NINA
A ponderous, glossy, red Limousine turned in under the wrought bronze
portico of one of the palatial houses of upper Fifth Avenue. As the car
stopped, the face of a woman of about forty appeared at its window. Her
expression was one of fretful annoyance, as though the footman who had
sprung off the box and hurried up the steps to ring the front doorbell
had, in his haste, stumbled purposely. The look she gave him, as he held
the door open for her to alight, rebuked plainly his awkward stupidity.
Yet, in spite of Mrs. Randolph's petulant expression, it was evident
that she had distinct claims to prettiness, though of the carefully
prolonged variety. The art of the masseuse was visible in that curious
swollen smoothness of the skin which gives an effect of spilled
candle-wax--its lack of wrinkles never to be mistaken for the freshness
of youth. Much also might be said of the skill with which the "original
color" of her hair had been preserved. She was very well "done," indeed;
every detail proclaimed expenditure of time--other people's--and
money--her own. She trotted, rather than walked, as though bored beyond
the measure of endurance and yet in a hurry. Following her was a slim,
fair-haired young girl, who, leaving the footman to gather up a number
of parcels, turned to the chauffeur. Even in giving an order, there was
a winning grace in her lack of self-consciousness, and her voice was
fresh in its timbre, enthusiastic in its inflection.
"Henri," she said, "you had better be here at three. The steamer sails
at four, and an hour will not give me any too much time. Have William
come for Celeste and the steamer things at two. The Panhard will be
best, as there is plenty of room in the tonneau." Then she ran lightly
up the steps and into the house.
The first impression of a visitor upon entering the hall might have been
of emptiness. In contrast to the over-elaborateness characteristic of
all too many American homes and hotels, obtruding their highly colored,
gold-laden ornament, the Randolph house rather inclined toward an
austerity of decoration. But after the first general impression, more
careful observation revealed the extreme luxury of appointments and
details. The one flaw--if one might call it such--was that every article
in the entire house was spotlessly, perfectly brand-new. The Persian
rugs, pinkish red in coloring and made expressly to tone in with the
gray white marble of the hall, were direct from the looms. The banister,
of beautiful simplicity, was as newly wrought as the stainless velvet
with which the hand-rail was covered. From the hall opened faultlessly
executed rooms, each correctly adhering to the "period" that had been
selected. The library was possibly more furnished than the rest of the
house; but even here the touch of a magician's wand might have produced
the bookcases of Circassian walnut ready filled with evenly matched,
leather bound, finely tooled volumes. It would have been a relief to see
a few shabby, old-calf folios, a few more common and every-day, in cloth
or buckram!
On the mind of a carping critic the universal newness might have forced
the question, "Where did the family live before they came here? Did all
their accumulation of personal belongings burn with an old homestead? Or
did they start fresh with their new house, coming from nowhere?" One
could imagine their having superintended the moving-in of crates and
boxes innumerable, but the idea of vans piled with heterogeneous
personal effects that had accumulated through years---- Impossible!
As Mrs. Randolph and her daughter entered, a servant opened the doors
leading into the dining-room, and Mrs. Randolph turned at once in that
direction.
"You don't want to go upstairs before luncheon, do you, Nina?"
"Yes, for a moment, Mamma. I want to speak to Celeste about the things
for my steamer trunk." Her mother suggested sending a servant, but Nina
had already gone. She entered an elevator that in contrast to the
severity of the hall looked like a gilt bird cage with mirrors set
between the bars, pushed a button, and mounted two flights.
On emerging, she went into her own bedroom, which, from the Aubusson
carpet to the Dresden and ormolu appliques, might have arrived in a
bonbon box direct from the avenue de l'Opéra in Paris. At the present
moment two steamer trunks stood gaping in the middle of the floor,
tissue paper was scattered about on various chairs, the dressing-table
was bare of silver, and a traveling bag displayed a row of gold bottle
and brush tops. Nina threw her packages on a couch already littered with
empty boxes, wrapping-paper, new books and various other articles.
"Have the other trunks gone, Celeste?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle."
"Any messages for me?"
"Mr. Derby telephoned that he would be here soon after lunch. Miss Lee
also telephoned. And Mr. Travers."
Nina listened, half absently, except possibly for a flickering interest
at the mention of Mr. Derby. She went into an adjoining room that had a
deep plunge bath of white marble, and a white bear rug on the floor. A
sliding panel in the wall disclosed a safe, from which she gathered
together several velvet boxes, and carried them to her maid.
"Are these all that Mademoiselle will take?"
"Yes, that is enough--I don't know, though, the emerald pendant looks
well on gray dresses." She got another velvet box and threw it on the
floor. "I ordered the Panhard to be here for you at two o'clock. They
can put the trunks in the tonneau. My stateroom is 'B,' yours is 107."
