“At last she did finish, and—I was cold from my head to my feet—I knew it was The Time! Shehad given me undivided attention all during tea, gave it me still. Her eyes had never once wandered after some one who might be expected.
“‘Dear old girl’—I had leaned forward to where I could watch her eyes a bit better; when suddenly I saw in them something—something I had never seen before, something I have never seen since, in a woman’s eyes. It knocked the breath all out of me—you see (Warner’s laugh was the lightest thing in the world) I thought it was for me, that look. Great joke!—for in another second she’d jumped up, run round the other side of the table behind me, and held out both hands to—Jack! Some wretched duffer I’d never heard of, he turned out to be; knew her in Paris or somewhere, where she’d spent a lot of time. Seems that since he’d come to England people had rather scared him off, by tales ofme! Perf’ly ridiculous, I told him; she told him, too. Absolutely extraordinary! Why I—I was just old Jim, you know—like the elephant; good old friend—er pal’s the word rather; good old pal, and all that, but—well, so that’s the end (Warnerstood up and faced them all, more debonair than ever), for they lived happily ever after.”
“Yes, but—but how did this er—eccentric young person who preferred some one else to you, effect the er—the explanation, I mean to say?” came from Lady Trot’s dim corner of the room. “Such extremely quick adjustment, you make it, dear Mr. Warner!”
“’nTwas,” said Warner blithely. “When I saw him, and he saw her, and she waited to see what he’d say when he saw her, why I just said it for him, d’ye see? ‘You’ve come to get congratulated, now haven’t you?’ I accused him. And he half murdered my hand, and said that that was about it.”
“And then——?” It was Sheila, the little society lady, who questioned very softly. But she did not look at Warner.
“Oh, then, having said my piece, I went away and left him to say his. And do you know”—Warner’s drawl was one of exceeding gentleness—“I’ve always cared for—Jack; like one cares for oneself, you know, the person who should have beenoneself. And I’m sureshelikes him; better than the elephant. Such a clumsy, conceited beast, an elephant.”
He turned to have a laugh with Hawley, who—with singular interest—was still standing by the door; when just then, in came Knollys Verplanck, laden with parcels, and a little air of excitement as well. “I’ve brought you your guest, Sheila,” he announced, over the heads of some superfluous people. “Her husband deserted her at the door, to attend to some luggage, so I offered myself as escort. Their boat got in a bit ahead of time, you see.”
With a little rush, Sheila had come forward. “Joan, youangel, you wretch, for not sending me a wireless—oh, wherearethese lights! Turn them on, do, Jim—and then I want you to meet Mrs. Herrington. She’s—oh!” And every one else in the room drew in their breath involuntarily also; for the lady with whom Warner was shaking hands, was dressed in a blue tailored gown. And on a fine gold chain about her neck she wore a tiny carved jade elephant.
“And is its name still Jim?” asked Warner, gently.
“Awfully funny, Warner,” said Knollys to Hawley, mechanically.
“Awfully funny,” agreed Hawley—a bit uncertainly.
“ButI can tell youonething, Claire”—Patsy looked at her stepmother across a sea of chiffon, surging round seven fat red-lettered trunks—“never do I go abroad for six months again! And if the Angel’s education perishes (grimly) it’ll have to perish, that’s all; as long as his father—as long as Warren remains what he is. Of course, I’ve always known Warren was weak, but——”
“I’ve always thought you were rather glad he was weak,” ventured the stepmother, her dainty silvered head half lost in the vastness of the biggest trunk. “You have always said——”
“I’ve said I was glad he wasn’t infallible, certainly,” Patsy cut in a bit shortly. “So I am. Iwouldn’t have Warren goody-good—like so many handsome men!—for anything. At the same time, you must admit there’s a difference between—well, ordinary flirtation, and the sort of thing Warren’s just confessed to; it must be averydeep interest in a woman, that would allow one to accept her influence in obtaining a Cabinet appointment! I daresay (carelessly) you’ve seen the woman?”
“Yes.” The stepmother’s head was altogether lost to view, this time. “Yes; I’ve seen her.”
“Warren didn’t tell me her name,” Patsy gazed hard at the lace she was folding. “He started to, but I wouldn’t let him. I told him”—she laughed lightly—“I really took no interest. He knew of course I could find out from you, as you’d been staying here in Washington ever since I went away.”
The stepmother opened her lips, but shut them again—rather tightly. Then, “He lost no time in making a clean breast of it,” she said—as though something forced her to say it. “And really, Patsy, the whole affair—well, Warren certainly did nottake the initiative; you know a popular young Congressman——”
“Cannot afford to get himself talked about,” finished Patsy, rising to the full dignity of her five feet five. “There is not the slightest use in your pleading for Warren, Claire,” she said coldly. “Of course he knew I should hear all about this Mrs.—Whatever-her-name-is, the first tea-party I’d go to: his telling me, the first morning I got home, is only a part of his other cowardice—he couldn’t bear to have me hear from some one else. One can always tell one’s story more agreeably than the onlooker, you know. However”—and Patsy’s smile made the little stepmother wince—“we’re not twenty-one this time, are we, dear? And it’s not such a serious case as when Warren caughtmesliding down the bannisters!”
“I suppose we all like to slide down the bannisters, once in a while?” The stepmother regarded Patsy rather wistfully. No, she was no longer twenty-one, this beautiful, tawny-eyed little person. The ten years since then—well, was not Patsy unpackingher trunks?—and quite calmly? The stepmother wished—as with unreasonable ardor—that they were back again at that day when she had packed them up and left Warren. One can do so much more with the age that takes things tragically, she reflected.
But, as Patsy said, it was not so serious now. Though the bannisters—in the present case—were more slippery. “I suppose we all like to slide down them?” persisted the stepmother. “When our playfellows are gone—and there’s nothing else to do?”
Patsy kissed her. “You’re a dear, Claire,” she said softly. “It’s very evidentyou’ve never lived in Washington ten years, and been—Warren’s wife,” she ended suddenly. “Oh, I know well enough they never let him alone,” she added, half under her breath; “womencan’t, somehow, if a man’s good-looking—and has influence. But there’s Kent Chalmers—one never hears of Kent like that; and he’s quite as attractive as Warren—well,almost—and if he liked he could have twice Warren’s influence. But somehow Kent just saunters along—nothing in particular happens to him, nothing in particular’s said about him. He’s just an agreeable person—clearly, a clubman pure and simple.” Patsy laughed. “That’s funny, isn’t it, dear? A clubman pure and simple! But” (the lovely tawny eyes grew serious again) “Kent is; and he’s miles too good for his wife—you know that, Claire”—Patsy’s voice came from the depths of a huge cupboard, where she was storing away very small boots—“Farleigh Chalmers is nowhereneargood enough for Kent.”
The stepmother gazed at the back of Patsy’s head—a little strangely. “No—I don’t believe she is,” she said. “Patsy, I see the Angel—I see Junior coming up the drive—and—no, my dear! He hasnotgot his rubbers on! That child——!”
