text:
The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter II

In ordinary, Mrs. Carnby was one of the rare mortals who succeed in disposing as well as in proposing, but there were times when there was not even a family resemblance between her plans and her performances. She had fully intended that young Vane should be the only guest at her Sunday breakfast, but as she came out of church that morning into the brilliant sunlight of the Avenue de l’Alma, she found herself face to face with the Ratchetts, newly returned from Monte Carlo, and promptly bundled the pair of them into her victoria. Furthermore, as the carriage swung round the Arc, and into the Avenue du Bois, she suddenly espied Mr. Thomas Radwalader, lounging, with an air of infinite boredom, down the plage.
 * Chapter II. New Friends and Old.

“There’s that Radwalader, thinking about himself again!” she exclaimed, digging her coachman in the small of his ample back with the point of her tulle parasol. “Positively, it would be cruelty to animals not to rescue him. Arretez, Benoit!”

Radwalader came up languidly as the carriage stopped.

“Where are you going?” demanded Mrs. Carnby, after greetings had been exchanged.

“Home,” answered Radwalader. “I met Madame Palffy back there a bit, and couldn’t get away for ten minutes. You know, it’s shocking on the nerves, that kind of thing, so I thought I’d drop in at my quarters for a pick-me-up.”

“Well, if I’m not a pick-you-up, I’m sure I don’t know what is,” said Mrs. Carnby. “You’re to come to breakfast. You’ll have to walk, though. We’re three already, you see, and I don’t want people to take my carriage for a panier à salade. I hadn’t the most remote intention of asking you; but when a man tells me he’s been talking for ten minutes to that Palffy, I always take him in and give him a good square meal.”

“You’re very kind,” said Radwalader. “Are you going to play bridge afterwards? If so, I must go home for more money.”

“Nothing of the sort!” said Mrs. Carnby emphatically. “There’s a protégé of Jeremy’s coming to breakfast — a Bostonian, twenty years young, and over here for his health. You must all go, directly after coffee. I’m going to spend the afternoon feeding him with sweet spirits of nitre out of a spoon, and teaching him his catechism. Perhaps you’d like to stay and learn yours?”

“I think I know it,” laughed Radwalader.

“If you do, it’s one of your own fabrication, then — with just a single question and answer. ‘What is my duty toward myself? My duty toward myself is, under all circumstances, to do exactly as I dee please.’”

“If that were the case, my good woman, I should live up to my profession of faith, not only by accepting your invitation, as I mean to do, but by staying the entire afternoon.”

“That’s very nicely said indeed,” answered Mrs. Carnby. “Allez, Benoit!”

Twenty minutes later the whole party were assembled in her salon. Carnby, caught by his wife as he was scuttling into his study, was now doing his visibly inadequate best to entertain Philip Ratchett, who stood gloomily before him, with his legs far apart, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the top button of his host’s waistcoat. He was a typical Englishman, of the variety which leans against door-jambs in the pages of Punch, and makes unfortunate remarks beginning with “I say—” about the relatives of the stranger addressed. Society bored him to the verge of extinction, but it is only fair to say that he repaid the debt with interest. He was tolerated — as many a man before and after him has been — for the sake of his wife.

Mrs. Ratchett patronized, with equal ardour, a sewing-class which fabricated unmentionable garments of red flannel for supposedly grateful heathen, and a society for psychical research which boasted of liberal-mindedness because it was willing to admit that, at the dawn of the twentieth century, the causes of certain natural phenomena yet remained unexplained. Her entire conception of life underwent a radical change whenever she read a new book, which she did at fortnightly intervals. She was thirty, clever, and frankly beautiful, hence a factor in the Colony.

The fifth member of the company in Mrs. Carnby’s salon, Mr. Thomas Radwalader, enjoyed the truly Parisian distinction of being an impecunious bachelor who did not accept all the invitations he received. He might have been thirty-five or forty-five or fifty-five. His smooth-shaven, impassive face offered no indication whatever of his age. He was already quite gray, but, in contrast to this, his speech was tinged with a frivolity, rather pleasant than otherwise, which hinted at youth. Mrs. Carnby had once described him as being “dappled with knowledge,” and this, in common with the majority of Mrs. Carnby’s estimates, came admirably near to being exact. Radwalader’s actual fund of information was far less ample than was indicated by the facility with which he talked on any and every subject, but he was master of the science of selection. He judged others — and rightly — by himself, and went upon the often-proven theory that a polished brilliant attracts more attention than an uncut Koh-i-nur. He made the superficial things of life his own, and on the rare occasions when the trend of conversation led him out of his depth, he caught at the life-belt of epigram, and had found his feet again before men better informed had finished floundering. He lived in a tiny apartment, on the safe side of nothing a year, and kept up appearances with a skill that was little short of genius. Gossip passed him by, a circumstance for which he was devoutly grateful, though it was due less to chance than to management.

Such was the company into which Mr. Andrew Sterling had despatched his grandson — in hopes that the change might be of benefit. As he came through the portières, young Vane proved to tally, in the main essentials of appearance, with Mrs. Carnby’s prophetic estimate. He was somewhat more than rather good-looking, and essentially American, with the soap-and-cold-water suggestion strongly to the fore. Mrs. Carnby always noted three things about a man before she spoke to him — his hands, his linen, and his eyes. In the first two Andrew Vane qualified immediately; in the third his hostess was forced to confess herself at a loss. In singular contrast to a complexion dark almost to swarthiness, his eyes were large and of an intense steel-blue. He met those of another squarely, not alone with the frankness characteristic of youth, but with the strange calm of confidence typical of men accustomed to the command of a battle-ship or an army corps. Mrs. Carnby, in ordinary the most self-possessed of women, gave, almost guiltily, before the keen, clear eyes of Andrew Vane.

“He has no business whatever to have eyes like that, at his age,” she told herself, almost angrily. “They ought to grow in a man’s head, after he has seen everything there is to be seen.”

The thought was involuntary, but it recalled to her memory where she had seen their like before.

“Radwalader has them,” she added mentally. “Good Lord! Radwalader! And this child hasn’t even graduated!”

During the brief interval between the general introduction and the announcement of breakfast, she studied her new guest with unwonted interest. He was of the satisfactory medium height at which a man is neither contemptible nor clumsy, slight in build, but straight as an arrow, with narrow hips and a square backward fling of shoulder which spoke of resolution.

“He has ‘No Compromise’ written all over his back,” said Mrs. Carnby to herself. “I should believe everything he told me, and not be afraid of what I told him.”

Then she noted that he was eminently at ease. There is something out of the common about twenty that keeps its hands hanging at its sides, and its feet firmly planted, without suggesting a tailor’s dummy. Andrew was talking to Mr. Carnby about his grandfather and Boston, and from the first to the last word of the short colloquy he did not once shift his position. As he stood thus, in some curious fashion consideration of his years was completely eliminated from one’s thought of him. He was deferential, but in the negative manner of guest to host, rather than in the positive of youth to age; and, at the same time, he was assertive, but with the force of personality, not the conspicuity of awkwardness. He fitted into his surroundings instantly, like a wisely placed bibelot, but he dominated them as well.

“That Palffy,” was Mrs. Carnby’s final resolve, “shall get him only over my dead body.”

And so, unconsciously, Andrew scored his first Parisian triumph.

For the first ten minutes of breakfast, Mrs. Carnby, at whose left he sat, let him designedly alone. It was her belief that men, like saddle-horses, should be given their heads in strange territory, and left to find themselves — this in contrast to the policy of her social rival, Madame Palffy, who boasted of being able to draw out the best there was in a new acquaintance in the first quarter-hour of conversation. In this she was probably correct, though in a sense which she did not perceive — for few good qualities survived the strain of that initial quarter-hour.

But if Mrs. Carnby’s attention appeared to be engrossed by Radwalader on her right, and Mrs. Ratchett beyond Radwalader, she kept, nevertheless, a weather eye on Andrew; and when, presently, his spoon tinkled on his bouillon saucer, she turned to him.

“I’ve been watching you,” she began, “to see how you would take to French oysters. It’s a test I always apply to newcomers from America. If they eat only one Marennes verte, I know at once that they approve of forty-story buildings, and are going to talk about ‘getting back to God’s country’; if they eat all six, I know I may venture to hint that there are advantages about living in Paris, without having my head bitten off for being an expatriate.”

“It would seem your head is quite safe, so far as I am concerned,” laughed Andrew, “for I finished off my half-dozen, and thought them very good.”

“Then you have the soul of a Parisian in the body of a Bostonian,” affirmed Mrs. Carnby. “A liking for Marennes vertes is a survival of a previous state of existence. Here’s Mr. Radwalader, for instance, who can’t abide them, even after Heaven knows how many years in Paris.”

“They taste so much like two-sou pieces that, whenever I eat them, they make me feel like a frog savings-bank,” said Radwalader.

“There you are!” cried Mrs. Carnby triumphantly. “That would never have arisen as an objection in the mind of any one who had known what it is to be a Parisian.”

“Or a frog savings-bank,” said Radwalader. “No, I suppose not. I can’t seem to live down the fact that I was born in the shadow of Independence Hall. But I’m doing so much to make up for the bad beginnings of my present incarnation, that I shall undoubtedly be a Parisian in my next. Have you been here long, Mr. Vane?”

“Three days.”

“Do you speak French?” put in Mrs. Carnby. “No? What a pity! You’ve no idea what a difference it makes.”

“I’ve only such a smattering as one gets in school and college,” said Andrew. “Of course I didn’t know I was coming, over here. But, after all, one seems to get on very well with English.”

“That’s just the trouble, Mr. Vane,” volunteered Mrs. Ratchett. “So many Americans are content just to ‘get on’ over here. That isn’t the cue to Paris at all! It only means that you and she are on terms of bowing acquaintance. You’ll never get to know her till you can talk to her in her own tongue.”

“Or listen to her talk to you,” observed Radwalader. “So long as we’re using the feminine gender—”

“Oh!” interrupted Mrs. Carnby. “A remark like that does come with extreme grace from you, I must say. Here,” she added, turning to Mrs. Ratchett, and indicating Radwalader with her fish-fork, “here’s a man, my dear, who spent two solid hours of last Monday telling me the story of his life. And it reminded me precisely of a peacock — one long, stuck-up tale with a hundred I’s in it. Radwalader, you’re a brute!”

