THE GREAT ASSAY OF ART
Macbeth, iv. 3.
"I am sorry if I kept you waiting," Mrs. Wilson said to her husband,
coming into the library one afternoon, "but the fact is that I was
dressing for a comedy." "Gad! you dress for a comedy every day, as far
as that goes."
She made a mocking courtesy.
"Well, what is life without comedy?"
"Oh, nothing but a bore, of course. Is this comedy with some of your
ministerial hangers-on?"
She sat down by the fire and stretched out her feet upon a hassock. She
was radiant with beauty and mischief, and dressed to perfection.
"That isn't a respectful way to speak of the clergy."
"It's as respectful as I feel," he responded, lighting a pipe. "You do
have a nice gang of them round. There's Candish, for instance. He looks
like an advertisement for a misfit tailor, and he's fairly putrid with
philanthropy."
Elsie gave a quick burst of laughter. Then she pretended to frown.
"Chauncy," she said, "you have the most abominable way of putting
things that I ever heard. What would you say to the youngsters from the
Clergy House that I have in train? They're perfect lambs, and they love
each other like twins. Have you seen them?"
"Oh, yes; I've seen them. They seem to have been brought up on
sterilized milk of the gospel, and to have Jordan water for blood."
"Oh, don't be too sure. You can't tell from a man's looks how red his
blood is, especially if he's a priest. I suppose it's the men that have
to hold themselves in hardest that make the best ministers."
"I dare say," he answered indifferently. "Priest-craft has always been
clever enough to see that unless the things it called sins were natural
and inevitable its occupation would be gone. However, as long as folks
will follow after them they'd be foolish to give up their trade."
"Of course," his wife assented laughingly. "You won't get a rise out of
me, my dear boy."
Dr. Wilson chuckled.
"You're a devilish humbug," he remarked admiringly; "but you do manage
to get a lot of fun out of it."
She smoothed her gown a moment, half smiling and half grave.
"Of course it's of no use to tell you that in spite of all my fun I'm
serious at bottom," she said slowly; "but it's a fact all the same. I
don't take things with doleful solemnity like the old tabbies; but
that's no sign that I'm not just as sincere. It's no matter, though;
you won't believe it. What did you want to see me about?"
"Oh, it was about those mortgages. I saw Lincoln this morning, and he
has heard from Mrs. Frostwinch. She insists upon paying them off."
"Then there isn't any truth in the story that that Sampson woman is
circulating that Anna is going to build a spiritual temple or
something. I never believed that Anna could be such an idiot as to give
her money for anything so vulgar."
"The whole thing is nonsensical on the face of it," was his response.
"Mrs. Frostwinch can't build churches, let alone temples, if there's
any difference."
"Oh, in these days," Elsie interpolated, "a temple is only a church
_declasse_."
"She has only a life interest in the property," Wilson went on.
"Berenice Morison is residuary legatee of almost everything, unless
Mrs. Frostwinch has saved up her income."
The talk ran on business for a few moments, Wilson advising with
shrewdness, and practically deciding the matter for his wife.
"I suppose," he said, when this was disposed of, "that Mrs. Frostwinch
is too much wrapped up in faith-cure nonsense to take much interest in
your holy war against Strathmore."
"She isn't so much wrapped up in that stuff as you think. Dear Anna
hasn't any sense of humor, but she's a model of propriety, and she's
constantly shocked at herself for being alive by a treatment so
irregular. She was mortified beyond words when that Crapps woman gave a
treatment to Mrs. Bodewin Ranger's dog."
"That snarling little black devil that's always under foot at the
Rangers'? Gad! I'd like to give it a treatment!"
"It got its ear hurt somehow, and Mrs. Crapps pretended to cure it.
Mrs. Ranger was all but in tears over it, she was so grateful. Anna was
entirely disgusted. She told Mrs. Crapps that she hadn't known before
that she was in the hands of a veterinary."
Dr. Wilson smoked in silence for a moment. The fire of soft coal purred
in the grate, the smoke from his pipe ascended in the warm air. The
thin sunshine of the winter afternoon filtered in through the windows,
and made bright patches on the rugs.
"By the way," Wilson asked lazily, "how is the campaign going? I
haven't heard anything interesting about it for some time."
"Oh, things are moving on. The man I sent up to canvass the western
part of the state--one of your sterilized milk-of-the-word babies, you
know,--got smashed up in the accident; but he'll be back in a few days.
Cousin Anna has brought her pensioners into line beautifully. There's
no doubt that we'll carry the convention."
"What happens after that?"
"The election has to be ratified by a majority of bishops; but of
course they'll hardly dare to go against the convention, even if they
want to."
"It would make things much more interesting if they'd do it, and get up
a scandal," commented the doctor. "You'll get bored to death with the
whole thing if something exciting doesn't turn up."
"I had half a mind to get up a scandal myself with Mr. Strathmore,"
Elsie said with a laugh; "but I confess I should be afraid of that
she-dragon of a wife of his."
"It's devilish interesting to know that you are afraid of anybody."
"At least," she went on, "I could go to New York and see Bishop
Candace. I can wind him round my finger. I'd tell him what Mrs.
