CHAPTER VI

_The Monday Cotillons_

A few days ago I received under the tandem rampant a hurried summons from Mrs. Radigan. She was dying to see me, so I closed up my desk somewhat earlier than usual and turned my toes toward Billionville. I had never before seen her so beaming. She reminded me that Mrs. Tucker Ten Broeck had died some weeks ago. Well, she had been asked to take the vacant place among the patronesses of the Monday Cotillon. Now, I realized that society that is really worth knowing frowns on these subscription things, but considering that the previous generation of Radigans had probably waited at the Mondays, it seemed that the present generation was soaring when it danced there. Moreover, there are many thousands of simple, unassuming women in town who would give their heads to appear in that list of eminently respectable names. The Mondays looked down on the Tuesdays, and the Tuesdays looked blank and never heard of the Fridays, and as Mrs. Radigan had, in one wild leap, gone over the Fridays into the Mondays, there was indeed cause for congratulation. In a year or two, with her money, she can raise her eyebrows when the Mondays are mentioned, just as she does now when we speak of the Tuesdays or Fridays. She has had wonderful luck in skipping intermediate social degrees, and at the present rate she will soon take the thirty-third and become a grand commander. I could not understand how she worked it out so quickly.

Mrs. Radigan is inclined to regard the decease of Mrs. Ten Broeck as an intervention of Providence. It seems that on her demand Radigan--to use her own expression--has become "a patron of the church." He is now a vestryman at St. Edwards, a director of the Hydropathic Hospital, vice-president of the Improvident Pawning Society, and a heavy stockholder in the Underground Café Company. Mrs. Radigan is herself a manageress of the "Home for Aged but Respectable Unmarried Women." With Radigan passing the plate every Sunday with Major Plaster, and Mrs. Radigan constantly telephoning to Mrs. Plumstone Smith about the home, it just had to come.

After all, it is the brains that rise like cream in the social crock. There are plenty of people in this town with just as much money as the Radigans, but, struggle though they may, they will stay down. They swim dog-fashion, then drown. Their palaces rise on Riverside Drive, and even Harlem knows their countenances. But the Radigans have brains. They never seem to be swimming for dear life; they float up on their money. Now floating seemed so easy, so blissful. They were able to dispense with one of the Rollers Club fellows for the dinner before the dance and to put in his place young Plumstone Smith, which was a pleasant change for all, so we sat down at the table, besides the new fellow, the Radigans, Miss Constance Mint Wherry, Miss Veal, Miss Hope Van Rundoun, the other Rollers Club fellow and myself. And such a dinner! The Radigans never do things half-way. For each of the young women there was an enormous bunch of American Beauties, and as the men could not take flowers, Radigan loaded our cases with cigars that the gods might smoke. They did not churn us all up in a Fifth Avenue stage, as is the custom in some circles, but rolled us downtown, swiftly, gently, in their new electric carryall.

Mrs. Radigan had come to her own! You should have seen her as she stood in that august row of patronesses, right between Mrs. Plumstone Smith and Mrs. Stuyvesant Mint. They simply looked like the setting. She seemed to have been born and raised right in that spot, so natural did she appear. Mrs. Plumstone Smith let me tip up one of her gloved hands, and then recognized the existence of her son. Mrs. Radigan made a one-quarter bow at us and smiled vacantly, then turned and whispered to Mrs. Mint. But she thawed out later. I found her sitting behind the favor-counter, a part in a scene that called to my mind a street-bazaar in Cairo, though I did not suggest it to her as I led her forth into the mazes of the dance.

Mrs. Radigan hops. Mrs. Radigan loves dancing. Mrs. Radigan tells you to stop when you are tired--she can keep on forever. What an awful combination! The first time we hopped by that row of immaculately clad statuary known as the "stags" I recognized every face distinctly, and even saw the Rollers Club fellow wink at me. The second time around, young Plumstone Smith winked. At the third circuit two or three of the stags had their heads together and seemed to be looking our way and commenting. On the fourth, Tumbleton Wherry, who was leading the cotillon, stopped running around clapping his hands as if he were shooing chickens, and stood in the centre of the room just gazing our way. The last time I saw the stags they seemed to my distorted vision just a long band of black and white. I am positive that Mrs. Radigan, in the early ages of her existence--ages now remote--danced to the music of a hurdy-gurdy.

When the dizziness had gone, I was called to the business of the hour by Tumbleton Wherry, who dropped in my lap a corn-cob pipe tied with pink ribbon and hurried on. So I gathered my feet together, and by sliding madly across the room, managed to place it in the hands of Miss Veal before the Rollers Club fellow could claim her by the presentation of a gilt paper pin-wheel. Oh, but that girl can glide! Perhaps it was the sudden contrast with the hopping performance of Mrs. Radigan that made my new partner seem immaterial. I seemed to be clasping merely a bust, she moved so easily, and I found myself doubting if she had any feet at all, even going to the extent of kicking, gently, to satisfy myself. There was nothing there, she glided so airily. It is the Chicago way. I cannot say that I like it. It is uncanny. Still, it is, perhaps, preferable to the Boston style, which requires that the young woman stand erect like a soldier and move around as though she had castors on the soles of her shoes. But Miss Veal compensated for her over-gracefulness by not talking, which is a blessing, for nothing is so trying as to have to make remarks about this dance being better than some others when a mesh of pink trimmings is swishing around your feet.

Then she smiled! That smile went to many hearts, and when it was seen that I knew her I was besieged with demands to be presented. Consequently she had what society calls a good time, and when along toward morning the band struck up "Home, Sweet Home," she was hung over with favors till she looked like a Christmas-tree, and, besides I had to carry to the automobile for her a whole grab-bag full of corn-cob pipes and pin-wheels.

I walked home with the other Rollers Club fellow. He was very silent. It seems she danced just once around the room with him and then sailed off and sat in a quiet corner for a whole half-hour with young Plumstone Smith. The future is all clear now. From the Rollers Club fellow to Plumstone Smith, then a Williegilt, who will give place to a title and a real wedding with a riot.