dance, “Is that you?” And when Sylvia answered “Yes,” she could hear his
sigh of relief. All through the dance she could feel his excitement.
Once or twice he tried to talk, but she whispered to him to keep the
rules.
The moment they were seated he said, “Miss Castleman, you must explain
to me what you mean.”
“I knew I’d have to explain,” she responded. “I’ve been thinking how I
could make you understand. You see, I’m a comparative stranger to this
world of yours, and things might shock me which would seem to you quite
a matter of course. I suppose I’m what you’d call a country girl, and
have a provincial outlook.”
“Please go on,” he said.
“Well, Mr. van Tuiver, you have an enormous amount of money. Twenty or
thirty million dollars—forty or fifty million dollars—the authorities
don’t seem to agree about it. As well as I can put the matter, you have
so much that it has displaced _you_; it isn’t you who think, it isn’t
you who speak—it’s your money. You seem to be a sort of quivering,
uneasy consciousness of uncounted millions of dollars; and the only
thing that comes back to you from your surroundings is an echo of that
quivering consciousness.”
“Do I really seem like that to you?”
“It’s the impression you’ve made upon everyone who knows you.”
“Oh, surely not!” he cried.
“Quite literally that,” said Sylvia. “I hated you before I ever laid
eyes on you—because of the way you’d impressed your friends.”
There was a pause; when van Tuiver spoke again it was in a low and
uncertain voice. “Miss Castleman,” he said, “has it ever occurred to you
to think what might be the difficulties of my situation?”
“No, I haven’t had time for that.”
“Well, take this one fact. You say that I have made a certain impression
upon everyone who knows me. But you are the first person in my whole
lifetime who’s ever told me.”
Sylvia gave an exclamation of incredulity.
“Don’t you see?” pressed on the other, eagerly. “What is a man to do? I
have a great deal of money. I can’t help that. And I can’t help the fact
that it gives me a great deal of power. I can’t help having a sense of
responsibility.”
“The sense of responsibility has been too much for you,” said Sylvia.
This was too subtle for him. He hurried on: “Maybe it’s right, maybe
it’s wrong—but circumstances have given me a certain position, and I
have to maintain it. I have certain duties which I must fulfill, which I
can’t possibly get away from.”
There was a pause. He seemed to feel that the situation was not
satisfactory, and started again. “It’s all very well for you, who don’t
realize my position, the responsibilities I have—it’s all very well for
you to talk about my consciousness of money. But how can I get away from
it? People know about my money, they think about it—they expect certain
things of me. They put me in a certain position, whether I will or not.”
He stopped again. He was so greatly agitated that Sylvia was beginning
to feel pity. “Do you have to be what people expect you to be?” she
said.
“But,” he argued, “I have the money, and I have to make use of it—to
invest it—to protect it——”
“Ah, but all that is in the business world. What I’m talking about is in
a separate sphere—your social relations.”
“But, Miss Castleman, that’s just it—_is_ it separate? It ought to be,
you’ll say—but _is_ it? I tell you, you simply don’t know, that’s all.
People profess friendship for me, but they want something, and by and by
I find out what it is they want. You say that’s monstrous; I know, I
used to think it was, myself. You say, I ought not to know it; but I
can’t _help_ knowing it; it’s forced upon me by all the circumstances of
my life. Sometimes I think I’ve never had a disinterested friend since I
was born!”
Sylvia perceived the intensity behind his words, and was silent for a
minute. “But surely,” she said, “here—in the democracy of college
life——”
“It’s exactly the same here as anywhere else. Here are clubs, social
cabals, everybody pushing and intriguing, exactly as in New York
society. Take that fact you spoke of—that all the fellows dislike me,
and yet not one of them has dared to tell me so!”
“_Dared?_” repeated Sylvia.
“Oh, well, perhaps they dared—the point is, they didn’t. The ones who
had to make their own way were busy making it; and the others, who had
got in of right—well, they believe in money. They’d all shrug their
shoulders and say, ‘What’s the use of antagonizing such a man?’”
“I see,” said Sylvia, fascinated.
“Whatever the reason is, they never call me down—not a man of them. And
then, as for the women——”
Sylvia had not made any sound, but somehow he felt her sudden interest.
He said, with signs of agitation, “Please, Miss Castleman, don’t be
offended. You asked me to talk about it.”
“Go on,” she said. “I’m really most curious. I suppose all the women
want to marry you?”
“It isn’t only that. They want anything. They just want to be seen with
me. Of course, when they start to make love to me—” He paused.
“You stop them, I hope,” said Sylvia, modestly.
“I do when I know it. But, you see——”
He paused again; it was evidently a difficult topic. “Pray don’t mind,”
said Sylvia, laughing. “They’re subtle creatures, I know. Do many of
them make love to you?”
“I know you’re laughing at me, Miss Castleman. But believe me, it’s no
joke. If you’d see some of the letters I get!”
“Oh, they write you love letters?”
“Not only love letters. I don’t mind them—but the letters from women in
distress, the most terrible stories you can imagine. Once I was foolish
enough—didn’t anybody tell you the scrape I got into?”
“No.”
“That’s curious—they generally like to tell it. I was weak enough to let
one woman get into my house in Cambridge. She had a tragedy to rehearse,
and I listened to her, and finally she wanted ten thousand dollars. I
didn’t know if her story was true, and I said No, and then she began to
scream for help. The servants came running, and she said—well, you can
imagine, how I’d insulted her, and all that. I told my man to throw her
out, but she said she’d scratch his eyes out, she’d scream from the
window, she’d stand on the street outside and denounce me till the
police came, she’d give the newspapers the whole story of the way I’d
abused her. And so finally I had to give her all the money I happened to
have on me.”
“Great Heavens!” exclaimed Sylvia, who had not thought of anything so
serious as that.
“You see how it is. For the most part I’ve escaped that kind of thing,
because I was taught. My Great-uncle Douglas, who died recently—he was
my guardian, and he taught me all about women when I was very young—not
more than ten. He had charge of my upbringing, and he wouldn’t allow a
woman in my household.”
“Dear me,” said Sylvia, “what a cynic he must have been!”
“He died a bachelor,” said the other, “and left me a great deal of
money. So you see—that is——”
“He’d _had_ to be a cynic!” laughed the girl. And van Tuiver laughed
with her—more humanly than she had ever thought possible.
She considered for a moment, and then suddenly asked, “Mr. van Tuiver,
has it never occurred to you that _I_ might be making love to you?”
She could not see his face, but she knew that he was staring at her in
dismay. “Oh, surely not, Miss Castleman!” he exclaimed.
“But how can you be sure?” she asked. “Where is your training?”
“Miss Castleman,” he said, “please take me seriously.”
“I’m quite serious. In fact, I think I ought to tell you, I _have_ been
making love to you.”
“Surely not!” he said.
“I mean it, quite literally. I’ve been doing it from the first moment I
met you—doing it in spite of all my resolutions to the contrary!”
“But why?”
“Well, because I hated you, and also because I pitied you. I said, I’ll
get him in my power and punish him—and at the same time teach him.”
“Oh!” exclaimed van Tuiver; and she thought that she detected a note of
relief in the word.
“You are glad I don’t mean to marry you,” she said; and when he started
to protest, she cut him short with, “You’re not applying the wisdom of
your great-uncle! I say I don’t want to marry you, but most likely
that’s a device to disarm you, to make you want to marry _me_.”
In spite of his evident distress, she was incorrigible. “You ought to be
up and away,” she declared—“scared out of your wits. I tell you I’m the
most dangerous woman you’ve ever met. And I mean it literally. I’ll
wager that if your great-uncle had ever met my great-aunt, he would not
have died a bachelor! Take my advice, and fall ill and leave this party
at once.”
“Why should I be afraid of you?” he demanded. “Why shouldn’t I marry you
if I want to?”
“What! a poor girl like me?”
“Well, I don’t know. I can afford to marry a poor girl if I feel like
it.”
“But—think of the ignominy of being trapped!”
He considered this. “I’m not afraid of that either,” he said. “If you’ve
had the wit to do it—and none of the others had——”
“Oh!” she laughed. “Then you’re willing to be hunted!”
“Miss Castleman,” he protested, “you are unkind. I’ve thought seriously.
You really are a most beautiful woman, and at the same time a most
amazingly clever woman. You would be an ornament in my life—I’d always
be proud of you—”
He paused. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she demanded, “am I to understand that this
is a serious proposal?”
She could feel his quiver of fear. “Why,” he stammered—“really——”
“Don’t you see how dangerous it is!” she exclaimed. “You were almost
caught! Make your escape, Mr. van Tuiver!”
And then came the sound of the bell. She started up. “Go and tell Mr.
Bates!” she cried. “Don’t let him do this again—if you do, you are lost
forever!”
§ 14
The next partner was Harley. It was a nuisance having to entertain your
own cousin, but Sylvia amused herself by keeping Harley from recognizing
her. And in the meantime she was wondering what her Victim would do
next.
She knew his very style of dancing by now, and needed to make no
inquiries of Number Ten. “You did not take my advice,” she remarked,
when they were seated.
“No,” he said. “On the contrary, I told Bates to put us together the
rest of the time.”
“Oh, no!” she protested.
“I want to talk to you,” he declared. “I _must_ talk to you.”
