The corner table in question was the favourite meeting place of a group of young men of the G. Selden type, who usually took possession of it at dinner time—having decided1 that Shandy's supplied more decent food for fifty cents, or even for twenty-five, than was to be found at other places of its order. Shandy's was “about all right,” they said to each other, and patronised it accordingly, three or four of them generally dining together, with a friendly and adroit2 manipulation of “portions” and “half portions” which enabled them to add variety to their bill of fare.
The street outside was lighted, the tide of passers-by was less full and more leisurely3 in its movements than it was during the seething4, working hours of daylight, but the electric cars swung past each other with whiz and clang of bell almost unceasingly, their sound being swelled5, at short intervals7, by the roar and rumbling8 rattle9 of the trains dashing by on the elevated railroad. This, however, to the frequenters of Shandy's, was the usual accompaniment of every-day New York life and was regarded as a rather cheerful sort of thing.
This evening the four claimants of the favourite corner table had met together earlier than usual. Jem Belter, who “hammered” a typewriter at Schwab's Brewery11, Tom Wetherbee, who was “in a downtown office,” Bert Johnson, who was “out for the Delkoff,” and Nick Baumgarten, who having for some time “beaten” certain streets as assistant salesman for the same illustrious machine, had been recently elevated to a “territory” of his own, and was therefore in high spirits.
“Say!” he said. “Let's give him a fine dinner. We can make it between us. Beefsteak and mushrooms, and potatoes hashed brown. He likes them. Good old G. S. I shall be right glad to see him. Hope foreign travel has not given him the swell6 head.”
“Don't believe it's hurt him a bit. His letter didn't sound like it. Little Georgie ain't a fool,” said Jem Belter.
Tom Wetherbee was looking over the letter referred to. It had been written to the four conjointly, towards the termination of Selden's visit to Mr. Penzance. The young man was not an ardent12 or fluent correspondent; but Tom Wetherbee was chuckling13 as he read the epistle.
“Say, boys,” he said, “this big thing he's keeping back to tell us when he sees us is all right, but what takes me is old George paying a visit to a parson. He ain't no Young Men's Christian14 Association.”
Bert Johnson leaned forward, and looked at the address on the letter paper.
“Mount Dunstan Vicarage,” he read aloud. “That looks pretty swell, doesn't it?” with a laugh. “Say, fellows, you know Jepson at the office, the chap that prides himself on reading such a lot? He said it reminded him of the names of places in English novels. That Johnny's the biggest snob15 you ever set your tooth into. When I told him about the lord fellow that owns the castle, and that George seemed to have seen him, he nearly fell over himself. Never had any use for George before, but just you watch him make up to him when he sees him next.”
People were dropping in and taking seats at the tables. They were all of one class. Young men who lived in hall bedrooms. Young women who worked in shops or offices, a couple here and there, who, living far uptown, had come to Shandy's to dinner, that they might go to cheap seats in some theatre afterwards. In the latter case, the girls wore their best hats, had bright eyes, and cheeks lightly flushed by their sense of festivity. Two or three were very pretty in their thin summer dresses and flowered or feathered head gear, tilted17 at picturesque18 angles over their thick hair. When each one entered the eyes of the young men at the corner table followed her with curiosity and interest, but the glances at her escort were always of a disparaging19 nature.
“There's a beaut!” said Nick Baumgarten. “Get onto that pink stuff on her hat, will you. She done it because it's just the colour of her cheeks.”
They all looked, and the girl was aware of it, and began to laugh and talk coquettishly to the young man who was her companion.
“I wonder where she got Clarence?” said Jem Belter in sarcastic20 allusion21 to her escort. “The things those lookers have fastened on to them gets ME.”
“If it was one of US, now,” said Bert Johnson. Upon which they broke into simultaneous good-natured laughter.
“It's queer, isn't it,” young Baumgarten put in, “how a fellow always feels sore when he sees another fellow with a peach like that? It's just straight human nature, I guess.”
The door swung open to admit a newcomer, at the sight of whom Jem Belter exclaimed joyously22: “Good old Georgie! Here he is, fellows! Get on to his glad rags.”
“Glad rags” is supposed to buoyantly describe such attire23 as, by its freshness or elegance24 of style, is rendered a suitable adornment25 for festive26 occasions or loftier leisure moments. “Glad rags” may mean evening dress, when a young gentleman's wardrobe can aspire27 to splendour so marked, but it also applies to one's best and latest-purchased garb29, in contradistinction to the less ornamental30 habiliments worn every day, and designated as “office clothes.”
