During the following week she gave a dinner and insisted upon his
attendance. She had given others to that increasing throng that had
been young with her in the eighties and to others who had stormed and
conquered that once impregnable citadel, but, she informed him, it was
now time to entertain some of the younger women, and he must help her.
He consented readily enough, for he was curious to see her surrounded
by a generation into which she had coolly stepped with no disadvantage
to herself and, from all he heard, considerable to them. He knew that
not only Vane but other men in their late twenties and early thirties
were paying her devoted attentions. Dinwiddie, who met him in the Park
one day and dined with him in the Casino, had spoken with modified
enthusiasm of these conquests, but added that it was yet to be
demonstrated whether the young men were egged by novelty or genuine
coveting. When he hinted that she may have appealed to that secret
lust for the macabre that exists somewhere in all men, Clavering had
scowled at him so ferociously that he had plunged into rhapsody and
bewailed his own lost youth.
And then he had endeavored to sound the young man in whom he was most
interested, but of whose present relations with Mary Zattiany he had no
inkling; he had not seen them together nor heard any fresh gossip since
her second début. But he was told to shut up and talk about the
weather.
Clavering, who knew that he would not have a moment alone with her,
went to the dinner in much the same mood as he went to a first-night at
which he was reasonably sure of entertainment. It certainly would be
good comedy to the detached observer, and this he was quite capable of
being with nothing better in prospect. Nevertheless, he was utterly
unprepared for the presence of Anne Goodrich and Marian Lawrence, for
he understood that the dinner was given to the more important of the
young married women. But they were the first persons he saw when he
entered the drawing-room. They were standing together--shoulder to
shoulder, he reflected cynically--and he knew that they privately
detested each other, and not on his account only.
How like Mary Zattiany, with her superb confidence in herself, to ask
these beautiful girls who she had heard wanted to marry him themselves.
Well, he understood women well enough to be indulgent to their little
vanities.
He was almost the last of the guests, but he had time to observe the
two girls before dinner was announced, in spite of the fact that he was
claimed by other acquaintances before he could reach them.
Anne looked regally handsome in gold-colored tissue and paillettes that
gave a tawny light to her eyes and hair, and to her skin an amber glow.
She held her head very high, and in spite of her mere five feet five,
looked little less stately than Madame Zattiany, who wore a marvellous
velvet gown the exact shade of her hair. Marian Lawrence was small but
so perfectly made that her figure was always alluded to as her body,
and she carried her head, not regally, but with an insolent assurance
that became her. She was very beautiful, with a gleaming white skin
that she never powdered nor colored, and hair like gold leaf, parted
and worn in smooth bands over her ears and knotted loosely on her neck
in the fashion known as à la vierge. Her large grayish-green eyes were
set far apart and her brows and lashes were black. She had a straight
innocent-looking nose with very thin nostrils, into which she was
capable of compressing the entire expression of a face. She generally
wore the fashionable colors of the moment, but tonight her soft
shimmering gown was of palest green, and Clavering wondered if this
were a secret declaration of war. She, too, was of the siren class,
and it was possible that she and Mary Zattiany derived from some common
ancestress who had combed her hair on a rock or floated northward over
the steppes of Russia. But there were abysmal differences between the
two women, as Clavering well knew. Marian Lawrence, with great natural
intelligence, never read anything more serious than a novel and
preferred those that were not translated into English. She took no
interest whatever in anything outside her inherited circumference, and
had prided herself during the war upon ignoring its existence. She was
as luxurious and as dainty as a cat and one of the most ardent
sportswomen in America. She looked as if she had just stepped out of a
stained-glass window, and she was a hard, subtle, predatory flirt; too
much in love with her beautiful body to give it wholly to any man. She
had never really fallen in love with Clavering until she had lost him,
and he, his brief enthusiasm for her unique beauty and somewhat
demoniac charm having subsided, had avoided her ever since; although
they danced together at the few fashionable parties he attended. He
knew her better now than when he had seen her daily, almost hourly, at
a house party in the White Mountains, and almost as often for several
weeks after his return. This was shortly after his mistake with Anne,
and her attraction had consisted largely in her complete difference
from a really fine character toward whom he felt a certain resentment
for having so much and still lacking the undefined essential. He had
not deluded himself that he would find it in Marian Lawrence, but her
paradoxes diverted him and he was quite willing to go as far as her
technique permitted. It had never occurred to him for a moment that
she was seriously in love with him, but he had had more than one
glimpse of her claws and he regarded her uneasily tonight. And what
were she and Anne whispering about?
