Front matter (continued 3)

"While my visit to America is purely connected with matters of business," he said, "I am going to make use of an opportunity to view Niagara. I think I shall run out and back to-morrow. Possibly I shall take an extra day and have a look at the Yellowstone Park, which I am told in its way quite equals anything we have in England."

Now, it happened that Sir Charles Wigge was unable to work in that extra day to visit the Yellowstone, as he was longer than he had expected on his visit to Niagara, so Friday evening found us gathered again around the board at Westbury, except Ethel Bumpschus, whose absence I regarded as an ill-omen, one that presaged a defeat for her and thus for me. His Grace was still a guest at the Bumpschus house, but of late he had been spending all his afternoons and evenings with the Radigans, not even the attentions of Prince Cosmospopolis of Greece to his host's daughter serving to arouse him to action in that quarter. Ethel was asked, I know, but she sent a polite but stiff note of regret, whereupon Mrs. Radigan telephoned for Marian Speechless, who came in a rush and made a vigorous attack on the Duke, talking him almost to death. Perhaps Marian had dreams, but they could never be more than dreams, as she has nothing but ancestry and charm. I thought, perhaps, she would be able to do something with Sir Charles Wigge, she is such a voluble person, so I carefully arranged a meeting after dinner, when Mrs. Radigan had his Grace at her side and was drawing out his ideas on the ginger-beer evil, the only subject on which he talks complete sentences.

"I am so glad to have an opportunity to meet you," Marian gasped, while Sir Charles polished his monocle. "There are so many things about which I want to ask you."

"And I, for my part, shall be delighted to answer any questions you care to put," returned Sir Charles gallantly, "but Miss Peaches——"

"Miss Speechless," I corrected gently.

"Impossible," said he. "It must have been Peaches originally in England—then why did your family change the pronunciation? Now——"

"But—" began Marian indignantly.

"On the contrary," said Sir Charles, "you Americans——"

Ignobly I left the girl to bear the brunt of it, for I had glanced about the drawing-room and saw that Pearl had gone. So I vanished, too, coming to life in the deserted smoking-room, where she had settled herself beside the fire and was contentedly blowing rings.

"It will be the last time," said I, taking a cigarette from her case and her proffered light. "To-morrow, I think, I shall go the way of Plumstone Smith and those Kansas City men you knew before you became smart."

"Fellows," corrected Pearl.

"To-morrow," I went on unheeding, "Sir Charles Wigge will offer you the hand of the great Duke of Nocastle."

"I should not be surprised," said Pearl, blowing a big ring and sending a second hurtling through it.

"Mrs. Radigan has told me that it is settled beyond question," said I, "for she has intimated plainly to Sir Charles that she and John will make up a purse for you. They won't be outbid by the Bumpschuses."

"Then it is settled," said Pearl, "for who could refuse a duke? Think of being a duchess, of taking precedence over a dozen other American girls who have bought lords, of being able to snub that Bumpschus girl who married Nothingham, and Ethel Bumpschus, who won't marry Nocastle. Think of the columns in the papers, of the wedding-riot, and all that."

Seldom had I heard Pearl say so much, never with such a burst of spirit, for generally she is in quiet mood. All was over now, it seemed to me. With the Duke the end had come and it was useless to fight against it.

"It is dazzling," said I meekly, "and I do not blame you."

"Still," said she meditatively, after a moment's silence, "there is one thing greater than to marry a duke."

"And that?" said I.

"That," said she, "is to——"

Sir Charles loomed up before us, with Sally Radigan at his side.

"It will take just a moment to settle it," I heard him say to his hostess.

"Sir Wigge wishes to speak to you, Pearl," said Mrs. Radigan softly to her sister. And to me: "Come and make a four at bridge. Marian has gone to bed with a violent headache."

"My dear Miss Vial," I heard Sir Charles say.

Pearl blew one last smoke ring, tossed away her cigarette, and turned those lustrous eyes on him. I saw the inscrutable smile.

"Do you wonder his Highness is crazy about her?" said Mrs. Radigan, as she led me away.

CHAPTER XXI

Pearl Veal's Answer to the Duke of Nocastle

The engagement of Miss Bumpschus to the Duke of Nocastle was announced in this morning's papers almost to the exclusion of all other news. There were pictures of Ethel looking like an Oriental beauty, of the little Duke, magnificent in the uniform of the Guards, of the Bumpschus house in town and the Newport villa; of Leeking Castle, the ancestral seat of the Fitznits—indeed, of everything in the lives of the high contracting parties that could be photographed. The equanimity with which Mrs. Radigan received the news was most surprising. I had expected to find her completely unstrung when I called this afternoon, but instead she was in the library, just back from a drive, and making tea.

"Isn't it absurd?" she said laughingly, pointing to the paper behind which Pearl Veal was ensconced in a deep chair, reading of the glories of the Duke and the house of Bumpschus. "They are making the best of it, I hear; have a press agent and all that; so for weeks we shall read of nothing else. It is disgusting to see people courting notoriety that way."

I thought of her own plans of last week and involuntarily raised my eyebrows in astonishment. She noticed it, but went calmly on:

"Ethel actually looks beautiful in some of those pictures—I wonder how they were made?—and as for the Duke, you might suppose he was a real dashing sort of a fellow. Won't they look well coming down the aisle together! Why, in order to take his arm she will have to walk like a camel."

Pearl's paper rattled to the floor, revealing her smiling softly, those fine eyes of hers intent upon her sister.

Mrs. Radigan understood. "Of course, my dear," she said grimly, "if you had taken him we should have avoided such an absurd picture somehow." She paused a moment, trying to think how. The inspiration came to me first.

"Sir Charles Wigge," said I, "as long as he did the proposing, he might well lead the bride down the aisle—the Duke could toddle after him."

Mrs. Radigan shuddered. She always shudders when Sir Charles is mentioned; but on my part I feel that I owe him a heavy debt, for by the time we had had him with us two days at Westbury, the suppression of the solicitor became more the ambition of Mrs. Radigan than the capture of his noble client. Pearl says frankly that she never in the world could have refused the Duke of her own accord, as a girl can't marry a nobleman every day, and real-estate agents are a drug in the market. But when Sir Charles came, when he took possession of the house and of the opinions of all its occupants, when he had utterly crushed us and made us feel our ignorance and humbleness, her future became a second thought, and the desire to turn possessed her. Pearl smiles softly as she says this. It is her inscrutable smile, and may hide something; but I care little, for she did turn.

That night when Mrs. Radigan brought Sir Charles into the smoking-room, when she tucked me under her arm and dragged me away, when I looked back and saw Pearl toss her cigarette into the fire and fix her lustrous eyes on the English solicitor, I thought all was over. Sir Charles had said that it would only take a minute to settle the whole thing; but he did not know Pearl Veal. She listened to him silently, and the proposal in behalf of the Duke of Nocastle must have been well worth hearing. Sir Charles repeated all his Grace's titles, told her the history of the ducal house of Fitznit and its glories, of its manors, halls, and bowers; of its present head and his virtues, his service in the commissary department in South Africa, and his speech in the House of Lords on the ginger-beer evil. Lastly, in a softer voice, Sir Charles spoke to Pearl of his Grace's love. He talked very nicely, too, she says, and quite affected her, quite overwhelmed her with the sense of her lowliness and the high honor his Grace had conferred in stooping to offer her his hand, when he had the proudest women in England at his feet.

"And now," said the lawyer rising, "I may tell his Grace that you will be proud to accept his offer."

Pearl rose, too, stepped to the table and picked up a bit of paper and a pencil.

"How much does he owe?" she said, chewing the rubber while she eyed the great man.

"But, my dear Miss Vial, he is a duke," protested Sir Charles. "And that little matter has been arranged by Mrs. Batigan."

"But I might like to spend my money in other ways," said Pearl.

So Sir Charles indignantly got out a note-book and gave her the figures. It was a paltry sum compared to our Wall Street failures, and he assured her that the creditors would take two shillings in the pound and be thankful for it. They seldom got more from dukes.

Pearl lighted a cigarette, and as she leaned easily against the table she watched a spire of smoke go curling away into the dark recesses of the ceiling.

"Well, Miss Vial?" said Sir Charles testily.

"I'll let you know Monday," came the quiet answer, with the quiet smile.

"But 'pon my word!" protested the great Englishman.

Pearl curled up in her chair again and began blowing smoke rings.

"He is an English duke," said Sir Charles angrily.

Pearl seemed intensely occupied watching the gray halo that was floating above her head.

"Do you realize what it means to marry a peer of England?" came again in a louder tone.

The corners of the girl's mouth turned up, just a trifle.

"Do you consider whom you are keeping waiting?" demanded the lawyer solemnly.

Pearl smiled.

That inscrutable smile proved a match for Sir Charles, and he gave up his attack, but I think he was convinced that the delay was only for the moment, and that Monday would witness the ratification of his plans. So for two days he was gloriously good-natured and overbearing, and by Monday none of us dared to raise a voice in his presence. Even Marian Speechless became as silent as the tomb. Mrs. Radigan was depressed. I have never seen her so utterly dispirited. "Oh, if we could only blow him up or something," she whispered to me after dinner on Sunday evening, when we had had an hour's discourse by Sir Charles on the unhealthy American climate and the advantages of constant drizzles.

"To-morrow," said I, "it will be over."

"Yes," said she, "thank Heaven, to-morrow it will be over, and we shall have the dear Duke to ourselves."

