made her way after her meeting with Mr. Gallatin in the Park. After
one quick look over her shoulder in the direction from which she had
come, she walked up the driveway hurriedly and rang the bell, entering
the glass vestibule, from which, while she waited for the door to be
opened, she peered furtively forth. A man in livery took the leashes of
the poodles from her hand and closed the door behind her.
“Has Mother come in, Hastings?”
“Yes, Miss Loring. She has been asking for you.”
Miss Loring climbed the marble stairway that led to the second floor,
but before she reached the landing, a voice sounded in her ears, a thin
voice pitched in a high key of nervous tension.
“Jane! Where _have_ you been? Don’t you know that we’re going to the
theatre with the Dorsey-Martin’s to-night? Madame Thiebout has been
waiting for you for at least an hour. What has kept you so long?”
“I was walking, Mother,” said the girl. “I have a headache. I--I’m not
going to-night.”
Mrs. Loring’s hands flew up in horrified protest. “There!” she cried.
“I knew it. If it hadn’t been a headache, it would have been something
else. It’s absurd, child. Why, we _must_ go. You _know_ how important
it is for us to keep in with the Dorsey-Martins. It’s the first time
they’ve asked us to anything, and it means so much in every way.”
Miss Loring by this time had walked toward the door of her own room,
for her mother’s voice when raised, was easily heard in every part of
the big house.
“I’m not going out to-night, Mother,” she repeated quietly, shutting
the door behind them.
“Jane,” Mrs. Loring cried petulantly. “Mrs. Dorsey-Martin is counting
on you. She’s asked some people especially to meet you--the Perrines,
the Endicotts, and Mr. Van Duyn, and you know how much _he_ will be
disappointed. Lie down on the couch for a moment, and take something
for your nerves. You’ll feel better soon, that’s a dear girl.”
The unhappy lady put her arm around her daughter’s waist and led her
toward the divan.
“I knew you would, Jane dear. There. You’ve got so much good sense----”
Miss Loring sank listlessly on the couch, her gaze fixed on the
flowered hangings at her windows. Her body had yielded to her mother’s
insistence, but her thoughts were elsewhere. But as Mrs. Loring moved
toward the bell to call the maid, her daughter stopped her with a
gesture.
“It isn’t any use, Mother. I’m not going,” she said wearily.
The older woman stopped and looked at her daughter aghast.
“You really mean it, Jane! You ungrateful girl! I’ve always said
that you were eccentric, but you’re obstinate, too, and self-willed.
A headache!” scornfully. “Why, last year I went to the opera in Mrs.
Poultney’s box when I thought I should _die_ at any moment! I don’t
believe you have a headache. You’re lying to me--hiding inside yourself
the way you always do when I want your help and sympathy most. I don’t
understand you at all. You’re no daughter of mine. When I’m trying
so hard to give you your proper place in the world, to have you meet
the people who will do us the most good! It’s a shame, I tell you, to
treat me so. Why did I bring you up with so much care? See that your
associates out home should be what I thought proper for a girl with the
future that your father was making for you? Why did I take you abroad
and give you all the advantages of European training and culture? Have
you taught music and French and art? For _this_? To find that your
only pleasure is in books and walks in the Park--and in the occasional
visits of the friends of your youth whom you should long since have
outgrown? It’s an outrage to treat me so--an outrage!”
Unable longer to control the violence of her emotions, the poor woman
sank into a chair and burst into tears. Miss Loring rose slowly and put
her arms around her mother’s shoulders.
“Don’t, Mother!” she said softly. “You mustn’t cry about me. I’m not
really as bad as you think I am. I’m not worth bothering about, though.
But what does it matter--this time?”
“It--it’s always--this time,” she wept.
“No--I’ll go anywhere you like, but not to-night. I _do_ feel badly. I
_really_ do. I--I’m not quite up to seeing a lot of people. Don’t cry,
dear. You know it will make your eyes red.”
Mrs. Loring set up quickly and touched her eyes with her handkerchief.
“Yes, yes; I know it does. I don’t see how you can hurt me so. I
suppose my complexion is ruined and I’ll look like an old hag. It’s a
pity! Just after Thiebout had taken such pains with me, too.”
“Oh, no, Mother, you’re all right. You always did look younger than I
do--and besides you light up so, at night.”
