Lonesome Town
Page 5
CHAPTER IV--DOUBLE FOCUS
A man of action does not loiter all evening returning his own howdy-dooto himself--not in his first evening outfit. At Forty-second Street Papecast a last look at the sign in which he felt by now devout belief,doubtless one of the most costly and colorful ever flaunted before NewYork. Certainly it was self-advertisement raised to the _N_th power andworthy any one's consideration. Yet the obligation to escort his newsuit somewhere was on him.
Where? To one of the cinematograph houses inviting from every compasspoint? Unthinkable. To the dance hall up the street, decorated inartificial cherry blossoms, where partners to suit the individual tastemight be rented by the hour? Not in these clothes of class. To one ofthe "girl" shows? He had seen sufficient of them to realize moreinterest in sisters in the prevailing demi-habille of the street. Tosome romantic play? The heroes of such, sure to be admirable in looksand conduct, always got him in a discouraged state of mind abouthimself.
In his quandary Pape had approached a dignified, sizable building ofyellow brick and now stopped before a plain-framed poster which namedthe pile as the Metropolitan Opera House, within which Geraldine Farrarwas singing _Zaza_ that night--that moment probably. Grand opera! He wasimpressed by the conviction that he and his new suit had been ledblindly by Fate, who never before in his experience had shown morehorse, or common, sense.
He made for the box office. The hour was late, or so he was informed bythe man at the window. The curtains had been drawn aside many minutesbefore; were about to close again. The fashionable subscribers wereseated. Wasn't he able to see that even the S. R. O. sign was upoutside?
Standing room was not what Pape wanted--not with those patent pincers onhis feet. Matter of fact, he wouldn't have considered a stand-up view ofanything. Before paying for the best orchestra seat they had--didn'tmatter about the price--he'd like to know who was Zaza, just as folksoutside were asking what was Why-Not.
The look of the man at the window accused him of being mildly insane."_Zaza's Zaza_" he observed, as he turned to his accounts.
"Naturally," Pape replied. "But why not's not always why. What I want toask you is----"
"Leslie Carter play of same name set to music--not jazz--by Frenchcomposer. House is packed to the roof to-night, as I've been trying totell you from the start."
Before Pape could offer other insistence he felt himself displacedbefore the window by a personage disguised in ornate livery.
"Mrs. Blackstone can't attend. Sudden death," said the personage. "She'dbe obliged if you could sell these tickets and credit her account."
"It is not Mrs. Blackstone herself who died?" was the official's coldquery.
"Indeed, no. She knows it's late, sir, but she'd be obliged if you----"
"I'll oblige her if the money changer won't," Pape interrupted. "I'lltake a ticket."
The autocrat of the box office, however, shook his head. "Mrs. B's boxis grand tier. Can't be split. Six chairs."
From what so far had seemed a mere human huddle within one of theentrance doors, an eager figure hurried, just behind an eager voice.
"We are five person. How much dollar for five seats of thees box?"
At the little, oldish foreigner in large, newish ready-mades, Fate'sunhandyman looked; then on past the emotionful face to followingemotionful faces. The human huddle had disintegrated from a mass ofdespair into animated units which now moved toward the box office astoward a magnet. Sounds of as many magpies filled the dignifiedsilence--two French women and three men venting recitatives of hope thatyet they might hear the Leoncavallo masterpiece. But them, too, theticket man discouraged, doubtless the more emphatically because of theirattire, which was poor, if proud.
"Too much for your party, I'm sure. One-hundred-fifty."
"But not for _my_ party," Pape interposed. "I'll take the whole halfdozen."
The sole so-far thing to impress the assistant treasurer was the rollfrom which the emergency cash customer began to strip off bank notes.The recitative of hope soughed into a chorus of disappointment as themoneyed young man clutched his half dozen tickets and started for theinner door. Scarcely could he restrain himself from out-loud laughter ashe halted and turned to command:
"Get a hurry on, party! At one-and-fifty there'd ought to be better_parlez vous_ places inside."
Perhaps his inclusive gesture was more comprehensive to them than hiswords; at any rate, his grin was eloquent.
To his sublet box by way of the grand staircase Peter Stanbury Pape,grand opera patron, strode at the usher's heels; into it, himselfushered his agitated, magpie covey of true music-lovers. Well to oneside he slumped into the chair assigned to him by common consent andfound an inconspicuous rest for the more tortured of his feet.
Leaning forward, he undertook to get his bearings; concentrated on thedim and distant stage set, where a lady chiefly dressed in an anklet andfeathered hat--presumedly Zaza of the title role from the way she wasconducting herself--seemed to be under great stress of emotion set tosong. Before he could focus his glasses--one of the pairs for all handsround which he had been persuaded to rent at the foot of thestair-case--the orchestra took control and the red velvet curtains cametogether between the intimate affairs of the great French actress andthose of the many--of the great American audience.
After curtain calls had been duly accorded and recognized and there nolonger existed any reason for the half-light cloak of a doubtfulsong-story, the vast auditorium was set ablaze. And with theillumination uprose a buzz of sound like nothing that Pape ever hadheard--more like the swarming of all the bees in Montana within an acreof area than anything he could imagine.
Full attention he gave to the _entre-acte_ of this, his first adventurein Orphean halls. Regretting the trusty binoculars idling on his hotelbureau, he screwed into focus the rented glasses; swept the wavinghead-tops of the orchestra field below; lifted to the horse-shoe of thesubscribers and then to the grand tier boxes with their content of womenwhom he assumed to be of society, amazingly made up, daringly gowned,lavishly bedecked with jewels, ostrich feathers and aigrettes. Asprinkling of men, black-togged on the order of himself, made them themore wondrous dazzling. A moving, background pageant of visitors paidthem court.
