The trouble with this situation was that it involved more power,
comfort, ease and luxury than Eugene had ever experienced before, and
made him a sort of oriental potentate not only among his large company
of assistants but in his own home. Angela, who had been watching his
career all these years with curiosity, began to conceive of him at last
as a genius in every respect--destined to some great pre-eminence, in
art or finance or the publishing world or all three. She did not relax
her attitude in regard to his conduct, being more convinced than ever
that to achieve the dizzy eminence to which he was now so rapidly
ascending, he must be more circumspect than ever. People were watching
him so closely now. They were so obsequious to him, but still so
dangerous. A man in his position must be so careful how he dressed,
talked, walked.
"Don't make so much fuss," he used to say to her. "For heaven's sake,
let me alone!" This merely produced more quarrels, for Angela was
determined to regulate him in spite of his wishes and in his best
interests.
Grave men and women in various walks of life--art, literature,
philanthropy, trade, began to seek him out, because in the first place
he had an understanding mind and because in the next place, which was
much more important, he had something to give. There are always those in
all walks of life who are seeking something through those avenues which
a successful person represents, whatever they may be, and these together
with those others who are always intensely eager to bask in the
reflected glory of a rising luminary, make a retinue for every
successful man. Eugene had his retinue, men and women of his own station
or beneath it, who would eagerly shake his hand with an "Oh, yes,
indeed. Managing Publisher of the United Magazines Corporation! Oh, yes,
yes!" Women particularly were prone to smile, showing him even white
teeth and regretting that all good looking and successful men were
married.
In July following his coming from Philadelphia the United Magazines
Corporation moved into its new building, and then he was installed into
the most imposing office of his career. A subtle assistant, wishing to
ingratiate the staff in Eugene's good graces, suggested that a
collection be taken up for flowers. His room, which was done in white,
blue and gold with rose wood furniture, to set it apart from the
prevailing decorative scheme and so make it more impressive, was
scattered with great bouquets of roses, sweet peas and pinks, in
beautiful and ornate vases of different colors, countries and schools.
His great rosewood flat-topped desk, covered with a thick, plate glass
through which the polished wood shone brightly, was decorated with
flowers. On the morning of his entry he held an impromptu reception, on
which occasion he was visited by Colfax and White, who after going to
look at their new rooms, came to his. A general reception which followed
some three weeks later, and in which the successful representatives of
various walks of life in the metropolis took part, drew to the building
a great crowd, artists, writers, editors, publishers, authors and
advertising men who saw him in all his glory. On this occasion, Eugene,
with White and Colfax did the receiving. He was admired at a distance by
striplings who wondered how he had ever accomplished such great results.
His rise had been so meteoric. It seemed so impossible that a man who
had started as an artist should change and become a dominant factor in
literature and art from a publishing point of view.
In his own home his surroundings were equally showy; he was as much a
figure as he was in his office. When he was alone with Angela, which was
not so often, for naturally they did a great deal of entertaining, he
was a figure even to her. Long ago she had come to think of him as
someone who would some day dominate in the art world; but to see him an
imposing factor in the city's commercial life, its principal publishers'
representative, having a valet and an automobile, riding freely in cabs,
lunching at the most exclusive restaurants and clubs, and associating
constantly with someone who was of importance, was a different matter.
She was no longer so sure of herself with him, not so certain of her
power to control him. They quarreled over little things, but she was not
so ready to begin these quarrels. He seemed changed now and deeper
still. She was afraid, even yet, that he might make a mistake and lose
it all, that the forces of ill will, envy and jealousy which were
everywhere apparent in life, and which blow about so easily like gusts
of wind, would work him harm. Eugene was apparently at ease, though he
was troubled at times for his own safety, when he thought of it, for he
had no stock in the company, and was as beholden to Colfax as any hall
boy, but he did not see how he could easily be dispensed with. He was
_making good_.
