Tredennis dined with them the next day, and many days afterward. On meeting him Richard Amory had taken one of his rather numerous enthusiastic fancies to him, and in pursuit and indulgence of this fancy could not see enough of him. These fanciful friendships were the delights of his life, and he never denied himself one, though occasionally they wore themselves out in time to give place to others.
Tredennis found him as the professor had described him, "a bright fellow, and a handsome fellow." He had thought that when he came forward to introduce himself, as he had done at the Gardners' reception, he had never seen a brighter or more attractive human being. He had a dark, delicate, eager face, soft, waving hair, tossed lightly back from a forehead whose beauty was almost feminine; a slight, lithe figure, and an air of youth and alertness which would have been attraction enough in itself. He was interested in everything: each subject touched upon seeming to awaken him to enthusiasm,—the Indians, the settlers, the agencies, the fort life,—equally interested in each, and equally ready to confront, in the most delightfully sanguine mood, the problems each suggested.
"It is worth a great deal to have an opportunity to judge of these things from the inside," he said. "There are a thousand questions I want to ask; but we shall see you often, of course. We must see you often. It will be the greatest pleasure to us."
His first entrance into their house, the following evening, was something which always set itself apart in Tredennis' memory.
A gay burst of laughter greeted him as the parlor[Pg 47] door was thrown open,—laughter so gay that the first announcement of his name was drowned by it, and, as he paused for a moment, he had the opportunity to take in fully the picture before him. The room was a pretty and luxurious one, its prettiness and luxury wearing the air of being the result of natural growth, and suggesting no oppressiveness of upholstery. Its comforts were evidently the outcome of the fancies and desires of those who lounged, or read, or talked in it, and its knick-knacks and follies were all indicative of some charming whim carried out with a delightful freedom from reason, which was their own excuse.
In the open fireplace a bright wood-fire burned, and upon the white wolf-skin before it Richard Amory lay at unconventional full length, with his hands clasped lightly under his head, evidently enjoying to the utmost the ease of his position, the glow of the fire, and the jest of the moment, while near him, in an easy-chair, sat Arbuthnot. Both of them looked at Bertha, who stood with one hand resting on the low mantel.
"I have been waiting for a long time," Tredennis heard her say, and then, as the servant announced his name again, she stopped speaking, and came forward to meet him, while Richard sprang lightly to his feet.
"I will tell you at the outset," she said, "that it is not one of the time-honored customs of Washington for people to receive their guests with this ingenuous and untrammelled freedom, but"—
"But she has been telling us a story," put in Richard, shaking hands with him; "and she told it so well that we forgot the time. And she must tell it again."
"It is not worth telling again," she said, as they returned to the fire; "and, besides, I told it to you in the strictest confidence. And if that is not reason enough, I don't mind confessing that it is a story which doesn't exhibit me in an amiable light. It shows a temper and viciousness that you count among your home comforts,[Pg 48] and don't feel it decent to display for the benefit of any one but your immediate relatives."
Tredennis looked down at her curiously. His first glance at her had shown him that to-night she was even farther removed from his past than she had seemed before. Her rich dress showed flashes of bright color, her eyes were alight with some touch of excitement, and her little wrists were covered with pretty barbarities of bangles and charms which jingled as she moved.
"I should like to hear the story," he said.
"It is a very good story," commented Arbuthnot, laughing; "I think I would tell it over again."
"Oh, yes," said Richard; "Colonel Tredennis must hear it."
Bertha looked across at Tredennis, and as she did so he saw in her eyes what he had seen the night before and had not understood, but which dawned upon him now,—a slight smiling defiance of his thoughts, whatsoever they might be.
"You won't like it," she said; "but you shall hear it, if you wish. It is about a great lady"—
"That will add to the interest," said Tredennis. "You have great ladies in Washington?"
"It is infinitely to our credit that they are only occasional incidents," she answered, "and that they don't often last long. When one considers the number of quiet, domesticated women who find themselves launched suddenly, by some wave of chance, into the whirl of public life, one naturally wonders that we are not afflicted with some very great ladies indeed; but it must be confessed we have far less to complain of in that respect than might be expected."
"But this particular great lady?" said Tredennis.
