Part 4

General Bent's dinners had a way of being ponderous--like himself. From soup to coffee the victuals were rich and highly seasoned, the wines full-bodied; his dishes were heavy, his silver-service massive, his furniture capacious. The impression of solidity was further enhanced by the thick oak paneling, the wide fireplace, and the sumptuous candelabra. Many, if not all, of these adjectives might readily be applied to his men-servants, who had been so long in his employ that the essentials of their surroundings had been seared into their souls. The Bent regime was their religion, the General its high priest, and their offices components of a ceremony which they observed with impressive dignity and sedate fervor.

As a rule, the personality of the General's guests did nothing to detract from the impression of opulence. They were the heavy men of affairs, the big men of clubdom, of business, of religion, of politics. Camilla had been warned of what she must expect, but it was with feelings of trepidation not far removed from awe that she and Jeff got down from their taxi under the glow of the porte-cochere before the wide portal of the great house in Madison Avenue. Her last admonition to her husband in the cab had been, "Jeff, don't shuffle your feet! And don't say 'ma'am.' And keep your hands out of your pockets! If you can't think of anything to say, don't say it."

Wray only laughed. He was very much at his ease, for he had convinced himself downtown that the doors of the Bent establishment would not have swung so wide had the General not found that Wray's holdings and influence in the West were matters which some day he would have to reckon with.

When they arrived they were pleased to discover that there were to be young people among the guests as well as old. Three stout, florid gentlemen, members of the directorate of the Amalgamated Reduction Company, whom Jeff had met downtown, with their wives, and Mr. and Mrs. Worthington Rumsen lent their share to the dignity the General required, but there was a leaven of a younger set in Gladys, his daughter (Mrs. Bent had died many years before), Cortland, his son, and some others. Most of the guests were already in the drawing room when the Wrays were announced. And Camilla entered a little uncertainly, her eyes sparkling, seeking her hostess. There was a subdued masculine murmur of approval, a raising of lorgnons to aged feminine noses, a general movement of appreciation.

Camilla was radiant. Cortland Bent came forward from his corner, slowly drinking in her loveliness with his eyes. She was gowned in white and wore no ornaments. The slenderness which all women ape was hers without asking. Her ruddy hair at the last moment had resisted the arts of the hair-dresser, and so she wore it as she had always done, in a heavy coil like a rope of flame. If she had been pale as she entered, the blood now flowed quickly--almost too quickly to be fashionable--suffusing her face and gently warming her splendid throat and shoulders.

"Am I late?" she asked. "I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me?"

"You're not late," said her hostess. "Awfully glad----"

"We're bountifully repaid," put in General Bent gallantly, as he came forward. "I'm sure you're quite worth waiting for. I've been telling New York for years it had better keep its eyes on the West. Now I must warn its women. How are you, Wray? You know Warrington--and Janney. Let me present you, Wray--the Baroness Charny."

Jeff felt himself appraised civilly.

"You are _the_ Mr. Wray?" she asked him. "The rich Mr. Wray?"

Jeff flushed with pleasure. Nothing ever tickled him more than a reference to his possessions.

"I'm Wray--from Colorado. And you--you know I've never seen a real live baroness before. So don't mind if I look at you a little. You see, we never have anybody like you out our way----"

"I don't mind in the least," she said with a slight accent. "What did you think a baroness ought to look like?"

"I had a kind of an idea she was stoutish, wore a crown, and sat in a big chair all day, ordering people around."

"I'm afraid you read fairy stories. I don't own a crown, and I might order people all day, but nobody would pay the least attention to me."

"What a pity," he said soberly.

His ingenuousness was refreshing.

"You know, Mr. Wray, baronesses aren't any more important nowadays than anybody else. The only barons worth while in the world are the Coal Barons, the Wheat Barons, the Gold Barons, like you." And then, "Did you know that you were to take me in? Are you glad?"

"Of course," with a vague attempt at gallantry. "I'd take you anywhere and be proud to."

