Part 7

“If that is so,”--as a philanthropist, Pix had learned, he modestly confessed it, to avoid a request of something he knew he wasn’t going to do--“if you like anything that is complex, I wish to goodness you’d come down to my--hum--which is it? ah, yes! the Young Men’s gymnasium--and untangle a case I’ve got down there. Janitor’s wife, nice lazy little woman,” he watched Farleigh’s slender foot swinging impatiently while her face turned, all interest, toward him. A philanthropist, though Kent had forgotten it, necessarily sees a great deal of women--“nice lazy little woman, married to a husband who’s so keen for committees and being third vice presidents of things, he forgets to come home on Sundays. Fact. Shuts up the--what did I say? gymnasium--I always forget if it’s the gymnasium or the Babies’ Home--and goes off to lobby the boys; ’stead of taking the tram to Alexandria and his waiting wife. She belongs to a Browning Society, but it doesn’t keep her busy, because she can’t read--farther than Poor Richard’s almanac. There are no children, and she complains there’s no husband either. Now what’s to be done? She comes to me--I’m the root of all evil, gymnasium and otherwise--she upbraids me. She’s upbraided me twice this last week, once before my valet. It can’t go on. But the man, her husband, ’s a good janitor; and good janitors are scarce as honest philanthropists. I ask you what’s to be done? I _must_ cure this maniac of his politics. But how?”

“Make him a clubman,” suggested Farleigh with a slow illuminating smile.

“He is one. That’s what’s the matter with him. He belongs to the Men’s Literary and the Byron Brigade and the Reformed Republicans--downtown branch--and the Kindling Wood Karpet Knights (that’s in winter), and the Sons of Adam and--well, she’ll tell you. Anyway he’s a regular attendant and officer in all of ’em. Now--Mrs. Chalmers, how am I to unite this alienated couple? Don’t you see, as a philanthropist, I’ve got to unite them? Come, now, you said you liked complexity, unravel for me. How am I to make them see that each of them is part wrong?”

“Always the first step in reconciliation?” queried Farleigh, slipping deeper into her chair. “I should make her a suffragette and him an indigent tailor--they live at home, don’t they?”

“On the principle that a swapping of wrongs makes right? It would be good humor, but not good philanthropy. Because--you see, Mrs. Chalmers”--Pix dropped the monocle and looked quite steadily into Chalmers’ wife’s eyes--“underneath their--ah--differences, they care for each other.”

“How original!” Farleigh’s laugh was light like the little breeze. “But you said, didn’t you, they were in the middle class? Of course. But Mr. Pix--this is all tremendously interesting--but I wanted to ask you, I started to ask you before, you know” (her eyes under their blue black screen kept shifting toward the door); “there’s a post open in London now--first Secretary of the Embassy--and I understand Sir Maxon-Goring is being asked by the Administration to suggest some one. Some one from here, who has had training in Washington. Of course your being such an intimate of Sir Maxon-Goring’s--for I know you are, spite of your epigram--and such a friend of Kent’s as well--well, Mr. Pix, I know the man whose lot you want for your new Children’s Library. He’s told you he won’t sell, but----”

“Ah, so here you are, old man--at last!” Pix got up leisurely and held his host three fingers as Kent entered. “Three fingers is correct, not? for a philanthropist? Four for a hard drinker? Well, you _have_ done yourself well!” He looked at his watch--not at Mrs. Chalmers. “Ten after eight--a primp worthy of a guardsman, what?”

Kent, standing by his wife’s chair, smiled. More absently than ever, “It was that miserable man who wanted to see me at such length”--the big clubman’s eyes wandered; from Pix to Farleigh, from Farleigh to Pix, and back again--“Shall we go out, Farleigh?” he asked, after a little pause.

“Yes, Binks announced some time ago.” In Farleigh’s voice was a hint of rumble; like the purr of a cat that has been disturbed. “You will lead me?” She laughed at Pix, slipping her hand through his arm.

