Part 17

What else can a mother say in New York? And isn't it right to stand by your own flesh and blood?

Grace hesitated, full of perplexities and unformulated doubts and an exasperating sense of indecision. She felt like opening the book of her soul to other eyes. To hear advice or, at least, opinions.

"I want to have a heart-to-heart talk with you, mother," said Grace, hesitatingly. Then she apologized, self-defensively. "It concerns my future, dear."

"Yes, darling," said Mrs. Goodchild, absently. "I don't think. I'd like it quite like Celestine's-- Grace, love, will you run over to Raquin's spring exhibition at the Fitz-Marlton and look at it? It is next to the black that Mrs. Vandergilt liked. I have an appointment with Celestine--"

Grace knew that the selection of a husband could wait, for fashions in that line do not change so quickly as in skirts. She dutifully said, "I will!" She also had her eye on one.

Before going to Raquin's display she stopped at Oldman's.

The store flunky opened the door of her motor and smiled happily when he saw who it was. She was made subtly conscious that he was dying to announce her name to the world at the top of his enthusiastic voice. Life in New York had its compensations, after all.

She entered. The shop-girls whispered to the customers on whom they were waiting. The customers turned quickly and stared at Grace Goodchild.

"She often comes here!" she heard the pretty little thing in charge of seventy-two glove-boxes say proudly to a client.

The girl who waited on Grace was a stranger. Nevertheless, when Grace told her "I'll take these!" the girl said, "Very well, Miss Goodchild."

"Oh!" gasped Grace. "You know me?"

"What d'ye t'ink I am?" said the girl, indignantly. "Say, it was great, Miss Goodchild!"

The worship in the girl's eyes kept the language from being offensive.

"Thank you!"

"I hope you'll be very happy, Miss Goodchild," said the girl, and blushed. "Oh, I didn't mean to be--I--I couldn't help wishing it, Miss Goodchild!"

"I'm sure I'm very grateful for your good wishes," Grace told her, graciously.

The child's--age twenty-four--eyes filled with tears. As Grace walked away, Mayme's lips moved raptly. She was memorizing dem woids.

On her way out Grace went through the same craning of necks, the same vivid curiosity, the same half-audible murmurs, the same spitefulness in the eyes of the women who, though rich, were not famous. Everybody is so disgustingly rich nowadays that society had begun to applaud such remarks as, "I've had to give up one of my motors," or, "Jim says he won't put the _Mermaid_ in commission this year; simply can't afford it."

At Raquin's wonderful exhibition of models Grace saw exactly what she wished to see. It would be worthy of her and of her throat. One who is photographed many times a week has to have gowns; not to have them is almost immoral. Grace was so concerned with doing her duty toward the public that she forgot that she had come to see the third one, next to Mrs. Vandergilt's black. She was nearly half-way home before she remembered what her mother had asked her to do.

Grace went back to the Fitz-Marlton. Dress was a public service. Mrs. Goodchild's clothes must tell the public whose mother she was.

She told the chauffeur "Home," and began to think.

Pleasure could be made a duty. Blessed indeed is she in whose mind, as in a vast cathedral, pleasure and duty solemnly contract nuptials.

This beautiful figure of speech in turn made her think of marriage. If she married Reggie or Mr. Watson or Percival or one of the others, what would her married life be? What?

One long visit to Philadelphia!

"I could kill him!" she said to the flower-holder, frowning fiercely. Happening to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror for that purpose provided in an town cars, Grace smoothed her brow and smiled. A man would have required slathers of flattery to dispel ill-humor. With a woman, the truth is enough. A mirror does not lie. Providence is more than kind to them; even automatic.

If she wouldn't marry Reggie or the others and did marry H. R.-- But how could she?

She was an imaginative American girl with a sunshiny soul and much vitality who lived in New York. She thought of her marriage to H. R. She thought of the newspapers! The mound of clippings that instantly loomed before her made her gasp.

What wouldn't the newspapers do when _she_ married H. R., especially if H. R., prompted by love, really made an effort?

She was forced to admit that he was a remarkable man!

"Papa," she said aloud, "will never consent!"

