"No, it's not."
"Oh, then--" Her tone was slightly that of disappointment.
"Did you want it to be?" I smiled.
"It isn't that; but my brother thought it was--"
"I'm sure I don't know why--except for the rug. But one can know about
rugs and not have to sell them, can't one?"
"It's not a usual branch of knowledge, except among connoisseurs and
artists--"
"Oh, well!"
"So my brother thought if you were in that kind of work he'd give you a
note to a friend of his---at the head of one of the big carpet
establishments in New York--"
"It's awfully kind of him," I broke in, as she drew a letter from the
bag she carried, "and if I needed it I'd take it; but--but I don't need
it. It--it wouldn't be any good to me. I thank him none the less
sincerely--and you, too, Miss Averill--"
She looked at the ground, her long black lashes almost resting on her
cheek.
"I must seem to you very officious, but--"
"Not in the slightest. I'm extremely grateful. If I required help
there's nobody--"
"You don't live in New York?"
"I'm going to stay here for--for the present."
"But not--not to work?"
"That I shall have to see."
"I suppose you're a--a writer--or one of those things."
"No, I'm not any of those things," I said, gravely; and at that we
laughed.
*CHAPTER IX*
We got back to New York in time for me to begin the parade of the
hotels. Taking this task seriously, I selected the biggest and made
myself conspicuous by keeping on my feet.
For three days nothing happened except within myself. This focusing of
men and women into vast assemblies from four to seven every afternoon
began to strike me as the counterpart of the gatherings I was watching
each day between twelve and one on the pavements of Fifth Avenue. Though
the activities were different, the same obscure set of motives seemed to
lie behind both. In both there was the impulse to crowd densely
together, as if promiscuity was a source of excitement. In both there
was a vacuity that was not purposeless. In both there was a suggestion
of the sleeping wild beast. While in the one case the accompaniment was
the inchoate uproar of the streets, in the other it was an orchestra
that jazzed with the monotonous incitement of Oriental tom-toms,
nagging, teasing, tormenting the wild beast to get up and show his
wildness. Across tea-rooms or between arcades one could see couples
dancing in a languorous semi-paralysis of which the fascination lay in a
hint of barbaric shamelessness. Barbaric shamelessness marked the huge
shaven faces of most of the men and the kilts of most of the women. I
mention these details only to point out that to me, after my mysterious
absence, they indicated a socially new America.
It was the fourth afternoon when, drifting with the crowd through a
corridor lined with tables at which small parties were having tea, I
felt the long-expected tap on my shoulder.
In the interval too brief to reckon before turning round two
possibilities were clear in my mind. The unknown crime from which I was
running away might have found me out--or some friend had come to my
deliverance. Either event would be welcome, for even if it were arrest
I should learn my name and history.
"Hello, old chap! Come and have some tea."
I was disappointed. It was only Boyd Averill. Behind him his wife and
sister were seated at one of the little tables. It was the sort of
invitation one couldn't refuse, especially as they saw I was strolling
without purpose.
It was Mrs. Averill who talked, in the bored _voix trainante_ of one who
has everything the world can give, except what she wants most. I had
seen before that she was a beautiful woman, but never so plainly as
now--a woman all softness and dimpling curves, with the same suggestions
of the honeyed and melting and fatigued in her glances that you got from
the inflection of her sentences.
She explained that they had come from a song recital in the great hall
up-stairs. It was given at this unusual time of the year by a
well-known singer who was passing through New York on her way to
Australia. With this interruption she continued the criticism she had
been making when I sat down, and which dealt with certain phrases in a
song--Goethe's "_Ueber allen Gipfeln_."
"The Schubert setting?" I asked, after informing Miss Averill as to how
I should have my tea.
"No, the Hugo Wolff."
I began to hum in an undertone: "'_Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh; in allem
Wipfeln hoerest du kaum einen Hauch_.' Is that the one?"
The ladies exchanged glances; Averill kept his eyes on my face.
"Yes, that's the one," Mrs. Averill said, as if nothing unusual had
happened. "So you sing."
"No; I--I just know the song. I've--I've heard a good deal of music at
one time and another."
"Abroad?"
"Yes--abroad--and here."
"Where especially here?"
"Oh, New York--Boston--Chicago--different places." I did my best to be
vague.
I noticed for the first time then a shade of wistfulness in Mildred
Averill's brown eyes as she said:
"You seem to have moved about a good deal."
"Oh yes. I wanted--I wanted to see what was happening."
"And you saw it?"
