CHAPTER IX
THE FIRST WAYFARER, THE SECOND WAYFARER, AND THE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRYASCENDANT
The wide green door, set far back in a recess not unlike a kiosk, wasopened by a man-servant who might easily have been mistaken for awaiter from Delmonico's or Sherry's. He did not have the air or aplombof a butler, nor the smartness of a footman. On the contrary, he was athick-set, rather scrubby sort of person with all the symptoms of cafeservitude about him, including the never-failing doubt as tonationality. He might have been a Greek, a Pole, an Italian or a Turk.
"Say to Mrs. Collier, Nicholas, that Mr. Barnes is here for dinner,"said De Soto. "I will make the cocktails this evening."
Much to Barnes's surprise,--and disappointment,--the interior of thehouse failed to sustain the bewildering effect produced by theexterior. The entrance hall and the living-room into which he wasconducted by the two men were singularly like others that he had seen.The latter, for example, was of ordinary dimensions, furnished with athought for comfort rather than elegance or even good taste. The rugswere thick and in tone held almost exclusively to Turkish reds; thecouches and chairs were low and deep and comfortable, as if intendedfor men only, and they were covered with rich, gay materials; thehangings at the windows were of deep blue and gold; the walls anunobtrusive cream colour, almost literally thatched with etchings.
Barnes, somewhat of a connoisseur, was not slow to recognise the valueand extreme rarity of the prints. Rembrandt, Whistler, Hayden, Merryon,Cameron, Muirhead Bone and Zorn were represented by their most notablecreations; two startling subjects by Brangwyn hung alone in one cornerof the room, isolated, it would seem, out of consideration for thegleaming, jewel-like surfaces of other and smaller treasures. Therewere at least a dozen Zorns, as many Whistlers and Camerons.
O'Dowd, observing the glance of appreciation that Barnes sent about theroom, said: "All of thim are in the very rarest state. He has one ofthe finest collections in America. Ye'll want your boots cleaned andpolished, and your face needs scrubbing, if ye don't mind my sayingso," he went on, critically surveying the visitor's person. "Come up tomy room and make yourself tidy. My own man will dust you off andfurbish you up in no time at all."
They passed into another room at the left and approached a widestairway, the lower step of which was flush with the baseboard on thewall. Not so much as an inch of the stairway protruded into the room,and yet Barnes, whose artistic sense should have been offended, wascuriously pleased with the arrangement and effect. He made a mentalnote of this deliberate violation of the holy rules of construction,and decided that one day he would try it out for himself.
The room itself was obviously a continuation of the larger one beyond,a sort of annex, as it were. The same scheme in decoration andfurnishings was observed, except here the walls were adorned with smallpaintings in oil, heavily framed. Hanging in the panel at the right ofthe stairway was an exquisite little Corot, silvery and feathery evenin the dim light of early dusk. On the opposite side was a brilliantlittle Cazin.
The stairs were thickly carpeted. At the top, his guide turned to theleft and led the way down a long corridor. They passed at least fourdoors before O'Dowd stopped and threw open the fifth on that side ofthe hall. There were still two more doors beyond.
"Suggests a hotel, doesn't it?" said the Irishman, standing aside forBarnes to enter. "All of the sleeping apartments are on this floor, andthe baths, and boudoirs, and what-not. The garret is above, and that'swhere we deposit our family skeletons, intern our grievances, store ourstock of spitefulness, and hide all the little devils that must comesneaking up from the city with us whether we will or no. Nothing butgood-humour, contentment, happiness and mirth are permitted to occupythis floor and the one below. I might also add beauty, for you can'tconceive any of the others without it, me friend. God knows I couldn'tbe good-natured for a minute if I wasn't encouraged by beautyappreciative, and as for being contented, happy or mirthful,--bedad,words fail me! Dabson," he said, addressing the man who had quietlyentered the room through the door behind them, "do Mr. Barnes, will ye,and fetch me from Mr. De Soto's room when you've finished. I leave youto Dabson's tender mercies. The saints preserve us! Look at the man'sboots! Dabson, get out your brush and dauber first of all. He's beenfloundering in a bog."
The jovial Irishman retired, leaving Barnes to be "done" by the silent,swift-moving valet. Dabson was young and vigorous and exceedinglywell-trained. He made short work of "doing" the visitor; barely fifteenminutes elapsed before O'Dowd's return.