Papa's life had been made miserable by H. R. Indeed, the only thing that reconciled him to the ungrateful task of living was the steady growth of the bank's deposits. It was due, Mr. Goodchild often declared, to his management. But he couldn't speak about H. R. without profanity.

Parental opposition was not everything. Marriage was a serious thing.

XXVII

The motor stopped. She had arrived at her house. The car door was opened by H. R.

She started back. Then she looked at him curiously, almost awe-strickenly, as though her wishes had taken on magical properties of automatic fulfilment.

Was this the same remarkable person she had almost deified on the way from Raquin's exhibition? What would he say? She prayed that he might not spoil everything, by some inanity.

He held out his hand to help her alight. Then he spoke.

"It was time!" he said, and walked beside her--but a couple of inches ahead. That was because, though he was an American husband-to-be, he also was a man, a protector, a leader. Such men are cave-men minus the club.

Grace at times was not a true Goodchild. This time she said nothing.

Frederick opened the door. His face expressed no sense of the unusualness of the sight.

H. R., with the air of a host, led Grace into the drawing-room. He stood beside her in the gorgeous Louis XV. room.

"Grace," he said, gently, "for twenty-nine days I've been the unhappiest man in all New York. For five, the unhappiest in the entire world!"

"Will you kindly release my hand?" she asked. No sooner had the words left her lips than she realized they were piffle. Then she began to laugh. It was the first official acknowledgment that no social barriers divided them.

"Suppose," she asked, with a humorously intended demureness, "that I wished to use my handkerchief?"

H. R. with his disengaged hand took his own out of his pocket and held it to her nose.

"Blow!" he said, tenderly.

"I don't want to," she retorted and tried to pull away her hand.

He replaced his handkerchief in his pocket.

"All over but the mailing-list," he said to her. "Sit down here; by me!"

Something within her stirred to revolt. Unfortunately, he did not release her hand, but led her to the historic divan--part of the suite for which Mr. Goodchild had paid eighteen thousand five hundred dollars in the Sunday supplement. Marie Antoinette had been seated in that very place when de Rohan brought the famous diamond necklace to show her. (Same issue; third column, fourth page.)

"I think that for sheer, unadulterated impudence--" she began, without any anger, because she was too busy trying to decide what she must do to him to put an end to a situation that had become intolerable--at least in its present shape.

"Grace, don't talk nonsense. Just let me look at you."

He held her at arm's-length and looked into her eyes. He saw that they were blue and clear and steady and looked fearlessly at him--the stare of a child who doesn't know why she should be afraid.

If they don't watch out that fearlessness becomes anything but childish in New York.

He continued to stare steadily, unblinkingly, into them.

"I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" he said, hoarsely, and blinked his eyes. Then he closed them--tight. Coward!

She had felt his keen eyes bore through her garments, through her flesh, into her very soul of souls--a look that frightened until it warmed; and after it warmed, it again frightened--in another way.

She saw a wonderfully well-shaped head and very clean-looking hair and a very healthy-looking, clear-cut face and very strong shoulders and very masterful hands. And from all of him came waves that thrilled--the mysterious effluvia that compels and dominates the woman to whom Life means this life.

At length he spoke with an effort. "We shall be married in Grace Chapel." He grew calmer, and added, "People will think it was named for you!"

"I am not going to marry you," she declared, vehemently.

"No. I am going to marry you. After you are my wife we naturally will talk about it. That will enable us to learn whether we shall stay married or not. Grace," he said, earnestly, "I'll do anything you wish."

"Leave this house, then."

"It's _your_ house, dear," he reminded her, gently, "and I am your guest. That puts it out of your power to enforce your desire. Don't you see?"

She tacitly admitted that there was an etiquette of hospitality by asking, coldly, "Why should I marry you?"

"I can't give you as many reasons as I might if you asked why I should marry you. The principal two are that I love you and that I am the only man whom Grace Goodchild can marry and still remain Grace Goodchild."

It seemed to her impossible that he could be sitting beside her talking about marriage seriously, and more than impossible that she could be sitting there listening.

"People know you as Grace Goodchild. After the marriage they will know you as the Grace Goodchild that H. R. has married. What would become of you if you cease to be Grace Goodchild?"

