ButClaire's doubts were soon settled. If that visit did not precisely end them, a few succeeding days forever laid the ghost of her spleen. Mrs. Diggs had been jocundly candid, and that was all. No baleful sarcasms had pulsed beneath her vivacious prophecies. She soon convinced Claire that she was a stanch and loyal confederate.
She often dropped into the Twenty-Eighth Street house, and praised its appointments warmly. "Your little reception-room is perfect," she told Claire, "with those dark crimson walls and that furniture so covered with big pink roses. I like it immensely, don't you know? I wouldn't have liked it two or three years ago; I would have thought crimson and pink a weird discord; but fashion gives certain things their stamp; it makes us wake up, some morning, and find our hates turned to loves." About the dining-room, on the same floor, and the drawing-room, on the floor above, she was genially critical. This or that detail she discovered to be "not just quite right, don't you know?" and Claire in nearly all such cases changed dissent into agreement after a little serious reflection. Some of the resultant alterations involved decided expense. This Claire regretted while she would let her husband incur it. Hollister always did so readily enough. Wall Streethad rather smiled upon him, of late. A few of his ventures had become bolder, but flattering successes had persistently followed them.
"The theatre is all lit," he said to her one evening, "but the curtain doesn't rise. How is that, Claire?"
She knew perfectly well what he meant, but chose to feign that she did not know. They had been surveying together a few decorative improvements, recently wrought, in mantel, dado, or even table-cover.
"I don't think I follow your metaphor," said Claire. There was the tiny outbreak of a smile at each corner of her mouth. It struck Hollister, who was standing quite near her, that she looked delightfully prim. He kissed her before he answered, and then, while he did so, let his lips almost graze her ear, saying in an absurd guttural semitone, as of melo-dramatic confidence:—
"I mean that it's time for Act First. Time for the lords and ladies to enter, with a grand flourish of trumpets. Of course, when they do come, they'll all kiss the hand of their charming hostess, just like this."
But she would not let him kiss her hand, though he caught it and made the attempt.
"There are no lords and ladies in New York," she said, laughing and receding from him at the same time. "And if theyshouldcome, they would never behave in such an old-fashioned style as that."
But though she treated them lightly, his words fed the fuel of her deep, keen longing. She had made up her mind that Mrs. Diggs had been right. She would never be content to take a low place. Nothing save the highest of all would ever satisfy her.
At the same time she clearly understood that great sums of money were needed to accomplish any such end. She spent several days of brooding trouble. She had not great sums of money—or rather, Hollister had not. And there seemed slight chance of her husband ever securing them.
"The season is dreadfully young yet," said Mrs. Diggs to her, the next day, while they sat together. "There is simply nothing going on. There are no teas, no receptions, and, of course, no balls. But we'll go and take our drive in the Park. Do hurry and dress."
Claire dressed, but not very quickly. She kept Mrs. Diggs waiting at least fifteen minutes. Mrs. Diggs's carriage was also waiting. It was not at all like its owner, this carriage. It was burly and somewhat cumbrous. The silver-harnessed horses that drew it had clipped tails and huge auburn bodies. But the wheels of the vehicle were touched here and there with a tasteful dash of scarlet, as if in pretty chromatic tribute to the violent complexion of "dear Manhattan." When they were being rolled side by side together in this easy-cushioned carriage, Mrs. Diggs said to Claire:—
"You kept me waiting a little eternity. I hate to wait. I suppose it's because I'm so nervous. I've been to three or four different doctors about my nervousness. They nearly all say it's a kind of dyspepsia. But that seems to me so ridiculous. Dyspepsia means indigestion, and I can digest a pair of tongs—no matter at what hour I should eat it. My dear Claire" (she had got to use this familiar address, of late), "I don't see how you can get on without a maid. That is why you're so slow with yourbonnet and wraps; be sure it is. Oh, a maid is a wonderful comfort."
"So is a carriage like this," said Claire, smiling.
"Yes, a carriage is indispensable, too. At least I find it so. You will also, my dear, when you come to pay visits among a large circle of friends."
"I'm afraid that both the maid and the carriage will be out of my reach for a very long time yet," said Claire. "Our taking the house, you know, was a great act of extravagance."
"Oh, your husband is doing finely in Wall Street. I have heard from Manhattan about his brilliant strokes. Manhattan thinks him intensely clever. His success is creating a good deal of talk, I assure you."
This was true. Hollister would now often laugh and say: "The luck seems to be all on my side, Claire. And I don't take any very fearful risks, either, somehow. The money isn't coming in by hundreds, at present; it is coming in by thousands. I'm getting to be a rather important fellow; upon my word, I am. My own dawning prominence amuses me considerably. But it isn't turning my head the least in the world. A lot of the big men down there are taking me up. A month ago they scarcely knew if I existed."
Then he and Claire would talk together of the real speculative reasons for his success; he would find that she had forgotten hardly an item of past information; her judgments and decisions were sometimes so shrewd that they startled him, considering how purely they were based upon theory and hearsay. Once or twice he permitted her counsels to sway him, though not with her secured sanction. The result turned out notably well. He told her what he had done, and why he had done it, after the triumph had been achieved. She was by no means flattered on discovering the faith he had reposed in her. She even went so far as to markedly chide him for having reposed it.
"Remember, Herbert," she said, "that I am of necessity ignorant regarding these matters, in every practical sense. All my opinions are quite without the value of experience. Please never take me for your guide again. Never sell nor buy a single share because I venture the expression of an idea on sales or purchases. I am proud and glad to think myself the cause of your having made a lucky operation; that, of course, I need not tell you. But I should not forgive myself for ever leading you into disaster."
She reflected, secretly: 'How weak Herbert is! He is no doubt clear and quick of mind, and he is of just the light-hearted, easy temperament that has what he himself calls "nerve on the Street." But how weak he is in his trust ofme! Does not that show him weak in other ways? Would a man of strong nature let his fondness ever so betray his prudence? I must be guarded hereafter in my talks with him. I really know nothing; I only use his knowledge to build upon. What he is doing is three quarters mere hazard, and the rest cleverness. I see plainly that he has begun a very precarious career. He may win in it; others have won. He may win enormously; I am just beginning to accept his chances of doing so. But there must be no balking and thwarting on my part. He would ruin himself, most probably, if I proposed it. He is so weak where I am concerned! Yes, in all such ways he is so weak!'
She could not dwell upon the fact of this weakness with any tender feeling. She had grown to accept his love as something so natural and ordinary that she could coldly survey as a flaw any point in its devotion which verged upon indiscreet excess. Just at this period in her life it sometimes struck her that she was very cold toward her husband. But no pang of conscience accompanied the realization. She had disguised nothing from Herbert. He knew precisely what she wished to do. He even sympathized with her aim, and desired to abet it. She could not help being cold. Besides, he had never offered the faintest objection to her coldness. He evidently wanted her to be just as she was. And moreover, she was no different at this hour, when the possibility of a great social victory assumed definite outlines—when she was his wife and the mistress of his household—when she was sure of sharing his fortunes until death should end further companionship—than she had been at the hour when he had first asked her to marry him. She had a great sense of duty toward him. She meant to leave no obligation of wifely fealty unfulfilled. And this determination, flinchlessly kept, must stand for him in place of passion. She had no passion to give him. She had given all that to her dear dead father. If he were alive, now, and dwelling with her, what joy she would have in putting her arms about his neck, her lips to his cheek, and telling him how the hopes whose seed he had sown long ago might soon ripen into splendid fruit!
