When Hollister returned that evening, almost the first words that Claire
spoke to him were: "Congratulate me, Herbert. I have taken a fine
forward step at last."
"What do you mean, my dear?"
"I have got to know somebody of importance. I have launched my ship."
"Oho," laughed Hollister, understanding. "I hope the ship will prove
seaworthy, little captain. You must steer with a prudent eye, remember.
All sorts of squalls will lie in wait for your canvas, no matter how
well you trim it."
"That is just the kind of sailing I like," said Claire. "I've been
becalmed long enough."
He laughed at this, in his hearty way, as though it were quite a marvel
of wit. "Come and tell me," he proposed, "about the important somebody
who has been sensible enough to discover you."
They were alone together, in their wide, cheerful apartment, overlooking
the ocean. They were about to go down and dine, and Hollister had just
finished a few preparatory details of toilet. Lights had been lit, for
the rapid autumn dusk had already thickened into nightfall; but though
they could not see the starlit level of waters just beyond their
windows, they had a sense of its nearness in the moist, salty breeze,
whose tender rush made the drawn shades bulge, and set the loose lawn
curtains fluttering buoyantly.
Hollister sank into a chair as he spoke the last sentence, and at the
same time put an arm about his wife's waist, drawing her downward until
she rested upon his knee. The roses at her bosom brushed his face, and
he thrust his head forward with a sigh of comic infatuation, as though
rapturously inhaling their perfume. But his free hand soon wandered up
along the chestnut ripples of her hair, and he began to smooth them,
with a touch creditably dainty for his heavy masculine fingers.
Claire permitted his caresses. She always permitted, and never returned
them. He had slight sense that this was a coldly unreciprocal course; it
appeared to fit in neatly enough with the general plan of creation that
she should receive homage of any sort without further response than its
mute recognition. That was the way he had constantly known her to act,
or rather not to act; a change would have surprised, perhaps even
shocked him; she would have ceased to be his peculiar, accustomed
Claire; his revered statue would have lost her pedestal, and he had
grown to like the pedestal for no wiser reason than that he had always
seen it enthrone her.
"I will tell you all about my discoverer," Claire said, with
matter-of-fact directness; and she at once began a swift and succinct
little narration.
"Diggs," Hollister suddenly broke in, with one of his fresh laughs. "Oh,
look here, now; you've made some big mistake. She can't be one of your
adored swells, with such a name. It's--it's ... cacophonous,
positively!"
"Wait, if you please," said Claire, with demure toleration, as though a
bulwark of proof made this skeptic assault endurable. "Her husband's
name, in the first place, is not _simply_ Diggs; it's _Manhattan_
Diggs." She made this announcement with an air of tranquil triumph; but
Hollister at once gave another irreverent laugh.
"Oh, of course!" he cried. "I remember, now. I know him. That is, I nod
to him on the street, now and then. Is _he_ here? Why, he's nearly
always tipsy, you know."
"Tipsy!" repeated Claire, rising with an incredulous look. "Oh, Herbert,
you must be mistaken. She worships him. She says that he treats her
charmingly, and that they get on together with perfect accord."
"It would be rather strange to find two of that name even in such a
great place as New York," said Hollister, with a slight shrug of the
shoulders. "I don't believe I am mistaken a bit, Claire. He's a tall
man, with fat yellow side-whiskers and a face as red as your roses. He's
got a lot of money, I'm told. He goes down into the street, and dawdles
an hour or so a day at his broker's. But I've never seen him thoroughly
sober yet. Upon my word, I haven't."
Claire soon met the husband of Mrs. Diggs. It was after dinner, in one
of the spacious, modern-appointed sitting-rooms, now so often
half-vacant of occupants, or sometimes wholly vacant, through these
lengthened September evenings.
"I want to present my husband," said Mrs. Diggs, preceding a tall man
with fat yellow side-whiskers, whom Hollister had before this recognized
across the dining-room as his own particular, chronically tipsy Mr.
Diggs, beyond all possibility of mistake.
