Part 13
"No! And I don't wish to know anything about it."
"Quite so," he said, approvingly. "That being the case, you know all about it. The tickets are to be sold by the one hundred perfectly beautiful girls in New York. You head the list."
She turned her face to him, a sneer on her lips. But before she could speak he said, apologetically:
"I know it isn't a subtle compliment. It happens to be a fact. There is going to be tremendous pressure brought to bear on me for places on the corps. I tell you this because your best friends will drive you crazy asking you to use your influence with me. People who decry favoritism always expect favors. I'd do anything for you. But I can't have any but perfectly beautiful ones. I simply can't!"
She looked at him with irrepressible interest. Then, remembering her position, said, coldly, "Will you please leave now and never come back?"
He went on: "It is going to make enemies for you. That will be your first payment for being famous. You will be Number One of the perfectly beautiful hundred because God made you what you are and not because you are my wife--"
"I am not!"
"--to be. You didn't let me finish. Tell your friends you can't. If they pester you, tell 'em flatly you won't. And for Heaven's sake don't use the photograph of your pearls any more, nor the Crane portrait. Use the picture _Vogue_ had last week. Or get some fresh ones and give La Touche an order to supply 'em to the reporters. They won't cost you a cent that way, because they print his name. Good-by, Grace."
He held out his hand. She quickly put hers behind her back. His face thereat lighted up.
"Ah, you love me!" he exclaimed. "It was only a question of time, Empress. And you will never know how much I love you until you realize what it costs me to go away from here, unkissing, unkissed, and yet without regrets! But some day--" He paused, and then, with a fierce hunger that made his voice thick, "Some day I'll _eat_ you!"
He walked out. She made an instinctive movement toward him, but checked herself. As he left the room she confronted the mirror and looked at herself.
It brought the usual mood of kindliness.
She forgave him.
She rang for Frederick. "The Menaud motor, at once!" and went up-stairs to telephone. If the reporters had to use photographs, she couldn't stop them.
Ten minutes later she had kindly given La Touche the photographer eighteen poses.
La Touche thanked her with the perfervid sincerity of a man whose irreducible minimum is forty-eight dollars a dozen. Then he asked, anxiously:
"In case the reporters--"
"I suppose they'd get them, anyhow." She spoke cynically.
"Not unless they stole 'em," he denied, dignifiedly. "We never give any out without permission. Of course they'd use snapshots, which are not always--er--artistic."
Remembering that she had been snapped when she had a veil on and also with her mouth open, as all mouths must be in active speech, she told him in a bored tone:
"It doesn't interest me."
"Thank you, mademoiselle! Thank you!" effusively exclaimed the artist. "It is no wonder--"
She turned on him a cold, haughty stare.
He was all confusion.
"_Pardon!_ I--I-- Monsieur Rutgers--" he stammered. "I--I-- He--"
She left the shop, a vindictive look in her wonderful eyes. She hated H. R. Was she merely the advertised vulgarity of that unspeakable man whom her family so foolishly had not jailed? What had he made of her? She might not mind being called beautiful by the newspapers, but--
The photographer's liveried flunky on the sidewalk opened the door of her motor.
Nine pedestrians, two of them male, stopped.
"That's Grace Goodchild!" hissed one of the women, tensely.
"See her?" loudly asked another.
In the time consumed between the opening of the car's door and her taking her seat eleven more New-Yorkers gathered about the Menaud.
"Home!" she snapped, angrily.
The photographer's flunky stepped away to tell the chauffeur. Instantly a young man's head was thrust through the window of the car. Behind him crowded a dozen disgusting beasts--female.
"You're a pippin!" came from the young man's face a foot from her own. She shrank back. "Say, _he's_ right! I wisht I was in his--" Then the motor started and nearly, but, alas! not quite, decapitated the loathsome compatriot.
If this was fame, she didn't wish any of it, she decided.
"I hate him!" she said to the cut-glass flower-holder. "He has given me this absurd notoriety and-- What delays us?"
She looked out of the window.
They were halted at Thirty-fourth Street. Presently the traffic policeman's whistle blew. The motor started again.
She looked at the policeman. He instantly touched his helmet to her. And she saw also that he nodded eagerly to his mounted colleague across the street.
The man on horseback also saluted her militarily!
