Paliser lit a cigarette and said: "You made no reply to that statement of mine."
She stared. "What statement?"
"About saving your life."
"And ruining my reputation?"
"Well, life comes first. I said you would have to marry me to pay for it. Will you?"
Cassy lowered the napkin. He was talking in jest she knew, or thought she knew, but the subject was not to her taste, though if he had been serious she would have disliked it still more. She wanted to give it to him, but no fitting insolence occurred to her and she turned to the window before which two Japanese were passing, with the air, certainly feigned, which these Asiatics display, of being hilarious and naïf.
"Will you?" he repeated.
"Will I what?"
"Marry me?"
Perhaps he did mean it, she thought. He was cheeky enough for anything. But now he was prodding her. "Say yes. Say to-morrow; say to-day."
She turned on him. "Why not yesterday? Or is it just another of your pearls of thought? You are simply ridiculous."
Paliser put down his cigarette. "That is the proper note. Marriage is ridiculous. But it is the most ancient of human institutions. Divorce must have been invented at least three weeks later."
Cassy did not mean to laugh and did not want to, but she could not help herself and she exploded it. "You are so ardent!"
Innocently Paliser caressed his chin. He had made her laugh and that was a point gained. But such pleasure as he may have experienced he succeeded in concealing.
"Again the proper note! I am ardent. Yet—shall I admit it?—formerly I walked in darkness. It is all due to my father. I have forgotten the prophet preaching on the hillside who denounced respectability as a low passion. But my father, while deeply religious, has views more advanced. He dotes on respectability. He tried to instil it into me and, alas! how vainly! I was as the blind, the light was withheld and continued to be until, well, until a miracle occurred. You appeared, I was healed, I saw and I saw but you. What do you say?"
"That your conversation is singularly edifying." In speaking, Cassy gathered her gloves with an air slightly hilarious but not in the least naïf. Before Paliser could cut in, she added: "If I don't hurry, Ma Tamby will be out and I shall lose my lesson."
Paliser shifted. She is devilish pretty, he thought. But is she worth it? For a second he considered the possible scandal which he had considered before.
He stood up. "Let me take you. We can stop for the song on the way."
"My Carlottatralala! Dear Carlottatralala!"
Lightly at the door, Cassy strung the words to a mazourka. Her voice twisted, swung, danced into a trill that was captured by echoes that carried it diminishingly down the stairway of the mansion where Carlotta Tamburini lived.
"Eh?"
Partially the door opened. A fat slovenly woman showed an unpowdered nose, a loose unpainted mouth, and, at sight of Paliser, backed. "For God's sake! One moment, dearie. Straight ahead. With you in two shakes."
Cassy, her yellow frock swishing, led the way to a room furnished with heaped scores, with a piano, a bench, chairs and a portrait, on foot, of a star before the fall. Adjacently were framed programmes, the faded tokens of forgetless and forgotten nights, and, with them, the usual portraits of the usual royalties, but perhaps unusually signed. The ex-diva had attended to that herself.
Paliser, straddling the bench, put his hat on the piano and looked at Cassy, who had gone to the window. It was not the palaces opposite that she saw. Before her was a broken old man revamped. In his hand was a baton which he brandished demoniacally at an orchestra of his own. The house foamed with faces, shook with applause, and without, at the glowing gates, a chariot carried him instantly to the serenities of elaborate peace.
"It won't take over an hour."
The vision vanished. Across the way, in a window opposite, a young man was dandling, twirling one side of a moustache, cocking a conquering eye. Cassy did not see him. Directly behind her another young man was talking. She did not hear.
On leaving the restaurant and, after it, the music-shop, the car had taken them into the Park where Paliser, alleging that he was out of matches, had handed her into another restaurant where more Vichy was put before her and, with it, that question.
The air was sweet with lilacs. On the green beyond Cassy could see them, could see, too, a squirrel there that had gone quite mad. It flew around and around, stopped suddenly short, chattered furiously and with a flaunt of the tail, disappeared up a tree.
"What a dear!" was Cassy's reply to that question.
But Paliser gave her all the rope that she wanted. He had no attraction for her, he knew it, and in view of other experiences, the fact interested him. It had the charm of novelty to this man who, though young, was old; who, perhaps, was born old; born, as some are, too old in a world too young.
He struck a match and watched the little blue-gold flame flare and subside. It may have seemed to him typical. Then he looked up.
"Frankly, I have no inducements to offer, and, by the same token, no lies. It would be untrue if I said I loved you. Love is not an emotion, it is a habit, one which it takes time to form. I have had no opportunity to acquire it, but I have acquired another. I have formed the habit of admiring you. The task was not difficult. Is there anything in your glass?"
"A bit of cork, I think," said Cassy, who was holding the glass to the light and who was holding it moreover as though she had thoughts for nothing else.
But her thoughts were agile as that squirrel. A why not? Why not? Why not? was spinning in them, spinning around and around so quickly that it dizzied her. Then, like the squirrel, up a tree she flew. For herself, no. She did not want him, never had wanted him, never could.
"May I have it?" Paliser took the glass. Save for subsiding bubbles, and the bogus water, there was nothing there. "Will you take mine? I have not touched it."
Cassy took it from him, drank it, drank it all. Her thoughts raced on. She was aware of that, though with what they were racing she could not tell.
"I don't know why I am so thirsty."
Paliser knew. He knew that the taste of perplexity is very salt. She was considering it, he saw, and he payed out the rope.
"People who claim to be wise are imbeciles. But people who claim to be happy are in luck. I have no pretensions to wisdom but I can claim to be lucky if——"
Cassy, her steeple-chasing thoughts now out of hand, was saying something and he stopped.
"It is very despicable of me even to listen to you. I don't think I would have listened, if you had not been frank. But you have had the honesty not to pretend. I must be equally sincere. I——"
It was Paliser's turn. With a laugh he interrupted. "Don't. A little sincerity is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it must be fatal. Besides I know it all by heart. I am the son of rich and disreputable people. That is not my fault, and, anyway, it is all one to you. But what you mean is that, should you consent, the consideration will not be—er—personal with me or—er—spiritual with you, but—er—just plain and simple materialism."
Cassy looked wonderingly at him. It was surprising how quickly and how completely he had nailed it. But into the bewilderment there crept something else. "Yes, and I am ashamed to look myself in the face."
