An Ambitious Woman Part 25

Hollister looked grave, then smiled, then affirmatively nodded.

"I'll do it, Claire," he answered. "I'll do it to-morrow, if you wish."

"I do wish, Herbert. And when you have bought the house, I want you to put it in my name. I want you to give it to _me_."

He started, and stared at her. A gleam of distrust appeared to slip coldly into his frank eyes. Claire saw this, but answered his look with firm calm. "Why do you say that?" he murmured.

She went nearer to him, and laid one hand on his shoulder. "Why do I say it?" she softly iterated. "Because I know something of the risks and perils you are daily forced to meet."

He watched her intently and soberly, for a few seconds, after she had thus spoken. Then his characteristic smile broke forth like a burst of sun. He kissed her on the lips. "It shall be just as you say!" he exclaimed, drawing her nearer to him, with a look which they of bids and sales and stock-traffic had never seen on his manly yet winsome face.

"You are right. You are always right, Claire. There's a lot of money drifting in; it seems as if the money would never stop drifting in."

"I hope it never will," said Claire, showing her pure teeth in a laugh, as he again kissed her. At the same time she drew back from him while his encircling arm still retained her, in a way to which he had grown wholly familiar, and which, in an unwedded woman, would have readily seemed like the reserve of absolute maidenhood.

A slight further lapse of days brought grand results for Claire. She was legally the owner of the charming little house in which she dwelt; she had her maid, obsequiously attendant on her least wants; she possessed her coupe, drawn by a large, silver-trapped horse; she possessed, also, a glossy, dark-appointed carriage, drawn by two horses of equally smart gear, and supervised by coachman and footman in approved and modish livery.

Mrs. Diggs was in ecstasies at the prosperous change. "Now you're indeed _lancee_, don't you know?" she said. "By the way, has Cornelia Van Horn left a card on you, my dear?"

"No," said Claire.

"Can she really mean open warfare?"

"Let her wage it," Claire answered. "That is better than to have it concealed."

The opera-season began the next evening. Hollister had engaged a box, permanently. It was a season that opened with much auspicious brilliancy. Claire appeared in her first really notable toilette. One of the reigning _modistes_ had made it, and for the first time in her life she was called upon to stand the test of surpa.s.singly beautiful dressing. It is a test that some very fair women stand ill. They show to best advantage, in garments which have no atmosphere of festival; it becomes them to be clad with domesticity or at least moderation. This was by no means true, however, of Claire. The diamond necklace which Hollister had spread on her dressing-table but a few minutes before the hour of departure glittered round her smooth, slender neck with telling saliency. Her gown was of a pale, pink brocaded stuff, and she carried its full-flowing train with a light-stepping and perfect repose. Before she had unclasped her cloak and seated herself in the box at Hollister's side, numerous lorgnettes were leveled upon the lovely, dignified picture that she made. When she had seated herself, the spell continued.

The large pink roses in her bosom were not deep or sweet enough of tint to do more than heighten the fresh, chaste flush in either cheek. She bore herself with a fine and delicate majesty. Her dark-blue eyes told of the quicker pulse that stirred her veins only by a more humid and dreamy sparkle. She was inwardly glad to be where she sat, and to be robed as she was robed, but her pleasure softly exulted in its own outward repression; she was wonderfully self-poised and tranquil, considering her strong secret excitement. Nearly everybody who looked upon her p.r.o.nounced her to be very beautiful, and a good many people, before an hour had pa.s.sed, had looked at her with the closest kind of scrutiny.

The opera was a favorite one; a famed and favorite prima-donna sang in it. Below, where the real lovers of music mostly thronged, Claire's presence produced neither comment nor criticism. But up in the region sacred to fashion, inattention, gossip, and flirtation, she rapidly became an event which even the most melodious cavatina was powerless to supersede.

