"I'll tell you a secret, mother. I'm going to be taken into the firm."
"Oh, my dear, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed. "I often think, if only your
father were alive, how happy he would be, and how proud of you. I wish he
could know. Perhaps he does know."
Theodore Watling had once said to me that the man who can best keep his
own counsel is the best counsel for other men to keep. I did not go about
boasting of the part I had played in originating the now famous Bill No.
709, the passage of which had brought about the capitulation of the
Ribblevale Steel Company to our clients. But Ralph Hambleton knew of it,
of course.
"That was a pretty good thing you pulled off, Hughie," he said. "I didn't
think you had it in you."
It was rank patronage, of course, yet I was secretly pleased. As the
years went on I was thrown more and more with him, though in boyhood
there had been between us no bond of sympathy. About this time he was
beginning to increase very considerably the Hambleton fortune, and a
little later I became counsel for the Crescent Gas and Electric Company,
in which he had shrewdly gained a controlling interest. Even toward the
colossal game of modern finance his attitude was characteristically that
of the dilettante, of the amateur; he played it, as it were,
contemptuously, even as he had played poker at Harvard, with a cynical
audacity that had a peculiarly disturbing effect upon his companions. He
bluffed, he raised the limit in spite of protests, and when he lost one
always had the feeling that he would ultimately get his money back twice
over. At the conferences in the Boyne Club, which he often attended, his
manner toward Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Scherer and even toward Miller Gorse
was frequently one of thinly veiled amusement at their seriousness. I
often wondered that they did not resent it. But he was a privileged
person.
His cousin, Ham Durrett, whose inheritance was even greater than Ralph's
had been, had also become a privileged person whose comings and goings
and more reputable doings were often recorded in the newspapers. Ham had
attained to what Gene Hollister aptly but inadvertently called
"notoriety": as Ralph wittily remarked, Ham gave to polo and women that
which might have gone into high finance. He spent much of his time in the
East; his conduct there and at home would once have created a black
scandal in our community, but we were gradually leaving our Calvinism
behind us and growing more tolerant: we were ready to Forgive much to
wealth especially if it was inherited. Hostesses lamented the fact that
Ham was "wild," but they asked him to dinners and dances to meet their
daughters.
If some moralist better educated and more far-seeing than Perry Blackwood
(for Perry had become a moralist) had told these hostesses that Hambleton
Durrett was a victim of our new civilization, they would have raised
their eyebrows. They deplored while they coveted. If Ham had been told he
was a victim of any sort, he would have laughed.
He enjoyed life; he was genial and jovial, both lavish and
parsimonious,--this latter characteristic being the curious survival of
the trait of the ancestors to which he owed his millions. He was growing
even heavier, and decidedly red in the face.
Perry used to take Ralph to task for not saving Ham from his iniquities,
and Ralph would reply that Ham was going to the devil anyway, and not
even the devil himself could stop him.
"You can stop him, and you know it," Perry retorted indignantly.
"What do you want me to do with him?" asked Ralph. "Convert him to the
saintly life I lead?"
This was a poser.
"That's a fact," sand Perry, "you're no better than he is."
"I don't know what you mean by 'better,'" retorted Ralph, grinning. "I'm
wiser, that's all." (We had been talking about the ethics of business
when Perry had switched off to Ham.) "I believe, at least, in restraint
of trade. Ham doesn't believe in restraint of any kind."
When, therefore, the news suddenly began to be circulated in the Boyne
Club that Ham was showing a tendency to straighten up, surprise and
incredulity were genuine. He was drinking less,--much less; and it was
said that he had severed certain ties that need not again be definitely
mentioned. The theory of religious regeneration not being tenable, it was
naturally supposed that he had fallen in love; the identity of the
unknown lady becoming a fruitful subject of speculation among the
feminine portion of society. The announcement of the marriage of
Hambleton Durrett would be news of the first magnitude, to be absorbed
eagerly by the many who had not the honour of his acquaintance,
--comparable only to that of a devastating flood or a murder mystery
or a change in the tariff.
Being absorbed in affairs that seemed more important, the subject did not
interest me greatly. But one cold Sunday afternoon, as I made my way, in
answer to her invitation, to see Nancy Willett, I found myself wondering
idly whether she might not be by way of making a shrewd guess as to the
object of Hambleton's affections. It was well known that he had
entertained a hopeless infatuation for her; and some were inclined to
attribute his later lapses to her lack of response. He still called on
her, and her lectures, which she delivered like a great aunt with a
recondite knowledge of the world, he took meekly. But even she had seemed
powerless to alter his habits....
Powell Street, that happy hunting-ground of my youth, had changed its
character, become contracted and unfamiliar, sooty. The McAlerys and
other older families who had not decayed with the neighbourhood were
rapidly deserting it, moving out to the new residence district known as
"the Heights." I came to the Willett House. That, too, had an air of
shabbiness,--of well-tended shabbiness, to be sure; the stone steps had
been scrupulously scrubbed, but one of them was cracked clear across, and
the silver on the polished name-plate was wearing off; even the act of
pulling the knob of a door-bell was becoming obsolete, so used had we
grown to pushing porcelain buttons in bright, new vestibules. As I waited
for my summons to be answered it struck me as remarkable that neither
Nancy nor her father had been contaminated by the shabbiness that
surrounded them.
