suggest, or I must withdraw. My mind is made up on that. I don’t want
to go, and it won’t be easier for me anywhere else. This is where I
belong, and this is where I want to fight my battle, if I can do it
in my own way without the moral or financial help of any one--of you,
least of all.”
Gallatin paused and walked, his head bent, the length of the room. John
Kenyon followed him with his eyes, then turned to the window and for a
long while remained motionless. Philip Gallatin returned to the vacant
chair and sat leaning forward eagerly.
The senior partner turned at last, his kind homely face alight with a
smile.
“You don’t need my faith, my boy, if you’ve got faith of your own, but
I give it to you gladly. Give me your hand.” He got up and the two men
clasped hands, and Phil Gallatin’s eyes did not flicker or fade before
the searching gaze of the other man. It was a pact, none the less
solemn for the silence with which one of them entered into it.
“You’re awake, Phil?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s it, Uncle John. Awake,” said Gallatin.
“I’m glad--I’m very glad. And I believe it. I’ve never been able to get
used to the idea of your being really out of here. We need you, my boy,
and I’ve got work for you, of the kind that will put your mettle to the
test. There’s a great opportunity in it, and I’ll gladly turn it over
to you. ‘_Sic itur ad astra_,’ my boy. Will you take it?”
“Gladly. A corporation case?”
“_Sanborn et al. vs. The Sanborn Mining Company._ Sit here and I’ll
explain it to you.”
XV
DISCOVERED
Women have a code of their own, a system of signals, a lip and sign
language perfectly intelligible among themselves, but mystifying, as
they purpose it to be, to mere man. Overweening husbands, with a fine
air of letting the cat out of the bag, have been known to whisper that
these carefully guarded secrets are no secrets at all, and that women
are merely children of a larger growth, playing at hide and seek with
one another (and with their common enemy) for the mere love of the
game, that there are no mysteries in their natures to be solved, and
that the vaunted woman’s instinct, like the child’s, is as apt to be
wrong as often as it is right. Of course, no one believes this, and
even if one did, man would go his way and woman hers. Woman would
continue to believe in the accuracy of her intuitions and man would
continue to marvel at them. Woman would continue to play at hide and
seek, and man would continue to enjoy the game.
Call them by what name you please, instinct, intuition, or guesswork,
Mrs. Richard Pennington had succeeded by methods entirely feminine,
in discovering that Phil Gallatin’s Dryad was Jane Loring, that he
was badly in love with her and that Jane was not indifferent to his
attentions. Phil Gallatin had not been difficult to read, and Mrs.
Pennington took a greater pride in the discovery of Jane’s share in the
romance, for she knew when Jane left her house in company with Phil
that her intuition had not erred.
Jane Loring had kissed her on both cheeks and called her “odious.”
This in itself was almost enough, but to complete the chain of
evidence, she learned that Dawson, her head coachman, in the course of
execution of her orders, had gone as far North as 125th Street before
his unfortunate mistake of Miss Loring’s number had been discovered by
the occupants of the brougham.
Mrs. Pennington realized that this last bit of evidence had been
obtained at the expense of a breach of hospitality, for she was not a
woman who made a practice of talking with her servants, but she was
sure that the ends had justified the means and the complete success of
her maneuver more than compensated for her slight loss of self-respect
in its accomplishment.
But while her discovery pleased her, she was not without a sense of
responsibility in the matter. She had been hoping for a year that a
girl of the right kind would come between Phil and the fate he seemed
to be courting, for since his mother’s death he had lived alone, and
seclusion was not good for men of his habits. She had wanted Phil to
meet Jane Loring, and her object in bringing them together had been
expressed in a definite hope that they would learn to like each other
a great deal. But now that she knew what their relations were, she was
slightly oppressed by the thought of unpleasant possibilities.
