"Did you meet many that you knew on your drive?"
"Yes--I went out to the Country Club--the place was crowded."
"My dear! was it wise?" exclaimed Mrs. Mourraille. "Was it wise, so
soon?"
"Judging from the general result, I should say not!" laughed Stephanie.
"But it will give them something to talk about the rest of the
afternoon, and furnish a topic for dinner. And for that they should be
grateful to me."
"My dear!" marvelled her mother.
"Oh, you should have seen the preoccupied air of every woman on
the piazza--and there were scores of them there. It was positively
chilling."
"Didn't any of them even speak to you?"
"Not one!"
"Who were there?" asked Mrs. Mourraille, her lips tightening.
"Every one in town, I think. It was the regular Saturday afternoon
crowd--and then some."
"Did you give them a chance to speak, dear--or did you go haughtily
through them, looking neither to right nor to the left?"
"Come to think of it, I went right through them--to a table in the
remote corner. However, it made no difference. I might have forced some
of them to bow but it would have been a holdup and they would have been
justified in taking it out on me afterward. This was the better way. No
one can feel hurt--and every one can choose at leisure what she will
do."
"Wouldn't it have been wiser to let them choose at leisure, in the
first place, rather than to force them to choose quickly, with the
chance that they will reverse themselves at leisure?" suggested Mrs.
Mourraille kindly.
"You mean that I shouldn't have gone to the Club?--possibly. But I
wanted to see--and, as I remarked to Montague Pendleton, _I saw_."
"Was Montague with you?" exclaimed Mrs. Mourraille.
"He didn't accompany me--he met me at the Club-house--he and Sheldon
Burgoyne." And she explained.
Mrs. Mourraille expressed her appreciation of their actions in
praiseful terms--then she asked:
"Were any of my particular friends there?"
"It doesn't matter, mother dear. I won't get you into any snarl any
further than I've already drawn you."
"Let me determine how far in I shall go," her mother answered quietly.
"I simply want the information now--I'll decide later."
Stephanie named them.
"But you must remember, dear," she appended, "that I didn't give them
much opportunity even to show a disposition to recognize me. And more
of my own friends were there than of yours--and they didn't show any
particular eagerness to speak. I can understand their feelings and
position. My advent was like a bomb hurled into the crowd. They chose
the safest course, which was to sit still and pretend not to see me.
I reckon I'd have done the same had I been one of them. They will all
come around in time. Gladys Chamberlain has already led off; the rest
will follow more or less rapidly--according to disposition or their
fear of Society's frown."
She talked rapidly, seeking, for her mother's sake, to make light of
her position.
And her mother understood, and smiled in indulgent appreciation. She
had been averse to Stephanie's going out that afternoon, even for a
drive. She never for an instant had thought of her going to the Club.
She wanted her to remain passively at home until her coming had ceased
to be the latest wonder; until the talk had died down, and people had
got used to the new situation and had decided what they would do.
It was a case for slow progress and patient waiting. But Stephanie
had ever been impulsive, and a trifle headstrong when the notion
seized her. Mrs. Mourraille knew what it meant--she herself had been
like Stephanie until she had broken her inclinations to the ways of
expediency. There was no utility in crying over what was past. No one
regretted her daughter's _faux pas_ more than she, but the business now
was to overcome its results and have her start afresh. Assuredly this
episode at the Club was not to her idea of the proper style of campaign.
"It is most unfortunate, Stephanie, most unfortunate!" she observed
thoughtfully. "Only one thing could be more unfortunate--for you to
have met Harry Lorraine there and have had him deny you before them
all."
"Then the most unfortunate has happened," Stephanie replied tranquilly.
"My husband did meet me on the front piazza--and, before them all, he
turned his back upon me and walked away."
"The brute!" cried Mrs. Mourraille.
Then her grey eyes half closed in contemplation, and for a little while
she was silent.
Stephanie leisurely brushed her hair and waited.
"Do you think he quite realized what he was doing?" Mrs. Mourraille
asked presently.
"I don't know," said Stephanie indifferently. "Moreover, it doesn't
matter. It finished me with him utterly. I wouldn't go back to him
now if he got down on his knees on the spot, and before all of them
implored it. I thought I despised him before; now I'm sure of it--and I
hate and loath him beside."
She got up, and crossing to her mother sank down on the floor beside
her and took her hands.
