Part 20

He began to understand her as he had never done before. Maisie had the closed mind. She was Honey's "orthodock," the type which accepts the limitations other people fix for it. He registered the thought, long forming in his mind subconsciously, that among American types the orthodock is the commonest. It was not true, as so often assumed, that the average American is keen to forge ahead and become something bigger than he is. That was one of the many self-flattering American ideals that had no relation to life. Mrs. Ansley's equality of opportunity was another. People passed these phrases on, and took for granted they were true, when in everyday practice they were false.

There could be no breaking forth into a larger life so long as the national spirit made for repression, suppression, restriction, and denial. Maisie was but one of the hundred and sixteen millions of Americans out of a possible hundred and seventeen on whom all the pressure of social, industrial, educational, and religious life had been brought to bear to keep her mind shut, her tastes puerile, and her impulses to expansion thwarted. With a great show of helping and blessing the less fortunate, American life, he was coming to believe, was organized to force them back, and beat them into subjection. The hundred and seventeenth million loved to believe that it wasn't so; it was not according to their consciences that it should be so; but the result could be seen in the hundred and sixteen million minds drilled to disability, as Maisie's was.

A young man not yet hardened to life's injustices, he saw himself rushing to Maisie's aid, to make the best of her. Experience would help her as it had helped him. The shriveled bud of her mind would unfold in warmth and sunshine. This would be in their future together. In the meantime he must clear the ground of the present by getting rid of pretence.

"There's one thing I want to tell you, Maisie, something I'm rather ashamed of."

The lapis lazuli eyes widened in a look of wonder. He might be going to tell her of another girl.

"You know, as I've just said, that when we got engaged I was only sixteen. I didn't know anything about anything. I thought I did, of course; but then all fellows of sixteen think that. I'd never had anyone to teach me, or show me the right hang of things. You saw for yourself how I lived with Honey; and before that, as you know, I'd been a State ward. Further back than that--but I can't talk about it yet. Some day when we're married, and know each other better--"

"I'm not asking you. I don't care."

"No, I know you don't care, and that you're not asking me; but I want you to understand how it was that I was so ignorant, so much more ignorant than I suppose any other fellow would have been. When I went out to buy that ring you've got on--"

He knew by the horror in her face that she divined what he had to tell her. He knew too that she had already been afraid of it.

"You're not going to say that it isn't a real diamond?"

To nerve himself he had to look at her steadily. Confessing a murder would have been easier.

"No, Maisie, it isn't a real diamond. At the time I bought it I didn't know what a real diamond was. I'm not sure that I know now--"

He stopped because, without taking her eyes from his, she was slipping the ring from her finger. She was slipping, too, an illusion from her mind. He knew now that to be trifled with in love, to be betrayed in a great trust, would be small things to Maisie as compared to this kind of deception. Her wrath and contempt were the more scathing to behold because of her cherry-colored prettiness.

The ring lay on the table. Drawing in the second finger of her right hand, she made of it a spring against her thumb. She loosed the spring suddenly. The faked diamond sped across the table hitting against his hand. He picked it up, putting it out of sight in his waistcoat pocket. For a fellow of nineteen, eager to be something big, no lower depth of humiliation could ever be imagined.

Maisie stood up. "You cheap skate!"

He bowed his head as a criminal sometimes does when sentenced. He had no protest to make. A cheap skate was what he was. He sat there crushed. Skirting round him as if he were defiled, she went out into the little entry.

He was still sitting crushed when she came back. She did not pause. She merely flung his hat on the table as she went by. It was a cheap skate's hat, a brown soft felt, shapeless, weather-stained, three years out of style. With no further words, she opened the door into the adjoining room, passed through it, and closed it noiselessly behind her.

XXXIV

For probating Honey's will he asked leave to come and consult Mr. Ansley. An appointment was made for an evening when that gentleman was to be at home.