“With pleasure,” he said gravely, “I will lead you both.” And slipping his other arm through Kent’s, he took them in to dinner.

* * * * *

“Mrs. Chalmers has promised to come down and help me with the tangle at the ah--gymnasium, Kentie,” Pix remarked with some satisfaction, as they sat in the library again later, over their coffee. “I say,” he leaned forward almost eagerly--for a philanthropist--“there’s going to be an exhibition--er--Field Day or something or other on Thursday, and Mrs. Budd is sure to come in--um-m, that’s their name, Budd,” he turned to Farleigh, “why not drop down for a moment, late, and you can see her and Budd too. There’s sure to be some row on--anyway you’d have a splendid chance to diagnose and suggest a medicine. You will?”

“Why--yes,” Farleigh had no further chance to speak with Pix alone. “Yes, I’ll come. Thursday, you say, at----?”

“Five.” Pix beamed.

“At five. Yes; it will be amusing, I’m sure.”

“Think so too. Suppose I may come also, Pix?” Kent was looking at Farleigh’s profile with a look that made Pix swallow the rest of his coffee with a gulp.

“Why, of course, old man--delighted. Only it’s hardly in your line, you know--a political, I mean to say, a lobby-maniac; a maniac for office, whose wife----”

“A maniac for office?” Kent laughed shortly. “Well, no. That’s rather at the other end of my line. However, I’ll come. What, going?” as Pix rose.

“Sorry--but you can’t expect manners in a doer of good. I’m to deliver an address at the Rough Rider Lustitude at nine-thirty--‘Is marriage a failure?’ oh, my dears!” Pix cast a wild eye at them, an eye that was something else too, could they have seen. “An address from me--and it’s their ladies’ evening. Good-night--good-night,” he shook Farleigh’s hand with a despairing gratitude, “you don’t know what this dinner has done for me though, as preparation--ah--I mean to say--ahem! you understand.” He dropped the slender hand and fled. Dash it! he always did make some silly ass of himself, just when things were at their most delicate--oh, hang! (this to Binks, under his breath) he supposed all philanthropists were bunglers.

“Farleigh”--left alone, Kent came over and put his hands on the slim shoulders--“Farleigh”--his whole attitude asked a question.

Farleigh screened her eyes with the blue black lashes, and laughed. “I’m going to a dance--the McCleans are stopping for me--where are you off to, Kent, the Club?”

“Yes,” Kent’s hands fell to his sides. “The Club.” He strode away from her, out of the room.

At the gymnasium on Thursday, Pix walked up and down between trapezes, with a little woman whose short steps--from under a remarkable plaid silk gown--doubled on themselves valiantly to keep pace.

“And indeed, Mister Pix,” she said plaintively--to all his _philanthropées_ Pix was just Pix--“indeed, I don’t know what I’m to do if Theophilus don’t stop being so active. Forty-six he is, forty-seven come July, and no holdin’ him; off again all last Sunday with the Sons of Adam--gettin’ himself put in as chancellor ’f the order--and I made up my mind then, I was goin’ to do somethin’ desprit. But what t’ do”--she flung out ten cotton-gloved fingers, in an abandon of despondency.

“Perhaps this lady can tell you,” Pix said in a low voice, nodding toward some one slim and swift, who was coming up the stairs opposite, into the great hall. “I have an idea she can, for--she’s a very clever lady indeed. You put the case to her frankly, tell her the whole trouble, and see if she doesn’t suggest something. Ah, Mrs. Chalmers! this is most awfully good of you”--he met the slim lady in black half way across the gymnasium. “The er--exhibition’s over, but--Kent isn’t with you?” he broke off.

“No. Kent’s coming later. That is, he said he’d meet me here at five. I was early, because--Mr. Pix, I want to talk to you----”

“Yes, yes--excuse me just a moment--I see Budd beckoning me with a dumb-bell. You won’t mind waiting just a second while I see just what he wants? Er--Mrs. Chalmers, Mrs. Budd--you’ll find that vaulting-horse very comfortable, Mrs. Chalmers--ah, back in just one minute, you know!” And Pix hurried away.

