CHAPTER III
The small gathering in Mrs. Courtly's cabin at five o'clock, which looked at first as if it would be what Mordaunt Ballinger called "frosty," ended, by reason of the hostess's tact and charm of manner, in assimilating fairly well. The men were of course the difficult ingredients to "mix;" they always are when not homogeneous. Ballinger felt, and rightly, that he and Ferrars had not much in common; it would require a shipwreck to make them intimate. Ferrars probably did not trouble his head about the young baronet, except as being the brother of the most delightful girl he thought he had ever met. Saul Barham was an unknown quantity to both men. To Ballinger he was "a young Yankee, not bad-looking, but a willowy sort of chap, got up in a reach-me-down, and wants his hair cut awfully." Ferrars regarded his young countryman superciliously, as he did most things at first. And the young Harvard professor showed no keen desire to conciliate either of the men whom he now spoke to for the first time. Mrs. Van Winkle displayed an evident intention of securing Sir Mordaunt Ballinger's undivided attention, by inviting him to share a portmanteau with her, the seats in the cabin being few. But it was not to indulge intêtes-à-têtesthat Mrs. Courtly had brought her friends together; they could do that on deck. With the pouring out of the Russian tea, and the diffusion of some wonderful cakes, produced from a tin, she contrived adroitly to break up the duets, for Ferrars was talking art in a low voice to Miss Ballinger, and she herself had been drawing out the young professor. She felt that the conversation ought now to become general.
"You must come and see me when you are back in Cambridge," she had been saying to Barham, as she made tea. "I am quite an easy distance by rail from there, and I want you to look over my books. I am devoted to books ... not that I am a great scholar—far from it. Do you read Italian? Yes! I am so glad. Then, with your knowledge of Latin, you will help me to decipher some old provincial poems which I picked up at Quaritch's the other day, and of which I believe there are very few copies extant. I have some Elzevirs, too, that may interest you, and several first editions. Talking of first editions, dear Mrs. Van Winkle, is it true that the whole of the first edition of your 'Phryne' is sold out? Have you read it, Sir Mordaunt? Of courseyouhave, Quintin!"
The men were spared replying by the fair authoress, a decorative woman, with lively eyes and a very elaborate pink tea-gown.
"The demand for my book has been very great," she said, with a sweet smile, "but I know nothing of the details. I have had applications from all the chief magazines begging me to write for them, and I suppose I must do so. Of course my name has something to do with the success. People know that, as a leader of society, I write of what I understand."
"Then I conclude your book is modern, and has nothing to do with the famous Greek ... beauty?" inquired Ferrars, gravely.
"Only by analogy," replied Mrs. Van Winkle, sipping her tea slowly. "The whole world sits in judgment now upon any woman whose beauty or whose talent makes her conspicuous. If she has a symmetrical form she is always accused of being toodecolletée."
"You forget that the judges forgave Phryne."
"Oh! they weremen. Of course it isn't men's tongues a woman has to fear in society. They will make love to her, and praise her before and behind her back, if she amuses them—and encourages them just a little. It is the wives and the mothers,theyare the Areopagus which sits in judgment upon the woman who attracts men."
"You must have suffered severely at their hands," said Sir Mordaunt, as he looked up into her face with an amused expression.
"I don't know aboutsuffered. We are all arraigned, we married women, who amuse ourselves, and who have inspired perhaps agrande passion—is it not true, Mrs. Courtly? But they are a little afraid ofme. When a gifted woman has social position and fortune she is comparatively safe. She may follow her own course, and is only accused of the eccentricities of genius—or, at worst, of being a little mad. I know," she added, complacently, as she bit a cake with her small white teeth, "that is what they say of me."
Mrs. Courtly felt rather uncomfortable at the turn the conversation had taken. She was not quite sure how far Miss Ballinger might be amused or scared by Mrs. Van Winkle's utterances. It was necessary to make a diversion before one of the men should throw back the ball; so she said, quickly,
"Isn't it Marcus Aurelius—or somebody—who says, 'It is a good thing to be abused'? And, as you say, your position is so well established! You will look after Miss Ballinger and her brother in New York, I know, and see that they get invitations to anything that is going on. How long do you remain there, Miss Ballinger?"
"You must ask my brother. He has some business in New York. The length of our stay depends entirely on him."
"I shall do all that lies in my power to make it agreeable to you," said Mrs. Van Winkle, with cordiality. Her glance, which was at first directed to Grace, revolved slowly, till it rested on Sir Mordaunt.
