Notwithstanding the romancing of her sister, Phillida built no castles.
Millard's politeness to her had been very agreeable, but she knew that
it was only politeness. Almost every man's and every woman's imagination
is combustible on one side or another. Many young women are set
a-dreaming by any hint of love or marriage. But Phillida had read only
sober books--knowing little of romances, there was no stock of
incendiary material in her memory. Her fancy was easily touched off on
the side of her religious hopes; all her education had intensified the
natural inflammability of her religious emotions, but in affairs of this
world she was by nature and education unusually self-contained for a
woman of one and twenty.
Millard, on his part, had been exposed to the charms of many women, and
his special interest in Phillida amounted only to a lively curiosity.
Always susceptible to the charm of a woman's presence, this
susceptibility had been acted on from so many sides as to make his
interest in women superficial and volatile. The man who is too much
interested in women to be specially interested in a woman is pretty sure
not to marry at all, or to marry late.
Baron Pohlsen arrived, and was duly installed at Mrs. Hilbrough's. He
was greatly pleased with the hospitality shown him by this wealthy
household, and fancied that Americans were the most generous of peoples.
Millard, as in duty bound, took pains to introduce him in many desirable
quarters, and showed him the lions of the city in Hilbrough's carriage.
But in spite of Millard's care to relieve him, Hilbrough afterward
confessed that the panic of 1873 had not taxed his patience and
cheerfulness so deeply as this entertainment for two weeks of a great
German antiquary. Dutifully the banker attended a session of the
Geographical Society to listen to an address made by his guest in broken
English, on the ancient importance of Uxmal and Palenque. Hilbrough also
heard with attentive perplexity the Baron's account before the
Historical Society of the Aztec Calendar Stone, and his theory of its
real purpose.
When the American banker was left alone with the learned High Dutchman,
it became very serious business. Von Pohlsen, with all his erudition,
was extremely ignorant of the art of banking as practised in New York.
He did not know, at least in English, the difference between collateral
and real estate security, and "gilt-edged" paper was more foreign than
papyrus to him. Nor could Hilbrough interest him much in the remarkable
rise in Brooklyn real estate since 1860. Brooklyn was too new by a
millennium for the Baron to care for it. Hilbrough tried the plan of
shunting the antiquary to his main lines of American hieroglyphs,
aboriginal architecture, and Pueblo domestic economy. But this only
shifted the difficulty, for under the steady downpour of Pohlsen's
erudition, Hilbrough had continually to change position, now putting the
right knee over the left and now placing the left atop, to keep from
nodding, and he was even reduced to pinching himself, sometimes, in
order to keep awake, just as the learned and ingenious Baron had got his
pyramid of inference ready to balance on its rather slender apex of
fact. Archaeology was new to Hilbrough, and deductive profits so large
from inductive investments so small always seemed to the financier to
indicate bad security.
Mrs. Hilbrough, clever woman, appeared to understand it all. She had
crammed on a copy of Stephens's "Travels in Yucatan" that had belonged
to her father, and she gave Pohlsen no end of pleasure by asking him
about such things as the four-headed altars before the great idols at
Copan, and the nature of the great closed house at Labphak. If you will
look in Pohlsen's book of travels in America (Reise durch Amerika:
Leipzig, 1888) you will discover in his chapter on New York that in this
metropolis the ladies take a remarkable interest in science, and are
generally better informed regarding such matters than their husbands,
these latter being deeply immersed in mere dollar-hunting.
But Mrs. Hilbrough was much more interested in her reception to be given
in honor of Baron Pohlsen than she was in the four-headed altars of the
remoter Aztecs. If she could not fill her house with those very richest
and most exclusive people who in a plutocratic society always try to
think themselves for some reason or other the best people, she found
that under Millard's guidance she could succeed in getting some people
of wealth and distinction who were desirous of being presented to a
baron, and, what was better, she could get a considerable number from
that class of lettered men and their families and the admirers of
literature, art, and learning, who, together, form the really best
people in every metropolis. Most of these knew little of Pohlsen's
researches, and cared less for his title, but since he was vouched for
as a foreigner who had acquired distinction in his department of
knowledge, they were ready to do him honor with that generous
hospitality for which Americans blame themselves while they practise it;
as though it were not better for us to be good-hearted, remembering that
in the studious preservation of national dignity and social
perpendicularity we can never hope to emulate our English cousins.