And on the morrow it was over. All Mrs. Radigan's dreams were shattered. All my own fears were swept away. True to her promise, Pearl Veal gave Sir Charles her answer.

"Of course," said the great English solicitor, "I shall tell his Grace that Miss Vial loves him and accepts his generous offer."

"No," said Pearl, closing one eye and scrutinizing the figures on the paper in her hand. "Tell him that I like him, Sir Charles; tell him I am deeply grateful, but I cannot afford him."

Sir Charles took down his monocle and polished it. Then he eyed her through it very hard.

"Do you realize, Miss Weal, that you are refusing a peer of England?" he said sternly.

"But I want to get a new automobile," Pearl answered quietly.

The monocle flew fiercely to the very end of its guard-string. It was a minute before the astonished Englishman found it again, for his hands were trembling violently as they beat the air in search of it. Finding the glass, he sat down and polished it very hard. Then, returning it to his eye, he inspected Pearl Veal from head to foot, being evidently convinced that he had to do with an insane person.

"Miss Willy," he said hoarsely, "am I to understand that you spurn the offer of my noble client, the Duke of Nocastle?"

"I simply can't afford him," Pearl answered. "Tell him I like him very much," was added sweetly.

Sir Charles arose and paced up and down the room, looking as though he might begin to roar at any moment.

"Beyond comprehension—utterly beyond it—incredible," he said. "It is the first time it has ever been done."

"And I feel so sorry for the Duke," put in Pearl sweetly. "He will have to marry Ethel Bumpschus."

This was the spark that set fire to the already over-heated brain of Sir Charles Wigge. He hurried from the room and called for time-tables; he called for the Duke and his boxes, his man, and a trap to get them to the station; he forgot to say good-by to his hostess, and when at last we saw him drive away, Mrs. Radigan sank into a chair and cried feelingly: "Well, anyway, we sat on him!"

They must have gone straight to the Bumpschus house and closed the deal, for we followed them to town from Westbury, and yesterday morning we knew about the engagement. In the evening they gave it to the press with the pictures. That is why Mrs. Radigan shuddered this afternoon when I mentioned Sir Charles Wigge. She stirred her tea meditatively for a very long time. Then she exclaimed: "Well, I'm glad we did sit on them!"

She talked as though she had refused the Duke, instead of cringing for days at his solicitor's feet, but I deemed it wise to let well enough alone, for I had not expected to find her in so amiable a mood after all her plans had been turned so topsy-turvy.

"You certainly did," said I, giving Pearl a sidelong glance, which was returned with interest.

"The idea of their wanting us to settle all the Duke's debts before the wedding even!" cried Mrs. Radigan with sudden indignation. "Then we should have had to give the Duke five million more, and Pearl was to fix the castle roofs and keep what was left."

"Naturally, I could not afford it," said Pearl smiling.

"Naturally," said Mrs. Radigan firmly. "But, my dear, we did not want to interfere with your happiness. We simply stood ready to buy the Duke if you cared to have him."

"A duke is a duke," said Pearl, "but they come very high."

"And when I think of Ethel Bumpschus," said Mrs. Radigan, holding the paper at arm's length and staring at the photograph of the Oriental beauty, "when I think of her, with her spectacles and her charities, her aged ticket-choppers and her taffy-colored hair, I must say I feel that his Highness got the worst of the bargain."

We dine at the Bumpschus house to-morrow evening. It will be an informal affair, of course, on account of Lent, and I am looking forward with pleasure to seeing Mrs. Radigan congratulating Ethel and wishing the Duke happiness.

CHAPTER XXII

Tumbleton Tumm, the Minstrel

Ethel Bumpschus is rushing preparations for her wedding to the Duke of Nocastle, and vastly amusing we find it. The upper floors of the Bumpschus house, Pearl Veal tells me, look as though some large business enterprise were being carried on, as there is a constant coming and going of milliners, dress-makers, and tailors, hurrying the costumes for the great show; and above it all sounds the ceaseless click of Tumbleton Tumm's type-writer. Poor Tumm! He regularly writes scandal for Town Twaddle and has a hard time to keep that fact a secret, retain his membership in one club, look respectable and make both ends meet; so that when Mrs. Bumpschus called him in to help them it was a great boon. They should give him a fat retainer for his press-agent work, for I must say he is doing it well, as the papers daily chronicle every act of the Duke and his fiancée. He realizes how eagerly the public devours this kind of reading-matter, and his type-writer goes all day as he prepares the feast. Interest has been aroused to a high pitch. Were it not for Tumm's pride, he would do well on the Rialto, for in some of his work he has evinced signs of positive genius. I remember when Ethel's cousin married Nothingham a furor was created by the illustrated-page articles describing her entire trousseau. We have progressed wonderfully since then, for Tumm is making that a serial story and got five columns on hosiery alone in every Sunday paper in town. This is but one of many masterly strokes.

I must say that to me there is something pathetic in the picture of this bearer of a fine old New York name, reduced to a task that cannot but be distasteful to him, for though he may have a saving gleam of humor, he cannot but feel that in every way he is the better of his employers. But it is his father's fault. Hegerton Tumm was one of those gentlemen of the old school, a Patriarch with a house in Washington Square and all that. He never worked. He looked down on Grandfather Bumpschus, who was busy wrecking railroads and piling up other people's money. He died and left his children to social charity. I remember before I took to golf and tennis, that somewhere in the church service there was a reference to dust returning to dust. How keen those old Bible fellows were! It seems as though they must have foreseen the first Tumm crawling on his knees among the cabbages of his patch in Union Square; must have foreseen real estate rise and carry with it to power half a hundred Tumms; and, last, poor Tumbleton on his knees again, a mere retainer in the railroad house of Bumpschus.

Pearl said to-day that Tumm was the Bumpschus jester. I protested, but it was just one of those little cuts which make a woman all the more lovely to those for whom she has only balm. I think of him, I told her, as the minstrel of the house, at his type-writer all day long, singing of its glories, of the riches of the master and the beauty of the daughter, of the greatness of her lover and of their love—for under a hundred flaring black heads the world has been told that this is a love-match. A safety match, said Pearl, blowing a smoke ring solemnly—she was evidently thinking of his Grace's debts. Singing, I went on, for I always ignore these little jibes of hers, singing and carolling of the vastness of the trousseau and the value of the presents, of the smartness of the bridesmaids and the colors of their dresses; singing of the ushers, of their waistcoats, their spats, their gloves, and boutonnières; of the music at the wedding, of the breakfast later, with its menu and its wines. Fortunate the world that every word that Tumm, the minstrel, sings is caught upon the manifold, seized by the educating press, illuminated with pen-sketch and photograph, and sent forth to be read by the millions in the outer darkness! Fortunate, indeed, said Pearl, for she always agrees with me in the end.

Sometimes I suspect that because she can always agree with me, she declined the proffered heart and hand of his Grace, and now is perfectly contented with the humbler rôle of maid of honor at the great wedding of the season. I must confess that I was surprised that Ethel Bumpschus asked Pearl to accompany her to the altar, but then the reason was very evident when I saw the list of the wedding-party. Ethel is going in for beauty. No expense is being spared on flowers and music, and she must have been conscious of the discord created in the first bars of many a grand sweet song by a procession of exquisitely gowned ancients moving slowly down the aisle at the heels of a lovely bride. Now Ethel is not beautiful, but she will have the advantage of a veil.

Who first blessed womankind with that artful covering? This question I put to Pearl, and, of course, she did not know, but when I said that she must wear a picture-hat at her own wedding, she smiled. She thought this some subtle flattery, though I spoke in all sincerity, having seen her that very day gowned as she will be when she follows the Duchess of Nocastle down the aisle. Ethel Bumpschus is wise. She is putting her close friends in good seats with the family while she will lead up the aisle five of the fairest of the town. Angelica Clime and Gladys Tumbleton, Clarissa Mudison and Emily Lumpley, Hebes every one, with Pearl Veal still more glorious, will turn all eyes from the tiny Duke and his towering bride. I should like to stand in a pew and watch them myself as they move down the flowery pathway, for I am still simple enough to find more charm in a lovely face than in a lovely voice or a pedigree. But I shall have to follow them, to be of the unfortunate four who risk everything to gain nothing, who win undying hatred by putting aunts with the old family servants, husbands next former wives, and mere business friends where the cousins ought to be; that bring on themselves the ridicule of the society-writers who hover on the outskirts of the charmed circle and scoff at us because we wear pink waistcoats and white spats.

No, I do not suppose that I shall wear a pink waistcoat and white spats at my own wedding. Heaven knows I would rather choose tennis flannels, but I must follow orders for the Bumpschus nuptials, and we will do things for a duke that we would do for no other man, particularly when we contemplate spending a season in London. I do not think his Grace has any ideas even on clothes, but attribute the pink waistcoats to Ethel, and the white spats to her brother Williegilt. She wants pink waistcoats to harmonize with the bridesmaids' gowns, and Williegilt's hobby is spats. You can see him any day on the avenue displaying his feet in a new shade. Pearl says that it distracts attention from his head, but I protest against such an uncharitable view, for I must say he has been extremely square to me. The Duke, of course, cabled for his brother, Captain Lord Algernon Fitznit, to sail for this side at once, as he is to be best man, which seems to be almost like taking part in his own funeral, he being the heir to the dukedom. As the Captain cannot get here until the day before the wedding, Williegilt is arranging for the ushers, and while Ethel is going in for beauty, he is choosing for size, to make some sort of a showing against the soldier, who is six feet four. I think Williegilt with Stuyve Mint, Tommy Clime and myself will average around six feet two, and, as I told Pearl, when we get fixed up in our uniform we should make a rather imposing showing, so I find myself looking forward to the occasion with considerable interest. It will be a real adventure, no doubt, and I am training for it—have even taken to spats, which I abhor, and have accustomed myself to walking without looking at my feet, though I am a little afraid white will rather discompose me.

