Desboro

“ Desboro's guests were determined to turn the house out of the windows; its stodgy respectability incited them; every smug, smooth portrait goaded them to unusual effort, and they racked their brains to invent novelties. ”

“ Desboro has been."
"Has been."
"Is, and surely will continue to be," insisted Jacqueline tranquilly. "Shall I tell you about Silverwood?"
Cynthia nodded.
"Well, then, Mr. Desboro has such a funny old housekeeper there, who gives me 'magic drops' on lumps of sugar. The drops are aromatic and harmless, so I take them to please her. And he has an old, old butler, who is too feeble to be very useful; and an old, old armourer, who comes once a week and potters about with a bit of chamois; and a parlour maid who is sixty and wears glasses; and a laundress still older. ”

“ There's Desboro!"
[Pg 240]
"You don't really mean it, do you, Miss Nevers?" asked Captain Herrendene.
"Yes, I do," said Jacqueline. "I always was a gambler by nature."
The tint of excitement was bright on her cheeks; she shot a daring glance at Ledyard, looked at Van Alstyne and laughed, but her back remained turned toward Desboro.
He said: "If the papers ever get wind of this they'll print it as a serious item."
"I am perfectly serious," she said, looking coolly at him over her shoulder. "If there is a man here clever enough to find me, I'll marry him in a minute. ”

“ And he settled himself to listen, with occasional furtive, sidelong glances at his beloved porcelains.
Desboro said: "Clydesdale, you and I have known each other for a number of years. We haven't seen much of each other, except at the club, or meeting casually here and there. It merely happened so; if accident had thrown us together, the chances are that we would have liked each other—perhaps sought each other's company now and then—as much as men do in this haphazard town, anyway. Don't you think so?" ”

“ She had just time to breakfast and catch her train, with the help of heaven and a taxicab, and she managed to do it about the same moment that Desboro, half a hundred miles away, glanced out of his dressing-room window and saw the tall trees standing like spectres in the winter fog, and the gravel on the drive shining wet and muddy through melting snow. But he turned to the mirror again, whistling a gay air, and twisted his necktie into a smarter knot. Then he went out to the greenhouses and snipped off enough carnations to make a great sheaf of clove-scented blossoms for Jacqueline's room ”

“ So he descended to the library, where he found her playing with his assortment of animals, a cat tucked under either arm and a yellow pup on her knees.
"They all came to say good-morning," she explained, "and how could I think of my clothing? Would you ask Farris to fetch a whisk-broom?"
Desboro rang: "A whisk-broom for—for Mrs. Desboro," he said.
Mrs. Desboro!
She had looked up startled; it was the first time she had heard it from his lips, and even the reiteration of her maid had not accustomed her to hear herself so named. ”

“ Both had blushed before Farris, both had thrilled as the words had fallen from Desboro's [Pg 392] unaccustomed lips; but both attempted to appear perfectly tranquil and undisturbed by what had shocked them as no bomb explosion possibly could. And the old man came back with the whisk-broom, and Desboro dusted the cat fur and puppy hairs from Jacqueline's brand-new gown.
They were going to town by train, not having time to spare.
"It will be full of commuters," he said, teasingly. "You don't know what a godsend a bride is to commuters. I pity you." ”

“ But he had been a man of vigour and of wit and action; and he was lying out there in the snow, under an old brown headstone embellished with cherubim; and the last of his name lounged here, in sight, from the windows, of the spot where the first house of Desboro in America had stood, and had collapsed amid the flames started by Tarleton's blood-maddened troopers. ”

“ Desboro is a man. It was none of my business to interfere. So I let him have what was coming to him—and you, too." He shrugged and waved his hand. "Your husband came down later; we talked jades and porcelains and prices until I nearly yawned my head off. And when it was time to go, I slipped the letter back on the table. After all, you and Desboro had had your fling; why shouldn't hubby have an inning?" ”

“ Desboro did not object. Mr. Desboro was to call her up at three o'clock if he desired further information.
Desboro went into the library and sat down. For a while his idle reflections, uncontrolled, wandered around the main issue, errant satellites circling a central thought which was slowly emerging from chaos and taking definite weight and shape. And the thought was of Jacqueline Nevers.
Why was he waiting here until noon to talk to this girl? Why was he here at all? Why had he not gone South with the others? A passing fancy might be enough to arouse his curiosity ”