Paliser gave a tug at the rope. "Then don't do that either. Look at me. Matrimony is no child's play. It is like a trip to England—close confinement with the chance of being torpedoed. Interference is the submarine that sinks good ships. If you consent, there is only one thing on which I shall insist, but I shall insist on it absolutely."
Visibly the autocrat stiffened. "Shall you, indeed!"
Paliser pounded, or affected to pound, on the table. "Yes, absolutely."
You may go to Flanders then, thought Cassy, but, with that look which she could summon and which was tolerably blighting, she said, "Ah! The drill sergeant!"
"Yes, and here is the goose-step. The drill sergeant orders that you must always have your own way in everything."
Considerably relaxed by that, Cassy laughed. "You are very rigorous. But don't you think it is rather beside the mark?"
"Beside it!" Paliser exclaimed. "It tops it, goes all over it, covers it, covers the grass, covers everything—except a fair field, a free rein and every favour."
Cassy was gazing beyond where the squirrel had been. A limousine passed. A surviving victoria followed. Both were superior. So also were the occupants. They were very smart people. You could tell it from the way they looked. They had an air contemptuous and sullen. The world is not good enough for them, Cassy thought. In an hour, car and carriage would stop. The agreeable occupants would alight. They would enter fastidious homes. Costly costumes they would exchange for costumes that were costlier. They would sit at luxurious boards, lead the luxurious life and continue to, until they died of obesity of the mind.
None of that! Cassy decided. But already the picture was fading, replaced by another that showed a broken old man, without a penny to his name, or a hope save in her.
From the screen, she turned to Paliser, who, aware of her absence, had omitted to recall her. Now, though, that she again condescended to be present, he addressed her in his Oxford voice.
"But what was I saying? Yes, I remember, something that somebody said before me. Nowadays every one marries except a few stupid women and a few very wise men. Yet, then, as I told you, I have no pretensions to wisdom."
"Nor I to stupidity," Cassy thoughtlessly retorted. Yet at once, realising not merely the vanity of the boast but what was far worse, the construction that it invited, she tried to recall it, tangled her tongue, got suddenly red and turned away.
"You do me infinite honour then," said Paliser, who spoke better than he knew. But her visible discomfort delighted him. He saw that she wanted to wriggle out of it and, like a true sportsman, he gave her an opening in which she would trip.
"Matrimony is temporary insanity with permanent results. You must not incur them blindfolded. Do me the favour to look this way. Before you sits a pauper."
In the surprise of that, Cassy did look and walked straight into it. "What?"
"Precisely." In sheer enjoyment he began lying frankly and freely. He lied because lying is a part of the game, because it is an agreeable pastime and because, too, if she swallowed it—and why shouldn't she?—it might put a spoke in such wheels as she might otherwise and subsequently set going.
"Precisely," he repeated. "It is different with my father. My father has what is called a regular income. One of these days I shall inherit it. It will keep us out of the poorhouse. But meanwhile I have only the pittance that he allows me."
Yes, Cassy sagaciously reflected. What with Paliser Place, its upkeep and the rest of it, it must be a pittance. But the lie behind it, which she mistook for honesty, tripped her as it was intended to do. A moment before she might have backed out. Now, in view of the lie that she thought was truth, how could she? It would be tantamount to acknowledging she was for sale but that he hadn't the price. Red already, at the potential shame of that she got redder.
Paliser, who saw everything, saw the heightening flush, knew what it meant, knew that he was landing her, but knew, too, that he must bear the honours modestly.
"Bread and cheese in a cottage and with you!" he exclaimed. "But, forgive me, I am becoming lyrical." He turned, summoned the waiter, paid for the water, paid for the service and took from the man his stick.
Cassy went with him to the car. She had made no reply. If she were to take the plunge, there was no use shivering on the brink. But what would her father say? He would be furious of course, though how his fury would change into benedictions when he found himself transported from the walk-up, lifted from Harlem and cold veal! Presently there would be a flower in his button-hole and everything that went with the flower. Moreover, if the poor dear wanted to be absurd, she would let him parade his marquisate; while, as for herself, she would have to say good-bye to so much that had been so little. Good-bye! Addio per sempre! The phrase from La Tosca came to her. It told of kisses and caresses that she had never had. Yet, beneath her breath, she repeated it. Addio per sempre!
Then suddenly, without transition, she felt extraordinarily at peace with herself, with everybody, with everything. After all, she did not know, stranger things had happened, she might even learn to care for him and to care greatly. But whether she did or she did not, she would be true as steel—truer! He had been so nice about it! Yes, she might, particularly since she had made a clean breast of it and he knew she was marrying him for what it pleased him to describe as his pittance.
The car now was flying up the Riverside. An omnibus passed. From the roof, a country couple spotted the handsome girl and the handsome young man who were lolling back so sumptuously, and the lady stranger, pointing, said to her gentleman: "Vanderbilt folk, I guess, ain't they dandy!" Behind the lady sat a novelist who was less enthusiastic. Another girl gone gay, was his mental comment. Well, why not? he reflected, for Jones' prejudices were few and far between. Besides, he added: Les Portugais sont toujours gais. But he had other things to think about and he dismissed the incident, which, in less than a week, he had occasion to recall.
Cassy, meanwhile, after serenading a fat woman's door and looking from a palatial window at the moving-pictures of her thoughts, at last heard Paliser, who, already, had twice addressed her.
"It won't take over an hour or so."
But now the Tamburini, ceremoniously attired in a wrapper, strode in and Paliser, who had been straddling the music-bench, stood up.
The fact that they had come together and were together, had already darkly enlightened the fallen star and as she strode in she exclaimed with poetry and fervour: "Two souls with but a single thought!"
Paliser took his hat. "We are a trifle better provided. I have as many as three or four thoughts and one of them concerns a license. I am going to get it."
His face was turned from Cassy and his eyes, which he had fastened on his hostess, held caveats, commands, rewards.
Massively she flung herself on Cassy. "Dearie, I weep for joy!"
Cassy shoved her away. "Not on me, Tamby."
But the dear lady, in attacking her, shot a glance at Paliser. It was very voluble.
Cassy, too, was looking at him. Her education had been thorough. She knew any number of useless things. In geography, history, and the multiplication-table she was versed. But Kent's Commentaries, passionate as they are, were beyond her ken. The laws to which they relate were also. None the less, on the subject of one law she had an inkling, vague, unprecised, and, for all she knew to the contrary, incorrect. She blurted it. "Don't I have to go, too?"
