them--and succeeded in making him feel reasonably easy. They could not
quite make him forget the fact that he was _not_ one of them, but that
was something beyond their power. Politeness can do much, but it cannot
reach far enough to make one feel an insider, who knows that he is an
outsider. However, they did their best, which was very considerable;
and Porshinger realized it--which was to his credit.
After a while the women went off to dress, and presently the men threw
away their cigars and betook themselves to their rooms.
Porshinger having bathed and shaved, got leisurely into his evening
clothes, and then drew a chair close beside the window.
Woodside's place was visible a mile away--perched on the side of a hill
among the huge forest trees. It looked calm and quiet and peaceful, and
he wondered if he would not be better there than where he was: among
strangers--an uncongenial interloper to them, a conscious intruder to
himself. They had been very courteous, very kind, very considerate.
Miss Chamberlain had been particularly hospitable. Mrs. Lorraine--he
smiled in contemplation--Mrs. Lorraine was entrancing--Mrs. Lorraine
would bear cultivating--Mrs. Lorraine would--he shook himself and sat
up. Mrs. Lorraine was occupying too much of his thoughts. His was a
campaign for social recognition first--and if Pendleton and Burgoyne
were well disposed and inclined to forget the past, he might be
willing also to forget.... Mrs. Lorraine looked particularly well this
afternoon!--never had he realized what a superb figure was hers!--how
exquisitely proportioned!--how winning her face behind its cold
loveliness!--what a charming foot and ankle! She--he got up sharply.
What was the matter with him? Was he actually getting interested in
this coming divorcée--did she appeal only to his senses? Then, like
a flash, came the recollection of the scene on the piazza the night
before--and he laughed a little mockingly. _He_ would be but one of
them. The fruit had been already tasted by Amherst and Pendleton--and
the Lord knows how many others. At present it was Pendleton--next month
it might be he--or another!... She _was_ marvellously good to look at.
Never had he seen one who was her equal, who even approached her....
Well, he would try his hand--try to be one of them--and then to be the
only one, if she still held his fancy. Of course it would have to be
done discreetly--so that none would know but those he had displaced.
He smiled! It might be that she was honest now--since the Amherst
affair--but it was most unlikely, most unlikely. His own eyes had seen
what would convict her of being dishonest. Mrs. Lorraine still--her
husband helpless in a hospital--and her lover with her _here_!--No, it
was not in the range of the possible. She was bad all through--with the
badness that allures men because it is garbed in the robe of inherent
respectability and high social position.... He lit a cigar, and as
he smoked he considered the question--its bearing on himself socially
and his prospects. He saw that it meant he must overlook the fracas
with Pendleton--must lay aside his resentment and turn the other cheek
toward Mrs. Lorraine if he were to have any hope of success. Then he
smiled again. It would be but another sort of revenge on Pendleton; to
take her from him--a more refined revenge than to injure Pendleton in
his bank account or to have some thug beat him up. Here was a new view
of the matter; made so by the incident he had overseen the previous
evening.... Yes, on the whole it was the best way--decidedly the best
way. He would get Mrs. Lorraine, and his revenge on Pendleton at the
same time.... Of course she _might_ not be obtainable. She might hold
to Pendleton--it was an old attachment, he had heard, and she might be
faithful to him. But he could offer inducements that were likely to be
particularly appealing, and of the sort that usually won. If she were
not to be lured from Pendleton, then he could take up the other matter.
There was no haste; he was a good waiter as well as a good hater--and
a generous lover. With Mrs. Lorraine he would be more, much more than
generous.... Well, he would see how the adventure promised....
In the gathering shadows of the evening, he saw Mrs. Lorraine and
Pendleton come out on the open piazza below him. They stood leaning on
the stone balustrade, and though he could hear the murmur of their
voices the words were not distinguishable.
[Illustration: THEY STOOD LEANING ON THE STONE BALUSTRADE]
She laughed softly, infectiously, intimately; and Pendleton's mellow
tones joined in....
Porshinger's eyes glowed.... Yes, she was good indeed to look at. Good
indeed! The call of the woman came up to him--and he yielded. So far
as he was concerned, the game was on. Pendleton was an obstacle, of
course--but it would be a positive pleasure to overcome him. He was
rather accustomed to obstacles, indeed they were just enough of a
deterrent to add zest to the conquest.
He came down-stairs a moment before dinner was announced, to find that
he was to take his hostess in.