G. Selden's economies had not enabled him to give himself into the hands of a Bond Street tailor, but a careful study of cut and material, as spread before the eye in elegant coloured illustrations in the windows of respectable shops in less ambitious quarters, had resulted in the purchase of a well-made suit of smart English cut. He had a nice young figure, and looked extremely neat and tremendously new and clean, so much so, indeed, that several persons glanced at him a little admiringly as he was met half way to the corner table by his friends.
“Hello, old chap! Glad to see you. What sort of a voyage? How did you leave the royal family? Glad to get back?”
They all greeted him at once, shaking hands and slapping him on the back, as they hustled31 him gleefully back to the corner table and made him sit down.
“Say, garsong,” said Nick Baumgarten to their favourite waiter, who came at once in answer to his summons, “let's have a porterhouse steak, half the size of this table, and with plenty of mushrooms and potatoes hashed brown. Here's Mr. Selden just returned from visiting at Windsor Castle, and if we don't treat him well, he'll look down on us.”
G. Selden grinned. “How have you been getting on, Sam?” he said, nodding cheerfully to the man. They were old and tried friends. Sam knew all about the days when a fellow could not come into Shandy's at all, or must satisfy his strong young hunger with a bowl of soup, or coffee and a roll. Sam did his best for them in the matter of the size of portions, and they did their good-natured utmost for him in the affair of the pooled tip.
“Been getting on as well as can be expected,” Sam grinned back. “Hope you had a fine time, Mr. Selden?”
“Fine! I should smile! Fine wasn't in it,” answered Selden. “But I'm looking forward to a Shandy porterhouse steak, all the same.”
“Did they give you a better one in the Strawnd?” asked Baumgarten, in what he believed to be a correct Cockney accent.
“You bet they didn't,” said Selden. “Shandy's takes a lot of beating.” That last is English.
The people at the other tables cast involuntary glances at them. Their eager, hearty33 young pleasure in the festivity of the occasion was a healthy thing to see. As they sat round the corner table, they produced the effect of gathering34 close about G. Selden. They concentrated their combined attention upon him, Belter and Johnson leaning forward on their folded arms, to watch him as he talked.
“Billy Page came back in August, looking pretty bum35,” Nick Baumgarten began. “He'd been painting gay Paree brick red, and he'd spent more money than he'd meant to, and that wasn't half enough. Landed dead broke. He said he'd had a great time, but he'd come home with rather a dark brown taste in his mouth, that he'd like to get rid of.”
“He thought you were a fool to go off cycling into the country,” put in Wetherbee, “but I told him I guessed that was where he was 'way off. I believed you'd had the best time of the two of you.”
“Boys,” said Selden, “I had the time of my life.” He said it almost solemnly, and laid his hand on the table. “It was like one of those yarns37 Bert tells us. Half the time I didn't believe it, and half the time I was ashamed of myself to think it was all happening to me and none of your fellows were in it.”
“Oh, well,” said Jem Belter, “luck chases some fellows, anyhow. Look at Nick, there.”
“Well,” Selden summed the whole thing up, “I just FELL into it where it was so deep that I had to strike out all I knew how to keep from drowning.”
“Tell us the whole thing,” Nick Baumgarten put in; “from beginning to end. Your letter didn't give anything away.”
“A letter would have spoiled it. I can't write letters anyhow. I wanted to wait till I got right here with you fellows round where I could answer questions. First off,” with the deliberation befitting such an opening, “I've sold machines enough to pay my expenses, and leave some over.”
“You have? Gee38 whiz! Say, give us your prescription39. Glad I know you, Georgy!”
“And who do you suppose bought the first three?” At this point, it was he who leaned forward upon the table—his climax40 being a thing to concentrate upon. “Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughter—Miss Bettina! And, boys, she gave me a letter to Reuben S., himself, and here it is.”
He produced a flat leather pocketbook and took an envelope from an inner flap, laying it before them on the tablecloth41. His knowledge that they would not have believed him if he had not brought his proof was founded on everyday facts. They would not have doubted his veracity42, but the possibility of such delirious43 good fortune. What they would have believed would have been that he was playing a hilarious44 joke on them. Jokes of this kind, but not of this proportion, were common entertainments.
Their first impulse had been towards an outburst of laughter, but even before he produced his letter a certain truthful45 seriousness in his look had startled them. When he laid the envelope down each man caught his breath. It could not be denied that Jem Belter turned pale with emotion. Jem had never been one of the lucky ones.
“She let me read it,” said G. Selden, taking the letter from its envelope with great care. “And I said to her: 'Miss Vanderpoel, would you let me just show that to the boys the first night I go to Shandy's?' I knew she'd tell me if it wasn't all right to do it. She'd know I'd want to be told. And she just laughed and said: 'I don't mind at all. I like “the boys.” Here is a message to them. “Good luck to you all.”'”
“She said that?” from Nick Baumgarten.
“Yes, she did, and she meant it. Look at this.”
