XVIII
He found no fault with his rooms. They were not those of a poor student with a great future, but they were severe, masculine, and entirely adequate. When he had taken a cold swim in his marble tank, and exercised for half an hour in his gymnasium, the blood which his father’s millions had shocked to his brain receded and left it clear and logical again. But he was by no means reconciled to his lot; he feared the stifling influences of wealth, of which he had read in so many books. To make a great fortune in constant warfare with all the difficulties, acquiring a painful knowledge of the value of every dollar, was an achievement which might easily lead to greater accomplishment still, but to fling a man on his back without warning and pour gold over him by the ton—
He left his room abruptly and walked slowly downstairs. “What’s the use of thinking about it? or about what was to have been?—my absurd impossible past, which I shall put away in lavender and cherish like a dead love. There is nothing to be done but to make the best of a bad business, re-adapt myself—mortals are always doing that, anyhow. I shall ask for a respite before settling down to it, however.”
When he reached the main floor he turned into the reception-room and strolled through the several large and lofty rooms which ended in a music-room of immense proportions. He inferred that it was the largest in New York; and, still feeling sore and satirical, returned to a more appreciative inspection of the other rooms. Thattheir harmonies were exquisite he needed no telling, and he thought the pale soft tints, as faded and elusive as charming old memories, a pleasant contrast to his beloved Nature. That the few pictures were as great in art as they must be in price he also knew instinctively, and found consolation in the reflection that his father did not belong to the class of millionaires who furnished with a single check and leaned upon the agent and the decorator. The rich worn oddly built furniture looked as if brooding in cold aloofness upon an historic past, yet not wholly dissatisfied with its present. Where there were no pictures, bits of brocade, which looked as if a breath might waft them in search of their makers, had been inserted with such skill that they were a part of the background of tarnished gold. Not a chair, not a table, not a cabinet, was formed like anything Fessenden had ever seen, and there were numberless objects for which he had no name; but he approved of everything; indeed, they gave him a distinct pleasure—caressed the raw edges of his resentment, and inclined his mind more philosophically to his new condition.
When his eye had mastered the general effect, it took note of the exceeding repetition of one object, the photograph of a girl. There were perhaps twenty of these large photographs in the different rooms, framed in silver, in gold, in brilliants, in semi-precious stones, on tables, on easels, on shelves. One massive gold frame, incrusted with jewels, bore aloft the double eagle of the House of Hapsburg. Across all these pictures was dashed, rather than written, the nameRanata, followed by an inscription in German, French, English, or in another language for which Fessenden had no name. The girl herself was taken in full, in profile, on horseback, sitting in throne-like chairs, leaning on balustrades, at any age from ten to eighteen, and in as many different costumesas there were photographs. Fessenden sniffed at the vanity of woman, but concluded that he had never seen such a seat in the saddle, and that she certainly looked as if she knew her own mind. Whether he admired her or not he was unable to determine. She had an antique profile, and her eyes were as American as his own—shrewd, alert, eager, powerful. One of the photographs was colored, and the hair blazed, but the eyes were gray. Fessenden thought it romantic to have a princess in the family, and examined the pictures with much interest. The greater number had been given to her much-loved Alexandra, but one was apparently the property of his father, and another of a Mrs. Abbott, of whom he knew nothing. He was not the youth to fall in love with a photograph, however, and as he walked towards the library the Archduchess Ranata Theresia made way in his mind for other matters which at that stage concerned him far more deeply.