Colfax was friendly to him. He was surprised at times to see how badly
the manufacturing arrangements could go awry, affecting his dates of
issue, but White invariably had a good excuse. Colfax took him to his
house in the country, his lodge in the mountains, on short yachting and
fishing trips, for he liked to talk to him, but he rarely if ever
invited Angela. He did not seem to think it was necessary to do this,
and Eugene was afraid to impress the slight upon his attention, much as
he dreaded the thoughts which Angela must be thinking. It was Eugene
here and Eugene there, with constant calls of "where are you, old man?"
from Colfax, who appeared not to want to be away from him.
"Well, old man," he would say, looking him over much as one might a
blood horse or a pedigree dog, "you're getting on. This new job agrees
with you. You didn't look like that when you came to me," and he would
feel the latest suit Eugene might be wearing, or comment on some pin or
tie he had on, or tell him that his shoes were not as good as he could
really get, if he wanted to be perfect in dress. Colfax was for grooming
his new prize much as one might groom a blood horse, and he was always
telling Eugene little details of social life, the right things to do,
the right places to be seen, the right places to go, as though Eugene
knew little or nothing.
"Now when we go down to Mrs. Savage's Friday afternoon, you get a
Truxton Portmanteau. Have you seen them? Well, there's the thing. Got a
London coat? Well, you ought to have one. Those servants down there go
through your things and they size you up accordingly. Nothing less than
two dollars each goes, and five dollars to the butler, remember that."
He assumed and insisted after a fashion which Eugene resented quite as
much as he did his persistent ignoring of Angela, but he did not dare
comment on it. He could see that Colfax was variable, that he could hate
as well as love, and that he rarely took any intermediate ground. Eugene
was his favorite now.
"I'll send my car around for you at two Friday," he would say, as though
Eugene did not keep a car, when he was planning one of his week-end
excursions. "You be ready."
At two, on that day, Colfax's big blue touring car would come speeding
up to the entrance of the apartment house and Eugene's valet would carry
down his bags, golf sticks, tennis racket and the various paraphernalia
that go with a week-end's entertainment, and off the car would roll. At
times Angela would be left behind, at times taken, when Eugene could
arrange it; but he found that he had to be tactful and accede to
Colfax's indifference mostly. Eugene would always explain to her how it
was. He was sorry for her in a way, and yet he felt there was some
justice in the distinction. She was not exactly suited to that topmost
world in which he was now beginning to move. These people were colder,
sharper, shrewder, than Angela. They had more of that intense
sophistication of manner and experience than she could achieve. As a
matter of fact, Angela had as much grace and more than many of the four
hundred, but she did lack that quickness of wit or that shallow
self-sufficiency and assurance which are the almost invariable traits of
those who shine as members of the smart set. Eugene was able to assume
this manner whether he felt it or not.
"Oh, that's all right," she would say, "as long as you're doing it for
business reasons."
She resented it nevertheless, bitterly, for it seemed such an uncalled
for slur. Colfax had no compunctions in adjusting his companionship to
suit his moods. He thought Eugene was well suited to this high life. He
thought Angela was not. He made the distinction roughly and went his
way.
It was in this manner that Eugene learned a curious fact about the
social world, and that was that frequently in these highest circles a
man would be received where his wife would not and vice versa, and that
nothing very much was thought of it, if it could be managed.
"Oh, is that Birkwood," he heard a young swell once remark, concerning
an individual in Philadelphia. "Why do they let him in? His wife is
charming, but he won't do," and once in New York he heard a daughter ask
her mother, of a certain wife who was announced--her husband being at
the same table--"who invited her?"
"I'm sure I don't know," replied her mother; "I didn't. She must have
come of her own accord."
"She certainly has her nerve with her," replied the daughter--and when
the wife entered Eugene could see why. She was not good looking and not
harmoniously and tastefully dressed. It gave Eugene a shock, but in a
way he could understand. There were no such grounds of complaint against
Angela. She was attractive and shapely. Her one weakness was that she
lacked the blase social air. It was too bad, he thought.
