Morning brought regeneration. The sun shone brightly through her yellow curtains, and her maid brought with her breakfast tray a note from the contrite Cortland."Forgive me, Camilla. Forgive me. Call me selfish, unreasonable, cruel—anything you like—but don't tell me I shall not see you again. You will find me a model of all the virtues. Gladys is calling on you to-day. You are coming to the dinner, aren't you? I will be there—in a corner somewhere, but I won't bother you. The night has brought me patience. Forgive me."C."Camilla slipped the note among her laces, and when Jeff looked in to bring her the invitation which had arrived in the morning mail to dine at the house of Cornelius Bent, she presented a fair face and joyous countenance.General Bent's dinners had a way of being ponderous—like himself. From soup to coffee the victuals were rich and highly seasoned, the wines full-bodied; his dishes were heavy, his silver-service massive, his furniture capacious. The impression of solidity was further enhanced by the thick oak paneling, the wide fireplace, and the sumptuous candelabra. Many, if not all, of these adjectives might readily be applied to his men-servants, who had been so long in his employ that the essentials of their surroundings had been seared into their souls. The Bent régime was their religion, the General its high priest, and their offices components of a ceremony which they observed with impressive dignity and sedate fervor.As a rule, the personality of the General's guests did nothing to detract from the impression of opulence. They were the heavy men of affairs, the big men of clubdom, of business, of religion, of politics. Camilla had been warned of what she must expect, but it was with feelings of trepidation not far removed from awe that she and Jeff got down from their taxi under the glow of the porte-cochère before the wide portal of the great house in Madison Avenue. Her last admonition to her husband in the cab had been, "Jeff, don't shuffle your feet! And don't say 'ma'am.' And keep your hands out of your pockets! If you can't think of anything to say, don't say it."Wray only laughed. He was very much at his ease, for he had convinced himself downtown that the doors of the Bent establishment would not have swung so wide had the General not found that Wray's holdings and influence in the West were matters which some day he would have to reckon with.When they arrived they were pleased to discover that there were to be young people among the guests as well as old. Three stout, florid gentlemen, members of the directorate of the Amalgamated Reduction Company, whom Jeff had met downtown, with their wives, and Mr. and Mrs. Worthington Rumsen lent their share to the dignity the General required, but there was a leaven of a younger set in Gladys, his daughter (Mrs. Bent had died many years before), Cortland, his son, and some others. Most of the guests were already in the drawing room when the Wrays were announced. And Camilla entered a little uncertainly, her eyes sparkling, seeking her hostess. There was a subdued masculine murmur of approval, a raising of lorgnons to aged feminine noses, a general movement of appreciation.Camilla was radiant. Cortland Bent came forward from his corner, slowly drinking in her loveliness with his eyes. She was gowned in white and wore no ornaments. The slenderness which all women ape was hers without asking. Her ruddy hair at the last moment had resisted the arts of the hair-dresser, and so she wore it as she had always done, in a heavy coil like a rope of flame. If she had been pale as she entered, the blood now flowed quickly—almost too quickly to be fashionable—suffusing her face and gently warming her splendid throat and shoulders."Am I late?" she asked. "I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me?""You're not late," said her hostess. "Awfully glad——""We're bountifully repaid," put in General Bent gallantly, as he came forward. "I'm sure you're quite worth waiting for. I've been telling New York for years it had better keep its eyes on the West. Now I must warn its women. How are you, Wray? You know Warrington—and Janney. Let me present you, Wray—the Baroness Charny."Jeff felt himself appraised civilly."You aretheMr. Wray?" she asked him. "The rich Mr. Wray?"Jeff flushed with pleasure. Nothing ever tickled him more than a reference to his possessions."I'm Wray—from Colorado. And you—you know I've never seen a real live baroness before. So don't mind if I look at you a little. You see, we never have anybody like you out our way——""I don't mind in the least," she said with a slight accent. "What did you think a baroness ought to look like?""I had a kind of an idea she was stoutish, wore a crown, and sat in a big chair all day, ordering people around.""I'm afraid you read fairy stories. I don't own a crown, and I might order people all day, but nobody would pay the least attention to me.""What a pity," he said soberly.His ingenuousness was refreshing."You know, Mr. Wray, baronesses aren't any more important nowadays than anybody else. The only barons worth while in the world are the Coal Barons, the Wheat Barons, the Gold Barons, like you." And then, "Did you know that you were to take me in? Are you glad?""Of course," with a vague attempt at gallantry. "I'd take you anywhere and be proud to.""Then give me your arm," she laughed. And they followed the others in to dinner. Wray's other neighbor was Mrs. Rumsen, his host's sister. Camilla had related many tales of her social prowess, and she was really the only person at the table of whom Jeff stood the least in awe. Mrs. Rumsen's nose was aquiline like her brother's, her eyebrows high and slightly arched, her eyes small and rather close together, as though nature had intended them for a short but concentrated vision. She held her head very erect, and from her great height was enabled without pretence to look down on all lesser things. Cortland had described her as a grenadier, and, as Wray realized that the moment when he must talk to her was inevitably approaching, he lost some faith in his moods and tenses."Mr. Wray," she began, in a tone which was clearly to be heard the length of the table, "you have a handsome wife.""Yes, ma'am," he drawled. "I'm glad you think so, Mrs. Rumsen.""A woman with her looks and your money could have the world at her feet if she wished.""Yes. I've told her the same thing. But I don't think she likes a fuss. Why, I sent up a whole carload of hats—all colors, with plumes and things, but she wouldn't have one of them."The old lady's deep wrinkles relaxed."And diamonds——" he went on. "She's got half a peck, but I can't get her to put them on."Mrs. Rumsen did not reply, only examined him with her small eyes through her lorgnon."You know, Mr. Wray, ever since you came into the room you have been a puzzle to me. Your features resemble those of some one I have known—years ago—some one I have known intimately—curious I can't——""Have you ever been West?""Oh, yes. Were your people——?""I have no people, Mrs. Rumsen," he said with a quick air of finality."Oh!" She still looked at him wonderingly. "I beg your pardon." Then she went on calmly, "You really interest me a great deal. I have seen Westerners in New York before—but you're different—I mean," she added, "the cut of your nose, the lines of your chin, the set of your head on your shoulders. I hope you'll forgive an old woman's curiosity."Jeff bowed politely. "I'm very much flattered, Mrs. Rumsen.""You and my brother have business interests in common?""Yes, I've a mine—a chain of mines and property interests, including a control of the Denver and Western Railroad."She laid a hand impressively on his arm."Hold them. Take my advice and hold them. I know it is a great temptation to extend your control, to be a big man East and West. But don't try it by weakening what you have. Other men have come here to set the Hudson afire——""Some of them have done it, too, Mrs. Rumsen."She shrugged. "What is the use? You have an empire of your own. Stay at home, develop it. Wouldn't you rather be first in Mantua than second in Rome?""I—I'm afraid I don't just take you?""I mean, wouldn't you rather be an emperor among your own people than fetch and carry—as so many others are doing—for Wall Street?""That's just the point. Only the boot is on the other leg. Wall Street needs the West. Wall Street doesn't think so. It's away behind the times. Those people downtown are so stuck on themselves that they think the whole country is stooping with its ear to the ground listening to what they're doing. Why, Mrs. Rumsen, there are men in the West—big men, too—who think Wall Street is a joke. Funny, isn't it? Wall Street doesn't seem to know that millions of acres of corn, of wheat, and potatoes keep growing just the same. Those things don't wait to hear what Wall Street thinks. Only God Almighty can make 'em stop growing. And as long as they grow, we don't bother much."She smiled approvingly."Then why do you care?""Oh, I'm a kind of missionary. These people downtown are heathen critters. They're so ignorant about their own country it almost makes me ashamed to talk to them."The last vestige of the grenadier aspect in Mrs. Rumsen had vanished, and her face dissolved in smiles."Heathens! They are," she laughed delightedly. "Critters—yes, critters, too. Splendid! Have you told Cornelius—my brother—that?"Wray's truffle stuck in his throat and he gasped, "Good God, ma'am! No. You won't tell him, will you?""I'd like to," she chuckled. "But I won't."Jeff laughed. "I'm afraid I've put my foot in it. I'm apt to. I'm rather a raw product——""Whatever you do, Mr. Wray, don't change. You're positively refreshing. Anybody can learn to be good form. It's as simple as a, b, c. If it wasn't easy there wouldn't be so many people practising it. The people in the shops even adopt our adjectives before they're well out of our mouths. Hats are 'smart,' when in earlier days they were simply 'becoming.' Gowns are 'fetching' or 'stunning' that were once merely 'pretty.' Let a fashionable Englishman wear a short coat with a high hat to the Horse Show, and every popinjay in town will be doing the same thing in a week. If you're a raw product, remain so by all means. Raw products are so much more appetizing than half-baked ones.""I don't think there's any way to make me any different, Mrs. Rumsen," he laughed, "even if I wanted to be. People will have to take me as I am. Your brother has been kind. It seems as if he had a broader view of our people than most of the others.""Don't be too sure. They're all tarred with the same stick. It's a maxim of mine never to put my trust in any person or thing below Twenty-third Street. The farther downtown you go, the deeper the villainy. You'll find all New Yorkers much the same. Out of business hours they are persons of the most exemplary habits, good fathers, vestrymen in churches, excellent hosts. In business——" she held up her hands in mock horror."Oh, I know," Wray chuckled. "But I'm not afraid. I'm something of a wolf myself. Your brother needs me more than I need him. I think we'll get along.""You have everything you want. Take my advice and keep your money in the West.""Thanks. But I like New York, and I don't want to be idle. Besides, there's Camilla—Mrs. Wray, you know.""Yes, I see. I can't blame her. No woman with her looks wants to waste them on mountain scenery. I must know her better—and you. She must let me call on her. I'm giving a ball later. Do you think you could come?"And the great lady turned to her dinner partner.The Baroness, too, was amiable. It was her first visit to America. Her husband was an attaché of an embassy in Washington. She had not yet been in the West. Were all the men big, as Mr. Wray was?She had a charming faculty of injecting the personal note into her questions, and before he was aware of it Wray found himself well launched in a description of his country—the mountains, the plains, the cowboys.She had never heard of cowboys. What were they? Little cows?Jeff caught a warning look from Camilla across the table, which softened his laughter. He explained, and the Baroness joined in the merriment. Then he told her that he had been for years a cowpuncher down in Arizona and New Mexico before he went into business, described the "round-up," the grub wagon, and told her of a brush with some Yaqui Indians who were on the warpath. When he began, the other people stopped talking and listened. Jeff was in his element and without embarrassment finished his story amid plaudits. Camilla, listening timidly, was forced to admit that his domination of the table was complete. The conversation became general, a thing which rarely happened at the Bent dinners, and Jeff discovered himself the centre of attention. Almost unconsciously he found himself addressing most of his remarks to a lady opposite, who had listened and questioned with an unusual show of interest.When the ices were passed he turned to Mrs. Rumsen and questioned."Haven't you met her?" And then, across the table, "Rita—you haven't met