When a man has cultivated a practical and methodical habit of mind and
body he pursues the accustomed tenor of his way, whatever the ferment
of his spirit. Clavering's spirit was mercurial, but long since
subject to his will, and it would no more have occurred to him to
neglect his regular work because he was in love and a state of suspense
than to put on petticoats and walk up Fifth Avenue. It might be better
or worse under foreign impact, but it would be done, and all else
banished for the hour.
There were times when he wrote better surrounded by the stimulations of
the office; when he was neither fagged nor disturbed he worked at home.
During this week of incertitudes he rose late, lunched with friends at
the Sign of the Indian Chief, a restaurant where the cleverest of
them--and those who were so excitedly sure of their cleverness that for
the moment they convinced others as well as themselves--foregathered
daily. Then he went to the office and wrote or talked to other men
until it was time to dine. He could always be sure of companionship
for the evening. On his "day off" he took a train out into the country
and walked for hours.
There was a great deal of scintillating talk in his group on the
significant books and tendencies of the day, and if the talk of French
youth in their clubs before the Revolution may possibly have been
profounder and more far-reaching in its philosophy, more formulative in
its plan of action, owing to a still deeper necessity for change in the
social order, the very fact that these brilliant young Americans had no
personal grievance but merely sharpened their wits on matters in which
they were intelligent enough to take an interest, saved their
cleverness from becoming mordant or distorted by passion. It was an
excellent forcing-house for ideas and vocabulary.
But their most solemn causeries were upon the vital theme of The
American Reputation in Letters. Past. Present. Future. This was the
age of Youth. Should any of the old reputations be permitted to live
on--save in the favor of the negligible public? If so, which? All the
recent reputations they would have liked to pronounce equally great,
merely on account of their commendable newness, but they were too
conscientious for that. They appraised, debated, rejected, finally
placed the seal of their august approval upon a favored few. Claques
were arranged if the public were obtuse. The future? A few, a very
few, were selected from the older group, many more from the younger,
and ordained to survive and shed their undying beams for posterity.
From these judicial pronouncements there was no appeal, and the
pleasant spaces of the Sign of the Indian Chief, so innocuous to the
uninitiated eye, was a veritable charnel house that stank in the
nostrils of the rejected; but, inconsistent even as life itself, those
melancholy graves were danced over by the sprightly young feet of the
elect. Sometimes there was a terrifying upheaval in one of those
graves. A dismal figure fought his way out, tore off his cerements,
and stalked forth, muttering: "'But I stride on, austere. No hope I
have, no fear,'" leaving a puzzled uneasiness behind him.
But for good or ill, it was a matter for congratulation that criticism
was at last being taken seriously in the United States.
There was a jazz party at the studio of a hospitable girl artist where
Clavering danced with several of the prettiest young actresses of
recent Broadway fame until dawn, and drank enough to make him as wild
as the rest of the party had it not been for the seasoned apparatus
inherited from hard-drinking Southern ancestors. Altogether, he gave
himself little time for thought, and if he felt at times an inclination
to dream he thrust it from him with an almost superstitious fear. He
would speculate no longer, but neither would he run the risk of
invoking the laughter of cynical gods. If unimaginable disaster
awaited him, at least he would not weaken his defences by a sojourn in
the paradise of fools.
He avoided Oglethorpe and Dinwiddie, and although he had engaged
himself to dine at the Goodriches on Thursday night he sent an excuse.
On Thursday morning, as he was turning over the pages of one of the
newspapers his eye was arrested by the name Zattiany. He never read
Society paragraphs, but that name would leap to his eyes anywhere. The
announcement was as brief as "social notes" always are in the daily
editions of the morning papers: "Mrs. Oglethorpe gives a luncheon
tomorrow at her house in Gramercy Park to the Countess Zattiany of
Vienna."
So! She had satisfied Mrs. Oglethorpe. That was one on Dinwiddie.
On the following night he bought himself an admission ticket to the
Metropolitan Opera House and entered at the close of the second act.
As he had half expected, she was in Mrs. Oglethorpe's box, and it was
crowded with men. He fancied that his older friend looked both glum
and amused. As for Dinwiddie, his expression was half-witted.
He went home and took a bromide. Sleep, being a function, is outside
the domain of the will, and he had had little of it since Tuesday. And
sleep he must if he was to be in alert command of his faculties on the
following night.