Through the inflated proprieties of social New York, Paliser's father
had driven four-in-hand, and at a pace so klinking that social New York
cut him dead. A lot he cared! The high-steppers in their showy harness
flung along as brazenly as before. He did not care. He had learned to
since. Age is instructive. It teaches that though a man defy the world,
he cannot ignore it. But tastes are inheritable. Monty Paliser came in
for a few, but not for the four-in-hand. Less vigorous than his father,
though perhaps more subtle, he preferred the tandem.
In preparation for one that he had in view, he looked in, not at a mart,
but at a shrine.
It was on the afternoon succeeding Cassy's visit to his slippery floor.
The day was radiant, a day not of spring, or of summer, but of both.
Above was a sky of silk wadded with films of white cotton. From below
there ascended a metallic roar, an odour of gasoline--the litanies and
incense of the temple, Semitic and Lampsacene, that New York long since
became.
Lampsacus worshipped a very great god and worshipped him uniquely. New
York, more devout and less narrow, has worshipped him also and has knelt
too to a god almost as great. Their combined rituals have exalted the
temple into a department-store where the pilgrim obtains anything he can
pay for, which is certainly a privilege. Youth, beauty, virtue, even
smiles, even graciousness, Priapus and Mammon bestow on the faithful
that garland the altars with cash.
In Park Avenue, on this radiant afternoon, Mrs. Austen and Paliser were
occupied with their devotions. Mrs. Austen was priestess and Paliser was
saying his prayers; that is, he was jingling his money, not audibly, but
none the less potently in the lady's uplifted eyes.
"Yes," said the lady, who as usual did not mean it. "It is too bad.
Margaret, the dear child, is so inexperienced that I feel that I must
blame myself. I have kept from her--how shall I put it? Well,
everything, and when she learned about this, I could not tell her that
it was all very usual. It would have offended her modesty too much."
Pausing, Mrs. Austen smiled her temple smile. "I could not tell her, as
somebody expressed it, that actresses happen in the best of families,
but I left her to decide whether she cared to have them happen in her
menage."
The priestess, looking to the north and south, resumed: "It might have
been different if she had been older, more experienced and had really
cared for him. But how could she care? The child's nature is dormant.
She does not know what love is. He is very nice, I have not a word to
say against him, not one, but a lamp-post would be quite as capable of
arousing her affection. She accepted him, I grant you that and you may
well ask why. I know I asked myself the same thing, until I remembered
that Mr. Austen offered to take me to Niagara Falls and I married him
just to go there. At the time I was a mere chit and Margaret is little
more. Now, I am not, I hope, censorious and I do not say that she had a
lucky escape, but I can say she thinks so. It was such a relief that it
gave her neuralgia. But the child will be up and about in no time and
then you must come and dine. You got my note?"
Paliser stifled a yawn. The priestess was, he knew, entirely willing to
deliver whatever he wanted at temple rates. But he knew, too, there were
forms and ceremonies to be observed. Being bored was one of them.
At another portal he has been obliged to go through the forms with
Carlotta Tamburini. She also had wearied him, though less infernally
than Mrs. Austen, and of the two he preferred her. The ex-diva was
certainly canaille, but her paw was open and ready, whereas this woman's
palm, while quite as itching, was delicately withheld. Their gods were
identical. It was the shrines that differed. The one at which the
Tamburini presided was plain as a pikestaff. The Austen's was bedecked
like a girl on her wedding-day. Behind each Priapus leered. Above both
was the shining face of Mammon.
In the present rites, that which wearied Paliser was the recital of the
reason of the broken engagement. It was broken, that was the end of it,
an end which, in ordinary circumstances, he would have regretted.
Ordinarily it would have made the running too easy. The hurdles were
gone. There were no sticks, no fences. It would not even have been a
race, just a canter. The goal remained but the sporting chance of
beating Lennox to it would have departed. That is the manner in which
ordinarily he would have regarded it. But the war, that was to change us
all, already had changed his views. The draft act had not then been
passed, yet it was realised that some such act would be passed, and
generally it was assumed that among the exempt would be men with wives
dependent on them and cogently he had reflected that if he married that
would be his case precisely. At the same time he could not take a
possible bride by the scruff of the neck and drag her off to a
clergyman. Though it be to save your hide, such things are not done.
Even in war-time there are wearisome preliminaries and these
preliminaries, which a broken engagement abridged, the neuralgia of a
possible bride prolonged. That was distinctly annoying and a moment
later, when he had the chance, he vented the annoyance on Lennox.
"You got my note?" Mrs. Austen was asking.
"Yes," he replied, "and I will come with pleasure. Meanwhile, if my
sympathy is not indiscreet, please convey it to your daughter." The kick
followed. "Though, to be sure, Lennox is a loose fish."
"He is?" Mrs. Austen unguardedly exclaimed. Not for a moment had she
suspected it and, in her surprise, her esteem for him jumped. Good
heavens! she thought. How I have maligned him!
In the exclamation and the expression which her eyes took on, Paliser
divined some mental somersault, divined too that behind it was something
obscure, something that she was keeping back. Warily he backed.
"Oh, as for that, loose fish may mean anything. It is a term that has
been applied to me and I dare say very correctly. If I did not live like
a monk, I should be jailed for my sins."
He is his father all over again, Mrs. Austen cheerfully reflected and
absently asked: "How is he?"
"Lennox? I haven't an idea."
"I mean your father."
"In a great hurry, thank you. The war has gone to his head."
"At his age? Surely----"
"He wants me to go," said Paliser, who had no intention of it whatever
and whom subsequent events completely exempted. "He is in a hurry for me
to enlist and in a greater hurry to have me marry."