"Then give me your arm," she laughed. And they followed the others in to dinner. Wray's other neighbor was Mrs. Rumsen, his host's sister. Camilla had related many tales of her social prowess, and she was really the only person at the table of whom Jeff stood the least in awe. Mrs. Rumsen's nose was aquiline like her brother's, her eyebrows high and slightly arched, her eyes small and rather close together, as though nature had intended them for a short but concentrated vision. She held her head very erect, and from her great height was enabled without pretence to look down on all lesser things. Cortland had described her as a grenadier, and, as Wray realized that the moment when he must talk to her was inevitably approaching, he lost some faith in his moods and tenses.

"Mr. Wray," she began, in a tone which was clearly to be heard the length of the table, "you have a handsome wife."

"Yes, ma'am," he drawled. "I'm glad you think so, Mrs. Rumsen."

"A woman with her looks and your money could have the world at her feet if she wished."

"Yes. I've told her the same thing. But I don't think she likes a fuss. Why, I sent up a whole carload of hats--all colors, with plumes and things, but she wouldn't have one of them."

The old lady's deep wrinkles relaxed.

"And diamonds----" he went on. "She's got half a peck, but I can't get her to put them on."

Mrs. Rumsen did not reply, only examined him with her small eyes through her lorgnon.

"You know, Mr. Wray, ever since you came into the room you have been a puzzle to me. Your features resemble those of some one I have known--years ago--some one I have known intimately--curious I can't----"

"Have you ever been West?"

"Oh, yes. Were your people----?"

"I have no people, Mrs. Rumsen," he said with a quick air of finality.

"Oh!" She still looked at him wonderingly. "I beg your pardon." Then she went on calmly, "You really interest me a great deal. I have seen Westerners in New York before--but you're different--I mean," she added, "the cut of your nose, the lines of your chin, the set of your head on your shoulders. I hope you'll forgive an old woman's curiosity."

Jeff bowed politely. "I'm very much flattered, Mrs. Rumsen."

"You and my brother have business interests in common?"

"Yes, I've a mine--a chain of mines and property interests, including a control of the Denver and Western Railroad."

She laid a hand impressively on his arm.

"Hold them. Take my advice and hold them. I know it is a great temptation to extend your control, to be a big man East and West. But don't try it by weakening what you have. Other men have come here to set the Hudson afire----"

"Some of them have done it, too, Mrs. Rumsen."

She shrugged. "What is the use? You have an empire of your own. Stay at home, develop it. Wouldn't you rather be first in Mantua than second in Rome?"

"I--I'm afraid I don't just take you?"

"I mean, wouldn't you rather be an emperor among your own people than fetch and carry--as so many others are doing--for Wall Street?"

"That's just the point. Only the boot is on the other leg. Wall Street needs the West. Wall Street doesn't think so. It's away behind the times. Those people downtown are so stuck on themselves that they think the whole country is stooping with its ear to the ground listening to what they're doing. Why, Mrs. Rumsen, there are men in the West--big men, too--who think Wall Street is a joke. Funny, isn't it? Wall Street doesn't seem to know that millions of acres of corn, of wheat, and potatoes keep growing just the same. Those things don't wait to hear what Wall Street thinks. Only God Almighty can make 'em stop growing. And as long as they grow, we don't bother much."

She smiled approvingly.

"Then why do you care?"

"Oh, I'm a kind of missionary. These people downtown are heathen critters. They're so ignorant about their own country it almost makes me ashamed to talk to them."

The last vestige of the grenadier aspect in Mrs. Rumsen had vanished, and her face dissolved in smiles.

"Heathens! They are," she laughed delightedly. "Critters--yes, critters, too. Splendid! Have you told Cornelius--my brother--that?"

Wray's truffle stuck in his throat and he gasped, "Good God, ma'am! No. You won't tell him, will you?"

"I'd like to," she chuckled. "But I won't."

Jeff laughed. "I'm afraid I've put my foot in it. I'm apt to. I'm rather a raw product----"

"Whatever you do, Mr. Wray, don't change. You're positively refreshing. Anybody can learn to be good form. It's as simple as a, b, c. If it wasn't easy there wouldn't be so many people practising it. The people in the shops even adopt our adjectives before they're well out of our mouths. Hats are 'smart,' when in earlier days they were simply 'becoming.' Gowns are 'fetching' or 'stunning' that were once merely 'pretty.' Let a fashionable Englishman wear a short coat with a high hat to the Horse Show, and every popinjay in town will be doing the same thing in a week. If you're a raw product, remain so by all means. Raw products are so much more appetizing than half-baked ones."