Patsy threw an arm around her. “Never mind, grannie dear. What’s it matter, rubbers or not, when one’s ten, and owns a velocipede! Nothing happens then, somehow, does it?” She was peering through the twilight at a sturdy figure trudging up the drive. A very tall figure followed it—rather slowly. “It’s Warren with him,” said Patsy, stiffening; “no it isn’t—why it’s Kent! He’s come to say hello—but how odd of him, when all the men are at the Club—and Kent’s such averyclubman, isn’t he? I think that’s rather sweet of Kent, Claire—I’ll run down right away; he must have wanted to see me especially!”
“Yes,” said the stepmother, smoothing Patsy’s lovely hair, “he must. I—I’ll just wait up here for Junior, dear. His feet, you know——”
Patsy laughed. “Of course. I’ll send him straight to you. I shan’t be long down myself, probably; Kent will want to get on to the Club, you know. It’s his business, Farleigh says—the Club!”
“Well, Patsy?”
“Well, Kent?”
“You’re home?”
“Yes, I’m home. Oh, yes!”—Patsy’s eyes were following two absurd autumn leaves, chasing each other across the wind-swept lawn. “I’m home,” she said again—very quietly; as her eyes came back to the comfort of the fire-lit sitting-room.
“Aren’t you glad, then?” asked Chalmers gently. He had sat down opposite her, by the fire. Patsy admitted again that he wasalmostas handsome as Warren. Too bad he neverdidanything, she reflected; he was too good for just the Club. In fact, Patsy decided suddenly, he was good enough to help her.
“Am I glad?” she repeated slowly, while her eyes still measured him. “Well, Kent—you know all about it, of course—would you be? Oh, I suppose I’m a little cad to answer you like that,” she went on swiftly, “even though you are Timothy’s friend—my brother’s friend, and—my husband’s.Becauseyou are, perhaps I should say. But Kent”—she faced him squarely, with that little boyish movement of the shoulders that Patsy would never lose, no matter how many tens of years went by—“you’re my friend too—have been ever since I came to Washington; and that’s a very long time. You know how I’ve worked for Warren, how I’ve hated the work I had to do for him—because of the wires to be pulled and the finesse to be made use of, allthe sort of thing a Congressman’s wife has to do, you know, and that was like driving nails into the frankness Timothy and I had always been used to. But you know Ididdo that work, Kent—for Warren’s sake; nothing else in the world! And (Patsy turned her head away abruptly) my reward was always, that I waseverythingto Warren.”
“Yes——?” Chalmers’ voice came to her like the strong grip of an understanding hand.
“Well,—that’s all. You know—Warren says every one in Washington knows—I’ve not been everything to him. It was only necessary for me to go away for a very little time and—Warren found some one who wasreallyeverything to him.” Patsy looked across at Warren’s friend, but he was shading his eyes, so that she could not see them. “Just put yourself in my place, Kent; suppose Farleigh——”
“That is what I’m trying to do, put myself in your place,” Chalmers interrupted very quietly; “and I admit it’s not a pleasant place, Patsy. Still—Warren told you all this? He came straight to you, and told you everything?”
“Yes. But——”
“He might very easily not have told you,” meditated Chalmers. “People—in such cases, people don’t often tell, you know.”
“He knew, of course, I’d find out,” returned Patsy a bit scornfully. “In this place every one knows everything.”
“Or invents it,” retorted Chalmers. “Tell me truthfully, Patsy, if you had heard that Warren was er—interested in some other woman, that she was using her influence” (Chalmers hesitated), “her husband’s influence to get him a Cabinet appointment—Warren told you that?” he added quickly.
“Yes,” said Patsy, very low.
“Then—truthfully—if any one in Washington had told you this thing about Warren, tell me—would you have believed it?Would you, Patsy?”
There was a moment of rather tense silence; then “Warren sent you here to plead for him,” Patsy broke out, tying her handkerchief in hard littleknots; “and you’re doing it—oh, cleverly! But it’s no good, Kent. Of course, I wouldn’t have believed it; you know that. But it’s no good, Kent, Warren——”
“And you don’t credit Warren with the wit to know it too?” Chalmers interrupted, impatiently. “I daresay there have been stories, plenty of them, about Warren, as there are about every politician, that have made your blood boil, Patsy; and yet, with all the experience he’s had with you, and knowing how much importance you’d attach tothisstory if it were to come to you in the usual way, you think that Warren told you the truth himself because he wasafraid? My dear Patsy, you don’t know strength when it’s shown you!”
“My dear Kent,” Patsy’s voice was as cold as the fall wind that whistled to them through the chimney, “I know weakness when I’ve lived with it for ten years. Oh, you don’t need to remind me”—she went on restlessly—“I know I’velikedWarren’s weakness, I’ve encouraged it, I suppose, by begging himnotto be a saint and all that, like hismother and all those Boston aunts had tried to make him. And, secretly, I suppose too, I’ve rather gloried in being the stronger nature: I was willing Warren should have the cleverness, the brains, if I could direct them. I liked feeling myself always the power behind the throne, and all that sort of thing, and—well, you can’t blame me if I resent having the throne usurped in my absence!”
“Is that what you said to Warren, when he told you?” Chalmers had risen and walked over to the window. It was very cold and bleak outside.
“I said to Warren”—Patsy’s friend had never heard quitethatnote in her voice—oddly hollow it was, and colorless—“that as he had made the decision, he must abide by it. That we were both of us too sensitive to make a scandal, and besides there was the Angel—Junior, I mean; I told Warren we should have to go on living here, of course; but that—as he had already chosen to go his way, I certainly should not interfere. I had no idea of subjecting myself to more confessions like this morning’s.”
“Yes!” Chalmers wheeled round suddenly and came over to her. “And I suppose that while you were saying it, you felt very eloquent and injured and pleased with yourself—that you were able to put it to him so clearly, and convincingly. And you congratulated yourself for not flying into a rage and making a scene, as so many women would have done. The very fact that you were talkingdownto him gave you a pleasant thrill of self-approbation!—oh, I know you strong people,” he added bitterly. “You’re the weakest people in the world!”
“Kent!” She was too astonished to be furious, even.
“Yes; I mean it. Lord knows I’ve been strong long enough to know, haven’t I? But by Heavens, I’m beginning to fairly long to be weak! Here you have a man (he still stood over her, sternly) whom you have, confessedly, encouraged in his weakness, nay,taughthis weakness. You teach him, too, to depend on you utterly, you give him all the complement of sense and practical judgment that his own brains and imagination need; then suddenly, andfor the first time, you withdraw all this—not heartlessly, for you had Junior’s welfare to consider; but unrealizingly. You withdraw all this that Warren has depended on for years, and he finds himself all at once alone. A hand is stretched out—and you know as well as I do, Patsy, in Washington it is notahand, but many hands. He takes one of them—a little doubtfully, yet somehow trustingly, too; and—it’s a very experienced hand, this that he’s caught hold of—he lets it drag him deeper and deeper, till he very nearly drowns. Then, all of a sudden, he comes to the top—with a little gasp of realization. He shakes himself loose—oh, yes, he did, weeks ago!—he puts in a month of the most ghastly shipwreck a man can know. And at the end of that time he has the sublime courage to tell you! And you—what do you do for him?”
