Chapter 8

“You are sufficiently cool, at least, I think,” replied I. -- “Naturally,” said he, “for I’ve been in the immediate vicinity of the boreal pole for half an hour--a neighborhood in which, I am told, even the most ardent spirits sometimes freeze--so you must pardon me if I am more than usually dull, Miss Minerva.”

And the Pacha beat time to the waltz with his head.

I looked at the part of the room from which he had just come, and there, sure enough, in the midst of a group, I saw the tall, and stately, and still Ada Aiguille.

“He is a hardy navigator,” continued Kurz Pacha, “who sails for the boreal pole. It is glittering enough, but shipwreck by daylight upon a coral reef, is no pleasanter than by night upon Newport shoals.”

“Have you been shipwrecked, Kurz Pacha?” asked I suddenly.

He laughed softly: “No, Miss Minerva, I am not one of the hardy navigators; I keep close in to the shore. Upon the slightest symptom of an agitated sea, I furl my sails, and creep into a safe harbor. Besides, dear Miss Minna I prefer tropical cruises to the Antarctic voyage.”

And the old wretch actually looked at my black hair. I might have said something--approving his taste, perhaps, who knows?--when I saw Mrs. Potiphar. She was splendidly dressed in the silk, and it’s a pity she doesn’t become a fine dress better. She made for me directly.

“Dear Minna, I’m so glad to see you. Why how young and fresh you look to-night. Really, quite blooming! And such a sweet pretty dress, too, and the darling baby-waist and all--”

“Yes,” said that witty Gauche Boosey, “permit me, Miss Tattle,--quite an incarnate seraphim, upon my word.”

“You are too good,” replied I, “my dear Polly, it is your dress which deserves admiration, and I flatter myself in saying so, for it is the very counterpart of one I had made some months ago.”

“Yes, darling, and which you have not yet worn,” replied she. “I said to Mr. P., ‘Mr. P.’ said I, ‘there are few women upon whose amiability I can count as I can upon Minerva Tattle’s, and, therefore, I am going to have a dress like hers. Most women would be vexed about it, and say ill-natured things if I did so. But if I have a friend, it is Minerva Tattle; and she will never grudge it to me for a moment.’ It’s pretty; isn’t it? Just look here at this trimming.”

And she showed me the very handsomest part of it, and so much handsomer than mine, that I can never wear it.

“Polly, I am so glad you know me so well,” said I. “I’m delighted with the dress. To be sure, it’s rather _prononce_ for your style; but that’s nothing.”

Just then a polka struck up. “Come along! give me this turn,” said Boosey, and putting his arm round Mrs. Potiphar’s waist, he whirled her off into the dance.

How I did hope that somebody would come to ask me. Nobody came.

“You don’t dance?” asked Kurz Pacha, who stood by during my little talk with Polly P.

“Oh, yes,” answered I, and hummed the polka.

Kurz Pacha hummed too, looked on at the dancers a few minutes then turned to me, and looking at my bouquet, said:

“It is astonishing how little taste there is for spring-flowers.”

At that moment young Croesus “came in” warm with the whirl of the dance, with Daisy Clover.

“It’s very warm,” said he, in a gentlemanly manner.

“Dear me! yes, very warm,” said Daisy.

“Been long in Newport?”

“No; only a few days. We always come, after, Saratoga for a couple of weeks. But isn’t it delightful?”

“Quite so,” said Timon, coolly, and smiling at the idea of anybody’s being enthusiastic about anything. That elegant youth has pumped life dry; and now the pump only wheezes.

“Oh!” continued Daisy, “it’s so pleasant to run away from the hot city, and breathe this cool air. And then Nature is so beautiful. Are you fond of Nature, Mr. Croesus?”

“Tolerably,”’ returned Timon.

“Oh! but Mr. Croesus! to go to the glen and skip stones, and then walk on the cliff, and drive to Bateman’s, and the fort, and to go to the beach by moonlight; and then the bowling-alley, and the archery, and the Germania. Oh! it’s a splendid place. But perhaps, you don’t like natural scenery, Mr. Croesus?”

“Perhaps not,” said Mr. Croesus.

“Well, some people don’t,” said darling little Daisy, folding up her fan, as if quite ready for another turn.

“Come, now; there it is,” said Timon, and, grasping her with his right arm, they glided away.

“Kurz Pacha,” said I, “I wonder who sent Ada Aiguille that bouquet?”

“Sir John Franklin, I presume,” returned he.

