Chapter XVIII Clover’s Diplomacy
Mr. and Mrs. Page arrived duly, even a little earlier than they had at first anticipated. Jack met them at the station and drove with them to their destination.
“You see it was simply impossible, Mrs. Van Tassel, for my wife to curb her impatience after Gorham began to write home,” said Mr. Page to his hostess in explanation of their change of plan. “Gorham doesn’t very often gush, as perhaps you know.”
“And I assure you that Mr. Page was not difficult to persuade,” added Hilda. “Your last kind letter determined us. And I am really in Chicago!” she went on, looking about her. “Jack, congratulate me!”
“I do, sincerely. I think you, Hilda, will appreciate your advantages.”
Mr. Page gave his contagious, quiet chuckle. “That is the way he goes on,” he said, turning to Mildred. “Jack is very severe on me always. I am going to show you, Miss Bryant, several lists of adjectives, carefully prepared, very carefully and thoughtfully, one for every day in the week, that I am intending to use on the World’s Fair to mollify my cousin.”
“You might have trusted safely to the inspiration of the moment,” returned Mildred gayly.
“Oh, you don’t know Jack. One single false move, one expletive out of place, and it would be all over with me.”
“Poor Robert, I feel for you,” remarked Van Tassel.
“Why, that is mysterious,” replied his cousin. “Anybody who compassionates me just now doesn’t understand economizing his emotions.” The speaker sank back in his roomy wicker chair and took a glass of lemonade from a salver which Miss Berry was passing to the company. The crushed ice jingled pleasantly against the crystal, and the couple of straws that emerged from each glass were alluring to a stout and thirsty man. “Aunt Love, it is very pleasant to see you here,” he added. “We shall have to renew our old acquaintance. We had no time in Boston.”
“That’s so, Mr. Page. I guess I can jog your memory about a good many things.”
When later the husband and wife were shown to their own room and the door was closed, Robert looked at Hilda with large eyes. “Whew!” he said softly. “Uncle Richard was all right. What pretty women!”
“I told you so. I told you that Mildred was a perfect Juno, and that you were very unfortunate to be out of town when she spent that week with me at the beach. As for Mrs. Van Tassel”—
“Why, she’s an angel,—she’s an angel! I knew it from her letter. I felt it in my bones.”
“As if you knew anything about your bones, you dear old cushion. Stop praising those girls,—calling one a goddess and one an angel. Come and apostrophize the lake. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“It was you who called Miss Bryant a goddess, remember. Yes, this is every bit as good as the ocean, for all I see,” walking to the window and putting an arm around his wife’s waist. “We are in great luck, Hilda,” continued Page, glancing about their spacious room. “This isn’t much like the discomforts we read about in connection with World’s Fair visiting. I don’t wonder,” he added after a pause, “that Jack was cut up by being at cross purposes with those girls.”
“H’m. There is one exhibit I have come out here to see that isn’t inside the White City,” returned Hilda. “I’ve come to discover which one of them Jack is in love with.”
“Both, of course. How can he help it?” replied her husband promptly.
Gorham took it upon himself to launch his brother and sister on their Fair pilgrimage that very evening.
When they came home again, hours later, Clover and Jack were sitting alone in the parlor and rose to meet them as they entered the room. Their tired, excited faces were a study.
Hilda dropped into a chair. “Well,” she exclaimed, “I never expected to go to heaven till I died; but I’ve been there.”
“Jack,” added Robert meekly, “get in your fine work now. I’ve nothing to say, absolutely nothing. I’ve dropped my jaw so often since six o’clock that it isn’t in working order, any way.”
“Say no more,” returned Van Tassel, waving his hand grandiloquently. “We Chicagoans are nothing if not magnanimous.”
“I thought I knew what I was going to see, that is the queer part of it,” said Page, looking perplexed; “but it seems I didn’t know anything at all about it. I feel there is an unlimited feast in store for me, Mrs. Van Tassel.”
Clover smiled at his enthusiastic tone. “You are in the first-day frame of mind, I see.”
“What is that?”
“Oh, eagerness and hopefulness.”
“And what is the second?”
“Despair; yes, overwhelming, stony despair.”
“What is the third? Suicidal tendency?”
“No indeed. Resignation. At first one expects and determines to see everything; soon finds that to be so impossible that he yields to his bewilderment, and at last accepts the inevitable and sets himself to see what he can, and be rapturously content therewith.”
“Thank you, thank you! Forewarned, forearmed. Perhaps we may even skip the second stage.”
