CHAPTER II
IN THE BEST SOCIETY
Grant's electric had swung in at the end of the long line of carriagesof all kinds, from coach of ambassador and costly limousine ofmulti-millionaire to humble herdic wherein poor, official grandee's wifeand daughter were feeling almost as common as if they had come in astreet car or afoot. Josh Craig, leaning from the open window, could seethe grand entrance under the wide and lofty porte-cochere--the women,swathed in silk and fur, descending from the carriages and entering thewide-flung doors of the vestibule; liveries, flowers, lights, sounds ofstringed instruments, intoxicating glimpses of magnificence at windows,high and low. And now the electric was at the door. He and Arkwrightsprang out, hastened up the broad steps. His expression amusedArkwright; it was intensely self-conscious, resolutely indifferent--thekind of look that betrays tempestuous inward perturbations andmisgivings. "Josh is a good deal of a snob, for all his brave talk,"thought he. "But," he went on to reflect, "that's only human. We're allimpressed by externals, no matter what we may pretend to ourselves andto others. I've been used to this sort of thing all my life and I knowhow little there is in it, yet I'm in much the same state ofbedazzlement as Josh."
Josh had a way of answering people's thoughts direct which Arkwrightsometimes suspected was not altogether accidental. He now said: "Butthere's a difference between your point of view and mine. You take thisseriously through and through. I laugh at it in the bottom of my heart,and size it up at its true value. I'm like a child that don't reallybelieve in goblins, yet likes the shivery effects of goblin stories."
"I don't believe in goblins, either," said Arkwright.
"You don't believe in anything else," said Josh.
Arkwright steered him through the throng, and up to the hostess--Mrs.Burke, stout, honest, with sympathy in her eyes and humor in the linesround her sweet mouth. "Well, Josh," she said in a slow, pleasantmonotone, "you HAVE done a lot of growing since I saw you. I always knewyou'd come to some bad end. And here you are--in politics and insociety. Gus!"
A tall, haughty-looking young woman, standing next her, turned and fixedupon Craig a pair of deep, deep eyes that somehow flustered him. Mrs.Burke presented him, and he discovered that it was her daughter-in-law.While she was talking with Arkwright, he examined her toilette. Hethought it startling--audacious in its display of shoulders andback--until he got over his dazed, dazzled feeling, and noted the otherwomen about. Wild horses could not have dragged it from him, but he feltthat this physical display was extremely immodest; and at the same timethat he eagerly looked his face burned. "If I do pick one of these,"said he to himself, "I'm jiggered if I let her appear in public dressedthis way. Why, out home women have been white-capped for less."
Arkwright had drifted away from him; he let the crowd gently push himtoward the wall, into the shelter of a clump of palms and ferns. There,with his hands in his pockets, and upon his face what he thought anexcellent imitation of Arkwright's easy, bored expression ofthinly-veiled cynicism, he surveyed the scene and tried to judge it fromthe standpoint of the "common people." His verdict was that it was vain,frivolous, unworthy, beneath the serious consideration of a man ofaffairs such as he. But he felt that he was not quite frank, in fact wasdishonest, with himself in this lofty disdain. It represented what heought to feel, not what he actually was feeling. "At least," said he tohimself, "I'll never confess to any one that I'm weak enough to beimpressed by this sort of thing. Anyhow, to confess a weakness is toencourage it ... No wonder society is able to suck in and destroy somany fellows of my sort! If _I_ am tempted what must it mean to theordinary man?" He noted with angry shame that he felt a swelling ofpride because he, of so lowly an origin, born no better than themachine-like lackeys, had been able to push himself in upon--yes, upamong--these people on terms of equality. And it was, for the moment, invain that he reminded himself that most of them were of full as lowlyorigin as he; that few indeed could claim to be more than one generationremoved from jack-boots and jeans; that the most elegant had morerelations among the "vulgar herd" than they had among the "high folks."
"What are you looking so glum and sour about?" asked Arkwright.
He startled guiltily. So, his mean and vulgar thoughts had beenreflected in his face. "I was thinking of the case I have to try beforethe Supreme Court next week," said he.
