Читать книгу The Salamander - Owen Johnson - Страница 7

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At this time, it happened that the highest democratic circles of New York were thrown into a turmoil of intrigue and social carnage by the visit of representatives of one of the royal houses of Europe, traveling under the title of the Comte and Comtesse de Joncy. A banquet had been respectfully tendered these rare manifestations of the principle of divine right. The list of guests, directed by the autocratic hand of Mrs. Albert Edward Sassoon, tore New York society to shreds, and reconstituted that social map which had been so opportunely established by the visit of the lamented Grand Duke and Royal Imperial Highness Alexis. Twenty-five young gentlemen of irreproachable standing had flung themselves enthusiastically at the distinguished honor of offering soup to such exalted personages, and the press of New York scrupulously published the list of honorary waiters high among the important details of the probable cost per plate of this extraordinary banquet.

Now, the Comte de Joncy, being profoundly bored by such amateur exhibitions, had remarked to Sassoon that, in his quality of traveler and student of important social manifestations, what had impressed him most was the superior equipment, physically and mentally, of the American chorus girl.

It was a remark that Sassoon was eminently fitted to comprehend—having, indeed, received the same confidential observation from the Comte de Joncy's last royal predecessor. The present luncheon was the prompt response, and to insure the necessary freedom from publicity, Harrigan Blood, editor of the New York Free Press, was invited.

They waited in the brilliant Louis XVI salon of that private suite which Tenafly reserved for his choicest patrons, patiently prepared for that extra half-hour of delay which the ladies of the chorus would be sure to take in their desire to show themselves ladies of the highest fashion. The curtains were open on the cozy dining-room, on the spectacle of shining linen, the spark of silver and the gay color of fragrant bouquets. Two or three waiters were giving the last touches under the personal supervision of Tenafly himself, who accorded this mark of respect only to the master who had raised him from head waiter in a popular roadside inn to the management of a restaurant capitalized in millions.

There were six: Sassoon, slight, waxen, bored, with a wandering, fatigued glance, oriental in the length of his head and the deep setting of the eyes; the Comte de Joncy, short, round-bellied, hair transparent and polished, parted from the forehead to the neck, with nothing of dignity except in his gesture and the agreeable modulation of his voice; Judge Massingale of the magistrates court, urbane, slightly stooped in shoulders, high in forehead, set in glance, an onlooker keenly observant, and observing with a relish that showed in the tolerant humor of the thin ever-smiling lips; Tom Busby, leader of cotillions and social prescriber to a bored and desperate world, active as a young girl, bald at thirty, but with a radiating charm, disliking no one, never failing in zest, animating the surface of gaiety, blind to ugliness below, well born and indispensable; Garret Lindaberry, known better as "Garry" Lindaberry, not yet thirty, framed like a frontiersman, with a head molded for a statesman, endowed with every mental energy except necessity, burning up his superb vitality in insignificant supremacies, a magnificent man-of-war sailing without a rudder, supremely elegant; never, in the wildest orgies, relaxing the control of absolute courtesy; finally, Harrigan Blood, interloper, last to arrive, abrupt and on the rush, in gray cheviot, which he had assumed as a flaunting of his independence before those whose motive for inviting him he perfectly understood. Neck and shoulders massive, head capacious and already beginning to show the stealing in of the gray, jaw strong and undershot like a bulldog's, cropped mustache, forehead seamed with wrinkles, incapable of silence or attention except when in the sudden contemplative pursuit of an idea, disdaining men, and women more than men on account of the distraction they flung him into, passionately devoted to ideas, he bided his time, knowing no morality but achievement.

The group formed an interesting commentary on American society of the day, which parallels that of modern France, with its Bourbon, its Napoleonic and its Orleanist strata of nobility. Sassoon and Massingale were of the old legitimists, offshoots of families that had never relaxed their supremacy from colonial days; Lindaberry and Busby were inheritors in the third generation of that first period of industrial adventure, the period of the gold-fields of 1845, while Harrigan Blood was of the present era of volcanic opportunity, that creates in a day its marshals of the Grand Army of Industry, ennobles its soldiers of yesterday, and forces the portals of established sets with the golden knocking of new giants, who cast on the steps the soiled garments of the factory, the mining camp and the construction gang.

