The dinner at Mrs. Vandergilt's home was H. R.'s initial social triumph.
The first thing he did was to confess to Mrs. Vandergilt that what he
desired above all things was to be her military secretary. All he asked
was to serve the Cause so long as she led, and no longer.
"I hate failures," he told her. "I don't propose to be identified with
any. If I did not see in you what I do I should not be here. I know
creative genius when I see it. You paint the picture. I am only the
frame-maker--necessary, but not among the immortals."
"You are more than that," she assured him, with a smile. He shook his
head.
"I can fool the rabble; but you know the trick! Organize your personal
staff. Fire them with your own enthusiasm. Of course they won't all have
brains; but they will do to stop gaps and follow instructions."
And Mrs. Vandergilt, in order that all might know that great minds
acknowledged a greater mind, cracked up H. R. to the sky. H. R.'s
success was all the greater since he made a point of declining most
invitations. He was seen only where most people wished to be seen. That
made him talked about.
Grace heard about his stupendous social success. Since the demand for
H. R.'s presence came from her social equals, he was at last a desirable
possession. She stayed away from Jerry's in a mood of anger that
naturally made it impossible for her to stop thinking of H. R.
Meantime H. R. regularly, every day, sent a complete file of newspapers
to the Goodchild residence. By his orders the Public Sentiment Corps
bombarded the editors with requests for information as to the Society of
American Sandwich Artists, and of sandwiching in general. He prepared
learned and withal highly interesting articles on sandwiches, their
history and development. He suggested over divers signatures that all
court notices should be brought to the public's notice by sandwiches,
thereby getting nearer to the picturesque town-crier of our sainted
forefathers.
Not a single communication was printed. The department stores were
holding out for lower advertising rates. Many of the letters asked
questions about H. R. in his capacity as the greatest living authority
on sandwiches. These, also, were ignored. On the other hand, to show
they were not prejudiced, the papers continued to run the charity page
and used suggestions furnished by H. R., giving him full credit when it
came to philanthropies that had nothing to do with sandwiches.
The series of harrowing radiographs of diseased viscera, published with
success by the most conservative of the evening journals, was one of
H. R.'s subtlest strokes. And prominent persons took to contributing
checks and articles, both signed in full, in response to H. R.'s
occasional appeals in aid of deserving destitution.
Then the Public Sentiment Corps began to ask, with a marvelous diversity
of chirography and spelling, why H. R. did not undertake to secure
votes for women and employment for men. Mrs. Vandergilt, when asked
about it by the reporters, replied:
"H. R. is my most trusted adviser. Just wait! When we are ready to move
we'll begin; and there will be no stopping us this time!" They published
her remarks and her photograph, and also H. R.'s.
Mr. Goodchild had tried, one after another, to get all the newspapers to
attack H. R. viciously--then to poke fun at him; and he had failed
utterly. When he read the Vandergilt interview, on his way home that
evening, he decided to speak to Grace.
"Mrs. Vandergilt is crazy," he said.
"Have they sent her away?" asked Grace, her face full of excitement.
Poor Ethel!
"Not yet; but I see she has taken up that--that--"
"Hendrik?" asked Grace, and frowned.
Mr. Goodchild nodded. Then he asked, suspiciously:
"You haven't seen him?"
"Yes; but not to--well, he hasn't made--he has kept his word to you. And
the newspapers don't print anything about sandwiches."
"No--damn 'em!" he muttered.
"I thought you didn't want them to."
"I don't want you to have anything to do with him. It is perfectly
absurd to think of marrying a fellow like that--"
"He can marry anybody now," she told him. Thinking of this made her so
angry that she said, "He hypnotizes people so they think he is--"
"I know what he is," he interrupted. "I'd like to--"
"I suppose you would," she acquiesced; "but you can't deny he is an
extraordinary person, and--"
"Do you love him?" he interrupted.
Grace hesitated. She had to in order to be honest.
"I--I don't know," she answered, finally.
"Great Scott! Do you mean to say you don't know that?"