Claire had a little chat with Mr. Diggs, while Hollister, who had
claimed acquaintance and shaken hands with him, seated himself at the
side of his volatile spouse.
Claire soon became bored. Mr. Diggs was plainly tipsy; Herbert had been
right. But he was most uninterestingly tipsy. He had sense enough
remaining to conduct himself with a sort of haphazard propriety. He
incessantly stroked either one or the other whisker, and kept up a
perpetual covert struggle not to appear incoherent. He was at times
considerably incoherent; a few of his sentences made the nominative seem
as if it were swaggering toward its verb. But he was vastly polite. He
told Claire that his wife had fallen in love with her. A little later,
however, he spoke of his wife with a certain jolly disparagement.
"Kate is full of a lot of new things. I don't know what I'm going to do
with her--really, I don't. She'll be a regular free-thinker before I
know it. And I don't like free-thinkers; I think they're a sad lot. Now,
don't you?"
Claire gave short, evasive answers to these and a number of similar
appeals. Mr. Diggs distressed her; he was not at all the sort of person
whom she desired to meet. She soon made herself so intentionally
_distraite_ that he rose and told her he was going to smoke a cigar,
which he would bring into the sitting-room after he had obtained it,
provided she did not object. She professed herself wholly sympathetic
with this arrangement, and tried not to let her lip curl as she watched
the unsteady pace of its proposer across the long sitting-room.
But he had scarcely retired before Mrs. Diggs broke off her converse
with Hollister and exclaimed to Claire:--
"Where on earth has dear Manhattan gone? You don't mean that he has left
you? How shameful of him!"
"I believe he has gone to get a cigar," Claire said.
"Oh, a cigar," retorted Mrs. Diggs. "Yes, poor Manhattan is an
inveterate smoker." She now looked at Hollister and Claire equally, with
quick, alternate movements of the head. "I feel sure that tobacco is
beginning to injure him, though it is really a very small kind of vice,
don't you know? It saves a man from other worse ones. Manhattan, dear
boy, smokes a good deal, and I suppose I should be grateful it's only
that. I hear such dreadful tales from my friends about their husbands
_drinking_. I don't know what I should do if dear Manhattan _drank_. I'm
so glad he doesn't. If he did, I--well, I actually believe I should get
a divorce!"
Claire felt that her husband's eye, full of merry furtive twinkles, had
fixed itself upon her all through this unexpected speech. But she kept
her face from the least mirthful betrayal. Mr. Diggs did not come back
with his cigar.
Claire now wondered, as she watched her new friend, and entered into
conversation with her, whether this unconsciousness of her husband's
continual excesses could be real and not feigned. It was hard to suppose
that so much shrewd observation and so cunning a recognition of human
foibles and follies could by any chance consort with the obtuse lack of
perception which her late comments had implied. And yet Claire somehow
became conscious that Mrs. Diggs had really meant it all. The anomaly
was hard to credit; it was one of those absurd contradictions with which
human nature often loves to bewilder us; and yet its element of
preposterous self-delusion held at least the merit of being genuine.
Claire had reached a distinct conclusion to this effect, when Mrs. Van
Horn, entering the room, paused and looked all about her. There were
several other groups scattered here and there, but the lady presently
fixed her gaze upon that small one of which Mrs. Diggs was a unit. And
very soon afterward she began to move in the direction of her cousin.
Mrs. Diggs was so seated that she could plainly note the approach. She
half-turned toward Claire, and said in rapid undertone, seeming only to
speak with the extreme edges of her lips:--
"Can I actually trust my senses? Is it fact or hallucination? Cornelia
is coming this way. I told you she wanted to know you, but I didn't
dream that she would condescend to seek anybody, like this, short of a
queen, or, at the lowest, a duchess.... Yes, here she comes; there's no
mistake."
Mrs. Diggs quitted her chair, a little later. She took a few steps
toward her cousin, meeting her. Hollister also rose; Claire, naturally,
did not rise.
