the ah--gymnasium, Kentie,” Pix remarked with some satisfaction, as they
sat in the library again later, over their coffee. “I say,” he leaned
forward almost eagerly--for a philanthropist--“there’s going to be an
exhibition--er--Field Day or something or other on Thursday, and Mrs.
Budd is sure to come in--um-m, that’s their name, Budd,” he turned to
Farleigh, “why not drop down for a moment, late, and you can see her and
Budd too. There’s sure to be some row on--anyway you’d have a splendid
chance to diagnose and suggest a medicine. You will?”
“Why--yes,” Farleigh had no further chance to speak with Pix alone.
“Yes, I’ll come. Thursday, you say, at----?”
“Five.” Pix beamed.
“At five. Yes; it will be amusing, I’m sure.”
“Think so too. Suppose I may come also, Pix?” Kent was looking at
Farleigh’s profile with a look that made Pix swallow the rest of his
coffee with a gulp.
“Why, of course, old man--delighted. Only it’s hardly in your line, you
know--a political, I mean to say, a lobby-maniac; a maniac for office,
whose wife----”
“A maniac for office?” Kent laughed shortly. “Well, no. That’s rather at
the other end of my line. However, I’ll come. What, going?” as Pix rose.
“Sorry--but you can’t expect manners in a doer of good. I’m to deliver
an address at the Rough Rider Lustitude at nine-thirty--‘Is marriage a
failure?’ oh, my dears!” Pix cast a wild eye at them, an eye that was
something else too, could they have seen. “An address from me--and it’s
their ladies’ evening. Good-night--good-night,” he shook Farleigh’s hand
with a despairing gratitude, “you don’t know what this dinner has done
for me though, as preparation--ah--I mean to say--ahem! you understand.”
He dropped the slender hand and fled. Dash it! he always did make some
silly ass of himself, just when things were at their most delicate--oh,
hang! (this to Binks, under his breath) he supposed all philanthropists
were bunglers.
“Farleigh”--left alone, Kent came over and put his hands on the slim
shoulders--“Farleigh”--his whole attitude asked a question.
Farleigh screened her eyes with the blue black lashes, and laughed. “I’m
going to a dance--the McCleans are stopping for me--where are you off
to, Kent, the Club?”
“Yes,” Kent’s hands fell to his sides. “The Club.” He strode away from
her, out of the room.
At the gymnasium on Thursday, Pix walked up and down between trapezes,
with a little woman whose short steps--from under a remarkable plaid
silk gown--doubled on themselves valiantly to keep pace.
“And indeed, Mister Pix,” she said plaintively--to all his
_philanthropées_ Pix was just Pix--“indeed, I don’t know what I’m to do
if Theophilus don’t stop being so active. Forty-six he is, forty-seven
come July, and no holdin’ him; off again all last Sunday with the Sons
of Adam--gettin’ himself put in as chancellor ’f the order--and I made
up my mind then, I was goin’ to do somethin’ desprit. But what t’
do”--she flung out ten cotton-gloved fingers, in an abandon of
despondency.
“Perhaps this lady can tell you,” Pix said in a low voice, nodding
toward some one slim and swift, who was coming up the stairs opposite,
into the great hall. “I have an idea she can, for--she’s a very clever
lady indeed. You put the case to her frankly, tell her the whole
trouble, and see if she doesn’t suggest something. Ah, Mrs. Chalmers!
this is most awfully good of you”--he met the slim lady in black half
way across the gymnasium. “The er--exhibition’s over, but--Kent isn’t
with you?” he broke off.
“No. Kent’s coming later. That is, he said he’d meet me here at five. I
was early, because--Mr. Pix, I want to talk to you----”
“Yes, yes--excuse me just a moment--I see Budd beckoning me with a
dumb-bell. You won’t mind waiting just a second while I see just what he
wants? Er--Mrs. Chalmers, Mrs. Budd--you’ll find that vaulting-horse
very comfortable, Mrs. Chalmers--ah, back in just one minute, you know!”
And Pix hurried away.
