no doubt, she said: “I don’t believe it.”
“Do you think I’ve got no sense? I saw what the scandal would mean.
Besides--” Richmond did not give his other reason. He was too ashamed
of his weakness of love for the girl to expose it.
By this time Mrs. Richmond had recovered. “And is that _all_ you’ve
done?”
“All?” he cried. “_All?_ What else could I do?”
“Get her the man.”
“Get her the man?” repeated he, as if trying in vain to understand.
“She doesn’t trust you--and you can’t be surprised at that. You’ve got
to get her the man. You’ve mismanaged this thing from the start. You’ve
driven her on and on until now there’s only the one chance left.”
Richmond did not contradict this, even mentally. He said presently:
“But I’ve talked with him and he won’t have her.”
Again Mrs. Richmond was taken by surprise--so much so that she said:
“What did you say?”
Richmond showed his wild internal commotion. With glittering eyes and
teeth suggesting that they were about to gnash he all but hissed: “Are
you getting deaf? I said I had talked with him, and he won’t have her.
I can’t make the man marry her--can I?”
In her excitement, in her amazement Mrs. Richmond leaned forward and
said slowly: “Did you go to him and give him permission to marry
Beatrice?”
“No,” Richmond confessed.
“Oh,” said his wife with sarcasm, “you went to forbid him to marry her.
Why do you deceive me when we’re in such a dangerous position?”
“I didn’t deceive you,” growled he. “I went to make sure he didn’t want
to marry her. We got along all right.”
Mrs. Richmond showed relief. “Then we’re in a position to make advances
to him.”
“I’ll make no more advances!” cried he defiantly--blustering defiance.
“I suppose you’d rather see the newspapers full of your daughter making
dresses in partnership with a maid and a chauffeur,” sneered Mrs.
Richmond.
He winced as she jabbed surely at his one weak point--the weakness she
knew so well; her knowledge of it had given her the courage to attack
him. And she knew also that his one belief in her, his one use for her,
was her skill as a social maneuverer.
“You’ll do whatever is necessary,” she went on. “I can’t understand why
you were so opposed to her marrying. He’s young, but famous already.
He’ll be a help.”
A long pause. Then: “Yes, he can paint,” said Richmond absently, a
queer look in his usually hard and wicked eyes.
“Of course he can. D’Artois told us so. I’ll go ask him to dinner on my
way home. If he accepts I’ll telephone Beatrice to come down.”
“Yes--that’s a good idea--excellent,” said Richmond. “I want to get
this thing settled. It has unfitted me for business. A few weeks more
of it and I’ll go to pieces. Do whatever you like. I don’t care, so
long as you settle things.” And he took up his papers to indicate that
he had no more time to waste.
“I hope this will be a lesson to you,” said she. “Next time any trouble
comes with the children you’d better leave it to me.”
Richmond muttered something into his papers. Mrs. Richmond issued forth
in dignity and in triumph. No one, viewing her cold and haughty face,
her beautiful, expensive toilet, her air throughout of the story-book
aristocrat, would have believed her capable of participating in such
a scene as she and her husband had just enacted. She was secure from
suspicion of such vulgarities--secure behind the glamour of wealth and
fashion that veils the Richmond kind of sordid lives and the sordid
pursuits that engross them.
* * * * *
When Mrs. Richmond’s auto stopped before Roger Wade’s gate she saw him
reading behind the leafy screen of the front veranda. She waited and
watched a moment or so, but he did not glance up.
“Give the horn a squeeze or so,” said she to the chauffeur.
At the sound of three sharp, imperious calls the artist slowly lifted
his eyes. Mrs. Richmond, her face at the open window of her limousine,
saw him observing her as one might a chance passer-by on the high-road.
When he saw that she was seeing him he rose and advanced toward
the gate at a pace that was neither fast nor slow--a pace somehow
discouraging to Mrs. Richmond. She awaited him with a smile of the most
flattering warmth.
“How do you do, Mr. Wade?” cried she as he opened the gate, and out
went her gloved hand to meet his cordially. “You have treated me
shamefully,” she went on. “But one who is nobody must take whatever
treatment a great man gives one and be grateful that it’s no worse.”
The big, dark man, looking extremely handsome in his loose, white
flannels, laughed amiably. He showed his good sense by attempting no
reply. He simply stood waiting.
“I’ve stopped to ask you to dine with us to-morrow night--very
informally,” said she. “It’d be an enormous favor, as we’re dreadfully
dull.”
“All this is very kind,” said Roger, “but I can’t come.”
