George took his hat and rose with alacrity. There was nothing essentially distasteful to him in the prospect of being presented to a pair of pretty sisters, who had doubtless been warned of his coming, and his foolish longing for his old clothes and his work disappeared as suddenly as it had come.
It was still winter, and the low afternoon sun fell across the avenue from the westward streets in broad golden patches. It was still winter, but the promise of spring was already in the air, and a faint mist hung about the vanishing point of the seemingly endless rows of buildings. The trees were yet far from budding, but the leafless branches no longer looked dead, and the small twigs were growing smooth and glossy with the returning circulation of the sap. There were many people on foot in the avenue, and Totty constantly nodded and smiled to her passing acquaintances, who generally looked with some interest at George as they acknowledged or forestalled his companion’s salutation. He knew a few of them by sight, but not one passed with whom he had ever spoken, and he felt somewhat foolishly ashamed of not knowing every one. When he was alone the thought did not occur to him, but his cousin’s incessant smiles and nods made him realise vividly the difference between her social position and his own. He wondered whether the gulf would ever be bridged over, and whether at any future time those very correct people who now looked at him with inquiring eyes would be as anxious to know him and be recognised by him as they now seemed desirous of knowing Totty and being saluted by her.
“Do you mean to say that you really remember the names of all these friends of yours?” he asked, presently.
“Why not? I have known most of them since I was a baby, and they have known me. You could learn their names fast enough if you would take the trouble.”
“Why should I? They do not want me. I should never be a part of their lives.”
“Why not? You could if you liked, and I am always telling you so. Society never wants anybody who does not want it. It is founded on the principle of giving and receiving in return. If you show that you like people, they will show that they like you.”
“That would depend upon my motives.”
Mrs. Sherrington Trimm laughed, lowered her parasol, and turned her head so that she could see George’s face.
“Motives!” she exclaimed. “Nobody cares about your motives, provided you have good manners. It is only in business that people talk about motives.”
“Then any adventurer who chose might take his place in society,” objected George.
“Of course he might — and does. It occurs constantly, and nothing unpleasant happens to him, unless he makes love in the wrong direction or borrows money without returning it. Unfortunately those are just the two things most generally done by adventurers, and then they come to grief. A man is taken at his own valuation in society, until he commits a social crime and is found out.”
“You think there would be nothing to prevent my going into society, if I chose to try it?”
“Nothing in the world, if you will follow one or two simple rules.”
“And what may they be?” inquired George, becoming interested.
“Let me see — in the first place — dear me! how hard it is to explain such things! I should say that one ought never to ask a question about anybody, unless one knows the answer, and knows that the person to whom one is speaking will be glad to talk about the matter. One may avoid a deal of awkwardness by not asking a man about his wife, for instance, if she has just applied for a divorce. But if his sister is positively engaged to marry an English duke, you should always ask about her. That kind of conversation makes things pleasant.”
“I like that view,” said George. “Give me some more advice.”
“Never say anything disagreeable about any one you know.”
“That is charitable, at all events.”
“Of course it is; and, now I think of it, charity is really the foundation of good society,” continued Mrs. Trimm very sweetly.
“You mean a charitable silence, I suppose.”
“Not always silence. Saying kind words about people you hate is charitable, too.”
“I should call it lying,” George observed.
Totty was shocked at such bluntness.
“That is far too strong language,” she answered, beginning to look as she did in church.
“Gratuitous mendacity,” suggested her companion. “Is the word ‘lie’ in the swearing dictionary?”
“Perhaps not — but after all, George,” continued Mrs. Trimm with sudden fervour, “there are often very nice things to be said quite truly about people we do not like, and it is certainly charitable and magnanimous to say them in spite of our personal feelings. One may just as well leave out the disagreeable things.”
“Satan is a fallen angel. You hate him of course. If he chanced to be in society you would leave out the detail of the fall and say that Satan is an angel. Is that it?”
“Approximately,” laughed Totty, who was less shocked at the mention of the devil than at hearing tact called lying. “I think you would succeed in society. By-the-bye, there is another thing. You must never talk about culture and books and such things, unless some celebrity begins it. That is most important, you know. Of course you would not like to feel that you were talking of things which other people could not understand, would you?”
“What should I talk about, then?”
“Oh — people, of course, and — and horses and things — yachting and fashions and what people generally do.”
“But I know so few people,” objected George, “and as for horses, I have not ridden since I was a boy, and I never was on board of a yacht, and I do not care a straw for the fashions.”
