Looking back upon this dinner of the Delancys, the student of human affairs can see how Providence uses small means for the accomplishment of its purposes. Of all our social contrivances, the formal dinner is probably the cause of more anxiety in the arrangement, of more weariness in the performance, and usually of less satisfaction in the retrospect than any other social function. However carefully the guests are selected, it lacks the spontaneity that gives intellectual zest to the chance dining together of friends. This Delancy party was made up for reasons which are well understood, and it seemed to have been admirably well selected; and yet the moment it assembled it was evident that it could not be very brilliant or very enjoyable. Doubtless you, madam, would have arranged it differently, and not made it up of such incongruous elements.
As a matter of fact, scarcely one of those present would not have had more enjoyment somewhere else. Father Damon, whose theory was that the rich needed saving quite as much as the poor, would nevertheless have been in better spirits sitting down to a collation with the working-women in Clinton Place. It was a good occasion for the cynical observation of Mr. Mavick, but it was not a company that he could take in hand and impress with his mysterious influence in public affairs. Henderson was not in the mood, and would have had much more ease over a chop and a bottle of half-and-half with Uncle Jerry. Carmen, socially triumphant, would have been much more in her element at a petit souper of a not too fastidious four. Mrs. Schuyler Blunt was in the unaccustomed position of having to maintain a not too familiar and not too distant line of deportment. Edith and Jack felt the responsibility of having put an incongruous company on thin conventional ice. It was only the easy-going Miss Tavish and two or three others who carried along their own animal spirits and love of amusement who enjoyed the chance of a possible contretemps.
And yet the dinner was providentially arranged. If these people had not met socially, this history would have been different from what it must be. The lives of several of them were appreciably modified by this meeting. It is too much to say that Father Damon's notion of the means by which such men as Henderson succeed was changed, but personal contact with the man may have modified his utterances about him, and he may have turned his mind to the uses to which his wealth might be applied rather than to the means by which he obtained it. Carmen's ingenuous interest in his work may have encouraged the hope that at least a portion of this fortune might be rescued to charitable uses. For Carmen, dining with Mrs. Schuyler Blunt was a distinct gain, and indirectly opened many other hitherto exclusive doors. That lady may not have changed her opinion about Carmen, but she was good-natured and infected by the incoming social tolerance; and as to Henderson, she declared that he was an exceedingly well-bred man, and she did not believe half the stories about him. Henderson himself at once appreciated the talents of Mavick, gauged him perfectly, and saw what services he might be capable of rendering at Washington. Mr. Mavick appreciated the advantage of a connection with such a capitalist, and of having open to him another luxurious house in New York. At the dinner-table Carmen and Mr. Mavick had not exchanged a dozen remarks before these clever people felt that they were congenial spirits. It was in the smoking-room that Henderson and Mavick fell into an interesting conversation, which resulted in an invitation for Mavick to drop in at Henderson's office in the morning. The dinner had not been a brilliant one. Henderson found it not easy to select topics equally interesting to Mrs. Delancy and Mrs. Blunt, and finally fell into geographical information to the latter about Mexico and Honduras. For Edith, the sole relief of the evening was an exchange of sympathy with Father Damon, and she was too much preoccupied to enjoy that. As for Carmen, placed between Jack and Mr. Mavick, and conscious that the eyes of Mrs. Blunt were on her, she was taking a subdued role, which Jack found much less attractive than her common mood. But this was not her only self-sacrifice of the evening. She went without her usual cigarette.
To Edith the dinner was a revelation of new difficulties in the life she proposed for herself, though they were rather felt than distinctly reasoned about. The social atmosphere was distasteful; its elements were out of harmony with her ideals. Not that this society was new to her, but that she saw it in a new light. Before her marriage all these things had been indifferent to this high-spirited girl. They were merely incidents of the social state into which she was born, and she pursued her way among them, having a tolerably clear conception of what her own life should be, with little recognition of their tendencies. Were only her own life concerned, they would still be indifferent to her. But something had happened. That which is counted the best thing in life had come to her, that best thing which is the touchstone of character as it is of all conditions, and which so often introduces inextricable complications. She had fallen in love with Jack Delancy and married him.
