MR. VAN CAMP MAKES A CALL
Aleck Van Camp turned from the clerk's desk, rather relieved to find that
Hambleton had not yet made his appearance. Aleck had an errand on his
mind, and he reflected that Jim was apt to be impetuous and reluctant to
await another man's convenience; at least, Jim wouldn't perceive that
another man's convenience needed to be waited for; and Aleck had no mind
to announce this errand from the housetops. It was not a business that
pertained, directly, either to the _Sea Gull_ or to the coming cruise.
He made an uncommonly careful toilet, discarding two neckties before the
operation was finished. When all was done the cravat presented a stuffed
and warped appearance which was not at all satisfying, even to Aleck's
uncritical eye; but the tie was the last of his supply and was, perhaps,
slightly better than none at all.
Dinner at the club was usually a dull affair, and to Mr. Van Camp, on
this Monday night, it seemed more stupid than ever. The club had been
organized in the spirit of English clubs, with the unwritten by-law of
absolute and inviolable privacy for the individual. No wild or woolly
manners ever entered those decorous precincts. No slapping on the
shoulder, no hail-fellow greetings, no chance dinner companionship ever
dispelled the awful penumbra of privacy that surrounded even the humblest
member. A man's eating and drinking, his coming or going, his living or
dying, were matters only for club statistics, not for personal inquiry or
notice.
The result of this habitual attitude on the part of the members of the
club and its servants was an atmosphere in which a cataleptic fit would
scarcely warrant unofficial interference; much less would merely mawkish
or absent-minded behavior attract attention. That was the function of
the club--to provide sanctuary for personal whims and idiosyncrasies; of
course, always within the boundaries of the code.
On the evening in question Mr. Van Camp did not actually become silly,
but his manner lacked the poise and seriousness which sophisticated men
are wont to bring to the important event of the day. He was as near
being nervous as a Scotch-American Van Camp could be; and at the same
time he felt an unwonted flow of life and warmth in his cool veins. He
went so far as to make a remark to the waiter which he meant for an
affable joke, and then wanted to kick the fellow for taking it so
solemnly.
"You mind yourself, George, or they'll make you abbot of this monastery
yet!" said Aleck, as George helped him on with his evening coat.
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," said George.
He left word at the office that in case any one called he was to be
informed that Mr. Van Camp would return to the club for the night; then,
in his silk hat and generally shining togs, he set forth to make a call.
He was no stranger to New York, and usually he took his cities as they
came, with a matter-of-fact nonchalance. He would be as much at home on
his second day in London as he had ever been in Lynn; or he would go from
a friend's week-end house-party, where the habits of a Sybarite were
forced on him, to a camp in the woods and pilot-bread fare, with an equal
smoothness of temper and enjoyment. Since luxury made no impression on
him, and hardship never blunted his own ideals of politeness or pleasure,
no one ever knew which life he preferred.
Choosing to walk the fifteen or twenty squares to the Archangel apartment
house, his destination, Van Camp looked about him, on this night of his
arrival, with slightly quickened perceptions. He cast a mildly
appreciative eye toward the picture disclosed here and there by the
glancing lights, the chiaroscuro of the intersecting streets, the
constantly changing vistas. For an unimpressionable man, he was rather
wrought upon. Nevertheless, he entered the charming apartment whither he
was bound with the detached and composed manner which society regards as
becoming. A maid with a foreign accent greeted him. Yes, Mademoiselle
Reynier was at home; Mr. Van Camp would find her in the drawing-room.
The stiff and unrelaxed manner with which Mr. Van Camp bowed to Miss
Reynier a moment later was not at all indicative of the fairly
respectable fever within his Scotch breast. Miss Reynier herself was
pretty enough to cause quickened pulses. She was of noble height,
evidently a woman of the world. She gave Mr. Van Camp her hand in a
greeting mingled of European daintiness and American frankness. Her
vitality and abounding interest in life were manifest.
"Ah, but you are very late. This is how you become smart all at once in
your New York atmosphere! But pray be seated; and here are cigarettes,
if you will. No? Very well; but tell me; has that amorphous
gill-slit--oh, no, the _branchial lamella_--has it behaved itself and
proved to be the avenue which shall lead you to fame?"