Tom, who had some gift for character, was beginning to understand him. Understanding him, it seemed to him that he understood all that old Boston which had once been a national institution, a force in the country's history, and now, like a man retired from business, sat resting on its hill.

Old Boston was more significant, however, than a man retired from business, in that it was to a great degree a man retired from the pushing of ideals. Generous once with the hot generosity of youth, keen to throw itself into the fight against wrongs, ready to be slaughtered in the van rather than compromise on principles, old Boston had now reached the age of mellowness. It had grown weary in well-doing. It had done enough. Contending with national evils had proved to be futile. National evils had grown too big, too many, too insurgent. Better make the best of life as your people mean to live it. Keep quiet; take it easy; save money; let the country gang its own gait. A big turbulent country, with no more respect for old Boston than for the prophet Jeremiah, it wallowed in prosperous vulgarity. Let it wallow! With solid investments in cotton and copper old Boston could save its own soul. It withdrew from its country; it withdrew from its state; it withdrew from its own city. Where its ancestors had made the laws and administered them, it became, like those proud old groups of Spaniards still to be found in California, a remnant of a former time, making no further stand against the invader. With a little art, a little literature, a little music, a little education, a little religion, a little mild beneficence, and a great deal of astute financial and professional ability, it could pass its time and keep its high-mindedness intact.

To Tom's summing up this was Philip Ansley. He was able, public-spirited, and generous; but he was disillusioned. The United States of his forefathers, of which he kept the ideal in his soul, had turned into such a hodgepodge of mankind, that he had neither hope nor sentiment with regard to it. In his heart he believed that its governments were in the hands of what he called a bunch of crooks. With congresses, state legislatures, and civic councils elected by what to him were hordes of ignoramuses, with laws dictated by cranks and fanatics, with the old-time liberties stampeded by the tyranny of majorities lacking a sense of responsibility, he deemed it prudent to follow the line of least resistance and give himself to making money. Apart from casting his vote for the Republican ticket on election days, he left city, state, and country to the demagogues and looters. He was sorry to do this, yet with the world as it was, he saw no help for it.

But he served as director on the boards of a good many companies; he was an Overseer of Harvard, a trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, the treasurer of several hospitals, a subscriber to every important philanthropic fund. His club was the Somerset; his church was Trinity. For old Boston these two facts when taken together placed him in that sacred shrine which in England consecrates dowager duchesses.

When Tom was shown up he found his host in the room where two years earlier they had talked over the place as chauffeur, but he was no longer awed by it. Neither was he awed by finding Ansley wearing a dinner-jacket simply because it was evening. The conventions and amenities of civilized life were becoming a matter of course to him.

"How d'ye do? Come in. Sit down. What's the weather like outside? Still pretty cold for April, isn't it?"

Though he offered his hand only from his armchair, where he sat reading the evening paper, he offered it. It was also a tribute to Tom's progress that he was asked to take a seat. A still further sign of his having reached a position remotely on a footing of equality with the Ansleys was an invitation to help himself from a silver box of cigarettes.

Having respectfully declined this honor, as Ansley himself was not smoking, he stated his errand. If Mr. Ansley would introduce him to some young inexpensive lawyer, who would tell him what to do in the probating of Honey's will....

The business was soon settled. In possession of Ansley's card with a scribbled line on it, Tom rose to take his leave. Ansley rose also, but moved toward the fireplace, where a few sticks were smoldering, as if he had something more to say.

"Wait a minute. Sit down again. Have a cigarette."

As Ansley himself lighted a cigar, Tom took a cigarette from the silver box, and leaned against the back of the big chair from which he had just risen. Once more he was struck by the resemblance between the shrewd close-lipped face, dropping into its meditative cast, and the lampshade just below it, parchment with a touch of rose, and an inner light. Ansley puffed for a minute or two pensively.

"You've no family, I believe. You haven't got the complications of a lot of relatives."

