It was at the end of
the first act of the first night of "The Sultana," and every member
of the Lester Comic Opera Company, from Lester himself down to the wardrobe
woman's son, who would have had to work if his mother lost her place, was sick
with anxiety.
There is perhaps only
one other place as feverish as it is behind the scenes on the first night of a
comic opera, and that is a newspaper office on the last night of a Presidential
campaign, when the returns are being flashed on the canvas outside, and the mob
is howling, and the editor-in-chief is expecting to go to the Court of St.
James if the election comes his way, and the office-boy is betting his wages
that it won't.
Such nights as these
try men's souls; but Van Bibber passed the stage-door man with as calmly polite
a nod as though the piece had been running a hundred nights, and the manager
was thinking up souvenirs for the one hundred and fiftieth, and the prima donna
had, as usual, begun to hint for a new set of costumes. The stage-door keeper
hesitated and was lost, and Van Bibber stepped into the unsuppressed excitement
of the place with a pleased sniff at the familiar smell of paint and burning
gas, and the dusty odor that came from the scene-lofts above.
For a moment he
hesitated in the cross-lights and confusion about him, failing to recognize in
their new costumes his old acquaintances of the company; but he saw Kripps, the
stage-manager, in the centre of the stage, perspiring and in his shirt-sleeves
as always, wildly waving an arm to some one in the flies, and beckoning with
the other to the gasman in the front entrance. The stage hands were striking
the scene for the first act, and fighting with the set for the second, and
dragging out a canvas floor of tessellated marble, and running a throne and a
practical pair of steps over it, and aiming the high quaking walls of a palace
and abuse at whoever came in their way.
"Now then, Van
Bibber," shouted Kripps, with a wild glance of recognition, as the
white-and-black figure came towards him, "you know you're the only man in
New York who gets behind here to-night. But you can't stay. Lower it, lower it,
can't you?" This to the man in the flies. "Any other night goes, but
not this night. I can't have it. I--Where is the backing for the centre
entrance? Didn't I tell you men---
Van Bibber dodged two
stage hands who were steering a scene at him, stepped over the carpet as it
unrolled, and brushed through a group of anxious, whispering chorus people into
the quiet of the star's dressing-room.
The star saw him in the
long mirror before which he sat, while his dresser tugged at his boots, and
threw up his hands desperately.
"Well," he
cried, in mock resignation, "are we in it or are we not? Are they in their
seats still or have they fled?"
"How are you,
John?" said Van Bibber to the dresser. Then he dropped into a big
arm-chair in the corner, and got up again with a protesting sigh to light his
cigar between the wires around the gas-burner. "Oh, it's going very well.
I wouldn't have come around if it wasn't. If the rest of it is as good as the
first act, you needn't worry."
Van Bibber's
unchallenged freedom behind the scenes had been a source of much comment and
perplexity to the members of the Lester Comic Opera Company. He had made his
first appearance there during one hot night of the long run of the previous
summer, and had continued to be an almost nightly visitor for several weeks. At
first it was supposed that he was backing the piece, that he was the
"Angel," as those weak and wealthy individuals are called who allow
themselves to be led into supplying the finances for theatrical experiments.
But as he never peered through the curtain-hole to count the house, nor made
frequent trips to the front of it to look at the box sheet, but was, on the
contrary, just as undisturbed on a rainy night as on those when the
"standing room only" sign blocked the front entrance, this
supposition was discarded as untenable. Nor did he show the least interest in
the prima donna, or in any of the other pretty women of the company; he did not
know them, nor did he make any effort to know them, and it was not until they
inquired concerning him outside of the theatre that they learned what a figure
in the social life of the city he really was. He spent most of his time in
Lester's dressing-room smoking, listening to the reminiscences of Lester's
dresser when Lester was on the stage; and this seclusion and his clerical
attire of evening dress led the second comedian to call him Lester's father
confessor, and to suggest that he came to the theatre only to take the star to
task for his sins. And in this the second comedian was unknowingly not so very
far wrong. Lester, the comedian, and young Van Bibber had known each other at
the university, when Lester's voice and gift of mimicry had made him the leader
in the college theatricals; and later, when he had gone upon the stage, and had
been cut off by his family even after he had become famous, or on account of
it, Van Bibber had gone to visit him, and had found him as simple and sincere
and boyish as he had been in the days of his Hasty-Pudding successes. And
Lester, for his part, had found Van Bibber as likable as did every one else,
and welcomed his quiet voice and youthful knowledge of the world as a grateful
relief to the boisterous camaraderie of his professional acquaintances. And he
allowed Van Bibber to scold him, and to remind him of what he owed to himself,
and to touch, even whether it hurt or not, upon his better side. And in time he
admitted to finding his friend's occasional comments on stage matters of value
as coming
from the point of view
of those who look on at the game; and even Kripps, the veteran, regarded him
with respect after he had told him that he could turn a set of purple costumes
black by throwing a red light on them. To the company, after he came to know
them, he was gravely polite, and, to those who knew him if they had overheard,
amusingly commonplace in his conversation. He understood them better than they
did themselves, and made no mistakes. The women smiled on him, but the men were
suspicious and shy of him until they saw that he was quite as shy of the women;
and then they made him a confidant, and told him all their woes and troubles,
and exhibited all their little jealousies and ambitions, in the innocent hope
that he would repeat what they said to Lester. They were simple,
unconventional, light-hearted folk, and Van Bibber found them vastly more
entertaining and preferable to the silence of the deserted club, where the
matting was down, and from whence the regular habitues had departed to the
other side or to Newport. He liked the swing of the light, bright music as it
came to him through the open door of the dressing-room, and the glimpse he got
of the chorus people crowding and pushing for a quick charge up the iron
stairway, and the feverish smell of oxygen in the air, and the picturesque
disorder of Lester's wardrobe, and the wigs and swords, and the mysterious
articles of make-up, all mixed together on a tray with half-finished cigars and
autograph books and newspaper notices."
And he often wished he
was clever enough to be an artist with the talent to paint the unconsciously
graceful groups in the sharply divided light and shadow of the wings as he saw
them. The brilliantly colored, fantastically clothed girls leaning against the
bare brick wall of the theatre, or whispering together in circles, with their
arms close about one another, or reading apart and solitary, or working at some
piece of fancy-work as soberly as though they were in a rocking-chair in their
own flat, and not leaning against a scene brace, with the glare of the stage
and the applause of the house just behind them. He liked to watch them
coquetting with the big fireman detailed from the precinct engine-house, and
clinging desperately to the curtain wire, or with one of the chorus men on the
stairs, or teasing the phlegmatic scene-shifters as they tried to catch a
minute's sleep on a pile of canvas. He even forgave the prima donna's smiling
at him from the stage, as he stood watching her from the wings, and smiled back
at her with polite cynicism, as though he did not know and she did not know
that her smiles were not for him, but to disturb some more interested one in
the front row. And so, in time, the company became so well accustomed to him
that he moved in and about as unnoticed as the stage-manager himself, who
prowled around hissing "hush" on principle, even though he was the
only person who could fairly be said to be making a noise.
The second act was on,
and Lester came off the stage and ran to the dressing-room and beckoned
violently. "Come here," he said; "you ought to see this; the
children are doing their turn. You want to hear them. They're great!"