Mrs. Loring rose and examined her face in a mirror. “Oh, well! I
suppose I’ll have to go without you. But I won’t forget it, Jane. It
does really seem as though the older I get the less my wishes are
considered. But I’ll do my duty as I see it, in spite of you. Do you
suppose I had your father build this house just for me to sit in and
look out of the windows at the passersby? Not I. Until we came to New
York I spent all of my life looking at the gay world out of windows.
I’m tired of playing second-fiddle.”
Jane Loring stood before her mother and touched her timidly on the arm.
The physical resemblance between them was strong, and it was easily
seen where the daughter got her beauty. Mrs. Loring had reached middle
life very prettily, and at a single impression it was difficult to tell
whether she was nearer thirty-three or fifty-three. Her skin was of
that satiny quality which wrinkles depress but do not sear. Her nose
was slightly aquiline like her daughter’s, but the years had thinned
her lips and sharpened her chin, the lines at her mouth were querulous
rather than severe, and when her face was placid, her forehead was
as smooth as that of her daughter. She was not a woman who had ever
suffered deeply, or who ever would, and the petty annoyances which add
small wrinkles to the faces of women of her years had left no marks
whatever. But since the family had been in New York Jane had noticed
new lines between her brows as though her eyes, like those of a person
traveling upon an unfamiliar road, were trying for a more concentrated
and narrow vision; and as she turned from the mirror toward the light,
it seemed to Jane that she had grown suddenly old.
“Mother, dear, you mustn’t let trifles disturb you so. It will age
you frightfully! You know how people are always saying that you look
younger than I do. I don’t want to worry you. I’ll do whatever you
like, go wherever you like, but not to-night----”
“What is the matter, Jane? Has anything happened?”
“Oh, no, I--I don’t feel very well. It’s nothing at all. I’ll be all
right to-morrow. But you must go without me. There’s to be supper
afterward, isn’t there?”
“Oh, yes.” And then despairingly: “You always have your own way, in the
end.”
She kissed the girl coldly on the brow and turned toward the door.
“You must hurry now,” said Jane. “Mr. Van Duyn will be coming soon, and
dinner is early. Good night, dear. I won’t be down to-night. I think
I’ll lie down for awhile.”
Mrs. Loring turned one more helpless look in Jane’s direction and then
went out of the room.
When the door had closed, Jane Loring turned the key in the lock, then
sank at full length on the couch, and seemed to be asleep; but her
head, though supported by her arms, was rigid and her eyes, wide open,
were staring at vacancy. In the hall outside she heard the fall of
footsteps, the whisper of servants and the commotion of her mother’s
descent to dinner. A hurdy-gurdy around the corner droned a popular
air, a distant trolley-bell clanged and an automobile, exhaust open,
dashed by the house. These sounds were all familiar here, and yet she
heard them all; for they helped to silence the echoes of a voice that
still persisted in her ears, a low sonorous voice, whose tones rose and
fell like the sighing of Kee-way-din in the pine-trees of the frozen
North. Her thoughts flew to that distant spot among the trees, and she
saw the shimmer of the leaves in the morning sunlight, heard the call
of the birds and the whispering of the stream. It was cold up there
now, so bleak and cold. By this time a white brush had painted out the
glowing canvas of summer and left no sign of what was beneath. And yet
somewhere hidden there, as in her heart, beneath that chill mantle was
the dust of a fire--the gray cinders, the ashes of a dead faith, and
Kee-way-din moaned above them.
A tiny clock upon the mantle chimed the hour. Miss Loring moved
stiffly, and sat suddenly upright. She got up at last and putting on a
loose robe, went to her dressing table, her chin high, her eye gleaming
coldly at the pale reflection there. The blood of the Gallatins! Did he
think the magic of his name could make her forget the brute in him, the
beast in him, that kissed and spoke of love while the thin blood of the
Gallatins seethed in its poison? What had the blood of the Gallatins to
do with her? Honor, virtue, truth? He had spoken of these. What right
had he to use them to one who had an indelible record of his infamy?
His kisses were hot on her mouth even now--kisses that desecrated, that
profaned the words he uttered. Those kisses! The memory of them stifled
her. She brushed her bare arm furiously across her lips as she had done
a hundred times before. Lying kisses, traitorous kisses, scourging
kisses, between which he had dared to speak of love! If he had not done
that, she might even have forgiven him the physical contact that had
defamed her womanhood. And yet to-night he had spoken those same words
again, repeated them with a show of warmth, that his depravity might
have some palliation and excuse. He could, it seemed, be as insolent as
he was brutal.
