THE LOVELY CYNIC MEETS HER FATE.
Percy Durand looked out of the window of his compartment, as the train
paused at Montivilliers, and lazily watched the people on the platform.
"There is nothing new under the sun," he yawned. "The world is
monotonously alike, go where you will. There are always the same people
hurrying to catch the train, and waiting until they can blockade the car
steps before they bid a lingering farewell to friends. Then there are
the same irritated and baggage-encumbered travelers waiting behind them,
and cursing inwardly, and--upon my soul, what a very pretty girl!"
This irrelevant finale to the idle reverie of the _blasé_ Young
American, was caused by the glimpse of a perfect profile, a coil of
yellow hair and a gracefully-poised head under a jaunty hat, passing by
the window. Percy Durand believed that he had exhausted nearly all his
capabilities of enjoyment in this stale world. But his artistic
appreciation of the beautiful still remained to him. The study of a
handsome face, whether on man, woman, or child, was one of his greatest
sources of pleasure.
Craning his neck to obtain another glimpse of the lovely vision, he was
suddenly made aware that the door of his compartment had been thrown
open, and that two ladies had entered.
One, the very object of his thoughts; the other, a fine-looking
middle-aged lady, whose dignified expression suddenly gave place to a
smile of recognition, as her eyes fell upon Percy.
"Why, surely this is Mr. Durand--Nora Tracy's Cousin 'Pierre,' is it
not?" she said, holding out her hand. "Ah, I see you have forgotten me."
"No, indeed, Mrs. Butler, I have not!" cried Percy, giving the extended
hand a thoroughly American "shake"--not the polite touch of kid-covered
finger-tips, but the cordial clasp that means so much to Americans
meeting in a foreign land. "How could I forget the friend and chaperone
of my dear cousin. Only yesterday, in a letter I received, she spoke of
you, and said she hoped it might be my good fortune to run across you.
It is a pleasure I hardly expected however."
Mrs. Butler, after acknowledging the speech with a few polite words,
turned toward her companion.
"Let me introduce you to my protege," she said. "Mr. Durand: Miss King."
And Percy looked into eyes as blue, and cold, as the waters of some
quiet lake sleeping under a winter moon, and saw a face as faultlessly
beautiful as the features of a marble goddess.
There was nothing romantic or unusual, in this very commonplace meeting
between two people whose destinies were to be so tragically interwoven.
Neither was powerfully impressed by, or drawn toward the other. There
was no warning in either heart of the fate to come.
Dolores King,--now in the perfection of her womanhood, matured by the
experiences of travel, contact with the world, wide reading, and all
the many advantages financial independence gives,--regarded Mr. Percy
Durand as a very good-looking typical American, in his late twenties. A
little too thin and blond, perhaps, to suit her ideal of masculine
beauty, but a man of fine address, and possessed of a wonderfully
musical voice.
She felt a trifle more interest in him than she usually felt in the
chance acquaintances Mrs. Butler was forever running across, from the
fact that Nora Tracy, now Mrs. Phillips, who had been a great favorite
and pet with Mrs. Butler, was his cousin.
Percy Durand admired the exquisite beauty of Miss King's face, the
graceful dignity of her bearing, and quietly analyzed her after his
usual custom, while he chatted with Mrs. Butler.
"A cold and reserved nature," he thought, "devoid of woman's usual
vanity, proud to the verge of haughtiness, not susceptible to ordinary
flattery; and she has never loved. When she does--God pity the man!"
Percy Durand was in the habit of regarding women, as students of the
floral world regard flowers, and he botanized them in like manner. Many
years ago, he had idealized the sex; but one woman's perfidy, together
with the vanity and selfishness of many others, had served to
disillusion him. Too finely fibered to ever become a bitter cynic, he
was simply an amused skeptic on the subject of woman's superiority or
moral worth. He had sought the world over for the ideal woman--that
mythical personage of his early dreams. But he had found so much envy,
jealousy, and selfishness marring the sex in general, he had discovered
such unsightly blemishes on some of the most seemingly spotless natures,
that he abandoned the search as hopeless.
"Not a marrying man," his friends said, when speaking of him. Handsome,
eligible, and the junior member of a wealthy New York importing house,
he was a desirable conquest for anxious damsels. But Percy Durand seemed
either too heartless, or too selfish, to assume the rôle of Benedict.
"My cousin, Mrs. Phillips, will be anxious to know particulars
concerning you, Mrs. Butler," he said, as they chatted together. "Are
you chaperoning your usual bevy of young ladies this year?"
"Miss King has been my only charge for nearly four years," Mrs. Butler
answered, smiling. "Five years ago, she joined a party of twenty young
ladies under my charge. After a few months, she decided to remain
abroad, and easily persuaded me to assume the position of companion and
chaperone. We have led a delightful, bohemian sort of existence
together. A year in Paris; winters in Rome, Genoa, Florence; summers in
Northern Europe--in fact, journeying or lingering wherever my young
friend's impulses led her. Just now we are _en route_ for the Paris
Exposition."
"And I also," said Percy, "with half the world. I hope you have engaged
rooms. I fancy there will be a great rush, and much discomfort."