She thought of Philadelphia, and shuddered. But he thought he had not convinced her. He rose and said to her:

"Oh, my love! You are so utterly and completely beautiful that if I have a man's work to do I shall succeed only because the reward is you! I have come to the turning-point in my career and I must have the light of your eyes to guide me."

She did not love him and therefore she heard his words very distinctly. But she was a woman, and she was thrilled by his look and his voice and by his manner. He was no longer a mountebank to her, but an unusual man. And when she thought of not marrying him her mind reverted in some curious way to Philadelphia and its subtle suggestions of sarcophagi and the contents thereof. But this man must not think that he could win her by stage speeches even though they might be real. She said to him, determinedly:

"We might as well understand each other--"

"I am the creature; you are the creator," he quickly interjected. "You are very beautiful, _very_! but you have much more than beauty. You have brains, and I think your heart is a marvelous lute--"

"A what?" she asked, curiously. No woman will allow the catalogue to be skimped or obscured.

"A lute, a wonderful musical instrument that some day will be played by a master hand. When you cease to be merely a girl and become a woman, with your capacity for loving when you let yourself go! Ah!" He closed his eyes and trembled.

All women, at heart, love to be accused of being psychic pyromaniacs.

"_There will I give thee my loves!_" he muttered, quoting from the "Song of Songs."

She knew it wasn't original because he said it so solemnly. She dared not ask from whom the quotation was. It sounded like Swinburne.

"Come!" He was not quoting this time. He stood before her, his face tense, his eyes aflame, his arms stretched imploringly toward her.

She met his gaze--and then she could not look away. She saw the wonderful man of whom the papers had printed miles of columns, who had made all New York talk of him for weeks, who was young and strong and comely and masterful, who had an old name and a fighting jaw, whose words stirred the pulses like a quickstep on the piccolo.

And his eyes made her understand what was meant by actinic rays. They were looking at her, piercing through her garments until she felt herself subtly divested of all concealments.

And then she trembled as if his eyes physically touched her! She thrilled, she blushed, she frowned--for she felt herself desired. And her thoughts became the thoughts of a woman who is wooed by life, by love, by a man's red blood and her own. Her New York inhibitions turned to ashes. Life-long mental habits withered and shriveled and vanished in microscopic flakes until into her self-hypnotized consciousness there came the eternal query of the female who has stopped running, "What can I give to this man?"

And Hendrik, seeing her face, held his shaking hands before her, impatiently beckoning to her to come. Some unseen spirit took her slim hands and, without consulting her, placed them in his.

And then he kissed her.

The heavens flamed. She pushed him from her and sank back trembling upon the divan on which Marie Antoinette was not sitting on the day when de Rohan did not bring the diamond necklace that did not cause the French Revolution, though Mr. Goodchild had paid eighteen thousand five hundred dollars for the historic suite, in the Sunday supplement.

XXVIII

It is difficult for a man to know what to do after the first kiss. A second kiss is not so wise as appears at first blush. It impairs mental efficiency by rendering irresistible the desire for a third. A banal remark is equally fatal. To tell her, "Now you are mine in God's sight," is worse than sacrilegious; it is conducive to acute suffragism and some polemical oratory. To say, "Now I am yours for ever," may be of demonstrable accuracy, but also conduces to speech.

Hendrik Rutgers was no ordinary man. He knew that one kiss does not make one marriage nor even one divorce. But he knew that he was at least at the church door and he had a wonderful ring in his waistcoat pocket. He therefore became H. R. once more--cool, calm, master of his fate.

It behooved him to do something. He did. He fell on his knees and reverently bowed his head. And then she heard him say, "Grant that I may become worthy of her!"

Then his lips moved in silence. She saw them move. Her soul trembled. Was she so much to this man?

Great is the power of prayer even in the homes of the rich, however cynics may sneer.

He did not glance at her, feeling her eyes on him. When he judged it was time he looked up suddenly, rose to his feet, and, in a diffident, apologetic voice, observed:

"Forgive me, dear! What did you say?"

What could she say? She therefore said it:

"Nothing!" very softly.

"I was very far from New York--and yet you were with me, my love!"

She thought of Philadelphia and her hand sought his with that refuge-seeking instinct which cannot be statuted away from them.

He met her half-way. He raised her hands to his lips and his disengaged left sought his waistcoat pocket where the ring was.