“How do you know all this about Warren?” demanded Patsy, irrelevantly. This time it was she who had risen and gone over to the window. “He told me, when I asked about you, that he hadscarcely seen you, since I’d been away. How do you know what he’s been through?”
“I know, Patsy—because—I’ve been through shipwreck myself, though of a different sort. Thank God!—a different sort! For I never had to screw my shrinking soul up to the point of baring it to a strong person’s knife!” Chalmers came over to her, and laid both hands on her shoulders. “Patsy, dear little girl, just remember, will you, that IamTimothy’s friend, and your friend, and—Warren’s friend; remember it, will you? For I’ve said some rather harsh things to you. But—don’t you see? Maybe it’s because I envy you—yes” (as Patsy’s eyes opened wide at him), “that may be it. You see, little pal”—Chalmers’ voice was not quite steady—“in spite of everything, Warren hasn’t failed you! Or if he has, it’s been to show himself to you, nearer perfect than he’s ever been before. He was weak, yes; even cheap, perhaps—which is much worse than weak—but through that very weakness somehow he gained strength to climb up and stand beside you—on your level, for the firsttime in his life. And you—oh, Patsy! you pushed him over the precipice! It’s a way strong natures have—the way of the fittest, I suppose; you didn’t see that for the first time in his lifehewas strong, worthy of you, worthy of all you had given him before. You saw—isn’t it so, Patsy?—only the woman?”
“Yes,” said Patsy, faintly, “it is so.” She was staring amazedly at the handsome, passionately earnest face of the clubman. “But, Kent—I don’t understand—why doyoufeel so keenly about all this? You”—she laughed a little nervously—“it’s almost as though you were pleading your own case. But I’m sure such a thing has never happened to you, Kent—it couldn’t somehow: you’re er—too remote, too much of a—what shall I say?—not dreamer, exactly——”
“Yes,”—the lines about the clubman’s mouth hardened—“I think you have hit it exactly, Patsy: I’ve been too much of a dreamer! But”—he slumped down into his chair again—“let all that go; it’s of no consequence anyway, my part. Just say you’lllet Warren see that it’s not going to make any difference, will you?—the—the woman, I mean? Youwillsay that much, Patsy?”
Patsy looked away from him, for a long moment. Then her hand met his with the old impulsive frankness. “Yes, I will, Kent. If you care enough for Warren to come here and plead for him, I surely care enough to forgive him! Though, of course”—she weakened a little—“you’re an outsider in the affair: you can’t really see what it means to——”
“To forgive? Perhaps not,—then again, perhaps I do. You see——”
“Somebody had to forgive the woman, I suppose,” it occurred to Patsy who was intent on her own train of thought; “or not to forgive her. Oh, do you know if I were that woman’s husband, Kent, I justcouldn’tforgive her—that’s all! I couldn’t. Why,think——” she broke off suddenly, looking up at him with a little laugh. “Do you know what just came into my mind, Kent?—something perfectly absurd!—that whatIought to do now, is togo beg the woman’s husband to forgive her! ThenI’d have conquered my weakness as well as Warren did his, eh?” Patsy stopped abruptly; for there in the door stood Warren.
He still wore his overcoat, and his splendidly built body seemed to have hunched down into it—apathetically. “Well——?” he said, coming over and dropping into a third chair by the fire, “I suppose you’ve talked it all over?”
The big clubman, his friend, got up and began slowly to draw on one glove. “Ye-es,” he said,—and it was with the characteristic Club drawl—“we’ve talked it all over, Warren, and—it’s all right!” His ungloved hand went out to the other man; who stared at it—then up into the face above it—and finally, with a long breath, wrung it nearly off.
“Well, I must be toddling along to the Club,” added Chalmers lightly; “the boys will be missing me, you know; yes, the boys will be missing me. Good-night, Patsy, my dear” (she had gone over to the door with him, and he spoke in an undertone) “and—and don’t worry too much about that—thatother person, you know. I daresay her hus—I daresay it’s all right with her, too. Good-night, Warren.”
“Itisall right?” Warren asked his wife. In his tired face a little glimmer of vitality showed.
“All right!” echoed Patsy, her eyes meeting his with a something he had never seen in them before. Then, “Take this wet coat off at once, Warren Adams,” she scolded, “and those boots—you’re to go straight upstairs and change them. I declare, it’s certainly a good thing I’ve come home!—you’re worse than Junior, about your rubbers!” She was tugging at his heavy coat, but he caught her hands and drew her about, to face him.
“Yes,” he said—reverently—“it’s a very good thing you’ve come home!”
And for some reason, Patsy had to snatch her hands away and go flying up the stairs ahead of him.
“But do you know, Claire,” she told the little stepmother, after she had finished the story of Chalmers’ visit and his strange zeal on Warren’s behalf, “it’s just as I told Kent: I can’t see howthat woman’s husbandcanforgive her! Why, she——”
“You told Kent that?” asked the stepmother, oddly.
“Why, yes—why not?”
“Nothing. Except that—that woman’s husband is Kent. The woman, you see, was Farleigh.”
“Farleigh!” Patsy covered her face with her hands. “Oh, no—no! Not Farleigh, Claire!—why it couldn’t have touched Kent, a thing like that; it couldn’t, you know—and then you see he came here to plead for Warren. Oh, no, no, Claire—it couldn’t have been Farleigh!”
“The woman was Farleigh,” insisted the little stepmother, with gentle obstinacy.
“And I told him he couldn’t judge—that he was too much of an outsider, too remote——!” Patsy drew her hands down from her face, with a little sob. “I said ‘you’re too much of a dreamer’; and—oh, Claire!—Kent said ‘yes, you’ve hit it exactly! I’ve been too much of a dreamer!’”Patsy had dropped down on one of the big trunks, and was crying bitterly. There is no personal grief in the world as poignant as the pain one feels for a creature who bears his silently.
“But, Patsy—don’t cry so, dear”—into the older woman’s face had come a wonderful understanding sweetness—“don’t you see why Kent came here and talked to you that way? Don’t you see that it’s futile to be sorry for a man who loves as Kent can love?”
“You mean——?” Patsy sat up and dried her eyes.
“I mean—why do you suppose that Kent came here to-day to plead for Warren, Patsy?—to plead for his friend? Never in the world! He came to plead for the injury wrought his friend!—for the person who wrought the injury. Ah, my dear!—to be loved as Kent loves Farleigh——!” The silver-haired woman’s voice had sunk almost to a whisper. “It—it’s worth being wicked, just to find it out. It’s sublime!”
“And he went off to the Club!”—Patsy was talking more to herself than audibly—“he said the boys would be missing him—the boys, that’s all!”
Somewhere a bell rang musically. A child’s voice called “Mumsie!” And a man came and stood in the door, waiting—his eyes fixed yearningly on the tear-stained face within.
Patsy looked at him—looked at the little stepmother; but as she slipped a hand through the arm of each of them, it was not of them she was thinking, but of Chalmers—clearly a clubman,pure and simple.
“Don’tbe so lazy,” said Kent, “get something to do.”
“I have something to do,” said Pix; “I’m a philanthropist.”
“That’s what I mean;—get an occupation.”