"Well, I'll introduce you to one of the Justices--old Towler. He comesof the 'common people,' like you. But he dearly loves fashionablesociety--makes himself ridiculous going to balls and trying to flirt.It'll do you no end of good to meet these people socially. You'll besurprised to see how respectful and eager they'll all be if you become arecognized social favorite. For real snobbishness give me your friends,the common people, when they get up where they can afford to put onairs. Why, even the President has a sneaking hankering after fashionablepeople. I tell you, in Washington EVERYTHING goes by social favor, justas it does in London--and would in Paris if fashionable society woulddeign to notice the Republic."
"Introduce me to old Towler," said Craig, curt and bitter. He wasbeginning to feel that Arkwright was at least in part right; and itangered him for the sake of the people from whom he had sprung, and towhom he had pledged his public career. "Then," he went on, "I'm goinghome. And you'll see me among these butterflies and hoptoads no more."
"Can't trust yourself, eh?" suggested Arkwright.
Craig flashed exaggerated scorn that was confession.
"I'll do better than introduce you to Towler," proceeded Arkwright."I'll present you to his daughter--a dyed and padded old horror, butvery influential with her father and all the older crowd. Sit up to her,Josh. You can lay the flattery on as thick as her paint and as high asher topknot of false hair. If she takes to you your fortune's made."
"I tell you, my fortune is not dependent on--" began Craig vehemently.
"Cut it out, old man," interrupted Arkwright. "No stump speeches here.They don't go. They bore people and create an impression that you'reboth ridiculous and hypocritical."
Arkwright left Josh with Towler's daughter, Mrs. Raymond, who was by nomeans the horror Arkwright's language of fashionable exaggeration hadpictured, and who endured Craig's sophomoric eulogies of "your great andrevered father," because the eulogist was young and handsome, andobviously anxious to please her. As Arkwright passed along the edge ofthe dancers a fan reached out and touched him on the arm. He halted,faced the double line of women, mostly elderly, seated on thepalm-roofed dais extending the length of that end of the ballroom.
"Hel-LO!" called he. "Just the person I was looking for. How is Margaretthis evening?"
"As you see," replied the girl, unfurling the long fan of eagle plumeswith which she had tapped him. "Sit down.... Jackie"--this to a rosy,eager-faced youth beside her--"run away and amuse yourself. I want totalk seriously to this elderly person."
"I'm only seven years older than you," said Arkwright, as he seatedhimself where Jackie had been vainly endeavoring to induce MissSeverence to take him seriously.
"And I am twenty-eight, and have to admit to twenty-four," saidMargaret.
"Don't frown that way. It makes wrinkles; and what's more unsightly thana wrinkled brow in a woman?"
"I don't in the least care," replied the girl. "I've made up my mind tostop fooling and marry."
"Jackie?"
"If I can't do better." She laughed a low, sweet laugh, like her voice;and her voice suggested a leisurely brook flitting among mossy stones."You see, I've lost that first bloom of youth the wife-pickers prize sohighly. I'm not unsophisticated enough to please them. And I haven'tmoney enough to make them overlook such defects as maturity andintelligence--in fact, I've no money at all."
"You were never so good-looking in your life," said Grant. "I recall youwere rather homely as a child and merely nice and fresh-looking when youcame out. You're one of those that improve with time."
"Thanks," said the girl dryly. She was in no mood for the barren blossomof non-marrying men's compliments.
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p; "The trouble with you is the same as with me," pursued he. "We've bothspent our time with the young married set, where marriage is regarded asa rather stupid joke. You ought to have stuck to the market-place untilyour business was settled."
She nodded a thoughtful assent. "Yes, that was my sad mistake," saidshe. "However, I'm going to do my best to repair it."
He reflected. "You must marry money," he declared, as if it were averdict.
"Either some one who's got it or some one who can get it."
"Some one who's got it, I'd advise."
"Bad advice," commented the girl, her hazel eyes gazing dreamily,languorously into the distance. She looked a woman on romance bent, awoman without a mercenary thought in her head. "Very bad advice," shewent on. "Men who've got money may lose it and be unable to make anymore. What a helpless thing YOU'D be but for what you have inherited andwill inherit. Yet you're above the average of our sort."
"Humph!" said Arkwright, with an irritated laugh. Humor at his expensewas a severe strain upon him. It always is to those whose sense of humoris keen; for they best appreciate the sting that lies in the pleasantestjest.
"It would be wiser--if one dared be wise," pursued the girl, "to marry aman who could get money. That kind of man is safest. Only death orinsanity can make him a disappointment."
