CHAPTER VII

_Mrs. Radigan Captures Miss Bumpschus_

If Solomon had been living in these days he would have classed the doings of society folk with the ship on the sea, the snake on a rock, and the way of a man with a maid, the things that pass understanding. Why, for instance, should people who have a comfortable home of their own and money to buy their seats in a theatre, or, indeed, the theatre itself, like the Williegilts, wittingly accept an invitation from the Radigans for dinner and the play, and supper at Flurry's afterward? It meant six hours with that remarkable family, or one-quarter of a day, and when we consider that even the Williegilts' days are numbered, we begin to wonder if it can be true that of all the animals, man is the most intelligent. Stranger still, now that the Williegilts have placed on the broad brow of Mrs. Radigan the laurel wreath of social victory, there are in the town a thousand simple, unambitious souls who would give a year of their lives for six hours with a woman so conspicuous as my friend. The Radigans are in. The Radigans are smart. And by smartness we mean that highly intellectual state which requires yachts, horses, automobiles, dancing, and bridge to keep the mind occupied.

I was walking up the avenue the other afternoon when a brougham swerved into the curb, and a familiar voice hailed me and bade me get in, as she wanted to see me. There is no mistaking a Radigan carriage. They are always perfectly turned out, though I have suspected that the mistress would have three men on the box were there room. She makes up for this misfortune, however, by adopting the London wrinkle of having her footman sit with hands clasped and uplifted in an attitude of prayer; and as I had recognized one of my bandy-legged cynics of the Westbury days at his devotions as the equipage approached, I was prepared to be gathered in. Mrs. Radigan simply had to have me to dinner. Young Plumstone Smith had accepted and then backed out, pleading grippe, though she had seen him going to the Grand Central in a hansom. She must have me to fill in, and though I am accustomed to filling in, I doubt that even the astonishing fact that the Williegilts were coming would have enticed me, but then Miss Ethel Bumpschus was to be there, and I surrendered. I had seen the young woman's picture covering the half-page over the society notes in the Sunday paper, showing her with lustrous eyes and a furry thing around her neck, an Oriental beauty reduced to New York; and on the promise that I should take her in, I accepted. When I heard what was on the programme, dinner, the play, and supper, I asked Mrs. Radigan if we should bring trunks, and she said of course not.

But there were times that evening when it seemed to me that we were of one family, the Radigans, the Williegilts, all of us; that we had lived together all our lives and were to spend eternity in company. It began at seven o'clock, very informally, and when I entered the drawing-room the very last, prepared to besiege Miss Bumpschus, I had suddenly impressed on me a profound respect for the art of photography. She seemed to have aged since Sunday, and though she slipped her arm through mine and worked her way with me through a maze of chairs and tables to the dining-room, I felt that, after all, Mrs. Radigan had taken me in.

Miss Bumpschus is very smart. Besides, she is intellectual. The Bumpschuses have been prominent in New York society for fifty years; one of her cousins married the Duke of Nothingham, and she is herself rated at some ten millions. So, really, Mrs. Radigan was doing me a favor and giving me what she called an opportunity. Then if I wanted to rest my eyes I could gaze on the lovely Miss Veal across the table, smiling at Willie Lite, and saying, "Indeed." Miss Bumpschus, I found, was religious. To her the world was peopled with only two sets of people worth knowing--the very rich and the very poor. She would cut one of the Rollers Club fellows dead in the street, but she would, with her own hands, bake a cake for one of those dear old friends of hers at the Home for Aged Elevated Ticket-choppers. If she had not been born just what she was, the heiress to the great Bumpschus fortune, she would far rather have been a nurse than a person merely well-to-do. But she was an accomplished talker, and though I cannot remember a thing she said, she left none of those dreadful pauses. For this I was grateful, anyway, as I could not break in on Mrs. Williegilt's engrossing discussion of glanders and carbureters with Radigan, nor on Mrs. Radigan's sermon on carbureters and glanders to Bobbie Williegilt; nor could I turn from Willie Lite the smile of Miss Veal. Anyway, whatever I said and whatever she said, Mrs. Radigan whispered in my ear as we were going down the steps to the wagon that I had won Miss Bumpschus's heart, and that if I would complete the conquest I must send my old dress-clothes and top hats to the aged ticket-choppers.

Mrs. Radigan has not yet learned that when you give theatre-parties in New York you must spend a week visiting the plays quietly if you are going to have young girls in the party. Miss Bumpschus is not young, but she is still classed as a girl, and, moreover, as I have said, she is puritanical. Of Miss Veal there was no real cause for fear. She smokes. But Mrs. Radigan informed us that she had chosen this particular play because she knew by the name that it was something Miss Bumpschus and her little sister could see. Poor Mrs. Radigan! Poor Miss Bumpschus! Really it was all harmless enough, but the underlying theme was not a burned will nor a stolen necklace. The play was more for bald heads and switches, like most of our up-to-date dramatic exhibitions, so Miss Bumpschus quickly lapsed into unconsciousness behind her programme, and Miss Veal looked as though it was all a mystery to her.

"It's just my luck," Mrs. Radigan groaned to me. "Now had she been Constance Wherry I should not have cared, but Ethel Bumpschus will not speak to me again. A woman is foolish nowadays who takes a party to see anything but Shakespeare, Ibsen, or the wax-works."

Rare sense is Mrs. Radigan beginning to show! Gleams of high intelligence break through occasionally. But I fear she exaggerated the effect on her younger guests. We did have to arouse Miss Bumpschus from behind her programme when the curtain went down, and when Willie Lite asked her if she did not think it was awfully clever, she turned to me and asked me not to forget the old clothes for the ticket-choppers. But she braced up at supper, and under the protection of Radigan, he being a married man, and the enlivening influences of a few glasses of champagne, she lost all her color again and became very chipper. I, for the moment, took on the character of a horse-doctor, and entertained Mrs. Williegilt with my opinions of glanders, while Williegilt basked in the light of Miss Veal's smiles, and Willie Lite laid the wires to sell a heavy line of champagne to our hostess. Altogether the evening was a success, particularly as I read in my paper the next morning that "Mr. and Mrs. J. John Radigan entertained Mr. and Mrs. Bobbie Q. Williegilt and several other smart people at dinner, the play, and supper last evening."