A few days later, Clover, her guests having scattered on various quests, went to the noon orchestral concert in Festival Hall. This wonderfully generous free exhibit attracted a large audience, many of whom embraced it as an opportunity to rest from the fatigues of sight-seeing, while many others, coming perhaps from the country where “hearing a band” was a rare privilege, were drawn thither by the hope of attractive music.
Possibly one half the number came intelligently to the feast, and greeted the conductor when he entered upon the stage. Clover joined in the applause as Theodore Thomas passed before his players with that quiet, characteristic grace, which has power to thrill with anticipation a greater number of America’s music-lovers than the movement of any other man.
It interested her as it had many a time before, this summer, to note the effect upon certain of the audience of the number with which the programme opened. She saw pleased hopefulness give way to apathy in many faces, as strange harmonies and dissonances fell upon uncultivated ears. She noticed one patient-faced countryman who waited through two numbers, evidently discovering nothing but a wilderness of sound. He then examined his programme, and not finding “After the Ball” on it, arose and departed from the hall more in sorrow than anger.
Blessings on the man, by the way, who introduced the noiseless paper on which those programmes were printed. There were two girls sitting next to Clover, chewing gum while they listened for some melody they could recognize, and Clover congratulated herself that all the foldings and drummings of their programmes were inaudible; but alas, as soon as the maidens discovered that the music they were hearing was unworthy the name, they cheerfully set about doing the next best thing, which was to prepare for the afternoon’s campaign. This was a free concert anyway, so no matter if it wasn’t worth much. They would not leave at once, because this was a better place to rest than they would be likely to find soon again; so they unfolded their maps of the grounds, not printed on absorbent paper, far from it, and proceeded to discuss their plans.
Clover caught sight of Jack standing across the hall. He discovered her at the same moment. His concentrated look flashed into a smile as they exchanged nods.
At the close of the number he came around to where Clover sat in the front row of the circle, and leaned his arm on the railing in front of her.
“How handsome Jack can look, when he is happy and interested,” she thought, and instantly became aware that her neighbors had ceased their planning, and were nudging each other in silent absorption.
“Wasn’t that great!” he exclaimed. “Are you going over to the Music Hall this afternoon?”
“Indeed I am. They are going to play the Tschaikowsky Symphony.”
“That settles it. Suppose we go up in the wheel after lunch, and then go over to the concert together.”
“All right. I’d like to. Why, there is Mildred on the left, down there near the front. I didn’t know she was coming.”
“Nor I. Shall I go and speak to her?”
In a minute Jack was back, just as the music began again. The girls who had constituted the thorn in Clover’s side during the first half of the programme had left their seats as soon as he moved away, so he came in and took the place beside Clover.
“Mildred says she will go with us,” he whispered.
When the Intermezzo was finished, Clover spoke.
“Did you ask Mildred to join us?” she asked.
“No, she proposed it,” returned Jack, and there was a pleasure in his eyes which did not escape his companion.
“You mentioned last night in our talk that you hadn’t seen much of Mildred since you came; that she was too much of a belle for your comfort.”
“Yes. It is simply surprising to find her here alone.”
Clover’s eyes twinkled. She had mentioned to her sister, this morning, that she meant to meet Jack at the noon concert.
“Well, you leave her to me. No matter what I say, don’t contradict me. Promise?”
“What’s up?” asked Van Tassel doubtfully.
“Oh, Mildred’s conceit and a few other things that ought to come down. I want you to myself a part of the time, Jack.”
Her companion met her laughing glance.
“I am yours to command, Clover, always.”
“Don’t forget, then,” she answered.
When the concert was over, Mildred came slowly up the aisle, superb as usual in her consciously unconscious carriage.
“Well,” she said to her sister as they met, “where are we to lunch?”
“Are you going to lunch with us?” asked Clover in well-affected surprise.
“Of course I am,” returned the younger with a half-pouting smile flung at Jack; “and I am going in the Ferris Wheel with you too. I haven’t been up in it yet.”
“Why, I don’t see how you possibly can, Mildred,” said Clover coolly. “I heard you promise Mr. and Mrs. Page to meet them in the Art Gallery at two o’clock, and show Mrs. Page some of our favorite pictures.”
Mildred expected some protest from Jack, and was disconcerted that none came. “I only told them that if I was at the south entrance at two o’clock I would act as their cicerone,” she answered.
“Well, my dear, having said so much,” suggested Clover gravely, “I think the least you can do is to be there, considering that they are our guests.”
Still Jack did not interfere. Mildred could not forbear hurling one glance at him from beneath her eyelashes, but it might have been a gaze. Van Tassel was absently viewing the dispersing audience.