The little woman in the plaid dress and tan cotton gloves regarded the slender woman in black cloth and a Virot turban. “Shan’t we sit down?” she suggested. “Myself, I don’t think much o’ that vaultin’ horse, but this movin’ swing’s right cosy.”

So Mrs. Kent Chalmers and Mrs. Theophilus Budd sat down together in the moving swing.

“Your husband’s the Mister Chalmers who was at one of them foreign courts, isn’t he?” Mrs. Budd began, a little curiously. “My friend, Mrs. Silas Holt--we belong to the same Browning Society in Alexandria--she’s read me pieces out o’ the paper about him. And once there was his picture--he _is_ the handsome figger of a man now! What’s his job now--he’s left that foreign place, hasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Farleigh could not be annoyed with the little person--she was too simple, somehow--but she kept watching the stairs where Pix had disappeared. Why didn’t he come back? Surely he didn’t imagine she had taken him seriously about untangling this funny little Mrs. Budd’s affairs--“yes, he left Budapest a year ago,” telling it even to funny little Mrs. Budd made Farleigh’s red lips come close together, “he--he has no place now. He’s just a clubman.”

“Just a _clubman_?” almost shrieked Mrs. Budd. “Oh, my dear, how I feel for you! I do indeed--oh. Mr. Pix was right when he said we might help each other. Ain’t he the knowin’ one, Mr. Pix? And to think, your husband belongs to Clubs, too! Oh, isn’t it _awful_?”

“Yes,” said Farleigh fervently--she was biting her lips--“it is.”

“An’ stayin’ out eight days out o’ seven, an’ runnin’ for office in ten different things at once, an’ wire-pullin’ an’ toadyin’ an’--yes, though I could sink in my grave with shame for sayin’ it--bribin’ men as he can make useful--oh, Mrs. Chalmers, what a life! That’s what I say to Theophilus, on the ice-olated occasions when I happen to see him. What a life!”

Farleigh was silent.

“An’ how do you spend your time?” went on the little woman with tan cotton gloves, more cheerfully. “Makin’ the home more attractive, I s’pose, an’ doin’ everything you can, same as I do, to keep him with you and in some kind o’ sane, contented life? D’ye keep a girl, Mrs. Chalmers?”

“Oh, yes,” though her voice was rather sharp, Farleigh smiled, “I have--yes, I have a maid.”

“You must excuse me if I was impertinent,” apologised Mrs. Budd softly; she had a very nice soft voice, Farleigh couldn’t help noticing, “but I thought maybe since your husband lost his job, you couldn’t afford----”

“Oh, yes!” was it bitterly that Farleigh said it? Bitterly to little Mrs. Budd? “He has money, you see, my husband. He--he doesn’t have to have a job.”

“Now that’s too bad!” commiserated the other woman, gently rocking the “movin’ swing” with her foot. “I mean it’s too bad when _anybody_ doesn’t have a job, man or woman. I always say my job’s makin’ a home for Theophilus--though he doesn’t stay in it,” she sighed. “What’s your job, Mrs. Chalmers?”

Farleigh stirred restlessly in her corner of the swing. “Why--trying to make my husband a success, I suppose,” she said unwillingly--after all, what danger in telling the truth to this simple little thing? Why didn’t Mr. Pix come back, anyway (impatiently); there would be no time before Kent came for her to ask him----

“Men are queer creatures,” reflected Mrs. Budd, looking at her with a certain thoughtfulness; “Mr. Pix, he thought you might help me out with Theophilus, but I guess you can’t. I guess you’ve got just as hard a job as me, and no better off t’ cope with it. Men’re queer creatures, Mrs. Chalmers--they’ve got to go their own way, ’n’ all we can do, I guess, is to sit by an’ keep lovin’ ’em. Isn’t that what you say?”