"You tell me that you have new adherents, new friends," she soon said to her husband. "If any of them are people of prominence—of the sort I wouldwish to know—why do you not ask them here, to our house?"
"True enough," said Hollister. "That is an idea." And then, with beaming hesitation, he added: "But I thought you would not want them without their wives."
Claire seemed to meditate, for a slight time. "I should not want them without their wives," she presently said, "unless I felt sure that their wives were the kind of women whom I would be very willing to have among my acquaintances."
A few days later Hollister announced to Claire that he had arranged a dinner at which some four gentlemen besides himself were to be present. He had placed the whole affair in the hands of a notedrestaurateur, who assured him that it should be conducted on the most admirable plan.
"It was intended as a little surprise for you," he said. "The men are all of the kind that I am nearly sure you will approve. I mean they are what is called "in society." You see, I am getting quite wise with regard to these matters. A few weeks have made a world of difference with me. I am waking up to a sense of who is who. Before, it was all stupid treadmill sort of work. I cared very little about associates, connections, influence. I wanted to make both ends meet, and found the process a rather dull one. Now I am in a wholly different frame of mind. I am beginning to amuse myself as much by the study of men as by the study of stocks. I have several distinct adherents, several more distinct supporters, and one or two would-be patrons. I don't think I was ever unpopular on the Street; I was simply unimportant. But now that I'm important I have got to be quite popular.... I dare say the whole thing is attributable to yourself, Claire. You've pricked me into life. I was torpid till I met and knew you."
She was considerably alarmed about the plan of the dinner-party. She was not at all sure if it would be in good style for Hollister to give it with herself as the only lady present. As soon as circumstances permitted, she hastened to consult with Mrs. Diggs.
"Oh, it's all right," decided the oracle. "You are always certain of being correct form if you do anything like that in company with your husband. But, my dear Claire, it is too bad that you couldn't find three more ladies besides yourself and me. You see, I invite myself provisionally, so to speak. Isn't it dreadful of me? But then I take such an interest in you that I want to be present, don't you know, at the laying of your corner-stone. Manhattan ought to be asked, too, dear fellow; it's etiquette, don't you know? But then you need not mind, this once."
"I wish that I knew three more ladies," said Claire, thoughtfully.
"Yes ... that would make a dinner of just ten. A dinner of ten is so charming. Mr. Hollister wouldn't object, would he?"
Claire quickly shook her head. "Oh," she said, "Herbert never objects."
It was so seriously spoken that Mrs. Diggs broke into one of her most mutinous laughs. "How delicious!" she exclaimed. "What a superb conjugal truth you condense in one demure little epigram!... Well, if 'Herbert,' as you say, 'never objects,' there is ... let me see ... there is Cornelia Van Horn."
"Would she come if I asked her?" said Claire.
"You haven't asked her, so of course you don't know. Nobody can ever predicate anything about Cornelia. But considering how grand was her amiability at Coney Island, I should say that.... Well, yes, I should say that Corneliawouldcome." Here Mrs. Diggs raised one thin finger, and shook it in smiling admonition. "That is," she added, "if you call on her, as she requested."
Claire looked grave. "I will call on her," she at length said. "I have not felt sure whether I would or no. I did not like her way of asking me, or her manner beforehand.... But I will call on her, provided there are two other ladies." Here she paused a moment, and then proceeded with decision. "But of course there are no other two ladies. At least, not yet."
Mrs. Diggs's eyes were sparkling most humorously. "I don't know why it is," she exclaimed, "that you always entertain me so when you talk of Cousin Cornelia. There's a latent pugnaciousness in the very way that you mention her name. It seems to be fated that you and she shall become dire foes. She's so big and mighty that I'm always reminded, when you discuss her, of dauntless little David, with his sling and stone, marching against the doughty old giant.... As for ouroneother lady, Claire, how about Mrs. Arcularius?"
"Mrs. Arcularius? Why, we have quarreled."
"Nonsense. You snubbed her mildly. I don't doubt that she will come. Women at her time of life have survived nearly every sentiment except that of appetite. Ten to one that she will scent the odor of a good dinner, and come, as your dear former instructress, and all that, don't you know?"
"Very well," said Claire, with gravity; "I might ask her. But then there would be the fifth lady. I am afraid that she is not to be found."
Mrs. Diggs put one slim hand to one pale temple, and drooped her bright eyes. "I have it!" she presently exclaimed. "There is my other cousin, Jane Van Corlear. We won't ask Jane until we are sure of the others. Then we shall be certain of getting her to fill the vacant place. You remember her at Coney Island, don't you? No? Well, in a certain sense nobody ever remembers poor Jane, and nobody ever forgets her. She has been a widow for years, like Cornelia. But she never asserts herself. She is tallowy, obese, complaisant. She rarely goes anywhere, and yet she leaves a sort of aristocratic trail wherever she has been. She will accept if I tell her to; she always gives in to me, though in her sluggish way I know she thinks me objectionable. Poor Jane is a perfect goose, and yet I dote on her. She is such a dear, consistent, inoffensive, companionable goose, don't you know? Claire, your dinner-party is entirely arranged."
"I am afraid not," said Claire, dubiously.
The next day she and Mrs. Diggs concocted the invitations together. On the day following, the two ladies whom they had asked each sent a courteous, conventional refusal.
Mrs. Van Horn gave no reason for her refusal. Mrs. Arcularius mentioned a previous engagement as the reason of her non-acceptance.
"You see," said Claire, to her fallacious counselor, "our ladies are not obtainable, after all."
She was secretly chagrined; but Mrs. Diggs showed herself openly so. "It is too bad!" declaredthe latter. "I've a lurking belief in the authenticity of Mrs. Arcularius's 'previous engagement.' As for Cornelia, I suspect pique at your not having been to visit her. But we shall see what we shall see, regarding Mrs. Van Horn. Of course our little dinner is ruined. You must preside as the only woman, Claire, and I don't doubt you will do it charmingly. But I shall drop in upon Cornelia to-morrow, and try to sound the unfathomable."
Mrs. Diggs did so, and on the afternoon of the same day she sought out Claire, filled with her recent exploring skirmish.
