In spite of the storm, a large audience had gathered at the
Metropolitan Opera House. The first rendition of Saint-Saëns’s opera,
“Sanson et Dalila” had been a magnet to the multitude that can endure a
biblical story if it is presented to them in an attractive setting. As
the irreverent Buchanan Budd had whispered to Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, “The
Old Testament is full of unused librettos. But it is strange that the
‘first lesson’ of this evening’s service should come to us from wicked
Paris.”
The Percy-Bartletts’ parterre-box contained four persons as the curtain
arose, the stage showing the unhappy Hebrews mourning the desertion of
Jehovah, and the afflictions forced upon them by the priests of Dagon,
the fish-god.
Just in front of Richard Stoughton sat Gertrude Van Vleck, for the
time being Mrs. Percy-Bartlett’s most intimate friend. This means, of
course, that they confided in each other in a gingerly way, and spoke
of each other in terms of enthusiastic admiration to third persons.
Gertrude Van Vleck had been a reigning belle for two seasons. Society
had received her with a good deal of enthusiasm. She was rich,
handsome,--in a rather striking style,--and her blood was as blue as
any that a new country can produce. But, after her first appearance
as a _débutante_, Gertrude Van Vleck had not been especially popular
in the inner circle. She had had many suitors of course, but her
indifference to their wooing had been the occasion of remark. But this
was not all. From her mother, who had come from an old New England
family, Gertrude had inherited a strain of Yankee humor that was
not appreciated by the set in which she moved. The whisper had been
spread abroad in her first season that she had said several really
clever things, and a good many conservative people had considered
this an erratic tendency on her part that was distinctly dangerous.
Society did not feel certain that Gertrude Van Vleck might not at
any moment perpetrate a witticism that would scratch the face of its
most cherished traditions. The worst of it was that her position in
society was so firmly established that she could afford to indulge her
appreciation of the ludicrous and her inclination to look at things in
an original way. Society was powerless to discipline her.
Furthermore, it was suspected that Gertrude Van Vleck was in sympathy
with the effort of woman to break away from her time-honored
subserviency to man, and to do a great deal of independent thinking
about the problems that agitate the world. She had given her
countenance to the efforts of women to turn the political scale at the
last election into the lap of reform,--whatever that elusive thing
may be,--and she had been a pioneer in the movement that had gained
recognition for the bicycle from the swell set.
Richard Stoughton had heard something of all this; and he found himself
looking at Gertrude with considerable curiosity, while the Hebrews were
airing their woes upon the stage--woes that awakened little sympathy
from an audience that knew how well in latter days the oppressed race
has triumphed over all obstacles, and has placed a mortgage on a planet
that has practically refused them a native land. Richard admitted to
himself that Miss Van Vleck was handsome, that her eyes were of a
cerulean tint worthy of her blood, that her dark hair was strikingly
effective, that her white neck and arms were well cut. He also felt
that nothing too bitter to please a man or woman of sense could fall
from a mouth so finely shaped as hers.
Nevertheless, he turned from the contemplation of Gertrude’s statuesque
beauty to glance at the softer, but equally effective, radiance of
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett; and their eyes met for the first time since he
had entered the box. Richard felt that the sympathy that had seemed to
exist between himself and Mrs. Percy-Bartlett at their first meeting
was not a dream, but a reality; that the unrest he had experienced
since he had looked into her brown eyes on parting with her a few
nights before could still find relief when he gazed into those eyes
again. She smiled, and leaned toward him.
“I am not in the mood for oratorio, as this first act seems to be,” she
whispered. “I’d rather talk to you.”
Richard bent nearer to her. The perfume of her hair thrilled him with a
subtle ecstasy.
“I have much to say to you,” he answered, “about--about”--
“About what?” she murmured, smiling at his hesitancy.
“About yourself. Myself--the last few days--about a thousand things
that--that might bore you.”
“Then don’t say them,” she remarked. “I cannot bear to be bored.”