The first effect of this was to awake and enlarge what philosophers would call her enthusiasm of humanity. The second effect was to show her—and this was what this little dinner emphasized—that she had put limitations upon herself and taken on unthought-of responsibilities. To put this sort of life one side, or make it secondary to her own idea of a useful and happy life, would have been easy but for one thing—she loved Jack. This philosophic reasoning about it does her injustice. It did not occur to her that she could go her way and let him go his way. Nor must it be supposed that the problem seemed as grave to her as it really was—the danger of frittering away her own higher nature in faithfulness to one of the noblest impulses of that nature. Yet this is the way that so many trials of life come, and it is the greatest test of character. She felt—as many women do feel—that if she retained her husband's love all would be well, and the danger involved to herself probably did not cross her mind.
But what did cross her mind was that these associations meant only evil for Jack, and that to be absorbed in the sort of life that seemed to please him was for her to drift away from all her ideals.
A confused notion of all this was in her thoughts when she talked with Father Damon, while the gentlemen were in the smoking-room. She asked him about his mission.
“The interest continues,” he replied; “but your East Side, Mrs. Delancy, is a puzzling place.”
“How so?”
“Perhaps you'll laugh if I say there is too much intelligence.”
Edith did laugh, and then said: “Then you'd better move your mission over to this side. Here is a field of good, unadulterated worldliness. But what, exactly, do you mean?”
“Well, the attempt of science to solve the problem of sin and wretchedness. What can you expect when the people are socialists and their leaders agnostics?”
“But I thought you were something of a socialist yourself!”
“So I am,” he said, frankly, “when I see the present injustice, the iniquitous laws and combinations that leave these people so little chance. They are ignorant, and expect the impossible; but they are right in many things, and I go with them. But my motive is not theirs. I hope not. There is no hope except in a spiritual life. Materialism down at the bottom of society is no better than materialism at the top. Do you know,” he went on, with increased warmth, “that pessimism is rather the rule over that side, and that many of those who labor most among the poor have the least hope of ever making things substantially better?”
“But such unselfish people as Dr. Leigh do a great deal of good,” Edith suggested.
“Yes,” he said reflecting—“yes, I have no doubt. I don't understand it. She is not hopeful. She sees nothing beyond. I don't know what keeps her up.”
“Love of humanity, perhaps.”
“I wish the phrase had never been invented. Religion of humanity! The work is to save the souls of those people.”
“But,” said Edith, with a flush of earnestness “but, Father Damon, isn't human love the greatest power to save?”
The priest looked at the girl. His face softened, and he said, more gently, “I don't know. Of the soul, yes. But human love is so apt to stand in the way of the higher life.”
In her soul Edith resented this as an ascetic and priestly view; but she knew his devotion to that humanity which he in vain tried to eliminate from his austere life, and she turned the talk lightly by saying, “Ah, that is your theory. But I am coming over soon, and shall expect you and Dr. Leigh to take me about.”
The next morning Mr. Mavick's card gave him instant admission to the inner office of Mr. Henderson, the approach to whom was more carefully guarded than that to the President of the United States. This was not merely necessary to save him from the importunities of cranks who might carry concealed dynamite arguments, but as well to protect him from hundreds of business men with whom he was indirectly dealing, and with whom he wished to evade explanations. He thoroughly understood the advantages of delay. He also understood the value of the mystery that attends inaccessibility. Even Mr. Mavick himself was impressed by the show of ceremony, by the army of clerks, and by the signs of complete organization. He knew that the visitor was specially favored who penetrated these precincts so far as to get an interview, usually fruitless, with Henderson's confidential man. This confidential man was a very grave and confidence-begetting person, who dealt out dubious hints and promises, and did not at all mind when Henderson found it necessary to repudiate as unauthorized anything that had been apparently said in his name. To be sure, this gave a general impression that Henderson was an inscrutable man to deal with, but at the same time it was confessed that his spoken word could be depended on. Anything written might, it is true, lead to litigation, and this gave rise to a saying in the Street that Henderson's word was better than his bond.
Henderson was not a politician, but he was a friend of politicians. It was said that he contributed about equally to both sides in a political campaign, and that this showed patriotism more than partisanship. It was for his interest to have friends on both sides in Congress, and friends in the Cabinet, and it was even hinted that he was concerned to have men whose economic and financial theories accorded with his own on the Supreme Bench. He had unlimited confidence in the power of money. His visitor of the morning was not unlike him in many respects. He also was not a politician. He would have described himself as a governmental man, and had a theory of running the government with as little popular interference as possible. He regarded himself as belonging to the governing class.
