"I'm developing like lightning."
"Lightning develops quickly, but it doesn't last, dear."
Diana, lost in retrospection again, smiled vaguely. Then, lifting her
pretty eyes:
"Did you ever see starlings feeding their young? A pair nested opposite
the studio. I found their evolutions rather interesting."
"No doubt," said her sister. "Is that what has aroused the maternal
instinct? Come, who is to bathe first. Pull down the shade and turn on
the electricity, and ring for the maid, dear. She ought to lay out our
gowns at once."
Diana did as she was bidden; then, on impulse, sat down at the little
fly-away desk and scribbled a note:
"Take it to Mr. Edgerton," she said to the maid.
Edgerton, dressing leisurely, read the note where he stood under the
electric cluster:
"DEAR JIM: The rain, the world, and things oppress me. So do you
sometimes.... There's a long future ahead of me. I dread it--who was
eager for the plunge a few days since. I seem to be standing on the
threshold of things in general, waiting for my cue to enter, but with
little heart for the stage now. Alas, I am already tired before the
overture has ended.
"If we dance to-night, ask me. Probably I'm the only girl in the house
who could stand a dance with you--and I'm not so certain about
myself.... But if we play Bridge, continue not to sit at our table. I
ask it of you for reasons which are none of your business. Indulge my
whim, please.
"JAPONETTE."
He finished dressing, then scribbled a note to her, and sent it by the
valet:
"Japonette, dear, I'm as rotten at cards as I am dancing. I won't
permit indiscreet infatuation to interfere with your Bridge.... And, by
the way, in this sort of a house the chances are they'll play for
stakes--probably high stakes. My limit is a cent a point--or was in
days of affluence--but our host will scarcely expect us to risk our
salaries, I fancy. So even if you have no objection to playing for
stakes--which probably, however, you have--you need not feel obliged to.
Our duties here do not include losing money to Mr. Rivett's assorted
guests, you know. Feel perfectly at liberty to let the table carry you
and Silvette.
"Shall I wait and go down with you both?
"J.E."
She read the note; then handed it silently to Silvette, who read it also
in silence.
"You see," said Diana, "it's exactly what I told you. He doesn't wish
us to play for stakes."
"He says nothing here about his wishes.... Besides, it would be an
impertinence for him to make any such suggestion to either you or me."
"His attitude is plain enough--if you think it impertinent."
"I don't think it is. He indicates that he supposes we do not play for
stakes, and adds that, anyway, we need not if we don't wish to. That is
all the note expresses. Anyway, it doesn't matter, does it?"
Diana shook her disheveled head, seated herself and wrote a hasty
answer, sending it away by the valet, who was waiting outside the door.
"Don't wait for us; we're not hooked up yet. We're quite accustomed to
play for stakes, you funny boy, so that need cause you no uneasiness....
And please don't forget to ask me, if they dance."
Edgerton stood thinking for a moment before his fireplace after reading
the missive; then struck a match and lit the two notes, holding them
together until almost consumed, and lingered still to watch the edge of
yellow flame on the hearth licking up the remaining margins of the
paper.
Then he went downstairs and into a green and gold drawing-room, where
his hostess received him shyly, almost timidly--a small gray-haired
woman all over jewels whose thin little hand trembled slightly in his.
It was a frail hand, fragile of bone, yet never the hand of generations
of leisure, for the joints were hard and accented, and the fingers
rather worn than thin--as though once not unaccustomed to household
labor; and, without knowing just why, he retained the diamond-laden hand
in his firm, warm clasp for a moment as though to reassure her.
"It is nice of you to ask us," he said gently. "You have made everything
very easy and comfortable for us. My cousins will be down in a few
moments; they asked me to come first."
The little gray woman looked up into his pleasant, well-cut face as
though confused; he smiled down at her, still retaining her hand.
