The Sight of a New Beauty, and Some Advice from Higbee
From the landing on a still morning in late July, Mrs. Drelmer surveyed
the fleet of sailing and steam yachts at anchor in Newport harbour. She
was beautifully and expensively gowned in nun's grey chiffon; her toque
was of chiffon and lace, and she held a pale grey parasol, its ivory
handle studded with sapphires. She fixed a glass upon one of the white,
sharp-nosed steam yachts that rode in the distance near Goat Island.
"Can you tell me if that's the _Viluca?_" she asked a sailor landing
from a dinghy, "that boat just astern of the big schooner?"
"No ma'am; that's the _Alta_, Commodore Weckford."
"Looking for some one?" inquired a voice, and she turned to greet Fred
Milbrey descending the steps.
"Oh! Good-morning! yes; but they've not come in, evidently. It's the
_Viluca_--Mr. Bines, you know; he's bringing his sister back to me. And
you?"
"I'm expecting the folks on Shepler's craft. Been out two weeks now,
and were to have come down from New London last night. They're not in
sight either. Perhaps the gale last night kept them back."
Mrs. Drelmer glanced above to where some one seemed to be waiting for
him.
"Who's your perfectly gorgeous companion? You've been so devoted to her
for three days that you've hardly bowed to old friends. Don't you want
her to know any one?"
The young man laughed with an air of great shrewdness.
"Come, now, Mrs. Drelmer, you're too good a friend of Mauburn's--about
his marrying, I mean. You fixed him to tackle me low the very first
half of one game we know about, right when I was making a fine run down
the field, too. I'm going to have better interference this time."
"Silly! Your chances are quite as good as his there this moment."
"You may think so; I know better."
"And of course, in any other affair, I'd never think of--"
"P'r'aps so; but I'd rather not chance it just yet."
"But who is she? What a magnificent mop of hair. It's like that rich
piece of ore Mr. Bines showed us, with copper and gold in it."
"Well, I don't mind telling you she's the widow of a Southern
gentleman, Colonel Brench Wybert."
"Ah, indeed! I did notice that two-inch band of black at the bottom of
her accordeon-plaited petticoat. I'll wager that's a _Rue de la Paix_
idea of mourning for one's dead husband. And she confides her grief to
the world with such charming discretion. Half the New York women can't
hold their skirts up as daintily as she does it. I dare say, now, her
tears could be dried?--by the right comforter?"
Milbrey looked important.
"And I don't mind telling you the late Colonel Brench Wybert left her a
fortune made in Montana copper. Can't say how much, but two weeks ago
she asked the governor's advice about where to put a spare million and
a half in cash. Not so bad, eh?"
"Oh, this new plutocracy! Where _do_ they get it?"
"How old, now, should you say she was?"
Mrs. Drelmer glanced up again at the colour-scheme of heliotrope seated
in a victoria upholstered in tan brocade.
"Thirty-five, I should say--about."
"Just twenty-eight."
"Just about what I should say--she'd say."
"Come now, you women can't help it, can you? But you can't deny she's
stunning?"
"Indeed I can't! She's a beauty--and, good luck to you. Is that the
_Viluca_ coming in? No; it has two stacks; and it's not your people
because the _Lotus_ is black. I shall go back to the hotel. Bertie
Trafford brought me over on the trolley. I must find him first and do
an errand in Thames Street."
At the head of the stairs they parted, Milbrey joining the lady who had
waited for him.
Hers was a person to gladden the eye. Her figure, tall and full, was of
a graceful and abundant perfection of contours; her face, precisely
carved and showing the faintly generous rounding of maturity, was warm
in colouring, with dark eyes, well shaded and languorous; her full lips
betrayed their beauty in a ready and fascinating laugh; her voice was a
rich, warm contralto; and her speech bore just a hint of the soft
r-less drawl of the South.
She had blazed into young Milbrey's darkness one night in the palm-room
of the Hightower Hotel, escorted by a pleased and beefy youth of his
acquaintance, who later told him of their meeting at the American
Embassy in Paris, and who unsuspectingly presented him. Since their
meeting the young man had been her abject cavalier. The elder Milbrey,
too, had met her at his son's suggestion. He had been as deeply
impressed by her helplessness in the matter of a million and a half
dollars of idle funds as she had been by his aristocratic bearing and
enviable position in New York society.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting. The _Lotus_ hasn't come in sight yet.
Let's loaf over to the beach and have some tall, cold ones."
"Who was your elderly friend?" she asked, as they were driven slowly up
the old-fashioned street.
"Oh! that's Joe Drelmer. She's not so old, you know; not a day over
forty, Joe can't be; fine old stock; she was a Leydenbroek and her
husband's family is one of the very oldest in New York. Awfully
exclusive. Down to meet friends, but they'd not shown up, either. That
reminds me; they're friends of ours, too, and I must have you meet
them. They're from your part of the country--the Bines."
"The--ah--"
"Bines; family from Montana; decent enough sort; didn't know but you
might have heard of them, being from your part of the country."
