A CHALLENGE.
Marion Sanderson's surroundings kept her in a continual state of
irritation. Her fancy created an ideal life with harmonious environments
and sympathetic friends, but the reality was what she termed "an utterly
commonplace existence." From early childhood her parents and
acquaintances had jarred upon her, so that her fanciful mind had carried
on incessant warfare with her prosaic surroundings. Her father and
mother were respectable representatives of practical Calvinism, who,
endeavoring to make their child a pillar of the Church, had persistently
combated her natural tendencies. For days at a time, during her younger
years, the poor child would obediently follow the routine of prayer
prescribed for her until worn out by the drastic Scotch tenets; then
rebellious tears would flow, and she would permit some natural
sentiments to escape from her impulsive heart. Such outbursts most
frequently occurred on Sunday, and they invariably called from her
mother's lips the time-tried reproof: "I think, Marion, you forget the
day. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy." Resentful and disgusted
the child would expostulate, only to be frigidly denounced as one
possessed of an evil spirit; then she would rush to her room and remain
for hours sobbing and yearning for sympathy. "Fox's Book of Martyrs,"
"The Church at Home and Abroad," and "Baxter's Saints' Rest" were her
literary diet, but she managed to devour, surreptitiously, romance after
romance, and her greatest pleasure was to live over, in fancy, the lives
of those she had read about. Thus for fifteen years the restless child
tugged unsuccessfully at the parental tethers till relief came from an
unexpected quarter.
Marion's mother, despairing of her child's spiritual welfare, decided
curiously enough, to send her abroad to the care of her sister-in-law,
the wife of the United States minister to France. This aunt, being a
woman of broad sympathies and experience, questioned the girl about her
education, and, finding that it had been confined to the three R's and
the Westminster catechism, decided to send her to school. So Marion was
forthwith ensconced in a select _pension_ patronized by the Faubourg St.
Germain nobility. Here a new life was opened to Marion, and, freed from
her childhood's restraints, she eagerly sought companionship with these
girls of a different world. She learned a new language and new
sentiments, and though novels were forbidden in the school, the pages of
Balzac, Merimee, Sand and Gautier, surreptitiously read, fed her fancy
with new impressions and created new aspirations. Florence Moreland was
the only other American in the school, and to her Marion was attracted
by the very oppositeness of her nature. The frank practicality and keen
perception of Florence fascinated her, and although the two girls
disagreed on most subjects, a warm affection always kept their hearts
united.
Marion left the _pension_ at the age of seventeen. By that curious
process of expatriation which few but Americans can successfully
undergo, her childhood's sentiments had been removed, and European ideas
had been engrafted in their place. Her aunt, who during Marion's
_pension_ days had vibrated between Paris and the Riviera, now took her
for a few months of travel. Florence was invited to accompany them, and
after making the conventional summer-garden tour of the Continent, they
went to Nice for the winter. There the two girls studied Italian and
mixed in the quasi Anglo-European society of the place--certainly not
the best for a girl first to enter.
The transfer of Marion's uncle to the English mission brought them to
London, and they were just enjoying the excitement of a first season
when Marion's parents ordered her home. A child when she left Chicago,
she was now a woman. Her home, which had been uncongenial before, was
now intolerable. Her life became a continual struggle against the
prejudices of her parents. She longed to pull down the sombre
drawing-room curtains and pitch the stiff-backed, haircloth chairs out
of the window; but her father, though a millionaire, would brook no
change. Still she struggled on, demanding an alteration in the dinner
hour, wine at table and the discarding of the family carry-all. "Do you
want me to open the house to Satan?" her mother asked in horrified
tones. "I want you to be civilized beings and not anchorites," she
replied. Her mother's friends were practically limited to the
communicants of the Knox Presbyterian Church, but such a society only
served to exasperate her more. To her the men were stupid slaves of
business and the women narrow-minded prudes. There was a progressive set
whose companionship she desired, but in her mother's mind they were the
Devil's chosen, and were consequently forbidden the house. In
desperation Marion sought relief and it came in the shape of a husband.
Roswell Sanderson was vice-president of her father's bank, rich,
prominent, and,--what was more to her,--liberal-minded. He asked her to
be his wife, and, without analyzing her feelings further than the sense
of gratefulness which she felt, she accepted him. After a brief
engagement they were married and her new life began.
Marion's husband was a country boy who had been sent to an Eastern
college; and possessing American energy and perception in a marked
degree, he rapidly won a place in the first rank of Chicago business
men. He was a man of broad ideas and sympathies, but lacked the delicate
veneer of manners which distinguishes the cosmopolite from the
provincial. In Marion's eyes this fault soon became greatly magnified.