Mr. Wray—Mrs. Cheyne."CHAPTER VIMRS. CHEYNEOver the coffee, curiously enough, there seemed to be a disposition to refrain from market quotations, for General Bent skilfully directed the conversation into other channels—motoring—aviation—the Horse Show—the newest pictures in the Metropolitan—and Jeff listened avidly, newly alive to the interests of these people, who, as Mrs. Rumsen had said, above Twenty-third Street took on a personality which was not to be confounded with the life downtown, where he had first met them. When Curtis Janney asked him if he rode, Jeff only laughed."Oh, yes, of course you do. One doesn't punch cattle for nothing. But jumping is different—and then there's the saddle——""Oh, I think I can stay on without going for the leather. Anyway, I'd like to try.""Right-o!" said Janney heartily. "We've had one run already—a drag. Couldn't you and Mrs. Wray come out soon? We're having a few people for the hunt week after next. There will be Cortland Bent, Jack Perot, the Rumsens, the Billy Havilands, Mrs. Cheyne, the Baroness and—if you'll come along—yourselves.""Delighted. I'm sure Camilla will be glad to accept. We haven't many engagements.""I think you've hidden your wife long enough, Mr. Wray. Does she ride, too?""Like a breeze—astride. But she wouldn't know what to do on a side-saddle.""I don't blame her. Some of our women ride across. Gladys, Gretchen, Mrs. Cheyne——""Well," Jeff silently raised his brandy glass in imitation of his companion, "I'm glad there are a few horses somewhere around here—I haven't seen any outside of the shafts of a hansom since I left the West.""The horse would soon be extinct if it wasn't for Curtis Janney," put in the General breezily. "Why, he won't even own a motor. No snorting devils for him. Might give his horses the pip or something. The stable is worth seeing, though. You're going, aren't you, Wray?"In the library, later, Wray found Mrs. Cheyne. Until he had come to New York Wray's idea of a woman had never strayed from Camilla. There were other females in the Valley, and he had known some of them, but Camilla had made any comparison unfortunate. She was a being living in a sphere apart, with which mere clay had nothing in common. He had always thought of her as he thought of the rare plants in Jim Noakes' conservatory in Denver, flowers to be carefully nurtured and admired. Even marriage had made little difference in his point of view. It is curious that he thought of these things when he leaned over Mrs. Cheyne. To his casual eye this new acquaintance possessed many of the characteristics of his wife. Perhaps even more than Camilla she represented a mental life of which he knew nothing, contributed more than her share to the sublimated atmosphere in which he found himself moving. They might have been grown in the same conservatory, but, if Camilla was the Orchid, Mrs. Cheyne was the Poinsettia flower. And yet she was not beautiful as Camilla was. Her features, taken one at a time, were singularly imperfect. He was almost ready to admit that she wasn't even strikingly pretty. But as he looked at her he realized for the first time in his life the curious fact that a woman need not be beautiful to be attractive. He saw that she was colorful and unusually shapely, and that she gave forth a flow of magnetism which her air ofennuimade every effort to deny. Her eyes, like her hair, were brown, but the pupils, when she lifted her lids high enough to show them, were so large that they seemed much darker. Her dinner dress, cut straight across her shoulders, was of black, like the jewelled bandeau in her hair and the pearls which depended from her ears. These ornaments, together with the peculiar dressing of her hair, gave her well-formed head an effect which, if done in brighter hues, might have been barbaric, but which, in the subdued tones of her color scheme, only added to the impression of sombre distinction.As he approached, she looked up at him sleepily."I thought you were never coming," she said."Did you?" said Wray, bewildered. "I—I came as soon as I could, Mrs. Cheyne. We had our cigars——""Oh, I know. Men have always been selfish—they always will be selfish. Cousin Cornelius is provincial to herd the men and women—like sheep—the ones in one pen, the others in another. There isn't a salon in Europe—a real salon—where the women may not smoke if they like.""You want to smoke——""I'm famished—but the General doesn't approve——"Wray had taken out his cigarette case. "Couldn't we find a spot?"She rose and led the way through a short corridor to the conservatory, where they found a stone bench under a palm.He offered her his case, and she lit the cigarette daintily, holding it by the very tips of her fingers, and steadying her hand against his own as Wray would have done with a man's. Wray did not speak. He watched her amusedly, aware of the extraordinary interest with which she invested his pet vice."Thanks," she said gratefully. Turning toward him then, she lowered her chin, opened her eyes, and looked straight into his."You know, you didn't come to me nearly as soon as I thought you would.""I—I didn't know——""You should have known.""Why should I——?""Because I wanted you to.""I'm glad you wanted me. I think I'd have come anyway."She smiled approvingly."Then my efforts were unnecessary.""Your efforts?""Yes, I willed it. You interested me, you see."He looked at her quickly. Her eyes only closed sleepily, then opened again."I'm lucky," he said, "that's sure.""How do you know? I may not be at all the kind of person you think I am.""I'll take a chance on that—but I wish you'd tell me what made you want me.""I was bored. I usually am. The Bent parties are so formal and tiresome. Everybody always says the same things—does the same things." She sighed deeply. "If Cousin Cornelius saw me now I'd be in disgrace. I wonder why I always like to do the things people don't expect me to.""You wouldn't be much of a woman if you didn't," he laughed. "But I like surprises. There wouldn't be much in life if you knew what was going to happen every minute.""You didn't think I was going to happen then?""Er—no. Maybe I hoped so.""Well," she smiled, "I have happened. What are you going to do about it?""Be thankful—mostly. You seem sort of human, somehow. You do what you want to—say what you want——""And if I don't get what I want, ask for it," she laughed. "I told Gladys it was very inconsiderate of her not to send you in to dinner with me. She's always doing that sort of thing. Gladys lacks a sense of proportion. As it is, the evening is almost gone, and we've only begun.""I feel as if I'd known you for years," said Jeff heartily. "That's funny, too," he added, "because you're so different from any other woman I've ever known. You look as if you might have come from a book—but you speak out like Mesa City.""Tell me about Mesa City. You know I was out West last year.""Were you? Sure?" eagerly. "In Colorado?""Oh, yes," she said slowly, "but I was living in Nevada.""Nevada? That was my old stamping ground. I punched for the Bar Circle down there. What part?""Reno.""Oh!""I went there for my divorce."His voice fell a note. "I didn't know that. I'm awfully sorry you were so unfortunate. Won't you tell me about it?""There's nothing to tell. Cheyne and I were incompatible—at least that's what the lawyers said. As such things go, I thought we got along beautifully. We weren't in the least incompatible so long as Cheyne went his way and let me go mine. It's so easy for married people to manage, if they only knew how. But Cheyne didn't. He didn't want to be with me himself—and he didn't want any one else to be. So things came to a pretty pass. It actually got so bad that when people wanted either of us to dinner they had to write first to inquire which of us was to stay away. It made a lot of trouble, and the Cheyne family got to be a bore—so we decided to break it up.""Was he unkind to you—cruel?""Oh, dear, no! I wish he had been. Our life was one dreadful round of cheerful monotony. I got so tired of the shape of his ears that I could have screamed. Yes, I really think," she mused, "that it was his ears."Wray examined her with his baby-like stare as though she had been a specimen of ore. There seemed to be no doubt of the fact that she was quite serious."I'm really sorry for him. It is—very sad——"She threw her head back and laughed softly."My dear Mr. Wray, your sympathy is touching—he would appreciate it as much as I do—if he had not already married again.""Married? Here in New York?""Oh, yes. They're living within a stone's throw of my house.""Do you see him?""Of course. I dined with them only last week. You see," and she leaned toward him with an air of new confidences, "that's only human. I can't really give up anything I've once possessed. You know, I try not to sell horses that I've liked. I did sell one once, and he turned up one morning in a hired brougham. That taught me a lesson I've never forgotten. Now when they outlive their usefulness I turn them out on my farm in Westchester. Of course, I couldn't do that to Harold, but I did the next best thing. I've satisfied myself that he's properly looked after—and I'm sure he'll reflect credit on his early training.""And he's happy?""Blissfully so. It wouldn't be possible for a man to have the advantages of a training like the one I have given him and not be able to make a woman happy.""But he didn't makeyouhappy.""Me? Oh, I wasn't made for bondage of any kind. Most women marry because they're bored or because they're curious. In either case they pay a penalty. Marriage provides no panacea. One only becomes more bored—with one's own husband—or more curious about other people's husbands.""Are you curious? You don't look as if you cared enough to be curious.""I do care." She held her cigarette at arm's length and flicked off its ash with her little finger. "Mr. Wray, I'll let you into a secret. A woman never appears so bored as when she is intensely interested in something—never so much interested as when she is bored to extinction. I am curious. I am trying to learn (without asking you impertinent questions) how on earth you and Mrs. Wray ever happened to marry."She tilted her chin impudently and looked down her nose at him, her eyes masked by her dark lashes, through which it hardly seemed possible that she could see him at all. Jeff laughed. She had her nerve with her, he thought, but her frankness was amusing. He liked the way she went after what she wanted."Oh, Camilla—I don't know. It just happened, I guess. She's more your kind than mine. I'm a good deal of a scrub, Mrs. Cheyne. You see, I never went to college—or even to high school. Camilla knows a lot. She used to teach, but I reckon she's about given up the idea of trying to teachme. I'm a low-brow all right. I never read a novel in my life.""You haven't missed much. Books were only meant for people who are willing to take life at second-hand. One year of the life you lived on the range is worth a whole shelf-ful. The only way to see life is through one's own eyes.""Oh, I've seen life. I've been a cowboy, rancher, speculator, miner, and other things. And I've seen some rough times. But I wouldn't have worked at those things if I hadn't needed the money. Now I've got it, maybe I'll learn something of the romantic side of life."She leaned back and laughed at him. "You dear, delicious man. Then it has never occurred to you that during all these years you've been living a romance?"He looked at her askance."And then, to cap it all," she finished, "you discover a gold mine, and marry the prettiest woman in the West. I suppose you'll call that prosaic, too. You're really quite remarkable. What is it that you expect of life after all?""I don't know," he said slowly, "something more——""But there's nothing left.""Oh, yes, there is. I've only tasted success, but it's good, and I like it. What I've got makes me want more. There's only one thing in the world that really means anything to me—and that's power——""But your money——""Yes, money. But money itself doesn't mean anything to me—idle money—the kind of money you people in New York are content to live on, the interest on land or bonds. It's what live, active money can do that counts with me. My money has got to keep working the way I work—only harder. Some people worship money for what it can buy their bodies. I don't. I can't eat more than three square meals a day. I want my money to make the desert bloom—to make the earth pay up what it owes, and build railroads that will carry its products where they're needed. I want it to take the miserable people away from the alleys in your city slums and put them to work in God's country, where their efforts will count for something in building up the waste ground that's waiting for them out there. Why, Mrs. Cheyne, last year I took up a piece of desert. There wasn't a thing on it but rabbit-brush. Last spring I worked out a colonization plan and put it through. There's a town there now called Wrayville, with five thousand inhabitants, two hotels, three miles of paved sidewalk, a public school, four