After this interview Keith experienced a marked and formal coldness
from nearly all of his old associates, Those with whom he came into
direct personal contact showed him scrupulous politeness, but confined
their conversation to the briefest necessary words, and quit him as
soon as possible. He found himself very much alone, for at this period
he had lost the confidence of one faction and had not yet gained that
of the other.
His investigations encountered always increasing difficulties. In his
own department he could obtain little assistance. A dead inertia
opposed all his efforts. Nevertheless, he went ahead doggedly, using
Krafft and some of Krafft's protégés to considerable effect.
But soon pressure was brought on him from a new direction: his
opponents struck at him through his home.
For some days Nan had been aware of a changed atmosphere in the society
she frequented and had heretofore led. The change was subtle, defied
analysis, but was to the woman's sensitive instincts indubitable. At
first she had been inclined to consider it subjective, to imagine that
something wrong with herself must be projecting itself through her
imagination; but finally she realized that the impression was well
based. In people's attitude there was nothing overt; it was rather a
withdrawl of intimacy, a puzzling touch of formality. She seemed
overnight to have lost in popularity.
Truth to tell, she paid little attention to this. By now she was
experienced enough in human nature to understand and to be able to
gauge the slight fluctuations, the ebbs and flows of esteem, the
kaleidoscopic shiftings and realignments of the elements of frivolous
and formal society. Mrs. Brown had hired away Mrs. Smith's best
servant; for an hour they looked askance on Mrs. Brown; then, the
episode forgotten, Mrs. Brown's cork bobbed to the surface company of
all the other corks. It was very trivial. Besides, just at this moment,
Nan was wholly occupied with preparations for her first "afternoon" of
the year. She intended as usual to give three of these formal affairs,
and from them the season took its tone. The list was necessarily far
from exclusive, but Nan made up for that by the care she gave her most
original arrangements. She prided herself on doing things simply, but
with a difference, calling heavily on her resources of correspondence,
her memory, and her very good imagination for some novelty of food or
entertainment. At the first of these receptions, too, she wore always
for the first time some new and marvellous toilet straight from Paris,
the style of which had not been shown to even her most intimate
friends. This year, for example, she had done the most obvious and,
therefore, the most unlikely thing: she had turned to the
contemporaneous Spanish for her theme. Nobody had thought of that. The
Colonial, the Moorish, the German, the Russian, the Hungarian--all the
rest of the individual or "picturesque"--but nobody had thought to look
next door. Nan had decorated the rooms with yellow and red, hung the
walls with riatas, strings of red peppers and the like, obtained
Spanish guitar players, and added enough fiery Mexican dishes to the
more digestible refreshments to emphasize the Spanish flavour. She wore
a dress of golden satin, a wreath of coral flowers about her hair, and
morocco slippers matched in hue.
The afternoon was fine. People were slow in coming. A few of the
nondescripts that must be invited on such occasions put in an
appearance, responded hastily to their hostess's greeting, and wandered
about furtively but interminably. Patricia Sherwood, who had come
early, circulated nobly, trying to break up the frozen little groups,
but in vain. The time passed. More non-descripts--and not a soul else!
As five o'clock neared, a cold fear clutched at Nan's heart. No one was
coming!
She worked hard to cover with light graciousness the cold-hearted
dismay that filled her breast as the party dragged its weary length
away. All her elaborate preparations and decorations seemed to mock
her. The Spanish orchestra tinkled away gayly until she felt she could
throw something at them; the caterer's servants served solemnly the
awed nondescripts. Nan's cheeks burned and her throat choked with
unshed tears. She could not bear to look at Patsy Sherwood, who
remained tactfully distant.
About five-thirty the door opened to admit a little group, at the sight
of whom Nan uttered a short, hysterical chuckle. Then she glided to
meet them, both hands outstretched in welcome, Mrs. Sherwood watched
her with admiration. Nan was game.
There were three in the party: Mrs. Morrell, Sally Warner, and Mrs.