It was not all done by her beauty and novel charm. Hollister, sitting at her side, nonchalant, handsome, of excellent conventional style in garb and posture, materially helped to increase the notability which surrounded her. His success had publicly transpired; a few of those newspapers which are little save glaring personal placards had of late proclaimed with graphic zeal his speculative triumphs. He had leapt into notoriety in a day, almost in an hour. There was but one man in the house besides her husband whom Claire knew. This man was Stuart Goldwin, and he soon dropped into her box, remaining there through the two final acts. Hollister, meanwhile, chose to be absent. He had found some friends who were solicitous of presenting him to certain ladies. He spent nearly the whole of these two acts in chatting with these same ladies. They were all gracious; one or two of them had strong claims to beauty. It was no less an important evening with himself than with Claire. Perhaps with him it was even more so, since he obtained his social acceptance, as it were, by great dames whom he pleased with his handsome face, happy manners, and growing repute as a potential millionaire.

His wife, on the other hand, had gained a different victory. She was p.r.o.nounced to be charming and remarkable; she had acquired the prestige of Goldwin's open attentions. But she was a woman, and she had not yet received the endors.e.m.e.nt of her own s.e.x. It might possibly soon arrive, or it might be withheld: there was still no actual certainty.

Claire loved the music, but she would have heard its cadences in discontent if fate had decreed that she should sit, this evening, with no attendant devotee. She knew well that Goldwin's company distinguished her. Mrs. Diggs had given her points, as the phrase goes. She was quite aware that the horse-shoe of boxes in our metropolitan opera-house, and the other more commodious proscenium boxes which flank its stage, are at nearly all times occupied by just the kind of people among whom she wished to win her coveted lofty place. She understood that they would note, comment, gauge, admire, or condemn; and while her manner bespoke a sweet and placid unconsciousness of their observation, she was alive to the exact amount of observation which she attracted.

"I am so glad that you came," Goldwin told her. "For very selfish reasons, I mean. You appear, and you corroborate my statements. Now people can at last see and judge for themselves. The verdict is sure."

He said many more things in this vein, all uttered low, and all accompanied by his smile, that seemed either to mean volumes or to leave his true meaning adroitly ambiguous.

Mrs. Ridgeway Lee was in a somewhat near box. When Goldwin returned to her side, just as the curtain was falling on the last act, she accepted his escort to her carriage with a fine composure. He met Mrs. Van Horn, a little later, in the crush that always occurs along the Fourteenth Street lobby of our Academy when a full house disgorges its throng.

The two ladies talked together. Not far away from them stood Mrs. Diggs and Claire, each waiting for an absent husband to secure her carriage.

"What a contrast there is between them," Claire murmured to her companion. "One is so blonde and peaceful, the other so dark and restless."

"Yes, my dear Claire. Have you caught Cornelia's eye?"

"No. She does not appear to see me."

"She sees you perfectly. She has not yet made up her mind just how to act."

"I think that she means to cut me," said Claire, under her breath.

"Never," came the emphatic answer, so ba.s.s and gruff because of its vocal suppression that it produced odd contrast with Mrs. Diggs's bodily thinness. "To cut you would be to burn her ships. She has an object in knowing you. I'm afraid it's a dark one. But be sure that she is only making up her mind just _how_ to know you. She will soon decide; she has already delayed too long, and she feels it. Be ready for a prompt change."

If the behavior of Mrs. Van Horn was really to be explained on the theory of her prophetic cousin, then she made up her mind very soon after the delivery of these oracular sentences. A chance turn of the neck seemed to render her conscious of Claire's neighboring presence.

She bowed with soft decision the instant that their eyes met; and Claire returned the bow.

The next instant she laid one gloved hand on the arm of Mrs. Ridgeway Lee, and then both ladies moved in Claire's direction. Their progress was of necessity made between the forms of several a.s.sembled ladies, who nodded and smiled as the great personage and her companion pushed courteously past them. They were mostly the loyal adherents of Mrs. Van Horn, in the sense that they held it high honor to have the right of occasionally darkening her Washington Square doorway. Two or three of them were perhaps co-regents with her as regarded caste and power.

They all saw and intently watched the little astonishing action that now followed. Mrs. Van Horn glided up to Claire and extended her hand.

