The Vision Splendid

by William MacLeod Raine

  CHAPTER 9

  "Man is for woman made, And woman made for man As the spur is for the jade, As the scabbard for the blade, As for liquor is the can, So man's for woman made, And woman made for man."

  THE HERO STUDIES THE MONA LISA SMILE IN ITS PROPER SETTING.INCIDENTALLY, HE MEETS AN EMPIRE BUILDER

  Since James was not courting observation he took as inconspicuous a wayas possible to The Brakes. He was irritably conscious of the incongruityof his elaborate afternoon dress with the habits of democratic Verden,which had been too busy "boosting" itself into a great city, or at leastone in the making, to have found time to establish as yet a leisureclass.

  Leaving the car at the entrance to Lakeview Park, he cut across it bysinuous byways where madronas and alders isolated him from the twilitgreen of the open lawn. Though it was still early the soft winter duskof the Pacific Northwest was beginning to render objects indistinct.This perhaps may have been the reason he failed to notice the skulkingfigure among the trees that dogged him to his destination.

  James laughed at himself for the exaggerated precaution he took to covera perfectly defensible action. Why shouldn't he visit at the house of P.C. Frome? Entirely clear as to his right, he yet preferred his call notto become a matter of public gossip. For he did not need to be told thatthere would be ugly rumors if it should get out that Big Tim had calledat his office for a conference and he had subsequently been seen goingto The Brakes. Dunderheads not broad enough to separate social frompolitical intercourse would be quick to talk unpleasantly about it.

  Deflecting from the path into a carriage driveway, he came througha woody hollow to the rear of The Brakes. The grounds were spacious,rolling toward the road beyond in a falling sweep of well-kept lawn. Heskirted the green till he came to a "raveled walk" that zig-zagged upthrough the grass, leaving to the left the rough fern-clad bluff thatgave the place its name.

  The man who let him in had apparently received his instructions, forhe led Farnum to a rather small room in the rear of the big house. Itssingle occupant was reclining luxuriantly among a number of pillows ona lounge. From her lips a tiny spiral of smoke rose like incense to theceiling. James was conscious of a little ripple of surprise as he lookeddown upon the copper crown of splendid hair above which rested the thinnimbus of smoke. He had expected a less intimate reception.

  But the astonishment had been sponged from his face before Valencia VanTyle rose and came forward, cigarette in hand.

  "You did find time."

  "Was it likely I wouldn't?"

  "How should I know?" her little shrug seemed to say with an indifferencethat bordered on insolence.

  James was piqued. After all then she had not opened to him the door toher friendship. She was merely amusing herself with him as a provincial_pis aller._

  Perhaps she saw his disappointment, for she added with a touch ofwarmth: "I'm glad you came. Truth is, I'm bored to death of myself."

  "Then I ought to be welcome, for if I don't exorcise the devils of ennuiyou can now blame me."

  "I shall. Try that big chair, and one of these Egyptians."

  He helped himself to a cigarette and lit up as casually as if he hadbeen in the habit of smoking in the lounging rooms of the ladies heknew. She watched him sink lazily into the chair and let his glancego wandering over the room. In his face she read the indolent senseof pleasure he found in sharing so intimately this sanctum of her morepersonal life.

  The room was a bit barbaric in its warmth of color, as barbaric as wasthe young woman herself in spite of her super-civilization. The walls,done in an old rose, were gilded and festooned to meet a ceiling almostVenetian in its scheme of decoration. Pink predominated in the brocadedtapestries and in the rugs, and the furniture was a luxurious moderncompromise with the Louis Quinze. There were flowers in profusion--hisgaze fell upon the American Beauties he had sent an hour or two ago--anda disorder of popular magazines and French novels. Farnum did not needto be told that the room was as much an exotic as its mistress.

  "You think?" her amused voice demanded when his eyes came back to her."that the room seems made especially for you."

  She volunteered information. "My uncle gave me a free hand to arrangeand decorate it."

  As he looked at her, smoking daintily in the fling of the fire glow,every inch the pampered heiress of the ages, his blood quickened toan appreciation of the sensuous charm of sex she breathed forth soindifferently. The clinging crepe-de-chine--except in public she didnot pretend even to a conventional mourning for the scamp whose name shebore lent accent to her soft, rounded curves, and the slow, regularrise and fall of her breathing beneath the filmy lace promised a perfectfullness of bust and throat. He was keenly responsive to the physicalallure of sex, and Valencia Van Tyle was endowed with more than hershare of magnetic aura.

  "You have expressed yourself. It's like you," he said with finality.

  Her tawny eyes met his confident appraisal ironically. "Indeed! You knowthen what I am like?"

  "One uses his eyes, and such brains as heaven has granted him," heventured lightly.

  "And what am I like?" she asked indolently.

  "I'm hoping to know that better soon--I merely guess now."

  "They say all women are egoists--and some men." She breathed her softinscrutable ripple of laughter. "Let me hasten to confess, and crave apicture of myself."

  "But the subject deserves an artist," he parried.

