What Will People Say? A Novel
read, to write; but "Persis! Persis! Persis!" ran among his thoughts
like a tune that can neither be seized nor forgotten. He put out the
light, flung up the curtain and the window, and a soft breeze moving
from the ocean up the bay seemed to pause like a serenader and croon her
name. The torch of the Statue of Liberty glowed like a chained star, and
it seemed to be that planet which was Persis and which he could not
reach.
Only last night she was in his arms, in his power, and so afraid of him
that she cried to him for help from her love; and he had given her
up--given her back to herself!
He had kept her pure that Enslee might take her intact! His nobility
seemed very cheap to him now. He repented his virtue. If he had taken
her then he could have kept her for his own. Now that she had escaped
she would never risk the danger again. She had told him so. And she
could be very wise, very cold, very resolute.
That night was a condensed eternity. The next morning's duties were
performed in a kind of somnambulism.
The second day brought his commission as captain. He glanced over it
listlessly and tossed it aside.
For years he had fretted for this document, focused his ambitions on it,
upbraided a tardy government for withholding it so long. And now that it
was here he sneered at the accolade of it. The increase of pay was a
mere sarcasm; it brought him no nearer his planet than going to the roof
and standing on tiptoe would have done. The commandant congratulated
him. His fellow-officers wrung his hand. He was no longer to be called
"Mr. Forbes," but "Captain Forbes." He had a title. But what was the
good of it? It did not even make him a rival of Enslee, whose only title
was "Little Willie."
Now and then the profundity of his gloom was quickened with resolutions
to seek Persis, to storm her home and carry her off. Perhaps that was
what she was waiting for. He had often read that women love to be
overmastered. Then his pride would revolt. It was not his way of
courtship.
But at least he would telephone her. Then he remembered the fruitless
effort he had made to discover her number--that mystical "private wire."
Ten Eyck would know it. He would call up Ten Eyck. With the receiver off
the hook and Central asking, "Number, please?" he grew afraid and
answered, "Never mind." He dared not invite another of Ten Eyck's
fatherly lectures.
Besides, if Persis cared enough for him to grant him an interview she
would seek it herself. But perhaps she had called up the hotel and found
him gone. Perhaps she was afraid to call up the post and have him
summoned. Women do not like to call up men's organizations; it is like
visiting them.
No! she had undoubtedly crossed him off her books, as he ought to cross
her off his. He ought to write the word "Dropped" under her name, as
under that of a soldier who was out of the service.
And so he tossed hope and despair like a mad juggler who cannot rest.
On the third day, when he came from the parade-ground, he was informed
that he had been wanted on the telephone. He was to call up such a
number. "Yes, sir, it was a lady's voice, sir."
It must be Persis. No, it might be an operator in a hotel. It might be
her maid. It might be anybody. It proved to be the telephone-girl in the
office of Senator Tait.
In a moment, by the occult influence of the telephone, the unknown woman
vanished and Senator Tait's soul was in communication with his. The
genial heart seemed to quiver in the air.
"That you, Harvey?"
"Yes. Hello, Senator."
"You sound mighty doleful, my boy. Anything the matter?"
"No, I'm all right."
"Are you sure you're not dead? You disappeared so completely I thought
you might be. You sound as if you wished you were."
"Oh no, I'm all right."
"Can't you come up to the house for dinner to-night?"
He realized that this would mean meeting Mildred--and dressing in his
evening things. He did not want to put on his evening things. They had
danced with Persis last. He did not want to meet any woman. He was in
mourning. All this flashed through his mind while he was inventing an
excuse of official duty.
"To-morrow night, then?"
"Terribly sorry. I can't get off."
"How about lunch? At the club--to-morrow."
"I'd like that."
"I have something to discuss with you."
"I'll be there! At one?"
"Fine! One o'clock. Metropolitan Club. Do you know where it is?"
"I'll find it."
"Good! Perhaps Mildred can be there."
"Fine!" His voice wavered. He was trapped. He had not guessed that the
club would have an annex. The Senator felt the constraint across the
wire. It hurt him, but he laughed.
"Cheer up! Maybe she can't come!"
"Oh, I--I hope she can. She's--I'd love to see her, I assure you."
"All right. Don't worry. Good-by."
The Senator was laughing, but there was a wounded pride in his voice.
Forbes hung up the telephone, feeling a cad and an ingrate.
CHAPTER XLV
The next forenoon, having obtained the privilege of absence, Forbes
crossed from Governor's Island to Manhattan Island, took the Subway from
South Ferry to Fifty-ninth Street, and, entering Central Park, kept
along its southernmost path till he reached the Plaza, where he paused a
moment to admire Saint-Gaudens' statue of General Sherman, a gilded
warrior on a gilded horse squired by a gilded girl--Victory or Peace or
something, he was not sure just what.
In his present humor of misogyny he wondered why it was thought to be
necessary to put a woman in everything. Of all the campaigns where she
was lacking, surely the March to the Sea was among her most conspicuous
absences. But he admired the lean warrior with the doffed hat and the
splendid stride of the big horse--a very different horse from the Park
horses he found, with their tan-clad grooms clustered at the
mounting-blocks near by.