Her eyes and cheeks burned as they had on the night he refused to accompany her to witness the fireworks, but as on that occasion she carried the matter with a high hand.
“Very well, then you have lost my company at lunch, too. You and Jack would be sure to make me late, dawdling at table. Au revoir,” and as they nodded to her, she swept away.
Clover looked at her companion and tried to repress the mirthful laugh that bubbled over her lips.
“Jack, you wouldn’t be human if you hadn’t enjoyed that.”
“Then I must be inhuman,” he responded rather ruefully, “for I give you my word I’m scared almost to death.”
“Don’t you worry, mon ami; I know Mildred to the depths of her noble, generous, overbearing, over-indulged soul.”
“I don’t suppose you realize, Clover,” Van Tassel spoke low and jerkily, “but I care very much; absurdly much, you might think, considering the shortness of the time.”
Clover looked into his flushed face, and the merriment in her sweet eyes was quenched.
“Dear Jack,” she said, laying her hand lightly on his arm, “whatever you wish, I wish. Trust me. No harm has been done. Do you want my advice,—the advice of one who knows?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then don’t let Mildred suspect what you have told me. The round world is just a rattle to her now. You are one of the bells on it that jingle for her amusement when she moves you. There are Katherines in existence still, and Petruchios are wholesome teachers for them.”
“Imagine me cracking a horsewhip at Mildred!”
“Out, please!” roared a Columbian Guard, exasperated by the sight of these two loiterers, after the remainder of the audience had drifted away. “As if there wasn’t any other place on the grounds to spoon but just this,” he muttered.
Mildred, to her credit be it said, devoted her afternoon to Mrs. Page with as cheerful courtesy as though she bore no grudge in her mind against the world. Mr. Page left them together and went off somewhere under his brother’s guidance. It was nearly dinner-time when he drove up to the house in a Beach wagon, and found Mildred swinging idly in a hammock on the piazza.
“Your wife is taking a nap,” she announced, as he came up the steps.
“Fortunate woman!” he responded, sinking wearily upon a wicker divan. “The only interest I’ve had for hours in any exhibit was as to whether there was a chair in it; but Gorham is a terrible fellow. Merciless. Each building being one thousand miles from every other building makes it hard lines. I threatened more than once to trip over one of those chains that say ‘Keep off the grass,’ and refuse to get up again.”
“You and your brother should have taken one of those double chairs.”
“Oh, there wouldn’t have been any room for Gorham,” and the jolly man laughed. “I suppose you have done the Plaisance.”
“Partly, yes.”
“Gorham and I went into the Dahomey village, this afternoon. Some of those savages were unpleasantly personal. Good afternoon, Aunt Love,” as the housekeeper appeared on the veranda. “I was just telling Miss Mildred how those children of nature in the Dahomey village injured my finer feelings to-day. One of them came for me with a big carving knife, yelling ‘Big man, fat man,’ and going through the pantomime of taking a slice off my sacred person.”
“Dirty critters!” remarked Miss Berry sententiously.
“Isn’t it a funny paradox to see an incandescent light over the door of each hut?” went on Page. “There was one big fellow squatted down in the sun, off by himself, playing on a rough sort of a harp, and singing monotonously something that sounded like ‘Come away, come away, Chicago.’ I tried to write down the pitches he sang, and that amused him immensely. His ivories would have made a perfect dentist’s sign. I gave him a dime or so to repeat the performance, a sufficient number of times, and he was delighted, and kept saying ‘Chicago beer.’”
“Yes,” returned Miss Berry bitterly. “They have to come to a Christian land for that.”
“Wait till you see the South Sea Islanders,” said Mildred.
“We did. Fine, aren’t they? There is an exhibition of drill and muscle worth seeing.”
“And that café-au-lait skin!” exclaimed Mildred. “I am entirely spoiled for white beauties.”
“Let ’em wear somethin’ more ’n a straw wreath and a piece o’ calico then,” remarked Miss Berry.
“But Aunt Love,” suggested Page, “you must remember how clothing that brown skin is. I am sure you must admit it is an improving sight to see one of those heavy-eyed beauties sit cross-legged, and absently scratch one great toe while she sings.”
“What are you all laughing about?” asked Hilda, coming out upon the piazza in the freshness of a light organdie gown.
“Your husband has been to the Midway,” returned Miss Berry. “Don’t be surprised at anything he may say or do; and I don’t believe we’d better wait for Mr. and Mrs. Van Tassel any longer, for dinner was ready when I came out here.”
“I don’t understand Clover’s staying so,” remarked Mildred, leaving the hammock and trying not to speak severely.
