Part 4

Stephanie continued her drive homeward. The way was pleasanter now--she was not alone--Gladys would stand by her--and with Gladys would come others of her old intimates. The first was the hardest--the rest would follow in time, depending on the independence of the individual and the extent and force of the opposition. It might take a year for her to be rehabilitated--for Society to white-wash her or to forget--or it might take only a month. At all events, she was going to try it. She would rather enjoy the struggle--enjoy fighting those who were opposed. She always had despised the conventional ones--those who were afraid--those whose God was Society's good opinion, and who worshipped at the altar of commonplaceness and custom. True she was a false wife, branded so all could see; but she knew that, except for the brand, she was not alone. She was in good company; only, the others were ostensibly regular, while she had broken over and had left no room for doubt nor for exercise of a discretionary blindness. She had been honest about it--she had gone away never to come back, she thought. She had staked herself openly and unreservedly before the whole world, with the intention never to seek for restitution. The others staked nothing unless found out--they broke the seventh commandment with impunity, but discreetly and with due regard for the conventions. And the very ones who were breaking, or had broken it, would be the most frigid to her now. She smiled a bit sarcastically. It was the way of the world, and she knew it years ago, so she had nothing to cry over. They also were doing the conventional and the proper--and looking out for themselves. When she had melted the ice around her sufficiently for them to sail up to her without endangering their own crafts in the floe, they would come promptly and with dispatch. Until then she was aware they would hold off.

When she arrived at home a limousine was standing before the door. Her mother was entertaining a visitor in the piazza-room, and she passed on upstairs.

Presently Mrs. Mourraille entered. She was an older edition of Stephanie, except that her hair was black and her eyes grey--the honest grey that one instinctively trusts and is rarely deceived in. Now they bore the trace of suffering, and her hair was beginning to whiten--had begun during the last year, her intimates observed.

Stephanie arose quickly from the dressing-table, where she had been straightening out her own auburn tresses before the glass, and gliding swiftly over bent and kissed her mother on the cheek.

"Sit here, dearest," she said. "I noticed Mrs. Parsons was with you when I came in, so I didn't stop."

"I saw you," Mrs. Mourraille smiled--"and so did Mrs. Parsons!"

"What did she say?"

"Not a word vocally; but she said many things by her face--chiefly bewilderment and concern."

"Some other faces have shown similarly this afternoon," said Stephanie.

"Did you meet many that you knew on your drive?"

"Yes--I went out to the Country Club--the place was crowded."

"My dear! was it wise?" exclaimed Mrs. Mourraille. "Was it wise, so soon?"

"Judging from the general result, I should say not!" laughed Stephanie. "But it will give them something to talk about the rest of the afternoon, and furnish a topic for dinner. And for that they should be grateful to me."

"My dear!" marvelled her mother.

"Oh, you should have seen the preoccupied air of every woman on the piazza--and there were scores of them there. It was positively chilling."

"Didn't any of them even speak to you?"

"Not one!"

"Who were there?" asked Mrs. Mourraille, her lips tightening.

"Every one in town, I think. It was the regular Saturday afternoon crowd--and then some."

"Did you give them a chance to speak, dear--or did you go haughtily through them, looking neither to right nor to the left?"

"Come to think of it, I went right through them--to a table in the remote corner. However, it made no difference. I might have forced some of them to bow but it would have been a holdup and they would have been justified in taking it out on me afterward. This was the better way. No one can feel hurt--and every one can choose at leisure what she will do."

"Wouldn't it have been wiser to let them choose at leisure, in the first place, rather than to force them to choose quickly, with the chance that they will reverse themselves at leisure?" suggested Mrs. Mourraille kindly.

"You mean that I shouldn't have gone to the Club?--possibly. But I wanted to see--and, as I remarked to Montague Pendleton, _I saw_."

"Was Montague with you?" exclaimed Mrs. Mourraille.

"He didn't accompany me--he met me at the Club-house--he and Sheldon Burgoyne." And she explained.

Mrs. Mourraille expressed her appreciation of their actions in praiseful terms--then she asked:

"Were any of my particular friends there?"

"It doesn't matter, mother dear. I won't get you into any snarl any further than I've already drawn you."