Between these two men, who each had his own interests in view, there was naturally an apparent putting aside of reserve.
“I was very glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Mavick,” said Henderson, cordially. “I have known of you for a long time.”
“Yes? I've been in the employ of the government for some time.”
“And I suppose it pays pretty well,” said Henderson, smilingly.
“Oh, extravagantly,” Mavick rejoined, in the same spirit. “You just about get your board and clothes out of government. Your washing is another thing. You are expected, you know, to have your washing done where you vote.”
“Well, it's a sure thing.”
“Yes, till you are turned out. You know the theory at Washington is that virtue is its own reward. Tom Fakeltree says it's enough.”
“I wonder how he knows?”
“Observation, probably. Tom startled a dinner table the other day with the remark that when a man once gives himself up to the full enjoyment of a virtuous life, it seems strange to him that more people do not follow his example.”
“The trouble with the virtue of Washington is that it always wants to interfere with other people's business. Fellows like Tom are always hunting up mares' nests in order to be paid for breaking them up.”
“I can't say about Tom,” rejoined Mavick. “I suppose it is necessary to live.”
“I suppose so. And that goes along with another proposition—that the successful have no rights which the unsuccessful are bound to respect. As soon as a man gets ahead,” Henderson continued, with a tone of bitterness, “the whole pack are trying to pull him down. A capitalist is a public enemy. Why, look at that Hodge bill! Strikes directly at the ability of the railways to develop the country. Have you seen it?”
“Yes,” Mavick admitted; “the drawer of it was good enough to consult me on its constitutionality. It's a mighty queer bill.”
“It can't get through the Senate,” said Henderson; “but it's a bother. Such schemes are coming up all the time, and they unsettle business. These fellows need watching.”
“And managing,” added Mavick.
“Exactly. I can't be in Washington all the time. And I need to know what is going on every twenty-four hours from the inside. I can't rely on politicians or lobbyists.”
“Well,” said Mr. Mavick, in his easiest manner, “that's easy enough. You want a disinterested friend.”
Henderson nodded, but did not even smile, and the talk went on about other measures, and confidentially about certain men in Washington, until, after twenty minutes' conversation, the two men came to a perfect understanding. When Mavick arose to go they shook hands even more cordially than at first, and Henderson said:
“Well, I expect to hear from you, and remember that our house will always be your home in the city.”
It seemed very fortunate to Jack Delancy that he should have such a clever woman as Carmen for his confidante, a man so powerful as Henderson as his backer, and a person so omniscient as Mavick for his friend. No combination could be more desirable for a young man who proposed to himself a career of getting money by adroit management and spending it in pure and simple self-indulgence. There are plenty of men who have taken advantage of like conditions to climb from one position to another, and have then kicked down the ladders behind them as fast as they attained a new footing. It was Jack's fault that he was not one of these. You could scarcely dignify his character by saying that he had an aim, except to saunter through life with as little personal inconvenience as possible. His selfishness was boneless. It was not by any means negative, for no part of his amiable nature was better developed than regard for his own care and comfort; but it was not strong enough to give him Henderson's capacity for hard work and even self-denial, nor Mavick's cool, persevering skill in making a way for himself in the world. Why was not Edith his confidante? His respect for her was undoubted; his love for her was unquestioned; his trust in her was absolute. And yet with either Carmen or Miss Tavish he fell into confidential revelations of himself which instinctively he did not make to Edith. The explanation of this is on the surface, and it is the key to half the unhappiness in domestic life. He felt that Edith was not in sympathy with the associations and the life he was leading. The pitiful and hopeless part of it is that if she had been in sympathy with them, Jack would have gone on in his frivolous career at an accelerated pace. It was not absence of love, it was not unfaithfulness, that made Jack enjoy the hours he spent with Carmen, or with the pleasing and not too fastidious Miss Tavish, with a zest that was wanting to his hours at home. If he had been upon a sinking steamboat with the three women, and could have saved only one of them, he would not have had a moment's hesitation in rescuing Edith and letting the other two sink out of his life. The character is not unusual, nor the situation uncommon. What is a woman to do? Her very virtues are enemies of her peace; if she appears as a constant check and monitor, she repels; if she weakly acquiesces, the stream will flow over both of them. The dilemma seems hopeless.