The little woman in the plaid dress and tan cotton gloves regarded the
slender woman in black cloth and a Virot turban. “Shan’t we sit down?”
she suggested. “Myself, I don’t think much o’ that vaultin’ horse, but
this movin’ swing’s right cosy.”
So Mrs. Kent Chalmers and Mrs. Theophilus Budd sat down together in the
moving swing.
“Your husband’s the Mister Chalmers who was at one of them foreign
courts, isn’t he?” Mrs. Budd began, a little curiously. “My friend, Mrs.
Silas Holt--we belong to the same Browning Society in Alexandria--she’s
read me pieces out o’ the paper about him. And once there was his
picture--he _is_ the handsome figger of a man now! What’s his job
now--he’s left that foreign place, hasn’t he?”
“Yes,” Farleigh could not be annoyed with the little person--she was too
simple, somehow--but she kept watching the stairs where Pix had
disappeared. Why didn’t he come back? Surely he didn’t imagine she had
taken him seriously about untangling this funny little Mrs. Budd’s
affairs--“yes, he left Budapest a year ago,” telling it even to funny
little Mrs. Budd made Farleigh’s red lips come close together, “he--he
has no place now. He’s just a clubman.”
“Just a _clubman_?” almost shrieked Mrs. Budd. “Oh, my dear, how I feel
for you! I do indeed--oh. Mr. Pix was right when he said we might help
each other. Ain’t he the knowin’ one, Mr. Pix? And to think, your
husband belongs to Clubs, too! Oh, isn’t it _awful_?”
“Yes,” said Farleigh fervently--she was biting her lips--“it is.”
“An’ stayin’ out eight days out o’ seven, an’ runnin’ for office in ten
different things at once, an’ wire-pullin’ an’ toadyin’ an’--yes, though
I could sink in my grave with shame for sayin’ it--bribin’ men as he can
make useful--oh, Mrs. Chalmers, what a life! That’s what I say to
Theophilus, on the ice-olated occasions when I happen to see him. What a
life!”
Farleigh was silent.
“An’ how do you spend your time?” went on the little woman with tan
cotton gloves, more cheerfully. “Makin’ the home more attractive, I
s’pose, an’ doin’ everything you can, same as I do, to keep him with you
and in some kind o’ sane, contented life? D’ye keep a girl, Mrs.
Chalmers?”
“Oh, yes,” though her voice was rather sharp, Farleigh smiled, “I
have--yes, I have a maid.”
“You must excuse me if I was impertinent,” apologised Mrs. Budd softly;
she had a very nice soft voice, Farleigh couldn’t help noticing, “but I
thought maybe since your husband lost his job, you couldn’t afford----”
“Oh, yes!” was it bitterly that Farleigh said it? Bitterly to little
Mrs. Budd? “He has money, you see, my husband. He--he doesn’t have to
have a job.”
“Now that’s too bad!” commiserated the other woman, gently rocking the
“movin’ swing” with her foot. “I mean it’s too bad when _anybody_
doesn’t have a job, man or woman. I always say my job’s makin’ a home
for Theophilus--though he doesn’t stay in it,” she sighed. “What’s your
job, Mrs. Chalmers?”
Farleigh stirred restlessly in her corner of the swing. “Why--trying to
make my husband a success, I suppose,” she said unwillingly--after all,
what danger in telling the truth to this simple little thing? Why didn’t
Mr. Pix come back, anyway (impatiently); there would be no time before
Kent came for her to ask him----
“Men are queer creatures,” reflected Mrs. Budd, looking at her with a
certain thoughtfulness; “Mr. Pix, he thought you might help me out with
Theophilus, but I guess you can’t. I guess you’ve got just as hard a job
as me, and no better off t’ cope with it. Men’re queer creatures, Mrs.
Chalmers--they’ve got to go their own way, ’n’ all we can do, I guess,
is to sit by an’ keep lovin’ ’em. Isn’t that what you say?”
“Er--yes,” Farleigh rose out of the swing altogether this time. “Yes, I
suppose it is. Shall we walk a little, Mrs. Budd? I feel rather--rather
cramped.”