It was in the midst of these reflections that Miss Jaffray was
announced, and in a moment she entered the room with a long
half-mannish, half-feline stride and took up her place before the
mantelpiece where she stood, her feet apart, toasting her back at the
open fire. Mrs. Pennington indicated the cigarettes, and Nina Jaffray
took one, rolling it in her fingers and tapping the end of it on her
wrist to shake out the loose dust as a man would do.
“I’m flattered, Nina,” said Nellie Pennington. “To what virtue of mine
am I indebted for the earliness of this visit?”
“I slept badly,” said Nina laconically.
“And I’m the anodyne? Thanks.”
“Oh, no; merely an antidote.”
“For what?”
“Myself. I’ve got the blues.”
“You! Impossible.”
“Oh, yes. It’s quite true. I’m quite wretched.”
“Dressmaker or milliner?”
“Neither. Just bored, I think. You know I’ve been out five years now.
Think of it! And I’m twenty-four. Isn’t that enough to make an angel
weep?”
“It’s too sad to mention,” said Mrs. Pennington. “You used to be such a
nice little thing, too.”
Nina Jaffray raised a hand in protest.
“Don’t, Nellie, it’s no joke, I can tell you. I’m _not_ a nice little
thing any longer, and I know it. I’m a hoydenish, hard-riding,
loud-spoken vixen, and that’s the truth. I wish I _was_ a ‘nice little
thing’ as you call it, like Jane Loring for instance, with illusions
and hopes and a proclivity for virtue. I’m not. I like the talk of
men----”
“That’s not unnatural--so do I.”
“I mean the talk of men among men. They interest me, more what they say
than what they are. They’re genuine, somehow. You can get the worst
and the best of them at a sitting. One can’t do that with women. Most
of us are forever purring and pawing and my-dearing one another when
we know that what we want to do is to spit and claw. I like the easy
ways of men--collectively, Nellie, not individually, and I’ve come and
gone among them because it seemed the most natural thing in the world
to do. I’ve made a mistake. I know it now. When a girl gets to be ‘a
good fellow’ she does it at the expense either of her femininity or her
morals. And men make the distinction without difficulty. I’m ‘a good
fellow,’” she said scornfully, “and I’m decent. Men know it, but they
know, too, that I have no individual appeal. Why only last week at the
Breakfast the Sackett boy clapped me on the back and called me ‘a jolly
fine chap.’ I put him down, I can tell you. I’d rather he’d called
me anything--anything--even something dreadful--if it had only been
feminine.”
She flicked her cigarette into the fire and dropped into a chair.
Mrs. Pennington laughed.
“All this is very unmanly of you, Nina.”
“Oh, I’m not joking. You’re like the others. Just because I’ve ridden
through life with a light hand, you think I’m in no danger of a
cropper. Well, I am. I’ve had too light a hand, and I’m out in the
back-stretch with a winded horse. _You_ didn’t make that mistake,
Nellie. Why couldn’t you have warned me?”
Mrs. Pennington held off the embroidery frame at arm’s length and
examined it with interest.
“You didn’t ask me to, Nina,” she replied quietly.
“No, I didn’t. I never ask advice. When I do, it’s only to do the other
thing. But you might have offered it just the same.”
“I might have, if I knew you wouldn’t have followed it.”
“No,” reflectively. “I think I’d have done what you said. I like
you immensely, you know, Nellie. You’re a good sort--besides being
everything I’m not.”
“Meaning--what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’re all woman, for one thing.”
“I have had two children,” smiled the other toward the ceiling. “I
could hardly be anything else.”
“Is _that_ it?” asked the visitor; and then after a pause, “I don’t
like children.”
“Not other people’s. You’d adore your own.”
“I wonder.”
Mrs. Pennington’s pretty shoulders gave an expressive shrug.
“Marry, my dear. Nothing defines one’s sex so accurately. Marry for
love if you can, marry for money if you must, but marry just the same.
You may be unhappy, but you’ll never be bored.”