  "He's afraid," she murmured to the fire. "He makes and unmakessenators--this Warwick; but he's afraid of a girl."

  James lit a fresh cigarette in smiling silence.

  "He has met me once--twice--no, three times," she meditated aloud. "Buthe knows what I'm like. He boasts of his divination and when one putshim to the test he repudiates."

  "All I should have claimed is that I know I don't know what you arelike."

  "Which is something," she conceded.

  "It's a good deal," he claimed for himself. "It shows a beginning ofunderstanding. And--given the opportunity--I hope to know more." Hequestioned of her eyes how far he might go. "It's the incomprehensiblethat lures. It piques interest and lends magic. Behind those eyelids alittle weary all the subtle hidden meaning of the ages shadows. The godsforbid that I should claim to hold the answer to the eternal mystery ofwoman."

  "Dear me! I ask for a photograph and he gives me a poem," she mocked,touching an electric button.

  "I try merely to interpret the poem."

  She looked at him under lowered lids with a growing interest. Herexperience had not warranted her in hoping that he would prove worthwhile. It would be clear gain if he were to disappoint her agreeably.

  "I think I have read somewhere that the function of present-daycriticism is to befog the mind and blur the object criticised."

  He considered an answer, but gave it up when a maid appeared with atray, and after a minute of deft arrangement disappeared to returnwith the added paraphernalia that goes to the making and consuming ofafternoon tea.

  James watched in a pleasant content the easy grace with which theflashing hands of his hostess manipulated the brew. Presently she flungopen a wing of the elaborate cellaret that stood near and disclosed agleaming array of cut-glass decanters. Her fingers hovered over them.

  "Cognac?"

  "Think I'll take my tea straight just as you make it."

  "Most Western men don't care for afternoon tea. You should hear myfather on the subject."

  "I can imagine him." He smiled. "But if he has tried it with you Ishould think he'd be converted."

  She laughed at him in the slow tantalizing way that might mean anythingor nothing. "I absolve you of the necessity of saying pretty things.Instead, you may continue that portrait you were drawing when the maidinterrupted."

  "It's a subject I can't do justice."

  She laughed disdainfully. "I thought it was time for the flattery. Asif I couldn't extort that from any man. It's the A B C of our education.But the truth about one's
self--the unpalatable, bitter truth--there's asting of unexpected pleasure in hearing that judicially."

  "And do you get that pleasure often?"

  "Not often. Men are dreadful cowards, you know. My father is about theonly man who dares tell it to me."

  Farnum put down his cup and studied her. She was leaning back with herfingers laced behind her head. He wondered whether she knew with whateffectiveness the posture set off her ripe charms--the fine modeling ofthe full white throat, the perfect curves of the dainty arms bare to theelbows, the daring set of the tawny, tilted head. A spark glowed in hiseyes.

  "Far be it from me to deny you an accessible pleasure, though Isacrifice myself to give it. But my sketch must be merely subjective. Idraw the picture as I see it."

  She sipped her tea with an air of considering the matter. "You promiseat least a family likeness, with not an ugly wrinkle of charactersmoothed away."

  "I don't even promise that. For how am I to know what meaning lurksbehind that subtle, shadowy smile? There's irony in it--and scorn--andsensuous charm--but back of them all is the great enigma."

  "He's off," she derided slangily.

  "And that enigma is the complex YOU I want to learn. Of course you're aspecialized type, a product of artistic hothouse propagation. You'reso exquisite in your fastidiousness that to be near you is a luxury.Simplicity and you have not a bowing acquaintance. One looks to see yourmost casual act freighted with intentions not obvious."

  "The poor man thinks I invited him here to propose to him," she told thefire gravely, stretching out her little slippered feet toward it.

  He laughed. "I'm not so presumptuous. You wouldn't aim at such smallgame. You would be quite capable of it if you wanted to, but you don't.But I'm devoured with curiosity to know why you asked me, though ofcourse I shan't find out."

  Her narrowed eyes swept him with amusement. "If I knew myself! Alicesays it was to make a fool of you. I don't think she is right. Butif she is I'm in to score a failure. You're too coolheaded and--" Shestopped, her eyes sparkling with the daring of her unvoiced suggestion.

  "Say it," he nodded.

  "--and selfish to be anybody's fool. Perhaps I asked you just in thehope you might prove interesting."

  He got up and stood with his arm on the mantel. From his superior heighthe looked down on her dainty insolent perfection, answering not tooseriously the challenge of her eyes. No matter what she meant--how muchor how little she was wonderfully attractive. The provocation of themocking little face lured mightily.

  "I am going to prove interested at any rate. Let's hope it may be apreliminary to being interesting."

  "But it never does. Symptoms of too great interest bore one. I enjoymore the men who are impervious to me. Now there's my father. He comesnearer understanding me than anybody else, but he's quite adamantine tomy wiles."

  "I shall order a suit of chain armor at once."

  "An unnecessary expense. Your emotions are quite under control," shetold him saucily.

  "I wish I were as sure."

  "I thought you promised to be interesting," she complained.