“You don’t look as though you’d ever felt a pain in your life,” said
Mrs. Budd admiringly, as they started down the big hall hung with
apparatus, “but then I s’pose you keep outdoors a lot, and don’t let
yourself be ruined by this s’ciety life. Mis’ Holt was readin’ me out of
last Sunday’s fashion supplement how a preacher had said the word for
Washington s’ciety was ‘hectic,’ and we looked it up, at the Tuesday
readin’ of the Browning class, an’ I guess he’s right, Mrs. Chalmers.
Washington s’ciety’s hectic.”
“They call it so many things,” murmured Farleigh; busy in avoiding a
punching-ball, she spoke again truthfully, to the little woman--almost
friendly, in her nonchalance, to the janitor’s wife.
“But I don’t take no stock in it, do you?” pursued Mrs. Budd. “Seems as
though it’s just like this room full o’ climbin’ machines--an’ somebody
liable to fall off the trapeze an’ bust his head open, any time--half
way up or at the top; y’ can’t tell nothin’ about it. I’m glad you let
it alone, Mrs. Chalmers. This paper said one woman--it didn’t give her
name--one woman had gone so far’s to--look out for that movin’
staircase, Mis’ Chalmers--they’re awful treacherous: they pretend to be
takin’ you up all the time an’ then before you know it, they throw
you--had gone so far as to make a name for herself, in the line o’
intrigue,” continued Mrs. Budd, her soft voice hushed with excitement;
“she didn’t need nothin’ as far as climb goes, it said, she just liked
pullin’ the ropes because she done it so well. It said they call
her----”
“Mrs. Budd, do you see anything of Mr. Pix?” asked Farleigh, two red
spots glowing in her cheeks.
“No--but he’ll be along presently. Don’t fret, he ’n’ your husband’s
probably met and ’re having a shindy with Budd down below. Men ’re
gossipy creatures. I was goin’ to tell you, they call that woman the
Spanish Cat--’cause she slides in an’ out o’ things so easy, and looks
that Spanish kind. You’re real dark too, aren’t you, Mrs. Chalmers? My,
but your husband must be proud of you!” the little woman in the plaid
dress looked up wistfully.--“Why, Mis’ Chalmers, what’s the matter?”
For Mrs. Chalmers looked as though she was going to cry. She also looked
furiously angry, and--Mrs. Budd gasped--very beautiful. “Mrs. Chalmers,
I--I do hope I haven’t said nothin’ to hurt your feelings,” faltered the
little janitor’s wife.
“No”--with a ringing laugh Farleigh dashed her hand to her eyes--“oh,
no, Mrs. Budd. I--shan’t we sit down on this _un_moving staircase and
wait?--So you don’t think much of the Spanish Cat?” she questioned, as
Mrs. Budd sat down. “You think she’s--er--rather a fool?”
“I think they’ll come a day when she’ll get caught, in one o’ these
slides,” said Mrs. Budd, delighted to settle to a cosy chat, “an’ then
that’ll be the end of _her_. Just the same, she must be a real clever
woman, Mrs. Chalmers, and then, my dear--as I told Mis’ Holt--there must
be _somethin’_ the matter with her husband. No woman would take to
pullin’ wires for a job, if her husband was the man he should be.
Prob’ly he’s some lazy, no account s’ciety man, this----”
“No, Mrs. Budd,” Farleigh sat very erect, “I--I’m sure you’re mistaken,”
she added less hastily, “he--her husband isn’t no account, or--you see,
such a clever woman wouldn’t have married him!” Yes, watching that smile
of hers, Mrs. Budd declared she was beautiful.
“My dear, you can’t tell,” said Theophilus’ wife sombrely, “women, the
cleverest of ’em, do marry the strangest men!--yes I just bet you
anything, this intreegant’s husband is some s’ciety loafer, who’s made
his wife so tired with his foolishness, she just had----”
“No, not a loafer,” Mrs. Chalmers shook her head decidedly, “certainly
he is not a loafer, though----”
“Ah, you do know him then?” Mrs. Budd fairly trembled with anxiety. No
wonder Mrs. Chalmers had looked angry. “He ’n’ she’s friends of yours?”