Past and present have given the American two distinct types. The characteristics of the first are aristocratic, the thinly elongated head, the curved skull balancing on a slender neck, nose and forehead advancing, the jaw less and less accentuated. Of the second, the type of the roughly arriving adventurer, Harrigan Blood was the ideal. His was the solid, crust-breaking, boulder type of head, embedded on shoulders capable of propelling it upward through the multitude, the democrat who places his chair roughly in the overcrowded front rank, whose wife and daughters will crown, by way of Europe, the foundation which he flings down.

"Mon cher Sassoon," said the Comte de Joncy, studying Blood,—who, in another group, was discussing the coming political campaign with Massingale,—"I'll give you a bit of advice. The animal is dangerous! I know the kind!"

"Words—words!" said Sassoon, his wandering eye flitting a moment to the group. "We manage him very well."

"If you could dangle the prospect of a title before his eyes," said the count, with a sardonic smile. "But you—what have you to offer him?"

"Money!" said Sassoon indifferently. "We make him a partner in our operations. He won't attack us!"

"He will use you!" said De Joncy shrewdly. "That type doesn't love money! When he gets as much as he wants, beware! Do you receive him?"

"Oh, we invite him to half a dozen of these affairs," said Sassoon, without looking at his companion and speaking as if his mind were elsewhere. "That keeps him to generalizations!"

This word, which was afterward repeated, and reaching the ears of Harrigan Blood, made of him an overt enemy, made the Comte de Joncy smile.

"I see you, too, have your diplomacy," he said, studying Sassoon with more interest.

"Yes. Generalizations are blank cartridges: they can be aimed at any one," Sassoon said, without animation. He ran a thin forefinger over the scarce mustache that mounted in a W from the full upper lip. Then, raising his voice a little, he called Busby:

"I say, Buzzy, hurry things up a bit!"

Busby, like Ganymede at a frown from Jove, departed lightly in the direction of the ladies' dressing-room.

"It's Buzzy, my darlings," he said, sticking in his beaky nose and wide grinning mouth. "You've prinked enough; I'm coming in!"

He was immediately surrounded and assailed with exclamations:

"Oh, Buzzy! why didn't you tell us!"

"A Royal Highness!"

"Mean thing!—not to warn us!"

"What d'ye call His Nibs?"

"We're tickled to death!"

"Don't suffocate me, sweethearts," said Busby, defending himself. "I didn't tell you for a damn good reason. No press-agent stunts before or after. Understand? Besides, the papers are bottled up—democratic respect for His Highness."

"I've a mind to have appendicitis," said one in a whisper to a companion. "Gee! What a chance!"

"If you do, Consuelo, dear," said Busby urbanely, "we'll ship you down in a service elevator, and see you get the operation, too. Now, no nonsense, girls. You know what that means."

"What we've got to keep it out of the poipers? What, no publicity? Gee!"

"None, now or after," said Busby firmly.

All at once he looked up, astonished, perceiving Doré, who floated in at this moment like a golden bird.

"Gwendolyn had the sneezes," said Adèle Vickers hastily. "This is her sister."

"What's her name?" said Busby suspiciously, while the chorus girls, with their mountainous hats and sweeping feathers, their overloaded bodices and jeweled necks, studied with some concern the simple daring of this new arrival, uncertain and apprehensive.

"Miss Baxter," said Miss Vickers in a low voice.

"She's not a reporter?" said Busby, hesitating.

"Honest to God, Buzzy," said Adèle Vickers vehemently. "She's on the stage, the legitimate—Doré Baxter, a friend of mine!"

"I know her!" said Busby, suddenly enlightened by the full name, and going to her, he said: "Met you at a party of Bruce Gunther's, I believe, Miss Baxter."

Doré, who thus found herself, to her vexation, sailing under her own colors, said, with a pleading look:

"Don't give me away, will you? It's just a lark, and," she added lower, "don't call me Miss Baxter!"

"A stage name, eh?"

"Splendid one—Trixie Tennyson. Doesn't that sound like a head-liner?" she added confidentially, in the low tone in which the conversation had been conducted.

Busby repeated the name, chuckling to himself, yielding to his sense of humor. "All right! Now, girls, come on!"