"Let me determine how far in I shall go," her mother answered quietly. "I simply want the information now--I'll decide later."

Stephanie named them.

"But you must remember, dear," she appended, "that I didn't give them much opportunity even to show a disposition to recognize me. And more of my own friends were there than of yours--and they didn't show any particular eagerness to speak. I can understand their feelings and position. My advent was like a bomb hurled into the crowd. They chose the safest course, which was to sit still and pretend not to see me. I reckon I'd have done the same had I been one of them. They will all come around in time. Gladys Chamberlain has already led off; the rest will follow more or less rapidly--according to disposition or their fear of Society's frown."

She talked rapidly, seeking, for her mother's sake, to make light of her position.

And her mother understood, and smiled in indulgent appreciation. She had been averse to Stephanie's going out that afternoon, even for a drive. She never for an instant had thought of her going to the Club. She wanted her to remain passively at home until her coming had ceased to be the latest wonder; until the talk had died down, and people had got used to the new situation and had decided what they would do. It was a case for slow progress and patient waiting. But Stephanie had ever been impulsive, and a trifle headstrong when the notion seized her. Mrs. Mourraille knew what it meant--she herself had been like Stephanie until she had broken her inclinations to the ways of expediency. There was no utility in crying over what was past. No one regretted her daughter's _faux pas_ more than she, but the business now was to overcome its results and have her start afresh. Assuredly this episode at the Club was not to her idea of the proper style of campaign.

"It is most unfortunate, Stephanie, most unfortunate!" she observed thoughtfully. "Only one thing could be more unfortunate--for you to have met Harry Lorraine there and have had him deny you before them all."

"Then the most unfortunate has happened," Stephanie replied tranquilly. "My husband did meet me on the front piazza--and, before them all, he turned his back upon me and walked away."

"The brute!" cried Mrs. Mourraille.

Then her grey eyes half closed in contemplation, and for a little while she was silent.

Stephanie leisurely brushed her hair and waited.

"Do you think he quite realized what he was doing?" Mrs. Mourraille asked presently.

"I don't know," said Stephanie indifferently. "Moreover, it doesn't matter. It finished me with him utterly. I wouldn't go back to him now if he got down on his knees on the spot, and before all of them implored it. I thought I despised him before; now I'm sure of it--and I hate and loath him beside."

She got up, and crossing to her mother sank down on the floor beside her and took her hands.

"Dearest," she said, "It will all come right some time. I'm glad to be free of Harry Lorraine, though I'm sorry I did what I did with Amherst, for your sake--and a little for my own now. But it is done and it cannot be undone; and we're not given, either of us, to crying over milk that's spilt. Let us be glad rather that I'm quit of Amherst without a--drag.... It wasn't by any fault of his that I am, however. I don't want you to be made to suffer for my folly. I know you can't escape feeling it, but you must not make my quarrel yours. Let me fight it out alone. I'll go away--take an apartment of my own, where I won't weigh you down by my presence, and make your friends shy of you and your house. I'll----"

"My dear little girl, you'll do nothing of the sort," Mrs. Mourraille broke in, kissing the auburn head. "The milk is spilt, as you say--so let us forget it. You don't want Lorraine, so we'll not consider him. We'll consider you, and the future."

"And you!" whispered Stephanie.

"We won't consider me--except indirectly. Whatever is best for you, dear, is best for me. We will fight this out together."

"You sweet mother!" said Stephanie, drawing the dark head down beside her own. "You shall be in reserve; I'll be on the firing line--and I won't let them get through to you."

Her mother smiled in tender clemency.

"I'll be wherever you want me and whenever," she replied.... "We might go away for a time," she suggested.

Stephanie shook her head.

"I'll go if you want very much but it doesn't appeal to me. It will only postpone, by the length of our absence, my restoration to--good standing!" she smiled.

"You wish to stay here?"

"Yes--among my friends--to the end that I may learn who they are."

"You may have some bad quarters-of-an-hour, and receive some shocks beside," her mother cautioned.

"Let them come--I've received enough shocks already to make me _immune_. It will be amusing, diverting, serve to make the time pass more rapidly."

"My child!" said Mrs. Mourraille kindly. "You don't appreciate just what you are saying."

