"What was it this time--business as usual?" he inquired sarcastically.
"I have not been in the kitchen," said I, "although I did transact a
little business with my cook." I did not add:--"business of making an
outrageous ass of myself."
As I drew the first cork I was conscious of Smith's silent and offensive
scrutiny. And very gradually my ears revealed my burning guilt under
his delighted gaze.
Calm, but exasperated, I lifted my brimming glass and bowed politely to
Smith.
"Go to the devil," said I.
"A rendezvous," said he.
And we drank that friendly toast together.
*IV*
*MODUS VIVENDI*
Smith's luggage and mine, and my other effects--trunks, boxes, and
crates--arrived very early the next morning: and several large, sweating
Swiss staggered up the stairs with the impedimenta until both they and
their job were finished.
When I left New York, not knowing how long this business of my
ridiculous inheritance might detain me in Switzerland, I packed several
trunks with clothing and several crates with those familiar and
useful--or useless--objets-d'art which for many years had formed a
harmless and agreeable background for my more or less blameless domestic
career in New York.
Rugs, curtains, furniture, sofa-pillows, books, a clock mantel set,
framed and unframed pictures and photographs including the O'Ryan
coat-of-arms--all this was the sort of bachelor stuff that Smith and I
disinterred from the depths of trunks, crates, and boxes, and lugged
about from corner to corner trying effects and combinations.
Before we had concluded our task I think he had no opinion at all of me
as an interior decorator. Which revealed considerable insight on his
part. And although I explained to him that interior decorators became so
fed up on gorgeous and sumptuous effects that they themselves preferred
to live amid simpler surroundings reminiscent of the Five and Ten Cent
Store, he remained unconvinced.
"It's like a lady-clerk in a candy shop," I insisted. "She never eats
the stuff she sells. It's the same with me. I am surfeited with
magnificence. I crave the humble what-not. I long for the Victorian.
I need it."
He gazed in horror at a framed picture of my grandfather the Admiral.
"Oh God," he said, "what are we to do with this old bird?"
Intensely annoyed I took it from him and hung it over my mantel. It
wasn't a Van Dyck, I admit, but it demanded no mental effort on my part.
One can live in peace with such pictures.
"Some day, Smith," said I, "you'll understand that the constant
contemplation of true Art is exhausting. A man can't sleep in a room
full of Rubens. When I put on my dressing gown and slippers and light a
cigarette what I want is relaxation, not Raphael. And these things that
I own permit me to relax. Why," I added earnestly, "they might as well
not be there at all so little do they distract my attention. That's the
part of art suitable for domestic purposes,--something that you never
look at, or, if you do, you don't want to look at it again."
He said: "I couldn't sleep here. I couldn't get away from that old bird
over the mantel. However, it's your room."
"It is."
"Doubtless you like it."
"Doubtless."
"On me," he remarked, "it has the effect of a Jazz band." And he went
into his own apartment. For half an hour or so I fussed and pottered
about, nailing up bunches of photographs fanwise on the walls, arranging
knickknacks, placing brackets for curtain-poles and shoving the poles
through the brass rings supporting the curtains. They had once belonged
to the Admiral. They were green and blue with yellow birds on them.
After I finished draping them, I discovered that I had hung one pair
upside down. But the effect was not so bad. In domestic art one
doesn't want everything exactly balanced. Reiteration is exasperating;
repetition aggravating to the nerves. A chef-d'oeuvre is a priceless
anaesthetic: duplicated it loses one hundred per cent of its soporific
value. I was glad I had hung one pair of curtains upside down. I went
into Smith's room. He was shaving and I had him at my mercy.
"The principal element of art," said I to Smith, "is beauty--or rather,
perhaps, the principal element of beauty is art--I am not very clear at
this moment which it is. But I do know that beauty is never noisy.
