stooping over the coffer with the key in her hand.
“I don’t know as I like showing them,” Mrs. Day modestly murmured.
Vogelstein made his German salutation to the company in general, and to
Pandora he offered an audible good-bye, which she returned in a bright
friendly voice, but without looking round as she fumbled at the lock of
her trunk.
“We’ll try another, if you like,” said Mr. Lansing good-humouredly.
“Oh no it has got to be this one! Good-bye, Count Vogelstein. I hope
you’ll judge us correctly!”
The young man went his way and passed the barrier of the dock. Here he
was met by his English valet with a face of consternation which led him
to ask if a cab weren’t forthcoming.
“They call ’em ’acks ’ere, sir,” said the man, “and they’re beyond
everything. He wants thirty shillings to take you to the inn.”
Vogelstein hesitated a moment. “Couldn’t you find a German?”
“By the way he talks he _is_ a German!” said the man; and in a moment
Count Otto began his career in America by discussing the tariff of
hackney-coaches in the language of the fatherland.
II
HE went wherever he was asked, on principle, partly to study American
society and partly because in Washington pastimes seemed to him not so
numerous that one could afford to neglect occasions. At the end of two
winters he had naturally had a good many of various kinds—his study of
American society had yielded considerable fruit. When, however, in
April, during the second year of his residence, he presented himself at a
large party given by Mrs. Bonnycastle and of which it was believed that
it would be the last serious affair of the season, his being there (and
still more his looking very fresh and talkative) was not the consequence
of a rule of conduct. He went to Mrs. Bonnycastle’s simply because he
liked the lady, whose receptions were the pleasantest in Washington, and
because if he didn’t go there he didn’t know what he should do; that
absence of alternatives having become familiar to him by the waters of
the Potomac. There were a great many things he did because if he didn’t
do them he didn’t know what he should do. It must be added that in this
case even if there had been an alternative he would still have decided to
go to Mrs. Bonnycastle’s. If her house wasn’t the pleasantest there it
was at least difficult to say which was pleasanter; and the complaint
sometimes made of it that it was too limited, that it left out, on the
whole, more people than it took in, applied with much less force when it
was thrown open for a general party. Toward the end of the social year,
in those soft scented days of the Washington spring when the air began to
show a southern glow and the Squares and Circles (to which the wide empty
avenues converged according to a plan so ingenious, yet so bewildering)
to flush with pink blossom and to make one wish to sit on benches—under
this magic of expansion and condonation Mrs. Bonnycastle, who during the
winter had been a good deal on the defensive, relaxed her vigilance a
little, became whimsically wilful, vernally reckless, as it were, and
ceased to calculate the consequences of an hospitality which a reference
to the back files or even to the morning’s issue of the newspapers might
easily prove a mistake. But Washington life, to Count Otto’s
apprehension, was paved with mistakes; he felt himself in a society
founded on fundamental fallacies and triumphant blunders. Little
addicted as he was to the sportive view of existence, he had said to
himself at an early stage of his sojourn that the only way to enjoy the
great Republic would be to burn one’s standards and warm one’s self at
the blaze. Such were the reflexions of a theoretic Teuton who now walked
for the most part amid the ashes of his prejudices.
Mrs. Bonnycastle had endeavoured more than once to explain to him the
principles on which she received certain people and ignored certain
others; but it was with difficulty that he entered into her
discriminations. American promiscuity, goodness knew, had been strange
to him, but it was nothing to the queerness of American criticism. This
lady would discourse to him _à perte de vue_ on differences where he only
saw resemblances, and both the merits and the defects of a good many
members of Washington society, as this society was interpreted to him by
Mrs. Bonnycastle, he was often at a loss to understand. Fortunately she
had a fund of good humour which, as I have intimated, was apt to come
uppermost with the April blossoms and which made the people she didn’t
invite to her house almost as amusing to her as those she did. Her
husband was not in politics, though politics were much in him; but the
couple had taken upon themselves the responsibilities of an active
patriotism; they thought it right to live in America, differing therein
from many of their acquaintances who only, with some grimness, thought it
inevitable. They had that burdensome heritage of foreign reminiscence
with which so many Americans were saddled; but they carried it more
easily than most of their country-people, and one knew they had lived in
Europe only by their present exultation, never in the least by their
regrets. Their regrets, that is, were only for their ever having lived
there, as Mrs. Bonnycastle once told the wife of a foreign minister.