"I am greatly honored," he said, as he gave her his arm.
"Not at all, Mr. Porshinger; you quite deserve it," she replied.
"Why should I deserve it?" he asked.
"Didn't you save my guest from the Overton bull?"
"I most assuredly did _not_. She saved herself by beating him to the
fence and over it."
"You helped. You delayed the animal long enough for her to get a
start--and moreover you tried to attract him to yourself, you know, so
the end justifies the reward, I think."
"A large reward for a trifling service," he remarked.
"The trifling and the large--depend on the respective points of view!"
she smiled as he placed her chair.
When he turned to take his own, he saw that Mrs. Lorraine was upon his
right.
"Your reward is out of all proportion even from your point of view," he
said, with a significant glance at Stephanie.
"Do you object?" Gladys asked.
"Does a thirsty man refuse drink?"
"Not if he is thirsty--and not always if he _isn't_."
"I trust I shall always be thirsty--and deserving."
"It is up to yourself, Mr. Porshinger," she said.
And he understood. He was being given his chance to make good--to make
friends--to make himself popular. If he failed, he would have only
himself to blame. His look wandered around the table. Pendleton was
just across between Mrs. Burleston and Miss Tazewell. Cameron was Mrs.
Lorraine's partner.
Presently she turned and greeted him with a smile.
"I hope you suffered no ill effects from the unfortunate experience of
yesterday," he said.
"None whatever!" she laughed. "Not even a bruise. I might fancy I flew
over the fence, if I didn't know otherwise. However, I avoided the
Overton path this morning."
"You walked this morning?" he asked.
"I walk every morning, when I'm in the country."
"I wish I had known--though doubtless you had company."
"The more the merrier," she returned, with her spoon poised critically
over the grape fruit.
"I shouldn't take the rest to be early risers," he reflected, running
his eyes around the table. "Come, tell me--didn't you go alone?"
"Which would be tantamount to saying that the others are not early
risers."
"Would they object?"
"No--I don't imagine they would--Did you walk this morning?"
"I wasn't an early riser, either!" he smiled. "You see, I didn't know
you had the habit."
He saw that she had avoided his question--doubtless Pendleton had been
with her.
As a matter of fact, she had walked alone.
"We shall have to try it some other Sunday morning," he suggested.
"Is your walking confined to Sunday mornings?" she asked.
"My visiting at country houses is confined to week-ends--more's the
pity."
"Don't you ever take a vacation--a long vacation, that is?"
"I've never found time."
"You've been abroad?" she asked.
"On business--never for pleasure--and I come home the minute the
business is finished, sometimes before."
"Don't you expect ever to take a vacation?" she inquired.
"Certainly--when I get the opportunity."
"You mean when you're dead."
"Possibly!" he laughed.
"You ought to have enough. You could stop this instant and be the
wealthiest in the State--one of the very wealthiest in the Nation."
"What are a few millions!" he minimized.
"A few! Do you call thirty _few_?"
"Who said I am worth thirty millions?" he asked.
There was just a trace of pride in his voice--and she detected it.
"Aren't you?" she smiled.
"To be candid, I don't know. I can't tell from day to day--values
fluctuate, you know. I may be a million poorer one day and a million
richer the next--and not have changed a single investment."
"The bounder!" she thought. "Though it is really my fault--I led him
on."
For an instant Pendleton caught her eye; and she knew that he had
heard, though he was seemingly occupied with Mrs. Burleston's chatter.
As for Porshinger, having found that Mrs. Lorraine was interested in
his money, he thought to appeal to her by an intimate little talk; he
was doing this and that and the other, he was considering thus and so;
he had done mighty things (which was true enough), and he promised
to do more. He confided it all to her in an indefinite, impersonal
way--and flattered himself that he was making a deep impression.
And he was--though not in quite the way he assumed.
Presently he turned back to Miss Chamberlain, and Stephanie looked at
Cameron and smiled.
"Did you enjoy it?" he asked, amused.
"Some of it," she answered.
"You see now what Gladys has done?"
"She has but anticipated the inevitable."
"And made _us_ in a way responsible."
"No one is responsible for the inevitable, Steuart--except the man
himself and the power of his money. The combination is irresistible."
