Black Oxen Part 19

"Who else? I'm worried as the devil. Have been ever since I got in this morning. I'd telegraphed I was coming, and when I got to the house Molly told me that mother wanted to see me at once and I posted down there. It was about Janet, and you know more about it than I do."

"I suppose I know what you mean. But it turned out all right. She happened to meet me, not some man who might have annoyed her. Of course she shouldn't have taken such a risk, but; what can you do with these flappers? They're all in league together and you might as well let them go their little pace. It won't last. They'll soon be older, and I don't suppose you intend to play the heavy father and lock her up."

"No, but I'd like d.a.m.n well to get her married. Mother told me a pretty tale. It seems she made a row at Sherry's last night, making you and some lady you had with you as conspicuous as herself. Mrs.

Vane was there and carried it straight to mother. Mother's no fool and had already got on to this younger generation business and given Janny one or two tongue las.h.i.+ngs, but she never dreamed it had gone as far as it looks. Roaming the streets alone at one in the morning! She'd undoubtedly been drinking last night--G.o.d! I've a notion to take a switch to her. And I suppose she was pretty well lit the night you picked her up. I've never seen a hint of it. Janny's spoilt enough.

Her mother never had the slightest control over her and she could always get round me. But she won't in the future. I'll get top-hand somehow. G.o.d! My daughter! Tell me your side of it, will you?"

Clavering, who was genuinely fond of Oglethorpe, and relieved, moreover, that he had not yet heard of Madame Zattiany, gave a cautious and colorless account of the adventure.

"It is possible that she had had a c.o.c.ktail or two," he concluded.

"But you must expect that. If the flapper should adopt a coat of arms no doubt it would be a c.o.c.ktail rampant with three cigarettes argent on a field de rouge. However, it wouldn't be a bad idea if you took her in hand. That is, if you can."

"I'll do it all right. D'you mean to tell me she was at Farren's without a chaperon?"

"There may have been a chaperon to each couple for all I know."

"You know d.a.m.n well there wasn't. No chaperon would have left her alone."

"But surely, Jim, you know that chaperons are practically obsolete.

They don't gee with c.o.c.ktails and petting parties. The New Freedom!

The Reign of Youth!"

"d.a.m.n nonsense. No, I didn't know it. I supposed she was properly chaperoned, as girls of her cla.s.s always have been. You know how much I care for Society, and I haven't got to the chicken stage either.

Took it for granted that certain cast-iron conventions were still observed, in our set at least. Of course I've seen her drink c.o.c.ktails at home and thought it rather cute, and I've rubbed the paint off her cheeks and lips once or twice. Girls are making up nowadays as if they were strumpets, but some little fool started it, and you know the old saying: 'What one monkey does the other monkey must do.' It never worried me. Of course I've heard more or less about these young idiots; they're always being discussed and written up; but somehow you never think those things can happen in your own family... . I went straight home and blew up Molly--haven't had a sight of Janet yet--and of course she bawled. Always does. When I told her that Janet had been at Farren's alone she protested that Janet had told her she was going to bed early that night. Even last night, when she had a theatre party, she understood that some young married woman was along. But Molly's a fool. What on earth am I to do with Janet? There were no such girls in my young days. Some of them were bad uns, but as discreet as you make 'em. Didn't disgrace their families. Some of them used to drink, right enough, but they were as smooth as silk in public, and went to a sanitarium to sober up when it got the best of 'em. But these girls appear to be about as discreet as street-walkers.

You don't think they kick over the traces, do you?"

"I'm dead sure that Janet hasn't. She puts on the cap and bells partly because it's the fas.h.i.+on, partly because she thinks girls are alive and having their fun for the first time. But she's no fool. She nearly floored me once or twice. She'll take care of herself."

"Girls don't take care of themselves when they're drunk. But I've an idea there's something else the matter with her. At least mother has?"

"Something else?"

"In love."

"Well, there's your chance to marry her off. The sooner the better.