Presently they went downstairs together. Lamps had been lighted, manyof them, throughout the house. A warm, pleasing glow filled the rooms,softening,--one might even say tempering,--the insistent reds in therugs, which now seemed to reflect rather than to project their hues; afire crackled in the cavernous fireplace at the end of the living-room,and grouped about its cheerful, grateful blaze were the ladies of GreenFancy.
Barnes was aware of a quickening of his pulses as he advanced withO'Dowd. De Soto was there ahead of them, posed ungracefully in front ofthe fire, his feet widespread, his hands in his pockets. Another man,sallow-faced and tall, with a tired looking blond moustache and sleepyeyes, was managing, with amazing skill, the retention of a cigarettewhich seemed to be constantly in peril of detaching itself from hisparted though inactive lips.
SHE was there, standing slightly aloof from the others, but evidentlyamused by the tale with which De Soto was regaling them. She wassmiling; Barnes saw the sapphire lights sparkling in her eyes, andexperienced a sensation that was woefully akin to confusion.
He had the feeling that he would be absolutely speechless whenpresented to her; in the full, luminous glow of those lovely eyes hewould lose consciousness, momentarily, no doubt, but long enough togive her,--and all the rest of them,--no end of a fright.
But nothing of the kind happened. Everything went off quite naturally.He favoured Miss Cameron with an uncommonly self-possessed smile as shegave her hand to him, and she, in turn, responded with one faintlysuggestive of tolerance, although it certainly would have been recordedby a less sensitive person than Barnes as "ripping."
In reply to his perfunctory "delighted, I'm sure, etc.," she said,quite clearly: "Oh, now I remember. I was sure I had seen you before,Mr. Barnes. You are the magic gentleman who sprung like a mushroom outof the earth yesterday afternoon."
"And frightened you," he said; "whereupon you vanished like themushroom that is gobbled up by the predatory glutton."
He had thrilled at the sound of her voice. It was the low, deliberatevoice of the woman of the crossroads, and, as before, he caught thealmost imperceptible accent. The red gleam from the blazing logs fellupon her shining hair; it glistened like gold. She wore a simpleevening gown of white, softened over the shoulders and neck with a fallof rare vallenciennes lace. There was no jewelry,--not even a ring onher slender, tapering fingers. Oddly enough, now that he stood besideher, she was not so tall as he had believed her to be the day before.The crown of her silken head came but little above his shoulder. As shehad appeared to him among the trees he would have sworn that she wasbut little below his own height, which was a liberal six feet. Herecalled a flash of wonder on that occasion; she had seemed so muchtaller than the woman at the cross-roads that he was almost convincedthat she could not, after all, be the same person. Now she was back tothe height that he remembered, and he marvelled once more.
Mrs. Collier, the hostess, was an elderly, heavy-featured woman,decidedly over-dressed. Barnes knew her kind. One encounters hereverywhere: the otherwise intelligent woman who has no sense about herclothes. Mrs. Van Dyke, her daughter, was a woman of thirty, tall, darkand handsome in a bold, dashing sort of way. She too was ratherresplendent in a black jet gown, and she was liberally bestrewn withjewels. Much to Barnes's surprise, she possessed a soft, gentlespeaking-voice and a quiet, musical laugh instead of the boisteroustones and cackle that he always associated with her type. Thelackadaisical gentleman with the moustache turned out to be her husband.
"My brother is unable to be with us to-night, Mr. Barnes," explainedMrs. Collier. "Mr. O'Dowd may have told you that he is an invalid.Quite rarely is he well enough to leave his room. He has been feelingmuch better of late, but now his nerves are all torn to pieces by thisshooting affair. The mere knowledge that our grounds were beinginspected to-day by the authorities upset him terribly. He has beggedme to present his apologies and regrets to you. Another time, perhaps,you will give him the pleasure he is missing to-night. He wanted somuch to talk with you about the quaint places you have described socharmingly in your articles. They must be wonderfully appealing. Onecannot read your descriptions without really envying the people wholive in those enchanted--"
"Ahem!" coughed O'Dowd, who actually had read the articles and couldsee nothing alluring in a prospect that contemplated barren, snow-sweptwildernesses in the Andes. "The only advantage I can see in living upthere," he said, with a sly wink at Barnes, "is that one has all theprivileges of death without being put to the expense of burial."