“What do you mean by that,” asked I. -- Before he could answer, Boosey and Mrs. Potiphar stopped by us.

“No, no, Mr. Boosey,” panted Mrs. P., “I will not have him introduced. They say his father actually sells dry goods by the yard in Buffalo.”

“Well, but _he_ doesn’t, Mrs. Potiphar.

“I know that, and it’s all very well for you young men to know him, and to drink, and play billiards, and smoke, with him. And he is handsome to be sure, and gentlemanly, and I am told, very intelligent. But, you know, we can’t be visiting our shoemakers and shopmen. That’s the great difficulty of a watering-place, one doesn’t know who’s who. Why Mrs. Gnu was here three summers ago, and there sat next to her, at table, a middle-aged foreign gentleman, who had only a slight accent, and who was so affable and agreeable, so intelligent and modest, and so perfectly familiar with all kinds of little ways, you know, that she supposed he was the Russian Minister, who, she heard, was at Newport incognito for his health. She used to talk with him in the parlor, and allowed him to join her upon the piazza. Nobody could find out who he was. There were suspicions, of course. But he paid his bills, drove his horses, and was universally liked. Dear me! appearances are so deceitful! who do you think he was?”

“I’m sure I can’t imagine.”

“Well, the next spring she went to a music store in Philadelphia, to buy some guitar strings for Claribel, and who should advance to sell them but the Russian Minister! Mrs. Gnu said she colored--”

“So I’ve always understood,” said Gauche, laughing.

“Fie! Mr. Boosey,” continued Mrs. P. smiling. “But the music-seller didn’t betray the slightest consciousness. He sold her the strings, received the money, and said nothing, and looked nothing. Just think of it! She supposed him to be a gentleman, and he was really a music-dealer. You see that’s the sort of thing one is exposed to here, and though your friend may be very nice, it isn’t safe for me to know him. In a country where there’s no aristocracy one can’t be too exclusive. Mrs. Peony says she thinks that in future she shall really pass the summer in a farm-house or if she goes to a watering-place, confine herself to her own rooms and her carriage, and look at the people through the blinds. I’m afraid, myself, it’s coming to that. Everybody goes to Saratoga now, and you see how Newport is crowded. For my part I agree with the Rev. Cream Cheese, that there are serious evils in a republican form of government. What a hideous head-dress that is of Mrs. Settum Downe’s! What a lovely polka-redowa!”

“So it is, by Jove! Come on,” replied the gentlemanly Boosey, and they swept down the hall.

“_Ah! ciel!_” exclaimed a voice close by us--Kurz Pacha and I turned at the same moment. We beheld a gentleman twirling his moustache and a lady fanning. They were smiling intelligently at each other, and upon his whispering something that I could not hear, she said, “_Fi! donc_” and folding her fan and laying her arm upon his shoulder, they slid along again in the dance.

“Who is that?” inquired the Pacha.

“Don’t you know Mrs. Vite?” said I, glad of my chance. “Why, my dear sir, she is our great social success. She shows what America can do under a French _regime_. She performs for society the inestimable service of giving some reality to the pictures of Balzac and George Sand, by the quality of her life and manners. She is just what you would expect a weak American girl to be who was poisoned by Paris,--who mistook what was most obvious for what was most characteristic,--whose ideas of foreign society and female habits were based upon an experience of resorts, more renowned for ease than elegance,--who has no instinct fine enough to tell her that a _lionne_ cannot be a lady,--who imitates the worst manners of foreign society, without the ability or opportunity of perceiving the best,--who prefers a _double entendre_ to a _bon-mot_,--who courts the applause of men whose acquaintance gentlemen are careless of acknowledging,--who likes fast driving and dancing, low jokes, and low dresses, who is, therefore, bold without wit, noisy without mirth, and notorious without a desirable reputation. That is Mrs. Vite.”

Kurz Pacha rolled up his eyes.

“Good Jupiter! Miss Minerva,” cried he, “is this you that I hear? Why you are warmer in your denunciation of this little wisp of a woman than you ever were of fat old Madame Gorgon, with her prodigious paste diamonds. Really, you take it too hard. And you, too, who used to skate so nimbly over the glib surface of society, and cut such coquettish figures of eight upon the characters of your friends. You must excuse me, but it seems to me odd that Miss Minerva Tattle, who used to treat serious things so lightly, should now be treating light things so seriously. You ought to frequent the comic opera more, and dine with Mrs. Potiphar once a week. If your good humor can’t digest such a _hors d’oeuvre_ as little Mrs. Vite, what will you do with such a _pièce de résistance_ as Madame Gorgon?”

