VI.

The footman was now heard, as he sprang from the box. "Good gracious!"

exclaimed Kindelon; "I haven't condemned it! It condemns itself."

Pauline gave a laugh full of accusative satire. "Oh!" she burst forth.

"I should like to hear you speak against it before Mrs. Dares--and your

friend Miss Cora, too--as you have just done before me!"

The footman had by this time opened the carriage door. He kept one

white-gloved hand on the knob, standing, with his cockaded hat and his

long-skirted coat, motionless and respectful in the outer gloom.

Kindelon threw up both hands, and waved them in a burlesque of despair.

"There is _no_ literary society in New York," he murmured, as if the

admission had been wrung from him. "Don't go inside there with any idea

of meeting it, for it is not to be found! Mrs. Dares herself will tell

you so!"

Pauline shook her head vigorously. "I'm sure you can't mean that," she

exclaimed, in grieved reproach.

Kindelon gave one of his laughs, and jumped out of the carriage. Pauline

took the hand which he offered her, while the displaced footman

decorously receded.

"I do mean it," he said, as they went up a high, narrow stoop together,

and saw two slim, lit windows loom before them.

"I hope I am not responsible for this last change of faith in you," she

answered, while Kindelon was ringing the bell.

"Well," he at once said, "I believe you are. There is no kind of real

society here except one. Mind you, I don't say this in any but the most

dispassionate and critical way. And I'm not glad to say it, either; I'm

sorry, in fact. But it is true"--And then, after a second of silence, he

repeated--"no kind of society except one."

Pauline smiled as she watched him, but there was both exasperation and

challenge in the smile.

"What kind is that?" she queried.

"Ask your aunt, Mrs. Poughkeepsie," he replied.

Pauline gave an irritated sigh. As she did so the door of Mrs. Dares's

house was opened by a spruce-looking young negress, and they both

passed into the little limited hall beyond. Tapestries of tasteful

design were looped back from the small doors which gave upon the hall.

Their blended stuffs of different colors produced a novel effect, wholly

disproportioned to the real worth of the fabrics themselves. The deft

skill of Mrs. Dares's younger daughter was responsible, not alone for

these, but for other equally happy embellishments throughout this

delightful miniature dwelling. In every chamber there was to be found

some pretty decorative stratagem whereby a maximum of graceful and even

brilliant ornamentation had been won from a minimum of pecuniary

expense. Pauline's eye had swept too many costly objects of upholstery

not to recognize that a slender purse had here gone with a keen artistic

sense. The true instinct of beauty seemed never to err, and its constant

accompaniment of simplicity in the way of actual material lent it a new

charm. Screen, rug, panelling, mantel-cover, tidy, and chair-cushion

took for her a quick value because of their being wrought through no

luxurious means. It was so easy to buy all these things in velvet, in

silk, in choice woods; it was so hard, so rare, to be able to plan them

all from less pretentious resources. Before she had been five minutes

in Mrs. Dares's abode, Pauline found herself affected by the mingled

attractiveness and modesty of its details, as we are allured by the

tints, contours, and even perfumes of certain wildflowers which glow

only the more sweetly because of their contrast with cultured blooms.

