Hollister put his lips to her cheek. "I know just how glad you are," he said, while kissing her. "You needn't tell me another word about it."
Claire had spoken with that little half-excited trip of the tongue, which has been recorded as a late change in her demeanor.
She was silent, not having returned her husband's caress. This was quite like the accustomed Claire. Yesterday, in the carriage which had borne them to Greenwood, she had flung her arms about his neck and kissed him, as any ordinary wife might do.
Hollister was quietly re-accepting her, so to speak, as the extraordinary wife—or, in other terser phrase, as Claire.
He went on speaking before she had a chance to answer him. He was still holding her hand while he spoke. "Oh, by the way, Claire, Goldwin had a good deal to do with my luck. He gave me points, as they say down there. But don't breathe it to a living soul. Goldwin's an awfully good friend of mine, I find, though we haven't always pulled together in a business way."
"Yes?" Claire answered.
She had somehow got her hand away from his. She was using it to arrange her wrap about the throat.
Thegay season had soon set in with full force. It promised to be a season of especial brilliancy. Claire rapidly found people gathering about her. She began to have a little list of her own. The wives of the two gentlemen who had dined with herself and husband in Goldwin's company, each asked herself and husband to dine at their own house. The dinners were both of sumptuous quality, and attended by numerous other guests. Claire made a deep impression at both places. Her toilettes were rich and of unique taste; she was by far the most beautiful woman at either assemblage. The sudden financial glory of Hollister, whose actual wealth was tripled if not quadrupled by rumor, cast about her exceptional grace, beauty, and wit an added halo of distinction. She was the kind of woman whom women like. In not a few of her own sex she quickly roused an enthusiastic partisanship.
"You are bound to lead, or nothing," Mrs. Diggs soon said to her. "I see this very clearly, Claire,—though, for that matter, I have seen it all along."
"I mean to lead, or nothing," answered Claire, with her superb candor. "Thus far I have not found it difficult."
Mrs. Diggs put up her thin forefinger.
"Tut, tut," she remonstrated. "Don't be tooconfident. Ambitionmayoverleap itself. Remember that you are still on the threshold."
"I've crossed it," said Claire, laughing. "I've got into the drawing-room."
"No, you haven't, my dear. You have yet achieved nothing secure, absolute, decisive. Now, I'm not a bit of a snob, myself, as you know. But I understand how to reason like one; I can measure the mettle of the foe you've got to fight with. Let us talk plainly together, as we always do. None of the very heavy swells have as yet admitted you. There's no use of denying this. You're being a great deal talked about. You've broken bread already, and you've received invitations to break more bread, with some very nice, exclusive women. But they are not of the first rank; they're not of the great, proud, select clique. True, Cornelia has called on you, and Sylvia Lee has called. You've returned their visits, and have seen neither; neither was at home. But then neitherisat home except on her visiting-day, and that is customarily written with much legibility on both their cards. But on both the cards which you received,no day at all was written. I've never mentioned this before, have I? Well, it never occurred to me until last night. I was nervous, and couldn't sleep; that dear Manhattan was out at the club, smoking those horrid cigars, which flush his face so and hurt his poor, dear brain, I'm sure. Perhaps it was that which kept me awake and made my mind wander toward you, and reflect upon this peculiarly interesting stage of your career. The little circumstance I have mentioned may mean nothing, but I'm inclined to think otherwise; everything, no matter how trivial, about Cornelia, is sure to meansomething. But, however this may be, affairs have now reached a peculiar pass with you. You must make acoup, my dear—a grandcoup."
"Which you have arranged entirely," said Claire, smiling, "I haven't a doubt. And now you await my sanction of it?"
Mrs. Diggs creased her pale forehead, in a reflective frown. "No, not precisely that, my dear; I haven't yet quite decided what it is to be. But I have almost decided. Suppose that you do not make it at all—that is, not in your own person. Suppose that I make it for you."
"You?" inquired Claire.
"Yes. Suppose that I send out cards for a huge reception, and place your card within the same envelope. Then you would receive at my side, don't you know, and everybody who came must henceforth be on your list as well as on mine. I would launch you boldly forth, in other words. I would put you under my wing. I would give you mycachet."
A marked intimacy now existed between Claire and Goldwin. He would often drop in of an evening—sometimes of an afternoon. Hollister was not by any means at home every evening, when he and Claire had no mutual engagement. He was getting to have a good many solitary engagements. "Stag" dinners claimed him; there would be nocturnal trysts with certain fellow-financiers on the subject of the morrow's chances. Then, too, he had been made a member of the Metropolitan Club, an institution oddly hard, and in a way oddly easy, to enter; it was the one great reigning club of the continent; none other precisely resembled it; the social leaders who did not belong to it were few, and to cross its doorstep at will was the unfulfilled dream of many a social struggler.
Claire cordially liked Goldwin. If he had been obscure she would still have liked him, though his importance was so knit in with his personality, he exhaled such an atmosphere of pecuniary and patrician celebrity, that one could ill think of him as ever being or ever having been obscure. She was boldly frank with him regarding her ambitious aims. He would throw back his handsome head and laugh most heartily at her ingenuous confidences. He would tell her that she was the most exquisite joke in the world, and yet that he was somehow forced to accept her as quite the opposite of one. "Ah, yes, intensely opposite," he would add, with a fluttered pull at his silken mustache that she felt to be studied in its emotional suggestiveness, with a large sigh that she suspected of being less studied, and with a look in his charming hazel eyes that would nearly always make her avert her own. His homage had become a very substantial fact, and she knew just how much of it the popular standard of wifely discretion would permit her to receive—just how much of it would be her advantage and not her detriment. He was too keen not to have perceived that she had drawn this judicious line of calculation. Now and then he made little semi-jocose attempts to overleap it, but at the worst a word could curb him where a glance failed. She found him, all in all, saltatory but never vicious; a stout pull of the rein always brought him to terms.
After her converse with Mrs. Diggs, just recorded, she told him of the latter's proposedcoup. He looked at her sharply for a moment, and then made a very wry grimace.
"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed. "That woman endorse you! It would be complete ruin."
"Mrs. Diggs is my friend, and as such I must insist upon your always speaking with respect of her in my presence," reprimanded Claire, stoutly.
