CHAPTER 11
"Faustina hath the fairest face, And Phillida the better grace; Both have mine eye enriched: This sings full sweetly with her voice; Her fingers make so sweet a noise; Both have mine ear bewitched. Ah me! sith Fates have so provided, My heart, alas! must be divided."
THE HERO, ASSISTED BY THE MONA LISA SMILE, DEPLORES THE DEBILITATINGEFFECTS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION
Part 1
With the adjournment of the legislature politics became a less absorbingtopic of interest. James at least was frankly glad of this, for hisposition had begun to be embarrassing. He could not always stand with afoot in either camp. As yet he had made no break with the progressives.Joe Powers had given him a hint that he might be more useful where hewas. But as much as possible he was avoiding the little luncheons atwhich Jeff and his political friends were wont to foregather. He gaveas an excuse the rush of business that was swamping him. His excuse atleast had the justification of truth. His speeches had brought him agood many clients and Frome was quietly throwing cases his way.
It was at one of these informal little noonday gatherings that Rawsongave his opinion of the legal ability of James.
"He isn't any great lawyer, but he never gives it away. He knows how towear an air of profound learning with a large and impressive silence.Roll up the whole Supreme Court into one and it can't look any wiserthan James K. Farnum."
Miller laughed. "Reminds me of what I heard last week. Jeff was walkingdown Powers Avenue with James and an old fellow stopped me to point themout. There go the best citizen and the worst citizen in this town, hesaid. I told him that was rather hard on James. You ought to have heardhim. For him James is the hero of the piece and Jeff the villain."
"Half the people in this town have got that damn fool notion," CaptainChunn interrupted violently.
"More than half, I should say."
"Every day or two I hear about how dissipated Jeff used to be and howif it were not for his good and noble cousin he would have gone to thedeuce long ago," Rawson contributed.
Chunn pounded on the table with his fist. "Jeff's own fault. Talk aboutdurn fools! That boy's got them all beat clear off the map. And I'mdashed if I don't like him better for it."
"Move we change the subject," suggested Rawson. "Here comes Verden'sworst citizen."
With a casual nod of greeting round the table Jeff sat down.
"Any of you hear James' speech before the Chamber of Commerce yesterday?It was bully. One of his best," he said as he reached for the menu card.
Captain Chunn groaned. The rest laughed. Jeff looked round in surprise."What's the joke?"
Part 2
It was a great relief to James, in these days when the complacency ofhis self-satisfaction was a little ruffled, to call often on ValenciaVan Tyle and let himself drift pleasantly with her along primrose pathswhere moral obligations never obtruded. Under the near-Venetian ceilingof her den, with its pink Cupids and plump dimpled cherubs smiling down,he was never troubled about his relation to Hardy's defeat. Here hegot at life from another slant and could always find justification tohimself for his course.
She had a silent divination of his moods and knew how to ministerindolently to them. The subtle incense of luxury that she diffusedbanished responsibility. In her soft sensuous blood the lusty beat ofduty had small play.
But even while he yielded to the allure of Valencia Van Tyle, admittinga finish of beauty to which mere youth could not aspire, all that wasidealistic in him went out to the younger cousin whose admiration andshy swift friendship he was losing. His vanity refused to accept thisat first. She was a little piqued at him because of the growing intimacywith Valencia. That was all. Why, it had been only a month or two agothat her gaze had been warm for him, that her playful irony had mockedsweetly his ambition for service to the community. Their spirits hadtouched in comradeship. Almost he had caught in her eyes the look theywould hold for only one man on earth. The best in him had responded tothe call. But now he did not often meet her at The Brakes. When he did acool little nod and an indifferent word sufficed for him. How much thishurt only James himself knew.
One of the visible signs of his increasing prosperity was a motor car,in which he might frequently be seen driving with the daughter of JoePowers, to the gratification of its owner and the envy of Verden. Thecool indifference with which Mrs. Van Tyle ignored the city's socialelite had aroused bitter criticism. Since she did not care a rap forthis her escapades were frankly indiscreet. James could not reallyafford a machine, but he justified it on the ground that it was aninvestment. A man who appears to be prosperous becomes prosperous. Agood front is a part of the bluff of twentieth century success. He didnot follow his argument so far as to admit that the purchase of thecar was an item in the expenses of a campaign by which he meant to makecapital out of a woman's favor to him, even though his imagination toyedwith the possibilities it might offer to build a sure foundation offortune.
"You should go to New York," she told him once after he had sketched,with the touch of eloquence so native to him, a plan for a line ofsteamers between Verden and the Orient.
"To be submerged in the huddle of humanity. No, thank you."
"But the opportunities are so much greater there for a man of ability."
"Oh, ability!" he derided. "New York is loaded to the water line withability in garrets living on crusts. To win out there a man must havea pull, or he must have the instinct for making money breed, for takingwhat other men earn."
She studied him, a good-looking, alert American, sheet-armored in thetwentieth century polish of selfishness, with an inordinate appetite forsuccess. Certainly he looked every inch a winner.
"I believe you could do it. You're not too scrupulous to look out foryourself." Her daring impudence mocked him lightly.
"I'm not so sure about that." James liked to look his conscience in theface occasionally. "I respect the rights of my fellows. In the moneycenters you can't do that and win. And you've got to win. It doesn'tmatter how. Make good--make good! Get money--any way you can. Peoplewill soon forget how you got it, if you have it."