This was the letter. It was quite short, and written in a clear, definite hand.
“DEAR FATHER: This will be brought to you by Mr. G. Selden, of whom I have written to you. Please be good to him.
“Affectionately,
“BETTY.”
Each young man read it in turn. None of them said anything just at first. A kind of awe46 had descended47 upon them—not in the least awe of Vanderpoel, who, with other multi-millionaires, were served up each week with cheerful neighbourly comment or equally neighbourly disrespect, in huge Sunday papers read throughout the land—but awe of the unearthly luck which had fallen without warning to good old G. S., who lived like the rest of them in a hall bedroom on ten per, earned by tramping the streets for the Delkoff.
“That girl,” said G. Selden gravely, “that girl is a winner from Winnersville. I take off my hat to her. If it's the scheme that some people's got to have millions, and others have got to sell Delkoffs, that girl's one of those that's entitled to the millions. It's all right she should have 'em. There's no kick coming from me.”
Nick Baumgarten was the first to resume wholly normal condition of mind.
“Well, I guess after you've told us about her there'll be no kick coming from any of us. Of course there's something about you that royal families cry for, and they won't be happy till they get. All of us boys knows that. But what we want to find out is how you worked it so that they saw the kind of pearl-studded hairpin48 you were.”
“Worked it!” Selden answered. “I didn't work it. I've got a good bit of nerve, but I never should have had enough to invent what happened—just HAPPENED. I broke my leg falling off my bike, and fell right into a whole bunch of them—earls and countesses and viscounts and Vanderpoels. And it was Miss Vanderpoel who saw me first lying on the ground. And I was in Stornham Court where Lady Anstruthers lives—and she used to be Miss Rosalie Vanderpoel.”
“Boys,” said Bert Johnson, with friendly disgust, “he's been up to his neck in 'em.”
“Cheer up. The worst is yet to come,” chaffed Tom Wetherbee.
Never had such a dinner taken place at the corner table, or, in fact, at any other table at Shandy's. Sam brought beefsteaks, which were princely, mushrooms, and hashed brown potatoes in portions whose generosity49 reached the heart. Sam was on good terms with Shandy's carver, and had worked upon his nobler feelings. Steins of lager beer were ventured upon. There was hearty satisfying of fine hungers. Two of the party had eaten nothing but one “Quick Lunch” throughout the day, one of them because he was short of time, the other for economy's sake, because he was short of money. The meal was a splendid thing. The telling of the story could not be wholly checked by the eating of food. It advanced between mouthfuls, questions being asked and details given in answers. Shandy's became more crowded, as the hour advanced. People all over the room cast interested looks at the party at the corner table, enjoying itself so hugely. Groups sitting at the tables nearest to it found themselves excited by the things they heard.
“That young fellow in the new suit has just come back from Europe,” said a man to his wife and daughter. “He seems to have had a good time.”
“Papa,” the daughter leaned forward, and spoke50 in a low voice, “I heard him say 'Lord Mount Dunstan said Lady Anstruthers and Miss Vanderpoel were at the garden party.' Who do you suppose he is?”
“Well, he's a nice young fellow, and he has English clothes on, but he doesn't look like one of the Four Hundred. Will you have pie or vanilla51 ice cream, Bessy?”
Bessy—who chose vanilla ice cream—lost all knowledge of its flavour in her absorption in the conversation at the next table, which she could not have avoided hearing, even if she had wished.
“She bent52 over the bed and laughed—just like any other nice girl—and she said, 'You are at Stornham Court, which belongs to Sir Nigel Anstruthers. Lady Anstruthers is my sister. I am Miss Vanderpoel.' And, boys, she used to come and talk to me every day.”
“George,” said Nick Baumgarten, “you take about seventy-five bottles of Warner's Safe Cure, and rub yourself all over with St. Jacob's Oil. Luck like that ain't HEALTHY!”
. . . . .
Mr. Vanderpoel, sitting in his study, wore the interestedly grave look of a man thinking of absorbing things. He had just given orders that a young man who would call in the course of the evening should be brought to him at once, and he was incidentally considering this young man, as he reflected upon matters recalled to his mind by his impending53 arrival. They were matters he had thought of with gradually increasing seriousness for some months, and they had, at first, been the result of the letters from Stornham, which each “steamer day” brought. They had been of immense interest to him—these letters. He would have found them absorbing as a study, even if he had not deeply loved Betty. He read in them things she did not state in words, and they set him thinking.
He was not suspected by men like himself of concealing54 an imagination beneath the trained steadiness of his exterior55, but he possessed56 more than the world knew, and it singularly combined itself with powers of logical deduction57.