"But what shall we call him?"

"Call him anything you like ... after the soup!" said Busby, laughing. "Remember! he's here to be amused!... Have any of you girls changed your names since I saw you last?... No?... Then I know them!..." He told them off, counting with his fingers: "Adèle Vickers, Georgie Gwynne—it used to be Bronson last year—"

"It never was!" exclaimed a petite Irish brunette, with a saucy smile and a roguish eye: "Baron—"

"I'll give you a better one: Georgie Washington!" continued Busby. "Why not? Fine!... A press-agent would charge for that!... I see an inch of nose, a gray eye and a brown cheek under an avalanche of hat—must be Viola Pax!"

"Violetta, please!" said a southern type with soft consonants.

"To be sure!... to be sure!... Both are up-to-date, though!... Trixie Tennyson ... ah, there's a name!... Do you know who Tennyson was, little dears?... A great scientist who discovered the reason why brooks go on forever!" Adèle and Doré smiled, but the rest accepted the information. "Paula Stuart and Consuelo ... dear me! I never did know your last name, Consuelo, darling!"

"Vincent! and cut out the guying!" said a fair buxom type, child of the Rialto. "Let's get a move on!"

"Quite right!" said Busby, offering an arm to Adèle Vickers and Violetta Pax. "Follow me ... always!"

The dressing-room emptied itself, with a last struggle for the mirror, a few hurried applications of rouge, and a loosening of perfumes, while, above the pleasant rustle of skirts, the voice of Georgie Gwynne was heard in a stage whisper:

"Remember, girls! Act refined!"

Consuelo Vincent, under pretext of a cold, insisted on keeping a magnificent sable cape, which she shifted constantly the better to display it.

On perceiving Busby arriving with this bouquet of vermilion smiles, polished teeth and flashing eyes, the Comte de Joncy, who had begun to be restless under the strain of serious conversation, brightened visibly, and holding out both hands, exclaimed with the practised familiarity of a patron of all the arts:

"Why you make me wait so long? Jolis petits amours! Ah, she is charming, this one. What a naughty little eye! Oho! something Spanish—do you dance the Bolero? Ah, but each is perfect—adorable! I could eat every one of them!"

But to this royal affability the ladies of the chorus, very stiff, very correct, lisping a little, made answer:

"Pleased to meet you, I'm sure!"

"It's quite an unexpected pleasure!"

"Indeed, most glad to meet you!"

The introductions continued, and presently the room resounded with such phrases as these:

"I hope we're not terribly late!... New York streets are so crowded!"

"Delightful weather, don't you think?"

"What a charming view!... I dote on views, don't you?"

"Have you seen Péléas and Mélisande?"

And Georgie Gwynne, picking her words with difficulty, was remarking to Harrigan Blood:

"You're such a celebrity, Mr. Blood!... I'm tick ... I'm delighted to know you!"

The Comte de Joncy, overcome by this flood of manners, said to his host:

"The devil, mon cher Sassoon, they overawe me! You are sure it is no mistake? It is not some of your dreadful wives?"

"Wait!" said Sassoon, raising a finger.

Busby, who knew their ways, arrived with a tray of cocktails, scolding them like a stage-manager:

"Now, girls—girls! Unbend! Warm up, or His Highness will catch a cold! Come on, Consuelo, you've aired your furs enough; send them back—you give us a chill! This will never do! Now perk up, girls, do perk up!"

Doré took the cocktail offered, and profiting by the stir, emptied it quickly behind her in the roots of a glowing orange tree. She raised her eyes suddenly to Massingale's. He had detected the movement, and was smiling. She made a quick, half-checked gesture of her arm, imploring his confidence, as, amused, he came to her side.

"What a charming name, Miss Tennyson," he said, without reference to what he had seen. "Are you related?"

She understood that he would not betray her.

"Alfred's a sort of distant cousin," she said with a lisp, affecting a mannerism of the shoulders. "Of course, I haven't kept my full name—my full name is Rowena Robsart Tennyson; but that wouldn't do for the stage, would it? Trixie—Trixie Tennyson is chicker, don't you think?"

"Is what?"

"Chicker—French, you know!"

