To Tredennis the next three months were full of event. It was mostly
quiet event, and yet, as day followed day, he was conscious that, in
each twenty-four hours, he lived through some new mental experience
which left its mark upon him. The first two weeks seemed to make his old
regular, routine-governed life a thing of the far past, from which he
was entirely separated by a gulf which it would be impossible to
recross. He awakened to a recognition of this at the end of the second
week, and told himself that the feeling was due to the complete novelty
of his surroundings and their natural influences upon him. He found
himself placed among people whose lives, ambitions, and interests were
all new to him, and of a kind with which he had never before been thrown
into close contact for a length of time sufficient to allow of analysis.
In his first visit to Washington he had regarded its peculiarities
merely as an amateur and a visitor; now he saw and studied them from a
different stand-point. The public buildings were no longer mere edifices
in his eyes, but developed into tremendous communities, regulated by a
tremendous system for which there could be no medium or indefinite
standing, but which must either be a tremendous credit or a tremendous
discredit to itself and the power it represented. The human side of the
place grew and impressed itself upon him. He began to feel the full
significance of the stream of humanity which ebbed and flowed to and
from these buildings at stated hours in the day. After a few afternoon
walks on the Avenue he could recognize many a face that passed him, and
comprehend something of what it typified. He could single out the young
woman who supported her family upon her salary, and the young woman who
bought her ribbons with it; the widow whose pay fed half-a-dozen
children, and the husband whose earnings were appropriated by a wife of
fashionable aspirations; the man of broken career, whose wasted
ambitions and frustrated purposes were buried in the monotonous routine
of a Government clerkship, and who asked and hoped for no greater boon
than to be permitted to hold his place through as much of the future as
remained to him. It was an orderly and respectably dressed crowd, as a
rule; but there was many a sad face to be seen in it, and many an
anxious and disappointed one. It never failed to interest Tredennis, and
he took his afternoon walk so often at the same hour that the passers-by
began to know his tall, soldierly figure and sunbrowned face, and rather
expected to encounter them; and when the newspapers had referred to him
on a dozen occasions or so, there were not a few who recognized him, and
pointed him out to each other as something of a celebrity and a hero,
and so worth seeing.
This general knowledge which people seemed to have of one another was
one thing which struck him as peculiarly local. It was the rule, and not
the exception, that in walking out he met persons he knew or knew of,
and he found it at no time difficult to discover the names and positions
of those who attracted his attention. Almost all noticeable and numerous
unnoticeable persons were to be distinguished in some way from their
fellows. The dark, sinewy man he observed standing on the steps of a
certain family hotel was a noted New England senator; his companion was
the head of an important department; the man who stood near was the
private secretary of the President, or the editor of one of the dailies,
or a man with a much-discussed claim against the Government; the
handsome woman whose carriage drew up before a fashionable millinery
establishment was the wife of a foreign diplomat, or of a well-known
politician, or of a member of the Cabinet; the woman who crossed her
path as she got out was a celebrated female suffragist, or female
physician, or lawyer, or perhaps that much-talked-of will-o'-the-wisp, a
female lobbyist; and eight persons out of every ten passing them knew
their names and not a little of their private history. So much was
crowded within a comparatively limited radius that it was not easy for
any person or thing worthy of note to be lost or hidden from the public
eye.
By the most natural gradations Tredennis found the whole tenor of his
existence changed in this atmosphere. His fixed habits of life gave way
before the influences surrounding him.
One of the most subtle of these influences was that of his intimacy with
the members of the Amory household, which grew as he had not at all
anticipated that it would. He had thought of the acquaintance in the
first place as one not likely to ripen into anything beyond its rather
conventional significance. Perhaps, on the whole, he had been content to
let it rest as it was, feeling only half-consciously that he should be
in a quieter frame of mind and less liable to vague pangs and
disappointments.
"It is all different," he had said to himself. "And it is all over. It
is better that it should remain as it is."
But after his first visit Richard did not choose to lose sight of him.
It was his fancy to seek him out and make much of and take possession of
him, with an amiability and frank persistence in the chase which were at
once complimentary and engaging.
