I DISCUSS MATRIMONY
Poopendyke and I tried to do a little work that evening, but neither
of us seemed quite capable of concentration. We said "I beg pardon"
to each other a dozen times or more, following mental lapses, and then
gave it up. My ideas failed in consecutiveness, and when I did succeed
in hitching two intelligent thoughts together he invariably destroyed
the sequence by compelling me to repeat myself, with the result that
I became irascible.
We had gone over the events of the day very thoroughly. If anything,
he was more alarmed over our predicament than I. He seemed to sense
the danger that attended my decision to shelter and protect this
cool-headed, rather self-centred young woman at the top of my castle.
To me, it was something of a lark; to him, a tragedy. He takes
everything seriously, so much so in fact that he gets on my nerves.
I wish he were not always looking at things through the little end of
the telescope. I like a change, and it is a novelty to sometimes see
things through the big end, especially peril.
"They will yank us all up for aiding and abetting," he proclaimed,
trying to focus his eyes on the shorthand book he was fumbling.
"You wouldn't have me turn her over to the law, would you?" I demanded
crossly. "Please don't forget that we are Americans."
"I don't," said he. "That's what worries me most of all."
"Well," said I loftily, "we'll see."
We were silent for a long time.
"It must be horribly lonely and spooky away up there where she is,"
I said at last, inadvertently betraying my thoughts. He sniffed.
"Have you a cold?" I demanded, glaring at him.
"No," he said gloomily; "a presentiment."
"Umph!"
Another period of silence. Then: "I wonder if Max--" I stopped short.
"Yes, sir," he said, with wonderful divination. "He did."
"Any message?"
"She sent down word that the new cook is a jewel, but I think she must
have been jesting. I've never cared for a man cook myself. I don't
like to appear hypercritical, but what did you think of the dinner
tonight, sir?"
"I've never tasted better broiled ham in my life, Mr. Poopendyke."
"Ham! That's it, Mr. Smart. But what I'd like to know is this: What
became of the grouse you ordered for dinner, sir? I happen to know
that it was put over the fire at seven--"
"I sent it up to the countess, with our compliments," said I, peevishly.
I think that remark silenced him. At any rate, he got up and left the
room.
I laid awake half the night morbidly berating the American father who
is so afraid of his wife that he lets her bully him into sacrificing
their joint flesh and blood upon the altar of social ambition. She had
said that her father was opposed to the match from the beginning. Then
why, in the name of heaven, wasn't he man enough to put a stop to it?
Why--But what use is there in applying whys to a man who doesn't know
what God meant when He fashioned two sexes? I put him down as neutral
and tried my best to forget him.
But I couldn't forget the daughter of this browbeaten American father.
There was something singularly familiar about her exquisite face, a
conviction on my part that is easily accounted for. Her portrait, of
course, had been published far and wide at the time of the wedding;
she must have been pictured from every conceivable angle, with
illimitable gowns, hats, veils and parasols, and I certainly could not
have missed seeing her, even with half an eye. But for the life of me,
I couldn't connect her with any of the much-talked-of international
marriages that came to mind as I lay there going over the meagre
assortment I was able to recall. I went to sleep wondering whether
Poopendyke's memory was any better than mine. He is tremendously
interested in the financial doings of our country, being the possessor
of a flourishing savings' account, and as he also possesses a lively
sense of the ridiculous, it was not unreasonable to suspect that he
might remember all the details of this particular transaction in stocks
and bonds.
The next morning I set my labourers to work putting guest-rooms into
shape for the coming of the Hazzards and the four friends who were to
be with them for the week as my guests. They were to arrive on the
next day but one, which gave me ample time to consult a furniture
dealer. I would have to buy at least six new beds and everything else
with which to comfortably equip as many bed-chambers, it being a
foregone conclusion that not even the husbands and wives would
condescend to "double up" to oblige me. The expensiveness of this
ill-timed visit had not occurred to me at the outset. Still there was
some prospect of getting the wholesale price. On one point I was
determined; the workmen should not be laid off for a single hour, not
even if my guests went off in a huff.
At twelve I climbed the tortuous stairs leading to the Countess's
apartments. She opened the door herself in response to my rapping.
"I neglected to mention yesterday that I am expecting a houseful of
guests in a day or two," I said, after she had given me a very cordial
greeting.
"Guests?" she cried in dismay. "Oh, dear! Can't you put them off?"