"Respect? Why, of course I respect her. Not physically; she's constructed on too painful a plan of zigzags. But in all other ways I consider her delightful. She's got a big, warm heart in that angular body of hers. She's as liberal as the air. But she isn't good form—she isn't a swell, and no earthly power could make her so. Of course she doesn't think she has really lost caste. She may tell you that she does, but privately she has an immense belief in her ability to play the fine lady at a moment's notice. I don't know any woman more flatly disapproved of by her own original set. Shall I tell you what this idea of hers would result in if practically carried out? A distinct injury to yourself. She has a crowd of queer friends whom she wouldn't slight for the world; she's too consistently good-hearted. She'd invite them all, and they would all come. Her notable relations—the Van Horns and Van Corlears and Amsterdams and Hackensacks, and Heaven knows who else—would yawn and perhaps shudder when they got the tickets for her entertainment. They would mostly come, too, and all their grand friends would no doubt follow them. But they would come with a feeling of deadly rancor toward yourself; they would never forgive you for setting her up to it, and nothing could induce them to believe that you hadnotset her up to it." Here Goldwin crossed his legs with an impatient violence, and stared down at one of his shoes withenough intensity for it to have been concerned in the last caprice of the stock-market. "Oh, no," he went on, "that would never do. Never in the world. It wouldn't be acoupat all; it would be a monstrousfiasco. Take my advice, now, and politely but firmly nip any such proceeding in the bud."
Claire did. On his own side, Goldwin was secretly determined that she whom he thought the most fascinating, novel, and beautiful woman he had ever met, should achieve the full extent of her desires. These desires affected him much as they affected Hollister; they were part of Claire's charm for him; they were like the golden craft of scrollwork that framed the picture; they set it off, and made it more precious; there was a lovely imperiousness about them that would have bored him in another woman, like a kind of ugly greed, but that in her were a delight.
He had made up his mind to serve her, brilliantly, conspicuously, and he soon did so. He issued invitations for a dinner at Delmonico's, and gave it on a scale of splendor that eclipsed all his previous hospitalities. Rare music stole to the guests while they feasted; the board was literally pavilioned in flowers; the wines and the viands were marvels of rarity and cost; beside the plate of each lady lay a fan studded with her monogram in precious stones; during dessert a little cake was served to everybody present, which, when broken, contained a ring with the wordbienvenuembossed in silver along its golden circlet. The host had very carefully chosen his guests from among the autocrats and arbiters of fashion. Claire and Hollister were the only persons who did not represent aristocracy at its sovereign height. But on Claire fell the chief honors. It was she whomGoldwin conducted into the dining room; it was she to whom he directed the major share of his attentions, contriving with slight apparent effort that she should know every one else, and making it evident that the affair was held in large luxurious compliment to herself alone, though not thrusting this fact into more than partial prominence.
Goldwin, for certain marked reasons of his own, had been from the first resolved upon the attendance of Mrs. Ridgeway Lee. He sent no invitation to Mrs. Van Horn. He knew that Claire suspected the latter of adverse feelings, and he knew no more than this. But Mrs. Van Horn was not a necessity to the success of his festival; she could easily be replaced by some other leader, and it would be much better not to invite her at all than to invite her without avail. But Mrs. Lee must appear.
He had been prepared for refusal, and it promptly came. On the evening of the day it reached him, he presented himself at Mrs. Lee's residence. He found her alone. She had denied herself to four or five other gentlemen during the previous hour. She had expected Goldwin, though she tried to look decorously surprised when he entered her elegant little drawing-room.
She had chosen to clothe herself in black satin, the shimmer of whose tense-drawn fabric about bust and waist, and of its trailing draperies about the lower portion of her lithe person, gave to her strange beauty an almost startling oddity. An irreverent critic who had recently seen her in this robe had declared that she made him think of a wet eel. Allowing the comparison to have been apt, if ungallant, there is no doubt that she could have suggested onlyan eel very much humanized, with a face of quite as extraordinary feminine beauty as that possessed by the deadly lady whom Keats so weirdly celebrated.
Her dark eyes seemed to-night lit with the smouldering fires of fever. The moment Goldwin looked well at her he made up his mind that he was to have a hard time of it. She had undoubtedly guessed the purport of his dinner, and she meant to tell him so. He strongly suspected that she meant to tell him so, as well, with considerable verbal embellishment.
He pretended, in a playful way, to be dazzled by her fantastic apparel. He put both hands up to his eyes and rubbed them in a comic imitation of bewilderment.
"I'm not prepared to tell you whether I like it or not," he said, while he sank into one of the big, yielding chairs. "But I consider it splendidly effective. It makes you appear so beautifully slippery. You look as if you could slide into an indiscretion, and then squirm right out again without being observed by anybody."
Mrs. Lee bit her lip. She had often let him say more saucy things than this to her, and not resented them. But to-night her mood held no such tolerance.
"You once promised me," she said, "that you would never speak rudely about my personal appearance." She seemed to shape with some difficulty this and the sentences thatfollowedit. "I did not make myself. Perhaps if I had been granted that privilege I might have hit on a type more suited to your taste."
Goldwin shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, come," he said, "you've let me chaff you a hundred times before, and treated it as a joke."
He was still seated, while she stood. He forgot to think this a discourtesy toward her; he would have remembered it as such with almost any other woman; his outward manners were usually blameless; but perhaps he was no more at fault than she herself for the present negligence.
As it was, it did not strike her. She was thinking of other weightier things. A delicate table stood near her, and she half turned toward it, breaking from a massive basket of crimson roses one whose rich petals were heavy-folded and perfect, and fixing it in the bosom of her night-dark dress. Goldwin was watching her covertly but keenly all the while. She seemed to him like an incarnate tempest—he knew her so well. His furtive but sharp gaze saw the tremor in her slim, pale fingers as she dealt with the discompanioned rose.
Finding that she did not answer, he went on: "You're out of sorts to-night. Has anything gone wrong during the day?"
She tossed her head for an instant, and her lip curled so high that it showed the white edge of her teeth. But promptly she seemed to decide upon a mild and not a harsh retort. "I have been at the hospital most of the afternoon," she said. "I prayed for an hour beside a poor old woman who was dying with cancer." She gave a quick, nervous shudder. "It was horrible." She closed her eyes, then slowly unclosed them. "Horrible," she repeated, in her most measured way.
"It must have been simply ghastly," observed Goldwin, with dryness. "For Heaven's sake, why don't you swear off these debauches of charity for at least a month or two? They're completely breakingyou up. It's they that put you in these frightful humors."
She came several steps toward him, and sank into a chair quite close at his side. She twisted herself so inordinately, in taking this new posture, that her detractors would have decided the whole performance one of her most aggravating affectations. "What frightful humors?" she asked. This question had the same loitering, somnolent intonation that always belonged to her speech, and contrasted so quaintly with her nervous, volatile turns and poses.
Goldwin saw that the time had come. "Oh, you know what I mean," he said. "You went and refused my dinner. Of course you didn't mean it."
"I did mean it," said Mrs. Lee, very low indeed.
"Nonsense. I'm like an enterprising salesman. I won't take 'no' for an answer."
"I shall give you no other."
He leaned nearer to her. "What on earth is the matter?" he inquired. "I am going to make it a very nice affair. I don't think I've ever done anything quite as pretty as this will be. You used to tell me that no one did these things just as well as I. You used to say that if I ever left you out of one of my state feasts you'd cut my acquaintance."