“My dear boy,” reproachfully Pix looked at him, “don’t say unnecessary things. You know I was educated for the position of an English gentleman; though my brains in the first place weren’t half bad. Besides, I make a very good philanthropist.”
“So does anybody.”
“Who’s rich enough,” added Pix, lighting another pipe. “One can make quite exhaustive use of being rich, d’ye know, Chalmers? You and I, for instance, shouldn’t have to be sitting here on a Park bench unless we were rich; I shouldn’t dare to be smoking a pipe, you wouldn’t dare to be puffing Pall Malls at a shilling the box—you’d be opening and re-opening a case of monogrammed Egyptians you couldn’t afford, for the sake of showing any one who happened to pass that you could afford them.”
“I thought you said I wouldn’t dare to be sitting on this bench—who’d pass, then? where?”
“I’m never logical,” Pix returned, without pride; “what philanthropist is? D’ye know, Chalmers, I believe some day I’m going to do something extraordinary at philanthropy.”
“It isn’t likely,” Chalmers discouraged. His eyes were fixed absently on the White House across the Park.
“I know it isn’t. That’s why I may do it. In fact I’m almost sure——”
“I wish I could lend hope to the idea, but an unlikely philanthropist—really, Pix! Credulity must have its limits.”
“—— Almost sure I shall do something spectacular at it,” finished Pix, meditative, between puffs. “Perhaps I’ll even do a philanthropic turn for you, Kentie, old boy,” benevolently.
“Wish I thought it,” muttered Kent, over a fresh Pall Mall, “but that would be almost too much to expect, eh? That a philanthropist should help some one who needed it?” He stared still more fixedly at the gleam of white beyond the trees.
And Pix suddenly remembered something he had heard—something about Chalmers’ wife—he forgot just what it was, but—— He screwed uncomfortably on the end of the bench. “Shall we be toddling?” he said finally. “Think we’ve aired our riches quite flagrantly enough, don’t you? Then there’s to dine——”
“Where do you do it?” Chalmers rose, with as much alacrity as could be expected—of a clubman. “Boys’ Boxing Club, Home for Blond Babies, Ladies’ select Slumming Society—or——”
“With you,” interposed Pix, sauntering the more aimlessly for his injury; “being the first time—atyour house, that is—I had hoped you might remember it.”
“My dear fellow, I’m delighted!” Chalmers didn’t look it (he had forgotten how, perhaps) but he looked less absent. For a moment he gazed at Pix as though he saw him. “I remember now. Farleigh did say she’d asked you for to-night.”
“Yes—said in the note she’d make it aparti à trois, too. Thought it was no end good of her. A fellow gets so rotten sick of these drove dinners, what? Slum society or high society, it’s all the same. But I say, old boy, I—you’ll think it’s beastly cheek, I suppose, but do you mind telling me why she invited me? I’ve seen her only once, you know, at the de Tregers’ and I’ve known you only at the Club—I—I just wondered what my cue was, y’know,” he dropped his monocle, rather uneasily.
“I’m sure I can’t tell you.” Kent Chalmers gazed straight ahead of him, though he spoke lightly. “Farleigh—my wife—has no set code of move—that I know of,” he added. “Just come and be yourself—that’ll do.”
“Thanks,” replied Pix soberly. Yes, it ought to do; even for Farleigh Chalmers. Pix was, unabbreviated, Charles Clarence Hope de Crecy Pixenthorpe, younger son of Somebody or Other in Middleshire. That he was a younger son is not extraordinary; that he was a rich younger son is almost an epigram. But on the contrary, it’s the truth. He had gone to Africa, and come back that way; and after a girl (who had enough of her own) had added further to his good fortune by saying no to him, he had turned to philanthropy and America. “They go together,” he had said placidly. “One can’t be a philanthropist on a big scale—one can’t be anything abnormal on a big scale, except in America.”
So he had gone. And terminated in Washington. Only four months now since his first donation to the Needy Boys’ guild; yet Farleigh Chalmers was inviting him to dinner. Farleigh Chalmers’ husband wondered what there was important about Pix, besides his being rich. He knew there was something; Farleigh knew any number of rich men in the Capital. Yes, there was something—and he liked Pix; almost, comparatively, as he loved Farleigh. He knew, moreover, that Pix in spite of his trip to Africa, knew nothing about the world—of Washington, Washington, as he wished Farleigh did not know it.
His heel crunched round in the gravel, as they left the Mall. “By the way, Pix, I’ll be late to-night—I’ve to see a man at the Club about something at seven, so—don’t hurry, old boy. Eight o’clock’s plenty of time. Farleigh never minds one’s being late.”
“Right!” Pix clapped his shoulder. “Going to the Club now, eh? Well, au revoir. I’m for the Men’s Friendly—they have sandwich and beer at six. Gad, but a philanthropist does have to feed!—er beg pardon, Kent, really! Sure I’ll enjoy my dinner, you know, but—yes, ’bye, old chap.”
Having agreed to come at eight o’clock, Pix presented himself at Chalmers’ residence, twenty to eight sharp. Strain enough keeping one’s word, asa philanthropist, he reflected inaudibly to the butler who was removing his coat; besides, he wanted to see——“Is Mrs. Chalmers down?” he asked the man.
“Yes, sir, Mrs. Chalmers is down, sir. Marster’s just come in ’arf a minute ago, sir, but Mrs. Chalmers is hin the library. I’ll just hannounce you, sir.”
“Awfully good of you,” as a (now) Brother of Humanity, Pix felt called upon to show fraternity with the butler classes. In fact he followed Binks so affectionately, he almost trod on his own name.
“Yes, that’s what I met with as a first disaster, Mrs. Chalmers,” he came into the soft-lit library with a gentle melancholy in his appeal; “you’ll let my—er—fellow man be the only one to call it, though, won’t you? To Chalmers and the chaps at the Club, I’m just Pix.”
“I shall be delighted, Mr.—Pix,” Farleigh gave him her hand with that smile of hers that meant—well, there were those who could have told him. “Won’t you sit down? Kent is dressing yet,I’m afraid—he came in late, an appointment, I believe, with some man.” Farleigh herself sat down with one of her quick, lithe movements—Pix remembered now, he had noticed that night at the de Tregers’. She was slim, svelte, and with slender tapering hands and feet. Her hair and eyebrows were dense black; blue black. And she wore red. Pix liked her; she reminded him of a cat. And he reflected there were excellent points about a cat; people didn’t appreciate ’em.
“I suppose of course you know the British minister?” she began, watching him out of her restless eyes, as he sat down beside her. It was spring and the open windows let in a little breeze to ruffle her dark hair. “Sir Maxon-Goring? he must be quite an intimate of yours, no?”
“No,” said Pix, watching her in return. “He goes in for politics—very bad form on the part of an ambassador. I’ve nothing to do with him.”
Farleigh laughed, and looked at Pix with more interest. “You don’t go in for politics, then? Why not?”
“I’m too rich; can’t afford ’em.” The philanthropist smiled at her—that smile of his that meant—well, no one needed to tell her. It meant that Pix wasthere, behind the monocle. It meant—a discouraging outlook for Farleigh. “Only poor men should risk their lives for the nation—er—their idea of the nation: rich men must be left in safety—to give away their money. I suspect that’s Kent’s idea, too?”