Mr. Van Camp stood silent through this flippant badinage, and calmly
waited until Miss Reynier had settled herself. Then he thoughtfully
turned the chair offered him so as to command a slightly better view of
the corner where she sat, leaning against the old-rose cushions.
Finally, taking his own time, he touched off her greeting with his
precise drawl.
"I'm not smart, as you call it, even in New York, though I try to be."
His eyes twinkled and his teeth gleamed in his wide smile. "If I were
smart, I'd pass by your error in scientific nomenclature, but really I
ought not to do it. If one can not be exact--"
"That's just what I say. If one can not be exact, why talk at all?"
Miss Reynier caught it up with high glee. She had a foreign accent, and
an occasional twist of words which proved her to be neither American nor
Englishwoman. "That's my principle," she insisted. "Leave other people
in undisturbed possession of their hobbies, especially in conversation,
and don't say anything if you can't say what you mean. But then, _you_
won't talk about your hobby; and if I have no one to inform me, how can I
be exact? But I'm the meekest person alive; I'm so ready to learn."
Mr. Van Camp surveyed first the bantering, alluring eyes, then turned his
gaze upon the soft luxuries about them.
"Are you ready to turn this bijou dream into a laboratory smelling of
alcohol and fish? Are you ready to spend hours wading in mudbanks after
specimens, or scratching in the sand under the broiling sun? Science
does not consult comfort."
Miss Reynier's expression of quizzical teasing changed to one of rather
thoughtful inquiry, as if she were estimating the man behind the
scientist. Van Camp was of the lean, angular type, like Jim Hambleton.
He was also very manly and wholesome, but even in his conventional
evening clothes there was something about him that was unconventional--a
protesting, untamed element of character that resisted all rules except
those prescribed by itself. He puzzled her now, as he had often puzzled
her before; but if she made fun of his hobbies, she had no mind to make
fun of the man himself. A cheerful, intelligent smile finally ended her
contemplating moment.
"Oh, no; no digging in the sand for me. I'll take what science I get in
another way--put up in predigested packages or bottled--any way but the
fishy way. But please don't give me up. You shed a good deal of light
on my mental darkness last winter in Egypt, and maybe I can improve still
more." She suddenly turned with friendly, confidential manner toward
Aleck, not waiting for replies to her remarks. "It's good to see you
again! And I like it here better than in Egypt, don't you? Don't you
think this apartment jolly?"
The shaded lamps made a pretty light over Miss Reynier's cream-colored
silk flounces, over the delicate lace on her waist, over her glossy dark
hair and spirited face. As Aleck contemplated that face, with its eager
yet modest and womanly gaze, and the noble outline of her figure, he
thought, with an unwonted flowering of imagination, that she was not
unlike the Diana of classic days. "A domestic Diana," he added in his
mind. "She may love the woods and freedom, but she will always return to
the hearth."
Aloud he said: "If you will permit me, Miss Reynier, I would like to
inform you at once of the immediate object of my visit here. You must be
well aware--" At this point Mr. Van Camp, who, true to his nature, was
looking squarely in the face of his companion, of necessity allowed
himself to be interrupted by Miss Reynier's lifted hand. She was looking
beyond her visitor through the drawing-room door.
"Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Lloyd-Jones," announced the servant.
As Miss Reynier swept forward with outstretched hand to greet the
new-comers, Van Camp fixed his eyes on his hostess with a mingled
expression of masculine rage and submission. Whether he thought her too
cordial toward the other men or too cool toward himself, was not
apparent. Presently he, too, was shaking hands with the visitors, who
were evidently old friends of the house. Madame Reynier, the aunt of
mademoiselle, was summoned, and Van Camp was marooned on a sofa with
Lloyd-Jones, who was just in from the West. Aleck found himself
listening to an interminable talk about copper veins and silver veins, a
new kind of assaying instrument, and the good luck attendant upon the
opening of Lloyd-Jones' new mine, the Liza Lu.
Aleck was the essence of courtesy to everything except sham, and was able
to indicate a mild interest in Mr. Lloyd-Jones' mining affairs. It was
sufficient. Lloyd-Jones turned sidewise on his end of the sofa, spread
out plump, gesticulating hands, and poured upon him an eloquent torrent
of fact, speculation and high-spirited enthusiasm concerning Idaho in
general and the future of the Liza Lu in particular. More than that, by
and by his cheerful, half-impudent manner threatened to turn poetic.
