January 20. I wish they hadn't told me. If ever a man loves me and
wants to win me he must be--well, perhaps not exactly _that_, but
certainly not tame. I'm not a bit like Nadeshda, but I do hate the tame
sort. I know what's the matter with me now. Yes, I wish they hadn't
told me.
January 21. Robert and Nadeshda have told "ma" Burke. She
is--_delighted_! "I never heard of the like," she said to me all in
a quiver. "I wish I'd known there were such things. I reckon I'd 'a'
made my Tom cut a few capers before he got _me_." And then she laughed
until she cried. It certainly was droll to picture "pa" capering in the
Robert-Nadeshda fashion.
She went to the embassy and told Nadeshda's sister, Madame
l'Ambassadrice. "She let on as if she was just tickled to death," she
reported to me a few minutes after she returned. "And when I told her
that we--Tom and I--would do handsomely by Nadeshda as soon as they
were married she had tears in her eyes. But I don't trust her--nor any
other foreigner."
"Not even Nadeshda?"
"Ma" nodded knowingly. "I reckon Bob'll keep her on the chalk," she
replied. "He's started right, and in marriage, as in everything else,
it's all in the start."
January 22. Nadeshda asked Mrs. Burke to give a big costume ball, but
I sat on it hard. "I don't think you want to do that, Mrs. Burke,"
said I, when she proposed it to me. "If this were New York it wouldn't
matter so much, though I don't think really nice people with means do
that sort of thing there. Here I'm afraid it'd make you very unpopular."
"Do you think so?" said she. "Now, I'd 'a' said it was just the sort of
foolishness these people'd like."
"Those who have money would," I replied. "But how about those who
haven't? Don't you think that people of large means ought to make it a
rule never to cause any expense whatever to those of their friends and
acquaintances who haven't means?"
"Don't say another word!" she exclaimed, seeing my point instantly.
"Why, it'd be the worst thing in the world. Out home I've always been
careful about those kind of things, but on here I don't know the people
and am liable to forget how they're circumstanced. They all seem
so prosperous on the surface. I reckon there's a lot of miserable
pinching and squinching when the blinds are down."
Cyrus happened to come in just then, and she told him all about
it. He looked at me and grew red and evidently tried to say
something--probably something that would have shown how poorly he
thought of my cheating them all out of the fun. But he restrained
himself and said nothing.
Presently he went out and must have gone straight to his
father--probably to remonstrate, though I may wrong him--for, after a
few minutes, the Senator came.
"My son has just been telling me," he said to me, "and I agree with
you entirely. It would be ruinous politically. As it is, if it hadn't
been for you we'd never have been able to keep both the official and
the fashionable sets in a good humor with us." I never saw him so
"flustered" before.
"What are you talking about, pa?" inquired Mrs. Burke.
"About the costume ball you were thinking of giving."
Mrs. Burke smiled. "You'd better go back to your cage," said she.
"That's settled and done for long ago."
"Pa" looked more uneasy than his good-natured tone seemed to
justify--but, no doubt, he knows when he has put his foot into it. He
"faded" from the room. When she heard his study door close "ma" said to
me in a complacent voice: "There's nothing like keeping a man always to
his side of the fence. When 'pa' began to get rich I saw trouble ahead,
for he was showing signs that he was thinking himself right smart
better than the common run, and that he was including his wife in the
common run. I took Mr. Smartie Burke right in hand. And so, with him
it's never been 'I' in this family, but 'we.' And keeping it that way
has made Tom lots happier than he would 'a' been lording it over me and
having no control on his foolishness anywhere."
What a dear, sensible woman she is! He's got good brains, but if he had
as good brains as she has he'd get what he's after and doesn't stand a
show for.
January 24. The whole town is in a tumult over Robert and Nadeshda.
People think she's crazy. When Cyrus said this to me I said: "And I
think they are--at least, delirious."
"A divine delirium, though," he replied, much to my astonishment. For
he's never shown before that he had so much as a spot of that sort of
thing in him. But then, I'm beginning to revise my judgment of him in
some ways. He is much nearer what his mother said he was than what I
thought him. But he's young and crude. I find that he likes--and really
appreciates--the same composers and poets and novelists that I do. I
can forgive much to any one who realizes what a poet Browning was--when
he did write poetry, not when he wrote the stuff for the Browning clubs
to fuddle with.