"I have hopes that they won't be able to stand the workmen banging
around all day," I confessed, somewhat guiltily.
"Women in the party?"
"Two, I believe. Both married and qualified to express opinions."
"They will be sure to nose me out," she said ruefully. "Women are
dreadful nosers."
"Don't worry," I said. "We'll get a lot of new padlocks for the doors
downstairs and you'll be as safe as can be, if you'll only keep quiet."
"But I don't see why I should be made to mope here all day and all
night like a sick cat, holding my hand over Rosemary's mouth when she
wants to cry, and muzzling poor Jinko so that he--"
"My dear Countess," I interrupted sternly, "you should not forget that
these other guests of mine are invited here."
"But I was here first," she argued. "It is most annoying."
"I believe you said yesterday that you are in the habit of having your
own way." She nodded her head. "Well, I am afraid you'll have to come
down from your high horse--at least temporarily."
"Oh, I see. You--you mean to be very firm and domineering with me."
"You must try to see things from my point of--"
"Please don't say that!" she flared. "I'm so tired of hearing those
words. For the last three years I've been _commanded_ to see things from
some one else's point of view, and I'm sick of the expression."
"For heaven's sake, don't put me in the same boat with your husband!"
She regarded me somewhat frigidly for a moment longer, and then a slow,
witching smile crept into her eyes.
"I sha'n't," she promised, and laughed outright.
"Do forgive me, Mr. Smart. I am such a piggy thing. I'll try to be
nice and sensible, and I will be as still as a mouse all the time
they're here. But you must promise to come up every day and give me
the gossip. You _can_ steal up, can't you? Surreptitiously?"
"Clandestinely," I said, gravely.
"I really ought to warn you once more about getting yourself involved,"
she said pointedly.
"Oh, I'm quite a safe old party," I assured her. "They couldn't make
capital of me."
"The grouse was delicious," she said, deliberately changing the subject.
Nice divorcees are always doing that.
We fell into a discussion of present and future needs; of ways and
means for keeping my friends utterly in the dark concerning her presence
in the abandoned east wing; and of what we were pleased to allude to
as "separate maintenance," employing a phrase that might have been
considered distasteful and even banal under ordinary conditions.
"I've been trying to recall all of the notable marriages we had in New
York three years ago," said I, after she had most engagingly reduced
me to a state of subjection in the matter of three or four moot
questions that came up for settlement. "You don't seem to fit in with
any of the international affairs I can bring to mind."
"You promised you wouldn't bother about that, Mr. Smart," she said
severely.
"Of course you _were_ married in New York?"
"In a very nice church just off Fifth Avenue, if that will help you
any," she said. "The usual crowd inside the church, and the usual mob
outside, all fighting for a glimpse of me in my wedding shroud, and
for a chance to see a real Hungarian nobleman. It really was a very
magnificent wedding, Mr. Smart." She seemed to be unduly proud of the
spectacular sacrifice.
A knitted brow revealed the obfuscated condition of my brain. I was
thinking very intently, not to say remotely.
"The whole world talked about it," she went on dreamily. "We had a
real prince for the best man, and two of the ushers couldn't speak a
word of English. Don't you remember that the police closed the streets
in the neighbourhood of the church and wouldn't let people spoil
everything by going about their business as they were in the habit of
doing? Some of the shops sold window space to sight-seers, just as
they do at a coronation."
"I daresay all this should let in light, but it doesn't."
"Don't you read the newspapers?" she cried impatiently. She actually
resented my ignorance.
"Religiously," I said, stung to revolt. "But I make it a point never
to read the criminal news."
"Criminal news?" she gasped, a spot of red leaping to her cheek. "What
do you mean?"
"It is merely my way of saying that I put marriages of that character
in the category of crime."
"Oh!" she cried, staring at me with unbelieving eyes.
"Every time a sweet, lovely American girl is delivered into the hands
of a foreign bounder who happens to possess a title that needs fixing,
I call the transaction a crime that puts white slavery in a class with
the most trifling misdemeanours. You did not love this pusillanimous
Count, nor did he care a hang for you. You were too young in the ways
of the world to have any feeling for him, and he was too old to have
any for you. The whole hateful business therefore resolved itself into
a case of give and take--and he took everything. He took you and your
father's millions and now you are both back where you began. Some one
deliberately committed a crime, and as it wasn't you or the Count,
who levied his legitimate toll,--it must have been the person who
planned the conspiracy. I take it, of course, that the whole affair
was arranged behind your back, so to speak. To make it a perfectly
fashionable and up-to-date delivery it would have been entirely out
of place to consult the unsophisticated girl who was thrown in to make
the title good. You were not sold to this bounder. It was the other
way round. By the gods, madam, he was actually paid to take you!"
