Francis Hopkinson Smith

“ Joe declared. “I’ve never known a room that didn’t have a personality—good, bad, or indifferent. Some rooms seem almost to speak to you.”
“Or, rather, they reflect the personality of the occupant,” said Enoch. “Some rooms reflect deeper than mirrors, my boy. They give out to you much of the true character of the person whom they shelter. They’re as much a part of them as their minds and manner of life.”
“Look at the charm of this old place—its friendliness, the way it hangs together!” Joe went on. ”

“ It was an ideal night to float for deer—the moon not yet up.
It was past midnight when they stealthily turned to the right up a stretch of water, swinging along under some alders that shaded in daylight a patch of shallow water with a clean sand bottom. Suddenly Ed’s paddle gently backed water. Joe did not know his paddle had reversed, but he felt an almost imperceptible shake to the green boat, cautiously lifted his rifle, and, peering ahead of him, saw a grayish object close up to the alders. ”

“ Throughout it all Enoch had not opened his lips. He had absorbed their blasé twaddle about marriage, the hinderance of children, and had drunk in with increasing disgust their eulogy over their various women friends. They had to a man at that table laid bare to him the worthlessness of their lives, their contemptible egoism, the hollow mockery in which they held love. Even at the Rabelaisian tale of Lamont’s he had held his tongue, but now the slow-gathering pent-up rage within him exploded, as sudden as a pistol-shot. ”

“ Her widowhood and the Bohemian life she had led since Sam Van Cortlandt’s suicide had left its imprint. She was still a seductive, remarkably handsome woman, but she had grown harder. This showed in certain lines about her still glorious eyes, especially when she smiled; her lips were thinner, the angle of her jaw squarer, the subtle curves of her once lovely throat and neck less interesting. Strange to say, she still preserved her figure, her white skin, and her splendid arms. She looked upon life now with more of the view-point of a man of the world than of a woman. ”

“ When she turned in surprise and looked him square in the eyes, in one of those comprehensive, searching glances, and his own lenses had registered her fresh color, small ears, and dainty, enchanting mouth and teeth, the whole surrounded by a wealth of light, golden hair, escaping from the thraldom of a tam-o’-shanter hat, part of her working clothes, he would have taken an oath on a pile of Bibles as high as a church steeple that she was altogether the most radiantly attractive young woman he had ever met in the whole course of his natural existence. ”

“ That was exactly what happened, wasn’t it, Lamont? But since you are no fool, you did not jeopardize her welfare. Life has made you what you are, and of course it is no fault of yours. Who gave you that power to hypnotize? Experience; long experience. With your good looks and your clever tenderness you have won a hundred victories over the defenseless and the weak that the world has never known, you handsome blackguard. Some day you will find your match, as you found her once in Paris—that little seamstress who never liked you—do you remember? ”

“ It’s that infernal check that has prodded on more writers to ruin than it ever helped. The more money they can make, the more mediocre and sensational they get—scarcely a page that is not cooked up like a pudding—one quart of sentimentality to two heaping pints of sensation, add a scant teaspoonful of pathos, sprinkle with a happy ending, and serve hot before the last novel gets cold. Slop! and drivel!” he snarled, scraping out the bowl of his strongest pipe, and stuffing it with fine-cut Virginia that would have bitten any less hardy tongue than Enoch’s. ”

“ It seems almost a pity that there was no little Yvonne or Marie to accompany him to the station. Ah, how brave they are! And when one’s heart is big so that it chokes one it is not easy to be brave—none to have packed his things and bought his ticket in her perfect French, and put a kiss between the sandwiches, and deposited more right before the accustomed eyes of the important red-faced chef de gare, until the tragic, relentless bleat of his horn sent the long-dreaded express to Havre moving swiftly out of the station. Joe had come out of it all as straight as a T-square. ”

“ Close by, on the corner, at Solari’s, that fine old house with its blinds always closed and its door always open, and where Rose became even cheerful over the best green-turtle soup in the whole world and as mellow and convincing a bottle of Moulin à Vent as was ever born on the sunny flanks of Burgundy—a pure and noble wine, discreetly served by an aged waiter. They were the only persons in the spotlessly clean old dining-room, as old-fashioned as the bar down-stairs, whose marble statues of “The Three Graces” always seemed to be thinking of the past. ”