“Er--yes,” Farleigh rose out of the swing altogether this time. “Yes, I suppose it is. Shall we walk a little, Mrs. Budd? I feel rather--rather cramped.”

“You don’t look as though you’d ever felt a pain in your life,” said Mrs. Budd admiringly, as they started down the big hall hung with apparatus, “but then I s’pose you keep outdoors a lot, and don’t let yourself be ruined by this s’ciety life. Mis’ Holt was readin’ me out of last Sunday’s fashion supplement how a preacher had said the word for Washington s’ciety was ‘hectic,’ and we looked it up, at the Tuesday readin’ of the Browning class, an’ I guess he’s right, Mrs. Chalmers. Washington s’ciety’s hectic.”

“They call it so many things,” murmured Farleigh; busy in avoiding a punching-ball, she spoke again truthfully, to the little woman--almost friendly, in her nonchalance, to the janitor’s wife.

“But I don’t take no stock in it, do you?” pursued Mrs. Budd. “Seems as though it’s just like this room full o’ climbin’ machines--an’ somebody liable to fall off the trapeze an’ bust his head open, any time--half way up or at the top; y’ can’t tell nothin’ about it. I’m glad you let it alone, Mrs. Chalmers. This paper said one woman--it didn’t give her name--one woman had gone so far’s to--look out for that movin’ staircase, Mis’ Chalmers--they’re awful treacherous: they pretend to be takin’ you up all the time an’ then before you know it, they throw you--had gone so far as to make a name for herself, in the line o’ intrigue,” continued Mrs. Budd, her soft voice hushed with excitement; “she didn’t need nothin’ as far as climb goes, it said, she just liked pullin’ the ropes because she done it so well. It said they call her----”

“Mrs. Budd, do you see anything of Mr. Pix?” asked Farleigh, two red spots glowing in her cheeks.

“No--but he’ll be along presently. Don’t fret, he ’n’ your husband’s probably met and ’re having a shindy with Budd down below. Men ’re gossipy creatures. I was goin’ to tell you, they call that woman the Spanish Cat--’cause she slides in an’ out o’ things so easy, and looks that Spanish kind. You’re real dark too, aren’t you, Mrs. Chalmers? My, but your husband must be proud of you!” the little woman in the plaid dress looked up wistfully.--“Why, Mis’ Chalmers, what’s the matter?”

For Mrs. Chalmers looked as though she was going to cry. She also looked furiously angry, and--Mrs. Budd gasped--very beautiful. “Mrs. Chalmers, I--I do hope I haven’t said nothin’ to hurt your feelings,” faltered the little janitor’s wife.

“No”--with a ringing laugh Farleigh dashed her hand to her eyes--“oh, no, Mrs. Budd. I--shan’t we sit down on this _un_moving staircase and wait?--So you don’t think much of the Spanish Cat?” she questioned, as Mrs. Budd sat down. “You think she’s--er--rather a fool?”

“I think they’ll come a day when she’ll get caught, in one o’ these slides,” said Mrs. Budd, delighted to settle to a cosy chat, “an’ then that’ll be the end of _her_. Just the same, she must be a real clever woman, Mrs. Chalmers, and then, my dear--as I told Mis’ Holt--there must be _somethin’_ the matter with her husband. No woman would take to pullin’ wires for a job, if her husband was the man he should be. Prob’ly he’s some lazy, no account s’ciety man, this----”

“No, Mrs. Budd,” Farleigh sat very erect, “I--I’m sure you’re mistaken,” she added less hastily, “he--her husband isn’t no account, or--you see, such a clever woman wouldn’t have married him!” Yes, watching that smile of hers, Mrs. Budd declared she was beautiful.

“My dear, you can’t tell,” said Theophilus’ wife sombrely, “women, the cleverest of ’em, do marry the strangest men!--yes I just bet you anything, this intreegant’s husband is some s’ciety loafer, who’s made his wife so tired with his foolishness, she just had----”

“No, not a loafer,” Mrs. Chalmers shook her head decidedly, “certainly he is not a loafer, though----”

“Ah, you do know him then?” Mrs. Budd fairly trembled with anxiety. No wonder Mrs. Chalmers had looked angry. “He ’n’ she’s friends of yours?”