Van Bibber put his
cigar into a tumbler and stepped out into the wings. They were crowded on both
sides of the stage with the members of the company; the girls were tip- toeing,
with their hands on the shoulders of the men, and making futile little leaps
into the air to get a better view, and others were resting on one knee that
those behind might see over their shoulders. There were over a dozen children
before the footlights, with the prima donna in the centre. She was singing the
verses of a song, and they were following her movements, and joining in the
chorus with high piping voices. They seemed entirely too much at home and too
self-conscious: to please Van Bibber; but there was one exception. The one
exception was the smallest of them, a very, very little girl, with long auburn
hair and black eyes; such a very little girl that every one in the house looked
at her first, and then looked at no one else. She was apparently as unconcerned
to all about her, excepting the pretty prima donna, as though she were by a
piano at home practising a singing lesson. She seemed to think it was some new
sort of a game. When the prima donna raised her arms, the child raised hers;
when the prima donna courtesied, she stumbled into one, and straightened
herself just in time to get the curls out of her eyes, and to see that the
prima donna was laughing at her, and to smile cheerfully back as if to say,
"We are doing our best anyway, aren't we?" She had big, gentle eyes
and two wonderful dimples, and in the excitement of the dancing and the singing
her eyes laughed and flashed, and the dimples deepened and disappeared and
reappeared again. She was as happy and innocent looking as though it were nine
in the morning and she were playing school at a kindergarten. From all over the
house the women were murmuring their delight, and the men were laughing and
pulling their mustaches and nudging each other to "look at the littlest
one."
The girls in the wings
were rapturous in their enthusiasm, and were calling her absurdly extravagant
titles of endearment, and making so much noise that Kripps stopped grinning at
her from the entrance, and looked back over his shoulder as he looked when he
threatened fines and calls for early rehearsal. And when she had finished
finally, and the prima donna and the children ran off together, there was a
roar from the house that went to Lester's head like wine, and seemed to leap
clear across the footlights and drag the children back again.
"That settles
it!" cried Lester, in a suppressed roar of triumph. "I knew that
child would catch them."
There were four
encores, and then the children and Elise Broughten, the pretty prima donna,
came off jubilant and happy, with the Littlest Girl's arms full of flowers,
which the management had with kindly forethought prepared for the prima donna,
but which that delightful young person and the delighted leader of the
orchestra had passed over to the little girl.
"Well,"
gasped Miss Broughten, as she came up to Van Bibber laughing, and with one hand
on her side and breathing very quickly, "will you kindly tell me who is
the leading woman now? Am I the prima donna, or am I not? I wasn't in it, was
I?
"You were
not," said Van Bibber.
He turned from the
pretty prima donna and hunted up the wardrobe woman, and told her he wanted to
meet the Littlest Girl. And the wardrobe woman, who was fluttering wildly
about, and as delighted as though they were all her own children, told him to
come into the property-room, where the children were, and which had been
changed into a dressing-room that they might be by themselves. The six little
girls were in six different states of dishabille, but they were too little to
mind that, and Van Bibber was too polite to observe it.
"This is the
little girl, sir," said the wardrobe woman, excitedly, proud at being the
means of bringing together two such prominent people. "Her name is
Madeline. Speak to the gentleman, Madeline; he wants to tell you what a great
big hit youse made."
The little girl was
seated on one of the cushions of a double throne so high from the ground that
the young woman who was pulling off the child's silk stockings and putting
woollen ones on in their place did so without stooping. The young woman looked
at Van Bibber and nodded somewhat doubtfully and ungraciously, and Van Bibber
turned to the little girl in preference. The young woman's face was one of a
type that was too familiar to be pleasant.
He took the Littlest
Girl's small hand in his and shook it solemnly, and said, "I am very glad
to know you. Can I sit up here beside you, or do you rule alone?"
"Yes, ma'am--yes,
sir," answered the little girl.
Van Bibber put his
hands on the arms of the throne and vaulted up beside the girl, and pulled out
the flower in his button-hole and gave it to her.
"Now,"
prompted the wardrobe woman, "what do you say to the gentleman?"
"Thank you,
sir," stammered the little girl.
"She is not much
used to gentlemen's society," explained the woman who was pulling on the
stockings.
"I see," said
Van Bibber. He did not know exactly what to say next. And yet he wanted to talk
to the child very much, so much more than he generally wanted to talk to most
young women, who showed no hesitation in talking to him. With them he had no
difficulty whatsoever. There was a doll lying on the top of a chest near them,
and he picked this up and surveyed it critically. "Is this your doll? he
asked.
"No," said
Madeline, pointing to one of the children, who was much taller than herself;
" it's 'at 'ittle durl's. My doll he's dead."
"Dear me!"
said Van Bibber. He made a mental note to get a live one in the morning, and
then he said: "That's very sad. But dead dolls do come to life."
The little girl looked
up at him, and surveyed him intently and critically, and then smiled, with the
dimples showing, as much as to say that she understood him and approved of him
entirely. Van Bibber answered this sign language by taking Madeline's hand in
his and asking her how she liked being a great actress, and how soon she would
begin to storm because that photographer hadn't sent the proofs. The young
woman understood this, and deigned to smile at it, but Madeline yawned a very
polite and sleepy yawn, and closed her eyes. Van Bibber moved up closer, and
she leaned over until her bare shoulder touched his arm, and while the woman
buttoned on her absurdly small shoes, she let her curly head fall on his elbow
and rest there. Any number of people had shown confidence in Van Bibber--not in
that form exactly, but in the same spirit--and though he was used to being
trusted, he felt a sharp thrill of pleasure at the touch of the child's head on
his arm, and in the warm clasp of her fingers around his. And he was conscious
of a keen sense of pity and sorrow for her rising in him, which he crushed by
thinking that it was entirely wasted, and that the child was probably perfectly
and ignorantly happy.
"Look at that,
now," said the wardrobe woman, catching sight of the child's closed eyelids;
"just look at the rest of the little dears, all that excited they can't
stand still to get their hats on, and she just as unconcerned as you please,
and after making the hit of the piece, too."
"She's not used to
it, you see," said the young woman, knowingly; "she don't know what
it means. It's just that much play to her."
This last was said with
a questioning glance at Van Bibber, in whom she still feared to find the
disguised agent of a Children's Aid Society. Van Bibber only nodded in reply,
and did not answer her, because he found he could not very well, for he was
looking a long way ahead at what the future was to bring to the confiding
little being at his side, and thinking of the evil knowledge and temptations
that would mar the beauty of her quaintly sweet face, and its strange mark of
gentleness and refinement. Outside he could hear his friend Lester shouting the
refrain of his new topical song, and the laughter and the hand- clapping came
in through the wings and open door, broken but tumultuous.
"Does she come of
professional people?" Van Bibber asked, dropping into the vernacular. He
spoke softly, not so much that he might not disturb the child, but that she
might not understand what he said.
"Yes," the
woman answered, shortly, and bent her head to smooth out the child's stage
dress across her knees.
Van Bibber touched the
little girl's head with his hand and found that she was asleep, and so let his
hand rest there, with the curls between his fingers. "Are--are you her
mother?" he asked, with a slight inclination of his head. He felt quite
confident she was not; at least, he hoped not.
The woman shook her
head. "No," she said.
"Who is her
mother?"
