"I mean it, though, daddy," she went on calmly. "I'm too fond of Cort
ever to think of marrying him. We settled that still more definitely
to-day. Since you were so inconsiderate, you two, as to neglect to
provide me with a brother, I've adopted Cort."
"Really, Gretchen, you're getting more hopeless every day," sighed her
mother. "What does Cortland say?"
"I?" laughed Bent. "What is there left for me to say? We're hopelessly
friendly, that's all. I'm afraid there's nothing left but to take to
drink. May I?"
He lifted the decanter of Scotch and poured himself a drink, but Janney,
with a scowl in the direction of his daughter, left the room.
"You mustn't speak so heartlessly, dear," said Mrs. Janney. "You know
it always makes your father angry. You must be patient with her,
Cortland."
"I am," said that gentleman, helping himself to a cigarette. "I'm the
soul of patience, Mrs. Janney. I've pleaded and begged. I've even
threatened suicide, but all to no purpose. There's no satisfaction in
shooting one's self on account of a girl who's going to laugh at your
funeral."
He threw himself hopelessly into a big English chair and sighed
exuberantly, while Gretchen gave him a reproachful look over her
mother's shoulder. "My poor boy, don't give her up," said the lady,
genuinely. "All will come right in time, I'm sure. You must be sweeter
to him, Gretchen. You really must."
"I suppose I must," said Gretchen with an air of resignation. "I'll not
be any more cruel than I can help."
When the good lady left the room they looked at each other for a moment,
and then burst into shameless laughter.
"Poor mother! She never had a sense of humor. I wouldn't laugh at your
funeral, though, Cort. That was unkind. You know, I'm afraid father is
very much provoked."
Bent's laughter died, and he gazed at the ash of his cigarette. "He's
really quite serious about it, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes. It's an awful nuisance, because, in his way, he has a will as
strong as mine."
Bent smiled. "I'm glad I'm not in his boots. You're fearfully stubborn,
Gretchen."
"Because I insist on marrying whom I choose?"
"Because you insist on not marrying me."
Miss Janney sank in a chair by the table, fingering the pages of a
magazine. She said nothing in reply, but in a few moments spoke
carelessly.
"Tell me something about Lawrence Berkely, will you?"
"Larry? You've only met him once. Your curiosity is indecent."
"You know he's coming here with the Wrays."
"Not really? That's going a bit strong. I don't think I'll stand for
that."
"Oh, yes, you will. He's quite as good as we are. He belongs to _the_
Berkelys of Virginia. Mrs. Rumsen knows them."
"That's convincing. Any one Aunt Caroline knows will need no card to
Saint Peter. Oh, Larry's all right. But I warn you not to fall in love
with him."
"That's precisely what I've done," she asserted.
He glanced at her amusedly, but she met his look coolly.
"It's true, Cort. He's actually the only man I've met since I came out
who really isn't eligible. I'm so delighted. Of course, father would
never have permitted it if he'd only known that Mr. Berkely wasn't rich.
He hasn't much use for poor people. Oh, he's well enough off, I suppose,
as Mr. Wray's partner, but then he doesn't own any of that fabulous gold
mine."
"How do you know all these things?"
"He told me. Besides, he's terribly good looking, and has had something
the matter with his lungs."
"Well, of all the----"
"That's why he's been living in the West. But he's quite well now.
Isn't it splendid? I only hope he'll like me. Don't you think he has
wonderful eyes?"
"I'm sure I never noticed. See here, Gretchen, you're talking rot. I'm
going to tell your father."
"Oh, I don't care," airily. "But if you do, I'll tell Mr. Wray."
"Wray?"
"Yes--that you're in love with his wife."
Miss Janney exploded this bombshell casually while she removed her hat,
watching him carefully meanwhile in the mirror. If she had planned her
coup, she could not have been more fully rewarded, for Cortland started
up, clutching at the chair arms, his face aghast; but when his eyes met
hers in the mirror he sank back again, laughing uneasily.
"What--who on earth put that silly idea into your head?"
"You--yourself. I watched you at the Warringtons."
"What nonsense! I've known Camilla a long time."
"Not so long as you've known me. And you never looked at me like that."
She laid her hat beside her crop on the table, then turned quickly and
put her hand over his on the chair arm. "You may trust me, Cortland,
dear. If I'm going to be your sister, I may as well begin at once.
It's true, isn't it?"
He remained silent a long while, his gaze fixed on the open fire before
him. Then at last he turned his hand over so that his fingers clasped
hers. "Yes," he whispered, "it's true, Gretchen. It's true."