Odious plain speaker! Yet I like the man. But, before I could reply, up came another couple--Caroline Pettitoes and Norman de Famille.

“You were at the bowling-alley?” said he.

“Yes,” answered Caroline.

“You saw them together?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“Why, of course, that if he is not engaged to her he ought to be. He has taken her out in his wagon three times, he has sent her four bouquets, he waltzes with her every night, he bowls with her party every morning, and if that does not mean that he wants to marry her, I should like to know what it does mean,” replied Caroline, tossing her head.

Norman de Famille smiled, and Caroline continued with rather a flushed face, because Norman had been doing very much the same thing with her:

“What is a girl to understand by such attentions?”

“Why, that the gentleman finds it an amusing game, and hopes she is equally pleased,” returned De Famille.

“_Merci_, M. de Famille,” said Caroline, with an energy I never suspected in her, “and at the end of the game she may go break her heart, I suppose.”

“Hearts are not so brittle, Miss Pettitoes,” replied Norman. “Besides, why should you girls always play for such high stakes?”

They were just about beginning the waltz again, when the music stopped, and they walked away. But I saw the tears in Caroline’s eyes. I don’t know whether they were tears of vexation, or of disappointment. The men have the advantage of us because they can control their emotions so much better. I suppose Caroline blushed and cried, because she found herself blushing and crying, quite as much as because she fancied her partner didn’t care for her.

I turned to Kurz Pacha, who stood by my side, smiling, and rubbing his hands.

“A charming evening we have had of it, Miss Minerva,” said he, “an epitome of life--a kind of last-new-novel effect. The things that we have heard and seen here, multiplied and varied by a thousand or so, produce the net result of Newport. Given, a large house, music, piazzas, beaches, cliff, port, griddle-cakes, fast horses, sherry-cobblers, ten-pins, dust, artificial flowers, innocence, worn-out hearts, loveliness, black-legs, bank-bills, small men, large coat-sleeves, little boots, jewelry, and polka-redowas _ad libitum_, to produce August in Newport. For my part, Miss Minerva, I like it. But it is a dizzy and perilous game. I profess to seek and enjoy emotions, so I go to watering-places. Ada Aiguille says she doesn’t like it. She declares that she thinks less of her fellow-creatures after she has been here a little while. She goes to the city afterward to refit her faith, probably. Daisy Clover thinks it’s heavenly. Darling little Daisy! life is an endless German cotillion to her. She thinks the world is gay but well-meaning, is sure that it goes to church on Sundays and never tells lies. Cerulea Bass looks at it for a moment with her hard, round, ebony eyes, and calmly wonders that people will make such fools of themselves. And you, Miss Minerva, pardon me,--you come because you are in the habit of coming--because you are not happy out of such society, and have a tantalizing sadness in it. Your system craves only the piquant sources of scandal and sarcasm, which can never satisfy it. You wish that you liked tranquil pleasures and believed in men and women. But you get no nearer than a wish. You remember when you did believe, but you remember with a shudder and a sigh. You pass for a brilliant woman. You go out to dinners and balls; and men are, what is called, ‘afraid of you.’ You scorn most of us. You are not a favorite, but your pride is flattered by the very fear on the part of others which prevents your being loved. Time and yourself are your only enemies, and they are in league, for you betray yourself to him. You have found youth the most fascinating and fatal of flirts, but he, although your heart and hope clung to him despairingly, has jilted you and thrown you by. Let him go, if you can, and throw after him the white muslin and the baby-waist. Give up milk and the pastoral poets. Sail, at least, under your own colors; even pirates hoist a black flag. An old belle who endeavors to retain by sharp wit and spicy scandal the place she held only in virtue of youth and spirited beauty is, in a new circle of youth and beauty, like an enemy firing at you from the windows of your own house. The difficulty of your position, dear Miss Minerva, is, that you can never deceive those who alone are worth deceiving. Daisy Clover and Young America, of course, consider you a talented, tremendous kind of woman. Daisy Clover wonders all the men are not in love with you. Young America sniffs and shakes its little head, and says disapprovingly, ‘Strong-minded woman!’ But you fail, you know, notwithstanding. You couldn’t bring old Potiphar to his knees when he first came home from China, and he must needs plunge in love with Miss Polly, whom you despised, but who has certainly profited by her intimacy with Mrs. Gnu, Mrs. Croesus, and Mrs. Settum Downe, as you saw by her conversation with you this evening.