Carnby, with his eyes fixed vacantly upon a spot midway between a pepper-mill and a little dish of salted almonds, appeared to be revolving some complicated business problem in his mind; and, as his wife caught sight of him, her fish-fork swung round a quarter-circle in her fingers, like a silver weathercock, until, instead of Radwalader, it indicated the point of her husband’s nose.

“That person,” she said to Andrew, “is either in Trieste or Buda. His company has an incapable agent in both cities, and whenever he glares at vacancy, like a hairdresser’s image, I know he is in either one town or the other. With practice, I shall come to detect the shade of difference in his expression which will tell me which it is. Mr. Ratchett — some more of the éperlans?”

Ratchett was deeply engaged in dressing morsels of smelts in little overcoats of sauce tartare, assisting them carefully with his knife to scramble aboard his fork, and, having braced them there firmly with cubes of creamed potato, conveying the whole arrangement to his mouth, where he instantly secured it from escape by popping in a piece of bread upon its very heels. He looked up as Mrs. Carnby spoke to him, murmured “’k you,” and immediately returned to the business in hand. Radwalader and Mrs. Ratchett had fallen foul of each other over a chance remark of his, and were now just disappearing into a fog of art discussion, from which, in his voice, an abrupt “Besnard” popped, at intervals, as indignantly as a ball from a Roman candle, or, in hers, the word “Whistler” rolled forth with an inflection which suggested the name of a cathedral.

“Tell me a little about yourself,” said Mrs. Carnby, turning again to Andrew.

“If it’s to be about myself,” he answered, “I think it’s apt to be little indeed. I’ve been in college almost three years, but I’ve been kept back, more or less, by a touch of fever I picked up on a trip to Cuba. It crops out every now and again, and knocks me into good-for-nothingness for a while. I’m not sure that I shall go back to Harvard. You see, I want to do something.”

“What?” demanded Mrs. Carnby.

“I’m not sure. I’m over here in search of a hint.”

“And a very excellent idea, too!” said his hostess. “Because, if you will keep your eyes open in the American Colony, you’ll see about everything which a man ought not to do; and after that it should be comparatively easy to make a choice among the few things that remain.”

“You’re not very flattering to the American Colony,” said Andrew.

“That’s because I belong to it,” replied Mrs. Carnby, “and you’ll find I’m about the only woman in it, able to speak French, who will make that admission. I belong to it, and I love it — for its name. It’s about as much like America as a cold veal cutlet with its gravy coagulated — if you’ve ever seen that! — is like the same thing fresh off the grill. But I don’t allow any one but myself to say so!”

“You’re patriotic,” suggested Andrew.

“Only passively. I’m extremely doubtful as to the exact location of ‘God’s country,’ and, even if you were to prove to my satisfaction that it lies between Seattle and Tampa, I’m not sure I should want to live there. America’s a kind of conservatory on my estate. I don’t care to sit in it continually, but, at the same time, I don’t like to have other people throwing stones through the roof. But about what you want to do?”

“I really haven’t the most remote idea. I want it to be something worth while — something which will attract attention.”

“Nothing does, nowadays,” said Mrs. Carnby, “except air-ships and remarriage within two hours of divorce.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mrs. Ratchett, suddenly abandoning the argument in which it was evident that she was coming out second best.

“My choice of a profession,” replied Andrew. “I don’t want to make a mistake. But everything seems to be overcrowded.”

“Exactly,” observed Radwalader. “It isn’t so much a question of selecting what’s right as of getting what’s left. Haven’t you a special talent?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Andrew.

“And if you had, it wouldn’t do you much good in the States,” commented Mrs. Carnby. “Nothing counts over there but money and social position. It’s the only country on earth where it’s less blessed to be gifted than received.”

“I had thought of civil engineering,” said Andrew.

“Civil engineering?” repeated Mrs. Carnby. “But, my dear Mr. Vane, that’s not a profession. It’s only a synonym for getting on in society. We’re all of us civil engineers!”

She pushed back her chair as she spoke.

“We’ll wait for you in the salon,” she added, “and, meanwhile, Mrs. Ratchett and I will think up a profession for Mr. Vane. Jeremy, you’re to give them the shortest cigars you have.”

“I was once in the same quandary,” said Radwalader to Andrew, when the men were left alone, “and concluded to let Time answer the question for me. You may have noticed that Time is prone to reticence. So far, he has not committed himself one way or another.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t the patience for that,” said Andrew. “Besides, it’s different in America. One has to do something over there. It’s almost against the law to be idle.”

“Of course. The only remedy for that is to live in Paris. You might do that. It’s a profession all by itself — of faith, if nothing else. Only one has need of the golden means.”

“I think I am a homeopathist, so far as Europe is concerned,” said Andrew. “I’m already a little homesick for the Common.”

“It’s a bad pun,” answered Radwalader, “but is there anything in America but — the common?”

“You can’t expect me to agree with you there.”

“I don’t. I never expect any one to agree with me. It takes all the charm out of conversation. You may remember that Mark Twain once said that it’s a difference of opinion which makes horse-races. He should have made it human races. That would have been truer, and so, more original. But a homeopathist is only a man who has never tried allopathy. You must let me convert you by showing you something of Paris. If I’ve any profession at all, it’s that of guide.”

“You’re very kind,” said Andrew, “but you mustn’t let your courtesy put you to inconvenience on my account. There must be a penalty attached to knowing Paris well, in the form of fellow countrymen who want to be shown about.”

“‘Never a rose but has its thorn,’” quoted Radwalader. “If you know Paris well, you’re overrun; and if you don’t, you’re run over. Of the two, the former is the less objectionable. When we leave here, perhaps you’d like to go out to the races for a while? If you haven’t been, Auteuil is well worth seeing of a Sunday afternoon.”

“I should be very glad,” said Andrew.

“Then we’ll consider it agreed. I see Carnby is getting to his feet. He is about to make his regular postprandial speech. It is one to be commended for its brevity.”

“The ladies?” suggested Jeremy interrogatively.

“By all means!” said Radwalader, as his cigarette sizzled into the remainder of his coffee. “It’s a toast to which we all respond.”

“By the way,” said Ratchett, as they moved toward the portières, “I was going to ask you chaps about membership in the Volney.”

The three men gathered in a group, and Andrew, seeing that they were about to speak of something in which he had no concern, passed into the salon. Here he was surprised to find three women instead of two — still more surprised when the newcomer wheeled suddenly, and came toward him with both hands outstretched.

“How do you ''do? ”'' she said. “What a charming surprise! Mrs. Carnby was just speaking of you, and I’ve been telling her what jolly times we used to have last summer at Beverly. How delightful to find you here! Mrs. Carnby’s my dearest friend, you must know, Mr. Vane.”

“Miss Palffy is one of the few people to whom I always feel equal,” observed Mrs. Carnby.

“I can say the same, I’m sure,” agreed Andrew.

“That means that you and I are to be friends as well, then,” answered Mrs. Carnby, “because things that are equal to the same thing are bound to be equal to each other. Are you going out with Jeremy, Margery?”

“Yes — our usual Sunday spree, you know. He’s a dear!”

She bent over as she spoke and buried her nose in one of the big roses on the table.

“Lord, girl, but I’m glad to see you again!” said the inner voice of Andrew Vane.


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fountains clear as crystal spring In one secluded garden-plot; In shade and shelter of one cot Three sister-doves are harbouring.

Adown one pathway hand in hand Three Sister-Graces wend their way; I shall not soon forget the day I met with them in fairy land.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter III

The saddling-bell was whirring for the third race as Andrew and Radwalader slipped in at the main entrance of Auteuil, and made their way rapidly through the throng behind the tribunes, in the direction of the betting-booths beyond.
 * Chapter III. The Girl in Red.

“We’ll just have time to place our bets,” said Radwalader, as he scanned the bulletins. “Numbers two, five, six, and eleven are out. Scratch them off your programme and we’ll take our pick of the rest.”

“You’ll have to advise me,” answered Andrew. “One couldn’t very well be more ignorant of the horses than I am.”

“I never give advice,” said Radwalader, with an air of seriousness. “I used to, long ago. I went about vaccinating my friends, as it were, with counsel, but none of it ever took, or was taken — whichever way you choose to put it — so I gave it up. Besides, a French race-horse is like the girl one elects to marry. The choice is purely a matter of luck, and there’s no depending upon the record of previous performances. I’ve always thought that if I had to choose a wife, I’d prefer to do it in the course of a game of blind-man’s buff. The one I caught I’d keep. Then the choice would at least be unprejudiced. Shut your eyes, my dear Vane, and stick your pencil-point through your programme. Then open them and bet on the horse nearest the puncture.” And he went through this little performance himself with the utmost solemnity. “It’s Vivandière,” he added. “I shall stake a louis on Vivandière.”

“And I, for originality’s sake, shall choose Mathias, with my eyes open,” said Andrew, laughing, as they took their places in line before the booth.

“Well, you couldn’t do better,” observed his companion. “He’s a willing little beast, and not unlikely to romp home in the lead. I’d bet on him myself, except that I’m so damnably unlucky that it really wouldn’t be fair to you, Vane. I never back a horse but what he falls. I had ten louis up, last Sunday, on a steeplechase, and the water-jump was so full of the horses I’d chosen that, upon my soul, you couldn’t see the water! It was for all the world like the sunken road at Waterloo after the charge of the cuirassiers.”

When they had purchased their tickets, Radwalader led the way to the front of the tribunes, and, mounting upon the bench along the rail, turned his back upon the course, and began to survey the throng in the tiers of seats above.

“This is my favourite way of introducing a newcomer to Paris,” he said presently. “She never appears to better advantage than when she is togged out in her Sunday-go-to-race-meeting-best.”

With his stick he began to point out people here and there, until, from a narrow gateway to their right, the horses filed out upon the track, and they turned, resting their elbows on the railing, to watch them go by.

“That’s Vivandière,” said Radwalader. “Poor animal! She runs the best possible chance of breaking her neck. If the jockey so much as suspected that I’d her number in my pocket, he’d probably have taken out a policy on his life. There’s Mathias — the little chestnut. He looks in rattling good form. I suspect you haven’t thrown away that louis.”

