Lena sat one morning behind the coffee-urn so self-absorbed and smiling that Dick wondered. “Mrs. Percival,” he remonstrated, “you have a husband at this end of the table. Have you forgotten it? What are you thinking about?” “Dick, I believe I have found a friend—a real friend,” Lena jerked out. “A good many of them, I should say. Who is this fortunate person?” “Mrs. Appleton.” “Mrs. Appleton!” Dick gulped at his coffee and stared at his wife in some perplexity. “Isn’t she a—well, for one thing, a good deal older than you?” “She’ll be all the better guide,” Lena retorted with one of her demure pouts. “You know she invited me to join the class she has gotten up for Swami Ram Juna. You needn’t “Heaven forbid, you dear little inspirer of awe.” “At any rate, she’s taken the greatest fancy to me, and I to her. She came here yesterday in the pouring rain, and we spent a long afternoon talking together. We feel the same way about everything. She says that with my beauty, I ought to make a great hit, and she’s going to give a big reception in my honor. Of course, with her experience, she can be a great help to me.” “I see.” Dick forgot his breakfast entirely, and meditated. “What is Mr. Appleton like?” Lena persisted. “He has enough money to make me pale my ineffectual fires, and he adds to that the personality of the great American desert. But I suspect his wife is so wholly satisfied with the golden glow that the latter fact has never penetrated to her consciousness. I think Mrs. Appleton has not yet recovered from her astonishment at finding herself wedded to profusion. It appears to delight her afresh from day to day.” “You can be very nasty about people when “Frankly, Lena, I do not like Mrs. Appleton or her attitude toward life. She is the kind of woman who refuses to take the simplest thing simply, the kind that thinks subscription dances and clubs and private cars and family tombs were invented chiefly to show our exclusiveness.” “Well, what are they for?” Dick laughed. “Most of them to get all the fun there is in things, I should say; and the tombs, to show that love holds even after death.” “I like her, anyway,” said Lena. “I like her better than the stuck-up kind of women.” The words sound bald. Lena’s lips made them seem humorous. It was so easy to avoid disapprobation just by that little smile and whimsical twist of the mouth. “And whom do you mean by that!” “You know whom I mean,” Lena answered defiantly. “And I consider Mrs. Appleton a great deal more of a society woman than Mrs. Lenox. At any rate she goes a great deal more. And she does not neglect her church duties or her charities, either. She has told me things that she is doing.” “I should say she does not neglect them,” ejaculated Dick. “She has the art so to regild them that even philanthropy and religion become mere appendages to society. Does Mrs. Lenox belong to Ram Juna’s class, Lena?” “No. Mrs. Appleton asked her, but she wrote that though she was interested in oriental thought, she, personally, found it more satisfactory to get it by reading. Now wasn’t that snobby, Dick?” “Is it snobbish to choose what really suits you, instead of following a craze like a sheep woman?” But Lena shut her lips tightly. If she had not will, she had obstinacy. She could be resolute in behalf of her realities, luxury, beauty and self. From the moment when Mrs. Appleton first dawned on her horizon, she had recognized her ideal. Here was a woman who was at once showy, fashionable and virtuous. The things that Mrs. Lenox took for granted or ignored were to her matters of absorbing importance. She magnified the office of every detail of social conduct and every minutia of society’s “functions”. It was worth while to spend a week of soul-fatiguing labor in order that a tea should be Mrs. Appleton seemed to recognize in Lena the same curious mingling of deep-down barbaric egotism and love of display, with the longing to be civilizedly correct. The two were drawn together. “I like her,” said Lena positively. “I’m sorry,” Dick said gently. “I can’t say that I do, and I should be glad if you could find your friends among those I love and respect.” “You needn’t try to dictate my friendships,” said Lena sharply. “I did not think of dictating, sweetheart. But when we love each other, we naturally long for sympathy in all things.” Dick was making a brave effort. But there was little use in making this appeal to Lena, to whom love was but a beneficent masculine idiosyncrasy. Dick glanced at her and at his watch. “I must be off,” he said. “I have an engagement “Ours!” “I’m going to run for alderman of this ward,” Dick laughed as Lena flushed. “Don’t you approve?” “How can you be interested in running for alderman?” she asked. “It is such a mean little ambition. I wish you would try for something big. It would be grand to have you a senator, so that we could go to Washington. I should love to be in all the gaieties and meet all the distinguished people.” “Why, sweetheart, you don’t suppose I care for the great name of city father, do you?” Dick answered laughing. “That’s only the end of a lever. I do care immensely to be one of those who will clean up this city and keep it clean. Perhaps, if we do these near-by things, the big ones will come, by and by.” “A sort of public housemaid,” said Lena scornfully. “Exactly!” Dick laughed and nodded. But Lena shrugged her shoulders and pouted as the door shut and she idly watched her husband’s final hand-wave. He walked down town and the fresh northern But when he reached the part of town whither his