What Will People Say? A Novel 18 – Hughes · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
What Will People Say? A Novel 18Chapter 18
18
Literature · Romance
What Will People Say? A Novel 18
Chapter 18
HughesEnglish
There was an atmosphere of mourning everywhere as the enormous audience issued from the exits. It had assisted at the obsequies of a tremendous love, and all the eyes were sad.
Forbes had seen it stated until he had come to believe it, that the Metropolitan Opera was supported by snobs who attended merely to show off their jewels, and that the true music-lovers were to be found in the gallery. It came upon him now that this is one of the many cheap missiles poor people of poor wit hurl at luckier folk, with no more discrimination than street Arabs show when they throw whatever they can find in the street at whoever passes by in better clothes.
Forbes was sure that most of these sad-eyed aristocrats, so lavish in their praise of the singers and the music and the conductor, had come with a musical purpose, and he wondered if some few, at least, of those in the gallery might not have climbed thither less for art's sake than to see in the flesh those people of whose goings and comings and dressings, weddings and partings, they read so greedily in the newspapers.
During the long wait for the carriage, a wealthy rabble stood in a draughty doorway waiting turns at the slowly disintegrating army of limousines and landaulets and touring-cars and taxicabs--even of obsolete broughams and coaches drawn by four-legged anachronisms.
Mrs. Neff claimed Forbes as her personal escort, and carried him off in her own chariot, which rolled up long before Enslee's.
Forbes regretted to leave Persis standing there, with throat open as usual to the night gale; but his consolation was that he could gossip about her.
Mrs. Neff's first word, of course, was of tobacco. The door was hardly slammed upon them before she had her cigarettes out.
"Give me a light, there's a dear boy. I've just time for a puff. And you light your cigar; I know you're dying for it. You can finish it in the cloak-room. You men have still a few advantages left. The one I envy you most is your right to smoke in public."
It was strange to Forbes to be proffering a light to a white-haired lady. His own mother had thought it almost an escapade to sit on a piazza with a man who was armed with a cigar. Years ago, when Forbes had come home from West Point, she had said to him after dinner:
"I reckon my boy is simply pe'ishing for a cigar. Of course a gentleman can't smoke in the drawing-room, and the odor never comes out of the curtains. But I don't mind it in the open air--much. We'll stroll in the garden. They say tobacco is good for the plants--bad for the insects."
And she took his arm and sauntered with him while he ruined the scent of the honeysuckle vines.
And Forbes had heard an anecdote, probably untrue, of the great Mrs. Astor; according to this legend, a man, hankering for a cigar, yet hesitating to suggest it, asked her casually: "What would you say if a man asked you for permission to smoke?" To which she answered, in her stately way: "I don't know. No man ever asked me." And neither did he.
But nowadays a man rarely ever murmurs the formula: "Do you object to smoke?" He is apter to say: "Do you carry your own, or will you try mine?"
The petite grande dame, Mrs. Neff, carried her own. The glow of it in the dark seemed to add one more ruby to her burdened fingers. And when she lost her light, she reached out for Forbes' cigar and rekindled her cigarette, smiling:
"Aren't we nice and clubby?"
Once her weed was prospering, she began to puff gossip:
"Isn't she a darling--Miss Cabot, I mean? Everybody is crazy over her, but Willie scares 'em all off. What a pity she's mixed up with the little bounder! Of course, she needs a lot of money, and her It of a father is nearly ready for the Old Ladies' Home; but what a shame that love and money go together so rarely! For the matter of that, though, I don't think Persis knows what love is--yet. Maybe she never will. Maybe she won't learn till it's too late. Murray Ten Eyck says you are rich. Why don't you marry Persis? What a pair you'd make! What children you'd have! They'd win a blue ribbon at any stock-breeder's show."
Forbes was much obliged to the dark for hiding his blushes. Besides, he felt it a little premature to be discussing the quality of his offspring. He made bold to ask a leading question.
"You say that Miss Cabot is mixed up hopelessly with Mr. Enslee. Do you mean that they are engaged?"
"They haven't announced it, of course, but it's generally agreed that they are. Still, I suppose that if some handsome devil came along with a million or two, he might coax her away."
