The Business of Life

CHAPTER IV

When the doorbell rang the maid of all work pushed the button and stood waiting at the top of the stairs. There was a pause, a moment's whispering, then light footsteps flying through the corridor, and:

"Where on earth have you been for a week?" asked Cynthia Lessler, coming into Jacqueline's little parlour, where the latter sat knitting a white wool skating jacket for herself.

Jacqueline laid aside the knitting and greeted her visitor with a warm, quick embrace.

"Oh, I've been everywhere," she said. "Out in Westchester, mostly. To-day being Sunday, I'm at home."

"What were you doing in the country, sweetness?"

"Business."

"What kind?"

"Oh, cataloguing a collection. Take the armchair and sit near the stove, dear. And here are the chocolates. Put your feet on the fender as I do. It was frightfully cold in Westchester yesterday – everything frozen solid – and we – I skated all over the flooded fields and swamps. It was simply glorious, Cynthia – "

"I thought you were out there on business," remarked Cynthia dryly.

"I was. I merely took an hour at noon for luncheon."

"Did you?"

"Certainly. Even a bricklayer has an hour at noon to himself."

"Whose collection are you cataloguing?"

"It belongs to a Mr. Desboro," said Jacqueline carelessly.

"Where is it?"

"In his house – a big, old house about five miles from the station – "

"How do you get there?"

"They send a car for me – "

"Who?"

"They – Mr. Desboro."

"They? Is he plural?"

"Don't be foolish," said Jacqueline. "It is his car and his collection, and I'm having a perfectly good time with both."

"And with him, too? Yes?"

"If you knew him you wouldn't talk that way."

"I know who he is."

"Do you?" said Jacqueline calmly.

"Yes, I do. He's the 'Jim' Desboro whose name you see in the fashionable columns. I know something about that young man," she added emphatically.

Jacqueline looked up at her with dawning displeasure. Cynthia, undisturbed, bit into a chocolate and waved one pretty hand:

"Read the Tattler, as I do, and you'll see what sort of a man your young man is."

"I don't care to read such a – "

"I do. It tells you funny things about society. Every week or two there's something about him. You can't exactly understand it – they put it in a funny way – but you can guess. Besides, he's always going around town with Reggie Ledyard, and Stuyve Van Alstyne, and – Jack Cairns – "

"Don't speak that way – as though you usually lunched with them. I hate it."

"How do you know I don't lunch with some of them? Besides everybody calls them Reggie, and Stuyve, and Jack – "

"Everybody except their mothers, probably. I don't want to hear about them, anyway."

"Why not, darling?"

"Because you and I don't know them and never will – "

Cynthia said maliciously: "You may meet them through your friend, Jimmy Desboro – "

"That is the limit!" exclaimed Jacqueline, flushing; and her pretty companion leaned back in her armchair and laughed until Jacqueline's unwilling smile began to glimmer in her wrath-darkened eyes.

"Don't torment me, Cynthia," she said. "You know quite well that it's a business matter with me entirely."

"Was it a business matter with that Dawley man? You had to get me to go with you into that den of his whenever you went at all."

Jacqueline shrugged and resumed her knitting: "What a horrid thing he was," she murmured.

Cynthia assented philosophically: "But most men bother a girl sooner or later," she concluded. "You don't read about it in novels, but it's true. Go down town and take dictation for a living. It's an education in how to look out for yourself."

"It's a rotten state of things," said Jacqueline under her breath.

"Yes. It's funny, too. So many men are that way. What do they care? Do you suppose we'd be that way, too, if we were men?"

"No. There are nice men, too."

"Yes – dead ones."

"Nonsense!"

"With very few exceptions, Jacqueline. There are horrid, horrid ones, and nice, horrid ones, and dead ones and dead ones – but only a few nice, nice ones. I've known some. You think your Mr. Desboro is one, don't you?"

"I haven't thought about him – "

"Honestly, Jacqueline?"

"I tell you I haven't! He's nice to me. That's all I know."

"Is he too nice?"

"No. Besides, he's under his own roof. And it depends on a girl, anyway."

"Not always. If we behave ourselves we're dead ones; if we don't we'd better be. Isn't it a rotten deal, Jacqueline! Just one fresh man after another dropped into the discards because he gets too gay. And being employed by the kind who'd never marry us spoils us for the others. You could marry one of your clients, I suppose, but I never could in a million years."

"You and I will never marry such men," said Jacqueline coolly. "Perhaps we wouldn't if they asked us."

"You might. You're educated and bright, and – you look the part, with all the things you know – and your trips to Europe – and the kind of beauty yours is. Why not? If I were you," she added, "I'd kill a man who thought me good enough to hold hands with, but not good enough to marry."