"She received me, my dear Claire, with a great deal of high-nosed graciousness. I hadn't been three minutes in her presence before I felt that her cold, serene eyes were reading me through and through. She mentioned you herself; she made it a point to do so. She spoke of you as that pretty young woman whom Beverley used to know. Then she recollected that you had asked her to dinner. 'But of course I could not accept,' she said, with her best sort of ducal look. 'I do not reallyknowyour friend. I have met her only once, and then for a few minutes.' She wanted to change the conversation, after that; she has vast tact in the way of changing conversations; great leaders like herself always have. But I wouldn't put up with that at all. I am usually a good deal awed by Cornelia. But I made up my mind not to be awed to-day at any hazard. I reminded her that she had sought to know you and asked you to visit her. I showed her that I wouldn't stand her delicate rapier-thrusts. I swung a bludgeon, and I flatter myself that I swung it rather well. I told her that she had given you a perfect right toinvite her. I told her that you had treated her with unusual courtesy, and that instead of leaving a slip of meaningless pasteboard with her footman, you had resolved on the more honest and significant civility of asking her to dinner. Moreover, I added, the fact of her brother having been your most intimate friend had rendered, to my thinking, the civility a still more kindly and genuine one."
"You must have made her very angry," said Claire, with a peculiar fleeting smile.
"Angry? She was in a white heat. She could never be in a red one, don't you know, she is so constitutionally placid and chill. She replied that you had actually attempted to offer her patronage, and that your effort had amused her not a little."
"Did she say that?" questioned Claire, with a certain quick eagerness. "Then I was right at first. She had some unpleasant purpose in wanting me to visit her."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Diggs; "you never suggested such a thing before!"
Claire had grown very grave and calm again. "Did I not?" she said. "Well, I had supposed it. It was a sort of fancy."
Mrs. Diggs took one of Claire's hands and held it, at the same time giving her an intent look.
"You're keeping something from me," she said. "Yes, Claire, I know you are.... Did Beverley Thurston ever ask you to marry him?"
Claire colored to the roots of her rich-tinted tresses. She tried to draw her hand away, but Mrs. Diggs still retained it.
"He did!" exclaimed her friend. "Your complexion tells me so! Everything is explained now.You refused Beverley. Yes, my dear, you refused him. And she somehow got wind of it. Perhaps Beverley told, or perhaps his complexion, like yours, divulged secrets, don't you know?... And yet, on second thought, Beverley's complexion could do nothing so expressive; it is too battered and world-worn; its capability for blushing is entirely null.... No,hetold her. And she has not forgiven you, and never will. Her monstrous pride would not permit her to do so. I understand everything, now. You remember what I told you about her clannish feeling—how she loves to quietly exalt her family name?... Ah, my dear Claire, you have committed, in her eyes, the great unpardonable sin. I was right; I felt it to be in the air that you and she would prove enemies. I begin to think myself a sort of haphazard sibyl; I divined what would happen, and it has happened. You have presumed to refuse her brother, and Cornelia knows it. Prepare to be crushed."
Claire lightly tossed her graceful head, and her lip curled a little as she did so.
"I am not at all prepared to be crushed," she said. "Mrs. Van Horn has spoiled our prospective dinner-party, as regards ladies, but she has not spoiledme."
"Delightful!" declared Mrs. Diggs, softly clapping her hands. "That's the spirit I like to see. The fight has begun; it's going to be serious. But remember that I am always your devoted auxiliary!" ...
The dinner took place. There were no ladies present except Claire herself. It was an extremely elegant dinner. Claire rose when coffee was being served, and left the gentlemen together. She performed, so to speak, her unaided office of hostess withsingular charm and dignity. And during the progress of the dinner she made a friend.
This was Mr. Stuart Goldwin. Everybody in Wall Street knew Stuart Goldwin. He had drifted into that stormy region of risk about four years ago. He had so drifted from a remote New England town, and his speculative successes had been phenomenal. He was reputed to be worth, at present, a good many millions of dollars. He had acquired an enormous influence among his constituents; he was the reigning Wall Street King. But he had none of the vulgarity which had marked a few of his immediate predecessors; he had always shown a full appreciation of his royalty and the duties resultant from it. He had been admitted, with singular promptness, into the social holy of holies; he was hand in glove with what are termed the best people; he belonged to three or four of the most select clubs; his circle of acquaintances had rapidly become huge. Women liked him as much as men. He was personally the type of man whom women like. His frame was tall and imposing; he wore a large tawny mustache, which drooped with silky abundance below a delicately-cut nostril. His eyes were large, and of a soft, glistening hazel. His manners were full of a fascinating frankness. His age was about forty years, but he might have passed for considerably younger. Books had not fed his rapid and distinctive intelligence, for he had no time to read them; and yet he had caught the reverberation, as it were, of the best and newest ideas announced by the best and newest writers.
Claire thought him delightful. He, in turn, thought her even more than this. She was a discovery to him. He had never married, and he was fond of saying, in his blithe, epigrammatic way, that half womankind was so enchanting to him as to have made, in his own case, anything except the most Oriental polygamy quite out of the question. He had wit in no small store, but when he liked a woman greatly it was his most deft of arts to keep this in very judicious reserve, and employ it only as a means of subtly wooing forth the mental sparkle of her to whom he paid court.
Claire found herself vain, in a covert way, of her own conversational gifts, before she had talked with Goldwin more than twenty minutes. She would have liked to talk with him exclusively during the dinner, but her two other guests were persons of importance who ought not to receive her impolitic neglect. She managed matters with tact and skill. Everybody thought her charming when she glided from the dining-room, in decorous retreat before that little anti-feminine bayonet, the after-dinner cigar. She had made a distinct success. She felt it as she sat in the drawing-room, waiting for the gentlemen to ascend and join her.
Goldwin had not deceived her. She read him with lucid insight. She saw him to be imposingly superficial; she perceived him to be a man whose polished filigrees would ring hollow at so much as one sincere tap of the finger-nail. He was agreeable to her, but not admirable; he captivated, but he did not dazzle her. She compared him with Beverley Thurston (never thinking to compare him with her husband), and noted all the more clearly his lack of genuine and manly magnitude. He came and joined her before any of the other gentlemen. His face was alittle flushed from the wine he had taken, but with no unbecoming suggestion of excess.
"I couldn't stay away from you," he said, sinking into a happy, half-lounging posture on the sofa at her side. He was faultlessly dressed, in garments that seemed to accept every bend of his fine moulded figure without a wrinkle of their dark, flexible surface. "Your husband smokes the nicest sort of cigar, but he has another possession that seems to me vastly superior." Then he broke into a mellow laugh, and waved one hand hither and thither, with an air of mock explanation. "I allude to this beautiful little drawing-room," he continued.
His mirthful sidelong look made Claire echo his laugh. "I will tell Herbert how much you like it," she said; "he will be so pleased to know."
"Pray do nothing of the sort!" he expostulated, with a good deal of comic seriousness. "I should never forgive you if you did. Husbands are such oddly jealous fellows. There is no telling what innocent little outburst of esteem may sometimes offend them."
Claire thought the time had come for a decisive parry, in the parlance of fencers. "Oh, Herbert is not at all jealous," she said, measuring the words just enough not to make them seem out of accord with her bright smile. "He has never had the least occasion to be, I assure you."
He fixed his eyes with soft intentness on her sweet, blooming face. "Never?" he questioned, quite low of tone.
"Never," she answered, gently laconic.
"But he might take some stupid pretext ... who knows?"
"Oh, if he did I would soon show him the stupidity of it. We understand each other excellently."