The woman looked at the
sleeping child and then up at him almost defiantly. "Ida Clare was her
mother," she said.
Van Bibber's protecting
hand left the child as suddenly as though something had burned it, and he drew
back so quickly that her head slipped from his arm, and she awoke and raised
her eyes and looked up at him questioningly. He looked back at her with a
glance of the strangest concern and of the deepest pity. Then he stooped and
drew her towards him very tenderly, put her head back in the corner of his arm,
and watched her in silence while she smiled drowsily and went to sleep again.
"And who takes
care of her now?" he asked.
The woman straightened
herself and seemed relieved. She saw that the stranger had recognized the
child's pedigree and knew her story, and that he was not going to comment on
it. "I do," she said. "After the divorce Ida came to me,"
she said, speaking more freely. "I used to be in her company when she was
doing `Aladdin,' and then when I left the stage and started to keep an actors'
boarding-house, she came to me. She lived on with us a year, until she died,
and she made me the guardian of the child. I train children for the stage, you
know, me and my sister, Ada Dyer; you've heard of her, I guess. The courts pay
us for her keep, but it isn't much, and I'm expecting to get what I spent on
her from what she makes on the stage. Two of them other children are my pupils;
but they can't touch Madie. She is a better dancer an' singer than any of them.
If it hadn't been for the Society keeping her back, she would have been on the
stage two years ago. She's great, she is. She'll be just as good as her mother
was.
Van Bibber gave a
little start, and winced visibly, but turned it off into a cough. "And her
father," he said hesitatingly, "does he--"
"Her father,"
said the woman, tossing back her head, "he looks after himself, he does.
We don't ask no favors of him. She'll get along without him or his folks, thank
you. Call him a gentleman? Nice gentleman he is!"
Then she stopped
abruptly. "I guess, though, you know him," she added. Perhaps he's a
friend of yourn?"
"I just know
him," said Van Bibber, wearily.
He sat with the child
asleep beside him while the woman turned to the others and dressed them for the
third act. She explained that Madie would not appear in the last act, only the
two larger girls, so she let her sleep, with the cape of Van Bibber's cloak
around her.
Van Bibber sat there
for several long minutes thinking, and then looked up quickly, and dropped his
eyes again as quickly, and said, with an effort to speak quietly and
unconcernedly: "If the little girl is not on in this act, would you mind
if I took her home? I have a cab at the stage door, and she's so sleepy it
seems a pity to keep her up. The sister you spoke of or some one could put her
to bed."
"Yes," the
woman said, doubtfully, "Ada's home. Yes, you can take her around, if you
want to."
She gave him the
address, and he sprang down to the floor, and gathered the child up in his arms
and stepped out on the stage. The prima donna had the centre of it to herself
at that moment, and all the rest of the company were waiting to go on; but when
they saw the little girl in Van Bibber's arms they made a rush at her, and the
girls leaned over and kissed her with a great show of rapture and with many
gasps of delight.
"Don't," said
Van Bibber, he could not tell just why. "Don't."
"Why not?"
asked one of the girls, looking up at him sharply.
"She was asleep;
you've wakened her," he said, gently.
But he knew that was
not the reason. He stepped into the cab at the stage entrance, and put the
child carefully down in one corner. Then he looked back over his shoulder to
see that there was no one near enough to hear him, and said to the driver,
"To the Berkeley Flats, on Fifth Avenue." He picked the child up
gently in his arms as the carriage started, and sat looking out thoughtfully
and anxiously as they flashed past the lighted shop-windows on Broadway. He was
far from certain of this errand, and nervous with doubt, but he reassured
himself that he was acting on impulse, and that his impulses were so often
good. The hall-boy at the Berkeley said, yes, Mr. Caruthers was in, and Van
Bibber gave a quick sigh of relief. He took this as an omen that his impulse
was a good one. The young English servant who opened the hall door to Mr.
Caruthers's apartment suppressed his surprise with an effort, and watched Van
Bibber with alarm as he laid the child on the divan in the hall, and pulled a
covert coat from the rack to throw over her.
"Just say Mr. Van
Bibber would like to see him," he said, "and you need not speak of
the little girl having come with me."
She was still sleeping,
and Van Bibber turned down the light in the hall, and stood looking down at her
gravely while the servant went to speak to his master.
"Will you come
this way, please, sir?" he said.
"You had better
stay out here," said Van Bibber, "and come and tell me if she
wakes."
Mr. Caruthers was
standing by the mantel over the empty fireplace, wrapped in a long, loose
dressing-gown which he was tying around him as Van Bibber entered. He was
partly undressed, and had been just on the point of getting into bed. Mr.
Caruthers was a tall, handsome man, with dark reddish hair, turning below the
temples into gray; his mustache was quite white, and his eyes and face showed
the signs of either dissipation or of great trouble, or of both. But even in
the formless dressing-gown he had the look and the confident bearing of a
gentleman, or, at least, of the man of the world. The room was very
rich-looking, and was filled with the medley of a man's choice of good
paintings and fine china, and papered with irregular rows of original drawings
and signed etchings. The windows were open, and the lights were turned very
low, so that Van Bibber could see the many gas lamps and the dark roofs of
Broadway and the Avenue where they crossed a few blocks off, and the bunches of
light on the Madison Square Garden, and to the lights on the boats of the East
River. From below in the streets came the rattle of hurrying omnibuses and the
rush of the hansom cabs. If Mr. Caruthers was surprised at this late visit, he
hid it, and came forward to receive his caller as if his presence were
expected.
"Excuse my
costume, will you?" he said. "I turned in rather early to-night, it
was so hot." He pointed to a decanter and some soda bottles on the table
and a bowl of ice, and asked, "Will you have some of this?" And while
he opened one of the bottles, he watched Van Bibber's face as though he were
curious to have him explain the object of his visit.
"No, I think not,
thank you, said the younger man. He touched his forehead with his handkerchief
nervously. Yes, it is hot," he said.
Mr. Caruthers filled a
glass with ice and brandy and soda, and walked back to his place by the mantel,
on which he rested his arm, while he clinked the ice in the glass and looked
down into it.
"I was at the
first night of `The Sultana' this evening," said Van Bibber, slowly and
uncertainly.
"Oh, yes,"
assented the elder man, politely, and tasting his drink. "Lester's new
piece. Was it any good?"
"I don't
know," said Van Bibber. "Yes, I think it was. I didn't see it from
the front. There were a lot of children in it--little ones; they danced and
sang, and made a great hit. One of them had never been on the stage before. It
was her first appearance."
He was turning one of
the glasses around between his fingers as he spoke. He stopped, and poured out
some of the soda, and drank it down in a gulp, and then continued turning the
empty glass between the tips of his fingers.
"It seems to
me," he said, "that it is a great pity." He looked up interrogatively
at the other, but Mr. Caruthers met his glance without any returning show of
interest. "I say," repeated Van Bibber--"I say it seems a pity
that a child like that should be allowed to go on in that business. A grown
woman can go into it with her eyes open, or a girl who has had decent training
can too. But it's different with a child. She has no choice in the matter; they
don't ask her permission; and she isn't old enough to know what it means; and
she gets used to it and fond of it before she grows to know what the danger is.
