The more Miss Anthon thought the matter over, the more completely she
came to accept Erard’s bitter lesson. She realized that her blindness
had been childish, and that by opening her eyes he had saved her many
futile hours. Now that she was content to put away vain personal
aspirations Erard condescended to spend more time than ever with her.
Mrs. Anthon grumbled insistently at this increasing intimacy, and, as
her sneers had little effect on her daughter, inflicted her grievances
upon her brother-in-law. “Sebastian,” she warned him, “Adela is
fooling away her time with nobodies. She has had about enough of this
art business and of your Erard. You know I only want the best for my
children, and I have never crossed her anywheres. But that man has
altogether too much influence with her. She may start up any day and
do some crazy thing, as she did about Wilbur. She may take it into her
head to marry Erard!” Mrs. Anthon gasped at the enormity of her own
imagination.
“He had the brass,” she explained to her son, “to want Sebastian to
take him to Spain this spring, along with Ada and me.”
“You must do him the justice,” the old man smiled, “to admit that he
didn’t put it exactly that way; in fact, the proposition was made by
me.”
“I knew what he was after,” Mrs. Anthon continued; “he just pulls you
around.”
Yet had Mrs. Anthon been aware of the sum of Erard’s preaching, she
could hardly have found it heterodox. It was a less practical and blunt
phrasing of her own aspirations. For she had dreamed in an ignorant
delusion that Europe meant inevitable matrimony for a good-looking
American girl with some money. Before her husband’s death she would
have been satisfied with a homely domestic match, but travel had
expanded her views. She threatened now to remove Adela to Aix-les-Bains
when the season opened.
Why Mrs. Anthon had selected Aix-les-Bains was a mystery to every one
but her daughter, who knew that on the steamer her mother had become
enamoured of a globe-trotting New York woman. In the long hours of
confidential chat, when the ennui of steamer life causes women to
enter upon the confidences of the deathbed, Mrs. King Hamilton had
learned the Anthon situation minutely. Mrs. King Hamilton had advised
Aix-les-Bains, and marriage for the daughter _via_ A. l. B. She
cited numerous acquaintances whose daughters had imbibed matrimony
at Aix-les-Bains. But if nothing came of that venture, there was
Trouville, and then London, where Mrs. Anthon could count on the old
intimacy between her husband and the present ambassador. Thus Sebastian
Anthon, wistfully looking Spainwards, and Adela Anthon, satisfied to
remain indefinitely in Paris, were being persistently shoved towards
Aix-les-Bains.
“Well, Sebastian,” Mrs. Anthon concluded defiantly on one occasion
after they had been over the old ground, “you can give Erard notice
that _we_ shan’t put ourselves in his paws. Ada is off with him now at
Durand-Ruell’s to look at some picture no young girl ought to look at
with a man. He will entrap her into a low marriage.”
Mrs. Anthon worked on her amiable brother-in-law’s nerves. Few things
in life seemed to him worth standing out for against the acid speech
of his brother John’s wife. He was tempted to sneak off to Spain by
himself after all, but he reflected that such a course would leave
Adela in the lurch. Moreover, a marriage with Erard was a possible
eccentricity. His niece had begun to explode. She might explode further
in this direction--and that would not be best, on the whole. After a
few weeks of vacillation, during which his defence of Erard weakened
under Mrs. Anthon’s robust attacks, he was driven to take aggressive
measures.
It was a dull March day when he betook himself to Erard’s apartment.
The boulevards seemed to weep, and the few pedestrians were scuffling
along as if abject poverty were their sole excuse for being out on
foot in such weather. The old man had made up his mind what to do,
painfully, because he disliked change of any kind in itself, and
especially did he shrink from taking harsh measures with this protégé.
Severity in Erard’s case was like cruelty to his own youth.
Erard was taking his coffee in the salon in company with Mrs.
Warmister and Salters. Sebastian Anthon knew Mrs. Warmister by
reputation. She had been married to a quiet iron manufacturer a dozen
years ago. Mrs. Warmister had been much in evidence ever since, but
no one ever heard of the iron man. It was generally reported that
the couple were not divorced,--not from any fault of hers, the less
well-informed said; the better informed held that husband and wife
understood each other.
“Perhaps she will take him over,” the old man reflected, as he
exchanged greetings with the excitable, effusive woman. “How homely,
after all the fuss over her,” he concluded, watching the dark lines of
the jaded face.
