SEVERAL evenings later, a banquet was given to a party of Russian notables. As no young people were invited, Augusta, chaperoned by her father’s sister, Mrs. Van Rhuys, arranged a theatre party, which included the English Duke.
As Mrs. Forbes stood between her mirrors that evening, she wondered if she had ever looked more lovely. She wore a gown of ivory white satin, so thick that it creaked, and entirely without trimming, save for the lace on the bust. But about the waist, one end hanging almost to the hem of the gown was a ribbon of large pigeon-blood rubies. A collar of the same gems lay at the base of her long round throat. Above her brow blazed a great star, the points set with diamonds, radiating from a massive ruby. A smaller star clasped the lace at her breast. The bracelets on her arms, the rings on her fingers, sparkled pink and white.
Her lips parted slightly. She thrilled with triumph, intoxicated with her beauty and magnificence. For this woman could never become blasé, never cease to be vital, until the shroud claimed her.
Nevertheless, she felt unaccountably nervous. She had felt so all day.
“I am quite well, am I not, mammy?” she said to an old negro woman who sat regarding her with rapt admiration. The negress had been Virginia’s nurse and personal attendant for thirty-nine years. Only the ocean—for which she had an unsurmountable horror—had separated them. In Augusta she had never taken the slightest interest, but over her idolized mistress she exercised an austere vigilance. And as she was a good old-fashioned doctor, and understood Mrs. Forbes’ constitution as had it been a diagram of straight lines, she was always on the alert to checkmate nature, and rarely unsuccessful.
“You sut’n’y is, honey,” she replied. “You never was pearter. No wonder you git ’cited sometimes with all dose purty things that cos’ such heaps and heaps o’ money. Yo’ uster go wild over yore toys, and you al’ays will be de same.”
It was not yet eight and Mrs. Forbes seated herself lightly on the old woman’s knee. At that moment Augusta entered the room.
“Mother!” she exclaimed in a disgusted voice. “Do get up. I declare you are nothing but a big overgrown baby. If it isn’t papa it’s mammy, and if it isn’t mammy it’s papa.”
“I suppose you can get through life without coddling,” replied her mother, undisturbed; “but I can’t. You look remarkably well this evening.”
“Thanks.” Miss Forbes regarded herself complacently in the mirror. She wore black and pink and there was colour in her face. “I’m no beauty, but I think I do look rather well, and this frock is certainly a stunning fit. You are a vision as usual. There is the carriage.”
Mrs. Forbes rose and the maid enveloped her in a long mantle of white velvet lined with ermine. The old negress adjusted the inner flap over the chest and wrapped a lace scarf about the softly-dressed hair.
“You is a leetle nervous, honey,” she said. “Has anything put yo’ out? Don’t you tetch one bit o’ sweets to-night and not a drap o’ coffee.”
“I’ll have it out when we come home, and get it over,” thought Mrs. Forbes as she went down the stair and smiled to her husband, who awaited her in the hall below. “That is what is making me so nervous.”
Mr. Forbes, like many New York millionaires, had spread his house over all the land he could buy in one spot on The Avenue, and there was no porte cochère. When his wife was obliged to go out in stormy weather an awning was erected between the front doors and the curb-stone. To-night it was snowing heavily. As she appeared on the stair two men-servants opened the doors and flung a carpet from the threshold to the carriage-step. If Virginia Forbes had ever wet her boots or slippers she could not recall the occasion.
She was the sensation of the dinner and of the reception afterward. The foreigners stood about her in a rivetted cluster, and with the extravagance of their kind assured her that there was no woman in Europe at once so beautiful and so clever. She took their flatteries for what they were worth; they could have salaamed before her without turning her head; but she revelled in the adulation, nevertheless.
Mr. Forbes had two important letters to write when they returned home, and she went with him to the library. As he took the chair before his desk she got him a fresh pen, then poured him some whisky from the decanter. She was as fresh as when she had left the house, and he looked at her with passionate admiration.
“I should like to be able to tell you how proud I was of you to-night,” he said. “Sometimes I believe that you are really the most splendid creature on earth.”
“That is what those princelings were telling me,” she said, rumpling his hair. “But you flatter me much more, for I may suspect that you mean it.”
“Well, sit where I can’t see you or I sha’n’t do much writing. Don’t go, though.”
She took an easy chair by the fire, but although she lay in its depths and put her little feet on a low pouf, she drew the long rope of jewels nervously through her fingers. Once or twice her breath came short, and then she clasped the rubies so closely that the setting dented her skin.
“I must, must brace up,” she thought. “Unless I am at my best I shall be no match for him, and I must win in the first round or it will be a long hard fight that I may not be equal to. Besides, I should hate it.”
