The Second Generation Part 28

He put out his hand. "We are friends, aren't we?"

She instantly laid her hand in his.

"Friends," he repeated. "Let us hold fast to that--and let the rest take care of itself."

"I'm ashamed of myself," said she. And in her swift revulsion of feeling there was again opportunity for him. But he was not in the mood to see it.

"You certainly ought to be," replied he, with his frank smile that was so full of the suggestions of health and sanity and good humor. "You'll never get a martyr's crown at _my_ expense."

At New York he rearranged their steamer accommodations. It was no longer diffidence and misplaced consideration that moved him permanently to establish the most difficult of barriers between them; it was pride now, for in her first stormy, moments in the train he had seen farther into her thoughts than he dared let himself realize.

CHAPTER XVII

POMP AND CIRc.u.mSTANCE

The day after the wedding, as Arthur was going home from work, he saw Ross on the lofty seat of a dogcart, driving toward him along lower Monroe Street. His anger instantly flamed and flared; he crushed an oath between his teeth and glanced about for some way to avoid the humiliating meeting. But there was no cross street between him and the on-coming cart. Pride, or vanity, came to his support, as soon as he was convinced that escape was impossible. With an air that was too near to defiance to create the intended impression of indifference, he swung along and, just as the cart was pa.s.sing, glanced at his high-enthroned former friend.

Ross had not seen him until their eyes met. He drew his horse in so sharply that it reared and pawed in amazement and indignation at the bit's coa.r.s.e insult to thoroughbred instincts for courteous treatment. He knew Arthur was at work in the factory; but he did not expect to see him in workman's dress, with a dinner pail in his hand. And from his height, he, clad in the carefully careless, ostentatiously unostentatious garments of the "perfect gentleman," gazed speechless at the spectacle.

Arthur reddened violently. Not all the daily contrasts thrust upon him in those months at the cooperage had so brought home to his soul the differences of caste. And there came to him for the first time that hatred of inequalities which, repulsive though it is in theory, is yet the true nerver of the strong right arm of progress. It is as characteristic of the homely, human countenance of Democracy as the supercilious smirk is of the homely, inhuman countenance of caste.

Arthur did not want to get up where Ross was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down. "The d.a.m.n fool!" he fumed. "He goes lounging about, wasting the money _we_ make. It's all wrong. And if we weren't a herd of tame a.s.ses, we wouldn't permit it."

And now he began to feel that he was the superior of this showy idler, that his own garments and dinner pail and used hands were the t.i.tles to a n.o.bility which could justly look down upon those who filched from the treasury of the toiler the means to buzz and flit and glitter in dronelike ease. "As for these Whitneys," he thought, "mother's right about them." Then he called out in a tone of good-natured contempt, which his stature and his powerful frame and strong, handsome face made effective: "h.e.l.lo, Ross! When did _you_ come to town?"

"This morning," replied Ross. "I heard you were working, but I had no idea it was--I've just been to your house, looking for you, and was on the way to the factory. Father told me to see that you get a suitable position. I'm going to Howells and arrange it. You know, father's been in the East and very busy."

"Don't bother," said Arthur, and there was no pretense in his air of ease. "I've got just what I want. I am carrying out father's plan, and I'm far enough into it to see that he was right."

In unbelieving silence Ross looked down at his former equal with condescending sympathy; how well Arthur knew that look! And he remembered that he had once, so short a time before, regarded it as kindly, and the thoughts behind it as generous!

"I like my job," he continued. "It gives me a sense of doing something useful--of getting valuable education. Already I've had a thousand d.a.m.n-fool ideas knocked out of my head."

"I suppose it _is_ interesting," said Ross, with gracious encouragement.

"The a.s.sociations must be rather trying."

"They _were_ rather trying," replied Arthur with a smile. "Trying to the other men, until I got my bearings and lost the silliest of the silly ideas put in my head by college and that sort of thing. But, now that I realize I'm an apprentice and not a gentleman deigning to a.s.sociate with the common herd, I think I'm less despicable--and less ridiculous. Still, I'm finding it hard to get it through my head that practically everything I learned is false and must be unlearned."

"Don't let your bitterness over the injustice to you swing you too far the other way, Artie," said Ross with a faint smile in his eyes and a suspicious, irritating friendliness in his voice. "You'll soon work out of that cla.s.s and back where you belong."