“She’s not a friend of mine, no,” said Farleigh slowly. She seemed to have forgotten Mrs. Budd as a “funny little person,” Farleigh. “I should rather say she’s my worst enemy. He--well, I don’t know,” she ended rather abruptly.

“Do you know, my dear,” the other woman--the woman with the tan cotton gloves leaned forward earnestly, “I sh’d think _there_ would be a chance for some real mission’ry work for you--and if I called ’em names, I’m sorry indeed----”

“It’s all right,” said Farleigh hastily, “one’s quite apt to tell the truth about people, before one knows who they are.”

“But being such friends of yours, or at least knowin’ ’em as you do, if you could bring them together, my dear,” went on the simple little woman looking earnestly into the beautiful face, “if you could make that woman see how she’s wastin’ herself on the trapeze business, when she might be walkin’ along safe an’ happy on the ground with him; an’ if you could make him see that--but men’s queer creatures!--if you could make him see that if he’ll only stir his stumps a bit ’n’ make _himself_ more interestin’ for her, she--don’t you see, my dear? Why, if you did that, if you could make ’em see that each is part wrong, why--it’d be the biggest job you ever did in your life!”

“Yes,” Farleigh drew a deep breath, “it would. The biggest job I ever did in my life! And--isn’t it funny, Mrs. Budd? that’s just what Mr. Pix said too: that to make each see that each is part wrong, is the first step toward reconciliation.”

“Ah, but he’s a smart man, Mr. Pix,” said Mrs. Budd ingenuously. “But you’ll try, my dear? You’ll do what you can to bring these two together again?--don’t know why I take s’ much interest in ’em,” she laughed a little abashed, “but readin’ that woman’s story in the paper seemed so kind o’ pitiful--you see, I thought o’ Theophilus always playin’ around with these climbin’ machines--and then I knew, ’s I say, there must be something wrong about the husband.--You’ll try, my dear?”

“Yes,” promised Farleigh simply, “I’ll try. And--I’m glad you happened to read the story in the paper, Mrs. Budd.”

“Funny now, wasn’t it?” The little woman smiled happily. “And that I should just happen to tell it to you, and you knew those people? Well,” she sighed, “even if we ain’t come to no conclusion about Theophilus, maybe we’ve helped somebody. And here’s Mr. Pix”--then, as another man appeared beside Pix on the stairs--“_my dear!_ is that your husband?” she asked wonderingly.

“Yes,” Farleigh rose to meet them, “why?”

“Because he--my dear, I wouldn’t worry one mite,” the little woman with the tan gloves patted the black sleeve cut by Paquin, reassuringly, “don’t you fret, my dear, one minute. That man could be a member of the Sons of Adam an’ the Kindlin’ Wood Knights an’ any other forty-seven ’leven Clubs he was a mind to. He’s a _man_, my dear. And (as she saw him smile at Farleigh, coming toward her) he loves you. You’re a very lucky woman.”

“Mrs. Budd, this is my husband, Mr. Chalmers,” Farleigh made the introduction rather unsteadily. “I want you to know each other.”

“Indeed, and I’m proud to, Mr. Chalmers,” the little woman beamed; while Farleigh turned to Pix, but not exclusively. “Mrs. Chalmers an’ I have just been having the most interestin’ time, talkin’ about the Spanish Cat--oh I--I beg your pardon”--she grew frantically pink--“I forgot again, they was friends of yours, and besides I don’t know her real name. I----”

“Mrs. Budd has been telling me how to manage the Spanish Cat, Kent,” said Farleigh very quietly. Pix stared at the window as though he meant to jump out of it. “She says that to--to manage her would be the biggest job of my life, and----”

“Oh, not exactly to manage her, Mrs. Chalmers,” put in the little woman uneasily, “to bring her ’n’ her husband together’s what I mean. You see,” she turned to Chalmers, “I think her husband must be part wrong, too.”

