best _parti_ in town."
"Of course, I do not know anything of the kind," I said bowing. "Since I
had the honor of sitting by her I am thinking of marrying her myself."
"I know it. They all fall at the first encounter!" exclaimed the lady,
and I saw she had no humor, and decided to hedge. "I only mean that I do
not believe Miss Leigh would marry Mr. Canter or any one else for his
money, or for any other reason except the best."
Finally, having escaped from her, I was just making my way toward Miss
Leigh, who had been standing up talking to two men who on entering the
room had promptly sought her out, when a servant entered and spoke to
the hostess, who immediately crossed over and gave his message to Miss
Leigh. "Mr. James Canter has called for you; must you go?"
"Yes, I fear I must." So with hardly a glance at me she passed out,
leaving the room so dark that I thought the lights had been dimmed, but
I discovered that it was only that Miss Eleanor Leigh had left. I could
not in decency leave at once, though I confess the place had lost its
charm for me, especially since I learned that Miss Leigh's escort for
the ball was Mr. James Canter. I had other reasons than jealousy for
preferring that he should not be Eleanor Leigh's escort. In my
meditations that night as I walked the streets, Mr. James Canter held a
somewhat conspicuous place.
James Canter was possibly the most attentive of all the beaux Miss Leigh
had, and they were more numerous than I at that time had any idea of. He
was prospectively among the wealthiest young men in the city, for his
father, who idolized him, was one of the largest capitalists in the
State. He was, as the stout lady had said, certainly esteemed by
ambitious mammas among the most advantageous _partis_ the city could
boast of. And he was of all, without doubt, the most talked of.
Moreover, he had many friends, was lavish in the expenditure of his
money beyond the dream of extravagance, and what was called, not without
some reason, a good fellow. Before I met him I had already had a glimpse
of him as he "bucked" against his rival, Count Pushkin, on the night
when, dejected and desperate, I, in a fit of weakness, went into the
gambling-house determined to stake my last dollar on the turn of the
wheel, and the sight of Pushkin saved me. But it was after I met him
that I came to know what the pampered young man was. I was beginning now
to be thrown with some of the lawyers and this had led to further
acquaintances, among them young Canter. At first, I rather liked him
personally, for he was against Pushkin and his gay manner was
attractive. He was good-looking enough after the fleshly kind--a big,
round, blondish man, only he was too fat and at twenty-eight had the
waist and jowl of a man of forty who had had too many dinners and drunk
too much champagne. But when I came to know him I could not see that he
had a shred of principle of any kind whatsoever. His reputation among
his friends was that had he applied himself to business, he would have
made a reputation equal to his father's, which was that of a shrewd,
far-sighted, cool-headed man of business who could "see a dollar as far
as the best of them," but that he was squandering his talents in sowing
a crop of wild oats so plentiful that it was likely to make a hole even
in his father's accumulated millions, and its reaping might be anywhere
between the poor-house and the grave. I knew nothing of this at the
time, and after I came to know him as I did later, my judgment of him
took form from the fact that I discovered he not only did not tell the
truth, but had lost the power even to recognize it. Still, I think my
real appraisement of him came when I discovered that he was paying
assiduous attentions to Miss Leigh. I could not help remarking the
frequency with which I found his name in juxtaposition with hers in the
published accounts of social functions, where "Mr. Canter led the
cotillion with Miss Leigh," or "Mr. Canter drove his coach with Miss
Leigh on the box seat," etc., etc., and as my acquaintance began to
extend among the young men about town, I heard more than occasional
conjectures as to their future. It appeared to be accepted rather as a
matter of course that the result lay entirely with the young man. It was
a view that I fiercely rejected in my heart, but I could say nothing
beyond a repudiation of such a view in general.
In view of my knowledge of Mr. Canter, it was natural enough that I
should be enraged to find him the escort of Eleanor Leigh, and I fear my
temper rather showed itself in the conversation which took place and
which soon became general, partly because of the earnestness with which
I expressed my views on the next subject that came up. The two or three
young girls of the company had left at the same time with Miss Leigh,
and the ladies who remained were, for the most part, married women of
that indefinite age which follows youth after a longer or shorter
interval. They had all travelled and seen a good deal of the world, and
they knew a good deal of it; at least, some of them did and they thought
that they knew more than they actually did know.