She bowed to him. She had to, being well-bred. She also smiled. She was of the logical sex.
"Nevertheless, I hate--" But she left her thought unfinished in her quick desire to lie to herself.
"The policeman must know papa," she said, aloud, to show H. R. what she thought of him.
And that made her wonder what H. R. had up his sleeve now. What did he mean by saying that her troubles were only beginning and that she soon would feel the heavy price of fame? What absurd thing was that about the perfectly beautiful hundred and the tickets and the Beauty Commission and the free sandwiches--hateful word!--and the free dinners, and the--
She almost ran up to her room, pretending not to hear the voices of her tea-drinking friends in the Dutch room. In her boudoir she quickly read all the newspaper clippings. She learned all about the Mammoth Hunger Feast because, this being the second time, she now read intelligently, instead of looking for a certain name.
If H. R. could do all he said he would, he would be a wonder. And he was a very clever chap, anyhow.
Her father must be wrong.
Mr. Goodchild himself could never get the newspapers to say about him all the nice things they said about H. R. And Bishop Phillipson and the fathers of girls she knew, and people she had heard of and painters and novelists and--er--people were helping H. R.
The tickets and the ten-thousand-dollar coupons and the ideal menu!
"He _is_ clever!" she admitted, and smiled. Then she decided, "If he makes me ridiculous--" and frowned. "I could kill him!" she said, calmly, as befits a Christian assassin. That desire compelled her to think of H. R. and of what he had said from their first meeting at the bank. He had said much and had done more. In the end she spoke aloud: "I wonder if he really loves me?"
A knock at the door was the only answer--a servant who came to tell her that Mrs. Goodchild wished her to know they were waiting for her downstairs in the Dutch room.
"Very well," she said to the servant. To herself she said, firmly, "Even if he loves me and is everything he should be I can never marry a man who has made me feel like a theatrical poster!"
Her determination was adamantine. To break it H. R. must be more than clever.
XIX
H. R. at that very moment was in his office. He had prepared a few model epistles for his Public Sentiment Corps to write to the newspapers, asking whether the composition of the ideal hunger-appeaser had been printed and when the tickets for the Mammoth Hunger Feast would be offered for sale. This would keep alive interest in his plans and in the personnel of his public commissions. People had grown to believe that all sorts of commissions were necessary not only to free but even to intelligent government.
He had his list of names ready for the reporters when they called.
"The announcement as to how we shall sell the tickets--each at twenty-five cents--to pay for a wonderful meal for a hungry person and a coupon attached, with ten thousand dollars in cash if you have brains--will be made to-morrow."
"But--" expostulated a fat reporter.
"To-morrow!" said H. R., feeling strong enough now to be nasty to the press. Either he was or he was not yet News. He would decide that matter for all time.
"Do you think we are your hired press agents to--" angrily began the fat one.
"I don't give a damn if I never see you again. I don't care what you print or what you don't print, nor when. We do our advertising through the medium of sandwiches. Get to hell out of here and remember the libel laws; also that I pay my lawyers by the year. They are not very busy just now." To the others he said, kindly, "That's all to-day, boys. I'm busy as blazes."
Cursing the absurd libel laws which prevent all newspapers from printing the truth, the fat reporter took his list of names and his leave at one and the same time. You can't treat even frauds humorously nowadays.
H. R. had won again!
He summoned Andrew Barrett and said to him: "Get this sandwich out to-morrow. It is one of our own. S. A. S. A. account; all-day job."
"The men objected to the other--"
"Seven thirty-cent tickets to Weinpusslacher's apiece," interrupted H. R., impatiently. "Get them from Weinie. He owes us three thousand."
"Great! Greatissimo!" shouted young Mr. Barrett. He hated to pay out real money, and the members were getting ugly. They wanted pay for everything, even for sandwiching for the Cause.
"Go to the costumer of the Metropolitan Opera House, to Madame Pauline, and to Monsieur Raquin of the Rue de la Paix who is stopping at the Hotel Regina, and to the fashion editor of the _Ladies' Home Mentor_, and ask each to send us a design for a ticket-seller's costume. They will be worn by perfectly beautiful girls. There will be one hundred of them. I myself vote for the Perfect Thirty-eight, about five feet seven and one-half tall. My model of perfection is Miss Goodchild. Get busy. And, Barrett--"
"Yes, sir."