It would be a mistake to suppose that either Edith or Jack put their relations in any such definite shape as this. He was unthinking. She was too high-spirited, too confident of her position, to be assailed by such fears. And it must be said, since she was a woman, that she had the consciousness of power which goes along with the possession of loveliness and keen wit. Those who knew her best knew that under her serenity was a gay temperament, inherited from the original settlers of Manhattan, an abounding enjoyment of life, and capacity for passion. It was early discovered in her childhood that little Edith had a will of her own.
Lent was over. It was the time of the twittering of sparrows, of the opening of windows, of putting in order the little sentimental spots called “squares,” where the poor children get their idea of forests, and the rich renew their faint recollections of innocence and country life; when the hawkers go about the streets, and the hand-organs celebrate the return of spring and the possibility of love. Even the idle felt that it was a time for relaxation and quiet.
“Have you answered Miss Tavish's invitation?” asked Jack one morning at the breakfast-table.
“Not yet. I shall decline today for myself.”
“Why? It's for charity.”
“Well, my charity extends to Miss Tavish. I don't want to see her dance.”
“That leaves me in a nice hole. I said I'd go.”
“And why not? You go to a good many places you don't take me—the clubs, brokers' offices, Stalker's, the Conventional, and—”
“Oh, go on. Why do you object to my going to see this dance?”
“My dear Jack,” said Edith, “I haven't objected the least in the world;” and her animated face sparkled with a smile, which seemed to irritate Jack more than a frown would have done.
“I don't see why you set yourself up. I'll bet Miss Tavish will raise more money for the Baxter Street Guild, yes, and do more good, than you and the priest and that woman doctor slopping about on the East Side in six months.”
“Very likely,” replied Edith, still with the same good-humored smile. “But, Jack, it's delightful to see your philanthropic spirit stirred up in this way. You ought to be encouraged. Why don't you join Miss Tavish in this charity? I have no doubt that if it was advertised that Miss Tavish and Mr. Jack Delancy would dance for the benefit of an East Side guild in the biggest hall in the city, there wouldn't be standing room.”
“Oh, bosh!” said Jack, getting up from his chair and striding about the room, with more irritation than he had ever shown to Edith before. “I wouldn't be a prude.”
Edith's eyes flashed and her face flushed, but her smile came back in a moment, and she was serene again. “Come here, Jack. Now, old fellow, look me straight in the eyes, and tell me if you would like to have me dance the serpentine dance before a drawing-room full of gossiping women, with, as you say, just a few men peeping in at the doors.”
Jack did look, and the serene eyes, yet dancing with amusement at the incongruous picture, seemed to take a warmer glow of love and pleading.
“Oh, hang it! that's different,” and he stooped and gave her an awkward kiss.
“I'm glad you know it's different,” she said, with a laugh that had not a trace of mockery in it; “and since you do, you'd better go along and do your charity, and I'll stay at home, and try to be—different when you come back.”
And Jack went; with a little feeling of sheepishness that he would not have acknowledged at the time, and he found himself in a company where he was entirely at his ease. He admired the dancing of the blithe, graceful girl, he applauded her as the rest did with hand-clapping and bravas, and said it was ravishing. It all suited him perfectly. And somehow, in the midst of it all, in the sensuous abandon of this electric-light eccentricity at mid-day, he had a fleeting vision of something very different, of a womanhood of another sort, and a flush came to his face for a moment as he imagined Edith in a skirt dance under the gaze of this sensation-loving society. But this was only for a moment. When he congratulated Miss Tavish his admiration was entirely sincere; and the girl, excited with her physical triumph, seemed to him as one emancipated out of acquired prudishness into the Greek enjoyment of life. Miss Tavish, who would not for the world have violated one of the social conventions of her set, longed, as many women do, for the sort of freedom and the sort of applause which belongs to women who succeed upon the stage. Not that she would have forfeited her position by dancing at a theatre for money; but; within limits, she craved the excitement, the abandon, the admiration, that her grace and passion could win. This was not at all the ambition which led the Egyptian queen Hatshepsu to assume the dress of a man, but rather that more famous aspiration which led the daughter of Herodias, in a pleasure-loving court, to imitate and excel the professional dancing-girls. If in this inclination of the women of the day, which is not new, but has characterized all societies to which wealth has brought idleness, there was a note of demoralization, it did not seem so to Jack, who found the world day by day more pleasing and more complaisant.