In his own home and circle, however, he thought to make up for this by a
series of entertainments which grew more and more elaborate as time went
on. At first when he came back from Philadelphia it consisted of a few
people in to dinner, old friends, for he was not quite sure of himself
and did not know how many would come to share his new honors with him.
Eugene had never got over his love for those he had known in his youth.
He was not snobbish. It was true that now he was taking naturally to
prosperous people, but the little ones, the old-time ones, he liked for
old lang syne's sake as well as for themselves. Many came to borrow
money, for he had associated with many ne'er do wells in his time, but
many more were attracted by his fame.
Eugene knew intimately and pleasantly most of the artistic and
intellectual figures of his day. In his home and at his table there
appeared artists, publishers, grand opera stars, actors and playwrights.
His large salary, for one thing, his beautiful apartment and its
location, his magnificent office and his friendly manner all conspired
to assist him. It was his self-conscious boast that he had not changed.
He liked nice people, simple people, natural people he said, for these
were the really great ones, but he could not see how far he had come in
class selection. Now he naturally gravitated to the wealthy, the
reputed, the beautiful, the strong and able, for no others interested
him. He hardly saw them. If he did it was to pity or give alms.
It is difficult to indicate to those who have never come out of poverty
into luxury, or out of comparative uncouthness into refinement, the veil
or spell which the latter comes eventually to cast over the
inexperienced mind, coloring the world anew. Life is apparently
striving, constantly, to perfect its illusions and to create spells.
There are, as a matter of fact, nothing but these outside that ultimate
substance or principle which underlies it all. To those who have come
out of inharmony, harmony is a spell, and to those who have come out of
poverty, luxury is a dream of delight. Eugene, being primarily a lover
of beauty, keenly responsive to all those subtleties of perfection and
arrangement which ingenuity can devise, was taken vastly by the nature
of this greater world into which, step by step apparently, he was almost
insensibly passing. Each new fact which met his eye or soothed his
sensibilities was quickly adjusted to all that had gone before. It
seemed to him as though all his life he had naturally belonged to this
perfect world of which country houses, city mansions, city and country
clubs, expensive hotels and inns, cars, resorts, beautiful women,
affected manners, subtlety of appreciation and perfection of appointment
generally were the inherent concomitants. This was the true heaven--that
material and spiritual perfection on earth, of which the world was
dreaming and to which, out of toil, disorder, shabby ideas, mixed
opinions, non-understanding and all the ill to which the flesh is heir,
it was constantly aspiring.
Here was no sickness, no weariness apparently, no ill health or untoward
circumstances. All the troubles, disorders and imperfections of
existence were here carefully swept aside and one saw only the niceness,
the health and strength of being. He was more and more impressed as he
came farther and farther along in the scale of comfort, with the force
and eagerness with which life seems to minister to the luxury-love of
the human mind. He learned of so many, to him, lovely things, large,
wellkept, magnificent country places, scenes of exquisite beauty where
country clubs, hotels, seaside resorts of all descriptions had been
placed. He found sport, amusement, exercise, to be tremendously well
organized and that there were thousands of people who were practically
devoting their lives to this. Such a state of social ease was not for
him yet, but he could sit at the pleasures, so amply spread, between his
hours of work and dream of the time to come when possibly he might do
nothing at all. Yachting, motoring, golfing, fishing, hunting, riding,
playing tennis and polo, there were experts in all these fields he
found. Card playing, dancing, dining, lounging, these seemed to occupy
many people's days constantly. He could only look in upon it all as upon
a passing show, but that was better than nothing. It was more than he
had ever done before. He was beginning to see clearly how the world was
organized, how far were its reaches of wealth, its depths of poverty.
From the lowest beggar to the topmost scene--what a distance!
Angela scarcely kept pace with him in all these mental peregrinations.