His flat pronunciation and Western inflection, his cordial, unstudied
manner and hearty laughter so mortified her that in the presence of
those who were capable of recognizing his shortcomings, her manner
became apologetic. His open-hearted frankness, which made him a friend
of high and low, so rasped her ideas of convention that all sense of
sympathy was destroyed, and her married life was no more congenial than
that at home had been. Roswell never criticised her actions, so she was
enabled to seek relief in society. She saw the gradual enlargement and
improvement of Chicago but she was able to pick flaws in the struggles
of society to break the shackles of provincialism, and she longed to
hasten the _metropolizing_ process. Unlike Florence Moreland she could
not admire the vigor and freshness of Western life, but permitted
herself to suffer from intense mortification at the faults which others
would have passed unnoticed. Marriage and society having failed to
supply the happiness she desired, she turned to books. Her selections of
reading, however, were destined to intensify her restlessness, for in
the pages of Daudet, Bourget and de Maupassant she found the anomalies
of human weakness painted in brilliant and exculpatory colors. The
clever portraitures of these subtle analysts created a spirit which
caused her to explain her eccentricities of feeling by comparison with
the emotions described in their yellow-covered records. She became a
disciple of the modern philosophy of introspection, which, unlike that
of the stoic and anchorite, is not intended to humble desire, but to
create a morbid craving for the unattainable. Recognizing that the
absorbing passion of her life was yet to come, she scrupulously analyzed
each impulse she felt and resolved it into infinitesimal atoms of
feeling, which again were subjectively compared with the minutest
details of her analytical romances. The consequence was that her
emotions were kept in a state of continual irritation, and ordinary
pleasures becoming less and less gratifying, a desire for new
excitements and experiences was created. It was in such a state of mind
that Florence Moreland had found her, and, since the latter's arrival in
Chicago she had striven unsuccessfully to dispel the spirit of
depression which had taken possession of her friend.
On the afternoon of the day following the performance of "Otello,"
Florence, cold and rosy from tobogganing, burst into the drawing room.
She expected to find Marion in one of her moods, and she was astonished
to find her dressed to go out and carelessly strumming on the piano.
Marion looked up, and, seeing Florence, burst into laughter at her
tousled locks and red cheeks. "You had better stand over the register
and get thawed out," Marion remarked cheerfully; then, thumping the
piano again, she continued: "How was the slide?"
"Capital! and hundreds of people there," was Florence's reply. Then,
wondering at Marion's sudden change of spirits, she added, "Are you
going to the McSeeney's tea?"
"Yes; I intend to take Mr. Grahame."
"I suppose I shall have to get there the best way I can."
"You can take the brougham. What do you think of him?"
"Who, the brougham?"
"No; Mr. Grahame, you silly."
"O, he is like many New Yorkers, one-third clothes and two-thirds
conceit. I asked him if he thought he should like Chicago, and, knowing
I was from the East, he confidently replied: 'It is not New York, you
know, but I suppose one can get used to anything in time.'"
"I don't care, I like him," Marion replied.
"Hush, here he comes," said Florence hurriedly.
A servant announced Mr. Grahame, and as Duncan entered, Marion said in a
somewhat surprised tone, "Are you always so prompt?"
"No; it is quite a mistake, I assure you," he replied. "I will not be so
vulgarly exact next time."
"It is a provincialism quite permissible in the West," said Marion.
"Indeed! But I have not yet said good afternoon," replied Duncan; "have
you recovered from the dissipation of last evening?"
"Quite."
"And you, Miss Moreland?"
"Look at her cheeks, Mr. Grahame," interjected Marion.
"I see it is needless to ask about your health, Miss Moreland, but I
trust I may say I admire your snow costume."
"You must have a fondness for brilliant colors," said Florence.
"Decidedly; shades and tints were made for funerals and frowns," he
replied.
"I don't like to interrupt," interposed Marion hurriedly, "but I fear it
is time for Mr. Grahame and me to be going."
"Are you not to accompany us, Miss Moreland?" said Duncan.
"Not in this costume, certainly," laughed Florence.
"Then I shall say _au revoir_."
"Where am I to be taken?" said Duncan, as he and Marion descended the
steps of the house.
"To meet my most bitter enemy, Mrs. McSeeney," she replied.
"I admire your courage," he said.
"O, there is no danger of bodily harm, as we are quite on speaking
terms; a sort of armed neutrality, you know."
"Am I to be used as an offensive or a defensive weapon?" Duncan asked.
"Neither; I shall use you as a flag of truce; but whatever happens don't
you dare to say she is good looking or brilliant."
"I promise," he answered, "but please tell me who she is and what she
is."
"You ought to know her; she is a New Yorker,--at least she was three
years ago--her husband is the president of an elevated railway company
and made her come here to live. She hates Chicago, and takes her revenge
by saying disagreeable things about it. For some reason she has singled
me out as the particular object of her antipathy and you can imagine
there is no love lost between us. But here we are at her door, so I
can't tell you any more."
They had reached an awning-covered doorway where numerous carriages were
arriving and depositing their occupants. They ascended the steps and
were ushered into a crowded room where a well dressed throng were
jostling about and trying to keep off one another's toes. Near the door
Mrs. McSeeney was undergoing the laborious experience of greeting her
friends, while about the room Mrs. Nobody could be heard cackling loudly
and Mrs. Somebody peeping meekly, while Mr. Smart was smirking and Mr.