factories, and two newspapers. All that in six months. It's a hummer, I can tell you."As he paused for breath she sighed. "And yet you speak of romance.""Romance? There's no romance in that. That's just get-up-and-get. I had to hustle, Mrs. Cheyne. I'd promised those people the water from the mountains on a certain date, but I couldn't do it, and the big ditch wasn't finished. I was in a bad fix, for I'd broken my word. Those people had paid me their money, and they threatened to lynch me. They had a mass meeting and were calling me some ugly names when I walked in. Why they didn't take a shot at me then, I don't know—but they didn't. I got up on the table, and, when they stopped yelling, I began to talk to 'em. I didn't know just what to say, but I knew I had to say something and make good—or go out of town in a pine box. I began by telling 'em what a great town Wrayville was going to be. They only yelled, 'Where's our water?' I told them it was coming. They tried to hoot me down, but I kept on.""Weren't you afraid?""You bet I was. Buttheynever knew it. I tried to think of a reason why they didn't have that water, and in a moment they began to listen. I told 'em there was thirty thousand dollars' worth of digging to be done. I told 'em it wouldbedone, too, but that I didn't see why that money should go out of Wrayville to a lot of contractors in Denver. I'd been saving that work for the citizens of Wrayville. I was prepared to pay the highest wages for good men, and, if Wrayville said the word, they could begin the big ditch to-morrow.""What did they do?""They stopped yelling right there, and I knew I had 'em going. In a minute they started to cheer. Before I finished they were carrying me around the hall on their shoulders. Phew—but that took some quick thinking."Mrs. Cheyne had started forward when he began, and, as he went on, her eyes lost their sleepy look, her manner its languor, and she followed him to the end in wonder. When he stopped, she sank back in her corner, smiling, and repeated: "Romance? What romance is there left in the world for a man like you?"He looked up at her with his baby stare and then laughed awkwardly. "You're making fun of me, Mrs. Cheyne. I've been talking too much, I reckon."She didn't reply at once, and the look in her eyes embarrassed him. He reached for his cigarette case, offered it to her, and, when she refused, took one himself, lit it slowly, gazing out of the transom opposite."I hope I haven't tired you, Mrs. Cheyne. It's dangerous to get me talking about myself. I never know when to stop.""I don't want you to stop. I've never been so entertained in my life. I don't believe you know how interesting you are."He turned toward her, embarrassed and still incredulous. "You're very kind," he muttered."You mustn't be so humble," she broke in sharply. "You weren't so a minute ago. I like you best when you are talking of yourself.""I thought I'd like to talk about you."She waved a hand in deprecation. "Me? Oh, no. We can't come to earth like that. Tell me another fairy tale.""Fairy tale? Then you don't believe me?""Oh, yes," she laughed, "I believe you, but to me they're fairy tales just the same. It seems so easy for you to do wonderful things. I wish you'd do some conjuring for me.""Oh, there isn't any magic business about me. But I'll try. What do you want most?"She put an elbow on her knee and gazed at the blossom in her fingers. Her voice, too, fell a note."What I think I want most," she said slowly, "is a way out of this." She waved the blossom vaguely in the direction of the drawing room. "I'm sick of it all, of the same tiresome people, the same tiresome dinners, dances, teas. We're so narrow, so cynical, so deeply enmeshed in our small pursuits. I'm weary—desperately weary of myself.""You?""Yes." And then, with a short, unmirthful laugh, "That's my secret. You didn't suspect it, did you?""Lord! no." And after a pause, "You're unhappy about him?""Cheyne? Oh, no. He's the only thing I am happy about. Have you ever been really bored, Mr. Wray?""Never. I never even heard the word until I came to New York.""Have you ever been so tired that your body was numb—so that if you struck it a blow you were hardly conscious of it, when you felt as if you could go to sleep and never want to wake up? Well, that's the condition of my mind. It's so tired of the same impressions that it fails to make note of them; the people I see, the things I do, are all blurred and colorless like a photograph that has been taken out of focus. The only regret I have when I go to sleep is that I have to wake up again.""My dear Mrs. Cheyne——""Oh, I'm not morbid. I'm too bored to be morbid even. I don't think I'm even unhappy. It takes an effort to be unhappy. I can't tell you what the matter is. One drifts. I've been drifting a long time. I think I have too much money. I want towantsomething.""Don't you ever want anything you can't have?"She sat upright, and her voice, instead of drawling languidly, came in the quick accents of discovery. "Yes, I do. I've just found out. You've actually created a new interest in life. Won't you be nice to me? Come and see me often and tell me more fairy tales."CHAPTER VIIBRAEBANK"I can't see, Curtis," said Mrs. Janney, in the smoking room, "why you chose to ask those vulgar Wrays to Braebank. It almost seems as if you were carrying your business relationships too far. The woman is pretty enough, and I dare say her easy Western ways will be attractive to the masculine portion of your guests. But the man is impossible—absolutely impossible! He does not even use correct English, and his manners—atrocious!"The palms of the good lady's hands, as she raised them in her righteous wrath, were very pink on the inside, like the petals of rosebuds. They were sheltered hands, very soft and plump, and their fingers bore many large and expensive jewels. Mrs. Janney was made up wholly of convex curves, which neither art nor starvation could deflect. The roundness of her face was further accented by concentric curves at brows, mouth, and chin, which gave the impression of a series of parentheses. It would not be stretching the figure too far to add that Mrs. Janney, in most of their few affiliations, bore a somewhat parenthetical relation to her husband. Her life, as well as her conversation, was made up of "asides," to which Curtis Janney was not in the habit of paying the slightest attention. Her present remarks, however, seemed to merit a reply."My dear Amelia," he said, tolerantly, from his easy chair, "when we were first married you used to say that all a man needed to make his way in New York was a dress suit and a smile. Wray has both. Besides, it is quite necessary to be on good terms with him. As for his wife, I have rarely seen a girl who created such an agreeable impression. Cornelius Bent has taken them up. He has his reasons for doing so. So have I. I'll trouble you, therefore, to be civil."He got up and put down his cigar, and Mrs. Janney shrugged her shoulders into a more pronounced convexity."I won't question your motives, Curtis, though, of course, I know you have them. But I don't think we can afford to jeopardize our standing by always taking up new people like the Wrays. The man is vulgar—the woman, provincial."Mr. Janney by this time had taken up the telephone and was ordering the wagons to the station."Why, Gretchen, dear! You're late. It's almost train time." Miss Janney entered in riding clothes from the terrace, bringing traces of the fine November weather. She was a tall, slender girl of the athletic type, sinuous and strong, with a skin so firm and ruddy from the air that it glowed crisply as though shot with mica."Is it, mother? Cortland and I hadsucha wonderful ride. He is really quite the nicest man in the world. Aren't you, Cort?""Of course I am," said Bent, laughing, as he entered, "anything Gretchen says. That's because I never made love to her, isn't it, Gretchen?""Partly. Love is so silly. You know, daddy, I've given Cort hiscongé."Janney turned testily. "What nonsense you children talk!""I mean it, though, daddy," she went on calmly. "I'm too fond of Cort ever to think of marrying him. We settled that still more definitely to-day. Since you were so inconsiderate, you two, as to neglect to provide me with a brother, I've adopted Cort.""Really, Gretchen, you're getting more hopeless every day," sighed her mother. "What does Cortland say?""I?" laughed Bent. "What is there left for me to say? We're hopelessly friendly, that's all. I'm afraid there's nothing left but to take to drink. May I?"He lifted the decanter of Scotch and poured himself a drink, but Janney, with a scowl in the direction of his daughter, left the room."You mustn't speak so heartlessly, dear," said Mrs. Janney. "You know it always makes your father angry. You must be patient with her, Cortland.""I am," said that gentleman, helping himself to a cigarette. "I'm the soul of patience, Mrs. Janney. I've pleaded and begged. I've even threatened suicide, but all to no purpose. There's no satisfaction in shooting one's self on account of a girl who's going to laugh at your funeral."He threw himself hopelessly into a big English chair and sighed exuberantly, while Gretchen gave him a reproachful look over her mother's shoulder. "My poor boy, don't give her up," said the lady, genuinely. "All will come right in time, I'm sure. You must be sweeter to him, Gretchen. You really must.""I suppose I must," said Gretchen with an air of resignation. "I'll not be any more cruel than I can help."When the good lady left the room they looked at each other for a moment, and then burst into shameless laughter."Poor mother! She never had a sense of humor. I wouldn't laugh at your funeral, though, Cort. That was unkind. You know, I'm afraid father is very much provoked."Bent's laughter died, and he gazed at the ash of his cigarette. "He's really quite serious about it, isn't he?""Oh, yes. It's an awful nuisance, because, in his way, he has a will as strong as mine."Bent smiled. "I'm glad I'm not in his boots. You're fearfully stubborn, Gretchen.""Because I insist on marrying whom I choose?""Because you insist on not marrying me."Miss Janney sank in a chair by the table, fingering the pages of a magazine. She said nothing in reply, but in a few moments spoke carelessly."Tell me something about Lawrence Berkely, will you?""Larry? You've only met him once. Your curiosity is indecent.""You know he's coming here with the Wrays.""Not really? That's going a bit strong. I don't think I'll stand for that.""Oh, yes, you will. He's quite as good as we are. He belongs totheBerkelys of Virginia. Mrs. Rumsen knows them.""That's convincing. Any one Aunt Caroline knows will need no card to Saint Peter. Oh, Larry's all right. But I warn you not to fall in love with him.""That's precisely what I've done," she asserted.He glanced at her amusedly, but she met his look coolly."It's true, Cort. He's actually the only man I've met since I came out who really isn't eligible. I'm so delighted. Of course, father would never have permitted it if he'd only known that Mr. Berkely wasn't rich. He hasn't much use for poor people. Oh, he's well enough off, I suppose, as Mr. Wray's partner, but then he doesn't own any of that fabulous gold mine.""How do you know all these things?""He told me. Besides, he's terribly good looking, and has had something the matter with his lungs.""Well, of all the——""That's why he's been living in the West. But he's quite well now. Isn't it splendid? I only hope he'll like me. Don't you think he has wonderful eyes?""I'm sure I never noticed. See here, Gretchen, you're talking rot. I'm going to tell your father.""Oh, I don't care," airily. "But if you do, I'll tell Mr. Wray.""Wray?""Yes—that you're in love with his wife."Miss Janney exploded this bombshell casually while she removed her hat, watching him carefully meanwhile in the mirror. If she had planned her coup, she could not have been more fully rewarded, for Cortland started up, clutching at the chair arms, his face aghast; but when his eyes met hers in the mirror he sank back again, laughing uneasily."What—who on earth put that silly idea into your head?""You—yourself. I watched you at the Warringtons.""What nonsense! I've known Camilla a long time.""Not so long as you've known me. And you never looked at me like that." She laid her hat beside her crop on the table, then turned quickly and put her hand over his on the chair arm. "You may trust me, Cortland, dear. If I'm going to be your sister, I may as well begin at once. It's true, isn't it?"He remained silent a long while, his gaze fixed on the open fire before him. Then at last he turned his hand over so that his fingers clasped hers. "Yes," he whispered, "it's true, Gretchen. It's true.""I'm so sorry, Cort," she murmured. "I suspected from your letters. I wish I might have helped you. I feel somehow that I am to blame—that we ever got engaged. Won't you tell me how it happened that she married him—instead of you?""No, no," he said, rising and walking to the window. "She—she married