FATE IS HARD--CASH!
As Andrew took his mail from the hand of Jules one afternoon, some three
weeks later, his eye was caught by a packet directed in the precise
script of old Mr. Sterling, and this, together with a letter in the same
hand, he separated from the mass of other material, and gave his
immediate attention. There had grown in him a singular craving for all
that could remind him of his life at home. As he slit the envelope, a
draft upon his bankers came first to his hand, and he glanced at it,
with a short whistle, before laying it on the desk. It was for fifteen
thousand francs.
Mr. Sterling's letter, a model of prim penmanship, ran as follows:
"MY DEAR ANDY: I have yours of the 12th inst., and am gratified to
learn that Paris is surpassing your expectations. Although it is a
city not ordinarily recommended as a sojourning-place for young men,
I have seen enough of the world to know that it is not the
surroundings which are significant, so much as the temperament of
the individual placed among them. If you were inclined to
dissipation, you would manufacture, if not find, it in a one-horse
prohibition town in one of the back counties of Maine: and if you
were otherwise disposed, not Paris itself would be competent to
prove your undoing. So I am not averse to your project of remaining
until Christmas. I have great confidence in you. If you will look
back, you will realize that I have not burdened you with advice
since the days when it was necessary to warn you against
over-indulgence in ice-cream, or send you away from the
breakfast-table for a more effective application of the nail-brush.
That has been because I have seen in you something which I believe
to be a guarantee against your ever falling into any misdoing which
would be a discredit to the name you bear. I mean the fine
healthiness of mind which eschews by instinct whatever is 'common or
unclean'. You will have your fling, as I had mine, and as it is
right you should. You will learn for yourself the lessons which no
one else can teach you; but I think your attitude will always be
that of a gentleman. There are ways and ways of doing things--even
of sowing wild oats--and among these are the way of the gentleman
and the way of the fool. You have never been the latter, and I have
no reason to believe you will begin now.
"Among the commonest formulas of parental advice is that which
exhorts a young man never to do or say anything which a mother or
sister could not hear: and this deserves, to my way of thinking,
just about the amount of attention which it ordinarily receives. I
know the type of man whom you have always chosen, and, in all
likelihood, always will choose, as a friend: and if you will avoid
doing anything which you would be ashamed to tell that kind of man,
I shall be satisfied.
"As you wish to remain in Paris for some time longer, and as Paris
is preeminently a city where money is a _sine qua non_, I am
disposed not only to approve your plan, but to make it possible of
execution, with a certain degree of liberality. You should know, if
you do not know already, that I have made you my heir. When I am
obliged to shuffle off this mortal coil, you will come into
something over eighty thousand a year. There are responsibilities
attached to such an income, and not the least of them is the
knowledge of the social obligation which it imposes. There is
nothing more deplorable than the spectacle of a young man
squandering what he can't afford to spend, unless it be that of an
old one grudging what he can. While far from counselling wanton
extravagance, I wish you to form those habits of generosity and
open-heartedness which your position makes incumbent upon you. Repay
with liberality the courtesies extended to you; and keep on the
credit, rather than the debit, side of the social account. Take your
share of the legitimate pleasures of life as well, paying as you go.
"To the letter of credit given you on your departure, which provided
for a possible expenditure of a thousand dollars a month for the
six months of your contemplated stay, I now add a draft for fifteen
thousand francs (F. 15,000), to cover the additional three months
during which you propose to remain. In view of this, you will not
think me unreasonable in foregoing the customary remittance for a
much smaller sum upon your birthday.
"That birthday is still somewhat more than three months distant, but
a present which I had contemplated making you on the occasion, being
already completed, I am forwarding it by this mail, with my best
wishes and affection. It is a miniature of your mother--whom it is
your greatest misfortune never to have known--painted, from a
photograph, by Cavigny-Maupre during his recent visit to Boston: and
it is appropriate that you should have it at a time when you are
absent--with sincere regret, as you please me by saying--from the
grim old house where you have been an unspeakable comfort to, and
where awaits you an affectionate welcome from,
"Your grandfather,
"ANDREW STERLING.
"_Andrew Sterling Vane, Esq., Paris, France._"
"Dear old man!" said Andrew to himself, with a little smile of
affection, before laying the letter aside. "Dear, generous old man!"
Then he turned to the package which contained the portrait of his
mother.
Cavigny-Maupre had excelled himself in this the most recent in his long
series of masterly miniatures. The tranquil and beautiful face of Helen
Vane, as it had been before the blight of disillusion dimmed its
ethereal sweetness, looked out at Andrew with serene and steadfast eyes.
