At this time, it happened that the highest democratic circles of New
York were thrown into a turmoil of intrigue and social carnage by the
visit of representatives of one of the royal houses of Europe, traveling
under the title of the Comte and Comtesse de Joncy. A banquet had been
respectfully tendered these rare manifestations of the principle of
divine right. The list of guests, directed by the autocratic hand of
Mrs. Albert Edward Sassoon, tore New York society to shreds, and
reconstituted that social map which had been so opportunely established
by the visit of the lamented Grand Duke and Royal Imperial Highness
Alexis. Twenty-five young gentlemen of irreproachable standing had flung
themselves enthusiastically at the distinguished honor of offering soup
to such exalted personages, and the press of New York scrupulously
published the list of honorary waiters high among the important details
of the probable cost per plate of this extraordinary banquet.
Now, the Comte de Joncy, being profoundly bored by such amateur
exhibitions, had remarked to Sassoon that, in his quality of traveler
and student of important social manifestations, what had impressed him
most was the superior equipment, physically and mentally, of the
American chorus girl.
It was a remark that Sassoon was eminently fitted to comprehend--having,
indeed, received the same confidential observation from the Comte de
Joncy's last royal predecessor. The present luncheon was the prompt
response, and to insure the necessary freedom from publicity, Harrigan
Blood, editor of the _New York Free Press_, was invited.
They waited in the brilliant Louis XVI salon of that private suite which
Tenafly reserved for his choicest patrons, patiently prepared for that
extra half-hour of delay which the ladies of the chorus would be sure to
take in their desire to show themselves ladies of the highest fashion.
The curtains were open on the cozy dining-room, on the spectacle of
shining linen, the spark of silver and the gay color of fragrant
bouquets. Two or three waiters were giving the last touches under the
personal supervision of Tenafly himself, who accorded this mark of
respect only to the master who had raised him from head waiter in a
popular roadside inn to the management of a restaurant capitalized in
millions.
There were six: Sassoon, slight, waxen, bored, with a wandering,
fatigued glance, oriental in the length of his head and the deep setting
of the eyes; the Comte de Joncy, short, round-bellied, hair transparent
and polished, parted from the forehead to the neck, with nothing of
dignity except in his gesture and the agreeable modulation of his voice;
Judge Massingale of the magistrates court, urbane, slightly stooped in
shoulders, high in forehead, set in glance, an onlooker keenly
observant, and observing with a relish that showed in the tolerant
humor of the thin ever-smiling lips; Tom Busby, leader of cotillions and
social prescriber to a bored and desperate world, active as a young
girl, bald at thirty, but with a radiating charm, disliking no one,
never failing in zest, animating the surface of gaiety, blind to
ugliness below, well born and indispensable; Garret Lindaberry, known
better as "Garry" Lindaberry, not yet thirty, framed like a
frontiersman, with a head molded for a statesman, endowed with every
mental energy except necessity, burning up his superb vitality in
insignificant supremacies, a magnificent man-of-war sailing without a
rudder, supremely elegant; never, in the wildest orgies, relaxing the
control of absolute courtesy; finally, Harrigan Blood, interloper, last
to arrive, abrupt and on the rush, in gray cheviot, which he had assumed
as a flaunting of his independence before those whose motive for
inviting him he perfectly understood. Neck and shoulders massive, head
capacious and already beginning to show the stealing in of the gray, jaw
strong and undershot like a bulldog's, cropped mustache, forehead seamed
with wrinkles, incapable of silence or attention except when in the
sudden contemplative pursuit of an idea, disdaining men, and women more
than men on account of the distraction they flung him into, passionately
devoted to ideas, he bided his time, knowing no morality but
achievement.
The group formed an interesting commentary on American society of the
day, which parallels that of modern France, with its Bourbon, its
Napoleonic and its Orleanist strata of nobility. Sassoon and Massingale
were of the old legitimists, offshoots of families that had never
relaxed their supremacy from colonial days; Lindaberry and Busby were
inheritors in the third generation of that first period of industrial
adventure, the period of the gold-fields of 1845, while Harrigan Blood
was of the present era of volcanic opportunity, that creates in a day
its marshals of the Grand Army of Industry, ennobles its soldiers of
yesterday, and forces the portals of established sets with the golden
knocking of new giants, who cast on the steps the soiled garments of the
factory, the mining camp and the construction gang.