"It's great, living in the open out there," he went on, by this time
including the whole company in his exordium. "You ride, or tramp, or dig
rock all day; and at night you lie down under the clear stars, thankful
for your blanket and your rock-bed and your camp-fire; and more than
thankful if there's a bit of running water near by. It's a great life!"
Miss Reynier listened to him with eyes that were alternately puzzled and
appreciative. It was a discourse that would have seemed to her much more
natural coming from Aleck Van Camp; but then, Mr. Van Camp really did the
thing--that sort of thing--and he rarely talked about it. It had
probably been Mr. Lloyd-Jones' first essay in the world out of reach of
his valet and a club cocktail; and he was consequently impressed with his
achievement. It was evident that Miss Reynier and the amateur miner were
on friendly terms, though Aleck had not seen or heard of him before. He
had hob-nobbed with Mr. Chamberlain in London and on more than one
scientific jaunt. The slightest flicker of jealous resentment gleamed in
Aleck's eyes, but his speech was as slow and precise as ever.
"I was just trying to convince Miss Reynier that outdoor life has its
peculiar joys," he said. "I was even now suggesting that she should dig,
though not for silver. Does Mr. Lloyd-Jones' lucre seem more alluring
than my little wriggly beasts, Miss Reynier?"
If Aleck meant this speech for a trap to force the young woman to
indicate a preference, the trick failed, as it deserved to fail. Miss
Reynier was able to play a waiting game.
"I couldn't endure either your mines or your mud-puddles. You are both
absurd, and I don't understand how you ever get recruits for your
hobbies. But come over and see this new engraving, Mr. Jones; it's an
old-fashioned picture of your beloved Rhine."
Aleck, thus liberated from Mr. Lloyd-Jones and his mines, made his way
across the room to Madame Reynier. The cunning of old Adam, was in his
eye, but otherwise he was the picture of deferential innocence.
Madame Reynier liked Aleck, with his inoffensive Americanisms and
unfailing kindliness; and with her friends she was frankness itself.
With two men on Miss Reynier's hands for entertainment, it seemed to
Aleck unlikely that either one could make any alarming progress.
Besides, he was glad of a tête-à-tête with the chaperone.
Madame Reynier was a tall, straight woman, elderly, dressed entirely in
black, with gaunt, aristocratic features and great directness of speech.
She had the fine kind of hauteur which forbids persons of this type ever
to speak of money, of disease, of scandal, or of too intimate
personalities; in Madame Reynier's case it also restrained her from every
sort of exaggerated speech. She spoke English with some difficulty and
preferred French.
Van Camp seated himself on a spindle-legged, gilt chair by Madame
Reynier's side, and begged to know how they were enduring the New York
climate, which had formerly proved intolerable to Madame Reynier. As he
seated himself she stretched out saving hands.
"I can endure the climate, thank you; but I can't endure to see your life
endangered on that silly chair, my dear Mr. Van Camp. There--thank you."
And when he was seated in a solid mahogany, he was rewarded with Madame
Reynier's confidential chat. They had returned to their New York
apartment in the midst of the summer season, she said, "for professional
advice." She and her niece liked the city and never minded the heat.
Mélanie, her aunt explained, had been enabled to see several old friends,
and, for her own part, she liked home at any time of the year better than
the most comfortable of hotels.
"This is quite like home," she added, "even though we are really exiles."
Aleck ventured to hope that the "professional advice" had not meant
serious trouble of any sort.
"A slight indisposition only."
"And are you much better now?" Aleck inquired solicitously.
"Oh, it wasn't I; it was Mélanie," Madame smiled. "I became my own
physician many years ago, and now I never see a doctor except when we ask
one to dine. But youth has no such advantage." Madame fairly beamed
with benevolence while explaining one of her pet idiosyncrasies. Before
Aleck could make any headway in gleaning information concerning her own
and Mélanie's movements, as he was shamelessly trying to do, Lloyd-Jones
had persuaded Miss Reynier to sing.
"Some of those quaint old things, please," he was saying; and Aleck
wondered if he never would hang himself with his own rope. But
Lloyd-Jones' cheerful voice went on:
"Some of those Hungarian things are jolly and funny, even though you
can't understand the words. Makes you want to dance or sing yourself."
