It was not until Miss Menemon's engagement to John Usselex was made
public that the world in which that young lady moved manifested any
interest in her future husband. Then, abruptly, a variety of rumors were
circulated concerning him. It was said, for instance, that his real name
was Tchurchenthaler and that his boyhood had been passed tending geese
in a remote Bavarian dorf, from which, to avoid military service, he had
subsequently fled. Again, it was affirmed that in Denmark he was known
as Baron Varvedsen, and that he had come to this country not to avoid
military service, but the death penalty, which whoso strikes a prince
of the blood incurs. Others had heard that he was neither Bavarian nor
Dane, but the outlawed nephew of a Flemish money-lender whose case he
had rifled and whose daughter he had debauched. And there were other
people who held that he had found Vienna uninhabitable owing to the
number of persistent creditors which that delightful city contained.
In this conflict of gossip the real facts were as difficult of discovery
as the truth about Kaspar Hauser, and in view of the divergence of
rumors there were people sensible enough to maintain that as these
rumors could not all be true, they might all be false. Among the latter
was Usselex himself. His own account of his antecedents was to the
effect that his father was a Cornishman, his mother a Swiss governess,
and that he had been brought up by the latter in Bale, from which city
he had at an early age set out to make his fortune. Whether or not this
statement was exact is a matter of minor moment. In any event,
supposing for argument's sake that he had more names than are necessary,
has not Vishnu a thousand? And as for debts, did not Caesar owe a hundred
million sesterces? But however true or untrue his own account of himself
may have been, certain it was that he spoke three languages with the
same accent, and that a decennary or so after landing at Castle Garden
his name was familiar to everyone connected with banks and banking.
At the time contemporaneous to the episodes with which these pages have
to deal John Usselex had reached that age in which men begin to take an
interest in hair restorers. In his face was the pallor of a plastercast,
his features were correct and coercive, in person he was about the
average height, slim and well-preserved. He carried glasses rimmed with
tortoise-shell. He wore a beard cut fan-shape and a moustache with
drooping ends. Both were gray. In moments of displeasure he smiled, but
behind the glasses no merriment was discernible; when they were removed
his eyes glowed luminous and shrewd, and in them was a glitter that
suggested a reflection caught from the handling and glare of gold. In
the financial acceptation of the term he was good; he was at the head of
a house that possessed the confidence of the Street, his foreign
correspondents were of the best, but in the inner circles of New York
life he was as unknown as Ischwanbrat.
Miss Menemon, on the other hand, had no foreign correspondents, but in
the circles alluded to she was thoroughly at home. Her father, Mr.
Petrus Menemon, was not accounted rich, but he came of excellent stock,
and her mother, long since deceased, had been an Imryck. Now, to be an
Imryck, to say nothing of being a Menemon, is to be Somebody. Miss
Menemon, moreover, was not quite twenty-two years of age. To nine people
out of ten she represented little else than the result of the union of
an Imryck and a Menemon; but to the tenth, particularly when the tenth
happened to be a man, she was as attractive a girl as New York could
produce. As a child she had not been noticeably pretty, but when, as
the phrase is, she came out, she was assuredly fair to see. She was
slight and dark of hair, her face was like the cameo of a Neapolitan
boy, but her eyes were not black, they were of that sultry blue which is
observable in the ascension of tobacco-smoke through a sunbeam; and
about her mouth and in the carriage of her head was something that
reminded you of the alertness and expectancy of a bird. She was not
innocent, if innocence be taken in the sense of ignorance, but she was
clean of mind, of eye, and of tongue. She had been better instructed
than the majority of society girls, or, if not better instructed, at
least she had read more, and this perhaps, because on emerging from the
nursery her father's first care had been to make her unafraid of books.