Arkwright eyed her curiously. "What a good head you've got on you,Rita," said he. "Like your grandmother."
The girl shivered slightly. "Don't SPEAK of her!" she exclaimed with anuneasy glance around. And Grant knew he was correct in his suspicion asto who was goading and lashing her to hasten into matrimony.
"Well--have you selected your--"
As Arkwright hesitated she supplied, "Victim." They laughed, she lessenthusiastically than he. "Though," she added, "I assure you, I'll makehim happy. It takes intelligence to make a man happy, even if he wantsthe most unintelligent kind of happiness. And you've just admitted I'mnot stupid."
Arkwright was studying her. He had a sly instinct that there was areason deeper than their old and intimate friendship for her reposingthis extreme of confidence in him. No doubt she was not without a vaguehope that possibly this talk might set him to thinking of her as a wifefor himself. Well, why not? He ought to marry, and he could afford it.Where would he find a more ladylike person--or where one who was at thesame time so attractive? He studied, with a certain personal interest,her delicate face, her figure, slim and gracefully curved, as herevening dress fully revealed it. Yes, a charming, most ladylike figure.And the skin of her face, of neck and shoulders, was beautifully white,and of the texture suggesting that it will rub if too impetuouslycaressed. Yes, a man would hesitate to kiss her unless he were wellshaved. At the very thought of kissing her Grant felt a thrill and aglow she had never before roused in him. She had an abundance ofblue-black hair, and it and her slender black brows and long lashes gaveher hazel eyes a peculiar charm of mingled passion and languor. She hada thin nose, well shaped, its nostrils very sensitive; slightly,charmingly-puckered lips; a small, strong chin. Certainly she hadimproved greatly in the two years since he had seen her in eveningdress. "Though, perhaps," reflected he, "I only think so because I usedto see her too much, really to appreciate her."
"Well, why didn't you?" she was saying, idly waving her fan and gazingvaguely around the room.
"Why didn't I--what?"
"You were trying to decide why you never fell in love with me."
"So I was," admitted Arkwright.
"Now if I had had lots of cash," mocked she.
He reddened, winced. She had hit the exact reason. Having a great dealof money, he wanted more--enough to make the grandest kind of splurge ina puddle where splurge was everything. "Rather, because you are toointelligent," drawled he. "I want somebody who'd fit into my meltingmoods, not a woman who'd make me ashamed by seeming to sit in judgmenton my folly."
"A man mustn't have too much respect for a woman if he's to fall utterlyin love with her--must he?"
Arkwright smiled constrainedly. He liked cynical candor in men, but onlypretended to like it in women because bald frankness in women was nowthe fashion. "See," said he, "how ridiculous I'd feel trying to saysentimental things to you. Besides, it's not easy to fall in love with agirl one has known since she was born, and with whom he's always been onterms of brotherly, quite unsentimental intimacy."
Rita gave him a look that put this suggestion out of countenance bysetting him to thrilling again. He felt that her look was artful, wasdeliberate, but he could not help responding to it. He began to be alittle afraid of her, a little nervous about her; but he managed to sayindifferently, "And why haven't YOU fallen in love with ME?"
She smiled. "It isn't proper for a well-brought-up girl to love untilshe is loved, is it?" Her expression gave Grant a faint suggestion of achill of apprehension lest she should be about to take advantage oftheir friendship by making a dead set for him. But she speedilytranquilized him by saying: "No, my reason was that I didn't want tospoil my one friendship. Even a business person craves the luxury of afriend--and marrying has been my business," this with a slight curl ofher pretty, somewhat cruel mouth. "To be quite frank, I gave you up as apossibility years ago. I saw I wasn't your style. Your tastes in womenare rather--coarse."
Arkwright flushed. "I do like 'em a bit noisy and silly," he admitted."That sort is so--so GEMUTHLICH, as the Germans say."
"Who's the man you delivered over to old Patsy Raymond? I see he's stillfast to her."
"Handsome, isn't he?"
"Of a sort."
"It's Craig--the Honorable Joshua Craig--Assistant TO theAttorney-General. He's from Minnesota. He's the real thing. But you'dnot like him."
"He looks quite--tame, compared to what he was two years or so ago,"said Rita, her voice as indolent as her slowly-moving eagle feathers.
"Oh, you've met him?"