Determined to think of him no more, she rang for her maid and ordered
dinner. Then, book in hand, she went down stairs. Mr. Van Duyn, she was
relieved to think, had departed with Mrs. Loring, and she smiled almost
gaily at the thought that this evening at least was her own. As she
passed into the library, she saw that a bright light was burning in her
father’s study, and she peeped in at the door.
It was not a large room, the smallest one, in fact, upon the lower
floor, but unlike most of the other rooms, it had a distinct
personality. The furniture--chairs, desks, and bookcases--was massive,
almost too heavy to make for architectural accordance, and this defect
was made more conspicuous by the delicacy and minuteness of the
ornaments. There were two glass cases on a heavy table filled with the
most exquisite ivories, most of them Japanese, an Ormolu case with a
glass top enclosing snuff-boxes and miniatures. Three Tanagra figures
graced one bookcase and upon another were several microscopes of
different sizes. The pictures on the walls, each of them furnished with
a light-reflector, were small with elaborately carved gold frames--a
few of them landscapes, but most of them “genre” paintings, with many
small figures.
Before one discovered the owner of this room one would have decided
at once that he must be smallish, slender, with stooping shoulders,
gold-rimmed eye-glasses, a jeweled watch-fob and, perhaps, a squint;
and the massive appearance of the present occupant would have
occasioned more than a slight shock of surprise. When Jane looked
in, Henry K. Loring sat on the very edge of a wide arm chair, with a
magnifying glass in his hand carefully examining a small oil painting
which was propped up under a reading light on another chair in front
of him. People who knew him only in his business capacity might have
been surprised at his quiet and critical delight in this studious
occupation, for down town he was best known by a brisk and summary
manner, a belligerent presence and a strident voice which smacked of
the open air. His bull-like neck was set deep in his wide shoulders as
his keen eyes peered under their bushy eyebrows at the object in front
of him. He was so absorbed that he did not hear the light patter of his
daughter’s footsteps, and did not move until he heard the sound of her
voice.
“Well, Daddy!” she said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
His round head turned slowly as though on a pivot.
“Hello, Jane! Feeling better?” He raised his chin and winked one eye
expressively.
“I thought you were going--with Mother,” said Miss Loring.
“Lord, no! You know I--” and he laughed. “_I_ had a headache, too.”
The girl smiled guiltily, but she came over and sat upon the arm of the
chair, and laid her hand along her father’s shoulder.
“Another picture! Oh, Daddy, such extravagance! Aren’t you ashamed of
yourself? So _that’s_ why you stole away from the Dorsey-Martin’s----”
“It’s another Verbeckhoeven, Jane,” he chuckled delightedly. “A perfect
wonder! The best he ever did, I’m sure! Come, sit down here and look at
it.”
Jane sank to the floor in front of the painting and reached for the
enlarging glass. But he held it away from her.
“No, no,” he insisted. “Wait, first tell me how many things you can see
with the naked eye.”
“A horse, a cow, a man lying on the grass, trees, distant haystacks and
a windmill,” she said slowly.
“And is that all?” he laughed.
“No, a saddle on the ground, a rooster on the fence--yes--and some
sheep at the foot of the hill.”
“Nothing more?”
“No, I don’t think so--except the buckles on the harness and the birds
flying near the pigeon-cote.”
“Yes--yes--is that all?”
“Yes, I’m sure it is.”
“You’re blind as a bat, girl,” he roared delightedly. “Look through
this and see!” and he handed her the glass. “Buckles on the horses!
Examine it! Don’t you see the pack thread it’s sewed with? And the
saddle gall on the horse’s back? And the crack in the left fore-hoof?
Did you ever see anything more wonderful? Now look into the distance
and tell me what else.”
“Haymakers,” gasped Miss Loring. “Two women, a man and--and, yes, a
child. I couldn’t see them at all. There’s a rake and pitch fork,
too----”
“And beyond?”
“Dykes and the sails of ships--a town and a tower with a cupola!”
“Splendid! And that’s only half. I’ve been looking at it for an hour
and haven’t found everything yet. I’ll show them to you--see----”
And one by one he proudly revealed his latest discoveries. His passion
for the minute almost amounted to an obsession, and the appearance
of his large bulk poring over some delicate object of art was no
unfamiliar one to Jane, but she always humored him, because she knew
that, although he was proud of his great house, here was the real
interest that he found in it. His business enthralled him, but it
made him merciless, too, and in this harmless hobby his daughter had
discovered a humanizing influence which she welcomed and encouraged. It
gave them points of contact from which Mrs. Loring was far removed, and
Jane was always the first person in the household to share the delights
of his latest acquisitions. But to-night she was sure that her duty
demanded a mild reproof.
