relaxed limply in his; their hands were still in contact--but scarcely
so; and so remained while the _Attitudes_ of Barnard Haw held the stage.
IX
[Illustration]
There was a young wife behind the footlights explaining to a young man
who was not her husband that her marriage vows need not be too seriously
considered if he, the young man, found them too inconvenient. Which
scared the young man, who was plainly a purveyor of heated air and a
short sport. And, although she explained very clearly that if he needed
her in his business he had better say so quick, the author's invention
gave out just there and he called in the young wife's husband to help
him out.
And all the while the battery of round blue eyes gazed on unwinking; the
poet's dewlaps quivered with stored emotion, and the spellbound audience
breathed as people breathe when the hostess at table attempts to smooth
over a bad break by her husband.
"Is _that_ life?" whispered Cybele to Lethbridge, her sensitive mouth
aquiver. "Did the author actually know such people? Do _you_? Is
conscience really only an attitude? Is instinct the only guide? Am
_I_--really--bad----"
"No, no," whispered Lethbridge; "all that is only a dramatist's
attitude. Don't--don't look grieved! Why, every now and then some man
discovers he can attract more attention by standing on his head. That is
all--really, that is all. Barnard Haw on his feet is not amusing; but
the same gentleman on his head is worth an orchestra-chair. When a man
wears his trousers where other men wear their coats, people are bound to
turn around. It is not a new trick. Mystes, the Argive comic poet, and
the White Queen, taught this author the value of substituting 'is' for
'is not,' until, from standing so long inverted, he himself forgets what
he means, and at this point the eminent brothers Rogers take up the
important work.... Please, please, Cybele, _don't_ take it seriously!...
If you look that way--if you are unhappy, I--I----"
A gentle snore from the poet transfixed the firing-line, but the snore
woke up the poet and he mechanically pinched an atom out of the
atmosphere, blinking at the stage.
"Precious--very, very precious," he murmured drowsily. "Thank you--thank
everybody--" And he sank into an obese and noiseless slumber as the gray
and silver curtain slowly fell. The applause, far from rousing him,
merely soothed him; a honeyed smile hovered on his lips which formed the
words "Thank you." That was all; the firing-line stirred, breathed
deeply, and folded twelve soft white hands. Chlorippe, twelve, and
Philodice, thirteen, yawned, pink-mouthed, sleepy-eyed; Dione, fourteen,
laid her golden head on the shoulder of Aphrodite, fifteen.
The finger-tips of Lissa and Harrow still touched, scarcely clinging;
they had turned toward one another when the curtain fell. But the play,
to them, had been a pantomime of silhouettes, the stage, a void edged
with flame--the scene, the audience, the theater, the poet himself as
unreal and meaningless as the shadowy attitudes of the shapes that
vanished when the phantom curtain closed its folds.
And through the subdued light, turning noiselessly, they peered at one
another, conscious that naught else was real in the misty, golden-tinted
gloom; that they were alone together there in a formless, soundless
chaos peopled by shapes impalpable as dreams.
"_Now_ tell me," she said, her lips scarcely moving as the soft voice
stirred them like carmine petals stirring in a scented breeze.
"Tell you that it is--love?"
"Yes, tell me."
"That I love you, Lissa?"
"Yes; that!"
He stooped nearer; his voice was steady and very low, and she leaned
with bent head to listen, clear-eyed, intelligent, absorbed.
"So _that_ is love--what you tell me?"
"Yes--partly."
"And the other part?"
"The other part is when you find you love me."
"I--do. I think it must be love, because I can't bear to have you go
away. Besides, I wish you to tell me--things."
"Ask me."
"Well--when two--like you and me, begin to love--what happens?"
"We confess it----"
"I do; I'm not ashamed.... Should I be? And then?"
"Then?" he faltered.
"Yes; do we kiss?... For I am curious to have you do it--I am so certain
I shall adore you when you do.... I wish we could go away somewhere
together.... But we can't do that until I am a bride, can we? Oh--do you
really want me?"
"Can you ask?" he breathed.
"Ask? Yes--yes.... I love to ask! Your hand thrills me. We can't go away
now, can we? It took Iole so long to be permitted to go away with Mr.
Wayne--all that time lost in so many foolish ways--when a girl is so
impatient.... Is it not strange how my heart beats when I look into your
eyes? Oh, there can be no doubt about it, I am dreadfully in love....
And so quickly, too. I suppose it's because I am in such splendid
health; don't you?"
"I--I--well----"
"Oh, I _do_ want to get up at once and go away with you! _Can't_ we?
