In the big white marble house on the avenue that Murray Van Rensselaer
called home the servants were lighting costly lamps and drawing silken
shades. A little Pekingese pet came tipping out with the man to see
what was the matter with the light over the front entrance, stood for
a brief second glancing up and down haughtily, barked sharply at a
passer-by, and retreated plumily into the dark of the entrance-hall
with an air of ownership, clicking off to find his mistress. Sweet
perfumes drifted out from shadowy rooms where masses of hothouse
flowers glowed in costly jardinières, and a wood fire flickered softly
over deep-toned rugs and fine old polished woods, reflected from
illuminated covers of many rare books behind leaded panes of glass.
It flickered and lighted the dreary face of the haughty master of the
house as he sat in a deep chair and watched the flames, and seemed to
be watching the burning out of his own life in bitter disappointment.
The great dining-room glittered with crystal and silver, and abounded
in exquisite napery, hand-wrought, beautiful and fine as a spider’s
web or a tracery of frost. The table was set for a large dinner, and a
profusion of roses graced its centre.
Ancestral portraits looked down from the walls.
At one end of the room, in a screened balcony behind great fronds of
mammoth ferns, musicians were preparing to play, arranging music,
speaking in low tones.
The footfalls of the servants were inaudible as they came and went over
the deep pile of ancient rugs.
A deep-throated chime from a tall old clock in the hall called out the
hour, and a bell somewhere in the distance rang sharply, imperatively.
A maid came noiselessly down the stairs and paused beside the library
door, tapping gently.
“Mr. Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Van Rensselaer would like to see you at once
if you’re not busy.”
The wistful look in the master’s eyes changed at the summons into
his habitual belligerence, and he rose with a sigh of impatience. He
mounted the stairs like one going to a familiar stake.
Mrs. Van Rensselaer sat at her dressing-table fresh from the hands
of her maid, a perfectly groomed woman in the prime of her life. Not
a wrinkle marred the loveliness of her complexion, not a line of
tenderness, or suffering, or self-abnegation gave character to her
exquisite features. She had been considered the most beautiful woman of
the day when Charles Van Rensselaer married her, and she still retained
her beauty. No one, not even her bitterest enemy, could say that she
had aged or faded. Her face and her figure were her first concern. She
never let anything come between her and her ambition to remain young
and lovely.
If her meaningless beauty had long since palled upon the man who had
worked hard in his younger days to win her hand, he nevertheless
yielded her the court which she demanded; and if there was sometimes a
note of mock ceremony in his voice it was well guarded.
He stood in the violet shadow of her silken-shrouded lamp and watched
her with a bitter sadness in his eyes. It was a moment when they might
have met on common ground and drawn nearer to one another if she had
but sensed it. But she was busy trying the effect of different earrings
against her pearly tinted neck. Should it be the new rock crystals or
the jade, or should she wear the Van Rensselaer emeralds after all?
She turned at last, as if just aware that he had come in, and spoke in
an annoyed tone:
“Charles, you really will have to speak to Murray again.”
She turned to get the effect of the jewel and tilted her chin haughtily.
“He is simply _unspeakable_!”
She held up her hand-glass and turned her head the other way to get a
vision of the other ear.
Her husband drew a deep fortifying breath, wet his lips nervously
with the tip of his tongue the way a dog does when he is expecting a
whipping, and braced himself for action.
“What’s Murray been doing now?” he asked crisply, belligerently.
There was fight in his eye and a set to his jaw, although the lean
cheek-bones just below the eyes seemed to wince as at a blow.
“Why, he’s making himself conspicuous again with that low-down De Flora
woman. Marian Stewart has been telling me that he took her to the
Assembly last night and danced every dance with her. And it’s got to
stop! I’m not going to have our name dragged in the dust by my own son.”
“But I don’t understand,” said her husband dryly. “You didn’t object
when he did the same thing with the Countess Lenowski, and she was
twice divorced. I spoke of it then, for it seemed to me morals were
more in your line than mine, but you thought it was all right. I’m sure
I don’t see what you can expect of him now when you sanctioned that two
years ago.”
“Now, Charles! Don’t be tiresome! The Countess Lenowski was a very
different person. Rich as Crœsus, and titled, and beautiful and young.