“I go, I fly, to make myself presentable,” said Page, slowly dragging himself up from his comfortable resting-place.
After dinner Mildred made an opportunity to address the housekeeper privately. “For pity’s sake, Aunt Love, when you are going to speak of Jack and Clover as you did this evening, don’t say Mr. and Mrs. Van Tassel.”
“Why not?” asked Miss Lovina with exasperating unconsciousness.
“Why, it sounds so—so—absurdly married.”
Miss Berry smiled. “What shall I say then?”
“Mrs. and Mr. Van Tassel, of course,” replied Mildred, making an effort to speak with a suavity she did not feel.
“Well, if that ain’t a new idea. Mrs. and Mr.! Do tell!” said Miss Berry good-naturedly. “Oh, I’ll learn a deal of etiquette to take back to Pearfield. It’s enough to do a body good to see Mr. Jack and your sister so much to each other, ain’t it? Seems if they have lots o’ pleasure together now; just as it should be.”
“I don’t know that they are together so very much,” returned Mildred coolly.
“That’s ’cause you’re off so much o’ the time. Why, they’re just the best friends that ever was; and Mrs. Van Tassel, she’s gone back before my eyes from a grave woman full or care to a merry girl just as free as a bird. It does me good, Miss Mildred. It does me so much good, I’m ’most afraid I shall grow fat on it.”
Mildred’s bright eyes looked thoughtful for a second, as though she were digesting the housekeeper’s words. “There is Blitzen, barking,” she exclaimed, and both hastened to see whether Electra’s nervous system was receiving some fresh shock.
Gorham Page strayed over from the hotel, as was his habit after dinner, and found the family disposed in various comfortable chairs and hammocks about the piazza.
The autocratic Miss Bryant was feeling a trifle sore, although she did not dream of acknowledging to herself that it was because Clover and Jack still remained away, and in the present sensitive state of her self-love it was a new affront that Gorham did not at once seek her side, but after bowing to her, settled down beside Mrs. Page, who closed the book she was reading upon her finger as a marker.
“Yes indeed, the afternoon was delightful,” she said, in answer to his question. “Mildred and I had a charming time among the pictures. You nearly committed fratricide. Do you see poor Robert fast asleep over there?”
“This will do him a world of good. Train down his flesh, and strengthen his muscle; though the poor old chap did say, before we decided to come home, that he had walked so long his feet splayed out like the camels’ every time he set them down.” Page laughed reminiscently.
“Camels? Did you go into Cairo Street?”
“No, to the Bedouin village; the Wild East show.”
“Very well. You have just saved your lives. I understand that Cairo Street is one of the plums of the Plaisance, and if Robert had gone without me, I should have been highly offended.”
“Yes, he is well trained. I wonder if my wife will find me as thoughtful. I am afraid not.”
Hilda laughed at the sincere meekness of his tone. “No, I’m sure she won’t, for the simple reason that you will never have one.”
“I should be sorry to think that.”
“Then why don’t you do as nine out of every ten men in your place would do?”
“You mean fall in love? You know, Hilda, how often I’ve done that.”
Mrs. Page laughed again at the gently remonstrant tone. “Your sort of falling in love isn’t worth two straws,” she declared scoffingly. “Don’t take that into consideration at all. The next woman you meet who satisfies you intellectually, propose to her. If she accepts you, marry her. I don’t believe you would make her very unhappy. You wouldn’t if you were as kind a husband as you are a brother.”
“Thank you. You might give me a written recommendation. See how handsome Miss Bryant’s face looks against that golden pillow.”
“Yes; it is a proof of your hard heart that you withstand her.”
“I don’t withstand her. You have no idea how much I enjoyed an afternoon I had with her at the Fair last week; but Jack was remarkably short with me that evening, and I fancied I had trespassed on his preserves.”
“Not a bit of it. He must be a dog in the manger.”
“Why, I’m very sure he is hard hit in that direction.”
“Oh, where are a man’s eyes, I wonder! I haven’t been here very long, but long enough to discover the truth.”
“I suppose you want me to ask you what truth?”
“No, I don’t, my dear.” Mrs. Page reopened her book.
“You are not hinting at—at—Mrs. Van Tassel?” Gorham spoke in a hushed tone.
“Just observe for yourself,” said Hilda sententiously.
“You ought not to have such a thought.”
Mrs. Page looked up, wondering at this severity. “Why, if you please? You surely haven’t an idea that that young creature is going to sacrifice the rest of her life to a memory of duty done?”