Ma Tamby grabbed it. "Go where, dearie?"
"For the license?"
Ma Tamby tittered. "Not unless you love the song of the subway. The license is a man's job." Twisting, she giggled at Paliser. "But not hard labour, he, he!"
"A life-term, though," he answered and added: "I'll go at once."
That settled it for Cassy. A chair stretched its arms to her. She sat down.
Wildly the fat woman gesticulated. "Dearie, no! But how it gets me! As true as gospel I dreamed so much about it that it kept me awake. I do believe I have a pint of champy. Shall I fetch it? I must."
Coldly Cassy considered her. "Don't. You'll only get tight."
Paliser, making for the door, called back: "Save a drop for me."
"May the Lord forgive me," sighed the fat woman. "I was that flustered I forgot to congratulate him. But how it takes me back! Dearie, I too was young! I too have loved! Ah, gioventu primavera della vita! Ah, l'amore! Ah! Ah!"
"You make me sick," said Cassy.
"Dearie——"
"Be quiet. My father won't like it and I can't lie to him about it. But I shall need some things and you will have to go for them. What will you tell him?"
With one hand, the fat woman could have flattened Cassy's father out. But not his tongue. The nest of vipers there, even then hissed at her.
"Why, dearie, to-morrow you'll have your pick of Fifth Avenue and until then, if you need a tooth-brush, I'll get one for you around the corner."
"But my father will have to be told something. He'll worry to death. I might write though, and put on a special delivery. Look here. Have you any note paper that isn't rotten with scent? If not, I do believe I'll chuck it."
"For God's sake, dearie!"
Hastily, in search of scentless paper, the fat woman made off.
Over the way, on the jimcrack of the stately mansion opposite, the westering sun had put an aigrette of gold. The young man with the conquering eye had gone. A lovely Jewess, leaning like a gargoyle, violently threatened some Ikey in the unlovely street below. Above was a pallid green. Beyond, across the river, the sun, poised on a hill-top, threw from its eternal palette shades of salmon and ochre that tinted an archipelago of slender clouds. But in the street was the music of carefree lads, playing baseball, exchanging chaste endearments. There too was the gaiety of little trulls, hasty and happy on their roller-skates. While perhaps to generalise these delights, a trundled organ tossed a ragtime. The charm was certainly affecting and that charm the horn of Paliser's approaching car merely increased.
Long since the letter had gone and, with it, another to Mrs. Yallum. In the former, Cassy had tried to gild the pill, yet without succeeding in disguising it.
Dear Daddy:You are the best man in the world and the next best your little girl is to marry now, right away, and become Mrs. Monty Paliser. But my heart will be with you and so will Mrs. Yallum. Don't fuss with her, there's a dear, and take your medicine regularly and be ready to give me your blessing as soon as I can run in, which will be at the first possible moment, when I shall have more news, good news, better news, best of daddies, for thee.A whirlwind of kisses,Cassy.
Dear Daddy:
You are the best man in the world and the next best your little girl is to marry now, right away, and become Mrs. Monty Paliser. But my heart will be with you and so will Mrs. Yallum. Don't fuss with her, there's a dear, and take your medicine regularly and be ready to give me your blessing as soon as I can run in, which will be at the first possible moment, when I shall have more news, good news, better news, best of daddies, for thee.
A whirlwind of kisses,
Cassy.
Adjacently, on the upper reaches of Broadway, Ma Tamby was shopping. The sun now, gone from the river, was painting other spheres. From a corner, shadows crept. They devoured the floor, absorbed the piano, assimilated the room. They left pits where they passed. They enveloped Cassy.
Suddenly, she shivered.
She had been far away, outside of the world, in a region to which the clamouring street could not mount. Her thoughts had lifted her to a land that had the colours, clear and yet capricious, of which dreams are made. There beauty stood, and truth with beauty, and so indistinguishably that the two were one. But truth, detaching herself, showed her candid face. The shadows elongating, reached up and darkened it. The candour remained, but the candour had become terrible. Cassy saw it. She saw that the land to which she had been lifted was the land of beauty and horror. It was then she shivered.
Instantly something touched her. There was no one. The land, the beauty, the horror had faded. No longer on the heights, she was in a trivial room in Harlem. She was awake. She was absolutely alone. None the less something that was nothing, something invisible, inaudible, intangible, imperceptible, something emanating from the depths where events crouch, prepared to pounce, had touched her. She knew it, she felt it. Her impulse was to scream, to rush away. But from what? It was all imaginary. Common-sense, that can be so traitorous, told her that. Then, immediately, before the wireless from the unknown, which modern occultism calls the impact, could impel her, the room was invaded.
Ma Tamby, tramping in, switching on the lights, was exclaiming and gesticulating at her and at Paliser, who had followed and who was standing in the doorway.
"Dearie! For God's sake! The child's asleep! In all my born days I never knew the likes of that!"
Icily Cassy eyed her. "What have you there?"
"Where? What? This?" Feelingly the woman exhibited a nice, big package. "Why, the things I bought for you!"
"And do you for a moment suppose that I am going to carry a bundle?"
"Saints alive, child! Didn't you tell me——"
But now Paliser, in his cultured voice, intervened. "If I may have it?" He took it, moved to the window, leaned from it, called: "Mike! You see this? Then see too that you don't muff it."
The bundle vanished.
He turned to Cassy. "I telephoned to Dr. Grantly. He is a clergyman. It might seem uncivil to keep him waiting."
Cassy saw him at once—a starchy old man, with a white tie and little side whiskers, who lived—and would die—in a closed circle of thought.
Then again that nothing touched her, though, because of the others, more lightly, less surely. But it touched her. She was quite conscious of it, equally conscious that there was still time, that she could still desist, that she had only to say that she would not, that she had changed her mind and tell them no, right out and be hanged to them. On the strawberry of her tongue it trembled. At once before her there floated another picture, the picture of a shabby old man, without a penny in the world, or a hope save in her.
She stood up.
"Dearie, dearie, I wish you joy, I do!" the fat woman sobbed, or appeared to sob, and everything being possible, it may be that she did not sob. La joie fait peur. She had done her part. On the morrow a cheque would reach her. "Dearie, dearie!"
"Don't be a fool," Cassy frigidly threw at her.
"Will you take my arm?" Paliser asked.
"Don't be a fool either," she threw at him and bravely, head up, went on to the events that waited.
In the street below a strain overtook her. Ma Tamby was amusing herself with "Lohengrin."
