Philip Curtiss

“ It was, in fact, nothing more than frank imitation of Jane Carmody's coup; but a press-agent's mind is trained to take a worn-out idea and warp it into some novel shape. On the steps of an old brick house he had suddenly seen a huge pile of books, books of every kind and description, big books, little books, old books, new books, heaped in stacks and overflowing down into the area-way. It might easily have been a second-hand-book shop. Indeed, at first glance, Jimmy had thought that it was, but when he peered around into the area-way he saw that the door was boarded and padlocked. ”

“ Bellsmith had been standing, very erect and self-conscious under the eyes of the dining-room. He acknowledged the introduction with a formal nod, while Miss Winner took him in with a swift, appraising glance not unlike that of the chorus girl on the circular stairway—a look which lost no detail yet was not unfriendly. Jules or Jacques, meantime, was eagerly holding a chair just behind her knees so that, if she should happen to unbend in the least degree, behold! she would find herself seated. Surely a head waiter could do no more. ”

“ For years Arnold Bellsmith had been the sole possessor of one of those quiet but ponderous fortunes which are found in every New England city, fortunes which have been massed up by nothing more than the simple accumulation of three or four generations and which, in their silent, impregnable bulk, form the despair of eager young business men who are tempted to be exultant in the pride of their first hard-earned and precarious thousands. ”

“ He continued to smoke thoughtfully with his eyes fixed absently on Bellsmith's feet. Bellsmith, becoming aware of the scrutiny, moved his feet nervously, and the doctor diverted his eyes to a point on the carpet.
"Mr. Bellsmith," he began, at last, slowly, "you are quite right about one thing. It is too much to face a man coldly with a certain thing—charity, business, or anything else—and order him deliberately to become interested in it. The human mind does not work that way. You might as well face a man with a certain heavy food and order him to like it—not merely to eat it but to like it." ”

“ Half-way down the alley there appeared a grating and a shaft of light from the restaurant side, and as he passed it Bellsmith was swept by an overpowering wave of warm, kitchen air saturated with the odors of boiling coffee. Within he saw an immense Italian chef with an opera mustache and a filthy apron but with the inevitable white cap of his trade on his head. In an instant of nervous whimsy it came to Bellsmith as a novel and remarkable idea, that even a third-class restaurant had to have a chef. ”

“ Even to think of Miss Marshall still excited him as the thought of no other human being on earth had ever excited him, but still, there it was! The dirt of the alley even clung to her innocent skirts. This was Bellsmith at his best and his worst, instinctively fine or instinctively contemptible. One can take one's choice. But something within him gripped his arm as in a vise of steel every time he sat down to write that letter or sat down to call on the telephone. ”

“ Then suddenly, as if in lieu of the fat family banker and guardian, the old head waiter came bustling up with a steaming chafing-dish and—dear, old soul—the beaming feeling that he was doing a kindly thing.
As if coming out from a dream world, a state in which he had been held for hours, Bellsmith suddenly heard the clatter and noise of the dining-room starting up around him and made out shapes of men and women leaning over tables, talking nonchalently. Looking across the table he saw the girl watching him with amused, understanding eyes. ”

“ Slowly the orchestra wove its way into the melody, and suddenly, deer-like, the girl raised her head, for over the wall were coming the notes of the lover she had just sent away in anger:
"Ah, women, all daughters of Eve,
Ever faithless, ever heartless.
The love that we fondly believe
Never changing, never wand 'ring—"
Through its two verses, with the lover's voice ever diminishing in the distance, the song gently faded away, then slowly and wanly died out, in the very middle of the bar, a faint broken cadence. ”

“ Surdam, lazy, indifferent Pete Surdam, was the real bulwark of that reorganization, for if the collapse of "Eleanor" had marked the end of Maida Maine's career, that same collapse had dynamited Pete Surdam into his great opportunity. Drifting along, half contemptuous of his work and yet too indifferent to seek any other, the bizarre conditions of the new "Eleanor" company were just sufficient to form the bridge between what he had always been content to do and what he had always dreamed of doing. Surdam's nominal superior had been absent from the company at the time of Bellsmith's purchase. ”

