"You and my brother have business interests in common?"
"Yes, I've a mine--a chain of mines and property interests, including a
control of the Denver and Western Railroad."
She laid a hand impressively on his arm.
"Hold them. Take my advice and hold them. I know it is a great
temptation to extend your control, to be a big man East and West. But
don't try it by weakening what you have. Other men have come here to
set the Hudson afire----"
"Some of them have done it, too, Mrs. Rumsen."
She shrugged. "What is the use? You have an empire of your own. Stay
at home, develop it. Wouldn't you rather be first in Mantua than second
in Rome?"
"I--I'm afraid I don't just take you?"
"I mean, wouldn't you rather be an emperor among your own people than
fetch and carry--as so many others are doing--for Wall Street?"
"That's just the point. Only the boot is on the other leg. Wall Street
needs the West. Wall Street doesn't think so. It's away behind the
times. Those people downtown are so stuck on themselves that they think
the whole country is stooping with its ear to the ground listening to
what they're doing. Why, Mrs. Rumsen, there are men in the West--big
men, too--who think Wall Street is a joke. Funny, isn't it? Wall
Street doesn't seem to know that millions of acres of corn, of wheat,
and potatoes keep growing just the same. Those things don't wait to
hear what Wall Street thinks. Only God Almighty can make 'em stop
growing. And as long as they grow, we don't bother much."
She smiled approvingly.
"Then why do you care?"
"Oh, I'm a kind of missionary. These people downtown are heathen
critters. They're so ignorant about their own country it almost makes
me ashamed to talk to them."
The last vestige of the grenadier aspect in Mrs. Rumsen had vanished,
and her face dissolved in smiles.
"Heathens! They are," she laughed delightedly. "Critters--yes,
critters, too. Splendid! Have you told Cornelius--my brother--that?"
Wray's truffle stuck in his throat and he gasped, "Good God, ma'am! No.
You won't tell him, will you?"
"I'd like to," she chuckled. "But I won't."
Jeff laughed. "I'm afraid I've put my foot in it. I'm apt to. I'm
rather a raw product----"
"Whatever you do, Mr. Wray, don't change. You're positively refreshing.
Anybody can learn to be good form. It's as simple as a, b, c. If it
wasn't easy there wouldn't be so many people practising it. The people
in the shops even adopt our adjectives before they're well out of our
mouths. Hats are 'smart,' when in earlier days they were simply
'becoming.' Gowns are 'fetching' or 'stunning' that were once merely
'pretty.' Let a fashionable Englishman wear a short coat with a high
hat to the Horse Show, and every popinjay in town will be doing the same
thing in a week. If you're a raw product, remain so by all means. Raw
products are so much more appetizing than half-baked ones."
"I don't think there's any way to make me any different, Mrs. Rumsen,"
he laughed, "even if I wanted to be. People will have to take me as I
am. Your brother has been kind. It seems as if he had a broader view
of our people than most of the others."
"Don't be too sure. They're all tarred with the same stick. It's a
maxim of mine never to put my trust in any person or thing below
Twenty-third Street. The farther downtown you go, the deeper the
villainy. You'll find all New Yorkers much the same. Out of business
hours they are persons of the most exemplary habits, good fathers,
vestrymen in churches, excellent hosts. In business----" she held up
her hands in mock horror.
"Oh, I know," Wray chuckled. "But I'm not afraid. I'm something of a
wolf myself. Your brother needs me more than I need him. I think we'll
get along."
"You have everything you want. Take my advice and keep your money in
the West."
"Thanks. But I like New York, and I don't want to be idle. Besides,
there's Camilla--Mrs. Wray, you know."
"Yes, I see. I can't blame her. No woman with her looks wants to waste
them on mountain scenery. I must know her better--and you. She must let
me call on her. I'm giving a ball later. Do you think you could come?"
And the great lady turned to her dinner partner.
The Baroness, too, was amiable. It was her first visit to America. Her
husband was an attache of an embassy in Washington. She had not yet
been in the West. Were all the men big, as Mr. Wray was?
She had a charming faculty of injecting the personal note into her
questions, and before he was aware of it Wray found himself well
launched in a description of his country--the mountains, the plains, the
cowboys.
She had never heard of cowboys. What were they? Little cows?
Jeff caught a warning look from Camilla across the table, which softened
his laughter. He explained, and the Baroness joined in the merriment.
