A PRACTICAL WOMAN
Mrs. Van Reinberg on the steamer was a somewhat formidable person; Mrs.
Van Reinberg in her own house was despotism personified. Her word was
law, her rule was absolute. Consequently, when she swept out on to the
sunny piazza, where a little party of us were busy discussing our plans
for the day, we all turned towards her expectantly. We might propose, but
Mrs. Van Reinberg would surely dispose. We waited to hear what she might
have to say.
"I want to talk to Mr. Courage," she declared. "All the rest of you go
away!"
They obeyed her at once. We were alone in less than a minute. Mrs. Van
Reinberg established herself in a low wicker chair, and I took up my
position within a few feet of her, leaning against the wooden rail.
"I am entirely at your service, Mrs. Van Reinberg," I declared. "What is
it to be about--Adèle?"
"No! not Adèle," she answered. "I leave you and Adèle to arrange your own
affairs. You can manage that without any interference from me."
I smiled and waited for her to proceed. She was evidently thinking out
her way. Her brows were knitted, her eyes were fixed upon a distant spot
in the forest landscape of orange and red. Yet I was very sure that at
that moment, the wonderful autumnal tints, which she seemed to be so
steadily regarding, held no place in her thoughts.
"Mr. Courage," she said at last, "you are a sensible man, and a man of
honor. I should like to talk to you confidentially."
I murmured something about being flattered, but I do not think that she
heard me.
"I should like," she continued, "to have you understand certain things
which are in my mind just now, and which concern also--Mr. de Valentin."
I nodded. The Prince's identity was an open secret, but his incognito was
jealously observed.
"I wonder," she said slowly, looking for the first time directly towards
me, "whether you have ever seriously considered the question of the
American woman--such as myself, for instance!"
I was a little puzzled, and no doubt I looked it. Mrs. Van Reinberg
proceeded calmly. It was made clear to me that, for the present, at any
rate, my rôle was to be simply that of listener.
"My own case," she said, "is typical. At least I suppose so! I speak for
myself; and there are others in the house, at the present moment, who
profess to feel as I do, and suffer--as I have done. In this country, we
are taught that wealth is power. We, or rather our husbands, acquire or
inherit it; afterwards we set ourselves to test the truth of that little
maxim. We begin at home. In about three years, more or less, we reach our
limitations. Then it begins to dawn upon us that, whatever else America
is good for, it's no place for a woman with ambitions. We're on the top
too soon, and when we're there it doesn't amount to anything."
"Which accounts," I remarked, "for the invasion of Europe!"
Mrs. Van Reinberg leaned her fair, little head upon her white
be-ringed fingers, and looked steadily at me. I had never for a moment
under-estimated her, but she had probably never so much impressed me.
There was something Napoleonic about this slow unfolding of her carefully
thought-out plans.
"Naturally," she answered. "What, however, so few of us are able to
realize is our utter and miserable failure in what you are pleased to
call that invasion."
"Failure!" I repeated incredulously. "I do not understand that. One hears
everywhere of the social triumphs of the American woman."
Mrs. Van Reinberg's eyes shone straight into mine. Her face expressed the
most unmitigated contempt.
"Social triumphs!" she repeated scornfully. "What clap-trap! I tell you
that a season in London or Paris, much more Vienna, is enough to drive a
real American woman crazy. Success, indeed! What does it amount to?"
She paused for a moment to take breath. I realized then that the woman
whom I had known was something of a fraud, a puppet hung out with the
rags of a European manner, according to the study and observation of the
shrewd, little lady who pulled the strings. It was Mrs. Van Reinberg of
London and Paris whom I had met upon the steamer; it was Mrs. Van
Reinberg of New York who was talking to me now, and she was speaking in
her own language.
"Look here, Mr. Courage," she said, leaning towards me with her elbows
upon her knees, and nothing left of that elegant pose which she had at
first assumed. "I suppose I've got my full share of the American spirit,
and I tell you I'm a bad hand at taking a back seat anywhere, or even a
front one on sufferance. And yet, wherever we go in Europe, that's what
we've got to put up with! You think we're mad on titles over here! We
aren't, but we are keen on what a title brings over your side. Take your
Debrett--there are I don't know how many baronets and lords and marquises
and earls, and all the rest of it. Do you realize that whatever public
place I'm in, or even at a friend's dinner-party, the homely, stupid
wives of those men have got to go in before me, and if they don't--why I
know all the time it's a matter of courtesy? That's what makes me mad!
Don't you dare to smile at me now. I'm in deadly earnest. In this
country, so far as society goes, I'm at the top. You may say it doesn't
amount to much, and you're right. But it makes it all the worse when I'm
in Europe, and see the sort of women I have to give place to. Say, don't
you sit there, Mr. Courage, and look at me as though I were a woman with
some cranky grievance to talk about. It's got beyond that, let me tell
you!"