They talked on for at least a half hour. The other gentlemen remained below. Goldwin made no more daring complimentary hazards. He listened quite as much as he talked. Their converse turned upon social matters—upon what sort of a season it would be—upon the coming opera—upon the nature of New York entertainments—upon the men and women who were to give them. Claire made it very plain to him that she wanted to enter the gay lists. She at length said:—
"Do you know Mrs. Van Horn?"
Goldwin laughed. "Why don't you ask me if I know the City Hall," he said, "or the Stock Exchange? Of course I know her."
"Do you like her?"
"Nobody ever likes her. Who likes statues?"
"People sometimes worship them."
"Oh, she is a good deal worshiped, if you mean that."
Hollister and his two remaining guests now appeared. Claire re-welcomed both the latter gentlemen with beaming suavity. They were both important personages, as it has been recorded. They both had important wives, to whom they repaired, a little later, and to whom they loudly sang praises of Claire's loveliness. The remarks of each took substantially the same form, and the following might be given as their connubial and somewhat florid average:—
"That fellow Hollister's wife, you know. The man I dined with to-night. Didn't know he had awife? Well, you'd have known it if you'd been there. She's a splendid young creature. Handsome as a picture, and good style, too. By the way, Stuart Goldwin was there; you know how hard it is to gethim. I shouldn't wonder if these Hollisters were going to make a dash for society, soon. Now, don't repeat it, my dear, but the fact is, this Hollister can be of considerable service to me in a business way. There's no use of going into particulars, for women never understand business. But ... if anythingshouldoccur—any card be left, I mean, you may be sure what my wishes are.... Oh, of course; look sour, and refuse point blank. Bless my soul, when did you ever do anything to help alongmyinterests? You'll spend the money fast enough, but you won't turn a hand to help me make it. All right; do as you please. Hollister is to-day the most rising young man on the Street. There's a regular boom on him. He's got Goldwin for a friend. You must know whatthatmeans."
Both ladies did know what it meant. Both ladies had looked sour, but both in due time entertained their afterthoughts. They were ladies of high fashion, each prominent within an exclusive clique. They were not powerful enough to indorse any new struggler for position; their own right of tenure was not unassailable. They dreaded this Mrs. Hollister, as it were, but they secretly resolved that it would be folly to ignore her. Meanwhile a certain interview, held by Stuart Goldwin with a certain lady of his acquaintance, was of quite different character. Goldwin did not reach the house of Mrs. Ridgeway Lee until some time after ten o'clock. It was an exceedingly pretty house. Its drawing-room, thoughas small as Claire's, must by comparison have put the latter completely into the shade. It was an exquisite artistic commingling of all that was rare and fine in upholstery and general embellishment. Mrs. Ridgeway Lee, too, was in a manner rare and fine. She rose from a deep cachemire lounge to receive Goldwin. She was dressed in crimson, with a great cluster of white and crimson roses at her breast. She pretended to be annoyed that he should have presumed to come so late. She had the last French novel in her hand, pressed against her heart, as though she loved its allurements and disliked being thus drawn from them. Goldwin knew perfectly well that she had expected him, that she was very glad he had come. He often wondered to himself why he did not ask her to be his wife. She was passionately in love with him; she had been a widow almost since girlhood. She had a great deal of money, for which he cared nothing, and a great deal of beauty, for which he could not help but care. She had almost seriously compromised herself by permitting him to show her attentions whose intimacy, in the judgment of the world, should long ago either have ceased entirely or else have assumed matrimonial permanence.
Yet she was a woman who could, to a certain degree, compromise herself with impunity. Her connections were all people of high place. She was distantly related to Mrs. Diggs and nearly related to Mrs. Van Horn, who felt toward her that fondness which may exist between a queen and a lady-in-waiting. Apart from this, she was a social dignitary. Her artificiality was more plainly manifest than that of Goldwin, and it had become a commonplace among her friends tosay that she was affected. But she had made her affectation a kind of fashion; other women had so liked the peculiar flutter of her lids, the drawl of her voice, the erratic movements and extraordinary poses of her body, that they had imitated these with disastrous fidelity. She said clever, daring, insolent, or amiable things all in the same slow, measured way, and generally managed to leave an impression that a fund of unuttered experience or observation lay behind them. She was prodigiously pious for one of her pleasure-loving nature. Her charity was liberal and incessant. She trailed her Parisian robes through the wards of hospitals, or lifted them in the ill-smelling haunts of dying paupers. Her religion and her charity went hand in hand. For some people they were both shams; for others they were ostentation, half founded upon sincerity; for others they implied a feverish craving to drown the remorse born of persistent indiscretions; and still for others they were an intoxication, indulged in by one who did nothing half-way, and resorted to as some women drug themselves with opium, chloral, or alcohol. She denounced the new intellectual tendency among social equals of her own sex, as something wholly terrible; she frowned upon it no less darkly than her kinswoman, Mrs. Van Horn, but for a different reason. Its occasional lapses into rationalistic and unorthodox thought roused her dismay and ire.
"Science," she would say, in her grave, loitering manner, "is perfectly splendid. I adore it. I read books about it all the time." (There were those who roundly asserted that she did not know protoplasm from evolution.) "But this confusing it with religion is simply blasphemous and awful. I havethe profoundest pity for all who do not believe devoutly. I wish I could build asylums for them, and visit them, as I do my sick and my poor!"
Goldwin always listened to these melancholy outbursts with a twinkling eye. She had long since ceased to try and convert him to her High Church ritualisms. He would never go to church with her and witness, in the edifice which she attended, the Episcopal ceremonial imitate, as he said, the Roman Catholic ceremonial just as far as it dared and no further. But he would never have gone to any church with her, and she knew it, and mourned him as ungodly. That was the way, some of her foes asserted, in which she made love to him: she mourned him as ungodly.
But she showed no signs of making love to him to-night. She received him, as was already stated, with a shocked air.
"It is dreadfully late," she said, giving him her hand. "You ought not to do it. You know that you ought not to do it."
He kept her hand until she had again seated herself on the cachemire lounge. Then he sat down beside her.
Her type of beauty had been called that of a serpent. It was true that her present posture on the lounge oddly resembled a sort of coil. Her face wore at nearly all times a warm paleness; its color, or rather its lack of color, had little variation. Her hair was black as night; her eyes luminous, large, and very dark; her head small, her figure lissome and extremely slender, her shoulders narrow and falling. She could not be ungraceful, and her grace was always what in another woman would have been calledunique awkwardness. She appeared, now, to be gazing at Goldwin across one shoulder. Her crimson dress was in a tight whorl about her feet. She had a twisted look, which in any one else would have suggested an imperiled anatomy. But you somehow accepted her at first sight as capable of a picturesque elasticity denied to commonerphysiques.
"I dropped in only for a minute," said Goldwin. "I wanted to tell you about the dinner."
"Well? Was it nice?"
"Immensely. There was only one woman, but a marvelous woman. She is Hollister's wife. I feel as if I'd been hearing a new opera by Gounod. Don't ask me to describe her."
Mrs. Lee was watching the speaker's face with great intentness. It was a face that she knew very well; she had given it several years of close study.
"She is handsome, then?"