And then it's too late. It seemed to me that if there was any one who had a
right to stop it, it would be a very good thing to let that person know about
her--about this child, I mean; the one who made the hit--before it was too
late. It seems to me a responsibility I wouldn't care to take myself. I
wouldn't care to think that I had the chance to stop it, and had let the chance
go by. You know what the life is, and what the temptation a woman--" Van
Bibber stopped with a gasp of concern, and added, hurriedly, "I mean we
all know--every man knows."
Mr. Caruthers was
looking at him with his lips pressed closely together, and his eyebrows drawn
into the shape of the letter V. He leaned forward, and looked at Van Bibber
intently.
"What is all this
about?" he asked. "Did you come here, Mr. Van Bibber, simply to tell
me this? What have you to do with it? What have I to do with it? Why did you
come?"
"Because of the
child."
"What child?"
"Your child,"
said Van Bibber.
Young Van Bibber was
quite prepared for an outbreak of some sort, and mentally braced himself to
receive it. He rapidly assured himself that this man had every reason to be
angry, and that he, if he meant to accomplish anything, had every reason to be
considerate and patient. So he faced Mr. Caruthers with shoulders squared, as
though it were a physical shock he had to stand against, and in consequence he
was quite unprepared for what followed. For Mr. Caruthers raised his face
without a trace of feeling in it, and, with his eyes still fixed on the glass
in his hand, set it carefully down on the mantel beside him, and girded himself
about with the rope of his robe. When he spoke, it was in a tone of quiet
politeness.
"Mr. Van
Bibber," he began, "you are a very brave young man. You have dared to
say to me what those who are my best friends--what even my own family--would
not care to say. They are afraid it might hurt me, I suppose. They have some
absurd regard for my feelings; they hesitate to touch upon a subject which in
no way concerns them, and which they know must be very painful to me. But you
have the courage of your convictions; you have no compunctions about tearing
open old wounds; and you come here, unasked and uninvited, to let me know what
you think of my conduct, to let me understand that it does not agree with your
own ideas of what I ought to do, and to tell me how I, who am old enough to be
your father, should behave. You have rushed in where angels fear to tread, Mr.
Van Bibber, to show me the error of my ways. I suppose I ought to thank you for
it; but I have always said that it is not the wicked people who are to be
feared in this world, or who do the most harm. We know them; we can prepare for
them, and checkmate them. It is the well-meaning fool who makes all the
trouble. For no one knows him until he discloses himself, and the mischief is
done before he can be stopped. I think, if you will allow me to say so, that
you have demonstrated my theory pretty thoroughly, and have done about as much
needless harm for one evening as you can possibly wish. And so, if you will
excuse me," he continued, sternly, and moving from his place, "I will
ask to say good-night, and will request of you that you grow older and wiser
and much more considerate before you come to see me again."
Van Bibber had flushed
at Mr. Caruthers's first words, and had then grown somewhat pale, and
straightened himself visibly. He did not move when the elder man had finished,
but cleared his throat, and then spoke with some little difficulty. "It is
very easy to call a man a fool," he said, slowly, "but it is much
harder to be called a fool and not to throw the other man out of the window.
But that, you see, would not do any good, and I have something to say to you
first. I am quite clear in my own mind as to my position, and I am not going to
allow anything you have said or can say to annoy me much until I am through.
There will be time enough to resent it then. I am quite well aware that I did
an unconventional thing in coming here--a bold thing or a foolish thing, as you
choose--but the situation is pretty bad, and I did as I would have wished to be
done by if I had had a child going to the devil and didn't know it. I should
have been glad to learn of it even from a stranger. However," he said,
smiling grimly, and pulling his cape about him," there are other kindly
disposed people in the world besides fathers. There is an aunt, perhaps, or an
uncle or two; and sometimes, even to-day, there is the chance Samaritan."
Van Bibber picked up
his high hat from the table, looked into it critically, and settled it on his
head. "Good-night," he said, and walked slowly towards the door. He
had his hand on the knob, when Mr. Caruthers raised his head.
"Wait just one
minute, please, Mr. Van Bibber?" asked Mr. Caruthers.
Van Bibber stopped with
a prompt obedience which would have led one to conclude that he might have put
on his hat only to precipitate matters.
"Before you
go," said Mr. Caruthers, grudgingly, "I want to say--I want you to
understand my position."
"Oh, that's all
right," said Van Bibber, lightly, opening the door.
"No, it is not all
right. One moment, please. I do not intend that you shall go away from here
with the idea that you have tried to do me a service, and that I have been
unable to appreciate it, and that you are a much-abused and much-misunderstood
young man. Since you have done me the honor to make my affairs your business, I
would prefer that you should understand them fully. I do not care to have you
discuss my conduct at clubs and afternoon teas with young women until
you--"
Van Bibber drew in his
breath sharply, with a peculiar whistling sound, and opened and shut his hands.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that if I were you," he said, simply.
"I beg your
pardon," the older man said, quickly. "That was a mistake. I was
wrong. I beg your pardon. But you have tried me very sorely. You have intruded
upon a private trouble that you ought to know must be very painful to me. But I
believe you meant well. I know you to be a gentleman, and I am willing to think
you acted on impulse, and that you will see to-morrow what a mistake you have
made. It is not a thing I talk about; I do not speak of it to my friends, and
they are far too considerate to speak of it to me. But you have put me on the
defensive. You have made me out more or less of a brute, and I don't intend to
be so far misunderstood. There are two sides to every story, and there is
something to be said about this, even for me."
He walked back to his
place beside the mantel, and put his shoulders against it, and faced Van
Bibber, with his fingers twisted in the cord around his waist.
"When I
married," said Mr. Caruthers, "I did so against the wishes of my
people and the advice of all my friends. You know all about that. God help us!
who doesn't?" he added, bitterly. "It was very rich, rare reading for
you and for every one else who saw the daily papers, and we gave them all they
wanted of it. I took her out of that life and married her because I believed
she was as good a woman as any of those who had never had to work for their
living, and I was bound that my friends and your friends should recognize her
and respect her as my wife had a right to be respected; and I took her abroad
that I might give all you sensitive, fine people a chance to get used to the
idea of being polite to a woman who had once been a burlesque actress. It began
over there in Paris. What I went through then no one knows; but when I came
back--and I would never have come back if she had not made me--it was my
friends I had to consider, and not her. It was in the blood; it was in the life
she had led, and in the life men like you and me had taught her to live. And it
had to come out."
The muscles of Mr.
Caruthers's face were moving, and beyond his control; but Van Bibber did not
see this, for he was looking intently out of the window, over the roofs of the
city.
"She had every
chance when she married me that a woman ever had," continued the older
man. "It only depended on herself. I didn't try to make a housewife of her
or a drudge. She had all the healthy excitement and all the money she wanted,
and she had a home here ready for her whenever she was tired of travelling
about and wished to settle down. And I was--and a husband that loved her
as--she had everything--everything that a man's whole thought and love and
money could bring to her. And you know what she did."
He looked at Van
Bibber, but Van Bibber's eyes were still turned towards the open window and the
night.
And after the
divorce--and she was free to go where she pleased, and to live as she pleased
and with whom she pleased, without bringing disgrace on a husband who honestly
loved her--I swore to my God that I would never see her nor her child again.