“Now, don’t say that,” urged she, her manner making her insistence seem
polite--a manner of which she was admirably mistress. “Mr. Richmond
told me this afternoon that I mustn’t take no for an answer. He has
developed a great admiration and liking for you. If you’re not refusing
just out of unneighborliness, perhaps you’ll come day after to-morrow
evening?”
“I’ll be on the sea,” said Roger. “I’m sailing Saturday morning.”
“So suddenly!” cried Mrs. Richmond with an arresting agitation in her
voice--obviously not the agitation of pleasure, but of alarm. “Then,
you _must_ come to-morrow evening. It is our last chance for better
acquaintance.”
“Oh, there’s Paris,” said Roger carelessly. His frank eyes were
regarding her with a puzzled expression.
Mrs. Richmond flung away the last shred of pretense of merely social
purposes. Her eyes pleaded and her voice implored as she said: “Mr.
Richmond particularly wished to see you. Can’t you arrange it--for
to-morrow evening--or this evening?”
“Thank you. It’s really impossible.” And Roger’s tone and manner were
a courteous but final refusal of all that she was implying. “Will you
trouble yourself with my adieux to Mr. Richmond and your daughter?”
“I’m so disappointed I hardly know what to say,” cried Mrs. Richmond
with pathetic appeal. “Do forgive my rudeness, but----”
“It’s quite impossible for me to change my plans for the little time I
have between now and Saturday morning.” Roger was simply polite--not
unfriendly, yet certainly not friendly.
Mrs. Richmond’s handsome eyes veiled their anger behind a look of
resigned regret. She dared not quarrel with him, must part with him on
friendly terms. “I understand. I am dreadfully sorry. But--as you say,
there’s Paris. We haven’t your address there, I believe.”
“I have no address,” said Roger. “I shall have to find a place.”
“D’Artois will know,” said Mrs. Richmond hastily, to cover the almost
blunt refusal to continue the acquaintance. “We can find out from him.”
“I lead rather a secluded life there,” was Roger’s reply. “One must
fight constantly against the temptations to distraction. But I needn’t
explain that to the wife of a busy man of affairs.”
“No, indeed,” cried she, with undiminished cordiality--and she did
not find it difficult to be cordial to a man whose charm she was now
feeling, hardly the less, perhaps the more, because he was defeating
her will. “Still,” she went on, “we’ll venture to hope that you’ll
relent a little and not look on us altogether as intruders, Mr. Wade.”
“You are too kind, Mrs. Richmond,” said Roger. He made as much of a
move toward turning away as politeness permitted.
“Again, I’m sorry--so sorry, about dinner,” said Mrs. Richmond, once
more extending her hand. She was all friendliness, all cordiality. “And
I’ll hope you and Fate will be kinder in Paris. Good-by. Mr. Richmond
will be really distressed. And Beatrice----”
Roger’s eyes shifted. A faint color crept into his cheeks.
“She will think you’re a sadly negligent friend. She’s at the Wolcott.
If you are in town----”
“Unfortunately, I’ll not be,” interrupted Roger curtly. “I’ll have to
trust to you to make my apologies.”
Mrs. Richmond once more looked defeated. “Don’t forget us,” she pleaded.
“Thank you,” said Roger embarrassed.
“Good-by.”
Roger bowed. The machine got under way and disappeared in a cloud of
dust while he went slowly and moodily back to the veranda to take up
his book, but not to read it.
As Mrs. Richmond’s auto swung into the terrace before the main entrance
to Red Hill Richmond’s auto departed, having just set him down upon the
stone esplanade. He opened the door of the car for his wife. “Well?”
said he sharply.
“He can’t--that is, won’t--come.”
“I thought so.”
“He’s sailing.”
“I know. Next week.”
“No--Saturday.”
Richmond startled. “Day after to-morrow?”
“And he wouldn’t come either to-night or to-morrow night.”
They walked in silence side by side into the house.
“He’s a splendidly handsome man,” said Mrs. Richmond. “Any woman
would be proud to have him as her husband. And he has the air of a
personage.... I must telephone Beatrice.”
“You must do nothing of the sort,” ordered Richmond in the tone which,
when he first had begun to use it with her, had made her feel like a
servant. “You’ll not tempt her to make a public fool of herself.”
“You don’t understand her,” protested Mrs. Richmond.
“No matter. No telephoning. Small, timid people never can understand
that a person of her sort has unlimited capacity for reckless folly.”
“But what are we to do?” demanded his wife.
