Roper second's set dined at Tony Lamb's in Camberton. For the most
part they belonged to the same club, the A. O., and were
congenial souls--young men, rich, from the great cities, who were
taking the Camberton degree as a brevet in the social profession. In
winter they could be found at the New York and the Boston hotels; in
summer at the Bar Harbor hotels.
A few men of different stamp were left over from a previous college
generation of A. O.'s, such as Jarvis Thornton, who had begun
when a boy out of school to dine with his old schoolfellows at Tony
Lamb's, and had kept it up from inertia and the loose liking of
college fellowship, long after his way had parted from that of the
present A. O.'s. Thornton had entered Camberton with all the
distinction that a well-connected Massachusetts family, easy
circumstances, and distinct scholarship would give. His course had
been a gentle current of prosperity. He took first a high degree in
the college, then a good degree in medicine. Now he was engaged in
pushing forward some biological work on which he had already published
a monograph and which had brought him membership in some learned
societies.
One day at the beginning of the long vacation, Roper Ellwell and he
found themselves alone at dinner. Young Ellwell was bored with the
prospect of his own companionship for a lonely drive to the country.
"I say, Thornton," he threw out at random, "come down to our place
over night. The cart will be round in a few minutes."
Thornton, flaccid from hot days in the laboratory, welcomed any
proffered excuse for a loaf. So they jogged away in the soft evening,
from the cropped green hedges and the red brick buildings of Camberton
into the country turnpike, smoking and keeping a peaceful silence.
After athletics and carts had been talked out there was not much to
start fresh conversation with. Camberton slipped away, with its
endless problems, its ambitious prods. Jarvis Thornton entered another
atmosphere when the cart crunched the gravel of the drive at the Four
Corners. The Ellwells were on the veranda. "Who are the Ellwells?"
Thornton asked himself as he found a chair next the white dress of the
daughter. "And why did I get myself into a family party for a day and
two nights without knowing what to expect?"
He discovered an order of things he had never seen before in the
rounds of his proper visiting list--the broker world. Ellwell had the
possibilities of a gentleman, and in comparison with the three or
four companions that he had with him this Sunday, his manners were
distinguished. He was a Camberton man, he would have Jarvis Thornton
understand, a classmate of Thornton's father, and if their paths had
separated, Ellwell, nevertheless, had a position equal to the
Thorntons. As for the others, they were clerks, who in one way or
another had managed to get their seats--men with no great permanent
stake in the community, the modern substitute for the condottiere
class. The Four Corners gave them a place to eat and drink and play a
long game of poker, which amusements satisfied their cravings for
diversion. Jarvis Thornton was a mere young prig that had walked
inadvertently their way; young Roper Ellwell joined the Sunday game,
while Thornton was left with the women to pass the day. The Sunday
went off quietly with a long drive in the afternoon. At dinner
Thornton sat beside the elder daughter. There were stretches of
silence, for the general talk and the table interested him more than
his companion. The other men discussed business or scandal; old
Ellwell told stories that were broad and fatuous, to which young
Ellwell responded with heavy laughter. Ruby joked with an old-young
man named Bradley, a broker, who had been winning in the day's game.
As they came near the end of the long dinner Mrs. Ellwell excused
herself. Thornton scrutinized his companion. The fumes of the place
seemed to circulate about her unnoticed.
"Does she understand it?" Thornton asked himself. "Is this abstraction
a mere bluff because I am a stranger? Or is she only bored?"
When she noticed that Thornton was not eating or drinking she
questioned him mutely with her eyes.
"Shall we leave?"
He nodded. She rose and opened the long window--passed out, as if
accustomed to avoid the puddles of life. She led the way to the
farther end of the veranda, where only an occasional high voice could
be heard. When she had settled herself on a lounge, she sighed
inconsequently.
"But perhaps you didn't want to come? You can go back. We always walk
about a good deal you know, and nobody will notice. You will want your
coffee and cigar; and Colonel Sparks tells amusing wicked little
stories. I will stay here, though."