And I never saw her again, not even when she died. I loved the mother, and she
deceived me and disgraced me and broke my heart, and I only wish she had killed
me; and I was beginning to love her child, and I vowed she should not live to
trick me too. I had suffered as no man I know had suffered; in a way a boy like
you cannot understand, and that no one can understand who has not gone to hell
and been forced to live after it. And was I to go through that again? Was I to
love and care for and worship this child, and have her grow up with all her
mother's vanity and animal nature, and have her turn on me some day and show me
that what is bred in the bone must tell, and that I was a fool again--a pitiful
fond fool? I could not trust her. I can never trust any woman or child again,
and least of all that woman's child. She is as dead to me as though she were
buried with her mother, and it is nothing to me what she is or what her life
is. I know in time what it will be. She has begun earlier than I had supposed,
that is all; but she is nothing to me." The man stopped and turned his
back to Van Bibber, and hid his head in his hands, with his elbows on the
mantelpiece. "I care too much," he said. "I cannot let it mean
anything to me; when I do care, it means so much more to me than to other men.
They may pretend to laugh and to forget and to outgrow it, but it is not so
with me. It means too much." He took a quick stride towards one of the
arm-chairs, and threw himself into it. "Why, man," he cried, "I
loved that child's mother to the day of her death. I loved that woman then, and,
God help me! I love that woman still."
He covered his face
with his hands, and sat leaning forward and breathing heavily as he rocked
himself to and fro. Van Bibber still stood looking gravely out at the lights
that picketed the black surface of the city. He was to all appearances as
unmoved by the outburst of feeling into which the older man had been surprised
as though it had been something in a play. There was an unbroken silence for a
moment, and then it was Van Bibber who was the first to speak.
"I came here, as
you say, on impulse," he said; "but I am glad I came, for I have your
decisive answer now about the little girl. I have been thinking," be
continued, slowly, "since you have been speaking, and before, when I first
saw her dancing in front of the footlights, when I did not know who she was,
that I could give up a horse or two, if necessary, and support this child
instead. Children are worth more than horses, and a man who saves a soul, as it
says"--he flushed slightly, and looked up with a hesitating, deprecatory
smile--"somewhere, wipes out a multitude of sins. And it may be I'd like
to try and get rid of some of mine. I know just where to send her; I know the
very place. It's down in Evergreen Bay, on Long Island. They are tenants of mine
there, and very nice farm sort of people, who will be very good to her. They
wouldn't know anything about her, and she'd forget what little she knows of
this present life very soon, and grow up with the other children to be one of
them; and then, when she gets older and becomes a young lady, she could go to
some school--but that's a bit too far ahead to plan for the present; but that's
what I am going to do, though," said the young man, confidently, and as
though speaking to himself. "That theatrical boarding-house person could
be bought off easily enough," he went on, quickly, "and Lester won't
mind letting her go if I ask it,--and--and that's what I'll do. As you say,
it's a good deal of an experiment, but I think I'll run the risk."
He walked quickly to
the door and disappeared in the hall, and then came back, kicking the door open
as he returned, and holding the child in his arms.
"This is
she," he said, quietly. He did not look at or notice the father, but
stood, with the child asleep in the bend of his left arm, gazing down at her.
"This is she," he repeated; "this is your child."
There was something
cold and satisfied in Van Bibber's tone and manner, as though he were
congratulating himself upon the engaging of a new groom; something that placed
the father entirely outside of it. He might have been a disinterested
looker-on.
"She will need to
be fed a bit," Van Bibber ran on, cheerfully. "They did not treat her
very well, I fancy. She is thin and peaked and tired-looking." He drew up
the loose sleeve of her jacket, and showed the bare forearm to the light. He
put his thumb and little finger about it, and closed them on it gently.
"It is very thin," he said. "And under her eyes, if it were not
for the paint," he went on, mercilessly, "you could see how deep the
lines are. This red spot on her cheek, he said, gravely, "is where Mary
Vane kissed her to-night, and this is where Alma Stantley kissed > her, and
that Lee girl. You have heard of them, perhaps. They will never kiss her again.
She is going to grow up a sweet, fine, beautiful woman--are you not?" he
said, gently drawing the child higher up on his shoulder, until her face
touched his, and still keeping his eyes from the face of the older man.
"She does not look like her mother," he said; "she has her
father's auburn hair and straight nose and finer-cut lips and chin. She looks
very much like her father. It seems a pity," he added, abruptly. "She
will grow up," he went on, "without knowing him, or who he is--or
was, if he should die. She will never speak with him, or see him, or take his
hand. She may pass him some day on the street and will not know him, and he
will not know her, but she will grow to be very fond and to be very grateful to
the simple, kindhearted old people who will have cared for her when she was a
little girl."
The child in his arms
stirred, shivered slightly, and awoke. The two men watched her breathlessly,
with silent intentness. She raised her head and stared around the unfamiliar
room doubtfully, then turned to where her father stood, looking at him a
moment, and passed him by; and then, looking up into Van Bibber's face,
recognized him, and gave a gentle, sleepy smile, and, with a sigh of content
and confidence, drew her arm up closer around his neck, and let her head fall
back upon his breast.
The father sprang to
his feet with a quick, jealous gasp of pain. "Give her to me!" he
said, fiercely, under his breath, snatching her out of Van Bibber's arms.
"She is mine; give her to me!"
Van Bibber closed the
door gently behind him, and went jumping down the winding stairs of the
Berkeley three steps at a time.
And an hour later, when
the English servant came to his master's door, he found him still awake and
sitting in the dark by the open window, holding something in his arms and
looking out over the sleeping city.
"James," he
said, "you can make up a place for me here on the lounge. Miss Caruthers,
my daughter, will sleep in my room to-night.
Van Bibber's man
Walters was the envy and admiration of his friends. He was English, of course,
and he had been trained in the household of the Marquis Bendinot, and had
travelled, in his younger days, as the valet of young Lord Upton. He was now
rather well on in years, although it would have been impossible to say just how
old he was. Walters had a dignified and repellent air about him, and he brushed
his hair in such a way as to conceal his baldness.
And when a smirking,
slavish youth with red checks and awkward gestures turned up in Van Bibber's
livery, his friends were naturally surprised, and asked how he had come to lose
Walters. Van Bibber could not say exactly, at least he could not rightly tell
whether he had dismissed Walters or Walters had dismissed himself. The facts of
the unfortunate separation were like this:
Van Bibber gave a great
many dinners during the course of the season at Delmonico's, dinners hardly
formal enough to require a private room, and yet too important to allow of his
running the risk of keeping his guests standing in the hall waiting for a
vacant table. So he conceived the idea of sending Walters over about half-past
six to keep a table for him. As everybody knows, you can hold a table yourself
at Delmonico's for any length of time until the other guests arrive, but the
rule is very strict about servants. Because, as the head waiter will tell you,
if servants were allowed to reserve a table during the big rush at seven
o'clock, why not messenger boys? And it would certainly never do to have half a
dozen large tables securely held by minute messengers while the hungry and
impatient waited their turn at the door.
But Walters looked as
much like a gentleman as did many of the diners; and when he seated himself at
the largest table and told the waiter to serve for a party of eight or ten, he
did it with such an air that the head waiter came over himself and took the
orders. Walters knew quite as much about ordering a dinner as did his master;
and when Van Bibber was too tired to make out the menu, Walters would look over
the card himself and order the proper wines and side dishes; and with such a
carelessly severe air and in such a masterly manner did he discharge this high
function that the waiters looked upon him with much respect.