Wray—because—because she loved him, that's all. I wasn't the man."Gretchen watched him wistfully, still standing beside the chair he had vacated, full of the first deep sympathy she had ever known. Slowly she walked over and put her hand timidly on his shoulder."You'll forgive me, won't you, Cort? I wouldn't have spoken if I had known how deeply you felt." She turned aside with a bitter little laugh. "Isn't it queer that life should be so full of complications? Everybody expects you and me to marry each other—at least, everybody but ourselves, and we won't because—why is it that we won't? Chiefly because everybody expects us to—and because it's so easy. I'm sure if there was any reason why we shouldn't marry, I'd love you quite madly. Instead of which, you're in love with a married woman, and I—I'm interested in a youth with sad romantic eyes and an impaired breathing apparatus.""Gretchen, don't be silly," he said, smiling in spite of himself."I'm really serious—you'll see." She stopped and clutched Bent's arm. "Tell me, Cort. He's not married already, is he?""You silly child. Not that I know of. Berkely is a conscientious sort of a bird—he wouldn't have let you make love to him——""Ididn't," with dignity, "we talked about the weather mostly.""That must have been romantic.""Cort, I'll not speak to you again." She rushed past him to the window, her head erect. Outside was the whirr of an arriving motor. "How tiresome. Here come the Billy Havilands," she said, "and they'll want to be playing 'Auction' at once. They always do. As if there was nothing but 'Bridge' in the world!" She sniffed. "I wish we were going to be fewer in number. Just you and I and——""And Larry?""Yes—and Mrs. Wray," she put in viciously.Curtis Janney was already in the big stair hall to welcome the arrivals."Billy—Dorothy—welcome! Of course you had to bring your buzz-wagon. I suppose I'll be driven to build a garage some day—but it will be well down by the East Lodge. Do you expect to follow in that thing? Rita! Awfully glad. Your hunter came over last night. He looks fit as a fiddle. Aren't you cold? Gretchen, dear, ring for tea."Noiseless maids and men-servants appeared, appropriated wraps and hand baggage, and departed."We timed it nicely," said Haviland, looking at his watch. "Forty-seven from the ferry. We passed your wagons a moment ago. Gretchen, who's the red-haired girl with the Rumsens?""Et tu, Brute? That's Mrs. Wray. None of us has a chance when she's around. Here they are now."The two station wagons drew up at the terrace, and the guests dismounted. Mr. and Mrs. Rumsen with the Wrays in the station wagon, and the Baroness Charny, the Warringtons, Jack Perot, and Lawrence Berkely in the 'bus."Well, Worthy! Got here after all! Caroline, Mrs. Wray, would you like to go right up or will you wait for tea? Wray, there's something stronger just inside. Show him, won't you, Billy?"Wray entered the big hall with a renewed appreciation of the utility of wealth. The houses in New York which he had seen were, of course, built upon a more moderate scale. He had still to discover that the men of wealth were learning to make their week-ends out of town longer, and that the real home-life of many of them had been transferred to the country, where broad acres and limitless means enabled them to gratify their tastes in developing great estates which would hand down their names in the architectural history of the country when their city houses should be overwhelmed and lost in the march of commerce. Curtis Janney, for all his great responsibilities, was an open-air man, and he took a real delight in his great Tudor house and stables. The wide entrance hall which so impressed Jeff was designed in the ripe Palladian manner which distinguished the later work of the great Inigo Jones. This lofty room was the keynote of the building—a double cube in shape, the staircase which led from the centre opposite the door ornate in a character purely classic—the doorways to the other rooms on the same floor masterful in structural arrangement and elegant in their grace and simplicity. It almost seemed as though the room had been designed as a framework for the two wonderful Van Dykes which were placed at each side of the stairway.Jeff smiled as he walked into the smoking room—the smile of possession. He realized, as never before, that taste, elegance, style, were things which could be bought with money, as one would buy stock or a piece of real estate. The only difference between Curtis Janney and himself was that his host had an ancestor or two—while Jeff had none.Miss Janney had quietly and cleverly appropriated Lawrence Berkely and was already on her way to the conservatory. Jack Perot, who painted the portraits of fashionable ladies, had taken the Baroness to the Long Room, where the English pictures were hung. Camilla, after a few polite comments on the dignity of the house, sat a little aside in silence. Cortland Bent, after a glance toward the door through which Miss Janney had vanished, dropped into the vacant chair beside her."I'm so glad to see you," she said genuinely. "You know the magnificence is rather bewildering." She paused and lowered her voice. "It seems as if I hadn't seen you for ages.""Yes," he murmured. "I'm expecting wings any day now. I'm almost too good to be true.""You're an angel," she smiled. "I want you to be good, and I'm sure I want you to be true. And yet"—she paused—"this seems the only case in the world where to be true is to be bad.""You can't make the sun stop shining.""I don't think I want it to stop shining altogether. You see, I'm selfish. I want it under a cloud, that's all."There was a pause—significant to them both."I am trying, Camilla. I am doing my best. You appreciate that?""Yes, but it shouldn't be so hard. I don't think it would be hard for me in your place!"His eyes questioned."Miss Janney—she is adorable." She looked over the rim of her cup at him as she finished her tea. "My dear Cort," she laughed, as she handed it to him, "the best I can say for you is that you have the worst taste in the world. I'm really in love with her myself. I can't see what you could have been thinking of——""Any more thanIcan see whatyouwere thinking of."There was a refuge from the danger toward which she felt herself drifting, and she took it, addressing her nearest neighbor."Mrs. Cheyne, don't you think men have abominable taste?""Oh, yes, abominable," laughed the lady. "Ugh! I hate mustaches, too, don't you?"Camilla turned a shade rosier, but her discomfiture was lost in the laughter of those who remembered that Cheyne had worn a beard."You know I didn't mean just that," explained Camilla. "I meant their appreciation of women—their sense of the esthetic——""Anesthetic, Mrs. Wray. That's the only word for a man's perceptions. A French frock, a smart hat, a little deft color, and the plainest of us is a match for the gayest Lothario. They're only bipeds, instincts on legs——""Oh, I say now, Rita," laughed Bent."We can't stand for that, Mrs. Cheyne," put in their host. "I suppose you'd think me ungallant if I asked you what kind of instincts women were.""Instincts with wings," she purred, "angels by intuition, rhapsodists by occupation, and sirens by inheritance. We're not in the least afraid of you, Mr. Janney.""I should think not. For my part, if I knew that one of you was camping on my trail, I'd give in at once.""I'm so glad. It's a pet theory of mine that when a woman really sets her cap for a man he had better give up at once, for she will win him—fortune favoring—in the end. Don't you agree, Mrs. Wray?""I've never thought about it, Mrs. Cheyne," said Camilla slowly. "By fortune you mean propinquity?""Oh, yes—and other things——" laughingly. "For instance, if I had fallen in love with a man I shouldn't stop to consider. If he was another woman's husband—sayyourhusband, Mrs. Wray—that would only add a new element of interest. The more difficult an undertaking, the greater satisfaction in the achievement."Camilla looked at her steadily for a moment. "I've never thought that any man ought to be dignified by such extraordinary effort. A husband so easily won away is not worth keeping."The two women had only met once before. They both smiled, sweetly tolerant, their weapons politely sheathed. Only Cortland Bent, who knew the hearts of both, sensed the difference between them."You're very flattering, Rita," he broke in, "especially to the bipeds. You've carefully deprived us of every attribute but legs. But we still have those—and can run.""But you don't," laughed Mrs. Cheyne. "That's just the point. You like the game—all of you. Even your legs aren't proof against flattery.""Stop, Rita," put in Betty Haviland. "You're letting out all the secrets of the craft.""Come, Camilla," said Cortland, rising, "wouldn't you like to see the horses and dogs? It's not nearly dark yet.""Oh, yes," she cried gladly. And then to her host, "What am I to expect, Mr. Janney, silver feed troughs and sterilized water?""Oh, no," said their host, "not yet. But they're worth it."The pair made their way through the library and a small corridor which led to the south portico."How do you like my cousin Rita?" Bent asked when they were alone outside."Is she your cousin?""Through my mother—the Davidges. Quite wonderful, eh?""I don't like her. You don't mind my saying so, do you?""Not in the least. She's not your sort, Camilla. But then nobody ever takes Rita seriously. She doesn't want them to. She's a spoiled darling. Everybody pets her. That bored kind of cleverness is effective—but everybody knows she doesn't mean half she says.""I'd be sorry to think she meant anything she says," severely.Bent laughed. "I'm afraid you're too sincere for my crowd, Camilla.""Who is Mr. Cheyne?" she asked suddenly."A perfectly amiable person with a bald head and a passion for domesticity and music, both of which Rita affects to despise.""Why did she marry him then?""Nobody knows. It was one of the marriages that weren't made in Heaven, that's all.""Few marriages are, but they're none the less binding because of that.""Yes, I know," he said soberly.She recognized the minor note and turned the subject quickly."What a heavenly spot! These are the stables, of course. And the buildings beyond?""The kennels. Mr. Janney has his own pack—corking hounds. They've been breeding this strain a long while in England. I suppose they're as good as any in the world.""I'm wild to see them."The head groom met them at the door of the carriage house and showed them through. The much despised touring car of the Havilands occupied a negligible part of the great floor. The coach, brake, carryall, station wagons, victoria, runabouts, and brake-carts—all in royal blue with primrose running-gear—looked down with an old-fashioned dignity and disapprobation on this product of a new civilization. The paneled walls of the room were covered with sporting prints, and the trophy room, with its cabinets of cups and ribbons, bore eloquent testimony to Curtis Janney's success at horse shows in every large city of the country. In the stables Camilla lost all sense of restraint. A stable had never meant anything like this. The cement floors were spotless, and the long line of stalls of polished wood with brass newels and fittings shone like the silver in the drawing room. The mats and blankets were of blue, and each bore the monogram of the owner in yellow."These are the coach and carriage horses, Camilla," Bent explained."Yes, ma'am," put in the groom. "The hunters are here," and he led the way to the box stalls."Where is Mackinaw? Mr. Janney promised him to me for to-morrow.""Oh, Mackinaw is right here, ma'am. And a fine bit of flesh he is." He went in and threw off the blanket, while Camilla followed. "Not a blemish. He'll take his four rails like they was two. Just give him his head, and you won't be far off when they kill.""Oh, what a darling! I'm wild to get on him. Is he gentle?"She patted him on the neck, and he nosed her pocket for sugar. One by one she saw them all, and they reached the kennels in time for the evening meal."Oh, well," she sighed as they turned back toward the house, "I'm almost reconciled to riches. One could live in a place like this and forget there was anything else in the world.""Yes, perhaps some people might," he said significantly. "I couldn't, even if I wanted to. The only real joy in life is the memory of Saguache Peak at sunset.""Sunsets pass—they're symbols of the brevity of things beautiful——""But the night is long," he murmured. "So long, and so dark."
Morning brought regeneration. The sun shone brightly through her yellow curtains, and her maid brought with her breakfast tray a note from the contrite Cortland.
"Forgive me, Camilla. Forgive me. Call me selfish, unreasonable, cruel—anything you like—but don't tell me I shall not see you again. You will find me a model of all the virtues. Gladys is calling on you to-day. You are coming to the dinner, aren't you? I will be there—in a corner somewhere, but I won't bother you. The night has brought me patience. Forgive me.
"C."