Nadeshda is in the depths--except when Robert is by to hypnotize
her. "I was so strong," she said pathetically to me to-day, "or I
thought I was. And now I'm all weakness." She went on to tell me
how horribly they are talking to her at the embassy--for they are
determined she shan't marry "that nobody with nothing." I always knew
her brother-in-law was a snob of the cheapest and narrowest kind--the
well-born, well-bred kind. But I had no idea he was a coward. He
threatens to have the Emperor make her come home and go into a convent
if she doesn't break off the engagement within a week.
We are tremendously popular. Everybody is cultivating us, hoping
to find out the real inside of this incredible engagement. And the
ambassador has to pretend publicly that he's personally wild with
delight and hopes Nadeshda's parents will consent. He knows how
unpopular it would make him and his country with America if his
opposition and his reason for it were to be known.
January 30. Nadeshda has disappeared. They give out at the embassy that
she has left for home to consult with her parents. Robert looks like
a man who had gone stark mad and was fighting to keep himself from
showing it.
We were all at the ball at the French embassy, Mr. and Mrs. Burke
dining there. I dined at the White House--a literary affair. The
conversation was what you might expect when a lot of people get
together to show one another how brilliant they are. The President
talked a great deal. He has very positive opinions on literature in all
its branches. I was the only person at the table who wasn't familiar
with his books. Fortunately, I wasn't cornered. Cyrus came to the ball
from Mrs. Dorringer's, where he took in the Duchess d'Emarre. "She has
a beautiful face in repose," he said to me as he paused for a moment,
"and it's not at all pretty when she talks. So she listened well."
I was too tired to dance, as were the others. We went home together,
all depressed. "It's too ridiculous, this kind of life," said "ma"
Burke, "and the most ridiculous part of it is that, now we're hauled
into it and set a-going, we'll never get out and be sensible again. It
just shows you can get used to anything in this world--except doing as
you please. I don't believe anybody was ever satisfied to do that. Did
you ever wear a Mother Hubbard? _There's_ comfort!"
I can think of nothing but Robert and Nadeshda. Have they some sort of
understanding? No--I'm afraid not.
I forgot to put down that Robert made the Senator go to the Secretary
of State about Nadeshda's disappearance. The Secretary was sympathetic,
but he refused to interfere in any way. What else could he do?
V
February 1. Last night Robert started for Europe. He is going to see
Nadeshda's father and mother. I begin to suspect that Nadeshda has
really gone abroad and that she has let him know. He is certainly in
a very different frame of mind from what he was at first. But he says
nothing, hints nothing. Rachel, who has a huge sentimental streak in
her, has given Robert a letter to her sister Ellen--she's married to
one of the biggest nobles in the empire, Prince Glückstein. Also, she
has written Ellen a long, long letter, telling her all about Robert,
and what a great catch he is. And he _is_ a great catch now, for
Senator Burke has organized a company to take over his patents and pay
him a big sum for them--it'll sound fabulously big to such people as
the Daraganes. For even where these foreigners are very rich and have
miles on miles of land and large incomes from it, they're not used to
the kind of fortunes we have--the sums in cash, or in property that's
easily sold. And the Daraganes have only rank; their estates are quite
insignificant, Von Slovatsky says.
"They might as well consent first as last," said Mrs. Burke to me just
after Robert left; "for Bob always gets what he wants. He never lets
go. Cyrus is the same way--he spent eleven months in the mountains
once, and like to 'a' starved and froze and died of fever, just because
he'd made up his mind not to come back without a grizzly. That's why
the President took to him."
And then she told me that it was Cyrus who thought out the scheme
for making Robert financially eligible and put it in such form that
Robert consented. That convicted me of injustice again, for I had been
suspecting him of being secretly pleased at Robert's set-back--he
certainly hasn't looked in the least sorry for him. But it may be that
Robert has told him more than he's told us. He certainly couldn't have
found a closer-mouthed person. As his mother says, "The grave's a
blabmouth beside him when it comes to keeping secrets. And most men are
_such_ gossips."