You can’t blame the poor child for being divorced from men who were
seeking her merely for her money!”
“The Countess Lenowski is neither so young nor so innocent as she would
have everybody believe, and I told you at the time that her beauty
wasn’t even skin-deep. I don’t get your fine distinctions. What’s the
matter with this De Flora woman? Isn’t she rich? Doesn’t your son think
she’s beautiful? And she’s young enough. They say she’s never been
married at all, let alone divorced. I made it a point to look into
that.”
“Now, Charles, you’re being difficult! That’s all there is to it.
You’re just trying to be difficult! And there’s no use talking to you
when you get difficult. You know as well as I do what that De Flora
is. Some little insignificant movie actress, not even a star! With all
Murray’s money and family of course every little upstart is simply
flinging herself at him, and you must speak to him! You really must.
Let him know his allowance will stop and he can’t have any more cars
unless he behaves himself!”
“And why must I be the one to speak? I left all questions of social and
moral obligations to you when he was young. I am sure it is late in the
day for me to meddle now.”
“Now, Charles, you are difficult again. You are quibbling. I called
you up to let you know that Murray needs advice, and you’re to give
it! That’s all! It’s time you were dressing. We have a dinner, you
remember. The Arlingtons and the Schuylers. Do be ready. It’s so
tiresome to have to wait for you.”
Thus dismissed, the head of the house looked at his wife’s slim
young back and well-cut coiffure with an expression of mingled scorn
and despair, which she might have seen in her mirror if she had not
been too much absorbed with her own image; but it is doubtful if she
would have understood if she had seen it. It was because he had long
ago recognized her obtuseness in these fine points that Charles Van
Rensselaer had been able to maintain his habitual air of studied mock
politeness. Her name was Violet, and she knew she could count always
on courtesy from him, no matter how his eyes mocked. With that she was
content.
He watched her a full minute, noting the grace of movement as she
turned her head from side to side perfecting the details of her
contour, marked the lustre of her amber hair, the sweep of lovely
white shoulder against the low severe line of her dinner gown, looked
almost wistfully, like a child, for something more, something tender,
something gentler than her last words, less cold and formal; yet knew
he would not get it. He had always been watching for something more
from her than he knew he could ever get; something more than he knew
she possessed. Just because she was outwardly lovely it seemed as if
there must be something beautiful hidden within her somewhere that
some miracle would sometime bring forth. The love of his early youth
had believed that, would always cling to it, thinking that sometime it
would be revealed--yet knowing it was an impossibility for which he
hoped.
With a sigh almost inaudible he turned and went down the heavily
carpeted hall, followed by the trail of her impatient cold words:
“Oh, are you there yet? Why won’t you hurry? I know you’ll be late!”
He shut the great mahogany door behind him with a dull thud. He would
have liked to have slammed it, but the doors in that house could not
slam. They were too heavy and too well hung on their oiled hinges. It
shut him in like a vault to a costly room where everything had been
done for his comfort, yet comfort was not. He did not hasten even yet.
He went and stood at the window looking out, looking down to the area
below; to the paved alleyway that ran between the blocks and gave
access to the back door and the garage. A row of brick houses on the
side street ended at that alleyway, and a light twinkled in a kitchen
window where a woman’s figure moved to and fro between a table and
the stove--a pleasant cheery scene reminding one of homecoming and
sweet domesticity, a thing he had always yearned for, yet never found
since he was a little child in his father’s home at the farm, with a
gentle mother living and a house full of boisterous, loving brothers
and sisters. He watched the woman wistfully. What if Violet had been
a woman like that, who would set the table for supper and go about
the stove preparing little dishes. He laughed aloud bitterly at the
thought. Violet in her slim dinner gown, her dangling earrings and her
French bob, risking her lily and rose complexion over a fire!
He turned sharply back to his room, snapped on the electric light and
went and stood before the two great silver frames that adorned his
dressing-table. One held the picture of the lovely delicate woman,
almost a girl in appearance, smart, artistic, perfect as the world
counts perfection. It was a part of her pride that placed her picture
in his room for others to see his devotion, and had it changed each
time a new picture that pleased her was taken. His pleasure in her
picture had long ago vanished, but he studied her face now with that
yearning look in his own, as if again he searched for the thing that
was not there; as if his eyes would force from the printed card a
quality that the soul must be hiding.