"I don't hold hands," observed Jacqueline scornfully.

"I do. I've done it when it was all right; and I've done it when I had no business to; and the chances are I'll do it again without getting hurt. And then I'll finally marry the sort of man you call Ed," she added disgustedly.

Jacqueline laughed, and looked intently at her: "You're so pretty, Cynthia – and so silly sometimes."

Cynthia stretched her young figure full length in the chair, yawning and crooking both arms back under her curly brown head. Her eyes, too, were brown, and had in them always a half-veiled languor that few men could encounter undisturbed.

"A week ago," she said, "you told me over the telephone that you would be at the dance. I never laid eyes on you."

"I came home too tired. It was my first day at Silverwood. I overdid it, I suppose."

"Silverwood?"

"Where I go to business in Westchester," she explained patiently.

"Oh, Mr. Desboro's place!" with laughing malice.

"Yes, Mr. Desboro's place."

The hint of latent impatience in Jacqueline's voice was not lost on Cynthia; and she resumed her tormenting inquisition:

"How long is it going to take you to catalogue Mr. Desboro's collection?"

"I have several weeks' work, I think – I don't know exactly."

"All winter, perhaps?"

"Possibly."

"Is he always there, darling?"

Jacqueline was visibly annoyed: "He has happened to be, so far. I believe he is going South very soon – if that interests you."

"'Phone me when he goes," retorted Cynthia, unbelievingly.

"What makes you say such things!" exclaimed Jacqueline. "I tell you he isn't that kind of a man."

"Read the Tattler, dearest!"

"I won't."

"Don't you ever read it?"

"No. Why should I?"

"Curiosity."

"I haven't any."

Cynthia laughed incredulously:

"People who have no curiosity are either idiots or they have already found out. Now, you are not an idiot."

Jacqueline smiled: "And I haven't found out, either."

"Then you're just as full of curiosity as the rest of us."

"Not of unworthy curiosity – "

"I never knew a good person who wasn't. I'm good, am I not, Jacqueline?"

"Of course."

"Well, then, I'm full of all kinds of curiosities – worthy and unworthy. I want to know about everything!"

"Everything good."

"Good and bad. God lets both exist. I want to know about them."

"Why be curious about what is bad? It doesn't concern us."

"If you know what concerns you only, you'll never know anything. Now, when I read a newspaper I read about fashionable weddings, millionaires, shows, murders – I read everything – not because I'm going to be fashionably married, or become a millionaire or a murderer, but because all these things exist and happen, and I want to know all about them because I'm not an idiot, and I haven't already found out. And so that's why I buy the Tattler whenever I have five cents to spend on it!"

"It's a pity you're not more curious about things worth while," commented Jacqueline serenely.

Cynthia reddened: "Dear, I haven't the education or brain to be interested in the things that occupy you."

"I didn't mean that," protested Jacqueline, embarrassed. "I only – "

"I know, dear. You are too sweet to say it; but it's true. The bunch you play with knows it. We all realise that you are way ahead of us – that you're different – "

"Please don't say that – or think it."

"But it's true. You really belong with the others – " she made a gay little gesture – "over there in the Fifth Avenue district, where art gets gay with fashion; where lady highbrows wear tiaras; where the Jims and Jacks and Reggies float about and hand each other new ones between quarts; where you belong, darling – wherever you finally land!"

Jacqueline was laughing: "But I don't wish to land there! I never wanted to."

"All girls do! We all dream about it!"

"Here is one girl who really doesn't. Of course, I'd like to have a few friends of that kind. I'd rather like to visit houses where nobody has to think of money, and where young people are jolly, and educated, and dress well, and talk about interesting things – "

"Dear, we all would like it. That's what I'm saying. Only there's a chance for you because you know something – but none for us. We understand that perfectly well – and we dream on all the same. We'd miss a lot if we didn't dream."

Jacqueline said mockingly: "I'll invite you to my Fifth Avenue residence the minute I marry what you call a Reggie."

"I'll come if you'll stand for me. I'm not afraid of any Reggie in the bench show!"

They laughed; Cynthia stretched out a lazy hand for another chocolate; Jacqueline knitted, the smile still hovering on her scarlet lips.

Bending over her work, she said: "You won't misunderstand when I tell you how much I enjoy being at Silverwood, and how nice Mr. Desboro has been."

"Has been."

"Is, and surely will continue to be," insisted Jacqueline tranquilly. "Shall I tell you about Silverwood?"

Cynthia nodded.