Tom was surprised by the new topic. "No, sir. I wish I had, but--"

"Oh, well, for a young fellow like you, bound to get on--" He dropped this line to take up another. "I'm thinking about Guy. Occurred to me the other day that while he'd been dragged about Europe a good many times he didn't know anything of his own country. Never been west of the Hudson."

Tom smoked and wondered.

"I've suggested to him to take his summer's vacation and wander about. Get the lay of the land. Could cover a good deal of ground in three months. Zigzag up and down--Niagara--Colorado--Chicago--Grand Canyon--California--Seattle--back if he liked by the Canadian Pacific. What would you think?"

"I think it would be great."

"Would you go with him?"

It seemed to Tom that his brain was spinning round. Not only was he too dazed to find words, but the question of money came first. How could he afford ...?

But Ansley went on again. "It's a choice between you and a tutor. My wife would like a tutor. Guy wants you. So do I. You'd have your traveling expenses, of course--do everything the same as Guy--and, let us say, five hundred dollars for your time. Would that suit you?"

He didn't know how to answer. Excitement, gratitude, and a sense of insufficiency churned together and choked him. It was only by spluttering and stammering that he could say at last:

"If--if Mrs. Ansley--d-doesn't w-want me--"

"Oh, she'd give in. Simply feels that Guy'd get more good out of it if he had some one to point out moral lessons as he went along. I don't. Two young fellows together, if they're at all the right kind, 'll do each other more good than all the law and the prophets."

"But would you mind telling me, sir, something of what you'd expect from me?"

"Oh, nothing! Just play round with him, and have a good time. You seem to chum up with him all right."

Tom was distressed. "Yes, sir, but if I'm to be--to be paid for chumming up with him I should have to--"

"Forget it. I want Guy to take the trip. It's not the kind of trip anyone wants to take alone, and you're the fellow he'd like to have with him. I'd like it too. You understand him."

He turned round to knock the ash from his cigar into the dying fire.

"Trouble with Guy is that he has no sense of values. Thing he needs to learn is what's worth while and what's not. I don't want you to teach him. I just want him to _see_. What do you say?"

Tom hung his head, not from humility but to think out a point that troubled him.

"You know, sir"--he looked up again--"that when Guy and I get together we talk about things that--well, that you mightn't like."

"I don't care a hang what you talk about."

"Yes, sir; but this is something particular."

"Well, then, keep it to yourself."

"I can't keep it to myself because--because some day you might think that I'd had a bad ... as long as we've just been chums ... and I wasn't paid--"

Ansley moved away from the fireplace, striding up and down in front of it.

"Look here, my boy! I know what young fellows are. I know you talk about things you wouldn't bring up before Mrs. Ansley and me. I don't care. It's what I expect. Do you both good. You're not specially vicious, either of you, and even if you were--"

"It's not a matter of morals, sir; it's one of opinions."

He dismissed this lightly. "Oh, opinions!"

"But this is a special kind of opinion. You see, sir, I've always been poor. I've lived among poor people. I've seen how much they have to go without. And I begin to see all that rich people have more than they need--more than they can ever use."

"Oh, quite so! I see! I see! And you both get a bit revolutionary. Go to it, boy! Fellows of your age who're not boiling over with rebellion against social conditions as they are'll never be worth their salt. Don't say anything about it before Mrs. Ansley, but between yourselves.... Why, when I was an undergraduate.... You'll live through it, though.... The poor people don't want any champions.... They don't want to be helped.... You get sick of it in the long run.... But while you're young boil away.... If that's all that bothers you...."

Tom explained that it was all that bothered him, and the bargain was struck. He had expressed his thanks, shaken hands, and reached the threshold on the way out when Ansley spoke again.

"Guy tells me that out at Cambridge they call you the Whitelaw Baby. I suppose you know all about yourself--your people--where you began--that sort of thing?"

He decided to be positive, laconic, to do what he could to squelch the idea in Ansley's mind.