"You will take in Miss Goodrich," Madame Zattiany had said to him, her
eyes twinkling, and he had merely shrugged his shoulders. He did not
care in the least whom he talked to; it was the ensemble that
interested him. Anne and Marian were the only girls present. The
other women were between twenty-five and thirty-five or -six. Madame
Zattiany would seem to have chosen them all for their good looks, and
she looked younger than several of them.
Mauve was the fashionable color of the season. There were three mauve
gowns and the table was lit by very long, very thin mauve candles above
a low bank of orchids. Mrs. Ruyler had disinterred the family
amethysts, but Mrs. de Lacey and Mrs. Vane, "Polly's" daughter-in-law,
wore their pearls. There were several tiaras, for they were going on
to the opera and later to a ball. The company numbered twenty in all
and there were three unmarried men besides Clavering, and including
Harry Vane. Clavering found Marian Lawrence on his left, and once more
he caught a twinkle in Madame Zattiany's eyes as the guests surrounded
the table.
He had not seen Anne since the night of Suzan's party, when they had
varied the program by sitting on the floor in front of the fire,
roasting chestnuts and discussing philosophy; then playing poker until
two o'clock in the morning. He asked her if she were comfortable and
happy in her new life.
"Rather!" She smiled with all her old serene brightness and her eyes
dwelt on him in complete friendliness. "I'd even sleep in the studio,
but have made one concession to my poor family. They're not
reconciled, but, after all, I am twenty-four--and spent two years in
France. I have had three orders for portraits--friends of the family,
of course. I must be content with 'pull' until I am taken seriously as
an artist. If I can only exhibit at the next Academy I shall feel
full-fledged."
"And what of your new circle?"
"I've been to several parties and enjoyed myself hugely. Some of them
get pretty tight, but I've seen people tighter at house parties and not
nearly so amusing. And then Gora and Suzan! I've never liked any
women as well. . . . This is the first dinner of the old sort I've
been to since I started."
"Ah?" asked Clavering absently. "Why the exception?"
"Well, you see, I am tremendously _intriguée_, like every one else.
I'd met her several times at home, and she came one day to my studio,
where the Sophisticates made the most tremendous fuss over her. But I
was curious to see her in her own old home, where she had reigned so
long ago as Mary Ogden. Mother told me that everything was unchanged
except the stair carpet and her bedroom." Her tone was lightly
impersonal, and still more so as she added: "Why don't you write a
novel about her, Lee? She must be the most remarkable psychological
study of the age. Fancy living two lifetimes in the same body. It
puts reincarnation to the blush. I suppose she'll bury us all."
Clavering shot her a sharp investigating glance, but replied suavely:
"Not necessarily. The same road is open to all of you."
Miss Goodrich had never looked more the fine and dignified
representative of her class as she lifted her candid eyes with an
expression of disdain.
"My dear Lee! Really! There _are_ some women above that sort of
thing."
"Above? I don't think I follow you. But of course she's given
hide-bound conservatism a pretty hard jolt."
"It's not that--really. But all women growing old and trying to be or
to look young again are rather undignified--according to our standards
at least, and I have been brought up in the belief that they are the
highest in the world. And then, one's sense of humor----!"
"Humor? Is that what you call it?" (Damn all women for cats, the best
of them. Anne!)
"Why, yes, isn't it rather absurd--for more reasons than one?