How was it all arranged? How, without violating the sanctities of
etiquette, did Mrs. Hilbrough contrive to invite people whom she did not
know, and how did they accept with no sacrifice of dignity? Millard was
an expert adviser; he knew that just as counters are made to stand for
money in a game of cards, so do little oblong bits of pastebord with the
sender's name upon them pass current under certain conditions as
substitutes for visits, acquaintance, esteem, and friendship. By a
juggle with these social chips Mrs. Hilbrough became technically, and
temporarily, acquainted with a great many people, and that without much
sacrifice of time. Do not expect details here; your fashionable
stationer is the best reliance in such a case, unless you chance to know
Mr. Millard, or can find the law laid down in Mrs. Sherwood's tactfully
vague chapters, which, like the utterances of the Delphic oracle, are
sure to hit the mark one way or the other.
Now that Millard had taken Mrs. Hilbrough for a client he could not bear
to be balked. The attendance of Mrs. Gouverneur he considered of the
first importance, but this was not easily secured. If anything could
have persuaded that lady to sacrifice her principles as an exclusive so
far as to attend, it would have been her dislike of refusing Phillida;
but as it was, she made excuses without positively refusing. In telling
Mrs. Hilbrough of her lack of success Phillida took pains to repeat Mrs.
Gouverneur's pretexts, and not to betray what she knew to be her aunt's
real reason for hesitation. Millard encountered Mrs. Hilbrough at the
opera, and heard from her of the failure of Phillida's endeavors. He
felt himself put on his mettle.
Knowing that the next day was Mrs. Gouverneur's day for receiving, he
made himself her first caller before the rest began to arrive. Looking
from the old-fashioned windows of Mrs. Gouverneur's front parlor, he
praised the beauty of the winter scene, and admired especially the
spotted boles of the great buttonwoods in Washington Square. He thought
to make his call seem less on purpose by such commonplace civilities,
but Mrs. Gouverneur, who was a soft-spoken lady of much cleverness, with
a talent for diplomacy inherited from her grandfather, asked herself,
while she replied in the same vein to Millard's preliminary vapidities,
what on earth so formal a call and such a waste of adroitness might
lead up to. But Millard, even after this preparation, provided an
inclined plane for approaching his proposition.
"I had the pleasure of meeting a niece of yours the other evening, a
Miss Callender," he said. "I found her very agreeable."
"Oh! You met Phillida Callender at Mrs. Hilbrough's, probably," said
Mrs. Gouverneur with a flush of pleasure. "She's as good as goodness
itself, and very clever. But rather peculiar also. She has a great deal
of Callender in her. Her father gave up good prospects in this country
to preach in Siam. He might have had the pastorate of one of the best
Presbyterian churches in New York, but nothing could dissuade him from
what he fancied to be his duty. It only proves what I have always said,
that 'blood will tell.' It is related in some of the old books that
Philip has upstairs that one of the women of the Callender family,
before the Revolution, felt it her duty to go through the streets of
Newport, crying, 'Repent, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
She was a refined and delicate lady, and the people of the town felt so
much chagrin to see her expose herself to mortification in the public
street that they shut up their windows or turned away, which I think was
very nice of them. I fancy that Phillida, with all her superior
intelligence, has a good deal of this great-great-aunt of her father's
in her. I was talking to her once about this story of Mary Callender's
preaching in the streets, and she really seemed to take more interest in
that Quaker lady's delusion than she did in her ancestors on our side;
and you know, Mr. Millard, we think a good deal of our descent, though
of course we never say anything about it."
It was inevitable that a courteous man like Millard should meet this
speech by saying, "When one has ancestors whose position is not one of
mere social prominence but whose acts are a part of the history of a
nation, it must be hard to forget so important a fact." It was equally
inevitable that even the wary Mrs. Gouverneur could not help
appreciating flattery so apropos of the subject in hand.