She had drooped her small, dark head while he spoke, but now, as he finished, she raised it. Her tones were still low, but unwonted speed was in her words.
"I don't doubt you will make it a very nice affair. But you give it because you want to give distinction to a woman who has bewitched you. Don't deny that Mrs. Hollister will be there. I know it—I am certain of it."
"I don't deny it," said Goldwin, crossing his legs quietly, "now that you afford me a chance of stating it."
He saw her control an inward shiver from displaying more overt signs.
"Oh, well," she said, "do not let us discuss the question any more. I sent you my regret to-day. I have another engagement, as I told you."
"Another engagement is easily broken."
"It is a dinner engagement."
"I don't believe you."
"You are grossly rude."
"I know I am. It's perfectly awful. It's the first time I ever insulted a woman. I shall be in the depths of repentance all day to-morrow. I don't know if I shall ever really pardon myself. But ... I don't believe you, all the same."
He said this with a mournful deliberation that would at any other time have roused her most enjoying laughter; for he had in him the rich fund of true comedy, as many of his friends were wont loudly to attest, and at will he could draw flattering plaudits of mirth from even the gloomiest hearer.
But Mrs. Lee did not show the glimpse of a smile.
"There is no use," she said. "I have given you my answer. I shall not go. I shall not permit you to make of my name and position a mere idle convenience. I shall not lend you either one or the other, that it may serve your purpose in presenting to society any adventuress who may have pleased your fancy."
Goldwin was very angry at this speech. She had no idea how angry it had made him, as he quietly rose and faced her.
"What right have you to call her an adventuress?" he asked.
Her eyes flashed as she looked up at him. "Of course she is one. Her husband, too, is an adventurer. They're both trying to push themselves in among the best people. And you are helping them. You are helping him because of her; and you are helping her ... well, you are helping her because of herself."
Goldwin gave a smile at this. She perceived, then, how very angry he was. She knew his smile so well that when it came, different from any other she had ever seen on the same lips, it struck her by its cold novelty.
"You called upon this adventuress," he said; "you were willing to do that."
"Yes—to please you."
"Allow that as your reason. You called on her in private to please me. You will not meet her in public to please me. Is not that just how the case stands?"
She fixed her eyes on his face. Her feverish look had grown humid. He could plainly note that her lips trembled. She was so alive, now, to a sense of his being very indignant, that this realization frightened her, and she let him see, with pitiable candor, just how much it frightened her.
"You are in love with Mrs. Hollister," she murmured. "And—she is in love with you."
She showed him the full scope of his power by those few words. He walked toward the door, pausing on its threshold.
"I won't remain to hear you insult a woman whom I respect," he said; "you called her an adventuress, which is untrue; you now say something even worse."
"Will you deny it?" she asked, rising.
Her question had a plaintive, querulous ring, which the circumstances made something more than pathetic.
"Will you reconsider your refusal?" he said, making the interrogation a reply.
She sank back into her seat again.
"No, never!" she exclaimed.
"Good night," he returned. He went immediately out into the hall, put on his coat and hat, and left the house.
"She will yield," he told himself. "I am sure of it. She showed me that she would if I were only hard enough. I mean to be hard. I can make it up in kindness by and by."
He waited three days. No word came to him from Mrs. Lee. But on the fourth word came to him.
"I knew it," he thought, as he read her note.
Mrs. Lee went to the dinner in a truly marvelous gown. It was some curious blending of crimson and black silks, that made her look sombrely clad in one attitude and luridly clad in the next. Her only jewelry was a thin snake of rubies about her slender throat, and the head of the snake, set directly beneath her chin, was a big gold one, having two large garnets for eyes. All the women pronounced her costume ridiculously overdone. All the men professed to like it. She never appeared in gayer spirits. Next to Claire she was the most notable feminine guest.
But Claire ruled absolute. She had never been more beautiful, perhaps because she had never felt more secretly and victoriously exultant. The delicious music, the piercing yet tender odor of the lavish flowers, the insidious potency of the wines, whichshe sipped sparingly and felt dangerously tingle through her veins—all these influences wrought upon her a species of stimulating enthrallment which made the whole splendid banquet seem, on the following day, like some enchanted dream. On one side sat Goldwin, the genius who had created this lovely witchery, urbane, devoted, allegiant; on the other side sat a man of deserved eminence, a wit, a scholar, a statesman. She talked with both companions, and it could not be said that she then charmed both, for one was already her loyal devotee. As for the other, though advanced in years and freighted with pungent experiences, he soon tacitly admitted that he had at last found, at the most discriminating period of his career, a woman whose graces of intelligence and beauty met in faultless unison. As all the ladies rose, leaving the gentlemen to their coffee and cigars, he leaned toward Goldwin, even before Claire's draperies had swept the threshold of the dining-room, and significantly murmured:—
"You were right. She is an event."
That dinner was the stepping-stone by which Claire mounted into immediate triumph. All through the next year she was the reigning favorite in just that realm where she had aimed to reign. Her father had died a pauper and been buried as one. She, the mistress of many thousands, having fixedly remembered what a feeble, disappointed, obscure, broken-down man had said to her in early childhood, now stood as the living, actual result of his past counsel. Years ago the seed had been sown in that dingy little basement of One-Hundred-and-Twelfth Street. To-day the flower bloomed, rare and beautiful. The little girl had climbed the hill to its top, after all.She had not grown tired and gone home before the top was reached. She had done her father's bidding. She was sure he would be glad if he knew.
'And yet am I quite sure?' she would sometimes ask herself. 'Was this what he really meant when he spoke those words?'
She knew perfectly the folly of the course that she now pursued. Her occasional self-questionings were a hypocrisy that she realized while she indulged it. But they were very occasional. She had slight time for introspection, for analysis of her own acts.
Flattery and devotion literally poured in upon her, like the new wealth that continued to pour in upon her husband. The house in Twenty-Eighth Street was soon exchanged for a spacious mansion on Fifth Avenue. Claire ceased to know even the number of her servants. She had a housekeeper, who superintended their engagements and discharges. She dwelt in an atmosphere of excessive luxury, and found herself loving it more and more as she yielded to the spell of its subtle enervation.
Her second winter was the confirmation of her sovereignty. As the phrase goes, she was asked everywhere. Her bright or caustic sayings were ever on the lips of loyal quoters. Her toilettes were described with journalistic realism in more than a single newspaper. Cards for her entertainments were eagerly sought, and often vainly. Foreigners of distinction drifted into her drawing-rooms as if by a natural process of attraction. She had scarcely a moment of time to herself; when she was not entertaining she was being entertained. Her admirers, women and men, vied in efforts to secure her presence. She had acquired, as if by some magic instinct, the last neededpersonal touch; she had got the grand air to perfection. Diplomatists who had met and known the most noted beauties of European courts had nothing but praise to pay her serene elegance of deportment, the undulating grace of her step, the nice melody of her voice, the fine wizardry of her smile. She had never seen Europe, yet she might have spent all the years of her youth on its soil with no lovelier results than those which now marked her captivating manner. She was American, past question, to transatlantic eyes; yet these found in her only the original buoyancy and freshness of that nationality, without a gleam of its so-termed coarseness.