But why should it drive her to drink? If she's fixed her affections on any of those chaps that dance at her beck----"

"She hasn't. She's in love with you."

"What!" Clavering dropped his fork. When the waiter had rushed to present him with another and retired, he still stared at Oglethorpe as if he had been stunned by a blow between the eyes. "Whatever--what on earth put such an idea into Mrs. Oglethorpe's head? The child can't endure me. She pretty well proved it last night, and I've always known she disliked me--since she grew up, that is. To be perfectly frank, aside from the fact that I don't care for young girls, she always irritates me like the deuce, and I've never made any secret of it.

Night before last I couldn't well have made myself more disagreeable if I'd rehea.r.s.ed for the part."

Oglethorpe grinned. "Lot you know about girls. Just the way to make 'em crazy about you. Like all idealists, you don't know a thing about women. Being a rank materialist myself, I know 'em like a book. The emanc.i.p.ated flapper is just plain female under her paint and outside her c.o.c.ktails. More so for she's more stimulated. Where girls used to be merely romantic, she's romantic--callow romance of youth, perhaps, but still romantic--plus s.e.x-instinct rampant. At least that's the way I size 'em up, and its logic. There's no virginity of mind left, mauled as they must be and half-stewed all the time, and they're wild to get rid of the other. But they're too young yet to be promiscuous, at least those of Janet's sort, and they want to fall in love and get him quick. See the point?"

"No doubt you're right. But I'm not the object of Janet's young affections. She's either led your mother to believe it for purposes of her own, or Mrs. Oglethorpe has merely jumped at that conclusion--well, Heaven only knows why."

"You know why. Because she'd like it. So would I."

"Good Lord, Jim! I'm nearly old enough to be her father. Barely ten years younger than yourself."

"You'll never be as old as I am this minute, and I'd give my eyes to see you married to her. Moreover, I'm convinced mother's right. Janny let out something--broke down, I fancy, although mother wouldn't give her away any further. And you used to be fond of her when she was a child. She's sat on your lap a hundred times."

"My dear Jim," said Clavering drily. "You've just p.r.o.nounced yourself a man of consummate experience. Need I remind you that when a man has held a girl on his lap as a child, she is generally the last girl he wants on his lap later on? Man love's the shock of novelty, the spice of surprise. It's hard to get that out of a girl you have spanked--as I did Janet on two different occasions. She was a fascinating youngster, but a little devil if there ever was one."

"She's full of fascination yet. I can see that, if I am her father. A year or two from now, when she comes to her senses----"

"Oh, cut it out, Jim! I won't listen. Even it were true--and I'd stake my life it isn't--I--well----"

"D'you mean there's some other woman?"

"I don't care to talk about it--but--let it go at that."

"Sorry. I'd have liked it. You could have made a fine woman out of Janny. She has it in her."

Clavering did not express his doubts on this point aloud. He was in truth horribly embarra.s.sed and hardly knew what to say. Not for a moment did he believe that the minx was in love with him, nor would he have taken the trouble to find out, even to please Jim Oglethorpe and his mother, had Mary Zattiany never crossed his horizon. But he felt sorry for his friend and would have liked to banish his brooding distress.

"Look here!" he exclaimed. "You'll have to buck up and take her in hand. After all, you're her father and she respects you. No girl respects her mother these days, apparently, but the father has the advantage of being male. Give her a talking to. Tell her how cut up you are. She's too young to be as hard as she likes to think. Don't preach. That would make matters worse. Appeal to her. Tell her she's making you miserable. If that doesn't work--well, your idea of taking a switch to her isn't bad. A sound spanking is what they all need, and it certainly would take the starch out of them. Make them feel so d.a.m.ned young they'd forget just how blase they're trying to be."

"She might run away," rumbled Oglethorpe. "I believe I'll try it, though, if worse comes to worst. I'll have no filthy scandals in my family."

"Why not collect all the fathers and plan a regular campaign? Without their allowances they'd soon be helpless. It would be a battle royal and might make history! Might also get hold of the fathers of these young chaps. Few have independent incomes."