"But I have a notion," Millard continued, "that if we could get Miss
Callender to take an interest in society she would prove an ornament to
it and a credit to her family."
Mrs. Gouverneur shook her head doubtfully. "I don't believe it can be
done, though I should be glad if it could."
"Did she tell you that she is deeply interested in that reception to
Baron Pohlsen next week?"
"Yes; she is attached to Mrs. Hilbrough. She makes friends without the
least regard to social consequences, and I believe even has friendships
among the people with whom she is only connected by her mission
Sunday-school class. She stoutly maintained here last night that she
knew a real lady living in three rooms with a husband and four children!
I declare, I like Phillida all the better for this. Her impulses are
very noble, but I can't help wishing she wouldn't do it. It doesn't do
for one at her time of life to be too disinterested, you know."
This turn in the talk threw Millard off the track for a moment. The
mention of people living narrowly brought to his mind his own early life
in a farmhouse, and reminded him of his amiable but socially
unpresentable aunt, whom he was wont faithfully to visit on one Sunday
afternoon in every month. There was just a little cowardly feeling that
should his relations with the family in Avenue C become known among his
friends, his social position might become compromised. He did not know
that all exclusive people in New York have unpresentable kinsfolk hidden
away somewhere, and are ever trembling lest the fact should be known to
some other family that is likewise doing its best to hide some
never-get-on relatives.
Mrs. Gouverneur noticed Millard's heightened color, and feared her
slighting allusion to Mrs. Hilbrough might have annoyed him. Before he
could pull his wits together to reply to her last remark, she added, "I
have no doubt your friend Mrs. Hilbrough is a very worthy person, Mr.
Millard. But she is new in New York society."
"Indeed I can not call her my friend, Mrs. Gouverneur. Her husband is
the real head of our bank at present; he is likely to be a very rich man
in a few years, and he has obliged me in many ways. But I have only a
few weeks' acquaintance with Mrs. Hilbrough, whose chief recommendation
to me, I must confess, is that she is a friend of Miss Callender, who is
your niece. But Mrs. Hilbrough seems to have many admirable qualities.
She is sure to make herself recognized, and I do not see any advantage
in delaying the recognition. For my part, I think she will do a great
service at the outset if she adds so attractive and clever a young lady
as Miss Callender to society."
"Now, Mr. Millard, you are playing a strong game against me," laughed
Mrs. Gouverneur. "You know my dislike for new acquaintances--for
enlarging my circle. But when you propose to persuade my niece to see a
little more of the world you are taking advantage of my only weakness.
You play a deep game."
"I'll show you my whole hand at once," said Millard, seeing that Mrs.
Gouverneur's penetration had left him no resource but candor. "I very
much desire to be Miss Callender's escort at Mrs. Hilbrough's reception,
if she will accept me. Mrs. Callender, I fear, can not be persuaded to
go."
"You want me for chaperon," interposed Mrs. Gouverneur. "What a clever
scheme! How could you dare to set such a trap for an old friend?"
"It will prove a clever scheme if it succeeds. But it wasn't clever
enough to deceive you."
"Well, you and Phillida together have won. Of course I can not refuse if
Phillida consents."
"Thank you from my heart," said Millard, rising at hearing the door-bell
ring. "I will see Miss Callender, and if she refuses me for escort you
will be able to laugh at me. I'm sure I'm greatly your debtor."
A notion, a mere notion, such as will enter the soberest woman's head
sometimes, had bobbed to the surface of Mrs. Gouverneur's thoughts as
she talked with Millard. It was that her niece's future might somehow
hang on her decision. She was not a matchmaker, but she had a
diplomatic faculty for persuading things to come out as she wished. Mr.
Millard would be a most eligible husband for any woman whose
expectations in life were not unreasonably great. Her practical mind
went a step farther and she saw that in the event of anything so
improbable happening as that Millard should fall in love with a lady
without fortune, say, for example, a clergyman's daughter, his
acquaintance with so prosperous a man as Hilbrough, who could help him
to lucrative investments, might be very desirable. These thoughts were
the mere bubbles of fancy floating in her mind. The consideration which
most affected her decision was that the presentation of her niece under
the auspices of Millard and herself might prove of great social
advantage to Phillida.