"But they are not actually engaged?"
"I don't know. But it looks inevitable to me. If you've got a lot of money, ask her--and save her from Willie. She'd make a nice wife to a nice man, with a nice income. Go on and get her. Oh, Lord, here we are at Sherry's and I've got to throw my cigarette away. I'll have to sneak another in the women's room somehow."
They went through the revolving doors and into the corridor, where women in opera-cloaks were moving forward with something of the look of a spice caravan, some to the supper-rooms, and some toward the elevators to the various assembly-rooms, where various coteries were giving dances.
The ways of Mrs. Neff and Forbes parted at the elevator's upper door. His led to the large room where he passed his hat and coat across a table to be stowed in a compartment in one of the wicker wardrobes.
While he waited for Mrs. Neff, he sauntered to and fro, smoking and feeling a stranger among the men, who were just beginning to collect. Forbes noted the callowness of most of them, and felt himself a veteran among the shiny-haired blonds and glistening brunettes pulling on their white gloves, straightening their ties and trying, some of them, to find mustache enough to pull.
He could see the women they brought--girls and their mothers, or aunts or something.
After his experience at the restaurant dances, Forbes had begun to wonder if New York's aristocracy had been entirely converted to socialism, and had given over all attempt at exclusiveness. Here at last he found selection. People were here on invitation, and they were at home--chez eux.
If they went among the common herd, it was only as a kind of slumming excursion, a sortie of the great folk from the citadel into the town. It did not mean that the town was invited to repay the visit at the castle.
This was a dance at the castle. Everybody here seemed to belong. There were no shop-girls, no pavement-nymphs, or others of the self-supporting classes. These women had been provided for by wealthy parents. They had been provided with educations, and aseptic surroundings, and sterilized amusements, and pure food of choicest quality. Hence they all looked hale and thoroughbred. And they were not discontent. They came with the spirit of the dance.
Yet there was variety enough in the unity. Girls of intellectual type, girls of plain and old-maidish prospects, girls of prudish manner, wantons, athletes, flirts, and uncontrollables. There were good taste and bad in costume, simple little pink frocks and Sheban splendors, loud voices and soft, meek eyes and insolent. But they were all protected plants, not hothouse flowers, yet flowers from high-walled, well-tended gardens.
Inside the wall there was the pleasantest informality. Everybody seemed to call everybody else by the first name or by some nickname, and there were surprisingly many old-fashioned "Jims" and "Bills," "Kates" and "Sues." There was much hilarity, much slang, and the women seemed to use the music-hall phrases even more freely than the men.
In the dances there was a deal of boisterous romping. The turkey-trot, here called the one-step, was as vigorously performed as in the restaurants, and some of the highest born showed the most professional skill and recklessness.
While Forbes was waiting for Mrs. Neff, he saw Persis arrive with her entourage. She was like the rest, yet ever so different. In her there was the little more that meant so much. She had, of course, the advantage of his affection. Yet he could see that everybody else gave her a certain prestige, too. It was "Oh, there she is!" "Look, there's Persis!" "Hello, Persis, how darling of you to come!"
The fly in the ointment was Willie Enslee, preening himself at her side, taking all her compliments for his own, as if he were the proprietor of a prize-winning mare at a horse-show. Forbes hated himself for hating him, but could not help it. When Enslee left Persis and entered the men's coat-room, Forbes' eyes followed him balefully.
Ten Eyck happened to glance his way as he held out his hand for his coat check. He noted the glare in Forbes' eyes and followed their direction to Enslee. He was so amazed, that when the attendant put the check in his hand, he started as if some one had wakened him. Then he went to Forbes and took him by the elbow. And Forbes also started as if some one had wakened him. Ten Eyck smiled sadly:
"Is it as bad as that, already, old man?"
"Is what as bad as what already?" Forbes answered, half puzzled and half aware. Ten Eyck replied with a riddle.
"You can buy 'em for almost any price. It's the upkeep that costs."
"What the devil are you talking about?"
"Yachts."
"Yachts?"
"Yachts. Better do as I do, Forbesy: instead of trying to own and run one, cultivate the people who do; and then you can cruise without expense."
