Part 44 (1/2)
”And it's a cinch that she scores more bull's eyes than blanks. I had a seance with her. Never mind what she told me.
Anyway it was devilish clever,--and true as far as I knew.
And I suppose the chances are good that the whole business will happen to me. Watch me.
”I think Athalie must have cleared a lot of money already.
Mrs. Faithorn told me she gave her a cheque for five hundred that evening. And Athalie's private business must be pretty good because all the afternoon until five o'clock carriages and motors are coming and going. And you ought to see who's in 'em. Your prospective father-in-law was in one! Perhaps he wanted inside information about Dominion Fuel--that d.a.m.n stock which has done a few things to me since I monkeyed with it.
”But you should see the old dragons and dowagers and death-heads, and frumps who go to see Athalie! And the younger married bunch, too. I understand one has to ask for an appointment a week ahead.
”So she must be making every sort of money. And yet she lives simply enough--sky floor of a new office-apartment building on Long Acre--hoisted way up in the air above everything. You look out and see nothing but city and river and bay and haze on every side as far as the horizon's circle. At night it's just an endless waste of electric lights. There's very little sound from the street roar below. It's still up there in the sky, and sunny; silent and snowy; quiet and rainy; noiseless and dark--according to the hours, seasons, and meteorological conditions, my son. And it's some joint, believe me, with the dark old mahogany trim and furniture and the dull rich effects in azure and gold; and the Beluch carpets full of sombre purple and dusky fire, and the white cat on the window-sill watching you put of its sapphire blue eyes.
”And Athalie! curled up on her deep, soft divan, nibbling sweetmeats and listening to a dozen men--for there are usually as many as that who drop in at one time or another after business is over, and during the evening, unless Athalie is dining out, which she often does, d.a.m.n it!
”Business hours for her begin at two o'clock in the afternoon; and last until five. She could make a lot more money than she does if she opened earlier. I told her this, once, but she said that she was determined to educate herself.
”And it seems that she studies French, Italian, German, piano and vocal music; and has some down-and-out old hen read with her. I believe her ambition is to take the regular Harvard course as nearly as possible. Some nerve! What?
”Well, that's how her mornings go; and now I've given you, I think, a fair schedule of the life she leads. That fellow Dane hangs about a lot. So do Hargrave and Faithorn and young Allys and Arthur Ensart. And so do I, Clive; and a lot of others. Why, I don't know. I don't suppose we'd marry her; and yet it would not surprise me if any one of us asked her.
My suspicions are that the majority of the men who go there _have_ asked her. We're a fine lot, we men. So d.a.m.n fastidious. And then we go to sentimental pieces when we at last get it into our bone-heads that there is no other way that leads to Athalie except by marrying her. And we ask her.
And _then_ we get turned down!
”Clive, _that_ girl ought to be easy. To look at her you'd say she was made of wax, easily moulded, and fas.h.i.+oned to be loved, and to love. But, by G.o.d, I don't think it's in her to love.... For, if it were--good night. She'd have raised the devil in this world long ago. And some of us would have done murder before now.
”If I had not dined so copiously and so rashly I wouldn't write you all this. I'd write a page or two and lie to you, politely. And so I'll say this: I really do believe that it is in Athalie to love some man. And I believe, if she did love him, she'd love him in any way he asked her. He hasn't come along yet; that's all. But Oh! how he will be hated when he does--unless he is the marrying kind. And anyway he'll be hated. Because, however he does it, he'll get one of the loveliest girls this town ever set eyes on. And the rest of us will realise it then, and there will be some teeth-gnas.h.i.+ng, believe me!--and some squirming. Because the worm that never dieth will continue to chew us one and all, and never, never let us forget that the girl no man of our sort could really condescend to marry, had been asked by every one of us in turn to marry him; and had declined.
”And I'll add this for my own satisfaction: the man who gets her, and doesn't marry her, will ultimately experience a biting from that same worm which will make our lacerations resemble the agreeable tickling of a feather.
”We're a rotten lot of cowards. And what hypocrites we are!
”I saw Fontaine sending flowers to his wife. He'd been at Athalie's all the evening. There are only two occasions on which a man sends flowers to his wife; one of them is when he's in love with her.
”Aren't we the last word in scuts? Custom-ridden, habit-cursed, afraid, eternally afraid of something--of our own sort always, and of their opinions. And that offering of flowers when the man who sends them hopes to do something of which he is ashamed, or has already done it!
”How I do run on! In _vino veritas_--there's some cla.s.s to pickled truth! Here are olives for thought, red peppers for honesty, onions for logic--and cauliflower for constancy--and fifty-seven other varieties, Clive--all absent in the canned make-up of the modern man.
”'When you and I behind the veil have pa.s.sed'--but they don't wear veils now; and now is our chance.
”We'll never take it. Hall-marks are our only guide. When absent we merely become vicious. We know what we want; we know what we ought to have; but we're too cowardly to go after it. And so are you. And so am I.
”Yours-- ”REEVE.”
CHAPTER XVIII
During that first year Athalie Greensleeve saw a great deal of New York society, professionally, and of many New York men, socially.
But the plaything which society attempted to make of her she gently but adroitly declined to become. She herself drew this line whenever it was necessary to draw it, never permitting herself to mistake the fundamental att.i.tude of these agreeable and amicably demonstrative people toward her, or toward any girl who lived alone in New York and who practised such a profession.