Alec Forbes

“ It was usual with the professors to invite a dozen or so of the students to breakfast on Saturdays, but on this occasion Alec was the sole guest.
As soon as he entered the room, Mr Fraser hobbled to meet him, with outstretched hand of welcome, and a kindly grin on his face.
"Mr Forbes," he said, "I h-h-hope well of you; for you can respect an old man. I'm very glad to see you. I hope you've brought an appetite with you. Sit down. Always respect old age, Mr Forbes. You'll be old yourself some day—and you won't like it any more than I do. ”

“ Do not think that we old people do not care for what you care for. We want more than you want—a something without which what you like best cannot last.'
"What did the coch stop for, Annie, lass?" asked Tibbie, as soon as the mail had driven on.
"It's a lady gaein to Mistress Forbes's at Howglen."
"Hoo ken ye that?"
"'Cause Alec Forbes rade oot to meet her, and syne took her hame i' the gig."
"Ay! ay! I thought I heard mair nor the ordinar nummer o' horse-feet as the coch cam' up. He's a braw lad, that Alec Forbes�isna he?"
"Ay is he," answered Annie, sadly ”

“ Ye're ower sair even upo' him. But it's verra true that gin the story cam' frae that en' o' the toon, there's room for rizzonable doobts. Sae we'll awa' to our beds, and houp things mayna be sae far gane as the soun' o' them. Only I drede there's aye some water whaur the stirkie droons."
It was long before little Isie got to sleep, what with attempting to realize the actual condition of Alec Forbes, and trying to excogitate the best means for his deliverance. Why should not all Glamerton set out in a body with flails and pitchforks? ”

“ Encouraged by their laughter and approbation, Alec began to emulate them, and would soon have had very little to learn if things had not taken a turn. A great hand is sometimes laid even on the fly-wheel of life's engine.
CHAPTER LXXIII. Andrew Constable, with his wife and old-fashioned child Isie, was seated at tea in the little parlour opening from the shop, when he was called out by a customer. ”

“ Forbes Robertson’s neighbours are George Grossmith and his brother Weedon, Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Hicks, Lady Monckton, “Anthony Hope,” and many well-known judges, aldermen, solicitors, and architects.
In the old home in Bloomsbury the artistic family of Forbes Robertson was reared. Johnston, as we know, suddenly neglected his easel for the stage; his sister Frances took up literature as a profession; and his brothers, known as Ian Robertson and Norman Forbes, both adopted the theatrical profession. So the Robertsons may be classed among the theatrical families. ”

“ He meant the wooden bridge a few hundred yards below them, which, inaccessible from either side, was now very little above the level of the water.
"It's jist the riggin' o' some cottar's bit hoosie," answered Thomas. "What's come o' them that was aneath it, the Lord only kens. The water's jist liftit the roof bodily. There it gangs—throu' aneath the brig.—The brig's doon. It's no doon.—It's stan'in' yet.—But the puir fowk, Alec!—Eh, gin they warna preparet! Think o' that, Alec."
"I houp they wan oot," answered Alec.
"Houps are feckless things, Alec," returned Thomas, censoriously. ”

“ Forbes sat in the dark room in an arm-chair and muffled his bathrobe about him, watching the electric signs working like solemn acrobats—the girl that skipped the rope, the baby that laughed and cried, the woman that danced on the wire, the skidless tire in the rain, the great sibyl face that winked and advised chewing-gum as a panacea, the kitten that tangled itself in thread, the siphons that filled the glasses—all the automatic electric voices shouting words of light. ”

“ Yas, sah, reckon yo’ had better see me later.”
With his package of luncheon and box of candies, and, as usual, leaving a trail of paraffin papers behind him, Forbes strolled out of the Arcade, incidentally noting that Sniffins was selecting cigars at the counter next Mammy’s. Once he was beyond the portals of the Arcade, his accustomed deliberation of air and manner fell from him, and with a muttered “I’ll learn what is back of all that or jump overboard” he sped along toward State Street at a rate which would have startled his friends had any chanced to meet him. ”

