A Hazard of New Fortunes, Part Third

W >> William Dean Howells >> A Hazard of New Fortunes, Part Third


The music began again almost at once, before Mela had time to make Conrad
tell her where Miss Vance had met him before. She would not have minded
interrupting the music; but every one else seemed so attentive, even
Christine, that she had not the courage. The concert went onto an end
without realizing for her the ideal of pleasure which one ought to find.
in society. She was not exacting, but it seemed to her there were very
few young men, and when the music was over, and their opportunity came to
be sociable, they were not very sociable. They were not introduced, for
one thing; but it appeared to Mela that they might have got introduced,
if they had any sense; she saw them looking at her, and she was glad she
had dressed so much; she was dressed more than any other lady there, and
either because she was the most dressed of any person there, or because
it had got around who her father was, she felt that she had made an
impression on the young men. In her satisfaction with this, and from her
good nature, she was contented to be served with her refreshments after
the concert by Mr. March, and to remain joking with him. She was at her
ease; she let her hoarse voice out in her largest laugh; she accused him,
to the admiration of those near, of getting her into a perfect gale. It
appeared to her, in her own pleasure, her mission to illustrate to the
rather subdued people about her what a good time really was, so that they
could have it if they wanted it. Her joy was crowned when March modestly
professed himself unworthy to monopolize her, and explained how selfish
he felt in talking to a young lady when there were so many young men
dying to do so.

"Oh, pshaw, dyun', yes!" cried Mela, tasting the irony. "I guess I see
them!"

He asked if he might really introduce a friend of his to her, and she
said, Well, yes, if he thought he could live to get to her; and March
brought up a man whom he thought very young and Mela thought very old. He
was a contributor to 'Every Other Week,' and so March knew him; he
believed himself a student of human nature in behalf of literature, and
he now set about studying Mela. He tempted her to express her opinion on
all points, and he laughed so amiably at the boldness and humorous vigor
of her ideas that she was delighted with him. She asked him if he was a
New-Yorker by birth; and she told him she pitied him, when he said he had
never been West. She professed herself perfectly sick of New York, and
urged him to go to Moffitt if he wanted to see a real live town. He
wondered if it would do to put her into literature just as she was, with
all her slang and brag, but he decided that he would have to subdue her a
great deal: he did not see how he could reconcile the facts of her
conversation with the facts of her appearance: her beauty, her splendor
of dress, her apparent right to be where she was. These things perplexed
him; he was afraid the great American novel, if true, must be incredible.
Mela said he ought to hear her sister go on about New York when they
first came; but she reckoned that Christine was getting so she could put
up with it a little better, now. She looked significantly across the room
to the place where Christine was now talking with Beaton; and the student
of human nature asked, Was she here? and, Would she introduce him? Mela
said she would, the first chance she got; and she added, They would be
much pleased to have him call. She felt herself to be having a beautiful
time, and she got directly upon such intimate terms with the student of
human nature that she laughed with him about some peculiarities of his,
such as his going so far about to ask things he wanted to know from her;
she said she never did believe in beating about the bush much. She had
noticed the same thing in Miss Vance when she came to call that day; and
when the young man owned that he came rather a good deal to Mrs. Horn's
house, she asked him, Well, what sort of a girl was Miss Vance, anyway,
and where did he suppose she had met her brother? The student of human
nature could not say as to this, and as to Miss Vance he judged it safest
to treat of the non-society side of her character, her activity in
charity, her special devotion to the work among the poor on the East
Side, which she personally engaged in.

"Oh, that's where Conrad goes, too!" Mela interrupted. "I'll bet anything
that's where she met him. I wisht I could tell Christine! But I suppose
she would want to kill me, if I was to speak to her now."

The student of human nature said, politely, "Oh, shall I take you to
her?"