Then he told her that he had been for years a cowpuncher down in Arizona
and New Mexico before he went into business, described the "round-up,"
the grub wagon, and told her of a brush with some Yaqui Indians who were
on the warpath. When he began, the other people stopped talking and
listened. Jeff was in his element and without embarrassment finished
his story amid plaudits. Camilla, listening timidly, was forced to admit
that his domination of the table was complete. The conversation became
general, a thing which rarely happened at the Bent dinners, and Jeff
discovered himself the centre of attention. Almost unconsciously he
found himself addressing most of his remarks to a lady opposite, who had
listened and questioned with an unusual show of interest.
When the ices were passed he turned to Mrs. Rumsen and questioned.
"Haven't you met her?" And then, across the table, "Rita--you haven't
met Mr. Wray--Mrs. Cheyne."
*CHAPTER VI*
*MRS. CHEYNE*
Over the coffee, curiously enough, there seemed to be a disposition to
refrain from market quotations, for General Bent skilfully directed the
conversation into other channels--motoring--aviation--the Horse
Show--the newest pictures in the Metropolitan--and Jeff listened avidly,
newly alive to the interests of these people, who, as Mrs. Rumsen had
said, above Twenty-third Street took on a personality which was not to
be confounded with the life downtown, where he had first met them. When
Curtis Janney asked him if he rode, Jeff only laughed.
"Oh, yes, of course you do. One doesn't punch cattle for nothing. But
jumping is different--and then there's the saddle----"
"Oh, I think I can stay on without going for the leather. Anyway, I'd
like to try."
"Right-o!" said Janney heartily. "We've had one run already--a drag.
Couldn't you and Mrs. Wray come out soon? We're having a few people for
the hunt week after next. There will be Cortland Bent, Jack Perot, the
Rumsens, the Billy Havilands, Mrs. Cheyne, the Baroness and--if you'll
come along--yourselves."
"Delighted. I'm sure Camilla will be glad to accept. We haven't many
engagements."
"I think you've hidden your wife long enough, Mr. Wray. Does she ride,
too?"
"Like a breeze--astride. But she wouldn't know what to do on a
side-saddle."
"I don't blame her. Some of our women ride across. Gladys, Gretchen,
Mrs. Cheyne----"
"Well," Jeff silently raised his brandy glass in imitation of his
companion, "I'm glad there are a few horses somewhere around here--I
haven't seen any outside of the shafts of a hansom since I left the
West."
"The horse would soon be extinct if it wasn't for Curtis Janney," put in
the General breezily. "Why, he won't even own a motor. No snorting
devils for him. Might give his horses the pip or something. The stable
is worth seeing, though. You're going, aren't you, Wray?"
In the library, later, Wray found Mrs. Cheyne. Until he had come to New
York Wray's idea of a woman had never strayed from Camilla. There were
other females in the Valley, and he had known some of them, but Camilla
had made any comparison unfortunate. She was a being living in a sphere
apart, with which mere clay had nothing in common. He had always
thought of her as he thought of the rare plants in Jim Noakes'
conservatory in Denver, flowers to be carefully nurtured and admired.
Even marriage had made little difference in his point of view. It is
curious that he thought of these things when he leaned over Mrs. Cheyne.
To his casual eye this new acquaintance possessed many of the
characteristics of his wife. Perhaps even more than Camilla she
represented a mental life of which he knew nothing, contributed more
than her share to the sublimated atmosphere in which he found himself
moving. They might have been grown in the same conservatory, but, if
Camilla was the Orchid, Mrs. Cheyne was the Poinsettia flower. And yet
she was not beautiful as Camilla was. Her features, taken one at a
time, were singularly imperfect. He was almost ready to admit that she
wasn't even strikingly pretty. But as he looked at her he realized for
the first time in his life the curious fact that a woman need not be
beautiful to be attractive. He saw that she was colorful and unusually
shapely, and that she gave forth a flow of magnetism which her air of
_ennui_ made every effort to deny. Her eyes, like her hair, were brown,
but the pupils, when she lifted her lids high enough to show them, were
so large that they seemed much darker. Her dinner dress, cut straight
across her shoulders, was of black, like the jewelled bandeau in her
hair and the pearls which depended from her ears. These ornaments,
together with the peculiar dressing of her hair, gave her well-formed
head an effect which, if done in brighter hues, might have been
barbaric, but which, in the subdued tones of her color scheme, only
added to the impression of sombre distinction.
As he approached, she looked up at him sleepily.
"I thought you were never coming," she said.
"Did you?" said Wray, bewildered. "I--I came as soon as I could, Mrs.
Cheyne. We had our cigars----"
"Oh, I know. Men have always been selfish--they always will be selfish.
Cousin Cornelius is provincial to herd the men and women--like
sheep--the ones in one pen, the others in another. There isn't a salon
in Europe--a real salon--where the women may not smoke if they like."
"You want to smoke----"
"I'm famished--but the General doesn't approve----"