“It’s an astonishing picture, Daddy, but I’m sure we’ve both treated
Mother very badly. You know you promised her----”
“So did you----”
“But I--I felt very badly.”
“So did I,” he chuckled, “very badly.” He put his arm around his
daughter’s shoulders and drew her closer against his knees. “Oh, Jane,
what’s the use? Life’s too short to do a lot of things you don’t want
to do. Your mother likes to go around. Let her buzz, she likes it.”
“Perhaps she does,” Jane reproved him. “But then you and I have our
duty.”
“Don’t let that worry you, child. I do my duty--but I do it in a
different way. Your mother stalks her game in its native wild. I don’t.
I wait by the water hole until it comes to drink, and then I kill it.”
“But people here must have some assurance that new families are
acceptable----”
“Don’t worry about that, either. We’ll do, I guess. And when I want to
go anywhere, or want my family to go anywhere, I ask, that’s all. The
women don’t run New York society. They only think they do. If there’s
any house you want to go to or any people you want to come to see us,
you tell _me_ about it. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but
my way is the quickest. I’m not going to have you hanging on the outer
fringe. You can be the jewel and the ornament of the year. Even Mrs.
Suydam will take you under her wing, if you want her to.”
“But I don’t want to be under any one’s wing. I might turn out to be
the ugly duckling.”
He pressed her fondly in his great arms. “You are--a duckling--it’s a
pity you’re so ugly.” He laughed at his joke and broke off and seized
the glass from her fingers.
“Jane,” he cried, “you didn’t find the woman inside the farmhouse! And
the jug on the bench beside----”
But Miss Loring’s thoughts were elsewhere.
“Daddy, I don’t want people to come to see me, unless I like them,” she
went on slowly, “and I don’t want to go to peoples’ houses just because
they’re fashionable houses. I want to choose my friends for myself.”
“You shall!” he muttered, laying down his glass with a sigh and putting
his arm around her again. And then with a lowered voice, “You haven’t
seen anybody you--you really like yet, daughter, have you?”
“No,” said Miss Loring, with a positiveness which startled him. “No
one--not a soul.”
“Not Coleman Van Duyn----”
“Daddy!” she cried. “Of course not!”
“And no one else?”
“No one else.”
He grunted comfortably. “I’m glad of that. I haven’t seen anybody good
enough for you yet. I’m glad it’s not Van Duyn--or young Sackett. I
thought, perhaps, you had,” he finished.
“Why?”
“You’ve been so quiet lately.”
“Have I?” she smiled into the fire. “I didn’t know it.”
“Don’t you let people worry you, and don’t take this society game too
seriously. It’s only a game, and a poor one at that. It’s only meant
for old fools who want to be young and young fools who want to be old.
Those people don’t play it just for the fun of the thing--to them it’s
a business, and they work at it harder than a lot of galley-slaves.
You’ve got to try it, of course, I believe in trying everything, but
don’t you let it get you twisted--the ball-room, with its lights, its
flowers and its pretty speeches. They’re all part of the machinery. The
fellow you’re going to marry won’t be there, Jane. He’s too busy.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Oh, nobody in particular,” he snorted. “But I don’t believe you’ll
ever marry a carpet-knight. You won’t if I can stop you, at any rate.”
He had taken out a cigar and snipped the end of it carefully with a
pocket-knife. “They’re a new kind of animal to me, these young fellows
about town,” he said between puffs. “Beside a man, they’re what the toy
pug is to the bulldog or the Pomeranian is to the ‘husky.’ Fine dogs
they are,” he sniffed, “bred to the boudoir and the drawing-room!”
“But some of them are very nice, Daddy,” said Jane. “You _know_ you
liked Dirwell De Lancey and William Worthington.”
“Oh, they’re the harmless kind, playful and amusing!” he sneered. “But
they’re only harmless because they haven’t sense enough to be anything
else. You’ll meet the other kind, Jane, the loafers and the drunkards.”
Miss Loring leaned quickly forward away from him, her elbows on her
knees, and looked into the fire.
“I suppose so,” she said quietly.