Petrus Menemon himself was a tall, spare man, scrupulous as to his
dress, and quiet of manner. In his face was the expression of one who is
not altogether satisfied, and yet wishes everyone else to be content. He
had an acquired ignorance which he called agnosticism. He enjoyed the
formidable reputation of being well-read; but it is only just to explain
that he was well read chiefly in the archaic sense--in the bores and
pedants of antiquity. Yet, if his taste was stilted, he made no effort
to inculcate that taste in his daughter; he gave her the run of the
library and allowed her to drag from the Valhalla of the back
books-helves what friends and relatives she chose. Indeed, his attitude
to her was one of habitual indulgence. By nature she was as capricious
as a day in February, a compound of sunlight, of promise, and of snow;
and when she was wilful--and she was often that--he made no effort to
coerce, he argued with her as one might with a grown person, seriously,
and without anger. And something of that seriousness she caught from
him, and with it confidence in his wisdom and trust in his love. To her
thinking no one in all the world was superior to that gentle-mannered
man.
When she left the nursery she was supplied with a governess, and as she
grew older, with masters of different arts and tongues. But as a child
she was often lonely, and the children whom she saw playing in the
streets were to her objects of indignant envy. On Sunday it was her
father's custom to take her to morning service, and afterward to her
grandmother, a lady who lived alone in a giant house in South Washington
Square, in the upper rooms of which the child was persuaded that coffins
lay stored in heaps. During these visits, which were continued every
Sunday until the old lady died, an invariable programme was observed:
the child repeated the catechism, recited a verse from the hymnal, after
which she was gratified with sponge-cake and a glass of milk, and then
was permitted to look at the pictures in a large Bible, in which, by way
of frontispiece, was an engraving of a man with a white beard, whom her
grandmother said was God. Such, with the exception of tiresome
promenades on Second Avenue, where her father's house was situated, such
were her relaxations.
And so it came about that in the enforced loneliness of her childhood
she ransacked a library in which the "Picara Justina" of Fray Andrs
Perez stood side-by-side with the Kalevala, a library in which works
stupid as the Koran and dead as Coptic touched covers with the "Idyls of
the King" and the fabliaux of mediaeval France. Soon she had made friends
with the heroes and heroines that are the caryatides of the
book-shelves. In their triumphs she exulted; by their failures she was
depressed. At the age of thirteen she spoke of King Arthur as though he
were her first cousin. The next year she was in love with Amadis of
Gaul.
A little later she hung on the wall of her bedroom a bit of embroidery
of her own manufacture, a square piece of watered silk, on which in bold
relief stood the characters 60 H, a device understood by no one but
herself, one which her imagination had evolved out of the aridity of a
French copy-book, and which each night and each morning said to her,
_Sois sans tache_.
Indeed, her brain had been the haunt of many an odd conceit, the home of
fays and goblins. Her imagination was always a garden to her except
when it happened to be a morass. She had not only castles in Spain, she
had dungeons as well; and of them she was architect, mason, and
inhabitant too. It was her mood--a circumstance aiding--that dowered her
fancy with wings. Now she would be transported to new horizons where
multicolored suns battened on intervales of unsuspected charm, now she
would be tossed into the opacity of an abyss where there would not be so
much as a goaf for resting-place. Now Pleasure would lord the day, now
the sceptre would be held by Pain. As often as not the intonation of a
voice, the expression of a face, any incident however trivial would
suffice, and at once a panorama would unroll, with no one but herself
for spectator. As she grew older her mind became more staid, its changes
and convolutions less frequent. The goblins were replaced by glyptodons,
Perrault by Darwin. But the prismatic quality of her fancy remained
unimpaired. She garmented everyone with its rays. Those who were nearest
to her enjoyed the gayest hues; in others she looked steadfastly for the
best. And yet, in spite of this, or precisely on that account, no one
was ever better able to distort trifles into nuclei of doubt. In brief,
she was March one minute and May the next. Apropos of some
misunderstanding, her father said to her jestingly one day, "Eden, did
you ever hear of such a thing as hemiopia?" The girl shook her head.