Averill asked me that, his gaze still fixed on me thoughtfully.
"Enough for the present."
There was a pause of some seconds during which I could hear the
unuttered question of all three, "Why don't you tell us who you are?"
It was a kindly question, with nothing but sympathy behind it. It was,
in fact, a tacit offer of friendship, if I would only take it up. More
plainly than they could have expressed themselves in words, it said: "We
like you. We are ready to be your friends. Only give us the least
little bit of encouragement. Link yourself up with something we know.
Don't be such a mystery, because mystery breeds suspicion."
When I let it go by Mildred Averill began to talk somewhat at random.
She didn't want that significant silence to be repeated. I had had my
chance and I hadn't taken it. Very well, my reasons would be respected,
but I couldn't keep people from wondering. That was what I knew she was
saying, though her actual words referred to our expedition of a few days
previously.
And of that she spoke with an intonation that associated me with
herself. She and I had taken two nice young people of the
working-classes for an outing. Let me hasten to say that there was no
condescension in what she said; condescension wasn't in her; there was
only the implication that whatever the ground she stood on, I stood on
that ground, too. She threw out a hint that as New York in these
September days was barely waking from its summer lethargy, and there was
little to fill time, we might all four do the same again.
In this she was reserved, nunlike, yet--what shall I say? What is there
to say when a woman betrays what very few people perceive and one isn't
supposed to know to be there? There is a decoration on certain old
Chinese porcelains which you can only see in special lights. A vase or
a bowl may be of, let us say, a rich green monochrome. You may look at
the thing a thousand times and nothing but the monochrome will be
visible. Then one day the sun will strike it at a special angle, or the
light may otherwise be what the artist did his work for, and beneath the
green you will discern dragons or chrysanthemums in gold. Somewhat in
that way the real Mildred Averill came out and withdrew, withdrew and
came out, not so much according to changes in her as according to
changes in the person observing her. When you saw her from one point of
view she was diffident, demure, not colorless, but all of one color like
a rare piece of monochrome. When you looked at her from another you saw
the golden dragons and chrysanthemums. You might not have understood
what they symbolized, but this much at least you would have known--that
the gold was the gold of fire, all the more dangerous, perhaps, because
it was banked down.
That in this company, with its batteries of tacit inquiry turned on me
all the while I took my tea, I was uneasy will go without saying, and so
I took the earliest possible opportunity to get up and slip away. I did
not slip away, however, before Mrs. Averill had asked me to lunch on the
following Sunday, and I had been forced into accepting the invitation.
I had been forced because she wouldn't take no for an answer. She
wanted to talk about music; she wanted to sing to me; in reality, as I
guessed then, and soon came to know, she was determined to wring from
me, out of sheer curiosity, the facts I wouldn't confide of my own
accord.
But having accepted the invitation, I saw that there were advantages in
doing so. Once back in the current to which I belonged, I should have
more chances of the recognition for which I was working. The social
life of any country runs in streams like those we see pictured on
isothermal charts. The same kind of people move in the same kind of
medium from north to south, and from east to west. If you know one man
there you will soon know another, till you have a chain of
acquaintances, all socially similar, right across the continent. That I
had such a chain I didn't doubt for an instant; my only difficulty was
to get in touch with it. As soon as I did that each name would bring up
a kindred name, till I found myself swimming in my native channel,
wherever it was, like a fish in the Gulf Stream, whether off the coast
of Norway or off that of Mexico.
So I came to the conclusion that I had done right in ceding to Mrs.
Averill's insistence, though it occurred to me on second thoughts that I
should need another suit of clothes. That I had was well enough for
knockabout purposes, especially when carried off with some amount of
bluff; but the poverty of its origin would become too evident if worn on
all occasions. I had seen at the emporium that by spending more money
and putting on only a slightly enhanced swagger I could make a much
better appearance in the eyes of those who didn't examine me too
closely. I decided that the gain would warrant the extravagance.
Within ten days of my landing, therefore, my nearly four hundred dollars
had come down to nearly two, though I had the consolation of knowing
that my chances of soon getting at my bank-account were better. At any
minute now my promenades in the hotels might be rewarded, while
conversation with the Averills would sooner or later bring up names with
which I should have associations.
It was disconcerting then, on the following Sunday, to be received with
some constraint. It was the more disconcerting in that the coldness
came from Averill himself. He strolled into the hall while I was
putting down my hat and stick, shaking hands with the peculiar
listlessness of a man who disapproves of what is happening. As hitherto
I had found him interested and cordial, I couldn't help being struck by
the change.