Mrs. Fortescue came in to tea this afternoon. Mrs. Burke was out
calling, and I received her--or, rather, she caught me, for I detest
her. Just as she was going Cyrus popped in, and she nailed him before
he could pop out. She thought it was a good chance to put in a few
strong strokes for her daughter. "Of course, it's very pretty and
romantic about Nadeshda," she said, "and in this case I'm sure no one
with a spark of heart could object. Still, the principle is bad. I
don't think young girls who are properly brought up are so impulsive
and imprudent. I often say to my husband that I think it's perfectly
frightful the way girls--young girls--go about in Washington. They're
out before they should be even thinking of leaving the nursery, and go
round practically unchaperoned. It's so demoralizing."
"But how are they to compete with the young married women if they
don't?" said Cyrus, because he was evidently expected to say something.
"I don't think a man--a _sensible_ man--looking for a wife for his home
and a mother for his children would want a girl who'd been 'competing'
in Washington society," she answered. "I don't at all approve the way
American girls are brought up, anyway--it's entirely too free and
destructive of the innocence that is a woman's chief charm. And as for
turning the young girls loose in Washington!" Mrs. Fortescue threw
up her hands. "It's simply madness. Most of the men are foreigners,
accustomed to meet only married women in society. They don't know how
to take a young girl, and they don't understand this American freedom.
The wonder to me is that we don't have a regular cataclysm every
season. Now, I never permit Mildred to go _anywhere_ without me or
some other _real_ chaperon. And I know that her mind is like a fresh
rose-leaf."
Cyrus and I exchanged a covert glance of amusement. Mildred Fortescue
is a very nice, sweet girl, but--well, she does fool her mother
scandalously.
"I should think a man would positively be _afraid_ to marry the
ordinary Washington society girl who knows everything that she
shouldn't and nothing that she should."
"Perhaps that's what makes them so irresistible," said Cyrus.
"Irresistible to flirt with and to _flaner_ about with," said Mrs.
Fortescue reproachfully. "But I'm sure you wouldn't marry one of them,
Mr. Burke."
"Oh, I don't know," he answered. "No doubt it does spoil a good
many, being so free and associating with experienced men who've been
brought up in a very different way. But"--he hesitated and blushed
uncomfortably--"it seems to me that those who do come through all right
are about the best anywhere. If a girl has any really bad qualities
anywhere in her they come out here. And if a Washington girl does marry
a man--for himself--and I rather think they make marriages of the heart
more than most girls in the same sort of society in other cities--don't
you, Miss Talltowers?"
"It may be so," I replied. "But probably they're much like girls--and
men--everywhere. They make marriages of the heart if they get the
chance. And if nobody happens along in the marrying mood who is able
to appeal to their hearts, they select the most eligible among the
agreeable ones they can get. I think many a girl has been branded as
mercenary when in reality the rich man she chose was neither more nor
less agreeable than the poor man she rejected, and she only had choice
among men she didn't especially care about."
Mrs. Fortescue looked disgusted. Cyrus showed that he agreed with me.
"What I was going to say," he went on, "was, that if a Washington girl
does choose a man, after she has known lots of men and has come to
prefer him, she's not likely--at least, not _so_ likely--to repent her
bargain. And," he said, getting quite warmed up by his subject, "if a
man looks forward to his wife's going about in society, as he must if
he lives in a certain way, I think he's wise to select some one who has
learned something of the world--how to conduct herself, how to control
herself, how to fill the rôle Fate has assigned her."
"Oh, of course, a girl should be well-bred," said Mrs. Fortescue, as
sourly as her sort of woman can speak to a bachelor with prospects.
Cyrus said no more, and soon she was off. He stood at the window
watching her carriage drive away. He turned abruptly--I was at the
little desk, writing a note.
"You can't imagine," he said with quick energy, "how I loathe the
average girl brought up in conventional, exclusive society in America."
"Really?" said I, not stopping my writing--though I don't mind
confessing that I was more interested in his views than I cared to let
him see.