She had managed rather marvellously to redeem one room from the
old-fashioned severity of the rest of the house, the library behind the
big "parlour." It was Nancy's room, eloquent of her daintiness and taste,
of her essential modernity and luxuriousness; and that evening, as I was
ushered into it, this quality of luxuriousness, of being able to shut out
the disagreeable aspects of life that surrounded and threatened her,
particularly impressed me. She had not lacked opportunities to escape. I
wondered uneasily as I waited why she had not embraced them. I strayed
about the room. A coal fire burned in the grate, the red-shaded lamps
gave a subdued but cheerful light; some impulse led me to cross over to
the windows and draw aside the heavy hangings. Dusk was gathering over
that garden, bleak and frozen now, where we had romped together as
children. How queer the place seemed! How shrivelled! Once it had had the
wide range of a park. There, still weathering the elements, was the
old-fashioned latticed summer-house, but the fruit-trees that I recalled
as clouds of pink and white were gone.... A touch of poignancy was in
these memories. I dropped the curtain, and turned to confront Nancy, who
had entered noiselessly.
"Well, Hugh, were you dreaming?" she said.
"Not exactly," I replied, embarrassed. "I was looking at the garden."
"The soot has ruined it. My life seems to be one continual struggle
against the soot,--the blacks, as the English call them. It's a more
expressive term. They are like an army, you know, overwhelming in their
relentless invasion. Well, do sit down. It is nice of you to come. You'll
have some tea, won't you?"
The maid had brought in the tray. Afternoon tea was still rather a new
custom with us, more of a ceremony than a meal; and as Nancy handed me my
cup and the thinnest of slices of bread and butter I found the intimacy
of the situation a little disquieting. Her manner was indeed intimate,
and yet it had the odd and disturbing effect of making her seem more
remote. As she chatted I answered her perfunctorily, while all the time I
was asking myself why I had ceased to desire her, whether the old longing
for her might not return--was not even now returning? I might indeed go
far afield to find a wife so suited to me as Nancy. She had beauty,
distinction, and position. She was a woman of whom any man might be
proud....
"I haven't congratulated you yet, Hugh," she said suddenly, "now that you
are a partner of Mr. Watling's. I hear on all sides that you are on the
high road to a great success."
"Of course I'm glad to be in the firm," I admitted.
It was a new tack for Nancy, rather a disquieting one, this discussion of
my affairs, which she had so long avoided or ignored. "You are getting
what you have always wanted, aren't you?"
I wondered in some trepidation whether by that word "always" she was
making a deliberate reference to the past.
"Always?" I repeated, rather fatuously.
"Nearly always, ever since you have been a man."
I was incapable of taking advantage of the opening, if it were one. She
was baffling.
"A man likes to succeed in his profession, of course," I said.
"And you made up your mind to succeed more deliberately than most men. I
needn't ask you if you are satisfied, Hugh. Success seems to agree with
you,--although I imagine you will never be satisfied."
"Why do you say that?" I demanded.
"I haven't known you all your life for nothing. I think I know you much
better than you know yourself."
"You haven't acted as if you did," I exclaimed.
She smiled.
"Have you been interested in what I thought about you?" she asked.
"That isn't quite fair, Nancy," I protested. "You haven't given me much
evidence that you did think about me."
"Have I received much encouragement to do so?" she inquired.
"But you haven't seemed to invite--you've kept me at arm's length."
"Oh, don't fence!" she cried, rather sharply.
I had become agitated, but her next words gave me a shock that was
momentarily paralyzing.
"I asked you to come here to-day, Hugh, because I wished you to know that
I have made up my mind to marry Hambleton Durrett."
"Hambleton Durrett!" I echoed stupidly. "Hambleton Durrett!"
"Why not?"
"Have you--have you accepted him?"
"No. But I mean to do so."
"You--you love him?"
"I don't see what right you have to ask."
"But you just said that you invited me here to talk frankly."
"No, I don't love him."
"Then why, in heaven's name, are you going to marry him?"
She lay back in her chair, regarding me, her lips slightly parted. All at
once the full flavour of her, the superfine quality was revealed after
years of blindness.--Nor can I describe the sudden rebellion, the
revulsion that I experienced. Hambleton Durrett! It was an outrage, a
sacrilege! I got up, and put my hand on the mantel. Nancy remained
motionless, inert, her head lying back against the chair. Could it be
that she were enjoying my discomfiture? There is no need to confess that
I knew next to nothing of women; had I been less excited, I might have
made the discovery that I still regarded them sentimentally. Certain
romantic axioms concerning them, garnered from Victorian literature,
passed current in my mind for wisdom; and one of these declared that they
were prone to remain true to an early love. Did Nancy still care for me?
The query, coming as it did on top of my emotion, brought with it a
strange and overwhelming perplexity. Did I really care for her? The many
years during which I had practised the habit of caution began to exert an
inhibiting pressure. Here was a situation, an opportunity suddenly thrust
upon me which might never return, and which I was utterly unprepared to
meet. Would I be happy with Nancy, after all? Her expression was still
enigmatic.
"Why shouldn't I marry him?" she demanded.
"Because he's not good enough for you."
"Good!" she exclaimed, and laughed. "He loves me. He wants me without
reservation or calculation." There was a sting in this. "And is he any
worse," she asked slowly, "than many others who might be mentioned?"
"No," I agreed. I did not intend to be led into the thankless and
disagreeable position of condemning Hambleton Durrett. "But why have you
waited all these years if you did not mean to marry a man of ability, a
man who has made something of himself?"
"A man like you, Hugh?" she said gently.