The Adventures of a Widow Part 23

She meant the words, precisely as she spoke them. She longed for the entertainment to end, and when it had ended she felt relieved, as if from a painful tension and strain. Musing a little later in her bed-chamber, before retiring, she began to feel a slight change of mood.

Had she not, after all, expected, demanded, exacted, too much? Was she justified in giving way to this depression and disappointment? Was she not more blamable in deceiving herself than these people were in surprising her? She had been warned by Kindelon; she had, in a certain way, been warned by Mrs. Dares. But these were not her desired band of plain livers and high thinkers. They were very far below any such elevated standard. They had seemed to make a sort of selfish rush into her drawing-rooms for the purpose of getting there, and afterward boasting that they had got there. She was by no means sure if the very quality and liberality of her refreshments had not made for them the prospect of another Thursday evening offer increased allurements. Many of them were full of the most distressing trivialities. The conduct of Mr. Barrowe had seemed to her atrociously unpleasant. His action with regard to the excluded Miss Cragge struck her as a superlative bit of impudence. If she went on giving more receptions she would doubtless only acc.u.mulate more annoyances of a similar sort.

No; the intellectual life of the country was young, like the country itself. It was not only young; it was raw and crude. To continue in her task would be to fail hopelessly. She had best not continue in it. She might be wrong in abandoning it so soon; there might be hope yet. But, after all, she was undertaking no holy crusade; conscience made no demands upon her for the perpetuation and triumph of her project. Let it pa.s.s into the limbo of abortive efforts. Let it go to make another stone in that infernal pathway proverbially paved by good intentions....

She slept ill that night, and breakfasted later than usual. And she had scarcely finished breakfasting when a card was handed her, which it heightened her color a little to peruse.

The card bore Miss Cragge's name, and one portion of its rather imposing square was filled with the names of many Eastern and Western journals besides, of which the owner evidently desired to record that she was a special correspondent. It seemed to Pauline, while she gazed at the sc.r.a.p of pasteboard, that this was exactly the sort of card which a person like Miss Cragge would be apt to use for presentation. She was at a loss to understand why Miss Cragge could have visited her at all, and perhaps the acquiescing answer which she presently gave her servant was given because curiosity surpa.s.sed and conquered repulsion.

But after the servant had departed, Pauline regretted that she had agreed to see Miss Cragge. "What can the woman want of me?" she now reflected, "except to abuse and possibly insult me?"

Still, the word had been sent. She must hold to it.

Pauline gave Miss Cragge a cool yet perfectly courteous bow, as they met a little later.

"You are Miss Cragge, I believe," she said, very quietly and amiably.

"Oh, I didn't suppose you'd forgotten me so soon!" came the reproachful and rather unsteady answer. Miss Cragge had risen some time before Pauline entered the room, and her gaunt shape, clad in scant gear, looked notably awkward. Her street costume was untidy, shabby, and even bedraggled. She held a bundle of newspapers, which she shifted nervously from hand to hand.

"You wish to speak with me, then?" said Pauline, still courteously.

"Yes," returned Miss Cragge. It was evident that she underwent a certain distinct agitation. "I have called upon you, Mrs. Varick, because I felt that I ought to do so."

"It is, then, a matter of duty, Miss Cragge?"

"Yes--a matter of duty. A matter of duty toward myself. Toward myself as a woman, you know--I think that I have been wronged--greatly wronged."

"Not wronged by me, I hope."

"Through you, by someone else."

"I do not understand you."

"I--I shall try to make myself plain."

"I trust you will succeed."

"Oh, I shall succeed," declared Miss Cragge, gasping a little for breath as she now continued. "I have an enemy, Mrs. Varick, and that enemy is your friend. Yes, I mean Mr. Kindelon, of course. He has set you against me. He has made you shut your doors upon me. Oh, you need not deny that this is true. I am perfectly certain of its truth. I am always received by Hagar Williamson Dares. She is a n.o.ble, true woman, and she lets me come to her house because she knows I have my battle to fight, just as she has always had her own, and that I deserve her sympathy and her friendship. I don't maintain that I've been always blameless. A newspaper woman can't always be that. She gives wounds, just as she gets wounds. But I never did Ralph Kindelon any harm in my life. He hates me, but he has no business to hate me. I never cared much about his hatred till now. But now he has shown me that he is an active and dangerous enemy. I mean, of course, about this affair of yours. I wanted to be invited to your house last evening; I expected to be invited. I was on the Dareses' list. I'm going to be perfectly candid. It would have been a feather in my cap to have come here. I know exactly what your position in society is, and I appreciate the value of your acquaintance. If you had snubbed me of your own accord, I would have pocketed the snub without a murmur. I'm used to snubbings; I have to be, for I get a good many. n.o.body can go abroad picking up society-items as I do, and not receive the cold shoulder. But in this case it was no spontaneous rebuff on your part; it was the malicious interference of a third party; it was Kindelon's mean-spirited persuasion used against me behind my back. And it has been an injury to me. It's going to hurt me more than you think.

It has been found out and talked over that I was dropped by you.... Now, I don't want to be dropped. I want to claim my rights--to ask if you will not do me justice--if you will not waive any personal concern with a private quarrel and allow me to have the same chance that you have given so many others. To put it plainly and frankly, Mrs. Varick, I have come here this morning for the purpose of asking you if you will not give me an invitation to your next entertainment."

All the time she had thus spoken, Miss Cragge had remained standing.

Pauline, who also stood, had shown no desire that her visitor should sit. She was biting her lip as Miss Cragge ended, and her tones were full of a haughty repulsion as she now said,--

"Really, I am unprepared to give you any answer whatever. But you seem to demand an answer, and therefore I shall give you one. You are very straightforward with me, and so I do not see why I should not be equally straightforward with you."