"I was so very sorry to have missed your dinner, Mrs. Hollister," said the great lady, with her best affability, "but another engagement forced me to be absent." She again put her hand on the arm of Mrs. Ridgeway Lee; she had thus far wholly ignored Mrs. Diggs; her nose was well in the air, as usual, but her smile was bland, conciliatory, impressive; she glowed with an august amiability.

"I want you to let me present my cousin, Mrs. Lee," she proceeded. "We have both heard so much about you, of late, from Mr. Goldwin. You can't think how devoted a friend you have suddenly made."

Before Claire could answer, Mrs. Lee spoke. She had got herself into her usual extraordinary twist. Her visage, her hands, and her lower limbs, regarded according to their relative dispos.e.m.e.nts, would have made a very sinuous line. Like Mrs. Van Horn, she was wrapped in an opera cloak. But her dark little head rose from the large circlet of swansdown about her slight throat with an effect not unlike the slim crest of a turtle stealing from its sh.e.l.l. She constantly suggested a creature of this lean and chill type, though rarely with any of its repulsive traits.

"Indeed, yes!" she softly exclaimed to Claire. "Mr. Goldwin is a great friend of mine, and he has told me hundreds of charming things about you."

"Our acquaintance has been a very short one," said Claire, looking at Mrs. Diggs. In a certain way, she sought to gain a kind of tacit cue from the latter's face. She failed to perceive just how matters were drifting. Was this patronage on the part of both ladies? Or was it meant for irreproachable courtesy?

Mrs. Diggs gave a laugh. "Goldwin can say a hundred charming things very easily on a brief acquaintance," she declared. "Can't you?" were her next words, delivered to Goldwin himself, who had just then slipped up to the group.

"Oh, no, I can't," he at once replied, "unless I mean every one of them."

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Diggs, "how quickly you grasp the situation! So you heard what we were talking about, did you? You've found out that we were discussing your last enthusiasm?"

"Ah," said Goldwin, "I have very few of them. Don't cheapen me, please, in the regard of Mrs. Hollister."

"You seem to count upon her regard with singular confidence," said Mrs.

Van Horn.

"That's entirely our affair," laughed Goldwin. He looked at Claire, but while he did so Mrs. Van Horn placed her hand within his arm. She took it for granted that her carriage had been properly summoned by the financier, and she was going to permit him to accompany her thither, as she had permitted him to find it; she nearly always put herself in the att.i.tude of permitting favors and not soliciting them, by some deft, secure art, quite her own. The bow of farewell which she gave Claire was handsomely suave. Mrs. Lee moved away at her other side. Mrs. Lee had been her guest, that evening, and they were to ride home together.

"So, Claire, it's settled," presently said Mrs. Diggs. "Cornelia is to know you. So is Sylvia Lee. Be careful of them both. I can't feel certain, yet, of exactly what it all means.... Here's that dear Manhattan of mine. He has got our carriage. Shall I remain with you till your husband reappears?... Very well; I will. But this is no place in which to talk over the whole odd, interesting thing. I'll try and drop in upon you soon; possibly to-morrow, if I can manage it.... Does Manhattan see us? Just observe how stupidly he stares everywhere but here. He's been a little strange and absent-minded all the evening. I really think he's forgotten where he left me. He smokes too many of those strong, horrid cigars, don't you know? I truly believe that they cloud his brain half the time ... but then it's better he should smoke too much than drink too much. I don't know what I _should_ do if the dear fellow drank too much!" ...

Mrs. Diggs did present herself at Claire's house on the following day.

But Claire was not at home. She had driven out in company with her husband.

It was a momentous drive. They had left home together at about one o'clock. Claire had no idea whither they were going, at first. Hollister had chosen to a.s.sume an air of profound mysticism. "I have a great surprise for you," he said.

There was no characteristic twinkle in his eye as he made this statement. Claire felt that he was far from saddened, and yet his gravity looked an undoubted fact.

"I will accompany you blindly," she said, just before they entered the carriage. "I suppose, however, there are some more jewels at Tiffany's which you want me to see and choose from."

"No," said Hollister, shaking his head. "I shouldn't spend nearly a whole day away from Wall Street for anything of that sort."