"What's that about yachts?" Willie Enslee asked, unexpectedly at his elbow. Ten Eyck answered, blandly:
"I was making the highly original remark that it's not the initial expense--"
"--But the up-keep that costs," Willie finished for him. "And that's no joke, either. Thinking of buying one, Mr. Forbes? Take my advice and don't! Gad, that ferryboat of mine costs me twenty-five or thirty thousand a year, and she's not in commission two months in the season."
Twenty-five thousand a year! The words clanged in Forbes' mind like a locomotive's warning bell. He would hardly earn so much in the next ten years. He would certainly take Enslee's advice and not buy a yacht. He was as ill-equipped for a contest with the Enslee Estates as David was for the bout with Goliath. David won, indeed; but he had only to kill the giant, not to support him in the manner he had been accustomed to.
What could Forbes offer a woman like Persis in place of a yacht? He could offer her only love. His love must be cruiser and automobile, town house and country house, home and travel. Isolde had married the king only to run away from his palace to the ruined castle of the wounded knight. Perhaps this Isolde would take warning and prefer the poor knight and his shabby castle in the first place.
As Forbes glanced down at Willie Enslee he could not feel that even the Enslee millions could suffice to make the fellow attractive. They certainly had not added a cubit to his stature. Persis could not conceivably mate herself for life to a peevish underling like him.
Plainly Forbes needed only to be brave and persistent and he would win her. Then Persis reappeared, and looked to be a prize worth fighting for, at any hazard of failure. There was a bevy of young women about her, bright clouds around a new moon. They were all jeweled to incandescence. On their fingers and wrists were rings and bracelets whose prices Forbes could guess from his inspection of shop-windows the day before. He could not give such gifts.
But he would not let anything chill him. He advanced to Persis with as much cordiality as if he had not seen her for years. Persis was too human to follow the usual New York and London custom of avoiding introductions. She presented Forbes to the galaxy with a statement that he was a famous soldier (which brought polite looks of respect), and a love of a tangoist (which evoked gushes of enthusiasm).
He had not caught a single name, and as the group dispersed, each girl took even her face from his memory as effectually as if it were a picture carried out of a room.
This did not distress him at the time, for the orchestra on the stage in the grand ballroom was busily at work.
"The music is calling us," said Forbes. "May I have the honor?"
"I wish you might," Persis sighed, "but Willie would be furious if I gave his dance away. And Mrs. Neff would snatch me baldheaded if I kidnapped her preux chevalier. I'm afraid she'll expect you to pay for your ride in her car by a little honest work, won't she?"
"I'm afraid so. Of course she will," Forbes groaned, ashamed of his oversight. "But the next one I may have?"
"The next one is yours. Don't forget."
"Forget!" He cast his eyes up in a look of horror at the possibility. He hastened to Mrs. Neff, who was just simmering to a boil. She forgot her pique with the first sidewise stride. She tried to imagine herself young, and Forbes tried to imagine her Persis.
He passed Persis in the eddies again and again, and she always had some amiable wireless greeting to flash across the space. She was difficultly following the spasmodic leadership of Willie, who puffed about her like a little snubby tug conducting a graceful yacht out to sea.
When the dance was done and the inevitable encore responded to, Forbes tried to carry on a traffic of conversation with his hostess; but he had only the faintest idea of what she said or what he himself said--if anything. His mind was lackeying Persis, who knew so many people and was having so good a time. At the first squeak of the next dance Forbes abandoned Mrs. Neff like an Ariadne on a beach of chairs, and presented himself open-armed before Persis.
She slipped into his embrace as if she were mortised there. The very concord of their bodies seemed an argument for the union of their souls. They were as appropriate to each other as the melodies of a perfect duet, such a love-duet as Tristan and Isolde's.
Once more Forbes was master of Persis; she followed wherever he led. He could whirl her, dip her, sidle her, lead or pursue her; and she obeyed his will as instantly as if he were her owner. She did belong to him. How could he ever give her up? And yet at the moment the orchestra stopped he must let her go.
The end of the dance was their divorce. He transferred her into Bob Fielding's arms for a time, while he swung Winifred with as much rapture as he would have taken from trundling a bureau around. Even Winifred's surprising lightness of foot reminded Forbes of nothing more poetic than casters.