"No; I don't," she replied, tartly.
She thought of H. R., of all he had done, of all he had said to her, of
all he might yet do. And then she thought of the way H. R. had been
taken up by the people at whose homes she dined and danced. She shook
her head dubiously.
"Well, finish!" said her father, impatiently.
"He makes people do what he wants them to," she said, slowly; "though he
says he will do what I wish him to do, and--"
"Can you make him do what he doesn't want to do?" challenged her father,
with his first gleam of sense.
She thought of H. R.'s love of her.
"Yes," she said, thrilled at the thought of her power.
"Then make him give you up!"
Her father permitted himself a smile of incredulity, which made her say:
"I will!"
Mr. Goodchild rose. He patted her cheek encouragingly and said:
"I think you will, my dear."
"I am going to make him--"
"I beg pardon, but Miss Goodchild is wanted at the telephone, sir,"
announced Frederick.
Grace went to answer the phone. It was Marion Molyneux who spoke.
"Is it true, Grace, that your engagement with H. R. is off?"
"Who told you?" naturally asked Grace before she could think of anything
else.
"Why, everybody is talking about it; and--"
"Everybody knows my business better than I do."
"Well, they say Mrs. Vandergilt doesn't give him time to--"
"Is he engaged to her?"
"Oh, dear! You are angry, aren't you? Well, I am glad it isn't true.
Good-by."
How could the engagement be off when it never had been on? Grace made up
her mind to talk to him very plainly, for the last time, that evening.
She knew he would be at the Vandergilts' dinner dance that night. Well,
she was going there, anyhow. Therefore she went. She almost had to elbow
her way to where he stood. Mrs. Vandergilt was beside him; but Grace
could see that H. R. owned the house.
"How do you do, my dear?" said Mrs. Vandergilt, so very graciously that
Grace was filled with fury.
It was plain that H. R. was making a professional politician of Mrs.
Vandergilt. Grace smiled at her--that is, she made her lips do it
mechanically. Then she addressed the fiance to whom she was not engaged:
"Hendrik!"
That was all she actually said, but, with her eyes, in the manner known
only to women who are sure they are not in love, she commanded him to
follow her.
"You see him all the time and we don't get a chance very often,"
protested a vulgar little thing whose father was a financial pirate of
the first rank and had given her all the predatory instincts. "Go on,
H. R.! Tell us some more. Do!"
Grace's eyes grew very bright and hard, and her cheeks flushed.
"I have news for you," she said to H. R., calmly ignoring the others.
"I am sorry, children," said H. R., regretfully. "Business before
pleasure."
"Your business," persisted the vulgar little thing, "is to obey!"
"Hence my exit," he said, and followed Grace.
She led the way to the conservatory. She was conscious of her own
displeasure. This enabled her to dispense with the necessity of finding
reasons for her own feelings. She halted beside an elaborately carved
marble seat, built for two, and motioned for him to sit down. He looked
at her. She then said:
"Sit down!"
He obeyed. Then she sat beside him. The seat was skilfully screened by
palms and ferns.
"I had a little talk with father this morning," she went on, and
frowned--in advance.
"You poor thing!" he murmured, sympathetically, as though he were
thinking of what she must have suffered.
As a matter of fact his mind was full of the conviction that she herself
did not know which way she was going to jump and it behooved him to pick
the right way.
"He asked me whether I loved you," she went on, sternly.
"Well, the answer to that was an easy syllable. When we go back you tell
Mrs. Vandergilt that you have decided to allow me to serve under her.
Don't worry; I'll be the boss. Ethel has played up like a trump--"
"I told him I didn't," she interrupted.
"You couldn't have told him that!" He smiled easily. "There was no
occasion for it. Now tell me exactly what you did say to him."
He could see anger in her eyes--the kind of anger that is at least a
first cousin to hatred.
"I said--"
"The exact words."
The change in his voice made her look at him. His eyes, keen, masterful,
were fixed on hers. They looked hard, yet not altogether ruthless; and
particularly they looked as though they could read thoughts with no
effort, which made it necessary to tell the truth.
