by Owen Wister
XIV: The Replacers
She had been strange, perceptibly strange, had Eliza La Heu; that wasthe most which I could make out of it. I had angered her in some mannerwholly beyond my intention or understanding and not all at one fixedpoint in our talk; her irritation had come out and gone in again inspots all along the colloquy, and it had been a displeasure whollyapart from that indignation which had flashed up in her over the negroquestion. This, indeed, I understood well enough, and admired her for,and admired still more her gallant control of it; as for the other, Igave it up.
A sense of guilt--a very slight one, to be sure--dispersed myspeculations when I was preparing for dinner, and Aunt Carola'spostscript, open upon my writing-table, reminded me that I had neverasked Miss La Heu about the Bombos. Well, the Bombos could keep! And Idescended to dinner a little late (as too often) to feel instantly inthe air that they had been talking about me. I doubt if any companyin the world, from the Greeks down through Machiavelli to the presentmoment, has ever been of a subtlety adequate to conceal from anobservant person entering a room the fact that he has been the subjectof their conversation. This company, at any rate, did not conceal itfrom me. Not even when the upcountry bride astutely greeted me with:--
"Why, we were just speaking of you! We were lust saying it would be aperfect shame if you missed those flowers at Live Oaks." And, at this,various of the guests assured me that another storm would finish them;upon which I assured every one that to-morrow should see me embark uponthe Live Oaks excursion boat, knowing quite well in my heart that somedecidedly different question concerning me had been hastily dropped uponmy appearance at the door. It poked up its little concealed head, didthis question, when the bride said later to me, with immense archness:--
"How any gentleman can help falling just daid in love with that lovelyyoung girl at the Exchange, I don't see!"
"But I haven't helped it!" I immediately exclaimed.
"Oh!" declared the bride with unerring perception, "that just showshe hasn't been smitten at all! Well, I'd be ashamed, if I was a singlegentleman." And while I brought forth additional phrases concerning thedistracted state of my heart, she looked at me with large, limpid eyes."Anybody could tell you're not afraid of a rival," was her resultingcomment; upon which several of the et ceteras laughed more than seemedto me appropriate.
I left them all free again to say what they pleased; for John Mayrantcalled for me to go upon our walk while we were still seated at table,and at table they remained after I had excused myself.
The bruise over John's left eye was fading out, but traces of hisspiritual battle were deepening. During the visit which he had paid(under compulsion, I am sure) to Juno at our boarding-house in companywith Miss Josephine St. Michael, his recent financial triumph at thebedside had filled his face with diabolic elation as he confronted hisvictim's enraged but checkmated aunt; when to the thinly veiled venomof her inquiry as to a bridegroom's health he had retorted with venom asthinly veiled that he was feeling better that night than for many weeks,he had looked better, too; the ladies had exclaimed after his departurewhat a handsome young man he was, and Juno had remarked how ferventlyshe trusted that marriage might cure him of his deplorable tendencies.But to-day his vitality had sagged off beneath the weight of hispreoccupation: it looked to me as if, by a day or two more, the boy'sface might be grown haggard.
Whether by intention, or, as is more likely, by the perfectly naturaland spontaneous working of his nature, he speedily made it plain tome that our relation, our acquaintance, had progressed to a stage morefriendly and confidential. He did not reveal this by imparting anyconfidence to me; far from it; it was his silence that indicatedthe ease he had come to feel in my company. Upon our last memorableinterview he had embarked at once upon a hasty yet evidentlypredetermined course of talk, because he feared that I might touch uponsubjects which he wished excluded from all discussion between us; to-dayhe embarked upon nothing, made no conventional effort of any sort, butwalked beside me, content with my mere society; if it should happen thateither of us found a thought worth expressing aloud, good! and if thisshould not happen, why, good also! And so we walked mutely and agreeablytogether for a long while. The thought which was growing clear in mymind, and which was decidedly worthy of expression, was also unluckilyone which his new reliance upon my discretion completely forbade myuttering in even the most shadowy manner; but it was a conviction whichMiss Josephine St. Michael should have been quick to force upon him forhis good. Quite apart from selfish reasons, he had no right to marry agirl whom he had ceased to care for. The code which held a "gentleman"to his plighted troth in such a case did more injury to the "lady" thanany "jilting" could possibly do. Never until now had I thought thisout so lucidly, and I was determined that time and my own tact shouldassuredly help me find a way to say it to him, if he continued in hispresent course.
