Mrs. Ussher was having a small house party in the country over New Year's Day. This is equivalent to saying that the half dozen most fashionable people in New York were out of town.
Certain human beings are admitted to have a genius for discrimination in such matters as objects of art, pigs or stocks. Mrs. Ussher had this same instinct in regard to fashion, especially where fashions in people were concerned. She turned toward hidden social availability very much as the douser's hazel wand turns toward the hidden spring. When she crossed the room to speak to some woman after dinner, whatever that woman's social position might formerly have been, you could be sure that at present she was on the upward wing. When Mrs. Ussher discovered extraordinary qualities of mind and sympathy in some hitherto impossible man, you might be certain it was time to begin to book him in advance.
Not that Mrs. Ussher was a kingmaker; she herself had no more power over the situation than the barometer has over the weather. She merely was able to foretell; she had the sense of approaching social success.
She was unaware of her own powers, and really supposed that her sudden and usually ephemeral friendships were based on mutual attraction. The fact that for years her friends had been the small group of the momentarily fashionable required, in her eyes, no explanation. So simple was her creed that she believed people were fashionable for the same reason that they were her friends, because "they were so nice."
During the short period of their existence, Mrs. Ussher gave to these friendships the utmost loyalty and devotion. She agonized over the financial, domestic and romantic troubles of her friends; she sat up till the small hours, talking to them like a schoolgirl; during the height of their careers she organized plots for their assistance; and even when their stars were plainly on the decline, she would often ask them to lunch, if she happened to be alone.
Many people, we know, are prone to make friends with the rich and great. Mrs. Ussher's genius consisted in having made friends with them before they were either. When you hurried to her with some account of a newly discovered treasure—a beauty or a conversable young man—she would always say: "Oh, yes, I crossed with her two years ago," or "Isn't he a dear?—he was once in Jack's office." The strange thing was these statements were always true; the subjects of them confessed with tears that "dear Mrs. Ussher" or "darling Laura" was the kindest friend they had ever had.
Her house party was therefore likely to be notable.
First, there was of course Mrs. Almar—of course without her husband. There is only one thing, or perhaps two, to be said for Nancy Almar—that she was very handsome and that she was not a hypocrite, no more than a pirate is a hypocrite who comes aboard with his cutlass in his teeth. Mrs. Almar's cutlass was always in her teeth, when it was not in somebody's vitals.
She had smooth, jet-black hair, done close to her pretty head, a clear white-and-vermilion complexion, and a good figure, not too tall. She said little, but everything she did say, she most poignantly meant. If, while you were talking to her, she suddenly cried out: "Ah, that's really good!" there was no doubt you had had the good fortune to amuse her; while if she yawned and left you in the midst of a sentence there was no question that she was bored.
She hated her husband—not for the conventional reason that she had married him. She hated him because he was a hypocrite, because he was always placating and temporizing.
For instance, he had said to her as she was about to start for the
Usshers':
"I hope you'll explain to them why I could not come."
There had never been the least question of Mr. Almar's coming, and she turned slowly and looked at him as she asked:
"You mean that I would not have gone if you had?"
He did not seem annoyed.
"No," he said, "that I'm called South on business."
"I shan't tell them that," she said, slowly wrapping her furs about her throat; and then foreseeing a comic moment, she added, "but I'll tell them you say so, if you like."
She was as good as her word—she usually was.
When the party was at tea about the drawing-room fire, she asked without the slightest change of expression:
"Would any one like to hear Roland's explanation of why he is not with us?"
"Had it anything to do with his not being asked?" said a pale young man; and as soon as he had spoken, he glanced hastily round the circle to ascertain how his remark had succeeded.
So far as Mrs. Almar was concerned it had not succeeded at all, in fact, though he did not know it, nothing he said would ever succeed with her again, although a week before she had hung upon his every word. He had been a new discovery, something unknown and Bohemian, but alas, a day or two before, she had observed that underlying his socialistic theories was an aching desire for social recognition. He liked to tell his bejeweled hostesses about his friends the car-drivers; but, oh, twenty times more, he would have liked to tell the car-drivers about his friends the bejeweled hostesses. For this reason Mrs. Almar despised him, and where she despised she made no secret of the fact.
"Not asked, Mr. Wickham!" she said. "I assume my husband is asked wherever I am," and then turning to Laura Ussher she added with a faint smile: "One's husband is always asked, isn't he?"
"Certainly, as long as you never allow him to come," said another speaker.
This was the other great beauty of the hour—or, since she was blond and some years younger than Mrs. Almar, perhaps it would be right to say that she was the beauty of the hour.