Camilla slipped the note among her laces, and when Jeff looked in to bring her the invitation which had arrived in the morning mail to dine at the house of Cornelius Bent, she presented a fair face and joyous countenance.
General Bent's dinners had a way of being ponderous—like himself. From soup to coffee the victuals were rich and highly seasoned, the wines full-bodied; his dishes were heavy, his silver-service massive, his furniture capacious. The impression of solidity was further enhanced by the thick oak paneling, the wide fireplace, and the sumptuous candelabra. Many, if not all, of these adjectives might readily be applied to his men-servants, who had been so long in his employ that the essentials of their surroundings had been seared into their souls. The Bent régime was their religion, the General its high priest, and their offices components of a ceremony which they observed with impressive dignity and sedate fervor.
As a rule, the personality of the General's guests did nothing to detract from the impression of opulence. They were the heavy men of affairs, the big men of clubdom, of business, of religion, of politics. Camilla had been warned of what she must expect, but it was with feelings of trepidation not far removed from awe that she and Jeff got down from their taxi under the glow of the porte-cochère before the wide portal of the great house in Madison Avenue. Her last admonition to her husband in the cab had been, "Jeff, don't shuffle your feet! And don't say 'ma'am.' And keep your hands out of your pockets! If you can't think of anything to say, don't say it."
Wray only laughed. He was very much at his ease, for he had convinced himself downtown that the doors of the Bent establishment would not have swung so wide had the General not found that Wray's holdings and influence in the West were matters which some day he would have to reckon with.
When they arrived they were pleased to discover that there were to be young people among the guests as well as old. Three stout, florid gentlemen, members of the directorate of the Amalgamated Reduction Company, whom Jeff had met downtown, with their wives, and Mr. and Mrs. Worthington Rumsen lent their share to the dignity the General required, but there was a leaven of a younger set in Gladys, his daughter (Mrs. Bent had died many years before), Cortland, his son, and some others. Most of the guests were already in the drawing room when the Wrays were announced. And Camilla entered a little uncertainly, her eyes sparkling, seeking her hostess. There was a subdued masculine murmur of approval, a raising of lorgnons to aged feminine noses, a general movement of appreciation.
Camilla was radiant. Cortland Bent came forward from his corner, slowly drinking in her loveliness with his eyes. She was gowned in white and wore no ornaments. The slenderness which all women ape was hers without asking. Her ruddy hair at the last moment had resisted the arts of the hair-dresser, and so she wore it as she had always done, in a heavy coil like a rope of flame. If she had been pale as she entered, the blood now flowed quickly—almost too quickly to be fashionable—suffusing her face and gently warming her splendid throat and shoulders.
"Am I late?" she asked. "I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me?"
"You're not late," said her hostess. "Awfully glad——"
"We're bountifully repaid," put in General Bent gallantly, as he came forward. "I'm sure you're quite worth waiting for. I've been telling New York for years it had better keep its eyes on the West. Now I must warn its women. How are you, Wray? You know Warrington—and Janney. Let me present you, Wray—the Baroness Charny."
Jeff felt himself appraised civilly.
"You aretheMr. Wray?" she asked him. "The rich Mr. Wray?"
Jeff flushed with pleasure. Nothing ever tickled him more than a reference to his possessions.
"I'm Wray—from Colorado. And you—you know I've never seen a real live baroness before. So don't mind if I look at you a little. You see, we never have anybody like you out our way——"
"I don't mind in the least," she said with a slight accent. "What did you think a baroness ought to look like?"
"I had a kind of an idea she was stoutish, wore a crown, and sat in a big chair all day, ordering people around."
"I'm afraid you read fairy stories. I don't own a crown, and I might order people all day, but nobody would pay the least attention to me."
"What a pity," he said soberly.
His ingenuousness was refreshing.
"You know, Mr. Wray, baronesses aren't any more important nowadays than anybody else. The only barons worth while in the world are the Coal Barons, the Wheat Barons, the Gold Barons, like you." And then, "Did you know that you were to take me in? Are you glad?"
"Of course," with a vague attempt at gallantry. "I'd take you anywhere and be proud to."
"Then give me your arm," she laughed. And they followed the others in to dinner. Wray's other neighbor was Mrs. Rumsen, his host's sister. Camilla had related many tales of her social prowess, and she was really the only person at the table of whom Jeff stood the least in awe. Mrs. Rumsen's nose was aquiline like her brother's, her eyebrows high and slightly arched, her eyes small and rather close together, as though nature had intended them for a short but concentrated vision. She held her head very erect, and from her great height was enabled without pretence to look down on all lesser things. Cortland had described her as a grenadier, and, as Wray realized that the moment when he must talk to her was inevitably approaching, he lost some faith in his moods and tenses.
"Mr. Wray," she began, in a tone which was clearly to be heard the length of the table, "you have a handsome wife."
"Yes, ma'am," he drawled. "I'm glad you think so, Mrs. Rumsen."
"A woman with her looks and your money could have the world at her feet if she wished."
"Yes. I've told her the same thing. But I don't think she likes a fuss. Why, I sent up a whole carload of hats—all colors, with plumes and things, but she wouldn't have one of them."
The old lady's deep wrinkles relaxed.
"And diamonds——" he went on. "She's got half a peck, but I can't get her to put them on."
Mrs. Rumsen did not reply, only examined him with her small eyes through her lorgnon.
"You know, Mr. Wray, ever since you came into the room you have been a puzzle to me. Your features resemble those of some one I have known—years ago—some one I have known intimately—curious I can't——"
"Have you ever been West?"
"Oh, yes. Were your people——?"
"I have no people, Mrs. Rumsen," he said with a quick air of finality.
"Oh!" She still looked at him wonderingly. "I beg your pardon." Then she went on calmly, "You really interest me a great deal. I have seen Westerners in New York before—but you're different—I mean," she added, "the cut of your nose, the lines of your chin, the set of your head on your shoulders. I hope you'll forgive an old woman's curiosity."
Jeff bowed politely. "I'm very much flattered, Mrs. Rumsen."
"You and my brother have business interests in common?"
"Yes, I've a mine—a chain of mines and property interests, including a control of the Denver and Western Railroad."
She laid a hand impressively on his arm.
"Hold them. Take my advice and hold them. I know it is a great temptation to extend your control, to be a big man East and West. But don't try it by weakening what you have. Other men have come here to set the Hudson afire——"
"Some of them have done it, too, Mrs. Rumsen."
She shrugged. "What is the use? You have an empire of your own. Stay at home, develop it. Wouldn't you rather be first in Mantua than second in Rome?"
"I—I'm afraid I don't just take you?"
"I mean, wouldn't you rather be an emperor among your own people than fetch and carry—as so many others are doing—for Wall Street?"
"That's just the point. Only the boot is on the other leg. Wall Street needs the West. Wall Street doesn't think so. It's away behind the times. Those people downtown are so stuck on themselves that they think the whole country is stooping with its ear to the ground listening to what they're doing. Why, Mrs. Rumsen, there are men in the West—big men, too—who think Wall Street is a joke. Funny, isn't it? Wall Street doesn't seem to know that millions of acres of corn, of wheat, and potatoes keep growing just the same. Those things don't wait to hear what Wall Street thinks. Only God Almighty can make 'em stop growing. And as long as they grow, we don't bother much."
She smiled approvingly.
"Then why do you care?"
"Oh, I'm a kind of missionary. These people downtown are heathen critters. They're so ignorant about their own country it almost makes me ashamed to talk to them."
The last vestige of the grenadier aspect in Mrs. Rumsen had vanished, and her face dissolved in smiles.
"Heathens! They are," she laughed delightedly. "Critters—yes, critters, too. Splendid! Have you told Cornelius—my brother—that?"
Wray's truffle stuck in his throat and he gasped, "Good God, ma'am! No. You won't tell him, will you?"
"I'd like to," she chuckled. "But I won't."
Jeff laughed. "I'm afraid I've put my foot in it. I'm apt to. I'm rather a raw product——"
"Whatever you do, Mr. Wray, don't change. You're positively refreshing. Anybody can learn to be good form. It's as simple as a, b, c. If it wasn't easy there wouldn't be so many people practising it. The people in the shops even adopt our adjectives before they're well out of our mouths. Hats are 'smart,' when in earlier days they were simply 'becoming.' Gowns are 'fetching' or 'stunning' that were once merely 'pretty.' Let a fashionable Englishman wear a short coat with a high hat to the Horse Show, and every popinjay in town will be doing the same thing in a week. If you're a raw product, remain so by all means. Raw products are so much more appetizing than half-baked ones."
"I don't think there's any way to make me any different, Mrs. Rumsen," he laughed, "even if I wanted to be. People will have to take me as I am. Your brother has been kind. It seems as if he had a broader view of our people than most of the others."
"Don't be too sure. They're all tarred with the same stick. It's a maxim of mine never to put my trust in any person or thing below Twenty-third Street. The farther downtown you go, the deeper the villainy. You'll find all New Yorkers much the same. Out of business hours they are persons of the most exemplary habits, good fathers, vestrymen in churches, excellent hosts. In business——" she held up her hands in mock horror.
"Oh, I know," Wray chuckled. "But I'm not afraid. I'm something of a wolf myself. Your brother needs me more than I need him. I think we'll get along."
"You have everything you want. Take my advice and keep your money in the West."
"Thanks. But I like New York, and I don't want to be idle. Besides, there's Camilla—Mrs. Wray, you know."
"Yes, I see. I can't blame her. No woman with her looks wants to waste them on mountain scenery. I must know her better—and you. She must let me call on her. I'm giving a ball later. Do you think you could come?"
And the great lady turned to her dinner partner.
The Baroness, too, was amiable. It was her first visit to America. Her husband was an attaché of an embassy in Washington. She had not yet been in the West. Were all the men big, as Mr. Wray was?
She had a charming faculty of injecting the personal note into her questions, and before he was aware of it Wray found himself well launched in a description of his country—the mountains, the plains, the cowboys.
She had never heard of cowboys. What were they? Little cows?
Jeff caught a warning look from Camilla across the table, which softened his laughter. He explained, and the Baroness joined in the merriment. Then he told her that he had been for years a cowpuncher down in Arizona and New Mexico before he went into business, described the "round-up," the grub wagon, and told her of a brush with some Yaqui Indians who were on the warpath. When he began, the other people stopped talking and listened. Jeff was in his element and without embarrassment finished his story amid plaudits. Camilla, listening timidly, was forced to admit that his domination of the table was complete. The conversation became general, a thing which rarely happened at the Bent dinners, and Jeff discovered himself the centre of attention. Almost unconsciously he found himself addressing most of his remarks to a lady opposite, who had listened and questioned with an unusual show of interest.
When the ices were passed he turned to Mrs. Rumsen and questioned.
"Haven't you met her?" And then, across the table, "Rita—you haven't met Mr. Wray—Mrs. Cheyne."
CHAPTER VI
MRS. CHEYNE
Over the coffee, curiously enough, there seemed to be a disposition to refrain from market quotations, for General Bent skilfully directed the conversation into other channels—motoring—aviation—the Horse Show—the newest pictures in the Metropolitan—and Jeff listened avidly, newly alive to the interests of these people, who, as Mrs. Rumsen had said, above Twenty-third Street took on a personality which was not to be confounded with the life downtown, where he had first met them. When Curtis Janney asked him if he rode, Jeff only laughed.