Oglethorpe laughed for the first time. "Not a bad idea for a bachelor, Lee. Maybe I'll try it. Let's get out of this. How about the Follies?"

XXV

When a man has cultivated a practical and methodical habit of mind and body he pursues the accustomed tenor of his way, whatever the ferment of his spirit. Clavering's spirit was mercurial, but long since subject to his will, and it would no more have occurred to him to neglect his regular work because he was in love and a state of suspense than to put on petticoats and walk up Fifth Avenue. It might be better or worse under foreign impact, but it would be done, and all else banished for the hour.

There were times when he wrote better surrounded by the stimulations of the office; when he was neither f.a.gged nor disturbed he worked at home.

During this week of incert.i.tudes he rose late, lunched with friends at the Sign of the Indian Chief, a restaurant where the cleverest of them--and those who were so excitedly sure of their cleverness that for the moment they convinced others as well as themselves--foregathered daily. Then he went to the office and wrote or talked to other men until it was time to dine. He could always be sure of companions.h.i.+p for the evening. On his "day off" he took a train out into the country and walked for hours.

There was a great deal of scintillating talk in his group on the significant books and tendencies of the day, and if the talk of French youth in their clubs before the Revolution may possibly have been profounder and more far-reaching in its philosophy, more formulative in its plan of action, owing to a still deeper necessity for change in the social order, the very fact that these brilliant young Americans had no personal grievance but merely sharpened their wits on matters in which they were intelligent enough to take an interest, saved their cleverness from becoming mordant or distorted by pa.s.sion. It was an excellent forcing-house for ideas and vocabulary.

But their most solemn causeries were upon the vital theme of The American Reputation in Letters. Past. Present. Future. This was the age of Youth. Should any of the old reputations be permitted to live on--save in the favor of the negligible public? If so, which? All the recent reputations they would have liked to p.r.o.nounce equally great, merely on account of their commendable newness, but they were too conscientious for that. They appraised, debated, rejected, finally placed the seal of their august approval upon a favored few. Claques were arranged if the public were obtuse. The future? A few, a very few, were selected from the older group, many more from the younger, and ordained to survive and shed their undying beams for posterity.

From these judicial p.r.o.nouncements there was no appeal, and the pleasant s.p.a.ces of the Sign of the Indian Chief, so innocuous to the uninitiated eye, was a veritable charnel house that stank in the nostrils of the rejected; but, inconsistent even as life itself, those melancholy graves were danced over by the sprightly young feet of the elect. Sometimes there was a terrifying upheaval in one of those graves. A dismal figure fought his way out, tore off his cerements, and stalked forth, muttering: "'But I stride on, austere. No hope I have, no fear,'" leaving a puzzled uneasiness behind him.

But for good or ill, it was a matter for congratulation that criticism was at last being taken seriously in the United States.

There was a jazz party at the studio of a hospitable girl artist where Clavering danced with several of the prettiest young actresses of recent Broadway fame until dawn, and drank enough to make him as wild as the rest of the party had it not been for the seasoned apparatus inherited from hard-drinking Southern ancestors. Altogether, he gave himself little time for thought, and if he felt at times an inclination to dream he thrust it from him with an almost superst.i.tious fear. He would speculate no longer, but neither would he run the risk of invoking the laughter of cynical G.o.ds. If unimaginable disaster awaited him, at least he would not weaken his defences by a sojourn in the paradise of fools.

He avoided Oglethorpe and Dinwiddie, and although he had engaged himself to dine at the Goodriches on Thursday night he sent an excuse.

On Thursday morning, as he was turning over the pages of one of the newspapers his eye was arrested by the name Zattiany. He never read Society paragraphs, but that name would leap to his eyes anywhere. The announcement was as brief as "social notes" always are in the daily editions of the morning papers: "Mrs. Oglethorpe gives a luncheon tomorrow at her house in Gramercy Park to the Countess Zattiany of Vienna."