"In these days, yes," he replied. "As a people, we have become utterly
commercialized--we have put everything on the basis of dollars, our
social life along with the rest. It is pitiable but it is true. We have
no traditions left--or rather we have _only_ traditions left. In some
of the towns in the South, they still honor their traditions by living
up to them--dollars won't buy a way in, you have to _belong_. But with
us--" he ended with a shrug. "Look on your other hand, if you doubt it."
"What are we going to do about it?" she asked smilingly--"accept the
inevitable, or be exclusive all by our lonesome?"
"We wouldn't be alone if we would pull together," he commented.
"United we stand, divided we fall. It's the same everywhere," she
replied. "We're not united because the old spirit of class has
departed. It's every one for himself now--and no quarter given nor
expected."
"Well, I can stand it if you women can," he remarked.
"Don't you think that it is woman who is commercializing society, so to
speak--who is accepting money, if you please, to let the outsiders in.
She wants a rich husband--if he happens to be her social equal, well
and good, but it's the money that moves her."
"That may be true so far as it goes--but it doesn't go far enough,"
he replied. "We men also are to blame. Daughters marry where their
parents let them. It may be indifference in our sex and premeditation
in the women, but both are about equally culpable. There is small
choice between us. We have got far away from our old moorings of
respectability and conservatism."
"And we're drifting toward liberality and opportunity for
everyone--which is the better, think you?"
"_Yonder_ is an instance of it," he said, meaning Porshinger.
"Why is it you men are so hostile?" she asked.
"Because he doesn't _belong_--as you know quite well. You can't make me
believe for an instant that _you_ want him in--or Gladys either. There
is something behind this prank of our hostess. She is using Porshinger
to subserve some purpose. What is it?"
"You must ask Gladys--I'm not a mind reader!" Stephanie laughed.
"Possibly I should make more progress if I asked Porshinger," he
retorted.
"You doubtless would make more of a sensation," she returned.
"Who would make more of a sensation, Mrs. Lorraine?" Devereux asked
across the table.
"You!" said Stephanie.
"A perfectly self-evident fact," agreed Devereux. "I can always be
relied upon to do the unexpected--it's the way of all original men."
"And idiots!" Cameron added, in a perfectly audible aside.
"What kind and courteous things my friends _think_ of me!" Devereux
remarked.
"You should be very grateful!" observed Gladys.
"Grateful? I'm positively prostrated with gratitude, my dear girl. So
much so that I'm afraid I have not strength to play Auction later.
Moreover, Mr. Porshinger may not play on Sundays."
"Don't worry about me!" Porshinger laughed.
"I'm not worrying about you a bit--I'm worrying about our hostess. She
is _so_ thoughtless at times. An awful failing, Mr. Porshinger, an
awful failing, particularly in one's hostess.--Yes--I knew you would
agree with me."
"My dear man," Porshinger began, "I----"
"Don't mind him, Mr. Porshinger," Gladys interrupted. "He is a bit wild
in his talk, at times--nothing dangerous, however. He just can't help
it."
They all left the table together and went outside--where the coffee was
served. Porshinger found himself, by intention, beside Mrs. Lorraine.
"I think I owe the pleasure of dining at Criss-Cross to you," he
remarked presently.
"Did Miss Chamberlain tell you so?" she inquired.
"Not expressly--but by inference."
"Which is not at all," she smiled. "The hostess is always responsible
for what guests she asks. You were convenient, we needed another man,
and you consented to come, which was exceedingly kind of you. If I am
at variance with what you have been told, you can take your choice."
"I was rather glad to be obligated to you--along with Miss
Chamberlain," he replied. "It's a new sensation in me to be obligated
to anyone--it is always the other way."
"You have many men coming to seek favors?" she said, turning the
conversation to him and away from herself.
"Many men!" he laughed--"hundreds of them indeed. It's one of the
penalties of wealth, I suppose."
"And one of the privileges also, it seems to me," she replied.
"That depends on the applicants--the larger number are without the
least claim of merit; simply barnacles that one has to hew away. I
leave it to my secretary--he does it for me and gets quit of them."
"It must be a very pleasant feeling to help the deserving and needy,"
she reflected.
"The modern business man hasn't much time either for the deserving
or the needy, Mrs. Lorraine," he answered. "He's not an eleemosynary
institution--he's a hustler. If he isn't a hustler, he's not for
long--in the way the game is played now-a-days."
"I suppose not," she said slowly--"and it seems a pity."