I could explain to father."
"Wait!" he gasped, "he--he's asleep. Don't speak--don't touch him."
"How unselfish you are," she breathed. "No, you are not hurting my
fingers. Tell me more--about love and the blessed years awaiting us, and
about our children--oh, is it not wonderful!"
"Ex--extremely," he managed to mutter, touching his suddenly dampened
forehead with his handkerchief, and attempting to set his thoughts in
some sort of order. He could not; the incoherence held him speechless,
dazed, under the magic of this superb young being instinct with the soft
fire of life.
Her loveliness, her innocence, the beautiful, direct gaze, the childlike
fulness of mouth and contour of cheek and throat, left him spellbound.
The very air around them seemed suffused with the vital glow of her
youth and beauty; each breath they drew increased their wonder, till the
whole rosy universe seemed thrilling and singing at their feet, and they
two, love-crowned, alone, saw Time and Eternity flowing like a golden
tide under the spell of Paradise.
"Jim!"
The hoarse whisper of Lethbridge shook the vision from him; he turned a
flushed countenance to his friend; but Cybele spoke:
"We are very tired sitting here. We would like to take some tea at
Sherry's," she whispered. "What do you think we had better do? It seems
so--so futile to sit here--when we wish to be alone together----"
"You and Henry, too!" gasped Harrow.
"Yes; do you wonder?" She leaned swiftly in front of him; a fragrant
breeze stirred his hair. "Lissa, I'm desperately infatuated with Mr.
Lethbridge. Do you see any use in our staying here when I'm simply dying
to have him all to myself somewhere?"
"No, it is silly. I wish to go, too. Shall we?"
"You need not go," began Cybele; then stopped, aware of the new magic in
her sister's eyes. "Lissa! Lissa!" she said softly. "_You_, too! Oh, my
dear--my dearest!"
"Dear, is it not heavenly? I--I--was quite sure that if I ever had a
good chance to talk to a man I really liked something would happen. And
it has."
"If Philodice might awaken father perhaps he would let us go now,"
whispered Cybele. "Henry says it does not take more than an hour----"
"To become a bride?"
"Yes; he knows a clergyman very near----"
"Do you?" inquired Lissa. Lethbridge nodded and gave a scared glance at
Harrow, who returned it as though stunned.
"But--but," muttered the latter, "your father doesn't know who we
are----"
"Oh, yes, he does," said Cybele calmly, "for he sent you the tickets and
placed us near you so that if we found that we liked you we might talk
to you----"
"Only he made a mistake in your name," added Lissa to Harrow, "for he
wrote 'Stanley West, Esq.' on the envelope. I know because I mailed it."
"Invited West--put _you_ where you could--good God!"
"What is the matter?" whispered Lissa in consternation; "have--have I
said anything I should not?" And, as he was silent: "What is it? Have I
hurt you--I who----"
There was a silence; she looked him through and through and, after a
while, deep, deep in his soul, she saw, awaking once again, all he had
deemed dead--the truth, the fearless reason, the sweet and faultless
instinct of the child whose childhood had become a memory. Then, once
more spiritually equal, they smiled at one another; and Lissa, pausing
to gather up her ermine stole, passed noiselessly out to the aisle,
where she stood, perfectly self-possessed, while her sister joined her,
smiling vaguely down at the firing-line and their lifted battery of
blue, inquiring eyes.
The poet--and whether he had slumbered or not nobody but himself is
qualified to judge--the poet pensively opened one eye and peeped at
Harrow as that young man bent beside him with Lethbridge at his elbow.
"In sending those two tickets you have taught us a new creed," whispered
Harrow; "you have taught us innocence and simplicity--you have taught us
to be ourselves, to scorn convention, to say and do what we believe.
Thank you."
"Dear friend," said the poet in an artistically-modulated whisper,
"I have long, long followed you in the high course of your career. To me
the priceless simplicity of poverty: to you the responsibility for
millions. To me the daisy, the mountain stream, the woodchuck and my
Art! To you the busy mart, the haunts of men, the ship of finance laden
with a nation's wealth, the awful burden of millions for which you are
answerable to One higher!" He raised one soft, solemn finger.
The young men gazed at one another, astounded. Lethbridge's startled
eyes said, "He still takes you for Stanley West!"
"Let him!" flashed the grim answer back from the narrowing gaze of
Harrow.
"Daughters," whispered the poet playfully, "are you so soon tired of the
brilliant gems of satire which our master dramatist scatters with a
lavish----"
"No," said Cybele; "we are only very much in love."