Scattergood. Sally Warner was of the gushing type of tall, rather
desiccated femininity who always knows you so much better than you know
her, who cultivates you every moment for a week and forgets you for
months on end, who is hard up and worldly and therefore calculating,
whose job is to amuse people and who will therefore sacrifice her best,
perhaps not most useful, friend to an epigram, whose wit is barbed, who
has a fine nose for trouble, and who is always in at the death. Mrs.
Scattergood was a small blond woman, high voiced, precise in manner,
very positive in her statements which she delivered in a drawling tone,
humourless, inquisitive about petty affairs, the sort of "good woman"
with whom no fault can be found, but who drives men to crime. Mrs.
Morrell we know.
These three, after greeting their hostess gushingly, circulated
compactly, talking to each other in low voices. Nan knew they were
watching her, and that they had come for the sole purpose of getting
first-hand details of her fiasco for later recounting in drawing-rooms
where, undoubtedly, even now awaited eager auditors. She came to a
decision. The matter could not be worse. When, the three came to make
their farewells, she detained them.
"No, I'm not going to let you go yet," she told them, perhaps a little
imperiously. "I haven't had half a visit with you. Wait until this
rabble clears out."
She hesitated a moment over Mrs. Sherwood, but finally let her go
without protest. When the last guest had departed she sank into a
chair. As she was already on the verge of hysterics, she easily kept up
an air of gayety.
"Girls, what an awful party!" she cried. "I could tear my hair! It was
a perfect nightmare." Struggling to control her voice and keep back her
tears, she added abruptly: "Now tell me what it is all about."
Mrs. Morrell and Sally Warner were plainly uneasy and at a loss how to
meet this situation, but Mrs. Scattergood remained quite composed in
her small, compact way.
"What's what all about, Nan, dear?" asked Sally Warner in her most
vivacious manner. She keenly felt the dramatic situation and was
already visualizing herself in the role of raconteuse.
"You know perfectly well. Why this funeral? Where are they all? Why did
they stay away? I have a right to know."
"I'm sure there's nothing _I_ can think of!" replied Sally
artificially. "The idea!"
But Mrs. Scattergood, with all the relish of performing a noble and
disagreeable duty, broke in:
"You know, dear," she said in her didactic, slow voice, "as well as we
do, what the world is. Of course _we_ understand, but people will talk!"
"In heaven's name what are you driving at? What are they talking
about?" demanded Nan, as Mrs. Scattergood apparently came to a full
stop.
A pause ensued while Sally and Mrs. Scattergood exchanged glances with
Mrs. Morrell.
"Well," at last said Sally, judicially, buttoning her glove, her head
on one side, "if I had a nice husband like yours, I wouldn't let him
run around getting himself disliked for nothing."
"You ought to use your influence with him before it is too late," added
Mrs. Morrell.
Nan looked helplessly from one to the other, too uncertain of her
ground now to risk another step.
"So that's it," she ventured at last. "Some one has been telling lies
about us!"
"Oh, dear no!" disclaimed Mrs. Scattergood, "It is only that your
friends cannot understand your taking sides against them. Naturally
they feel hurt. Forgive me, dear--you know I say it with all
affection--but don't you think it a mistake?"
Nan was thoroughly dazed and mystified, but afraid to press the matter
further. She had a suspicion Mrs. Morrell was again responsible for her
difficulties, but was too uncertain to urge them to stay for further
elucidation. They arose. These were the days of hoop skirts, and the
set of the outer skirt had to be carefully adjusted before going out.
As they posed in turn before the hall pier glass they chattered. "How
lovely the house looks." "You certainly have worked hard, and must be
tired, poor dear!" "Well, we'll see you to-morrow at Mrs. Terry's.
You're _not asked_? Surely there is some mistake! Well, those things
always happen in a big affair, don't they?" "See you soon." "Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
Outside the house they paused at the head of the steps.