"Yes, really," he replied ironically. Then he went on in his former
tone: "Poor things, they can't help having silly mothers with the idea
of aping the European upper classes, and with hardly a notion of those
upper classes beyond--well, such notions as are got in novels written
by snobs for snobs. And these unfortunate girls are afraid of a genuine
emotion--by Jove, I doubt if they even have the germs of genuine
emotion. All that sort of thing has been weeded out of them. Little dry
minds, little dry hearts--so 'proper,' so--vulgar!"
"Not in Washington," said I.
"No, not so many in Washington; though more and more all the time. Miss
Talltowers, will you marry me?"
It was just like that--no warning, not a touch of sentiment toward me.
I almost dropped my pen. But I managed to hide myself pretty well.
I simply went on with my note, finished it, sealed and addressed it,
and rang for a servant. Then I went and stood by the fire. The servant
came; I gave him the note and went into my office. I had been in there
perhaps ten minutes when he came, looking shy and sheepish. He stumbled
over a low chair and had a ridiculous time saving himself from falling.
When he finally had himself straightened up and shaken together he
stood with his hands behind him, and his face red, and his eyes down,
and with his mouth fixed in that foolish little way as if he were about
to speak with his fancy-work way of handling his words.
"Do you wish something?" I asked.
"Only--only my answer," said he humbly.
Would you believe it, I actually hesitated.
"I want a woman that doesn't like me for my money, and that at the
same time would know how to act and would be--be sensible. I've had
you in mind ever since you explained your system for--for"--he smiled
faintly--"exploiting mother and father. And mother has been talking in
the same way of late. She says we can't afford to let you get out of
the family. That's all, I guess--all you'd have patience to hear."
"Then you were making me a serious business proposition?" said I.
"Well, you might call it that," he admitted, as if he weren't
altogether satisfied with my way of summing it up.
"I'm much obliged, but it doesn't attract me," I said.
He gave a kind of hopeless gesture. "I've put it all wrong," said he.
"I always _say_ things wrong. But--I--I believe I _do_ things better."
And he gave me a look that I liked. It was such a quaint mingling of
such a nice man with such a nice boy.
"I understand perfectly," said I, and I can't tell how much I hated
to hurt him--he did so remind me of dear old "ma" Burke. "But--please
don't discuss it. I couldn't consider the matter--possibly."
"You won't leave!" he exclaimed. "I assure you I'll not annoy you. You
must admit, Miss Talltowers, that I haven't tried to thrust myself on
you in the past. And--really, mother and father couldn't get on at all
without you."
"Certainly, I shan't leave--why should I?" said I. "I'm very well
satisfied with my position."
"Thank you," he said with an awkward bow, and he left me alone.
Of course, I couldn't possibly marry him. But I suppose a woman's
vanity compels her to take a more favorable view of any man after
she's found out that he wishes to marry her. Anyhow, I find I don't
dislike him at all as I thought I did. I couldn't help being amused at
myself the next day. I was driving with Jessie, and she was giving me
her usual sermon on the advantages of the Burke alliance--if I could
by chance scheme it through. "You're very pretty, Gus," she said. "In
fact you're beautiful at times. Men do like height when it goes with
your sort of a--a willowy figure. Your eyes alone--if you would only
_use_ them--would catch him. And the Burkes would be--well, they might
object a little at first because you've given them a position that
has no doubt swollen their heads--but they'd yield gracefully. And
although you are very attractive and are always having men in love with
you, you've simply got to make up your mind soon. Look how many such
nice, good-looking girls have been crowded aside by the young ones. Men
are crazy about freshness, no matter what they pretend. Yes, you must
decide, dear. And--I couldn't _endure_ poor Carteret when I married
him."
Carteret is a miserable specimen, and Jessie's ways keep him in a dazed
state--like an old hen sitting on a limb and turning her head round and
round to keep watch on a fox that's racing in a circle underneath. Fox
doesn't seem exactly to fit Jessie, but sometimes I suspect--however--
"But," Jessie was going on, "I knew mama was my best friend. And when
she said, 'Six months after marriage you'll be quite used to him and
won't in the least mind, and you'll be so glad you married somebody who
was quiet and good,' I married him. And I love him dearly, Gus, and we
make each other _so_ happy!"