Her face was quite pale. Her eyes did not leave mine during the long
and crazy diatribe,--of which I was already beginning to feel heartily
ashamed,--and there was a dark, ominous fire in them that should have
warned me.
She arose from her chair. It seemed to me she was taller than before.
"If nothing else came to me out of this transaction," she said levelly,
"at least a certain amount of dignity was acquired. Pray remember that
I am no longer the unsophisticated girl you so graciously describe.
I am a woman, Mr. Smart."
"True," said I, senselessly dogged; "a woman with the power to think
for yourself. That is my point. If the same situation arose at your
present age, I fancy you'd be able to select a husband without
assistance, and I venture to say you wouldn't pick up the first
dissolute nobleman that came your way. No, my dear countess, you were
not to blame. You thought, as your parents did, that marriage with a
count would make a real countess of you. What rot! You are a simple,
lovable American girl and that's all there ever can be to it. To the
end of your days you will be an American. It is not within the powers
of a scape-grace count to put you or any other American girl on a plane
with the women who are born countesses, or duchesses, or anything of
the sort. I don't say that you suffer by comparison with these noble
ladies. As a matter of fact you are surpassingly finer in every way
than ninety-nine per cent. of them,--poor things! Marrying an English
duke doesn't make a genuine duchess out of an American girl, not by
a long shot. She merely becomes a figure of speech. Your own experience
should tell you that. Well, it's the same with all of them. They acquire
a title, but not the homage that should go with it."
We were both standing now. She was still measuring me with somewhat
incredulous eyes, rather more tolerant than resentful.
"Do you expect me to agree with you, Mr. Smart?" she asked.
"I do," said I, promptly. "You, of all people, should be able to testify
that my views are absolutely right."
"They are right," she said, simply. "Still you are pretty much of a
brute to insult me with them."
"I most sincerely crave your pardon, if it isn't too late," I cried,
abject once more. (I don't know what gets into me once in a while.)
"The safest way, I should say, is for neither of us to express an
opinion so long as we are thrown into contact with each other. If you
choose to tell the world what you think of me, all well and good. But
please don't tell _me_."
"I can't convince the world what I think of you for the simple reason
that I'd be speaking at random. I don't know who you are."
"Oh, you will know some day," she said, and her shoulders drooped a
little.
"I've--I've done a most cowardly, despicable thing in hunting you--"
"Please! Please don't say anything more about it. I dare say you've
done me a lot of good. Perhaps I shall see things a little more clearly.
To be perfectly honest with you, I went into this marriage with my you
his queen? You'll find it better than being a countess, believe me."
"I shall never marry, Mr. Smart," she said with decision. "Never, never
again will I get into a mess that is so hard to get out of. I can say
this to you because I've heard you are a bachelor. You can't take
offence."
"I fondly hope to die a bachelor," said I with humility.
"God bless you!" she cried, bursting into a merry laugh, and I knew
that a truce had been declared for the time being at least. "And now
let us talk sense. Have you carefully considered the consequences if
you are found out, Mr. Smart?"
"Found out?"
"If you are caught shielding a fugitive from justice. I couldn't go
to sleep for hours last night thinking of what might happen to you
if--"
"Nonsense!" I cried, but for the life of me I couldn't help feeling
elated. She _had_ a soul above self, after all!
"You see, I am a thief and a robber and a very terrible malefactor,
according to the reports Max brings over from the city. The fight for
poor little Rosemary is destined to fill columns and columns in the
newspapers of the two continents for months to come. You, Mr. Smart,
may find yourself in the thick of it. If I were in your place, I should
keep out of it."
"While I am not overjoyed by the prospect of being dragged into it,
Countess, I certainly refuse to back out at this stage of the game.
Moreover, you may rest assured that I shall not turn you out."
"It occurred to me last night that the safest thing for you to do, Mr.
Smart, is to--to get out yourself."
I stared. She went on hurriedly: "Can't you go away for a month's visit
or--"
"Well, upon my soul!" I gasped. "Would you turn me out of my own house?
This beats anything I've--"
"I was only thinking of your peace of mind and your--your safety,"
she cried unhappily. "Truly, truly I was."
