Black Oxen Part 32

"Well, you see, I am tremendously _intriguee_, like every one else.

I'd met her several times at home, and she came one day to my studio, where the Sophisticates made the most tremendous fuss over her. But I was curious to see her in her own old home, where she had reigned so long ago as Mary Ogden. Mother told me that everything was unchanged except the stair carpet and her bedroom." Her tone was lightly impersonal, and still more so as she added: "Why don't you write a novel about her, Lee? She must be the most remarkable psychological study of the age. Fancy living two lifetimes in the same body. It puts reincarnation to the blush. I suppose she'll bury us all."

Clavering shot her a sharp investigating glance, but replied suavely: "Not necessarily. The same road is open to all of you."

Miss Goodrich had never looked more the fine and dignified representative of her cla.s.s as she lifted her candid eyes with an expression of disdain.

"My dear Lee! Really! There _are_ some women above that sort of thing."

"Above? I don't think I follow you. But of course she's given hide-bound conservatism a pretty hard jolt."

"It's not that--really. But all women growing old and trying to be or to look young again are rather undignified--according to our standards at least, and I have been brought up in the belief that they are the highest in the world. And then, one's sense of humor----!"

"Humor? Is that what you call it?" (d.a.m.n all women for cats, the best of them. Anne!)

"Why, yes, isn't it rather absurd--for more reasons than one?

To my mind it is the complete farce. She has regained the appearance--and--_possibly_--the real feeling of youth, with all its capacity for enthusiasm and unworn emotions--it seems rather ludicrous, but still it may be; certainly the interior should be in some degree a match for that marvellously restored face and body--but the whole thing is made farcical by the fact that she never can have children. And what else does youth in women really mean?"

"Experience has taught me that it means quite a number of other things.

And painting portraits is not fulfilling the first and highest duty of womanhood, dear Anne."

Miss Goodrich flushed, but accepted his score calmly. "Oh, I shall marry, of course. But then, you see, I am young--really young."

"What are you two quarrelling about?" broke in Miss Lawrence's husky voice. She had smoked steadily since taking her seat at the table, not so much because she had an irresistible pa.s.sion for tobacco as because it destroyed her appet.i.te and preserved her figure. "I haven't seen Anne blush like that since she got back from France."

"I was just telling her how beautiful she looked tonight." And angry as he was, it amused him to hear Anne's little gasp of pleasure.

"Yes, doesn't she?" Miss Lawrence blew a ring and smiled sweetly.

"I've always been jealous of Anne. She's such a beautiful height. I'm so glad the giraffes of the last generation seem to have died out. Too bad, when Madame Zattiany rejuvenated herself, she didn't slice off a few inches. She dwarfs even men of your height, although, of course, you are really taller. But then tall women----" She shrugged her shoulders, her crisp voice softened and she went on as if thinking aloud. "Do you know ... to me she does not look young at all. I have a fancy she's hypnotized every one but myself. I seem to see an old woman with a colossal will... . But I'd like to know the name of that whitewash she uses. It may come in handy some day. Not for another ten years, though. Oh, Lee! it's good to be really young and not have to be flattened out on a table under broiling X-Rays and have your poor old feminine department cranked up... . I wonder just how adventurous men are?"'

But Clavering, although seething, merely smiled. He knew himself to be like the man who has had a virulent attack of small-pox and is immune for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, he would cheerfully have twisted her neck. She was holding that slim lily-like throat up for his inspection, a cigarette between her thin scarlet lips as she looked at him over her shoulder. At sixteen she could not have been more outwardly unblemished, and she emanated a heady essence. Her long green eyes met his keen satiric ones with melting languor. But she said unexpectedly:

"I hear she's going to marry Mr. Osborne, mother's old beau--or is that Mr. Dinwiddie? How can one straighten out those old-timers? But it would be quite appropriate, if she must marry--and I suppose she's dying to; but I notice she hasn't asked either of them tonight. I suppose it makes her feel younger to surround herself with young people. It certainly makes me feel frightfully young---- I mean she does."

"Do you think it good manners to discuss your hostess at her own table?"

"Oh, manners! You'll always be a Southerner, Lee. New York has always prided itself on its bad manners. That is the real source of our strength."

"Pretty poor prop. It seems to me a sign of congenital weakness."

"Oh, we never defend ourselves. By the way, I hear Jim Oglethorpe rushed poor little Janet off to Egypt because he found her in your rooms and you refused to marry her. You're not such a gallant Southerner, after all----"

"What a lie! Who on earth started such a yarn?" But he turned cold and his hand shook a little as he raised his wine gla.s.s.

"It's all over town, and people think you really ought to marry her.

Of course those ridiculous little flappers don't care whether they are talked about or not, but their families do. I hear that old Mrs.

Oglethorpe is quite ill over the scandal, and she always swore by you."

"Mrs. Oglethorpe, I happen to know, as I dined there last night, was never better and is delighted with the idea that Jim has taken Janet abroad to get her away from that rotten crowd."

She looked nonplussed, but returned to the charge. "How stories do get about! They even say that he horsewhipped you----"

"Pray don't overtax your powers of invention. You know there's no such story going about or everybody here would have cut me dead. Try another tack."

"Well, I'll confess I made that up just to get a rise out of you." She looked at him speculatively. "But about Janet--well, you see, I know you for a gay deceiver--mother is always using those old expressions that were the fas.h.i.+on in her--and Mary Ogden's--day. I hear you even made love to our fair hostess until you found out the truth and then you dropped her like a hot potato--or a cold fish. I was surprised when she told me you were coming here tonight, and asked her at once to seat us three together so that Anne and I could save you from feeling embarra.s.sed--not that I told her that, of course. I merely said we were such old friends we would naturally have a thousand things to talk about. She didn't turn a hair; I'll say that much for her. But perhaps she thinks she's playing you on a long string. She's playing several poor fish who are here tonight."