"Daddy Ben says you can't be a real Northerner."
This was his first observation, and I think that we must have walked amile before he made it.
"Because I pounded a negro? Of course, he retains your Southernante-bellum mythical notion of Northerners--all of us willing to havethem marry our sisters. Well, there's a lady at our boarding-house whosays you are a real gambler."
The impish look came curling round his lips, but for a moment only, andit was gone.
"That shook Daddy Ben up a good deal."
"Having his grandson do it, do you mean?"
"Oh, he's used to his grandson! Grandsons in that race might just aswell be dogs for all they know or care about their progenitors. YetDaddy Ben spent his savings on educating Charles Cotesworth and twomore--but not one of them will give the old man a house to-day. If everI have a home--" John stopped himself, and our silence was no longereasy; our unspoken thoughts looked out of our eyes so that they couldnot meet. Yet no one, unless directly invited by him, had the right tosay to hint what I was thinking, except some near relative. Therefore,to relieve this silence which had ceased to be agreeable, I talkedabout Daddy Ben and his grandsons, and negro voting, and the huge lie of"equality" which our lips vociferate and our lives daily disprove. Thistook us comfortably away from weddings and cakes into the subjectof lynching, my violent condemnation of which surprised him; for ourdiscussion had led us over a wide field, and one fertile in well-knowndisputes of the evergreen sort, conducted by the North mostly with moretheory than experience, and by the South mostly with more heat thanlight; whereas, between John and me, I may say that our amiabilitywas surpassed only by our intelligence! Each allowed for the other'sstandpoint, and both met in many views: he would have voted againstthe last national Democratic ticket but for the Republican upholdingof negro equality, while I assured him that such stupid and criminalupholding was on the wane. He informed me that he did not believe thepure blooded African would ever be capable of taking the intellectualside of the white man's civilization, and I informed him that we mustpatiently face this probability, and teach the African whatever he couldprofitably learn and no more; and each of us agreed with the other. Ithink that we were at one, save for the fact that I was, after all, aNortherner--and that is a blemish which nobody in Kings Port can quiteget over. John, therefore, was unprepared for my wholesale denunciationof lynching.
"With your clear view of the negro," he explained.
"My dear man, it's my clear view of the white! It's the white, theAmerican citizen, the 'hope of humanity,' as he enjoys being called,who, after our English-speaking race has abolished public executions,degenerates back to the Stone Age. It's upon him that lynching works thetrue injury."
"They're nothing but animals," he muttered.
"Would you treat an animal in that way?" I inquired.
He persisted. "You'd do it yourself if you had to suffer from them."
"Very probably. Is that an answer? What I'd never do would be to make ashow, an entertainment, a circus, out of it, run excursion trains to seeit--come, should you like your sister to buy tickets for a lynching?"
This
brought him up rather short. "I should never take part myself," hepresently stated, "unless it were immediate personal vengeance."
"Few brothers or husbands would blame you," I returned. "It would behard to wait for the law. But let no community which treats it as apublic spectacle presume to call itself civilized."
He gave a perplexed smile, shaking his head over it. "Sometimes I thinkcivilization costs--"
"Civilization costs all you've got!" I cried.
"More than I've got!" he declared. "I'm mortal tired of civilization."
"Ah, yes! What male creature is not? And neither of us will live quitelong enough to see the smash-up of our own."
"Aren't you sometimes inconsistent?" he inquired, laughing.
"I hope so," I returned. "Consistency is a form of death. The dead arethe only perfectly consistent people."
"And sometimes you sound like a Socialist," he pursued, still laughing.
"Never!" I shouted. "Don't class me with those untrained puppies ofthought. And you'll generally observe," I added, "that the more noblya Socialist vaporizes about the rights of humanity, the more wives andchildren he has abandoned penniless along the trail of his life."