If he had been with his daughter, he would have seen, day by day, where her thoughts were leading her, and in what direction she was developing, but, at a distance of three thousand miles, he found himself asking questions, and endeavouring to reach conclusions. His affection for Betty was the central emotion of his existence. He had never told himself that he had outgrown58 the kind and pretty creature he had married in his early youth, and certainly his tender care for her and pleasure in her simple goodness had never wavered, but Betty had given him a companionship which had counted greatly in the sum of his happiness. Because imagination was not suspected in him, no one knew what she stood for in his life. He had no son; he stood at the head of a great house, so to speak—the American parallel of what a great house is in non-republican countries. The power of it counted for great things, not in America alone, but throughout the world. As international intimacies59 increased, the influence of such houses might end in aiding in the making of history. Enormous constantly increasing wealth and huge financial schemes could not confine their influence, but must reach far. The man whose hand held the lever controlling them was doing well when he thought of them gravely. Such a man had to do with more than his own mere10 life and living. This man had confronted many problems as the years had passed. He had seen men like himself die, leaving behind them the force they had controlled, and he had seen this force—controlled no longer—let loose upon the world, sometimes a power of evil, sometimes scattering60 itself aimlessly into nothingness and folly61, which wrought62 harm. He was not an ambitious man, but—perhaps because he was not only a man of thought, but a Vanderpoel of the blood of the first Reuben—these were things he did not contemplate63 without restlessness. When Rosy64 had gone away and seemed lost to them, he had been glad when he had seen Betty growing, day by day, into a strong thing. Feminine though she was, she sometimes suggested to him the son who might have been his, but was not. As the closeness of their companionship increased with her years, his admiration65 for her grew with his love. Power left in her hands must work for the advancement66 of things, and would not be idly disseminated—if no antagonistic67 influence wrought against her. He had found himself reflecting that, after all was said, the marriage of such a girl had a sort of parallel in that of some young royal creature, whose union might make or mar28 things, which must be considered. The man who must inevitably68 strongly colour her whole being, and vitally mark her life, would, in a sense, lay his hand upon the lever also. If he brought sorrow and disorder69 with him, the lever would not move steadily70. Fortunes such as his grow rapidly, and he was a richer man by millions than he had been when Rosalie had married Nigel Anstruthers. The memory of that marriage had been a painful thing to him, even before he had known the whole truth of its results. The man had been a common adventurer and scoundrel, despite the facts of good birth and the air of decent breeding. If a man who was as much a scoundrel, but cleverer—it would be necessary that he should be much cleverer—made the best of himself to Betty——! It was folly to think one could guess what a woman—or a man, either, for that matter—would love. He knew Betty, but no man knows the thing which comes, as it were, in the dark and claims its own—whether for good or evil. He had lived long enough to see beautiful, strong-spirited creatures do strange things, follow strange gods, swept away into seas of pain by strange waves.
“Even Betty,” he had said to himself, now and then. “Even my Betty. Good God—who knows!”
Because of this, he had read each letter with keen eyes. They were long letters, full of detail and colour, because she knew he enjoyed them. She had a delightful71 touch. He sometimes felt as if they walked the English lanes together. His intimacy72 with her neighbours, and her neighbourhood, was one of his relaxations73. He found himself thinking of old Doby and Mrs. Welden, as a sort of soporific measure, when he lay awake at night. She had sent photographs of Stornham, of Dunholm Castle, and of Dole74, and had even found an old engraving75 of Lady Alanby in her youth. Her evident liking76 for the Dunholms had pleased him. They were people whose dignity and admirableness were part of general knowledge. Lord Westholt was plainly a young man of many attractions. If the two were drawn77 to each other—and what more natural—all would be well. He wondered if it would be Westholt. But his love quickened a sagacity which needed no stimulus78. He said to himself in time that, though she liked and admired Westholt, she went no farther. That others paid court to her he could guess without being told. He had seen the effect she had produced when she had been at home, and also an unexpected letter to his wife from Milly Bowen had revealed many things. Milly, having noted79 Mrs. Vanderpoel's eager anxiety to hear direct news of Lady Anstruthers, was not the person to let fall from her hand a useful thread of connection. She had written quite at length, managing adroitly80 to convey all that she had seen, and all that she had heard. She had been making a visit within driving distance of Stornham, and had had the pleasure of meeting both Lady Anstruthers and Miss Vanderpoel at various parties. She was so sure that Mrs. Vanderpoel would like to hear how well Lady Anstruthers was looking, that she ventured to write. Betty's effect upon the county was made quite clear, as also was the interested expectation of her appearance in town next season. Mr. Vanderpoel, perhaps, gathered more from the letter than his wife did. In her mind, relieved happiness and consternation81 were mingled82.
“Do you think, Reuben, that Betty will marry that Lord Westholt?” she rather
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