"I want to present Mrs. Hollister," said Mrs. Diggs, after a few seconds
of low-toned converse with the new-comer. "My cousin, Mrs. Van Horn,"
she at once added, completing the introduction. It was then Claire's
turn to rise also, which she did.
"I think you know my brother," said Mrs. Van Horn to Claire, when all
were again seated. "I mean Mr. Beverley Thurston."
"Oh, yes," said Claire.
Her monosyllables were quite intentional. She had not liked the lady's
manner. There had been a remote, superb chill about it. She was
distinctly conscious of being descended to, as though from an invisible
stair. The nearer view that she had gained of Beverley Thurston's sister
made her sensible of a new and original personality. Mrs. Van Horn was
so blonde, so superfine, so rarely and choicely feminine. Her warmth was
so faint and her coolness so moderated. She was like a rose that had in
some way blent itself with an icicle, the shape of the flower remaining,
and its flush taking a hue that had the tint of life yet the pallor of
frost.
Claire determined not to speak again unless Mrs. Van Horn addressed her.
This event soon occurred. Hollister and Mrs. Diggs had fallen into
conversation. Mrs. Van Horn surveyed them, with her nose a little in the
air, and her eyelids a little drooped. She seemed on the point of
interrupting their talk, and of ignoring Claire, who had leaned back
with a nice semblance of entire unconcern. In a few moments, however,
this mode of treatment underwent change.
"I have heard my brother speak of you," she said, fixing her light-blue
eyes full on Claire's face. "It was before you were married, I think."
"Yes," replied Claire. "We were very good friends. I missed him after he
had gone."
"He went suddenly," said Mrs. Van Horn.
"Very suddenly," responded Claire, with a smile as complaisant as it was
inscrutable.
Mrs. Van Horn looked downward; she appeared to be examining one or two
of her rings; they were not numerous, though each of them had an odd
individuality of prettiness. "There seemed to be no good reason why he
should go," she soon said, lifting her eyes again. "He has been there so
often."
"I should think it would be hard to go too often," said Claire.
"You have been, then?"
"No. But I wish to go very much.... Not yet, however."
"Not yet?" repeated the lady. Claire could not accuse her of staring, in
any downright way, but she had an impression that every least detail of
her own dress or person was receiving the most critical regard. "I
suppose your husband's affairs detain him here, for the present."
"Yes," returned Claire, but at the same time she shook her head
negatively. "It isn't that, however. I mean it would not be only that.
There is something for me to see, to know, to do, here. I haven't
finished with my own country yet," she proceeded, giving a bright smile.
"I am not yet ready for Europe."
Mrs. Van Horn laughed. But it was not a laugh with any amusement in it,
neither was it one that contained any irony. "My brother thought you
very clever," she said. "He told me so repeatedly."
"That was kind of him," Claire answered. She did not decide that Mrs.
Van Horn was patronizing her; she decided, on the contrary, that the
sister of Thurston was trying to make her disinclination to patronize
most plainly apparent. "It is pleasant to hear that he thinks well of
me," Claire went on. "He is a man whose good opinion I shall always
highly value."
Mrs. Van Horn leaned forward. She was smiling, now, but it struck Claire
that her smile was at best a chilly artifice. "You did not show much
regard for his good opinion in one instance," she said, lowering her
voice so that Claire just caught it, and no more. "I mean when he asked
you to marry him. You see, I know all about that. He told me. It sent
him to Europe."
This was, of course, a bombshell to Claire. But even while the color was
getting up into her cheeks with no weak flood, she realized that it had
been meant for a bombshell, and made swift resolve that its explosion
should not deal death to her self-command.
"I am sorry that he told you," she rather promptly managed to say. "I
have kept it a secret from everybody. I thought he would do the same."
"Oh, he has no secrets from me," returned Mrs. Van Horn, with what
seemed to Claire an extraordinary brightness of tone. The speaker
immediately drew out a little jeweled watch and looked at the hour. "It
is later than I thought," she now said. "I have two letters to write; I
must be going upstairs. Pray come and see me, Mrs. Hollister, when you
are back in town," she continued, while putting her watch away again,
and calling Claire by her name for the first time since they had met.