They solved all their problems successfully, including those of knowing
none of the people they didn’t wish to, and of finding plenty of
occupation in a society supposed to be meagrely provided with resources
for that body which Vogelstein was to hear invoked, again and again, with
the mixture of desire and of deprecation that might have attended the
mention of a secret vice, under the name of a leisure-class. When as the
warm weather approached they opened both the wings of their house-door,
it was because they thought it would entertain them and not because they
were conscious of a pressure. Alfred Bonnycastle all winter indeed
chafed a little at the definiteness of some of his wife’s reserves; it
struck him that for Washington their society was really a little too
good. Vogelstein still remembered the puzzled feeling—it had cleared up
somewhat now—with which, more than a year before, he had heard Mr.
Bonnycastle exclaim one evening, after a dinner in his own house, when
every guest but the German secretary (who often sat late with the pair)
had departed: “Hang it, there’s only a month left; let us be vulgar and
have some fun—let us invite the President.”
This was Mrs. Bonnycastle’s carnival, and on the occasion to which I
began my chapter by referring the President had not only been invited but
had signified his intention of being present. I hasten to add that this
was not the same august ruler to whom Alfred Bonnycastle’s irreverent
allusion had been made. The White House had received a new tenant—the
old one was then just leaving it—and Count Otto had had the advantage,
during the first eighteen months of his stay in America, of seeing an
electoral campaign, a presidential inauguration and a distribution of
spoils. He had been bewildered during those first weeks by finding that
at the national capital in the houses he supposed to be the best, the
head of the State was not a coveted guest; for this could be the only
explanation of Mr. Bonnycastle’s whimsical suggestion of their inviting
him, as it were, in carnival. His successor went out a good deal for a
President.
The legislative session was over, but this made little difference in the
aspect of Mrs. Bonnycastle’s rooms, which even at the height of the
congressional season could scarce be said to overflow with the
representatives of the people. They were garnished with an occasional
Senator, whose movements and utterances often appeared to be regarded
with a mixture of alarm and indulgence, as if they would be disappointing
if they weren’t rather odd and yet might be dangerous if not carefully
watched. Our young man had come to entertain a kindness for these
conscript fathers of invisible families, who had something of the toga in
the voluminous folds of their conversation, but were otherwise rather
bare and bald, with stony wrinkles in their faces, like busts and statues
of ancient law-givers. There seemed to him something chill and exposed
in their being at once so exalted and so naked; there were frequent
lonesome glances in their eyes, as if in the social world their
legislative consciousness longed for the warmth of a few comfortable laws
ready-made. Members of the House were very rare, and when Washington was
new to the inquiring secretary he used sometimes to mistake them, in the
halls and on the staircases where he met them, for the functionaries
engaged, under stress, to usher in guests and wait at supper. It was
only a little later that he perceived these latter public characters
almost always to be impressive and of that rich racial hue which of
itself served as a livery. At present, however, such confounding figures
were much less to be met than during the months of winter, and indeed
they were never frequent at Mrs. Bonnycastle’s. At present the social
vistas of Washington, like the vast fresh flatness of the lettered and
numbered streets, which at this season seemed to Vogelstein more spacious
and vague than ever, suggested but a paucity of political phenomena.
Count Otto that evening knew every one or almost every one. There were
often inquiring strangers, expecting great things, from New York and
Boston, and to them, in the friendly Washington way, the young German was
promptly introduced. It was a society in which familiarity reigned and
in which people were liable to meet three times a day, so that their
ultimate essence really became a matter of importance.
“I’ve got three new girls,” Mrs. Bonnycastle said. “You must talk to
them all.”
