Chapter 6

Having accepted another invitation for the evening, Millard took his leave soon after ten o'clock, proposing to come at a later time to help Mrs. Hilbrough--"and Miss Callender, I hope," he added with a bow to Phillida--to make up the list. Having but two blocks to go, he declined, in favor of Miss Callender, the Hilbrough carriage, which stood ready at the door.

The close carriage, with only Phillida for occupant, rattled down Fifth Avenue to Madison Square, and along Broadway to Union Square, then over eastward by Fourteenth street, until after a turn or two it waked the echoes rudely in a quiet cross street, stopping at length before a three-story house somewhat antique and a little broader than its neighbors. Phillida closed and bolted the outer doors, and then opened one of the inner ones with a night-key, and made her way to what had been the back parlor of the house. In that densification of population which proceeds so incessantly on Manhattan Island this old house, like many another, was modernly compelled to hold more people than it had been meant for in the halcyon days when Second Avenue was a fashionable thoroughfare. The second floor of the house had been let, without board, to a gentleman and his wife, and the rooms above to single gentlemen. The parlor floor and the basement were made to accommodate the mother and her two daughters with their single servant. The simple, old back parlor, with no division but a screen, had two beds for mother and daughters, while the well-lighted extension made them a sitting room in pleasant weather. Mrs. Callender clung to one luxury persistently--there was always a grate fire in the back parlor on cold evenings.

To this back parlor came Phillida with a disagreeable sense that Mrs. Hilbrough's retreating carriage was rousing the quiet neighborhood as the sleepy and impatient coachman banged his way over the pavement, the hummocky irregularities of which saved this thoroughfare from all traffic that could avoid it; for only the drivers of reckless butcher carts, and one or two shouting milkmen, habitually braved its perils.

Phillida, as she approached the old-fashioned mahogany door of the back parlor, in the dim light shed by the half-turned-down gas jet at the other end of the hall, raised her hand to the knob; but it eluded her, for the door was opened from within by some one who stood behind it. Then the head of a girl of seventeen with long, loose blond tresses peered around the edge of the door as Phillida entered.

"Come in, Philly, and tell us all about it," was the greeting she got from her sister, clad in a red wrapper covering her night-dress, and shod with worsted bedroom slippers. "Mama wanted me to go to bed; but I knew you'd have something interesting to tell about the Hilbroughs, and so I stuck it out and kept mama company while she did the mending. Come now, Philly, tell me everything all at once."

The mother sat by the drop-light mending a stocking, and she looked up at Phillida with a gentle, brightening expression of pleasure--that silent welcome of affection for which the daughters always looked on entering.

"What, mama, not in bed yet?" exclaimed Phillida, as she laid off her outer garments, and proceeded to bend over and kiss her mother, trying to take away her work at the same time. "Come now, you ought to be in bed; and, besides, this old stocking of mine is darned all over already, and ought to be thrown away."

"Ah, Phillida," said her mother with a sweet, entreating voice, holding fast to the stocking all the time, "if it gives me pleasure let me do it. If I like to save old things I'm sure it's no harm."

"But you ought to have been in bed at nine o'clock," said Phillida, her hold on the stocking weakening perceptibly under the spell of her mother's irresistible entreaty.

"It will take but a minute more if you will let me alone," was all the mother said as Phillida released the work, and the elaborate darning went on.

"There's a good deal more darn than stocking to that now," said the younger sister. "It's a work of genius. I'll tell you, Phillida: we'll take it to the picture framer's to-morrow and have it put under glass, and then we'll get a prize for it as a specimen of fancy work at the American Institute Fair. But now tell me, what did you have for dinner? How many courses were there? Was there anybody else there? What sort of china have they got? Do they keep a butler? How does Mr. Hilbrough take to the new fixings? And, oh, say! are they going to give any parties? And--"

"Give me a chance, Frisky, and I'll answer you," said Phillida, who began at the beginning and told all that she could think of, even to describing the doilies and finger-bowls.

"You said there was a gentleman there. Who was he?" said Agatha, the younger.

"That Mr. Millard that Cousin Phil is so fond of. He is at Aunt Harriet's often on Sunday evenings. He's a good looking young man, dressed with the greatest neatness, and is very polite to everybody in an easy way."

"Did he talk with you?"

"Not at first. He paid as much attention to Mrs. Hilbrough as he could have paid to a queen; treating her with a great deal of deference. You could see that she was pleased. Just think, he asked me if I liked Wagner's music."

"How did you get out of it?"

"I didn't get out of it at all. I just told him I had never heard anything of Wagner's. But when he found that I was Mrs. Gouverneur's niece it made things all right with him, and he made as handsome a speech about my great-grandfather and all the rest as Aunt Harriet could have done herself."

"Wasn't Mrs. Hilbrough surprised to hear that you were somebody?"

