounging-rooms, hand-ball, tennis and racket-courts, a completely +equipped gymnasium, a shooting-gallery, and a swimming-pool with +Turkish and Russian baths. In this casino alone there were rooms for +forty guests. + +Such was Castle Havens; it had cost three or four millions of dollars, +and within the twelve-foot wall which surrounded its grounds lived two +world-weary people who dreaded nothing so much as to be alone. There +were always guests, and on special occasions there might be three or +four score. They went whirling about the country in their autos; they +rode and drove; they played games, outdoor and indoor, or gambled, or +lounged and chatted, or wandered about at their own sweet will. Coming +to one of these places was not different from staying at a great hotel, +save that the company was selected, and instead of paying a bill, you +gave twenty or thirty dollars to the servants when you left. + +It was a great palace of pleasure, in which beautiful and graceful men +and women played together in all sorts of beautiful and graceful ways. +In the evenings great logs blazed in the fireplace in the hall, and +there might be an informal dance--there was always music at hand. Now +and then there would be a stately ball, with rich gowns and flashing +jewels, and the grounds ablaze with lights, and a full orchestra, and +special trains from the city. Or a whole theatrical company would be +brought down to give an entertainment in the theatre; or a minstrel +show, or a troupe of acrobats, or a menagerie of trained animals. Or +perhaps there would be a great pianist, or a palmist, or a trance +medium. Anyone at all would be welcome who could bring a new thrill--it +mattered nothing at all, though the price might be several hundred +dollars a minute. + +Montague shook hands with his host and hostess, and with a number of +others; among them Billy Price who forthwith challenged him, and +carried him off to the shooting-gallery. Here he took a rifle, and +proceeded to satisfy her as to his skill. This brought him to the +notice of Siegfried Harvey, who was a famous cross-country rider and +"polo-man." Harvey's father owned a score of copper-mines, and had +named him after a race-horse; he was a big broad-shouldered fellow, a +favourite of every one; and next morning, when he found that Montague +sat a horse like one who was born to it, he invited him to come out to +his place on Long Island, and see some of the fox-hunting. + +Then, after he had dressed for dinner, Montague came downstairs, and +found Betty Wyman, shining like Aurora in an orange-coloured cloud. She +introduced him to Mrs. Vivie Patton, who was tall and slender and +fascinating, and had told her husband to go to hell. Mrs. Vivie had +black eyes that snapped and sparkled, and she was a geyser of animation +in a perpetual condition of eruption. Montague wondered if she would +have talked with him so gaily had she known what he knew about her +domestic entanglements. + +The company moved into the dining-room, where there was served another +of those elaborate and enormously expensive meals which he concluded he +was fated to eat for the rest of his life. Only, instead of Mrs. Billy +Alden with her Scotch, there was Mrs. Vivie, who drank champagne in +terrifying quantities; and afterward there was the inevitable grouping +of the bridge fiends. + +Among the guests there was a long-haired and wild-looking foreign +personage, who was the "lion" of the evening, and sat with half a dozen +admiring women about him. Now he was escorted to the music-room, and +revealed the fact that he was a violin virtuoso. He played what was +called "salon music"--music written especially for ladies and gentlemen +to listen to after dinner; and also a strange contrivance called a +concerto, put together to enable the player to exhibit within a brief +space the utmost possible variety of finger gymnastics. To learn to +perform these feats one had to devote his whole lifetime to practising +them, just like any circus acrobat; and so his mind became atrophied, +and a naive and elemental vanity was all that was left to him. + +Montague stood for a while staring; and then took to watching the +company, who chattered and laughed all through the performance. +Afterward, he strolled into the billiard-room, where Billy Price and +Chauncey Venable were having an exciting bout; and from there to the +smoking-room, where the stout little Major had gotten a group of young +bloods about him to play "Klondike." This was a game of deadly hazards, +which they played without limit; the players themselves were silent and +impassive, but the spectators who gathered about were tense with +excitement. + +In the morning Charlie Carter carried off Alice and Oliver and Betty in +his auto; and Montague spent his time in trying some of Havens's +jumping horses. The Horse Show was to open in New York on Monday, and +there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement because of this +prospect; Mrs. Caroline Smythe, a charming young widow, strolled about +with him and told him all about this Show, and the people who would +take part in it. + +And in the afternoon Major Venable took him for a stroll and showed him +the grounds. He had been told what huge sums had been expended in +laying them out; but after all, the figures were nothing compared with +an actual view. There were hills and slopes, and endless vistas of +green lawns and gardens, dotted with the gleaming white of marble +staircases and fountains and statuary. There was a great Italian walk, +leading by successive esplanades to an electric fountain with a basin +sixty feet across, and a bronze chariot and marble horses. There were +sunken gardens, with a fountain brought from the South of France, and +Greek peristyles, and seats of marble, and vases and other treasures of +art. + +And then there were the stables; a huge Renaissance building, with a +perfectly equipped theatre above. There was a model farm and dairy; a +polo-field, and an enclosed riding-ring for the children; and +dog-kennels and pigeon-houses, greenhouses and deer-parks--one was +prepared for bear-pits and a menagerie. Finally, on their way back, +they passed the casino, where musical chimes pealed out the +quarter-hours. Montague stopped and gazed up at the tower from which +the sounds had come. + +The more he gazed, the more he found to gaze at The roof of this +building had many gables, in the Queen Anne style; and from the midst +of them shot up the tower, which was octagonal and solid, suggestive of +the Normans. It was decorated with Christmas-wreaths in white stucco, +and a few miscellaneous ornaments like the gilded tassels one sees upon +plush curtains. Overtopping all of this was the dome of a Turkish +mosque. Rising out of the dome was something that looked like a +dove-cot; and out of this rose the slender white steeple of a Methodist +country church. On top of that was a statue of Diana. + +"What are you looking at?" asked the Major. + +"Nothing," said Montague, as he moved on. "Has there ever been any +insanity in the Havens family?" + +"I don't know," replied the other, puzzled. "They say the old man never +could sleep at night, and used to wander about alone in the park. I +suppose he had things on his conscience." + +They strolled away; and the Major's flood-gates of gossip were opened. +There was an old merchant in New York, who had been Havens's private +secretary. And Havens was always in terror of assassination, and so +whenever they travelled abroad he and the secretary exchanged places. +"The old man is big and imposing," said the Major, "and it's funny to +hear him tell how he used to receive the visitors and be stared at by +the crowds, while Havens, who was little and insignificant, would +pretend to make himself useful. And then one day a wild-looking +creature came into the Havens office, and began tearing the wrappings +off some package that shone like metal--and quick as a flash he and +Havens flung themselves down on the floor upon their faces. Then, as +nothing happened, they looked up, and saw the puzzled stranger gazing +over the railing at them. He had a patent churn, made of copper, which +he wanted Havens to market for him!" + +Montague could have wished that this party might last for a week or +two, instead of only two days. He was interested in the life, and in +those who lived it; all whom he met were people prominent in the social +world, and some in the business world as well, and one could not have +asked a better chance to study them. + +Montague was taking his time and feeling his way slowly. But all the +time that he was playing and gossiping he never lost from mind his real +purpose, which was to find a place for himself in the world of affairs; +and he watched for people from whose conversation he could get a view +of this aspect of things. So he was interested when Mrs. Smythe +remarked that among his fellow-guests was Vandam, an official of one of +the great life-insurance companies. "Freddie" Vandam, as the lady +called him, was a man of might in the financial world; and Montague +said to himself that in meeting him he would really be accomplishing +something. Crack shots and polo-players and four-in-hand experts were +all very well, but he had his living to earn, and he feared that the +problem was going to prove complicated. + +So he was glad when chance brought him and young Vandam together, and +Siegfried Harvey introduced them. And then Montague got the biggest +shock which New York had given him yet. + +It was not what Freddie Vandam said; doubtless he had a right to be +interested in the Horse Show, since he was to exhibit many fine horses, +and he had no reason to feel called upon to talk about anything more +serious to a stranger at a house party. But it was the manner of the +man, his whole personality. For Freddie was a man of fashion, with all +the exaggerated and farcical mannerisms of the dandy of the comic +papers. He wore a conspicuous and foppish costume, and posed with a +little cane; he cultivated a waving pompadour, and his silky moustache +and beard were carefully trimmed to points, and kept sharp by his +active fingers. His conversation was full of French phrases and French +opinions; he had been reared abroad, and had a whole-souled contempt +for all things American-even dictating his business letters in French, +and leaving it for his stenographer to translate them. His shirts were +embroidered with violets and perfumed with violets--and there were +bunches of violets at his horses' heads, so that he might get the odour +as he drove! + +There was a cruel saying about Freddie Vandam--that if only he had had +a little more brains, he would have been half-witted. And Montague sat, +and watched his mannerisms and listened to his inanities, with his mind +in a state of bewilderment and dismay. When at last he got up and +walked away, it was with a new sense of the complicated nature of the +problem that confronted him. Who was there that could give him the key +to this mystery--who could interpret to him a world in which a man such +as this was in control of four or five hundred millions of trust funds? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +It was quite futile to attempt to induce anyone to talk about serious +matters just now--for the coming week all Society belonged to the +horse. The parties which went to church on Sunday morning talked about +horses on the way, and the crowds that gathered in front of the church +door to watch them descend from their automobiles, and to get "points" +on their conspicuous costumes--these would read about horses all +afternoon in the Sunday papers, and about the gowns which the women +would wear at the show. + +Some of the party went up on Sunday evening; Montague went with the +rest on Monday morning, and had lunch with Mrs. Robbie Walling and +Oliver and Alice. They had arrayed him in a frock coat and silk hat and +fancy "spats"; and they took him and sat him in the front row of +Robbie's box. + +There was a great tan-bark arena, in which the horses performed; and +then a railing, and a broad promenade for the spectators; and then, +raised a few feet above, the boxes in which sat all Society. For the +Horse Show had now become a great social function. Last year a visiting +foreign prince had seen fit to attend it, and this year "everybody" +would come. + +Montague was rapidly getting used to things; he observed with a smile +how easy it was to take for granted embroidered bed and table linen, +and mural paintings, and private cars, and gold plate. At first it had +seemed to him strange to be waited upon by a white woman, and by a +white man quite unthinkable; but he was becoming accustomed to having +silent and expressionless lackeys everywhere about him, attending to +his slightest want. So he presumed that if he waited long enough, he +might even get used to horses which had their tails cut off to stumps, +and their manes to rows of bristles, and which had been taught to lift +their feet in strange and eccentric ways, and were driven with burred +bits in their mouths to torture them and make them step lively. + +There were road-horses, coach-horses, saddle-horses and hunters, +polo-ponies, stud-horses--every kind of horse that is used for +pleasure, over a hundred different "classes" of them. They were put +through their paces about the ring, and there was a committee which +judged them, and awarded blue and red ribbons. Apparently their highly +artificial kind of excellence was a real thing to the people who took +part in the show; for the spectators thrilled with excitement, and +applauded the popular victors. There was a whole set of conventions +which were generally understood--there was even a new language. You +were told that these "turnouts" were "nobby" and "natty"; they were +"swagger" and "smart" and "swell." + +However, the horse was really a small part of this show; before one had +sat out an afternoon he realized that the function was in reality a +show of Society. For six or seven hours during the day the broad +promenade would be so packed with human beings that one moved about +with difficulty; and this throng gazed towards the ring almost +never--it stared up into the boxes. All the year round the discontented +millions of the middle classes read of the doings of the "smart set"; +and here they had a chance to come and see them-alive, and real, and +dressed in their showiest costumes. Here was all the grand monde, in +numbered boxes, and with their names upon the programmes, so that one +could get them straight. Ten thousand people from other cities had come +to New York on purpose to get a look. Women who lived in +boarding-houses and made their own clothes, had come to get hints; all +the dressmakers in town were present for the same purpose.. Society +reporters had come, with notebooks in hand; and next morning the +imitators of Society all over the United States would read about it, in +such fashion as this: "Mrs. Chauncey Venable was becomingly gowned in +mauve cloth, made with an Eton jacket trimmed with silk braid, and +opening over a chemisette of lace. Her hat was of the same colour, +draped with a great quantity of mauve and orange tulle, and surmounted +with birds of paradise to match. Her furs were silver fox." + +The most intelligent of the great metropolitan dailies would print +columns of this sort of material; and as for the "yellow" journals, +they would have discussions of the costumes by "experts," and half a +page of pictures of the most conspicuous of the box-holders. While +Montague sat talking with Mrs. Walling, half a dozen cameras were +snapped at them; and once a young man with a sketch-book placed himself +in front of them and went placidly to work.--Concerning such things the +society dame had three different sets of emotions: first, the one which +she showed in public, that of bored and contemptuous indifference; +second, the one which she expressed to her friends, that of outraged +but helpless indignation; and third, the one which she really felt, +that of triumphant exultation over her rivals, whose pictures were not +published and whose costumes were not described. + +It was a great dress parade of society women. One who wished to play a +proper part in it would spend at least ten thousand dollars upon her +costumes for the week. It was necessary to have a different gown for +the afternoon and evening of each day; and some, who were adepts at +quick changes and were proud of it, would wear three or four a day, and +so need a couple of dozen gowns for the show. And of course there had +to be hats and shoes and gloves to match. There would be robes of +priceless fur hung carelessly over the balcony to make a setting; and +in the evening there would be pyrotechnical displays of jewels. Mrs. +Virginia Landis wore a pair of simple pearl earrings, which she told +the reporters had cost twenty thousand dollars; and there were two +women who displayed four hundred thousand dollars' worth of +diamonds--and each of them had hired a detective to hover about in the +crowd and keep watch over her! + +Nor must one suppose, because the horse was an inconspicuous part of +the show, that he was therefore an inexpensive part. One man was to be +seen here driving a four-in-hand of black stallions which had cost +forty thousand; there were other men who drove only one horse, and had +paid forty thousand for that. Half a million was a moderate estimate of +the cost of the "string" which some would exhibit. And of course these +horses were useless, save for show purposes, and to breed other horses +like them. Many of them never went out of their stables except for +exercise upon a track; and the cumbrous and enormous; expensive coaches +were never by any possibility used elsewhere--when they were taken from +place to place they seldom went upon their own wheels. + +And there were people here who made their chief occupation in life the +winning of blue ribbons at these shows. They kept great country estates +especially for the horses, and had private indoor exhibition rings. +Robbie Walling and Chauncey Venable were both such people; in the +summer of next year another of the Wallings took a string across the +water to teach the horse-show game to Society in London. He took twenty +or thirty horses, under the charge of an expert manager and a dozen +assistants; he sent sixteen different kinds of carriages, and two great +coaches, and a ton of harness and other stuff. It required one whole +deck of a steamer, and the expedition enabled him to get rid of six +hundred thousand dollars. + +All through the day, of course, Robbie was down in the ring with his +trainers and his competitors, and Montague sat and kept his wife +company. There was a steady stream of visitors, who came to +congratulate her upon their successes, and to commiserate with Mrs. +Chauncey Venable over the sufferings of the un-happy victim of a +notoriety-seeking district attorney. + +There was just one drawback to the Horse Show, as Montague gathered +from the conversation that went on among the callers: it was public, +and there was no way to prevent undesirable people from taking part. +There were, it appeared, hordes of rich people in New York who were not +in Society, and of whose existence Society was haughtily unaware; but +these people might enter horses and win prizes, and even rent a box and +exhibit their clothes. And they might induce the reporters to mention +them--and of course the ignorant populace did not know the difference, +and stared at them just as hard as at Mrs. Robbie or Mrs. Winnie. And +so for a whole blissful week these people had all the sensations of +being in Society! "It won't be very long before that will kill the +Horse Show," said Mrs. Vivie Patton, with a snap of her black eyes. + +There was Miss Yvette Simpkins, for instance; Society frothed at the +mouth when her name was mentioned. Miss Yvette was the niece of a +stock-broker who was wealthy, and she thought that she was in Society, +and the foolish public thought so, too. Miss Yvette made a speciality +of newspaper publicity; you were always seeing her picture, with some +new "Worth creation," and the picture would be labelled "Miss Yvette +Simpkins, the best-dressed woman in New York," or "Miss Yvette +Simpkins, who is known as the best woman whip in Society." It was said +that Miss Yvette, who was short and stout, and had a rosy German face, +had paid five thousand dollars at one clip for photographs of herself +in a new wardrobe; and her pictures were sent to the newspapers in +bundles of a dozen at a time. Miss Yvette possessed over a million +dollars' worth of diamonds--the finest in the country, according to the +newspapers; she had spent a hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars +this year upon her clothes, and she gave long interviews, in which she +set forth the fact that a woman nowadays could not really be well +dressed upon less than a hundred thousand a year. It was Miss Yvette's +boast that she had never ridden in a street-car in her life. + +Montague always had a soft spot in his heart for the unfortunate Miss +Yvette, who laboured so hard to be a guiding light; for it chanced to +be while she was in the ring, exhibiting her skill in driving tandem, +that he met with a fateful encounter. Afterward, when he came to look +back upon these early days, it seemed strange to him that he should +have gone about this place, so careless and unsuspecting, while the +fates were weaving strange destinies about him. + +It was on Tuesday afternoon, and he sat in the box of Mrs. Venable, a +sister-in-law of the Major. The Major, who was a care-free bachelor, +was there himself, and also Betty Wyman, who was making sprightly +comments on the passers-by; and there strolled into the box Chappie de +Peyster, accompanied by a young lady. + +So many people had stopped and been introduced and then passed on, that +Montague merely glanced at her once. He noticed that she was tall and +graceful, and caught her name, Miss Hegan. + +The turnouts in the ring consisted of one horse harnessed in front of +another; and Montague was wondering what conceivable motive could +induce a human being to hitch and drive horses in that fashion. The +conversation turned upon Miss Yvette, who was in the ring; and Betty +remarked upon the airy grace with which she wielded the long whip she +carried. "Did you see what the paper said about her this morning?" she +asked. "' Miss Simpkins was exquisitely clad in purple velvet,' and so +on! She looked for all the world like the Venus at the Hippodrome!" + +"Why isn't she in Society?" asked Montague, curiously. + +"She!" exclaimed Betty. "Why, she's a travesty!" + +There was a moment's pause, preceding a remark by their young lady +visitor. "I've an idea," said she, "that the real reason she never got +into Society was that she was fond of her old father." + +And Montague gave a short glance at the speaker, who was gazing fixedly +into the ring. He heard the Major chuckle, and he thought that he heard +Betty Wyman give a little sniff. A few moments later the young lady +arose, and with some remark to Mrs. Venable about how well her costume +became her, she passed on out of the box. + +"Who is that?" asked Montague. + +"That," the Major answered, "that's Laura Hegan--Jim Hegan's daughter." + +"Oh!" said Montague, and caught his breath. Jim Hegan--Napoleon of +finance--czar of a gigantic system of railroads, and the power behind +the political thrones of many states. + +"His only daughter, too," the Major added. "Gad, what a juicy morsel +for somebody!" + +"Well, she'll make him pay for all he gets, whoever he is!" retorted +Betty, vindictively. + +"You don't like her?" inquired Montague; and Betty replied promptly, "I +do not!" + +"Her daddy and Betty's granddaddy are always at swords' points," put in +Major Venable. + +"I have nothing to do with my granddaddy's quarrels," said the young +lady. "I have troubles enough of my own." + +"What is the matter with Miss Hegan?" asked Montague, laughing. + +"She's an idea she's too good for the world she lives in," said Betty. +"When you're with her, you feel as you will before the judgment throne." + +"Undoubtedly a disturbing feeling," put in the Major. + +"She never hands you anything but you find a pin hidden in it," went on +the girl. "All her remarks are meant to be read backward, and my life +is too short to straighten out their kinks. I like a person to say what +they mean in plain English, and then I can either like them or not." + +"Mostly not," said the Major, grimly; and added, "Anyway, she's +beautiful." + +"Perhaps," said the other. "So is the Jungfrau; but I prefer something +more comfortable." + +"What's Chappie de Peyster beauing her around for?" asked Mrs. Venable. +"Is he a candidate?" + +"Maybe his debts are troubling him again," said Mistress Betty. "He +must be in a desperate plight.--Did you hear how Jack Audubon proposed +to her?" + +"Did Jack propose?" exclaimed the Major. + +"Of course he did," said the girl. "His brother told me." Then, for +Montague's benefit, she explained, "Jack Audubon is the Major's nephew, +and he's a bookworm, and spends all his time collecting scarabs." + +"What did he say to her?" asked the Major, highly amused. + +"Why," said Betty, "he told her he knew she didn't love him; but also +she knew that he didn't care anything about her money, and she might +like to marry him so that other men would let her alone." + +"Gad!" cried the old gentleman, slapping his knee. "A masterpiece!" + +"Does she have so many suitors?" asked Montague; and the Major replied, +"My dear boy--she'll have a hundred million dollars some day!" + +At this point Oliver put in appearance, and Betty got up and went for a +stroll with him; then Montague asked for light upon Miss Hegan's remark. + +"What she said is perfectly true," replied the Major; "only it riled +Betty. There's many a gallant dame cruising the social seas who has +stowed her old relatives out of sight in the hold." + +"What's the matter with old Simpkins?" asked the other. + +"Just a queer boy," was the reply. "He has a big pile, and his one joy +in life is the divine Yvette. It is really he who makes her +ridiculous--he has a regular press agent for her, a chap he loads up +with jewellery and cheques whenever he gets her picture into the +papers." + +The Major paused a moment to greet some acquaintance, and then resumed +the conversation. Apparently he could gossip in this intimate fashion +about any person whom you named. Old Simpkins had been very poor as a +boy, it appeared, and he had never got over the memory of it. Miss +Yvette spent fifty thousand at a clip for Paris gowns; but every day +her old uncle would save up the lumps of sugar which came with the +expensive lunch he had brought to his office. And when he had several +pounds he would send them home by messenger! + +This conversation gave Montague a new sense of the complicatedness of +the world into which he had come. Miss Simpkins was "impossible"; and +yet there was--for instance--that Mrs. Landis whom he had met at Mrs. +Winnie Duval's. He had met her several times at the show; and he heard +the Major and his sister-in-law chuckling over a paragraph in the +society journal, to the effect that Mrs. Virginia van Rensselaer Landis +had just returned from a successful hunting-trip in the far West. He +did not see the humour of this, at least not until they had told him of +another paragraph which had appeared some time before: stating that +Mrs. Landis had gone to acquire residence in South Dakota, taking with +her thirty-five trunks and a poodle; and that "Leanie" Hopkins, the +handsome young stock-broker, had taken a six months' vow of poverty, +chastity, and obedience. + +And yet Mrs. Landis was "in" Society! And moreover, she spent nearly as +much upon her clothes as Miss Yvette, and the clothes were quite as +conspicuous; and if the papers did not print pages about them, it was +not because Mrs. Landis was not perfectly willing. She was painted and +made up quite as frankly as any chorus-girl on the stage. She laughed a +great deal, and in a high key, and she and her friends told stories +which made Montague wish to move out of the way. + +Mrs. Landis had for some reason taken a fancy to Alice, and invited her +home to lunch with her twice during the show. And after they had got +home in the evening, the girl sat upon the bed in her fur-trimmed +wrapper, and told Montague and his mother and Mammy Lucy all about her +visit. + +"I don't believe that woman has a thing to do or to think about in the +world except to wear clothes!" she said. "Why, she has adjustable +mirrors on ball-bearings, so that she can see every part of her skirts! +And she gets all her gowns from Paris, four times a year--she says +there are four seasons now, instead of two! I thought that my new +clothes amounted to something, but my goodness, when I saw hers!" + +Then Alice went on to describe the unpacking of fourteen trunks, which +had just come up from the custom-house that day. Mrs. Virginia's +couturiere had her photograph and her colouring (represented in actual +paints) and a figure made up from exact measurements; and so every one +of the garments would fit her perfectly. Each one came stuffed with +tissue paper and held in place by a lattice-work of tape; and attached +to each gown was a piece of the fabric, from which her shoemaker would +make shoes or slippers. There were street-costumes and opera-wraps, +robes de chambre and tea-gowns, reception-dresses, and wonderful ball +and dinner gowns. Most of these latter were to be embroidered with +jewellery before they were worn, and imitation jewels were sewn on, to +show how the real ones were to be placed. These garments were made of +real lace or Parisian embroidery, and the prices paid for them were +almost impossible to credit. Some of them were made of lace so filmy +that the women who made them had to sit in damp cellars, because the +sunlight would dry the fine threads and they would break; a single yard +of the lace represented forty days of labour. There was a pastel +"batiste de soie" Pompadour robe, embroidered with cream silk flowers, +which had cost one thousand dollars. There was a hat to go with it, +which had cost a hundred and twenty-five, and shoes of grey +antelope-skin, buckled with mother-of-pearl, which had cost forty. +There was a gorgeous and intricate ball-dress of pale green chiffon +satin, with orchids embroidered in oxidized silver, and a long court +train, studded with diamonds--and this had cost six thousand dollars +without the jewels! And there was an auto-coat which had cost three +thousand; and an opera-wrap made in Leipsic, of white unborn baby lamb, +lined with ermine, which had cost twelve thousand--with a thousand +additional for a hat to match! Mrs. Landis thought nothing of paying +thirty-five dollars for a lace handkerchief, or sixty dollars for a +pair of spun silk hose, or two hundred dollars for a pearl and +gold-handled parasol trimmed with cascades of chiffon, and made, like +her hats, one for each gown. + +"And she insists that these things are worth the money," said Alice. +"She says it's not only the material in them, but the ideas. Each +costume is a study, like a picture. 'I pay for the creative genius of +the artist,' she said to me--'for his ability to catch my ideas and +apply them to my personality--my complexion and hair and eyes. +Sometimes I design my own costumes, and so I know what hard work it +is!'" + +Mrs. Landis came from one of New York's oldest families, and she was +wealthy in her own right; she had a palace on Fifth Avenue, and now +that she had turned her husband out, she had nothing at all to put in +it except her clothes. Alice told about the places in which she kept +them--it was like a museum! There was a gown-room, made dust-proof, of +polished hardwood, and with tier upon tier of long poles running +across, and padded skirt-supporters hanging from them. Everywhere there +was order and system--each skirt was numbered, and in a +chiffonier-drawer of the same number you would find the waist--and so +on with hats and stockings and gloves and shoes and parasols. There was +a row of closets, having shelves piled up with dainty lace-trimmed and +beribboned lingerie; there were two closets full of hats and three of +shoes. "When she went West," said Alice, "one of her maids counted, and +found that she had over four hundred pairs! And she actually has a +cabinet with a card-catalogue to keep track of them. And all the +shelves are lined with perfumed silk sachets, and she has tiny sachets +sewed in every skirt and waist; and she has her own private +perfume--she gave me some. She calls it Occur de Jeannette, and she +says she designed it herself, and had it patented!" + +And then Alice went on to describe the maid's work-room, which was also +of polished hardwood, and dust-proof, and had a balcony for brushing +clothes, and wires upon which to hang them, and hot and cold water, and +a big ironing-table and an electric stove. "But there can't be much +work to do," laughed the girl, "for she never wears a gown more than +two or three times. Just think of paying several thousand dollars for a +costume, and giving it to your poor relations after you have worn it +only twice! And the worst of it is that Mrs. Landis says it's all +nothing unusual; you'll find such arrangements in every home of people +who are socially prominent. She says there are women who boast of never +appearing twice in the same gown, and there's one dreadful personage in +Boston who wears each costume once, and then has it solemnly cremated +by her butler!" + +"It is wicked to do such things," put in old Mrs. Montague, when she +had heard this tale through. "I don't see how people can get any +pleasure out of it." + +"That's what I said," replied Alice. + +"To whom did you say that?" asked Montague. "To Mrs. Landis?" + +"No," said Alice, "to a cousin of hers. I was downstairs waiting for +her, and this girl came in. And we got to talking about it, and I said +that I didn't think I could ever get used to such things." + +"What did she say?" asked the other. + +"She answered me strangely," said the girl. "She's tall, and very +stately, and I was a little bit afraid of her. She said, 'You'll get +used to it. Everybody you know will be doing it, and if you try to do +differently they'll take offence; and you won't have the courage to do +without friends. You'll be meaning every day to stop, but you never +will, and you'll go on until you die.'" + +"What did you say to that?" + +"Nothing," answered Alice. "Just then Mrs. Landis came in, and Miss +Hegan went away." + +"Miss Hegan?" echoed Montague. + +"Yes," said the other. "That's her name--Laura Hegan. Have you met her?" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The Horse Show was held in Madison Square Garden, a building occupying +a whole city block. It seemed to Montague that during the four days he +attended he was introduced to enough people to fill it to the doors. +Each one of the exquisite ladies and gentlemen extended to him a +delicately gloved hand, and remarked what perfect weather they were +having, and asked him how long he had been in New York, and what he +thought of it. Then they would talk about the horses, and about the +people who were present, and what they had on. + +He saw little of his brother, who was squiring the Walling ladies most +of the time; and Alice, too, was generally separated from him and taken +care of by others. Yet he was never alone--there was always some young +matron ready to lead him to her carriage and whisk him away to lunch or +dinner. + +Many times he wondered why people should be so kind to him, a stranger, +and one who could do nothing for them in return. Mrs. Billy Alden +undertook to explain it to him, one afternoon, as he sat in her box. +There had to be some people to enjoy, it appeared, or there would be no +fun in the game. "Everything is new and strange to you," said she, "and +you're delicious and refreshing; you make these women think perhaps +they oughtn't to be so bored after all! Here's a woman who's bought a +great painting; she's told that it's great, but she doesn't understand +it herself--all she knows is that it cost her a hundred thousand +dollars. And now you come along, and to you it's really a painting--and +don't you see how gratifying that is to her?" + +"Oliver is always telling me it's bad form to admire," said the man, +laughing. + +"Yes?" said the other. "Well, don't you let that brother of yours spoil +you. There are more than enough of blase people in town--you be +yourself." + +He appreciated the compliment, but added, "I'm afraid that when the +novelty is worn off, people will be tired of me." + +"You'll find your place," said Mrs. Alden--"the people you like and who +like you." And she went on to explain that here he was being passed +about among a number of very different "sets," with different people +and different tastes. Society had become split up in that manner of +late--each set being jealous and contemptuous of all the other sets. +Because of the fact that they overlapped a little at the edges, it was +possible for him to meet here a great many people who never met each +other, and were even unaware of each other's existence. + +And Mrs. Alden went on to set forth the difference between these +"sets"; they ran from the most exclusive down to the most "yellow," +where they shaded off into the disreputable rich--of whom, it seemed, +there were hordes in the city. These included "sporting" and theatrical +and political people, some of whom were very rich indeed; and these +sets in turn shaded off into the criminals and the demi-monde--who +might also easily be rich. "Some day," said Mrs. Alden "you should get +my brother to tell you about all these people. He's been in politics, +you know, and he has a racing-stable." + +And Mrs. Alden told him about the subtle little differences in the +conventions of these various sets of Society. There was the matter of +women smoking, for instance. All women smoked, nowadays; but some would +do it only in their own apartments, with their women friends; and some +would retire to an out-of-the-way corner to do it; while others would +smoke in their own dining-rooms, or wherever the men smoked. All agreed +however, in never smoking "in public"--that is, where they would be +seen by people not of their own set. Such, at any rate, had always been +the rule, though a few daring ones were beginning to defy even that. + +Such rules were very rigid, but they were purely conventional, they had +nothing to do with right or wrong: a fact which Mrs. Alden set forth +with her usual incisiveness. A woman, married or unmarried, might +travel with a man all over Europe, and every one might know that she +did it, but it would make no difference, so long as she did not do it +in America. There was one young matron whom Montague would meet, a +raging beauty, who regularly got drunk at dinner parties, and had to be +escorted to her carriage by the butler. She moved in the most exclusive +circles, and every one treated it as a joke. Unpleasant things like +this did not hurt a person unless they got "out"--that is, unless they +became a scandal in the courts or the newspapers. Mrs. Alden herself +had a cousin (whom she cordially hated) who had gotten a divorce from +her husband and married her lover forthwith and had for this been +ostracized by Society. Once when she came to some semi-public affair, +fifty women had risen at once and left the room! She might have lived +with her lover, both before and after the divorce, and every one might +have known it, and no one would have cared; but the convenances +declared that she should not marry him until a year had elapsed after +the divorce. + +One thing to which Mrs. Alden could testify, as a result of a +lifetime's observation, was the rapid rate at which these conventions, +even the most essential of them, were giving way, and being replaced by +a general "do as you please." Anyone could see that the power of women +like Mrs. Devon, who represented the old regime, and were dignified and +austere and exclusive, was yielding before the onslaught of new people, +who were bizarre and fantastic and promiscuous and loud. And the +younger sets cared no more about anyone--nor about anything under +heaven, save to have a good time in their own harum-scarum ways. In the +old days one always received a neatly-written or engraved invitation to +dinner, worded in impersonal and formal style; but the other day Mrs. +Alden had found a message which had been taken from the telephone: +"Please come to dinner, but don't come unless you can bring a man, or +we'll be thirteen at the table." + +And along with this went a perfectly incredible increase in luxury and +extravagance. "You are surprised at what you see here to-day," said +she--"but take my word for it, if you were to come back five years +later, you'd find all our present standards antiquated, and our present +pace-makers sent to the rear. You'd find new hotels and theatres +opening, and food and clothing and furniture that cost twice as much as +they cost now. Not so long ago a private car was a luxury; now it's as +much a necessity as an opera-box or a private ball-room, and people who +really count have private trains. I can remember when our girls wore +pretty muslin gowns in summer, and sent them to wash; now they wear +what they call lingerie gowns, dimity en princesse, with silk +embroidery and real lace and ribbons, that cost a thousand dollars +apiece and won't wash. Years ago when I gave a dinner, I invited a +dozen friends, and my own chef cooked it and my own servants served it. +Now I have to pay my steward ten thousand a year, and nothing that I +have is good enough. I have to ask forty or fifty people, and I call in +a caterer, and he brings everything of his own, and my servants go off +and get drunk. You used to get a good dinner for ten dollars a plate, +and fifteen was something special; but now you hear of dinners that +cost a thousand a plate! And it's not enough to have beautiful flowers +on the table--you have to have 'scenery'; there must be a rural +landscape for a background, and goldfish in the finger-bowls, and five +thousand dollars' worth of Florida orchids on the table, and floral +favours of roses that cost a hundred and fifty dollars a dozen. I +attended a dinner at the Waldorf last year that had cost fifty thousand +dollars; and when I ask those people to see me, I have to give them as +good as I got. The other day I paid a thousand dollars for a +tablecloth!" + +"Why do you do it?" asked Montague, abruptly. + +"God knows," said the other; "I don't. I sometimes wonder myself. I +guess it's because I've nothing else to do. It's like the story they +tell about my brother--he was losing money in a gambling-place in +Saratoga, and some one said to him, 'Davy, why do you go there--don't +you know the game is crooked?' 'Of course it's crooked,' said he, 'but, +damn it, it's the only game in town!'" + +"The pressure is more than anyone can stand," said Mrs. Alden, after a +moment's thought. "It's like trying to swim against a current. You have +to float, and do what every one expects you to do--your children and +your friends and your servants and your tradespeople. All the world is +in a conspiracy against you." + +"It's appalling to me," said the man. + +"Yes," said the other, "and there's never any end to it. You think you +know it all, but you find you really know very little. Just think of +the number of people there are trying to go the pace! They say there +are seven thousand millionaires in this country, but I say there are +twenty thousand in New York alone--or if they don't own a million, +they're spending the income of it, which amounts to the same thing. You +can figure that a man who pays ten thousand a year for rent is paying +fifty thousand to live; and there's Fifth Avenue--two miles of it, if +you count the uptown and downtown parts; and there's Madison Avenue, +and half a dozen houses adjoining on every side street; and then there +are the hotels and apartment houses, to say nothing of the West Side +and Riverside Drive. And you meet these mobs of people in the shops and +the hotels and the theatres, and they all want to be better dressed +than you. I saw a woman here to-day that I never saw in my life before, +and I heard her say she'd paid two thousand dollars for a lace +handkerchief; and it might have been true, for I've been asked to pay +ten thousand for a lace shawl at a bargain. It's a common enough thing +to see a woman walking on Fifth Avenue with twenty or thirty thousand +dollars' worth of furs on her. Fifty thousand is often paid for a coat +of sable, and I know of one that cost two hundred thousand. I know +women who have a dozen sets of furs--ermine, chinchilla, black fox, +baby lamb, and mink and sable; and I know a man whose chauffeur quit +him because he wouldn't buy him a ten-thousand-dollar fur coat! And +once people used to pack their furs away and take care of them; but now +they wear them about the street, or at the sea-shore, and you can +fairly see them fade. Or else their cut goes out of fashion, and so +they have to have new ones!" + +All that was material for thought. It was all true--there was no +question about that. It seemed to be the rule that whenever you +questioned a tale of the extravagances of New York, you would hear the +next day of something several times more startling. Montague was +staggered at the idea of a two-hundred-thousand-dollar fur coat; and +yet not long afterward there arrived in the city a titled Englishwoman, +who owned a coat worth a million dollars, which hard-headed insurance +companies had insured for half a million. It was made of the soft +plumage of rare Hawaiian birds, and had taken twenty years to make; +each feather was crescent-shaped, and there were wonderful designs in +crimson and gold and black. Every day in the casual conversation of +your acquaintances you heard of similar incredible things; a tiny +antique Persian rug, which could be folded into an overcoat pocket, for +ten thousand dollars; a set of five "art fans," each blade painted by a +famous artist and costing forty-three thousand dollars; a crystal cup +for eighty thousand; an edition de luxe of the works of Dickens for a +hundred thousand; a ruby, the size of a pigeon's egg, for three hundred +thousand. In some of these great New York palaces there were fountains +which cost a hundred dollars a minute to run; and in the harbour there +were yachts which cost twenty thousand a month to keep in commission. + +And that same day, as it chanced, he learned of a brand-new kind of +squandering. He went home to lunch with Mrs. Winnie Duval, and there +met Mrs. Caroline Smythe, with whom he had talked at Castle Havens. +Mrs. Smythe, whose husband had been a well-known Wall Street plunger, +was soft and mushy, and very gushing in manner; and she asked him to +come home to dinner with her, adding, "I'll introduce you to my babies." + +From what Montague had so far seen, he judged that babies played a very +small part in the lives of the women of Society; and so he was +interested, and asked, "How many have you?" + +"Only two, in town," said Mrs. Smythe. "I've just come up, you see." + +"How old are they?" he inquired politely; and when the lady added, +"About two years," he asked, "Won't they be in bed by dinner time?" + +"Oh my, no!" said Mrs. Smythe. "The dear little lambs wait up for me. I +always find them scratching at my chamber door and wagging their little +tails." + +Then Mrs. Winnie laughed merrily and said, "Why do you fool him?" and +went on to inform Montague that Caroline's "babies" were griffons +Bruxelloises. Griffons suggested to him vague ideas of dragons and +unicorns and gargoyles; but he said nothing more, save to accept the +invitation, and that evening he discovered that griffons Bruxelloises +were tiny dogs, long-haired, yellow, and fluffy; and that for her two +priceless treasures Mrs. Smythe had an expert nurse, to whom she paid a +hundred dollars a month, and also a footman, and a special cuisine in +which their complicated food was prepared. They had a regular dentist, +and a physician, and gold plate to eat from. Mrs. Smythe also owned two +long-haired St. Bernards of a very rare breed, and a fierce Great Dane, +and a very fat Boston bull pup--the last having been trained to go for +an airing all alone in her carriage, with a solemn coachman and footman +to drive him. + +Montague, deftly keeping the conversation upon the subject of pets, +learned that all this was quite common. Many women in Society +artificially made themselves barren, because of the inconvenience +incidental to pregnancy and motherhood; and instead they lavished their +affections upon cats and dogs. Some of these animals had elaborate +costumes, rivalling in expensiveness those of their step-mothers. They +wore tiny boots, which cost eight dollars a pair--house boots, and +street boots lacing up to the knees; they had house-coats, +walking-coats, dusters, sweaters, coats lined with ermine, and +automobile coats with head and chest-protectors and hoods and +goggles--and each coat fitted with a pocket for its tiny handkerchief +of fine linen or lace! And they had collars set with rubies and pearls +and diamonds--one had a collar that cost ten thousand dollars! +Sometimes there would be a coat to match every gown of the owner. There +were dog nurseries and resting-rooms, in which they might be left +temporarily; and manicure parlours for cats, with a physician in +charge. When these pets died, there was an expensive cemetery in +Brooklyn especially for their interment; and they would be duly +embalmed and buried in plush-lined casket, and would have costly marble +monuments. When one of Mrs. Smythe's best loved pugs had fallen ill of +congestion of the liver, she had had tan-bark put upon the street in +front of her house; and when in spite of this the dog died, she had +sent out cards edged in black, inviting her friends to a "memorial +service." Also she showed Montague a number of books with very costly +bindings, in which were demonstrated the unity, simplicity, and +immortality of the souls of cats and dogs. + +Apparently the sentimental Mrs. Smythe was willing to talk about these +pets all through dinner; and so was her aunt, a thin and angular +spinster, who sat on Montague's other side. And he was willing to +listen--he wanted to know it all. There were umbrellas for dogs, to be +fastened over their backs in wet weather; there were manicure and +toilet sets, and silver medicine-chests, and jewel-studded whips. There +were sets of engraved visiting-cards; there were wheel-chairs in which +invalid cats and dogs might be taken for an airing. There were shows +for cats and dogs, with pedigrees and prizes, and nearly as great +crowds as the Horse Show; Mrs. Smythe's St. Bernards were worth seven +thousand dollars apiece, and there were bull-dogs worth twice that. +There was a woman who had come all the way from the Pacific coast to +have a specialist perform an operation upon the throat of her Yorkshire +terrier! There was another who had built for her dog a tiny Queen Anne +cottage, with rooms papered and carpeted and hung with lace curtains! +Once a young man of fashion had come to the Waldorf and registered +himself and "Miss Elsie Cochrane"; and when the clerk made the usual +inquiries as to the relationship of the young lady, it transpired that +Miss Elsie was a dog, arrayed in a prim little tea-gown, and requiring +a room to herself. And then there was a tale of a cat which had +inherited a life-pension from a forty-thousand-dollar estate; it had a +two-floor apartment and several attendants, and sat at table and ate +shrimps and Italian chestnuts, and had a velvet couch for naps, and a +fur-lined basket for sleeping at night! + +Four days of horses were enough for Montague, and on Friday morning, +when Siegfried Harvey called him up and asked if he and Alice would +come out to "The Roost" for the week-end, he accepted gladly. Charlie +Carter was going, and volunteered to take them in his car; and so again +they crossed the Williamsburg Bridge--"the Jewish passover," as Charlie +called it--and went out on Long Island. + +Montague was very anxious to get a "line" on Charlie Carter; for he had +not been prepared for the startling promptness with which this young +man had fallen at Alice's feet. It was so obvious, that everybody was +smiling over it--he was with her every minute that he could arrange it, +and he turned up at every place to which she was invited. Both Mrs. +Winnie and Oliver were quite evidently complacent, but Montague was by +no means the same. Charlie had struck him as a good-natured but rather +weak youth, inclined to melancholy; he was never without a cigarette in +his fingers, and there had been signs that he was not quite proof +against the pitfalls which Society set about him in the shape of +decanters and wine-cups: though in a world where the fragrance of +spirits was never out of one's nostrils, and where people drank with +such perplexing frequency, it was hard to know where to draw a line. + +"You won't find my place like Havens's," Siegfried Harvey had said. "It +is real country." Montague found it the most attractive of all the +homes he had seen so far. It was a big rambling house, all in rustic +style, with great hewn logs outside, and rafters within, and a winding +oak stairway, and any number of dens and cosy corners, and broad +window-seats with mountains of pillows. Everything here was built for +comfort--there was a billiard-room and a smoking-room, and a real +library with readable books and great chairs in which one sank out of +sight. There were log fires blazing everywhere, and pictures on the +walls that told of sport, and no end of guns and antlers and trophies +of all sorts. But you were not to suppose that all this elaborate +rusticity would be any excuse for the absence of attendants in livery, +and a chef who boasted the cordon bleu, and a dinner-table resplendent +with crystal and silver and orchids and ferns. After all, though the +host called it a "small" place, he had invited twenty guests, and he +had a hunter in his stables for each one of them. + +But the most wonderful thing about "The Roost" was the fact that, at a +touch of a button, all the walls of the lower rooms vanished into the +second story, and there was one huge, log-lighted room, with violins +tuning up and calling to one's feet. They set a fast pace here--the +dancing lasted until three o'clock, and at dawn again they were dressed +and mounted, and following the pink-coated grooms and the hounds across +the frost-covered fields. + +Montague was half prepared for a tame fox, but this was spared him. +There was a real game, it seemed; and soon the pack gave tongue, and +away went the hunt. It was the wildest ride that Montague ever had +taken--over ditches and streams and innumerable rail-fences, and +through thick coverts and densely populated barnyards; but he was in at +the death, and Alice was only a few yards behind, to the immense +delight of the company. This seemed to Montague the first real life he +had met, and he thought to himself that these full-blooded and +high-spirited men and women made a "set" into which he would have been +glad to fit--save only that he had to earn his living, and they did not. + +In the afternoon there was more riding, and walks in the crisp November +air; and indoors, bridge and rackets and ping-pong, and a fast and +furious game of roulette, with the host as banker. "Do I look much like +a professional gambler?" he asked of Montague; and when the other +replied that he had not yet met any New York gamblers, young Harvey +went on to tell how he had gone to buy this apparatus (the sale of +which was forbidden by law) and had been asked by the dealer how +"strong" he wanted it! + +Then in the evening there was more dancing, and on Sunday another hunt. +That night a gambling mood seemed to seize the company--there were two +bridge tables, and in another room the most reckless game of poker that +Montague had ever sat in. It broke up at three in the morning, and one +of the company wrote him a cheque for sixty-five hundred dollars; but +even that could not entirely smooth his conscience, nor reconcile him +to the fever that was in his blood. + +Most important to him, however, was the fact that during the game he at +last got to know Charlie Carter. Charlie did not play, for the reason +that he was drunk, and one of the company told him so and refused to +play with him; which left poor Charlie nothing to do but get drunker. +This he did, and came and hung over the shoulders of the players, and +told the company all about himself. + +Montague was prepared to allow for the "wild oats" of a youngster with +unlimited money, but never in his life had he heard or dreamed of +anything like this boy. For half an hour he wandered about the table, +and poured out a steady stream of obscenities; his mind was like a +swamp, in which dwelt loathsome and hideous serpents which came to the +surface at night and showed their flat heads and their slimy coils. In +the heavens above or the earth beneath there was nothing sacred to him; +there was nothing too revolting to be spewed out. And the company +accepted the performance as an old story--the men would laugh, and push +the boy away, and say, "Oh, Charlie, go to the devil!" + +After it was all over, Montague took one of the company aside and asked +him what it meant; to which the man replied: "Good God! Do you mean +that nobody has told you about Charlie Carter?" + +It appeared that Charlie was one of the "gilded youths" of the +Tenderloin, whose exploits had been celebrated in the papers. And after +the attendants had bundled him off to bed, several of the men gathered +about the fire and sipped hot punch, and rehearsed for Montague's +benefit some of his leading exploits. + +Charlie was only twenty-three, it seemed; and when he was ten his +father had died and left eight or ten millions in trust for him, in the +care of a poor, foolish aunt whom he twisted about his finger. At the +age of twelve he was a cigarette fiend, and had the run of the +wine-cellar. When he went to a rich private school he took whole trunks +full of cigarettes with him, and finally ran away to Europe, to acquire +the learning of the brothels of Paris. And then he came home and struck +the Tenderloin; and at three o'clock one morning he walked through a +plate-glass window, and so the newspapers took him up. That had +suddenly opened a new vista in life for Charlie--he became a devotee of +fame; everywhere he went he was followed by newspaper reporters and a +staring crowd. He carried wads as big round as his arm, and gave away +hundred-dollar tips to bootblacks, and lost forty thousand dollars in a +game of poker. He gave a fete to the demi-monde, with a jewelled +Christmas tree in midsummer, and fifty thousand dollars' worth of +splendour. But the greatest stroke of all was the announcement that he +was going to build a submarine yacht and fill it with +chorus-girls!--Now Charlie had sunk out of public attention, and his +friends would not see him for days; he would be lying in a "sporting +house" literally wallowing in champagne. + +And all this, Montague realized, his brother must have known! And he +had said not a word about it--because of the eight or ten millions +which Charlie would have when he was twenty-five! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +In the morning they went home with others of the party by train. They +could not wait for Charlie and his automobile, because Monday was the +opening night of the Opera, and no one could miss that. Here Society +would appear in its most gorgeous raiment, and, there would be a show +of jewellery such as could be seen nowhere else in the world. + +General Prentice and his wife had opened their town-house, and had +invited them to dinner and to share their box; and so at about +half-past nine o'clock Montague found himself seated in a great balcony +of the shape of a horseshoe, with several hundred of the richest people +in the city. There was another tier of boxes above, and three galleries +above that, and a thousand or more people seated and standing below +him. Upon the big stage there was an elaborate and showy play, the +words of which were sung to the accompaniment of an orchestra. + +Now Montague had never heard an opera, and he was fond of music. The +second act had just begun when he came in, and all through it he sat +quite spellbound, listening to the most ravishing strains that ever he +had heard in his life. He scarcely noticed that Mrs. Prentice was +spending her time studying the occupants of the other boxes through a +jewelled lorgnette, or that Oliver was chattering to her daughter. + +But after the act was over, Oliver got him alone outside the box, and +whispered, "For God's sake, Allan, don't make a fool of yourself." + +"Why, what's the matter?" asked the other. + +"What will people think," exclaimed Oliver, "seeing you sitting there +like a man in a dope dream?" + +"Why," laughed the other, "they'll think I'm listening to the music." + +To which Oliver responded, "People don't come to the Opera to listen to +the music." + +This sounded like a joke, but it was not. To Society the Opera was a +great state function, an exhibition of far more exclusiveness and +magnificence than the Horse Show; and Society certainly had the right +to say, for it owned the opera-house and ran it. The real music-lovers +who came, either stood up in the back, or sat in the fifth gallery, +close to the ceiling, where the air was foul and hot. How much Society +cared about the play was sufficiently indicated by the fact that all of +the operas were sung in foreign languages, and sung so carelessly that +the few who understood the languages could make but little of the +words. Once there was a world-poet who devoted his life to trying to +make the Opera an art; and in the battle with Society he all but +starved to death. Now, after half a century, his genius had triumphed, +and Society consented to sit for hours in darkness and listen to the +domestic disputes of German gods and goddesses. But what Society really +cared for was a play with beautiful costumes and scenery and dancing, +and pretty songs to which one could listen while one talked; the story +must be elemental and passionate, so that one could understand it in +pantomime--say the tragic love of a beautiful and noble-minded +courtesan for a gallant young man of fashion. + +Nearly every one who came to the Opera had a glass, by means of which +he could bring each gorgeously-clad society dame close to him, and +study her at leisure. There were said to be two hundred million +dollars' worth of diamonds in New York, and those that were not in the +stores were very apt to be at this show; for here was where they could +accomplish the purpose for which they existed--here was where all the +world came to stare at them. There were nine prominent Society women, +who among them displayed five million dollars' worth of jewels. You +would see stomachers which looked like a piece of a coat of mail, and +were made wholly of blazing diamonds. You would see emeralds and rubies +and diamonds and pearls made in tiaras--that is to say, imitation +crowns and coronets--and exhibited with a stout and solemn dowager for +a pediment. One of the Wallings had set this fashion, and now every one +of importance wore them. One lady to whom Montague was introduced made +a speciality of pearls--two black pearl ear-rings at forty thousand +dollars, a string at three hundred thousand, a brooch of pink pearls at +fifty thousand, and two necklaces at a quarter of a million each! + +This incessant repetition of the prices of things came to seem very +sordid; but Montague found that there was no getting away from it. The +people in Society who paid these prices affected to be above all such +considerations, to be interested only in the beauty and artistic +excellence of the things themselves; but one found that they always +talked about the prices which other people had paid, and that somehow +other people always knew what they had paid. They took care also to see +that the public and the newspapers knew what they had paid, and knew +everything else that they were doing. At this Opera, for instance, +there was a diagram of the boxes printed upon the programme, and a list +of all the box-holders, so that anyone could tell who was who. You +might see these great dames in their gorgeous robes coming from their +carriages, with crowds staring at them and detectives hovering about. +And the bosom of each would be throbbing with a wild and wonderful +vision of the moment when she would enter her box, and the music would +be forgotten, and all eyes would be turned upon her; and she would lay +aside her wraps, and flash upon the staring throngs, a vision of +dazzling splendour. + +Some of these jewels were family treasures, well known to New York for +generations; and in such cases it was becoming the fashion to leave the +real jewels in the safe-deposit vault, and to wear imitation stones +exactly like them. From homes where the jewels were kept, detectives +were never absent, and in many cases there were detectives watching the +detectives; and yet every once in a while the newspapers would be full +of a sensational story of a robbery. Then the unfortunates who chanced +to be suspected would be seized by the police and subjected to what was +jocularly termed the "third degree," and consisted of tortures as +elaborate and cruel as any which the Spanish Inquisition had invented. +The advertising value of this kind of thing was found to be so great +that famous actresses also had costly jewels, and now and then would +have them stolen. + +That night, when they had got home, Montague had a talk with his cousin +about Charlie Carter. He discovered a peculiar situation. It seemed +that Alice already knew that Charlie had been "bad." He was sick and +miserable; and her beauty and innocence had touched him and made him +ashamed of himself, and he had hinted darkly at dreadful evils. Thus +carefully veiled, and tinged with mystery and romance, Montague could +understand how Charlie made an interesting and appealing figure. "He +says I'm different from any girl he ever met," said Alice--a remark of +such striking originality that her cousin could not keep back his smile. + +Alice was not the least bit in love with him, and had no idea of being; +and she said that she would accept no invitations, and never go alone +with him; but she did not see how she could avoid him when she met him +at other people's houses. And to this Montague had to assent. + +General Prentice had inquired kindly as to what Montague had seen in +New York, and how he was getting along. He added that he had talked +about him to Judge Ellis, and that when he was ready to get to work, +the Judge would perhaps have some suggestions to make to him. He +approved, however, of Montague's plan of getting his bearings first; +and said that he would introduce him and put him up at a couple of the +leading clubs. + +All this remained in Montague's mind; but there was no use trying to +think of it at the moment. Thanksgiving was at hand, and in countless +country mansions there would be gaieties under way. Bertie Stuyvesant +had planned an excursion to his Adirondack camp, and had invited a +score or so of young people, including the Montagues. This would be a +new feature of the city's life, worth knowing about. + +Their expedition began with a theatre-party. Bertie had engaged four +boxes, and they met there, an hour or so after the performance had +begun. This made no difference, however, for the play was like the +opera-a number of songs and dances strung together, and with only plot +enough to provide occasion for elaborate scenery and costumes. From the +play they were carried to the Grand Central Station, and a little +before midnight Bertie's private train set out on its journey. + +This train was a completely equipped hotel. There was a baggage +compartment and a dining-car and kitchen; and a drawing-room and +library-car; and a bedroom-car--not with berths, such as the ordinary +sleeping-car provides, but with comfortable bedrooms, furnished in +white mahogany, and provided with running water and electric light. All +these cars were built of steel, and automatically ventilated: and they +were furnished in the luxurious fashion of everything with which Bertie +Stuyvesant had anything to do. In the library-car there were velvet +carpets upon the floor, and furniture of South American mahogany, and +paintings upon the walls over which great artists had laboured for +years. + +Bertie's chef and servants were on board, and a supper was ready in the +dining-car, which they ate while watching the Hudson by moonlight. And +the next morning they reached their destination, a little station in +the mountain wilderness. The train lay upon a switch, and so they had +breakfast at their leisure, and then, bundled in furs, came out into +the crisp pine-laden air of the woods. There was snow upon the ground, +and eight big sleighs waiting; and for nearly three hours they drove in +the frosty sunlight, through most beautiful mountain scenery. A good +part of the drive was in Bertie's "preserve," and the road was private, +as big signs notified one every hundred yards or so. + +So at last they reached a lake, winding like a snake among towering +hills, and with a huge baronial castle standing out upon the rocky +shore. This imitation fortress was the "camp." + +Bertie's father had built it, and visited it only half a dozen times in +his life. Bertie himself had only been here twice, he said. The deer +were so plentiful that in the winter they died in scores. Nevertheless +there were thirty game-keepers to guard the ten thousand acres of +forest, and prevent anyone's hunting in it. There were many such +"preserves" in this Adirondack wilderness, so Montague was told; one +man had a whole mountain fenced about with heavy iron railing, and had +moose and elk and even wild boar inside. And as for the "camps," there +were so many that a new style of architecture had been developed +here--to say nothing of those which followed old styles, like this +imported Rhine castle. One of Bertie's crowd had a big Swiss chalet; +and one of the Wallings had a Japanese palace to which he came every +August--a house which had been built from plans drawn in Japan, and by +labourers imported especially from Japan. It was full of Japanese +ware--furniture, tapestry, and mosaics; and the guides remembered with +wonder the strange silent, brown-skinned little men who had laboured +for days at carving a bit of wood, and had built a tiny pagoda-like +tea-house with more bits of wood in it than a man could count in a week. + +They had a luncheon of fresh venison and partridges and trout, and in +the afternoon a hunt. The more active set out to track the deer in the +snow; but most prepared to watch the lake-shore, while the game-keepers +turned loose the dogs back in the hills. This "hounding" was against +the law, but Bertie was his own law here--and at the worst there could +simply be a small fine, imposed upon some of the keepers. They drove +eight or ten deer to water; and as they fired as many as twenty shots +at one deer, they had quite a lively time. Then at dusk they came back, +in a fine glow of excitement, and spent the evening before the blazing +logs, telling over their adventures. + +The party spent two days and a half here, and on the last evening, +which was Thanksgiving, they had a wild turkey which Bertie had shot +the week before in Virginia, and were entertained by a minstrel show +which had been brought up from New York the night before. The next +afternoon they drove back to the train. + +In the morning, when they reached the city, Alice found a note from +Mrs. Winnie Duval, begging her and Montague to come to lunch and attend +a private lecture by the Swami Babubanana, who would tell them all +about the previous states of their souls. They went--though not without +a protest from old Mrs. Montague, who declared it was "worse than Bob +Ingersoll." + +And then, in the evening, came Mrs. de Graffenried's opening +entertainment, which was one of the great events of the social year. In +the general rush of things Montague had not had a chance properly to +realize it; but Reggie Mann and Mrs. de Graffenried had been working +over it for weeks. When the Montagues arrived, they found the Riverside +mansion--which was decorated in imitation of an Arabian palace--turned +into a jungle of tropical plants. + +They had come early at Reggie's request, and he introduced them to Mrs. +de Graffenried, a tall and angular lady with a leathern complexion +painfully painted; Mrs. de Graffenried was about fifty years of age, +but like all the women of Society she was made up for thirty. Just at +present there were beads of perspiration upon her forehead; something +had gone wrong at the last moment, and so Reggie would have no time to +show them the favours, as he had intended. + +About a hundred and fifty guests were invited to this entertainment. A +supper was served at little tables in the great ball-room, and +afterward the guests wandered about the house while the tables were +whisked out of the way and the room turned into a play-house. A company +from one of the Broadway theatres would be bundled into cabs at the end +of the performance, and by midnight they would be ready to repeat the +performance at Mrs. de Graffenried's. Montague chanced to be near when +this company arrived, and he observed that the guests had crowded up +too close, and not left room enough for the actors. So the manager had +placed them in a little ante-room, and when Mrs. de Graffenried +observed this, she rushed at the man, and swore at him like a dragoon, +and ordered the bewildered performers out into the main room. + +But this was peering behind the scenes, and he was supposed to be +watching the play. The entertainment was another "musical comedy" like +the one he had seen a few nights before. On that occasion, however, +Bertie Stuyvesant's sister had talked to him the whole time, while now +he was let alone, and had a chance to watch the performance. + +This was a very popular play; it had had a long run, and the papers +told how its author had an income of a couple of hundred thousand +dollars a year. And here was an audience of the most rich and +influential people in the city; and they laughed and clapped, and made +it clear that they were enjoying themselves heartily. And what sort of +a play was it? + +It was called "The Kaliph of Kamskatka." It had no shred of a plot; the +Kaliph had seventeen wives, and there was an American drummer who +wanted to sell him another--but then you did not need to remember this, +for nothing came of it. There was nothing in the play which could be +called a character--there was nothing which could be connected with any +real emotion ever felt by human beings. Nor could one say that there +was any incident--at least nothing happened because of anything else. +Each event was a separate thing, like the spasmodic jerking in the face +of an idiot. Of this sort of "action" there was any quantity--at an +instant's notice every one on the stage would fall simultaneously into +this condition of idiotic jerking. There was rushing about, shouting, +laughing, exclaiming; the stage was in a continual uproar of +excitement, which was without any reason or meaning. So it was +impossible to think of the actors in their parts; one kept thinking of +them as human beings--thinking of the awful tragedy of full-grown men +and women being compelled by the pressure of hunger to dress up and +paint themselves, and then come out in public and dance, stamp, leap +about, wring their hands, make faces, and otherwise be "lively." + +The costumes were of two sorts: one fantastic, supposed to represent +the East, and the other a kind of reductio ad absurdum of fashionable +garb. The leading man wore a "natty" outing-suit, and strutted with a +little cane; his stock-in-trade was a jaunty air, a kind of perpetual +flourish, and a wink that suggested the cunning of a satyr. The leading +lady changed her costume several times in each act; but it invariably +contained the elements of bare arms and bosom and back, and a skirt +which did not reach her knees, and bright-coloured silk stockings, and +slippers with heels two inches high. Upon the least provocation she +would execute a little pirouette, which would reveal the rest of her +legs, surrounded by a mass of lace ruffles. It is the nature of the +human mind to seek the end of things; if this woman had worn a suit of +tights and nothing else, she would have been as uninteresting as an +underwear advertisement in a magazine; but this incessant +not-quite-revealing of herself exerted a subtle fascination. At +frequent intervals the orchestra would start up a jerky little tune, +and the two "stars" would begin to sing in nasal voices some words +expressive of passion; then the man would take the woman about the +waist and dance and swing her about and bend her backward and gaze into +her eyes--actions all vaguely suggestive of the relationship of sex. At +the end of the verse a chorus would come gliding on, clad in any sort +of costume which admitted of colour and the display of legs; the +painted women of this chorus were never still for an instant--if they +were not actually dancing, they were wriggling their legs, and jerking +their bodies from side to side, and nodding their heads, and in all +other possible ways being "lively." + +But it was not the physical indecency of this show that struck Montague +so much as its intellectual content. The dialogue of the piece was what +is called "smart"; that is, it was full of a kind of innuendo which +implied a secret understanding of evil between the actor and his +audience--a sort of countersign which passed between them. After all, +it would have been an error to say that there were no ideas in the +play--there was one idea upon which all the interest of it was based; +and Montague strove to analyze this idea and formulate it to himself. +There are certain life principles-one might call them moral +axioms--which are the result of the experience of countless ages of the +human race, and upon the adherence to which the continuance of the race +depends. And here was an audience by whom all these principles +were--not questioned, nor yet disputed, nor yet denied--but to whom the +denial was the axiom, something which it would be too banal to state +flatly, but which it was elegant and witty to take for granted. In this +audience there were elderly people, and married men and women, and +young men and maidens; and a perfect gale of laughter swept through it +at a story of a married woman whose lover had left her when he got +married:-- + +"She must have been heartbroken," said the leading lady. + +"She was desperate," said the leading man, with a grin. + +"What did she do?" asked the lady "Go and shoot herself?" + +"Worse than that," said the man. "She, went back to her husband and had +a baby!" + +But to complete your understanding of the significance of this play, +you must bring yourself to realize that it was not merely a play, but a +kind of a play; it had a name--a "musical comedy"--the meaning of which +every one understood. Hundreds of such plays were written and produced, +and "dramatic critics" went to see them and gravely discussed them, and +many thousands of people made their livings by travelling over the +country and playing them; stately theatres were built for them, and +hundreds of thousands of people paid their money every night to see +them. And all this no joke and no nightmare--but a thing that really +existed. Men and women were doing these things--actual flesh-and-blood +human beings. + +Montague wondered, in an awestricken sort of way, what kind of human +being it could be who had flourished the cane and made the grimaces in +that play. Later on, when he came to know the "Tenderloin," he met this +same actor, and he found that he had begun life as a little Irish +"mick" who lived in a tenement, and whose mother stood at the head of +the stairway and defended him with a rolling-pin against a policeman +who was chasing him. He had discovered that he could make a living by +his comical antics; but when he came home and told his mother that he +had been offered twenty dollars a week by a show manager, she gave him +a licking for lying to her. Now he was making three thousand dollars a +week--more than the President of the United States and his Cabinet; but +he was not happy, as he confided to Montague, because he did not know +how to read, and this was a cause of perpetual humiliation. The secret +desire of this little actor's heart was to play Shakespeare; he had +"Hamlet" read to him, and pondered how to act it--all the time that he +was flourishing his little cane and making his grimaces! He had chanced +to be on the stage when a fire had broken out, and five or six hundred +victims of greed were roasted to death. The actor had pleaded with the +people to keep their seats, but all in vain; and all his life +thereafter he went about with this vision of horror in his mind, and +haunted by the passionate conviction that he had failed because of his +lack of education--that if only he had been a man of culture, he would +have been able to think of something to say to hold those +terror-stricken people! + +At three o'clock in the morning the performance came to an end, and +then there were more refreshments; and Mrs. Vivie Patton came and sat +by him, and they had a nice comfortable gossip. When Mrs. Vivie once +got started at talking about people, her tongue ran on like a windmill. + +There was Reggie Mann, meandering about and simpering at people. Reggie +was in his glory at Mrs. de Graffenried's affairs. Reggie had arranged +all this-he did the designing and the ordering, and contracted for the +shows with the agents. You could bet that he had got his commission on +them, too--though sometimes Mrs. de Graffenried got the shows to come +for nothing, because of the advertising her name would bring. +Commissions were Reggie's speciality--he had begun life as an auto +agent. Montague didn't know what that was? An auto agent was a man who +was for ever begging his friends to use a certain kind of car, so that +he might make a living; and Reggie had made about thirty thousand a +year in that way. He had come from Boston, where his reputation had +been made by the fact that early one morning, as they were driving home +from a celebration, he had dared a young society matron to take off her +shoes and stockings, and get out and wade in the public fountain; and +she had done it, and he had followed her. On the strength of the eclat +of this he had been taken up by Mrs. Devon; and one day Mrs. Devon had +worn a white gown, and asked him what he thought of it. "It needs but +one thing to make it perfect," said Reggie, and taking a red rose, he +pinned it upon her corsage. The effect was magical; every one exclaimed +with delight, and so Reggie's reputation as an authority upon dress was +made for ever. Now he was Mrs. de Graffenried's right-hand man, and +they made up their pranks together. Once they had walked down the +street in Newport with a big rag doll between them. And Reggie had +given a dinner at which the guest of honour had been a monkey--surely +Montague had heard of that, for it had been the sensation of the +season. It was really the funniest thing imaginable; the monkey wore a +suit of broad-cloth with collar and cuffs, and he shook hands with all +the guests, and behaved himself exactly like a gentleman--except that +he did not get drunk. + +And then Mrs. Vivie pointed out the great Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden, who +was sitting with one of her favourites, a grave, black-bearded +gentleman who had leaped into fame by inheriting fifty million dollars. +"Mrs. R.-C." had taken him up, and ordered his engagement book for him, +and he was solemnly playing the part of a social light. He had +purchased an old New York mansion, upon the decoration of which three +million dollars had been spent; and when he came down to business from +Tuxedo, his private train waited all day for him with steam up. Mrs. +Vivie told an amusing tale of a woman who had announced her engagement +to him, and borrowed large sums of money upon the strength of it, +before his denial came out. That had been a source of great delight to +Mrs. de Graffenried, who was furiously jealous of "Mrs. R. C." + +From the anecdotes that people told, Montague judged that Mrs. de +Graffenried must be one of those new leaders of Society, who, as Mrs. +Alden said, were inclined to the bizarre and fantastic. Mrs. de +Graffenried spent half a million dollars every season to hold the +position of leader of the Newport set, and you could always count upon +her for new and striking ideas. Once she had given away as cotillion +favours tiny globes with goldfish in them; again she had given a dance +at which everybody got themselves up as different vegetables. She was +fond of going about at Newport and inviting people haphazard to +lunch--thirty or forty at a time--and then surprising them with a +splendid banquet. Again she would give a big formal dinner, and perplex +people by offering them something which they really cared to eat. "You +see," explained Mrs. Vivie, "at these dinners we generally get thick +green turtle soup, and omelettes with some sort of Florida water poured +over them, and mushrooms cooked under glass, and real hand-made +desserts; but Mrs. de Graffenried dares to have baked ham and sweet +potatoes, or even real roast beef. You saw to-night that she had green +corn; she must have arranged for that months ahead--we can never get it +from Porto Rico until January. And you see this little dish of wild +strawberries--they were probably transplanted and raised in a hothouse, +and every single one wrapped separately before they were shipped." + +All these labours had made Mrs. de Graffenried a tremendous power in +the social world. She had a savage tongue, said Mrs. Vivie, and every +one lived in terror of her; but once in a while she met her match. Once +she had invited a comic opera star to sing for her guests, and all the +men had crowded round this actress, and Mrs. de Graffenried had flown +into a passion and tried to drive them away; and the actress, lolling +back in her chair, and gazing up idly at Mrs. de Graffenried, had +drawled, "Ten years older than God!" Poor Mrs. de Graffenried would +carry that saying with her until she died. + +Something reminiscent of this came under Montague's notice that same +evening. At about four o'clock Mrs. Vivie wished to go home, and asked +him to find her escort, the Count St. Elmo de Champignon--the man, by +the way, for whom her husband was gunning. Montague roamed all about +the house, and finally went downstairs, where a room had been set apart +for the theatrical company to partake of refreshments. Mrs. de +Graffenried's secretary was on guard at the door; but some of the boys +had got into the room, and were drinking champagne and "making dates" +with the chorus-girls. And here was Mrs. de Graffenried herself, +pushing them bodily out of the room, a score and more of them--and +among them Mrs. Vivie's Count! + +Montague delivered his message, and then went upstairs to wait until +his own party should be ready to leave. In the smoking-room were a +number of men, also waiting; and among them he noticed Major Venable, +in conversation with a man whom he did not know. "Come over here," the +Major called; and Montague obeyed, at the same time noticing the +stranger. + +He was a tall, loose-jointed, powerfully built man, a small head and a +very striking face: a grim mouth with drooping corners tightly set, and +a hawk-like nose, and deep-set, peering eyes. "Have you met Mr. Hegan?" +said the Major. "Hegan, this is Mr. Allan Montague." Jim Hegan! +Montague repressed a stare and took the chair which they offered him. +"Have a cigar," said Hegan, holding out his case. + +"Mr. Montague has just come to New York," said the Major. "He is a +Southerner, too." + +"Indeed?" said Hegan, and inquired what State he came from. Montague +replied, and added, "I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter last +week, at the Horse Show." + +That served to start a conversation; for Hegan came from Texas, and +when he found that Montague knew about horses--real horses--he warmed +to him. Then the Major's party called him away, and the other two were +left to carry on the conversation. + +It was very easy to chat with Hegan; and yet underneath, in the other's +mind, there lurked a vague feeling of trepidation, as he realized that +he was chatting with a hundred millions of dollars. Montague was new +enough at the game to imagine that there ought to be something strange, +some atmosphere of awe and mystery, about a man who was master of a +dozen railroads and of the politics of half a dozen States. He was +simple and very kindly in his manner, a plain man, interested in plain +things. There was about him, as he talked, a trace of timidity, almost +of apology, which Montague noticed and wondered at. It was only later, +when he had time to think about it, that he realized that Hegan had +begun as a farmer's boy in Texas, a "poor white"; and could it be that +after all these years an instinct remained in him, so that whenever he +met a gentleman of the old South he stood by with a little deference, +seeming to beg pardon for his hundred millions of dollars? + +And yet there was the power of the man. Even chatting about horses, you +felt it; you felt that there was a part of him which did not chat, but +which sat behind and watched. And strangest of all, Montague found +himself fancying that behind the face that smiled was another face, +that did not smile, but that was grim and set. It was a strange face, +with its broad, sweeping eyebrows and its drooping mouth; it haunted +Montague and made him feel ill at ease. + +There came Laura Hegan, who greeted them in her stately way; and Mrs. +Hegan, bustling and vivacious, costumed en grande dame. "Come and see +me some time," said the man. "You won't be apt to meet me otherwise, +for I don't go about much." And so they took their departure; and +Montague sat alone and smoked and thought. The face still stayed with +him; and now suddenly, in a burst of light, it came to him what it was: +the face of a bird of prey--of the great wild, lonely eagle! You have +seen it, perhaps, in a menagerie; sitting high up, submitting +patiently, biding its time. But all the while the soul of the eagle is +far away, ranging the wide spaces, ready for the lightning swoop, and +the clutch with the cruel talons! + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The next week was a busy one for the Montagues. The Robbie Wallings had +come to town and opened their house, and the time drew near for the +wonderful debutante dance at which Alice was to be formally presented +to Society. And of course Alice must have a new dress for the occasion, +and it must be absolutely the most beautiful dress ever known. In an +idle moment her cousin figured out that it was to cost her about five +dollars a minute to be entertained by the Wallings! + +What it would cost the Wallings, one scarcely dared to think. Their +ballroom would be turned into a flower-garden; and there would be a +supper for a hundred guests, and still another supper after the dance, +and costly favours for every figure. The purchasing of these latter had +been entrusted to Oliver, and Montague heard with dismay what they were +to cost. "Robbie couldn't afford to do anything second-rate," was the +younger brother's only reply to his exclamations. + +Alice divided her time between the Wallings and her costumiers, and +every evening she came home with a new tale of important developments. +Alice was new at the game, and could afford to be excited; and Mrs. +Robbie liked to see her bright face, and to smile indulgently at her +eager inquiries. Mrs. Robbie herself had given her orders to her +steward and her florist and her secretary, and went on her way and +thought no more about it. That was the way of the great ladies--or, at +any rate, it was their pose. + +The town-house of the Robbies was a stately palace occupying a block +upon Fifth Avenue--one of the half-dozen mansions of the Walling family +which were among the show places of the city. It would take a catalogue +to list the establishments maintained by the Wallings--there was an +estate in North Carolina, and another in the Adirondacks, and others on +Long Island and in New Jersey. Also there were several in Newport--one +which was almost never occupied, and which Mrs. Billy Alden +sarcastically described as "a three-million-dollar castle on a desert." + +Montague accompanied Alice once or twice, and had an opportunity to +study Mrs. Robbie at home. There were thirty-eight servants in her +establishment; it was a little state all in itself, with Mrs. Robbie as +queen, and her housekeeper as prime minister, and under them as many +different ranks and classes and castes as in a feudal principality. +There had to be six separate dining-rooms for the various kinds of +servants who scorned each other; there were servants' servants and +servants of servants' servants. There were only three to whom the +mistress was supposed to give orders--the butler, the steward, and the +housekeeper; she did not even know the names of many of them, and they +were changed so often, that, as she declared, she had to leave it to +her detective to distinguish between employees and burglars. + +Mrs. Robbie was quite a young woman, but it pleased her to pose as a +care-worn matron, weary of the responsibilities of her exalted station. +The ignorant looked on and pictured her as living in the lap of ease, +endowed with every opportunity: in reality the meanest kitchen-maid was +freer--she was quite worn thin with the burdens that fell upon her. The +huge machine was for ever threatening to fall to pieces, and required +the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job to keep it running. One +paid one's steward a fortune, and yet he robbed right and left, and +quarrelled with the chef besides. The butler was suspected of getting +drunk upon rare and costly vintages, and the new parlour-maid had +turned out to be a Sunday reporter in disguise. The man who had come +every day for ten years to wind the clocks of the establishment was +dead, and the one who took care of the bric-a-brac was sick, and the +housekeeper was in a panic over the prospect of having to train another. + +And even suppose that you escaped from these things, the real problems +of your life had still to be faced. It was not enough to keep alive; +you had your career--your duties as a leader of Society. There was the +daily mail, with all the pitiful letters from people begging +money--actually in one single week there were demands for two million +dollars. There were geniuses with patent incubators and stove-lifters, +and every time you gave a ball you stirred up swarms of anarchists and +cranks. And then there were the letters you really had to answer, and +the calls that had to be paid. These latter were so many that people in +the same neighbourhood had arranged to have the same day at home; thus, +if you lived on Madison Avenue you had Thursday; but even then it took +a whole afternoon to leave your cards. And then there were invitations +to be sent and accepted; and one was always making mistakes and +offending somebody--people would become mortal enemies overnight, and +expect all the world to know it the next morning. And now there were so +many divorces and remarryings, with consequent changing of names; and +some men knew about their wives' lovers and didn't care, and some did +care, but didn't know--altogether it was like carrying a dozen chess +games in your head. And then there was the hairdresser and the +manicurist and the masseuse, and the tailor and the bootmaker and the +jeweller; and then one absolutely had to glance through a newspaper, +and to see one's children now and then. + +All this Mrs. Robbie explained at luncheon; it was the rich man's +burden, about which common people had no conception whatever. A person +with a lot of money was like a barrel of molasses--all the flies in the +neighbourhood came buzzing about. It was perfectly incredible, the +lengths to which people would go to get invited to your house; not only +would they write and beg you, they might attack your business +interests, and even bribe your friends. And on the other hand, when +people thought you needed them, the time you had to get them to come! +"Fancy," said Mrs. Robbie, "offering to give a dinner to an English +countess, and having her try to charge you for coming!" And incredible +as it might seem, some people had actually yielded to her, and the +disgusting creature had played the social celebrity for a whole season, +and made quite a handsome income out of it. There seemed to be no limit +to the abjectness of some of the tuft-hunters in Society. + +It was instructive to hear Mrs. Robbie denounce such evils; and +yet--alas for human frailty--the next time that Montague called, the +great lady was blazing with wrath over the tidings that a new foreign +prince was coming to America, and that Mrs. Ridgely-Clieveden had +stolen a march upon her and grabbed him. He was to be under her +tutelage the entire time, and all the effulgence of his magnificence +would be radiated upon that upstart house. Mrs. Robbie revenged herself +by saying as many disagreeable things about Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden as +she could think of; winding up with the declaration that if she behaved +with this prince as she had with the Russian grand duke, Mrs. Robbie +Walling, for one, would cut her dead. And truly the details which Mrs. +Robbie cited were calculated to suggest that her rival's hospitality +was a reversion to the customs of primitive savagery. + +The above is a fair sample of the kind of conversation that one heard +whenever one visited any of the Wallings. Perhaps, as Mrs. Robbie said, +it may have been their millions that made necessary their attitude +toward other people; certain it was, at any rate, that Montague found +them all most disagreeable people to know. There was always some +tempest in a teapot over the latest machinations of their enemies. And +then there was the whole dead mass of people who sponged upon them and +toadied to them; and finally the barbarian hordes outside the magic +circle of their acquaintance--some specimens of whom came up every day +for ridicule. They had big feet and false teeth; they ate mush and +molasses; they wore ready-made ties; they said: "Do you wish that I +should do it?" Their grandfathers had been butchers and pedlars and +other abhorrent things. Montague tried his best to like the Wallings, +because of what they were doing for Alice; but after he had sat at +their lunch-table and listened to a conversation such as this, he found +himself in need of fresh air. + +And then he would begin to wonder about his own relation to these +people. If they talked about every one else behind their backs, +certainly they must talk about him behind his. And why did they go out +of their way to make him at home, and why were they spending their +money to launch Alice in Society? In the beginning he had assumed that +they did it out of the goodness of their hearts; but now that he had +looked into their hearts, he rejected the explanation. It was not their +way to shower princely gifts upon strangers; in general, the attitude +of all the Wallings toward a stranger was that of the London +hooligan--"'Eave a 'arf a brick at 'im!" They considered themselves +especially appointed by Providence to protect Society from the vulgar +newly rich who poured into the city, seeking for notoriety and +recognition. They prided themselves upon this attitude--they called it +their "exclusiveness"; and the exclusiveness of the younger generations +of Wallings had become a kind of insanity. + +Nor could the reason be that Alice was beautiful and attractive. One +could have imagined it if Mrs. Robbie had been like--say, Mrs. Winnie +Duval. It was easy to think of Mrs. Winnie taking a fancy to a girl, +and spending half her fortune upon her. But from a hundred little +things that he had seen, Montague had come to realize that the Robbie +Wallings, with all their wealth and power and grandeur, were actually +quite stingy. While all the world saw them scattering fortunes in their +pathway, in reality they were keeping track of every dollar. And Robbie +himself was liable to panic fits of economy, in which he went to the +most absurd excesses--Montague once heard him haggling over fifty cents +with a cabman. Lavish hosts though they both were, it was the literal +truth that they never spent money upon anyone but themselves--the end +and aim of their every action was the power and prestige of the Robbie +Wallings. + +"They do it because they are friends of mine," said Oliver, and +evidently wished that to satisfy his brother. But it only shifted the +problem and set him to watching Robbie and Oliver, and trying to make +out the basis of their relationship. There was a very grave question +concerned in this. Oliver had come to New York comparatively poor, and +now he was rich--or, at any rate, he lived like a rich man. And his +brother, whose scent was growing keener with every day of his stay in +New York, had about made up his mind that Oliver got his money from +Robbie Walling. + +Here, again, the problem would have been simple, if it had been another +person than Robbie; Montague would have concluded that his brother was +a "hanger-on." There were many great families whose establishments were +infested with such parasites. Siegfried Harvey, for instance, was a man +who had always half a dozen young chaps hanging about him; good-looking +and lively fellows, who hunted and played bridge, and amused the +married women while their husbands were at work, and who, if ever they +dropped a hint that they were hard up, might be reasonably certain of +being offered a cheque. But if the Robbie Wallings were to write +cheques, it must be for value received. And what could the value be? + +"Ollie" was rather a little god among the ultra-swagger; his taste was +a kind of inspiration. And yet his brother noticed that in such +questions he always deferred instantly to the Wallings; and surely the +Wallings were not people to be persuaded that they needed anyone to +guide them in matters of taste. Again, Ollie was the very devil of a +wit, and people were heartily afraid of him; and Montague had noticed +that he never by any chance made fun of Robbie--that the fetiches of +the house of Walling were always treated with respect. So he had +wondered if by any chance Robbie was maintaining his brother in +princely state for the sake of his ability to make other people +uncomfortable. But he realized that the Robbies, in their own view of +it, could have no more need of wit than a battleship has need of +popguns. Oliver's position, when they were about, was rather that of +the man who hardly ever dared to be as clever as he might, because of +the restless jealousy of his friend. + +It was a mystery; and it made the elder brother very uncomfortable. +Alice was young and guileless, and a pleasant person to patronize; but +he was a man of the world, and it was his business to protect her. He +had always paid his own way through life, and he was very loath to put +himself under obligations to people like the Wallings, whom he did not +like, and who, he felt instinctively, could not like him. + +But of course there was nothing he could do about it. The date for the +great festivity was set; and the Wallings were affable and friendly, +and Alice all a-tremble with excitement. The evening arrived, and with +it came the enemies of the Wallings, dressed in their jewels and fine +raiment. They had been asked because they were too important to be +skipped, and they had come because the Wallings were too powerful to be +ignored. They revenged themselves by consuming many courses of +elaborate and costly viands; and they shook hands with Alice and beamed +upon her, and then discussed her behind her back as if she were a +French doll in a show-case. They decided unanimously that her elder +cousin was a "stick," and that the whole family were interlopers and +shameless adventurers; but it was understood that since the Robbie +Wallings had seen fit to take them up, it would be necessary to invite +them about. + +At any rate, that was the way it all seemed to Montague, who had been +brooding. To Alice it was a splendid festivity, to which exquisite +people came to take delight in each other's society. There were +gorgeous costumes and sparkling gems; there was a symphony of perfumes, +intoxicating the senses, and a golden flood of music streaming by; +there were laughing voices and admiring glances, and handsome partners +with whom one might dance through the portals of fairyland.--And then, +next morning, there were accounts in all the newspapers, with +descriptions of one's costume and then some of those present, and even +the complete menus of the supper, to assist in preserving the memories +of the wonderful occasion. + +Now they were really in Society. A reporter called to get Alice's photo +for the Sunday supplement; and floods of invitations came--and with +them all the cares and perplexities about which Mrs. Robbie had told. +Some of these invitations had to be declined, and one must know whom it +was safe to offend. Also, there was a long letter from a destitute +widow, and a proposal from a foreign count. Mrs. Robbie's secretary had +a list of many hundreds of these professional beggars and blackmailers. + +Conspicuous at the dance was Mrs. Winnie, in a glorious electric-blue +silk gown. And she shook her fan at Montague, exclaiming, "You wretched +man--you promised to come and see me!" + +"I've been out of town," Montague protested. + +"Well, come to dinner to-morrow night," said Mrs. Winnie. "There'll be +some bridge fiends." + +"You forget I haven't learned to play," he objected. + +"Well, come anyhow," she replied. "We'll teach you. I'm no player +myself, and my husband will be there, and he's good-natured; and my +brother Dan--he'll have to be whether he likes it or not." + +So Montague visited the Snow Palace again, and met Winton Duval, the +banker,--a tall, military-looking man of about fifty, with a big grey +moustache, and bushy eyebrows, and the head of a lion. His was one of +the city's biggest banking-houses, and in alliance with powerful +interests in the Street. At present he was going in for mines in Mexico +and South America, and so he was very seldom at home. He was a man of +most rigid habits--he would come back unexpectedly after a month's +trip, and expect to find everything ready for him, both at home and in +his office, as if he had just stepped round the corner. Montague +observed that he took his menu-card and jotted down his comments upon +each dish, and then sent it down to the chef. Other people's dinners he +very seldom attended, and when his wife gave her entertainments, he +invariably dined at the club. + +He pleaded a business engagement for the evening; and as brother Dan +did not appear, Montague did not learn any bridge. The other four +guests settled down to the game, and Montague and Mrs. Winnie sat and +chatted, basking before the fireplace in the great entrance-hall. + +"Have you seen Charlie Carter?" was the first question she asked him. + +"Not lately," he answered; "I met him at Harvey's." + +"I know that," said she. "They tell me he got drunk." + +"I'm afraid he did," said Montague. + +"Poor boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Winnie. "And Alice saw him! He must be +heartbroken!" + +Montague said nothing. "You know," she went on, "Charlie really means +well. He has honestly an affectionate nature." + +She paused; and Montague Said, vaguely, "I suppose so." + +"You don't like him," said the other. "I can see that. And I suppose +now Alice will have no use for him, either. And I had it all fixed up +for her to reform him!" + +Montague smiled in spite of himself. + +"Oh, I know," said she. "It wouldn't have been easy. But you've no idea +what a beautiful boy Charlie used to be, until all the women set to +work to ruin him." + +"I can imagine it," said Montague; but he did not warm to the subject. + +"You're just like my husband," said Mrs. Winnie, sadly. "You have no +use at all for anything that's weak or unfortunate." + +There was a pause. "And I suppose," she said finally, "you'll be +turning into a business man also--with no time for anybody or anything. +Have you begun yet?" + +"Not yet," he answered. "I'm still looking round." + +"I haven't the least idea about business," she confessed. "How does one +begin at it?" + +"I can't say I know that myself as yet," said Montague, laughing. + +"Would you like to be a protege of my husband's?" she asked. + +The proposition was rather sudden, but he answered, with a smile, "I +should have no objections. What would he do with me?" + +"I don't know that. But he can do whatever he wants down town. And he'd +show you how to make a lot of money if I asked him to." Then Mrs. +Winnie added, quickly, "I mean it--he could do it, really." + +"I haven't the least doubt of it," responded Montague. + +"And what's more," she went on, "you don't want to be shy about taking +advantage of the opportunities that come to you. You'll find you won't +get along in New York unless you go right in and grab what you can. +People will be quick enough to take advantage of you." + +"They have all been very kind to me so far," said he. "But when I get +ready for business, I'll harden my heart." + +Mrs. Winnie sat lost in meditation. "I think business is dreadful," she +said. "So much hard work and worry! Why can't men learn to get along +without it?" + +"There are bills that have to be paid," Montague replied. + +"It's our dreadfully extravagant way of life," exclaimed the other. +"Sometimes I wish I had never had any money in my life." + +"You would soon tire of it," said he. "You would miss this house." + +"I should not miss it a bit," said Mrs. Winnie, promptly. "That is +really the truth--I don't care for this sort of thing at all. I'd like +to live simply, and without so many cares and responsibilities. And +some day I'm going to do it, too--I really am. I'm going to get myself +a little farm, away off somewhere in the country. And I'm going there +to live and raise chickens and vegetables, and have my own +flower-gardens, that I can take care of myself. It will all be plain +and simple--" and then Mrs. Winnie stopped short, exclaiming, "You are +laughing at me!" + +"Not at all!" said Montague. "But I couldn't help thinking about the +newspaper reporters--" + +"There you are!" said she. "One can never have a beautiful dream, or +try to do anything sensible--because of the newspaper reporters!" + +If Montague had been meeting Mrs. Winnie Duval for the first time, he +would have been impressed by her yearnings for the simple life; he +would have thought it an important sign of the times. But alas, he knew +by this time that his charming hostess had more flummery about her than +anybody else he had encountered--and all of her own devising! Mrs. +Winnie smoked her own private brand of cigarettes, and when she offered +them to you, there were the arms of the old ducal house of Montmorenci +on the wrappers! And when you got a letter from Mrs. Winnie, you +observed a three-cent stamp upon the envelope--for lavender was her +colour, and two-cent stamps were an atrocious red! So one might feel +certain that it Mrs. Winnie ever went in for chicken-raising, the +chickens would be especially imported from China or Patagonia, and the +chicken-coops would be precise replicas of those in the old Chateau de +Montmorenci which she had visited in her automobile. + +But Mrs. Winnie was beautiful, and quite entertaining to talk to, and +so he was respectfully sympathetic while she told him about her +pastoral intentions. And then she told him about Mrs. Caroline Smythe, +who had called a meeting of her friends at one of the big hotels, and +organized a society and founded the "Bide-a-Wee Home" for destitute +cats. After that she switched off into psychic research--somebody had +taken her to a seance, where grave college professors and ladies in +spectacles sat round and waited for ghosts to materialize. It was Mrs. +Winnie's first experience at this, and she was as excited as a child +who has just found the key to the jam-closet. "I hardly knew whether to +laugh or to be afraid," she said. "What would you think?" + +"You may have the pleasure of giving me my first impressions of it," +said Montague, with a laugh. + +"Well," said she, "they had table-tipping--and it was the most uncanny +thing to see the table go jumping about the room! And then there were +raps--and one can't imagine how strange it was to see people who really +believed they were getting messages from ghosts. It positively made my +flesh creep. And then this woman--Madame Somebody-or-other--went into a +trance--ugh! Afterward I talked with one of the men, and he told me +about how his father had appeared to him in the night and told him he +had just been drowned at sea. Have you ever heard of such a thing?" + +"We have such a tradition in our family," said he. + +"Every family seems to have," said Mrs. Winnie. "But, dear me, it made +me so uncomfortable--I lay awake all night expecting to see my own +father. He had the asthma, you know; and I kept fancying I heard him +breathing." + +They had risen and were strolling into the conservatory; and she +glanced at the man in armour. "I got to fancying that his ghost might +come to see me," she said. "I don't think I shall attend any more +seances. My husband was told that I promised them some money, and he +was furious--he's afraid it'll get into the papers." And Montague shook +with inward laughter, picturing what a time the aristocratic and +stately old banker must have, trying to keep his wife out of the papers! + +Mrs. Winnie turned on the lights in the fountain, and sat by the edge, +gazing at her fish. Montague was half expecting her to inquire whether +he thought that they had ghosts; but she spared him this, going off on +another line. + +"I asked Dr. Parry about it," she said. "Have you met him?" + +Dr. Parry was the rector of St. Cecilia's, the fashionable Fifth Avenue +church which most of Montague's acquaintances attended. "I haven't been +in the city over Sunday yet," he answered. "But Alice has met him." + +"You must go with me some time," said she. "But about the ghosts--" + +"What did he say?" + +"He seemed to be shy of them," laughed Mrs. Winnie. "He said it had a +tendency to lead one into dangerous fields. But oh! I forgot--I asked +my swami also, and it didn't startle him. They are used to ghosts; they +believe that souls keep coming back to earth, you know. I think if it +was his ghost, I wouldn't mind seeing it--for he has such beautiful +eyes. He gave me a book of Hindu legends--and there was such a sweet +story about a young princess who loved in vain, and died of grief; and +her soul went into a tigress; and she came in the night-time where her +lover lay sleeping by the firelight, and she carried him off into the +ghost-world. It was a most creepy thing--I sat out here and read it, +and I could imagine the terrible tigress lurking in the shadows, with +its stripes shining in the firelight, and its green eyes gleaming. You +know that poem--we used to read it in school--'Tiger, tiger, burning +bright!'" + +It was not very easy for Montague to imagine a tigress in Mrs. Winnie's +conservatory; unless, indeed, one were willing to take the proposition +in a metaphorical sense. There are wild creatures which sleep in the +heart of man, and which growl now and then, and stir their tawny limbs, +and cause one to start and turn cold. Mrs. Winnie wore a dress of filmy +softness, trimmed with red flowers which paled beside her own intenser +colouring. She had a perfume of her own, with a strange exotic +fragrance which touched the chorus of memory as only an odour can. She +leaned towards him, speaking eagerly, with her soft white arms lying +upon the basin's rim. So much loveliness could not be gazed at without +pain; and a faint trembling passed through Montague, like a breeze +across a pool. Perhaps it touched Mrs. Winnie also, for she fell +suddenly silent, and her gaze wandered off into the darkness. For a +minute or two there was stillness, save for the pulse of the fountain, +and the heaving of her bosom keeping time with it. + +And then in the morning Oliver inquired, "Where were you, last night?" +And when his brother answered, "At Mrs. Winnie's," he smiled and said, +"Oh!" Then he added, gravely, "Cultivate Mrs. Winnie--you can't do +better at present." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Montague accepted his friend's invitation to share her pew at St. +Cecilia's, and next Sunday morning he and Alice went, and found Mrs. +Winnie with her cousin. Poor Charlie had evidently been scrubbed and +shined, both physically and morally, and got ready to appeal for "one +more chance." While he shook hands with Alice, he was gazing at her +with dumb and pleading eyes; he seemed to be profoundly grateful that +she did not refuse to enter the pew with him. + +A most interesting place was St. Cecilia's. Church-going was another of +the customs of men and women which Society had taken up, like the +Opera, and made into a state function. Here was a magnificent temple, +with carved marble and rare woods, and jewels gleaming decorously in a +dim religious light. At the door of this edifice would halt the +carriages of Society, and its wives and daughters would alight, +rustling with new silk petticoats and starched and perfumed linen, each +one a picture, exquisitely gowned and bonneted and gloved, and carrying +a demure little prayer-book. Behind them followed the patient men, all +in new frock-coats and shiny silk hats; the men of Society were always +newly washed and shaved, newly groomed and gloved, but now they seemed +to be more so--they were full of the atmosphere of Sunday. Alas for +those unregenerate ones, the infidels and the heathen who scoff in +outer darkness, and know not the delicious feeling of Sunday--the joy +of being washed and starched and perfumed, and made to be clean and +comfortable and good, after all the really dreadful wickedness of six +days of fashionable life!