Paliser, alighting, turned to help Cassy. But Cassy could get out unassisted.
The gravel crunched beneath the wheels of the retreating car. From afar came the bark of a dog, caught up and repeated. Otherwise the air was still, very sweet. The house too was silent. In the hall and in the windows there were lights, but there seemed to be nobody about and that and the quiet gave her the delicious impression that the house was enchanted. It was a very nonsensical impression, but it was the nonsense that made it delicious.
Paliser was saying something, though what she did not hear. The sky now was indigo and in it hung a yellow feather. On the Hudson it had been very pale, the ghost of a feather. But, as Harlem receded, it had ridden higher and brightened in the ride. Cassy had watched it, wishing that Paliser would not talk. He had sat next to her, on the same seat, yet if the portion of it which he occupied had been in a Queensland back-block, he could not have been farther from her heart. He took her hand and she let him. He kissed her and she submitted to that. But she wondered whether courtesans do not hate the men who pay them, more than they hate themselves. Was she any better? However a priest mumbled at her, she was selling herself. Love alone is marriage. She had none, nor had he. The whole thing was abominable, and, as he held her hand and pressed her lips, her young soul rebelled. Even for her father's sake, this cup was too much.
Now though, the empty hall and the great silent house took on the atmosphere of the Palace of the White Cat. The cup became a philtre. The abomination changed into deliciousness. There are fairy-tales that are real. For all she knew, Paliser might change into Prince Charming and certainly he looked it.
He had been saying something, what she did not hear. But on the steps beneath the perron, she turned and saw that which previously she had not realised, he was extraordinarily good-looking, and about her closed a consciousness that her rowdy frock was a tissue of diamonds and that he was in doublet and hose.
A moment only. But during it something melted about her. Immediately aware of the phenomenon, she felt that she ought to freeze. She tried to and failed. The atmosphere of deliciousness prevented and, though she did not know the reason, she did know that she had failed and the fact instead of annoying, amused. Then, as she followed Paliser into the house, she told herself that she was an imbecile, that she did not know her own mind and, without transition, wondered how her father was taking it.
From the hall, they passed through a succession of rooms vacant, subdued, rich, and on into that other room where she had sung. At the farther end was a hyacinth curtain that masked a door. But near the entrance through which she had come was an ivory chair. Cassy, seating herself on it, wondered what had become of the bundle. She was sure that it held everything except what she wanted. Then suddenly behind her blue smock came a gnawing. She thought she would ask Paliser to have somebody fetch her a sandwich, two sandwiches, or else some bread and butter, but, now that she looked for him, he had gone.
She got up, crossed the room and sat down on another chair which was black, probably ebony. It had a curial appearance that suggested the senate, not the senate at Washington, but the S. P. Q. of Rome. It was quite near the hyacinth curtain and behind the latter she heard voices. Like the rooms they were subdued. She could distinguish nothing. Yet there must be a bell somewhere and she decided that if Paliser did not shortly return, she would ring. The gnawing was sharper. She was very hungry.
Again she got up and looked from a window. It gave on a garden in which there was underbush that the moon was chequering with amber spots. After all, it was a queer sort of a wedding. But what had she expected? Grace Church? St. Thomas'? Invitations a fortnight in advance, aisles banked with flowers, filled with snobs and the garbage of the Wagner score that Ma Tamby had tossed after her? Not by a long shot!
She turned. Paliser was entering. But the gnawing had nibbled away the enchantment and, as she turned, she looked rather cross.
Paliser, noticing that but mistaking the cause, said very sympathetically: "During the Terror, a princess jogged along, smelling a rose. Marriage is no worse than the guillotine, besides being much less summary. Will you come?"
"Less summary? I should say so!" Cassy retorted. "It is far too lingering."
But she followed him out into another hall, one that was hung with tapestries. They were dim and embroidered with what seemed to be pearls. On the floor was a rug, dim also, narrow, very long, that extended to a room, lined with high-placed bookcases and set with low-placed lights. In the room stood a man. He wore a long black coat and a waistcoat that reached to his collar. In his hand was a book.
"Dr. Grantly," said Paliser, who added, "Miss Cara."
Dr. Grantly bowed but without distinction. Because of the position of the lights, his face was obscured and what Cassy could discern of it she judged young and uninteresting. When Paliser had first mentioned him—and how long ago it seemed!—she had fancied him old. She had fancied too that he would have little side whiskers. The fact that he was young was not a disappointment. Clergymen, whether old or young, did not interest her. She did not care for them, or for churches, or the services in them. The ceremonial of worship seemed to her empty. Creeds professed but not practised seemed to her vain. But she would carry an injured cat for miles. A lost dog was found the moment she spotted it. She did what good she could, not because it is a duty, but for a superior reason. She liked to do it. One may be a Christian without caring for churches.
"Dearly beloved——"
In the depths over which she had passed, excitement and the novelty of it had, until then, supported her. But at that exordium, instantly, they fell away; instantly fear, like a wave, swept over her. Instantly she felt, and the feeling is by no means agreeable, that she was struggling with the intangible in a void. But she had not intended to drown, or no, that was not it, she had not wanted to marry. Aware of the depths, not until then had she known their peril. Until that moment she had not realised their menace. Then abruptly it caught and submerged her.
"I require and charge you both as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment——"
The solemnity of the sonorous exhortation was water in her ears. The sound of it reached her confusedly, in a jumble. She was drowning and it was unconsciously, in this condition, that poked by Paliser, she heard herself uttering the consenting words that are so irrevocable and so fluid.
It was over then—or nearly! The thought of it shook her from the mental swoon. Behind her some one spoke and she wondered who it could be. But a movement distracted her. Dr. Grantly had shifted the book from one hand to the other and as absently she followed the movement, she saw that the hand that now held the book was maimed or else malformed.
But what immediately occupied her were other words which, prompted by him, she was automatically repeating. The words are very beautiful, really exalting, they are words that spread peace as dawn spreads upon the sea. Yet, in their delivery, twice Dr. Grantly tripped and, though on each occasion he pulled himself up and went on again without embarrassment, it seemed to Cassy that he did so without dignity.
The impression, which was but momentary, drifted; another distraction intervened, her finger was being ringed. I'm done for! she despairingly thought.
"Amen!"
"Ouf!" Cassy gasped. It was really over, over at last, and still a little bewildered, she turned. The butler and the maid were leaving the room, which they must have entered when the ceremony first over-whelmed her. From the hall a slight cackle floated back.