"Yes, sir; I do."

"Then that settles that."

XXXV

Between the end of the college year and the departure on the journey westward there was to be an interval of three weeks. Mrs. Ansley had insisted on that. She was a mother. For eight or nine months she had seen almost nothing of her boy. Now if he was to be taken from her for the summer, and for another college year after that, she might as well not have a son at all.

Tom was considering where he should pass the intervening time when the following note unnerved him.

_Dear Mr. Whitelaw_

Mother wants to know if when college closes, and Guy joins us in New Hampshire, you will not come with him for the three weeks before you start on your trip. Please do. I shall have got there by that time, and I haven't seen you now for nearly two years. We must have a lot of notes to compare, and ought to be busy comparing them. Do come then, for our sakes if not for your own. You will give us a great deal of pleasure.

Yours very sincerely,

Hildred Ansley.

His heart failed him. It failed him because of the details as to customs, etiquette, and dress he didn't know anything about. He should be called on to speak fluently in a language of which he was only beginning to spell out the little words. It seemed to him at first that he couldn't accept the invitation.

Then, not to accept it began to look like cowardice. He would never get anywhere if he funked what he didn't know. When you didn't know you went to work and found out. You couldn't find out unless you put yourself in the way of seeing what other people did. After twenty-four hours of reflection he penned the simplest form of note. Thanking Hildred for her mother's kind invitation, he accepted it. Before putting his letter in the post, however, he dropped in to call on Guy. Guy, who was strumming the Love-Death of Isolde, tossed his comments over his shoulder as he thumped out the passion.

"That's Hildred. She's made mother do it. Nutty on that sort of thing."

Tom's heart failed him again. "Nutty on what sort of thing?"

Isolde's anguish mounted and mounted till it seemed as if it couldn't mount any higher, and yet went on mounting. "Oh, well! She's toted it up that you haven't got a home--that for three weeks after college closes you'll be on the town--and so on."

"I see."

"All the same, come along. I'd just as soon. Dad won't be there hardly. The old lady'll be booming about, but you needn't mind her. You'll have your room and grub for those three weeks, and that's all you've got to think about. Anyhow, it's bats in the attic with Hildred the minute it comes to a lame dog."

While Guy's fat figure swayed over the piano, Isolde's great heart broke. Tom went back to his room and wrote a second answer, regretting that owing to the pressure of his engagements he would be unable....

And then there came another reaction. What did it matter if Hildred Ansley _was_ opening the door out of pity? Pity was one of the loveliest traits of character. Only a cad would resent it. He sent his first reply.

Having done this, he felt it right to go and call on Mrs. Ansley. He was sure she didn't want him in New Hampshire, but by taking it for granted that she did he would discount some of her embarrassment.

As Mrs. Ansley was not at home Pilcher held out a little silver tray. Tom understood that he should have had a card to put in it. A card was something of which he had never hitherto felt the need. He said so to Pilcher frankly.

Pilcher's stony medieval face, the face of a saint on the portal of some primitive cathedral, smiled rarely, but when it did it smiled engagingly.

"You'll find a visitin' card very 'andy, Mr. Tom, now that you're so big. Mr. Guy has had one this long spell back."

It was a lead. In shy unobtrusive ways Pilcher had often shown himself his friend. Tom confessed his yearning for a card if only he knew how to order one.

"I'll show you one of Mr. Guy's. He always has the right thing. I'll find out too where he gets them done. If you'll step in, Mr. Tom...."

As he waited in the dining room, with the good-natured Ansley ancestor smiling down at him, there floated through Tom's mind a phrase from the Bible as taught by Mrs. Tollivant. "The Lord sent His angel." Wasn't that what He was doing now, and wasn't the angel taking Pilcher's guise? When the heavenly messenger came back with the card Tom went straight to his point.

"Pilcher, I wonder if you'd mind helping me?"

"I'd do it and welcome, Mr. Tom."