After this ordeal a strict sense of duty forced him to dance with Mrs. Neff once more. And after her with an anonymous sprig, to whom Mrs. Neff bequeathed him. This girl was as young as Alice Neff, but loud of voice, gawky, and awkward. Some day she would grow up to herself and enter into her birthright of beauty. Now she was neither chick nor pullet, but at the raw-boned, pin-feathered stage between--just out from her mother's wings. Her knees were carried so well forward that Forbes could not avoid them. He came out of the dance with both patellas bruised.
And then, at last, he was free to tango with Persis again. In the brief space of a few dances, he had held in his clasp the young-old Mrs. Neff, the super-abundant charms of Winifred, and the large-jointed frame of a young girl. When Persis was his again the contrast was astonishing. In these forms the cycle of the rose was complete; the girl was the bud still clenched in its calyx; Winifred was the flower too far expanded; Mrs. Neff the flower of yesterday with the bloom gone from the petal and the wrinkles in its place; but Persis! Persis was the rose at its exact instant of perfection.
At the close of the dance, the hour being somewhat past midnight, supper was announced. Persis seized upon one of the small tables, and stood guard over it while she despatched Forbes to round up Mrs. Neff and Willie and Bob and Winifred, and Ten Eyck and a debutante he was rushing.
Persis saw to it quite casually that Forbes sat close to her; and that was very close, since the little clique was crowded so snugly about the table, that half of those who ate had to convey the food across the elbows and knees of the others.
Persis sat with both elbows on the table, and raised her bouillon cup with both hands. Her elbow touched that of Forbes, and she did not draw it away. For the matter of that, all the elbows were clashing in the crowded circle.
It was now that Forbes was tempted to make his first advance. How was he to marry her if he never made love to her? How show his love except by some signal? Before all those ears he could not speak his infatuation; before all those eyes he could not seize her hand and kiss it, or kneel, or push his arm around her.
Under the table he might have held hands with her, but she kept her hands above the board. Then, as she leaned close to him to speak across him to Mrs. Neff, her foot struck lightly against his. It was gone at once, but it suggested to his mind an ancient form of flirtation that has been more honored in modern observance than in modern literature. Remembering the experience at the Opera House, he was visited with a tender temptation to renew that acquaintance of feet.
He gathered his courage together, as if he were about to step off a precipice into a fog, and pursued her foot with his. He found it, but at a touch it vanished again. Realizing that she took his silly action for an accident, he determined to see the adventure through. He sent his foot prowling after hers, found it, and raising his toe, pressed hers softly.
This time her foot was not withdrawn, and he felt that his emprise was rewarded. But a moment later, when every one's attention was attracted to another table, and the rest were discussing a prematurely fashionable costume, Persis leaned close to him and murmured:
"In the first place, how dare you? In the second place, I have on white slippers. And in the third place, you are perfectly visible from all the other tables."
And then she slipped her foot away. It was as if she had unclasped his arms from about her waist, only not so hallowed a precedent.
Forbes turned pale with shame. He felt that his deed was boorish, and now it had been properly rebuked and resented. The gentleness of the reproof made it the more galling; for it was the gentleness of authority so sure of itself that it needed no clamor of assertion. Another woman might have been, or pretended to be, furious at an insult; a flirt might have rebuked him only to encourage and tease him on; a vixen might have dug her other heel into his instep and forced her release.
But Persis was sophisticated enough not to set her protest in italics. She was probably used to such suggestions. It hurt Forbes' pride to feel that he was not the first man she had rebuffed for this. He had loved her and longed to tell her his secret secretly, and had merely apprised her that he was a blundering bumpkin. She had shamed him yet spared him open disgrace. She had made him respect her intelligence and her tact.
He gnawed his lip with remorse; but his apologies were frustrated by the return of all hands to the table. Persis chattered with the rest and nibbled a marron with an apparent relish that implied forgetfulness of what was only an incident to her.
Forbes was learning what Persis was, by all these little tests, as a general studies the enemy's strength and disposition, by trying the line at all points. If he finds the pickets always alert, his respect increases the more he is baffled.