Past and present have given the American two distinct types. The
characteristics of the first are aristocratic, the thinly elongated
head, the curved skull balancing on a slender neck, nose and forehead
advancing, the jaw less and less accentuated. Of the second, the type of
the roughly arriving adventurer, Harrigan Blood was the ideal. His was
the solid, crust-breaking, boulder type of head, embedded on shoulders
capable of propelling it upward through the multitude, the democrat who
places his chair roughly in the overcrowded front rank, whose wife and
daughters will crown, by way of Europe, the foundation which he flings
down.
"_Mon cher_ Sassoon," said the Comte de Joncy, studying Blood,--who, in
another group, was discussing the coming political campaign with
Massingale,--"I'll give you a bit of advice. The animal is dangerous! I
know the kind!"
"Words--words!" said Sassoon, his wandering eye flitting a moment to
the group. "We manage him very well."
"If you could dangle the prospect of a title before his eyes," said the
count, with a sardonic smile. "But you--what have you to offer him?"
"Money!" said Sassoon indifferently. "We make him a partner in our
operations. He won't attack us!"
"He will use you!" said De Joncy shrewdly. "That type doesn't love
money! When he gets as much as he wants, beware! Do you receive him?"
"Oh, we invite him to half a dozen of these affairs," said Sassoon,
without looking at his companion and speaking as if his mind were
elsewhere. "That keeps him to generalizations!"
This word, which was afterward repeated, and reaching the ears of
Harrigan Blood, made of him an overt enemy, made the Comte de Joncy
smile.
"I see you, too, have your diplomacy," he said, studying Sassoon with
more interest.
"Yes. Generalizations are blank cartridges: they can be aimed at any
one," Sassoon said, without animation. He ran a thin forefinger over the
scarce mustache that mounted in a W from the full upper lip. Then,
raising his voice a little, he called Busby:
"I say, Buzzy, hurry things up a bit!"
Busby, like Ganymede at a frown from Jove, departed lightly in the
direction of the ladies' dressing-room.
"It's Buzzy, my darlings," he said, sticking in his beaky nose and wide
grinning mouth. "You've prinked enough; I'm coming in!"
He was immediately surrounded and assailed with exclamations:
"Oh, Buzzy! why didn't you tell us!"
"A Royal Highness!"
"Mean thing!--not to warn us!"
"What d'ye call His Nibs?"
"We're tickled to death!"
"Don't suffocate me, sweethearts," said Busby, defending himself. "I
didn't tell you for a damn good reason. No press-agent stunts before or
after. Understand? Besides, the papers are bottled up--democratic
respect for His Highness."
"I've a mind to have appendicitis," said one in a whisper to a
companion. "Gee! What a chance!"
"If you do, Consuelo, dear," said Busby urbanely, "we'll ship you down
in a service elevator, and see you get the operation, too. Now, no
nonsense, girls. You know what that means."
"What we've got to keep it out of the poipers? What, no publicity? Gee!"
"None, now or after," said Busby firmly.
All at once he looked up, astonished, perceiving Dore, who floated in at
this moment like a golden bird.
"Gwendolyn had the sneezes," said Adele Vickers hastily. "This is her
sister."
"What's her name?" said Busby suspiciously, while the chorus girls, with
their mountainous hats and sweeping feathers, their overloaded bodices
and jeweled necks, studied with some concern the simple daring of this
new arrival, uncertain and apprehensive.
"Miss Baxter," said Miss Vickers in a low voice.
"She's not a reporter?" said Busby, hesitating.
"Honest to God, Buzzy," said Adele Vickers vehemently. "She's on the
stage, the legitimate--Dore Baxter, a friend of mine!"
"I know her!" said Busby, suddenly enlightened by the full name, and
going to her, he said: "Met you at a party of Bruce Gunther's, I
believe, Miss Baxter."
Dore, who thus found herself, to her vexation, sailing under her own
colors, said, with a pleading look:
"Don't give me away, will you? It's just a lark, and," she added lower,
"don't call me Miss Baxter!"
"A stage name, eh?"
"Splendid one--Trixie Tennyson. Doesn't that sound like a head-liner?"
she added confidentially, in the low tone in which the conversation had
been conducted.
Busby repeated the name, chuckling to himself, yielding to his sense of
humor. "All right! Now, girls, come on!"
