THE FIRST WAYFARER, THE SECOND WAYFARER, AND THE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY
ASCENDANT
The wide green door, set far back in a recess not unlike a kiosk, was
opened by a man-servant who might easily have been mistaken for a
waiter from Delmonico's or Sherry's. He did not have the air or aplomb
of a butler, nor the smartness of a footman. On the contrary, he was a
thick-set, rather scrubby sort of person with all the symptoms of cafe
servitude about him, including the never-failing doubt as to
nationality. He might have been a Greek, a Pole, an Italian or a Turk.
"Say to Mrs. Collier, Nicholas, that Mr. Barnes is here for dinner,"
said De Soto. "I will make the cocktails this evening."
Much to Barnes's surprise,--and disappointment,--the interior of the
house failed to sustain the bewildering effect produced by the
exterior. The entrance hall and the living-room into which he was
conducted by the two men were singularly like others that he had seen.
The latter, for example, was of ordinary dimensions, furnished with a
thought for comfort rather than elegance or even good taste. The rugs
were thick and in tone held almost exclusively to Turkish reds; the
couches and chairs were low and deep and comfortable, as if intended
for men only, and they were covered with rich, gay materials; the
hangings at the windows were of deep blue and gold; the walls an
unobtrusive cream colour, almost literally thatched with etchings.
Barnes, somewhat of a connoisseur, was not slow to recognise the value
and extreme rarity of the prints. Rembrandt, Whistler, Hayden, Merryon,
Cameron, Muirhead Bone and Zorn were represented by their most notable
creations; two startling subjects by Brangwyn hung alone in one corner
of the room, isolated, it would seem, out of consideration for the
gleaming, jewel-like surfaces of other and smaller treasures. There
were at least a dozen Zorns, as many Whistlers and Camerons.
O'Dowd, observing the glance of appreciation that Barnes sent about the
room, said: "All of thim are in the very rarest state. He has one of
the finest collections in America. Ye'll want your boots cleaned and
polished, and your face needs scrubbing, if ye don't mind my saying
so," he went on, critically surveying the visitor's person. "Come up to
my room and make yourself tidy. My own man will dust you off and
furbish you up in no time at all."
They passed into another room at the left and approached a wide
stairway, the lower step of which was flush with the baseboard on the
wall. Not so much as an inch of the stairway protruded into the room,
and yet Barnes, whose artistic sense should have been offended, was
curiously pleased with the arrangement and effect. He made a mental
note of this deliberate violation of the holy rules of construction,
and decided that one day he would try it out for himself.
The room itself was obviously a continuation of the larger one beyond,
a sort of annex, as it were. The same scheme in decoration and
furnishings was observed, except here the walls were adorned with small
paintings in oil, heavily framed. Hanging in the panel at the right of
the stairway was an exquisite little Corot, silvery and feathery even
in the dim light of early dusk. On the opposite side was a brilliant
little Cazin.
The stairs were thickly carpeted. At the top, his guide turned to the
left and led the way down a long corridor. They passed at least four
doors before O'Dowd stopped and threw open the fifth on that side of
the hall. There were still two more doors beyond.
"Suggests a hotel, doesn't it?" said the Irishman, standing aside for
Barnes to enter. "All of the sleeping apartments are on this floor, and
the baths, and boudoirs, and what-not. The garret is above, and that's
where we deposit our family skeletons, intern our grievances, store our
stock of spitefulness, and hide all the little devils that must come
sneaking up from the city with us whether we will or no. Nothing but
good-humour, contentment, happiness and mirth are permitted to occupy
this floor and the one below. I might also add beauty, for you can't
conceive any of the others without it, me friend. God knows I couldn't
be good-natured for a minute if I wasn't encouraged by beauty
appreciative, and as for being contented, happy or mirthful,--bedad,
words fail me! Dabson," he said, addressing the man who had quietly
entered the room through the door behind them, "do Mr. Barnes, will ye,
and fetch me from Mr. De Soto's room when you've finished. I leave you
to Dabson's tender mercies. The saints preserve us! Look at the man's
boots! Dabson, get out your brush and dauber first of all. He's been
floundering in a bog."
The jovial Irishman retired, leaving Barnes to be "done" by the silent,
swift-moving valet. Dabson was young and vigorous and exceedingly
well-trained. He made short work of "doing" the visitor; barely fifteen
minutes elapsed before O'Dowd's return.