"Why?" he asked. "Why does it seem a pity? It's the natural way--to
kill off the drones and incompetents."
"That doesn't make it any the less cruel--and not every one who is
killed off is a drone or an incompetent."
"Then he is not fitted--which is the same thing in the end."
"No, it is not the same thing--there is a wide difference. A man may be
a poor financier but an admirable musician--or a poor musician and an
adroit financier--and all that ails him is that he was started wrong."
They were passing the angle where she and Pendleton had sat the prior
evening, and he looked at her thoughtfully. He could see it all
again, as clearly as if it were occurring now:--her upturned face and
enchanting smile, Pendleton bending over her with the air of entire
possession. Surely this could not be the same woman who walked beside
him--so calm, so dignified, so thoroughly sure of herself. It was
incredible! And yet his eyes had seen.... And was Pendleton the only
one?--were there others also?--might he be one, too?... He did not
quite feel so sure of himself, nor of her, as he did before dinner,
up in his room alone with his intentions. With some women, the sort
whom he knew by experience, his question would have been sharp and to
the point. But Stephanie Lorraine was--different. He could not bring
himself to it--his courage was weak----
Suddenly he realized he was staring at her--and that she was looking at
him questioningly.
"I--beg your pardon," he stammered.
"For what?"
"For my bad manners--I forgot myself."
"You mean that you were staring at me?"
"Yes--too long--at one time, I fear."
"I don't feel any ill effects!" she smiled. "A woman gets used to being
stared at, especially in these days of tight skirts--and scanty other
things."
"_You_ would be stared at if you wore crinoline and hoops," he
answered, with an attempt to be gallant.
"I undoubtedly should--as a perfect sight!" she laughed.
"And a mask also," he added.
"I should then be mysterious:--'Who is it?' they would ask."
"You would have individuality and beauty, whatever you wore," he
averred.
"You did better that time," she remarked.
"I am exceedingly glad. It encourages me to hope that in the end I may
not be such a--duffer."
She raised her eyebrows and gave just the slightest shrug of her bare
shoulders.
"Whatever I should call you, Mr. Porshinger, I shouldn't call you a
duffer."
"I scarcely know whether that is complimentary or not," he said.
"What do you think it is?"
"I don't think--I don't know what to think. At the best, I take it to
be--negative."
"Which is safe--and exceedingly sane. You will never err by being too
optimistic, Mr. Porshinger."
"So one learns in business!" he laughed.
She suppressed a smile. It was always business with him. Apparently he
could not get away from it even at a dinner party or for an evening.
The men called him a bounder--and not without reason. But she was
going to be nice to him, if he would let her, and see what would come
of it, whether she could manage him without his being the wiser. She
had learned a lot about him from himself, yesterday morning and again
this evening; and while it was not of the pleasantest, yet she would
play her part without any excessive repugnance. Some women could have
liked him for his money--a great many women, indeed--and tried to get
him into the family either directly or indirectly, but none of it for
hers.... Of course, there was the chance that she was playing with
fire, that Porshinger, being familiar with the past, would try to
presume on it, and--she must be prepared for that contingency, if she
were unable to control the situation. He was a masterful sort of man,
but masterful men are easy to manage if taken the right way and handled
with tact and finesse.
Which is true enough with the men of Mrs. Lorraine's own class--but she
did not know the Porshinger kind.
She lost his words for a moment. When she caught them again he was
ending:
"So you see, as I said, it is the way of the business man."
"Yes--of course," she answered vaguely--"it's a good way, as the world
goes I dare say."
"None better--none so good!" he declared. "That is why we are at the
top of the heap to-day. We are a hundred years ahead of our fathers, so
to speak."
"And our sons will be a hundred years ahead of us?" she asked.
"Likely enough, if they don't go asleep on our achievements."
They were passing again the angle of the piazza.
"Didn't I see you here last night with Pendleton?" he asked abruptly.
"I really don't know," she replied. "Perhaps, I was--I don't remember."
"I'm sure of it," said he--"the light flared out suddenly from this
window and showered you with its brightness."
He looked at her with a reminiscent smile--and she understood. He had
seen Pendleton kiss her--and he meant to kiss her himself. Well, at
least, she knew now how to handle him.
"It was not I," she replied carelessly, as she turned into the house,
"I was not on this end of the piazza last evening."
He smiled again, tolerantly.
"Perhaps I _was_ mistaken," he answered.