"I don't know."

"Well, don't you think she was?"

"May be so."

"Didn't she seem pleased?"

"I think she was relieved, for my confession that I hadn't heard many operas bothered her."

"You said Mr. Millard was polite. How was he polite?"

"He made you feel that he liked you, and admired you; I can't tell you how. He didn't say a single flattering word to me, but when he promised to meet Mrs. Hilbrough again, to arrange about the people she is to have at the reception, he bowed to me and said, 'And Miss Callender, I hope.'"

"I'll tell you what, Phillida, I'll bet he took a fancy to you."

"Nonsense, Agatha Callender; don't talk such stuff. He's been for years in society, and knows all the fine people in New York."

"Nonsense, yourself, Phillida; you're better than any of the fine ladies in New York. Mr. Millard isn't good enough for you. But I just know he was taken with you."

"Do you think I'm going to have my head turned by bows and fine speeches that have been made to five hundred other women?"

"There never was any other woman in New York as fine as you, Phillida."

"Not among your acquaintance, and in your opinion, my dear, seeing you hardly know any other young woman but me."

"I know more than you think I do. If you had any common sense, Phillida, you'd make the most of Aunt Harriet, and marry some man that would furnish you with a horse and a carriage of your own. But you won't. You're just a goosey. You spend your time on the urchins down in Mackerelville. The consequence is you'll never get married, and I shall have you on my hands an old maid who never improved her opportunities."

"What stuff!" laughed Phillida.

"You've got a fine figure--a splendid figure," proceeded the younger, "and a face that is sweet and charming, if I do say it. It's a dreadful waste of woman. You wrap your talent in a Sunday-school lesson-paper and bury it down in Mackerelville."

At this point Mrs. Callender put away her elaborate hand-finished stocking, saying softly:

"Agatha, why do you tease Phillida so?"

"Because she's such a goose," said the younger sister, stubbornly.

Twenty minutes later Agatha, looking from her bedside in the dark corner of the room, saw her sister kneeling by a chair near the fireside. The sight of Phillida at prayer always awed her. Agatha herself was accustomed to say, before jumping into bed, a conventional little prayer, very inclusive as to subjects embraced, and very thin in texture, but Phillida's prayers were different. Agatha regarded the form of her sister, well developed and yet delicately graceful, now more graceful than ever as she knelt in her long night-dress, her two hands folded naturally the one across the other, and her head bowed. As she arranged the bed, Agatha followed mentally what she imagined to be the tenor of the prayer--she fancied that Phillida was praying to be saved from vanity and worldliness; she knew that each of the little urchins in the mission Sunday-school class was prayed for by name. She turned away a moment, and then caught sight of Phillida as she unclasped her hands and rested them on the chair. Agatha knew that when Phillida changed her position at the close of her prayer it was to recite, as she always did, the "Now I lay me," which was associated in her mind, as in Agatha's, with an oriental environment, a swarthy nurse in waist-cloth and shoulder scarf, and, more than all, was linked with her earliest memories of the revered father at whose knees the children were accustomed to repeat it. When Phillida rose to her feet in that state of exaltation which prayer brings to one who has a natural genius for devotion, the now penitent and awe-stricken Agatha went to her sister, put her arms about her neck, and leaned her head upon her shoulder, saying softly:

"You dear, good Phillida!"

VII.

THE LION SOIREE.

Notwithstanding the romancing of her sister, Phillida built no castles. Millard's politeness to her had been very agreeable, but she knew that it was only politeness. Almost every man's and every woman's imagination is combustible on one side or another. Many young women are set a-dreaming by any hint of love or marriage. But Phillida had read only sober books--knowing little of romances, there was no stock of incendiary material in her memory. Her fancy was easily touched off on the side of her religious hopes; all her education had intensified the natural inflammability of her religious emotions, but in affairs of this world she was by nature and education unusually self-contained for a woman of one and twenty.

Millard, on his part, had been exposed to the charms of many women, and his special interest in Phillida amounted only to a lively curiosity. Always susceptible to the charm of a woman's presence, this susceptibility had been acted on from so many sides as to make his interest in women superficial and volatile. The man who is too much interested in women to be specially interested in a woman is pretty sure not to marry at all, or to marry late.

Baron Pohlsen arrived, and was duly installed at Mrs. Hilbrough's. He was greatly pleased with the hospitality shown him by this wealthy household, and fancied that Americans were the most generous of peoples. Millard, as in duty bound, took pains to introduce him in many desirable quarters, and showed him the lions of the city in Hilbrough's carriage. But in spite of Millard's care to relieve him, Hilbrough afterward confessed that the panic of 1873 had not taxed his patience and cheerfulness so deeply as this entertainment for two weeks of a great German antiquary. Dutifully the banker attended a session of the Geographical Society to listen to an address made by his guest in broken English, on the ancient importance of Uxmal and Palenque. Hilbrough also heard with attentive perplexity the Baron's account before the Historical Society of the Aztec Calendar Stone, and his theory of its real purpose.