Pearl declines to be excited at all, but she is an unusually quiet soul, and says she is not going to rush herself into a decline simply because Ethel Bumpschus, a mere acquaintance, is to marry a nobleman that she could have had herself if she would have spent the money. She will go to the church and walk down the aisle and back, looking as well as she can, fight her way through the mob outside, drive to the house, sip the health of the happy pair, and go home to oblivion. Of course I am the oblivion. She must have some lingering regret for the Duke, and I cannot blame her for it. She says frankly that she would give anything to be the Dowager Duchess of Nocastle, but that title is not purchasable, so she is perfectly satisfied with her real-estate agent. Pearl has a way of saying things like that when we are walking on Madison Avenue, but even there a few people are always about, which makes it rather aggravating. And we walk on Madison Avenue a great deal now, and she seems to delight in such maddening remarks, but when we are home in the quiet of the library, when Mrs. Radigan has made the tea and become absorbed in picture-papers, when she is in her deep chair and I in mine, close by, I try again to draw them from her, but she just smiles—blows a ring of smoke, and smiles inscrutably as she watches it float away.

CHAPTER XXIII

The Wedding of the Season

Mrs. Radigan pulled off her gloves, tossed her hat on the drawing-room table, threw her coat at her maid, and sank into a deep chair.

"Well, thank Heaven, it is all over," she said, "that we got through it alive, and now we shall see something in the papers besides the Bumpschuses and the Nocastles and all those tiresome people."

She called for tea, and when it came Pearl Veal would have made it for her but her sister waved her away firmly.

"You must rest, my dear," she said. "Quiet your nerves with a smoke and offer up silent thanksgiving that you are living at this minute."

She seemed to think that Pearl should be on the verge of collapse, which amused me greatly, for when I passed a cigarette to my fiancée I saw that her hand was as steady as a church with the match. Then she smiled at me and gave her head a slight inclination toward Sally.

"No one was hurt," she said. "The police arrangements were excellent, only it took so many men to get Ethel and the Duke safely into the carriage, that we were left unguarded for a moment."

"It's a wonder you were not killed," said Mrs. Radigan.

Pearl laughed. I never knew a girl so brave as she. Had she just come from a Lenten service instead of the wedding of the season she could not have been more unruffled. But Mrs. Radigan was bent on making the most of the adventure, as she does of all adventures, exaggerating, finding pleasure in dances, and getting excitement out of dinners. Her teacup was arrested in midair, and over its top she eyed her sister solicitously.

"Do not tell me you weren't dreadfully frightened!" she cried.

Pearl blew a smoke ring.

"No," she said, "I was not afraid. I was mad—downright mad. Just as we came out of the church the awning burst in. For the moment I was dazed, for through the rent in the canvas I could see a multitude of faces, a sea of people that stretched away from the church for blocks, in every direction, and beat against it with irresistible force. As the mounted police tried to get the Duke and Duchess out, they drove the crowd back and something had to give. Naturally, it was the awning. Angelica Clime screamed and seized me by the arm, so that I had but one hand for defence, the one in which I was carrying my roses. A large fat woman with blond hair came first. I really don't think she meant to be rude but was just pushed through the hole, and, being through, wanted to know what our dresses were made of, so gave a grab for my gown to feel the material, and without thinking, I brought my roses down over her head—quite unintentionally—and her bonnet was knocked askew. She jumped back and fell, and those behind her, unable to stop themselves, piled over her."

"It must have been dreadful!" said Mrs. Radigan. "We could hear the shouts inside the church and thought you had all been massacred."

"And so the churchful of people came hurrying out, pinning us between two mobs," said Pearl. "It looked for a moment as though we should be crushed, torn in pieces and carried off in bits as souvenirs; but, fortunately, Williegilt Bumpschus knew what he was about when he chose giants for ushers, for when they saw our peril, they charged down the awning, swept the crowd out through the hole, and were able to keep them at bay till the police had got the Duke's carriage free, and came to our aid."

"Was anyone hurt?" I asked, for, though I had been in the thick of the adventure, my attention had been held by the delicate task of protecting the imperilled bridesmaids without being rude to any of the attacking party.

"We got off very well," Pearl laughed. "I saw a red-haired woman go away waving my roses, and Gladys Tumbleton was almost dragged into the mob at the end of a long strip of trimming that someone had secured as a prize, but, fortunately, Stuyve Mint had presence of mind enough to cut her free. It really was not half as bad as some other weddings, but I suppose the papers will call it a riot—they always exaggerate things so—yet, as a matter of fact, it was all over in a minute; the police got the crowd under control, and we were able to get away."

"But the Duke—the poor, dear little Duke!" cried Mrs. Radigan. "He must have been terribly frightened."

"On the contrary," said I, "he told me emphatically that it was jolly."

"As he says about everything," said Mrs. Radigan. "But I noticed him particularly at the house. He looked terribly decomposed."

Pearl Veal turned her head slowly and gazed at her sister, then glanced at me out of the corner of one of those glorious eyes of hers. Her mouth twitched and from those pouted lips a thin spire of smoke arose heavenward. The cigarette was poised in midair; she flicked the ashes from it with that fine little finger of hers and was about to take another puff when, by a sudden impulse, she tossed it away and, arising, came to my chair and seated herself on the arm in an attitude so half-caressing, so unusual for her, that Sally Radigan put down her cup and stared at her in amazement. For myself, I was astounded, but I yielded not an inch. And they say in our set that Pearl Veal is cold; that she is vapid, and has neither heart nor brains; that she is beautiful in her way, but knows it and poses; that she smiles on the men and then mulcts them at bridge; that I am marrying her for money, and why she is marrying me is a mystery! It is a mystery—this last—and to none more than to me. I find it hard to convince myself that it is not all a dream, and when she sat on the arm of my chair, when I felt her hand on my shoulder, and saw her stick out her little foot beside mine, inspecting them as though to see which was the larger—when all this happened at once, this perfect avalanche of good things, I gasped and stared up at her, as astounded as Sally Radigan.

"The Duke was decomposed—greatly decomposed," said Mrs. Radigan, when she had regained her own composure.

"He is always that way," said Pearl, "and yet you wanted me to marry him."

I saw it then. We were facing the masterful Mrs. Radigan together, defying her.

"I told you a hundred times," said she, waving the tea aside and settling herself back in her chair to tell it all again, "that I simply thought it would be best for you, because——"

"Because I would be happier," said Pearl laughing.

"No," said Mrs. Radigan. "But it is much more interesting to be an unhappy duchess than a happy common person. Think of the children alone. It must be lovely to have your picture taken holding Lord Algernon Percy Montmorency Fitznit and all that in one hand, and Lady Angeline Mary Maria Fitznit in the other—sounds much better than when Mrs. John Jones is seen with just Jim and Kate. A duke is a duke, Pearl, and even if he is a jibbering idiot, he takes precedence over a mere genius all over the world, even in our common democratic America. Now, if you had married Lord Nocastle——"

Poor Pearl! She had already talked a great deal for her and was not disposed to argue with her worldly wise sister, which nettled Mrs. Radigan, who likes to be contradicted if it will give her the opportunity to drive home another point. As she went on and met only a smiling acquiescence to everything she said, or now and then a monosyllabic remark, or a puff of smoke, she became disconcerted and at last angry, as angry as she can become, for at heart she is a good soul.

"Well?" she demanded at last.

"Well?" said Pearl, blowing a ring.

"Don't you think I am right?"

"Certainly," replied Pearl, shifting over on the arm of my chair till she leaned quite heavily on me, quite delightfully so, but I manfully refused to budge an inch.

At that Mrs. Radigan arose.

"You are terribly exasperating," she said, flaunting toward the door.

But she paused there and stood framed in the heavy portières gazing at us. And we gazed back defiantly.

"You must admit that it was a lovely wedding, except for the bride and groom," she said a little more softly.

"Certainly," Pearl answered smiling. "It cost them thousands."

"But we could have done it much better, Pearl," Mrs. Radigan went on, now in quite a gentle tone. "I hated so to see you only maid of honor at the wedding of so great a man as the Duke of Nocastle. It seemed to me as though Ethel Bumpschus were taking you up the aisle at her chariot-wheels. And you looked so lovely."

"Certainly," said Pearl. "How could I help it?"

Thereupon I grew bold and said something that Mrs. Radigan did not hear. Pearl laughed and Mrs. Radigan did not understand.

"It was funny," she said. "I really almost laughed myself. And all the rest was so lovely that it did seem a pity that Ethel Bumpschus and that little Duke had to come in and spoil it. Did you notice them at the chancel? Everything was perfect; the Bishop of New York and the Bishop of Long Island and the other clergymen did look so smart in their vestments, and that Captain Lord Algernon is a magnificent man, like all heirs presumptious, and the bridesmaids were exquisite, Pearl, exquisite; and I have never seen such ushers, except those white spats did make their feet more attractive than their faces; but, 'pon my word, when I saw the Duke kneeling beside Ethel and just reaching her shoulders, I thought I should collapse. Do you suppose he said anything during the ceremony?"