--And afterward the parade upon the Avenue, +with the congregations of several score additional churches, and such a +show of stylish costumes that half the city came to see! + +Amid this exquisite assemblage at St. Cecilia's, the revolutionary +doctrines of the Christian religion produced neither perplexity nor +alarm. The chance investigator might have listened in dismay to solemn +pronouncements of everlasting damnation, to statements about rich men +and the eyes of needles, and the lilies of the field which did not +spin. But the congregation of St. Cecilia's understood that these +things were to be taken in a quixotic sense; sharing the view of the +French marquis that the Almighty would think twice before damning a +gentleman like him. + +One had heard these phrases ever since childhood, and one accepted them +as a matter of course. After all, these doctrines had come from the +lips of a divine being, whom it would be presumptuous in a mere mortal +to attempt to imitate. Such points one could but leave to those whose +business it was to interpret them--the doctors and dignitaries of the +church; and when one met them, one's heart was set at rest--for they +were not iconoclasts and alarmists, but gentlemen of culture and tact. +The bishop who presided in this metropolitan district was a stately +personage, who moved in the best Society and belonged to the most +exclusive clubs. + +The pews in St. Cecilia's were rented, and they were always in great +demand; it was one of the customs of those who hung upon the fringe of +Society to come every Sunday, and bow and smile, and hope against hope +for some chance opening. The stranger who came was dependent upon +hospitality; but there were soft-footed and tactful ushers, who would +find one a seat, if one were a presentable person. The contingency of +an unpresentable person seldom arose, for the proletariat did not swarm +at the gates of St. Cecilia's. Out of its liberal income the church +maintained a "mission" upon the East Side, where young curates wrestled +with the natural depravity of the lower classes--meantime cultivating a +soul-stirring tone, and waiting until they should be promoted to a real +church. Society was becoming deferential to its religious guides, and +would have been quite shocked at the idea that it exerted any pressure +upon them; but the young curates were painfully aware of a process of +unnatural selection, whereby those whose manner and cut of coat were +not pleasing were left a long time in the slums.--On one occasion there +had been an amusing blunder; a beautiful new church was built at +Newport, and an eloquent young minister was installed, and all Society +attended the opening service--and sat and listened in consternation to +an arraignment of its own follies and vices! The next Sunday, needless +to say, Society was not present; and within half a year the church was +stranded, and had to be dismantled and sold! + +They had elaborate music at St. Cecilia's, so beautiful that Alice felt +uncomfortable, and thought that it was perilously "high." At this Mrs. +Winnie laughed, offering to take her to an afternoon service around the +corner, where they had a full orchestra, and a harp, and opera music, +and incense and genuflexions and confessionals. There were people, it +seemed, who like to thrill themselves by dallying with the wickedness +of "Romanism"; somewhat as a small boy tries to see how near he can +walk to the edge of a cliff. The "father" at this church had a jewelled +robe with a train so many yards long, and which had cost some +incredible number of thousands of dollars; and every now and then he +marched in a stately procession through the aisles, so that all the +spectators might have a good look at it. There was a fierce controversy +about these things in the church, and libraries of pamphlets were +written, and intrigues and social wars were fought over them. + +But Montague and Alice did not attend this service--they had promised +themselves the very plebeian diversion of a ride in the subway; for so +far they had not seen this feature of the city. People who lived in +Society saw Madison and Fifth Avenues, where their homes were, with the +churches and hotels scattered along them; and the shopping district +just below, and the theatre district at one side, and the park to the +north. Unless one went automobiling, that was all of the city one need +ever see. When visitors asked about the Aquarium, and the Stock +Exchange, and the Museum of Art, and Tammany Hall, and Ellis Island, +where the immigrants came, the old New Yorkers would look perplexed, +and say: "Dear me, do you really want to see those tilings? Why, I have +been here all my life, and have never seen them!" + +For the hordes of sightseers there had been provided a special +contrivance, a huge automobile omnibus which seated thirty or forty +people, and went from the Battery to Harlem with a young man shouting +through a megaphone a description of the sights. The irreverent had +nicknamed this the "yap-wagon"; and declared that the company +maintained a fake "opium-joint" in Chinatown, and a fake "dive" in the +Bowery, and hired tough-looking individuals to sit and be stared at by +credulous excursionists from Oklahoma and Kalamazoo. Of course it would +never have done for people who had just been passed into Society to +climb upon a "yap-wagon"; but they were permitted to get into the +subway, and were whirled with a deafening clatter through a long tunnel +of steel and stone. And then they got out and climbed a steep hill like +any common mortals, and stood and gazed at Grant's tomb: a huge white +marble edifice upon a point overlooking the Hudson. Architecturally it +was not a beautiful structure--but one was consoled by reflecting that +the hero himself would not have cared about that. It might have been +described as a soap-box with a cheese-box on top of it; and these +homely and familiar articles were perhaps not altogether out of keeping +with the character of the humblest great man who ever lived. + +The view up the river was magnificent, quite the finest which the city +had to offer; but it was ruined by a hideous gas-tank, placed squarely +in the middle of it. And this, again, was not inappropriate--it was +typical of all the ways of the city. It was a city which had grown up +by accident, with nobody to care about it or to help it; it was huge +and ungainly, crude, uncomfortable, and grotesque. There was nowhere in +it a beautiful sight upon which a man could rest his eyes, without +having them tortured by something ugly near by. At the foot of the +slope of the River Drive ran a hideous freight-railroad; and across the +river the beautiful Palisades were being blown to pieces to make paving +stone--and meantime were covered with advertisements of land-companies. +And if there was a beautiful building, there, was sure to be a tobacco +advertisement beside it; if there was a beautiful avenue, there were +trucks and overworked horses toiling in the harness; if there was a +beautiful park, it was filled with wretched, outcast men. Nowhere was +any order or system--everything was struggling for itself, and jarring +and clashing with everything else; and this broke the spell of power +which the Titan city would otherwise have produced. It seemed like a +monstrous heap of wasted energies; a mountain in perpetual labour, and +producing an endless series of abortions. The men and women in it were +wearing themselves out with toil; but there was a spell laid upon them, +so that, struggle as they might, they accomplished nothing. + +Coming out of the church, Montague had met Judge Ellis; and the Judge +had said, "I shall soon have something to talk over with you." So +Montague gave him his address, and a day or two later came an +invitation to lunch with him at his club. + +The Judge's club took up a Fifth Avenue block, and was stately and +imposing. It had been formed in the stress of the Civil War days; lean +and hungry heroes had come home from battle and gone into business, and +those who had succeeded had settled down here to rest. To see them now, +dozing in huge leather-cushioned arm-chairs, you would have had a hard +time to guess that they had ever been lean and hungry heroes. They were +diplomats and statesmen, bishops and lawyers, great merchants and +financiers--the men who had made the city's ruling-class for a century. +Everything here was decorous and grave, and the waiters stole about +with noiseless feet. + +Montague talked with the Judge about New York and what he had seen of +it, and the people he had met; and about his father, and the war; and +about the recent election and the business outlook. And meantime they +ordered luncheon; and when they had got to the cigars, the Judge +coughed and said, "And now I have a matter of business to talk over +with you." + +Montague settled himself to listen. "I have a friend," the Judge +explained--"a very good friend, who has asked me to find him a lawyer +to undertake an important case. I talked the matter over with General +Prentice, and he agreed with me that it would be a good idea to lay the +matter before you." + +"I am very much obliged to you," said Montague. + +"The matter is a delicate one," continued the other. "It has to do with +life insurance. Are you familiar with the insurance business?" + +"Not at all." + +"I had supposed not," said the Judge. "There are some conditions which +are not generally known about, but which I may say, to put it mildly, +are not altogether satisfactory. My friend is a large policy-holder in +several companies, and he is not satisfied with the management of them. +The delicacy of the situation, so far as I am concerned, is that the +company with which he has the most fault to find is one in which I +myself am a director. You understand?" + +"Perfectly," said Montague. "What company is it?" + +"The Fidelity," replied the other--and his companion thought in a flash +of Freddie Vandam, whom he had met at Castle Havens! For the Fidelity +was Freddie's company. + +"The first thing that I have to ask you," continued the Judge, "is +that, whether you care to take the case or not, you will consider my +own intervention in the matter absolutely entre nous. My position is +simply this: I have protested at the meetings of the directors of the +company against what I consider an unwise policy--and my protests have +been ignored. And when my friend asked me for advice, I gave it to him; +but at the same time I am not in a position to be publicly quoted in +connexion with the matter. You follow me?" + +"Perfectly," said the other. "I will agree to what you ask." + +"Very good. Now then, the condition is, in brief, this: the companies +are accumulating an enormous surplus, which, under the law, belongs to +the policy-holders; but the administrations of the various companies +are withholding these dividends, for the sake of the banking-power +which these accumulated funds afford to them and their associates. This +is, as I hold, a very manifest injustice, and a most dangerous +condition of affairs." + +"I should say so!" responded Montague. He was amazed at such a +statement, coming from such a source. "How could this continue?" he +asked. + +"It has continued for a long time," the Judge answered. + +"But why is it not known?" + +"It is perfectly well known to every one in the insurance business," +was the answer. "The matter has never been taken up or published, +simply because the interests involved have such enormous and widely +extended power that no one has ever dared to attack them." + +Montague sat forward, with his eyes riveted upon the Judge. "Go on," he +said. + +"The situation is simply this," said the other. "My friend, Mr. +Hasbrook, wishes to bring a suit against the Fidelity Company to compel +it to pay to him his proper share of its surplus. He wishes the suit +pressed, and followed to the court of last resort." + +"And do you mean to tell me," asked Montague, "that you would have any +difficulty to find a lawyer in New York to undertake such a case?" + +"No," said the other, "not exactly that. There are lawyers in New York +who would undertake anything. But to find a lawyer of standing who +would take it, and withstand all the pressure that would be brought to +bear upon him--that might take some time." + +"You astonish me, Judge." + +"Financial interests in this city are pretty closely tied together, Mr. +Montague. Of course there are law firms which are identified with +interests opposed to those who control the company. It would be very +easy to get them to take the case, but you can see that in that event +my friend would be accused of bringing the suit in their interest; +whereas he wishes it to appear, as it really is, a suit of an +independent person, seeking the rights of the vast body of the +policy-holders. For that reason, he wished to find a lawyer who was +identified with no interest of any sort, and who was free to give his +undivided attention to the issue. So I thought of you." + +"I will take the case," said Montague instantly. + +"It is my duty to warn you," said the Judge, gravely, "that you will be +taking a very serious step. You must be prepared to face powerful, and, +I am afraid, unscrupulous enemies. You may find that you have made it +impossible for other and very desirable clients to deal with you. You +may find your business interests, if you have any, embarrassed--your +credit impaired, and so on. You must be prepared to have your character +assailed, and your motives impugned in the public press. You may find +that social pressure will be brought to bear on you. So it is a step +from which most young men who have their careers to make would shrink." + +Montague's face had turned a shade paler as he listened. "I am +assuming," he said, "that the facts are as you have stated them to +me--that an unjust condition exists." + +"You may assume that." + +"Very well." And Montague clenched his hand, and put it down upon the +table. "I will take the case," he said. + +For a few moments they sat in silence. + +"I will arrange," said the Judge, at last, "for you and Mr. Hasbrook to +meet. I must explain to you, as a matter of fairness, that he is a rich +man, and will be able to pay you for your services. He is asking a +great deal of you, and he should expect to pay for it." + +Montague sat in thought. "I have not really had time to get my bearings +in New York," he said at last. "I think I had best leave it to you to +say what I should charge him." + +"If I were in your position," the Judge answered, "I think that I +should ask a retaining-fee of fifty thousand dollars. I believe he will +expect to pay at least that." + +Montague could scarcely repress a start. Fifty thousand dollars! The +words made his head whirl round. But then, all of a sudden, he recalled +his half-jesting resolve to play the game of business sternly. So he +nodded his head gravely, and said, "Very well; I am much obliged to +you." + +After a pause, he added, "I hope that I may prove able to handle the +case to your friend's satisfaction." + +"Your ability remains for you to prove," said the Judge. "I have only +been in position to assure him of your character." + +"He must understand, of course," said Montague, "that I am a stranger, +and that it will take me a while to study the situation." + +"Of course he knows that. But you will find that Mr. Hasbrook knows a +good deal about the law himself. And he has already had a lot of work +done. You must understand that it is very easy to get legal advice +about such a matter--what is sought is some one to take the conduct of +the case." + +"I see," said Montague; and the Judge added, with a smile, "Some one to +get up on horseback, and draw the fire of the enemy!" + +And then the great man was, as usual, reminded of a story; and then of +more stories; until at last they rose from the table, and shook hands +upon their bargain, and parted. + +Fifty thousand dollars! Fifty thousand dollars! It was all Montague +could do to keep from exclaiming it aloud on the street. He could +hardly believe that it was a reality--if it had been a less-known +person than Judge Ellis, he would have suspected that some one must be +playing a joke upon him. Fifty thousand dollars was more than many a +lawyer made at home in a lifetime; and simply as a retaining-fee in one +case! The problem of a living had weighed on his soul ever since the +first day in the city, and now suddenly it was solved; all in a few +minutes, the way had been swept clear before him. He walked home as if +upon air. + +And then there was the excitement of telling the family about it. He +had an idea that his brother might be alarmed if he were told about the +seriousness of the case; and so he simply said that the Judge had +brought him a rich client, and that it was an insurance case. Oliver, +who knew and cared nothing about law, asked no questions, and contented +himself with saying, "I told you how easy it was to make money in New +York, if only you knew the right people!" As for Alice, she had known +all along that her cousin was a great man, and that clients would come +to him as soon as he hung out his sign. + +His sign was not out yet, by the way; that was the next thing to be +attended to. He must get himself an office at once, and some books, and +begin to read up insurance law; and so, bright and early the next +morning, he took the subway down town. + +And here, for the first time, Montague saw the real New York. All the +rest was mere shadow--the rest was where men slept and played, but +there was where they fought out the battle of their lives. Here the +fierce intensity of it smote him in the face--he saw the cruel waste +and ruin of it, the wreckage of the blind, haphazard strife. + +It was a city caught in a trap. It was pent in at one end of a narrow +little island. It had been no one's business to foresee that it must +some day outgrow this space; now men were digging a score of tunnels to +set it free, but they had not begun these until the pressure had become +unendurable, and now it had reached its climax. In the financial +district, land had been sold for as much as four dollars a square inch. +Huge blocks of buildings shot up to the sky in a few months--fifteen, +twenty, twenty-five stories of them, and with half a dozen stories hewn +out of the solid rock beneath; there was to be one building of +forty-two stories, six hundred and fifty feet in height. And between +them were narrow chasms of streets, where the hurrying crowds +overflowed the sidewalks. Yet other streets were filled with trucks and +heavy vehicles, with electric cars creeping slowly along, and little +swirls and eddies of people darting across here and there. + +These huge buildings were like beehives, swarming with life and +activity, with scores of elevators shooting through them at bewildering +speed. Everywhere was the atmosphere of rush; the spirit of it seized +hold of one, and he began to hurry, even though he had no place to go. +The man who walked slowly and looked about him was in the way--he was +jostled here and there, and people eyed him with suspicion and +annoyance. + +Elsewhere on the island men did the work of the city; here they did the +work of the world. Each room in these endless mazes of buildings was a +cell in a mighty brain; the telephone wires were nerves, and by the +whole huge organism the thinking and willing of a continent were done. +It was a noisy place to the physical ear; but to the ear of the mind it +roared with the roaring of a thousand Niagaras. Here was the Stock +Exchange, where the scales of trade were held before the eyes of the +country. Here was the clearing-house, where hundreds of millions of +dollars were exchanged every day. Here were the great banks, the +reservoirs into which the streams of the country's wealth were poured. +Here were the brains of the great railroad systems, of the telegraph +and telephone systems, of mines and mills and factories. Here were the +centres of the country's trade; in one place the shipping trade, in +another the jewellery trade, the grocery trade, the leather trade. A +little farther up town was the clothing district, where one might see +the signs of more Hebrews than all Jerusalem had ever held; in yet +other districts were the newspaper offices, and the centre of the +magazine and book-publishing business of the whole country. One might +climb to the top of one of the great "sky-scrapers," and gaze down upon +a wilderness of houses, with roofs as innumerable as tree-tops, and +people looking like tiny insects below. Or one might go out into the +harbour late upon a winter afternoon, and see it as a city of a million +lights, rising like an incantation from the sea. Round about it was an +unbroken ring of docks, with ferry-boats and tugs darting everywhere, +and vessels which had come from every port in the world, emptying their +cargoes into the huge maw of the Metropolis. + +And of all this, nothing had been planned! All lay just as it had +fallen, and men bore the confusion and the waste as best they could. +Here were huge steel vaults, in which lay many billions of dollars' +worth of securities, the control of the finances of the country; and a +block or two in one direction were warehouses and gin-mills, and in +another direction cheap lodging-houses and sweating-dens. And at a +certain hour all this huge machine would come to a halt, and its +millions of human units would make a blind rush for their homes. Then +at the entrances to bridges and ferries and trams, would be seen sights +of madness and terror; throngs of men and women swept hither and +thither, pushing and struggling, shouting, cursing--fighting, now and +then, in sudden panic fear. All decency was forgotten here--people +would be mashed into cars like football players in a heap, and guards +and policemen would jam the gates tight--or like as not be swept away +themselves in the pushing, grunting, writhing mass of human beings. +Women would faint and be trampled; men would come out with clothing +torn to shreds, and sometimes with broken arms or ribs. And thinking +people would gaze at the sight and shudder, wondering--how long a city +could hold together, when the masses of its population were thus forced +back, day after day, habitually, upon the elemental brute within them. + +In this vast business district Montague would have felt utterly lost +and helpless, if it had not been for that fifty thousand dollars, and +the sense of mastery which it gave him. He sought out General Prentice, +and under his guidance selected his suite of rooms, and got his +furniture and books in readiness. And a day or two later, by +appointment, came Mr. Hasbrook. + +He was a wiry, nervous little man, who did not impress one as much of a +personality; but he had the insurance situation at his fingers' +ends--his grievance had evidently wrought upon him. Certainly, if half +of what he alleged were true, it was time that the courts took hold of +the affair. + +Montague spent the whole day in consultation, going over every aspect +of the case, and laying out his course of procedure. And then, at the +end, Mr. Hasbrook remarked that it would be necessary for them to make +some financial arrangement. And the other set his teeth together, and +took a tight grip upon himself, and said, "Considering the importance +of the case, and all the circumstances, I think I should have a +retainer of fifty thousand dollars." + +And the little man never turned a hair! "That will be perfectly +satisfactory," he said. "I will attend to it at once." And the other's +heart gave a great leap. + +And sure enough, the next morning's mail brought the money, in the +shape of a cashier's cheque from one of the big banks. Montague +deposited it to his own account, and felt that the city was his! + +And so he flung himself into the work. He went to his office every day, +and he shut himself up in his own rooms in the evening. Mrs. Winnie was +in despair because he would not come and learn bridge, and Mrs. Vivie +Patton sought him in vain for a week-end party. He could not exactly +say that while the others slept he was toiling upward in the night, for +the others did not sleep in the night; but he could say that while they +were feasting and dancing, he was delving into insurance law. Oliver +argued in vain to make him realize that he could not live for ever upon +one client; and that it was as important for a lawyer to be a social +light as to win his first big case. Montague was so absorbed that he +even failed to be thrilled when one morning he opened an invitation +envelope, and read the fateful legend: "Mrs. Devon requests the honour +of your company"--telling him that he had "passed" on that critical +examination morning, and that he was definitely and irrevocably in +Society! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Montague was now a capitalist, and therefore a keeper of the gates of +opportunity. It seemed as though the seekers for admission must have +had some occult way of finding it out; almost immediately they began to +lay siege to him. + +About a week after his cheque arrived, Major Thorne, whom he had met +the first evening at the Loyal Legion, called him up and asked to see +him; and he came to Montague's room that evening, and after chatting +awhile about old times, proceeded to unfold a business proposition. It +seemed that the Major had a grandson, a young mechanical engineer, who +had been labouring for a couple of years at a very important invention, +a device for loading coal upon steamships and weighing it automatically +in the process. It was a very complicated problem, needless to say, but +it had been solved successfully, and patents had been applied for, and +a working model constructed. But it had proved unexpectedly difficult +to interest the officials of the great steamship companies in the +device. There was no doubt about the practicability of the machine, or +the economies it would effect; but the officials raised trivial +objections, and caused delays, and offered prices that were +ridiculously inadequate. So the young inventor had conceived the idea +of organizing a company to manufacture the machines, and rent them upon +a royalty. "I didn't know whether you would have any money," said Major +Thorne, "--but I thought you might be in touch with others who could be +got to look into the matter. There is a fortune in it for those who +take it up." + +Montague was interested, and he looked over the plans and descriptions +which his friend had brought, and said that he would see the working +model, and talk the proposition over with others. And so the Major took +his departure. + +The first person Montague spoke to about it was Oliver, with whom he +chanced to be lunching, at the latter's club. This was the "All Night" +club, a meeting-place of fast young Society men and millionaire +Bohemians, who made a practice of going to bed at daylight, and had +taken for their motto the words of Tennyson--"For men may come and men +may go, but I go on for ever." It was not a proper club for his brother +to join, Oliver considered; Montague's "game" was the heavy +respectable, and the person to put him up was General Prentice. But he +was permitted to lunch there with his brother to chaperon him--and also +Reggie Mann, who happened in, fresh from talking over the itinerary of +the foreign prince with Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden, and bringing a +diverting account of how Mrs. R.-C. had had a fisticuffs with her maid. + +Montague mentioned the invention casually, and with no idea that his +brother would have an opinion one way or the other. But Oliver had +quite a vigorous opinion: "Good God, Allan, you aren't going to let +yourself be persuaded into a thing like that!" + +"But what do you know about it?" asked the other. "It may be a +tremendous thing." + +"Of course!" cried Oliver. "But what can you tell about it? You'll be +like a child in other people's hands, and they'll be certain to rob +you. And why in the world do you want to take risks when you don't have +to?" + +"I have to put my money somewhere," said Montague. + +"His first fee is burning a hole in his pocket!" put in Reggie Mann, +with a chuckle. "Turn it over to me, Mr. Montague; and let me spend it +in a gorgeous entertainment for Alice; and the prestige of it will +bring you more cases than you can handle in a lifetime!" + +"He had much better spend it all for soda water than buy a lot of coal +chutes with it," said Oliver: "Wait awhile, and let me find you some +place to put your money, and you'll see that you don't have to take any +risks." + +"I had no idea of taking it up until I'd made certain of it," replied +the other. "And those whose judgment I took would, of course, go in +also." + +The younger man thought for a moment. "You are going to dine with Major +Venable to-night, aren't you?" he asked; and when the other answered in +the affirmative, he continued, "Very well, then, ask him. The Major's +been a capitalist for forty years, and if you can get him to take it +up, why, you'll know you're safe." + +Major Venable had taken quite a fancy to Montague--perhaps the old +gentleman liked to have somebody to gossip with, to whom all his +anecdotes were new. He had seconded Montague's name at the +"Millionaires'," where he lived, and had asked him there to make the +acquaintance of some of the other members. Before Montague parted with +his brother, he promised that he would talk the matter over with the +Major. + +The Millionaires' was the show club of the city, the one which the +ineffably rich had set apart for themselves. It was up by the park, in +a magnificent white marble palace which had cost a million dollars. +Montague felt that he had never really known the Major until he saw him +here. The Major was excellent at all times and places, but in this club +he became an edition de luxe of himself. He made his headquarters here, +keeping his suite of rooms all the year round; and the atmosphere and +surroundings of the place seemed to be a part of him. + +Montague thought that the Major's face grew redder every day, and the +purple veins in it purpler; or was it that the old gentleman's shirt +bosom gleamed more brightly in the glare of the lights? The Major met +him in the stately entrance hall, fifty feet square and all of Numidian +marble, with a ceiling of gold, and a great bronze stairway leading to +the gallery above. He apologized for his velvet slippers and for his +hobbling walk--he was getting his accursed gout again. But he limped +around and introduced his friend to the other millionaires--and then +told scandal about them behind their backs. + +The Major was the very type of a blue-blooded old aristocrat; he was +all noblesse oblige to those within the magic circle of his +intimacy--but alas for those outside it! Montague had never heard +anyone bully servants as the Major did. "Here you!" he would cry, when +something went wrong at the table. "Don't you know any better than to +bring me a dish like that? Go and send me somebody who knows how to set +a table!" And, strange to say, the servants all acknowledged his +perfect right to bully them, and flew with terrified alacrity to do his +bidding. Montague noticed that the whole staff of the club leaped into +activity whenever the Major appeared; and when he was seated at the +table, he led off in this fashion--"Now I want two dry Martinis. And I +want them at once--do you understand me? Don't stop to get me any +butter plates or finger-bowls--I want two cock-tails, just as quick as +you can carry them!" + +Dinner was an important event to Major Venable--the most important in +life. The younger man humbly declined to make any suggestions, and sat +and watched while his friend did all the ordering. They had some very +small oysters, and an onion soup, and a grouse and asparagus, with some +wine from the Major's own private store, and then a romaine salad. +Concerning each one of these courses, the Major gave special +injunctions, and throughout his conversation he scattered comments upon +them: "This is good thick soup--lots of nourishment in onion soup. Have +the rest of this?--I think the Burgundy is too cold. Sixty-five is as +cold as Burgundy ought ever to be. I don't mind sherry as low as +sixty.--They always cook a bird too much--Robbie Walling's chef is the +only person I know who never makes a mistake with game." + +All this, of course, was between comments upon the assembled +millionaires. There was Hawkins, the corporation lawyer; a shrewd +fellow, cold as a corpse. He was named for an ambassadorship--a very +efficient man. Used to be old Wyman's confidential adviser and buy +aldermen for him.--And the man at table with him was Harrison, +publisher of the Star; administration newspaper, sound and +conservative. Harrison was training for a cabinet position. He was a +nice little man, and would make a fine splurge in Washington.--And that +tall man coming in was Clarke, the steel magnate; and over there was +Adams, a big lawyer also--prominent reformer--civic righteousness and +all that sort of stuff. Represented the Oil Trust secretly, and went +down to Trenton to argue against some reform measure, and took along +fifty thousand dollars in bills in his valise. "A friend of mine got +wind of what he was doing, and taxed him with it," said the Major, and +laughed gleefully over the great lawyer's reply--"How did I know but I +might have to pay for my own lunch?"--And the fat man with him--that +was Jimmie Featherstone, the chap who had inherited a big estate. "Poor +Jimmie's going all to pieces," the Major declared. "Goes down town to +board meetings now and then--they tell a hair-raising story about him +and old Dan Waterman. He had got up and started a long argument, when +Waterman broke in, 'But at the earlier meeting you argued directly to +the contrary, Mr. Featherstone!' 'Did I?' said Jimmie, looking +bewildered. 'I wonder why I did that?' 'Well, Mr. Featherstone, since +you ask me, I'll tell you,' said old Dan--he's savage as a wild boar, +you know, and won't be delayed at meetings. 'The reason is that the +last time you were drunker than you are now. If you would adopt a +uniform standard of intoxication for the directors' meetings of this +road, it would expedite matters considerably.'" + +They had got as far as the romaine salad. The waiter came with a bowl +of dressing--and at the sight of it, the old gentleman forgot Jimmie +Featherstone. "Why are you bringing me that stuff?" he cried. "I don't +want that! Take it away and get me some vinegar and oil." + +The waiter fled in dismay, while the Major went on growling under his +breath. Then from behind him came a voice: "What's the matter with you +this evening, Venable? You're peevish!" + +The Major looked up. "Hello, you old cormorant," said he. "How do you +do these days?" + +The old cormorant replied that he did very well. He was a pudgy little +man, with a pursed-up, wrinkled face. "My friend Mr. Montague--Mr. +Symmes," said the Major. + +"I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Montague," said Mr. Symmes, peering +over his spectacles. + +"And what are you doing with yourself these days?" asked the Major. + +The other smiled genially. "Nothing much," said he. "Seducing my +friends' wives, as usual." + +"And who's the latest?" + +"Read the newspapers, and you'll find out," laughed Symmes. "I'm told +I'm being shadowed." + +He passed on down the room, chuckling to himself; and the Major said, +"That's Maltby Symmes. Have you heard of him?" + +"No," said Montague. + +"He gets into the papers a good deal. He was up in supplementary +proceedings the other day--couldn't pay his liquor bill." + +"A member of the Millionaires'?" laughed Montague. + +"Yes, the papers made quite a joke out of it," said the other. "But you +see he's run through a couple of fortunes; the last was his +mother's--eleven millions, I believe. He's been a pretty lively old boy +in his time." + +The vinegar and oil had now arrived, and the Major set to work to dress +the salad. This was quite a ceremony, and Montague took it with amused +interest. The Major first gathered all the necessary articles together, +and looked them all over and grumbled at them. Then he mixed the +vinegar and the pepper and salt, a tablespoonful at a time, and poured +it over the salad. Then very slowly and carefully the oil had to be +poured on, the salad being poked and turned about so that it would be +all absorbed. Perhaps it was because he was so busy narrating the +escapades of Maltby Symmes that the old gentleman kneaded it about so +long; all the time fussing over it like a hen-partridge with her +chicks, and interrupting himself every sentence or two: "It was Lenore, +the opera star, and he gave her about two hundred thousand dollars' +worth of railroad shares. (Really, you know, romaine ought not to be +served in a bowl at all, but in a square, flat dish, so that one could +keep the ends quite dry.) And when they quarrelled, she found the old +scamp had fooled her--the shares had never been transferred. (One is +not supposed to use a fork at all, you know.) But she sued him, and he +settled with her for about half the value. (If this dressing were done +properly, there ought not to be any oil in the bottom of the dish at +all.)" + +This last remark meant that the process had reached its climax--that +the long, crisp leaves were receiving their final affectionate +overturnings. While the waiter stood at respectful attention, two or +three pieces at a time were laid carefully upon the little silver plate +intended for Montague. "And now," said the triumphant host, "try it! If +it's good, it ought to be neither sweet nor bitter, but just +right."--And he watched anxiously while Montague tasted it, saying, "If +it's the least bit bitter, say so; and we'll send it out. I've told +them about it often enough before." + +But it was not bitter, and so the Major proceeded to help himself, +after which the waiter whisked the bowl away. "I'm told that salad is +the one vegetable we have from the Romans," said the old boy, as he +munched at the crisp green leaves. "It's mentioned by Horace, you +know.--As I was saying, all this was in Symmes's early days. But since +his son's been grown up, he's married another chorus-girl." + +After the salad the Major had another cocktail. In the beginning +Montague had noticed that his hands shook and his eyes were watery; but +now, after these copious libations, he was vigorous, and, if possible, +more full of anecdotes than ever. Montague thought that it would be a +good time to broach his inquiry, and so when the coffee had been +served, he asked, "Have you any objections to talking business after +dinner?" + +"Not with you," said the Major. "Why? What is it?" + +And then Montague told him about his friend's proposition, and +described the invention. The other listened attentively to the end; and +then, after a pause, Montague asked him, "What do you think of it?" + +"The invention's no good," said the Major, promptly. + +"How do you know?" asked the other. + +"Because, if it had been, the companies would have taken it long ago, +without paying him a cent." + +"But he has it patented," said Montague. + +"Patented hell!" replied the other. "What's a patent to lawyers of +concerns of that size? They'd have taken it and had it in use from +Maine to Texas; and when he sued, they'd have tied the case up in so +many technicalities and quibbles that he couldn't have got to the end +of it in ten years--and he'd have been ruined ten times over in the +process." + +"Is that really done?" asked Montague. + +"Done!" exclaimed the Major. "It's done so often you might say it's the +only thing that's done.--The people are probably trying to take you in +with a fake." + +"That couldn't possibly be so," responded the other. "The man is a +friend--" + +"I've found it an excellent rule never to do business with friends," +said the Major, grimly. + +"But listen," said Montague; and he argued long enough to convince his +companion that that could not be the true explanation. Then the Major +sat for a minute or two and pondered; and suddenly he exclaimed, "I +have it! I see why they won't touch it!" + +"What is it?" + +"It's the coal companies! They're giving the steamships short weight, +and they don't want the coal weighed truly!" + +"But there's no sense in that," said Montague. "It's the steamship +companies that won't take the machine." + +"Yes," said the Major; "naturally, their officers are sharing the +graft." And he laughed heartily at Montague's look of perplexity. + +"Do you know anything about the business?" Montague asked. + +"Nothing whatever," said the Major. "I am like the German who shut +himself up in his inner consciousness and deduced the shape of an +elephant from first principles. I know the game of big business from A +to Z, and I'm telling you that if the invention is good and the +companies won't take it, that's the reason; and I'll lay you a wager +that if you were to make an investigation, some such thing as that is +what you'd find! Last winter I went South on a steamer, and when we got +near port, I saw them dumping a ton or two of good food overboard; and +I made inquiries, and learned that one of the officials of the company +ran a farm, and furnished the stuff--and the orders were to get rid of +so much every trip!" + +Montague's jaw had fallen. "What could Major Thorne do against such a +combination?" he asked. + +"I don't know," said the Major, shrugging his shoulders. "It's a case +to take to a lawyer--one who knows the ropes. Hawkins over there would +know what to tell you. I should imagine the thing he'd advise would be +to call a strike of the men who handle the coal, and tie up the +companies and bring them to terms." + +"You're joking now!" exclaimed the other. + +"Not at all," said the Major, laughing again. "It's done all the time. +There's a building trust in this city, and the way it put all its +rivals out of business was by having strikes called on their jobs." + +"But how could it do that?" + +"Easiest thing in the world. A labour leader is a man with a great deal +of power, and a very small salary to live on. And even if he won't sell +out--there are other ways. I could introduce you to a man right in this +room who had a big strike on at an inconvenient time, and he had the +president of the union trapped in a hotel with a woman, and the poor +fellow gave in and called off the strike."' + +"I should think the strikers might sometimes get out of hand," said +Montague. + +"Sometimes they do," smiled the other. "There is a regular procedure +for that case. Then you hire detectives and start violence, and call +out the militia and put the strike leaders into jail." + +Montague could think of nothing to say to that. The programme seemed to +be complete. + +"You see," the Major continued, earnestly, "I'm advising you as a +friend, and I'm taking the point of view of a man who has money in his +pocket. I've had some there always, but I've had to work hard to keep +it there. All my life I've been surrounded by people who wanted to do +me good; and the way they wanted to do it was to exchange my real money +for pieces of paper which they'd had printed with fancy scroll-work and +eagles and flags. Of course, if you want to look at the thing from the +other side, why, then the invention is most ingenious, and trade is +booming just now, and this is a great country, and merit is all you +need in it--and everything else is just as it ought to be. It makes all +the difference in the world, you know, whether a man is buying a horse +or selling him!" + +Montague had observed with perplexity that such incendiary talk as this +was one of the characteristics of people in these lofty altitudes. It +was one of the liberties accorded to their station. Editors and bishops +and statesmen and all the rest of their retainers had to believe in the +respectabilities, even in the privacy of their clubs--the people's ears +were getting terribly sharp these days! But among the real giants of +business you might have thought yourself in a society of +revolutionists; they would tear up the mountain tops and hurl them at +each other. When one of these old war-horses once got started, he would +tell tales of deviltry to appall the soul of the hardiest muck-rake +man. It was always the other fellow, of course; but then, if you pinned +your man down, and if he thought that he could trust you--he would +acknowledge that he had sometimes fought the enemy with the enemy's own +weapons! + +But of course one must understand that all this radicalism was for +conversational purposes only. The Major, for instance, never had the +slightest idea of doing anything about all the evils of which he told; +when it came to action, he proposed to do just what he had done all his +life--to sit tight on his own little pile. And the Millionaires' was an +excellent place to learn to do it! + +"See that old money-bags over there in the corner," said the Major. +"He's a man you want to fix in your mind--old Henry S. Grimes. Have you +heard of him?" + +"Vaguely," said the other. + +"He's Laura Hegan's uncle. She'll have his money also some day--but +Lord, how he does hold on to it meantime! It's quite tragic, if you +come to know him--he's frightened at his own shadow. He goes in for +slum tenements, and I guess he evicts more people in a month than you +could crowd into this building!" + +Montague looked at the solitary figure at the table, a man with a +wizened-up little face like a weasel's, and a big napkin tied around +his neck. "That's so as to save his shirt-front for to-morrow," the +Major explained. "He's really only about sixty, but you'd think he was +eighty. Three times every day he sits here and eats a bowl of graham +crackers and milk, and then goes out and sits rigid in an arm-chair for +an hour. That's the regimen his doctors have put him on--angels and +ministers of grace defend us!" + +The old gentleman paused, and a chuckle shook his scarlet jowls. "Only +think!" he said--"they tried to do that to me! But no, sir--when Bob +Venable has to eat graham crackers and milk, he'll put in arsenic +instead of sugar! That's the way with many a one of these rich fellows, +though--you picture him living in Capuan luxury, when, as a matter of +fact, he's a man with a torpid liver and a weak stomach, who is put to +bed at ten o'clock with a hot-water bag and a flannel night-cap!" + +The two had got up and were strolling toward the smoking-room; when +suddenly at one side a door opened, and a group of men came out. At the +head of them was an extraordinary figure, a big powerful body with a +grim face. "Hello!" said the Major. "All the big bugs are here +to-night. There must be a governors' meeting." + +"Who is that?" asked his companion; and he answered, "That? Why, that's +Dan Waterman." + +Dan Waterman! Montague stared harder than ever, and now he identified +the face with the pictures he had seen. Waterman, the Colossus of +finance, the Croesus of copper and gold! How many trusts had Waterman +organized! And how many puns had been made upon that name of his! + +"Who are the other men?" Montague asked. + +"Oh, they're just little millionaires," was the reply. + +The "little millionaires" were following as a kind of body-guard; one +of them, who was short and pudgy, was half running, to keep up with +Waterman's heavy stride. When they came to the coat-room, they crowded +the attendants away, and one helped the great man on with his coat, and +another held his hat, and another his stick, and two others tried to +talk to him. And Waterman stolidly buttoned his coat, and then seized +his hat and stick, and without a word to anyone, bolted through the +door. + +It was one of the funniest sights that Montague had ever seen in his +life, and he laughed all the way into the smoking-room. And, when Major +Venable had settled himself in a big chair and bitten off the end of a +cigar and lighted it, what floodgates of reminiscence were opened! + +For Dan Waterman was one of the Major's own generation, and he knew all +his life and his habits. Just as Montague had seen him there, so he had +been always; swift, imperious, terrible, trampling over all opposition; +the most powerful men in the city quailed before the glare of his eyes. +In the old days Wall Street had reeled in the shock of the conflicts +between him and his most powerful rival. + +And the Major went on to tell about Waterman's rival, and his life. He +had been the city's traction-king, old Wyman had been made by him. He +was the prince among political financiers; he had ruled the Democratic +party in state and nation. He would give a quarter of a million at a +time to the boss of Tammany Hall, and spend a million in a single +campaign; on "dough-day," when the district leaders came to get the +election funds, there would be a table forty feet long completely +covered with hundred-dollar bills. He would have been the richest man +in America, save that he spent his money as fast as he got it. He had +had the most famous racing-stable in America; and a house on Fifth +Avenue that was said to be the finest Italian palace in the world. Over +three millions had been spent in decorating it; all the ceilings had +been brought intact from palaces abroad, which he had bought and +demolished! The Major told a story to show how such a man lost all +sense of the value of money; he had once been sitting at lunch with +him, when the editor of one of his newspapers had come in and remarked, +"I told you we would need eight thousand dollars, and the check you +send is for ten." "I know it," was the smiling answer--"but somehow I +thought eight seemed harder to write than ten!" + +"Old Waterman's quite a spender, too, when it comes to that," the Major +went on. "He told me once that it cost him five thousand dollars a day +for his ordinary expenses. And that doesn't include a million-dollar +yacht, nor even the expenses of it. + +"And think of another man I know of who spent a million dollars for a +granite pier, so that he could land and see his mistress!--It's a fact, +as sure as God made me! She was a well-known society woman, but she was +poor, and he didn't dare to make her rich for fear of the scandal. So +she had to live in a miserable fifty-thousand-dollar villa; and when +other people's children would sneer at her children because they lived +in a fifty-thousand-dollar villa, the answer would be, 'But you haven't +got any pier!' And if you don't believe that--" + +But here suddenly the Major turned, and observed a boy who had brought +him some cigars, and who was now standing near by, pretending to +straighten out some newspapers upon the table. "Here, sir!" cried the +Major, "what do you mean--listening to what I'm saying! Out of the room +with you now, you rascal!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Another week-end came, and with it an invitation from the Lester Todds +to visit them at their country place in New Jersey. Montague was buried +in his books, but his brother routed him out with strenuous protests. +His case be damned--was he going to ruin his career for one case? At +all hazards, he must meet people--"people who counted." And the Todds +were such, a big money crowd, and a power in the insurance world; if +Montague were going to be an insurance lawyer, he could not possibly +decline their invitation. Freddie Vandam would be a guest--and Montague +smiled at the tidings that Betty Wyman would be there also. He had +observed that his brother's week-end visits always happened at places +where Betty was, and where Betty's granddaddy was not. + +So Montague's man packed his grips, and Alice's maid her trunks; and +they rode with a private-car party to a remote Jersey suburb, and were +whirled in an auto up a broad shell road to a palace upon the top of a +mountain. Here lived the haughty Lester Todds, and scattered about on +the neighbouring hills, a set of the ultra-wealthy who had withdrawn to +this seclusion. They were exceedingly "classy"; they affected to regard +all the Society of the city with scorn, and had their own +all-the-year-round diversions--an open-air horse show in summer, and in +the fall fox-hunting in fancy uniforms. + +The Lester Todds themselves were ardent pursuers of all varieties of +game, and in various clubs and private preserves they followed the +seasons, from Florida and North Carolina to Ontario, with occasional +side trips to Norway, and New Brunswick, and British Columbia. Here at +home they had a whole mountain of virgin forest, carefully preserved; +and in the Renaissance palace at the summit-which they carelessly +referred to as a "lodge"--you would find such articles de vertu as a +ten-thousand-dollar table with a set of two-thousand-dollar chairs, and +quite ordinary-looking rugs at ten and twenty thousand dollars +each.--All these prices you might ascertain without any difficulty at +all, because there were many newspaper articles describing the house to +be read in an album in the hall. On Saturday afternoons Mrs. Todd +welcomed the neighbours in a pastel grey reception-gown, the front of +which contained a peacock embroidered in silk, with jewels in every +feather, and a diamond solitaire for an eye; and in the evening there +was a dance, and she appeared in a gown with several hundred diamonds +sewn upon it, and received her guests upon a rug set with jewels to +match. + +All together, Montague judged this the "fastest" set he had yet +encountered; they ate more and drank more and intrigued more openly. He +had been slowly acquiring the special lingo of Society, but these +people had so much more slang that he felt all lost again. A young lady +who was gossiping to him about those present remarked that a certain +youth was a "spasm"; and then, seeing the look of perplexity upon his +face, she laughed, "I don't believe you know what I mean!" Montague +replied that he had ventured to infer that she did not like him. + +And then there was Mrs. Harper, who came from Chicago by way of London. +Ten years ago Mrs. Harper had overwhelmed New York with the millions +brought from her great department-store; and had then moved on, sighing +for new worlds to conquer. When she had left Chicago, her grammar had +been unexceptionable; but since she had been in England, she said "you +ain't" and dropped all her g's; and when Montague brought down a bird +at long range, she exclaimed, condescendingly, "Why, you're quite a dab +at it!" He sat in the front seat of an automobile, and heard the great +lady behind him referring to the sturdy Jersey farmers, whose ancestors +had fought the British and Hessians all over the state, as "your +peasantry." + +It was an extraordinary privilege to have Mrs. Harper for a guest; "at +home" she moved about in state recalling that of Queen Victoria, with +flags and bunting on the way, and crowds of school children cheering. +She kept up half a dozen establishments, and had a hundred thousand +acres of game preserves in Scotland. She made a speciality of +collecting jewels which had belonged to the romantic and picturesque +queens of history. She appeared at the dance in a breastplate of +diamonds covering the entire front of her bodice, so that she was +literally clothed in light; and with her was her English friend, Mrs. +Percy, who had accompanied her in her triumph through the courts and +camps of Europe, and displayed a famous lorgnette-chain, containing one +specimen of every rare and beautiful jewel known. Mrs. Percy wore a +gown of cloth of gold tissue, covered with a fortune in Venetian lace, +and made a tremendous sensation--until the rumour spread that it was a +rehash of the costume which Mrs. Harper had worn at the Duchess of +London's ball. The Chicago lady herself never by any chance appeared in +the same costume twice. + +Alice had a grand time at the Todds'; all the men fell in love with +her--one in particular, a young chap named Fayette, quite threw himself +at her feet. He was wealthy, but unfortunately he had made his money by +eloping with a rich girl (who was one of the present party), and so, +from a practical point of view, his attentions were not desirable for +Alice. + +Montague was left with the task of finding these things out for +himself, for his brother devoted himself exclusively to Betty Wyman. +The way these two disappeared between meals was a jest of the whole +company; so that when they were on their way home, Montague felt called +upon to make paternal inquiries. + +"We're as much engaged as we dare to be," Oliver answered him. + +"And when do you expect to marry her?" + +"God knows," said he, "I don't. The old man wouldn't give her a cent." + +"And you couldn't support her?" + +"I? Good heavens, Allan--do you suppose Betty would consent to be poor?" + +"Have you asked her?" inquired Montague. + +"I don't want to ask her, thank you! I've not the least desire to live +in a hovel with a girl who's been brought up in a palace." + +"Then what do you expect to do?" + +"Well, Betty has a rich aunt in a lunatic asylum. And then I'm making +money, you know--and the old boy will have to relent in the end. And +we're having a very good time in the meanwhile, you know." + +"You can't be very much in love," said Montague--to which his brother +replied cheerfully that they were as much in love as they felt like +being. + +This was on the train Monday morning. Oliver observed that his brother +relapsed into a brown study, and remarked, "I suppose you're going back +now to bury yourself in your books. You've got to give me one evening +this week for a dinner that's important." + +"Where's that?" asked the other. + +"Oh, it's a long story," said Oliver. "I'll explain it to you some +time. But first we must have an understanding about next week, also--I +suppose you've not overlooked the fact that it's Christmas week. And +you won't be permitted to do any work then." + +"But that's impossible!" exclaimed the other. + +"Nothing else is possible," said Oliver, firmly. "I've made an +engagement for you with the Eldridge Devons up the Hudson--" + +"For the whole week?" + +"The whole week. And it'll be the most important thing you've done. +Mrs. Winnie's going to take us all in her car, and you will make no end +of indispensable acquaintances." + +"Oliver, I don't see how in the world I can do it!" the other protested +in dismay, and went on for several minutes arguing and explaining what +he had to do. But Oliver contented himself with the assurance that +where there's a will, there's a way. One could not refuse an invitation +to spend Christmas with the Eldridge Devons! + +And sure enough, there was a way. Mr. Hasbrook had mentioned to him +that he had had considerable work done upon the case, and would have +the papers sent round. And when Montague reached his office that +morning, he found them there. There was a package of several thousand +pages; and upon examining them, he found to his utter consternation +that they contained a complete bill of complaint, with all the +necessary references and citations, and a preliminary draught of a +brief--in short, a complete and thoroughgoing preparation of his case. +There could not have been less than ten or fifteen thousand dollars' +worth of work in the papers; and Montague sat quite aghast, turning +over the neatly typewritten sheets. He could indeed afford to attend +Christmas house parties, if all his clients were to treat him like this! + +He felt a little piqued about it--for he had noted some of these points +for himself, and felt a little proud about them. Apparently he was to +be nothing but a figure-head in the case! And he turned to the phone +and called up Mr. Hasbrook, and asked him what he expected him to do +with these papers. There was the whole case here; and was he simply to +take them as they stood? + +No one could have replied more considerately than did Mr. Hasbrook. The +papers were for Montague's benefit--he would do exactly as he pleased +with them. He might use them as they stood, or reject them altogether, +or make them the basis for his own work--anything that appealed to his +judgment would be satisfactory. And so Montague turned about and wrote +an acceptance to the formal invitation which had come from the Eldridge +Devons. + +Later on in the day Oliver called up, and said that he was to go out to +dinner the following evening, and that he would call for him at eight. +"It's with the Jack Evanses," Oliver added. "Do you know them?" + +Montague had heard the name, as that of the president of a chain of +Western railroads. "Do you mean him?" he asked. + +"Yes," said the other. "They're a rum crowd, but there's money in it. +I'll call early and explain it to you." + +But it was explained sooner than that. During the next afternoon +Montague had a caller--none other than Mrs. Winnie Duval. Some one had +left Mrs. Winnie some more money, it appeared; and there was a lot of +red tape attached to it, which she wanted the new lawyer to attend to. +Also, she said, she hoped that he would charge her a lot of money by +way of encouraging himself. It was a mere bagatelle of a hundred +thousand or so, from some forgotten aunt in the West. + +The business was soon disposed of, and then Mrs. Winnie asked Montague +if he had any place to go to for dinner that evening: which was the +occasion of his mentioning the Jack Evanses. "O dear me!" said Mrs. +Winnie, with a laugh. "Is Ollie going to take you there? What a funny +time you'll have!" + +"Do you know them?" asked the other. + +"Heavens, no!" was the answer. "Nobody knows them; but everybody knows +about them. My husband meets old Evans in business, of course, and +thinks he's a good sort. But the family--dear me!" + +"How much of it is there?" + +"Why, there's the old lady, and two grown daughters and a son. The +son's a fine chap, they say--the old man took him in hand and put him +at work in the shops. But I suppose he thought that daughters were too +much of a proposition for him, and so he sent them to a fancy +school--and, I tell you, they're the most highly polished human +specimens that ever you encountered!" + +It sounded entertaining. "But what does Oliver want with them?" asked +Montague, wonderingly. + +"It isn't that he wants them--they want him. They're cumbers, you +know--perfectly frantic. They've come to town to get into Society." + +"Then you mean that they pay Oliver?" asked Montague. + +"I don't know that," said the other, with a laugh. "You'll have to ask +Ollie. They've a number of the little brothers of the rich hanging +round them, picking up whatever plunder's in sight." + +A look of pain crossed Montague's face; and she saw it, and put out her +hand with a sudden gesture. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I've offended you!" + +"No," said he, "it's not that exactly--I wouldn't be offended. But I'm +worried about my brother." + +"How do you mean?" + +"He gets a lot of money somehow, and I don't know what it means." + +The woman sat for a few moments in silence, watching him. "Didn't he +have any when he came here?" she asked. + +"Not very much," said he. + +"Because," she went on, "if he didn't, he certainly managed it very +cleverly--we all thought he had." + +Again there was a pause; then suddenly Mrs. Winnie said: "Do you know, +you feel differently about money from the way we do in New York. Do you +realize it?" + +"I'm not sure," said he. "How do you mean?" + +"You look at it in an old-fashioned sort of way--a person has to earn +it--it's a sign of something he's done. It came to me just now, all in +a flash--we don't feel that way about money. We haven't any of us +earned ours; we've just got it. And it never occurs to us to expect +other people to earn it--all we want to know is if they have it." + +Montague did not tell his companion how very profound a remark he +considered that; he was afraid it would not be delicate to agree with +her. He had heard a story of a negro occupant of the "mourners' bench," +who was voluble in confession of his sins, but took exception to the +fervour with which the congregation said "Amen!" + +"The Evanses used to be a lot funnier than they are now," continued +Mrs. Winnie, after a while. "When they came here last year, they were +really frightful. They had an English chap for social secretary--a +younger son of some broken-down old family. My brother knew a man who +had been one of their intimates in the West, and he said it was +perfectly excruciating--this fellow used to sit at the table and give +orders to the whole crowd: 'Your ice-cream fork should be at your right +hand, Miss Mary.--One never asks for more soup, Master Robert.--And +Miss Anna, always move your soup-spoon from you--that's better!'" + +"I fancy I shall feel sorry for them," said Montague. + +"Oh, you needn't," said the other, promptly. "They'll get what they +want." + +"Do you think so?" + +"Why, certainly they will. They've got the money; and they've been +abroad--they're learning the game. And they'll keep at it until they +succeed--what else is there for them to do? And then my husband says +that old Evans is making himself a power here in the East; so that +pretty soon they won't dare offend him." + +"Does that count?" asked the man. + +"Well, I guess it counts!" laughed Mrs. Winnie. "It has of late." And +she went on to tell him of the Society leader who had dared to offend +the daughters of a great magnate, and how the magnate had retaliated by +turning the woman's husband out of his high office. That was often the +way in the business world; the struggles were supposed to be affairs of +men, but oftener than not the moving power was a woman's intrigue. You +would see a great upheaval in Wall Street, and it would be two of the +big men quarrelling over a mistress; you would see some man rush +suddenly into a high office--and that would be because his wife had +sold herself to advance him. + +Mrs. Winnie took him up town in her auto, and he dressed for dinner; +and then came Oliver, and his brother asked, "Are you trying to put the +Evanses into Society?" + +"Who's been telling you about them?" asked the other. + +"Mrs. Winnie," said Montague. + +"What did she tell you?" + +Montague went over her recital, which his brother apparently found +satisfactory. "It's not as serious as that," he said, answering the +earlier question. "I help them a little now and then." + +"What do you do?" + +"Oh, advise them, mostly--tell them where to go and what to wear. When +they first came to New York, they were dressed like paraquets, you +know. And"--here Oliver broke into a laugh--"I refrain from making +jokes about them. And when I hear other people abusing them, I point +out that they are sure to land in the end, and will be dangerous +enemies. I've got one or two wedges started for them." + +"And do they pay you for doing it?" + +"You'd call it paying me, I suppose," replied the other. "The old man +carries a few shares of stock for me now and then." + +"Carries a few shares?" echoed Montague, and Oliver explained the +procedure. This was one of the customs which had grown up in a +community where people did not have to earn their money. The recipient +of the favour put up nothing and took no risks; but the other person +was supposed to buy some stock for him, and then, when the stock went +up, he would send a cheque for the "profits." Many a man who would have +resented a direct offer of money, would assent pleasantly when a +powerful friend offered to "carry a hundred shares for him." This was +the way one offered a tip in the big world; it was useful in the case +of newspaper men, whose good opinion of a stock was desired, or of +politicians and legislators, whose votes might help its fortunes. When +one expected to get into Society, one must be prepared to strew such +tips about him. + +"Of course," added Oliver, "what the family would really like me to do +is to get the Robbie Wallings to take them up. I suppose I could get +round half a million of them if I could manage that." + +To all of which Montague replied, "I see." + +A great light had dawned upon him. So that was the way it was managed! +That was why one paid thirty thousand a year for one's apartments, and +thirty thousand more for a girl's clothes! No wonder it was better to +spend Christmas week at the Eldridge Devons than to labour at one's law +books! + +"One more question," Montague went on. "Why are you introducing me to +them?" + +"Well," his brother answered, "it won't hurt you; you'll find it +amusing. You see, they'd heard I had a brother; and they asked me to +bring you. I couldn't keep you hidden for ever, could I?" + +All this was while they were driving up town. The Evanses' place was on +Riverside Drive; and when Montague got out of the cab and saw it +looming up in the semi-darkness, he emitted an exclamation of wonder. +It was as big as a jail! + +"Oh, yes, they've got room enough," said Oliver, with a laugh. "I put +this deal through for them--it's the old Lamson palace, you know." + +They had the room; and likewise they had all the trappings of +snobbery--Montague took that fact in at a glance. There were +knee-breeches and scarlet facings and gold braid--marble balconies and +fireplaces and fountains--French masters and real Flemish tapestry. The +staircase of their palace was a winding one, and there was a white +velvet carpet which had been specially woven for it, and had to be +changed frequently; at the top of it was a white cashmere rug which had +a pedigree of six centuries--and so on. + +And then came the family: this tall, raw-boned, gigantic man, with +weather-tanned face and straggling grey moustache--this was Jack Evans; +and Mrs. Evans, short and pudgy, but with a kindly face, and not too +many diamonds; and the Misses Evans,--stately and slender and perfectly +arrayed. "Why, they're all right!" was the thought that came to +Montague. + +They were all right until they opened their mouths. When they spoke, +you discovered that Evans was a miner, and that his wife had been cook +on a ranch; also that Anne and Mary had harsh voices, and that they +never by any chance said or did anything natural. + +They were escorted into the stately dining-room--Henri II., with a +historic mantel taken from the palace of Fontainebleau, and four great +allegorical paintings of Morning, Evening, Noon, and Midnight upon the +walls. There were no other guests--the table, set for six, seemed like +a toy in the vast apartment. And in a sudden flash--with a start of +almost terror--Montague realized what it must mean not to be in +Society. To have all this splendour, and nobody to share it! To have +Henri II. dining-rooms and Louis XVI. parlours and Louis XIV. +libraries--and see them all empty! To have no one to drive with or talk +with, no one to visit or play cards with--to go to the theatre and the +opera and have no one to speak to! Worse than that, to be stared at and +smiled at! To live in this huge palace, and know that all the horde of +servants, underneath their cringing deference, were sneering at you! To +face that--to live in the presence of it day after day! And then, +outside of your home, the ever widening circles of ridicule and +contempt--Society, with all its hangers-on and parasites, its imitators +and admirers! + +And some one had defied all that--some one had taken up the sword and +gone forth to beat down that opposition! Montague looked at this little +family of four, and wondered which of them was the driving force in +this most desperate emprise! + +He arrived at it by a process of elimination. It could not be Evans +himself. One saw that the old man was quite hopeless socially; nothing +could change his big hairy hands or his lean scrawny neck, or his +irresistible impulse to slide down in his chair and cross his long legs +in front of him. The face and the talk of Jack Evans brought +irresistibly to mind the mountain trail and the prospector's pack-mule, +the smoke of camp-fires and the odour of bacon and beans. Seventeen +long years the man had tramped in deserts and mountain wildernesses, +and Nature had graven her impress deep into his body and soul. + +He was very shy at this dinner; but Montague came to know him well in +the course of time. And after he had come to realize that Montague was +not one of the grafters, he opened up his heart. Evans had held on to +his mine when he had found it, and he had downed the rivals who had +tried to take it away from him, and he had bought the railroads who had +tried to crush him--and now he had come to Wall Street to fight the men +who had tried to ruin his railroads. But through it all, he had kept +the heart of a woman, and the sight of real distress was unbearable to +him. He was the sort of man to keep a roll of ten-thousand-dollar bills +in his pistol pocket, and to give one away if he thought he could do it +without offence. And, on the other hand, men told how once when he had +seen a porter insult a woman passenger on his line, he jumped up and +pulled the bell-cord, and had the man put out on the roadside at +midnight, thirty miles from the nearest town! + +No, it was the women folks, he said to Montague, with his grim laugh. +It didn't trouble him at all to be called a "noovoo rich"; and when he +felt like dancing a shakedown, he could take a run out to God's +country. But the women folks had got the bee in their bonnet. The old +man added sadly that one of the disadvantages of striking it rich was +that it left the women folks with nothing to do. + +Nor was it Mrs. Evans, either. "Sarey," as she was called by the head +of the house, sat next to Montague at dinner; and he discovered that +with the very least encouragement, the good lady was willing to become +homelike and comfortable. Montague gave the occasion, because he was a +stranger, and volunteered the opinion that New York was a shamelessly +extravagant place, and hard to get along in; and Mrs. Evans took up the +subject and revealed herself as a good-natured and kindly personage, +who had wistful yearnings for mush and molasses, and flap-jacks, and +bread fried in bacon-grease, and similar sensible things, while her +chef was compelling her to eat _pate de foie gras_ in aspic, and +milk-fed guinea-chicks, and _biscuits glacees Tortoni_. Of course she +did not say that at dinner,--she made a game effort to play her +part,--with the result of at least one diverting experience for +Montague. + +Mrs. Evans was telling him what a dreadful place she considered the +city for young men; and how she feared to bring her boy here. "The men +here have no morals at all," said she, and added earnestly, "I've come +to the conclusion that Eastern men are naturally amphibious!" + +Then, as Montague knitted his brows and looked perplexed, she added, +"Don't you think so?" And he replied, with as little delay as possible, +that he had never really thought of it before. + +It was not until a couple of hours later that the light dawned upon +him, in the course of a conversation with Miss Anne. "We met Lady +Stonebridge at luncheon to-day," said that young person. "Do you know +her?" + +"No," said Montague, who had never heard of her. + +"I think those aristocratic English women use the most abominable +slang," continued Anne. "Have you noticed it?" + +"Yes, I have," he said. + +"And so utterly cynical! Do you know, Lady Stonebridge quite shocked +mother--she told her she didn't believe in marriage at all, and that +she thought all men were naturally polygamous!" + +Later on, Montague came to know "Mrs. Sarey"; and one afternoon, +sitting in her Petit Trianon drawing-room, he asked her abruptly, "Why +in the world do you want to get into Society?" And the poor lady caught +her breath, and tried to be indignant; and then, seeing that he was in +earnest, and that she was cornered, broke down and confessed. "It isn't +me," she said, "it's the gals." (For along with the surrender went a +reversion to natural speech.) "It's Mary, and more particularly Anne." + +They talked it over confidentially--which was a great relief to Mrs. +Sarey's soul, for she was cruelly lonely. So far as she was concerned, +it was not because she wanted Society, but because Society didn't want +her. She flashed up in sudden anger, and clenched her fists, declaring +that Jack Evans was as good a man as walked the streets of New +York--and they would acknowledge it before he got through with them, +too! After that she intended to settle down at home and be comfortable, +and mend her husband's socks. + +She went on to tell him what a hard road was the path of glory. There +were hundreds of people ready to know them--but oh, such a riffraff! +They might fill up their home with the hangers-on and the yellow, but +no, they could wait. They had learned a lot since they set out. One +very aristocratic lady had invited them to dinner, and their hopes had +been high--but alas, while they were sitting by the fireplace, some one +admired a thirty-thousand-dollar emerald ring which Mrs. Evans had on +her finger, and she had taken it off and passed it about among the +company, and somewhere it had vanished completely! And another person +had invited Mary to a bridge-party, and though she had played hardly at +all, her hostess had quietly informed her that she had lost a thousand +dollars. And the great Lady Stonebridge had actually sent for her and +told her that she could introduce her in some of the very best circles, +if only she was willing to lose always! Mrs. Evans had possessed a very +homely Irish name before she was married; and Lady Stonebridge had got +five thousand dollars from her to use some great influence she +possessed in the Royal College of Heralds, and prove that she was +descended directly from the noble old family of Magennis, who had been +the lords of Iveagh, way back in the fourteenth century. And now Oliver +had told them that this imposing charter would not help them in the +least! + +In the process of elimination, there were the Misses Evans left. +Montague's friends made many jests when they heard that he had met +them--asking him if he meant to settle down. Major Venable went so far +as to assure him that there was not the least doubt that either of the +girls would take him in a second. Montague laughed, and answered that +Mary was not so bad--she had a sweet face and was good-natured; but +also, she was two years younger than Anne; and he could not get over +the thought that two more years might make another Anne of her. + +For it was Anne who was the driving force of the family! Anne who had +planned the great campaign, and selected the Lamson palace, and pried +the family loose from the primeval rocks of Nevada! She was cold as an +iceberg, tireless, pitiless to others as to herself; for seventeen +years her father had wandered and dug among the mountains; and for +seventeen years, if need be, she would dig beneath the walls of the +fortress of Society! + +After Montague had had his heart to heart talk with the mother, Miss +Anne Evans became very haughty toward him; whereby he knew that the old +lady had told about it, and that the daughter resented his presumption. +But to Oliver she laid bare her soul, and Oliver would come and tell +his brother about it: how she plotted and planned and studied, and +brought new schemes to him every week. She had some of the real people +bought over to secret sympathy with her; if there was some especial +favour which she asked for, she would set to work with the good-natured +old man, and the person would have some important money service done +him. She had the people of Society all marked--she was learning all +their weaknesses, and the underground passages of their lives, and +working patiently to find the key to her problem--some one family which +was socially impregnable, but whose finances were in such a shape that +they would receive the proposition to take up the Evanses, and +definitely put them in. Montague used to look back upon all this with +wonder and amusement--from those days in the not far distant future, +when the papers had cable descriptions of the gowns of the Duchess of +Arden, nee Evans, who was the bright particular star of the London +social season! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Montague had written a reluctant letter to Major Thorne, telling him +that he had been unable to interest anyone in his proposition, and that +he was not in position to undertake it himself. Then, according to his +brother's injunction, he left his money in the bank, and waited. There +would be "something doing" soon, said Oliver. + +And as they drove home from the Evanses', Oliver served notice upon him +that this event might be expected any day. He was very mysterious about +it, and would answer none of his brother's questions--except to say +that it had nothing to do with the people they had just visited. + +"I suppose," Montague remarked, "you have not failed to realize that +Evans might play you false." + +And the other laughed, echoing the words, "Might do it!" Then he went +on to tell the tale of the great railroad builder of the West, whose +daughter had been married, with elaborate festivities; and some of the +young men present, thinking to find him in a sentimental mood, had +asked him for his views about the market. He advised them to buy the +stock of his road; and they formed a pool and bought, and as fast as +they bought, he sold--until the little venture cost the boys a total of +seven million and a half! + +"No, no," Oliver added. "I have never put up a dollar for anything of +Evans's, and I never shall.--They are simply a side issue, anyway," he +added carelessly. + +A couple of mornings later, while Montague was at breakfast, his +brother called him up and said that he was coming round, and would go +down town with him. Montague knew at once that that meant something +serious, for he had never before known his brother to be awake so early. + +They took a cab; and then Oliver explained. The moment had arrived--the +time to take the plunge, and come up with a fortune. He could not tell +much about it, for it was a matter upon which he stood pledged to +absolute secrecy. There were but four people in the country who knew +about it. It was the chance of a lifetime--and in four or five hours it +would be gone. Three times before it had come to Oliver, and each time +he had multiplied his capital several times; that he had not made +millions was simply because he did not have enough money. His brother +must take his word for this and simply put himself into his hands. + +"What is it you want me to do?" asked Montague, gravely. + +"I want you to take every dollar you have, or that you can lay your +hands on this morning, and turn it over to me to buy stocks with." + +"To buy on margin, you mean?" + +"Of course I mean that," said Oliver. Then, as he saw his brother +frown, he added, "Understand me, I have absolutely certain information +as to how a certain stock will behave to-day." + +"The best judges of a stock often make mistakes in such matters," said +Montague. + +"It is not a question of any person's judgment," was the reply. "It is +a question of knowledge. The stock is to be MADE to behave so." + +"But how can you know that the person who intends to make it behave may +not be lying to you?" + +"My information does not come from that person, but from a person who +has no such interest--who, on the contrary, is in on the deal with me, +and gains only as I gain." + +"Then, in other words," said Montague, "your information is stolen?" + +"Everything in Wall Street is stolen," was Oliver's concise reply. + +There was a long silence, while the cab rolled swiftly on its way. +"Well?" Oliver asked at last. + +"I can imagine," said Montague, "how a man might intend to move a +certain stock, and think that he had the power, and yet find that he +was mistaken. There are so many forces, so many chances to be +considered--it seems to me you must be taking a risk." + +Oliver laughed. "You talk like a child," was his reply. "Suppose that I +were in absolute control of a corporation, and that I chose to run it +for purposes of market manipulation, don't you think I might come +pretty near knowing what its stock was going to do?" + +"Yes," said Montague, slowly, "if such a thing as that were +conceivable." + +"If it were conceivable!" laughed his brother. "And now suppose that I +had a confidential man--a secretary, we'll say--and I paid him twenty +thousand a year, and he saw chances to make a hundred thousand in an +hour--don't you think he might conceivably try it?" + +"Yes," said Montague, "he might. But where do you come in?" + +"Well, if the man were going to do anything worth while, he'd need +capital, would he not? And he'd hardly dare to look for any money in +the Street, where a thousand eyes would be watching him. What more +natural than to look out for some person who is in Society and has the +ear of private parties with plenty of cash?" + +And Montague sat in deep thought. "I see," he said slowly; "I see!" +Then, fixing his eyes upon Oliver, he exclaimed, earnestly, "One thing +more!" + +"Don't ask me any more," protested the other. "I told you I was +pledged--" + +"You must tell me this," said Montague. "Does Bobbie Walling know about +it?" + +"He does not," was the reply. But Montague had known his brother long +and intimately, and he could read things in his eyes. He knew that that +was a lie. He had solved the mystery at last! + +Montague knew that he had come to a parting of the ways. He did not +like this kind of thing--he had not come to New York to be a +stock-gambler. But what a difficult thing it would be to say so; and +how unfair it was to be confronted with such an issue, and compelled to +decide in a few minutes in a cab! + +He had put himself in his brother's hands, and now he was under +obligations to him, which he could not pay off. Oliver had paid all his +expenses; he was doing everything for him. He had made all his +difficulties his own, and all in frankness and perfect trust--upon the +assumption that his brother would play the game with him. And now, at +the critical moment, he was to face about, and say; "I do not like the +game. I do not approve of your life!" Such a painful thing it is to +have a higher moral code than one's friends! + +If he refused, he saw that he would have to face a complete break; he +could not go on living in the world to which he had been introduced. +Fifty thousand had seemed an enormous fee, yet even a week or two had +sufficed for it to come to seem inadequate. He would have to have many +such fees, if they were to go on living at their present rate; and if +Alice were to have a social career, and entertain her friends. And to +ask Alice to give up now, and retire, would be even harder than to face +his brother here in the cab. + +Then came the temptation. Life was a battle, and this was the way it +was being fought. If he rejected the opportunity, others would seize +it; in fact, by refusing, he would be handing it to them. This great +man, whoever he might be, who was manipulating stocks for his own +convenience--could anyone in his senses reject a chance to wrench from +him some part of his spoils? Montague saw the impulse of refusal dying +away within him. + +"Well?" asked his brother, finally. + +"Oliver," said the other, "don't you think that I ought to know more +about it, so that I can judge?" + +"You could not judge, even if I told you all," said Oliver. "It would +take you a long time to become familiar with the circumstances, as I +am. You must take my word; I know it is certain and safe." + +Then suddenly he unbuttoned his coat, and took out some papers, and +handed his brother a telegram. It was dated Chicago, and read, "Guest +is expected immediately.--HENRY." "That means, 'Buy Transcontinental +this morning,'" said Oliver. + +"I see," said the other. "Then the man is in Chicago?" + +"No," was the reply. "That is his wife. He wires to her." + +"--How much money have you?" asked Oliver, after a pause. + +"I've most of the fifty thousand," the other answered, "and about +thirty thousand we brought with us." + +"How much can you put your hands on?" + +"Why, I could get all of it; but part of the money is mother's, and I +would not touch that." + +The younger man was about to remonstrate, but Montague stopped him, "I +will put up the fifty thousand I have earned," he said. "I dare not +risk any more." + +Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said. "You may never +have another such chance in your life." + +He dropped the subject, or at least he probably tried to. Within a few +minutes, however, he was back at it again, with the result that by the +time they reached the banking-district, Montague had agreed to draw +sixty thousand. + +They stopped at his bank. "It isn't open yet,--" said Oliver, "but the +paying teller will oblige you. Tell him you want it before the Exchange +opens." + +Montague went in and got his money, in six new, crisp, +ten-thousand-dollar bills. He buttoned them up in his inmost pocket, +wondering a little, incidentally, at the magnificence of the place, and +at the swift routine manner in which the clerk took in and paid out +such sums as this. Then they drove to Oliver's bank, and he drew a +hundred and twenty thousand; and then he paid off the cab, and they +strolled down Broadway into Wall Street. It lacked a quarter of an hour +of the time of the opening of the Exchange; and a stream of +prosperous-looking men were pouring in from all the cars and ferries to +their offices. + +"Where are your brokers?" Montague inquired. + +"I don't have any brokers--at least not for a matter such as this," +said Oliver. And he stopped in front of one of the big buildings. "In +there," he said, "are the offices of Hammond and Streeter--second floor +to your left. Go there and ask for a member of the firm, and introduce +yourself under an assumed name--" + +"What!" gasped Montague. + +"Of course, man--you would not dream of giving your own name! What +difference will that make?" + +"I never thought of doing such a thing," said the other. + +"Well, think of it now." + +But Montague shook his head. "I would not do that," he said. + +Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "All right," he said; "tell him you +don't care to give your name. They're a little shady--they'll take your +money." + +"Suppose they won't?" asked the other. + +"Then wait outside for me, and I'll take you somewhere else." + +"What shall I buy?" + +"Ten thousand shares of Transcontinental Common at the opening price; +and tell them to buy on the scale up, and to raise the stop; also to +take your orders to sell over the 'phone. Then wait there until I come +for you." + +Montague set his teeth together and obeyed orders. Inside the door +marked Hammond and Streeter a pleasant-faced young man advanced to meet +him, and led him to a grey-haired and affable gentleman, Mr. Streeter. +And Montague introduced himself as a stranger in town, from the South, +and wishing to buy some stock. Mr. Streeter led him into an inner +office and seated himself at a desk and drew some papers in front of +him. "Your name, please?" he asked. + +"I don't care to give my name," replied the other. And Mr. Streeter put +down his pen. + +"Not give your name?" he said. + +"No," said Montague quietly. + +"Why?"--said Mr. Streeter--"I don't understand--" + +"I am a stranger in town," said Montague, "and not accustomed to +dealing in stocks. I should prefer to remain unknown." + +The man eyed him sharply. "Where do you come from?" he asked. + +"From Mississippi," was the reply. + +"And have you a residence in New York?" + +"At a hotel," said Montague. + +"You have to give some name," said the other. + +"Any will do," said Montague. "John Smith, if you like." + +"We never do anything like this," said the broker. + +"We require that our customers be introduced. There are rules of the +Exchange--there are rules--" + +"I am sorry," said Montague; "this would be a cash transaction." + +"How many shares do you want to buy?" + +"Ten thousand," was the reply. + +Mr. Streeter became more serious. "That is a large order," he said. + +Montague said nothing. + +"What do you wish to buy?" was the next question. + +"Transcontinental Common," he replied. + +"Well," said the other, after another pause-,-"we will try to +accommodate you. But you will have to consider it--er--" + +"Strictly confidential," said Montague. + +So Mr. Streeter made out the papers, and Montague, looking them over, +discovered that they called for one hundred thousand dollars. + +"That is a mistake," he said. "I have only sixty thousand." + +"Oh," said the other, "we shall certainly have to charge you a ten per +cent, margin." + +Montague was not prepared for this contingency; but he did some mental +arithmetic. "What is the present price of the stock?" he asked. + +"Fifty-nine and five-eighths," was the reply. + +"Then sixty thousand dollars is more than ten per cent, of the market +price," said Montague. + +"Yes," said Mr. Streeter. "But in dealing with a stranger we shall +certainly have to put a 'stop loss' order at four points above, and +that would leave you only two points of safety--surely not enough." + +"I see," said Montague--and he had a sudden appalling realization of +the wild game which his brother had planned for him. + +"Whereas," Mr. Streeter continued, persuasively, "if you put up ten per +cent., you will have six points." + +"Very well," said the other promptly. "Then please buy me six thousand +shares." + +So they closed the deal, and the papers were signed, and Mr. Streeter +took the six new, crisp ten-thousand-dollar bills. + +Then he escorted him to the outer office, remarking pleasantly on the +way, "I hope you're well advised. We're inclined to be bearish upon +Transcontinental ourselves--the situation looks rather squally." + +These words were not worth the breath it took to say them; but Montague +was not aware of this, and felt a painful start within. But he +answered, carelessly, that one must take his chance, and sat down in +one of the customer's chairs. Hammond and Streeter's was like a little +lecture-hall, with rows of seats and a big blackboard in front, with +the initials of the most important stocks in columns, and yesterday's +closing prices above, on little green cards. At one side was a ticker, +with two attendants awaiting the opening click. + +In the seats were twenty or thirty men, old and young; most of them +regular habitues, victims of the fever of the Street. Montague watched +them, catching snatches of their whispered conversation, with its +intricate and disagreeable slang. He felt intensely humiliated and +uncomfortable--for he had got the fever of the Street into his own +veins, and he could not conquer it. There were nasty shivers running up +and down his spine, and his hands were cold. + +He stared at the little figures, fascinated; they stood for some vast +and tremendous force outside, which could not be controlled or even +comprehended,--some merciless, annihilating force, like the lightning +or the tornado. And he had put himself at the mercy of it; it might do +its will with him! "Tr. C. 59 5/8" read the little pasteboard; and he +had only six points of safety. If at any time in the day that figure +should be changed to read "53 5/8"--then every dollar of Montague's +sixty thousand would be gone for ever! The great fee that he had worked +so hard for and rejoiced so greatly over--that would be all gone, and a +slice out of his inheritance besides! + +A boy put into his hand a little four-page paper--one of the countless +news-sheets which different houses and interests distributed free for +advertising or other purposes; and a heading "Transcontinental" caught +his eye, among the paragraphs in the Day's Events. He read: "The +directors' meeting of the Transcontinental R.R. will be held at noon. +It is confidently predicted that the quarterly dividend will be passed, +as it has been for the last three quarters. There is great +dissatisfaction among the stock-holders. The stock has been decidedly +weak, with no apparent inside support; it fell off three points just +before closing yesterday, upon the news of further proceedings by +Western state officials, and widely credited rumours of dissensions +among the directors, with renewed opposition to the control of the +Hopkins interests." + +Ten o'clock came and went, and the ticker began its long journey. There +was intense activity in Transcontinental, many thousands of shares +changing hands, and the price swaying back and forth. When Oliver came +in, in half an hour, it stood at 59 3/8. + +"That's all right," said he. "Our time will not come till afternoon." + +"But suppose we are wiped out before afternoon?" said the other. + +"That is impossible," answered Oliver. "There will be big buying all +the morning." + +They sat for a while, nervous and restless. Then, by way of breaking +the monotony, Oliver suggested that his brother might like to see the +"Street." They went around the corner to Broad Street. Here at the head +stood the Sub-treasury building, with all the gold of the government +inside, and a Gatling gun in the tower. The public did not know it was +there, but the financial men knew it, and it seemed as if they had +huddled all their offices and banks and safe-deposit vaults under its +shelter. Here, far underground, were hidden the two hundred millions of +securities of the Oil Trust--in a huge six-hundred-ton steel vault, +with a door so delicately poised that a finger could swing it on its +hinges. And opposite to this was the white Grecian building of the +Stock Exchange. Down the street were throngs of men within a roped +arena, pushing, shouting, jostling; this was "the curb," where one +could buy or sell small blocks of stock, and all the wild-cat mining +and oil stocks which were not listed by the Exchange. Rain or shine, +these men were always here; and in the windows of the neighbouring +buildings stood others shouting quotations to them through megaphones, +or signalling in deaf and dumb language. Some of these brokers wore +coloured hats, so that they could be distinguished; some had offices +far off, where men sat all day with strong glasses trained upon them. +Everywhere was the atmosphere of speculation--the restless, feverish +eyes; the quick, nervous gestures; the haggard, care-worn faces. For in +this game every man was pitted against every other man; and the dice +were loaded so that nine out of every ten were doomed in advance to +ruin and defeat. They procured passes to the visitors' gallery of the +Exchange. From here one looked down into a room one or two hundred feet +square, its floor covered with a snowstorm of torn pieces of paper, and +its air a babel of shouts and cries. Here were gathered perhaps two +thousand men and boys; some were lounging and talking, but most were +crowded about the various trading-posts, pushing, climbing over each +other, leaping up, waving their hands and calling aloud. A "seat" in +this exchange was worth about ninety-five thousand dollars, and so no +one of these men was poor; but yet they came, day after day, to play +their parts in this sordid arena, "seeking in sorrow for each other's +joy": inventing a thousand petty tricks to outwit and deceive each +other; rejoicing in a thousand petty triumphs; and spending their +lives, like the waves upon the shore, a very symbol of human futility. +Now and then a sudden impulse would seize them, and they would become +like howling demons, surging about one spot, shrieking, gasping, +clawing each other's clothing to pieces; and the spectator shuddered, +seeing them as the victims of some strange and dreadful enchantment, +which bound them to struggle and torment each other until they were +worn out and grey. + +But one felt these things only dimly, when he had put all his fortune +into Transcontinental Common. For then he had sold his own soul to the +enchanter, and the spell was upon him, and he hoped and feared and +agonized with the struggling throng. Montague had no need to ask which +was his "post"; for a mob of a hundred men were packed about it, with +little whirls and eddies here and there on the outside. "Something +doing to-day all right," said a man in his ear. + +It was interesting to watch; but there was one difficulty--there were +no quotations provided for the spectators. So the sight of this +activity merely set them on edge with anxiety--something must be +happening to their stock! Even Oliver was visibly nervous--after all, +in the surest cases, the game was a dangerous one; there might be a big +failure, or an assassination, or an earthquake! They rushed out and +made for the nearest broker's office, where a glance at the board +showed them Transcontinental at 60. They drew a long breath, and sat +down again to wait. + +That was about half-past eleven. At a quarter to twelve the stock went +up an eighth, and then a quarter, and then another eighth. The two +gripped their hands in excitement. Had the time come? + +Apparently it had. A minute later the stock leaped to 61, on large +buying. Then it went three-eighths more. A buzz of excitement ran +through the office, and the old-timers sat up in their seats. The stock +went another quarter. + +Montague heard a man behind him say to his neighbour, "What does it +mean?" + +"God knows," was the answer; but Oliver whispered in his brother's ear, +"I know what it means. The insiders are buying." + +Somebody was buying, and buying furiously. The ticker seemed to set all +other business aside and give its attention to the trading in +Transcontinental. It was like a base-ball game, when one side begins to +pile up runs, and the man in the coacher's box chants exultantly, and +the dullest spectator is stirred--since no man can be indifferent to +success. And as the stock went higher and higher, a little wave of +excitement mounted with it, a murmur running through the room, and a +thrill passing from person to person. Some watched, wondering if it +would last, and if they had not better take on a little; then another +point would be scored, and they would wish they had done it, and +hesitate whether to do it now. But to others, like the Montagues, who +"had some," it was victory, glorious and thrilling; their pulses leaped +faster with every new change of the figures; and between times they +reckoned up their gains, and hung between hope and dread for the new +gains which were on the way, but not yet in sight. + +There was little lull, and the boys who tended the board had a chance +to rest. The stock was above 66; at which price, owing to the device of +"pyramiding." Montague was on "velvet," to use the picturesque phrase +of the Street. His earnings amounted to sixty thousand dollars, and +even if the stock were to fall and he were to be sold out, he would +lose nothing. + +He wished to sell and realize his profits; but his brother gripped him +fast by the arm. "No! no!" he said. "It hasn't really come yet!" + +Some went out to lunch--to a restaurant where they could have a +telephone on their table, so as to keep in touch with events. But the +Montagues had no care about eating; they sat picturing the directors in +session, and speculating upon a score of various eventualities. Things +might yet go wrong, and all their profits would vanish like early +snow-flakes--and all their capital with them. Oliver shook like a leaf, +but he would not stir. "Stay game!" he whispered. + +He took out his watch, and glanced at it. It was after two o'clock. "It +may go over till to-morrow!" he muttered.--But then suddenly came the +storm. + +The ticker recorded a rise in the price of Transcontinental of a point +and a half, upon a purchase of five thousand shares; and then half a +point for two thousand more. After that it never stopped. It went a +point at a time; it went ten points in about fifteen minutes. And babel +broke loose in the office, and in several thousand other offices in the +street, and spread to others all over the world. Montague had got up, +and was moving here and there, because the tension was unendurable; and +at the door of an inner office he heard some one at the telephone +exclaiming, "For the love of God, can't you find out what's the +matter?"--A moment later a man rushed in, breathless and wild-eyed, and +his voice rang through the office, "The directors have declared a +quarterly dividend of three per cent, and an extra dividend of two!" + +And Oliver caught his brother by the arm and started for the door with +him. "Get to your broker's," he said. "And if the stock has stopped +moving, sell; and sell in any case before the close." And then he +dashed away to his own headquarters. + +At about half after three o'clock, Oliver came into Hammond and +Streeter's, breathless, and with his hair and clothing dishevelled. He +was half beside himself with exultation; and Montague was scarcely less +wrought up--in fact he felt quite limp after the strain he had been +through. + +"What price did you get?" his brother inquired; and he answered, "An +average of 78 3/8." There had been another sharp rise at the end, and +he had sold all his stock without checking the advance. + +"I got five-eighths," said Oliver. "O ye gods!" + +There were some unhappy "shorts" in the office; Mr. Streeter was one of +them. It was bitterness and gall to them to see the radiant faces of +the two lucky ones; but the two did not even see this. They went out, +half dancing, and had a drink or two to steady their nerves. + +They would not actually get their money until the morrow; but Montague +figured a profit of a trifle under a quarter of a million for himself. +Of this about twenty thousand would go to make up the share of his +unknown informant; the balance he considered would be an ample reward +for his six hours' work that day. + +His brother had won more than twice as much. But as they drove up home, +talking over it in awe-stricken whispers, and pledging themselves to +absolute secrecy, Oliver suddenly clenched his fist and struck his knee. + +"By God!" he exclaimed. "If I hadn't been a fool and tried to save an +extra margin, I could have had a million!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +After such a victory one felt in a mood for Christmas festivities,--for +music and dancing and all beautiful and happy things. + +Such a thing, for instance, as Mrs. Winnie, when she came to meet him; +clad in her best automobile coat, a thing of purest snowy ermine, so +truly gorgeous that wherever she went, people turned and stared and +caught their breath. Mrs. Winnie was a picture of joyful health, with a +glow in her rich complexion, and a sparkle in her black eyes. + +She sat in her big touring-car--in which one could afford to wear +ermine. It was a little private self-moving hotel; in the limousine +were seats for six persons, with revolving easy chairs, and berths for +sleeping, and a writing-desk and a wash-stand, and a beautiful electric +chandelier to light it at night. Its trimmings were of South American +mahogany, and its upholstering of Spanish and Morocco leathers; it had +a telephone with which one spoke to the driver; an ice-box and a lunch +hamper--in fact, one might have spent an hour discovering new gimcracks +in this magic automobile. It had been made especially for Mrs. Winnie a +couple of years ago, and the newspapers said it had cost thirty +thousand dollars; it had then been quite a novelty, but now "everybody" +was getting them. In this car one might sit at ease, and laugh and +chat, and travel at the rate of an express train; and with never a jar +or a quiver, nor the faintest sound of any sort. + +The streets of the city sped by them as if by enchantment. They went +through the park, and out Riverside Drive, and up the river-road which +runs out of Broadway all the way to Albany. It was a macadamized +avenue, lined with beautiful and stately homes. As one went farther +yet, he came to the great country estates-a whole district of hundreds +of square miles given up to them. There were forests and lakes and +streams; there were gardens and greenhouses filled with rare plants and +flowers, and parks with deer browsing, and peacocks and lyre-birds +strutting about. The road wound in and out among hills, the surfaces of +which would be one unbroken lawn; and upon the highest points stood +palaces of every conceivable style and shape. + +One might find these great domains anywhere around the city, at a +distance of from thirty to sixty miles; there were two or three hundred +of them, and incredible were the sums of money which had been spent +upon their decoration. One saw an artificial lake of ten thousand +acres, made upon land which had cost several hundred dollars an acre; +one saw gardens with ten thousand rose-bushes, and a quarter of a +million dollars' worth of lilies from Japan; there was one estate in +which had been planted a million dollars' worth of rare trees, imported +from all over the world. Some rich men, who had nothing else to amuse +them, would make their estates over and over again, changing the view +about their homes as one changes the scenery in a play. Over in New +Jersey the Hegans were building a castle upon a mountain-top, and had +built a special railroad simply to carry the materials. Here, also, was +the estate of the tobacco king, upon which three million dollars had +been spent before the plans of the mansion had even been drawn; there +were artificial lakes and streams, and fantastic bridges and statuary, +and scores of little model plantations and estates, according to the +whim of the owner. And here in the Pocantico Hills was the estate of +the oil king, about four square miles, with thirty miles of model +driveways; many car-loads of rare plants had been imported for its +gardens, and it took six hundred men to keep it in order. There was a +golf course, a little miniature Alps, upon which the richest man in the +world pursued his lost health, with armed guards and detectives +patrolling the place all day, and a tower with a search-light, whereby +at night he could flood the grounds with light by pressing a button. + +In one of these places lived the heir of the great house of Devon. His +cousin dwelt in Europe, saying that America was not a fit place for a +gentleman to live in. Each of them owned a hundred million dollars' +worth of New York real estate, and drew their tribute of rents from the +toil of the swarming millions of the city. And always, according to the +policy of the family, they bought new real estate. They were directors +of the great railroads tributary to the city, and in touch with the +political machines, and in every other way in position to know what was +under way: if a new subway were built to set the swarming millions +free, the millions would find the land all taken up, and +apartment-houses newly built for them--and the Devons were the owners. +They had a score of the city's greatest hotels--and also slum +tenements, and brothels and dives in the Tenderloin. They did not even +have to know what they owned; they did not have to know anything, or do +anything--they lived in their palaces, at home or abroad, and in their +offices in the city the great rent-gathering machine ground on. + +Eldridge Devon's occupation was playing with his country-place and his +automobiles. He had recently sold all his horses, and turned his +stables into a garage equipped with a score or so of cars; he was +always getting a new one, and discussing its merits. As to Hudson +Cliff, the estate, he had conceived the brilliant idea of establishing +a gentleman's country-place which should be self-supporting--that is to +say, which should furnish the luxuries and necessities of its owner's +table for no more than it would have cost to buy them. Considering the +prices usually paid, this was no astonishing feat, but Devon took a +child's delight in it; he showed Montague his greenhouses, filled with +rare flowers and fruits, and his model dairy, with marble stables and +nickel plumbing, and attendants in white uniforms and rubber gloves. He +was a short and very stout gentleman with red cheeks, and his +conversation was not brilliant. + +To Hudson Cliff came many of Montague's earlier acquaintances, and +others whom he had not met before. They amused themselves in all the +ways with which-he had become familiar at house-parties; likewise on +Christmas Eve there were festivities for the children, and on Christmas +night a costume ball, very beautiful and stately. Many came from New +York to attend this, and others from the neighbourhood; and in +returning calls, Montague saw others of these hill-top mansions. + +Also, and most important of all, they played bridge--as they had played +at every function which he had attended so far. Here Mrs. Winnie, who +had rather taken him up, and threatened to supplant Oliver as his +social guide and chaperon, insisted that no more excuses would be +accepted; and so for two mornings he sat with her in one of the +sun-parlours, and diligently put his mind upon the game. As he proved +an apt pupil, he was then advised that he might take a trial plunge. + +And so Montague came into touch with a new social phenomenon; perhaps +on the whole the most significant and soul-disturbing phenomenon which +Society had exhibited to him. He had just had the experience of getting +a great deal of money without earning it, and was fresh from the +disagreeable memories of it--the trembling and suspense, the burning +lustful greed, the terrible nerve-devouring excitement. He had hoped +that he would not soon have to go through such an experience again-and +here was the prospect of an endless dalliance with it! + +For that was the meaning of bridge; it was a penalty which people were +paying for getting their money without earning it. The disease got into +their blood, and they could no longer live without the excitement of +gain and the hope of gain. So after their labours were over, when they +were supposed to be resting and enjoying themselves, they would get +together and torment themselves with an imitation struggle, mimicking +the grim and dreadful gamble of business. Down in the Street, Oliver +had pointed out to his brother a celebrated "plunger," who had +sometimes won six or eight millions in a single day; and that man would +play at stocks all morning, and "play the ponies" in the afternoon, and +then spend the evening in a millionaires' gambling-house. And so it was +with the bridge fiends. + +It was a social plague; it had run through all Society, high and low. +It had destroyed conversation and all good-fellowship--it would end by +destroying even common decency, and turning the best people into vulgar +gamblers.