There was no attempt at striking colouring, no trick of effect. The
artist, with the instinct which never played him false, had aimed to
preserve the touch of simplicity, of girlishness, which the old
photograph had given him as his cue. The result was a singularly
appealing beauty, which his more ambitious productions, with all their
emphatic brilliancy, utterly lacked. Before he could have analyzed the
impulse which prompted him, Andrew had touched his lips to the picture,
and in the act of performing this simple homage his fine eyes grew
moist. For this was his mother--the pale, gentle-eyed dream-mother he
had never seen, but who had given her life for his, and who, perhaps,
with the searching vision of the immortals, was watching him wistfully
from beyond the immeasurably distant stars!
So, at the dinner-hour, Radwalader found him--sunk deep in his chair,
with his eyes half-closed, and the miniature in his hand.
"Hello!" he said. "Come in."
"You look like a drawing by Gibson," observed Radwalader lightly, "over
the title 'Day Dreams' or 'A Face from the Past,' or something of the
sort. The old, old story, eh, Vane? Mooning over the loved one's
portrait?"
"Not a bad guess," replied Andrew, somewhat gravely, as he rose, and
tendered Radwalader the picture.
"That was my mother," he added.
"Oh, I _beg_ your pardon!" exclaimed Radwalader, with that ready
assumption of contrition wherewith he contrived so skilfully to repair
his infrequent _faux pas_.
"No harm done," answered Andrew. "Are you engaged for dinner? I've
ordered a table at Armenonville, and meant to send Jules over to your
place to ask you, but the time has gone faster than I thought. Gad! it's
almost seven. I _have_ been mooning, in good earnest. Will you go?"
"With pleasure. I dropped in on the chance that you might have nothing
to do."
Radwalader laid the miniature on the table.
"It's a very beautiful face," he added. "I wonder if I ever saw her.
It's not impossible. I remember meeting your grandfather in Boston."
"You'd hardly have met my mother, though. She died when I was
born--twenty years ago. You'd have been quite a boy."
"A boy well out of knickerbockers, then! You flatter me, Vane. Is it
possible that you don't know I'm tottering on the ragged edge of fifty?"
"One wouldn't believe it, then. Come in while I brush up a bit."
He led the way into the bedroom, and Radwalader, following, applied
himself to the consumption of a cigarette. For three weeks he had been
observing Andrew with a new attention. He was always quick to note
symptoms, but in the present instance he found himself, to his surprise,
unable to analyze them with his accustomed readiness. The change which
he saw was singularly subtle, albeit as pronounced as that which a
separation of years might have enabled him to perceive. It was with
difficulty that he could bring himself to believe that barely a day had
gone by without their meeting. It seemed impossible that Andrew had not
gone and come again, passing, in the interim, through some vastly
significant experience. Radwalader found him less open, while habited
with a new assurance; less enthusiastic, while subject at times to an
almost feverish gaiety; more alive to the minutest details of the new
life which surrounded him, but with a tendency to scoff replacing his
former merely boyish interest. There were times when Radwalader would
have called him unqualifiedly happy; others when there was no such thing
as believing him otherwise than wretched. He was thinner, smiled less
than formerly, and took for granted much which had thitherto excited his
eager comment, his amusement, or his dislike. Over all he wore a new
reserve, a worldliness beyond his years. In all this, while there was
much which Radwalader did not fully understand, there was much which he
had expected, much which he had deliberately planned His cards had long
since been dealt and sorted. Now he chanced a lead.
"I was at Poissy yesterday."
"Ah?"
Andrew appeared in the doorway of the bathroom, diligently towelling his
head. As he looked up, his eyes, so curiously like Radwalader's own,
were not less coolly non-committal than they.
"How is Mrs. Carnby?" he added.
"A good bit out of patience with you, I gather," said Radwalader.
"You've pretty well deserted her of late, haven't you?"
Andrew was drying his fingers, one by one, with somewhat exaggerated
attention.
"One can't serve God and Mammon," he observed, with that new flippancy
of his. "I won't stoop to the pettiness of fencing with you, Radwalader.
You're not blind, I take it. You must know as well as I why I don't want
to go to Poissy, and why, if I did, they wouldn't care to have me."
"Yes," said the other, "I suppose I do. If I didn't, it wouldn't be for
lack of hearing you talked about. Gossip is tolerably busy with your
name, these days."
"Gossip is rarely busy with _one_ name," retorted Andrew dryly.
"Obviously. I didn't mean to ignore Mademoiselle Tremonceau: as you say,
a lack of candour between us would be merely petty: but I wasn't quite
sure how far you were prepared to concede me the license of a friend.