"Ah, I never think of that vulgar West as 'my part of the country' at
all. _My_ part is dear old Virginia, where my father, General Tulver,
and his father and his father's father all lived the lives of country
gentlemen, after the family came here from Devonshire. It was there
Colonel Wybert wooed me, though we later removed to New Orleans." Mrs.
Wybert called it "New _Aw_-leens."
"But it was not until my husband became interested in Montana mines
that we ventured into that horrid West. So _do_ remember not to
confound me with your Western--ah--Bones,--was it not?"
"No, Bines; they'll be here presently, and you can meet them, anyway."
"Is there an old fellow--a queer old character, with them?"
"No, only a son and daughter and the mother."
"Of course I sha'n't mind meeting any friends of yours," she said, with
charming graciousness, "but, really, I always understood that you
Knickerbockers were so vastly more exclusive. I do recall this name
now. I remember hearing tales of the family in Spokane. They're a type,
you know. One sees many of the sort there. They make a strike in the
mines and set up ridiculous establishments regardless of expense. You
see them riding in their carriages with two men in the box--red-handed,
grizzled old vulgarians who've roughed it in the mountains for twenty
years with a pack-mule and a ham and a pick-axe--with their jug of
whiskey--and their frowsy red-faced wives decked out in impossible
finery. Yes, I do recall this family. There is a daughter, you say?"
"Yes; Miss Psyche Bines."
"Psyche; ah, yes; it's the same family. I recollect perfectly now. You
know they tell the funniest tales of them out there. Her mother found
the name 'Psyche' in a book, and liked it, but she pronounced it
'Pishy,' and so the girl was called until she became old enough to go
to school and learned better."
"Dear me; fancy now!"
"And there are countless tales of the mother's queer sayings. Once a
gentleman whom they were visiting in San Francisco was showing her a
cabinet of curios. 'Now, don't you find the Pompeiian figurines
exquisite?' he asked her. The poor creature, after looking around her
helplessly, declared that she _did_ like them; but that she liked the
California nectarines better--they were so much juicier."
"You don't tell me; gad! that was a good one. Oh, well, she's a meek,
harmless old soul, and really, my family's not the snobbish sort, you
know."
In from the shining sea late that afternoon steamed the _Viluca_. As
her chain was rattling through the hawse-hole, Percival, with his
sister and Mauburn, came on deck.
"Why, there's the _Chicago_--Higbee's yacht."
"That's the boat," said Mauburn, "that's been piling the white water up
in front of her all afternoon trying to overhaul us."
"There's Millie Higbee and old Silas, now."
"And, as I live," exclaimed Psyche, "there's the Baron de Palliac
between them!"
"Sure enough," said her brother. "We must call ma up to see him dressed
in those sweet, pretty yachting flannels. Oh, there you are!" as Mrs.
Bines joined them. "Just take this glass and treat yourself to a look
at your old friend, the baron. You'll notice he has one
on--see--they're waving to us."
"Doesn't the baron look just too distinguished beside Mr. Higbee?" said
Psyche, watching them.
"And doesn't Higbee look just too Chicago beside the baron?" replied
her brother.
The Higbee craft cut her way gracefully up to an anchorage near the
_Viluca_, and launches from both yachts now prepared to land their
people. At the landing Percival telephoned for a carriage. While they
were waiting the Higbee party came ashore.
"Hello!" said Higbee; "if I'd known that was you we was chasing I'd
have put on steam and left you out of sight."
"It's much better you didn't recognise us; these boiler explosions are
so messy."
"Know the baron here?"
"Of course we know the baron. Ah, baron!"
"Ah, ha! very charmed, Mr. Bines and Miss Bines; it is of a long time
that we are not encountered."
He was radiant; they had never before seen him thus. Mrs. Higbee
hovered near him with an air of proud ownership. Pretty Millie Higbee
posed gracefully at her side.
"This your carriage?" asked Higbee; "I must telephone for one myself.
Going to the Mayson? So are we. See you again to-night. We're off for
Bar Harbour early to-morrow."
"Looks as if there were something doing there," said Percival, as they
drove off the wharf.
"Of course, stupid!" said his sister; "that's plain; only it isn't
doing, it's already done. Isn't it funny, ma?"
"For a French person," observed Mrs. Bines, guardedly, "I always liked
the baron."
"Of course," said her son, to Mauburn's mystification, "and the noblest
men on this earth have to wear 'em."
The surmise regarding the Baron de Palliac and Millie Higbee proved to
be correct. Percival came upon Higbee in the meditative enjoyment of
his after-dinner cigar, out on the broad piazza.
"I s'pose you're on," he began; "the girl's engaged to that Frenchy."
"I congratulate him," said Percival, heartily.