Foes, of course, rose up against her. There can be no sun without shadow. She had made herself so distinct a rarity that cheapening comment could not fail to begin its assault. It did so, in hot earnest. Two women had denied their sanction to her sudden popularity. These were Mrs. Van Horn and Mrs. Ridgeway Lee. They were not open enemies; neither, to all appearances, were they covert ones. They were on speaking terms with her. They met her constantly, yet they offered her no deference. Deference was what she now required, and with a widely-admitted right.
The invidious statements that stole into circulation regarding her could not be traced either to the vengeance of Beverley Thurston's sister or the jealousy of Stuart Goldwin's abandoned worshiper. It is possible that the most leal of Claire's defenders never thought of so tracing them. But the statements were made, and took wing. She had been a vulgar girl of the people. Her parentage was of the most plebeian sort. A lucky marriage had given her thechance, now accepted and enlarged. Her maiden name had been this, that, and the other. She was absolutely nobody.
Claire heard none of these scorching comments. She reigned too haughtily for that. Mrs. Diggs heard them, but Mrs. Diggs betrayed no sign of their existence. Goldwin was now devotedly at Claire's side; they were repeatedly seen in public together; the world in which she ruled considered it a splendid subjugation; she had brought the great Wall Street King obsequiously to her feet.
But no breath of slander tainted the relation between them. Claire had been very clever; she had blunted the first arrow, so to speak. She had done so by means of her complete innocence. Goldwin was in love with her; no one doubted this. It was something notable to have said of one. But she was so safely not in love with Goldwin that she could continually, by strokes of frank tact, show the world her own calm recipiency and his entire subservience. A swift yet sure chasm widened between herself and Hollister. The latter had become a man of incessant and imperative engagements. Claire never dreamed of feeling a jealous pang, and yet she knew that her husband, no less than herself, had become a star of fashion. Hollister was assiduously courted. He and Claire would now meet once a day, and sometimes not so often. They had separate apartments; it was so much more convenient for both. The same dinner-engagement frequently claimed them; but on these occasions she would appear in the lower hall to meet him, rustling beneath some new miracle of dressmaking, and they would get into the carriage together and be driven to the appointed place. Atthe dinner they would be widely separated. He would sit beside some woman glad to have secured him; she would be the companion of some man happy because of her nearness. The dinner would break up; the hour would be somewhat late; they would get into their carriage; Hollister would have an appointment, at the club, or somewhere. He would let Claire into the great new house with his latch-key. "Good night," he would say, and hurry off into the carriage that had waited for him. Claire would ascend and be disrobed by a sleepy maid. To-morrow there would perhaps be another dinner, of the same sort. Or it might be an affair to which she went alone, and from which Goldwin accompanied her home. Goldwin was always prepared to accompany her. He obeyed her nod.
But Hollister was still her devout subject. It was merely that the sundering stress of circumstances divided them. He did not forget Claire; he postponed her. Everything was in a whirl with him, now; he was shooting rapids, so to speak, and by and by he would be in still water again. For the present, he had only time to tell himself that Claire was getting on magnificently well. It was like driving four or six restive horses abreast, with his wife seated at his side. He must attend to the skittish brutes, as it were; her safety, no less than his own, depended on his good driving. But she was there at his side; he felt comfortably sure of this fact, though he could not turn and look at her half often enough.
The January of this second winter had been prolific in heavy snow-storms, and the sleighing had filled town with its jocund tinkles. One afternoon Claire, leaning back in a commodious sleigh, andmuffled to the throat in furry robes, stopped at Mrs. Diggs's house, and the two ladies were driven together into the Park. It was a perfect afternoon of its kind. There was no wind; the cold was keen but still; not a hint of thaw showed itself in the banks of powdery snow skirting either edge of the streets, or in those pure, unroughened lapses which clad the spacious Park, beneath the black asperity of winter trees, traced against a sky of steely blueness.
Claire was in high spirits; her laugh had a ring as clear as the weather. Mrs. Diggs shivered under the protective wraps of the sleigh. "My circulation was never meant for this sort of thing," she said, at length. "We've gone far enough, haven't we, Claire? It's nearly dark, too."
This was a most glaring fallacy, coined by the desperation of poor Mrs. Diggs's discomfort. But the chilly light was growing a blue gloom above the massed housetops when the two ladies found themselves at Claire's door.
It had been arranged that they should dine quietly together that evening. Hollister would not be at home, and Claire, for a wonder, would. Mrs. Diggs had been complaining, of late, that she never had a moment of privacy with her friend. Claire had agreed, three days ago, to disappoint for one night all who were seeking her society. "We shall have a cosey dinner," she had said, "of just you and me. We will chat of everything—past, present, and future."
Mrs. Diggs recalled that word 'cosey' as she entered Claire's proud dining-room, with its lofty arched ceiling, where little stars of gold gleamedfrom dark interspaces between massive rafters of walnut. She crouched on a soft rug beside the deep, large fire-place, in which great logs were blazing. And while she basked in the pleasant glow, her eye wandered about the grave grandeurs of the noble room, scanning its dusky traits of wainscot, tapestry, tropic plants, or costly pictures: for all was in sombre shadow except the reddened hearth and the small central table, on whose white cloth two great clusters of wax-lights had been set, stealing their colors from a group of flowers, and its clean sparkle from the glass and silver. The whole table was like a spot of light amid the stately dimness.
"Really, very splendid indeed, Claire," said Mrs. Diggs, in a sort of ruminative ellipsis, letting her eye presently rest on the tips of her own upheld fingers, which the firelight had turned into that milky pink that we often see float through opals. "But I really think I liked the little basement house better, take it all in all."
"Did you?" murmured Claire, who was standing near her, enjoying the warmth, but not bathing in it like her half-frozen friend. "I didn't."
A very impressive butler soon glided into the room, and told Madame in French that she was served. Mrs. Diggs scrambled to her feet; the majesty of the butler had something to do with her speed in performing this act, though hunger was perhaps concerned in it.
"That dreadful sleigh-ride has left me my appetite," she said, while seating herself opposite Claire, "so I see it hasn't quite killed me."
"I think you will survive it," said Claire, with one of her little musical laughs.
There was not much talk between the two friends while dinner lasted, and what there was took a desultory and aimless turn. The butler waited faultlessly; there were eight courses; Claire had said that it would be a very plain dinner, and Mrs. Diggs secretly smiled as she remembered the words. The cooking was perfect; it had all of what thegourmetswould call Parisian sentiment, though no undue richness. Claire ate sparingly, yet with apparent relish. She drank a little champagne, which she had poured into a goblet and mixed with water. There were other wines, but she touched none of them. Mrs. Diggs did, however, sipping three or four, until she lost her chalky wanness of tint and almost got a touch of actual color.