"She's exquisite. She is going to take things by storm this winter. She wants to do it, too. And I mean to help her."
"Who was she?"
"I don't know. And I don't care. I'm her devoted friend. I hope you will be. I want you to call on her."
"Are you crazy?" said Mrs. Lee. She said it so quietly and slowly, as was her wont to say all things, that she might have been making the most ordinary of queries.
"Yes," laughed Goldwin, "quite out of my head."
"Do you think I will go and see a woman I don't know, merely because you ask me to do it?"
He let his eyes dwell steadily upon her pale, small, piquant face, lifted above the long, rounded throat,on which sparkled a slim gorget of rubies, to match her dress.
"You've done things that I wanted you to do before now," he said softly. "You'll do this, I am sure."
She put one hand on his arm. The hand was so tiny and white that it seemed to rest there as lightly as a drifted blossom. "Will you tell me all about her?" she said, in her measured way.
"I told you that I couldn't describe her. She's like flowers that I've seen; she's like music that I've heard; she is like perfumes that I have smelt. There's poetry for you. You're fond of poetry, you say."
She still kept her hand on his arm. He had very rarely praised a woman in her hearing. He had never before praised one in this fashion.
"Will you tell me one thing more?" she said. "Have you fallen in love with her?"
Goldwin threw back his head and laughed. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "she is a married woman, and her husband worships her."
"Will you answer my question?" persisted Mrs. Lee.
"Yes," said Goldwin, suddenly jumping up from the lounge. "She is tremendously fond of her husband. There ... your question is answered."
Ratherearly the next morning, Mrs. Diggs dropped in upon Claire, "to hear all about it," as she said, alluding to the dinner-party.
She dismissed two of the gentlemen with two little contemptuous nods. "They are both well enough in point of respectability," she affirmed. "So are their wives. All four are so swathed in dull convention that you even forget to criticise them; they're like animals which resemble the haunts they inhabit to such a degree that you can tell them from the surrounding foliage or furrows only when they move or show life. Whom else did you have?"
"There was Mr. Stuart Goldwin," said Claire.
"Goldwin? Yon don't mean it, really?Didyou have Goldwin?" Here Mrs. Diggs looked hard at Claire, and slowly shook her head. "My dear," she went on, "it must indeed be true that your husband is achieving great financial distinction. Pardon my saying it, Claire, but Goldwin wouldn't have put his limbs under your mahogany if this had not been true. He's an enormous personage. Other Wall Street grandees have been very small pygmies in the social estimate. But Goldwin carries everything before him. You needn't tell me that you like him. It would be something abnormal if you didn't. He is really the most charming of men. You can't trusthim, don't you know, further than you can see him; he bristles with all sorts of humbug. And yet you accept him, because it is such well-bred, engaging humbug. He has hosts of adherents, and he deserves them. He gives the most enchanting entertainments. They are never vulgar, and yet they cost vast sums. For example, he will give a Delmonico dinner, at which every lady finds a diamond-studded locket hid modestly in the heart of her bouquet. I need not add that in a matrimonial way he is simply groveled to. But beware of him, my dear Claire; he is dangerous."
"Dangerous?" repeated Claire.
"Well, not so much in himself. Goldwin, in himself, is a shallow yet clever man, a forcible yet weak man, a man whose pluck has aided him a good deal, and whose luck has aided him still more. He has caught the trick of looking like a prince, and hence of giving his princely amassment of money a superb glamour. He will fade, some day, and leave not a rack behind. Of course he will. They all do. I don't know that he would if he married. And now I come to my previous point. He doesn't marry; therefore, he is dangerous."
"I don't follow you," Claire said.
"He doesn't marry Mrs. Ridgeway Lee. That is what I mean. As it is, she guards his approaches. She is a woman of high position, considerable queer, uncanny beauty, monstrous affectation, and a fondness forhimthat amounts to idolatry. She's the most intense of pietists; she riots in all sorts of religious charities. She has other idolatries besides Goldwin, but he is her foremost. I have never been just able to make her out. She is a sort of cousinof mine. She's wonderfully handsome, but it's the lean, cold beauty of a snake. As I said, she guards Goldwin's approaches. She's a widow, and a rich one, and she wants Goldwin to ask her to marry him. He doesn't, however, and hence she coils herself, so to speak, at the threshold of his acquaintance. If any other woman draws near—I mean, too near—she hisses and bites.... Oh, don't look incredulous. I've known her to positively do both. She'll do it to you, if Goldwin is too attentive. That is why I warn you; that is why I call that nice, brilliant, headlong, gentlemanly Goldwin a dangerous man."
In a few more days Hollister, of his own accord, proposed to Claire that she should engage a maid. He also told her that he had made purchase of two carriages, a span of horses, and an extra horse for single harness besides.
"You will be able to drive out, either in your coupé or your larger carriage, my dear," he said, "by Wednesday next." Then he broke into one of his most genial laughs, and added: "I hope that is not too long to wait."
Claire took this prophecy of coming splendor with serious quietude. She had talked with her husband regarding his recent plethoric influx of thousands.
"I've an idea, Herbert," she said, using a slow, wise-seeming deliberation. "It is this: why do you not buy our house? We both like it; it is comfortable and agreeable; it fills all our wants. And it is for sale, you know."
Hollister looked grave, then smiled, then affirmatively nodded.
"I'll do it, Claire," he answered. "I'll do it to-morrow, if you wish."
"I do wish, Herbert. And when you have bought the house, I want you to put it in my name. I want you to give it tome."
He started, and stared at her. A gleam of distrust appeared to slip coldly into his frank eyes. Claire saw this, but answered his look with firm calm. "Why do you say that?" he murmured.
She went nearer to him, and laid one hand on his shoulder. "Why do I say it?" she softly iterated. "Because I know something of the risks and perils you are daily forced to meet."
He watched her intently and soberly, for a few seconds, after she had thus spoken. Then his characteristic smile broke forth like a burst of sun. He kissed her on the lips. "It shall be just as you say!" he exclaimed, drawing her nearer to him, with a look which they of bids and sales and stock-traffic had never seen on his manly yet winsome face. "You are right. You are always right, Claire. There's a lot of money drifting in; it seems as if the money would never stop drifting in."
"I hope it never will," said Claire, showing her pure teeth in a laugh, as he again kissed her. At the same time she drew back from him while his encircling arm still retained her, in a way to which he had grown wholly familiar, and which, in an unwedded woman, would have readily seemed like the reserve of absolute maidenhood.
A slight further lapse of days brought grand results for Claire. She was legally the owner of the charming little house in which she dwelt; she had her maid, obsequiously attendant on her least wants; she possessed her coupé, drawn by a large, silver-trapped horse; she possessed, also, a glossy, dark-appointed carriage, drawn by two horses of equally smart gear, and supervised by coachman and footman in approved and modish livery.
Mrs. Diggs was in ecstasies at the prosperous change. "Now you're indeedlancée, don't you know?" she said. "By the way, has Cornelia Van Horn left a card on you, my dear?"
"No," said Claire.
"Can she really mean open warfare?"
"Let her wage it," Claire answered. "That is better than to have it concealed."