XIV
NOBLESSE OBLIGE
Porshinger played Auction until he had just time to change his clothes
and catch the train back to town. The game at his table had been rather
stupid--a very colorless lot of hands, no large penalties--and had
ended with the score about even.
Pendleton had no opportunity for a quiet word with Stephanie--possibly
by her intention--and she went off upstairs with a nod and a backward
glance from the landing. Her glance, however, could say much when she
was so minded.
"Come in, girls, and gossip a bit," said Gladys, as the four of them
were passing her door.... "What did you think of Porshinger, Helen?"
"As an Auction player he is pretty fair," Mrs. Burleston replied. "I
didn't form any opinion of him otherwise. It wasn't necessary."
"There is a certain set to his jaw that I don't care for," Miss
Tazewell remarked. "He has a trick of dropping it, and then gathering
it up and pushing his upper lip back with it. He makes me nervous."
"Did it interfere with your play?" laughed Gladys.
"It disconcerted me. I couldn't keep my eyes off him when he did
it--which was about all the time."
"Maybe that is the reason he did it!" Stephanie smiled. "I never
observed the peculiarity."
"Perhaps he reserves it for the card table and other weighty affairs of
life," Mrs. Burleston suggested.
"Didn't _you_ notice it?" demanded Dorothy.
"Not particularly--though since you mention it I do recall something of
the sort."
"You must have been blind, Helen."
"I wasn't looking in Mr. Porshinger's face, my dear," retorted Mrs.
Burleston sweetly.
At which Miss Tazewell laughed.
"You could infer that I was," she replied good-naturedly; "but I hope
you won't!"
"I thought Porshinger wasn't so bad," Gladys remarked. "He handled
himself very well at dinner, and was most polite,"--with a glance at
Stephanie.
"He seemed to talk enough," said Mrs. Burleston. "Didn't I overhear him
discussing business with you, Stephanie?"
"He didn't discuss much else," Mrs. Lorraine replied.
"I wonder if he _was_ an oil well shooter originally?" remarked
Dorothy. "I've heard so."
"I've heard so, too," Mrs. Burleston replied. "It's interesting
because he has survived. They all are killed in the course of a few
years--about five is the outside limit for them, I'm told."
"I reckon he got his own well before the limit expired," Dorothy
commented; "and he also got about everyone else's wells in course of
time--including the gas wells. Then he became a financier and proceeded
to get suckers."
"Whom did you hear say that?" laughed Gladys.
"Warwick Devereux, of course--whom else?"
"Why is it the men have such a contempt for Porshinger?" Mrs. Burleston
reflected. "They all seem to despise him."
"A man's judgment of a man is rarely at fault," observed Miss Tazewell,
from behind a cloud of cigarette smoke.
"Except when the man is a rival in business or love," Gladys remarked.
"Then he is apt to be a bit biased."
"Which would include about everyone," was the answer.
"I've never heard of Porshinger being in love."
"You've heard of him being in _business_," Dorothy smiled.
"Something of it!" Gladys replied.
"Do you like him?"
"That is what I'm trying to find out--by asking him here."
"Have you succeeded in finding out?"
"Isn't that rather a leading question?" Miss Chamberlain asked.
"Why did you want to find out?" Miss Tazewell persisted.
"I wanted to anticipate the crowd," Gladys explained. "In a year
everyone will be trying--and most of them will be finding him very
agreeable."
"Mainly because you started it. You entertained him--the mob will
follow like sheep."
"You rate me quite too high, my dear," said Gladys.
"Do I? We shall see."
"Unless you all join in with me," Gladys added.
"I prefer to wish you a false prophet--and that Porshinger won't be
taken up. He hasn't a single thing about him that is attractive--except
his money."
"And the fact that he is _not_ married--and wants to get in," adjected
Gladys. "Why don't one of you three marry him?"
"Why not all of us marry him?" said Dorothy over her shoulder, as she
went out.
"I haven't a doubt he would be entirely willing--if you can arrange it
together, and be peaceable!" laughed Gladys.
"You might submit it to him!" Dorothy laughed back.
* * * * * * *
"Well, what did _you_ make of him?" Gladys asked, when the others had
gone.
"Not much--but enough to know that he is dangerous," replied Stephanie,
holding out one silken ankle and inspecting it critically.
"It seems to me you've made out very considerable. Is he too wild to be
permitted with our tame animals?"