"I don't think there's any way to make me any different, Mrs. Rumsen," he laughed, "even if I wanted to be. People will have to take me as I am. Your brother has been kind. It seems as if he had a broader view of our people than most of the others."

"Don't be too sure. They're all tarred with the same stick. It's a maxim of mine never to put my trust in any person or thing below Twenty-third Street. The farther downtown you go, the deeper the villainy. You'll find all New Yorkers much the same. Out of business hours they are persons of the most exemplary habits, good fathers, vestrymen in churches, excellent hosts. In business----" she held up her hands in mock horror.

"Oh, I know," Wray chuckled. "But I'm not afraid. I'm something of a wolf myself. Your brother needs me more than I need him. I think we'll get along."

"You have everything you want. Take my advice and keep your money in the West."

"Thanks. But I like New York, and I don't want to be idle. Besides, there's Camilla--Mrs. Wray, you know."

"Yes, I see. I can't blame her. No woman with her looks wants to waste them on mountain scenery. I must know her better--and you. She must let me call on her. I'm giving a ball later. Do you think you could come?"

And the great lady turned to her dinner partner.

The Baroness, too, was amiable. It was her first visit to America. Her husband was an attache of an embassy in Washington. She had not yet been in the West. Were all the men big, as Mr. Wray was?

She had a charming faculty of injecting the personal note into her questions, and before he was aware of it Wray found himself well launched in a description of his country--the mountains, the plains, the cowboys.

She had never heard of cowboys. What were they? Little cows?

Jeff caught a warning look from Camilla across the table, which softened his laughter. He explained, and the Baroness joined in the merriment. Then he told her that he had been for years a cowpuncher down in Arizona and New Mexico before he went into business, described the "round-up," the grub wagon, and told her of a brush with some Yaqui Indians who were on the warpath. When he began, the other people stopped talking and listened. Jeff was in his element and without embarrassment finished his story amid plaudits. Camilla, listening timidly, was forced to admit that his domination of the table was complete. The conversation became general, a thing which rarely happened at the Bent dinners, and Jeff discovered himself the centre of attention. Almost unconsciously he found himself addressing most of his remarks to a lady opposite, who had listened and questioned with an unusual show of interest.

When the ices were passed he turned to Mrs. Rumsen and questioned.

"Haven't you met her?" And then, across the table, "Rita--you haven't met Mr. Wray--Mrs. Cheyne."

*CHAPTER VI*

*MRS. CHEYNE*

Over the coffee, curiously enough, there seemed to be a disposition to refrain from market quotations, for General Bent skilfully directed the conversation into other channels--motoring--aviation--the Horse Show--the newest pictures in the Metropolitan--and Jeff listened avidly, newly alive to the interests of these people, who, as Mrs. Rumsen had said, above Twenty-third Street took on a personality which was not to be confounded with the life downtown, where he had first met them. When Curtis Janney asked him if he rode, Jeff only laughed.

"Oh, yes, of course you do. One doesn't punch cattle for nothing. But jumping is different--and then there's the saddle----"

"Oh, I think I can stay on without going for the leather. Anyway, I'd like to try."

"Right-o!" said Janney heartily. "We've had one run already--a drag. Couldn't you and Mrs. Wray come out soon? We're having a few people for the hunt week after next. There will be Cortland Bent, Jack Perot, the Rumsens, the Billy Havilands, Mrs. Cheyne, the Baroness and--if you'll come along--yourselves."

"Delighted. I'm sure Camilla will be glad to accept. We haven't many engagements."

"I think you've hidden your wife long enough, Mr. Wray. Does she ride, too?"

"Like a breeze--astride. But she wouldn't know what to do on a side-saddle."

"I don't blame her. Some of our women ride across. Gladys, Gretchen, Mrs. Cheyne----"

"Well," Jeff silently raised his brandy glass in imitation of his companion, "I'm glad there are a few horses somewhere around here--I haven't seen any outside of the shafts of a hansom since I left the West."

