What Will People Say? Part 37

Forbes was tempted to confess to Mrs. Neff what he had divulged to Ten Eyck, but he postponed the miserable business. It was an uncongenial company for proclaiming one's poverty.

The surroundings were as tempting as Naboth's vineyard was to David. He understood why men grew unscrupulous in the hunt for great wealth.

Mrs. Neff led Forbes about the place, which she knew well. But the beauties were only torments to him. Below the climbing marble stairway to the temple there was a broken stairway winding down the hill. It meandered like the dry bed of a stream, between brick walls, bordered with flowers, with now and then a resting-place, or some quaint niche where a little statue smiled or a fountain trilled and tinkled.

At two stages of the descent there were circular levels with ornate shelters and aristocratic plants. From the lowest shelf there was only a path dropping down the long hill to a distant wall; beyond this a ragged woods like a mob of poor shut out from a rich man's place.

"That wall is the end of the Enslee estate," said Mrs. Neff.

"There is an end to it, then?" said Forbes, more bitterly than he intended.

"There's an end to everything, my boy," Mrs. Neff brooded, with a far-off bitterness of her own--"an end to wealth and love and--everything."

"Who owns that place off there, I wonder?" said Forbes.

"n.o.body in particular," said Mrs. Neff. "Some old cantankerous absentee that won't sell. Do you want to buy it to be near Mrs. Enslee? Willie has offered him all sorts of money, but he won't let go. You might have better luck."

Forbes again ignored the a.s.sumption that he was wealthy, and said:

"There are things, then, that even the Enslee money can't buy?"

"Many things," said Mrs. Neff. "Persis' love, for one, and Willie's own happiness, and a foot more of height and a certain charm, and--but aren't we stupid and cynical this beautiful morning?"

"Are we?" Forbes smiled.

"We are, and I have a right to be," said Mrs. Neff. "But you haven't.

You are not white-haired, nor old, nor a woman."

"Are those the only causes for unhappiness?"

"They are three of the worst, and the most incurable."

But Forbes was too young in his own anxieties to give much importance to her ancient plaints, though she was not too old to understand his. He was glancing upward now and then to the little temple. It was visible from here, though the two figures in it were small and blurred with light.

Forbes was sure that Enslee was proposing to Persis, for he gesticulated, pointed at the landscape and the house. He was evidently commending these to Persis, laying them at her feet, begging her to become at once the chatelaine of this splendor.

Forbes wanted to abandon Mrs. Neff and fly to the rescue of Persis. He wanted to break in on that proposal, prove to her how much better he loved her than Enslee did, how much greater happiness she could have with him than with Enslee. But he made no move in that direction. It was one of those simple things that almost n.o.body can find the courage to do. He loitered with Mrs. Neff, hating himself for a skulker.

He could not know that he pleaded well enough at a distance. His absence wrought for him against Willie Enslee's presence. Willie was indeed commending his estate to Persis, urging her to marry him at once and settle here for the summer, except what time they might spend abroad or on the yacht, or his other palace at Newport.

But while he pleaded Persis was searching Enslee's landscape for Forbes.

The view had been entrancing from the temple with Forbes at her side.

Now she felt that it was not after all so satisfying. The very fact that Willie praised it brought up suspicion. She would prefer to choose another landscape, one better suited to her and Forbes, not a second-hand landscape built along some other person's lines.

It would be a joy for Forbes and her to pick out a hundred acres or more--not too far from New York; perhaps among the hunting and poloing colonies on Long Island. While they were building they could cruise.

But perhaps Forbes could not afford a yacht. She must not run him into extravagances. Well, after all, the suites _de luxe_ on some of the ocean liners were not so bad, with their own dining-saloons attached. By omitting the yacht they could have a stunning town house. Mrs. Jimmie Chives wanted to sell her place for a song, and nearly every room in it was imported bodily from some European castle or mansion. With a few changes it could be made quite a habitable shack.