--Thus spoke Mrs. Billy Alden, who was one of the guests; and +Montague thought that Mrs. Billy ought to know, for she herself was +playing all the time. + +Mrs. Billy did not like Mrs. Winnie Duval; and the beginning of the +conversation was her inquiry why he let that woman corrupt him. Then +the good lady went on to tell him what bridge had come to be; how +people played it on the trains all the way from New York to San +Francisco; how they had tables in their autos, and played while they +were touring over the world. "Once," said she, "I took a party to see +the America's Cup races off Sandy Hook; and when we got back to the +pier, some one called, 'Who won?' And the answer was, 'Mrs. Billy's +ahead, but we're going on this evening.' I took a party of friends +through the Mediterranean and up the Nile, and we passed Venice and +Cairo and the Pyramids and the Suez Canal, and they never once looked +up--they were playing bridge. And you think I'm joking, but I mean just +literally what I say. I know a man who was travelling from New York to +Philadelphia, and got into a game with some strangers, and rode all the +way to Palm Beach to finish it!" + +Montague heard later of a well-known Society leader who was totally +incapacitated that winter, from too much bridge at Newport; and she was +passing the winter at Hot Springs and Palm Beach--and playing bridge +there. They played it even in sanitariums, to which they had been +driven by nervous breakdown. It was an occupation so exhausting to the +physique of women that physicians came to know the symptoms of it, and +before they diagnosed a case, they would ask, "Do you play bridge?" It +had destroyed the last remnants of the Sabbath--it was a universal +custom to have card-parties on that day. + +It was a very expensive game, as they played it in Society; one might +easily win or lose several thousand dollars in an evening, and there +were many who could not afford this. If one did not play, he would be +dropped from the lists of those invited; and when one entered a game, +etiquette required him to stay in until it was finished. So one heard +of young girls who had pawned their family plate, or who had sold their +honour, to pay their bills at the game; and all Society knew of one +youth who had robbed his hostess of her jewels and pawned them, and +then taken her the tickets--telling her that her guests had robbed him. +There were women received in the best Society, who lived as +adventuresses pure and simple, upon their skill at the game; hostesses +would invite rich guests and fleece them. Montague never forgot the +sense of amazement and dismay with which he listened while first Mrs. +Winnie and then his brother warned him that he must avoid playing with +a certain aristocratic dame whom he met in this most aristocratic +household--because she was such a notorious cheater! + +"My dear fellow," laughed his brother, when he protested, "we have a +phrase 'to cheat at cards like a woman.'" And then Oliver went on to +tell him of his own first experience at cards in Society, when he had +played poker with several charming young debutantes; they would call +their hands and take the money without showing their cards, and he had +been too gallant to ask to see them. But later he learned that this was +a regular practice, and so he never played poker with women. And Oliver +pointed out one of these girls to his brother--sitting, as beautiful as +a picture and as cold as marble, with a half-smoked cigarette on the +edge of the table, and whisky and soda and glasses of cracked ice +beside her. Later on, as he chanced to be reading a newspaper, his +brother leaned over his shoulder and pointed out another of the +symptoms of the craze--an advertisement headed, "Your luck will +change." It gave notice that at Rosenstein's Parlours, just off Fifth +Avenue, one might borrow money upon expensive gowns and furs! + +All during the ten days of this house-party, Mrs. Winnie devoted +herself to seeing that Montague had a good time; Mrs. Winnie sat beside +him at table--he found that somehow a convention had been established +which assigned him to Mrs. Winnie as a matter of course. Nobody said +anything to him about it, but knowing how relentlessly the affairs of +other people were probed and analyzed, he began to feel exceedingly +uncomfortable. + +There came a time when he felt quite smothered by Mrs. Winnie; and +immediately after lunch one day he broke away and went for a long walk +by himself. This was the occasion of his meeting with an adventure. + +An inch or two of snow had fallen, and lay gleaming in the sunlight. +The air was keen, and he drank deep draughts of it, and went striding +away over the hills for an hour or so. There was a gale blowing, and as +he came over the summits it would strike him, and he would see the +river white with foam. And then down in the valleys again all would be +still. + +Here, in a thickly wooded place, Montague's attention was arrested +suddenly by a peculiar sound, a heavy thud, which seemed to shake the +earth. It suggested a distant explosion, and he stopped for a moment +and then went on, gazing ahead. He passed a turn, and then he saw a +great tree which had fallen directly across the road. + +He went on, thinking that this was what he had heard. But as he came +nearer, he saw his mistake. Beyond the tree lay something else, and he +began to run toward it. It was two wheels of an automobile, sticking up +into the air. + +He sprang upon the tree-trunk, and in one glance he saw the whole +story. A big touring-car had swept round the sharp turn, and swerved to +avoid the unexpected obstruction, and so turned a somersault into the +ditch. + +Montague gave a thrill of horror, for there was the form of a man +pinned beneath the body of the car. He sprang toward it, but a second +glance made him stop--he saw that blood had gushed from the man's mouth +and soaked the snow all about. His chest was visibly crushed flat, and +his eyes were dreadful, half-started from their sockets. + +For a moment Montague stood staring, as if turned to stone. Then from +the other side of the car came a moan, and he ran toward the sound. A +second man lay in the ditch, moving feebly. Montague sprang to help him. + +The man wore a heavy bearskin coat. Montague lifted him, and saw that +he was a very elderly person, with a cut across his forehead, and a +face as white as chalk. The other helped him to a position with his +back against the bank, and he opened his eyes and groaned. + +Montague knelt beside him, watching his breathing. He had a sense of +utter helplessness--there was nothing he could think of to do, save to +unbutton the man's coat and keep wiping the blood from his face. + +"Some whisky," the stranger moaned. Montague answered that he had none; +but the other replied that there was some in the car. + +The slope of the bank was such that Montague could crawl under, and +find the compartment with the bottle in it. The old man drank some, and +a little colour came back to his face. As the other watched him, it +came to him that this face was familiar; but he could not place it. + +"How many were there with you?" Montague asked; and the man answered, +"Only one." + +Montague went over and made certain that the other man--who was +obviously the chauffeur--was dead. Then he hurried down the road, and +dragged some brush out into the middle of it, where it could be seen +from a distance by any other automobile that came along; after which he +went back to the stranger, and bound his handkerchief about his +forehead to stop the bleeding from the cut. + +The old man's lips were tightly set, as if he were suffering great +pain. "I'm done for!" he moaned, again and again. + +"Where are you hurt?" Montague asked. + +"I don't know," he gasped. "But it's finished me! I know it--it's the +last straw." + +Then he closed his eyes and lay back. "Can't you get a doctor?" he +asked. + +"There are no houses very near," said Montague. "But I can run--" + +"No, no!" the other interrupted, anxiously. "Don't leave me! Some one +will come.--Oh, that fool of a chauffeur--why couldn't he go slow when +I told him? That's always the way with them--they're always trying to +show off." + +"The man is dead," said Montague, quietly. + +The other started upon his elbow. "Dead!" he gasped. + +"Yes," said Montague. "He's under the car." + +The old man's eyes had started wild with fright; and he caught Montague +by the arm. "Dead!" he said. "O my God--and it might have been me!" + +There was a moment's pause. The stranger caught his breath, and +whispered again: "I'm done for! I can't stand it! it's too much!" + +Montague had noticed when he lifted the man that he was very frail and +slight of build. Now he could feel that the hand that held his arm was +trembling violently. It occurred to him that perhaps the man was not +really hurt, but that his nerves had been upset by the shock. + +And he felt certain of this a moment later, when the stranger suddenly +leaned forward, clutching him with redoubled intensity, and staring at +him with wide, horror-stricken eyes. + +"Do you know what it means to be afraid of death?" he panted. "Do you +know what it means to be afraid of death?" + +Then, without waiting for a reply, he rushed on--"No, no! You can't! +you can't! I don't believe any man knows it as I do! Think of it--for +ten years I've never known a minute when I wasn't afraid of death! It +follows me around--it won't let me be! It leaps out at me in places, +like this! And when I escape it, I can hear it laughing at me--for it +knows I can't get away!" + +The old man caught his breath with a choking sob. He was clinging to +Montague like a frightened child, and staring with a wild, hunted look +upon his face. Montague sat transfixed. + +"Yes," the other rushed on, "that's the truth, as God hears me! And +it's the first time I've ever spoken it in my life! I have to hide +it--because men would laugh at me--they pretend they're not afraid! But +I lie awake all night, and it's like a fiend that sits by my bedside! I +lie and listen to my own heart--I feel it beating, and I think how weak +it is, and what thin walls it has, and what a wretched, helpless thing +it is to have your life depend on that!--You don't know what that is, I +suppose." + +Montague shook his head. + +"You're young, you see," said the other. "You have health--everybody +has health, except me! And everybody hates me--I haven't got a friend +in the world!" + +Montague was quite taken aback by the suddenness of this outburst. He +tried to stop it, for he felt almost indecent in listening--it was not +fair to take a man off his guard like this. But the stranger could not +be stopped--he was completely unstrung, and his voice grew louder and +louder. + +"It's every word of it true," he exclaimed wildly. "And I can't stand +it any more. I can't stand anything any more. I was young and strong +once--I could take care of myself; and I said: I'll make money, I'll be +master of other men! But I was a fool--I forgot my health. And now all +the money on earth can't do me any good! I'd give ten million dollars +to-day for a body like any other man's--and this--this is what I have!" + +He struck his hands against his bosom. "Look at it!" he cried, +hysterically. "This is what I've got to live in! It won't digest any +food, and I can't keep it warm--there's nothing right with it! How +would you like to lie awake at night and say to yourself that your +teeth were decaying and you couldn't help it--your hair was falling +out, and nobody could stop it? You're old and worn out--falling to +pieces; and everybody hates you--everybody's waiting for you to die, so +that they can get you out of the way. The doctors come, and they're all +humbugs! They shake their heads and use long words--they know they +can't do you any good, but they want their big fees! And all they do is +to frighten you worse, and make you sicker than ever!" + +There was nothing that Montague could do save to sit and listen to this +outburst of wretchedness. His attempts to soothe the old man only had +the effect of exciting him more. + +"Why does it all have to fall on me?" he moaned. "I want to be like +other people--I want to live! And instead, I'm like a man with a pack +of hungry wolves prowling round him--that's what it's like! It's like +Nature--hungry and cruel and savage! You think you know what life is; +it seems so beautiful and gentle and pleasant--that's when you're on +top! But now I'm down, and I KNOW what it is--it's a thing like a +nightmare, that reaches out for you to clutch you and crush you! And +you can't get away from it--you're helpless as a rat in a +corner--you're damned--you're damned!" The miserable man's voice broke +in a cry of despair, and he sank down in a heap in front of Montague, +shaking and sobbing. The other was trembling slightly, and stricken +with awe. + +There was a long silence, and then the stranger lifted his tear-stained +face, and Montague helped to support him. "Have a little more of the +whisky," said he. + +"No," the other answered feebly, "I'd better not." + +"--My doctors won't let me have whisky," he added, after a while. +"That's my liver. I've so many don'ts, you know, that it takes a +note-book to keep track of them. And all of them together do me no +good! Think of it--I have to live on graham crackers and +milk--actually, not a thing has passed my lips for two years but graham +crackers and milk." + +And then suddenly, with a start, it came to Montague where he had seen +this wrinkled old face before. It was Laura Hegan's uncle, whom the +Major had pointed out to him in the dining-room of the Millionaires' +Club! Old Henry S. Grimes, who was really only sixty, but looked +eighty; and who owned slum tenements, and evicted more people in a +month than could be crowded into the club-house! + +Montague gave no sign, but sat holding the man in his arms. A little +trickle of blood came from under the handkerchief and ran down his +cheek; Montague felt him tremble as he touched this with his ringer. + +"Is it much of a cut?" he asked. + +"Not much," said Montague; "two or three stitches, perhaps." + +"Send for my family physician," the other added. "If I should faint, or +anything, you'll find his name in my card-case. What's that?" + +There was the sound of voices down the road. "Hello!"' Montague +shouted; and a moment later two men in automobile costume came running +toward him. They stopped, staring in dismay at the sight which +confronted them. + +At Montague's suggestion they made haste to find a log by means of +which they lifted the auto sufficiently to drag out the body of the +chauffeur. Montague saw that it was quite cold. + +He went back to old Grimes. "Where do you wish to go?" he asked. + +The other hesitated. "I was bound for the Harrisons'--" he said. + +"The Leslie Harrisons?" asked Montague. (They were people he had met at +the Devons'.) + +The other noticed his look of recognition. "Do you know them?" he asked. + +"I do," said Montague. + +"It isn't far," said the old man. "Perhaps I had best go there."--And +then he hesitated for a moment; and catching Montague by the arm, and +pulling him toward him, whispered, "Tell me--you-you won't tell--" + +Montague, comprehending what he meant, answered, "It will be between +us." At the same time he felt a new thrill of revulsion for this most +miserable old creature. + +They lifted him into the car; and because they delayed long enough to +lay a blanket over the body of the chauffeur, he asked peevishly why +they did not start. During the ten or fifteen minutes' trip he sat +clinging to Montague, shuddering with fright every time they rounded a +turn in the road. + +They reached the Harrisons' place; and the footman who opened the door +was startled out of his studied impassivity by the sight of a big +bundle of bearskin in Montague's arms. "Send for Mrs. Harrison," said +Montague, and laid the bundle upon a divan in the hall. "Get a doctor +as quickly as you can," he added to a second attendant. + +Mrs. Harrison came. "It's Mr. Grimes," said Montague; and then he heard +a frightened exclamation, and turned and saw Laura Hegan, in a walking +costume, fresh from the cold outside. + +"What is it?" she cried. And he told her, as quickly as he could, and +she ran to help the old man. Montague stood by, and later carried him +upstairs, and waited below until the doctor came. + +It was only when he set out for home again that he found time to think +about Laura Hegan, and how beautiful she had looked in her furs. He +wondered if it would always be his fate to meet her under circumstances +which left her no time to be aware of his own existence. + +At home he told about his adventure, and found himself quite a hero for +the rest of the day. He was obliged to give interviews to several +newspaper reporters, and to refuse to let one of them take his picture. +Every one at the Devons' seemed to know old Harry Grimes, and Montague +thought to himself that if the comments of this particular group of +people were a fair sample, the poor wretch was right in saying that he +had not a friend in the world. + +When he came downstairs the next morning, he found elaborate accounts +of the accident in the papers, and learned that Grimes had nothing +worse than a scalp wound and a severe shock. Even so, he felt it was +incumbent upon him to pay a visit of inquiry, and rode over shortly +before lunch. + +Laura Hegan came down to see him, wearing a morning gown of white. She +confirmed the good news of the papers, and said that her uncle was +resting quietly. (She did not say that his physician had come +post-haste, with two nurses, and taken up his residence in the house, +and that the poor old millionaire was denied even his graham crackers +and milk). Instead she said that he had mentioned Montague's kindness +particularly, and asked her to thank him. Montague was cynical enough +to doubt this. + +It was the first time that he had ever had any occasion to talk with +Miss Hegan. He noticed her gentle and caressing voice, with the least +touch of the South in it; and he was glad to find that it was possible +for her to talk without breaking the spell of her serene and noble +beauty. Montague stayed as long as he had any right to stay. + +And all the way as he rode home he was thinking about Laura Hegan. Here +for the first time was a woman whom he felt he should like to know; a +woman with reserve and dignity, and some ideas in her life. And it was +impossible for him to know her--because she was rich! + +There was no dodging this fact--Montague did not even try. He had met +women with fortunes already, and he knew how they felt about +themselves, and how the rest of the world felt about them. They might +wish in their hearts to be something else besides the keepers of a +treasure-chest, but their wishes were futile; the money went with them, +and they had to defend it against all comers. Montague recalled one +heiress after another--debutantes, some of them, exquisite and delicate +as butterflies--but under the surface as hard as chain-armour. All +their lives they had been trained to think of themselves as +representing money, and of every one who came near them as adventurers +seeking money. In every word they uttered, in every glance and motion, +one might read this meaning. And then he thought of Laura Hegan, with +the fortune she would inherit; and he pictured what her life must +be--the toadies and parasites and flatterers who would lay siege to +her--the scheming mammas and the affectionate sisters and cousins who +would plot to gain her confidence! For a man who was poor, and who +meant to keep his self-respect, was there any possible conclusion +except that she was entirely unknowable to him? + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Montague came back to the city, and dug into his books again; while +Alice gave her spare hours to watching the progress of the new gown in +which she was to uphold the honour of the family at Mrs. Devon's +opening ball. The great event was due in the next week and Society was +as much excited about it as a family of children before Christmas. All +whom Montague met were invited and all were going unless they happened +to be in mourning. Their gossip was all of the disappointed ones, and +their bitterness and heartburning. + +Mrs. Devon's mansion was thrown open early on the eventful evening, but +few would come until midnight. It was the fashion to attend the Opera +first, and previous to that half a dozen people would give big dinners. +He was a fortunate person who did not hear from his liver after this +occasion; for at one o'clock came Mrs. Devon's massive supper, and then +again at four o'clock another supper. To prepare these repasts a dozen +extra chefs had been imported into the Devon establishment for a +week--for it was part of the great lady's pride to permit no outside +caterer to prepare anything for her guests. + +Montague had never been able to get over his wonder at the social +phenomenon known as Mrs. Devon. He came and took his chances in the +jostling throngs; and except that he got into casual conversation with +one of the numerous detectives whom he took for a guest he came off +fairly well. But all the time that he was being passed about and +introduced and danced with, he was looking about him and wondering. The +grand staircase and the hall and parlours had been turned into tropical +gardens, with palms and trailing vines, and azaleas and roses, and +great vases of scarlet poinsettia, with hundreds of lights glowing +through them. (It was said that this ball had exhausted the flower +supply of the country as far south as Atlanta.) And then in the +reception room one came upon the little old lady, standing' beneath a +bower of orchids. She was clad in a robe of royal purple trimmed with +silver, and girdled about with an armour-plate of gems. If one might +credit the papers, the diamonds that were worn at one of these balls +were valued at twenty million dollars. + +The stranger was quite overwhelmed by all the splendour. There was a +cotillion danced by two hundred gorgeously clad women and their +partners--a scene so gay that one could only think of it as happening +in a fairy legend, or some old romance of knighthood. Four sets of +favours were given during this function, and jewels and objects of art +were showered forth as if from a magician's wand. Mrs. Devon herself +soon disappeared, but the riot of music and merry-making went on until +near morning, and during all this time the halls and rooms of the great +mansion were so crowded that one could scarcely move about. + +Then one went home, and realized that all this splendour, and the human +effort which it represented, had been for nothing but a memory! Nor +would he get the full meaning of it if he failed to realize that it was +simply one of thousands--a pattern which every one there would strive +to follow in some function of his own. It was a signal bell, which told +the world that the "season" was open. It loosed the floodgates of +extravagance, and the torrent of dissipation poured forth. From then on +there would be a continuous round of gaieties; one might have three +banquets every single night--for a dinner and two suppers was now the +custom, at entertainments! And filling the rest of one's day were +receptions and teas and musicales--a person might take his choice among +a score of opportunities, and never leave the circle he met at Mrs. +Devon's. Nor was this counting the tens of thousands of aspirants and +imitators all over the city; nor in a host of other cities, each with +thousands of women who had nothing to do save to ape the ways of the +Metropolis. The mind could not realize the volume of this deluge of +destruction--it was a thing which stunned the senses, and thundered in +one's ears like Niagara. + +The meaning of it all did not stop with the people who poured it forth; +its effects were to be traced through the whole country. There were +hordes of tradesmen and manufacturers who supplied what Society bought, +and whose study it was to induce people to buy as much as possible. And +so they devised what were called "fashions"--little eccentricities of +cut and material, which made everything go out of date quickly. There +had once been two seasons, but now there were four; and through window +displays and millions of advertisements the public was lured into the +trap. The "yellow" journals would give whole pages to describing "What +the 400 are wearing"; there were magazines with many millions of +readers, which existed for nothing save to propagate these ideas. And +everywhere, in all classes of Society, men and women were starving +their minds and hearts, and straining their energies to follow this +phantom of fashion; the masses were kept poor because of it, and the +youth and hope of the world was betrayed by it. In country villages +poor farmers' wives were trimming their bonnets over to be "stylish"; +and servant-girls in the cities were wearing imitation sealskins, and +shop-clerks and sempstresses selling themselves into brothels for the +sake of ribbons and gilt jewellery. + +It was the instinct of decoration, perverted by the money-lust. In the +Metropolis the sole test of excellence was money, and the possession of +money was the proof of power; and every natural desire of men and women +had been tainted by this influence. The love of beauty, the impulse to +hospitality, the joys of music and dancing and love--all these things +had become simply means to the demonstration of money-power! The men +were busy making more money--but their idle women had nothing in life +save this mad race in display. So it had come about that the woman who +could consume wealth most conspicuously--who was the most effective +instrument for the destroying of the labour and the lives of other +people--this was the woman who was most applauded and most noticed. + +The most appalling fact about Society was this utter blind materialism. +Such expectations as Montague had brought with him had been derived +from the literature of Europe; in a grand monde such as this, he +expected to meet diplomats and statesmen, scientists and explorers, +philosophers and poets and painters. But one never heard anything about +such people in Society. It was a mark of eccentricity to be interested +in intellectual affairs, and one might go about for weeks and not meet +a person with an idea. When these people read, it was a sugar-candy +novel, and when they went to the play, it was a musical comedy. The one +single intellectual product which it could point to as its own, was a +rancid scandal-sheet, used mainly as a means of blackmail. Now and then +some aspiring young matron of the "elite" would try to set up a salon +after the fashion of the continent, and would gather a few feeble wits +about her for a time. But for the most part the intellectual workers of +the city held themselves severely aloof; and Society was left a little +clique of people whose fortunes had become historic in a decade or two, +and who got together in each other's palaces and gorged themselves, and +gambled and gossiped about each other, and wove about their +personalities a veil of awful and exclusive majesty. + +Montague found himself thinking that perhaps it was not they who were +to blame. It was not they who had set up wealth as the end and goal of +things--it was the whole community, of which they were a part. It was +not their fault that they had been left with power and nothing to use +it for; it was not their fault that their sons and daughters found +themselves stranded in the world, deprived of all necessity, and of the +possibility of doing anything useful. + +The most pitiful aspect of the whole thing to Montague was this "second +generation" who were coming upon the scene, with their lives all +poisoned in advance. No wrong which they could do to the world would +ever equal the wrong which the world had done them, in permitting them +to have money which they had not earned. They were cut off for ever +from reality, and from the possibility of understanding life; they had +big, healthy bodies, and they craved experience--and they had +absolutely nothing to do. That was the real meaning of all this orgy of +dissipation--this "social whirl" as it was called; it was the frantic +chase of some new thrill, some excitement that would stir the senses of +people who had nothing in the world to interest them. That was why they +were building palaces, and flinging largesses of banquets and balls, +and tearing about the country in automobiles, and travelling over the +earth in steam yachts and private trains. + +And first and last, the lesson of their efforts was, that the chase +was futile; the jaded nerves would not thrill. The most conspicuous +fact about Society was its unutterable and agonizing boredom; of its +great solemn functions the shop-girl would read with greedy envy, but +the women who attended them would be half asleep behind their jewelled +fans. It was typified to Montague by Mrs. Billy Alden's yachting party +on the Nile; yawning in the face of the Sphinx, and playing bridge +beneath the shadow of the pyramids--and counting the crocodiles and +proposing to jump in by way of "changing the pain"! + +People attended these ceaseless rounds of entertainments, simply +because they dreaded to be left alone. They wandered from place to +place, following like a herd of sheep whatever leader would inaugurate +a new diversion. One could have filled a volume with the list of their +"fads." There were new ones every week--if Society did not invent them, +the yellow journals invented them. There was a woman who had her teeth +filled with diamonds; and another who was driving a pair of zebras. One +heard of monkey dinners and pyjama dinners at Newport, of horseback +dinners and vegetable dances in New York. One heard of fashion-albums +and autograph-fans and talking crows and rare orchids and reindeer +meat; of bracelets for men and ankle rings for women; of "vanity-boxes" +at ten and twenty thousand dollars each; of weird and repulsive pets, +chameleons and lizards and king-snakes--there was one young woman who +wore a cat-snake as a necklace. One would take to slumming and another +to sniffing brandy through the nose; one had a table-cover made of +woven roses, and another was wearing perfumed flannel at sixteen +dollars a yard; one had inaugurated ice-skating in August, and another +had started a class for the study of Plato. Some were giving tennis +tournaments in bathing-suits, and playing leap-frog after dinner; +others had got dispensations from the Pope, so that they might have +private chapels and confessors; and yet others were giving "progressive +dinners," moving from one restaurant to another--a cocktail and +blue-points at Sherry's, a soup and Madeira at Delmonico's, some +terrapin with amontillado at the Waldorf--and so on. + +One of the consequences of the furious pace was that people's health +broke down very quickly; and there were all sorts of bizarre ways of +restoring it. One person would be eating nothing but spinach, and +another would be living on grass. One would chew a mouthful of soup +thirty-two times; another would eat every two hours, and another only +once a week. Some went out in the early morning and walked bare-footed +in the grass, and others went hopping about the floor on their hands +and knees to take off fat. There were "rest cures" and "water cures," +"new thought" and "metaphysical healing" and "Christian Science"; there +was an automatic horse, which one might ride indoors, with a register +showing the distance travelled. Montague met one man who had an +electric machine, which cost thirty thousand dollars, and which took +hold of his arms and feet and exercised him while he waited. He met a +woman who told him she was riding an electric camel! + +Everywhere one went there were new people, spending their money in new +and incredible ways. Here was a man who had bought a chapel and turned +it into a theatre, and hired professional actors, and persuaded his +friends to come and see him act Shakespeare. Here was a woman who +costumed herself after figures in famous paintings, with arrangements +of roses and cherry leaves, and wreaths of ivy and laurel--and with +costumes for her pet dogs to match! Here was a man who paid six dollars +a day for a carnation four inches across; and a girl who wore a hat +trimmed with fresh morning-glories, and a ball costume with swarms of +real butterflies tied with silk threads; and another with a hat made of +woven silver, with ostrich plumes forty inches long made entirely of +silver films. Here was a man who hired a military company to drill all +day long to prepare a floor for dancing; and another who put up a +building at a cost of thirty thousand dollars to give a debutante dance +for his daughter, and then had it torn down the day after. Here was a +man who bred rattlesnakes and turned them loose by thousands, and had +driven everybody away from the North Carolina estate of one of the +Wallings. Here was a man who was building himself a yacht with a model +dairy and bakery on board, and a French laundry and a brass band. Here +was a million-dollar racing-yacht with auto-boats on it and a platoon +of marksmen, and some Chinese laundrymen, and two physicians for its +half-insane occupant. Here was a man who had bought a Rhine castle for +three-quarters of a million, and spent as much in restoring it, and +filled it with servants dressed in fourteenth-century costumes. Here +was a five-million-dollar art collection hidden away where nobody ever +saw it! + +One saw the meaning of this madness most clearly in the young men of +Society. Some were killing themselves and other people in automobile +races at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Some went in for +auto-boats, mere shells of things, shaped like a knife-blade, that tore +through the water at forty miles an hour. Some would hire professional +pugilists to knock them out; others would get up dog-fights and +bear-fights, and boxing matches with kangaroos. Montague was taken to +the home of one young man who had given his life to hunting wild game +in every corner of the globe, and would travel round the world for a +new species to add to his museum of trophies. He had heard that Baron +Rothschild had offered a thousand pounds for a "bongo," a huge +grass-eating animal, which no white man had ever seen; and he had taken +a year's trip into the interior, with a train of a hundred and thirty +natives, and had brought out the heads of forty different species, +including a bongo--which the Baron did not get! He met another who had +helped to organize a balloon club, and two twenty-four-hour trips in +the clouds. (This, by the way, was the latest sport--at Tuxedo they had +races between balloons and automobiles; and Montague met one young lady +who boasted that she had been up five times.) There was another young +millionaire who sat and patiently taught Sunday School, in the presence +of a host of reporters; there was another who set up a chain of +newspapers all over the country and made war upon his class. There were +others who went in for settlement work and Russian +revolutionists--there were even some who called themselves Socialists! +Montague thought that this was the strangest fad of all; and when he +met one of these young men at an afternoon tea, he gazed at him with +wonder and perplexity--thinking of the man he had heard ranting on the +street-corner. + +This was the "second generation." Appalling as it was to think of, +there was a third growing up, and getting ready to take the stage. And +with wealth accumulating faster than ever, who could guess what they +might do? There were still in Society a few men and women who had +earned their money, and had some idea of the toil and suffering that it +stood for; but when the third generation had taken possession, these +would all be dead or forgotten, and there would no longer be any link +to connect them with reality! + +In the light of this thought one was moved to watch the children of the +rich. Some of these had inherited scores of millions of dollars while +they were still in the cradle; now and then one of them would be +presented with a million-dollar house for a birthday gift. When such a +baby was born, the newspapers would give pages to describing its +layette, with baby dresses at a hundred dollars each, and lace +handkerchiefs at five dollars, and dressing-sets with tiny gold brushes +and powder-boxes; one might see a picture of the precious object in a +"Moses basket," covered with rare and wonderful Valenciennes lace. + +This child would grow up in an atmosphere of luxury and +self-indulgence; it would be bullying the servants at the age of six, +and talking scandal and smoking cigarettes at twelve. It would be +petted and admired and stared at, and paraded about in state, dressed +up like a French doll; it would drink in snobbery and hatefulness with +the very air it breathed. One might meet in these great houses little +tots not yet in their teens whose talk was all of the cost of things, +and of the inferiority of their neighbours. There was nothing in the +world too good for them.--They had little miniature automobiles to ride +about the country in, and blooded Arabian ponies, and doll-houses in +real Louis Seize, with jewelled rugs and miniature electric lights. At +Mrs. Caroline Smythe's, Montague was introduced to a pale and +anaemic-looking youth of thirteen, who dined in solemn state alone when +the rest of the family was away, and insisted upon having all the +footmen in attendance; and his unfortunate aunt brought a storm about +her ears by forbidding the butler to take champagne upstairs into the +nursery before lunch. + +A little remark stayed in Montague's mind as expressing the attitude of +Society toward such matters. Major Venable had chanced to remark +jestingly that children were coming to understand so much nowadays that +it was necessary for the ladies to be careful. To which Mrs. Vivie +Patton answered, with a sudden access of seriousness: "I don't know--do +you find that children have any morals? Mine haven't." + +And then the fascinating Mrs. Vivie went on to tell the truth about her +own children. They were natural-born savages, and that was all there +was to it. They did as they pleased, and no one could stop them. The +Major replied that nowadays all the world was doing as it pleased, and +no one seemed to be able to stop it; and with that jest the +conversation was turned to other matters. But Montague sat in silence, +thinking about it--wondering what would happen to the world when it had +fallen under the sway of this generation of spoiled children, and had +adopted altogether the religion of doing as one pleased. + +In the beginning people had simply done as they pleased spontaneously, +and without thinking about it; but now, Montague discovered, the custom +had spread to such an extent that it was developing a philosophy. There +was springing up a new cult, whose devotees were planning to make over +the world upon the plan of doing as one pleased. Because its members +were wealthy, and able to command the talent of the world, the cult was +developing an art, with a highly perfected technique, and a literature +which was subtle and exquisite and alluring. Europe had had such a +literature for a century, and England for a generation or two. And now +America was having it, too! + +Montague had an amusing insight into this one day, when Mrs. Vivie +invited him to one of her "artistic evenings." Mrs. Vivie was in touch +with a special set which went in for intellectual things, and included +some amateur Bohemians and men of "genius." "Don't you come if you'll +be shocked," she had said to him--"for Strathcona will be there." + +Montague deemed himself able to stand a good deal by this time. He +went, and found Mrs. Vivie and her Count (Mr. Vivie had apparently not +been invited) and also the young poet of Diabolism, whose work was just +then the talk of the town. He was a tall, slender youth with a white +face and melancholy black eyes, and black locks falling in cascades +about his ears; he sat in an Oriental corner, with a manuscript copied +in tiny handwriting upon delicately scented "art paper," and tied with +passionate purple ribbons. A young girl clad in white sat by his side +and held a candle, while he read from this manuscript his unprinted +(because unprintable) verses. + +And between the readings the young poet talked. He talked about himself +and his work--apparently that was what he had come to talk about. His +words flowed like a swift stream, limpid, sparkling, incessant; leaping +from place to place--here, there, quick as the play of light upon the +water. Montague laboured to follow the speaker's ideas, until he found +his mind in a whirl and gave it up. Afterward, when he thought it over, +he laughed at himself; for Strathcona's ideas were not serious things, +having relationship to truth--they were epigrams put together to dazzle +the hearer, studies in paradox, with as much relation to life as +fireworks. He took the sum-total of the moral experience of the human +race, and turned it upside down and jumbled it about, and used it as +bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. And the hearers would gasp, and +whisper, "Diabolical!" + +The motto of this "school" of poets was that there was neither good nor +evil, but that all things were "interesting." After listening to +Strathcona for half an hour, one felt like hiding his head, and denying +that he had ever thought of having any virtue; in a world where all +things were uncertain, it was presumptuous even to pretend to know what +virtue was. One could only be what one was; and did not that mean that +one must do as one pleased? + +You could feel a shudder run through the company at his audacity. And +the worst of it was that you could not dismiss it with a laugh; for the +boy was really a poet--he had fire and passion, the gift of melodious +ecstacy. He was only twenty, and in his brief meteor flight he had run +the gamut of all experience; he had familiarized himself with all human +achievement--past, present, and future. There was nothing any one could +mention that he did not perfectly comprehend: the raptures of the +saints, the consecration of the martyrs--yes, he had known them; +likewise he had touched the depths of depravity, he had been lost in +the innermost passages of the caverns of hell. And all this had been +interesting--in its time; now he was sighing for new worlds of +experience--say for unrequited love, which should drive him to madness. + +It was at this point that Montague dropped out of the race, and took to +studying from the outside the mechanism of this young poet's +conversation. Strathcona flouted the idea of a moral sense; but in +reality he was quite dependent upon it--his recipe for making epigrams +was to take what other people's moral sense made them respect, and +identify it with something which their moral sense made them abhor. +Thus, for instance, the tale which he told about one of the members of +his set, who was a relative of a bishop. The great man had occasion to +rebuke him for his profligate ways, declaring in the course of his +lecture that he was living off the reputation of his father; to which +the boy made the crushing rejoinder: "It may be bad to live off the +reputation of one's father, but it's better than living off the +reputation of God."--This was very subtle and it was necessary to +ponder it. God was dead; and the worthy bishop did not know it! But let +him take a new God, who had no reputation, and go out into the world +and make a living out of him! + +Then Strathcona discussed literature. He paid his tribute to the +"Fleurs de Mal" and the "Songs before Sunrise"; but most, he said, he +owed to "the divine Oscar." This English poet of many poses and some +vices the law had seized and flung into jail; and since the law is a +thing so brutal and wicked that whoever is touched by it is made +thereby a martyr and a hero, there had grown up quite a cult about the +memory of "Oscar." All up-to-date poets imitated his style and his +attitude to life; and so the most revolting of vices had the cloak of +romance flung about them--were given long Greek and Latin names, and +discussed with parade of learning as revivals of Hellenic ideals. The +young men in Strathcona's set referred to each other as their "lovers"; +and if one showed any perplexity over this, he was regarded, not with +contempt--for it was not aesthetic to feel contempt--but with a slight +lifting of the eyebrows, intended to annihilate. + +One must not forget, of course, that these young people were poets, and +to that extent were protected from their own doctrines. They were +interested, not in life, but in making pretty verses about life; there +were some among them who lived as cheerful ascetics in garret rooms, +and gave melodious expression to devilish emotions. But, on the other +hand, for every poet, there were thousands who were not poets, but +people to whom life was real. And these lived out the creed, and +wrecked their lives; and with the aid of the poet's magic, the glamour +of melody and the fire divine, they wrecked the lives with which they +came into contact. The new generation of boys and girls were deriving +their spiritual sustenance from the poetry of Baudelaire and Wilde; and +rushing with the hot impulsiveness of youth into the dreadful traps +which the traders in vice prepared for them. One's heart bled to see +them, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, pursuing the hem of the Muse's robe +in brothels and dens of infamy! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The social mill ground on for another month. Montague withdrew himself +as much as his brother would let him; but Alice, was on the go all +night and half the day. Oliver had sold his racing automobile to a +friend--he was a man of family now, he said, and his wild days were +over. He had got, instead, a limousine car for Alice; though she +declared she had no need of it--if ever she was going to any place, +Charlie Carter always begged her to use his. Charlie's siege was as +persistent as ever, as Montague noticed with annoyance. + +The great law case was going forward. After weeks of study and +investigation, Montague felt that he had the matter well in hand; and +he had taken Mr. Hasbrook's memoranda as a basis for a new work of his +own, much more substantial. Bit by bit; as he dug into the subject, he +had discovered a state of affairs in the Fidelity Company, and, indeed, +in the whole insurance business and its allied realms of banking and +finance, which shocked him profoundly. It was impossible for him to +imagine how such conditions could exist and remain unknown to the +public--more especially as every one in Wall Street with whom he talked +seemed to know about them and to take them for granted. + +His client's papers had provided him with references to the books; +Montague had taken this dry material and made of it a protest which had +the breath of life in it. It was a thing at which he toiled with deadly +earnestness; it was not merely a struggle of one man to get a few +thousand dollars, it was an appeal in behalf of millions of helpless +people whose trust had been betrayed. It was the first step in a long +campaign, which the young lawyer meant should force a great evil into +the light of day. + +He went over his bill of complaint with Mr. Hasbrook, and he was glad +to see that the work he had done made its impression upon him. In fact, +his client was a little afraid that some of his arguments might be too +radical in tone--from the strictly legal point of view, he made haste +to explain. But Montague reassured him upon this point. + +And then came the day when the great ship was ready for launching. The +news must have spread quickly, for a few hours after the papers in the +suit had been filed, Montague received a call from a newspaper +reporter, who told him of the excitement in financial circles, where +the thing had fallen like a bomb. Montague explained the purpose of the +suit, and gave the reporter a number of facts which he felt certain +would attract attention to the matter. When he picked up the paper the +next morning, however, he was surprised to find that only a few lines +had been given to the case, and that his interview had been replaced by +one with an unnamed official of the Fidelity, to the effect that the +attack upon the company was obviously for black-mailing purposes. + +That was the only ripple which Montague's work produced upon the +surface of the pool; but there was a great commotion among the fish at +the bottom, about which he was soon to learn. + +That evening, while he was hard at work in his study, he received a +telephone call from his brother. "I'm coming round to see you," said +Oliver. "Wait for me." + +"All right," said the other, and added, "I thought you were dining at +the Wallings'." + +"I'm there now," was the answer. "I'm leaving." + +"What is the matter?" Montague asked. + +"There's hell to pay," was the reply--and then silence. + +When Oliver appeared, a few minutes later, he did not even stop to set +down his hat, but exclaimed, "Allan, what in heaven's name have you +been doing?" + +"What do you mean?" asked the other. + +"Why, that suit!" + +"What about it?" + +"Good God, man!" cried Oliver. "Do you mean that you really don't know +what you've done?" + +Montague was staring at him. "I'm afraid I don't," said he. + +"Why, you're turning the world upside down!" exclaimed the other. +"Everybody you know is crazy about it." + +"Everybody I know!" echoed Montague. "What have they to do with it?" + +"Why, you've stabbed them in the back!" half shouted Oliver. "I could +hardly believe my ears when they told me. Robbie Walling is simply +wild--I never had such a time in my life." + +"I don't understand yet," said Montague, more and more amazed. "What +has he to do with it?" + +"Why, man," cried Oliver, "his brother's a director in the Fidelity! +And his own interests--and all the other companies! You've struck at +the whole insurance business!" + +Montague caught his breath. "Oh, I see!" he said. + +"How could you think of such a thing?" cried the other, wildly. "You +promised to consult me about things--" + +"I told you when I took this case," put in Montague, quickly. + +"I know," said his brother. "But you didn't explain--and what did I +know about it? I thought I could leave it to your common sense not to +mix up in a thing like this." + +"I'm very sorry," said Montague, gravely. "I had no idea of any such +result." + +"That's what I told Robbie," said Oliver. "Good God, what a time I had!" + +He took his hat and coat and laid them on the bed, and sat down and +began to tell about it. "I made him realize the disadvantage you were +under," he said, "being a stranger and not knowing the ground. I +believe he had an idea that you tried to get his confidence on purpose +to attack him. It was Mrs. Robbie, I guess--you know her fortune is all +in that quarter." + +Oliver wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "My!" he said.--"And +fancy what old Wyman must be saying about this! And what a time poor +Betty must be having! And then Freddie Vandam--the air will be blue for +half a mile round his place! I must send him a wire and explain that it +was a mistake, and that we're getting out of it." + +And he got up, to suit the action to the word. But half-way to the desk +he heard his brother say, "Wait." + +He turned, and saw Montague, quite pale. "I suppose by 'getting out of +it,'" said the latter, "you mean dropping the case." + +"Of course," was the answer. + +"Well, then," he continued, very gravely,--"I can see that it's going +to be hard, and I'm sorry. But you might as well understand me at the +very beginning--I will never drop this case." + +Oliver's jaw fell limp. "Allan!" he gasped. + +There was a silence; and then the storm broke. Oliver knew his brother +well enough to realize just how thoroughly he meant what he said; and +so he got the full force of the shock all at once. He raved and swore +and wrung his hands, and declaimed at his brother, saying that he had +betrayed him, that he was ruining him--dumping himself and the whole +family into the ditch. They would be jeered at and insulted--they would +be blacklisted and thrown out of Society. Alice's career would be cut +short--every door would be closed to her. His own career would die +before it was born; he would never get into the clubs--he would be a +pariah--he would be bankrupted and penniless. Again and again Oliver +went over the situation, naming person after person who would be +outraged, and describing what that person would do; there were the +Wallings and the Venables and the Havens, the Vandams and the Todds and +the Wymans--they were all one regiment, and Montague had flung a bomb +into the centre of them! + +It was very terrible to him to see his brother's rage and despair; but +he had seen his way clear through this matter, and he knew that there +was no turning back for him. "It is painful to learn that all one's +acquaintances are thieves," he said. "But that does not change my +opinion of stealing." + +"But my God!" cried Oliver; "did you come to New York to preach +sermons?" + +To which the other answered, "I came to practise law. And the lawyer +who will not fight injustice is a traitor to his profession." + +Oliver threw up his hands in despair. What could one say to a sentiment +such as that? + +--But then again he came to the charge, pointing out to his brother the +position in which he had placed himself with the Wallings. He had +accepted their hospitality; they had taken him and Alice in, and done +everything in the world for them--things for which no money could ever +repay them. And now he had struck them! + +But the only effect of that was to make Montague regret that he had +ever had anything to do with the Wallings. If they expected to use +their friendship to tie his hands in such a matter, they were people he +would have left alone. + +"But do you realize that it's not merely yourself you're ruining?" +cried Oliver. "Do you know what you're doing to Alice?" + +"That is harder yet for me," the other replied. "But I am sure that +Alice would not ask me to stop." + +Montague was firmly set in his own mind; but it seemed to be quite +impossible for his brother to realize that this was the case. He would +give up; but then, going back into his own mind, and facing the thought +of this person and that, and the impossibility of the situation which +would arise, he would return to the attack with new anguish in his +voice. He implored and scolded, and even wept; and then he would get +himself together again, and come and sit in front of his brother and +try to reason with him. + +And so it was that in the small hours of the morning, Montague, pale +and nervous, but quite unshaken, was sitting and listening while his +brother unfolded before him a picture of the Metropolis as he had come +to see it. It was a city ruled by mighty forces--money-forces; great +families and fortunes, which had held their sway for generations, and +regarded the place, with all its swarming millions, as their +birthright. They possessed it utterly--they held it in the hollow of +their hands. Railroads and telegraphs and telephones--banks and +insurance and trust companies--all these they owned; and the political +machines and the legislatures, the courts and the newspapers, the +churches and the colleges. And their rule was for plunder; all the +streams of profit ran into their coffers. The stranger who came to +their city succeeded as he helped them in their purposes, and failed if +they could not use him. A great editor or bishop was a man who taught +their doctrines; a great statesman was a man who made the laws for +them; a great lawyer was one who helped them to outwit the public. Any +man who dared to oppose them, they would cast out and trample on, they +would slander and ridicule and ruin. + +And Oliver came down to particulars--he named these powerful men, one +after one, and showed what they could do. If his brother would only be +a man of the world, and see the thing! Look at all the successful +lawyers! Oliver named them, one after one--shrewd devisers of +corporation trickery, with incomes of hundreds of thousands a year. He +could not name the men who had refused to play the game--for no one had +ever heard of them. But it was so evident what would happen in this +case! His friends would cast him off; his own client would get his +price--whatever it was--and then leave him in the lurch, and laugh at +him! "If you can't make up your mind to play the game," cried Oliver, +frantically, "at least you can give it up! There are plenty of other +ways of getting a living--if you'll let me, I'll take care of you +myself, rather than have you disgrace me. Tell me--will you do that? +Will you quit altogether?" + +And Montague suddenly leaped to his feet, and brought his fist down +upon the desk with a bang. "No!" he cried; "by God, no!" + +"Let me make you understand me once for all," he rushed on. "You've +shown me New York as you see it. I don't believe it's the truth--I +don't believe it for one single moment! But let me tell you this, I +shall stay here and find out--and if it is true, it won't stop me! I +shall stay here and defy those people! I shall stay and fight them till +the day I die! They may ruin me,--I'll go and live in a garret if I +have to,--but as sure as there's a God that made me, I'll never stop +till I've opened the eyes of the people to what they're doing!" + +Montague towered over his brother, white-hot and terrible. Oliver +shrank from him--he never had seen such a burst of wrath from him +before. "Do you understand me now?" Montague cried; and he answered, in +a despairing voice, "Yes, yes." + +"I see it's all up," he added weakly. "You and I can't pull together." + +"No," exclaimed the other, passionately, "we can't. And we might as +well give up trying. You have chosen to be a time-server and a +lick-spittle, and I don't choose it! Do you think I've learned nothing +in the time I've been here? Why, man, you used to be daring and +clever--and now you never draw a breath without wondering if these rich +snobs will like the way you do it! And you want Alice to sell herself +to them--you want me to sell my career to them!" + +There was a long pause. Oliver had turned very pale. And then suddenly +his brother caught himself together, and said: "I'm sorry. I didn't +mean to quarrel, but you've goaded me too much. I'm grateful for what +you have tried to do for me, and I'll pay you back as soon as I can. +But I can't go on with this game. I'll quit, and you can disown me to +your friends--tell them that I've run amuck, and to forget they ever +knew me. They'll hardly blame you for it--they know you too well for +that. And as for Alice, I'll talk it out with her to-morrow, and let +her decide for herself--if she wants to be a Society queen, she can put +herself in your hands, and I'll get out of her way. On the other hand, +if she approves of what I'm doing, why we'll both quit, and you won't +have to bother with either of us." + +That was the basis upon which they parted for the night; but like most +resolutions taken at white heat, it was not followed literally. It was +very hard for Montague to have to confront Alice with such a choice; +and as for Oliver, when he went home and thought it over, he began to +discover gleams of hope. He might make it clear to every one that he +was not responsible for his brother's business vagaries, and take his +chances upon that basis. After all, there were wheels within wheels in +Society; and if the Robbie Wallings chose to break with him--why, they +had plenty of enemies. There might even be interests which would be +benefited by Allan's course, and would take him up. + +Montague had resolved to write and break every engagement which he had +made, and to sever his connection with Society at one stroke. But the +next day his brother came again, with compromises and new +protestations. There was no use going to the other extreme: he, Oliver, +would have it out with the Wallings, and they might all go on their way +as if nothing had happened. + +So Montague made his debut in the role of knight-errant. He went with +many qualms and misgivings, uncertain how each new person would take +it. The next evening he was promised for a theatre-party with Siegfried +Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at Delmonico's, and there +came Mrs. Winnie, resplendent as an apple tree in early April--and +murmuring with bated breath, "Oh, you dreadful man, what have you been +doing?" + +"Have I been poaching on YOUR preserves?" he asked promptly. + +"No, not mine," she said, "but--" and then she hesitated. + +"On Mr. Duval's?" he asked. + +"No," she said, "not his--but everybody else's! He was telling me about +it to-day--there's a most dreadful uproar. He wanted me to try to find +out what you were up to, and who was behind it." + +Montague listened, wonderingly. Did Mrs. Winnie mean to imply that her +husband had asked her to try to worm his business secrets out of him? +That was what she seemed to imply. "I told him I never talked business +with my friends," she said. "He can ask you himself, if he chooses. But +what DOES it all mean, anyhow?" + +Montague smiled at the naive inconsistency. + +"It means nothing," said he, "except that I am trying to get justice +for a client." + +"But can you afford to make so many powerful enemies?" she asked. + +"I've taken my chances on that," he replied. + +Mrs. Winnie answered nothing, but looked at him with wondering +admiration in her eyes. "You arc different from the men about you," she +remarked, after a while-and her tone gave Montague to understand that +there was one person who meant to stand by him. + +But Mrs. Winnie Duval was not all Society. Montague was amused to +notice with what suddenness the stream of invitations slacked up; it +was necessary for Alice to give her calling list many revisions. +Freddie Vandam had promised to invite them to his place on Long Island, +and of course that invitation would never come; likewise they would +never again see the palace of the Lester Todds, upon the Jersey +mountain-top. + +Oliver put in the next few days in calling upon people to explain his +embarrassing situation. He washed his hands of his brother's affairs, +he said; and his friends might do the same, if they saw fit. With the +Robbie Wallings he had a stormy half hour, about which he thought it +best to say little to the rest of the family. Robbie did not break with +him utterly, because of their Wall Street Alliance; but Mrs. Robbie's +feeling was so bitter, he said, that it would be best if Alice saw +nothing of her for a while. He had a long talk with Alice, and +explained the situation. The girl was utterly dumbfounded, for she was +deeply grateful to Mrs. Robbie, and fond of her as well; and she could +not believe that a friend could be so cruelly unjust to her. + +The upshot of the whole situation was a very painful episode. A few +days later Alice met Mrs. Robbie at a reception; and she took the lady +aside, and tried to tell her how distressed and helpless she was. And +the result was that Mrs. Robbie flew into a passion and railed at her, +declaring in the presence of several people that she had sponged upon +her and abused her hospitality! And so poor Alice came home, weeping +and half hysterical. + +All of which, of course, was like oil upon a fire; the heavens were +lighted up with the conflagration. The next development was a paragraph +in Society's scandal-sheet--telling with infinite gusto how a certain +ultra-fashionable matron had taken up a family of stranded waifs from a +far State, and introduced them into the best circles, and even gone so +far as to give a magnificent dance in their honour; and how the +discovery had been made that the head of the family had been secretly +preparing an attack upon their business interests; and of the tearing +of hair and gnashing of teeth which had followed--and the violent +quarrel in a public place. The paragraph concluded with the prediction +that the strangers would find themselves the centre of a merry social +war. + +Oliver was the first to show them this paper. But lest by any chance +they should miss it, half a dozen unknown friends were good enough to +mail them copies, carefully marked.--And then came Reggie Mann, who as +free-lance and gossip-gatherer sat on the fence and watched the fun; +Reggie wore a thin veil of sympathy over his naked glee, and brought +them the latest reports from all portions of the battle-ground. Thus +they were able to know exactly what everybody was saying about +them--who was amused and who was outraged, and who proposed to drop +them and who to take them up. + +Montague listened for a while, but then he got tired of it, and went +for a walk to escape it--but only to run into another trap. It was +dark, and he was strolling down the Avenue, when out of a brilliantly +lighted jewellery shop came Mrs. Billy Alden to her carriage. And she +hailed him with an exclamation. + +"You man," she cried, "what have you been doing?" + +He tried to laugh it off and escape, but she took him by the arm, +commanding, "Get in here and tell me about it." + +So he found himself moving with the slow stream of vehicles on the +Avenue, and with Mrs. Billy gazing at him quizzically and asking him if +he did not feel like a hippopotamus in a frog-pond. + +He replied to her raillery by asking her under which flag she stood. +But there was little need to ask that, for anyone who was fighting a +Walling became ipso facto a friend of Mrs. Billy's. She told Montague +that if he felt his social position was imperilled, all he had to do +was to come to her. She would gird on her armour and take the field. + +"But tell me how you came to do it," she said. + +He answered that there was very little to tell. He had taken up a case +which was obviously just, but having no idea what a storm it would +raise. + +Then he noticed that his companion was looking at him sharply. "Do you +really mean that's all there is to it?" she asked. + +"Of course I do," said he, perplexed. + +"Do you know," was her unexpected response, "I hardly know what to make +of you. I'm afraid to trust you, on account of your brother." + +Montague was embarrassed. "I don't know what you mean," he said. + +"Everybody thinks there's some trickery in that suit," she answered. + +"Oh," said Montague, "I see. Well, they will find out. If it will help +you any to know it, I've been having no end of scenes with my brother." + +"I'll believe you," said Mrs. Billy, genially. "But it seems strange +that a man could have been so blind to a situation! I feel quite +ashamed because I didn't help you myself!" + +The carriage had stopped at Mrs. Billy's home, and she asked him to +dinner. "There'll be nobody but my brother," she said,--"we're resting +this evening. And I can make up to you for my negligence!" + +Montague had no engagement, and so he went in, and saw Mrs. Billy's +mansion, which was decorated in imitation of a Doge's palace, and met +Mr. "Davy" Alden, a mild-mannered little gentleman who obeyed orders +promptly. They had a comfortable dinner of half-a-dozen courses, and +then retired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Billy sank into a huge +easy chair, with a decanter of whisky and some cracked ice in readiness +beside it. Then from a tray she selected a thick black cigar, and +placidly bit off the end and lighted it, and then settled back at her +ease, and proceeded to tell Montague about New York, and about the +great families who ruled it, and where and how they had got their +money, and who were their allies and who their enemies, and what +particular skeletons were hidden in each of their closets. + +It was worth coming a long way to listen to Mrs. Billy tete-a-tete; her +thoughts were vigorous, and her imagery was picturesque. She spoke of +old Dan Waterman, and described him as a wild boar rooting chestnuts. +He was all right, she said, if you didn't come under his tree. And +Montague asked, "Which is his tree?" and she answered, "Any one he +happens to be under at the time." + +And then she came to the Wallings. Mrs. Billy had been in on the inside +of that family, and there was nothing she didn't know about it; and she +brought the members up, one by one, and dissected them, and exhibited +them for Montague's benefit. They were typical bourgeois people, she +said. They were burghers. They had never shown the least capacity for +refinement--they ate and drank, and jostled other people out of the +way. The old ones had been boors, and the new ones were cads. + +And Mrs. Billy sat and puffed at her cigar. "Do you know the history of +the family?" she asked. "The founder was a rough old ferryman. He +fought his rivals so well that in the end he owned all the boats; and +then some one discovered the idea of buying legislatures and building +railroads, and he went into that. It was a time when they simply +grabbed things--if you ever look into it, you'll find they're making +fortunes to-day out of privileges that the old man simply sat down on +and held. There's a bridge at Albany, for instance, to which they +haven't the slightest right; my brother knows about it--they've given +themselves a contract with their railroad by which they're paid for +every passenger, and their profit every year is greater than the cost +of the bridge. The son was the head of the family when I came in; and I +found that he had it all arranged to leave thirty million dollars to +one of his sons, and only ten million to my husband. I set to work to +change that, I can tell you. I used to go around to see him, and +scratch his back and tickle him and make him feel good. Of course the +family went wild--my, how they hated me! They set old Ellis to work to +keep me off--have you met Judge Ellis?" + +"I have," said Montague. + +"Well, there's a pussy-footed old hypocrite for you," said Mrs. Billy. +"In those days he was Walling's business lackey--used to pass the money +to the legislators and keep the wheels of the machine greased. One of +the first things I said to the old man was that I didn't ask him to +entertain my butler, and he mustn't ask me to entertain his valet--and +so I forbid Ellis to enter my house. And when I found that he was +trying to get between the old man and me, I flew into a rage and boxed +his ears and chased him out of the room!" + +Mrs. Billy paused, and laughed heartily over the recollection. "Of +course that tickled the old man to death," she continued. "The Wallings +never could make out how I managed to get round him as I did; but it +was simply because I was honest with him. They'd come snivelling round, +pretending they were anxious about his health; while I wanted his +money, and I told him so." + +The valiant lady turned to the decanter. "Have some Scotch?" she asked, +and poured some for herself, and then went on with her story. "When I +first came to New York," she said, "the rich people's houses were all +alike--all dreary brownstone fronts, sandwiched in on one or two city +lots. I vowed that I would have a house with some room all around +it--and that was the beginning of those palaces that all New York walks +by and stares at. You can hardly believe it now--those houses were a +scandal! But the sensation tickled the old man. I remember one day we +walked up the Avenue to see how they were coming on; and he pointed +with his big stick to the second floor, and asked, 'What's that?' I +answered, 'It's a safe I'm building into the house.' (That was a new +thing, too, in those days.)--'I'm going to keep my money in that,' I +said. 'Bah!' he growled, 'when you're done with this house, you won't +have any money left.'--'I'm planning to make you fill it for me,' I +answered; and do you know, he chuckled all the way home over it!" + +Mrs. Billy sat laughing softly to herself. "We had great old battles in +those days," she said. "Among other things, I had to put the Wallings +into Society. They were sneaking round on the outside when I +came--licking people's boots and expecting to be kicked. I said to +myself, I'll put an end to that--we'll have a show-down! So I gave a +ball that made the whole country sit up and gasp--it wouldn't be +noticed particularly nowadays, but then people had never dreamed of +anything so gorgeous. And I made out a list of all the people I wanted +to know in New York, and I said to myself: 'If you come, you're a +friend, and if you don't come, you're an enemy.' And they all came, let +me tell you! And there was never any question about the Wallings being +in Society after that." + +Mrs. Billy halted; and Montague remarked, with a smile, that doubtless +she was sorry now that she had done it. + +"Oh, no," she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I find that all +I have to do is to be patient--I hate people, and think I'd like to +poison them, but if I only wait long enough, something happens to them +much worse than I ever dreamed of. You'll be revenged on the Robbies +some day." + +"I don't want any revenge," Montague answered. "I've no quarrel with +them--I simply wish I hadn't accepted their hospitality. I didn't know +they were such little people. It seems hard to believe it." + +Mrs. Billy laughed cynically. "What could you expect?" she said. "They +know there's nothing to them but their money. When that's gone, they're +gone--they could never make any more." + +The lady gave a chuckle, and added: "Those words make me think of +Davy's experience when he wanted to go to Congress! Tell him about it, +Davy." + +But Mr. Alden did not warm to the subject; he left the tale to his +sister. + +"He was a Democrat, you know," said she, "and he went to the boss and +told him he'd like to go to Congress. The answer was that it would cost +him forty thousand dollars, and he kicked at the price. Others didn't +have to put up such sums, he said--why should he? And the old man +growled at him, 'The rest have other things to give. One can deliver +the letter-carriers, another is paid for by a corporation. But what can +you do? What is there to you but your money?'--So Davy paid the +money--didn't you, Davy?" And Davy grinned sheepishly. + +"Even so," she went on, "he came off better than poor Devon. They got +fifty thousand out of him, and sold him out, and he never got to +Congress after all! That was just before he concluded that America +wasn't a fit place for a gentleman to live in." + +And so Mrs. Billy got started on the Devons! And after that came the +Havens and the Wymans and the Todds--it was midnight before she got +through with them all. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The newspapers said nothing more about the Hasbrook suit; but in +financial circles Montague had attained considerable notoriety because +of it. And this was the means of bringing him a number of new cases. + +But alas, there were no more fifty-thousand-dollar clients! The first +caller was a destitute widow with a deed which would have entitled her +to the greater part of a large city in Pennsylvania--only unfortunately +the deed was about eighty years old. And then there was a poor old man +who had been hurt in a street-car accident and had been tricked into +signing away his rights; and an indignant citizen who proposed to bring +a hundred suits against the traction trust for transfers refused. All +were contingency cases, with the chances of success exceedingly remote. +And Montague noticed that the people had come to him as a last resort, +having apparently heard of him as a man of altruistic temper. + +There was one case which interested him particularly, because it seemed +to fit in so ominously with the grim prognosis of his brother. He +received a call from an elderly gentleman, of very evident refinement +and dignity of manner, who proceeded to unfold to him a most amazing +story. Five or six years ago he had invented a storage-battery, which +was the most efficient known. He had organised a company with three +million dollars' capital to manufacture it, himself taking a third +interest for his patents, and becoming president of the company. Not +long afterward had come a proposal from a group of men who wished to +organize a company to manufacture automobiles; they proposed to form an +alliance which would give them the exclusive use of the battery. But +these men were not people with whom the inventor cared to deal--they +were traction and gas magnates widely known for their unscrupulous +methods. And so he had declined their offer, and set to work instead to +organize an automobile company himself. He had just got under way when +he discovered that his rivals had set to work to take his invention +away from him. A friend who owned another third share in his company +had hypothecated his stock to help form the new company; and now came a +call from the bank for more collateral, and he was obliged to sell out. +And at the next stockholders' meeting it developed that their rivals +had bought it, and likewise more stock in the open market; and they +proceeded to take possession of the company, ousting the former +president--and then making a contract with their automobile company to +furnish the storage-battery at a price which left no profit for the +manufacturers! And so for two years the inventor had not received a +dollar of dividends upon his million dollars' worth of paper; and to +cap the climax, the company had refused to sell the battery to his +automobile company, and so that had gone into bankruptcy, and his +friend was ruined also! + +Montague went into the case very carefully, and found that the story +was true. What interested him particularly in it was the fact that he +had met a couple of these financial highwaymen in social life; he had +come to know the son and heir of one of them quite well, at Siegfried +Harvey's. This gilded youth was engaged to be married in a very few +days, and the papers had it that the father-in-law had presented the +bride with a cheque for a million dollars. Montague could not but +wonder if it was the million that had been taken from his client! + +There was to be a "bachelor dinner" at the Millionaires' on the night +before the wedding, to which he and Oliver had been invited. As he was +thinking of taking up his case, he went to his brother, saying that he +wished to decline; but Oliver had been getting back his courage day by +day, and declared that it was more important than ever now that he +should hold his ground, and face his enemies--for Alice's sake, if not +for his own. And so Montague went to the dinner, and saw deeper yet +into the history of the stolen millions. + +It was a very beautiful affair, in the beginning. There was a large +private dining-room, elaborately decorated, with a string orchestra +concealed in a bower of plants. But there were cocktails even on the +side-board at the doorway; and by the time the guests had got to the +coffee, every one was hilariously drunk. After each toast they would +hurl their glasses over their shoulders. The purpose of a "bachelor +dinner," it appeared, was a farewell to the old days and the boon +companions; so there were sentimental and comic songs which had been +composed for the occasion, and were received with whirlwinds of +laughter. + +By listening closely and reading between the lines, one might get quite +a history of the young host's adventurous career. There was a house up +on the West Side; and there was a yacht, with, orgies in every part of +the world. There was the summer night in Newport harbour, when some one +had hit upon the dazzling scheme of freezing twenty-dollar gold pieces +in tiny blocks of ice, to be dropped down the girls' backs! And there +was a banquet in a studio in New York, when a huge pie had been brought +on, from which a half-nude girl had emerged, with a flock of canary +birds about her! Then there was a damsel who had been wont to dance +upon the tops of supper tables, clad in diaphanous costume; and who had +got drunk after a theatre-party, and set out to smash up a Broadway +restaurant. There was a cousin from Chicago, a wild lad, who made a +speciality of this diversion, and whose mistresses were bathed in +champagne.--Apparently there were numberless places in the city where +such orgies were carried on continually; there were private clubs, and +artists' "studios"--there were several allusions to a high tower, which +Montague did not comprehend. Many such matters, however, were explained +to him by an elderly gentleman who sat on his right, and who seemed to +stay sober, no matter how much he drank. Incidentally he gravely +advised Montague to meet one of the young host's mistresses, who was a +"stunning" girl, and was in the market. + +Toward morning the festivities changed to a series of wrestling-bouts; +the young men stripped off their clothing and tore the table to pieces, +and piled it out of the way in a corner, smashing most of the crockery +in the process. Between the matches, champagne would be opened by +knocking off the heads of the bottles; and this went on until four +o'clock in the morning, when many of the guests were lying in heaps +upon the floor. + +Montague rode home in a cab with the elderly gentleman who had sat next +to him; and on the way he asked if such affairs as this were common. +And his companion, who was a "steel man" from the West, replied by +telling him of some which he had witnessed at home. At Siegfried +Harvey's theatre-party Montague had seen a popular actress in a musical +comedy, which was then the most successful play running in New York. +The house was sold out weeks ahead, and after the matinee you might +observe the street in front of the stage-entrance blocked by people +waiting to see the woman come out. She was lithe and supple, like a +panther, and wore close-fitting gowns to reveal her form. It seemed +that her play must have been built with one purpose in mind, to see how +much lewdness could be put upon a stage without interference by the +police.--And now his companion told him how this woman had been invited +to sing at a banquet given by the magnates of a mighty Trust, and had +gone after midnight to the most exclusive club in the town, and sung +her popular ditty, "Won't you come and play with me?" The merry +magnates had taken the invitation literally--with the result that the +actress had escaped from the room with half her clothing torn off her. +And a little while later an official of this trust had wished to get +rid of his wife and marry a chorus-girl; and when public clamour had +forced the directors to ask him to resign, he had replied by +threatening to tell about this banquet! + +The next day--or rather, to be precise, that same morning--Montague and +Alice attended the gorgeous wedding. It was declared by the newspapers +to be the most "important" social event of the week; and it took half a +dozen policemen to hold back the crowds which filled the street. The +ceremony took place at St. Cecilia's, with the stately bishop +officiating, in his purple and scarlet robes. Inside the doors were all +the elect, exquisitely groomed and gowned, and such a medley of +delicious perfumes as not all the vales in Arcady could equal. The +groom had been polished and scrubbed, and looked very handsome, though +somewhat pale; and Montague could not but smile as he observed the best +man, looking so very solemn, and recollected the drunken wrestler of a +few hours before, staggering about in a pale blue undershirt ripped up +the back. + +The Montagues knew by this time whom they were to avoid. They were +graciously taken under the wing of Mrs. Eldridge Devon--whose real +estate was not affected by insurance suits; and the next morning they +had the satisfaction of seeing their names in the list of those +present--and even a couple of lines about Alice's costume. (Alice was +always referred to as "Miss Montague"; it was very pleasant to be the +"Miss Montague," and to think of all the other would-be Miss Montagues +in the city, who were thereby haughtily rebuked!) In the "yellow" +papers there were also accounts of the trousseau of the bride, and of +the wonderful gifts which she had received, and of the long honeymoon +which she was to spend in the Mediterranean upon her husband's yacht. +Montague found himself wondering if the ghosts of its former occupants +would not haunt her, and whether she would have been as happy, had she +known as much as he knew. + +He found food for a good deal of thought in the memory of this banquet. +Among the things which he had gathered from the songs was a hint that +Oliver, also, had some secrets, which he had not seen fit to tell his +brother. The keeping of young girls was apparently one of the +established customs of the "little brothers of the rich"--and, for that +matter, of many of the big brothers, also. A little later Montague had +a curious glimpse into the life of this "half-world." He had occasion +one evening to call up a certain financier whom he had come to know +quite well-a man of family and a member of the church. There were some +important papers to be signed and sent off by a steamer; and the great +man's secretary said that he would try to find him. A minute or two +later he called up Montague and asked him if he would be good enough to +go to an address uptown. It was a house not far from Riverside Drive; +and Montague went there and found his acquaintance, with several other +prominent men of affairs whom he knew, conversing in a drawing-room +with one of the most charming ladies he had ever met. She was exquisite +to look at, and one of the few people in New York whom he had found +worth listening to. He spent such an enjoyable evening, that when he +was leaving, he remarked to the lady that he would like his cousin +Alice to meet her; and then he noticed that she flushed slightly, and +was embarrassed. Later on he learned to his dismay that the charming +and beautiful lady did not go into Society. + +Nor was this at all rare; on the contrary, if one took the trouble to +make inquiries, he would find that such establishments were everywhere +taken for granted. Montague talked about it with Major Venable; and out +of his gossip storehouse the old gentleman drew forth a string of +anecdotes that made one's hair stand on end. There was one all-powerful +magnate, who had a passion for the wife of a great physician; and he +had given a million dollars or so to build a hospital, and had provided +that it should be the finest in the world, and that this physician +should go abroad for three years to study the institutions of Europe! +No conventions counted with this old man--if he saw a woman whom he +wanted, he would ask for her; and women in Society felt that it was an +honour to be his mistress. Not long after this a man who voiced the +anguish of a mighty nation was turned out of several hotels in New York +because he was not married according to the laws of South Dakota; but +this other man would take a woman to any hotel in the city, and no one +would dare oppose him! + +And there was another, a great traction king, who kept mistresses in +Chicago and Paris and London, as well as in New York; he had one just +around the corner from his palatial home, and had an underground +passage leading to it. And the Major told with glee how he had shown +this to a friend, and the latter had remarked, "I'm too stout to get +through there."--"I know it," replied the other, "else I shouldn't have +told you!" + +And so it went. One of the richest men in New York was a sexual +degenerate, with half a dozen women on his hands all the time; he would +send them cheques, and they would use these to blackmail him. This +man's young wife had been shut up in a closet for twenty-four hours by +her mother to compel her to marry him.--And then there was the charming +tale of how he had gone away upon a mission of state, and had written +long messages full of tender protestations, and given them to a +newspaper correspondent to cable home "to his wife." The correspondent +had thought it such a touching example of conjugal devotion that he +told about it at a dinner-party when he came back; and he was struck by +the sudden silence that fell. "The messages had been sent to a code +address!" chuckled the Major. "And every one at the table knew who had +got them!" + +A few days after this, Montague received a telephone message from +Siegfried Harvey, who said that he wanted to see him about a matter of +business. He asked him to lunch at the Noonday Club; and Montague +went--though not without a qualm. For it was in the Fidelity Building, +the enemy's bailiwick: a magnificent structure with halls of white +marble, and a lavish display of bronze. It occurred to Montague that +somewhere in this structure people were at work preparing an answer to +his charges; he wondered what they were saying. + +The two had lunch, talking meanwhile about the coming events in +Society, and about politics and wars; and when the coffee was served +and they were alone in the room, Harvey settled his big frame back in +his chair, and began:-- + +"In the first place," he said, "I must explain that I've something to +say that is devilish hard to get into. I'm so much afraid of your +jumping to a wrong conclusion in the middle of it--I'd like you to +agree to listen for a minute or two before you think at all." + +"All right," said Montague, with a smile. "Fire away." + +And at once the other became grave. "You've taken a case against this +company," he said. "And Ollie has talked enough to me to make me +understand that you've done a plucky thing, and that you must be +everlastingly sick of hearing from cowardly people who want you to drop +it. I'd be very sorry to be classed with them, for even a moment; and +you must understand at the outset that I haven't a particle of interest +in the company, and that it wouldn't matter to me if I had. I don't try +to use my friends in business, and I don't let money count with me in +my social life. I made up my mind to take the risk of speaking to you +about this case, simply because I happen to know one or two things +about it that I thought you didn't know. And if that's so, you are at a +great disadvantage; but in any case, please understand that I have no +motive but friendship, and so if I am butting in, excuse me." + +When Siegfried Harvey talked, he looked straight at one with his clear +blue eyes, and there was no doubting his honesty. "I am very much +obliged to you," said Montague. "Pray tell me what you have to say." + +"All right," said the other. "It can be done very quickly. You have +taken a case which involves a great many sacrifices upon your part. And +I wondered if it had ever occurred to you to ask whether you might not +be taken advantage of?" + +"How do you mean?" asked Montague. + +"Do you know the people who are behind you?" inquired the other. "Do +you know them well enough to be sure what are their motives in the +case?" + +Montague hesitated, and thought. "No," he said, "I couldn't say that I +do." + +"Then it's just as I thought," replied Harvey. "I've been watching +you--you are an honest man, and you're putting yourself to no end of +trouble from the best of motives. And unless I'm mistaken, you're being +used by men who are not honest, and whom you wouldn't work with if you +knew their purposes." + +"What purposes could they have?" + +"There are several possibilities. In the first place, it might be a +'strike' suit--somebody who is hoping to be bought off for a big price. +That is what nearly every one thinks is the case. But I don't; I think +it's more likely some one within the company who is trying to put the +administration in a hole." + +"Who could that be?" exclaimed Montague, amazed. + +"I don't know that. I'm not familiar enough with the situation in the +Fidelity--it's changing all the time. I simply know that there are +factions struggling for the control of it, and hating each other +furiously, and ready to do anything in the world to cripple each other. +You know that their forty millions of surplus gives an enormous power; +I'd rather be able to swing forty millions in the Street than to have +ten millions in my own right. And so the giants are fighting for the +control of those companies; and you can't tell who's in and who's +out--you can never know the real meaning of anything that happens in +the struggle. All that you can be sure of is that the game is crooked +from end to end, and that nothing that happens in it is what it +pretends to be." + +Montague listened, half dazed, and feeling as if the ground he stood on +were caving beneath his feet. + +"What do you know about those who brought you this case?" asked his +companion, suddenly. + +"Not much," he said weakly. + +Harvey hesitated a moment. "Understand me, please," he said. "I've no +wish to pry into your affairs, and if you don't care to say any more, +I'll understand it perfectly. But I've heard it said that the man who +started the thing was Ellis." + +Montague, in his turn, hesitated; then he said, "That is +correct--between you and me." + +"Very good," said Harvey, "and that is what made me suspicious. Do you +know anything about Ellis?" + +"I didn't," said the other. "I've heard a little since." + +"I can fancy so," said Harvey. "And I can tell you that Ellis is mixed +up in life-insurance matters in all sorts of dubious ways. It seems to +me that you have reason to be most careful where you follow him." + +Montague sat with his hands clenched and his brows knitted. His +friend's talk had been like a flash of lightning; it revealed huge +menacing forms in the darkness about him. All the structure of his +hopes seemed to be tottering; his case, that he had worked so hard +over--his fifty thousand dollars that he had been so proud of! Could it +be that he had been tricked, and had made a fool of himself? + +"How in the world am I to know?" he cried. + +"That is more than I can tell," said his friend. "And for that matter, +I'm not sure that you could do anything now. All that I could do was to +warn you what sort of ground you were treading on, so that you could +watch out for yourself in future." + +Montague thanked him heartily for that service; and then he went back +to his office, and spent the rest of the day pondering the matter. + +What he had heard had made a vast change in things. Before it +everything had seemed simple; and now nothing was clear. He was +overwhelmed with a sense of the utter futility of his efforts; he was +trying to build a house upon quicksands. There was nowhere a solid spot +upon which he could set his foot. There was nowhere any truth--there +were only contending powers who used the phrases of truth for their own +purposes! And now he saw himself as the world saw him,--a party to a +piece of trickery,--a knave like all the rest. He felt that he had been +tripped up at the first step in his career. + +The conclusion of the whole matter was that he took an afternoon train +for Albany; and the next morning he talked the matter out with the +Judge. Montague had realized the need of going slowly, for, after all, +he had no definite ground for suspicion; and so, very tactfully and +cautiously he explained, that it had come to his ears that many people +believed there were interested parties behind the suit of Mr. Hasbrook; +and that this had made him uncomfortable, as he knew nothing whatever +about his client. He had come to ask the Judge's advice in the matter. + +No one could have taken the thing more graciously than did the great +man; he was all kindness and tact. In the first place, he said, he had +warned him in advance that enemies would attack him and slander him, +and that all kinds of subtle means would be used to influence him. And +he must understand that these rumours were part of such a campaign; it +made no difference how good a friend had brought them to him--how could +he know who had brought them to that friend? + +The Judge ventured to hope that nothing that anyone might say could +influence him to believe that he, the Judge, would have advised him to +do anything improper. + +"No," said Montague, "but can you assure me that there are no +interested parties behind Mr. Hasbrook?" + +"Interested parties?" asked the other. + +"I mean people connected with the Fidelity or other insurance +companies." + +"Why, no," said the Judge; "I certainly couldn't assure you of that." + +Montague looked surprised. "You mean you don't know?" + +"I mean," was the answer, "that I wouldn't feel at liberty to tell, +even if I did know." + +And Montague stared at him; he had not been prepared for this frankness. + +"It never occurred to me," the other continued, "that that was a matter +which could make any difference to you." + +"Why--" began Montague. + +"Pray understand me, Mr. Montague," said the Judge. "It seemed to me +that this was obviously a just case, and it seemed so to you. And the +only other matter that I thought you had a right to be assured of was +that it was seriously meant. Of that I felt assured. It did not seem to +me of any importance that there might be interested individuals behind +Mr. Hasbrook. Let us suppose, for instance, that there were some +parties who had been offended by the administration of the Fidelity, +and were anxious to punish it. Could a lawyer be justified in refusing +to take a just case, simply because he knew of such private motives? +Or, let us assume an extreme case--a factional fight within the +company, as you say has been suggested to you. Well, that would be a +case of thieves falling out; and is there any reason why the public +should not reap the advantage of such a situation? The men inside the +company are the ones who would know first what is going on; and if you +saw a chance to use such an advantage in a just fight--would you not do +it?" + +So the Judge went on, gracious and plausible--and so subtly and +exquisitely corrupting! Underneath his smoothly flowing sentences +Montague could feel the presence of one fundamental thought; it was +unuttered and even unhinted, but it pervaded the Judge's discourse as a +mood pervades a melody. The young lawyer had got a big fee, and he had +a nice easy case; and as a man of the world, he could not really wish +to pry into it too closely. He had heard gossip, and felt that his +reputation required him to be disturbed; but he had come, simply to be +smoothed down the back and made at ease, and enabled to keep his fee +without losing his good opinion of himself. + +Montague quit, because he concluded that it was not worth while to try +to make himself understood. After all, he was in the case now, and +there was nothing to be gained by a breach. Two things he felt that he +had made certain by the interview--first, that his client was a +"dummy," and that it was really a case of thieves falling out; and +second, that he had no guarantee that he might not be left in the lurch +at any moment--except the touching confidence of the Judge in some +parties unknown. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Montague came home with his mind made up that there was nothing he +could do except to be more careful next time. For this mistake he would +have to pay the price. + +He had still to learn what the full price was. The day after his return +there came a caller--Mr. John C. Burton, read his card. He proved to be +a canvassing agent for the company which published the scandal-sheet of +Society. They were preparing a de luxe account of the prominent +families of New York; a very sumptuous affair, with a highly exclusive +set of subscribers, at the rate of fifteen hundred dollars per set. +Would Mr. Montague by any chance care to have his family included? + +And Mr. Montague explained politely that he was a comparative stranger +in New York, and would not belong properly in such a volume. But the +agent was not satisfied with this. There might be reasons for his +subscribing, even so; there might be special cases; Mr. Montague, as a +stranger, might not realize the important nature of the offer; after he +had consulted his friends, he might change his mind--and so on. As +Montague listened to this series of broad hints, and took in the +meaning of them, the colour mounted, to his cheeks--until at last he +rose abruptly and bid the man good afternoon. + +But then as he sat alone, his anger died away, and there was left only +discomfort and uneasiness. And three or four days later he bought +another issue of the paper, and sure enough, there was a new paragraph! + +He stood on the street-corner reading it. The social war was raging +hotly, it said; and added that Mrs. de Graffenried was threatening to +take up the cause of the strangers. Then it went on to picture a +certain exquisite young man of fashion who was rushing about among his +friends to apologize for his brother's indiscretions. Also, it said, +there was a brilliant social queen, wife of a great banker, who had +taken up the cudgels.--And then came three sentences more, which made +the blood leap like flame into Montague's cheeks: + +"There have not been lacking comments upon her suspicious ardour. It +has been noticed that since the advent of the romantic-looking +Southerner, this restless lady's interest in the Babists and the trance +mediums has waned; and now Society is watching for the denouement of a +most interesting situation." + +To Montague these words came like a blow in the face. He went on down +the street, half dazed. It seemed to him the blackest shame that New +York had yet shown him. He clenched his fists as he walked, whispering +to himself, "The scoundrels!" + +He realized instantly that he was helpless. Down home one would have +thrashed the editor of such a paper; but here he was in the wolves' own +country, and he could do nothing. He went back to his office, and sat +down at the desk. + +"My dear Mrs. Winnie," he wrote. "I have just read the enclosed +paragraph, and I cannot tell you how profoundly pained I am that your +kindness to us should have made you the victim of such an outrage. I am +quite helpless in the matter, except to enable you to avoid any further +annoyance. Please believe me when I say that we shall all of us +understand perfectly if you think that we had best not meet again at +present; and that this will make no difference whatever in our +feelings." + +This letter Montague sent by a messenger; and then he went home. +Perhaps ten minutes after he arrived, the telephone bell rang--and +there was Mrs. Winnie. + +"Your note has come," she said. "Have you an engagement this evening?" + +"No," he answered. + +"Well," she said, "will you come to dinner?" + +"Mrs. Winnie--" he protested. + +"Please come," she said. "Please!" + +"I hate to have you--" he began. + +"I wish you to come!" she said, a third time. + +So he answered, "Very well." + +He went; and when he entered the house, the butler led him to the +elevator, saying, "Mrs. Duval says will you please come upstairs, sir." +And there Mrs. Winnie met him, with flushed cheeks and eager +countenance. + +She was even lovelier than usual, in a soft cream-coloured gown, and a +crimson rose in her bosom. "I'm all alone to-night," she said, "so +we'll dine in my apartments. We'd be lost in that big room downstairs." + +She led him into her drawing-room, where great armfuls of new roses +scattered their perfume. There was a table set for two, and two big +chairs before the fire which blazed in the hearth. Montague noticed +that her hand trembled a little, as she motioned him to one of them; he +could read her excitement in her whole aspect. She was flinging down +the gauntlet to her enemies! + +"Let us eat first and talk afterward," she said, hurriedly. "We'll be +happy for a while, anyway." + +And she went on to be happy, in her nervous and eager way. She talked +about the new opera which was to be given, and about Mrs. de +Graffenried's new entertainment, and about Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden's +ball; also about the hospital for crippled children which she wanted to +build, and about Mrs. Vivie Patton's rumoured divorce. And, meantime, +the sphinx-like attendants moved here and there, and the dinner came +and went. They took their coffee in the big chairs by the fire; and the +table was swept clear, and the servants vanished, closing the doors +behind them. + +Then Montague set his cup aside, and sat gazing sombrely into the fire. +And Mrs. Winnie watched him. There was a long silence. + +Suddenly he heard her voice. "Do you find it so easy to give up our +friendship?" she asked. + +"I didn't think about it's being easy or hard," he answered. "I simply +thought of protecting you." + +"And do you think that my friends are nothing to me?" she demanded. +"Have I so very many as that?" And she clenched her hands with a sudden +passionate gesture. "Do you think that I will let those wretches +frighten me into doing what they want? I'll not give in to them--not +for anything that Lelia can do!" + +A look of perplexity crossed Montague's face. "Lelia?" he asked. + +"Mrs. Robbie Walling!" she cried. "Don't you suppose that she is +responsible for that paragraph?" + +Montague started. + +"That's the way they fight their battles!" cried Mrs. Winnie. "They pay +money to those scoundrels to be protected. And then they send nasty +gossip about people they wish to injure." + +"You don't mean that!" exclaimed the man. + +"Of course I do," cried she. "I know that it's true! I know that Robbie +Walling paid fifteen thousand dollars for some trumpery volumes that +they got out! And how do you suppose the paper gets its gossip?" + +"I didn't know," said Montague. "But I never dreamed--" + +"Why," exclaimed Mrs. Winnie, "their mail is full of blue and gold +monogram stationery! I've known guests to sit down and write gossip +about their hostesses in their own homes. Oh, you've no idea of +people's vileness!" + +"I had some idea," said Montague, after a pause.--"That was why I +wished to protect you." + +"I don't wish to be protected!" she cried, vehemently. "I'll not give +them the satisfaction. They wish to make me give you up, and I'll not +do it, for anything they can say!" + +Montague sat with knitted brows, gazing into the fire. "When I read +that paragraph," he said slowly. "I could not bear to think of the +unhappiness it might cause you. I thought of how much it might disturb +your husband--" + +"My husband!" echoed Mrs. Winnie. + +There was a hard tone in her voice, as she went on. "He will fix it up +with them," she said,--"that's his way. There will be nothing more +published, you can feel sure of that." + +Montague sat in silence. That was not the reply he had expected, and it +rather disconcerted him. + +"If that were all--" he said, with hesitation. "But I could not know. I +thought that the paragraph might disturb him for another reason--that +it might be a cause of unhappiness between you and him--" + +There was a pause. "You don't understand," said Mrs. Winnie, at last. + +Without turning his head he could see her hands, as they lay upon her +knees. She was moving them nervously. "You don't understand," she +repeated. + +When she began to' speak again, it was in a low, trembling voice. "I +must tell you," she said; "I have felt sure that you did not know." + +There was another pause. She hesitated, and her hands trembled; then +suddenly she hurried on.--"I wanted you to know. I do not love my +husband. I am not bound to him. He has nothing to say in my affairs." + +Montague sat rigid, turned to stone. He was half dazed by the words. He +could feel Mrs. Winnie's gaze fixed upon him; and he could feel the hot +flush that spread over her throat and cheeks. + +"It--it was not fair for you not to know," she whispered. And her voice +died away, and there was again a silence. Montague was dumb. + +"Why don't you say something?" she panted, at last; and he caught the +note of anguish in her voice. Then he turned and stared at her, and saw +her tightly clenched hands, and the quivering of her lips. + +He was shocked quite beyond speech. And he saw her bosom heaving +quickly, and saw the tears start into her eyes. Suddenly she sank down, +and covered her face with her hands and broke into frantic sobbing. + +"Mrs. Winnie!" he cried; and started to his feet. + +Her outburst continued. He saw that she was shuddering violently. "Then +you don't love me!" she wailed. + +He stood trembling and utterly bewildered. "I'm so sorry!" he +whispered. "Oh, Mrs. Winnie--I had no idea--" + +"I know it! I know it!" she cried. "It's my fault! I was a fool! I knew +it all the time. But I hoped--I thought you might, if you knew--" + +And then again her tears choked her; she was convulsed with pain and +grief. + +Montague stood watching her, helpless with distress. She caught hold of +the arm of the chair, convulsively, and he put his hand upon hers. + +"Mrs. Winnie--" he began. + +But she jerked her hand away and hid it. "No, no!" she cried, in +terror. "Don't touch me!" + +And suddenly she looked up at him, stretching out her arms. "Don't you +understand that I love you?" she exclaimed. "You despise me for it, I +know--but I can't help it. I will tell you, even so! It's the only +satisfaction I can have. I have always loved you! And I thought--I +thought it was only that you didn't understand. I was ready to brave +all the world--I didn't care who knew it, or what anybody said. I +thought we could be happy--I thought I could be free at last. Oh, +you've no idea how unhappy I am--and how lonely--and how I longed to +escape! And I believed that you--that you might--" + +And then the tears gushed into Mrs. Winnie's eyes again, and her voice +became the voice of a little child. + +"Don't you think that you might come to love me?" she wailed. + +Her voice shook Montague, so that he trembled to the depths of him. But +his face only became the more grave. + +"You despise me because I told you!" she exclaimed. + +"No, no, Mrs. Winnie," he said. "I could not possibly do that--" + +"Then--then why--" she whispered.--"Would it be so hard to love me?" + +"It would be very easy," he said, "but I dare not let myself." + +She looked at him piteously. "You are so cold--so merciless!" she cried. + +He answered nothing, and she sat trembling. "Have you ever loved a +woman?" she asked. + +There was a long pause. He sat in the chair again. "Listen, Mrs. +Winnie"--he began at last. + +"Don't call me that!" she exclaimed. "Call me Evelyn--please." + +"Very well," he said--"Evelyn. I did not intend to make you unhappy--if +I had had any idea, I should never have seen you again. I will tell +you--what I have never told anybody before. Then you will understand." + +He sat for a few moments, in a sombre reverie. + +"Once," he said, "when I was young, I loved a woman--a quadroon girl. +That was in New Orleans; it is a custom we have there. They have a +world of their own, and we take care of them, and of the children; and +every one knows about it. I was very young, only about eighteen; and +she was even younger. But I found out then what women are, and what +love means to them. I saw how they could suffer. And then she died in +childbirth--the child died, too." + +Montague's voice was very low; and Mrs. Winnie sat with her hands +clasped, and her eyes riveted upon his face. "I saw her die," he said. +"And that was all. I have never forgotten it. I made up my mind then +that I had done wrong; and that never again while I lived would I offer +my love to a woman, unless I could devote all my life to her. So you +see, I am afraid of love. I do not wish to suffer so much, or to make +others suffer. And when anyone speaks to me as you did, it brings it +all back to me--it makes me shrink up and wither." + +He paused, and the other caught her breath. + +"Understand me," she said, her voice trembling. "I would not ask any +pledges of you. I would pay whatever price there was to pay--I am not +afraid to suffer." + +"I do not wish you to suffer," he said. "I do not wish to take +advantage of any woman." + +"But I have nothing in the world that I value!" she cried. "I would go +away--I would give up everything, to be with a man like you. I have no +ties--no duties--" + +He interrupted her. "You have your husband--" he said. + +And she cried out in sudden fury--"My husband!" + +"Has no one ever told you about my husband?" she asked, after a pause. + +"No one," he said. + +"Well, ask them!" she exclaimed. "Meantime, take my word for it--I owe +nothing to my husband." + +Montague sat staring into the fire. "But consider my own case," he +said. "_I_ have duties--my mother and my cousin--" + +"Oh, don't say any more!" cried the woman, with a break in her voice. +"Say that you don't love me--that is all there is to say! And you will +never respect me again! I have been a fool--I have ruined everything! I +have flung away your friendship, that I might have kept!" + +"No," he said. + +But she rushed on, vehemently--"At least, I have been honest--give me +credit for that! That is how all my troubles come--I say what is in my +mind, and I pay the price for my blunders. It is not as if I were cold +and calculating--so don't despise me altogether." + +"I couldn't despise you," said Montague. "I am simply pained, because I +have made you unhappy. And I did not mean to." + +Mrs. Winnie sat staring ahead of her in a sombre reverie. "Don't think +any more about it," she said, bitterly. "I will get over it. I am not +worth troubling about. Don't you suppose I know how you feel about this +world that I live in? And I'm part of it--I beat my wings, and try to +get out, but I can't. I'm in it, and I'll stay in till I die; I might +as well give up. I thought that I could steal a little joy--you have no +idea how hungry I am for a little joy! You have no idea how lonely I +am! And how empty my life is! You talk about your fear of making me +unhappy; it's a grim jest--but I'll give you permission, if you can! +I'll ask nothing--no promises, no sacrifices! I'll take all the risks, +and pay all the penalties!" + +She smiled through her tears, a sardonic smile. He was watching her, +and she turned again, and their eyes met; again he saw the blood mount +from her throat to her cheeks. At the same time came the old stirring +of the wild beasts within him. He knew that the less time he spent in +sympathizing with Mrs. Winnie, the better for both of them. + +He had started to rise, and words of farewell were on his lips; when +suddenly there came a knock upon the door. + +Mrs. Winnie sprang to her feet. "Who is that?" she cried. + +And the door opened, and Mr. Duval entered. + +"Good evening," he said pleasantly, and came toward her. + +Mrs. Winnie flushed angrily, and stared at him. "Why do you come here +unannounced?" she cried. + +"I apologize," he said--"but I found this in my mail--" + +And Montague, in the act of rising to greet him, saw that he had the +offensive clipping in his hand. Then he saw Duval give a start, and +realized that the man had not been aware of his presence in the room. + +Duval gazed from Montague to his wife, and noticed for the first time +her tears, and her agitation. "I beg pardon," he said. "I am evidently +trespassing." + +"You most certainly are," responded Mrs. Winnie. + +He made a move to withdraw; but before he could take a step, she had +brushed past him and left the room, slamming the door behind her. + +And Duval stared after her, and then he stared at Montague, and +laughed. "Well! well! well!" he said. + +Then, checking his amusement, he added, "Good evening, sir." + +"Good evening," said Montague. + +He was trembling slightly, and Duval noticed it; he smiled genially. +"This is the sort of material out of which scenes are made," said he. +"But I beg you not to be embarrassed--we won't have any scenes." + +Montague could think of nothing to say to that. + +"I owe Evelyn an apology," the other continued. "It was entirely an +accident--this clipping, you see. I do not intrude, as a rule. You may +make yourself at home in future." + +Montague flushed scarlet at the words. + +"Mr. Duval," he said, "I have to assure you that you are mistaken--" + +The other stared at him. "Oh, come, come!" he said, laughing. "Let us +talk as men of the world." + +"I say that you are mistaken," said Montague again. + +The other shrugged his shoulders. "Very well," he said genially. "As +you please. I simply wish to make matters clear to you, that's all. I +wish you joy with Evelyn. I say nothing about her--you love her. +Suffice it that I've had her, and I'm tired of her; the field is yours. +But keep her out of mischief, and don't let her make a fool of herself +in public, if you can help it. And don't let her spend too much +money--she costs me a million a year already.--Good evening, Mr. +Montague." + +And he went out. Montague, who stood like a statue, could hear him +chuckling all the way down the hall. + +At last Montague himself started to leave. But he heard Mrs. Winnie +coming back, and he waited for her. She came in and shut the door, and +turned toward him. + +"What did he say?" she asked. + +"He--was very pleasant," said Montague. + +And she smiled grimly. "I went out on purpose," she said. "I wanted you +to see him--to see what sort of a man he is, and how much 'duty' I owe +him! You saw, I guess." + +"Yes, I saw," said he. + +Then again he started to go. But she took him by the arm. "Come and +talk to me," she said. "Please!" + +And she led him back to the fire. "Listen," she said. "He will not come +here again. He is going away to-night--I thought he had gone already. +And he does not return for a month or two. There will be no one to +disturb us again." + +She came close to him and gazed up into his face. She had wiped her +tears away, and her happy look had come back to her; she was lovelier +than ever. + +"I took you by surprise," she said, smiling. "You didn't know what to +make of it. And I was ashamed--I thought you would hate me. But I'm not +going to be unhappy any more--I don't care at all. I'm glad that I +spoke!" + +And Mrs. Winnie put up her hands and took him by the lapels of his +coat. "I know that you love me," she said; "I saw it in your eyes just +now, before he came in: It is simply that you won't let yourself go. +You have so many doubts and so many fears. But you will see that I am +right; you will learn to love me. You won't be able to help it--I shall +be so kind and good! Only don't go away--" + +Mrs. Winnie was so close to him that her breath touched his cheek. +"Promise me, dear," she whispered--"promise me that you won't stop +seeing me--that you will learn to love me. I can't do without you!" + +Montague was trembling in every nerve; he felt like a man caught in a +net. Mrs. Winnie had had everything she ever wanted in her life; and +now she wanted him! It was impossible for her to face any other thought. + +"Listen," he began gently. + +But she saw the look of resistance in his eyes, and she cried "No +no--don't! I cannot do without you! Think! I love you! What more can I +say to you? I cannot believe that you don't care for me--you HAVE been +fond of me--I have seen it in your face. Yet you're afraid of me--why? +Look at me--am I not beautiful to look at! And is a woman's love such a +little thing--can you fling it away and trample upon it so easily? Why +do you wish to go? Don't you understand--no one knows we are here--no +one cares! You can come here whenever you wish--this is my place--mine! +And no one will think anything about it. They all do it. There is +nothing to be afraid of!" + +She put her arms about him, and clung to him so that he could feel the +beating of her heart upon his bosom. "Oh, don't leave me here alone +to-night!" she cried. + +To Montague it was like the ringing of an alarm-bell deep within his +soul. "I must go," he said. + +She flung back her head and stared at him, and he saw the terror and +anguish in her eyes. "No, no!" she cried, "don't say that to me! I +can't bear it--oh, see what I have done! Look at me! Have mercy on me!" + +"Mrs. Winnie," he said, "you must have mercy on ME!" + +But he only felt her clasp him more tightly. He took her by the wrists, +and with quiet force he broke her hold upon him; her hands fell to her +sides, and she stared at him, aghast. + +"I must go," he said, again. + +And he started toward the door. She followed him dumbly with her eyes. + +"Good-bye," he said. He knew that there was no use of any more words; +his sympathy had been like oil upon flames. He saw her move, and as he +opened the door, she flung herself down in a chair and burst into +frantic weeping. He shut the door softly and went away. + +He found his way down the stairs, and got his hat and coat, and went +out, unseen by anyone. He walked down the Avenue-and there suddenly was +the giant bulk of St. Cecilia's lifting itself into the sky. He stopped +and looked at it--it seemed a great tumultuous surge of emotion. And +for the first time in his life it seemed to him that he understood why +men had put together that towering heap of stone! + +Then he went on home. + +He found Alice dressing for a ball, and Oliver waiting for her. He went +to his room, and took off his coat; and Oliver came up to him, and with +a sudden gesture reached over to his shoulder, and held up a trophy. + +He drew it out carefully, and measured the length of it, smiling +mischievously in the meanwhile. Then he held it up to the light, to see +the colour of it. + +"A black one!" he cried. "Coal black!" And he looked at his brother, +with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "Oh, Allan!" he chuckled. + +Montague said nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was about a week from the beginning of Lent, when there would be a +lull in the city's gaieties, and Society would shift the scene of its +activities to the country clubs, and to California and Hot Springs and +Palm Beach. Mrs. Caroline Smythe invited Alice to join her in an +expedition to the last-named place; but Montague interposed, because he +saw that Alice had been made pale and nervous by three months of +night-and-day festivities. Also, a trip to Florida would necessitate +ten or fifteen thousand dollars' worth of new clothes; and these would +not do for the summer, it appeared--they would be faded and passe by +that time. + +So Alice settled back to rest; but she was too popular to be let +alone--a few days later came another invitation, this time from General +Prentice and his family. They were planning a railroad trip--to be gone +for a month; they would have a private train, and twenty five people in +the party, and would take in California and Mexico--"swinging round the +circle," as it was called. Alice was wild to go, and Montague gave his +consent. Afterward he learned to his dismay that Charlie Carter was one +of those invited, and he would have liked to have Alice withdraw; but +she did not wish to, and he could not make up his mind to insist. + +These train trips were the very latest diversion of the well-to-do; a +year ago no one had heard of them, and now fifty parties were leaving +New York every month. You might see a dozen of such hotel-trains at +once at Palm Beach; there were some people who lived on board all the +time, having special tracks built for them in pleasant locations +wherever they stopped. One man had built a huge automobile railroad +car, shaped like a ram, and having accommodation for sixty people. The +Prentice train had four cars, one of them a "library car," finished in +St. Iago mahogany, and provided with a pipe-organ. Also there were +bath-rooms and a barber-shop, and a baggage car with two autos on board +for exploring purposes. + +Since the episode of Mrs. Winnie, Oliver had apparently concluded that +his brother was one of the initiated. Not long afterward he permitted +him to a glimpse into that side of his life which had been hinted at in +the songs at the bachelors' dinner. + +Oliver had planned to take Betty Wyman to the theatre; but Betty's +grandfather had come home from the West unexpectedly, and so Oliver +came round and took his brother instead. + +"I was going to play a joke on her," he said. "We'll go to see one of +my old flames." + +It was a translation of a French farce, in which the marital +infidelities of two young couples were the occasion of many mishaps. +One of the characters was a waiting-maid, who was in love with a +handsome young soldier, and was pursued by the husband of one of the +couples. It was a minor part, but the young Jewish girl who played it +had so many pretty graces and such a merry laugh that she made it quite +conspicuous. When the act was over, Oliver asked him whose acting he +liked best, and he named her. + +"Come and be introduced to her," Oliver said. + +He opened a door near their box. "How do you do, Mr. Wilson," he said, +nodding to a man in evening dress, who stood near by. Then he turned +toward the dressing-rooms, and went down a corridor, and knocked upon +one of the doors. A voice called, "Come in," and he opened the door; +and there was a tiny room, with odds and ends of clothing scattered +about, and the girl, clad in corsets and underskirt, sitting before a +mirror. "Hello, Rosalie," said he. + +And she dropped her powder-puff, and sprang up with a cry--"Ollie!" 