The poet sat up briskly and looked hard at Harrow.
"Your--your friend?" he began--"doubtless associated with you in the
high----"
"We are inseparable," said Harrow calmly, "in the busy marts."
The sweetness of the poet's smile was almost overpowering.
"To discuss this sudden--ah--condition which so--ah--abruptly confronts
a father, I can not welcome you to my little home in the wild--which I
call the House Beautiful," he said. "I would it were possible. There all
is quiet and simple and exquisitely humble--though now, through the
grace of my valued son, there is no mortgage hanging like the brand of
Damocles above our lowly roof. But I bid you welcome in the name of my
son-in-law, on whom--I should say, _with_ whom--I and my babes are
sojourning in this clamorous city. Come and let us talk, soul to soul,
heart to heart; come and partake of what simples we have. Set the day,
the hour. I thank you for understanding me."
"The hour," replied Harrow, "will be about five P.M. on Monday
afternoon.... You see, we are going out now to--to----"
"To marry each other," whispered Lissa with all her sweet fearlessness.
"Oh, dear! there goes that monotonous piano and we'll be blocking
people's view!"
The poet tried to rise upon his great flat feet, but he was wedged too
tightly; he strove to speak, to call after them, but the loud thumping
notes of the piano drowned his voice.
"Chlorippe! Dione! Philodice! Tell them to stop! Run after them and stay
them!" panted the poet.
"_You_ go!" pouted Dione.
"No, I don't want to," explained Chlorippe, "because the curtain is
rising."
"I'll go," sighed Philodice, rising to her slender height and moving up
the aisle as the children of queens moved once upon a time. She came
back presently, saying: "Dear me, they're dreadfully in love, and they
have driven away in two hansoms."
"Gone!" wheezed the poet.
"Quite," said Philodice, staring at the stage and calmly folding her
smooth little hands.
[Illustration]
X
[Illustration]
When the curtain at last descended upon the parting attitudes of the
players the poet arose with an alacrity scarcely to be expected in a
gentleman of his proportions. Two and two his big, healthy
daughters--there remained but four now--followed him to the lobby. When
he was able to pack all four into a cab he did so and sent them home
without ceremony; then, summoning another vehicle, gave the driver the
directions and climbed in.
Half an hour later he was deposited under the bronze shelter of the
porte-cochère belonging to an extremely expensive mansion overlooking
the park; and presently, admitted, he prowled ponderously and softly
about an over-gilded rococo reception-room. But all anxiety had now fled
from his face; he coyly nipped the atmosphere at intervals as various
portions of the furniture attracted his approval; he stood before a
splendid canvas of Goya and pushed his thumb at it; he moused and
prowled and peeped and snooped, and his smile grew larger and larger and
sweeter and sweeter, until--dare I say it!--a low smooth chuckle, all
but noiseless, rippled the heavy cheeks of the poet; and, raising his
eyes, he beheld a stocky, fashionably-dressed and red-faced man of forty
intently eying him. The man spoke decisively and at once:
"Mr. Guilford? Quite so. I am Mr. West."
"You are--" The poet's smile flickered like a sickly candle. "I--this
is--are you Mr. _Stanley_ West?"
"I am."
"It must--it probably was your son----"
"I am unmarried," said the president of the Occidental tartly, "and the
only Stanley West in the directory."
The poet swayed, then sat down rather suddenly on a Louis XIV chair
which crackled. Several times he passed an ample hand over his features.
A mechanical smile struggled to break out, but it was not _the_ smile,
any more than glucose is sugar.
"Did--ah--_did_ you receive two tickets for the New Arts
Theater--ah--Mr. West?" he managed to say at last.
"I did. Thank you very much, but I was not able to avail myself----"
"Quite so. And--ah--do you happen to know who it was that--ah--presented
your tickets and occupied the seats this afternoon?"
"Why, I suppose it was two young men in our employ--Mr. Lethbridge, who
appraises property for us, and Mr. Harrow, one of our brokers. May I ask
why?"
For a long while the poet sat there, eyes squeezed tightly closed as
though in bodily anguish. Then he opened one of them:
"They are--ah--quite penniless, I presume?"
"They have prospects," said West briefly. "Why?"
The poet rose; something of his old attitude returned; he feebly gazed
at a priceless Massero vase, made a half-hearted attempt to join thumb
and forefinger, then rambled toward the door, where two spotless
flunkies attended with his hat and overcoat.
"Mr. Guilford," said West, following, a trifle perplexed and remorseful,
"I should be very--er--extremely happy to subscribe to the New Arts
Theater--if that is what you wished."