Quickly as she had entered, she was gone again, into the elevator and
down to join her mother.
"Really, Nina," Mrs. Randolph said as soon as her daughter was seated,
"I can't see what you want to go to Rome for. I am sure it's more
comfortable here. I hate visiting, myself." As she spoke she set
straight a piece of silver that to her critical eye seemed an eighth of
an inch out of line.
"But, Mamma, you know how keen I have always been to see Aunt Eleanor's
home. Being with her can hardly seem visiting; and Uncle Sandro----"
"What your aunt ever saw in Sandro Sansevero," interrupted her mother,
"I'm sure I can't imagine. He's always bobbing and bowing and
gesticulating, and he talks broken English. He makes me nervous! I'd
infinitely rather be without a title than have it at that price."
"You have always told me that theirs was a love match, that Aunt Eleanor
did not marry him for his title."
"That is just the senseless part of it!" Mrs. Randolph retorted with a
fine disregard for consistency. "If she had married him for his
name--which, after all, is a good one, although princes are as common
in Italy as 'misters' are here--that would have been one thing. But she
was actually in love with him! She is yet, so far as I can see!"
Nina burst out laughing, and, as though catching the infection, Mrs.
Randolph laughed too. They were interrupted by the butler's announcing
"Mr. Derby!"
John Derby was a young man of twenty-five, broad shouldered and well
over six feet. His features were a little too rugged to be strictly
handsome, but his spare frame was as muscular as that of a young
gladiator. So much at least our colleges do for the sons we send to
them. John Derby had made both the 'Varsity eight and the eleven; he had
been a young god at the end of June when, captain of the victorious
boat, his classmates had borne him on their shoulders to their
club-house. That night there had been toasting and speeches and what
not--he was a very "big man" of a very big university; and perhaps
nothing that life might ever give him in the future could overshadow
this experience.
All hail to the victor--and glorious be his remembrances. Exit our Greek
god at the end of June, to be replaced by a young American citizen about
the first of July--one small atom who thinks to make the same sized mark
on the great plain of life that he made on the college campus. All the
same, there were good clean ideals back of John Derby's blue eyes, and
fresh, healthy young blood surged through his veins. What is the world
for, if not for such as he to conquer?
Thousands had called "Derby! Derby! Go it, Derby!" when he made his
famous sixty-yard run down the gridiron. Yet it is well to remember that
the victory came at the end of ten years' training at school and
college, after many bruises, some dislocations, and not a few breaks.
With such discipline, there was after all no reason to wonder that he
donned overalls and went to a desolate settlement of brick chimneys,
smelters, and shack dwellings, set on the sides of hills, which, because
of sulphurous fumes, were bleak as sandhills in Sahara.
He had taken up his work at Copper Rock exactly as he had taken up his
practice under the athletic coaches. He gave all the best of him, from
the earliest to the latest possible hours; and night saw him stretched
on a bunk which would have made his mother wince, but upon which he
slept the sleep of healthy, tired youth.
Three years he had spent in this place. Twice in that time furnace
explosions had sent him home to be nursed. But he suppressed the horrors
and related only enthusiastic tales of metallurgical possibilities. In
the main, however, he was strong enough to stand it. It did him a vast
amount of good; and the end of three years saw him saying good-by with
something akin to regret to the bleak shacks on the bleaker hills, and
to the men he had grown to know and appreciate.
An improved form of blast furnace that he had patented, eased his first
strenuous need of money. And the present moment found him vice-president
of a mining and smelting company, temporarily back among his old
friends, and somewhat in his old life again. He was too busy and too
interested in his work to spend any effort outside of it; but there were
one or two houses where he went, and one of them was the Randolphs'. The
Randolph and Derby country places adjoined, and since early boyhood he
had been as much at home in one house as in the other.
Mrs. Randolph had taken his college achievements complacently as a
tribute to her discernments in having nurtured an eagle in her own
swan's nest. But his work at Copper Rock seemed to her a fanatical whim.
She no more appreciated the benefit of the experience than she
understood the persevering grit that was the real reason for her liking
him. Nina, having adored him as a Greek god, continued her allegiance to
the workman at Copper Rock. She had written him letters regularly; she
had even sent him provision baskets. To herself she questioned whether
the end he was striving for might not be reached by smoother roads; but
if any one else suggested that he was doing an irrational thing, she
flew up in arms. And now as he came into the dining-room his "Hello,
Nina!" was much as a brother's might have been, and he kissed Mrs.
Randolph's cheek.
"Will you have lunch, John?" she smiled up at him. "It is all cold by
now, I dare say!"
