Thissame afternoon, about two hours later, Claire was in New York. She had crossed thither, spurred by an idea born of her desperation. It was a forlorn hope; it was like the straw clutched by the sinking hand; and yet it formed a comforting preventive against complete despair. She had remembered her old friend at Mrs. Arcularius's school, the plump-cheeked and yellow-haired Sophia Bergemann. She had determined to seek her out and ask her aid in obtaining work. Years had elapsed since Claire and Sophia had met; but if the buxom young creature had preserved even half of her old amiable friendship, there was excellent chance of cordial welcome and kindly assistance.
'I only hope that she still lives in Hoboken,' Claire thought, while taking the journey across town. 'Suppose the family have left there. Suppose I cannot find Sophia. Suppose that she is married and has gone to live elsewhere—in Europe, perhaps. Suppose that she is dead.'
More than once, before she had reached the central part of the city, Claire felt herself grow weak with dread. Night would soon approach. She had money enough to get lodgment, but in her ignorance and her loneliness how could she secure it? Her mother's face, clothed with the old mocking smile,repeatedly rose before her fancy. She seemed to see the hard, bitter mouth frame certain sentences. "Oh, you'll come back," it seemed to say. "You've got to. You can't go gallivanting round New York after dark. I ain't afraid. Oh, you'll come back to Greenpoint,sure!"
'I will never go back,' Claire said to her own thoughts, answering this phantasmal sort of taunt. 'No, not if I walk the streets to-night and many another night. Not if I have to beg for food. Not if I die of hunger. I will never go backthere! No, no, no!'
There was nothing theatrically fervid about this silent resolve. The girl was quite capable of confronting any sharp ill rather than remeet the woman who had so pitilessly outraged her most sacred instincts. She knew well enough that her mother confidently counted upon her return. She knew well enough that her mother would undergo wild alarm on finding herself permanently deserted. Yet Claire, with a grim desire of inflicting punishment for the insult flung at her beloved dead, silently exulted in what she could not help but deem a just and rightful vengeance. True, her own act may have dealt the vengeance; but did it not really spring from that departed soul whose corpse had met the lash of so undeserved an indignity? When Claire had reached the centre of the city she suddenly determined to seek Mrs. Arcularius's establishment. The school might either have changed its locality or else ceased to exist. Still, she would apply at the old quarters. There she would inquire for Sophia Bergemann. They might know nothing concerning the girl. But if this resulted, she would still have all Hoboken left,in which the dwelling-place of so prominent a resident—even though one of past time—would most probably be known on inquiry. A throng of memories beset her as she rang the bell of Mrs. Arcularius's abode. The name of that august lady gleamed on a large silver-plated square, affixed to the second door, beyond the marble-paved vestibule. A smartly-dressed maid answered her summons. Claire stated in brief, civil terms what information she desired to gain. The maid left her standing in the well-known hall for several minutes, and at length returned with the tidings, apparently fresh from the lips of Mrs. Arcularius herself, that Miss Bergemann was then living at No. — Fifth Avenue, only a slight distance away.
Claire felt a thrill of relief as she thanked the maid and resought the street. This intelligence seemed a most happy stroke of luck. It augured well for the success of her sad little enterprise.
The Fifth Avenue dwelling proved to be a mansion of imposingdimensions. It stood on a corner, and had a wide window at one side of its spacious entrance, and two at the other. From either panel of its polished walnut door jutted a griffon's head of bronze, holding a ring pendant from its tense lips. Beyond the glossy plate-glass of the casements gleamed misty folds of lace, and still further beyond these you caught a charming glimpse of large-leaved tropic plants in rich-hued vases. Claire pulled a bronze bell-handle that was wrought in the likeness of some close-folded flower. A dull yet distinct peal ensued, having in its sound a trim directness that suggested prompt and capable attendance from interior quarters. While Claire waited for admissionshe cast her look downward upon the middle street, and across at the line of opposite residences, all marked by a calm uniformity of elegance. The sight was very new to her after Greenpoint, but at the same time it stirred certain sources of youthful recollection. Many carriages were passing. One or two were shaped with fashionable oddity, having only a single pair of huge wheels and a booted and cockaded flunkey, who sat in cramped, oblique posture, with his back to the other occupants, a lady and a gentleman, and who seemed forever taking a resigned plunge off the vehicle, with stoically folded arms. Another was a heavy, sombre family coach, with two men on the box, both clad in dark, dignified livery. Still another was the so-called dog-cart, borne along by a team of responsible silver-trapped bays, and having on its second seat a footman graciously permitted, in this instance, to face the horses whose lustrous flanks his own hands had doubtless groomed into their present brilliance. The two parallel yet contrary streams of vehicles made an incessant subdued clatter; numerous pedestrians were also passing to and fro along either sidewalk; the weather had changed again from harsh to clement; the strip of clear, blue sky above the massive housetops wore a shining delicacy and airiness of tint; even Claire's new wound, that still bled unseen, could not distract her from a buoyant congeniality with the prosperous and festal tumult so amply manifest. She understood then, and perhaps with a qualm of shame as well, that no grief could quite repress, however transiently, her love for life, action, and refined social intercourse. The old desire to win a noted place among those of her own kind who were themselves notable,quickened within her, too, as she gazed upon the bright bustle and the palatial importance which were both so near at hand.
'Near,' she mused, 'and yet so far! Shall I ever do whathebade me to do on that night long ago? Shall I ever climb the hill? Shall I not grow tired and sit down to rest? What chance have Inowof ever reaching the top? Where is the hand to help me even ever so little? Will Sophia Bergemann do it? Yes; if the ways of the world haven't changed her since we met at school.'
A man-servant, in what is termed full-dress, soon opened the door, and Claire asked if Miss Sophia Bergemann was at home. The man appeared to be a very majestic person. Claire felt a good deal of secret awe in his presence. He had a superb development of the chest, a sort of senatorial nose, and two oblong tufts of sorrel whisker, growing with a mossy density close to either ear.
But he was very civil, notwithstanding his grandeur. He told Claire, in a rich voice that would have deepened her veneration if it had not been blent with a valiant North-of-Ireland brogue, that Miss Bergemann was at home but about to leave the house for a drive.
The hall in which this announcement was made glowed with sumptuous yet tasteful decorations. A dark curve of heavy-balustered staircase, which four or five persons might have ascended abreast, met the eye only a short space away. From the lofty ceiling depended a costly lamp of illumined glass. Soft, thick tapestries of Turkish design drooped from several near doorways. A fleet remembrance of the old school-room sarcasms about the Bergemanns' vulgar Hoboken home flashed through Claire's mind.
"Will you tell Miss Sophia, please," she said, in as firm and calm a tone as she could manage, "that Miss Twining, whom she knew some years ago, would like to speak with her?"
The butler was about to reply, when a loud feminine voice suddenly pealed from upper regions. In reality it was the voice of a lady who had already descended several steps of the broad, winding staircase; but the lady was still in obscurity, and therefore the liberal size of the house caused her tones to sound as if they had come from a still greater distance. "Michael," shrilled the voice, "I see the carriage isn't here yet. It's nearly a quarter of an hour behind time. Thomas has done this twice before in one week. Now, you just send Robert straight round to the stable, and let him say that we're very angry about it, and that Ma won't put up with such behavior if it ever happens again!"