Calm and serenity reign where there is no chattering repetition of
effects. Therefore, as an interior decorator, I always take liberties
with the stereotyped rules of decoration. I jumble periods. I
introduce bold innovations. For example: Old blue plates, tea-pots and
sugar-bowls I do not relegate to the pantry or the china-closet where
they belong. No. I place them upon a Louis XV commode or a Victorian
cabinet, or on a mantel. A clock calms the irritating monotony of a
side-board. A book-case in the bath-room produces a surprisingly calm
effect amid towels and tooth-mugs. A piano in the dining room gives
tone ... if played. And so, in my profession, Smith, I am always
searching for the calm harmony of the inharmonious, the unity of the
unconventional, and the silence of the inexplicable. And, if I may
venture to say so, I usually attain it. This is not a business card."
And having sufficiently punished Smith, I returned to my own room.
Lovingly, and with that unerring knowledge born of instinct, I worked
away quite happily all the morning decorating my room, and keeping one
eye on Smith to see that he didn't drift toward the kitchen. He betrayed
a tendency that way once or twice but desisted. I think he was afraid I
might decorate his room in his absence. He need not have worried: I
wanted all my things in my own room.
While I was busy hanging some red and pink curtains in my dressing-room
and tacking a yellowish carpet to the floor--a definitely advanced
scheme of color originating with me--I heard voices in the rear court
and, going to the window, beheld my consignment of brand new servants
arriving from Berne by diligence.
Smith, who had come up beside me to peer out through the blinds, uttered
an exclamation.
"That girl in Swiss peasant dress!--she looks like the twin sister to
your cook!"
"She is her sister. But she isn't nearly as pretty."
"She's infinitely prettier!" he asserted excitedly. "She's a real
beauty!--for a peasant."
I corrected him in my most forbearing manner: "What you are trying to
convey to me," said I, kindly, "is that the girl is flamboyantly
picturesque, but scarcely to be compared to Thusis for unusual or
genuine beauty. That's what you really mean, Smith; but you lack
vocabulary."
"Whatever I lack," he retorted warmly, "I mean exactly what I said! For
a peasant, that girl is beautiful to an emphatic degree,--far more so
than her sister Thusis. Be kind enough to get that."
I smiled patiently and pointed out to him that the hair of the newcomer
was merely light golden, not that magnificent Venetian gold-red of
Thusis' hair; and that her eyes were that rather commonplace violet hue
so much admired by cheap novelists. I don't know why he should have
become so animated about what I was striving to explain to him: he said
with unnecessary heat: "That's what I'm trying to drive into your Irish
head! That girl is beautiful, and her red-headed sister is merely
good-looking. Is my vocabulary plain?"
I began to lose my temper: "Smith," said I, "you fell for Thusis before
I noticed her at all----"
"I merely called your attention to the resemblance between her and your
photograph of 'The Laughing Girl.' And I did _not_ 'fall for her'--as
you put it with truly American elegance----"
"Confound it!" I exclaimed, "what do you mean by 'American elegance'?
Don't hand me that, Smith--you and your 'My girl's a corker!' Of the
two of us you'd be picked for a Yankee before I'd be. And I have my own
ideas on that subject, too--you and your Sagas about--
"'She plays the races'----"
"In my travels," he said, looking me straight in the eye, "it has
happened that I have picked up a few foreign folk-songs. You understand
me, of course."
"Yes," I replied amiably. "I think I get you, Smith. Whatever you say
goes; and you're a Viking as far as I'm concerned."
The slightest shadow of a grin lurked on his lips. "Good old Michael,"
he said, patting me on the shoulder. And, reconciled, we looked out of
the window again in brotherly accord. Just in time to see the
golden-haired sister of Thusis rise and jump lightly from the wagon to
the grass.
"Did you see that!" he demanded excitedly. "Did you ever see such grace
in a human being? Did you, Michael?"
What was the use? I saw nothing supernaturally extraordinary in that
girl or in her flying leap. Of course she was attractive in her trim,
supple, dainty, soubrette-like way. But as for comparing her to
Thusis!----
"Her name's Clelia," I remarked, avoiding further discussion. "She's to
do the rooms; Thusis waits on table and runs our establishment; and that
other girl down there--her name is Josephine Vannis, I believe--she is
to cook for us. You know," I added, "she also is very handsome in her
own way...."
He nodded without interest. She seemed to be of the Juno type, tall,
dark-haired, with velvet eyes and intensely white skin,--too
overwhelmingly classical to awaken my artistic enthusiasm. In fact she
rather scared me.
