He sent clippings, flowers, and vanity-box to Miss Goodchild, 777 Fifth
Avenue, by messenger. Charge account.
He sent for Fleming and told him he wished the Public Sentiment Corps to
tackle their first job. H. R. had prepared a dozen letters of protest
which the artists must copy before receiving their day's wages--one copy
for each paper. The letters expressed the writers' admiration, contempt,
approval, abhorrence, indignation, and commendation of the journalistic
treatment of the Goodchild-Rutgers affair. Real names and real addresses
were given. It beat Pro Bono Publico, Old Subscriber, and Decent Citizen
all to pieces. H. R. supplied various kinds of stationery--some with
crests, others very humble. The chirography was different. That alone
was art.
The newspapers realized that H. R. had become news. The public wanted to
read about him. The papers were the servants of the public. Circulation
was invented for that very purpose.
Not content with the services of the Public Sentiment Corps, H. R.
commanded Andrew Barrett to tip off the friendly reporters--Andrew by
this time was calling them by their first name--to watch the Goodchild
residence on Fifth Avenue and also the Ketcham National Bank on Nassau
Street.
Thinking that this meant elopement up-town and shooting down-town, the
reporters despatched the sob artists to Fifth Avenue and the veteran
death-watch to the bank.
They were rewarded.
Parading up and down the Goodchild block on the Avenue were six
sandwich-men. They carried the swellest sandwiches in Christendom. This
was the first use of the famous iridescent glass mosaic sandwich in
history. It was exquisitely beautiful. But the legends were even more
beautiful:
[Illustration: I SHALL MARRY GRACE GOODCHILD NO MATTER WHO SAYS NO!]
This last he stationed in front of the Goodchild house.
Across the street, leaning against the Central Park wall, was Morris
Lazarus, Mr. Onthemaker's able associate counsel. His pockets were
bulging with numbered legal documents in anticipation of hostilities
from Christians, policemen, and other aliens. He had told the reporters
that he was one of Mr. Rutgers's counsel and did not propose to allow
the sandwich-men to be interfered with by anybody. He also distributed
his card, that the name might not be misspelled. He had not yet changed
Morris into Maurice.
[Illustration: NO OPPOSITION CAN KEEP ME FROM MARRYING GRACE GOODCHILD]
[Illustration: SEE THE NEWSPAPERS FOR ACCOUNTS OF THE MARRIAGE OF GRACE
GOODCHILD TO HENDRIK RUTGERS]
[Illustration: WEDDING OF GRACE GOODCHILD AND HENDRIK RUTGERS FOR DATE
WATCH THIS SPACE]
[Illustration: ALL THE WORLD LOVES A LOVER. LOVE GRACE GOODCHILD AND ME
TOO]
[Illustration: DO YOU BLAME ME FOR WISHING TO MARRY THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
GIRL IN THE WHOLE WORLD? SHE LIVES HERE!]
The sandwiches paraded up and down the Avenue sidewalk, never once going
off the block. As two of the artists passed each other they saluted--the
sandwich union's sign a rigid forefinger drawn quickly across the throat
with a decapitating sweep: lambs expecting execution in the world's vast
abattoir. The answering sign was a quick mouthward motion of the rigid
thumb to represent the assuaging of thirst at the close of day. Thus did
H. R. reward industry.
Before the sandwich-men had made the beat a dozen times all upper Fifth
Avenue heard about it. A stream of limousines, preciously freighted,
halted before the Goodchild mansion and poured out into the sidewalk
friends and acquaintances of the Goodchilds. On the dowagers' faces you
could see the smug self-congratulations that their daughters, thank
goodness, did not have to be wooed thus vulgarly to get into the
newspapers. And on the daughters the watching reporters saw smiles and
envious gleams of bright eyes. Why couldn't _they_ be thus desperately
wooed in public? To let the world know you were desired, to have a man
brave all the world in order to let the world know it! It was heroism!
And even more: it was great fun!
The dowagers went in to express both surprise and condolence to Mrs.