"Oh, yes, of course you do. One doesn't punch cattle for nothing. But jumping is different—and then there's the saddle——"
"Oh, I think I can stay on without going for the leather. Anyway, I'd like to try."
"Right-o!" said Janney heartily. "We've had one run already—a drag. Couldn't you and Mrs. Wray come out soon? We're having a few people for the hunt week after next. There will be Cortland Bent, Jack Perot, the Rumsens, the Billy Havilands, Mrs. Cheyne, the Baroness and—if you'll come along—yourselves."
"Delighted. I'm sure Camilla will be glad to accept. We haven't many engagements."
"I think you've hidden your wife long enough, Mr. Wray. Does she ride, too?"
"Like a breeze—astride. But she wouldn't know what to do on a side-saddle."
"I don't blame her. Some of our women ride across. Gladys, Gretchen, Mrs. Cheyne——"
"Well," Jeff silently raised his brandy glass in imitation of his companion, "I'm glad there are a few horses somewhere around here—I haven't seen any outside of the shafts of a hansom since I left the West."
"The horse would soon be extinct if it wasn't for Curtis Janney," put in the General breezily. "Why, he won't even own a motor. No snorting devils for him. Might give his horses the pip or something. The stable is worth seeing, though. You're going, aren't you, Wray?"
In the library, later, Wray found Mrs. Cheyne. Until he had come to New York Wray's idea of a woman had never strayed from Camilla. There were other females in the Valley, and he had known some of them, but Camilla had made any comparison unfortunate. She was a being living in a sphere apart, with which mere clay had nothing in common. He had always thought of her as he thought of the rare plants in Jim Noakes' conservatory in Denver, flowers to be carefully nurtured and admired. Even marriage had made little difference in his point of view. It is curious that he thought of these things when he leaned over Mrs. Cheyne. To his casual eye this new acquaintance possessed many of the characteristics of his wife. Perhaps even more than Camilla she represented a mental life of which he knew nothing, contributed more than her share to the sublimated atmosphere in which he found himself moving. They might have been grown in the same conservatory, but, if Camilla was the Orchid, Mrs. Cheyne was the Poinsettia flower. And yet she was not beautiful as Camilla was. Her features, taken one at a time, were singularly imperfect. He was almost ready to admit that she wasn't even strikingly pretty. But as he looked at her he realized for the first time in his life the curious fact that a woman need not be beautiful to be attractive. He saw that she was colorful and unusually shapely, and that she gave forth a flow of magnetism which her air ofennuimade every effort to deny. Her eyes, like her hair, were brown, but the pupils, when she lifted her lids high enough to show them, were so large that they seemed much darker. Her dinner dress, cut straight across her shoulders, was of black, like the jewelled bandeau in her hair and the pearls which depended from her ears. These ornaments, together with the peculiar dressing of her hair, gave her well-formed head an effect which, if done in brighter hues, might have been barbaric, but which, in the subdued tones of her color scheme, only added to the impression of sombre distinction.
As he approached, she looked up at him sleepily.
"I thought you were never coming," she said.
"Did you?" said Wray, bewildered. "I—I came as soon as I could, Mrs. Cheyne. We had our cigars——"
"Oh, I know. Men have always been selfish—they always will be selfish. Cousin Cornelius is provincial to herd the men and women—like sheep—the ones in one pen, the others in another. There isn't a salon in Europe—a real salon—where the women may not smoke if they like."
"You want to smoke——"
"I'm famished—but the General doesn't approve——"
Wray had taken out his cigarette case. "Couldn't we find a spot?"
She rose and led the way through a short corridor to the conservatory, where they found a stone bench under a palm.
He offered her his case, and she lit the cigarette daintily, holding it by the very tips of her fingers, and steadying her hand against his own as Wray would have done with a man's. Wray did not speak. He watched her amusedly, aware of the extraordinary interest with which she invested his pet vice.
"Thanks," she said gratefully. Turning toward him then, she lowered her chin, opened her eyes, and looked straight into his.
"You know, you didn't come to me nearly as soon as I thought you would."
"I—I didn't know——"
"You should have known."
"Why should I——?"
"Because I wanted you to."
"I'm glad you wanted me. I think I'd have come anyway."
She smiled approvingly.
"Then my efforts were unnecessary."
"Your efforts?"
"Yes, I willed it. You interested me, you see."
He looked at her quickly. Her eyes only closed sleepily, then opened again.
"I'm lucky," he said, "that's sure."
"How do you know? I may not be at all the kind of person you think I am."
"I'll take a chance on that—but I wish you'd tell me what made you want me."
"I was bored. I usually am. The Bent parties are so formal and tiresome. Everybody always says the same things—does the same things." She sighed deeply. "If Cousin Cornelius saw me now I'd be in disgrace. I wonder why I always like to do the things people don't expect me to."
"You wouldn't be much of a woman if you didn't," he laughed. "But I like surprises. There wouldn't be much in life if you knew what was going to happen every minute."
"You didn't think I was going to happen then?"
"Er—no. Maybe I hoped so."
"Well," she smiled, "I have happened. What are you going to do about it?"
"Be thankful—mostly. You seem sort of human, somehow. You do what you want to—say what you want——"
"And if I don't get what I want, ask for it," she laughed. "I told Gladys it was very inconsiderate of her not to send you in to dinner with me. She's always doing that sort of thing. Gladys lacks a sense of proportion. As it is, the evening is almost gone, and we've only begun."
"I feel as if I'd known you for years," said Jeff heartily. "That's funny, too," he added, "because you're so different from any other woman I've ever known. You look as if you might have come from a book—but you speak out like Mesa City."
"Tell me about Mesa City. You know I was out West last year."
"Were you? Sure?" eagerly. "In Colorado?"
"Oh, yes," she said slowly, "but I was living in Nevada."
"Nevada? That was my old stamping ground. I punched for the Bar Circle down there. What part?"
"Reno."
"Oh!"
"I went there for my divorce."
His voice fell a note. "I didn't know that. I'm awfully sorry you were so unfortunate. Won't you tell me about it?"
"There's nothing to tell. Cheyne and I were incompatible—at least that's what the lawyers said. As such things go, I thought we got along beautifully. We weren't in the least incompatible so long as Cheyne went his way and let me go mine. It's so easy for married people to manage, if they only knew how. But Cheyne didn't. He didn't want to be with me himself—and he didn't want any one else to be. So things came to a pretty pass. It actually got so bad that when people wanted either of us to dinner they had to write first to inquire which of us was to stay away. It made a lot of trouble, and the Cheyne family got to be a bore—so we decided to break it up."
"Was he unkind to you—cruel?"
"Oh, dear, no! I wish he had been. Our life was one dreadful round of cheerful monotony. I got so tired of the shape of his ears that I could have screamed. Yes, I really think," she mused, "that it was his ears."
Wray examined her with his baby-like stare as though she had been a specimen of ore. There seemed to be no doubt of the fact that she was quite serious.
"I'm really sorry for him. It is—very sad——"
She threw her head back and laughed softly.
"My dear Mr. Wray, your sympathy is touching—he would appreciate it as much as I do—if he had not already married again."
"Married? Here in New York?"
"Oh, yes. They're living within a stone's throw of my house."
"Do you see him?"
"Of course. I dined with them only last week. You see," and she leaned toward him with an air of new confidences, "that's only human. I can't really give up anything I've once possessed. You know, I try not to sell horses that I've liked. I did sell one once, and he turned up one morning in a hired brougham. That taught me a lesson I've never forgotten. Now when they outlive their usefulness I turn them out on my farm in Westchester. Of course, I couldn't do that to Harold, but I did the next best thing. I've satisfied myself that he's properly looked after—and I'm sure he'll reflect credit on his early training."
"And he's happy?"
"Blissfully so. It wouldn't be possible for a man to have the advantages of a training like the one I have given him and not be able to make a woman happy."
"But he didn't makeyouhappy."
"Me? Oh, I wasn't made for bondage of any kind. Most women marry because they're bored or because they're curious. In either case they pay a penalty. Marriage provides no panacea. One only becomes more bored—with one's own husband—or more curious about other people's husbands."
"Are you curious? You don't look as if you cared enough to be curious."
"I do care." She held her cigarette at arm's length and flicked off its ash with her little finger. "Mr. Wray, I'll let you into a secret. A woman never appears so bored as when she is intensely interested in something—never so much interested as when she is bored to extinction. I am curious. I am trying to learn (without asking you impertinent questions) how on earth you and Mrs. Wray ever happened to marry."
She tilted her chin impudently and looked down her nose at him, her eyes masked by her dark lashes, through which it hardly seemed possible that she could see him at all. Jeff laughed. She had her nerve with her, he thought, but her frankness was amusing. He liked the way she went after what she wanted.
"Oh, Camilla—I don't know. It just happened, I guess. She's more your kind than mine. I'm a good deal of a scrub, Mrs. Cheyne. You see, I never went to college—or even to high school. Camilla knows a lot. She used to teach, but I reckon she's about given up the idea of trying to teachme. I'm a low-brow all right. I never read a novel in my life."
"You haven't missed much. Books were only meant for people who are willing to take life at second-hand. One year of the life you lived on the range is worth a whole shelf-ful. The only way to see life is through one's own eyes."
"Oh, I've seen life. I've been a cowboy, rancher, speculator, miner, and other things. And I've seen some rough times. But I wouldn't have worked at those things if I hadn't needed the money. Now I've got it, maybe I'll learn something of the romantic side of life."
She leaned back and laughed at him. "You dear, delicious man. Then it has never occurred to you that during all these years you've been living a romance?"
He looked at her askance.
"And then, to cap it all," she finished, "you discover a gold mine, and marry the prettiest woman in the West. I suppose you'll call that prosaic, too. You're really quite remarkable. What is it that you expect of life after all?"
"I don't know," he said slowly, "something more——"
"But there's nothing left."
"Oh, yes, there is. I've only tasted success, but it's good, and I like it. What I've got makes me want more. There's only one thing in the world that really means anything to me—and that's power——"
"But your money——"
"Yes, money. But money itself doesn't mean anything to me—idle money—the kind of money you people in New York are content to live on, the interest on land or bonds. It's what live, active money can do that counts with me. My money has got to keep working the way I work—only harder. Some people worship money for what it can buy their bodies. I don't. I can't eat more than three square meals a day. I want my money to make the desert bloom—to make the earth pay up what it owes, and build railroads that will carry its products where they're needed. I want it to take the miserable people away from the alleys in your city slums and put them to work in God's country, where their efforts will count for something in building up the waste ground that's waiting for them out there. Why, Mrs. Cheyne, last year I took up a piece of desert. There wasn't a thing on it but rabbit-brush. Last spring I worked out a colonization plan and put it through. There's a town there now called Wrayville, with five thousand inhabitants, two hotels, three miles of paved sidewalk, a public school, four factories, and two newspapers. All that in six months. It's a hummer, I can tell you."
As he paused for breath she sighed. "And yet you speak of romance."