“She’s not a friend of mine, no,” said Farleigh slowly. She seemed to
have forgotten Mrs. Budd as a “funny little person,” Farleigh. “I should
rather say she’s my worst enemy. He--well, I don’t know,” she ended
rather abruptly.
“Do you know, my dear,” the other woman--the woman with the tan cotton
gloves leaned forward earnestly, “I sh’d think _there_ would be a chance
for some real mission’ry work for you--and if I called ’em names, I’m
sorry indeed----”
“It’s all right,” said Farleigh hastily, “one’s quite apt to tell the
truth about people, before one knows who they are.”
“But being such friends of yours, or at least knowin’ ’em as you do, if
you could bring them together, my dear,” went on the simple little woman
looking earnestly into the beautiful face, “if you could make that woman
see how she’s wastin’ herself on the trapeze business, when she might be
walkin’ along safe an’ happy on the ground with him; an’ if you could
make him see that--but men’s queer creatures!--if you could make him see
that if he’ll only stir his stumps a bit ’n’ make _himself_ more
interestin’ for her, she--don’t you see, my dear? Why, if you did that,
if you could make ’em see that each is part wrong, why--it’d be the
biggest job you ever did in your life!”
“Yes,” Farleigh drew a deep breath, “it would. The biggest job I ever
did in my life! And--isn’t it funny, Mrs. Budd? that’s just what Mr. Pix
said too: that to make each see that each is part wrong, is the first
step toward reconciliation.”
“Ah, but he’s a smart man, Mr. Pix,” said Mrs. Budd ingenuously. “But
you’ll try, my dear? You’ll do what you can to bring these two together
again?--don’t know why I take s’ much interest in ’em,” she laughed a
little abashed, “but readin’ that woman’s story in the paper seemed so
kind o’ pitiful--you see, I thought o’ Theophilus always playin’ around
with these climbin’ machines--and then I knew, ’s I say, there must be
something wrong about the husband.--You’ll try, my dear?”
“Yes,” promised Farleigh simply, “I’ll try. And--I’m glad you happened
to read the story in the paper, Mrs. Budd.”
“Funny now, wasn’t it?” The little woman smiled happily. “And that I
should just happen to tell it to you, and you knew those people? Well,”
she sighed, “even if we ain’t come to no conclusion about Theophilus,
maybe we’ve helped somebody. And here’s Mr. Pix”--then, as another man
appeared beside Pix on the stairs--“_my dear!_ is that your husband?”
she asked wonderingly.
“Yes,” Farleigh rose to meet them, “why?”
“Because he--my dear, I wouldn’t worry one mite,” the little woman with
the tan gloves patted the black sleeve cut by Paquin, reassuringly,
“don’t you fret, my dear, one minute. That man could be a member of the
Sons of Adam an’ the Kindlin’ Wood Knights an’ any other forty-seven
’leven Clubs he was a mind to. He’s a _man_, my dear. And (as she saw
him smile at Farleigh, coming toward her) he loves you. You’re a very
lucky woman.”
“Mrs. Budd, this is my husband, Mr. Chalmers,” Farleigh made the
introduction rather unsteadily. “I want you to know each other.”
“Indeed, and I’m proud to, Mr. Chalmers,” the little woman beamed; while
Farleigh turned to Pix, but not exclusively. “Mrs. Chalmers an’ I have
just been having the most interestin’ time, talkin’ about the Spanish
Cat--oh I--I beg your pardon”--she grew frantically pink--“I forgot
again, they was friends of yours, and besides I don’t know her real
name. I----”
“Mrs. Budd has been telling me how to manage the Spanish Cat, Kent,”
said Farleigh very quietly. Pix stared at the window as though he meant
to jump out of it. “She says that to--to manage her would be the biggest
job of my life, and----”
“Oh, not exactly to manage her, Mrs. Chalmers,” put in the little woman
uneasily, “to bring her ’n’ her husband together’s what I mean. You
see,” she turned to Chalmers, “I think her husband must be part wrong,
too.”
