Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  He saw the American at once, nodded to him and waved her hand. The victoria went on a little way beyond the turn of the drive, drew out of the line of carriages, and stopped.

  “Ah, Monsieur Mellin,” she cried, as he came up, “I am glad! I was so foolish yesterday I didn’ give you the address of my little apartment an’ I forgot to ask you what is your hotel. I tol’ you I would come here for my drive, but still I might have lost you for ever. See what many people! It is jus’ that Fate again.”

  She laughed, and looked to the Italian for sympathy in her kindly merriment. He smiled cordially upon her, then lifted his hat and smiled as cordially upon Mellin.

  “I am so happy to fin’ myself in Rome that I forget” — Madame de Vaurigard went on— “ever’sing! But now I mus’ make sure not to lose you. What is your hotel?”

  “Oh, the Magnifique,” Mellin answered carelessly. “I suppose everybody that one knows stops there. One does stop there, when one is in Rome, doesn’t one?”

  “Everybody go’ there for tea, and to eat, sometime, but to stay — ah, that is for the American!” she laughed. “That is for you who are all so abomin-ab-ly rich!” She smiled to the Italian again, and both of them smiled beamingly on Mellin.

  “But that isn’t always our fault, is it?” said Mellin easily.

  “Aha! You mean you are of the new generation, of the yo’ng American’ who come over an’ try to spen’ these immense fortune’ — those ‘pile’ — your father or your gran-father make! I know quite well. Ah?”

  “Well,” he hesitated, smiling. “I suppose it does look a little by way of being like that.”

  “Wicked fellow!” She leaned forward and tapped his shoulder chidingly with two fingers. “I know what you wish the mos’ in the worl’ — you wish to get into mischief. That is it! No, sir, I will jus’ take you in han’!”

  “When will you take me?” he asked boldly.

  At this, the pleasant murmur of laughter — half actual and half suggested — with which she underlined the conversation, became loud and clear, as she allowed her vivacious glance to strike straight into his upturned eyes, and answered:

  “As long as a little turn roun’ the hill, now. Cavaliere Corni—”

  To Mellin’s surprise and delight the Italian immediately descended from the victoria without the slightest appearance of irritation; on the contrary, he was urbane to a fine degree, and, upon Madame de Vaurigard’s formally introducing him to Mellin, saluted the latter with grave politeness, expressing in good English a hope that they might meet often. When the American was installed at the Countess’ side she spoke to the driver in Italian, and they began to move slowly along the ilex avenue, the coachman reining his horses to a walk.

  “You speak Italian?” she inquired.

  “Oh, not a great deal more than a smattering,” he replied airily — a truthful answer, inasmuch as a vocabulary consisting simply of “quanty costy” and “troppo” cannot be seriously considered much more than a smattering. Fortunately she made no test of his linguistic attainment, but returned to her former subject.

  “Ah, yes, all the worl’ to-day know’ the new class of American,” she said— “your class. Many year’ ago we have another class which Europe didn’ like. That was when the American was ter-ri-ble! He was the — what is that you call? — oh, yes; he ‘make himself,’ you say: that is it. My frien’, he was abominable! He brag’; he talk’ through the nose; yes, and he was niggardly, rich as he was! But you, you yo’ng men of the new generation, you are gentlemen of the idleness; you are aristocrats, with polish an’ with culture. An’ yet you throw your money away — yes, you throw it to poor Europe as if to a beggar!”

  “No, no,” he protested with an indulgent laugh which confessed that the truth was really “Yes, yes.”

  “Your smile betray’ you!” she cried triumphantly. “More than jus’ bein’ guilty of that fault, I am goin’ to tell you of others. You are not the ole-time — what is it you say? — Ah, yes, the ‘goody-goody.’ I have heard my great American frien’, Honor-able Chanlair Pedlow, call it the Sonday-school. Is it not? Yes, you are not the Sonday-school yo’ng men, you an’ your class!”

  “No,” he said, bestowing a long glance upon a stout nurse who was sitting on a bench near the drive and attending to twins in a perambulator. “No, we’re not exactly dissenting parsons.”