Then with a long sigh he turned to the other frame--the young careless
handsome face of his son, Murray Montgomery Van Rensselaer. That
honored name! How proud he had been when they gave it to his child!
What dreams he had had that his son would add still more honor to that
name!
He studied the handsome face intently, searching there for the thing he
could not find in the mother’s face. How like they were, those two, who
belonged to him, yet were to him almost as strangers--one might almost
say as enemies sometimes, when they combined to break his will or his
request.
Yet of the two the boy was nearest to him. There had been times
when Murray was very young that they had come almost close--fishing
excursions, and a hike or two, a camping trip; rare times, broken up
always by Violet, who demanded their attention, and resented rough
things for her son.
The boy’s face was too slender, too girlish, almost effeminate, yet
behind it there was a daredevil in his eyes that suggested something
more rugged, more manly, perhaps, when he would settle down. The father
kept wishing, hoping, that the thing he had not found to satisfy his
longing in his wife would some day develop in his son, and then they
might be all in all to one another.
With another deep sigh he turned away and began mechanically to dress
for the evening, his mind not on what he was doing. But then why should
it be when everything was laid out for him? It required no thought.
He was thinking about Murray. How they had spoiled him between them!
Violet indulging him and repressing all his natural bent toward simple,
natural things, moulding him into a young fop; insisting on alternately
coddling and scolding him; never loving to him even in her indulgence;
always cold and unsympathetic toward all that did not go the way she
chose.
For himself, he had been so bitterly disappointed in the lad that the
years had brought about an attitude of habitual disapproval, as high
and as wide and as separating as any stone wall that was ever built.
Yet the father’s heart yearned over his son, and the years were growing
crabbed with his denial. Why did the boy choose only folly? Scrapes in
school and worse in college. Clubs and sports and drinking affairs.
Speeding and women and idleness! What a life! What would the grandsire
who had founded the ancient and honorable house and had given them the
honored name think of such a scion? Yet what could one expect with a
mother such as he had given his son?
He gave a last comprehensive survey to his well-groomed self and turned
out the light. With deliberate intent he walked across to the window
again and looked out to that bright little kitchen window across the
alley.
Darkness had dropped down upon the city since he had lighted his room,
evening complete, and the little bright window with its aproned figure
moving steadily back and forth with brisk step between stove and table
stood out clearly in the crisp night. He could see the knife in her
hand as she stirred something in a pan on the stove. He could see the
foaming pitcher of milk she put in the centre of the white-draped
table. He could see a griddle over the flame, with the blue smoke
rising from it. Pancakes. They were going to have pancakes for supper!
His mother used to have pancakes for supper when he was a little lad
out at the old farm, pancakes with maple syrup! How he wished he could
go over there to the little two-story red brick house and sit down at
that white table and eat some. There would be syrup like amber perhaps
in a glass pitcher, and how good they would taste! What would they say
if he were to go over and ask if he might eat supper with them? What
would Violet say if he should go? Leave her abominable interminable
dinner party and go over to that quiet kitchen to eat pancakes! Violet
would think he was crazy--would perhaps take steps to put him in the
insane asylum, would at least consult a physician. What a fraud life
was! A man was never his own master in this world!
A servant tapped at the door.
“Mrs. Van Rensselaer says will you please come down at once. The guests
have arrived.”
There was a smack of insolence in the maid’s voice. She knew who was
mistress in that house.
As he turned away from the simple vision a figure stole down the alley,
furtively looking this way and that, and slipped like a shadow close to
the bright kitchen window, peering in, a white anxious face, with a cap
drawn low over the eyes, and a reckless set to the expensive coat worn
desperately hunched above crouching shoulders.
If Charles Van Rensselaer had lingered just a second longer at the
window he might have seen that stealing figure, might have--!
But he turned sharply at the servant’s call and went down to play the
polished host, to entertain his unwelcome guests with witty sarcasm and
sharp repartee, to give the lie to his heart sorrow, and one more proof
to the world that he belonged to a great and old family and bore a name
that meant riches and fame and honor wherever he went.