“It’s the work of the social system, Jane. Most of these old families
are playing a losing game, their blood is diluted and impoverished, but
they still cling to their ropes of sand. They marry their children to
_our_ children, but God knows that won’t help ’em. It isn’t money they
need. Money can’t make new gristle and cartilage. Money can’t buy new
fiber.”
The girl changed her position slightly. “I suppose it’s all true,
but it seems a pity that the sons should suffer for the sins of the
fathers.”
“It’s written so--unto the third and fourth generation, Jane.”
“But the sons--they have no chance--no chance at all?”
“Only what they can save out of the wreck. Take young Perrine or young
Gallatin, for instance. _There’s_ a case in point. His people have all
been rich and talented. They’ve helped to make history, but they’ve all
had the same taint. Year by year they’ve seen their fortunes diminish,
but couldn’t stem the tide against them. But now the last of the line
is content just to exist on the fag-end of what’s left him. He’s
clever, too, they say--went into the law, as his father did, but----”
“Oh, Daddy, it’s unjust--cruel!” Jane Loring broke in suddenly.
“What is?”
“Heredity----”
“It’s the law! I feel sorry for that young fellow. I like him, but I’d
rather see you dead at my feet than married to him.”
Miss Loring did not move, but the hands around her knee clasped each
other more tightly.
“I don’t know--I’ve never been introduced to Mr. Gallatin,” she said
quietly.
X
MR. VAN DUYN RIDES FORTH
Mr. Coleman Van Duyn lurched heavily up the wide steps that led to
the main corridor of the Potowomac apartments and took the elevator
upstairs. He asked for mail and sat down at the desk in his library
with a frowning brow and protruding jowl. Affairs down town had
not turned out to his liking this morning. For a month everything
seemed to have gone wrong. He was short on stocks that had struck the
trade-winds, and long on others that were hung in the doldrums; his
luck at Auction had deserted him; his latest doctor had made a change
in his regimen; a favorite horse had broken a leg; and last, but not
by any means the least, until this afternoon Fate had continued to
conspire to keep him apart from Miss Jane Loring.
They had met casually several times at people’s houses and once he
had talked with her at the Suydam’s, but the opportunities for which
he planned obstinately refused to present themselves. He had finally
succeeded in persuading her to ride with him to-day, and after writing
a note or two, he called his man and dressed with particular care. Mr.
Van Duyn’s mind was so constructed that he could never think of more
than one thing at a time; but of that one thing he always thought with
every dull fiber of his brain, and Miss Loring’s indifference to his
honorable intentions had preyed upon him to the detriment of other and,
perhaps, equally important interests.
Mr. Van Duyn was large of body and ponderous of thought, and his
decisions were only born after a prolonged and somewhat uncertain
period of gestation. It took him an hour to order his dinner, and at
least two hours to eat (and drink) it. And so when at the age of five
and thirty he had reached the conclusion that it was time for him to
marry, he had set about carrying his resolution into effect with the
same solemn deliberation which characterized every other act of his
life. He had been accustomed always to have things happen exactly as
he planned them, and was of the opinion, when he followed the Lorings
to Canada, that nothing lacked in the proposed alliance to make it
eminently desirable for both of the parties concerned. Matches he knew
were no longer made in Heaven and an opportunist like Henry K. Loring
could not long debate upon the excellence of the arrangement.
Miss Loring’s refusal of him up at camp, last summer, had shocked
him, and for awhile he had not been able to believe the evidence of
his ears, for Mrs. Loring had given him to understand that to her
at least he was a particularly desirable suitor. When he recovered
from his shock of amazement, his feeling was one of anger, and his
first impulse to leave the Loring camp at once. But after a night of
thought he changed his mind. He found in the morning that Miss Loring’s
refusal had had the curious effect of making her more desirable, more
desirable, indeed, than any young female person he had ever met. He
was in love with her, in fact, and all other reasons for wanting to
marry her now paled beside the important fact that she was essential
to his well being, his mental health and happiness. He did not even
think of her great wealth as he had at first done, of the fortune she
would bring which would aid materially in providing the sort of an
establishment a married Van Duyn must maintain. In his cumbrous way
he had decided that even had she been penniless, she would have been
necessary to him just the same.
He had stayed on at camp, accepting Mrs. Loring’s advice that it would
not be wise to take her refusal seriously. She was only a child and
could not know the meaning of the honor he intended to confer. But in
New York her indifference continued to prick his self-esteem, and for
several weeks he had been following her about, sending her flowers and
losing no chance to keep his memory green.