NORRIS had overtaxed himself in this ride to Tivoli and spent the next
day in his bed.
“My conversation often has this effect,” I said, as I sat by his
bedside. “Forty miles of it is too much without a sedative. You need the
assistance of the rest of the family. Let Gwendolyn and her mother take
a turn at listening.”
“That's exactly what I propose. I want you to look after them,” he said.
“They need me now if they ever did, and I'm a broken reed. Be a friend
to them, if you can.”
I liked Norris, for he was bigger than his fortune, and you can't say
that of every millionaire. Not many suspect how a lawyer's heart can
warm to a noble client. I would have gone through fire and water for
him.
“If they can stand it I can,” was my answer. “A good many people have
tried my friendship and chucked it overboard. It's like swinging an
ax, and not for women. One has to have regular rest and good natural
vitality to stand my friendship.”
“They have just stood a medical examination,” he went on. “I want you
and Mrs. Potter to see Rome with Gwendolyn and her mother and give them
your view of things. Be their guide and teacher. I hope you may succeed
in building up their Americanism, but if you conclude to turn them into
Italians I shall be content.”
“There are many things I can't do, but you couldn't find a more willing
professor of Americanism,” I declared.
So it happened that Betsey and I went with Gwendolyn and her mother for
a drive.
I am not much inclined to the phrases of romance. Being a lawyer, I hew
to the line. But I have come to a minute when my imagination pulls at
the rein as if it wanted to run away. I remember that an old colonial
lawyer refers in one of his complaints to “a most comely and winsome
mayd who with ribbands and slashed sleeves and snug garments and
stockings well knit and displayed and sundry glances of her eye did
wickedly and unlawfully work upon this man until he forgot his duty
to his God, his state, and his family,” and it is on record that this
“winsome mayd” was condemned to sit in the bilboes.
The tall, graceful, blue-eyed, blond-haired girl, opposite whom I sat
in the motor-car that day, was both comely and winsome. She innocently
“worked upon” the opposite sex until one member of it got to work upon
me, and I'm not the kind that goes around looking for trouble. Even when
it looks for me it often fails to find me.
I am a man rather firmly set in my way and well advanced upon it, but I
have to acknowledge that Gwendolyn's face kept reminding me of the best
days of my boyhood, when life itself was like a rose just opened, and
the smile of Betsey was morning sunlight. Backed by great wealth, its
effect upon the marryers of Italy can be imagined.
Gwendolyn had survived the three deadly perils of girlhood--cake, candy,
and the soda-fountain. A pony and saddle and good air to breathe helped
her to win the fight until she went to school in Munich, where a wise
matron and the spirit of the school induced her to climb mountains and
eat meat and vegetables and other articles in the diet of the sane. Now
she was a strong, red-cheeked, full-blooded young lady of twenty. In
spite of the stanch Americanism of Norris, Gwendolyn and her mother were
full of European spirit. They liked democracy, but they loved the pomp
and splendor of courts, and the sound of titles, and the glitter of
swords and uniforms. As we got into the car we observed numbers of young
men staring at us, and I spoke of it, and Gwendolyn said to me:
“I think that the young men in America are better-looking, but they
are so cold! All the girls tell me that these boys can beat them making
love, and I believe it.”
“But most of our boys have work to do,” I said. “With them love-making
is only a side issue, and it often comes at the end of a long, hard day.
These Italians seem to have nothing else to do but make love.”
“I don't see, for my part, why men who have plenty of money should
have to work,” said Mrs. Norris. “What's the use of having money if it
doesn't give you leisure for enjoyment?”
“But leisure is like dynamite--you have to be careful with it,” I said.
“For most of us it's the only danger. All deviltry begins in leisure and
ends in work, if at all. Being naturally sinful, I don't fool with it
much. Of course you women are moral giants, and you don't need to be so
scared of it.”
“You have to joke about everything,” said Mrs. Norris. “Sometimes I
think that I understand you and suddenly you begin joking, and then I
lose confidence in all you have said.”
“I mean all I say and then some more,” I declared. “I assume that you
are moral giants or that you do a lot of work secretly. No _man_ could
keep his footing in the slippery path of unending leisure. In Europe
leisure is the aim of all, and where it most abounds morality is a joke.
Here blood and leisure are the timber of which all ladies and gentlemen
are made. In America we know that it's rotten timber. We have discovered
three great commandments. They are written not only on tablets of stone,
but everywhere. If they were printed across the sky they couldn't be any
plainer. You know them as well as I do.” The three ladies turned serious
eyes upon me and shook their heads.