"Dearest," she said, "It will all come right some time. I'm glad to
be free of Harry Lorraine, though I'm sorry I did what I did with
Amherst, for your sake--and a little for my own now. But it is done
and it cannot be undone; and we're not given, either of us, to crying
over milk that's spilt. Let us be glad rather that I'm quit of Amherst
without a--drag.... It wasn't by any fault of his that I am, however.
I don't want you to be made to suffer for my folly. I know you can't
escape feeling it, but you must not make my quarrel yours. Let me fight
it out alone. I'll go away--take an apartment of my own, where I won't
weigh you down by my presence, and make your friends shy of you and
your house. I'll----"
"My dear little girl, you'll do nothing of the sort," Mrs. Mourraille
broke in, kissing the auburn head. "The milk is spilt, as you say--so
let us forget it. You don't want Lorraine, so we'll not consider him.
We'll consider you, and the future."
"And you!" whispered Stephanie.
"We won't consider me--except indirectly. Whatever is best for you,
dear, is best for me. We will fight this out together."
"You sweet mother!" said Stephanie, drawing the dark head down beside
her own. "You shall be in reserve; I'll be on the firing line--and I
won't let them get through to you."
Her mother smiled in tender clemency.
"I'll be wherever you want me and whenever," she replied.... "We might
go away for a time," she suggested.
Stephanie shook her head.
"I'll go if you want very much but it doesn't appeal to me. It will
only postpone, by the length of our absence, my restoration to--good
standing!" she smiled.
"You wish to stay here?"
"Yes--among my friends--to the end that I may learn who they are."
"You may have some bad quarters-of-an-hour, and receive some shocks
beside," her mother cautioned.
"Let them come--I've received enough shocks already to make me
_immune_. It will be amusing, diverting, serve to make the time pass
more rapidly."
"My child!" said Mrs. Mourraille kindly. "You don't appreciate just
what you are saying."
"I do, mother dear, and what it means also. I have to face it, so I
may as well get out of it what I can, and meet it with a smile. I may
be wrong, but to my mind there is nothing like indifference for such a
situation."
"That is the best way to look at it, if you can--but can you? Can you
be philosophical under the slights, and snubs, and bitter tongues?"
"I think I can--at least, I mean to try," said Stephanie quietly. "With
Gladys Chamberlain and Pendleton and Burgoyne, I'm not alone. They will
stand by me--if I don't offend again.... And you need not fear, dear,"
answering her mother's look; "I'm not going to Amherst-it again--with
any man."
"Have you seen the afternoon papers?" Mrs. Mourraille asked.
"You mean--about Amherst and Mrs. Amherst? No, but Montague told me
of it. It's better so--there is only one of us now for Society to get
accustomed to. Moreover, his peace is made, and for him the rest is
easy."
"It is always easy for the man," Mrs. Mourraille observed.
"Yes--and I can understand: his sin is not so scarlet--it's not
continuing, so to speak. Ended it is ended. We women have got used to
the social evil in the man, but we can't get used to it in the woman.
The ethics of it are a thing apart--good to theorize over, but it
is the practical view that controls and will control in my case. I
realize that I have nothing to hope for from the equitable argument.
I'm a woman--I know what to expect from the women. I'm not blaming
them. I've no one but myself to blame. Man and woman may be equal
before the law where men are the judges, but they are not equal in
Society's Court where women are the judges. I shall get small show
there, mother dear, small show there! With rare exceptions we women
are cruel and bigoted toward our sex, with all the characteristics of
cruelty and bigotry on parade." She kissed the elder very fondly. "Now
go or I shall not be dressed for dinner." ... "I suppose," she added,
"there won't be any guests."
"Not this evening," her mother answered. "Do you wish me to ask any
one--for a time?"
"I wish you to do just as you have always done, _ma mère_. I'll have my
dinner in my room whenever I'm _persona non grata_ to your guests."
Mrs. Mourraille stopped in the doorway and smiled back at Stephanie.
"My guests will meet my daughter or they won't be my guests," she said
quietly.
Stephanie, in the mirror of her dressing-table, threw her a kiss.
"No! no!" she said. "But if you don't mind, you might sometime ask
Montague Pendleton and Sheldon Burgoyne."
"Together?"
"N--o!" Stephanie hesitated. "I think I'd rather have them apart; at
least I would rather have Montague alone--Sheldon doesn't matter."
V
THE CUT OF ONE'S CLOTHES
The Emerson pick-up dinner party was a decided success.