"But what shall we call him?"
"Call him anything you like ... after the soup!" said Busby, laughing.
"Remember! he's here to be amused!... Have any of you girls changed your
names since I saw you last?... No?... Then I know them!..." He told them
off, counting with his fingers: "Adele Vickers, Georgie Gwynne--it used
to be Bronson last year--"
"It never was!" exclaimed a petite Irish brunette, with a saucy smile
and a roguish eye: "Baron--"
"I'll give you a better one: Georgie Washington!" continued Busby. "Why
not? Fine!... A press-agent would charge for that!... I see an inch of
nose, a gray eye and a brown cheek under an avalanche of hat--must be
Viola Pax!"
"Violetta, please!" said a southern type with soft consonants.
"To be sure!... to be sure!... Both are up-to-date, though!... Trixie
Tennyson ... ah, there's a name!... Do you know who Tennyson was, little
dears?... A great scientist who discovered the reason why brooks go on
forever!" Adele and Dore smiled, but the rest accepted the information.
"Paula Stuart and Consuelo ... dear me! I never did know your last name,
Consuelo, darling!"
"Vincent! and cut out the guying!" said a fair buxom type, child of the
Rialto. "Let's get a move on!"
"Quite right!" said Busby, offering an arm to Adele Vickers and Violetta
Pax. "Follow me ... always!"
The dressing-room emptied itself, with a last struggle for the mirror, a
few hurried applications of rouge, and a loosening of perfumes, while,
above the pleasant rustle of skirts, the voice of Georgie Gwynne was
heard in a stage whisper:
"Remember, girls! Act refined!"
Consuelo Vincent, under pretext of a cold, insisted on keeping a
magnificent sable cape, which she shifted constantly the better to
display it.
On perceiving Busby arriving with this bouquet of vermilion smiles,
polished teeth and flashing eyes, the Comte de Joncy, who had begun to
be restless under the strain of serious conversation, brightened
visibly, and holding out both hands, exclaimed with the practised
familiarity of a patron of all the arts:
"Why you make me wait so long? _Jolis petits amours!_ Ah, she is
charming, this one. What a naughty little eye! Oho! something
Spanish--do you dance the Bolero? Ah, but each is perfect--adorable! I
could eat every one of them!"
But to this royal affability the ladies of the chorus, very stiff, very
correct, lisping a little, made answer:
"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure!"
"It's quite an unexpected pleasure!"
"Indeed, most glad to meet you!"
The introductions continued, and presently the room resounded with such
phrases as these:
"I hope we're not terribly late!... New York streets are so crowded!"
"Delightful weather, don't you think?"
"What a charming view!... I dote on views, don't you?"
"Have you seen _Peleas and Melisande_?"
And Georgie Gwynne, picking her words with difficulty, was remarking to
Harrigan Blood:
"You're such a celebrity, Mr. Blood!... I'm tick ... I'm delighted to
know you!"
The Comte de Joncy, overcome by this flood of manners, said to his host:
"The devil, _mon cher_ Sassoon, they overawe me! You are sure it is no
mistake? It is not some of your dreadful wives?"
"Wait!" said Sassoon, raising a finger.
Busby, who knew their ways, arrived with a tray of cocktails, scolding
them like a stage-manager:
"Now, girls--girls! Unbend! Warm up, or His Highness will catch a cold!
Come on, Consuelo, you've aired your furs enough; send them back--you
give us a chill! This will never do! Now perk up, girls, do perk up!"
Dore took the cocktail offered, and profiting by the stir, emptied it
quickly behind her in the roots of a glowing orange tree. She raised her
eyes suddenly to Massingale's. He had detected the movement, and was
smiling. She made a quick, half-checked gesture of her arm, imploring
his confidence, as, amused, he came to her side.
"What a charming name, Miss Tennyson," he said, without reference to
what he had seen. "Are you related?"
She understood that he would not betray her.
"Alfred's a sort of distant cousin," she said with a lisp, affecting a
mannerism of the shoulders. "Of course, I haven't kept my full name--my
full name is Rowena Robsart Tennyson; but that wouldn't do for the
stage, would it? Trixie--Trixie Tennyson is chicker, don't you think?"
"Is what?"
"Chicker--French, you know!"
"Ah, more _chic_," he said, looking at her steadily with a little
lurking mockery in the corners of his eyes.