It amused them, she generously reflected.
Paliser did not notice. He was addressing the clergyman. "Thank you very much, doctor." He turned to his bride. "Cutting your head off may have been worse, don't you think?"
If I can't be gay at least I should appear so, she told herself and desperately she laughed.
Meanwhile the man of God, relapsing into the man of the world, or of its neighbourhood, did not seem to know what to do with himself. He dropped the book, picked it up, put it on the table. Considerately, in his Oxford voice, Paliser instructed him.
"You must be going? Ah, well, I appreciate. Let me thank you again."
Dr. Grantly mumbled something, smiled at the bride, smiled at the happy man or, more exactly, he smiled at an envelope which the happy man was giving him and which, Cassy divined, contained his fee. How much? she wondered. However much or little, it was excessive.
The hall took him and the groom grappled with the bride, embracing her with that rudimentary paranoia which lawful passion comports.
She struggled free and, a bit breathless, but with the same desperate gaiety, exclaimed: "If this is matrimony, give me war!"
"Perhaps you would prefer dinner first," Paliser, with recovered calm, replied.
Wouldn't she, though! Now that she was definitely dished, hunger again bit at her and she accompanied Paliser through the dim hall, through the music-room, through the long suite, into the dining-room where, as before, three men, with white sensual faces, stood waiting.
Paliser motioned. "Mrs. Paliser will sit there. Move the other chair here." He drew a seat for her and gave additional instructions. "There will be people here to-morrow. If we are motoring, have them wait."
"What people?" asked Cassy, before whom an uncomfortable vision of her father and Ma Tamby jumped.
Paliser replied in French. "A man and a woman or two from Fifth Avenue."
I wonder where that bundle is, thought Cassy who said: "A man? What man?"
"Oh, just a clerk. That is almond soup. Do you care for it?" He looked down at his plate which appeared to engross him.
Cassy raised her spoon. "A penny for your thoughts."
He looked up. "They are worth far more. I was thinking of the night I first met you."
Cassy laughed. "And Ma Tamby's ham and eggs?"
Paliser, raising his own spoon, added: "It was Lennox who introduced us. You knew he was engaged to Miss Austen? Well, she has broken it."
Cassy must have swallowed the soup the wrong way. She coughed, lifted her napkin and saw a road, long, dark, infinitely fatiguing on which she was lost. But the soup adjusted itself, the road turned to the right. Lennox had never so much as said boo! In anger at herself she rubbed her mouth hard and put the napkin down.
Paliser, who had been tasting and sniffing at a glass, looked at the butler. "What is this? Take it away. It is not fit for a convict." He looked over at Cassy. "I am sorry."
"One gets so bored with good wine," said Cassy, who recently had been reading Disraeli. Yet she said it absently, the unscrambled eggs about her.
But the saying was new to Paliser, to whom few things were. He relished it accordingly and the more particularly because of its fine flavour of high-bred insolence.
From where he sat, he eyed her. Although she was eating, which is never a very engaging occupation, her face had an air that was noble and reserved. At the moment, a scruple in which there was a doubt, presented itself. In view of the coming draft act, it occurred to him that he might have gone the wrong way about it. But the scruple concerned merely the expediency of the adventure. It was not related to his conscience. He had none.
Now, though, a new decanter was before him; he tried it, drank of it, judged it decent and drank again. Being decent, it was not heady. It did not affect him. Cassy had done that. In her was a bouquet which the vineyard of youth and beauty alone produces. He had hankered for it. Now, like the decanter, it was before him. He could drink his fill. Then like the other wine, he could send it away.
The elder Paliser, seated in the hall of his town house, held a cup. In the chair, a doge had throned. On the bottom of the cup was an N topped by a crown. The cup contained hot milk.
Returning, a little before, from a drive, he had been helped up the steps, into the hall, into the chair. He had not wished to be helped farther. In the hall, the milk had been brought. As he sipped it, he looked placid, dignified, evil. He looked very much like a wicked old doge.
"When I don't move, it is remarkable how well I feel."
His son, to whom he spoke, sat in a sedan-chair which, delicately enamelled without, was as delicately upholstered within. Through the window of the chair, only the young man's face showed. If you had not known better you might have mistaken it for the face of a lady of an earlier, a politer, though not of a bloodier age. But you would have known better. The hair, powdered white, was absent; so too were the patches; so also was the rouge.
Behind the doge's chair a servant stood. Adjacently was a malachite bench. Beyond was a malachite stairway. The elder Paliser, finishing with the milk, extended the cup. The servant took it and turned. Recesses, back of the stairway, engulfed him.
Monty Paliser straightened. The movement disclosed his collar, the white of his tie.
It was the evening of the fourth day since the wedding. He had motored in to dine at the Austens'. Cassy had seen him go and had seen too uninterrupted hours in the music-room. The prospect was consoling.
But, pending the dinner and with an ample quarter of an hour to the good, he had looked in on his father whom he had found in the hall. Nothing filial had motived this looking-in. On the surface, it was a visit of circumstance such as one gentleman may pay to another. But, beneath the surface, was an object which, when the servant and the cup had gone, he approached.
"I hope Benny has not been in your way."
"Not in the least. I told him to go back to you."
"Is he still here?"
"I haven't an idea."
"You might send him to Newport."
"You want to be rid of him, eh?"
"The Place does not need three gardeners."
The old man, who seemed to be feeling about for something, scowled. "What it does not need is the atmosphere that you are giving it. You may go to the devil your own way. I sha'n't stop you. But it puts a bad taste in my mouth to have you turn it into a road-house. Damn it, sir, you were born there."
Through the window of the sedan-chair, the young man was watching. He saw it coming and masked himself.
"How funny of Benny to give you such an idea."
Then, straight at him, went the bomb.
"It was not a gift. What I got, I extracted. Why don't you marry? Eh? Why don't you? In order that you might, I made over to you a thing or two. I wish to God, I hadn't. But perhaps you are satisfied. If you are, well and good. As it is, unless you marry, I'll leave the property to Sally's brat and have him change his name. By Gad, sir, if I don't have some assurance from you and have it now, I'll send for Jeroloman. I will make a new will and I'll make it to-night. If you came here to dine, you can stop on and listen to it."