Presently they went downstairs together. Lamps had been lighted, many
of them, throughout the house. A warm, pleasing glow filled the rooms,
softening,--one might even say tempering,--the insistent reds in the
rugs, which now seemed to reflect rather than to project their hues; a
fire crackled in the cavernous fireplace at the end of the living-room,
and grouped about its cheerful, grateful blaze were the ladies of Green
Fancy.
Barnes was aware of a quickening of his pulses as he advanced with
O'Dowd. De Soto was there ahead of them, posed ungracefully in front of
the fire, his feet widespread, his hands in his pockets. Another man,
sallow-faced and tall, with a tired looking blond moustache and sleepy
eyes, was managing, with amazing skill, the retention of a cigarette
which seemed to be constantly in peril of detaching itself from his
parted though inactive lips.
SHE was there, standing slightly aloof from the others, but evidently
amused by the tale with which De Soto was regaling them. She was
smiling; Barnes saw the sapphire lights sparkling in her eyes, and
experienced a sensation that was woefully akin to confusion.
He had the feeling that he would be absolutely speechless when
presented to her; in the full, luminous glow of those lovely eyes he
would lose consciousness, momentarily, no doubt, but long enough to
give her,--and all the rest of them,--no end of a fright.
But nothing of the kind happened. Everything went off quite naturally.
He favoured Miss Cameron with an uncommonly self-possessed smile as she
gave her hand to him, and she, in turn, responded with one faintly
suggestive of tolerance, although it certainly would have been recorded
by a less sensitive person than Barnes as "ripping."
In reply to his perfunctory "delighted, I'm sure, etc.," she said,
quite clearly: "Oh, now I remember. I was sure I had seen you before,
Mr. Barnes. You are the magic gentleman who sprung like a mushroom out
of the earth yesterday afternoon."
"And frightened you," he said; "whereupon you vanished like the
mushroom that is gobbled up by the predatory glutton."
He had thrilled at the sound of her voice. It was the low, deliberate
voice of the woman of the crossroads, and, as before, he caught the
almost imperceptible accent. The red gleam from the blazing logs fell
upon her shining hair; it glistened like gold. She wore a simple
evening gown of white, softened over the shoulders and neck with a fall
of rare vallenciennes lace. There was no jewelry,--not even a ring on
her slender, tapering fingers. Oddly enough, now that he stood beside
her, she was not so tall as he had believed her to be the day before.
The crown of her silken head came but little above his shoulder. As she
had appeared to him among the trees he would have sworn that she was
but little below his own height, which was a liberal six feet. He
recalled a flash of wonder on that occasion; she had seemed so much
taller than the woman at the cross-roads that he was almost convinced
that she could not, after all, be the same person. Now she was back to
the height that he remembered, and he marvelled once more.
Mrs. Collier, the hostess, was an elderly, heavy-featured woman,
decidedly over-dressed. Barnes knew her kind. One encounters her
everywhere: the otherwise intelligent woman who has no sense about her
clothes. Mrs. Van Dyke, her daughter, was a woman of thirty, tall, dark
and handsome in a bold, dashing sort of way. She too was rather
resplendent in a black jet gown, and she was liberally bestrewn with
jewels. Much to Barnes's surprise, she possessed a soft, gentle
speaking-voice and a quiet, musical laugh instead of the boisterous
tones and cackle that he always associated with her type. The
lackadaisical gentleman with the moustache turned out to be her husband.
"My brother is unable to be with us to-night, Mr. Barnes," explained
Mrs. Collier. "Mr. O'Dowd may have told you that he is an invalid.
Quite rarely is he well enough to leave his room. He has been feeling
much better of late, but now his nerves are all torn to pieces by this
shooting affair. The mere knowledge that our grounds were being
inspected to-day by the authorities upset him terribly. He has begged
me to present his apologies and regrets to you. Another time, perhaps,
you will give him the pleasure he is missing to-night. He wanted so
much to talk with you about the quaint places you have described so
charmingly in your articles. They must be wonderfully appealing. One
cannot read your descriptions without really envying the people who
live in those enchanted--"
"Ahem!" coughed O'Dowd, who actually had read the articles and could
see nothing alluring in a prospect that contemplated barren, snow-swept
wildernesses in the Andes. "The only advantage I can see in living up
there," he said, with a sly wink at Barnes, "is that one has all the
privileges of death without being put to the expense of burial."