"And to think that six-foot goddess is my new cook," said I, rather
awed. I took another intent survey of the big, healthy, vigorous,
handsome girl; and I determined to keep out of her kitchen and avoid all
culinary criticism.
"She'd not hesitate to hand us a few with a rolling-pin," I remarked.
"Juno was celebrated for her quick temper, Shan, so don't find fault
with your victuals."
"No," he said very earnestly, "I won't."
My new gardener was now carrying in the assorted luggage,--bundles and
boxes of sorts done up in true peasant fashion with cords.
He seemed to be a sturdy, bright, good-looking young fellow with keen
black eyes and a lively cock-sure manner.
"He'll raise jealousies below stairs," remarked Smith. "That young
fellow is the beau ideal of all peasant girls. He'll be likely to raise
the deuce below stairs with Thusis and Juno."
Somehow or other the idea of such rustic gallantry did not entirely
please me. Nor did Smith's reference to Thusis and his cool exclusion
of Clelia.
"I don't believe Thusis would care for his type," said I carelessly.
"And if he gets too--too----" I hesitated, not exactly knowing what I
had meant to say.
"Sure," nodded Smith; "fire him if he bothers Clelia."
I dimly realized then that I didn't care whether he cut up with Clelia
or not. In fact, I almost hoped he would.
A little later when I was in my room, alone, and agreeably busy, there
sounded a low and very discreet knocking at my door. Instantly my
pulse, for some unexplained reason, became loud and irregular.
"Come in," said I, laying aside my work--some verses I had been
composing--trifles--trifles.
Thusis came in.
As the hostile Trojans rose unanimously to their feet when Helen
entered--rose in spite of their disapproval--so I got up instinctively
and placed a chair for her. She merely dropped me a curtsy and remained
standing.
"Please be seated," said I, looking at her with uneasy suspicion.
"Monsieur O'Ryan forgets himself," she protested in the softest and most
winningly demure of voices. But I saw the very devil laughing at me out
of her gray eyes.
"I don't know why a man should receive his servants standing," said I.
"Sit down," I added coldly, seating myself.
"Pardon, but I could not venture to seat myself in Monsieur's
presence----"
Perfectly conscious of the subtle mockery in her voice and manner, I
told her sharply to be seated and explain her errand. She curtsied
again--a most devilishly impudent little curtsey--and seated herself
with the air of a saint on the loose.
"My thisther Clelia, and my friend Jothephine Vannith, and Raoul
Dethpreth requetht the honor of rethpectfully prethenting themthelves to
Monsieur's graciouth conthideration," she said with an intentional lisp
that enraged me.
"Very well," I replied briefly. "You may go back and get rid of your
lisp, and then explain to them that you are to be waitress and general
housekeeper here, and that they are to take their orders from me through
you."
"Yes, Monsieur."
I don't think she relished my dry bluntness for I saw a slight color
gather in her cheeks.
I thought to myself that I'd come very close to spoiling the girl by my
silliness in the cellar. I'd made a fool of myself, but I'd do it no
more in spite of her heavenly resemblance to my photograph.
"That will be all at present, Thusis," I said coldly. "Come back in half
an hour for orders. And see that you wear a clean apron."
Her lovely face was quite red as she passed out, forgetting to curtsey.
As for my own emotions they were mixed.
One thing was certain; there was going to be a show-down between Thusis
and me before very long.
If she were indeed the peasant girl she pretended to be, she'd recover
her balance when I did, and learn her proper place. If she were,
perhaps, a child of the bourgeoisie--some educated and superior young
girl compelled to take service through family misfortune--and I now
entertained no further doubt that this was really the case--she had
nobody but herself to blame for my present attitude.
But!--but if, by any inexplicable chance, her social circumstances were,
or had once been, even better than bourgeoise, then the girl was a
political agent in masquerade. But, whoever she was, she had no
business to presume on her wit and insolent beauty to amuse herself at
my expense. And if she had really been sent by the Swiss police into my
household to keep an eye on me she was going about it in a silly and
stupid manner.
For such surveillance I didn't care a pewter penny. Spies had lagged
after me ever since I entered Switzerland. It was rather amusing than
otherwise.