"My husband has told me who you are," she said. "I didn't expect you to
be just like this.... You and your cousins are our very welcome and
honored guests.... Our _guests_," she repeated almost tremulously, "and
none more welcome under our roof."
"It is gracious and kind of you to say so," he said, touched by the
simplicity and the mild, faded face upturned.
Then Mr. Rivett came forward, cautiously treading the velvet, his two
burned-brown eyes fixed behind the big concave eyeglasses.
"It's wet weather," he said, shaking hands. "I hope your quarters are
comfortable."
"Most luxurious, thank you--with a beautiful outlook."
Mrs. Rivett's gentle voice sounded at his elbow presenting him to her
daughter and son, and after that to several others who, for the moment,
he made no effort to distinguish one from another except that he
recognized Colonel Curmew in superb form and obtrusive pearl studs
decorating a fluted shirt front.
A moment later Silvette and Diana entered, slender and youthful, with
all the softly flushed charm of eighteen and the winning composure of a
wider experience than eighteen years can ever lend.
Colonel Curmew presently outflanked Silvette, forcing her skillfully
into a momentary retreat toward the recess of a window, where he
blockaded her and curled his mustache with satisfaction and shot his
cuffs, and prepared to drive in her outer pickets.
Diana remained in quiet conversation with Mrs. Rivett, the latter shy,
wistful, and ill at ease by turns; the former sweet and deferential, yet
all the while composedly taking the measure of the others in the room,
and of the room itself, vaguely aware in her apparently smiling
preoccupation that she was winning a perplexed and timid heart.
Cocktails were served--unusual ones that had a scent like the original
Ricky, that is, the aromatic odor of wild blossoms.
The little gray woman barely tasted hers, with that same inborn
instinct, perhaps, that impelled those old-time hostesses in the days
when viands and wines sometimes proved fatal.
Then Edgerton relieved her of her scarcely touched glass; took Diana's,
too, which was still half full. Mrs. Rivett rose and gave him her arm,
to his surprise; Mr. Rivett took in Diana, his son Silvette. The name
of Edgerton had counted heavily.
[Illustration: "Mr. Rivett took in Diana, his son Silvette."]
In the dining room everything was grossly overdone except the
cookery--the sort of thing most calculated to annoy and bore the very
man most accustomed to it in town; profusion akin to the plethora which
offends; effort impossible to disguise which stirs even in the most
good-natured and generous an unwilling contempt.
Edgerton let his eyes rest for a moment, outside the silver and
crystal-set circle of light, on gold, heavy carving, gilded tapestry and
picture, and withdrew his gaze gravely. Men servants swarmed, bothering
him; the scent of greenhouse blossoms, forced before their time; the
heavy magnificence out of place--all slightly disgusted him, though much
of it was about what he had expected of such people.
Little Miss Rivett, on his left, dissected her terrapin with the healthy
attention of youth and hunger; and presently he turned to look at her
with amused but wholly amiable curiosity.
He saw a small, plump, dainty maid, with exceedingly clear and bright
brown eyes, and a softly brilliant complexion, looking back at him with
unconcealed interest.
There was a moment's silence, then they both smiled.
"Do you think you'll like us?" she asked saucily; "or do you hate us
already?"
"Not the slightest doubt of my liking you, Miss Rivett; but how about
your liking us?"
"Your cousins are most bewitching and bewildering.... You seem to be
nice--are you?"
"Very," he said, laughing. "I'm glad you gave me an opportunity of
saying so, because otherwise it might not have been perfectly clear to
you."
"I _am_ rather fastidious," she said. "How well do you dance?"
"My grace in that praiseworthy pastime is ursine."
"Really?"
"Unbearably."
"You are very British, aren't you?"
"Do you refer to my little play upon words?"
"No, generally; that was merely a touch of local color. Naturally,
also, you fishshootridetohoundsandplaypolo; do you?"
"Also gawf, dear lady."
"Perfectly symmetrical and indistinguishable from others of your kind.