"Well," he continued, "there is a disease of that name which affects the
eye in such a manner that only half the object looked at is seen. Don't
you think you had better consult an oculist?"
Meanwhile her education had been completed by Shakspere. Love she had
learned of Juliet, jealousy of Othello. But of despair Hamlet had been
incompetent to teach. She was instinct with generous indignations,
enthusiastic of great deeds, and through the quality of her temperament
unable to reason herself into an understanding of the base. When she
"came out" she found herself unable to share the excited interest which
girls of her age exhibited in Delmonico balls. At the dinners and dances
to which she was bidden, she was chilled at the discovery that
platitude reigned. As a rule, the younger men fought shy of her. She
acquired the reputation of making disquieting answers and remarks of
curious inappositeness. But now and then she met people that found her
singularly attractive and whose hearts went out to her at once, yet
these were always people with whom she fancied herself in sympathetic
rapport.
Among this class was a man who succeeded Amadis. His name was Dugald
Maule; he was six or seven years her senior, and by profession an
attorney and counsellor-at-law. It should be noted, however, that he did
not look like one. He looked like an athlete that had taken honors, a
man to be admired by women and respected by men. In private theatricals
he was much applauded. He had studied law in the hope of being judge,
and in being judge of pronouncing the death sentence. He could imagine
no superber role than that. To him, after months of self-examination,
Eden Menemon surrendered her heart. The surrender was indeed difficult,
but as surrenders go it was complete.
The threads by which he succeeded in attaching her to him it is
unnecessary to describe. Suffice it to say that little by little she
grew to believe that in him the impeccable resided. She had accustomed
herself to consider love in the light of a plant which if rightly tended
would bloom into a witherless rose. She had told him this, and together
they had watched the bud expand, and when at last it was fulfilled to
the tips he saw it in her eyes. That evening, when he had gone, the
sense of happiness was so acute that she became quasi-hysterical. The
joy of love, slowly intercepted and then wholly revealed, vibrated
through the chords of her being, overwhelming her with the force of an
unexperienced emotion, and throwing her for relief into a paroxysm of
tears. Then followed a day of wonder, in which hallucinations of delight
alternated with tremors of self-depreciation. It seemed to her that she
was unworthy of such an one as he. For, to her, in her inexperience, he
was perfection indeed, one unsulliable and mailed in right. And then,
abruptly, as such things occur, without so much as a monition, she read
in public print that he had been summoned as a co-respondent. To
overwrought nerves as were hers, the announcement was rapider in its
effect than a microbe. A fever came that was obliterating as the morrow
of steps on the sand. For a week she was delirious, and when at last she
left her room the expression of her face had altered. She felt no anger,
only an immense distrust of the validity of her intuitions. Had Dugald
Maule been in trouble, she would have, if need were, forsaken life for
his sake; but the Dugald Maule for whom she would have been brave had
existed only in her own imagination. It was this that brought the fever,
and when the fever went, disgust came in its place. It was then that the
expression of face altered. She looked like one who is done with love.
Presently, and while she was still convalescent, her father sent her
abroad with friends, and when she returned, Dugald Maule had to her the
reality of a bad dream, a nightmare that she might have experienced in
the broad light of an earlier day.
In the course of that winter it so happened that her father one evening
brought in to dinner a man whom he introduced as Mr. Usselex. Eden had
never seen him before and for the moment she did not experience any
notable desire to see him again. She attended, however, with becoming
grace to the duties of hostess, and as the conversation between her
father and his guest circled in and over stocks, she was not called upon
to contribute to the entertainment. When coffee was served she went to
her own room and promptly forgot that Mr. Usselex existed.