Mela answered, "I guess you better not!" with a laugh so significant that
he could not help his inferences concerning both Christine's absorption
in the person she was talking with and the habitual violence of her
temper. He made note of how Mela helplessly spoke of all her family by
their names, as if he were already intimate with them; he fancied that if
he could get that in skillfully, it would be a valuable color in his
study; the English lord whom she should astonish with it began to form
himself out of the dramatic nebulosity in his mind, and to whirl on a
definite orbit in American society. But he was puzzled to decide whether
Mela's willingness to take him into her confidence on short notice was
typical or personal: the trait of a daughter of the natural-gas
millionaire, or a foible of her own.

Beaton talked with Christine the greater part of the evening that was
left after the concert. He was very grave, and took the tone of a
fatherly friend; he spoke guardedly of the people present, and moderated
the severity of some of Christine's judgments of their looks and
costumes. He did this out of a sort of unreasoned allegiance to Margaret,
whom he was in the mood of wishing to please by being very kind and good,
as she always was. He had the sense also of atoning by this behavior for
some reckless things he had said before that to Christine; he put on a
sad, reproving air with her, and gave her the feeling of being held in
check.

She chafed at it, and said, glancing at Margaret in talk with her
brother, "I don't think Miss Vance is so very pretty, do you?"

"I never think whether she's pretty or not," said Becton, with dreamy,
affectation. "She is merely perfect. Does she know your brother?"

"So she says. I didn't suppose Conrad ever went anywhere, except to
tenement-houses."

"It might have been there," Becton suggested. "She goes among friendless
people everywhere."

"Maybe that's the reason she came to see us!" said Christine.

Becton looked at her with his smouldering eyes, and felt the wish to say,
"Yes, it was exactly that," but he only allowed himself to deny the
possibility of any such motive in that case. He added: "I am so glad you
know her, Miss Dryfoos. I never met Miss Vance without feeling myself
better and truer, somehow; or the wish to be so."

"And you think we might be improved, too?" Christine retorted. "Well, I
must say you're not very flattering, Mr. Becton, anyway."

Becton would have liked to answer her according to her cattishness, with
a good clawing sarcasm that would leave its smart in her pride; but he
was being good, and he could not change all at once. Besides, the girl's
attitude under the social honor done her interested him. He was sure she
had never been in such good company before, but he could see that she was
not in the least affected by the experience. He had told her who this
person and that was; and he saw she had understood that the names were of
consequence; but she seemed to feel her equality with them all. Her
serenity was not obviously akin to the savage stoicism in which Beaton
hid his own consciousness of social inferiority; but having won his way
in the world so far by his talent, his personal quality, he did not
conceive the simple fact in her case. Christine was self-possessed
because she felt that a knowledge of her father's fortune had got around,
and she had the peace which money gives to ignorance; but Beaton
attributed her poise to indifference to social values. This, while he
inwardly sneered at it, avenged him upon his own too keen sense of them,
and, together with his temporary allegiance to Margaret's goodness, kept
him from retaliating Christine's vulgarity. He said, "I don't see how
that could be," and left the question of flattery to settle itself.

The people began to go away, following each other up to take leave of
Mrs. Horn. Christine watched them with unconcern, and either because she
would not be governed by the general movement, or because she liked being
with Beaton, gave no sign of going. Mela was still talking to the student
of human nature, sending out her laugh in deep gurgles amid the
unimaginable confidences she was making him about herself, her family,
the staff of 'Every Other Week,' Mrs. Mandel, and the kind of life they
had all led before she came to them. He was not a blind devotee of art
for art's sake, and though he felt that if one could portray Mela just as
she was she would be the richest possible material, he was rather ashamed
to know some of the things she told him; and he kept looking anxiously
about for a chance of escape. The company had reduced itself to the
Dryfoos groups and some friends of Mrs. Horn's who had the right to
linger, when Margaret crossed the room with Conrad to Christine and
Beaton.