"She is in the drawing-room, sir, with Mr. Rutgers," came in faithful Frederick's warning voice, raised above the menial's pitch.

"What!" they heard Mr. Goodchild ejaculate. Then the titular owner of the house entered.

H. R. politely bowed.

"How do you do?" he said, easily. "You are a trifle inopportune. Grace and I were talking over our plans."

Mr. Goodchild turned purple and advanced. Grace rose hastily. H. R. meditatively doubled up his right arm, moved his clenched fist up and down, felt his biceps with his left hand, and smiled contentedly.

Mr. Goodchild remembered his manners and his years at one and the same time. With his second calm thought he remembered the reporters. He gulped twice and when he spoke it was only a trifle huskily:

"Mr. Rutgers, I have no desire to make a scene in my own house."

H. R. pleasantly pointed to a fauteuil.

"I must ask you--"

"Sit down and we'll talk it over quietly. You will find," H. R. assured him, earnestly, "that I am not unreasonable. Have a seat."

Mr. Goodchild sat down.

H. R. turned to Grace and with one lightning wink managed to convey that everybody obeyed him--excepting one, whose wish was a Federal statute to him.

She looked with a new interest at her father. It was, she realized, the eternal conflict between youth and age. Love the prize! _Gratia victrix!_

"I--I--am willing to admit"--Mr. Goodchild nearly choked as the unusual words came from his larynx--"that you have shown--er--great cleverness in your--er--career. But I must say to you--in a kindly way, Mr. Rutgers, in a kindly way, believe me!--that I do not care to have this--er--farce prolonged. If you are after--if there is any reasonable financial consideration that will--er--induce you to desist--I--you--"

"You have relapsed," interrupted H. R., amiably, "into the language of a bank president. Suppose you now talk like a millionaire." It was not really a request, but a command.

Mr. George G. Goodchild obeyed.

"How much?" he said.

Grace looked as she felt--shocked. She had not fully regained her normal composure. But this was a man who had kissed her. Was he to be bought off with money? The shame of it overwhelmed her. She listened almost painfully to H. R.'s reply.

"I am now," H. R. impassively said to Mr. Goodchild, "waiting for you to talk like a father."

Mr. Goodchild stared at him blankly.

"Like a father; like a human being," explained H. R. "Grace is no bundle of canceled checks or a lost stock certificate. She is your daughter."

"Well?"

"Excuse me; I mean she is your own flesh and blood--the best of your flesh and blood, at that. Your wishes cannot be considered where her happiness is at stake. Therefore what you think best is merely your personal opinion and hence of interest to yourself and to nobody else."

Mr. Goodchild quickly opened his mouth, but before the sound could come H. R. went on, hurriedly, "Suppose you had set your heart upon her becoming a mathematician. Would that make her one?"

"Never!" instantly declared the non-mathematical Grace.

Mr. Goodchild shook his head violently and again opened his mouth. But H. R. once more surpassed him in speed and pursued, calmly argumentative:

"Or suppose you did not believe in vaccination. Is your opinion to be allowed to prevail against the advice of your competent family physician until Grace gets the disease and you are forced to acknowledge that you were wrong? Or would even the sight of the most beautiful face in the world pitted and pockmarked fail to shake your own faith in your own infallibility?"

Grace shuddered. "_Father!_" she exclaimed, horror-stricken, and glared at Mr. Goodchild. She was now thinking of paternal opposition in terms of smallpox.

"But--" angrily expostulated Mr. Goodchild.

"Exactly," agreed H. R., hastily. "That's it. Now for a favor. Will you let me talk business with you? _My_ business!"

Mr. Goodchild's business was to know all about the business of others. But he did not take it home with him. However, before he could do more than shake his head, H. R. went on:

"I am organizing six companies."

That sounded like good business. But Mr. Goodchild nodded non-committally from force of habit.

"The S. A. S. A. Imperial Sandwich Board Corporation. Capital stock, one million, of which forty per cent. goes to the public for cash, forty per cent. given to me--"

"Forty?" irrepressibly objected Mr. Goodchild.

"Forty," repeated H. R., firmly. "I am no hog. I get what my ideas, designs, and patents are worth at a fair valuation. And twenty per cent. goes to the S. A. S. A."

