The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 130

"That lays the responsibility on me of being serious," he replied, in the same light tone.

Later they were wandering through the picture-gallery together. A gallery of modern pictures appeals for the most part to the senses--represents the pomps, the color, the allurements of life. It struck Henderson forcibly that this gallery, which he knew well, appeared very different looking at it with Miss Debree from what it would if he had been looking at it with Miss Esch.e.l.le. There were some pictures that he hurried past, some technical excellences only used for sensuous effects--that he did not call attention to as he might have done with another. Curiously enough, he found himself seeking sentiment, purity. If the drawing was bad, Margaret knew it; if a false note was struck, she saw it. But she was not educated up to a good many of the suggestions of the gallery.

Henderson perceived this, and his manner to her became more deferential and protective. It was a manner to which every true woman responds, and Margaret was happy, more herself, and talked with a freedom and gayety, a spice of satire, and a note of reality that made her every moment more attractive to her companion. In her, animation the charm of her unworn beauty blazed upon him with a direct personal appeal. He hardly cared to conceal his frank admiration. She, on her part, was thinking, what could Miss Esch.e.l.le mean by saying that she was afraid of him?

"Does the world seem any larger here, Miss Debree?" he asked, as they had lingeringly made the circuit of the room and pa.s.sed out through the tropical conservatory to join the rest of the company.

"Yes--away from people."

"Then it is not numbers, I am glad to know, that make a world."

She did not reply. But when he encountered her, robed for departure, at the foot of the stairway, she gave him her hand in good-night, and their eyes met for a moment.

I wonder if that was the time? Probably not. I fancy that when the right day came she confessed that the moment was when she first saw him enter their box at the opera.

Henderson walked down the avenue slowly, hearing the echo of his own steps in the deserted street. He was in no haste to reach home. It was such a delightful evening-snowing a little, and cold, but so exhilarating. He remembered just how she turned her head as she got into the carriage. She had touched his arm lightly once in the gallery to call his attention to a picture. Yes, the world was larger, larger, by one, and it would seem large--her image came to him distinctly--if she were the only one.

Henderson was under the spell of this evening when the next, in response to a note asking him to call for a moment on business, he was shown into the Esch.e.l.le drawing-room. It was dimly lighted, but familiarity with the place enabled him without difficulty to find his way down the long suite, rather overcrowded with luxurious furniture, statuary, and pictures on easels, to the little library at the far end glowing in a rosy light.

There, ensconced in a big chair, a book in her hand, one pretty foot on the fender, sat Carmen, in a grayish, vaporous toilet, which took a warm hue from the color of the spreading lamp-shades. On the carved table near was a litter of books and of nameless little articles, costly and coquettish, which a.s.sert femininity, even in a literary atmosphere. Over the fireplace hung a picture of spring--a budding girl, smiling and winning, in a semi-transparent raiment, advancing with swift steps to bring in the season of flowers and of love. The hand that held the book rested upon the arm of the chair, a finger inserted in the place where she had been reading, her rounded white arm visible to the elbow, and Carmen was looking into the fire in the att.i.tude of reflection upon a suggestive pa.s.sage.

Women have so many forms of attraction, different women are attractive in so many different ways, moods are so changing, beauty is so undefinable, and has so many weapons. And yet men are called inconstant!

It was not until Henderson had time to take in the warmth of this domestic picture that Carmen rose.

"It is so good of you to come, with all your engagements. Mamma is excused with a headache, but she has left me power of attorney to ask questions about our little venture."

"I hope the attorney will not put me through a cross-examination."

"That depends upon how you have been behaving, Mr. Henderson. I'm not very cross yet. Now, sit there so that I can look at you and see how honest you are."

"Do you want me to put on my business or my evening expression?"

"Oh, the first, if you mean business."

"Well, your stocks are going up."

"That's nice. You are so lucky! Everything goes up with you. Do you know what they say of you.

"Nothing bad, I hope."

"That everything you touch turns to gold. That you will be one of the nabobs of New York in ten years."

"That's a startling destiny."

"Isn't it? I don't like it." The girl seemed very serious. "I'd like you to be distinguished. To be in the Cabinet. To be minister--go to England.

But one needs a great deal of money for that, to go as one ought to go.

What a career is open to a man in this country if he has money!"

"But I don't care for politics."

"Who does? But position. You can afford that if you have money enough. Do you know, Mr. Henderson, I think you are dull."

"Thank you. I reckoned you'd find it out."

"The other night at the Nestor ball a lady--no, I won't tell you who she is--asked me if I knew who that man was across the room; such an air of distinction; might be the new British Minister. You know, I almost blushed when I said I did know him."

"Well?"

"You see what people expect of you. When a man looks distinguished and is clever, and knows how to please if he likes, he cannot help having a career, unless he is afraid to take the chances."

Henderson was not conscious of ever being wanting in this direction. The picture conjured up by the ingenious girl was not unfamiliar to his mind, and he understood quite well the relation to it that Carmen had in her mind; but he did not take the lead offered. Instead, he took refuge in the usual commonplace, and asked, "Wouldn't you like to have been a man?"

"Heaven forbid! I should be too wicked. It is responsibility enough to be a woman. I did not expect such a ba.n.a.lity from you. Do you think, Mr.

Henderson, we had better sell?"

"Sell what?"

"Our stocks. You are so occupied that I thought they might fall when you are up in the clouds somewhere."

"No, I shall not forget."

"Well, such things happen. I might forget you if it were not for the stocks."

"Then I shall keep the stocks, even if they fall."

"And we should both fall together. That would be some compensation. Not much. Going to smash with you would be something like going to church with Mr. Lyon. It might have a steadying effect."

"What has come over you tonight, Carmen?" Henderson asked, leaning forward with an expression of half amus.e.m.e.nt, half curiosity.

"I've been thinking--doesn't that astonish you?--about life. It is very serious. I got some new views talking with that Miss Debree from Brandon.

Chiefly from what she didn't say. She is such a lovely girl, and just as unsophisticated--well, as we are. I fear I shocked her by telling her your opinion of French novels."

"You didn't tell her that I approved of all the French novels you read?"

"Oh no! I didn't say you approved of any. It sort of came out that you knew about them. She is so downright and conscientious. I declare I felt virtuous shivers running all over me all the time I was with her. I'm conscientious myself. I want everybody to know the worst of me. I wish I could practice some concealment. But she rather discourages me. She would take the color out of a career. She somehow doesn't allow for color, I could see. Duty, duty--that is the way she looks at life. She'd try to keep me up to it; no playing by the way. I liked her very much. I like people not to have too much toleration. She would be just the wife for some nice country rector."

"Perhaps I ought to tell her your plan for her? I dined with her last night at the Stotts'."

"Yes?" Carmen had been wondering if he would tell her of that. "Was it very dull?"

"Not very. There was music, distant enough not to interfere with conversation, and the gallery afterwards."

"It must have been very exhilarating. You talked about the d.u.c.h.ess of Bolinbroke, and the opera, and Prince Talleyrand, and the corner in wheat--dear me, I know, so decorous! And you said Miss Debree was there?"

"I had the honor of taking her out."

"Mr. Henderson"--the girl had risen to adjust the lamp-shade, and now stood behind his chair with her arm resting on it, so that he was obliged to turn his head backward to see her--"Mr. Henderson, do you know you are getting to be a desperate flirt?" The laughing eyes looking into his said that was not such a desperate thing to do if he chose the right object.