"No--only saw him. When I went West with the Burkes, Gus and the husbandtook me to a political meeting--one of those silly, stuffy gatheringswhere some blatant politician bellows out a lot of lies, and a crowd ofbadly-dressed people listen and swallow and yelp. Your friend was one ofthe speakers. What he said sounded--" Rita paused for a word.
"Sounded true," suggested Grant.
"Not at all. Nobody really cares anything about the people, not eventhemselves. No, it sounded as if he had at least half-convinced himself,while the others showed they were lying outright. We rather likedhim--at the safe distance of half the hall. He's the kind of man thatsuggests--menageries--lions--danger if the bars break."
"How women do like that in a man!"
"Do you know him?"
"Through and through. He's a fraud, of course, like all politicians. Butbeneath the fraud there's a man--I think--a great, big man, strong andsure of himself--which is what can't be said of many of us who weartrousers and pose as lords of creation."
The girl seemed to have ceased to listen, was apparently watching thedancers, Arkwright continued to gaze at his friend, to admire theimpressive, if obviously posed, effect of his handsome head andshoulders. He smiled with a tender expression, as one smiles at theweakness of those one loves. Suddenly he said: "By Jove, Rita--just thething!"
"What?" asked the girl, resuming the languid waving of her eagle fan.
"Marry him--marry Josh Craig. He'll not make much money out of politics.I doubt if even a woman could corrupt him that far. But you could takehim out of politics and put him in the law. He could roll it up there.The good lawyers sell themselves dear nowadays, and he'd make akilling."
"This sounds interesting."
"It's a wonder I hadn't thought of it before."
The girl gave a curious, quiet smile. "I had," said she.
"YOU had!" exclaimed Arkwright.
"A woman always keeps a careful list of eligibles," explained she. "AsLucy Burke told me he was headed for Washington, I put him on my listthat very night--well down toward the bottom, but, still, on it. I hadquite forgotten him until to-night."
Arkwright w
as staring at her. Her perfect frankness, absolutenaturalness with him, unreserved trust of him, gave him a guilty feelingfor the bitter judgment on her character which he had secretly formed asthe result of her confidences. "Yet, really," thought he, "she's quitethe nicest girl I know, and the cleverest. If she had hid herself fromme, as the rest do, I'd never for one instant have suspected her ofhaving so much--so much--calm, good sense--for that's all it amountsto." He decided it was a mistake for any human being in anycircumstances to be absolutely natural and unconcealingly candid. "We'resuch shallow fakers," reflected he, "that if any one confesses to usthings not a tenth part as bad as what we privately think and do, why,we set him--or her--especially her--down as a living, breathing atrocityin pants or petticoats."
Margaret was of the women who seem never to think of what they arereally absorbed in, and never to look at what they are reallyscrutinizing. She disconcerted him by interrupting his reflections with:"Your private opinion of me is of small consequence to me, Grant, besidethe relief and the joy of being able to say my secret self aloud.Also"--here she grew dizzy at her own audacity in the frankness thatfools--"Also, if I wished to get you, Grant, or any man, I'd not besilly enough to fancy my character or lack of it would affect him. Thatisn't what wins men--is it?"
"You and Josh Craig have a most uncomfortable way of answering people'sthoughts," said Arkwright. "Now, how did you guess I was thinking meanthings about you?"
"For the same reason that Mr. Craig is able to guess what's going on inyour head."
"And that reason is--"
She laughed mockingly. "Because I know you, Grant Arkwright--you, themeanest-generous man, and the most generous-mean man the Lord everpermitted. The way to make you generous is to give you a mean impulse;the way to make you mean is to set you to fearing you're in danger ofbeing generous."
"There's a bouquet with an asp coiled in it," said Arkwright, pleased;for with truly human vanity he had accepted the compliment and hadthrown away the criticism. "I'll go bring Josh Craig."
"No, not to-night," said Miss Severence, with a sudden compression ofthe lips and a stern, almost stormy contraction of the brows.
"Please don't do that, Rita," cried Arkwright. "It reminds me of yourgrandmother."
The girl's face cleared instantly, and all overt signs of strength ofcharacter vanished in her usual expression of sweet, reservedfemininity. "Bring him to-morrow," said she. "A little late, please. Iwant others to be there, so that I can study him unobserved." Shelaughed. "This is a serious matter for me. My time is short, and my listof possible eligibles less extended than I could wish." And with asatiric smile and a long, languorous, coquettish glance, she waved himaway and waved the waiting Jackie into his place.