"I told him I didn't know," she said. To preserve her self-respect she
sneered.
"What a wonderful girl you are!"
In his eyes she saw a great admiration. She could not tell what it was
this man considered so wonderful; but, whatever it was, he knew
exactly--and she did not!
"If I really loved you, shouldn't I know it?"
"Of course not. You are not the surrendering kind. The others are--born
slaves, diminutive souls, toys, little pets. Souls like yours don't
marry; they mate with an eagle! You will love me as I love you. And then
there is nothing that we, together, cannot do! Nothing!"
She opened her mouth, but he checked her speech by saying, sternly:
"Why do you think it is that, having loved you, I cannot love any one
else? Because I alone know what you are and what you will be! Grace, I
promised your father I would not make love to you until I had deleted
one word from our visiting-cards. It is done; but the month isn't up
quite, and I won't make love to you. That's flat! I can't break my
word."
He looked so determined that naturally she looked away and said, very
softly:
"And--and if I should want you to?"
"You should want me to make love to you, but not to break my word!"
"But you say you love me," she complained.
"Love you!"
It flamed in his eyes and his hand reached for hers; but he checked
himself abruptly. She extended her hand, but he edged away from her. She
drew nearer to him. He retreated to the very edge of the seat. She was
pursuing now. He bit his lip and frowned.
She no longer thought of other things. She knew he could not retreat any
farther. She covered his hand with hers. He suddenly clutched it so
tightly that he hurt her, and that gave her the fierce joy of success in
love as she understood it. She felt like shouting: "Hurt me! Hurt me!
I've got you!" But what she did was to murmur:
"Hendrik!"
"What?" he said, hoarsely, resolutely keeping his eyes from looking into
hers.
"Hendrik, do you really love me?"
"My promise!" he whispered, tensely, and looked at her pleadingly.
"Don't, dear!"
She understood him perfectly; so she smiled. It was her iron will
against his. He must do what he did not wish to do, and do it because
she wished it! She did not wish to kiss him; but she wished,
hypnotist-like, to compel him to kiss her. With her eyes she beckoned
him to come closer.
Knowing that this would clinch it he stared back at her with a pitiful
appeal in his troubled eyes, and shook his head weakly, as though his
soul, thinking of his honor, was saying: "No, no! Please don't!"
Her face moved toward him a little and stopped. Something within her was
stamping its foot, saying: "Yes! Yes!"--like a peevish child.
H. R., continuing to follow the subtle strategy of the reversed
position, stared fascinatedly at her lips. Then slowly, like a man in a
trance, his face moved toward hers. On the very brink he paused and
said, brokenly: "No! Oh, my darling! No! No!"
She said nothing, in order not to commit herself; but she smiled at him,
while her eyes, luminous and blue, pounded away on his resolve,
battering it to pieces. Nearer his face came--nearer--until his lips
reached hers.
His honor had been wrecked on the coral reef; but all she knew, and all
she cared to know, was that she had won! She was so certain of it and
showed it so plainly that he knew he had better make it doubly sure; so
he pressed his cheek against hers, that she might not see his face while
he murmured:
"Now you can't cast me off!"
It was an entreaty, with the nature of which she was familiar from her
literary studies; and her answer, eminently feminine, was:
"Never, dearest!"
He started to his feet abruptly.
"Don't follow me!" he said, harshly, and walked away very quickly.
When she rejoined the crush in the drawing-room she learned that H. R.
had excused himself on the plea of urgent business and had gone.
"What is he going to do?" they asked her, eagerly.
They were sure it was something picturesque, but she saw in their
excited wonderment the appraisal of her victory. The displeasure and
suspicion in Mrs. Vandergilt's eyes gave her intense joy.
She was willing to pay for her victory. He loved her! She could make him
do whatever she wished. It did not matter whether she loved him or not.
There was now no reason, that she could see, why she should not marry
him--if the worst came to the worst.