Should he tell her? He really could stand no more. He hadn't a doubt that the same rumor that had driven Janet to her crude attempt, to compromise him and then blast her rival with naked words, had reached these two older and cleverer, but hardly subtler girls, and they had joined forces to disenchant him and make him feel the misguided young man they no doubt believed him to be. He hated them both. They had that for their pains. He'd never willingly see one of them again.

He longed to blurt out the truth. But his was not the right. He glanced over at Madame Zattiany, who sat in the middle of the table's length, receiving the intent homage of the men on either side of her and looking more placid than any other woman in the room... . It occurred to him that the rest were animated to excess, even the wives of those two men, to whom, it was patent, they were non-existent. He would have given his play at that moment to be able to stand up and ask the company to drink his health and hers.

For a few moments he was left to himself, both Marian and Anne being occupied with their neighbors, and during those moments he sensed an atmosphere of hostility, of impending danger. He caught more than one malicious glance directed at Mary, and once a man, in response to a whispered remark, burst into uncontrollable laughter. Had these women come here--but that was impossible. Even New York had its limits.

They might be icily rude to a pus.h.i.+ng outsider, as indeed they had every right to be, but never to one of their own. Still--to this alarmed generation possibly Madame Zattiany was nothing more than a foreign woman who had stormed the gates and reduced them to a mere background. The fact that she had belonged to their mothers'

generation and had abruptly descended to theirs was enough to arouse every instinct of self-defence. He quite understood they must hate her, but in spite of that common enmity his sensitive mind apprehended, they'd surely commit no overt act of hostility. Like all their kind, they were adepts in the art of "freezing out." He had no doubt they had come here from mere curiosity and that he would shortly hear they had ceased to entertain or receive her. But he wished the dinner were over.

He was soon enlightened.

Marian Lawrence leaned across the table. "Oh, Madame Zattiany! Will you settle a dispute? Harry and I have been arguing about Disraeli.

Your husband was an amba.s.sador, wasn't he? Did you happen to be at the Berlin What-d'you-call-it?"

"Oh, no," replied Madame Zattiany, with open amus.e.m.e.nt. "I was still Mary Ogden in eighteen-seventy-eight."

"Oh! The seventies and eighties are all one to me, I'm afraid. I'm shockingly ignorant. But we've all been saying that you ought to write your memoirs. Thirty-four years of diplomatic life in Europe! You must have met every one worth knowing and it would be such a delightful way for us youngsters to learn history."

"Oh, I kept a diary," said Madame Zattiany lightly. "I may publish it some day." And she turned pointedly to the man on her right. Why had she invited the little cat?

"Oh, but Madame Zattiany!" exclaimed young Mrs. Ruyler, whose black eyes were sparkling. "Please don't wait. I'm so interested in German history since the war. You must have known four generations of Hohenzollerns ... too thrilling! And Bismarck. And the Empress Elizabeth. And Crown Prince Rudolf--do tell us the truth of that mysterious tragedy. Did you ever see Marie Vetsera? I never heard of it until the other day when some of mother's friends raked it up, and I've been excited ever since."

"Unfortunately my husband was an attache in Paris at the time, and I never saw her. I am afraid your curiosity will never be satisfied.

There was a general impression that if Vienna ever became the capital of a Republic the archives would be opened and the truth of the Meyerling tragedy given to the world. But all doc.u.ments relating to private scandals must have been destroyed." She spoke with the utmost suavity, the patient hostess with rather tiresome guests. "People in Vienna, I a.s.sure you, take very little interest in that old scandal.

They are too busy and too uncomfortable making history of their own."

"Yes, it must be a hideously uncomfortable place to live in." Mrs.

Leonard, another daughter-in-law of one of Mary's old friends, gave a little shudder. "No wonder you got out. I was so glad to subscribe to your n.o.ble charity, dear Madame Zattiany. But"--and she smiled winsomely--"I think we should get up a subscription for those wonderful scientists in Vienna. Every once in a while you hear the most harrowing stories of the starving scientists of Europe, and it would be too awful if those miracle men in Vienna should pa.s.s away from malnutrition before it is our turn to need them."

"Ah, dear Mrs. Ruyler!" exclaimed Madame Zattiany with a smile as winsome as her own. "You forget they will probably all be dead by that time and that their pupils will be equally eminent and even more expert. For that matter there will be experts in every city in the world."

But Clavering, watching her anxiously, had seen an expression of wonder dawn in her eyes, quickly as she had banished it. It was evident that whatever the secret spite of these women, this was the first time they had given it open expression. He glanced about the table. Young Vane's face was crimson and he had turned his back pointedly on Marian Lawrence, who was smoking and grinning. She had started the ball and was too indolent to take it out of hands that seemed to be equally efficient.

Clavering leaned forward and caught Mary's eye with a peremptory expression, but she shook her head, although too imperceptibly for any one else to catch the fleeting movement, and he sank back with a humiliating sense of impotence. He wished she were not so well able to take care of herself.

"But this is abominable," murmured Anne Goodrich. It was possible that she was not in on the baiting. "Abominable. What must she think of us? Or, perhaps they don't really mean to be horrid. They look innocent enough. After all, she could tell us many interesting things."

"Oh, they mean it," said Clavering bitterly. "They mean it all right and she knows it."

"You speak as if you were even more interested in her than poor Harry Vane." The indignation had faded from Miss Goodrich's lofty countenance. "Are you?"

"Yes, I am, if you want the truth. I'd marry her tomorrow if she'd have me." This was as far as he could go.

"Oh!" Her mouth trembled, but she did not look wholly unprepared for the statement. "But--Lee---- You know how interested I have always been in you--how interested we all are in you----"