  “Ah, no!” She shook her head at him prettily. “You are wicked! You are up into all the mischief! Have I not hear what wild sums you risk at your game, that poker? You are famous for it.”

  “Oh, we play,” he admitted with a reckless laugh, “and I suppose we do play rather high.”

  “High!” she echoed. “Souzands! But that is not all. Ha, ha, ha, naughty one! Have I not observe’ you lookin’ at these pretty creature’, the little contadina-girl, an’ the poor ladies who have hire’ their carriages for two lire to drive up and down the Pincio in their bes’ dress an’ be admire’ by the yo’ng American while the music play’? Which one I wonder, is it on whose wrist you would mos’ like to fasten a bracelet of diamon’s? Wicked, I have watch’ you look at them—”

  “No, no,” he interrupted earnestly. “I have not once looked away from you, I could n’t.” Their eyes met, but instantly hers were lowered; the bright smile with which she had been rallying him faded and there was a pause during which he felt that she had become very grave. When she spoke, it was with a little quaver, and the controlled pathos of her voice was so intense that it evoked a sympathetic catch in his own throat.

  “But, my frien’, if it should be that I cannot wish you to look so at me, or to speak so to me?”

  “I beg your pardon!” he exclaimed, almost incoherently. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I wouldn’t do anything you’d think ungentlemanly for the world!”

  Her eyes lifted again to his with what he had no difficulty in recognizing as a look of perfect trust; but, behind that, he perceived a darkling sadness.

  “I know it is true,” she murmured— “I know. But you see there are time’ when a woman has sorrow — sorrow of one kind — when she mus’ be sure that there is only — only rispec’ in the hearts of her frien’s.”

  With that, the intended revelation was complete, and the young man understood, as clearly as if she had told him in so many words, that she was not a widow and that her husband was the cause of her sorrow. His quickened instinct marvelously divined (or else it was conveyed to him by some intangible method of hers) that the Count de Vaurigard was a very bad case, but that she would not divorce him.

  “I know,” he answered, profoundly touched. “I understand.”

  In silent gratitude she laid her hand for a second upon his sleeve. Then her face brightened, and she said gayly:

  “But we shall not talk of me! Let us see how we can keep you out of mischief at leas’ for a little while. I know very well what you will do to-night: you will go to Salone Margherita an’ sit in a box like all the wicked Americans—”

  “No, indeed, I shall not!”

  “Ah, yes, you will!” she laughed. “But until dinner let me keep you from wickedness. Come to tea jus’ wiz me, not at the hotel, but at the little apartment I have taken, where it is quiet. The music is finish’, an’ all those pretty girl’ are goin’ away, you see. I am not selfish if I take you from the Pincio now. You will come?”

  III. Glamour

  IT WAS SOME fair dream that would be gone too soon, he told himself, as they drove rapidly through the twilight streets, down from the Pincio and up the long slope of the Quirinal. They came to a stop in the gray courtyard of a palazzo, and ascended in a sleepy elevator to the fifth floor. Emerging, they encountered a tall man who was turning away from the Countess’ door, which he had just closed. The landing was not lighted, and for a moment he failed to see the American following Madame de Vaurigard.

  “Eow, it’s you, is it,” he said informally. “Waitin’ a devil of a long time for you. I’ve gawt a message for you. He’s comi
n’. He writes that Cooley—”

  “Attention!” she interrupted under her breath, and, stepping forward quickly, touched the bell. “I have brought a frien’ of our dear, droll Cooley with me to tea. Monsieur Mellin, you mus’ make acquaintance with Monsieur Sneyd. He is English, but we shall forgive him because he is a such ole frien’ of mine.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Mellin. “Remember seeing you on the boat, running across the pond.”

  “Yes, ev coss,” responded Mr. Sneyd cordially. “I wawsn’t so fawchnit as to meet you, but dyuh eold Cooley’s talked ev you often. Heop I sh’ll see maw of you hyuh.”