"Romance? There's no romance in that. That's just get-up-and-get. I had to hustle, Mrs. Cheyne. I'd promised those people the water from the mountains on a certain date, but I couldn't do it, and the big ditch wasn't finished. I was in a bad fix, for I'd broken my word. Those people had paid me their money, and they threatened to lynch me. They had a mass meeting and were calling me some ugly names when I walked in. Why they didn't take a shot at me then, I don't know—but they didn't. I got up on the table, and, when they stopped yelling, I began to talk to 'em. I didn't know just what to say, but I knew I had to say something and make good—or go out of town in a pine box. I began by telling 'em what a great town Wrayville was going to be. They only yelled, 'Where's our water?' I told them it was coming. They tried to hoot me down, but I kept on."
"Weren't you afraid?"
"You bet I was. Buttheynever knew it. I tried to think of a reason why they didn't have that water, and in a moment they began to listen. I told 'em there was thirty thousand dollars' worth of digging to be done. I told 'em it wouldbedone, too, but that I didn't see why that money should go out of Wrayville to a lot of contractors in Denver. I'd been saving that work for the citizens of Wrayville. I was prepared to pay the highest wages for good men, and, if Wrayville said the word, they could begin the big ditch to-morrow."
"What did they do?"
"They stopped yelling right there, and I knew I had 'em going. In a minute they started to cheer. Before I finished they were carrying me around the hall on their shoulders. Phew—but that took some quick thinking."
Mrs. Cheyne had started forward when he began, and, as he went on, her eyes lost their sleepy look, her manner its languor, and she followed him to the end in wonder. When he stopped, she sank back in her corner, smiling, and repeated: "Romance? What romance is there left in the world for a man like you?"
He looked up at her with his baby stare and then laughed awkwardly. "You're making fun of me, Mrs. Cheyne. I've been talking too much, I reckon."
She didn't reply at once, and the look in her eyes embarrassed him. He reached for his cigarette case, offered it to her, and, when she refused, took one himself, lit it slowly, gazing out of the transom opposite.
"I hope I haven't tired you, Mrs. Cheyne. It's dangerous to get me talking about myself. I never know when to stop."
"I don't want you to stop. I've never been so entertained in my life. I don't believe you know how interesting you are."
He turned toward her, embarrassed and still incredulous. "You're very kind," he muttered.
"You mustn't be so humble," she broke in sharply. "You weren't so a minute ago. I like you best when you are talking of yourself."
"I thought I'd like to talk about you."
She waved a hand in deprecation. "Me? Oh, no. We can't come to earth like that. Tell me another fairy tale."
"Fairy tale? Then you don't believe me?"
"Oh, yes," she laughed, "I believe you, but to me they're fairy tales just the same. It seems so easy for you to do wonderful things. I wish you'd do some conjuring for me."
"Oh, there isn't any magic business about me. But I'll try. What do you want most?"
She put an elbow on her knee and gazed at the blossom in her fingers. Her voice, too, fell a note.
"What I think I want most," she said slowly, "is a way out of this." She waved the blossom vaguely in the direction of the drawing room. "I'm sick of it all, of the same tiresome people, the same tiresome dinners, dances, teas. We're so narrow, so cynical, so deeply enmeshed in our small pursuits. I'm weary—desperately weary of myself."
"You?"
"Yes." And then, with a short, unmirthful laugh, "That's my secret. You didn't suspect it, did you?"
"Lord! no." And after a pause, "You're unhappy about him?"
"Cheyne? Oh, no. He's the only thing I am happy about. Have you ever been really bored, Mr. Wray?"
"Never. I never even heard the word until I came to New York."
"Have you ever been so tired that your body was numb—so that if you struck it a blow you were hardly conscious of it, when you felt as if you could go to sleep and never want to wake up? Well, that's the condition of my mind. It's so tired of the same impressions that it fails to make note of them; the people I see, the things I do, are all blurred and colorless like a photograph that has been taken out of focus. The only regret I have when I go to sleep is that I have to wake up again."
"My dear Mrs. Cheyne——"
"Oh, I'm not morbid. I'm too bored to be morbid even. I don't think I'm even unhappy. It takes an effort to be unhappy. I can't tell you what the matter is. One drifts. I've been drifting a long time. I think I have too much money. I want towantsomething."
"Don't you ever want anything you can't have?"
She sat upright, and her voice, instead of drawling languidly, came in the quick accents of discovery. "Yes, I do. I've just found out. You've actually created a new interest in life. Won't you be nice to me? Come and see me often and tell me more fairy tales."
CHAPTER VII
BRAEBANK
"I can't see, Curtis," said Mrs. Janney, in the smoking room, "why you chose to ask those vulgar Wrays to Braebank. It almost seems as if you were carrying your business relationships too far. The woman is pretty enough, and I dare say her easy Western ways will be attractive to the masculine portion of your guests. But the man is impossible—absolutely impossible! He does not even use correct English, and his manners—atrocious!"
The palms of the good lady's hands, as she raised them in her righteous wrath, were very pink on the inside, like the petals of rosebuds. They were sheltered hands, very soft and plump, and their fingers bore many large and expensive jewels. Mrs. Janney was made up wholly of convex curves, which neither art nor starvation could deflect. The roundness of her face was further accented by concentric curves at brows, mouth, and chin, which gave the impression of a series of parentheses. It would not be stretching the figure too far to add that Mrs. Janney, in most of their few affiliations, bore a somewhat parenthetical relation to her husband. Her life, as well as her conversation, was made up of "asides," to which Curtis Janney was not in the habit of paying the slightest attention. Her present remarks, however, seemed to merit a reply.
"My dear Amelia," he said, tolerantly, from his easy chair, "when we were first married you used to say that all a man needed to make his way in New York was a dress suit and a smile. Wray has both. Besides, it is quite necessary to be on good terms with him. As for his wife, I have rarely seen a girl who created such an agreeable impression. Cornelius Bent has taken them up. He has his reasons for doing so. So have I. I'll trouble you, therefore, to be civil."
He got up and put down his cigar, and Mrs. Janney shrugged her shoulders into a more pronounced convexity.
"I won't question your motives, Curtis, though, of course, I know you have them. But I don't think we can afford to jeopardize our standing by always taking up new people like the Wrays. The man is vulgar—the woman, provincial."
Mr. Janney by this time had taken up the telephone and was ordering the wagons to the station.
"Why, Gretchen, dear! You're late. It's almost train time." Miss Janney entered in riding clothes from the terrace, bringing traces of the fine November weather. She was a tall, slender girl of the athletic type, sinuous and strong, with a skin so firm and ruddy from the air that it glowed crisply as though shot with mica.
"Is it, mother? Cortland and I hadsucha wonderful ride. He is really quite the nicest man in the world. Aren't you, Cort?"
"Of course I am," said Bent, laughing, as he entered, "anything Gretchen says. That's because I never made love to her, isn't it, Gretchen?"
"Partly. Love is so silly. You know, daddy, I've given Cort hiscongé."
Janney turned testily. "What nonsense you children talk!"
"I mean it, though, daddy," she went on calmly. "I'm too fond of Cort ever to think of marrying him. We settled that still more definitely to-day. Since you were so inconsiderate, you two, as to neglect to provide me with a brother, I've adopted Cort."
"Really, Gretchen, you're getting more hopeless every day," sighed her mother. "What does Cortland say?"
"I?" laughed Bent. "What is there left for me to say? We're hopelessly friendly, that's all. I'm afraid there's nothing left but to take to drink. May I?"
He lifted the decanter of Scotch and poured himself a drink, but Janney, with a scowl in the direction of his daughter, left the room.
"You mustn't speak so heartlessly, dear," said Mrs. Janney. "You know it always makes your father angry. You must be patient with her, Cortland."
"I am," said that gentleman, helping himself to a cigarette. "I'm the soul of patience, Mrs. Janney. I've pleaded and begged. I've even threatened suicide, but all to no purpose. There's no satisfaction in shooting one's self on account of a girl who's going to laugh at your funeral."
He threw himself hopelessly into a big English chair and sighed exuberantly, while Gretchen gave him a reproachful look over her mother's shoulder. "My poor boy, don't give her up," said the lady, genuinely. "All will come right in time, I'm sure. You must be sweeter to him, Gretchen. You really must."
"I suppose I must," said Gretchen with an air of resignation. "I'll not be any more cruel than I can help."
When the good lady left the room they looked at each other for a moment, and then burst into shameless laughter.
"Poor mother! She never had a sense of humor. I wouldn't laugh at your funeral, though, Cort. That was unkind. You know, I'm afraid father is very much provoked."
Bent's laughter died, and he gazed at the ash of his cigarette. "He's really quite serious about it, isn't he?"
"Oh, yes. It's an awful nuisance, because, in his way, he has a will as strong as mine."
Bent smiled. "I'm glad I'm not in his boots. You're fearfully stubborn, Gretchen."
"Because I insist on marrying whom I choose?"
"Because you insist on not marrying me."
Miss Janney sank in a chair by the table, fingering the pages of a magazine. She said nothing in reply, but in a few moments spoke carelessly.
"Tell me something about Lawrence Berkely, will you?"
"Larry? You've only met him once. Your curiosity is indecent."
"You know he's coming here with the Wrays."
"Not really? That's going a bit strong. I don't think I'll stand for that."
"Oh, yes, you will. He's quite as good as we are. He belongs totheBerkelys of Virginia. Mrs. Rumsen knows them."
"That's convincing. Any one Aunt Caroline knows will need no card to Saint Peter. Oh, Larry's all right. But I warn you not to fall in love with him."
"That's precisely what I've done," she asserted.
He glanced at her amusedly, but she met his look coolly.
"It's true, Cort. He's actually the only man I've met since I came out who really isn't eligible. I'm so delighted. Of course, father would never have permitted it if he'd only known that Mr. Berkely wasn't rich. He hasn't much use for poor people. Oh, he's well enough off, I suppose, as Mr. Wray's partner, but then he doesn't own any of that fabulous gold mine."
"How do you know all these things?"
"He told me. Besides, he's terribly good looking, and has had something the matter with his lungs."
"Well, of all the——"
"That's why he's been living in the West. But he's quite well now. Isn't it splendid? I only hope he'll like me. Don't you think he has wonderful eyes?"
"I'm sure I never noticed. See here, Gretchen, you're talking rot. I'm going to tell your father."
"Oh, I don't care," airily. "But if you do, I'll tell Mr. Wray."
"Wray?"
"Yes—that you're in love with his wife."
Miss Janney exploded this bombshell casually while she removed her hat, watching him carefully meanwhile in the mirror. If she had planned her coup, she could not have been more fully rewarded, for Cortland started up, clutching at the chair arms, his face aghast; but when his eyes met hers in the mirror he sank back again, laughing uneasily.
"What—who on earth put that silly idea into your head?"
"You—yourself. I watched you at the Warringtons."
"What nonsense! I've known Camilla a long time."
"Not so long as you've known me. And you never looked at me like that." She laid her hat beside her crop on the table, then turned quickly and put her hand over his on the chair arm. "You may trust me, Cortland, dear. If I'm going to be your sister, I may as well begin at once. It's true, isn't it?"
He remained silent a long while, his gaze fixed on the open fire before him. Then at last he turned his hand over so that his fingers clasped hers. "Yes," he whispered, "it's true, Gretchen. It's true."
"I'm so sorry, Cort," she murmured. "I suspected from your letters. I wish I might have helped you. I feel somehow that I am to blame—that we ever got engaged. Won't you tell me how it happened that she married him—instead of you?"