“It wouldn’t be a very ruinous loss, in any event,” said Andrew.

Radwalader was choosing a cigarette from his case.

“I wonder,” he answered, rolling it between his fingers, “if you’d mind my asking you if you mean that? To some people it would be a consideration; to others, none whatever. It isn’t conventional, or even good form, to pry into a man’s finances, but we shall probably be going about together, more or less, during your stay, and in such a case I always like to know how a man stands in regard to expenses. I don’t want to embarrass you by proposing things you don’t feel you can afford, still less to be a clog upon you when you wish to go beyond my means.”

He looked up, smiling frankly.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” he added. “It’s not in the least an idle curiosity. I’m an old friend of Mrs. Carnby’s, and it would be a great pleasure to do anything to make your visit a success. But, if you’ll trust me, I’d be glad to know how you propose to live. You don’t think me impertinent?”

“Not in the least,” said Andrew. “I understand perfectly. It’s a very sensible point of view. And I’ll say candidly that my grandfather, Mr. Sterling, has been very generous; so that, unless I’m totally reckless, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have the best of everything.” He paused for a moment, and then added: “My letter of credit is for thirty thousand francs.”

“Thank you,” said Radwalader. “It makes things easier. I’d forgotten for the moment your relationship to Mr. Sterling, or I shouldn’t have needed to take the liberty of speaking as I did. I met him once in Boston, I think. Isn’t he called the ‘Copper Czar’?”

“I believe he is,” replied Andrew. But there’s not much in nicknames, you know.”

“No, of course not,” agreed his companion. “There goes the bell. For once, it’s a fair start.”

Far away, beyond the thickly-peopled stretch of the pelouse, a group of gaily-coloured dots went rocking rapidly to the left, vanished for an instant at the turn, and then flashed into view again in the form of jockeys standing stiffly in their stirrups, as the horses swept down the transverse stretch. People were shouting all about them, and in Andrew’s unaccustomed ears the blood surged and hammered madly. He was at the age when there is nothing more inspiring than such a play of life and action, under the open sky and over the close-cropped turf. The ripple of lithe muscles along the sleek flanks of the horses; the set, smooth-shaven faces of the rigid jockeys; the gleam of sunlight and colour; and the deep, crescendo voice of the multitude, swelling to thunder as the racers flew past — all these set his pulses tingling, until he, too, cried out impulsively in his excitement. It was his first horse-race, and his first glimpse of Paris into the bargain. There is more than enough in the combination to set young blood aglow.

''“Houp! Houp! Houp!”'' With sharp, staccato cries of encouragement, the jockeys were raising their mounts at the water-jump, over which they sailed gallantly, one after another, like great brown birds, until the very last. There was a lisp of grazed twigs, a long “A-ah!” from pelouse and pesage alike, a dull splash which sent the spray flying high in silver beads and then a jockey in a crimson blouse rolled heavily forward on the turf, arose, stamped his foot, and swore profusely in picturesque cockney at his mare, who had regained her feet and, with dangling rein and saddle all askew, stood looking back at him, as if uncertain whether to stop and inquire after his injuries or go on alone. Abruptly deciding upon the latter as the wiser course, she set off at a leisurely gallop, to the accompaniment of shrill, sarcastic comments from the crowd, and an additional exposition of the jockey’s astonishing wealth of vocabulary.

“Voilà!” sighed Radwalader. “That was Vivandière! What did I tell you? It’s absolutely inhuman of me to bet on a horse. And look at Mathias! He’s twenty metres ahead of the rest, and going better every minute. You’ve hit it this time, Vane. There’s one comfort. You’ll win back my louis, at all events. It’s something to know that the money’s not going out of the family.

The crowd was already shouting ''“Mathias! C’est Mathias qui gagne!”'' as Andrew bent forward to see the horses wheel again into the transverse cut. Mathias was far in the lead, and seemed to gain yet more at the hurdle. The race was practically over, a thousand yards from the finish, and, as Mathias flashed past the post, a winner by twenty lengths, and Vivandière came ambling complacently in, at the end of the procession, with the stirrups bouncing grotesquely up and down, Radwalader replaced his field-glass with a deep sigh of resignation, and the two men went back toward the bulletins to see the posting of the payments.

It appeared, when the figures snapped into place, that Mathias returned one hundred and ten francs, which meant a clear gain of ten louis. Andrew had “hit it” in good earnest.

“I think I shall adopt horse-racing as my profession,” he laughed, as they cashed the ticket at the caisse. “Let’s see: forty dollars a race, six races a day, seven days to the week — two-forty — twenty-eight — fourteen — sixteen — sixteen hundred and eighty dollars a week. By Jove! That’s not bad, by way of a start!”

“The start’s the easiest part of it,” observed Radwalader. “Even Vivandière can manage that. It’s the finish that counts, and the finish of horse-racing is commonly the penitentiary. It’s the only profession where the hard labor comes at the end instead of at the beginning.”

“I think I’ll hang on to what I’ve won, then,” answered Andrew. “If you’ve nothing better to do, perhaps you’ll help me to spend part of it on a dinner to-night. You know all the best places. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to walk about a bit, and see the people.”

“I accept both proposals with pleasure,” said his companion. “We might dine at the Tour d’Argent, if you like. I haven’t had one of Frédéric’s ducks in a little eternity.”

Back of the tribunes the crowd was greater now than it had been at the time of their arrival. There was the usual gay commingling of elaborate spring toilettes, brilliant parasols, white waistcoats, gloves, and gaiters, and red and blue uniforms; and, all about them, a babble of brilliant nothings. It was, as Radwalader had said, Paris at her best. He resumed his comments, which had been interrupted by the race, punctuating each sentence with a nod, or a few words, in French or English, to passing acquaintances, and flicking the gravel with the point of his stick.

“I envy you your first impressions, my dear Vane. It’s an old story with me, all this, but I remember quite distinctly my first day on a French race-course. It seemed to me the most wonderful spot on earth. I’d always lived in Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Paris is something in the nature of a resurrection. For the first time in my life, I saw people in possession of something to live for, instead of merely something to live on. There wasn’t so much as a wrinkle of anxiety in sight. Then and there, I adopted Paris as my permanent abode. You know this town is a kind of metaphorical fly-paper. When once one has settled, one stops buzzing and banging one’s head against the window-screens of circumstance.”

“And flops over, and dies?” asked Andrew. “It seems to me that’s the unpleasant part about fly-paper.”

“I’m not sure of that,” said Radwalader. “I’d have to have the fly’s word for it. All of us must die in one manner or another, and perhaps being suffocated by a surfeit of sugar and molasses is not the most disagreeable way. However, you are only going to browse along the edges.”

“There are some stunning women here,” said Andrew.

“That’s singularly à propos,” replied Radwalader. “Are there any in particular whom you’d like to meet? I know about all of them.”

“Oh, do you?” said Andrew. “I hadn’t noticed you bow.”

For a fraction of a second Radwalader glanced at his companion’s face. Then —

“Hadn’t you?” he said, with a short laugh. “I’m afraid your eyes have been too busy with the women themselves to take note of my salutations.”

The next moment he doffed his hat ceremoniously to a little black-eyed creature with a superb triple string of pearls hanging almost to the waist of her black lace gown.

“That’s Suzanne Derval,” he explained, as they passed. “She’s one of the brightest women in Paris.”

“And alone?” said Andrew.

“Her escort,” answered Radwalader, with an almost imperceptible pause between the words, “is probably placing his bet. As I said before, if there’s any one you want to meet—”

“Well, there is,” replied Andrew, colouring a little. “We passed a girl in red back there a bit. It’s possible you know her. I’m afraid you think me a good deal of a boy.”

“I’m afraid you think a good deal of a girl,” laughed Radwalader. “No, my dear chap. Or, rather, if your desire is an evidence of extreme youth, then the majority of men are fit subjects for a crèche. Come along, and we’ll try to track your scarlet siren.”

“We’ll not have much difficulty,” said Andrew, as they turned. “There she is now. Do you see? By the tree — in red.”

“Oh,” answered Radwalader, “oh, yes. That’s Mirabelle Tremonceau. Your ‘red’ is cerise, as a matter of fact, but that’s as near as the average man comes to the colour of a woman’s gown.”

“I can’t imagine one spending much time in learning such things.”

“Anywhere but in Paris, perhaps not. Here the knowledge is vital. It’s part of one’s education — like being able to distinguish a Louis Quatorze chair from a Louis Quinze, or a Fragonard from a Boucher ten feet away. If you want to meet Mademoiselle Tremonceau, I’ll be very glad to present you.”

“I might wait here while you ask her,” suggested Andrew.

“Eh?” said Radwalader. “Oh, yes— by all means.”

The girl was talking with an officer of chasseurs, on the turf, a short distance away. She was tall and slender, very pale, with magnificent violet eyes and golden-bronze hair. From the gauze aigrettes on her hat to the tips of her patent-leather shoes, her costume was absolutely flawless. Her gown, of cherry-coloured crepe de Chine, pailleté with silver, breathed from its every fold the talismanic word “Paquin,” and the Lalique ornament of emeralds and ruddy gold which swung at her throat by a slender chain said as plainly “Charlier.” There was not a dot missing from her veil, not the suggestion of a wrinkle in her white gloves, and not a displeasing note in the harmony of the whole.

“There’s nothing wrong about the boy’s judgment,” was Radwalader’s mental comment. “He’s picked out the prettiest and best gowned woman in Paris. And it couldn’t be better,” he added, with an odd little smile.

Mademoiselle Tremonceau greeted him with a nod, a gloved hand, and a “Comment vas-tu?”

“B’en, pas mal, merci,” answered Radwalader. With his left hand he caressed his chin reflectively, and, as if this had been a signal — which indeed it was — the girl turned to the young chasseur, who was staring at the intruder out of round, resentful eyes, and dismissed him with a hint.

“You’ve had fifteen minutes of my time, mon cher.”

Then, as he retired, discomfited, she faced Radwalader again, and seemed to search his face for the answer to some unspoken question.

“I want to present one of my friends,” he said, as if replying. “Mr. Andrew Vane — an American who has been in Paris three days. We’ll have to speak English. Have I your permission?”

“You’re strangely ceremonious of a sudden,” answered Mademoiselle Tremonceau. “I don’t seem to remember your asking permission before.”