"You see how we are," he observed, pointing to an open packing-case.
"Not up to the point of having guests; but Mrs. Averill--"
"Mrs. Averill was too kind to me to think of inconveniences to herself."
"Just come up to the library, will you, and I'll tell her you're here."
It was a way of getting rid of me till his wife could come and assume
her own responsibilities.
So long a time had passed since I had seen the interior of an American
house of this order that I took notes as I made my way up-stairs. Out
of the unsuspected resources of my being came the capacity to do it.
Most people on entering a house see nothing but its size. A background
more or less elaborately furnished may be in their minds, but they have
not the knowledge to enable them to seize details. The careful
arrangement of taste is all one to them with some nondescript, haphazard
jumble.
In this dwelling, in one of the streets off Fifth Avenue, on the eastern
side of Central Park, I found the typical home of the average wealthy
American. Money had been spent on it, but with a kind of helplessness.
Helplessness had designed the house, as it had planned, or hadn't
planned, the street outside.
A square hall contained a few monumental pieces of furniture because
they were monumental. A dining-room behind it was full of high-backed
Italian chairs because they were high-backed and Italian. The stairs
were built as they were because the architect had not been able to avoid
a dark spot in the middle of the house and the stairs filled it. On the
floor above a glacial drawing-room in white and gold, with the furniture
still in bags, ran the width of the back of the house, while across the
front was the library into which I was shown, spacious, cheerful, with
plenty of books, magazines, and easy-chairs. In the way of pictures
there were but two--modern portraits of a man and a woman, whom I had no
difficulty in setting down as the father and mother of Averill. Of the
mother I knew nothing except that she had been a school-teacher; of the
father Miss Blair had given me the detailed history as told in _Men Who
Have Made New Jersey_.
Hubbard Averill was the son of a shoemaker in Elizabeth. On leaving
school at fifteen he had the choice of going into a grocery store as
clerk or as office-boy into a bank. He chose the bank. Ten years later
he was teller. Five years after that he was cashier. Five years after
that he had the same position in a bank of importance in Jersey City.
Five years after that he was recognized as one of the able young
financiers in the neighborhood of New York. Before he was fifty his name
was honored by those who count in Wall Street. It was the history of
most of the successful American bankers I had ever heard of.
There was no packing-case in the library, but a number of objects
recently unpacked stood round about on tables, waiting to be disposed
of. There was a little Irish glass, with much old porcelain and pottery,
both Chinese and European. I had not the time to appraise the things
with the eye before Miss Averill slipped in.
She wore a hat, and, dressed in what I suppose was tan-colored linens,
she seemed just to have come in from the street.
"My sister will be down in a minute. She's generally late on Sunday.
I've been good and have been to church."
We sat down together on a window-seat, with some self-consciousness on
both sides. I noticed again that, though her hair was brown, her
eyebrows and long curving lashes were black, striking the same discreet
yet obscurely dangerous note as the rest of her personality. In the
topaz of her eyes there were little specks of gold like those in her
chain of amber beads.
After a little introductory talk she began telling me of the help Miss
Blair was giving Drinkwater. She had begun to teach him what she called
"big stenography." Shorthand and the touch system were included in it,
as well as the knack of transcribing from the dictaphone. Boyd had
bought a machine on purpose for them to practise with, looking forward
to the day when Harry should resume his old job connected with
laboratory work.
"And what's to become of Miss Blair?"
My companion lowered her fine lashes, speaking with the seeming shyness
that was her charm.
"I'm thinking of asking her to come and live with me. You see, if I
take a house of my own I shall need some one; and she suits me. She
understands the kind of people I like to work among--"
"Oh, then you're not going to keep on living here."
"I've lived with my brother and sister ever since my father died; but
one comes to a time when one needs a home of one's own. Don't you think
so?"
"Oh, of course!"
"A man--like you, for instance--can be so free; but a woman has to live
within exact limitations. The only way she can get any liberty at all
is within her own home. Not that my brother and sister aren't angelic
to me. They are, of course; but you know what I mean." The glance that
stole under her lashes was half daring and half apologetic. "It must be
wonderful to do as one likes--to experiment with different sorts of
life--and get to know things at first hand."
So that was her summing up concerning me. I was one of those moderns
with so keen a thirst for life that I was testing it at all its springs.
She didn't know my ultimate intention, but she could sympathize with my
methods and admire my courage and thoroughness. Almost in so many words
she said if she had not been timid and hedged in by conventions it was
what she would have liked herself.