"I do, mother dear, and what it means also. I have to face it, so I may as well get out of it what I can, and meet it with a smile. I may be wrong, but to my mind there is nothing like indifference for such a situation."

"That is the best way to look at it, if you can--but can you? Can you be philosophical under the slights, and snubs, and bitter tongues?"

"I think I can--at least, I mean to try," said Stephanie quietly. "With Gladys Chamberlain and Pendleton and Burgoyne, I'm not alone. They will stand by me--if I don't offend again.... And you need not fear, dear," answering her mother's look; "I'm not going to Amherst-it again--with any man."

"Have you seen the afternoon papers?" Mrs. Mourraille asked.

"You mean--about Amherst and Mrs. Amherst? No, but Montague told me of it. It's better so--there is only one of us now for Society to get accustomed to. Moreover, his peace is made, and for him the rest is easy."

"It is always easy for the man," Mrs. Mourraille observed.

"Yes--and I can understand: his sin is not so scarlet--it's not continuing, so to speak. Ended it is ended. We women have got used to the social evil in the man, but we can't get used to it in the woman. The ethics of it are a thing apart--good to theorize over, but it is the practical view that controls and will control in my case. I realize that I have nothing to hope for from the equitable argument. I'm a woman--I know what to expect from the women. I'm not blaming them. I've no one but myself to blame. Man and woman may be equal before the law where men are the judges, but they are not equal in Society's Court where women are the judges. I shall get small show there, mother dear, small show there! With rare exceptions we women are cruel and bigoted toward our sex, with all the characteristics of cruelty and bigotry on parade." She kissed the elder very fondly. "Now go or I shall not be dressed for dinner." ... "I suppose," she added, "there won't be any guests."

"Not this evening," her mother answered. "Do you wish me to ask any one--for a time?"

"I wish you to do just as you have always done, _ma mère_. I'll have my dinner in my room whenever I'm _persona non grata_ to your guests."

Mrs. Mourraille stopped in the doorway and smiled back at Stephanie.

"My guests will meet my daughter or they won't be my guests," she said quietly.

Stephanie, in the mirror of her dressing-table, threw her a kiss.

"No! no!" she said. "But if you don't mind, you might sometime ask Montague Pendleton and Sheldon Burgoyne."

"Together?"

"N--o!" Stephanie hesitated. "I think I'd rather have them apart; at least I would rather have Montague alone--Sheldon doesn't matter."

V

THE CUT OF ONE'S CLOTHES

The Emerson pick-up dinner party was a decided success.

Even Pendleton admitted it. As for Burgoyne he was quite enthusiastic--possibly because he sat on Miss Emerson's right. Pendleton was on her left. Lorraine had been taken by the hostess--she was not going to let such an opportunity escape her. Old Emerson was sandwiched between Mrs. Burleston and Mrs. Smithers, and was talking like mad of everything but what he should. His wife could, at intervals, catch portions of his conversation, and she made frantically discreet efforts to flag him, but with no result--either because of the numerous cocktails he had imbibed in the grill, or because he refused to understand. As it was, Mrs. Burleston and Mrs. Smithers, as well as the others near him, were convulsed with merriment as he rattled on, serenely indifferent to his spouse's signals and attempts to distract him.

"Now you see, my dear," he whispered confidentially, leaning over Mrs. Burleston, "it is this way: When me and Sally--Sally was my first wife--was married--we didn't have nary a red--nary a red. She done the cooking and housework, including the washing, and I tended bar for McDivit. You don't remember McDivit, I guess--course not. He was a fine man--a fine man! He kept the old Baroque House--now the Imperial. And I was such a good bartender and mixed 'em so well, only knocked down ten per cent., instead of twenty-five, like the other fellows, that one day he says to me, says he:

"'Bill, you're a good fellow--I've been a watchin' you and I think a heap of you. I'm goin' to set you up in business. What would you rather be?'

"'I think,' says I, 'I'd rather be a gentleman.'

"'A gentleman!' says he--and smiled sort of knowing like.

"'Yes, sir!' says I; 'a gentleman--one what makes his living skinning another gentleman--legitimately.'