"Look here!" he would say, having followed him up to reproach him. "You
don't suppose we intend to be treated in this manner? We won't hear of
it. We want you. Your stalwart solidity is what we have been needing to
give us weight and balance. Only yesterday Bertha was holding you up to
Arbuthnot as a model of steadfastness of purpose. We thought we were
going to see you every other day, at least, and you have not been near
us for a week. Bertha wonders what we have been guilty of."
And then he would be carried up to luncheon or dinner, or to spend the
evening; and each visit resulted in another and another, until it
gradually became the most natural thing in the world that he should drop
in at odd hours, because it seemed that he was always expected, and he
appeared to have a place among them.
"Do you know what we shall do with you if you remain here a year?"
Bertha had said to him at the outset. "We shall domesticate you. We not
only domesticated Mr. Arbuthnot, but we appropriated him. We feel that
we have invested largely in him, and that he ought to respect our rights
and pay interest. Sometimes I wonder how he likes it, and just now it
occurs to me to wonder how you would like it."
"The question is," Tredennis answered, "how _you_ would like it."
He was always conscious of a silent distaste for being compared to Mr.
Arbuthnot, and he was also always conscious of the youthful weakness of
the feeling.
"It is the kind of thing which belongs to a younger man," he used to say
to himself. "It is arrant folly; and yet I am not fond of the fellow."
But, as Bertha had predicted, he became in a manner domesticated in the
household. Perhaps the truth was that his natural tendency was toward
the comfort and easy communion of home-life. He was a little surprised
to find himself develop a strong fancy for children. He had never been
averse to them, but he had known nothing of them, and had never
suspected himself of any definite disposition to fondness for them.
After he had watched Bertha's during a few visits he began to like them,
and to be oddly interested in their sayings and doings. He discovered
Jack to be a decidedly sturdy and masculine little fellow, with rather
more than his share of physical strength and beauty; and, making
amicable advances toward him, was met half-way with a fearless readiness
which was very attractive. Then he made friends with Janey, and found
himself still more interested. Her childish femininity was even better
worth studying than Jack's miniature manhood. She was a small, gentle
creature, with clinging hands and much faith, but also with a delightful
sense of infantile dignity, and the friendship which established itself
between them was a very absorbing sentiment. It was not long before it
became an understood thing among the juvenile portion of the
establishment that Tredennis was to be counted among the spoils. His
incoming was greeted with rapture, his outgoing was regarded as a
species of calamity only to be borne because it was unavoidable. He
could tell stories of Indians and bears, and on more than one occasion
was decoyed into the nursery, and found to be not entirely without
resources in the matter of building forts with blocks, and defending
them against aboriginal warriors with tin soldiers. His own sense of
enjoyment of the discovery of these accomplishments in himself filled
him with a whimsical pleasure. He began to carry toys in his pockets,
and became a connoisseur of such dainties as were considered harmless to
the juvenile constitution; and after having been reproved by Janey, on
two or three occasions, for the severity of his air, he began also to
have a care that the expression of his countenance should be less
serious and more likely to win the approval of innocent small creatures,
who considered gravity uncalled for and mysterious. At first he had
seemed to learn but little of Bertha herself, notwithstanding that a day
seldom passed without their meeting, and there were times when he
fancied he had determined that there was but little to learn. The
gayeties of the season over, she announced her intention of resting; and
her manner of accomplishing this end was to inaugurate a series of small
festivities, with a result of occupying each day until midnight. She
gave small, informal dinners, suppers, and teas to the favored few who
would be most likely to enjoy and find them exhilarating, and, when she
did not give a dinner or tea, her evenings were bestowed upon Arbuthnot
and half a dozen of the inner circle, whose habit it was to drop in and
talk politics, literature, or entertaining nonsense.
At such times it was not at all unusual for the professor to ramble in
at about nine o'clock, and profess to partake of the cup of tea Bertha
offered him, and which he invariably left more than half full upon the
small table by his chair. His old tender interest in her had not
lessened in degree, Tredennis noticed, after seeing them together on two
or three occasions, but it had altered in kind. Sometimes the look of
curious speculation returned to his eyes, but oftener they expressed a
patient, kindly watchfulness. It was not long before Tredennis began to
observe that this quietly watchful look generally showed itself when
Arbuthnot was present. The first time that he felt the full force of the
truth of this was one evening when there had been only two or three
callers, who had remained but a short time, going away early, and
leaving no one in the parlors but himself, the professor, and Arbuthnot.
Arbuthnot had come in later than usual, and had appeared to be in an
unusual mood. He was pale when he entered, and had no jesting speech to
make. He took his seat by Bertha, and replied to her remarks with but
little of his customary animation, now and then lapsing into silence as
if he had forgotten his surroundings. Bertha seemed inclined to let his
humor pass without notice, as if it was not exactly a new experience;
but Richard commented upon it.
"Something has gone wrong," he said. "What is it, Larry?"
"Nothing has gone wrong," Arbuthnot answered, with a short, cheerless
laugh. "I have seen a ghost, that is all."
"A ghost!" said Bertha, in a low voice, and then sat silent, guarding
her face from the fire with her favorite peacock-feather screen.
The professor began to stir his tea round and round, which exercise was
his customary assistance to reflection or debate. He glanced at the
peacock-feather screen, and then at Arbuthnot.
"A ghost is always an interesting scientific conundrum," he observed.
"What form did it take?"
Arbuthnot laughed his short, cheerless laugh again.
"It took the form of a sanguine young man from the West," he said, "who
has just come into a twelve-hundred-dollar clerkship, and feels that
unending vistas of fortune lie before him. He was in such good spirits
about it that I rather lost my hold on myself, and said things I might
as well have left unsaid."
"What did you say?" Richard asked.
"I told him that if he had money enough left to buy a return ticket home
he had better buy one; and that, if he had not, I would lend it to him.
I told him that at his age it wasn't a bad idea for a man to devote his
time to establishing himself in some career he could depend on; and
that, in default of having the energy to do that, he might reflect on
the alternative of blowing his brains out as a preparation for a
peaceful old age. And I told him that I had seen young fellows like
himself before, and that the end had been for them what it would be for
him."
"Well?" said Richard, as he had stopped.
"It wasn't any use," he answered. "I knew it would not be when I began.
I simply made a spectacle of myself in a quiet way to no purpose, and as
a result I am uncomfortable. It was all nonsense, but he reminded me"--
"Of what?" said Richard, since he had paused again.
A peculiar expression crossed his face. Tredennis saw him glance at the
peacock-feather screen, and as quickly glance away.
"Of--a young fellow of his age I--used to know," he answered.
"What was _his_ story?" inquired Richard, with his usual desire for
information. "Where is he now?"
"Dead," said Arbuthnot; and, singularly enough, he half laughed again as
he tossed his cigar into the grate and went to the piano.
He began to sing in a rather low voice, and while he sang the rest
listened. When he referred to his musical efforts it was his habit to
treat them as but trivial performances; but he allowed them to lose none
of their effectiveness through lack of care and culture. He knew wherein
his power lay, and used it well. To-night, for some reason, this power
was at its strongest, and, as he sang song after song, even Tredennis
was compelled to acknowledge that, if it was his object to produce an
emotional effect, he was in a fair way to succeed.
Richard threw himself upon a sofa and gave himself up to him with
characteristic readiness to be moved, the professor stirred his tea
slowly and mechanically, and Bertha sat still in the shadow of her
screen. But it was she who moved first. In the midst of one of the songs
she left her seat, slowly crossed the room to the piano, and stood near
it, leaning against the dark wall, her slight white figure thrown into
strong relief, her hands--one of them still holding the peacock-feather
screen--fallen at her sides, her eyes resting on Arbuthnot's averted
face. It seemed to Tredennis that she had moved in obedience to some
impulse of whose power she was scarcely conscious. He saw that she also
was pale, and looked worn with fatigue, and he was filled, as he had
been more than once before, with secret resentment of the fact that no
one but himself appeared to notice that she had changed even within the
last month.
Arbuthnot continued playing. It was evident that she had not intended to
distract his attention when she approached him, and he did not look at
or speak to her. As she stood listening, it seemed as if she had
forgotten everything but the influence his voice exerted over her for
the time being, and that she allowed it to carry her whither it would.