  A very trim, very intelligent-looking maid opened the door, and the two men followed Madame de Vaurigard into a square hall, hung with tapestries and lit by two candles of a Brobdingnagian species Mellin had heretofore seen only in cathedrals. Here Mr. Sneyd paused.

  “I weon’t be bawthring you,” he said. “Just a wad with you, Cantess, and I’m off.”

  The intelligent-looking maid drew back some heavy curtains leading to a salon beyond the hall, and her mistress smiled brightly at Mellin.

  “I shall keep him to jus’ his one word,” she said, as the young man passed between the curtains.

  It was a nobly proportioned room that he entered, so large that, in spite of the amount of old furniture it contained, the first impression it gave was one of spaciousness. Panels of carved and blackened wood lined the walls higher than his head; above them, Spanish leather gleamed here and there with flickerings of red and gilt, reflecting dimly a small but brisk wood fire which crackled in a carved stone fireplace. His feet slipped on the floor of polished tiles and wandered from silky rugs to lose themselves in great black bear skins as in unmown sward. He went from the portrait of a “cinquecento” cardinal to a splendid tryptich set over a Gothic chest, from a cabinet sheltering a collection of old glass to an Annunciation by an unknown Primitive. He told himself that this was a “room in a book,” and became dreamily assured that he was a man in a book. Finally he stumbled upon something almost grotesquely out of place: a large, new, perfectly-appointed card-table with a sliding top, a smooth, thick, green cover and patent compartments.

  He halted before this incongruity, regarding it with astonishment. Then a light laugh rippled behind him, and he turned to find Madame de Vaurigard seated in a big red Venetian chair by the fire.

  She wore a black lace dress, almost severe in fashion, which gracefully emphasized her slenderness; and she sat with her knees crossed, the firelight twinkling on the beads of her slipper, on her silken instep, and flashing again from the rings upon the slender fingers she had clasped about her knee.

  She had lit a thin, long Russian cigarette.

  “You see?” she laughed. “I mus’ keep up with the time. I mus’ do somesing to hold my frien’s about me. Even the ladies like to play now — that breedge w’ich is so tiresome — they play, play, play! And you — you Americans, you refuse to endure us if we do not let you play. So for my frien’s when they come to my house — if they wish it, there is that foolish little table. I fear” — she concluded with a bewitching affectation of sadness— “they prefer that to talkin’ wiz me.”

  “You know that couldn’t be so, Comtesse,” he said. “I would rather talk to you than — than—”

  “Ah, yes, you say so, Monsieur!” She looked at him gravely; a little sigh seemed to breathe upon her lips; she leaned forward nearer the fire, her face wistful in the thin, rosy light, and it seemed to him he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

  He came across to her and sat upon a stool at her feet. “On my soul,” he began huskily, “I swear—”

  She laid her finger on her lips, shaking her head gently; and he was silent, while the intelligent maid — at that moment entering — arranged a tea-table and departed.

  “American an’ Russian, they are the worse,” said the Countess thoughtfully, as she served him with a generous cup, laced with rum, “but the American he is the bes’ to play wiz.” Mellin found her irresistible when she said “wiz.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Oh, the Russian play high, yes — but the American” — she laughed delightedly and stretched her arms wide— “he make’ it all a joke! He is beeg like his beeg country. If he win or lose, he don’ care! Ah, I mus’ tell you of my great American frien’, that Honor-able Chanlair Pedlow, who is comin’ to Rome. You have heard of Honor-able Chanlair Pedlow in America?”

  “I remember hearing that name.”

  “Ah, I shall make you know him. He is a man of distinction; he did sit in your Chamber of Deputies — what you call it? — yes, your Con-gress. He is funny, eccentric — always he roar like a lion — Boum! — but so simple, so good, a man of such fine heart — so lovable!”

  “I’ll be glad to meet him,” said Mellin coldly.

  “An’, oh, yes, I almos’ forget to tell you,” she went on, “your frien’, that dear Cooley, he is on his way from Monte Carlo in his automobile. I have a note from him to-day.”