“Ah, Miss Minerva, I am only a benighted diplomat from Sennaar, but when I reflect upon all I see around me in your country; when I take my place with terror in a railroad car, because the certainty of frightful accidents fills all minds with the same vague apprehensions as if a war were raging in the land; when I see the universal rush and fury--young men who never smile, and who fall victims to paralysis; old men who are tired of life and dread death; young women pretty and incapable; old women listless and useless; and both young and old, if women of sense, perishing of ennui, and longing for some kind of a career;--why, I don’t say that it is better anywhere else,--perhaps it isn’t,--in most ways it certainly is not. I don’t say certainly, that there’s a higher tone of life in London or Paris than in New York, but only that, whatever it may be there, this, at least, is rather a miserable business.”

“What is your theory of life, then?” asked I. “What do you propose?”

Kurz Pacha smiled again.

{Illustration}

“Suppose, Miss Minerva, I say the Golden Rule is my _theory_ of life. You think it vague; but it is in that like most theories. Then I propose that we shall all be good. Don’t you think it a feasible proposition? I see that you think you have effectually disposed of all complaint by challenging the complainer to suggest a remedy. But it is clear to me that a man in the water has a right to cry out, although he may not distinctly state how he proposes to avoid drowning. Your reasoning is that of those excellent Americans who declare that foreign nations ought not to strike for a republic until they are fit for a republic--as if empires and monarchies founded colleges to propagate democracy. Probably you think it wiser that men shouldn’t go into the water until they can swim. Mr. Carlyle, I remember, was bitterly reproached for grumbling in his “Chartism,” and other works, as if a man had no moral right to complain of hunger until he had grasped a piece of bread. ‘What do you propose to do, Mr. Carlyle?’ said they, ‘what with the Irish, for instance?’ Mr. C. said that he would compel every Irishman to work, or he would sink the island in the sea. ‘Barbarous man, this is your boasted reform!’ cried they in indignant chorus, unsuited either way, and permitting the Irish to go to the dogs in the meanwhile. So suffer me, dearest Miss Minerva, to regret a state of things which no sensible man can approve. Even if it seems to you light, allow me, at least, to treat it seriously, nor suppose I love anything less, because I would see it better. You are the natural fruit of this state of things, O Minerva Tattle! By thy fruits ye shall know them.”

After a few moments, he added in the old way:

“Don’t think I am going to break my heart about it, nor lose my appetite. Look at the absurdity of the whole thing. I am preaching to you in your baby-waist, here in a Newport ball-room at midnight. I humbly beg your pardon. There are more potent preachers here than I. Besides, I’m engaged to Mrs. Potiphar’s supper at 12. Take things more gently, dear Miss Minerva. Don’t make faces at Mrs. Vite, nor growl at your darling Polly. Women as smart as you are, will say precisely as smart thing of you as you say of them. We shall all laugh, first with you, and then at you. But don’t deny yourself the pleasure of saying the smart things in hope that they will also refrain. That’s vanity, not virtue. People are much better than you think, but they are also much worse. I might have been king of Sennaar, but I am only his ambassador. You might have been only a chambermaid, but you are the brilliant and accomplished Miss Tattle. Tum, tum, tum, ti, ti, ti,--what a pretty waltz! Here come Daisy and Timon Croesus, and now Mrs. Potiphar and Gauche Boosey, and now again Caroline Pettitoes and De Famille. She is smiling again, you see. She darts through the dance like a sunbeam as she is. Caroline is a philosopher. Just now, you remember, it was down, down, down,--now it is up, up, up. It is a good world, if you don’t rub it the wrong way. Sit in the sun as much as possible. One preserves one’s complexion, but gets so cold in the shade. Ah! there comes Mrs. Potiphar. Why, she is radiant! She shakes her fan at me. Adieu, Miss Minerva. Sweet dreams. To-morrow morning at the Bowling Alley at eleven, you know, and the drive at six. _Au revoir_.”

And he was gone. The ball was breaking up. A few desperate dancers still floated upon the floor. The chairs were empty. The women were shawling, and the men stood attendant with bouquets. I went to a window and looked out. The moon was rising, a wan, waning moon. The broad fields lay dark beneath, and as the music ceased, I heard the sullen roar of the sea. If my heart ached with an indefinite longing,--if it felt that the airy epicurism of the Pacha was but a sad cynicism, masquerading in smiles,--if I dreaded to ask whether the wisest were not the saddest,--if the rising moon, and the plunging sea, and the silence of midnight, were mournful, if I envied Daisy Clover her sweet sleep and vigorous waking,--why, no one need ever know it, nor suspect that the brilliant Minerva Tattle is a failure.