Nina Jaffray gazed long into the fire.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said. “That’s what I came to see you
about.”
“Oh, Nina, I’m delighted!” cried Nellie Pennington genuinely, “and so
flattered. Who, my dear child?”
“I’ve been thinking--seriously.”
“You must have had dozens of offers.”
“Oh, yes, from fortune hunters and gentlemen jockeys, but I’m not
a philanthropic institution. Curiously enough my taste is quite
conventional. I want a New Yorker--a man with a mind--with a future,
perhaps, neither a prig nor a rake--human enough not to be too good,
decent enough not to be burdensome--a man with weaknesses, if you like,
a poor man, perhaps----”
“Nina. Who?”
Miss Jaffray paused.
“I thought I’d marry Phil Gallatin,” she said quietly.
Mrs. Pennington laid her embroidery frame down and looked up quickly.
Nina Jaffray’s long legs were extended toward the blaze, but her head
was lowered and her eyes gazed steadily before her. It was easily to
be seen that she was quite serious--more serious than Mrs. Pennington
liked.
“Phil Gallatin! Oh, Nina, you can’t mean it?”
“I do. There isn’t a man in New York I’d rather marry than Phil.”
“Does he know it?”
“No. But I mean that he shall.”
“Don’t be foolish. You two would end in the ditch in no time.”
Nina straightened and examined her hostess calmly.
“Do you think so?” she asked at last.
“Yes, I think so----” Nellie Pennington paused, and whatever it was
that she had in mind to say remained unspoken. Instinct had already
warned her that Nina was the kind of girl who is only encouraged by
obstacles, and it was not her duty to impose them.
“Stranger things have happened, Nellie,” she laughed.
“But are you sure Phil will--er--accept you?”
“Oh, no, and I shan’t be discouraged if he refuses,” she went on
oblivious of Nellie Pennington’s humor.
“Then you _do_ mean to speak to him?”
“Of course.” Nina’s eyes showed only grave surprise at the question.
“How should he know it otherwise?”
“Your methods are nothing, if not direct.”
“Phil would never guess unless I told him. For a clever man he’s
singularly stupid about women. I think that’s why I like him. Why
shouldn’t I tell him? What’s the use of beating around the bush? It’s
such a waste of time and energy.”
Mrs. Pennington’s laugh threw discretion to the winds.
“Oh, Nina, you’ll be the death of me yet. There never was such a
passion since the beginning of Time.”
“I didn’t say I _loved_ Phil Gallatin,” corrected Nina promptly. “I
said I’d decided to marry him.”
“And have you any reason to suppose that he shares your--er--nubile
emotions?”
“None whatever. He has always been quite indifferent to me--to all
women. I think the arrangement might be advantageous to him. He’s quite
poor and I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. He’s not a
fool, and I’m--Nellie, I’m not old-looking or ugly, am I? Why shouldn’t
he like me, if he doesn’t like any one else?”
“No reason in the world, dear. _I’d_ marry you, if _I_ were a man.”
Mrs. Pennington took to cover uneasily, conscious that here was a
situation over which she could have no control. She was not in Phil
Gallatin’s confidence or in Jane Loring’s, and the only kind of
discouragement she could offer must fail of effectiveness with a girl
who all her life had done everything in the world that she wanted
to do, and who had apparently decided that what she now wanted was
Phil Gallatin. Nina’s plans would have been amusing had they not been
rather pathetic, for Nellie Pennington had sought and found below
her visitor’s calm exterior, a vein of seriousness, of regret and
self-reproach, which was not to be diverted by the usual methods. Did
she really care for Phil? Clever as Mrs. Pennington was, she could not
answer that. But she knew that it was a part of Nina Jaffray’s methods
to do the unexpected thing, so that her sincerity was therefore always
open to question. Nellie Pennington took the benefit of that doubt.
“Has it occurred to you, Nina, that he may care for some one else?”