steps were bent, all this was reversed. Here was dirt, if not of body, then of spirit. Here were a thousand evil influences at work. Here was public plundering for private greed; here were wire-pullings and bargainings and selfishness reigning supreme. And these forces were the nominal rulers of a city, the greater part of whose life was good. However, he was getting the ropes in his hands. These things were no longer vague generalities floating in his mind, as rosy clouds might be backed by thunder-heads on the horizon. They were growing definite. He began to know who were the evil-workers and how they did it. He had the art of making But to-day all his labors seemed not worth while. There was a sour taste in his mouth. To do the little thing with a big heart was after all nothing but a sham. His ideals, he thought, had simmered down to petty things. He was spending his time in nosing out small evil-smelling scandals and in running for a mean inferior office. He felt nauseated with himself. Worse, he felt a horrible new doubt of his wife. Mrs. Appleton had been to him the type of woman he disliked, worldly, shallow, busy with the sticks and straws; yet now there would creep in a suspicion that some of the things he had forgiven to Lena’s beauty and lack of sophistication were close of kin to the older woman’s more blatant materialism. Materialism was the thing Dick had not learned to associate with his own women. This radiant morning, then, he felt himself under the dominion of the grand inquisitors who invented the torture of little things. Life consisted in having slow drops of water fall on his head, one at a time. Family life was slimed with small bickerings, children were a nuisance, society a bore, and the most beautiful woman in the world defiant and uninspiring at the breakfast-table. It does not take Cleopatra long to wither the ideals. Dick began to analyze his wife, which is a dangerous thing for a man to do. If a husband wishes to preserve the lover’s state of mind, he must continue to think of his wife as a single indivisible creature, not a compound of faults, virtues and charms, lest in some unlucky moment he find that the faults are the biggest ingredient. Dick, however, was thinking, and the substance of his thoughts was that this little girl, who bore his name, had her seamy side. Up to now, if he noticed a defect, he instantly and chivalrously put it out of his mind, but now certain doubts had knocked so long that by sheer persistence they forced an entrance. Lena, who began by being a sweet, innocent, much-enduring little thing, now that he knew Lena, on the other hand, sitting idly by the window, indulged in a little reflection on her own part. She was revolving with some bitterness her disappointment and disillusionment. She remembered what a glorious gilded creature Dick had appeared to her at one time. Now he was sunk to be a very ordinary young man, with curious and stupid idiosyncrasies, and not nearly so rich and important as many of the people she came in contact with. Might she have done better if she had waited? She too stopped regretting “Mrs. Percival,” he said, “I have brought you this little vase, the first of its kind that my artists have produced. I thought it so really beautiful that I could not resist laying one before you as a kind of tribute.” “Oh, it is lovely. And am I really the only person in the world who has one?” “You and Miss Elton.” A pang of small jealousy shot through Lena’s heart. It was always and everywhere Miss Elton. “I sent her another, but of slightly different shape. I am, as you know, a worshiper of beauty, but all these creations of man’s hands are but parodies, are they not, Mrs. Percival, on absolute beauty? They are like ourselves, the creatures of a day. Nature herself, in sea and air and woodland, produces exquisite loveliness, and yet even her achievements are dwarfed when one stands face to face with one of creation’s masterpieces—a woman.” And Mr. Early made a ponderous bow as he presented his work of art. Lena was so impressed by this compliment that she wrote “Thinks you better than his old straight-legged tables, does he? Well, I should say so! Serves him right for being an old bachelor, and having nothing but furniture and Ram Juna to illuminate existence. I should expect that combination to drive a man either to drink or to blank verse.” “I don’t think it is nice of you to swear, Dick,” Lena answered severely, but on the verge of tears. “Swear, sweetheart? Why, what do you mean?” “Well, it’s almost the same thing to talk about ‘blank’ verse.” Dick laughed again and went directly to the library without even noticing the extremely lovely new dress which his wife had put on for his edification. Dick’s limitations were becoming manifest to young Mrs. Percival. He might be a gentleman, Jealousy rose to its height when, on a certain afternoon, from her favorite post beside Of course she could not know what was going on inside. When Madeline received a note from Mr. Early, asking her to come and see some very wonderful tapestries that he had just hung, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Sebastian’s house was always more like a museum than bachelor’s quarters. He was continually turning it inside out for public inspection, so Madeline went in all innocence, expecting to find a dozen or so of her friends sharing the private view. She was embarrassed, but hardly seriously, as Mr. Early came forward to welcome her. “Am I all alone?” she said with a little laugh. “Apparently you are. But I dare say some