"Ah, more chic," he said, looking at her steadily with a little lurking mockery in the corners of his eyes.

"I'm not fooling him," she said to herself, impressed by the steadiness of his judicial look, half inquisitorial, half amused. Nevertheless, she continued with a mincing imitation of Violetta Pax, who could be heard discoursing on art.

"What charming weather! Do you like our show? Have you seen it?"

"Yes—have you?" he said, with malice in his eyes.

"What do you mean by that? I'm sure I don't know!"

"I understood you came in place of your sister. Did you forget?"

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, knowing the comedy useless, but continuing it. She was easily impressed, especially at a first meeting, and she had a feeling that to be a judge one must know all, see through every subterfuge.

"'Course I've only been in the sextette a couple of nights."

"And what is your ambition? Tragedy?"

"Oh, no!" she said, with an important seriousness. "I don't think tragedy's in my complexion, do you? I dote on comedy, though; I'd like to be a Maude Adams s-some day."

"So you are serious?" he said gravely.

"Oh, much so—'course, I don't know. I haven't any prejudices against marriage," she continued, allowing her great blue troubling eyes to remain on his. "I sometimes think I'd like to go to London and marry into the English aristocracy."

He bit his lips to keep from laughing.

"Society is so narrow here—there's more opportunity abroad, don't you think?"

He did not answer, considering her fixedly, plainly intrigued.

She moved into the embrasure of a window with a defensive movement.

"The view's quite wonderful, isn't it?"

They were on the fifteenth floor, with a clear sweep of the lower city. He moved to her side, looking out gravely, impressed as one who reads beneath the surface of things. From the window the spectacle of the city below them irrevocably rooted to the soil, caged in the full tide of labor, gave an exquisite sense of luxury to this banquet among the clouds. To the south a light bank of fog, low and spreading, was eating up the horizon of water and distant shore, magnifying the checkered chart of the city as it closed about it. It seemed as if the whole world were there, the world of toil, marching endlessly, regimented into squares, chained to the bitter gods of necessity and the commonplace.

"It gives you the true feeling of splendor," he said. "The world does not change. We might be on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon." He continued, his eyes lit up by a flash of imagination that revealed the youth still in his features: "It is Babylon, Assyria, Egypt. The Pyramids were raised thus, man in terms of a thousand, harnessed and whipped, while a few looked down and enjoyed."

She forgot the part she had assumed, keenly responsive. Her mind, still neglected, was not without perceptions, ready to be awakened to imagination. She saw as he saw, feeling more deeply.

She extended her hand toward the Egyptian hordes beneath them, looking at him curiously.

"And that interests you?"

"Both interest me. That and this. Everything is interesting," he said, with a smile that comprehended her. "Especially you and your motive."

"You know I'm not one of—" she began abruptly.

He shrugged his shoulders good-humoredly, and in his eyes was the same look of delighted malice that had brought him to her.

"You needn't explain. Your manner was perfect. I quite understand you—much better than you believe."

He moved forward, joining the movement into the dining-room. She followed, watching him covertly, enveloped still by his unusual personality.

As the chorus girls still persisted in their display of mannered stateliness, the men listened to Harrigan Blood, who had begun to coin ideas.

"Count, here you have America in a thimble." He elevated his second cocktail, speaking in the slightly raised tone of one who is accustomed to the attention of all listeners. "Your Frenchman takes an afternoon sipping himself into gaiety; your German begins to sing only when he has drunk up a river of beer; but your American—he's different! What do we do? We've won or we've lost—we've got to rejoice or forget—it's all the same. We bolt to a bar and cry: 'Tom, throw something into me that'll explode!' And he hands us a cocktail! Here's America: a hundred millions in a generation, a century's progress in a decade—the future to-morrow, and a change of mood in a second!"

He ended, swallowing his drink in a gulp. Like most mad geniuses of the press, he drank enormously, feeding thus the brain that he punished without mercy.

Busby, who peddled epigrams, murmured to himself with a view to future authorship, "A cocktail is an explosion of spirits; a cocktail...."

The chorus girls, who regarded Harrigan Blood as a sort of demigod who could make a reputation with a stroke of his pen, acclaimed this sally with exaggerated delight. The party crowded into the dining-room, seeking their places.