The opera-season began the next evening. Hollister had engaged a box, permanently. It was a season that opened with much auspicious brilliancy. Claire appeared in her first really notable toilette. One of the reigningmodisteshad made it, and for the first time in her life she was called upon to stand the test of surpassingly beautiful dressing. It is a test that some very fair women stand ill. They show to best advantage, in garments which have no atmosphere of festival; it becomes them to be clad with domesticity or at least moderation. This was by no means true, however, of Claire. The diamond necklace which Hollister had spread on her dressing-table but a few minutes before the hour of departure glittered round her smooth, slender neck with telling saliency. Her gown was of a pale, pink brocaded stuff, and she carried its full-flowing train with a light-stepping and perfect repose. Before she had unclasped her cloak and seated herself in the box at Hollister's side, numerous lorgnettes were leveled upon the lovely, dignified picture that she made. When she had seated herself, the spell continued. The large pink roses in her bosom were not deep or sweet enough oftint to do more than heighten the fresh, chaste flush in either cheek. She bore herself with a fine and delicate majesty. Her dark-blue eyes told of the quicker pulse that stirred her veins only by a more humid and dreamy sparkle. She was inwardly glad to be where she sat, and to be robed as she was robed, but her pleasure softly exulted in its own outward repression; she was wonderfully self-poised and tranquil, considering her strong secret excitement. Nearly everybody who looked upon her pronounced her to be very beautiful, and a good many people, before an hour had passed, had looked at her with the closest kind of scrutiny.
The opera was a favorite one; a famed and favorite prima-donna sang in it. Below, where the real lovers of music mostly thronged, Claire's presence produced neither comment nor criticism. But up in the region sacred to fashion, inattention, gossip, and flirtation, she rapidly became an event which even the most melodious cavatina was powerless to supersede.
It was not all done by her beauty and novel charm. Hollister, sitting at her side, nonchalant, handsome, of excellent conventional style in garb and posture, materially helped to increase the notability which surrounded her. His success had publicly transpired; a few of those newspapers which are little save glaring personal placards had of late proclaimed with graphic zeal his speculative triumphs. He had leapt into notoriety in a day, almost in an hour. There was but one man in the house besides her husband whom Claire knew. This man was Stuart Goldwin, and he soon dropped into her box, remaining there through the two final acts. Hollister, meanwhile,chose to be absent. He had found some friends who were solicitous of presenting him to certain ladies. He spent nearly the whole of these two acts in chatting with these same ladies. They were all gracious; one or two of them had strong claims to beauty. It was no less an important evening with himself than with Claire. Perhaps with him it was even more so, since he obtained his social acceptance, as it were, by great dames whom he pleased with his handsome face, happy manners, and growing repute as a potential millionaire.
His wife, on the other hand, had gained a different victory. She was pronounced to be charming and remarkable; she had acquired the prestige of Goldwin's open attentions. But she was a woman, and she had not yet received the endorsement of her own sex. It might possibly soon arrive, or it might be withheld: there was still no actual certainty.
Claire loved the music, but she would have heard its cadences in discontent if fate had decreed that she should sit, this evening, with no attendant devotee. She knew well that Goldwin's company distinguished her. Mrs. Diggs had given her points, as the phrase goes. She was quite aware that the horse-shoe of boxes in our metropolitan opera-house, and the other more commodious proscenium boxes which flank its stage, are at nearly all times occupied by just the kind of people among whom she wished to win her coveted lofty place. She understood that they would note, comment, gauge, admire, or condemn; and while her manner bespoke a sweet and placid unconsciousness of their observation, she was alive to the exact amount of observation which she attracted.
"I am so glad that you came," Goldwin told her."For very selfish reasons, I mean. You appear, and you corroborate my statements. Now people can at last see and judge for themselves. The verdict is sure."
He said many more things in this vein, all uttered low, and all accompanied by his smile, that seemed either to mean volumes or to leave his true meaning adroitly ambiguous.
Mrs. Ridgeway Lee was in a somewhat near box. When Goldwin returned to her side, just as the curtain was falling on the last act, she accepted his escort to her carriage with a fine composure. He met Mrs. Van Horn, a little later, in the crush that always occurs along the Fourteenth Street lobby of our Academy when a full house disgorges its throng.
The two ladies talked together. Not far away from them stood Mrs. Diggs and Claire, each waiting for an absent husband to secure her carriage.
"What a contrast there is between them," Claire murmured to her companion. "One is so blonde and peaceful, the other so dark and restless."
"Yes, my dear Claire. Have you caught Cornelia's eye?"
"No. She does not appear to see me."
"She sees you perfectly. She has not yet made up her mind just how to act."
"I think that she means to cut me," said Claire, under her breath.
"Never," came the emphatic answer, so bass and gruff because of its vocal suppression that it produced odd contrast with Mrs. Diggs's bodily thinness. "To cut you would be to burn her ships. She has an object in knowing you. I'm afraid it's a dark one. But be sure that she is only making up her mindjusthowto know you. She will soon decide; she has already delayed too long, and she feels it. Be ready for a prompt change."
If the behavior of Mrs. Van Horn was really to be explained on the theory of her prophetic cousin, then she made up her mind very soon after the delivery of these oracular sentences. A chance turn of the neck seemed to render her conscious of Claire's neighboring presence. She bowed with soft decision the instant that their eyes met; and Claire returned the bow.
The next instant she laid one gloved hand on the arm of Mrs. Ridgeway Lee, and then both ladies moved in Claire's direction. Their progress was of necessity made between the forms of several assembled ladies, who nodded and smiled as the great personage and her companion pushed courteously past them. They were mostly the loyal adherents of Mrs. Van Horn, in the sense that they held it high honor to have the right of occasionally darkening her Washington Square doorway. Two or three of them were perhaps co-regents with her as regarded caste and power.
They all saw and intently watched the little astonishing action that now followed. Mrs. Van Horn glided up to Claire and extended her hand.
"I was so very sorry to have missed your dinner, Mrs. Hollister," said the great lady, with her best affability, "but another engagement forced me to be absent." She again put her hand on the arm of Mrs. Ridgeway Lee; she had thus far wholly ignored Mrs. Diggs; her nose was well in the air, as usual, but her smile was bland, conciliatory, impressive; she glowed with an august amiability.
"I want you to let me present my cousin, Mrs. Lee," she proceeded. "We have both heard so much about you, of late, from Mr. Goldwin. You can't think how devoted a friend you have suddenly made."
Before Claire could answer, Mrs. Lee spoke. She had got herself into her usual extraordinary twist. Her visage, her hands, and her lower limbs, regarded according to their relative disposements, would have made a very sinuous line. Like Mrs. Van Horn, she was wrapped in an opera cloak. But her dark little head rose from the large circlet of swansdown about her slight throat with an effect not unlike the slim crest of a turtle stealing from its shell. She constantly suggested a creature of this lean and chill type, though rarely with any of its repulsive traits.
"Indeed, yes!" she softly exclaimed to Claire. "Mr. Goldwin is a great friend of mine, and he has told me hundreds of charming things about you."
