Edgar Fawcett

“ Pauline gave a little soft cry. "You mean because I am rich, no doubt!" she said, a kind of melancholy sarcasm tinging her words.
"Riches mean a great deal," said Cora.
"But if you have no special endowment that separates you from the rest of the world, you are still a woman."
"I am not sorry to be a woman."
"No! because you are a living protest against the inferiority of our sex. You can do something; you need not forever have men doing something for you, like the great majority of us!" ”

“ The chastity of some names is so perfect that any touch whatever will soil it."
"If so, then mine has been soiled already!" cried Pauline. "Oh," she went on, "you men are all alike toward us women! Our worst crime is that you yourselves should talk about us! To have your fellow-men say, 'This woman has been rendered the object of a scandalous insult, but has retaliated with courage,' is to make her seem in your eyes as if the insult were really a deserved one! Whenever we are prominent, except in a social way, we are called notorious. ”

“ Your objection to my marriage with Ralph Kindelon is horrible—that and nothing more! He towers above the idiot whom you are glad to have Sallie marry! What do I care for the little 'lord'? You bow before it; I despise it. You call my project, my dream, my desire, a failure ... I grant that it is. But it is immeasurably above that petty worship of the Golden Calf, which you name respectability and which I denounce as only a pitiful sham! The world is growing older, but you don't grow old with it. You close your eyes to all progress. ”

“ Dares, allowing all this, do you consider that Mr. Kindelon was right? Is it all chaos to-day in New York? Is there no gleam of order?" And here Pauline broke into a furtive tremor of laughter. "Must I begin my good work at the very earliest possible beginning if I am to commence at all?"
Mrs. Dares's dark eyes seemed to smile now, if her lips did not. "Yes," she said. "Mr. Kindelon was right. You are to begin at the very beginning.—In London it is so different," she went on, lapsing into the meditative seriousness from which nothing could permanently distract her. ”

“ Presently, as Miss Upton moved away on Courtlandt's arm in the direction of her aunt and Sallie, she burst into a laugh, of whose loudness and acerbity she was equally unconscious.
Martha Dares, appearing at her side, arrested the laugh. Pauline grew promptly serious as she looked into Martha's homely face, with its little black eyes beaming above the fat cheeks and the unclassic nose, but not beaming by any means so merrily as when she had last given all its features her full heed.
"You don't laugh a bit as if you were pleased," said Martha, in her short, alert way. ”

“ We live in New York, you and I. Do you know what New York means? It means what America means—or what America ought to mean, from Canada to the Gulf! And that is—exemption from the hateful bonds of self-glorifying snobbery which have disgraced Europe for centuries! You call yourself an aristocrat. How dare you do so? You dwell in a land which was washed with the blood, less than a century ago, of men who died to kill just what you boast of and exalt! Look more to your breeding and your brains, and less to your so-called caste! ”

“ Pauline went up to the speaker and stood close beside her while she responded,—
"Ah! my dear Miss Dares, the love between man and woman is entitled to no more respect than the law of gravitation. Both belong to the great unknown scheme. We may shake our heads in transcendental disapprobation, but it is quite useless. The loftiest affection of the human heart is no more important and no more mysterious than the question of why Newton's apple fell from the tree or why a plant buds in spring. All causes are unknown, and to seek their solution is to idly grope." ”

“ That cousin of yours hated me at sight. Your aunt, Mrs. Poughkeepsie, hated me at sight as well. Perhaps their worldly wisdom was by no means to blame, either.... Oh, I understand more than you imagine!"
There was not only real grief in Kindelon's voice, but an under-throb of real passion.
"Understand?" Pauline murmured. "What do you understand?"
"That you are as stanch and loyal as ever to your old traditions. That this idea of change, of amelioration, of casting aside your so-called patrician bondage, has only the meaning of a dainty gentlewoman's dainty caprice ... ”

“ I suppose these waters, centuries later, will see grand sights, as civilization augments."
"Perhaps they may see very mournful ones," objected Kindelon.
"But you are an evolutionist," declared Pauline, with a priggish little pursing of the lips that he found secretly very amusing. "You believe that everything is working toward nobler conditions, though you laughed at Leander Prawle, the optimistic poet, the other evening, for his roseate prophecies about the human race."
"Oh, I'm an evolutionist," answered Kindelon. ”

“ Kindelon gave one of his laughs, and jumped out of the carriage. Pauline took the hand which he offered her, while the displaced footman decorously receded.
"I do mean it," he said, as they went up a high, narrow stoop together, and saw two slim, lit windows loom before them.
"I hope I am not responsible for this last change of faith in you," she answered, while Kindelon was ringing the bell.
"Well," he at once said, "I believe you are. There is no kind of real society here except one. Mind you, I don't say this in any but the most dispassionate and critical way. ”