Millard left Mrs. Gouverneur with the intention of calling at once on
Miss Callender, but when he reached Broadway he was smitten with a
scruple, not of conscience, but of etiquette. Phillida had not asked him
to call. After staring for a full minute in perplexity at the passing
vehicles and the facade of the ancient theater on the opposite side of
Broadway, then in its last days of existence, he presently concluded
that Miss Callender, being a young woman somewhat unsophisticated, and
having therefore nothing better than good sense for guide, would
probably not be shocked by the audacity of an uninvited call from a
gentleman whose character was well known to her.
The bell rang as Mrs. Callender was just about to try a dress on her
daughter Agatha. Callers were not a frequent interruption to their
pursuits, and when the steps of a man ushered into the front parlor were
heard through the sliding doors, they concluded that it was some one
calling on the gentleman who occupied the second floor. Mrs. Callender
and her daughters lowered their voices to a whisper, that they might not
be heard through the doors; but Sarah, the servant, came to the back
parlor, and said loud enough to be distinctly audible to the visitor:
"It's some cards for Mrs. Callender and Miss Callender." Then she shut
the door and descended the basement stairs, without waiting to carry a
reply.
Agatha took the cards and whispered, "Mr. Millard," biting her lower lip
and making big eyes at Phillida, with an "I-told-you-so" nod of the
head, and then she proceeded to give vent to her feelings by dancing
softly about the room, a picturesque figure in her red petticoat and
white waist, with her bare arms flying about her head. If the doors had
not been so thin her excitement would have found vent in more noisy
ways. As noise was precluded there was nothing left for her but this
dumb show. In her muffled gyrations she at length knocked a chair over
upon the fender, making a loud clatter. She quickly picked it up and sat
down upon it in great confusion, with a remorseful feeling that by her
imprudent excitement she had probably blasted Phillida's prospects in
life.
"Come, mother, you must get ready and go in," whispered Phillida.
"No, please, Phillida. He doesn't really want to see me. It's only a
matter of good form to ask for us both. You must beg him to excuse me. I
do so want to get this dress done."
Agatha, recovering from her remorse by this time, helped Phillida to do
a little hurried prinking. Luckily the latter had been getting ready to
go out and had on the gown that served her on all except extraordinary
occasions for both street and drawing-room.
Millard had amused himself while waiting by noting the various antiques
about the parlor, heirlooms of former family greatness, arranged with an
eye to tasteful effect. On the shelves in the corner some articles
connected with family history were intermingled with curiosities brought
from the East. A pair of brass-bound pattens hinged in the middle, once
worn instead of overshoes by some colonial ancestress, sat alongside a
pair of oriental sandals. Millard thought nothing could be more in
keeping with the ancient desk and table than the unaffected and
straightforward manner in which Miss Callender greeted him, holding out
her hand with modest friendliness and just a touch of diffidence. This
last was due to the innuendoes and antics of Agatha.
"I ventured to call without permission, Miss Callender," said Millard,
with hesitation.
"I'm glad you did, Mr. Millard." Phillida could not see why any
respectable gentleman should wait for an invitation to call on a lady,
or how a young lady could ever be so bold as to ask a gentleman to call.
She added, "My mother wished me to beg you to excuse her. She has some
troublesome affairs on hand just now."
"Certainly; don't let me interrupt her. I came on business with you. I
want to have the pleasure of escorting you to Mrs. Hilbrough's party
with your mother, if she will kindly accompany us."
Phillida hesitated. She knew that chaperonage was required on such
occasions. "Thank you. I should like to accept your kind offer, but my
mother rarely goes out," she said. "I don't believe I could persuade her
to go, and I've no other chaperon."
"How would Mrs. Gouverneur do?"
"But Aunt Harriet won't go."
"I've just come from her house, and she assured me that if you needed
her for a chaperon--if Mrs. Callender could not go--she would keep us
company."
"You have managed Aunt Harriet very well," said Phillida, with some
elation. "Better than I could have done."
"I must have done well. Mrs. Gouverneur gives me great credit for my
nice little scheme, as she calls it. But if she thinks I wish to be your
escort solely in order to get her to attend, I assure you that Mrs.