“ Starting out on an uncertain date, in the middle of the season, and under entirely independent auspices, the company had to snap an open date where it could, sometimes not knowing on Saturday night where it would play on the second week following. The huge, pompous, and expensive "Eleanor" company traveled at times like a "Tom show" or a Gipsy circus, the marvel and outlaw of that theatrical winter, an unexplained comet shooting across the theatrical sky. ”

“ To Bellsmith, however, this quiet fag-end of the party was more enjoyable than the first part had been. He was, by nature if not by opportunity, one of those men who ask little of life but, equally, have a vague terror of going to bed and, say what one will, the best company in the world is a group of people who are not in themselves tremendously clever—so long as they have no particular scruples. It is dullness linked with conviction that has given stupid people their bad name. ”

“ For three generations a word from the Pilgrim Trust to the Bellsmith family had been as a friendly mandate from a friendly bench.
"Besides," added Bellsmith quietly, "you know that I have other property—real estate for example."
"Real estate?" echoed Judge Marker in horror.
Bellsmith nodded. "Any bank in the city would lend me any amount on the various properties."
"Mr. Bellsmith!" pleaded the judge, now shocked to the depths of his being. In Leicester there was something even more sacred about real estate than about any other form of property. ”

“ Even Bellsmith could establish no particular connection of reality between those pictures and his present errand.
His reverie was broken by the sharp voice of the ticket-seller behind him.
"There you are! There's your man!"
Bellsmith pulled himself up with a start and saw that a round, swarthy young man had come in silently through a door at the end of the lobby and was standing waiting. He was dressed in black as complete as deep mourning, even to the black derby hat which accentuated his heavy eyebrows and full, olive skin. ”

“ Why Leila had married him had been even more obvious. Few men have "aristocrat" stamped in their every line as plainly—almost as absurdly—as had Calvin Moore. His wife had first met him in a group of people whose opinion she deeply respected and who knew him to be what he actually was, a very great man in a certain limited field. Even his hermit-like manner of living had offered her a distinct and romantic fascination, for, like most Americans, Leila Moore had a passion for all the apparatus of country life—except the country. ”

“ Again Bellsmith, thoroughly unhappy, trying hard to look as if he enjoyed it but knowing that he was making a very bad job of it, looked furtively up the table and suddenly encountered a twinkle in the eye of the curly-haired stage-manager. For an instant a laugh telegraphed itself from one man to the other; then both caught themselves, the face of the stage-manager relaxing into bored woodenness, the face of Bellsmith contorting back into polite appreciation of the singer opposite him. But that twinkle had been unmistakable. Sudden flashings like that across a table make lifelong allies. ”

“ From a fire exit in the balcony a long, thin shaft of daylight filtered in, dancing incessantly with millions of tiny dust motes, the pale, gray streamer of afternoon light appearing curiously out of place and intrusive. As Miss Marshall and Bellsmith tiptoed in from the lobby a single voice was speaking from somewhere in the darkness near the stage, giving directions with that empty, resounding effect of informal talk in a vacant auditorium. ”

“ The attitude of the Country Club had made osculation rather nauseous. It would seem better breeding not to notice it; and yet, and yet, it was rather funny that it should have been Helen. It was the first personal illustration which Furniss had ever had of the dramatic, and he began to ponder. If you ever wish to reclaim a devil, just try him on the dramatic. It is the only uplifting influence which sleeps in the souls of most of them.
The emotions of Butley Smith were less happily chosen. ”

“ Even the lobby offered no consolation as, in truth, it seldom offered much to Harcourt or Israels. Not a soul was in sight except the Boston version of Oliver who was yawning behind his brass grill. With one of those inane impulses which seize men in moments of crowded loneliness Bellsmith wandered over to the little glass window, asked for a telegraph blank, and wrote a message to Dr. MacVickar:
Success to all appearances, but feeling rather lost. ”

“ Even when Tilly came on and was greeted by a really spontaneous burst of applause, he roused himself only momentarily. Whether it really was weariness or whether it was that same dreamy detachment which had characterized his whole life, like that of his fathers, it still remained impossible for Bellsmith to connect the sight of Tilly on the stage with his thoughts of her in their life together. ”

