_Mrs. Radigan Captures Miss Bumpschus_
If Solomon had been living in these days he would have classed the
doings of society folk with the ship on the sea, the snake on a rock,
and the way of a man with a maid, the things that pass understanding.
Why, for instance, should people who have a comfortable home of their
own and money to buy their seats in a theatre, or, indeed, the theatre
itself, like the Williegilts, wittingly accept an invitation from the
Radigans for dinner and the play, and supper at Flurry's afterward? It
meant six hours with that remarkable family, or one-quarter of a day,
and when we consider that even the Williegilts' days are numbered, we
begin to wonder if it can be true that of all the animals, man is the
most intelligent. Stranger still, now that the Williegilts have placed
on the broad brow of Mrs. Radigan the laurel wreath of social victory,
there are in the town a thousand simple, unambitious souls who would
give a year of their lives for six hours with a woman so conspicuous
as my friend. The Radigans are in. The Radigans are smart. And by
smartness we mean that highly intellectual state which requires yachts,
horses, automobiles, dancing, and bridge to keep the mind occupied.
I was walking up the avenue the other afternoon when a brougham swerved
into the curb, and a familiar voice hailed me and bade me get in, as
she wanted to see me. There is no mistaking a Radigan carriage. They
are always perfectly turned out, though I have suspected that the
mistress would have three men on the box were there room. She makes
up for this misfortune, however, by adopting the London wrinkle of
having her footman sit with hands clasped and uplifted in an attitude
of prayer; and as I had recognized one of my bandy-legged cynics of
the Westbury days at his devotions as the equipage approached, I
was prepared to be gathered in. Mrs. Radigan simply had to have me
to dinner. Young Plumstone Smith had accepted and then backed out,
pleading grippe, though she had seen him going to the Grand Central in
a hansom. She must have me to fill in, and though I am accustomed to
filling in, I doubt that even the astonishing fact that the Williegilts
were coming would have enticed me, but then Miss Ethel Bumpschus was
to be there, and I surrendered. I had seen the young woman's picture
covering the half-page over the society notes in the Sunday paper,
showing her with lustrous eyes and a furry thing around her neck, an
Oriental beauty reduced to New York; and on the promise that I should
take her in, I accepted. When I heard what was on the programme,
dinner, the play, and supper, I asked Mrs. Radigan if we should bring
trunks, and she said of course not.
But there were times that evening when it seemed to me that we were
of one family, the Radigans, the Williegilts, all of us; that we had
lived together all our lives and were to spend eternity in company.
It began at seven o'clock, very informally, and when I entered the
drawing-room the very last, prepared to besiege Miss Bumpschus, I had
suddenly impressed on me a profound respect for the art of photography.
She seemed to have aged since Sunday, and though she slipped her arm
through mine and worked her way with me through a maze of chairs and
tables to the dining-room, I felt that, after all, Mrs. Radigan had
taken me in.
Miss Bumpschus is very smart. Besides, she is intellectual. The
Bumpschuses have been prominent in New York society for fifty years;
one of her cousins married the Duke of Nothingham, and she is herself
rated at some ten millions. So, really, Mrs. Radigan was doing me a
favor and giving me what she called an opportunity. Then if I wanted
to rest my eyes I could gaze on the lovely Miss Veal across the table,
smiling at Willie Lite, and saying, "Indeed." Miss Bumpschus, I found,
was religious. To her the world was peopled with only two sets of
people worth knowing--the very rich and the very poor. She would cut
one of the Rollers Club fellows dead in the street, but she would, with
her own hands, bake a cake for one of those dear old friends of hers at
the Home for Aged Elevated Ticket-choppers. If she had not been born
just what she was, the heiress to the great Bumpschus fortune, she
would far rather have been a nurse than a person merely well-to-do.
But she was an accomplished talker, and though I cannot remember a
thing she said, she left none of those dreadful pauses. For this I
was grateful, anyway, as I could not break in on Mrs. Williegilt's
engrossing discussion of glanders and carbureters with Radigan, nor on
Mrs. Radigan's sermon on carbureters and glanders to Bobbie Williegilt;
nor could I turn from Willie Lite the smile of Miss Veal. Anyway,
whatever I said and whatever she said, Mrs. Radigan whispered in my
ear as we were going down the steps to the wagon that I had won Miss
Bumpschus's heart, and that if I would complete the conquest I must
send my old dress-clothes and top hats to the aged ticket-choppers.
Mrs. Radigan has not yet learned that when you give theatre-parties in
New York you must spend a week visiting the plays quietly if you are
going to have young girls in the party. Miss Bumpschus is not young,
but she is still classed as a girl, and, moreover, as I have said,
she is puritanical. Of Miss Veal there was no real cause for fear.
She smokes. But Mrs. Radigan informed us that she had chosen this
particular play because she knew by the name that it was something Miss
Bumpschus and her little sister could see. Poor Mrs. Radigan! Poor Miss
Bumpschus! Really it was all harmless enough, but the underlying theme
was not a burned will nor a stolen necklace. The play was more for bald
heads and switches, like most of our up-to-date dramatic exhibitions,
so Miss Bumpschus quickly lapsed into unconsciousness behind her
programme, and Miss Veal looked as though it was all a mystery to her.
"It's just my luck," Mrs. Radigan groaned to me. "Now had she been
Constance Wherry I should not have cared, but Ethel Bumpschus will not
speak to me again. A woman is foolish nowadays who takes a party to see
anything but Shakespeare, Ibsen, or the wax-works."
Rare sense is Mrs. Radigan beginning to show! Gleams of high
intelligence break through occasionally. But I fear she exaggerated the
effect on her younger guests. We did have to arouse Miss Bumpschus from
behind her programme when the curtain went down, and when Willie Lite
asked her if she did not think it was awfully clever, she turned to me
and asked me not to forget the old clothes for the ticket-choppers.
But she braced up at supper, and under the protection of Radigan, he
being a married man, and the enlivening influences of a few glasses of
champagne, she lost all her color again and became very chipper. I, for
the moment, took on the character of a horse-doctor, and entertained
Mrs. Williegilt with my opinions of glanders, while Williegilt basked
in the light of Miss Veal's smiles, and Willie Lite laid the wires to
sell a heavy line of champagne to our hostess. Altogether the evening
was a success, particularly as I read in my paper the next morning
that "Mr. and Mrs. J. John Radigan entertained Mr. and Mrs. Bobbie Q.
Williegilt and several other smart people at dinner, the play, and
supper last evening."