They were discussing some purchase that Mrs. Warmister had in mind.
Salters was delivering his opinion in a ponderous voice.
“Really, my dear Mrs. Warmister, you couldn’t take that back with you.
It would be positively wicked to hang it. We _know_ it isn’t a Vandyke,
don’t we, Erard?”
Pity, Mr. Anthon mused, that Erard should be thrown into _her_ hands.
She looked so--cheap. Mrs. Warmister’s face wore a perpetual grimace.
She had been told that her power lay in expression, and consequently
she had cultivated a distressingly perpetual mobility.
“Don’t let her do it, Erard,” the heavy young man pleaded with pathetic
intensity. “Think what it means for our reputation as connoisseurs.”
“Well!” Mrs. Warmister rose, laughing nervously. “Whatever Mr. Erard
decides, I suppose I shall do. I am in his hands.” Then she departed,
taking the urgent Mr. Salters with her.
“Two idiots gone,” Erard sighed. “Salters is a New York man, a nobody
with money, who has been over here a dozen years trying to learn
something about fine-art. He knows a lot of people and gives dinners.
One has to tolerate the ass--he brings in game. The woman might know
something; but she is crazy for _réclame_. They say she hires the
Paris _Herald_ to publish a paragraph about her once a week, no matter
how scandalous. She turns up about every year, and I have to take her
around. She buys whatever I tell her to.”
While Erard flung out these biographical items, he was arranging
photographs on a large rack that stood like a desk in one corner of the
room, where the best daylight reached it.
“These are the things at Madrid,” he explained casually. “Half these
Goyas must be spurious. He is an intricate person, though.”
Sebastian Anthon glanced at the photographs nervously. “I am afraid I
shan’t be able to take the Spanish trip. My sister-in-law has her mind
made up on Rome and then some watering-places, and I am over here this
time for her and my niece.”
Although Erard made no sign, his hands came to a pause. Mr. Anthon
began again, sighing. “I came over to have a general talk, Erard.”
The young man turned from the rack and motioned his visitor to a chair.
“These other--well, less definite occupations, seem to take more of
your time and attention. You don’t paint as much as you did.”
Erard waited, thereby increasing the old man’s embarrassment. “I know
your idea--education, but it means less active--accomplishment. You
don’t paint, you know.” He ended with this feeble reiteration. Still
Erard kept a mouselike silence.
“You may be right. I don’t pretend to know. I shouldn’t want to
interfere. But--well--I think we should terminate our--”
Erard moved his hand lightly, as if to spare the further embarrassment
of explicit statement. “Of course!”
“I have been tremendously interested in you, my boy,” Mr. Anthon
continued more easily, “and I am now. So I thought I wouldn’t write
it.” He smiled sweetly. “Now, you mustn’t take it hard or be disturbed.
I shall leave a hundred or two at my banker’s--”
Erard protested. “No; that will not be necessary.”
Mr. Anthon’s face clouded over. He had evidently bungled. Yet he was
secretly glad to have this evidence of right feeling to throw at his
sister-in-law.
“Don’t be in haste about it. You will find the money there in case you
need it.”
“I shall not draw another penny. It would be quite impossible--now that
I have lost your sympathy.”
Perhaps Mrs. Warmister has already taken him over, the old man
reflected uncomfortably. They talked for a few minutes of other
matters. Then, as he rose to leave and buttoned up his frockcoat,
he glanced about the charming rooms. The possibility of Erard’s
difficulties troubled him.
“My boy,” he said, with a winning smile, as they stood in the hall. “My
boy,” he laid his hand lightly on Erard’s thin shoulder. “Believe me, I
want to do the best thing for you. And you must take the money, two or
three hundred at least, you must--”
Erard shook his head, as if annoyed, and said in his most mincing
tones,--
“When you are in Rome, can you find out for me whether they have
taken away that Francia in the Borghese? I’ll write you a note of it.
Good-by.”
Mr. Anthon went out into the dull March twilight, sad at heart. “He’ll
have to beg of others, and that will be worse.” He reflected that his
“doing the best” for Erard was due largely to his sister-in-law’s
nagging. “Poor John,” he murmured, “what a wife!”
He tried to excuse himself on the score of his niece. “If it hadn’t
been for Adela, I wouldn’t have thought of it.” For, however liberally
he might regard Erard, he couldn’t welcome him as Adela’s husband.