“All at once?” Vogelstein asked, reversing in fancy a position not at all
unknown to him. He had so repeatedly heard himself addressed in even
more than triple simultaneity.
“Oh no; you must have something different for each; you can’t get off
that way. Haven’t you discovered that the American girl expects
something especially adapted to herself? It’s very well for Europe to
have a few phrases that will do for any girl. The American girl isn’t
_any_ girl; she’s a remarkable specimen in a remarkable species. But you
must keep the best this evening for Miss Day.”
“For Miss Day!”—and Vogelstein had a stare of intelligence. “Do you mean
for Pandora?”
Mrs. Bonnycastle broke on her side into free amusement. “One would think
you had been looking for her over the globe! So you know her already—and
you call her by her pet name?”
“Oh no, I don’t know her; that is I haven’t seen her or thought of her
from that day to this. We came to America in the same ship.”
“Isn’t she an American then?”
“Oh yes; she lives at Utica—in the interior.”
“In the interior of Utica? You can’t mean my young woman then, who lives
in New York, where she’s a great beauty and a great belle and has been
immensely admired this winter.”
“After all,” said Count Otto, considering and a little disappointed, “the
name’s not so uncommon; it’s perhaps another. But has she rather strange
eyes, a little yellow, but very pretty, and a nose a little arched?”
“I can’t tell you all that; I haven’t seen her. She’s staying with Mrs.
Steuben. She only came a day or two ago, and Mrs. Steuben’s to bring
her. When she wrote to me to ask leave she told me what I tell you.
They haven’t come yet.”
Vogelstein felt a quick hope that the subject of this correspondence
might indeed be the young lady he had parted from on the dock at New
York, but the indications seemed to point another way, and he had no wish
to cherish an illusion. It didn’t seem to him probable that the
energetic girl who had introduced him to Mr. Lansing would have the
entrée of the best house in Washington; besides, Mrs. Bonnycastle’s guest
was described as a beauty and belonging to the brilliant city.
“What’s the social position of Mrs. Steuben?” it occurred to him to ask
while he meditated. He had an earnest artless literal way of putting
such a question as that; you could see from it that he was very thorough.
Mrs. Bonnycastle met it, however, but, with mocking laughter. “I’m sure
I don’t know! What’s your own?”—and she left him to turn to her other
guests, to several of whom she repeated his question. Could they tell
her what was the social position of Mrs. Steuben? There was Count
Vogelstein who wanted to know. He instantly became aware of course that
he oughtn’t so to have expressed himself. Wasn’t the lady’s place in the
scale sufficiently indicated by Mrs. Bonnycastle’s acquaintance with her?
Still there were fine degrees, and he felt a little unduly snubbed. It
was perfectly true, as he told his hostess, that with the quick wave of
new impressions that had rolled over him after his arrival in America the
image of Pandora was almost completely effaced; he had seen innumerable
things that were quite as remarkable in their way as the heroine of the
_Donau_, but at the touch of the idea that he might see her and hear her
again at any moment she became as vivid in his mind as if they had parted
the day before: he remembered the exact shade of the eyes he had
described to Mrs. Bonnycastle as yellow, the tone of her voice when at
the last she expressed the hope he might judge America correctly. _Had_
he judged America correctly? If he were to meet her again she doubtless
would try to ascertain. It would be going much too far to say that the
idea of such an ordeal was terrible to Count Otto; but it may at least be
said that the thought of meeting Pandora Day made him nervous. The fact
is certainly singular, but I shall not take on myself to explain it;
there are some things that even the most philosophic historian isn’t
bound to account for.
He wandered into another room, and there, at the end of five minutes, he
was introduced by Mrs. Bonnycastle to one of the young ladies of whom she
had spoken. This was a very intelligent girl who came from Boston and
showed much acquaintance with Spielhagen’s novels. “Do you like them?”
Vogelstein asked rather vaguely, not taking much interest in the matter,
as he read works of fiction only in case of a sea-voyage. The young lady
from Boston looked pensive and concentrated; then she answered that she
liked _some_ of them _very_ much, but that there were others she didn’t
like—and she enumerated the works that came under each of these heads.