The butler had left Claire before the end of the final belligerent sentence, and had moved, with a certain military briskness, toward the first wide step of the staircase.
"Yes, Miss Sophia," he said, employing his fine sonorous voice so that it somehow had the effect of not being unduly raised, though still strongly audible. The next moment he turned toward Claire, with a mien in which his natural official gravity gave sign of being cruelly fluttered.
"Miss Sophia is coming downstairs, Miss," he said.
Claire had a swift feeling of gratitude for that single word "Miss." She knew that she was dingily clothed; she had fancied that all her claims to the nicer grades of gentility lived solely within her mental wish and hope; but she failed to perceive thather face was filled with those tender and sweet charms which we term patrician, and that her least gesture carried with it a grace which previous conditions of culture alone have the art to bestow. It was indeed true, as Michael had said, that Miss Sophia was coming downstairs. Claire soon heard a decisive rustle of robes, and presently a descendent shape dawned upon her view, arrayed in very modish costume.
But the instant that Claire caught sight of Sophia she recognized the plump, rubicund face, grown only a trifle more womanly beneath its low-arranged floss of yellow hair. She went forward to meet her old friend. Just as Sophia left the last step of the staircase, Claire had so managed that they stood very near to each other.
She did not put forth a hand. Her pale, beautiful face had grown paler, through fear of some possibly haughty reception. But she spoke the moment that Sophia's round blue eyes had fairly met her own.
"I hope you know me," she said. "I hope you have not forgotten me."
A blank, dismayed look possessed Sophia for a few seconds, and then she put forth two hands which were sheathed half-way up to the elbow in dull-brown gloves, seizing both of Claire's hands the next instant.
"Forgotten you!" she cried. "Why, you're Claire Twining! Of course you are! And as pretty as a picture, just as you always were! Why, you dear old thing! Give me a kiss!"
Claire felt the lips of the speaker forcibly touch each of her cheeks. Sophia still held her hands. The welcome had been too abruptly cordial. A mist slipped before her sight and clouded her brain. She staggered backward....
Perhaps she would have fallen, if the magnificent Michael had not been near enough to place a muscular arm between herself and the floor. But she rallied almost at once. And while clearness was returning to her mind, she heard Sophia say, in imperious yet hearty tones,—
"Michael, take her into the reception-room! Now, don't look so stupid! Do as I say!"
Claire's attack, though more than partly past, still left her weak. She allowed herself to be led, and indeed half supported, by Michael. A little later she was seated on a big, yielding lounge, with the sense of a big, yielding pillow at her back. And presently, close beside her, she saw the ruddy, broad-blown face of Sophia, surmounted by a Parisian bonnet of the most deft and dainty millinery.
"Sophia," she said, breaking into a tremulous, pathetic little laugh, "please don't—pleasedon't think I've lost my senses! But it—it was so good of you to—remember me, after we hadn't met for such a long time, that—that I"—
Here Claire burst into an actual tempest of tears and sobs, and immediately afterward felt Sophia's hands again clasp both her own.
"Michael!" cried her new hostess at the same moment, in tones of imperative command, "for Heaven's sake, don't stand staring there, butdoleave the room!"
"Yes, Miss," came the nicely decorous reply. Faultless servant as he was, it must still be set to the credit of Michael that he closed a sliding door of solid rosewood, which worked on easy grooves between the doubleportièreof the apartment, just after crossing its threshold. His act was wholly unnecessary, considering the nature of the command his young mistress had given; and when we note the obstructing force of the door itself, it implies a sublime abstinence from the fascinations of eavesdropping.
"Now, don't cry so!" exclaimed Sophia, with great sympathy and a strong suspicion of active emotion as well. "I suppose something dreadful has happened to you, dear old Claire. What is it? Just tell me, and I'll see what I can do. You're not dressed as if you were very well off. Is it poverty? Oh, pshaw! I'll soon fix things all right if you want help that way. I'll"—
Here Sophia abruptly paused, and withdrew her hands. She stood facing Claire, who still struggled to master the sobs that shook her. Sophia seemed sternly troubled: her full cheeks had reddened; this was her one invariable way of showing agitation; she never turned pale, like other people. "Claire!" she broke forth, in solemn undertone. "I do hope it isn'tone thing! I do hope you haven't been ... beengoing wrong! You know what I mean. I wouldn't mind anything but that, and that I couldn't forgive—or even excuse!"
Claire sprang to her feet as the last word passed Sophia's lips. Wrath had calmed her, and with a wondrous speed. The tears were still glittering on her cheeks, however, as she spoke, with eyes that flashed and a lip that curled.
"Sophia!" she said; "how dare you insult me like this!"
The distressed frown on Sophia's face instantly vanished. "Oh, Claire," she cried, "I'm so glad itisn'ttrue! Don't be angry. You see, my dear, wehadn't met for so long, and you looked as if—as if something horrible had happened, and it's such a funny, topsy-turvy world. So many queer things do happen in it.Don'tbe angry, please!"
"I am angry," said Claire. In her shabby dress she gave, notwithstanding, a noble portrayal of disdain. She had taken several steps toward the door, though Sophia, having caught her arm, endeavored, with a mien contrite and even supplicating, to detain her within the chamber. "Why should I not be angry?" Claire went on, her voice dry and bitter. "Allow that I do look as if I were miserable. Is misery another name for sin?... No, Sophia, let me go, please.... Perhaps you may learn, some day, as I've learned already, that the unhappy people in life are not always the bad ones!"
But Sophia, whose impulsive and explosive nature had not altered very markedly since we last heard of her childish escapades, now replied by a most excited outburst of appeal. Her exuberant figure, which no dexterity of dressmaking and no splendor of combined satins and velvets could turn less unwieldy and cumbrous, bowed and swayed till you almost heard the seams of its rich garb crack their stitches under the fleshly disturbance to which she subjected them.
"Claire! Claire!" she ejaculated; "Ihaveinsulted you.... But you'll forgive me—I know you will. I've never forgotten you. You stood up against that horrid Ada Gerrard and her set so finely, years ago! You were good then—yes, just as good as gold,—and I'm sure you're just exactly as good still. Now, Claire, don't look that way! I was talking to Ma about you only a few days since. Pa's dead,you know—but I suppose you don't. Yes, I said to Ma that I'd give anything to find out what had become of you. Ma and I are dreadfully rich—I mean well off. Poor Pa left ever so much money. He's been dead nearly three years. There's nobody but Ma and I left. I hate Hoboken. I made her buy this house. Now, Claire, just stop! You shan't go. You're going to tell me all about your troubles. Yes, you shall! I'll be your friend. There, let me kiss you.... Do, Claire!... You know I was always awfully fond of you. I never knew any girl I was half so fond of as you. I've asked your pardon. You were always a lady. I remember about that dreadful dress you came to school in, first. But that didn't matter. You were a lady born, and you showed it afterward. Every girl thought so, too. Even those hateful snobs had to own it—I'm sure they did. I see some of them quite often. Ada Gerrard's a great swell, as they say, now. She gives me a little nod when I meet her, driving in the Park or on the Avenue. But you're twice the lady she is. Yes, Claire, I mean it. Kiss me, now, won't you? Kiss me, and be friends!"