But respect even from
your equals and the satisfaction of having your fellow-servants mistake you for
a member of the Few Hundred are not enough. Walters wanted more. He wanted the
further satisfaction of enjoying the delicious dishes he had ordered; of
sitting as a coequal with the people for whom he had kept a place; of
completing the deception he practised only up to the point where it became most
interesting.
It certainly was trying
to have to rise with a subservient and unobtrusive bow and glide out unnoticed
by the real guests when they arrived; to have to relinquish the feast just when
the feast should begin. It would not be pleasant, certainly, to sit for an hour
at a big empty table, ordering dishes fit only for epicures, and then, just as
the waiters bore down with the Little Neck clams, so nicely iced and so cool
and bitter-looking, to have to rise and go out into the street to a table
d'hote around the corner.
This was Walters's
state of mind when Mr. Van Bibber told him for the hundredth time to keep a
table for him for three at Delmonico's. Walters wrapped his severe figure in a
frock-coat and brushed his hair, and allowed himself the dignity of a
walking-stick. He would have liked to act as a substitute in an evening
dress-suit, but Van Bibber would not have allowed it. So Walters walked over to
Delmonico's and took a table near a window, and said that the other gentlemen
would arrive later. Then he looked at his watch and ordered the dinner. It was
just the sort of dinner he would have ordered had he ordered it for himself at
some one else's expense. He suggested Little Neck clams first, with Chablis,
and pea-soup, and caviare on toast, before the oyster crabs, with
Johannisberger Cabinet; then an entree of calves' brains and rice; then no
roast, but a bird, cold asparagus with French dressing, Camembert cheese, and
Turkish coffee. As there were to be no women, he omitted the sweets and added
three other wines to follow the white wine. It struck him as a particularly
well-chosen dinner, and the longer he sat and thought about it the more he
wished he were to test its excellence. And then the people all around him were
so bright and happy, and seemed to be enjoying what they had ordered with such
a refinement of zest that he felt he would give a great deal could he just sit
there as one of them for a brief hour.
At that moment the
servant deferentially handed him a note which a messenger boy had brought. It
said:
"Dinner off called
out town send clothes and things after me to Young's Boston.
"VAN BIBBER."
Walters rose
involuntarily, and then sat still to think about it. He would have to
countermand the dinner which he had ordered over half an hour before, and he
would have to explain who he was to those other servants who had always regarded
him as such a great gentleman. It was very hard.
And then Walters was
tempted. He was a very good servant, and he knew his place as only an English
servant can, and he had always accepted it, but to-night he was tempted--and he
fell. He met the waiter's anxious look with a grave smile.
"The other
gentlemen will not be with me to-night, "he said, glancing at the note.
"But I will dine here as I intended. You can serve for one. "
That was perhaps the
proudest night in the history of Walters. He had always felt that he was born
out of his proper sphere, and to-night he was assured of it. He was a little
nervous at first, lest some of Van Bibber's friends should come in and
recognize him; but as the dinner progressed and the warm odor of the dishes
touched his sense, and the rich wines ran through his veins, and the women
around him smiled and bent and moved like beautiful birds of beautiful plumage,
he became content, grandly content; and he half closed his eyes and imagined he
was giving a dinner to everybody in the place. Vain and idle thoughts came to
him and went again, and he eyed the others about him calmly and with polite
courtesy, as they did him, and he felt that if he must later pay for this
moment it was worth the paying.
Then he gave the waiter
a couple of dollars out of his own pocket and wrote Van Bibber's name on the
check, and walked in state into the cafe, where he ordered a green mint and a
heavy, black, and expensive cigar, and seated himself at the window, where he
felt that he should always have sat if the fates had been just. The smoke hung
in light clouds about him, and the lights shone and glistened on the white
cloths and the broad shirt-fronts of the smart young men and distinguished
foreign-looking older men at the surrounding tables.
And then, in the midst
of his dreamings, he heard the soft, careless drawl of his master, which
sounded at that time and in that place like the awful voice of a condemning
judge. Van Bibber pulled out a chair and dropped into it. His side was towards
Walters, so that he did not see him. He had some men with him, and he was
explaining how he had missed his train and had come back to find that one of
the party had eaten the dinner without him, and he wondered who it could be;
and then turning easily in his seat he saw Walters with the green mint and the
cigar, trembling behind a copy of the London Graphic.
"Walters!"
said Van Bibber, what are you doing here?"
Walters looked his
guilt and rose stiffly. He began with a feeble "If you please, sir--"
"Go back to my
rooms and wait for me there," said Van Bibber, who was too decent a fellow
to scold a servant in public.
Walters rose and left
the half-finished cigar and the mint with the ice melting in it on the table.
His one evening of sublimity was over, and he walked away, bending before the
glance of his young master and the smiles of his master's friends.
When Van Bibber came
back he found on his dressing- table a note from Walters stating that he could
not, of course, expect to remain longer in his service, and that he left behind
him the twenty-eight dollars which the dinner had cost.
"If he had only
gone off with all my waistcoats and scarf-pins, I'd have liked it better,"
said Van Bibber, "than his leaving me cash for infernal dinner. Why, a
servant like Walters is worth twenty-eight-dollar dinners--twice a day."
Young Van Bibber broke
one of his rules of life one day and came down-town. This unusual journey into
the marts of trade and finance was in response to a call from his lawyer, who
wanted his signature to some papers. It was five years since Van Bibber had
been south of the north side of Washington Square, except as a transient
traveller to the ferries on the elevated road. And as he walked through the
City Hall Square he looked about him at the new buildings in the air, and the
bustle and confusion of the streets, with as much interest as a lately arrived
immigrant.
He rather enjoyed the
novelty of the situation, and after he had completed his business at the
lawyer's office he tried to stroll along lower Broadway as he did on the
Avenue.
But people bumped
against him, and carts and drays tried to run him down when he crossed the side
streets, and those young men whom he knew seemed to be in a great hurry, and
expressed such amused surprise at seeing him that he felt very much out of
place indeed. And so he decided to get back to his club window and its quiet as
soon as possible.
"Hello, Van
Bibber," said one of the young men who were speeding by, what brings you
here? Have you lost your way?"
"I think I
have," said Van Bibber. "If you'll kindly tell me how I can get back
to civilization again, be obliged to you."
"Take the elevated
from Park Place," said his friend from over his shoulder, as he nodded and
dived into the crowd.
The visitor from
up-town had not a very distinct idea as to where Park Place was, but he struck
off Broadway and followed the line of the elevated road along Church Street. It
was at the corner of Vesey Street that a miserable-looking, dirty, and red-eyed
object stood still in his tracks and begged Van Bibber for a few cents to buy
food. "I've come all the way from Chicago," said the Object,
"and I haven't tasted food for twenty-four hours."
Van Bibber drew away as
though the Object had a contagious disease in his rags, and handed him a
quarter without waiting to receive the man's blessing.