They agreed with more unanimity than they had yet shown on any subject
that America was hopelessly bourgeois. Listening to them, I rather
agreed with them.
"Take our literature, our stage, our novels," said one, a blonde lady of
some thirty-five years, though she would, possibly, have repudiated a
lustrum and a half of the measure.
"You differentiate the literature and the novels?" I interrupted.
"Yes. I might--but--I mean the lot. How provincial they are!"
"Yes, they appear so. Well?"
"They do not dare to discuss anything large and vital."
"Oh! yes, they dare. They are daring enough, but they don't know
how--they are stupid."
"No, they are afraid."
"Afraid? Of what?"
"Of public opinion--of the bourgeois so-called virtue of the middle
class who control everything."
"That is the only valid argument I ever heard in favor of the
bourgeois," I said.
"What do you mean? Don't you agree with me?"
"I certainly do not. I may not seek virtue and ensue it; but at least I
revere it."
"Do you mean that you think we should not write or talk of
anything--forbidden?"
"That depends on what you mean by forbidden. If you mean----"
"I think there should be no subject forbidden," interrupted the lady by
whom I had sat at table, a stout and tightly laced person of some forty
summers. "Why shouldn't I talk of any subject I please?" She seemed to
appeal to me, so I answered her.
"I do not at this instant think of any reason except that it might not
be decent."
This raised an uncertain sort of laugh and appeared for a moment to
stagger her; but she was game, and rallied.
"I know--that is the answer I always get."
"Because it is the natural answer."
"But I want to know why? Why is it indecent?"
"Simply because it is. Indecent means unseemly. Your sex were slaves,
they were weaker physically, less robust; they were made beasts of
burden, were beaten and made slaves. Then men, for their own pleasure,
lifted them up a little and paid court to them, and finally the idea and
age of chivalry came--based on the high Christian morality. You were
placed on a pinnacle. Men loved and fought for your favor and made it
the guerdon of their highest emprise, guarded you with a mist of
adoration, gave you a halo, worshipped you as something cleaner and
better and purer than themselves; built up a wall of division and
protection for you. Why should you go and cast it down, fling it away,
and come down in the mire and dust and dirt?"
"But I don't want to be adored--set up on a pedestal."
"Then you probably will not be," interrupted my deaf neighbor.
"I want to be treated as an equal--as an--an--intelligent being."
"I should think that would depend on yourself. I do not quite understand
whom you wish to be the equal of--of men? Men are a very large
class--some are very low indeed."
"Oh! You know what I mean--of course, I don't mean that sort."
"You mean gentlemen?"
"Certainly."
"Then I assure you you cannot discuss indecent subjects in mixed
company; gentlemen never do. Nor write coarse books--gentlemen never do
nowadays--nor discuss them either."
"Do you mean to say that great novelists never discuss such questions?"
she demanded triumphantly.
"No, but it is all in the manner--the motive. I have no objection to the
matter--generally, provided it be properly handled--but the obvious
intention--the rank indecentness of it. See how Scott or George Eliot,
or Tolstoi or Turgénieff, or, later on, even Zola, handles such vital
themes. How different their motive from the reeking putrescence of the
so-called problem-novel."
"Oh! dear! they must be very bad indeed!" exclaimed a lady, shocked by
the sound of my adjectives.
"They are," suddenly put in my oldest neighbor, who had been listening
intently with his hand behind his ear, "only you ladies don't know how
bad they are or you would not discuss them with men."
This closed the discussion and a group of ladies near me suddenly
branched off into another subject and one which interested me more than
the discussion of such literature as the trash which goes by the name of
the problem novel.
"Who is Eleanor Leigh in love with?" asked some one irrelevantly--a Mrs.
Arrow--whose mind appeared much given to dwelling on such problems. She
addressed the company generally, and possibly my former neighbor at the
table in particular.
"Is she in love?" asked another.
"Certainly, I never saw any one so changed. Why, she has been moping so
I scarcely know her--and she has taken to charity. That's a sure sign. I
think it must be that young preacher she talks so much about."
"Well, I don't know who she is in love with," said the lady who had sat
next to me at dinner, "but I know who she is going to marry. She is
going to marry Jim Canter. Her aunt has made that match."
"Oh! do you think so?" demanded our hostess, who had joined the group.