Something in the soft, absorbed expression of her face reminded
Tredennis vaguely of the look she had worn when she turned to brood over
his words on the night when he had felt nearest to her. He was thinking
this when a movement from the professor attracted his attention,--a
jingling of the teaspoon, a little crash, an exclamation of dismay and
confusion, and the little stand had mysteriously been overturned, and
the professor was ruefully bending down to pick up the fragments of his
small cup and saucer.
"My dear child!" he said to Bertha, who had started forward to his
rescue, "what a stupid old Vandal I am, and what an insecure little
table to betray me with--and in the midst of Schubert's 'Serenade,' too,
which Mr. Arbuthnot was giving us in his most effective manner! Suppose
you take me up into the nursery, as an example to the children, while
you dry my coat."
He went out of the room with her, his hand upon her shoulder, and
Arbuthnot left the piano, and returned to the fire. The spell had been
broken with the cup and saucer, and the "Serenade" remained unfinished.
He produced a fresh cigar,--which luxury was one of many accorded him in
the household,--lighted it, and, rather to Tredennis' surprise, resumed
his conversation as if there had been no pause in it.
"The fellow will be an annoyance to me every day of his life," he said,
faint lines showing themselves upon his forehead in spite of the
half-smile which was meant to deprive them of their significance. "I
know that, confound him! He is in my room, and I shall have the benefit
of every change in him, and it will be a grind--there's no denying that
it will be a grind."
"I should like to know," said Tredennis, "what the changes will be."
"The changes will depend upon the kind of fellow he chances to be," said
Arbuthnot. "There are two varieties. If there is a good deal in him he
will begin by being hopeful and working hard. He will think that he may
make himself of value in his position and create a sort of career for
himself. He will do more than is required of him, and neglect nothing.
He will keep his eyes open and make friends of the men about him. He
will do that for a few months, and then, suddenly, and for no fault
whatever, one of these friends will be dropped out. Knowing the man to
be as faithful as himself, it will be a shock to him, and he will get
anxious, and worry over it. He will see him stranded without resources,
struggling to regain his place or get another, treated with amiable
tolerance when he is not buffeted, snubbed, and put off. He will see him
hanging about day after day, growing shabbier, more careworn, more
desperate, until he disappears and is heard of no more, and everybody is
rather relieved than not. He may have been a family man, with a wife and
half-a-dozen children all living decently on his salary. Somebody else
wanted his place and got it, not because of superior fitness for it, but
because the opposing influence was stronger than his. The new man will
go through the same experience when his turn comes--that is all. Well,
my friend will see this and be anxious, and ask questions and find out
that his chances are just the same--no more and no less. He will try not
to believe it, being young enough to be betrayed into the folly, and he
will work harder than ever, and get over his blow a little until he sees
the same thing happen again and again. Then he will begin to lose some
of his good spirits; he will be a trifle irritable at times, and lines
will show themselves on his face, and he won't be so young. When he
writes to the girl he is in love with,--I saw a letter addressed to some
young woman out West, lying on his desk to-day,--she will notice a
change in him, and the change will reveal itself more in each letter;
but he will hang on and grind away, and each election will be a
nightmare to him. But he will grind away. And, then, at last"--
He stopped and made a light, rather graceful gesture with his fingers.
"What then?" demanded Tredennis, with manifest impatience.
"There will be a new administration, and, if he struggles through, it
will be worse for him than if he were dropped, as in that case he throws
away another four years of his life and all the chances for a future
they might hold if he were free to avail himself of them."
Tredennis stood up, looking very large under the influence of the
feeling which disturbed him. Arbuthnot himself was not entirely
unimpressed by his quick movement and the energy it expressed.
"You treat the matter coolly," he exclaimed, as he rose.
Arbuthnot turned his attention to his cigar.
"Yes," he replied. "I treat it coolly. If I treated it warmly or hotly
the effect produced would be about the same. My influence upon civil
service is just what it might be expected to be, and no more. Its weight
is easily carried."
"I beg your pardon," said Tredennis, feeling the justice and adroitness
of the speech.