"How very extraordinary, Mr. O'Dowd," said Mrs. Collier, lifting her
lorgnon.
"Mrs. Collier has been reading my paper on the chateau country in
France," said Barnes mendaciously. (It had not yet been published, but
what of that?)
"Perfectly delightful," said Mrs. Collier, and at once changed the
subject.
De Soto's cocktails came in. Miss Cameron did not take one. O'Dowd
proposed a toast.
"To the rascals who went gunning for the other rascals. But for them we
should be short at least one member of this agreeable company."
It was rather startling. Barnes's glass stopped half-way to his lips.
An instant later he drained it. He accepted the toast as a compliment
from the whilom Irishman, and not as a tribute to the prowess of those
mysterious marksmen.
"Rather grewsome, O'Dowd," drawled Van Dyke, "but offset by the
foresightedness of the maker of this cocktail. Uncommonly good one, De
Soto."
The table in the spacious dining-room was one of those long, narrow
Italian boards, unmistakably antique and equally rare. Sixteen or
eighteen people could have been seated without crowding, and when the
seven took their places wide intervals separated them. No effort had
been made by the hostess to bring her guests close together, as might
have been done by using one end or the centre of the table. Except for
scattered doylies, the smooth, nut-brown top was bare of cloth; there
was a glorious patina to this huge old board, with tiny cracks running
like veins across its surface.
Decorations were scant. A half dozen big candlesticks, ecclesiastical
in character, were placed at proper intervals, and at each end of the
table there was a shallow, alabaster dish containing pansies. The
serving plates were of silver. Especially beautiful were the
long-stemmed water goblets and the graceful champagne glasses. They
were blue and white and of a design and quality no longer obtainable
except at great cost. The aesthetic Barnes was not slow to appreciate
the rarity of the glassware and the chaste beauty of the serving plates.
The man Nicholas was evidently the butler, despite his Seventh Avenue
manner. He was assisted in serving by two stalwart and amazingly clumsy
footmen, of similar ilk and nationality. On seeing these additional
men-servants, Barnes began figuratively to count on his fingers the
retainers he had so far encountered on the place. Already he has seen
six, all of them powerful, rugged fellows. It struck him. as
extraordinary, and in a way significant, that there should be so many
men at Green Fancy.
Somewhere back in his mind was the impression that O'Dowd had spoken of
Pierre the cook, a private secretary and male attendant who looked
after Mr. Curtis. Then there was Peter, the regular chauffeur, whom he
had not seen, and doubtless there were able-bodied woodchoppers and
foresters besides. Not forgetting the little book-agent! It suddenly
occurred to him that he was surrounded by a company of the most
formidable character: no less than twenty men would be a reasonable
guess if he were to include O'Dowd, De Soto and Van Dyke.
Much to his disappointment, he was not placed near Miss Cameron at
table. Indeed, she was seated as far away from him as possible. He sat
at Mrs. Collier's right. On his left was Mrs. Van Dyke, with Miss
Cameron at the foot of the table flanked by O'Dowd and De Soto. Van
Dyke had nearly the whole of the opposite side of the table to himself.
There was, to be sure, a place set between him and De Soto, for
symmetry's sake, Barnes concluded. In this he was mistaken; they had
barely seated themselves when Mrs. Collier remarked:
"Mr. Curtis's secretary usually joins us here for coffee. He has his
dinner with my brother and then, poor man, comes in for a brief period
of relaxation. When my brother is in one of his bad spells poor Mr.
Loeb doesn't have much time to himself. It seems to me that my brother
is at his best when his health is at its worst. You may be interested
to know, Mr. Barnes, that he is writing a history of the Five Nations."
"Indians, you know," explained Van Dyke.
"A history of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondagas and Senecas, and
their 'Long House' should be of great value, Mrs. Collier," said
Barnes, a trifle didactically. "When does he expect to have it
completed?"
"'Gad, you know a little of everything, don't you?" said Van Dyke,
sitting up a little straighter in his chair and eyeing Barnes fishily.
