In Dogian days there was a Libro d'Oro in which the First Families of
Venice were inscribed in illuminated script. In New York there is also a
Golden Book, unwritten, yet voiced, and whoso's name appears thereon has
earned the cataloguing not from the idlesse of imbecile forefathers, but
from shrewdness in coping with the public, forethought in the Stock
Exchange, and prescience in the values of land and grain.
At the opera that night the aristocrats of the New World were in full
force. Among them were men who could not alone have wedded the Adriatic
but have dowered her as well. Venice in her greatest splendor had never
dreamed such wealth as theirs. There was Jabez Robinson, his wife and
children, familiarly known as the Swiss Family Robinson, the founder of
their dynasty having emigrated from some Helvetian vale. A lightning
calculator might have passed a week in the summing up of their
possessions. There was old Jerolomon, who through the manipulation of
monopolies exhaled an odor of Sing-Sing, the which had been so
attractive to the nostrils of an English peer that he had taken his
daughter as wife. There was Madden, who controlled an entire state.
There was Bucholz, who declared himself Above the Law, and who had
erupted in New York three decades before with the seven sins for sole
capital. There was Bleecker Bleecker, who each year gave away a pope's
ransom to charity and pursued his debtors to the grave. There was
Dunwoodie, whose coat smelled of benzine and whose signature was potent
as a king's. There was Forbush, who lunched furtively on an apple and
had given a private establishment to each one of his twelve children.
There was Gwathmeys, who had twice ruined himself for his enemies and
made a fortune from his friends. There was Attersol, who could have
bought the White House and whose sole pleasures were window-gardening
and the accord of violins.
On the grand-tier was Mrs. Besalul, on whom society had shut its door
because she had omitted to close her own. In an adjoining box was Mrs.
Smithwick, the bride of a month, fairer than that queen whose face was
worth the world to kiss, and who the previous winter had written a novel
of such impropriety that when it was published her mother forbade her to
read it. There was Miss Pickett, a debutante, who possessed the
disquieting ugliness of a monkey and who had announced that there was
nothing so immoral as ennui. There was Mrs. Bouvery, who claimed
connection with every one whose name began with Van. Mrs. Hackensack,
one of the few surviving Knickerbockers. The Coenties twins, known as
Dry and Extra Mumm. And there were others less interesting. Mrs.
Ponder, for instance, famous for her musicales, which no one could be
bribed to attend. Mrs. Skolfield, who was so icy in her manner that a
poet who had once ventured her way, had caught a cold in his head which
lasted a week. Mrs. Nevers, mailed in diamonds; Mrs. Goodloe, mailed in
pearls; and a senator's wife in a bonnet.
The only empty box in the house was owned by Mr. Incoul, then abroad on
his honeymoon.
And in and out through these boxes sauntered a contingent of men,
well-groomed, white of glove, and flowered as to their button-holes.
Among them was Harry Tandem, who had inaugurated silver studs. Brewster,
who had invented a new figure for the cotillion, and with him Harrison
Felton, the maestro of that decadent dance. There was George Rerick, who
stuttered to the debutantes as he had stuttered to their mothers before
them. Furman Fellowes, who told fairy tales to impressionable young
girls, and who would presently get drunk in Sixth Avenue. Jack Rodney,
M. F. H., and Alphabet Jones, the novelist, in search of points.
As Eden entered the vestibule of her box the curtain had parted on the
second act. A Miss Bolten and her mother whom she had invited had
already arrived, and Arnswald, she noticed, went immediately forward to
salute them; then returning, he assisted her with her wrap. In a moment
the vestibule was invaded by Jones; and Eden, after a word or two to her
guests, settled herself in the front of the box and promenaded her
opera-glass about the house. The promenade completed, she lowered it to
the stalls. Near the orchestra a woman sat gazing fixedly at her. There
was nothing remarkable about the woman. She was as well dressed, as
young, and as pretty as were the majority of those present; it was the
singularity of her attitude that arrested Eden's attention. But that
attention she was not permitted to prolong. The adjoining box, the
occupants of which she had not yet noticed, was tenanted by Mrs.
Manhattan, who now claimed her recognition with some little feminine
word of greeting. On one side of Mrs. Manhattan was an elderly man whom
Eden did not remember to have seen before, and behind her stood Dugald
Maule.
"Eden," whispered Mrs. Manhattan, "I want you to know Mr. Maule's uncle;
he has been minister abroad you know;" and so saying, with a motion of
her head, she designated the elderly man at her side. "He says," she
added, "that you are the most appetizing thing he has seen."
At the brusqueness of the remark Eden started as from a sting. The old
gentleman leaned forward.
"Don't be annoyed, my dear," he mumbled; "I was in love with your
mother."
Then with an amiable commonplace the old beau bowed and moved back.
Maule bowed also, and presently, taking advantage of a _recitative_, he
left Mrs. Manhattan and entered Eden's box. He seemed at home at once.
He shook Mr. Usselex by the hand, saluted Miss Bolten and her mother,
ignored Jones, and dislodging Arnswald, took his seat.
"The season promises well," he whispered confidentially to Eden.
Jones, who had not accorded the slightest attention to Maule, was
discoursing in an animated fashion with Miss Bolten. On the stage in a
canvas forest a man stood, open-mouthed, raising and lowering his right
arm at regular intervals; and next to her Eden caught the motion of Mrs.
Manhattan's fan.
"No," she heard Jones say, "I have every reason to doubt that Shakspere
was the author of Hamlet. In the first place--"
"Ah!" murmured Miss Bolten. She did not appear particularly interested
in Jones or in the man on the stage. She was occupied in scrutinizing
the occupants of the different boxes. "And whom do you suspect?" she
asked, her eyes foraging an opposite _baignoire_.
"Another man with the same name," Jones answered, and laughed a little
to himself.