What Will People Say? A Novel
I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that that's a woman's first
business, as a man's first business is to build a home and keep it.
Afterward all the charity and uplift they can do is legitimate and
worthy. But first pay your debts, I say, before you make donations. Now
I can't pry Mildred loose from her clubs and committees. No marrying
young man will go near her. There's no encouragement to the pink
nonsense of love in an atmosphere of tenement-house needs, tuberculosis
exhibits, and the harrowing statistics of white slavery.
"I got an idea that if I went abroad as an ambassador she'd have to go
along to take care of me and run the social end of the embassy. She'd
have to dress up and give dinners, and go places and dance and meet
cheerful people, and--well, who knows? Anyway, my last business on this
earth is leaving my only child provided for, and I'm worried
because--because--well, I'm too fat around the heart, and my neck is too
thick, and the doctor tells me to be ready. You understand?
"My father went that way. He had to be very careful of his health, and
one day, when he was about to go out in the rain, my mother told him he
must wear his rubbers. He bent over to pull on an overshoe, and--he
just went on over and sprawled out on the rug--dead."
He stared off into space, and seemed not to be a venerable old man any
more, but a lonely orphan with the sad eyes of boyhood in the presence
of death.
Forbes knew what it means for a man to think of the death of his first
great man, his father; and his hand wrung the Senator's. Tait looked up,
smiled sadly, and returned the pressure with his big, soft fingers.
"I wish I had a son to leave her with, Harvey; then I'd feel better, but
my only boy--well, he married the wrong woman, and she drove him to the
dogs, deceived him and tormented him, and--finally he had to make her
divorce him. And he loved her in spite of it--he was ashamed of his
love; but he couldn't kill it; she couldn't kill it; drink couldn't kill
it. But the two of them killed him. Oh, Lord, Harvey, it's a cruel
world, and we're so helpless! I could have done so much for my boy; but
I couldn't help him in the one way he needed help. I couldn't make the
woman over.
"Don't repeat his mistake, Harvey. Don't let a pretty face and a
fascinating body blind you to a bad, selfish heart. Don't let yourself
love the wrong woman. You can do a good deal with your heart if you hold
a tight rein on it and keep it on the right road. There are fine enough
women on the straight road, just as beautiful, just as passionate with
the right man. If only--"
He paused, looked at Harvey, who was looking everywhere but at the
Senator. He was searching the landscape for Persis, and he was as
restless among his own thoughts as the young usually are when the old
are commenting on the helplessness of life. The young know so much
better. It is the young who have theories of the universe and who expect
to carry out their hopes; it is the old scientists who are bewildered
and who merely observe and accept.
But Tait did not notice Forbes' inattention. Rummaging among the
confusions of his own griefs, he had come upon a bright hope. What if
Forbes should be the man to win Mildred away from her avocations back to
the main business of love? He was such a youth as even Mildred could
hardly ignore or despise. He had little money, but Tait had more than
enough for the two, and he had made many a poor man rich.
He smiled. He felt like apologizing to Mrs. Neff for stealing a hint
from her. Why should not old men engage in the pleasant chess-game of
match-making, too? What better task could he undertake than making this
beloved son of his old comrade the husband of his own beloved daughter?
The idea was so exhilarating that it almost leaped from his heart. But
he was politician enough to realize that such a plan would be frustrated
in advance by premature publication. This was a benevolent conspiracy
that must be kept dark.
He studied Forbes with admiring affection. His heart went out to him as
to a son, or, better yet, a son-in-law. He put a hand on Forbes'
shoulder to claim him just as Forbes started with a sudden elation, just
as a light broke forth in his eyes.
Tait followed the line of Forbes' gaze and made out a man and a woman on
horseback turning in at the gate marked "Exit Only." That was like
Willie Enslee. If any gate could excite his interest as an entrance it
would be one marked "Exit Only." Tait could not see who it was; he
hastily got out his distance-glasses and put them on. But a glowing wall
of rhododendrons and cedars concealed the riders by the time his great
tortoise-shell spectacles hobgoblined his eyes.
Forbes spoke. "Sha'n't we stroll back to the club-house? I'm expected
there for luncheon."
"By all means," said Tait. "And I want you to meet Mildred again."
"I'd love to," said Forbes, absently. He said nothing more, but strode
on so rapidly down the steep slope that Tait had to take his arm for
support and to hold him back.
"You're visiting at the Enslees', Mrs. Neff tells me," the old man
panted.
"Yes."
"Excuse my fatherly familiarity, but how can you afford to gad with
those wild asses?"
"I can't."
"What's her name?" Tait laughed.
"I may be able to tell you later, and I may not."
"Well, my boy, I don't know who she is, but I bet she isn't worth
it--not if she trails with the Enslee pack."
"Oh, but she is beautiful--she is wonderful."
"You must be hit damned hard."
"Am."
And then, not heeding the connotation, he exclaimed, as Persis emerged
from the eclipsing shrubbery:
"There's only one woman can ride like that."
Tait stared again, and now he made her out. Instantly, with the
exultance one feels over a secret some one else lets slip, he cried:
"Oho, my boy, that's the woman who keeps you here! Mrs. Neff hinted at
it, but I wouldn't believe it till I had it from you." His gloating sank
again to fatherly solicitude as he pleaded earnestly: "For God's sake,
boy, don't love her! Of all women don't love Persis Cabot! She's the
most heartless of them all."
