"I believe I should hate to have Mr. Thayer fall in love with me," Sally
observed thoughtfully.
"I wouldn't worry about it yet," Bobby said unkindly. "He yawned twice,
last night, while he was talking to you."
Sally's answer was prompt.
"Yes, we were discussing you."
"Why didn't you call me over to give you some points? It is the only
subject upon which I can speak with authority. But just think what a
lover Thayer would make, troubadouring around under windows!"
Sally counted swiftly.
"There are nineteen families in our hotel, Bobby, and thirteen of them
have marriageable daughters. Imagine the creaking of casements, when Mr.
Thayer warbled, 'Open the window to me, Love!' Troubadours will do for
the country; in town, one can heed only the impersonal strains of the
hurdy-gurdy. But really--"
"Yes?" Bobby's accent was encouraging.
"If Mr. Thayer should fall in love and get engaged, what could the girl
call him? His name doesn't lend itself easily to endearments."
"His mother ought to have thought of that, when she named him."
"It is a case of visiting the father's sins upon the child of the sixth
generation. He is only Volume Seven in the series of Cotton Mathers."
Bobby plunged his fists into his pockets.
"That is a respectable custom; but a mighty stupid one. A fellow
oughtn't to be labelled like one of a class. Might as well catalogue
children, and done with it, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and so on through the
list of Thayers. Then, when he came to years of discretion, he could
pick for himself. Do you suppose I would have been Bobby, if I had been
consulted?"
"What then?" Beatrix asked, pausing in her talk with Lorimer.
"Demosthenes Alphonso, of course. That's something worth while."
"Demosthenes Alphonso Dane. D. A. D." Sally commented irrepressibly.
Then she swept across the room and, parting the curtains, peeped out
between them. "Beatrix, the Philistines be upon you! Here comes Mrs.
Lloyd Avalons. Oh, why was I the first to come? As a rule, I believe in
the rotation of callers as implicitly as I do in the rotation of crops.
Bobby, you came next. How long do you mean to stay?"
"Till the almonds are gone, or till Beatrix turns me out," he replied
imperturbably.
"All right. Give me five minutes' warning. You can twirl your thumbs,
when it is time for me to start; but I am bound to see some of the fun."
"Now, children, you must be good," Beatrix implored them hurriedly.
"Bobby, do try to talk about something she can understand."
"If you want to condemn me to the conversational limits of a mummy, say
so in plain Saxon," he retorted. "How can I talk about something that
doesn't exist?"
"Bobby!" Sally's tone was full of warning, as Beatrix rose to meet her
guest.
Mrs. Lloyd Avalons had gained one distinct point in her social training.
She had learned to cross a room as if she were doing her hostess a favor
by appearing. Even Beatrix was impressed by the swift, dainty sweep with
which she came forward, and she cast a hasty thought to the quality of
her tea. Bobby, meanwhile, was taking mental stock of Mrs. Lloyd
Avalons's tailor and deciding that he could give points to his own
fellow. For a person who professed to ignore all such detail, Bobby
Dane was singularly critical of feminine dress, as Beatrix had learned
to her cost.
Seated by the tea-table, balancing a Sevres cup in her hand, Mrs. Lloyd
Avalons appeared to be casting about in her mind for a subject of
conversation. Bobby came to her relief.
"When you appeared, Mrs. Avalons, we were just speaking of mummies. Have
you seen the latest importation at the Metropolitan?"
"Mr. Dane!" she remonstrated hastily. "Do you suppose I--"
"Certainly," Bobby assured her gravely. "I often spend an hour looking
at them, and I always feel the better for the time passed in their
society. They remind me of the futility of earthly things, and inspire
me to higher aims."
Mrs. Lloyd Avalons smiled faintly.
"You literary people have strange thoughts," she observed, addressing
the room at large. "I have often thought I should like to write, if I
only had the time."
"Why don't you?" Bobby inquired blandly. "The result would be sure to be
interesting."
But Beatrix interposed.
"Are you as busy as ever, Mrs. Avalons?"