She was very tall, golden, fresh, smooth, yet with faint hollows in her cheeks that kept her freshness from being insipid. Christine Fenimer had another advantage—she was unmarried. In spite of the truth of the observation that a married woman's greatest charm is her husband, he is also in the most practical sense a disadvantage; he does sometimes stand across the road of advancement, even in a land of easy divorce. Mrs. Almar, for instance, was regretfully aware that she might have done much better than Roland Almar. The great stakes were really open to the unmarried.
She was particularly aware of this fact at the moment, for the party was understood to be awaiting a great stake. Mrs. Ussher had discovered a cousin, a young man who, soon after graduating from a technical college, had invented a process in the manufacture of rubber that had brought him a fortune before he was thirty. He was now engaged in spending it on aviation experiments. He was reckless and successful. Besides which he was understood to be personally attractive—his picture in a silver frame stood on a neighboring table. He was of the lean type that Mrs. Almar admired.
Now it was perfectly clear to her why he was asked. Mrs. Ussher adored Christine Fenimer. Of all girls in the world it was essential that Christine should marry money. This man, Max Riatt, new to the fashionable world, ought to be comparatively easy game. The thing ought to go on wheels. But Mrs. Almar herself was not indifferent to six feet of splendid masculinity; nor without her own uses at the moment for a good-looking young man.
In other words, there was going to be a contest; in the full sight of the little public that really mattered, the lists were set. Nobody present, except perhaps Wickham, who was dangerously ignorant of the world in which he was moving, doubted for one moment that Miss Fenimer had resolved to marry Max Riatt, if, that is, he turned out to be actually as per the recommendations of Mrs. Ussher; nor was it less certain that Mrs. Almar intended that he should be hers.
Of course if Mrs. Ussher had been absolutely single-minded, she would not have invited Mrs. Almar to this party; but though a warm friend to Christine Fenimer, Laura was not a fanatic, and the piratical Nancy was her friend, too.
Mrs. Almar could have pleaded an additional reason for her wish to interfere with this match, besides the natural one of not wishing Miss Fenimer to attain any success; and that was the fact that Edward Hickson, her brother, had wanted for several years to marry Christine. Hickson was a dull, kindly, fairly well-to-do young man—exactly the type you would like to see your rival marry. Hickson had motored out with his sister, and had received some excellent counsel on the way.
"Now, Ned," she had said, "don't cut your own throat by being an adoring foil. Don't let Christine grind your face in the dust, just to show this new man that she can do it."
"You don't do Christine justice," he had answered, "if you think she would do that."
His sister did not reply. She thought it would have been doing the girl injustice to suppose that she would do anything else.
They were still sitting about the tea-table at a quarter to seven, when Christine and Mrs. Almar rose simultaneously. It was almost time for the arrival of Riatt, and neither had any fancy for meeting him save at her best—in all the panoply of evening dress.
"We're not dining till a quarter past eight, my dears," said Mrs. Ussher.
Both ladies thought they would lie down before dinner. And here chance took a hand. Riatt's train was late, whereas Christine's clock was fast. And so it happened that she came downstairs just as he was coming up.
There had been no one to greet him. He was told by the butler that Mrs. Ussher was dressing, that dinner would be in fifteen minutes; he started to bound up the stairs, following the footman with his bags, when suddenly looking up the broad flight he saw a blond vision in white and pearls coming slowly down. He hoped that his lower jaw hadn't fallen, but she really was extraordinarily beautiful; and he could not help slowing down a little. She stopped, with her hand on the banisters, like Louise of Prussia.
"Oh, you're Mr. Riatt," she said, very gently. "You know you're most awfully late."
"I wish," he said, "that I were wise enough to be able to say: 'Oh, you're Miss ——'"
"I might be a Mrs."
"Oh, I hope not," he answered. "Are you?"
She smiled.
"You'll know as soon as you come down to dinner."
"I shall be quick about dressing."
He went on up, and she pursued her slow progress down. She felt that her future had been settled by those few seconds on the stairs.
"He will do admirably," she said to herself, and a smile like that of a sleeping infant curved her lips. She felt calmly triumphant. She had always said there was no reason why even a rich man should be absolutely impossible. She recalled certain great fortunes with repulsive owners, which some of her friends had accepted. For herself she had always intended to have everything—love and money, too. And here it was, almost in her hands. There had been moments when she had been so discouraged that she had actually made up her mind to marry Ned Hickson. How wise she had been to hold off!