"Mrs. Diggs will tell you my address. Promise me that you will not
forget to come. I leave rather early to-morrow, and may not have a
chance of repeating my request." Here she rose and put out her hand.
Claire took it, but said nothing. She had lost her self-command, after
all; she was almost too embarrassed to utter a word. Mrs. Van Horn had
nearly gained one of the doors of the great room before Claire realized
what had taken place. A certain splendor of courtesy enveloped the whole
departure. It was admirably conducted, notwithstanding its abruptness.
It was one of the things that Mrs. Van Horn always did surprisingly
well; she could enter or retire from a room with an effect quite her own
in its supple graciousness and dignity. But Claire soon felt that both
the graciousness and dignity had something mystic about them. It was
somehow as if an oracle had pronounced something very oracular indeed.
The civility of the invitation had been so totally unforeseen, and it
had followed with so keen a suddenness the recent bewildering
revelation, that Claire did not know how to explain the whole
proceeding, to construe it, to read between its lines.
Hollister, who had received a brief, polite bow of adieu, and risen as
he returned it, broke the ensuing silence.
"Didn't she go away quite in a hurry?" he asked. "I hope you haven't
offended her," he added, jocosely, to his wife.
"Cornelia didn't look a bit offended," said Mrs. Diggs, regarding
Claire, or rather her continued blush. "But that means nothing. You
didn't quarrel, now, did you, Mrs. Hollister?"
"Oh, no," said Claire, still dazed and demoralized. "She asked me to
visit her in town; she was very urgent that I should do so."
"You don't really tell me such a thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Diggs. "You've
no idea how prodigious an honor she was conferring. It's like decorating
you with the order of St. Something--actually it is."
"I'm afraid I failed to value it in that way," replied Claire, who was
recovering herself.
"Of course you did. You haven't yet taken in the full enormity of
Cornelia's importance. You can't do it until you see her surrounded by
her own proper atmosphere--with her foot on her native heath, so to
speak. Then you'll understand the massive condescension of to-night."
"I think I would just as lief not understand it," laughed Hollister,
with his characteristic play of gentle humor. "It doesn't repay you to
climb these _very_ big mountains. Everybody says that there's very
little to see after you've got to the tops of them."
Mrs. Diggs echoed his laugh. She was looking at Claire, however, with
her bright, black, restless eyes. "I think your wife may want to climb,"
she said. "I'll be her guide, if she'll let me. There's a very good view
from the summit of cousin Cornelia. You can look down on a lot of
smaller peaks."
Claire shook her head. She had got her natural color again, but not her
natural manner; she spoke in a tone of preoccupied seriousness that did
not harmonize with her light words.
"I shouldn't like to fall down one of her glaciers and be lost," she
said.
"Oh, there's no fear of that," cried Mrs. Diggs. "You're too
sure-footed."
Somewhat later that evening, when they were alone together, Hollister
asked his wife:
"Did that Mrs. Van Horn say anything that hurt you, Claire?"
"Oh, no. What made you think so, Herbert?"
"I.... Well, perhaps I only fancied it.... You had known her brother,
hadn't you?"
"Yes. He was a good deal at the Bergemanns' last Spring. He went to
Europe afterward. I suppose that was why she wanted to know me better."
Claire said this with a fine composure. She was standing before her
dressing-table, disengaging the roses from her breast. Hollister stole
up behind her and clasped her in his arms, setting his face close beside
hers, and looking with a full smile at their twin reflection, which the
mirror now gave to both.
"So you've got among the great people at last, little struggler," he
said; "you've begun to be a great person yourself." He kissed her on the
temple, still keeping his arms about her. "I suppose you'll make quick
work of it now. I'm glad, for your sake--you know I am! You're bound to
succeed. I shall be awfully proud of you."