“I think he must,” said Kent, looking into Farleigh’s eyes; “I’m sure he
is.”
“But what about the case of Budd?” broke in Pix, renouncing the window.
“Oh, we didn’t get ’s far ’s him,” said Mrs. Budd resignedly; “we’ll
take up Theophilus at the next meetin’, won’t we, Mrs. Chalmers?”
“We will, indeed,” said the very clever lady. And I must tell you that
as she said good-bye to her, she kissed Mrs. Budd!
Kent turned to Pix--Farleigh had gone on ahead of them, rather swiftly,
down the stairs. “Pix, I--you--it’s all your affair,” he stammered
unevenly, “I----”
“Tut, my dear boy!” Pix waved aside the words, though he gripped the
proffered hand and wrung it. “I’m twice as pleased as you are. I never
do things unselfishly, you know--I’m purely a philanthropist.
“By the way,” added Pix carelessly, watching Chalmers from behind his
monocle as they came out into the street, “who’s this man who’s been
detaining you all the time at the Club?”
“That,” said Kent, stepping into the car beside Farleigh, “is a
gentleman who has been trying to get my opinion on a Secretaryship in
London. I just told him, this afternoon: yes.”
VIII
RICHARD--NO MORE THAN A KING
Into the mysterious shadows of the grey-cloistered chapel, the Court in
all its ceremony was disappearing--all except the newest Maid of Honor,
who, after one glance back at the sunset, shook her curls rebelliously,
and deliberately stayed behind in the rose-garden!
“I just _won’t_ go to vespers,” declared the Maid of Honor wilfully;
“and what’s more”--darting after two other stragglers in the
procession--“you sha’n’t go either.” She laid a compelling hand on a
little old person in rose and silver, and a very magnificent person in
black velvet and pumps. “It’s a perfect sacrilege to pray any more
to-day. Besides, don’t you know we’ve got to _talk_? To talk about
_him_?” And she shook her small fist threateningly after the departing
monarch.
“It is a fine evening,” conceded the little old person weakly; already
she had arranged her brocade and laces against the quaint primness of an
ancient stone settle.
“And--er--no sense, really, in making Sunday _too_ shocking a
misfortune,” abetted the magnificent person, enjoying the effect of
himself under the glowing luxuriance of a canopy of Maréchal Niels.
“Fact is, the King----”
“That’s just it!” The Maid of Honor pounced upon the words, as she
pounced upon her favorite garden seat. “The King! Oh”--she clicked her
fan vehemently--“I am so glad to get you two alone for once, so that we
can talk and talk and talk about him!”
“My dear!” The little old person’s hands went up. “I’m sure no one ever
found that much to say about a king. There’s really nothing much to say,
is there?” She glanced half fearfully toward the beautiful old chapel
door.
“Exactly what I mean!” announced the Maid of Honor triumphantly. “Mind
you, I don’t agree to it for all kings--perhaps the less important ones
aren’t so bad--but this one! Why, he’s a mere bundle of robes, a
mannequin to hang things on: satins, epigrams, anything. A sort of peg
for the traditions of our ancestors. Oh!” In the small restless face
showed the exasperation of all youth. “What difference does it make how
many millions of subjects he has? He’s always the same. He always will
be the same, I suppose: just a monarch, a handsome effigy, no more than
a king!”
“Nor less,” appended his Fool impartially. (Nowadays, they call them the
“king’s best friend”: it amounts to the same thing.) “He does the best
he can with the predicament, you know. Rather beastly situation to find
oneself in, too, now isn’t it? Fancy, just fancy for yourself”--he
looked toward the Maid of Honor’s profile propitiatingly--“being
suddenly obliged to become king--or, queen, that is, of Dumdedum;
Emperor of Ladada, Lord High Protector of Thingumbob, and all the rest
of it. You wouldn’t like it, you know. Nobody would.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” For some reason the Maid of Honor was blushing.
“Nobody would, unless it were one’s butler. It’s being such a temptation
to anarchists; and no well-brought-up person likes to be a
temptation--or admits that he likes it.”