"The horse would soon be extinct if it wasn't for Curtis Janney," put in the General breezily. "Why, he won't even own a motor. No snorting devils for him. Might give his horses the pip or something. The stable is worth seeing, though. You're going, aren't you, Wray?"

In the library, later, Wray found Mrs. Cheyne. Until he had come to New York Wray's idea of a woman had never strayed from Camilla. There were other females in the Valley, and he had known some of them, but Camilla had made any comparison unfortunate. She was a being living in a sphere apart, with which mere clay had nothing in common. He had always thought of her as he thought of the rare plants in Jim Noakes' conservatory in Denver, flowers to be carefully nurtured and admired. Even marriage had made little difference in his point of view. It is curious that he thought of these things when he leaned over Mrs. Cheyne. To his casual eye this new acquaintance possessed many of the characteristics of his wife. Perhaps even more than Camilla she represented a mental life of which he knew nothing, contributed more than her share to the sublimated atmosphere in which he found himself moving. They might have been grown in the same conservatory, but, if Camilla was the Orchid, Mrs. Cheyne was the Poinsettia flower. And yet she was not beautiful as Camilla was. Her features, taken one at a time, were singularly imperfect. He was almost ready to admit that she wasn't even strikingly pretty. But as he looked at her he realized for the first time in his life the curious fact that a woman need not be beautiful to be attractive. He saw that she was colorful and unusually shapely, and that she gave forth a flow of magnetism which her air of _ennui_ made every effort to deny. Her eyes, like her hair, were brown, but the pupils, when she lifted her lids high enough to show them, were so large that they seemed much darker. Her dinner dress, cut straight across her shoulders, was of black, like the jewelled bandeau in her hair and the pearls which depended from her ears. These ornaments, together with the peculiar dressing of her hair, gave her well-formed head an effect which, if done in brighter hues, might have been barbaric, but which, in the subdued tones of her color scheme, only added to the impression of sombre distinction.

As he approached, she looked up at him sleepily.

"I thought you were never coming," she said.

"Did you?" said Wray, bewildered. "I--I came as soon as I could, Mrs. Cheyne. We had our cigars----"

"Oh, I know. Men have always been selfish--they always will be selfish. Cousin Cornelius is provincial to herd the men and women--like sheep--the ones in one pen, the others in another. There isn't a salon in Europe--a real salon--where the women may not smoke if they like."

"You want to smoke----"

"I'm famished--but the General doesn't approve----"

Wray had taken out his cigarette case. "Couldn't we find a spot?"

She rose and led the way through a short corridor to the conservatory, where they found a stone bench under a palm.

He offered her his case, and she lit the cigarette daintily, holding it by the very tips of her fingers, and steadying her hand against his own as Wray would have done with a man's. Wray did not speak. He watched her amusedly, aware of the extraordinary interest with which she invested his pet vice.

"Thanks," she said gratefully. Turning toward him then, she lowered her chin, opened her eyes, and looked straight into his.

"You know, you didn't come to me nearly as soon as I thought you would."

"I--I didn't know----"

"You should have known."

"Why should I----?"

"Because I wanted you to."

"I'm glad you wanted me. I think I'd have come anyway."

She smiled approvingly.

"Then my efforts were unnecessary."

"Your efforts?"

"Yes, I willed it. You interested me, you see."

He looked at her quickly. Her eyes only closed sleepily, then opened again.

"I'm lucky," he said, "that's sure."

"How do you know? I may not be at all the kind of person you think I am."

"I'll take a chance on that--but I wish you'd tell me what made you want me."

"I was bored. I usually am. The Bent parties are so formal and tiresome. Everybody always says the same things--does the same things." She sighed deeply. "If Cousin Cornelius saw me now I'd be in disgrace. I wonder why I always like to do the things people don't expect me to."

"You wouldn't be much of a woman if you didn't," he laughed. "But I like surprises. There wouldn't be much in life if you knew what was going to happen every minute."

"You didn't think I was going to happen then?"

"Er--no. Maybe I hoped so."