“But you had no right! He will tell, and everybody will be talking about
it.”
“I don’t care if they do.”
“But _I_ care, Mr. van Tuiver—you should not have taken such a liberty.”
“Please, Miss Castleman,” he hurried on, “please listen to me. I’ve been
thinking about it, and it interests me keenly. I believe that in you I
might really have a friend—if only you would. A real friend, I
mean—who’d tell me the truth—who’d be absolutely disinterested——”
The fun of it was too much for Sylvia. “Haven’t I explained to you that
I mightn’t be disinterested?”
“I’ll trust you.”
“Of course,” she went on, gravely. “I might give you my word of honor
that I wouldn’t marry you.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “I suppose so——”
The girl was convulsed with laughter. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she remarked, “I
see you are an earnest man; I really ought to stop teasing you. Don’t
you think I ought?”
“Yes,” he replied, dubiously. “At least—I never liked to be teased
before.”
“Well, I will tell you this for your comfort. There’s no remotest
possibility of my ever marrying you, so you can feel quite safe.”
Somehow he did not seem sure whether he was pleased at this pledge.
After a pause he went on: “What I mean is that I think a man in my
position ought to have somebody to tell him the truth.”
“Something like the court-jesters in old days,” said Sylvia.
But he was not interested in mediæval customs. He was interested in his
own need, and she had to promise that she would admit him to the arcanum
of her friendship, and that she would always tell him exactly what she
thought about him—his actions, his ideas, even his manners. In
fulfilment of which promise she spent the rest of that _séance_, and the
two that followed, in listening to him talk about himself and his life.
It was really most curious—an inside glimpse into a kind of life of
which one heard, but with no idea of ever encountering it; just as one
read of train-robbers and safe-blowers, but never expected to sit and
chat with them. Douglas van Tuiver had achieved notoriety before he had
cut a single tooth; his mother and father having been killed in a
railroad accident when he was two months old, the courts had appointed
trustees and guardians, and the newspapers had undertaken a kind of
unofficial supervision. The precious infant had been brought up by a
staff of tutors, with majordomos and lackeys in the background, and two
private detectives and a great-uncle and Mrs. Harold Cliveden to oversee
the whole. It did not need much questioning to get the details of this
life—the lonely palace on Fifth Avenue, the monumental “cottage” at
Newport, the “camp” in the Adirondacks, the yacht in the West Indies;
the costly toys, the “blooded” pets, the gold plate, the tedious,
suffocating solemnity. If Sylvia had been furious with van Tuiver
before, she was ready now to go to the opposite extreme and weep over
him. A child brought up wholly by employees, with no brothers and
sisters to kick and scratch him into decency, no cousins, no playmates
even—unless he was first togged out in an Eton suit and escorted by a
tutor to the birthday party of some other little togged-out aristocrat!
Yes, assuredly this unhappy man needed someone to tell him the truth!
Sylvia resolved that she would fill the rôle. She would be quite unmoved
by his Royalty (the word by which she had come to sum up to herself the
whole phenomenon of van Tuiverness). She would persist in regarding him
as any other human being, saying to him what she felt like, pretending
to him, and even to herself, that he really was not Royalty at all!
But alas, she soon found what a task she had undertaken! The last dance
had been danced, and amid much merriment the guests unmasked—and still
van Tuiver wanted to stay and talk to his one friend. He escorted her to
supper, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Winthrop had other arrangements
for him. And even if he had behaved himself, there was the tale which
“Tubby” Bates had been diligently spreading. The girl realized all at
once that she had achieved a new and startling kind of prominence; all
the guests, men and women, were watching her, whispering about her,
envying her. She felt a wicked thrill of triumph and pleasure. She, a
stranger, an obscure girl from the provinces, who would ordinarily have
been an object of suspicion and investigation—she had leaped at one
moment into supremacy! She had become the favorite of the King!
Pretty soon came Harley, a-tremble with delight. “Gee whiz, old girl,
you sure have scored to-night! For God’s sake, how did you manage it?”
Sylvia felt herself hot with sudden shame.
And then came Bates. She tried to scold him, but he would simply not
have it. “Now, Miss Castleman! Now, Miss Castleman!”—that was all he
would say. What it meant was: “It is all right for you to pretend, of
course; but you can’t persuade me that you are really angry!”
“Please go away,” she said at last; but he wanted to tell her what
different people said, and would not be shaken off. While he was still
teasing, there swept past them a girl to whom Sylvia had not been
introduced—a solid-looking young Amazon with a freckled snub nose. She
gave Sylvia what appeared to be a haughty look, and Bates whispered, “Do
you know who that is? That’s Dorothy Cortlandt!—the girl van Tuiver is
to marry.”
“Really!” exclaimed Sylvia, who was cross with all the world. “How did
her nose get broken?”
And the other answered with a grin, “You ought to know—you did it!” And
so, as Sylvia could not help laughing, Bates counted himself forgiven.
A little later came the encounter with Edith Winthrop. It was after
supper, and the two found themselves face to face. “What a charming
party it has been!” said Sylvia, and the other gave her what was meant
to be a freezing stare. It was so rude that Sylvia thought she must have
been misunderstood. “The party’s been a success,” she ventured. “Don’t
you think so?”
“Ideas of success differ,” remarked the other, coldly, and turned her
back and began an animated conversation with someone else.
“Dear me,” thought Sylvia, as she moved on, “What have I done?” She saw
in another part of the room her hostess talking to van Tuiver, and made
up her mind at once that she would find out if the beautiful
soul-friendship was shattered also. She moved over towards the two,
resisting an effort on the part of Harmon to draw her into a
_tête-à-tête_.
“Mrs. Winthrop,” she said, “I’m so glad I stayed over.”
“Queen Isabella” turned the mystical eyes upon her, one of the deep,
inscrutable gazes. Sylvia waited, knowing that it might mean anything
from reverie to murder. “My dear Sylvia,” she said at last, “you are
pale to-night.”
This, in the presence of van Tuiver, probably meant war. “Am I?” asked
the girl.
“Yes, my dear, don’t dissipate too much! Women of your type fade
quickly.”
“What?” laughed the other, gaily. “With my red eyes and red hair? A
century could not extinguish me!”
She passed on, and discovered that van Tuiver was following her. “You
aren’t going, are you, Miss Castleman?” he asked; and while he was
begging her to stay, Sylvia saw her hostess move across the room to
Dorothy Cortlandt. These two stood conversing earnestly, and one glance
was enough to tell Sylvia what they were conversing about.
All this was a sore temptation, but Sylvia was in a virtuous mood. “Mr.
van Tuiver,” she said, “there is something I want to say to you. I’ve
thought it over, and made up my mind that it is impossible for me to be
the friend you want.”
“Why, Miss Castleman!” he exclaimed, in distress. “What is the matter?”
“I can’t explain——”
“But what have I _done_?”
“It’s nothing that you’ve done. It’s simply that I couldn’t stand the
world you live in. Oh, I’d be a dreadful woman if I stayed very long!”
“Please, listen—” he implored.
But she cut him short. “I am sorry to give you pain, but I have made up
my mind absolutely. There is no possible way I can help you. I am not
willing to see you again, and you must positively not ask it.” After
which speech she went to look for her cousin, leaving van Tuiver such a
picture of agitation that everyone in the room observed it. Could the
King’s nose be broken too?
§ 15
The next morning came a note from van Tuiver. He was sure that Miss
Castleman must have reconsidered her cruel decision, and he begged her
to grant him one brief interview. Might he take her riding in his car
that morning? The bearer would wait for an answer. Sylvia replied that
her decision was unchanged and unchangeable—she was sorry to hurt his
feelings, but she must ask him to give up all thought of her.
A couple of hours later came van Tuiver himself, and sent up his card
and with a line scribbled on it, “What have I done to anger you?” She
wrote back, “I am not angry, but I cannot see you.” After which an hour
more elapsed and there came a telephone-call from “Tubby” Bates, who
begged the honor of a few minutes talk.
“I ought to refuse to speak to you again,” said Sylvia. But in the end
she gave way and told him he might call.
He had come as an emissary, of course. The young millionaire was in a
dreadful state, he explained, being convinced that he had committed some
unmentionable offence.
“I don’t care to talk about the matter,” said Sylvia.
“But,” persisted Bates, “he declares that I got him into the
predicament, and now I’m honor-bound to get him out.”
So she had to set to work to explain her point of view. Mr. Bates, who
himself owed no particular allegiance to Royalty, should be able to
understand; he must realize that her annoyance was not personal, but
was, so to speak, an affair of State. This had been her first experience
at Court, she said; and the atmosphere had proven bad for her—had made
her pale, and would soon turn her into a faded old woman.
Evidently “Tubby” had heard that part of the story also; first he
grinned, and then in his rôle of diplomat set to work to smooth away her
objections. “You surely don’t mind a little thing like that,” he
pleaded. “Haven’t you any jealous ladies down South?”
“If we are going to discuss this question, Mr. Bates, I must speak
frankly. Our hostesses are polite to their guests.”
The other began suddenly to laugh. “Even when the guests steal?”
“When they steal?”
“Jewels!” exclaimed the other. “Bright, particular, conspicuous
jewels—crown-jewels, precious beyond replacing! Think, Miss Castleman,
you trust a guest, you admit him to your castle—and suddenly you find
that the great ruby of your diadem is gone!”