But in a few days there was Crispin again. On this occasion Eden gave
him a larger share of attention than she had previously accorded. There
were certain things that she noticed, there was an atmosphere about him
which differed from that which other men exhaled. In the tones of his
voice were evocations of fancies. He seemed like one who had battled and
had won. There was an unusualness in him which impressed and irritated
her simultaneously. It was annoying to her that he should intrude,
however transiently, into the precincts of her thought. And when he had
gone she took her father to task: "What do you have that man to dinner
for?" she asked. "Who is he?"
Mr. Menemon, who was looking out of the window, announced that it was
snowing, then he turned to her. "Eden," he said, "I am sorry. If you
object he need not come again. Really," he continued, after a moment, "I
wish you could see your way to being civil to him."
"Surely I am that," she answered.
To this Mr. Menemon assented. "The matter is this," he said. "While you
were abroad I became interested in a mine; he is trying to get me out of
it. He is something of a prophet, I take it. Though, as yet," he added
despondently, "his prophecies have not been realized."
"Then he is a philosopher," said Eden, with a smile; and her father,
smiling too, turned again to interview the night.
Thereafter Mr. Usselex was a frequent guest, and presently Eden
discovered that her annoyance had disappeared.
The people whom we admire at first sight are rarely capable of
prolonging that admiration, and when circumstances bring us into contact
with those that have seemed antipathetic, it not infrequently happens
that the antipathy is lost. It was much this way with Eden. Little by
little, through channels unperceived, the early distaste departed.
Hitherto the world had held for her but one class of individuals, the
people whom she liked. All others belonged to the landscape. But this
guest of her father's suggested a new category; he aroused her
curiosity. He left the landscape; he became a blur on it, but a blur on
which she strained her eyes. The antipathy departed, and she discovered
herself taking pleasure in the speech of one who had originally affected
her as a scarabaeus must affect the rose.
She discerned in him unsuspected dimensions. He was at home in recondite
matters, and yet capable of shedding new light on threadbare themes.
During discussions between him and her father at which she assisted she
gained an insight into bi-metallism, free trade even, and subjects of
like import, the which hitherto she had regarded as abstract diseases
created for the affliction of politicians and editorial hacks. He was at
home too in larger issues, in the cunning of Ottoman tactics and the
beat of drums at Kandahar. Concerning King Arthur he was vague, but he
had the power to startle her with new perspectives, the possibilities of
dynamics, the abolition of time, the sequestration and conquest of
space. And as he spoke easily, fluently, in the ungesticulatory fashion
of those that know whereof they speak, more than once she fell to
wondering as to the cause of that early dislike. In such wise was
Desdemona won.
It so happened that one evening she chanced to dine with a friend of
hers, Mrs. Nicholas Manhattan by name, a lady whose sources of social
information were large. Among other guests was Alphabet Jones, the
novelist.
"Did you ever hear of Mr. Usselex?" Eden asked, over the sweets.
Mrs. Manhattan visibly drew on the invisible cap of thought. "Never
heard of him," she presently exclaimed, as one who should say, "and for
me not to have heard argues him unknown."
But Jones was there, and he slipped his oar in at once. "I know him,"
he answered. "He is the son of a shoemaker. No end of money! Some years
ago a cashier of his did the embezzlement act, but Usselex declined to
prosecute."
"Yes, that is like him," said Eden.
"Ah! you know him, then?" and Jones looked at her. "Well," he continued,
"the cashier was sent up all the same. He had a wife, it appeared, and
children. Usselex gave them enough to live on, and more too, I believe."
"He must have done it very simply."
"Why, you must know him well!" Jones exclaimed; and the conversation
changed.
Meanwhile winter dragged itself along, and abruptly, as is usual with
our winters, disappeared. In its stead came a spring that was languider
than summer. Fifth Avenue was bright with smart bonnets and gowns of
conservatory hues. During the winter months Mr. Menemon's face had been
distressed as the pavements, but now it was entirely serene.
It was evident to Eden that Mr. Usselex was not a philosopher alone, but
a prophet as well. Concerning him her store of information had
increased.