Claire had succumbed several minutes before this eager tirade was ended. Her anger had fled. She let Sophia put both arms about her. She returned Sophia's kiss. Then she leaned her head upon the shoulder of her companion, and gave way to another access of tears. But they were quiet tears, this time. The hysteric impulse had wholly passed. A little later she told Sophia, with as much placid directness as she could manage, every important detail of the hard, dreary life lived since they two had last met.
While she thus spoke, the extraordinary charm ofher manner and the distinct loveliness of her delicate yet notable beauty more than once thrilled her listener. Sophia's old worship, if the term be not too strong, returned in full force. She had sworn by Claire, as the phrase goes, in earlier days. She was prepared to swear by her still. The story of Mr. Twining's death and the disloyal deportment of his wife roused her vehement contempt. By the time that Claire had finished her gloomy recital, the two girls were seated close together. Sophia's large fat hand, in its fashionable glove, was fervidly clasping Claire's.
"You did perfectly right!" Sophia at length exclaimed, after the pause had come, and while her visitor sat with drooped head and pale, compressed lips. "Your poor father! To bury him that way! It was frightful! And you told her you'd do anything on earth for her if she only wouldn't! And I know how you loved your father. Don't you recollect telling me about him, one recess, when I gave you half my sardine-sandwich? You said he was a gentleman by birth, and had come of a fine family in England. That's where you get your swell looks from, Claire. Yes, youarea swell, even though you've got on a frock that didn't cost, altogether, as much as one yard of mine.... Why, just look at me! I'm awkward and clumsy, exactly as I was at Mrs. Arcularius's. I'll never be any different. And yet I spend loads and loads of money on my things. I do, really! But gracious goodness! thereyousit, with your sweet, pure face, shaped like a heart, and your hair that's got the same bright sparkle through its brown that it used to have, and those long eyelashes over those black-blue kind ofeyes, and that cunning little dimple in your chin, and those long, slender, ladylike hands"—
Here Claire stopped her, with a sad smile and a shake of the head. She spread open one hand, holding it up for scrutiny at the same moment.
"Don't talk of my hands, Sophia," she said. "They've been doing hard work since you saw them last."
Sophia gazed down at the inner portion of her friend's hand, for a moment, and then suddenly exclaimed,—
"Work! Why, they're not hard a bit. Oh, Claire, you've worn gloves all the time you worked. Come, own up, now!"
Claire smiled in a furtive way. But she spoke with simple frankness the next instant. "Well, yes, Sophia," she said, "Ihaveworn gloves as often as I could. I wanted to save my hands. Some of the girls at Mrs. Arcularius's used to call them pretty. I wanted them to stay pretty—if I could manage it. I don't mind telling you so. But I thought they must have lost every trace of nice looks by this time."
Sophia bent over the hand that she still held, and whose palm was turned upward to the light, so that all its inner details, from wrist to finger-tips, could not possibly escape notice.
"Why, there's a pink flush all round the edge, inside there," commented Sophia. "It's funny, Claire. I never saw it in any other girl's hand before. It's just like the rose-color at the edge of a shell. Upon my word it is! I don't care a straw what work you've been doing; you've got hands like—well, I was going to say like a queen. But I don't doubt agood many queens have awful hands, so I'll say like a lady.... There, kiss me again.... Here's Ma. Don't mind Ma. She'll be nice. She alwaysisnice when I want her to be. Isn't that so, Ma?"
A lady had just entered the small, brilliantly-appointed room in which Claire and Sophia had thus far held their rather noteworthy converse. The lady was Mrs. Bergemann.
She was exceedingly stout; both in visage and form she looked like a matured and intensified Sophia. As far as features went, she wonderfully resembled her daughter. Every undue trait of plumpness in Sophia's countenance was reproduced by Mrs. Bergemann with a sort of facial compound interest. Flesh seemed to have besieged her, like a comic malady. Her good-natured eyes sparkled between two creases of it; her loose, full chin revealed more than one fold of it. She was by no means attired like a widow of recent bereavement. She wore a bonnet in which there was no violence of coloring; it was purple and brown, but at the same time so severelyà la modethat if any symbol lurked behind its decorative fantasies this must have signified the soothing influences of resignation and consolation.
She had heard her daughter's last words. She was devoted to Sophia; it was an allegiance wed with pride. She had been a poor German girl, years ago, and had drifted, through the chance of matrimony, into her present opulent place. She was by nature meek and conciliatory; all Sophia's temper and temerity had come from her father, who had combined large superficial good-humor with a notorious intolerance of the least fancied wrong. Sophia's last words had embarrassed her. She had no idea who Clairewas, but the evident cordiality of her daughter's deportment produced the effect of a gentle mandate.
"I shan't go driving, Ma!" Sophia exclaimed, after she had made Claire and her mother acquainted. "I'll stay at home and talk of old times with Claire Twining. Poor Claire's in trouble, Ma. I won't tell you about it yet. You go off in the carriage—that is, if it ever comes; but I'm afraid we'll have to discharge Thomas; he's always behind time."
"The carriage is here, Sophia," said Mrs. Bergemann. She spoke without the slightest German accent; this had perished long ago. She was looking at Claire with the manner of one who has been deeply attracted. "I've often heard you mention Miss Twining," she went on. "You was talking of her only the other day, wasn't you, Sophia?"
"Yes," said Sophia, rising. She went to her mother, and spoke a few low words, which Claire quite failed to hear. The prompt result of this intercourse was Mrs. Bergemann's exit from the room. Sophia followed her to the door, with one hand laid upon her shoulder.
"All right, Ma," she said, pausing a moment on the threshold. "You go and take your drive. I'll stay and chat with Claire."
A little while afterward Sophia had reseated herself at Claire's side. "Ma likes you," she at once began, in her voluble, oddly frank way. "She told me she did. She's very funny about liking and disliking people. She takes fancies—or she doesn't. Ma isn't a swell. She's what they call vulgar. But she's ever so nice. She never had much education, but she has a large, warm heart. I wouldn't have her one bit different from what she is. I wouldn'tgive Ma for Queen Victoria. She and I are the dearest friends in the world. I know you'll like her, Claire. She likes you, as I said. And Claire, look here, now; I want to say something. It may surprise you. I hope, though, that it will please you, too. You're going to stay here in this house. You're going to live here as my friend. Yes, you are. You were always as smart as a steel trap. We'll read together, every morning. Yes, we will. You know what a perfect fool I used to be at Mrs. Arcularius's. Well, I'm the same fool still. Butyouknow a lot; you always did. And you shall help me to be less of an ignoramus than I am. We've got a library upstairs. Oh, there are a crowd of books. I got Mr. Thurston to buy them for me. He's a gentleman friend of ours, and he knows a tremendous amount. He just filled all the book-shelves for us. I'm sure he bought the right kind of books, too; he knows pretty much everything in that line. Now, Claire, if you'll do as I say, we'll get along splendidly together. And as for ... well, as for salary, you know, I'll"—
Here Claire rose, placing a hand on Sophia's arm. "No," she said, "I couldn't accept such a place as that. I'm not able to fill it. I have been living a life of hard work for three or four years past. I've scarcely looked into a book, Sophia, in all that time. I came here to ask you if you would get me work. I can sew very well; I was always clever with my needle. If you will give me something of that sort to do, I will gladly and thankfully remain. But otherwise, I can't."