"No, no," he said, rising and walking to the window. "She—she married Wray—because—because she loved him, that's all. I wasn't the man."
Gretchen watched him wistfully, still standing beside the chair he had vacated, full of the first deep sympathy she had ever known. Slowly she walked over and put her hand timidly on his shoulder.
"You'll forgive me, won't you, Cort? I wouldn't have spoken if I had known how deeply you felt." She turned aside with a bitter little laugh. "Isn't it queer that life should be so full of complications? Everybody expects you and me to marry each other—at least, everybody but ourselves, and we won't because—why is it that we won't? Chiefly because everybody expects us to—and because it's so easy. I'm sure if there was any reason why we shouldn't marry, I'd love you quite madly. Instead of which, you're in love with a married woman, and I—I'm interested in a youth with sad romantic eyes and an impaired breathing apparatus."
"Gretchen, don't be silly," he said, smiling in spite of himself.
"I'm really serious—you'll see." She stopped and clutched Bent's arm. "Tell me, Cort. He's not married already, is he?"
"You silly child. Not that I know of. Berkely is a conscientious sort of a bird—he wouldn't have let you make love to him——"
"Ididn't," with dignity, "we talked about the weather mostly."
"That must have been romantic."
"Cort, I'll not speak to you again." She rushed past him to the window, her head erect. Outside was the whirr of an arriving motor. "How tiresome. Here come the Billy Havilands," she said, "and they'll want to be playing 'Auction' at once. They always do. As if there was nothing but 'Bridge' in the world!" She sniffed. "I wish we were going to be fewer in number. Just you and I and——"
"And Larry?"
"Yes—and Mrs. Wray," she put in viciously.
Curtis Janney was already in the big stair hall to welcome the arrivals.
"Billy—Dorothy—welcome! Of course you had to bring your buzz-wagon. I suppose I'll be driven to build a garage some day—but it will be well down by the East Lodge. Do you expect to follow in that thing? Rita! Awfully glad. Your hunter came over last night. He looks fit as a fiddle. Aren't you cold? Gretchen, dear, ring for tea."
Noiseless maids and men-servants appeared, appropriated wraps and hand baggage, and departed.
"We timed it nicely," said Haviland, looking at his watch. "Forty-seven from the ferry. We passed your wagons a moment ago. Gretchen, who's the red-haired girl with the Rumsens?"
"Et tu, Brute? That's Mrs. Wray. None of us has a chance when she's around. Here they are now."
The two station wagons drew up at the terrace, and the guests dismounted. Mr. and Mrs. Rumsen with the Wrays in the station wagon, and the Baroness Charny, the Warringtons, Jack Perot, and Lawrence Berkely in the 'bus.
"Well, Worthy! Got here after all! Caroline, Mrs. Wray, would you like to go right up or will you wait for tea? Wray, there's something stronger just inside. Show him, won't you, Billy?"
Wray entered the big hall with a renewed appreciation of the utility of wealth. The houses in New York which he had seen were, of course, built upon a more moderate scale. He had still to discover that the men of wealth were learning to make their week-ends out of town longer, and that the real home-life of many of them had been transferred to the country, where broad acres and limitless means enabled them to gratify their tastes in developing great estates which would hand down their names in the architectural history of the country when their city houses should be overwhelmed and lost in the march of commerce. Curtis Janney, for all his great responsibilities, was an open-air man, and he took a real delight in his great Tudor house and stables. The wide entrance hall which so impressed Jeff was designed in the ripe Palladian manner which distinguished the later work of the great Inigo Jones. This lofty room was the keynote of the building—a double cube in shape, the staircase which led from the centre opposite the door ornate in a character purely classic—the doorways to the other rooms on the same floor masterful in structural arrangement and elegant in their grace and simplicity. It almost seemed as though the room had been designed as a framework for the two wonderful Van Dykes which were placed at each side of the stairway.
Jeff smiled as he walked into the smoking room—the smile of possession. He realized, as never before, that taste, elegance, style, were things which could be bought with money, as one would buy stock or a piece of real estate. The only difference between Curtis Janney and himself was that his host had an ancestor or two—while Jeff had none.
Miss Janney had quietly and cleverly appropriated Lawrence Berkely and was already on her way to the conservatory. Jack Perot, who painted the portraits of fashionable ladies, had taken the Baroness to the Long Room, where the English pictures were hung. Camilla, after a few polite comments on the dignity of the house, sat a little aside in silence. Cortland Bent, after a glance toward the door through which Miss Janney had vanished, dropped into the vacant chair beside her.
"I'm so glad to see you," she said genuinely. "You know the magnificence is rather bewildering." She paused and lowered her voice. "It seems as if I hadn't seen you for ages."
"Yes," he murmured. "I'm expecting wings any day now. I'm almost too good to be true."
"You're an angel," she smiled. "I want you to be good, and I'm sure I want you to be true. And yet"—she paused—"this seems the only case in the world where to be true is to be bad."
"You can't make the sun stop shining."
"I don't think I want it to stop shining altogether. You see, I'm selfish. I want it under a cloud, that's all."
There was a pause—significant to them both.
"I am trying, Camilla. I am doing my best. You appreciate that?"
"Yes, but it shouldn't be so hard. I don't think it would be hard for me in your place!"
His eyes questioned.
"Miss Janney—she is adorable." She looked over the rim of her cup at him as she finished her tea. "My dear Cort," she laughed, as she handed it to him, "the best I can say for you is that you have the worst taste in the world. I'm really in love with her myself. I can't see what you could have been thinking of——"
"Any more thanIcan see whatyouwere thinking of."
There was a refuge from the danger toward which she felt herself drifting, and she took it, addressing her nearest neighbor.
"Mrs. Cheyne, don't you think men have abominable taste?"
"Oh, yes, abominable," laughed the lady. "Ugh! I hate mustaches, too, don't you?"
Camilla turned a shade rosier, but her discomfiture was lost in the laughter of those who remembered that Cheyne had worn a beard.
"You know I didn't mean just that," explained Camilla. "I meant their appreciation of women—their sense of the esthetic——"
"Anesthetic, Mrs. Wray. That's the only word for a man's perceptions. A French frock, a smart hat, a little deft color, and the plainest of us is a match for the gayest Lothario. They're only bipeds, instincts on legs——"
"Oh, I say now, Rita," laughed Bent.
"We can't stand for that, Mrs. Cheyne," put in their host. "I suppose you'd think me ungallant if I asked you what kind of instincts women were."
"Instincts with wings," she purred, "angels by intuition, rhapsodists by occupation, and sirens by inheritance. We're not in the least afraid of you, Mr. Janney."
"I should think not. For my part, if I knew that one of you was camping on my trail, I'd give in at once."
"I'm so glad. It's a pet theory of mine that when a woman really sets her cap for a man he had better give up at once, for she will win him—fortune favoring—in the end. Don't you agree, Mrs. Wray?"
"I've never thought about it, Mrs. Cheyne," said Camilla slowly. "By fortune you mean propinquity?"
"Oh, yes—and other things——" laughingly. "For instance, if I had fallen in love with a man I shouldn't stop to consider. If he was another woman's husband—sayyourhusband, Mrs. Wray—that would only add a new element of interest. The more difficult an undertaking, the greater satisfaction in the achievement."
Camilla looked at her steadily for a moment. "I've never thought that any man ought to be dignified by such extraordinary effort. A husband so easily won away is not worth keeping."
The two women had only met once before. They both smiled, sweetly tolerant, their weapons politely sheathed. Only Cortland Bent, who knew the hearts of both, sensed the difference between them.
"You're very flattering, Rita," he broke in, "especially to the bipeds. You've carefully deprived us of every attribute but legs. But we still have those—and can run."
"But you don't," laughed Mrs. Cheyne. "That's just the point. You like the game—all of you. Even your legs aren't proof against flattery."
"Stop, Rita," put in Betty Haviland. "You're letting out all the secrets of the craft."
"Come, Camilla," said Cortland, rising, "wouldn't you like to see the horses and dogs? It's not nearly dark yet."
"Oh, yes," she cried gladly. And then to her host, "What am I to expect, Mr. Janney, silver feed troughs and sterilized water?"
"Oh, no," said their host, "not yet. But they're worth it."
The pair made their way through the library and a small corridor which led to the south portico.
"How do you like my cousin Rita?" Bent asked when they were alone outside.
"Is she your cousin?"
"Through my mother—the Davidges. Quite wonderful, eh?"
"I don't like her. You don't mind my saying so, do you?"
"Not in the least. She's not your sort, Camilla. But then nobody ever takes Rita seriously. She doesn't want them to. She's a spoiled darling. Everybody pets her. That bored kind of cleverness is effective—but everybody knows she doesn't mean half she says."
"I'd be sorry to think she meant anything she says," severely.
Bent laughed. "I'm afraid you're too sincere for my crowd, Camilla."
"Who is Mr. Cheyne?" she asked suddenly.
"A perfectly amiable person with a bald head and a passion for domesticity and music, both of which Rita affects to despise."
"Why did she marry him then?"
"Nobody knows. It was one of the marriages that weren't made in Heaven, that's all."
"Few marriages are, but they're none the less binding because of that."
"Yes, I know," he said soberly.
She recognized the minor note and turned the subject quickly.
"What a heavenly spot! These are the stables, of course. And the buildings beyond?"
"The kennels. Mr. Janney has his own pack—corking hounds. They've been breeding this strain a long while in England. I suppose they're as good as any in the world."
"I'm wild to see them."
The head groom met them at the door of the carriage house and showed them through. The much despised touring car of the Havilands occupied a negligible part of the great floor. The coach, brake, carryall, station wagons, victoria, runabouts, and brake-carts—all in royal blue with primrose running-gear—looked down with an old-fashioned dignity and disapprobation on this product of a new civilization. The paneled walls of the room were covered with sporting prints, and the trophy room, with its cabinets of cups and ribbons, bore eloquent testimony to Curtis Janney's success at horse shows in every large city of the country. In the stables Camilla lost all sense of restraint. A stable had never meant anything like this. The cement floors were spotless, and the long line of stalls of polished wood with brass newels and fittings shone like the silver in the drawing room. The mats and blankets were of blue, and each bore the monogram of the owner in yellow.
"These are the coach and carriage horses, Camilla," Bent explained.
"Yes, ma'am," put in the groom. "The hunters are here," and he led the way to the box stalls.
"Where is Mackinaw? Mr. Janney promised him to me for to-morrow."
"Oh, Mackinaw is right here, ma'am. And a fine bit of flesh he is." He went in and threw off the blanket, while Camilla followed. "Not a blemish. He'll take his four rails like they was two. Just give him his head, and you won't be far off when they kill."
"Oh, what a darling! I'm wild to get on him. Is he gentle?"
She patted him on the neck, and he nosed her pocket for sugar. One by one she saw them all, and they reached the kennels in time for the evening meal.
"Oh, well," she sighed as they turned back toward the house, "I'm almost reconciled to riches. One could live in a place like this and forget there was anything else in the world."
"Yes, perhaps some people might," he said significantly. "I couldn't, even if I wanted to. The only real joy in life is the memory of Saguache Peak at sunset."
"Sunsets pass—they're symbols of the brevity of things beautiful——"
"But the night is long," he murmured. "So long, and so dark."