Goodchild. The girls rushed to Grace's boudoir to ask questions.
Mrs. Goodchild tried to brazen it out. Then she tried to treat it
humorously. But the dowagers called both bluffs. Then she foolishly told
them, "The poor young man is quite insane."
They chorused, "He must be!" with conviction--the conviction that she
was lying like a suburban boomer. Of course she paid him for the work.
Grace was in an unphilosophical frame of mind. H. R. had made her the
laughing-stock of New York. It would have been ridiculous if it were not
so serious to her social plans. She hated him! Being absolutely helpless
to help herself, her hatred embraced the world--the world that would
laugh at her! All the world! Particularly the women. Especially those of
her own age. They would laugh! This is the unforgivable sin in women
because their sense of humor is _minus_. And when they laugh--
Just then the avalanche of those she hated the most swooped down upon
her. Her eyes were red from acute aqueous mortification. They saw it.
They said in chorus, sorrowfully, "You poor thing!"
Who said the rich had no hearts? The girls had given to her poverty
without her asking for it. It always makes people charitable when they
create poverty unasked.
"I wouldn't stand it!" cried one.
"Nor I!" chorused fourteen of Grace's best friends.
Outside, the Avenue, for the first time in its dazzling history, was
blocked by automobiles. You would have sworn it was the shopping
district in the Christmas week. The reason was that the occupants of the
autos had told the chauffeurs to stop until they could read the
sandwiches.
The reporters were ringing the front-door bell and the rapid-fire
tintinnabulation was driving Frederick frantic. Mrs. Goodchild had told
him not to send for the police. The reporters, feeling treated like rank
outsiders, were in no pleasant frame of mind.
Up-stairs Grace, hiding her wrath, overwhelmed by the accursed sympathy
of her best friends, said, helplessly, "What can I do?" She didn't like
to tell them she wished to bury them with her own hands.
From fifteen youthful throats burst forth the same golden
word--"_Elope!_"
She gasped and stared blankly.
"It's the greatest thing I ever heard. I don't know him, but if he is
half-way presentable you can teach him table manners in a week. I'd make
my father give him a job in the bank!" asserted Marion Beekman.
"Me, too!" declared Ethel Vandergilt.
"He's just splendid," volunteered a brunette, enthusiastically.
"And did you see the papers!" shrieked Verona Mortimer. "I say, _did_
you see the papers? _And_ the pictures! Girls, she's a regular devil,
and we never knew it! Where did you hide your brains all these years,
Gracie, dear?"
"I never would have thought it possible," said the cold, philosophical
Katherine Van Schaick. "I call it mighty well engineered. Did _you_ tell
him to do it, Grace? If so you are a genius!"
"What does he look like?"
"Is he of the old New Jersey Rutgers?"
"If he's good-looking and has money, what's wrong with him? Booze?"
asked a practical one.
"He isn't married, is he?" asked a doll-face with Reno in her heavenly
eyes.
At this a hush fell on the group. It was the big moment.
"How exciting!" murmured one.
"Is he married, Grace?"
Fifteen pairs of eyes pasted themselves on Gracie's. She barely caught
herself on the verge of confessing ignorance. She was dazed by the new
aspect of her own love-affair.
These girls envied her!
"No!" she said, recklessly.
"It's her father," prompted a slim young Sherlock Holmes.
"No; Mrs. Goodchild!" corrected a greater genius.
"Maybe it's Grace herself," suggested the envious Milly Walton.
"How can I stop it?" asked Grace, angrily.
"_What?_" shrieked all.
"Why, girls," said Miss Van Schaick, "she isn't responsible for it,
after all!"
Before the disappointment could spoil their pleasure one of them said,
impatiently, "Oh, let's look at 'em!"
They rushed to the window.
"Let's go downstairs. We can see 'em better!" And Grace's friends
thereupon rushed away. One of them was considerate enough to say, "Come
on, Grace!" and Grace followed, not quite grasping the change in the
situation. Her fears were not so keen; her doubts keener.