She turned to look at the stage, and Richard felt a pang of annoyance
at her coquetry. Had he been a few years older, a bit more experienced
in the ways of woman, he would have been pleased at her treatment
of him. A woman does not waste coquetry on a man in whom she is not
interested.
Buchanan Budd and Gertrude Van Vleck were good friends. As there had
never been anything warmer in their acquaintanceship than a keen
appreciation of each other’s mental alertness, they took solid pleasure
in each other’s society. Budd was a rather clever fellow by nature;
but he had never let his cleverness go beyond the bonds of strict
propriety. Having attained a much higher place in society than his
parents had occupied, he conformed with almost religious reverence to
the forms and edicts prescribed by the leaders of the circle in which
he occupied a somewhat precarious position. He was a handsome man,
and had inherited a large fortune; and so society had overlooked the
fact that his immediate ancestors had been in trade, and had admitted
him into its sacred precincts. Nevertheless, he had never felt quite
assured of his position, and had made it a practice to walk in the very
narrow groove paced by the leaders of his set.
“Do you not find food for reflection?” he whispered to Gertrude Van
Vleck, during the second act of the opera, “in this unhappy story of
woman’s interference in public affairs?”
She turned her dark blue eyes on him, and smiled coldly.
“There are women and women,” she returned. “It was Samson’s weakness
that brought disaster to himself and his people.”
“I acknowledge my defeat,” said Budd humbly. “I have nothing to say for
Samson, excepting that he sings rather well.”
“That is graceful of you. But, frankly, Mr. Budd, you don’t approve of
woman going into public life, and riding the bicycle?”
“Whether I do or do not makes little difference, Miss Van Vleck. The
time is past when the opinion of men regarding these matters has any
weight. The wise man to-day is he who frankly acknowledges that he is
no longer a lord of creation, and settles down to suffer in silence,
and to adapt himself to the new conditions.”
Gertrude’s eyes twinkled merrily.
“What a sad picture!” she exclaimed under her breath. “I am as sorry
for you as for that poor Hebrew giant, with his shorn locks and his
sightless eyes. But I am very glad, Mr. Budd, that you are not inclined
to pull down the temple about our heads.”
Richard had been talking to Mrs. Percy-Bartlett about John Fenton.
“You interest me in the man,” she said earnestly. “I have a vague idea
of having heard Mr. Percy-Bartlett speak of him as a brilliant but
eccentric man of good origin, who cut quite a figure in society fifteen
or twenty years ago. I think he had an unhappy love-affair that drove
him into dissipation. Then he squandered his fortune, and dropped out
of sight.”
“I did not know all this,” said Richard musingly; “but it explains
several things. At all events, Fenton has exercised a great fascination
over me. I really like him better than any man I have met in New
York. This is the more peculiar, as I am not in sympathy with any
idea or theory that he propounds. It is strange how we are drawn to
or repelled by people, without being able to explain just why we like
one man and detest another, why one woman makes us misogynistic, and
another causes us to forget everything but the heaven that lies in
her”--
Richard hesitated.
“Well?” whispered Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, glancing up at him rather shyly.
“The heaven that lies in her deep, brown eyes,” he murmured recklessly,
as the house broke into applause after a thrilling duet between Samson
and Delilah.
As the opera neared its conclusion, Mrs. Percy-Bartlett, who had been
gazing thoughtfully at the stage without seeming to be much impressed
by the drama enacted there, turned to Richard, and said,--
“I am to have a small musicale on Tuesday evening. Do you think you
could persuade Mr. Fenton to come to it?”
Richard looked at her a moment in silence. He was surprised at her
proposal.
“I cannot answer for him,” he said at length. “He is very eccentric.”
“That is why I want him to come,” returned Mrs. Percy-Bartlett
stubbornly. “There is something in his career and in his personality,
as you describe it, that leads me to try an experiment with him.”
Richard glanced at her questioningly. He did not quite approve of her
at that moment. She seemed to understand the expression on his face.
“I want him to meet Gertrude Van Vleck,” she explained, smiling at him
frankly.
Richard returned her smile, and said, “I will bring him if I can;” then
he added after a pause, “but the age of miracles has passed.”