“ The boat, like the two men within it, did not make a sound, and though Ed’s paddle kept constantly in motion under water, he avoided lifting it clear of the current. In the absolute stillness even its drip would have been heard. In the bow where Joe sat in the chill air, with a Winchester across his knees, glowed with a peculiar ghostly light an old-fashioned jack-lantern; back of its stub of a candle Ed had nailed a semicircle of hemlock bark, whose inner slippery peel, white as ivory, served as a reflector, obliterating from view the boat and its occupants. ”

“ Mrs. Ford did not utter a syllable; she sat immovable on the sofa, redder under the shock of Enoch’s tirade, though none too willing to believe it. The Van Cortlandt’s millions and social position, their niceness to her daughter, and the glamour of her being welcomed to their exclusive society serving only too readily as a balm to heal the gaping wound left by Enoch’s words. ”

“ There radiates from the personality of a pure young girl like Sue something strangely akin to sunshine, something indefinable, luminous, and warm, which no one yet has been quite able to describe—any more than one can define “charm”—that which touches the heart, neither can we place our finger upon that thin, wavering border line between friendship and love—a pressure of the hand, a glance of the eyes, a smile, a sudden gaze of sympathy and understanding, and we stumble headlong across the frontier into the land of adoration. ”

“ Lamont, you know how I hate compliments,” protested Sue.
“But when they’re true,” he laughed, seating himself upon the new gilt chair Mrs. Ford had offered him.
“Mr. Lamont, I tell her she is much too modest, with all her talents,” the mother declared, framing the rosy cheeks in her hands, much to Sue’s embarrassment.
“After all, Mrs. Ford,” returned Lamont, “is there anything more charming than modesty in a young girl? Isn’t that a talent in itself? Most girls are so ridiculously conceited nowadays—often over nothing, I assure you.” ”

“ Of the three he preferred Regan’s, and, indeed, nearly the whole of his five days’ spree was spent there, down in that sordid basement, with its steep iron stairs, its bouncer, its famous banjo player, accompanied by a small Sunday-school melodeon; its women, its whiskey, and its smoke. Not a breath of scandal ever entered the place, save when it was permanently closed at last for a murder. Gentlemanly deportment was rigorously exacted, and the first signs of trouble meant a throw-out. It was a fine place to be forgotten in and to forget the World above ground. ”

“ There are some women who never can travel without a maid; the Countess Vezzitti was one. She arrived in deep mourning without a jewel. Delicious, wasn’t it? As she whispered to me: ‘You see, amico mio, I have only brought one jewel—Annina.’ I believe that girl would have given her life for her mistress.”
He lowered the candle under its crimson shade between them, and kindled a Russian cigarette over its flame, lighting up his dark, handsome, devil-may-care face and a cabochon emerald ring the countess had given him. Lamont might easily have been mistaken for an Italian. ”

“ Lamont turned slowly, and for the space of a few seconds gazed at Enoch, with his black eyes half closed and his mouth half open.
There are some expressions far more insolent than words.
“But the Compte de Valmontier is a gentleman,” he added coldly. “He does not choose his club to denounce a fellow member in, over an affair which does not concern him—among a circle of friends where he is not welcome.”
“S-sir!” stammered Enoch, white and quivering, as the group about him rose to a man. ”

“ By noon they were en route to camp on the Upper Ausable Pond, by way of the muddiest lumber road [279] in the world, mud hub-deep, black mud, covering patches of sunken corduroy, treacherous roots and hidden rocks that snapped their full share of axles during a season, spilled off provisions, burst flour-sacks, and brought forth a string of profanity along its entire contrary length. Ed and Joe trudged on back of the buckboard. To ride was impossible. Now and then the strong team, guided to-day by Bill Dubois’s boy, also on foot, strained, plunged on, and stopped for a panting rest. ”

“ How silly husbands are! What a tempest in a teapot they make of nothing—to misconstrue the simplest and most innocent of questions and the most natural of whispered replies into high treason! Did not Benton owe Mr. Lamont the most abject of apologies? Of course. He owed a still deeper apology to Mrs. Benton for “mortifying her beyond words.” Innocence in the hands of a brute! ”

“ As for “the old guard,” their good hearts and presence of mind had been tried and proven scores of times, never a reproach, God bless them, never—even when a fellow called after a heavy day at the club, the good old welcome was there, the same genial gleam of womanly affection and understanding. Then those formal occasions—a bevy of people to tea when a chap least expected it, and had to hang on like grim death to his best manners, and the soberest corner of his brain to pass the trembling sandwiches, and keep a cup of tea on its saucer with the skill of a juggler. ”

