What Will People Say? A Novel
free man. And she wanted to dance with him again! She would not even
wait for night to fall. She would dance with him in the daylight--with
tea as an excuse!
He began feverishly to robe himself for this festival. Luckily for him
and his sort, men's fashions are a republic, and Forbes' well-shaped,
though last year's, black morning coat, the pin his mother gave him
years ago skewering the scarf he had just bought, his waistcoat with the
little white edging, his heavily ironed striped trousers, and his last
night's top-hat freshly pressed, clothed him as smartly as the richest
fop in town. It is different with women; but a male bookkeeper can dress
nearly as well, if not so variously, as a plutocrat.
Forbes had devoted such passionate attention to the proper knotting of
that square of silk, that he was hardly ready when the room telephone
announced that Mr. Ten Eyck was calling for Mr. Forbes.
But his pains had been so well spent that Ten Eyck, meeting him in the
lobby, lifted his hat with mock servility again, and murmured:
"Oh, you millionaire! Will you deign to have a drink with a hick like
me?"
Forbes pleasantly requested him not to be a damned fool, but the
flattery was irresistible.
They went to the bar-room, where, under the felicitous longitude of
Maxfield Parrish's fresco of "King Cole," they fortified themselves with
gin rickeys, and set forth for the short walk down Broadway and across
to Bustanoby's.
They had been rejected here the night before, but Ten Eyck, at Persis'
request, had engaged a table by telephone.
"It's Persis' own party," he explained; "but I have sad news for you:
Little Willie isn't invited. He's being punished for being so naughty
last night."
"He acted as if he owned Miss Cabot," said Forbes.
"He usually does."
"But he doesn't, does he?--doesn't own her, I mean?" Forbes demanded,
with an anxiety that did not escape Ten Eyck, who answered:
"Opinions differ. He'll probably get her some day, unless her old man
has a change of luck."
"Her old man?"
"Yes. Papa Cabot has always lived up to every cent he could make or
inherit; but he's getting mushy and losing his grip. The draught in Wall
Street is too strong for him. Persis will hold on as long as she can,
but Little Willie is waiting right under the peach-tree with his basket,
ready for the first high wind."
"She couldn't marry him."
"Oh, couldn't she? And why not?"
"She can't love a--a--him?"
"He is an awful pill, but he's well coated. His father left him a pile
of sugar a mile high, and his mother will leave him another."
"But what has that to do with love?"
"Who said anything about love? This is the era of the modern business
woman."
Forbes said nothing, but looked a rebuke that led Ten Eyck to remind
him:
"Remember you promised not to marry her yourself. Of course, you may be
a bloated coupon-cutter, but Willie has his cut by machinery. If you put
anything less than a million in the bank to-day, you'd better not take
Persis too seriously. Girls like Persis are jack-pots in a big game. In
fact, if you haven't got a pair of millions for openers, don't sit in.
You haven't a chance."
"I don't believe you," Forbes thought, but did not say.
They reached the restaurant, and, finding that Persis had not arrived,
stood on the sidewalk waiting for her. Many people were coming up in
taxicabs, or private cars, or on foot. They were all in a hurry to be
dancing.
"It's a healthier sport than sitting round watching somebody else play
baseball--or Ibsen," Ten Eyck observed, answering an imaginary critic;
and then he exclaimed:
"Here she is!" as a landaulet with the top lowered sped down the street.
The traffic rules compelled it to go beyond and come up with the curb on
its right. As it passed Forbes caught a glimpse of three hats. One of
them was a man's derby, one of them had a sheaf of goura, one of them
was a straw flower-pot with a white feather like a question-mark stuck
in it. His heart buzzed with reminiscent anxiety. He turned quickly and
noted the number of the car, "48150, N. Y. 1913." The woman he had
followed up the Avenue was one of those two.
The chauffeur turned sharply, stopped, backed, and brought the landaulet
around with the awkwardness of an alligator. A footman opened the door
to Bob Fielding, Winifred Mather, and Persis Cabot.
The answer to the query-plume was Persis. Forbes saw a kind of mystic
significance in it.
Winifred, as she put out her hand to him, turned to Persis:
"You didn't tell me our li'l snojer man was coming."
"I wasn't sure we could get him," said Persis, and gave Forbes her hand,
her smile, and a cordial word. "Terribly nice of you to come."
He seized her hand to wring it with ardor, but its pressure was so lax
that he refrained. His eyes, however, were so fervid that she looked
away. For lack of support his hopes dropped like a flying-machine that
meets a "hole in the air."
CHAPTER XIII
She was talking the most indifferent nothings as they went up the stairs
to the dancing-room, a largish space with an encircling gallery. As
usual the dancing-floor was a clearing in a thicket of tables. It was
swarming already with couples engaged in the same jig as the night
before.
The costumes were duller than at night, of course. Most of the men wore
business suits; the women were not decolletees, and they kept on their
hats.
Only Forbes noted at once that the crowd included many very young girls
and mere lads. Here, too, there was a jumbled mixture of plebeian and
aristocrat and all the grades between. There were girls who seemed to
have been wanton in their cradles, and girls who were aureoled with an
innocence that made their wildest hilarity a mere scamper of wholesome
spirits.
An eccentricity of this restaurant was a searchlight stationed in the
balcony. The operator swept the floor with its rays, occasionally
fastening on a pair of professional dancers, and following it through
the maze, whimsically changing the colors of the light to red or green
or blue. For the general public the light was kept rosy.