“It was his suggestion,” observed Radwalader laconically.

For a moment the girl made no reply. Her questioning look had observably become more keen, and with one finger she picked at the turquoise matrix in the handle of her parasol.

“Well?” she said finally.

“Galetteux,” said Radwalader. “Go softly, my friend.”

Mademoiselle Tremonceau bowed with ineffable dignity.

“You have my gracious permission to present him,” she said.

Whistling softly, as was his habit when pleased, the air of “Au Clair de la Lune,” Radwalader observed their meeting from the corners of his eyes, and was struck, as Mrs. Carnby had been, by Andrew’s perfect repose. They spoke in English, of trivialities — Paris, the weather, the crowd, and the victory of Mathias — and, as the saddling-bell rang for the fifth race, all walked out together to the trackside. Here Radwalader left them, to place his bet, and Andrew found two little wooden chairs on which they seated themselves to await his return.

“You and Mr. Radwalader are old friends?” asked the girl.

“On the contrary,” said Andrew, “we met for the first time only this morning.”

“Oh! And what do you think of him?”

“I find him very agreeable,” said Andrew; “a little cynical, perhaps, but clever — and cleverness, to twist an English saying, covers a multitude of sins.”

“Yes, he’s clever,” answered Mademoiselle Tremonceau. “There are the horses. Are you coming to tea?” she added, after a silence, as Radwalader rejoined them.

Radwalader turned to Andrew.

“The poet says that opportunity has no back hair,” he observed. “I think we might grasp at this forelock, don’t you?”

“Since Mademoiselle Tremonceau is so kind, I should say, by all means.”

They watched the race in silence, and then

“I can find room for you both in the victoria,” suggested the girl.

“Better yet!” said Radwalader with alacrity, “provided Vane takes the strapontin. The only place where I feel my age is in my knees. Since you’ve never occupied Mademoiselle Tremonceau’s strapontin, my dear Vane, you can have no idea of the physical discomfort attendant upon being a little lower than an angel. Think of my having won — even a placé! Shall we go now? I abhor the crush at the end. Give me a minute to cash my ticket, and then we’ll look up the carriage.”

“Do you speak French?” said Mademoiselle Tremonceau to Andrew, as Radwalader strolled off in the direction of the caisse.

“I seem to be able to say what I want when the occasion arises,” he answered, “but I much prefer English. I am trying to adjust myself to new conditions, and I need all my energy for the task, without undertaking a strange language at the same time. You can have no idea how one’s first visit to Paris sends preconceived notions tumbling about one’s ears. So far, the Eiffel Tower is the only thing which looked as I expected it would. There’s a surprise at every turn.”

“For example?”

“Well, for example, French women. Even so far as my own town of Boston we know you’re beautiful, and beautifully gowned, although nothing short of personal experience can teach one to what an extent. But I’ve always been brought up to believe that you were so hemmed in by conventionality, so strictly watched, that a chap wasn’t allowed so much as to say ‘Good-morning’ to one of you, so long as you were unmarried, at least, except under the eyes of mothers and fathers and guardians. But it seems that it’s not so at all.”

As he spoke. Mademoiselle Tremonceau’s lips parted in a little smile, and as he paused, she slipped in an apparently irrelevant question.

“Are you married, Mr. Vane?”

“Good gracious, no!” said Andrew. “I suppose I may as well confess that I’m only twenty.”

Mademoiselle Tremonceau looked off across the track to where, in the interval preceding the next race, the restless thousands circled to and fro about the betting-booths of the pelouse, in the manner of a multitude of ants preparing to carry off a bulky bit of carrion. Then she drew her veil tight, with a charmingly feminine little moue which shortened her upper lip, tilted her chin, and set her eyelids fluttering.

“Twenty?” she echoed. “My age precisely. ''Tiens! C’est plutô drôlatique ça!'' Here’s Mr. Radwalader, at last. Did you get your payment? Only twenty-two fifty? Well, that is your other louis back, at all events. Don’t you want to run along after the carriage, as long as you know how? Mr. Vane will attend to me, I’m sure, and we’ll meet you at the right of the main entrance. Here’s the carriage number. Simon is the brigadier in charge to-day. Tell him it’s for me, and you won’t have to wait.”

Radwalader undertook this commission with cheerfulness, although the place at which he started toward the gate was distinctly incompatible with even the most liberal conception of “running along.” Evidently he was not unique in his abhorrence of the crush at the end. Many were already making their way from the pesage, and the crowd behind the tribunes was densest about the sorties. Andrew and Mademoiselle Tremonceau followed him, five minutes later.

“I wonder if you mind my taking your arm?” asked the girl. “I’m always a little nervous, going out.”

“With pleasure,” said Andrew, adding, as her glove touched his sleeve, “I was going to suggest it, but I don’t know French etiquette as yet, and I was afraid I might be presuming.”

He was unconscious that, as they passed through the throng, many heads were turned, among them that of the young officer of chasseurs, who drew the end of his mustache between his lips, and gnawed it savagely. A perfectly appointed victoria, drawn up at the edge of the driveway, was awaiting them, with Radwalader standing at the step.

It was close upon seven o’clock when the two men emerged from Mademoiselle Tremonceau’s apartments on the Avenue Henri Martin, and, hailing a passing cab, set off for the Tour d’Argent. Radwalader evinced no desire to talk, as they bowled across to and then down the Champs Elysées, and Andrew was conscious of being grateful for the silence. He wanted to think. He did not wholly understand the hour and a half which had just gone by. There had been no sign of Mademoiselle Tremonceau’s family. Tea was served in a salon crowded with elaborate furniture, and softly illumined by rose-shaded electric globes on bronze appliques. Liveried servants came and went noiselessly, through tapestry curtains, and over an inlaid floor, polished to mirror-like brilliance, and strewn with mounted skins. The double marqueterie tea-table gleamed with a silver samovar and candlesticks. Baccarat glass, and thin, cream-coloured cups and saucers, with a crest in raised gold. Here and there, huge Gloire de Dijon roses leaned sleepily from silver vases, and, on a little stand, a great bunch of wild violets breathed summer from a blue Sèvres bowl. An indefinable atmosphere of luxury and languor pervaded the room. From the girl herself came a faint hint of some strangely sweet, but wholly unfamiliar, fragrance, which Andrew had not noted in the open air. He watched her, fascinated, as her slender white hands, with their blazing jewels, went to and fro among the cups and saucers. Her every movement was deliciously and suggestively feminine, as had been her tightening of her veil, an hour before, and exquisitely languid and deliberate, as if the day had been a thousand hours long instead of twenty-four. She said but little, Radwalader maintaining a running thread of his half-banter, half-philosophy, with its ingenious double-meanings and contortions of the commonplace, whereby, in some fashion of his own, he contrived to simulate and stimulate conviction.

Andrew had found, presently, that he was growing sleepy. The abrupt change from the cool air of outer afternoon to the perfume-laden atmosphere of Mademoiselle Tremonceau’s salon, the drone of Radwalader’s voice, the soft light, in contrast to the sunshine they had left — all contributed to his drowsiness. Once, for nearly a minute, the whole room melted, as it were, into one golden-gray mist, through which silver and glass and fabrics glowed only as harmonious notes of colour, and wherein the face of his hostess seemed to float like a reflection in troubled water. Then, as suddenly, every detail of his surroundings appeared to bulge at him out of the haze, and stood fixed and clear. For an instant he thought that Radwalader had raised his voice. He seemed to be speaking very loudly; but, when the first nervous start had passed, Andrew realized that this was his own imagining, and that neither of his companions had noticed his momentary somnolence.

At the end, he had held Mademoiselle Tremonceau’s hand for a second beyond the limit of convention. She made no motion to withdraw it, but looked him frankly in the eyes.

“We’ve been neglecting you, haven’t we?” she said. “Mr. Radwalader and I are such old friends, that we’re inclined to selfishness, and apt to forget that our talk is not as interesting to others as to ourselves. Perhaps you’ll come in to tea on Tuesday, about five, and I’ll try to prove myself a more considerate hostess.”

“Thank you,” said Andrew. “I shall be very pleased — though I suspect you are undertaking the impossible.”

The fiacre was passing the Rond Point when Radwalader spoke.

“This is the hour when Paris seems to me supremely to deserve her title of siren,” he said. “In spring and summer, at least, I always try to pass it out of doors. There is a fascination for me, that never grows stale, in the coming of twilight, when the street-lamps begin to wink, and the cafés are lighting up. Did you ever feel softer air or see a more tenderly saffron sky? And this constant murmur of passing carriages, this hum of voices, broken, more often than anywhere else on earth, by laughter — isn’t it life, as one never understands the word elsewhere? Isn’t it full of suggestion and appeal? I’ve never been able to analyze the charm of the Champs Elysées at sunset, more nearly than to say that it seems to blot out one’s remembrance of everything in the world that is sordid and commonplace, and to bring boldly to the fore the significance of all that is sweet and gay. Can you imagine considering the price of stocks or the drift of politics just now? I can’t. I think of flowers, and Burgundy in slender-stemmed glasses, and tziganes playing waltz music, and women with good teeth, laughing. I smell roses and trèfle. I see mirrors, and candlesticks with openwork shades, silver over red, and sleek waiters bending down with bottles swathed in napkins. I hear violins and the swish of silk skirts. I taste caviar — and I feel — that I have underestimated Providence, after all!”

“There is no Paris but Paris, and Radwalader is her prophet!” laughed Andrew.

“That suggests a religion,” said the other, “and I suppose, all said and done, that Paris is my religion. How did you like Mirabelle Tremonceau?”

“Even more than I expected.”

“That’s well — and very unusual. One almost always expects too much of a beautiful woman. Beauty has this in common with an inherited fortune — that it’s apt to paralyze individual effort. Looking into mirrors and cutting coupons don’t leave one much time for anything else. But she’s exceptional. You’re right in liking her, and what’s more, you’ll probably like her better and better as time goes on.”

“She asked me if I was married,” said Andrew.

“Did she?” answered Radwalader. “Well — are you?”

“No, assuredly not.”

“Engaged, perhaps.”

Instead of replying, Andrew glanced curiously at his companion, his lips set in a thin, straight hue. Radwalader met his glance fairly.