"Not at all," Arbuthnot answered. "It is not necessary. It makes you
lose your hold on yourself to be brought face to face with the thing. It
is quite natural. It has had the same effect on me, and I am a
cold-blooded fellow, and a frivolous fellow into the bargain."
"I have never thought of the matter before," said Tredennis,
disturbedly. "I feel as if my indifference is something to be ashamed
of."
"If you give your attention as a duty to such subjects," was
Arbuthnot's response, "you will be kept actively employed. If you take
my advice, you will let them alone."
"The trouble is," said Tredennis, "that every one seems to let them
alone."
Richard regarded him, from his place on the sofa-cushions, delightedly.
"Here's an example for you, Larry," he said. "Profit by him. Everything
is an object to him,--everything is worth while. He is an example to us
all. Let us all profit by him."
"Oh, he began right," laughed Arbuthnot.
"He began where you began," returned Richard.
"I?" was the airy answer; "I never began at all. That is my little
difficulty. I am the other one. I told you there was another one. I
represent him."
Tredennis regarded him steadily. For the first time in the course of
their acquaintance he began to suspect him. His manner was too light
altogether, and the odd shade which had fallen upon his eyes before
during the evening showed itself again.
"Let us hear about the other one," he said.
"He is easily disposed of," was the answer. "There was nothing of him at
the outset. He came to his place without an object. He liked the idea of
living in Washington, and of spending his salary. We will say he was a
rather well-looking young fellow, and could dance and sing a little, and
talk decently well. He had no responsibilities, and never thought of the
future. His salary clothed him, and allowed him little luxuries and
ordinary pleasures. He spent it when he had it, and made debt when it
was gone. Being presentable, he was invited out, and made himself useful
and entertaining in a small way. When he thought of the possibilities of
his career being brought suddenly to a close, he was uncomfortable, so
he preferred not to think of it. It is not a pleasant thing to reflect
that a man has about ten years in which to begin life, and that after
that he is ending it; but it is true. What he does from twenty to thirty
he will be likely to find he must abide by from thirty to seventy, if he
lives that long. This man, like the better one, has thrown away the
years in which he might have been preparing himself to end decently.
When they are gone he has nothing to show for them, and less than
nothing. He is the feather upon the current, and when all is over for
him he is whirled out of sight and forgotten with the rest. And,
perhaps, if he had felt there was anything to be gained by his being a
steady, respectable fellow, he might have settled down into one."
He got up suddenly, with a gesture as if he would shake himself free of
his mood.
"Here," he said, "I'm going! It is quite time. It's all nonsense talking
it over. It is the old story. I have made myself uncomfortable for
nothing. Confound you, Dick, why did you let me begin? Say good-night to
the professor and Mrs. Amory for me."
"Come back!" called Richard. "Bertha will want to hear the rest of the
'Serenade' when she comes down."
"The 'Serenade'!" he said, derisively. "No, thank you. You have had
enough of me, and I have had too much of myself."
He passed into the hall just as the professor descended from the nursery
and through the open door. Tredennis heard what they said to each other.
"You did not finish the 'Serenade,'" said the professor.
"No," was the reply; "and I am afraid you were resigned to it,
Professor."
"You were singing it very well, and with great effect," the professor
responded, amicably.
"You are very kind to say so," Arbuthnot answered. "Good-night, sir."
"Good-night," replied the professor, as he entered the parlor.
As he did so Tredennis heard the sound of feet upon the stairs, and
caught a glimpse of Bertha's white figure as she came down.
"You are not going?" he heard her say.
"Yes."
She had reached the last step by this time, and stood with her hand
resting upon the balustrade, and she was paler than she had been before.
"I--" she began--"I wanted to talk to you. What is it, Larry?"
Tredennis had never heard her call him by his first name before; and he
felt, with a keenness which startled him, the soft naturalness with
which it fell from her lips.
Arbuthnot's voice itself had altered when he answered her.
"It is nothing," he said, "but that I am not exactly in a presentable
humor, and I want to go and conceal myself. It is the best thing I can
do. Good-night."
He held out his hand, touched hers lightly, and then turned away, and
the door opened and closed after him, and Bertha came into the parlor,
moving slowly, as if she felt tired.