'In +a moment more she had her arms about his neck. + +"Oh, you wretched man," she cried. "Why don't you come to see me any +more? Didn't you get my letters?" + +"I got some," said he. "But I've been busy. This is my brother, Mr. +Allan Montague." + +The other nodded to Montague, and said, "How do you do?"--but without +letting go of Oliver. "Why don't you come to see me?" she exclaimed. + +"There, there, now!" said Oliver, laughing good-naturedly. "I brought +my brother along so that you'd have to behave yourself." + +"I don't care about your brother!" exclaimed the girl, without even +giving him another glance. Then she held Oliver at arm's length, and +gazed into his face. "How can you be so cruel to me?" she asked. + +"I told you I was busy," said he, cheerfully. "And I gave you fair +warning, didn't I? How's Toodles?" + +"Oh, Toodles is in raptures," said Rosalie. "She's got a new fellow." +And then, her manner changing to one of merriment, she added: "Oh, +Ollie! He gave her a diamond brooch! And she looks like a +countess--she's hoping for a chance to wear it in a part!" + +"You've seen Toodles," said Oliver, to his brother "She's in 'The +Kaliph of Kamskatka.'". + +"They're going on the road next week," said Rosalie. "And then I'll be +all alone." She added, in a pleading voice: "Do, Ollie, be a good boy +and take us out to-night. Think how long it's been since I've seen you! +Why, I've been so good I don't know myself in the looking-glass. +Please, Ollie!" + +"All right," said he, "maybe I will." + +"I'm not going to let you get away from me," she cried. "I'll come +right over the footlights after you!" + +"You'd better get dressed," said Oliver. "You'll be late." + +He pushed aside a tray with some glasses on it, and seated himself upon +a trunk; and Montague stood in a corner and watched Rosalie, while she +powdered and painted herself, and put on an airy summer dress, and +poured out a flood of gossip about "Toodles" and "Flossie" and "Grace" +and some others. A few minutes later came a stentorian voice in the +hallway: "Second act!" There were more embraces, and then Ollie brushed +the powder from his coat, and went away laughing. + +Montague stood for a few moments in the wings, watching the +scene-shifters putting the final touches to the new set, and the +various characters taking their positions. Then they went out to their +seats. "Isn't she a jewel?" asked Oliver. + +"She's very pretty," the other admitted. + +"She came right out of the slums," said Oliver--"over on Rivington +Street. That don't happen very often." + +"How did you come to know her?" asked his brother. + +"Oh, I picked her out. She was in a chorus, then. I got her first +speaking part." + +"Did you?" said the other, in surprise. "How did you do that?" + +"Oh, a little money," was the reply. "Money will do most anything. And +I was in love with her--that's how I got her." + +Montague said nothing, but sat in thought. + +"We'll take her out to supper and make her happy," added Oliver, as the +curtain started up. "She's lonesome, I guess. You see, I promised Betty +I'd reform." + +All through that scene and the next one Rosalie acted for them; she was +so full of verve and merriment that there was quite a stir in the +audience, and she got several rounds of applause. Then, when the play +was over, she extricated herself from the arms of the handsome young +soldier, and fled to her dressing-room, and when Oliver and Montague +arrived, she was half ready for the street. + +They went up Broadway, and from a group of people coming out of another +stage-entrance a young girl came to join them--an airy little creature +with the face of a doll-baby, and a big hat with a purple feather on +top. This was "Toodles"--otherwise known as Helen Gwynne; and she took +Montague's arm, and they fell in behind Oliver and his companion. + +Montague wondered what one said to a chorus-girl on the way to supper. +Afterward his brother told him that Toodles had been the wife of a +real-estate agent in a little town in Oklahoma, and had run away from +respectability and boredom with a travelling theatrical company. Now +she was tripping her part in the musical comedy which Montague had seen +at Mrs. Lane's; and incidentally swearing devotion to a handsome young +"wine-agent." She confided to Montague that she hoped the latter might +see her that evening--he needed to be made jealous. + +"The Great White Way" was the name which people had given to this part +of Broadway; and at the head of it stood a huge hotel with flaming +lights, and gorgeous marble and bronze, and famous paintings upon the +walls and ceilings inside. At this hour every one of its many +dining-rooms was thronged with supper-parties, and the place rang with +laughter and the rattle of dishes, and the strains of several +orchestras which toiled heroically in the midst of the uproar. Here +they found a table, and while Oliver was ordering frozen poached eggs +and quails in aspic, Montague sat and gazed about him at the revelry, +and listened to the prattle of the little ex-sempstress from Rivington +Street. + +His brother had "got her," he said, by buying a speaking part in a play +for her; and Montague recalled the orgies of which he had heard at the +bachelors' dinner, and divined that here he was at the source of the +stream from which they were fed. At the table next to them was a young +Hebrew, whom Toodles pointed out as the son and heir of a great +clothing manufacturer. He was "keeping" several girls, said she; and +the queenly creature who was his vis-a-vis was one of the chorus in +"The Maids of Mandalay." And a little way farther down the room was a +boy with the face of an angel and the air of a prince of the blood--he +had inherited a million and run away from school, and was making a name +for himself in the Tenderloin. The pretty little girl all in green who +was with him was Violet Pane, who was the artist's model in a new play +that had made a hit. She had had a full-page picture of herself in the +Sunday supplement of the "sporting paper" which was read here--so +Rosalie remarked. + +"Why don't you ever do that for me?" she added, to Oliver. + +"Perhaps I will," said he, with a laugh. "What does it cost?" + +And when he learned that the honour could be purchased for only fifteen +hundred dollars, he said, "I'll do it, if you'll be good." And from +that time on the last trace of worriment vanished from the face and the +conversation of Rosalie. + +As the champagne cocktails disappeared, she and Oliver became +confidential. Then Montague turned to Toodles, to learn more about how +the "second generation" was preying upon the women of the stage. + +"A chorus-girl got from ten to twenty dollars a week," said Toodles; +and that was hardly enough to pay for her clothes. Her work was very +uncertain--she would spend weeks at rehearsal, and then if the play +failed, she would get nothing. It was a dog's life; and the keys of +freedom and opportunity were in the keeping of rich men, who haunted +the theatres and laid siege to the girls. They would send in notes to +them, or fling bouquets to them, with cards, or perhaps money, hidden +in them. There were millionaire artists and bohemians who kept a +standing order for seats in the front rows at opening performances; +they had accounts with florists and liverymen and confectioners, and +gave carte blanche to scores of girls who lent themselves to their +purposes. Sometimes they were in league with the managers, and a girl +who held back would find her chances imperilled; sometimes these men +would even finance shows to give a chance to some favourite. + +Afterward Toodles turned to listen to Oliver and his companion; and +Montague sat back and gazed about the room. Next to him was a long +table with a dozen, people at it; and he watched the buckets of +champagne and the endless succession of fantastic-looking dishes of +food, and the revellers, with their flushed faces and feverish eyes and +loud laughter. Above all the tumult was the voice of the orchestra, +calling, calling, like the storm wind upon the mountains; the music was +wild and chaotic, and produced an indescribable sense of pain and +confusion. When one realized that this same thing was going on in +thousands of places in this district it seemed that here was a flood of +dissipation that out-rivalled even that of Society. + +It was said that the hotels of New York, placed end to end, would reach +all the way to London; and they took care of a couple of hundred +thousand people a day--a horde which had come from all over the world +in search of pleasure and excitement. There were sight-seers and +"country customers" from forty-five states; ranchers from Texas, and +lumber kings from Maine, and mining men from Nevada. At home they had +reputations, and perhaps families to consider; but once plunged into +the whirlpool of the Tenderloin, they were hidden from all the world. +They came with their pockets full of money; and hotels and restaurants, +gambling-places and pool-rooms and brothels--all were lying in wait for +them! So eager had the competition become that there was a tailoring +establishment and a bank that were never closed the year round, except +on Sunday. + +Everywhere about one's feet the nets of vice were spread. The head +waiter in one's hotel was a "steerer" for a "dive," and the house +detective was "touting" for a gambling-place. The handsome woman who +smiled at one in "Peacock Alley" was a "madame"; the pleasant-faced +young man who spoke to one at the bar was on the look-out for customers +for a brokerage-house next door. Three times in a single day in another +of these great caravanserais Montague was offered "short change"; and +so his eyes were opened to a new kind of plundering. He was struck by +the number of attendants in livery who swarmed about him, and to whom +he gave tips for their services. He did not notice that the boys in the +wash-rooms and coat-rooms could not speak a word of English; he could +not know that they were searched every night, and had everything taken +from them, and that the Greek who hired them had paid fifteen thousand +dollars a year to the hotel for the privilege. + +So far had the specialization in evil proceeded that there were places +of prostitution which did a telephone-business exclusively, and would +send a woman in a cab to any address; and there were high-class +assignation-houses, which furnished exquisite apartments and the +services of maids and valets. And in this world of vice the modern +doctrine of the equality of the sexes was fully recognized; there were +gambling-houses and pool-rooms and opium-joints for women, and +drinking-places which catered especially for them. In the "orange room" +of one of the big hotels, you might see rich women of every rank and +type, fingering the dainty leather-bound and gold-embossed wine cards. +In this room alone were sold over ten thousand drinks every day; and +the hotel paid a rental of a million a year to the Devon estate. Not +far away the Devons also owned negro-dives, where, in the early hours +of the morning, you might see richly-gowned white women drinking. + +In this seething caldron of graft there were many strange ways of +making money, and many strange and incredible types of human beings to +be met. Once, in "Society," Montague had pointed out to him a woman who +had been a "tattooed lady" in a circus; there was another who had been +a confederate of gamblers upon the ocean steamships, and another who +had washed dishes in a mining-camp. There was one of these great hotels +whose proprietor had been a successful burglar; and a department-store +whose owner had begun life as a "fence." In any crowd of these +revellers you might have such strange creatures pointed out to you; a +multimillionaire who sold rotten jam to the people; another who had +invented opium soothing-syrup for babies; a convivial old gentleman who +disbursed the "yellow dog fund" of several railroads; a handsome +chauffeur who had run away with an heiress. 'Once a great scientist had +invented a new kind of underwear, and had endeavoured to make it a gift +to humanity; and here was a man who had seized upon it and made +millions out of it! Here was a "trance medium," who had got a fortune +out of an imbecile old manufacturer; here was a great newspaper +proprietor, who published advertisements of assignations at a dollar a +line; here was a cigar manufacturer, whose smug face was upon every +billboard--he had begun as a tin manufacturer, and to avoid the duty, +he had had his raw material cast in the form of statues, and brought +them in as works of art! + +And terrible and vile as were the sources from which the fortunes had +been derived, they were no viler nor more terrible than the purposes +for which they had been spent. Mrs. Vivie Patton had hinted to Montague +of a "Decameron Club," whose members gathered in each others' homes and +vied in the telling of obscene stories; Strathcona had told him about +another set of exquisite ladies and gentlemen who gave elaborate +entertainments, in which they dressed in the costumes of bygone +periods, and imitated famous characters in history, and the vices and +orgies of courts and camps. One heard of "Cleopatra nights" on board of +yachts at Newport. There was a certain Wall Street "plunger," who had +begun life as a mining man in the West; and when his customers came in +town, he would hire a trolley-car, and take a load of champagne and +half a dozen prostitutes, and spend the night careering about the +country. This man was now quartered in one of the great hotels in New +York; and in his apartments he would have prize fights and chicken +fights; and bloodthirsty exhibitions called "purring matches," in which +men tried to bark each other's shins; or perhaps a "battle royal," with +a diamond scarf-pin dangling from the ceiling, and half a dozen negroes +in a free-for-all fight for the prize. + +No picture of the ways of the Metropolis would be complete which did +not force upon the reluctant reader some realization of the extent to +which new and hideous incitements to vice were spreading. To say that +among the leisured classes such practices were raging like a pestilence +would be no exaggeration. Ten years ago they were regarded with +aversion by even the professionally vicious; but now the commonest +prostitute accepted them as part of her fate. And there was no height +to which they had not reached--ministers of state were enslaved by +them; great fortunes and public events were controlled by them. In +Washington there had been an ambassador whose natural daughter taught +them in the houses of the great, until the scandal forced the +minister's recall. Some of these practices were terrible in their +effects, completely wrecking the victim in a short time; and physicians +who studied their symptoms would be horrified to see them appearing in +the homes of their friends. + +And from New York, the centre of the wealth and culture of the country, +these vices spread to every corner of it. Theatrical companies and +travelling salesmen carried them; visiting merchants and sightseers +acquired them. Pack-pedlers sold vile pictures and books--the +manufacturing or importing of which was now quite an industry; one +might read catalogues printed abroad in English, the contents of which +would make one's flesh creep. There were cheap weeklies, costing ten +cents a year, which were thrust into area-windows for servant-girls; +there were yellow-covered French novels of unbelievable depravity for +the mistress of the house. It was a curious commentary upon the morals +of Society that upon the trains running to a certain suburban community +frequented by the ultra-fashionable, the newsboys did a thriving +business in such literature; and when the pastor of the fashionable +church eloped with a Society girl, the bishop publicly laid the blame +to the morals of his parishioners! + +The theory was that there were two worlds, and that they were kept +rigidly separate. There were two sets of women; one to be toyed with +and flung aside, and the other to be protected and esteemed. Such +things as prostitutes and kept women might exist, but people of +refinement did not talk about them, and were not concerned with them. +But Montague was familiar with the saying, that if you follow the chain +of the slave, you will find the other end about the wrist of the +master; and he discovered that the Tenderloin was wreaking its +vengeance upon Fifth Avenue. It was not merely that the men of wealth +were carrying to their wives and children the diseases of vice; they +were carrying also the manners and the ideals. + +Montague had been amazed by the things he had found in New York +Society; the smoking and drinking and gambling of women, their hard and +cynical views of life, their continual telling of coarse stories. And +here, in this under-world, he had come upon the fountain head of the +corruption. It was something which came to him in a sudden flash of +intuition;--the barriers between the two worlds were breaking down! + +He could picture the process in a hundred different forms. There was +Betty Wyman. His brother had meant to take her to the theatre, to let +her see Rosalie, by way of a joke! So, of course, Betty knew of his +escapades, and of those of his set; she and her girl friends were +whispering and jesting about them. Here sat Oliver, smiling and +cynical, toying with Rosalie as a cat might toy with a mouse; and +to-morrow he would be with Betty--and could anyone doubt any longer +whence Betty had derived her attitude towards life? And the habits of +mind that Oliver had taught her as a girl she would not forget as a +wife; he might be anxious to keep her to himself, but there would be +others whose interest was different. + +And Montague recalled other things that he had seen or heard in +Society, that he could put his finger upon, as having come out of this +under-world. The more he thought of the explanation, the more it seemed +to explain. This "Society," which had perplexed him--now he could +describe it: its manners and ideals of life were those which he would +have expected to find in the "fast" side of stage life. + +It was, of course, the women who made Society, and gave it its tone; +and the women of Society were actresses. They were actresses in their +love of notoriety and display; in their taste in clothes and jewels, +their fondness for cigarettes and champagne. They made up like +actresses; they talked and thought like actresses. The only obvious +difference was that the women of the stage were carefully +selected--were at least up to a certain standard of physical +excellence; whereas the women of Society were not selected at all, and +some were lean, and some were stout, and some were painfully homely. + +Montague recalled cases where the two sets had met as at some of the +private entertainments. It was getting to be the fashion to hobnob with +the stage people on such occasions; and he recalled how naturally the +younger people took to this. Only the older women held aloof; looking +down upon the women of the stage from an ineffable height, as belonging +to a lower caste--because they were obliged to work for their livings. +But it seemed to Montague, as he sat and talked with this poor +chorus-girl, who had sold herself for a little pleasure, that it was +easier to pardon her than the woman who had been born to luxury, and +scorned those who produced her wealth. + +But most of all, one's sympathies went out to a person who was not to +be met in either of these sets; to the girl who had not sold herself, +but was struggling for a living in the midst of this ravening +corruption. There were thousands of self-respecting women, even on the +stage; Toodles herself had been among them, she told Montague. "I kept +straight for a long time," she said, laughing cheerfully--"and on ten +dollars a week! I used to go out on the road, and then they paid me +sixteen; and think of trying to live on one-night stands--to board +yourself and stop at hotels and dress for the theatre--on sixteen a +week, and no job half the year! And all that time--do you know Cyril +Chambers, the famous church painter?" + +"I've heard of him," said Montague. + +"Well, I was with a show here on Broadway the next winter; and every +night for six months he sent me a bunch of orchids that couldn't have +cost less than seventy-five dollars! And he told me he'd open accounts +for me in all the stores I chose, if I'd spend the next summer in +Europe with him. He said I could take my mother or my sister with +me--and I was so green in those days, I thought that must mean he +didn't intend anything wrong!" + +Toodles smiled at the memory. "Did you go?" asked the man. + +"No," she answered. "I stayed here with a roof-garden show that failed. +And I went to my old manager for a job, and he said to me, 'I can only +pay you ten a week. But why are you so foolish?' 'How do you mean?' I +asked; and he answered, 'Why don't you get a rich sweetheart? Then I +could pay you sixty.' That's what a girl hears on the stage!" + +"I don't understand," said Montague, perplexed. "Did he mean he could +get money out of the man?" + +"Not directly," said Toodles; "but tickets--and advertising. Why, men +will hire front-row seats for a whole season, if they're interested in +a girl in the show. And they'll take all their friends to see her, and +she'll be talked about--she'll be somebody, instead of just nobody, as +I was." + +"Then it actually helps her on the stage!" said Montague. + +"Helps her!" exclaimed Toodles. "My God! I've known a girl who'd been +abroad with a tip-top swell--and had the gowns and the jewels to prove +it--to come home and get into the front row of a chorus at a hundred +dollars a week." + +Toodles was cheerful and all unaware; and that only made the tragedy of +it all one shade more black to Montague. He sat lost in sombre reverie, +forgetting his companions, and the blare and glare of the place. + +In the centre of this dining-room was a great cone-shaped stand, +containing a display of food; and as they strolled out, Montague +stopped to look at it. There were platters garnished with flowers and +herbs, and containing roast turkeys and baked hams, jellied meats and +game in aspic, puddings and tarts and frosted cakes--every kind of +food-fantasticality imaginable. One might have spent an hour in +studying it, and from top to bottom he would have found nothing simple, +nothing natural. The turkeys had paper curls and rosettes stuck over +them; the hams were covered with a white gelatine, the devilled crabs +with a yellow mayonnaise-and all painted over in pink and green and +black with landscapes and marine views--with "ships and shoes and +sealing-wax and cabbages and kings." The jellied meats and the puddings +were in the shape of fruits and flowers; and there were elaborate works +of art in pink and white confectionery--a barn-yard, for instance, with +horses and cows, and a pump, and a dairymaid--and one or two alligators. + +And all this was changed every day! Each morning you might see a +procession of a score of waiters bearing aloft a new supply. Montague +remembered Betty Wyman's remark at their first interview, apropos of +the whipped cream made into little curleques; how his brother had said, +"If Allan were here, he'd be thinking about the man who fixed that +cream, and how long it took him, and how he might have been reading +'The Simple Life'!" + +He thought of that now; he stood here and gazed, and wondered about all +the slaves of the lamp who served in this huge temple of luxury. He +looked at the waiters--pale, hollow-chested, harried-looking men: he +imagined the hordes of servants of yet lower kinds, who never emerged +into the light of day; the men who washed the dishes, the men who +carried the garbage, the men who shovelled the coal into the furnaces, +and made the heat and light and power. Pent up in dim cellars, many +stories under ground, and bound for ever to the service of +sensuality--how terrible must be their fate, how unimaginable their +corruption! And they were foreigners; they had come here seeking +liberty. And the masters of the new country had seized them and pent +them here! + +From this as a starting-point his thought went on, to the hordes of +toilers in every part of the world, whose fate it was to create the +things which these blind revellers destroyed; the women and children in +countless mills and sweatshops, who spun the cloth, and cut and sewed +it; the girls who made the artificial flowers, who rolled the +cigarettes, who gathered the grapes from the vines; the miners who dug +the coal and the precious metals out of the earth; the men who watched +in ten thousand signal-towers and engines, who fought the elements from +the decks of ten thousand ships--to bring all these things here to be +destroyed. Step by step, as the flood of extravagance rose, and the +energies of the men were turned to the creation of futility and +corruption--so, step by step, increased the misery and degradation of +all these slaves of Mammon. And who could imagine what they would think +about it--if ever they came to think? + +And then, in a sudden flash, there came back to Montague that speech +he had heard upon the street-corner, the first evening he had been in +New York! He could hear again the pounding of the elevated trains, and +the shrill voice of the orator; he could see his haggard and hungry +face, and the dense crowd gazing up at him. And there came to him the +words of Major Thorne: + +"It means another civil war!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Alice had been gone for a couple of weeks, and the day was drawing near +when the Hasbrook case came up for trial. The Saturday before that +being the date of the Mi-careme dance of the Long Island Hunt Club, +Siegfried Harvey was to have a house-party for the week-end, and +Montague accepted his invitation. He had been working hard, putting the +finishing touches to his brief, and he thought that a rest would be +good for him. + +He and his brother went down upon Friday afternoon, and the first +person he met was Betty Wyman, whom he had not seen for quite a while. +Betty had much to say, and said it. As Montague had not been seen with +Mrs. Winnie since the episode in her house, people had begun to notice +the break, and there was no end of gossip; and Mistress Betty wanted to +know all about it, and how things stood between them. + +But he would not tell her, and so she saucily refused to tell him what +she had heard. All the while they talked she was eyeing him +quizzically, and it was evident that she took the worst for granted; +also that he had become a much more interesting person to her because +of it. Montague had the strangest sensations when he was talking with +Betty Wyman; she was delicious and appealing, almost irresistible; and +yet her views of life were so old! "I told you you wouldn't do for a +tame cat!" she said to him. + +Then she went on to talk to him about his case, and to tease him about +the disturbance he had made. + +"You know," she said, "Ollie and I were in terror--we thought that +grandfather would be furious, and that we'd be ruined. But somehow, it +didn't work out that way. Don't you say anything about it, but I've had +a sort of a fancy that he must be on your side of the fence." + +"I'd be glad to know it," said Montague, with a laugh--"I've been +trying for a long time to find out who is on my side of the fence." + +"He was talking about it the other day," said Betty, "and I heard him +tell a man that he'd read your argument, and thought it was good." + +"I'm glad to hear that," said Montague. + +"So was I," replied she. "And I said to him afterward, 'I suppose you +don't know that Allan Montague is my Ollie's brother.' And he did you +the honour to say that he hadn't supposed any member of Ollie's family +could have as much sense!" + +Betty was staying with an aunt near by, and she went back before +dinner. In the automobile which came for her was old Wyman himself, on +his way home from the city; and as a snowstorm had begun, he came in +and stood by the fire while his car was exchanged for a closed one from +Harvey's stables. Montague did not meet him, but stood and watched him +from the shadows-a mite of a man, with a keen and eager face, full of +wrinkles. It was hard to realize that this little body held one of the +great driving minds of the country. He was an intensely nervous and +irritable man, bitter and implacable--by all odds the most hated and +feared man in Wall Street. He was swift, imperious, savage as a hornet. +"Directors at meetings that I attend vote first and discuss afterward," +was one of his sayings that Montague had heard quoted. Watching him +here by the fireside, rubbing his hands and chatting pleasantly, +Montague had a sudden sense of being behind the scenes, of being +admitted to a privilege denied to ordinary mortals--the beholding of +royalty in everyday attire! + +After dinner that evening Montague had a chat in the smoking-room with +his host; and he brought up the subject of the Hasbrook case, and told +about his trip to Washington, and his interview with Judge Ellis. + +Harvey also had something to communicate. "I had a talk with Freddie +Vandam about it," said he. + +"What did he say?" asked Montague. + +"Well," replied the other, with a laugh, "he's indignant, needless to +say. You know, Freddie was brought up by his father to regard the +Fidelity as his property, in a way. He always refers to it as 'my +company.' And he's very high and mighty about it--it's a personal +affront if anyone attacks it. But it was evident to me that he doesn't +know who's behind this case." + +"Did he know about Ellis?" asked Montague. + +"Yes," said the other, "he had found out that much. It was he who told +me that originally. He says that Ellis has been sponging off the +company for years--he has a big salary that he never earns, and has +borrowed something like a quarter of a million dollars on worthless +securities." + +Montague gave a gasp. + +"Yes," laughed Harvey. "But after all, that's a little matter. The +trouble with Freddie Vandam is that that sort of thing is all he sees; +and so he'll never be able to make out the mystery. He knows that this +clique or that in the company is plotting to get some advantage, or to +use him for their purposes--but he never realizes how the big men are +pulling the wires behind the scenes. Some day they'll throw him +overboard altogether, and then he'll realize how they've played with +him. That's what this Hasbrook case means, you know--they simply want +to frighten him with a threat of getting the company's affairs into the +courts and the newspapers." + +Montague sat for a while in deep thought. + +"What would you think would be Wyman's relation to the matter?" he +asked, at last. + +"I wouldn't know," said Harvey. "He's supposed to be Freddie's +backer--but what can you tell in such a tangle?" + +"It is certainly a mess," said Montague. + +"There's no bottom to it," said the other. "Absolutely--it would take +your breath away! Just listen to what Vandam told me to-day!" + +And then Harvey named one of the directors of the Fidelity who was well +known as a philanthropist. Having heard that the wife of one of his +junior partners had met with an accident in childbirth, and that the +doctor had told her husband that if she ever had another child, she +would die, this man had asked, "Why don't you have her life insured?" +The other replied that he had tried, and the companies had refused her. +"I'll fix it for you," said he; and so they put in another application, +and the director came to Freddie Vandam and had the policy put through +"by executive order." Seven months later the woman died, and the +Fidelity had paid her husband in full--a hundred thousand or two! + +"That's what's going on in the insurance world!" said Siegfried Harvey. + +And that was the story which Montague took with him to add to his +enjoyment of the festivities at the country club. It was a very +gorgeous affair; but perhaps the sombreness of his thoughts was to +blame; the flowers and music and beautiful gowns failed entirely in +their appeal, and he saw only the gluttony and drunkenness--more of it +than ever before, it seemed to him. + +Then, too, he had an unpleasant experience. He met Laura Hegan; and +presuming upon her cordial reception of his visit, he went up and spoke +to her pleasantly. And she greeted him with frigid politeness; she was +so brief in her remarks and turned away so abruptly as almost to snub +him. He went away quite bewildered. But later on he recalled the gossip +about himself and Mrs. Winnie, and he guessed that that was the +explanation of Miss Hegar's action. + +The episode threw a shadow over his whole visit. On Sunday he went out +into the country and tramped through a snowstorm by himself, filled +with a sense of disgust for all the past, and of foreboding for the +future. He hated this money-world, in which all that was worst in human +beings was brought to the surface; he hated it, and wished that he had +never set foot within its bounds. It was only by tramping until he was +too tired to feel anything that he was able to master himself. + +And then, toward dark, he came back, and found a telegram which had +been forwarded from New York. + +"Meet me at the Penna depot, Jersey City, at nine to-night. Alice." + +This message, of course, drove all other thoughts from his mind. He had +no time even to tell Oliver about it--he had to jump into an automobile +and rush to catch the next train for the city. And all through the +long, cold ride in ferry-boats and cabs he pondered this mystery. +Alice's party had not been expected for two weeks yet; and only two +days before there had come a letter from Los Angeles, saying that they +would probably be a week over time. And here she was home again! + +He found there was an express from the West due at the hour named; +apparently, therefore, Alice had not come in the Prentice's train at +all. The express was half an hour late, and so he paced up and down the +platform, controlling his impatience as best he could. And finally the +long train pulled in, and he saw Alice coming down the platform. She +was alone! + +"What does it mean?" were the first words he said to her. + +"It's a long story," she answered. "I wanted to come home."; + +"You mean you've come all the way from the coast by yourself!" he +gasped. + +"Yes," she said, "all the way." + +"What in the world--" he began. + +"I can't tell you here, Allan," she said. "Wait till we get to some +quiet place." + +"But," he persisted. "The Prentice? They let you come home alone?" + +"They didn't know it," she said. "I ran away." + +He was more bewildered than ever. But as he started to ask more +questions, she laid a hand upon his arm. "Please wait, Allan," she +said. "It upsets me to talk about it. It was Charlie Carter." + +And so the light broke. He caught his breath and gasped, "Oh!" + +He said not another word until they had crossed the ferry and settled +themselves in a cab, and started. "Now," he said, "tell me." + +Alice began. "I was very much upset," she said. "But you must +understand, Allan, that I've had nearly a week to think it over, and I +don't mind it now. So I want you please not to get excited about it; it +wasn't poor Charlie's fault--he can't help himself. It was my mistake. +I ought to have taken your advice and had nothing to do with him." + +"Go on," said he; and Alice told her story. + +The party had gone sight-seeing, and she had had a headache and had +stayed in the car. And Charlie Carter had come and begun making love to +her. "He had asked me to marry him already--that was at the beginning +of the trip," she said. "And I told him no. After that he would never +let me alone. And this time he went on in a terrible way--he flung +himself down on his knees, and wept, and said he couldn't live without +me. And nothing I could say did any good. At last he--he caught hold of +me--and he wouldn't let me go. I was furious with him, and frightened. +I had to threaten to call for help before he would stop. And so--you +see how it was." + +"I see," said Montague, gravely. "Go on." + +"Well, after that I made up my mind that I couldn't stay anywhere where +I had to see him. And I knew he would never go away without a scene. If +I had asked Mrs. Prentice to send him away, there would have been a +scandal, and it would have spoiled everybody's trip. So I went out, and +found there was a train for the East in a little while, and I packed up +my things, and left a note for Mrs. Prentice. I told her a story--I +said I'd had a telegram that your mother was ill, and that I didn't +want to spoil their good time, and had gone by myself. That was the +best thing I could think of. I wasn't afraid to travel, so long as I +was sure that Charlie couldn't catch up with me." + +Montague said nothing; he sat with his hands gripped tightly. + +"It seemed like a desperate thing to do," said Alice, nervously. "But +you see, I was upset and unhappy. I didn't seem to like the party any +more--I wanted to be home. Do you understand?" + +"Yes," said Montague, "I understand. And I'm glad you are here." + +They reached home, and Montague called up Harvey's and told his brother +what had happened. He could hear Oliver gasp with astonishment. "That's +a pretty how-do-you-do!" he said, when he had got his breath back; and +then he added, with a laugh, "I suppose that settles poor Charlie's +chances." + +"I'm glad you've come to that conclusion," said the other, as he hung +up the receiver. + +This episode gave Montague quite a shock. But he had little time to +think about it--the next morning at eleven o'clock his case was to come +up for trial, and so all his thoughts were called away. This case had +been the one real interest of his life for the last three months; it +was his purpose, the thing for the sake of which he endured everything +else that repelled him. And he had trained himself as an athlete for a +great race; he was in form, and ready for the effort of his life. He +went down town that morning with every fibre of him, body and mind, +alert and eager; and he went into his office, and in his mail was a +letter from Mr. Hasbrook. He opened it hastily and read a message, +brief and direct and decisive as a sword-thrust: + +"I beg to inform you that I have received a satisfactory proposition +from the Fidelity Company. I have settled with them, and wish to +withdraw the suit. Thanking you for your services, I remain, sincerely." + +To Montague the thing came like a thunderbolt. He sat utterly +dumbfounded--his hands went limp, and the letter fell upon the desk in +front of him. + +And at last, when he did move, he picked up the telephone, and told his +secretary to call up Mr. Hasbrook. Then he sat waiting; and when the +bell rang, picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Mr. Hasbrook's +voice, and to demand an explanation. But he heard, instead, the voice +of his own secretary: "Central says the number's been discontinued, +sir." + +And he hung up the receiver, and sat motionless again. The dummy had +disappeared! + +To Montague this incident meant a change in the prospect of his whole +life. It was the collapse of all his hopes. He had nothing more to work +for, nothing more to think about; the bottom had fallen out of his +career! + +He was burning with a sense of outrage. He had been tricked and made a +fool of; he had been used and flung aside. And now there was nothing he +could do--he was utterly helpless. What affected him most was his sense +of the overwhelming magnitude of the powers which had made him their +puppet; of the utter futility of the efforts that he or any other man +could make against them. They were like elemental, cosmic forces; they +held all the world in their grip, and a common man was as much at their +mercy as a bit of chaff in a tempest. + +All day long he sat in his office, brooding and nursing his wrath. He +had moods when he wished to drop everything, to shake the dust of the +city from his feet, and go back home and recollect what it was to be a +gentleman. And then again he had fighting moods, when he wished to +devote all his life to punishing the men who had made use of him. He +would get hold of some other policy-holder in the Fidelity, one whom he +could trust; he would take the case without pay, and carry it through +to the end! He would force the newspapers to talk about it--he would +force the people to heed what he said! + +And then, toward evening, he went home, bitter and sore. And there was +his brother sitting in his study, waiting for him. + +"Hello," he said, and took off his coat, preparing his mind for one +more ignominy--the telling of his misfortune to Oliver, and listening +to his inevitable, "I told you so." + +But Oliver himself had something to communicate something that would +not bear keeping. He broke out at once--"Tell me, Allan! What in the +world has happened between you and Mrs. Winnie?" + +"What do you mean?" asked Montague, sharply. + +"Why," said Oliver, "everybody is talking about some kind of a quarrel." + +"There has been no quarrel," said Montague. + +"Well, what is it, then?" + +"It's nothing." + +"It must be something!" exclaimed Oliver. "What do all the stories +mean?" + +"What stories?" + +"About you two. I met Mrs. Vivie Patton just now, and she swore me to +secrecy, and told me that Mrs. Winnie had told some one that you had +made love to her so outrageously that she had to ask you to leave the +house." + +Montague shrunk as from a blow. "Oh!" he gasped. + +"That's what she said," said he. + +"It's a lie!" he cried. + +"That's what I told Mrs. Vivie," said the other; "it doesn't sound like +you--" + +Montague had flushed scarlet. "I don't mean that!" he cried. "I mean +that Mrs. Winnie never said any such thing." + +"Oh," said Oliver, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe not," he +added. "But I know she's furious with you about something--everybody's +talking about it. She tells people that she'll never speak to you +again. And what I want to know is, why is it that you have to do things +to make enemies of everybody you know?" + +Montague said nothing; he was trembling with anger. + +"What in the world did you do to her?" began the other. "Can't you +trust me---" + +And suddenly Montague sprang to his feet. "Oh, Oliver," he exclaimed, +"let me alone! Go away!" + +And he went into the next room and slammed the door, and began pacing +back and forth like a caged animal. + +It was a lie! It was a lie! Mrs. Winnie had never said such a thing! He +would never believe it--it was a nasty piece of backstairs gossip! + +But then a new burst of rage swept over him What did it matter Whether +it was true or not--whether anything was true or not? What did it +matter if anybody had done all the hideous and loathsome things that +everybody else said they had done? It was what everybody was saying! It +was what everybody believed--what everybody was interested in! It was +the measure of a whole society--their ideals and their standards! It +was the way they spent their time, repeating nasty scandals about each +other; living in an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism, with endless +whispering and leering, and gossip of lew intrigue. + +A flood of rage surged up within him, and swept him, away--rage against +the world into which he had come, and against himself for the part he +had played in it. Everything seemed to have come to a head at once; and +he hated everything--hated the people he had met, and the things they +did, and the things they had tempted him to do. He hated the way he had +got his money, and the way he had spent it. He hated the idleness and +wastefulness, the drunkenness and debauchery, the meanness and the +snobbishness. + +And suddenly he turned and flung open the door of the room where Oliver +still sat. And he stood in the doorway, exclaiming, "Oliver, I'm done +with it!" + +Oliver stared at him. "What do you mean?" he asked. + +"I mean," cried his brother, "that I've had all I can stand of +'Society!' And I'm going to quit. You can go on--but I don't intend to +take another step with you! I've had enough--and I think Alice has had +enough, also. We'll take ourselves off your hands--we'll get out!" + +"What are you going to do?" gasped Oliver. + +"I'm going to give up these expensive apartments--give them up +to-morrow, when our week is up. And I'm going to stop squandering money +for things I don't want. I'm going to stop accepting invitations, and +meeting people I don't like and don't want to know. I've tried your +game--I've tried it hard, and I don't like it; and I'm going to get out +before it's too late. I'm going to find some decent and simple place to +live in; and I'm going down town to find out if there isn't some way in +New York for a man to earn an honest living!" + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Metropolis, by Upton Sinclair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METROPOLIS *** + +***** This file should be named 5421.txt or 5421.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/2/5421/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines. + +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. 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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Metropolis + +Author: Upton Sinclair + +Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5421] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 14, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METROPOLIS *** + + + + +This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo (pg@aldarondo.net). + + + + + +THE METROPOLIS + +BY + +UPTON SINCLAIR + +FIRST PUBLISHED 1908 + +PRINTED BY OFFSET IN GREAT BRITAIN + + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + + + +"Return at ten-thirty," the General said to his chauffeur, and then +they entered the corridor of the hotel. + +Montague gazed about him, and found himself trembling just a little +with anticipation. It was not the magnificence of the place. The +quiet uptown hotel would have seemed magnificent to him, fresh as he +was from the country; but, he did hot see the marblo columns and the +gilded carvings-he was thinking of the men he was to meet. It seemed +too much to crowd into one day-first the vision of the whirling, +seething city, the centre of all his hopes of the future; and then, +at night, this meeting, overwhelming him with the crowded memories +of everything that he held precious in the past. + +There were groups of men in faded uniforms standing about in the +corridors. General Prentice bowed here and there as they retired and +took the elevator to the reception-rooms. In the doorway they passed +a stout little man with stubby white moustaches, and the General +stopped, exclaiming, "Hello, Major!" Then he added: "Let me +introduce Mr. Allan Montague. Montague, this is Major Thorne." + +A look of sudden interest flashed across the Major's face. "General +Montague's son?" he cried. And then he seized the other's hand in +both of his, exclaiming, "My boy! my boy! I'm glad to see you!" + +Now Montague was no boy--he was a man of thirty, and rather sedate +in his appearance and manner; there was enough in his six feet one +to have made two of the round and rubicund little Major. And yet it +seemed to him quite proper that the other should address him so. He +was back in his boyhood to-night--he was a boy whenever anyone +mentioned the name of Major Thorne. + +"Perhaps you have heard your father speak of me?" asked the Major, +eagerly; and Montague answered, "A thousand times." + +He was tempted to add that the vision that rose before him was of a +stout gentleman hanging in a grape-vine, while a whole battery of +artillery made him their target. + +Perhaps it was irreverent, but that was what Montague had always +thought of, ever since he had first laughed over the tale his father +told. It had happened one January afternoon in the Wilderness, +during the terrible battle of Chancellorsville, when Montague's +father had been a rising young staff-officer, and it had fallen to +his lot to carry to Major Thorne what was surely the most terrifying +order that ever a cavalry officer received. It was in the crisis of +the conflict, when the Army of the Potomac was reeling before the +onslaught of Stonewall Jackson's columns. There was no one to stop +them-and yet they must be stopped, for the whole right wing of the +army was going. So that cavalry regiment had charged full tilt +through the thickets, and into a solid wall of infantry and +artillery. The crash of their volley was blinding--and horses wore +fairly shot to fragments; and the Major's horse, with its lower jaw +torn off, had plunged madly away and left its rider hanging in the +aforementioned grape-vine. After he had kicked himself loose, it was +to find himself in an arena where pain-maddened horses and frenzied +men raced about amid a rain of minie-balls and canister. And in this +inferno the gallant Major had captured a horse, and rallied the +remains of his shattered command, and held the line until help +came-and then helped to hold it, all through the afternoon and the +twilight and the night, against charge after charge.--And now to +stand and gaze at this stout and red-nosed little personage, and +realize that these mighty deeds had been his! + +Then, even while Montague was returning his hand-clasp and telling +him of his pleasure, the Major's eye caught some one across the +room, and he called eagerly, "Colonel Anderson! Colonel Anderson!" + +And this was the heroic Jack Anderson! "Parson" Anderson, the men +had called him, because he always prayed before everything he did. +Prayers at each mess,--a prayer-meeting in the evening,--and then +rumour said the Colonel prayed on while his men slept. With his +battery of artillery trained to perfection under three years of +divine guidance, the gallant Colonel had stood in the line of battle +at Cold Harbour--name of frightful memory!--and when the enemy had +swarmed out of their intrenchments and swept back the whole line +just beyond him, his battery had stood like a cape in a storm-beaten +ocean, attacked on two sides at once; and for the half-hour that +elapsed before infantry support came up, the Colonel had ridden +slowly up and down his line, repeating in calm and godly accents, +"Give 'em hell, boys--give 'em hell!"--The Colonel's hand trembled +now as he held it out, and his voice was shrill and cracked as he +told what pleasure it gave him to meet General Montague's son. + +"Why have we never seen you before?" asked Major Thorne. Montague +replied that he had spent all his life in Mississippi--his father +having married a Southern woman after the war. Once every year the +General had come to New York to attend the reunion of the Loyal +Legion of the State; but some one had had to stay at home with his +mother, Montague explained. + +There were perhaps a hundred men in the room, and he was passed +about from group to group. Many of them had known his father +intimately. It seemed almost uncanny to him to meet them in the +body; to find them old and feeble, white-haired and wrinkled. As +they lived in the chambers of his memory, they were in their mighty +youth-heroes, transfigured and radiant, not subject to the power of +time. + +Life on the big plantation had been a lonely one, especially for a +Southern-born man who had fought in the Union army. General Montague +had been a person of quiet tastes, and his greatest pleasure had +been to sit with his two boys on his knees and "fight his battles +o'er again." He had collected all the literature of the corps which +he had commanded--a whole librarry of it, in which Allan had learned +to find his way as soon as he could read. He had literally been +brought up on the war--for hours he would lie buried in some big +illustrated history, until people came and called him away. He +studied maps of campaigns and battle-fields, until they became alive +with human passion and struggle; he knew the Army of the Potomac by +brigade and division, with the names of commanders, and their faces, +and their ways-until they lived and spoke, and the bare roll of +their names had power to thrill him.--And now here were the men +themselves, and all these scenes and memories crowding upon him in +tumultuous throngs. No wonder that he was a little dazed, and could +hardly find words to answer when he was spoken to. + +But then came an incident which called him suddenly back to the +world of the present. "There is Judge Ellis," said the General. + +Judge Ellis! The fame of his wit and eloquence had reached even far +Mississippi--was there any remotest corner of America where men had +not heard of the silver tongue of Judge Ellis? "Cultivate him!" +Montague's brother Oliver had laughed, when it was mentioned that +the Judge would be present--"Cultivate him--he may be useful." + +It was not difficult to cultivate one who was as gracious as Judge +Ellis. He stood in the doorway, a smooth, perfectly groomed +gentleman, conspicuous in the uniformed assembly by his evening +dress. The Judge was stout and jovial, and cultivated Dundreary +whiskers and a beaming smile. "General Montague's son!" he +exclaimed, as he pressed the young man's hands. "Why, why--I'm +surprised! Why have we never seen you before?" + +Montague explained that he had only been in New York about six +hours. "Oh, I see," said the Judge. "And shall you remain long?" + +"I have come to stay," was the reply. + +"Well, well!" said the other, cordially. "Then we may see more of +you. Are you going into business?" + +"I am a lawyer," said Montague. "I expect to practise." + +The Judge's quick glance had been taking the measure of the tall, +handsome man before him, with his raven-black hair and grave +features. "You must give us a chance to try your mettle," he said; +and then, as others approached to meet him, and he was forced to +pass on, he laid a caressing hand on Montague's arm, whispering, +with a sly smile, "I mean it." + +Montague felt his heart beat a little faster. He had not welcomed +his brother's suggestion--there was nothing of the sycophant in him; +but he meant to work and to succeed, and he knew what the favour of +a man like Judge Ellis would mean to him. For the Judge was the idol +of New York's business and political aristocracy, and the doorways +of fortune yielded at his touch. + +There were rows of chairs in one of the rooms, and here two or three +hundred men were gathered. There were stands of battle-flags in the +corners, each one of them a scroll of tragic history, to one like +Montague, who understood. His eye roamed over them while the +secretary was reading minutes of meetings and other routine +announcements. Then he began to study the assemblage. There were men +with one arm and men with one leg--one tottering old soldier ninety +years of age, stone blind, and led about by his friends. The Loyal +Legion was an officers' organization, and to that extent +aristocratic; but worldly success counted for nothing in it--some of +its members were struggling to exist on their pensions, and were as +much thought of as a man like General Prentice, who was president ot +one of the city's largest banks, and a rich man, even in New York's +understanding of that term. + +The presiding officer introduced "Colonel Robert gelden, who will +read the paper of the evening: 'Recollections of Spottsylvania.'" +Montague started at the name--for "Bob" Selden had been one of his +father's messmates, and had fought all through the Peninsula +Campaign at his side. + +He was a tall, hawk-faced man with a grey imperial. The room was +still as he arose, and after adjusting his glasses, he began to read +his story. He recalled the situation of the Army of the Potomac in +the spring of 1846; for three years it had marched and fought, +stumbling through defeat after defeat, a mighty weapon, lacking only +a man who could wield it. Now at last the man had come--one who +would put them into the battle and give them a chance to fight. So +they had marched into the Wilderness, and there Lee struck them, and +for three days they groped in a blind thicket, fighting hand to +hand, amid suffocating smoke. The Colonel read in a quiet, +unassuming voice; but one could see that he had hold of his hearers +by the light that crossed their features when he told of the army's +recoil from the shock, and of the wild joy that ran through the +ranks when they took up their march to the left, and realized that +this time they were not going back.--So they came to the twelve +days' grapple of the Spottsylvania Campaign. + +There was still the Wilderness thicket; the enemy's intrenchments, +covering about eight miles, lay in the shape of a dome, and at the +cupola of it were breastworks of heavy timbers banked with earth, +and with a ditch and a tangle of trees in front. The place was the +keystone of the Confederate arch, and the name of it was "the +Angle"--"Bloody Angle!" Montague heard the man who sat next to him +draw in his breath, as if a spasm of pain had shot through him. + +At dawn two brigades had charged and captured the place. The enemy +returned to the attack, and for twenty hours thereafter the two +armies fought, hurling regiment after regiment and brigade after +brigade into the trenches. There was a pouring rain, and the smoke +hung black about them; they could only see the flashes of the guns, +and the faces of the enemy, here and there. + +The Colonel described the approach of his regiment. They lay down +for a moment in a swamp, and the minie-balls sang like swarming +bees, and split the blades of the grass above them. Then they +charged, over ground that ran with human blood. In the trenches the +bodies of dead and dying men lay three deep, and were trampled out +of sight in the mud by the feet of those who fought. They would +crouch behind the works, lifting their guns high over their heads, +and firing into the throngs on the other side; again and again men +sprang upon the breastworks and fired their muskets, and then fell +dead. They dragged up cannon, one after another, and blew holes +through the logs, and raked the' ground with charges of canister. + +While the Colonel read, still in his calm, matter-of-fact voice, you +might see men leaning forward in their chairs, hands clenched, teeth +set. They knew! They knew! Had there ever before been a time in +history when breastworks had been charged by artillery? Twenty-four +men in the crew of one gun, and only two unhurt! One iron +sponge-bucket with thirty-nine bullet holes shot through it! And +then blasts of canister sweeping the trenches, and blowing scores of +living and dead men to fragments! And into this hell of slaughter +new regiments charging, in lines four deep! And squad after squad of +the enemy striving to surrender, and shot to pieces by their own +comrades as they clambered over the blood-soaked walls! And heavy +timbers in the defences shot to splinters! Huge oak trees--one of +them twenty-four inches in diameter--crashing down upon the +combatants, gnawed through by rifle-bullets! Since the world began +had men ever fought like that? + +Then the Colonel told of his own wound in the shoulder, and how, +toward dusk, he had crawled away; and how he became lost, and +strayed into the enemy's line, and was thrust into a batch of +prisoners and marched to the rear. And then of the night that he +spent beside a hospital camp in the Wilderness, where hundreds of +wounded and dying men lay about on the rain-soaked ground, moaning, +screaming, praying to be killed. Again the prisoners were moved, +having been ordered to march to the railroad; and on the way the +Colonel went blind from suffering and exhaustion, and staggered and +fell in the road. You could have heard a pin drop in the room, in +the pause between sentences in his story, as he told how the guard +argued with him to persuade him to go on. It was their duty to kill +him if he refused, but they could not bring themselves to do it. In +the end they left the job to one, and he stood and cursed the +officer, trying to get up his courage; and finally fired his gun +into the air, and went off and left him. + +Then he told how an old negro had found him, and how he lay +delirious; and how, at last, the army marched his way. He ended his +narrative the simple sentence: "It was not until the siege of +Petersburg that I was able to rejoin my Command." + +There was a murmur of applause; and then silence. Suddenly, from +somewhere in the room, came the sound of singing--"Mine eyes have +seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" The old battle-hymn +seemed to strike the very mood of the meeting; the whole throng took +it up, and they sang it, stanza by stanza. It was rolling forth like +a mighty organ-chant as they came to the fervid closing:-- + +"He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He +is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat; Oh! be +swift, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet,--Our God is +marching on!" + +There was a pause again; and the presiding officer rose and said +that, owing to the presence of a distinguished guest, they would +forego one of their rules, and invite Judge Ellis to say a few +words. The Judge came forward, and bowed his acknowledgment of their +welcome. Then, perhaps feeling a need of relief after the sombre +recital, the Judge took occasion to apologize for his own temerity +in addressing a roomful of warriors; and somehow he managed to make +that remind him of a story of an army mule, a very amusing story; +and that reminded him of another story, until, when he stopped and +sat down, every one in the room broke into delighted applause. + +They went in to dinner. Montague sat by General Prentice, and he, in +turn, by the Judge; the latter was reminded of more stories during +the dinner, and kept every one near him laughing. Finally Montague +was moved to tell a story himself--about an old negro down home, who +passed himself off for an Indian. The Judge was so good as to +consider this an immensely funny story, and asked permission to tell +it himself. Several times after that he leaned over and spoke to +Montague, who felt a slight twinge of guilt as he recalled his +brother's cynical advice, "Cultivate him!" The Judge was so willing +to be cultivated, however, that it gave one's conscience little +chance. + +They went back to the meeting-room again; chairs were shifted, and +little groups formed, and cigars and pipes brought out. They moved +the precious battle-flags forward, and some one produced a bugle and +a couple of drums; then the walls of the place shook, as the whole +company burst forth:-- + +"Bring the good old bugle, boys! we'll sing another song--Sing it +with a spirit that will start the world along--Sing it as we used +to sing it, fifty thousand strong,--While we were marching through +Georgia!" + +It was wonderful to witness the fervour with which they went through +this rollicking chant--whose spirit we miss because we hear it too +often. They were not skilled musicians--they could only sing loud; +but the fire leaped into their eyes, and they swayed with the +rhythm, and sang! Montague found himself watching the old blind +soldier, who sat beating his foot in time, upon his face the look of +one who sees visions. + +And then he noticed another man, a little, red-faced Irishman, one +of the drummers. The very spirit of the drum seemed to have entered +into him--into his hands and his feet, his eyes and his head, and +his round little body. He played a long roll between the verses, and +it seemed as if he must surely be swept away upon the wings of it. +Catching Montague's eye, he nodded and smiled; and after that, every +once in a while their eyes would meet and exchange a greeting. They +sang "The Loyal Legioner" and "The Army Bean" and "John Brown's +Body" and "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching"; all the +while the drum rattled and thundered, and the little drummer laughed +and sang, the very incarnation of the care-free spirit of the +soldier! + +They stopped for a while, and the little man came over and was +introduced. Lieutenant O'Day was his name; and after he had left, +General Prentice leaned over to Montague and told him a story. "That +little man," he said, "began as a drummer-boy in my regiment, and +went all through the war in my brigade; and two years ago I met him +on the street one cold winter night, as thin as I am, and shivering +in a summer overcoat. I took him to dinner with me and watched him +eat, and I made up my mind there was something wrong. I made him +take me home, and do you know, the man was starving! He had a little +tobacco shop, and he'd got into trouble--the trust had taken away +his trade. And he had a sick wife, and a daughter clerking at six +dollars a week!" + +The General went on to tell of his struggle to induce the little man +to accept his aid--to accept a loan of a few hundreds of dollars +from Prentice, the banker! "I never had anything hurt me so in all +my life," he said. "Finally I took him into the bank--and now you +can see he has enough to eat!" + +They began to sing again, and Montague sat and thought over the +story. It seemed to him typical of the thing that made this meeting +beautiful to him--of the spirit of brotherhood and service that +reigned here.--They sang "We are tenting to-night on the old camp +ground"; they sang "Benny Havens, Oh!" and "A Soldier No More"; they +sang other songs of tenderness and sorrow, and men felt a trembling +in their voices and a mist stealing over their eyes. Upon Montague a +spell was falling. + +Over these men and their story there hung a mystery--a presence of +wonder, that discloses itself but rarely to mortals, and only to +those who have dreamed and dared. They had not found it easy to do +their duty; they had had their wives and children, their homes and +friends and familiar places; and all these they had left to serve +the Republic. They had taught themselves a new way of life--they had +forged themselves into an iron sword of war. They had marched and +fought in dust and heat, in pouring rains and driving, icy blasts; +they had become men grim and terrible in spirit-men with limbs of +steel, who could march or ride for days and nights, who could lie +down and sleep upon the ground in rain-storms and winter snows, who +were ready to leap at a word and seize their muskets and rush into +the cannon's mouth. They had learned to stare into the face of +death, to meet its fiery eyes; to march and eat and sleep, to laugh +and play and sing, in its presence--to carry their life in their +hands, and toss it about as a juggler tosses a ball. And this for +Freedom: for the star-crowned goddess with the flaming eyes, who +trod upon the mountain-tops and called to them in the shock and fury +of the battle; whose trailing robes they followed through the dust +and cannon-smoke; for a glimpse of whose shining face they had kept +the long night vigils and charged upon the guns in the morning; for +a touch of whose shimmering robe they had wasted in prison pens, +where famine and loathsome pestilence and raving madness stalked +about in the broad daylight. + +And now this army of deliverance, with its waving banners and its +prancing horses and its rumbling cannon, had marched into the +shadow-world. The very ground that it had trod was sacred; and one +who fingered the dusty volumes which held the record of its deeds +would feel a strange awe come upon him, and thrill with a sudden +fear of life--that was so fleeting and so little to be understood. +There were boyhood memories in Montague's mind, of hours of +consecration, when the vision had descended upon him, and he had sat +with face hidden in his hands. + +It was for the Republic that these men had suffered; for him and his +children--that a government of the people, by the people, for the +people, might not perish from the earth. And with the organ-music of +the Gettysburg Address echoing within him, the boy laid his soul +upon the altar of his country. They had done so much for him--and +now, was there anything that he could do? A dozen years had passed +since then, and still he knew that deep within him--deeper than all +other purposes, than all thoughts of wealth and fame and power--was +the purpose that the men who had died for the Republic should find +him worthy of their trust. + +The singing had stopped, and Judge Ellis was standing before him. +The Judge was about to go, and in his caressing voice he said that +he would hope to see Montague again. Then, seeing that General +Prentice was also standing up, Montague threw off the spell that had +gripped him, and shook hands with the little drummer, and with +Selden and Anderson and all the others of his dream people. A few +minutes later he found himself outside the hotel, drinking deep +draughts of the cold November air. + +Major Thorne had come out with them; and learning that the General's +route lay uptown, he offered to walk with Montague to his hotel. + +They set out, and then Montague told the Major about the figure in +the grape-vine, and the Major laughed and told how it had felt. +There had been more adventures, it seemed; while he was hunting a +horse he had come upon two mules loaded with ammunition and +entangled with their harness about a tree; he had rushed up to seize +them--when a solid shot had struck the tree and exploded the +ammunition and blown the mules to fragments. And then there was the +story of the charge late in the night, which had recovered the lost +ground, and kept Stonewall Jackson busy up to the very hour of his +tragic death. And there was the story of Andersonville, and the +escape from prison. Montague could have walked the streets all +night, exchanging these war-time reminiscences with the Major. + +Absorbed in their talk, they came to an avenue given up to the +poorer class of people; with elevated trains rattling by overhead, +and rows of little shops along it. Montague noticed a dense crowd on +one of the corners, land asked what it meant. + +"Some sort of a meeting," said the Major. + +They came nearer, and saw a torch, with a man standing near it, +above the heads of the crowd. + +"It looks like a political meeting," said Montague, "but it can't +be, now--just after election." + +"Probably it's a Socialist," said the Major. "They're at it all the +time." + +They crossed the avenue, and then they could see plainly. The man +was lean and hungry-looking, and he had long arms, which he waved +with prodigious violence. He was in a frenzy of excitement, pacing +this way and that, and leaning over the throng packed about him. +Because of a passing train the two could not hear a sound. + +"A Socialist!" exclaimed Montague, wonderingly. "What do they want?" + +"I'm not sure," said the other. "They want to overthrow the +government." + +The train passed, and then the man's words came to them: "They force +you to build palaces, and then they put you into tenements! They +force you to spin fine raiment, and then they dress you in rags! +They force you to build jails, and then they lock you up in them! +They force you to make guns, and then they shoot you with them! They +own the political parties, and they name the candidates, and trick +you into voting for them--and they call it the law! They herd you +into armies and send you to shoot your brothers--and they call it +order! They take a piece of coloured rag and call it the flag and +teach you to let yourself be shot--and they call it patriotism! +First, last, and all the time, you do the work and they get the +benefit--they, the masters and owners, and you--fools--fools +--fools!" + +The man's voice had mounted to a scream, and he flung his hands into +the air and broke into jeering laughter. Then came another train, +and Montague could not hear him; but he could see that he was +rushing on in the torrent of his denunciation. + +Montague stood rooted to the spot; he was shocked to the depths of +his being--he could scarcely contain himself as he stood there. He +longed to spring forward to beard the man where he stood, to shout +him down, to rebuke him before the crowd. + +The Major must have seen his agitation, for he took his arm and led +him back from the throng, saying: "Come! We can't help it." + +"But--but--," he protested, "the police ought to arrest him." + +"They do sometimes," said the Major, "but it doesn't do any good." + +They walked on, and the sounds of the shrill voice died away. "Tell +me," said Montague, in a low voice, "does that go on very often?" + +"Around the comer from where I live," said the other, "it goes on +every Saturday night." + +"And do the people listen?" he asked. + +"Sometimes they can't keep the street clear," was the reply. + +And again they walked in silence. At last Montague asked, "What does +it mean?" + +The Major shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps another civil war," said +he. + + + + + + +CHAPTER II + + + + + +Allan Momtague's father had died about five years before. A couple +of years later his younger brother, Oliver, had announced his +intention of seeking a career in New York. He had no profession, and +no definite plans; but his father's friends were men of influence +and wealth, and the doors were open to him. So he had turned his +share of the estate into cash and departed. + +Oliver was a gay and pleasure-loving boy, with all the material of a +prodigal son in him; his brother had more than half expected to see +him come back in a year or two with empty pockets. But New York had +seemed to agree with Oliver. He never told what he was doing--what +he wrote was simply that he was managing to keep the wolf from the +door. But his letters hinted at expensive ways of life; and at +Christmas time, and at Cousin Alice's birthday, he would send home +presents which made the family stare. + +Montague had always thought of himself as a country lawyer and +planter. But two months ago a fire had swept away the family +mansion, and then on top of that had come an offer for the land; and +with Oliver telegraphing several times a day in his eagerness, they +had taken the sudden resolution to settle up their affairs and move +to New York. + +There were Montague and his mother, and Cousin Alice, who was +nineteen, and old "Mammy Lucy," Mrs. Montague's servant. Oliver had +met them at Jersey City, radiant with happiness. He looked just as +much of a boy as ever, and just as beautiful; excepting that he was +a little paler, New York had not changed him at all. There was a man +in uniform from the hotel to take charge of their baggage, and a big +red touring-car for them; and now they were snugly settled in their +apartments, with the younger brother on duty as counsellor and +guide. + +Montague had come to begin life all over again. He had brought his +money, and he expected to invest it, and to live upon the income +until he had begun to earn something. He had worked hard at his +profession, and he meant to work in New York, and to win his way +in the end. He knew almost nothing about the city--he faced it with +the wide-open eyes of a child. + +One began to learn quickly, he found. It was like being swept into a +maelstrom: first the hurrying throngs on the ferry-boat, and then +the cabmen and the newsboys shouting, and the cars with clanging +gongs; then the swift motor, gliding between trucks and carriages +and around corners where big policemen shepherded the scurrying +populace; and then Fifth Avenue, with its rows of shops and towering +hotels; and at last a sudden swing round a corner--and their home. + +"I have picked a quiet family place for you," Oliver had said, and +that had greatly pleased his brother. But he had stared in dismay +when he entered this latest "apartment hotel"--which catered for two +or three hundred of the most exclusive of the city's +aristocracy--and noted its great arcade, with massive doors of +bronze, and its entrance-hall, trimmed with Caen stone and Italian +marble, and roofed with a vaulted ceiling painted by modern masters. +Men in livery bore their wraps and bowed the way before them; a +great bronze elevator shot them to the proper floor; and they went +to their rooms down a corridor walled with blood-red marble and +paved with carpet soft as a cushion. Here were six rooms of palatial +size, with carpets, drapery, and furniture of a splendour quite +appalling to Montague. + +As soon as the man who bore their wraps had left the room, he turned +upon his brother. + +"Oliver," he said, "how much are we paying for all this?" + +Oliver smiled. "You are not paying anything, old man," he replied. +"You're to be my guests for a month or two, until you get your +bearings." + +"That's very good of you," said the other; "--we'll talk about it +later. But meantime, tell me what the apartment costs." + +And then Montague encountered his first full charge of New York +dynamite. "Six hundred dollars a week," said Oliver. + +He started as if his brother had struck him. "Six hundred dollars a +week!" he gasped. + +"Yes," said the other, quietly. + +It was fully a minute before he could find his breath. "Brother," he +exclaimed, "you're mad!" + +"It is a very good bargain," smiled the other; "I have some +influence with them." + +Again there was a pause, while Montague groped for words. "Oliver," +he exclaimed, "I can't believe you! How could you think that we +could pay such a price?" + +"I didn't think it," said Oliver; "I told you I expected to pay it +myself." + +"But how could we let you pay it for us?" cried the other. "Can you +fancy that _I_ will ever earn enough to pay such a price?" + +"Of course you will," said Oliver. "Don't be foolish, Allan--you'll +find it's easy enough to make money in New York. Leave it to me, and +wait awhile." + +But the other was not to be put off. He sat down on the embroidered +silk bedspread, and demanded abruptly, "What do you expect my income +to be a year?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," laughed Oliver; "nobody takes the time to +add up his income. You'll make what you need, and something over for +good measure. This one thing you'll know for certain--the more you +spend, the more you'll be able to make." + +And then, seeing that the sober look was not to be expelled from his +brother's face, Oliver seated himself and crossed his legs, and +proceeded to set forth the paradoxical philosophy of extravagance. +His brother had come into a city of millionaires. There was a +certain group of people--"the right set," was Oliver's term for +them--and among them he would find that money was as free as air. So +far as his career was concerned, he would find that there was +nothing in all New York so costly as economy. If he did not live +like a gentleman, he would find himself excluded from the circle of +the elect--and how he would manage to exist then was a problem too +difficult for his brother to face. + +And so, as quickly as he could, he was to bring himself to a state +of mind where things did not surprise him; where he did what others +did and paid what others paid, and did it serenely, as if he had +done it all his life. He would soon find his place; meantime all he +had to do was to put himself into his brother's charge. "You'll find +in time that I have the strings in my hands," the latter added. +"Just take life easy, and let me introduce you to the right people." + +All of which sounded very attractive. "But are you sure," asked +Montague, "that you understand what I'm here for? I don't want to +get into the Four Hundred, you know--I want to practise law." + +"In the first place," replied Oliver, "don't talk about the Four +Hundred--it's vulgar and silly; there's no such thing. In the next +place, you're going to live in New York, and you want to know the +right people. If you know them, you can practise law, or practise +billiards, or practise anything else that you fancy. If you don't +know them, you might as well go practise in Dahomey, for all you can +accomplish. You might come on here and start in for yourself, and in +twenty years you wouldn't get as far as you can get in two weeks, if +you'll let me attend to it." + +Montague was nearly five years his brother's senior, and at home had +taken a semi-paternal attitude toward him. Now, however, the +situation seemed to have reversed itself. With a slight smile of +amusement, he subsided, and proceeded to put himself into the +attitude of a docile student of the mysteries of the Metropolis. + +They agreed that they would say nothing about these matters to the +others. Mrs. Montague was half blind, and would lead her placid, +indoor existence with old Mammy Lucy. As for Alice, she was a woman, +and would not trouble herself with economics; if fairy godmothers +chose to shower gifts upon her, she would take them. + +Alice was built to live in a palace, anyway, Oliver said. He had +cried out with delight when he first saw her. She had been sixteen +when he left, and tall and thin; now she was nineteen, and with the +pale tints of the dawn in her hair and face. In the auto, Oliver had +turned and, stared at her, and pronounced the cryptic judgment, +"You'll go!" + +Just now she was wandering about the rooms, exclaiming with wonder. +Everything here was so quiet and so harmonious that at first one's +suspicions were lulled. It was simplicity, but of a strange and +perplexing kind--simplicity elaborately studied. It was luxury, but +grown assured of itself, and gazing down upon itself with +aristocratic disdain. And after a while this began to penetrate the +vulgarest mind, and to fill it with awe; one cannot remain long in +an apartment which is trimmed and furnished in rarest Circassian +walnut, and "papered" with hand-embroidered silk cloth, without +feeling some excitement--even though there be no one to mention that +the furniture has cost eight thousand dollars per room, and that the +wall covering has been imported from Paris at a cost of seventy +dollars per yard. + +Montague also betook himself to gazing about. He noted the great +double windows, with sashes of bronze; the bronze fire-proof doors; +the bronze electric candles and chandeliers, from which the room was +flooded with a soft radiance at the touch of a button; the +"duchesse" and "marquise" chairs, with upholstery matching the +walls; the huge leather "slumber-couch," with adjustable lamp at its +head. When one opened the door of the dressing-room closet, it was +automatically filled with light; there was an adjustable three-sided +mirror, at which one could study his own figure from every side. +There was a little bronze box near the bed, in which one might set +his shoes, and with a locked door opening out into the hall, so that +the floor-porter could get them without disturbing one. Each of the +bath-rooms was the size of an ordinary man's parlour, with floor and +walls of snow-white marble, and a door composed of an imported +plate-glass mirror. There was a great porcelain tub, with glass +handles upon the wall by which you could help yourself out of it, +and a shower-bath with linen duck curtains, which were changed every +day; and a marble slab upon which you might lie to be rubbed by the +masseur who would come at the touch of a button. + +There was no end to the miracles of this establishment, as Montague +found in the course of time. There was no chance that the antique +bronze clock on the mantel might go wrong, for it was electrically +controlled from the office. You did not open the window and let in +the dust, for the room was automatically ventilated, and you turned +a switch marked "hot" and "cold." The office would furnish you a +guide who would show you the establishment; and you might see your +bread being kneaded by electricity, upon an opal glass table, and +your eggs being tested by electric light; you might peer into huge +refrigerators, ventilated by electric fans, and in which each tiny +lamb chop reposed in a separate holder. Upon your own floor was a +pantry, provided with hot and cold storage-rooms and an air-tight +dumb-waiter; you might have your own private linen and crockery and +plate, and your own family butler, if you wished. Your children, +however, would not be permitted in the building, even though you +were dying--this was a small concession which you made to a host who +had invested a million dollars and a half in furniture alone. + +A few minutes later the telephone bell rang, and Oliver answered it +and said, "Send him up." + +"Here's the tailor," ho remarked, as he hung up the receiver. + +"Whose tailor?" asked his brother. + +"Yours," said he. + +"Do I have to have some new clothes?" Montague asked. + +"You haven't any clothes at present," was the reply. + +Montague was standing in front of the "costumer," as the elaborate +mirror was termed. He looked himself over, and then he looked at his +brother. Oliver's clothing was a little like the Circassian walnut; +at first you thought that it was simple, and even a trifle +careless--it was only by degrees you realized that it was original +and distinguished, and very expensive. + +"Won't your New York friends make allowance for the fact that I am +fresh from the country?" asked Montague, quizzically. + +"They might," was the reply. "I know a hundred who would lend me +money, if I asked them. But I don't ask them." + +"Then how soon shall I be able to appear?" asked Montague, with +visions of himself locked up in the room for a week or two. + +"You are to have three suits to-morrow morning," said Oliver. "Genet +has promised." + +"Suits made to order?" gasped the other, in perplexity. + +"He never heard of any other sort of suits," said Oliver, with grave +rebuke in his voice. + +M. Genet had the presence of a Russian grand duke, and the manner of +a court chamberlain. He brought a subordinate to take Montague's +measure, while he himself studied his colour-scheme. Montague +gathered from the conversation that he was going to a house-party in +the country the next morning, and that he would need a dress-suit, a +hunting-suit, and a "morning coat." The rest might wait until his +return. The two discussed him and his various "points" as they might +have discussed a horse; he possessed distinction, he learned, and a +great deal could be done with him--with a little skill he might be +made into a personality. His French was not in training, but he +managed to make out that it was M. Genet's opinion that the husbands +of New York would tremble when he made his appearance among them. + +When the tailor had left, Alice came in, with her face shining from +a cold bathing. "Here you are decking yourselves out!" she cried. +"And what about me?" + +"Your problem is harder," said Oliver, with a laugh; "but you begin +this afternoon. Reggie Mann is going to take you with him, and get +you some dresses." + +"What!" gasped Alice. "Get me some dresses! A man?" + +"Of course," said the other. "Reggie Mann advises half the women in +New York about their clothes." + +"Who is he? A tailor?" asked the girl. + +Oliver was sitting on the edge of the canape, swinging one leg over +the other; and he stopped abruptly and stared, and then sank back, +laughing softly to himself. "Oh, dear me!" he said. "Poor Reggie!" + +Then, realizing that he would have to begin at the beginning, he +proceeded to explain that Reggie Mann was a cotillion leader, the +idol of the feminine side of society. He was the special pet and +protege of the great Mrs. de Graffenried, of whom they had surely +heard--Mrs. de Graffenried, who was acknowledged to be the mistress +of society at Newport, and was destined some day to be mistress in +New York. Reggie and Oliver were "thick," and he had stayed in town +on purpose to attend to her attiring--having seen her picture, and +vowed that he would make a work of art out of her. And then Mrs. +Robbie Walling would give her a dance; and all the world would come +to fall at her feet. + +"You and I are going out to 'Black Forest,' the Wallings' +shooting-lodge, to-morrow," Oliver added to his brother. "You'll +meet Mrs. Robbie there. You've heard of the Wallings, I hope." + +"Yes," said Montague, "I'm not that ignorant." + +"All right," said the other, "we're to motor down. I'm going to take +you in my racing-car, so you'll have an experience. We'll start +early." + +"I'll be ready," said Montague; and when his brother replied that he +would be at the door at eleven, he made another amused note as to +the habits of New Yorkers. + +The price which he paid at the hotel included the services of a +valet or a maid for each of them, and so when their baggage arrived +they had nothing to do. They went to lunch in one of the main +dining-rooms of the hotel, a room with towering columns of +dark-green marble and a maze of palms and flowers. Oliver did the +ordering; his brother noticed that the simple meal cost them about +fifteen dollars, and he wondered if they were to eat at that rate +all the time. + +Then Montague mentioned the fact that before leaving home he had +received a telegram from General Prentice, asking him to go with him +that evening to the meeting of the Loyal Legion. Montague wondered, +half amused, if his brother would deem his old clothing fit for such +a function. But Oliver replied that it would not matter what he wore +there; he would not meet anyone who counted, except Prentice +himself. The General and his family were prominent in society, it +appeared, and were to be cultivated. But Oliver shrewdly forbore to +elaborate upon this, knowing that his brother would be certain to +talk about old times, which would bo the surest possible method of +lodging himself in the good graces of General Prentice. + +After luncheon came Reggie Mann, dapper and exquisite, with slender +little figure and mincing gait, and the delicate hands and soft +voice of a woman. He was dressed for the afternoon parade, and wore +a wonderful scarlet orchid in his buttonhole. Montague's hand he +shook at his shoulder's height; but when Alice came in he did not +shake hands with her. Instead, he stood and gazed, and gazed again, +and lifting his hands a little with excess of emotion, exclaimed, +"Oh, perfect! perfect!" + +"And Ollie, I told you so!" he added, eagerly. "She it tall enough +to wear satin! She shall have the pale blue Empire gown--she shall +have the pale blue Empire gown if I have to pay for it myself! And +oh, what times we shall have with that hair! And the figure--Reval +will simply go wild!" + +So Reggie prattled on, with his airy grace; he took her hand and +studied it, and then turned her about to survey her figure, while +Alice blushed and strove to laugh to hide her embarrassment. "My +dear Miss Montague," he exclaimed, "I bring all Gotham and lay it at +your feet! Ollie, your battle is won! Won without firing a shot! I +know the very man for her--his father is dying, and he will have +four millions in Transcontinental alone. And he is as handsome as +Antinous and as fascinating as Don Juan! Allons! we may as well +begin with the trousseau this afternoon!" + + + + + + +CHAPTER III + + + + + +Oliver was not rooming with them; he had his own quarters at the +club, which he did not wish to leave. But the next morning, about +twenty minutes after the hour he had named, he was at the door, and +Montague went down. + +Oliver's car was an imported French racer. It had only two seats, +open in front, with a rumble behind for the mechanic. It was long +and low and rakish, a most wicked-looking object; whenever it +stopped on the street a crowd gathered to stare at it. Oliver was +clad in a black bearskin coat, covering his feet, and with cap and +gloves to match; he wore goggles, pushed up over his forehead. A +similar costume lay ready in his brother's seat. + +The suits of clothing had come, and were borne in his grips by his +valet. "We can't carry them with us," said Oliver. "He'll have to +take them down by train." And while his brother was buttoning up the +coat, he gave the address; then Montague clambered in, and after a +quick glance over his shoulder, Oliver pressed a lever and threw +over the steering-wheel, and they whirled about and sped down the +street. + +Sometimes, at home in Mississippi, one would meet automobiling +parties, generally to the damage of one's harness and temper. But +until the day before, when he had stepped off the ferry, Montague +had never ridden in a motor-car. Riding in this one was like +travelling in a dream--it slid along without a sound, or the +slightest trace of vibration; it shot forward, it darted to right or +to left, it slowed up, it stopped, as if of its own will--the driver +seemed to do nothing. Such things as car tracks had no effect upon +it at all, and serious defects in the pavement caused only the +faintest swelling motion; it was only when it leaped ahead like a +living thing that one felt the power of it, by the pressure upon his +back. + +They went at what seemed to Montague a breakneck pace through the +city streets, dodging among trucks .and carriages, grazing cars, +whirling round corners, taking the wildest of chances. Oliver seemed +always to know what the other fellow would do; but the thought that +he might do something different kept his companion's heart pounding +in a painful way. Once the latter cried out as a man leapt for his +life; Oliver laughed, and said, without turning his head, "You'll +get used to it by and by." + +They went down Fourth Avenue and turned into the Bowery. Elevated +trains pounded overhead, and a maze of gin-shops, dime-museums, +cheap lodging-houses, and clothing-stores sped past them. Once or +twice Oliver's hawk-like glance detected a blue uniform ahead, and +then they slowed down to a decorous pace, and the other got a chance +to observe the miserable population of the neighbourhood. It was a +cold November day, and an "out of work" time, and wretched outcast +men walked with shoulders drawn forward and hands in their pockets. + +"Where in the world are we going?" Montague asked. + +"To Long Island," said the other. "It's a beastly ride--this part of +it--but it's the only way. Some day we'll have an overhead speedway +of our own, and we won't have to drive through this mess." + +They turned off at the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge, and +found the street closed for repairs. They had to make a detour of a +block, and they turned with a vicious sweep and plunged into the +very heart of the tenement district. Narrow, filthy streets, with +huge, canon-like blocks of buildings, covered with rusty iron +fire-escapes and decorated with soap-boxes and pails and laundry and +babies; narrow stoops, crowded with playing children; grocery-shops, +clothing-shops, saloons; and a maze of placards and signs in English +and German and Yiddish. Through the throngs Oliver drove, his brows +knitted with impatience and his horn honking angrily. "Take it +easy,"--protested Montague; but the other answered, "Bah!" Children +screamed and darted out of the way, and men and women started back, +scowling and muttering; when a blockade of wagons and push-carts +forced them to stop, the children gathered about and jeered, and a +group of hoodlums loafing by a saloon flung ribaldry at them; but +Oliver never turned his eyes from the road ahead. + +And at last they were out on the bridger. "Slow vehicles keep to the +right," ran the sign, and so there was a lane for them to the left. +They sped up the slope, the cold air beating upon them like a +hurricane. Far below lay the river, with tugs and ferry-boats +ploughing the wind-beaten grey water, and a city spread out on +either bank--a wilderness of roofs, with chimneys sticking up and +white jets of steam spouting everywhere. Then they sped down the +farther slope, and into Brooklyn. + +There was an asphalted avenue, lined with little residences. There +was block upon block of them, mile after mile of them--Montague had +never, seen so many houses in his life before, and nearly all poured +out of the same mould. + +Many other automobiles were speeding out by this avenue, and they +raced with one another. The one which was passed the most frequently +got the dust and smell; and so the universal rule was that when you +were behind you watched for a clear track, and then put on speed, +and went to the front; but then just when you had struck a +comfortable pace, there was a whirring and a puffing at your left, +and your rival came stealing past you. If you were ugly, you put on +speed yourself, and forced him to fall back, or to run the risk of +trouble with vehicles coming the other way. For Oliver there seemed +to be but one rule,--pass everything. + +They came to the great Ocean Driveway. Here were many automobiles, +nearly all going one way, and nearly all racing. There were two +which stuck to Oliver and would not be left behind--one, two, three +--one, two, three--they passed and repassed. Their dust was +blinding, and the continual odour was sickening; and so Oliver set +his lips tight, and the little dial on the indicator began to creep +ahead, and they whirled away down the drive. "Catch us this time!" +he muttered. + +A few seconds later Oliver gave a sudden exclamation, as a +policeman, concealed behind a bush at the roadside, sprang out and +hailed them. The policeman had a motor-cycle, and Oliver shouted to +the mechanic, "Pull the cord!" His brother turned, alarmed and +perplexed, and saw the man reach down to the floor of the car. He +saw the policeman leap upon the cycle and start to follow. Then he +lost sight of him in the clouds of dust. + +For perhaps five minutes they tore on, tense and silent, at a pace +that Montague had never equalled in an express train. Vehicles +coming the other way would leap into sight, charging straight at +them, it seemed, and shooting past a hand's breadth away. Montague +had just about made up his mind that one such ride would last him +for a lifetime, when he noticed that they were slacking up. "You can +let go the cord," said Oliver. "He'll never catch us now." + +"What is the cord?" asked the other. + +"It's tied to the tag with our number on, in back. It swings it up +so it can't be seen." + +They were turning off into a country road, and Montague sank back +and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. "Is that a common +trick?" he asked. + +"Quite," said the other. "Mrs. Robbie has a trough of mud in their +garage, and her driver sprinkles the tag every time before she goes +out. You have to do something, you know, or you'd be taken up all +the time." + +"Have you ever been arrested?" + +"I've only been in court once," said Oliver. "I've been stopped a +dozen times." + +"What did they do the other times--warn you?" + +"Warn me?" laughed Oliver. "What they did was to get in with me and +ride a block or two, out of sight of the crowd; and then I slipped +them a ten-dollar bill and they got out." + +To which Montague responded, "Oh, I see!" + +They turned into a broad macadamized road, and here were more autos, +and more dust, and more racing. Now and then they crossed a trolley +or a railroad track, and here was always a warning sign; but Oliver +must have had some occult way of knowing that the track was clear, +for he never seemed to slow up. Now and then they came to villages, +and did reduce speed; but from the pace at which they went through, +the villagers could not have suspected it. + +And then came another adventure. The road was in repair, and was +very bad, and they were picking their way, when suddenly a young man +who had been walking on a side path stepped out before them, and +drew a red handkerchief from his pocket, and faced them, waving it. +Oliver muttered an oath. + +"What's the matter?" cried his brother. + +"We're arrested!" he exclaimed. + +"What!" gasped the other. "Why, we were not going at all." + +"I know," said Oliver; "but they've got us all the same." + +He must have made up his mind at one glance that the case was +hopeless, for he made no attempt to put on speed, but let the young +man step aboard as they reached him. + +"What is it?" Oliver demanded. + +"I have been sent out by the Automobile Association," said the +stranger, "to warn you that they have a trap set in the next town. +So watch out." + +And Oliver gave a gasp, and said, "Oh! Thank you!" The young man +stepped off, and they went ahead, and he lay back in his seat and +shook with laughter. + +"Is that common?" his brother asked, between laughs. + +"It happened to me once before," said Oliver. "But I'd forgotten it +completely." + +They proceeded very slowly; and when they came to the outskirts of +the village they went at a funereal pace, while the car throbbed in +protest. In front of a country store they saw a group of loungers +watching them, and Oliver said, "There's the first part of the trap. +They have a telephone, and somewhere beyond is a man with another +telephone, and beyond that a man to stretch a rope across the road." + +"What would they do with you?" asked the other. + +"Haul you up before a justice of the peace, and fine you anywhere +from fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars. It's regular highway +robbery--there are some places that boast of never levying taxes; +they get all their money out of us!" + +Oliver pulled out his watch. "We're going to be late to lunch, +thanks to these delays," he said. He added that they were to meet at +the "Hawk's Nest," which he said was an "automobile joint." + +Outside of the town they "hit it up" again; and half an hour later +they came to a huge sign, "To the Hawk's Nest," and turned off. They +ran up a hill, and came suddenly out of a pine-forest into view of a +hostelry, perched upon the edge of a bluff overlooking the Sound. +There was a broad yard in front, in which automobiles wheeled and +sputtered, and a long shed that was lined with them. + +Half a dozen attendants ran to meet them as they drew up at the +steps. They all know Oliver, and two fell to brushing his coat, and +one got his cap, while the mechanic took the car to the shed. Oliver +had a tip for each of them; one of the things that Montague observed +was that in New York you had to carry a pocketful of change, and +scatter it about wherever you went. They tipped the man who carried +their coats and the boy who opened the door. In the washrooms they +tipped the boys who filled the basins for them and those who gave +them a second brushing. + +The piazzas of the inn were crowded with automobiling parties, in +all sorts of strange costumes. It seemed to Montague that most of +them were flashy people--the men had red faces and the women had +loud voices; he saw one in a sky-blue coat with bright scarlet +facing. It occurred to him that if these women had not worn such +large hats, they would not have needed quite such a supply of the +bright-coloured veiling which they wound over the hats and tied +under their chins, or left to float about in the breeze. + +The dining-room seemed to have been built in sections, rambling +about on the summit of the cliff. The side of it facing the water +was all glass, and could be taken down. The ceiling was a maze of +streamers and Japanese lanterns, and here and there were +orange-trees and palms and artificial streams and fountains. Every +table was crowded, it seemed; one was half-deafened by the clatter +of plates, the voices and laughter, and the uproar of a negro +orchestra of banjos, mandolins, and guitars. Negro waiters flew here +and there, and a huge, stout head-waiter, who was pirouetting and +strutting, suddenly espied Oliver, and made for him with smiles of +welcome. + +"Yes, sir--just come in, sir," he said, and led the way down the +room, to where, in a corner, a table had been set for sixteen or +eighteen people. There was a shout, "Here's Ollie!"--and a pounding +of glasses and a chorus of welcome--"Hello, Ollie! You're late, +Ollie! What's the matter--car broke down?" + +Of the party, about half were men and half women. Montague braced +himself for the painful ordeal of being introduced to sixteen people +in succession, but this was considerately spared him. He shook hands +with Robbie Walling, a tall and rather hollow-chested young man, +with slight yellow moustaches; and with Mrs. Robbie, who bade him +welcome, and presented him with the freedom of the company. + +Then he found himself seated between two young ladies, with a waiter +leaning over him to take his order for the drinks. He said, a little +hesitatingly, that he would like some whisky, as he was about +frozen, upon which the girl on his right, remarked, "You'd better +try a champagne cocktail--you'll get your results quicker." She +added, to the waiter, "Bring a couple of them, and be quick about +it." + +"You had a cold ride, no doubt, in that low car," she went on, to +Montague. "What made you late?" + +"We had some delays," he answered. "Once we thought we were +arrested." + +"Arrested!" she exclaimed; and others took up the word, crying, "Oh, +Ollie! tell us about it!" + +Oliver told the tale, and meantime his brother had a chance to look +about him. All of the party were young--he judged that he was the +oldest person there. They were not of the flashily dressed sort, but +no one would have had to look twice to know that there was money in +the crowd. They had had their first round of drinks, and started in +to enjoy themselves. They were all intimates, calling each other by +their first names. Montague noticed that these names always ended in +"ie,"--there was Robbie and Freddie and Auggie and Clarrie and +Bertie and Chappie; if their names could not be made to end +properly, they had nicknames instead. + +"Ollie" told how they had distanced the policeman; and Clarrie Mason +(one of the younger sons of the once mighty railroad king) told of a +similar feat which his car had performed. And then the young lady +who sat beside him told how a fat Irish woman had skipped out of +their way as they rounded a corner, and stood and cursed them from +the vantage-point of the sidewalk. + +The waiter came with the liquor, and Montague thanked his neighbour, +Miss Price. Anabel Price was her name, and they called her "Billy"; +she was a tall and splendidly formed creature, and he learned in due +time that she was a famous athlete. She must have divined that he +would feel a little lost in this crowd of intimates, and set to work +to make him feel at home--an attempt in which she was not altogether +successful. + +They were bound for a shooting-lodge, and so she asked him if he +were fond of shooting. He replied that he was; in answer to a +further question he said that he had hunted chiefly deer and wild +turkey. "Ah, then you are a real hunter!" said Miss Price. "I'm +afraid you'll scorn our way." + +"What do you do?" he inquired. + +"Wait and you'll see," replied she; and added, casually, "When you +get to be pally with us, you'll conclude we don't furnish." + +Montague's jaw dropped just a little. He recovered himself, however, +and said that he presumed so, or that he trusted not; afterward, +when he had made inquiries and found out what he should have said, +he had completely forgotten what he HAD said.--Down in a hotel in +Natchez there was an old head-waiter, to whom Montague had once +appealed to seat him next to a friend. At the next meal, learning +that the request had been granted, he said to the old man, "I'm +afraid you have shown me partiality"; to which the reply came, "I +always tries to show it as much as I kin." Montague always thought +of this whenever he recalled his first encounter with "Billy" Price. + +The young lady on the other side of him now remarked that Robbie was +ordering another "topsy-turvy lunch." He inquired what sort of a +lunch that was; she told him that Robbie called it a "digestion +exercise." That was the only remark that Miss de Millo addressed to +him during the meal (Miss Gladys de Mille, the banker's daughter, +known as "Baby" to her intimates). She was a stout and round-faced +girl, who devoted herself strictly to the business of lunching; and +Montague noticed at the end that she was breathing rather hard, and +that her big round eyes seemed bigger than ever. + +Conversation was general about the table, but it was not easy +conversation to follow. It consisted mostly of what is known as +"joshing," and involved acquaintance with intimate details of +personalities and past events. Also, there was a great deal of slang +used, which kept a stranger's wits on the jump. However, Montague +concluded that all his deficiencies were made up for by his brother, +whose sallies were the cause of the loudest laughter. Just now he +seemed to the other more like the Oliver he had known of old--for +Montague had already noted a change in him. At home there had never +been any end to his gaiety and fun, and it was hard to get him to +take anything seriously; but now he kept all his jokes for company, +and when he was alone he was in deadly earnest. Apparently he was +working hard over his pleasures. + +Montague could understand how this was possible. Some one, for +instance, had worked hard over the ordering of the lunch--to secure +the maximum of explosive effect. It began with ice-cream, moulded in +fancy shapes and then buried in white of egg and baked brown. Then +there was a turtle soup, thick and green and greasy; and +then--horror of horrors--a great steaming plum-pudding. It was +served in a strange phenomenon of a platter, with six long, silver +legs; and the waiter set it in front of Robbie Walling and lifted +the cover with a sweeping gesture--and then removed it and served it +himself. Montague had about made up his mind that this was the end, +and begun to fill up on bread-and-butter, when there appeared cold +asparagus, served in individual silver holders resembling andirons. +Then--appetite now being sufficiently whetted--there came quail, in +piping hot little casseroles--; and then half a grape-fruit set in a +block of ice and filled with wine; and then little squab ducklings, +bursting fat, and an artichoke; and then a cafe parfait; and +then--as if to crown the audacity--huge thick slices of roast beef! +Montague had given up long ago--he could keep no track of the deluge +of food which poured forth. And between all the courses there were +wines of precious brands, tumbled helter-skelter,--sherry and port, +champagne and claret and liqueur. Montague watched poor "Baby" de +Mille out of the corner of his eye, and pitied her; for it was +evident that she could not resist the impulse to eat whatever was +put before her, and she was visibly suffering. He wondered whether +he might not manage to divert her by conversation, but he lacked the +courage to make the attempt. + +The meal was over at four o'clock. By that time most of the other +parties were far on their way to New York, and the inn was deserted. +They possessed themselves of their belongings, and one by one their +cars whirled away toward "Black Forest." + +Montague had been told that it was a "shooting-lodge." He had a +vision of some kind of a rustic shack, and wondered dimly how so +many people would be stowed away. When they turned off the main +road, and his brother remarked, "Here we are," he was surprised to +see a rather large building of granite, with an archway spanning the +road. He was still more surprised when they whizzed through and went +on. + +"Where are we going?" he asked. + +"To 'Black Forest,'" said Oliver. + +"And what was that we passed?" + +"That was the gate-keeper's lodge," was Oliver's reply. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + + + +They ran for about three miles upon a broad macadamized avenue, laid +straight as an arrow's flight through the forest; and then the sound +of the sea came to them, and before them was a mighty granite pile, +looming grim in the twilight, with a draw-bridge and moat, and four +great castellated towers. "Black Forest" was built in imitation of a +famous old fortress in Provence--only the fortress had forty small +rooms, and its modern prototype had seventy large ones, and now +every window was blazing with lights. A man does not let himself be +caught twice in such a blunder; and having visited a +"shooting-lodge" which had cost three-quarters of a million dollars +and was set in a preserve of ten thousand acres, he was prepared for +Adirondack "camps" which had cost half a million and Newport +"cottages" which had cost a million or two. + +Liveried servants took the car, and others opened the door and took +their coats. The first thing they saw was a huge, fireplace, a +fireplace a dozen feet across, made of great boulders, and with +whole sections of a pine tree blazing in it. Underfoot was polished +hardwood, with skins of bear and buffalo. The firelight flickered +upon shields and battle-axes and broad-swords, hung upon the oaken +pillars; while between them were tapestries, picturing the Song of +Roland and the battle of Roncesvalles. One followed the pillars of +the great hall to the vaulted roof, whose glass was glowing +blood-red in the western light. A broad stairway ascended to the +second floor, which opened upon galleries about the hall. + +Montague went to the fire, and stood rubbing his hands before the +grateful blaze. "Scotch or Irish, sir?" inquired a lackey, hovering +at his side. He had scarcely given his order when the door opened +and a second motor load of the party appeared, shivering and rushing +for the fire. In a couple of minutes they were all assembled--and +roaring with laughter over "Baby" de Millc's account of how her car +had run over a dachshund. "Oh, do you know," she cried, "he simply +POPPED!" + +Half a dozen attendants hovered about, and soon the tables in the +hall were covered with trays containing decanters and siphons. By +this means everybody in the party was soon warmed up, and then in +groups they scattered to amuse themselves. + +There was a great hall for indoor tennis, and there were half a +dozen squash-courts. Montague knew neither of these games, but he +was interested in watching the water-polo in the swimming-tank, and +in studying the appointments of this part of the building. The tank, +with the walls and floor about it, were all of marble; there was a +bronze gallery running about it, from which one might gaze into the +green depths of the water. There were luxurious dressing-rooms for +men and women, with hot and cold needle-baths, steam-rooms with +rubbers in attendance and weighing and lifting machines, electric +machines for producing "violet rays," and electric air-blasts for +the drying of the women's hair. + +He watched several games, in which men and women took part; and +later on, when the tennis and other players appeared, he joined them +in a plunge. Afterward, he entered one of the electric elevators and +was escorted to his room, where he found his bag unpacked, and his +evening attire laid out upon the bed. + +It was about nine when the party went into the dining-room, which +opened upon a granite terrace and loggia facing the sea. The room +was finished in some rare black wood, the name of which he did not +know; soft radiance suffused it, and the table was lighted by +electric candles set in silver sconces, and veiled by silk shades. +It gleamed with its load of crystal and silver, set off by scattered +groups of orchids and ferns. The repast of the afternoon had been +simply a lunch, it seemed--and now they had an elaborate dinner, +prepared by Robbie Waiting's famous ten-thousand-dollar chef. In +contrast with the uproar of the inn was the cloistral stillness of +this dining-room, where the impassive footmen seemed to move on +padded slippers, and the courses appeared and vanished as if by +magic. Montague did his best to accustom himself to the gowns of the +women, which were cut lower than any he had ever seen in his life; +but he hesitated every time he turned to speak to the young lady +beside him, because he could look so deep down into her bosom, and +it was difficult for him to realize that she did not mind it. + +The conversation was the same as before, except that it was a little +more general, and louder in tone; for the guests had become more +intimate, and as Robbie Walling's wines of priceless vintage poured +forth, they became a little "high." The young lady who sat on +Montague's right was a Miss Vincent, a granddaughter of one of the +sugar-kings; she was dark-skinned and slender, and had appeared at a +recent lawn fete in the costume of an Indian maiden. The company +amused itself by selecting an Indian name for her; all sorts of +absurd ones were suggested, depending upon various intimate details +of the young lady's personality and habits. Robbie caused a laugh by +suggesting "Little Dewdrop"--it appeared that she had once been +discovered writing a poem about a dewdrop; some one else suggested +"Little Raindrop," and then Ollie brought down the house by +exclaiming, "Little Raindrop in the Mud-puddle!" A perfect gale of +laughter swept over the company, and it must have been a minute +before they could recover their composure; in order to appreciate +the humour of the sally it was necessary to know that Miss Vincent +had "come a cropper" at the last meet of the Long Island Hunt Club, +and been extricated from a slough several feet deep. + +This was explained to Montague by the young lady on his left--the +one whose half-dressed condition caused his embarrassment. She was +only about twenty, with a wealth of golden hair and the bright, +innocent face of a child; he had not yet learned her name, for every +one called her "Cherub." Not long after this she made a remark +across the table to Baby de Mille, a strange jumble of syllables, +which sounded like English, yet was not. Miss de Mille replied, and +several joined in, until there was quite a conversation going on. +"Cherub" explained to him that "Baby" had invented a secret +language, made by transposing letters; and that Ollie and Bertie +were crazy to guess the key to it, and could not. + +The dinner lasted until late. The wine-glasses continued to be +emptied, and to be magically filled again. The laughter was louder, +and now and then there were snatches of singing; women lolled about +in their chairs-one beautiful boy sat gazing dreamily across the +table at Montague, now and then closing his eyes, and opening them +more and more reluctantly. The attendants moved about, impassive and +silent as ever; no one else seemed to be cognizant of their +existence, but Montague could not help noticing them, and wondering +what they thought of it all. + +When at last the party broke up, it was because the bridge-players +wished to get settled for the evening. The others gathered in front +of the fireplace, and smoked and chatted. At home, when one planned +a day's hunting, he went to bed early and rose before dawn; but +here, it seemed, there was game a-plenty, and the hunters had +nothing to consider save their own comfort. + +The cards were played in the vaulted "gun-room." Montague strolled +through it, and his eye ran down the wall, lined with glass cases +and filled with every sort of firearm known to the hunter. He +recalled, with a twinge of self-abasement, that he had suggested +bringing his shotgun along! + +He joined a group in one corner, and lounged in the shadows, and +studied "Billy" Price, whose conversation had so mystified him. +"Billy," whose father was a banker, proved to be a devotee of +horses; she was a veritable Amazon, the one passion of whose life +was glory. Seeing her sitting in this group, smoking cigarettes, and +drinking highballs, and listening impassively to risque stories, one +might easily draw base conclusions about Billy Price. But as a +matter of fact she was made of marble; and the men, instead of +falling in love with her, made her their confidante, and told her +their troubles, and sought her sympathy and advice. + +Some of this was explained to Montague by a young lady, who, as the +evening wore on, came in and placed herself beside him. "My name is +Betty Wyman," she said, "and you and I will have to be friends, +because Ollie's my side partner." + +Montague had to meet her advances; so had not much time to speculate +as to what the term "side partner" might be supposed to convey. +Betty was a radiant little creature, dressed in a robe of deep +crimson, made of some soft and filmy and complicated material; there +was a crimson rose in her hair, and a living glow of crimson in her +cheeks. She was bright and quick, like a butterfly, full of strange +whims and impulses; mischievous lights gleamed in her eyes and +mischievous smiles played about her adorable little cherry lips. +Some strange perfume haunted the filmy dress, and completed the +bewilderment of the intended victim. + +"I have a letter of introduction to a Mr. Wyman in New York," said +Montague. "Perhaps he is a relative of yours." + +"Is he a railroad president?" asked she; and when he answered in the +affirmative, "Is he a railroad king?" she whispered, in a mocking, +awe-stricken voice, "Is he rich--oh, rich as Solomon--and is he a +terrible man, who eats people alive all the time?" + +"Yes," said Montague--"that must be the one." + +"Well," said Betty, "he has done me the honour to be my granddaddy; +but don't you take any letter of introduction to him." + +"Why not?" asked he, perplexed. + +"Because he'll eat YOU," said the girl. "He hates Ollie." + +"Dear me," said the other; and the girl asked, "Do you mean that the +boy hasn't said a word about me?" + +"No," said Montague--"I suppose he left it for you to do." + +"Well," said Betty, "it's like a fairy story. Do you ever read fairy +stories? In this story there was a princess--oh, the most beautiful +princess! Do you understand?" + +"Yes," said Montague. "She wore a red rose in her hair." + +"And then," said the girl, "there was a young courtier--very +handsome and gay; and they fell in love with each other. But the +terrible old king--he wanted his daughter to wait a while, until he +got through conquering his enemies, so that he might have time to +pick out some prince or other, or maybe some ogre who was wasting +his lands--do you follow me?" + +"Perfectly," said he. "And then did the beautiful princess pine +away?" + +"Um--no," said Betty, pursing her lips. "But she had to dance +terribly hard to keep from thinking about herself." Then she +laughed, and exclaimed, "Dear me, we are getting poetical!" And +next, looking sober again, "Do you know, I was half afraid to talk +to you. Ollie tells me you're terribly serious. Are you?" + +"I don't know," said Montague--but she broke in with a laugh, "We +were talking about you at dinner last night. They had some whipped +cream done up in funny little curliques, and Ollie said, 'Now, if my +brother Allan were here, he'd be thinking about the man who fixed +this cream, and how long it took him, and how he might have been +reading "The Simple Life."' Is that true?" + +"It involves a question of literary criticism"--said Montague. + +"I don't want to talk about literature," exclaimed the other. In +truth, she wanted nothing save to feel of his armour and find out if +there were any weak spots through which he could be teased. Montague +was to find in time that the adorable Miss Elizabeth was a very +thorny species of rose--she was more like a gay-coloured wasp, of +predatory temperament. + +"Ollie says you want to go down town and work," she went on. "I +think you're awfully foolish. Isn't it much nicer to spend your time +in an imitation castle like this?" + +"Perhaps," said ho, "but I haven't any castle." + +"You might get one," answered Betty. "Stay around awhile and let us +marry you to a nice girl. They will all throw themselves at your +feet, you know, for you have such a delicious melting voice, and you +look romantic and exciting." (Montague made a note to inquire +whether it was customary in New York to talk about you so frankly to +your face.) + +Miss Betty was surveying him quizzically meantime. "I don't know," +she said. "On second thoughts, maybe you'll frighten the girls. Then +it'll be the married women who'll fall in love with you. You'll have +to watch out." + +"I've already been told that by my tailor," said Montague, with a +laugh. + +"That would be a still quicker way of making your fortune," said +she. "But I don't think you'd fit in the role of a tame cat." + +"A WHAT?" he exclaimed; and Miss Betty laughed. + +"Don't you know what that is? Dear me--how charmingly naive! But +perhaps you'd better get Ollie to explain for you." + +That brought the conversation to the subject of slang; and Montague, +in a sudden burst of confidence, asked for an interpretation of Miss +Price's cryptic utterance. "She said"--he repeated slowly--"that +when I got to be pally with her, I'd conclude she didn't furnish." + +"Oh, yes," said Miss Wyman. "She just meant that when you knew her, +you'd be disappointed. You see, she picks up all the race-track +slang--one can't help it, you know. And last year she took her coach +over to England, and so she's got all the English slang. That makes +it hard, even for us." + +And then Betty sailed in to entertain him with little sketches of +other members of the party. A phenomenon that had struck Montague +immediately was the extraordinary freedom with which everybody in +New York discussed everybody else. As a matter of fact, one seldom +discussed anything else; and it made not the least difference, +though the person were one of your set,--though he ate your bread +and salt, and you ate his,--still you would amuse yourself by +pouring forth the most painful and humiliating and terrifying things +about him. + +There was poor Clarrie Mason: Clarrie, sitting in at bridge, with an +expression of feverish eagerness upon his pale face. Clarrie always +lost, and it positively broke his heart, though he had ten millions +laid by on ice. Clarrie went about all day, bemoaning his brother, +who had been kidnapped. Had Montague not heard about it? Well, the +newspapers called it a marriage, but it was really a kidnapping. +Poor Larry Mason was good-natured and weak in the knees, and he had +been carried off by a terrible creature, three times as big as +himself, and with a temper like--oh, there were no words for it! She +had been an actress; and now she had carried Larry away in her +talons, and was building a big castle to keep him in--for he had ten +millions too, alas! + +And then there was Bertie Stuyvesant, beautiful and winning--the boy +who had sat opposite Montague at dinner. Bertie's father had been a +coal man, and nobody knew how many millions he had left. Bertie was +gay; last week he had invited them to a brook-trout breakfast--in +November--and that had been a lark! Somebody had told him that trout +never really tasted good unless you caught them yourself, and Bertie +had suddenly resolved to catch them for that breakfast. "They have a +big preserve up in the Adirondacks," said Betty; "and Bertie ordered +his private train, and he and Chappie de Peyster and some others +started that night; they drove I don't know how many miles the next +day, and caught a pile of trout--and we had them for breakfast the +next morning! The best joke of all is that Chappie vows they were so +full they couldn't fish, and that the trout were caught with nets! +Poor Bertie--somebody'll have to separate him from that decanter +now!" + +From the hall there came loud laughter, with sounds of scuffling, +and cries, "Let me have it!"--"That's Baby de Mille," said Miss +Wyman. "She's always wanting to rough-house it. Robbie was mad the +last time she was down here; she got to throwing sofa-cushions, and +upset a vase." + +"Isn't that supposed to be good form?" asked Montague. + +"Not at Robbie's," said she. "Have you had a chance to talk with +Robbie yet? You'll like him--he's serious, like you." + +"What's he serious about?" + +"About spending his money," said Betty. "That's the only thing he +has to be serious about." + +"Has he got so very much?" + +"Thirty or forty millions," she replied; "but then, you see, a lot +of it's in the inner companies of his railroad system, and it pays +him fabulously. And his wife has money, too--she was a Miss Mason, +you know, her father's one of the steel crowd. We've a saying that +there are millionaires, and then multi-millionaires, and then +Pittsburg millionaires. Anyhow, the two of them spend all their +income in entertaining. It's Robbie's fad to play the perfect +host--he likes to have lots of people round him. He does put up good +times--only he's so very important about it, and he has so many +ideas of what is proper! I guess most of his set would rather go to +Mrs. Jack Warden's any day; I'd be there to-night, if it hadn't been +for Ollie." + +"Who's Mrs. Jack Warden?" asked Montague. + +"Haven't you ever heard of her?" said Betty. "She used to be Mrs. +van Ambridge, and then she got a divorce and married Warden, the big +lumber man. She used to give 'boy and girl' parties, in the English +fashion; and when we went there we'd do as we please--play tag all +over the house, and have pillow-fights, and ransack the closets and +get up masquerades! Mrs. Warden's as good-natured as an old cow. +You'll meet her sometime--only don't you let her fool you with those +soft eyes of hers. You'll find she doesn't mean it; it's just that +she likes to have handsome men hanging round her." + +At one o'clock a few of Robbie's guests went to bed, Montague among +them. He left two tables of bridge fiends sitting immobile, the +women with flushed faces and feverish hands, and the men with +cigarettes dangling from their lips. There were trays and decanters +beside each card-table; and in the hall he passed three youths +staggering about in each other's arms and feebly singing snatches of +"coon songs." Ollie and Betty had strolled away together to parts +unknown. + +Montague had entered his name in the order-book to be called at nine +o'clock. The man who awakened him brought him coffee and cream upon +a silver tray, and asked him if he would have anything stronger. He +was privileged to have his breakfast in his room, if he wished; but +he went downstairs, trying his best to feel natural in his elaborate +hunting costume. No one else had appeared yet, but he found the +traces of last night cleared away, and breakfast ready--served in +English fashion, with urns of tea and coffee upon the buffet. The +grave butler and his satellites were in attendance, ready to take +his order for anything else under the sun that he fancied. + +Montague preferred to go for a stroll upon the terrace, and to watch +the sunlight sparkling upon the sea. The morning was +beautiful--everything about the place was so beautiful that he +wondered how men and women could live here and not feel the spell of +it. + +Billy Price came down shortly afterward, clad in a khaki hunting +suit, with knee kilts and button-pockets and gun-pads and Cossack +cartridge-loops. She joined him in a stroll down the beach, and +talked to him about the coming winter season, with its leading +personalities and events,--the Horse Show, which opened next week, +and the prospects for the opera, and Mrs. de Graffenried's opening +entertainment. When they came back it was eleven o'clock, and they +found most of the guests assembled, nearly all of them looking a +little pale and uncomfortable in the merciless morning light. As the +two came in they observed Bertie Stuyvesant standing by the buffet, +in the act of gulping down a tumbler of brandy. "Bertie has taken up +the 'no breakfast fad,'" said Billy with an ironical smile. + +Then began the hunt. The equipment of "Black Forest" included a +granite building, steam-heated and elaborately fitted, in which an +English expert and his assistants raised imported +pheasants--magnificent bronze-coloured birds with long, floating +black tails. Just before the opening of the season they were dumped +by thousands into the covers--fat, and almost tame enough to be fed +by hand; and now came the "hunters." + +First they drew lots, for they were to hunt in pairs, a man and a +woman. Montague drew Miss Vincent--"Little Raindrop in the +Mud-puddle." Then Ollie, who was master of ceremonies, placed them +in a long line, and gave them the direction; and at a signal they +moved through the forest; Following each person were two attendants, +to carry the extra guns and reload them; and out in front were men +to beat the bushes and scare the birds into flight. + +Now Montague's idea of hunting had been to steal through the bayou +forests, and match his eyes against those of the wild turkey, and +shoot off their heads with a rifle bullet. So, when one of these +birds rose in front of him, he fired, and the bird dropped; and he +could have done it for ever, he judged--only it was stupid +slaughter, and it sickened him. However, if the creatures were not +shot, they must inevitably perish in the winter snows; and he had +heard that Robbie sent the game to the hospitals. Also, the score +was being kept, and Miss Vincent, who was something of a shot +herself, was watching him with eager excitement, being wild with +desire to beat out Billy Price and Chappie de Peyster, who were the +champion shots of the company. Baby de Mille, who was on his left, +and who could not shoot at all, was blundering along, puffing for +breath and eyeing him enviously; and the attendants at his back were +trembling with delight and murmuring their applause. So he shot on, +as long as the drive lasted, and again on their way back, over a new +stretch of the country. Sometimes the birds would rise in pairs, and +he would drop them both; and twice when a blundering flock took +flight in his direction he seized a second gun and brought down a +second pair. When the day's sport came to an end his score was +fifteen better than his nearest competitor, and he and his partner +had won the day. + +They crowded round to congratulate him; first his partner, and then +his rivals, and his host and hostess. Montague found that he had +suddenly become a person of consequence. Some who had previously +taken no notice of him now became aware of his existence; proud +society belles condescended to make conversation with him, and +Clarrie Mason, who hated de Peyster, made note of a way to annoy +him. As for Oliver, he was radiant with delight. "When it came to +horses and guns, I knew you'd make good," he whispered. + +Leaving the game to be gathered up in carts, they made their way +home, and there the two victors received their prizes. The man's +consisted of a shaving set in a case of solid gold, set with +diamonds. Montague was simply stunned, for the thing could not have +cost less than one or two thousand dollars. He could not persuade +himself that he had a right to accept of such hospitality, which he +could never hope to return. He was to realize in time that Robbie +lived for the pleasure of thus humiliating his fellow-men. + +After luncheon, the party came to an end. Some set out to return as +they had come; and others, who had dinner engagements, went back +with their host in his private car, leaving their autos to be +returned by the chauffeurs. Montague and his brother were among +these; and about dusk, when the swarms of working people were +pouring out of the city, they crossed the ferry and took a cab to +their hotel. + + + + + + +CHAPTER V + + + + + +They found their apartments looking as if they had been struck by a +snowstorm-a storm of red and green and yellow, and all the colours +that lie between. All day the wagons of fashionable milliners and +costumiers had been stopping at the door, and their contents had +found their way to Alice's room. The floors were ankle-deep in +tissue paper and tape, and beds and couches and chairs were covered +with boxes, in which lay wonderful symphonies of colour, half +disclosed in their wrappings of gauze. In the midst of it all stood +the girl, her eyes shining with excitement. + +"Oh, Allan!" she cried, as they entered. "How am I ever to thank +you?" + +"You're not to thank me," Montague replied. "This is all Oliver's +doings." + +"Oliver!" exclaimed the girl, and turned to him. "How in the world +could you do it?" she cried. "How will you ever get the money to pay +for it all?" + +"That's my problem," said the man, laughing. "All you have to think +about is to look beautiful." + +"If I don't," was her reply, "it won't be for lack of clothes. I +never saw so many wonderful things in all my life as I've seen +to-day." + +"There's quite a show of them," admitted Oliver. + +"And Reggie Mann! It was so queer, Allan! I never went shopping with +a man before. And he's so--so matter-of-fact. You know, he bought +me--everything!" + +"That was what he was told to do," said Oliver. "Did you like him?" + +"I don't know," said the girl. "He's queer--I never met a man like +that before. But he was awfully kind; and the people just turned +their stores inside out for us--half a dozen people hurrying about +to wait on you at once!" + +"You'll get used to such things," said Oliver; and then, stepping +toward the bed, "Let's see what you got." + +"Most of the things haven't come," said Alice. "The gowns all have +to be fitted.--That one is for to-night," she added, as he lifted up +a beautiful object made of rose-coloured chiffon. + +Oliver studied it, and glanced once or twice at the girl. "I guess +you can carry it," he said. "What sort of a cloak are you to wear?" + +"Oh, the cloak!" cried Alice. "Oliver, I can't believe it's really +to belong to me. I didn't know anyone but princesses wore such +things." + +The cloak was in Mrs. Montague's room, and one of the maids brought +it in. It was an opera-wrap of grey brocade, lined with unborn baby +lamb--a thing of a gorgeousness that made Montague literally gasp +for breath. + +"Did you ever see anything like it in your life?" cried Alice. "And +Oliver, is it true that I have to have gloves and shoes and +stockings--and a hat--to match every gown?" + +"Of course." said Oliver. "If you were doing things right, you ought +to have a cloak to match each evening gown as well." + +"It seems incredible," said the girl. "Can it be right to spend so +much money for things to wear?" + +But Oliver was not discussing questions of ethics; he was examining +sets of tinted crepe de chine lingerie, and hand-woven hose of spun +silk. There were boxes upon boxes, and bureau drawers and closet +shelves already filled up with hand-embroidered and lace-trimmed +creations-chemises and corset-covers, night-robes of "handkerchief +linen" lawn, lace handkerchiefs and veils, corsets of French coutil, +dressing-jackets of pale-coloured silks, and negligees of soft +batistes, trimmed with Valenciennes lace, or even with fur. + +"You must have put in a full day," he said. + +"I never looked at so many things in my life," said Alice. "And Mr. +Mann never stopped to ask the price of a thing." + +"I didn't think to tell him to," said Oliver, laughing. + +Then the girl went in to dress--and Oliver faced about to find his +brother sitting and staring hard at him. + +"Tell me!" Montague exclaimed. "In God's name, what is all this to +cost?" + +"I don't know," said Oliver, impassively. "I haven't seen the bills. +It'll be fifteen or twenty thousand, I guess." + +Montague's hands clenched involuntarily, and he sat rigid. "How long +will it all last her?" he asked. + +"Why," said the other, "when she gets enough, it'll last her until +spring, of course--unless she goes South during the winter." + +"How much is it going to take to dress her for a year?" + +"I suppose thirty or forty thousand," was the reply. "I don't expect +to keep count." + +Montague sat in silence. "You don't want to shut her up and keep her +at home, do you?" inquired his brother, at last. + +"Do you mean that other women spend that much on clothes?" +he'demanded. + +"Of course," said Oliver, "hundreds of them. Some spend fifty +thousand--I know several who go over a hundred." + +"It's monstrous!" Montague exclaimed. + +"Fiddlesticks!" was the other's response. "Why, thousands of people +live by it--wouldn't know anything else to do." + +Montague said nothing to that. "Can you afford to have Alice compete +with such women indefinitely?" he asked. + +"I have no idea of her doing it indefinitely," was Oliver's reply. +"I simply propose to give her a chance. When she's married, her +bills will be paid by her husband." + +"Oh," said the other, "then this layout is just for her to be +exhibited in." + +"You may say that," answered Oliver,--"if you want to be foolish. +You know perfectly well that parents who launch their daughters in +Society don't figure on keeping up the pace all their lifetimes." + +"We hadn't thought of marrying Alice off," said Montague. + +To which his brother replied that the best physicians left all they +could to nature. "Suppose," said he, "that we just introduce her in +the right set, and turn her loose and let her enjoy herself--and +then cross the next bridge when we come to it?" + +Montague sat with knitted brows, pondering.' He was beginning to see +a little daylight now. "Oliver," he asked suddenly, "are you sure +the stakes in this game aren't too big?" + +"How do you mean?" asked the other. + +"Will you be able to stay in until the show-down? Until either Alice +or myself begins to bring in some returns?" + +"Never worry about that," said the other, with a laugh. + +"But hadn't you better take me into your confidence?" Montague +persisted. "How many weeks can you pay our rent in this place? Have +you got the money to pay for all these clothes?" + +"I've got it," laughed the other--"but that doesn't say I'm going to +pay it." + +"Don't you have to pay your bills? Can we do all this upon credit?" + +Oliver laughed again. "You go at me like a prosecuting attorney," he +said. "I'm afraid you'll have to inquire around and learn some +respect for your brother." Then he added, seriously, "You see, +Allan, people like Reggie or myself are in position to bring a great +deal of custom to tradespeople, and so they are willing to go out of +their way to oblige us. And we have commissions of all sorts coming +to us, so it's never any question of cash." + +"Oh!" exclaimed the other, opening his eyes, "I see! Is that the way +you make money?" + +"It's one of the ways we save it," said Oliver. "It comes to the +same thing." + +"Do people know it?" + +"Why, of course. Why not?" + +"I don't know," said Montague. "It sounds a little queer." + +"Nothing of the kind," said Oliver. "Some of the best people in New +York do it. Strangers come to the city, and they want to go to the +right places, and they ask me, and I send them. Or take Robbie +Walling, who keeps up five or six establishments, and spends several +millions a year. He can't see to it all personally--if he did, he'd +never do anything else. Why shouldn't he ask a friend to attend to +things for him? Or again, a now shop opens, and they want Mrs. +Waiting's trade for the sake of the advertising, and they offer her +a discount and me a commission. Why shouldn't I get her to try +them?" + +"It's quite intricate," commented the other. "The stores have more +than one price, then?" + +"They have as many prices as they have customers," was the answer. +"Why shouldn't they? New York is full of raw rich people who value +things by what they pay. And why shouldn't they pay high and be +happy? That opera-cloak that Alice has--Reval promised it to me for +two thousand, and I'll wager you she'd charge some woman from Butte, +Montana, thirty-five hundred for one just like it." + +Montague got up suddenly. "Stop," he said, waving his hands. "You +take all the bloom off the butterfly's wings!" + +He asked where they were going that evening, and Oliver said that +they were invited to an informal dinner-party at Mrs. Winnie +Duval's. Mrs. Winnie was the young widow who had recently married +the founder of the great banking-house of Puval and Co.--so Oliver +explained; she was a chum of his, and they would meet an interesting +set there. She was going to invite her cousin, Charlie Carter--she +wanted him to meet Alice. "Mrs. Winnie's always plotting to get +Charlie to settle down," said Oliver, with a merry laugh. + +He telephoned for his man to bring over his clothes, and he and his +brother dressed. Then Alice came in, looking like the goddess of the +dawn in the gorgeous rose-coloured gown. The colour in her cheeks +was even brighter than usual; for she was staggered to find how low +the gown was cut, and was afraid she was committing a faux pas. +"Tell me about it," she stammered. "Mammy Lucy says I'm surely +supposed to wear some lace, or a bouquet." + +"Mammy Lucy isn't a Paris costumier," said Oliver, much amused. +"Dear me--wait until you have seen Mrs. Winnie!" + +Mrs. Winnie had kindly sent her limousine car for them, and it stood +throbbing in front of the hotel-entrance, its acetylenes streaming +far up the street. Mrs. Winnie's home was on Fifth Avenue, fronting +the park. It occupied half a block, and had cost two millions to +build and furnish. It was known as the "Snow Palace," being all of +white marble. + +At the curb a man in livery opened the door of the car, and in the +vestibule another man in livery bowed the way. Lined up just inside +the door was a corps of imposing personages, clad in scarlet +waistcoats and velvet knee-breeches, with powdered wigs, and gold +buttons, and gold buckles on their patent-leather pumps. These +splendid creatures took their wraps, and then presented to Montague +and Oliver a bouquet of flowers upon a silver salver, and upon +another salver a tiny envelope bearing the name of their partner at +this strictly "informal" dinner-party. Then the functionaries stood +out of the way and permitted them to view the dazzling splendour of +the entrance hall of the Snow Palace. There was a great marble +staircase running up from the centre of the hall, with a carved +marble gallery above, and a marble fireplace below. To decorate this +mansion a real palace in the Punjab had been bought outright and +plundered; there were mosaics of jade, and wonderful black marble, +and rare woods, and strange and perplexing carvings. + +The head butler stood at the entrance to the salon, pronouncing +their names; and just inside was Mrs. Winnie. + +Montague never forgot that first vision of her; she might have been +a real princess out of the palace in the Punjab. She was a brunette, +rich-coloured, full-throated and deep-bosomed, with scarlet lips, +and black hair and eyes. She wore a court-gown of cloth of silver, +with white kid shoes embroidered with jewelled flowers. All her life +she had been collecting large turquoises, and these she had made +into a tiara, and a neck ornament spreading over her chest, and a +stomacher. Each of these stones was mounted with diamonds, and set +upon a slender wire. So as she moved they quivered and shimmered, +and the effect was dazzling, barbaric. + +She must have seen that Montague was staggered, for she gave him a +little extra pressure of the hand, and said, "I'm so glad you came. +Ollie has told me all about you." Her voice was soft and melting, +not so forbidding as her garb. + +Montague ran the gauntlet of the other guests: Charlie Carter, a +beautiful, dark-haired boy, having the features of a Greek god, but +a sallow and unpleasant complexion; Major "Bob" Venable, a stout +little gentleman with a red face and a heavy jowl; Mrs. Frank +Landis, a merry-eyed young widow with pink cheeks and auburn hair; +Willie Davis, who had been a famous half-back, and was now junior +partner in the banking-house; and two young married couples, whose +names Montague missed. + +The name written on his card was Mrs. Alden. She came in just after +him--a matron of about fifty, of vigorous aspect and ample figure, +approaching what he had not yet learned to call embonpoint. She wore +brocade, as became a grave dowager, and upon her ample bosom there +lay an ornament the size of a man's hand, and made wholly out of +blazing diamonds--the most imposing affair that Montague had ever +laid eyes upon. She gave him her hand to shake, and made no attempt +to disguise the fact that she was looking him over in the meantime. + +"Madam, dinner is served," said the stately butler; and the +glittering procession moved into the dining-room--a huge state +apartment, finished in some lustrous jet-black wood, and with great +panel paintings illustrating the Romaunt de la Rose. The table was +covered with a cloth of French embroidery, and gleaming with its +load of crystal and gold plate. At either end there were huge +candlesticks of solid gold, and in the centre a mbund of orchids and +lilies of the valley, matching in colour the shades of the +candelabra and the daintily painted menu cards. + +"You are fortunate in coming to New York late in life," Mrs. Alden +was saying to him. "Most of our young men are tired out before they +have sense enough to enjoy anything. Take my advice and look about +you--don't let that lively brother of yours set the pace for you." + +In front of Mrs. Alden there was a decanter of Scotch whisky. "Will +you have some?" she asked, as she took it up. + +"No, I thank you," said he, and then wondered if perhaps he should +not have said yes, as he watched the other select the largest of the +half-dozen wine-glasses clustered at her place, and pour herself out +a generous libation. + +"Have you seen much of the city?" she asked, as she tossed it +off--without as much as a quiver of an eyelash. + +"No," said he. "They have not given me much time. They took me off +to the country--to the Robert Wallings'." + +"Ah," said Mrs. Alden; and Montague, struggling to make +conversation, inquired, "Do you know Mr. Walling?" + +"Quite well," said the other, placidly. "I used to be a Walling +myself, you know." + +"Oh," said Montague, taken aback; and then added, "Before you were +married?" + +"No," said Mrs. Alden, more placidly than ever, "before I was +divorced." + +There was a dead silence, and Montague sat gasping to catch his +breath. Then suddenly he heard a faint subdued chuckle, which grew +into open laughter; and he stole a glance at Mrs. Alden, and saw +that her eyes were twinkling; and then he began to laugh himself. +They laughed together, so merrily that others at the table began to +look at them in perplexity. + +So the ice was broken between them; which filled Montague with a +vast relief. But he was still dimly touched with awe--for he +realized that this must be the great Mrs. Billy Alden, whose +engagement to the Duke of London was now the topic of the whole +country. And that huge diamond ornament must be part of Mrs. Alden's +million-dollar outfit of jewellery! + +The great lady volunteered not to tell on him; and added generously +that when he came to dinner with her she would post him concerning +the company. "It's awkward for a stranger, I can understand," said +she; and continued, grimly: "When people get divorces it sometimes +means that they have quarrelled--and they don't always make it up +afterward, either. And sometimes other people quarrel--almost as +bitterly as if they had been married. Many a hostess has had her +reputation ruined by riot keeping track of such things." + +So Montague made the discovery that the great Mrs. Billy, though. +forbidding of aspect, was good-natured when she chose to be, and +with a pretty wit. She was a woman with a mind of her own--a +hard-fighting character, who had marshalled those about her, and +taken her place at the head of the column. She had always counted +herself a personage enough to do exactly as she pleased; through the +course of the dinner she would take up the decanter of Scotch, and +make a pass to help Montague--and then, when he declined, pour out +imperturbably what she wanted. "I don't like your brother," she said +to him, a little later. "He won't last; but he tells me you're +different, so maybe I will like you. Come and see me sometime, and +let me tell you what not to do in New York." + +Then Montague turned to talk with his hostess, who say on his right. + +"Do you play bridge?" asked Mrs. Winnie, in her softest and most +gracious tone. + +"My brother has given me a book to study from," he answered. "But if +he takes me about day and night, I don't know how I'm to manage it." + +"Come and let me teach you," said Mrs. Winnie. "I mean it, really," +she added. "I've nothing to do--at least that I'm not tired of. Only +I don't believe you'd take long to learn all that I know." + +"Aren't you a successful player?" he asked sympathetically. + +"I don't believe anyone wants me to learn," said Mrs. +Winnie.--"They'd rather come and get my money. Isn't that true, +Major?" + +Major Venable sat on her other hand, and he paused in the act of +raising a spoonful of soup to his lips, and laughed, deep down in +his throat--a queer little laugh that shook his fat cheeks and neck. +"I may say," he said, "that I know several people to whom the status +quo is satisfactory." + +"Including yourself," said the lady, with a little moue. "The +wretched man won sixteen hundred dollars from me last night; and he +sat in his club window all afternoon, just to have the pleasure of +laughing at me as I went by. I don't believe I'll play at all +to-night--I'm going to make myself agreeable to Mr. Montague, and +let you win from Virginia Landis for a change." + +And then the Major paused again in his attack upon the soup. "My +dear Mrs. Winnie," he said, "I can live for much more than one day +upon sixteen hundred dollars!" + +The Major was a famous club-man and bon vivant, as Montague learned +later on. "He's an uncle of Mrs. Bobbie Waiting's," said Mrs. Alden, +in his ear. "And incidentally they hate each other like poison." + +"That is so that I won't repeat my luckless question again?" asked +Montague, with a smile. + +"Oh, they meet," said the other. "You wouldn't be supposed to know +that. Won't you have any Scotch?" + +Montague's thoughts were so much taken up with the people at this +repast that he gave little thought to the food. He noticed with +surprise that they had real spring lamb--it being the middle of +November. But he could not know that the six-weeks-old creatures +from which it had come had been raised in cotton-wool and fed on +milk with a spoon--and had cost a dollar and a half a pound. A +little later, however, there was placed before him a delicately +browned sweetbread upon a platter of gold, and then suddenly he +began to pay attention. Mrs. Winnie had a coat of arms; he had +noticed it upon her auto, and again upon the groat bronze gates of +the Snow Palace, and again upon the liveries of her footmen, and yet +again upon the decanter of Scotch. And now--incredible and +appalling--he observed it branded upon the delicately browned +sweetbread! + +After that, who would not have watched? There were large dishes of +rare fruits upon the table--fruits which had been packed in cotton +wool and shipped in cold storage from every corner of the earth. +There were peaches which had come from South Africa (they had cost +ten dollars apiece). There were bunches of Hamburg grapes, dark +purple and bursting fat, which had been grown in a hot-house, +wrapped in paper bags. There were nectarines and plums, and +pomegranates and persimmons from Japan, and later on, little dishes +of plump strawberries-raised in pots. There were quail which had +come from Egypt, and a wonderful thing called "crab-flake a la +Dewey," cooked in a chafing-dish, and served with mushrooms that had +been grown in the tunnels of abandoned mines in Michigan. There was +lettuce raised by electric light, and lima beans that had come from +Porto Eico, and artichokes brought from France at a cost of one +dollar each.--And all these extraordinary viands were washed down by +eight or nine varieties of wines, from the cellar of a man who had +made collecting them a fad for the last thirty years, who had a +vineyard in France for the growing of his own champagne, and kept +twenty thousand quarts of claret in storage all the time--and +procured his Rhine wine from the cellar of the German Emperor, at a +cost of twenty-five dollars a quart! + +There were twelve people at dinner, and afterward they made two +tables for bridge, leaving Charlie Carter to talk to Alice, and Mrs. +Winnie to devote herself to Montague, according to her promise. +"Everybody likes to see my house," she said. "Would you?" And she +led the way from the dining-room into the great conservatory, which +formed a central court extending to the roof of the building. She +pressed a button, and a soft radiance streamed down from above, in +the midst of which Mrs. Winnie stood, with her shimmering jewels a +very goddess of the fire. + +The conservatory was a place in which he could have spent the +evening; it was filled with the most extraordinary varieties of +plants. "They were gathered from all over the world," said Mrs. +Winnie, seeing that he was staring at them. "My husband employed a +connoisseur to hunt them out for him. He did it before we were +married--he thought it would make me happy." + +In the centre of the place there was a fountain, twelve or fourteen +feet in height, and set in a basin of purest Carrara marble. By the +touch of a button the pool was flooded with submerged lights, and +one might see scores of rare and beautiful fish swimming about. + +"Isn't it fine!" said Mrs. Winnie, and added eagerly, "Do you know, +I come here at night, sometimes when I can't sleep, and sit for hours +and gaze. All those living things; with their extraordinary +forms-some of them have faces, and look like human beings! And I +wonder what they think about, and if life seems as strange to them +as it does to me." + +She seated herself by the edge of the pool, and gazed in. "These +fish were given to me by my cousin, Ned Carter. They call him +Buzzie. Have you met him yet?--No, of course not. He's Charlie's +brother, and he collects art things--the most unbelievable things. +Once, a long time ago, he took a fad for goldfish--some goldfish +are very rare and beautiful, you know--one can pay twenty-five and +fifty dollars apiece for them. He got all the dealers had, and when +he learned that there were some they couldn't get, he took a trip to +Japan and China on purpose to get them. You know they raise them +there, and some of them are sacred, and not allowed to be sold or +taken out of the country. And he had all sorts of carved ivory +receptacles for them, that he brought home with him--he had one +beautiful marble basin about ten feet long, that had been stolen +from the Emperor." + +Over Montague's shoulder where he sat, there hung an orchid, a most +curious creation, an explosion of scarlet flame. "That is the +odonto-glossum," said Mrs. Winnie. "Have you heard of it?" + +"Never," said the man. + +"Dear me," said the other. "Such is fame!" + +"Is it supposed to be famous?" he asked. + +"Very," she replied. "There was a lot in the newspapers about it. +You see Winton--that's my husband, you know--paid twenty-five +thousand dollars to the man who created it; and that made a lot of +foolish talk--people come from all over to look at it. I wanted to +have it, because its shape is exactly like the coronet on my crest. +Do you notice that?" + +"Yes," said Montague. "It's curious." + +"I'm very proud of my crest," continued Mrs. Winnie. "Of course +there are vulgar rich people who have them made to order, and make +them ridiculous; but ours is a real one. It's my own--not my +husband's; the Duvals are an old French family, but they're not +noble. I was a Morris, you know, and our line runs back to the old +French ducal house of Montmorenci. And last summer, when we were +motoring, I hunted up one of their chateaux; and see! I brought over +this." + +Mrs. Winnie pointed to a suit of armour, placed in a passage leading +to the billiard-room. "I have had the lights fixed," she added. And +she pressed a button, and all illumination vanished, save for a +faint red glow just above the man in armour. + +"Doesn't he look real?" said she. (He had his visor down, and a +battle-axe in his mailed hands.) "I like to imagine that he may have +been my twentieth great-grandfather. I come and sit here, and gaze +at him and shiver. Think what a terrible time it must have been to +live in--when men wore things like that! It couldn't be any worse to +be a crab." + +"You seem to be fond of strange emotions," said Montague, laughing. + +"Maybe I am," said the other. "I like everything that's old and +romantic, and makes you forget this stupid society world." + +She stood brooding for a moment or two, gazing at the figure. Then +she asked, abruptly, "Which do you like best, pictures or swimming?" + +"Why," replied the man, laughing and perplexed, "I like them both, +at times." + +"I wondered which you'd rather see first," explained his escort; +"the art gallery or the natatorium. I'm afraid you'll get tired +before you've seen every thing." + +"Suppose we begin with the art-gallery," said he. "There's not much +to see in a swimming-pool." + +"Ah, but ours is a very special one," said the lady.--"And some +day, if you'll be very good, and promise not to tell anyone, I'll +let you see my own bath. Perhaps they've told you, I have one in my +own apartments, cut out of a block of the most wonderful green +marble." + +Montague showed the expected amount of astonishment. + +"Of course that gave the dreadful newspapers another chance to +gossip," said Mrs. Winnie, plaintively. "People found out what I had +paid for it. One can't have anything beautiful without that question +being asked." + +And then followed a silence, while Mrs. Winnie waited for him to ask +it. As he forebore to do so, she added, "It was fifty thousand +dollars." + +They were moving towards the elevator, where a small boy in the +wonderful livery of plush and scarlet stood at attention. +"Sometimes," she continued, "it seems to me that it is wicked to pay +such prices for things. Have you ever thought about it?" + +"Occasionally," Montague replied. + +"Of course," said she, "it makes work for people; and I suppose they +can't be better employed than in making beautiful things. But +sometimes, when I think of all the poverty there is, I get unhappy. +We have a winter place down South--one of those huge country-houses +that look like exposition buildings, and have rooms for a hundred +guests; and sometimes I go driving by myself, down to the mill +towns, and go through them and talk to the children. I came to know +some of them quite well--poor little wretches." + +They stepped out of the elevator, and moved toward the art-gallery. +"It used to make me so unhappy," she went on. "I tried to talk to my +husband about it, but he wouldn't have it. 'I don't see why you +can't be like other people,' he said--he's always repeating that to +me. And what could I say?" + +"Why not suggest that other people might be like you?" said the man, +laughing. + +"I wasn't clever enough," said she, regretfully.--"It's very hard +for a woman, you know--with no one to understand. Once I went down +to a settlement, to see what that was like. Do you know anything +about settlements?" + +"Nothing at all," said Montague. + +"Well, they are people who go to live among the poor, and try to +reform them. It takes a terrible lot of courage, I think. I give +them money now and then, but I am never sure if it does any good. +The trouble with poor people, it seems to me, is that there are so +many of them." + +"There are, indeed," said Montague, thinking of the vision he had +seen from Oliver's racing-car. + +Mrs. Winnie had seated herself upon a cushioned seat near the +entrance to the darkened gallery. "I haven't been there for some +time," she continued. "I've discovered something that I think +appeals more to my temperament. I have rather a leaning toward the +occult and the mystical, I'm afraid. Did you ever hear of the +Babists?" + +"No," said Montague. + +"Well, that's a religious sect--from Persia, I think--and they are +quite the rage. They are priests, you understand, and they give +lectures, and teach you all about the immanence of the divine, and +about reincarnation, and Karma, and all that. Do you believe any of +those things?" + +"I can't say that I know about them," said he. + +"It is very beautiful and strange," added the other. "It makes you +realize what a perplexing thing life is. They teach you how the +universe is all one, and the soul is the only reality, and so bodily +things don't matter. If I were a Babist, I believe that I could be +happy, even if I had to work in a cotton-mill." + +Then Mrs. Winnie rose up suddenly. "You'd rather look at the +pictures, I know," she said; and she pressed a button, and a soft +radiance flooded the great vaulted gallery. + +"This is our chief pride in life," she said. "My husband's object +has been to get one representative work of each of the great +painters of the world. We got their masterpiece whenever we could. +Over there in the corner are the old masters--don't you love to look +at them?" + +Montague would have liked to look at them very much; but he felt +that he would rather it were some time when he did not have Mrs. +Winnie by his side. Mrs. Winnie must have had to show the gallery +quite frequently; and now her mind was still upon the Persian +transcendentalists. + +"That picture of the saint is a Botticelli," she said. "And do you +know, the orange-coloured robe always makes me think of the swami. +That is my teacher, you know--Swami Babubanana. And he has the most +beautiful delicate hands, and great big brown eyes, so soft and +gentle--for all the world like those of the gazelles in our place +down South!" + +Thus Mrs. Winnie, as she roamed from picture to picture, while the +souls of the grave old masters looked down upon her in silence. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + + + +Montague had now been officially pronounced complete by his tailor; +and Reval had sent home the first of Alice's street gowns, +elaborately plain, but fitting her conspicuously, and costing +accordingly. So the next morning they were ready to be taken to call +upon Mrs. Devon. + +Of course Montague had heard of the Devons, but he was not +sufficiently initiated to comprehend just what it meant to be asked +to call. But when Oliver came in, a little before noon, and +proceeded to examine his costume and to put him to rights, and +insisted that Alice should have her hair done over, he began to +realize that this was a special occasion. Oliver was in quite a +state of excitement; and after they had left the hotel, and were +driving up the Avenue, he explained to them that their future in +Society depended upon the outcome of this visit. Calling upon Mrs. +Devon, it seemed, was the American equivalent to being presented at +court. For twenty-five years this grand lady had been the undisputed +mistress of the Society of the metropolis; and if she liked them, +they would be invited to her annual ball, which took place in +January, and then for ever after their position would be assured. +Mrs. Devon's ball was the one great event of the social year; about +one thousand people were asked, while ten thousand disappointed ones +gnashed their teeth in outer darkness. + +All of which threw Alice into a state of trepidation. + +"Suppose we don't suit her!" she said. + +To that the other replied that their way had been made smooth by +Reggie Mann, who was one of Mrs. Devon's favourites. + +A century and more ago the founder of the Devon line had come to +America, and invested his savings in land on Manhattan Island. Other +people had toiled and built a city there, and generation after +generation of the Devons had sat by and collected the rents, until +now their fortune amounted to four or five hundred millions of +dollars. They were the richest old family in America, and the most +famous; and in Mrs. Devon, the oldest member of the line, was +centred all its social majesty and dominion. She lived a stately and +formal life, precisely like a queen; no one ever saw her save upon +her raised chair of state, and she wore her jewels even at +breakfast. She was the arbiter of social destinies, and the +breakwater against which the floods of new wealth beat in vain. +Reggie Mann told wonderful tales about the contents of her enormous +mail--about wives and daughters of mighty rich men who flung +themselves at her feet and pleaded abjectly for her favour--who laid +siege to her house for months, and intrigued and pulled wires to get +near her, and even bought the favour of her servants! If Reggie +might be believed, great financial wars had been fought, and the +stock-markets of the world convulsed more than once, because of +these social struggles; and women of wealth and beauty had offered +to sell themselves for the privilege which was so freely granted to +them. + +They came to the old family mansion and rang the bell, and the +solemn butler ushered them past the grand staircase and into the +front reception-room to wait. Perhaps five minutes later he came in +and rolled back the doors, and they stood up, and beheld a withered +old lady, nearly eighty years of age, bedecked with diamonds and +seated upon a sort of throne. They approached, and Oliver introduced +them, and the old lady held out a lifeless hand; and then they sat +down. + +Mrs. Devon asked them a few questions as to how much of New York +they had seen, and how they liked it, and whom they had met; but +most of the time she simply looked them over, and left the making of +conversation to Oliver. As for Montague, he sat, feeling perplexed +and uncomfortable, and wondering, deep down in him, whether it could +really be America in which this was happening. + +"You see," Oliver explained to them, when they were seated in their +carriage again, "her mind is failing, and it's really quite +difficult for her to receive." + +"I'm glad I don't have to call on her more than once," was Alice's +comment. "When do we know the verdict?" + +"When you get a card marked 'Mrs. Devon at home,'" said Oliver. And +he went on to tell them about the war which had shaken Society long +ago, when the mighty dame had asserted her right to be "Mrs. Devon," +and the only "Mrs. Devon." He told them also about her wonderful +dinner-set of china, which had cost thirty thousand dollars, and was +as fragile as a humming-bird's wing. Each piece bore her crest, and +she had a china expert to attend to washing and packing it--no +common hand was ever allowed to touch it. He told them, also, how +Mrs. Devon's housekeeper had wrestled for so long, trying to teach +the maids to arrange the furniture in the great reception-rooms +precisely as the mistress ordered; until finally a complete set of +photographs had been taken, so that the maids might do their work by +chart. + +Alice went back to the hotel, for Mrs. Robbie Walling was to call +and take her home to lunch; and Montague and his brother strolled +round to Reggie Mann's apartments, to report upon their visit. + +Reggie received them in a pair of pink silk pyjamas, decorated with +ribbons and bows, and with silk-embroidered slippers, set with +pearls--a present from a feminine adorer. Montague noticed, to his +dismay, that the little man wore a gold bracelet upon one arm! He +explained that he had led a cotillion the night before--or rather +this morning; he had got home at five o'clock. He looked quite white +and tired, and there were the remains of a breakfast of +brandy-and-soda on the table. + +"Did you see the old girl?" he asked. "And how does she hold up?" + +"She's game," said Oliver. + +"I had the devil's own time getting you in," said the other. "It's +getting harder every day." + +"You'll excuse me," Reggie added, "if I get ready. I have an +engagement." And he turned to his dressing-table, which was covered +with an array of cosmetics and perfumes, and proceeded, in a +matter-of-fact way, to paint his face. Meanwhile his valet was +flitting silently here and there, getting ready his afternoon +costume; and Montague, in spite of himself, followed the man with +his eyes. A haberdasher's shop might have been kept going for quite +a while upon the contents of Reggie's dressers. His clothing was +kept in a room adjoining the dressing-room; Montague, who was near +the door, could see the rosewood wardrobes, each devoted to a +separate article of clothing-shirts, for instance, laid upon sliding +racks, tier upon tier of them, of every material and colour. There +was a closet fitted with shelves and equipped like a little shoe +store--high shoes and low shoes, black ones, brown ones, and white +ones, and each fitted over a last to keep its shape perfect. These +shoes were all made to order according to Reggie's designs, and +three or-four times a year there was a cleaning out, and those which +had gone out of fashion became the prey of his "man." There was a +safe in one closet, in which Reggie's jewellery was kept. + +The dressing-room was furnished like a lady's boudoir, the furniture +upholstered with exquisite embroidered silk, and the bed hung with +curtains of the same material. There was a huge bunch of roses on +the centre-table, and the odour of roses hung heavy in the room. + +The valet stood at attention with a rack of neckties, from which +Reggie critically selected one to match his shirt. "Are you going to +take Alice with you down to the Havens's?" he was asking; and he +added, "You'll meet Vivie Patton down there--she's had another row +at home." + + + +"You don't say so!" exclaimed Oliver. + +"Yes," said the other. "Frank waited up all night for her, and he +wept and tore his hair and vowed he would kill the Count. Vivie told +him to go to hell." + +"Good God!" said Oliver. "Who told you that?" + +"The faithful Alphomse," said Reggie, nodding toward his valet. "Her +maid told him. And Frank vows he'll sue--I half expected to see it +in the papers this morning." + +"I met Vivie on the street yesterday," said Oliver. "She looked as +chipper as ever." + +Reggie shrugged his shoulders. "Have you seen this week's paper?" he +asked. "They've got another of Ysabel's suppressed poems in."--And +then he turned toward Montague to explain that "Ysabel" was the +pseudonym of a young debutante who had fallen under the spell of +Baudelaire and Wilde, and had published a volume of poems of such +furious eroticism that her parents were buying up stray copies at +fabulous prices. + +Then the conversation turned to the Horse Show, and for quite a +while they talked about who was going to wear what. Finally Oliver +rose, saying that they would have to get a bite to eat before +leaving for the Havens's. "You'll have a good time," said Reggie. +"I'd have gone myself, only I promised to stay and help Mrs. de +Graffenried design a dinner. So long!" + +Montague had heard nothing about the visit to the Havens's; but now, +as they strolled down the Avenue, Oliver explained that they were to +spend the weekend at Castle Havens. There was quite a party going up +this Friday afternoon, and they would find one of the Havens's +private cars waiting. They had nothing to do meantime, for their +valets would attend to their packing, and Alice and her maid would +meet them at the depot. + +"Castle Havens is one of the show places of the country," Oliver +added. "You'll see the real thing this time." And while they +lunched, he went on to entertain his brother with particulars +concerning the place and its owners. John had inherited the bulk of +the enormous Havens fortune, and he posed as his father's successor +in the Steel Trust. Some day some one of the big men would gobble +him up; meantime he amused himself fussing over the petty details of +administration. Mrs. Havens had taken a fancy to a rural life, and +they had built this huge palace in the hills of Connecticut, and she +wrote verses in which she pictured herself as a simple +shepherdess--and all that sort of stuff. But no one minded that, +because the place was gr'and, and there was always so much to do. +They had forty or fifty polo ponies, for instance, and every spring +the place was filled with polo men. + +At the depot they caught sight of Charlie Carter, in his big red +touring-car. "Are you going to the Havens's?" he said. "Tell them +we're going to pick up Chauncey on the way." + +"That's Chauncey Venable, the Major's nephew," said Oliver, as they +strolled to the train. "Poor Chauncey--he's in exile!" + +"How do you mean?" asked Montague. + +"Why, he daren't come into New York," said the other. "Haven't you +read about it in the papers? He lost one or two hundred thousand the +other night in a gambling place, and the district attorney's trying +to catch him." + +"Does he want to put him in jail?" asked Montague. + +"Heavens, no!" said Oliver. "Put a Venable in jail? He wants him for +a witness against the gambler; and poor Chauncey is flitting about +the country hiding with his friends, and wailing because he'll miss +the Horse Show." + +They boarded the palatial private car, and were introduced to a +number of other guests. Among them was Major Venable; and while +Oliver buried himself in the new issue of the fantastic-covered +society journal, which contained the poem of the erotic "Ysabel," +his brother chatted with the Major. The latter had taken quite a +fancy to the big handsome stranger, to whom everything in the city +was so new and interesting." + +"Tell me what you thought of the Snow Palace," said he. "I've an +idea that Mrs. Winnie's got quite a crush on you. You'll find her +dangerous, my boy--she'll make you pay for your dinners before you +get through!" + +After the train was under way, the Major got himself surrounded with +some apollinaris and Scotch, and then settled back to enjoy himself. +"Did you see the 'drunken kid' at the ferry?" he asked. "(That's +what our abstemious district attorney terms my precious young +heir-apparent.) You'll meet him at the Castle--the Havens are good +to him. They know how it feels, I guess; when John was a youngster +his piratical uncle had to camp in Jersey for six months or so, to +escape the strong arm of the law." + +"Don't you know about it?" continued the Major, sipping at his +beverage. "Sic transit gloria mundi! That was when the great Captain +Kidd Havens was piling up the millions which his survivors are +spending with such charming insouciance. He was plundering a +railroad, and the original progenitor of the Wallings tried to buy +the control away from him, and Havens issued ten or twenty millions +of new stock overnight, in the face of a court injunction, and got +away with most of his money. It reads like opera bouffe, you +know--they had a regular armed camp across the river for about six +months--until Captain Kidd went up to Albany with half a million +dollars' worth of greenbacks in a satchel, and induced the +legislature to legalize the proceedings. That was just after the +war, you know, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. It seems +strange to think that anyone shouldn't know about it." + +"I know about Havens in a general way," said Montague. + +"Yes," said the Major. "But I know in a particular way, because I've +carried some of that railroad's paper all these years, and it's +never paid any dividends since. It has a tendency to interfere with +my appreciation of John's lavish hospitality." + +Montague was reminded of the story of the Roman emperor who pointed +out that money had no smell. + +"Maybe not," said the Major. "But all the same, if you were +superstitious, you might make out an argument from the Havens +fortune. Take that poor girl who married the Count." + +And the Major went on to picture the denouement of that famous +international alliance, which, many years ago, had been the +sensation of two continents. All Society had attended the gorgeous +wedding, an archbishop had performed the ceremony, and the +newspapers had devoted pages to describing the gowns and the jewels +and the presents and all the rest of the magnificence. And the Count +was a wretched little degenerate, who beat and kicked his wife, and +flaunted his mistresses in her face, and wasted fourteen million +dollars of her money in a couple of years. The mind could scarcely +follow the orgies of this half-insane creature--he had spent two +hundred thousand dollars on a banquet, and half as much again for a +tortoise-shell wardrobe in which Louis the Sixteenth had kept his +clothes! He had charged a diamond necklace to his wife, and taken +two of the four rows of diamonds out of it before he presented it to +her! He had paid a hundred thousand dollars a year to a jockey whom +the Parisian populace admired, and a fortune for a palace in Verona, +which he had promptly torn down, for the sake of a few painted +ceilings. The Major told about one outdoor fete, which he had given +upon a sudden whim: ten thousand Venetian lanterns, ten thousand +metres of carpet; three thousand gilded chairs, and two or three +hundred waiters in fancy costumes; two palaces built in a lake, with +sea-horses and dolphins, and half a dozen orchestras, and several +hundred chorus--girls from the Grand Opera! And in between +adventures such as these, he bought a seat in the Chamber of +Deputies, and made speeches and fought duels in defence of the Holy +Catholic Church--and wrote articles for the yellow journals of +America. "And that's the fate of my lost dividends!" growled the +Major. + +There were several automobiles to meet the party at the depot, and +they were whirled through a broad avenue up a valley, and past a +little lake, and so to the gates of Castle Havens. + +It was a tremendous building, a couple of hundred feet long. One +entered into a main hall, perhaps fifty feet wide, with a great +fireplace arid staircase of marble and bronze, and furniture of +gilded wood and crimson velvet, and a huge painting, covering three +of the walls, representing the Conquest of Peru. Each of the rooms +was furnished in the style of a different period--one Louis +Quatorze, one Louis Quinze, one Marie Antoniette, and so on. There +was a drawing-room and a regal music-room; a dining-room in the +Georgian style, and a billiard-room, also in the English fashion, +with high wainscoting and open beams in the coiling; and a library, +and a morning-room and conservatory. Upstairs in the main suite of +rooms was a royal bedstead, which alone was rumoured to have cost +twenty-five thousand dollars; and you might have some idea of the +magnificence of things when you learned that underneath the gilding +of the furniture was the rare and precious Circassian walnut. + +All this was beautiful. But what brought the guests to Castle Havens +was the casino, so the Major had remarked. It was really a private +athletic club--with tan-bark hippodrome, having a ring the size of +that in Madison Square Garden, and a skylight roof, and thirty or +forty arc-lights for night events. There were bowling-alloys, +billiard and lounging-rooms, hand-ball, tennis and racket-courts, a +completely equipped gymnasium, a shooting-gallery, and a +swimming-pool with Turkish and Russian baths. In this casino alone +there were rooms for forty guests. + +Such was Castle Havens; it had cost three or four millions of +dollars, and within the twelve-foot wall which surrounded its +grounds lived two world-weary people who dreaded nothing so much as +to be alone. There were always guests, and on special occasions +there might be three or four score. They went whirling about the +country in their autos; they rode and drove; they played games, +outdoor and indoor, or gambled, or lounged and chatted, or wandered +about at their own sweet will. Coming to one of these places was not +different from staying at a great hotel, save that the company was +selected, and instead of paying a bill, you gave twenty or thirty +dollars to the servants when you left. + +It was a great palace of pleasure, in which beautiful and graceful +men and women played together in all sorts of beautiful and graceful +ways. In the evenings great logs blazed in the fireplace in the +hall, and there might be an informal dance--there was always music +at hand. Now and then there would be a stately ball, with rich gowns +and flashing jewels, and the grounds ablaze with lights, and a full +orchestra, and special trains from the city. Or a whole theatrical +company would be brought down to give an entertainment in the +theatre; or a minstrel show, or a troupe of acrobats, or a menagerie +of trained animals. Or perhaps there would be a great pianist, or a +palmist, or a trance medium. Anyone at all would be welcome who +could bring a new thrill--it mattered nothing at all, though the +price might be several hundred dollars a minute. + +Montague shook hands with his host and hostess, and with a number of +others; among them Billy Price who forthwith challenged him, and +carried him off to the shooting-gallery. Here he took a rifle, and +proceeded to satisfy her as to his skill. This brought him to the +notice of Siegfried Harvey, who was a famous cross-country rider and +"polo-man." Harvey's father owned a score of copper-mines, and had +named him after a race-horse; he was a big broad-shouldered fellow, +a favourite of every one; and next morning, when he found that +Montague sat a horse like one who was born to it, he invited him to +come out to his place on Long Island, and see some of the +fox-hunting. + +Then, after he had dressed for dinner, Montague came downstairs, and +found Betty Wyman, shining like Aurora in an orange-coloured cloud. +Sho introduced him to Mrs. Vivie Patton, who was tall and slender +and fascinating, and had told her husband to go to hell. Mrs. Vivie +had black eyes that snapped and sparkled, and she was a geyser of +animation in a perpetual condition of eruption. Montague wondered if +she would have talked with him so gaily had she known what he knew +about her domestic entanglements. + +The company moved into the dining-room, where there was served +another of those elaborate and enormously expensive meals which he +concluded he was fated to eat for the rest of his life. Only, +instead of Mrs. Billy Alden with her Scotch, there was Mrs. Vivie, +who drank champagne in terrifying quantities; and afterward there +was the inevitable grouping of the bridge fiends. + +Among the guests there was a long-haired and wild-looking foreign +personage, who was the "lion" of the evening, and sat with half a +dozen admiring women about him. Now he was escorted to the +music-room, and revealed the fact that he was a violin virtuoso. He +played what was called "salon music"--music written especially for +ladies and gentlemen to listen to after dinner; and also a strange +contrivance called a concerto, put together to enable the player to +exhibit within a brief space the utmost possible variety of finger +gymnastics. To learn to perform these feats one had to devote his +whole lifetime to practising them, just like any circus acrobat; and +so his mind became atrophied, and a naive and elemental vanity was +all that was left to him. + +Montague stood for a while staring; and then took to watching the +company, who chattered and laughed all through the performance. +Afterward, he strolled into the billiard-room, where Billy Price and +Chauncey Venable were having an exciting bout; and from there to the +smoking-room, where the stout little Major had gotten a group of +young bloods about him to play "Klondike." This was a game of deadly +hazards, which they played without limit; the players themselves +were silent and impassive, but the spectators who gathered about +were tense with excitement. + +In the morning Charlie Carter carried off Alice and Oliver and Betty +in his auto; and Montague spent his time in trying some of Havens's +jumping horses. The Horse Show was to open in New York on Monday, +and there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement because of this +prospect; Mrs. Caroline Smythe, a charming young widow, strolled +about with him and told him all about this Show, and the people who +would take part in it. + +And in the afternoon Major Venable took him for a stroll and showed +him the grounds. He had been told what huge sums had been expended +in laying them out; but after all, the figures were nothing compared +with an actual view. There were hills and slopes, and endless vistas +of green lawns and gardens, dotted with the gleaming white of marble +staircases and fountains and statuary. There was a great Italian +walk, leading by successive esplanades to an electric fountain with +a basin sixty feet across, and a bronze chariot and marble horses. +There were sunken gardens, with a fountain brought from the South of +France, and Greek peristyles, and seats of marble, and vases and +other treasures of art. + +And then there were the stables; a huge Renaissance building, with a +perfectly equipped theatre above. There was a model farm and dairy; +a polo-field, and an enclosed riding-ring for the children; and +dog-kennels and pigeon-houses, greenhouses and deer-parks--one was +prepared for bear-pits and a menagerie. Finally, on their way back, +they passed the casino, where musical chimes pealed out the +quarter-hours. Montague stopped and gazed up at the tower from which +the sounds had come. + +The more he gazed, the more he found to gaze at The roof of this +building had many gables, in the Queen Anne style; and from the +midst of them shot up the tower, which was octagonal and solid, +suggestive of the Normans. It was decorated with Christmas-wreaths +in white stucco, and a few miscellaneous ornaments like the gilded +tassels one sees upon plush curtains. Overtopping all of this was +the dome of a Turkish mosque. Rising out of the dome was something +that looked like a dove-cot; and out of this rose the slender white +steeple of a Methodist country church. On top of that was a statue +of Diana. + +"What are you looking at?" asked the Major. + +"Nothing," said Montague, as he moved on. "Has there ever been any +insanity in the Havens family?" + +"I don't know," replied the other, puzzled. "They say the old man +never could sleep at night, and used to wander about alone in the +park. I suppose he had things on his conscience." + +They strolled away; and the Major's flood-gates of gossip were +opened. There was an old merchant in New York, who had been Havens's +private secretary. And Havens was always in terror of assassination, +and so whenever they travelled abroad he and the secretary exchanged +places. "The old man is big and imposing," said the Major, "and it's +funny to hear him tell how he used to receive the visitors and be +stared at by the crowds, while Havens, who was little and +insignificant, would pretend to make himself useful. And then one +day a wild-looking creature came into the Havens office, and began +tearing the wrappings off some package that shone like metal--and +quick as a flash he and Havens flung themselves down on the floor +upon their faces. Then, as nothing happened, they looked up, and saw +the puzzled stranger gazing over the railing at them. He had a +patent churn, made of copper, which he wanted Havens to market for +him!" + +Montague could have wished that this party might last for a week or +two, instead of only two days. He was interested in the life, and in +those who lived it; all whom he met were people prominent in the +social world, and some in the business world as well, and one could +not have asked a better chance to study them. + +Montague was taking his time and feeling his way slowly. But all the +time that he was playing and gossiping he never lost from mind his +real purpose, which was to find a place for himself in the world of +affairs; and he watched for people from whose conversation he could +get a view of this aspect of things. So he was interested when Mrs. +Smythe remarked that among his fellow-guests was Vandam, an official +of one of the great life-insurance companies. "Freddie" Vandam, as +the lady called him, was a man of might m the financial world; and +Montague said to himself that in meeting him he would really be +accomplishing something. Crack shots and polo-players and +four-in-hand experts were all very well, but he had his living to +earn, and he feared that the problem was going to prove complicated. + +So ho was glad when chance brought him and young Vandam together, +and Siegfried Harvey introduced them. And then Montague got the +biggest shock which New York had given him yet. + +It was not what Freddie Vandam said; doubtless he had a right to be +interested in the Horse Show, since he was to exhibit many fine +horses, and he had no reason to feel called upon to talk about +anything more serious to a stranger at a house party. But it was the +manner of the man, his whole personality. For Freddie was a man of +fashion, with all the exaggerated and farcical mannerisms of the +dandy of the comic papers. He wore a conspicuous and foppish +costume, and posed with a little cane; he cultivated a waving +pompadour, and his silky moustache and beard were carefully trimmed +to points, and kept sharp by his active fingers. His conversation +was full of French phrases and French opinions; he had been reared +abroad, and had a whole-souled contempt for all things American-even +dictating his business letters in French, and leaving it for his +stenographer to translate them. His shirts were embroidered with +violets and perfumed with violets--and there were bunches of violets +at his horses' heads, so that he might get the odour as he drove! + +There was a cruel saying about Freddie Vandam--that if only he had +had a little more brains, he would have been half-witted. And +Montague sat, and watched his mannerisms and listened to his +inanities, with his mind in a state of bewilderment and dismay. When +at last he got up and walked away, it was with a new sense of the +complicated nature of the problem that confronted him. Who was there +that could give him the key to this mystery--who could interpret to +him a world in which a man such as this was in control of four or +five hundred millions of trust funds? + + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + + + +It was quite futile to attempt to induce anyone to talk about +serious matters just now--for the coming week all Society belonged +to the horse. The parties which went to church on Sunday morning +talked about horses on the way, and the crowds that gathered in +front of the church door to watch them descend from their +automobiles, and to get "points" on their conspicuous +costumes--these would read about horses all afternoon in the Sunday +papers, and about the gowns which the women would wear at the show. + +Some of the party went up on Sunday evening; Montague went with the +rest on Monday morning, and had lunch with Mrs. Robbie Walling and +Oliver and Alice. They had arrayed him in a frock coat and silk hat +and fancy "spats"; and they took him and sat him in the front row of +Robbie's box. + +There was a great tan-bark arena, in which the horses performed; and +then a railing, and a broad promenade for the spectators; and then, +raised a few feet above, the boxes in which sat all Society. For the +Horse Show had now become a great social function. Last year a +visiting foreign prince had seen fit to attend it, and this year +"everybody" would come. + +Montague was rapidly getting used to things; he observed with a +smile how easy it was to take for granted embroidered bed and table +linen, and mural paintings, and private cars, and gold plate. At +first it had seemed to him strange to be waited upon by a white +woman, and by a white man quite unthinkable; but he was becoming +accustomed to having silent and expressionless lackeys everywhere +about him, attending to his slightest want. So he presumed that if +he waited long enough, he might even get used to horses which had +their tails cut off to stumps, and their manes to rows of bristles, +and which had been taught to lift their feet in strange and +eccentric ways, and were driven with burred bits in their mouths to +torture them and make them step lively. + +There were road-horses, coach-horses, saddle-horses and hunters, +polo-ponies, stud-horses--every kind of horse that is used for +pleasure, over a hundred different "classes" of them. They were put +through their paces about the ring, and there was a committee which +judged them, and awarded blue and red ribbons. Apparently their +highly artificial kind of excellence was a real thing to the people +who took part in the show; for the spectators thrilled with +excitement, and applauded the popular victors. There was a whole set +of conventions which were generally understood--there was even a +new language. You were told that these "turnouts" were "nobby" and +"natty"; they were "swagger" and "smart" and "swell." + +However, the horse was really a small part of this show; before one +had sat out an afternoon he realized that the function was in +reality a show of Society. For six or seven hours during the day the +broad promenade would be so packed with human beings that one moved +about with difficulty; and this throng gazed towards the ring almost +never--it stared up into the boxes. All the year round the +discontented millions of the middle classes read of the doings of +the "smart set"; and here they had a chance to come and see +them-alive, and real, and dressed in their showiest costumes. Here +was all the grand monde, in numbered boxes, and with their names +upon the programmes, so that one could get them straight. Ten +thousand people from other cities had come to New York on purpose to +get a look. Women who lived in boarding-houses and made their own +clothes, had come to get hints; all the dressmakers in town were +present for the same purpose.. Society reporters had come, with +notebooks in hand; and next morning the imitators of Society all +over the United States would read about it, in such fashion as this: +"Mrs. Chauncey Venable was becomingly gowned in mauve cloth, made +with an Eton jacket trimmed with silk braid, and opening over a +chemisette of lace. Her hat was of the same colour, draped with a +great quantity of mauve and orange tulle, and surmounted with birds +of paradise to match. Her furs were silver fox." + +The most intelligent of the great metropolitan dailies would print +columns of this sort of material; and as for the "yellow" journals, +they would have discussions of the costumes by "experts," and half a +page of pictures of the most conspicuous of the box-holders. While +Montague sat talking with Mrs. Walling, half a dozen cameras were +snapped at them; and once a young man with a sketch-book placed +himself in front of them and went placidly to work.--Concerning such +things the society dame had three different sets of emotions: first, +the one which she showed in public, that of bored and contemptuous +indifference; second, the one which she expressed to her friends, +that of outraged but helpless indignation; and third, the one which +she really felt, that of triumphant exultation over her rivals, +whose pictures were not published and whose costumes were not +described. + +It was a great dress parade of society women. One who wished to play +a proper part in it would spend at least ten thousand dollars upon +her costumes for the week. It was necessary to have a different gown +for the afternoon and evening of each day; and some, who were adepts +at quick changes and were proud of it, would wear three or four a +day, and so need a couple of dozen gowns for the show. And of course +there had to be hats and shoes and gloves to match. There would be +robes of priceless fur hung carelessly over the balcony to make a +setting; and in the evening there would be pyrotechnical displays of +jewels. Mrs. Virginia Landis wore a pair of simple pearl earrings, +which she told the reporters had cost twenty thousand dollars; and +there were two women who displayed four hundred thousand dollars' +worth of diamonds--and each of them had hired a detective to hover +about in the crowd and keep watch over her! + +Nor must one suppose, because the horse was an inconspicuous part of +the show, that he was therefore an inexpensive part. One man was to +be seen here driving a four-in-hand of black stallions which had +cost forty thousand; there were other men who drove only one horse, +and had paid forty thousand for that. Half a million was a moderate +estimate of the cost of the "string" which some would exhibit. And +of course these horses were useless, save for show purposes, and to +breed other horses like them. Many of them never went out of their +stables except for exercise upon a track; and the cumbrous and +enormous; expensive coaches were never by any possibility used +elsewhere--when they were taken from place to place they seldom went +upon their own wheels. + +And there were people here who made their chief occupation in life +the winning of blue ribbons at these shows. They kept great country +estates especially for the horses, and had private indoor exhibition +rings. Robbie Walling and Chauncey Venable were both such people; in +the summer of next year another of the Wallings took a string across +the water to teach the horse-show game to Society in London. He took +twenty or thirty horses, under the charge of an expert manager and a +dozen assistants; he sent sixteen different kinds of carriages, and +two great coaches, and a ton of harness and other stuff. It required +one whole deck of a steamer, and the expedition enabled him to get +rid of six hundred thousand dollars. + +All through the day, of course, Robbie was down in the ring with his +trainers and his competitors, and Montague sat and kept his wife +company. There was a steady stream of visitors, who came to +congratulate her upon their successes, and to commiserate with Mrs. +Chauncey Venable over the sufferings of the un-happy victim of a +notoriety-seeking district attorney. + +There was just one drawback to the Horse Show, as Montague gathered +from the conversation that went on among the callers: it was public, +and there was no way to prevent undesirable people from taking part. +There were, it appeared, hordes of rich people in New York who were +not in Society, and of whose existence Society was haughtily +unaware; but these people might enter horses and win prizes, and +even rent a box and exhibit their clothes. And they might induce the +reporters to mention them--and of course the ignorant populace did +not know the difference, and stared at them just as hard as at Mrs. +Robbie or Mrs. Winnie. And so for a whole blissful week these people +had all the sensations of being in Society! "It won't be very long +before that will kill the Horse Show," said Mrs. Vivie Patton, with +a snap of her black eyes. + +There was Miss Yvette Simpkins, for instance; Society frothed at the +mouth when her name was mentioned. Miss Yvette was the niece of a +stock-broker who was wealthy, and she thought that she was in +Society, and the foolish public thought so, too. Miss Yvette made a +speciality of newspaper publicity; you were always seeing her +picture, with some new "Worth creation," and the picture would be +labelled "Miss Yvette Simpkins, the best-dressed woman in New York," +or "Miss Yvette Simpkins, who is known as the best woman whip in +Society." It was said that Miss Yvette, who was short and stout, and +had a rosy German face, had paid five thousand dollars at one clip +for photographs of herself in a new wardrobe; and her pictures were +sent to the newspapers in bundles of a dozen at a time. Miss Yvette +possessed over a million dollars' worth of diamonds--the finest in +the country, according to the newspapers; she had spent a hundred +and twenty-six thousand dollars this year upon her clothes, and she +gave long interviews, in which she set forth the fact that a woman +nowadays could not really be well dressed upon less than a hundred +thousand a year. It was Miss Yvette's boast that she had never +ridden in a street-car in her life. + +Montague always had a soft spot in his heart for the unfortunate +Miss Yvette, who laboured so hard to be a guiding light; for it +chanced to be while she was in the ring, exhibiting her skill in +driving tandem, that he met with a fateful encounter. Afterward, +when he came to look back upon these early days, it seemed strange +to him that he should have gone about this place, so careless and +unsuspecting, while the fates were weaving strange destinies about +him. + +It was on Tuesday afternoon, and he sat in the box of Mrs. Venable, +a sister-in-law of the Major. The Major, who was a care-free +bachelor, was there himself, and also Betty Wyman, who was making +sprightly comments on the passers-by; and there strolled into the +box Chappie de Peyster, accompanied by a young lady. + +So many people had stopped and been introduced and then passed on, +that Montague merely glanced at her once. He noticed that she was +tall and graceful, and caught her name, Miss Hegan. + +The turnouts in the ring consisted of one horse harnessed in front +of another; and Montague was wondering what conceivable motive could +induce a human being to hitch and drive horses in that fashion. The +conversation turned upon Miss Yvette, who was in the ring; and Betty +remarked upon the airy grace with which she wielded the long whip +she carried. "Did you see what the paper said about her this +morning?" she asked. "' Miss Simpkins was exquisitely clad in purple +velvet,' and so on! She looked for all the world like the Venus at +the Hippodrome!" + +"Why isn't she in Society?" asked Montague, curiously. + +"She!" exclaimed Betty. "Why, she's a travesty!" + +There was a moment's pause, preceding a remark by their young lady +visitor. "I've an idea," said she, "that the real reason she never +got into Society was that she was fond of her old father." + +And Montague gave a short glance at the speaker, who was gazing +fixedly into the ring. He heard the Major chuckle, and he thought +that he heard Betty Wyman give a little sniff. A few moments later +the young lady arose, and with some remark to Mrs. Venable about how +well her costume became her, she passed on out of the box. + +"Who is that?" asked Montague. + +"That," the Major answered, "that's Laura Hegan--Jim Hegan's +daughter." + +"Oh!" said Montague, and caught his breath. Jim Hegan--Napoleon of +finance--czar of a gigantic system of railroads, and the power +behind the political thrones of many states. + +"His only daughter, too," the Major added. "Gad, what a juicy morsel +for somebody!" + +"Well, she'll make him pay for all he gets, whoever he is!" retorted +Betty, vindictively. + +"You don't like her?" inquired Montague; and Betty replied promptly, +"I do not!" + +"Her daddy and Betty's granddaddy are always at swords' points," put +in Major Venable. + +"I have nothing to do with my granddaddy's quarrels," said the young +lady. "I have troubles enough of my own." + +"What is the matter with Miss Hegan?" asked Montague, laughing. + +"She's an idea she's too good for the world she lives in," said +Betty. "When you're with her, you feel as you will before the +judgment throne." + +"Undoubtedly a disturbing feeling," put in the Major. + +"She never hands you anything but you find a pin hidden in it," went +on the girl. "All her remarks are meant to be read backward, and my +life is too short to straighten out their kinks. I like a person to +say what they mean in plain English, and then I can either like them +or not." + +"Mostly not," said the Major, grimly; and added, "Anyway, she's +beautiful." + +"Perhaps," said the other. "So is the Jungfrau; but I prefer +something more comfortable." + +"What's Chappie de Peyster beauing her around for?" asked Mrs. +Venable. "Is he a candidate?" + +"Maybe his debts are troubling him again," said Mistress Betty. "He +must be in a desperate plight.--Did you hear how Jack Audubon +proposed to her?" + +"Did Jack propose?" exclaimed the Major. + +"Of course he did," said the girl. "His brother told me." Then, for +Montague's benefit, she explained, "Jack Audubon is the Major's +nephew, and he's a bookworm, and spends all his time collecting +scarabs." + +"What did he say to her?" asked the Major, highly amused. + +"Why," said Betty, "he told her he knew she didn't love him; but +also she knew that he didn't care anything about her money, and she +might like to marry him so that other men would let her alone." + +"Gad!" cried the old gentleman, slapping his knee. "A masterpiece!" + +"Does she have so many suitors?" asked Montague; and the Major +replied, "My dear boy--she'll have a hundred million dollars some +day!" + +At this point Oliver put in appearance, and Betty got up and went +for a stroll with him; then Montague asked for light upon Miss +Hegan's remark. + +"What she said is perfectly true," replied the Major; "only it riled +Betty. There's many a gallant dame cruising the social seas who has +stowed her old relatives out of sight in the hold." + +"What's the matter with old Simpkins?" asked tho other. + +"Just a queer boy," was the reply. "He has a big pile, and his one +joy in life is the divine Yvette. It is really he who makes her +ridiculous--he has a regular press agent for her, a chap he loads up +with jewellery and cheques whenever he gets her picture into the +papers." + +The Major paused a moment to greet some acquaintance, and then +resumed the conversation. Apparently he could gossip in this +intimate fashion about any person whom you named. Old Simpkins had +been very poor as a boy, it appeared, and he had never got over the +memory of it. Miss Yvette spent fifty thousand at a clip for Paris +gowns; but every day her old uncle would save up the lumps of sugar +which came with the expensive lunch he had brought to his office. +And when he had several pounds he would send them home by messenger! + +This conversation gave Montague a new sense of the complicatedness +of the world into which he had come. Miss Simpkins was "impossible"; +and yet there was--for instance--that Mrs. Landis whom he had met +at Mrs. Winnie Duval's. He had mot her several times at the show; +and he heard the Major and his sister-in-law chuckling over a +paragraph in the society journal, to the effect that Mrs. Virginia +van Rensselaer Landis had just returned from a successful +hunting-trip in the far West. He did not see the humour of this, at +least not until they had told him of another paragraph which had +appeared some time before: stating that Mrs. Landis had gone to +acquire residence in South Dakota, taking with her thirty-five +trunks and a poodle; and that "Leanie" Hopkins, the handsome young +stock-broker, had taken a six months' vow of poverty, chastity, and +obedience. + +And yet Mrs. Landis was "in" Society! And moreover, she spent nearly +as much upon her clothes as Miss Yvette, and the clothes were quite +as conspicuous; and if the papers did not print pages about them, it +was not because Mrs. Landis was not perfectly willing. She was +painted and made up quite as frankly as any chorus-girl on the +stage. She laughed a great deal, and in a high key, and she and her +friends told stories which made Montague wish to move out of the +way. + +Mrs. Landis had for some reason taken a fancy to Alice, and invited +her home to lunch with her twice during the show. And after they had +got home in the evening, the girl sat upon the bed in her +fur-trimmed wrapper, and told Montague and his mother and Mammy Lucy +all about her visit. + +"I don't believe that woman has a thing to do or to think about in +the world except to wear clothes!" she said. "Why, she has +adjustable mirrors on ball-bearings, so that she can see every part +of her skirts! And she gets all her gowns from Paris, four times a +year--she says there are four seasons now, instead of two! I thought +that my new clothes amounted to something, but my goodness, when I +saw hers!" + +Then Alice went on to describe the unpacking of fourteen trunks, +which had just come up from the custom-house that day. Mrs. +Virginia's couturiere had her photograph and her colouring +(represented in actual paints) and a figure made up from exact +measurements; and so every one of the garments would fit her +perfectly. Each one came stuffed with tissue paper and held in place +by a lattice-work of tape; and attached to each gown was a piece of +the fabric, from which her shoemaker would make shoes or slippers. +There were street-costumes and opera-wraps, robes de chambre and +tea-gowns, reception-dresses, and wonderful ball and dinner gowns. +Most of these latter were to be embroidered with jewellery before +they were worn, and imitation jewels were sewn on, to show how the +real ones were to be placed. These garments were made of real lace +or Parisian embroidery, and the prices paid for them were almost +impossible to credit. Some of them were made of lace so filmy that +the women who made them had to sit in damp cellars, because the +sunlight would dry the fine threads and they would break; a single +yard of the lace represented forty days of labour. There was a +pastel "batiste de soie" Pompadour robe, embroidered with cream silk +flowers, which had cost one thousand dollars. There was a hat to go +with it, which had cost a hundred and twenty-five, and shoes of grey +antelope-skin, buckled with mother-of-pearl, which had cost forty. +There was a gorgeous and intricate ball-dress of pale green chiffon +satin, with orchids embroidered in oxidized silver, and a long court +train, studded with diamonds--and this had cost six thousand dollars +without the jewels! And there was an auto-coat which had cost three +thousand; and an opera-wrap made in Leipsic, of white unborn baby +lamb, lined with ermine, which had cost twelve thousand--with a +thousand additional for a hat to match! Mrs. Landis thought nothing +of paying thirty-five dollars for a lace handkerchief, or sixty +dollars for a pair of spun silk hose, or two hundred dollars for a +pearl and gold-handled parasol trimmed with cascades of chiffon, and +made, like her hats, one for each gown. + +"And she insists that these things are worth the money," said Alice. +"She says it's not only the material in them, but the ideas. Each +costume is a study, like a picture. 'I pay for the creative genius +of the artist,' she said to me--'for his ability to catch my ideas +and apply them to my personality--my complexion and hair and eyes. +Sometimes I design my own costumes, and so I know what hard work it +is!'" + +Mrs. Landis came from one of New York's oldest families, and she was +wealthy in her own right; she had a palace on Fifth Avenue, and now +that she had turned her husband out, she had nothing at all to put +in it except her clothes. Alice told about the places in which she +kept them--it was like a museum! There was a gown-room, made +dust-proof, of polished hardwood, and with tier upon tier of long +poles running across, and padded skirt-supporters hanging from them. +Everywhere there was order and system--each skirt was numbered, and +in a chiffonier-drawer of the same number you would find the +waist--and so on with hats and stockings and gloves and shoes and +parasols. There was a row of closets, having shelves piled up with +dainty lace-trimmed and beribboned lingerie; there were two closets +full of hats and three of shoes. "When she went West," said Alice, +"one of her maids counted, and found that she had over four hundred +pairs! And she actually has a cabinet with a card-catalogue to keep +track of them. And all the shelves are lined with perfumed silk +sachets, and she has tiny sachets sewed in every skirt and waist; +and she has her own private perfume--she gave me some. She calls it +Occur de Jeannette, and she says she designed it herself, and had it +patented!" + +And then Alice went on to describe the maid's work-room, which was +also of polished hardwood, and dust-proof, and had a balcony for +brushing clothes, and wires upon which to hang them, and hot and +cold water, and a big ironing-table and an electric stove. "But +there can't be much work to do," laughed the girl, "for she never +wears a gown more than two or three times. Just think of paying +several thousand dollars for a costume, and giving it to your poor +relations after you have worn it only twice! And the worst of it is +that Mrs. Landis says it's all nothing unusual; you'll find such +arrangements in every home of people who are socially prominent. She +says there are women who boast of never appearing twice in the same +gown, and there's one dreadful personage in Boston who wears each +costume once, and then has it solemnly cremated by her butler!" + +"It is wicked to do such things," put in old Mrs. Montague, when she +had heard this tale through. "I don't see how people can get any +pleasure out of it." + +"That's what I said," replied Alice. + +"To whom did you say that?" asked Montague. "To Mrs. Landis?" + +"No," said Alice, "to a cousin of hers. I was downstairs waiting for +her, and this girl came in. And we got to talking about it, and I +said that I didn't think I could ever get used to such things." + +"What did she say?" asked the other. + +"She answered me strangely," said the girl. "She's tall, and very +stately, and I was a little bit afraid of her. She said, 'You'll get +used to it. Everybody you know will be doing it, and if you try to +do differently they'll take offence; and you won't have the courage +to do without friends. You'll be meaning every day to stop, but you +never will, and you'll go on until you die.'" + +"What did you say to that?" + +"Nothing," answered Alice. "Just then Mrs. Landis came in, and Miss +Hegan went away." + +"Miss Hegan?" echoed Montague. + +"Yes," said the other. "That's her name--Laura Hegan. Have you met +her?" + + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + + + +The Horse Show was held in Madison Square Garden, a building +occupying a whole city block. It seemed to Montague that during the +four days he attended he was introduced to enough people to fill it +to the doors. Each one of the exquisite ladies and gentlemen +extended to him a delicately gloved hand, and remarked what perfect +weather they were having, and asked him how long he had been in New +York, and what he thought of it. Then they would talk about the +horses, and about the people who were present, and what they had on. + +He saw little of his brother, who was squiring the Walling ladies +most of the time; and Alice, too, was generally separated from him +and taken care of by others. Yet he was never alone--there was +always some young matron ready to lead him to her carriage and whisk +him away to lunch or dinner. + +Many times he wondered why people should be so kind to him, a +stranger, and one who could do nothing for them in return. Mrs. +Billy Alden undertook to explain it to him, one afternoon, as he sat +in her box. There had to be some people to enjoy, it appeared, or +there would be no fun in the game. "Everything is new and strange to +you," said she, "and you're delicious and refreshing; you make these +women think perhaps they oughtn't to be so bored after all! Here's a +woman who's bought a great painting; she's told that it's great, but +she doesn't understand it herself--all she knows is that it cost +her a hundred thousand dollars. And now you come along, and to you +it's really a painting--and don't you see how gratifying that is to +her?" + +"Oliver is always telling me it's bad form to admire," said the man, +laughing. + +"Yes?" said the other. "Well, don't you let that brother of yours +spoil you. There are more than enough of blase people in town--you +be yourself." + +He appreciated the compliment, but added, "I'm afraid that when the +novelty is worn off, people will be tired of me." + +"You'll find your place," said Mrs. Alden--"the people you like and +who like you." And she went on to explain that here he was being +passed about among a number of very different "sets," with different +people and different tastes. Society had become split up in that +manner of late--each set being jealous and contemptuous of all the +other sets. Because of the fact that they overlapped a little at the +edges, it was possible for him to meet here a great many people who +never met each other, and were even unaware of each other's +existence. + +And Mrs. Alden went on to set forth the difference between these +"sets"; they ran from the most exclusive down to the most "yellow," +where they shaded off into the disreputable rich--of whom, it +seemed, there were hordes in the city. These included "sporting" and +theatrical and political people, some of whom were very rich indeed; +and these sets in turn shaded off into the criminals and the +demi-monde--who might also easily be rich. "Some day," said Mrs. +Alden "you should get my brother to tell you about all these people. +He's been in politics, you know, and he has a racing-stable." + +And Mrs. Alden told him about the subtle little differences in the +conventions of these various sets of Society. There was the matter +of women smoking, for instance. All women smoked, nowadays; but some +would do it only in their own apartments, with their women friends; +and some would retire to an out-of-the-way corner to do it; while +others would smoke in their own dining-rooms, or wherever the men +smoked. All agreed however, in never smoking "in public"--that is, +where they would be seen by people not of their own set. Such, at +any rate, had always been the rule, though a few daring ones were +beginning to defy even that. + +Such rules were very rigid, but they were purely conventional, they +had nothing to do with right or wrong: a fact which Mrs. Alden set +forth with her usual incisiveness. A woman, married or unmarried, +might travel with a man all over Europe, and every one might know +that she did it, but it would make no difference, so long as she did +not do it in America. There was one young matron whom Montague would +meet, a raging beauty, who regularly got drunk at dinner parties, +and had to be escorted to her carriage by the butler. She moved in +the most exclusive circles, and every one treated it as a joke. +Unpleasant things like this did not hurt a person unless they got +"out"--that is, unless they became a scandal in the courts or the +newspapers. Mrs. Alden herself had a cousin (whom she cordially +hated) who had gotten a divorce from her husband and married her +lover forthwith and had for this been ostracized by Society. Once +when she came to some semi-public affair, fifty women had risen at +once and left the room! She might have lived with her lover, both +before and after the divorce, and every one might have known it, and +no one would have cared; but the convenances declared that she +should not marry him until a year had elapsed after the divorce. + +One thing to which Mrs. Alden could testify, as a result of a +lifetime's observation, was the rapid rate at which these +conventions, even the most essential of them, were giving way, and +being replaced by a general "do as you please." Anyone could see +that the power of women like Mrs. Devon, who represented the old +regime, and were dignified and austere and exclusive, was yielding +before the onslaught of new people, who were bizarre and fantastic +and promiscuous and loud. And the younger sets cared no more about +anyone--nor about anything under heaven, save to have a good time in +their own harum-scarum ways. In the old days one always received a +neatly-written or engraved invitation to dinner, worded in +impersonal and formal style; but the other day Mrs. Alden had found +a message which had been taken from the telephone: "Please come to +dinner, but don't come unless you can bring a man, or we'll be +thirteen at the table." + +And along with this went a perfectly incredible increase in luxury +and extravagance. "You are surprised at what you see here to-day," +said she--"but take my word for it, if you were to come back five +years later, you'd find all our present standards antiquated, and +our present pace-makers sent to the rear. You'd find new hotels and +theatres opening, and food and clothing and furniture that cost +twice as much as they cost now. Not so long ago a private car was a +luxury; now it's as much a necessity as an opera-box or a private +ball-room, and people who really count have private trains. I can +remember when our girls wore pretty muslin gowns in summer, and sent +them to wash; now they wear what they call lingerie gowns, dimity en +princesse, with silk embroidery and real lace and ribbons, that cost +a thousand dollars apiece and won't wash. Years ago when I gave a +dinner, I invited a dozen friends, and my own chef cooked it and my +own servants served it. Now I have to pay my steward ten thousand a +year, and nothing that I have is good enough. I have to ask forty or +fifty people, and I call in a caterer, and he brings everything of +his own, and my servants go off and get drunk. You used to get a +good dinner for ten dollars a plate, and fifteen was something +special; but now you hear of dinners that cost a thousand a plate! +And it's not enough to have beautiful flowers on the table--you have +to have 'scenery'; there must be a rural landscape for a background, +and goldfish in the finger-bowls, and five thousand dollars' worth +of Florida orchids on the table, and floral favours of roses that +cost a hundred and fifty dollars a dozen. I attended a dinner at the +Waldorf last year that had cost fifty thousand dollars; and when I +ask those people to see me, I have to give them as good as I got. +The other day I paid a thousand dollars for a tablecloth!" + +"Why do you do it?" asked Montague, abruptly. + +"God knows," said the other; "I don't. I sometimes wonder myself. I +guess it's because I've nothing else to do. It's like the story they +tell about my brother--he was losing money in a gambling-place in +Saratoga, and some one said to him, 'Davy, why do you go +there--don't you know the game is crooked?' 