VANE, however, did not carry his analysis quite so far as this. He
found that it was unreal; there he stopped; the why was too heavy a
burden for him. He was ready and anxious enough to make it real; but
still, all through his life, the substance of life itself had kept
eluding him, and left the shadow in his hand.
Many of the girls (at Cinerea every woman under thirty is a girl)--many
of the girls were reading novels, American summer stories, written by
girls about other girls, and revelling in the summer life of girls.
Vane borrowed some of these and read them. They were so prettily
written, so charming, so awfully true, he was told; and he liked not
to confess that they gave him but a little passing amusement, which
was followed by much mental depression. It was all true and real,
then? Was Vane himself something of a prig? John Haviland did not
think so. But these stories seemed to him more immoral, or at all
events, more corrupting, than many a French romance ending in adultery.
There was in them an ignorance of all that is highest in life, a
calm, self-satisfied acceptance of a petty standard. The strength of
crime implies the strength of virtue, but the negation of both is
hopelessness. In defence of Vane, it might be said that he was really
not in the mood for pleasure at this time.
The straw-ride was unanimously declared to be a great success. Miss
Morse brought her volume of Mérimée along and read it to her young man
in the woods. Her young man for the afternoon, that is; she had no
special young man. The chaperone was the beautiful Mrs. Miles Breeze,
of Baltimore; she arrived suddenly, in the nick of time to go; and Vane
could see that Miss Morse was much elated at being under the wing of
so real a social personage. Ned Eddy was with her. When the company
paired off and scattered in the woods, Vane fell to the lot of a Miss
Gibbs, of Philadelphia, a still newer acquaintance to whom Miss Storrs
had introduced him. Miss Gibbs had a volume of Rossetti's poems with
her, and Vane read to her the "Last Confession" under the pine trees.
For many a foreigner, it would have been his first. But the hearts of
American young men are (very properly) bound in triple brass. Miss
Gibbs also knew Miss Thomas. She seemed relieved when she gathered from
Vane that Miss Storrs was an acquaintance of a few hours, and Misses
Morse and Westerhouse of the morning only. Evidently, thought Vane,
there were distinctions if not differences. Miss Gibbs combined much
good-breeding with her fascinations; and a dangerous _savoir faire_.
The next day he went to walk with a dark-haired girl in the morning,
and to drive with a yellow-haired widow in the afternoon. In the
evening he found himself drifting on the lake in a boat with Miss
Gibbs. Any one of these beauties would have been termed, by a
Frenchman, adorable; and probably he would have ventured to adore.
Other boats with similar couples were scattered over the lake, no
one too near another. As far as Vane could judge, it seemed to be
considered the proper thing for every young man to simulate the
deepest love for his companion of the hour. It was a sort of private
theatrical, with the out-door night for a stage; a midsummer night's
dream, of which the theme was _let's pretend we're lovers_. He was here
alone with Miss Gibbs under circumstances which in France would have
compelled him to marry her; and it was doubtful whether she would even
remember him as an acquaintance, in the city, a few weeks later.
He was glad to admit that there was something very creditable in the
fact that the thing was possible. Still this trifling, this mild but
continuous drugging of the affections, must have its demoralizing
effect. It was part result and part cause of that same unreality. The
only real thing about the hotel was the stock-ticker; and even there,
the stock that it registered was water. It was all very amusing. Yet
the fancy continually recurred of Miss Thomas, in this situation,
though he, of all men, would have had no right to be displeased; for
had she not definitely told him he had none? Still, it was hard to
divest himself of a certain sense of property in her; he had mentally
appropriated her for so long.
He was plashing carelessly with his oars, and watching the sheen of
moonlight on the outline of his companion's fair face, suffering
himself for a moment to wonder how the same light would have fallen in
Winifred's blue eyes, when Miss Gibbs again spoke of her.
"I had a letter from your friend Miss Thomas, to-day," said she. The
deuce she had! thought Vane; so she corresponds with Miss Gibbs, does
she? Vane was disgusted with himself for thinking so much about the
girl, and here he was caught thinking of her again.