As the months went by, everything prospered with him on his drifting voyage. Of all voyages, that is the easiest to make which has no port in view, that depends upon the varying winds, if the winds happen to be soft and the chance harbors agreeable. Jack was envied, thanks to Henderson. He was lucky in whatever he touched. Without any change in his idle habits, and with no more attention to business than formerly, money came to him so freely that he not only had a complacent notion that he was a favorite of fortune, but the idea of his own importance in the financial world increased enormously, much to the amusement of Mavick, when he was occasionally in the city, to whom he talked somewhat largely of his operations, and who knew that he had no more comprehension of the sweep of Henderson's schemes than a baby has of the stock exchange when he claps his hands with delight at the click of the ticker.
His prosperity was visible. It showed in the increase of his accounts at the Union, in his indifference to limits in the game of poker, in a handsome pair of horses which he insisted on Edith's accepting for her own use, in an increased scale of living at home, in the hundred ways that a man of fashion can squander money in a luxurious city. If he did not haunt the second-hand book-shops or the stalls of dealers in engravings, or bring home as much bric-a-brac as he once had done, it was because his mind was otherwise engaged; his tailor's bills were longer, and there were more expensive lunches at the clubs, at which there was a great deal of sage talk about stocks and combinations, and much wisdom exhibited in regard to wines; and then there were the little suppers at Wherry's after the theatres, which a bird could have eaten and a fish have drunken, and only a spendthrift have paid for.
“It is absurd,” Edith had said one night after their return. “It makes us ridiculous in the eyes of anybody but fools.” And Jack had flared up about it, and declared that he knew what he could afford, and she had retorted that as for her she would not countenance it. And Jack had attempted to pass it off lightly, at last, by saying, “Very well then, dear, if you won't back me, I shall have to rely upon my bankers.” At any rate, neither Carmen nor Miss Tavish took him to task. They complimented him on his taste, and Carmen made him feel that she appreciated his independence and his courage in living the life that suited him. She knew, indeed, how much he made in his speculations, how much he lost at cards; she knew through him the gossip of the clubs, and venturing herself not too far at sea, liked to watch the undertow of fashionable life. And she liked Jack, and was not incapable of throwing him a rope when the hour came that he was likely to be swept away by that undertow.
It was remarked at the Union, and by the men in the Street who knew him, that Jack was getting rapid. But no one thought the less of him for his pace—that is, no one appeared to, for this sort of estimate of a man is only tested by his misfortunes, when the day comes that he must seek financial backing. In these days he was generally in an expansive mood, and his free hand and good-humor increased his popularity. There were those who said that there were millions of family money back of Jack, and that he had recently come in for something handsome.
But this story did not deceive Major Fairfax, whose business it was to know to a dot the standing of everybody in society, in which he was a sort of oracle and privileged favorite. No one could tell exactly how the Major lived; no one knew the rigid economy that he practiced; no one had ever seen his small dingy chamber in a cheap lodging-house. The name of Fairfax was as good as a letter of introduction in the metropolis, and the Major had lived on it for years, on that and a carefully nursed little income—an habitue of the club, and a methodical cultivator of the art of dining out. A most agreeable man, and perhaps the wisest man in his generation in those things about which it would be as well not to know anything.
Seated one afternoon in his favorite corner for street observation, by the open window, with the evening paper in his hand, in the attitude of one expecting the usual five o'clock cocktail, he hailed Jack, who was just coming down-stairs from a protracted lunch.
“I say, Delancy, what's this I hear?”
“About what?” said Jack, sauntering along to a seat opposite the Major, and touching a bell on the little table as he sat down. Jack's face was flushed, but he talked with unusual slowness and distinctness. “What have you heard, Major?”
“That you have bought Benham's yacht.”
“No, I haven't; but I was turning the thing over in my mind,” Jack replied, with the air of a man declining an appointment in the Cabinet. “He offers it cheap.”