But, as far as Thusis was concerned, I now decided that, no matter what
she was or had been, she had voluntarily become my servant; and I
intended that she should not again forget that fact.
As I sat there at my desk, grimly planning discipline for Thusis, I
chanced to look up at the photograph of "The Laughing Girl"; and stern
thoughts melted like frost at sunrise.
How amazingly, how disturbingly the lovely pictured features reminded me
of Thusis!
The resemblance, of course, must be pure accident, but what an
astonishing coincidence!
Musing there at my desk, possessed by dreamy and pleasing thoughts, I
gradually succumbed to the spell which my treasured photograph
invariably wove for me.
And I unlocked my desk and took out my verses.
They had been entitled "To Thusis." This I had scratched out and under
the canceled dedication I had written: "To a Photograph."
I had quite forgotten that I had told Thusis to report for orders in
half an hour: I was deeply, sentimentally absorbed in my poem. Then
there came a low knocking; and at the mere prospect of again
encountering my exceedingly impudent housekeeper I experienced a little
shock of emotion which started my heart thumping about in a most silly
and exasperating manner.
"Come in!" I said angrily.
She entered. I kept my seat with an effort.
"Well," said I in an impatient voice, "what is it now?"
Thusis looked at me intently for a moment, then the little devils that
hid in her gray eyes suddenly laughed at me, totally discrediting the
girl's respectful and almost serious face with its red mouth slightly
drooping.
"Monsieur has orders for the household?" she inquired in her sweet,
grave voice of a child.
That floored me. I had spoken about giving my orders through her. I
didn't know what orders to give.
"Certainly," said I,--"hum-hum! Let me see.--Let--me--see," I repeated.
"Yes--certainly--the orders must be given--hum-hum!----"
But what the devil I was to order I hadn't the vaguest idea.
"We'll have luncheon at one," I said, desperately. She made no
observation. I grew redder.
"We'll dine, too," I added. Her gray eyes mocked me but her mouth
drooped respectfully.
"For further orders," said I, "c-come b-back in half an hour. No, don't
do that! Wait a moment. I--I really don't know what sort of an
establishment I have here. Hadn't I better make a tour of inspection?"
"Monsieur will please himself."
"I think I'd better inspect things."
"What things, Monsieur?"
"The--the linen press--er--the _batterie-de-cuisine_--all that sort of
thing. Do you think I'd better do it, Thusis?"
"Would Monsieur know any more about them if he inspects these things?"
she inquired so guilelessly, so smilingly, that I surrendered then and
there.
"Thusis," I said, "I don't know anything about such matters. They bore
me. Be a nice child and give what orders are necessary. Will you?"
"If Monsieur wishes."
"I do wish it. Please--take full charge and run this ranch for me and
bring me the bills. You see I trust you, Thusis, although you have not
been very respectful to me."
"I am sorry, Monsieur," she said with a tragic droop of her lovely
mouth. But her eyes belied her.
"Thusis?"
"Monsieur?"
"I won't ask you who you are----"
"Merci, M'sieu."
"Don't interrupt me. What I am going to ask you, is, why do you
continually and secretly make fun of me----"
"M'sieu!"
"You do!"
"I, M'sieu?"
"Yes, you, Thusis. Always there is a hint of mockery in your
smile,--always the hidden amusement as though, in me, you find something
ridiculous----"
"Please!----"
"--Something secretly and delightfully absurd----"
"But you know you _are_ funny," she said, looking a trifle scared at her
own temerity.
"What!" I demanded angrily.
"Please be just, Mr. O'Ryan. I minded my own business until you tempted
me."
That was perfectly true but I denied it.
"You know," she said, "when a man finds a girl attractive the girl
always knows it, even when she's a servant.... And certain
circumstances made it much more amusing than you realize.... I mean to
be respectful. I am your servant.... But you know very well that it is
funny."
"What is funny?"
"The circumstances. You found me attractive. It mortified you. And the
way you took it was intensely amusing to me."
"Why?"
"Because you are you; and I am I. Because the fact that you found your
cook attractive horrified you. That was intensely funny to me. And
when, waiving the degradation, you actually attempted to kiss your own
cook----"
Laughter burst from her lips in a silvery shower of rippling notes which
enchanted and infuriated me at the same time.