"Is one of the occasional incidents. Some one said that our society was led by bewildered Europeans and astonished Americans,—Americans astonished to find themselves suddenly bearing the responsibility of the highest positions, and Europeans bewildered by being[Pg 49] called upon to adjust themselves to startling novelties in manners and customs. This great lady is one of the astonished Americans, and, privately, she is very much astonished, indeed."
Arbuthnot laughed.
"You will observe," he commented, "that Mrs. Amory's remarks are entirely unbiassed by any feminine prejudices."
"You will observe," said Bertha, "that Mr. Arbuthnot's remarks are entirely unbiassed by any prejudice in favor of my reliability of statement. But," she added, with a delusive air of amiable candor, "I am sure you cannot deny that I was very civil to her."
"I have not a doubt of it," responded Arbuthnot. "And I don't mind adding that I should like to have been there to see."
"Colonel Tredennis shall judge," she said, "whether it would have been really worth while. I will make the story brief. Last season the great lady gave me cause to remember her. We had not met, and, to please a friend, I called upon her. We found her in her drawing-room, engaged in entertaining two new newly arrived attachés. They seemed to interest her. I regret to say that we did not. She did not hear our names when the servant announced them, and the insignificance of our general bearing was against us. I think it must have been that, for we were comparatively well dressed—at least, Miss Jessup's description of our costumes in the 'Wabash Times' gave that impression the following week. Perhaps we looked timid and unaccustomed to 'the luxurious trophies from many climes' (Miss Jessup again) surrounding us. The ingenuous modesty of extreme youth which you may have observed"—
"Repeatedly," replied Arbuthnot.
"Thank you. But I suppose it told against me on this occasion. Our respectable attire and air of general worthiness availed nothing. The great lady rose, stared at us, gave us her finger-ends, called us by names which[Pg 50] did not belong to us, and sat down again, turning her back upon us with much frankness, and resuming her conversation with the attachés, not interrupting it to address six words to us during the three minutes we remained. That is the first half of the story."
"It promises well for the second half," said Tredennis.
"The second is my half," said Bertha. "Later, she discovered our real names, and the fact that—shall I say that Miss Jessup knew them, and thought them worthy of mention in the 'Wabash Times'? That would, perhaps, be a good way of putting it. Then she called, but did not see me, as I was out. We did not meet again until this afternoon. I was making the Cabinet calls, and had the pleasure of encountering her at the house of the Secretary of War. Perhaps Miss Jessup had sent her a copy of the 'Wabash Times' yesterday, with the society column marked—I don't know. But she was pleased to approach me. I received her advances with the mild consideration of one who sees a mistake made, but is prevented by an amiable delicacy from correcting it, and observing this, she was led into the indiscretion of saying, with graceful leniency, that she feared I did not know her. I think it is really there that my half begins. I smiled with flattering incredulity, and said, 'That would be very strange in a Washingtonian.'
"'When you called'—she began.
"I looked at her with a blush, as of slight embarrassment, which seemed to disturb her.
"'You have not forgotten that you called?' she remarked, chillingly.
"'It would have been impossible for me to forget anything so agreeable,' I said, as though in delicately eager apology. 'I am most unlucky. It was some more fortunate person.'
"'But,' she said, 'I returned the visit.'
"'I received your card,' I replied, smiling ingenuously[Pg 51] into her eyes, 'and it reminded me of my delinquency. Of course I knew it was a mistake.'
"And after I had smiled into her eyes for a second or so longer, she began to understand, and I think by this time it is quite clear to her."
"There must be a moral to that," commented Tredennis.
"There is," she responded, with serene readiness. "A useful one. It is this: It is always safe—in Washington—to be civil to the respectably clad. If the exigencies of public position demand that you receive, not the people you wish to see, or the people who wish to see you, but the respectably clad, it is well to deal in glittering generalities of good manners, and even—if you choose to go so far—good feeling. There are numbers of socially besieged women in Washington who actually put the good feeling first; but the Government cannot insist on that, you know, so it remains a matter of taste."
"If you could draw the line"—began Richard.
"There is no line," said Bertha, "so you can't draw it. And it was not myself I avenged this afternoon, but—the respectably clad."
"And before she became an astonished American," put in Arbuthnot, "this mistaken person was possibly"—
Bertha interposed, with a pretty gesture which set all the bangles jingling.
"Ah," she said, "but we have so little to do with that, that I have not even the pleasure of using it in my arguments against her. The only thing to be reasonably required of her now is that she should be sufficiently well-mannered during her career. She might assume her deportment with her position, and dispose of it at a sacrifice afterward. Imagine what a field in the way of advertisement, for instance: 'For sale. A neatly fitting suit of good manners. Used through one Administration. Somewhat worn through active service, but still equal to much wear and tear.'"
[Pg 52]
That which struck Tredennis more forcibly than all else was her habit of treating everything lightly, and he observed that it was a habit Arbuthnot shared with her. The intimacy existing between the two seemed an unusual one, and appeared to have established itself through slow and gradual growth. It had no ephemeral air, and bore somehow the impress of their having shared their experiences in common for some time. Beneath the very derision which marked their treatment of each other was a suggestion of unmistakable good fellowship and quick appreciation of each other's moods. When Bertha made a fanciful speech, Arbuthnot's laugh rang out even before Richard's, which certainly was ready enough in response; and when Arbuthnot vouchsafed a semi-serious remark, Bertha gave him an undivided attention which expressed her belief that what he said would be worth listening to. Amory's province it seemed to be to delight in both of them,—to admire their readiness, to applaud their jests, and to encourage them to display their powers. That he admired Arbuthnot immensely was no less evident than that no gift or grace of Bertha's was lost upon him.
His light-hearted, inconsequent enjoyment of the pleasure of the moment impressed Tredennis singularly. He was so ready to be moved by any passing zephyr of sentiment or emotion, and so entirely and sweet-temperedly free from any fatiguing effect when the breeze had once swept over him.
"All that I have to complain of in you two people," he said, gayly, in the course of the evening, "is that you have no sentiment—none whatever."
"We are full of it," said Arbuthnot, "both of us,—but we conceal it, and we feel that it makes us interesting. Nothing is more interesting than repressed emotion. The appearance of sardonic coldness and stoicism which has deceived you is but a hollow mockery; beneath it I secrete a maelstrom of impassioned feeling and a mausoleum of blighted hopes."
[Pg 53]
"There is a fashion in emotions as in everything else," said Bertha. "And sentiment is 'out.' So is stateliness. Who would submit to stateliness in these days? It was the highest aim of our great-grandmothers to be stately; but stateliness went out with ruffles and the minuet, and a certain kind of Roman nose you find in all portraits taken in the reigns of the Georges. Now we are sprightly. It is imperative that we should be sprightly. I hope you are prepared to be sprightly, Colonel Tredennis."
He was very conscious of not looking so. In fact, the idea was growing upon him that upon the whole his grave face and large figure were rather out of place among all this airy badinage. His predominant feeling was that his unfortunate tendency to seriousness and silence was not a Washingtonian quality, and augured poorly for his future. Here were people who could treat lightly, not only their subjects, but themselves and each other. The fire-lit room, with its trifles and knick-knacks and oddities; the graceful, easy figure of Richard Amory lounging idly in his chair; Bertha, with her bright dress and fantastic little ornaments flashing and jingling; Arbuthnot smiling faintly, and touching his mustache with a long, fair hand,—each and all suggested to him in some whimsical, vague fashion that he was too large and not pliable enough for his surroundings, and that if he moved he might upset something, or tread upon some sparkling, not too substantial theory.
"I am afraid I am not as well prepared as I might be," he answered. "Do you always find it easy?"
"I!" she returned. "Oh, perfectly! it is only Mr. Arbuthnot who finds it difficult—being a prey to his feelings. In his moments of deep mental anguish the sprightliness which society demands of him is a thing from which his soul recoils."
Shortly after dinner Arbuthnot went away. He had a final call to make upon some friends who were going[Pg 54] away, after having taken an active part in the inaugural ceremonies and ball. It appeared that they had come from the West, with the laudable intention of making the most of these festivities, and that he had felt it his duty to do his utmost for their entertainment.
"I hope they enjoyed themselves," said Bertha, as he stood making his adieus.
"Well," was his reply, "it strikes me they did. I took them to the Treasury, and the Patent Office, and the Army and Navy Department, and up into the dome of the Capitol, and into the Senate and the House, and they heard the inaugural address, and danced at the ball, and saw the ex-President and bought photographs of the new one, and tired themselves out, and are going home a party of total wrecks, but without a thing on their consciences; so I think they must have enjoyed themselves. I hope so. I didn't. I don't grudge them anything; but it is the ninetieth time I have been through the Treasury, and the twentieth time I have climbed to the dome, and the exercise has lost its freshness."
After he had left the room he returned, drawing from the pocket of his rather dandyfied light overcoat three small packages, which he laid on a side-table.
"This is for Janey, and this for Jack, and this for Marjorie," he said. "I told them they would find them there in the morning."
"Thank you," answered Bertha, as if the proceeding was one to which she was well accustomed.
When he was fairly gone Richard Amory broke into a half laugh.
"What a queer fellow he is!" he said.
Bertha returned to her place by the fire, taking from the mantel a little screen of peacock feathers and shading her face with it.
"Do you know," she said, "that he rarely leaves the house without one of us making that remark, and yet it always has an illusive air of being entirely new."
[Pg 55]
"Well," remarked Richard, "he is a queer fellow, and there's no denying it. Imagine a fellow like that coolly rambling about with neat packages of bonbons in his fastidious overcoat pocket, to be bestowed on children without any particular claim on him. Why does he do it?"
"It doesn't exactly arise from enthusiasm awakened by their infant charms," said Bertha, "and he never professed that it did."
"But he must care for them a little," returned Richard.
"The fact is that you don't know what he cares for," said Bertha, "and it is rather one of his fascinations. I suppose that is really what we mean by saying he is a queer fellow."
"At all events," said Richard, amiably, "he is a nice fellow, and one can manage to subsist on that. All I complain of is that he hasn't any object. A man ought to have an object—two or three, if he likes."
"He doesn't like," said Bertha, "for he certainly hasn't an object—though, after all, that belongs to his mode of life."
"I should like," said Tredennis, "to know something of the mode of life of a man who hasn't an object."
"You will gain a good deal of information on the subject if you remain long in Washington," answered Bertha. "We generally have either too many objects or none at all. If it is not your object to get into the White House, or the Cabinet, or somewhere else, it is probably your fate to be installed in a 'department;' and, as you cannot hope to retain your position through any particular circumspectness or fitness for it, you have not any object left you."
"The fact is," said Richard, "it would have been a great deal better for Larry if he had stayed where he was and fought it out."
"The fact is," said Bertha, "it would be a great deal better for nine out of ten of the rest if they stayed where they were. And when Larry came he did not come[Pg 56] under specially exhilarating circumstances, and just then I suppose it seemed to him that the rest of his life was not worth much to him."
"It has struck me," said Richard, reflectively, "that he had a blow of some sort about that time,—something apart from the loss of his fortune. I am not sure but that I once heard some wandering rumor of there being a young woman somewhere"—
"Oh!" said Bertha, in a low, rather hurried voice, "he had a blow. There is no mistake about that,—he had a blow, and there was a good deal in him that did not survive it."
"And yet he doesn't strike you as being that sort of fellow," said Richard, still in reflection. "You wouldn't think of him as being a fellow with a grief."
Bertha broke into delighted laughter.
"A grief!" she exclaimed. "That is very good. I wish he had heard it. A grief! I wonder what he would do with it in his moments of recreation,—at receptions, for instance, and musicales, and germans. He might conceal it in his opera hat, but I am afraid it would be in the way. Poor Larry! Griefs are as much out of fashion as stateliness, and he not only couldn't indulge in one if he would, but he wouldn't if he could."
"Well, how would you put it," said Richard, "if you did not call it a grief?"
Bertha laughed again.
"If I put it at all," she answered, "I would say that he had once been very uncomfortable, but had discreetly devoted himself to getting over it, and had succeeded decently well; and last, but not least, I would add that it would be decidedly difficult to make him uncomfortable again."
Tredennis found it impossible to avoid watching her with grave interest each time she spoke or moved. He was watching her now with a sort of aside sensibility to her bright drapery, her flashing, tinkling wrists, and her screen of peacock feathers.