The bomb was full of fumes. In the still air they floated. But in throwing it, the old man's scowl had deepened. It had become a grimace that creased every wrinkle into prominence. His hand had gone to his chest. Gasping, he held it there. Then presently it fell. His features relaxed and dryly, in an even tone, he resumed: "It is remarkable how well I feel, if I don't talk. Any excitement suffocates me."
In the trench, that the sedan-chair had become, Monty Paliser tightened the mask. "There is no need for any excitement. I will marry. You have my word."
On the great blasoned throne, the old man shifted. The easy victory mollified him. "Ah! You dine here?"
"Thank you, no. I am dining at the Austens'."
"Where?" the elder Paliser asked. He had heard but he wanted it repeated. It seemed vaguely promising.
"At the Austens'. You may remember that the pearl of the household was engaged. It's off."
Slowly the old man twisted. "What is? The engagement?"
"So her mother told me."
"And you are dining there."
"In a few minutes."
The old man took it in, turned it over. It seemed not only victory but peace, and peace with annexation.
"Very good then. I draw the veil over your road-house. Put the young woman in a flat. Put her in two flats. Nobody who is anybody ever sees anything that was not intended for them. Don't beat the drum. That is all that the right people ask and all I require, except——"
He paused, considered the annexation and added: "I wish you an excellent appetite. Austen himself was a drivelling idiot and his wife used to be a rare old girl—is still, I daresay—but they came of good stock, and the daughter has looks and no brains. You couldn't do better."
He paused again, appeared to lose himself in the past, looked up and suddenly exclaimed: "You are ridiculous in that damned thing! Oblige me by getting out."
The young man extracted himself and sat down on the malachite bench. It was more exposed than the trench and the fumes of the gas bomb that his father had hurled were hazardous still. Additional protection from them was needed and he said: "What will you do about Benny?"
The old man disliked to be questioned. On the arm of his chair he beat with his fingers a quick, brief tattoo.
"Benny belongs to the Place. His father served me there. His grandfather served yours. You don't get such people nowadays."
Negligently the young man smoothed his tie. "Very picturesque and feudal. But I don't want him."
His father did not seem to hear, or to care. He was afar, wandering from it. "Ever notice that he has only one thumb? Same way with his father. Probably a family trait. I wish there were more families like 'em. This house is full of trollops and rascals. So is Newport. The house at Newport is full of rapscallions. Believe I'll offer it to the Government for a hospital. I wish to God Sally would come over and run it. Do you ever hear from her?"
The young man stood up. "Never."
"I don't doubt she is well rid of Balaguine. I've run into a baker's dozen of Russian princes. All canaille. What she wanted to marry him for, God only knows, and in saying that I exaggerate. Nice mess they have made of things there. Are you going? Oblige me by touching the bell."
The young man touched it and, while he was at it, something else. "Couldn't you oblige me by shipping Benny to Newport?"
The old man motioned. It was as though he dismissed it. "My compliments to her mother and remember that I have your word. Don't dilly-dally. Good God, sir, can't you realise that any day now you may be drafted? You've no time to lose. If I were your age, I'd enlist to-morrow. Don't stand on one foot, you make me nervous."
The son, putting on a white glove, got back at it. "I was asking you about Benny."
Again the old man shifted. "Hum! Well! Since you make a point of it. Yes. I'll send him to Newport."
"You won't forget?"
"I never forget," replied the old man, who, from that moment, forgot it utterly—until the following night when throttlingly it leaped at him.
Even if he had remembered, it could only have delayed the course of events. Benny went the next day and, in going, merely accelerated a drama which perhaps was preordered.
But now, from behind the recesses of the malachite stairway, a rascal appeared and approached and opened a bronze door, from which a young gentleman passed out and entered his car.
It was dark then, darker than convenient. There are ways that are obscure. The martyr who discovered that virtue is its own reward, died unwept, unhonoured, unsung. History does not know him. Perhaps he was an editor. But he bequeathed a valid idea.
As the car swam on, Monty Paliser was conscious of it. It would, he reflected, simplify matters very much if his father died immediately. He had no ill-feeling toward him, no good-feeling, no feeling whatever. For the property conveyed to him and otherwise bestowed, he had no gratitude. These gifts were in the nature of things. Gifts similar or cognate his father had received, as also had his grandfather, his great-grandfather and so on ab initio. They were possessions handed down and handed over for the greater glory of the House. He had therefore no gratitude for them. When the time came he would repeat the process and expect no gratitude either. Meanwhile though the gifts were adequate, there were more en route, so many that they would lift him within hailing distance of the richest men in the world. Though whether that were worth five minutes of perplexity, ten minutes of tears, a row and, possibly, your name in the papers, depended on the point of view.
In considering it, he found himself—and very much to his disgust—rememorating a moral axiom: Great wealth is a great burden. The axiom was a favourite with his father, who had sickened him with it. But on its heels always there had trod a variant. "By Gad, sir, you can say what you like, it puts you in a position to tell anybody to go to hell."
The variant had a lilt, a go, a flourish. To employ a vulgarism of the hour, it had the punch. It landed you and between the eyes. It required neither commentaries nor explanation. It was all there. It was tangible as a brickbat, self-evident as the sun.
In admiring it, the young man philosophised stoically. Did he not have enough for that already?
Yes, but later? Later might he not want to philosophise less stoically and more luxuriously? It was a problem. Meanwhile there was Cassy. He had no wish to lose her. Yet about him already was the shadow of the inevitable draft act. That was not a problem merely, it was a pit.
Meanwhile there was Cassy whom he did not wish to lose. She was delightful, delectable, delicious. Not divine though, thank heaven! The gleam in her eyes could be quite infernal. The gleam heightened a charm which in itself was fugitive. He recognised that. However delicious a dish may be, no man can feed on it always. Not he at any rate. But, for the time being, it was very appetising. For the present, it did very well. On the other hand, Margaret Austen represented a succession of courses which, in addition to being appetising, would lift him to a parity with the super-rich.
It was certainly perplexing. But it is a long turning that has no lane. He was a decent whip and a string made up of Margaret and Cassy was one that, let him alone for it, he could handle.
But now the car had stopped. Abandoning perplexity, he went on and up.
"Here you are! Bright and late as usual!"
In her fluted voice, with her agreeable smile, Mrs. Austen greeted him. The lady was attired in a manner that left her glitteringly and splendidly bare. With her, in the cluttered drawing-room, were Margaret, Kate Schermerhorn, Poppet Bleecker, Verelst, Cantillon and Ogston.