Gouverneur with all her penetration is mistaken."
Phillida colored a little at this polite speech as she said, "It will
please Mrs. Hilbrough to have my aunt there."
"Yes, Mrs. Hilbrough also will give me great credit where I do not
deserve it. I may call for you with Mrs. Gouverneur?"
"Thank you, it will give me a great deal of pleasure." Phillida said
this with a momentary fear of hearing Agatha overturn another chair
behind the sliding doors; but Mrs. Callender had taken herself and
Agatha to the basement, from motives of delicacy which Agatha was hardly
old enough to appreciate.
Mrs. Gouverneur never did anything by halves. She made herself agreeable
to Mrs. Hilbrough on the evening of the reception and complimented her
heartily on the distinguished people she had brought together. For there
was the learned president of the Geographical, with overhanging brows
and slow and gentle speech; there was the foreign corresponding
secretary of the Historical, a man better known as a diplomatist and an
author, whose long years abroad had liberalized his mind without
spoiling his open-hearted American manners. There were some of the
directors of the Metropolitan Museum, to which institution Pohlsen had
given some Central American pottery. The senior New York poet wandered
in his childlike way among the guests, making gentle and affectionate
speeches to friends, who wondered at the widely contrary moods to which
his susceptible nature is subject. Bolton, known in two hemispheres by
his prose and poetry, had come out of complaisance, protesting rather
indignantly to his friends that he didn't believe in Americans making
such an ado over a mere baron. In him the stranger saw a slight figure
full of character and not in any way to be trifled with; only men of
letters and his friends knew what pains he could be at to oblige and to
help the humblest of struggling fellow-craftsmen, provided he was not
forbidden to accompany the unstinted assistance with a little grumbling
at the fearful wreck of his time which all sorts of people, even the
tramps of the literary profession, make without remorse.
"Charley," said Philip Gouverneur, when he got Millard into a corner,
"what have you been doing? This is society and it isn't; it is more like
what Carlyle calls a 'lion soiree.'"
"Well," said Millard, "it's either society or better. You understand
that the Baron's reputation as a scholar has modified things."
"I say, Charley," said Philip, "I was ashamed to find my little self
lost among these know-it-alls until I met Mrs. Maginnis. She said, 'Oh,
Mr. Gouverneur, I am so glad to see somebody that I know. Who are all
these people?' So I pointed out the university president over there; and
I told her that St. John was our great sculptor, though I'm not sure she
makes any clear distinctions between a sculptor and a maker of
gravestones; and I assured her that we had several magazine editors, and
writers, and illustrators, and painters, and leading journalists, and
some of the very foremost of our German citizens. 'Oh, yes,' she
replied, 'newspaper men, artists, and Germans! Just what I thought; but
there are not more than a dozen people here who were invited to
Marshmallow's great ball last winter.'"
"It mightn't be a bad thing," said Millard, "if Marshmallow, who
pretends to be the boss of society, were to include more people of
artistic and literary distinction such as we have here to-night."
"Nonsense, Charley! he couldn't do it. There are a few men who contrive
to be great and to be men of the world at the same time. But what
society wants is polish. You can put gloss on varnish, but some of these
men are too original to be sand-papered down to a fashionable
uniformity. No, no! Old Red Sandstone and his wife over there are well
enough at a lion soiree, but how would their Silurian manners shine at
the Patriarchs' ball? You see my cousin Phillida, with all her
seriousness, is getting too much of his talk."
At this hint from Philip, Millard moved away and glanced hurriedly about
the room. His eye lighted on Lucas, who is a natural adept as a man of
the world though a man of letters. Approaching him, Millard said:
"Mr. Lucas, let me introduce you to an interesting being."
"That's what I've been looking for in vain all the evening," said Lucas.
The two forced a sinuous way to where Phillida was trying to enjoy the
small talk of a man who was incapable of profitable speech at a depth of
less than fifty fathoms. Millard presented Lucas first to Mrs.