Even Pendleton admitted it. As for Burgoyne he was quite
enthusiastic--possibly because he sat on Miss Emerson's right.
Pendleton was on her left. Lorraine had been taken by the hostess--she
was not going to let such an opportunity escape her. Old Emerson
was sandwiched between Mrs. Burleston and Mrs. Smithers, and was
talking like mad of everything but what he should. His wife could, at
intervals, catch portions of his conversation, and she made frantically
discreet efforts to flag him, but with no result--either because of the
numerous cocktails he had imbibed in the grill, or because he refused
to understand. As it was, Mrs. Burleston and Mrs. Smithers, as well as
the others near him, were convulsed with merriment as he rattled on,
serenely indifferent to his spouse's signals and attempts to distract
him.
"Now you see, my dear," he whispered confidentially, leaning over Mrs.
Burleston, "it is this way: When me and Sally--Sally was my first
wife--was married--we didn't have nary a red--nary a red. She done the
cooking and housework, including the washing, and I tended bar for
McDivit. You don't remember McDivit, I guess--course not. He was a
fine man--a fine man! He kept the old Baroque House--now the Imperial.
And I was such a good bartender and mixed 'em so well, only knocked
down ten per cent., instead of twenty-five, like the other fellows,
that one day he says to me, says he:
"'Bill, you're a good fellow--I've been a watchin' you and I think a
heap of you. I'm goin' to set you up in business. What would you rather
be?'
"'I think,' says I, 'I'd rather be a gentleman.'
"'A gentleman!' says he--and smiled sort of knowing like.
"'Yes, sir!' says I; 'a gentleman--one what makes his living skinning
another gentleman--legitimately.'
"'You mean you want to be a lawyer?' says McDivit.
"'Not I,' says I. 'They skin only the leavings. I want to skin the big
wad. I want to go into the promoting business--I want to sell something
I haven't got to somebody what doesn't want it.'
"'Good!' says McDivit with a twinkle in his eye. 'I'll go you.'
"And he set me up--and I've been going ever since--accumulating.
There's a heap of profit selling something you haven't got--though you
have to be a bit nimble to keep within the law. But I've succeeded
purty well. Later I got to buying something that some one else wanted
before he knew he wanted it--and that's profitable--especially if
he wants it bad or has to have it. Why this here Club--I worked it
beautiful. It didn't know it wanted the new fifty acres, till after I
knew it--and had bought it. That's how I came to be in the Club, you
know--part consideration for the fifty acres. Oh, it's a great game! a
great game when you know how to play it, and are lucky. I'm both. I'm
worth a million and a quarter and I started with nothing--and I'm the
same good fellow I was when I tended bar for Mr. McDivit. Success don't
spoil Bill Emerson. No siree!" He paused a moment. "Sally, my first
wife, you know, she died soon after I left McDivit, and when success
came I married Maria--the present Mrs. Emerson, that is. She made a
pretty good strike when she found yours truly, don't you think, my
dears?" he ended, grinning broadly.
"I do, indeed, Mr. Emerson!" smiled Mrs. Burleston. "You are a find for
any woman."
"So I have often told Maria--when we're exchanging compliments--like
married people do, you know. I guess Burleston and you hand each other
the same, hey? They don't mean nothin'--just hot air--that's pretty hot
however when it first blows out!" he laughed.
"Poor old dad!" said Miss Emerson to Pendleton imperturbably. "He is
telling the story of his life. Did you hear him?"
Pendleton shook his head.
"I was engaged otherwise," he replied, looking at her with a smile.
"Which is very good of you--but I'm not sensitive, I realize that
every one knows what father is and was--it is not a secret that can
be hid. He started with nothing, either socially or financially, and
he has come up to where he is--wherever that is. I'm not ashamed of
it, though I will admit I would rather have been born in, than have
climbed in. But ours was an honest climb, so to speak. Society saw
us climbing, and stood aside and permitted it. We bought our ladder,
we bought the right to use it, and we bought our way up the wall and
down again on the inside. He also bought my education and polish and
helped me to make good. That is my duty--to make good. I've been aware
of it for years--since I first began to make friends among the nice
girls, indeed. And I'm trying to make good, Mr. Pendleton--I've been
trying to make good ever since. It's the business of my life to make a
social success, and, with father's fortune as an inheritance, to marry
well.... You know it--every one knows it--so why dissemble? Moreover,
it is a legitimate business for a woman, so why be ashamed?"