others will drop in on us in a moment,” Mr. Early made answer. “Meanwhile I am favored, for your opinion is what I particularly want. These queer old tapestries have been sent to me from France, but whether I keep The big hall had a singularly impersonal aspect. Madeline had never before seen it except when thronged with people, and now that they two stood alone in its wide empty space, she was struck with a certain desolation in it. “Well?” inquired Mr. Early. “I can’t tell at once,” said Madeline slowly. “Beauty is a thing that takes time to unfold itself upon one, isn’t it? But I think they are beautiful. They are certainly strange and solemn, and they intensify the dignity of this big room; but they make it seem less homelike than ever. They seem to me things to look at rather than to live with. I suppose their appropriateness depends a little on what you want to make of this place. And you do want it only for a public room, do you not, Mr. Early?” “I am afraid that is all I am capable of,” said Sebastian, looking pensively at her. “You see the home feeling is beyond my achievement. It needs the feminine touch to create that ideal atmosphere. That, Miss Madeline, is above art.” “It is so common, are you sure it is not below art?” Madeline smiled. “I am sure,” responded Mr. Early with conviction. “It is a subject on which I have thought much since you came home last year. Never until then did I wholly realize the lack in my home and in my life. If now, in all humbleness, I am consulting your taste, it is because I have sometimes dared to hope that you, my dear lady, would one day give that final grace to this which would make it indeed a home, instead of the mere abiding place that it is now.” Madeline turned upon him sharply. “Mr. Early,” she said, “it isn’t wholly courteous in you to take advantage of my being alone with you in your own domain to speak to me in this way.” “I beg your pardon,” Sebastian answered. “It was a wholly unpremeditated expression of what has long been an ardent desire. I did not mean to speak, but your own words seemed to break down the barriers of my passion. I could wish that you would permit me to put it in the form which my heart prompts; but perhaps you are right. Your fine sense of the proprieties must be my rule of conduct. I shall only trust that I may “Neither now nor at any other time should I advise you to go any further,” said Madeline laughingly, for it was hard to take the bombast of Mr. Early very seriously. He made her think now of a sort of pouter pigeon. And Sebastian remained only partly satisfied as to the effect which he wished to produce. He wanted to give her something to think about, and so make way for the more impassioned wooing that he was resolved should follow. He was convinced that to stand alone with him in the midst of his splendors would make a strong impression on the mind of any sensible girl. The great hall was certainly a place to capture the imagination—not only from its stately proportions and the mellow coloring that melted into shadow in the far-off roof, but from the multitude of smaller details, the intricate carvings, gathered abroad or made under Mr. Early’s own eye, the few priceless paintings, the great jars whose exquisite decorations blended their richer tones with the deeper shades around. In a wide alcove was gathered a collection of portraits of distinguished men and women, There was silence for a long minute, and Madeline, glancing nervously at her host, saw that his face was grave and that his eyes were fixed upon her in a melancholy way. She began to feel uncomfortable. “I think I must be going now,” she said. “You have not told me whether I am to keep the tapestries,” Mr. Early humbly objected. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly decide for you. But they seem to harmonize beautifully with this room.” “I am grateful for your decision. Permit me to see you to your carriage, Miss Madeline.” Lena, watching hungrily from her vantage post, noted Mr. Early’s obsequious courtesies, Madeline’s flushed face, and drew angry conclusions. “If she should marry Mr. Early, I shouldn’t feel as if I had triumphed a bit in getting Dick away from her,” she said to herself, with a bald comprehension of her true state of mind. For Lena made up for her pose toward others by a certain unimaginative frankness in her self-communings. Then, catching a glimpse of another figure, she exclaimed, “Oh, there comes Miss Huntress!” and immediately settled herself with an air of elegant leisure to receive her former superior. Miss Huntress was a source of continual satisfaction to Lena, the opposite of a skeleton at the feast, a continual reminder of present prosperity as compared with past nonentity. To meet her gave Madame Cecropia the same thrill of satisfaction that it still did to draw her dainty skirts around her and step into her carriage, half hoping that some envious girl was viewing her perfections as she had once eyed those of others. On the other hand, Miss Huntress derived almost equal pleasure out of her acquaintance with Lena, whose littleness she measured, and whose small successes she looked upon with amusement, unflecked by “You want to know what is going on?” inquired Mrs. Percival. “Well, of course you know it’s Lent, and there isn’t anything much. But if you will come up to my boudoir, I will look over my engagement book, and perhaps I can help you to a paragraph or two.” The word boudoir was a sweetmeat to Lena’s palate, combined, as it was, with the knowledge that her visitor, with a