“I beg your pardon, Vane,” he said immediately. “That was unwarranted impertinence, which you’re quite justified in resenting. I’m too prone to trifling, and the remark slipped out thoughtlessly. Pray consider it unsaid.”

“With the best will in the world,” said Andrew heartily. “There is nothing more admirable, I always think, than a frank apology.”

In the words there was a faint, curiously suggestive echo of the tone in which Radwalader was wont to voice his glittering generalities.


text:
Page:A Christmas Faggot (1884, Gurney).djvu/64

know the things I know not, Though they know not that they know; I should know not, should love grow not. That I know not it is so. Flowers feebly rooted blow not, Shallow waters overflow not, Love is doomed unless it grow.


text: A Christmas Faggot/Saint Joseph

title: A Christmas Faggot/Saint Joseph


text:
The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter IV

Madame Raoul Palffy would, in all probability, have been intensely surprised and entirely incredulous had any one informed her that hers was an irritating personality. But the fact remained. She was flagrantly complacent, and her placidity enraged one immeasurably, and goaded nervous temperaments to the verge of frenzy. Tradespeople had been known to grit their teeth and swear almost audibly at her, and at least two guards upon the Métropolitain had lost their positions because her leisurely manner of locomotion had moved them irresistibly to breaches of the courteous treatment enjoined upon them by the General Manager’s notice to the public.
 * Chapter IV. Mother and Daughter.

Madame Palffy was a large, florid person with a partiality for jet and crimson velvet, and whose passing, much in the manner of a frigate under full sail, was apt to be fatal to fragile ornaments standing unwarily too near to table-edges. About her there was always a suggestion of imminent explosion, due to her chronic shortness of breath, the extreme snugness of her gowns, and the fashion in which her pudgy palms, unmercifully compressed into white gloves two sizes too small, crowded desperately out of the little ovals across which the top buttons yearned toward their proper holes. Harmoniously, her face was fat, and dappled all over with ruddy pink, with the eyes, nose, and mouth crowded together in the centre, as if for sociability’s sake, or in fear of sliding off the smooth slopes of her cheeks and chin. Her hair, with its variety of puffs and curls, appeared to have been laid out by a landscape gardener.

As for Raoul Palffy, all that one was apt to remember about him was the fact that he had married a Miss Barrister of Worcester. He was as completely eclipsed by this injudicious proceeding as if he had been elected Vice-President of the United States. He closely resembled a frog on the point of suffocation. With a loyalty worthy of a better cause, he imbibed vast quantities of the wine of his native Bordeaux, and became each year more shockingly apoplectic in appearance. Out of his wife’s sight, he swelled magnificently, like a red balloon, and, between ignorance and exaggeration, was hardly on bowing terms with veracity: in her presence, he was another man. It was more than anything as if some one had taken a pin to the red balloon. As a natural result of their relative assertiveness, the couple moved, for the most part, not in the French society to which Monsieur Palffy’s connections warranted their aspiring, but in that of the Colony, where his wife’s pretensions and her deplorable mismanipulation of her adopted tongue were less conspicuously burlesque. After twenty years of Paris, Madame Palffy still said nom de plume and café noir.

It was to renew acquaintance with parents so curiously contrasted that Margery Palffy had returned from ten years of almost continuous residence in the States. To say that she proved a surprise to them would be to do but faint justice to the mental perturbation with which they surveyed this tall, self-possessed young person, who was, in practically every particular, a total stranger. Her father, with his characteristic lack of enterprise, had promptly given her up. He had neither the faculty of rendering, nor that of inspiring, affection; and this his daughter seemed, from the very outset, to understand, and tacitly to accept. They rarely met, except at dinner, and then with such a desperate lack of common interests as prevented any interchange of conversation beyond the merest commonplaces. Madame Palffy, on the contrary, made an earnest, if inept, attempt to fill, in her daughter’s life, a place which she had long since forfeited; and, to the best of her ability, Margery strove to meet her half-way. But the gap made by their years of separation was now too wide to be effectually bridged. Madame Palffy was artificial from the summit of her elaborate coiffure to the tips of her inadequately ample shoes: her daughter, in every detail of her sound and sensible make-up, was a convincing product of all that is best, sincerest, and most wholesome in American education. The two could no more mix than oil and water. It was to Mrs. Carnby and her husband that Margery turned for sympathy, with an instant recognition of qualities appealingly akin to her own: and these two received her with open arms. For them, three months had sufficed to render Margery Palffy indispensable, and the same period served to prove to the girl, not only her need of friendship, but that here lay the means of its satisfaction. As Madame Palffy complacently observed to Mrs. Carnby:

“I think that Margery feels that there’s no place like home.”

And as Mrs. Carnby replied, with extreme relish:

“I’m sure of it. It must be a most comforting conviction!”

Margery Palffy, whose attitude toward the society to which she was a comparatively recent recruit was sufficiently indicated by her desire to be called “Miss” instead of “Mademoiselle,” was accustomed to reserve her Sunday afternoons for Mr. Carnby. They would go to the Bois, to walk and watch the driving, or take a bateau mouche to Suresnes and return, or even slip out to Versailles or St. Germain. Jeremy was a man of small enthusiasms, but he shared with his wife a profound affection, of the type which is always pathetic in the childless, for this tall, slender girl, as fresh and sweet as a ripe fig, grown on the family thistle of the Palffys. An impulse, which, in the light of its results, could only be regarded as an inspiration, had prompted Madame Palffy to send her daughter, at the age of nine, to be educated in the States. A sound and rational school in Connecticut, and ten vacations in the superbly invigorating air of the North Shore under the care of a sensibly indulgent aunt, had forthwith performed a miracle. A thin, brown child, with an affected lisp, was now grown straight and tall, with an eye to measure a putt or a friend, a hand which knew the touch of a tiller and a rein, and a voice to win a dog, a child, or a man. Margery Palffy was very beautiful withal, with her russet-brown hair, her finely chiselled features, and her confident smile. She impressed one immediately as having arranged her hair herself — by bunching it all up together, and then giving it one inspirited twist which accomplished more than all the system in the world. Some one — not her mother! — knew what kind of gown she ought to wear, but — what was more important — she knew how to wear it. One would have said that her eyes were by Helleu and her nose by George du Maurier. Men looked to their hearts when her mouth was open, and to their consciences when it was closed — tight-closed! A laugh to make them worship her, a frown to make them despise themselves, a suggestion that she was capable of giving all she would expect from another, a somewhat stronger suggestion that she would be apt to expect a considerable deal, very clean-cut, very sane, very good form — such was Margery Palffy at what might be called her worst. As for Margery Palffy at her best, as yet even the most casual of Colony gossips had never more than hinted at a love-affair.

Madame Palffy having attended two church services, and observed with gratification that her new bonnet was far more imposing than the bonnets, old and new, of her fellow worshippers, had now sought the seclusion of her Empire boudoir. She was, above all things, consistent. In this sacred spot she ventured to lay aside her society manner, but, beyond this, she made no concessions to privacy. Her lounging-gown would have been presentable at a garden-party, and she devoted five minutes to rearranging her hair, before sinking massively upon the chaise-longue, and giving her thoughts free rein.

An unusually brilliant week had drawn to a close the evening before. Madame Palffy’s dinner-table had groaned beneath its burden of silver and chiselled glass, and her box at “Louise” had presented to the auditorium such a background of white linen and vicuna as had sent poisonous darts to the hearts of a dozen ambitious and observant mothers.

The reason was not far to seek. From the moment of her début, two months before, Margery Palffy had been a tremendous success. Her beauty, her novelty, her shrewd wit and unfailing gaiety had swept through the Colony as a sickle through corn. Madame Palffy smiled to herself as she reviewed the past few weeks. Her daughter’s had been a name to conjure with.

But, almost immediately, the smile became a sigh. Beneath her satisfaction in Margery’s triumph, the ambitious lady felt that there was something lacking — and that something was a complete understanding of the girl herself. Since her return from the States, her mother had been slowly and reluctantly forced to the conviction that there was that in her nature which it was beyond one’s power to grasp, and her apparent frankness and simplicity made the failure to read her doubly hard to analyze. Her interest in life and the society world about her was unquestionable. Fresh and unspoiled, she trod the social labyrinth undeviatingly, received the flatteries, even the open devotion, of half a hundred men with caution, and remained — herself. And Madame Palffy, to whom social success was a guarantee of a status so little lower than the seraphim as to make the difference unworthy of consideration, looked with growing admiration upon that of her beautiful daughter, and treasured every evidence thereof deep in her pompous heart. The difficulty lay in the fact that Margery impressed not only the world in general by her dignity, but abashed her ambitious parent as well. Madame Palffy was content to have her daughter talk in parables, if she would, and be as impartial as justice itself, but afterwards, when the lights were out and the guests had departed, she wanted the parables explained and the preferences laid bare. And this was precisely the confidential relation which she had never been able to establish. In public she figured naturally as Margery’s confidant and mentor. In private she was, in reality, hardly nearer to her than was the newest of her new acquaintances.

In this state of affairs Madame Palffy distinctly perceived all the elements of a dilemma. As was naturally to be expected, her daughter had no sooner been restored to her, than the ambitious lady’s mind began to wrestle with the problem of a suitable marriage — or “alliance,” as she preferred to think of it. To this intent, she had selected the Vicomte de Boussac, whom she was wont to call, for no apparent reason, “one of her boys.” Nothing was further from the Vicomte’s intention than a marriage à la mode, imbued as he was with the national predilection for marriage au mois, but he had a habit — had De Boussac — of describing himself as enchanté with whatsoever might be proposed to him by one of the opposite sex. He was enchanté to meet Madame’s beautiful daughter, enchanté to act as their escort on any and every occasion, enchanté, above all, at Madame’s disregard of conventionality, whereby he was permitted to enjoy frequent tête-à-têtes with Margery. But he had an eye for the boundary-line. He smiled with inimitable charm at Madame Palffy’s transparent hints, derived considerable diversion from her daughter’s society, and, throughout, behaved in a manner nothing short of exemplary. At the end of three months, during which Margery’s début had come and gone, the wistful matchmaker was frankly in despair.

