_Exit Plumstone Smith, Jr._
It has come at last, and much sooner than I had dared to expect. Of
course I am speaking of Miss Pearl Veal's engagement to Plumstone
Smith, Jr. Poor Plumstone! He is heart-broken. I saw him at the
Ping-pong Club the other afternoon, smoking a cigarette and gazing
abstractedly into the depths of a Scotch highball. He did not speak to
me, and even though he might not have intended to cut me dead, such
action would surely be in his right. And the cruel stories in _Town
Twaddle_ are at the bottom of it all. Last week that paper in its
leader, in a guarded statement giving no names, announced that the
engagement of a certain rich and beautiful girl, a new-comer from the
West in Society, to a well-known clubman and cotillon-leader, a son
of an old and impoverished family, had been broken. It said that the
young man's mother was in bed with nervous prostration, as she had had
her house elaborately decorated and had bought some stock on margins
on the strength of the improvement in the family prospects; that the
youth himself was spending his days in one of his clubs, pounding a
bell and crying, "The same!" But still more cruel, it laid the wreck
of this home to a young real-estate agent, name not given, who had
been insinuating himself into the graces of the innocent beauty. Now,
did you ever hear the beat of that? In a separate paragraph it most
politely intimated that Miss Pearl Veal's engagement to me would soon
be announced.
Where _Town Twaddle_ got the story is a mystery, for it is true to the
part where it accuses me of insinuating myself into the affections of
another man's fiancée. Though I have known Pearl Veal many months, I do
not think we had spoken a dozen words to each other up to the day when
we all went skating at Exudo. Then I must admit, as we sat on the bank
smoking cigarettes and watching Plumstone cavorting around the ice
with Marian Speechless, she revealed her heart to me. No one was more
astounded than I.
Love steals upon us strangely in these days. Time was when men won
women with the sword, when gallant deeds and pretty speeches, when
a noble bearing and a nimble wit were the snare we set for beauty.
How different now! Little did I dream as I sat at the Radigan table,
covertly admiring Miss Veal across the board, that I was awakening a
divine flame as I consumed terrapin and champagne; that I was fanning
that flame when I said "Ah!" and "You don't say!" when I discoursed
on the weather or the beauty of the opera. These were the snares I
set--these, with a few well-cut clothes, some immaculate shirt-fronts
and rather snappy ties. My conscience is clear. She would never have
been happy with Plumstone had she allowed the affair to proceed to a
church terminus, for it was evident that he was after her millions,
and her only reason for accepting him was to gain social position.
But this reason exists no longer. To-day the Radigans are smarter
than the Smiths. There are those who will bemoan the fact that such a
condition can exist in Society. Croakers all! Possibly they are the
sons of some war, who, boasting the deeds of ancestors, are doing
nothing themselves, and so are being pressed back by those who are
doing to-day what the others' forebears did yesterday. For myself, I
like new things; fresh people as well as fresh vegetables; new families
as well as new clothes. Old families new painted are pleasant to know,
but spare us the heirlooms. After all, the Plumstone Smiths are the
Radigans of yesterday.
So Pearl Veal is in a position to choose. She has chosen and I bow to
her will. There was a time when I suspected that she would take nothing
less than a duke and would have a wedding-riot, but she says that love
in a cottage is all she asks. So she has bought a forty-foot front lot
on Seventy-ninth Street, and Coppe & Coppe are making plans for it.
So far I have had nothing to say in the whole affair. I seem to have
done my part when I ate terrapin and drank my wine, and caught the
occasional lustrous glance of the blue eyes over the board; when I said
"Ah!" and "You don't say!" Then Pearl took a hand and now Mrs. Radigan
is running the whole affair.
Mrs. Radigan has been wonderful. Of course she never intended that
her sister should marry Plumstone Smith, but after him she looked to
a duke. That she consented to a real-estate agent I owe to J. Madison
Mudison. She loves Mudison devotedly, I know, and it has softened her
wonderfully. Her view of life has changed. She is less selfish. She
sighs more and says less, and when Pearl and I asked her blessing, she
just stirred her tea and said, "Oh, well, if you will."
Pearl and I were too surprised to speak for a moment.
Mrs. Radigan looked up from her tea and asked, "Who are your ushers to
be?"
I said I did not care, but that I would like to have Green, who had
lived in the same boarding-house with me in my lean years. At that
she put her cup down and said fiercely: "I think I will have Mr. Lite
act as best man. The ushers will be Harry Mint, Mr. Mudison, Bobbie
Williegilt, and Dewberry Duff. John will give an ushers' dinner for you
at the Ticktock Club."
"But--" I was about to protest, but even Cupid had not taken the fire
from those masterful eyes, and I collapsed.
"And your bridesmaids, Pearl?" said Mrs. Radigan, turning to my fiancée.
"I would like to have my old school-friend, Mignonette Klapper," said
Pearl, groping nervously for her cigarette-case.
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Radigan. "Clarissa Mudison will be maid of honor,
and the other bridesmaids will be Ethel Bumpschus, Marian Speechless,
Pinkey Mint, and Marguerite Lamb. You see I have been expecting this
and have made my plans."
"When is the wedding to be?" I asked feebly.
"In Lent," said Mrs. Radigan, untouched by the covert sarcasm.
"Some time after we move into the new house. I want to have the
wedding-breakfast there. The wedding will be in St. Edward's, and will
be performed by the rector. Of course I'll have some of our Long Island
clergy with the Bishop to do some blessing."
"Is there nothing that I can do?" said I.
"You can look after the police arrangements," said Mrs. Radigan. "It
will take about sixty men at the church and as many at the house. Be
sure and have some of the new mounted squad if possible."
"But Sally--" Pearl began to protest.
Her sister cut her short with a sigh.
"That will do for the present, dear," she said sweetly.
Then she gazed into the depths of her tea just as I had seen Plumstone
Smith do at the club. Poor Mrs. Radigan!