Mr. Tom told of his invitation to New Hampshire, and of his ignorance of what to do and wear. If Pilcher would only give him a hint....

He could not have found a better guide. Pilcher explained that a few little things had to be as second nature. A few other little things were uncertain points as to which it was always permissible to ask. In the way of second nature Tom would find sporting flannels and tennis shoes an essential. So he would find a dinner-jacket suit, with the right kind of shirt, collar, tie, shoes, and socks to wear with it. As to things permissible to ask about, Pilcher could more easily explain them when they were both in the same house. Occasions would crop up, but could not be foreseen.

"The real gentry is ever afraid of showin' that they don't know. They takes not knowin' as a joke. Many's the time when I've been waitin' at table I've 'eard a born gentleman ask the born lady sittin' next to 'im which'd be the right fork to use, and she'd say that she didn't know but was lookin' round to see what other people done. That's what they calls hease of manner, Mr. Tom."

Under the Ansley roof he would meet none but the gentry born. Any one of them would respect him more for asking when he didn't know. It was only the second class that bothered about being so terribly correct, and they were not invited by Mrs. Ansley. In addition to these consoling facts Tom could always fall back on him, Pilcher, as a referee.

Being a guest in a community in which two years earlier he had been a chauffeur Tom found easier than he had expected because he worked out a formula. He framed his formula before going to New Hampshire.

"Servants are servants and masters are masters because they divide themselves into classes. The one is above, and is recognized as being above; the other is below, and is recognized as being below. I shall be neither below nor above; or I shall be both. I will _not_ go into a class. As far as I know how I'll be everybody's equal."

He had, however, to find another formula for this.

"You're everybody's equal when you know you are. Whatever you know will go of itself. The trouble I see with the bumptious American, who claims that he's as good as anybody else, is that he thinks only of forcing himself to the level of the highest; he doesn't begin at the bottom, and cover all the ground between the bottom and the top. I'm going to do that. I shall be at home among the lot of them. To be at home I must _feel_ at home. I mustn't condescend to the boys of two years ago who'll still be driving cars, and I mustn't put on airs to be fit for Mrs. Ansley's drawing-room. I must be myself. I mustn't be ashamed because I've been in a humble position; and I mustn't be swanky because I've been put in a better one. I must be natural; I must be big. That'll give me the ease of manner Pilcher talks about."

With these principles as a basis of behavior, his embarrassments sprang from another source. They began at the station in Keene. He knew he was to be met; and he supposed it would be by Guy.

"Oh, here you are!"

She came on him suddenly in the crowd, tall, free in her movements, always a little older than her age. If in the nearly two years since their last meeting changes had come to him, more had apparently come to her. She was a woman, while he was not yet a man. She was easy, independent, taking the lead with natural authority. From the first instant of shaking hands he felt in her something solicitous and protective.

It showed itself in the little things as to which awkwardness or diffidence on his part might have been presumed. So as not to leave him in doubt of what he ought to do, she took the initiative with an air of quiet, competent command. She led the way to the car; she told him to throw his handbags and coat into the back part of it; she made him sit beside her as she drove.

"No, I'm going to drive," she insisted, when he had offered to take the wheel. "I want you to see how well I can do it. I like showing off. This is my own car. I drove it all last summer."

They talked about cars and their makes because the topic was an easy one.

Speeding out of Keene, they left behind them the meadows of the Ashuelot to climb into a country with which Nature had been busy ever since her first flaming forces had cooled down to form a world. Cooling down and flinging up, she had tossed into the azoic age a tumble of mountains higher doubtless than Andes or Alps. Barren, stupendous, appalling, they would not have been easy for man, when he came, to live with in comfort, had not the great Earth-Mother gone to some pains to polish them down. Taking her leisure through eons of years, she brought from the north her implement, the ice. Without haste, without rest, a few inches in a century, she pushed it against the barrier she meant to mold and penetrate.