Toward this starting-point fat women with looped-up skirts and top-hats
and little knock-kneed girls in breeches were hurrying. He smiled with
the superiority of a cavalry officer.
Among the living caricatures were a few expert riders. Suddenly Forbes'
heart shivered and raced with a feeling that a certain one of them might
be Persis. Surely there could not be another back so trim, another grip
so firm. But it was his longing that created the resemblance, for as the
horse whirled and loped away he caught sight of the woman's profile. It
was less like Persis' profile than like the horse's!
But the moment's agitation had gone like an earthquake through his
calmed soul. It shook down the towers of resolution and independence and
sickened him with the instability of his poise.
He would have turned back from his engagement, but he had not even the
strength for that much action. He crossed the Avenue to where the
Metropolitan Club stood four square in its gray and white dignity. As he
passed through the carved and colonnaded entrance-court a motor-car
deposited two women at the door of the annex.
He feared that one of them might be Mildred; but he was unnecessarily
alarmed. Mildred had pleaded official duties. She had shown the same
reluctance Forbes had revealed. Perhaps she saw through her father's
motives. But the old Senator was willing to wait. He was a born
compromiser, a genius at making fusions out of factions.
When Forbes entered the club and asked for Tait, the doorman consulted
the roster-board, and, finding a cribbage peg opposite the Senator's
name, sent a page for him. He was not far to fetch, and he was in a
humor of Falstaffian heartiness. He came upon Forbes' foggy mood like a
morning sun. He was just what Forbes needed.
He clapped his arm across Forbes' shoulder, and, as he registered him in
the guest-book, wrote the new word "Captain" large, and pointed to it;
then dragged Forbes to the cigar-case and commanded "the biggest cigar
there is, one with a solid-gold wrapper." He treated the forlorn victim
of a woman's jilt as a notable worthy of notable entertainment. It was
the lift that the prodigal son got when he slunk home and was met with a
bouquet instead of blame.
He led Forbes into the great central hall, with its white-marble cliffs
and its red-velveted double stairway mounting like a huge St. Andrew's
cross, placed him on a settle where a platoon of men might have sat
a-knee, and gave the bell a royal bang. He recommended a special
cocktail, and joined Forbes in it in joyous disobedience of his
physician's warning.
When the cocktail arrived Forbes gave him the army toast of "How!" and
Tait answered "Happy days!" On the way up to the dining-room he led
Forbes through the building, pausing before the crimson opulence of the
two reading-rooms; the lounging-room, with its windows commanding Fifth
Avenue; the card-rooms, deserted battle-fields now; the board-rooms,
where committees gathered to settle huge financial destinies, the solemn
library walled solid with books.
Forbes wondered at the almost complete absence of other people in the
club; but Tait explained that most of the members were hard-working
millionaires who lunched down-town "or took their dinner-pails with
them," some of them hardly stopping to eat a sandwich from a desk leaf.
On the top floor their luncheon awaited them at a table by the window.
As Forbes drew his napkin across his knee he gazed down at the corner of
the Park and the lake where white swans drifted like the toy sloops of
children. From this height the hills and curving walks looked miniature
as a Japanese garden.
When the clam-shells were emptied they were replaced with chicken, a
second waiter served rice, and a third curry. It was strangely
comforting to be well served with choice food in a beautiful room above
a beautiful scene. He felt that in places like this wealth justified
itself--wealth the upholsterer, the caterer, the artist, the butler.
Forbes looked down at a shuffling vagrant slouching across the Plaza. He
felt sorry for that man, and yet was glad that he was here instead of
there. He wished that he himself might belong to this delightful place
they called the "Millionaire's Club." He longed for riches, especially
as they would mean Persis. He remembered what she had said: "The rich
can get anything that the poor have, but the poor can't get what the
rich have." The rich Enslee could even get Persis.
He sat musing bitterly, forgetting that he had a host, and unaware that
the host was looking at him with sad affection, not resenting his
listlessness, but hoping to relieve it. Remembering Forbes' father, Tait
knew that he must move warily about that sensitive Forbes pride, as
swift to strike an awkward hand as a caged tiger that greets an
unwelcome caress with a wound.
Tait hesitated to open his real business. He began obliquely.
"Well, I've just fired the first gun in my war with Mrs. Neff."
"Yes?" said Forbes, drearily.
"Yes," said Tait, positively. "Just before you came young Stowe Webb was
here--nice young fellow. I sent for him, and said to him: 'Young man,
Miss Alice Neff, whom I believe you know'--he blushed like a house
afire--'tells me,' I said, 'that her mother objects to you because you
have no money.' He flashed me a look of amazement, and I said: 'If you
need money, why don't you make it?' And he said: 'How can I?' 'Why,
money is growing on bushes everywhere,' I said, 'just waiting to be
picked off; poor men are getting rich every day,' I said; and he said:
'Yes, and rich men are getting poor. My family is one of the bushes, and
we've been pretty well picked. My father left me nothing but his
blessing, and I can't pawn that,' he said. 'Still, I'm not dead yet,' he
said. 'I'll show you all some day.' And I said: 'There must be something
in any man that a good girl loves and believes in. And any girl that's