Jeff did not know whether Miss Bessie Lynde meant to go to Mrs. Bevidge's
Thursdays or not. He thought she might have been bantering him by what
she said, and he decided that he would risk going to the first of them on
the chance of meeting her. She was not there, and there was no one there
whom he knew. Mrs. Bevidge made no effort to enlarge his acquaintance,
and after he had drunk a cup of her tea he went away with rage against
society in his heart, which he promised himself to vent at the first
chance of refusing its favors. But the chance seemed not to come. The
world which had opened its gates to him was fast shut again, and he had
to make what he could of renouncing it. He worked pretty hard, and he
renewed himself in his fealty to Cynthia, while his mind strayed
curiously to that other girl. But he had almost abandoned the hope of
meeting her again, when a large party was given on the eve of the Harvard
Mid-Year Examinations, which end the younger gayeties of Boston, for a
fortnight at least, in January. The party was so large that the
invitations overflowed the strict bounds of society at some points. In
the case of Jeff Durgin the excess was intentional beyond the vague
benevolence which prompted the giver of the party to ask certain other
outsiders. She was a lady of a soul several sizes larger than the souls
of some other society leaders; she was not afraid to do as she liked; for
instance, she had not only met the Vostrands at Westover's tea, several
years before, but she had afterward offered some hospitalities to those
ladies which had discharged her whole duty toward them without involving
her in any disadvantages. Jeff had been presented to her at Westover's,
but she disliked him so promptly and decidedly that she had left him out
of even the things that she asked some other jays to, like lectures and
parlor readings for good objects. It was not until one of her daughters
met him, first at Willie Morland's tea and then at Mrs. Bevidge's
meeting, that her social conscience concerned itself with him. At the
first her daughter had not spoken to him, as might very well have
happened, since Bessie Lynde had kept him away with her nearly all the
time; but at the last she had bowed pleasantly to him across the room,
and Jeff had responded with a stiff obeisance, whose coldness she felt
the more for having been somewhat softened herself in Mrs. Bevidge's
altruistic atmosphere.
"I think he was hurt, mamma," the girl explained to her mother, "that
you've never had him to anything. I suppose they must feel it."
"Oh, well, send him a card, then," said her mother; and when Jeff got the
card, rather near the eleventh hour, he made haste to accept, not because
he cared to go to Mrs. Enderby's house, but because he hoped he should
meet Miss Lynde there.
Bessie was the first person he met after he turned from paying his duty
to the hostess. She was with her aunt, and she presented him, and
promised him a dance, which she let him write on her card. She sat out
another dance with him, and he took her to supper.
To Westover, who had gone with the increasing forlornness a man feels in
such pleasures after thirty-five, it seemed as if the two were in each
other's company the whole evening. The impression was so strong with him
that when Jeff restored Bessie to her aunt for the dance that was to be
for some one else, and came back to the supper-room, the painter tried to
satisfy a certain uneasiness by making talk with him. But Jeff would not
talk; he got away with a bottle of champagne, which he had captured, and
a plate heaped with croquettes and pease, and galantine and salad. There
were no ladies left in the room by that time, and few young men; but the
oldsters crowded the place, with their bald heads devoutly bowed over
their victual, or their frosty mustaches bathed in their drink, singly or
in groups; the noise of their talk and laughter mixed with the sound of
their eating and drinking, and the clash of the knives and dishes. Over
their stooped shoulders and past their rounded stomachs Westover saw Alan
Lynde vaguely making his way with a glass in his hand, and looking
vaguely about for wine; he saw Jeff catch his wandering eye, and make
offer of his bottle, and then saw Lynde, after a moment of haughty pause,
unbend and accept it. His thin face was flushed, and his hair tossed over
his forehead, but Jeff seemed not to take note of that. He laughed
boisterously at something Lynde said, and kept filling his glass for him.
His own color remained clear and cool. It was as if his powerful physique
absorbed the wine before it could reach his brain.
Westover wanted to interfere, and so far as Jeff was concerned he would
not have hesitated; but Lynde was concerned, too, and you cannot save
such a man from himself without offence. He made his way to the young
man, hoping he might somehow have the courage he wanted.
Jeff held up the bottle, and called to him, "Get yourself a glass, Mr.
Westover." He put on the air of a host, and would hardly be denied. "Know
Mr. Westover, Mr. Lynde? Just talking about you," he explained to
Westover.
Alan had to look twice at the painter. "Oh yes. Mr. Durgin, here--telling
me about his place in the mountains. Says you've been there. Going--going
myself in the summer. See his--horses." He made pauses between his words
as some people do when they, try to keep from stammering.
Westover believed Lynde understood Jeff to be a country gentleman of
sporting tastes, and he would not let that pass. "Yes, it's the
pleasantest little hotel in the mountains."
"Strictly-temperance, I suppose?" said Alan, trying to smile with lips
that obeyed him stiffly. He appeared not to care who or what Jeff was;
the champagne had washed away all difference between them. He went on to
say that he had heard of Jeff's intention of running the hotel himself
when he got out of Harvard. He held it to be damned good stuff.