Her visitor turned quickly. “You don’t think so, do you?” she asked
sharply.
“How should _I_ know?” Mrs. Pennington evaded.
“I’ve thought of that, Nellie. Who was Phil’s wood-nymph? He’s very
secretive about it. I wonder why.”
“I don’t believe there _was_ a wood-nymph,” said Mrs. Pennington
slowly. “Besides, Phil would hardly be in love with that sort of girl.”
“That’s just the point. What sort of a girl was she? What reason could
Phil have for keeping the thing a secret? Was it an amourette? If it
was, then it’s Phil Gallatin’s business and nobody else’s. But if the
girl was one of Phil’s own class and station, like----”
“Miss Loring,” announced the French maid softly from the doorway.
Nina Jaffray paused and an expression of annoyance crossed her face.
She straightened slowly in her chair, then rose and walked across
the room. Mrs. Pennington hoped that she would go, but she only took
another cigarette and lit it carefully.
“You’re too popular, Nellie,” she said, taking a chair by the fire.
Mrs. Pennington raised a protesting hand.
“Don’t say that, Nina. For years I’ve been dreading that adjective.
When a woman finds herself popular with her own sex it means that she’s
either too passée to be dangerous, too staid to be interesting, or too
stupid to be either. Morning, Jane! So glad! Is it chilly out or are
those cheeks your impersonal expression of the joy of living?”
“Both, you lazy creature! How do you do, Nina? This is my dinner call,
Mrs. Pennington. I simply couldn’t wait to be formal.”
“I’m glad, dear.” And then mischievously, “Did you get home safely?”
“Oh, yes, but it was a pity to take _poor_ Mr. Gallatin so far out of
his way,” she replied carelessly.
“_Poor_ Phil! That’s the fate of these stupid ineligible bachelors--to
act as postilion to the chariot of Venus. Awfully nice boy, but so
uninteresting at times.”
“Is he? I thought him very attractive,” said Jane. “He’s one of _the_
Gallatins, isn’t he?”
“Yes, dear, the last of them. I was afraid you wouldn’t like him.”
“Oh, yes, I do. Quite a great deal. He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he,
Nina?”
“I’ve known him for ages,” said Miss Jaffray dryly; and then to Mrs.
Pennington, “Why shouldn’t Jane like him, Nellie?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she finished with a gesture of graceful retirement.
Their game of hide and seek was amusing, but hazardous in the present
company, so she quickly turned the conversation into other channels.
Nina Jaffray and Jane Loring had met in the late autumn at a house
party at the Ledyards’ place in Virginia, and while their natures were
hardly concordant, each had found in the other some ingredients which
made for amiability. Jane’s interest had been dictated by curiosity
rather than approval, for Nina Jaffray was like no other girl she had
ever met before. Whatever her manners, and these, Jane discovered,
could be atrocious, her instincts were good, and her intentions seemed
of the best. To Miss Jaffray, Jane Loring was ‘a nice little thing’ who
had shown a disposition not to interfere with other people’s plans, a
nice little thing, amiable and a trifle prudish, for whom Nina’s kind
of men hadn’t seemed to care. They had not been, and could never be
intimate, but upon a basis of good fellowship, they existed with mutual
toleration and regard.
Nellie Pennington, from her shadowed corner, watched the two girls
with the keenest of interest and curiosity. Nina Jaffray sat with
hands clasped around one upraised knee, her head on one side listening
carelessly to Jane’s enthusiastic account of the Ledyards’ ball,
commenting only in monosyllables, but interested in spite of herself
in Jane’s ingenuous point of view, aware in her own heart of a slight
sense of envy that she no longer possessed a susceptibility to those
fresh impressions.