He was livelier than ever at this. "What date have you fixed for thesmash-up of our present civilization?"
"Why fix dates? Is it not diversion enough to watch, and step handsomelythrough one's own part, with always a good sleeve to laugh in?"
Pensiveness returned upon him. "I shall be able to step through my ownpart, I think." He paused, and I was wondering secretly, "Does thatinclude the wedding?" when he continued: "What's there to laugh at?"
"Why, our imperishable selves! For instance: we swear by universalsuffrage. Well, sows' ears are an invaluable thing in their place,on the head of the animal; but send them to make your laws, and whathappens? Bribery, naturally. The silk purse buys the sow's ear. We swearby Christianity, but dishonesty is our present religion. That littlephrase 'In God We Trust' is about as true as the silver dollar it'sstamped on--worth some thirty-nine cents. We get awfully serious aboutwhether or no good can come of evil, when every sky-scraping thiefof finance is helping hospitals with one hand while the other's in mypocket; and good and evil attend each other, lead to each other, aresuch Siamese twins that if separated they would both die. We makephrases about peace, pity, and brotherhood, while every nation standsprepared for shipwreck and for the sinking plank to which two areclinging and the stronger pushes the weaker into the flood and thusfloats safe. Why, the old apple of wisdom, which Adam and Eve swallowedand thus lost their innocence, was a gentle nursery drug comparedwith the new apple of competition, which, as soon as chewed, instantlytransforms the heart into a second brain. But why worry, when nothing isfinal? Haven't you and I, for instance, lamented the present rottennessof smart society? Why, when kings by the name of George sat on thethrone of England, society was just as drunken, just as dissolute! Thena decent queen came, and society behaved itself; and now, here we comeround again to the Georges, only with the name changed! There's nothingfinal. So, when things are as you don't like them, remember that andbear them; and when they're as you do like them, remember it and makethe most of them--and keep a good sleeve handy!"
"Have you got any creed at all?" he demanded.
"Certainly; but I don't live up to it."
"That's not expected. May I ask what it is?"
"It's in Latin."
"Well, I can probably bear it. Aunt Eliza had a classical tutor for me."
I always relish a chance to recite my favorite poet, and I beganaccordingly:--
"Laetus in praesens animus quod ultra est Oderit curare et--"
"I know that one!" he exclaimed, interrupting me. "The tutor made meput it into English verse. I had the severest sort of a time. I ran awayfrom it twice to a deer-hunt." And he, in his turn, recited:--
"Who hails each present hour with zest Hates fretting what may be the rest, Makes bitter sweet with lazy jest; Naught is in every portion blest."
I complimented him, in spite of my slight annoyance at being deprived byhim of the chance to declaim Latin poetry, which is an exercise thatI approve and enjoy; but of course, to go on with it, after he hadintervened with his translation, would have been flat.
"You have written good English, and very close to the Latin, too," Itold him, "particularly in the last line." And I picked up from thebridge which we were crossing, an oyster-shell, and sent it skimmingover the smooth water that stretched between the low shores, wide, blue,and vacant.
"I suppose you wonder why we call this the 'New Bridge,'" he remarked.
"I did wonder when I first came," I replied.
He smiled. "You're getting used to us!"
This long structure wore, in truth, no appearance of yesterday. It wasnewer than the "New Bridge" which it had replaced some fifteen yearsago, and which for forty years had borne the same title. Spanningthe broad river upon a legion of piles, this wooden causeway lieslow against the face of the water, joining the town with a serene andpensive country of pines and live oaks and level opens, where glimpsesof cabin and plantation serve to increase the silence and the soft,mysterious loneliness. Into this the road from the bridge goes straightand among the purple vagueness gently dissolves away.
We watched a slow, deep-laden boat sliding down toward the draw, acrosswhich we made our way, and drew near the further end of the bridge. Thestraight avenue of the road in front of us took my eyes down its quietvista, until they were fixed suddenly by an alien object, a growingdot, accompanied by dust, whence came the small, distorted honks ofan automobile. These fat, importunate sounds redoubled as the machinerushed toward the bridge, growing up to its full staring, brazendimensions. Six or seven figures sat in it, all of the same dusty,shrouded likeness, their big glass eyes and their masked mouthssuggesting some fabled, unearthly race, a family of replete and biliousogres; so that as they flew honking by us I called out to John:--
"Behold the yellow rich!" and then remembered that his Hortense probablysat among them.