"I don't believe she will marry any one she is not in love with, and I
can't believe she is in love with that fat, coarse, dissipated creature.
He is simply repulsive to me."
I began to conceive an even higher opinion of my hostess than I had
already had.
"I don't think it is anybody," continued our hostess.
"Oh! yes, you do--you think it is Doctor Capon."
"Doctor Capon! It is much more likely to be Mr. Marvel."
"Mr. Marvel! Who is he?--Oh, yes, the young preacher who turned Jew and
was put out of his church. I remember now."
"Is Mr. Marvel a Jew?" I inquired. "Oh! yes, indeed, and a terrible
Socialist."
"Ah, I did not know that."
"I heard she was going to marry a Jew," interjected another lady
corroboratively, "but I must say it looks very much like Mr. Canter to
me."
"Oh! she wouldn't marry a Jew?" suggested Mrs. Arrow. "I heard there was
a young lawyer or something."
"She would if she'd a mind to," said our hostess.
"I still stand by Doctor Capon," declared Mrs. Arrow. "He is so
refined."
"And I by Jim Canter--I thought at one time it was Count Pushkin; but
since Milly McSheen has taken him away, the other seems to be the
winning card. I must say I think the count would have been the better
match of the two."
"I don't think that," exclaimed the other lady. "And neither would you,
if you knew him."
"Possibly, she knows the other," I suggested.
"Oh! no--you see she could get rid of the count, if he proved too
objectionable, and then she would still have the title."
"I never heard a more infamous proposal," I said in an aside to our
hostess. She laughed. "No, did you--but she was only jesting----"
"Not she!" I was in no mood to tolerate jesting on the subject of
Eleanor Leigh's marriage. My aside to our hostess drew the attention of
the others to me, and Mrs. Arrow suddenly said, "Mr. Glave, which would
you say? You know them both, don't you?"
"I do."
"Well, which would you say?"
"Neither," said I. I wanted to add that I would cheerfully murder them
both before I would allow either of them to destroy Eleanor Leigh's
life; but I contented myself with my brief reply.
"Oh! Mr. Glave is evidently one of her victims," laughed our hostess,
for which I was grateful to her.
I came away from my friend's with the heroic determination to prevent
Miss Leigh's life from being ruined and to accomplish this by the
satisfactory method of capturing her myself. My resolve was a little
dampened by reading in a newspaper next day the headlines announcing an
"Important Engagement," which though no names were used pointed clearly
at Miss Leigh and the hopeful heir and partner of Mr. James Canter, Sr.
Reading carefully the article, I found that the engagement was only
believed to exist. I felt like a reprieved criminal.
He who has not felt the pangs of a consuming passion has no conception
of the true significance of life. The dull, cold, indifferent lover
knows nothing of the half-ecstatic anguish of the true lover or the
wholly divine joy of reconciliation even in anticipation. As well may
the frozen pole dream of the sun-bathed tropic. It was this joy that I
hugged in my heart even in face of the declaration of her expected
engagement.
Next day I was talking to two or three young fellows when Canter and
some episode in which he had figured as rather more defiant than usual
of public opinion, came up, and one of them said to another, a friend of
his and an acquaintance of mine, "What is Jim going to do when he gets
married? He'll have to give up his 'friends' then. He can't be running
two establishments."
"Oh! Jim ain't going to get married. He's just fooling around."
"Bet you--the old man's wild for it."
"Bet you--not now. He can't. Why, that woman--"
"Oh! he can pension her off."
"Her?--which her?"
"Well, all of 'em. If he don't get married soon, he won't be fit to
marry."
It was here that I entered the conversation. They had not mentioned any
name--they had been too gentlemanly to do so. But I knew whom they had
in mind, and I was inwardly burning.
"He isn't fit to marry now," I said suddenly.
"What!" They both turned to me in surprise.
"No man who professes to be in love with any good woman," I said, "and
lives as he lives is fit for any woman to marry. I am speaking
generally," I added, to guard against the suspicion that I knew whom
they referred to. "I know Mr. Canter but slightly; but what I say
applies to him too."
"Oh! you'd cut out a good many," laughed one of the young men with a
glance at his friend.
"No, gentlemen, I stand on my proposition. The man who is making love to
a pure woman with a harlot's kisses on his lips is not worthy of either.