"'You mean you want to be a lawyer?' says McDivit.

"'Not I,' says I. 'They skin only the leavings. I want to skin the big wad. I want to go into the promoting business--I want to sell something I haven't got to somebody what doesn't want it.'

"'Good!' says McDivit with a twinkle in his eye. 'I'll go you.'

"And he set me up--and I've been going ever since--accumulating. There's a heap of profit selling something you haven't got--though you have to be a bit nimble to keep within the law. But I've succeeded purty well. Later I got to buying something that some one else wanted before he knew he wanted it--and that's profitable--especially if he wants it bad or has to have it. Why this here Club--I worked it beautiful. It didn't know it wanted the new fifty acres, till after I knew it--and had bought it. That's how I came to be in the Club, you know--part consideration for the fifty acres. Oh, it's a great game! a great game when you know how to play it, and are lucky. I'm both. I'm worth a million and a quarter and I started with nothing--and I'm the same good fellow I was when I tended bar for Mr. McDivit. Success don't spoil Bill Emerson. No siree!" He paused a moment. "Sally, my first wife, you know, she died soon after I left McDivit, and when success came I married Maria--the present Mrs. Emerson, that is. She made a pretty good strike when she found yours truly, don't you think, my dears?" he ended, grinning broadly.

"I do, indeed, Mr. Emerson!" smiled Mrs. Burleston. "You are a find for any woman."

"So I have often told Maria--when we're exchanging compliments--like married people do, you know. I guess Burleston and you hand each other the same, hey? They don't mean nothin'--just hot air--that's pretty hot however when it first blows out!" he laughed.

"Poor old dad!" said Miss Emerson to Pendleton imperturbably. "He is telling the story of his life. Did you hear him?"

Pendleton shook his head.

"I was engaged otherwise," he replied, looking at her with a smile.

"Which is very good of you--but I'm not sensitive, I realize that every one knows what father is and was--it is not a secret that can be hid. He started with nothing, either socially or financially, and he has come up to where he is--wherever that is. I'm not ashamed of it, though I will admit I would rather have been born in, than have climbed in. But ours was an honest climb, so to speak. Society saw us climbing, and stood aside and permitted it. We bought our ladder, we bought the right to use it, and we bought our way up the wall and down again on the inside. He also bought my education and polish and helped me to make good. That is my duty--to make good. I've been aware of it for years--since I first began to make friends among the nice girls, indeed. And I'm trying to make good, Mr. Pendleton--I've been trying to make good ever since. It's the business of my life to make a social success, and, with father's fortune as an inheritance, to marry well.... You know it--every one knows it--so why dissemble? Moreover, it is a legitimate business for a woman, so why be ashamed?"

She said it in the most casual tones--as though she was commenting on the weather or the latest play. Why dissemble? Why be ashamed? Everyone knew it! There was something refreshing in her candor, in her frank appreciation of the situation, and in her acceptance of it as the immediate problem for her to solve, with but the one solution possible that would spell success. She understood that her entire education had been directed with that end in view, and if she did not attain it she would be a failure.

"There is nothing to be ashamed of," Pendleton assured her.

"Nevertheless you are wondering why I talk this way to you?" she went on. "And I don't know why myself--unless it is my father in me. He has a way, at times, of becoming intimately personal concerning his affairs," with a bit of a smile.

"Your father is a good fellow," said Pendleton, seizing the opportunity to shift the conversation.

"Father is _dear_!" she returned; "a dear, unselfish man--with me, at least. He may set mother on edge by fracturing the conventions, but it never bothers me. He has the inherent right to fracture them--and he does it very naturally!" she laughed. "I love him, and I'm not ashamed of him either."

"Good girl!" commented Pendleton. "You're not a snob--like the most of the new-rich."

"I try not to be, at all events."

"What do you try not to be, Miss Emerson?" Burgoyne asked, breaking into the talk.

"A snob!" she smiled.

Burgoyne raised his eyebrows.

"Every one is more or less a snob, Miss Emerson; don't you want to be in the fashion?"

"I don't like the fashion," she returned.

"Consider," he said. "Is there a man in this Club-house who doesn't think himself a little better than his fellows by reason of more money, more social position, more popularity, more athletic ability, more brains, more something?"