"How very extraordinary, Mr. O'Dowd," said Mrs. Collier, lifting herlorgnon.
"Mrs. Collier has been reading my paper on the chateau country inFrance," said Barnes mendaciously. (It had not yet been published, butwhat of that?)
"Perfectly delightful," said Mrs. Collier, and at once changed thesubject.
De Soto's cocktails came in. Miss Cameron did not take one. O'Dowdproposed a toast.
"To the rascals who went gunning for the other rascals. But for them weshould be short at least one member of this agreeable company."
It was rather startling. Barnes's glass stopped half-way to his lips.An instant later he drained it. He accepted the toast as a complimentfrom the whilom Irishman, and not as a tribute to the prowess of thosemysterious marksmen.
"Rather grewsome, O'Dowd," drawled Van Dyke, "but offset by theforesightedness of the maker of this cocktail. Uncommonly good one, DeSoto."
The table in the spacious dining-room was one of those long, narrowItalian boards, unmistakably antique and equally rare. Sixteen oreighteen people could have been seated without crowding, and when theseven took their places wide intervals separated them. No effort hadbeen made by the hostess to bring her guests close together, as mighthave been done by using one end or the centre of the table. Except forscattered doylies, the smooth, nut-brown top was bare of cloth; therewas a glorious patina to this huge old board, with tiny cracks runninglike veins across its surface.
Decorations were scant. A half dozen big candlesticks, ecclesiasticalin character, were placed at proper intervals, and at each end of thetable there was a shallow, alabaster dish containing pansies. Theserving plates were of silver. Especially beautiful were thelong-stemmed water goblets and the graceful champagne glasses. Theywere blue and white and of a design and quality no longer obtainableexcept at great cost. The aesthetic Barnes was not slow to appreciatethe rarity of the glassware and the chaste beauty of the serving plates.
The man Nicholas was evidently the butler, despite his Seventh Avenuemanner. He was assisted in serving by two stalwart and amazingly clumsyfootmen, of similar ilk and nationality. On seeing these additionalmen-servants, Barnes began figuratively to count on his fingers theretainers he had so far encountered on the place. Already he has seensix, all of them powerful, rugged fellows. It struck him. asextraordinary, and in a way significant, that there should be so manymen at Green Fancy.
Somewhere back in his mind was the impression that O'Dowd had spoken ofPierre the cook, a private secretary and male attendant who lookedafter Mr. Curtis. Then there was Peter, the regular chauffeur, whom hehad not seen, and doubtless there were able-bodied woodchoppers andforesters besides. Not forgetting the little book-agent! It suddenlyoccurred to him that he was surrounded by a company of the mostformidable character: no less than twenty men would be a reasonableguess if he were to include O'Dowd, De Soto and Van Dyke.
Much to his disappointment, he was not placed near Miss Cameron attable. Indeed, she was seated as far away from him as possible. He satat Mrs. Collier's right. On his left was Mrs. Van Dyke, with MissCameron at the foot of the table flanked by O'Dowd and De Soto. VanDyke had nearly the whole of the opposite side of the table to himself.There was, to be sure, a place set between him and De Soto, forsymmetry's sake, Barnes concluded. In this he was mistaken; they hadbarely seated themselves when Mrs. Collier remarked:
"Mr. Curtis's secretary usually joins us here for coffee. He has hisdinner with my brother and then, poor man, comes in for a brief periodof relaxation. When my brother is in one of his bad spells poor Mr.Loeb doesn't have much time to himself. It seems to me that my brotheris at his best when his health is at its worst. You may be interestedto know, Mr. Barnes, that he is writing a history of the Five Nations."
"Indians, you know," explained Van Dyke.
"A history of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondagas and Senecas, andtheir 'Long House' should be of great value, Mrs. Collier," saidBarnes, a trifle didactically. "When does he expect to have itcompleted?"
"'Gad, you know a little of everything, don't you?" said Van Dyke,sitting up a little straighter in his chair and eyeing Barnes fishily.("Awfully smart chap," he afterwards confided to O'Dowd.) "If he liveslong enough, he'll finish it in 1999," he added, lifting his voiceabove Mrs. Collier's passive reply out of which Barnes gathered thewords "couple" and "years."
