John Marvel, Assistant Part 55

"Well, not precisely natural, but--under the circ.u.mstances, you see, it was certainly more natural than for him to run off with his mother-in-law--you will have to admit that."

"I admit nothing of the kind," she declared, with some heat. "I am a mother-in-law myself, and I must say I think the jibes at mothers-in-law are very uncalled for."

"Oh! now you put me out of court," I said. "I did not mean to be personal. Of course, there are mothers-in-law and mothers-in-law."

Happily, at this moment the gentleman on her other side insisted on securing her attention, and I turned just in time to catch the dimples of amus.e.m.e.nt that were playing in Eleanor Leigh's face. She had evidently heard my mistake.

"Oh! he is so deaf!" she murmured, half turning to me, though I was not quite sure that she was not speaking to herself. The next second she settled the question. "He is so distressingly deaf," she repeated in an undertone, with the faintest accent of appeal for sympathy in her voice.

I again recognized the flag of truce. But I replied calmly:

"I pa.s.sed by his garden and marked with one eye How the owl and the panther were sharing a pie.

The panther took pie-crust and gravy and meat, While the owl had the dish as its share of the treat."

The color mantled in her cheek and she raised her head slightly.

"Are you going to keep that up? I suppose we shall have to talk a little. I think we are attracting attention. For Heaven's sake, don't speak so loud! We are being observed."

But I continued:

"When the pie was all finished, the owl, as a boon, Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon."

"It is very rude of you to go on in that way when I am speaking. You remind me of a machine," she smiled. "Here am I stuck between two men, one of whom cannot hear a word I say, while the other does nothing but run on like a machine." I observed, with deep content, that she was becoming exasperated.

At that moment the hostess leant forward and said:

"What are you two so interested in discussing there? I have been watching, and you have not stopped a minute."

Eleanor Leigh burst into a laugh. "Mr. Glave is talking Arabic to me."

"Arabic!" exclaimed the hostess. "Mr. Glave, you have been in the East, have you?"

"Yes, he came from the East where the wise men always come from," said Miss Leigh. Then turning to me she said in an undertone, "You see what I told you."

For reply, I simply quoted on, though I had a little pang as I saw the shadow come into her eyes and the smile leave her mouth.

"My father was deaf, And my mother was dumb, And to keep myself company, I beat the drum."

"I think that was a very good occupation for you," she said, turning away, with her head very high.

"Will you let me say something to you?" she said in a low tone a moment later, and, without waiting, she added:

"I think it was rather nasty in me to say what I said to you when you first came in, but you had treated me so rudely when I spoke to you on the street."

"You do not call it rude not to answer a letter when a gentleman writes to explain an unfortunate mistake, and then cut him publicly?"

"I did not receive it until afterward," she said. "I was away from town, and as to cutting you--I don't know what you are talking about."

"At the Charity Fair."

"I never saw you. I wondered you were not there."

Had the earth opened, I could not have felt more astounded, and had it opened near me I should possibly have sprung in in my confusion. I had, as usual, simply made a fool of myself, and what to do I scarcely knew.

At this instant the hostess arose, and the dinner was over and with it I feared my chance was over too.

"Give me a moment. I must have one moment," I said as she pa.s.sed me on her way out of the dining-room with the other ladies, her head held very high.

She inclined her head and said something in so low a tone that I did not catch it.

King James I. never detested tobacco as I did those cigars smoked that evening. When, at last, the host moved to return to the drawing-room, I bolted in only to be seized on by my hostess and presented to a middle-aged and waistless lady who wanted to ask me about the Pooles, whom she had heard I knew. She had heard that Lilian Poole had not married very happily. "Did I know?"

"No, I did not know," nor, in fact, did I care, though I could not say so. Then another question: "Could I tell why all the men appeared to find Miss Leigh so very attractive?" Yes, I thought I could tell that--"Because she is very attractive."

"Oh well, yes, I suppose she is--pretty and all that, with a sort of kitteny softness--but----"

"There is no 'but' about it," I interrupted brusquely--"she is just what you said--very attractive. For one thing, she has brains; for another, heart. Neither of them is so common as not to be attractive." I thought of the young tigress concealed in that "kitteny softness" of which the lady spoke, and was determined not to permit the sly cat to see what I really felt.

"Of course, you know that she is going to marry Mr. Canter? He is the best _parti_ in town."

"Of course, I do not know anything of the kind," I said bowing. "Since I had the honor of sitting by her I am thinking of marrying her myself."