"I never take but one wine, as a rule," she said, "and that's claret. But the sleigh-ride chilled me to the bone. I begin to feel quite warm and comfortable, now. Do you always take champagne, Claire?"
"Always. But only a little. It's companionable to touch your lips to, now and then, when you sit through those very long dinners. I suppose the dullness of certain society originally drove me to it. But I am very careful."
'What an air she said that with!' thought Mrs. Diggs. 'And one year ago, at Coney Island, she was unknown, unnoticed.'
The whole repast was exquisite. While it lasted, Claire never once spoke to the butler. He needed no orders; everything was done as well and as silently as it could be done. In his way he was an irreproachable artist, like the invisiblechefbelow stairs, who had evoked this blameless dinner from the chaos of the uncooked.
Just at the end of dessert, Claire said to her guest: "Shall you take coffee?"
"Oh, dear, no," replied Mrs. Diggs; "I don't even dare. I'm nervous enough as it is."
But Claire had coffee, black as ink, and served to her in a tiny cup as thin as a rose-leaf. Presently the two friends became aware that they were alone. The butler had gone without seeming to go. Like a mysteriousau revoirhe had left behind him two crystal finger-bowls, with a slim slice of lemon floating in each. Claire had finished her coffee. She rose and leaned toward the flowers in the centre of the table. As her fingers played among them they seemed to break, almost of their own accord, into two separate bunches. She went round to Mrs. Diggs and gave her one of these, retaining the other. Presently each had made for herself an impromptucorsage. Mrs. Diggs had not spoken for several minutes; she had indeed been abnormally quiet ever since the butler's departure. The calm, graceful splendor of it all had awed her. It had such a finish, such a choiceness, such gentle dignity of execution.
"Shall we sit near the fire?" asked Claire, as together they moved from the table. "Or would you prefer one of the drawing-rooms?"
"The fire is so lovely," said Mrs. Diggs. "Let's sit here." She dropped into a chair as she spoke. Claire also seated herself, not far from the fire, though a little distance away from her friend.
Suddenly the flood-gates of Mrs. Diggs's enthusiasm burst open. She had considerable silence to make up for. "Oh, Claire," she exclaimed, "it's justperfect!I don't see how you do it! I don't see where on earth you got the experience from! If Ihad seven times your moneyIcouldn't begin to have my household machinery move in this delightful, well-oiled way. My servants would steal; mychefwould get drunk; my magnificence would all go awry; I'm sure it would!"
Claire laughed. "I'm very composed about it all," she said. "I keep quite cool. I like it, too. There is a great deal in that. I don't mean management so much as the superintendence of others' management. I'm a sort of born overseer."
"You're a born leader." Mrs. Diggs was looking at her very attentively now. "And how capably youareleading! How you've carried your point, Claire! I observe you, and absolutely marvel! I can't realize that you are really and trulymyConey Island Claire, don't you know? You've shot up so. You're so mighty. It's like a dream."
"It's a very pleasant dream."
She said this archly and mirthfully. But Mrs. Diggs on a sudden became solemn.
"Claire," she went on, "you remember what I told you in our little confab, the other day, at the Lauderdales' reception? It's true, my dear. You're like a person at a gambling-table, who begins to play for pastime and ends by playing for greed. You know I dote on you, and you know I never choose my words when I'm in downright earnest. Your love for pomp and luxury, my dear, is becoming a vice. Yes, an actual vice. You don't take your triumphs moderately, as you do your champagne-and-water. You drink deep of them, and let them fly to your head. Oh, I can see it well enough. And I tremble for you, I tremble, Claire, because" ...
"Well? Because?" ...
She put these questions with a smile, as Mrs. Diggs paused. But it was a smile of the lips only.
"Oh, because affairs might change in a day, almost an hour. You know just what vast risks your husband constantly runs. You know whatmighthappen."
Claire rose at this. Her repose was gone; her piquant excitability had seemed abruptly to return. She did not appear in the least angry. Mrs. Diggs would have liked it better if she had shown a wrathful sign or two.
"Don't let us talk of those grim matters, please," she said. She came very close to her companion, and then, taking both the latter's hands, sank down on her knees. Her face was lit with a charming yet restless cheerfulness. "Dear friend, you spoke a minute ago of my triumphs. Do you know, I've never secured just what I wanted until to-day? You thought I had, but you were wrong. Shall I tell you why?" Mrs. Diggs was inwardly thinking, as one ill-favored but generous woman will sometimes think of another, how purely enchanting was her manner, and how richly she deserved to win the social distinction she had attained.
"I suppose you mean, Claire, that Hollister to-day completed the last thousand of his fourth or fifth million, eh?"
"Oh, not at all. I don't mean anything of the sort. I don't know anything about Herbert's affairs, nowadays. He keeps them all to himself."
"Well, then, what is it?"
"You'll laugh when you hear. You recollect the great ladies' luncheon that I am to give next Friday?"
"Of course I do. I'm going to honor it."
"And so are two others. Mrs. Van Horn and Mrs. Ridgeway Lee. They have never honored anything of mine until now. Poor Mrs. Arcularius yielded, and bowed before me, long ago. My old school-enemy, Ada Gerrard, more freckled, more arrogant, more stupid than ever, is one of my most willing allies. I had conquered them all, but I could not conquer those two women. They stood aloof, and their standing aloof was a perpetual distress."
"Claire, Claire," exclaimed Mrs. Diggs, "you make me wonder at you! What was the hostility of these two women, whether open or repressed? You had all the others to pay you court. Why should you have cared? They saw your success. They are powerful, but their power could not keep you from asserting and maintaining yours. I repeat, why should you care?"
"I did care. But it is all over now." She rose to her feet, with a full laugh, as she said these words. "They are coming to my luncheon. They have both accepted. They have acknowledged me. I have forced them to do so."
She uttered that last sentence with a mock fierceness that ended in laughter. But she could not hide from her friend the intense seriousness from which these expressions had sprung.
Before Mrs. Diggs could answer, a servant entered the room by one of the draped doorways leading into thesalonsbeyond. He was not the butler, who had so admirably served them at dinner, but a footman, charged with other special offices. He handed Claire a card, which she read and tossed aside. The next moment she dismissed him by a slight motion of the hand.
"Let me see that card," said Mrs. Diggs. "Has anybody called whom I know?"
Claire was looking straight into the tumbled, lurid logs of the hearth.
"Yes, you know him, of course," she said. "It was only Stuart Goldwin. I am not at home to-night. Not to any one except you, I mean. I gave orders."
A silence ensued. Mrs. Diggs presently made one of her plunges. "Claire, they say that Goldwin is madly in love with you."