"Busier. It is such a bore to be in this perpetual rush; but I can't
seem to help it. Lent didn't bring me any rest, this year; and, now that
Easter is over, it seems to me that we are more gay than ever."
"That is the penalty of having an early Easter," Sally suggested. "We
had to stop for Lent in the middle of the season, and now we are
finishing up the sins of which we have already repented."
"Oh--yes," Mrs. Lloyd Avalons responded blankly.
"Can you get all your arrears of penitence done up in six weeks, Sally?"
Bobby asked, as he passed her the almonds.
"Yes, if I've not seen too much of you," she returned. "Mrs. Avalons,
when are you going to give us another recital?"
Mrs. Lloyd Avalons rose to the cast.
"Wasn't that a success? Mr. Thayer quite covered himself with glory."
"His mantle fell over some of the rest of us, and we gained lustre from
his glory." Sally's tone was slightly malicious.
"He is certainly a great artist, and I am proud to have discovered him."
"But I thought Mrs. Stanley discovered him. He sang for her first."
Mrs. Lloyd Avalons straightened in her chair. She had no intention of
allowing to Mrs. Stanley the prestige which belonged to herself. Mrs.
Stanley was several rounds farther up the social ladder than she was,
herself; but Mrs. Stanley lacked initiative and was rapidly losing her
start. In the seasons to come, she would find herself playing the part
of understudy to Mrs. Lloyd Avalons.
"Oh, Mrs. Stanley heard he was to sing for me, and she cabled across to
him to take an earlier steamer and sing for her first. It was a little
tricky. What is it you call it in the business world, Mr. Dane?"
"A corner in Cotton," Bobby replied gravely.
Mrs. Lloyd Avalons thought she could see that the point of this joke was
directed against Mrs. Stanley, and she laughed rather more heartily than
good breeding required. In her mirth, she even bent forward in her
chair, writhing slightly to and fro, while her silken linings hissed
like angry snakes. Suddenly she realized that she had prolonged her
mirth beyond the limits of the others, and she straightened her face
abruptly.
"But I am so glad the subject has come up, Miss Dane," she went on. "I
was meaning to ask you whether you thought I could get Mr. Thayer to
sing for our Fresh Air Fund."
"Really, I have no idea of Mr. Thayer's engagements," Beatrix said
drily.
"But I thought you knew him so well."
Beatrix's face expressed her surprise.
"I know him as I know any number of people, Mrs. Avalons. That doesn't
mean that Mr. Thayer consults me in regard to his plans."
"Oh, no," Mrs. Lloyd Avalons responded vivaciously. "But couldn't you
just say a good word for us?"
"I am afraid it wouldn't count for much."
Mrs. Lloyd Avalons raised her brows and made a delicate, pushing gesture
with her outspread palms.
"You are too modest, Miss Dane. We all know your powers of persuasion,
and we are counting on you."
"Who are _we_?" Sally inquired, in flat curiosity.
"Mrs. Van Bleeker and Mrs. Knickerbocker and I. We are the committee,
this year, and we are trying to have an uncommonly good concert."
"It must be very hard for you to work on a music committee with Mrs. Van
Bleeker," Bobby suggested. "She doesn't know a fugue from a bass viol,
and she never hesitates to say so."
"Therein she differs from most unmusical people," Sally responded, in a
swift aside. "Even truthful people will fib valiantly, where music is
concerned, and go into raptures, when they have hard work to suppress
their yawns. It was a sorry day for music, when it became the fashion."
"How droll you are, Miss Van Osdel!" Mrs. Lloyd Avalons was nothing, if
not direct, in her personal comments. Then she answered Bobby. "Even if
Mrs. Van Bleeker isn't really musical, it is a delight to work with her,
she is so very charming and so business-like. Strange as it may seem, I
actually take pleasure in our committee meetings, Mr. Dane."
"I haven't the slightest doubt of it," Bobby responded, with unctuous
emphasis.
"When is the concert to be, Mrs. Avalons?" Beatrix asked hastily, with a
frown at her cousin who stared blandly back at her.