“I’ll go to see him.”
“To say what?”
“What circumstances may dictate after I get there,” said her husband.
“I’ll go at once.”
“Yes--yes. The time’s very short,” cried she.
“On the contrary, there’s plenty of time.”
And he turned on his heel and retraced his steps toward the door.
Mrs. Richmond paused to look pityingly after him; he was slightly
bent; his step had lost its spring. Only once before had she seen
him so harassed--the time when he was trying to negotiate apparently
impossible loans to save his fortune from ruin and himself from prison.
She hated him with what she believed to be an implacable hate. In
fact, she hated him only because he would not let her love him; he
fascinated her, a woman of the sort that crave a master and really love
the servitude they profess to loathe. She rejoiced in his defeats; she
delighted to waste his money where she could not sequester it. But her
soul did homage to him as its lord. She looked after him longingly; she
would have given a good part of her possessions to be an unseen and
unsuspected spectator at the scene between him and Roger. For she would
have staked all she had on Roger’s administering to him the defeat of
his life.
XIX
ROGER SORE BESET
Roger still seated on his front veranda behind the curtain of creepers,
was not a little astonished to see that the solitary occupant of the
runabout stopping at his gate was Beatrice’s father. His astonishment
did not decrease when the little big financier, advancing briskly up
the gravel walk edged by flowering plants, hailed the first clear view
of his face with a smile of the utmost geniality--the greeting of an
old and dear friend.
“I’ve come about that picture,” Richmond hastened to explain. “I
wish--for my own sake--I’d seen it sooner. If you’ll pardon an old
man--at least, a much older man than yourself--for being quite
frank--it has given me an entirely different opinion of you. It
has made me very proud of my acquaintance with you. I know that’s
blunt--but it’s sincere.”
Roger was as fond of praise as the next human being. He had cultivated
the philosophy of indifference only to uncritical censure. He blushed
and stammered out some awkward words of thanks--certainly not the less
awkward for the uneasiness Richmond’s manner had raised within him.
“My wife and my daughter were quite right and I was wrong--stupidly
wrong,” continued Richmond. They were seated now. “I’m not an art
expert--and not imagining I was or pretending to be has saved me
thousands of dollars and a lot of fake art stuff. But, at the same
time, a man who amounts to anything in any line always appreciates good
work in every other line--whether he likes it or not. So--I want that
picture. Isn’t there anything I could say or do that would induce you
to change your mind and let me have it?”
Roger’s brow clouded again; a strange, absent look was in his eyes--the
eyes of an artist, sensitive, sympathetic, penetrating, yet devoid of
the least suggestion of craft. “I’ve been thinking that matter over,”
said he with an effort. “I have decided not to take the picture with
me. So--you can have it--if you’ll accept it.”
“My dear Wade!” exclaimed Richmond, all enthusiasm. “But you must be
generous with me. You must let me give you something in return. You
know how burdensome a sense of unacquitted obligation is. All I have
to give is money, unfortunately. You must let me give that. It is the
right of you fellows to expect it from us fellows. It’s our privilege
to give it.”
Roger, unaware of the many sides to the extraordinary man seated
opposite him, was wholly unprepared for so adroit and graceful and
sensible a speech. He could only make an impatient gesture and say with
a decisiveness that seemed rude: “The picture has no money value. I’ll
have to insist on your taking it on my terms--or I’ll give it to some
one else. For I shall not carry it abroad with me.”
“That brings me to the main reason for my coming,” said Richmond,
leaning forward, elbows on the broad arms of the chair.
Roger was all at sea again. With Richmond’s request for the picture
he had jumped to the conclusion that it was really the sole cause
of the two visits of that afternoon and the two exhibitions of
sultry affability. Now--what new complication was Richmond about to
disclose?--what new obstacle was about to appear in his path back to
peace and whole-hearted work?
The financier did not keep him long in suspense. “I want to persuade
you not to go abroad,” he proceeded. “Now--please hear me out! You are
an American. Your proper place is here--your own country. It needs you,
and you owe it the services of your genius.”
Roger eyed his guest with candid suspicion. Guile being foreign to
his nature, he knew of its existence in his fellow-beings only as an
incomprehensible but undeniable fact. He knew Richmond was a man of
guile. Yet these sincere tones, these frank and friendly eyes-- Also,
what possible motive could the man have? Perhaps the picture had really
converted him into a friend and admirer, unafraid now that there was no
longer reason to suspect matrimonial designs.