"Well, then, Mr. Desboro has such a funny old housekeeper there, who gives me 'magic drops' on lumps of sugar. The drops are aromatic and harmless, so I take them to please her. And he has an old, old butler, who is too feeble to be very useful; and an old, old armourer, who comes once a week and potters about with a bit of chamois; and a parlour maid who is sixty and wears glasses; and a laundress still older. And a whole troop of dogs and cats come to luncheon with us. Sometimes the butler goes to sleep in the pantry, and Mr. Desboro and I sit and talk. And if he doesn't wake up, Mr. Desboro hunts about for somebody to wait on us. Of course there are other servants there, and farmers and gardeners, too. Mr. Desboro has a great deal of land. And so," she chattered on quite happily and irrelevantly, "we go skating for half an hour after lunch before I resume my cataloguing. He skates very well; we are learning to waltz on skates – "

"Who does the teaching?"

"He does. I don't skate very well; and unless it were for him I'd have such tumbles! And once we went sleighing – that is, he drove me to the station – in rather a roundabout way. And the country was so beautiful! And the stars – oh, millions and millions, Cynthia! It was as cold as the North Pole, but I loved it – and I had on his other fur coat and gloves. He is very nice to me. I wanted you to understand the sort of man he is."

"Perhaps he is the original hundredth man," remarked Cynthia skeptically.

"Most men are hundredth men when the nine and ninety girls behave themselves. It's the hundredth girl who makes the nine and ninety men horrid."

"That's what you believe, is it?"

"I do."

"Dream on, dear." She went to a glass, pinned her pretty hat, slipped into the smart fur coat that Jacqueline held for her, and began to draw on her gloves.

"Can't you stay to dinner," asked Jacqueline.

"Thank you, sweetness, but I'm dining at the Beaux Arts."

"With any people I know?"

"You don't know that particular 'people'," said Cynthia, smiling, "but you know a friend of his."

"Who?"

"Mr. Desboro."

"Really!" she said, colouring.

Cynthia frowned at her: "Don't become sentimental over that young man!"

"No, of course not."

"Because I don't think he's very much good."

"He is– but I won't," explained Jacqueline laughing. "I know quite well how to take care of myself."

"Do you?"

"Yes; don't you?"

"I – don't – know."

"Cynthia! Of course you know!"

"Do I? Well, perhaps I do. Perhaps all girls know how to take care of themselves. But sometimes – especially when their home life is the limit – " She hesitated, slowly twisting a hairpin through the buttonhole of one glove. Then she buttoned it decisively. "When things got so bad at home two years ago, and I went with that show – you didn't see it – you were in mourning – but it ran on Broadway all winter. And I met one or two Reggies at suppers, and another man – the same sort – only his name happened to be Jack – and I want to tell you it was hard work not to like him."

Jacqueline stood, slim and straight, and silent, listening unsmilingly.

Cynthia went on leisurely:

"He was a friend of Mr. Desboro – the same kind of man, I suppose. That's why I read the Tattler– to see what they say about him."

"Wh-what do they say?"

"Oh, things – funny sorts of things, about his being attentive to this girl, and being seen frequently with that girl. I don't know what they mean exactly – they always make it sound queer – as though all the men and women in society are fast. And this man, too – perhaps he is."

"But what do you care, dear?"

"Nothing. It was hard work not to like him. You don't understand how it was; you've always lived at home. But home was hell for me; and I was getting fifteen per; and it grew horribly cold that winter. I had no fire. Besides – it was so hard not to like him. I used to come to see you. Do you remember how I used to come here and cry?"

"I – I thought it was because you had been so unhappy at home."

"Partly. The rest was – the other thing."

"You did like him, then!"

"Not – too much."

"I understand that. But it's over now, isn't it?"

Cynthia stood idly turning her muff between her white-gloved hands.

"Oh, yes," she said, after a moment, "it's over. But I'm thinking how nearly over it was with me, once or twice that winter. I thought I knew how to take care of myself. But a girl never knows, Jacqueline. Cold, hunger, debt, shabby clothes are bad enough; loneliness is worse. Yet, these are not enough, by themselves. But if we like a man, with all that to worry over – then it's pretty hard on us."

"How could you care for a bad man?"

"Bad? Did I say he was? I meant he was like other men. A girl becomes accustomed to men."

"And likes them, notwithstanding?"

"Some of them. It depends. If you like a man you seem to like him anyhow. You may get angry, too, and still like him. There's so much of the child in them. I've learned that. They're bad; but when you like one of them, he seems to belong to you, somehow – badness and all. I must be going, dear."

Still, neither moved; Cynthia idly twirled her muff; Jacqueline, her slender hands clasped behind her, stood gazing silently at the floor.