Forbes was tempted to ask him how he could accept a reputation as a
proof of character, but he was still calm enough to pay Tait's white
hair the homage of silence. Tait, feeling the import of his silence,
grew uneasy, and demanded:
"Harvey, it's not possible that you love her--actually love her?"
"Is it possible not to?"
"But you've not known her long."
"No, but I've known her well. Do you know her?"
"Yes, and I knew her mother. Once I thought I loved her mother. But I
had less money--when I proposed to her than I have now--Heaven be
praised!"
"Heaven be praised?"
"Yes, for she might have married me. Harvey, a certain part of the
society here is like a big aquarium. The people are all fish--the men
goldfish, the women catfish. Their blood is cold--Lord, how cold! Just
look at their eyes! Hard eyes, hard hearts. They despise sincerity; they
laugh at honest emotion."
"But Persis has soft eyes," Forbes broke in, "and a warm heart."
"Has she?" Tait sighed, feeling that the siren had already sung Forbes'
wits away. "Well, maybe, in the moonlight. But she'll soon freeze. Now,
if she had been born poor--"
"But, Senator, the rich can't all be bad," Forbes complained.
"The rich are no worse than anybody else as a class," said Tait. "My
father and mother were rich, and they were as good and sweet and simple
as any poor people that ever lived. They were like Romeo and Juliet. The
Montagues and Capulets were both rich. But if young Mr. Montague had
been poor we might have had a different story. Or, if you had only gone
into finance."
"It's too late for me to dream of money. I'm a soldier."
"And it's too late for you to dream of Persis Cabot, not merely because
she's wealthy. One class is as good as another; it's the set that
counts. And she gallops with the rich runaways. Their life is one long
stampede. There are rich women who toil like slaves for the poor, who
lead lives of earnestness and purity, who respond to every appeal, and
make organized charity possible. But there are others, rich and poor,
that never think of anybody but themselves, never have real pity except
for themselves, never toil or fret except for their own amusement. And
those people gravitate together into colonies and cliques. Don't run
with that pack, Harvey."
He was not the first man of eld that had warned youth against beauty.
Nor was he the last that shall fail to be heeded. He tried another tack.
"I understand that Willie Enslee expects to marry her."
"She doesn't expect to marry him."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, I have my reasons for believing that she doesn't love him."
"Nobody ever accused her of that, but--well, does she think what Mrs.
Neff thinks--that you have money?"
Forbes did not answer except with a blush. The Senator spared him any
pressure on that point. He said, simply:
"Enslee has a lot of money--more than her father has. In fact, her
father is in a very bad plight."
"How do you know?"
"I am about six bank directors, Harvey, and a few other things. Her
father is about to be forced into involuntary bankruptcy; her father's
pet railroad may go into receiver's hands to-day or to-morrow."
"Poor Persis!" Forbes groaned. "Poor Persis!"
There was such anguish in his tone that the Senator gripped his arm hard
and murmured:
"Do you care so much for her?"
Forbes stopped short and stared into the old man's eyes. "A man like me
loves once, and loves hard. If I lost her, my life wouldn't be worth the
snap of my finger." And he added in a raucous voice, "Or the click of a
trigger."
The Senator leaned heavily on him and closed his eyes in a wince of
pain. He had heard his own dead son speak just that way.
When he opened his eyes he saw that Forbes was smiling glowingly.
"Look at her, Senator! She's so beautiful! I can't let Enslee have her!
Look at him! He's as afraid of his horse as his horse is ashamed of him.
What's he up to now? Rein him in, you fool! He'd drive a hobbyhorse into
hysterics. And now he's sent Persis' horse in the air! What's the matter
with him? Why doesn't he--"
But the fault was not Enslee's, nor was he so bad a rider as an expert
like Forbes might think. As the event proved, even Persis could not
control her mount in the face of what was happening unseen by Forbes. A
chauffeur, relying on the fact that he was on the exit road, was driving
a big red six at high speed along the curves. He had not seen Enslee and
Persis till he was almost into them. He swung aside so sharply that he
almost capsized, and ran into something sharp enough to rip open a shoe.
This was just one too many automobiles for the horses Persis and Enslee
rode. They had been curbed and scolded and kept in hand all morning; but
to have a dragon leap at them from the cedar-trees was too much. They
went frantic, dancing erect, and threshing the air with their fore
hoofs. And then the tire exploded like a cannon, and they went mad. They
feared nothing but what was behind them; nothing could hurt them but
their terror.
They crashed through cedars and rhododendrons, and plunged across the
lawn to the clear space of the golf-links. Forbes saw the demon look in
the white eyes of Persis' horse. He had seen mustangs in that humor
shake off their tormentors and tear them wolfishly with their fangs.
"He's got the bit in his teeth!" he groaned. "He'll kill her! My God,
he'll kill her! She can't hold him! I've got to get him somehow."
He had a fierce impulse to meet the horse, leap at him, catch him by the
bridle and the nose and smother him to a standstill. But Tait had seen
a policeman killed trying to stop a horse so, and he flung his arms
about Forbes.