"I think," said Pearl, "I think, but I wouldn't swear to it, of course, that when the Bishop asked if he took Ethel he said it would be jolly."

"Poor little fellow," said Mrs. Radigan. "He looked so good and kind and harmless when he came down the aisle on Ethel's arm that I really pitied him. Afterward at the breakfast I told Sir Charles Wigge how much sympathy I felt for his Grace, and he polished up his monocle and inspected me. 'Mrs. Jornigan,' he said—I think that is what he called me—'the Duchess of Nocastle is one of the loveliest women I have ever known. You must remember, when you speak of her, that she is an English peeress.' But still, Pearl, I could not help thinking how much better it would have looked if the Duke had died and Captain Lord Fitznit had succeeded him and you had taken him, and he had put on his Guards uniform, and you had the same bridesmaids and ushers, and the two of you——"

Pearl Veal has been simply astounding me of late. Suddenly she leaned over, and for an instant I thought her cigarette was going to burn my nose, but she remembered it.

"Well, Pearl, you are an idiot!" cried Mrs. Radigan. But as she closed the portières and disappeared, we did not heed her taunts.

Now I do not agree with Sally Radigan that the Duke and his bride spoiled the wedding. She exaggerates. Ethel was partly protected by her veil and really was quite presentable. Of course the Duke's head could only reach her shoulder, but as he kept on his toes and she stooped, they did not really appear so badly. And everything else was perfect. I have never seen a more expensive nor a smarter affair. St. Edward's was simply lined with flowers. The music was perfect, Roardika, Furioso, and the Skimphony Orchestra making it really the concert of the year. The pink waistcoats and white spats were a great success, and everybody said that Williegilt Bumpschus had an eye for beauty when he arranged the ushers. We made very few mistakes too. Tommy Clime did fix Archibald Killing in the same pew as Mr. and Mrs. Harry Stutter, which made a commotion in that part of the church, as Mrs. Stutter was once Mrs. Killing. Stuyve Mint, who is near-sighted, mistook the old family nurse for Mrs. Bumpschus and led her up the aisle with a grand flourish and put her in the seat of honor; but Williegilt managed to get her out just as I came up with the real mother of the Duchess-elect. So, on the whole, there was hardly a hitch. And it was worth going a long way to see those bridesmaids; worth going early and sitting through an hour of music; worth the long wait afterward for your carriage, with all the attendant perils of such a crowd as filled the streets. Visions in pink those girls were, stepping airily down a rosy pathway. Angelica Clime with Gladys Tumbleton, Clarissa Mudison with Emily Lumpley, Hebes all. And then Pearl Veal!

We talk of the daughters of a hundred earls. I have seen them, too. God save me from them! Give me this daughter of Kansas City, whose blood runs red. No proud anæmia pales her cheek. She can boast a family as old as the Fitznits, a hundred generations of men and women, rugged folk with good digestions and little else. They left her no crest. She had to adopt one. But from them came the most perfect face and form in all the town—the red-gold hair that frames that perfect face; the round, dimpled cheeks from which the color never goes, but plays now deeper, now softer, like the sunlight on the clouds; those glorious blue eyes with the quiet gleam lurking in their depths; that mouth that says so little in words and yet speaks volumes; the foot, the hand—they would seem the heritage of the storied daughters of the storied nobles. She glided down the aisle that day, so quietly proud, so proudly quiet, that I doubt if in all that church, filled to suffocation with the smartest of the town, there came to one soul the thought that her grandfather was—But why think of it? As Mrs. Radigan says, money covers a multitude of ancestors.

CHAPTER XXIV

Mrs. Radigan Being Smart, Becomes Clever

One week more and I shall be married. It used to be said that there were three great events in a woman's life—birth, marriage, and death—and I take it that the same is true of man. But under our improved social system we are not quite so restricted. As Mrs. Radigan remarked the other afternoon, there are now a number of great events—birth, marriages, and death—but I fear she becomes more cynical as she grows smarter. I will not take such a view, and when she expressed it, I put down my foot hard, and looking fiercely at Pearl Veal, said that I wanted it understood then and there that after next Tuesday she had nothing to look forward to but death. She was very good about it, and smilingly replied that she agreed with me very thoroughly. Pearl is so different from her sister. Mrs. Radigan has become very broad and says that nothing keeps her with John but her affection for him, and his dog-like admiration for her. She has become brilliant and is writing a book, a satire on society, I believe, so has begun to surround herself with what she calls clever people, whom she patronizes. He has not changed. He knows nothing of "atmosphere" or of "color," has no imagination, and cannot rise above stocks, carbureters, and glanders. His wife loves him, but pities him. She says that their tastes are utterly different, that he is dull and worldly, and thinks this beautiful earth of ours nothing more than a mint, and life simply a job. He yawns when she talks to him about the "soul" and the "music of things," so they never have common ground to meet on except when they go over the household-bills.

Now with Captain Lord Algernon Fitznit it is different. It was different, we remember, with Mr. Mudison. He came into our lives as Mrs. Radigan was growing smart, and naturally she found the premiere danseur of the cotillons, the member of seven clubs, the polo player with nine handicap a more congenial companion than John, who hopped when he danced and was just learning to take a fence and handle a mallet. Poor John! At the risk of life and limb, he became a thorough sport to please his wife, and then found that, having established herself as smart, she was looking on life with a cynical eye and becoming clever. Lord Algernon is clever, she says. He has been spending a week with us at the Westbury place, and will be here until after the wedding. Mrs. Radigan laid hands on him at the Bumpschus breakfast and simply would not let him go back to England until he had given us some of his valuable time, so down he came, with all his six feet four, his sad, drooping mustache, his monocle, and his "Aw." He is to sail in a few weeks with the Duke and Duchess of Nocastle, and the bull pups, who are now South on their wedding-trip.

Pearl Veal said that we shall be having the Colossus of Rhodes down next, but I cannot see that Lord Algernon bothers her very much, as her sister hardly lets him out of her sight, though at various times she has had a lot of people to meet him. One of the first was Carrie de Bowler, the actress, who goes everywhere now. Pearl argues that she is really not an actress, but is simply a star, and is received because she is beautiful and has good manners. Mrs. Radigan has been very kind to Miss de Bowler this winter, and when she found out that Lord Algernon had once married a dancer, but that it had been broken off by the family, she immediately concluded that he liked clever people, and asked the lovely Carrie for a week-end, with Hetherington Hopper, who writes nonsense novels. I cannot understand where she conceived the idea that the English giant was intellectual. Of course his predilection for the stage is well known, in London it is a common scandal, but on my fishing expeditions into his brains I have hooked up only a few facts relating to dogs and horses, and two anecdotes from the Sporting Times. But he is as good-natured as he is big. He listens well on any subject. Give him a comfortable chair, a cigar, a Scotch-and-soda, and he seems to enjoy Mrs. Radigan's views on the futility of life and the saving power of art just as well as Radigan's discourses on gasoline cars and stocks. Now when Mrs. Radigan reads scenes from her novel to her husband he dozes off to sleep and dreams of stocks and horses, so that when she pauses at the end of a thrilling climax, to hear him snoring gently, she is rightly indignant. But Lord Algernon seems to sleep with his eyes open, and every now and then he says "Aw" or "Jolly" or "Clever—very clever," and sips his Scotch. So Mrs. Radigan feels that their tastes are the same.

The other afternoon we were in the library having tea, after our return from the Fishing Club. Hetherington and Carrie had left the trap and were walking home, so there were six of us—Pearl Veal and I sitting by the library window watching the sun set, Radigan studying the stock quotations in the afternoon paper, Mignonette Klapper playing a new game of solitaire, and Mrs. Radigan reading to the soldier, the soldier drinking Scotch and smoking.

"You see how I am developing the heroine, my Lord," we heard her say, laying aside her manuscript. "Of course Caroline, being enormously rich, suspects unjustly that the men who flock about her care only for her money. Her money is her curse, which brings us back to the great principle of compensation in life. For instance, John has had to give up raw onions, of which he used to be passionately fond. So Caroline has everything in the world but love, while Alonzo, the poor artist, who goes every morning to the park just to see her walk by, loves her for herself, knows nothing of her wealth, and yet they are divided by a wide gulf. Our silly conventions require that they must not speak, and yet she rides by daily and sees him standing by the reservoir in an attitude of adoration and she yearns for him, but how are they to be introduced? Of course, as I go on, I shall develop Alonzo."

"Clever, very clever," interrupted his Lordship. "But Mrs. Radigan, tell me, what do you do about the spelling?"

"That, of course," replied Mrs. Radigan sagely, "is the most difficult part of literary work, for I have tried using a dictionary and know what it means. Now I let my secretary do it. I just go kind of sketching along the ideas and she puts them together, and very well, too, Hethy Hopper says. Hethy says, too, that if I sign my name the book will be a success, anyway, because I am well known, to start with. But I've a better idea than that—have it look as though John and I collaborated—is that the word? There is something so delightful in the picture of a husband and wife writing a book together, and think of the interest that would be aroused by the announcement of 'The Calf Worshippers,' by John and Sally Radigan."

Radigan's paper rattled to the floor and he sat bolt upright in his chair, staring at his wife.