"Well, I prefer to stay here and do what little I can to shield you
and Rosemary," said I sullenly.
"I'll not say anything horrid again, Mr. Smart," she said quite meekly.
(I take this occasion to repeat that I've never seen any one in all
my life so pretty as she!) Her moist red lip trembled slightly, like
a censured child's.
At that instant there came a rapping on the door. I started
apprehensively.
"It is only Max with the coal," she explained, with obvious relief.
"We keep a fire going in the grate all day long. You've no idea how
cold it is up here even on the hottest days. Come in!"
Max came near to dropping the scuttle when he saw me. He stood as one
petrified.
"Don't mind Mr. Smart, Max," said she serenely. "He won't bite your
head off."
The poor clumsy fellow spilled quantities of coal over the hearth when
he attempted to replenish the fire at her command, and moved with
greater celerity in making his escape from the room than I had ever
known him to exercise before. Somehow I began to regain a lost feeling
of confidence in myself. The confounded Schmicks, big and little, were
afraid of me, after all.
"By the way," she said, after we had lighted our cigarettes, "I am
nearly out of these." I liked the way she held the match for me, and
then flicked it snappily into the centre of a pile of cushions six
feet from the fireplace.
I made a mental note of the shortage and then admiringly said that I
didn't see how any man, even a count could help adoring a woman who
held a cigarette to her lips as she did.
"Oh," said she coolly, "his friends were willing worshippers, all of
them. There wasn't a man among them who failed to make violent love
to me, and with the Count's permission at that. You must not look so
shocked. I managed to keep them at a safe distance. My unreasonable
attitude toward them used to annoy my husband intensely."
"Good Lord!"
"Pooh! He didn't care what became of me. There was one particular man
whom he favoured the most. A dreadful man! We quarrelled bitterly when
I declared that either he or I would have to leave the house--forever.
I don't mind confessing to you that the man I speak of is your friend,
the gentle Count Hohendahl, some time ogre of this castle."
I shuddered. A feeling of utter loathing for all these unprincipled
scoundrels came over me, and I mildly took the name of the Lord in
vain.
With an abrupt change of manner, she arose from her chair and began
to pace the floor, distractedly beating her clinched hands against her
bosom. Twice I heard her murmur: "Oh, God!"
This startling exposition of feeling gave me a most uncanny shock. It
came out of a clear sky, so to say, at a moment when I was beginning
to regard her as cold-blooded, callous, and utterly without the emotions
supposed to exist in the breast of every high-minded woman. And now
I was witness to the pain she suffered, now I heard her cry out against
the thing that had hurt her so pitilessly. I turned my head away,
vastly moved. Presently she moved over to the window. A covert glance
revealed her standing there, looking not down at the Danube that seemed
so far away but up at the blue sky that seemed so near.
I sat very still and repressed, trying to remember the harsh, unkind
things I had said to her, and berating myself fiercely for all of them.
What a stupid, vainglorious ass I was, not to have divined something
of the inward fight she was making to conquer the emotions that filled
her heart unto the bursting point.
The sound of dry, suppressed sobs came to my ears. It was too much for
me. I stealthily quit my position by the mantel-piece and tip-toed
toward the door, bent on leaving her alone. Half-way there I hesitated,
stopped and then deliberately returned to the fireplace, where I noisily
shuffled a fresh supply of coals into the grate. It would be heartless,
even unmannerly, to leave her without letting her know that I was
heartily ashamed of myself and completely in sympathy with her. Wisely,
however, I resolved to let her have her cry out. Some one a great deal
more far-seeing than I let the world into a most important secret when
he advised man to take that course when in doubt.
For a long while I waited for her to regain control of herself, rather
dreading the apology she would feel called upon to make for her abrupt
reversion to the first principles of her sex. The sobs ceased entirely.
I experienced the sharp joy of relaxation. Her dainty lace handkerchief
found employment. First she would dab it cautiously in one eye, then
the other, after which she would scrutinise its crumpled surface with
most extraordinary interest. At least a dozen times she repeated this
puzzling operation. What in the world was she looking for? To this
day, that strange, sly peeking on her part remains a mystery to me.
She turned swiftly upon me and beckoned with her little forefinger.
Greatly concerned, I sprang toward her. Was she preparing to swoon?
What in heaven's name was I to do if she took it into her pretty head
to do such a thing as that? Involuntarily I shot a quick look at her
blouse. To my horror it was buttoned down the back. It would be a
bachelor's luck to--But she was smiling radiantly. Saved!