'Of course it's +crooked,' said he, 'but, damn it, it's the only game in town!'" + +"The pressure is more than anyone can stand," said Mrs. Alden, after +a moment's thought. "It's like trying to swim against a current. You +have to float, and do what every one expects you to do--your +children and your friends and your servants and your tradespeople. +All the world is in a conspiracy against you." + +"It's appalling to me," said the man. + +"Yes," said the other, "and there's never any end to it. You think +you know it all, but you find you really know very little. Just +think of the number of people there are trying to go the pace! They +say there are seven thousand millionaires in this country, but I say +there are twenty thousand in New York alone--or if they don't own a +million, they're spending the income of it, which amounts to the +same thing. You can figure that a man who pays ten thousand a year +for rent is paying fifty thousand to live; and there's Fifth +Avenue--two miles of it, if you count the uptown and downtown parts; +and there's Madison Avenue, and half a dozen houses adjoining on +every side street; and then there are the hotels and apartment +houses, to say nothing of the West Side and Riverside Drive. And you +meet these mobs of people in the shops and the hotels and the +theatres, and they all want to be better dressed than you. I saw a +woman here to-day that I never saw in my life before, and I heard +her say she'd paid two thousand dollars for a lace handkerchief; and +it might have been true, for I've been asked to pay ten thousand for +a lace shawl at a bargain. It's a common enough thing to see a woman +walking on Fifth Avenue with twenty or thirty thousand dollars' +worth of furs on her. Fifty thousand is often paid for a coat of +sable, and I know of one that cost two hundred thousand. I know +women who have a dozen sets of furs--ermine, chinchilla, black fox, +baby lamb, and mink and sable; and I know a man whose chauffeur quit +him because he wouldn't buy him a ten-thousand-dollar fur coat! And +once people used to pack their furs away and take care of them; but +now they wear them about the street, or at the sea-shore, and you +can fairly see them fade. Or else their cut goes out of fashion, and +so they have to have new ones!" + +All that was material for thought. It was all true--there was no +question about that. It seemed to be the rule that whenever you +questioned a tale of the extravagances of New York, you would hear +the next day of something several times more startling. Montague was +staggered at the idea of a two-hundred-thousand-dollar fur coat; and +yet not long afterward there arrived in the city a titled +Englishwoman, who owned a coat worth a million dollars, which +hard-headed insurance companies had insured for half a million. It +was made of the soft plumage of rare Hawaiian birds, and had taken +twenty years to make; each feather was crescent-shaped, and there +were wonderful designs in crimson and gold and black. Every day in +the casual conversation of your acquaintances you heard of similar +incredible things; a tiny antique Persian rug, which could be folded +into an overcoat pocket, for ten thousand dollars; a set of five +"art fans," each blade painted by a famous artist and costing +forty-three thousand dollars; a crystal cup for eighty thousand; an +edition de luxe of the works of Dickens for a hundred thousand; a +ruby, the size of a pigeon's egg, for three hundred thousand. In +some of these great New York palaces there were fountains which cost +a hundred dollars a minute to run; and in the harbour there were +yachts which cost twenty thousand a month to keep in commission. + +And that same day, as it chanced, he learned of a brand-new kind of +squandering. He went home to lunch with Mrs. Winnie Duval, and there +met Mrs. Caroline Smythe, with whom he had talked at Castle Havens. +Mrs. Smythe, whose husband had been a well-known Wall Street +plunger, was soft and mushy, and very gushing in manner; and she +asked him to come home to dinner with her, adding, "I'll introduce +you to my babies." + +From what Montague had so far seen, he judged that babies played a +very small part in the lives of the women of Society; and so he was +interested, and asked, "How many have you?" + +"Only two, in town," said Mrs. Smythe. "I've just come up, you see." + +"How old are they?" he inquired politely; and when the lady added, +"About two years," he asked, "Won't they be in bed by dinner time?" + +"Oh my, no!" said Mrs. Smythe. "The dear little lambs wait up for +me. I always find them scratching at my chamber door and wagging +their little tails." + +Then Mrs. Winnie laughed merrily and said, "Why do you fool him?" +and went on to inform Montague that Caroline's "babies" were +griffons Bruxelloises. Griffons suggested to him vague ideas of +dragons and unicorns and gargoyles; but he said nothing more, save +to accept the invitation, and that evening he discovered that +griffons Bruxelloises were tiny dogs, long-haired, yellow, and +fluffy; and that for her two priceless treasures Mrs. Smythe had an +expert nurse, to whom she paid a hundred dollars a month, and also a +footman, and a special cuisine in which their complicated food was +prepared. They had a regular dentist, and a physician, and gold +plate to eat from. Mrs. Smythe also owned two long-haired St. +Bernards of a very rare breed, and a fierce Great Dane, and a very +fat Boston bull pup--the last having been trained to go for an +airing all alone in her carriage, with a solemn coachman and footman +to drive him. + +Montague, deftly keeping the conversation upon the subject of pets, +learned that all this was quite common. Many women in Society +artificially made themselves barren, because of the inconvenience +incidental to pregnancy and motherhood; and instead they lavished +their affections upon cats and dogs. Some of these animals had +elaborate costumes, rivalling in expensiveness those of their +step-mothers. They wore tiny boots, which cost eight dollars a +pair--house boots, and street boots lacing up to the knees; they had +house-coats, walking-coats, dusters, sweaters, coats lined with +ermine, and automobile coats with head and chest-protectors and +hoods and goggles--and each coat fitted with a pocket for its tiny +handkerchief of fine linen or lace! And they had collars set with +rubies and pearls and diamonds--one had a collar that cost ten +thousand dollars! Sometimes there would be a coat to match every +gown of the owner. There were dog nurseries and resting-rooms, in +which they might be left temporarily; and manicure parlours for +cats, with a physician in charge. When these pets died, there was an +expensive cemetery in Brooklyn especially for their interment; and +they would be duly embalmed and buried in plush-lined casket, and +would have costly marble monuments. When one of Mrs. Smythe's best +loved pugs had fallen ill of congestion of the liver, she had had +tan-bark put upon the street in front of her house; and when in +spite of this the dog died, she had sent out cards edged in black, +inviting her friends to a "memorial service." Also she showed +Montague a number of books with very costly bindings, in which were +demonstrated the unity, simplicity, and immortality of the souls of +cats and dogs. + +Apparently the sentimental Mrs. Smythe was willing to talk about +these pets all through dinner; and so was her aunt, a thin and +angular spinster, who sat on Montague's other side. And he was +willing to listen--he wanted to know it all. There were umbrellas +for dogs, to be fastened over their backs in wet weather; there were +manicure and toilet sets, and silver medicine-chests, and +jewel-studded whips. There were sets of engraved visiting-cards; +there were wheel-chairs in which invalid cats and dogs might be +taken for an airing. There were shows for cats and dogs, with +pedigrees and prizes, and nearly as great crowds as the Horse Show; +Mrs. Smythe's St. Bernards were worth seven thousand dollars apiece, +and there were bull-dogs worth twice that. There was a woman who had +come all the way from the Pacific coast to have a specialist perform +an operation upon the throat of her Yorkshire terrier! There was +another who had built for her dog a tiny Queen Anne cottage, with +rooms papered and carpeted and hung with lace curtains! Once a young +man of fashion had come to the Waldorf and registered himself and +"Miss Elsie Cochrane"; and when the clerk made the usual inquiries +as to the relationship of the young lady, it transpired that Miss +Elsie was a dog, arrayed in a prim little tea-gown, and requiring a +room to herself. And then there was a tale of a cat which had +inherited a life-pension from a forty-thousand-dollar estate; it had +a two-floor apartment and several attendants, and sat at table and +ate shrimps and Italian chestnuts, and had a velvet couch for naps, +and a fur-lined basket for sleeping at night! + +Four days of horses were enough for Montague, and on Friday morning, +when Siegfried Harvey called him up and asked if he and Alice would +come out to "The Roost" for the week-end, he accepted gladly. +Charlie Carter was going, and volunteered to take them in his car; +and so again they crossed the Williamsburg Bridge--"the Jewish +passover," as Charlie called it--and went out on Long Island. + +Montague was very anxious to get a "line" on Charlie Carter; for he +had not been prepared for the startling promptness with which this +young man had fallen at Alice's feet. It was so obvious, that +everybody was smiling over it--he was with her every minute that he +could arrange it, and he turned up at every place to which she was +invited. Both Mrs. Winnie and Oliver were quite evidently +complacent, but Montague was by no means the same. Charlie had +struck him as a good-natured but rather weak youth, inclined to +melancholy; he was never without a cigarette in his fingers, and +there had been signs that he was not quite proof against the +pitfalls which Society set about him in the shape of decanters and +wine-cups: though in a world where the fragrance of spirits was +never out of one's nostrils, and where people drank with such +perplexing frequency, it was hard to know where to draw a line. + +"You won't find my place like Havens's," Siegfried Harvey had said. +"It is real country." Montague found it the most attractive of all +the homes he had seen so far. It was a big rambling house, all in +rustic style, with great hewn logs outside, and rafters within, and +a winding oak stairway, and any number of dens and cosy corners, and +broad window-seats with mountains of pillows. Everything here was +built for comfort--there was a billiard-room and a smoking-room, and +a real library with readable bogles and great chairs in which one +sank out of sight. There were log fires blazing everywhere, and +pictures on the walls that told of sport, and no end of guns and +antlers and trophies of all sorts. But you were not to suppose that +all this elaborate rusticity would be any excuse for the absence of +attendants in livery, and a chef who boasted the cordon bleu, and a +dinner-table resplendent with crystal and silver and orchids and +ferns. After all, though the host called it a "small" place, he had +invited twenty guests, and he had a hunter in his stables for each +one of them. + +But the most wonderful thing about "The Roost" was the fact that, at +a touch of a button, all the walls of the lower rooms vanished into +the second story, and there was one huge, log-lighted room, with +violins tuning up and calling to one's feet. They set a fast pace +here--the dancing lasted until three o'clock, and at dawn again they +were dressed and mounted, and following the pink-coated grooms and +the hounds across the frost-covered fields. + +Montague was half prepared for a tame fox, but this was pared him. +There was a real game, it seemed; and soon the pack gave tongue, and +away went the hunt. It was the wildest ride that Montague ever had +taken--over ditches and streams and innumerable rail-fences, and +through thick coverts and densely populated barnyards; but he was in +at the death, and Alice was only a few yards behind, to the immense +delight of the company. This seemed to Montague the first real life +he had met, and he thought to himself that these full-blooded and +high-spirited men and women made a "set" into which he would have +been glad to fit--save only that he had to earn his living, and they +did not. + +In the afternoon there was more riding, and walks in the crisp +November air; and indoors, bridge and rackets and ping-pong, and a +fast and furious game of roulette, with the host as banker. "Do I +look much like a professional gambler?" he asked of Montague; and +when the other replied that he had not yet met any New York +gamblers, young Harvey went on to tell how he had gone to buy this +apparatus (the sale of which was forbidden by law) and had been +asked by the dealer how "strong" he wanted it! + +Then in the evening there was more dancing, and on Sunday another +hunt. That night a gambling mood seemed to seize the company--there +were two bridge tables, and in another room the most reckless game +of poker that Montague had ever sat in. It broke up at three in the +morning, and one of the company wrote him a cheque for sixty-five +hundred dollars; but even that could not entirely smooth his +conscience, nor reconcile him to the fever that was in his blood. + +Most important to him, however, was the fact that during the game he +at last got to know Charlie Carter. Charlie did not play, for the +reason that he was drunk, and one of the company told him so and +refused to play with him; which left poor Charlie nothing to do but +get drunker. This he did, and came and hung over the shoulders of +the players, and told the company all about himself. + +Montague was prepared to allow for the "wild oats" of a youngster +with unlimited money, but never in his life had he heard or dreamed +of anything like this boy. For half an hour he wandered about the +table, and poured out a steady stream of obscenities; his mind was +like a swamp, in which dwelt loathsome and hideous serpents which +came to the surface at night and showed their flat heads and their +slimy coils. In the heavens above or the earth beneath there was +nothing sacred to him; there was nothing too revolting to be spewed +out. And the company accepted the performance as an old story--the +men would laugh, and push the boy away, and say, "Oh, Charlie, go to +the devil!" + +After it was all over, Montague took one of the company aside and +asked him what it meant; to which the man replied: "Good God! Do you +mean that nobody has told you about Charlie Carter?" + +It appeared that Charlie was one of the "gilded youths" of the +Tenderloin, whose exploits had been celebrated in the papers. And +after the attendants had bundled him off to bed, several of the men +gathered about the fire and sipped hot punch, and rehearsed for +Montague's benefit some of his leading exploits. + +Charlie was only twenty-three, it seemed; and when he was ten his +father had died and left eight or ten millions in trust for him, in +the care of a poor, foolish aunt whom he twisted about his ringer. +At the age of twelve he was a cigarette fiend, and had the run of +the wine-cellar. When he went to a rich private school he took whole +trunks full of cigarettes with him, and finally ran away to Europe, +to acquire the learning of the brothels of Paris. And then he came +home and struck the Tenderloin; and at three o'clock one morning he +walked through a plate-glass window, and so the newspapers took him +up. That had suddenly opened a new vista in life for Charlie--he +became a devotee of fame; everywhere he went he was followed by +newspaper reporters and a staring crowd. He carried wads as big +round as his arm, and gave away hundred-dollar tips to bootblacks, +and lost forty thousand dollars in a game of poker. He gave a fete +to the demi-monde, with a jewelled Christmas tree in midsummer, and +fifty thousand dollars' worth of splendour. But the greatest stroke +of all was the announcement that he was going to build a submarine +yacht and fill it with chorus-girls!--Now Charlie had sunk out of +public attention, and his friends would not see him for days; he +would be lying in a "sporting house" literally wallowing in +champagne. + +And all this, Montague realized, his brother must have known! And he +had said not a word about it--because of the eight or ten millions +which Charlie would have when he was twenty-five! + + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + + + +In the morning they went home with others of the party by train. +They could not wait for Charlie and his automobile, because Monday +was the opening night of the Opera, and no one could miss that. Here +Society would appear in its most gorgeous raiment, and, there would +be a show of jewellery such as could be seen nowhere else in the +world. + +General Prentice and his wife had opened their town-house, and had +invited them to dinner and to share their box; and so at about +half-past nine o'clock Montague found himself seated in a great +balcony of the shape of a horseshoe, with several hundred of the +richest people in the city. There was another tier of boxes above, +and three galleries above that, and a thousand or more people seated +and standing below him. Upon the big stage there was an elaborate +and showy play, the words of which were sung to the accompaniment of +an orchestra. + +Now Montague had never heard an opera, and he was fond of music. The +second act had just begun when he came in, and all through it he sat +quite spellbound, listening to the most ravishing strains that ever +he had heard in his life. He scarcely noticed that Mrs. Prentice was +spending her time studying the occupants of the other boxes through +a jewelled lorgnette, or that Oliver was chattering to her daughter. + +But after the act was over, Oliver got him alone outside the box, +and whispered, "For God's sake, Allan, don't make a fool of +yourself." + +"Why, what's the matter?" asked the other. + +"What will people think," exclaimed Oliver, "seeing you sitting +there like a man in a dope dream?" + +"Why," laughed the other, "they'll think I'm listening to the +music." + +To which Oliver responded, "People don't come to the Opera to listen +to the music." + +This sounded like a joke, but it was not. To Society the Opera was a +great state function, an exhibition of far more exclusiveness and +magnificence than the Horse Show; and Society certainly had the +right to say, for it owned the opera-house and ran it. The real +music-lovers who came, either stood up in the back, or sat in the +fifth gallery, close to the ceiling, where the air was foul and hot. +How much Society cared about the play was sufficiently indicated by +the fact that all of the operas were sung in foreign languages, and +sung so carelessly that the few who understood the languages could +make but little of the words. Once there was a world-poet who +devoted his life to trying to make the Opera an art; and in the +battle with Society he all but starved to death. Now, after half a +century, his genius had triumphed, and Society consented to sit for +hours in darkness and listen to the domestic disputes of German gods +and goddesses. But what Society really cared for was a play with +beautiful costumes and scenery and dancing, and pretty songs to +which one could listen while one talked; the story must be elemental +and passionate, so that one could understand it in pantomime--say +the tragic love of a beautiful and noble-minded courtesan for a +gallant young man of fashion. + +Nearly every one who came to the Opera had a glass, by means of +which he could bring each gorgeously-clad society dame close to him, +and study her at leisure. There were said to be two hundred million +dollars' worth of diamonds in New York, and those that were not in +the stores were very apt to be at this show; for here was where they +could accomplish the purpose for which they existed--here was where +all the world came to stare at them. There were nine prominent +Society women, who among them displayed five million dollars' worth +of jewels. You would see stomachers which looked like a piece of a +coat of mail, and were made wholly of blazing diamonds. You would +see emeralds and rubies and diamonds and pearls made in tiaras--that +is to say, imitation crowns and coronets--and exhibited with a +stout and solemn dowager for a pediment. One of the Wallings had set +this fashion, and now every one of importance wore them. One lady to +whom Montague was introduced made a speciality of pearls--two black +pearl ear-rings at forty thousand dollars, a string at three hundred +thousand, a brooch of pink pearls at fifty thousand, and two +necklaces at a quarter of a million each! + +This incessant repetition of the prices of things came to seem very +sordid; but Montague found that there was no getting away from it. +The people in Society who paid these prices affected to be above all +such considerations, to be interested only in the beauty and +artistic excellence of the things themselves; but one found that +they always talked about the prices which other people had paid, and +that somehow other people always knew what they had paid. They took +care also to see that the public and the newspapers knew what they +had paid, and knew everything else that they were doing. At this +Opera, for instance, there was a diagram of the boxes printed upon +the programme, and a list of all the box-holders, so that anyone +could tell who was who. You might see these great dames in their +gorgeous robes coming from their carriages, with crowds staring at +them and detectives hovering about. And the bosom of each would be +throbbing with a wild and wonderful vision of the moment when she +would enter her box, and the music would be forgotten, and all eyes +would be turned upon her; and she would lay aside her wraps, and +flash upon the staring throngs, a vision of dazzling splendour. + +Some of these jewels were family treasures, well known to New York +for generations; and in such cases it was becoming the fashion to +leave the real jewels in the safe-deposit vault, and to wear +imitation stones exactly like them. From homes where the jewels were +kept, detectives were never absent, and in many cases there were +detectives watching the detectives; and yet every once in a while +the newspapers would be full of a sensational story of a robbery. +Then the unfortunates who chanced to be suspected would be seized by +the police and subjected to what was jocularly termed the "third +degree," and consisted of tortures as elaborate and cruel as any +which the Spanish Inquisition had invented. The advertising value of +this kind of thing was found to be so great that famous actresses +also had costly jewels, and now and then would have them stolen. + +That night, when they had got home, Montague had a talk with his +cousin about Charlie Carter. He discovered a peculiar situation. It +seemed that Alice already knew that Charlie had been "bad." He was +sick and miserable; and her beauty and innocence had touched him and +made him ashamed of himself, and ho had hinted darkly at dreadful +evils. Thus carefully veiled, and tinged with mystery and romance, +Montague could understand how Charlie made an interesting and +appealing figure. "He says I'm different from any girl he ever met," +said Alice--a remark of such striking originality that her cousin +could not keep back his smile. + +Alice was not the least bit in love with him, and had no idea of +being; and she said that she would accept no invitations, and never +go alone with him; but she did not see how she could avoid him when +she met him at other people's houses. And to this Montague had to +assent. + +General Prentice had inquired kindly as to what Montague had seen in +New York, and how he was getting along. He added that he had talked +about him to Judge Ellis, and that when he was ready to get to work, +the Judge would perhaps have some suggestions to make to him. He +approved, however, of Montague's plan of getting his bearings first; +and said that he would introduce him and put him up at a couple of +the leading clubs. + +All this remained in Montague's mind; but there was no use trying to +think of it at the moment. Thanksgiving was at hand, and in +countless country mansions there would be gaieties under way. Bertie +Stuyvesant had planned an excursion to his Adirondack camp, and had +invited a score or so of young people, including the Montagues. This +would be a new feature of the city's life, worth knowing about. + +Their expedition began with a theatre-party. Bertie had engaged four +boxes, and they met there, an hour or so after the performance had +begun. This made no difference, however, for the play was like the +opera-a number of songs and dances strung together, and with only +plot. enough to provide occasion for elaborate scenery and costumes. +From the play they were carried to the Grand Central Station, and a +little before midnight Bertie's private train set out on its +journey. + +This train was a completely equipped hotel. There was a baggage +compartment and a dining-car and kitchen; and a drawing-room and +library-car; and a bedroom-car--not with berths, such as the +ordinary sleeping-car provides, but with comfortable bedrooms, +furnished in white mahogany, and provided with running water and +electric light. All these cars were built of steel, and +automatically ventilated: and they were furnished in the luxurious +fashion of everything with which Bertie Stuyvcsant had anything to +do. In the library-car there were velvet carpets upon the floor, and +furniture of South American mahogany, and paintings upon the walls +over which groat artists had laboured for years. + +Bertie's chef and servants were on board, and a supper was ready in +the dining-car, which they ate while watching the Hudson by +moonlight. And the next morning they reached their destination, a +little station in the mountain wilderness. The train lay upon a +switch, and so they had breakfast at their leisure, and then, +bundled in furs, came out into the crisp pine-laden air of the +woods. There was snow upon the ground, and eight big sleighs +waiting; and for nearly three hours they drove in the frosty +sunlight, through most beautiful mountain scenery. A good part of +the drive was in Bertie's "preserve," and the road was private, as +big signs notified one every hundred yards or so. + +So at last they reached a lake, winding like a snake among towering +hills, and with a huge baronial castle standing out upon the rocky +shore. This imitation fortress was the "camp." + +Bertie's father had built it, and visited it only half a dozen times +in his life. Bertie himself had only been here twice, he said. The +deer were so plentiful that in the winter they died in scores. +Nevertheless there were thirty game-keepers to guard the ten +thousand acres of forest, and prevent anyone's hunting in it. There +were many such "preserves" in this Adiron-dack wilderness, so +Montague was told; one man had a whole mountain fenced about with +heavy iron railing, and had moose and elk and even wild boar inside. +And as for the "camps," there were so many that a new style of +architecture had been developed here--to say nothing of those which +followed old styles, like this imported Rhine castle. One of +Bertie's crowd had a big Swiss chalet; and one of the Wallings had a +Japanese palace to which he came every August--a house which had +been built from plans drawn in Japan, and by labourers imported +especially from Japan. It was full of Japanese ware--furniture, +tapestry, and mosaics; and the guides remembered with wonder the +strange silent, brown-skinned little men who had laboured for days +at carving a bit of wood, and had built a tiny pagoda-like tea-house +with more bits of wood in it than a man could count in a week. + +They had a luncheon of fresh venison and partridges and trout, and +in the afternoon a hunt. The more active set out to track the deer +in the snow; but most prepared to watch the lake-shore, while the +game-keepers turned loose the dogs back in the hills. This +"hounding" was against the law, but Bertie was his own law here--and +at the worst there could simply be a small fine, imposed upon some +of the keepers. They drove eight or ten deer to water; and as they +fired as many as twenty shots at one deer, they had quite a lively +time. Then at dusk they came back, in a fine glow of excitement, and +spent the evening before the blazing logs, telling over their +adventures. + +The party spent two days and a half here, and on the last evening, +which was Thanksgiving, they had a wild turkey which Bertie had shot +the week before in Virginia, and were entertained by a minstrel show +which had been brought up from New York the night before. The next +afternoon they drove back to the train. + +In the morning, when they reached the city, Alice found a note from +Mrs. Winnie Duval, begging her and Montague to come to lunch and +attend a private lecture by the Swami Babubanana, who would tell +them all about the previous states of their souls. They went--though +not without a protest from old Mrs. Montague, who declared it was +"worse than Bob Ingersoll." + +And then, in the evening, came Mrs. de Graffenried's opening +entertainment, which was one of the great events of the social year. +In the general rush of things Montague had not had a chance properly +to realize it; but Reggie Mann and Mrs. de Graffenried had been +working over it for weeks. When the Montagues arrived, they found +the Riverside mansion--which was decorated in imitation of an +Arabian palace--turned into a jungle of tropical plants. + +They had come early at Reggie's request, and he introduced them to +Mrs. de Graffenried, a tall and angular lady with a leathern +complexion painfully painted; Mrs. de Graffenried was about fifty +years of age, but like all the women of Society she was made up for +thirty. Just at present there were beads of perspiration upon her +forehead; something had gone wrong at the last moment, and so Reggie +would have no time to show them the favours, as he had intended. + +About a hundred and fifty guests were invited to this entertainment. +A supper was served at little tables in the great ball-room, and +afterward the guests wandered about the house while the tables were +whisked out of the way and the room turned into a play-house. A +company from one of the Broadway theatres would be bundled into cabs +at the end of the performance, and by midnight they would be ready +to repeat the performance at Mrs. do Graffenried's. Montague chanced +to bo near when this company arrived, and he observed that the +guests had crowded up too close, and not left room enough for the +actors. So the manager had placed them in a little ante-room, and +when Mrs. de Graffenried observed this, she rushed at the man, and +swore at him like a dragoon, and ordered the bewildered performers +out into the main room. + +But this was peering behind the scenes, and he was supposed to be +watching the play. The entertainment was another "musical comedy" +like the one he had seen a few nights before. On that occasion, +however, Bertie Stuyvesant's sister had talked to him the whole +time, while now he was let alone, and had a chance to watch the +performance. + +This was a very popular play; it had had a long run, and the papers +told how its author had an income of a couple of hundred thousand +dollars a year. And here was an audience of the most rich and +influential people in the city; and they laughed and clapped, and +made it clear that they were enjoying themselves heartily. And what +sort of a play was it? + +It was called "The Kaliph of Kamskatka." It had no shred of a plot; +the Kaliph had seventeen wives, and there was an American drummer +who wanted to sell him another--but then you did not need to +remember this, for nothing came of it. There was nothing in the play +which could be called a character--there was nothing which could be +connected with any real emotion ever felt by human beings. Nor could +one say that there was any incident--at least nothing happened +because of anything else. Each event was a separate thing, like the +spasmodic jerking in the face of an idiot. Of this sort of "action" +there was any quantity--at an instant's notice every one on the +stage would fall simultaneously into this condition of idiotic +jerking. There was rushing about, shouting, laughing, exclaiming; +the stage was in a continual uproar of excitement, which was without +any reason or meaning. So it was impossible to think of the actors +in their parts; one kept thinking of them as human beings--thinking +of the awful tragedy of full-grown men and women being compelled by +the pressure of hunger to dress up and paint themselves, and then +come out in public and dance, stamp, leap about, wring their hands, +make faces, and otherwise be "lively." + +The costumes were of two sorts: one fantastic, supposed to represent +the East, and the other a kind of reductio ad absurdum of +fashionable garb. The leading man wore a "natty" outing-suit, and +strutted with a little cane; his stock-in-trade was a jaunty air, a +kind of perpetual flourish, and a wink that suggested the cunning of +a satyr. The leading lady changed her costume several times in each +act; but it invariably contained the elements of bare arms and bosom +and back, and a skirt which did not reach her knees, and +bright-coloured silk stockings, and slippers with heels two inches +high. Upon the least provocation she would execute a little +pirouette, which would reveal the rest of her legs, surrounded by a +mass of lace ruffles. It is the nature of the human mind to seek the +end of things; if this woman had worn a suit of tights and nothing +else, she would have been as uninteresting as an underwear +advertisement in a magazine; but this incessant not-quite-revealing +of herself exerted a subtle fascination. At frequent intervals the +orchestra would start up a jerky little tune, and the two "stars" +would begin to sing in nasal voices some words expressive of +passion; then the man would take the woman about the waist and dance +and swing her about and bend her backward and gaze into her +eyes--actions all vaguely suggestive of the relationship of sex. At +the end of the verse a chorus would come gliding on, clad in any +sort of costume which admitted of colour and the display of legs; +the painted women of this chorus were never still for an instant--if +they were not actually dancing, they were wriggling their legs, and +jerking their bodies from side to side, and nodding their heads, and +in all other possible ways being "lively." + +But it was not the physical indecency of this show that struck +Montague so much as its intellectual content. The dialogue of the +piece was what is called "smart"; that is, it was full of a kind of +innuendo which implied a secret understanding of evil between the +actor and his audience--a sort of countersign which passed between +them. After all, it would have been an error to say that there were +no ideas in the play--there was one idea upon which all the +interest of it was based; and Montague strove to analyze this idea +and formulate it to himself. There are certain life principles-one +might call them moral axioms--which are the result of the experience +of countless ages of the human race, and upon the adherence to which +the continuance of the race depends. And here was an audience by +whom all these principles were--not questioned, nor yet disputed, +nor yet denied--but to whom the denial was the axiom, something +which it would be too banal to state flatly, but which it was +elegant. and witty to take for granted. In this audience there were +elderly people, and married men and women, and young men and +maidens; and a perfect gale of laughter swept through it at a story +of a married woman whose lover had left her when he got married:-- + +"She must have been heartbroken," said the leading lady. + +"She was desperate," said the leading man, with a grin. + +"What did she do?" asked the lady "Go and shoot herself?" + +"Worse than that," said the man. "She, went back to her husband and +had a baby!" + +But to complete your understanding of the significance of this play, +you must bring yourself to realize that it was not merely a play, +but a kind of a play; it had a name--a "musical comedy"--the meaning +of which every one understood. Hundreds of such plays were written +and produced, and "dramatic critics" went to see them and gravely +discussed them, and many thousands of people made their livings by +travelling over the country and playing them; stately theatres were +built for them, and hundreds of thousands of people paid their money +every night to see them. And all this no joke and no nightmare--but +a thing that really existed. Men and women were doing these +things--actual flesh-and-blood human beings. + +Montague wondered, in an awestricken sort of way, what kind of human +being it could be who had flourished the cane and made the grimaces +in that play. Later on, when ho came to know the "Tenderloin," he +met this same actor, and he found that he had begun life as a little +Irish "mick" who lived in a tenement, and whoso mother stood at the +head of the stairway and defended him with a rolling-pin against a +policeman who was chasing him. He had discovered that he could make +a living by his comical antics; but when he came home and told his +mother that he had been offered twenty dollars a week by a show +manager, she gave him a licking for lying to her. Now he was making +three thousand dollars a week--more than the President of the +United States and his Cabinet; but he was not happy, as he confided +to Montague, because he did not know how to read, and this was a +cause of perpetual humiliation. The secret desire of this little +actor's heart was to play Shakespeare; he had "Hamlet" read to him, +and pondered how to act it--all the time that he was flourishing his +little cane and making his grimaces! He had chanced to be on the +stage when a fire had broken out, and five or six hundred victims of +greed were roasted to death. The actor had pleaded with the people +to keep their seats, but all in vain; and all his life thereafter he +went about with this vision of horror in his mind, and haunted by +the passionate conviction that he had failed because of his lack of +education--that if only he had been a man of culture, he would have +been able to think of something to say to hold those terror-stricken +people! + +At three o'clock in the morning the performance came to an end, and +then there were more refreshments; and Mrs. Vivie Patton came and +sat by him, and they had a nice comfortable gossip. When Mrs. Vivie +once got started at talking about people, her tongue ran on like a +windmill. + +There was Reggie Mann, meandering about and simpering at people. +Reggie was in his glory at Mrs. do Graffenricd's affairs. Reggie had +arranged all this-he did the designing and the ordering, and +contracted for the shows with the agents. You could bet that ho had +got his commission on them, too--though sometimes Mrs. do +Graffenricd got the shows to come for nothing, because of the +advertising her name would bring. Commissions wore Reggie's +speciality--he had begun life as an auto agent. Montague didn't know +what that was? An auto agent was a man who was for ever begging his +friends to use a certain kind of car, so that he might make a +living; and Reggie had made about thirty thousand a year in that +way. He had come from Boston, where his reputation had been made by +the fact that early one morning, as they were driving home from a +celebration, he had dared a young society matron to take off her +shoes and stockings, and get out and wade in the public fountain; +and she had done it, and he had followed her. On the strength of the +eclat of this he had been taken up by Mrs. Devon; and one day Mrs. +Devon had worn a white gown, and asked him what he thought of it. +"It needs but one thing to make it perfect," said Reggie, and taking +a red rose, he pinned it upon her corsage. The effect was magical; +every one exclaimed with delight, and so Reggie's reputation as an +authority upon dress was made for ever. Now he was Mrs. de +Graffenried's right-hand man, and they made up their pranks +together. Once they had walked down the street in Newport with a big +rag doll between them. And Reggie had given a dinner at which the +guest of honour had been a monkey--surely Montague had heard of +that, for it had been the sensation of the season. It was really the +funniest thing imaginable; the monkey wore a suit of broad-cloth +with collar and cuffs, and he shook hands with all the guests, and +behaved himself exactly like a gentleman--except that he did not get +drunk. + +And then Mrs. Vivie pointed out the great Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden, +who was sitting with one of her favourites, a grave, black-bearded +gentleman who had leaped into fame by inheriting fifty million +dollars. "Mrs. R.-C." had taken him up, and ordered his engagement +book for him, and he was solemnly playing the part of a social +light. He had purchased an old New York mansion, upon the decoration +of which three million dollars had been spent; and when he came down +to business from Tuxedo, his private train waited all day for him +with steam up. Mrs. Vivie told an amusing tale of a woman who had +announced her engagement to him, and borrowed large sums of money +upon the strength of it, before his denial came out. That had been a +source of great delight to Mrs. de Graffenried, who was furiously +jealous of "Mrs. R. C." + +From the anecdotes that people told, Montague judged that Mrs. de +Graffenried must be one of those new leaders of Society, who, as +Mrs. Alden said, were inclined to the bizarre and fantastic. Mrs. de +Graffenried spent half a million dollars every season to hold the +position of leader of the Newport set, and you could always count +upon her for new and striking ideas. Once she had given away as +cotillion favours tiny globes with goldfish in them; again she had +given a dance at which everybody got themselves up as different +vegetables. She was fond of going about at Newport and inviting +people haphazard to lunch--thirty or forty at a time--and then +surprising them with a splendid banquet. Again she would give a big +formal dinner, and perplex people by offering them something which +they really cared to eat. "You see," explained Mrs. Vivie, "at these +dinners we generally get thick green turtle soup, and omelettes with +some sort of Florida water poured over them, and mushrooms cooked +under glass, and real hand-made desserts; but Mrs. de Graffenried +dares to have baked ham and sweet potatoes, or even real roast beef. +You saw to-night that she had green corn; she must have arranged for +that months ahead--we can never get it from Porto Rico until +January. And you see this little dish of wild strawberries-t-hey +were probably transplanted and raised in a hothouse, and every +single one wrapped separately before they were shipped." + +All these labours had made Mrs. de Graffenried a tremendous power in +the social world. She had a savage tongue, said Mrs. Vivie, and +every one lived in terror of her; but once in a while she met her +match. Once she had invited a comic opera star to sing for her +guests, and all the men had crowded round this actress, and Mrs. de +Graffenried had flown into a passion and tried to drive them away; +and the actress, lolling back in her chair, and gazing up idly at +Mrs. do Graffenried, had drawled, "Ten years older than God!" Poor +Mrs. de Graffenried would carry that saying with her until she died. + +Something reminiscent of this came under Montague's notice that same +evening. At about four o'clock Mrs. Vivie wished to go home, and +asked him to find her escort, the Count St. Elmo de Champignon--the +man, by the way, for whom her husband was gunning. Montague roamed +all about the house, and finally went downstairs, where a room had +been set apart for the theatrical company to partake of +refreshments. Mrs. de Graffenriod's secretary was on guard at the +door; but some of the boys had got into the room, and were drinking +champagne and "making dates" with the chorus-girls. And here was +Mrs. de Graffenried herself, pushing them bodily out of the room, a +score and more of them--and among them Mrs. Vivie's Count! + +Montague delivered his message, and then went upstairs to wait until +his own party should be ready to leave. In the smoking-room were a +number of men, also waiting; and among them he noticed Major +Venable, in conversation with a man whom he did not know. "Come over +here," the Major called; and Montague obeyed, at the same time +noticing the stranger. + +He was a tall, loose-jointed, powerfully built man, a small head and +a very striking face: a grim mouth with drooping corners tightly +set, and a hawk-like nose, and deep-set, peering eyes. "Have you met +Mr. Hegan?" said the Major. "Hegan, this is Mr. Allan Montague." Jim +Hegan! Montague repressed a stare and took the chair which they +offered him. "Have a cigar," said Hegan, holding out his case. + +"Mr. Montague has just come to New York," said the Major. "He is a +Southerner, too." + +"Indeed?" said Hegan, and inquired what State he came from. Montague +replied, and added, "I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter +last week, at the Horse Show." + +That served to start a conversation; for Hegan came from Texas, and +when he found that Montague knew about horses--real horses--he +warmed to him. Then the Major's party called him away, and the other +two were left to carry on the conversation. + +It was very easy to chat with Hegan; and yet underneath, in the +other's mind, there lurked a vague feeling of trepidation, as he +realized that he was chatting with a hundred millions of dollars. +Montague was new enough at the game to imagine that there ought to +be something strange, some atmosphere of awe and mystery, about a +man who was master of a dozen railroads and of the politics of half +a dozen States. He was simple and very kindly in his manner, a plain +man, interested in plain things. There was about him, as he talked, +a trace of timidity, almost of apology, which Montague noticed and +wondered at. It was only later, when he had time to think about it, +that he realized that Hegan had begun as a farmer's boy in Texas, a +"poor white"; and could it be that after all these years an instinct +remained in him, so that whenever he met a gentleman of the old +South he stood by with a little deference, seeming to beg pardon for +his hundred millions of dollars? + +And yet there was the power of the man. Even chatting about horses, +you felt it; you felt that there was a part of him which did not +chat, but which sat behind and watched. And strangest of all, +Montague found himself fancying that behind the face that smiled was +another face, that did not smile, but that was grim and set. It was +a strange face, with its broad, sweeping eyebrows and its drooping +mouth; it haunted Montague and made him feel ill at ease. + +There came Laura Hegan, who greeted them in her stately way; and +Mrs. Hegan, bustling and vivacious, costumed en grande dame. "Come +and see me some time," said the man. "You won't be apt to meet me +otherwise, for I don't go about much." And so they took their +departure; and Montague sat alone and smoked and thought. The face +still stayed with him; and now suddenly, in a burst of light, it +came to him what it was: the face of a bird of prey--of the great +wild, lonely eagle! You have seen it, perhaps, in a menagerie; +sitting high up, submitting patiently, biding its time. But all the +while the soul of the eagle is far away, ranging the wide spaces, +ready for the lightning swoop, and the clutch with the cruel talons! + + + + + + +CHAPTER X + + + + + +The next week was a busy one for the Montagues. The Robbie Wallings +had come to town and opened their house, and the time drew near for +the wonderful debutante dance at which Alice was to be formally +presented to Society. And of course Alice must have a new dress for +the occasion, and it must be absolutely the most beautiful dress +ever known. In an idle moment her cousin figured out that it was to +cost her about five dollars a minute to be entertained by the +Wallings! + +What it would cost the Wallings, one scarcely dared to think. Their +ballroom would be turned into a flower-garden; and there would be a +supper for a hundred guests, and still another supper after the +dance, and costly favours for every figure. The purchasing of these +latter had been entrusted to Oliver, and Montague heard with dismay +what they were to cost. "Robbie couldn't afford to do anything +second-rate," was the younger brother's only reply to his +exclamations. + +Alice divided her time between the Wallings and her costumiers, and +every evening she came home with a new tale of important +developments. Alice was new at the game, and could afford to be +excited; and Mrs. Robbie liked to see her bright face, and to smile +indulgently at her eager inquiries. Mrs. Robbie herself had given +her orders to her steward and her florist and her secretary, and +went on her way and thought no more about it. That was the way of +the great ladies--or, at any rate, it was their pose. + +The town-house of the Robbies was a stately palace occupying a block +upon Fifth Avenue--one of the half-dozen mansions of the Walling +family which were among the show places of the city. It would take a +catalogue to list the establishments maintained by the +Wallings--there was an estate in North Carolina, and another in the +Adirondacks, and others on Long Island and in New Jersey. Also there +were several in Newport--one which was almost never occupied, and +which Mrs. Billy Alden sarcastically described as "a +three-million-dollar castle on a desert." + +Montague accompanied Alice once or twice, and had an opportunity to +study Mrs. Robbie at home. There were thirty-eight servants in her +establishment; it was a little state all in itself, with Mrs. Robbie +as queen, and her housekeeper as prime minister, and under them as +many different ranks and classes and castes as in a feudal +principality. There had to be six separate dining-rooms for the +various kinds of servants who scorned each other; there were +servants' servants and servants of servants' servants. There were +only three to whom the mistress was supposed to give orders--the +butler, the steward, and the housekeeper; she did not even know the +names of many of them, and they were changed so often, that, as she +declared, she had to leave it to her detective to distinguish +between employees and burglars. + +Mrs. Robbie was quite a young woman, but it pleased her to pose as a +care-worn matron, weary of the responsibilities of her exalted +station. The ignorant looked on and pictured her as living in the +lap of ease, endowed with every opportunity: in reality the meanest +kitchen-maid was freer--she was quite worn thin with the burdens +that fell upon her. The huge machine was for ever threatening to +fall to pieces, and required the wisdom of Solomon and the patience +of Job to keep it running. One paid one's steward a fortune, and yet +he robbed right and left, and quarrelled with the chef besides. The +butler was suspected of getting drunk upon rare and costly vintages, +and the new parlour-maid had turned out to be a Sunday reporter in +disguise. The man who had come every day for ten years to wind the +clocks of the establishment was dead, and the one who took care of +the bric-a-brac was sick, and the housekeeper was in a panic over +the prospect of having to train another. + +And even suppose that you escaped from these things, the real +problems of your life had still to be faced. It was not enough to +keep alive; you had your career--your duties as a leader of Society. +There was the daily mail, with all the pitiful letters from people +begging money--actually in one single week there were demands for +two million dollars. There were geniuses with patent incubators and +stove-lifters, and every time you gave a ball you stirred up swarms +of anarchists and cranks. And then there were the letters you really +had to answer, and the calls that had to be paid. These latter were +so many that people in the same neighbourhood had arranged to have +the same day at home; thus, if you lived on Madison Avenue you had +Thursday; but even then it took a whole afternoon to leave your +cards. And then there were invitations to be sent and accepted; and +one was always making mistakes and offending somebody--people would +become mortal enemies overnight, and expect all the world to know it +the next morning. And now there were so many divorces and +remarryings, with consequent changing of names; and some men knew +about their wives' lovers and didn't care, and some did care, but +didn't know--altogether it was like carrying a dozen chess games in +your head. And then there was the hairdresser and the manicurist and +the masseuse, and the tailor and the bootmaker and the jeweller; and +then one absolutely had to glance through a newspaper, and to see +one's children now and then. + +All this Mrs. Robbie explained at luncheon; it was the rich man's +burden, about which common people had no conception whatever. A +person with a lot of money was like a barrel of molasses--all the +flies in the neighbourhood came buzzing about. It was perfectly +incredible, the lengths to which people would go to get invited to +your house; not only would they write and beg you, they might attack +your business interests, and even bribe your friends. And on the +other hand, when people thought you needed them, the time you had to +get them to come! "Fancy," said Mrs. Robbie, "offering to give a +dinner to an English countess, and having her try to charge you for +coming!" And incredible as it might seem, some people had actually +yielded to her, and the disgusting creature had played the social +celebrity for a whole season, and made quite a handsome income out +of it. There seemed to be no limit to the abjectness of some of the +tuft-hunters in Society. + +It was instructive to hear Mrs. Robbie denounce such evils; and +yet--alas for human frailty--the next time that Montague called, the +great lady was blazing with wrath over the tidings that a new +foreign prince was coming to America, and that Mrs. +Ridgely-Clieveden had stolen a march upon her and grabbed him. He +was to be under her tutelage the entire time, and all the effulgence +of his magnificence would be radiated upon that upstart house. Mrs. +Robbie revenged herself by saying as many disagreeable things about +Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden as she could think of; winding up with the +declaration that if she behaved with this prince as she had with the +Russian grand duke, Mrs. Robbie Walling, for one, would cut her +dead. And truly the details which Mrs. Robbie cited were calculated +to suggest that her rival's hospitality was a reversion to the +customs of primitive savagery. + +The above is a fair sample of the kind of conversation that one +heard whenever one visited any of the Wallings. Perhaps, as Mrs. +Robbie said, it may have been their millions that made necessary +their attitude toward other people; certain it was, at any rate, +that Montague found them all most disagreeable people to know. There +was always some tempest in a teapot over the latest machinations of +their enemies. And then there was the whole dead mass of people who +sponged upon them and toadied to them; and finally the barbarian +hordes outside the magic circle of their acquaintance--some +specimens of whom came up every day for ridicule. They had big feet +and false teeth; they ate mush and molasses; they wore ready-made +ties; they said: "Do you wish that I should do it?" Their +grandfathers had been butchers and pedlars and other abhorrent +things. Montague tried his best to like the Wallings, because of +what they were doing for Alice; but after he had sat at their +lunch-table and listened to a conversation such as this, he found +himself in need of fresh air. + +And then he would begin to wonder about his own relation to these +people. If they talked about every one else behind their backs, +certainly they must talk about him behind his. And why did they go +out of their way to make him at home, and why were they spending +their money to launch Alice in Society? In the beginning he had +assumed that they did it out of the goodness of their hearts; but +now that he had looked into their hearts, he rejected the +explanation. It was not their way to shower princely gifts upon +strangers; in general, the attitude of all the Wallings toward a +stranger was that of the London hooligan--"'Eave a 'arf a brick at +'im!" They considered themselves especially appointed by Providence +to protect Society from the vulgar newly rich who poured into the +city, seeking for notoriety and recognition. They prided themselves +upon this attitude--they called it their "exclusiveness"; and the +exclusiveness of the younger generations of Wallings had become a +kind of insanity. + +Nor could the reason be that Alice was beautiful and attractive. One +could have imagined it if Mrs. Robbie had been like--say, Mrs. +Winnie Duval. It was easy to think of Mrs. Winnie taking a fancy to +a girl, and spending half her fortune upon her. But from a hundred +little things that he had seen, Montague had come to realize that +the Robbie Wallings, with all their wealth and power and grandeur, +were actually quite stingy. While all the world saw them scattering +fortunes in their pathway, in reality they were keeping track of +every dollar. And Robbie himself was liable to panic fits of +economy, in which he went to the most absurd excesses--Montague once +heard him haggling over fifty cents with a cabman. Lavish hosts +though they both were, it was the literal truth that they never +spent money upon anyone but themselves--the end and aim of their +every action was the power and prestige of the Robbie Wallings. + +"They do it because they are friends of mine," said Oliver, and +evidently wished that to satisfy his brother. But it only shifted +the problem and set him to watching Robbie and Oliver, and trying to +make out the basis of their relationship. There was a very grave +question concerned in this. Oliver had come to New York +comparatively poor, and now he was rich--or, at any rate, ho lived +like a rich man. And his brother, whose scent was growing keener +with every day of his stay in New York, had about made up his mind +that Oliver got his money from Robbie Walling. + +Here, again, the problem would have been simple, if it had been +another person than Robbie; Montague would have concluded that his +brother was a "hanger-on." There were many great families whose +establishments were infested with such parasites. Siegfried Harvey, +for instance, was a man who had always half a dozen young chaps +hanging about him; good-looking and lively fellows, who hunted and +played bridge, and amused the married women while their husbands +were at work, and who, if ever they dropped a hint that they were +hard up, might be reasonably certain of being offered a cheque. But +if the Robbie Wallings were to write cheques, it must be for value +received. And what could the value be? + +"Ollie" was rather a little god among the ultra-swagger; his taste +was a kind of inspiration. And yet his brother noticed that in such +questions he always deferred instantly to the Wallings; and surely +the Wallings were not people to be persuaded that they needed anyone +to guide them in matters of taste. Again, Ollie was the very devil +of a wit, and people were heartily afraid of him; and Montague had +noticed that he never by any chance made fun of Robbie--that the +fetiches of the house of Walling were always treated with respect. +So he had wondered if by any chance Robbie was maintaining his +brother in princely state for the sake of his ability to make other +people uncomfortable. But he realized that the Robbies, in their own +view of it, could have no more need of wit than a battleship has +need of popguns. Oliver's position, when they were about, was rather +that of the man who hardly ever dared to be as clever as he might, +because of the restless jealousy of his friend. + +It was a mystery; and it made the elder brother very uncomfortable. +Alice was young and guileless, and a pleasant person to patronize; +but he was a man of the world, and it was his business to protect +her. He had always paid his own way through life, and he was very +loath to put himself under obligations to people like the Wallings, +whom he did not like, and who, he felt instinctively, could not like +him. + +But of course there was nothing he could do about it. The date for +the great festivity was set; and the Wallings were affable and +friendly, and Alice all a-tremble with excitement. The evening +arrived, and with it came the enemies of the Wallings, dressed in +their jewels and fine raiment. They had been asked because they were +too important to be skipped, and they had come because the Wallings +were too powerful to be ignored. They revenged themselves by +consuming many courses of elaborate and costly viands; and they +shook hands with Alice and beamed upon her, and then discussed her +behind her back as if she were a French doll in a show-case. They +decided unanimously that her elder cousin was a "stick," and that +the whole family were interlopers and shameless adventurers; but it +was understood that since the Robbie Wallings had seen fit to take +them up, it would be necessary to invite them about. + +At any rate, that was the way it all seemed to Montague, who had +been brooding. To Alice it was a splendid festivity, to which +exquisite people came to take delight in each other's society. There +were gorgeous costumes and sparkling gems; there was a symphony of +perfumes, intoxicating the senses, and a golden flood of music +streaming by; there were laughing voices and admiring glances, and +handsome partners with whom one might dance through the portals of +fairyland.--And then, next morning, there were accounts in all the +newspapers, with descriptions of one's costume and then some of +those present, and even the complete menus of the supper, to assist +in preserving the memories of the wonderful occasion. + +Now they were really in Society. A reporter called to get Alice's +photo for the Sunday supplement; and floods of invitations came--and +with them all the cares and perplexities about which Mrs. Robbie had +told. Some of these invitations had to be declined, and one must +know whom it was safe to offend. Also, there was a long letter from +a destitute widow, and a proposal from a foreign count. Mrs. +Robbie's secretary had a list of many hundreds of these professional +beggars and blackmailers. + +Conspicuous at the dance was Mrs. Winnie, in a glorious +electric-blue silk gown. And she shook her fan at Montague, +exclaiming, "You wretched man--you promised to come and see me!" + +"I've been out of town," Montague protested. + +"Well, come to dinner to-morrow night," said Mrs. Winnie. "There'll +be some bridge fiends." + +"You forget I haven't learned to play," he objected. + +"Well, come anyhow," she replied. "We'll teach you. I'm no player +myself, and my husband will be there, and he's good-natured; and my +brother Dan--he'll have to be whether he likes it or not." + +So Montague visited the Snow Palace again, and met Winton Duval, the +banker,--a tall, military-looking man of about fifty, with a big +grey moustache, and bushy eyebrows, and the head of a lion. His was +one of the city's biggest banking-houses, and in alliance with +powerful interests in the Street. At present he was going in for +mines in Mexico and South America, and so he was very seldom at +home. He was a man of most rigid habits--he would come back +unexpectedly after a month's trip, and expect to find everything +ready for him, both at home and in his office, as if he had just +stepped round the corner. Montague observed that he took his +menu-card and jotted down his comments upon each dish, and then sent +it down to the chef. Other people's dinners he very seldom attended, +and when his wife gave her entertainments, he invariably dined at +the club. + +He pleaded a business engagement for the evening; and as brother Dan +did not appear, Montague did not learn any bridge. The other four +guests settled down to the game, and Montague and Mrs. Winnie sat +and chatted, basking before the fireplace in the great +entrance-hall. + +"Have you seen Charlie Carter?" was the first question she asked +him. + +"Not lately," he answered; "I met him at Harvey's." + +"I know that," said she. "They tell me he got drunk." + +"I'm afraid he did," said Montague. + +"Poor boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Winnie. "And Alice saw him! He must be +heartbroken!" + +Montague said nothing. "You know," she went on, "Charlie really +means well. He has honestly an affectionate nature." + +She paused; and Montague Said, vaguely, "I suppose so." + +"You don't like him," said the other. "I can see that. And I suppose +now Alice will have no use for him, either. And I had it all fixed +up for her to reform him!" + +Montague smiled in spite of himself. + +"Oh, I know," said she. "It wouldn't have been easy. But you've no +idea what a beautiful boy Charlie used to be, until all the women +set to work to ruin him." + +"I can imagine it," said Montague; but he did not warm to the +subject. + +"You're just like my husband," said Mrs. Winnie, sadly. "You have no +use at all for anything that's weak or unfortunate." + +There was a pause. "And I suppose," she said finally, "you'll be +turning into a business man also--with no time for anybody or +anything. Have you begun yet?" + +--"Not yet," he answered. "I'm still looking round." + +"I haven't the least idea about business," she confessed. "How does +one begin at it?" + +"I can't say I know that myself as yet," said Montague, laughing. + +"Would you like to be a protege of my husband's?" she asked. + +The proposition was rather sudden, but he answered, with a smile, "I +should have no objections. What would he do with me?" + +"I don't know that. But he can do whatever he wants down town. And +he'd show you how to make a lot of money if I asked him to." Then +Mrs. Winnie added, quickly, "I mean it--he could do it, really." + +"I haven't the least doubt of it," responded Montague. + +"And what's more," she went on, "you don't want to be shy about +taking advantage of the opportunities that come to you. You'll find +you won't get along in New York unless you go right in and grab what +you can. People will be quick enough to take advantage of you." + +"They have all been very kind to me so far," said he. "But when I +get ready for business, I'll harden my heart." + +Mrs. Winnie sat lost in meditation. "I think business is dreadful," +she said. "So much hard work and worry! Why can't men learn to get +along without it?" + +"There are bills that have to be paid," Montague replied. + +"It's our dreadfully extravagant way of life," exclaimed the other. +"Sometimes I wish I had never had any money in my life." + +"You would soon tire of it," said he. "You would miss this house." + +"I should not miss it a bit," said Mrs. Winnie, promptly. "That is +really the truth--I don't care for this sort of thing at all. I'd +like to live simply, and without so many cares and responsibilities. +And some day I'm going to do it, too--I really am. I'm going to get +myself a little farm, away off somewhere in the country. And I'm +going there to live and raise chickens and vegetables, and have my +own flower-gardens, that I can take care of myself. It will all be +plain and simple--" and then Mrs. Winnie stopped short, exclaiming, +"You are laughing at me!" + +"Not at all!" said Montague. "But I couldn't help thinking about the +newspaper reporters--" + +"There you are!" said she. "One can never have a beautiful dream, or +try to do anything sensible--because of the newspaper reporters!" + +If Montague had been meeting Mrs. Winnie Duval for the first time, +he would have been impressed by her yearnings for the simple life; +he would have thought it an important sign of the times. But alas, +he knew by this time that his charming hostess had more flummery +about her than anybody else he had encountered--and all of her own +devising! Mrs. Winnie smoked her own private brand of cigarettes, +and when she offered them to you, there were the arms of the old +ducal house of Montmorenci on the wrappers! And when you got a +letter from Mrs. Winnie, you observed a three-cent stamp upon the +envelope--for lavender was her colour, and two-cent stamps were an +atrocious red! So one might feel certain that it Mrs. Winnie ever +went in for chicken-raising, the chickens would be especially +imported from China or Patagonia, and the chicken-coops would be +precise replicas of those in the old Chateau de Montmorenci which +she had visited in her automobile. + +But Mrs. Winnie was beautiful, and quite entertaining to talk to, +and so he was respectfully sympathetic while she told him about her +pastoral intentions. And then she told him about Mrs. Caroline +Smythe, who had called a meeting of her friends at one of the big +hotels, and organized a society and founded the "Bide-a-Wee Home" +for destitute cats. After that she switched off into psychic +research--somebody had taken her to a seance, where grave college +professors and ladies in spectacles sat round and waited for ghosts +to materialize. It was Mrs. Winnie's first experience at this, and +she was as excited as a child who has just found the key to the +jam-closet. "I hardly knew whether to laugh or to be afraid," she +said. "What would you think?" + +"You may have the pleasure of giving me my first impressions of it," +said Montague, with a laugh. + +"Well," said she, "they had table-tipping--and it was the most +uncanny thing to see the table go jumping about the room! And then +there were raps--and one can't imagine how strange it was to see +people who really believed they were getting messages from ghosts. +It positively made my flesh creep. And then this woman--Madame +Somebody-or-other--went into a trance--ugh! Afterward I talked with +one of the men, and he told me about how his father had appeared to +him in the night and told him he had just been drowned at sea. Have +you ever heard of such a thing?" + +"We have such a tradition in our family," said he. + +"Every family seems to have," said Mrs. Winnie. "But, dear me, it +made me so uncomfortable--I lay awake all night expecting to see my +own father. He had the asthma, you know; and I kept fancying I heard +him breathing." + +They had risen and were strolling into the conservatory; and she +glanced at the man in armour. "I got to fancying that his ghost +might come to see me," she said. "I don't think I shall attend any +more seances. My husband was told that I promised them some money, +and he was furious--he's afraid it'll get into the papers." And +Montague shook with inward laughter, picturing what a time the +aristocratic and stately old banker must have, trying to keep his +wife out of the papers! + +Mrs. Winnie turned on the lights in the fountain, and sat by the +edge, gazing at her fish. Montague was half expecting her to inquire +whether he thought that they had ghosts; but she spared him this, +going off on another line. + +"I asked Dr. Parry about it," she said. "Have you met him?" + +Dr. Parry was the rector of St. Cecilia's, the fashionable Fifth +Avenue church which most of Montague's acquaintances attended. "I +haven't been in the city over Sunday yet," he answered. "But Alice +has met him." + +"You must go with me some time," said she. "But about the ghosts--" + +"What did he say?" + +"He seemed to be shy of them," laughed Mrs. Winnie. "He said it had +a tendency to lead one into dangerous fields. But oh! I forgot--I +asked my swami also, and it didn't startle him. They are used to +ghosts; they believe that souls keep coming back to earth, you know. +I think if it was his ghost, I wouldn't mind seeing it--for he has +such beautiful eyes. He gave me a book of Hindu legends--and there +was such a sweet story about a young princess who loved in vain, and +died of grief; and her soul went into a tigress; and she came in the +night-time where her lover lay sleeping by the firelight, and she +carried him off into the ghost-world. It was a most creepy thing--I +sat out here and read it, and I could imagine the terrible tigress +lurking in the shadows, with its stripes shining in the firelight, +and its green eyes gleaming. You know that poem--we used to read it +in school--'Tiger, tiger, burning bright!'" + +It was not very easy for Montague to imagine a tigress in Mrs. +Winnie's conservatory; unless, indeed, one were willing to take the +proposition in a metaphorical sense. There are wild creatures which +sleep in the heart of man, and which growl now and then, and stir +their tawny limbs, and cause one to start and turn cold. Mrs. Winnie +wore a dress of filmy softness, trimmed with red flowers which paled +beside her own intenser colouring. She had a perfume of her own, +with a strange exotic fragrance which touched the chorus of memory +as only an odour can. She leaned towards him, speaking eagerly, with +her soft white arms lying upon the basin's rim. So much loveliness +could not be gazed at without pain; and a faint trembling passed +through Montague, like a breeze across a pool. Perhaps it touched +Mrs. Winnie also, for she fell suddenly silent, and her gaze +wandered off into the darkness. For a minute or two there was +stillness, save for the pulse of the fountain, and the heaving of +her bosom keeping time with it. + +And then in the morning Oliver inquired, "Where were you, last +night?" And when his brother answered, "At Mrs. Winnie's," he smiled +and said, "Oh!" Then he added, gravely, "Cultivate Mrs. Winnie--you +can't do better at present." + + + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + + + +Montague accepted his friend's invitation to share her pew at St. +Cecilia's, and next Sunday morning he and Alice went, and found Mrs. +Winnie with her cousin. Poor Charlie had evidently been scrubbed and +shined, both physically and morally, and got ready to appeal for +"one more chance." While he shook hands with Alice, he was gazing at +her with dumb and pleading eyes; he seemed to be profoundly grateful +that she did not refuse to enter the pew with him. + +A most interesting place was St. Cecilia's. Church-going was another +of the customs of men and women which Society had taken up, like the +Opera, and made into a state function. Here was a magnificent +temple, with carved marble and rare woods, and jewels gleaming +decorously in a dim religious light. At the door of this edifice +would halt the carriages of Society, and its wives and daughters +would alight, rustling with new silk petticoats and starched and +perfumed linen, each one a picture, exquisitely gowned and bonneted +and gloved, and carrying a demure little prayer-book. Behind them +followed the patient men, all in new frock-coats and shiny silk +hats; the men of Society were always newly washed and shaved, newly +groomed and gloved, but now they seemed to be more so--they were +full of the atmosphere of Sunday. Alas for those unregenerate ones, +the infidels and the heathen who scoff in outer darkness, and know +not the delicious feeling of Sunday--the joy of being washed and +starched and perfumed, and made to be clean and comfortable and +good, after all the really dreadful wickedness of six days of +fashionable life!--And afterward the parade upon the Avenue, with +the congregations of several score additional churches, and such a +show of stylish costumes that half the city came to see! + +Amid this exquisite assemblage at St. Cecilia's, the revolutionary +doctrines of the Christian religion produced neither perplexity nor +alarm. The chance investigator might have listened in dismay to +solemn pronouncements of everlasting damnation, to statements about +rich men and the eyes of needles, and the lilies of the field which +did not spin. But the congregation of St. Cecilia's understood that +these things were to be taken in a quixotic sense; sharing the view +of the French marquis that the Almighty would think twice before +damning a gentleman like him. + +One had heard these phrases ever since childhood, and one accepted +them as a matter of course. After all, these doctrines had come from +the lips of a divine being, whom it would be presumptuous in a mere +mortal to attempt to imitate. Such points one could but leave to +those whose business it was to interpret them--the doctors and +dignitaries of the church; and when one met them, one's heart was +set at rest--for they were not iconoclasts and alarmists, but +gentlemen of culture and tact. The bishop who presided in this +metropolitan district was a stately personage, who moved in the best +Society and belonged to the most exclusive clubs. + +The pews in St. Cecilia's were rented, and they were always in great +demand; it was one of the customs of those who hung upon the fringe +of Society to come every Sunday, and bow and smile, and hope against +hope for some chance opening. The stranger who came was dependent +upon hospitality; but there were soft-footed and tactful ushers, who +would find one a seat, if one were a presentable person. The +contingency of an unpresentable person seldom arose, for the +proletariat did not swarm at the gates of St. Cecilia's. Out of its +liberal income the church maintained a "mission" upon the East Side, +where young curates wrestled with the natural depravity of the lower +classes--meantime cultivating a soul-stirring tone, and waiting +until they should be promoted to a real church. Society was becoming +deferential to its religious guides, and would have been quite +shocked at the idea that it exerted any pressure upon them; but the +young curates were painfully aware of a process of unnatural +selection, whereby those whose manner and cut of coat were not +pleasing were left a long time in the slums.--On one occasion there +had been an amusing blunder; a beautiful new church was built at +Newport, and an eloquent young minister was installed, and all +Society attended the opening service--and sat and listened in +consternation to an arraignment of its own follies and vices! The +next Sunday, needless to say, Society was not present; and within +half a year the church was stranded, and had to be dismantled and +sold! + +They had elaborate music at St. Cecilia's, so beautiful that Alice +felt uncomfortable, and thought that it was perilously "high." At +this Mrs. Winnie laughed, offering to take her to an afternoon +service around the corner, where they had a full orchestra, and a +harp, and opera music, and incense and genuflexions and +confessionals. There were people, it seemed, who like to thrill +themselves by dallying with the wickedness of "Romanism"; somewhat +as a small boy tries to see how near he can walk to the edge of a +cliff. The "father" at this church had a jewelled robe with a train +so many yards long, and which had cost some incredible number of +thousands of dollars; and every now and then he marched in a stately +procession through the aisles, so that all the spectators might have +a good look at it. There was a fierce controversy about these things +in the church, and libraries of pamphlets were written, and +intrigues and social wars were fought over them. + +But Montague and Alice did not attend this service--they had +promised themselves the very plebeian diversion of a ride in the +subway; for so far they had not seen this feature of the city. +People who lived in Society saw Madison and Fifth Avenues, where +their homes were, with the churches and hotels scattered along them; +and the shopping district just below, and the theatre district at +one side, and the park to the north. Unless one went automobiling, +that was all of the city one need ever see. When visitors asked +about the Aquarium, and the Stock Exchange, and the Museum of Art, +and Tammany Hall, and Ellis Island, where the immigrants came, the +old New Yorkers would look perplexed, and say: "Dear me, do you +really want to see those tilings? Why, I have been here all my life, +and have never seen them!" + +For the hordes of sightseers there had been provided a special +contrivance, a huge automobile omnibus which seated thirty or forty +people, and went from the Battery to Harlem with a young man +shouting through a megaphone a description of the sights. The +irreverent had nicknamed this the "yap-wagon"; and declared that the +company maintained a fake "opium-joint" in Chinatown, and a fake +"dive" in the Bowery, and hired tough-looking individuals to sit and +be stared at by credulous excursionists from Oklahoma and Kalamazoo. +Of course it would never have done for people who had just been +passed into Society to climb upon a "yap-wagon"; but they were +permitted to get into the subway, and were whirled with a deafening +clatter through a long tunnel of steel and stone. And then they got +out and climbed a steep hill like any common mortals, and stood and +gazed at Grant's tomb: a huge white marble edifice upon a point +overlooking the Hudson. Architecturally it was not a beautiful +structure--but one was consoled by reflecting that the hero himself +would not have cared about that. It might have been described as a +soap-box with a cheese-box on top of it; and these homely and +familiar articles were perhaps not altogether out of keeping with +the character of the humblest great man who ever lived. + +The view up the river was magnificent, quite the finest which the +city had to offer; but it was ruined by a hideous gas-tank, placed +squarely in the middle of it. And this, again, was not +inappropriate--it was typical of all the ways of the city. It was a +city which had grown up by accident, with nobody to care about it or +to help it; it was huge and ungainly, crude, uncomfortable, and +grotesque. There was nowhere in it a beautiful sight upon which a +man could rest his eyes, without having them tortured by something +ugly near by. At the foot of the slope of the River Drive ran a +hideous freight-railroad; and across the river the beautiful +Palisades were being blown to pieces to make paving stone--and +meantime were covered with advertisements of land-companies. And if +there was a beautiful building, there, was sure to be a tobacco +advertisement beside it; if there was a beautiful avenue, there were +trucks and overworked horses toiling in the harness; if there was a +beautiful park, it was filled with wretched, outcast men. Nowhere +was any order or system--everything was struggling for itself, and +jarring and clashing with everything else; and this broke the spell +of power which the Titan city would otherwise have produced. It +seemed like a monstrous heap of wasted energies; a mountain in +perpetual labour, and producing an endless series of abortions. The +men and women in it were wearing themselves out with toil; but there +was a spell laid upon them, so that, struggle as they might, they +accomplished nothing. + +Coming out of the church, Montague had met Judge Ellis; and the +Judge had said, "I shall soon have something to talk over with you." +So Montague gave him his address, and a day or two later came an +invitation to lunch with him at his club. + +The Judge's club took up a Fifth Avenue block, and was stately and +imposing. It had been formed in the stress of the Civil War days; +lean and hungry heroes had come home from battle and gone into +business, and those who had succeeded had settled down here to rest. +To see them now, dozing in huge leather-cushioned arm-chairs, you +would have had a hard time to guess that they had ever been lean and +hungry heroes. They were diplomats and statesmen, bishops and +lawyers, great merchants and financiers--the men who had made the +city's ruling-class for a century. Everything here was decorous and +grave, and the waiters stole about with noiseless feet. + +Montague talked with the Judge about New York and what he had seen +of it, and the people he had met; and about his father, and the war; +and about the recent election and the business outlook. And meantime +they ordered luncheon; and when they had got to the cigars, the +Judge coughed and said, "And now I have a matter of business to talk +over with you." + +Montague settled himself to listen. "I have a friend," the Judge +explained--"a very good friend, who has asked me to find him a +lawyer to undertake an important case. I talked the matter over with +General Prentice, and he agreed with me that it would be a good idea +to lay the matter before you." + +"I am very much obliged to you," said Montague. + +"The matter is a delicate one," continued the other. "It has to do +with life insurance. Are you familiar with the insurance business?" + +"Not at all." + +"I had supposed not," said the Judge. "There are some conditions +which are not generally known about, but which I may say, to put it +mildly, are not wltogether satisfactory. My friend is a large +policy-holder in several companies, and he is not satisfied with the +management of them. The delicacy of the situation, so far as I am +concerned, is that the company with which he has the most fault to +find is one in which I myself am a director. You understand?" + +"Perfectly," said Montague. "What company is it?" + +"The Fidelity," replied the other--and his companion thought in a +flash of Freddie Vandam, whom he had met at Castle Havens! For the +Fidelity was Freddie's company. + +"The first thing that I have to ask you," continued the Judge, "is +that, whether you care to take the case or not, you will consider my +own intervention in the matter absolutely entre nous. My position is +simply this: I have protested at the meetings of the directors of +the company against what I consider an unwise policy--and my +protests have been ignored. And when my friend asked me for advice, +I gave it to him; but at the same time I am not in a position to be +publicly quoted in connexion with the matter. You follow me?" + +"Perfectly," said the other. "I will agree to what you ask." + +"Very good. Now then, the condition is, in brief, this: the +companies are accumulating an enormous surplus, which, under the +law, belongs to the policy-holders; but the administrations of the +various companies are withholding these dividends, for the sake of +the banking-power which these accumulated funds afford to them and +their associates. This is, as I hold, a very manifest injustice, and +a most dangerous condition of affairs." + +"I should say so!" responded Montague. He was amazed at such a +statement, coming from such a source. "How could this continue?" he +asked. + +"It has continued for a long time," the Judge answered. + +"But why is it not known?" + +"It is perfectly well known to every one in the insurance business," +was the answer. "The matter has never been taken up or published, +simply because the interests involved have such enormous and widely +extended power that no one has ever dared to attack them," + +Montague sat forward, with his eyes riveted upon the Judge. "Go on," +he said. + +"The situation is simply this," said the other. "My friend, Mr. +Hasbrook, wishes to bring a suit against the Fidelity Company to +compel it to pay to him his proper share of its surplus. He wishes +the suit pressed, and followed to the court of last resort." + +"And do you mean to tell me," asked Montague, "that you would have +any difficulty to find a lawyer in New York to undertake such a +case?" + +"No," said the other, "not exactly that. There are lawyers in New +York who would undertake anything. But to find a lawyer of standing +who would take it, and withstand all the pressure that would be +brought to bear upon him--that might take some time." + +"You astonish me, Judge." + +"Financial interests in this city are pretty closely tied together, +Mr. Montague. Of course there are law firms which are identified +with interests opposed to those who control the company. It would be +very easy to get them to take the case, but you can see that in that +event my friend would be accused of bringing the suit in their +interest; whereas he wishes it to appear, as it really is, a suit of +an independent person, seeking the rights of the vast body of the +policy-holders. For that reason, he wished to find a lawyer who was +identified with no interest of any sort, and who was free to give +his undivided attention to the issue. So I thought of you." + +"I will take the case," said Montague instantly. + +"It is my duty to warn you," said the Judge, gravely, "that you will +be taking a very serious step. You must be prepared to face +powerful, and, I am afraid, unscrupulous enemies. You may find that +you have made it impossible for other and very desirable clients to +deal with you. You may find your business interests, if you have +any, embarrassed--your credit impaired, and so on. You must be +prepared to have your character assailed, and your motives impugned +in the public press. You may find that social pressure will be +brought to bear on you. So it is a step from which most young men +who have their careers to make would shrink." + +Montague's face had turned a shade paler as he listened. "I am +assuming," he said, "that the facts are as you have stated them to +me--that an unjust condition exists." + +"You may assume that." + +"Very well." And Montague clenched his hand, and put it down upon +the table. "I will take the case," he said. + +For a few moments they sat in silence. + +"I will arrange," said the Judge, at last, "for you and Mr. Hasbrook +to meet. I must explain to you, as a matter of fairness, that he is +a rich man, and will be able to pay you for your services. He is +asking a great deal of you, and he should expect to pay for it." + +Montague sat in thought. "I have not really had time to get my +bearings in New York," he said at last. "I think I had best leave it +to you to say what I should charge him." + +"If I were in your position," the Judge answered, "I think that I +should ask a retaining-fee of fifty thousand dollars. I believe he +will expect to pay at least that." + +Montague could scarcely repress a start. Fifty thousand dollars! The +words made his head whirl round. But then, all of a sudden, he +recalled his half-jesting resolve to play the game of business +sternly. So he nodded his head gravely, and said, "Very well; I am +much obliged to you." + +After a pause, he added, "I hope that I may prove able to handle the +case to your friend's satisfaction." + +"Your ability remains for you to prove," said the Judge. "I have +only been in position to assure him of your character." + +"He must understand, of course," said Montague, "that I am a +stranger, and that it will take me a while to study the situation." + +"Of course he knows that. But you will find that Mr. Hasbrook knows +a good deal about the law himself. And he has already had a lot of +work done. You must understand that it is very easy to get legal +advice about such a matter--what is sought is some one to take the +conduct of the case." + +"I see," said Montague; and the Judge added, with a smile, "Some one +to get up on horseback, and draw the fire of the enemy!" + +And then the great man was, as usual, reminded of a story; and then +of more stories; until at last they rose from the table, and shook +hands upon their bargain, and parted. + +Fifty thousand dollars! Fifty thousand dollars! It was all Montague +could do to keep from exclaiming it aloud on the street. He could +hardly believe that it was a reality--if it had been a less-known +person than Judge Ellis, he would have suspected that some one must +be playing a joke upon him. Fifty thousand dollars was more than +many a lawyer made at home in a lifetime; and simply as a +retaining-fee in one case! The problem of a living had weighed on +his soul ever since the first day in the city, and now suddenly it +was solved; all in a few minutes, the way had been swept clear +before him. He walked home as if upon air. + +And then there was the excitement of telling the family about it. He +had an idea that his brother might be alarmed if he were told about +the seriousness of the case; and so he simply said that the Judge +had brought him a rich client, and that it was an insurance case. +Oliver, who knew and cared nothing about law, asked no questions, +and contented himself with saying, "I told you how easy it was to +make money in New York, if only you knew the right people!" As for +Alice, she had known all along that her cousin was a great man, and +that clients would come to him as soon as he hung out his sign. + +His sign was not out yet, by the way; that was the next thing to be +attended to. He must get himself an office at once, and some books, +and begin to read up insurance law; and so, bright and early the +next morning, he took the subway down town. + +And here, for the first time, Montague saw the real New York. All +the rest was mere shadow--the rest was where men slept and played, +but Jiere was where they fought out the battle of their lives. Here +the fierce intensity of it smote him in the face--he saw the cruel +waste and ruin of it, the wreckage of the blind, haphazard strife. + +It was a city caught in a trap. It was pent in at one end of a +narrow little island. It had been no one's business to foresee that +it must some day outgrow this space; now men were digging a score of +tunnels to set it free, but they had not begun these until the +pressure had become unendurable, and now it had reached its climax. +In the financial district, land had been sold for as much as four +dollars a square inch. Huge blocks of buildings shot up to the sky +in a few months--fifteen, twenty, twenty-five stories of them, and +with half a dozen stories hewn out of the solid rock beneath; there +was to be one building of forty-two stories, six hundred and fifty +feet in height. And between them were narrow chasms of streets, +where the hurrying crowds overflowed the sidewalks. Yet other +streets were filled with trucks and heavy vehicles, with electric +cars creeping slowly along, and little swirls and eddies of people +darting across here and there. + +These huge buildings were like beehives, swarming with life and +activity, with scores of elevators shooting through them at +bewildering speed. Everywhere was the atmosphere of rush; the spirit +of it seized hold of one, and he began to hurry, even though he had +no place to go. The man who walked slowly and looked about him was +in the way--he was jostled here and there, and people eyed him with +suspicion and annoyance. + +Elsewhere on the island men did the work of the city; here they did +the work of the world. Each room in these endless mazes of buildings +was a cell in a mighty brain; the telephone wires were nerves, and +by the whole huge organism the thinking and willing of a continent +were done. It was a noisy place to the physical ear; but to the ear +of the mind it roared with the roaring of a thousand Niagaras. Here +was the Stock Exchange, where the scales of trade were held before +the eyes of the country. Here was the clearing-house, where hundreds +of millions of dollars were exchanged every day. Here were the great +banks, the reservoirs into which the streams of the country's wealth +were poured. Here were the brains of the great railroad systems, of +the telegraph and telephone systems, of mines and mills and +factories. Here were the centres of the country's trade; in one +place the shipping trade, in another the jewellery trade, the +grocery trade, the leather trade. A little farther up town was the +clothing district, where one might see the signs of more Hebrews +than all Jerusalem had ever held; in yet other districts were the +newspaper offices, and the centre of the magazine and +book-publishing business of the whole country. One might climb to +the top of one of the great "sky-scrapers," and gaze down upon a +wilderness of houses, with roofs as innumerable as tree-tops, and +people looking like tiny insects below. Or one might go out into the +harbour late upon a winter afternoon, and see it as a city of a +million lights, rising like an incantation from the sea. Round about +it was an unbroken ring of docks, with ferry-boats and tugs darting +everywhere, and vessels which had come from every port in the world, +emptying their cargoes into the huge maw of the Metropolis. + +And of all this, nothing had been planned! All lay just as it had +fallen, and men bore the confusion and the waste as best they could. +Here were huge steel vaults, in which lay many billions of dollars' +worth of securities, the control of the finances of the country; and +a block or two in one direction were warehouses and gin-mills, and +in another direction cheap lodging-houses and sweating-dens. And at +a certain hour all this huge machine would come to a halt, and its +millions of human units would make a blind rush for their homes. +Then at the entrances to bridges and ferries and trams, would be +seen sights of madness and terror; throngs of men and women swept +hither and thither, pushing and struggling, shouting, cursing +--righting, now and then, in sudden panic fear. All decency was +forgotten here--people would be mashed into cars like football +players in a heap, and guards and policemen would jam the gates +tight--or like as not be swept away themselves in the pushing, +grunting, writhing mass of human beings. Women would faint and be +trampled; men would come out with clothing torn to shreds, and +sometimes with broken arms or ribs. And thinking people would gaze +at the sight and shudder, wondering--how long a city could hold +together, when the masses of its population were thus forced back, +day after day, habitually, upon the elemental brute within them. + +In this vast business district Montague would have felt utterly lost +and helpless, if it had not been for that fifty thousand dollars, +and the sense of mastery which it gave him. He sought out General +Prentice, and under his guidance selected his suite of rooms, and +got his furniture and books in readiness. And a day or two later, by +appointment, came Mr. Hasbrook. + +He was a wiry, nervous little man, who did not impress one as much +of a personality; but he had the insurance situation at his fingers' +ends--his grievance had evidently wrought upon him. Certainly, if +half of what he alleged were true, it was time that the courts took +hold of the affair. + +Montague spent the whole day in consultation, going over every +aspect of the case, and laying out his course of procedure. And +then, at the end, Mr. Hasbrook remarked that it would be necessary +for them to make some financial arrangement. And the other set his +teeth together, and took a tight grip upon himself, and said, +"Considering the importance of the case, and all the circumstances, +I think I should have a retainer of fifty thousand dollars." + +And the little man never turned a hair! "That will be perfectly +satisfactory," he said. "I will attend to it at once." And the +other's heart gave a great leap. + +And sure enough, the next morning's mail brought the money, in the +shape of a cashier's cheque from one of the big banks. Montague +deposited it to his own account, and felt that the city was his! + +And so he flung himself into the work. He went to his office every +day, and he shut himself up in his own rooms in the evening. Mrs. +Winnie was in despair because he would not come and learn bridge, +and Mrs. Vivie Patton sought him in vain for a week-end party. He +could not exactly say that while the others slept he was toiling +upward in the night, for the others did not sleep in the night; but +he could say that while they were feasting and dancing, he was +delving into insurance law. Oliver argued in vain to make him +realize that he could not live for ever upon one client; and that it +was as important for a lawyer to be a social light as to win his +first big case. Montague was so absorbed that he even failed to be +thrilled when one morning he opened an invitation envelope, and read +the fateful legend: "Mrs. Devon requests the honour of your +company"--telling him that he had "passed" on that critical +examination morning, and that he was definitely and irrevocably in +Society! + + + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + + + +Montague was now a capitalist, and therefore a keeper of the gates +of opportunity. It seemed as though the seekers for admission must +have had some occult way of finding it out; almost immediately they +began to lay siege to him. + +About a week after his cheque arrived, Major Thorne, whom he had met +the first evening at the Loyal Legion, called him up and asked to +see him; and he came to Montague's room that evening, and after +chatting awhile about old times, proceeded to unfold a business +proposition. It seemed that the Major had a grandson, a young +mechanical engineer, who had been labouring for a couple of years at +a very important invention, a device for loading coal upon +steamships and weighing it automatically in the process. It was a +very complicated problem, needless to say, but it had been solved +successfully, and patents had been applied for, and a working model +constructed. But it had proved unexpectedly difficult to interest +the officials of the great steamship companies in the device. There +was no doubt about the practicability of the machine, or the +economies it would effect; but the officials raised trivial +objections, and caused delays, and offered prices that were +ridiculously inadequate. So the young inventor had conceived the +idea of organizing a company to manufacture the machines, and rent +them upon a royalty. "I didn't know whether you would have any +money," said Major Thorne, "--but I thought you might be in touch +with others who could be got to look into the matter. There is a +fortune in it for those who take it up." + +Montague was interested, and he looked over the plans and +descriptions which his friend had brought, and said that he would +see the working model, and talk the proposition over with others. +And so the Major took his departure. + +The first person Montague spoke to about it was Oliver, with whom he +chanced to be lunching, at the latter's club. This was the "All +Night" club, a meeting-place of fast young Society men and +millionaire Bohemians, who made a practice of going to bed at +daylight, and had taken for their motto the words of Tennyson--"For +men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever." It was not a +proper club for his brother to join, Oliver considered; Montague's +"game" was the heavy respectable, and the person to put him up was +General Prentice. But he was permitted to lunch there with his +brother to chaperon him--and also Reggie Mann, who happened in, +fresh from talking over the itinerary of the foreign prince with +Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden, and bringing a diverting account of how Mrs. +R.-C. had had a fisticuffs with her maid. + +Montague mentioned the invention casually, and with no idea that his +brother would have an opinion one way or the other. But Oliver had +quite a vigorous opinion: "Good God, Allan, you aren't going to let +yourself be persuaded into a thing like that!" + +"But what do you know about it?" asked the other. "It may be a +tremendous thing." + +"Of course!" cried Oliver. "But what can you tell about it? You'll +be like a child in other people's hands, and they'll be certain to +rob you. And why in the world do you want to take risks when you +don't have to?" + +"I have to put my money somewhere," said Montague. + +"His first fee is burning a hole in his pocket!" put in Reggie Mann, +with a chuckle. "Turn it over to me, Mr. Montague; and let me spend +it in a gorgeous entertainment for Alice; and the prestige of it +will bring you more cases than you can handle in a lifetime!" + +"He had much better spend it all for soda water than buy a lot of +coal chutes with it," said Oliver: "Wait awhile, and let me find you +some place to put your money, and you'll see that you don't have to +take any risks." + +"I had no idea of taking it up until I'd made certain of it," +replied the other. "And those whose judgment I took would, of +course, go in also." + +The younger man thought for a moment. "You are going to dine with +Major Venable to-night, aren't you?" he asked; and when the other +answered in the affirmative, he continued," Very well, then, ask +him. The Major's been a capitalist for forty years, and if you can +get him to take it up, why, you'll know you're safe." + +Major Venable had taken quite a fancy to Montague--perhaps the old +gentleman liked to have somebody to gossip with, to whom all his +anecdotes were new. He had seconded Montague's name at the +"Millionaires'," where he lived, and had asked him there to make the +acquaintance of some of the other members. Before Montague parted +with his brother, he promised that he would talk the matter over +with the Major. + +The Millionaires' was the show club of the city, the one which the +ineffably rich had set apart for themselves. It was up by the park, +in a magnificent white marble palace which had cost a million +dollars. Montague felt that he had never really known the Major +until he saw him here. The Major was excellent at all times and +places, but in this club he became an edition de luxe of himself. He +made his headquarters here, keeping his suite of rooms all the year +round; and the atmosphere and surroundings of the place seemed to be +a part of him. + +Montague thought that the Major's face grew redder every day, and +the purple veins in it purpler; or was it that the old gentleman's +shirt bosom gleamed more brightly in the glare of the lights? The +Major met him in the stately entrance hall, fifty feet square and +all of Numidian marble, with a ceiling of gold, and a great bronze +stairway leading to the gallery above. He apologized for his velvet +slippers and for his hobbling walk--he was getting his accursed gout +again. But he limped around and introduced his friend to the other +millionaires--and then told scandal about them behind their backs. + +The Major was the very type of a blue-blooded old aristocrat; he was +all noblesse oblige to those within the magic circle of his +intimacy--but alas for those outside it! Montague had never heard +anyone bully servants as the Major did. "Here you!" he would cry, +when something went wrong at the table. "Don't you know any better +than to bring me a dish like that? Go and send me somebody who knows +how to set a table!" And, strange to say, the servants all +acknowledged his perfect right to bully them, and flew with +terrified alacrity to do his bidding. Montague noticed that the +whole staff of the club leaped into activity whenever the Major +appeared; and when he was seated at the table, he led off in this +fashion--"Now I want two dry Martinis. And I want them at once--do +you understand me? Don't stop to get me any butter plates or +finger-bowls--I want two cock-tails, just as quick as you can carry +them!" + +Dinner was an important event to Major Venable--the most important +in life. The younger man humbly declined to make any suggestions, +and sat and watched while his friend did all the ordering. They had +some very small oysters, and an onion soup, and a grouse and +asparagus, with some wine from the Major's own private store, and +then a romaine salad. Concerning each one of these courses, the +Major gave special injunctions, and throughout his conversation he +scattered comments upon them: "This is good thick soup--lots of +nourishment in onion soup. Have the rest of this?--I think the +Burgundy is too cold. Sixty-five is as cold as Burgundy ought ever +to be. I don't mind sherry as low as sixty.--They always cook a bird +too much--Robbie Waiting's chef is the only person I know who never +makes a mistake with game." + +All this, of course, was between comments upon the assembled +millionaires. There was Hawkins, the corporation lawyer; a shrewd +fellow, cold as a corpse. He was named for an ambassadorship--a very +efficient. man. Used to be old Wyman's confidential adviser and buy +aldermen for him.--And the man at table with him was Harrison, +publisher of the Star; administration newspaper, sound and +conservative. Harrison was training for a cabinet position. He was a +nice little man, and would make a fine splurge in Washington.--And +that tall man coming in was Clarke, the steel magnate; and over +there was Adams, a big lawyer also--prominent reformer--civic +righteousness and all that sort of stuff. Represented the Oil Trust +secretly, and went down to Trenton to argue against some reform +measure, and took along fifty thousand dollars in bills in his +valise. "A friend of mine got wind of what he was doing, and taxed +him with it," said the Major, and laughed gleefully over the great +lawyer's reply--"How did I know but I might have to pay for my own +lunch?"--And the fat man with him--that was Jimmie Featherstone, the +chap who had inherited a big estate. "Poor Jimmie's going all to +pieces," the Major declared. "Goes down town to board meetings now +and then--they tell a hair-raising story about him and old Dan +Waterman. He had got up and started a long argument, when Waterman +broke in, 'But at the earlier meeting you argued directly to the +contrary, Mr. Featherstone!' 'Did I?' said Jimmie, looking +bewildered. 'I wonder why I did that?' 'Well, Mr. Featherstone, +since you ask me, I'll tell you,' said old Dan--he's savage as a +wild boar, you know, and won't be delayed at meetings. 'The reason +is that the last time you were drunker than you are now. If you +would adopt a uniform standard of intoxication for the directors' +meetings of this road, it would expedite matters considerably.'" + +They had got as far as the romaine salad. The waiter came with a +bowl of dressing--and at the sight of it, the old gentleman forgot +Jimmie Featherstone. "Why are you bringing me that stuff?" he cried. +"I don't want that! Take it away and get me some vinegar and oil." + +The waiter fled in dismay, while the Major went on growling under +his breath. Then from behind him came a voice: "What's the matter +with you this evening, Venable? You're peevish!" + +The Major looked up. "Hello, you old cormorant," said he. "How do +you do these days?" + +The old cormorant replied that he did very well. He was a pudgy +little man, with a pursed-up, wrinkled face. "My friend Mr. +Montague--Mr. Symmes," said the Major. + +"I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Montague," said Mr. Symmes, +peering over his spectacles. + +"And what are you doing with yourself these days?" asked the Major. + +The other smiled genially. "Nothing much," said he. "Seducing my +friends' wives, as usual." + +"And who's the latest?" + +"Read the newspapers, and you'll find out," laughed Symmes. "I'm +told I'm being shadowed." + +He passed on down the room, chuckling to himself; and the Major +said, "That's Maltby Symmes. Have you heard of him?" + +"No," said Montague. + +"He gets into the papers a good deal. He was up in supplementary +proceedings the other day--couldn't pay his liquor bill." + +"A member of the Millionaires'?" laughed Montague. + +"Yes, the papers made quite a joke out of it," said the other. "But +you see he's run through a couple of fortunes; the last was his +mother's--eleven millions, I believe. He's been a pretty lively old +boy in his time." + +The vinegar and oil had now arrived, and the Major set to work to +dress the salad. This was quite a ceremony, and Montague took it +with amused interest. The Major first gathered all the necessary +articles together, and looked them all over and grumbled at them. +Then he mixed the vinegar and the pepper and salt, a tablespoonful +at a time, and poured it over the salad. Then very slowly and +carefully the oil had to be poured on, the salad being poked and +turned about so that it would be all absorbed. Perhaps it was +because he was so busy narrating the escapades of Maltty Symmes that +the old gentleman kneaded it about so long; all the time fussing +over it like a hen-partridge with her chicks, and interrupting +himself every sentence or two: "It was Lenore, the opera star, and +he gave her about two hundred thousand dollars' worth of railroad +shares. (Really, you know, romaine ought not to be served in a bowl +at all, but in a square, flat dish, so that one could keep the ends +quite dry.) And when they quarrelled, she found the old scamp had +fooled her--the shares had never been transferred. (One is not +supposed to use a fork at all, you know.) But she sued him, and he +settled with her for about half the value. (If this dressing were +done properly, there ought not to be any oil in the bottom of the +dish at all.)" + +This last remark meant that the process had reached its climax--that +the long, crisp leaves were receiving their final affectionate +overturnings. While the waiter stood at respectful attention, two or +three pieces at a time were laid carefully upon the little silver +plate intended for Montague. "And now," said the triumphant host, +"try it! If it's good, it ought to be neither sweet nor bitter, but +just right."--And he watched anxiously while Montague tasted it, +saying, "If it's the least bit bitter, say so; and we'll send it +out. I've told them about it often enough before." + +But it was not bitter, and so the Major proceeded to help himself, +after which the waiter whisked the bowl away. "I'm told that salad +is the one vegetable we have from the Romans," said the old boy, as +he munched at the crisp green leaves. "It's mentioned by Horace, you +know.--As I was saying, all this was in Symmes's early days. But +since his son's been grown up, he's married another chorus-girl." + +After the salad the Major had another cocktail. In the beginning +Montague had noticed that his hands shook and his eyes were watery; +but now, after these copious libations, he was vigorous, and, if +possible, more full of anecdotes than ever. Montague thought that it +would be a good time to broach his inquiry, and so when the coffee +had been served, he asked, "Have you any objections to talking +business after dinner?" + +"Not with you," said the Major. "Why? What is it?" + +And then Montague told him about his friend's proposition, and +described the invention. The other listened attentively to the end; +and then, after a pause, Montague asked him, "What do you think of +it?" + +"The invention's no good," said the Major, promptly. + +"How do you know?" asked the other. + +"Because, if it had been, the companies would have taken it long +ago, without paying him a cent." + +"But he has it patented," said Montague. + +"Patented hell!" replied the other. "What's a patent to lawyers of +concerns of that size? They'd have taken it and had it in use from +Maine to Texas; and when he sued, they'd have tied the case up in so +many technicalities and quibbles that he couldn't have got to the +end of it in ten years--and he'd have been ruined ten times over in +the process." + +"Is that really done?" asked Montague. + +"Done!" exclaimed the Major. "It's done so often you might say it's +the only thing that's done.--The people are probably trying to take +you in with a fake." + +"That couldn't possibly be so," responded the other. "The man is a +friend--" + +"I've found it an excellent rule never to do business with friends," +said the Major, grimly. + +"But listen," said Montague; and he argued long enough to convince +his companion that that could not be the true explanation. Then the +Major sat for a minute or two and pondered; and suddenly he +exclaimed, "I have it! I see why they won't touch it!" + +"What is it?" + +"It's the coal companies! They're giving the steamships short +weight, and they don't want the coal weighed truly!" + +"But there's no sense in that," said Montague. "It's the steamship +companies that won't take the machine." + +"Yes," said the Major; "naturally, their officers are sharing the +graft." And he laughed heartily at Montague's look of perplexity. + +"Do you know anything about the business?" Montague asked. + +"Nothing whatever," said the Major. "I am like the German who shut +himself up in his inner consciousness and deduced the shape of an +elephant from first principles. I know the game of big business from +A to Z, and I'm telling you that if the invention is good and the +companies won't take it, that's the reason; and I'll lay you a wager +that if you were to make an investigation, some such thing as that +is what you'd find! Last winter I went South on a steamer, and when +we got near port, I saw them dumping a ton or two of good food +overboard; and I made inquiries, and learned that one of the +officials of the company ran a farm, and furnished the stuff--and +the orders were to get rid of so much every trip!" + +Montague's jaw had fallen. "What could Major Thorne do against such +a combination?" he asked. + +"I don't know," said the Major, shrugging his shoulders. "It's a +case to take to a lawyer--one who knows the ropes. Hawkins over +there would know what to tell you. I should imagine the thing he'd +advise would be to call a strike of the men who handle the coal, and +tie up the companies and bring them to terms." + +"You're joking now!" exclaimed the other. + +"Not at all," said the Major, laughing again. "It's done all the +time. There's a building trust in this city, and the way it put all +its rivals out of business was by having strikes called on their +jobs." + +"But how could it do that?" + +"Easiest thing in the world. A labour leader is a man with a great +deal of power, and a very small salary to live on. And even if he +won't sell out--there are other ways. I could introduce you to a man +right in this room who had a big strike on at an inconvenient time, +and he had the president of the union trapped in a hotel with a +woman, and the poor fellow gave in and called off the strike."' + +"I should think the strikers might sometimes get out of hand," said +Montague. + +"Sometimes they do," smiled the other. "There is a regular procedure +for that case. Then you hire detectives and start violence, and call +out the militia and put the strike leaders into jail." + +Montague could think of nothing to say to that. The programme seemed +to be complete. + +"You see," the Major continued, earnestly, "I'm advising you as a +friend, and I'm taking the point of view of a man who has money in +his pocket. I've had some there always, but I've had to work hard to +keep it there. All my life I've been surrounded by people who wanted +to do me good; and the way they wanted to do it was to exchange my +real money for pieces of paper which they'd had printed with fancy +scroll-work and eagles and flags. Of course, if you want to look at +the thing from the other side, why, then the invention is most +ingenious, and trade is booming just now, and this is a great +country, and merit is all you need in it--and everything else is +just as it ought to be. It makes ahl the difference in the world, +you know, whether a man is buying a horse or selling him!" + +Montague had observed with perplexity that such incendiary talk as +this was one of the characteristics of people in these lofty +altitudes. It was one of the liberties accorded to their station. +Editors and bishops and statesmen and all the rest of their +retainers had to believe in the respectabilities, even in the +privacy of their clubs--the people's ears were getting terribly +sharp these days! But among the real giants of business you might +have thought yourself in a society of revolutionists; they would +tear up the mountain tops and hurl them at each other. When one of +these old war-horses once got started, he would tell tales of +deviltry to appall the soul of the hardiest muck-rake man. It was +always the other fellow, of course; but then, if you pinned your man +down, and if he thought that he could trust you--he would +acknowledge that he had sometimes fought the enemy with the enemy's +own weapons! + +But of course one must understand that all this radicalism was for +conversational purposes only. The Major, for instance, never had the +slightest idea of doing anything about all the evils of which he +told; when it came to action, he proposed to do just what he had +done all his life--to sit tight on his own little pile. And the +Millionaires' was an excellent place to learn to do it! + +"See that old money-bags over there in the corner," said the Major. +"He's a man you want to fix in your mind--old Henry S. Grimes. Have +you heard of him?" + +"Vaguely," said the other. + +"He's Laura Hegan's uncle. She'll have his money also some day--but +Lord, how he does hold on to it meantime! It's quite tragic, if you +come to know him--he's frightened at his own shadow. He goes in for +slum tenements, and I guess he evicts more people in a month than +you could crowd into this building!" + +Montague looked at the solitary figure at the table, a man with a +wizened-up little face like a weasel's, and a big napkin tied around +his neck. "That's so as to save his shirt-front for to-morrow," the +Major explained. "He's really only about sixty, but you'd think he +was eighty. Three times every day he sits here and eats a bowl of +graham crackers and milk, and then goes out and sits rigid in an +arm-chair for an hour. That's the regimen his doctors have put him +on--angels and ministers of grace defend us!" + +The old gentleman paused, and a chuckle shook his scarlet jowls. +"Only think!" he said--"they tried to do that to me! But no, +sir--when Bob Venable has to eat graham crackers and milk, he'll put +in arsenic instead of sugar! That's the way with many a one of these +rich fellows, though--you picture him living in Capuan luxury, when, +as a matter of fact, he's a man with a torpid liver and a weak +stomach, who is put to bed at ten o'clock with a hot-water bag and a +flannel night-cap!" + +The two had got up and were strolling toward the smoking-room; when +suddenly at one side a door opened, and a group of men came out. At +the head of them was an extraordinary figure, a big powerful body +with a grim face. "Hello!" said the Major. "All the big bugs are +here to-night. There must be a governors' meeting." + +"Who is that?" asked his companion; and he answered, "That? Why, +that's Dan Waterman." + +Dan Waterman! Montague stared harder than ever, and now he +identified the face with the pictures he had seen. Waterman, the +Colossus of finance, the Croesus of copper and gold! How many trusts +had Waterman organized! And how many puns had been made upon that +name of his! + +"Who are the other men?" Montague asked. + +"Oh, they're just little millionaires," was the reply. + +The "little millionaires" were following as a kind of body-guard; +one of them, who was short and pudgy, was half running, to keep up +with Waterman's heavy stride. When they came to the coat-room, they +crowded the attendants away, and one helped the great man on with +his coat, and another held his hat, and another his stick, and two +others tried to talk to him. And Waterman stolidly buttoned his +coat, and then seized his hat and stick, and without a word to +anyone, bolted through the door. + +It was one of the funniest sights that Montague had ever seen in his +life, and he laughed all the way into the smoking-room. And, when +Major Venable had settled himself in a big chair and bitten off the +end of a cigar and lighted it, what floodgates of reminiscence were +opened! + +For Dan Waterman was one of the Major's own generation, and he knew +all his life and his habits. Just as Montague had seen him there, so +he had been always; swift, imperious, terrible, trampling over all +opposition; the most powerful men in the city quailed before the +glare of his eyes. In the old days Wall Street had reeled in the +shock of the conflicts between him and his most powerful rival. + +And the Major went on to tell about Waterman's rival, and his life. +He had been the city's traction-king, old Wyman had been made by +him. He was the prince among political financiers; he had ruled the +Democratic party in state and nation. He would give a quarter of a +million at a time to the boss of Tammany Hall, and spend a million +in a single campaign; on "dough-day," when the district leaders came +to get the election funds, there would be a table forty feet long +completely covered with hundred-dollar bills. He would have been the +richest man in America, save that he spent his money as fast as he +got it. He had had the most famous racing-stable in America; and a +house on Fifth Avenue that was said to be the finest Italian palace +in the world. Over three millions had been spent in decorating it; +all the ceilings had been brought intact from palaces abroad, which +he had bought and demolished! The Major told a story to show how +such a man lost all sense of the value of money; he had once been +sitting at lunch with him, when the editor of one of his newspapers +had come in and remarked, "I told you we would need eight thousand +dollars, and the check you send is for ten." "I know it," was the +smiling answer--"but somehow I thought eight seemed harder to write +than ten!" + +"Old Waterman's quite a spender, too, when it comes to that," the +Major went on. "He told me once that it cost him five thousand +dollars a day for his ordinary expenses. And that doesn't include a +million-dollar yacht, nor even the expenses of it. + +"And think of another man I know of who spent a million dollars for +a granite pier, so that he could land and see his mistress!