"Clever—very clever," cried Lord Algernon, pulling at his long, blond mustache.

Radigan's voice trembled a little. "My dear," he said, "it is kind of you to want to share your glory with me, but I would not think of it. A man can have a clever wife, but the minute he becomes clever himself he is lost. Remember, my name is up for membership in the Cholmondeley Club."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Radigan firmly. "It would silence all those silly stories in Town Twaddle if people thought we had written a novel together."

"But think of my having to go on the Stock Exchange after the book was published," pleaded Radigan.

"You are afraid of yourself, John," replied his wife kindly. "You do not realize that now you are smart enough and rich enough to be a fool without hurting your position in the world. Hethy Hopper thinks the book will be very clever, and by getting it out under both our names we will demonstrate to the world how versified, I mean volatile, we are."

"Clever—awfully clever," said Lord Algernon rising and wandering, apparently aimlessly, to the table, where Mignonette Klapper was knitting her brow over a puzzle of cards.

"Sally is clever," said Pearl Veal quietly to me. "What a woman she is! She has been poor and rich. She was common and became a Knickerbocker and then smart. Now she is clever, and when she wearies of that she will settle down and be good. She thinks she has never been good, and it would hurt her dreadfully to be disillusioned."

A spindly French chair creaked as the Guardsman sat down beside Mignonette.

"Captain, you have not heard all of the chapter," cried Mrs. Radigan sweetly from the divan, where she sat enthroned amid cushions.

The Guardsman was strangely deaf. He seemed to become strangely talkative, too, for we heard Mignonette laugh and say, "Oh, your Lordship is too flattering." He did say "Aw," but he added something to it, very much to it, indeed, and when he had finished I noticed that she was blushing delightfully and smiling. Poor Mrs. Radigan! The soldier's broad back was toward her, but she could see the two heads together and hear Miss Klapper's musical laugh and the Englishman's joyous "Aw." For a moment she stared at them in amazement; then gathered up the scattered pages of "The Calf Worshippers," arose and exclaimed, "Come girls, it's high time to dress for dinner. I see Carrie and Hethy just coming in."

"Jolly girl, Miss Klapper?" said Lord Algernon to me as we were going upstairs together toward the bachelor quarter of the house.

"From the West," said I.

"Are all your Western girls beautiful?" inquired he gravely.

"All that are asked to visit in the East are," I answered. "Or else rich. The others marry at home."

"Miss Klapper is, of course, rich?" said his Lordship in an offhand way as he polished his monocle.

"Milwaukee," said I. "Klapper's Extra Pale."

"Aw," said he cheerfully.

"But she has no family." I thought it best just to tell him that.

"Family?" said he in a puzzled way. "Do you have them in America?"

"One or two," said I. "But they are nearly all buried now."

The Guardsman paused at his own door.

"She is certainly stunning," he mused. "Lovely face; charming figure; eyes fairly crackle; and clever, very clever. You say she comes from Klapper's Extra Pale? Aw."

He softly closed the door.

I saw then that Mrs. Radigan was right. Captain Lord Algernon Fitznit is clever, but in the English way. All those hours when he seemed to be listening attentively to ideas on life and art he was really taking stock of Miss Klapper and making an eye at her through his monocle. And all those hours when she was sitting alone with her cards, demurely, as became a girl just out of school, knitting her pretty brow over the puzzle they presented, she had been conscious of it, charmingly conscious, and had kept her dark eyes intent on the knaves in the pack—except now and then.

Mignonette has just been finished. They finish them well, nowadays, in our schools; polish them up so not a rough spot shows. She had "gentlemen friends" a few years ago. Now she is somewhat wiser. But in New York she can boast only a few acquaintances, and those on Riverside Drive, in Harlem, and in Brooklyn. Therefore, says Mrs. Radigan, she is a person you ought not to know; in herself she may not be objectionable, but when we take people up we should not look at them so critically as at their friends, who number more, and may try to come into our lives in hordes. But Pearl Veal has stood by Mignonette. They went to school together, and though she has a trained laugh and a finished smile, and all those other accomplishments that girls learn at school to unfit them for good society, she is Pearl's oldest friend and will attend her at her wedding, attend her alone. Announcing that, Pearl's foot went down and Mrs. Radigan gasped, for she had already intimated to Marie Antoinette Williegilt, Marian Speechless, and one or two other young women one should know, that they would be called on to be bridesmaids. Beaten there, Mrs. Radigan sought consolation in Lord Algernon. And as now that gallant Guardsman is making an eye through his monocle at the person one ought not to know, it looks as though Mrs. Radigan will have to console herself with Green of my old boarding-house, who comes down to-morrow and is to be my best man. Green is my oldest friend, but I must confess I am nervous about him. In all probability this is the first week-end he ever spent, and he is likely to appear at Westbury in a topper and frock-coat, and it is two to one that he will talk about the latest "show," and festoon a watch-chain across his dress waistcoat. But I have known him for years, while with Williegilt Bumpschus, who was pressed on me by Mrs. Radigan, I have only a passing acquaintance.

CHAPTER XXV

Pearl Veal and I

Pearl's new car is a wonder. It picked us up last Tuesday at the Westbury house, gathered us in with a shower of rice and old shoes. With a fiendish roar it started, but all the devils went out of it with a siss and a bang, and by the time we had swung through the gate it was going sweetly and swiftly, so softly that we seemed to be borne on the wind that swept over the plain, so quickly that, did the road hold straight and hard and smooth, we could circle the world in a day. How we flew! Constables shouted from the fences, but we outsped the sound of their voices. Horses shied into ditches, and drivers called down maledictions; but when Pearl Veal is abroad in her car you hear just the rustle of the angels' wings and see nothing. At Jamaica a mounted policeman thought that he saw something, put spurs to his steed, came clattering down the road in chase, yelling fiercely, and the answer was a wild scream of the horn as we shot around a corner and knew him no more. She cut across three funerals just to show that she was not superstitious, then almost cost us all our lives to save a dog from being flattened under the wheels.

"Madam," said Gascan, the chauffeur, with a tremble even in his voice, "they will catch us at the ferry."

"We will go by the bridge, then," was the quiet answer. "It will take but a few minutes longer."

So by the bridge we came, losing ourselves in the mazes of the East Side and ending forever all chances of pursuit; turning at last sedately into the avenue and picking our way uptown through the crush of carriages that block the way on a bright spring afternoon.

"Why, we have been over an hour from Westbury," she said, glancing at the clock on the Brick Church tower.

That is the way we have been travelling for a week—flying. Sometimes Gascan, the silent, takes the wheel, and we roll easily along at legal speed, not at all to keep within the absurd law, but to quiet our nerves with a smoke, to rest our eyes on the blue sky and the stately clouds, and our ears with the music of the wood and meadow. Then Pearl will take command, Pearl, all goggled and armored, all enwrapped in dust cloth and ashes till she would seem an animated mummy instead of the fairest girl in town. With her eyes intent on the road, intent on the spot a mile ahead where we are to be an instant later, and mine intent on her as she sits beside me, strong, alert, resourceful, we go at top speed, a mad pace, for miles and miles and miles, running away from the law and the world. We forget them all, all the Mints and Bumpschuses, the Wherrys and Lites, the Nocastles and Nothinghams, all the smart folk and noble folk with whom God and Mrs. Radigan have seen fit to cast our lot in the past few years. Sometimes we forget even John and Sally, but that is only in the excitement of the road when we are hurling ourselves over hill and valley. When evening comes and Gascan has unloaded the car, and dinner comes, and Pearl and I sit over coffee and a cigarette, she will blow a smoke ring and say, as she watches it rise into the darkness: "I wonder what Sally is doing now."

"Reading her novel to Lord Algernon Fitznit," I will venture.

"Or to Green," Pearl will say with a quiet smile.

"Or preparing for Newport," I will suggest.

"And planning the donkey-dinner," Pearl will laugh.

"She was to give a fair for the hospital, you may remember," I say, "and she told me distinctly that she proposed to spend almost all her time in church-work."

"After the racing season," Pearl explains. "You know she has started a stable with Constance Wherry, and promises to give to the church all she makes in the ring."

"Their colors?" I inquire.

"Gold," Pearl answers; "all gold with narrow silver hoops—and the horses entered by 'Mr. Nagidar,' the new firm's name and 'Radigan' backward."

Then I will raise my glass and clink it gently over the table with Pearl's. "To Mr. Nagidar, success," I say.

A sip. Up go the glasses again, and I suggest: "To Mrs. Radigan—yesterday in Kansas City, to-day the smartest woman in town, to-morrow the patron saint of Society."

"But Sally was never so enthusiastic over you," Pearl says, resting her chin on her clinched fists as she leans on the table and smiles at me. "Remember Plumstone Smith and the Duke of Nocastle—even Captain Lord Algernon Fitznit."

"I prefer to forget them," I exclaim, "and will remember only that but for Mrs. Radigan I should never have met Pearl Veal!"

"Ve-al," Pearl corrects me laughingly. "Thank Heaven, I have at last got rid of that dreadful name. People simply would not help me out with the French pronunciation."

"Names are made in heaven—like marriages," I aver, lighting a cigar.

"The same insight into human needs is shown in both cases," Pearl declares. "But, anyway, I could change mine."

"And, thank Heaven, not to Smith nor to Fitznit," I murmur devoutly.

"Thank Heaven," says she. And she raises her glass and murmurs softly, "To Us!"