Sophiaconsented to this plan, but only as a strategical manœuvre. She had determined that Claire should fill precisely the position just proffered her, and no other. By seeming to yield she at length won her cause. She was quite in earnest about her wish for mental improvement. Nor was Claire, in spite of latter years passed under the gloom of toil, half as much at sea among the many smart-bound volumes of the library as she herself had expected. She had been, in her day, a diligent student; she found that she remembered this or that famous writer, as she examined book after book. Now and then a celebrated name recurred to her with sharp appeal of recollection; again she had a vivid sense of forgetfulness, and of ignorance as well. But she was of the kind who read swiftly and retain with force. It was not long before she had discovered certain volumes which guided and at the same time instructed her in just that literary direction needful for the task required by her would-be pupil. A great deal of her old intellectual method and industry soon came back to her. She turned the pages of the many good books stored on the shelves near by with a hand more composed and deliberate; she began to see just what Sophia wanted her to do, and realize her full capability of doing it.
Meanwhile a week or more had passed. She was now clad in appropriate mourning. She was one of the family. Sophia, devoted and affectionate, was constantly at her side.
Now and then Claire said, with a nervous laugh, "I'm afraid I have never learned enough to be of the least use to you, Sophia, in the way you've proposed."
But Sophia would smile, and answer, "Oh, I'm not afraid, Claire dear. You'll get it all back again, pretty soon."
She rapidly got it all back again, and a great deal more besides. The morning readings began. Sophia soon expressed herself as in raptures; but it was the teacher that charmed her far more than the teaching.
Claire's life was now one of easy luxury. She walked or drove with Sophia every afternoon; she ate delicate food; she slept in a spacious bed-chamber that possessed every detail of comfort; all things moved along on oiled wheels; the machinery of her life had lost all its clogging rust. Greenpoint began to fade from her thoughts; it grew a dim, detested memory. Scarcely a day passed, however, without she definitely recalled some incident connected with her father. Now that this softness and daintiness surrounded her, the refinement which no adverse years could alienate from his personality became for her a more distinct conception. She realized how complete a gentleman he had been. At the same time, under these altered conditions, her own taste for the superfine niceties of cultivation increased with much speed. She was like a plant that has been borne back to its native soil and clime from someland where it has hitherto lived but as a dwarfed and partial growth; the foliage was expanding, the fibre was strengthening, the flowers were taking a warmer tint and a richer scent.
She soon perceived that the Bergemanns moved in a set of almost uniformly vulgar people. Many of them seemed very wealthy. Nearly all of them dressed handsomely and drove about in their private carriages. Not a few of them lived in fine adjacent houses on "the Avenue," as it is called. Sophia had a number of intimate friends, maidens of her own age, who constantly visited her. She had admirers, too, of the other sex, who would sometimes call for her of an evening, and take her to a party, unattended by any chaperone. She went, during the winter months, to numerous parties. She belonged to an organization which she always spoke of as "our sociable," and which met at the various homes of its female members. One evening a "sociable" was given at the Bergemann mansion. The music and dancing were kept up till two o'clock in the morning, and the house was effectively adorned with flowers. Claire, because of her mourning, abstained from this and all similar gayety. But as a matter of course she met many of Sophia's and Mrs. Bergemann's friends. Only one of all the throng had power pleasurably to interest her.
This exceptional person was Mr. Beverley Thurston, whom we have already heard Sophia mention as having selected the volumes of her mother's library. He was a man about forty years old, who had never married. His figure was tall and shapely; his face, usually grave, was capable of much geniality. He had traveled, read, thought, and observed. He stoodsomewhat high in the legal profession, and came, on the maternal side, of a somewhat noted family. He managed the large estate of Mrs. Bergemann and her daughter, and solely on this account was a frequent guest at their house. He had one widowed sister, of very exclusive views, who possessed large means, and who placed great value upon her position as a fashionable leader. For several years this lady (still called by courtesy Mrs. Winthrop Van Horn) had haughtily refused her brother's urgent request that she should leave a card upon Mrs. Bergemann, though several thousand a year resulted from his connection with the deceased brewer's property. But Mr. Thurston, while he succumbed to the arrogant obstinacy of his sister, had employed great tact in blinding his profitable patrons to the awkward truth of her disdain. He had been bored for three years past by his politic intimacy with Sophia and her mother, and he had always felt a lurking dread lest they should make a sudden appeal for his aid in the way of social advancement. But here he had committed a marked error. Mrs. Bergemann and Sophia understood nothing whatever about social advancement. They were both magnificently contented with their present places in society. The inner patrician mysteries were quite unknown to them. Their ignorance, in this respect, was a serene bliss. They believed themselves valuably important. They saw no new heights to gain.
Mr. Thurston had long secretly smiled at their self-confidence. He was a clever observer; he had seen the world; the Bergemanns were sometimes a delicious joke to him, when he felt in an appreciative mood. At other times the bouncing, coltish mannersof Sophia, and the educational deficiencies of her mother, grated harshly upon his nerves. But when Claire entered the household he at once experienced a new sensation. He watched her in quiet wonder. No points of her beauty escaped his trained eye. What he had learned of her past career made her seem to him remarkable, even phenomenal. By degrees an intimacy was established between them. At first it concerned literary subjects; Claire consulted him about the books appropriate for her readings with Sophia. But they soon talked of other things, and occasionally these chats took the form of very privatetête-à-têtes. Claire was perfectly loyal to her new friends, but she could not crush a spirit of inquiry, of investigation and of valuation, so far as concerned the people with whom they associated.
The gentlemen distressed her more than the ladies. The latter were often so full of grace and prettiness that their loud talk, shrill laughter, and faulty grammar could not wholly rid them of charm. But the gentlemen had no grace, and slight good looks as an offset to their haphazard manners. Some of them appeared to be quite uneducated; others would blend ignorance with conceit; still others were ungallant and ungracious, and not seldom pompously boastful of their wealth.
Mr. Thurston was at first cautious in his answers to Claire's rather searching questions. But by degrees he threw aside restraint; he grew to understand just why he was thus interrogated.
He had a slow yet significant mode of talk that was nearly sure of entertaining any listener. Shallow people had called him a cynic, but not a few clever ones had strongly denied this charge. Clairebegan to look upon him as one who was forever opening doors for her, and showing her glimpses of discovery that either surprised or impressed the gazer.
On the evening of Sophia's "sociable" Claire remained in a large chamber that was approached from the second hall of the house, and appointed with that admirable taste which clearly indicated that the Bergemanns had once confided devoutly in their upholsterer, just as they now did in their milliner. She was quite alone; she held a book open in her lap, but was not reading it; her black dress became her charmingly; it seemed to win a richer shade from the chestnut-and-gold of her tresses, and to increase the delightful fragility of her oval, soft-tinted face. The music below stairs kept her thoughts away from her book; it pealed up to her with a dulcet, provocative melody; it made her feel that she would love to go down and join the merry-makers. But this was only a kind of abstract emotion; there was nobody in the bright-lit, flower-decked drawing-rooms whom she would have cared to meet, with the possible exception of Mr. Thurston, although what she then considered his advanced age made him seem more suitable as a companion of less jubilant hours.