"Why?" came from Mr. Goodchild before he could realize that he was speaking bankerwise.

"Because the S. A. S. A. will insist upon the company's boards being used by all our customers. And besides, as head of the S. A. S. A., I vote that twenty per cent. I thus control sixty per cent. and--"

Mr. Goodchild brightened up, but remembered himself and said, very coldly:

"Go on."

"We shall manufacture sandwiches of all kinds, at from one dollar to ten thousand dollars and upward, and--"

"Dreadful word! Loathe it!"

"--The S. A. S. A. Memento Mori Manufacturing Company to manufacture and sell the statuettes of the Ultimate Sandwich. Same capitalization. Same holdings. You see, I have sold my ideas, designs, and patents so that later on nobody can say my companies were overcapitalized. There are also the Rapid Restaurant Service Appliance Company, and four others. Same capitalization; same holdings. The money is all raised. And let me say," finished H. R., sternly accusing, "that the people who furnish the cash and buy the stock get _something_ for their money."

"That's all very well," began Mr. Goodchild, contemptuously, "but--"

"Exactly," said H. R. "I propose to transfer all our accounts to your bank. You know you said you'd like to have mine when I became famous."

"I know nothing about your companies, and care less. But I want to tell you right now--"

"What interest are you going to allow us on our balances?" cut in H. R.

"No interest!" said Mr. Goodchild in a voice that really meant "No Grace!"

H. R. turned to his sweetheart and, desiring to forestall desertion, took her hand in his and said to her:

"Grace, this house is a very nice house. You have spent many happy hours here. But it is, after all, only a house. And New York is _New York_!"

And Philadelphia was _Philadelphia_!

Grace's hand remained in H. R.'s.

"You can't have her!" said Mr. Goodchild, furiously.

"Who can't have whom?" asked Mrs. Goodchild, entering the room.

H. R. released Grace's hand, approached Mrs. Goodchild, and, before she knew what he was going to do, threw his right arm about her and kissed her--a loud filial smack.

She quickly and instinctively put one hand up to her hair, for the strange young man had been a trifle effusive. But before she could transform her surprise into vocal sounds the stranger spoke, in a voice ringing with affectionate sincerity not too playful, you understand, but convincing, nevertheless:

"She inherits her good looks, her disposition, and her taste in dress from you. I saw it the first time I met you. Don't you remember? And I warn you now that if I can't marry Grace I'll kill that husband of yours and marry _you_!"

To prove it, he kissed her again, twice.

"How dare--" shouted Mr. Goodchild.

"I am not sure," said H. R. to Mrs. Goodchild, "that I want Grace now. Between thirty-two and forty a woman is at her best."

He patted her shoulder, as we paternally do with the young ones, and went back to Grace. It all had happened so quickly that only H. R. was calm.

"My dear!" said Mrs. Goodchild, looking helplessly at Grace.

"What is it, mother?" said H. R., appropriating the affectionate words. And as she did not answer he asked, generally. "What do you say to the eighth?"

"An eighth?" echoed Mr. Goodchild, almost amiably, thinking, of one-eighth of one per cent.

"Of June!" said H. R. "That gives you ample time for everything, Grace. And, remember, give the reporters the detailed list of the trousseau."

"There isn't going to be any marriage. And there isn't going to be any nauseating newspaper articles with pictures of intimate lingerie enough to make a decent man blush."

"A really decent man always blushes with shame when he does not give _carte blanche_ to his only daughter," said H. R. with great dignity.

"Mr.--er--Rogers," said Mrs. Goodchild.

"Rutgers," corrected her prospective son-in-law. "The 'g' is hard. It's Dutch, like Roosevelt, Van Rensselaer, and Cruger."

"But we don't know anything about your family," she said, very seriously.

"Do you know," asked H. R., pleasantly, "the Wittelbachs?"

"It's beer, isn't it?" she said. It might be the best brewing blood in Christendom, but still it wasn't Wall Street or real estate.

"Good shot!" exclaimed H. R., admiringly. "It is the patronymic of the reigning house of Bavaria. You know, Munich, where beer is the thing. And do you know the Bernadottes?"

"I've heard of them," replied Mrs. Goodchild, made wary by her non-recognition of a sovereign house.