The columns were still standing a week later; and the Pin-and-Needle
Combine, too, still managed to hang together. But every moment was
precious, and Roscoe Orlando Gibbons lost no time in giving a dinner for
Preciosa McNulty.
Robin Morrell's first impression of Preciosa had lost nothing of its
intensity--on the contrary. He had taken every possible occasion for
seeing more of her. He had invaded a stage-box at the theatre where she
happened to be sitting; he had made an invitation to call upon her at
home impossible to withhold, and he had called. Elizabeth Gibbons, who
was hand and glove with Preciosa (except that, like everybody else, she
knew nothing of her engagement), speculated aloud on the probable outcome
of all this, and her father himself, overhearing, had laid these
considerations before old Jeremiah. Briefly, Preciosa must marry Robin,
and Roscoe Orlando himself would help to the extent of bringing them
together once more by means of a dinner.
Jeremiah blinked solemnly at Roscoe Orlando's florid side-whiskers and
wide sensuous mouth. Both the affairs of the heart and the functions of
society life were far removed from the range of Jeremiah's interests and
sympathies.
"Save Morrell, and you save the bank," urged Roscoe Orlando.
Jeremiah blinked again. He was fully able to do this, if he chose. He was
immensely well off. He drew rentals from every quarter of the city. Those
gilded Louis Quinze chairs and sofas in his front parlour were, as
everybody knew, stuffed with bonds and mortgages, and coupons and
interest-notes were always bursting out and having to be crammed back in
place again. Yes, Jeremiah was the richest member of the board; but he
was also one of the smallest among the stock-holders. He shook his head.
Why risk so much to save so little?
"Then save your grandchild," pursued Roscoe Orlando.
Jeremiah stopped blinking and opened his eyes to a wide stare. "Aha! this
fetches him!" thought Roscoe Orlando.
"Will you have her marry a business-man of means and ability," he went
on, "or will you have her tie up to a poor devil of a painter, with no
friends, no position, no influence, no future?" Roscoe Orlando's brief
period of easy patronage was over; no longer was he the caressing
amateur, but the imperilled stockholder (rather a large one, too), and
Ignace Prochnow need look for no further support from his quarter. Roscoe
told Jeremiah bluntly that his granddaughter was as good as engaged (this
was his own daughter's guess) to that obscure young man from nowhere, and
asked him if he wanted the thing to end in matrimony.
Jeremiah scratched his chin. Roscoe Orlando saw with disappointment that
neither explosion nor panic was to ensue. Yes, Jeremiah remembered
Prochnow; he recalled the bold, brainy young fellow, so full of vigour
and vitality. He himself had reached an age when such things made their
impression, and when he wistfully envied so signally full a repository of
youthful hope, energy, persistence.
Gibbons eyed him narrowly; clearly his argument was failing. "However,"
he went on hurriedly, therefore, "this is no affair for us. Speak to the
child's mother; she will know how to handle it. Meanwhile, my daughters
will arrange for the dinner."
Euphrosyne McNulty jumped at the dinner. As for Preciosa's infatuation
for Prochnow (upon which Jeremiah had touched very lightly), she refused
to consider any such possibility. At most it was but a passing fancy, due
to the painting of that portrait; it would quickly dissipate: least said,
soonest mended. A girl like Preciosa, brought up so carefully, a girl who
had always had everything and who would always need to have everything,
would know how to choose between two such men. As for Robin Morrell,
Euphrosyne had been greatly taken with him. He blew into her arid parlour
the long-awaited whiff from the golden fields of "society." He was big,
loud, self-confident, tremendously and immediately at home (in a
condescending way, though this she hardly grasped),--a man to open up his
own path and trample through the world, Preciosa by his side, and
Preciosa's mother not far behind. So, up to the very hour of the Gibbons
dinner, she sang his praises in Preciosa's ear.
Preciosa was preparing to revert; she sought the soil, but she was
determined it should be the soil of her own choosing. She found Morrell
coarse, dry, hard, sandy, gritty. What she sought was some dank, rich
loam, dark, moist, productive. To be sure, great towering things grew in
the sand--pine-trees, for example, with vast trunks and with broad heads
that spread out far above the humbler growths below; but on the whole she
preferred some lustrous-leaved shrub full of buds that would soon open
into beautiful red flowers. She told her mother that she had no interest
in the Gibbons dinner and did not mean to go.
"But I mean that you shall!" retorted Euphrosyne. "After all that's been
done to get you into society you turn round now, do you, and cut off your
own parents from it? You'll go, make sure of that; and your father and I
will go with you."