She was glad to have the interview in the library, her husband’s favourite room. It was a long narrow room, lined to the ceiling with the books of seven generations: Mr. Forbes came of a line of men that had been noted for mental activity in one wise or another since England had civilized America. There were busts and bas-reliefs of great men, and many pieces of old carved furniture. The curtains, carpet, and easy chairs were lit with red, and very luxurious. The mantel was of black onyx. Above it was a portrait of Mrs. Forbes by Sargeant. The great artist protested that he had interpreted “the very sky and sea-line of her soul.” Certain it is that he had chosen to see only that which was noble and alluring. Imperious pride was in the poise of the head, the curve of the short upper lip; but it was the unself-conscious pride of race and the autorité of a lovely woman which all men delighted to foster. The eyes, sensuous, tender, expectant, were the eyes of a woman who had loved one man only, and that man with fond reiteration. The lower lip was full, the mouth slightly parted. The brow was so clear that it seemed to shed radiance. It uplifted the face, as if the soul dwelt there, at home with the vigorous brain.
Some thin white stuff was folded closely over the small low bust. A string of large pearls was wound in and out of the heavy hair, whose living warmth the artist had not failed to transfer. Indeed, warmth, life, passion, soul, intelligence seemed to emanate from this wonderful portrait, so combined by the limner as to convey an impression of modern womanhood perfected, satisfied, triumphant, to which the world could give no more, and from which the passing years would hesitate to steal aught. Sometimes Virginia Forbes stood and regarded it sadly. “It is an ideal me,” she would think, “all that I should like to be—that I might—were it not for this trowelful of clay in my soul.” Although Mr. Forbes was too keen a student of human nature to be ignorant of his wife’s faults, his faith was so strong in the large full side of her nature that he had long since felt justified in closing his eyes to all that fell below the ideal.
He wrote for an hour, then threw the pen down, rose, and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Thank heaven that is over. I can sleep in peace. How good of you to wait for me. Are you very tired?”
“No,” she said, and unconsciously her lips lost their fulness, and she clutched the stones so tightly that they bruised her flesh. “Will you sit down, Ned, dear? I want to talk to you.”
“Is anything the matter?” he asked anxiously. “You’ve lost your colour since you came in. I am afraid you go too hard. New York is a killing place. Shall we go to Asheville for a week or two?”
“I never felt better. Sit down—there—where I can see you; and light a cigar. I am going to speak of something very important. You won’t like what I say—at first; but I am sure you will when I have finished.”
He sat down, much puzzled. “I don’t want to smoke, and I’m afraid something has gone wrong with you. Have you been investing and lost? You know that I never ask what you do with your money, and if you are short all you have to do is to ask for more.”
“You know that I never would invest money without your advice; and I have scarcely touched this year’s income. It is about Augusta.”
Mr. Forbes raised his brows. “Augusta? She doesn’t want to take to the public platform, I hope.”
“She is in love.”
“What? Our calm, superior—with whom, for heaven’s sake?”
“With the Duke of Bosworth.”
Mr. Forbes sat forward in his chair, pressing his hands upon its arms. The blood rose slowly and covered his face. “The Duke of Bosworth!” he ejaculated. “Do you mean to tell me that our daughter, and a girl who is American to her finger-tips, has had her head turned by a title?”
“It is not the title, Ned; it is the man——”
“Impossible! The man? Why, he’s not a man. He’s—but I don’t choose to express to you or to any woman what I think of him. I never set up to be a saint; I went the pace with other men before I married you; but in my opinion the best thing that remnants like Bosworth can do is to get into the family vault as quickly as possible and leave no second edition behind them. He’ll leave none of my blood.”
“You misjudge him, dear; I am sure you do. I have talked much with him. He is very intelligent, and, I think, would be glad to live his life over. It is his delicate physique that gives him the appearance of a wreck.”
“Excuse me. I have seen men of delicate physique all my life. I am also a man of the world. Sooner than have that puny demoralised creature the father of my grandchildren, I should gladly see Augusta spend her life alone—happy as we have been. I cannot understand it. She must be hypnotised. And you, Virginia! I am ashamed of you. I cannot believe that you have encouraged her. You, the cleverest and most sensible woman I have ever known! Do you wish to see your daughter the wife of that man?”
“I should not if she were like some girls. But she has little sentiment and ideality. She is a strong masculine character, just the type to give new life and stamina to the decaying houses of the old world. She is not as clever as she thinks, but at thirty she will know her limitations and be a very level-headed well-balanced woman. She will shed no tears over the Duke’s defections, and you know what Darwin says about the children of strong mothers and dissipated eldest sons. I am sure that Augusta’s children will not disgrace you.”
“What you say sounds well: I never yet knew you to fail to make out a good case when driven to a corner; but this miserable man’s children will not be my grandchildren.”