"A real baron," continued Higbee. "I looked him up and made sure of
that; title's good as wheat. God knows that never would 'a' got me, but
the madam was set on it, and the girl too, and I had to give in. It
seemed to be a question of him or some actor. The madam said I'd had my
way about Hank, puttin' his poor stubby nose to the grindstone out
there in Chicago, and makin' a plain insignificant business man out of
him, and I'd ought to let her have her way with the girl, being that I
couldn't expect her to go to work too. So Mil will work the society
end. I says to the madam, I says, 'All right, have your own way; and
we'll see whether you make more out of the girl than I make out of the
boy,' I says. But it ain't going to be _all_ digging up. I've made the
baron promise to go into business with me, and though I ain't told him
yet, I'm going to put out a line of Higbee's thin-sliced ham and bacon
in glass jars with his crest on 'em for the French trade. This baron'll
cost me more'n that sign I showed you coming out of the old town, and
he won't give any such returns, but the crest on them jars, printed in
three colours and gold, will be a bully ad; and it kept the women
quiet," he concluded, apologetically.
"The baron's a good fellow," said Percival.
"Sure," replied Higbee. "They're all good fellows. Hank had the makin's
of a good fellow in him. And say, young man, that reminds me; I hear
all kinds of reports about your getting to be one yourself. Now I knew
your father, Daniel J. Bines, and I liked him, and I like you; and I
hope you won't get huffy, but from what they tell me you ain't doing
yourself a bit of good."
"Don't believe all you hear," laughed Percival.
"Well, I'll tell you one thing plain, if you was my son, you'd fade
right back to the packing-house along with Henry-boy. It's a pity you
ain't got some one to shut down on you that way. They tell me you got
your father's capacity for carrying liquor, and I hear you're known
from one end of Broadway to the other as the easiest mark that ever
came to town. They say you couldn't walk in your sleep without spending
money. Now, excuse my plain speaking, but them are two reputations that
are mighty hard to live up to beyond a certain limit. They've put lots
of good weight-carriers off the track before they was due to go. I hear
you got pinched in that wheat deal of Burman's?"
"Oh, only for a few hundred thousand. The reports of our losses were
exaggerated. And we stood to win over--"
"Yes--you stood to win, and then you went 'way back and set down,' as
the saying is. But it ain't the money. You've got too much of that,
anyway, Lord knows. It's this everlasting hullabaloo and the drink that
goes with it, and the general trifling sort of a dub it makes out of a
young fellow. It's a pity you ain't my son; that's all I got to say. I
want to see you again along in September after I get back from San
Francisco; I'm going to try to get you interested in some business.
That'd be good for you."
"You're kind, Mr. Higbee, and really I appreciate all you say; but
you'll see me settle down pretty soon, quick as I get my bearings, and
be a credit to the State of Montana."
"I say," said Mauburn, coming up, "do you see that angel of the flaming
hair with that young Milbrey chap?"
The two men gazed where he was indicating.
"By Jove! she _is_ a stunner, isn't she?" exclaimed Percival.
"Might be one of Shepler's party," suggested Higbee. "He has the
Milbrey family out with him, and I see they landed awhile ago. You can
bet that party's got more than her good looks, if the Milbreys are
taking any interest in her. Well, I've got to take the madam and the
young folks over to the Casino. So long!"
Fred Milbrey came up.
"Hello, you fellows!"
"Who is she?" asked the two in faultless chorus.
"We're going over to hear the music awhile. Come along and I'll present
you."
"Rot the luck!" said Mauburn; "I'm slated to take Mrs. Drelmer and Miss
Bines to a musicale at the Van Lorrecks, where I'm certain to fall
asleep trying to look as if I quite liked it, you know."
"You come," Milbrey urged Percival. "My sister's there and the governor
and mother."
But for the moment Percival was reflecting, going over in his mind the
recent homily of Higbee. Higbee's opinion of the Milbreys also came
back to him.
"Sorry, old man, but I've a headache, so you must excuse me for
to-night. But I'll tell you, we'll all come over in the morning and go
for a dip with you."
"Good! Stop for us at the Laurels, about eleven, or p'r'aps I'll stroll
over and get you. I'm expecting some mail to be forwarded to this
hotel."
He rejoined his companion, who had been chatting with a group of women
near the door, and they walked away.
"_Isn't_ she a stunner!" exclaimed Mauburn.
"She is a _peach!_" replied Percival, in tones of deliberate and
intense conviction. "Whoever she is, I'll meet her to-morrow and ask
her what she means by pretending to see anything in Milbrey. This thing
has gone too far!"
Mauburn looked wistful but said nothing. After he had gone away with
Mrs. Drelmer and Psyche, who soon came for him, Percival still sat
revolving the paternal warnings of Higbee. He considered them
seriously. He decided he ought to think more about what he was doing
and what he should do. He decided, too, that he could think better with
something mechanical to occupy his hands. He took a cab and was driven
to the local branch of his favourite temple of chance. His host
welcomed him at the door.
"Ah, Mr. Bines, a little recreation, eh? Your favourite dealer, Dutson,
is here to-night, if you prefer bank."
Passing through the crowded, brightly-lighted rooms to one of the faro
tables, where his host promptly secured a seat for him, he played
meditatively until one o'clock; adding materially to his host's reasons
for believing he had done wisely to follow his New York clients to
their summer annex.