"Our acquaintance has been a very short one," said Claire, looking at Mrs. Diggs. In a certain way, she sought to gain a kind of tacit cue from the latter's face. She failed to perceive just how matters were drifting. Was this patronage on the part of both ladies? Or was it meant for irreproachable courtesy?
Mrs. Diggs gave a laugh. "Goldwin can say a hundred charming things very easily on a brief acquaintance," she declared. "Can't you?" were her next words, delivered to Goldwin himself, who had just then slipped up to the group.
"Oh, no, I can't," he at once replied, "unless I mean every one of them."
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Diggs, "how quickly yougrasp the situation! So you heard what we were talking about, did you? You've found out that we were discussing your last enthusiasm?"
"Ah," said Goldwin, "I have very few of them. Don't cheapen me, please, in the regard of Mrs. Hollister."
"You seem to count upon her regard with singular confidence," said Mrs. Van Horn.
"That's entirely our affair," laughed Goldwin. He looked at Claire, but while he did so Mrs. Van Horn placed her hand within his arm. She took it for granted that her carriage had been properly summoned by the financier, and she was going to permit him to accompany her thither, as she had permitted him to find it; she nearly always put herself in the attitude of permitting favors and not soliciting them, by some deft, secure art, quite her own. The bow of farewell which she gave Claire was handsomely suave. Mrs. Lee moved away at her other side. Mrs. Lee had been her guest, that evening, and they were to ride home together.
"So, Claire, it's settled," presently said Mrs. Diggs. "Cornelia is to know you. So is Sylvia Lee. Be careful of them both. I can't feel certain, yet, of exactly what it all means.... Here's that dear Manhattan of mine. He has got our carriage. Shall I remain with you till your husband reappears?... Very well; I will. But this is no place in which to talk over the whole odd, interesting thing. I'll try and drop in upon you soon; possibly to-morrow, if I can manage it.... Does Manhattan see us? Just observe how stupidly he stares everywhere but here. He's been a little strange and absent-minded all the evening. I really think he'sforgotten where he left me. He smokes too many of those strong, horrid cigars, don't you know? I truly believe that they cloud his brain half the time ... but then it's better he should smoke too much than drink too much. I don't know what Ishoulddo if the dear fellow drank too much!" ...
Mrs. Diggs did present herself at Claire's house on the following day. But Claire was not at home. She had driven out in company with her husband.
It was a momentous drive. They had left home together at about one o'clock. Claire had no idea whither they were going, at first. Hollister had chosen to assume an air of profound mysticism. "I have a great surprise for you," he said.
There was no characteristic twinkle in his eye as he made this statement. Claire felt that he was far from saddened, and yet his gravity looked an undoubted fact.
"I will accompany you blindly," she said, just before they entered the carriage. "I suppose, however, there are some more jewels at Tiffany's which you want me to see and choose from."
"No," said Hollister, shaking his head. "I shouldn't spend nearly a whole day away from Wall Street for anything of that sort."
The carriage had soon passed Tiffany's by a considerable distance, in what we call the downward direction. As its progress increased, Claire's curiosity heightened, but for some time she gave no proof of this. Her talk was of their new attainments, of their growing pastimes, pleasures, and luxuries. She spoke often with a slightly unfamiliar speed; it was a little habit that of late had come upon her; it betrayed gentle excitement in place of previous composure. To Hollister, when he observed it at all, the effect was filled with charm; he no more disliked it than he would have disliked to see a very tender breeze lightly agitate some beautiful bloom. But now his gravity by no means lessened under the spell of Claire's rather voluble advances. She had plainly seen the change; on a sudden she herself became serious as he; then, after an interval of almost complete silence, she placed her hand in his. The carriage was now very near to one of the Brooklyn ferries. No doubt the first real suspicion of the truth had flashed through Claire's mind when she abruptly said:—
"Wherearewe going, Herbert? You reallymusttell me."
He met her intent look; she had rarely seen his blithe eyes more solemn than now.
"Haven't you guessed by this time?" he said.
"Perhaps I have," she answered. Her tone was a low murmur; she had averted her eyes from his, and would have withdrawn from him her hand, had not the clasp of his own softly rebelled against this act. Her cheeks had flushed almost crimson. "Go on," she persisted. "Tell me if I am right."
"I think you are, Claire; I think you have guessed it, at last." The carriage had just entered the big gateway of the ferry; wheels and hoofs took a new sound as they struck the planks of the wharf. "Don't you remember that night at the Island, a little while after our engagement, when you told me that it would give you such joy to regain your father's body and to have it decently buried, in a Christian way?"
"Yes, Herbert ... I remember." She spoke the words so faintly that he scarcely heard them.
"Well, Claire, I made you a promise, then, and I recollected the promise."
"ButIforgot it!" she cried, throwing both arms about his neck, for an instant, and kissing his cheek. Immediately afterward she burst into tears. "Oh, Herbert, you remembered and I forgot! How wicked of me! I let other things—things that were trifles and vanities—drive it from my mind! Poor, dear, dead Father! He would never have done that to me! He loved me too well—far too well!"
The tears were rushing down her face, and her frame was in a miserable tremor. Already he had caught both her hands, and was firmly pressing them while he bent toward her, and while she leaned in a relaxed posture against the back of the carriage. He thought her repentance as exquisite as it was needless; he held it as only a fresh proof of her sweet, refined spirit. It brought the mist into his sight, and made his voice throb very unwontedly, to see her weep and tremble thus.
"My darling," his next words hurried, "you're not in the least to blame. You would have thought about it a little later, I'm certain. But so much has happened since our marriage, you know. Besides, what you call trifles and vanities are just what he wanted you to think about. He must be glad (if the dead are ever glad or sorry in any way) to see you climb higher, and get the notice and influence you deserve. You never slighted his memory at all. Don't fancy you did, Claire. He was in your mind all the while, only you postponed speaking of him a little longer than you intended. You had told me what to do, don't you see, and you felt a certain security as regarded my doing it. That was all.Now do cheer up. We've quite a ride to Greenwood after we leave the ferry. Everything has been done, quietly, dear, without your knowing. I thought it would pain you too much to stand beside any open grave of his. The body was not hard to find. You recollected its ... its number, you know. I'm sure you will like the stone I've had put over him. It is just a plain granite one, with the name, and date of death. The date of birth shall be put there afterward; I didn't want to ask it of you yet; that would have spoiled my surprise."
She grew perfectly calm again, some time before they reached the cemetery. The cessation of her tears deeply relieved Hollister. He had never seen her weep before, and the betrayal of such emotion, feminine though it was, had harshly disturbed him. Once more composed, she returned to him in her proper strength. She became Claire again. It was not that he did not like her to show weakness, but rather that in showing weakness she appeared new and odd to him, and hence not just his own strong, serene, familiar Claire. Any jar, as it were, in the steadfast vibrations of his fealty sent to the heart of this most unswerving loyalist a strange, acute dismay.