She said it in the most casual tones--as though she was commenting on
the weather or the latest play. Why dissemble? Why be ashamed? Everyone
knew it! There was something refreshing in her candor, in her frank
appreciation of the situation, and in her acceptance of it as the
immediate problem for her to solve, with but the one solution possible
that would spell success. She understood that her entire education had
been directed with that end in view, and if she did not attain it she
would be a failure.
"There is nothing to be ashamed of," Pendleton assured her.
"Nevertheless you are wondering why I talk this way to you?" she went
on. "And I don't know why myself--unless it is my father in me. He
has a way, at times, of becoming intimately personal concerning his
affairs," with a bit of a smile.
"Your father is a good fellow," said Pendleton, seizing the opportunity
to shift the conversation.
"Father is _dear_!" she returned; "a dear, unselfish man--with me, at
least. He may set mother on edge by fracturing the conventions, but it
never bothers me. He has the inherent right to fracture them--and he
does it very naturally!" she laughed. "I love him, and I'm not ashamed
of him either."
"Good girl!" commented Pendleton. "You're not a snob--like the most of
the new-rich."
"I try not to be, at all events."
"What do you try not to be, Miss Emerson?" Burgoyne asked, breaking
into the talk.
"A snob!" she smiled.
Burgoyne raised his eyebrows.
"Every one is more or less a snob, Miss Emerson; don't you want to be
in the fashion?"
"I don't like the fashion," she returned.
"Consider," he said. "Is there a man in this Club-house who doesn't
think himself a little better than his fellows by reason of more money,
more social position, more popularity, more athletic ability, more
brains, more something?"
"I can't answer for the men!" she laughed; "but if you ask me as to the
women, I'm afraid I'll have to plead guilty. We are all snobs, on that
basis, Mr. Burgoyne. It's only a matter of degree."
"Everything is a matter of degree," Burgoyne answered, "from the powder
on your face to a municipal councilman's venality."
"Is there any powder on my face?" she demanded.
"Altogether impersonal," he assured her.
"But is there?--I detest powder!"
"So does every man--if the women only could be made to believe it. If
there is one thing that is disgusting, it is a white-washed face. Let
them put it on if they must, but let them rub it off--all of it. A
shiny nose isn't half as bad as a powder-smeared one."
"Mr. Burgoyne, I must know if there is any powder on my face," she
repeated tragically, facing him.
He looked long and carefully--so long and so carefully, indeed, that
she dropped her eyes, though she did not turn her head.
"No," he answered. "There isn't a single trace."
"Did it require so long to make sure?" she asked.
"I was looking----"
"Yes--I noticed you looking," she remarked.
"I was looking for--powder. If you think I might be mistaken, I will
look again."
"You couldn't be mistaken--after such a critical and
prolonged--scrutiny!" she laughed. "And it won't be necessary to look
again, sir--just at present."
"Will the 'present' be very long?" he queried, with assumed gravity.
"I cannot tell--it will depend."
"Upon what?"
"Circumstances."
"Of what nature?"
"Of different natures--yours and mine."
"More especially yours, I presume?"
"No--yours, I should say," she replied.
"Why mine?"
"To give you something to guess."
"I'm a poor guesser," he protested.
"I thought as much!" she mocked. "It's a masculine failing,
I--understand."
"Say rather it is a faculty distinctly feminine--and raised to the nth
degree."
"What are you two talking about?" demanded Pendleton.
"I haven't the slightest idea!" Miss Emerson answered. "Have you, Mr.
Burgoyne?"
"If I have, I can't find it."
"Who ever knows what they are talking about at a dinner party?" said
Pendleton. "Moreover, who cares? It's all bubbles, usually, that burst
the moment they are blown."
"Is it?" asked Miss Emerson, with a significant smile.
"Dinner talk I mean," explained Pendleton. "Occasionally we strike
deeper--then it's something else than bubbles."
"How do you distinguish?" Burgoyne asked.
"Most people don't, my friend--hence the bubbles."
"Precisely--you're one of the don'ts," said Pendleton.
"Which being the case, let us change to something more entertaining
than bubbles," Burgoyne retorted. "I'll take Miss Emerson, and you
amuse yourself for a space with your left-hand opponent."
* * * * * * * * * * *
"What do you think of Miss Emerson?" Pendleton asked when, several
hours later, he and Burgoyne sat smoking on the terrace.
"I should say she is a thoroughbred--if it were not for her parents.
She has all the characteristics of the well-born--except that she
isn't. It must be a sore trial to the girl always to have mother and
father to contend against."