"I can assure you, Mrs. Van Reinberg--" I began.
"Now listen here, Mr. Courage," she interrupted. "I'm not the sort of
woman to complain at what I don't try to alter. What's the good of having
a husband whose nod is supposed to shake the money markets of the world,
if you don't make use of him?"
I nodded sagely.
"You are quite right," I said. "Money, after all, is the greatest power
in the world to-day. Money will buy anything!"
"I guess so, if it's properly spent," Mrs. Van Reinberg agreed. "Only
very few of my country-people have any idea how to use it to get what
they want. They go over the other side and hire great houses, and bribe
your great ladies to call themselves their friends, and bribe your young
men with wonderful entertainments to come to their houses. They spend,
spend, spend, and think they are getting value for their money. Idiots!
The great lady whom they are proud to entertain one night is as likely as
not to cut them the next. Half the people who go to their parties go out
of curiosity, and half to meet their own friends. Not one to see them!
Not one because it does them the slightest good to be seen there. They
are there in the midst of it all, and that is all you can say. Their
motto should be 'on sufferance.' That's what I call going to work the
wrong way."
"You have," I suggested, "some other scheme?"
She drew her chair a little closer to mine, and looked around cautiously.
"I have," she admitted. "That is what we are all here for--to discuss it
and make our final plans."
"And Prince Victor?" I murmured.
"Precisely! He is in it, of course. I may as well tell you that he's
dead against my making a confidant of you; but I've a sort of fancy to
hear what you might have to say about it. You see I'm a practical woman,
and though I've thought this scheme out myself, and I believe in it,
there are times when it seems to me a trifle airy. Now you're a kind of
level-headed person, and living over there, your point of view would be
interesting."
"I should be glad to hear anything you might have to tell me, Mrs. Van
Reinberg," I said slowly; "but you must please remember that I am an
Englishman."
"Oh! we don't want to hurt your old country," she declared. "I consider
that for all the talk about kinship, and all that sort of thing, she
treats us--I mean women like myself--disgracefully. But that's neither
here nor there. I've finished with England for the present. We're going
to play a greater game than that!"
Mrs. Van Reinberg had dropped her voice a little. There was a somewhat
uncomfortable pause. I could see that, even at the last moment, she
realized that, in telling me these things, she was guilty of what might
well turn out to be a colossal indiscretion. I myself was almost in a
worse dilemma. If I accepted her confidence, I was almost, if not quite,
bound in honor to respect it. If, as I suspected, it fitted in with the
great scheme, if it indeed formed ever so small a part of these impending
happenings in which Guest so firmly believed, what measure of respect
were we likely to pay to it? None at all! If I stopped her, I should be
guilty, from Guest's point of view, of incredible folly; if I let her go
on, it must be with the consciousness that I was accepting her
confidences under wholly false pretences. It was a big problem for a man
like myself, new to the complexities of life. I could only think of
Guest's words: "Conscience! For Heaven's sake, man, lock it up until we
have done our duty."
I leaned against the wooden rail of the piazza, looking across the
grounds. Within a dozen yards or so of us, several of Mrs. Van Reinberg's
guests, with a collection of golf sticks, were clambering into a huge
automobile. Beyond the pleasure gardens was a range of forest-covered
hills, yellow and gold now with the glory of the changing foliage. In the
valley was a small steeplechase course, towards which several people were
riding. The horse which had been saddled for me was still being led about
a little way down the avenue. With the exception that there was no
shooting party, it was very much like the usual sort of gathering at an
English country house. And yet it all seemed wholly unreal to me! I felt
a strong inclination--perhaps a little hysterical--to burst out laughing.
This was surely a gigantic joke, planned against the proverbial lack of
humor of my countrymen! I was not expected to take it seriously! And yet,
in a moment, I remembered certain established facts, of which these
things were but the natural sequel. I remembered, too, a certain air of
seriousness, and a disposition towards confidential talk, manifested
among the older members of the party. Mrs. Van Reinberg's suppressed but
earnest voice again broke the silence. She called me back to her side.
"Mr. Courage," she said, "you are going to marry Adèle?"
"I hope so," I answered confidently, glancing away to where she stood
talking to Mr. de Valentin on the piazza steps.
"I shall treat you then," she declared, "as one of the family. To-night,
after dinner, we are going to hold the meeting for which this houseful
of people was really brought together. I invite you to come to it.
Afterwards you will understand everything! Now I must hurry off, and so
must you! Your horse is getting the fidgets."
She swept off down the piazza. Mr. de Valentin came forward eagerly to
meet her. I saw his face darken as she whispered in his ear.