The honks redoubled, and we turned to see that the drawbridge had nothought of waiting for them. We also saw a bewildered curly white dogand a young girl, who called despairingly to him as he disappearedbeneath the automobile. The engine of murder could not, as is usual,proceed upon its way, honking, for the drawbridge was visibly swingingopen to admit the passage of the boat. When John and I had run back nearenough to become ourselves a part of the incident, the white dog laystill behind the stationary automobile, whose passengers were craningtheir muffled necks and glass eyes to see what they had done, while oneof their number had got out, and was stooping to examine if the machinehad sustained any injuries. The young girl, with a face of anguish, wascalling the dog's name as she hastened toward him, and her voice arousedhim: he lifted his head, got on his legs, and walked over to her, whichaction on his part brought from the automobile a penetrating femalevoice:--
"Well, he's in better luck than that Savannah dog!"
But General was not in luck. He lay quietly down at the feet of hismistress and we soon knew that life had passed from his faithful body.The first stroke of grief, dealt her in such cruel and sudden form,overbore the poor girl's pride and reserve; she made no attempt toremember or heed surroundings, but kneeling and placing her arms aboutthe neck of her dead servant, she spoke piteously aloud:--
"And I raised him, I raised him from a puppy!"
The female voice, at this, addressed the traveller who was examining theautomobile: "Charley, a five or a ten spot is what her feelings need."
The obedient and munificent Charley straightened up from his stoopingamong the mechanical entrails, dexterously produced money, and advancedwith the selected bill held out politely in his hand, while the glasseyes and the masks peered down at the performance. Eliza La Heu hadperceived none of this, for she was intent upon General; nor had JohnMayrant, who had approached her with the purpose of coming to heraid. But when C
harley, quite at hand, began to speak words which wereinstantly obliterated from my memory by what happened, the young girlrealized his intention and straightened stiffly, while John, with therapidity of light, snatched the extended bill from Charley's hand, andtearing it in four pieces, threw it in his face.
A foreign voice cackled from the automobile: "Oh la la! il a dupanache!"
But Charley now disclosed himself to be a true man of the world--thefinancial world--by picking the pieces out of the mud; and, whilehe wiped them and enclosed them in his handkerchief and with perfectdignity returned them to his pocket, he remarked simply, with a shrug:"As you please." His accent also was ever so little foreign--that NewYork downtown foreign, of the second generation, which stamps so, manyof our bankers.
The female now leaned from her seat, and with the tone of setting thewhole thing right, explained: "We had no idea it was a lady."
"Doubtless you're not accustomed to their appearance," said John toCharley.
I don't know what Charley would have done about this; for while thecompletely foreign voice was delightedly whispering, "Toujoursle panache!" a new, deep, and altogether different female voiceexclaimed:--
"Why, John, it's you!"
So that was Hortense, then! That rich and quiet utterance was hers, aschooled and studied management of speech. I found myself surprised,and I knew directly why; that word of one of the old ladles, "I considerthat she looks like a steel wasp," had implanted in me some definiteanticipations to which the voice certainly did not correspond. Howfervently I desired that she would lift her thick veil, while John, withhat in hand, was greeting her, and being presented to her companions!Why she had not spoken to John sooner was of course a reconditequestion, and beyond my power to determine with merely the givensituation to guide me. Hadn't she recognized him before? Had herthick veil, and his position, and the general slight flurry of themisadventure, intercepted recognition until she heard his voice whenhe addressed Charley. Or had she known her lover at once, and rapidlydecided that the moment was an unpropitious one for a first meetingafter absence, and that she would pass on to Kings Port unrevealed, butthen had found this plan become impossible through the collisionbetween Charley and John? It was not until certain incidents of the daysfollowing brought Miss Rieppe's nature a good deal further home to me,that a third interpretation of her delay in speaking to John dawned uponmy mind; that I was also made aware how a woman's understanding ofthe words "Steel wasp," when applied by her to one of her own sex, maydiffer widely from a man's understanding of them; and that Miss Rieppe,through her thick veil, saw from her seat in the automobile somethingwhich my own unencumbered vision had by no means detected.