"I'm so sorry, Cort," she murmured. "I suspected from your letters. I
wish I might have helped you. I feel somehow that I am to blame--that
we ever got engaged. Won't you tell me how it happened that she married
him--instead of you?"
"No, no," he said, rising and walking to the window. "She--she married
Wray--because--because she loved him, that's all. I wasn't the man."
Gretchen watched him wistfully, still standing beside the chair he had
vacated, full of the first deep sympathy she had ever known. Slowly she
walked over and put her hand timidly on his shoulder.
"You'll forgive me, won't you, Cort? I wouldn't have spoken if I had
known how deeply you felt." She turned aside with a bitter little
laugh. "Isn't it queer that life should be so full of complications?
Everybody expects you and me to marry each other--at least, everybody
but ourselves, and we won't because--why is it that we won't? Chiefly
because everybody expects us to--and because it's so easy. I'm sure if
there was any reason why we shouldn't marry, I'd love you quite madly.
Instead of which, you're in love with a married woman, and I--I'm
interested in a youth with sad romantic eyes and an impaired breathing
apparatus."
"Gretchen, don't be silly," he said, smiling in spite of himself.
"I'm really serious--you'll see." She stopped and clutched Bent's arm.
"Tell me, Cort. He's not married already, is he?"
"You silly child. Not that I know of. Berkely is a conscientious sort
of a bird--he wouldn't have let you make love to him----"
"I _didn't_," with dignity, "we talked about the weather mostly."
"That must have been romantic."
"Cort, I'll not speak to you again." She rushed past him to the window,
her head erect. Outside was the whirr of an arriving motor. "How
tiresome. Here come the Billy Havilands," she said, "and they'll want to
be playing 'Auction' at once. They always do. As if there was nothing
but 'Bridge' in the world!" She sniffed. "I wish we were going to be
fewer in number. Just you and I and----"
"And Larry?"
"Yes--and Mrs. Wray," she put in viciously.
Curtis Janney was already in the big stair hall to welcome the arrivals.
"Billy--Dorothy--welcome! Of course you had to bring your buzz-wagon.
I suppose I'll be driven to build a garage some day--but it will be well
down by the East Lodge. Do you expect to follow in that thing? Rita!
Awfully glad. Your hunter came over last night. He looks fit as a
fiddle. Aren't you cold? Gretchen, dear, ring for tea."
Noiseless maids and men-servants appeared, appropriated wraps and hand
baggage, and departed.
"We timed it nicely," said Haviland, looking at his watch. "Forty-seven
from the ferry. We passed your wagons a moment ago. Gretchen, who's
the red-haired girl with the Rumsens?"
"_Et tu, Brute_? That's Mrs. Wray. None of us has a chance when she's
around. Here they are now."
The two station wagons drew up at the terrace, and the guests
dismounted. Mr. and Mrs. Rumsen with the Wrays in the station wagon,
and the Baroness Charny, the Warringtons, Jack Perot, and Lawrence
Berkely in the 'bus.
"Well, Worthy! Got here after all! Caroline, Mrs. Wray, would you like
to go right up or will you wait for tea? Wray, there's something
stronger just inside. Show him, won't you, Billy?"
Wray entered the big hall with a renewed appreciation of the utility of
wealth. The houses in New York which he had seen were, of course, built
upon a more moderate scale. He had still to discover that the men of
wealth were learning to make their week-ends out of town longer, and
that the real home-life of many of them had been transferred to the
country, where broad acres and limitless means enabled them to gratify
their tastes in developing great estates which would hand down their
names in the architectural history of the country when their city houses
should be overwhelmed and lost in the march of commerce. Curtis Janney,
for all his great responsibilities, was an open-air man, and he took a
real delight in his great Tudor house and stables. The wide entrance
hall which so impressed Jeff was designed in the ripe Palladian manner
which distinguished the later work of the great Inigo Jones. This lofty
room was the keynote of the building--a double cube in shape, the
staircase which led from the centre opposite the door ornate in a
character purely classic--the doorways to the other rooms on the same
floor masterful in structural arrangement and elegant in their grace and
simplicity. It almost seemed as though the room had been designed as a
framework for the two wonderful Van Dykes which were placed at each side
of the stairway.
Jeff smiled as he walked into the smoking room--the smile of possession.
He realized, as never before, that taste, elegance, style, were things
which could be bought with money, as one would buy stock or a piece of
real estate. The only difference between Curtis Janney and himself was
that his host had an ancestor or two--while Jeff had none.
Miss Janney had quietly and cleverly appropriated Lawrence Berkely and
was already on her way to the conservatory. Jack Perot, who painted the
portraits of fashionable ladies, had taken the Baroness to the Long
Room, where the English pictures were hung. Camilla, after a few polite
comments on the dignity of the house, sat a little aside in silence.