To my mind it is the complete farce. She has regained the
appearance--and--_possibly_--the real feeling of youth, with all its
capacity for enthusiasm and unworn emotions--it seems rather ludicrous,
but still it may be; certainly the interior should be in some degree a
match for that marvellously restored face and body--but the whole thing
is made farcical by the fact that she never can have children. And
what else does youth in women really mean?"
"Experience has taught me that it means quite a number of other things.
And painting portraits is not fulfilling the first and highest duty of
womanhood, dear Anne."
Miss Goodrich flushed, but accepted his score calmly. "Oh, I shall
marry, of course. But then, you see, I am young--really young."
"What are you two quarrelling about?" broke in Miss Lawrence's husky
voice. She had smoked steadily since taking her seat at the table, not
so much because she had an irresistible passion for tobacco as because
it destroyed her appetite and preserved her figure. "I haven't seen
Anne blush like that since she got back from France."
"I was just telling her how beautiful she looked tonight." And angry
as he was, it amused him to hear Anne's little gasp of pleasure.
"Yes, doesn't she?" Miss Lawrence blew a ring and smiled sweetly.
"I've always been jealous of Anne. She's such a beautiful height. I'm
so glad the giraffes of the last generation seem to have died out. Too
bad, when Madame Zattiany rejuvenated herself, she didn't slice off a
few inches. She dwarfs even men of your height, although, of course,
you are really taller. But then tall women----" She shrugged her
shoulders, her crisp voice softened and she went on as if thinking
aloud. "Do you know . . . to me she does not look young at all. I
have a fancy she's hypnotized every one but myself. I seem to see an
old woman with a colossal will. . . . But I'd like to know the name of
that whitewash she uses. It may come in handy some day. Not for
another ten years, though. Oh, Lee! it's good to be really young and
not have to be flattened out on a table under broiling X-Rays and have
your poor old feminine department cranked up. . . . I wonder just how
adventurous men are?"'
But Clavering, although seething, merely smiled. He knew himself to be
like the man who has had a virulent attack of small-pox and is immune
for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he would cheerfully have
twisted her neck. She was holding that slim lily-like throat up for
his inspection, a cigarette between her thin scarlet lips as she looked
at him over her shoulder. At sixteen she could not have been more
outwardly unblemished, and she emanated a heady essence. Her long
green eyes met his keen satiric ones with melting languor. But she
said unexpectedly:
"I hear she's going to marry Mr. Osborne, mother's old beau--or is that
Mr. Dinwiddie? How can one straighten out those old-timers? But it
would be quite appropriate, if she must marry--and I suppose she's
dying to; but I notice she hasn't asked either of them tonight. I
suppose it makes her feel younger to surround herself with young
people. It certainly makes me feel frightfully young---- I mean she
does."
"Do you think it good manners to discuss your hostess at her own table?"
"Oh, manners! You'll always be a Southerner, Lee. New York has always
prided itself on its bad manners. That is the real source of our
strength."
"Pretty poor prop. It seems to me a sign of congenital weakness."
"Oh, we never defend ourselves. By the way, I hear Jim Oglethorpe
rushed poor little Janet off to Egypt because he found her in your
rooms and you refused to marry her. You're not such a gallant
Southerner, after all----"
"What a lie! Who on earth started such a yarn?" But he turned cold
and his hand shook a little as he raised his wine glass.
"It's all over town, and people think you really ought to marry her.
Of course those ridiculous little flappers don't care whether they are
talked about or not, but their families do. I hear that old Mrs.
Oglethorpe is quite ill over the scandal, and she always swore by you."
"Mrs. Oglethorpe, I happen to know, as I dined there last night, was
never better and is delighted with the idea that Jim has taken Janet
abroad to get her away from that rotten crowd."
She looked nonplussed, but returned to the charge. "How stories do get
about! They even say that he horsewhipped you----"
"Pray don't overtax your powers of invention. You know there's no such
story going about or everybody here would have cut me dead. Try
another tack."