When the American banker was left alone with the learned High Dutchman, it became very serious business. Von Pohlsen, with all his erudition, was extremely ignorant of the art of banking as practised in New York. He did not know, at least in English, the difference between collateral and real estate security, and "gilt-edged" paper was more foreign than papyrus to him. Nor could Hilbrough interest him much in the remarkable rise in Brooklyn real estate since 1860. Brooklyn was too new by a millennium for the Baron to care for it. Hilbrough tried the plan of shunting the antiquary to his main lines of American hieroglyphs, aboriginal architecture, and Pueblo domestic economy. But this only shifted the difficulty, for under the steady downpour of Pohlsen's erudition, Hilbrough had continually to change position, now putting the right knee over the left and now placing the left atop, to keep from nodding, and he was even reduced to pinching himself, sometimes, in order to keep awake, just as the learned and ingenious Baron had got his pyramid of inference ready to balance on its rather slender apex of fact. Archaeology was new to Hilbrough, and deductive profits so large from inductive investments so small always seemed to the financier to indicate bad security.

Mrs. Hilbrough, clever woman, appeared to understand it all. She had crammed on a copy of Stephens's "Travels in Yucatan" that had belonged to her father, and she gave Pohlsen no end of pleasure by asking him about such things as the four-headed altars before the great idols at Copan, and the nature of the great closed house at Labphak. If you will look in Pohlsen's book of travels in America (Reise durch Amerika: Leipzig, 1888) you will discover in his chapter on New York that in this metropolis the ladies take a remarkable interest in science, and are generally better informed regarding such matters than their husbands, these latter being deeply immersed in mere dollar-hunting.

But Mrs. Hilbrough was much more interested in her reception to be given in honor of Baron Pohlsen than she was in the four-headed altars of the remoter Aztecs. If she could not fill her house with those very richest and most exclusive people who in a plutocratic society always try to think themselves for some reason or other the best people, she found that under Millard's guidance she could succeed in getting some people of wealth and distinction who were desirous of being presented to a baron, and, what was better, she could get a considerable number from that class of lettered men and their families and the admirers of literature, art, and learning, who, together, form the really best people in every metropolis. Most of these knew little of Pohlsen's researches, and cared less for his title, but since he was vouched for as a foreigner who had acquired distinction in his department of knowledge, they were ready to do him honor with that generous hospitality for which Americans blame themselves while they practise it; as though it were not better for us to be good-hearted, remembering that in the studious preservation of national dignity and social perpendicularity we can never hope to emulate our English cousins.

How was it all arranged? How, without violating the sanctities of etiquette, did Mrs. Hilbrough contrive to invite people whom she did not know, and how did they accept with no sacrifice of dignity? Millard was an expert adviser; he knew that just as counters are made to stand for money in a game of cards, so do little oblong bits of pastebord with the sender's name upon them pass current under certain conditions as substitutes for visits, acquaintance, esteem, and friendship. By a juggle with these social chips Mrs. Hilbrough became technically, and temporarily, acquainted with a great many people, and that without much sacrifice of time. Do not expect details here; your fashionable stationer is the best reliance in such a case, unless you chance to know Mr. Millard, or can find the law laid down in Mrs. Sherwood's tactfully vague chapters, which, like the utterances of the Delphic oracle, are sure to hit the mark one way or the other.

Now that Millard had taken Mrs. Hilbrough for a client he could not bear to be balked. The attendance of Mrs. Gouverneur he considered of the first importance, but this was not easily secured. If anything could have persuaded that lady to sacrifice her principles as an exclusive so far as to attend, it would have been her dislike of refusing Phillida; but as it was, she made excuses without positively refusing. In telling Mrs. Hilbrough of her lack of success Phillida took pains to repeat Mrs. Gouverneur's pretexts, and not to betray what she knew to be her aunt's real reason for hesitation. Millard encountered Mrs. Hilbrough at the opera, and heard from her of the failure of Phillida's endeavors. He felt himself put on his mettle.

Knowing that the next day was Mrs. Gouverneur's day for receiving, he made himself her first caller before the rest began to arrive. Looking from the old-fashioned windows of Mrs. Gouverneur's front parlor, he praised the beauty of the winter scene, and admired especially the spotted boles of the great buttonwoods in Washington Square. He thought to make his call seem less on purpose by such commonplace civilities, but Mrs. Gouverneur, who was a soft-spoken lady of much cleverness, with a talent for diplomacy inherited from her grandfather, asked herself, while she replied in the same vein to Millard's preliminary vapidities, what on earth so formal a call and such a waste of adroitness might lead up to. But Millard, even after this preparation, provided an inclined plane for approaching his proposition.