"Poor devil!"
said Van Bibber. Fancy going without dinner all day!" He could not fancy
this, though he tried, and the impossibility of it impressed him so much that
he amiably determined to go back and hunt up the Object and give him more
money. Van Bibber's ideas of a dinner were rather exalted. He did not know of
places where a quarter was good for a "square meal," including
"one roast, three vegetables, and pie." He hardly considered a
quarter a sufficiently large tip for the waiter who served the dinner, and
decidedly not enough for the dinner itself. He did not see his man at first,
and when he did the man did not see him. Van Bibber watched him stop three
gentlemen, two of whom gave him some money, and then the Object approached Van
Bibber and repeated his sad tale in a monotone. He evidently did not recognize
Van Bibber, and the clubman gave him a half-dollar and walked away, feeling
that the man must surely have enough by this time with which to get something
to eat, if only a luncheon.
This retracing of his
footsteps had confused Van Bibber, and he made a complete circuit of the block
before he discovered that he had lost his bearings. He was standing just where
he had started, and gazing along the line of the elevated road, looking for a
station, when the familiar accents of the Object again saluted him.
When Van Bibber faced
him the beggar looked uneasy. He was not sure whether or not he had approached
this particular gentleman before, but Van Bibber conceived an idea of much
subtlety, and deceived the Object by again putting his hand in his pocket.
"Nothing to eat
for twenty-four hours! Dear me!" drawled the clubman, sympathetically.
"Haven't you any money, either?"
"Not a cent,"
groaned the Object, "an' I'm just faint for food, sir. S' help me. I hate
to beg, sir. It isn't the money I want, it's jest food. I'm starvin',
sir."
"Well," said
Van Bibber, suddenly, "if it is just something to eat you want, come in
here with me and I'll give you your breakfast." But the man held back and
began to whine and complain that they wouldn't let the likes of him in such a
fine place.
"Oh, yes, they
will," said Van Bibber, glancing at the bill of fare in front of the
place. "It seems to be extremely cheap. Beefsteak fifteen cents, for
instance. Go in, he added, and there was something in his tone which made the
Object move ungraciously into the eating-house.
It was a very queer
place, Van Bibber thought, and the people stared very hard at him and his
gloves and the gardenia in his coat and at the tramp accompanying him.
"You ain't going
to eat two breakfasts, are yer?" asked one of the very tough-looking
waiters of the Object. The Object looked uneasy, and Van Bibber, who stood
beside his chair, smiled in triumph.
"You're
mistaken," he said to the waiter. "This gentleman is starving; he has
not tasted food for twenty- four hours. Give him whatever he asks for!"
The Object scowled and
the waiter grinned behind his tin tray, and had the impudence to wink at Van
Bibber, who recovered from this in time to give the man a half-dollar and so to
make of him a friend for life. The Object ordered milk, but Van Bibber
protested and ordered two beefsteaks and fried potatoes, hot rolls and two
omelettes, coffee, and ham with bacon.
"Holy smoke!
watcher think I am?" yelled the Object, in desperation.
Hungry," said Van
Bibber, very gently. "Or else an impostor. And, you know, if you should
happen to be the latter, I should have to hand you over to the police."
Van Bibber leaned
easily against the wall and read the signs about him, and kept one eye on a
policeman across the street. The Object was choking and cursing through his
breakfast. It did not seem to agree with him. Whenever he stopped Van Bibber
would point with his stick to a still unfinished dish, and the Object, after a
husky protest, would attack it as though it were poison. The people sitting
about were laughing, and the proprietor behind the desk smiling grimly.
"There, darn
ye!" said the Object at last. "I've eat all I can eat for a year. You
think you're mighty smart, don't ye? But if you choose to pay that high for
your fun, I s'pose you can afford it. Only don't let me catch you around these
streets after dark, that's all."
And the Object started
off, shaking his fist.
"Wait a
minute," said Van Bibber. "You haven't paid them for your breakfast."
"Haven't what?
shouted the Object. "Paid 'em! How could I pay him? Youse asked me to come
in here and eat. I didn't want no breakfast, did I? Youse'll have to pay for
your fun yerself, or they'll throw yer out. Don't try to be too smart."
"I gave you,"
said Van Bibber, slowly, "seventy-five cents with which to buy a
breakfast. This check calls for eighty-five cents, and extremely cheap it
is," he added, with a bow to the fat proprietor. "Several other
gentlemen, on your representation that you were starving, gave you other sums
to be expended on a breakfast. You have the money with you now. So pay what you
owe at once, or I'll call that officer across the street and tell him what I
know, and have you put where you belong."
"I'll see you
blowed first! gasped the Object.
Van Bibber turned to
the waiter.
Kindly beckon to that
officer," said he.
The waiter ran to the
door and the Object ran too, but the tough waiter grabbed him by the back of
his neck and held him.
"Lemme go!"
yelled the Object. Lemme go an' I'll pay you."
Everybody in the place
came up now and formed a circle around the group and watched the Object count
out eighty- five cents into the waiter's hand, which left him just one dime to
himself.
"You have
forgotten the waiter who served you," said Van Bibber, severely pointing
with his stick at the dime.
"No, you
don't," groaned the Object.
"Oh, yes,"
said Van Bibber, "do the decent thing now, or I'll--"
The Object dropped the
dime in the waiter's hand, and Van Bibber, smiling and easy, made his way
through the admiring crowd and out into the street.
"I suspect,"
said Mr. Van Bibber later in the day, when recounting his adventure to a
fellow-clubman, "that, after I left, fellow tried to get tip back from
waiter, for I saw him come out of place very suddenly, you see, and without
touching pavement till he lit on back of his head in gutter. He was most
remarkable waiter.
Young Van Bibber had
been staying with some people at Southampton, L. I., where, the fall before,
his friend Travers made his reputation as a cross-country rider. He did this,
it may be remembered, by shutting his eyes and holding on by the horse's mane
and letting the horse go as it pleased. His recklessness and courage are still
spoken of with awe; and the place where he cleared the water jump that every
one else avoided is pointed out as Travers's Leap to visiting horsemen, who
look at it gloomily and shake their heads. Miss Arnett, whose mother was giving
the house-party, was an attractive young woman, with an admiring retinue of
youths who gave attention without intention, and for none of whom Miss Arnett
showed particular preference. Her whole interest, indeed, was centred in a dog,
a Scotch collie called Duncan. She allowed this dog every liberty, and made a
decided nuisance of him for every one, around her. He always went with her when
she walked, or trotted beside her horse when she rode. He stretched himself
before the fire in the dining-room, and startled people at table by placing his
cold nose against their hands or putting his paws on their gowns. He was
generally voted a most annoying adjunct to the Arnett household; but no one
,dared hint so to Miss Arnett, as she only loved those who loved the dog or
pretended to do it. On the morning of the afternoon on which Van Bibber and his
bag arrived, the dog disappeared and could not be recovered. Van Bibber found
the household in a state of much excitement in consequence, and his welcome was
necessarily brief. The arriving guest was not to be considered at all with the
departed dog. The men told Van Bibber, in confidence, that the general relief
among the guests was something ecstatic, but this was marred later by the gloom
of Miss Arnett and her inability to think of anything else but the finding of
the lost collie. Things became so feverish that for the sake of rest and peace
the house-party proposed to contribute to a joint purse for the return of the
dog, as even, nuisance as it was, it was not so bad as having their visit
spoiled by Miss Arnett's abandonment to grief and crossness.