But now, here on the bridge, even her outward appearance was as shroudedas her inward qualities--save such as might be audible in that voice,as her skilful, well-placed speeches to one and the other of the companytided over and carried off into ease this uneasy moment. All men, atsuch a voice, have pricked up their ears since the beginning; there wasmuch woman in it; each slow, schooled syllable called its challenge toquesting man. But I got no chance to look in the eye that went with thatvoice; she took all the advantages which her veil gave her; and how wellshe used them I was to learn later.
In the general smoothing-out process which she was so capably effecting,her attention was about to reach me, when my name was suddenly calledout from behind her. It was Beverly Rodgers, that accomplished andinveterate bachelor of fashion. Ten years before, when I had seen muchof him, he had been more particular in his company, frequently declaringin his genial, irresponsible way that New York society was going to thedevil. But many tempting dances on the land, and cruises on the water,had taken him deep among our lower classes that have boiled up fromthe bottom with their millions--and besides, there would be nothingto marvel at in Beverly's presence in any company that should includeHortense Rieppe, if she carried out the promise of her voice.
Beverly was his customary, charming, effusive self, coming out ofthe automobile to me with his "By Jove, old man," and his "Who'd havethought it, old fellow?" and sprinkling urbane little drops of jocosityover us collectively, as the garden water-turning apparatus sprinklesa lawn. His knowing me, and the way he brought it out, and even thetumbling into the road of a few wraps and chattels of travel as hedescended from the automobile, and the necessity of picking these up andhanding them back with delightful little jocular apologies, such as, "ByJove, what a lout I am," all this helped the meeting on prodigiously,and got us gratefully away from the disconcerting incident of the tornmoney. Charley was helpful, too; you would never have supposed from thepolite small-talk which he was now offering to John Mayrant that he hadwithin some three minutes received the equivalent of a slap across theeyes from that youth, and carried the soiled consequences in his pocket.And such a thing is it to be a true man of the world of finance, thatupon the arrival now of a second automobile, also his property, andcontaining a set of maids and valets, and also some live dogs sittingup, covered with glass eyes and wrappings like their owners, munificentCharley at once offered the dead dog and his mistress a place in it, andbegged she would let it take her wherever she wished to go. Everybodyexclaimed copiously and condolingly over the unfortunate occurrence.What a fine animal he was, to be sure! What breed was he? Of course, hewasn't used to automobiles! Was it quite certain that he was dead? Queldommage! And Charley would be so happy to replace him.
And how was Eliza La Heu bearing herself amid these murmurouslychattered infelicities? She was listening with composure to the murmursof Hortense Rieppe, more felicitous, no doubt. Miss Rieppe, through herveil, was particularly devoting herself to Miss La Lieu. I could nothear what she said; the little chorus of condolence and suggestionintercepted all save her tone, and that, indeed, coherently sustainedits measured cadence through the texture of fragments uttered by Charleyand the others. Eliza La Heu had now got herself altogether in hand,and, saving her pale cheeks, no sign betrayed that the young girl'sfeelings had been so recently too strong for her. To these strangers,ignorant of her usual manner, her present strange quietness may verywell have been accepted as her habit.
"Thank you," she replied to munificent Charley's offer that she woulduse his second automobile. She managed to make her polite words cut likea scythe. "I should crowd it."
"But they shall get out and walk; it will be good for them," saidCharley, indicating the valets and maids, and possibly the dogs, too.
Beverly Rodgers did much better than Charley. With a charming gestureand bow, he offered his own seat in the first automobile. "I am going towalk in any case," he assured her.
"One gentleman among them," I heard John Mayrant mutter behind me.