“ But then so many men had held her in their arms when she danced. Even his daring had not impressed her memory. So many men must have pressed her too daringly. It was part of the routine of her life, to rebuff men who made advances to her.
Forbes left the bridge and left the park, humbled to nausea. His cheeks were so scarlet that the conductor on the Seventh Avenue car stared at him. He could not bear to walk back to his hotel. When he reached there he went to his room, dejected. There was nothing in the town to interest him. New York was as cold and heartless as report had made it. ”

“ When the curtain fell on the second act Forbes saw one of the men in the box rise and leave along the side-aisle. Forbes knew the man. His name was Ten Eyck—Murray Ten Eyck.
Forbes dreaded to repeat that voyage through the strait between knees and seat-backs; but he had seen at last a man he knew. And the man he knew knew the woman he wanted to know. [Pg 24]
CHAPTER V THE women he passed glared hatpins at Forbes and groaned as they rose and hunched back to let him by. They clutched at the wraps he disarranged. ”

“ The bitterness of his tone did not escape Forbes.
“Surely.” Forbes saw the fifteen thousand in bills at the girl's feet, her dull misery over the loss of the box. Had Crawford believed her jewels to be in it? Oh, it was damnable!
They arrived presently before an apartment-building.
“We get out here,” said Crawford, shutting off the power. “Mort, every man has a curtain which he does not lift even to his best friend. To-night I'm going to lift a corner for you. It is because I want some one with me. I am in no mood for sentiment. Come.”
Forbes followed him. ”

“ The minute somebody else that's prominent pops through we'll let you alone. But you're in for it, Captain—'way in. Better crawl under my umbrella and give me the story."
He meant it well, but it was impossible for Forbes to accept his philosophy or his counsel. To Forbes he was a slimy reptile with a hellish mission. Forbes told him so, denied all that he had said, defied him, and turned him out. And now he had leisure to understand the full meaning of it all. First, his grief for Persis broke his heart open. He mourned her as a sweetheart, a betrothed, a wife ”

“ Forbes stared aghast at a wholesale condemnation that must include Mrs. Neff, Persis, Winifred, Alice, and the respectable rest. He had not yet learned that certain journalists are mere newsboys always beating out of their dreadnaught typewriters cries of "Extra! Extra! All about the turrible moider!"
Forbes was dumfounded to learn that the modern Babylon plus Nineveh, New York, could be sent to bed at one o'clock and forbidden to dance by daylight. Ordinarily nothing on earth would have mattered less to Forbes than the fate of tea-dances. ”

“ Why, seriously, Alice, what on earth do you suppose Father Forbes knows or cares about our poor little affairs, or those of any other Protestant household in this whole village? He has his work to do, just as I have mine—only his is ten times as exacting in everything except sermons—and you may be sure he is only too glad when it is over each day, without bothering about things that are none of his business. ”

“ You'll soon see that the best things come hard; they have to be earned, and I guess Dick Forbes is one of them. He doesn't seem to be looking for money; what he wants is a real woman. He can love, and with great tenderness and endurance. He's a long-distance lover. His love will keep right along with you to the last. He doesn't go around singing about it with a guitar; he doesn't burst the dam of his affection to inundate an heiress and swear that all the contents of the infinite skies are in his little flood. ”

“ I said. “When I can't help it I tell the truth. I'm never reckless or immoderate in the use of it, for there's no sense in giving it out in chunks so big that they excite suspicion. I'm kind o' careful with the truth when I tell ye that Richard Forbes is better than all the statues and paintings and domes and golden ceilings in Italy.” ”

“ When I came away that night after our conversation with her I had entirely forgotten her failure as an actress, and it is only later, since I have thought over the evening in detail, that I have returned to my first standpoint of wonder at the easy toleration of the English public. When you are actually with her, talking to her, looking at her, Forbes's attitude is the only possible and reasonable one. ”

“ Indeed, if the unknown listener were Enslee, Forbes would not stand as the protector of Persis at all, but as a ruthless tempter of another man's love. If it were Ten Eyck, he would have ground for reviling Forbes as one whom he regretted sponsoring, a wolf admitted into the fold in sheep's clothing. ”