Spielhagen is a voluminous writer, and such a catalogue took some time;
at the end of it moreover Vogelstein’s question was not answered, for he
couldn’t have told us whether she liked Spielhagen or not.
On the next topic, however, there was no doubt about her feelings. They
talked about Washington as people talk only in the place itself,
revolving about the subject in widening and narrowing circles, perching
successively on its many branches, considering it from every point of
view. Our young man had been long enough in America to discover that
after half a century of social neglect Washington had become the fashion
and enjoyed the great advantage of being a new resource in conversation.
This was especially the case in the months of spring, when the
inhabitants of the commercial cities came so far southward to escape,
after the long winter, that final affront. They were all agreed that
Washington was fascinating, and none of them were better prepared to talk
it over than the Bostonians. Vogelstein originally had been rather out
of step with them; he hadn’t seized their point of view, hadn’t known
with what they compared this object of their infatuation. But now he
knew everything; he had settled down to the pace; there wasn’t a possible
phase of the discussion that could find him at a loss. There was a kind
of Hegelian element in it; in the light of these considerations the
American capital took on the semblance of a monstrous mystical infinite
_Werden_. But they fatigued Vogelstein a little, and it was his
preference, as a general thing, not to engage the same evening with more
than one newcomer, one visitor in the freshness of initiation. This was
why Mrs. Bonnycastle’s expression of a wish to introduce him to three
young ladies had startled him a little; he saw a certain process, in
which he flattered himself that he had become proficient, but which was
after all tolerably exhausting, repeated for each of the damsels. After
separating from his judicious Bostonian he rather evaded Mrs.
Bonnycastle, contenting himself with the conversation of old friends,
pitched for the most part in a lower and easier key.
At last he heard it mentioned that the President had arrived, had been
some half-hour in the house, and he went in search of the illustrious
guest, whose whereabouts at Washington parties was never indicated by a
cluster of courtiers. He made it a point, whenever he found himself in
company with the President, to pay him his respects, and he had not been
discouraged by the fact that there was no association of ideas in the eye
of the great man as he put out his hand presidentially and said, “Happy
to meet you, sir.” Count Otto felt himself taken for a mere loyal
subject, possibly for an office-seeker; and he used to reflect at such
moments that the monarchical form had its merits it provided a line of
heredity for the faculty of quick recognition. He had now some
difficulty in finding the chief magistrate, and ended by learning that he
was in the tea-room, a small apartment devoted to light refection near
the entrance of the house. Here our young man presently perceived him
seated on a sofa and in conversation with a lady. There were a number of
people about the table, eating, drinking, talking; and the couple on the
sofa, which was not near it but against the wall, in a shallow recess,
looked a little withdrawn, as if they had sought seclusion and were
disposed to profit by the diverted attention of the others. The
President leaned back; his gloved hands, resting on either knee, made
large white spots. He looked eminent, but he looked relaxed, and the
lady beside him ministered freely and without scruple, it was clear, to
this effect of his comfortably unbending. Vogelstein caught her voice as
he approached. He heard her say “Well now, remember; I consider it a
promise.” She was beautifully dressed, in rose-colour; her hands were
clasped in her lap and her eyes attached to the presidential profile.
“Well, madam, in that case it’s about the fiftieth promise I’ve given
to-day.”