“ I love Ralph Kindelon. I mean to be his wife."
"You meant to be Varick's wife."
"It is horrible for you to bring that up!" she cried. "Here I commit no mistake. He is a man of men! He loves me, and I love him. Do you know anything against him—outside of the codes and creeds that would exclude him from one of Aunt Cynthia's dancing-classes?"
"I know this against him; he is not true. He is not to be trusted. He rings wrong. He is not a gentleman—in the sense quite outside of Aunt Cynthia's definition."
"It is false!" exclaimed Pauline, crimsoning. ”

“ Pauline gave a momentary frown, whose gloom meant pain. And before her face had re-brightened she had begun to speak. "But they cannot care to do as Aunt Cynthia does—to trifle, to idle."
"I fancy that a good many of them would trifle and idle if they had your aunt's facilities for that employment—or lack of it."
"But they paint, they read, they write, they think; they make poems, novels, dramas. They are people with an occupation, an ideal. How can they be interested in a fellow-creature who does nothing with her time except waste it?"
"She wastes it very picturesquely," replied Kindelon. ”

“ Pauline shook her head with negative emphasis. "I like him just as he is," she murmured. She was silent for a moment, and then added, almost plaintively: "My entertainment looks pleasant enough, but I fear that it is all a disastrous failure."
"A failure?" echoed Kindelon, with no sympathy in the interrogation.
"Yes, everybody is grumbling. I distinctly feel it. It is not only that Barrowe has infected everybody; it is that everybody has a latent hostility towards anything like harmonious reunion."
"Isn't there a bit of pure imagination in your verdict?" Kindelon asked. ”

“ It will last your lifetime. Kindelon isn't of your monde, and never can be. There is so much in that. I am not speaking like a snob. But he has no more sense of the proprieties, the nice externals, the way of doing all those thousand trifling things, which, trifling as they are, make up three-quarters of actual existence, than if he were an Indian, a Bedouin, or a gypsy! Before Heaven, Pauline, if I thought such a marriage could bring you happiness, I'd give you up without a murmur! I'm not fool enough to die, or pine, or even mope because of any woman on the globe not caring for me! ”

“ Arthur Trevor chose to ignore this barbed rejoinder. His dreamy eyes and general air of placid reverie made such an attitude singularly easy of assumption.
"Poor Rufus feels your slight," he said, addressing Pauline solely. "Why do you call him my intimate enemy? We are the dearest of friends. He adores decay, and sings of it. I do not sing of it, but I adore it for its color. There is always color in decay."
"Discolor," said Kindelon, with better wit than grammar.
"Decay," pursued Arthur Trevor, "is the untried realm of the future poet. Scarcely anything else is left him. ”

“ But she still let Kindelon hold her hands. And his grasp tightened about them as she heard him answer:
"I suppose Cora Dares may have believed that.... But, good God! am I so much to blame? I had never met you, Pauline. It was before I went to Ireland the last time—I never asked her to marry me—It was what they call a flirtation. Am I to be held to account for it? Hundreds of men have been foolish in this way before myself—Have you raised me so high only to dash me down?—Won't you speak? Won't you tell me that you forgive a dead fancy for the sake of a living love? ”

“ If you listened intently you could catch a kind of dreamy hum from the vast city, which might almost be said to begin its busy, tumultuous life here in this very spot, thence pushing through many a life-crowded street and avenue, sheer on to the rocky fields and goat-haunted gutters of dreary Harlem.
"What a glorious bay it is!" exclaimed Kindelon, while he and Pauline stood on the breezy esplanade. "There never was a city with more royal approaches than New York." ”

“ Kindelon's light-blue eyes fired a little under their black lashes. "You say that in a way I do not understand," he answered.
"You and Courtlandt are of a different world."
"I am not a combination of a fop and a parson, if you mean that."
Pauline felt herself grow pale with anger as she shot a look up into her companion's face.
"You would not dare say that to my cousin himself," she exclaimed defiantly, "though you dare say it to me!"
Kindelon had grown quite pale. His voice trembled as he replied. "I dare do anything that needs the courage of a man," he said. ”

“ I set evolution to music ... what other poet has done that? I wrest from Buckle, Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley—from all the grand modern thinkers, in fact—their poetic and yet rationalistic elements! If you had heard my poem to yourself through—if you had had the patience, I—I may add, the kindliness, to hear it through, you would have seen that my terminus was in accord with the prevailing theories of Herbert Spencer's noble philosophy...."
"Shall I ever cling to or love Herbert Spencer again?" thought Pauline, "when I see him made the shibboleth of such intellectual charlatans as this?" ”

“ Kindelon has more than once spoken in a similar way."
"Mr. Kindelon?" replied Pauline, with a gentle, peculiar, interrogative emphasis. "And did you agree with him?"
"No," swiftly answered Cora. "I have a faith that he cannot shake—that no one can shake! But he has not tried to do so; I must render him that justice."
Pauline turned away, with a faint laugh. "The wise men, who have thought and therefore doubted," she returned, "are often fond of orthodoxy in the women whom they like. They think it picturesque." ”