A beneficent Providence had begrudged Madame Palffy a very liberal allowance of diplomacy, and, this failing, she was now resolved upon a desperate move, nothing less than a complete revelation of her plans, and an appeal to Margery for confirmation of her hopes. Whenever she considered this approaching ordeal, she seemed suddenly to lose a cube-shaped section of her vital organs. Just now the sensation was oppressive: for she had taken the decisive step that very morning, and requested Margery to attend her at five o’clock; and, over there on the mantel, the hands of her little ormolu clock were galloping inconsiderately over the last quarter before the fatal hour. Even as she glanced apprehensively at its face, the tinkle of the five strokes broke the silence, and she had barely time to secure the lavender salts from her dressing-table, when there came a tap at the door.

“Entrez!”

Margery had been walking, and with her entrance into the room came an indescribable suggestion of the open air. Her face was radiant, and the violets at her belt, brought suddenly from the slight chill without into the warmth of her mother’s boudoir, seemed to heave a perfumed sigh of relief. The girl’s brown eyes, aglow with youth and health, the proud poise of her head, and her firm hands, ungloved and guiltless of rings, were all in marked contrast to the heavy woman throned upon the divan, and languidly sniffing at her salts. It was a confronting of nature and art, unmistakably to the latter’s disadvantage. Somehow, the hopelessness of her self-appointed task was more than ever apparent to the ambitious Madame Palffy.

“And where do you suppose I’ve been?” began Margery.

“Not to church, I know,” said her mother. “I half expected to see you, but I was alone in the pew.”

“No, not to church. Once a day is enough, surely. I’ve been with Mr. Carnby to the Jardin d’Acclimatation.”

“Good gracious, my dear, what a plebeian expedition! What were you doing — visiting the serres?”

“Nothing half so dignified. We were at the menagerie, feeding the monkeys with gingernuts.”

Madame Palffy simply gasped. There are some situations with which words are impotent to deal.

“Monkeys,” continued Margery, “are adorable. They are sufficiently human to be typical, and then there’s the advantage that one can stare at them to one’s heart’s content, without being thought ill-mannered. I saw lots of our friends — Mr. Radwalader, for instance, as vain as life and twice as loquacious; and one haughty young creature who held himself aloof, despising the rest, and taking no pains to conceal it. That was Monsieur de Boussac. His manner was so unmistakable that I actually found myself bowing, as our eyes met.”

“Margery!”

“It’s the solemn truth, mother; the Vicomte has a dual existence.”

“But my dear child — the monkey-house! What could Jeremy Carnby have been thinking of, to take you to such a place?”

“He didn’t. I took him.”

“But one never knows what one might catch there — typhoid — or — or fleas, my dear!”

Madame Palffy shuddered, and returned to her salts.

“Fleas, mother? I never thought of that possibility, but if I had, it would only have been an added inducement. Never having met a flea, I am sure I should enjoy the experience. You know what somebody says? ‘Incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God.’ And, above all things, I adore courage.”

Here was an auspicious beginning to a serious conversation! In sheer desperation, Madame Palffy assumed her society manner.

“Margery,” she said, “you’re quite old enough to take care of yourself; though, to speak frankly, you have a somewhat peculiar method of doing so. Let us abandon the monkeys for the present. I have something to say to you. I — I—”

She hesitated for an instant, and then proceeded resolutely.

“I’ve been thinking of you a great deal, of late, and you must forgive me if I speak unreservedly to you. It’s because of my affection for you, and my deep interest in your welfare.”

She did not see the slight contraction of her daughter’s eyebrows, and it was well for her peace of mind that she did not. It argued ill for a sympathetic reception of her carefully formulated appeal.

“I’m sure, my dear mother, that it’s very far from my desire to resent anything you say. Why should I? Has any one a better right to speak — er — unreservedly?”

“I’ve been more than proud of you always,” continued Madame Palffy, “more than proud, my dear. You’ve been a great comfort to me, and, if I do say it, a wonderful success in the Colony. I remember no debutante in ten years who has received so much attention, and the fact that it has not spoiled you shows how worthy of it all you are. And now,” she added, with an uneasy smile, “for la grande serieux.”

Again that curious drawing together of Miss Palffy’s eyebrows.

“Le grand serieux?” she repeated. She detested feeling her way in the dark, and now groped dexterously for a clue. “That’s usually taken to mean something quite alien to our present conversation.”

“Not at all,” said her mother, catching at this opening, “not at all alien, my dear. In fact, Margery, what I want to ask you is this. Er — have you ever thought of marrying?”

“Yes — often,” said Margery promptly.

The two words were characteristic of their curious relations, as Madame Palffy realized, with a little inward sigh of despair. They answered her question fully, and they answered it not at all.

“You don’t understand me, perhaps,” she went on. “I mean, have you ever seen — here in Paris, for instance — any particular man whom it has seemed to you you might — er — love? Now — there is De Boussac—”

“Ah!”

“Wait a moment, my dear. Let me finish. I’ll not conceal from you that it has been a dear wish of mine to see you married to him. I’ve known him since he was a baby. He’s titled, rich, very talented, and more than moderately good-looking. His position is irreproachable, and his family goes straight back indefinitely.”

She stopped nervously. The speech which she had mentally prepared, descriptive of De Boussac’s desirability, had been some ten times this length. In some fashion, Margery’s eyes had shorn it of verbiage, and reduced it, as it were, to its lowest terms.

“But, my dear mother, this is the first inkling I’ve had of any such idea. I can’t imagine that Monsieur de Boussac has ever breathed a word on the subject. Don’t you think the first mention should come from him? I’ve no reason to suppose that he cares a straw for me.”

“He does — I know he does,” broke in Madame Palffy eagerly. “You’re quite wrong in supposing he’s never spoken of it. Remember, these things are managed differently over here. You have the American idea. In Paris one speaks first to the girl’s parents.”

Margery shrugged her shoulders. A kind of instinct told her that she must ask no questions if she would be told no lies.

“And there’s another objection,” she said. “I don’t want to marry him. He may have money, but money isn’t everything. Indeed, it’s entered very near the foot of my list of the things to be desired in life. As to position, my own is sufficiently good to make his immaterial. We go back indefinitely ourselves, you know; although, to be sure, I’ve found some things in the family records which seemed to suggest that it might have been better not to have gone back so far. Last, but very far from least, I don’t love him, and, in view of the fact that, if he really had the slightest feeling for me, I should, in all probability, have known of it long ago, I must say, my dear mother, that your suggestion strikes me as having all the elements of a screaming farce.”

At this point Madame Palffy applied a minute handkerchief to her eyes, and began to weep softly.

“How cruelly you speak!” she moaned, “and I — I meant it all for the best.”

Fortunately, Mrs. Carnby had never seen Madame Palffy cry. As it was, she imagined that nothing about that lady could be more irritating than her smile. But Margery, under whose faultlessly-fitting jacket beat the tenderest and most considerate of hearts, was moved. She watched her mother in silence for a moment, and then went across to the divan, and, kneeling beside it, took Madame Palffy’s available hand in hers.

“I did speak cruelly,” she said, “and I’m sorry. Let me see if I can’t put it more considerately, so that you’ll understand. Love is — has always been — to me the most sacred thing on earth. I’ve watched, as every girl must watch, for its coming, believing that its touch would transform all life. There can be, it seems to me, but one man in the world able to do that, and I’m content to wait for him, without trying to hurry the future, or aid fate or Providence, whichever it may be, in the disposal of my heart. I’ve been glad all my life that we were not rich enough for our means to be an object. Of course, poverty has barred many out from happiness, but it pleases me to think that when a man seeks me, there can be no doubt that it is for myself alone. Not only that, but I’ve hoped that he would be poor as well, and it’s been my pride that, when I searched my heart, I found that wish deep within it, without affectation, without a hint of uncertainty. I’m old-fashioned, I suppose, and out of touch with the times, but I hold the faith that was before riches or social position came into the world — I hold to love, the love of a strong man for a pure woman, the love of a good woman for an honest man! Let me but start honestly, with no motive that I am ashamed to tell, no thought governing my action save reverence for those three great responsibilities — love, marriage, and motherhood, and I have no fear of what may come.”

As the girl was speaking, Madame Palffy’s sobs grew fainter, and finally she forgot to dab at her eyes with the morsel of lace. She was interested.

“It’s this great reverence which I have for love,” continued Margery, “that prompted me to answer impatiently when you spoke of Monsieur de Boussac. You didn’t mean to hurt me, of course: I know that. But, to me, it was as if you’d torn away the veil before my holy of holies, and cast out the image I had cherished there, and were thrusting a grinning golden idol in its place. I want love to come into my life freely — not to be invited to dinner, and announced by the butler. There will be no question in my mind when it has really come, no measuring of the man with a yardstick. I shall feel that he is for me, even before he asks me to be his. Above all, the question must come from his lips, and the answer be for his ears alone. No man loving me as I would be loved would be content to employ an ambassador.”

Here Madame Palffy came to herself, and moaned again.

“I don’t mean to reproach you, mother. I believe, and I’m very glad to believe, that you’ve always had my happiness in view. But, in the nature of things, there are many points upon which our ideas are bound to differ, and this is one. You thought it best that I should be educated in America, and you mustn’t be surprised to find me American as a result. Look back. Do you realize that I’ve not spent six full months in Paris since I was a little girl? Now that I’ve come back to you, I can’t readjust all my ideas in a moment. I want to please you, dear, in any way I can, but I’m an American all through, and you — well, perhaps you’re more French than you realize, yourself. We must try to grow together, but in many ways it will not be easy. We must be patient with each other, dear.”

“I see what you mean,” said Madame Palffy mournfully. “We’re as far apart as the poles.”

“Not quite that, I think,” answered Margery, with a smile, “but, in some respects, three thousand miles. Let us try to remember that: it will make things easier.”

“It’s a terrible disappointment to me,” came lugubriously from the handkerchief.

“I’m sorry,” answered Margery, “very sorry. But I’m sure that I could never love Monsieur de Boussac, and sure that I could never even believe in his love unless he himself should tell me of it. I think we understand each other now, mother. If I’d had any idea of this before, I might have spared you this talk. But, painful as it has been, it has, at all events, brought us nearer together. Don’t let us speak of it again.”

Then Madame Palffy unaccountably touched her zenith.