She leant her arm on the mantel-piece and studied herself in the mirror. It was a Chinese painted mirror, and the tint of the glass was green and unbecoming, yet even this could not mar the dazzling reflection. The only object on which she looked with dissatisfaction was her string of pearls; they were imitation. She thought she would have emeralds; and she heard clearly in her own inner ear this sentence: "Yes, that is young Mrs. Max Riatt; is she not very beautiful in her emeralds!"
Fortunately she did not say it aloud, for Mrs. Ussher came down at this moment, and soon Hickson, and then in an incredibly short space of time Riatt himself.
Undoubtedly he would do magnificently. He stood the test even of evening clothes, though Christine fancied as she studied him that she would alter his style of collars. They would be better higher. Mrs. Ussher brought him over at once and introduced him.
"This is my cousin Max, Christine, about whom I've talked so much. Max, this is Miss Fenimer."
They smiled at each other with a common impulse not to confess that earlier meeting on the stairs; and he was just about to settle down beside her, when the door opened and, last of all, Mrs. Almar came in. She was wearing her flame-color and lilac dress. Christine knew she would have it on; knew that she saved it for the greatest moments. She did not advance very far into the room, but stood looking around her.
"Well," she said, "where is Cousin Max?"
It must not be supposed from this question that she had not seen him almost through the crack of the door as the butler opened it for her; but by speaking just when and where she did, she forced him to get up from Christine's side, and come to where she was to be introduced to her. Then as dinner was at the same instant announced, she put her hand on his arm.
"Take me in to dinner, Cousin Max," she said.
"I did not know he was your cousin," said Wickham, who suffered from the fatal tendency in moments of doubt to say something.
Mrs. Almar looked at Riatt.
"Will you be a cousin to me?" she asked. "It commits you to nothing."
"I don't consider that an advantage," he returned, drawing his elbow slightly inward, so that her hand, if not actually pressed, was made to feel secure upon his arm. "There are some things I wouldn't a bit mind being committed to."
Mrs. Almar moved her black head from side to side.
"You must be more specific," she said, "or I shan't understand you."
"More specific in words?" he inquired gently. They were crossing the hall, and had a sort of privacy for an instant.
"Dear me," she returned, "you do move rather rapidly, don't you?"
"I'm an aviator, you see," he answered.
Across the table Christine was trying to be gracious and graceful while she put up with Hickson, but she was feeling as any honest captain feels at having a prize cut out from under his very nose.
Mrs. Ussher seeing this, decided that such methods as Nancy's ought not to prevail; she seated herself on Max's other side, and instantly engaged in conversation.
"Don't you think my dear little Christine is an angel?" she said, without any encumbering subtility.
"She certainly looks like one."
"Who looks like what?" asked Mrs. Almar, from his other side. She had had this sort of thing tried too often not to be on her guard.
Mrs. Ussher leant forward.
"Max was just saying that Christine looks like an angel."
Nancy looked at him and made a very slight grimace.
"Are you so awfully strong for angels?" she said. He laughed.
"I never met one before."
"You haven't met one to-night."
"You mean that you're not an angel, Mrs. Almar?"
"I? Oh, I'm well and favorably known as the wickedest woman in New York.
I meant that Miss Fenimer is not an angel."
"You don't like her?"
"How you jump at conclusions! To say she isn't an angel, doesn't mean dislike. As a matter of fact, I am eager to secure her as my sister-in-law."
Riatt glanced at Hickson and was aware of the faintest possible pang.
What qualities, he wondered, had a man like that.
"Oh," he said, "is she engaged to your brother?"
"Certainly not," answered Mrs. Almar. "But it is fairly well understood by every one except my brother, that if she doesn't find anything better within the next few years she will put up with him."
At this a slight feeling of disgust for both ladies took possession of Riatt.
"I see," he said rather coldly, and turned to Mrs. Ussher, but Nancy was not so easily disposed of.
"You mean," she went on, "that you see it is my duty as a sister to prevent anything else turning up. Suppose, for example, that a handsome, rich, attractive young man should suddenly appear upon the scene and show an interest in the angelic Christine." (By this time Riatt had turned again to her, and she looked straight into his eyes as she ran through her list of adjectives.) "Don't you think it would be my duty to distract his attention—to go almost any length to distract his attention?"
"However personally disagreeable to you the process might be?"
"Probably if he were as I described him, the process would not be so disagreeable."
He smiled. There was no denying he found her amusing.
In the meantime, the couple across the table had reached a somewhat similar point.
Hickson had said as they sat down:
"Well, and what do you think of this new fellow?"
Christine's natural irritation appeared in her answer.