These are ticklish subjects, even between intimates. I'm not inclined to
meddle, but I've thought more than once of asking you if you thought the
game worth while."
"I make a point of not thinking about it, one way or another," said
Andrew. "Why should I? I've youth, health, money, the sunshine,
Paris--and her. Why should I think? It's nobody's business but my own.
Don't be a prig, Radwalader."
"God forbid!" ejaculated Radwalader. "I see I've been mistaken. I had an
idea that it _was_ somebody's business, other than yours--very much so,
in fact. Of course, if it isn't--"
He stopped abruptly, and made a little signal of warning. An instant
later Monsieur Vicot entered the room, and began to lay out Andrew's
evening dress. His presence was an effective check upon further
conversation along the direct line they had been pursuing, and, as
Andrew hurried through his dressing, Radwalader plunged into
generalities.
In another fifteen minutes Vicot opened the apartment door for them,
and, as they passed out, closed it and stepped into the _salon_. The
first object which met his eye was the miniature of Helen Vane, lying,
face downward, on the table where Radwalader had left it. He picked it
up and set it, upright, on the mantel, under the brilliant light of an
electric bulb. Then, idly curious, he leaned forward and stared at it.
In the soft gloom of the July evening Armenonville glittered and
twinkled among the trees, and flung handfuls of shivered light on the
wind-ruffled waters of the little lake. As they approached, they had a
glimpse of tables brilliant with spotless napery and sheen of crystal
and silver, and of heavy-headed roses leaning from tall and slender
vases. Solicitous waiters, grotesquely swaddled in their aprons, were
turning every wine-glass to a ruby or a topaz with the liquid light of
Bourgogne or Champagne. Electric lights glowed pink in roses of crinkled
silk. The Pavilion was a veritable fairy palace, as unstable, to all
appearance, and as gossamer-light as the fabric of a dream swung
miraculously within a luminous haze.
The table reserved for them was in an elbow of the piazza and so, a
little apart from the others; and the _maitre d'hotel_ led them toward
it with an air which was hardly less impressive than a _fanfare_. It was
his business to remember the faces of young foreigners who thundered up
at midday in twenty-horse-power Panhards expressly to command a table,
and incidentally to tip him a louis. Moreover, there was
Radwalader--Radwalader, who knew by his first name every _maitre
d'hotel_ from Lavenue's to the Rat Mort, and from Marguery's to the
Pavillon Bleu, called Frederic himself "_mon vieux_," and sent messages
to the _chef_ at Voisin's or the Cafe Riche, informing him for whom the
order was to be prepared.
Among the things which Andrew had unconsciously assimilated from
Radwalader, was something very nearly equalling the latter's instinct
for ordering a dinner. It was that, even more than the louis or the
Panhard, which inspired respect in the supercilious mind of the _maitre
d'hotel_. So they had caviar, sharpening the twang of their halves of
lemon with a dash of tabasco; and _langouste a l'Americaine_, with a
hint of tarragon in the mayonnaise; venison, with a confection of
ginger, marmalade, and currant jelly, which not every one gets, even for
the asking, at the Pavilion d'Armenonville; a salad of split Malaga
grapes and hearts of lettuce; and a Camembert cheese, taken at the
flood--the which, in Camembert, is of as good omen as that in the
affairs of men.
Around them the brilliantly-illuminated tables were filled with diners.
The true Parisian _monde_, long since departed for Aix or Hombourg, had
given place to the annual influx of foreigners and the lighter spirits
of the half-world, men and women both. Here were minds which skidded
from subject to subject with the eccentricity of water-spiders on a
roadside pool. The latest comedies, the latest fashions, the latest
scandals--they came and went, verbal drops sliding over the acute edge
of conversation, each touched with prismatic hues of humour, irony, or
cynicism. The hum of chat was a patchwork of English, French, German,
Spanish, Russian, and Italian. Europe was talking--talking the gossip of
the day--pouring it like liquid silver into the moulds of many
languages, wherefrom it took the oddest forms of epigram.
Here and there, members of the American Colony were entertaining friends
from the States, arrived that afternoon from Calais, Cherbourg, or Le
Havre, with the odour of bilge-water yet in their nostrils, and the
_terra_, misnamed _firma_, rocking unpleasantly under their senses. At
an adjoining table, a huge American collegian, labouring heavily against
the head-wind of many cocktails, addressed his waiter:
"Ziss my las' night 'n Paruss, gassun. Jer know w'a' I've done t'
Paruss? Ziss w'a' I've done t' Paruss."