He pulled a few nervous strokes. How could he see the letter without
exciting Miss Gibbs' curiosity? He managed it, finally, and read the
letter. He was secretly relieved to find that the note was quite formal
and was simply to tell Miss Gibbs that she need not forward a piece of
embroidery which had been left behind. More surprising was the news
that Miss Thomas was coming back. Vane made himself doubly attentive
to Miss Gibbs; and as each man walked back with his lady, and said to
her a long good night on the hotel piazza, implying all the sorrow of
a Romeo in parting from a Juliet, Vane was secretly wondering what the
deuce he was to do. "What the deuce!" was again the phrase he mentally
used. He did not wish to see the girl again--that was certain enough;
but it was decidedly undignified to run away. There was really a sort
of fatality in their meeting.
But the best way to treat a fatality is to make nothing of it. Thus
treated, it is seldom fatal. Then he was rather curious to see how Miss
Thomas would behave among these Dibbles and these Westerhouses. After
all, she too was an American; a little more sophisticated, a little
better endowed by nature; but she, too, made a toy of love, and actors
in private theatricals of her more "exciting" friends. "Exciting" was
a word that Vane had heard Miss Westerhouse apply to Mr. Dibble. Vane
had caught a little of the Parisian's contempt for flirting with young
girls. In a flirtation with married women, he thought, there were at
least possibilities; and the flirtations were not so utterly silly.
But marriage was far too serious an affair to be made fun of. At this
period Vane affected to himself an extreme cynicism. Intercourse with
Cinerea girls had corrupted him. They had given him their own levity.
At another time, he would have deplored the vulgarization of a lofty
sentiment; but since the past June he had been in a flippant mood
himself. The American cue was to make game of everything in fun, and
to make a hazard of life in earnest. He felt that he was becoming
Americanized.
Feminine companionship was certainly corrupting to earnestness, if
not to morals. By the end of this week he felt cloyed with too much
trifle. He sighed for a man and a cigar, for a seat in a club, for a
glass of brandy, for anything else masculine, for a little of man's
plain language and strong thinking. Yet these girls were no fools: they
read Prosper Mérimée's Letters, for example. They were emancipated
enough. But they also read Lucile. He understood why women were not
let into ancient religions, Freemasonry and the Egyptian mysteries.
They belittled the imagination. _Per contra_, they were essential to
the Eleusinian. Their only truly great rôle was the Mœnad. And yet, he
thought, these sentiments of his would have shocked these girls.
Vane's thoughts came and went nervously. He was driving in a buggy
alone, or, at least, only Miss Morse was with him. He was ashamed of
himself; he was ashamed of his thinking; he was ashamed, thinking as
he did, of his inconsistency in driving with Miss Morse in a buggy.
_Postiche, postiche_, it was all _postiche_, or was it frankness? Was
it the troubled dream, the low beginning of the new conditions? Was
his disapproval a bit of feudal prejudice? Vane was troubled, excited,
disgusted, confused. Miss Morse noticed all this, but thought he was in
love with her.
The only green spots in the man's memory were Rennes, and Monserrat,
and Carcassonne; yes, and the littered desk in the down-town office in
New York--the scene of his only labors and his one success. And that
success was no longer necessary; it no longer profited any one but
himself. Vane had never formulated his position with such precision
before. The last person of his own family was dead; he had claims upon
no one, no one had any claim upon him; he had no further ambitions upon
Mammon. Given this problem, what solution could the world offer--the
New York world, that is? Somebody says life is made up of labor,
art, love, and worship. New York had given him labor, which he had
performed. And of the others? Had it given him love, even? Was he a
barbarian, better fitted for a struggle with crude nature than New
York, not up to the refinements of modern civilization? Should he
leave these places? Now, that day Miss Thomas was to come, and he must
decide. He thirsted for happiness; how was he best to find it? These
thoughts, perhaps, seemed selfish, cold-blooded, practical, but there
was a sadness in them for Vane.
So thinking, as he drove his buggy along the road, they passed Miss
Thomas, walking gracefully, and the rich, slow color burned through
her face and fell away at her temples as she bowed. Vane drove on the
faster, flicking his horse with the whip, and considered what he would
do now that she had returned.
He would treat her like Miss Westerhouse and Miss Gibbs of
Philadelphia. He would not have his own movements disturbed by her
coming and going. He would stay his intended fortnight out and then go.