Then I shot my bolt at them:
“They are:
“1. Get busy.
“2. Keep busy.
“3. See that it pays, which means that you are to play as well as work.”
Mrs. Norris smiled and nimbly stepped out of my way and bravely
answered, like a real rococo aristocrat:
“I fear that you are prejudiced. I should be proud to have my daughter
marry into one of these old families, not hastily, of course, but after
we have found the right man. There are splendid men in some of them, and
your best Italian is a most devoted husband. He worships his wife.”
“And if you're looking for a worshiper you couldn't find a place where
the arts of worship have been so highly developed,” I answered. “But no
American girl should be looking for a worshiper unless she's under the
impression that she created the world, and even then a doctor would do
her more good. Of course Gwendolyn would prefer a man, and what's the
matter with one of your own countrymen--Forbes, for instance?”
“I couldn't pass his examination--too difficult!” said Gwendolyn, with a
laugh. “I think that he is looking for a world-beater--a girl who
could win the first prize in a golf tournament or a beauty show or a
competition in mathematics. What chance have I? He thinks that he
has got to be a rich man before he gets married. What chance has he?”
Clearly she wanted me to know that she liked him and resented his
apparent indifference. I suppose that he had not fallen down before her,
as other boys had done, and she could not quite make him out. Probably
that's why she preferred him.
“He has wonderful self-possession,” I said.
“Yes, he'll never let go of himself. All the girls say that about him.
He's a wise youngster.”
“If he were in my place I don't believe he could hold out through the
day,” I declared.
“She does look well, doesn't she?” said Mrs. Norris, as she proudly
surveyed her daughter. “Italy agrees with her, and she loves it and the
people.”
“So do I,” was my answer. “The Italian people, who are doing the work of
Italy, are admirable. Out in the vineyards you will find young men who
are even good enough for Gwendolyn. It's these idle horse-traders that
I object to--these fellows who are trying to swap a case of spavined
respectability for a fortune.”
“Oh, you're a mountain of prejudice!” Mrs. Norris exclaimed. “Now,
there's the Princess Carrero. She was an American girl, and she is the
happiest, proudest woman in Italy. Her husband is one of the finest
gentlemen I ever met.”
“He's a dear!” Gwendolyn echoed.
“For my part I think that international marriages are a fine thing,”
Mrs. Norris went on. “They are drawing the races together into one
brotherhood.”
“But such a brotherhood will be hard on our sisterhood,” I objected. “A
wife here is the chief hired girl. Often if she doesn't mind she gets
licked, and if she's an American she must always pay the bills.”
We had come to the great church of St. Paul, beyond the ancient walls of
the city. There we left our car and passed through a crowd of insistent
beggars to enter its door. We shivered in our wraps under the great,
golden ceiling high above our heads. Its towering columns and pilasters
looked like sculptured ice. It was all so cold!
“It doesn't seem right,” I said to Mrs. Norris, “that one should get a
chill in the house of God.”
“Keep cool ought to be good advice for Christians,” said Betsey.
“But coldness and hospitality are bad companions,” I insisted. “Chilling
grandeur a people might reasonably expect from their king; but is it the
thing for a prodigal returning to his father's house?”
“But isn't it beautiful?”
Mrs. Norris wished me to agree, and I shocked her by saying:
“Beautiful, but too much like kings' palaces. The Golden House of Nero
was just this kind of thing, and it's on record that Jesus Christ had no
taste for show and glitter. I believe He called it vanity.” Mrs. Norris
wore a look of surprise. The old horse called Honesty took the bit in
his teeth then and fairly ran away with me.
“The whole difference between Europe and America is in this building,” I
said. “We no longer believe in kings or kings' palaces in heaven or upon
earth. With most of us God has ceased to be an emperor rejoicing in pomp
and splendor and adulation. We find that He likes better to dwell in a
cabin and a humble heart. We do not believe that he cares for the title
of king. We do not believe that there are any titles in heaven.”
At this point I observed a look of astonishment in the face of Mrs.
Norris, so I suddenly closed the tap of my thoughts.
Was it my philosophy? No, it was Muggs who lifted his hat (or rather my
hat) as he passed us with the sentimental Mrs. Mullet clinging to his
arm.
