Adelle Clark was thoroughly infected with the corruption of property by
this time, and the coming years merely confirmed the ideas and the
habits that had been started. She was now seventeen and an "old girl" at
the Hall, privileged to torture less sophisticated girls when they
presented themselves, if she had felt the desire to do so. She had not
forgotten her Church Street existence: it had been much too definite to
be easily forgotten. But she had been removed from it long enough to
realize herself thoroughly in her new life and to know that it was not a
dream. She would always remember Church Street, her aunt and uncle, and
the laborious years of poverty with which it was identified; but
gradually that part of her life was becoming the dream, while Herndon
Hall and the Aladdin lamp of her fortune were the reality. By means of
the latter she had won her position among her mates, and naturally she
respected more and more the source of her power. Eveline Glynn "took her
up" this year, and quite replaced the gentler Diane Merelda in her
affections.
There was if anything less study this year than before. The older girls
scouted the idea of studying anything. Most of them expected to leave
school forever the next spring and under the auspices of their mothers
to enter the marriage game. A few intended as a preliminary to travel in
Europe, "studying art or music," But the minds of all were much more
occupied with love than anything else. Although the sex interest was
still entirely dormant in Adelle, she learned a great deal about it from
her schoolmates. Those good people who believe in a censorship of
literature for the sake of protecting the innocent American girl should
become enrolled at Herndon Hall. There they might be occasionally
horrified, but they would come out wiser mortals. Adelle knew all about
incredible scandals. Divorce, with the reasons for it,--especially the
statutory one,--was freely discussed, and a certain base, pandering
sheet of fashionable gossip was taken in at the Hall and eagerly
devoured each week by the girls, who tried to guess at the thinly
disguised persons therein pilloried. Thus Adelle became fully acquainted
with the facts of sex in their abnormal as well as more normal aspects.
That she got no special personal harm from this irregular education and
from the example of "the two Pols" was due solely to her own unawakened
temperament. Life had no gloss for her, and it had no poetic appeal. She
supposed, when she considered the matter at all, that sometime as a
woman she would be submitted to the coil of passion and sex, like all
the others about whom her friends talked incessantly. They seemed to
regard every man as a possible source of excitement to a woman. But she
resolved for her part to put off the interference of this fateful
influence as long as possible. Sometime, of course, she must marry and
have a child,--that was part of the fate of a girl with money of her
own,--and then she should hope to marry a nice man who would not scold
or ill-treat her or prefer some other woman--that was all.
"Dell is just a lump of ice!" Irene Paul often said, putting her own
plump arms about Adelle's thin little body; and while Adelle tried to
wriggle out of the embrace she teased her by assuming the man's
aggressive role.
* * * * *
Thus the last months of her formal education slipped by. Adelle went
through the easy routine of the Hall like the other girls, riding
horseback a good deal during pleasant weather, taking a lively interest
in dancing, upon which great stress was laid by Miss Thompson as an
accomplishment and healthy exercise. She took a mild share in the
escapades of her more lively friends, but for the most part her life was
dull, though she did not feel it. The life of the rich, instead of being
varied and full of deep experience, is actually in most cases
exceedingly monotonous and narrowing. The common belief that wealth is
an open sesame to a life of universal human experience is a stupid
delusion, frequently used as a gloss to their souls by well-intentioned
people. Apart from the strict class limitations imposed by the
possession of large property, the object of protected and luxurious
people is generally merely pleasure. And pleasure is one of the
narrowest fields of human experience conceivable, becoming quickly
monotonous, which accounts for many extravagancies and abnormalities
among the rich. Moreover, the sensual life of the well-fed and idle
deadens imagination to such a degree that even their pleasures are
imitative, not original: they do what their kind have found to be
pleasurable without the incentive of initiative. If Adelle Clark had not
been attached to Clark's Field and had been forced to remain in the
Church Street rooming-house, by this time she would have been at work as
a clerk or in some other business: in any case she must have touched
realities closely and thus been immeasurably ahead of all the Herndon
Hall girls.
Probably this doctrine would shock not only the managers of Herndon
Hall, but also the officers of the trust company, who felt that they
were giving their ward the best preparation for "a full life," such as
the possession of a large property entitles mortals to expect. And
though it may seem that the Washington Trust Company had been somewhat
perfunctory in its care of its young ward, merely accepting the routine
ideas of the day in regard to her education and preparation for life,
they did nothing more nor worse in this than the majority of well-to-do
parents who may be supposed to have every incentive of love and family
pride in dealing with their young. The trust company in fact was merely
an impersonal and legal means of fulfilling the ideals of the average
member of our society. Indeed, the trust company, in the person of its
president and also of Mr. Ashly Crane, were just now giving some of
their valuable time to consideration of the personal fate of their ward.