“Oh, Kent!” exclaimed Farleigh, and then, catching herself hastily, “Kent isn’t interested in politics, no,” she added quietly—but her long pointed fingers tapped her armchair at Pix’s side. “He says—there’s too much intrigue in them; and he hates intrigue.”
“And you don’t?” from behind the monocle, the mild eyes gazed at her yet more kindly. Yes, he remembered now what he had heard; he knew what it was, about Chalmers’ wife. And that odd note in Kent’s voice, the absent stare, the long silences in the clubman’s jolly talk—“you like politics?” heturned his question to Farleigh over, like one showing the reverse side of the same piece of goods.
“I like anything that is complex,” replied Farleigh slowly. “And I want Kent—Mr. Pix,” she leaned toward him with a feline swiftness, “will you——”
“If that is so,”—as a philanthropist, Pix had learned, he modestly confessed it, to avoid a request of something he knew he wasn’t going to do—“if you like anything that is complex, I wish to goodness you’d come down to my—hum—which is it? ah, yes! the Young Men’s gymnasium—and untangle a case I’ve got down there. Janitor’s wife, nice lazy little woman,” he watched Farleigh’s slender foot swinging impatiently while her face turned, all interest, toward him. A philanthropist, though Kent had forgotten it, necessarily sees a great deal of women—“nice lazy little woman, married to a husband who’s so keen for committees and being third vice presidents of things, he forgets to come home on Sundays. Fact. Shuts up the—what did I say? gymnasium—I always forget if it’s the gymnasium or the Babies’ Home—and goes off to lobby the boys; ’stead of taking the tram to Alexandria and his waiting wife. She belongs to a Browning Society, but it doesn’t keep her busy, because she can’t read—farther than Poor Richard’s almanac. There are no children, and she complains there’s no husband either. Now what’s to be done? She comes to me—I’m the root of all evil, gymnasium and otherwise—she upbraids me. She’s upbraided me twice this last week, once before my valet. It can’t go on. But the man, her husband, ’s a good janitor; and good janitors are scarce as honest philanthropists. I ask you what’s to be done? Imustcure this maniac of his politics. But how?”
“Make him a clubman,” suggested Farleigh with a slow illuminating smile.
“He is one. That’s what’s the matter with him. He belongs to the Men’s Literary and the Byron Brigade and the Reformed Republicans—downtown branch—and the Kindling Wood Karpet Knights (that’s in winter), and the Sons of Adam and—well, she’ll tell you. Anyway he’s a regular attendant and officer in all of ’em. Now—Mrs. Chalmers, how am I to unite this alienated couple? Don’t you see, as a philanthropist, I’ve got to unite them? Come, now, you said you liked complexity, unravel for me. How am I to make them see that each of them is part wrong?”
“Always the first step in reconciliation?” queried Farleigh, slipping deeper into her chair. “I should make her a suffragette and him an indigent tailor—they live at home, don’t they?”
“On the principle that a swapping of wrongs makes right? It would be good humor, but not good philanthropy. Because—you see, Mrs. Chalmers”—Pix dropped the monocle and looked quite steadily into Chalmers’ wife’s eyes—“underneath their—ah—differences, they care for each other.”
“How original!” Farleigh’s laugh was light like the little breeze. “But you said, didn’t you, they were in the middle class? Of course. But Mr. Pix—this is all tremendously interesting—but I wanted to ask you, I started to ask you before, you know” (her eyes under their blue black screen kept shifting toward the door); “there’s a post open in London now—first Secretary of the Embassy—and I understand Sir Maxon-Goring is being asked by the Administration to suggest some one. Some one from here, who has had training in Washington. Of course your being such an intimate of Sir Maxon-Goring’s—for I know you are, spite of your epigram—and such a friend of Kent’s as well—well, Mr. Pix, I know the man whose lot you want for your new Children’s Library. He’s told you he won’t sell, but——”
“Ah, so here you are, old man—at last!” Pix got up leisurely and held his host three fingers as Kent entered. “Three fingers is correct, not? for a philanthropist? Four for a hard drinker? Well, youhavedone yourself well!” He looked at his watch—not at Mrs. Chalmers. “Ten after eight—a primp worthy of a guardsman, what?”
Kent, standing by his wife’s chair, smiled. More absently than ever, “It was that miserable man who wanted to see me at such length”—the big clubman’s eyes wandered; from Pix to Farleigh, from Farleighto Pix, and back again—“Shall we go out, Farleigh?” he asked, after a little pause.
“Yes, Binks announced some time ago.” In Farleigh’s voice was a hint of rumble; like the purr of a cat that has been disturbed. “You will lead me?” She laughed at Pix, slipping her hand through his arm.
“With pleasure,” he said gravely, “I will lead you both.” And slipping his other arm through Kent’s, he took them in to dinner.
“Mrs. Chalmers has promised to come down and help me with the tangle at the ah—gymnasium, Kentie,” Pix remarked with some satisfaction, as they sat in the library again later, over their coffee. “I say,” he leaned forward almost eagerly—for a philanthropist—“there’s going to be an exhibition—er—Field Day or something or other on Thursday, and Mrs. Budd is sure to come in—um-m, that’s their name, Budd,” he turned to Farleigh, “why not drop down for a moment, late, and you can see her and Budd too. There’s sure to be some row on—anyway you’d have a splendid chance to diagnose and suggest a medicine. You will?”
“Why—yes,” Farleigh had no further chance to speak with Pix alone. “Yes, I’ll come. Thursday, you say, at——?”
“Five.” Pix beamed.
“At five. Yes; it will be amusing, I’m sure.”
“Think so too. Suppose I may come also, Pix?” Kent was looking at Farleigh’s profile with a look that made Pix swallow the rest of his coffee with a gulp.
“Why, of course, old man—delighted. Only it’s hardly in your line, you know—a political, I mean to say, a lobby-maniac; a maniac for office, whose wife——”
“A maniac for office?” Kent laughed shortly. “Well, no. That’s rather at the other end of my line. However, I’ll come. What, going?” as Pix rose.
“Sorry—but you can’t expect manners in a doer of good. I’m to deliver an address at the Rough Rider Lustitude at nine-thirty—‘Is marriage a failure?’ oh, my dears!” Pix cast a wild eye at them, an eye that was something else too, could they have seen. “An address from me—and it’s their ladies’ evening. Good-night—good-night,” he shook Farleigh’s hand with a despairing gratitude, “you don’t know what this dinner has done for me though, as preparation—ah—I mean to say—ahem! you understand.” He dropped the slender hand and fled. Dash it! he always did make some silly ass of himself, just when things were at their most delicate—oh, hang! (this to Binks, under his breath) he supposed all philanthropists were bunglers.
“Farleigh”—left alone, Kent came over and put his hands on the slim shoulders—“Farleigh”—his whole attitude asked a question.
Farleigh screened her eyes with the blue black lashes, and laughed. “I’m going to a dance—the McCleans are stopping for me—where are you off to, Kent, the Club?”
“Yes,” Kent’s hands fell to his sides. “The Club.” He strode away from her, out of the room.