"I have hardly had an opportunity of judging," she answered, "but, watching your sister's attentions to him, I would say he must be extremely attractive."
Hickson looked a little dashed.
"Oh," he said, "Nancy does not mean anything when she goes on like that."
The only effect of this speech was to depress further Miss Fenimer's estimate of her companion's intelligence, for in her opinion Nancy's whole life was one long black intention. Feeling this, Ned went on:
"As a matter of fact, one reason why she's so nice to him is to keep him away from you and give me a chance."
"Not very flattering to you, is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"The assumption that the only way to make a woman take an interest in you is to prevent her speaking to any other man."
"Oh, I didn't mean that—" Hickson began, but she interrupted him.
"That, if anything, Ned." And she turned to Wickham, who sat on her other side.
Wickham was waiting for a little notice and began instantly.
"I have been taking the liberty of looking at your pearls, Miss Fenimer, and indulging in such an interesting speculation. Here on the one hand, you are wearing round your throat the equivalent of life, health and virtue for half a hundred working girls, as young, as human, as yourself. Are we to say this is wrong? Are we to say that beautiful jewels worn by beautiful women are a crime against society—"
"One moment, Mr. Wickham," she said. "My pearls are imitation and cost eight dollars and fifty cents without the clasp. But," she added cruelly, seeing his face fall, "you can say that same thing to your friend Mrs. Almar, because hers are not artificial, though I have heard her assert sometimes that they are," and turning back to Hickson, who was laboriously trying to carry on a conversation with his host, she interrupted ruthlessly to say, hardly lowering her voice:
"Why in the world, Ned, did Nancy bring this Wickham man here? He's perfectly impossible."
"Nancy didn't bring him," answered her brother innocently. "I motored out with her myself."
"She said she wouldn't come unless he were asked. Still I know the answer. Nancy has always had a weakness for blond boys, and last week she was crazy about this one. Now she has turned against him, she wants to foist him off on us, but I for one don't intend to help her out—"
By this time Wickham, aware that he had been rebuffed, had found an explanation for it. The girl was annoyed at having been forced to admit her pearls were imitation. He decided to put everything right.
"Miss Fenimer," he said, and she turned her head perhaps half an inch in his direction, "I think you misunderstood me just now. My standards are probably different from those of the men you are accustomed to. To me the fact that your pearls are not real is an added beauty. I'm glad they're not—"
"Thank you," said Christine, "but I'm not." And this time he understood that he had lost her for good.
After dinner, Mrs. Almar, knowing that her innings were over, very effectively prevented Christine having hers, by insisting on playing bridge. She had an excellent head for cards, and always needed money. Christine allowed herself to be drawn in, supposing that Riatt would be one of the players, and found herself seated opposite to Hickson and next to Jack Ussher.
Wickham, feeling very much left out and desirous of showing how well accustomed he was to the casual manners of polite society, consoled himself with an evening paper. Laura Ussher led Riatt to a comfortable corner out of earshot of the bridge-table.
"Now do tell me, Max," she said, "what you think of them all."
"I think, my dear Laura," he answered, "that they are a very playful band of cut-throats, and next time you ask me to stay, I hope you and Jack will be entirely alone."
* * * * *
The servants in a household like the Usshers' were subjected to almost every strain, except that of early rising. No one dreamed of coming down stairs before eleven, and most people not until lunch time.
The next morning Riatt was among the first—that is to say he was up early enough not to be able to escape a tour of inspection of the place under the guidance of his host. He had seen the stables and the new garage, and the sheet of snow beneath which lay the garden, and the other totally different sheet of snow beneath which was the soil in which Ussher intended next summer to plant a rose garden. He had gone over, tree by tree, the plantation of firs, and had noted how the tips of some were injured, and had given his opinion as to whether or not it were likely that deer had stolen down from the wild country near at hand and nibbled the young firs in the night.
"It's perfectly possible," said Ussher. "I have five hundred acres myself, and then the Club owns a huge tract, and then there's some state land. You see we have hardly any neighbors except the Fenimers and they're eight or nine miles away."
"They live here?"
"In summer—and then only when Fred Fenimer is in funds, and that's not often. A precarious sort of existence, his—gambling in mining stocks, almost always in wrong. Hard on the daughter—wish some nice fellow would come along and marry her."
"He probably will," answered Riatt rather coldly. "It's beginning to snow again."
Ussher had just had his pond swept so that his guests could skate, and now couldn't imagine what he should provide for them for the afternoon, so that his thoughts were instantly and completely turned from Christine's problems to his own.