“No,” she agreed, rising majestically from the divan, “no, we’ll not speak of it again. It must make no change between us. I love you very dearly, Margery, and I wish I could have seen you his wife, but if it cannot be, that’s all there is to it. Let’s dress for dinner, my dear,” and, bending over, she kissed the air affectionately, a half-inch from her daughter’s cheek. “You’re a strange girl,” she added, “and I don’t pretend to understand you. But choose your own husband. I shall like him for your sake.”

As Margery left the room, Madame Palffy turned to the mirror, and surveyed with a sigh the ravages which this emotional half-hour had made in her appearance. For the three following days she was a mute martyr, and relished the rôle immeasurably.

Margery, dressing for dinner, hummed softly to herself, smiling as no one of her Paris friends had ever seen her smile.

“‘Ah, Moon of my Delight, that knows no wane, The Moon of Heav’n is rising once again’” —

Andrew Vane had played an accompaniment to that a hundred times, in her aunt’s big shore house at Beverly.


text: A Christmas Faggot/A Cradle Song

title: A Christmas Faggot/A Cradle Song


text:
The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter V

On the following Thursday morning, the bell of St. Germain-des-Prés was striking the hour of eleven when Monsieur Jules Vicot opened his eyes, instantly closed them again, and groaned. It was the hour which he disliked more than any other of the twenty-four, this of awakening, and from day to day it did not differ in essential details. The weather might be hot or cold, fair or foul, wet or dry — that was one thing and not important. What was important — what, in the estimation of Monsieur Vicot, distinguished this hour so unenviably from its fellows, was the variety of distressing physical symptoms which, in his own person, inevitably accompanied it. They were symptoms long familiar to Monsieur Vicot — a feeling under his eyelids which appeared to indicate the presence of coarse sand; a throbbing of the heart which seemed, inexplicably, to be taking place in his throat; a dull pain at his temples and back of his ears which prompted him to hold his head sedulously balanced, lest a sudden movement to right or left occasion an acuter pang; finally, a taste on his tongue which suggested a commingling of fur, blotting-paper, and raw quinces.
 * Chapter V. The Good and Faithful Servant.

Presently Monsieur Vicot opened his eyes once more and fixed them upon the window, from which, from his position, nothing was visible save sky of an intense blue. Against this background a number of small reddish-brown blotches swam slowly to and fro, and among these tiny whorls of a light gray colour expanded and contracted with inconceivable rapidity. At one time these symptoms had caused him peculiar uneasiness. Now he ignored them. They were less disturbing to his equanimity than the remarkable twitching of his fingers. For two years he had made a point of keeping his hands in the side pockets of his jacket, save when he found it absolutely necessary to use them. He no longer made gestures. They are desirable as aids to expression, but only when steady.

The majority of men, in waking, apply themselves to consideration of the day which lies before them. It was Monsieur Jules Vicot’s custom, on the contrary, to undertake a mental review of the night which lay behind. The review was not always complete. Often there were gaps, and, more frequently, he found himself completely at a loss to account for his return to his room on the cinquième of 70, Rue St. Benoit, and the indisputable fact that he was in bed, with his clothes reposing, with something not unrelated to order, on the solitary chair.

Now, as he surveyed it, he assured himself for the thousandth time that it was not a cheerful room. Abundant sunlight, the recompense of Nature for six flights of stairs, was its sole redeeming virtue. For the rest, everything belonging to Monsieur Vicot was applied to some use entirely foreign to the original purpose for which it had been designed. An inkstand served him as a candlestick, his chair was at once table and clothes-rack, a ramshackle sofa played the rôle of bed, and a frouzy plush table-cover was his rug. An astonishing accumulation of cigarette-ends and empty bottles suggested slovenliness in the occupant. On the contrary, they stood for his economical instincts. It is not every one who knows that twenty cigarette-ends make a pipeful of tobacco, and that as many empty brandy-flasks may be exchanged for a full half-pint, but the knowledge, if rare, is useful.

“It is a pig-pen,” said Monsieur Jules Vicot to himself, “and very appropriate at that!”

Then he set to work upon his matutinal review of the preceding night. His recollections were more than usually hazy. After a wretched dinner at La Petite Chaise, rendered yet more unpalatable by the proprietor’s unpleasant references to certain previous repasts, as yet unpaid, came a distinct hour or so of leaning on the parapet of the Quai d’Orléans, in dreamy contemplation of a man clipping a black poodle on the cobblestones below; then another period, of gradually lessening clearness, in a little wine-shop on the Rue de Beaune; then — nothing.

“Well, I was drunk,” reflected Monsieur Vicot; but again manifested his dissimilarity from the majority of men by not committing himself in respect to his intentions for the future.

He arose with an air of languor, yawned, looked dubiously at one trembling hand, shook his head, and then surveyed himself in a triangular bit of looking-glass tacked against the wall.

Candour is oftentimes a depressing thing — particularly in a mirror. Monsieur Vicot’s glass showed him a clean-shaven face almost devoid of colour; eyes, the blackness of which seemed to have soaked out, like water-colour through blotting-paper, into gray-blue circles on the lower lids; hair almost white; a thin nose with widely dilated nostrils; a tremulous mouth; and a weak, receding chin. It was a face which might have been handsome before becoming a document with the signatures of the seven cardinal vices written large upon it. Now it was evidence which even Monsieur Vicot could not ignore. He leered defiantly at it, mixed himself a stiff drink of cheap brandy and water, and forthwith applied himself to his toilet.

Seeing the result which he presently achieved, one perceived him to be a man of a certain ability under crushing limitations. With a broken comb, a well-worn brush, which he applied, with admirable impartiality, to both his hair and his coat, a morsel of soap, and some cold water, Monsieur Vicot accomplished what was little short of a miracle; and when, a half-hour later, he emerged upon the Rue St. Benoit and turned toward the boulevard, his appearance was akin to respectability. Luck and his face were against him, but incidental obstacles he contrived to overcome.

He took a mazagran and a roll at the Deux Magots, fortified himself with a package of vertes, and swung aboard a passing tram. At one o’clock he was sauntering down the Rue de Villejust, with his hands in his pockets. Suddenly he stopped, looked intently for an instant at a certain window on a level with his eye, and then went on at a brisker gait. He had abruptly become cheerful, and that for no apparent reason. There is, commonly, nothing particularly enlivening in the aspect of a blue jar in an apartment window; yet that, and nothing else, was what had arrested the attention of Monsieur Jules Vicot, and brought the tune he was whistling to his lips.

Mr. Thomas Radwalader occupied a rez de chaussée on the Rue de Villejust, which differed from the ordinary run of Paris apartments in that its doorway gave directly on the street, independent of the loge de concierge, and, what was more important, of the concierges themselves. Yet the latter held that Radwalader was a gentleman of becomingly regular habits. He kept one servant, a bonne on the objectively safe side of fifty, who cooked and marketed for him; maintained, throughout his quarters, a neatness which would have put the proverbial pin to shame; and, in general, ministered to his material well-being more competently than the average man-servant. That she was not likely to wear his clothes, use his razors, or pilfer his tobacco was half a bachelor’s domestic problem solved at the very outset. On the debit side of the account, she pottered eternally, and was an ardent advocate of protracted conversation; but these tendencies Radwalader had managed, in the course of their five years of association, to temper to a considerable degree; so that now she was as near to perfection in her particular sphere as a mere mortal is apt to be. Her name was Eugénie Dufour, and in her opinion the entire system of mundane and material things revolved about the person of Thomas Radwalader.

In view of his avowed love of luxury, the latter’s quarters were distinguished by severe, almost military, simplicity. Without exception, the rooms were carpeted, but there were no draperies either at doors or windows. The salon, of which the solitary window opened on the street, was Louis Seize in style, with straight-backed chairs, upholstered in dark-red brocade, a grand piano which had belonged to Radwalader’s mother, and a large print of the period, simply framed, in the exact centre of each wall-panel. There were no ornaments, save a white Sèvres bust of Marie Antoinette on the mantel, two reading-lamps, and a few odds and ends of silver, ivory, and enamel, which had the guilty air of unavoidable gifts, rather than the easy assurance of chosen bibelots. Some books in old bindings, a stand of music, and a tea-table with its service — and that was all.

Separated from this salon by double doors was what had formerly been a bedroom, but which now, for want of a better name, Radwalader called La Boîte. This was his sanctum sanctorum, wherein one might reasonably have looked to find the confusion dear to the happy estate of bachelorhood. But here again was evident, though in a lesser degree, the austerity which characterized the salon. One naturally expected a litter of periodicals, pipes, and papers; but, on the contrary, the large table was almost clear, and the interior of the writing-desk, which stood open by the window, revealed only symmetrical piles of note-paper, envelopes, and blotters, and writing paraphernalia of the ordinary office variety. In the chimney-place was a brazier on a low tripod, and from this, each morning, the worthy Eugénie removed a quantity of ashes — ashes which had entered the room in the form of Radwalader’s correspondence of the previous day. In one corner stood a small safe, and on top of this were boxes of cigars, and cigarettes of eight or ten varieties, but all arranged as methodically as the contents of the desk. The remaining wall-space was occupied by book-shelves, in which no single volume was an inch out of line.

The opinion of Radwalader’s concierges as to the regularity of his habits was seemingly based on fact. Eugénie lived with her brother in the Chaussée d’Antin, and went to and fro every day, regardless of weather, on top of the Rue Taitbout-La Muette tram. With characteristic regularity and promptitude, she had never once failed, during the five years of her service, to awaken her patron at eight o’clock. Radwalader invariably replied with a cheerful “Bien!” and five minutes later was splashing in his bath. His coffee was served at nine, his mornings, in general, spent in La Boîte. He took déjeuner at one, and then went out, returning only to dress for dinner, which he rarely had at home. Midnight found him again in La Boîte, bending over a book or some papers at his desk. Then only it was that the door of his safe stood open. In all this there was, assuredly, no evidence of aught but tastes so quiet as to savour of asceticism. But then Radwalader was a man who believed in a place for everything and everything in its place.