“Is it that Mrs. Winthrop hopes to marry van Tuiver to her daughter?”
asked Sylvia, crossly.
“Oh, no,” said Bates. “He is to marry Dorothy Cortlandt—that was
arranged when they were babies, and Mrs. Winthrop wouldn’t dream of
cutting in on it.”
“But then, if I haven’t robbed Edith——”
“My dear Miss Castleman,” said the other, “you’ve robbed Mrs. Winthrop
herself.”
“But I don’t understand,” said the girl.
“Please don’t _mis_understand,” said Bates. “It’s all perfectly proper
and noble, you know—and all that. I’ve nothing to say against Mrs.
Winthrop—she’s a charming woman, and has a right to be admired by
everybody. But being a queen, you see, she has to have a court, with a
lot of distinguished courtiers. She reads poetry to them, and they write
it to her, and they sit at her feet and dream wonderful dreams, and she
gazes at them. I know a dozen fellows who’ve been that way all through
college; and I suppose it does them good—they tell me I haven’t any soul
and can’t understand these things. What I’ve always said is, ‘Maybe
you’re right, and maybe I’m a brute, but it looks to me like the same
old game.’”
“The same old game,” repeated Sylvia, wonderingly. She found herself
thinking suddenly of one of the maxims of Lady Dee—one which she had
been too young to understand, but had been made to learn nevertheless:
“The young girl’s deadliest enemy is the married flirt!” Could it be
that Mrs. Winthrop was anything so desperate as that?
“Mr. van Tuiver is one of these poets?” she asked, finally.
“I don’t think van Tuiver goes in for poetry; but he’s strong on manners
and things like that, and he says that Mrs. Winthrop is the only hostess
in America who has the old-world charm. Of course that ravished her, and
they’ve been great chums.”
“And I came and spoiled it all!” exclaimed the girl.
“You came and spoiled it all!” said Bates.
Sylvia sat for a while in thought. “You know, Mr. Bates,” she remarked,
“it rather puzzles me that people consider Mr. van Tuiver as having
distinguished manners. I really haven’t been impressed that way.”
The other laughed. “My dear Miss Castleman, don’t you know that van
Tuiver’s in love with you!”
“No! Surely not!”
“Perfectly head over heels in love with you. He’s been that way since
the first moment he laid eyes on you. And the way you’ve treated him—you
know you are rather high-handed. Anyhow, it’s rattled him so, he simply
doesn’t know whether he’s on his head or his feet.”
“Did he tell you that, Mr. Bates?”
“Not in words—but by everything about him. I never saw a man so changed.
Honestly, you don’t know him at all, as we’ve known him. You’d not
believe it if I described him.”
“Tell me what you mean?”
“Well, in the first place, he’s always dignified—stately, even. When he
speaks, it’s he speaking, and his Yea is Yea and his Nay is Nay. Then
he’s very precise—he never does anything upon impulse, but always
considers whether it’s the right thing for Douglas van Tuiver to do. You
see, he has an acute consciousness of his social task—I mean, being a
model to all the little people in the world. You wouldn’t understand his
manners unless you realized that they’re imported from England. In
England—have you ever been there?”
“No,” said Sylvia.
“Well, you’re walking along a country road, and you’re lost, and you see
a gentleman coming the other way. You stop and begin, ‘I beg pardon’—and
he goes by you with his eyes to the front, military fashion. You see,
you’re not supposed to exist.”
“How perfectly dreadful!”
“I remember once I was walking in the country, and there came a carriage
with two ladies in it. It stopped as I passed, and so I stopped. ‘Can
you tell me where such and such a house is?’ she asked, and I replied
that it was in such and such a direction. And then, without even a look,
she sank back in her cushions, and the coachman drove on. She was a
lady, and she thought it was a grand carelessness.”
“Oh, but surely she must have belonged to the ‘_nouveaux riches_’!”
exclaimed Sylvia.
“On the contrary, she may have had the best blood in England. You see,
that’s their system. They have a ruling caste, whose rudeness is their
religion.”
“We have our family pride in the South,” said Sylvia, “but it’s supposed
to show itself in a superior courtesy. In fact, if a person’s rude to
his inferiors, we’re sure there must be plebeian blood somewhere.”
“Exactly, Miss Castleman—that’s what I’ve always been taught.” There was
a pause; then suddenly Bates began to laugh. “They tell such a funny
story about van Tuiver,” he went on. “It was a club-tea, and there were
two ladies whom everybody knew to be social rivals. Van Tuiver was
talking to Mrs. A. and suddenly, without any warning, he walked over and
began to talk to Mrs. B. Afterwards somebody said to him, ‘Why did you
leave Mrs. A. and go directly to Mrs. B.? You know they hate each
other—did you want to make it worse?’ ‘No, I never thought of it,’ he
said. ‘The point was, there was a fireplace at my back, and I don’t like
a fireplace at my back.’ ‘But did you tell that to Mrs. A?’ asked the
friend. ‘No,’ said van Tuiver—‘I told it to Mrs. B.’”
“Oh, dear me!” cried Sylvia.
“And you must understand that he saw nothing funny in it. And the
significant thing is that he gets away with that pose!”
“In other words, he has introduced the English system into America,”
said Sylvia.
“That’s what it comes to, Miss Castleman.”
“You have a king at Harvard!”
The man hesitated, and then a smile spread over his face. “Of course you
realize,” he said, “that it’s a game we’re playing.”
“A game?” she repeated.
“Do you know they had a queen in New York, Miss Castleman—until she
died, just recently? You came to the city, you intrigued and pulled
wires, and perhaps she condescended to receive you—seated upon a regular
throne of state, painted and covered with jewels like a Hindoo idol.
Everybody agreed she was the queen, and nobody could go anywhere or do
anything unless she said so. Only, of course, ninety-nine people out of
a hundred paid no attention to her, and went ahead and lived their lives
just as if she weren’t queen. And it’s the same way here.”
“Tubby” paused for encouragement; this was unusual eloquence for him.
“As to our king,” he continued, “one-eighth of the college pays him
homage, and another eighth rebels against him—and the other
three-quarters don’t know that he’s here. They’re busy cramming for
exams, or training for the boat-race, or having a good time spending
papa’s money. In other words, Miss Castleman, van Tuiver is our king
when we are snobs; and some of us are snobs all the time, and others of
us only when we go calling on the ladies. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” said Sylvia, intensely amused. “I suspect that you are
one of the rebellious subjects. You are certainly a frank ambassador,
Mr. Bates!”
It was his turn to laugh. “The truth is, van Tuiver’s been three years
posing in a certain rôle, and he can’t turn round now and play a
different one for you. I thought it over as I was coming here, and I
said to myself, ‘I’ll ask her to see him, but I’ll be damned’—pardon me,
but that’s what I said—‘I’ll be damned if I’ll help him to deceive her.’
You see, Miss Castleman—I hope I don’t presume—but I know van Tuiver’s
in love with you, and I thought—well—I——”
The genial “Tubby” had turned several shades redder, and now he fell
silent. “You may feel quite at ease, Mr. Bates,” smiled Sylvia. “The
danger you fear does not exist at all.”
“Not by any possibility, Miss Castleman?”
“Not by any possibility, Mr. Bates.”
“He—he has an enormous lot of money!”
“After all our conversation! There are surely a few things in America
which are not for sale.”
“Tubby” drew a deep breath of relief. “I was scared,” he said—“honest.”
“How lovely of you!” said Sylvia. She suddenly felt like a mother to
this big fat boy who was said to have no soul.
“I said to myself,” he continued, “‘I’ll tell her the truth about van
Tuiver, even if she never forgives me for it.’ You see, Miss Castleman,
I see the real man—as you’d never be allowed to, not in a thousand
years. And you must take my word and be careful, for van Tuiver’s a man
who has never had to do without anything in his whole lifetime. No
matter what it’s been that he’s wanted, he’s had it—always, _always_!
I’ve seen one or two times when it looked as if he mightn’t get it—and I
can tell you that he’s cunning, and that he persists and persists—he’s a
perfect demon when he’s got his mind fixed on something he wants and
hasn’t got.”
“Dear me!” said Sylvia. “That _is_ a new view of him!”
“Well, I said I’d warn you. I hope you don’t mind.”
Sylvia smiled. “I thought you had set out to persuade me to see him
again!”
Bates watched her. “I don’t know,” he said, “maybe mine was the best way
to persuade you.”
“Why, how charming!” she exclaimed, with a laugh. “You are really
subtle.”
“We want to fight the introduction of the English system, Miss
Castleman! I don’t mind an aristocracy, because I’m one of ’em; but I
don’t want any kings in America! It’s a patriotic duty to pull them off
their thrones and keep them off.”
Sylvia pondered. It was a most entertaining view. “And the queens too?”
she laughed.
“Yes, and the queens too!”
There was a pause, while she thought. Then she said, “Yes, I think
you’re right, Mr. Bates. You may tell His Majesty that I’ll see him—once
more!”
§ 16
Sylvia had said that she would go motoring with van Tuiver the following
afternoon. He came in a cab, explaining that he had been to dinner in
Cambridge, and that his car had run out of fuel. “I’ve a chauffeur who
is troubled with absent-mindedness,” he remarked, with what Sylvia soon
realized was enforced good-nature. For the car was longer in coming than
he expected, and when at last it arrived, she was given an exhibition of
his system of manners as applied to servants.