Mrs. Dares herself had a look not unlike that of some timid little

wildflower. She was short of stature and very fragile; Kindelon's past

accounts of her incessant accomplishments took the hue of fable as

Pauline gazed upon her. She was extremely pale, with large, warm, dark

eyes set in a face of cameo-like delicacy. Her dress hung in folds about

her slight person, as if there had been some pitying motive in the

looseness of its fit. But she wore it with an air of her own. It was a

timid air, and yet it was one of ease and repose. The intelligence and

earnestness of her clear-cut face gave her an undeniable dignity; you

soon became sure that she was wholly unassuming, but you as soon

realized that this trait of diffidence had no weakness in mind or

character for its cause. It seemed, in truth, to correspond with her

bodily frailty, and to make her individualism more complete while none

the less emphatic. The personality that pushes itself upon our heed

does not always make us notice it the quickest. Mrs. Dares never pushed

herself upon anybody's heed, yet she was seldom unnoticed. Her voice

rarely passed beyond a musical semitone, and yet you rarely failed to

catch each word it uttered. Pauline not only caught each word, as her

new hostess now stood and addressed her, leaving for the time all other

guests who were crowding the rather meagre apartments, but she tacitly

decided, as well, that there was an elegance and purity in the

expressions used by this notable little lady which some of the

grander-mannered dames whom she had intimately known might have copied

with profit. One peculiarity about Mrs. Dares, however, was not slow to

strike her: the pale, delicate face never smiled. Not that it was

melancholy or even uncheerful, but simply serious. Mrs. Dares had no

sense of humor. She could sometimes say a witty thing that bit hard and

sharp, but she was without any power to wear that lazier mental

fatigue-dress from which some of the most vigorous minds have been

unable, before hers, to win the least relaxation. This was probably the

true reason why her small drawing-room often contained guests whose

eccentricity of garb or deportment would otherwise have excluded them

from her civilities. She could not enjoy the foibles of her

fellow-creatures; she was too perpetually busy in taking a grave view of

their sterner and more rational traits. She found something in nearly

everybody that interested her, and it always interested her because it

was human, solemn, important--a part, so to speak, of the great

struggle, the great development, the great problem. This may, after all,

be no real explanation of why she never smiled; for a smile, as we know,

can hold the sadness of tears in its gleam, just as a drop of morning

dew will hold the moisture of the autumn rainfall. But the absence of

all mirthful trace on her gentle lips accorded, nevertheless, with the

inherent sobriety of her nature, and they who got to know her well would

unconsciously assign for both a common origin.

"My dear Mrs. Varick," she said to Pauline, "I am very glad that you

chose to seek my poor hospitality this evening. Mr. Kindelon has already

prophesied that we shall be good friends, and as I look at you I find

myself beginning to form a most presumptuous certainty that he will not

prove a false prophet. He tells me that you are weary of the fashionable

world; I have seen nothing of that, myself, though I fancy I know what

it is like.--A great Castle of Indolence, I mean, where there are many

beautiful chambers, but where the carpets yield too luxuriously under

foot, and the couches have too inviting a breadth. Now, in this little

drawing-room of mine you will meet few people who have not some daily

task to perform--however ill many of us may accomplish it. In that way

the change will have an accent for you--the air will be fresher and more

tonic, though shifting from warm to chilly in the most irregular manner.

I want to warn you, my dear lady, that you will miss that evenness of

temperature which makes such easy breathing elsewhere. Be prepared for a

decided atmospheric shock, now and then: but you will find it rather

stimulating when it arrives, and by no means unwholesome."

Pauline could scarcely repress her astonishment at this very original

speech of welcome. She and Mrs. Dares were separated from all other

occupants of the room while it was being delivered; Kindelon had moved

away after making his two friends known to each other, and doubtless

with the intention of letting his hostess stand or fall on her own

conversational merits, as far as concerned the first impression which

Pauline should receive from her. But this impression was one in which

admiration and approval played quite as strong a part as surprise.

Pauline had wanted just such a spur and impetus as her faculties were

now receiving; she kept silent for a few brief seconds, in silent

enjoyment of the complex emotions which Mrs. Dares had wakened. Then she

said, with a low laugh that had not the least suspicion of frivolity,--

"If it is a social temperature with those barometric tricks and freaks,

Mrs. Dares, I promise you that I shan't catch cold in it. But I fear Mr.

Kindelon has wasted too many premonitory words upon me. He should have

politely allowed me to betray myself, as a specimen of harmless and

humble commonplace. I am sure to do it sooner or later."

"Oh, he has told me of your aim, your purpose," said Mrs. Dares.

Pauline colored, and laid one hand on the lady's slender arm. "Then we

are rivals, I suppose?" she murmured, with an arch smile.

Mrs. Dares turned and looked at her guest before answering; there was a

mild, dreamy comprehensiveness in the way she seemed to survey their

many shapes, letting her large, soft, dusky eyes dwell upon no special

one of them. A little later she regarded Pauline again. She now shook

her head negatively before replying.

"Oh, no, no," she said. "What you see here is not in any sense a

representative assemblage. I have often wished that some one would

establish a stricter and more definite standard than mine. We need it

sadly. There are no entertainments given in New York where the mentally

alert people--those who read, and think, and write--can meet with an

assurance that their company has been desired for reasons of an

exceptional personal valuation. The guest without the wedding-garment is

always certain to be there. I fear that I have paid too little heed to

the wedding-garment; my daughters--and especially my eldest daughter,

Martha--are always telling me that, in various ways.--Oh, no, Mrs.

Varick, we shall not be rivals. You will have the leisure to sift, to

weigh, to admit or exclude, to label, to indorse, to classify--to make

order, in short, out of chaos. This _I_ have never had the leisure to

do." She looked at Pauline with an almost pensive gravity. Then she

slowly repeated the word, "Never."

"I fancy you have never had the cruelty," said Pauline.

"There would be considerable solid mercy in it," was the firm answer.

"Yes. To those who were both called and chosen. But how about the

repulsed candidates for admission?"

"They would deserve their defeat," said Mrs. Dares, with thoughtful

deliberation. "Morals and manners properly combined would be their sole

passport."

"And ability," amended Pauline.