"Well, I'll confess I made that up just to get a rise out of you." She
looked at him speculatively. "But about Janet--well, you see, I know
you for a gay deceiver--mother is always using those old expressions
that were the fashion in her--and Mary Ogden's--day. I hear you even
made love to our fair hostess until you found out the truth and then
you dropped her like a hot potato--or a cold fish. I was surprised
when she told me you were coming here tonight, and asked her at once to
seat us three together so that Anne and I could save you from feeling
embarrassed--not that I told her that, of course. I merely said we
were such old friends we would naturally have a thousand things to talk
about. She didn't turn a hair; I'll say that much for her. But
perhaps she thinks she's playing you on a long string. She's playing
several poor fish who are here tonight."
Should he tell her? He really could stand no more. He hadn't a doubt
that the same rumor that had driven Janet to her crude attempt, to
compromise him and then blast her rival with naked words, had reached
these two older and cleverer, but hardly subtler girls, and they had
joined forces to disenchant him and make him feel the misguided young
man they no doubt believed him to be. He hated them both. They had
that for their pains. He'd never willingly see one of them again.
He longed to blurt out the truth. But his was not the right. He
glanced over at Madame Zattiany, who sat in the middle of the table's
length, receiving the intent homage of the men on either side of her
and looking more placid than any other woman in the room. . . . It
occurred to him that the rest were animated to excess, even the wives
of those two men, to whom, it was patent, they were non-existent. He
would have given his play at that moment to be able to stand up and ask
the company to drink his health and hers.
For a few moments he was left to himself, both Marian and Anne being
occupied with their neighbors, and during those moments he sensed an
atmosphere of hostility, of impending danger. He caught more than one
malicious glance directed at Mary, and once a man, in response to a
whispered remark, burst into uncontrollable laughter. Had these women
come here--but that was impossible. Even New York had its limits.
They might be icily rude to a pushing outsider, as indeed they had
every right to be, but never to one of their own. Still--to this
alarmed generation possibly Madame Zattiany was nothing more than a
foreign woman who had stormed the gates and reduced them to a mere
background. The fact that she had belonged to their mothers'
generation and had abruptly descended to theirs was enough to arouse
every instinct of self-defence. He quite understood they must hate
her, but in spite of that common enmity his sensitive mind apprehended,
they'd surely commit no overt act of hostility. Like all their kind,
they were adepts in the art of "freezing out." He had no doubt they
had come here from mere curiosity and that he would shortly hear they
had ceased to entertain or receive her. But he wished the dinner were
over.
He was soon enlightened.
Marian Lawrence leaned across the table. "Oh, Madame Zattiany! Will
you settle a dispute? Harry and I have been arguing about Disraeli.
Your husband was an ambassador, wasn't he? Did you happen to be at the
Berlin What-d'you-call-it?"
"Oh, no," replied Madame Zattiany, with open amusement. "I was still
Mary Ogden in eighteen-seventy-eight."
"Oh! The seventies and eighties are all one to me, I'm afraid. I'm
shockingly ignorant. But we've all been saying that you ought to write
your memoirs. Thirty-four years of diplomatic life in Europe! You
must have met every one worth knowing and it would be such a delightful
way for us youngsters to learn history."
"Oh, I kept a diary," said Madame Zattiany lightly. "I may publish it
some day." And she turned pointedly to the man on her right. Why had
she invited the little cat?
"Oh, but Madame Zattiany!" exclaimed young Mrs. Ruyler, whose black
eyes were sparkling. "Please don't wait. I'm so interested in German
history since the war. You must have known four generations of
Hohenzollerns . . . too thrilling! And Bismarck. And the Empress
Elizabeth. And Crown Prince Rudolf--do tell us the truth of that
mysterious tragedy. Did you ever see Marie Vetsera? I never heard of
it until the other day when some of mother's friends raked it up, and
I've been excited ever since."
"Unfortunately my husband was an attaché in Paris at the time, and I
never saw her. I am afraid your curiosity will never be satisfied.