They nearly overturned their respective mammas in their rush to get to
the windows.
"Grace," said Miss Van Schaick, who had never before called her anything
but "Miss--er--Goodchild," "send out and tell them to stop and face this
way. I don't think I read all the sandwiches."
"Yes! Yes!"
"Oh, do!"
"Please, Grace, tell 'em!" It sounded like election, when women shall
vote. Much more melodious than to-day.
The dowagers were made speechless. They had acquired that habit before
their daughters.
Grace capitulated to the incense.
"Frederick, go out and tell them to stop and face this way," commanded
Grace, with a benignant smile.
"My de--" began Mrs. Goodchild, mildly.
"I have lived," said Miss Van Schaick in her high-bred, level voice that
people admiringly called insulting, "to see a New York society man do
something really original. I must ask Beekman Rutgers why his branch of
the family did not inherit brains with the real estate."
Mrs. Goodchild gasped--and began to look resigned. From there to pride
the jump would be slight. But hers was not a mind that readjusted itself
very quickly.
"Oh, look!" and the girls began to read the legends aloud.
The dowagers rose, prompted by the same horrid fear. Chauffeurs were bad
enough. But sandwich-men!
The world moves rapidly these days. One week ago these mothers did not
know sandwich-men even existed. A new peril springs up every day.
They decided, being wise, not to scold their daughters.
The girls shook hands with Grace with such warmth that she felt as if
each had left a hateful wedding-gift in her palm. Mrs. Goodchild went
up-stairs weeping or very close to it. She could not see whither it all
would lead, and she was the kind that must plan everything in advance to
be comfortable. By always using a memorandum calendar she cleverly
managed to have something to look forward to in this life.
Grace remained. She was thinking. When she thought she always tapped on
the floor with her right foot, rhythmically. She realized that H. R.'s
courtship of her had changed in aspect. She knew that girls in her set
thought everything was a lark. But they themselves did not visit those
who had larked beyond a certain point. An ecstatic "What fun!" soon
changed to a frigid "How perfectly silly!" It was not so difficult to
treat the sandwich episode humorously now, or even to take intelligent
advantage of the publicity. She knew that, with the negligible exception
of a few old fogies, the crass vulgarity of H. R.'s public performances
would not harm her unless her father took it seriously enough to appeal
to the law about it, when the same old fogies would say she should have
ignored it. But she could not clearly see the end of it--that is, an
ending that would redound to her glory. This man was a puzzle, a
paradox, an exasperation. He was too unusual, too adventurous, too
clever, too dangerous; he had too much to gain and nothing to lose. How
should she treat him? He did not classify easily. He was masterful. He
loved her. Masterful men in love have a habit of making themselves
disagreeable.
In how many ways would this masterful man, who was resourceful,
original, undeterred by conventions, indifferent to the niceties of
life, unafraid of public opinion as of social ostracism, make himself
disagreeable? Was he serious in his determination to marry her? Or was
it merely a scheme to obtain notoriety? Was he a crank or a criminal?
She couldn't marry him. What would he do? What wouldn't he do? How long
would he keep it up? Must she flee to Europe?
Her foot was tap-tapping away furiously. She ceased to think in order to
hate him! Then because she hated him she feared him. Then because she
feared him she respected him. Then because she respected him she didn't
hate him. Then because she didn't hate she began to think of him. But
all she knew about him was that he said he loved her and everybody in
New York knew it! Who was he? What was he? Should she start an inquiry?
And yet--
"I beg pardon, miss. But the men--" Frederick paused.
"Yes?"
"They are standing." He meant the sandwiches.
"Well?"
"They are," he reminded her, desperately but proudly, "Mr. Rutgers's
men."
"Tell them to go away," she said.
He stared a moment, for as the consort of the owner of the men she had
feudal obligations to fulfil. He remembered that this was America.
"Very good, miss," he said.
She went up-stairs. She wished to think. It would probably make her head
ache. She therefore told her maid to wake her at six and, taking up one
of Edwin Lefevre's books, she went to sleep.