Then we forget the Radigans again, the Mints and the Bumpschuses, the Nocastles and the Fitznits, and all those tiresome folk. Sometimes letters follow us, and when they start in time and follow fast they catch us and for a while drag us back again to home and friends. To-day we had quite a batch of them, mostly from Mrs. Radigan, with one from Mignonette Klapper announcing her engagement to Captain Lord Algernon Fitznit, and a marked paper containing a picture of the Guardsman and his fiancée, and telling all about the romance that began at the Long Island house. I must confess I can see nothing romantic in the match, for the giant soldier seemed to have too plain sailing; did nothing, just eyed Mignonette through his monocle while Mrs. Radigan read to him, as he smoked and sipped Scotch, and the girl played solitaire so innocently. Then he proposed and she took him, and that is the end of it. I suppose they arranged it the day of our wedding, for he was to leave Westbury next morning and she to start that night for her Milwaukee home. But she stayed over, announced the engagement at breakfast, and took him West to show to the family.

"Her conduct was horrid," wrote Mrs. Radigan to Pearl. "It makes my blood boil to think that all those hours when I was reading my novel to him, he was flirting with that little minx. I told you from the first that this is what you might expect if you persisted in your friendships with people you ought not to know. Now she will go to London and, with her money and his family, will be in the thick of the Court set and in prime shape to snub me back if I do not cringe. Her conduct the day of the wedding was dreadful, though I suppose you were too busy to notice it. She kept him trailing after her all day long, when he should have been attentive to Marian Speechless and Clarissa Mudison and Gladys Tumbleton, and all those nice girls who have been so kind to him since he came over. He simply ignored them and followed her around wherever she went, like a little dog, and after you had gone away in the car the two of them slipped out for a long walk and never got back till nearly dinner-time. The first I heard of the engagement was late in the evening, when, thinking no one was there, I happened to look into the library."

"Poor Sally!" said Pearl as she laid down the letter. "She will never forgive me for having a quiet wedding."

"A quiet wedding!" I cried. "What is a quiet wedding?"

My mind, of course, went back to the dreadful day—or three days, for the trouble began on Saturday—when the house filled with people and there was no rest till that afternoon, when we jumped into the car amid a shower of rubbish and flew away. There was all the worry about Green, enough to break down any man, particularly as there was no need of it, after all. He is my oldest friend, so I did want him to stand by me at that trying time, but, of course, he knows only queer people and I was sure he would behave like a fish out of water. But Green proved wonderful. He has picked up a lot of things in the past year, has quite changed his style of dressing, and as he is a handsome fellow, he got along splendidly with everybody, told some new stories, cleaned up considerable at bridge, beat Radigan at billiards, and killed a long Sunday evening for us with an improvised musicale, in which he and Miss Klapper did everything, except that Lord Algernon sang a drinking-song. The Count and Countess Poglioso Spinnigini invited him to visit them in Italy when they return there ten years hence; Marian Speechless got him promised for a week-end in June; Stuyve Mint asked him to go out to the races on their coach next week, and as for Mrs. Radigan, I heard her distinctly introduce him to Mrs. Hegerton Humming as the "most brilliant man I know."

Pearl looked up from another letter: "Sally writes that she has asked 'that lovely Mr. Green' to Newport in August," she said, handing the note across the table for my inspection.

So I pinched myself to make sure that it was I, as I have pinched myself a dozen times in the past week when my mind has gone back to the old days in the boarding-house and to that dreadful real-estate time. And here is Green, my friend Green, yesterday in a hall bedroom, to-day spending week-ends, to-morrow being toted around Newport as the most "brilliant man Mrs. Radigan knows," which can only mean the most brilliant in all the town. Green was splendid. Even she approved of him, and there were few things about that wedding which did meet her approbation.

I cannot see why Mrs. Radigan was disappointed, except that the Bumpschus-Nocastle affair overshadowed it, as it did all other of the season's functions. It was small. They say it was quiet. It certainly was smart, for, except for Miss Klapper and Green, only those worth knowing were asked, some four hundred all told, of whom perhaps a half came down on a special train, and it took every trap in the neighborhood to get them over to the house. Well could Mrs. Radigan view with pride that assemblage beneath her roof, when the orchestra struck up the wedding-march and Radigan led Pearl Veal through that splendid company, down the aisle they had formed to the rosy bower where stood two bishops and a half-dozen other of the clergy, where I stood with Green. Mint and Bumpschus, Williegilt and Wherry, Hegerton and Humming—every great name in the city was there. Every railroad had sent its representative; every street-car line and bank; every race-track and towing company—even some medicines and breakfast-foods. These were the proudest of the city. These were the great folk of the land. Yesterday none knew her. Yesterday some snubbed her. To-day they journey miles to see her sister married, not because they are very interested, but because she is a power and it is well to be there; they call her Sally and her husband Jack; they throw rice at her sister and old shoes at me in an outburst of affection. Is it a wonder that I pinch myself to make sure that it is I?

And of the future, what? Shall we climb higher or shall we fall? Higher we cannot climb, but of a fall I have little fear, while the money lasts. To-morrow the Radigans will be old and conservative, and Sally will be content with four houses and one small dance a year, will honor her friends with a card handed in by the footman, will head the list of patronesses of all charities, and spend Lent in a retreat. New Radigans will rise, Radigans with more money and more brains and more push. For the Radigans of to-day are the Bumpschuses of to-morrow and the Van Rundouns of the day after. Then they disappear in the great human sea of those who are not worth knowing.

CHAPTER XXVI

In which Mr. Mudison in His Memoirs Gives Us Some Insight into Mrs. Radigan's Shattered Romance

My own story lies unfolded in my fragmentary record. As I glance back over my pages so leisurely scribbled it seems as though the great events of my life had been squeezed into two years. A man's romance ends when he is married—generally. After that he may be happy, but existence is humdrum. I am floating on placid waters, flowing gently, carrying me easily along, sometimes into the shadow of rugged, threatening shores, but always out again into the delicious calm and sunshine. Some day, weary even of the little paddling, I shall sink. That will complete my history, but others must record it. For myself and of myself I shall write no more.

Into my pages, however, there have come others whose lives I should like to follow. Pearl says that, written, they would make dull reading. Possibly. Still it would seem that were Marian Speechless to disclose the inwardness of her intrigue to capture Williegilt Bumpschus and his millions we should have a narrative full of humor and pathos. We shall never know that story, even if it reaches a happy conclusion, for it will be told to the world in a notice of an engagement and a few newspaper paragraphs concerning the wedding. Gay Cecil Hash is an ideal hero, and his affair with the lovely Sunday-school teacher, his reform, his marriage, and withdrawal from worldly gayety would delight the most romantic reader. That book is closed. So with scores of others. But in one thing I feel that I have been fortunate—Mr. Mudison's memoirs have been rescued from oblivion. Aside from their interest as the story of a famous man and their historical value, I find that they round out my own pages, clearing up many points left obscure by my limited range of observation. His name occurs frequently in the notes made during the summer following my wedding, most conspicuously in August, when Mrs. Radigan, in a letter to Pearl, tells how she has refused him positively for the sixth and last time, for the simple reason that she still loves John devotedly. Then Mr. Mudison for a while disappears from our life, and though through the fall and winter I heard many rumors concerning him, I did not get at the truth until I undertook for him the task of editing his memoirs.

A glance at the Social Register gives at once an idea of the importance of my friend. After his name we find these extremely smart hieroglyphics: T., C., Cm., P., Wh., B., H., Ex., Sr., Sm., H. '90. This, of course, as everyone knows, means that his clubs are the Ticktock, the Cholmondeley, the Cosmopolitan, the Ping-pong, the Westbury Hunt, the Boxing, the Horseback, and the Exudo. Besides, he is a member of the Sons of the Rebellion and the Society of the Mexican War, while the last abbreviation stamps him a man of Harvard education. So Mudison is worth knowing. The greatest figures in the financial world, the political powers of the country, the artistic and literary celebrities, deem it a matter of pride to be seen in his company, for he is what so many millions strive to be and only a few hundred are—he is tremendously smart. I do not use the word in its vulgar sense. Mudison does not know a Greek root from an X-ray, but his family has been prominent in New York for fifty years, and its founder, the sheriff of the name, left a fortune that, though divided and subdivided, suffices to keep my friend in clothes and clubs.

The memoirs of such a man are of immense value, as they give to posterity an intimate picture of the life of his day, which, after all, is vastly more important than accounts of battles and Presidential elections. But I do not for an instant suppose that Mr. Mudison, in those hours between his morning coffee and his breakfast at the Ping-pong Club, when he scribbled his fragmentary accounts of his adventures, had any idea that he was rendering a service to future generations. He was simply killing time. In truth, there is much in his notes that is trivial, even much that might be called worthless. But there is a great deal that will be of immense interest, dealing as it does with some of the most important social events of the day. A part of this it has been my good fortune to gather together in more lasting form than his scattered pages, and with a few corrections in spelling and grammar it has been prepared for future study.

I am just back from a most charming week-end at R. Timpleton Duff's in Westchester, and, upon my word, I do not know whether I am glad or sorry that I went. My appetite this morning was completely satiated with half a roll and a cup of coffee, so I think that instead of going to the club I shall take a stroll in the park and ponder it all over.