"No, thanks, I lunched downtown; but I'll sit here if I may." He picked
up a knife from the table and cut the string of a package he held in his
hand. "I brought you these, Nina. Have you read all of them?"
Nina finished a mouthful of nectarine and picked up the books one by
one.
No, she had not read any of them. So he went on to explain: he knew the
cowboy story was a corker, and another, of Arizona, described an Indian
fight in the Bad Lands that was capital. He did not know much about the
others, but the man at the shop had told him two were very funny; he had
bought the rest on account of their illustrations.
Nina laughed deliciously with real joy--she loved his selection, because
it seemed to express him.
"It was awfully sweet of you, Jack. And I shall adore them! I am so glad
you did not bring the regular selection of 'Walks in Rome.'"
"What I ought to have brought you," he answered, "was a big thick
journal--one of those padlocked ones--to write up Italian court life as
it really is. You mustn't miss such a chance! It could be published
after everybody mentioned in it, is dead, including yourself. Wouldn't
it be great!"
"You need not make fun of me. I don't think you half appreciate how
wonderful it is going to be," Nina returned enthusiastically. "Think of
it, I am going to live in a palace!"
Derby threw back his head and laughed.
"What do you call this house? It is a great deal more of a palace than
the tumble-down, musty ones of Italy."
Mrs. Randolph seemed enchanted with this rejoinder, for she laughed
rather exultantly as she exclaimed, "Nina will be ready enough to come
home at the end of a week!"
Instead of answering Nina jumped up from the table, calling "There you
are at last, Father darling!"
Her father, a man of distinguished presence, had come into the room
looking at his watch from force of habit. And though his eyes rested
upon his daughter with very evident pride and affection, the custom of
quickly terminated interviews and the economy of precious time gave a
sharp, decisive curtness to his manner. Every one who came in contact
with him felt the impelling necessity of coming to the point as clearly
and tersely as possible. Just now, with a "Hello, John, my boy," he held
out his hand to Derby and shook his head negatively in answer to his
wife's inquiry if he wanted luncheon.
"Well, are you ready to start?" he asked his daughter, smiling. And then
to Derby he added, "Excuse Nina for a few moments, John; I want to speak
with her. You are going down to the steamer with her, of course?" As
Derby answered affirmatively, Nina picked up her books and followed her
father.
In his own study he drew her to a sofa beside him, and from a number of
papers in his pocket he handed her an envelope.
"Here is your letter of credit. I doubt if you will need the whole
amount of it. If, on the contrary, you find you want more for anything
special, write or cable to the office."
Out of another pocket he drew a white muslin bag, such as bankers use.
It held a quantity of Italian gold and a roll of Italian bank notes.
This was "change" to have with her when she should arrive. He talked
with her for some time on various topics; on the beauty of Italy, the
charm of the people; of his admiration for Eleanor Sansevero. "But
dearest," he ended, "one word on the subject of European men: you will
probably have a good deal of attention. I don't want to spoil your
enjoyment, but you must remember the hard, cold fact that it will be
chiefly because you are Miss Millionaire."
"I am sure they couldn't be any more after 'Miss Millionaire' over there
than here." She began calmly enough, but grew vehement as she continued:
"How many of the proposals that I have had from my own countrymen during
the past two years have been for me, the girl, and not merely for your
daughter?"
Her father, having stirred up her resentment, now tried to soothe it
down again.
"You must not get cynical, little girl. Every advantage in this world
must have its corresponding disadvantage. I merely want you to follow
your extremely sensible and well-balanced head. Only, remember," he
added with bantering good-humor, "I am not over keen about foreigners,
so don't bring a little what-is-it back with you, and expect because it
has a long string of titles dangling to it, that it will be welcomed
with any enthusiasm by your doting father! So, away with you!" He again
looked at his watch. "Better get your things together; you haven't any
too much time."
As soon as Nina left him, instead of rejoining his wife and Derby he sat
at his desk and was immediately absorbed in making figures with the stub
of a pencil on the back of an envelope. He was still there when Nina, in
coat and furs, came downstairs again to the library, where her mother
and Derby were now waiting.
"Well, are you ready at last? Where is your father? What is he doing
now?" her mother demanded with a pout, as if his absence were quite
Nina's fault, and as if whatever his occupation might be it especially
annoyed her. She fluttered to the doorway of his study and looked in.
"James, I really think you might give some thought to your family. Nina
is going now." She spoke in a babyish, aggrieved tone. He did not look
up, and Mrs. Randolph did not repeat her remark; she turned instead to
her daughter. "Go in and tell your father that I think he might pay you
some attention."
Nina went over behind his chair, and gently put her cheek down to his.