V. -- THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS.

A LETTER FROM MISS CAROLINE PETTITOES TO MRS. SETTUM DOWNE.

PARIS, _October_.

MY DEAR MRS. DOWNE,--Here we are at last! I can hardly believe it. Our coming was so sudden that it seems like a delightful dream. You know at Mrs. Potiphar’s supper last August in Newport, she was piqued by Gauche Boosey’s saying, in his smiling, sarcastic way:

“What! do you really think this is a pretty supper? Dear me! Mrs. Potiphar, you ought to see one of our _petits soupers_ in Paris, hey Croesus?” and then he and Mr. Timon Croesus lifted their brows knowingly, and smiled, and glanced compassionately around the table.

“Paris, Paris!” cried Mrs. Potiphar; “you young men are always talking about Paris, as if it were heaven. Oh! Mr. P., do take me to Paris. Let’s make up a party, and slip over. It’s so easy now, you know. Come, come, Pot. I know you won’t deny me. Just for two or three months, The truth is,” said she, turning to D’Orsay Firkin, who wore that evening the loveliest shirt-bosom I ever saw, “I want to send home some patterns of new dresses to Minerva Tattle.”

They all laughed, and in the midst Kurz Pacha, who was sitting at the side of Mrs. Potiphar, inquired:

“What colors suit the Indian summer best, Mrs. Potiphar?”

“Well, a kind of misty color,” said Boosey, laughingly, and emphasizing _missed_, as if he meant some pun upon the word.

“Which conceals the outline of the landscape,” interrupted Mrs. Gnu.

“Cajoling you with a sense of warmth on the very edge of winter, eh?” asked the Sennaar minister.

Another loud laugh rang round the table.

“I thought Minerva Tattle was a friend of yours, Kurz Pacha,” said Mrs. Gnu, smiling mischievously, and playing with her beautiful bouquet, which Mrs. Potiphar told me Timon Croesus had sent her.

“Certainly, so she is,” replied he. “Miss Minerva and I understand each other perfectly. I like her society immensely. The truth is, I am always better in autumn; the air is both cool and bright.”

As he said this he looked fixedly at Mrs. Gnu, and there was not quite so much laughing. I am sure I don’t know what they meant by talking about autumn. I was busy talking with Mr. Firkin about Daisy Clover’s pretty morning dress at the Bowling Alley, and admiring his shirt-bosom. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and an exquisite bouquet was handed in for Kurz Pacha.

“Why didn’t you wait until to-morrow?” said he, sharply.

The man stammered some excuse, and the ambassador took the flowers. Mrs. Gnu looked at them closely, and praised them very much, and quietly glanced at her own, which were really splendid. Kurz Pacha showed them to all the ladies at table, and then handed them to Mrs. Potiphar, saying to her, as he half looked at Mrs. Gnu:

“There is nothing autumnal here.”

“Mrs. Potiphar thanked him with real delight, and he turned toward Mrs. Gnu, at whom he had been constantly looking, and who was playing placidly with her bouquet, and said with an air of one paying a great compliment:

“To offer _you_ a bouquet, madame, would be to throw pearls before swine.”

We were all silent for a moment, and then the young men sprang up together, while we women laughed, half afraid.

“Good heavens! Kurz Pacha, what do you mean?” cried Mrs. Potiphar.

“Mean?” answered he, evidently confused, and blushing; “why, I’m afraid I have made some mistake. I meant to say something very polite, but my English sometimes gives way.”

“Your impudence never does,” muttered Mrs. Gnu, who was unbecomingly red in the face.

“My dear madame,” said the minister to her, “I assure you I meant only to use a proverb in a complimentary way; but somehow I have got the wrong pig by the ear.”

There was another burst of laughter. The young men fairly lay down and screamed. Mr. Potiphar exploded in great ha ha’s and ho ho’s, from the end of the table.

“Mrs. Potiphar,” said Mrs. Gnu, with dignity, “I didn’t suppose I was to be insulted at your table.”

And she went toward the door.

“Mrs. Gnu, Mrs. Gnu,” said Polly, smothering her laughter as well as she could, “don’t go. Kurz Pacha will explain. I’m sure he means no insult.”