"I'm so glad, Miss Dryfoos, to find that I was not quite a stranger to
you all when I ventured to call, the other day. Your brother and I are
rather old acquaintances, though I never knew who he was before. I don't
know just how to say we met where he is valued so much. I suppose I
mustn't try to say how much," she added, with a look of deep regard at
him.

Conrad blushed and stood folding his arms tight over his breast, while
his sister received Margaret's confession with the suspicion which was
her first feeling in regard to any new thing. What she concluded was that
this girl was trying to get in with them, for reasons of her own. She
said: "Yes; it's the first I ever heard of his knowing you. He's so much
taken up with his meetings, he didn't want to come to-night."

Margaret drew in her lip before she answered, without apparent resentment
of the awkwardness or ungraciousness, whichever she found it: "I don't
wonder! You become so absorbed in such work that you think nothing else
is worth while. But I'm glad Mr. Dryfoos could come with you; I'm so glad
you could all come; I knew you would enjoy the music. Do sit down--"

"No," said Christine, bluntly; "we must be going. Mela!" she called out,
"come!"

The last group about Mrs. Horn looked round, but Christine advanced upon
them undismayed, and took the hand Mrs. Horn promptly gave her. "Well, I
must bid you good-night."

"Oh, good-night," murmured the elder lady. "So very kind of you to come."

"I've had the best kind of a time," said Mela, cordially. "I hain't
laughed so much, I don't know when."

"Oh, I'm glad you enjoyed it," said Mrs. Horn, in the same polite murmur
she had used with Christine; but she said nothing to either sister about
any future meeting.

They were apparently not troubled. Mela said over her shoulder to the
student of human nature, "The next time I see you I'll give it to you for
what you said about Moffitt."

Margaret made some entreating paces after them, but she did not succeed
in covering the retreat of the sisters against critical conjecture. She
could only say to Conrad, as if recurring to the subject, "I hope we can
get our friends to play for us some night. I know it isn't any real help,
but such things take the poor creatures out of themselves for the time
being, don't you think?"

"Oh yes," he answered. "They're good in that way." He turned back
hesitatingly to Mrs. Horn, and said, with a blush, "I thank you for a
happy evening."

"Oh, I am very glad," she replied, in her murmur.

One of the old friends of the house arched her eyebrows in saying
good-night, and offered the two young men remaining seats home in her
carriage. Beaton gloomily refused, and she kept herself from asking the
student of human nature, till she had got him into her carriage, "What is
Moffitt, and what did you say about it?"

"Now you see, Margaret," said Mrs. Horn, with bated triumph, when the
people were all gone.

"Yes, I see," the girl consented. "From one point of view, of course it's
been a failure. I don't think we've given Miss Dryfoos a pleasure, but
perhaps nobody could. And at least we've given her the opportunity of
enjoying herself."

"Such people," said Mrs. Horn, philosophically, "people with their money,
must of course be received sooner or later. You can't keep them out.
Only, I believe I would rather let some one else begin with them. The
Leightons didn't come?"

"I sent them cards. I couldn't call again."

Mrs. Horn sighed a little. "I suppose Mr. Dryfoos is one of your
fellow-philanthropists?"

"He's one of the workers," said Margaret. "I met him several times at the
Hall, but I only knew his first name. I think he's a great friend of
Father Benedict; he seems devoted to the work. Don't you think he looks
good?"

"Very," said Mrs. Horn, with a color of censure in her assent. "The
younger girl seemed more amiable than her sister. But what manners!"

"Dreadful!" said Margaret, with knit brows, and a pursed mouth of
humorous suffering. "But she appeared to feel very much at home."

"Oh, as to that, neither of them was much abashed. Do you suppose Mr.
Beaton gave the other one some hints for that quaint dress of hers? I
don't imagine that black and lace is her own invention. She seems to have
some sort of strange fascination for him."

"She's very picturesque," Margaret explained. "And artists see points in
people that the rest of us don't."

"Could it be her money?" Mrs. Horn insinuated. "He must be very poor."