She did not interrupt him, but let him finish the calculation he was
doing; and he turned to her after about a minute.
"All right, sweetheart, come along."
Having put his envelope in his pocket, he dismissed whatever it meant
completely from his mind, and Nina held his undivided attention as he
went down the steps with her to the motor, into which Derby had already
put Mrs. Randolph. As soon as they were all in and the machine started,
Nina leaned forward and called to the butler, "Good-by, Dawson!" And for
once the man's face lost its imperturbability, as he answered fervently,
"Good-by, miss, and a safe return--home!"
"Safe return--home." For a moment the question entered her head--was
there any doubt of her returning? With the apprehension came also a
slight sense of excitement--but soon she had forgotten. While they sped
toward the dock, Mrs. Randolph, possibly a little piqued that her
daughter could want to spend the winter away from her, showed her
authority by endless directions and counsels. As she completely
monopolized the conversation as far as Nina was concerned, the two men
talked together, and Nina's responses gradually drifted into a series
of "Yes, Mamma's," to admonitions that were but half heard, until her
wandering attention was brought up with a sharp turn by her mother's
impatient exclamation:
"For goodness sake, Nina, try to be less monotonous!"
Nina roused herself quickly. "I am sorry, Mamma dear! I did not think
there was anything for me to say. Please don't be put out with me, just
now when I am going away!"
They had by this time arrived at the steamer, and went for a moment to
see Nina's cabin, where they found Celeste trying to reduce to some
semblance of order the innumerable baskets of fruit and boxes of flowers
with which it was crowded.
Derby looked perhaps a trifle chagrined at the profusion, as Nina gave a
cursory glance at the cards that Celeste had affixed to each opened box.
But with a curious little smile--one that had real sweetness in it--Nina
picked up a particular bunch of violets, and looked at Derby over their
clustered fragrance as she lifted them to her face. She let the look
thank him--and then she pinned the flowers on.
Mrs. Randolph did not see the wordless scene, as she was busy reading
cards and making characteristic comments. Mr. Randolph had stopped to
make sure that the luggage was attended to. He now appeared, and with
him Mrs. Gray, with whom Nina was to make the crossing. Mrs. Gray shook
hands with every one, called Nina a "precious child," told her where
the steamer chairs had been placed, and disappeared. On the promenade
deck Nina found a throng of young girls and men waiting for her. They
all chattered together in a group and plied her with questions: Was she
going to be presented at court? Was she going to live in an old castle?
What was her uncle the prince like? How wonderful to spend a season in
Rome? They wished they were going, too--and so they went on.
But at a moment when the others were all talking loudly, John Derby
managed to draw Nina aside. He looked down at her with an expression
half-quizzical, half-serious. "This is about the time we come to the
'great divide,'" he said. "Your trail lies to the palaces of the Old
World; mine to dig holes in remote corners of the New. You'll write me,
won't you? My letters will be pretty dull, I am afraid--same old story:
a laborer's day, and occasionally a Sunday's ride to get the mail at the
nearest ranch."
"Then I'll make mine doubly thick--so they will seem like packets. I may
even write that famous journal and send it in instalments to you!" Then
suddenly the banter died of her eyes and voice and she said
half-sentimentally: "Dear old Jack! Most of every one I shall miss you.
I hope things will go famously for you. You have my address?"
"Yes; and mine is Breakstone, Arizona, care of Burk Mining Company.
Well," he smiled, "good hunting to both of us!"
There was still plenty of time before the ship sailed, but Mr. Randolph
was leaving. He had been talking with another financier who was seeing
his own family off, and now came up between his daughter and Derby.
"If you will go with me now," he said to the latter, "we can talk over
the Louisiana sulphur proposition on the way to my office." Then he
turned to Nina: "It is barely possible you may see John in Italy before
the winter is over."
Nina raised her eyebrows as she looked at Derby. "You said you were
going to Arizona!" she said accusingly.
But Derby's expression showed that he was as much in the dark as she.
Mr. Randolph wagged his head as though altogether pleased with the
situation. "Of course, he is going to Arizona, and very likely he'll
stay there--on the other hand, maybe he won't. Now that's something for
you to think about besides speculating on the length of name of each
stranger you meet." He kissed her affectionately on both cheeks and,
giving Derby barely a chance to shake hands with her, hurried him away.
People were beginning their final good-byes, and from where Nina and her
friends stood by the deck rail, there was a clear view of the gang plank
and the ship's departing visitors. It was from this vantage that several
pairs of envious young masculine eyes, looking downward, saw the right
hand of the great and only James B. Randolph affectionately laid on the
broad shoulder of an ex-oarsman and football player. And for as long as
the two were in sight it was the ex-oarsman who talked, and the great
financier who listened.