When Forbes arrived a certain couple whirled madly off the dancing-floor
straight into the midst of Persis' guests, with the havoc of a strike in
a game of tenpins.
The young man's heel ground one of the buttons of Forbes' shoe deep into
his instep, and the young girl's flying hand smote him in the nose. He
needed all his self-control to repress a yowl of pain and dismay.
Persis must have suffered equal battery, but she quietly straightened
out the dizzy girl and smiled.
"Come right in, Alice; don't stop to knock."
The girl under whose feet the floor still eddied clung to Persis and
stared at her a second, then gasped:
"Oh, Miss Cabot, is it _you_? I must have nearly _killed_ you. Can you
ever _ever_ for_give_ me?"
Persis patted her hand and turned her round to Forbes: "You'd better ask
Mr. Forbes. You gave him a lovely black eye."
The girl acknowledged the introduction with a duck and a prayer of wild
appeal:
"Oh, Mr. Forbes, _what_ a ghastly, _ghastly_ shame! Did I really hurt
you? I must have simply _murdered_ you. I'm so _ashamed_. Can you ever
_ever_ forgive me?"
Forbes smiled at her melodramatic agitation: "It's nothing at all,
Miss--Miss--I never liked this nose, anyway. I only wish you had hit it
harder, Miss--"
"Miss Neff," Persis prompted. "You met her mother last night."
Forbes vaguely remembered that somebody had said something about a
beautiful mother of a more beautiful daughter; but he could not frame it
into a speech, before Persis startled the girl beyond reach of a pretty
phrase, by casually asking:
"Were you expecting to meet your mother here this afternoon, Alice?"
"Good Lord, I should say _not_! Why?"
"I just wondered. She is to meet us here."
"When? In heaven's _name_! When?"
"She ought to be here now."
Alice thrust backward a palsied hand and, clutching the young man she
had danced with, dragged him forward. He was shaking hands with Ten
Eyck, and brought him along.
"Stowe! Stowe!" Alice exclaimed, with a tragic fire that did not greatly
alarm the young man; he was apparently used to little else from her.
"Yes, dear," he answered, with a lofty sweetness; and she cried:
"Oh, honey, what _do_ you sup_pose_?"
"What, dear?"
"That awful Mother of mine is expected here any _moment_!"
The young man's majesty collapsed like an overblown balloon in one pop:
"Lord!"
Tableau! Ten Eyck, seeing it, muttered, gloatingly:
"Some folks gits ketched."
Alice turned eyes of reproach upon him:
"She'll _kill_ us if she finds us together. Isn't there some other way
out?"
"I could go down the stairs the waiters come up," said Stowe; "but how
will you get home?"
"Oh, Mother will get me home all right, never fear!" said Alice. "Run
for your _life_, honey. I'll have my maid call you on the 'phone later."
The young man gave her one long sad look fairly reeking with desperate
kisses and embraces. Then he vanished into the crowd.
Alice must have remarked the comments in Forbes' eyes, for she turned to
him:
"You mustn't misunderstand the poor boy, Mr. Forbes. Mr. Webb is as
_brave_ as a _lion_, but he runs away on my account. He knows that my
mother will give me no rest if she finds it out."
"I understand perfectly," said Forbes. "There are times when the better
a soldier is the faster he runs!"
"Mr. Forbes is a soldier," Persis explained.
"Oh, thank you, twice as much!" said Alice, "for appreciating the
situation." Then she turned to Persis, and clenched her arm as if she
were about to implore some unheard-of mercy: "And, Oh, Miss Cabot, will
you do me one _terribly_ great favor? I'll remember it to my _dying_
day, if you only will."
"Of course, my dear," Persis answered, with her usual serenity. "What is
it? Do you want me to tell your mother that I met you somewhere and
dragged you here against your will to meet her?"
Alice's wide eyes widened to the danger-point:
"Aren't you simply _wonderful_! How on earth could you possibly have
ever _ever_ guessed it?"
Persis cast a sidelong glance at Forbes; it had all the effect of a wink
without being so violent.
"I'm a mind-reader," she said.
Alice caught the glance but not the irony of it, and exclaimed:
"In_deed_ she is, Mr. Forbes. She really _is_."
"I know she is," said Forbes, with a quiet conviction that was almost
more noisy than the violent emphasis of Alice.
Persis gave Forbes another sidelong glance; this time with a meek
wonderment in place of irony. Once more the man had shown a kind of awe
of her. Unwittingly he was attacking her on her most defenseless wall;
for a woman who is always hearing praise of her beauty or her vivacity,
so hungers and thirsts after some recognition of her intellectual
existence that she is usually quite helpless before a tribute to it.
Persis knew that there was no importance in her guess at what Alice was
about to ask; but there was importance in the high rating Forbes gave
it. The comfort she found in this homage was put to flight by Alice's
nails nipping her arm.
"Before mother comes we must rehearse what we're to say. She thinks I
went to one of those lectures on Current Topics. They're so very
im_proving_ that Mother can't bear to go herself. She sends _me_ and
then forgets to ask me what it was all about. So I sneaked it to-day and
met Stowe."
Persis could not resist a motherly question: "Is this an ideal
trysting-place, do you think?"
"Where's the harm? We couldn't go to the Park very well. Everybody's
always going _by_ and looking _on_."
"Why don't you receive Mr. Webb at home?"
"Oh, _why_ don't I, indeed! Mother won't allow him within a _mile_ of
the place. Didn't you know that?"