The chauffeur tried to make some explanation. There had been an
accident, which he wanted to tell of; but the other would not give him a
chance. “I’ve not the least desire to listen to you,” he said. “I do not
employ you to make excuses. I told you when you came to me that I
required promptness from my servants. You have had your opportunity, and
you are not equal to it. You may consider yourself under notice.”
“Very good, sir,” said the man; and Sylvia stepped into the car and sat
thinking, not hearing what van Tuiver said to her.
It was not the words he had used; he had a right to give his chauffeur
notice, she told herself. It was his tone which had struck her like a
knife—a tone of insolence, of deliberate provocativeness. Yet he,
apparently, had no idea that she would notice it; doubtless he would
think it meant a lack of breeding in her to notice it.
She wished to do justice to him; and she knew that it was partly her
Southern shrinking from the idea of white servants. She was used to
negroes, about whose feelings one did not bother.
If Aunt Nannie discovered one of the chambermaids trying on her
mistress’ ball-gown, it would be, “Get out of here, you bob-tailed
monkey!” Or if Uncle Mandeville’s boy forgot to feed a favorite horse,
the rascal would be dragged out by one ear and soundly caned—and would
expect it, knowing that if it was never done the horse would never be
fed. But to talk so to a white man—and not in a blaze of anger, but with
cold and concentrated malevolence!
The purpose of this ride was a definite one—that van Tuiver might find
out the meaning of Sylvia’s change of mind at the dance. He propounded
the question very soon; and the girl had to try to explain the state of
mind in which she found herself. She would begin, she said, with the
situation she had found at Harvard. Here were two groups of men, working
for different ends, one desiring democracy in college life, and the
other wishing to preserve the old spirit of caste. The conflict between
them had become intense, and Sylvia’s sympathies were with van Tuiver’s
opponents.
“Tell me,” she said, “what has Harvard meant to you? What has it given
you that you couldn’t have got elsewhere? Here are men from all over
America, but you’ve only met one little set. All the others—whom you’re
probably too refined to call ‘rough-necks’—could none of them have
taught you anything?”
“Perhaps they could,” he answered, “but it’s not easy to know them. If I
met people promiscuously, they’d presume upon the acquaintance. I’d have
no time to myself, no privacy——”
He saw the scorn in Sylvia’s face. “That’s all very well,” he cried,
“but you simply don’t realize! Take your own case—do _you_ meet anybody
who comes along?”
“I am a girl,” said Sylvia. “People seem to think it’s necessary to
protect girls. But even so, I remember experiences that you might profit
by. I went last year to our State University, where one of my cousins
was graduating. At one of the dances I was accidentally introduced to a
man, a decent fellow, whom I liked. ‘I won’t ask you to dance with me,
Miss Castleman,’ he said. I asked, ‘Why not?’ and he said, ‘I’m a
“goat”.’ I said, ‘I’ll dance with a goat, if he’s a good dancer,’ and so
we danced. And then came my cousin. ‘Sylvia, don’t you know who the man
is you were dancing with? He’s a “goat”!’ ‘I like him,’ I said, ‘and he
dances as well as any of you. I shall dance with him.’ ‘But, Miss
Castleman,’ they all said, ‘you’ll break up the fraternity system in the
college.’ ‘What strange fraternity!’ I answered. ‘I think it needs
breaking up. I’ll dance with him, and if anybody doesn’t like it, I
won’t dance with _him_.’ So I had my way.”
“That’s all right,” said the other. “If a pretty girl chooses to have
her whim, everybody can allow for it. But if you set to work to run a
college on that basis, you’d abolish social life there. Men of a certain
class would simply not go where they had undesirable companionship
forced upon them. Is that what you want to bring about?”
Sylvia thought for a moment, and then countered, “Is the only way you
can think of to avoid undesirable companionship to have a private
house?”
“A house?” replied van Tuiver. “Lots of people live in houses. Doesn’t
your father?”
“My father has a family,” said Sylvia. “You have no one but yourself—and
you don’t have the house because you need it, but simply for
ostentation.”
He was very patient. “My dear Miss Castleman,” he said, “it happens that
I was raised in a house, and I’m used to it. And I happen to have the
money—why shouldn’t I spend it?”
“You might spend it for the good of others.”
“You mean in charity? Haven’t you learned that charity never does any
good?”
“Sometimes I wish that I were a man, so that I could understand these
things,” exclaimed Sylvia. “But surely you might find some way of doing
good with your money, instead of only harm, as at present.”
“Only harm, Miss Castleman?”
“You are spending your money setting up false ideals in your college.
You are doing all in your power to make everyone who meets you, or sees
you, or even knows of you, a toady or else an Anarchist. And at the same
time you are killing the best things in the college.”
“What, for instance?”
“There is Memorial Hall—a building that stands for something. I can see
that, even if all my people were on the other side in the war. There you
find the democracy of the college, the spirit of real comradeship. But
did you ever eat a meal in Memorial Hall?”
“No,” said he, “I never did.”
Sylvia thought for a moment. “Do ladies eat there?” she asked; and when
he answered in the negative, she laughed. “Of course, that was only a
‘pretty girl’s whim’—as you call it. But if you, Douglas van Tuiver,
would go there, as a matter of course—right along, I mean——”
“Eat at Memorial Hall!” he exclaimed. “My dear Miss Castleman, I
wouldn’t eat—I’d be eaten!”
“In other words,” said she, coldly, “you admit that you can’t take care
of yourself as a man among men.”
It was amusing to perceive his dismay over her idea. He came back to it,
after a minute. He wanted to know if that was the sort of thing he’d
have to do to win her regard; and he repeated the phrase with a sort of
fascinated horror. “Eat at Memorial Hall!”
Until at last Sylvia declared with asperity, “Mr. van Tuiver, I don’t
care whether you eat at all, until you’ve found something better to do
with your life.”
§ 17
He took these rages of hers very humbly. He was becoming extraordinarily
tame. “I suppose you find me exasperating,” he said, “but you must
realize that I’m trying my best to understand you. You want me to make
my life all over, and it isn’t easy for me to see the necessity of it.
What harm do I do here, just by keeping to myself?”
Sylvia was touched by his tone, and she tried again to explain. “It
isn’t that you keep to yourself,” she said. “You cultivate a contempt
for your classmates, and they reply with hatred and envy, and so you
break up college life. It’s true, isn’t it, that there’s a struggle
going on now?”
“The class elections, you mean?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean. So much bitterness and intriguing, because you
keep to yourself! Why do you come to college at all? Surely you won’t
say it’s the professors and the studies!”
“No,” said he, smiling in spite of himself.
“You come, and you make yourself into a kind of idol. Excuse me, if it
isn’t polite, but what I said the other night is the truth—the Golden
Calf! And what I say is, try the other plan a while. Stop thinking about
yourself, and what they are thinking about you—above all, what they are
thinking about your money. They won’t all be thinking about your money.”
He did not answer promptly. “Apparently,” she said, “you don’t feel
quite sure. If you can’t, I know several real men that I could introduce
you to—men right in your own class.”
“Who are they?”
She hesitated. She was about to say Frank Shirley, but concluded not to.
“I met one the other day—he doesn’t belong to a club, yet he’s the most
interesting person I’ve encountered here. He talked about you, and he
wasn’t complimentary; but if you sought him out in the right way, and
made it clear you weren’t trying to patronize him, I’m sure he’d be a
friend.”
“What’s his name?”
“Mr. Firmin.”
“Oh!” said van Tuiver, and looked annoyed.
“You know him?”
“By sight. He has a bitter tongue.”
“No more bitter than you need, Mr. van Tuiver—if you are going to hear
the truth about yourself.”
The other hesitated. “I really do want to win your regard—” he began.
“I don’t want you to do anything to win my regard! If you do these
things, it must be because you want to do them. At present you’re just
your money, your position—your Royalty, as I’ve come to call it. But I’m
not the least bit concerned about your Royalty; your houses and your
servants and your automobiles are a bore to me—worse than that, they’re
wicked, for no man has a right to spend so much money on himself, to
have a whole house to himself——.”
“Please,” he pleaded, “stop scolding about my house. I couldn’t change
now, for it’s only a couple of weeks to Commencement.”
“It would have all the more effect,” she declared, “if you moved into a
dormitory now. Here are the class elections, and your class split up——”
“You don’t realize my position,” he interrupted. “It’s not merely a
question of what I want. There’s Ridgely Shackleford, our candidate for
class president; if I deserted him and went over to the ‘Yard,’ they’d
say I was a traitor, a coward—worse than that, they’d say I was a fool!
I wouldn’t have a friend left in the college.”
“You really think it would be so bad?”
“It would be worse. I haven’t told you half. When the story got about,
I’d become a booby in society; I’d have to give up my clubs, I’d be a
complete outcast. I tell you, you simply can’t break down the barriers
of your class.”
Sylvia sat in silence, pondering his words. Suddenly she became aware
that he was gazing at her eagerly. “Miss Castleman,” he began, his voice
trembling slightly, “what I want above all else is your friendship. I’d
do anything to win it—I’d give up anything in the world. I have a regard
for you—a most intense admiration. If I knew it would make me mean
something to you—why then, I’d be willing to go to any extreme, to defy
everybody else. But suppose I do this, and I’m left all alone——”
“If you did this you’d have new friends—real friends.”