"Ability? Oh, they all have ability who care to mingle night after night

where that qualification is the dominating necessity for mutual

enjoyment. Remember, an organized literary and intellectual society

would not demand what that other society, of which you have seen so

much, imperatively demands. I mean wealth, position, modishness, _ton_.

All these would go for nothing with an aristocracy of talent, of high

and true culture, of progress, of fine and wise achievement in all

domains where human thought held rule. There, gross egotism,

priggishness, raw eccentricity, false assumption of leadership, facile

jealousy, dogmatic intolerance--these, and a hundred other faults, would

justly exert a debarring influence."

Pauline did not know how her cheeks were glowing and her eyes were

sparkling as she now quickly said, after having swept her gaze along the

groups of guests not far away.

"And this is what you call making order out of chaos? Ah, yes, I

understand. It is very delightful to contemplate. It quite stirs one

with ambition. It is like having the merciless and senseless snobbery of

mere fashionable life given a reasonable, animating motive. I should

like to take upon myself such a task." Here she suddenly frowned in a

moderate but rather distressed way. "Not long ago," she went on, "Mr.

Kindelon told me that I would find no literary society in New York. But

I contested this point. I'm inclined to contest it still, though you

have shaken my faith, I admit."

"The word 'literary' is very specializing," said Mrs. Dares. She had

drooped her large, musing eyes.

"Do you mean that for an evasion?" asked Pauline with a tart pungency

that she at once regretted as almost discourteous. "Allow," she went on,

promptly softening her tone, "that the word does cover a multitude of

definitions as I use it--that it is used _faute de mieux_, and that no

society has ever existed anywhere which one could call strictly

literary. Come, then, my dear Mrs. Dares, allowing all this, do you

consider that Mr. Kindelon was right? Is it all chaos to-day in New

York? Is there no gleam of order?" And here Pauline broke into a furtive

tremor of laughter. "Must I begin my good work at the very earliest

possible beginning if I am to commence at all?"

Mrs. Dares's dark eyes seemed to smile now, if her lips did not. "Yes,"

she said. "Mr. Kindelon was right. You are to begin at the very

beginning.--In London it is so different," she went on, lapsing into the

meditative seriousness from which nothing could permanently distract

her. "I spent a happy and memorable month there not many years ago. It

was a delicious holiday, taken because of overwork here at home, and a

blessed medicine I found it. I had brought with me a few lucky letters.

They opened doors to me, and beyond those doors I met faces and voices

full of a precious welcome. You would know the names of not a few of

those who were gracious to me; they are names that are household words.

And there, in London, I saw, strongly established, a dignified,

important and influential society. Rarely, once in a while, I met some

man or woman with a title, but he or she had always either done

something to win the title, or something--if it was inherited--to

outshine it. I did not stay long enough to pick flaws, to cavil; I

enjoyed and appreciated--and I have never forgotten!"

Just at this point, and somewhat to Pauline's secret annoyance, Kindelon

returned with a lady at his side. Pauline was soon told the lady's

name, and as she heard it her annoyance was swiftly dissipated by a new

curiosity. She at once concluded that Miss Cora Dares bore very slight

resemblance to her mother. She was taller, and her figure was of a full

if not generous moulding. Her rippled chestnut hair grew low over the

forehead; almost too low for beauty, though her calm, straight-featured

face, lit by a pair of singularly luminous blue eyes, and ending in a

deep-dimpled chin of exquisite symmetry, needed but a glance to make

good its attractive claim. Miss Cora Dares was quite profuse in her

smiles; she gave Pauline, while taking the latter's hand, a very bright

and charming one, which made her look still less like her mother.

"We saw you and mamma talking very earnestly together, Mrs. Varick," she

said, with a brief side-glance toward Kindelon, "and so we concluded

that it would be safe to leave you undisturbed for at least a little

while. But mamma is curiously unsafe as an entertainer." This was said

with an extremely sweet and amiable look in Mrs. Dares's direction. "She

sometimes loses herself in gentle rhapsodies. My sister Martha and I

have to keep watch upon her by turns, out of pity for the unliberated

victims."

"I need not tell you how I scorn the injustice of that charge, my dear

Mrs. Dares!" here cried Kindelon. "It would be late in the day to inform

you of my devoted admiration!"

"I fear it is early in the day for me to speak of mine," said Pauline;

but the laugh that went with her words (or was it the words themselves?)

rang sincerely, and took from what she said the levity of mere idle

compliment.

"But you will surely care to meet some of our friends, Mrs. Varick," now

said Cora Dares.

"Oh, by all means, yes!" exclaimed Pauline. The girl's limpid, steadfast

eyes fascinated her, and she gazed into their lucent depths longer than

she was perhaps aware. It was almost like an abrupt awakening to find

that she and Mrs. Dares's youngest daughter were standing alone

together, Kindelon and the elder lady having gone. "I want very much to

meet many of your friends," Pauline proceeded. She put her head a little

on one side, while her lips broke into a smile that her companion

appeared to understand perfectly and to answer with mute, gay

intelligence. "I suppose you have heard all about me and my grand

project, just as your charming mother has heard, Miss Dares?"

