CHAPTER IX.

To cotton-batting and similar unromantic staples the great house of R.S. Neargood & Co. first owed the prosperity that later developed into world-wide fame. It was success in cotton-batting that enabled the firm to make those speculations that eventually placed millions to its credit, and familiarized the Bourse and Threadneedle Street with its name.

What ever else can be said of cotton-batting, however, it is hardly a topic of smart conversation. So in smart circles there was never any mention of cotton-batting when the name of Neargood came up. Instead, it was customary to refer to them as "the people, you know, who built the Equator Palace for the Tropical Government, and all that sort of thing." A certain vagueness is indispensable to polite talk.

Yet not even this detail of politics and finance counted most in the smart world. The name of Neargood might never have been heard of in that world if it had not been for the beautiful daughters of the house of Neargood. There is nothing, nowadays, like having handsome daughters. You may have made your millions in pig, or your thousands in whisky, but, in the eyes of the complaisant present, the curse dies with the debut of a beautiful daughter. It is true that the smart sometimes make an absurd distinction between the older generation and the new; sometimes a barrier is raised for the daughter that checks the mother; but caprice was ever one of the qualities of smartness.

Through two seasons the beautiful Misses Neargood--Mary and Alice--reigned as belles. They were both good to look at, tall, stately, with distinct profiles. There was not much to choose, so to put it, between them. Mary was the handsomer; Alice the cleverer. Through two seasons the society reporters, on the newspapers that are yellow as well as those that make one blue, exhausted the well of journalese in chronicling the doings of these two young women.

The climax of descriptive eloquence was reached on the occasion of the double wedding of Mary and Alice Neargood.

Mary changed the name of Neargood for that of Spalding-Wentworth; Alice became Mrs. Van Fenno.

Up to this time--as far, at least, as was observable--these two sisters had dwelt together in unity. Never had the spirits of envy or uncharitableness entered them. But after marriage there came to each of them that stormy petrel of Unhappiness, Ambition.

As a composer of several songs and light operas. Van Fenno was fairly well known. Spalding-Wentworth was known as a man of Western wealth, of Western blue blood, and of prominence in the smart set. For some time the worldly successes of the Van Fennos did not disturb Mrs. Spalding-Wentworth at all. Her husband was smart, since he moved with the smart; he and his hyphen were the leaders in a great many famous ways, notably in fashion and in golf. From the smart point of view the Van Fennos were not in the hunt with the other family.

Mrs. Van Fenno chafed and churned a little in silence, but hope did not die in her. She made up her mind to be as prominent as her sister or perish in the attempt.

She did not have to perish. Things took a turn, as they will even in the smart world, and there came a time when it was fashionable to be intellectual. The smart set turned from the distractions of dinners and divorces to the allurements of the arts. Music, painting and literature became the idols of the hour. With that bland, heedless facility that distinguishes To-day, the men and women of fashion became quickly versed in the patter of the Muses.

The Van Fennos became the rage. Everybody talked of his music and her charm. Where the reporters had once used space in describing Spalding-Wentworth's leadership in a cotillon or conduct of a coach, they were now required to spill ink in enumeration of "those present" at Mrs. Van Fenno's "musical afternoons."

Wherefore there was a cloud on the fair brow of Mary Wentworth. Her intimates were privileged to call her that. Ordinary mortals, omitting the hyphen, would have been frozen with a look.

When there is a cloud on the wife's brow it bodes ill for the husband. The follies of a married man should be dealt with leniently; they are mostly of his wife's inspiration. One day the cloud cleared from Mary Wentworth's brow. She was sitting at breakfast with her husband.

"Why, Clarence," she exclaimed, with a suddenness that made him drop his toast, "there's literature!"

"Where?" said Clarence, anxiously. "Where?" He looked about, eager to please.

"Stupid," said his wife. "I mean--why shouldn't we, that is, you--" She looked at him, sure that he would understand without her putting the thing into syllables. "Yes," she repeated, "literature is the thing. There it is, as easy, as easy--"

"Hasn't it always been there?" asked her dear, dense husband. A woman may brood over a thing, you see, for months, and the man will not get so much as a suspicion.

She went on as if he had never spoken. "Literature is the easiest. Clarence, you must write novels!"

He buttered himself another slice of toast.

"Certainly, my dear," he nodded, with a pleasant smile. "Quite as you please."

It was in this way that the Spalding-Wentworth novels were incited. The art of writing badly is, unfortunately, very easy. In painting and in music some knowledge of technic is absolutely necessary, but in literature the art of writing counts last, and technic is rarely applauded. The fact remains that the smart set thought the Spalding-Wentworth novels were "so clever!" Mrs. Van Fenno was utterly crushed. Mary Wentworth informed an eager world that her husband's next novel would be illustrated with caricatures by herself; she had developed quite a trick in that direction. Now and again her husband refused to bother his head with ambitions, and devoted himself entirely to red coats and white balls. Mrs. Wentworth's only device at such times was to take desperately to golf herself. She really played well; if she had only had staying power, courage, she might have gone far. But, if she could not win cups, she could look very charming on the clubhouse lawn. One really does not expect more from even a queen.

It did not disturb Mrs. Wentworth at all to know that, where he was best known, her husband's artistic efforts were considered merely a joke. She knew that everyone had some mask or other to hold up to the world; and she knew there was nothing to fear from a brute of a man or two. In her heart she agreed with them; she knew her husband was a large, kindly, clumsy creature; a useful, powerful person, who needed guidance.

Kindly and clumsy--Clarence Spalding-Wentworth had title to those two adjectives: there was no denying that. It was his kindliness that moved him, after a busy day at a metropolitan golf tournament, toward Orson Vane's house. He had heard stories of Vane's illness; they had been at college together; he wanted to see him, to have a chat, a smoke, a good, chummy hour or two.

It was his clumsiness that brought about the incident that came to have such memorable consequences. Nevins told him Mr. Vane was out; Wentworth thought he would go in and have a look at Vane's rooms, anyway; sit down, perhaps, and write him a note. Nevins had swung the curtain to behind him when Wentworth's heel caught in the wrapping around the new mirror.

He looked into the pool of glass blankly.

"Funny thing to cover up a mirror like that!" he told himself. He flung the stuff over the frame carelessly. It merely hung by a thread. Almost any passing wind would be sure to lift it off.

"Wonder where he keeps his smokes?" he hummed to himself, striding up and down, like a good natured mammoth.

He found some cigars began puffing at one with an audible satisfaction, and at last let himself down to an ebony escritoire that he could have smashed with one hand. He wrote a scrawl; waited again, whistled, looked out of the window, picked up a book, peered at the pictures, and then, with a puff of regret, strode out.

As he passed the Professor's mirror the current of air he made swept the curtain from the glass and left it exposed.