He made the gesture of one wringing a half of lemon, and casting it
contemptuously aside, and looked up, proudly, for approval. Later he
would be tenderly removed--"a river ark on the ocean brine."
But these--the transient Americans--were the least significant factors
in the scene. They had come to prey, and would go away to scoff. They
were a grade above the herded tourists to whose understanding the
Colonne Vendome is an edifice closed for fear of suicides; but among
them were women who would write books on Paris, upon the strength of
three months' residence and six letters of introduction, and men whose
diligence in exhuming the most sordid evidences of metropolitan
degradation would enable them to speak, thenceforward, with authority
upon French depravity--the Hams, Tartuffes, and Parkhursts of their
hour. Paris finds time to smile at many such. Over and around them
flowed the smooth current of Parisian _savoir vivre_ which they could
not hope to understand, still less to emulate.
"I feel," said Andrew slowly, "as if I had lived here all my life. Do
you remember telling me, that day at Auteuil, that things one ordinarily
disregards in America are part of one's education in Paris? I've learned
the truth of that. I don't think I should be apt to mistake _cerise_ for
red, as things are now."
"Did you ever think of the irony of these _toilettes de demi-mondaine_?"
asked Radwalader, looking from one to another of the superb gowns at the
neighbouring tables. "You know, they're society's fashions of the day
after to-morrow. I wonder what our dear lady of the Parc Monceau, or
Mayfair, or Fifth Avenue, or Back Bay, or Nob Hill, would say if she
knew the source of that trick of sleeve, or that contrast of
_entre-deux_, which she fondly imagines was born in the mind of a Doucet
for her and her alone. It came into being, my dear Vane, in a stuffy,
overfurnished little apartment in one of the suburbs, as a _patron_ of
questionable merit by a charming creature with more ideas than
reputation, and was first worn at the little Mathurins--or here--by
Ninon Gyrianne: at a theatre where my lady would not be seen, by a woman
whom she would not receive! Or, if not that, La Girofla stood sponsor
for it at Deauville or Monte Carlo, and was duly complimented in the
_potins of Gil Blas_. _Quelle farce, mon Dieu!_"
The two men were eating at the leisurely rate which is the most
invaluable lesson Paris teaches the American. Andrew's lips curled in a
little sneer.
"It's all a farce," he said, "and, God knows, I'm the biggest mountebank
of them all. When I look back six weeks, it's another Andrew Vane I
see--a better one."
"But not a happier one, I fancy," suggested Radwalader.
"Why not? Do you think, after all your experience, that Paris brings
happiness? Distraction, perhaps--amusement--knowledge--but happiness? Oh
no!"
He looked down, appearing to reflect, and then went on in another tone:
"I've been meaning to have a little talk with you, Radwalader, and what
we were saying, back there at the apartment, seemed to open the way. I'm
going to be pretty frank, and, on the score of friendship, I hope you'll
be the same."
Radwalader nodded, narrowing his eyes.
"It's about Mirabelle Tremonceau. Believe me or not as you will, it was
all innocent enough at first. She was something new in my life,
something entirely new. I can't say I fell in love with her. There were
reasons why that wasn't possible at the time; but I found her
beautiful, amusing, and the soul of kindness. I liked her, and--well, I
drifted along from day to day, without any particular plan, one way or
another. It may seem incredible that I thought her like any other girl I
knew, but I did. I suppose it's not an especially novel story--Paris and
the young American."
"Goliath and David," commented Radwalader.
"Exactly--except that David won out, and I haven't. I began to hear
things, but, even so, I continued to like her, and to go there. I didn't
half believe what I heard, in the first place: it was all so
different--the surroundings and all that--from anything I'd ever known.
There wasn't a sign of anything of the sort, as far as I could see; and
I was more sorry for her than anything else, when I finally caught on. I
had the kind of feeling one has for a chap that's being overhazed at
college. Everybody was damning her, and all the time she was treating me
as her friend--and nothing more. I felt that it was up to me to stick up
for her, and I did--even when Mrs. Carnby chimed in, and told me I was
acting like a fool. You see--"
He hesitated, fingering his fork, and appearing to reflect.