Arkwright found Craig clear of "Patsy" Raymond and against the wall nearthe door. He was obviously unconscious of himself, of the possibilitythat he might be observed. His eyes were pouncing from blaze of jewelsto white neck, to laughing, sensuous face, to jewels again or to lithe,young form, scantily clad and swaying in masculine arm in rhythm withthe waltz. It gave Arkwright a qualm of something very like terror tonote the contrast between his passive figure and his roving eyes withtheir wolfish gleam--like Blucher, when he looked out over London andsaid: "God! What a city to sack!"
Arkwright thought Josh was too absorbed to be aware of his approach; butas soon as he was beside him Josh said: "You were right about thatapartment of mine. It's a squalid hole. Six months ago, when I got myseventy-five hundred a year, I thought I was rich. Rich? Why, that womanthere has ten years' salary on her hair. All the money I and my wholefamily ever saw wouldn't pay for the rings on any one of a hundred handshere. It makes me mad and it makes me greedy."
"'I warned you," said Arkwright.
Craig wheeled on him. "You don't--can't--understand. You're like allthese people. Money is your god. But I don't want money, I wantpower--to make all these snobs with their wealth, these millionaires,these women with fine skins and beautiful bodies, bow down beforeme--that's what I want!"
Arkwright laughed. "Well, it's up to you, Joshua."
Craig tossed his Viking head. "Yes, it's up to me, and I'll get what Iwant--the people and I.... Who's THAT frightful person?"
Into the room, only a few feet from them, advanced an old woman--veryold, but straight as a projectile. She carried her head high, and hermasses of gray-white hair, coiled like a crown, gave her the seeming ofroyalty in full panoply. There was white lace over her black velvet atthe shoulders; her train swept yards behind her. She was bearing a cane,or rather a staff, of ebony; but it suggested, not decrepitude, butpower--perhaps even a weapon that might be used to enforce authorityshould occasion demand. In her face, in her eyes, however, there wasthat which forbade the supposition of any revolt being never so remotelypossible.
As she advanced across the ballroom, dancing ceased before her andaround her, and but for the noise of the orchestra there would have beenan awed and painful silence. Mrs. Burke's haughty daughter-in-law, withan expression of eager desire to conciliate and to please, hastenedforward and conducted the old lady to a gilt armchair in the center ofthe dais, across the end of the ballroom. It was several minutes beforethe gayety was resumed, and then it seemed to have lost the abandonwhich the freely-flowing champagne had put into it.
"WHO is that frightful person?" repeated Craig. He was scowling like aking angered and insulted by the advent of an eclipsing rival.
"Grandma,"' replied Arkwright, his flippancy carefully keyed low.
"I've never seen a more dreadful person!" exclaimed Craig angrily. "Anda woman, too! She's the exact reverse of everything a woman shouldbe--no sweetness, no gentleness. I can't believe she ever brought achild into the world."
"She probably doubts it herself," said Arkwright.
"Why does everybody cringe before her?"
"That's what everybody asks. She hasn't any huge wealth--or birth,either, for that matter. It's just the custom. We defer to her hereprecisely as we wear claw-hammer coats and low-neck dresses. Nobodythinks of changing the custom."
Josh's lip curled. "Introduce me to her," he said commandingly.
Arkwright looked amused and alarmed. "Not to-night. All in good time.She's the grandmother of a young woman I want you to meet. She's MadamBowker, and the girl's name is Severence."
"I want to meet that old woman," persisted Josh. Never before had heseen a human being who gave him a sense of doubt as to the superiorityof his own will.
"Don't be in too big a hurry for Waterloo," jested Arkwright. "It'scoming toward you fast enough. That old lady will put you in your place.After ten minutes of her, you'll feel like a schoolboy who has 'got his'for sassing the teacher."
"I want to meet her," repeated Craig. And he watched her every movement;watched the men and women bowing deferentially about her chair; watchedher truly royal dignity, as she was graciously pleased to relax now andthen.
"Every society has its mumbo-jumbo to keep it in order," said Arkwright."She's ours.... I'm dead tired. You've done enough for one night. It's abad idea to stay too long; it creates an impression of frivolity. Comealong!"
Craig went, reluctantly, with several halts and backward glances at theold lady of the ebon staff.