But it chanced that a knock presently sounded at the half-closed door, and that Mr. Thurston soon afterward presented himself. He sat down beside her. His evening dress had a felicity of cut and fit that gave his naturally stately figure an added distinction, even to the inexperienced eye of Claire. She thought how the white tie at his throat became him—how different he was, in spite of the gray at his temples and the crow's-feet under his hazel eyes, from the younger men clad in similar vesture, whomshe had seen pass through the upper hall a little earlier in the evening.
By this time Mr. Thurston's acquaintance with Claire had grown to be a facile and agreeable intimacy. He had learned from Sophia that she was here alone, and he had sought her with the freedom of one wont to make himself wholly at home in the mansions of his clients. At the same time, as it happened, he came with a vastly fatigued feeling toward the guests below.
"I didn't want to leave," he began, with his nice, social smile, "until I had seen you for a few moments."
"Ah," said Claire, pleased at his coming, and with a little sweet-toned laugh, "I'm afraid you came up here only because it was too early to go just yet."
Mr. Thurston put his head on one side, and his eyes twinkled quizzically. "Oh, come, now," he said; "are you going to talk badly about the party? You haven't seen it. I'm sure you'd like to be down there, dancing and romping among all those young people."
Claire shook her head; she looked rather serious as she did so. "No," she answered; "I shouldn't like it at all. I think you know why. There is nobody there—that is, among the guests—whom I like. Some of them I've never met. But I don't doubt that they are all much the same. Now, please don't look as if you didn't understand me. I am sure that you do, perfectly. Remember, we have talked on these subjects before."
Mr. Thurston stroked his thick gray mustache, whose ends slightly curved against cheeks which somehow looked as if they still wore the sun-tan of travel in remote sultry climates.
"Of course we have, Miss Claire," he gently exclaimed. "It's wonderful what an inquiring turn you possess. We've settled that there's no treachery to Sophia and her mamma in all these dreadful things that you and I say; haven't we?"
"Certainly we have settled it," returned Claire, still looking serious. "But I'm not by any means sure that we do say dreadful things. I ask the truth, and you tell it me." Here Claire's expression suddenly changed. She looked at her companion archly, and each cheek dimpled. "At least I hope you do."
Mr. Thurston shifted in his seat, and crossed his legs. "I do. I speak by the card when you ask questions. I'm compelled to. There's an enormous earnestness about you. You make me think of a person with a purpose. I'm sure you have a purpose. I haven't yet fathomed it, but I'm sure it's there."
"I have a purpose," Claire said.
"Very well. What is it?"
"To know about the world I live in. I mean New York, of course. That is my world, now. I think it a very nice world. At least, I've never seen a better one."
"Yes; I understand. And you want to explore it. You want to examine it in detail. You want to know its bad, worse, worst, and its good, better, best."
"I want to know its good, better, best."
Mr. Thurston laughed again. "Do you know," he said, "that the more I see of you the more you amuse me? No; I won't say 'amuse'; I'll say 'interest.' You are such a tremendous type. You are so characteristic. I called you a person with a purpose, just now, and I pretended not to know whatyour purpose was. That was an intentional hypocrisy on my part. I comprehend your purpose thoroughly. You wish to find out what New York society means. You're making a mental social dictionary. And you desire that I shall supply you with definitions to the best extent of my ability. Isn't that true? Pray confess, now."
Claire looked at him steadily for several seconds. There was a mild yet bright spark in her dusky-blue eyes, and a faint smile on her lips.
"You say less than you mean," she answered. "I think that I guess what is behind your words. I think that you suspect me of wishing to make my dictionary from motives of future personal preference. That is, you believe that I am a girl with strong ambitions—that I want to rise, thrive, succeed.... Well, you're not wrong. I do want to rise, thrive, succeed. It's in me, as the saying goes. I can't help the impulse."
Mr. Thurston lifted both hands and slightly waved them. "The impulse is enough—with you," he said.
Claire started. "What do you mean?" she asked.
Mr. Thurston looked at the floor, for a moment, then raised his eyes. They dwelt on Claire's very forcefully.
"I mean," he said, "that you are too beautiful and charming not to gain your object."
Claire laughed, lightly and yet a little consciously. "That is very kind of you. If a young man had only said it! How delighted I would have been!"
"Then you think me so very old?" Thurston replied, watching her face with intentness.
"Oh, no," Claire at once said, growing seriousagain. "Not that, of course. But still ... well, it would be idle for me to declare that I think you young."
"Perhaps I am younger than you think," he said, with low, peculiar emphasis on each word. "Mind, I only say 'perhaps.' ... But do not let us talk of that. As I told you, I am sure you will gain your object. You will succeed. That is, you will find a higher level than these poor Bergemanns. There is a restless fire in your soul that will goad you on. And in the end you must win."
"Tell me by what means, please."
"Marriage will be your first stepping-stone."
"To what?"
"Success."
"Success in what form?"
"Social success. I assume that your aim lies there. You want men and women of a certain grade to pay you courtesy and deference."
Claire seemed to muse, for a brief time. "Yes, I do," she then said. "You are quite right. But you speak of my gaining all this by marriage. How shall I meet the man who is to lend me such important help?"
There was a daring candor about this question—a simplicity ofworldliness, in fact—which startled her hearer. But his usual gravity betrayed no signs of dismay.
"You will meet him," he said, tranquilly. "Oh, yes; you will meet him. It is your fate. He will drop to you from the skies. But after you have secured through matrimony this desired end, will you be contented with what you have secured? So much depends on that—the success of your success, as one might say."
Claire raised her brows in demure perplexity. "I don't understand," she murmured.
Thurston slowly shook his head. A smile was on his lips, but it held sadness, and a hint of pity as well. "If I read you rightly," he answered, "youwillunderstand, some day."
Claire made an impatient gesture. "Please don't talk in riddles," she exclaimed. "Do you mean that the prize will turn out worthless after I have got it? I have not found this true in my reading. I have not found many kings or queens who wearied so much of their thrones that they were ready to resign them." An eagerness now possessed her manner; she leaned slightly forward; her nostril dilated a little; her color deepened. "Power and place are what I want, and never to have them will be never to have contentment. This sounds cold to you. I'm sure of it."
"Yes," he said, softly; "it sounds very cold. But I don't know that such a coldness as that will not prove for you a tough safeguard. It is very protective to a woman—if it lasts."
"Mine will last, such as it is."
"I neither affirm nor deny that it will. Time will show."
She broke into a laugh, full of sportive irony. "You mean that I may fall in love with somebody. But I have little fear of that." ... Her face suddenly grew very sober, and her voice trembled some what as she next said: "I loved my poor dead father dearly. I shall never love any one else half so much again. No mere words could tell you of my firm certainty on this subject. But the certainty remains. I don't mean that I wish to live a lovelesslife. Far from that! I wish to have friends in abundance. And I shall not be disloyal to them in any case. But they must be friends of influence, standing, importance. They must not be like the Bergemanns, though I mean never to falter for an instant in my grateful fidelity toward Sophia and her mother."