"Here is the text for the sandwich." H. R. handed a sheet of paper to his lieutenant, who read thereon:
ONE HUNDRED GIRLS
WILL SELL TICKETS
TO THE
MAMMOTH HUNGER FEAST
* * * * *
THEY ARE THE ONLY
PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL GIRLS
IN ALL NEW YORK
* * * * *
LOOK FOR THEM!
LOOK AT THEM!
PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL!
O. K. H. R., _Sec._
"Say, H. R., this is the master-stroke! commented Andrew Barrett.
"To-morrow," said H. R. coldly, "one hundred sandwiches on the Avenue. One of them in front of Goodchild's all day. White canvas. Heliotrope letters. Pea-green border. Design number eleven. Also insert this ad. in all the papers."
This was the copy of the advertisement:
_Wanted:_ Perfectly Beautiful Girls. Not merely pretty, nor merely young, nor merely hopeful, but Perfectly Beautiful! Object: To make New-Yorkers thank Providence they live in the same town. Apply H. R., Allied Arts Bldg.
Andrew Barrett read it and left the room shaking his head, unable to speak coherently.
H. R. looked up a few addresses in the Directory and went out. He called on the president of the National Academy of Design, on the Professor of Anatomy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, on the president of the National Sculpture Society, the president of the Magazine Cover Designers' Guild, the president of the Equal Suffrage League, who was Mrs. Vandergilt, and Professor Tangolino, late of the Argentine Republic. These, with H. R., would constitute the Public Beauty Commission and would decide who was perfectly beautiful.
To each he pointed out that the noble cause of charity must be advanced. Also an American standard of perfect beauty would be established for all time, their decision being unappealable. The artists instantly approved the plan, the method being artistic and therefore strictly logical. The president of the Suffrage League at first demurred. She objected to sex being dragged into the affair, and, besides, mere physical beauty too long had been accorded a disproportionate importance in social and political matters. It degraded a sex fit for higher things than to be man's plaything. H. R., however, earnestly pointed out that it involved the recognition of the superior salesmanship of women--not sales_woman_ship, but sales_man_ship, for while man was no better than woman in the conduct of the government or anything else, woman was infinitely the superior of man in many things. He finally induced Mrs. Vandergilt and the others to serve on the commission.
But the damned newspapers, he warned them, would print names and would, alas! devote much space to their deliberations.
They said that the regrettable publicity would not stop them from doing their duty.
He returned to his office and prepared a series of questions for the papers to ask him. This is the most intelligent form of newspaper interview because it is always printed. Answers to the reporters' own questions always appear in the papers when the reporters themselves have to supply them.
These were the questions--which later on the Public Sentiment Corps answered with judiciously varied ayes and noes.
1. Were there one hundred Perfectly Beautiful Girls in New York?
2. Would there be a second Judgment of Paris?
3. Was the Public Beauty Commission really competent?
4. How many points for complexion and coloring? For teeth? For figure? For hands and feet and hair?
5. Would not a uniform garment, on the lines of Annette Kellerman's bathing-suit, be the only fair way?
6. Would the wives, daughters, or fiancees of the members of the commission be _hors concours_?
7. At what age did a girl cease to be a _Girl_?
8. Should Morality be allowed to interfere with Art?
When the reporters called at the S. A. S. A. offices H. R. gave to each a typewritten set of the questions and said:
"The commission will hold meetings. They will be public to the applicants. Nobody else, excepting male reporters, will be allowed to be present. And you might add, gentlemen, that the commission considers the requirements for success so uncommon as to render unnecessary the lease of the Madison Square Garden to hold the candidates. The sessions will be held in a room not much larger than this room. And," added the diabolic H. R., "we have no fear of overcrowding. They have to be _perfectly beautiful girls_, beautifully perfect. Now, don't quote me, boys, but you might print, as a report on good authority, that the only one thus far chosen is Miss Grace Goodchild!"
Though all reporters are human, most of them are grateful. They duly published the "rumor" and Grace's latest photographs.