“And you confess he is marvelously handsome,” urged the little old
Lady-in-Waiting slyly, “you acknowledge yourself, Ermyntrude, that he
fills his position with distinction; never looks scared, I mean, and
that’s _so_ hard for a king. You said just now, you know--you called
him----”
“I called him a handsome effigy!” The Maid of Honor rose to her feet
sharply. “And that’s quite all he is. Oh, I don’t ask that he shall do
anything so wonderful,” she defended, catching up his pet spaniel, and
pulling its ears with a mixture of affection and intense impatience, “I
don’t ask that he shall ride to wars, or build huge palaces, or squander
fortunes over pageantry. I ask simply that he show some signs of
humanness, that he be a _man_, any sort of a man, anything rather than
a dummy! Why, if Ja--if the Prince were to grow like him ...!”
“But”--the Fool began to look worried. He rubbed his pumps together till
they creaked.
“Other kings manage it,” went on the Maid of Honor accusingly; “they
have their personalities, their special diets, their favorite spa; they
invent a cravat or a new kind of soup, and it’s all very well. But
he--he doesn’t do one thing that’s _different_. It’s the Queen who
reigns, you know. It’s she” (was it a note of bitterness in the little
Maid’s voice?) “who has been straining every nerve to promote this
marriage of the Crown Prince with that Franconia girl. But he--he’s such
a piece of passivity, he won’t even say yes or no to the idea. All he
has energy to do, this whole month since I came to court, is to avoid
quarrelling. Any lazy person can do that.”
“But, _my dear_----”
“Oh”--the Maid of Honor heeded nothing but her own rising
indignation--“if he’d only get some spite in him, and quarrel like
the--like everything--why, it would be splendid! He’d be sublime! And if
he’d be wicked--you know what I mean, real, antique, Francis the First,
Henry the Eighth _wicked_--oh, then he’d immortalize himself. When one’s
genuinely wicked, one’s never forgotten, eh?” She turned confidently to
the Fool.
“Um-m. Not if one has a clever press-agent: biographer, that is to say.
However,” and, for a Fool, his voice grew quite gentle, “I am afraid
that Richard will never be so very wicked. You know he--he has loved a
woman.”
The Maid of Honor laughed.
“He has _loved_ a woman,” emphasized the Fool, “and for a man,
especially for a king, that is a very rare experience.”
“It was before Ermyntrude was born,” reminded the little old
Lady-in-Waiting, softly; and her pretty, faded eyes lost themselves in
the sunset. “Before even your mother came to be Mistress of the Robes to
his mother, my dear,” she drew the girl down beside her on the ancient
settle, “when I myself was a slip of a girl in the Palace at Camelot,
and the young Prince Richard barely through with his examinations. He
used to talk to me--ah, yes” (she sighed a little sadly) “then he was
not so quiet; he used to talk. And one day--it was in the summer, and
yes, in this very rose-garden--we had come up from Camelot for some
tournament--one day he told me he was in love. ‘Her name’s Rosemary,
Guarda,’ he said, ‘and her father is just a professor at the University’
(the little Maid winced). ‘Oh, Guarda, I _am_ glad I don’t have to
succeed--think, Guarda! I couldn’t marry Rosemary!’ And” (the sun or
something had got into the little old lady’s eyes, so that she had to
put up her hand to shield them) “just six months after that--one month
before he was going to marry Rosemary--the Crown Prince died, and then
his father, the old King; and now”--the fragile old hand fell back into
the Lady Guarda’s lap, with a limp little gesture of finality--“Richard
is married to a Princess. Perhaps that is why he is no more than a
King!”
“Yes”--the Maid of Honor’s voice sounded strangely subdued--“perhaps
that is why. See, they are coming out from vespers--shall we walk as far
as the gates, Lady Guarda?”
And as the two swept their soft trains down the fragrant allée, out of
the dim grey cloisters came a monarch and his court--a splendid panoply
of vivid color, mellowed by the dying sun, which cast its tenderness
over all the vast old garden, but lingered on the handsome impassive
features of the Man Who Came First--a handsome effigy.
“A mere bundle of robes----?” wondered his Fool--who knew him best.
* * * * *