[Pg 57]
"She is very light," he was saying inwardly.
She turned to him with a smile.
"Would he strike you as 'a fellow with a grief'?" she inquired.
"No," he answered; "I cannot say he would."
"No," she said, "that is certain enough. If you went away and never saw him again, you would remember just this of him—if you remembered him at all: that his clothes fitted him well, that he had an agreeable laugh, that he had a civil air of giving you his attention when you spoke, and—nothing else."
"And that is not all there is of him?" Tredennis asked.
She looked down at her feather screen, still smiling slightly.
"No," she answered, rather slowly, "not quite all; but even I don't quite know how much more there is, and Richard, who has known him at intervals all his life, lapses into speaking of him as 'a fellow with a grief.'"
Richard rose from his chair.
"Oh," he said, with much cheerfulness, "there is no denying that you two are the outgrowth of an effete civilization. You are always arriving at logical deductions concerning each other, and you have a tendency to the derision of all the softer emotions. You are a couple of world-worn creatures, and it is left to me to represent the youth and ardor of the family."
"That is true," said Bertha, in her soft, mocking voice. "We are battered and worldly wise—and we have no object."
"But I have," said Richard, "and if Colonel Tredennis will come upstairs with me, I will show him what a few of them are, if he takes an interest in such things."
"What," said Bertha,—"the laboratory, or the library, or"—
"All of them," he answered, "including the new [Pg 58]collection." And he turned upon Tredennis the brightest imaginable smile.
Tredennis left his chair in response to it.
"I am interested in all collections, more or less," he said.
"So am I," said Bertha—"more or less." And they went out of the room with this little gibe in their ears.
Before the conclusion of his visit to the domains upstairs Tredennis had learned a great deal of Richard Amory. He had found that he had a taste for mechanics, a taste for science, a taste for literature. He had a geological cabinet, an entomological collection, a collection of coins, of old books, of old engravings, all in different stages of incompleteness. He had, even, in his small workroom, the unfinished models of an invention or two, each of which he was ready to explain with an enthusiasm which flamed up as the demands of the moment required, in the most delightful and inspiring manner.
"I shall finish them all, one of these days," he said, blithely. "I am always interested in one or the other, and they give me an object. And, as I said downstairs, what a man wants is an object. That is what Larry stands in need of. Give him an object, and he would not indulge in that cold-blooded introspection and retrospection. Bertha has told him so herself."
"They are very good friends," said Tredennis.
"Oh, yes! They are fond of each other, in their way. It is their way to jeer a good deal, but they would stand by each other, I fancy, if the time came when it was needful."
He referred, in the course of the conversation, to his profession, and his reference to it caused Tredennis to class it in his mind, in some way or other, with the unfinished models and incomplete collections.
"I can't say I like the law," he said, "but it was a sort of final resource. I tried medicine for a while,—took a course of lectures; but it didn't suit me. And[Pg 59] then two or three other things turned up, but I didn't seem to suit them. And so it ended in my choosing law, or letting it choose me. I don't know that I am exactly a success at it. It's well we don't depend on it. Bertha"—He broke off rather suddenly, and began again at once. "I have plans which, if they are as successful as they promise to be, will change the aspect of affairs." And he laughed exultantly.
On their way downstairs they came upon an open door, which had been closed as they went up. It opened into a large, cheerful room, with gay pictures on the walls, and a high brass fender guarding the glowing fire, before which a figure sat in a low rocking-chair, holding a child in its arms.
"That is the nursery," said Richard. "Bertha, what is the matter with Janey?"
It was Bertha who sat in the rocking-chair, and as she turned her face quietly toward them Tredennis felt himself betrayed into a slight start. Neither her eyes nor her color were as bright as they had been downstairs. She had taken off her ornaments, and they lay in a small glittering heap upon the stand at her side. The child's head rested upon her breast, and her bare arm and hand held its body in an easy position with a light, close, accustomed touch. She spoke in a soft, lowered voice.
"Janey is nervous to-night," she answered. "She cannot go to sleep, and I am trying to quiet her. Will you excuse me if I do not come down? She really needs me."