She gave a sharp turn of the neck, fixing her eyes on her friend's face. "That isallthey say, I hope. They can't say—well, you understand what they cannotsay."
"That you care for him? Well, no.... You have been very discreet. You have arranged wonderfully. Very few women could have done it with the same nicety."
Claire threw back her head, with a haughty, fleeting smile. "Any woman could have done it who felt safe—perfectly safe, as I feel."
"You mean that this grand Goldwin, who sways the stock-market, can't quicken your pulse by one degree."
She looked steadily at Mrs. Diggs. "I did not say that I meant that. But I do, if you choose to ask me point blank. We're very good friends. He amuses me. I fancy that I amuse him. If I do more he doesn't tell me so. He understands what would happen if he did."
She was staring at the fire again. Its lustres played upon the silken folds of her dress, and made the gold glimmers start and fade in her chestnut hair.
Mrs. Diggs was not reclining in her chair; she was leaning sideways, with both black eyes riveted on Claire's half-averted face.
"Claire," she said, "I'm so awfully glad to hear you say that. It makes me like you better, if such a thing were possible. Upon my word, to be frank, in the most friendly way, Ididthink there was a little danger, don't you know, of.... Well, you've settled all doubts, of course. But then, my dear, you never were enormously fond of Hollister. You let him adoreyou, don't you know? Oh, I've seen it all. There's no use in getting angry."
"I'm not angry," said Claire. She was again looking full at her friend. She had put one dainty-booted foot on the low gilt trellis which rose between the rug and the hearthstone. "We seem to drift upon very unpleasant subjects this evening," she continued. "I am afraid our little intimate reunion is not going to be a success."
"Youareangry!" exclaimed Mrs. Diggs, reproachfully. "You've changed, Claire. You're not the same to me as you were before you became a great lady. Now, don't deny it. You feel your oats, as my dear Manhattan would say. You keep me at a distance. You"—
Here Mrs. Diggs paused, for the same footman who had before appeared now made a second entrance. This time he handed Claire a note. "There is no answer, Madame," he said in French, and at once softly vanished.
"Pardon me," said Claire, as she tore open the envelope. Mrs. Diggs watched her while she read the contents of the note. Her perusal took some time. She read the three written pages once, twice,thrice. Her face had grown very grave in the meanwhile.
Suddenly she crumpled the note in one hand, and flung it into the fire. Her eyes flashed and her lip quivered as she did so.
"For Heaven's sake, Claire," appealed her friend, "whatisthe matter? I suppose Cornelia or Sylvia Lee sends a regret for luncheon. You are so foolish to mind what they do! You recollect what I used to tell you about Cornelia. But why should you mind her airs and caprices now? You are utterly above her—or rather, you have shown her that two can reign in the same kingdom. You could cut her dead with perfect impunity. That's a good deal to say, don't you know, but you positively could!"
"No, no," said Claire, with a clouded face and a little wave of the hand, "it has nothing to do with either of those women. It is" ... here she paused, and her breath came quick. "It is from Beverley Thurston."
"Beverley!" exclaimed Mrs. Diggs. "Why, he's in Europe."
"He got back yesterday. He has learned about me. I suppose his sister has told him. And he writes to me in a tone of impertinence. Yes, it's nothing else. He writes to me as if I were some sinful creature. He presumes to be sorry for me. He says that he will pay me a visit if I can spare him an hour from the giddy life I am leading.... I don't remember the exact words he uses; it is not so much what he writes as what he seems to write. The whole note breathes of patronage and commiseration. Tome!—think of it! What right has he? What right did I ever give him?"
Mrs. Diggs started up from her chair. "Why, my dear Claire," she said, "you are greatly excited!"
"I am miserable!" cried Claire. She almost staggered toward Mrs. Diggs, and flung both arms about her friend's neck. "I am miserable—miserable!" she went on, with a sudden paroxysm of tears. She leaned her proud young head on Mrs. Diggs's bony shoulder, beginning to sob quite wildly. "Do I deserve reproaches? Have I been so wrong? What evil have I done? Let my conscience trouble me if it will, butheis not my conscience. How darehereproach me?"
A violent seizure of sobs made Claire incapable of further speech. Mrs. Diggs let the clinging arms clasp her. She did not know what to answer; she scarcely knew what to think. She only felt, at that unexpected moment, that she loved Claire very much, and would always stay her stanch friend, no matter what bitter ill might overtake her.
AsClaire was descending into the lower hall, at about four o'clock the next afternoon, she saw her husband enter the house with his latch-key. She quickened her step a little, and met him at the landing of the stairs. They had not seen each other for twenty-four hours; she had breakfasted in her room, that morning, as was of late almost habitual with her, and by the time that she left it he had been driven away in his brougham. On the previous night he had reached home long after she had retired to bed. All this was no new thing. Its first and second occurrence had shocked them both, as an unforeseen result of their altered existence. But repetition had set it securely among the commonplaces. They accepted it, now, with a matter-of-course placidity.
"I was going to the Vanvelsors' reception," Claire said. "Did you think of dropping in?"
"No," answered Hollister. He had taken her hand, and was holding it while he spoke. The next moment he kissed her cheek, and soon let his eye wander over the complex tastefulness of her attire. He then drew her arm within his own, and led her toward the near drawing-room, whose threshold they crossed. Except his recorded monosyllable, he had said nothing for an appreciable time, and Claire, regarding his face with a sidelong glance, had already detected there marked signs of worriment.
"No," he presently continued, taking a seat on one of the rich-clad sofas, and gently forcing her to sit beside him. "I had no idea of going there. I don't feel like anything gay, Claire. Things are doing horribly on the Street. There's a dreadful squall. I hope it will be only a squall, and soon blow over." He then named a certain stock in which he had very comprehensive interests. "It has dropped in the most furious fashion," he proceeded. "Claire, I've lost seventy thousand dollars to-day, if I've lost a penny."
He talked more technically of his ill-luck after that, and told her what he believed to be the reason of the adverse change. She listened with great attention. She knew so much of Wall Street matters that she scarcely missed a point in all that he explained.
"So Goldwin is on the other side," she said, when he had finished.
"Yes, Goldwin is safe. But you can't tell what to-morrow will bring. No one is really safe. Prices are flying about. It's a shocking state of affairs."
"There is nothing for you to do just now, is there?" Claire asked, after a little pause.
"Oh, no; I may get a few telegrams later. But nothing serious will happen till to-morrow."
She laid her hand on his arm. She was more alarmed and perplexed than she chose to show. "Then come with me to the reception," she said; "you might as well, Herbert. It is better than to brood over the state of matters down there."