I thought so. Crocky, too?"
"Certainly, crocky," he admitted; "also no bank account. You may call
me m'lud with impunity."
"Perhaps you're not entirely qualified. How do you stand on the heiress
question, Mr. Edgerton?"
"I can't qualify there."
"Then you're a sham. Besides, you're neither clever nor gallant. _I_
am an heiress."
"Then I qualify at once as a fortune hunter," he said, laughing, "and
I'll cable for my solicitors."
"What _are_ you saying?" asked Mrs. Rivett in her gentle, uncertain
voice.
"Mother, Mr. Edgerton and I are going to be friends. Perhaps he isn't
sure of it, but I am. Tell him what happens when I am sure of
anything."
"Dear, perhaps Mr. Edgerton doesn't quite understand your manner of
saying things."
"That's just it; he _does_ understand! He is going to turn out
exceedingly nice, mother; watch him!"
"Christine! Please be a little less personal and abrupt."
They turned, smiling, toward the other end of the table where much
laughter sounded. Evidently Diana and Silvette were becoming very
popular, and, somehow, it occurred to Edgerton that perhaps this great
room had not often resounded with mirth.
But the chatter and laughter were incessant now; so were the servants'
ministrations, and Edgerton was glad enough to give his arm to the faded
little woman beside him and take her to her great, gilded chair in the
drawing-room, and follow the men to another room, where blue smoke from
cigars presently floated to the ceiling.
Jack Rivett, rather too plump and smooth, moved into a chair beside
Edgerton; and the latter, who had prejudged him from his appearance, was
slightly surprised to find the youth widely read, widely traveled, with
a mind and even a wit entirely his own, and an original but sometimes
callow comment for any subject brought up.
In a desultory conversation it presently transpired that young Rivett
was a candidate for the Patroon's Club.
"You're a member, I believe; are you not?" he asked Edgerton.
"I have resigned."
"Oh! I thought that was the one club from which nobody ever resigned.
I beg your pardon, Edgerton!" he added, turning red; "don't think me a
cad."
"No offense," smiled Edgerton; "I resigned because I couldn't afford it.
It's a good club; hope you make it soon."
"I hope I do.... But we're rather recent additions--if we _are_
additions--to New York. You never can tell what New Yorkers will do to
people like us," he added laughingly.
"New York is practically composed of recent residents," said Edgerton,
smiling.
"They're the most pitiless to newcomers. I wouldn't be very much afraid
if we had only your sort to encounter. If you old residents like a man,
he gets his hat check ultimately, and passes in; but it lies with the
sidewalk speculators now. The seats of the mighty are in their hands."
Edgerton was much amused.
"Not entirely," he said; "even we older residents are asked about now
and then."
"Into which of the three circles--Smart, Knickerbocker, or Old
Testament?"
Edgerton was laughing so frankly that Rivett senior turned his convex
glasses on him; and, deciding that the laughter was genuine and not
included in services, went on with his business conversation with a Mr.
Snaith--a large, soft-skinned gentleman deeply immersed in oil and
cotton.
Colonel Curmew came over briskly, expelling smoke.
"What are you youngsters playing this evening? Auction or Chinese
Kahn?"
"However, they choose to make up the tables," said Jack Rivett lazily.
Then, as though on an after thought: "I doubt whether Mr. Edgerton
bothers with cards; do you?"
"I don't mind, except that I've cut out playing for stakes," replied
Edgerton, perfectly aware of Jack Rivett's kindly consideration in
giving him a chance to escape gracefully, and a trifle amused, too, that
the young man should suppose he cared what anybody in the place might
think of him.
Servants were now arranging the old-fashioned colonial card tables in
the noticeably old-fashioned colonial card room. A young girl or two
appeared at the arched doorway, lingering on the threshold as several of
the men came out to gossip.