She had been the subject of at least one conference between these
officers. She was now on her way towards eighteen, and that was the age,
as President West well knew, when properly conditioned young women
usually left school, unless they were "queer" enough to seek college,
and entered "society" for the unavowed but perfectly understood object
of getting husbands for themselves. The trust company was puzzled as to
how best to provide this necessary function for its ward. They felt that
there existed no suitable machinery for taking this next step. They
could order her clothes, or rather hire some one to buy them for her,
order her a suitable "education" and pay for it, but they could not
"introduce her to society" nor provide her with a good husband. And that
was the situation which now confronted them.
They had received excellent reports of their ward latterly from Herndon
Hall. Although Miss Thompson admitted that Miss Clark was not
"intellectually brilliant," she had a "good mind," whatever that might
mean, and had developed wonderfully at the Hall in bearing, deportment,
manner--in all the essential matters of woman's education. Miss Thompson
meant that Adelle spoke fairly correct English, drawled her _A_'s, wore
her clothes as if she owned them, had sufficiently good table-manners to
dine in public, and could hold her own in the conversation of girls of
her kind. Miss Thompson recommended warmly that Adelle join Miss
Stevens's "Travel Class," which was going abroad in June to tour the
Continent and study the masterpieces of art upon the spot. The
suggestion came as a relief to the trust company's officers: it put over
their problem with Adelle for another year. But before accepting Miss
Thompson's advice, Mr. Ashly Crane thought it wise to make another visit
to Herndon Hall and talk the matter over with Adelle herself. He
believed always in the "personal touch" method. And so once more he
broke a journey westwards at Albany and rolled up the long drive in a
motor-car.
* * * * *
Adelle enjoyed the impression which she was able to make upon the young
banker this time. She had seen his approach in the car on her return
from her ride, and had kept him waiting half an hour while she took a
bath and dressed herself with elaborate care as she had often seen other
girls do. Her teeth had at last been released from their harness and
were nice little regular teeth. Her dull brown hair, thanks to constant
skillful attention, had lately come to a healthy gloss. Her complexion
was clear though pale, and her dress was a dream of revealing
simplicity. Mr. Ashly Crane took in all these details at a glance, and
felt a glow of satisfaction beyond the purely male sense of
appreciation: the trust company which he represented had done its duty
by the little orphan, and what is more had got what it paid for. Their
ward, as she stood before him with a faint smile on her thin lips, was a
creditable creation of modern art. A thoroughly unpromising specimen of
female clay had been moulded into something agreeable and almost pretty,
with a faint, anemonelike bloom and fragrance. Mr. Ashly Crane, who was
rather given to generalization about the might and majesty of American
achievements, felt that the girl was a triumphant example of modern
power,--"what we do when we try to do something,"--like converting the
waste land of Clark's Field into a city of brick and mortar, or making a
hydrangea out of a field shrub.
"Well, Miss Clark," he began as the two seated themselves where they had
sat the year before, "I needn't ask you how you are--your looks answer
the question."
It was a banal remark, but Adelle recognized it for a compliment and
smiled prettily. She said nothing. Silence was still the principal
method of her social tactics.
"You are getting to be a young woman fast," the banker continued quite
bluntly.
Adelle looked down and possibly blushed.
"Mr. West and I have been considering what to do"--he caught himself and
tried again;--"that is we have been in consultation with Miss Thompson
about--your future."
Here Adelle looked the trust officer fully in the eye. On this point she
seemed really interested this time. So Mr. Crane proceeded more easily
to question her about the plan of joining Miss Stevens's "Travel Class."
Adelle listened blankly while Mr. Crane wandered off into generalities
about the advantages of travel and the study of "art" under the guidance
of a mature woman. Suddenly she said quite positively,--
"I don't want to go with the 'Travel Class.'"
This was the first positive expression of any sort that the trust
officer had ever heard from the ward. It was one of the very few that
Adelle Clark had ever made in the eighteen years of her existence. Under
Mr. Crane's inquiries it soon developed that Adelle did not like "Rosy"
Stevens,--as nearly hated her as she was capable of hating any one,--nor
had she any great fondness for the girls who were to compose this year's
"Travel Class." They belonged to the snobbiest element in the school....
What, then, did she wish to do with herself--remain another year at
Herndon Hall? Here again the ward amazed Mr. Crane, for she had ready a
definite plan of her own--a small plan to be sure and imitative, but a
plan.