Nina was not pretty this morning, Nellie Pennington thought. Hers
was the effectiveness of midnight which requires a spot-light and
accessories and, unless in the hunting field, midday was unkind to her;
while Jane who had danced late brought with her all the freshness of
early blossoms. But she liked Nina, and that remarkable confession,
however stagy and Nina-esque, had set her thinking about Jane Loring
and Mr. Gallatin. It was a pretty triangle and promised interesting
possibilities.
Jane was still speaking when Nina interrupted, as though through all
that she had heard, one train of thought had persisted.
“What did you mean, Nellie, about Phil Gallatin being ineligible?” she
asked. “And I _know_ you don’t think him stupid. And why shouldn’t Jane
Loring like him? I don’t think I understand?”
Nellie Pennington smiled. She had made a mistake. Hide and seek as a
game depends for its success upon the elimination of the bystander.
“I am afraid, of course, that Jane would be falling in love with him,”
she said lightly. And then, “That would have been a pity. Don’t you
think so, Nina?”
“There’s hardly a danger of that,” laughed Jane, “seeing that I’ve
just--just been introduced to the man. You needn’t be at all afraid,
Nina.”
“I’m not. Besides he’s awfully gone on a wood-nymph. You saw him blush
when I spoke of it at dinner here--didn’t you, Jane?”
“Yes, I did,” said Jane, now quite rosy herself.
“Phil wouldn’t have blushed you know,” said Nina confidently, “unless
he was terribly rattled. He _was_ rattled. That’s what I can’t
understand. Suppose he did find a girl who was lost in the woods.
What of it? It’s nobody’s business but his own and the girl’s. I’d be
furious if people talked about me the way they’re talking about Phil
and that girl. I was lost once in the Adirondacks. You were, too, in
Canada only last summer, Jane. You told me so down in Virginia and----”
Jane Loring had struggled hard to control her emotion, and bent her
head forward to conceal her discomposure, but Nina’s eyes caught the
rising color which had flowed to the very tips of her ears.
“Jane!” cried Nina in sharp accents of amazed discovery. “It was you!”
The game of hide and seek had terminated disastrously for Jane, and her
system of signals, useful to deceive as well as reveal had betrayed
her. It was clearly to be seen that further dissimulation would be
futile, so she raised her head slowly, the color gone from her cheeks.
“Yes, it was I,” she said with admirable coolness. “Meeting Mr.
Gallatin here the other night reminded me of it. That was one of the
things I came to tell Mrs. Pennington this morning. But I don’t suppose
there’s any reason why you shouldn’t know it, too, Nina. If it hadn’t
been for Mr. Gallatin I know I should have _died_. You see, I had
slipped and wrenched my ankle and, of course, couldn’t move----”
“It must have been terrible!” put in Nellie Pennington in dire
distress. “You poor child!”
“I haven’t spoken of it,” Jane went on hurriedly, “because there
wasn’t any reason why I should. But now, of course, that this story
is going the rounds, it’s just as well that people knew. It wasn’t
necessary to tell Mr. Gallatin my name up there, and until he met me
in New York he did not know who I was. That, of course, is why the
whole thing has seemed so mysterious.” She paused and smiled rather
obtrusively at her companions. “It’s really a very trivial matter to
make such a fuss about, isn’t it?”
“Absurd!” said Mrs. Pennington, with enthusiasm. “I wouldn’t worry
about it in the least.”
“It _does_ sound rather romantic, though,” laughed Jane uneasily, “but
it wasn’t a bit. We nearly starved and _poor_ Mr. Gallatin was almost
dead with fatigue--when they found us.”
“Who found you?” asked Miss Jaffray.
“The guides, of course.”
“Oh!” said Nina.
Nellie Pennington put down her embroidery and rose. This wouldn’t do.
“Jane,” she said laughing. “You make me wild with envy. You’re a person
to whom all sorts of interesting things are always happening. And now I
hear you’re engaged to Coleman Van Duyn. Come, child, sit here and tell
me all about it.”
“It’s not true. I’m very flattered, of course, but----”
“You’d better admit it. Nina won’t tell, will you, Nina?”