At the gymnasium on Thursday, Pix walked up and down between trapezes, with a little woman whose short steps—from under a remarkable plaid silk gown—doubled on themselves valiantly to keep pace.
“And indeed, Mister Pix,” she said plaintively—to all hisphilanthropéesPix was just Pix—“indeed, I don’t know what I’m to do if Theophilus don’t stop being so active. Forty-six he is, forty-seven come July, and no holdin’ him; off again all last Sunday with the Sons of Adam—gettin’ himself put in as chancellor ’f the order—and I made up my mind then, I was goin’ to do somethin’ desprit. But what t’ do”—she flung out ten cotton-gloved fingers, in an abandon of despondency.
“Perhaps this lady can tell you,” Pix said in a low voice, nodding toward some one slim and swift, who was coming up the stairs opposite, into the great hall. “I have an idea she can, for—she’s a very clever lady indeed. You put the case to her frankly, tell her the whole trouble, and see if she doesn’t suggest something. Ah, Mrs. Chalmers!this is most awfully good of you”—he met the slim lady in black half way across the gymnasium. “The er—exhibition’s over, but—Kent isn’t with you?” he broke off.
“No. Kent’s coming later. That is, he said he’d meet me here at five. I was early, because—Mr. Pix, I want to talk to you——”
“Yes, yes—excuse me just a moment—I see Budd beckoning me with a dumb-bell. You won’t mind waiting just a second while I see just what he wants? Er—Mrs. Chalmers, Mrs. Budd—you’ll find that vaulting-horse very comfortable, Mrs. Chalmers—ah, back in just one minute, you know!” And Pix hurried away.
The little woman in the plaid dress and tan cotton gloves regarded the slender woman in black cloth and a Virot turban. “Shan’t we sit down?” she suggested. “Myself, I don’t think much o’ that vaultin’ horse, but this movin’ swing’s right cosy.”
So Mrs. Kent Chalmers and Mrs. Theophilus Budd sat down together in the moving swing.
“Your husband’s the Mister Chalmers who wasat one of them foreign courts, isn’t he?” Mrs. Budd began, a little curiously. “My friend, Mrs. Silas Holt—we belong to the same Browning Society in Alexandria—she’s read me pieces out o’ the paper about him. And once there was his picture—heisthe handsome figger of a man now! What’s his job now—he’s left that foreign place, hasn’t he?”
“Yes,” Farleigh could not be annoyed with the little person—she was too simple, somehow—but she kept watching the stairs where Pix had disappeared. Why didn’t he come back? Surely he didn’t imagine she had taken him seriously about untangling this funny little Mrs. Budd’s affairs—“yes, he left Budapest a year ago,” telling it even to funny little Mrs. Budd made Farleigh’s red lips come close together, “he—he has no place now. He’s just a clubman.”
“Just aclubman?” almost shrieked Mrs. Budd. “Oh, my dear, how I feel for you! I do indeed—oh. Mr. Pix was right when he said we might help each other. Ain’t he the knowin’ one, Mr. Pix? And tothink, your husband belongs to Clubs, too! Oh, isn’t itawful?”
“Yes,” said Farleigh fervently—she was biting her lips—“it is.”
“An’ stayin’ out eight days out o’ seven, an’ runnin’ for office in ten different things at once, an’ wire-pullin’ an’ toadyin’ an’—yes, though I could sink in my grave with shame for sayin’ it—bribin’ men as he can make useful—oh, Mrs. Chalmers, what a life! That’s what I say to Theophilus, on the ice-olated occasions when I happen to see him. What a life!”
Farleigh was silent.
“An’ how do you spend your time?” went on the little woman with tan cotton gloves, more cheerfully. “Makin’ the home more attractive, I s’pose, an’ doin’ everything you can, same as I do, to keep him with you and in some kind o’ sane, contented life? D’ye keep a girl, Mrs. Chalmers?”
“Oh, yes,” though her voice was rather sharp, Farleigh smiled, “I have—yes, I have a maid.”
“You must excuse me if I was impertinent,” apologised Mrs. Budd softly; she had a very nice soft voice, Farleigh couldn’t help noticing, “but I thought maybe since your husband lost his job, you couldn’t afford——”
“Oh, yes!” was it bitterly that Farleigh said it? Bitterly to little Mrs. Budd? “He has money, you see, my husband. He—he doesn’t have to have a job.”
“Now that’s too bad!” commiserated the other woman, gently rocking the “movin’ swing” with her foot. “I mean it’s too bad whenanybodydoesn’t have a job, man or woman. I always say my job’s makin’ a home for Theophilus—though he doesn’t stay in it,” she sighed. “What’s your job, Mrs. Chalmers?”
Farleigh stirred restlessly in her corner of the swing. “Why—trying to make my husband a success, I suppose,” she said unwillingly—after all, what danger in telling the truth to this simple little thing? Why didn’t Mr. Pix come back, anyway (impatiently); there would be no time before Kent came for her to ask him——
“Men are queer creatures,” reflected Mrs. Budd, looking at her with a certain thoughtfulness; “Mr. Pix, he thought you might help me out with Theophilus, but I guess you can’t. I guess you’ve got just as hard a job as me, and no better off t’ cope with it. Men’re queer creatures, Mrs. Chalmers—they’ve got to go their own way, ’n’ all we can do, I guess, is to sit by an’ keep lovin’ ’em. Isn’t that what you say?”
“Er—yes,” Farleigh rose out of the swing altogether this time. “Yes, I suppose it is. Shall we walk a little, Mrs. Budd? I feel rather—rather cramped.”
“You don’t look as though you’d ever felt a pain in your life,” said Mrs. Budd admiringly, as they started down the big hall hung with apparatus, “but then I s’pose you keep outdoors a lot, and don’t let yourself be ruined by this s’ciety life. Mis’ Holt was readin’ me out of last Sunday’s fashion supplement how a preacher had said the word for Washington s’ciety was ‘hectic,’ and we looked it up, at the Tuesday readin’ of the Browning class, an’ Iguess he’s right, Mrs. Chalmers. Washington s’ciety’s hectic.”
“They call it so many things,” murmured Farleigh; busy in avoiding a punching-ball, she spoke again truthfully, to the little woman—almost friendly, in her nonchalance, to the janitor’s wife.
“But I don’t take no stock in it, do you?” pursued Mrs. Budd. “Seems as though it’s just like this room full o’ climbin’ machines—an’ somebody liable to fall off the trapeze an’ bust his head open, any time—half way up or at the top; y’ can’t tell nothin’ about it. I’m glad you let it alone, Mrs. Chalmers. This paper said one woman—it didn’t give her name—one woman had gone so far’s to—look out for that movin’ staircase, Mis’ Chalmers—they’re awful treacherous: they pretend to be takin’ you up all the time an’ then before you know it, they throw you—had gone so far as to make a name for herself, in the line o’ intrigue,” continued Mrs. Budd, her soft voice hushed with excitement; “she didn’t need nothin’ as far as climb goes, it said, she just likedpullin’ the ropes because she done it so well. It said they call her——”
“Mrs. Budd, do you see anything of Mr. Pix?” asked Farleigh, two red spots glowing in her cheeks.