“But the friend I want is _you_!”
Sylvia answered, “If you did what was right because it was right, if you
showed yourself willing to dare something for the sake of principle—why
then, right away you’d become worth while. You’d not have to ask for my
friendship.”
He hesitated. “Suppose—suppose that I should find that I wanted _more_
than friendship——”
She had been prepared for that—and she stopped him instantly.
“Friendship comes first,” she said.
“But,” he pleaded, “give me some idea. Could I not expect——”
“You asked me to be a friend to you, to help you by telling you the
truth. That is what we have been discussing. Pray let there be no
mistake about it. Friendship comes first.”
Why did Sylvia take such a course with him? You would have a false idea
of her character if you did not realize that it was the first time she
had ever done such a thing—and that it was a hard thing for her to do.
To refuse to let a man propose to her! To forbear to draw him on, to
investigate him, to see what he would reply to various baffling remarks!
It was not because she was engaged to Frank Shirley. Under the code
which Lady Dee had taught her that made simply no difference whatever.
Under that code it was her duty to secure every man who came into her
reach; she might remain uncertain in her own mind, she might continue to
explore and experiment up to the very moment when the wedding ring was
slipped upon her finger. Sylvia had never forgotten Aunt Lady’s vivid
image: “Stand them up in a line, my child, and when you get ready, walk
down the line and pick the one you want!”
She had set up a barrier before van Tuiver, and he pushed against it.
The more firm she made it, the more he was moved to push. But suppose
she gave way the least little bit, suppose he felt the barrier
breaking—then would he not stop pushing, would he not shrink away? What
fun to try him, to watch him hesitating, advancing and retreating,
trembling with desire and with terror! To analyze the mixture of his
longing and his caution, to add a little to the one or the other, and
then see the result. Sylvia with a new man was like a chemist’s
assistant, mixing strange liquids in a test-tube, possessed with a craze
to know whether the precipitate would be red or green or yellow—and
quite undeterred by the possibility of being blown through the skylight.
But tempting as was the game, she could not play it with Douglas van
Tuiver. It was as if an angel stood between them with a flaming sword.
Douglas van Tuiver was no subject for joke, he was not a man as other
men—he was Royalty. With Royalty one must be stern and unfaltering.
“Friendship comes first,” she had said; and though before that ride was
over he had come again and again to the barrier, he never broke past it,
nor felt any sign of its yielding to his touch.
§ 18
Sylvia was making her plans to leave in a couple of days. It was close
to Commencement, and she would have liked to stay, but there had come a
disturbing letter from home—the Major was not well, and there had been
an overflow, entailing serious damage to the crops and still more
serious cares. At such a time the family reached out blindly to
Sylvia—no matter what was going wrong, they were sure it would go right
if she were present.
And besides, her work at Harvard was done. This was duly certified to by
Harley, who came to see her the next morning, in such a state of bliss
as is not often vouchsafed to Freshmen. “It’s all right, old girl,” he
said, “you can go whenever you get ready. You surely are a witch,
Sylvia!”
“What has happened?” she asked.
“I had a call from Douglas van Tuiver last night.”
“You don’t mean it, Harley!”
“Yes. Did you ask him to do it?”
“I should think I did _not_!”
“Well, whatever the reason was, he was as nice as could be. Said he was
interested in me, and that he’d back me for one of the earlier tens.”
“How perfectly contemptible of him!” exclaimed Sylvia.
Needless to say, this was a turn not expected by Harley. “See here,” he
protested, “it seems to me you’re taking a little too high a line with
van Tuiver. There’s really no need to go so far——”
“Now please,” said Sylvia, “don’t concern yourself with that. I came up
here to help you, and I’ve done it, and that’s all you can ask.”
“Oh, very well,” he said, and there was a sulky pause. Finally, however,
the sun of his delight broke through the clouds again. “Say, Sylvia!” he
exclaimed. “Do you know, the whole college is talking about what
happened at that dance. Tell me, honestly—did you know anything about
what they meant to do?”
“I think that’s a question you’d know better than to ask, Harley.”
“I was ready to knock a fellow down because he hinted it. But Bates is
square—he takes it all on himself. They say Mrs. Winthrop will never
forgive him.”
Sylvia pondered. “Won’t it make Edith angry with you?” she asked.
“I’ll keep away from her for a few days,” laughed Harley. “If I get my
social position established, she’ll get over her anger, never fear. By
the way, would you like to know what Edith thinks about you?”
“Why—did she tell you?”
“No, but there’s a chap in my class who knows her. He told me what she
said—only of course one can’t be sure.”
“Tell me what it was,” said Sylvia, “and I’ll know if she said it.”
“That you were shallow; that with the arts you used any woman could
snare a man. But she would scorn to use them.”
“Yes,” laughed the other, “she said it.”
“Are you really as bad as that?” asked Harley. “What arts does she
mean?”
“This is a woman’s affair, Harley. What else did she say?”
“She said her mother was disappointed in you. She thought you had a
beautiful soul, but you’d let it be spoiled by flattery. She said you
had no real understanding of a character like van Tuiver, or the
responsibilities of his position.”
Sylvia said nothing, but sat considering the matter. She had no
philosophy about these affairs; she was following her instincts, and
sometimes she was assailed by doubts and troubled by new points of view.
She was surprised to realize how very revolutionary a standpoint she had
come to take in the matter of Mrs. Winthrop’s favorite. Why should she,
Sylvia Castleman, a descendant of Lady Lysle, be trying to pull down the
pillars of the social temple?
That was still her mood when, after Harley’s departure, the telephone
rang and she found herself voice to voice with “Queen Isabella.” “Won’t
you come and have luncheon with me, Sylvia?” asked the latter. “I’ve
sent Edith away, so that we can be to ourselves. I want to have a long
talk with you.” And Sylvia, in a penitent state, answered that she would
come.
§ 19
She chose for this visit one of her simplest costumes—a white muslin,
with pale green sprigs in it, and a pale green toque of a most
alluringly Quakerish effect. A poet had designed it for her—one of her
victims at the State University—and had specified that she must never
wear it without a prayer-book in her hand. In this costume she sat in
Mrs. Winthrop’s sombre paneled dining-room, with generations of sombre
Puritan governors staring down from the walls at her; while the strange
white servants stole noiselessly about on the velvet carpets, she gazed
with wide, innocent eyes, and listened to her hostess’ delicately-worded
sermon.
Mrs. Winthrop appreciated the symbolism of the costume, and used it in
making a cautious approach to her subject. She said that Sylvia had
wonderful gifts of beauty—not merely of the person, but of taste and
understanding. Women so favored owed a great debt to life, and must
needs feel keenly the desire to make recompense for their privileges.
That, said Mrs. Winthrop, was something always present in her own
thoughts. How could she pay for her existence? It was fatally easy to
fall into the point of view of those who rebelled against social
conditions, and justified the discontent of the poor. “You know, we have
such people even in Boston,” she explained, “and they win a good deal of
sympathy. But there is a deeper and saner view, it seems to me. Life
must have its graces, its embellishments; there must be those who embody
a higher ideal than mere animal comfort. I think we should take our
stand there—we should justify ourselves, having the consciousness of a
mission in preserving the allurements and amenities of life. People talk
about the poor shop-girls, and how hard they have to work; they seem to
desire that one should give up one’s ease, one’s culture, and go and
join the shop-girls. But I say, No, I am not to be seduced by such
arguments. I am something in the lives of those shop-girls, something
definite, something vital; I am to them an uplifting vision, an ideal of
grace and dignity. When one goes among the lower classes and sees the
brutality, the sordid animalism of their lives—oh, it is terrifying! One
flies back to the world of refinement and serenity as to a city of
refuge.”
Mrs. Winthrop paused. Her beautiful eyes had talked with her; they had
gazed terrified into social abysses, and now they came back to regions
of brooding calm. Sylvia was under their spell, and was not conscious of
any extravagance in the lady’s next utterance: “Speaking with a deep
conviction, I say that I am something necessary to life, that the world
could not get on without me. I say, I am Beauty, I am Art! Have you ever
felt that, Sylvia?”
“I have thought a good deal about such things, Mrs. Winthrop. But as a
rule, I only manage to bewilder myself and make myself unhappy. There is
so much terrible suffering in the world!”
“Yes,” said the other. “How many times I find myself asking, with tears
in my eyes, ‘How can you be happy, while all around you the world is
dying? Go, bow your head with shame, because you have been happy!’” And
sure enough, Mrs. Winthrop bowed her head, and two glistening, pearly
tears trickled slowly from her eyes. “It is a faith I have had to fight
for,” she continued, “something I feel most earnestly about. For we live
in times when, as it seems to me, civilization is threatened by the
terrible forces of materialism—by the blind greed of the masses
especially. And I think that we who have the task of keeping alive the
flame of beauty ought to be aware of our mission, and to support one
another.”