--It's a +fact, as sure as God made me! She was a well-known society woman, +but she was poor, and he didn't dare to make her rich for fear of +the scandal. So she had to live in a miserable fifty-thousand-dollar +villa; and when other people's children would sneer at her children +because they lived in a fifty-thousand-dollar villa, the answer +would be, 'But you haven't got any pier!' And if you don't believe +that--" + +But here suddenly the Major turned, and observed a boy who had +brought him some cigars, and who was now standing near by, +pretending to straighten out some newspapers upon the table. "Here, +sir!" cried the Major, "what do you mean--listening to what I'm +saying! Out of the room with you now, you rascal!" + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + + + + +Another week-end came, and with it an invitation from the Lester +Todds to visit them at their country place in New Jersey. Montague +was buried in his books, but his brother routed him out with +strenuous protests. His case be damned--was he going to ruin his +career for one case? At all hazards, he must meet people--"people +who counted." And the Todds were such, a big money crowd, and a +power in the insurance world; if Montague were going to be an +insurance lawyer, he could not possibly decline their invitation. +Freddie Vandam would be a guest--and Montague smiled at the tidings +that Betty Wyman would be there also. He had observed that his +brother's week-end visits always happened at places where Betty was, +and where Betty's granddaddy was not. + +So Montague's man packed his grips, and Alice's maid her trunks; and +they rode with a private-car party to a remote Jersey suburb, and +were whirled in an auto up a broad shell road to a palace upon the +top of a mountain. Here lived the haughty Lester Todds, and +scattered about on the neighbouring hills, a set of the +ultra-wealthy who had withdrawn to this seclusion. They were +exceedingly "classy"; they affected to regard all the Society of the +city with scorn, and had their own all-the-year-round diversions--an +open-air horse show in summer, and in the fall fox-hunting in fancy +uniforms. + +The Lester Todds themselves were ardent pursuers of all varieties of +game, and in various clubs and private preserves they followed the +seasons, from Florida and North Carolina to Ontario, with occasional +side trips to Norway, and New Brunswick, and British Columbia. Here +at home they had a whole mountain of virgin forest, carefully +preserved; and in the Renaissance palace at the summit-which they +carelessly referred to as a "lodge"--you would find such articles de +vertu as a ten-thousand-dollar table with a set of +two-thousand-dollar chairs, and quite ordinary-looking rugs at ten +and twenty thousand dollars each.--All these prices you might +ascertain without any difficulty at all, because there were many +newspaper articles describing the house to be read in an album in +the hall. On Saturday afternoons Mrs. Todd welcomed the neighbours +in a pastel grey reception-gown, the front of which contained a +peacock embroidered in silk, with jewels in every feather, and a +diamond solitaire for an eye; and in the evening there was a dance, +and she appeared in a gown with several hundred diamonds sewn upon +it, and received her guests upon a rug set with jewels to match. + +All together, Montague judged this the "fastest" set he had yet +encountered; they ate more and drank more and intrigued more openly. +He had been slowly acquiring the special lingo of Society, but these +people had so much more slang that he felt all lost again. A young +lady who was gossiping to him about those present remarked that a +certain youth was a "spasm"; and then, seeing the look of perplexity +upon his face, she laughed, "I don't believe you know what I mean!" +Montague replied that he had ventured to infer that she did not like +him. + +And then there was Mrs. Harper, who came from Chicago by way of +London. Ten years ago Mrs. Harper had overwhelmed New York with the +millions brought from her great department-store; and had then moved +on, sighing for new worlds to conquer. When she had left Chicago, +her grammar had been unexceptionable; but since she had been in +England, she said "you ain't" and dropped all her g's; and when +Montague brought down a bird at long range, she exclaimed, +condescendingly, "Why, you're quite a dab at it!" He sat in the +front seat of an automobile, and heard the great lady behind him +referring to the sturdy Jersey farmers, whose ancestors had fought +the British and Hessians all over the state, as "your peasantry." + +It was an extraordinary privilege to have Mrs. Harper for a guest; +"at home" she moved about in state recalling that of Queen Victoria, +with flags and bunting on the way, and crowds of school children +cheering. She kept up half a dozen establishments, and had a hundred +thousand acres of game preserves in Scotland. She made a speciality +of collecting jewels which had belonged to the romantic and +picturesque queens of history. She appeared at the dance in a +breastplate of diamonds covering the entire front of her bodice, so +that she was literally clothed in light; and with her was her +English friend, Mrs. Percy, who had accompanied her in her triumph +through the courts and camps of Europe, and displayed a famous +lorgnette-chain, containing one specimen of every rare and beautiful +jewel known. Mrs. Percy wore a gown of cloth of gold tissue, covered +with a fortune in Venetian lace, and made a tremendous +sensation--until the rumour spread that it was a rehash of the +costume which Mrs. Harper had worn at the Duchess of London's ball. +The Chicago lady herself never by any chance appeared in the same +costume twice. + +Alice had a grand time at the Todds'; all the men fell in love with +her--one in particular, a young chap named Fayette, quite threw +himself at her feet. He was wealthy, but unfortunately he had made +his money by eloping with a rich girl (who was one of the present +party), and so, from a practical point of view, his attentions were +not desirable for Alice. + +Montague was left with the task of finding these things out for +himself, for his brother devoted himself exclusively to Betty Wyman. +The way these two disappeared between meals was a jest of the whole +company; so that when they were on their way home, Montague felt +called upon to make paternal inquiries. + +"We're as much engaged as we dare to be," Oliver answered him. + +"And when do you expect to marry her?" + +"God knows," said he, "I don't. The old man wouldn't give her a +cent." + +"And you couldn't support her?" + +"I? Good heavens, Allan--do you suppose Betty would consent to be +poor?" + +"Have you asked her?" inquired Montague. + +"I don't want to ask her, thank you! I've not the least desire to +live in a hovel with a girl who's been brought up in a palace." + +"Then what do you expect to do?" + +"Well, Betty has a rich aunt in a lunatic asylum. And then I'm +making money, you know--and the old boy will have to relent in the +end. And we're having a very good time in the meanwhile, you know." + +"You can't be very much in love," said Montague--to which his +brother replied cheerfully that they were as much in love as they +felt like being. + +This was on the train Monday morning. Oliver observed that his +brother relapsed into a brown study, and remarked, "I suppose you're +going back now to bury yourself in your books. You've got to give me +one evening this week for a dinner that's important." + +"Where's that?" asked the other. + +"Oh, it's a long story," said Oliver. "I'll explain it to you some +time. But first we must have an understanding about next week, +also--I suppose you've not overlooked the fact that it's Christmas +week. And you won't be permitted to do any work then." + +"But that's impossible!" exclaimed the other. + +"Nothing else is possible," said Oliver, firmly. "I've made an +engagement for you with the Eldridge Devons up the Hudson--" + +"For the whole week?" + +"The whole week. And it'll be the most important thing you've done. +Mrs. Winnie's going to take us all in her car, and you will make no +end of indispensable acquaintances." + +"Oliver, I don't see how in the world I can do it!" the other +protested in dismay, and went on for several minutes arguing and +explaining what he had to do. But Oliver contented himself with the +assurance that where there's a will, there's a way. One could not +refuse an invitation to spend Christmas with the Eldridge Devons! + +And sure enough, there was a way. Mr. Hasbrook had mentioned to him +that he had had considerable work done upon the case, and would have +the papers sent round. And when Montague reached his office that +morning, he found them there. There was a package of several +thousand pages; and upon examining them, he found to his utter +consternation that they contained a complete bill of complaint, with +all the necessary references and citations, and a preliminary +draught of a brief--in short, a complete and thoroughgoing +preparation of his case. There could not have been less than ten or +fifteen thousand dollars' worth of work in the papers; and Montague +sat quite aghast, turning over the neatly typewritten sheets. He +could indeed afford to attend Christmas house parties, if all his +clients were to treat him like this! + +He felt a little piqued about it--for he had noted some of these +points for himself, and felt a little proud about them. Apparently +he was to be nothing but a figure-head in the case! And he turned to +the phone and called up Mr. Hasbrook, and asked him what he expected +him to do with these papers. There was the whole case here; and was +he simply to take them as they stood? + +No one could have replied more considerately than did Mr. Hasbrook. +The papers were for Montague's benefit--he would do exactly as he +pleased with them. He might use them as they stood, or reject them +altogether, or make them the basis for his own work--anything that +appealed to his judgment would be satisfactory. And so Montague +turned about and wrote an acceptance to the formal invitation which +had come from the Eldridge Devons. + +Later on in the day Oliver called up, and said that he was to go out +to dinner the following evening, and that he would call for him at +eight. "It's with the Jack Evanses," Oliver added. "Do you know +them?" + +Montague had heard the name, as that of the president of a chain of +Western railroads. "Do you mean him?" he asked. + +"Yes," said the other. "They're a rum crowd, but there's money in +it. I'll call early and explain it to you." + +But it was explained sooner than that. During the next afternoon +Montague had a caller--none other than Mrs. Winnie Duval. Some one +had left Mrs. Winnie some more money, it appeared; and there was a +lot of red tape attached to it, which she wanted the new lawyer to +attend to. Also, she said, she hoped that he would charge her a lot +of money by way of encouraging himself. It was a mere bagatelle of a +hundred thousand or so, from some forgotten aunt in the West. + +The business was soon disposed of, and then Mrs. Winnie asked +Montague if he had any place to go to for dinner that evening: which +was the occasion of his mentioning the Jack Evanses. "O dear me!" +said Mrs. Winnie, with a laugh. "Is Ollie going to take you there? +What a funny time you'll have!" + +"Do you know them?" asked the other. + +"Heavens, no!" was the answer. "Nobody knows them; but everybody +knows about them. My husband meets old Evans in business, of course, +and thinks he's a good sort. But the family--dear me!" + +"How much of it is there?" + +"Why, there's the old lady, and two grown daughters and a son. The +son's a fine chap, they say--the old man took him in hand and put +him at work in the shops. But I suppose he thought that daughters +were too much of a proposition for him, and so he sent them to a +fancy school--and, I tell you, they're the most highly polished +human specimens that ever you encountered!" + +It sounded entertaining. "But what does Oliver want with them?" +asked Montague, wonderingly. + +"It isn't that he wants them--they want him. They're cumbers, you +know--perfectly frantic. They've come to town to get into Society." + +"Then you mean that they pay Oliver?" asked Montague. + +"I don't know that," said the other, with a laugh. "You'll have to +ask Ollie. They've a number of the little brothers of the rich +hanging round them, picking up whatever plunder's in sight." + +A look of pain crossed Montague's face; and she saw it, and put out +her hand with a sudden gesture. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I've offended +you!" + +"No," said he, "it's not that exactly--I wouldn't be offended. But +I'm worried about my brother." + +"How do you mean?" + +"He gets a lot of money somehow, and I don't know what it means." + +The woman sat for a few moments in silence, watching him. "Didn't he +have any when he came here?" she asked. + +"Not very much," said he. + +"Because," she went on, "if he didn't, he certainly managed it very +cleverly--we all thought he had." + +Again there was a pause; then suddenly Mrs. Winnie said: "Do you +know, you feel differently about money from the way we do in New +York. Do you realize it?" + +"I'm not sure," said he. "How do you mean?" + +"You look at it in an old-fashioned sort of way--a person has to +earn it--it's a sign of something he's done. It came to me just now, +all in a flash--we don't feel that way about money. We haven't any +of us earned ours; we've just got it. And it never occurs to us to +expect other people to earn it--all we want to know is if they have +it." + +Montague did not tell his companion how very profound a remark he +considered that; he was afraid it would not be delicate to agree +with her. He had heard a story of a negro occupant of the "mourners' +bench," who was voluble in confession of his sins, but took +exception to the fervour with which the congregation said "Amen!" + +"The Evanses used to be a lot funnier than they are now," continued +Mrs. Winnie, after a while. "When they came here last year, they +were really frightful. They had an English chap for social +secretary--a younger son of some broken-down old family. My brother +knew a man who had been one of their intimates in the West, and he +said it was perfectly excruciating--this fellow used to sit at the +table and give orders to the whole crowd: 'Your ice-cream fork +should be at your right hand, Miss Mary.--One never asks for more +soup, Master Robert.--And Miss Anna, always move your soup-spoon +from you--that's better!'" + +"I fancy I shall feel sorry for them," said Montague. + +"Oh, you needn't," said the other, promptly. "They'll get what they +want." + +"Do you think so?" + +"Why, certainly they will. They've got the money; and they've been +abroad--they're learning the game. And they'll keep at it until they +succeed--what else is there for them to do? And then my husband says +that old Evans is making himself a power here in the East; so that +pretty soon they won't dare offend him." + +"Does that count?" asked the man. + +"Well, I guess it counts!" laughed Mrs. Winnie. "It has of late." +And she went on to tell him of the Society leader who had dared to +offend the daughters of a great magnate, and how the magnate had +retaliated by turning the woman's husband out of his high office. +That was often the way in the business world; the struggles were +supposed to be affairs of men, but oftener than not the moving power +was a woman's intrigue. You would see a great upheaval in Wall +Street, and it would be two of the big men quarrelling over a +mistress; you would see some man rush suddenly into a high +office--and that would be because his wife had sold herself to +advance him. + +Mrs. Winnie took him up town in her auto, and he dressed for dinner; +and then came Oliver, and his brother asked, "Are you trying to put +the Evanses into Society?" + +"Who's been telling you about them?" asked the other. + +"Mrs. Winnie," said Montague. + +"What did she tell you?" + +Montague went over her recital, which his brother apparently found +satisfactory. "It's not as serious as that," he said, answering the +earlier question. "I help them a little now and then." + +"What do you do?" + +"Oh, advise them, mostly--tell them where to go and what to wear. +When they first came to New York, they were dressed like paraquets, +you know. And"--here Oliver broke into a laugh--"I refrain from +making jokes about them. And when I hear other people abusing them, +I point out that they are sure to land in the end, and will be +dangerous enemies. I've got one or two wedges started for them." + +"And do they pay you for doing it?" + +"You'd call it paying me, I suppose," replied the other. "The old +man carries a few shares of stock for me now and then." + +"Carries a few shares?" echoed Montague, and Oliver explained the +procedure. This was one of the customs which had grown up in a +community where people did not have to earn their money. The +recipient of the favour put up nothing and took no risks; but the +other person was supposed to buy some stock for him, and then, when +the stock went up, he would send a cheque for the "profits." Many a +man who would have resented a direct offer of money, would assent +pleasantly when a powerful friend offered to "carry a hundred shares +for him." This was the way one offered a tip in the big world; it +was useful in the case of newspaper men, whose good opinion of a +stock was desired, or of politicians and legislators, whose votes +might help its fortunes. When one expected to get into Society, one +must be prepared to strew such tips about him. + +"Of course," added Oliver, "what the family would really like me to +do is to get the Robbie Wallings to take them up. I suppose I could +get round half a million of them if I could manage that." + +To all of which Montague replied, "I see." + +A great light had dawned upon him. So that was the way it was +managed! That was why one paid thirty thousand a year for one's +apartments, and thirty thousand more for a girl's clothes! No wonder +it was better to spend Christmas week at the Eldridge Devons than to +labour at one's law books! + +"One more question," Montague went on. "Why are you introducing me +to them?" + +"Well," his brother answered, "it won't hurt you; you'll find it +amusing. You see, they'd heard I had a brother; and they asked me to +bring you. I couldn't keep you hidden for ever, could I?" + +All this was while they were driving up town. The Evanses' place was +on Riverside Drive; and when Montague got out of the cab and saw it +looming up in the semi-darkness, he emitted an exclamation of +wonder. It was as big as a jail! + +"Oh, yes, they've got room enough," said Oliver, with a laugh. "I +put this deal through for them--it's the old Lamson palace, you +know." + +They had the room; and likewise they had all the trappings of +snobbery--Montague took that fact in at a glance. There were +knee-breeches and scarlet facings and gold braid--marble balconies +and fireplaces and fountains--French masters and real Flemish +tapestry. The staircase of their palace was a winding one, and there +was a white velvet carpet which had been specially woven for it, and +had to be changed frequently; at the top of it was a white cashmere +rug which had a pedigree of six centuries--and so on. + +And then came the family: this tall, raw-boned, gigantic man, with +weather-tanned face and straggling grey moustache--this was Jack +Evans; and Mrs. Evans, short and pudgy, but with a kindly face, and +not too many diamonds; and the Misses Evans,--stately and slender +and perfectly arrayed. "Why, they're all right!" was the thought +that came to Montague. + +They were all right until they opened their mouths. When they spoke, +you discovered that Evans was a miner, and that his wife had been +cook on a ranch; also that Anne and Mary had harsh voices, and that +they never by any chance said or did anything natural. + +They were escorted into the stately dining-room--Henri II., with a +historic mantel taken from the palace of Fontainebleau, and four +great allegorical paintings of Morning, Evening, Noon, and Midnight +upon the walls. There were no other guests--the table, set for six, +seemed like a toy in the vast apartment. And in a sudden fash--with +a start of almost terror--Montague realized what it must mean not to +be in Society. To have all this splendour, and nobody to share it! +To have Henri II. dining-rooms and Louis XVI. parlours and Louis +XIV. libraries--and see them all empty! To have no one to drive +with or talk with, no one to visit or play cards with--to go to the +theatre and the opera and have no ono to speak to! Worse than that, +to be stared at and smiled at! To live in this huge palace, and know +that all the horde of servants, underneath their cringing deference, +were sneering at you! To face that--to live in the presence of it +day after day! And then, outside of your home, the ever widening +circles of ridicule and contempt--Society, with all its hangers-on +and parasites, its imitators and admirers! + +And some one had defied all that--some one had taken up the sword +and gone forth to beat down that opposition! Montague looked at this +little family of four, and wondered which of them was the driving +force in this most desperate emprise! + +He arrived at it by a process of elimination. It could not be Evans +himself. One saw that the old man was quite hopeless socially; +nothing could change his big hairy hands or his lean scrawny neck, +or his irresistible impulse to slide down in his chair and cross his +long legs in front of him. The face and the talk of Jack Evans +brought irresistibly to mind the mountain trail and the prospector's +pack-mule, the smoke of camp-fires and the odour of bacon and beans. +Seventeen long years the man had tramped in deserts and mountain +wildernesses, and Nature had graven her impress deep into his body +and soul. + +He was very shy at this dinner; but Montague came to know him well +in the course of time. And after he had come to realize that +Montague was not one of the grafters, he opened up his heart. Evans +had held on to his mine when he had found it, and he had downed the +rivals who had tried to take it away from him, and he had bought the +railroads who had tried to crush him--and now he had come to Wall +Street to fight the men who had tried to ruin his railroads. But +through it all, he had kept the heart of a woman, and the sight of +real distress was unbearable to him. He was the sort of man to keep +a roll of ten-thousand-dollar bills in his pistol pocket, and to +give one away if he thought he could do it without offence. And, on +the other hand, men told how once when he had seen a porter insult a +woman passenger on his line, he jumped up and pulled the bell-cord, +and had the man put out on the roadside at midnight, thirty miles +from the nearest town! + +No, it was the women folks, he said to Montague, with his grim +laugh. It didn't trouble him at all to be called a "noovoo rich"; +and when he felt like dancing a shakedown, he could take a run out +to God's country. But the women folks had got the bee in their +bonnet. The old man added sadly that one of the disadvantages of +striking it rich was that it left the women folks with nothing to +do. + +Nor was it Mrs. Evans, either. "Sarey," as she was called by the +head of the house, sat next to Montague at dinner; and he discovered +that with the very least encouragement, the good lady was willing to +become homelike and comfortable. Montague gave the occasion, because +he was a stranger, and volunteered the opinion that New York was a +shamelessly extravagant place, and hard to get along in; and Mrs. +Evans took up the subject and revealed herself as a good-natured and +kindly personage, who had wistful yearnings for mush and molasses, +and flap-jacks, and bread fried in bacon-grease, and similar +sensible things, while her chef was compelling her to eat pate de +foie gras in aspic, and milk-fed guinea-chicks, and biscuits glacees +Tortoni. Of course she did not say that at dinner,--she made a game +effort to play her part,--with the result of at least one diverting +experience for Montague. + +Mrs. Evans was telling him what a dreadful place she considered the +city for young men; and how she feared to bring her boy here. "The +men here have no morals at all," said she, and added earnestly, +"I've come to the conclusion that Eastern men are naturally +amphibious!" + +Then, as Montague knitted his brows and looked perplexed, she added, +"Don't you think so?" And he replied, with as little delay as +possible, that he had never really thought of it before. + +It was not until a couple of hours later that the light dawned upon +him, in the course of a conversation with Miss Anne. "We met Lady +Stonebridge at luncheon to-day," said that young person. "Do you +know her?" + +"No," said Montague, who had never heard of her. + +"I think those aristocratic English women use the most abominable +slang," continued Anne. "Have you noticed it?" + +"Yes, I have," he said. + +"And so utterly cynical! Do you know, Lady Stonebridge quite shocked +mother--she told her she didn't believe in marriage at all, and that +she thought all men were naturally polygamous!" + +Later on, Montague came to know "Mrs. Sarey"; and one afternoon, +sitting in her Petit Trianon drawing-room, he asked her abruptly, +"Why in the world do you want to get into Society?" And the poor +lady caught her breath, and tried to be indignant; and then, seeing +that he was in earnest, and that she was cornered, broke down and +confessed. "It isn't me," she said, "it's the gals." (For along with +the surrender went a reversion to natural speech.) "It's Mary, and +more particularly Anne." + +They talked it over confidentially--which was a great relief to Mrs. +Sarey's soul, for she was cruelly lonely. So far as she was +concerned, it was not because she wanted Society, but because +Society didn't want her. She flashed up in sudden anger, and +clenched her fists, declaring that Jack Evans was as good a man as +walked the streets of New York--and they would acknowledge it before +he got through with them, too! After that she intended to settle +down at home and be comfortable, and mend her husband's socks. + +She went on to tell him what a hard road was the path of glory. +There were hundreds of people ready to know them--but oh, such a +riffraff! They might fill up their home with the hangers-on and the +yellow, but no, they could wait. They had learned a lot since they +set out. One very aristocratic lady had invited them to dinner, and +their hopes had been high--but alas, while they were sitting by the +fireplace, some one admired a thirty-thousand-dollar emerald ring +which Mrs. Evans had on her finger, and she had taken it off and +passed it about among the company, and somewhere it had vanished +completely! And another person had invited Mary to a bridge-party, +and though she had played hardly at all, her hostess had quietly +informed her that she had lost a thousand dollars. And the great +Lady Stonebridge had actually sent for her and told her that she +could introduce her in some of the very best circles, if only she +was willing to lose always! Mrs. Evans had possessed a very homely +Irish name before she was married; and Lady Stonebridge had got five +thousand dollars from her to use some great influence she possessed +in the Royal College of Heralds, and prove that she was descended +directly from the noble old family of Magennis, who had been the +lords of Iveagh, way back in the fourteenth century. And now Oliver +had told them that this imposing charter would not help them in the +least! + +In the process of elimination, there were the Misses Evans left. +Montague's friends made many jests when they heard that he had met +them--asking him if he meant to settle down. Major Venable went so +far as to assure him that there was not the least doubt that either +of the girls would take him in a second. Montague laughed, and +answered that Mary was not so bad--she had a sweet face and was +good-natured; but also, she was two years younger than Anne; and he +could not get over the thought that two more years might make +another Anne of her. + +For it was Anne who was the driving force of the family! Anne who +had planned the great campaign, and selected the Lamson palace, and +pried the family loose from the primeval rocks of Nevada! She was +cold as an iceberg, tireless, pitiless to others as to herself; for +seventeen years her father had wandered and dug among the mountains; +and for seventeen years, if need be, she would dig beneath the walls +of the fortress of Society! + +After Montague had had his heart to heart talk with the mother, Miss +Anne Evans became very haughty toward him; whereby he knew that the +old lady had told about it, and that the daughter resented his +presumption. But to Oliver she laid bare her soul, and Oliver would +come and tell his brother about it: how she plotted and planned and +studied, and brought new schemes to him every week. She had some of +the real people bought over to secret sympathy with her; if there +was some especial favour which she asked for, she would set to work +with the good-natured old man, and the person would have some +important money service done him. She had the people of Society all +marked--she was learning all their weaknesses, and the underground +passages of their lives, and working patiently to find the key to +her problem--some one family which was socially impregnable, but +whose finances were in such a shape that they would receive the +proposition to take up the Evanses, and definitely put them in. +Montague used to look back upon all this with wonder and +amusement--from those days in the not far distant future, when the +papers had cable descriptions of the gowns of the Duchess of Arden, +nee Evans, who was the bright particular star of the London social +season! + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + + + + +Montague had written a reluctant letter to Major Thorne, telling him +that he had been unable to interest anyone in his proposition, and +that he was not in position to undertake it himself. Then, according +to his brother's injunction, he left his money in the bank, and +waited. There would be "something doing" soon, said Oliver. + +And as they drove home from the Evanses', Oliver served notice upon +him that this event might be expected any day. He was very +mysterious about it, and would answer none of his brother's +questions--except to say that it had nothing to do with the people +they had just visited. + +"I suppose," Montague remarked, "you have not failed to realize that +Evans might play you false." + +And the other laughed, echoing the words, "Might do it!" Then he +went on to tell the tale of the great railroad builder of the West, +whose daughter had been married, with elaborate festivities; and +some of the young men present, thinking to find him in a sentimental +mood, had asked him for his views about the market. He advised them +to buy the stock of his road; and they formed a pool and bought, and +as fast as they bought, he sold--until the little venture cost the +boys a total of seven million and a half! + +"No, no," Oliver added. "I have never put up a dollar for anything +of Evans's, and I never shall.--They are simply a side issue, +anyway," he added carelessly. + +A couple of mornings later, while Montague was at breakfast, his +brother called him up and said that he was coming round, and would +go down town with him. Montague knew at once that that meant +something serious, for he had never before known his brother to be +awake so early. + +They took a cab; and then Oliver explained. The moment had +arrived--the time to take the plunge, and come up with a fortune. He +could not tell much about it, for it was a matter upon which he +stood pledged to absolute secrecy. There were but four people in the +country who knew about it. It was the chance of a lifetime--and in +four or five hours it would be gone. Three times before it had come +to Oliver, and each time he had multiplied his capital several +times; that he had not made millions was simply because he did not +have enough money. His brother must take his word for this and +simply put himself into his hands. + +"What is it you want me to do?" asked Montague, gravely. + +"I want you to take every dollar you have, or that you can lay your +hands on this morning, and turn it over to me to buy stocks with." + +"To buy on margin, you mean?" + +"Of course I mean that," said Oliver. Then, as he saw his brother +frown, he added, "Understand me, I have absolutely certain +information as to how a certain stock will behave to-day." + +"The best judges of a stock often make mistakes in such matters," +said Montague. + +"It is not a question of any person's judgment," was the reply. "It +is a question of knowledge. The stock is to be MADE to behave so." + +"But how can you know that the person who intends to make it behave +may not be lying to you?" + +"My information does not come from that person, but from a person +who has no such interest--who, on the contrary, is in on the deal +with me, and gains only as I gain." + +"Then, in other words," said Montague, "your information is stolen?" + +"Everything in Wall Street is stolen," was Oliver's concise reply. + +There was a long silence, while the cab rolled swiftly on its way. +"Well?" Oliver asked at last. + +"I can imagine," said Montague, "how a man might intend to move a +certain stock, and think that he had the power, and yet find that he +was mistaken. There are so many forces, so many chances to be +considered--it seems to me you must be taking a risk." + +Oliver laughed. "You talk like a child," was his reply. "Suppose +that I were in absolute control of a corporation, and that I chose +to run it for purposes of market manipulation, don't you think I +might come pretty near knowing what its stock was going to do?" + +"Yes," said Montague, slowly, "if such a thing as that were +conceivable." + +"If it were conceivable!" laughed his brother. "And now suppose that +I had a confidential man--a secretary, we'll say--and I paid him +twenty thousand a year, and he saw chances to make a hundred +thousand in an hour--don't you think he might conceivably try it?" + +"Yes," said Montague, "he might. But where do you come in?" + +"Well, if the man were going to do anything worth while, he'd need +capital, would he not? And he'd hardly dare to look for any money in +the Street, where a thousand eyes would be watching him. What more +natural than to look out for some person who is in Society and has +the ear of private parties with plenty of cash?" + +And Montague sat in deep thought. "I see," he said slowly; "I see!" +Then, fixing his eyes upon Oliver, he exclaimed, earnestly, "One +thing more!" + +"Don't ask me any more," protested the other. "I told you I was +pledged--" + +"You must tell me this," said Montague. "Does Bobbie Walling know +about it?" + +"He does not," was the reply. But Montague had known his brother +long and intimately, and he could read things in his eyes. He knew +that that was a lie. He had solved the mystery at last! + +Montague knew that he had come to a parting of the ways. He did not +like this kind of thing--he had not come to New York to be a +stock-gambler. But what a difficult thing it would be to say so; and +how unfair it was to be confronted with such an issue, and compelled +to decide in a few minutes in a cab! + +He had put himself in his brother's hands, and now he was under +obligations to him, which he could not pay off. Oliver had paid all +his expenses; he was doing everything for him. He had made all his +difficulties his own, and all in frankness and perfect trust--upon +the assumption that his brother would play the game with him. And +now, at the critical moment, he was to face about, and say; "I do +not like the game. I do not approve of your life!" Such a painful +thing it is to have a higher moral code than one's friends! + +If he refused, he saw that he would have to face a complete break; +he could not go on living in the world to which he had been +introduced. Fifty thousand had seemed an enormous fee, yet even a +week or two had sufficed for it to come to seem inadequate. He would +have to have many such fees, if they were to go on living at their +present rate; and if Alice were to have a social career, and +entertain her friends. And to ask Alice to give up now, and retire, +would be even harder than to face his brother here in the cab. + +Then came the temptation. Life was a battle, and this was the way it +was being fought. If he rejected the opportunity, others would seize +it; in fact, by refusing, he would be handing it to them. This great +man, whoever he might be, who was manipulating stocks for his own +convenience--could anyone in his senses reject a chance to wrench +from him some part of his spoils? Montague saw the impulse of +refusal dying away within him. + +"Well?" asked his brother, finally. + +"Oliver," said the other, "don't you think that I ought to know more +about it, so that I can judge?" + +"You could not judge, even if I told you all," said Oliver. "It +would take you a long time to become familiar with the +circumstances, as I am. You must take my word; I know it is certain +and safe." + +Then suddenly he unbuttoned his coat, and took out some papers, and +handed his brother a telegram. It was dated Chicago, and read, +"Guest is expected immediately.--HENRY." "That means, 'Buy +Transcontinental this morning,'" said Oliver. + +"I see," said the other. "Then the man is in Chicago?" + +"No," was the reply. "That is his wife. He wires to her." + +"--How much money have you?" asked Oliver, after a pause. + +"I've most of the fifty thousand," the other answered, "and about +thirty thousand we brought with us." + +"How much can you put your hands on?" + +"Why, I could get all of it; but part of the money is mother's, and +I would not touch that." + +The younger man was about to remonstrate, but Montague stopped him, +"I will put up the fifty thousand I have earned," he said. "I dare +not risk any more." + +Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said. "You may +never have another such chance in your life." + +He dropped the subject, or at least he probably tried to. Within a +few minutes, however, he was back at it again, with the result that +by the time they reached the banking-district, Montague had agreed +to draw sixty thousand. + +They stopped at his bank. "It isn't open yet,--" said Oliver, "but +the paying teller will oblige you. Tell him you want it before the +Exchange opens." + +Montague went in and got his money, in six new, crisp, +ten-thousand-dollar bills. He buttoned them up in his inmost pocket, +wondering a little, incidentally, at the magnificence of the place, +and at the swift routine manner in which the clerk took in and paid +out such sums as this. Then they drove to Oliver's bank, and he drew +a hundred and twenty thousand; and then he paid off the cab, and +they strolled down Broadway into Wall Street. It lacked a quarter of +an hour of the time of the opening of the Exchange; and a stream of +prosperous-looking men were pouring in from all the cars and ferries +to their offices. + +"Where are your brokers?" Montague inquired. + +"I don't have any brokers--at least not for a matter such as this," +said Oliver. And he stopped in front of one of the big buildings. +"In there," he said, "are the offices of Hammond and +Streeter--second floor to your left. Go there and ask for a member +of the firm, and introduce yourself under an assumed name--" + +"What!" gasped Montague. + +"Of course, man--you would not dream of giving your own name! What +difference will that make?" + +"I never thought of doing such a thing," said the other. + +"Well, think of it now." + +But Montague shook his head. "I would not do that," he said. + +Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "All right," he said; "tell him you +don't care to give your name. They're a little shady--they'll take +your money." + +"Suppose they won't?" asked the other. + +"Then wait outside for me, and I'll take you somewhere else." + +"What shall I buy?" + +"Ten thousand shares of Transcontinental Common at the opening +price; and tell them to buy on the scale up, and to raise the stop; +also to take your orders to sell over the 'phone. Then wait there +until I come for you." + +Montague set his teeth together and obeyed orders. Inside the door +marked Hammond and Streeter a pleasant-faced young man advanced to +meet him, and led him to a grey-haired and affable gentleman, Mr. +Streeter. And Montague introduced himself as a stranger in town, +from the South, and wishing to buy some stock. Mr. Streeter led him +into an inner office and seated himself at a desk and drew some +papers in front of him. "Your name, please?" he asked. + +"I don't care to give my name," replied the other. And Mr. Streeter +put down his pen. + +"Not give your name?" he said. + +"No," said Montague quietly. + +"Why?"--said Mr. Streeter--"I don't understand--" + +"I am a stranger in town," said Montague, "and not accustomed to +dealing in stocks. I should prefer to remain unknown." + +The man eyed him sharply. "Where do you come from?" he asked. + +"From Mississippi," was the reply. + +"And have you a residence in New York?" + +"At a hotel," said Montague. + +"You have to give some name," said the other. + +"Any will do," said Montague. "John Smith, if you like." + +"We never do anything like this," said the broker. + +"We require that our customers be introduced. There are rules of the +Exchange--there are rules--" + +"I am sorry," said Montague; "this would be a cash transaction." + +"How many shares do you want to buy?" + +"Ten thousand," was the reply. + +Mr. Streeter became more serious. "That is a large order," he said. + +Montague said nothing. + +"What do you wish to buy?" was the next question. + +"Transcontinental Common," he replied. + +"Well," said the other, after another pause-,-"we will try to +accommodate you. But you will have to consider it--er--" + +"Strictly confidential," said Montague. + +So Mr. Streeter made out the papers, and Montague, looking them +over, discovered that they called for one hundred thousand dollars. + + + +"That is a mistake," he said. "I have only sixty thousand." + +"Oh," said the other, "we shall certainly have to charge you a ten +per cent, margin." + +Montague was not prepared for this contingency; but he did some +mental arithmetic. "What is the present price of the stock?" he +asked. + +"Fifty-nine and five-eighths," was the reply. + +"Then sixty thousand dollars is more than ten per cent, of the +market price," said Montague. + +"Yes," said Mr. Streeter. "But in dealing with a stranger we shall +certainly have to put a 'stop loss' order at four points above, and +that would leave you only two points of safety--surely not enough." + +"I see," said Montague--and he had a sudden appalling realization of +the wild game which his brother had planned for him. + +"Whereas," Mr. Streeter continued, persuasively, "if you put up ten +per cent., you will have six points." + +"Very well," said the other promptly. "Then please buy me six +thousand shares." + +So they closed the deal, and the papers were signed, and Mr. +Streeter took the six new, crisp ten-thousand-dollar bills. + +Then he escorted him to the outer office, remarking pleasantly on +the way, "I hope you're well advised. We're inclined to be bearish +upon Transcontinental ourselves--the situation looks rather +squally." + +These words were not worth the breath it took to say them; but +Montague was not aware of this, and felt a painful start within. But +he answered, carelessly, that one must take his chance, and sat down +in one of the customer's chairs. Hammond and Streeter's was like a +little lecture-hall, with rows of seats and a big blackboard in +front, with the initials of the most important stocks in columns, +and yesterday's closing prices above, on little green cards. At one +side was a ticker, with two attendants awaiting the opening click. + +In the seats were twenty or thirty men, old and young; most of them +regular habitues, victims of the fever of the Street. Montague +watched them, catching snatches of their whispered conversation, +with its intricate and disagreeable slang. He felt intensely +humiliated and uncomfortable--for he had got the fever of the Street +into his own veins, and he could not conquer it. There were nasty +shivers running up and down his spine, and his hands were cold. + +He stared at the little figures, fascinated; they stood for some +vast and tremendous force outside, which could not be controlled or +even comprehended,--some merciless, annihilating force, like the +lightning or the tornado. And he had put himself at the mercy of it; +it might do its will with him! "Tr. C. 59 5/8" read the little +pasteboard; and he had only six points of safety. If at any time in +the day that figure should be changed to read "53 5/8"--then every +dollar of Montague's sixty thousand would be gone for ever! The +great fee that he had worked so hard for and rejoiced so greatly +over--that would be all gone, and a slice out of his inheritance +besides! + +A boy put into his hand a little four-page paper--one of the +countless news-sheets which different houses and interests +distributed free for advertising or other purposes; and a heading +"Transcontinental" caught his eye, among the paragraphs in the Day's +Events. He read: "The directors' meeting of the Transcontinental +R.R. will be held at noon. It is confidently predicted that the +quarterly dividend will be passed, as it has been for the last three +quarters. There is great dissatisfaction among the stock-holders. +The stock has been decidedly weak, with no apparent inside support; +it fell off three points just before closing yesterday, upon the +news of further proceedings by Western state officials, and widely +credited rumours of dissensions among the directors, with renewed +opposition to the control of the Hopkins interests." + +Ten o'clock came and went, and the ticker began its long journey. +There was intense activity in Transcontinental, many thousands of +shares changing hands, and the price swaying back and forth. When +Oliver came in, in half an hour, it stood at 59 3/8. + +"That's all right," said he. "Our time will not come till +afternoon." + +"But suppose we are wiped out before afternoon?" said the other. + +"That is impossible," answered Oliver. "There will be big buying all +the morning." + +They sat for a while, nervous and restless. Then, by way of breaking +the monotony, Oliver suggested that his brother might like to see +the "Street." They went around the corner to Broad Street. Here at +the head stood the Sub-treasury building, with all the gold of the +government inside, and a Gatling gun in the tower. The public did +not know it was there, but the financial men knew it, and it seemed +as if they had huddled all their offices and banks and safe-deposit +vaults under its shelter. Here, far underground, were hidden the two +hundred millions of securities of the Oil Trust--in a huge +six-hundred-ton steel vault, with a door so delicately poised that a +finger could swing it on its hinges. And opposite to this was the +white Grecian building of the Stock Exchange. Down the street were +throngs of men within a roped arena, pushing, shouting, jostling; +this was "the curb," where one could buy or sell small blocks of +stock, and all the wild-cat mining and oil stocks which were not +listed by the Exchange. Rain or shine, these men were always here; +and in the windows of the neighbouring buildings stood others +shouting quotations to them through megaphones, or signalling in +deaf and dumb language. Some of these brokers wore coloured hats, so +that they could be distinguished; some had offices far off, where +men sat all day with strong glasses trained upon them. Everywhere +was the atmosphere of speculation--the restless, feverish eyes; the +quick, nervous gestures; the haggard, care-worn faces. For in this +game every man was pitted against every other man; and the dice were +loaded so that nine out of every ten were doomed in advance to ruin +and defeat. They procured passes to the visitors' gallery of the +Exchange. From here one looked down into a room one or two hundred +feet square, its floor covered with a snowstorm of torn pieces of +paper, and its air a babel of shouts and cries. Here were gathered +perhaps two thousand men and boys; some were lounging and talking, +but most were crowded about the various trading-posts, pushing, +climbing over each other, leaping up, waving their hands and calling +aloud. A "seat" in this exchange was worth about ninety-five +thousand dollars, and so no one of these men was poor; but yet they +came, day after day, to play their parts in this sordid arena, +"seeking in sorrow for each other's joy": inventing a thousand petty +tricks to outwit and deceive each other; rejoicing in a thousand +petty triumphs; and spending their lives, like the waves upon the +shore, a very symbol of human futility. Now and then a sudden +impulse would seize them, and they would become like howling demons, +surging about one spot, shrieking, gasping, clawing each other's +clothing to pieces; and the spectator shuddered, seeing them as the +victims of some strange and dreadful enchantment, which bound them +to struggle and torment each other until they were worn out and +grey. + +But one felt these things only dimly, when he had put all his +fortune into Transcontinental Common. For then he had sold his own +soul to the enchanter, and the spell was upon him, and he hoped and +feared and agonized with the struggling throng. Montague had no need +to ask which was his "post"; for a mob of a hundred men were packed +about it, with little whirls and eddies here and there on the +outside. "Something doing to-day all right," said a man in his ear. + +It was interesting to watch; but there was one difficulty--there +were no quotations provided for the spectators. So the sight of this +activity merely set them on edge with anxiety--something must be +happening to their stock! Even Oliver was visibly nervous--after +all, in the surest cases, the game was a dangerous one; there might +be a big failure, or an assassination, or an earthquake! They rushed +out and made for the nearest broker's office, where a glance at the +board showed them Transcontinental at 60. They drew a long breath, +and sat down again to wait. + +That was about half-past eleven. At a quarter to twelve the stock +went up an eighth, and then a quarter, and then another eighth. The +two gripped their hands in excitement. Had the time come? + +Apparently it had. A minute later the stock leaped to 61, on large +buying. Then it went three-eighths more. A buzz of excitement ran +through the office, and the old-timers sat up in their seats. The +stock went another quarter. + +Montague heard a man behind him say to his neighbour, "What does it +mean?" + +"God knows," was the answer; but Oliver whispered in his brother's +ear, "I know what it means. The insiders are buying." + +Somebody was buying, and buying furiously. The ticker seemed to set +all other business aside and give its attention to the trading in +Transcontinental. It was like a base-ball game, when one side begins +to pile up runs, and the man in the coacher's box chants exultantly, +and the dullest spectator is stirred--since no man can be +indifferent to success. And as the stock went higher and higher, a +little wave of excitement mounted with it, a murmur running through +the room, and a thrill passing from person to person. Some watched, +wondering if it would last, and if they had not better take on a +little; then another point would be scored, and they would wish they +had done it, and hesitate whether to do it now. But to others, like +the Montagues, who "had some," it was victory, glorious and +thrilling; their pulses leaped faster with every new change of the +figures; and between times they reckoned up their gains, and hung +between hope and dread for the new gains which were on the way, but +not yet in sight. + +There was little lull, and the boys who tended the board had a +chance to rest. The stock was above 66; at which price, owing to the +device of "pyramiding." Montague was on "velvet," to use the +picturesque phrase of the Street. His earnings amounted to sixty +thousand dollars, and even if the stock were to fall and he were to +be sold out, he would lose nothing. + +He wished to sell and realize his profits; but his brother gripped +him fast by the arm. "No! no!" he said. "It hasn't really come yet!" + +Some went out to lunch--to a restaurant where they could have a +telephone on their table, so as to keep in touch with events. But +the Montagues had no care about eating; they sat picturing the +directors in session, and speculating upon a score of various +eventualities. Things might yet go wrong, and all their profits +would vanish like early snow-flakes--and all their capital with +them. Oliver shook like a leaf, but he would not stir. "Stay game!" +he whispered. + +He took out his watch, and glanced at it. It was after two o'clock. +"It may go over till to-morrow!" he muttered.--But then suddenly +came the storm. + +The ticker recorded a rise in the price of Transcontinental of a +point and a half, upon a purchase of five thousand shares; and then +half a point for two thousand more. After that it never stopped. It +went a point at a time; it went ten points in about fifteen minutes. +And babel broke loose in the office, and in several thousand other +offices in the street, and spread to others all over the world. +Montague had got up, and was moving here and there, because the +tension was unendurable; and at the door of an inner office he heard +some one at the telephone exclaiming, "For the love of God, can't +you find out what's the matter?"--A moment later a man rushed in, +breathless and wild-eyed, and his voice rang through the office, +"The directors have declared a quarterly dividend of three per cent, +and an extra dividend of two!" + +And Oliver caught his brother by the arm and started for the door +with him. "Get to your broker's," he said. "And if the stock has +stopped moving, sell; and sell in any case before the close." And +then he dashed away to his own headquarters. + +At about half after three o'clock, Oliver came into Hammond and +Streeter's, breathless, and with his hair and clothing dishevelled. +He was half beside himself with exultation; and Montague was +scarcely less wrought up--in fact he felt quite limp after the +strain he had been through. + +"What price did you get?" his brother inquired; and he answered, "An +average of 78 3/8." There had been another sharp rise at the end, +and he had sold all his stock without checking the advance. + +"I got five-eighths," said Oliver. "O ye gods!" + +There were some unhappy "shorts" in the office; Mr. Streeter was one +of them. It was bitterness and gall to them to see the radiant faces +of the two lucky ones; but the two did not even see this. They went +out, half dancing, and had a drink or two to steady their nerves. + +They would not actually get thoir money until the morrow; but +Montague figured a profit of a trifle under a quarter of a million +for himself. Of this about twenty thousand would go to make up the +share of his unknown informant; the balance he considered would be +an ample reward for his six hours' work that day. + +His brother had won more than twice as much. But as they drove up +home, talking over it in awe-stricken whispers, and pledging +themselves to absolute secrecy, Oliver suddenly clenched his fist +and struck his knee. + +"By God!" ho exclaimed. "If I hadn't been a fool and tried to save +an extra margin, I could have had a million!" + + + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + + + + +After such a victory one felt in a mood for Christmas +festivities,--for music and dancing and all beautiful and happy +things. + +Such a thing, for instance, as Mrs. Winnie, when she came to meet +him; clad in her best automobile coat, a thing of purest snowy +ermine, so truly gorgeous that wherever she went, people turned and +stared and caught their breath. Mrs. Winnie was a picture of joyful +health, with a glow in her rich complexion, and a sparkle in her +black eyes. + +She sat in her big touring-car--in which one could afford to wear +ermine. It was a little private self-moving hotel; in the limousine +were seats for six persons, with revolving easy chairs, and berths +for sleeping, and a writing-desk and a wash-stand, and a beautiful +electric chandelier to light it at night. Its trimmings were of +South American mahogany, and its upholstering of Spanish and Morocco +leathers; it had a telephone with which one spoke to the driver; an +ice-box and a lunch hamper--in fact, one might have spent an hour +discovering new gimeracks in this magic automobile. It had been made +especially for Mrs. Winnie a couple of years ago, and the newspapers +said it had cost thirty thousand dollars; it had then been quite a +novelty, but now "everybody" was getting them. In this car one might +sit at ease, and laugh and chat, and travel at the rate of an +express train; and with never a jar or a quiver, nor the faintest +sound of any sort. + +The streets of the city sped by them as if by enchantment. They went +through the park, and out Riverside Drive, and up the river-road +which runs out of Broadway all the way to Albany. It was a +macadamized avenue, lined with beautiful and stately homes. As one +went farther yet, he came to the great country estates-a whole +district of hundreds of square miles given up to them. There were +forests and lakes and streams; there were gardens and greenhouses +filled with rare plants and flowers, and parks with deer browsing, +and peacocks and lyre-birds strutting about. The road wound in and +out among hills, the surfaces of which would be one unbroken lawn; +and upon the highest points stood palaces of every conceivable style +and shape. + +One might find these great domains anywhere around the city, at a +distance of from thirty to sixty miles; there were two or three +hundred of them, and incredible were the sums of money which had +been spent upon their decoration. One saw an artificial lake of ten +thousand acres, made upon land which had cost several hundred +dollars an acre; one saw gardens with ten thousand rose-bushes, and +a quarter of a million dollars' worth of lilies from Japan; there +was one estate in which had been planted a million dollars' worth of +rare trees, imported from all over the world. Some rich men, who had +nothing else to amuse them, would make their estates over and over +again, changing the view about their homes as one changes the +scenery in a play. Over in New Jersey the Hegans were building a +castle upon a mountain-top, and had built a special railroad simply +to carry the materials. Here, also, was the estate of the tobacco +king, upon which three million dollars had been spent before the +plans of the mansion had even been drawn; there were artificial +lakes and streams, and fantastic bridges and statuary, and scores of +little model plantations and estates, according to the whim of the +owner. And here in the Pocantico Hills was the estate of the oil +king, about four square miles, with thirty miles of model driveways; +many car-loads of rare plants had been imported for its gardens, and +it took six hundred men to keep it in order. There was a golf +course, a little miniature Alps, upon which the richest man in the +world pursued his lost health, with armed guards and detectives +patrolling the dace all day, and a tower with a search-light, +whereby at night he could flood the grounds with light by pressing a +button. + +In one of these places lived the heir of the great house of Devon. +His cousin dwelt in Europe, saying that America was not a fit place +for a gentleman to live in. Each of them owned a hundred million +dollars' worth of New York real estate, and drew their tribute of +rents from the toil of the swarming millions of the city. And +always, according to the policy of the family, they bought new real +estate. They were directors of the great railroads tributary to the +city, and in touch with the political machines, and in every other +way in position to know what was under way: if a new subway were +built to set the swarming millions free, the millions would find the +land all taken up, and apartment-houses newly built for them--and +the Devons were the owners. They had a score of the city's greatest +hotels--and also slum tenements, and brothels and dives in the +Tenderloin. They did not even have to know what they owned; they did +not have to know anything, or do anything--they lived in their +palaces, at home or abroad, and in their offices in the city the +great rent-gathering machine ground on. + +Eldridge Devon's occupation was playing with his country-place and +his automobiles. He had recently sold all his horses, and turned his +stables into a garage equipped with a score or so of cars; he was +always getting a new one, and discussing its merits. As to Hudson +Cliff, the estate, he had conceived the brilliant idea of +establishing a gentleman's country-place which should be +self-supporting--that is to say, which should furnish the luxuries +and necessities of its owner's table for no more than it would have +cost to buy them. Considering the prices usually paid, this was no +astonishing feat, but Devon took a child's delight in it; he showed +Montague his greenhouses, filled with rare flowers and fruits, and +his model dairy, with marble stables and nickel plumbing, and +attendants in white uniforms and rubber gloves. He was a short and +very stout gentleman with red cheeks, and his conversation was not +brilliant. + +To Hudson Cliff came many of Montague's earlier acquaintances, and +others whom he had not met before. They amused themselves in all the +ways with which-he had become familiar at house-parties; likewise on +Christmas Eve there were festivities for the children, and on +Christmas night a costume ball, very beautiful and stately. Many +came from New York to attend this, and others from the +neighbourhood; and in returning calls, Montague saw others of these +hill-top mansions. + +Also, and most important of all, they played bridge--as they had +played at every function which he had attended so far. Here Mrs. +Winnie, who had rather taken him up, and threatened to supplant +Oliver as his social guide and chaperon, insisted that no more +excuses would be accepted; and so for two mornings he sat with her +in one of the sun-parlours, and diligently put his mind upon the +game. As he proved an apt pupil, he was then advised that he might +take a trial plunge. + +And so Montague came into touch with a new social phenomenon; +perhaps on the whole the most significant and soul-disturbing +phenomenon which Society had exhibited to him. He had just had the +experience of getting a great deal of money without earning it, and +was fresh from the disagreeable memories of it--the trembling and +suspense, the burning lustful greed, the terrible nerve-devouring +excitement. He had hoped that he would not soon have to go through +such an experience again-and here was the prospect of an endless +dalliance with it! + +For that was the meaning of bridge; it was a penalty which people +were paying for getting their money without earning it. The disease +got into their blood, and they could no longer live without the +excitement of gain and the hope of gain. So after their labours were +over, when they were supposed to be resting and enjoying +themselves, they would get together and torment themselves with an +imitation struggle, mimicking the grim and dreadful gamble of +business. Down in the Street, Oliver had pointed out to his brother +a celebrated "plunger," who had sometimes won six or eight millions +in a single day; and that man would play at stocks all morning, and +"play the ponies" in the afternoon, and then spend the evening in a +millionaires' gambling-house. And so it was with the bridge fiends. + +It was a social plague; it had run through all Society, high and +low. It had destroyed conversation and all good-fellowship--it would +end by destroying even common decency, and turning the best people +into vulgar gamblers.--Thus spoke Mrs. Billy Alden, who was one of +the guests; and Montague thought that Mrs. Billy ought to know, for +she herself was playing all the time. + +Mrs. Billy did not like Mrs. Winnie Duval; and the beginning of the +conversation was her inquiry why he let that woman corrupt him. Then +the good lady went on to tell him what bridge had come to be; how +people played it on the trains all the way from New York to San +Francisco; how they had tables in their autos, and played while they +were touring over the world. "Once," said she, "I took a party to +see the America's Cup races off Sandy Hook; and when we got back to +the pier, some one called, 'Who won?' And the answer was, 'Mrs. +Billy's ahead, but we're going on this evening.' I took a party of +friends through the Mediterranean and up the Nile, and we passed +Venice and Cairo and the Pyramids and the Suez Canal, and they never +once looked up--they were playing bridge. And you think I'm joking, +but I mean just literally what I say. I know a man who was +travelling from New York to Philadelphia, and got into a game with +some strangers, and rode all the way to Palm Beach to finish it!" + +Montague heard later of a well-known Society leader who was totally +incapacitated that winter, from too much bridge at Newport; and she +was passing the winter at Hot Springs and Palm Beach--and playing +bridge there. They played it even in sanitariums, to which they had +been driven by nervous breakdown. It was an occupation so exhausting +to the physique of women that physicians came to know the symptoms +of it, and before they diagnosed a case, they would ask, "Do you +play bridge?" It had destroyed the last remnants of the Sabbath--it +was a universal custom to have card-parties on that day. + +It was a very expensive game, as they played it in Society; one +might easily win or lose several thousand dollars in an evening, and +there were many who could not afford this. If one did not play, he +would be dropped from the lists of those invited; and when one +entered a game, etiquette required him to stay in until it was +finished. So one heard of young girls who had pawned their family +plate, or who had sold their honour, to pay their bills at the game; +and all Society knew of one youth who had robbed his hostess of her +jewels and pawned them, and then taken her the tickets--telling her +that her guests had robbed him. There were women received in the +best Society, who lived as adventuresses pure and simple, upon their +skill at the game; hostesses would invite rich guests and fleece +them. Montague never forgot the sense of amazement and dismay with +which he listened while first Mrs. Winnie and then his brother +warned him that he must avoid playing with a certain aristocratic +dame whom he met in this most aristocratic household--because she +was such a notorious cheater! + +"My dear fellow," laughed his brother, when he protested, "we have a +phrase 'to cheat at cards like a woman.'" And then Oliver went on to +tell him of his own first experience at cards in Society, when he +had played poker with several charming young debutantes; they would +call their hands and take the money without showing their cards, and +he had been too gallant to ask to see them. But later he learned +that this was a regular practice, and so he never played poker with +women. And Oliver pointed out one of these girls to his +brother--sitting, as beautiful as a picture and as cold as marble, +with a half-smoked cigarette on the edge of the table, and whisky +and soda and glasses of cracked ice beside her. Later on, as he +chanced to be reading a newspaper, his brother leaned over his +shoulder and pointed out another of the symptoms of the craze--an +advertisement headed, "Your luck will change." It gave notice that +at Rosenstein's Parlours, just off Fifth Avenue, one might borrow +money upon expensive gowns and furs! + +All during the ten days of this house-party, Mrs. Winnie devoted +herself to seeing that Montague had a good time; Mrs. Winnie sat +beside him at table--he found that somehow a convention had been +established which assigned him to Mrs. Winnie as a matter of course. +Nobody said anything to him about it, but knowing how relentlessly +the affairs of other people were probed and analyzed, he began to +feel exceedingly uncomfortable. + +There came a time when he felt quite smothered by Mrs. Winnie; and +immediately after lunch one day he broke away and went for a long +walk by himself. This was the occasion of his meeting with an +adventure. + +An inch or two of snow had fallen, and lay gleaming in the sunlight. +The air was keen, and he drank deep draughts of it, and went +striding away over the hills for an hour or so. There was a gale +blowing, and as he came over the summits it would strike him, and he +would see the river white with foam. And then down in the valleys +again all would be still. + +Here, in a thickly wooded place, Montague's attention was arrested +suddenly by a peculiar sound, a heavy thud, which seemed to shake +the earth. It suggested a distant explosion, and he stopped for a +moment and then went on, gazing ahead. He passed a turn, and then he +saw a great tree which had fallen directly across the road. + +He went on, thinking that this was what he had heard. But as he came +nearer, he saw his mistake. Beyond the tree lay something else, and +he began to run toward it. It was two wheels of an automobile, +sticking up into the air. + +He sprang upon the tree-trunk, and in one glance he saw the whole +story. A big touring-car had swept round the sharp turn, and swerved +to avoid the unexpected obstruction, and so turned a somersault into +the ditch. + +Montague gave a thrill of horror, for there was the form of a man +pinned beneath the body of the car. He sprang toward it, but a +second glance made him stop--he saw that blood had gushed from the +man's mouth and soaked the snow all about. His chest was visibly +crushed flat, and his eyes were dreadful, half-started from their +sockets. + +For a moment Montague stood staring, as if turned to stone. Then +from the other side of the car came a moan, and he ran toward the +sound. A second man lay in the ditch, moving feebly. Montague sprang +to help him. + +The man wore a heavy bearskin coat. Montague lifted him, and saw +that he was a very elderly person, with a cut across his forehead, +and a face as white as chalk. The other helped him to a position +with his back against the bank, and he opened his eyes and groaned. + +Montague knelt beside him, watching his breathing. He had a sense of +utter helplessness--there was nothing he could think of to do, save +to unbutton the man's coat and keep wiping the blood from his face. + +"Some whisky," the stranger moaned. Montague answered that he had +none; but the other replied that there was some in the car. + +The slope of the bank was such that Montague could crawl under, and +find the compartment with the bottle in it. The old man drank some, +and a little colour came back to his face. As the other watched him, +it came to him that this face was familiar; but he could not place +it. + +"How many were there with you?" Montague asked; and the man +answered, "Only one." + +Montague went over and made certain that the other man--who was +obviously the chauffeur--was dead. Then he hurried down the road, +and dragged some brush out into the middle of it, where it could be +seen from a distance by any other automobile that came along; after +which he went back to the stranger, and bound his handkerchief about +his forehead to stop the bleeding from the cut. + +The old man's lips were tightly set, as if he were suffering great +pain. "I'm done for!" he moaned, again and again. + +"Where are you hurt?" Montague asked. + +"I don't know," he gasped. "But it's finished me! I know it--it's +the last straw." + +Then he closed his eyes and lay back. "Can't you get a doctor?" he +asked. + +"There are no houses very near," said Montague. "But I can run--" + +"No, no!" the other interrupted, anxiously. "Don't leave me! Some +one will come.--Oh, that fool of a chauffeur--why couldn't he go +slow when I told him? That's always the way with them--they're +always trying to show off." + +"The man is dead," said Montague, quietly. + +The other started upon his elbow. "Dead!" ho gasped. + +"Yes," said Montague. "He's under the car." + +The old man's eyes had started wild with fright; and he caught +Montague by the arm. "Dead!" he said. "O my God--and it might have +been me!" + +There was a moment's pause. The stranger caught his breath, and +whispered again: "I'm done for! I can't stand it! it's too much!" + +Montague had noticed when he lifted the man that he was very frail +and slight of build. Now he could feel that the hand that held his +arm was trembling violently. It occurred to him that perhaps the man +was not really hurt, but that his nerves had been upset by the +shock. + +And he felt certain of this a moment later, when the stranger +suddenly leaned forward, clutching him with redoubled intensity, and +staring at him with wide, horror-stricken eyes. + +"Do you know what it means to be afraid of death?" he panted. "Do +you know what it means to be afraid of death?" + +Then, without waiting for a reply, he rushed on--"No, no! You +can't! you can't! I don't believe any man knows it as I do! Think of +it--for ten years I've never known a minute when I wasn't afraid of +death! It follows me around--it won't let me be! It leaps out at me +in places, like this! And when I escape it, I can hear it laughing +at me--for it knows I can't get away!" + +The old man caught his breath with a choking sob. He was clinging to +Montague like a frightened child, and staring with a wild, hunted +look upon his face. Montague sat transfixed. + +"Yes," the other rushed on, "that's the truth, as God hears me! And +it's the first time I've ever spoken it in my life! I have to hide +it--because men would laugh at me--they pretend they're not afraid! +But I lie awake all night, and it's like a fiend that sits by my +bedside! I lie and listen to my own heart--I feel it beating, and I +think how weak it is, and what thin walls it has, and what a +wretched, helpless thing it is to have your life depend on +that!--You don't know what that is, I suppose." + +Montague shook his head. + +"You're young, you see," said the other. "You have health--everybody +has health, except me! And everybody hates me--I haven't got a +friend in the world!" + +Montague was quite taken aback by the suddenness of this outburst. +He tried to stop it, for he felt almost indecent in listening--it +was not fair to take a man off his guard like this. But the stranger +could not be stopped--he was completely unstrung, and his voice grew +louder and louder. + +"It's every word of it true," he exclaimed wildly. "And I can't +stand it any more. I can't stand anything any more. I was young and +strong once--I could take care of myself; and I said: I'll make +money, I'll be master of other men! But I was a fool--I forgot my +health. And now all the money on earth can't do me any good! I'd +give ten million dollars to-day for a body like any other man's--and +this--this is what I have!" + +He struck his hands against his bosom. "Look at it!" he cried, +hysterically. "This is what I've got to live in! It won't digest any +food, and I can't keep it warm--there's nothing right with it! How +would you like to lie awake at night and say to yourself that your +teeth were decaying and you couldn't help it--your hair was falling +out, and nobody could stop it? You're old and worn out--falling to +pieces; and everybody hates you--everybody's waiting for you to die, +so that they can get you out of the way. The doctors come, and +they're all humbugs! They shake their heads and use long words--they +know they can't do you any good, but they want their big fees! And +all they do is to frighten you worse, and make you sicker than +ever!" + +There was nothing that Montague could do save to sit and listen to +this outburst of wretchedness. His attempts to soothe the old man +only had the effect of exciting him more. + +"Why does it all have to fall on me?" he moaned. "I want to be like +other people--I want to live! And instead, I'm like a man with a +pack of hungry wolves prowling round him--that's what it's like! +It's like Nature--hungry and cruel and savage! You think you know +what life is; it seems so beautiful and gentle and pleasant--that's +when you're on top! But now I'm down, and I KNOW what it is--it's a +thing like a nightmare, that reaches out for you to clutch you and +crush you! And you can't get away from it--you're helpless as a rat +in a corner--you're damned--you're damned!" The miserable man's +voice broke in a cry of despair, and he sank down in a heap in front +of Montague, shaking and sobbing. The other was trembling slightly, +and stricken with awe. + +There was a long silence, and then the stranger lifted his +tear-stained face, and Montague helped to support him. "Have a +little more of the whisky," said he. + +"No," the other answered feebly, "I'd better not." + +"--My doctors won't let me have whisky," he added, after a while. +"That's my liver. I've so many don'ts, you know, that it takes a +note-book to keep track of them. And all of them together do me no +good! Think of it--I have to live on graham crackers and +milk--actually, not a thing has passed my lips for two years but +graham crackers and milk." + +And then suddenly, with a start, it came to Montague where he had +seen this wrinkled old face before. It was Laura Hegan's uncle, whom +the Major had pointed out to him in the dining-room of the +Millionaires' Club! Old Henry S. Grimes, who was really only sixty, +but looked eighty; and who owned slum tenements, and evicted more +people in a month than could be crowded into the club-house! + +Montague gave no sign, but sat holding the man in his arms. A little +trickle of blood came from under the handkerchief and ran down his +cheek; Montague felt him tremble as he touched this with his ringer. + +"Is it much of a cut?" he asked. + +"Not much," said Montague; "two or three stitches, perhaps." + +"Send for my family physician," the other added. "If I should faint, +or anything, you'll find his name in my card-case. What's that?" + +There was the sound of voices down the road. "Hello!"' Montague +shouted; and a moment later two men in automobile costume came +running toward him. They stopped, staring in dismay at the sight +which confronted them. + +At Montague's suggestion they made haste to find a log by means of +which they lifted the auto sufficiently to drag out the body of the +chauffeur. Montague saw that it was quite cold. + +He went back to old Grimes. "Where do you wish to go?" he asked. + +The other hesitated. "I was bound for the Harrisons'--" he said. + +"The Leslie Harrisons?" asked Montague. (They were people he had met +at the Devons'.) + +The other noticed his look of recognition. "Do you know them?" he +asked. + +"I do," said Montague. + +"It isn't far," said the old man. "Perhaps I had best go +there."--And then he hesitated for a moment; and catching Montague +by the arm, and pulling him toward him, whispered, "Tell me--you-you +won't tell--" + +Montague, comprehending what he meant, answered, "It will be between +us." At the same time he felt a new thrill of revulsion for this +most miserable old creature. + +They lifted him into the car; and because they delayed long enough +to lay a blanket over the body of the chauffeur, he asked peevishly +why they did not start. During the ten or fifteen minutes' trip he +sat clinging to Montague, shuddering with fright every time they +rounded a turn in the road. + +They reached the Harrisons' place; and the footman who opened the +door was startled out of his studied impassivity by the sight of a +big bundle of bearskin in Montague's arms. "Send for Mrs. Harrison," +said Montague, and laid the bundle upon a divan in the hall. "Get a +doctor as quickly as you can," he added to a second attendant. + +Mrs. Harrison came. "It's Mr. Grimes," said Montague; and then he +heard a frightened exclamation, and turned and saw Laura Hegan, in a +walking costume, fresh from the cold outside. + +"What is it?" she cried. And he told her, as quickly as he could, +and she ran to help the old man. Montague stood by, and later +carried him upstairs, and waited below until the doctor came. + +It was only when he set out for home again that he found time to +think about Laura Hegan, and how beautiful she had looked in her +furs. He wondered if it would always be his fate to meet her under +circumstances which left her no time to be aware of his own +existence. + +At home he told about his adventure, and found himself quite a hero +for the rest of the day. He was obliged to give interviews to +several newspaper reporters, and to refuse to let one of them take +his picture. Every one at the Devons' seemed to know old Harry +Grimes, and Montague thought to himself that if the comments of this +particular group of people were a fair sample, the poor wretch was +right in saying that he had not a friend in the world. + +When he came downstairs the next morning, he found elaborate +accounts of the accident in the papers, and learned that Grimes had +nothing worse than a scalp wound and a severe shock. Even so, he +felt it was incumbent upon him to pay a visit of inquiry, and rode +over shortly before lunch. + +Laura Hegan came down to see him, wearing a morning gown of white. +She confirmed the good news of the papers, and said that her uncle +was resting quietly. (She did not say that his physician had come +post-haste, with two nurses, and taken up his residence in the +house, and that the poor old millionaire was denied even his graham +crackers and milk). Instead she said that he had mentioned +Montague's kindness particularly, and asked her to thank him. +Montague was cynical enough to doubt this. + +It was the first time that he had ever had any occasion to talk with +Miss Hegan. He noticed her gentle and caressing voice, with the +least touch of the South in it; and he was glad to find that it was +possible for her to talk without breaking the spell of her serene +and noble beauty. Montague stayed as long as he had any right to +stay. + +And all the way as he rode home he was thinking about Laura Hegan. +Here for the first time was a woman whom he felt he should like to +know; a woman with reserve and dignity, and some ideas in her life. +And it was impossible for him to know her--because she was rich! + +There was no dodging this fact--Montague did not even try. He had +met women with fortunes already, and he knew how they felt about +themselves, and how the rest of the world felt about them. They +might wish in their hearts to be something else besides the keepers +of a treasure-chest, but their wishes were futile; the money went +with them, and they had to defend it against all comers. Montague +recalled one heiress after another--debutantes, some of them, +exquisite and delicate as butterflies--but under the surface as hard +as chain-armour. All their lives they had been trained to think of +themselves as representing money, and of every one who came near +them as adventurers seeking money. In every word they uttered, in +every glance and motion, one might read this meaning. And then he +thought of Laura Hegan, with the fortune she would inherit; and he +pictured what her life must be--the toadies and parasites and +flatterers who would lay siege to her--the scheming mammas and the +affectionate sisters and cousins who would plot to gain her +confidence! For a man who was poor, and who meant to keep his +self-respect, was there any possible conclusion except that she was +entirely unknowable to him? + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + + + + +Montague came back to the city, and dug into his books again; while +Alice gave her spare hours to watching the progress of the new gown +in which she was to uphold the honour of the family at Mrs. Devon's +opening ball. The great event was due in the next week and Society +was as much excited about it as a family of children before +Christmas. All whom Montague met were invited and all were going +unless they happened to be in mourning. Their gossip was all of the +disappointed ones, and their bitterness and heartburning. + +Mrs. Devon's mansion was thrown open early on the eventful evening, +but few would come until midnight. It was the fashion to attend the +Opera first, and previous to that half a dozen people would give big +dinners. He was a fortunate person who did not hear from his liver +after this occasion; for at one o'clock came Mrs. Devon's massive +supper, and then again at four o'clock another supper. To prepare +these repasts a dozen extra chefs had been imported into the Devon +establishment for a week--for it was part of the great lady's pride +to permit no outside caterer to prepare anything for her guests. + +Montague had never been able to get over his wonder at the social +phenomenon known as Mrs. Devon. He came and took his chances in the +jostling throngs; and except that he got into casual conversation +with one of the numerous detectives whom he took for a guest he came +off fairly well. But all the time that he was being passed about and +introduced and danced with, he was looking about him and wondering. +The grand staircase and the hall and parlours had been turned into +tropical gardens, with palms and trailing vines, and azaleas and +roses, and great vases of scarlet poinsettia, with hundreds of +lights glowing through them. (It was said that this ball had +exhausted the flower supply of the country as far south as Atlanta.) +And then in the reception room one came upon the little old lady, +standing' beneath a bower of orchids. She was clad in a robe of +royal purple trimmed with silver, and girdled about with an +armour-plate of gems. If one might credit the papers, the diamonds +that were worn at one of these balls were valued at twenty million +dollars. + +The stranger was quite overwhelmed by all the splendour. There was a +cotillion danced by two hundred gorgeously clad women and their +partners--a scene so gay that one could only think of it as +happening in a fairy legend, or some old romance of knighthood. Four +sets of favours were given during this function, and jewels and +objects of art were showered forth as if from a magician's wand. +Mrs. Devon herself soon disappeared, but the riot of music and +merry-making went on until near morning, and during all this time +the halls and rooms of the great mansion were so crowded that one +could scarcely move about. + +Then one went home, and realized that all this splendour, and the +human effort which it represented, had been for nothing but a +memory! Nor would he get the full meaning of it if he failed to +realize that it was simply one of thousands--a pattern which every +one there would strive to follow in some function of his own. It was +a signal bell, which told the world that the "season" was open. It +loosed the floodgates of extravagance, and the torrent of +dissipation poured forth. From then on there would be a continuous +round of gaieties; one might have three banquets every single +night--for a dinner and two suppers was now the custom, at +entertainments! And filling the rest of one's day were receptions +and teas and musicales--a person might take his choice among a score +of opportunities, and never leave the circle he met at Mrs. Devon's. +Nor was this counting the tens of thousands of aspirants and +imitators all over the city; nor in a host of other cities, each +with thousands of women who had nothing to do save to ape the ways +of the Metropolis. The mind could not realize the volume of this +deluge of destruction--it was a thing which stunned the senses, and +thundered in one's ears like Niagara. + +The meaning of it all did not stop with the people who poured it +forth; its effects were to be traced through the whole country. +There were hordes of tradesmen and manufacturers who supplied what +Society bought, and whose study it was to induce people to buy as +much as possible. And so they devised what were called +"fashions"--little eccentricities of cut and material, which made +everything go out of date quickly. There had once been two seasons, +but now there were four; and through window displays and millions of +advertisements the public was lured into the trap. The "yellow" +journals would give whole pages to describing "What the 400 are +wearing"; there were magazines with many millions of readers, which +existed for nothing save to propagate these ideas. And everywhere, +in all classes of Society, men and women were starving their minds +and hearts, and straining their energies to follow this phantom of +fashion; the masses were kept poor because of it, and the youth and +hope of the world was betrayed by it. In country villages poor +farmers' wives were trimming their bonnets over to be "stylish"; and +servant-girls in the cities were wearing imitation sealskins, and +shop-clerks and sempstresses selling themselves into brothels for +the sake of ribbons and gilt jewellery. + +It was the instinct of decoration, perverted by the money-lust. In +the Metropolis the sole test of excellence was money, and the +possession of money was the proof of power; and every natural desire +of men and women had been tainted by this influence. The love of +beauty, the impulse to hospitality, the joys of music and dancing +and love--all these things had become simply means to the +demonstration of money-power! The men were busy making more money-- +but their idle women had nothing in life save this mad race in +display. So it had come about that the woman who could consume +wealth most conspicuously--who was the most effective instrument for +the destroying of the labour and the lives of other people--this was +the woman who was most applauded and most noticed. + +The most appalling fact about Society was this utter blind +materialism. Such expectations as Montague had brought with him had +been derived from the literature of Europe; in a grand monde such as +this, he expected to meet diplomats and statesmen, scientists and +explorers, philosophers and poets and painters. But one never heard +anything about such people in Society. It was a mark of eccentricity +to be interested in intellectual affairs, and one might go about for +weeks and not meet a person with an idea. When these people read, it +was a sugar-candy novel, and when they went to the play, it was a +musical comedy. The one single intellectual product which it could +point to as its own, was a rancid scandal-sheet, used mainly as a +moans of blackmail. Now and then some aspiring young matron of the +"elite" would try to set up a salon after the fashion of the +continent, and would gather a few feeble wits about her for a time. +But for the most part the intellectual workers of the city held +themselves severely aloof; and Society was loft a little clique of +people whose fortunes had become historic in a decade or two, and +who got together in each other's palaces and gorged themselves, and +gambled and gossiped about each other, and wove about their +personalities a veil of awful and exclusive majesty. + +Montague found himself thinking that perhaps it was not they who +were to blame. It was not they who had set up wealth as the end and +goal of things--it was the whole community, of which they were a +part. It was not their fault that they had been left with power and +nothing to use it for; it was not their fault that their sons and +daughters found themselves stranded in the world, deprived of all +necessity, and of the possibility of doing anything useful. + +The most pitiful aspect of the whole thing to Montague was this +"second generation" who were coming upon the scene, with their lives +all poisoned in advance. No wrong which they could do to the world +would ever equal the wrong which the world had done them, in +permitting them to have money which they had not earned. They were +cut off for ever from reality, and from the possibility of +understanding life; they had big, healthy bodies, and they craved +experience--and they had absolutely nothing to do. That was the real +meaning of all this orgy of dissipation--this "social whirl" as it +was called; it was the frantic chase of some new thrill, some +excitement that would stir the senses of people who had nothing in +the world to interest them. That was why they were building palaces, +and flinging largesses of banquets and balls, and tearing about the +country in automobiles, and travelling over the earth in steam +yachts and private trains. + +--And first and last, the lesson of their efforts was, that the +chase was futile; the jaded nerves would not thrill. The most +conspicuous fact about Society was its unutterable and agonizing +boredom; of its great solemn functions the shop-girl would read with +greedy envy, but the women who attended them would be half asleep +behind their jewelled fans. It was typified to Montague by Mrs. +Billy Alderi's yachting party on the Nile; yawning in the face of +the Sphinx, and playing bridge beneath the shadow of the pyramids-- +and counting the crocodiles and proposing to jump in by way of +"changing the pain"! + +People attended these ceaseless rounds of entertainments, simply +because they dreaded to be left alone. They wandered from place to +place, following like a herd of sheep whatever leader would +inaugurate a new diversion. One could have filled a volume with the +list of their "fads." There were new ones every week--if Society did +not invent them, the yellow journals invented them. There was a +woman who had her teeth filled with diamonds; and another who was +driving a pair of zebras. One heard of monkey dinners and pyjama +dinners at Newport, of horseback dinners and vegetable dances in New +York. One heard of fashion-albums and autograph-fans and talking +crows and rare orchids and reindeer meat; of bracelets for men and +ankle rings for women; of "vanity-boxes" at ten and twenty thousand +dollars each; of weird and repulsive pets, chameleons and lizards +and king-snakes--there was one young woman who wore a cat-snake as a +necklace. One would take to slumming and another to sniffing brandy +through the nose; one had a table-cover made of woven roses, and +another was wearing perfumed flannel at sixteen dollars a yard; one +had inaugurated ice-skating in August, and another had started a +class for the study of Plato. Some were giving tennis tournaments in +bathing-suits, and playing leap-frog after dinner; others had got +dispensations from the Pope, so that they might have private chapels +and confessors; and yet others were giving "progressive dinners," +moving from one restaurant to another--a cocktail and blue-points at +Sherry's, a soup and Madeira at Delmonico's, some terrapin with +amontillado at the Waldorf--and so on. + +One of the consequences of the furious pace was that people's health +broke down very quickly; and there were all sorts of bizarre ways of +restoring it. One person would be eating nothing but spinach, and +another would be living on grass. One would chew a mouthful of soup +thirty-two times; another would eat every two hours, and another +only once a week. Some went out in the early morning and walked +bare-footed in the grass, and others went hopping about the floor on +their hands and knees to take off fat. There were "rest cures" and +"water cures," "new thought" and "metaphysical healing" and +"Christian Science"; there was an automatic horse, which one might +ride indoors, with a register showing the distance travelled. +Montague met one man who had an electric machine, which cost thirty +thousand dollars, and which took hold of his arms and feet and +exercised him while he waited. Ho met a woman who told him she was +riding an electric camel! + +Everywhere one went there were new people, spending their money in +new and incredible ways. Here was a man who had bought a chapel and +turned it into a theatre, and hired professional actors, and +persuaded his friends to come and see him act Shakespeare. Hero was +a woman who costumed herself after figures in famous paintings, with +arrangements of roses and cherry leaves, and wreaths of ivy and +laurel--and with costumes for her pet dogs to match! Hero was a man +who paid six dollars a day for a carnation four inches across; and a +girl who wore a hat trimmed with fresh morning-glories, and a ball +costume with swarms of real butterflies tied with silk threads; and +another with a hat made of woven silver, with ostrich plumes forty +inches long made entirely of silvei films. Here was a man who hired +a military company to drill all day long to prepare a floor for +dancing; and another who put up a building at a cost of thirty +thousand dollars to give a debutante dance for his daughter, and +then had it torn down the day aftor. Here was a man who bred +rattlesnakes and turned them loose by thousands, and had driven +everybody away from the North Carolina estate of one of the +Wallings. Here was a man who was building himself a yacht with a +model dairy and bakery on board, and a French laundry and a brass +band. Here was a million-dollar racing-yacht with auto-boats on it +and a platoon of marksmen, and some Chinese laundrymen, and two +physicians for its half-insane occupant. Here was a man who had +bought a Rhine castle for three-quarters of a million, and spent as +much in restoring it, and filled it with servants dressed in +fourteenth-century costumes. Here was a five-million-dollar art +collection hidden away where nobody ever saw it! + +One saw the meaning of this madness most clearly in the young men of +Society. Some were killing themselves and other people in automobile +races at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Some went in for +auto-boats, mere shells of things, shaped like a knife-blade, that +tore through the water at forty miles an hour. Some would hire +professional pugilists to knock them out; others would get up +dog-fights and bear-fights, and boxing matches with kangaroos. +Montague was taken to the home of one young man who had given his +life to hunting wild gajne in every corner of the globe, and would +travel round the world for a new species to add to his museum of +trophies. He had heard that Baron Rothschild had offered a thousand +pounds for a "bongo," a huge grass-eating animal, which no white man +had ever seen; and he had taken a year's trip into the interior, +with a train of a hundred and thtiry natives, and had brought out +the heads of forty different species, including a bongo--which the +Baron did not get! He met another who had helped to organize a +balloon club, and two twenty-four-hour trips in the clouds. (This, +by the way, was the latest sport--at Tuxedo they had races between +balloons and automobiles; and Montague met one young lady who +boasted that she had been up five times.) There was another young +millionaire who sat and patiently taught Sunday School, in the +presence of a host of reporters; there was another who set up a +chain of newspapers all over the country and made war upon his +class. There were others who went in for settlement work and Russian +revolutionists--there were even some who called themselves +Socialists! Montague thought that this was the strangest fad of all; +and when he met one of these young men at an afternoon tea, he gazed +at him with wonder and perplexity--thinking of the man he had heard +ranting on the street-corner. + +This was the "second generation." Appalling as it was to think of, +there was a third growing up, and getting ready to take the stage. +And with wealth accumulating faster than ever, who could guess what +they might do? There were still in Society a few men and women who +had earned their money, and had some idea of the toil and suffering +that it stood for; but when the third generation had taken +possession, these would all be dead or forgotten, and there would no +longer be any link to connect them with reality! + +In the light of this thought one was moved to watch the children of +the rich. Some of these had inherited scores of millions of dollars +while they were still in the cradle; now and then one of them would +be presented with a million-dollar house for a birthday gift. When +such a baby was born, the newspapers would give pages to describing +its layette, with baby dresses at a hundred dollars each, and lace +handkerchiefs at five dollars, and dressing-sets with tiny gold +brushes and powder-boxes; one might see a picture of the precious +object in a "Moses basket," covered with rare and wonderful +Valenciennes lace. + +This child would grow up in an atmosphere of luxury and +self-indulgence; it would be bullying the servants at the age of +six, and talking scandal and smoking cigarettes at twelve. It would +be petted and admired and stared at, and paraded about in state, +dressed up like a French doll; it would drink in snobbery and +hatefulness with the very air it breathed. One might meet in these +great houses little tots not yet in their teens whose talk was all +of the cost of things, and of the inferiority of their neighbours. +There was nothing in the world too good for them.--They had little +miniature automobiles to ride about the country in, and blooded +Arabian ponies, and doll-houses in real Louis Seize, with jewelled +rugs and miniature electric lights. At Mrs. Caroline Smythe's, +Montague was introduced to a pale and anaemic-looking youth of +thirteen, who dined in solemn state alone when the rest of the +family was away, and insisted upon having all the footmen in +attendance; and his unfortunate aunt brought a storm about her ears +by forbidding the butler to take champagne upstairs into the nursery +before lunch. + +A little remark stayed in Montague's mind as expressing the attitude +of Society toward such matters. Major Venable had chanced to remark +jestingly that children were coming to understand so much nowadays +that it was necessary for the ladies to be careful. To which Mrs. +Vivie Patton answered, with a sudden access of seriousness: "I don't +know--do you find that children have any morals? Mine haven't." + +And then the fascinating Mrs. Vivie went on to tell the truth about +her own children. They were natural-born savages, and that was all +there was to it. They did as they pleased, and no one could stop +them. The Major replied that nowadays all the world was doing as it +pleased, and no one seemed to be able to stop it; and with that jest +the conversation was turned to other matters. But Montague sat in +silence, thinking about it--wondering what would happen to the world +when it had fallen under the sway of this generation of spoiled +children, and had adopted altogether the religion of doing as one +pleased. + +In the beginning people had simply done as they pleased +spontaneously, and without thinking about it; but now, Montague +discovered, the custom had spread to such an extent that it was +developing a philosophy. There was springing up a new cult, whose +devotees were planning to make over the world upon the plan of doing +as one pleased. Because its members were wealthy, and able to +command the talent of the world, the cult was developing an art, +with a highly perfected technique, and a literature which was subtle +and exquisite and alluring. Europe had had such a literature for a +century, and England for a generation or two. And now America was +having it, too! + +Montague had an amusing insight into this one day, when Mrs. Vivie +invited him to one of her "artistic evenings." Mrs. Vivie was in +touch with a special set which went in for intellectual things, and +included some amateur Bohemians and men of "genius." "Don't you come +if you'll be shocked," she had said to him--"for Strathcona will be +there." + +Montague deemed himself able to stand a good deal by this time. He +went, and found Mrs. Vivie and her Count (Mr. Vivie had apparently +not been invited) and also the young poet of Diabolism, whose work +was just then the talk of the town. He was a tall, slender youth +with a white face and melancholy black eyes, and black locks falling +in cascades about his ears; he sat in an Oriental corner, with a +manuscript copied in tiny handwriting upon delicately scented "art +paper," and tied with passionate purple ribbons. A young girl clad +in white sat by his side and held a candle, while he read from this +manuscript his unprinted (because unprintable) verses. + +And between the readings the young poet talked. He talked about +himself and his work--apparently. that was what he had come to talk +about. His words flowed like a swift stream, limpid, sparkling, +incessant; leaping from place to place--here, there, quick as the +play of light upon the water. Montague laboured to follow the +speaker's ideas, until he found his mind in a whirl and gave it up. +Afterward, when he thought it over, he laughed at himself; for +Strathcona's ideas were not serious things, having relationship to +truth--they were epigrams put together to dazzle the hearer, +studies in paradox, with as much relation to life as fireworks. He +took the sum-total of the moral experience of the human race, and +turned it upside down and jumbled it about, and used it as bits of +glass in a kaleidoscope. And the hearers would gasp, and whisper, +"Diabolical!" + +The motto of this "school" of poets was that there was neither good +nor evil, but that all things were "interesting." After listening to +Strathcona for half an hour, one felt like hiding his head, and +denying that he had ever thought of having any virtue; in a world +where all things were uncertain, it was presumptuous even to pretend +to know what virtue was. One could only be what one was; and did not +that mean that one must do as one pleased? + +You could feel a shudder run through the company at his audacity. +And the worst of it was that you could not dismiss it with a laugh; +for the boy was really a poet--he had fire and passion, the gift of +melodious ecstacy. He was only twenty, and in his brief meteor +flight he had run the gamut of all experience; he had familiarized +himself with all human achievement--past, present, and future. There +was nothing any one could mention that he did not perfectly +comprehend: the raptures of the saints, the consecration of the +martyrs--yes, he had known them; likewise he had touched the depths +of depravity, he had been lost in the innermost passages of the +caverns of hell. And all this had been interesting--in its time; now +he was sighing for new worlds of experience--say for unrequited +love, which should drive him to madness. + +It was at this point that Montague dropped out of the race, and took +to studying from the outside the mechanism of this young poet's +conversation. Strathcona flouted the idea of a moral sense; but in +reality he was quite dependent upon it--his recipe for making +epigrams was to take what other people's moral sense made them +respect, and identify it with something which their moral sense made +them abhor. Thus, for instance, the tale which he told about one of +the members of his set, who was a relative of a bishop. The great +man had occasion to rebuke him for his profligate ways, declaring in +the course of his lecture that he was living off the reputation of +his father; to which the boy made the crushing rejoinder: "It may be +bad to live off the reputation of one's father, but it's better than +living off the reputation of God."--This was very subtle and it was +necessary to ponder it. God was dead; and the worthy bishop did not +know it! But let him take a new God, who had no reputation, and go +out into the world and make a living out of him! + +Then Strathcona discussed literature. He paid his tribute to the +"Fleurs de Mal" and the "Songs before Sunrise"; but most, he said, +he owed to "the divine Oscar." This English poet of many poses and +some vices the law had seized and flung into jail; and since the law +is a thing so brutal and wicked that whoever is touched by it is +made thereby a martyr and a hero, there had grown up quite a cult +about the memory of "Oscar." All up-to-date poets imitated his style +and his attitude to life; and so the most revolting of vices had the +cloak of romance flung about them--were given long Greek and Latin +names, and discussed with parade of learning as revivals of Hellenic +ideals. The young men in Strathcona's set referred to each other as +their "lovers"; and if one showed any perplexity over this, he was +regarded, not with contempt--for it was not aesthetic to feel +contempt--but with a slight lifting of the eyebrows, intended to +annihilate. + +One must not forget, of course, that these young people were poets, +and to that extent were protected from their own doctrines. They +were interested, not in life, but in making pretty verses about +life; there were some among them who lived as cheerful ascetics in +garret rooms, and gave melodious expression to devilish emotions. +But, on the other hand, for every poet, there were thousands who +were not poets, but people to whom life was real. And these lived +out the creed, and wrecked their lives; and with the aid of the +poet's magic, the glamour of melody and the fire divine, they +wrecked the lives with which they came into contact. The new +generation of boys and girls were deriving their spiritual +sustenance from the poetry of Baudelaire and Wilde; and rushing with +the hot impulsiveness of youth into the dreadful traps which the +traders in vice prepared for them. One's heart bled to see them, +pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, pursuing the hem of the Muse's robe in +brothels and dens of infamy! + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + + + + +The social mill ground on for another month. Montague withdrew +himself as much as his brother would let him; but Alice, was on the +go all night and half the day. Oliver had sold his racing automobile +to a friend--he was a man of family now, he said, and his wild days +were over. He had got, instead, a limousine car for Alice; though +she declared she had no need of it--if ever she was going to any +place, Charlie Carter always begged her to use his. Charlie's siege +was as persistent as ever, as Montague noticed with annoyance. + +The great law case was going forward. After weeks of study and +investigation, Montague felt that he had the matter well in hand; +and he had taken Mr. Hasbrook's memoranda as a basis for a new work +of his own, much more substantial. Bit by bit; as he dug into the +subject, he had discovered a state of affairs in the Fidelity +Company, and, indeed, in the whole insurance business and its allied +realms of banking and finance, which shocked him profoundly. It was +impossible for him to imagine how such conditions could exist and +remain unknown to the public--more especially as every one in Wall +Street with whom he talked seemed to know about them and to take +them for granted. + +His client's papers had provided him with references to the books; +Montague had taken this dry material and made of it a protest which +had the breath of life in it. It was a thing at which he toiled with +deadly earnestness; it was not merely a struggle of one man to get a +few thousand dollars, it was an appeal in behalf of millions of +helpless people whose trust had been betrayed. It was the first step +in a long campaign, which the young lawyer meant should force a +great evil into the light of day. + +He went over his bill of complaint with Mr. Hasbrook, and he was +glad to see that the work he had done made its impression upon him. +In fact, his client was a little afraid that some of his arguments +might be too radical in tone--from the strictly legal point of view, +he made haste to explain. But Montague reassured him upon this +point. + +And then came the day when the great ship was ready for launching. +The news must have spread quickly, for a few hours after the papers +in the suit had been filed, Montague received a call from a +newspaper reporter, who told him of the excitement in financial +circles, where the thing had fallen like a bomb. Montague explained +the purpose of the suit, and gave the reporter a number of facts +which he felt certain would attract attention to the matter. When he +picked up the paper the next morning, however, he was surprised to +find that only a few lines had been given to the case, and that his +interview had been replaced by one with an unnamed official of the +Fidelity, to the effect that the attack upon the company was +obviously for black-mailing purposes. + +That was the only ripple which Montague's work produced upon the +surface of the pool; but there was a great commotion among the fish +at the bottom, about which he was soon to learn. + +That evening, while he was hard at work in his study, he received a +telephone call from his brother. "I'm coming round to see you," said +Oliver. "Wait for me." + +"All right," said the other, and added, "I thought you were dining +at the Waitings'." + +"I'm there now," was the answer. "I'm leaving." + +"What is the matter?" Montague asked. + +"There's hell to pay," was the reply--and then silence. + +When Oliver appeared, a few minutes later, he did not even stop to +set down his hat, but exclaimed, "Allan, what in heaven's name have +you been doing?" + +"What do you mean?" asked the other. + +"Why, that suit!" + +"What about it?" + +"Good God, man!" cried Oliver. "Do you mean that you really don't +know what you've done?" + +Montague was staring at him. "I'm afraid I don't," said he. + +"Why, you're turning the world upside down!" exclaimed the other. +"Everybody you know is crazy about it." + +"Everybody I know!" echoed Montague. "What have they to do with it?" + +"Why, you've stabbed them in the back!" half shouted Oliver. "I +could hardly believe my ears when they told me. Robbie Walling is +simply wild--I never had such a time in my life." + +"I don't understand yet," said Montague, more and more amazed. "What +has he to do with it?" + +"Why, man," cried Oliver, "his brother's a director in the Fidelity! +And his own interests--and all the other companies! You've struck at +the whole insurance business!" + +Montague caught his breath. "Oh, I see!" he said. + +"How could you think of such a thing?" cried the other, wildly. "You +promised to consult me about things--" + +"I told you when I took this case," put in Montague, quickly. + +"I know," said his brother. "But you didn't explain--and what did I +know about it? I thought I could leave it to your common sense not +to mix up in a thing like this." + +"I'm very sorry," said Montague, gravely. "I had no idea of any such +result." + +"That's what I told Robbie," said Oliver. "Good God, what a time I +had!" + +He took his hat and coat and laid them on the bed, and sat down and +began to tell about it. "I made him realize the disadvantage you +were under," he said, "being a stranger and not knowing the ground. +I believe he had an idea that you tried to get his confidence on +purpose to attack him. It was Mrs. Robbie, I guess--you know her +fortune is all in that quarter." + +Oliver wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "My!" he +said.