Toward the end of May her father spoke to her about him and about his
success with the mine. He seemed pleased, yet nervous. "I saw him this
afternoon," he said; "he is to be here shortly. H'm! I am obliged to go
to the club for a moment. Will you--would you mind seeing him in my
absence?" For a moment he moved uneasily about and then left the room.
Eden looked after him in wonder, and took up the _Post_. And as her eyes
loitered over the columns the bell rang; her face flushed, and presently
she was aware of Usselex' presence.
"What is this my father tells me?" she asked, by way of greeting.
"What is it?" he echoed; he had found a chair and sat like Thor in the
court of Utgarda.
"About the mine and all that."
The man eyed her enquiringly for an instant and picked at his cuff.
"Let me ask you a question," he said: "Did your father say nothing
except about the mine?"
"No, not that I remember, except to imply that you--that he--no, he said
nothing worth repeating."
"In finding you alone I supposed he had told you that--"
"That the mine--"
"That I love you."
In the corner of the room was a great colonial clock. Through the
silence that followed it ticked sleepily, as though yawning at the
avowal. Mr. Usselex had bent forward; he watched the girl. She was
occupied in tearing little slips from the paper which lay in her lap.
She did not seem to have heard him at all.
"Miss Menemon," he continued, "I express myself badly. Do not even take
the trouble to say that you do not care for me. It is impossible that
you should. You know nothing of me; you--"
"Oh, but I do though," the girl exclaimed. "The other day, a month or
two ago, I have forgotten, someone said your father was a shoemaker, and
what not about you beside. Oh, I know a great deal--"
"Then, Miss Menemon, you must know the penalty which is paid for
success." He straightened himself, the awkwardness had left him, and he
seemed taller than when he entered the room. "Yes," he continued, "the
door to success is very low, and the greater is he that bends the most.
Let a man succeed in any one thing, and whatever may be the factors with
which that success is achieved, Envy will call a host of enemies into
being as swiftly as Cadmus summoned his soldiery. And these enemies will
come not alone from the outer world, but from the ranks of his nearest
friends. Ruin a man's home, he may forget it. But excel him, do him a
favor, show yourself in any light his superior, then indeed is the
affront great. Mediocrity is unforgiving. We pretend to admire
greatness, but we isolate it and call that isolation Fame. It is above
us; we cannot touch it; but mud is plentiful and that we can throw. And
if no mud be at hand, we can loose that active abstraction, malice,
which subsists on men and things. No; had I an enemy I could wish him no
greater penance than success--success prompt, vertiginous, immense! To
the world, as I have found it, success is a crime, and its atonement,
not death, but torture. Truly, Miss Menemon, humanity is not admirable.
Men mean well enough, no doubt; but nature is against them. Libel is the
tribute that failure pays to success. If I am slandered, it is because I
have succeeded. But what is said of my father is wholly true. He did
make shoes, God bless him! and very good shoes they were. Pardon me for
not having said so before."
Eden listened as were she assisting at the soliloquy of an engastrimuth.
The words he uttered seemed to come less from him than from one unknown
yet not undevined. And now, as he paused for encouragement or rebuke, he
saw that her eyes were in his.
"Miss Menemon," he continued, "forget my outer envelope; if you could
read in my heart, you would find it full of love for you."
"Perhaps," she said, and smiled as at a vista visible only to herself. "I
will tell my father what you say," she added demurely.
With that answer Mr. Usselex was fain to be content. And presently, when
he had gone, she wondered how it was that she had ever cared for Dugald
Maule.
A week later the engagement of Miss Menemon to John Usselex was
announced. Much comment was excited, and the rumors alluded to were
industriously circulated. But comment and rumors notwithstanding, the
marriage took place, and after it the bride left her father's dingy
little house on Second Avenue for a newer and larger one on Fifth. Many
people had envied Usselex his wealth; on that day they envied him his
bride.