It was just as he heard these words, uttered by her companion in reply,
that Count Otto checked himself, turned away and pretended to be looking
for a cup of tea. It wasn’t usual to disturb the President, even simply
to shake hands, when he was sitting on a sofa with a lady, and the young
secretary felt it in this case less possible than ever to break the rule,
for the lady on the sofa was none other than Pandora Day. He had
recognised her without her appearing to see him, and even with half an
eye, as they said, had taken in that she was now a person to be reckoned
with. She had an air of elation, of success; she shone, to intensity, in
her rose-coloured dress; she was extracting promises from the ruler of
fifty millions of people. What an odd place to meet her, her old
shipmate thought, and how little one could tell, after all, in America,
who people were! He didn’t want to speak to her yet; he wanted to wait a
little and learn more; but meanwhile there was something attractive in
the fact that she was just behind him, a few yards off, that if he should
turn he might see her again. It was she Mrs. Bonnycastle had meant, it
was she who was so much admired in New York. Her face was the same, yet
he had made out in a moment that she was vaguely prettier; he had
recognised the arch of her nose, which suggested a fine ambition. He
took some tea, which he hadn’t desired, in order not to go away. He
remembered her _entourage_ on the steamer; her father and mother, the
silent senseless burghers, so little “of the world,” her infant sister,
so much of it, her humorous brother with his tall hat and his influence
in the smoking-room. He remembered Mrs. Dangerfield’s warnings—yet her
perplexities too—and the letter from Mr. Bellamy, and the introduction to
Mr. Lansing, and the way Pandora had stooped down on the dirty dock,
laughing and talking, mistress of the situation, to open her trunk for
the Customs. He was pretty sure she had paid no duties that day; this
would naturally have been the purpose of Mr. Bellamy’s letter. Was she
still in correspondence with that gentleman, and had he got over the
sickness interfering with their reunion? These images and these
questions coursed through Count Otto’s mind, and he saw it must be quite
in Pandora’s line to be mistress of the situation, for there was
evidently nothing on the present occasion that could call itself her
master. He drank his tea and as; he put down his cup heard the
President, behind him, say: “Well, I guess my wife will wonder why I
don’t come home.”
“Why didn’t you bring her with you?” Pandora benevolently asked.
“Well, she doesn’t go out much. Then she has got her sister staying with
her—Mrs. Runkle, from Natchez. She’s a good deal of an invalid, and my
wife doesn’t like to leave her.”
“She must be a very kind woman”—and there was a high mature competence in
the way the girl sounded the note of approval.
“Well, I guess she isn’t spoiled—yet.”
“I should like very much to come and see her,” said Pandora.
“Do come round. Couldn’t you come some night?” the great man responded.
“Well, I’ll come some time. And I shall remind you of your promise.”
“All right. There’s nothing like keeping it up. Well,” said the
President, “I must bid good-bye to these bright folks.”
Vogelstein heard him rise from the sofa with his companion; after which
he gave the pair time to pass out of the room before him. They did it
with a certain impressive deliberation, people making way for the ruler
of fifty millions and looking with a certain curiosity at the striking
pink person at his side. When a little later he followed them across the
hall, into one of the other rooms, he saw the host and hostess accompany
the President to the door and two foreign ministers and a judge of the
Supreme Court address themselves to Pandora Day. He resisted the impulse
to join this circle: if he should speak to her at all he would somehow
wish it to be in more privacy. She continued nevertheless to occupy him,
and when Mrs. Bonnycastle came back from the hall he immediately
approached her with an appeal. “I wish you’d tell me something more
about that girl—that one opposite and in pink.”
“The lovely Day—that’s what they call her, I believe? I wanted you to
talk with her.”
“I find she is the one I’ve met. But she seems to be so different here.
I can’t make it out,” said Count Otto.
There was something in his expression that again moved Mrs. Bonnycastle
to mirth. “How we do puzzle you Europeans! You look quite bewildered.”
“I’m sorry I look so—I try to hide it. But of course we’re very simple.
Let me ask then a simple earnest childlike question. Are her parents
also in society?”
“Parents in society? D’où tombez-vous? Did you ever hear of the parents
of a triumphant girl in rose-colour, with a nose all her own, in
society?”
“Is she then all alone?” he went on with a strain of melancholy in his
voice.
Mrs. Bonnycastle launched at him all her laughter.
“You’re too pathetic. Don’t you know what she is? I supposed of course
you knew.”
“It’s exactly what I’m asking you.”
“Why she’s the new type. It has only come up lately. They have had
articles about it in the papers. That’s the reason I told Mrs. Steuben
to bring her.”
“The new type? _What_ new type, Mrs. Bonnycastle?” he returned
pleadingly—so conscious was he that all types in America were new.