The autumn darkness had almost fallen upon the multitudinous tombs of Greenwood before Claire was willing to leave that of her father. His name, cut in the modest gray of the stone, seemed for hours afterward cut into her conscience as well. The grand repose of the place, too, left its haunting thrill in her soul. A great sombre note had been struck through all her being, at a time when brain and nerves had begun to feel the full intoxication of worldly longing.While she was living intensely, death had come to her in the shape of keen, reproachful reminder. The vast cemetery had now no vernal or summer charm. Above, the sky was soft as a clouded turquoise, but underfoot, and on tree and shrub, the lovely melancholy of waning autumn met the bitter melancholy of a far more woful decay. It was all like one mighty threnody put to mighty yet very tender music. With a certain sinister and piercing eloquence, moreover, this huge, mute city of death addressed Claire. Many noted family names had of late passed into her memory, as those of people whom it would be safe, wise, politic to know; and not a few of these she now saw, lettered on slabs or shafts, and graven over the portals of vaults. Each one, as her gaze read it, wore a frightful sarcasm. More than once she closed her eyes and shuddered, as the carriage made both exit and entrance here in this sad domain. The perfect culture of the place rendered its doleful pathos even more poignant. The dead were not neglected, here; others, now alive and of the bright world she had yearned to triumph in, must soon lie down beside them. The narrow beds were kept well tended, perhaps, for just this dreary and hideous reason.
That night she spent almost without sleep. She heard her mother's vindictive voice ring through the stillness; she had waking visions of her father's face, clad with an angelic rebuke; she seemed to listen once more while Beverley Thurston spoke those words of remonstrance and chiding which were the last he had uttered in her presence: "I warn you against yourself ... there is an actual curse hanging over you ... it will surely fall, unless by the act of your own will you change it into a blessing."
Yes, her aim had been false and worthless. She knew it well, at last. Her father's grave had told her so. She was born for better things than to fling down a dainty gauntlet of social warfare at Mrs. Van Horn. The big world had big work for such a woman as herself to front and do. She realized it now; she had realized it all along. Herbert thought she had been right merely because he loved her. To-morrow she would make Herbert see clearly the folly of his own acquiescence. Now that the money had come, there were great charities possible. She would go back, too, among her books; these should teach her more than they had ever yet taught. It was true enough that in one way she was cold; she could not feel passion like other women. The infatuation of a Mrs. Ridgeway Lee was an enigma to her. But she could love a loftier ideal of life—love it and try to climb thither by the steeper and harsher path. This, surely, was what her father had meant, long ago.
Such were her new reflections and her new resolves. It took just one day, and no more, to dissipate them completely. Mrs. Diggs sent her a note on the following afternoon, saying that a hundred little obstructive matters had prevented her purposed visit that morning, but begging to have the pleasure of her own and her husband's company at dinner on the same evening. Would not Claire drop in very early—say about four o'clock? "It is my visiting day," wrote her correspondent. "Perhaps there will be four or five feminine callers, perhaps none. If there are none, we can have a good three hours' chat, don't you know? I've some new things from Paris that I want to show you. It strikes me that Worth's taste grows more depraved every year, and I wantyou to give me your advice as to whether I shall throw all these hideous importations over to my maid or no. You can leave a little note at home for that delightful husband of yours, telling him that the Diggses dine at seven. Or you can show him this note, unless you have jealous feelings with regard to my florid adjective."
Claire quitted the house at about four that afternoon, leaving behind her a few lines for Hollister. She chose to go on foot, the day being fair and pleasant. But she had scarcely got twenty yards away from her own stoop, when a carriage rattled past her, stopping suddenly. It was an equipage of great elegance. Claire soon perceived that it had stopped before the door from which she had just made exit. A footman sprang from the box, and immediately afterward what appeared to be more than a single card was handed him by an unseen occupant of the carriage. He then ascended the stoop of the Hollister abode, and sharply rang its bell. When his summons was answered the man held brief converse with Claire's new butler, and then presented, with a little bow, the card or cards intrusted to him. In a trice he was down the stoop again, and again at the carriage door. He did not seem to deliver any spoken message, but merely touched with one raised finger the rim of his cockaded hat. The carriage then started briskly off, without its high-throned driver paying the slightest heed to the fact that his liveried associate must scramble up to his side while the vehicle was in full motion. But this feat was accomplished with great ease; a mannerism of fashion demanded that the footman should so perform it; the approved effect of complete unconcern on the onehand and up-leaping agility on the other was never produced with more complete success.
Claire had soon reëntered the house. She found two cards there, awaiting her inspection. One bore the name of Mrs. Van Horn, and one that of Mrs. Ridgeway Lee.
"Delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Diggs, on learning this occurrence from Claire herself, about a half hour later. "That visit, from those two women, has an enormous meaning. How sorry I am you were not at home. It would have been two against one, but I'm inclined to pay you the very marked compliment of saying that both your antagonists, deep and clever as they are, would have been no match for you. Well, hostilities are postponed. It's an armistice, not a truce. I insist, you see, on using the terms of warfare. How the battle will be fought is still a mystery, of course; but two potent truths simplycan'tbe overlooked. You refused Cornelia Van Horn's brother. That is one of them."
"And the second?" asked Claire, a little absently, because she felt what answer would come.
"The second? You've roused pointed admiration in the man whom Sylvia Lee worships."
Claire looked at the speaker, and slowly shook her head. There was doubt, trouble, irresolution in her face; and now, when she spoke, her voice had a weary, almost plaintive note.
"I—I feel like not engaging in the fight, if you really think there is to be one," she said, hesitantly. "I don't mean because I am afraid," were her next words, delivered with much greater swiftness. "Oh, no, not that. There are other reasons. I can't explain, just now." Here she paused, and her facesoftly brightened, while she gave a little shrug of the shoulders. "Well," she abruptly went on, "perhaps I shall never explain."
She never did explain. This was her last feeble protest against the slow, sure force of that subtle fascination which was once more steadily reclaiming her. The gloomy remorse and the vital energy of yesterday's mood had, neither of them, quite left her. But they both soon withdrew their last remnant of sway.
Hollister came a little late to Mrs. Diggs's dinner. It had been a great day with him. He had risked a very important sum by retaining a large number of shares in a certain precarious stock. He had his reasons for doing so, and they were clever reasons, judged by the general conditions of the market. He had made a memorable stroke, and all Wall Street knew of it before the usual hour for brokers to seek other than their daily haunts of hazard. He was radiant, if this could be said of one whose spirits were always bright, as his temper was sweet. There were only four at dinner. Mr. Diggs overflowed with congratulations to Hollister. He was quite as tipsy as usual, and to Claire's thinking, quite as tiresome.
But the dinner was not tiresome. Mrs. Diggs was at her loquacious best. The recent brilliant manœuvre of her husband had roused in Claire all the old exultant feeling. Yesterday was now indeed yesterday. She was already plunging an eager look straight onward through a long rosy vista of to-morrows.
"I'm so glad, Herbert!" she said, as they were being driven home together. "Perhaps I didn't show that I was, there at dinner. That dreadful Mr. Diggs is made of such explosive material that I wasafraid he would want to drink your health standing, or something of that absurd sort, if I ventured to tell you how glad I really was that you've made another hit, luckier than any you ever made before."