Confound women, anyway! A man should never let himself be caught straying from within call of the avenue. There only is he safe. You meet women in town, but you never get to know them. It is on these infernal house-parties that they depend. There it is that they get you off in a corner and talk to you about your hopes and ambitions, discover that they agree with you exactly on the latest plays and novels, reveal to you their own unhappiness and their belief in the hollowness of life as it is at present. It always takes me a week to recover my appetite after a house-party, and I vow that each one will be my last. But Mrs. Duff is artful. She knows me of old. She never writes, lest she give me an opportunity to think up an excuse. She calls me on the 'phone, and asks if I have anything to do to-morrow, and being taken by surprise and fearing to betray myself by a quaver in my voice, I stupidly say no. There I am caught! A few hours later down she comes in a car, and I am whirled away at a forty-mile-an-hour clip to Restabit— I think that is the name of their place.

As is usual when you go by car and your luggage by rail, my bag did not arrive in time for dinner, and I had to array myself in one of Timpleton's old suits, which fit so abominably that Mrs. Underbunk, evidently thinking me a servant, swept proudly by when we met in the hall. This, of course, made a huge joke when I followed her into the drawing-room and was formally presented.

A charming woman! She might be twenty-five; she might be fifty. Yet there is no evidence of art about her. She is a simple little thing, with bright eyes, and a figure that she sets off very well in a black gown all shimmery with spangles, and a snappy little waist with narrow ribbons for sleeves. She let me drape over her shoulders a gauzy network shawl to keep off the cold, and then tucked her arm snugly under mine and was led in to dinner. My hostess was at my left, and she whispered to me that Gladys, as she called her, had been the wife of Joshua Underbunk, who has since married Amy Lightly, the prima donna of the "Whoop-de-doodle" company. Mrs. Duff said it was awfully sad, but, glancing at my companion, I confess I could not see but that she was bearing up well. She was talking gayly to the literary fellow on her right. The Duffs, you see, have a penchant for queer people. The Tommy Tattlers, of course, are nice, as are Harry Pumley and Sally Bilberry, but where they ever raked up that Miss Sapper, the artist, and Julius Hogginson Fairfield, is beyond me. Mrs. Duff told me over oysters that Fairfield was awfully clever, and had written "The Smash," the heaviest-selling novel of the day. He had been taken up by the Twitters, who rather pride themselves on not being exclusive. I have no personal objection to literary people and their kind, but it is so seldom that they know anything. Fairfield, for instance, did not understand that he was to talk half the time to Mrs. Tommy Tattler, and give me a chance with Mrs. Underbunk. Instead, he took up her entire dinner, telling her how he happened to write "The Smash," and what a poor book it really was, and how the public had greatly over-estimated its literary worth. Once I began to give her my famous story of the Irishman in the diving-bell, and he had to break in and engage her eyes, her smile, and all her attention, leaving me to discuss stocks with Harry Pumley, across Mrs. Duff.

My revenge and my chance came later in the evening, when we sat down to bridge, and Fairfield by a strange fate cut Mrs. Underbunk for a partner, against myself and Sally Bilberry, who depends on cards for her clothes. Mrs. Underbunk announced that she never played for money, which I admire immensely in her, for I don't think that women who are living on alimony should gamble. Julius Hogginson Fairfield gallantly said that he would carry her, and asked how she discarded. She did not know. I saw him flush, and his hand trembled as he led. But to me his partner was tremendously pretty and ingenuous in her game. It was delightful the way she protested after she had revoked and Miss Bilberry sternly claimed three tricks. Her apologies were charming after we had doubled Fairfield's no-trump make and she had doubled back, allowing us to run up a score of 288 points. At the end of two rubbers the author looked very warm. His collar and shirt-front had wilted completely. Having shared with Sally Bilberry a considerable part of the royalties from "The Smash," I was lucky enough to cut out with Mrs. Underbunk to let in Mrs. Duff and Pumley.

When, an hour later, they called to us in our secluded corner of the library that it was our turn to take a hand, the dear woman replied that she had a headache and really did not care to play, and I, for my part, vowed that bridge bored me to death. So we talked on. I must say that I was at my best. She was tremendously interested in everything, and seemed to enjoy having me explain how we bought stock on margins, and hearing about the time I was arrested for over-speeding my car, and of the coup I made at the Brooklyn Handicap last year. We got on tremendously. At first we thought it strange that we had not met before, as her former husband and I belong to the same clubs, but then she has been living abroad and has but lately returned. Curiously enough, we found that we had the same tastes in everything. She is devoted to riding and motoring and yachting. She is fond of the theatre, and abhors German opera. She loves literature, and was delighted when I promised to send her a batch of new detective-stories I recently picked up at my bookseller's. Then she is very strict in her religious views, a quality which I greatly admire in her sex, and I must confess that, as I peeped out of the window in the morning and saw her alone climbing into the trap and driving off to church at White Plains, I roundly cursed myself for sleeping so late and promising to ride with Mrs. Tommy Tattler before luncheon.

But we go through fire to victory. In the afternoon a drive down to the Country Club for tea gave me an opportunity on the quiet to propose to her a little theatre-party next week, with supper at Flurry's, and at bridge in the evening I actually insisted on carrying her, thereby in three rubbers losing to Tommy Tattler and Sally Bilberry all I had taken from Julius Hogginson Fairfield, with quite a sum more. But I have a good tip on Kalabash, second preferred, and can afford to be reckless. Love does make us reckless, and I suppose this is love. Of course these attacks never amount to anything as long as a man keeps his head when he loses his heart. I have ever managed to hold on to my head. The trouble with most men is that they think that death or matrimony is the only cure for heart-trouble. They succumb at the first attack.

A little experience would teach them better, but they never gather it. I know how it has always been with me. For example, now as always, there will be a loss of appetite, a few books and flowers, the theatre-party, and perhaps another week-end down on Long Island or at Exudo.

Then I shall, as of old, run over my accounts and see that to marry I should have to resign from half my clubs, for, of course, I could not live on alimony. Then some day I'll smoke it all off. A headache, and love's old dream will have vanished.

Still, I agree with Mrs. Timpleton Duff. Some of us came down to town in her car to-day, and when we had left Mrs. Underbunk at the Holland House and were heading uptown, my hostess said to me, "Isn't Gladys a dear?"

"Thoroughly charming," said I. "Tremendously jolly."

"I wanted you so to meet her," said she. "I knew you would find each other so congenial. Gladys has brains."

So I am off for a stroll alone in the park.

CHAPTER XXVII

Mr. Mudison Gives a Theatre-party for Mrs. Underbunk

'Twixt love and clubs—oh, dreadful state! A week ago I was boasting that with a few flowers and books, a theatre-party, and a week-end or two all would be over. To-day I know that I have never been in love before; that I have only hovered on the borders of the dismal swamp; that now I am in the mire. My appetite has forsaken me entirely; I find no pleasure in my cigars, and the other day I actually gave up drinking because I believed that it was morally wrong. If this regeneration keeps up I shall become the worst bore in town. The deuce of it is that I find myself in a condition—in an indescribable condition. The nearest approach to a diagnosis of my case is to say that were I again confronted with the possibility of falling in love I should avoid it, but being in love, all the money in the world would not make me change my mood. Curiously, the reverse definition works just as well—I would give everything to be free, but free, would not avoid another capture. Strange! No wonder so many other well-known men have been made fools by women! Why, I find myself doing all kinds of absurd things—then just laugh. Tuesday morning I spent figuring from how many clubs I should have to resign in order to make my income meet the expenses of a wife. It was worse than squaring the circle, for no man is more unfortunate than he who has a fixed income of $20,000 a year, with no business in which to increase it; for sooner or later he will be confronted with a demand that he give up his comfort or his happiness. It is a problem to stagger any well-balanced person. So I am taking long walks, alone, at unheard-of hours, just yesterday appearing on the Avenue at eleven o'clock in the morning. Could I blame Mrs. Timpleton Duff for smiling as she drove by?

When I had typhoid they gave me cold baths to reduce the fever. Well, in the last few days I have had enough chills to bring me back to a normal life. Instead, I grow worse, and I see no end, no peace, except in that matrimonial bourne whence so comparatively few men return. Of that I am convinced. It was impressed on me with double force when I dropped in at the Ticktock Club the other afternoon to have a cup of tea. Whom should I find eying me over a paper but Joshua Underbunk, a man for whom I have never cared, since, though a captain of industry, he has not an idea in his head except on pig-iron and pictures. But as there were some things I wanted to know, I was pleasant, and in return he was most affable, principally, I suspect, because he is up for membership in the Cholmondeley Club, where some objection has been raised to him by the High-Church set. After casual remarks on things in general, I said, rather adroitly, "By the bye, I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Underbunk at a house-party last week."

"Indeed!" said he, looking rather surprised. "Her company was playing in Boston, I thought."

Naturally that was rather a blow to me, but it seemed best to have it over, so I explained boldly, "I mean Mrs. Gladys Underbunk."

"Oh," said he laughing, "not the present Mrs. Underbunk, then. I should like very much to have you meet her. But how is——"

He hesitated, and seeing that he was at loss how to designate delicately his relation to my delightful friend, I promptly interposed: "She is very well. A charming woman."

"A charming woman!" cried Mr. Underbunk, without a trace of insincerity. "I heard that she was in this country. She has been living at San Moritz, but I believe she ran over to see our eldest boy at Harvard."

My mind tumbled back to typhoid time. This was the cold plunge that failed to reduce my fever. The eldest boy at Harvard! Joshua Underbunk's tone indicated a half-dozen more somewhere else, yet I found myself actually making excuses for the woman.