"I am glad to hear you have business," said Ferrars, addressing the latter directly for the first time. "With an object—a direct interest—your visit to the United States may repay you. I was telling Miss Ballinger that if she expected either picturesque beauty or art, she would be disappointed, but she declares, like Pope, that 'the proper study of mankind is man,' and she comes among us, wishing to see something of our society. You will show her the most costly samples of our social fabrics, Mrs. Van Winkle, but how about brains? You who are such a decorative ornament of literature, I hope you will get together some clever people for Miss Ballinger."
"Oh! brains are of no account in our New York society. I might pick up a brain or two, if I were to sweep around very diligently, perhaps, but the world I live in is intensely frivolous, and whenever I meet a clever man I feel like putting him under a glass case, he's too good for daily use. Miss Ballinger will have to get Mr. Barham to show her the brains of society at Cambridge."
Here she smiled sweetly at the young man; and he spoke for the first time, laughing lightly, as he said,
"I am afraid we are all in glass cases there, classified and catalogued. But, without putting Mrs. Van Winkle to the labor of searching for brains in New York, I am sure if Miss Ballinger meets some of our brilliant lawyers and noted speakers she will find there is as good talk to be listened to there as anywhere in Europe. I hope she will not judge of American society from any one set, or any single specimen."
"Quite right, Mr. Barham," said Mrs. Courtly, with a kindly nod. "Though hardly complimentary tous, I think you are quite right. No Frenchman would have said that; but you are too much in earnest to think of our feelings—Mrs. Van Winkle's and mine."
Miss Ballinger came to his defence. "It is really more complimentary to think you both incapable of personally applying Mr. Barham's remark than if he had fenced it round with those leafless twigs of conventional politeness which only draw attention to what they were meant to conceal."
"The leaves, themselves, did that in Paradise," murmured Mrs. Van Winkle, leaning back with a dreamy air.
Ballinger was the only one who laughed. Mrs. Courtly coughed, and did not seem quite at ease. Ferrars said quickly,
"Mr. Barham is quite right. Nothing is so misleading as personal experience in forming our estimate of a nation. My friend goes to England, and lives in his hotel all the time (and very bad hotels they often are, it must be owned), I have the good chance to meet a few people I know, and am received with kindness and hospitality. What are our respective opinions worth? Never generalize from individuals. Out of us four Americans who are round this table, only Mr. Barham, perhaps, is the least a typical product of our country."
"Why so?" asked Miss Ballinger.
"Because I see he has great belief in our institutions, our future, our indomitable force. As to me, I gave up any such belief when I was twenty. You said yesterday you doubted if I was a good American. If to believe that our crooked paths are straight, our rough ways smooth, and to proclaim on the housetops that we are the greatest nation on earth—if this is to be a good American, then I am not one."
"I never heard that to love one's country was to be blind to her faults," said Barham, quickly.
"Mr. Ferrars belongs to no country," Mrs. Van Winkle fanned herself as she spoke, with half-closed eyes. "Nor do I. I am more like a Russian, I believe—a Russian George Sand—that is what I feel like. And you, dear Mrs. Courtly? Are you not more French? Madame Récamier, with any number of Chateaubriands round you, it suits you to a T."
"Are Chateaubriands so plentiful?" laughed Mrs. Courtly, gently. "I wish I could find them! They would last so long, too. Madame Récamier's friendships did not depend upon her youth. I should like to end my days lying on a sofa, and surrounded by my old friends."
"Nothing reconciles one so much to the trouble of living as those strong links which stand the test of time," said Ferrars, looking with steady, level eyes at Mrs. Courtly.
"Ah! Quintin, yours is one of those iron natures whose links never melt—not very malleable, but which will stand any amount of strain, as I know."
"Never melts?" exclaimed Mrs. Van Winkle, opening her pretty blue eyes in affected wonder. "I prefer a man who melts."
"And whose links are of gold?" said Ferrars, without looking at her. Then he went on, while a flush mounted to her cheek, "I am not one of the precious metals."
"There is a great deal of brass," replied the lady, more tartly than she had yet spoken. "Give me another cup of tea, dear, with lots of sugar; I want something sweet after Mr. Ferrars's acidity. So you are going to the far West, your brother tells me, Miss Ballinger? What a journey!"
"And yet you think nothing of running backwards and forwards to Europe?" laughed Grace.
"Oh! traversing our own continent is different; not half such a change, and very trying to the complexion. Even in the East one gets awfully dried up. Then, there is nothing to see when one gets there."
"It is not only prophets who have no honor in their own country!" cried Sir Mordaunt. "Fancy, my sister has never seen the Tower of London! And it is the more shameful, as I was there for a year."
"Not imprisoned?" inquired Mrs. Van Winkle, with mock gravity.
"The next thing to it—I was quartered there."
"Then you are a guardsman? I always wondered whether all guardsmen were like Guy Livingstone. Now I know."
"Well, you see in me a deceased guardsman. I left the service a few months ago."