He shook his head negatively. "I should make a very bad guest," he replied. "Go yourself, Claire. But remember one thing." He was looking at her very fixedly; his frank blue eyes were full of a softyet assertive pain. "Our life may alter suddenly for the worse. We may have to give up all this." He waved one hand here and there, as though generalizing the whole luxurious encompassment. "There is no telling whatmayhappen. I never felt the insecurity of my career as I feel it now. Do you know, Claire, that a few more such days as this may ruin me?"
"Ruin you?" she repeated.
She was pale as those words left her lips. Hollister had proposed to her a terrible possibility.
"Yes, Claire, I mean it. Of course I am looking at the worst that might happen. But I want to prepare you."
She rose, keeping her eyes on his. "I don't know what I should do," she said, "if I lost what I have now. I have grown used to it, Herbert. I won't let myself think that it might pass away—that I should be left without all these good and precious things."
As she spoke the last words he rose also, and caught both her hands, looking eagerly into her face.
"Claire," he exclaimed, "youmustthink of losing it all! Youmusttry to reconcile yourself with the idea! If you don't, the ordeal will be all the harder when it comes."
"When it comes?" she again repeated.
"Yes—you see just how I stand. You have grasped the whole wretched situation. Of course there's a chance that I may right myself, but" ...
"I'll take that chance," she broke in, quite forcibly withdrawing her hands. "So will you, Herbert. I prefer to look at it this way. We will both take the chance."
Hollister's face was full of reproach.
"Claire!" he exclaimed. "I see that you love this new life with a positive passion!"
"I love it very much," she answered. "I love it so much that I should suffer fearfully if I were turned adrift from it.... Come, we will both go to the Vanvelsors' reception."
"No," replied Hollister. He walked away from her. By her lack of sympathy she had dealt him a cruel sting.
"Very well," responded Claire, as she watched his receding figure, "Iam going."
His back was turned to her, but he suddenly veered round, facing her, and saying, with a bitter sharpness: "Go, if you please! Go, and leave me to my misery! If you cared for me in the right manner, you would not want to go. You would want to stay with me, and forget, for a while at least, the gay crowds that admire and court you!"
These words were utterly unexpected. He had never before alluded to her lack of fondness. She was embarrassed, ashamed. For a moment she could not speak. Then she simulated an affronted demeanor; it seemed her sole refuge. "I—I care for you as much as I have always cared," she said. "No more and no less."
She moved toward the door at once, after thus speaking. She wondered if he would seek to detain her. He did not.... She entered her coupé very soon afterward. During the drive to Mrs. Vanvelsor's reception she had a keen remembrance of just how Hollister had looked when her final gaze had dwelt upon him. She knew that she had stung at last into life the perception of how much he had beengiving and how little he had received. Her conscience sternly smote her; she was more than once on the verge of ordering that the vehicle should be driven home again. But in her then mood any attempt at amendment seemed wildly futile. What could she say to her husband? That she deplored his possible ruin? Yes; but not that such regret sprang from the sweet sources of a wifely, unselfish love. She could not regard the possibility of being flung downward from her present high place with any unselfish feeling. Mrs. Diggs had touched the living and sensitive truth last night: her thirst for luxury had grown a vice. Soft raiment, obsequious attendance, a place of supreme social distinction, all these had become vitally, imperiously needful to her happiness.
It was not the sort of happiness which she believed high or fine. She could most clearly conceive of another, less fervid, less material, less intoxicating, fraught with a spiritual incentive and an intellectual meaning. But it was too late to dream of that now. She had taken the bent; she must have power or nothing. She regarded the idea of being obscure and with straitened funds as a calamity simply horrible. Hollister must think her cruel as death; that was inevitable. She did not blame him for blaming her. She blamed herself for having married him with loveless apathy. His reproachful words haunted her—but what could she do? He wanted genuine tenderness, sympathy, fortifying cheer. But he wanted these from an impulse of which her heart had always been incapable. Fate was avenging itself upon her. She had tampered with holy things. Her marriage oath had been a mockery. Could she go back and tell him this? Could she go back andlie to him, feign before him? No; best that she should not go back at all.
The reception was a great crush. But they seemed to make way for her with a sort of obeisance. No one jostled against her; they all appeared to give her a little elbow-room in the throng, while they either bowed or stared. She was secretly agonized. She smiled and spoke as effectively as usual; she held her court among them all, as of late she had invariably held it. But her heart was sick; she was besieged by a portentous dread, and she was pierced with that self-contempt whose length of thrust is measured by a consciousness of how far the being we might have become surpasses the being that we are. While she stood the centre of a small, courtly group, a gentleman softly pushed his way into her notice and held out his hand. She took the hand, and looked well into the face of him who had extended it. The new-comer was Beverley Thurston. As Claire looked she swiftly noted that his familiar face wore marked signs of change. He had distinctly aged. The gray at his temples had grown grayer; the crows'-feet under his hazel eyes were a little more apparent; perhaps, too, his gravity of manner was more clearly suggested by a first glance. At the same time she felt herself regarding him in a new light and by the aid of amplified experience. She silently and fleetly made him stand a test, so to speak, and at once decided that he stood it well. She had met no man since they had parted who bespoke high-breeding and gentility with more immediate directness.
"I thought I should find you here," he said, as their hands dropped apart.
"Did you come on that account?" she asked.
"Not entirely, because I had great fears of not being able to do more than watch you from a distance."
"Ah," she said, with a pretty graciousness, and loud enough for all the others to hear, "you have an excellent claim upon me—that of old acquaintance."
Her surrounders felt that there was either dismissal or desertion waiting for them. She managed to make it promptly plain that her favoring heed had been wholly transferred to Thurston; she showed it to them with a cool boldness which they would have resented with resolves of future neglect if indulged in by many another woman present; for they were all men who put a solid worth upon their courtesies, and had a fastidious reluctance ever to be charged with sowing them broadcast.
But Claire had long ago learned that the security of her reign depended upon an occasional open proof of how she herself trusted its power. She had guessed the peril of continuing monotonously clement. To talk with Thurston now interested her more than any other conversational project. It was not long before she had slipped her hand into his arm, and was saying, as they moved through the crowd:—
"If you care to go into the conservatory, we shall find it much pleasanter there, I think."
The house was one of those new and majestic structures near the Park. It occupied a corner, sweeping far backward from Fifth Avenue into an adjacent street. It had an almost imperial amplitude, and was a building in which no lordly or pleasurable detail seemed to have been overlooked. Theconservatory, whose spacious interior wooed through breadths of glass its kindest warmth from the churlish winter sunshine, was of refreshing temperature after the heated rooms beyond, while its masses of leafing or blooming plants loaded the air with delightful odors.