("Awfully smart chap," he afterwards confided to O'Dowd.) "If he lives
long enough, he'll finish it in 1999," he added, lifting his voice
above Mrs. Collier's passive reply out of which Barnes gathered the
words "couple" and "years."
It is not necessary to dilate upon the excellence of the dinner, to
repeat the dialogue, or to comment on the service, other than to say,
for the sake of record, that the first WAS excellent; the second
sprightly, and the third atrocious.
Loeb, the private secretary, came in for coffee. He was a tall, spare
man of thirty, pallidly handsome, with dark, studious eyes and features
of an unmistakably Hebraic cast, as his name might have foretold. His
teeth were marvellously white, and his slow smile attractive. When he
spoke, which was seldom unless a remark was directed specifically to
him, his voice was singularly deep and resonant. More than once during
the hour that Loeb spent with them Barnes formed and dismissed a
stubborn, ever-recurring opinion that the man was not a Jew. Certainly
he was not an American Jew. His voice, his manner of speech, his every
action stamped him as one born and bred in a land far removed from
Broadway and its counterparts. If a Jew, he was of the East as it is
measured from Rome: the Jew of the carnal Orient.
And as the evening wore on, there came to Barnes the singular fancy
that this man was the master and not the servant of the house! He could
not put the ridiculous idea out of his mind.
He was to depart at ten. The hour drew near and he had had no
opportunity for detached conversation with Miss Cameron. He had
listened to her bright retorts to O'Dowd's sallies, and marvelled at
the ease and composure with which she met the witty Irishman on even
terms. Her voice, always low and distinct, was never without the
suggestion of good-natured raillery; he was enchanted by the faint,
delicious chuckle that rode in every sentence she uttered during these
sprightly tilts.
When the conversation turned to serious topics, her voice steadied
perceptibly, the blue in her eyes took on a deeper and darker hue, the
half-satirical smile vanished from her adorable lips, and she spoke
with the gravity of a profound thinker. Barnes watched her, fascinated,
bereft of the power to concentrate his thoughts on anything else. He
hung on her every movement, hoping and longing for the impersonal
glance or remark with which she occasionally favoured him.
Not until the very close of the evening, and when he had resigned
himself to hopelessness, did the opportunity come for him to speak with
her alone. She caught his eye, and, to his amazement, made a slight
movement of her head, unobserved by the others but curiously imperative
to him. There was no mistaking the meaning of the direct, intense look
that she gave him.
She was appealing to him as a friend,--as one on whom she could depend!
The spirit of chivalry took possession of him. His blood leaped to the
call. She needed him and he would not fail her. And it was with
difficulty that he contrived to hide the exaltation that might have
ruined everything!
Loeb had returned to his labours in Mr. Curtis's study, after bidding
Barnes a courteous good-night. It seemed to the latter that with the
secretary's departure an indefinable restraint fell away from the small
company.
While he was trying to invent a pretext for drawing her apart from the
others, she calmly ordered Van Dyke to relinquish his place on the
couch beside her to Barnes.
"Come and sit beside me, Mr. Barnes," she called out, gaily. "I will
not bite you, or scratch you, or harm you in any way. Ask Mr. O'Dowd
and he will tell you that I am quite docile. What is there about me,
sir, that causes you to think that I am dangerous? You have barely
spoken a word to me, and you've been disagreeably nice to Mrs. Collier
and Mrs. Van Dyke. I don't bite, do I, Mr. O'Dowd?"
"You do," said O'Dowd promptly. "You do more than that. You devour.
Bedad, I have to look in a mirror to convince meself that you haven't
swallowed me whole. That's another way of telling you, Barnes, that
she'll absorb you entirely."
It was a long, deep and comfortable couch of the davenport class, and
she sat in the middle of it instead of at the end, a circumstance that
he was soon to regard as premeditated. She had planned to bring him to
this place beside her and had cunningly prepared against the
possibility that he might put the full length of the couch between them
if she settled herself in a corner. As it was, their elbows almost
touched as he sat down beside her.
For a few minutes she chided him for his unseemly aversion. He was
beginning to think that he had been mistaken in her motive, and that
after all she was merely satisfying her vanity. Suddenly, and as she
smiled into his eyes, she said, lowering her voice slightly:
"Do not appear surprised at anything I may say to you. Smile as if we
were uttering the silliest nonsense. So much depends upon it, Mr.
Barnes."