And so, while Willie pleaded in his nagging way, her own imagination was attorney for Forbes. Only it was imagining a Forbes that did not exist, a fairly rich and decently leisurely Forbes. Down below, looking up to her with such eyes as lovers in h.e.l.l cast on their beloveds in heaven, was the real Forbes, poor, hard-worked, with no financial prospects beyond a minute increase of wage by slow promotion. And he had only a few days more of leisure before he resumed the livery of the nation.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

Luncheon was breakfast again with a few additions. Winifred had lost the hang of the range, and what successes she had were ruined by her inability to corral the herd on time. The soup was salted beyond the sanction of even the most amiable palate. The chickens were guaranteed not to be resurrections from a cold-storage tomb; but they would have been the better for a little longer hanging and a little shorter cooking. The vegetables had not been salted at all, nor warmed quite through.

"The average is perfect," was Ten Eyck's verdict.

"And the salad's fine, Winifred," said Mrs. Neff, in a desperate effort to console the despondent cook, who retreated to the kitchen and cried a little more salt into the soup.

Ten Eyck rubbed his sagging waistcoat and groaned:

"This is the emptiest empty house-party I ever went to."

"It would have been a n.o.ble inst.i.tution in Lent," Persis sighed.

"You would come," Willie snapped.

"Thank heaven," Alice purred, "I have a five-pound box of chocolates in my room."

Mrs. Neff glared at her. "He'd better save his money. Or has he an account at Maillard's? You can't live on candy, you know."

"It's quite as nouris.h.i.+ng as the Congressional Record," said Alice.

"Deuce all!" cried Ten Eyck. "But family matters aside, we've got to do something about food. I've survived the fireless and foodless cooking at breakfast and luncheon, but the dinnerless dinner would finish me.

Winifred can afford to bant, I can't. I'm going to give a party. We'll all dine over at the Port of Missing Men and have dinner on me; that will get us through until to-morrow at least."

This was agreed upon with enthusiasm. Winifred was tactfully proffered a vote of thanks and a vacation. There remained only the afternoon to kill. Persis thought to steal a few minutes with Forbes, and they struck out for the sunken gardens, but Willie came panting after them and const.i.tuted himself their guide.

He was like one of those pests that can rob the Pitti Palace of interest and make the Vatican an old barn. He led them through the gardens, the greenhouses, the stables, and the kennels. Here a little sea of beagles flowed and frothed round Persis' feet. They were a relic of the days before the hunting fever left Westchester for Long Island. They were mad for exercise, and so were the horses in the stables.

"We must take these poor nags out for a run," said Persis, looking at Forbes, who accepted with his eyes.

"All right, we will. To-morrow morning," said Willie; and Forbes resigned with a look.

Unable to shake off Willie, Persis pleaded the need for a little sleep and retreated to her room. Forbes wandered about, puzzled at the appalling loneliness he could feel in so beautiful a place with so many people around and only one missing.

Eventually, however, the sun, which had begun the day with such ecstasy for him, began to approach the top of the western hill, and the caravan set out for the Port of Missing Men, which proved to be a little cottage of an inn set upon the edge of a small mountain and surveying a vast panorama.

On the piazza the crowd dined well, and returned through the great park to the homeward roads, for when they reached the Enslee bridge it was like coming home. The wings of the motor had made it possible to run twenty-five miles to dinner and twenty-five miles back in almost negligible time; but the exultant speed of the journey and the mult.i.tude of sights that had fled past fatigued the mind like a long voyage, and it was once more a subdued company that gathered before the living-room fireplace.

Silence fell upon them all, and they sat once more staring into the flames, each finding there the glittering castles of desire.

Prout came in with more logs of wood and tiptoed out, shaking his head in stupefaction at this latest game of these amazing people.

At some vaguely later hour Persis rose and went into the adjoining music-room. Forbes longed to follow, but feared to move. She strummed a few inexpert chords on the piano. Then she went to the victrola and searched among the black disks. A little later she called out: