interrupted, impatiently. “I daresay there have been stories, plenty of
them, about Warren, as there are about every politician, that have made
your blood boil, Patsy; and yet, with all the experience he’s had with
you, and knowing how much importance you’d attach to _this_ story if it
were to come to you in the usual way, you think that Warren told you the
truth himself because he was _afraid_? My dear Patsy, you don’t know
strength when it’s shown you!”
“My dear Kent,” Patsy’s voice was as cold as the fall wind that whistled
to them through the chimney, “I know weakness when I’ve lived with it
for ten years. Oh, you don’t need to remind me”--she went on
restlessly--“I know I’ve _liked_ Warren’s weakness, I’ve encouraged it,
I suppose, by begging him _not_ to be a saint and all that, like his
mother and all those Boston aunts had tried to make him. And, secretly,
I suppose too, I’ve rather gloried in being the stronger nature: I was
willing Warren should have the cleverness, the brains, if I could direct
them. I liked feeling myself always the power behind the throne, and all
that sort of thing, and--well, you can’t blame me if I resent having the
throne usurped in my absence!”
“Is that what you said to Warren, when he told you?” Chalmers had risen
and walked over to the window. It was very cold and bleak outside.
“I said to Warren”--Patsy’s friend had never heard quite _that_ note in
her voice--oddly hollow it was, and colorless--“that as he had made the
decision, he must abide by it. That we were both of us too sensitive to
make a scandal, and besides there was the Angel--Junior, I mean; I told
Warren we should have to go on living here, of course; but that--as he
had already chosen to go his way, I certainly should not interfere. I
had no idea of subjecting myself to more confessions like this
morning’s.”
“Yes!” Chalmers wheeled round suddenly and came over to her. “And I
suppose that while you were saying it, you felt very eloquent and
injured and pleased with yourself--that you were able to put it to him
so clearly, and convincingly. And you congratulated yourself for not
flying into a rage and making a scene, as so many women would have done.
The very fact that you were talking _down_ to him gave you a pleasant
thrill of self-approbation!--oh, I know you strong people,” he added
bitterly. “You’re the weakest people in the world!”
“Kent!” She was too astonished to be furious, even.
“Yes; I mean it. Lord knows I’ve been strong long enough to know,
haven’t I? But by Heavens, I’m beginning to fairly long to be weak! Here
you have a man (he still stood over her, sternly) whom you have,
confessedly, encouraged in his weakness, nay, _taught_ his weakness. You
teach him, too, to depend on you utterly, you give him all the
complement of sense and practical judgment that his own brains and
imagination need; then suddenly, and for the first time, you withdraw
all this--not heartlessly, for you had Junior’s welfare to consider; but
unrealizingly. You withdraw all this that Warren has depended on for
years, and he finds himself all at once alone. A hand is stretched
out--and you know as well as I do, Patsy, in Washington it is not _a_
hand, but many hands. He takes one of them--a little doubtfully, yet
somehow trustingly, too; and--it’s a very experienced hand, this that
he’s caught hold of--he lets it drag him deeper and deeper, till he very
nearly drowns. Then, all of a sudden, he comes to the top--with a little
gasp of realization. He shakes himself loose--oh, yes, he did, weeks
ago!--he puts in a month of the most ghastly shipwreck a man can know.
And at the end of that time he has the sublime courage to tell you! And
you--what do you do for him?”
“How do you know all this about Warren?” demanded Patsy, irrelevantly.
This time it was she who had risen and gone over to the window. “He told
me, when I asked about you, that he had scarcely seen you, since I’d
been away. How do you know what he’s been through?”
“I know, Patsy--because--I’ve been through shipwreck myself, though of a
different sort. Thank God!--a different sort! For I never had to screw
my shrinking soul up to the point of baring it to a strong person’s
knife!” Chalmers came over to her, and laid both hands on her shoulders.
“Patsy, dear little girl, just remember, will you, that I _am_ Timothy’s
friend, and your friend, and--Warren’s friend; remember it, will you?
For I’ve said some rather harsh things to you. But--don’t you see? Maybe
it’s because I envy you--yes” (as Patsy’s eyes opened wide at him),
“that may be it. You see, little pal”--Chalmers’ voice was not quite
steady--“in spite of everything, Warren hasn’t failed you! Or if he has,
it’s been to show himself to you, nearer perfect than he’s ever been
before. He was weak, yes; even cheap, perhaps--which is much worse than
weak--but through that very weakness somehow he gained strength to climb
up and stand beside you--on your level, for the first time in his life.
And you--oh, Patsy! you pushed him over the precipice! It’s a way strong
natures have--the way of the fittest, I suppose; you didn’t see that for
the first time in his life _he_ was strong, worthy of you, worthy of all
you had given him before. You saw--isn’t it so, Patsy?--_only the
woman_?”
“Yes,” said Patsy, faintly, “it is so.” She was staring amazedly at the
handsome, passionately earnest face of the clubman. “But, Kent--I don’t
understand--why do _you_ feel so keenly about all this? You”--she
laughed a little nervously--“it’s almost as though you were pleading
your own case. But I’m sure such a thing has never happened to you,
Kent--it couldn’t somehow: you’re er--too remote, too much of a--what
shall I say?--not dreamer, exactly----”
“Yes,”--the lines about the clubman’s mouth hardened--“I think you have
hit it exactly, Patsy: I’ve been too much of a dreamer! But”--he slumped
down into his chair again--“let all that go; it’s of no consequence
anyway, my part. Just say you’ll let Warren see that it’s not going to
make any difference, will you?--the--the woman, I mean? You _will_ say
that much, Patsy?”
Patsy looked away from him, for a long moment. Then her hand met his
with the old impulsive frankness. “Yes, I will, Kent. If you care enough
for Warren to come here and plead for him, I surely care enough to
forgive him! Though, of course”--she weakened a little--“you’re an
outsider in the affair: you can’t really see what it means to----”
“To forgive? Perhaps not,--then again, perhaps I do. You see----”
“Somebody had to forgive the woman, I suppose,” it occurred to Patsy who
was intent on her own train of thought; “or not to forgive her. Oh, do
you know if I were that woman’s husband, Kent, I just _couldn’t_ forgive
her--that’s all! I couldn’t. Why, _think_----” she broke off suddenly,
looking up at him with a little laugh. “Do you know what just came into
my mind, Kent?--something perfectly absurd!--that what _I_ ought to do
now, is to _go beg the woman’s husband to forgive her_! Then I’d have
conquered my weakness as well as Warren did his, eh?” Patsy stopped
abruptly; for there in the door stood Warren.
He still wore his overcoat, and his splendidly built body seemed to have
hunched down into it--apathetically. “Well----?” he said, coming over
and dropping into a third chair by the fire, “I suppose you’ve talked it
all over?”
The big clubman, his friend, got up and began slowly to draw on one
glove. “Ye-es,” he said,--and it was with the characteristic Club
drawl--“we’ve talked it all over, Warren, and--it’s all right!” His
ungloved hand went out to the other man; who stared at it--then up into
the face above it--and finally, with a long breath, wrung it nearly off.
“Well, I must be toddling along to the Club,” added Chalmers lightly;
“the boys will be missing me, you know; yes, the boys will be missing
me. Good-night, Patsy, my dear” (she had gone over to the door with him,
and he spoke in an undertone) “and--and don’t worry too much about
that--that other person, you know. I daresay her hus--I daresay it’s
all right with her, too. Good-night, Warren.”
* * * * *
“It _is_ all right?” Warren asked his wife. In his tired face a little
glimmer of vitality showed.
“All right!” echoed Patsy, her eyes meeting his with a something he had
never seen in them before. Then, “Take this wet coat off at once, Warren
Adams,” she scolded, “and those boots--you’re to go straight upstairs
and change them. I declare, it’s certainly a good thing I’ve come
home!--you’re worse than Junior, about your rubbers!” She was tugging at
his heavy coat, but he caught her hands and drew her about, to face him.
“Yes,” he said--reverently--“it’s a very good thing you’ve come home!”
And for some reason, Patsy had to snatch her hands away and go flying up
the stairs ahead of him.
“But do you know, Claire,” she told the little stepmother, after she had
finished the story of Chalmers’ visit and his strange zeal on Warren’s
behalf, “it’s just as I told Kent: I can’t see how that woman’s husband
_can_ forgive her! Why, she----”
“You told Kent that?” asked the stepmother, oddly.
“Why, yes--why not?”
“Nothing. Except that--that woman’s husband is Kent. The woman, you see,
was Farleigh.”
“_Farleigh!_” Patsy covered her face with her hands. “Oh, no--no! Not
Farleigh, Claire!--why it couldn’t have touched Kent, a thing like that;
it couldn’t, you know--and then you see he came here to plead for
Warren. Oh, no, no, Claire--it couldn’t have been Farleigh!”
“The woman was Farleigh,” insisted the little stepmother, with gentle
obstinacy.
“And I told him he couldn’t judge--that he was too much of an outsider,
too remote----!” Patsy drew her hands down from her face, with a little
sob. “I said ‘you’re too much of a dreamer’; and--oh, Claire!--Kent said
‘yes, you’ve hit it exactly! I’ve been too much of a dreamer!’” Patsy
had dropped down on one of the big trunks, and was crying bitterly.
There is no personal grief in the world as poignant as the pain one
feels for a creature who bears his silently.
“But, Patsy--don’t cry so, dear”--into the older woman’s face had come a
wonderful understanding sweetness--“don’t you see why Kent came here and
talked to you that way? Don’t you see that it’s futile to be sorry for a
man who loves as Kent can love?”
“You mean----?” Patsy sat up and dried her eyes.
“I mean--why do you suppose that Kent came here to-day to plead for
Warren, Patsy?--to plead for his friend? Never in the world! He came to
plead for the injury wrought his friend!--for the person who wrought the
injury. Ah, my dear!--to be loved as Kent loves Farleigh----!” The
silver-haired woman’s voice had sunk almost to a whisper. “It--it’s
worth being wicked, just to find it out. It’s sublime!”
“And he went off to the Club!”--Patsy was talking more to herself than
audibly--“he said the boys would be missing him--_the boys_, that’s
all!”
Somewhere a bell rang musically. A child’s voice called “Mumsie!” And a
man came and stood in the door, waiting--his eyes fixed yearningly on
the tear-stained face within.
Patsy looked at him--looked at the little stepmother; but as she slipped
a hand through the arm of each of them, it was not of them she was
thinking, but of Chalmers--clearly a clubman, _pure and simple_.
VII
PIX--PURELY A PHILANTHROPIST
“Don’t be so lazy,” said Kent, “get something to do.”
“I have something to do,” said Pix; “I’m a philanthropist.”
“That’s what I mean;--get an occupation.”
“My dear boy,” reproachfully Pix looked at him, “don’t say unnecessary
things. You know I was educated for the position of an English
gentleman; though my brains in the first place weren’t half bad.
Besides, I make a very good philanthropist.”
“So does anybody.”
“Who’s rich enough,” added Pix, lighting another pipe. “One can make
quite exhaustive use of being rich, d’ye know, Chalmers? You and I, for
instance, shouldn’t have to be sitting here on a Park bench unless we
were rich; I shouldn’t dare to be smoking a pipe, you wouldn’t dare to
be puffing Pall Malls at a shilling the box--you’d be opening and
re-opening a case of monogrammed Egyptians you couldn’t afford, for the
sake of showing any one who happened to pass that you could afford
them.”
“I thought you said I wouldn’t dare to be sitting on this bench--who’d
pass, then? where?”
“I’m never logical,” Pix returned, without pride; “what philanthropist
is? D’ye know, Chalmers, I believe some day I’m going to do something
extraordinary at philanthropy.”
“It isn’t likely,” Chalmers discouraged. His eyes were fixed absently on
the White House across the Park.
“I know it isn’t. That’s why I may do it. In fact I’m almost sure----”
“I wish I could lend hope to the idea, but an unlikely
philanthropist--_really_, Pix! Credulity must have its limits.”
“---- Almost sure I shall do something spectacular at it,” finished Pix,
meditative, between puffs. “Perhaps I’ll even do a philanthropic turn
for you, Kentie, old boy,” benevolently.
“Wish I thought it,” muttered Kent, over a fresh Pall Mall, “but that
would be almost too much to expect, eh? That a philanthropist should
help some one who needed it?” He stared still more fixedly at the gleam
of white beyond the trees.
And Pix suddenly remembered something he had heard--something about
Chalmers’ wife--he forgot just what it was, but---- He screwed
uncomfortably on the end of the bench. “Shall we be toddling?” he said
finally. “Think we’ve aired our riches quite flagrantly enough, don’t
you? Then there’s to dine----”
“Where do you do it?” Chalmers rose, with as much alacrity as could be
expected--of a clubman. “Boys’ Boxing Club, Home for Blond Babies,
Ladies’ select Slumming Society--or----”
“With you,” interposed Pix, sauntering the more aimlessly for his
injury; “being the first time--at your house, that is--I had hoped you
might remember it.”
“My dear fellow, I’m delighted!” Chalmers didn’t look it (he had
forgotten how, perhaps) but he looked less absent. For a moment he gazed
at Pix as though he saw him. “I remember now. Farleigh did say she’d
asked you for to-night.”
“Yes--said in the note she’d make it a _parti à trois_, too. Thought it
was no end good of her. A fellow gets so rotten sick of these drove
dinners, what? Slum society or high society, it’s all the same. But I
say, old boy, I--you’ll think it’s beastly cheek, I suppose, but do you
mind telling me why she invited me? I’ve seen her only once, you know,
at the de Tregers’ and I’ve known you only at the Club--I--I just
wondered what my cue was, y’know,” he dropped his monocle, rather
uneasily.
“I’m sure I can’t tell you.” Kent Chalmers gazed straight ahead of him,
though he spoke lightly. “Farleigh--my wife--has no set code of
move--that I know of,” he added. “Just come and be yourself--that’ll
do.”
“Thanks,” replied Pix soberly. Yes, it ought to do; even for Farleigh
Chalmers. Pix was, unabbreviated, Charles Clarence Hope de Crecy
Pixenthorpe, younger son of Somebody or Other in Middleshire. That he
was a younger son is not extraordinary; that he was a rich younger son
is almost an epigram. But on the contrary, it’s the truth. He had gone
to Africa, and come back that way; and after a girl (who had enough of
her own) had added further to his good fortune by saying no to him, he
had turned to philanthropy and America. “They go together,” he had said
placidly. “One can’t be a philanthropist on a big scale--one can’t be
anything abnormal on a big scale, except in America.”
So he had gone. And terminated in Washington. Only four months now since
his first donation to the Needy Boys’ guild; yet Farleigh Chalmers was
inviting him to dinner. Farleigh Chalmers’ husband wondered what there
was important about Pix, besides his being rich. He knew there was
something; Farleigh knew any number of rich men in the Capital. Yes,
there was something--and he liked Pix; almost, comparatively, as he
loved Farleigh. He knew, moreover, that Pix in spite of his trip to
Africa, knew nothing about the world--of Washington, Washington, as he
wished Farleigh did not know it.
His heel crunched round in the gravel, as they left the Mall. “By the
way, Pix, I’ll be late to-night--I’ve to see a man at the Club about
something at seven, so--don’t hurry, old boy. Eight o’clock’s plenty of
time. Farleigh never minds one’s being late.”
“Right!” Pix clapped his shoulder. “Going to the Club now, eh? Well, au
revoir. I’m for the Men’s Friendly--they have sandwich and beer at six.
Gad, but a philanthropist does have to feed!--er beg pardon, Kent,
really! Sure I’ll enjoy my dinner, you know, but--yes, ’bye, old chap.”
* * * * *
Having agreed to come at eight o’clock, Pix presented himself at
Chalmers’ residence, twenty to eight sharp. Strain enough keeping one’s
word, as a philanthropist, he reflected inaudibly to the butler who was
removing his coat; besides, he wanted to see----“Is Mrs. Chalmers down?”
he asked the man.
“Yes, sir, Mrs. Chalmers is down, sir. Marster’s just come in ’arf a
minute ago, sir, but Mrs. Chalmers is hin the library. I’ll just
hannounce you, sir.”
“Awfully good of you,” as a (now) Brother of Humanity, Pix felt called
upon to show fraternity with the butler classes. In fact he followed
Binks so affectionately, he almost trod on his own name.
“Yes, that’s what I met with as a first disaster, Mrs. Chalmers,” he
came into the soft-lit library with a gentle melancholy in his appeal;
“you’ll let my--er--fellow man be the only one to call it, though, won’t
you? To Chalmers and the chaps at the Club, I’m just Pix.”
“I shall be delighted, Mr.--Pix,” Farleigh gave him her hand with that
smile of hers that meant--well, there were those who could have told
him. “Won’t you sit down? Kent is dressing yet, I’m afraid--he came in
late, an appointment, I believe, with some man.” Farleigh herself sat
down with one of her quick, lithe movements--Pix remembered now, he had
noticed that night at the de Tregers’. She was slim, svelte, and with
slender tapering hands and feet. Her hair and eyebrows were dense black;
blue black. And she wore red. Pix liked her; she reminded him of a cat.
And he reflected there were excellent points about a cat; people didn’t
appreciate ’em.
“I suppose of course you know the British minister?” she began, watching
him out of her restless eyes, as he sat down beside her. It was spring
and the open windows let in a little breeze to ruffle her dark hair.
“Sir Maxon-Goring? he must be quite an intimate of yours, no?”
“No,” said Pix, watching her in return. “He goes in for politics--very
bad form on the part of an ambassador. I’ve nothing to do with him.”
Farleigh laughed, and looked at Pix with more interest. “You don’t go in
for politics, then? Why not?”
“I’m too rich; can’t afford ’em.” The philanthropist smiled at her--that
smile of his that meant--well, no one needed to tell her. It meant that
Pix was _there_, behind the monocle. It meant--a discouraging outlook
for Farleigh. “Only poor men should risk their lives for the
nation--er--their idea of the nation: rich men must be left in
safety--to give away their money. I suspect that’s Kent’s idea, too?”
“Oh, Kent!” exclaimed Farleigh, and then, catching herself hastily,
“Kent isn’t interested in politics, no,” she added quietly--but her long
pointed fingers tapped her armchair at Pix’s side. “He says--there’s too
much intrigue in them; and he hates intrigue.”
“And you don’t?” from behind the monocle, the mild eyes gazed at her yet
more kindly. Yes, he remembered now what he had heard; he knew what it
was, about Chalmers’ wife. And that odd note in Kent’s voice, the absent
stare, the long silences in the clubman’s jolly talk--“you like
politics?” he turned his question to Farleigh over, like one showing
the reverse side of the same piece of goods.