sister, kept house in three rooms. So they went up stairs, and Lena babbled and preened herself, while Miss Huntress frowned and pondered on the difficulties of making anything readable out of her small kernel of information. The arrival of a cup of tea, Miss Huntress, being a woman as well as a reporter, found mollifying to the hardness of life. “I see,” she said with an acid little laugh, “you have the Chatterer up here in your unholy of unholies.” Her eyes fell on a small “It’s awfully interesting,” said Lena, and she went on with a little giggle, “I think I’ll just tuck it away before my husband comes in. He doesn’t approve of it, you know. Men don’t care for gossip. I think it is perfectly wonderful what an amount of scandal it gets hold of. I don’t see how they do it. And they’ve such a naughty way of writing it up, too.” “Nothing very remarkable. In every town of importance they have some one always on the lookout for a promising piece of mud.” Miss Huntress eyed Lena speculatively for a moment. “I’ll tell you in confidence,” she went on, “and I trust you to keep mum about it, for the sake of the times when I helped you—I write for it here. I don’t exactly like it, but you know I can’t afford to despise dollars and cents. It’s just plain business, after all. There’s a demand for that kind of thing and it falls to my lot to supply it.” “And did you write that awful thing about Mrs. Clarke?” cried Lena, sitting up with big blue eyes, and gazing earnestly at Miss “Yep,” replied that lady with a gulp of tea. “Gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Percival. “I hope you’ll never send them anything about me.” “Then you’d better never do anything indiscreet,” Miss Huntress laughed maliciously. “But I don’t think you would,” she went on speculatively. “You’re too clever and too ambitious for that. Do you know, I’ve rather come to the conclusion that it’s only rather simple-hearted people who do those things. Take that Mrs. Clarke, now. Of course her husband was a brute, and when the other man came along she fell so much in love with him that she didn’t even think of any one else in the world except their two selves. A woman who was incapable of whole-souled passion would have kept an eye on the world and walked the narrow path of virtue.” “Why, you’re defending her!” exclaimed Lena. “Not in the least,” said Miss Huntress grimly. “I helped to make her pay the price.” “Oh, well,” Lena said with an air of greatness, “there are some of us who can combine “Of course,” answered Miss Huntress. “Now Miss Elton is just that other kind. I believe she never thinks what people say about her,” Lena observed. “Not that she’d do anything out of the way, you understand.” “Certainly not.” Miss Huntress began to prick up her professional ears. “She’s a particular friend of yours, isn’t she?” “Intimate,” said Lena. “You know they used to say that Mr. Percival—but of course that was before he met me, and anyway there was nothing in it.” “I know,” said Miss Huntress. “I sent a line to the Chatterer once about it.” “Did you really? Well, of course, for form’s sake, she has to be as nice as ever to me and Mr. Percival. But she has reconciled herself. It’s all Mr. Early now.” “You don’t say!” ejaculated Miss Huntress with interest. “She’s regularly throwing herself at his head. Why only this afternoon I saw her do the most unconventional thing.” “What was it?” “Oh, I dare say she was just getting him to subscribe to some charity or something “But aren’t you going to tell me?” “Well, she came, quite alone, you understand, to Mr. Early’s this afternoon, and was closeted there the longest time. I couldn’t help wondering what it was all about. What do you suppose?” “That was funny,” meditated Miss Huntress. “I’m certain there’s some perfectly natural explanation, if we only knew it,” Lena went on. “But she looked awfully flushed when she came out.” “Thank you,” said Miss Huntress. “I must be going now.” “Oh, won’t you have another cup of tea? Of course, I’m on very good terms with Miss Elton,” said Lena, fingering the tray cloth a little nervously. “I shouldn’t like her to think I’d criticized her behavior, even to you.” “You needn’t be afraid,” rejoined Miss Huntress. “I never let on how I get my information. I’d lose my job if I did. Much “Oh, good-by! Dick, you dear boy, how glad I am to see you,” cried Lena, fluttering to the door to meet her returning lord. “Miss Huntress, this is my husband. Good-by, again. Don’t you remember?” she went on, as Dick followed her back into her room. “She used to be my ‘boss’ when I was a poor little slavey in the Star office, before my best beloved prince came and rescued me from dragons and printers’ devils.” “And are you so fond of her that you keep up the acquaintance?” “Oh, I remember how hard it used to be to get ‘matter’; and I don’t mind helping her out a bit when she’s hard pressed.” “You are a kind-hearted little soul, Lena,”—and her husband stooped and kissed her fondly, doing penance in his heart for his doubts of a day or two ago, thoughts cruel, unjust, unwarranted. Lena had never looked more delectable than now, with her head on one side, pouring his tea. She kissed each lump of sugar as she put it in and laughed at her own conceit; and she brought the cup over “I’m afraid you think me very silly, Dick,” she laughed. “I do not seem to get a bit wiser or better behaved, do I, for all Mrs. Appleton and Ram Juna, and even your lovely high-bred mother? Dick, do you despise me!” “Despise! Why I love and love you and love you all over,” said Dick. |