"And I think I will," the young man added, simply. "It's really hot."
She opened her eyelids, which usually hung a little down as if heavy.
"It tired you too, did it? Somehow I never felt so weary from it as I
do to-night."
"Is it always just so?" he asked, bluntly.
"Why, of course; why not? There are different people. But dinner is
always the chief affair of the day in our house; you see the men are
free then and their cares are over. My father is very particular about
dinner, but it is tiresome sometimes."
Talk dropped. This line was dangerous.
"Tell me," she said again in curious inquiry; "you are not one of
Roper's set?"
"No, he is some years my junior."
"But that does not make any difference. You never belonged to Roper's
set. Isn't it very dull being a grind? Roper says you are a dig and
fearfully clever."
"One must play for something." He waived aside the compliment.
"But how do you do it? Tell me just what you do every day."
Thornton was willing to take her seriously. He sketched his humdrum
labors, the prizes in his way of life. "And it isn't so stupid," he
ended with a laugh, "to play the game that way when once you have
begun it." He added carelessly, as if to himself, "the body will give
you only a few sensations, such a very few, and so humiliatingly
inadequate."
"So _we_ live for the body," the girl said, sharply, diving into his
meaning.
"How do I know?" Thornton replied, irritated at his foolish remark.
"No you meant it; you meant it, and I suppose it is so. But one feels
the body so constantly. Neuralgia racks me, and fatigue. Some days one
would do anything to satisfy the cravings of that same body you seem
to think we shouldn't pamper."
"If you give in you must do more another time," he added a little
solemnly.
"How you must despise us!" Her eyes flashed suddenly. "You live
coolly, tranquilly on for something at the end, never, never
forgetting to have balance."
"Nonsense, I am blue at times, and life is tame."
"And we stumble about with our senses, making a muddle of our earth."
"Here is the carriage already!" It was a relief to find an excuse to
break away.
"You will not come again, I fancy?" she asked, simply. An hour ago he
would have answered yes, meaning in his heart never. Now the unsolved
woman opposite prompted him to say: "If you want to see me again, if I
may?"
"Come down some, some week-day, when it is so quiet. We can have more
talk, and I promise you it will do you good to mix with the herd
occasionally."
She laughed lightly.
"The blood has run out," Thornton mused, as the cart rolled on through
the gentle night. "This fellow here is a flabby lump. She has
neuralgia and long stretches of apathy, and other ills. Her children
stand to lose, if she ever has any. She has kept the frame of the
splendid old stock, but in its house the nerves and tissues are
morbid and she is waiting," he paused, and then the words came,
"waiting for dissolution and endless rest."
"Have another cigar?" His companion interrupted his musing.
"The old man keeps a good lot. Whew, how he plays! I left the little
game; the family couldn't stand two in that. The old man will be
savage this week. He can't play against that Bradley. Bradley is a
regular sucker. I tipped the pater a pointer on that long ago, and got
well cursed for my pains. When the old man gets on a tear there's no
stopping him; no let up until he bucks his head against something
hard. Well," he lashed the horse into a gentle gallop, "he can't kick
at my batch of bills. When he gets on a high horse, I know how to fix
him." He laughed. Jarvis Thornton turned a curious eye on his
companion. Just this kind of intimacy in families he had never
experienced--an armed neutrality of viciousness. He was anxious to get
on, to reach his Camberton rooms, where the Sunday forlornness was
peace after this swinish atmosphere. Once back in his arm-chair, in
the familiar confusion of books and papers and letters lying about, he
wondered again what curious freak had led him to accept Roper
Ellwell's invitation. The Four Corners faded from his imagination into
a murky blur, with one central point of white light made by a thin
summer dress, a girlish figure, a face that had come into the world
tired--devitalized.
The next morning he plunged again into a stress of work with his old
swing and intensity, as if single-handed at one spurt he was to make
his way to the close of his labors. He ate his hurried meals at a
little restaurant near the laboratory, and came back to his rooms late
at night, unexhausted, nervously eager to begin again.