“My dear boy, there is no such thing as a cheap yacht, any more than there is a cheap elephant.”
“It's better to buy than build,” Jack insisted. “A man's got to have some recreation.”
“Recreation! Why don't you charter a Fifth Avenue stage and take your friends on a voyage to the Battery? That'll make 'em sick enough.” It was a misery of the Major's life that, in order to keep in with necessary friends, he had to accept invitations for cruises on yachts, and pretend he liked it. Though he had the gout, he vowed he would rather walk to Newport than go round Point Judith in one of those tipping tubs. He had tried it, and, as he said afterwards, “The devil of it was that Mrs. Henderson and Miss Tavish sympathized with me. Gad! it takes away a person's manhood, that sort of thing.”
The Major sipped his bitters, and then added: “Or I'll tell you what; if you must do something, start a newspaper—the drama, society, and letters, that sort of thing, with pictures. I heard Miss Tavish say she wished she had a newspaper.”
“But,” said Jack, with gravity, “I'm not buying a yacht for Miss Tavish.”
“I didn't suppose you were. Devilish fine girl, though. I don't care who you buy it for if you don't buy it for yourself. Why don't you buy it for Henderson? He can afford it.”
“I'd like to know what you mean, Major Fairfax!” cried Jack. “What business—”
“There!” exclaimed the Major, sinking back in his chair, with a softened expression in his society beaten face. “It's no use of nonsense, Jack. I'm an average old sinner, and I'm not old enough yet to like a milksop. But I've known you since you were so high, and I knew your father; he used to stay weeks on my plantation when we were both younger. And your mother—that was a woman!—did me a kindness once when I was in a d—-d tight place, and I never forgot it. See here, Jack, if I had money enough I'd buy a yacht and put Carmen and Miss Tavish on it, and send them off on the longest voyage there is.”
“Who's been talking?” exclaimed Jack, touched a little, but very much offended.
“The town, Jack. Don't mind the talk. People always talk. I suppose people talk about me: At your age I should have been angry too at a hint even from an old friend. But I've learned. It doesn't pay. I don't get angry any more. Now there's Henderson—”
“What have you got against Henderson?”
“Nothing. He is a very good fellow, for that sort of man. But, Lord! Henderson is a big machine. You might as well try to stand in with a combination of gang-saws, or to make friends with the Department of the Interior. Look at the men who have gone in with Henderson from time to time. The ground is strewn with them. He's got no more feeling in business than a reaper-and-binder.”
“I don't know what Henderson's got to do with my having a yacht.”
“I beg your pardon, Jack; it's none of my business. Only I do not put my investments”—Jack smiled faintly, as if the conversation were taking a humorous turn—“at the mercy of Henderson's schemes. If I did, I wouldn't try to run a yacht at the same time. I should be afraid that some day when I got to sea I should find myself out of coal. You know, my boy, that the good book says you cannot serve two masters.”
“Nobody ever accused you of that, Major,” retorted Jack, with a laugh. “But what two have you in mind?”
“Oh, I don't mean anything personal. I just use names as typical. Say Henderson and Carmen.” And the Major leaned back and tapped his fingers together, as if he were putting a general proposition.
Jack flushed, and then thought a moment—it would be ridiculous to get angry with old Fairfax—and then said: “Major, if I were you, I wouldn't have anything to do with either of them. You'll spoil your digestion.”
“Umph!” the Major grunted, as he rose from his chair. “This is an age of impudence. There's no more respect for gray hair than if it were dyed. I cannot waste any more time on you. I've got an early dinner. Devilish uphill work trying to encourage people who dine at seven. But, my boy, think on these things, as the saint says.”
And the old fellow limped away. There was one good thing about the Major. He stood up in church every Sunday and read his prayers, like a faithful old sinner as he was.
Jack, sobered by the talk, walked home in a very irritated mood, blaming everybody except himself. For old Fairfax's opinion he didn't care, but evidently the old fellow represented a lot of gossip. He wished people would mind their own business. His irritation was a little appeased by Edith's gay and loving greeting; but she, who knew every shade of his face, saw it.
“Have you had a worrying day?”
“No; not specially. I've had an hour of old Fairfax, who hasn't any business of his own to attend to.”