"Your frankness," said Thurston, with one of his calm, wise smiles, "has a positive prodigality. What another woman would hide with the most jealous care, you openly speak. It is easy to see that your experience is yet limited."
"I should not talk to every one as I talk to you," Claire quickly answered.
He took one of her hands in his for a few moments. He held it, and she let him do so. He looked into her face with great fixity.
"My poor child," he said, "you have a hard road before you. But I know you mean to tread it with determined feet. In many women there would be something repellent about such resolves as those you have just confessed. In you they are charming. I suppose that is easily explained: you are charming yourself. I shall watch your career with the deepest concern. You will not mind if I watch it? Am I wrong, here?"
Claire, still letting him keep her hand, swiftly replied: "Oh, no; of course I shall not mind. You belong to that other world. You are one of the people whom I wish to have for my adherents—my clients, as it were. I hope we shall always be friends. I like you very greatly. You remember we have talked it all over before now. You have told me of the people whom I wish to meet. You have eventold me some of their names. I have forgotten nothing of what you have said. I count you as my first conquest. If others follow—as I firmly believe that they will—we will have talks together, and laugh over the old times when I was obscure and a nobody. Yes, if I ever get to be that great lady you prophesy that I shall become, we will discuss, in little intimate chats, every detail of my progress toward grandeur and distinction. It will be very pleasant, will it not? But now I must say something that I have never said before. I must ask you to help me. Why should you not do so? You have means of doing so. And you like me; we are excellent friends. If you give me some real aid I will never forget it. I'm not ungrateful. I'm cold, if you choose, in a certain way, but I always recollect a service. Don't think I am begging any favor of you. I'm rather requiring one. Yes, requiring. You've told me that you think I have ... well that I'm not ugly. You know just what I want to do. And you've said that I have ... well that I'm very far from a fool.... Now let us strike a compact. Shall we? Put me into some path where I may reach your fine, grand world, in which I should like to shine and be a power!"
The audacity of this whole speech was exquisite. In plain substance it belonged to what we call by harsh names. It was the sort of thing that in ordinary dealing we denounce and even contemn, as the effort of unsolicited pretension to thrust itself against barred gates with immodest vigor. But in Claire's case there was no question of ordinary dealing. Her impetuosity was so lovely, her youth, her beauty, and her freshness were so entirely delightful, that theunreserved freedom with which she spoke of aims in their essence purely selfish acquired a charming picturesqueness. Her ambition, thus openly expressed, lost every trace of gross worldly meaning. She became, to the eyes of him who watched her, a fascinating zealot. She seemed to demand what was merely her just due. It was indeed as though she had been robbed by some hostile fate of a royalty that she now declared her stolen right, and proudly reclaimed. All this time she had let Thurston retain her hand. Once or twice her slight fingers pressed against his palm, with unconscious warmth. Her face, meanwhile, lifted above the darkness of her mourning robes, was sweet and brilliant as some early dew-washed flower.
Thurston fixed his gaze upon her eyes, whose dark-blue depths were full of a rich, liquid light. His clasp tightened about her hand.
"I will give you my help," he said, with a new note in his voice that was a sort of husky throb; "I will give it to you gladly. But I am afraid you will not accept it when it is offered."
"Yes," returned Claire, still not guessing the truth, "I will accept it most willingly, since it comes from one whom I know to be my friend and well-wisher."
"That is not what I mean," Thurston objected. He rose as he spoke, still holding Claire's hand.
She looked at him wonderingly. She perceived his changed manner. "Explain," she said. "How do you mean that you will help me?"
"I will help you as my wife," Thurston replied. He looked as grave, as gray, as bronzed, as always; but his voice was in a hoarse flurry. "I will helpyou, as my wife, to be something more than a great lady. You shall be that, if you choose, but you shall be more. Your ambition is made of finer stuff than you know. I will help you to see just how fine it is."
The instant that he began to speak thus Claire had drawn away her hand. She did not rise. But she now looked up at him, and shook her head with negative vehemence.
"No, no!" she said. The words rang sharply.
Notlong afterward Claire found herself alone. Thurston had gone. She felt her cheeks burn as she sat and stared at the floor. His declaration had strangely shocked her, at first, for the entire man, as it were, had undergone a transformation so abrupt and radical as to wear a hue of actual miracle; and it is only across a comfortable lapse of centuries that the human mind can regard such manifestations with anything like complacency. Balaam could not have been more bewildered and disturbed when the Ass spoke. Claire had never thought of Thurston as capable of a live sentiment toward any woman. She had taken it for granted that all this part of his nature was in dignified decay, like his hair and complexion. She had drifted unconsciously, somehow, into the conviction that his passions, if he had ever felt them, were now like the lavendered relics that we shut away in chests. She had warmed to him with a truly filial ardor, and this sudden ruin of their mutual relations now gave her acute stings of regret.
But Thurston, who had managed to depart from her with a good deal of nice repose of visage and demeanor, also contrived, with that skill born of wide social experience, to make their next meeting by far less awkward than Claire herself had nervously anticipated. Sophia and Mrs. Bergemann were bothpresent on this occasion. He looked at Claire in so ordinary a way, and spoke with so much apparent ease and serenity, that her self-possession was fed by his, and her dread swiftly became thankful relief.
Through the days that followed, Claire and Thurston gradually yet firmly resumed their past agreeable converse. Of course matters could never be the same between them. He stood toward her, inevitably, in a new light; a cloak had fallen from him; she was not quite sure whether she liked him less or more, now that she knew him as the man who had asked her to be his wife; but in reality she did like him much more, and this was because, being a woman, she constantly divined his admiration beneath the intimate yet always guarded courtesy of his manner.
Their former chats were resumed, steadily interrogative on her side, complaisantly responsive on his. As Winter softened into Spring, the dissipations of Sophia decreased. She had more evenings at home, and not a few of her devotees would pay her visits during the hours of nine and eleven. It frequently happened that Thurston would enter the drawing-room at such times. He always talked with Claire, who would often emerge from back recesses on his arrival. Both Sophia and her mother would occasionally deliver themselves of comments upon the evident preference of their legal adviser. But Mrs. Bergemann was much more outspoken than her daughter. Sophia could not bring herself to believe that there was "anything in it," as her own phrase repeatedly went. She thought Beverly Thurston "just as nice as he could be"; but the slender and blooming beauty of Claire made to her young eyes anomalous contrast with Thurston'sfadethough attractive appearance.
"Good gracious, Ma!" she once asseverated, in private debate, "Claire wouldn't ever think of marrying a man old enough to be her father!"
"She might do worse, now, Sophia," protested Mrs. Bergemann, with the coolly formulated style of talk and thought which marks so many matrons when they discuss matrimonial subjects. "You just leave Claire alone. Wait and see what she'll do. He's taken a shine to her. Recollect, she ain't got a cent, poor dear girl. He'd make a splendid husband. I guess he'll propose soon. I hope he will, too. He's a real ellergant gentleman. Just think how we trust him with rents and mortgages and things. I declare I don't scarcely know half what he does with my own property."
"Pshaw, Ma," responded Sophia, with vast contempt. "Claire wouldn't look at him that way. She's young, like me. She may be as poor as a church-mouse, but she isn't going to sell herself like that. Now do be quiet."
