IV
ALLESTREE lived alone with his widowed mother in a roomy, old-fashioned mansion in one of the older residential sections, which stand now like decadent environs of the more brilliant quarters where the millionaire and the multi-millionaire erect their palaces. But these changes, in matters of fashion and display, did not trouble the serene bosom of old Mrs. Allestree, who felt that she held her place in the world by the inalienable rights of birth, blood, and long established family position, for, happily, she had as yet no notion of the shadowy nature of such claims in the event of financial disaster, which is as impersonal as the deluge. She was contentedly aware that her old-fashioned drawing-rooms had been the scene of many a brilliant gathering even before her nephew, William Fox, became such a figure in the public eye that his frequent presence in her house was enough to draw there the most distinguished and representative men at the capital. But the old lady herself wasclever, shrewdly conversant with the world and its affairs, and not averse to giving ear to the current gossip; she was, indeed, often amused at her son’s aloofness from these worldly concerns which pleased and interested her the most. For, though a detached spectator, because of her age and her comparatively delicate health, she was yet keenly aware of the drift of events both social and political, and possessed the advantages of age in being able to make comparisons between the past and the present, with a touch of eclecticism amusing in one who had been so devotedly attached to the frivolities of fashion. She could draw more accurate deductions than many who were more intimately concerned in the whirling conflict of social and political ambitions which was raging around her. When the President quarrelled with the party leaders, when Congress administered a rebuke by withholding a vote of confidence, she was able to recall this or that parallel case, this or that precedent for an action which to many seemed unprecedented, and when the entertainments at the White House began to evolve a new system of exclusions she could point out an incident when some former President’s wife had tried to introduce a similar measure and had met with disaster on leaving herstronghold, lost at once in the current of a social millrace which whirls to oblivion the queen of yesterday and the leader of to-day, engulfing all past glories in a maelstrom of forgetfulness; the inevitable condition in a republican society where there can be no hereditary distinction and those of class are constantly fluctuating with the rise and fall of fortunes, the manipulations of the Stock Exchange, while birth and breeding have no consideration at all in comparison with the purchase power of gold.
Fully aware of these things, and rejoicing in the rich memories of a varied past, when she had known all the great men of her day, old Mrs. Allestree delighted in observing the world of fashion from her retired corner and, though devoted to her son and admiring and believing in his talent, she sometimes suffered a keen pang of regret that her sister and not she had borne William Fox. But she was jealously afraid of this secret thought, scarcely admitting it even to herself, because of her intuitive feeling that Allestree had already suffered and might suffer more at the hands of his brilliant and careless cousin, and that he was supremely gifted in the refinements of self-torture.
It was twilight, and Mrs. Allestree sat alone byher drawing-room window watching for her son’s return from his workshop. She had been a very handsome woman, and even in age retained much of her beauty and dignity, and her figure and face were finely outlined as she sat against the folds of heavy velvet curtains, looking down into the street where the lamps had just been lighted and shone with the vivid whiteness of electricity on the smooth pavements, while the carriages and motor-cars were beginning to wheel by on their return from afternoon receptions, teas, and matinées. Below, at the circle, she saw the gayly lighted electric cars sweeping around the curve and receding to a final vanishing point of light at the top of a distant hill, while above it the sky was still bright with the afterglow and one star shone like the tip of a naked sword. The city in this retired quarter showed its most kind and friendly aspect, suggesting nothing of the struggle and rush of modern life, but only the whirl of winter gayety, the ceaseless rounds of society.
Within was an atmosphere of repose and comfort; the tea-table was set by the open fire, and the rose-patterned, silver tea kettle was emitting a little cloud of steam when Allestree finally opened the door.
“Well, mother, you here alone in the dark?”he remarked, as he turned on some light and revealed the warm homeliness of the large old-fashioned room, with its mahogany furniture, its soft rugs and velvet hangings, and its long, oval mirrors framed in gold and surmounted by cupids and lovers’ knots.
“Never less alone than when alone,” she replied brightly, and then glancing shrewdly at his slightly perturbed expression, she added: “you’ll take some tea, you look tired.”
“No,” he replied, throwing himself into an easy chair by the fire; “Rose made some tea in the studio, and it’s a bit too late now for another cup.”
“So Rose kept her appointment? I hope you got on with the portrait.”
Allestree shrugged his shoulders. “Impossible, Fox came and then Lily Osborne. The gods don’t mean that I shall finish that picture. And Reynolds painted several of his best in eight hours!” he added despairingly.
But his mother ignored the latter part of his speech. “Fox?” she glanced at him keenly, “then the House adjourned?”
“Yes, and he knew Rose was to be there,” Allestree laughed a little bitterly; “it was the merest chance in the world, he was with me whenI met her the other day. Of course he came in as handsome, as gay as ever—and as careless!”
Mrs. Allestree had left her seat by the window and was mechanically pouring out a cup of tea, her fine old hands under their falls of lace as firm and deft as a girl’s. “I wish he was less careless,” she observed quietly; “I’ve just heard some more gossip about him; Martha O’Neal was here to lunch. It appears that he was really selected for the Navy, could have had the portfolio for the lifting of his finger and, at the last moment, when there was no apposite reason for a change, there was a deal and White got it.”
“Well, we can’t blame him for that, can we?” said her son smiling, “you know the saying is that the Administration will not ‘stand hitched.’”
She shook her head. “That’s not it—he made the deal himself; he deliberately favored White, and you can imagine what is said; every one believes that silly story that he’s desperately in love with Margaret still, and, of course, it looks like it. He could have saved Wingfield, and he didn’t, and you know Mrs. Wingfield hates Margaret!”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Allestree calmly; “Fox is too much of an egoist. Probably he didn’t want to go into the Cabinet; in fact I’ve heard him say it was a safe receiving-vaultfor the defunct candidates. Can’t the women ever forget that he was in love with Margaret?”
“Possibly they could,” his mother replied shrewdly, “if Margaret wasn’t in love with him.”
“Good Lord, how you all flatter Fox!” her son exclaimed, with exasperation, “for my part, I can’t fancy that Margaret ever loved him; she treated him abominably to marry White, and now she has everything she wants, money, luxury and power; she’s a perfect little sybarite.”
The old woman looked at him with an expression of affectionate tolerance. “My dear boy,” she said quietly, “Margaret is wildly unhappy; money never yet purchased happiness; that’s the reason she behaves so outrageously. Have you heard of her latest? She danced a kind of highland fling or a jig after her dinner the other night. White was furious, and they’re telling a story of an open quarrel after the musicale when he swore at her and she laughed in his face.”
“White is a brute, but Margaret chose him with her eyes open,” he replied, “and I think Fox feels it. At any rate there’s nothing in that gossip about Wingfield; he had quarrelled with the President. You know the story is that he was found walking up and down his hall, the Wednesdayafter Congress met, shaking his fist and shouting about the message. ‘That damned message!’ he said, ‘it will ruin the party—if I’d only been here!’ He was away at the time it was written and, of course, that paragraph did virtually condemn his administration of the department. He had to resign; that goes without saying!”
“I suppose so, and Mrs. Wingfield talked; we all know what a tongue she has!”
Allestree laughed, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. “Well, she’s going, anyway.”
“But she isn’t,” sighed Mrs. Allestree; “she’s to stay over two months, heaven knows why!”
“The Lord deliver Margaret then!” exclaimed her son, still laughing.
Mrs. Allestree nodded sagely. “Margaret can hold her own though, Robert, and everybody knows how she has insulted Mrs. Wingfield. Margaret’sbon motshave convulsed the town time and again. You know, as well as I do, that it was Margaret who set half the stories going about her. Margaret can do and say the most shocking and heartless things at one moment and be the most charming creature at the next. She often seems to me to be a perfect Undine, to have nosoul! Really, sometimes her treatment of White is impossible. Even Lily Osborne professes to be shocked at the dance the other night; she told Martha O’Neal that it was as suggestive as Salome.”
“Mrs. Osborne is a hypocrite,” retorted Allestree scornfully; “by the way, I’m to paint her portrait. I put it at a figure which, I thought, was prohibitive and precluded all possibility of an order, but she closed it at once, without turning an eyelash.”
Mrs. Allestree gave him a long, comprehending look. “White pays for it then,” she remarked dryly.
“Of course,” he replied, “and White pretends to quarrel with his wife’s wild ways!”
The old woman set down her teacup and looked mournfully into the fire. “It’s a terrible business from beginning to end,” she said finally; “when I think of those two poor babies! Little Estelle is just beginning to notice things too, and Margaret seems utterly indifferent to them. What is the world coming to?”
Allestree laughed and patted his mother’s hand. “You can’t regulate it, mother,” he said cheerfully.
“Heaven forbid! There are too manydivorces; one can’t go out now without meeting men with two wives and women with a plurality of husbands; yet we are objecting to seating the Mormons in Congress!”
“After all, is a divorce worse than such a marriage as Margaret’s?” her son rejoined, indolently enjoying the controversy.
“There should have been no marriage,” she retorted firmly, pushing back her chair and rising with a rustle of silks, “White could never have loved her, he hasn’t been true to her for a moment. Her beauty pleased him, or that charm which is more subtle than beauty and which makes her what she is. Now he’s lost his head over the gorgeous coloring, the flesh and blood of Lily Osborne; she would have pleased Rubens, Robert. By the way, Martha O’Neal told me of a curious rumor about her; it is said that she is in the secret employ of the Russian Government; you know she has no conscience.”
“A spy?” Allestree laughed, “but why here? We’ve done Russia a good turn, it’s Japan that is chewing the rag.”
“Robert! what a disgusting expression. But of course you know the tales of the Black Cabinet and that our embassy dispatches were tampered with.”
“Now you’re in your element, mother; you love a mystery!”
The old woman put her hand on his head, stroking back his hair with a fond gesture. “Tell me about Rose,” she said, watching him narrowly, with all her maternal intuition alive; “did she sit patiently—and will your portrait please you? That’s really the only question; every one else is sure to be pleased.”
He shook his head. “I can’t get it to please me,” he replied quietly; “after all, Rose’s beauty is less a question of feature than I thought. I might interpret a soul if I were a Raphael or a Fra Angelico—as it is, it will never look like her.”
“Nonsense! Rose is very human; don’t put her on too high a pedestal, my dear,” his mother counselled wisely; “you are too sensitive, too imaginative. Fox would never make the mistake of treating a woman like a saint on a pillar!”
Allestree made an inarticulate sound and rose also. “Fox—no!” he said a little bitterly; “Fox could make love to Saint Catherine without offending her; he’s one of the men whom women love!”
His mother smiled but made no reply; at heart she was fully aware that there was much truthin the saying. Old as she was, she felt the indescribable spell of Fox’s genius, and knowing her son’s heart as she did, she foresaw difficulties in the way of his happiness if his cousin should forget his old love and find a new one. Much as she had desired and endeavored to break up the unfortunate intimacy between Fox and the Whites, she had not foreseen that her own son’s happiness might be, in a way, dependent on Margaret’s power to hold her place in the regard of her early lover. As she stood looking at the fire in silence the shrewd old woman reflected that the ways of Providence are inscrutably hard to divine and that, after all, it is sometimes fatal to thrust one’s hand into the fire to save a brand from the burning.