“Don’t affect a modesty a man of your abilities could not possibly
feel,” said Richmond, misunderstanding or pretending to misunderstand
Roger’s embarrassed silence. “Only mediocrity is modest, and it is the
crowd of fools that compels us, who can do things and have sense enough
to know we can, to pretend to be modest.”
Roger laughed. “There’s truth in that,” said he. “Still, I’m sure my
fate is a matter of importance only to myself.” His expression settled
to somberness again. “No, I shall go. Thank you, but I shall go.”
“There is work for you here--big work,” urged Richmond. “I shall see
that you get it--that you don’t have to wait for recognition and be
wearied and disgusted by the stupid injustices that keep men of genius
out of their own.”
Roger’s simple and generous face softened, for his heart was touched.
“I see you understand,” said he. “I wish I could show my appreciation
by accepting your offer. But I can’t. I must go.”
“I admit that the atmosphere over there is more congenial--much more
congenial--to your sort of work. But you’ll find us less unsympathetic
than you think. Give us a trial, Wade.”
Roger was entirely convinced now, and was deeply moved. “I wish I
could, Mr. Richmond. But if I am to work I must go.”
The older man leaned still farther toward the young man in his
earnestness. “Why, you painted here one of the greatest pictures
I’ve seen. Of course, my personal feeling may bias my judgment
somewhat--for I am attached to my daughter as I am to no other human
being”--Richmond’s voice trembled, and there were tears in his
eyes--“I’m a fool about her, Wade--a damn fool!... Excuse my getting
off the track. As I was saying, I may think the picture greater than it
really is. But I know that it is really great--_great_!”
Roger tried to conceal his agitation.
“You painted it here. That means, you can do great work here. Did you
ever paint a better picture in Europe?”
“No,” admitted Roger.
“Then you ought to stay.”
Roger rose, seated himself, lit a fresh cigarette. “Can’t do it,”
he said curtly. “Let’s say no more about it. Don’t think me rude or
unappreciative. But--you must take my decision as final.”
“I’m older than you, Wade--twice as old. You are a young man, just
starting. I’m about all in. So, I don’t feel that I’m impertinent in
pressing you.”
Again Roger rose. This time he went to the edge of the veranda. At the
steps he turned suddenly. “Don’t think me unappreciative, sir,” said
he, “but this is painful to me--very painful.”
Richmond put on a most effective air of apology. “I’m sorry--I beg your
pardon--I did not mean to intrude upon your private affairs. I was
assuming you were free. It never occurred to me that there might be
obligations over there----”
“I _am_ free!” cried Roger. “At least, I was. And I intend to be so
again. But--enough of this--of me. I’ll send you the picture-- No, I’ll
see that it is sent on Saturday.”
Richmond regarded the young man with the eyes of a father and a friend.
He went up to him, laid one hand affectionately on his arm. “I know
you don’t want to leave America--give up your ambition--the one that
brought you here, so d’Artois says. Tell me. Can’t it be arranged
somehow?”
“Impossible,” said Roger.
Richmond laughed gently. “A word for boys and for old failures....
Can’t you induce _her_ to live on this side of the water?”
Roger looked puzzled.
“It’s always a woman,” said Richmond, eyes twinkling. “If she really
cares for you she’ll live wherever your career demands.”
Roger’s smile of exaggerated disdain revealed how much of the boy he
was taking with him into the thirties. “You are mistaken,” said he.
“No woman has ever dominated my life.” His face grew stern again and
energetic. “And no woman ever shall!”
“That’s right--that’s right,” heartily approved Richmond. “Woman in the
wrong place in a man’s life is almost as bad as if she were left out
entirely. Almost--but not quite.”
“I don’t agree with you,” said Roger.
“Did you ever happen to know a man who had left woman out altogether?”
inquired Richmond.
“No--but I’ve seen many and many a life--an artist’s life--wrecked by
women--by marriage.”
Richmond took advantage of Roger’s averted face to indulge in a smile
of satisfaction. He went on in a careless tone that had no relationship
to the smile: “Probably these chaps wouldn’t have amounted to much,
anyhow. The man who has it in him to be wrecked by excess of any kind
is bound to go under. Nothing can save him.”
“No doubt,” assented Roger, with assumed indifference. The point
Richmond had just made was new, was impressive--appealed disquietingly
to the young man’s pride as well as to his intelligence. For the
first time he looked upon his visitor as a dangerous man. He stood
at the edge of the veranda in that expectant silence which compels a
caller either to show cause why he should stay or to take himself off.