“Don't notice him,” Mrs. Norris whispered to her daughter, as both
turned away. “It's that odious Wilton who used to come and see father.”
I wondered how it was going to be possible for me to rescue Mrs. Mullet
under the circumstances of our covenant of non-interference. We turned
and left this splendid memorial to the great apostle Paul.
Count Carola was waiting for us at the step of the car, and kissed the
hands of Mrs. Norris and Gwendolyn, and assisted them to their seats. I
was presented to him, and am forced to say that I didn't like the cut of
his jib. Still, I'm very particular about jibs, especially the jib of a
new boat.
“Poor dear boy!” Mrs. Norris exclaimed, as we drove away. “There's a
lover for you!”
“He grows handsomer every day,” said Gwendolyn, in a low, lyrical tone.
“It's his suffering,” Mrs. Norris half moaned.
“Do you really think so?” the young lady sympathized.
“Hold on, Juliet!” said I. “If I were you I'd shoo him off the balcony.
He's a perfect lily of a man, but he won't do--too generous, too
devoted! We have men like him in America. There their titles are never
mentioned in the best society, and their persons are often cruelly
injured. For a badge of rank they have adopted a kind of liver-pad which
they wear often over one eye or the other. Of course on Broadway they
haven't the romantic environment of Italy, and are subject to all kinds
of violence.”
Mrs. Norris flashed a glance of surprise at me.
“You are a cruel iconoclast,” said she. “He belongs to one of the best
families in Italy.”
“And if I were you I'd let him continue to belong to it; at least,
I wouldn't want to buy him. He acts like a book-agent or a seller of
lightning-rods, or a train-boy with his chocolates and chewing-gum. He
won't take 'No' for an answer. He keeps tossing his wares into your laps
and seems to say: 'For God's sake, think of my starving family and make
me some kind of an offer.' Do you think that compares in dignity with
the self-possession of Richard?”
The ladies exchanged glances. Gwendolyn laughed and blushed. Mrs. Norris
smiled. I went on:
“He defaces the landscape like the portraits of the late Mr. Mennen in
America. He shows up everywhere as an advertisement for his own charms.”
[Illustration: 0106]
“That's his legend.”
“It's just a little ridiculous, isn't it?” said the girl.
“Oh, the poor boy is in love!” Mrs. Norris pleaded, in a begging,
purring tone which said, plainly enough, “Of course you are right, but
every boy is a fool when he is in love, isn't he?”
“So is Richard in love,” I boldly declared for him, “but he isn't on the
bargain-counter; he isn't damaged, shop-worn, or out of date; he hasn't
been marked down.”
Two pairs of eyes stared at mine with a prying gaze.
Gwendolyn leaned forward and grasped my hand.
“Who in the world is he in love with?” she asked, eagerly. “Tell me at
once.”
“Himself!” Mrs. Norris exclaimed, before I could answer.
“No; with Gwendolyn,” I ventured.
Both seemed to relax suddenly, and their backs touched the upholstery.
“I haven't a doubt of it,” was my firm assertion.
The fair maid leaned toward me again.
“You misguided man!” she exclaimed. “Why do you think that?”
“For many reasons and--_one_,”
“What is the _one?_” Gwendolyn asked.
“That is my last shot, and I am not going to throw it away. It's worth
something, and if you get it you'll have to pay for it.”
“You cruel wretch!” she said, with a stinging slap on my hand. “What
then are your many reasons?”
“They are all in this phrase, 'sundry glances of the eye.'”
“How disappointing you are!”
“And what a spoiled child you are!” I retorted. “Ever since you began to
walk you have had about everything that you asked for. The magic lamp of
Aladdin was in your hands. You had only to wish and to have. Of course
you don't think that you can keep on doing that. You'll soon see that
the best things come hard; they have to be earned, and I guess Dick
Forbes is one of them. He doesn't seem to be looking for money; what
he wants is a real woman. He can love, and with great tenderness and
endurance. He's a long-distance lover. His love will keep right along
with you to the last. He doesn't go around singing about it with a
guitar; he doesn't burst the dam of his affection to inundate an heiress
and swear that all the contents of the infinite skies are in his little
flood. That kind of thing doesn't go down any longer; it's out of date.
With us it's gone the way of the wig and the crown and the knight and
the noisome intrigue and the tallow dip and the brush harrow. We know
it's mostly mush, twaddle, and mendacity. Here in Europe you will still
find the brush harrow, the tallow dip, and the tallow lover, but not in
our land. If you get Richard Forbes you'll have to go into training and
try to satisfy his ideals, but it will be worth while.”