Plain was awkwardly striving to interest ugly Miss Croesus. It was a
prattling, garrulous society. The world over it is the same,
differentiated by race and place, perhaps, but still society.
Duncan was taken about and introduced to scores of people whose names he
did not even hear. A smile here and a word there was all he had time
for, but he managed to meet all "the people one should know," and, being
a new man, caused a flutter of expectation among the women. "Who is he?"
"What is he?" "Where is he from?" were the questions asked by all, but
they scarcely received a satisfactory answer before Marion hurried
Duncan into an adjoining room where numerous pretty girls were
dispensing that universal anodyne of modern life, tea. What should we
moderns do without tea? It is the prop of society, and without this
precious Chinese plant we might still be cupping the sack, and beating
our wives between the draughts. In fact a noted moralist has said that
"tea has checked our boisterous revels, raised women to a new position,
refined manners, and softened the character of men." Perhaps! but let a
man with a full cup of tea, and the spoon balanced on the edge of the
saucer, try to rise from a low chair and shake hands; then ask him what
he thinks about the effect of tea on a man's character.
After responding scores of times to the question, "How do you like
Chicago?" with the reply, "I don't know," and after answering quite as
frequently and in the same manner the question, "How long do you expect
to remain here?" Duncan was finally rescued by Marion Sanderson and
taken away.
"You don't often have strangers here, do you?" Duncan gasped when they
were outside. "I seem as much of a curiosity as a white man on the
Congo."
"Not quite so bad as that," Marion laughed, "though I must confess a new
man is an attraction here, especially at a tea, where there are at least
two women to every one of the other sex."
"I suppose the natives are frightened away."
"No, you wretch, they are all in business."
"Lucky beggars."
Marion gave him a side glance intended to be annihilating, and silently
walked the few remaining steps. When they reached her door she stopped
and said, somewhat coldly: "Won't you come in, Mr. Grahame?"
"I certainly will, as I cannot leave with the mercury of your manners so
low."
"You surely do not fancy that you can make it rise."
"I do," he said confidently.
Marion looked at him scornfully, but it was an assumed scorn; as to
herself she admitted a fondness for assurance like Duncan's. Florence
Moreland would have called it presumption, but Marion felt that it
indicated a strong nature worthy of careful analysis. Her manner was
often the naivete of inexperience. She fancied that she knew the world,
but her knowledge was theoretically culled from her yellow-covered
romances. She frequently allowed men a freedom of speech which might be
misunderstood at times, and excused herself by the thought that such
carelessness became a woman of the world. She courted admiration
because she felt it to be her due, and in her search for experiences of
the world she often displayed an artlessness which was singularly liable
to be misinterpreted by the men with whom she came in contact.
Just inside the door on the right of the hall was a wee room decorated
in _Louis Quinze_ style, and into this they went. Delicate and cozy,
with a polished floor, a leopard's skin rug, soft tinted walls, white
and gold woodwork, a tiny open fire, a brocade screen, a chair or two
and a tete-a-tete seat,--it was, in fact, a delightful expression of
Marion's taste.
"Charming," said Duncan as he sat down opposite Marion on the
tete-a-tete and looked about him.
"I am glad something pleases you," she replied as she threw aside her
jacket. "Your assurance amazes me," she continued. "Last night you told
me you had been about collecting bits of gossip about me in order to
understand my character, and now you coolly inform me that you are
capable of influencing my feelings. I ought to detest you."
Duncan silently looked with his large, grey eyes into her face for a
moment and then said, "I wish you would."
"Why?" she questioned wonderingly.
"Because we might end by being friends."
"A repellent manner of attracting, certainly," she replied.
"Exactly! kindred natures always repel one another with a force equal to
their subsequent attraction."
"That sounds like a proposition in physics."
"In metaphysics, perhaps," he answered. "It means that if we first
quarrel we shall eventually become sympathetic friends."
"Polemical enemies, I should say," Marion replied sharply.
"Why?"
"Because I am not willing to admit I am of so changeable a nature," she
replied.
"A mediocre nature will never change; an uncommon one invariably does,"
he said confidently.
"Another slur."
"A compliment, I should say, as your opinion of me will change."
"On what do you base your presumption?" she said with assumed
indignation.
He was silent. She glanced about the room. It was nearly dark and the
fire was flickering on the hearth. Unconsciously she looked up as
though seeking an answer to her question. Again two grey eyes looked
softly through the twilight into her own. "Because I feel certain of
it," he said quietly and emphatically, as though in answer to her
questioning glance.
"Then you shall acknowledge yourself mistaken," she slowly replied.
"I'll give you a fair chance. Will you dine with us on Friday?"
"A day of ill luck, but I accept," he replied as he rose to go. "Shall
it be a truce in the interim?" he added, offering his hand.
"If you like," she replied.
"Good-by," he said, taking her hand. "It shall be a fair game and I will
play to win."
"But you will lose," she answered.
Her eyes followed him as he left the room. "An interesting nature to
study," she thought, "but I wish he would not look at me in that way."