He ought to be shot."
"There'd be a pretty big exodus if your views were carried out," said
one of them.
"Well, I don't want to pose as any saint. I am no better than some other
men; but, at least, I have some claim to decency, and that is
fundamental. Your two-establishment gentry are no more nor less than a
lot of thorough-paced blackguards."
They appeared to be somewhat impressed by my earnestness, even though
they laughed at it. "There are a good many of them," they said. "Your
friends, the Socialists----"
"Yes. I know. The ultra-Socialist's views I reprobate, but, at least,
he is sincere. He is against any formal hard and fast contract, and his
motive is, however erroneous, understandable. He believes it would
result in an uplift--in an increase of happiness for all. He is, of
course, hopelessly wrong. But here is a man who is debasing himself and
others--all others--and, above all, the one he is pretending to exalt
above all. I say he is a low-down scoundrel to do it. He is prostituting
the highest sentiment man has ever imagined."
"Well, at any rate, you are vehement," said one.
"You've cut Jim out," said the other.
The conversation took place in a sort of lounging-room adjoining a
down-town café frequented by young men. At this moment who should walk
in but Mr. James Canter himself. The talk ceased as suddenly as cut-off
steam, and when one of the young men after an awkward silence made a
foolish remark about the fine day, which was in reality rainy and cold,
Canter's curiosity was naturally excited.
"What were you fellows talking about? Women?"
"No," said one of the others--"nothing particular."
"Yes!" I said, "we were--talking about women."
"Whose women?"
"Yours." I looked him steadily in the eye.
He started, but recovered himself.
"Which of 'em?" he inquired as he flung himself into a chair and looked
around for a match for the cigarette which he took from a jewel-studded
gold case. "I am rather well endowed with them at present. What were you
saying?"
I repeated my remark about the two-establishment gentry. His face
flushed angrily; but my steady eye held him in check and he took a long,
inhaling breath.
"Well, I don't give a blank what you think about it, or anything else."
He expelled the smoke from his lungs.
"Perhaps--but that does not affect the principle. It stands. You may not
care about the Rock of Gibraltar; but it stands and is the key to the
situation."
He was in a livid rage, and I was prepared for the attack which I
expected him to make; but he restrained himself. His forte was
insolence.
"You teach Sunday-school, don't you?"
I thought this was a reference to one whose name I did not mean his lips
to sully, and I determined to forestall him.
"I do," I said quietly. "I teach for Mr. Marvel."
"I know--the psalm-singing parson who has made all that trouble in this
town--he and his Jew partner. We are going to break them up."
"Both are men whose shoes you are not fit to clean; and as to making
trouble, the trouble was made by those a good deal nearer you than John
Marvel--your precious firm and your side-partners--Coll McSheen and
David Wringman."
"Well, you'd better confine your labors to your dirty Jews and not try
to interfere in the affairs of gentlemen."
"As to the latter, I never interfere in the affairs of gentlemen, and
as to the dirty Jews, I assure you they are not as dirty as you are; for
their dirt is all outside while yours is within."
I had supposed he would resent this, but he had his reasons for not
doing so, though they were none too creditable to him. Mr. Canter was
too bold with women and not bold enough with men. And a little later it
transpired that with one woman, at least, he was as tame as he was with
the other sex. The woman the young men referred to kept him in fear of
his life for years, and he had neither the physical nor moral courage to
break away from her.
XXXV
MR. LEIGH HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE MADE HIM
Though I had not acted on the principle, I had always felt that a young
man had no right to pay his addresses to a young lady without giving
some account of himself to her father, or whoever might stand in the
relation of her natural protector; certainly that it was incumbent on a
gentleman to do so. I felt, therefore, that it was necessary for me
before proceeding further in my pursuit of Eleanor Leigh to declare my
intention to her father. My declaration to her had been the result of a
furious impulse to which I had yielded; but now that I had cooled, my
principle reasserted itself. One trouble was that I did not know Mr.
Leigh. I determined to consult John Marvel, and I had a sneaking hope
that he might not think it necessary for me to speak about it to him. I
accordingly went around to his room and after he had gotten through with
a tramp or two, who had come to bleed him of any little pittance which
he might have left, he came in. I bolted into the middle of my subject.
"John, I am in love." I fancied that his countenance changed slightly--I
thought, with surprise.