Before any one came to disturb us there seeped through her conversation,
too, the reason of Averill's coldness. They had discussed me a good
deal, and while he had nothing to accuse me of, he considered that the
burden of the proof of my innocence lay with me. I might be all
right--and then I might not be. So long as there was any question as to
my probity I was a person to watch with readiness to help, but not one
to ask to luncheon. He would not have invited me to tea a few days
before, and had allowed me to pass and repass before ceding to his
wife's persistence. He had consequently been the more annoyed when she
carried her curiosity to the point of bringing me there that day.
Miss Averill did not, of course, say these things; she would have been
amazed to know that I inferred them. I shouldn't have inferred them had
I not seen her brother and partially read his mind.
But my hostess came trailing in--the verb is the only one I can find to
express her gracefully lymphatic movements--and I was obliged to submit
to a welcome which was overemphasized for the benefit of the husband who
entered behind her.
"We're really not equipped for having any one come to us," she
apologized. "We're scarcely unpacked. We're going to move from this
house anyhow when we can find another. It's so poky. If we're to
entertain again--" She turned to her sister: "Mildred dear, _couldn't_
some one have cleared these things away?" Waving her hand toward the
array of potteries and porcelains, she continued to me: "One buys such a
lot during two or three years abroad, doesn't one? I'm sure Mrs. Soames
must feel the way I do, that she doesn't know where to put the things
when she's got them home."
I knew the reason for the reference which others were as quick to catch
as I, and, in the idiom of the moment, tried to "side-step" it by
saying:
"That's a good thing--that Rouen _saladier_. You don't often pick up one
of that shape nowadays."
"I saw it in an old shop at Dreux," Mrs. Averill informed me, in her
melting tone. "I got this pair of Ming vases there, too. At least,
they said they were Ming; but I don't suppose they are. One is so taken
in. But I liked them, whatever they are, and so--"
She lifted one up and brought it to me--a dead-white jar, decorated with
green foliage, violet-blue flowers, and tiny specks of red fruit.
Something in me leaped. I took the vase in my hand as if it had been a
child of my flesh and blood. I was far from thinking of my hearers as I
said:
"It's not Ming; but it's very good K'ang-hsi.'"
I had thrown another little bomb into their camp, but it surprised them
no more than it did me. A trance medium who hears himself speaking in a
hitherto unknown tongue could not have been more amazed at his own
utterance. I went on talking, not to give them information, but to
listen for what I should say next.
They had all three drawn near me. "How can you tell?" Miss Averill
asked, partly in awe at my knowledge, and partly to give me the chance
to display it.
"Oh, very much as you can tell the difference between a hat you wear
this year and one you wore five years ago. The styles are quite
different. Ming corresponds roughly to the Tudor period in English
history, and K'ang-hsi to the earlier Stuarts--with much the same
distinction as we get between the output of those two epochs. Ming is
older, bolder, stronger, rougher, with a kind of primitive force in it;
K'ang-hsi is the product of a more refined civilization. It has less of
the instinctive and more deliberate selection. It is more
finished--more self-conscious." I picked up the Rouen salad-dish and a
Sevres cup and saucer, putting them side by side. "It's something like
the difference between these--strength and color and dash in the one,
and in the other a more elaborately perfected art. You couldn't be in
any doubt, once you'd been in the habit of seeing them."
Mrs. Averill's question was as natural and spontaneous as laughter.
"Where have you seen them so much, Mr. Soames?"
"Oh, a little everywhere," I managed to reply, just as we were summoned
to luncheon.
At table we talked of the pleasures of making "finds" in old European
cities. I had evidently done a lot of it, for I could deal with it in
general quite fluently. When they pinned me down with a question as to
details I was obliged to hedge. I could talk of The Hague and Florence
and Strasbourg and Madrid as backgrounds, but I could never picture
myself to myself as walking in their streets.
That, however, was not evident to my companions, and as Mrs. Averill's
interests lay along the line of ceramic art I was able to bring out much
in the way of connoisseurship which did not betray me. With Averill
himself I scored a point; with Mildred Averill I scored many. With Mrs.
Averill, beneath a seeming ennui that grew more languorous, I quickened
curiosity to the fever-point.
"What a lot of things you must have, Mr. Soames."
My refuge being always in the negative, I said, casually: "Oh no! One
doesn't have to own things just because one admires them."
"But you say yourself that you've picked them up--"
As she had nearly caught me here I was obliged to wriggle out. "Oh, to
give away--and that kind of thing."