Cortland Bent, after a glance toward the door through which Miss Janney
had vanished, dropped into the vacant chair beside her.
"I'm so glad to see you," she said genuinely. "You know the magnificence
is rather bewildering." She paused and lowered her voice. "It seems as
if I hadn't seen you for ages."
"Yes," he murmured. "I'm expecting wings any day now. I'm almost too
good to be true."
"You're an angel," she smiled. "I want you to be good, and I'm sure I
want you to be true. And yet"--she paused--"this seems the only case in
the world where to be true is to be bad."
"You can't make the sun stop shining."
"I don't think I want it to stop shining altogether. You see, I'm
selfish. I want it under a cloud, that's all."
There was a pause--significant to them both.
"I am trying, Camilla. I am doing my best. You appreciate that?"
"Yes, but it shouldn't be so hard. I don't think it would be hard for
me in your place!"
His eyes questioned.
"Miss Janney--she is adorable." She looked over the rim of her cup at
him as she finished her tea. "My dear Cort," she laughed, as she handed
it to him, "the best I can say for you is that you have the worst taste
in the world. I'm really in love with her myself. I can't see what you
could have been thinking of----"
"Any more than _I_ can see what _you_ were thinking of."
There was a refuge from the danger toward which she felt herself
drifting, and she took it, addressing her nearest neighbor.
"Mrs. Cheyne, don't you think men have abominable taste?"
"Oh, yes, abominable," laughed the lady. "Ugh! I hate mustaches, too,
don't you?"
Camilla turned a shade rosier, but her discomfiture was lost in the
laughter of those who remembered that Cheyne had worn a beard.
"You know I didn't mean just that," explained Camilla. "I meant their
appreciation of women--their sense of the esthetic----"
"Anesthetic, Mrs. Wray. That's the only word for a man's perceptions.
A French frock, a smart hat, a little deft color, and the plainest of us
is a match for the gayest Lothario. They're only bipeds, instincts on
legs----"
"Oh, I say now, Rita," laughed Bent.
"We can't stand for that, Mrs. Cheyne," put in their host. "I suppose
you'd think me ungallant if I asked you what kind of instincts women
were."
"Instincts with wings," she purred, "angels by intuition, rhapsodists by
occupation, and sirens by inheritance. We're not in the least afraid of
you, Mr. Janney."
"I should think not. For my part, if I knew that one of you was camping
on my trail, I'd give in at once."
"I'm so glad. It's a pet theory of mine that when a woman really sets
her cap for a man he had better give up at once, for she will win
him--fortune favoring--in the end. Don't you agree, Mrs. Wray?"
"I've never thought about it, Mrs. Cheyne," said Camilla slowly. "By
fortune you mean propinquity?"
"Oh, yes--and other things----" laughingly. "For instance, if I had
fallen in love with a man I shouldn't stop to consider. If he was
another woman's husband--say _your_ husband, Mrs. Wray--that would only
add a new element of interest. The more difficult an undertaking, the
greater satisfaction in the achievement."
Camilla looked at her steadily for a moment. "I've never thought that
any man ought to be dignified by such extraordinary effort. A husband so
easily won away is not worth keeping."
The two women had only met once before. They both smiled, sweetly
tolerant, their weapons politely sheathed. Only Cortland Bent, who knew
the hearts of both, sensed the difference between them.
"You're very flattering, Rita," he broke in, "especially to the bipeds.
You've carefully deprived us of every attribute but legs. But we still
have those--and can run."
"But you don't," laughed Mrs. Cheyne. "That's just the point. You like
the game--all of you. Even your legs aren't proof against flattery."
"Stop, Rita," put in Betty Haviland. "You're letting out all the
secrets of the craft."
"Come, Camilla," said Cortland, rising, "wouldn't you like to see the
horses and dogs? It's not nearly dark yet."
"Oh, yes," she cried gladly. And then to her host, "What am I to
expect, Mr. Janney, silver feed troughs and sterilized water?"
"Oh, no," said their host, "not yet. But they're worth it."
The pair made their way through the library and a small corridor which
led to the south portico.
"How do you like my cousin Rita?" Bent asked when they were alone
outside.
"Is she your cousin?"
"Through my mother--the Davidges. Quite wonderful, eh?"
"I don't like her. You don't mind my saying so, do you?"
"Not in the least. She's not your sort, Camilla. But then nobody ever
takes Rita seriously. She doesn't want them to. She's a spoiled
darling. Everybody pets her. That bored kind of cleverness is
effective--but everybody knows she doesn't mean half she says."
"I'd be sorry to think she meant anything she says," severely.