This seemed quite in the proper order of things to Claire. Her husband's
approval was a matter-of-course; it was like the roses he gave her every
day--like the kiss, the embrace, the loving devotion that had each grown
accepted synonyms of Herbert himself. She forgot the words and the
caress with careless promptitude. But she did not forget what Mrs. Van
Horn had said to her, downstairs in the great sitting-room. Her sleep
that night was perturbed by the memory of it. "Does that woman like me,
or does she hate me?" repeatedly passed through her mind, in the
intervals between sleeping and waking. "Does she feel that she owes me a
grudge, and long to pay it? Is she angry that I refused her brother? How
strange it would be if I should find myself face to face with some hard,
bitter enmity just at the threshold of the new life I want to live."
But the bright morning dissipated these brooding fears. It was a very
bright morning, and an unexpectedly cold one. The sea sparkled with the
vivid brilliance of real autumn as Claire looked at it from her window
on rising, and every trace of its former lazy mist had left the silvery
crystal blue of the over-arching sky. A sharp barometric change had
occurred during the night. Claire and Hollister effected their toilets
with numb fingers and not a few audible shivers. The flimsy architecture
of the huge hotel, reared to court coolness rather than to resist cold,
had suddenly become an abode of aguish discomfort.
Its occupants fled, that day, in startled scores. Mrs. Diggs was among
the earlier departures. She bade farewell to Claire, wrapped in a
formidably wintry mantle. Her leave-taking was warm enough, though her
teeth almost seemed to chatter while she gave it. Her husband was at her
side, looking as though the altered weather had incited him to even a
more bacchanal disregard of his complexion than usual. The
chubby-cheeked little girl, her French _bonne_, and the maid of Mrs.
Diggs, were also near at hand. They were all five on the piazza, where
Hollister and Claire had also gone, both careless, in their youthful
health and vigor, of the rushing ocean wind that blew out into straight
lines every shred of raiment that it could seize. Little Louise was
whimpering and contumacious; she wanted to break away from Aline, and
pulled against the latter's tense clasp of her hand as if the wind and
she were in some hoydenish, fly-away plot together. An admonitory stroke
of bells had just sounded from the near depot; the train would soon
glide off from the big wooden platform beyond. Mrs. Diggs was in a
flurry, like the weather; her great wrap could not warm her; she looked
more chalky of hue than ever, and the bluish line at her lips had grown
purplish. But a defective circulation had not chilled her spirits; she
was alive with her wonted vivacity.
She had caught Claire's hand, while turning at very brief intervals
toward Aline and the child. Her sentences had become spasmodic,
polyglot, and parenthetical; they were half addressed to Claire and half
to the recalcitrant Louise.
"Now you _won't_ forget just where you're to find me, will you, my dear
Mrs. Hollister?... _Sois bonne fille, Louise; nous allons a New York
tout de suite_.... I want so much to see you as soon as you can manage
to come. Did you ever know anything like this dreadful gale? I'm so cold
that I believe it will take a good month to warm me.... _Tais-toi,
cherie, tu vas a New York, ou il ne fait pas froid du tout_.... You're
going this afternoon, you say? I don't see how you can wait. There's
cousin Jane Van Corlear just going inside--I promised to go along with
her. Say good-by, Manhattan; the cold weather has made you as red as a
turkey-cock, hasn't it, dear boy?... _Aline, prenez garde! Elle est bien
mechante, elle veut etre absolument perdue...._ Well, good-by, both of
you. I do hope you won't freeze before you get off!"
When the Diggs family had disappeared, Claire and her husband went and
finished their packing. That afternoon they left the deserted hotel,
reaching New York at about dusk. They had themselves driven to the
Everett House; Hollister had occasionally lodged there in bachelor days,
and proposed it as a temporary place of sojourn.
It proved less temporary than they had expected. Apartments were easy
and yet hard to procure. A good many sumptuous suites, in haughty and
handsome buildings, were offered them at depressing prices. They found
other suites, in buildings far less grand, which pleased them less and
suited their purse better, but still left a certain margin as regarded
proposed rental expenditure. Five or six days were consumed in these
monotonous modes of search. They could obtain lodgment that was too
dear, and lodgment that was too cheap; but they could not hit the golden
mean of adaptability which would combine delectable quarters with
moderate rates.