"I know it. They all fall at the first encounter!" exclaimed the lady, and I saw she had no humor, and decided to hedge. "I only mean that I do not believe Miss Leigh would marry Mr. Canter or any one else for his money, or for any other reason except the best."

Finally, having escaped from her, I was just making my way toward Miss Leigh, who had been standing up talking to two men who on entering the room had promptly sought her out, when a servant entered and spoke to the hostess, who immediately crossed over and gave his message to Miss Leigh. "Mr. James Canter has called for you; must you go?"

"Yes, I fear I must." So with hardly a glance at me she pa.s.sed out, leaving the room so dark that I thought the lights had been dimmed, but I discovered that it was only that Miss Eleanor Leigh had left. I could not in decency leave at once, though I confess the place had lost its charm for me, especially since I learned that Miss Leigh's escort for the ball was Mr. James Canter. I had other reasons than jealousy for preferring that he should not be Eleanor Leigh's escort. In my meditations that night as I walked the streets, Mr. James Canter held a somewhat conspicuous place.

James Canter was possibly the most attentive of all the beaux Miss Leigh had, and they were more numerous than I at that time had any idea of. He was prospectively among the wealthiest young men in the city, for his father, who idolized him, was one of the largest capitalists in the State. He was, as the stout lady had said, certainly esteemed by ambitious mammas among the most advantageous _partis_ the city could boast of. And he was of all, without doubt, the most talked of.

Moreover, he had many friends, was lavish in the expenditure of his money beyond the dream of extravagance, and what was called, not without some reason, a good fellow. Before I met him I had already had a glimpse of him as he "bucked" against his rival, Count Pushkin, on the night when, dejected and desperate, I, in a fit of weakness, went into the gambling-house determined to stake my last dollar on the turn of the wheel, and the sight of Pushkin saved me. But it was after I met him that I came to know what the pampered young man was. I was beginning now to be thrown with some of the lawyers and this had led to further acquaintances, among them young Canter. At first, I rather liked him personally, for he was against Pushkin and his gay manner was attractive. He was good-looking enough after the fleshly kind--a big, round, blondish man, only he was too fat and at twenty-eight had the waist and jowl of a man of forty who had had too many dinners and drunk too much champagne. But when I came to know him I could not see that he had a shred of principle of any kind whatsoever. His reputation among his friends was that had he applied himself to business, he would have made a reputation equal to his father's, which was that of a shrewd, far-sighted, cool-headed man of business who could "see a dollar as far as the best of them," but that he was squandering his talents in sowing a crop of wild oats so plentiful that it was likely to make a hole even in his father's acc.u.mulated millions, and its reaping might be anywhere between the poor-house and the grave. I knew nothing of this at the time, and after I came to know him as I did later, my judgment of him took form from the fact that I discovered he not only did not tell the truth, but had lost the power even to recognize it. Still, I think my real apprais.e.m.e.nt of him came when I discovered that he was paying a.s.siduous attentions to Miss Leigh. I could not help remarking the frequency with which I found his name in juxtaposition with hers in the published accounts of social functions, where "Mr. Canter led the cotillion with Miss Leigh," or "Mr. Canter drove his coach with Miss Leigh on the box seat," etc., etc., and as my acquaintance began to extend among the young men about town, I heard more than occasional conjectures as to their future. It appeared to be accepted rather as a matter of course that the result lay entirely with the young man. It was a view that I fiercely rejected in my heart, but I could say nothing beyond a repudiation of such a view in general.

In view of my knowledge of Mr. Canter, it was natural enough that I should be enraged to find him the escort of Eleanor Leigh, and I fear my temper rather showed itself in the conversation which took place and which soon became general, partly because of the earnestness with which I expressed my views on the next subject that came up. The two or three young girls of the company had left at the same time with Miss Leigh, and the ladies who remained were, for the most part, married women of that indefinite age which follows youth after a longer or shorter interval. They had all travelled and seen a good deal of the world, and they knew a good deal of it; at least, some of them did and they thought that they knew more than they actually did know.

They agreed with more unanimity than they had yet shown on any subject that America was hopelessly bourgeois. Listening to them, I rather agreed with them.

"Take our literature, our stage, our novels," said one, a blonde lady of some thirty-five years, though she would, possibly, have repudiated a l.u.s.trum and a half of the measure.

"You differentiate the literature and the novels?" I interrupted.

"Yes. I might--but--I mean the lot. How provincial they are!"

"Yes, they appear so. Well?"

"They do not dare to discuss anything large and vital."

"Oh! yes, they dare. They are daring enough, but they don't know how--they are stupid."

"No, they are afraid."

"Afraid? Of what?"