His visitors were few, save only on Thursday afternoons, when he was known to be at home. Then a dozen or so of men lounged in his salon, which was reinforced for the occasion by chairs from the other rooms, and several little tables for whiskey and tobacco. Eugénie did not appear. They were served, when there was need of service, by a middle-aged man-servant with a furtive eye and a hand that trembled nervously when handling glasses and decanters; for which reason those of Radwalader’s guests to whom the situation was most familiar preferred to help themselves. They reproached him, when more important topics were exhausted, with the apparent decrepitude of this retainer, whose name was Jules. But their host made it plain that he had good and sufficient reasons for employing him. He had grown up in his mother’s family in Philadelphia, said Radwalader, first as page and then as butler. When the Radwalader millions went by the board, Jules had remained with the family through sheer loyalty, accepting but half the wages he had formerly earned. Once he had even saved Radwalader’s life in the surf at Atlantic City. Later he had taken to drink, gone rapidly to pieces, and, at last, had been discharged as a hopeless case. They had given him a reference, for charity’s sake, on the strength of which he had found a place as travelling valet; but once in Paris, his old weakness had returned, and so he had lost his position, and never chanced upon another. Then Radwalader had found him stranded, begging on the boulevards, and, for the sake of the old days, had given him clothes and money, and found him occasional employment, such as this Thursday service, by means of which he contrived to eke out a living, such as it was. At other times, when he was not drunk, he drove a cab for the Compagnie Urbaine. (This last, the most incongruous feature of Radwalader’s explanation, was, curiously enough, the only one which had the slightest foundation in fact!)

‘‘My best quality is gratitude,” Radwalader concluded. “He saved my life; so I give him such of my clothes as become unfit for publication, and pay him five francs every Thursday for not being of the least assistance. I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with him. It’s a case of ‘love me, love my dog.’”

And this, under its thin veneer of cynicism, was taken as an indication of a very admirable instinct on Radwalader’s part, for which men admired him. They continued to make fun of Jules, but, after this defence of him, they nodded to him on entering, and spoke to him by name.

Andrew Vane joined the gathering in Radwalader’s rooms on the Thursday following their Sunday at Auteuil. It was observable that, without exception, the guests were men who had done, or were going to do, something out of the ordinary. No one of them seemed to be in the present tense of achievement. They talked slowly, choosing their words with noticeable care, with an eye to their effect, and switching ever and anon in a new direction, as irresponsibly as a fly in mid-air. To Andrew the atmosphere was not only that of another city, but of another world. From art to literature, from literature to music, from music to the stage, the talk drifted, punctuated with names of men and things whereof he did not remember ever to have heard. Save for their air of having but just stepped out of a barber’s chair, they were men of a general type familiar to him — well dressed, evenly poised. The scene might have been Boston or New York, save for one thing: in all that was said, there was never the most remote hint of actual interest. The opinions were like those of more than usually brilliant schoolboys, putting into their own phraseology certain fundamental axioms. The speakers, with the sole exception of Radwalader, gave the impression of being unutterably tired, and of playing with words with the unique intent of passing the time. Your American has but little leisure for grammar, and less for eloquence, but in what he says there is always present the vivifying spark of vital and intimate concern. His theories are jewels in the rough, but one is conscious of the ceaseless clink-clink of the tool which is busily transforming them into fame and fortune. The men in Radwalader’s salon were toying with gems long since cut and polished, whose sole virtue lay in the new light caught by their facets, as the result of some unexpected turn. Radwalader himself went farther. He combined the confidence of the American in his future with that of the Frenchman in his past. Andrew had thought him cynical, but he gained by contrast with his companions. The others seemed merely to be giving thought to what they said, but he to be saying what he thought.

“I’m almost remorseful at having asked you to join us this afternoon,” he began, when the introductions were over. “Whenever I see a man in a strange crowd, it reminds me of society’s phrase at parting — ‘I’ve enjoyed myself immensely!’ It has the distinction of being the only polite remark which has any claim upon veracity. Usually, one hasn’t enjoyed anything else! Of course, for the moment, you feel like a brook-trout in salt water. But it’s a crowd that I think you’ll like, when the grossly overestimated element of novelty wears off. Let me tell you, in a word, who they are, and what they stand for. That’s De Boussac at the piano, He knows four major and two minor chords in every key of the gamut, and contrives to fashion, out of the six, an accompaniment for anything you may ask of him. Beside him, leaning over the music, is Lister. He’s a would-be playwright, with a mother who has gained the nickname of the ‘Jail-breaker,’ because she never finishes a sentence. You’ll meet her some day and be amused. To the left is Rafferty — who’s popular because, just now, brogue happens to rhyme with vogue. Then, Clavercil. He thinks he’s not understood, without realizing that his sole ground for dissatisfaction lies in the fact that he is. He’s a fool, pure and simple, who inherited a fortune from his uncle — a bully old chap who never made a mistake in his life, and only the one I have mentioned, in his death. Next, Wisby — who paints things as they are not, and will be famous when the public gets educated down to him. The man helping himself to whiskey is Berrith. He wrote ‘The Foibles of Fate’ in the early ’90’s, and has been living ever since on the dregs of its success — a ‘one-book author’ with a vengeance. That’s Ford, by the window, with the red hair. He’s a crank on aerial navigation, and says his air-ship will be the solution of the problem. I’ve already christened it ‘Eve,’ with an eye to its share in another fall of man.”

Radwalader lowered his voice.

“On your right is Barclay-Jones. Barclay was his mother’s name, and when he came abroad he hyphenated it with his father’s. The combination always reminds me of a rather stylish tug-boat with its towline attached to a scow on a mud-flat. The man listening to him is Gerald Kennedy, the singer. He hasn’t advanced beyond the Tommy Tucker stage yet, but he’s a good sort, an Englishman, a friend of Mrs. Carnby and of the Ratchetts. On my left are Norrich, Peake, and Pfeffer, in the order named. Pfeffer is the only married man in the crowd. He married in haste, and his leisure is employed to the full. He gets his pin-money from his wife, and a prick of the pin goes with every franc. Norrich is on the staff of the Paris Herald. Peake, like Clavercil, is simply the disbursing agent of an inherited fortune.”

Radwalader paused, lighted a cigarette, and smiled at Andrew frankly.

“Finis!” he said. “Do you think me very uncharitable? I hope not. It seems so much better to get men’s bad qualities out of the way and done with at the start, and then to find out their good points, one by one, in a succession of pleasant surprises. It’s a crowd you’ll like, when once you get the point of view. You’ve been used to poise, and at first you won’t like pose. But, after all, the difference lies only in the eye — a pun’s only permissible when it tells the truth. We all pose over here. You will, yourself, if you stay long enough. It’s as contagious as smallpox. And, by the way, I was talking with Peake about you only yesterday. He’s going to the States next week, and wants to find some one to occupy his apartment while he’s away. If you’re not thinking of remaining at the Ritz, you couldn’t do better than to take it. It’s a charming little place, on the Rue Boissière, near the Place d’Iéna, perfectly furnished, and with a balcony and bath. Of course, the rent’s no object to him. All he wants is some one to keep it aired and clean.”

“It can’t do any harm to ask him about it,” said Andrew. “To tell you the truth, I’ve rather been thinking of doing something of the kind.”

“No sooner said than done,” agreed Radwalader, and, leaning forward across Norrich, he added: “I say, Peake, move up here, will you?

“I’ve been telling Vane about your apartment,” he continued, as Peake drew close to them, dragging his chair by the arms, “and he seems to think he might like to have a look at it. He’s over here for quite a time, you know, and he certainly couldn’t be as comfortable anywhere else.”

“I hope you’ll take the place, Mr. Vane,” said Peake. “I’ve always maintained that a man of my tastes had no business in the States; but it seems I have, after all. I think I told you, Radwalader — my late, lamented Aunt Esther, you know. She threatened to leave me nothin’ but her good will, and now she’s popped off, saddlin’ me with everythin’ she had in the world.”

“That’s what she meant by her good will, probably,” observed Radwalader.

“P’r’aps,” said Peake, with a little nod. “But the c’lamity’s just as great. She was a good-hearted creature, but she belonged to the black-walnut and marble-group period. Her sideboard weighed a ton, and she had wax flowers in her ‘parlour.’ And I’m to sell nothin’, my good man! It’s all to go to my wife! Why, the very thought’s enough to keep any woman from marryin’ me. Oh, my dear Radwalader, I mourn my find, I do indeed.”

“But about the apartment?” suggested Radwalader.

“Oh! Well, all I can say, Mr. Vane, is that I’m sure you’ll be comfortable. It’s a modest box, at best; but it suits me, and will probably suit you. ‘Man wants but little here below’ — a bath, sunlight, a good bed, and cleanliness — that’s all. You’ll find ’em at my place. Radwalader’ll get you a valet de chambre, no doubt. I’d throw mine in, if I hadn’t already thrown him out. The wife of my concierge is doin’ for me till I go. I can’t say more. Two hundred francs a month. I’ll be back by the first of August — I can’t miss Trouville, you know, Radwalader — and the chances are I’ll have to evict you, Mr. Vane. I know I wouldn’t leave that apartment except at the business end of a pitch-fork!”

“It sounds like the very thing I want,” said Andrew, with a smile at the other’s eloquence.

“And there’s actually some prospect of your getting it,” drawled Radwalader. “What an exceptional animal you are, Vane!”

“Come ’round to-morrow mornin’ to breakfast, both of you,” said Peake. “Then you can have a look over the place, Mr. Vane, and judge for yourself. If you like it, we’ll clinch a bargain on the spot.”

“Very well,” agreed Andrew. “Shall I stop for you, Mr. Radwalader?”

“By all means. About twelve.”

“Then that’s settled!” observed Peake, with an air of profound satisfaction. “I positively must have a whiskey, Radwalader. I’m quite exhausted. I haven’t talked so much business in a year.”

For an hour the conversation was general, and presently thereafter Radwalader was alone. For a time he stood by the salon table, idly fingering a paper-cutter and scowling. Then he stepped noiselessly to the door, listened briefly but intently, and abruptly flung it open and looked out into the antichambre.

“Not this time!” observed Jules laconically, from the dining-room beyond, where he was languidly polishing wine-glasses.

“I’m glad to see you profit by experience,” retorted Radwalader. “Come here.”

The faithful servitor came slowly across the hallway, glanced about the empty salon, helped himself liberally from the whiskey decanter, swallowed the raw spirit at a gulp, and flung himself heavily into a chair.

“Fire away!” he remarked. “I hope it’s something worth while. I don’t mind saying I’m hard up.”


text:
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title: User talk:98.231.217.237