Gouverneur on a chair in the corner, and then bowed politely to the
geologist as he interrupted his remarks on the curiosities of the Bad
Lands, and made Lucas acquainted with Miss Callender. The latter showed
her pleasure at thus encountering a favorite writer, but she had the
good sense not to assure him that she had "long known him through his
books." She reflected in time that such a man must have heard remarks of
this sort rather frequently. But when Millard had moved away he turned
about to note the change in Miss Callender's countenance under the
influence of that stream of sparkling talk that Lucas never fails to
give forth when confronted with an inspiring listener.
Later in the evening when the reception had passed its climax, and the
antiquaries, geographers, historical investigators, and other lions,
grown sleepy, were looking up their wives and daughters to be gone,
Millard found time for conversation with his companion of the evening,
who had drifted away from her chaperon, for chaperonage only half
flourishes in our society, and is indeed quite out of place at a New
York lion soiree, where a maiden's heart is pretty safe without
guardianship.
"You have had a pleasant evening, Miss Callender, I hope. I'm sure
you've helped the rest of us to a pleasant evening."
"Indeed, I have enjoyed myself, Mr. Millard. I have met my favorite
poet, have talked with the editor of my magazine, and have found that
Mr. Lucas makes amends for the bores."
"I hope this will not be the last time we shall meet you in society,"
said Millard. "It would be a pity for one who can do so much to make an
evening delightful to others, not to go more into society."
"It takes a great deal of time, Mr. Millard. I don't think society any
harm as a recreation, but as a pursuit--" Here she checked herself.
"It gives a great deal of happiness, though."
"Yes; but only to those whose lot is fortunate enough anyhow. It seems
to me that we have something else to do in the world than just to amuse
ourselves." At this point it occurred to Phillida that in defending her
own view of life she was reflecting on her companion's. "I don't mean to
find fault with anybody else's pursuits, Mr. Millard, but rather to
defend my own."
The last remark, by focusing what she had said before upon Millard, only
made the matter worse. But the talk was interrupted at this point by
Mrs. Gouverneur, who came to inquire if her younger companions were
ready to go. Millard was a little sorry for the interruption. He could
not but feel that he was in some sort under condemnation by Miss
Callender, and there was something about Miss Callender which made one
respect her moral judgment and desire to stand well in her estimation.
But the conversation in the carriage took another turn, and as she
approached her own home it occurred to Phillida that Millard's remark at
the time of his call implied that his acquaintance with the family might
depend on her inviting him. She felt grateful to him for his graceful
attentions during the evening, and when he left her at the door she
extended her hand and said:
"We shall be glad to see you, Mr. Millard."
When Millard had landed Mrs. Gouverneur in Washington Square, with many
polite speeches on both sides, and had reached his bachelor apartment,
he sat down in front of the grate with a comfortable feeling of
complacency. He had helped Mrs. Hilbrough to launch her little bark
without any untoward accident; he had secured for the Baron an honor
which the latter would certainly not underestimate. Then, too, he had
obliged Mrs. Gouverneur while he gratified his own inclinations in
escorting Miss Callender to the reception. Whenever he came around to
Phillida he found the only uncomfortable spot in his meditations. He had
never dreamed that anybody could think the life of a consummate
gentleman like himself deserving of anything but commendation. The
rector of St. Mathias, who was a genial man of the world himself, with
just the amount of devoutness admixed that was indispensable to his
professional character, had never for a moment found fault with Millard,
who was liberal in parish affairs and an ornament to the church. Here
was a young lady with a very different standard, who thought it a
Christian duty to be useful not so much to the church as to people less
fortunate than herself. Millard tried to dismiss the matter from his
mind by reflecting that Miss Callender's father must have been a
peculiar man. But there was an elevation about Phillida's nature that
made him feel his own to be something less than was desirable. Yet it
was clear to him that Miss Callender misjudged society people from
ignorance of them. He would call some day and set her right. Then he
laughed at the notion. What did it matter to him whether this young
woman judged rightly or wrongly of people in society generally, and of
himself in particular. He dismissed the matter from his mind. But by the
time he had taken off his ties, which were a trifle too narrow in the
toes to be comfortable, he had somehow returned to his first resolution
to set Miss Callender right in the matter if he should have
opportunity.