She wished to go with her new friend Eveline Glynn and the California
sisters to Paris. Eveline's parents, it seemed, were spending the next
season in Europe, and after the manner of their kind they did not
propose to be encumbered with a young daughter. So they had arranged to
send her to Miss Catherine Comstock at Neuilly, and "the two Pols" had
decided to do the same thing. It was not a school,--oh, no, not even a
"finishing school,"--but the home of an accomplished and brilliant
American woman, who had long lived abroad and who undertook to chaperone
in the French capital a very few desirable girls. The banker could not
see how Miss Comstock's establishment in Neuilly differed essentially
from the "Travel Class," except that it was more permanent, which shows
how socially blunt Mr. Crane was. But after an interview with Miss
Thompson he satisfied himself that the Glynns were "our very best
people"; anything they thought right for their daughter must be fit for
the Washington Trust Company's ward. So her guardian's assent to the
plan was easily obtained, and the four friends rejoiced in their coming
freedom....
Adelle had no clear idea why she preferred Neuilly to the "Travel
Class," except to be with Eveline Glynn and the two Paul girls. Paris
and Rome were hazily mixed geographically in her ill-furnished mind, and
culturally both were blank. Eveline had known girls who had stayed with
Miss Comstock and they had given glowing accounts of their experiences.
The Neuilly establishment, it appeared, was a place of perfect freedom,
where the girls were chaperoned sufficiently to keep them out of serious
mischief, but otherwise were allowed to please themselves in their own
way. And there was Paris, which, according to Eveline, who had informed
herself from many sources, was the best place in the world for a good
time. Friends were always coming there, to buy clothes and to make
excursions. Adelle could have her own car, in which the four would take
motor trips, and there was the opera, etc. And lastly Society--real
Society;--for it seemed that this was one of Miss Comstock's strong
points. She knew people, and had actually put a number of her girls in
the way of marrying titled foreigners. The California girls knew of a
compatriot who had thus acquired a Polish title. In short, there was
nothing of the boarding-school in Miss Comstock's establishment, except
the fees, which were enormous--five thousand dollars to start with.
* * * * *
Thus Adelle left Herndon Hall in the beautiful month of June, having
received her last communion in the little ivy-covered stone chapel from
the hands of the bishop himself, smiled upon by Miss Thompson and the
other teachers, who had three years before pronounced her "a perfect
little fright," and kissed by a few of her schoolmates. She felt that
she was coming into her own, thanks to her magic lamp--that life ahead
looked promising. Yet she had changed as little fundamentally during
these three years as a human being well could. She had passed from the
narrowest poverty of the Alton side street to the prodigal ease of
Herndon Hall, from the environment of an inferior "rooming-house" to
companionship with the rich daughters of "our very best people,"--from
an unformed child to the full physical estate of womanhood,--all within
three short years; but she had accommodated herself to these great
transitions with as little inward change as possible. Her soul was the
soul of the Clarks, tricked out with good clothes and the manners and
habits of the rich. Addie, it seemed, had at last arrived at her
paradise in the person of her daughter, but it was a pale and
inexpressive Addie, who made no large drafts upon paradise.
Adelle departed in the Glynn motor for the Glynn country-place, where
she was to stay until the Glynns sailed for Europe. She was prettily
dressed in ecru-colored embroidered linen, with a broad straw hat and
suede gloves and boots, according to the style of the day, and she was
really happy and almost aware of it. Eveline was glum because her
mother--a stern-looking matron who knew exactly what she wanted out of
life and how to get it--had refused peremptorily to let her invite Bobby
Trenow to accompany them. Bobby was Eveline's darling of the hour, as
Adelle knew: Eveline had let him kiss her for the first time the
previous evening, and she was "perfectly crazy" about him. To Adelle,
Bobby was merely a smooth, downy boy like all the rest, who showed bare
brown arms and white flannels in summer, and had as little to say for
himself as she had. She was amused at Nelly's fussed state over the loss
of Bobby; she could not understand Mother Glynn's objection to the
harmless Bobby's occupying the vacant seat in the roomy car;--but then
she did not understand many things in the intricate social world in
which she found herself. She did not know that there is no one of their
possessions that the rich learn more quickly to guard than their women.
The aristocrats of all ages have jealously housed and protected their
women from entangling sexual relations, while permitting the greatest
license to their predatory males. The reasons are obvious enough to the
mature intelligence, but difficult for the young to comprehend.
Adelle had not yet felt the need of a Bobby Trenow.