“ Any other man but Ebner Ford would have turned down the corridor, dazed and insulted. As for Enoch’s door, it was not the first that had been slammed in his face. He could recall a long list of exits in his business career that were so alike in character they had ceased to make any serious impression upon him. His rule had been to allow time for the enraged person to cool off, and to tackle him again at the earliest opportunity—preferably after luncheon, when experience had taught him men were always in a more genial and approachable humor. ”

“ Sue caught her breath and looked at Enoch with her blue eyes wide open with eager interest. “Oh, how wonderful!” she cried. “Do go on.”
“I am not saying this to discourage you, my dear,” he continued, “but to encourage you. You are so young, so rich in years to come—years that we old [72] fellows no longer have. Do your best; sing on to the best of your ability. In every fresh effort, in every new note lies the real lesson. Think of how happy you will be when at last you are sure of yourself, sure in making others feel what you feel. ”

“ Miss Jane was so reticent in public that she rarely opened her lips, total strangers like car-conductors and new church-sextons being an unavoidable exception. She took up but little space in the world, and was of no more hinderance to others than her own shadow—and yet she was a woman, had once been a girl, and once a baby. There is a degree of modesty which becomes conspicuous. It is almost impossible to conceive that Miss Jane had ever loved ”

“ She had grown calmer, more calculating; men no longer disillusioned her, though she still trusted them more than she did women. Of the latter, she could still count a few among her acquaintances who came to her studio apartment in Washington Square. All of them she had met since her husband’s death; but mostly her friends were men. Like the women, they, too, had come into her life after the tragedy. She still regarded Jack Lamont, however, as her oldest friend, the one who understood her best, and no one understood Jack Lamont better than Rose. ”

“ She was gone, her step growing fainter down the stairs, and when at last she opened that half of the front door bearing Fortune hugging her sheaf of wheat, closed it with a click, and had stepped over the whirling dust and two circulars of a dentist celebrated for his cheap prices, and had made her way safely down the stoop, and Sue, with her back to her precious Chippendale table, started to break the awkward silence that had followed her mother’s departure, Lamont stretched out both hands to her pleadingly. ”

“ There is nothing more ridiculous and incongruous to me than the houses some people live in. Some of you architects design salons and dining-rooms for people who would be far more at their ease in the kitchen. Imagine a boudoir with a Madame Récamier lounge for a woman’s rights delegate—a library for a grocer, and a ball-room for an undertaker, and you have my idea,” grinned Enoch.
“You ought to see the bedroom I’ve designed for Mrs. Amos Jones,” Joe declared. “She’s daft on Marie Antoinette ever since she saw the Petit Trianon last summer and bought the postal cards.” ”

“ Then on with a fresh whiskey and soda, served far more daintily than at the club—the heavy, generous decanter, the tall, frail glass, the Irish-lace doilies. Laughter, the fragrance of violets, those serious little tête-è-têtes which generally amount to nothing. The warm pressure of a hand in a formal good-by—bah! it is a dull game to be always drinking with men. Those interminable rounds at the club; the same dull men and the same dull stories. Men bored Lamont. ”

“ Sue started and turned.
“Why, Mr. Lamont! Why, I’m going home,” said she. “Isn’t it a glorious day! The stage was so noisy and stuffy I couldn’t stand it any longer. I just had to get out and walk.”
“Home,” he ventured, with the vestige of a sigh. “May I come?”
“Why—why, yes, of course you may,” she laughed back, “if you’d really like to,” swept off her feet by their sudden meeting and his quick proposal.
“Like to!” he smiled. “If you only knew how good you are to ask me. I’m so wretchedly lonely to-day.”
“Now, Mr. Lamont, that’s a fib and you know it. ”

“ Sue replied. “You know I could just as well have taken the car.”
“No, you couldn’t have,” declared Lamont. “Not in that pretty dress of yours. What a filthy vehicle a street-car is, anyway. Have you ever stopped to think of the people you are obliged to sit next to—ugh!—or where they came from?—people who step all over you, and never think of begging your pardon. Do you realize that in America the middle classes have no manners whatever? It’s a fact. I assure you in France and Italy it is quite different. Even the most wretchedly poor are polite. ”