“ Even if not awed by his ascendency, his significant assertion that the favored suitor must defend his right against all comers was enough to give them pause. For Forbes was six feet high, broad and strong in proportion.
After a moment, seeing that no one spoke, Forbes turned to Dorothy. “It seems, fair lady,” he began, “that I am the only suitor for your hand. I beg you to believe, however, that this is rather from the desire of my men not to oppose the dearest hope of their captain, whom [163] they so love, than from any lack of appreciation of your charms. ”

“ There may be a tussle, but Forbes is bound to cave in the end. He is infatuated with his wife and she knows her power. She is as set on this match as you could be. She’s had the bee in her bonnet for a good many years, to cut as great a dash in London as she does in New York. Of course she’s in it in a way when she’s over there for a month or two during the season, but she wants a long sight more than that. Her ancestry does her no good because the English trunk of the family died out two hundred years ago. ”

“ He would rather play poker than eat. And in his exuberance he failed to hear the warning call from the door-boy, who had come on that day and was not yet accurately versed in the topography and occupancy of the apartments. Forbes continued his rapid ascent two steps at a time. He wanted to be at the door at precisely eight, like that old chap what's-his-name in Round the World in Eighty Days. ”

“ And he had never forgotten what Ten Eyck had said to him once: "I love the extremes of society. I can get along with the highest, and I dote on the lowest, but God, how I loathe a middle-class soul."
Ten Eyck waived Forbes' scruples, dragged him to the box, and presented him to the women and the two other men. Forbes was too much perturbed to catch a single name. Even the last name of Persis escaped both his memory and his attention.
Ten Eyck gave Forbes a glowing advertisement as a brilliant soldier and a life-saver, and offered him his own chair next to Persis. ”

“ I was heavy at heart, but I felt that Forbes was right, and my own instinct told me that my ideas were better than my performance—and Forbes was right. Nothing was left of the tales; not a shred of paper, not a scrap of writing. They had all gone up the chimney in smoke. There was no self-pity. I had a grim kind of feeling regarding the thing, but I had no regrets, and I have never had any regrets since. I have forgotten most of the titles, and indeed all the stories except one. But Forbes and I were right ”

“ Forbes was not ready to see how quickly such things lose their wickedness as they lose their novelty and rarity. "The devil has had those tunes long enough," said John Wesley, as he turned the ribald street ballads into hymns.
But with Forbes, as with everybody, vice lost her hideous mien when her face became familiar. Like everybody else, he first endured, then pitied, then embraced. Later he would talk as Persis did and Ten Eyck; he would proclaim the turkey-trot a harmless romp, and the tango a simple walk around. ”

“ He was alone in the world, his lilacs and his heart barred out and rejected. She had retreated to Enslee's stronghold and shuttered herself in.
Forbes turned away to exile in a world of gloom. He heard a little sound above, and whirled quickly. The shutters were opening again. He saw her eyes. She was frowning fiercely; but that was because of the sharp sun, for her lips were smiling and she was whispering something.
He hurried to the spot beneath her window. He saw that her hair had been stuffed back into her nightcap. ”

“ Forbes reasoned at his scruples till they faced the other way. He argued till what he would have called vicious in other men became sincerely virtuous in his own special instance. So men and empires, republics and religions have always argued when they were about to try to take something away from somebody.
As Forbes folded his togs and wished them better and braver, he paused to laugh at what Persis had told him: Willie believed that Forbes was flirting with Mrs. Neff for herself or her daughter! What a blind little ape Enslee was! ”

“ Huber's seat in Congress, so that Luke's expenses in Americus were light.
He began to fall in love with Betty Forbes. The women of the Ruysdael set did not fail to attract him, but he never considered them as within his means, and so speedily placed them outside of his desires. Forbes's daughter, on the other hand, was the feminine counterpart of her father, and, as she grew, she developed many of his qualities, being quiet, determined, unobtrusive, and womanly in the sense in which men like Forbes used that word before Woman began to give it a new significance. ”