“No—but he’ll be along presently. Don’t fret, he ’n’ your husband’s probably met and ’re having a shindy with Budd down below. Men ’re gossipy creatures. I was goin’ to tell you, they call that woman the Spanish Cat—’cause she slides in an’ out o’ things so easy, and looks that Spanish kind. You’re real dark too, aren’t you, Mrs. Chalmers? My, but your husband must be proud of you!” the little woman in the plaid dress looked up wistfully.—“Why, Mis’ Chalmers, what’s the matter?”
For Mrs. Chalmers looked as though she was going to cry. She also looked furiously angry, and—Mrs. Budd gasped—very beautiful. “Mrs. Chalmers, I—I do hope I haven’t said nothin’ to hurt your feelings,” faltered the little janitor’s wife.
“No”—with a ringing laugh Farleigh dashed her hand to her eyes—“oh, no, Mrs. Budd. I—shan’t we sit down on thisunmoving staircase and wait?—So you don’t think much of the Spanish Cat?” she questioned, as Mrs. Budd sat down. “You think she’s—er—rather a fool?”
“I think they’ll come a day when she’ll get caught, in one o’ these slides,” said Mrs. Budd, delighted to settle to a cosy chat, “an’ then that’ll be the end ofher. Just the same, she must be a real clever woman, Mrs. Chalmers, and then, my dear—as I told Mis’ Holt—there must besomethin’the matter with her husband. No woman would take to pullin’ wires for a job, if her husband was the man he should be. Prob’ly he’s some lazy, no account s’ciety man, this——”
“No, Mrs. Budd,” Farleigh sat very erect, “I—I’m sure you’re mistaken,” she added less hastily, “he—her husband isn’t no account, or—you see, such a clever woman wouldn’t have married him!” Yes, watching that smile of hers, Mrs. Budd declared she was beautiful.
“My dear, you can’t tell,” said Theophilus’ wife sombrely, “women, the cleverest of ’em, do marry the strangest men!—yes I just bet you anything,this intreegant’s husband is some s’ciety loafer, who’s made his wife so tired with his foolishness, she just had——”
“No, not a loafer,” Mrs. Chalmers shook her head decidedly, “certainly he is not a loafer, though——”
“Ah, you do know him then?” Mrs. Budd fairly trembled with anxiety. No wonder Mrs. Chalmers had looked angry. “He ’n’ she’s friends of yours?”
“She’s not a friend of mine, no,” said Farleigh slowly. She seemed to have forgotten Mrs. Budd as a “funny little person,” Farleigh. “I should rather say she’s my worst enemy. He—well, I don’t know,” she ended rather abruptly.
“Do you know, my dear,” the other woman—the woman with the tan cotton gloves leaned forward earnestly, “I sh’d thinktherewould be a chance for some real mission’ry work for you—and if I called ’em names, I’m sorry indeed——”
“It’s all right,” said Farleigh hastily, “one’s quite apt to tell the truth about people, before one knows who they are.”
“But being such friends of yours, or at leastknowin’ ’em as you do, if you could bring them together, my dear,” went on the simple little woman looking earnestly into the beautiful face, “if you could make that woman see how she’s wastin’ herself on the trapeze business, when she might be walkin’ along safe an’ happy on the ground with him; an’ if you could make him see that—but men’s queer creatures!—if you could make him see that if he’ll only stir his stumps a bit ’n’ makehimselfmore interestin’ for her, she—don’t you see, my dear? Why, if you did that, if you could make ’em see that each is part wrong, why—it’d be the biggest job you ever did in your life!”
“Yes,” Farleigh drew a deep breath, “it would. The biggest job I ever did in my life! And—isn’t it funny, Mrs. Budd? that’s just what Mr. Pix said too: that to make each see that each is part wrong, is the first step toward reconciliation.”
“Ah, but he’s a smart man, Mr. Pix,” said Mrs. Budd ingenuously. “But you’ll try, my dear? You’ll do what you can to bring these two together again?—don’t know why I take s’ much interest in’em,” she laughed a little abashed, “but readin’ that woman’s story in the paper seemed so kind o’ pitiful—you see, I thought o’ Theophilus always playin’ around with these climbin’ machines—and then I knew, ’s I say, there must be something wrong about the husband.—You’ll try, my dear?”
“Yes,” promised Farleigh simply, “I’ll try. And—I’m glad you happened to read the story in the paper, Mrs. Budd.”
“Funny now, wasn’t it?” The little woman smiled happily. “And that I should just happen to tell it to you, and you knew those people? Well,” she sighed, “even if we ain’t come to no conclusion about Theophilus, maybe we’ve helped somebody. And here’s Mr. Pix”—then, as another man appeared beside Pix on the stairs—“my dear!is that your husband?” she asked wonderingly.
“Yes,” Farleigh rose to meet them, “why?”
“Because he—my dear, I wouldn’t worry one mite,” the little woman with the tan gloves patted the black sleeve cut by Paquin, reassuringly, “don’t you fret, my dear, one minute. That man could be amember of the Sons of Adam an’ the Kindlin’ Wood Knights an’ any other forty-seven ’leven Clubs he was a mind to. He’s aman, my dear. And (as she saw him smile at Farleigh, coming toward her) he loves you. You’re a very lucky woman.”
“Mrs. Budd, this is my husband, Mr. Chalmers,” Farleigh made the introduction rather unsteadily. “I want you to know each other.”
“Indeed, and I’m proud to, Mr. Chalmers,” the little woman beamed; while Farleigh turned to Pix, but not exclusively. “Mrs. Chalmers an’ I have just been having the most interestin’ time, talkin’ about the Spanish Cat—oh I—I beg your pardon”—she grew frantically pink—“I forgot again, they was friends of yours, and besides I don’t know her real name. I——”
“Mrs. Budd has been telling me how to manage the Spanish Cat, Kent,” said Farleigh very quietly. Pix stared at the window as though he meant to jump out of it. “She says that to—to manage her would be the biggest job of my life, and——”
“Oh, not exactly to manage her, Mrs. Chalmers,” put in the little woman uneasily, “to bring her ’n’ her husband together’s what I mean. You see,” she turned to Chalmers, “I think her husband must be part wrong, too.”
“I think he must,” said Kent, looking into Farleigh’s eyes; “I’m sure he is.”
“But what about the case of Budd?” broke in Pix, renouncing the window.
“Oh, we didn’t get ’s far ’s him,” said Mrs. Budd resignedly; “we’ll take up Theophilus at the next meetin’, won’t we, Mrs. Chalmers?”
“We will, indeed,” said the very clever lady. And I must tell you that as she said good-bye to her, she kissed Mrs. Budd!
Kent turned to Pix—Farleigh had gone on ahead of them, rather swiftly, down the stairs. “Pix, I—you—it’s all your affair,” he stammered unevenly, “I——”
“Tut, my dear boy!” Pix waved aside the words, though he gripped the proffered hand and wrung it. “I’m twice as pleased as you are. I never dothings unselfishly, you know—I’m purely a philanthropist.
“By the way,” added Pix carelessly, watching Chalmers from behind his monocle as they came out into the street, “who’s this man who’s been detaining you all the time at the Club?”