--"And fancy what old Wyman must be saying about this! And what +a time poor Betty must be having! And then Freddie Vandam--the air +will be blue for half a mile round his place! I must send him a wire +and explain that it was a mistake, and that we're getting out of +it." + +And he got up, to suit the action to the word. But half-way to the +desk he heard his brother say, "Wait." + +He turned, and saw Montague, quite pale. "I suppose by 'getting out +of it,'" said the latter, "you mean dropping the case." + +"Of course," was the answer. + +"Well, then," he continued, very gravely,--"I can see that it's +going to be hard, and I'm sorry. But you might as well understand me +at the very beginning--I will never drop this case." + +Oliver's jaw fell limp. "Allan!" he gasped. + +There was a silence; and then the storm broke. Oliver knew his +brother well enough to realize just how thoroughly he meant what he +said; and so he got the full force of the shock all at once. He +raved and swore and wrung his hands, and declaimed at his brother, +saying that he had betrayed him, that he was ruining him--dumping +himself and the whole family into the ditch. They would be jeered at +and insulted--they would be blacklisted and thrown out of Society. +Alice's career would be cut short--every door would be closed to +her. His own career would die before it was born; he would never get +into the clubs--he would be a pariah--he would be bankrupted and +penniless. Again and again Oliver went over the situation, naming +person after person who would be outraged, and describing what that +person would do; there were the Wallings and the Venables and the +Havens, the Vandams and the Todds and the Wymans--they were all one +regiment, and Montague had flung a bomb into the centre of them! + +It was very terrible to him to see his brother's rage and despair; +but he had seen his way clear through this matter, and he knew that +there was no turning back for him. "It is painful to learn that all +one's acquaintances are thieves," he said. "But that does not change +my opinion of stealing." + +"But my God!" cried Oliver; "did you come to New York to preach +sermons?" + +To which the other answered, "I came to practise law. And the lawyer +who will not fight injustice is a traitor to his profession." + +Oliver threw up his hands in despair. What could one say to a +sentiment such as that? + +--But then again he came to the charge, pointing out to his brother +the position in which he had placed himself with the Wallings. He +had accepted their hospitality; they had taken him and Alice in, and +done everything in the world for them--things for which no money +could ever repay them. And now he had struck them! + +But the only effect of that was to make Montague regret that he had +ever had anything to do with the Wallings. If they expected to use +their friendship to tie his hands in such a matter, they were people +he would have left alone. + +"But do you realize that it's not merely yourself you're ruining?" +cried Oliver. "Do you know what you're doing to Alice?" + +"That is harder yet for me," the other replied. "But I am sure that +Alice would not ask me to stop." + +Montague was firmly set in his own mind; but it seemed to be quite +impossible for his brother to realize that this was the case. He +would give up; but then, going back into his own mind, and facing +the thought of this person and that, and the impossibility of the +situation which would arise, he would return to the attack with new +anguish in his voice. He implored and scolded, and even wept; and +then he would get himself together again, and come and sit in front +of his brother and try to reason with him. + +And so it was that in the small hours of the morning, Montague, pale +and nervous, but quite unshaken, was sitting and listening while his +brother unfolded before him a picture of the Metropolis as he had +come to see it. It was a city ruled by mighty forces--money-forces; +great families and fortunes, which had held their sway for +generations, and regarded the place, with all its swarming millions, +as their birthright. They possessed it utterly--they held it in the +hollow of their hands. Railroads and telegraphs and telephones-- +banks and insurance and trust companies--all these they owned; and +the political machines and the legislatures, the courts and the +newspapers, the churches and the colleges. And their rule was for +plunder; all the streams of profit ran into their coffers. The +stranger who came to their city succeeded as he helped them in their +purposes, and failed if they could not use him. A great editor or +bishop was a man who taught their doctrines; a great statesman was a +man who made the laws for them; a great lawyer was one who helped +them to outwit the public. Any man who dared to oppose them, they +would cast out and trample on, they would slander and ridicule and +ruin. + +And Oliver came down to particulars--he named these powerful men, +one after one, and showed what they could do. If his brother would +only be a man of the world, and see the thing! Look at all the +successful lawyers! Oliver named them, one after one--shrewd +devisers of corporation trickery, with incomes of hundreds of +thousands a year. He could not name the men who had refused to play +the game--for no one had ever heard of them. But it was so evident +what would happen in this case! His friends would cast him off; his +own client would get his price--whatever it was--and then leave him +in the lurch, and laugh at him! "If you can't make up your mind to +play the game," cried Oliver, frantically, "at least you can give it +up! There are plenty of other ways of getting a living--if you'll +let me, I'll take care of you myself, rather than have you disgrace +me. Tell me--will you do that? Will you quit altogether?" + +And Montague suddenly leaped to his feet, and brought his fist down +upon the desk with a bang. "No!" he cried; "by God, no!" + +"Let me make you understand me once for all," he rushed on. "You've +shown me New York as you see it. I don't believe it's the truth--I +don't believe it for one single moment! But let me tell you this, I +shall stay here and find out--and if it is true, it won't stop me! I +shall stay here and defy those people! I shall stay and fight them +till the day I die! They may ruin me,--I'll go and live in a garret +if I have to,--but as sure as there's a God that made me, I'll never +stop till I've opened the eyes of the people to what they're doing!" + +Montague towered over his brother, white-hot and terrible. Oliver +shrank from him--he never had seen such a burst of wrath from him +before. "Do you understand me now?" Montague cried; and he answered, +in a despairing voice, "Yes, yes." + +"I see it's all up," he added weakly. "You and I can't pull +together." + +"No," exclaimed the other, passionately, "we can't. And we might as +well give up trying. You have chosen to be a time-server and a +lick-spittle, and I don't choose it! Do you think I've learned +nothing in the time I've been here? Why, man, you used to be daring +and clever--and now you never draw a breath without wondering if +these rich snobs will like the way you do it! And you want Alice to +sell herself to them--you want me to sell my career to them!" + +There was a long pause. Oliver had turned very pale. And then +suddenly his brother caught himself together, and said: "I'm sorry. +I didn't mean to quarrel, but you've goaded me too much. I'm +grateful for what you have tried to do for me, and I'll pay you back +as soon as I can. But I can't go on with this game. I'll quit, and +you can disown me to your friends--tell them that I've run amuck, +and to forget they ever knew me. They'll hardly blame you for it-- +they know you too well for that. And as for Alice, I'll talk it out +with her to-morrow, and let her decide for herself--if she wants to +be a Society queen, she can put herself in your hands, and I'll get +out of her way. On the other hand, if she approves of what I'm +doing, why we'll both quit, and you won't have to bother with either +of us." + +That was the basis upon which they parted for the night; but like +most resolutions taken at white heat, it was not followed literally. +It was very hard for Montague to have to confront Alice with such a +choice; and as for Oliver, when he went home and thought it over, he +began to discover gleams of hope. He might make it clear to every +one that he was not responsible for his brother's business vagaries, +and take his chances upon that basis. After all, there were wheels +within wheels in Society; and if the Robbie Waitings chose to break +with him--why, they had plenty of enemies. There might even be +interests which would be benefited by Allan's course, and would take +him up. + +Montague had resolved to write and break every engagement which he +had made, and to sever his connection with Society at one stroke. +But the next day his brother came again, with compromises and new +protestations. There was no use going to the other extreme: he, +Oliver, would have it out with the Wallings, and they might all go +on their way as if nothing had happened. + +--So Montague made his debut in the role of knight-errant. He went +with many qualms and misgivings, uncertain how each new person would +take it. The next evening he was promised for a theatre-party with +Siegfried Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at +Delmonico's, and there came Mrs. Winnie, resplendent as an apple +tree in early April--and murmuring with bated breath, "Oh, you +dreadful man, what have you been doing?" + +"Have I been poaching on YOUR preserves?" he asked promptly. + +"No, not mine," she said, "but--" and then she hesitated. + +"On Mr. Duval's?" he asked. + +"No," she said, "not his--but everybody else's! He was telling me +about it to-day--there's a most dreadful uproar. He wanted me to try +to find out what you were up to, and who was behind it." + +Montague listened, wonderingly. Did Mrs. Winnie mean to imply that +her husband had asked her to try to worm his business secrets out of +him? That was what she seemed to imply. "I told him I never talked +business with my friends," she said. "He can ask you himself, if he +chooses. But what DOES it all mean, anyhow?" + +Montague smiled at the naive inconsistency. + +"It means nothing," said he, "except that I am trying to get justice +for a client." + +"But can you afford to make so many powerful enemies?" she asked. + +"I've taken my chances on that," he replied. + +Mrs. Winnie answered nothing, but looked at him with wondering +admiration in her eyes. "You arc different from the men about you," +she remarked, after a while-and her tone gave Montague to understand +that there was one person who meant to stand by him. + +But Mrs. Winnie Duval was not all Society. Montague was amused to +notice with what suddenness the stream of invitations slacked up; it +was necessary for Alice to give her calling list many revisions. +Freddie Vandam had promised to invite them to his place on Long +Island, and of course that invitation would never come; likewise +they would never again see the palace of the Lester Todds, upon the +Jersey mountain-top. + +Oliver put in the next few days in calling upon people to explain +his embarrassing situation. He washed his hands of his brother's +affairs, he said; and his friends might do the same, if they saw +fit. With the Robbie Waitings he had a stormy half hour, about which +he thought it best to say little to the rest of the family. Robbie +did not break with him utterly, because of their Wall Street +Alliance; but Mrs. Robbie's feeling was so bitter, he said, that it +would be best if Alice saw nothing of her for a while. He had a long +talk with Alice, and explained the situation. The girl was utterly +dumbfounded, for she was deeply grateful to Mrs. Robbie, and fond of +her as well; and she could not believe that a friend could be so +cruelly unjust to her. + +The upshot of the whole situation was a very painful episode. A few +days later Alice met Mrs. Robbie at a reception; and she took the +lady aside, and tried to tell her how distressed and helpless she +was. And the result was that Mrs. Robbie flew into a passion and +railed at her, declaring in the presence of several people that she +had sponged upon her and abused her hospitality! And so poor Alice +came home, weeping and half hysterical. + +All of which, of course, was like oil upon a fire; the heavens were +lighted up with the conflagration. The next development was a +paragraph in Society's scandal-sheet--telling with infinite gusto +how a certain ultra-fashionable matron had taken up a family of +stranded waifs from a far State, and introduced them into the best +circles, and even gone so far as to give a magnificent dance in +their honour; and how the discovery had been made that the head of +the family had been secretly preparing an attack upon their business +interests; and of the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth which +had followed--and the violent quarrel in a public place. The +paragraph concluded with the prediction that the strangers would +find themselves the centre of a merry social war. + +Oliver was the first to show them this paper. But lest by any chance +they should miss it, half a dozen unknown friends were good enough +to mail them copies, carefully marked.--And then came Reggie Mann, +who as free-lance and gossip-gatherer sat on the fence and watched +the fun; Reggie wore a thin veil of sympathy over his naked glee, +and brought them the latest reports from all portions of the +battle-ground. Thus they were able to know exactly what everybody +was saying about them--who was amused and who was outraged, and who +proposed to drop them and who to take them up. + +Montague listened for a while, but then he got tired of it, and went +for a walk to escape it--but only to run into another trap. It was +dark, and he was strolling down the Avenue, when out of a +brilliantly lighted jewellery shop came Mrs. Billy Alden to her +carriage. And she hailed him with an exclamation. + +"You man," she cried, "what have you been doing?" + +He tried to laugh it off and escape, but she took him by the arm, +commanding, "Get in here and tell me about it." + +So he found himself moving with the slow stream of vehicles on the +Avenue, and with Mrs. Billy gazing at him quizzically and asking him +if he did not feel like a hippopotamus in a frog-pond. + +He replied to her raillery by asking her under which flag she stood. +But there was little need to ask that, for anyone who was fighting a +Walling became ipso facto a friend of Mrs. Billy's. She told +Montague that if he felt his social position was imperilled, all he +had to do was to come to her. She would gird on her armour and take +the field. + +"But tell me how you came to do it," she said. + +He answered that there was very little to tell. He had taken up a +case which was obviously just, but having no idea what a storm it +would raise. + +Then he noticed that his companion was looking at him sharply. "Do +you really mean that's all there is to it?" she asked. + +"Of course I do," said he, perplexed. + +"Do you know," was her unexpected response, "I hardly know what to +make of you. I'm afraid to trust you, on account of your brother." + +Montague was embarrassed. "I don't know what you mean," he said. + +"Everybody thinks there's some trickery in that suit," she answered. + +"Oh," said Montague, "I see. Well, they will find out. If it will +help you any to know it, I've been having no end of scenes with my +brother." + +"I'll believe you," said Mrs. Billy, genially. "But it seems strange +that a man could have been so blind to a situation! I feel quite +ashamed because I didn't help you myself!" + +The carriage had stopped at Mrs. Billy's home, and she asked him to +dinner. "There'll be nobody but my brother," she said,--"we're +resting this evening. And I can make up to you for my negligence!" + +Montague had no engagement, and so he went in, and saw Mrs. Billy's +mansion, which was decorated in imitation of a Doge's palace, and +met Mr. "Davy" Alden, a mild-mannered little gentleman who obeyed +orders promptly. They had a comfortable dinner of half-a-dozen +courses, and then retired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Billy sank +into a huge easy chair, with a decanter of whisky and some cracked +ice in readiness beside it. Then from a tray she selected a thick +black cigar, and placidly bit off the end and lighted it, and then +settled back at her ease, and proceeded to tell Montague about New +York, and about the great families who ruled it, and where and how +they had got their money, and who were their allies and who their +enemies, and what particular skeletons were hidden in each of their +closets. + +It was worth coming a long way to listen to Mrs. Billy tete-a-tete; +her thoughts were vigorous, and her imagery was picturesque. She +spoke of old Dan Waterman, and described him as a wild boar rooting +chestnuts. He was all right, she said, if you didn't come under his +tree. And Montague asked, "Which is his tree?" and she answered, +"Any one he happens to be under at the time." + +And then she came to the Waitings. Mrs. Billy had been in on the +inside of that family, and there was nothing she didn't know about +it; and she brought the members up, one by one, and dissected them, +and exhibited them for Montague's benefit. They were typical +bourgeois people, she said. They were burghers. They had never shown +the least capacity for refinement--they ate and drank, and jostled +other people out of the way. The old ones had been boors, and the +new ones were cads. + +And Mrs. Billy sat and puffed at her cigar. "Do you know the history +of the family?" she asked. "The founder was a rough old ferryman. He +fought his rivals so well that in the end he owned all the boats; +and then some one discovered the idea of buying legislatures and +building railroads, and he went into that. It was a time when they +simply grabbed things--if you ever look into it, you'll find they're +making fortunes to-day out of privileges that the old man simply sat +down on and held. There's a bridge at Albany, for instance, to which +they haven't the slightest right; my brother knows about it--they've +given themselves a contract with their railroad by which they're +paid for every passenger, and their profit every year is greater +than the cost of the bridge. The son was the head of the family when +I came in; and I found that he had it all arranged to leave thirty +million dollars to one of his sons, and only ten million to my +husband. I set to work to change that, I can tell you. I used to go +around to see him, and scratch his back and tickle him and make him +feel good. Of course the family went wild--my, how they hated me! +They set old Ellis to work to keep me off--have you met Judge +Ellis?" + +"I have," said Montague. + +"Well, there's a pussy-footed old hypocrite for you," said Mrs. +Billy. "In those days he was Waiting's business lackey--used to pass +the money to the legislators and keep the wheels of the machine +greased. One of the first things I said to the old man was that I +didn't ask him to entertain my butler, and he mustn't ask me to +entertain his valet--and so I forbid Ellis to enter my house. And +when I found that he was trying to get between the old man and me, I +flew into a rage and boxed his ears and chased him out of the room!" + +Mrs. Billy paused, and laughed heartily over the recollection. "Of +course that tickled the old man to death," she continued. "The +Wallings never could make out how I managed to get round him as I +did; but it was simply because I was honest with him. They'd come +snivelling round, pretending they were anxious about his health; +while I wanted his money, and I told him so." + +The valiant lady turned to the decanter. "Have some Scotch?" she +asked, and poured some for herself, and then went on with her story. +"When I first came to New York," she said, "the rich people's houses +were all alike--all dreary brownstone fronts, sandwiched in on one +or two city lots. I vowed that I would have a house with some room +all around it--and that was the beginning of those palaces that all +New York walks by and stares at. You can hardly believe it +now--those houses were a scandal! But the sensation tickled the old +man. I remember one day we walked up the Avenue to see how they were +coming on; and he pointed with his big stick to the second floor, +and asked, 'What's that?' I answered, 'It's a safe I'm building into +the house.' (That was a new thing, too, in those days.)--'I'm going +to keep my money in that,' I said. 'Bah!' he growled, 'when you're +done with this house, you won't have any money left.'--'I'm planning +to make you fill it for me,' I answered; and do you know, he +chuckled all the way home over it!" + +Mrs. Billy sat laughing softly to herself. "We had great old battles +in those days," she said. "Among other things, I had to put the +Waitings into Society. They were sneaking round on the outside when +I came--licking people's boots and expecting to be kicked. I said +to myself, I'll put an end to that--we'll have a show-down! So I +gave a ball that made the whole country sit up and gasp--it wouldn't +be noticed particularly nowadays, but then people had never dreamed +of anything so gorgeous. And I made out a list of all the people I +wanted to know in New York, and I said to myself: 'If you come, +you're a friend, and if you don't come, you're an enemy.' And they +all came, let me tell you! And there was never any question about +the Waitings being in Society after that." + +Mrs. Billy halted; and Montague remarked, with a smile, that +doubtless she was sorry now that she had done it. + +"Oh, no," she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I find that +all I have to do is to be patient--I hate people, and think I'd like +to poison them, but if I only wait long enough, something happens to +them much worse than I ever dreamed of. You'll be revenged on the +Robbies some day." + +"I don't want any revenge," Montague answered. "I've no quarrel with +them--I simply wish I hadn't accepted their hospitality. I didn't +know they were such little people. It seems hard to believe it." + +Mrs. Billy laughed cynically. "What could you expect?" she said. +"They know there's nothing to them but their money. When that's +gone, they're gone--they could never make any more." + +The lady gave a chuckle, and added: "Those words make me think of +Davy's experience when he wanted to go to Congress! Tell him about +it, Davy." + +But Mr. Alden did not warm to the subject; he left the tale to his +sister. + +"He was a Democrat, you know," said she, "and he went to the boss +and told him he'd like to go to Congress. The answer was that it +would cost him forty thousand dollars, and he kicked at the price. +Others didn't have to put up such sums, he said--why should he? And +the old man growled at him, 'The rest have other things to give. +One can deliver the letter-carriers, another is paid for by a +corporation. But what can you do? What is there to you but your +money?'--So Davy paid the money--didn't you, Davy?" And Davy grinned +sheepishly. + +"Even so," she went on, "he came off better than poor Devon. They +got fifty thousand out of him, and sold him out, and he never got to +Congress after all! That was just before he concluded that America +wasn't a fit place for a gentleman to live in." + +--And so Mrs. Billy got started on the Devons! And after that came +the Havens and the Wymans and the Todds--it was midnight before she +got through with them all. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + + + + +The newspapers said nothing more about the Hasbrook suit; but in +financial circles Montague had attained considerable notoriety +because of it. And this was the means of bringing him a number of +new cases. + +But alas, there were no more fifty-thousand-dollar clients! The +first caller was a destitute widow with a deed which would have +entitled her to the greater part of a large city in +Pennsylvania--only unfortunately the deed was about eighty years +old. And then there was a poor old man who had been hurt in a +street-car accident and had been tricked into signing away his +rights; and an indignant citizen who proposed to bring a hundred +suits against the traction trust for transfers refused. All were +contingency cases, with the chances of success exceedingly remote. +And Montague noticed that the people had come to him as a last +resort, having apparently heard of him as a man of altruistic +temper. + +There was one case which interested him particularly, because it +seemed to fit in so ominously with the grim prognosis of his +brother. He received a call from an elderly gentleman, of very +evident refinement and dignity of manner, who proceeded to unfold to +him a most amazing story. Five or six years ago he had invented a +storage-battery, which was the most efficient known. He had +organised a company with three million dollars' capital to +manufacture it, himself taking a third interest for his patents, and +becoming president of the company. Not long afterward had come a +proposal from a group of men who wished to organize a company to +manufacture automobiles; they proposed to form an alliance which +would give them the exclusive use of the battery. But these men were +not people with whom the inventor cared to deal--they were traction +and gas magnates widely known for their unscrupulous methods. And so +he had declined their offer, and set to work instead to organize an +automobile company himself. He had just got under way when he +discovered that his rivals had set to work to take his invention +away from him. A friend who owned another third share in his company +had hypothecated his stock to help form the new company; and now +came a call from the bank for more collateral, and he was obliged to +sell out. And at the next stockholders' meeting it developed that +their rivals had bought it, and likewise more stock in the open +market; and they proceeded to take possession of the company, +ousting the former president--and then making a contract with their +automobile company to furnish the storage-battery at a price which +left no profit for the manufacturers! And so for two years the +inventor had not received a dollar of dividends upon his million +dollars' worth of paper; and to cap the climax, the company had +refused to sell the battery to his automobile company, and so that +had gone into bankruptcy, and his friend was ruined also! + +Montague went into the case very carefully, and found that the story +was true. What interested him particularly in it was the fact that +he had met a couple of these financial highwaymen in social life; he +had come to know the son and heir of one of them quite well, at +Siegfried Harvey's. This gilded youth was engaged to be married in a +very few days, and the papers had it that the father-in-law had +presented the bride with a cheque for a million dollars. Montague +could not but wonder if it was the million that had been taken from +his client! + +There was to be a "bachelor dinner" at the Millionaires' on the +night before the wedding, to which he and Oliver had been invited. +As he was thinking of taking up his case, he went to his brother, +saying that he wished to decline; but Oliver had been getting back +his courage day by day, and declared that it was more important than +ever now that he should hold his ground, and face his enemies--for +Alice's sake, if not for his own. And so Montague went to the +dinner, and saw deeper yet into the history of the stolen millions. + +It was a very beautiful affair, in the beginning. There was a large +private dining-room, elaborately decorated, with a string orchestra +concealed in a bower of plants. But there were cocktails even on the +side-board at the doorway; and by the time the guests had got to the +coffee, every one was hilariously drunk. After each toast they would +hurl their glasses over their shoulders. The purpose of a "bachelor +dinner," it appeared, was a farewell to the old days and the boon +companions; so there were sentimental and comic songs which had been +composed for the occasion, and were received with whirlwinds of +laughter. + +By listening closely and reading between the lines, one might get +quite a history of the young host's adventurous career. There was a +house up on the West Side; and there was a yacht, with, orgies in +every part of the world. There was the summer night in Newport +harbour, when some one had hit upon the dazzling scheme of freezing +twenty-dollar gold pieces in tiny blocks of ice, to be dropped down +the girls' backs! And there was a banquet in a studio in New York, +when a huge pie had been brought on, from which a half-nude girl had +emerged, with a flock of canary birds about her! Then there was a +damsel who had been wont to dance upon the tops of supper tables, +clad in diaphanous costume; and who had got drunk after a +theatre-party, and set out to smash up a Broadway restaurant. There +was a cousin from Chicago, a wild lad, who made a speciality of this +diversion, and whose mistresses were bathed in +champagne.--Apparently there were numberless places in the city +where such orgies were carried on continually; there were private +clubs, and artists' "studios"--there were several allusions to a +high tower, which Montague did not comprehend. Many such matters, +however, were explained to him by an elderly gentleman who sat on +his right, and who seemed to stay sober, no matter how much he +drank. Incidentally he gravely advised Montague to meet one of the +young host's mistresses, who was a "stunning" girl, and was in the +market. + +Toward morning the festivities changed to a series of +wrestling-bouts; the young men stripped off their clothing and tore +the table to pieces, and piled it out of the way in a corner, +smashing most of the crockery in the process. Between the matches, +champagne would be opened by knocking off the heads of the bottles; +and this went on until four o'clock in the morning, when many of the +guests were lying in heaps upon the floor. + +Montague rode home in a cab with the elderly gentleman who had sat +next to him; and on the way he asked if such affairs as this were +common. And his companion, who was a "steel man" from the West, +replied by telling him of some which he had witnessed at home. At +Siegfried Harvey's theatre-party Montague had seen a popular actress +in a musical comedy, which was then the most successful play running +in New York. The house was sold out weeks ahead, and after the +matinee you might observe the street in front of the stage-entrance +blocked by people waiting to see the woman come out. She was lithe +and supple, like a panther, and wore close-fitting gowns to reveal +her form. It seemed that her play must have been built with one +purpose in mind, to see how much lewdness could be put upon a stage +without interference by the police.--And now his companion told him +how this woman had been invited to sing at a banquet given by the +magnates of a mighty Trust, and had gone after midnight to the most +exclusive club in the town, and sung her popular ditty, "Won't you +come and play with me?" The merry magnates had taken the invitation +literally--with the result that the actress had escaped from the +room with half her clothing torn off her. And a little while later +an official of this trust had wished to get rid of his wife and +marry a chorus-girl; and when public clamour had forced the +directors to ask him to resign, he had replied by threatening to +tell about this banquet! + +The next day--or rather, to be precise, that same morning--Montague +and Alice attended the gorgeous wedding. It was declared by the +newspapers to be the most "important" social event of the week; and +it took half a dozen policemen to hold back the crowds which filled +the street. The ceremony took place at St. Cecilia's, with the +stately bishop officiating, in his purple and scarlet robes. Inside +the doors were all the elect, exquisitely groomed and gowned, and +such a medley of delicious perfumes as not all the vales in Arcady +could equal. The groom had been polished and scrubbed, and looked +very handsome, though somewhat pale; and Montague could not but +smile as he observed the best man, looking so very solemn, and +recollected the drunken wrestler of a few hours before, staggering +about in a pale blue undershirt ripped up the back. + +The Montagues knew by this time whom they were to avoid. They were +graciously taken under the wing of Mrs. Eldridge Devon--whose real +estate was not affected by insurance suits; and the next morning +they had the satisfaction of seeing their names in the list of those +present--and even a couple of lines about Alice's costume. (Alice +was always referred to as "Miss Montague"; it was very pleasant to +be the "Miss Montague," and to think of all the other would-be Miss +Montagues in the city, who were thereby haughtily rebuked!) In the +"yellow" papers there were also accounts of the trousseau of the +bride, and of the wonderful gifts which she had received, and of the +long honeymoon which she was to spend in the Mediterranean upon her +husband's yacht. Montague found himself wondering if the ghosts of +its former occupants would not haunt her, and whether she would have +been as happy, had she known as much as he knew. + +He found food for a good deal of thought in the memory of this +banquet. Among the things which he had gathered from the songs was a +hint that Oliver, also, had some secrets, which he had not seen fit +to tell his brother. The keeping of young girls was apparently one +of the established customs of the "little brothers of the +rich"--and, for that matter, of many of the big brothers, also. A +little later Montague had a curious glimpse into the life of this +"half-world." He had occasion one evening to call up a certain +financier whom he had come to know quite well-a man of family and a +member of the church. There were some important papers to be signed +and sent off by a steamer; and the great man's secretary said that +he would try to find him. A minute or two later he called up +Montague and asked him if he would be good enough to go to an +address uptown. It was a house not far from Riverside Drive; and +Montague went there and found his acquaintance, with several other +prominent men of affairs whom he knew, conversing in a drawing-room +with one of the most charming ladies he had ever met. She was +exquisite to look at, and one of the few people in New York whom he +had found worth listening to. He spent such an enjoyable evening, +that when he was leaving, he remarked to the lady that he would like +his cousin Alice to meet her; and then he noticed that she flushed +slightly, and was embarrassed. Later on he learned to his dismay +that the charming and beautiful lady did not go into Society. + +Nor was this at all rare; on the contrary, if one took the trouble +to make inquiries, he would find that such establishments were +everywhere taken for granted. Montague talked about it with Major +Venable; and out of his gossip storehouse the old gentleman drew +forth a string of anecdotes that made one's hair stand on end. There +was one all-powerful magnate, who had a passion for the wife of a +great physician; and he had given a million dollars or so to build a +hospital, and had provided that it should be the finest in the +world, and that this physician should go abroad for three years to +study the institutions of Europe! No conventions counted with this +old man--if he saw a woman whom he wanted, he would ask for her; and +women in Society felt that it was an honour to be his mistress. Not +long after this a man who voiced the anguish of a mighty nation was +turned out of several hotels in New York because he was not married +according to the laws of South Dakota; but this other man would take +a woman to any hotel in the city, and no one would dare oppose him! + +And there was another, a great traction king, who kept mistresses in +Chicago and Paris and London, as well as in New York; he had one +just around the corner from his palatial home, and had an +underground passage leading to it. And the Major told with glee how +he had shown this to a friend, and the latter had remarked, "I'm too +stout to get through there."--"I know it," replied the other, "else +I shouldn't have told you!" + +And so it went. One of the richest men in New York was a sexual +degenerate, with half a dozen women on his hands all the time; he +would send them cheques, and they would use these to blackmail him. +This man's young wife had been shut up in a closet for twenty-four +hours by her mother to compel her to marry him.--And then there was +the charming tale of how he had gone away upon a mission of state, +and had written long messages full of tender protestations, and +given them to a newspaper correspondent to cable home "to his wife." +The correspondent had thought it such a touching example of conjugal +devotion that he told about it at a dinner-party when he came back; +and he was struck by the sudden silence that fell. "The messages had +been sent to a code address!" chuckled the Major. "And every one at +the table knew who had got them!" + +A few days after this, Montague received a telephone message from +Siegfried Harvey, who said that he wanted to see him about a matter +of business. He asked him to lunch at the Noonday Club; and Montague +went--though not without a qualm. For it was in the Fidelity +Building, the enemy's bailiwick: a magnificent structure with halls +of white marble, and a lavish display of bronze. It occurred to +Montague that somewhere in this structure people were at work +preparing an answer to his charges; he wondered what they were +saying. + +The two had lunch, talking meanwhile about the coming events in +Society, and about politics and wars; and when the coffee was served +and they were alone in the room, Harvey settled his big frame back +in his chair, and began:-- + +"In the first place," he said, "I must explain that I've something +to say that is devilish hard to get into. I'm so much afraid of your +jumping to a wrong conclusion in the middle of it--I'd like you to +agree to listen for a minute or two before you think at all." + +"All right," said Montague, with a smile. "Fire away." + +And at once the other became grave. "You've taken a case against +this company," he said. "And Ollie has talked enough to me to make +me understand that you've done a plucky thing, and that you must be +everlastingly sick of hearing from cowardly people who want you to +drop it. I'd be very sorry to be classed with them, for even a +moment; and you must understand at the outset that I haven't a +particle of interest in the company, and that it wouldn't matter to +me if I had. I don't try to use my friends in business, and I don't +let money count with me in my social life. I made up my mind to take +the risk of speaking to you about this case, simply because I happen +to know one or two things about it that I thought you didn't know. +And if that's so, you are at a great disadvantage; but in any case, +please understand that I have no motive but friendship, and so if I +am butting in, excuse me." + +When Siegfried Harvey talked, he looked straight at one with his +clear blue eyes, and there was no doubting his honesty. "I am very +much obliged to you," said Montague. "Pray tell me what you have to +say." + +"All right," said the other. "It can be done very quickly. You have +taken a case which involves a great many sacrifices upon your part. +And I wondered if it had ever occurred to you to ask whether you +might not be taken advantage of?" + +"How do you mean?" asked Montague. + +"Do you know the people who are behind you?" inquired the other. "Do +you know them well enough to be sure what are their motives in the +case?" + +Montague hesitated, and thought. "No," he said, "I couldn't say that +I do." + +"Then it's just as I thought," replied Harvey. "I've been watching +you--you are an honest man, and you're putting yourself to no end of +trouble from the best of motives. And unless I'm mistaken, you're +being used by men who are not honest, and whom you wouldn't work +with if you knew their purposes." + +"What purposes could they have?" + +"There are several possibilities. In the first place, it might be a +'strike' suit--somebody who is hoping to be bought off for a big +price. That is what nearly every one thinks is the case. But I +don't; I think it's more likely some one within the company who is +trying to put the administration in a hole." + +"Who could that be?" exclaimed Montague, amazed. + +"I don't know that. I'm not familiar enough with the situation in +the Fidelity--it's changing all the time. I simply know that there +are factions struggling for the control of it, and hating each other +furiously, and ready to do anything in the world to cripple each +other. You know that their forty millions of surplus gives an +enormous power; I'd rather be able to swing forty millions in the +Street than to have ten millions in my own right. And so the giants +are fighting for the control of those companies; and you can't tell +who's in and who's out--you can never know the real meaning of +anything that happens in the struggle. All that you can be sure of +is that the game is crooked from end to end, and that nothing that +happens in it is what it pretends to be." + +Montague listened, half dazed, and feeling as if the ground he stood +on were caving beneath his feet. + +"What do you know about those who brought you this case?" asked his +companion, suddenly. + +"Not much," he said weakly. + +Harvey hesitated a moment. "Understand me, please," he said. "I've +no wish to pry into your affairs, and if you don't care to say any +more, I'll understand it perfectly. But I've heard it said that the +man who started the thing was Ellis." + +Montague, in his turn, hesitated; then he said, "That is +correct--between you and me." + +"Very good," said Harvey, "and that is what made me suspicious. Do +you know anything about Ellis?" + +"I didn't," said the other. "I've heard a little since." + +"I can fancy so," said Harvey. "And I can tell you that Ellis is +mixed up in life-insurance matters in all sorts of dubious ways. It +seems to me that you have reason to be most careful where you follow +him." + +Montague sat with his hands clenched and his brows knitted. His +friend's talk had been like a flash of lightning; it revealed huge +menacing forms in the darkness about him. All the structure of his +hopes seemed to be tottering; his case, that he had worked so hard +over--his fifty thousand dollars that he had been so proud of! Could +it be that he had been tricked, and had made a fool of himself? + +"How in the world am I to know?" he cried. + +"That is more than I can tell," said his friend. "And for that +matter, I'm not sure that you could do anything now. All that I +could do was to warn you what sort of ground you were treading on, +so that you could watch out for yourself in future." + +Montague thanked him heartily for that service; and then he went +back to his office, and spent the rest of the day pondering the +matter. + +What he had heard had made a vast change in things. Before it +everything had seemed simple; and now nothing was clear. He was +overwhelmed with a sense of the utter futility of his efforts; he +was trying to build a house upon quicksands. There was nowhere a +solid spot upon which he could set his foot. There was nowhere any +truth--there were only contending powers who used the phrases of +truth for their own purposes! And now he saw himself as the world +saw him,--a party to a piece of trickery,--a knave like all the +rest. He felt that he had been tripped up at the first step in his +career. + +The conclusion of the whole matter was that he took an afternoon +train for Albany; and the next morning he talked the matter out with +the Judge. Montague had realized the need of going slowly, for, +after all, he had no definite ground for suspicion; and so, very +tactfully and cautiously he explained, that it had come to his ears +that many people believed there were interested parties behind the +suit of Mr. Hasbrook; and that this had made him uncomfortable, as +he knew nothing whatever about his client. He had come to ask the +Judge's advice in the matter. + +No one could have taken the thing more graciously than did the great +man; he was all kindness and tact. In the first place, he said, he +had warned him in advance that enemies would attack him and slander +him, and that all kinds of subtle means would be used to influence +him. And he must understand that these rumours were part of such a +campaign; it made no difference how good a friend had brought them +to him--how could he know who had brought them to that friend? + +The Judge ventured to hope that nothing that anyone might say could +influence him to believe that he, the Judge, would have advised him +to do anything improper. + +"No," said Montague, "but can you assure me that there are no +interested parties behind Mr. Hasbrook?" + +"Interested parties?" asked the other. + +"I mean people connected with the Fidelity or other insurance +companies." + +"Why, no," said the Judge; "I certainly couldn't assure you of +that." + +Montague looked surprised. "You mean you don't know?" + +"I mean," was the answer, "that I wouldn't feel at liberty to tell, +even if I did know." + +And Montague stared at him; he had not been prepared for this +frankness. + +"It never occurred to me," the other continued, "that that was a +matter which could make any difference to you." + +"Why--" began Montague. + +"Pray understand me, Mr. Montague," said the Judge. "It seemed to me +that this was obviously a just case, and it seemed so to you. And +the only other matter that I thought you had a right to be assured +of was that it was seriously meant. Of that I felt assured. It did +not seem to me of any importance that there might be interested +individuals behind Mr. Hasbrook. Let us suppose, for instance, that +there were some parties who had been offended by the administration +of the Fidelity, and were anxious to punish it. Could a lawyer be +justified in refusing to take a just case, simply because he knew of +such private motives? Or, let us assume an extreme case--a +factional fight within the company, as you say has been suggested to +you. Well, that would be a case of thieves falling out; and is there +any reason why the public should not reap the advantage of such a +situation? The men inside the company are the ones who would know +first what is going on; and if you saw a chance to use such an +advantage in a just fight--would you not do it?" + +So the Judge went on, gracious and plausible--and so subtly and +exquisitely corrupting! Underneath his smoothly flowing sentences +Montague could feel the presence of one fundamental thought; it was +unuttered and even unhinted, but it pervaded the Judge's discourse as a +mood pervades a melody. The young lawyer had got a big fee, and he had a +nice easy case; and as a man of the world, he could not really wish to +pry into it too closely. He had heard gossip, and felt that his +reputation required him to be disturbed; but he had come, simply to be +smoothed down the back and made at ease, and enabled to keep his fee +without losing his good opinion of himself. + +Montague quit, because he concluded that it was not worth while to +try to make himself understood. After all, he was in the case now, +and there was nothing to be gained by a breach. Two things he felt +that he had made certain by the interview--first, that his client +was a "dummy," and that it was really a case of thieves falling out; +and second, that he had no guarantee that he might not be left in +the lurch at any moment--except the touching confidence of the +Judge in some parties unknown. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + + + + +Montague came home with his mind made up that there was nothing he +could do except to be more careful next time. For this mistake he +would have to pay the price. + +He had still to learn what the full price was. The day after his +return there came a caller--Mr. John C. Burton, read his card. He +proved to be a canvassing agent for the company which published the +scandal-sheet of Society. They were preparing a de luxe account of +the prominent families of New York; a very sumptuous affair, with a +highly exclusive set of subscribers, at the rate of fifteen hundred +dollars per set. Would Mr. Montague by any chance care to have his +family included? + +And Mr. Montague explained politely that he was a comparative +stranger in New York, and would not belong properly in such a +volume. But the agent was not satisfied with this. There might be +reasons for his subscribing, even so; there might be special cases; +Mr. Montague, as a stranger, might not realize the important nature +of the offer; after he had consulted his friends, he might change +his mind--and so on. As Montague listened to this series of broad +hints, and took in the meaning of them, the colour mounted, to his +cheeks--until at last he rose abruptly and bid the man good +afternoon. + +But then as he sat alone, his anger died away, and there was left +only discomfort and uneasiness. And three or four days later he +bought another issue of the paper, and sure enough, there was a new +paragraph! + +He stood on the street-corner reading it. The social war was raging +hotly, it said; and added that Mrs. de Graffenried was threatening +to take up the cause of the strangers. Then it went on to picture a +certain exquisite young man of fashion who was rushing about among +his friends to apologize for his brother's indiscretions. Also, it +said, there was a brilliant social queen, wife of a great banker, +who had taken up the cudgels.--And then came three sentences more, +which made the blood leap like flame into Montague's cheeks: + +"There have not been lacking comments upon her suspicious ardour. It +has been noticed that since the advent of the romantic-looking +Southerner, this restless lady's interest in the Babists and the +trance mediums has waned; and now Society is watching for the +denouement of a most interesting situation." + +To Montague these words came like a blow in the face. He went on +down the street, half dazed. It seemed to him the blackest shame +that New York had yet shown him. He clenched his fists as he walked, +whispering to himself, "The scoundrels!" + +He realized instantly that he was helpless. Down home one would +have thrashed the editor of such a paper; but here he was in the +wolves' own country, and he could do nothing. He went back to his +office, and sat down at the desk. + +"My dear Mrs. Winnie," he wrote. "I have just read the enclosed +paragraph, and I cannot tell you how profoundly pained I am that +your kindness to us should have made you the victim of such an +outrage. I am quite helpless in the matter, except to enable you to +avoid any further annoyance. Please believe me when I say that we +shall all of us understand perfectly if you think that we had best +not meet again at present; and that this will make no difference +whatever in our feelings." + +This letter Montague sent by a messenger; and then he went home. +Perhaps ten minutes after he arrived, the telephone bell rang--and +there was Mrs. Winnie. + +"Your note has come," she said. "Have you an. engagement this +evening?" + +"No," he answered. + +"Well," she said, "will you come to dinner?" + +"Mrs. Winnie--" he protested. + +"Please come," she said. "Please!" + +"I hate to have you--" he began. + +"I wish you to come!" she said, a third time. + +So he answered, "Very well." + +He went; and when he entered the house, the butler led him to the +elevator, saying, "Mrs. Duval says will you please come upstairs, +sir." And there Mrs. Winnie met him, with flushed cheeks and eager +countenance. + +She was even lovelier than usual, in a soft cream-coloured gown, and +a crimson rose in her bosom. "I'm all alone to-night," she said, "so +we'll dine in my apartments. We'd be lost in that big room +downstairs." + +She led him into her drawing-room, where great armfuls of new roses +scattered their perfume. There was a table set for two, and two big +chairs before the fire which blazed in the hearth. Montague noticed +that her hand trembled a little, as she motioned him to one of them; +he could read her excitement in her whole aspect. She was flinging +down the gauntlet to her enemies! + +"Let us eat first and talk afterward," she said, hurriedly. "We'll +be happy for a while, anyway." + +And she went on to be happy, in her nervous and eager way. She +talked about the new opera which was to be given, and about Mrs. de +Graffenried's new entertainment, and about Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden's +ball; also about the hospital for crippled children which she wanted +to build, and about Mrs. Vivie Patton's rumoured divorce. And, +meantime, the sphinx-like attendants amoved here and there, and the +dinner came and went. They took their coffee in the big chairs by +the fire; and the table was swept clear, and the servants vanished, +closing the doors behind them. + +Then Montague set his cup aside, and sat gazing sombrely into the +fire. And Mrs. Winnie watched him. There was a long silence. + +Suddenly he heard her voice. "Do you find it so easy to give up our +friendship?" she asked. + +"I didn't think about it's being easy or hard," he answered. "I +simply thought of protecting you." + +"And do you think that my friends are nothing to me?" she demanded. +"Have I so very many as that?" And she clenched her hands with a +sudden passionate gesture. "Do you think that I will let those +wretches frighten me into doing what they want? I'll not give in to +them--not for anything that Lelia can do!" + +A look of perplexity crossed Montague's face. "Lelia?" he asked. + +"Mrs. Robbie Walling!" she cried. "Don't you suppose that she is +responsible for that paragraph?" + +Montague started. + +"That's the way they fight their battles!" cried Mrs. Winnie. "They +pay money to those scoundrels to be protected. And then they send +nasty gossip about people they wish to injure." + +"You don't mean that!" exclaimed the man. + +"Of course I do," cried she. "I know that it's true! I know that +Robbie Walling paid fifteen thousand dollars for some trumpery +volumes that they got out! And how do you suppose the paper gets its +gossip?" + +"I didn't know," said Montague. "But I never dreamed--" + +"Why," exclaimed Mrs. Winnie, "their mail is full of blue and gold +monogram stationery! I've known guests to sit down and write gossip +about their hostesses in their own homes. Oh, you've no idea of +people's vileness!" + +"I had some idea," said Montague, after a pause.--"That was why I +wished to protect you." + +"I don't wish to be protected!" she cried, vehemently. "I'll not +give them the satisfaction. They wish to make me give you up, and +I'll not do it, for anything they can say!" + +Montague sat with knitted brows, gazing into the fire. "When I read +that paragraph," he said slowly. "I could not bear to think of the +unhappiness it might cause you. I thought of how much it might +disturb your husband--" + +"My husband!" echoed Mrs. Winnie. + +There was a hard tone in her voice, as she went on. "He will fix it +up with them," she said,--"that's his way. There will be nothing +more published, you can feel sure of that." + +Montague sat in silence. That was not the reply he had expected, and +it rather disconcerted him. + +"If that were all--" he said, with hesitation. "But I could not +know. I thought that the paragraph might disturb him for another +reason--that it might be a cause of unhappiness between you and +him--" + +There was a pause. "You don't understand," said Mrs. Winnie, at +last. + +Without turning his head he could see her hands, as they lay upon +her knees. She was moving them nervously. "You don't understand," +she repeated. + +When she began to' speak again, it was in a low, trembling voice. "I +must tell you," she said; "I have felt sure that you did not know." + +There was another pause. She hesitated, and her hands trembled; then +suddenly she'hurried on.--"I wanted you to know. I do not love my +husband. I am not bound to him. He has nothing to say in my +affairs." + +Montague sat rigid, turned to stone. He was half dazed by the words. +He could feel Mrs. Winnie's gaze fixed upon him; and he could feel +the hot flush that spread over her throat and cheeks. + +"It--it was not fair for you not to know," she whispered. And her +voice died away, and there was again a silence. Montague was dumb. + +"Why don't you say something?" she panted, at last; and he caught +the note of anguish in her voice. Then he turned and stared at her, +and saw her tightly clenched hands, and the quivering of her lips. + +He was shocked quite beyond speech. And he saw her bosom heaving +quickly, and saw the tears start into her eyes. Suddenly she sank +down, and covered her face with her hands and broke into frantic +sobbing. + +"Mrs. Winnie!" he cried; and started to his feet. + +Her outburst continued. He saw that she was shuddering violently. +"Then you don't love me!" she wailed. + +He stood trembling and utterly bewildered. "I'm so sorry!" he +whispered. "Oh, Mrs. Winnie--I had no idea--" + +"I know it! I know it!" she cried. "It's my fault! I was a fool! I +knew it all the time. But I hoped--I thought you might, if you +knew--" + +And then again her tears choked her; she was convulsed with pain and +grief. + +Montague stood watching her, helpless with distress. She caught hold +of the arm of the chair, convulsively, and he put his hand upon +hers. + +"Mrs. Winnie--" he began. + +But she jerked her hand away and hid it. "No, no!" she cried, in +terror. "Don't touch me!" + +And suddenly she looked up at him, stretching out her arms. "Don't +you understand that I love you?" she exclaimed. "You despise me for +it, I know--but I can't help it. I will tell you, even so! It's the +only satisfaction I can have. I have always loved you! And I +thought--I thought it was only that you didn't understand. I was +ready to brave all the world--I didn't care who knew it, or what +anybody said. I thought we could be happy--I thought I could be free +at last. Oh, you've no idea how unhappy I am--and how lonely--and +how I longed to escape! And I believed that you--that you might--" + +And then the tears gushed into Mrs. Winnie's eyes again, and her +voice became the voice of a little child. + +"Don't you think that you might come to love me?" she wailed. + +Her voice shook Montague, so that he trembled to the depths of him. +But his face only became the more grave. + +"You despise me because I told you!" she exclaimed. + +"No, no, Mrs. Winnie," he said. "I could not possibly do that--" + +"Then--then why--" she whispered.--"Would it be so hard to love me?" + +"It would be very easy," he said, "but I dare not let myself." + +She looked at him piteously. "You are so cold--so merciless!" she +cried. + +He answered nothing, and she sat trembling. "Have you ever loved a +woman?" she asked. + +There was a long pause. He sat in the chair again. "Listen, Mrs. +Winnie"--he began at last. + +"Don't call me that!" she exclaimed. "Call me Evelyn--please." + +"Very well," he said--"Evelyn. I did not intend to make you +unhappy--if I had had any idea, I should never have seen you again. +I will tell you--what I have never told anybody before. Then you +will understand." + +He sat for a few moments, in a sombre reverie. + +"Once," he said, "when I was young, I loved a woman--a quadroon +girl. That was in New Orleans; it is a custom we have there. They +have a world of their own, and we take care of them, and of the +children; and every one knows about it. I was very young, only about +eighteen; and she was even younger. But I found out then what women +are, and what love means to them. I saw how they could suffer. And +then she died in childbirth--the child died, too." + +Montague's voice was very low; and Mrs. Winnie sat with her hands +clasped, and her eyes riveted upon his face. "I saw her die," he +said. "And that was all. I have never forgotten it. I made up my +mind then that I had done wrong; and that never again while I lived +would I offer my love to a woman, unless I could devote all my life +to her. So you see, I am afraid of love. I do not wish to suffer so +much, or to make others suffer. And when anyone speaks to me as you +did, it brings it all back to me--it makes me shrink up and wither." + +He paused, and the other caught her breath. + +"Understand me," she said, her voice trembling. "I would not ask any +pledges of you. I would pay whatever price there was to pay--I am +not afraid to suffer." + +"I do not wish you to suffer," he said. "I do not wish to take +advantage of any woman." + +"But I have nothing in the world that I value!" she cried. "I would +go away--I would give up everything, to be with a man like you. I +have no ties--no duties--" + +He interrupted her. "You have your husband--" he said. + +And she cried out in sudden fury--"My husband!" + +"Has no one ever told you about my husband?" she asked, after a +pause. + +"No one," he said. + +"Well, ask them!" she exclaimed. "Meantime, take my word for it--I +owe nothing to my husband." + +Montague sat staring into the fire. "But consider my own case," he +said. "_I_ have duties--my mother and my cousin--" + +"Oh, don't say any more!" cried the woman, with a break in her +voice. "Say that you don't love me--that is all there is to say! +And you will never respect me again! I have been a fool--I have +ruined everything! I have flung away your friendship, that I might +have kept!" + +"No," he said. + +But she rushed on, vehemently--"At least, I have been honest--give +me credit for that! That is how all my troubles come--I say what is +in my mind, and I pay the price for my blunders. It is not as if I +were cold and calculating--so don't despise me altogether." + +"I couldn't despise you," said Montague. "I am simply pained, +because I have made you unhappy. And I did not mean to." + +Mrs. Winnie sat staring ahead of her in a sombre reverie. "Don't +think any more about it," she said, bitterly. "I will get over it. I +am not worth troubling about. Don't you suppose I know how you feel +about this world that I live in? And I'm part of it--I beat my +wings, and try to get out, but I can't. I'm in it, and I'll stay in +till I die; I might as well give up. I thought that I could steal a +little joy--you have no idea how hungry I am for a little joy! You +have no idea how lonely I am! And how empty my life is! You talk +about your fear of making me unhappy; it's a grim jest--but I'll +give you permission, if you can! I'll ask nothing--no promises, no +sacrifices! I'll take all the risks, and pay all the penalties!" + +She smiled through her tears, a sardonic smile. He was watching her, +and she turned again, and their eyes met; again he saw the blood +mount from her throat to her cheeks. At the same time came the old +stirring of the wild beasts within him. He knew that the less time +he spent in sympathizing with Mrs. Winnie, the better for both of +them. + +He had started to rise, and words of farewell were on his lips; when +suddenly there came a knock upon the door. + +Mrs. Winnie sprang to her feet. "Who is that?" she cried. + +And the door opened, and Mr. Duval entered. + +"Good evening," he said pleasantly, and came toward her. + +Mrs. Winnie flushed angrily, and stared at him. "Why do you come +here unannounced?" she cried. + +"I apologize," he said--"but I found this in my mail--" + +And Montague, in the act of rising to greet him, saw that he had the +offensive clipping in his hand. Then he saw Duval give a start, and +realized that the man had not been aware of his presence in the +room. + +Duval gazed from Montague to his wife, and noticed for the first +time her tears, and her agitation. "I beg pardon," he said. "I am +evidently trespassing." + +"You most certainly are," responded Mrs. Winnie. + +He made a move to withdraw; but before he could take a step, she had +brushed past him and left the room, slamming the door behind her. + +And Duval stared after her, and then he stared at Montague, and +laughed. "Well! well! well!" he said. + +Then, checking his amusement, he added, "Good evening, sir." + +"Good evening," said Montague. + +He was trembling slightly, and Duval noticed it; he smiled genially. +"This is the sort of material out of which scenes are made," said +he. "But I beg you not to be embarrassed--we won't have any scenes." + +Montague could think of nothing to say to that. + +"I owe Evelyn an apology," the other continued. "It was entirely an +accident--this clipping, you see. I do not intrude, as a rule. You +may make yourself at home in future." + +Montague flushed scarlet at the words. + +"Mr. Duval," he said, "I have to assure you that you are mistaken--" + +The other stared at him. "Oh, come, come!" he said, laughing. "Let +us talk as men of the world." + +"I say that you are mistaken," said Montague again. + +The other shrugged his shoulders. "Very well," he said genially. "As +you please. I simply wish to make matters clear to you, that's all. +I wish you joy with Evelyn. I say nothing about her--you love her. +Suffice it that I've had her, and I'm tired of her; the field is +yours. But keep her out of mischief, and don't let her make a fool +of herself in public, if you can help it. And don't let her spend +too much money--she costs me a million a year already.--Good +evening, Mr. Montague." + +And he went out. Montague, who stood like a statue, could hear him +chuckling all the way down the hall. + +At last Montague himself started to leave. But he heard Mrs. Winnie +coming back, and he waited for her. She came in and shut the door, +and turned toward him. + +"What did he say?" she asked. + +"He--was very pleasant," said Montague. + +And she smiled grimly. "I went out on purpose," she said." I wanted +you to see him--to see what sort of a man he is, and how much 'duty' +I owe him! You saw, I guess." + +"Yes, I saw," said he. + +Then again he started to go. But she took him by the arm. "Come and +talk to me," she said. "Please!" + +And she led him back to the fire. "Listen," she said. "He will not +come here again. He is going away to-night--I thought he had gone +already. And he does not return for a month or two. There will be no +one to disturb us again." + +She came close to him and gazed up into his face. She had wiped her +tears away, and her happy look had come back to her; she was +lovelier than ever. + +"I took you by surprise," she said, smiling. "You didn't know what +to make of it. And I was ashamed--I thought you would hate me. But +I'm not going to be unhappy any more--I don't care at all. I'm glad +that I spoke!" + +And Mrs. Winnie put up her hands and took him by the lapels of his +coat. "I know that you love me," she said; "I saw it in your eyes +just now, before he came in: It is simply that you won't let +yourself go. You have so many doubts and so many fears. But you will +see that I am right; you will learn to love me. You won't be able to +help it--I shall be so kind and good! Only don't go away--" + +Mrs. Winnie was so close to him that her breath touched his cheek. +"Promise me, dear," she whispered--"promise me that you won't stop +seeing me--that you will learn to love me. I can't do without you!" + +Montague was trembling in every nerve; he felt like a man caught in +a net. Mrs. Winnie had had everything she ever wanted in her life; +and now she wanted him! It was impossible for her to face any other +thought. + +"Listen," he began gently. + +But she saw the look of resistance in his eyes, and she cried "No +no--don't! I cannot do without you! Think! I love you! What more can +I say to you? I cannot believe that you don't care for me--you HAVE +been fond of me--I have seen it in your face. Yet you're afraid of +me--why? Look at me--am I not beautiful to look at I And is a +woman's love such a little thing--can you fling it away and trample +upon it so easily? Why do you wish to go? Don't you understand--no +one knows we are here--no one cares! You can come here whenever you +wish--this is my place--mine! And no one will think anything about +it. They all do it. There is nothing to be afraid of!" + +She put her arms about him, and clung to him so that he could feel +the beating of her heart upon his bosom. "Oh, don't leave me here +alone to-night!" she cried. + +To Montague it was like the ringing of an alarm-bell deep within his +soul. "I must go," he said. + +She flung back her head and stared at him, and he saw the terror and +anguish in her eyes. "No, no!" she cried, "don't say that to me! I +can't bear it--oh, see what I have done! Look at me! Have mercy on +me!" + +"Mrs. Winnie," he said, "you must have mercy on ME!" + +But he only felt her clasp him more tightly. He took her by the +wrists, and with quiet force he broke her hold upon him; her hands +fell to her sides, and she stared at him, aghast. + +"I must go," he said, again. + +And he started toward the door. She followed him dumbly with her +eyes. + +"Good-bye," he said. He knew that there was no use of any more +words; his sympathy had been like oil upon flames. He saw her move, +and as he opened the door, she flung herself down in a chair and +burst into frantic weeping. He shut the door softly and went away. + +He found his way down the stairs, and got his hat and coat, and went +out, unseen by anyone. He walked down the Avenue-and there suddenly +was the giant bulk of St. Cecilia's lifting itself into the sky. He +stopped and looked at it--it seemed a great tumultuous surge of +emotion. And for the first time in his life it seemed to him that he +understood why men had put together that towering heap of stone! + +Then he went on home. + +He found Alice dressing for a ball, and Oliver waiting for her. He +went to his room, and took off his coat; and Oliver came up to him, +and with a sudden gesture reached over to his shoulder, and held up +a trophy. + +He drew it out carefully, and measured the length of it, smiling +mischievously in the meanwhile. Then he held it up to the light, to +see the colour of it. + +"A black one!" he cried. "Coal black!" And he looked at his brother, +with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "Oh, Allan!" he chuckled. + +Montague said nothing. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + + + + +It was about a week from the beginning of Lent, when there would be +a lull in the city's gaieties, and Society would shift the scene of +its activities to the country clubs, and to California and Hot +Springs and Palm Beach. Mrs. Caroline. Smythe invited Alice to join +her in an expedition to the last-named place; but Montague +interposed, because he saw that Alice had been made pale and nervous +by three months of night-and-day festivities. Also, a trip to +Florida would necessitate ten or fifteen thousand dollars' worth of +new clothes; and these would not do for the summer, it +appeared--they would be faded and passe by that time. + +So Alice settled back to rest; but she was too popular to be let +alone--a few days later came another invitation, this time from +General Prentice and his family. They were planning a railroad +trip--to be gone for a month; they would have a private train, and +twenty five people in the party, and would take in California and +Mexico--"swinging round the circle," as it was called. Alice was +wild to go, and Montague gave his consent. Afterward he learned to +his dismay that Charlie Carter was one of those invited, and he +would have liked to have Alice withdraw; but she did not wish to, +and he could not make up his mind to insist. + +These train trips were the very latest diversion of the well-to-do; +a year ago no one had heard of them, and now fifty parties were +leaving New York every month. You might see a dozen of such +hotel-trains at once at Palm Beach; there were some people who lived +on board all the time, having special tracks built for them in +pleasant locations wherever they stopped. One man had built a huge +automobile railroad car, shaped like a ram, and having accommodation +for sixty people. The Prentice train had four cars, one of them a +"library car," finished in St. lago mahogany, and provided with a +pipe-organ. Also there were bath-rooms and a barber-shop, and a +baggage car with two autos on board for exploring purposes. + +Since the episode of Mrs. Winnie, Oliver had apparently concluded +that his brother was one of the initiated. Not long afterward he +permitted him to a glimpse into that side of his life which had been +hinted at in the songs at the bachelors' dinner. + +Oliver had planned to take Betty Wyman to the theatre; but Betty's +grandfather had come home from the West unexpectedly, and so Oliver +came round and took his brother instead. + +"I was going to play a joke on her," he said. "We'll go to see one +of my old flames." + +It was a translation of a French farce, in which the marital +infidelities of two young couples were the occasion of many mishaps. +One of the characters was a waiting-maid, who was in love with a +handsome young soldier, and was pursued by the husband of one of the +couples. It was a minor part, but the young Jewish girl who played +it had so many pretty graces and such a merry laugh that she made it +quite conspicuous. When the act was over, Oliver asked him whose +acting he liked best, and he named her. + +"Come and be introduced to her," Oliver said. + +He opened a door near their box. "How do you do, Mr. Wilson," he +said, nodding to a man in evening dress, who stood near by. Then he +turned toward the dressing-rooms, and went down a corridor, and +knocked upon one of the doors. A voice called, "Come in," and he +opened the door; and there was a tiny room, with odds and ends of +clothing scattered about, and the girl, clad in corsets and +underskirt, sitting before a mirror. "Hello, Rosalie," said he. + +And she dropped her powder-puff, and sprang up with a cry--"Ollie!" +'In a moment more she had her arms about his neck. + +"Oh, you wretched man," she cried. "Why don't you come to see me any +more? Didn't you get my letters?" + +"I got some," said he. "But I've been busy. This is my brother, Mr. +Allan Montague." + +The other nodded to Montague, and said, "How do you do?"--but +without letting go of Oliver. "Why don't you come to see me?" she +exclaimed. + +"There, there, now!" said Oliver, laughing good-naturedly. "I +brought my brother along so that you'd have to behave yourself." + +"I don't care about your brother!" exclaimed the girl, without even +giving him another glance. Then she held Oliver at arm's length, and +gazed into his face. "How can you be so cruel to me?" she asked. + +"I told you I was busy," said he, cheerfully. "And I gave you fair +warning, didn't I? How's Toodles?" + +"Oh, Toodles is in raptures," said Rosalie. "She's got a new +fellow." And then, her manner changing to one of merriment, she +added: "Oh, Ollie! He gave her a diamond brooch! And she looks like +a countess--she's hoping for a chance to wear it in a part!" + +"You've seen Toodles," said Oliver, to his brother "She's in 'The +Kaliph of Kamskatka.'". + +"They're going on the road next week," said Rosalie. "And then I'll +be all alone." She added, in a pleading voice: "Do, Ollie, be a good +boy and take us out to-night. Think how long it's been since I've +seen you! Why, I've been so good I don't know myself in the +looking-glass. Please, Ollie!" + +"All right," said he, "maybe I will." + +"I'm not going to let you get away from me," she cried. "I'll come +right over the footlights after you!" + +"You'd better get dressed," said Oliver. "You'll be late." + +He pushed aside a tray with some glasses on it, and seated himself +upon a trunk; and Montague stood in a corner and watched Rosalie, +while she powdered and painted herself, and put on an airy summer +dress, and poured out a flood of gossip about "Toodles" and +"Flossie" and "Grace" and some others. A few minutes later came a +stentorian voice in the hallway: "Second act!" There were more +embraces, and then Ollie brushed the powder from his coat, and went +away laughing. + +Montague stood for a few moments in the wings, watching the +scene-shifters putting the final touches to the new set, and the +various characters taking their positions. Then they went out to +their seats. "Isn't she a jewel?" asked Oliver. + +"She's very pretty," the other admitted. + +"She came right out of the slums," said Oliver--"over on Rivington +Street. That don't happen very often." + +"How did you come to know her?" asked his brother. + +"Oh, I picked her out. She was in a chorus, then. I got her first +speaking part." + +"Did you?" said the other, in surprise. "How did you do that?" + +"Oh, a little money," was the reply. "Money will do most anything. +And I was in love with her--that's how I got her." + +Montague said nothing, but sat in thought. + +"We'll take her out to supper and make her happy," added Oliver, as +the curtain started up. "She's lonesome, I guess. You see, I +promised Betty I'd reform." + +All through that scene and the next one Rosalie acted for them; she +was so full of verve and merriment that there was quite a stir in +the audience, and she got several rounds of applause. Then, when the +play was over, she extricated herself from the arms of the handsome +young soldier, and fled to her dressing-room, and when Oliver and +Montague arrived, she was half ready for the street. + +They went up Broadway, and from a group of people coming out of +another stage-entrance a young girl came to join them--an airy +little creature with the face of a doll-baby, and a big hat with a +purple feather on top. This was "Toodles"--otherwise known as Helen +Gwynne; and she took Montague's arm, and they fell in behind Oliver +and his companion. + +Montague wondered what one said to a chorus-girl on the way to +supper. Afterward his brother told him that Toodles had been the +wife of a real-estate agent in a little town in Oklahoma, and had +run away from respectability and boredom with a travelling +theatrical company. Now she was tripping her part in the musical +comedy which Montague had seen at Mrs. Lane's; and incidentally +swearing devotion to a handsome young "wine-agent." She confided to +Montague that she hoped the latter might see her that evening--he +needed to be made jealous. + +"The Great White Way" was the name which people had given to this +part of Broadway; and at the head of it stood a huge hotel with +flaming lights, and gorgeous marble and bronze, and famous paintings +upon the walls and ceilings inside. At this hour every one of its +many dining-rooms was thronged with supper-parties, and the place +rang with laughter and the rattle of dishes, and the strains of +several orchestras which toiled heroically in the midst of the +uproar. Here they found a table, and while Oliver was ordering +frozen poached eggs and quails in aspic, Montague sat and gazed +about him at the revelry, and listened to the prattle of the little +ex-sempstress from Rivington Street. + +His brother had "got her," he said, by buying a speaking part in a +play for her; and Montague recalled the orgies of which he had heard +at the bachelors' dinner, and divined that here he was at the source +of the stream from which they were fed. At the table next to them +was a young Hebrew, whom Toodles pointed out as the son and heir of +a great clothing manufacturer. He was "keeping" several girls, said +she; and the queenly creature who was his vis-a-vis was one of the +chorus in "The Maids of Mandalay." And a little way farther down the +room was a boy with the face of an angel and the air of a prince of +the blood--he had inherited a million and run away from school, and +was making a name for himself in the Tenderloin. The pretty little +girl all in green who was with him was Violet Pane, who was the +artist's model in a new play that had made a hit. She had had a +full-page picture of herself in the Sunday supplement of the +"sporting paper" which was read here--so Rosalie remarked. + +"Why don't you ever do that for me?" she added, to Oliver. + +"Perhaps I will," said he, with a laugh. "What does it cost?" + +And when he learned that the honour could be purchased for only +fifteen hundred dollars, he said, "I'll do it, if you'll be good." +And from that time on the last trace of worriment vanished from the +face and the conversation of Rosalie. + +As the champagne cocktails disappeared, she and Oliver became +confidential. Then Montague turned to Toodles, to learn more about +how the "second generation" was preying upon the women of the stage. + +"A chorus-girl got from ten to twenty dollars a week," said Toodles; +and that was hardly enough to pay for her clothes. Her work was very +uncertain--she would spend weeks at rehearsal, and then if the play +failed, she would get nothing. It was a dog's life; and the keys of +freedom and opportunity were in the keeping of rich men, who haunted +the theatres and laid siege to the girls. They would send in notes +to them, or fling bouquets to them, with cards, or perhaps money, +hidden in them. There were millionaire artists and bohemians who +kept a standing order for seats in the front rows at opening +performances; they had accounts with florists and liverymen and +confectioners, and gave carte blanche to scores of girls who lent +themselves to their purposes. Sometimes they were in league with the +managers, and a girl who held back would find her chances +imperilled; sometimes these men would even finance shows to give a +chance to some favourite. + +Afterward Toodles turned to listen to Oliver and his companion; and +Montague sat back and gazed about the room. Next to him was a long +table with a dozen, people at it; and he watched the buckets of +champagne and the endless succession of fantastic-looking dishes of +food, and the revellers, with their flushed faces and feverish eyes +and loud laughter. Above all the tumult was the voice of the +orchestra, calling, calling, like the storm wind upon the mountains; +the music was wild and chaotic, and produced an indescribable sense +of pain and confusion. When one realized that this same thing was +going on in thousands of places in this district it seemed that here +was a flood of dissipation that out-rivalled even that of Society. + +It was said that the hotels of New York, placed end to end, would +reach all the way to London; and they took care of a couple of +hundred thousand people a day--a horde which had come from all over +the world in search of pleasure and excitement. There were +sight-seers and "country customers" from forty-five states; ranchers +from Texas, and lumber kings from Maine, and mining men from Nevada. +At home they had reputations, and perhaps families to consider; but +once plunged into the whirlpool of the Tenderloin, they were hidden +from all>the world. They came with their pockets full of money; and +hotels and restaurants, gambling-places and pool-rooms and +brothels--all were lying in wait for them! So eager had the +competition become that there was a tailoring establishment and a +bank that were never closed the year round, except on Sunday. + +Everywhere about one's feet the nets of vice were spread. The head +waiter in one's hotel was a "steerer" for a "dive," and the house +detective was "touting" for a gambling-place. The handsome woman who +smiled at one in "Peacock Alley" was a "madame"; the pleasant-faced +young man who spoke to one at the bar was on the look-out for +customers for a brokerage-house next door. Three times in a single +day in another of these great caravanserais Montague was offered +"short change"; and so his eyes were opened to a new kind of +plundering. He was struck by the number of attendants in livery who +swarmed about him, and to whom he gave tips for their services. He +did not notice that the boys in the wash-rooms and coat-rooms could +not speak a word of English; he could not know that they were +searched every night, and had everything taken from them, and that +the Greek who hired them had paid fifteen thousand dollars a year to +the hotel for the privilege. + +So far had the specialization in evil proceeded that there were +places of prostitution which did a telephone-business exclusively, +and would send a woman in a cab to any address; and there were +high-class assignation-houses, which furnished exquisite apartments +and the services of maids and valets. And in this world of vice the +modern doctrine of the equality of the sexes was fully recognized; +there were gambling-houses and pool-rooms and opium-joints for +women, and drinking-places which catered especially for them. In the +"orange room" of one of the big hotels, you might see rich women of +every rank and type, fingering the dainty leather-bound and +gold-embossed wine cards. In this room alone were sold over ten +thousand drinks every day; and the hotel paid a rental of a minion a +year to the Devon estate. Not far away the Devons also owned +negro-dives, where, in the early hours of the morning, you might see +richly-gowned white women drinking. + +In this seething caldron of graft there were many strange ways of +making money, and many strange and incredible types of human beings +to be met. Once, in "Society," Montague had pointed out to him a +woman who had been a "tattooed lady" in a circus; there was another +who had been a confederate of gamblers upon the ocean steamships, +and another who had washed dishes in a mining-camp. There was one of +these great hotels whose proprietor had been a successful burglar; +and a department-store whose owner had begun life as a "fence." In +any crowd of these revellers you might have such strange creatures +pointed out to you; a multimillionaire who sold rotten jam to the +people; another who had invented opium soothing-syrup for babies; a +convivial old gentleman who disbursed the "yellow dog fund" of +several railroads; a handsome chauffeur who had run away with an +heiress. 'Once a great scientist had invented a new kind of +underwear, and had endeavoured to make it a gift to humanity; and +here was a man who had seized upon it and made millions out of it! +Here was a "trance medium," who had got a fortune out of an imbecile +old manufacturer; here was a great newspaper proprietor, who +published advertisements of assignations at a dollar a line; here +was a cigar manufacturer, whose smug face was upon every +billboard--he had begun as a tin manufacturer, and to avoid the +duty, he had had his raw material cast in the form of statues, and +brought them in as works of art! + +And terrible and vile as were the sources from which the fortunes +had been derived, they were no viler nor more terrible than the +purposes for which they had been spent. Mrs. Vivie Patton had hinted +to Montague of a "Decameron Club," whose members gathered in each +others' homes and vied in the telling of obscene stories; Strathcona +had told him about another set of exquisite ladies and gentlemen who +gave elaborate entertainments, in which they dressed in the costumes +of bygone periods, and imitated famous characters in history, and +the vices and orgies of courts and camps. One heard of "Cleopatra +nights" on board of yachts at Newport. There was a certain Wall +Street "plunger," who had begun life as a mining man in the West; +and when his customers came in town, he would hire a trolley-car, +and take a load of champagne and half a dozen prostitutes, and spend +the night careering about the country. This man was now quartered in +one of the great hotels in New York; and in his apartments he would +have prize fights and chicken fights; and bloodthirsty exhibitions +called "purring matches," in which men tried to bark each other's +shins; or perhaps a "battle royal," with a diamond scarf-pin +dangling from the ceiling, and half a dozen negroes in a +free-for-all fight for the prize. + +No picture of the ways of the Metropolis would be complete which did +not force upon the reluctant reader some realization of the extent +to which new and hideous incitements to vice were spreading. To say +that among the leisured classes such practices were raging like a +pestilence would be no exaggeration. Ten years ago they were +regarded with aversion by even the professionally vicious; but now +the commonest prostitute accepted them as part of her fate. And +there was no height to which they had not reached--ministers of +state were enslaved by them; great fortunes and public events were +controlled by them. In Washington there had been an ambassador whose +natural daughter taught them in the houses of the great, until the +scandal forced the minister's recall. Some of these practices were +terrible in their effects, completely wrecking the victim in a short +time; and physicians who studied their symptoms would be horrified +to see them appearing in the homes of their friends. + +And from New York, the centre of the wealth and culture of the +country, these vices spread to every corner of it. Theatrical +companies and travelling salesmen carried them; visiting merchants +and sightseers acquired them. Pack-pedlers sold vile pictures and +books--the manufacturing or importing of which was now quite an +industry; one might read catalogues printed abroad in English, the +contents of which would make one's flesh creep. There were cheap +weeklies, costing ten cents a year, which were thrust into +area-windows for servant-girls; there were yellow-covered French +novels of unbelievable depravity for the mistress of the house. It +was a curious commentary upon the morals of Society that upon the +trains running to a certain suburban community frequented by the +ultra-fashionable, the newsboys did a thriving business in such +literature; and when the pastor of the fashionable church eloped +with a Society girl, the bishop publicly laid the blame to the +morals of his parishioners! + +The theory was that there were two worlds, and that they were kept +rigidly separate. There were two sets of women; one to be toyed with +and flung aside, and the other to be protected and esteemed. Such +things as prostitutes and kept women might exist, but people of +refinement did not talk about them, and were not concerned with +them. But Montague was familiar with the saying, that if you follow +the chain of the slave, you will find the other end about the wrist +of the master; and he discovered that the Tenderloin was wreaking +its vengeance upon Fifth Avenue. It was not merely that the men of +wealth were carrying to their wives and children the diseases of +vice; they were carrying also the manners and the ideals. + +Montague had been amazed by the things he had found in New York +Society; the smoking and drinking and gambling of women, their hard +and cynical views of life, their continual telling of coarse +stories. And here, in this under-world, he had come upon the +fountain head of the corruption. It was something which came to him +in a sudden flash of intuition;--the barriers between the two worlds +were breaking down! + +He could picture the process in a hundred different forms. There was +Betty Wyman. His brother had meant to take her to the theatre, to +let her see Rosalie, by way of a joke! So, of course, Betty knew of +his escapades, and of those of his set; she and her girl friends +were whispering and jesting about them. Hero sat Oliver, smiling and +cynical, toying with Rosalie as a cat might toy with a mouse; and +to-morrow he would be with Betty--and could anyone doubt any longer +whence Betty had derived her attitude towards life? And the habits +of mind that Oliver had taught her as a girl she would not forget as +a wife; he might be anxious to keep her to himself, but there would +be others whose interest was different. + +And Montague recalled other things that he had seen or heard in. +Society, that he could put his finger upon, as having come out of +this under-world. Tho more he thought of the explanation, the more +it seemed to explain. This "Society," which had perplexed him--now +he could describe it: its manners and ideals of life were those +which he would have expected to find in the "fast" side of stage +life. + +It was, of course, the women who made Society, and gave it its tone; +and the women of Society were actresses. They were actresses in +their love of notoriety and display; in their taste in clothes and +jewels, their fondness for cigarettes and champagne. They made up +like actresses; they talked and thought like actresses. The only +obvious difference was that the women of the stage were carefully +selected--were at least up to a certain standard of physical +excellence; whereas the women of Society were not selected at all, +and some were lean, and some were stout, and some were painfully +homely. + +Montague recalled cases where the two sets had met as at some of the +private entertainments. It was getting to be the fashion to hobnob +with the stage people on such occasions; and he recalled how +naturally the younger people took to this. Only the older women held +aloof; looking down upon the women of the stage from an ineffable +height, as belonging to a lower caste--because they were obliged to +work for their livings. But it seemed to Montague, as he sat and +talked with this poor chorus-girl, who had sold herself for a little +pleasure, that it was easier to pardon her than the woman who had +been born to luxury, and scorned those who produced her wealth. + +But most of all, one's sympathies went out to a person who was not +to be met in either of these sets; to the girl who had not sold +herself, but was struggling for a living in the midst of this +ravening corruption. There were thousands of self-respecting women, +even on the stage; Toodles herself had been among them, she told +Montague. "I kept straight for a long time," she said, laughing +cheerfully--"and on ten dollars a week! I used to go out on the +road, and then they paid me sixteen; and think of trying to live on +one-night stands--to board yourself and stop at hotels and dress for +the theatre--on sixteen a week, and no job half the year! And all +that time--do you know Cyril Chambers, the famous church painter?" + +"I've heard of him," said Montague. + +"Well, I was with a show here on Broadway the next winter; and every +night for six months he sent me a bunch of orchids that couldn't +have cost less than seventy-five dollars! And he told me he'd open +accounts for me in all the stores I chose, if I'd spend the next +summer in Europe with him. He said I could take my mother or my +sister with me--and I was so green in those days, I thought that +must mean he didn't intend anything wrong!" + +Toodles smiled at the memory. "Did you go?" asked the man. + +"No," she answered. "I stayed here with a roof-garden show that +failed. And I went to my old manager for a job, and he said to me, +'I can only pay you ten a week. But why are you so foolish?' 'How do +you mean?' I asked; and he answered, 'Why don't you get a rich +sweetheart? Then I could pay you sixty.' That's what a girl hears on +the stage!" + +"I don't understand," said Montague, perplexed. "Did he mean he +could get money out of the man?" + +"Not directly," said Toodles; "but tickets--and advertising. Why, +men will hire front-row seats for a whole season, if they're +interested in a girl in the show. And they'll take all their friends +to see her, and she'll be talked about--she'll be somebody, instead +of just nobody, as I was." + +"Then it actually helps her on the stage!" said Montague. + +"Helps her!" exclaimed Toodles. "My God! I've known a girl who'd +been abroad with a tip-top swell--and had the gowns and the jewels +to prove it--to come home and get into the front row of a chorus at +a hundred dollars a week." + +Toodles was cheerful and all unaware; and that only made the tragedy +of it all one shade more black to Montague. He sat lost in sombre +reverie, forgetting his companions, and the blare and glare of the +place. + +In the centre of this dining-room was a great cone-shaped stand, +containing a display of food; and as they strolled out, Montague +stopped to look at it. There were platters garnished with flowers +and herbs, and containing roast turkeys and baked hams, jellied +meats and game in aspic, puddings and tarts and frosted cakes--every +kind of food-fantasticality imaginable. One might have spent an hour +in studying it, and from top to bottom he would have found nothing +simple, nothing natural. The turkeys had paper curls and rosettes +stuck over them; the hams were covered with a white gelatine, the +devilled crabs with a yellow mayonnaise-and all painted over in pink +and green and black with landscapes and marine views--with "ships +and shoes and sealing-wax and cabbages and kings." The jellied meats +and the puddings were in the shape of fruits and flowers; and there +were elaborate works of art in pink and white confectionery--a +barn-yard, for instance, with horses and cows, and a pump, and a +dairymaid--and one or two alligators. + +And all this was changed every day! Each morning you might see a +procession of a score of waiters bearing aloft a new supply. +Montague remembered Betty Wyman's remark at their first interview, +apropos of the whipped cream made into little curleques; how his +brother had said, "If Allan were here, he'd be thinking about the +man who fixed that cream, and how long it took him, and how he might +have been reading 'The Simple Life'!" + +He thought of that now; he stood here and gazed, and wondered about +all the slaves of the lamp who served in this huge temple of luxury. +He looked at the waiters--pale, hollow-chested, harried-looking men: +he imagined the hordes of servants of yet lower kinds, who never +emerged into the light of day; the men who washed the dishes, the +men who carried the garbage, the men who shovelled the coal into the +furnaces, and made the heat and light and power. Pent up in dim +cellars, many stories under ground, and bound for ever to the +service of sensuality--how terrible must be their fate, how +unimaginable their corruption! And they were foreigners; they had +come here seeking liberty. And the masters of the new country had +seized them and pent them here! + +From this as a starting-point his thought went on, to the hordes of +toilers in every part of the world, whose fate it was to create the +things which these blind revellers destroyed; the women and children +in countless mills and sweatshops, who spun the cloth, and cut and +sewed it; the girls who made the artificial flowers, who rolled the +cigarettes, who gathered the grapes from the vines; the miners who +dug the coal and the precious metals out of the earth; the men who +watched in ten thousand signal-towers and engines, who fought the +elements from the decks of ten thousand ships--to bring all these +things here to be destroyed. Step by step, as the flood of +extravagance rose, and the energies of the men were turned to the +creation of futility and corruption--so, step by step, increased the +misery and degradation of all these slaves of Mammon. And who could +imagine what they would think about it--if ever they came to think? + +--And then, in a sudden flash, there came back to Montague that +speech he had heard upon the street-corner, the first evening he had +been in New York! He could hear again the pounding of the elevated +trains, and the shrill voice of the orator; he could see his haggard +and hungry face, and the dense crowd gazing up at him. And there +came to him the words of Major Thorne: + +"It means another civil war!" + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + + + + +Alice had been gone for a couple of weeks, and the day was drawing +near when the Hasbrook case came up for trial. The Saturday before +that being the date of the Mi-careme dance of the Long Island Hunt +Club, Siegfried Harvey was to have a house-party for the week-end, +and Montague accepted his invitation. He had been working hard, +putting the finishing touches to his brief, and he thought that a +rest would be good for him. + +He and his brother went down upon Friday afternoon, and the first +person he met was Betty Wyman, whom he had not seen for quite a +while. Betty had much to say, and said it. As Montague had not been +seen with Mrs. Winnie since the episode in her house, people had +begun to notice the break, and there was no end of gossip; and +Mistress Betty wanted to know all about it, and how things stood +between them. + +But he would not tell her, and so she saucily refused to tell him +what she had heard. All the while they talked she was eyeing him +quizzically, and it was evident that she took the worst for granted; +also that he had become a much more interesting person to her +because of it. Montague had the strangest sensatibns when he was +talking with Betty Wyman; she was delicious and appealing, almost +irresistible; and yet her views of life were so old! "I told you you +wouldn't do for a tame cat!" she said to him. + +Then she went on to talk to him about his case, and to tease him +about the disturbance he had made. + +"You know," she said, "Ollie and I were in terror--we thought that +grandfather would be furious, and that we'd be ruined. But somehow, +it didn't work out that way. Don't you say anything about it, but +I've had a sort of a fancy that he must be on your side of the +fence." + +"I'd be glad to know it," said Montague, with a laugh--"I've been +trying for a long time to find out who is on my side of the fence." + +"He was talking about it the other day," said Betty, "and I heard +him tell a man that he'd read your argument, and thought it was +good." + +"I'm glad to hear that," said Montague. + +"So was I," replied she. "And I said to him afterward, 'I suppose +you don't know that Allan Montague is my Ollie's brother.' And he +did you the honour to say that he hadn't supposed any member of +Ollie's family could have as much sense!" + +Betty was staying with an aunt near by, and she went back before +dinner. In the automobile which came for her was old Wyman himself, +on his way home from the city; and as a snowstorm had begun, he came +in and stood by the fire while his car was exchanged for a closed +one from Harvey's stables. Montague did not meet him, but stood and +watched him from the shadows-a mite of a man, with a keen and eager +face, full of wrinkles. It was hard to realize that this little body +held one of the great driving minds of the country. He was an +intensely nervous and irritable man, bitter and implacable--by all +odds the most hated and feared man in Wall Street. He was swift, +imperious, savage as a hornet. "Directors at meetings that I attend +vote first and discuss afterward," was one of his sayings that +Montague had heard quoted. Watching him here by the fireside, +rubbing his hands and chatting pleasantly, Montague had a sudden +sense of being behind the scenes, of being admitted to a privilege +denied to ordinary mortals--the beholding of royalty in everyday +attire! + +After dinner that evening Montague had a chat in the smoking-room +with his host; and he brought up the subject of the Hasbrook case, +and told about his trip to Washington, and his interview with Judge +Ellis. + +Harvey also had something to communicate. "I had a talk with Freddie +Vandam about it," said he. + +"What did he say?" asked Montague. + +"Well," replied the other, with a laugh, "he's indignant, needless +to say. You know, Freddie was brought up by his father to regard the +Fidelity as his property, in a way. He always refers to it as 'my +company.' And he's very high and mighty about it--it's a personal +affront if anyone attacks it. But it was evident to me that he +doesn't know who's behind this case." + +"Did he know about Ellis?" asked Montague. + +"Yes," said the other, "he had found out that much. It was he who +told me that originally. He says that Ellis has been sponging off +the company for years--he has a big salary that he never earns, and +has borrowed something like a quarter of a million dollars on +worthless securities." + +Montague gave a gasp. + +"Yes," laughed Harvey. "But after all, that's a little matter. The +trouble with Freddie Vandam is that that sort of thing is all he +sees; and so he'll never be able to make out the mystery. He knows +that this clique or that in the company is plotting to get some +advantage, or to use him for their purposes--but he never realizes +how the big men are pulling the wires behind the scenes. Some day +they'll throw him overboard altogether, and then he'll realize how +they've played with him. That's what this Hasbrook case means, you +know--they simply want to frighten him with a threat of getting the +company's affairs into the courts and the newspapers." + +Montague sat for a while in deep thought. + +"What would you think would be Wyman's relation to the matter?" he +asked, at last. + +"I wouldn't know," said Harvey. "He's supposed to be Freddie's +backer--but what can you tell in such a tangle?" + +"It is certainly a mess," said Montague. + +"There's no bottom to it," said the other. "Absolutely--it would +take your breath away! Just listen to what Vandain told me to-day!" + +And then Harvey named one of the directors of the Fidelity who was +well known as a philanthropist. Having heard that the wife of one of +his junior partners had met with an accident in childbirth, and that +the doctor had told her husband that if she ever had another child, +she would die, this man had asked, "Why don't you have her life +insured?" The other replied that he had tried, and the companies had +refused her. "I'll fix it for you," said he; and so they put in +another application, and the director came to Freddie Vandam and had +the policy put through "by executive order." Seven months later the +woman died, and the Fidelity had paid her husband in full--a hundred +thousand or two! + +"That's what's going on in the insurance world!" said Siegfried +Harvey. + +And that was the story which Montague took with him to add to his +enjoyment of the festivities at the country club. It was a very +gorgeous affair; but perhaps the sombreness of his thoughts was to +blame; the flowers and music and beautiful gowns failed entirely in +their appeal, and he saw only the gluttony and drunkenness--more of +it than ever before, it seemed to him. + +Then, too, he had an unpleasant experience. He met Laura Hegan; and +presuming upon her cordial reception of his visit, he went up and +spoke to her pleasantly. And she greeted him with frigid politeness; +she was so brief in her remarks and turned away so abruptly as +almost to snub him. He went away quite bewildered. But later on he +recalled the gossip about himself and Mrs. Winnie, and he guessed +that that was the explanation of Miss Hegar's action. + +The episode threw a shadow over his whole visit. On Sunday he went +out into the country and tramped through a snowstorm by himself, +filled with a sense of disgust for all the past, and of foreboding +for the future. He hated this money-world, in which all that was +worst in human beings was brought to the surface; he hated it, and +wished that he had never set foot within its bounds. It was only by +tramping until he was too tired to feel anything that he was able to +master himself. + +--And then, toward dark, he came back, and found a telegram which +had been forwarded from New York. + +"Meet me at the Penna depot, Jersey City, at nine to-night. Alice." + +This message, of course, drove all other thoughts from his mind. He +had no time even to tell Oliver about it--he had to jump into an +automobile and rush to catch the next train for the city. And all +through the long, cold ride in ferry-boats and cabs he pondered this +mystery. Alice's party had not been expected for two weeks yet; and +only two days before there had come a letter from Los Angeles, +saying that they would probably be a week over time. And here she +was home again! + +He found there was an express from the West due at the hour named; +apparently, therefore, Alice had not come in the Prentice's train at +all. The express was half an hour late, and so he paced up and down +the platform, controlling his impatience as best he could. And +finally the long train pulled in, and he saw Alice coming down the +platform. She was alone! + +"What does it mean?" were the first words he said to her. + +"It's a long story," she answered. "I wanted to come home."; + +"You mean you've come all the way from the coast by yourself!" he +gasped. + +"Yes," she said, "all the way." + +"What in the world--" he began. + +"I can't tell you here, Allan," she said. "Wait till we get to some +quiet place." + +"But," he persisted. "The Prentice? They let you come home alone?" + +"They didn't know it," she said. "I ran away." + +He was more bewildered than ever. But as he started to ask more +questions, she laid a hand upon his arm. "Please wait, Allan," she +said. "It upsets me to talk about it. It was Charlie Carter." + +And so the light broke. He caught his breath and gasped, "Oh!" + +He said not another word until they had crossed the ferry and +settled themselves in a cab, and started. "Now," he said, "tell me." + +Alice began. "I was very much upset," she said. "But you must +understand, Allan, that I've had nearly a week to think it over, and +I don't mind it now. So I want you please not to get excited about +it; it wasn't poor Charlie's fault--he can't help himself. It was my +mistake. I ought to have taken your advice and had nothing to do +with him." + +"Go on," said he; and Alice told her story. + +The party had gone sight-seeing, and she had had a headache and had +stayed in the car. And Charlie Carter had come and begun making love +to her. "He had asked me to marry him already--that was at the +beginning of the trip," she said. "And I told him no. After that he +would never let me alone. And this time he went on in a terrible +way--he flung himself down on his knees, and wept, and said he +couldn't live without me. And nothing I could say did any good. At +last he--he caught hold of me--and he wouldn't let me go. I was +furious with him, and frightened. I had to threaten to call for help +before he would stop. And so--you see how it was." + +"I see," said Montague, gravely. "Go on." + +"Well, after that I made up my mind that I couldn't stay anywhere +where I had to see him. And I knew he would never go away without a +scene. If I had asked Mrs. Prentice to send him away, there would +have been a scandal, and it would have spoiled everybody's trip. So +I went out, and found there was a train for the East in a little +while, and I packed up my things, and left a note for Mrs. Prentice. +I told her a story--I said I'd had a telegram that your mother was +ill, and that I didn't want to spoil their good time, and had gone +by myself. That was the best thing I could think of. I wasn't afraid +to travel, so long as I was sure that Charlie couldn't catch up with +me." + +Montague said nothing; he sat with his hands gripped tightly. + +"It seemed like a desperate thing to do," said Alice, nervously. +"But you see, I was upset and unhappy. I didn't seem to like the +party any more--I wanted to be home. Do you understand?" + +"Yes," said Montague, "I understand. And I'm glad you are here." + +They reached home, and Montague called up Harvey's and told his +brother what had happened. He could hear Oliver gasp with +astonishment. "That's a pretty how-do-you-do!" he said, when he had +got his breath back; and then he added, with a laugh, "I suppose +that settles poor Charlie's chances." + +"I'm glad you've come to that conclusion," said the other, as he +hung up the receiver. + +This episode gave Montague quite a shock. But he had little time to +think about it--the next morning at eleven o'clock his case was to +come up for trial, and so all his thoughts were called away. This +case had been the one real interest of his life for the last three +months; it was his purpose, the thing for the sake of which he +endured everything else that repelled him. And he had trained +himself as an athlete for a great race; he was in form, and ready +for the effort of his life. He went down town that morning with +every fibre of him, body and mind, alert and eager; and he went into +his office, and in his mail was a letter from Mr. Hasbrook. He +opened it hastily and read a message, brief and direct and decisive +as a sword-thrust: + +"I beg to inform you that I have received a satisfactory proposition +from the Fidelity Company. I have settled with them, and wish to +withdraw the suit. Thanking you for your services, I remain, +sincerely." + +To Montague the thing came like a thunderbolt. He sat utterly +dumbfounded--his hands went limp, and the letter fell upon the desk +in front of him. + +And at last, when he did move, he picked up the telephone, and told +his secretary to call up Mr. Hasbrook. Then he sat waiting; and when +the bell rang, picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Mr. +Hasbrook's voice, and to demand an explanation. But he heard, +instead, the voice of his own secretary: "Central says the number's +been discontinued, sir." + +And he hung up the receiver, and sat motionless again. The dummy had +disappeared! + +To Montague this incident meant a change in the prospect of his +whole life. It was the collapse of all his hopes. He had nothing +more to work for, nothing more to think about; the bottom had fallen +out of his career! + +He was burning with a sense of outrage. He had been tricked and made +a fool of; he had been used and flung aside. And now there was +nothing he could do--he was utterly helpless. What affected him +most was his sense of the overwhelming magnitude of the powers which +had made him their puppet; of the utter futility of the efforts that +he or any other man could make against them. They were like +elemental, cosmic forces; they held all the world in their grip, and +a common man was as much at their mercy as a bit of chaff in a +tempest. + +All day long he sat in his office, brooding and nursing his wrath. +He had moods when he wished to drop everything, to shake the dust of +the city from his feet, and go back home and recollect what it was +to be a gentleman. And then again he had righting moods, when he +wished to devote all his life to punishing the men who had made use +of him. He would get hold of some other policy-holder in the +Fidelity, one whom he could trust; he would take the case without +pay, and carry it through to the end! He would force the newspapers +to talk about it--he would force the people to heed what he said! + +And then, toward evening, he went homo, bitter and sore. And there +was his brother sitting in his study, waiting for him. + +"Hello," he said, and took off his coat, preparing his mind for one +more ignominy--the telling of his misfortune to Oliver, and +listening to his inevitable, "I told you so." + +But Oliver himself had something to communicate something that would +not bear keeping. He broke out at once--"Tell me, Allan! What in the +world has happened between you and Mrs. Winnie?" + +"What do you mean?" asked Montague, sharply. + +"Why," said Oliver, "everybody is talking about some kind of a +quarrel." + +"There has been no quarrel," said Montague. + +"Well, what is it, then?" + +"It's nothing." + +"It must be something!" exclaimed Oliver. "What do all the stories +mean?" + +"What stories?" + +"About you two. I met Mrs. Vivie Patton just now, and she swore me +to secrecy, and told me that Mrs. Winnie had told some one that you +had made love to her so outrageously that she had to ask you to +leave the house." + +Montague shrunk as from a blow. "Oh!" he gasped. + +"That's what she said," said he. + +"It's a lie!" he cried. + +"That's what I told Mrs. Vivie," said the other; "it doesn't sound +like you--" + +Montague had flushed scarlet. "I don't mean that!" he cried. "I mean +that Mrs. Winnie never said any such thing." + +"Oh," said Oliver, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe not," +he added. "But I know she's furious with you about +something--everybody's talking about it. She tells people that +she'll never speak to you again. And what I want to know is, +why is it that you have to do things to make enemies of +everybody you know?" + +Montague said nothing; he was trembling with anger. + +"What in the world did you do to her?" began the other. "Can't you +trust me---" + +And suddenly Montague sprang to his feet. "Oh, Oliver," he +exclaimed, "let me alone! Go away!" + +And he went into the next room and slammed the door, and began +pacing back and forth like a caged animal. + +It was a lie! It was a lie! Mrs. Winnie had never said such a thing! +He would never believe it--it was a nasty piece of backstairs +gossip! + +But then a new burst of rage swept over him What did it matter +Whether it was true or not--whether anything was true or not? What +did it matter if anybody had done all the hideous and loathsome +things that everybody else said they had done? It was what everybody +was saying! It was what everybody believed--what everybody was +interested in! It was the measure of a whole society--their ideals +and their standards! It was the way they spent their time, repeating +nasty scandals about each other; living in an atmosphere of +suspicion and cynicism, with endless whispering and leering, and +gossip of lew intrigue. + +A flood of rage surged up within him, and swept him, away--rage +against the world into which he had come, and against himself for +the part he had played in it. Everything seemed to have come to a +head at once; and he hated everything--hated the people he had met, +and the things they did, and the things they had tempted him to do. +He hated the way he had got his money, and the way he had spent it. +He hated the idleness and wastefulness, the drunkenness and +debauchery, the meanness and the snobbishneps. + +And suddenly he turned and flung open the door of the room where +Oliver still sat. And he stood in the doorway, exclaiming, "Oliver, +I'm done with it!" + +Oliver stared at him. "What do you mean?" he asked. + +"I mean," cried his brother, "that I've had all I can stand of +'Society!' And I'm going to quit. You can go on--but I don't intend +to take another step with you! I've had enough--and I think Alice +has had enough, also. We'll take ourselves off your hands--we'll +get out!" + +"What are you going to do?" gasped Oliver. + +"I'm going to give up these expensive apartments--give them up +to-morrow, when our week is up. And I'm going to stop squandering +money for things I don't want. I'm going to stop accepting +invitations, and meeting people I don't like and don't want to know. +I've tried your game--I've tried it hard, and I don't like it; and +I'm going to get out before it's too late. I'm going to find some +decent and simple place to live in; and I'm going down town to find +out if there isn't some way in New York for a man to earn an honest +living!" + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Metropolis, by Upton Sinclair + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METROPOLIS *** + +This file should be named tmtrp10.txt or tmtrp10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, tmtrp11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tmtrp10a.txt + +This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo (pg@aldarondo.net). + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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