"But he isn't base," retorted the girl, with a generous indignation that
made her aunt smile.

"Oh no; but if he fancies her so picturesque, it doesn't follow that he
would object to her being rich."

"It would with a man like Mr. Beaton!"

"You are an idealist, Margaret. I suppose your Mr. March has some
disinterested motive in paying court to Miss Mela--Pamela, I suppose, is
her name. He talked to her longer than her literature would have lasted."

"He seems a very kind person," said Margaret.

"And Mr. Dryfoos pays his salary?"

"I don't know anything about that. But that wouldn't make any difference
with him."

Mrs. Horn laughed out at this security; but she was not displeased by the
nobleness which it came from. She liked Margaret to be high-minded, and
was really not distressed by any good that was in her.

The Marches walked home, both because it was not far, and because they
must spare in carriage hire at any rate. As soon as they were out of the
house, she applied a point of conscience to him.

"I don't see how you could talk to that girl so long, Basil, and make her
laugh so."

"Why, there seemed no one else to do it, till I thought of Kendricks."

"Yes, but I kept thinking, Now he's pleasant to her because he thinks
it's to his interest. If she had no relation to 'Every Other Week,' he
wouldn't waste his time on her."

"Isabel," March complained, "I wish you wouldn't think of me in he, him,
and his; I never personalize you in my thoughts: you remain always a
vague unindividualized essence, not quite without form and void, but
nounless and pronounless. I call that a much more beautiful mental
attitude toward the object of one's affections. But if you must he and
him and his me in your thoughts, I wish you'd have more kindly thoughts
of me."

"Do you deny that it's true, Basil?"

"Do you believe that it's true, Isabel?"

"No matter. But could you excuse it if it were?"

"Ah, I see you'd have been capable of it in my, place, and you're
ashamed."

"Yes," sighed the wife, "I'm afraid that I should. But tell me that you
wouldn't, Basil!"

"I can tell you that I wasn't. But I suppose that in a real exigency, I
could truckle to the proprietary Dryfooses as well as you."

"Oh no; you mustn't, dear! I'm a woman, and I'm dreadfully afraid. But
you must always be a man, especially with that horrid old Mr. Dryfoos.
Promise me that you'll never yield the least point to him in a matter of
right and wrong!"

"Not if he's right and I'm wrong?"

"Don't trifle, dear! You know what I mean. Will you promise?"

"I'll promise to submit the point to you, and let you do the yielding. As
for me, I shall be adamant. Nothing I like better."

"They're dreadful, even that poor, good young fellow, who's so different
from all the rest; he's awful, too, because you feel that he's a martyr
to them."

"And I never did like martyrs a great deal," March interposed.

"I wonder how they came to be there," Mrs. March pursued, unmindful of
his joke.

"That is exactly what seemed to be puzzling Miss Mela about us. She
asked, and I explained as well as I could; and then she told me that Miss
Vance had come to call on them and invited them; and first they didn't
know how they could come till they thought of making Conrad bring them.
But she didn't say why Miss Vance called on them. Mr. Dryfoos doesn't
employ her on 'Every Other Week.' But I suppose she has her own vile
little motive."

"It can't be their money; it can't be!" sighed Mrs. March.

"Well, I don't know. We all respect money."

"Yes, but Miss Vance's position is so secure. She needn't pay court to
those stupid, vulgar people."