Mrs. Bergemann became obediently quiet. But she continued to have her private opinions. Meanwhile Claire and Thurston held their brief or long interviews, as chance favored.
Matters had rearranged themselves between them on the old basis. There was a change, and yet not a change. Claire spoke with all her former freedom. Thurston listened and replied with all his former concession.
A certain admirer of Sophia's had of late deserted her, and sought the attention of Claire whenever occasion permitted. His name was Brady. His father was the owner of a large and popular emporium on Sixth Avenue. He was an only child, and suppliedwith a liberal allowance. The mercantile success of his father had been comparatively recent. He was now three-and-twenty; his early education had been one long, persistent neglect. After the money had begun to flow into the paternal coffers, Brady had gone abroad, and seen vice and little else in the various European capitals, and finally, coming home again, had slipped, by a most natural and facile process, into just that ill-bred, wealthy, low-toned set of which poor, rich Sophia Bergemann was one of the leading spirits.
Claire could hardly endure the attentions of Brady. She was civil to him because of her two hostesses, whose perception in all matters of social degree seemed hopelessly obtuse. But Brady had fallen in love with her, severely and effusively, and she soon had good cause to know it. He was very tall and slim of figure, with a face whose utter smoothness would have been the despair of a mercenary barber. His large ears, jutting from a bullet-shaped head, gave to this head, at a little distance away, the look of some odd, unclassic amphora. He spoke very indifferent English, and always kept the last caprice of slang in glib readiness, as a tradesman will keep his newest goods where he can soonest reach them. He was excessively purse-proud, and liked to tell you the price of the big sunken diamond worn on his little finger; of the suite of rooms at his expensive hotel; of the special deep-olive cigars, dotted with a lighter yellow speck, which lined his ivory cigar-case. He possessed, in truth, all the cardinal vulgarities. He was lavishly conceited; he paid no deference to age; he had not a vestige of gallantry in his deportment toward women; his self-possession was so frangible that a blow could shatter it, but his coarse wrath would at once rise from the ruin, like the foul aroma from a broken phial. At such times he would scowl and be insolent, quite regardless of sex, years, or general superiority on the part of the offender. Indeed, he admitted no superiority. The shadow of the Sixth Avenue emporium hedged him, in his own shallow esteem, with impregnable divinity.
"I think," said Thurston, speaking of him one day to Claire, "that he is truly an abominable creature. The ancients used to believe that monsters were created by the union of two commingling elements, such as earth and heaven. But to-day in America we have a horrid progeny growing up about us, resultant from two forces, each dangerous enough by itself, but both deadly when they meet. I mean Wealth and Ignorance. This Brady is their child. If he were merely a poor man, his illiteracy would be endurable. If he were merely illiterate, we could stand his opulence. But he is both very uneducated and very rich. The combination is a horror. He is our modern way of being devoured by dragons, minotaurs, and giants."
Claire laughed, and presently shook her head in gentle argumentative protest. "I think there is a flaw in your theory," she said, "and I'll tell you why. There are the Bergemanns. Sophia, I admit, is not precisely uncultivated—that is, she has had good chances of instruction and not profited by them. This may mean little, yet it is surely better than having had no chances at all. But Mrs. Bergemann—she is both rich and ignorant, poor dear woman. And yet she is very far from a monster. She is a sweet, comfortable, motherly person. She would notharm a fly." Claire put her head a little sideways, and looked with winsome challenge at her companion; she assumed pretty airs and graces with him, nowadays, which she had never dealt in before the occurrence of a certain momentous episode. "What have you to say," she went on, "in answer to my rather shrewd objection? Doesn't it send you quite into a corner."
"Well, I confess that it rather floors me to have Mrs. Bergemann cited against me," he said, smiling. "I am afraid that I must yield. I am afraid that my theory is torn in tatters. I must congratulate you on your destructive instincts."
He spoke these words with his usual robust sort of languor, in which there was never a single trace of affectation or frivolity. At the same time a secret feeling of wonder possessed him; he was thinking how swiftly active had been the change in Claire since their first acquaintance. She had told him every particular of her past life, so far as concerned its opportunities of instruction. He marveled now, as he had repeatedly done on recent occasions, at her remarkable power to grasp new phrases, new forms of thought, new methods of inquiry. She had never, from the first, shown a gleam of coarseness. But she had often been timid of speech and falteringly insecure of expression. Yet latterly all this was altered. Thurston had a sense of how phenomenal was the improvement. It was plain that the books in the library, and Claire's power of fleet reading, had wrought this benefit upon a mind which past study and training had already rendered flexibly receptive. And yet all of the explanation did not lie here; at least half of it lurked in the fact that she had quitteddrudgery, need, and depression. Her mental shutters had been flung open, and the sunshine let to stream in through the casements. A few days later she had suspected the existence of Brady's passion. He made no attempt, on his own side, to conceal his preference for her society. Claire saw love in his prominent, slate-colored eyes; she saw it in the increased awkwardness of his motions when he either walked or sat near her; she saw it in his bluff yet repressed bravado of manner, as though he were at surly odds with himself for having been suddenly cut off in the flower of his vainglorious bachelorhood. She had grown sharper-sighted for the detection of these tender signs. And even in Brady their tenderness was unmistakable. His clownish crudity had softened, in all its raw lines. The effect might be compared to those graceful disguises in which we have seen moonlight clothe things that repel us under the glare of day.
One morning when Claire came down to breakfast she found a huge basket of Jacqueminot roses awaiting her, with Brady's card attached to it. She flushed, for a moment, almost as red as the florid, velvety petals themselves. Then she said, equally addressing Mrs. Bergemann and Sophia:
"How strange that he sent them tome! There may have been some mistake."
"Oh, not a bit of it!" Sophia exclaimed. "He's dead gone about you, Claire. I've seen it lately. So has Ma." Here the young lady turned toward her mother, and lifted an admonishing finger. "Now, Ma, don't you say a thing!"
But Mrs. Bergemann would say a number of things. Her amiability was so expansive, and madesuch a radius of glow and warmth all about her, that she rarely found it possible to dislike anybody. She had failed to realize that Brady was an offensive clod. In her matrimonial concern for Claire, the fact that he would one day, as the only child of his father, inherit a vast fortune, reared itself before her with irresistible temptation.
"Upon my word," she declared, "I don't know as any girlhadought to refuse a fellow as awful well-off as he is. Sophia's always talking of his great big ears, and his boastful ways, and his style of getting into tantrums about nothin' whatever. But still, I guess he might make a good husband. He might be just the kind that'll tame down and behave 'emselves after marriage. And they say he ain't a bit mean; he ain't gotthatfault, anyhow. And I guess he'd buy a manshun on the Avenu for any girl he took, and just make her shine like a light-house with di'monds, and roll round in her carriage, and be high an' mighty as you can find.I'dthink twice, Claire, ifIwas you, before I let him slip. That is, I mean if you don't decide you'd rather have Mr. Thurston, whodoesseem fond o' you, though I ain't said so before in your hearing, dear, and who's an ellergant gentleman, of course, even if he is a bit too old for a fresh young thing like yourself."
Claire laughed, in a high key, trying to conceal her nervousness. "Oh, Mr. Thurston is quite too old, Mrs. Bergemann," she said. "Please be sure of that."