“I like anything that is complex,” replied Farleigh slowly. “And I want
Kent--Mr. Pix,” she leaned toward him with a feline swiftness, “will
you----”
“If that is so,”--as a philanthropist, Pix had learned, he modestly
confessed it, to avoid a request of something he knew he wasn’t going to
do--“if you like anything that is complex, I wish to goodness you’d come
down to my--hum--which is it? ah, yes! the Young Men’s gymnasium--and
untangle a case I’ve got down there. Janitor’s wife, nice lazy little
woman,” he watched Farleigh’s slender foot swinging impatiently while
her face turned, all interest, toward him. A philanthropist, though Kent
had forgotten it, necessarily sees a great deal of women--“nice lazy
little woman, married to a husband who’s so keen for committees and
being third vice presidents of things, he forgets to come home on
Sundays. Fact. Shuts up the--what did I say? gymnasium--I always forget
if it’s the gymnasium or the Babies’ Home--and goes off to lobby the
boys; ’stead of taking the tram to Alexandria and his waiting wife. She
belongs to a Browning Society, but it doesn’t keep her busy, because she
can’t read--farther than Poor Richard’s almanac. There are no children,
and she complains there’s no husband either. Now what’s to be done? She
comes to me--I’m the root of all evil, gymnasium and otherwise--she
upbraids me. She’s upbraided me twice this last week, once before my
valet. It can’t go on. But the man, her husband, ’s a good janitor; and
good janitors are scarce as honest philanthropists. I ask you what’s to
be done? I _must_ cure this maniac of his politics. But how?”
“Make him a clubman,” suggested Farleigh with a slow illuminating smile.
“He is one. That’s what’s the matter with him. He belongs to the Men’s
Literary and the Byron Brigade and the Reformed Republicans--downtown
branch--and the Kindling Wood Karpet Knights (that’s in winter), and the
Sons of Adam and--well, she’ll tell you. Anyway he’s a regular
attendant and officer in all of ’em. Now--Mrs. Chalmers, how am I to
unite this alienated couple? Don’t you see, as a philanthropist, I’ve
got to unite them? Come, now, you said you liked complexity, unravel for
me. How am I to make them see that each of them is part wrong?”
“Always the first step in reconciliation?” queried Farleigh, slipping
deeper into her chair. “I should make her a suffragette and him an
indigent tailor--they live at home, don’t they?”
“On the principle that a swapping of wrongs makes right? It would be
good humor, but not good philanthropy. Because--you see, Mrs.
Chalmers”--Pix dropped the monocle and looked quite steadily into
Chalmers’ wife’s eyes--“underneath their--ah--differences, they care for
each other.”
“How original!” Farleigh’s laugh was light like the little breeze. “But
you said, didn’t you, they were in the middle class? Of course. But Mr.
Pix--this is all tremendously interesting--but I wanted to ask you, I
started to ask you before, you know” (her eyes under their blue black
screen kept shifting toward the door); “there’s a post open in London
now--first Secretary of the Embassy--and I understand Sir Maxon-Goring
is being asked by the Administration to suggest some one. Some one from
here, who has had training in Washington. Of course your being such an
intimate of Sir Maxon-Goring’s--for I know you are, spite of your
epigram--and such a friend of Kent’s as well--well, Mr. Pix, I know the
man whose lot you want for your new Children’s Library. He’s told you he
won’t sell, but----”
“Ah, so here you are, old man--at last!” Pix got up leisurely and held
his host three fingers as Kent entered. “Three fingers is correct, not?
for a philanthropist? Four for a hard drinker? Well, you _have_ done
yourself well!” He looked at his watch--not at Mrs. Chalmers. “Ten after
eight--a primp worthy of a guardsman, what?”
Kent, standing by his wife’s chair, smiled. More absently than ever, “It
was that miserable man who wanted to see me at such length”--the big
clubman’s eyes wandered; from Pix to Farleigh, from Farleigh to Pix,
and back again--“Shall we go out, Farleigh?” he asked, after a little
pause.
“Yes, Binks announced some time ago.” In Farleigh’s voice was a hint of
rumble; like the purr of a cat that has been disturbed. “You will lead
me?” She laughed at Pix, slipping her hand through his arm.
“With pleasure,” he said gravely, “I will lead you both.” And slipping
his other arm through Kent’s, he took them in to dinner.
* * * * *