"I said I'd talk straight with you," he added, "and I will. There was
only one person whose opinion made any difference to me, and I felt I
could trust her all through. I dodged the question when you spoke of it,
back there, but of course you were right. It _was_ somebody's
business--Margery Palffy's. I'd been as good as engaged to her for a
year--that is, _she_ knew and _I_ knew--and it never dawned upon me that
she was going to think anything except--well, _that_! You see, I knew I
hadn't done anything wrong, and I went to her, as bold as brass, that
last night when we were all at Poissy, and asked her definitely. You can
imagine how I felt when she came back at me with--I don't need to tell
you what she said. It was the same old business that other people had
been hinting at, but it was straight from the shoulder, and showed me
that she thought I was as unworthy of her as a man could well be--as
unworthy of her as I am now! It was the worst kind of a facer. It drove
me mad, Radwalader--I want you to remember, all the time, that I didn't
deserve it--and I flung away from her, with every drop of my damnable
pride at the boiling-point, and came back to Paris, and--to the
inevitable. For three weeks I've been living in heaven--and in hell!"
"In heaven," said Radwalader quietly, "because of Mirabelle; and in hell
because of--"
"That's it--because of Margery Palffy! Try to understand me. If I
thought I loved her before, I _know_ it now. If it were possible to go
back--but it isn't--it's never possible to do that. It's too late,
that's all there is about it."
Radwalader smiled easily. The cards were running his way now.
"Surely, you're not tied up as tight as that," he said. "You've been a
trifle hot-headed, yes; but in all you've told me, there's nothing more
than what a vast majority of the men you know have done, and nothing
more than what a vast majority of women have forgiven and forgotten.
It's never too late to mend. Cut loose, my dear Vane--cut loose from
Mirabelle, and go back to the girl you really care for. You'll have to
deny a few things, of course, and swallow some humiliation; but don't
get tragic over it. In affairs like this, the first course is
humble-pie, but the _piece de resistance_ is invariably fatted calf!"
"Cut loose from Mirabelle," repeated Andrew. "Cut loose from Mirabelle?"
"Obviously. There's one infallible way, my friend."
Radwalader raised his right hand lightly, and chafed with his thumb the
tips of his first and second fingers.
"Money?" demanded Andrew.
"Of course! And you may thank your stars that you're in a position to
command it. Many a chap has gone under because he couldn't pay the piper
when the bill came in. You can; and there's no reason under heaven why
you should let this matter trouble you. Wait a moment!"--as Andrew was
about to speak--"let me explain. I'm not the sort that cuts into other
people's affairs as a rule. I detest meddling, and ordinarily I don't
want to be bothered with what doesn't concern me. But I like you,
Vane--I do, heartily. I'd be more sorry than a little to see you in
trouble. What's more, I feel to a certain extent responsible, as I was
the one to introduce you. Well, then--suppose you leave the whole affair
to me. I know the world, and especially Paris, and more especially
Mirabelle Tremonceau. Leave it in my hands. Even if she's ugly about it,
I can probably get you out, all clear, for fifteen or twenty thousand
francs, where it might cost you fifty if you undertook to engineer the
thing yourself. What do you say?"
"Say?" repeated Andrew, with a little, mirthless laugh, "why, simply
that you don't understand. Mirabelle wouldn't accept money from me."
"Oh, not money, like that," said Radwalader, "not money out of a
purse--'one, two, three, _and_ two make five. I think that's correct,
madam, and thank _you_!' No, I grant you--probably she wouldn't. But a
Panhard, or a deposit at her bankers', or diamonds--that would be
different."
"No--no," said Andrew, shaking a single finger from side to side.
"You're all wrong. You don't get the situation at all. When a woman
loves a man--"
"Love?" broke in Radwalader. "Piffle! Leave it to me, my dear sir, and
in twenty-four hours I'll prove to you that Mirabelle Tremonceau's
spelling of the word 'love' begins with the symbol for pounds
sterling!"
"And Margery?" faltered Andrew.
"I saw Miss Palffy at Poissy," said Radwalader. "She's still staying
there, you know. Now, if you'd told me that _she_ loved you, I'd have
believed you. She was looking wretchedly, I thought."
He paused for a moment, to give the words their proper effect, and then
played his highest card.
"Did you receive a telegram from her after you left Poissy?"
Andrew stared blankly at him, moistening his lips.
"A telegram?" he said. "A telegram?"
"I thought you didn't," replied Radwalader, "and told her so. It seems
she sent one, and was surprised you hadn't answered."
"A telegram!" said Andrew again. "Do you realize what that means,
Radwalader? Why, it would have made all the difference in the world! A
telegram? No, of course I never received it! And I've been--I've been--"
His voice broke suddenly.
"My God! Radwalader, but fate is hard!"
"Fate, in this instance," remarked Radwalader, "_is_ hard--hard cash.
Don't let any false quixotism blind you to that, Vane. I've shown you
the way out. Think it over, and when you're ready, come to me."
He crumpled his napkin, and rose. He had played. Now it was for
Mirabelle to trump the trick.