"Will you take my daughter out?" Mrs. Austen, with that smile, continued. "Oh!" she interrupted herself to remark. "You have not congratulated Mr. Cantillon. Has no little bird told you? It's this dear child Kate. Just now—don't you think?—engagements, like lilacs, are in the air." She turned to Verelst. "Grey deceiver!"
Verelst crooked his arm. "However much I tried to deceive, I got grey before I could."
"What are you laughing at?" Mrs. Austen with her tireless smile enquired of Paliser, who, after speaking to the girls, had said something to Cantillon.
"Somersaults being a specialty of his, I was telling him that now is the time for a triple one."
Paliser turned to Margaret. She had said nothing. She was very pale. Mute, white, blonde, she was a vision.
At table, Verelst, addressing him, asked: "How is your father?"
"Thank you. Enjoying his usual poor health." He turned again to Margaret. "No one could mistake my father for an auctioneer. He has so few admirations. But he knew your father and admired him greatly."
Margaret made no reply. She was thinking of the land of Splendours and Terrors, where the princess sat in chains. Margaret envied her. Over the hill the true knight was hastening and Margaret knew, as we all know, what happened then. It is a very pretty story, but it can be equally sad to a sorrowing girl who has no true knight, or who had one, and who found that he was neither knightly nor true.
Paliser misconstrued her silence. About her eyes and mouth was an expression that is displayed by those who have suffered from some long malady or from some perilous constraint. That also he misconstrued. He had been told she had washed her hands of Lennox and had washed them with the soap of indifference, which is the most effective of all. He was not credulous but he had believed it. The idea that her throat was choked and her heart a haunt of regret, did not occur to this subtle young man. He attributed both her silence and her expression to neuralgia. The latter did not disturb him. But her loveliness did. It inundated him. The gallery of his memory was hung with fair faces. Her face exceeded them all.
The dinner proceeded. Presently, Kate Schermerhorn called over at him. "Who was the damsel I saw you making up to in the Park the other day?"
Paliser turned to her. "I have forgotten."
"I don't wonder. You seemed to have lost your head."
"Probably then because it wasn't you."
"Fiddlesticks! You looked as though you could cut your throat for her. Didn't you feel that way? I am sure you did."
"You must be thinking of Cantillon. That's the way he looks at you. If he didn't, he wouldn't have any feeling at all. One might even say he was quite heartless."
Kate was laughing. In laughing she showed her red mouth and her teeth, small, white, a trifle uneven, and, though she continued to show them, her laughter ceased. With her red mouth open, she stared. That mouth closed, opened again. She was saying something.
Everybody was exclaiming. All were hurriedly getting up.
Paliser turned to Margaret. She had gone.
Verelst now was between him and her chair. He was bending over. Bending also was Mrs. Austen. On the other side were Cantillon, Ogston and Miss Bleecker.
Then, as the surprise of it lifted Paliser, he saw that they were lifting her.
"Brandy!" said Verelst. "Tell the man."
"Permit me!" Without officiousness, without noticeable shoves, Paliser got among them and got on his knees beside the girl whom Verelst and Mrs. Austen were supporting.
Mrs. Austen wanted to wink at him. Instead, she made way. He took her place, took the girl in his arms and thought he would like to keep her there—though not, of course, forever. But he said: "The other room, perhaps."
Margaret's head was on his shoulder. She raised it. Her eyes had opened. She looked at him, at the arms that were about her. A shudder shook her. Verelst stretched a hand, Ogston another. With them, but otherwise without effort, she stood up.
Cantillon exclaimed at her. "Right as rain again! I say, Miss Austen, you did give us a start!"
Yet at once, and so endearingly, with the air of an elder sister, Mrs. Austen resumed the maternal functions. "Dearest child, you have been overdoing it!"
Kate patted the girl. "Margaret! I nearly fainted too. I was looking at you. You went over like that!"
"Sorry," said Margaret evenly. Her hands had gone to the back of her head. She dropped them and added: "If you will excuse me."
Lovingly her mother dismissed her. "The smelling-salts! You will find them somewhere." The lady looked about. "Shall we have coffee in the other room? You men can smoke there if you like, or here if you prefer."
It was quite modern. But Verelst was old, therefore old-fashioned. He preferred the dining-room. Already the girls had followed Margaret. Mrs. Austen passed out. Verelst sat down. So also did Cantillon and Ogston. But Paliser, who had nothing to say to them, accompanied Mrs. Austen.
"It never happened to her before," she told him. "Where shall you sit? Here, by me?" In speaking she made room on the sofa and with amiable suspicion eyed him. "You hadn't said anything to her, had you?"
Paliser shook his handsome head. "I wanted to."
Pleasantly she invited it. "Yes?"
"I wanted to ask her to marry me."
There he was dangling, and what a fish! The dear woman licked her chops, not vulgarly, of course, but mentally.
Paliser, who knew perfectly well what she was at, smiled tantalisingly. "It is beastly to boast, but I am an epicure."
What in the world does he mean? the dear woman wondered. But she said: "Of course you are."
Paliser, who was enjoying himself hugely, resumed: "An epicure, you know, postpones the finest pleasures. He does so sometimes because of the enchantment of distance and again because he can't help himself. That has been my case."
It was fully a moment before Mrs. Austen got it. Then she said: "But I told you, didn't I? Mr. Lennox is dead and buried."
It was quick work. Paliser, admiring her agility, laughed. "So recently though! The immortelles have not had time to fade."
That would have made a saint swear! Not being a saint, Mrs. Austen contented herself with virtuous surprise. "But there were none! I told you that. I told you that any attraction he may have had for my child, he shocked straight out of her. Not deliberately. Dear me, I would not have you fancy such a thing for a moment. Nor would I misjudge him. I hope I am too conscientious. But such interest as the child had in him—an interest I need hardly say that was girlish and immature—he destroyed."
The picture, bold but crude, had its defects. To remedy them, Mrs. Austen applied the brush. "That singing-girl! You know whom I mean. I saw you with her the night we went to the Bazaar."
Paliser nodded. He knew indeed! He knew too that, for a moment, he had fancied that Cassy was in love with Lennox. But that idea he had long since abandoned and what she could now be doing in this galley intrigued him.
With a free hand Mrs. Austen laid on the colours. "You will hardly credit it, but we as good as caught him with her. As good or as bad. It is a matter of taste. For me it was very painful. A woman should be spared such an experience. As for Margaret, while the child certainly did not understand—how could she?—yet, even in her innocence, she realised—well—that he is just what you said."