"Thank you," said the poet absently as a footman invested him with a
seal-lined coat.
"Is there anything more I could do for you, Mr. Guilford?"
The poet's abstracted gaze rested on him, then shifted.
"I--I don't feel very well," said the poet hoarsely, sitting down in a
hall-seat. Suddenly he began to cry, fatly.
Nobody did anything; the stupefied footman gaped; West looked, walked
nervously the length of the hall, looked again, and paced the inlaid
floor to and fro, until the bell at the door sounded and a messenger-boy
appeared with a note scribbled on a yellow telegraph blank:
"Lethbridge and I just married and madly happy. Will be on hand
Monday, sure. Can't you advance us three months' salary?
"HARROW."
"Idiots!" said West. Then, looking up: "What are you waiting for, boy?"
"Me answer," replied the messenger calmly.
"Oh, you were told to bring back an answer?"
"Ya-as."
"Then give me your pencil, my infant Chesterfield." And West scribbled
on the same yellow blank:
"Checks for you on your desks Monday. Congratulations. I'll see you
through, you damfools.
"WEST."
"Here's a quarter for you," observed West, eying the messenger.
"T'anks. Gimme the note."
West glanced at the moist, fat poet; then suddenly that intuition which
is bred in men of his stamp set him thinking. And presently he
tentatively added two and two.
"Mr. Guilford," he said, "I wonder whether this note--and my answer to
it--concerns you."
The poet used his handkerchief, adjusted a pair of glasses, and blinked
at the penciled scrawl. Twice he read it; then, like the full sun
breaking through a drizzle--like the glory of a search-light dissolving
a sticky fog, _the_ smile of smiles illuminated everything: footmen,
messenger, financier.
"Thank you," he said thickly; "thank you for your thought. Thought is
but a trifle to bestow--a little thing in itself. But it is the little
things that are most important--the smaller the thing the more vital its
importance, until"--he added in a genuine burst of his old
eloquence--"the thing becomes so small that it isn't anything at all,
and then the value of nothing becomes so enormous that it is past all
computation. That is a very precious thought! Thank you for it; thank
you for understanding. Bless you!"
Exuding a rich sweetness from every feature the poet moved toward the
door at a slow fleshy waddle, head wagging, small eyes half closed,
thumbing the atmosphere, while his lips moved in wordless
self-communion: "The attainment of nothing at all--that is rarest, the
most precious, the most priceless of triumphs--very, very precious.
So"--and his glance was sideways and nimbly intelligent--"so if nothing
at all is of such inestimable value, those two young pups can live on
their expectations--_quod erat demonstrandum_."
He shuddered and looked up at the façade of the gorgeous house which he
had just quitted.
"So many sunny windows to sit in--to dream in. I--I should have found it
agreeable. Pups!"
Crawling into his cab he sank into a pulpy mound, partially closing his
eyes. And upon his pursed-up lips, unuttered yet imminent, a word
trembled and wabbled as the cab bounced down the avenue. It may have
been "precious"; it was probably "pups!"
[Illustration]
XI
[Illustration]
But there were further poignant emotions in store for the poet, for, as
his cab swung out of the avenue and drew up before the great house on
the southwest corner of Seventy-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, he
caught a glimpse of his eldest daughter, Iole, vanishing into the house,
and, at the same moment, he perceived his son-in-law, Mr. Wayne, paying
the driver of a hansom-cab, while several liveried servants bore
houseward the luggage of the wedding journey.
"George!" he cried dramatically, thrusting his head from the window of
his own cab as that vehicle drew up with a jolt that made his stomach
vibrate, "George! I am here!"
Wayne looked around, paid the hansom-driver, and, advancing slowly,
offered his hand as the poet descended to the sidewalk. "How are you?"
he inquired without enthusiasm as the poet evinced a desire to paw him.
"All is well here, I hope."
"George! Son!" The poet gulped till his dewlap contracted. He laid a
large plump hand on Wayne's shoulders. "Where are my lambs?" he
quavered; "where are they?"
"Which lambs?" inquired the young man uneasily. "If you mean Iole and
Vanessa----"
"No! My ravished lambs! Give me my stolen lambs. Trifle no longer with a
father's affections! Lissa!--Cybele! Great Heavens! Where are they?" he
sobbed hoarsely.
"Well, _where_ are they?" retorted his son-in-law, horrified. "Come into
the house; people in the street are looking."
In the broad hall the poet paused, staggered, strove to paw Wayne, then
attempted to fold his arms in an attitude of bitter scorn.