“ Desboro!"
"Mademoiselle?"
"That silly parody on a noble verse is not humorous."
"Truth seldom is. The men who wore those suits of mail were everything that nobody now admires—brutal, selfish, ruthless——"
[Pg 66]
"Mr. Desboro!"
"Mademoiselle?"
"Are there not a number of such gentlemen still existing on earth?"
"New York's full of them," he admitted cheerfully, "but they conceal what they really are on account of the police."
"Is that all that five hundred years has taught men—concealment?" ”

“ Mrs. Quant, in best bib and tucker, received them in the hallway, having been instructed by Desboro concerning her attitude toward the expected guest. But when she became aware of the slender youth of the girl, she forgot her sniffs and misgivings, and she waddled, and bobbed, and curtsied, overflowing with a desire to fondle, and cherish, and instruct, [Pg 46] which only fear of Desboro choked off. ”

“ He drew the fur robe closer around her, and leaned back in his corner, deeply worried, impatient, but helpless in the face of her evident weariness and reticence, which he could not seem to penetrate or comprehend. Only that something ominous had happened—that something was dreadfully wrong—he now thoroughly understood.
In the purposeless career of a man of his sort, there is much that it is well to forget. And in Desboro's brief career there were many things that he would not care to have such a girl as Jacqueline hear about—so much, alas! ”

“ Hammerton laid one shapely hand on the table, fingers clenched, and, half rising, fairly glared at Desboro.
"You have cheated her out of what was her due! You have stolen her future! You have robbed her of a happy and worthy career to link her life with your career—your career—or whatever you call the futile parody on life which men of your sort enact, disgracing God that He knew no more than to create you! ”

“ Never in her life had she really ever cared for any man. Her caprice for Desboro, founded on the lesser motives, had been the nearest approach.
It had cost her all her self-control, all her courage, to play the diplomat with her husband for the sake of obtaining his consent to keep the forged porcelains. And after all it had been in vain.
In spite of her white misery and wretchedness, now, as she sat there in the drawing-room alone, her cheeks crimsoned hotly at the memory of her arts and wiles and calineries; of her new shyness with the man she had never before spared ”

“ Desboro smiled: "The man who is preëminent in his profession," he said quietly, "never makes a mystery of it. He may be too tired to talk about it, too saturated with it, after the day's work, to discuss it; but never fool enough to pretend that there is anything occult in it or in the success he has made of it. Only incompetency is self-conscious and secretive; only the ass strikes attitudes."
Jacqueline looked at him with pride unutterable. ”

“ Cairns found him there, sitting alone in the library—it was not an intellectual club—and saw what Desboro had been doing to himself by the white tensity of his features.
"Look here," he said. "If there's really anything the matter with you, why don't you go into business and forget it? You can't fool real trouble with what you buy in bottles!"
"What business shall I go into?" asked Desboro, unoffended.
"Stocks or literature. All the ginks who can't do anything else go into stocks or literature."
Desboro waved away the alternatives with amiable urbanity. ”

“ Desboro?"
"I thought you were looking forward with keen pleasure to your work in the Desboro collection!"
She caught a latent glimmer of mischief in his eye, and remained silent, not yet quite certain th [Pg 45] at she liked this constant running fire of words that always seemed to conceal a hint of laughter at her expense.
Had they been longer acquainted, and on a different footing, she knew that whatever he said would have provoked a response in kind from her. But friendship is not usually born from a single business interview; nor is it born perfect, like a fairy ring, over night. ”

“ So worthy men endured him, and irreproachable women grieved for him, although it was rumoured that he gave parties now and then which real actresses had actually attended. Also, though he always maintained the Desboro pew in church, he never decorated it with his person. Nor could the countryside count on him socially, except at eccentric intervals when his careless, graceful presence made the Westchester gaiety seem rather stiff and pallid, and gave the thin, sour claret an unwonted edge. ”

