Silence.
I placed my hand on the back of my chair, preparatory to sliding it from
under me. She stayed me.
"Do not go,"--softly. "I haven't had my revenge."
I sat down. I was curious to learn what color this revenge was going to
take. "Mr. Ainsworth, my compliments!"--raising my glass, being very
careful not to touch the contents.
"Bully!" cried my host, thumping the table with his fist. "James, a
dozen bottles of '96. There's a gentleman,"--nodding to those nearest
him; "you can tell 'em a mile off. A little shy of strangers,"
humorously falling into horse-talk, "but he's money coming down the
home-stretch."
Then everybody began to talk at once, and I knew that the dinner proper
was on the way.
"Aren't you just a little above such escapades as this?" I asked of the
girl.
"Do not make me any more uncomfortable than I am," she begged. "But
having gone into it I had too much courage to back down."
"The true courage would have been to give the house-party."
"But men always insist upon your marrying them at house-parties."
"I see I have much to learn,"--meekly. "And the men are right."
"What an escape I have had!"
"Meaning house-parties, or that I am a gentleman?"
"If you had not been a gentleman! For, of course, you are, since my
uncle has so dubbed you. If you had not been a gentleman!"
"If you had not been a lady! If you had been a bunko-steerer! And I do
not know that you are not one still. Do you believe me? I kept my hand
on my wallet pocket nearly all the time."
"I understood you to say that you were poor."
"Oh, I mean that I am too poor to hunt for excitement in bizarre
things."
"Confess that you look upon me with a frank contempt!"--imperiously.
"Never!"
"That in your secret mind you write me down a silly fool."
"Allow me to quote Dogberry--'Masters, remember that I am an ass; though
it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass!' Thus, I may
not call you a fool. Besides, it would be very impolite."
"You neither eat nor drink. Why?"
"I demand to retain some of my self-respect."
She leaned on her elbows, her chin in her palms. She had wonderful eyes,
and for as long a time as a minute these eyes impaled me on barbs of
light. "You must think us a pack of fools."
"Oh, indeed, no; only rich."
"That is almost an epigram,"--warningly. "You will lead me to believe
that you belong to smart society in some provincial town."
"Heaven forfend!"--earnestly.
"But speak all the thought. Nothing prevents truth from either of us
to-night."
"All of what thought?"
"We are not fools, only rich."
"Well, I lower the bucket, then; and if I can bring truth to the top of
the well you will promise not to blush on beholding her?"
"I promise."
"It is maddening and unhealthy to be rich and idle. The rich and idle do
such impossible things in the wild effort to pass away the dragging
hours. Society is not made up of fools: rather knaves and madmen. Money
and idleness result in a mild attack of insanity."
"Thanks."
"You are welcome. Shall I lower truth along with the butter of
flattery?"
"You may lower the butter of flattery. So that is how the great public
looks upon us?"
"Yes, in a way; while it envies you."
"I have always been rich. What is poverty like?"
"It is comparative."
"It must be horrid."
"Poverty is ugly only when man himself is the cause of it."
"Another epigram. I have always been under my uncle's care,"--with the
slightest droop of the lips.
"Ah! His knowledge ends at the stable and begins at the table: horses
and vintages. If a woman had crossed his path he would have been a great
man."
"Poor Uncle Dan! To him I am his favorite filly, and he has put huge
sums on me to win the ducal race. Everybody says that I'm to marry the
Duke of Roxclift."
"And you?" I do not know why my heart sank a little as I put this
question.
"I? Oh, I'm going to balk at the quarter and throw the race. To-night,
what would you have done in my place?"
"Hailed a gentleman exactly like myself."
She dallied with a rose, brushing it across her lips. "I do not know
why I desire your good opinion. Perhaps it's the novelty of sitting
beside a man who does not believe in flattery."
"Flattery is a truth that is not true. I think you are charming,
beautiful, engaging, enchanting, mystifying. I can think of no other
adjectives."
"If flattery is a truth that is not true, then all your pretty
adjectives mean nothing."
"Oh, but I do not flatter you. Men flatter homely women--homely women
who are rich and easily hoodwinked. What I have offered you in the line
of decorative adjectives your mirror has already told you time and time
again. If I said that you were witty, scholarly, scientific, vastly and
highly intellectual, not knowing you any better than I do, that would be
flattery. Do you grasp the point?"
"Nebulously. You are trying to say something nice."
"We are getting on capitally. When I left the club to-night the wildest
stretch of my fancy would not have placed me here beside you."
"Yes,"--irrelevantly, "most of us are mad. Everything is so monotonous."
"To-night?"
"Well, not to-night."
"You have not yet asked me who I am."
"Then you are somebody?"--drolly. She contemplated me, speculatively as
it were.
I laughed. This was the most amusing and enchanting adventure I had ever
had the luck to fall into. "The world thinks so," I replied to her
question.
"The world? What world?"
"My world ... and a part of yours."
"Are you one of those men who accomplish something besides novel
dinners?"
"So I am led to believe."
"In what way?"
"Ah, but that is a secret."
She shrugged. Evidently she was incredulous. "Are you an actor?"
suddenly recollecting where she had picked me up.
"Only in 'All the world's a stage.'"
"I will ask you: Will you do me the honor of telling me who you are?"
"My self-respect denies me that pleasure."
"Fiddlesticks!" This was very human.
"Is it possible that I am interesting you?"--surprised.
"You are a clever man, whoever and whatever you are. Where did you learn
to read a woman so readily? Who told you that when you confront a woman
with a mystery you trap her interest along with her curiosity? Yes, you
are clever. If you told me your name and your occupation I dare say I
should straightway become bored."
"Truth still shivers on the well's edge."
She nibbled the rose-leaves.
"Does your interest in episodes like to-night always die so
suddenly?"--nodding toward the others, who had long since ceased to pay
me any particular attention.
"Nearly always."
"Very well; since they have forgotten us let us forget them." I leaned
toward her, and my voice was not so steady as it should have been. "In
what manner would it benefit me to tell you my name and what my
occupation in the great world is? Would it put me on the list of your
acquaintance?"