I waited, very red, to control my voice; then I got up and set a chair
for her. And she dropped onto it without protest.
"What are you doing in my household?" I asked drily.
At that her laughter ceased and she gave me a straight sweet look.
"Don't you really know?"
"Of course not. You're an agent of some sort. That's evident. Are you
here to watch me?"
"Dear Mr. O'Ryan," she said lightly, "have I been at any pains to
deceive you? I'm not really a servant; you learned that very easily.
And I let you learn it--" She laughed:--"and it was a very pretty
compliment I paid you when I let you learn it."
"I don't understand you," I said.
"It's very simple. My name really is Thusis; I wish to remain in your
employment. So do my friends. We will prove good servants. You shall
be most comfortable,--you and your amusing friend, Mr. Smith--_the
Norwegian_."
I smiled in spite of my suspicion and perplexity, and Thusis smiled too,
such a gay little confidential smile that I could not resist the occult
offer of confidence that it very plainly implied.
"You are _not_ here to keep tabs on me?" I demanded.
"You very nice young man, of course not!"
"Do you really think I'm nice, Thusis?"
"I think you're adorable!"
The rush of emotion to the head made me red and dizzy. I had never been
talked to that way by a young girl. I didn't know it was done.
And another curious thing about this perfectly gay and unembarrassed
eulogy of hers, she said it as frankly and spontaneously as she might
have spoken to another girl or to an attractive child: there was
absolutely no sex consciousness about her.
"Are you going to let us remain and be your very faithful and diligent
servants?" she asked, mischievously amused at the shock she had
administered.
"Thusis," I said, "it's going to be rather difficult for me to treat you
as a servant. And if your friends are of the same quality----"
"It's perfectly easy," she insisted. "If we presume, correct us. If we
are slack, punish us. Be masculine and exacting; be bad tempered about
your food--" She laughed delightfully--"Raise the devil with us if we
misbehave."
I didn't believe I could do that and said so; and she turned on me that
bewildering smile and sat looking at me very intently, with her white
hands clasped in her lap.
"You don't think we're a band of robbers conspiring to chloroform you
and Mr. Smith some night and make off with your effects?" she inquired.
We both laughed.
"You're very much puzzled, aren't you, Mr. O'Ryan," she continued.
"I am, indeed."
"But you're so nice--so straight and clean yourself--that you'd give me
the benefit of any doubt, wouldn't you?"
"Yes."
"That's because you're a sportsman. That's because you play all games
squarely." Her face became serious; her gray eyes met mine and seemed
to look far into them.
"Your country is neutral, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes."
"You are not."
"I have my ideas."
"And ideals," she added.
"Yes, I have them still, Thusis."
"So have I," she said. "I am trying to live up to them. If you will
let me."
"I'll even help you----"
"No! Just let me alone. That is all I ask of you." Her youthful face
grew graver. "But that is quite enough to ask of you. Because by
letting me alone you are incurring danger to yourself.
"Why do you tell me?"
"Because I wish to be honest with you. If you retain me as your servant
and accept me and my friends as such,--even if you live here quietly and
blamelessly, obeying the local and Federal laws and making no inquiries
concerning me or my three friends,--yet, nevertheless, you may find
yourself in very serious trouble before many days."
"Political trouble?"
"All kinds of trouble, Mr. O'Ryan."
There was a silence; she sat there with slender fingers tightly
interlocked as though under some sort of nervous tension, but the faint
hint of a smile in the corners of her mouth--which seemed to be part of
her natural expression--remained.
She said: "And more than that: if you let us remain as your servants, we
shall trust to you and to Mr. Smith that neither one of you by look or
word or gesture would ever convey to anybody the slightest hint that I
and my friends are not exactly what we appear to be--your household
servants."
"Thusis," said I, "what the deuce are you up to?"
"What am I up to?" She laughed outright:--"Let me see! First--"
counting on her fingers, "I am trying to find a way to live up to my
ideals; second, I am going to try to bring happiness to many, many
people; third, I am prepared to sacrifice myself, my friends, my nearest
and dearest." ... She lifted her clear eyes: "I am quite ready to
sacrifice you, too," she said.