Calmly, with no emotion whatever, I said, "She did not mention the children, that I remember."

"They are a delightful lot," said Mr. Underbunk nonchalantly. "I am sorry I cannot see more of them, but her lawyers send me quarterly reports of their health and financial needs."

His expression "a delightful lot" would more than have justified me in calling off the theatre-party that evening and pleading severe illness, and as I walked homeward I seriously contemplated such a step, but the end of an hour found me despatching my man Jangle to the Holland House with a note reminding Mrs. Underbunk of the engagement. Moreover, "the delightful lot" were entirely forgotten when later I stood before her, before the simple little woman, the woman of that most attractive of all ages, the undefinable; the frank, the demure, the vivacious soul; and, most of all, calling especially for my sympathy, the neglected. That Mrs. Underbunk had suffered, that she had children, that she had been forsaken, made her trebly attractive to me in my highly sensitive state. She is thoroughly conventional without being wooden; pious, but not priggish. I do like to see a regard for the outward forms of life, and that she insisted that her maid chaperon us to the theatre, a few blocks away, served to raise her higher in my estimation. To some it might seem that she was a trifle over-particular, but a once-married woman has to be very careful.

Of all the plays for me to have chosen, "The Smash" was the worst. It was the first night, and the present Mrs. Underbunk, formerly Amy Lightly, of the "Whoop-de-doodle" company, was making her début in the legitimate drama; so, eying us from the dark recesses of the box across the house was Joshua himself. My mind reverted to that Mrs. Topper-Tompkins who last summer invaded Newport from Chicago, and had Jack Tattler to dinner with both Mrs. Bobbie Dingingham and Mrs. Willie Timpleton. These things will happen nowadays, and we must expect them and make the best of them. Mrs. Underbunk carried herself beautifully, and even went so far as to applaud Amy Lightly very generously. The others in our box noticed it, and when she was not looking they would get their heads together and discuss her conduct with enthusiastic admiration. The Tommy Tattlers, of course, knew her, but Winthrop Jumpkin, 7th, and Constance Twitter had only heard of her. Jumpkin, by the way, is a new friend of mine, a very decent fellow, though poor; being from Boston, and tracing his ancestry without a break to the Puritan who did not come to this country in the Mayflower. I had asked him to match Miss Twitter, but he did not seem to appreciate the opportunity I had given him to meet many millions, and talked incessantly to Mrs. Underbunk, leaving me entirely to Mrs. Tattler. Finally, by getting him nervous about his fur overcoat I engineered myself into his chair, so when he returned to report the precious garment safe, I was too deeply engrossed to notice that I had evicted him.

This was between the acts, of course, during the storm of calls for the author. To my astonishment, who should come on the stage but Julius Hogginson Fairfield, the play being only a dramatization of his great historical novel.

Mrs. Underbunk clapped wildly. "Don't you remember him?" she whispered, as he was making the usual author's speech refusing a laurel-wreath. "He is the clever man we met at the Duffs'."

"Ah," said I, pretending that it had just occurred to me. "The fellow with the queer shoes and the three mother-of-pearl studs."

"Society," said she prettily, "should make allowances for genius."

"Genius," said I, "should make allowances to society. The best nine tailors living cannot fit a genius. Is there any pall on a properly conducted social function like the entrance of a man who wears congress gaiters and mother-of-pearl studs?"

"Ah, Mr. Mudison, you should look at the brain," she protested, shaking her fan at me.

"But the brains should be well served," said I. "Why should we always have to have them garnished with hair, with lay-down collars, with awry coats?"

"It is true," she answered, after a moment of thought. "I should not care to have them around all the time, but occasionally they give variety."

As Julius Hogginson Fairfield was in that part of his speech where he leaves his work to posterity to judge, I could not help continuing for a time this line of speculation, as it gave me an opportunity to explain to Mrs. Underbunk the hollowness of certain kinds of fame which she was evidently inclined to acclaim.

"It must be splendid," she said, "to really do something yourself; to achieve something with your own intellect and hands; to stand with your head just a bit above the common herd."

"Yes—if you are common," said I. "Fame is attractive to the masses. If you cannot be smart, be famous."

"And do you not envy Mr. Fairfield?" said she, looking at me in a puzzled way, "a man whose books are the best sellers of the year, who at this moment is taking his place among the leading playwrights of the time."

"No," I answered, following up my advantage. "To-day he is a celebrity; to-morrow they will give a theatrical benefit for him; the day after, his obituary notice will be cut by the newspapers to make room for a bucket-shop advertisement. But the names of the great cotillon-leaders are on every tongue as long as they can stay on their feet."

I think Mrs. Underbunk is being converted to my ideas. Of course she has been living abroad for a long time and does not altogether understand our New York view of life, but I noticed that when Julius Hogginson Fairfield stepped into the box to speak to us, she did not give him that absorbed look which had so worried me at the Duffs'. There was balm for him, though, in Constance Twitter's admiration. She simply raved over him. She had "The Smash," and considered it one of the greatest books she had ever read.

Just to show my own good-nature and my fearlessness of him, I invited the author to come to Flurry's with us, but he had an engagement with the other Underbunks.

There was a little trouble at supper, as Joshua's party took a table right next to ours, but on a plea of draughts I managed to change to a cozy corner far from this disagreeable company.

Everything passed off most delightfully. I had Mrs. Underbunk on my right and Mrs. Tattler on my left, with Constance Twitter across the table, between Tommy and Winthrop Jumpkin, 7th. Then I was in my best form. Mrs. Underbunk responded splendidly. She seemed to have no end of subjects of conversation, and never allowed any of those embarrassing pauses, but skipped lightly from one topic to another, till we touched life in its every phase.

Her maid was on hand to chaperon her back to the hotel, but it did seem to me that as we parted at the elevator she held my hand longer than convention absolutely required.

"I have learned much from you to-night," she said simply.

So this morning I am in high feather, though my appetite is as poor as ever.

A careful study of Mr. Mudison's pages, covering his life for some weeks following, does not reveal much of vital interest. He deals largely with matters that are purely personal. Here we find that he has changed his breakfast-food; again, that he has discovered that gin and champagne are not wholesome, and is keeping entirely to rye and plain water. Later we learn that, with a handicap of thirty points, he won the annual billiard tournament at the Ping-pong Club. His comments on the houses at which he has dined and on the people he has met there, are sometimes interesting as bits of gossip, but we are dealing only with matters of larger interest in his life. Such is his account of Roardika's début as Isolde, which forms the next chapter of his edited memoirs.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Mr. Mudison Sees Mrs. Underbunk at the Opera

I feel very happy to-day for two reasons. Firstly, as my rector says, I have full particulars about the "delightful lot," being informed that they number but three, two small boys besides the Harvard man, for all of whom Joshua provides liberally. Secondly, I have learned that Mrs. Underbunk was the aggrieved party; that Joshua had the bad temper; that the South Dakota courts forbade him to marry again in that State. Immediately on receipt of this information I sent an armful of American Beauties to the Holland House, and yesterday morning one of her characteristic little notes brought her thanks. Then she expressed her regret that she would miss seeing me that evening, as she understood that I was going to the theatre with the Trimmings, and she had an opera engagement with the Stynes. Where did she get to know those people? They have been long regarded as simply impossible. I understand that they are Episcopalians now, but that they formerly had "berger" at the end of their name, and but recently took to the "y." However, they are enormously rich, having made their money in my favorite breakfast-food, but it will take them a few years to get in. Mrs. Underbunk is entirely too good-natured. She says that they are interesting; but evidently her life abroad has blinded her. She thinks because they hobnobbed with royalty they will be received here at once, and she does not realize that they must first serve a term at Southampton and Bar Harbor, and then have a season of snubbing at Newport. She even went so far as to ask me to do something for them—to call, or drop in at their box at the opera. Of course I had to say that I would, but I had no idea that I should be called on so soon to make a public appearance with these climbers. However, it was my own fault. Her note decided me. I pleaded a headache to the Trimmings, and by nine o'clock had sufficiently recovered to wander over to the opera-house.

In social as well as military operations a reconnaissance is always wise. I dropped in to speak to the Twitters first, and made a few observations. I must admit that to the eye the Styne box was everything that it should be. From the artistic point of view it was without a flaw, for with two lovely women like young Mrs. Morgan Styne and Mrs. Underbunk in the front, and such distinguished-looking men as Styne and Julius Hogginson Fairfield whispering over-shoulder to them, they were really conspicuous. In every way they seemed to have emphasized their good taste and their ignorance of the customs of our society. I saw an oasis. I saw a restful, quiet spot, surrounded by the glare of the desert of jewels. From them my eyes wandered around the horseshoe, wandered along that diamond-fronted row, now and again pausing to rest on some familiar figure where a pathetic effort had been made to secure with money what Nature had not given. I fear that Gladys Underbunk is warping my view of life. Why, I actually found myself admitting that young Mrs. Harry Garish, with her hair done in Merodish fashion and intertwined with pearls to the value of a king's ransom, was hopelessly plain. She poses as clever as well as smart, and so affects Cleopatra costumes. Her elbow almost touched Mrs. Underbunk's over the railing, and the comparison was such that I was simply astonished that for so many years I had been one of her train. Mrs. Garish was probably wondering where Gladys Underbunk had picked up such friends. She would faint when she saw me joining the party. But I was bold.