Arthur was both angry and amused. No doubt Ross was right as to the origin of this new breadth of his; but a wrong motive may start a man right just as readily as a right motive may start him wrong. Arthur would have admitted frankly his first feelings about his changed position, would have admitted that those feelings still lingered, still seemed to influence him, as grown people often catch themselves thinking in terms of beliefs impressed on them in childhood, but exploded and abandoned at the very threshold of youth. But he knew, also, that his present beliefs and resolves and aspirations were sincere, were sane, were final--the expression of the mind and heart that were really himself. Of what use, however, to argue with Ross? "I could no more convince him," thought Arthur, "than I could myself have been convinced less than a year ago."

Besides, of what importance were Ross's beliefs about him or about his views? So he said to him, and his tone and manner were now convincing: "Well, we'll see. However, as long as I'm a workman, I'll stand with my cla.s.s--just as you stand with your cla.s.s. And while you are pretending to be generous to us, we'll pretend to be contemptuous of you. You'll think we are living off of your money; we'll think you are living off of our work. You'll say we're earning less than half what we get; we'll say you're stealing more than half what you get. It may amuse you to hear that I am one of the organizers of the trades union that's starting. I'm on the committee on wages. So some day you and I are likely to meet."

"I don't know much about those things," said Ross politely. "I can see that you're right to ingratiate yourself with those working chaps. It will stand you in good stead when you get on top and have to manage them."

Arthur laughed, and so did Ross. They eyed each the other with covert hostility. "Poor creature!" thought Ross. And "Pup!" thought Arthur. "How could I have wanted Del to marry _him_?" He wished to pa.s.s on, but was detained by some suggestion in Ross's manner that he had not yet discharged his mind of its real burden.

"I was glad to see your mother so well," said Ross.

"I wish she were," replied Arthur. "She seemed to be better while the excitement about Del's wedding was on; but as soon as Del and Dory went, she dropped back again. I think the only thing that keeps her from--from joining father is the feeling that, if she were to go, the family income would stop. I feel sure we'd not have her, if father had left us well provided for, as they call it."

"That is true," said Ross, the decent side of his nature now full to the fore. "I can't tell you what a sense of loss I had when your father died.

Artie, he was a splendid gentleman. And there is a quality in your mother that makes me feel very humble indeed before her."

Arthur pa.s.sed, though he noted, the unconscious superciliousness in this tribute; he felt that it was a genuine tribute, that, for all its discoloration in its pa.s.sage through the tainted outer part of Ross's nature, it had come from the unspoiled, untainted, deepest part.

Fortunately for us all, the gold in human nature remains gold, whatever its alloys from base contacts; and it is worth the mining, though there be but a grain of it to the ton of dross. As Ross spoke Arthur warmed to him. "You must come to see us," he said cordially.

Ross became embarra.s.sed, so embarra.s.sed that all his ability to command his feelings went for nothing. "Thank you," said he hurriedly, "but I'm here only for a few hours. I go away to-night. I came about a matter that--that--I want to get back as soon as possible."

Arthur was mystified by the complete transformation of the self-complacent, superior Ross of a few minutes before. He now noted that Ross was looking almost ill, his eyes sunken, the lids red at the edges, as if from loss of sleep. Under Arthur's scrutiny his embarra.s.sment increased to panic. He nervously shifted the reins, made the horse restless, shook hands with Arthur, reined in, tried to speak, said only, "I must be off--my horse is getting nervous," and was gone.

Arthur looked after him. "That's the sort of chap I was on the way to being when father pulled me up," he reflected. "I wonder if I'll ever get sense enough not to have a sneaking envy of him--and regret?"

If he could have looked in upon Ross's mind, he might have been abruptly thrust far along the toilsome road toward his goal. In this world, roses and thorns have a startling, preposterous way of suddenly exchanging natures so that what was thorn becomes fairest rose, and what was rose becomes most poisonous of thorns. Ross had just fallen an amazed and incredulous victim to this alchemy. Though somewhat uncomfortable and downright unhappy at times, he had been, on the whole, well pleased with himself and his prospects until he heard that Adelaide was actually about to marry Dory. His content collapsed with the foundation on which it was built--the feeling that Adelaide was for no other man, that if at any time he should change his mind he would find her waiting to welcome him gratefully. He took train for Saint X, telling himself that after he got there he could decide what to do. In fact, when he had heard that the wedding was about to be, it was over and Adelaide and Dory were off for New York and Europe; but he did not find this out until he reached Saint X. The man who gave him that final and overwhelming news noticed no change in his face, though looking for signs of emotion; nor did Ross leave him until he had confirmed the impression of a heart at ease. Far along the path between the Country Club and Point Helen he struck into the woods and, with only the birds and the squirrels as witnesses, gave way to his feelings.

Now, now that she was irrevocably gone, he knew. He had made a hideous mistake; he had been led on by his vanity, led on and on until the trap was closed and sprung; and it was too late. He sat there on a fallen tree with his head aching as if about to explode, with eyes, dry and burning and a great horror of heart-hunger sitting before him and staring at him.

In their sufferings from defeated desire the selfish expiate their sins.

He had forgotten his engagement to Theresa Howland, the wedding only two weeks away. It suddenly burst in upon his despair like a shout of derisive laughter. "I'll _not_ marry her!" he cried aloud. "I _can't_ do it!"

But even as he spoke he knew that he could, and would, and must. He had been a miserable excuse for a lover to Theresa; but Theresa had never had love. All the men who had approached her with "intentions" had been fighting hard against their own contempt of themselves for seeking a wife for the sake of her money, and their efforts at love-making had been tame and lame; but Theresa, knowing no better, simply thought men not up to the expectations falsely raised by the romances and the songs. She believed _she_ could not but get as good a quality of love as there was going; and Ross, with his delightful, aristocratic indifference, was perfectly satisfactory. Theresa had that thrice-armored self-complacence which nature so often relentingly gives, to more than supply the lack of the charms withheld. She thought she was fascinating beyond any woman of her acquaintance, indeed, of her time. She spent hours in admiring herself, in studying out poses for her head and body and arms, especially her arms, which she regarded as nature's last word on that kind of beauty--a not wholly fanciful notion, as they were not bad, if a bit too short between elbow and wrist, and rather fat at the shoulders. She always thought and, on several occasions in bursts of confidence, had imparted to girl friends that "no man who has once cared for me can ever care for another woman." Several of her confidantes had precisely the same modest opinion of their own powers; but they laughed at Theresa--behind her back.

Ross knew how vain she was. To break with her, he would have to tell her flatly that he would not marry her. "I'd be doing her no injury," thought he. "Her vanity would root out some explanation which would satisfy her that, whatever might be the cause, it wasn't lack of love for her on my part." But--To break off was unthinkable. The invitations out; the arrangements for the wedding all made; quant.i.ties of presents arrived--"I've got to go through with it. I've got to marry her," said Ross. "But G.o.d help me, how I shall hate her!"

And, stripped clean of the glamour of her wealth, she rose before him--her nose that was red and queer in the mornings; her little personal habits that got on the nerves, especially a covert self-infatuated smile that flitted over her face at any compliment, however obviously perfunctory; her way of talking about every trivial thing she did--and what did she do that was not trivial?--as if some diarist ought to take it down for the delight of ages to come. As Ross looked at the new-created realistic image of her, he was amazed. "Why, I've always disliked her!" he cried. "I've been lying to myself. I am too low for words," he groaned. "Was there ever such a sneaking cur?" Yes, many a one, full as unconscious of his own qualities as he himself had been until that moment; nor could he find consolation in the fact that he had company, plenty of company, and it of the world's most "gentlemanly" and most "ladylike."

The young man who left that wood, the young man whom Arthur saw that day, had in his heart a consciousness, an ache, of lonely poverty that dress and dogcarts and social position could do little--something, but little--to ease.

He stopped at Chicago and sent word to Windrift that he was ill--not seriously ill, but in such a state that he thought it best to take care of himself, with the wedding so near. Theresa was just as well pleased to have him away, as it gave her absolute freedom to plan and to superintend her triumph. For the wedding was to be her individual and exclusive triumph, with even Ross as part of the background--the most conspicuous part, but still simply background for her personal splendor.