Richmond covered his defeat and his embarrassment by returning to his
chair and seating himself in the attitude of one far from the end of a
leisurely and intimate visit. Roger could do nothing but reluctantly
reseat himself. They smoked in silence a few minutes; then Richmond
said reflectively:
“So--you’re opposed to marriage?”
“Unalterably,” said Roger.
“I remember now. You said that to me the other day when”--Richmond
laughed with frank good humor--“when I was suspecting you of designs on
my daughter--or, rather, on my fortune. How absurd that seems now. But
I had some excuse. I didn’t know you then. If I had I might not have
been so well pleased by your views on matrimony.”
As these words flowed fluently from Richmond’s gracious tongue Roger
cast at him a furtive glance of amazed suspicion.
“My older daughter,” continued Richmond, “is a thoroughly worldly
woman. She has married a title--and is as happy as a normal woman
would be over getting the man of her heart’s choice. But my other
daughter----”
Roger moved uncomfortably in his chair. Could it be possible-- No! No!
Ridiculous! And yet--Preposterous! As little danger of it as of Roger
himself giving in.
“Beatrice”--Richmond pronounced the name with tenderness--and
tenderness now seemed as essentially one of his traits as hardness or
cruelty or tyranny-- “Beatrice is entirely different. But you know her.
You artists read character. I needn’t tell you she is delightfully
unworldly--foolishly romantic--need I?”
“No,” said Roger in a hurried, harried way.
“Your painting shows how thoroughly you understood--appreciated her.
Wade, one of the finest things I ever knew a man to do was your refusal
to take advantage of her inexperienced young imagination. It was
noble--_noble_!”
Roger looked wretched. “I--I don’t deserve that,” was his stammering
but vigorous protest. “My motive was altogether different--wholly
selfish.”
“Oh, come, now,” cried the older man jocosely, “she’s not so
unattractive. A man less scrupulous, less honorable--might easily have
fancied himself in love with her. You’ll admit that--won’t you?”
Roger was braced well back in his chair. “Yes,” said he in a tone not
remotely suggestive of terror.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you, Wade,” laughed Richmond.
“Not at all--not at all,” said Roger, his panic ludicrously obvious.
“So--it was really noble of you.”
“I can’t permit that, sir,” said Roger. “My only motive was my
determination never to marry.”
“I don’t like to hear you say that,” said Richmond. “As the father of
a daughter, as a man who wishes to see his daughter in the keeping of
a man of the right sort--and how few such there are!--I don’t like to
hear any of those few declare against matrimony.”
There was no misunderstanding the trend of this. Incredible though
it seemed, the man had come round, was abetting his daughter in her
willful whim of conquest! “I’m not opposed to marriage--for others,”
said Roger awkwardly. “I simply feel that it is not wise for me. If a
man whose life is given to creative work marries a woman he loves he is
content. It is the end of achievement, of ambition. Why strive after
the lesser when what seems to him the greater has been achieved? If
such a man marries unfortunately then the bitterness and the agitations
destroy his ability to create. Happy marriage suffocates genius,
unhappy marriage strangles it. Death inevitable--in either case.”
The words were not unlike those he had used in describing his
position to Beatrice. His manner--the tone, the look of the eyes, the
expression of mouth and chin--made them seem entirely different, far
more profoundly significant. A man, a serious man, rarely reveals
his innermost self to a woman unless he and she have reached a far
closer intimacy than Roger had permitted with Beatrice. But talking
with Richmond, with another man, one who could and would understand
and sympathize, Roger exposed a side of his nature of the existence
of which Beatrice had only a faint intuition, no direct or definite
knowledge. Richmond had been pushed by the portrait well toward
conviction of Roger’s high rank in the aristocracy he esteemed as a
man among men. He was now wholly convinced. His daughter, he saw, had
chosen more wisely than he knew.
“I see your point,” said Richmond slowly, thoughtfully. “I see your
point.”
Roger showed his deep sense of relief.
“It is a good one--a very good one.”
Roger’s tension visibly relaxed.
“It is unanswerable,” was Richmond’s final, sweeping concession.
“Unanswerable,” echoed the painter decisively, yet with a curious note
of unhappiness.
“But,” pursued Beatrice’s father, “what would you do--if you fell in
love?” And, ignoring the painter’s confusion in the bursting of this
bomb, he went on with an air of philosophic impartiality: “Love laughs
at reason--at ambition--at calculation of every kind. Yes--I--about the
last man in the world to be suspected of sentimentality--I say that
love is supreme master.”