Mrs. Forbes

“ 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. ”

“ Forbes, presently, getting up from the crouching posture she had taken to comfort Ellen; "you want something to eat that's the matter. I'll warrant you're half starved; no wonder you feel bad. Poor little thing! you shall have something good directly."
And away she bustled to get it. Left alone, Ellen's tears flowed a few minutes very fast. She felt forlorn; and she was, besides, as Mrs. Forbes opined, both tired and faint. But she did not wish to be found weeping; she checked her tears, and was sitting again quietly before the fire when the landlady returned. ”

“ She stretched out the tired arms upon which she had been lying, looked at the patient hands which had long lost the beauty her face still kept, and lifted her eyes to the solemn sky.
“I shall die some day,” she said, passionately. “No one can take that away from me. Thank Heaven, it is not one of the privileges a woman forfeits by marrying out of her station.”
Forbes stayed three days longer; restless, wretched days whenever he thought of himself and his position; sunlit and serene whenever his facile temperament permitted him to forget them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Forbes. She really is."
"I know she is," said Forbes, with a quiet conviction that was almost more noisy than the violent emphasis of Alice.
Persis gave Forbes another sidelong glance; this time with a meek wonderment in place of irony. Once more the man had shown a kind of awe of her. Unwittingly he was attacking her on her most defenseless wall; for a woman who is always hearing praise of her beauty or her vivacity, so hungers and thirsts after some recognition of her intellectual existence that she is usually quite helpless before a tribute to it. ”

“ That is the prettiest woman in New York. And her pedigree is probably as good as yours.”
“Who is she?”
“Mrs. Edward R. Forbes, the wife of one [Pg 60] of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the United States.”
“Really!”
“That is her daughter beside her.”
“Her what!”
“I always enjoy making that shot. It throws a flash-light on the pitiful lack of originality in man every time. But it is nothing for the petted wife of an American millionaire to look thirty when she is forty. It’s the millionaire who looks sixty when he is fifty. I’m not including Forbes, by the way. ”

“ Among the Countess's many servants was one George Forbes, a young and strikingly handsome groom, who had been taken on as stable-boy by her late husband. Forbes was a simple, manly fellow, a peasant's son, and with no ambition beyond the state of life to which he had been born. He was proud of the fact that he had served his mistress well, and that she liked him. That Lady Strathmore valued her groom was proved by the fact that she chose him as her escort whenever she went riding, and that she promoted him to the charge of her stables—a proof of confidence which no doubt he had earned. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One day, however, the Countess summoned the groom to her presence, and, to his amazement and embarrassment, told him that she had long grown to love him, and that she asked nothing better of life than to become his wife. Overcome with surprise and confusion, Forbes protested—"But my lady, think of the difference between us. You are one of the greatest ladies in the land, and I am no better than the earth you tread on." ”

“ Miss Forbes was a tiny creature, wholly feminine in appearance, and in spite of her public activities, her really brilliant and initiative mind, was notoriously dependent upon her big burly husband for guidance and advice in all practical matters. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ After all, I have no right to make light of Forbes' predicament. It is not very agreeable to have Her burst in upon you when you look ready for the oven, like a Thanksgiving turkey. And Forbes, for all his amatory flights, was (and is) a clean, kindly, honorable young man, capable of rising to heights, as shall be seen. ”

“ Forbes listened with eagerness and envy. The portrait of Alice, who would wait till her lover worked his way up to a competence, contrasted sharply with Persis, who would not accept the competence Forbes already had. He asked, with an effort at enthusiasm:
"And what is the job?"
"I'm going to make him my secretary, at twelve hundred a year, at first. He won't be worth it, and I'll have to do all my own work for a while; but I'll give him his chance. I won't pamper him. I'll test him out—and her, too. If they can't stand the test they wouldn't last long in the battle of matrimony." ”

“ Lionel pulled himself together with an effort. "Excuse me, Forbes," said he, striving to speak calmly: "I understood you were dumb. Has the age of miracles revived, or what?"
Forbes bowed discreetly.
"Our local doctor is a very clever surgeon, sir," he replied blandly. "I think you said a handkerchief, sir?"
He disappeared....
"Cleverness, Forbes," said Lionel when the footman returned, "is not confined to doctors. I congratulate you ... on the recovery of speech."
"Thank you, sir," said Forbes with a well-bred humility. "I find it a great blessing, I own. It opens out a new world." ”

“ 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 ”

“ But within the athletic and straightforward flapper Forbes thought he saw the fluttering of deeper womanhood; the maiden soul erecting a barrier of abrupt common sense about itself to conceal the shy and sensitive feelings that were beginning to blossom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lieutenant Forbes had been so long away from a metropolis, and had lived in such rough countries, that he perhaps mistook the motives of the women of New York, and their standards, underrated their virtues. Vice may go unkempt and shabby, and a saint may take thought of her appearance. Perhaps what he rated as boldness was only the calm of innocence; what he read as a command to admire may have been only a laudable ambition to make the best of one's gifts. ”

“ But Forbes had not yet reached the stage where a man resents the publication of his charmer's charms. He was still hardly more than a fascinated student of Persis. He found her a most engrossing text.
She was so thoroughly alive—terribly alive all over! Wordsworth's phrase would have suited Forbes' understanding of her: she "felt her life in every limb." Her brows now moved sinuously, and now relaxed as Isolde sang of her longing and quenched the torch for a signal to her lover. One moment Persis' eyelids throbbed with excitement ”

“ If she had married Forbes she would never have caused the Ambassador's death; she would not have given herself to Willie Enslee. She could not have had more unhappiness, more loneliness and vain regrets. She would have dwelt in Forbes' arms; she would have been his all day long and all the long nights. All this past and horrible year would have been a true honeymoon. Love would have been wealth enough.
As she had told Alice Neff, "Almost anything that we are not used to is a luxury." She had learned the corollary, that almost any luxury becomes a poverty as soon as one is used to it. ”

“ Forbes' manner seemed to defy his friend to criticize, and Warren, who would have enjoyed nothing better than expressing his opinion of Julia, changed the subject abruptly. If Forbes liked this gone-to-seed place and the society of old women it was no concern of his. Queer how differently men were affected when their love-affairs went wrong. Some took to drink and some were women-haters. With Forbes it had developed a craving for the atmosphere of an Old Ladies' Home. Every man to his taste. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 head of the family was, at the period of the first insurrection, John Forbes, a worthy representative of an honourable, consistent, and spirited family. The younger brother of John Forbes was the celebrated Duncan Forbes, a man whose toleration of Lord Lovat, not to say countenance of that compound of violence and duplicity, seems to be the only incomprehensible portion of his lofty and beautiful character. ”