Miss Cragge gave a bitter, crisp little laugh. "I see what is coming,"

she said. "You think me abominable, and you are going to tell me so."

"I should not tell you if I thought it," replied Pauline. "But I must tell you that I think you unwarrantably bold."

"And you refuse me any other explanation?" now almost panted Miss Cragge. "You will not give me even the satisfaction of knowing why you have dropped me?"

Pauline shook her head. "I do not recognize your right to question me on that point," she returned. "You a.s.sume to know my reason for not having asked you here. I object to the form and the quality of your question. I deny that I have dropped you, as you choose to term it. I think your present course a presumptuous one, and I am ignorant of having violated any rights of your own by not having sent you a card to my reception.

There are a great many other people in New York besides yourself to whom I did not send a card. Any quarrel between you and Mr. Kindelon is a matter of no concern to me. And as for my having dealt you an injury, that a.s.sertion is quite preposterous. I do not for an instant admit it, and since your att.i.tude toward me is painfully unpleasant, I beg that this conversation may be terminated at once."

"Oh, you show me the door, do you?" exclaimed Miss Cragge. She looked very angry as she now spoke, and her anger was almost repulsively unbecoming. Her next words had the effect of a harsh snarl. "I might have expected just this sort of treatment," she proceeded, with both her dingy-gloved hands manipulating the bundle of newspapers at still brisker speed. "But I'm a very good hater, Mrs. Varick, and I'm not stamped on quite so easily as you may suppose. I usually die pretty hard in such cases, and perhaps you'll find that your outrageous behavior will get the punishment it merits. Oh, you needn't throw back your proud head like that, as if I were the dirt under your feet! I guess you'll be sorry before very long. I intend to make you so if I can!"

Pauline felt herself turn pale. "You are insolent," she said, "and I desire you to leave my house immediately."

Miss Cragge walked to the door, but paused as she reached its threshold, looking back across one of her square shoulders with a most malevolent scowl.

"You've got no more heart than a block of wood," she broke forth. "You never had any. I know all about you. You married an old man for his money a few years ago. He was old enough to be your grandfather, and a wretched libertine at that. You knew it, too, when you married him. So now that you've got his money you're going to play the literary patron with it. And like the cold-blooded coquette that you are, you've made Ralph Kindelon leave poor Cora Dares, who's madly in love with him, and dance attendance on yourself. I suppose you think Kindelon really cares for you. Well, you're mightily mistaken if you do think so, and if he ever marries you I guess it won't be long before he makes you find it out!"

Miss Cragge disappeared after the delivery of this tirade, and as she closed the outer hall-door with a loud slam Pauline had sank into a chair. She sat thus for a longer time than she knew, with hands knotted in her lap, and with breast and lips quivering.

The vulgarity, the brutality of those parting words had literally stunned her. It is no exaggeration to state that Miss Cragge's reference to her marriage had inflicted a positive agony of shame. But the allusion to Cora Dares's love for Kindelon, and to Kindelon's merely mercenary regard for herself, had also stabbed with depth and suffering.

Was it then true that this man's feelings toward her were only the hypocritical sham of an aim at worldly advancement? "How shall I act to him when we again meet?" Pauline asked herself. "If I really thought this charge true, I should treat him with entire contempt. And have I the right to believe it true? This Cragge creature has a viperish nature. Should I credit such information from such a source?"

That was a day of days with poor Pauline. She seemed to look upon Ralph Kindelon in a totally new light. She realized that the man's brilliant personality had made his society very dear to her. She told herself that she cared for him as she had cared for none other in her life. But the thought that personal ambition was solely at the root of his devotion affected her with something not far from horror.

By degrees the memory of Miss Cragge's final outburst stung her less and less. The whole speech had been so despicable, the intention to wantonly insult had been so evident. After a few hours had pa.s.sed, Pauline found that she had regained nearly all her customary composure. She felt that if Kindelon should come that evening she could discuss with him calmly and rationally the almost hideous occurrence of the morning.

He did come, and she told him a great deal, but she did not tell him all. No mention of Cora Dares left her lips, nor of the acrid slur at his own relations toward herself. He listened to the recital with a face that wrath paled, while it lit a keener spark in his eyes. But he at length answered in tones thoroughly controlled, if a little husky and roughened:

"I can scarcely express to you my disgust for that woman's conduct. I did not think her capable of it. She represents one of the most baleful forces of modern times--the nearly unbridled license of the newspaper.

She has dipped her pen for years into poisonous ink; she is one of our American monstrosities and abominations. Her threat of punishment to you would be ridiculous if it were not so serious."

"You think that she will carry it out?" asked Pauline.

"I should not be at all surprised if she did so."

"Do you mean that she may write some slanderous article about me?"

"It is quite possible."

Pauline gave a plaintive sigh. "Oh, have I no means of preventing her?"

she exclaimed.

Kindelon shook his head negatively. "She attacks from an ambuscade, nearly always," he answered. "There is no such thing as spiking her guns, for they are kept so hidden. Still, let us hope for the best."

Pauline burst into tears. "What a wretched failure I have made of it all!" she cried. "Ah, if I had only known sooner that my project would bring such disaster upon me!"

"It has brought no disaster as yet," said Kindelon, with a voice full of the most earnest sympathy.

"It has brought distress, regret, torment!" a.s.severated Pauline, still struggling with her tears.

"Have you told me all?" he suddenly asked, with an acute, anxious look.

"All?" murmured Pauline.