It is not necessary to dilate upon the excellence of the dinner, torepeat the dialogue, or to comment on the service, other than to say,for the sake of record, that the first WAS excellent; the secondsprightly, and the third atrocious.
Loeb, the private secretary, came in for coffee. He was a tall, spareman of thirty, pallidly handsome, with dark, studious eyes and featuresof an unmistakably Hebraic cast, as his name might have foretold. Histeeth were marvellously white, and his slow smile attractive. When hespoke, which was seldom unless a remark was directed specifically tohim, his voice was singularly deep and resonant. More than once duringthe hour that Loeb spent with them Barnes formed and dismissed astubborn, ever-recurring opinion that the man was not a Jew. Certainlyhe was not an American Jew. His voice, his manner of speech, his everyaction stamped him as one born and bred in a land far removed fromBroadway and its counterparts. If a Jew, he was of the East as it ismeasured from Rome: the Jew of the carnal Orient.
And as the evening wore on, there came to Barnes the singular fancythat this man was the master and not the servant of the house! He couldnot put the ridiculous idea out of his mind.
He was to depart at ten. The hour drew near and he had had noopportunity for detached conversation with Miss Cameron. He hadlistened to her bright retorts to O'Dowd's sallies, and marvelled atthe ease and composure with which she met the witty Irishman on eventerms. Her voice, always low and distinct, was never without thesuggestion of good-natured raillery; he was enchanted by the faint,delicious chuckle that rode in every sentence she uttered during thesesprightly tilts.
When the conversation turned to serious topics, her voice steadiedperceptibly, the blue in her eyes took on a deeper and darker hue, thehalf-satirical smile vanished from her adorable lips, and she spokewith the gravity of a profound thinker. Barnes watched her, fascinated,bereft of the power to concentrate his thoughts on anything else. Hehung on her every movement, hoping and longing for the impersonalglance or remark with which she occasionally favoured him.
Not until the very close of the evening, and when he had resignedhimself to hopelessness, did the opportunity come for him to speak withher alone. She caught his eye, and, to his amazement, made a slightmovement of her head, unobserved by the others but curiously imperativeto him. There was no mistaking the meaning of the direct, intense lookthat she gave him.
She was appealing to him as a friend,--as one on whom she could depend!
The spirit of chivalry took possession of him. His blood leaped to thecall. She needed him and he would not fail her. And it was withdifficulty that he contrived to hide the exaltation that might haveruined e
verything!
Loeb had returned to his labours in Mr. Curtis's study, after biddingBarnes a courteous good-night. It seemed to the latter that with thesecretary's departure an indefinable restraint fell away from the smallcompany.
While he was trying to invent a pretext for drawing her apart from theothers, she calmly ordered Van Dyke to relinquish his place on thecouch beside her to Barnes.
"Come and sit beside me, Mr. Barnes," she called out, gaily. "I willnot bite you, or scratch you, or harm you in any way. Ask Mr. O'Dowdand he will tell you that I am quite docile. What is there about me,sir, that causes you to think that I am dangerous? You have barelyspoken a word to me, and you've been disagreeably nice to Mrs. Collierand Mrs. Van Dyke. I don't bite, do I, Mr. O'Dowd?"
"You do," said O'Dowd promptly. "You do more than that. You devour.Bedad, I have to look in a mirror to convince meself that you haven'tswallowed me whole. That's another way of telling you, Barnes, thatshe'll absorb you entirely."
It was a long, deep and comfortable couch of the davenport class, andshe sat in the middle of it instead of at the end, a circumstance thathe was soon to regard as premeditated. She had planned to bring him tothis place beside her and had cunningly prepared against thepossibility that he might put the full length of the couch between themif she settled herself in a corner. As it was, their elbows almosttouched as he sat down beside her.
For a few minutes she chided him for his unseemly aversion. He wasbeginning to think that he had been mistaken in her motive, and thatafter all she was merely satisfying her vanity. Suddenly, and as shesmiled into his eyes, she said, lowering her voice slightly:
"Do not appear surprised at anything I may say to you. Smile as if wewere uttering the silliest nonsense. So much depends upon it, Mr.Barnes."
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