"Yes. I know you are."
"How did you know it? I am in love with Eleanor Leigh." His countenance
changed a shade more, and he looked away and swallowed with a little
embarrassment.
"Yes. I know that too."
"How did you know it?"
He smiled. John sometimes smiled rather sadly.
"I want you to help me."
"How?"
"I don't know. I have to go and ask Mr. Leigh."
"What! Has she accepted you?" His face was, as I recalled later, full of
feeling of some kind.
"No. I wish to Heaven she had! If anything, she has rejected me,--but
that is nothing. I am going to win her and marry her. I am going to ask
her father's permission to pay my addresses to her, and then I don't
care whether he gives it or not.--Yes, I do care, too; but whether he
does or not I am going to win her and him and marry her."
"Henry," he said gently, "you deserve to win her, and I believe,
maybe--if--" He went off into a train of reflection, which I broke in
on.
"I don't think I do," I said honestly, sobered by his gentleness; "but
that makes no difference. I love her better than all the rest of the
world, and I mean to win her or die trying. So, none of your 'maybes'
and 'ifs'. I want your advice how to proceed. I have not a cent in the
world; am, in fact, in debt; and I feel that I must tell her father
so."
"That will scarcely tend to strengthen your chances with him," said
John. My spirits rose.
"I can't help that. I feel that I must tell him!" Though I spoke so
grandly, my tone contained a query.
"Yes, that's right," said John decisively. His mind had been working
slowly. My spirits drooped.
I was not conscious till then how strongly I had hoped that he might
disagree with me. My heart quite sank at the final disappearance of my
hope. But I was in for it now. My principle was strong enough when
strengthened by John's invincible soundness.
I walked into the building in which Mr. Leigh had his offices, boldly
enough. If my heart thumped, at least, I had myself well in hand. The
clerk to whom I addressed myself said he was not in, but was expected in
shortly. Could he do anything for me? No, I wanted to see Mr. Leigh
personally. Would I take a seat?
I took a chair, but soon made up my mind that if I sat there five
minutes I would not be able to speak. I sat just one minute. At least,
that was the time my watch registered, though I early discovered that
there was no absolute standard of the divisions of time. The hands of a
clock may record with regularity the revolutions of the earth, the moon,
or the stars; but not the passage of time as it affects the human mind.
The lover in his mistress' presence, and the lover waiting for his
mistress, or for that matter, for her father, has no equal gauge of
measurement of Time's passage. With the one the winged sandals of
Mercury were not so fleet, with the other, the leaden feet of Chronos
were not so dull.
I decided that I must get out into the air; so, mumbling something to
the surprised clerk about returning shortly, I bolted from the office
and walked around the block. As I look back at it now, I was a rather
pitiable object. I was undoubtedly in what, if I were speaking and not
writing, I should call "the deuce of a funk"; but for the sake of fine
English, I will term it a panic. My heart was beating, my mouth was dry,
my knees were weak. I came very near darting off every time I reached a
corner, and I should certainly have done so but for the knowledge that
if I did I should never get up the courage to come back again. So I
stuck and finally screwed up my courage to return to the office; but
every object and detail in those streets through which I passed that
morning are fastened in my mind as if they had been stamped there by a
stroke of lightning.
When I walked in again the clerk said, Yes, Mr. Leigh had returned.
Would I take a seat for a moment? I sat down in what was a chair of
torture. A man under certain stress is at a great disadvantage in a
chair. If he be engaged in reflection, the chair is a proper place for
him; but if in action, he should stand. Every moment was an added burden
for me to carry, which was not lightened when young Canter walked out of
the office and with a surly glance at me passed on.
The clerk took my card, entered the door, and closed it after him. I
heard a dull murmur of voices within, and then after what appeared to
me an interminable wait, he reappeared and silently motioned me in. I
hated him for months for that silent gesture. It seemed like Fate.
As I entered, a man past middle age with a strong face, a self-contained
mouth and jaw, a calm brow, and keen eyes glanced up from a note he was
writing and said:
"Excuse me a moment if you please. Won't you take a seat?"
I sat with the perspiration breaking out as I watched the steady run of
his pen over the sheet. I felt as a criminal must who watches the judge
preparing to pass sentence. At length he was through. Then he turned to
me.
"Well, Mr. Glave?"