“ The tradition of my father's life still lives among us, moreover, and, the call of the blood being strong, I like to look back on the heritage which seems, at times, to crop out in my own more humdrum and less romantic calling.
Judging impartially, I do not think that I can honestly say that father was a remarkable burglar, but, in the crude profession of his time, he was well thought of and well liked by such associates as he gathered around him; and I know that we of his family, at least, thought him the most wonderful burglar on earth. ”

“ Yet, curiously enough, he felt no resentment toward "The Courier" or the morbid young men responsible for the story. As most people do, Bellsmith instinctively thought of a newspaper as inexorable fate and of its reporters as shadows rather than individuals. If he blamed any one he blamed himself, for that was Bellsmith's real overwhelming emotion at this unhappy moment—a genuine sense of personal guilt—with something of dirt about it. ”

“ The doctor smiled ruefully. "My theory! My dear chap, it won't do you any harm now to tell you that my theory in your case was very much like that of a class in chemistry. The professor stands up before his pupils and performs a certain standard experiment. He does it to demonstrate the inevitability of immutable laws, but every time in his secret heart he is praying fervently that it will work."
Bellsmith laughed, but even he had felt a certain perfunctory quality in the heartiness of the doctor's talk. ”

“ There are enough people in the world who really do enjoy bad music, bad art, and bad literature, without people who should know better studiedly affecting to enjoy them. Yet that is what happens to-day. I, personally, do not enjoy jazz—the incessant, nerve-racking rhythms which make up a typical restaurant concert. I have no wish to abolish them. I do not object to others enjoying them. I simply do not like them myself and cannot pretend that I do, yet that is what the mucker pose requires that I must do. ”

“ Bellsmith was instantly as rueful as a school-boy.
"Doctor," he said, "I didn't mean to speak flippantly but, for more than three years, I have been trying to laugh myself out of this state of wretchedness, I have been calling my trouble just what I have called it now—damn foolishness. I have tried exercise. I have tried"—he smiled "—I have tried calomel. Most of all I have tried will power. None of them have done me the slightest atom of good. In a day or two I always am back where I was before—in a sort of dull, hopeless melancholia." ”

“ In the "Eleanor" company this girl was evidently regarded as whatever may be the feminine equivalent of a "card," for a group of men was constantly around her and every word she said was invariably greeted with uproarious laughter. Usually one of the men had his arm over her shoulder, not, certainly, from any affection, but merely to draw out the vicious retort which she would inevitably make. As the evening progressed this girl became more and more the center of attraction, and, to the men of the company, seemed more and more convulsing, although Bellsmith could see nothing amusing about her. ”

“ The distinction between a regular devil and one who is merely devilish is exactly the distinction between the professional and the amateur in all occupations. The devilish do things purely for the éclat of the doing, while the devils do them because they want the things done. A professional carpenter carpenters in order that he may have a table, to be used for his varying ends; an amateur uses his tools merely for the sake of the chips. That an occasional amateur displays unusual brilliancy in the accomplishment has nothing to do with the distinction. ”

“ Calvin Moore, however, was a man whose intellect came into play never more than a second behind his nerves or emotions. Reading it over a second time, he realized perfectly well how often, in his secret imagination, he had visualized just such a letter as this. Strangely, the only thing about it now that appeared unreal was the mere handwriting. Leila's round, firm, society hand always gave him that same shock of unfamiliarity. It looked so much more mature than she did. His wife's mind and soul Calvin Moore knew inside and out. ”

“ Like Bellsmith himself, Keefe had a sense of fitness which understood plainly enough that certain occasions, such as a trip to the station or a trip to a doctor's office, no matter how short, called inevitably for the etiquette of a car. Besides, it always amused Keefe to work his way through the traffic at this crowded hour between five and six on a winter evening. The old Bellsmith mansion, behind its tall iron fence, lay in the very heart of the business district of Leicester, the only private residence within a mile of the spot. On one side an office building rose sheer above it. ”