"Miss King had her usual apartments reserved for her. She left them all
furnished when we went to Genoa. I hope if Nora--Mrs. Phillips I should
say--comes abroad, she will come directly to us. We could make her very
comfortable, could we not, Dolores?"
"Certainly," answered Dolores. "And I should be pleased to meet her.
Mrs. Butler makes me almost jealous by her frequent references to your
cousin, Mr. Durand."
"You are very kind; but Mrs. Phillips is not coming abroad this year.
She is kept at home by her two children. She is the happiest wife and
mother I ever saw. To a man of my skeptical ideas on the subject of
marriage, the occasional sight of true domestic happiness, is all that
saves me from absolute cynicism. Whenever I am tempted to doubt the
existence of that congenial mating of two souls, of which we read so
much, and see so little, I think of my cousin, and realize that it
_does_ exist, at least in one instance."
Just at this juncture, Miss King, who had begun to be absorbed in a
book, leaving the two friends to chat, lifted her eyes with a slight
amused smile in their depths.
"Pardon me," she said, "but how long has your cousin been married?"
"Four years." Percy answered.
"Ah! I fancied so. You see, she has hardly yet passed beyond the
experimental period," laughed Dolores. "You know the serpent did not
enter Paradise until sometime after it was created. But he always comes
in one shape or another, and the Eden is always destroyed. It never
lasts."
"Now you have touched upon Miss King's hobby, you see," Mrs. Butler
said, in response to Percy's surprised look. "She is the most absolute
cynic on the subject of love and marriage which the world contains, Mr.
Durand. However, I live in hopes of her reformation. You know when
unbelievers _are_ converted, they make most devout worshipers."
"I shall never be converted from my settled convictions on this
subject," Miss King replied, good naturedly. "There are people who are
only fitted for a life of perfect freedom. I am one of them."
"And I, Miss King, am another!" added Percy. "A more confirmed bachelor
never lived. Marriage seems to me a pitiful bondage, always for one,
often for both. And a happy union is merely a fortunate accident.
Whenever I hear the ringing of marriage bells, I think with Byron, that
'Each stroke peals for a hope the less--the funeral note
Of love deep buried without resurrection
In the grave of possession.'"
A smile that warmed her features like a burst of sunlight illumined Miss
King's lovely face.
"I am sure we should agree famously on this subject, at least, Mr.
Durand," she said. "It is seldom I meet a gentleman whose ideas accord
so perfectly with my own."
"You are two foolish children," interposed Mrs. Butler, "and your ideas
are quite too extreme. Marriage is not the wretched bondage you describe
it. Some one has said very truthfully, 'If nothing is perfect in this
world, marriage is perhaps the best thing amid much evil. If a fickle
husband goes, he returns: but the lover--once gone he never returns.' I
am sure, Mr. Durand, that you would make some woman an excellent
husband."
Percy shook his head. "That is because you do not know me," he replied.
"Whatever my nature was originally, my experiences in the world have
left me incapable of unselfish devotion, or absorbing love."
"Oh, oh!" cried Mrs. Butler, "I will not hear you so malign yourself.
Any man who was so kind as you were to your cousin, must have a heart."
"Perhaps I had, once upon a time. But there is such a thing as
frittering away one's best emotions. Certainly, now, I cannot imagine a
woman so good, so beautiful, or so endowed with graces, that I should
wish to make her my wife. If I did, I know her goodness would be a
reproach to me, her beauty would pall upon me, and her constancy would
irritate me. And yet, the absence of any of these qualities would
displease me. So you see I am better off single. I think my cousin
considers me a good sort of relative! I am sure I am faithful in my
friendships: but the requisites of a desirable husband, I do not
possess. Besides, begging the pardon of both my lady listeners, I must
say, while I have so little faith in myself, I have even less in
womankind. I do not care to risk my future in the hands of an unreliable
woman."
"A man of your experience and judgment would not be apt to make that
error," Mrs. Butler replied. "And women are proverbially faithful by
nature, you know--even clinging to the men who maltreat them."
"Judgment and experience are not of the slightest use in selecting a
wife or husband," responded Percy. "First, because it is only in the
daily intimacies of constant companionship that we can learn another's
peculiarities; and secondly--in the case of the woman, at least--the
maiden and wife are two distinct beings. I have seen the most amiable
and charming girl develope into a veritable Xantippe of a wife. Then, as
for the proverbial faithfulness of woman--it is the poet's idea of the
sex, I know, but it is not verified in reality. Women are quite as
faulty as men, and even more easily assailed by temptation. But they are
more discreet, and make a greater show of good qualities than we do.
Men boast of their infidelities, women conceal them."
"Rouen!" shouted the guard, flinging open the door of the compartment.
"Impossible!" cried Percy, springing up--"and I am obliged to stop here!
This is altogether too bad. But I hope you will kindly send your address
to me at the Grand Hotel, where I shall register next week. I shall be
glad to be of any service to you I can, during my few weeks in Paris."
And with that inimitable grace of the polished New Yorker, Percy bowed
himself from the presence of the ladies.
And the first chapter was written in a romance which was to end in a
tragedy.