“I think he must,” said Kent, looking into Farleigh’s eyes; “I’m sure he is.”

“But what about the case of Budd?” broke in Pix, renouncing the window.

“Oh, we didn’t get ’s far ’s him,” said Mrs. Budd resignedly; “we’ll take up Theophilus at the next meetin’, won’t we, Mrs. Chalmers?”

“We will, indeed,” said the very clever lady. And I must tell you that as she said good-bye to her, she kissed Mrs. Budd!

Kent turned to Pix--Farleigh had gone on ahead of them, rather swiftly, down the stairs. “Pix, I--you--it’s all your affair,” he stammered unevenly, “I----”

“Tut, my dear boy!” Pix waved aside the words, though he gripped the proffered hand and wrung it. “I’m twice as pleased as you are. I never do things unselfishly, you know--I’m purely a philanthropist.

“By the way,” added Pix carelessly, watching Chalmers from behind his monocle as they came out into the street, “who’s this man who’s been detaining you all the time at the Club?”

“That,” said Kent, stepping into the car beside Farleigh, “is a gentleman who has been trying to get my opinion on a Secretaryship in London. I just told him, this afternoon: yes.”

VIII

RICHARD--NO MORE THAN A KING

Into the mysterious shadows of the grey-cloistered chapel, the Court in all its ceremony was disappearing--all except the newest Maid of Honor, who, after one glance back at the sunset, shook her curls rebelliously, and deliberately stayed behind in the rose-garden!

“I just _won’t_ go to vespers,” declared the Maid of Honor wilfully; “and what’s more”--darting after two other stragglers in the procession--“you sha’n’t go either.” She laid a compelling hand on a little old person in rose and silver, and a very magnificent person in black velvet and pumps. “It’s a perfect sacrilege to pray any more to-day. Besides, don’t you know we’ve got to _talk_? To talk about _him_?” And she shook her small fist threateningly after the departing monarch.

“It is a fine evening,” conceded the little old person weakly; already she had arranged her brocade and laces against the quaint primness of an ancient stone settle.

“And--er--no sense, really, in making Sunday _too_ shocking a misfortune,” abetted the magnificent person, enjoying the effect of himself under the glowing luxuriance of a canopy of Maréchal Niels. “Fact is, the King----”

“That’s just it!” The Maid of Honor pounced upon the words, as she pounced upon her favorite garden seat. “The King! Oh”--she clicked her fan vehemently--“I am so glad to get you two alone for once, so that we can talk and talk and talk about him!”

“My dear!” The little old person’s hands went up. “I’m sure no one ever found that much to say about a king. There’s really nothing much to say, is there?” She glanced half fearfully toward the beautiful old chapel door.

“Exactly what I mean!” announced the Maid of Honor triumphantly. “Mind you, I don’t agree to it for all kings--perhaps the less important ones aren’t so bad--but this one! Why, he’s a mere bundle of robes, a mannequin to hang things on: satins, epigrams, anything. A sort of peg for the traditions of our ancestors. Oh!” In the small restless face showed the exasperation of all youth. “What difference does it make how many millions of subjects he has? He’s always the same. He always will be the same, I suppose: just a monarch, a handsome effigy, no more than a king!”

“Nor less,” appended his Fool impartially. (Nowadays, they call them the “king’s best friend”: it amounts to the same thing.) “He does the best he can with the predicament, you know. Rather beastly situation to find oneself in, too, now isn’t it? Fancy, just fancy for yourself”--he looked toward the Maid of Honor’s profile propitiatingly--“being suddenly obliged to become king--or, queen, that is, of Dumdedum; Emperor of Ladada, Lord High Protector of Thingumbob, and all the rest of it. You wouldn’t like it, you know. Nobody would.”