"It is tiresome work," Claire at length said, "and it is keeping you
from your business, Herbert, in a most shameful way. I really don't see
what we are to do."
"The apartments in West Thirty-Sixth Street, that we saw yesterday,"
ventured Hollister, genially, "were rather nice, though small, of
course."
"Quite too small," affirmed Claire. "Besides, the house itself had a
dingy air. It looked so--so economical, Herbert. We don't want to look
economical; we want only to _be_ it."
Hollister made a blithe grimace. "I am afraid that to be it and to look
it are inseparable," he said. "The grain of the rind tells the quality
of the fruit." He put his head a little sideways and glanced at his wife
with a quizzical eye. "Now, in the way of downright bargains, Claire,"
he went on, "there is that nice basement house which is for rent entire
in Twenty-Eighth Street. The one we drifted into by mistake during our
wanderings of yesterday, you remember."
"I'd rather not think of it," said Claire, with a sort of musing
demureness. "I liked it very much. I don't believe there is a furnished
house to rent in the whole city that could be had for the same terms.
But you know very well that we could not afford to take it, with the
need of at least three servants, apart from other expenses."
"True," said Hollister. "That is, unless I get along better--make a hit
on the street, you know."
"Oh, well," said Claire, "there is no use in depending upon chance. Of
course," she added, slowly, with a grave, affirmative motion of the
head, "I should like very much to have the house. You know I should."
"Then, we'll rent it," Hollister struck in, swiftly and with fervor. "It
won't be much of a risk, but we'll take what risk there is. The first
quarter's rent would be absolutely sure, Claire. Are you agreed?"
He spoke entirely from his loving perception of how much she would like
to reign as the ruler of her own establishment. It thrilled him to think
of her in this proper, sovereign sort of character.
"It will not be right, Herbert," Claire said. "We made up our minds to
spend just so much and no more." ...
But her tones lacked all imperative disapproval. Perhaps she was
thinking how pleasant it would be for Mrs. Diggs to find her handsomely
installed as the mistress of her own private dwelling.
On the following day Hollister rented the little basement house in
Twenty-Eighth Street. Claire accompanied him while he did so. She was
frightened when the terms asked were finally accepted. She was still
more frightened when she thought of the steady, draining expenses which
must follow. But, after all, her alarm only acted as a sort of
undercurrent. Above it was the large, delightful satisfaction of
foreseeing herself the reigning head of a distinct establishment. It was
an extremely pretty house, no less outside than inside. The occupation
by its new tenants had been arranged as immediate, and this notable
event soon occurred. Claire went herself to hire the three servants. She
found a great supply at a certain depot for this sort of demand. She
engaged three whom she liked the most, or rather disliked the least. And
very soon she and her husband quitted their hotel for good. They became
the co-proprietors of the basement house in Twenty-Eighth Street.
Certain new tasks occupied Claire. She quickly performed them. Her
administrative faculty now showed itself in clear and striking relief.
Her penurious past had taught her unforgotten lessons; she went into her
new place with none of a neophyte's unskilled rawness; her fund of
domestic, of managerial experience was like an unused yet efficient
well; she had only to give a turn of the hand and up came the buckets,
moistly and practically laden. True, she worked under the most altered
conditions; she was no longer a drudge but a supervisor; and yet the
very grimness of that early apprenticeship had held in it a radical
value of instruction. She who had known of the prices paid for inferior
household goods, could use her knowledge now to fine profit in the
purchase of better ones. Having swept with her own toil floors that were
clad coarsely, she could in readier way discern uncleanly neglect on the
part of underlings who swept floors clad with velvet.