  “Good sort of fellow, little Cooley, in his way,” remarked her companion graciously. “Not especially intellectual or that, you know. His father was a manufacturer chap, I believe, or something of the sort. I suppose you saw a lot of him in Paris?”

  “Eh, I thought he is dead!” cried Madame de Vaurigard.

  “The father is. I mean, little Cooley.”

  “Oh, yes,” she laughed softly. “We had some gay times, a little party of us. We shall be happy here, too; you will see. I mus’ make a little dinner very soon, but not unless you will come. You will?”

  “Do you want me very much?”

  He placed his empty cup on the table and leaned closer to her, smiling. She did not smile in response; instead, her eyes fell and there was the faintest, pathetic quiver of her lower lip.

  “Already you know that,” she said in a low voice.

  She rose quickly, turned away from him and walked across the room to the curtains which opened upon the hall. One of these she drew back.

  “My frien’, you mus’ go now,” she said in the same low voice. “To-morrow I will see you again. Come at four an’ you shall drive with me — but not — not more — now. Please!”

  She stood waiting, not looking at him, but with head bent and eyes veiled. As he came near she put out a limp hand. He held it for a few seconds of distinctly emotional silence, then strode swiftly into the hall.

  She immediately let the curtain fall behind him, and as he got his hat and coat he heard her catch her breath sharply with a sound like a little sob.

  Dazed with glory, he returned to the hotel. In the lobby he approached the glittering concierge and said firmly:

  “What is the Salone Margherita? Cam you get me a box there to-night?”

  IV. Good Fellowship

  HE CONFESSED HIS wickedness to Madame de Vaurigard the next afternoon as they drove out the Appian Way. “A fellow must have just a bit of a fling, you know,” he said; “and, really, Salone Margherita isn’t so tremendously wicked.”

  She shook her head at him in friendly raillery. “Ah, that may be; but how many of those little dancing-girl’ have you invite to supper afterward?”

  This was a delicious accusation, and though he shook his head in virtuous denial he was before long almost convinced that he had given a rather dashing supper after the vaudeville and had not gone quietly back to the hotel, only stopping by the way to purchase an orange and a pocketful of horse-chestnuts to eat in his room.

  It was a happy drive for Robert Russ Mellin, though not happier than that of the next day. Three afternoons they spent driving over the Campagna, then back to Madame de Vaurigard’s apartment for tea by the firelight, till the enraptured American began to feel that the dream in which he had come to live must of happy necessity last forever.

  On the fourth afternoon, as he stepped out of the hotel elevator into the corridor, he encountered Mr. Sneyd.

  “Just stottin’, eh?” said the Englishman, taki
ng an envelope from his pocket. “Lucky I caught you. This is for you. I just saw the Cantess and she teold me to give it you. Herry and read it and kem on t’ the Amairikin Baw. Chap I want you to meet. Eold Cooley’s thyah too. Gawt in with his tourin’-caw at noon.”

  “You will forgive, dear friend,” wrote Madame de Vaurigard,

  “if I ask you that we renounce our drive to-day. You see, I

  wish to have that little dinner to-night and must make

  preparation. Honorable Chandler Pedlow arrived this morning

  from Paris and that droll Mr. Cooley I have learn is

  coincidentally arrived also. You see I think it would be

  very pleasant to have the dinner to welcome these friends on

  their arrival. You will come surely — or I shall be so truly

  miserable. You know it perhaps too well! We shall have a

  happy evening if you come to console us for renouncing our

  drive. A thousand of my prettiest wishes for you.

  “Helene.”

  The signature alone consoled him. To have that note from her, to own it, was like having one of her gloves or her fan. He would keep it forever, he thought; indeed, he more than half expressed a sentiment to that effect in the response which he wrote in the aquarium, while Sneyd waited for him at a table near by. The Englishman drew certain conclusions in regard to this reply, since it permitted a waiting friend to consume three long tumblers of brandy-and-soda before it was finished. However, Mr. Sneyd kept his reflections to himself, and, when the epistle had been dispatched by a messenger, took the American’s arm and led him to the “American Bar” of the hotel, a region hitherto unexplored by Mellin.