"Look!" she cried, pointing upward through the window. "Isn't she
lovely?"
I stopped short in my tracks and stared at her in blank amazement.
What a stupefying creature she was!
She beckoned again, impatiently. I obeyed with alacrity. Obtaining a
rather clear view of her eyes, I was considerably surprised to find
no trace of departed tears. Her cheek was as smooth and creamy white
as it had been before the deluge. Her eyelids were dry and orderly and
her nose had not been blown once to my recollection. Truly, it was a
marvellous recovery. I still wonder.
The cause of her excitement was visible at a glance. A trim nurse-maid
stood in the small gallery which circled the top of the turret, just
above and to the right of us. She held in her arms the pink-hooded,
pink-coated Rosemary, made snug against the chill winds of her lofty
parade ground. Her yellow curls peeped out from beneath the lace of
the hood, and her round little cheeks were the colour of the peach's
bloom.
"Now, _isn't_ she lovely?" cried my eager companion.
"Even a crusty bachelor can see that she is adorable."
"I am not a crusty bachelor," I protested indignantly, "and what's
more, I am positive I should like to kiss those red little cheeks,
which is saying a great deal for me. I've never voluntarily kissed a
baby in my life."
"I do not approve of the baby-kissing custom," she said severely. "It
is extremely unhealthy and--middle-class. Still," seeing my expression
change, "I sha'n't mind your kissing her once."
"Thanks," said I humbly.
It was plain to be seen that she did not intend to refer to the recent
outburst. Superb exposition of tact!
Catching the nurse's eye, she signalled for her to bring the child
down to us. Rosemary took to me at once. A most embarrassing thing
happened. On seeing me she held out her chubby arms and shouted "da-da!"
at the top of her infantile lungs. _That_ had never happened to me
before.
I flushed and the Countess shrieked with laughter. It wouldn't have
been so bad if the nurse had known her place. If there is one thing
in this world that I hate with fervour, it is an ill-mannered,
poorly-trained servant. A grinning nurse-maid is the worst of all. I
may be super-sensitive and crotchety about such things, but I can see
no excuse for keeping a servant--especially a nurse-maid--who laughs
at everything that's said by her superiors, even though the quip may
be no more side-splitting than a two syllabled "da-da."
"Ha, ha!" I laughed bravely. "She--she evidently thinks I look like
the Count. He is very handsome, you say."
"Oh, that isn't it," cried the Countess, taking Rosemary in her arms
and directing me to a spot on her rosy cheek. "Kiss right there, Mr.
Smart. There! Wasn't it a nice kiss, honey-bunch? If you are a very,
very nice little girl the kind gentleman will kiss you on the other
cheek some day. She calls every man she meets da-da," explained the
radiant young mother. "She's awfully European in her habits, you see.
You need not feel flattered. She calls Conrad and Rudolph and Max
da-da, and this morning in the back window she applied the same handsome
compliment to your Mr. Poopendyke."
"Oh," said I, rather more crestfallen than relieved.
"Would you like to hold her, Mr. Smart? She's such a darling to hold."
"No--no, thank you," I cried, backing off.
"Oh, you will come to it, never fear," she said gaily, as she restored
Rosemary to the nurse's arms. "Won't he, Blake?"
"He will, my lady," said Blake with conviction. I noticed this time
that Blake's smile wasn't half bad.
At that instant Jinko, the chow, pushed the door open with his black
nose and strolled imposingly into the room. He proceeded to treat me
in the most cavalier fashion by bristling and growling.
The Countess opened her eyes very wide.
"Dear me," she sighed, "you must be very like the Count, after all.
Jinko never growls at any one but him."
* * * * *
At dinner that evening I asked Poopendyke point blank if he could call
to mind a marriage in New York society that might fit the principals
in this puzzling case.
He hemmed and hawed and appeared to be greatly confused.
"Really, sir, I--I--really, I--"
"You make it a point to read all of the society news," I explained;
"and you are a great hand for remembering names and faces. Think
hard."
"As a matter of fact, Mr. Smart, I _do_ remember this particular
marriage very clearly," said he, looking down at his plate.
"You do?" I shouted eagerly. The new footman stared. "Splendid! Tell
me, who is she--or was she?"
My secretary looked me steadily in the eye.
"I'm sorry, sir, but--but I can't do it. I promised her this morning
I wouldn't let it be dragged out of me with red hot tongs."