Then the hostess appeared with the others; groups formed, shifted, and
gradually subsided into seats; seals of fresh packs were broken, scores
penciled, the first hands dealt at auction.
Diana, Colonel Curmew, a very pretty Mrs. Wemyss, and Mr. Rivett sat
together; at another table Silvette, Mr. Snaith, Christine Rivett, and a
Mr. Dineen--a gentleman weighing some two hundred pounds and wearing an
attractive snub nose and a pair of merry gray-blue eyes.
And the awful hush of auction descended without a sound.
Edgerton and his hostess and a Judge Wicklow and a Mrs. Lorrimore--a
fair, fat, blue-eyed thing with a cupid-bow mouth as sweet as the smile
that abode there--settled themselves to Chinese Kahn, a game spelled in
various ways and played in several more.
"Stakes?" inquired Mrs. Lorrimore with businesslike directness.
"Your pleasure," replied Judge Wicklow in the deep, thick voice
celebrated and feared where judicial procedures are thickest and most
unimportant.
"Neither Mr. Edgerton nor I care to gamble--I think," said Mrs. Rivett
timidly.
The judge turned his bovine countenance on Edgerton. The only anomaly
in it seemed to be his eyebrows. Cows have no eyebrows.
"I'm sorry," said Edgerton.
The judge seemed sorry, too, but he shuffled the two packs in his
enormous and hairy hands, dealt, and deposited the surplus in a pile
with a single card separate and face upward--the ace of hearts.
Mrs. Lorrimore promptly picked it up, laid down three aces, four fours,
a small sequence interiorly made possible by a joker, and sat back
triumphantly with her depleted suit in her gemmed fingers, which were
pressed comfortably to an ample bosom.
"Discard," rumbled the judge.
"Oh, I _beg_ pardon!" She laughed, and laid down a nine.
Nobody ever wants a nine, somehow. The judge snorted, helped himself,
discarded, and turned his heavy countenance on his hostess.
"Dear me," she said in her humble little voice, "I--I'm afraid--_afraid_
I'm going out!"
"What!" thundered his honor. "Nobody ever goes out first hand, madam!"
But she timidly did that very thing to the suppressed fury of his honor,
who had cherished a long sequence, according to rule, and was further
nursing the other joker and three kings.
"It's too bad," she ventured, looking around at Edgerton, whose entire
hand was being minutely counted by Mrs. Lorrimore.
"_I_ don't mind!" said the young fellow, laughing; and he leaned a
trifle nearer and added under his breath: "But suppose I _had_ played
for stakes!"
Into her timid and faded eyes came the ghost of a glimmer--the momentary
sparkle of fun, and went out very quickly.
But it had been there for a second; and thereafter Edgerton found a
curious pleasure in making it come back at intervals. She even
laughed--even ventured to provoke his laughter--rather scared at trying
until his quick mirth set her at momentary ease again.
Luck bedeviled his honor; the fair Mrs. Lorrimore won steadily without
the least respect for the law and no consideration at all for the
sanctity of the bench; and the judge became peevish. He was a very rich
man.
Presently he had enough of it--letters to write for the morning
mail--and got himself out and upstairs with the dignity of a
fly-pestered ox.
"Horrid old screw," observed Mrs. Lorrimore in Edgerton's ear, and
laughed her peculiarly sweet and captivating laugh as a servant returned
with his honor's check in an angrily scrawled envelope.
Mrs. Rivett had passed into a farther room, where the high gilded pipes
of an organ glimmered in the subdued light. Edgerton saw her seated
there--a thin, bejeweled little figure beneath the tall gothic majesty
of the pipes.
After a while the low harmony of an old-time hymn stole into the card
room.
Those at the bridge tables remained silent and absorbed, except Mr.
Rivett, who cautiously turned his sphinxlike countenance toward the
farther dusk where his wife was seated.
Edgerton stood behind Diana's chair, watching. Presently he went over
to Silvette, lingered for a while, then came back to Diana again.