Old Howland--called Bill until his early career as a pedlar and keeper of a Cheap Jack bazaar was forgotten and who, after the great fire, which wiped out so many pasts and purified and pedigreed Chicago's present aristocracy, called himself William G. Howland, merchant prince, had, in his ideal character for a wealth-chaser, one weakness--a doting fondness for his daughter. When she came into the world, the doctors told him his wife would have no more children; thereafter his manner was always insulting, and usually his tone and words, whenever and of whatever he spoke to her. Women were made by the Almighty solely to bear children to men; his woman had been made to bear him a son. Now that she would never have a son, she was of no use, and it galled him that he could find no plausibly respectable excuse for casting her off, as he cast off worn-out servants in his business. But as the years pa.s.sed and he saw the various varieties of thorns into which the sons of so many of his fellow-princes developed, he became reconciled to Theresa--_not_ to his wife. That unfortunate woman, the daughter of a drunkard and partially deranged by illness and by grief over her husband's brutality toward her, became--or rather, was made by her insistent doctor--what would have been called a drunkard, had she not been the wife of a prince. Her "dipsomania" took an unaggressive form, as she was by nature gentle and sweet; she simply used to shut herself in and drink until she would cry herself into a timid, suppressed hysteria. So secret was she that Theresa never knew the truth about these "spells."

Howland did not like Ross; but when Theresa told him she was going to marry him she had only to cry a little and sit in the old man's lap and tease. "Very well, then," said her father, "you can have him. But he's a gambler, like his father. They call it finance, but changing the name of a thing only changes the smell of it, not the thing itself. I'm going to tie my money up so that he can't get at it."

"I want you to, papa," replied Theresa, giving him a kiss and a great hug for emphasis. "I don't want anybody to be able to touch _my_ property."

For the wedding, Howland gave Theresa a free hand. "I'll pay the bills, no matter what they are," said he. "Give yourself a good time." And Theresa, who had been brought up to be selfish, and was prudent about her impulses only where she suspected them of being generous, proceeded to arrange for herself the wedding that is still talked about in Chicago "society" and throughout the Middle West. A dressmaker from the Rue de la Paix came over with models and samples, and carried back a huge order and a plaster reproduction of Theresa's figure, and elaborate notes on the color of her skin, hair, eyes, and her preferences in shapes of hats. A jeweler, also of the Rue de la Paix, came with jewels--nearly a million dollars' worth--for her to make selections. Her boots and shoes and slippers she got from Rowney, in Fifth Avenue, who, as everybody knows, makes nothing for less than thirty-five dollars, and can put a hundred dollars worth of price, if not of value, into a pair of evening slippers.

Theresa was proud of her feet; they were short and plump, and had those abrupt, towering insteps that are regarded by the people who have them as unfailing indications of haughty lineage, just as the people who have flat feet dwell fondly upon the flat feet of the Wittlesbachs, kings in Bavaria. She was not easy to please in the matter of cas.e.m.e.nts for those feet; also, as she was very short in stature, she had to get three and a half extra inches of height out of her heels; and to make that sort of heel so that it can even be hobbled upon is not easy or cheap. Once Theresa, fretting about her red-ended nose and muddy skin, had gone to a specialist. "Let me see your foot," said he; and when he saw the heel, he exclaimed: "Cut that tight, high-heeled thing out or you'll never get a decent skin, and your eyes will trouble you by the time you are thirty."

But Theresa, before adopting such drastic measures, went to a beauty doctor. He a.s.sured her that she could be cured without the sacrifice of the heel, and that the weakness of her eyes would disappear a year or so after marriage. And he was soon going into ecstasies over her improvement, over the radiance of her beauty. She saw with his eyes and ceased to bother about nose or skin--they were the least beautiful of her beauties, but--"One can't expect to be absolutely perfect. Besides, the absolutely perfect kind of beauty might be monotonous."

The two weeks before the wedding were the happiest of her life. All day long, each day, vans were thundering up to the rear doors of Windrift, each van loaded to bursting with new and magnificent, if not beautiful costliness. The house was full of the employees of florists, dressmakers, decorators, each one striving to outdo the other in servility. Theresa was like an autocratic sovereign, queening it over these menials and fancying herself adored. They showed _so_ plainly that they were awed by her and were in ecstasies of admiration over her taste. And, as the grounds and the house were transformed, Theresa's exaltation grew until she went about fairly dizzy with delight in herself.

The bridesmaids and ushers came. They were wealth-worshipers all, and their homage lifted Theresa still higher. They marched and swept about in her train, lording it over the menials and feeling that they were not a whit behind the grand ladies and gentlemen of the French courts of the eighteenth century. They had read the memoirs of that idyllic period diligently, had read with minds only for the flimsy glitter which hid the vulgarity and silliness and shame as a gorgeous robe hastily donned by a dirty chambermaid might conceal from a casual glance the sardonic and repulsive contrast. The wedding day approached all too swiftly for Theresa and her court. True, that would be the magnificent climax; but they knew it would also dissipate the spell--after the wedding, life in twentieth century America again.