Abner lingered on. He had meant to leave early, but it was as easy to
stay as to go; besides, he felt the stirring of a curiosity to see what
the closing hour of such an occasion might be like. Everything, thus far,
had been most seemly, most decorous, full of a pleasant informality and a
friendly, trustful goodwill; but the crucial point, he had read, always
came about supper-time, after which the rout turned into an orgy.
Dr. Gowdy came across and launched himself upon Abner, just as he had
done before, when Mrs. Whyland had first made them acquainted. He frankly
admired the strength and the stature of the only man in the room who was
taller and more robust than himself, as well as the intent sobriety of
his glance and the laconic gravity of his speech.
"An admirable young fellow!" he had exclaimed to Edith Whyland, upon
Abner's leaving them to cross over to Medora.
"Oh yes, yes!" she had returned with conviction.
"So serious."
"Oh yes,"--with less emphasis. She knew Abner was serious because he was
puzzled.
"So grave."
"Yes,"--faintly. She knew Abner was grave because he was shocked.
"A painter?"
"A--an artist."
"He has personality. He will make a name for himself, I am sure."
The good Doctor, now alone with Abner, gave him a chance to celebrate
himself, to make known what there was in him. But Abner remained
inexpressive; and the Doctor, who himself was very ready of tongue and
who, like all fluent people, was much impressed by reserve, presently
went away with a higher opinion of Abner than ever.
Medora came up, extending her card. "I have secured another dance for
you," she said. "Mr. Bond was kind enough to give it up. He will know
what to do with the time. On this occasion, if you please, we might walk
it out instead of sitting it out. At least we might walk to the
supper-room."
Abner rose. He had never before offered his arm to a lady and was not
sure that he had offered it now, yet Medora's fingers rested upon his
coat-sleeve. For a few moments he felt himself, half proudly, half
uncomfortably, a part of the spectacle, and then they entered the room
where the spare refreshments were dispensed.
Medora found a place, and Abner, doing as he saw the other men do, went
forward to traffic across a long table with a coloured waiter. He brought
back to Medora what he saw the other men bringing--a spoonful of
ice-cream with a thin slice of cake, and a cup of coffee of limited size.
Truly the material for an orgy seemed rather scanty.
"I am glad you promised to read," said Medora. "It is a favour that Mrs.
Whyland will appreciate very much."
Abner bowed. Surely it was a favour, and appreciation was no more than
his due.
"I only wish you could have seen your way to being as nice to poor Mrs.
Pence. I overheard her--didn't I?--asking you once more to call. Weren't
you rather non-committal? Were you, strictly speaking, quite civil?"
"I was as civil as those silly, chattering people round her would let me
be--that niece of hers and the rest. I'm sure I was careful to ask after
her Training School."
"Oh, _that's_ what made her look so dazed!"
"Why should it?" asked Abner, his spoon checked in mid-air.
"She could hardly have expected such an inquiry from _you_. Haven't I
heard that you threw her down on this training-school idea, and threw her
down pretty hard too, the very first time you met her? She wanted help,
sympathy, encouragement, suggestions, and instead of that you gave her
the--the marble heart, as they say. You made her feel so feeble and
flimsy----"
"Did I?" asked Abner gropingly. Eudoxia loomed before him in all her
largeness.
"You did. She was disposed to be a noble, useful worker, but now it seems
as if she might drop to the level of a mere social leader. Do, please,
treat Mrs. Whyland more considerately. She means to arrange quite a nice
little programme, and it will be no disadvantage to you to take part in
it. Mr. Bond will read one or two of his travel-sketches, and I may do a
little something myself--a bit in the way of music, perhaps."
"H'm," said Abner. "Travel-sketches?" He ignored the promise of music.
"With folk-songs on the violin."
"I shall hope to offer something better worth while than
travel-sketches," said Abner. "His things will hardly harmonize with
mine, I'm afraid; but possibly they will serve as a sort of contrast."
"His things will be slight, of course, but the songs will help him out.
Very simple arrangements; people don't care much for anything serious or
heavy."
"I shall not show myself a mere frivolous entertainer--a simple filler-in
of the leisure moments of the wealthy," said Abner.
Medora banished the violin--and herself. "What do you think of reading?"
she asked.
"One or two pieces from my first book, I expect,--_Jim McKay's Defeat_
and _Less Than the Beasts_, with possibly one of the later chapters in
_Regeneration_."
"M--m," said Medora.
"You don't like _Regeneration_, I'm afraid; but there's going to be some
good stuff in it, let me tell you. People will open their eyes and begin
to think. This question of marriage----"
"You will read that part, then?"
"Why not? It's a vital question. It concerns everybody, at all times."
"Yes, it always has--for thousands of years."
"I don't know that I care for the thousands of years. I care for this
year and next year."
"And a great deal of good thought has been put into it already."
"But not the best. The whole subject needs ventilating, shaking up."
"You would attack the fundamentals, then?"
"Why not? I'm a radical. I've always called myself such. I go to the
root, without fear, without favour."
"Still, the present arrangement, resulting from the collective wisdom and
experience of the race ..." said Medora, crumbling her last bit of cake.
"You make me think of Bond and his 'historical perspective.'"
"I meant to. It isn't enough to know at just what point in the road we
are; we must know what steps we have taken, what course we have
traversed, to reach it."
"I never look behind. The hopes and possibilities of the immediate future
are the things that interest _me_. I shall read several chapters of
_Regeneration_--not merely one--on my tour."
"On your tour, yes. But for Mrs. Whyland substitute something else. There
was a story you wrote at the farm--the one about the girl and her
step-mother--"
"H'm, yes," said Abner, with less enthusiasm than he usually showed for
his own work. "_In Winter Weather_? H'm."
This was a short tale, of a somewhat grisly character, which Abner had
composed during the holiday season. Bond had taxed him with using this
work as a buffer to stave off other work of a practical nature such as
was abundantly offered by Giles and his father about the farm; and, to
tell the truth, Abner had limited his physical exertions to half-hour
periods that most other men would have charged to the account of mere
exercise.
"I _might_ read that, I suppose," he said.
"And if there is any wild wind in it--why, I should be on hand with my
violin, you know. I might be in white, as I am now, with snow-flakes in
my hair;--they would show, I think, if this mistletoe does----"
"Not that it represents my best and most characteristic work," he went
on, "or that it bears upon any of the great problems of the day...."
Medora dashed her spoon against her saucer. Was there no power equal to
teaching this masterful, self-centred creature that a woman was a woman
and not a cold abstraction composed merely of the generalized attributes
of the race, male and female alike? She had been his guide to-night, when
she might have left him to his own helpless flounderings: might he not
try now to show some slight shade of interest in her as an individual, at
least,--as a distinct personality?
"Shall we be moving?" she suggested. "It should not have taken so long to
eat so little."