"Do tell me what brings you out to America. An heiress? Of course, you have been very wicked. Are you going to 'ranger' yourself?"
"Neither reformation nor matrimony is in my mind, I am afraid," laughed Ballinger. "Only self-interest and curiosity. I have one or two friends—one, a brother-officer—settled on a ranch in Colorado. I am going to look about and see if I can find a good investment for a little money."
"I think it will be so refreshing to see ranch-life, after the conventionalities of civilization," said Grace.
"You will find a week of it will go a long way," and Mrs. Courtly shook her head. To her, existence without its intellectual refinements and pictorial luxuries—all the delicate and variedentréesshe provided for herself in the pleasant feast which she called "life"—without these, existence would hardly be worth having.
"I would rather live on a ranch than work in Wall Street all my days," said Barham.
"Wall Street has solid compensations," observed Ferrars.
"I think money can be too dearly bought," returned the younger man, quickly. "At the sacrifice of all independence, I would not be rich, if I could."
"How sweet of you, Mr. Barham! In these mercenary days to hear such a sentiment from a man—it is quite too lovely for anything!"
Mrs. Van Winkle spoke the words with a languid drawl, but there was a humorous twinkle in her eye. In point of fact, it was often difficult to tell how far she meant her utterances to be taken seriously. Grace, in the spirit of anti-humbug, struck in gayly,
"I am a Philistine. I like riches. I should like to know once how it feels to beveryrich. I think I could work in Wall Street—whatever that may mean—all my life, if I could earn lots of money; but I never shall."
Barham looked at her, with a steady gaze. Was she in earnest?
"I heard the worship of wealth was as great in London as in New York—but I did not believe it."
"Well," said Mordaunt, "all I can say is, I know several instances in the Life Guards where a fellow's having a pot of money prejudiced other fellows against him. They sent him to Coventry because his father dropped his h's, and they made up their minds the son couldn't be a gentleman. I know one very nice chap who couldn't stand it—had to leave. So you see the worship of money isn't universal."
"We don't drop our h's," Ferrars said. "But there are few colloquial sins we may not commit with impunity if we have half a million of dollars a year, and entertain."
"Ah! You have it there!" interposed Mrs. Van Winkle. "Our rich people are bound to entertain. Otherwise they are of no account. It is very logical. We, of the blue blood, want amusements, but are too poor to give magnificentfêtes. We honor them with our presence, and the obligation is more than repaid."
"I honor the sentiment. It is worthy of blue blood, and it carries conviction with it."
"Mr. Ferrars is detestably satirical, but no one minds what he says," and the lady rose. "It is nearly dinner-time. We must leave you, my dear." And so the party broke up.
Next day Mrs. Courtly found an opportunity of saying to Miss Ballinger, in her soft, deprecatory way,
"I am afraid you may form a false impression of Mrs. Van Winkle. She is really a very kind woman, as well as a clever one, and she is a very good wife, too, only you see her failing. She likes to astonish people. That makes her say things occasionally which—which she had better not."
Grace smiled. "I suppose she has been spoiled—she gives one that idea. Did she marry for money?"
"Why, no! What made you think that?"
"She looked so annoyed when Mr. Ferrars talked of 'links of gold.' I am sure he meant something disagreeable by it. He looked it."
"Mr. Van Winkle is by no means rich, but she married him because she was in love; and they are really very happy. He is of a very good old Knickerbocker family. She is very proud of that, as you see. She has always a train of admirers; it means nothing, and Mr. Van Winkle does not object. That is to say, he doesn'tgenerally. It is said he did so once, in the case of a man who was very rich, when some one ill-naturedly started the idea that this person helped the establishment along. It got to Mr. Van Winkle's ears, and he gave the man hiscongéthere and then. It is the only time he ever asserted his authority, and I am not sure that his wife did not like him all the better for it. If Quintin Ferrars meant anything by his 'golden links,' it was that; but I really think it was a chance shot, and Mrs. Van Winkle—"
"What about her?" said Sir Mordaunt. He had come up, unperceived by Mrs. Courtly; and she stopped short on seeing him. "I think that woman is the greatest sport I've met for a week of Sundays! How she does blow her own trumpet! I never can be dull in New York as long as she is there. What sort of fellow is the male Winkle, Mrs. Courtly?"
"A very nice man, but he doesn't amount to much. He is aVan. You mustn't call him Winkle—tout court."
"A descendant of the famous Rip, I suppose. We have all had rips for ancestors, at some time or other, no doubt!" and the young man laughed.
"For shame! to decry your pedigree in that way! We are very proud of our descent—when we have any; and if we know who our great-grandfather was, we always speak of him as having fought in the War of Independence."
The brother and sister laughed; and the subject of the Van Winkles was not continued further.