"I'm not fooling him," she said to herself, impressed by the steadiness
of his judicial look, half inquisitorial, half amused. Nevertheless, she
continued with a mincing imitation of Violetta Pax, who could be heard
discoursing on art.
"What charming weather! Do you like our show? Have you seen it?"
"Yes--have you?" he said, with malice in his eyes.
"What do you mean by that? I'm sure I don't know!"
"I understood you came in place of your sister. Did you forget?"
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, knowing the comedy
useless, but continuing it. She was easily impressed, especially at a
first meeting, and she had a feeling that to be a judge one must know
all, see through every subterfuge.
"'Course I've only been in the sextette a couple of nights."
"And what is your ambition? Tragedy?"
"Oh, no!" she said, with an important seriousness. "I don't think
tragedy's in my complexion, do you? I dote on comedy, though; I'd like
to be a Maude Adams s-some day."
"So you are serious?" he said gravely.
"Oh, much so--'course, I don't know. I haven't any prejudices against
marriage," she continued, allowing her great blue troubling eyes to
remain on his. "I sometimes think I'd like to go to London and marry
into the English aristocracy."
He bit his lips to keep from laughing.
"Society is so narrow here--there's more opportunity abroad, don't you
think?"
He did not answer, considering her fixedly, plainly intrigued.
She moved into the embrasure of a window with a defensive movement.
"The view's quite wonderful, isn't it?"
They were on the fifteenth floor, with a clear sweep of the lower city.
He moved to her side, looking out gravely, impressed as one who reads
beneath the surface of things. From the window the spectacle of the city
below them irrevocably rooted to the soil, caged in the full tide of
labor, gave an exquisite sense of luxury to this banquet among the
clouds. To the south a light bank of fog, low and spreading, was eating
up the horizon of water and distant shore, magnifying the checkered
chart of the city as it closed about it. It seemed as if the whole world
were there, the world of toil, marching endlessly, regimented into
squares, chained to the bitter gods of necessity and the commonplace.
"It gives you the true feeling of splendor," he said. "The world does
not change. We might be on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon." He
continued, his eyes lit up by a flash of imagination that revealed the
youth still in his features: "It is Babylon, Assyria, Egypt. The
Pyramids were raised thus, man in terms of a thousand, harnessed and
whipped, while a few looked down and enjoyed."
She forgot the part she had assumed, keenly responsive. Her mind, still
neglected, was not without perceptions, ready to be awakened to
imagination. She saw as he saw, feeling more deeply.
She extended her hand toward the Egyptian hordes beneath them, looking
at him curiously.
"And that interests you?"
"Both interest me. That and this. Everything is interesting," he said,
with a smile that comprehended her. "Especially you and your motive."
"You know I'm not one of--" she began abruptly.
He shrugged his shoulders good-humoredly, and in his eyes was the same
look of delighted malice that had brought him to her.
"You needn't explain. Your manner was perfect. I quite understand
you--much better than you believe."
He moved forward, joining the movement into the dining-room. She
followed, watching him covertly, enveloped still by his unusual
personality.
As the chorus girls still persisted in their display of mannered
stateliness, the men listened to Harrigan Blood, who had begun to coin
ideas.
"Count, here you have America in a thimble." He elevated his second
cocktail, speaking in the slightly raised tone of one who is accustomed
to the attention of all listeners. "Your Frenchman takes an afternoon
sipping himself into gaiety; your German begins to sing only when he
has drunk up a river of beer; but your American--he's different! What do
we do? We've won or we've lost--we've got to rejoice or forget--it's all
the same. We bolt to a bar and cry: 'Tom, throw something into me
that'll explode!' And he hands us a cocktail! Here's America: a hundred
millions in a generation, a century's progress in a decade--the future
to-morrow, and a change of mood in a second!"
He ended, swallowing his drink in a gulp. Like most mad geniuses of the
press, he drank enormously, feeding thus the brain that he punished
without mercy.
Busby, who peddled epigrams, murmured to himself with a view to future
authorship, "A cocktail is an explosion of spirits; a cocktail...."
The chorus girls, who regarded Harrigan Blood as a sort of demigod who
could make a reputation with a stroke of his pen, acclaimed this sally
with exaggerated delight. The party crowded into the dining-room,
seeking their places.