"Well, what do you think of that?" said Sally. "I really believe the
poor thing doesn't know, I believe I'll just drop in for a minute at
Mrs. Caldwell's. Sorry you're not going my way."
After a fashion Nan felt relieved by this interview, for she thought
she discerned only Mrs. Morrell's influence, and this, she knew, she
could easily overcome. While she waited for Keith's return from
whatever inaccessible fastnesses he always occupied during these big
afternoon receptions, she reviewed the situation, her indignation
mounting. Downstairs, Wing Sam and his temporary assistants were
clearing things away. Usually Nan superintended this, but to-day she
did not care. When Keith finally entered the room, she burst out on him
with a rapid and angry account of the whole situation as she saw it;
but to her surprise he did not rise to it. His weary, spiritless,
uninterested: acceptance of it astonished her to the last degree. To
him her entanglement with the Cora affair--for at once he saw the trend
of it all--seemed the last straw. Not even his own home was sacred. His
spirit was so bruised and wearied that he actually could not rise to an
explanation. He seemed to realize an utter hopelessness of making her
see his point of view. This was not so strange when it is considered
that this point of view, however firmly settled, was still a new and
unexplained fact with himself. He contented himself with saying: "The
Morrells had nothing whatever to do with it." It was the only thing
that occurred to him as worth saying; but it was unfortunate, for it
left Nan's irritation without logical support. Naturally that
irritation was promptly transferred to him.
"Then what, in heaven's name, is it?" she demanded. "My friends are all
treating me as if I had the smallpox."
"Cheerful lot of friends we've made in this town!" he said bitterly.
"What is the matter with them?" she persisted.
"The matter is they've taken me for a fool they could order around to
suit themselves. They found they couldn't. Now they're through with me,
even Cal Bennett," he added in a lower tone that revealed his hurt.
She paused, biting her underlip.
"Is the trouble anything to do with this Cora case?" she asked,
suddenly enlightened by some vague, stray recollection.
"Of course!" he replied crossly, exasperated at the nagging necessity
of arousing himself to explanations. "There's no use arguing about it.
I'm going to see it through in spite of that hound McDougall and his
whole pack of curs!"
"But why have you turned so against your friends?" she asked more
gently, struck by his careworn look as he sprawled in the easy chair
under the lamp. "I don't see! You'll get yourself disliked!"
She did not press the matter further for the moment, but three days
later she brought up the topic again. In the interim she had heard
considerable direct and indirect opinion. She selected after dinner as
the most propitious time for discussion. As a matter of fact, earlier
in the day would have been better, before Keith's soul had been rubbed
raw by downtown attrition.
"I don't believe you quite realize how strongly people feel about the
Cora case," she began. "Isn't it possible to drop it or compromise it
or something, Milton?"
In the reaction from argument and--coldness downtown he felt he could
stand no more of it at home.
"I wish you'd let that matter drop!" he said decidedly. "You couldn't
understand it."
She hesitated. A red spot appeared in either cheek.
"I must say I _don't_ understand!" she countered. "It is inconceivable
to me that a man like you should turn so easily against his class!"
"My class?" he echoed wearily.
"What do such creatures as Cora and Yankee Sullivan amount to?" she
cried hotly, "I suppose you'll say _they_ are in your class next! How
you can consider them of sufficient importance to go dead against your
best friends on their account!"
"It is because I am right and they are wrong."
She was a little carried beyond herself.
"Well, they all think the same way," she pointed out. "Aren't you a
little--a little--"
"Pig-headed," supplied Keith bitterly.
"--to put your opinion against theirs?" she finished.
Keith did not reply.
This was Nan's last attempt. She did not bring up the subject again.
But she withdrew proudly and completely from all participation in
society. She refused herself to callers. Once the situation was
thoroughly defined, she accepted it. If her husband decided to play the
game in this way, she, too, would follow, whether she approved or not.
Nan was loyal and a thoroughbred. And she was either too proud or too
indifferent to fight it out with the other women, in the rough and
tumble of social ambition.