  "Now you're afraid I'm going to make love to you. Let me relieve yourmind. I'm not."

  "I knew you wouldn't be so stupid," she assured him.

  "No objection to my admiring your artistic effect at a distance, as aspectator in a gallery?"

  "I shall expect that," she rippled.

  "Just as one does a picture too expensive to own."

  "I suppose I AM expensive."

  "Not a doubt of it. But if you don't mind I'll come occasionally to thegallery to study the masterpiece."

  "I'll mind if you don't."

  Voices were heard approaching along the hall. The portieres parted. Theimmediate effect on Farnum of the great figure that filled the doorwaywas one of masterful authority. A massive head crested a figure ofextraordinary power. Gray as a mediaeval castle, age had not yet touchedhis gnarled strength. The keen steady eyes, the close straight lips, theshaggy eyebrows heavy and overhanging, gave accent to the rugged forceof this grim freebooter who had reversed the law of nature which decreesthat railroads shall follow civilization. Scorning the establishedrule of progress, he had spiked his rails through untrodden forests andunexplored canons to watch the pioneer come after by the road he hadblazed. Chief among the makers of the Northwest, he yearly conceivedand executed with amazing audacity enterprises that would have marked asmonumental the life work of lesser men.

  Farnum, rising from his seat unconsciously as a tribute of respect,acknowledged thus tacitly the presence of greatness in the person of JoePowers.

  The straight lips of the empire builder tightened as his eyes gleamedover the soft luxury of his daughter's boudoir. James would have beenhard put to it to conceive any contrast greater than the one betweenthis modern berserk and the pampered daughter of his wealth. A Hun ora Vandal gazing down with barbaric scorn on some decadent paramour ofcaptured Rome was the most analogous simile Farnum's brain could summon.What freak of nature, he wondered, had been responsible for so alien anoffspring to this ruthless builder? And what under heaven had the two incommon except the blood that ran in both their veins?

  Peter C. Frome, who had followed his brother-in-law into the room,introduced the young man to the railroad king.

  The great man's grip drove the blood from Farnum's hand.

  "I've heard about you, young man. What do you mean by getting in myway?"

  The young man's veins glowed. He had made Joe Powers notice him. Notfor worlds would he have winked an eyelash, though the bones of his handfelt as if they were being ground to powder.

  "Do I get in your way, sir?" he asked innocently.

  "Do you?" boomed the deep bass of the railroader. "You and that madbrother of yours."

  "He's my cousin," James explained.

  "Brother or cousin, he's got to get off the track or be run over. Andyou, too, with that smooth tongue of yours."

  Farnum laughed. "Jeff's pretty solid. He may ditch the train, sir."

  "No!" roared Powers. "He'll be flung into the ditch." He turned abruptlyto Frome. "Peter, take me to a room where I can talk to this young man.I need him."

  "'Come into my little parlor,' said the spider to the fly."

  They wheeled as at a common rein to the sound of the young mockingvoice. Alice Frome had come in unnoticed and was standing in the doorwaysmiling at them. The effect she produced was demurely daring. The longlines of her slender sylph-like body, the girlishness of her goldencharm, were vigorously contradicted in their suggestion of shyness bythe square tilted chin and the challenge in the dancing eyes.

  "Alice," admonished her father with a deprecatory apology in his voiceto his brother-in-law.

  Powers knit his shaggy brows in a frown not at all grim. The young womansmiled back confidently. She could go farther with him than anybody elsein the world could, and she knew it. For he recognized in her vigorousstrength of fiber a kinship of the spirit closer than that betweenhim and his own daughter. An autocrat to the marrow, it pleased him torecognize her an exception to his rule. Valencia was also an exception,but in a different way.

  "Have you any remarks to make, Miss Frome?" he asked.

  "Oh, I've made it," returned the girl unabashed. She turned to James andshook hands with him. "How do you do, Mr. Farnum? I see you are going tobe tied to Uncle Joe's kite, too."

  Was there in her voice just a hint of scorn? James did not know. Helaughed a little uneasily.

  "Shall I be swallowed up alive, Miss Frome?"

  "You think you won't, but you will. He always gets what he wants."

  For all the warmth and energy of youth in her there was a vividspiritual quality that had always made a deep appeal to James. He sensedthe something fine and exquisite she breathed forth and did reverence toit.

  "And what does he want now?" the young man parried.

  "He wants YOU."

  "Unless you would like him yourself, Alice," her uncle countered.

  Th
e color washed into her cheeks. "Not just now, thank you. I was merelygiving him a friendly warning."

  "I'm awfully obliged to you. I'll be on my guard," laughed James.

  He stepped across to the lounge to make his farewell to Mrs. Van Tyle.

  "You'll come again," she said in a low voice.

  "Whenever the gallery is open--if I am sent a ticket of admission."

  "Wouldn't it be better to apply for a ticket and not wait for it to besent?"

  "I think it would--and to apply for one often."

  "I am waiting, Mr. Farnum," interrupted Powers impatiently.

  To the young man the suggestion sounded like a command. He bowed toAlice and followed the great man out of the room.