XX
Long before the tea was over, Grace Goodchild, two miles north of him, realized that H. R. was one of those detestable persons who are always right. A dozen of her intimates surrounded her in the Dutch room. They all talked at once. When eleven stopped for lack of breath the twelfth, who very cleverly had saved hers, asked:
"Did they really pick you out, Grace?"
The speaker was not perfectly beautiful. But she was wise and therefore a virgin.
"No!" said Grace. "But really, I don't want to have anything to do with it."
"If Hendrik was _my_ Hendrik, I'd be _It_," said the wise virgin, determinedly, "or he'd know it!"
"He told me," Grace spoke modestly, "that only perfectly beautiful girls would be chosen. And so of course that lets me out!"
"Oh-h-h-h!" came in chorus. There ensued much whispering. Grace flushed. No woman likes to be accused of mendacity monosyllabically. It made her dislike H. R. more than ever.
"Does your father," asked the wise one, "still oppose--"
"He does," answered Grace. Then she added, "Of course."
"I think your father--" And the wise one bit her lips. You would have thought she was snipping off thread with her teeth. A well-bred person must do this oftener than a seamstress--to keep herself from telling the truth.
"_My_ father," tactfully observed Marion Molyneux, "could oppose until the cows came home."
"Mamma is on the commission and I'm not eligible, so _I_ am not after his vote," said Ethel Vandergilt. "But I'd love to meet him, Grace. Is he all they say he is?"
Grace Goodchild for the first time began to realize that H. R. was a remarkable man. She realized it by the simple expedient of disliking Ethel.
"Is it true that he'll do anything you tell him?" cut in Cynthia Coleman, enviously. She was a very pretty girl, with the absurd doll face that makes men feel so manly. She had brains. A girl with that face always has. She shows it by never showing them. The face does the trick more quickly.
Grace said, calmly, "H. R. never--"
"Oh, girls, she calls him H. R., too!" exclaimed Marion.
Feeling herself one of a multitude made Grace feel a mere human being. Created in the image of God, each of them naturally desires to feel like a goddess.
"I do not call him H. R.," said Grace, coldly.
"It is more important to know what he calls her," observed the wise one.
Grace remembered what H. R. had called her. She felt herself blushing with anger. Truly, the gods were kind to H. R.
"Coming back to our muttons, are you going to introduce us?" asked Ethel Vandergilt.
"I'm not going to have anything to do with the affair," said Grace, decisively.
"Aren't you?" said the wise one. It barely missed being a sneer.
"Why not?" asked Ethel. She was the best-gowned woman in the United States. And she was _ex-officio hors concours_.
Grace Goodchild felt the stare of twenty pairs of eyes of differing degrees of brightness, but of the same degree of unbelief. They irritated her by flattering her. No woman can concentrate when watched by other women. Grace, therefore, was compelled to live up to the role which society had assigned to her, whether she liked it or not.
When you tell a man he is wise and ask for advice, he looks as wise as he can and answers ambiguously. When you tell a woman you don't believe her she indignantly tells you the truth.
"One of the reasons"--she spoke very sweetly--"is that he said my friends would ask me to do it but he did not wish me to add to his troubles."
The girls were listening with their very souls, for this was inside news.
Grace went on: "The commission will be absolutely impartial--"
"You don't know mother!" muttered Ethel Vandergilt.
Grace heard her, and she said, rebukingly, "Yes, absolutely impartial and--"
"Are you chosen one of the hundred?" asked the wise virgin.
"Yes, I am!" answered Grace, defiantly. "I had nothing to do with it. This whole affair is exceedingly distasteful to me."
"Of course!" came in a great chorus.
To agree with her in that tone of voice was intolerable.
Grace's hatred shifted from the unspeakable H. R. to these bosom friends. If it were not that H. R. was always right, she wouldn't dislike _him_ so much.
"It is not that I mind not being one of the hundred, but the not being asked to be," muttered the doll face.
It was obviously what all of them minded.
Ethel Vandergilt said: "If I could make my mother resign I'd offer my services. But she is not the resigning kind. Good-by. I'm crazy to meet your H. R."
Well, they were welcome to him--if she made up her mind she did not want him for herself.
The moment the last false friend left, Grace's tolerant smile vanished.
Was she, in sooth, chosen Number One? The papers said it was only a rumor.
Suppose she was not Number One, after all? Supposing the commission--
"I could kill him!" she hissed, and left the room.