Sylvia thought that this was the point of approach to the real subject;
but she said nothing, and Mrs. Winthrop veered off again. “I have always
been especially interested in University life,” she said. “My father was
a University professor, and I was brought up in a University town. After
I was married and found that I had leisure and opportunity, I said to
myself that it would be my task in life to do what I could to influence
young men during their student years, by teaching them generous ideals,
and above all by giving them a model of a dignified and gracious social
life. It is in these years, you see, that the tastes of young men are
formed; afterwards they go out to set an example to the rest of the
world. More than any university, I think, Harvard is our source of
culture and idealism; our crude Western colleges look to its graduates
for teachers, and to its standards for their models. So you see it is
really no little thing to feel that you are helping to guide and shape
the social life of Harvard.”
“I can understand that,” said Sylvia, much impressed.
“You come from another part of our country,” continued Mrs. Winthrop—“a
part which has its own lovely culture. Whether you have ever realized it
consciously or not, I am sure that ideas such as these must have been
often impressed upon you by your family.”
“Yes,” said Sylvia, “my mother often talks of such things.”
“I felt that, Sylvia, when I saw you. I said, ‘Here is an ally.’ You
see, I must have help from the young people—especially from the girls,
if I am to do anything with the men.”
There was a solemn pause. “I hope I haven’t disappointed you too much,”
said Sylvia at last.
Mrs. Winthrop fixed upon her one of those intense gazes. “I’ve been
perplexed,” she said. “You must understand, I can’t help hearing what’s
going on. People come to ask me for advice, and I must give it. And I’ve
felt that what I’ve learned made it really necessary for me to talk to
you. I hope that you won’t mind, or think that I’m presuming.”
“My dear Mrs. Winthrop,” said Sylvia, “please don’t apologize. I am glad
to have your advice.”
“I will speak frankly, then. As well as I can read the situation, you
seem to have taken offense at the social system we have at Harvard. Is
that true?”
Sylvia thought. “Yes,” she said—“some parts of it have offended me.”
“Can you explain, Sylvia?”
“I don’t know that I can. It’s a thing that one feels. I have had a
sense of something cruel about it.”
“Something cruel? But can’t one feel that about any social system?
Haven’t you classes at home? Don’t your people hold themselves above
some others?”
“Yes, but I don’t think they are so hard about it—so deliberate, so
matter of fact.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Winthrop, “that is something I have often talked about
with Southern people. The reason is that in the South you have a social
class which is definitely separated by color, and which never thinks of
crossing the line. But in the North, my dear, our servants look like us,
and it’s not quite so simple drawing the line.”
“Oh, but I’m not talking of servants, Mrs. Winthrop. I mean here, within
the boundaries of a college class. Your servants do not go to college.”
The other laughed. “But they do,” she said.
“Oh, surely not!”
“It costs a hundred and fifty dollars a year to go to Harvard. Any man
can come, black or white, who can borrow the money. He may come, and
earn his living while he’s here by tending furnaces. As a matter of
fact, there’s a man in the class with Douglas van Tuiver whose father is
a butler.”
“You don’t mean it!” exclaimed Sylvia.
“A man,” said Mrs. Winthrop, “named Firmin.”
Sylvia was aghast. “Tom Firmin!”
“Yes. Have you heard of him before?”
She answered in a faint voice, “Yes,” and then was silent.
“You see, my dear,” said the other, gently, “why we are conscious of our
class lines in the North!”
§ 20
Sylvia judged that it was about time for the cat to come out of the bag.
And now she observed him emerging—with a grave and stately tread, as
became a feline of New England traditions. Said Mrs. Winthrop: “I have
just had a talk with Douglas van Tuiver. Of course, you must know,
Sylvia, that he has conceived an intense admiration for you. And you
must know that when a man so intensely admires a woman, she has a great
influence upon him—an influence which she can use either for good or for
evil.”
“Yes, Mrs. Winthrop,” said Sylvia.
“I gather that his admiration for you is—is not entirely reciprocated,
Sylvia.”
“Er—no,” said the girl, “not entirely.”
“He has come to me in great distress. You have criticized him, and he
has felt your disapproval keenly. I won’t need to repeat what he said—no
doubt you understand. The point is that you have brought Douglas to a
state of distraction; he wants to please you, and he doesn’t know how to
do it. You have put ideas into his head—really, Sylvia, you will ruin
the man—you will utterly destroy him. I cannot but feel that you have
acted without fully realizing the gravity of the situation—the full
import of the demands you have made upon him.”
“Really,” protested Sylvia, “I have made no demands upon him.”
“Not formally, perhaps. But you must understand, the man is beside
himself, and he takes them as demands.”
There was an awkward silence. “I have tried earnestly to avoid Mr. van
Tuiver,” said Sylvia. “I would prefer never to see him again.”
“But that is not what I want. You can’t help seeing him—he is determined
to see _you_. My point is that your advice to him should take another
form—you should realize the peculiar position of a man like Douglas, the
immense responsibilities he carries, and which he cannot lay aside. If
you could sympathize with him——”
There was again a pause. “I hope you won’t think it obstinate of me,”
said the girl, “but I know that I could never change my attitude—that
unless Mr. van Tuiver changed his way of life, he could never be a
friend of mine.”
“But, Sylvia dear,” remonstrated the other, gently, “he has been a
friend of _mine_.”
And so the real battle was on. There have been defences of the Divine
Right of Kings, composed by eminent and learned men; there have been
treatises composed upon the upbringing of statesmen and princes—from
Machiavelli and Castiglione on; Sylvia was ignorant of their very
existence, and so she was in no way a match for a scholarly person like
Mrs. Winthrop. But one thing she knew, and knew it with overwhelming
certainty, and repeated it with immovable obstinacy—she did not like van
Tuiver as he was, she could not tolerate him as he was. Mrs. Winthrop
argued and pleaded, apologized and philosophized, interpreting most
eloquently the privileges and immunities incidental to the possession of
fifty millions of dollars. But Sylvia did not like van Tuiver, she could
not tolerate van Tuiver.
At last Mrs. Winthrop stopped, the edges of her temper somewhat frayed.
She gazed at Sylvia intently. “May I ask you one thing?” she said.
“What is it?” inquired the girl.
“Has Douglas asked you to marry him?”
“No, he has not.”
“Do you think that he will ask you?”
“I really don’t know; but I can assure you that he will not if I can
prevent it.”
There was a long pause, while the other weighed this utterance.
“Sylvia,” she said, at last, “he has a great deal of money.”
“I have heard that fact mentioned,” responded the girl.
“But have you realized, my dear, how _much_ money he has?”
To which Sylvia answered, “We are not taught to think so deliberately
about money in the South.”
Again there was a silence. She divined that Mrs. Winthrop was struggling
desperately to be noble. “Do I understand you to mean, Sylvia, that you
would really refuse to marry him if he asked you?”
“I most certainly mean it,” was her reply—and it was given convincingly.
The other drew a breath of relief. She had found the struggle
exhausting. “My dear child,” she said, “I appreciate your fineness of
character.” She paused. “But tell me this—if you do not intend to marry
Douglas, ought you to permit him to compromise himself for you?”
“Compromise himself, Mrs. Winthrop? I don’t understand you.”
“I mean, Sylvia, that he is exposing himself to the ridicule of his
friends—he is making a spectacle of himself to the whole University. And
then, after he has done this, you propose to cap the climax of his
humiliation by refusing to marry him!”
Sylvia had so far been most decorous; but at this point her sense of fun
was too much for her, and merriment broke out upon her countenance.
“Mrs. Winthrop,” she declared, “there is but one way out—you must keep
Mr. van Tuiver from proposing to me!”
The other’s pose became haughty and full of rebuke; but Sylvia was not
to be frightened. “See the dilemma I am in!” she exclaimed. “If I refuse
him, I humiliate him and compromise him. But if I marry him—what becomes
of my fineness of character?” She paused for a moment, then added, “You
must do this, Mrs. Winthrop; you must take the responsibility of
forbidding me to see him again. You must make it so emphatic that I’ll
simply have to obey you.”
“Queen Isabella’s” feelings were approaching a state of turmoil; but the
girl urged her proposition seriously, finding a quite devilish amusement
in plaguing her hostess with it. The other protested that she would not,
she could not, she _dared_ not take the responsibility of interfering
with Mr. van Tuiver’s love affairs; and all without having the least
idea of the abysses of malice which were hidden within the circumference
of the pale green Quaker bonnet in front of her!
§ 21
Frank Shirley came to call that afternoon, and revealed the fact that
the gossip had reached even him. “Sylvia, you witch,” he exclaimed, and
pinched her ear—“what in the world have you been doing to Douglas van
Tuiver?”
She caught his hand and held it in both hers. “What has happened,
Frank?”
“A miracle, my dear—simply a miracle! Van Tuiver has been to call on Tom
Firmin!”
“Oh, how interesting!” cried Sylvia. “How was he received?”
“Tell me first—did you suggest it to him?”
“I’m a woman—my curiosity is much less endurable than yours. Tell me
instantly.”
“Oh, he came—very much subdued and ill at ease. Said he’d realized the
split in the class, and how very unfortunate it was, and he wanted to
help mend matters.”
“What did Mr. Firmin say?”