There was a general impression that if Vienna ever became the capital
of a Republic the archives would be opened and the truth of the
Meyerling tragedy given to the world. But all documents relating to
private scandals must have been destroyed." She spoke with the utmost
suavity, the patient hostess with rather tiresome guests. "People in
Vienna, I assure you, take very little interest in that old scandal.
They are too busy and too uncomfortable making history of their own."
"Yes, it must be a hideously uncomfortable place to live in." Mrs.
Leonard, another daughter-in-law of one of Mary's old friends, gave a
little shudder. "No wonder you got out. I was so glad to subscribe to
your noble charity, dear Madame Zattiany. But"--and she smiled
winsomely--"I think we should get up a subscription for those wonderful
scientists in Vienna. Every once in a while you hear the most
harrowing stories of the starving scientists of Europe, and it would be
too awful if those miracle men in Vienna should pass away from
malnutrition before it is our turn to need them."
"Ah, dear Mrs. Ruyler!" exclaimed Madame Zattiany with a smile as
winsome as her own. "You forget they will probably all be dead by that
time and that their pupils will be equally eminent and even more
expert. For that matter there will be experts in every city in the
world."
But Clavering, watching her anxiously, had seen an expression of wonder
dawn in her eyes, quickly as she had banished it. It was evident that
whatever the secret spite of these women, this was the first time they
had given it open expression. He glanced about the table. Young
Vane's face was crimson and he had turned his back pointedly on Marian
Lawrence, who was smoking and grinning. She had started the ball and
was too indolent to take it out of hands that seemed to be equally
efficient.
Clavering leaned forward and caught Mary's eye with a peremptory
expression, but she shook her head, although too imperceptibly for any
one else to catch the fleeting movement, and he sank back with a
humiliating sense of impotence. He wished she were not so well able to
take care of herself.
"But this is abominable," murmured Anne Goodrich. It was possible that
she was not in on the baiting. "Abominable. What must she think of
us? Or, perhaps they don't really mean to be horrid. They look
innocent enough. After all, she could tell us many interesting things."
"Oh, they mean it," said Clavering bitterly. "They mean it all right
and she knows it."
"You speak as if you were even more interested in her than poor Harry
Vane." The indignation had faded from Miss Goodrich's lofty
countenance. "Are you?"
"Yes, I am, if you want the truth. I'd marry her tomorrow if she'd
have me." This was as far as he could go.
"Oh!" Her mouth trembled, but she did not look wholly unprepared for
the statement. "But--Lee---- You know how interested I have always
been in you--how interested we all are in you----"
"What has that to do with it? If you are so interested in me I should
think I'd have your best wishes to carry off such a prize. Have you
ever seen a more remarkable woman?"
"Oh, remarkable, yes. But--well----" And then she burst out: "It
seems to me unspeakably horrid. I can't say all I'd like to----"
"Pray, don't. And suppose we change the subject---- They're at it
again, damn them."
The men were looking very uncomfortable. The women were gazing at
their hostess with round apologetic eyes. Mrs. de Lacey, the youngest
and prettiest of the married women, had clasped her hands as if
worshipping at a shrine.
"It seems too terrible when we look back upon it!" she exclaimed, and
she infused her tones with the tragic ring of truth, "_dear_ Madame
Zattiany, that for even a little while we thought the most awful things
about you. We'd heard of the wonderful things surgeons had done to
mutilated faces during the war, and we were sure that some one of them
bad taken one of your old photographs--how could we even guess the
truth? How you must have hated us!"
"How could I hate you?" Madame Zattiany smiled charmingly. "I had not
the faintest idea you were discussing me."
"But why--why--did you shut yourself up so long after you came when you
must have known how mother and all your old friends longed to see you
again?"
"I was tired and resting." She frowned slightly. Such a question was
a distinct liberty and she had never either taken or permitted
liberties. But she banished the frown and met her tormentor's eyes
blandly. She had no intention of losing her poise for a moment.