I laughed--Jessie doesn't mind; she don't understand what laughter
means in most people. I was thinking of what Rachel told me the other
day. She said to Carteret, "It must be great fun wondering what Jessie
will do next." And he looked at her in his dumb way and said: "What
she'll do _next_? Lord, I ain't caught up with _that_. I'm just about
six weeks behind on her record all the time."
But to go back to Jessie's talk to me, she went on: "And Mr. Burke's
not so dreadfully unattractive, dear. Of course, he's far from
handsome, and--well, he's the son of Mr. and Mrs. Burke--but though
they're quite common and all that--"
I found myself furiously angry. "I don't think he's at all
bad-looking," I said, pretending to be judicial. "He's big and strong
and sensible; and what more does a woman usually ask for? And I don't
at all agree with you about his father and mother, either--especially
his mother. No, Jessie, dear, my objections aren't yours at all. I'm
sure you wouldn't understand them, so let's not talk about it."
February 3. Yesterday Mrs. Tevis sent for me. That was a good deal of
an impertinence, but I'm getting very sensible about impertinences.
She lives in grand style in a big, new house in K Street--it, like
everything about her, is "regardless of expense." The Tevises have been
making the most desperate efforts to "break in" last season and this,
and as Washington is, up to a certain point, very easy for strangers
with money, they've gone pretty far. I suppose Washington's like every
other capital--the people are so used to all sorts of queer strangers
and everything is so restless and changeful that no one minds adding to
his list of acquaintances any person who offers entertainment and isn't
too appalling. And the Tevises have been spending money like water.
It's queer how people can go everywhere that anybody goes and can seem
to be "right in it," yet not be in it at all. That's the way it is
with the Tevises. They are at every big affair in town--White House,
embassies, private houses. But they're never invited to the smaller,
more or less informal things. And when they do appear at a ball or
anywhere they're treated with formal politeness. They know there's
something wrong, but they can't for the life of them see what it is.
And that's not strange, for who can see the line that's instinctively
drawn between social sheep and social goats in the flock that's
apparently all mixed up? Everybody knows the sheep on sight; everybody
knows the goats. And all act accordingly without anything being said.
Well, Mr. and Mrs. Tevis are goats. Why? Anybody could see it after
talking to either of them for five minutes; yet who could say why? It
isn't because they're snobs--lots of sheep are nauseating snobs. It
isn't because they're very badly self-made--I defy anybody to produce
a goat that can touch Willie Catesby or Rennie Tucker, yet each of them
has ancestors by the score. It isn't because they're new--the Burkes
are new, yet Mrs. Burke has at least a dozen intimate acquaintances
of the right sort. It isn't because they're ostentatious and boastful
about wealth and prices--there are scores of sheep who make the same
sort of absurd exhibition of vulgarity. I can't place it. They're just
goats, and they know it, and they feel it; and when you go to their
house they suggest a restaurant keeper welcoming his customers; and
when they come to your house they suggest Cook's tourists roaming in
the private apartments of a palace, smiling apologetically at every one
and wondering whether they're not about to be told to "step lively."
Mrs. Tevis received me very grandly and graciously, though dreadfully
nervous withal, lest I should be seeing that she was "throwing a bluff"
and should put her in her place.
"I've requested you to come, my dear Miss Talltowers," she began,
after she had bunglingly served tea from the newest and costliest and
most elaborate tea-set I ever saw, "because I had a little matter of
business to talk over with you and felt that we could talk more freely
here."
"I must be back at half-past five," said I, by way of urging her on to
the point.
"That will be quite time enough," said she. "We can have our little
conversation quite nicely, and you will be in ample time for your
duties."
I wonder what sort of dialect she _thinks_ in. It certainly can't be
more irritating than the one she translates her thoughts into before
speaking them. The dialect she inflicts on people sounds as if it were
from a Complete Conversationalist, got up by an old maid who had been
teaching school for forty years.
"I have decided to take a secretary for next season," she went on. "Not
that I need any such direction as the Burkes. Fortunately, Mr. Tevis
and I have had a large social experience on both sides of the Atlantic
and have always moved with the best people. But just a secretary--to
attend to my onerous correspondence and arrangements for entertaining.
The duties would be light, but we should be willing to pay a larger
salary than the position would really justify--that is, we should be
willing to pay it, you know, to a _lady_ such as you are."