A few people were strolling about the cool courts, as Claire and Thurston now entered them. The entertainment of to-day was a kind of house-warming; the Vanvelsors, in current metropolitan phrase, were old people, but their present mansion was new in a decisive sense; they had migrated hither from a residence in Bond Street, where they had dwelt for forty years or more. The push of the younger generation, left with inherited millions, had thus architecturally asserted itself. Few of their guests knew the ways of their changed and palatial home. But Claire knew them; she had dined in this imposing abode not less than a fortnight ago. There were many bearers of precious Dutch names who had known the Vanvelsors for many decades; but Claire had been preferred to hosts of these nice-lineaged legitimists. She was the fashion; other people were paying homage to her; the younger Vanvelsors liked everything that was the fashion; they had paid homage, too.
"We can find a seat," Claire said to her companion; "the place is not full, as you see; we might sit yonder, in those two vacant chairs—that is, if you care to sit; I do; I am tired."
It was not until they were both seated, with glossy tropical leaves touching their heads, that Thurston answered:—
"You say you are tired. That might mean a little or a great deal. Which does it mean?"
Claire responded with a question, looking at him fixedly.
"Why did you write me that letter?" she said.
"Did it offend you?" he asked.
"No and yes. You might not have reproached me until you knew more of the real truth."
Thurston stroked his gray mustache. "I think I knew all the truth," he said. "I know it now, at least."
"Your sister has told you," Claire retorted, with speed.
"Yes and no," he responded, not mocking her own recent words, yet leaving a distinct impression that he had half repeated them. "You forget that I have seen you reigning on your new throne."
"Let us be candid," said Claire. "Your note was almost a sneer."
He slowly shook his head. "It was a regret."
"You think I might have done greater things."
"I think you might have done better things."
"You admit that I have achieved success?"
"A marvelous success. It shows your extraordinary gifts. The town, in a certain way, is ringing with your name. If an ordinary woman had gained your place she would have found in it a splendid gratification. She would have been amply, perfectly satisfied."
"You mean that I am not satisfied. Pray allow it. Your tones and your look both show it me."
Thurston smiled, transiently and sadly. "I mean that you are miserable," he said.
Claire bit her lip, and slightly drooped her head. "You have no cause to tell me that."
He leaned closer to her. "I do tell you. It istrue. I saw it in your face when I first looked at you. There is a change. I can't define it, but it exists. You are more beautiful than when I saw you last. You have an air of ease, dignity, command. But you express a kind of superb weariness, and yet occasional flashes of excitement are in your talk and demeanor. You see, I have watched you from a distance; I have my opinions."
"Yes, you have your opinions," said Claire, lifting her head and directly regarding him. "That is very plain."
"It all makes an exquisite picture," Thurston continued. "I have seen the world, as you know. I have seen many beautiful women. Your personality, as I now encounter it, is an absolute astonishment to me. I don't know where, in these few months, you acquired your repose, your serenity, your magnificence, your air. Do you remember what I told you of the restless American type that you represent? I knew you would strive to rise; it was in you; you pushed to the front, as I was sure you would do. But I had no prescience of this mighty accomplishment."
"You are sneering at me, as your note sneered," said Claire, looking at him steadily. "Acknowledge it. I perceive it with great accuracy. I somehow cannot answer you as I would answer another. You warned me months ago. You knew what I desired, and told me of the danger that lay in my path. I recollect all that you wanted me to try and be. Perhaps Iwouldhave tried, under differing conditions."
She paused, and Thurston instantly said, "As my wife you would have tried—and succeeded."
"Perhaps," she answered, very low of tone, notmeeting his look. "But all that is past. Don't pull corpses out of graves."
"My love for you is living," he said to her. There was no touch of passion in his voice; there was only a mournful respect. "I don't think I am wrong to speak of it now. There's a sanctity and chastity about the feeling I bear for you which the fact of your being a wife does not affect. I want to know the man whom you have married; I am curious to meet him and know him well. He has a large publicity, as you are aware. They have heard of him in Europe."
"I understand the question you wish to put yet do not," Claire said, at this point. "You lead up to it very adroitly; I might play the rôle of ignorant innocence, if I chose. But I do not choose. You want to ask me whether I loved the man I married."
Thurston again stroked his mustache, for a moment. "Yes," he presently said, "I should like to know that."
A silence now ensued between them. Claire broke it. "He loved me," she said.
"Which means that you did not care for him?"
"Oh, yes. I cared very much. It was no worldly sale of myself. He was not even rich when I married him. He attracted me—in a manner charmed me. I felt that I should never meet another man who would attract and charm me more. Do you understand?"
"Thoroughly.... Since then you have met Stuart Goldwin. I know him well. He is a man of exceptional fascination. They tell me that he is your slave."
"Do they?" said Claire, coloring under this rapidattack of candor. "Well, if he is my slave—which I, of course, deny—then I am not his. They did not tell you that, I am sure. They did not even hint it."
"No. You have escaped the least breath of scandal."
"Be sure that I have. And I shall continue to escape it. I recollect that you once declared I was cold, and that my coldness would prove a safeguard. 'It is very protective to a woman,' you said."
"Quote me in full or not at all," he corrected, with a grim pleasantry. "I said that it is very protective to a woman—while it lasts."
"True," returned Claire. "And ithaslasted. I prophesied that it would last, and I was right.... By the way, from whom have you learned all these important items? Perhaps from your sister. She is not my friend."
Thurston started a little. "She is not your enemy?" he said, putting the words as a distinct question.
"I hope not. But I am by no means sure. Thus far she has held herself aloof from me. She has not openly opposed me, but she has behaved with telling reserve. Everybody else has paid me tribute, so to speak. No, I am wrong. There is one other woman—her cousin, Mrs. Lee."
"Of course you know why poor Sylvia would be your foe. She is madly in love with Goldwin; she has been for years. You must have cost her dire pangs."
Claire chose to ignore this last statement. "I think your sister dislikes me from pride," she said. "I mean pride of family." Here she paused for amoment, and seemed almost bashfully reluctant to proceed. But her hesitation had in it a gentle, unassuming modesty; it sprang wholly from unwillingness to touch on a subject which she knew that only the most delicate tact should deal with, if to deal with it at all were not folly and rashness. "Your sister found out," she softly continued, "that you had liked me enough to ask me to be your wife. Heaven knows, Beverley Thurston, thatIdid not tell her!"
Thurston looked very grave. "I told her," he said. "Or rather, she drew it from me. I was foolish to let her. Cornelia is so clever.... Well," he suddenly went on, with an unusual show of animation, "do you mean that she accused you of having rejected me?"
"She did not put it in the form of an accusation. She stated it. Wait; I will tell you more; I will tell when, where, and how it all happened."
Claire did so. He listened with deep attention. She narrated the whole episode of her well-remembered conversation with his sister in the dining-room at the Coney Island hotel.
"Ah, what a woman that sister of mine is!" he exclaimed, in his subdued way, as Claire finished. "I must talk with her. I dine there to-night. I will find out if this knowledge has been at the root of her late behavior."
Claire laid her gloved hand lightly on his sleeve. "I think it best to say nothing. I feel that you are my friend—always my friend. As such you will more discreetly let matters rest where they are."