“Oh, nobody minds the Major,” Edith said, as she gave him a shake and another kiss; but a sharp pang went through her heart, for she guessed what had happened, since she had had a visit that afternoon from another plain-speaking person.
They were staying late in town. Edith, who did not care to travel far, was going presently to a little cottage by the sea, and Mrs. Schuyler Blunt had looked in for a moment to say good-by before she went up to her Lenox house.
“It's only an old farmhouse made over,” Mrs. Blunt was saying; “hardly smart enough to ask anybody to, but we hope to have you and Jack there some time.”
“That would be very nice. I hear Lenox is more beautiful than ever.”
“Yes, it is, and about as difficult to get into as the kingdom of heaven. It's being spoiled for moderate people. The Hendersons and the Van Dams and that sort are in a race to see who shall build houses with the biggest rooms, and give the most expensive entertainments. It's all show. The old flavor has gone.”
“But they cannot spoil the scenery.”.
“My child, they are the scenery. You can't see anything else. It doesn't bother me, but some of my old neighbors are just ruining themselves trying to keep the pace. I do think the Americans are the biggest fools on earth.”
“Father Damon says the trouble is we haven't any middle class for a balance.”
“Yes, that's the English of it. But it's a pity that fashion has got hold of the country, and is turning our summers into a worry and a burden. I thought years ago when we went to Lenox that it was a good thing the country was getting to be the fashion; but now it's fashionable, and before we know it every desirable spot will be what they call syndicated. Miss Tavish says she is coming to visit the Hendersons there.”
“I thought she went to Bar Harbor.”
“But she is coming down for part of the season. These people don't stay anywhere. Just long enough in one place to upset everything with their extravagance. That's the reason I didn't ask you and Jack up this summer.”
“Thank you, we couldn't go, you know,” said Edith, simply, and then, with curiosity in her eyes, asked; “but I don't quite understand what's the reason.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Blunt, as if nerving herself up to say what must be said, “I thought perhaps you wouldn't like to be where they are.”
“I don't know why I should or why I should not,” Edith replied.
“Nor have Jack with them,” continued Mrs. Blunt, stoutly.
“What do you mean, Mrs. Blunt?” cried Edith, her brown eyes flaming.
“Don't turn on me, Edith dear. I oughtn't to have said anything. But I thought it was my duty. Of course it is only talk.”
“Well?”
“That Jack is always with one or the other of those women.”
“It is false!” cried Edith, starting up, with tears now in her eyes; “it's a cruel lie if it means anything wrong in Jack. So am I with those women; so are you. It's a shame. If you hear any one say such things, you can tell them for me that I despise them.”
“I said it was a shame, all such talk. I said it was nonsense. But, dear, as a friend, oughtn't I to tell you?” And the kind-hearted gossip put her arm round Edith, and kept saying that she perfectly understood it, and that nobody really meant anything. But Edith was crying now, with a heart both hurt and indignant.
“It's a most hateful world, I know,” Mrs. Blunt answered; “but it's the best we have, and it's no use to fret about it.”
When the visitor had gone, Edith sat a long time in misery. It was the first real shock of her married life. And in her heart she prayed. For Jack? Oh no. The dear girl prayed for herself, that suspicions might not enter her heart. She could not endure that the world should talk thus of him. That was all. And when she had thought it all over and grown calm, she went to her desk and wrote a note to Carmen. It asked Mrs. Henderson, as they were so soon to leave town, to do her the favor to come round informally and lunch with her the next day, and afterwards perhaps a little drive in the Park.
Jack was grateful for Edith's intervention. He comprehended that she had stepped forward as a shield to him in the gossip about Carmen. He showed his appreciation in certain lover-like attentions and in a gayety of manner, but it was not in his nature to feel the sacrifice she had made or its full magnanimity; he was relieved, and in a manner absolved. Another sort of woman might have made him very uncomfortable. Instead of being rebuked he had a new sense of freedom.
“Not one woman in a thousand would have done it,” was the comment of Major Fairfax when he heard of the drive in the Park. “Gad! most of 'em would have cut Carmen dead and put Jack in Coventry, and then there would have been the devil to pay. It takes quality, though; she's such a woman as Jack's mother. If there were not one of them now and then society would deliquesce.” And the Major knew, for his principal experience had been with a deliquescent society.