It was a bit thick and Paliser began to laugh.
Mrs. Austen saw that he did not believe her. The fact annoyed and in vexation she piled it on. "Afterward, in this very room, I taxed him with it and he admitted it."
What a lie! thought Paliser, who specialised in that article. But, a second thought prompting, he wondered whether it were a lie. His knowledge of Cassy refuted it. At the same time, where women are concerned, you never know. One thing, however, he did know. In his quality of expert he knew that there are statements which, whether true or false, may come in handy and, comfortably, he smiled.
"So that was the reason why the engagement was broken."
"What more would you have?" replied the candid creature, who now felt that he had swallowed it.
Quite as comfortably, Paliser returned to his muttons. "I may cease then to be an epicure?"
There was the fish again, but how to land him? The glittering fisherlady could not bind and gag the bait and drop her into his mouth. At any such attempt, the bait would pack and go, might even go without packing. Yet there was the fish, eager, willing, the gills awiggle. Barring a few gold-fish in Bradstreet, in Burke and in Lemprière, this fish was the pick of the basket. To see him glide away, and for no other earthly reason than because the bait refused to be hooked, was simply inhuman. Flesh and blood could not stand it. No, nor ingenuity either. Instantly the angler saw that in default of bait, a net may do the trick and, with the ease of a prestidigitateur, she produced one.
"You have my blessing!"
Paliser laughed and bowed. He was in it, it was where he wanted to be and he liked it. But in view of existing domestic arrangements, he was in it a bit too soon and, wriggling through a mesh, he stopped laughing and looked solemn.
"You are very good. But beforehand my father will expect to be consulted and, just at present, that is impossible. The physicians would forbid it."
"The poor dear old man! You don't mean——"
Paliser half raised a hand. The gesture was slight but expressive. One never knew!
But so much the better, thought Mrs. Austen. Pending the delay she could so bombard the bait, bombard her day in, day out, and the whole night through, that, like Liège and Namur, her resistance would crumble, and meanwhile he would come in for everything, or nearly everything, she reflected, and the reflection prompting, she affected concern.
"Has your sister been informed?"
"I cabled her to-day," said Paliser, who had done nothing of the kind.
With the same concern, Mrs. Austen lied as freely. "It is too sad for words." But at once the air of the sympathiser departed, replaced by that of the hostess. Through one door the men were entering. Through another came the girls.
Kate Schermerhorn approached. "Dear Mrs. Austen, Margaret's all right, but she has a headache." As she spoke, she threw a glance at Cantillon.
Poppet Bleecker also approached. "It is too bad, Margaret is such a dear! I would like to stop on but they tell me my maid is here. Thank you so much, dear Mrs. Austen."
The lady stood up. "But you are not all going!" They all were though. She knew it and was glad of it. The object of the dinner was achieved and achievement, however satisfactory, is fatiguing. "You too!" she successively exclaimed at Ogston and Cantillon. "And you also!" she exclaimed at Paliser, to whom, dropping her voice, she added: "If possible, remember me to him."
As they went, Verelst surveyed her. He stood against the mantel, his back to the empty grate.
Turning she saw him. "Well, what now?"
Verelst, adjusting his glasses, said, and distantly enough: "What now? No, what next?"
Mrs. Austen sat down. "Peter, if you ever loved me, don't adopt that tone."
"It is not the tone, it is the tune and the tune is yours."
"Tune? What tune? What on earth are you talking about?"
"The tune to which the dinner was set. I heard it. Margaret heard it. It knocked her out."
She raised her eyes to him, made them pathetic. "Peter, I haven't a penny."
"You have twenty thousand a year."
"Nineteen, not a dollar more, and that is genteel poverty and there's nothing genteel in poverty now."
Verelst tugged at his moustache. "Tell me this. Is she to marry him?"
In affected surprise, she started. "How you do jump at conclusions."
Angrily he nodded. "I appear to have jumped at the correct one."
But his anger had gained her. She faced him. "Heavens and earth! What have you against him? What have you all against him? My eyes are as good as any one's. I can't see it."
"You might feel it then."
"Feel what?"
Verelst tugged again at his moustache. He had never heard of elementals and, if he had heard, he would not have believed in them. He knew nothing of auræ—which photography has captured. He was very old fogy. But he knew an honest man when he saw one and a gentleman before he opened his mouth.
"Feel what?" Mrs. Austen repeated.
Verelst, thrashing about, could not get it, but he said: "I can't describe it, but it's something. His father had it. He——"
"His father is at death's door."
"Ah! Is he? Well, I'm sorry for that. M. P. used to be no better than the law allows—and the law is very lenient."
"You were too."
"I daresay. But M. P. has got over it. Without boasting, I think I have also. But that is neither here nor there. In the old days, I have seen people shrink from him."
"Nonsense! Precious little shrinking I ever did."
"Timidity was never one of your many virtues."
"Don't be coarse, Peter, and if possible don't be stupid. If you know anything against Monty, say it I may find it in his favour."
Impatiently Verelst motioned. "Decent men avoid him."
"And you!" Mrs. Austen retorted. "What do you call yourself? You are always civil to him."
Verelst showed his teeth. "One of the few things life has taught me is to be civil to everybody."
"Except to me. Now do sit down and make yourself uncomfortable. You have made me uncomfortable enough. Any one might think you a country parson."
But Verelst, scowling at the dial which the legs of the nymph upheld, removed his glasses. "I am going." He moved to the door, stopped, half turned, motioned again. "Tell Margaret I would rather see her in her coffin."
Angrily she started. "I'll tell her nothing of the kind."
It was his back that she addressed. She saw him go, saw too her anger go with him. The outer door had not closed before the tune of which he had spoken was dispersing it.
But was it a tune? It seemed something far rarer. In it was a whisper of waters, the lap of waves, the muffled voice of a river, which, winding from hill to sea, was pierced by a note very high, very clear, entirely limpid, a note that had in it the gaiety of a sunbeam, a note that mounted in loops of light, expanding as it mounted, until, bursting into jets of fire, it drew from the stream's deepest depths the sonority and glare of its riches.
The ripple of it ran down the spine of this woman, who at heart was a Hun and to whom the harmonies disclosed, not the mythical gleam of the Rheingold, but the real radiance of the Paliser wealth.
At the glow of it she rubbed her hands.