“He asked why van Tuiver had begun with him. ‘Because I’d heard you
didn’t like me,’ said van Tuiver, ‘and I wanted to try to put matters on
a better footing. I’d like to be a friend of yours if I might.’ Tom—you
know him—said that friendship wasn’t to be had for the asking—he’d have
to look van Tuiver over and see how he panned out. First of all, they
must understand each other on one point—that he, Tom, wouldn’t be
patronized, and that anybody who tried it would be ordered out.” Frank
paused, and laughed his slow, good-natured laugh. “Poor van Tuiver!” he
said. “I feel sorry for him. Imagine him having to say he’d be willing
to take the risk! It’s about the funniest thing I ever heard of. What I
want to know is, is it true that you did it?”
“Would you be very angry if I said ‘Yes’?”
“Why, no,” he answered—“only I suppose you know you’re getting a lot of
publicity?”
Sylvia paused for a while. “I suppose it was a mistake all through,” she
said, “but I was ignorant when I started, and since then I’ve been
dragged along. Mr. van Tuiver has kept at me to tell him why I didn’t
like him—and I’ve told him, that’s about all. I thought that your friend
Mr. Firmin was one who’d do the same.”
“He’s that, all right,” laughed Frank.
There was a pause, then suddenly Sylvia exclaimed, “By the way, there’s
something I meant to ask you. Is it true that Mr. Firmin’s father is a
butler?”
“It is, Sylvia.”
“And did you know that when you introduced him to me?”
It was Frank’s turn to counter. “Would you be very angry if I said I
did?”
“Why—not angry, Frank. But you must realize that it was a new
experience.”
“Did you find him ill-bred?”
“Why, no—not that; but——”
“I thought you might as well see all sides of college life. I knew you’d
meet the club-men. And there’s a particular reason why you’ll have to be
nice to Tom—he wants to make me president of the class just now.”
“President of the class!”
“Yes. Politics, you see!”
“But,” she exclaimed, “why haven’t you told me about it?”
“I didn’t know until yesterday. Things have been shaping themselves. You
see, the feeling in the ‘Yard’ has grown more bitter, and yesterday a
committee came to me and asked if I’d stand against Shackleford, who’s
been picked by the Auburn Street crowd, and was expected to go in
without opposition. I said I’d have to think it over. I might accept the
position if I was elected, but of course, I wouldn’t do any
wire-pulling—wouldn’t seek any man’s vote. They said that was all they
wanted. But I don’t know; it’s a difficult question for me.”
“But why?”
“Well, you see, they’ll rake up the story of my father.”
Sylvia gave a cry of horror. “Frank!”
“If there’s a contest, it’ll be war and no quarter.”
“But would they do such a thing as that?”
“They would do it,” said Frank, grimly. “So my first impulse was to
refuse. But I rather thought you’d want me to run. For you see, I’ll
have that old scandal all my life, whatever I try to do; and I suppose
you won’t let me keep out of everything.”
“But, Frank, how will they know about your father?”
“Lord, Sylvia, don’t you suppose with all the social climbing there is
in this place, they’ve had that morsel long ago? There are fellows here
from the South—your cousin, for one. It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m a
nobody; but if I set out to beat the ‘Gold Coast crowd’—then you’d see!”
It was amusing to Frank to see how her eyes blazed. “Oh, I ought to stay
to help you!” she exclaimed. “If it only weren’t for father!”
“Don’t worry, Sylvia. I wouldn’t let you stay for anything. I don’t want
you mixed up in such affairs.”
“But, Frank, think what it would mean! What a blow to the system you
hate! And I could pull you through—you needn’t laugh, I really could!
There are so many men I could manage!”
But Frank went on laughing. “Honey,” he said, “you’ve done quite
enough—too much—already. How are you going to pay van Tuiver for what
he’s done?”
“Pay him, Frank?”
“Of course. Do you imagine, dear, that van Tuiver’s a man to do anything
without being paid? He’ll hand in his bill for services rendered, and
he’ll put a high value on his services! And what will you do?”
She sat, deep in thought. “Frank,” she exclaimed, “you’ve been so
good—not to worry about me and that man!”
He smiled. “Don’t I know what a proud lady you are?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Honey, if I had been afraid about van Tuiver, do you suppose I’d have
dared let you know it?”
She looked at him, her eyes shining. “How nicely you put it!” she said.
“You’re the dearest fellow in the world, a regular haven of refuge to
fly to!” Then suddenly her mood became grave, and she said, “Let me tell
you the truth; I’m glad I’m going away from the man and his money! It
isn’t that it’s a temptation—I don’t know how to say it, but it’s a
nightmare, a load on my mind. I think, ‘Oh, how much good I could do
with that money!’ I think, ‘So much power, and he hasn’t an idea how to
use it!’ It’s monstrous that a man should have so much, and no ideas to
go with it. It’s all very well to turn your back on it, to say that you
despise it—but still it’s there, it’s working all the time, day and
night—and working for evil! Isn’t that true?”
He was watching her with a quizzical smile. “You’re talking just like
Tom!” he said. “They’ll call _you_ an Anarchist at home!”
She was interested in the idea of being an Anarchist, and would have got
Frank started upon a lecture on economics. But there came an
interruption in the form of a knock on the door and a boy with a card.
Sylvia glanced at it, and then, without a word, passed it to Frank. He
read it and they looked at each other.
“Well?” he asked. “Are you going to see him?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you say?”
“I can stand it if you can,” laughed Frank; and so Sylvia ordered Mr.
van Tuiver shown up.
§ 22
He stood in the doorway, clad in his faultless afternoon attire. Somehow
he had recovered the hard brilliance, the look of the man of the world,
which Sylvia had noticed the first evening. He gazed at Frank, not
hiding very well his annoyance at finding a third party.
“Mr. van Tuiver, Mr. Shirley,” said Sylvia. “You do not know each other,
I believe.”
“I know Mr. Shirley by sight,” said van Tuiver, graciously. He seated
himself on a spindle-legged Louis Quinze chair—so stiffly that Sylvia
thought of a purple domino. She beamed from one to the other, and then
remarked, “What a curious commentary on the Harvard system! Two men
studying side by side for three years, and not knowing each other!”
She was aware that this remark was not of the most tactful order. She
made it on purpose, thinking to force the two into a discussion. But van
Tuiver was not minded that way. “Er—yes,” he said, and relapsed into
silence.
“Miss Castleman’s notions of courtesy are derived from a pastoral
civilization,” said Frank, by way of filling in the breach. “You don’t
realize the size of Harvard classes, Sylvia.”
The girl was watching the other man, and she saw that he had instantly
noted Frank’s form of address. He looked sharply, first at his rival,
and then at her. “Mr. Shirley is also from the South?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Sylvia, “we are near neighbors.”
“Oh, I see,” said van Tuiver. “Old friends, then, I presume.”
“Quite,” said Sylvia, and again there was a pause. She was willing to
let the two men worry through without help, finding it fascinating to
watch them and study them. What a curious contrast they made! She found
herself wondering how far van Tuiver would have got in college life if
he had had the handicaps of her lover!
Frank was talking about the prospects of the baseball team. He was
pleasant and friendly, and of course quite unmoved by the presence of
Royalty. He seemed to be wholly unaware of the tension in the air, the
restlessness and impatience of the man he was talking to. But Sylvia
knew and was thrilled.
It was a moment full of possibilities of drama. She asked some question
of Frank, and he answered, casually, “Of course, honey.” He went on,
unconcerned and unperceiving; but Sylvia saw the other man wince as if
he had been touched by something red hot. He looked at her, but found
that she was looking away. She stole a glance at him again, and saw that
he was watching his rival with strained attention, his countenance
several shades paler in hue.
That was the end of conversation, so far as van Tuiver was concerned. He
answered in monosyllables, and his eyes went from Frank to Sylvia like
those of a hunted animal in a corner. The girl got a new and sharp
realization of his condition. She had gone into this affair as a joke,
but now, for a moment, she was frightened. The man was terrible; every
minute, as he watched Frank, his brow grew darker, he was like a
thundercloud in the room. And this the _arbiter_ of Harvard’s best
society!
At last, she took pity on him. It was really preposterous of Frank to go
on gossiping about the prospects of a truce with the Princeton “tiger,”
and the resumption of football contests. So, smiling cheerfully at him,
she remarked, “You’ll be missing the lecture, won’t you?” And Frank,
realizing that he was a third party, made his excuses and withdrew.
Van Tuiver barely waited until Frank had closed the door. Then, with a
poor effort at nonchalance, he remarked, “You know Mr. Shirley quite
intimately.”
“Oh, yes,” said Sylvia.
“You—you like him very much, Miss Castleman?”
“He’s a splendid fellow,” she replied. “He’s one of the men you ought to
have been cultivating.”
But the other would not be diverted for a moment. “I—I wish—pardon me,
Miss Castleman, but I want you to tell me—what is your relation to him?”
“Why, really, Mr. van Tuiver——”
“I know I’ve no right—but I’m desperate!”
“But—suppose I don’t care to discuss the matter?” She was decided in her
tone, for she saw that stern measures were necessary if he was to be
checked.
But nothing could stop him—he was beyond mere convention. “Miss
Castleman,” he rushed on, “I must tell you—I’ve tried my best, but I
can’t help it! I love you—as I’ve never dreamed that a man could love. I
want to marry you!”
He stopped, breathing hard; and Sylvia, off her guard, exclaimed, “No!”
“I mean it!” he declared. “I’m in earnest—I want to marry you!”
She caught herself together. She had not meant this to happen. She
answered, with a tone of _hauteur_, “Mr. van Tuiver, you have no right
to say that to me.”