“ I supposed that in spite of Kindelon's known enmity, some of your guests must have told you how immense were my deserts—how they transcended the morbid horrors of Rufus Corson, and the glaring superficialities of Arthur Trevor. But I discover, plainly enough, that you are impervious to all intellectual greatness of claim. I will accept no aid from you!—none whatever! But one day, when the name of Leander Prawle is a shining and a regnant one, you will perhaps remember how miserably you failed to value his merits, and shrink with shame at the thought of your own pitiable misjudgment!... ”

“ Cora was regarding Pauline, as the latter finished, with a look full of sad interest. "You speak like ... like some one whom we both know," she said hesitatingly. "You speak as if you did not believe in God."
"I do not disbelieve in God," quickly answered Pauline. "The carelessly-applied term of 'atheist' is to my thinking a name fit only for some pitiable braggart. He who denies the existence of a God is of no account among people of sense; but he who says, 'I am ignorant of all that concerns the conceivability of a God' has full right to express such ignorance." ”

“ Pauline broke in quite hotly at this. Her eyes had taken a quick sparkle, and the color was flying rosy and pure into her fair face. "Pshaw!" she exclaimed. "It is not any question of social standing. I want to know these people"—She suddenly paused, as though her tongue had betrayed her into some regrettable and unseemly phrase. "I want to pass," she continued more slowly, "from an aimless world into one of thought and sense. Mrs. Dares is prominent in this other world. ”

“ Pauline bowed assent. "Brilliantly able," she answered. "Tell me, Miss Dares, with which of you is he the more intimate, your sister or yourself?"
Martha gave a laugh that was crisp and curt. She looked away from Pauline as she answered. "Oh, he's more intimate with me than with Cora," she said. "We are stanch friends. He tells me nearly everything. I think he would tell me if he were to fall in love." ”

“ Pauline had read and studied with a good deal of fidelity, both during her marriage and after her widowhood. She had gone into the acquisition of knowledge and the development of thought as some women go into the intoxication of a nervine. Her methods had been amateurish and desultory; she had not been taught, she had learned, and hence learned ill. "The modern thinkers," as she called them, delighted her with their liberality, their iconoclasm. She was in just that receptive mood to be made an extremist by their doctrines, the best of which so sensibly warn us against extremes. ”

“ Was it then true that this man's feelings toward her were only the hypocritical sham of an aim at worldly advancement? "How shall I act to him when we again meet?" Pauline asked herself. "If I really thought this charge true, I should treat him with entire contempt. And have I the right to believe it true? This Cragge creature has a viperish nature. Should I credit such information from such a source?"
That was a day of days with poor Pauline. She seemed to look upon Ralph Kindelon in a totally new light. She realized that the man's brilliant personality had made his society very dear to her. ”

“ Dares never pushed herself upon anybody's heed, yet she was seldom unnoticed. Her voice rarely passed beyond a musical semitone, and yet you rarely failed to catch each word it uttered. Pauline not only caught each word, as her new hostess now stood and addressed her, leaving for the time all other guests who were crowding the rather meagre apartments, but she tacitly decided, as well, that there was an elegance and purity in the expressions used by this notable little lady which some of the grander-mannered dames whom she had intimately known might have copied with profit. ”

“ The poor creature is terribly fond of one of them. There is always one, you know, dearer than the rest."
"Is there?" said Kindelon oddly. "You're quite elucidating. I didn't know that."
"Don't be sarcastic," reproved Pauline with mock grimness. "Sarcasm is always the death of romance. I have an idea that the secretly-adored one is more of a convert than all his fellows to the beautifying influences of soap. ”

“ He had engaged himself to my dear Cora. He meant to marry her. Then he met you. Everything about you dazzled and charmed him. It was yourself as much as your position, your wealth, your importance. He cared for you; he was enchanted by you; his nature is not a deep nature, though his intellect is large and keen. He is almost the typical Irishman, this Kindelon—the Irishman who, in statesmanship, in governance, in administrative force, has left poor Ireland what she is to-day. ”

“ Dares, "and one exquisitely designed for the species of entertainment which you are generous enough to have resolved upon."
"Ah, don't say 'generous,'" broke in Pauline. "You give me a twinge of conscience. I am afraid my motive has been quite a selfishly ambitious one. At least, I sometimes fancy so. How many human motives are thoroughly disinterested? But if I succeed with my salon—which before long I hope to make as fixed and inevitable a matter as the day of the week on which it is held—the result must surely be a most salutary and even reformatory one. ”

“ Kindelon leaned his handsome crisp-curled head nearer to her own; he fixed his light-blue eyes, in which lay so warm and liquid a sparkle, intently upon the lifted gaze of Pauline.
"You are right," he said. "You will learn that, among other lessons, before you are much older. There is no such thing as not picking and choosing. Whatever the grade of life, it is always done by those who have any sort of social impulse. ”