The Web of Life Part 13

"It means--"

"All this," he moved his hand contemptuously. "Ah, yes, and a lot more," he added, as her lip trembled. "It shows power and ability and thrift and purpose and provides means for generosity and philanthropy. But it rots."

"What do you mean?"

"Because it turns the people who have it into a cla.s.s that come to feel themselves divinely appointed. Whereas it is all a gamble, a lucky gamble!"

"Not all wealth is a lucky gamble!" she retorted hotly.

Sommers paused, discomfited at the personal turn to the thought.

"I think the most successful would be the first to admit it," he answered thoughtfully.

"I don't understand you," the girl replied more calmly. "I suppose you are a socialist, or something of that sort. I can't understand such matters well enough to argue with you. And I hoped to find you in another mood when I came back; but we fall out always, it seems, over the most trivial matters."

"I am afraid I am very blunt," he said contritely. "I came here to find _you_; what do you want me to talk about,--Stewart's engagement to Miss Polot? It was given the chief place in the newspaper this morning."

"Sh, sh!" Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k exclaimed cautiously. Little groups were moving in and out of the rooms, and at that moment a pale-faced, slight young man came up to Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k.

"May I offer my congratulations?" she said, turning to him with the smile that Sommers's remark had caused still on her lips. The young man simpered, uttered the requisite plat.i.tude, and moved away.

"Did you congratulate him on the Polot connection or on the girl?" the young doctor asked.

"You don't know Estelle Polot! She is _impossible_. But Burton Stewart has got _just_ what he wanted. No one thought that he would do as well as that. You know they are _fearfully_ rich--she can't escape having a number of millions. Don't you think a man of forty is to be congratulated on having what he has been looking for for twenty years?"

Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k's neat, nonchalant enunciation gave the picture additional relief.

"I don't see how he has the face to show himself. All these people are laughing about it."

"It _is_ a bad case, but don't you believe that they are not envying him and praising him. He is a clever man, and he won't let the Polot money go to waste. He has taken the largest purse--the rest were too light."

Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k seemed to find infinite resources of mirth in the affair.

Other people drifted by them. Several of the younger women stopped and exchanged amused glances with Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k.

"He's been attentive to all these," Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k explained to Sommers.

"The Polot money is very bad, isn't it?"

Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k shrugged her shoulders.

"It is current coin."

"The system is worse than the _dot_ and _mariage de convenance_.

There is no pretension of sentiment in that, at least. See him hanging over the girl--faugh!"

"You _are_ crude," Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k admitted, candidly. "Let us move out of this crowd. Some one will overhear you."

They sauntered into the dimly lighted hall, where there were fewer people, and he continued truculently:

"I remember that side by side with the report of Miss Polot's engagement was a short account of the starvation at Pullman, and another column was headed, 'Nothing to arbitrate: Pullman says he has nothing to arbitrate.'

Did you see that the reporters carefully estimated just how much Miss Polot's share of the plunder would be?"

"What you need is golf. I have been teaching papa at the Springs. It is a great resource, and it increases your sense of humor."

"It doesn't seem to have rested you," Sommers answered. "You are tired or worried."

"Worse yet!" she laughed nervously. "Clearly, you won't do. You must go back to Marion."

She looked up at him from her low seat with brilliant, mocking eyes.

"I have thought of that. It would not be the worst thing that could happen.

Would _you_ think it possible--Marion?" he asked clumsily.

Her eyes did not fall, but rested steadily on his face. Under this clear gaze his remark appeared to him preposterous. She seemed to show him how precipitate, unformed,--crude, as she said,--all his acts were. Instead of answering his question, she said gently:

"Yes, you are right. I _am_ worried, and I came here tonight to escape it. But one doesn't escape worries with you. One increases them. You make me feel guilty, uncomfortable. Now get me something thoroughly cold, and perhaps we can have that long-promised talk."

When Sommers returned with a gla.s.s of champagne, a number of men had gathered about Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k, and she left him on the outside, intentionally it seemed, while she chatted with them, bandying allusions that meant nothing to him. Sommers saw that he had been a bore. He slipped out of the group and wandered into the large library, where the guests were eating and drinking. A heavy, serious man, whom he had seen at various places, spoke to him. He said something about the lecture, then something about Miss Polot's engagement. "They'll go to New York," he ventured.

"Stewart has some position there, some family." He talked about the Stewarts and the Polots, and finally he went to the dressing room to smoke.

Sommers had made up his mind to leave, and was looking for Mrs. Carson, when he came across Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k again.

"The man you were talking with is quite a tragedy," she said unconcernedly, picking up the conversation where she had dropped it. "I knew him when he left college. He was an athletic fellow, a handsome man. His people were nice, but not rich. He was planning to go to Montana to take a place in some mines, but he got engaged to the daughter of a very wealthy man. He didn't go. He married Miss Prudence Fisher, and he has simply grown fat.

It's an old story--"

"And a tragic enough one. We ought to change the old proverb, 'It is easier for a camel to pa.s.s through the eye of the needle than for a poor man to marry a rich man's daughter.'"

"It ought not to be so, if the man were a man."

She dwelt upon the last word until the young doctor's face flushed. Then with the sudden transition of mood, which so often perplexed Sommers, she said gently, confidently:

"You are quite right. My journey did me no good. There were worries, and we can't go away this summer. The business situation will keep papa here, and he is so lonely without me that I hadn't the heart to suggest leaving him.

So we have taken a house at Lake Forest. I shall teach you golf at the new Country Club, if you will deign to waste your time on us. You will see more of these good people."

"You must think me--" Sommers began penitently.

"Yes, _they_ would say 'raw' and 'green.' I don't know. I must go now."

A few minutes later, Sommers met Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k in the dressing room. As he was leaving, the old merchant detained him.

"Are you going north? Perhaps you will wait for me and let me take you to the city. Louise is going on to a dance."

Sommers waited outside the room. From the bedroom at the end of the hall came a soft murmur of women's voices. He hoped that Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k would appear before her father took him off. He should like to see her again--to hear her voice. Every moment some one nodded to him, distracting his attention, but his eyes reverted immediately to the end of the hall. Men and women were pa.s.sing out, down the broad staircase that ended in front of the intelligent portrait. The women in rich opera cloaks, the men in black capes carrying their crush hats under their arms, were all alike; they were more like every other collection of the successful in the broad earth than one might have expected.

Sommers caught bits of the conversation.

"Jim has taken the Paysons' place."

"Is that so? We are going to York."