"Oh, yes," returned Cora.

"And you think it practicable?"

"I think it praiseworthy."

"Which means that I shall fail."

Cora looked humorously troubled. "If you do, it will not be your fault.

I am not doubtful on that point."

"Your mother has by no means encouraged me. She says that I must be

careful in my selections, but she gives me very little hope of finding

many worthy subjects to select. She seems to think that when the wheat

has been taken from the tares, as it were, there will be very little

wheat left."

"Yes, I know mamma's opinions. I don't quite share them. My sister

Martha does, however, thoroughly.--Ah, here is Martha now. Let me make

you acquainted."

Martha Dares proved to be still more unlike her mother than Cora, save

as regarded her stature, which was very short. She had a plump person,

and a face which was prepossessing solely from its expression of honest

good-nature. It was a face whose fat cheeks, merry little black eyes and

shapeless nose were all a stout defiance of the classic type. Pauline at

once decided that Martha was shrewd, energetic and cheerful, and that

she might reveal, under due provocation, a temper of hot flash and acute

sting.

"And now you know the whole family, Mrs. Varick," said Cora, when her

sister had been presented.

"Yes, I complete the group," said Miss Dares, with a jocund trip of the

tongue about her speech, that suggested a person who did all her

thinking in the same fleet and impetuous way. "I hope you find it an

interesting group, Mrs. Varick?"

"Very," said Pauline. "Its members have so much individuality. They are

all three so different."

"True enough," hurried Martha. "We react upon each other, for this

reason, in a very salutary way. You've no idea what a corrective agent

my practical turn is for this poetic sister of mine, who would be up in

the clouds nearly all the time, trying to paint the unpaintable, but for

an occasional downward jerk from me, you know, such as a boy will give

to a refractory kite. But I'll grant you that Cora has more than

partially convinced me that life isn't entirely made up of spelling,

arithmetic, geography and the use of the globes--for I'm a

school-teacher, please understand, though in a rather humble way. And

there's poor dear mamma. Goodness knows what would become of _her_ if it

were not for both of us. She hasn't an idea how to economize her

wonderful powers of work. Cora and I have established a kind of military

despotism; we have to say 'halt' and 'shoulder your pen,' just as if she

were a sort of soldier. But it will never do for me to rattle on like

this. I'm as bad, after my own fashion, as our mutual friend, Mr.

Kindelon, when I once really get started. By the way, you know Mr.

Kindelon very well indeed, don't you?"

"Very well, though I have not known him very long," answered Pauline.

She somehow felt that Martha's question concealed more interest than its

framer wished to betray. The little black eyes had taken a new keenness,

but the genial face had sobered as well. And for some reason just at

this point both Martha and Pauline turned their looks upon Cora.

She had slightly flushed; the change, however, was scarcely noticeable.

She at once spoke, as though being thus observed had made her speak.

"He always has something pleasant to say of you," softly declared Cora.

Here she turned to her sister. "Will you bring up some people to Mrs.

Varick," she asked, "or shall I?"

"Oh, just as you choose," answered Martha. She had fixed her eyes on

Pauline again. The next moment Cora had glided off.

"What my sister says is quite true," affirmed Martha.

"You mean--?" Pauline questioned, with a faint start which she could

scarcely have explained.

"That Mr. Kindelon admires you very much."

"I am glad to hear it," returned Pauline, thinking how commonplace the

sentence sounded, and at the same time feeling her color rise and deepen

under the persistent scrutiny of those sharp dark eyes.

"Don't you think him intensely able?" said Martha, much more slowly than

usual. "We do."

Pauline bowed assent. "Brilliantly able," she answered. "Tell me, Miss

Dares, with which of you is he the more intimate, your sister or

yourself?"

Martha gave a laugh that was crisp and curt. She looked away from

Pauline as she answered. "Oh, he's more intimate with me than with

Cora," she said. "We are stanch friends. He tells me nearly everything.

I think he would tell me if he were to fall in love."

"Really?" laughed Pauline. Her face was wreathed in smiles of apparent

amusement. She looked, just then, as she had often looked in the

fashionable world, when everything around her seemed so artificial that

she took the tints of her environment and became as artificial herself.

But it pleased her swiftly to change the subject. "I am quite excited

this evening," she went on. "I am beginning a new career; you

understand, of course. Tell me, Miss Dares, how do _you_ think I shall

succeed in it?"

Martha was watching her fixedly. And Martha's reply had a short, odd

sound. "I think you are almost clever enough not to fail," she said.