"Two penniless wastrels," he muttered, "are wedded to my lambs. But
there are laws to invoke----"
An avalanche of pretty girls in pink pajamas came tumbling down the
bronze and marble staircase, smothering poet and son-in-law in happy
embraces; and "Oh, George!" they cried, "how sunburned you are! So is
Iole, but she is too sweet! Did you have a perfectly lovely honeymoon?
When is Vanessa coming? And how is Mr. Briggs? And--oh, do you know the
news? Cybele and Lissa married two such extremely attractive young men
this afternoon----"
"Married!" cried Wayne, releasing Dione's arms from his neck. "_Whom_
did they marry?"
"Pups!" sniveled the poet--"penniless, wastrel pups!"
"Their names," said Aphrodite coolly, from the top of the staircase,
"are James Harrow and Henry Lethbridge. I wish there had been three----"
"Harrow! Lethbridge!" gasped Wayne. "When"--he turned helplessly to the
poet--"when did they do this?"
Through the gay babble of voices and amid cries and interruptions, Wayne
managed to comprehend the story. He tried to speak, but everybody except
the poet laughed and chatted, and the poet, suffused now with a sort of
sad sweetness, waved his hand in slow unctuous waves until even the
footmen's eyes protruded.
"It's all right," said Wayne, raising his voice; "it's topsyturvy and
irregular, but it's all right. I've known Harrow and Leth--For Heaven's
sake, Dione, don't kiss me like that; I want to talk!--You're hugging me
too hard, Philodice. Oh, Lord! _will_ you stop chattering all together!
I--I--Do you want the house to be pinched?"
He glanced up at Aphrodite, who sat astride the banisters lighting a
cigarette. "Who taught you to do that?" he cried.
"I'm sixteen, now," she said coolly, "and I thought I'd try it."
Her voice was drowned in the cries and laughter; Wayne, with his hands
to his ears, stared up at the piquant figure in its pink pajamas and
sandals, then his distracted gaze swept the groups of parlor maids and
footmen around the doors: "Great guns!" he thundered, "this is the limit
and they'll pull the house! Morton!"--to a footman--"ring up 7--00--9B
Murray Hill. My compliments and congratulations to Mr. Lethbridge and to
Mr. Harrow, and say that we usually dine at eight! Philodice! stop that
howling! Oh, just you wait until Iole has a talk with you all for
running about the house half-dressed----"
"I _won't_ wear straight fronts indoors, and my garters hurt!" cried
Aphrodite defiantly, preparing to slide down the banisters.
"Help!" said Wayne faintly, looking from Dione to Chlorippe, from
Chlorippe to Philodice, from Philodice to Aphrodite. "I won't have my
house turned into a confounded Art Nouveau music hall. I tell you----"
"Let _me_ tell them," said Iole, laughing and kissing her hand to the
poet as she descended the stairs in her pretty bride's traveling gown.
She checked Aphrodite, looked wisely around at her lovely sisters, then
turned to remount the stairs, summoning them with a gay little
confidential gesture.
And when the breathless crew had trooped after her, and the pad of
little, eager, sandaled feet had died away on the thick rugs of the
landing above, the poet, clasping his fat white hands, thumbs joined,
across his rotund abdomen, stole a glance at his dazed son-in-law, which
was partly apprehensive and partly significant, almost cunning. "An
innocent saturnalia," he murmured. "The charming abandon of children."
He unclasped one hand and waved it. "Did you note the unstudied beauty
of the composition as my babes glided in and out following the natural
and archaic yet exquisitely balanced symmetry of the laws which govern
mass and line composition, all unconsciously, yet perhaps"--he reversed
his thumb and left his sign manual upon the atmosphere--"perhaps," he
mused, overflowing with sweetness--"perhaps the laws of Art Nouveau are
divine!--perhaps angels and cherubim, unseen, watch fondly o'er my
babes, lest all unaware they guiltlessly violate some subtle canon of
Art, marring the perfect symmetry of eternal preciousness."
Wayne's mouth was partly open, his eyes hopeless yet fixed upon the poet
with a fearful fascination.
"Art," breathed the poet, "is a solemn, a fearful responsibility. _You_
are responsible, George, and some day you must answer for every
violation of Art, to the eternal outraged fitness of things. _You_ must
answer, _I_ must answer, every soul must answer!"
"A-ans--answer! What, for God's sake?" stammered Wayne.
The poet, deliberately joining thumb and forefinger, pinched out a
portion of the atmosphere.
"That! _That_ George! For that is Art! And Art is justice! And justice,
affronted, demands an answer."