"I think,"
said the young woman, after luncheon, "that some of you men might be civil
enough to offer to look for him. I'm sure he can't have gone far, or, if he has
been stolen, the men who took him couldn't have gone very far away either. Now
which of you will volunteer? I'm sure you'll do it to please me. Mr. Van
Bibber, now: you say you're so clever. We're all the time hearing of your
adventures. Why don't you show how full of expedients you are and rise to the
occasion?" The suggestion of scorn in this speech nettled Van Bibber.
"I'm sure I never
posed as being clever," he said, "and finding a lost dog with all
Long Island to pick and choose from isn't a particularly easy thing to pull off
successfully, I should think."
"I didn't suppose
you'd take a dare like that, Van Bibber," said one of the men. "Why,
it's just the sort of thing you do so well."
"Yes," said
another, "I'll back you to find him if you try."
Thanks," said Van
Bibber, dryly. "There seems to be a disposition on the part of the young
men present to turn me into a dog-catcher. I doubt whether this is altogether
unselfish. I do not say that they would rather remain indoors and teach the girls
how to play billiards, but I quite appreciate their reasons for not wishing to
roam about in the snow and whistle for a dog. However, to oblige the despondent
mistress of this valuable member of the household, I will risk pneumonia, and I
will, at the same time, in order to make the event interesting to all
concerned, back myself to bring that dog back by eight o'clock. Now, then, if
any of you unselfish youths have any sporting blood, you will just name the
sum."
They named one hundred
dollars, and arranged that Van Bibber was to have the dog back by eight
o'clock, or just in time for dinner; for Van Bibber said he wouldn't miss his
dinner for all the dogs in the two hemispheres, unless the dogs happened to be
his own.
Van Bibber put on his
great-coat and told the man to bring around the dog-cart; then he filled his
pockets with cigars and placed a flask of brandy under the seat, and wrapped
the robes around his knees.
"I feel just like
a relief expedition to the North Pole. I think I ought to have some
lieutenants," he suggested.
"Well," cried
one of the men, suppose we make a pool and each chip in fifty dollars, and the
man who brings the dog back in time gets the whole of it?"
"That bet of mine
stands, doesn't it?" asked Van Bibber.
The men said it did,
and went off to put on their riding things, and four horses were saddled and
brought around from the stable. Each of the four explorers was furnished with a
long rope to tie to Duncan's collar, and with which he was to be led back if
they found him. They were cheered ironically by the maidens they had deserted
on compulsion, and were smiled upon severally by Miss Arnett. Then they
separated and took different roads. It was snowing gently, and was very cold.
Van Bibber drove aimlessly ahead, looking to the right and left and scanning
each back yard and side street. Every now and then he hailed some passing farm
wagon and asked the driver if he had seen a stray collie dog, but the answer
was invariably in the negative. He soon left the village in the rear, and
plunged out over the downs. The wind was bitter cold, and swept from the water
with a chill that cut through his clothes.
"Oh, this is
great," said Van Bibber to the patient horse in front of him; "this
is sport, this is. The next time I come to this part of the world I'll be
dragged here with a rope. Nice, hospitable people those Arnetts, aren't they?
Ask you to make yourself at home chasing dogs over an ice fjord. Don't know
when I've enjoyed myself so much." Every now and then he stood up and
looked all over the hills and valleys to see if he could not distinguish a
black object running over the white surface of the snow, but he saw nothing
like a dog, not even the track of one.
Twice he came across
one of the other men, shivering and swearing from his saddle, and with teeth
chattering.
"Well," said
one of them, shuddering, "you haven't found that dog yet, I see."
"No," said
Van Bibber. "Oh, no. I've given up looking for the dog. I'm just driving
around enjoying myself. The air's so invigorating, and I like to feel the snow
settling between my collar and the back of my neck."
At four o'clock Van
Bibber was about as nearly frozen as a man could be after he had swallowed half
a bottle of brandy. It was so cold that the ice formed on his cigar when he
took it from his lips, and his feet and the dashboard seemed to have become
stuck together.
"I think I'll give
it up," he said, finally, as he turned the horse's head towards
Southampton. "I hate to lose three hundred and fifty dollars as much as
any man; but I love my fair young life, and I'm not going to turn into an
equestrian statue in ice for anybody's collie dog."
He drove the cart to
the stable and unharnessed the horse himself, as all the grooms were out
scouring the country, and then went upstairs unobserved and locked himself in
his room, for he did not care to have the others know that he had given out so
early in the chase. There was a big open fire in his room, and he put on his
warm things and stretched out before it in a great easy-chair, and smoked and
sipped the brandy and chuckled with delight as he thought of the four other men
racing around in the snow.
"They may have
more nerve than I," he soliloquized, "and I don't say they have not;
but they can have all the credit and rewards they want, and I'll be satisfied
to stay just where I am."
At seven he saw the
four riders coming back dejectedly, and without the dog. As they passed his
room he heard one of the men ask if Van Bibber had got back yet, and another
say yes, he had, as he had left the cart in the stable, but that one of the
servants had said that he had started out again on foot.
"He has, has
he?" said the voice. "Well, he's got sporting blood, and he'll need
to keep it at fever heat if he expects to live. I'm frozen so that I can't bend
my fingers."
Van Bibber smiled, and
moved comfortably in the big chair; he had dozed a little, and was feeling very
contented. At half-past seven he began to dress, and at five minutes to eight
he was ready for dinner and stood looking out of the window at the moonlight on
the white lawn below. The snow had stopped falling, and everything lay quiet
and still as though it were cut in marble. And then suddenly across the lawn,
came a black, bedraggled object on four legs, limping painfully, and lifting
its feet as though there were lead on them.
"Great heavens!
cried Van Bibber, "it 's the dog! He was out of the room in a moment and
down into the hall. He heard the murmur of voices in the drawing-room, and the
sympathetic tones of the women who were pitying the men. Van Bibber pulled on
his overshoes and a great-coat that covered him from his ears to his ankles,
and dashed out into the snow. The dog had just enough spirit left to try and
dodge him, and with a leap to one side went off again across the lawn. It was,
as Van Bibber knew, but three minutes to eight o'clock, and have the dog he
must and would. The collie sprang first to one side and then to the other, and
snarled and snapped; but Van Bibber was keen with the excitement of the chase,
so he plunged forward recklessly and tackled the dog around the body, and they
both rolled over and over together. Then Van Bibber scrambled to his feet and
dashed up the steps and into the drawing-room just as the people were in line
for dinner, and while the minute- hand stood at a minute to eight o'clock.
"How is
this?" shouted Van Bibber, holding up one hand and clasping the dog under
his other arm.
Miss Arnett flew at the
collie and embraced it, wet as it was, and ruined her gown, and all the men
glanced instinctively at the clock and said:
"You've won,
Van."
But you must be frozen
to death," said Miss Arnett, looking up at him with gratitude in her eyes.
"Yes, yes,"
said Van Bibber, beginning to shiver. "I've had a terrible long walk, and
I had to carry him all the way. If you'll excuse me, I'll go change my
things."
He reappeared again in
a suspiciously short time for one who had to change outright, and the men
admired his endurance and paid up the bet.
"Where did you
find him, Van?" one of them asked.
"Oh, yes," they
all chorused. "Where was he?"
"That," said
Mr. Van Bibber, "is a thing known to only two beings, Duncan and myself.
Duncan can't tell, and I won't. If I did, you'd say I was trying to make myself
out clever, and I never boast about the things I do."
THE END