Miss La Heu declined, the chorus urged, but Beverly (who was indeed agentleman, every inch of him) shook his head imperceptibly at Charley;and while the little exclamations--"Do come! So much more comfortable!So nice to see more of you!"--dropped away, Miss La Heu had settledher problem quite simply for herself. A little procession of vehicles,townward bound, had gathered on the bridge, waiting until the closing ofthe draw should allow them to continue upon their way. From these mostof the occupants had descended, and were staring with avidity at us all;the great glass eyes and the great refulgent cars held them in timidityand fascination, and the poor lifeless white body of General, stretchedbeside the way, heightened the hypnotic mystery; one or two of theboldest had touched him, and found no outward injury upon him; and thishad sent their eyes back to the automobile with increased awe. Eliza LaHeu summoned one of the onlookers, an old negro; at some word she saidto him he hurried back and returned, leading his horse and empty cart,and General was lifted into this. The girl took her seat beside the olddriver.
"No," she said to John Mayrant, "certainly not."
I wondered at the needless severity with which she declined his offer toaccompany her and help her.
He stood by the wheel of the cart, looking up at her and protesting, andI joined him.
"Thank you," she returned, "I
need no one. You will both oblige me bysaying no more about it."
"John!" It was the slow, well-calculated utterance of Hortense Rieppe.Did I hear in it the caressing note of love?
John turned.
The draw had swung to, the mast and sail of the vessel were separatingaway from the bridge with a stealthy motion, men with iron bars were atwork fastening the draw secure, and horses' hoofs knocked nervously uponthe wooden flooring as the internal churning of the automobiles burstupon their innocent ears.
"John, if Mr. Rodgers is really not going with us--"
Thus Hortense; and at that Miss La Heu:--
"Why do you keep them waiting?" There was no caress in that note! It waspolished granite.
He looked up at her on her high seat by the extremely dilapidated negro,and then he walked forward and took his place beside his veiledfiancee, among the glass eyes. A hiss of sharp noise spurted from theautomobiles, horses danced, and then, smoothly, the two huge engineswere gone with their cargo of large, distorted shapes, leaving behindthem--quite as our present epoch will leave behind it--a trail of power,of ingenuity, of ruthlessness, and a bad smell.
"Hold hard, old boy!" chuckled Beverly, to whom I communicated thissentiment. "How do you know the stink of one generation does not becomethe perfume of the next?" Beverly, when he troubled to put a thingat all (which was seldom--for he kept his quite good brains well-nighperpetually turned out to grass--or rather to grass widows) always putit well, and with a bracing vocabulary. "Hullo!" he now exclaimed, andwalked out into the middle of the roadway, where he picked up a parasol."Kitty will be in a jolly old stew. None of its expensive bones brokenhowever." And then he hailed me by a name of our youth. "What are youdoing down here, you old sourbelly?"
"Watching you sun yourself on the fat cushions of the yellow rich."
"Oh, shucks, old man, they're not so yellow!"
"Charley strikes me as yellower than his own gold."
"Charley's not a bad little sort. Of course, he needs coaching a bithere and there--just now, for instance, when he didn't see that thatgirl wouldn't think of riding in the machine that had just killed herdog. By Jove, give that girl a year in civilization and she'd do! Whowas the young fire-eater?"
"Fire-eater! He's a lot more decent than you or I."
"But that's saying so little, dear boy!"
"Seriously, Beverly."
"Oh, hang it with your 'seriously'! Well, then, seriously, melodramawas the correct ticket and all that in 1840, but we've outgrown it; it'sdevilish demode to chuck things in people's faces.
"I'm not sorry John Mayrant did it!" I brought out his name with dueemphasis.
"All the same," Beverly was beginning, when the automobile returnedrapidly upon us, and, guessing the cause of this, he waved the parasol.Charley descended to get it--an unnecessary act, prompted, I suppose, bythe sudden relief of finding that it was not lost.
He made his thanks marked. "It is my sister's," he concluded, to me, byway of explanation, in his slightly foreign accent. "It is not much, butit has got some stones and things in the handle."
We were favored with a bow from the veiled Hortense, shrill thanks fromKitty, and the car, turning, again left us in a moment.
"You've got a Frenchman along," I said.