"I had the pleasure of meeting a niece of yours the other evening, a Miss Callender," he said. "I found her very agreeable."

"Oh! You met Phillida Callender at Mrs. Hilbrough's, probably," said Mrs. Gouverneur with a flush of pleasure. "She's as good as goodness itself, and very clever. But rather peculiar also. She has a great deal of Callender in her. Her father gave up good prospects in this country to preach in Siam. He might have had the pastorate of one of the best Presbyterian churches in New York, but nothing could dissuade him from what he fancied to be his duty. It only proves what I have always said, that 'blood will tell.' It is related in some of the old books that Philip has upstairs that one of the women of the Callender family, before the Revolution, felt it her duty to go through the streets of Newport, crying, 'Repent, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' She was a refined and delicate lady, and the people of the town felt so much chagrin to see her expose herself to mortification in the public street that they shut up their windows or turned away, which I think was very nice of them. I fancy that Phillida, with all her superior intelligence, has a good deal of this great-great-aunt of her father's in her. I was talking to her once about this story of Mary Callender's preaching in the streets, and she really seemed to take more interest in that Quaker lady's delusion than she did in her ancestors on our side; and you know, Mr. Millard, we think a good deal of our descent, though of course we never say anything about it."

It was inevitable that a courteous man like Millard should meet this speech by saying, "When one has ancestors whose position is not one of mere social prominence but whose acts are a part of the history of a nation, it must be hard to forget so important a fact." It was equally inevitable that even the wary Mrs. Gouverneur could not help appreciating flattery so apropos of the subject in hand.

"But I have a notion," Millard continued, "that if we could get Miss Callender to take an interest in society she would prove an ornament to it and a credit to her family."

Mrs. Gouverneur shook her head doubtfully. "I don't believe it can be done, though I should be glad if it could."

"Did she tell you that she is deeply interested in that reception to Baron Pohlsen next week?"

"Yes; she is attached to Mrs. Hilbrough. She makes friends without the least regard to social consequences, and I believe even has friendships among the people with whom she is only connected by her mission Sunday-school class. She stoutly maintained here last night that she knew a real lady living in three rooms with a husband and four children! I declare, I like Phillida all the better for this. Her impulses are very noble, but I can't help wishing she wouldn't do it. It doesn't do for one at her time of life to be too disinterested, you know."

This turn in the talk threw Millard off the track for a moment. The mention of people living narrowly brought to his mind his own early life in a farmhouse, and reminded him of his amiable but socially unpresentable aunt, whom he was wont faithfully to visit on one Sunday afternoon in every month. There was just a little cowardly feeling that should his relations with the family in Avenue C become known among his friends, his social position might become compromised. He did not know that all exclusive people in New York have unpresentable kinsfolk hidden away somewhere, and are ever trembling lest the fact should be known to some other family that is likewise doing its best to hide some never-get-on relatives.

Mrs. Gouverneur noticed Millard's heightened color, and feared her slighting allusion to Mrs. Hilbrough might have annoyed him. Before he could pull his wits together to reply to her last remark, she added, "I have no doubt your friend Mrs. Hilbrough is a very worthy person, Mr. Millard. But she is new in New York society."

"Indeed I can not call her my friend, Mrs. Gouverneur. Her husband is the real head of our bank at present; he is likely to be a very rich man in a few years, and he has obliged me in many ways. But I have only a few weeks' acquaintance with Mrs. Hilbrough, whose chief recommendation to me, I must confess, is that she is a friend of Miss Callender, who is your niece. But Mrs. Hilbrough seems to have many admirable qualities. She is sure to make herself recognized, and I do not see any advantage in delaying the recognition. For my part, I think she will do a great service at the outset if she adds so attractive and clever a young lady as Miss Callender to society."

"Now, Mr. Millard, you are playing a strong game against me," laughed Mrs. Gouverneur. "You know my dislike for new acquaintances--for enlarging my circle. But when you propose to persuade my niece to see a little more of the world you are taking advantage of my only weakness. You play a deep game."

"I'll show you my whole hand at once," said Millard, seeing that Mrs. Gouverneur's penetration had left him no resource but candor. "I very much desire to be Miss Callender's escort at Mrs. Hilbrough's reception, if she will accept me. Mrs. Callender, I fear, can not be persuaded to go."

"You want me for chaperon," interposed Mrs. Gouverneur. "What a clever scheme! How could you dare to set such a trap for an old friend?"

"It will prove a clever scheme if it succeeds. But it wasn't clever enough to deceive you."

"Well, you and Phillida together have won. Of course I can not refuse if Phillida consents."

"Thank you from my heart," said Millard, rising at hearing the door-bell ring. "I will see Miss Callender, and if she refuses me for escort you will be able to laugh at me. I'm sure I'm greatly your debtor."