Aleck groaned, but Mélanie began to sing, with Jones hovering around the
piano. By the time Mélanie had sung everybody's favorites, excluding
Aleck's, Mr. Chamberlain rose to depart. He was an Englishman, a
serious, heavy gentleman, very loyal to old friends and very slow in
making new ones. He made an engagement to dine with Aleck on the
following evening, and, as he went out, threw back to the remaining
gentlemen an offer of seats in his machine.
"I ought to go," said Jones; "but if Van Camp will stay, I will. That
is," he added with belated punctiliousness, "if the ladies will permit?"
"Thank you, Chamberlain, I'm walking," drawled Aleck; then turning to the
company with his cheerful grin he stated quite impersonally: "I was
thinking of staying long enough to put one question--er, a matter of some
little importance--to Miss Reynier. When she gives me the desired
information, I shall go."
"Me, too," chirped Mr. Lloyd-Jones. "I came expressly to talk over that
plan of building up friendly adjoining estates out in Idaho; sort of
private shooting and hunting park, you know. And I haven't had a minute
to say a word." Jones suddenly began to feel himself aggrieved. As the
door closed after Chamberlain, Mélanie motioned them back to their seats.
"It's not so very late," she said easily. "Come back and make yourselves
comfortable, and I'll listen to both of you," she said with a demure
little devil in her eye. "I haven't seen you for ages, and I don't know
when the good moment will come again." She included the two men in a
friendly smile, waved a hand toward the waiting chairs, and adjusted a
light shawl over the shoulders of Madame Reynier.
But Aleck by this time had the bit in his teeth and would not be coaxed.
His ordinarily cool eye rested wrathfully on the broad shoulders of Mr.
Lloyd-Jones, who was lighting a cigarette, and he turned abruptly to Miss
Reynier. His voice was as serious as if Parliament, at least, had been
hanging on his words.
"May I call to-morrow, Miss Reynier, at about twelve?"
"Oh, I say," put in Jones, "all of you come to luncheon with me at the
Little Gray Fox--will you? Capital place and all sorts of nice people.
Do come. About one."
Van Camp could have slain him.
"I think my proposition a prior one," he remarked with dogged precision;
"but, of course, Miss Reynier must decide." He recovered his temper
enough to add, quite pleasantly, considering the circumstances, "Unless
Madame Reynier will take my part?" turning to the older woman.
"Oh, no, not fair," shouted Jones. "Madame Reynier's always on my side.
Aren't you, Madame?"
Madame Reynier smiled inscrutably. "I'm always on the side of virtue in
distress," she said.
"That's me, then, isn't it? The way you're abusing me, Mademoiselle,
listening here to Van Camp all the evening!"
But Mélanie, tired, perhaps, of being patiently tactful, settled the
matter. "I can't go to luncheon with anybody, to-morrow," she protested.
"I've had a touch of that arch-enemy, indigestion, you see; and I can't
do anything but my prescribed exercises, nor drink anything but distilled
water--"
"Nor eat anything but food! We know," cried the irrepressible Jones.
"But the Little Gray Fox has a special diet for just such cases as yours.
Do come!"
"Heavens! Then I don't want to go there!" groaned Aleck.
Mélanie gave Jones her hand, half in thanks and half in farewell. "No,
thank you, not to-morrow, but sometime soon; perhaps Thursday. Will that
do?" she smiled. Then, as Jones was discontentedly lounging about the
door, she did a pretty thing. Turning from the door, she stood with face
averted from everybody except Van Camp, and for an instant her eyes met
his in a friendly, half-humorous but wholly non-committal glance. His
eyes held hers in a look that was like an embrace.
"I will see you soon," she said quietly.
Van Camp said good night to Jones at the corner, after they had walked
together in silence for half a block.
"Good night, Van Camp," said Jones; then he added cordially: "By the way,
I'm going back next week in my private car to watch the opening of the
Liza Lu, and I'd be mighty glad if you'd go along. Anything else to do?"
"Thanks--extremely; but I'm going on a cruise."
As Aleck entered the piously exclusive hall of the club his good nature
came to his aid. He wondered whether he hadn't scored something, after
all.