Strathmore said about his Easter sermon last year. With a little
judicious comment that would do a good deal. I never yet saw a man that
couldn't be managed through his vanity."
"I suppose that explains why I'm as clay in your hands."
"Oh, you're not a man; you're a monster," she retorted, rising. "Well,
I must go and prepare for my comedy."
He regarded her with a look of evident admiration; a look not without a
savor of the sense of ownership, and, too, not entirely devoid of
good-natured insolence.
"You are devilishly well dressed for it," he observed.
"Thank you," returned Elsie, sweeping him a courtesy again. "The wife
that can win compliments from her own husband has indeed scored a
triumph."
Dr. Wilson puffed out a cloud of smoke with a characteristic chuckle.
"I have to admire you to justify my own taste. But you haven't told me
about the comedy."
She thrust forward one of her pretty slippers.
"Do you see that?" she demanded.
"I suppose you expect me to say that I see the prettiest foot in
Boston."
"Thank you again, but I'm not yet reduced to trying to drag compliments
out of you, Chauncy. I sha'n't do that till the other men fail me. It's
the slipper I wanted you to notice, and these ravishing stockings."
"If the comedy has stockings in it," he began; but she stopped him.
"There, no impudence," she said. "Did you ever see anything so entirely
heavenly as those stockings and slippers? I declare I've wanted ever
since I put them on to keep my feet on the table to look at."
"You might do worse."
"Oh, I'm going to."
"Indeed! It's apparently getting time for me to interfere. What's your
game?"
"I'm going to squelch that detestable Fred Rangely."
"How?"
"My slippers," Elsie said vivaciously, again thrusting one of them
forward, "are ravishing."
"Gad," her husband returned, regarding her with a look of the utmost
amusement in his topaz-brown eyes, "you have a good deal to say about
them."
"Do you notice anything particular about my hair?" she asked.
"It looks as if it might come down."
"It will come down," she corrected, nodding. Then she glanced at the
clock. "It will come down in about twenty minutes; all tumbling over my
shoulders. I shall be so mortified and surprised!"
Her husband stretched himself luxuriously back in his chair, regarding
her with laughing eyes. There was an air of perfect understanding
between the two which might have been an effectual enlightenment for
any man who thought of making love to the wife. Elsie went on, telling
off on her slender fingers the points as she made them.
"In fifteen minutes I shall be standing on the piano in the
drawing-room, straightening a picture. I never can bear a picture
crooked, and I had Jane tip it a little this morning, just to vex me.
Fred Rangely will come in unannounced. Of course I shall be dreadfully
confused, and have to get down. In my maidenly confusion I am almost
sure I can't help showing my slippers, and just a trifle--a very
discreet trifle, of course,--of these beautiful, beautiful stockings.
Nothing vulgar, you know, but"--
"But just enough," interpolated Wilson with huge enjoyment. "You
needn't apologize. I don't begrudge the poor devil whatever
satisfaction he can get out of that."
"And then as he is helping me down, with his heart in a flutter,--it
will flutter, I assure you."
"You mean his vanity; but it's of no consequence. He'd call it a heart
if he were putting the scene in a novel."
"With his whichever it is in a flutter, by some provoking accident down
comes my hair and tumbles over his shoulders."
Wilson regarded her with amused admiration.
"Five years ago," he observed placidly, "I should have thought you were
telling me half the truth to cover the other half, and were really
having a devilish flirtation with that cad."
Elsie flushed, and into her gay voice came a strain of seriousness.
"Five years are five years," she answered. "Don't go to dragging all
that up again, Chauncy."
His laugh was not untinged with malicious delight, but he put his hand
on hers and patted her fingers.
"All right, old girl. Bygones are bygones. But what in the world is all
this fooling with Rangely for?"
"Why, don't you see? The fool is sure to say something so silly that I
can snub him within an inch of his life. I've only been holding off
until he had that thing written for the Churchman. Now I've got that,
I'll settle him."
"Oh, the gratitude of women!"
"Why, it isn't that. He needn't be smirking at me the way he does. I
simply won't stand it. Besides, he makes eyes at me wherever I go, just
to advertise the fact that he's silly about me. He's a cad, through and
through. Would you come here as he does if I refused to invite your
wife?"
Chauncy Wilson laughed again, leaning forward to knock the ashes out of
his pipe.
"He's a fool, fast enough; and I dare say you're tired of his beastly
spooning; but all the same, the real reason for this circus is that you
want to amuse yourself."
She drew up her head in mock dignity.
"Of course," she returned, "if my own husband does not appreciate how I
resent"--She broke off in a burst of laughter. "Nobody ever understood
me but you, Chauncy," she cried. "Good-by. It's time I took the stage."
She threw him a kiss, and went to the drawing-room. Looking at her
watch, she placed herself behind the curtains of a window which
commanded the avenue. Presently she espied her victim, and with a last
glance around to assure herself that everything was as she wished it to
be, she mounted to the top of the piano. There she hastily tucked the
hem of her skirt between the piano and the wall. The reflection in a
great blue-black Chinese jar showed her when Rangely appeared between
the portieres, so that she was able to step back as if to view the
effect of her work just as he reached the middle of the room.