“But why not? I am making you an offer of marriage. You must understand.
I mean it.”
“I am able to believe that you mean it; but that is not the point. You
have no right to ask me to marry you, when I have refused you my
friendship.”
There was a pause. He sat staring at her in pitiful bewilderment. “I
thought,” he said, “this was more serious.” And then he stopped, reading
in her face that something was wrong. “Isn’t an offer of marriage more
serious than one of friendship?” he inquired.
“More serious?” repeated Sylvia. “More important, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“More attractive, that is?” she suggested.
“Why—yes.”
“In other words, Mr. van Tuiver, you thought that a man with so much
money might be accepted as a husband when he’d been rejected as a
friend?”
“Why—not exactly that, Miss Castleman——”
But Sylvia hardly heard his denial. A wave of annoyance, of disgust, had
swept over her. She rose to her feet. “You have justified my worst
opinion of you!” she exclaimed.
“What have I done?” he cried, miserably.
“It isn’t what you’ve done, as I’ve told you before—it’s what you are,
Mr. van Tuiver. You are utterly, utterly impossible, and I’m furious
with myself for having heard what you have just said to me.”
“Miss Castleman! I beseech you——”
But she would not hear him further. She could not endure his presence.
“There is no use saying another word,” she declared. “I will not talk to
you. I will not know you!”
The madness of love was upon him; he held out his hands imploringly. But
she repelled him with blazing eyes. “You must go!” she said. “Go at
once! I will not see you again—I positively forbid you to come near me.”
He tried twice to speak, but each time she stopped him, crying, “Go, Mr.
van Tuiver!” And so at last he went, almost crying with humiliation and
distress, in his agitation forgetting his hat and gloves. So furious was
Sylvia that she shut the door, and fell on the sofa weeping.
When she came to look back on it, she was amazed by her vehemence. It
could not have been the manner of the proposal, for he had been
insufferable many times before, and she had managed to take a humorous
view of it. Had it perhaps been seeing him in opposition to Frank which
had fired the powder mine of her rage? Was it that jealousy of his
power, of which she had spoken? Or was it the protective instinct with
which Nature had endowed her maidenhood—that she could jest with him
while he was seeking her friendship, but was convulsed with anger when
he spoke to her of love?
§ 23
That evening there was an entertainment of the “Hasty Pudding” Club, and
the next afternoon Sylvia was to take her departure. All the morning she
held an informal levee of those who came to bid her good-bye, and to
make their comments on the amazing events which were transpiring. For
one thing, the candidacy of Frank Shirley for class-president was
formally announced; and for another, Douglas van Tuiver had declared his
intention to move from his house into one of the cheaper dormitories,
and to take his seat at the common dining-tables in Memorial Hall.
Earliest of all came Harley, in a terrible state. “What can have got
into you? You’ve ruined everything—you’ve undone all the good you did
for me!”
“As bad as that, Harley?” she asked. She was gentle with him, realizing
suddenly how completely she had overlooked him and his interests in the
last few crowded days.
“What does it all mean?” he went on. “What has made you want to smash
things like this?”
She knew, of course, that there was no use trying to explain to him. She
contented herself with saying that things could not be as bad as he
thought.
“They couldn’t be worse!” he exclaimed. “Van Tuiver’s gone over to the
‘Yard,’ bag and baggage, and the club-men are simply furious. They’re
denouncing you, because you made him do it, and when they can’t get at
you, they’ll take it out on me. Sooner or later they are bound to learn
that you’re engaged to Frank Shirley; and then they’ll say you did it
all to help him—that you fooled van Tuiver and made a cat’s paw of him
for the sake of Frank.”
That was a new aspect of the matter, and a serious one; but Sylvia
realized that there was no remedying it now. She was glad when other
callers arrived, so that she might send her cousin away.
There came Thurlow, who, as a chum of Shackleford, wished to protest to
Sylvia against the harm she was doing to the latter’s candidacy, and to
all that was best in Harvard’s social life. There came Jackson, who, as
van Tuiver’s best friend, painted a distressful picture of the collapse
of his prestige. There came Harmon, also pledged to plead the cause of
“Auburn Street,” but proving a poor ambassador on account of his selfish
weakness. He spoke of van Tuiver’s pitiful state, but a very little
contriving on Sylvia’s part sufficed to bring him to his knees,
beseeching her to make him the happiest man in the world.
Sylvia rather liked Harmon; she was grateful to him for having been the
first man at Harvard to fall in love with her, thus helping her over a
time of great self-distrust. He made his offer with more eloquence than
one would have expected from a reserved upper-class club man; and Sylvia
gently parried his advances, and wiped away one or two tears of genuine
sympathy, and promised to be a sister to him in the most orthodox old
Southern style.
And then came “Tubby” Bates. “Tubby” did not ask her to marry him, but
he made her several speeches which were even more pleasant to hear. She
had finished her packing, and had on her gray traveling dress when he
called. He stood in the middle of the floor, gazing at her approvingly,
his round face beaming and his eyes twinkling with fun. “Oh, what a stir
in the frog-pond we’ve made!” he exclaimed. “And now you’re running off
and leaving me to face the racket alone!”
“What in the world have _you_ to do with it?” she asked.
“Me? Doesn’t everybody know that it was I who set you on van Tuiver?
Didn’t I bring you together at that fatal dance? And now all the big
guns in the college are aiming murder at me!”
The other laughed. “Surely, Mr. Bates, your social position can stand a
strain!”
He laughed in return, but suddenly became serious. He said: “I wouldn’t
care anyhow. Honest to God, Miss Castleman! There’s something I wanted
to say to you—I have to thank you for teaching me a lesson.”
“A lesson?”
“You know, we don’t live in such a lovely world—and I’m afraid I’ve got
to be cynical. But you’ve made me ashamed of myself, and I want to tell
you. It’s something I shall never forget; it may sound melodramatic—but
I shall always think better of women for what you’ve done.”
She looked at him and grew serious. “Tell me, just what have I done that
seems so extraordinary to you? I haven’t felt a bit heroic.”
“I’ll answer you straight. You turned down van Tuiver and his money!”
“And does that really surprise you so?” she asked.
“I can only tell you that I didn’t believe there was a woman in America
who’d do it. I can tell you also that van Tuiver didn’t believe it!”
Sylvia could not help laughing. “But, really, Mr. Bates, how could you
expect so badly of me—that I’d sell my soul for luxury?”
“It isn’t luxury, Miss Castleman. That’s nothing. You can buy a whole
lot of luxury with no more money than I’ve got. But with van Tuiver it
would be something else—something that not one woman in a million has
offered to her. It’s power, its supremacy—it’s really what you called
Royalty.”
“And you thought that would buy me?”
He sat watching her intently; he did not answer.
“Tell me truly,” she said. “I won’t mind.”
“No,” he said, “there’s something beyond that. I’ve read you, Miss
Castleman, and I thought he’d get you this way—you’d think of all that
could be done with his money. How many people you knew that you could
help! How much good you could do in the world! You’d think of starving
children to be fed, of sick children to be healed. You’d say, ‘I could
make him do good with that money, and nobody else in the world could!’
That’s the way he’d get you, Miss Castleman!”
Sylvia was gazing at him, fascinated. He saw a strange look in her eyes,
and he felt, rather than saw, that she drew a long breath. “You see!” he
said. “You _did_ have to be heroic!”
So, when “Tubby” Bates took his departure, he held her hand longer than
any of her other callers had been permitted to. “Dear Miss Castleman,”
he said, “I’ll never forget you; and if you need a friend, count on me!”
He went away, and Sylvia sat in her chair, gazing before her, deep in
thought. There came a knock, and a note was brought in. She frowned
before she looked at it—she had come to know where these notes came
from.
“My dear Miss Castleman,” it read, “I have just learned that you are
going away. I implore you to give me one word. I stand ready to do all
that you have asked me, and I throw myself on your mercy. I must see you
once again.”
For a moment Sylvia was frightened, wondering if she had a madman to
deal with. Then she crumpled the paper in her hand, and going to the
desk, seized a pen and wrote, with the swiftness of one enraged:
“Mr. van Tuiver, I have asked you to do nothing. I wish you to do
nothing. All you can accomplish is to inflict disagreeable notoriety
upon me. I demand that you give up all thought of me. I am engaged to
marry another man, and I will under no circumstances consent to see you
again.”
This note she sent down by the boy, and when Frank came for her with a
motor-car, she kept him in the room and sent Aunt Varina down into the
lobby to make sure that van Tuiver was not waiting there. Some instinct
made her feel that she must not let the two men meet again.
Also this gave her a little interval with Frank. She put her hands in
his, exclaiming, “I’m so glad I’ve got you, Frank! Hurry up—get through
with this place and come home!”
“You didn’t like it here?” he smiled.
“I’m glad I came,” she answered. “It’ll be good for me—I’ll be happier
at home with you!”
He took her gently in his arms, and she let him kiss her. “You really do
love me!” he whispered. “I can’t understand it, but you really do!”
And she looked at him with her shining eyes. “I love you,” she
said—“even more than I did when I came. The happiest moment of my life
will be when I can walk out of the church with you, and have nothing
more to do with the world!”
“Good-bye, Lady Sunshine!” he said. “Good-bye, Lady Sunshine!”