"The first week in May, if we can possibly be ready for it. There was so
much, just before Lent, that we postponed it until after Easter. Now we
are no better off, for every day is full, so we are delaying it again.
We want to make it a large affair, don't you know, something that will
attract the swell set and the musical people, too."
If Bobby Dane hated one word in the language, that word was _swell_.
Accordingly, he glared haughtily across the table at Mrs. Lloyd
Avalons, noting, as he did so, the scornful cadence of her voice over
the final phrase.
"The two sets rarely mingle, Mrs. Avalons. Which is under your especial
care?"
Lorimer interposed hurriedly, for he felt the hostility in Bobby's tone,
and he was ignorant of the thickness of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons's skin.
"Both, I should say from the make-up of your recital, Mrs. Avalons.
Society and art both spelled themselves with capital letters, that
night."
"I am sure it is very kind of you to say so," she answered, while her
pleasure brought the first sincere note into her voice. "I tried to have
something really good. But about this concert; we are to have a soprano
from the Metropolitan Opera House, and possibly a violinist, and we want
Mr. Thayer so much. Do you suppose we could get him?"
"It might depend a little upon the state of your finances," Bobby
suggested.
"Oh; but it is for charity, you know."
"Yes, charity is supposed to be like molasses, sweet and cheap. It isn't
very nourishing to a professional man, though."
"But Mr. Thayer is not poor."
"That doesn't signify that he can give all his time for nothing," Bobby
answered rather warmly, considering that the question was utterly
impersonal. "If he sang every day, all winter, for some charity or
other, he couldn't begin to get round in ten years. There ought to be a
new mission started, a Society for the Protection of Over-begged
Artists."
"But I am only asking him for one charity."
"That's all anybody is supposed to do. The time hasn't come yet when you
syndicate the job, though I suppose it is only a matter of time."
Mrs. Lloyd Avalons looked at him distrustfully for a moment; then she
laughed with a dainty vagueness.
"You are so amusing, Mr. Dane! One never really knows whether you're in
earnest or not. How many tickets did you say you would take?"
"One and a half," Sally advised, while Bobby stared at Mrs. Lloyd
Avalons in speechless disgust. "He will go, and take me with him; but
newspaper men are always admitted at half-rates."
"And you really think Mr. Thayer will sing for us?" Mrs. Lloyd Avalons
went on, turning back to Beatrix. "It will be an advantage to him, in a
way, to have sung under the auspices of our committee."
This time, even Beatrix felt herself antagonized. Thayer belonged to her
own class, and her class was scarcely of the type to need the official
social sanction of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons.
"I have no idea at all in regard to the matter," she answered a little
coldly. "Mr. Thayer appears to me to be able to hold his own, without
the backing of any committee. It simply depends upon his personal
generosity."
"But it is such a worthy object. And don't you think we could get that
little Arlt to fill in with?"
"From, by, in, or with charity, and to or for a charity?" Bobby asked
savagely.
"Oh, of course, we couldn't pay him." There was a falling inflection of
the last word.
"Then I should advise him to decline charity altogether," Bobby
retorted.
"It would be an advantage to him to play on such a programme," Mrs.
Lloyd Avalons asserted, as she set down her cup.
"It would also be an advantage to him to get a little money, now and
then."
Mrs. Lloyd Avalons raised her brows. They were daintily-marked brows,
and the expression suited her pretty, empty little face.
"I think it is something for a man of no reputation at all to have a
chance to be heard in such a connection," she replied a little tartly.
"Ye-es." Bobby rose with provoking deliberation. "And it is also
possible, Mrs. Avalons, that when we are thankful even to be charted in
Woodlawn, Mr. Arlt's name may be a good deal better known than it is
now. Sally, we are due at the Stuyvesants', and I think we must tear
ourselves away."
Out in the hall, he addressed himself to Sally.
"For social pulleys, give me three: music, cheek, and charity, but the
greatest of these is ch--"
"Charity," amended Sally promptly.
Bobby gloomily pulled himself into his overcoat.
"Sally, I abhor that woman," he said.