"I can't answer for the men!" she laughed; "but if you ask me as to the women, I'm afraid I'll have to plead guilty. We are all snobs, on that basis, Mr. Burgoyne. It's only a matter of degree."

"Everything is a matter of degree," Burgoyne answered, "from the powder on your face to a municipal councilman's venality."

"Is there any powder on my face?" she demanded.

"Altogether impersonal," he assured her.

"But is there?--I detest powder!"

"So does every man--if the women only could be made to believe it. If there is one thing that is disgusting, it is a white-washed face. Let them put it on if they must, but let them rub it off--all of it. A shiny nose isn't half as bad as a powder-smeared one."

"Mr. Burgoyne, I must know if there is any powder on my face," she repeated tragically, facing him.

He looked long and carefully--so long and so carefully, indeed, that she dropped her eyes, though she did not turn her head.

"No," he answered. "There isn't a single trace."

"Did it require so long to make sure?" she asked.

"I was looking----"

"Yes--I noticed you looking," she remarked.

"I was looking for--powder. If you think I might be mistaken, I will look again."

"You couldn't be mistaken--after such a critical and prolonged--scrutiny!" she laughed. "And it won't be necessary to look again, sir--just at present."

"Will the 'present' be very long?" he queried, with assumed gravity.

"I cannot tell--it will depend."

"Upon what?"

"Circumstances."

"Of what nature?"

"Of different natures--yours and mine."

"More especially yours, I presume?"

"No--yours, I should say," she replied.

"Why mine?"

"To give you something to guess."

"I'm a poor guesser," he protested.

"I thought as much!" she mocked. "It's a masculine failing, I--understand."

"Say rather it is a faculty distinctly feminine--and raised to the nth degree."

"What are you two talking about?" demanded Pendleton.

"I haven't the slightest idea!" Miss Emerson answered. "Have you, Mr. Burgoyne?"

"If I have, I can't find it."

"Who ever knows what they are talking about at a dinner party?" said Pendleton. "Moreover, who cares? It's all bubbles, usually, that burst the moment they are blown."

"Is it?" asked Miss Emerson, with a significant smile.

"Dinner talk I mean," explained Pendleton. "Occasionally we strike deeper--then it's something else than bubbles."

"How do you distinguish?" Burgoyne asked.

"Most people don't, my friend--hence the bubbles."

"Precisely--you're one of the don'ts," said Pendleton.

"Which being the case, let us change to something more entertaining than bubbles," Burgoyne retorted. "I'll take Miss Emerson, and you amuse yourself for a space with your left-hand opponent."

* * * * * * * * * * *

"What do you think of Miss Emerson?" Pendleton asked when, several hours later, he and Burgoyne sat smoking on the terrace.

"I should say she is a thoroughbred--if it were not for her parents. She has all the characteristics of the well-born--except that she isn't. It must be a sore trial to the girl always to have mother and father to contend against."

"Possibly she doesn't consider it," observed Pendleton. "Possibly she accepts the condition and makes the best of it. I've never noticed that she seemed to feel it in the least."

"Which makes her all the more thoroughbred," Burgoyne declared.

The other nodded. "Just so--and what is more, I've yet to hear her retail scandal or malicious gossip, criticise her friends or acquaintances, or question their motives. Pretty remarkable in a woman, Sheldon."

"Exceptional, indeed," Burgoyne agreed. "But it comports with her presence. She is an exceptional looking girl. Her _tout ensemble_ is wonderfully attractive--to me, at least."

"You're not the only one to observe it, my friend, as I think I told you. Ask Devereux, if you doubt. He says every blithering idiot in the Club is hot foot after her--himself included. Are you going to get in the running also?"

"There appears to be too much competition--the pace is too fast for me. Why haven't you been in it yourself?"

"For the same reason--and one other: I'm too old," Pendleton chuckled amiably.

"Poor chap!" Burgoyne observed. "Who would ever have thought it to look at you!"

"Age is as one feels," said Pendleton. "I feel sixty--therefore I'm not chasing after the petticoats. I leave that for those younger in years and spirit. I am content to stand back and look on--to sniff the battle from afar, like the old war horse."