“But Hilda, that is repugnant!” Page rose suddenly, and his sister’s gaze followed him as he moved away. It was very unusual for him to show so much feeling. “Wouldn’t it be a strange, strange thing if after waiting all these years Gorham should love at last and love hopelessly?” She banished the query with a sigh. Sober second thought assured her that her brother had not meant more than he said. The idea that Jack might wish to marry his father’s widow was distasteful to him, and that was all.
Page approached Mildred, little realizing how indefensible she considered it that he had not done so some minutes previous. She was too glad of his presence, however, to punish him. It would never do for Jack to come home and suppose that she had not been holding court.
“What beautiful evenings you have in Chicago,” he began. “May I take this chair?” drawing one near the hammock in which she was sitting against a nest of pillows, her foot touching the floor gently as she rocked.
“Yes, I never tire of seeing the moonlight on the water as it is shining to-night. When I was a little girl it was a great treat to me to be allowed to spend a summer evening on this piazza, and I enjoy it scarcely less now.”
“You enjoy it very seldom, I observe.”
“Yes, of course there are lots of engagements this summer, and a quiet evening at home like this seems very welcome occasionally. One likes too, sometimes, to renew acquaintance with the moon. After living among rosy, violet, pale green, and white search lights, and all sorts of spectacular electrical effects so much, one comes back to moonlight on the water as to an old friend.”
The girl clasped her hands above her head upon the down pillow, and allowed Page to look at her, which he was not slow to do.
“I miss your sister and Jack, this evening. Where are they?”
“Columbus knows! Since the authorities have been Barnumizing the Fair, as they call it, one is led on to stay, and stay, and stay, to see this race or that dance or the other illumination. I left them after the noon concert.”
“You were there, then. Of course you are fond of music.”
“I enjoy it very much, although Clover says I don’t. She and Jack are cranks about it. I am not.”
“They have one strong predilection in common, then.”
Mildred did not reply; and Page continued: “The effect of music upon a person who is in sympathy with it is an interesting study. Those involuntary chills that pass over one under the moving influence of good music are rather annoying to me. I do not wish to be moved uncontrollably by anything. I wish to decide just how deeply to feel on any subject. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, exactly.” The decision of the girl’s reply rather surprised her companion. She let him look deep into her luminous eyes set in the moonlight fairness of her face. “And further than agreeing with you in the desirability of the principle,” she added, “I carry the theory into practice.”
“Do you mean to say that you are always able to let your head decide what your heart shall feel?”
“Invariably.”
“But that is no common characteristic in a woman. With women the heart speaks first usually.”
“Not in the case of the well-balanced woman.”
“Then perhaps you can tell me,” said Page, much surprised and interested, “perhaps you will be good enough to tell me what your ideas are concerning love. There, too, do you think it possible for the head to speak first?”
Mildred let a repressed laugh burst its bounds. “Do you mean, do I think it possible to fall in love head first?”
“Forgive me if I ask too much; but it seems to me very helpful to compare notes with one whose aims and desires are similar to your own.”
“Oh, I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Page,” said the girl, sobering. “My ideas on the subject are clearly formulated, and I know of no reason why I should not impart them to one who will be appreciative. I believe a woman can decide what characteristics would be sympathetic with hers, and when she is sufficiently acquainted with a man to discover if he is possessed of those qualities, she can give rein to her heart, and love him”—the speaker suddenly extended her white hands before her—“love him with all her soul!”
The sudden thrill in her movement and in her low contralto voice electrified her listener by its unexpectedness.
“But can one always love where the head dictates?” he asked; “that is the question.”
“Undoubtedly; for when one finds the combination she seeks, she will discover that she has loved it already. I will tell you, Mr. Page, you tempt my confidence because you captivate my judgment. I will describe to you the man I await. He must be good to look upon, for I value beauty of form; but he must be cool and steady of brain, must love to think, to analyze, to look upon life not as a plaything but as something the laws of which must be studied and explored continually. Incidents which appear trifling to others, to him will suggest a thousand questions. He must in short be a student of human nature whose researches I may, by-and-by, as I grow wiser, assist. Oh, proud, happy destiny!” She paused as though overcome, and grasping the sides of the hammock looked with a quick turn of her head toward the moonlight.
Page regarded her in silence, then leaned toward her in his earnestness. “A man like that is not found every day, Miss Bryant; but I congratulate you on your high standard; for the being you describe has surely a great heart to throb for humanity as well as the head to study it, and your affections will not be starved, I am sure of that.”
Mildred grasped the hammock closer and caught her lip between her teeth. Page’s unconsciousness had turned the tables, and she had sufficient sense of humor, in spite of her vanity, to make it difficult not to smile as he walked unseeing around her net, and it fell, enveloping her own saucy head.