“Well, really, then I hardly know. Perhaps you had better not talk much until you have learned about things.”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps I had better not try society after all.”
“Oh, that is ridiculous!” exclaimed Mrs. Trimm, who did not want to discourage her pupil. “Now, George, be a good boy, and do not get such absurd notions into your head. You are going to begin this very day.”
“Am I?” inquired the young man in a tone that promised very little.
“Of course you are. And it will be easy, too, for the Fearing girls are clever — —”
“Does that mean that I may talk about something besides horses, fashions, and yachting?”
“How dreadfully literal you are, George! I did not mean precisely those things, only I could think of nothing else just at that moment. I know, yes — you are going to ask if I ever think of anything else. Well, I do sometimes — there, now do be good and behave like a sensible being. Here we are.”
They had reached a large, old-fashioned house in Washington Square, which George had often noticed without knowing who lived in it, and which had always attracted him. He liked the quiet neighbourhood, so near the busiest part of the city and yet so completely separated from it, and he often went there alone to sit upon one of the benches under the trees and think of all that might have been even then happening to him if things had not been precisely what they were. He stood upon the door-step and rang the bell, wondering at the unexpected turn his day had taken, and wondering what manner of young women these orphan sisters might be, with whom cousin Totty was so anxious to make him acquainted. His curiosity on this head was soon satisfied. In a few seconds he found himself in a sombrely-furnished drawing-room, bowing before two young girls, while Mrs. Trimm introduced him.
“Mr. Winton Wood — my cousin George, you know. You got my note? Yes — so sweet of you to be at home. This is Miss Constance Fearing, and this is Miss Grace, George. Thanks, no — we have just been having tea. Yes — we walked. The weather is perfectly lovely, and now tell me all about yourself, Conny dear!”
Thereupon Mrs. Sherrington Trimm took Miss Constance Fearing beside her, held her hand affectionately, and engaged in an animated conversation of smiles and questions, leaving George to amuse the younger sister as best he could.
At firs
t sight there appeared to be a strong resemblance between the two girls, which was much increased by their both being dressed in black and in precisely the same manner. They were very nearly of the same age, Constance being barely twenty-two years old and her sister just twenty, though Mrs. Trimm had said that both had reached their majority. Both were tall, graceful girls, well-proportioned in every way, easy in their bearing, their heads well set upon their shoulders, altogether well grown and well bred. But there was in reality a marked difference between them. Constance was fairer and more delicate than her younger sister, evidently less self-reliant and probably less strong. Her eyes were blue and quiet, and her hair had golden tinges not to be found in Grace’s dark-brown locks. Her complexion was more transparent, her even eyebrows less strongly marked, her sensitive lips less firm. Of the two she was evidently the more gentle and feminine. Grace’s voice was deep and smooth, whereas Constance spoke in a higher though a softer key. It was easy to see that Constance would be the one more quickly moved by womanly sympathies and passions, and that Grace, on the contrary, would be at once more obstinate and more sure of herself.
George was pleasantly impressed by both from the first, and especially by the odd contrast between them and their surroundings. The house was old-fashioned within as well as without. It was clear that the girls’ father and mother had been conservatives of the most severe type. The furniture was dark, massive, and imposing; the velvet carpet displayed in deeper shades of claret, upon a claret-coloured ground, that old familiar pattern formed by four curved scrolls which enclose as in a lozenge an imposing nosegay of almost black roses. Full-length portraits of the family adorned the walls, and the fireplace was innocent of high art tiles, being composed of three slabs of carved white marble, two upright and one horizontal, in the midst of which a black grate supported a coal fire. Moreover, as in all old houses in New York, the front drawing-room communicated with a second at the back of the first by great polished mahogany folding-doors, which, being closed, produce the impression that one-half of the room is a huge press. There were stiff sofas set against the wall, stiff corner bookcases filled with histories expensively bound in dark tree calf, a stiff mahogany table under an even stiffer chandelier of gilded metal; there were two or three heavy easy-chairs, square, dark and polished like everything else, and covered with red velvet of the same colour as the carpet, each having before it a footstool of the old style, curved and made of the same materials as the chairs themselves. A few modern books in their fresh, perishable bindings showed the beginning of a new influence, together with half a dozen magazines and papers, and a work-basket containing a quantity of coloured embroidering silks.
George looked about him as he took his place beside Grace Fearing, and noticed the greater part of the details just described.