But Miss Jaffray had risen and was drawing on her gloves.
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t tell. Besides--you know I don’t believe it.” She
glanced at the clock, and brushed a speck from her sleeve.
“I think I’ll be going on,” she said. “Good-by, Jane. Nellie, I’ll see
you at the ‘Pot and Kettle,’ won’t I?” and went out of the room.
Mrs. Pennington followed her to the upper landing and when she had
gone, returned thoughtfully to the room.
XVI
BEHIND THE ENEMY’S BACK
As she turned and came into the room again, Jane Loring met her in the
middle of the rug, seized her in her arms, kissed her rapturously on
both cheeks, and confessed, though not without some hesitation, the
object of her visit. Nellie Pennington led her to a divan near the
window, and seated there holding one of her visitor’s hands in both
of hers, listened enchanted to the full tale of Jane’s romance. Her
delight was undisguised, for Nina Jaffray’s rather frigid exit had
already been forgotten by them both.
“Oh, Nellie, I’m so happy. I simply _had_ to tell somebody. I wanted to
come here yesterday, but I couldn’t muster up the courage.”
“And I’m not really ‘odious’?” asked Mrs. Pennington.
“No, no,” laughed Jane. “You’re a sister to the angels. I hated him,
Nellie, that night. I would have died rather than let him know I cared
for him--and yet--I _did_ let him know it----”
“Love and hate are first cousins. Love hates because it’s afraid, Jane.”
“Yes, that’s true. I was afraid of myself--of him----”
“Not now?”
“No,” proudly. “Not even of Fate itself. We’ll face whatever is to
come--together. I believe in him--utterly.”
Nellie Pennington kissed her.
“So do I, Jane. I always have--and in you. I can’t tell you how glad I
am that you have told me all this. Flattered, too, child. I’m rather
worldly wise, perhaps, even more so than your mother----”
“I haven’t told mother,” Jane put in with sudden demureness.
“Take my advice and do so immediately. Omit nothing. Your mother must
put a stop to this story by telling the truth.”
“Mother, you know, had hoped that I would marry Coleman Van Duyn. She
doesn’t approve of Phil, and father--” Jane paused as she remembered
her father’s estimate of Phil Gallatin--“and neither does my father,”
she finished thoughtfully.
“Oh, it will work out some way; such things do. But tell them at once.”
“I think I had already decided that. But it isn’t going to be easy.
With me--with mother, my father is the soul of kindness, but with
men----” She paused.
“Phil must take his chance.”
“Yes, but father must respect him.”
“Phil must earn his respect.”
Jane was silent for a moment.
“My father has a sharp tongue at times,” she went on. “He has mentioned
Phil Gallatin’s name--unpleasantly. I couldn’t stand hearing him spoken
about in that way. I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t tolerate it--even from
my father. I have made a decision and father must abide by it. He must
accept Phil as I have accepted him. I am satisfied. A man’s past is his
own. He can only give a girl his future. I used to think differently,
but I’m content with that. Phil’s future is mine, and I’ll take my half
of it, whatever it is.”
At the mention of her father, Jane had risen and walked restlessly
about, but as she finished speaking she turned and faced her companion
squarely. Nellie Pennington rose and took her again in her arms.
“You’ll do, Jane. I’m not afraid for you--for either of you. Let me
help you. I want to. I don’t think I could be happier if I were in love
myself. He’s worthy of you. I’m sure of it. Shall you marry him soon,
dear?”
Jane colored adorably.
“No--not soon, I think. We have not spoken of that. Phil wants time--to
prove--to show--everybody----”
She paused and Nellie Pennington breathed a sigh of relief. Her
responsibilities had oppressed her.
“Let him, Jane,” she urged quickly. “It’s better so. You’re very young.
There’s plenty of time. A year or two and then----”
“I’ll marry him when he asks me to,” Jane finished simply.