Her responsibility was borne with great lightness. "I think I am a sort
of natural housekeeper," she soon told her husband. "It all comes very
easy. I find that my daily leisure is increasing at a rapid rate." She
directed with so much system, discipline, and keen-sightedness, that
speed was a natural result. Her detection of negligence and fraud was
prompt and thorough. She discouraged the least familiarity in her
servants. On this point she was severely sensitive; she maintained her
dignity in all intercourse with them, and sometimes it was a dignity so
positive and accentuated that it blent with her personal beauty in
giving the effect of a picturesque sternness. The secret of its exercise
lay wholly in her former life. She had once been socially low enough for
these very employees to have treated her as an equal. All that was dead
and in its grave. She wanted to keep it there forever. Instinctively she
stamped down the sods, and even held a vigilant foot upon them.
She was soon prepared to seek out Mrs. Diggs and pay her a long,
intimate visit. She found her new friend in a small but charming home.
The drawing-room into which she was shown displayed a great deal of good
taste, and yet it had not a touch of needless grandeur. Its least
detail, from the cushion of a sofa to the panel of a screen, suggested
permanent and sensible usage. It was a room that shocked you with no
inelegance, while it invited you by a sort of generally sympathetic
upholstery and appointment.
Mrs. Diggs was delighted to hear of the new Twenty-Eighth Street
residence. She took Claire's gloved hand in both of her slim, bony ones,
and proffered the most effusive congratulations.
"It's so much nicer, don't you know, to be a real _chatelaine_, like
that--to have your own four domiciliary walls, and not live in a
honeycomb fashion, like a bee in its cell, with Heaven knows how many
other bees buzzing all about you. I'm inexpressibly glad you've done it.
Now you are _lancee_, don't you know? You can entertain people. And I'm
sure, my dear, that you do want to entertain people."
Claire gave a pretty little trill of a laugh. "I have no people to
entertain, yet," she said.
Mrs. Diggs was still holding her hand. "Oh, you sly mouse!" she
exclaimed. "You've got great ideas in your head for the coming winter.
Don't tell me you haven't. Remember our talks at Coney Island. And
you're going straight for the big game. You're not of the sort that will
be content with a small, low place. Not you! You want a large and a high
one. It's going to be a great fight. Now, don't say it isn't. I know all
about you. I dote on you, and I know all about you. You intend to try
and be a leader. You've got it in you to be one, too. I believe you'll
succeed--I do, honestly! I'll put my money on you, as that dear
Manhattan of mine would say of a horse.... You're not annoyed at me?"
"Not at all," smiled Claire. "But everything must have a beginning, you
know. And I have no beginning, as yet. I have only met yourself and" ...
She paused, then, looking a little serious.
Here Mrs. Diggs dropped Claire's hand, and burst into a loud, hilarious
laugh. Her mirth quite convulsed her for several seconds.
"Cornelia Van Horn!" she presently shouted in a riotously gleeful way.
"Myself and Cornelia Van Horn! That is what you mean. Isn't it, now?
_Isn't_ it?"
She was looking at Claire with both hands in her lap and her angular
body bent oddly forward. She gave the idea of a humorous human
interrogation-mark.
"Well, yes," said Claire, soberly, and a little offendedly; "I do mean
that. Pray what is there so funny about it?"
Mrs. Diggs again became convulsed with laughter: "Funny!" she at length
managed to say. "Why, it's magnificent! It's delicious! You're going to
tilt against Cornelia! Of course you are! You don't know a soul yet;
you're quite obscure; but you have a sublime self-confidence. That is
always the armor-bearer of genius; it carries the spear and shield of
the conqueror. My dear, I always wanted to have somebody beard Cornelia
in her den, don't you know, like the Douglas! I'm with you--don't forget
that! I'll help you all I can. And when you've shaken the pillars of New
York society to their foundations, please be grateful and recollect that
I set you up to it."
She threw back her head and laughed again, in her boisterous, vehement,
but never ill-bred way.
Claire sat and watched her. She was not even smiling now; she was biting
her lip. She had concluded, some time ago, that she understood Mrs.
Diggs perfectly. But she did not know, at present, in what spirit to
take this noisy paroxysm. Was it sincere, amicable amusement, or was it
pitiless and impudent mockery?