"Ah! I said it!" cried Mrs. de Lacey. "I knew it was not because you
felt a natural hesitation in showing yourself. To me you seem brave
enough for anything, but it must have taken a lot of courage."
"Courage?"
"Why, yes! Fancy--well, you see, I'm such a coward about what people
say--especially if I thought they'd laugh at me--that if I'd done it I
should have run off and hidden somewhere."
"Then what object in invoking the aid of science to defeat nature at
one more point? And I can assure you, dear Mrs. de Lacey, that when
you are fifty-eight, if you have not developed courage to face the
world on every count it will merely be because you have indulged too
frequently in unbridled passions."
"Ah--yes--but you didn't have any qualms at all?"
"Certainly not. I confess I am surprised at your rather strained view
of what is really a very simple matter."
"_Simple_? Why, it's the most extraordinary thing that ever happened."
"The world is equally astonished--and resentful--at every new
discovery, but in a short time accepts it as a commonplace. The layman
resents all new ideas, but the adjustment of the human mind to the
inevitable is common even among savages." Her slight affectation of
pedantry was very well done and Clavering could not detect the flicker
of a lash as her eyes rested indulgently upon her tormentor.
"Well, I don't see what that has to do with it. Anyhow, it must make
you feel terribly isolated."
Madame Zattiany shrugged her shoulders. She could make this common
gesture foreign, and her accent was a trifle more marked as she
answered, "Here, possibly, but not in Europe, where the treatment has
been known and practised for several years. It may interest you to
hear that only yesterday I had a letter from a friend in Vienna telling
me that an elderly countess, a great beauty some forty years ago, had
announced triumphantly that once more men were following her on the
street."
Mrs. de Lacey burst into a peal of girlish laughter. "Pardon me, dear
Madame Zattiany. We are used to it in your case, now that we have got
over the shock, but it does seem too funny. And Europe almost manless.
What--what will the poor girls do?"
"Scratch their eyes out," said Clavering, who could contain himself no
longer.
Mrs. de Lacey made no attempt to conceal the wicked sparkle in her eyes
as she turned to him. "How crude! I suppose it was you who set those
dreadful newspapers on poor Madame Zattiany." She turned back to her
hostess. "That has been a shocking ordeal for you. You know how we
always avoid that sort of thing. We've felt for you--I wanted to come
and tell you--you don't mind my telling you now?"
"Your sympathy is very sweet. But I really have enjoyed it! You see,
my dear child, when one has lived as long as I have, a new sensation is
something to be grateful for."
"Oh, but----" Mrs. de Lacey's bright eyes were now charged with
ingenuous curiosity. "You don't really mean--we've had the most
furious arguments--_couldn't_ you fall in love again? I don't mean
like silly old women with boys, but _really_--like a young woman?
Please let me have my little triumph. I've sworn you could. And then
the poor men----"
"Upon my word!" Madame Zattiany laughed outright. "This has gone far
enough. I refuse to be the exclusive topic of conversation any longer.
I am immensely flattered, but you are making me feel the rude hostess."
And this time she turned with an air of finality to the apologetic,
almost purple, man at her side and asked him to continue to enlighten
her on municipal politics.
One or two women shrugged their shoulders. A few looked crestfallen,
others, like Marian Lawrence, malignant. She had marched off with the
flag, no use blinking the fact, and it had been small satisfaction to
make her admit what she had already told the world. The "rubbing in"
had evidently missed its mark. And the men, instead of looking cheap,
were either infuriated or disgusted. Only Clavering, who managed to
look bored and remote, was attending strictly to his salad.
One thing more they could do, however, and that was to make the dinner
a failure. They barely replied to the efforts of the men to "make
things go" and gloom settled over the table. Madame Zattiany continued
to talk with placidity or animation to the men beside her, and
Clavering started a running fire with Anne Goodrich, who, almost as
angry as himself, loyally helped him, on censorship, the latest books
and plays, even the situation in Washington; and they continued their
painful efforts until the signal was given to leave the table.