After a polite, if rather futile, attempt to mix his English, as spokenfor utility in Montana, with the highly punctuated, mostly superfluousFrench of his overly grateful "party," Pape left them to their owndevices. These seemed largely to take the form of dislocating theirnecks in an effort to recognize possible acquaintances in the sea offaces which the gallery was spilling down from the roof. Remembering hisadvice to Polkadot over the value of concentration on the near-by, hecentered his attention upon those labeled in his mind as the"hundred-and-fifty simoleon" class. His thoughts moved along brisklywith his inspection.
Women, women, women. Who would have imagined in that he-man life he hadlived on ranches West that the fair were so large a complement ofhumanity or that so many of them indeed were fair? Had he lost or gainedby not realizing their importance? Suppose his ambition had been tofurbelow one such as these, could he have given himself to the lure ofmaking good on his own--faithfully have followed Fate's finger torainbow's end?
However that might be, now that he was freed from slavery to the jealousjade by the finding of that automatically refilling pot of liquid gold,might he not think of the gentler companionship which he had lacked? Thechief thing wrong with to-night, for instance, was the selection bychance of the women in his box. They did not speak his language--nevercould. Had there been a vacant chair for him to offer some self-selectedlady, which one from the dazzling display before him would she be?
Perhaps the most ridiculous rule of civilized society--so he mused--wasthat limiting self-selectiveness. In the acquirement of everything elsein life--stock, land, clothes, food--a person went thoroughly throughthe supply before choosing. Only in the matter of friends must he dependupon accident or the caprice of other friends. How much moresatisfactory and straightforward it
would be to search among the facesof strangers for one with personal appeal, then to go to its owner andsay: "You look like my idea of a friend. How do I look to you?"
And, if advisable in casual cases, such procedure should help especiallyin a man's search for his mate. Take himself, now, and the emptiness ofhis life. His bankers had told him he could afford whatever he wanted.Suppose he wanted a woman, what sort of woman should he want?
Beauty? Must she be beautiful? From the quickening of his pulse as hebent to peer into fair face after fair face with the added interest ofthis idea, he realized that he enjoyed and feared beauty at least asgreatly as the most of men.
Class? In a flashed thought of his mother, a Stansbury of _the_Stansburys of Virginia, he decided on that. Class she must have.
And kind she must be--tested kind to the core. Tall, healthy, strong, ofcourse. Graceful if possible. Gracious, but not too much so. Frank andat the same time reserved. Educated up to full appreciation of, but notsuperiority to himself. Half boy and at least one-and-a-half girl.
That would be plenty to start on, even for the most deliberate andcalculating of choosers, which he felt himself dispositionally as wellas financially fitted to be. From what he knew of the difficult sex inthe rough, he should need time and study to decide accurately just howreal were appearances in a finished feminine, trained from infancy, sohe had heard, to cover all inner and outer deficiencies. Plenty of timeand a steady nerve--that was all he should need to learn her nature, ashe had learned the tempers of the most refractory of horses. By the timehe was satisfied as to these mentally outlined points, others doubtlesswould have suggested themselves.
Pape was pleased with his theories, the first dressed-up ones he hadevolved on the subject. If all men would go into this vital matter ofself-selectiveness, there would be fewer prosperous lawyers, hecongratulated himself. Better have a care before marriage than a flockof them--of another sort--after. Firstly, a choice made from personalpreference, then the most direct course toward acquaintanceship, adeliberate inspection, a steady eye, a cool nerve----
Suddenly Pape stiffened, body and mind. His gaze fixed on a face withina box on his own level, some ten or so away, just where they began tocurve toward the stage. The face was young--childlike in animation andoutline. Its cheeks were oval and flushed, its lips red-limned andlaughing, its eyes a flashing black. And black was the mass of curlsthat haloed it--cut short--_bobbed_.
A brilliant enough, impish enough, barbaric enough little head it was tocatch and hold the attention of any strange young man. But that whichparticularly interested Pape was the filet that bound it--a filet ofpearls with an emerald drop.
She wasn't noticing him--she who had thought of him but once and thenonly as some new sort of anti-fat foodstuff. But another of her party,through lorgnetted opera lenses, was. Pape, focusing his rented pair forclose range, returned this other person's regard. The moment seemed longand different from other moments during which, round glass eye intoround glass eye, they two looked.
At its end Pape rose and left his hundred-and-fifty-simoleon box. Hisexit was retarded, but not once actually halted, by the conversationalovertures--somewhat less comprehensible than before--of his unknownguests. He moved as if under outside control, hypnotic, magnetic,dynamic.
True, he did have a doubtful thought or two on his progress through thefoyer. She might not get his advanced idea of to-night instantaneouslyand might be too conventional to act on it, when explained. She mightnot give him the benefit of every doubt, which he was more than ready togive her, at first glance. There might be an embarrassingmoment--particularly so for him. She might be married and taking herhusband seriously. Speaking literally, he just _might_ be thrown out.
But all such thought he counter-argued. What was the use of convictionwithout courage? Husbands were likely to be met in a one-woman world;were inconvenient, but not necessarily to be feared. And if she doubtedhim---- But she had the best eyes into which he ever had looked, withfield glasses or without. Why shouldn't she see all that he was at firstglance? As for possible embarrassment, wasn't he dressed according tochart and as good as the next man? This was, beyond doubt, his one bestopportunity for the test of his theory of self-selection. Why not seizeit?