“ Une nuit blanche—and the young seem less able to withstand its corroding alchemy than the old. It had left its terrible and pallid mark on Desboro; and on Jacqueline it had set its phantom sign. That youthfully flushed and bright-eyed loveliness which always characterised the girl had whitened to ashes over night.
And now, as she entered the sunny breakfast room in her delicate Chinese morning robes, the change in her was startlingly apparent; for the dead-gold lustre of her hair accented the pallor of a new and strange and transparent beauty ”

“ Cairns regarded him with a grin of anxiety.
"You're jingled," he concluded. "That is, you are as jingled as you ever get. Why?"
"No reason, thanks."
"It isn't some girl, is it? You never take them seriously. All the same, is it?"
Desboro smiled: "Do you think it's likely, dear friend?"
"No, I don't. But whatever you're worrying about isn't improving your personal beauty. Since you hit this hamlet you've been on one continuous tootlebat. Why don't you go back to Westchester and hoe potatoes?"
"One doesn't hoe them in January, you know," said Desboro, always deprecatingly polite. ”

“ This sacred colonial fact had been Desboro's social salvation, for which, however, he did not seem to care very much. Good women continued to be acidly civil to him on this account, and also because Silverwood House and its estates could no more be dropped from the revered galaxy of the county than could a star be cast out of their country's flag for frivolous behavior. ”

“ But what kind eyes he has!"
"He's a fine fellow," said Desboro without emphasis.
Before they came within the firelight, he asked her whether she had really decided to give them a little lecture on jades and crystals; and she said that she had.
"It won't be too technical or too dry, I hope," she added laughingly. "I told Captain Herrendene what I was going to say and do, and he liked the idea."
"Won't you tell me, too, Jacqueline?"
"No, I want you to be surprised. Besides, I haven't time; we've been together too long already. Doesn't one's host have to be impartially attentive? ”

“ People beheld these radical preliminaries during afternoon drives in their automobiles; local tradesmen reported purchases of chemicals for soil enriching, and the sale of all sorts of farm utensils to Desboro's agent.
At the Country Club all this was gravely discussed; patriarchs mentioned it over their checkers; maidens at bowls or squash or billiards listened to the exciting tale, wide-eyed; hockey, ski, or skating parties gossiped recklessly about it. The conclusion was that Desboro had already sowed his wilder oats ”

“ And I think I'll talk to you instead of to your wife."
"Just as it suits you. Very glad to see you anyway. I'll be in the rear extension fussing about among the porcelains."
"I'll be with you in ten minutes."
In less time than that Desboro arrived, and was piloted through the house and into the gallery by an active maid. At the end of one of the aisles lined by glass cases, the huge bulk of Cary Clydesdale loomed, his red face creased with his eternal grin.
"Hello, Desboro!" he called. "Come this way. I've one or two things here which will match any of yours at Silverwood [Pg 435] , I think." ”

“ Cairns, tired of feigning an interest in matters literary, tinkled the ice in his glass and looked appealingly at Cynthia. And his eyes said very plainly: "Shall we go for a walk?"
But she only smiled, affecting not to understand; and the discussion of things literary continued.
It was very pleasant there in the house; late sunshine slanted across the hall; a springlike breeze fluttered the curtains, and the evening song of the robins had begun, ringing cheerily among the Norway spruces and over the fresh green lawns.
"It's a shame to sit indoors on a day like this," said Desboro lazily. ”

“ Farris brought whiskey; both men shook their heads.
[Pg 267]
"Will you have a cigar, Clydesdale?" asked the younger man.
"Thanks."
They smoked in silence for a few moments, then:
"I'm glad you came," said Desboro simply.
"Yes. Men don't usually raise that sort of hell with each other unless a woman starts it."
"Don't talk that way about your wife," said Desboro sharply. ”

“ Now, there had been already some gossip among the Westchester hills concerning recent doings at Silverwood House. Even when it became known that the pretty girl who sped to and fro in Desboro's limousine, between house and station, was a celebrated art expert, and was engaged in cataloguing the famous Desboro collection, God-fearing people asked each oth [Pg 170] er why Desboro should find it necessary to meet her at the station in the morning, and escort her back in the evening ”