"Be careful!" exclaimed he, hurrying forward. "You almost stepped off
backward!"
She wheeled about quickly.
"O Mr. Rangely!" she cried. "How did you get into the room without my
knowing? How horrid of you to surprise me like that!"
"But think how charming it is for me," he responded with an elaborate
air of gallantry. "It is so delightful to see you on a pedestal."
"Meaning that I am no better than a graven image?" she demanded with a
smile. "If that is the best you can do, I may as well come down."
She held out her hand for his, and then sat down, displaying one of the
fascinating slippers, and the openwork instep of her silk stocking,
through the meshes of which the pearly skin gleamed evasively.
"My dress is caught," she said, turning to conceal her face, and
pretending to pull at her skirt. "I hope my slippers haven't damaged
the piano."
"The piano is harder than my heart if they haven't!"
She gave a sly twitch at a hairpin.
"That is very pretty," observed she, giving her head a shake that
brought her hair down in a rolling billow. "Oh, dear! Now my hair has"--
Before she could finish he had dropped her fingers, and gathered her
hair in both hands, kissing it again and again.
"Mr. Rangely!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
For reply he stooped to her foot, and kissed the mesh-clad instep
fervidly.
"How dare you!" she cried, scrambling down hastily without his
assistance.
But, alas, even trickery is not always successful in this uncertain
world! The hold of the piano upon the hem of her gown was stronger than
she realized. She tripped and stumbled, half-hung for a second, and
then dropped in an inglorious heap at the feet of the man she wished to
humiliate.
Elsie was on her feet in a minute. She did not take the hand which
Rangely extended, but drew back, her eyes sparkling with rage.
"Oh, you find it laughable, do you?" she cried. "A gentleman would at
least have concealed his amusement!"
He grew suddenly grave, and seemed not a little surprised.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I hope you were not hurt."
She looked at him scornfully without replying, and then walked to the
mantel, where there was a small antique mirror of silver.
"Thank you, not in the least."
Her tone was no warmer than an arctic night. She gathered her hair, and
began to twist it up. He followed and stood behind her with an air at
once deprecatory and insinuating.
"I shouldn't think you could see in that thing," he observed.
She took no notice of his words.
"If I laughed," continued he, "it was only from nervousness. I was
carried away"--
"I observed that you were," she interrupted icily.
He stood awkwardly a moment, while she finished putting up her hair.
Then, as she turned toward him, he smiled again, holding out his hand.
"Surely you are not angry with me," he pleaded. "I care more for your
feeling toward me than for anything else in the world."
"It would amuse Mrs. Rangely to hear you say so, not to mention my
husband."
He stared at her with the air of a man not sure whether he is awake or
dreaming.
"What are they to us?" he asked, sinking his voice almost to a whisper.
"Mrs. Rangely may be nothing to you, but Dr. Wilson is still a good
deal to me, thank you."
He looked at her again with perplexity in his glance, but with his face
hardening.
"You surely cannot mean that you have ceased to care for me just for a
second of meaningless laughter?"
She swept him a scornful courtesy.
"You do these things better in your novels, Mr. Rangely, which shows
what an advantage it is to have time to think speeches over. I wouldn't
have my hero say a thing like that, if I were you. It would make him
seem like a conceited cad."
The insolence of her manner was such as no man could bear. Rangely
crimsoned to the temples. He paced across the room, while she coolly
seated herself in a great Venetian chair, and began to play with a
little jade image. He came back to her, and stood a moment as if he
could not find words.
"Why don't you go?" she asked, looking up at him as if he were a
servant sent upon an errand.
"Because," he broke out angrily, "when I go I shall not come back; and
I should like to understand this thing."
She shrugged her shoulders, and leaned back in her chair, looking him
over from head to foot.
"Why you quarrel with me is more than I know," he went on. "You've got
tired of me, I suppose, and want to amuse yourself with another man."
The red flushed in her cheek.
"If my husband, who you say is nothing to us, were here," she said, "he
would horsewhip you."
The other laughed savagely.
"He is not here, however, so you may digest my remark at your leisure."
Mrs. Wilson rose from her seat with an air of dignity which was really
imposing.
"Mr. Rangely," she said, "it is not my custom to bandy words, even with
my equals. I have allowed you the freedom of my house because I was
willing to help you in your desire to be useful to Father Frontford.
You have taken advantage of my kindness to insult me. This seems to me
sufficiently to explain the situation."
He stared at her a moment in evident amazement. Then he burst into
hoarse laughter.
"My desire to be useful to Father Frontford!" he echoed. "That is the
best yet! You know I cared nothing about your pottering old church
politics except to please you."
"I see that I was deceived completely," she responded coldly.
She crossed the room and pressed an ivory button.
"Deceived!" he sneered. "It would take a clever man to deceive you."
She looked not at him, but beyond him. He turned, and saw a footman in
the doorway.
"The gentleman wishes to be shown out, Forrester," said she.
She held the tips of her fingers to Rangely.
"Thank you so much for coming," she murmured in her most conventional
manner.
"The pleasure has been mine," he responded.
They both bowed, and Rangely followed the footman.