"Well, let's console ourselves with the belief that she would, if she
needed. Such people as the Dryfooses are the raw material of good
society. It isn't made up of refined or meritorious people--professors
and litterateurs, ministers and musicians, and their families. All the
fashionable people there to-night were like the Dryfooses a generation or
two ago. I dare say the material works up faster now, and in a season or
two you won't know the Dryfooses from the other plutocrats. THEY will--a
little better than they do now; they'll see a difference, but nothing
radical, nothing painful. People who get up in the world by service to
others--through letters, or art, or science--may have their modest little
misgivings as to their social value, but people that rise by
money--especially if their gains are sudden--never have. And that's the
kind of people that form our nobility; there's no use pretending that we
haven't a nobility; we might as well pretend we haven't first-class cars
in the presence of a vestibuled Pullman. Those girls had no more doubt of
their right to be there than if they had been duchesses: we thought it
was very nice of Miss Vance to come and ask us, but they didn't; they
weren't afraid, or the least embarrassed; they were perfectly
natural--like born aristocrats. And you may be sure that if the
plutocracy that now owns the country ever sees fit to take on the outward
signs of an aristocracy--titles, and arms, and ancestors--it won't falter
from any inherent question of its worth. Money prizes and honors itself,
and if there is anything it hasn't got, it believes it can buy it."

"Well, Basil," said his wife, "I hope you won't get infected with Lindau's
ideas of rich people. Some of them are very good and kind."

"Who denies that? Not even Lindau himself. It's all right. And the great
thing is that the evening's enjoyment is over. I've got my society smile
off, and I'm radiantly happy. Go on with your little pessimistic
diatribes, Isabel; you can't spoil my pleasure."

"I could see," said Mela, as she and Christine drove home together, "that
she was as jealous as she could be, all the time you was talkun' to Mr.
Beaton. She pretended to be talkun' to Conrad, but she kep' her eye on
you pretty close, I can tell you. I bet she just got us there to see how
him and you would act together. And I reckon she was satisfied. He's dead
gone on you, Chris."

Christine listened with a dreamy pleasure to the flatteries with which
Mela plied her in the hope of some return in kind, and not at all because
she felt spitefully toward Miss Vance, or in anywise wished her ill. "Who
was that fellow with you so long?" asked Christine. "I suppose you turned
yourself inside out to him, like you always do."

Mela was transported by the cruel ingratitude. "It's a lie! I didn't tell
him a single thing."

Conrad walked home, choosing to do so because he did not wish to hear his
sisters' talk of the evening, and because there was a tumult in his
spirit which he wished to let have its way. In his life with its single
purpose, defeated by stronger wills than his own, and now struggling
partially to fulfil itself in acts of devotion to others, the thought of
women had entered scarcely more than in that of a child. His ideals were
of a virginal vagueness; faces, voices, gestures had filled his fancy at
times, but almost passionately; and the sensation that he now indulged
was a kind of worship, ardent, but reverent and exalted. The brutal
experiences of the world make us forget that there are such natures in
it, and that they seem to come up out of the lowly earth as well as down
from the high heaven. In the heart of this man well on toward thirty
there had never been left the stain of a base thought; not that
suggestion and conjecture had not visited him, but that he had not
entertained them, or in any-wise made them his. In a Catholic age and
country, he would have been one of those monks who are sainted after
death for the angelic purity of their lives, and whose names are invoked
by believers in moments of trial, like San Luigi Gonzaga. As he now
walked along thinking, with a lover's beatified smile on his face, of how
Margaret Vance had spoken and looked, he dramatized scenes in which he
approved himself to her by acts of goodness and unselfishness, and died
to please her for the sake of others. He made her praise him for them, to
his face, when he disclaimed their merit, and after his death, when he
could not. All the time he was poignantly sensible of her grace, her
elegance, her style; they seemed to intoxicate him; some tones of her
voice thrilled through his nerves, and some looks turned his brain with a
delicious, swooning sense of her beauty; her refinement bewildered him.
But all this did not admit the idea of possession, even of aspiration. At
the most his worship only set her beyond the love of other men as far as
beyond his own.




PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Affectional habit
Brag of his wife, as a good husband always does
But when we make that money here, no one loses it
Courage hadn't been put to the test
Family buryin' grounds
Homage which those who have not pay to those who have
Hurry up and git well--or something
Made money and do not yet know that money has made them
Society: All its favors are really bargains
Wages are the measure of necessity and not of merit
Without realizing his cruelty, treated as a child