“Are you fond of horses, yachting, fashions, and things people generally do, Miss Fearing?” he inquired.
“Not in the least,” answered Grace, fixing her dark eyes upon him with a look of cold surprise.
CHAPTER III.
THE STARE OF astonishment with which Grace Fearing met George’s singular method of beginning a conversation rather disconcerted him, although he had half expected it. He had asked the question while still under the impression of Totty’s absurd advice, unable any longer to refrain from communicating his feelings to some one.
“You seem surprised,” he said. “I will explain. I do not care a straw for any of those things myself, but as we walked here my cousin was giving me a lecture about conversation in society.”
“And she advised you to talk to us about horses?” inquired Miss Grace, beginning to smile.
“No. Not to you. She gave me to understand that you were both very clever, but she gave me a list of things about which a man should talk in general society, and I flatter myself that I have remembered the catalogue pretty accurately.”
“Indeed you have!” This time Grace laughed.
“Yes. And now that we have eliminated horses, yachts, and fashions, by mutual consent, shall we talk about less important things?”
“Certainly. Where shall we begin?”
“With whatever you prefer. What do you like best in the world?”
“My sister,” answered Grace promptly.
“That answers the question, ‘Whom do you like best — ?’”
“Very well, Mr. Wood, and whom do you like best?”
“Myself, of course. Everybody does, except people who have sisters like yours.”
“Are you an egotist, then?”
“Not by intention, but by original sin, and by the fault of fate which has omitted to give me a sister.”
“Have you no near relations?” Grace asked.
“I have my father.”
“And you are not more fond of him than of yourself?”
“Is one not bound to believe one’s father, when he speaks on mature reflection, and is a very good man besides?”
“Yes — I suppose so.”
“Very well. My father says that I love myself better than any one else. That is good evidence, for, as you say, he must be right. How do you know that you love your sister more than yourself?”
“I think I would sacrifice more for her than I would for myself.”
“Then you must be subject to a natural indolence which only affection for another can overcome.”
“I am not lazy,” objected Grace.
“Pardon me. What is a sacrifice, in the common meaning of the word? Giving up something one likes. To make a sacrifice for oneself means to give up something one likes for the sake of one’s own advantage — for instance, to give up sleeping too much, in order to work more. Not to do so, is to be lazy. Laziness is a vice. Therefore it is a vice not to sacrifice as much as possible to one’s own advantage. Virtue is the opposite of vice. Therefore selfishness is a virtue.”
“What dreadful sophistry!”
“You cannot escape the conclusion that one ought to love oneself at least quite as much as any one else, since to be unwilling to take as much trouble for one’s own advantage as one takes for that of other people is manifestly an acute form of indolence, and is therefore vicious and a cardinal sin.”
“Selfishness is certainly a deadly virtue,” retorted Grace.
“Can that be called deadly which provides a man with a living?” asked George.
“That is all sophistry — sophistical chaff, and nothing else.”
“The original sophists made a very good living,” objected George. “Is it not better to get a living as a sophist than to starve?”
“Do you make a living by it, Mr. Wood?”
“No. I am not a lawyer, and times have changed since Gorgias.”
“I may as well tell you,” said Grace, “that Mrs. Trimm has calumniated me. I am not clever, and I do not know who Gorgias was.”
“I beg your pardon for mentioning him. I only wanted to show off my culture. He is of no importance — —”
“Yes he is. Since you have spoken of him, tell me who he was.”
“A sophist, and one of the first of them. He published a book to prove that Helen of Troy was an angel of virtue, he fattened on the proceeds of his talking and writing, till he was a hundred years old, and then he died. The thing will not do now. Several people have lately defended Lucretia Borgia, without fattening to any great extent. That is the reason I would like to be a lawyer. Lawyers defend living clients and are well paid for it. Look at Sherry Trimm, my cousin’s husband. Do you know him?”
“Yes.”
“He is fat and well-liking. And Johnny Bond — do you know him too?”
“Of course,” answered Grace, with an almost imperceptible frown. “He is to be Mr. Trimm’s partner soon.”
“Well, when he is forty, he will be as sleek and round as Sherry Trimm himself.”
“Will he?” asked the young girl with some coldness.
“Probably, since he will be rich and happy. Moral and physical rotundity is the natural attribute of
all rich and happy persons. It would be a pity if Johnny grew very fat, he is such a handsome fellow.”
“I suppose it could not be helped,” said Grace, indifferently. “What do you mean by moral rotundity, Mr. Wood?”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 492