The rich hue of the roses haunted her all day, even when she was not near them. Their splendid crimson seemed like a symbol of the luxury that shemight be called upon to refuse. She had heard about the emporium on Sixth Avenue. It made her bosom flutter when she thought of being the mistress of a great mansion, and wearing diamonds and rolling about in her carriage. Then she remembered Thurston's words concerning this man who had sent her the roses. Was he so much of a monster, after all? Might she not be able to humanize him? For a long time she was in a very perturbed state. During this interval it almost seemed to her that if he should ask her to marry him she would nerve herself and answer 'yes.'
That afternoon she did not go to drive with Sophia. Mrs. Bergemann went in her place. Claire sat beside one of the big plate-glass windows of her delightful chamber, and watched the clattering streams of carriages pass below. Some of these she had now grown to remember and recognize; a few of them possessed a dignity of contour and equipment that pleased her greatly. She would have liked to lean back upon the cushions of some such vehicle, and have its footman jauntily touch his hat while he received her order from within, after he had shut the shining door with a hollow little clang. The door should have arms and crest upon it; she would strongly prefer a door with arms and crest.
Suddenly, while watching from the window, she saw a flashy brougham, with yellow wheels, a light-liveried coachman and a large, high-stepping horse in gilded harness, pause before the Bergemanns' stoop. The next instant Brady sprang out, and soon a mellow bell-peal sounded below. Claire sat and wondered whether he who had sent her the roses would now solicit her company. It even occurredto her that he might have passed Sophia and Mrs. Bergemann on the avenue, and hence have drawn the conclusion that she would be at home alone.
She was quite right in this assumption. The grand Michael presently brought up Mr. Brady's card. Claire hesitated for an instant, and then said that she would see the gentleman.
She found Brady in the reception-room. He was dressed with an almost gaudy smartness, which brought all his misfortunes of face and figure into bolder relief. He wore a suit of clothes that might have been quiet as a piece of tapestry, but was surely assertive in its pattern when used for coat and trousers; his cravat was of scarlet and blue satin, and a pin was thrust into it which flashed and glittered so that you could not at first perceive it to be a cock's head wrought of diamonds, with a little carcanet of rubies for the red comb. He had a number of brilliant rings on his big-knuckled hands, and the sleeve-buttons that secured his low, full wristbands were a blaze of close-bedded gems at every chance recession of his sleeve. As he greeted Claire it struck her that his expression was unwontedly sulky, even for him. He appeared like a person who had been put darkly out of humor by some aggravating event.
"How are you, Miss Twining?" he said, holding Claire's hand till she herself withdrew it. "I hope you're well. I hope you're as well as they make 'em."
Claire sat down while she answered: "I am very well, Mr. Brady." Her visitor at once seated himself beside her, leaning his face toward her own. "I am sorry that both Mrs. Bergemann and Sophia are out," she went on, with the desire to bridge an awkward interspace of silence.
"Oh,Iain't, not a bit," said Brady, ardently contradictory. "I'm glad of it, Miss Twining. I wanted to have a little chin with you." He laughed at his own slang, crossed his long legs, and leaned back on the lounge which Claire was also occupying. At the same time he turned his face toward his companion.
Claire felt that decency now compelled her to offer a certain acknowledgment. "I want to thank you for those lovely flowers," she said. "They were beautiful, and it was very kind of you to send them."
He began to sway his head slightly from side to side. It was his way of showing nearly every emotion, whether embarrassment, perplexity, chagrin, or even mollification.
"Come, now," he began, "you didn't really think a lot about 'em, did you?"
"I liked them very much," returned Claire. She was watching him, in all his unpleasant details, though very covertly. She was asking herself, in the dispassionate reflectiveness born of her calculating yet feverish ambition, whether she could possibly consent to be his wife if he should ever ask her. The remembrance of his great prospective wealth dealt her more than one thrilling stroke, and yet feelings of self-distrustful dread visited her also. She feared lest she might commit some irreparable mistake. She was still very ignorant of the world in which she desired to achieve note and place. But she had, at the same time, a tolerably definite understanding of some things that she aimed to do. Her talks with Thurston had let in a good deal of light upon her mind. She had not lost a single point in all his explanatory discourse.
"I'm glad youdidlike 'em," said Brady, examining his radiant rings for an instant. "They cost a heap of stamps," he added, suddenly lifting his head and giving her an intent look. "But I don't mind that. I ain't a close-fisted chap, especially when I'm fond of anybody. I guess you've seen that I think a deal aboutyou. I can't talk flowery, like some chaps, but that don't matter." ... At this point he suddenly took Claire's hand; his face had acquired a still more sulky gloom; it was clouded by an actual scowl. "Look here, now, Miss Twining," he said, "I never expected to get married. I've had some pretty nice girls make regular dead sets at me—yes, I have—but none of 'em ever took my fancy. You did, though. I stuck it out for two or three weeks, and I daresay I kept giving myself clean away all the time. But I saw 't wasn't any use; I'm caught, sure; there ain't any mistake about it. We'll be married whenever you say. I'll do the handsome thing—that is, Father will. Father's crazy to have me settle down. He's worth a lot o' money—I s'pose you know that. He'll like you when he sees you—I ain't afraid he won't. We can have a slam-bang stylish wedding, or a plain, quiet one, just as you choose. And don't you be alarmed about too big a difference between you and I. Father may kick a little at first, but he'll come round when you've met once or twice. He'll see you're a good, sound girl, even if you ain't as high up, quite, as he'd want me to go for. There, now, I've broken the ice, and I s'pose it's all fixed, ain't it?"
Claire had been trying to withdraw her hand, for several moments, from the very firm grasp of this remarkable suitor. But as Brady ended, she literallysnatched the hand away, and rose, facing him, contemptuous, and yet calm because her contempt was so deep.
"It is impertinent for you to address me like this," she said, in haughty undertone. "You have no right to take for granted that I will marry you. In the first place, I do not like you; in the second place, I think myself by no means your inferior, but greatly above you as regards breeding, education, and intelligence; and in the third place, I would never consent to be the wife of one whom I do not consider a gentleman."
She at once left the room, after thus speaking, and saw, as she did so, that Brady's face was pale with rage and consternation. His insolent patronage had wounded her more than she knew. On reaching her own room, she had a fit of indignant weeping. But by the time that Sophia and Mrs. Bergemann returned from their drive, she was sufficiently tranquil to betray no sign of past perturbation.
That evening Sophia went to one of her "sociables." A male friend called for her, and they were driven together to the entertainment in question, with superb yet innocent defiance of those stricter proprieties advocated in higher social realms. Mrs. Bergemann retired somewhat early, and Claire was left alone, as it happened, with Thurston, who chanced to drop in a little after nine o'clock. Just before Mrs. Bergemann left the drawing-room, she contrived to whisper, in garrulous aside, with her plump face quite close to Claire's, and all her genial, harmless vulgarity at a sort of momentary boiling-point: "I shouldn't be surprised, dear, if he should pop to-night. And if he does, I ain't sure that you hadn'tbetter have him than Brady, for he's ever so rich, though the other'll get that Sixth Avenu store and two or three millions o' money behind it. Still, please yourself, Claire, and don't forget to leave the hall gas burnin' for Sophia when you go upstairs."