It was true that now she went to the best dressmakers only, bought
charming hats, the most expensive shoes, rode in cabs and her husband's
auto, but she did not feel about it as he did. It seemed very much like
a dream to her--like something that had come so suddenly and so
exuberantly that it could not be permanent. There was running in her
mind all the time that Eugene was neither a publisher, nor an editor,
nor a financier at heart, but an artist and that an artist he would
remain. He might attain great fame and make much money out of his
adopted profession, but some day in all likelihood he would leave it and
return to art. He seemed to be making sound investments--at least, they
seemed sound to her, and their stocks and bank accounts, principally
convertible stocks, seemed a safe enough margin for the future to
guarantee peace of mind, but they were not saving so much, after all. It
was costing them something over eight thousand dollars a year to live,
and their expenses were constantly growing larger rather than smaller.
Eugene appeared to become more and more extravagant.
"I think we are doing too much entertaining," Angela had once protested,
but he waived the complaint aside. "I can't do what I'm doing and not
entertain. It's building me up. People in our position have to." He
threw open the doors finally to really remarkable crowds and most of the
cleverest people in all walks of life--the really exceptionally
clever--came to eat his meals, to drink his wines, to envy his comfort
and wish they were in his shoes.
During all this time Eugene and Angela instead of growing closer
together, were really growing farther and farther apart. She had never
either forgotten or utterly forgiven that one terrific lapse, and she
had never believed that Eugene was utterly cured of his hedonistic
tendencies. Crowds of beautiful women came to Angela's teas, lunches and
their joint evening parties and receptions. Under Eugene's direction
they got together interesting programmes, for it was no trouble now for
him to command musical, theatrical, literary and artistic talent. He
knew men and women who could make rapid charcoal or crayon sketches of
people, could do feats in legerdemain, and character representation,
could sing, dance, play, recite and tell humorous stories in a droll and
off-hand way. He insisted that only exceptionally beautiful women be
invited, for he did not care to look at the homely ones, and curiously
he found dozens, who were not only extremely beautiful, but singers,
dancers, composers, authors, actors and playwrights in the bargain.
Nearly all of them were brilliant conversationalists and they helped to
entertain themselves--made their own entertainment, in fact. His table
very frequently was a glittering spectacle. One of his "Stunts" as he
called it was to bundle fifteen or twenty people into three or four
automobiles after they had lingered in his rooms until three o'clock in
the morning and motor out to some out-of-town inn for breakfast and "to
see the sun rise." A small matter like a bill for $75.00 for auto hire
or thirty-five dollars for a crowd for breakfast did not trouble him. It
was a glorious sensation to draw forth his purse and remove four or five
or six yellow backed ten dollar bills, knowing that it made little real
difference. More money was coming to him from the same source. He could
send down to the cashier at any time and draw from five hundred to a
thousand dollars. He always had from one hundred and fifty to three
hundred dollars in his purse in denominations of five, ten and twenty
dollar bills. He carried a small check book and most frequently paid by
check. He liked to assume that he was known and frequently imposed this
assumption on others.
"Eugene Witla! Eugene Witla! George! he's a nice fellow,"--or "it's
remarkable how he has come up, isn't it?" "I was at the Witlas' the
other night. Did you ever see such a beautiful apartment? It's perfect!
That view!"
People commented on the interesting people he entertained, the clever
people you met there, the beautiful women, the beautiful view. "And
Mrs. Witla is so charming."
But down at the bottom of all this talk there was also much envy and
disparagement and never much enthusiasm for the personality of
Mrs. Witla. She was not as brilliant as Eugene--or rather the comment
was divided. Those who liked clever people, show, wit, brilliance, ease,
liked Eugene and not Angela quite so much. Those who liked sedateness,
solidity, sincerity, the commoner virtues of faithfulness and effort,
admired Angela. All saw that she was a faithful handmaiden to her
husband, that she adored the ground he walked on.
"Such a nice little woman--so homelike. It's curious that he should have
married her, though, isn't it? They are so different. And yet they
appear to have lots of things in common, too. It's strange--isn't it?"