"Little Gazza," Beverly returned. "Italian; though from his morals you'dnever guess he wasn't Parisian. Great people in Rome. Hereditary rightto do something in the presence of the Pope--or not to do it, I forgetwhich. Not a bit of a bad little sort, Gazza. He has just sold a lot ofold furniture--Renaissance--Lorenzo du Borgia--that sort of jolly oldtruck--to Bohm, you know."
I didn't know.
"Oh, yes, you do, old boy. Harry Bohm, of Bohm & Cohn. Everybody knowsBohm, and we'll all be knowing Cohn by next year. Gazza has sold hima lot of furniture, too. Bohm's from Pittsfield, or South Lee, or EastCanaan, or West Stockbridge, or some of those other back-country ciderpresses that squirt some of the hardest propositions into Wall Street.He's just back from buying a railroad, and four or five mines in Mexico.Bohm represents Christianity in the firm. At Newport they call him themilitary attache to Jerusalem. He's the big chap that sat behind me inthe car. He'll marry Kitty as soon as she can get her divorce. Bohm's ajolly old sort--and I tell you, you old sourbelly, you're letting thisSouthern moss grow over you a bit. Hey? What? Yellow rich isn't halfbad, and I'll say it myself, and pretend it's mine; but hang it,old man, their children won't be worse than lemon-colored, and thegrandchildren will be white!"
"Just in time," I exclaimed, "to take a back seat with their evaporatedfortunes!"
Beverly chuckled. "Well, if they do evaporate, there will be new ones.Now don't walk along making Mayflower eyes at me. I'm no Puritan, and mypeople have had a front seat since pretty early in the game, which I'mholding on to, you know. And by Jove, old man, I tell you, if you wishto hold on nowadays, you can't be drawing lines! If you don't want tosee yourself jolly well replaced, you must fall in with the replacers.Our blooming old republic is merely the quickest process of endlessreplacing yet discovered, and you take my tip, and back the replacers!That's where Miss Rieppe, for all her Kings Port traditions, showssense."
I turned square on him. "Then she has broken it?"
"Broken what?"
"Her engagement to John Mayrant. You mean to say that you didn't--?"
"See here, old man. Seriously. The fire-eater?"
I was so very much bewildered that I merely stared at Beverly Rodgers.Of course, I might have known that Miss Rieppe would not feel the needof announcing to her rich Northern friends an engagement which she hadfallen into the habit of postponing.
But Beverly had a better right to be taken aback. "I suppose you musthave some reason for your remark," he said.
"You don't mean that you're engaged to her?" I shot out.
"Me? With my poor little fifteen thousand a year? Consider, dear boy!Oh, no, we're merely playing at it, she and I. She's a good player. ButCharley--"
"He is?" I shouted.
"I don't know, old man, and I don't think he knows--yet."
"Beverly," said I, "let me tell you." And I told him.
After he had got himself adjusted to the novelty of it he began to takeit with a series of thoughtful chuckles.
Into these I dropped with: "Where's her father, anyhow?" I began tofeel, fantastically, that she mightn't have a father.
"He stopped in Savannah," Beverly answered. "He's coming over by thetrain. Kitty--Charley's sister, Mrs. Bleecker--did the chaperoning forus.
"Very expertly, I should guess," I said.
"Perfectly; invisibly," said Beverly. And he returned to his thoughtsand his chuckles.
"After all, it's simple," he presently remarked.
"Doesn't that depend on what she's here for?"
"Oh, to break it."
"Why come for that?"
He took another turn among his cogitations. I took a number of turnsamong my own, but it was merely walking round and round in a circle.
"When will she announce it, then?" he demanded.
"Ah!" I murmured. "You said she was a good player."
"But a fire-eater!" he resumed. "For her. Oh, hang it! She'll let himgo!"
"Then why hasn't she?"
He hesitated. "Well, of course her game could be spoiled by--"
His speech died away into more cogitation, and I had to ask him what hemeant.
"By love getting into it somewhere."
We walked on through Worship Street, which we had reached some whilesince, and the chief features of which I mechanically pointed out tohim.
"Jolly old church, that," said Beverly, as we reached my favorite cornerand brick wall. "Well, I'll not announce it!" he murmured gallantly.
"My dear man," I said, "Kings Port will do all the announcing for youto-morrow."