"Possibly she doesn't consider it," observed Pendleton. "Possibly she
accepts the condition and makes the best of it. I've never noticed that
she seemed to feel it in the least."
"Which makes her all the more thoroughbred," Burgoyne declared.
The other nodded. "Just so--and what is more, I've yet to hear
her retail scandal or malicious gossip, criticise her friends or
acquaintances, or question their motives. Pretty remarkable in a woman,
Sheldon."
"Exceptional, indeed," Burgoyne agreed. "But it comports with her
presence. She is an exceptional looking girl. Her _tout ensemble_ is
wonderfully attractive--to me, at least."
"You're not the only one to observe it, my friend, as I think I told
you. Ask Devereux, if you doubt. He says every blithering idiot in the
Club is hot foot after her--himself included. Are you going to get in
the running also?"
"There appears to be too much competition--the pace is too fast for me.
Why haven't you been in it yourself?"
"For the same reason--and one other: I'm too old," Pendleton chuckled
amiably.
"Poor chap!" Burgoyne observed. "Who would ever have thought it to look
at you!"
"Age is as one feels," said Pendleton. "I feel sixty--therefore I'm not
chasing after the petticoats. I leave that for those younger in years
and spirit. I am content to stand back and look on--to sniff the battle
from afar, like the old war horse."
"Who always has another battle in him," rejoined Burgoyne. "However, I
would be quite satisfied to have you look on were I a contestant. The
Honorable Montague Pendleton is, I fancy, a dangerous rival for any
woman's affections."
"It would seem so!" laughed Pendleton.
"I mean, if you should care to be a rival."
"Thanks, that is better--one likes to fancy himself the very devil with
the women, even when he knows he isn't."
"What is Stephanie Lorraine going to do?" Burgoyne asked presently.
"You mean after this afternoon?" said Pendleton. "I do not know. I
fancy she doesn't know either. The meeting with Lorraine was most
unfortunate, if she sought reconciliation."
"Yes; but if she didn't, it doesn't matter in the least--aside from its
giving the mob fresh food for talk."
"I didn't hear anything said at our table!" smiled Burgoyne.
"Hardly!" said Pendleton. "Mrs. Emerson chose to have the sensational
guest in preference to the sensation. In deference to Lorraine and
ourselves everyone refrained from mentioning what was uppermost in
their minds. They have made up for it since, you may be sure."
"I think I shall go around to-morrow and call on Stephanie," Burgoyne
announced.
"Do it, Sheldon--she's going to need all the friends she has--most of
the women will side with Lorraine, you know."
"That is what makes me so strong the other way," declared Burgoyne.
"Added to the fact that you're not married. If you had a wife to
consult, the chances are you would either think differently--or not
think. The unfortunate thing is, the men will have little or nothing to
say about it. It is the women that Stephanie has to placate, and she
has anything but a rosy path cut out for her, I'm afraid. We men don't
understand woman--we never have understood her and we never shall. We
see only the surface of her nature--that is all she ever permits us to
see--and it is very pleasant to look upon. Under the surface, however,
is hidden a fund of petty meannesses, which she reserves exclusively
for her own sex. She knows better than to vent them on us--we wouldn't
tolerate it for a moment."
"Are you speaking generally or with specific reference to Stephanie
Lorraine?" queried Burgoyne.
"Both. It is a general proposition applied to a specific instance."
"Aren't you a bit hard on the women?" Burgoyne asked.
"I think not--but I don't ask you to believe me. If you're happier not
to believe, all right. Every man to his experience and what it teaches
him."
"Has your _experience_ taught you any such doctrine?"
"My experience, together with my observation, has taught me all of that
and much more. The trouble is I don't follow it. I can't withstand
the feminine fascination and charm--nor my fondness for their society
and so on. I'm a good deal like the fellow who couldn't resist the
alluringly beautiful color of the red-hot iron and grabbed it with bare
hands instead of with tongs."
"You advise me, then, to go after Miss Emerson with tongs?" laughed
Burgoyne.
"I decline to advise you--you're quite of sufficient age to advise
yourself," Pendleton responded.
"To return to Mrs. Lorraine," said Burgoyne. "The women didn't
manifest much charity this afternoon, I must admit. They were as cold
as the proverbial ice water."
"Yes--'seeing they see not'--as some one has it."
"And until they or some of them will consent to see, I fear that
Stephanie will be very lonely."