Cynthia said: "That's the trouble with us all. I'm afraid you like this man, Desboro. I tell you that he isn't much good; but if you already like him, you'll go on liking him, no matter what I say or what he does. For it's that way with us, Jacqueline. And where in the world would men find a living soul to excuse them if it were not for us? That seems to be about all we're for – to forgive men what they are – and what they do."

"I don't forgive them," said Jacqueline fiercely; " – or women, either."

"Oh, nobody forgives women! But you will find excuses for some man some day – if you like him. I guess even the best of them require it. But the general run of them have got to have excuses made for them, or no woman would stand for her own honeymoon, and marriages would last about a week. Good-bye, dear."

They kissed.

At the head of the stairs outside, Jacqueline kissed her again.

"How is the play going?" she inquired.

"Oh, it's going."

"Is there any chance for you to get a better part?"

"No chance I care to take. Max Schindler is like all the rest of them."

Jacqueline's features betrayed her wonder and disgust, but she said nothing; and presently Cynthia turned and started down the stairs.

"Good-night, dear," she called back, with a gay little flourish of her muff. "They're all alike – only we always forgive the one we care for!"

CHAPTER V

On Monday, Desboro waited all the morning for her, meeting every train. At noon, she had not arrived. Finally, he called up her office and was informed that Miss Nevers had been detained in town on business, and that their Mr. Kirk had telephoned him that morning to that effect.

He asked to speak to Miss Nevers personally; she had gone out, it appeared, and might not return until the middle of the afternoon.

So Desboro went home in his car and summoned Farris, the aged butler, who was pottering about in the greenhouses, which he much preferred to attending to his own business.

"Did anybody telephone this morning?" asked the master.

Farris had forgotten to mention it – was very sorry – and stood like an aged hound, head partly lowered and averted, already blinking under the awaited reprimand. But all Desboro said was:

"Don't do it again, Farris; there are some things I won't overlook."

He sat for a while in the library where a sheaf of her notes lay on the table beside a pile of books – Grenville, Vanderdyne, Herrara's splendid folios – just as she had left them on Saturday afternoon for the long, happy sleigh-ride that ended just in time for him to swing her aboard her train.

He had plenty to do beside sitting there with keen, gray eyes fixed on the pile of manuscript she had left unfinished; he always had plenty to do, and seldom did it.

His first impulse had been to go to town. Her absence was making the place irksome. He went to the long windows and stood there, hands in his pockets, smoking and looking out over the familiar landscape – a rolling country, white with snow, naked branches glittering with ice under the gilded blue of a cloudless sky, and to the north and west, low, wooded mountains – really nothing more than hills, but impressively steep and blue in the distance.

A woodpecker, one of the few feathered winter residents, flickered through the trees, flashed past, and clung to an oak, sticking motionless to the bark for a minute or two, bright eyes inspecting Desboro, before beginning a rapid, jerky exploration for sustenance.

The master of Silverwood watched him, then, hands driven deeper into his pockets, strolled away, glancing aimlessly at familiar objects – the stiff and rather picturesque portraits of his grandparents in the dress of 1820; the atrocious portraits of his parents in the awful costume of 1870; his own portrait, life size, mounted on a pony.

He stood looking at the funny little boy, with the half contemptuous, half curious interest which a man in the pride of his strength and youth sometimes feels for the absurdly clothed innocence of what he was. And, as usual when noticing the picture, he made a slight, involuntary effort to comprehend that he had been once like that; and could not.

At the end of the library, better portraits hung – his great-grandmother, by Gilbert Stuart, still fresh-coloured and clear under the dim yellow varnish which veiled but could not wither the delicate complexion and ardent mouth, and the pink rosebud set where the folds of her white kerchief crossed on her breast.

And there was her husband, too, by an unknown or forgotten painter – the sturdy member of the Provincial Assembly, and major in Colonel Thomas's Westchester Regiment – a fine old fellow in his queue-ribbon and powdered hair standing in the conventional fortress port-hole, framed by it, and looking straight out of the picture with eyes so much like Desboro's that it amused people. His easy attitude, too, the idle grace of the posture, irresistibly recalled Desboro, and at the moment more than ever. But he had been a man of vigour and of wit and action; and he was lying out there in the snow, under an old brown headstone embellished with cherubim; and the last of his name lounged here, in sight, from the windows, of the spot where the first house of Desboro in America had stood, and had collapsed amid the flames started by Tarleton's blood-maddened troopers.

To and fro sauntered Desboro, passing, unnoticed, old-time framed engravings of the Desboros in Charles the Second's time, elegant, idle, handsome men in periwigs and half-armour, and all looking out at the world through port-holes with a hint of the race's bodily grace in their half insolent attitudes.