"Well," she smiled, "I have happened. What are you going to do about it?"

"Be thankful--mostly. You seem sort of human, somehow. You do what you want to--say what you want----"

"And if I don't get what I want, ask for it," she laughed. "I told Gladys it was very inconsiderate of her not to send you in to dinner with me. She's always doing that sort of thing. Gladys lacks a sense of proportion. As it is, the evening is almost gone, and we've only begun."

"I feel as if I'd known you for years," said Jeff heartily. "That's funny, too," he added, "because you're so different from any other woman I've ever known. You look as if you might have come from a book--but you speak out like Mesa City."

"Tell me about Mesa City. You know I was out West last year."

"Were you? Sure?" eagerly. "In Colorado?"

"Oh, yes," she said slowly, "but I was living in Nevada."

"Nevada? That was my old stamping ground. I punched for the Bar Circle down there. What part?"

"Reno."

"Oh!"

"I went there for my divorce."

His voice fell a note. "I didn't know that. I'm awfully sorry you were so unfortunate. Won't you tell me about it?"

"There's nothing to tell. Cheyne and I were incompatible--at least that's what the lawyers said. As such things go, I thought we got along beautifully. We weren't in the least incompatible so long as Cheyne went his way and let me go mine. It's so easy for married people to manage, if they only knew how. But Cheyne didn't. He didn't want to be with me himself--and he didn't want any one else to be. So things came to a pretty pass. It actually got so bad that when people wanted either of us to dinner they had to write first to inquire which of us was to stay away. It made a lot of trouble, and the Cheyne family got to be a bore--so we decided to break it up."

"Was he unkind to you--cruel?"

"Oh, dear, no! I wish he had been. Our life was one dreadful round of cheerful monotony. I got so tired of the shape of his ears that I could have screamed. Yes, I really think," she mused, "that it was his ears."

Wray examined her with his baby-like stare as though she had been a specimen of ore. There seemed to be no doubt of the fact that she was quite serious.

"I'm really sorry for him. It is--very sad----"

She threw her head back and laughed softly.

"My dear Mr. Wray, your sympathy is touching--he would appreciate it as much as I do--if he had not already married again."

"Married? Here in New York?"

"Oh, yes. They're living within a stone's throw of my house."

"Do you see him?"

"Of course. I dined with them only last week. You see," and she leaned toward him with an air of new confidences, "that's only human. I can't really give up anything I've once possessed. You know, I try not to sell horses that I've liked. I did sell one once, and he turned up one morning in a hired brougham. That taught me a lesson I've never forgotten. Now when they outlive their usefulness I turn them out on my farm in Westchester. Of course, I couldn't do that to Harold, but I did the next best thing. I've satisfied myself that he's properly looked after--and I'm sure he'll reflect credit on his early training."

"And he's happy?"

"Blissfully so. It wouldn't be possible for a man to have the advantages of a training like the one I have given him and not be able to make a woman happy."

"But he didn't make _you_ happy."

"Me? Oh, I wasn't made for bondage of any kind. Most women marry because they're bored or because they're curious. In either case they pay a penalty. Marriage provides no panacea. One only becomes more bored--with one's own husband--or more curious about other people's husbands."

"Are you curious? You don't look as if you cared enough to be curious."

"I do care." She held her cigarette at arm's length and flicked off its ash with her little finger. "Mr. Wray, I'll let you into a secret. A woman never appears so bored as when she is intensely interested in something--never so much interested as when she is bored to extinction. I am curious. I am trying to learn (without asking you impertinent questions) how on earth you and Mrs. Wray ever happened to marry."

She tilted her chin impudently and looked down her nose at him, her eyes masked by her dark lashes, through which it hardly seemed possible that she could see him at all. Jeff laughed. She had her nerve with her, he thought, but her frankness was amusing. He liked the way she went after what she wanted.

"Oh, Camilla--I don't know. It just happened, I guess. She's more your kind than mine. I'm a good deal of a scrub, Mrs. Cheyne. You see, I never went to college--or even to high school. Camilla knows a lot. She used to teach, but I reckon she's about given up the idea of trying to teach _me_. I'm a low-brow all right. I never read a novel in my life."