Frederick came to her. "Miss Goodchild, there are five reporters waiting to see you."
"Say I'm not at home!" Then she called the man back. "Ask them what they want," and went up-stairs to her room.
Frederick returned presently and reported: "They say they will do themselves the honor to inform you in person if you will be kind enough to see them. And, Miss--" He paused. He had exceeded his duty.
"What is it, Frederick?" asked Grace, knowing that the imperturbable cockney was perturbed.
"There is quite a crowd outside. They are photographing the ladies, ma'am."
"What ladies?"
"Begging your pardon, Miss Vandergilt and the others, ma'am."
"Where?"
"Just in front of the door. Mr. Goodchild had some trouble in getting in, ma'am. He's quite vexed about it, but it wasn't my fault, ma'am," he said, forgetting that he was a menial; that is, protesting against injustice. "I couldn't help it, ma'am."
"Very well, Frederick," she said, graciously, and descended.
Five reporters were politely listening to Mr. Goodchild's vituperations. Therefore his daughter walked down the stairs as majesty descends from the dais. One of the reporters started to meet her half-way.
"Hey! confound you, come down!" shrieked papa.
"Miss Goodchild, we wished to ask you if you had been chosen as the first of the perfectly beautiful hundred. Now that we have seen you at close range, the question is unnecessary."
She smiled slightly; then ceased to smile. The intelligent young man proceeded courteously: "Will you therefore kindly tell us when the wedding will be?"
All reporters are psychologists in their interrogations. The other reporters ceased listening to Mr. Goodchild and as politely as the circumstances permitted took out paper and pencils.
When an angry man is suddenly deprived of his audience he becomes a mental assassin.
Mr. Goodchild blamed it on H. R.
"She'll never marry that infernal idiot!" he shrieked. He was the head of the house.
"Ah yes," said the diplomatist on the stair, looking as though he had memorized the exact words. "Ah yes! June! Thank you." He nodded gratefully at Mr. Goodchild, jotted down a date, and put the paper in his pocket.
"Congratulations, Miss Goodchild," he said to her, with profound respect, and descended. In the hall he said to his colleagues: "Come on, boys. We've got the month. She _is_ Number One, and--"
"If you dare to print anything I'll have you fired," fumed Mr. Goodchild.
"If you were a younger man I'd tell you to fire your grandmother, sir. But I fear me she is, alas! no more. In the mean time, Mr. Goodchild, will you be good enough to pose for our artist? Look pleasant, please. You'll have to close your mouth to do it. Wilson, you may begin filming when ready!" he said to his photographer, who had just pushed past Frederick.
Sounds of cheering and applause came from the street. The ultra-fashionable friends of Grace Goodchild, having been photographed, were shaking hands with the artists and spelling their own names to the reporters.
The gaping proletariate, seeing such graciousness, recognized the aristocracy of the democracy and were cheering madly. An aristocracy whose sense of humor makes it kindly is lasting.
"Them's real swells!" shrieked a red-headed girl who carried a large bandbox.
More cheers.
At that moment Grace Goodchild, impelled by an irresistible curiosity appeared at her door.
"_There she is!_ Hooray!" proudly shrieked two hundred and eighteen potential Socialists, making room for Bishop Phillipson.
Hoping they were not too late for the wedding, the throngs clapped furiously. Even at marriages there are encore fiends.
"How do you do, my child?" inquired the Bishop, with a tolerant smile.
"Please turn around, Bishop!" shrieked the _Journal_ artist. He was paid by the portrait.
The Bishop did so, smiled benignantly, saw the shutter open and close, and then said, deprecatingly:
"I do not wish my picture taken, sir."
"No, sir. Will you give us another shot, Bishop?"
The reverend gentleman waited a moment and then shook his head and turned his back rebukingly on the photographers, who a second time had not respected his wishes.
"Such is fame, Bishop Phillipson," Grace told him, with a smile.
"Reflected greatness, rather," said the Bishop, with his courtly kindliness.
"It's an infernal outrage!" came in a husky voice from the house.
"It's papa. He doesn't understand--"
"He and I are too old, I fear," smiled the Bishop, mournfully. "And how is H. R., my dear?"
She shook her head and frowned. Always that person!