The ladies changed color a little and sat with looks of thoughtful
embarrassment, as if they had on their hands a white elephant whose
playfulness had both amused and alarmed them. Twice Betsey and Gwendolyn
had broken into laughter, but Mrs. Norris only smiled and looked
surprised.
“Perhaps you could tell me what his ideals are,” said Gwendolyn.
Our arrival at the Borghese galleries saved me. We immediately entered
them and resumed the study of art. Nothing there interested me so much
as the busts of the old emperors. What a lot of human shoats they must
have been! Idleness and overeating had created the imperial type of
human architecture--eyes set in fat, massive jowls, great necks that
seemed to rise to the tops of their heads. With them the title business
began to thrive. It was nothing more or less than a license to prey on
other people. No wonder that every other man's life was in danger while
they lived.
What modesty was theirs! When a man became emperor he caused a statue
of himself to be made as father of all the gods. It was probably not
so large as he felt, but as large as the rocks would allow--only some
fifteen feet high. It was the beginning of the bust and the portrait
craze.
We passed from the hall of shoats to the picture-galleries.
I have read of what Beaudelaire calls “the beauty disease,” and there
is no place where the young may be more sure of getting it than in these
Old-World art-galleries. Gwendolyn and her mother had a mild attack of
this disease, “this lust of the art faculties which eats up the moral
like a cancer.” The monstrous excesses of the idle rich are symptoms
of its progress. In Europe the church, the aristocracy, and the art
students have caught the fever of it.
“How lovely! How tender!” said Gwendolyn, as we stood before the Danaë
of Correggio.
“How lovely! How tenderloin!” I echoed, by way of an antitoxin.
Here was a fifteenth-century ideal of female attractiveness radiating an
utterly morbid sensuality. The picture reeked and groaned with passion.
Young men and women from towns and villages in our land who sat
industriously copying the works of old masters were turning money newly
made in Zanesville, Keokuk, Cedar Rapids, and like places into weird
imitations of Correggio, Titian, and Botticelli. Well, I expect that
they were having a good time, but I would rather see them copying the
tints and forms of nature near their own doors than worshiping the kings
of art, which is another form of the title craze.
Here we met again the elderly lady with the beautiful feet who had
crossed on our steamer--Mrs. Fraley from Terre Haute. She presented
Betsey and me to Miss Muriel Fraley, her grandniece, a good-looking miss
of about twenty-three, who was copying the Danaë. Mrs. Fraley had found
new and delightful astonishments in Italy, the chief of which was this
Europeanized niece. She drew me aside and whispered:
“She is a lovely child! Just notice the aristocratic pose of her head.”
I allowed that I could see it, for I had to, and ran my mental hand into
the grab-bag for something to say and pulled out:
“I like that blond hair--of--hers.”
I observed, as the girl looked up, that her cheeks were just a bit too
red and that her eyes had been slightly emphasized. They did not need
it, either, for they were capital eyes to start with.
“And she is as good as she is beautiful,” the old lady went on, in a low
tone of strict confidence. “And, you know, since she came here a real
count has made love to her.”
“A count!” I exclaimed.
There was a touch of awe in her tone as she said, “Belongs to one of the
oldest families in Italy!”
I cleared my throat and thought of death and funerals and comic
supplements and such mournful things for safety.
“I want you to meet him at dinner,” the good soul went on. “Where are
you stopping?”
“At the Grand Hotel.”
“We are near there, at the Pension Pirroni. You and Mrs. Potter must
dine with us.”
I gradually separated myself from Mrs. Fraley and hastened to join my
friends. I found them with startled looks in a group of the ancient
marble gods and others who lived before the invention of trousers.
“If I were to assume the license of Hercules and stand up here on a
pedestal, what do you suppose they'd do to me?” I whispered to Betsey.
“You're no work of art!” said she.
“No, I'm a man, and better than any imitation of a man, for when a lady
came into the room I should jump down and hide in some sarcophagus.”
I left them with the poetic cattle of Olympus and went on and asked them
to look for me at the door. I lingered awhile with the lovely figures
of Canova and Bernini, and was glad at last to get out of the chilly
atmosphere of the gallery.
I found the count at the door. He approached me and said, in broken
English:
“The ladies, I suppose, they are yet inside now.”