“Ned, you are so prejudiced. You are such a rampant American.”
“I am, I hope. And you know perfectly well that I am not prejudiced. I know many members of the British peerage for whom I have hearty liking and respect. Some of the best brains the world has ever known have belonged to the English aristocracy. But this whelp—if he were the son of as good an American as I am do you think it would make any difference? And if he were worthy of his blood he could have my daughter and welcome.”
Mrs. Forbes had controlled herself inflexibly, but she was conscious of increasing excitement. Her eyes looked as hard and brilliant as the jewels upon her. Her hands trembled as she played with her rope of rubies. She recognised that he was conclusive; that it would be worse than folly to resort to endearment and cajolery, even could she bring herself to the mood. But before such uncompromising opposition her ambition cemented and controlled her, was near to torching reason and judgment. She would not trust herself to speak for a moment, but looked fixedly at her husband.
“I thought this little fortune-hunter was engaged to Mabel Creighton,” he said abruptly.
“That was all a mistake——”
“He found out that Creighton was in a hole, I suppose. Virginia!—it is not possible?—you did not tell him?—you have not been scheming to bring about this damnable transaction?”
“Of course I did not tell him. I wish you wouldn’t screw up your eyes like that at me. I saw before he had been here a week that he had fallen in love with Augusta——”
“Love be damned! Do you imagine a man like that loves?”
“Well, liked then. Of course he cannot afford to marry without money——”
“And I am expected to buy him, I suppose?”
“Don’t be so coarse! Now listen to me, Ned. I want this match. Of course I should not move in the matter if I did not respect the Duke, and if Augusta didn’t love him as much as she is capable of loving. But I want this English alliance—and there may never be another opportunity. I will state the fact plainly—it would give me the greatest possible satisfaction to know that my position was as assured in England as it is in America——”
“Good God! What is the matter with you American women? If you sat down and worked it out, could you tell why you are all so mad about the English nobility? Or wouldn’t you blush if you could? As I said the other day it is a germ disease—a species of brain-poisoning. It eats and rots. It demoralises like morphine and alcohol. After a woman has once let herself go, she is good for nothing else for the rest of her life. She eats, drinks, sleeps, thinks English aristocracy. Even you, if I gave you your head, would find it in you to become a veritable coronet-chaser—you!—my God! Well, it won’t be in my time; and if Augusta runs off with this debased dishonoured little wretch she’ll not get one cent of mine. And there will be no breaking of wills; I’ll dispose of my fortune before I die. I shall take good care to let him know this at once, for I make no doubt he’s desperate——”
Mrs. Forbes sprang to her feet. “You never spoke so to me before,” she cried furiously. “I do not believe you love me. So long as I spend my life studying your wishes—and I have studied them for twenty-two years—you are amiable and charming enough; but now that your wife and daughter want something that you don’t wish to give them, that doesn’t happen to suit your fancy, you turn upon me in your true character of a tyrant——”
“Virginia! hush!” said Mr. Forbes sternly. “I have done nothing of the sort. You are talking like a petulant child. Come here and tell me that you will think no more of this wretched business——”
He went forward, but she moved rapidly aside.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “I am not in the mood to be touched. And I shall never be happy again if you refuse your consent to this marriage.”
“Never be what? Has our happiness rested on so uncertain a foundation as that? I thought that you loved me.”
“Oh, I do. Of course I do. But can’t you understand that love isn’t everything to a woman?—any more than it is to a man? I would be married to no other man on earth, not to a prince of the blood. But it is not everything to me any more than it is everything to you. Suppose you were suddenly stripped of your tremendous political influence, of your financial power, and reduced to the mere domestic and social round? Would I suffice? Not unless you were eighty and in need of a nurse.”
She had drawn herself up to her full commanding height. Her head was thrown back, her nostrils were distended, her lips were a scarlet undulating line. There was no other colour in her face. It looked as opaque, as hard as ivory. The eyes were merciless; even their brown had lost its warmth. The jewels with which she was hung, which glowed with deep rubescent fire on her robe and neck and brow, gave her the appearance of an idol—an idol which had suddenly been informed with the spirit of pitiless ambition and spurned its creator.
Mr. Forbes had turned very grey. His nostrils and lips contracted. His teeth set. Involuntarily he glanced from the woman to the portrait. The portrait was more alive than the woman.
“Don’t you understand?” she demanded.
“No,” he said, “I don’t think I do. At least I hope I do not. At all events, I hope we may not discuss this subject again. I did not tell you that I intend to pull Creighton through. I cannot see an old friend go under. It will be to the Duke’s interest to push his suit in that quarter—if they want him. Now, please go to your room. You are very much excited. If you were not I hardly think you would have spoken as you have.”
He went to the end of the room and opened the door. She passed him quickly with averted head.