“That,” said Kent, stepping into the car beside Farleigh, “is a gentleman who has been trying to get my opinion on a Secretaryship in London. I just told him, this afternoon: yes.”
Intothe mysterious shadows of the grey-cloistered chapel, the Court in all its ceremony was disappearing—all except the newest Maid of Honor, who, after one glance back at the sunset, shook her curls rebelliously, and deliberately stayed behind in the rose-garden!
“I justwon’tgo to vespers,” declared the Maid of Honor wilfully; “and what’s more”—darting after two other stragglers in the procession—“you sha’n’t go either.” She laid a compelling hand on a little old person in rose and silver, and a very magnificent person in black velvet and pumps. “It’s a perfect sacrilege to pray any more to-day. Besides, don’t you know we’ve got totalk? To talkabouthim?” And she shook her small fist threateningly after the departing monarch.
“It is a fine evening,” conceded the little old person weakly; already she had arranged her brocade and laces against the quaint primness of an ancient stone settle.
“And—er—no sense, really, in making Sundaytooshocking a misfortune,” abetted the magnificent person, enjoying the effect of himself under the glowing luxuriance of a canopy of Maréchal Niels. “Fact is, the King——”
“That’s just it!” The Maid of Honor pounced upon the words, as she pounced upon her favorite garden seat. “The King! Oh”—she clicked her fan vehemently—“I am so glad to get you two alone for once, so that we can talk and talk and talk about him!”
“My dear!” The little old person’s hands went up. “I’m sure no one ever found that much to say about a king. There’s really nothing much to say, is there?” She glanced half fearfully toward the beautiful old chapel door.
“Exactly what I mean!” announced the Maid of Honor triumphantly. “Mind you, I don’t agree to it for all kings—perhaps the less important ones aren’t so bad—but this one! Why, he’s a mere bundle of robes, a mannequin to hang things on: satins, epigrams, anything. A sort of peg for the traditions of our ancestors. Oh!” In the small restless face showed the exasperation of all youth. “What difference does it make how many millions of subjects he has? He’s always the same. He always will be the same, I suppose: just a monarch, a handsome effigy, no more than a king!”
“Nor less,” appended his Fool impartially. (Nowadays, they call them the “king’s best friend”: it amounts to the same thing.) “He does the best he can with the predicament, you know. Rather beastly situation to find oneself in, too, now isn’t it? Fancy, just fancy for yourself”—he looked toward the Maid of Honor’s profile propitiatingly—“being suddenly obliged to become king—or, queen, that is, of Dumdedum; Emperor of Ladada, Lord High Protector of Thingumbob, and all the rest of it.You wouldn’t like it, you know. Nobody would.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” For some reason the Maid of Honor was blushing.
“Nobody would, unless it were one’s butler. It’s being such a temptation to anarchists; and no well-brought-up person likes to be a temptation—or admits that he likes it.”
“And you confess he is marvelously handsome,” urged the little old Lady-in-Waiting slyly, “you acknowledge yourself, Ermyntrude, that he fills his position with distinction; never looks scared, I mean, and that’ssohard for a king. You said just now, you know—you called him——”
“I called him a handsome effigy!” The Maid of Honor rose to her feet sharply. “And that’s quite all he is. Oh, I don’t ask that he shall do anything so wonderful,” she defended, catching up his pet spaniel, and pulling its ears with a mixture of affection and intense impatience, “I don’t ask that he shall ride to wars, or build huge palaces, or squander fortunes over pageantry. I ask simply that he show some signs of humanness, that he be aman,any sort of a man, anything rather than a dummy! Why, if Ja—if the Prince were to grow like him ...!”
“But”—the Fool began to look worried. He rubbed his pumps together till they creaked.
“Other kings manage it,” went on the Maid of Honor accusingly; “they have their personalities, their special diets, their favorite spa; they invent a cravat or a new kind of soup, and it’s all very well. But he—he doesn’t do one thing that’sdifferent. It’s the Queen who reigns, you know. It’s she” (was it a note of bitterness in the little Maid’s voice?) “who has been straining every nerve to promote this marriage of the Crown Prince with that Franconia girl. But he—he’s such a piece of passivity, he won’t even say yes or no to the idea. All he has energy to do, this whole month since I came to court, is to avoid quarrelling. Any lazy person can do that.”
“But,my dear——”
“Oh”—the Maid of Honor heeded nothing but her own rising indignation—“if he’d only get somespite in him, and quarrel like the—like everything—why, it would be splendid! He’d be sublime! And if he’d be wicked—you know what I mean, real, antique, Francis the First, Henry the Eighthwicked—oh, then he’d immortalize himself. When one’s genuinely wicked, one’s never forgotten, eh?” She turned confidently to the Fool.
“Um-m. Not if one has a clever press-agent: biographer, that is to say. However,” and, for a Fool, his voice grew quite gentle, “I am afraid that Richard will never be so very wicked. You know he—he has loved a woman.”
The Maid of Honor laughed.
“He hasloveda woman,” emphasized the Fool, “and for a man, especially for a king, that is a very rare experience.”
“It was before Ermyntrude was born,” reminded the little old Lady-in-Waiting, softly; and her pretty, faded eyes lost themselves in the sunset. “Before even your mother came to be Mistress of the Robes to his mother, my dear,” she drew the girl down beside her on the ancient settle, “when Imyself was a slip of a girl in the Palace at Camelot, and the young Prince Richard barely through with his examinations. He used to talk to me—ah, yes” (she sighed a little sadly) “then he was not so quiet; he used to talk. And one day—it was in the summer, and yes, in this very rose-garden—we had come up from Camelot for some tournament—one day he told me he was in love. ‘Her name’s Rosemary, Guarda,’ he said, ‘and her father is just a professor at the University’ (the little Maid winced). ‘Oh, Guarda, Iamglad I don’t have to succeed—think, Guarda! I couldn’t marry Rosemary!’ And” (the sun or something had got into the little old lady’s eyes, so that she had to put up her hand to shield them) “just six months after that—one month before he was going to marry Rosemary—the Crown Prince died, and then his father, the old King; and now”—the fragile old hand fell back into the Lady Guarda’s lap, with a limp little gesture of finality—“Richard is married to a Princess. Perhaps that is why he is no more than a King!”
“Yes”—the Maid of Honor’s voice soundedstrangely subdued—“perhaps that is why. See, they are coming out from vespers—shall we walk as far as the gates, Lady Guarda?”
And as the two swept their soft trains down the fragrant allée, out of the dim grey cloisters came a monarch and his court—a splendid panoply of vivid color, mellowed by the dying sun, which cast its tenderness over all the vast old garden, but lingered on the handsome impassive features of the Man Who Came First—a handsome effigy.
“A mere bundle of robes——?” wondered his Fool—who knew him best.
“I know all that you say.” The King rose a trifle wearily, regarding his councillors with that mixture of gentleness and pity which seemed to shut him from them, from every one, like a beautiful stiff hedge. “Our relation with Franconia is, truly, very delicate: the two most prominent world powers ... and then the peculiar situation in the Colonies ... yes, for the best interests of the State, I grant you, even, His Royal Highnessshould make this alliance. But, milords,” his smile upon them was grave though very sweet, “there are things greater than the State.”