"Dear me! I didn't know you were so given to moral reflections." ToAlice, who had just come into the room to settle where they should spendtheir Sunday, Valencia explained with mock demureness the subject oftheir talk. "Mr. Farnum and I are deploring the immoral money madness ofNew York and the debilitating effects of modern civilization. Will youdeplore with us, my dear?"
The younger woman's glance included the cigarette James had thrown awayand the one her cousin was still smoking. "Why go as far as New York?"she asked quietly.
Farnum flushed. She was right, he silently agreed. He had no businessfuttering away his time in a pink boudoir. Nor could he explain that hehoped his time was not being wasted.
"I must be going," he said as casually as he could.
"Don't let me drive you away, Mr. Farnum. I dropped in only for amoment."
"Not at all. I have an appointment with my cousin."
"With Mr. Jefferson Farnum?" Alice asked in awakened interest."I've just been reading a magazine article about him. Is he really aremarkable man?"
"I don't think you would call him remarkable. He gets things done, inspite of being an idealist."
"Why, in spite of it?"
"Aren't reformers usually unpractical?"
"Are they? I don't know. I have never met one." She looked straight atFarnum with the directness characteristic of her. "Is the article inStetson's Magazine true?"
"Substantially, I think."
Alice hesitated. She would have liked to pursue the subject, but shecould not very well do that with his cousin. For years she hadbeen hearing of this man as a crank agitator who had set himself inopposition to her father and his friends for selfish reasons. Her fatherhad dropped vague hints about his unsavory life. The Stetson write-uphad given a very different story. If it told the truth, many things shehad been brought up to accept without question would bear st
udy.
James suavely explained. "The facts are true, but not the inferencesfrom the facts. Jeff takes rather a one-sided view of a very complexsituation. But he's perfectly honest in it, so far as that goes."
"You voted for his bill, didn't you?" Alice asked.
"Yes, I voted for it. But I said on the floor I didn't believe in it. Myfeeling was that the people ought to have a chance to express an opinionin regard to it."
"Why don't you believe in it?"
Valencia lifted her perfect eyebrows. "Really, my dear, I didn't knowyou were so interested in politics."
Alice waited for the young man's answer.
"It would take me some time to give my reasons in full. But I can giveyou the text of them in a sentence. Our government is a representativeone by deliberate choice of its founders. This bill would tend to makeit a pure democracy, which would be far too cumbersome for so large acountry."
"So you'll vote against it next time to save the country," Alicesuggested lightly. "Thank you for explaining it." She turned to hercousin with an air of dismissing the subject. "Well, Val. What about theyacht trip to Kloochet Island for Sunday? Shall we go? I have to 'phonethe captain to let him know at once."
"If you'll promise not to have it rain all the time," the young widowshrugged with a little move. "Perhaps Mr. Farnum could join us? I'm sureuncle would be pleased."
Alice seconded her cousin's invitation tepidly, without any enthusiasm.James, with a face which did not reflect his disappointment, took hiscue promptly. "Awfully sorry, but I'll be out of the city. Otherwise Ishould be delighted."
Valencia showed a row of dainty teeth in a low ripple of amusement.Alice flashed her cousin one look of resentment and with a sentence ofconventional regret left the room to telephone the sailing master.
Farnum, seeking permission to leave, waited for his hostess to rise fromthe divan where she nestled.
But Valencia, her fingers laced in characteristic fashion back of herneck, leaned back and mocked his defeat with indolent amused eyes.
"My engagement," he suggested as a reminder.
"Poor boy! Are you hard hit?"
"Your flights of fancy leave me behind. I can't follow," he evaded withan angry flush.
"No, but you wish you could follow," she laughed, glancing at the doorthrough which her cousin had departed. Then, with a demure impudentlittle cast of her head, she let him have it straight from the shoulder."How long have you been in love with Alice? And how will you like to seeNed Merrill win?"
"Am I in love with Miss Frome?"
"Aren't you?"
"If you say so. It happens to be news to me."
"As if I believed that, as if you believed it yourself," she scoffed.
Her pretty pouting lips, the long supple unbroken lines of the softsinuous body, were an invitation to forget all charms but hers.He understood that she was throwing out her wiles, consciously orunconsciously, to strike out from him a denial that would convince her.His mounting vanity drove away his anger. He forgot everything buther sheathed loveliness, the enticement of this lovely creature whosesmoldering eyes invited. Crossing the room, he stood behind her divanand looked down at her with his hands on the back of it.
"Can a man care much for two women at the same time?" he asked in a lowvoice.
She laughed with slow mockery.
Her faint perfume was wafted to his brain. He knew a besieging of theblood. Slowly he leaned forward, holding her eyes till the mockery fadedfrom them. Then, very deliberately, he kissed her.
"How dare you!" she voiced softly in a kind of wonder not free fromresentment. For with all her sensuous appeal the daughter of Joe Powerswas not a woman with whom men took liberties.
"By the gods, why shouldn't I dare? We played a game and both of us havelost. You were to beckon and coolly flit, while I followed safely at adistance. Do you think me a marble statue? Do you think me too woodenfor the strings of my heart to pulsate? By heaven, my royal Hebe, youhave blown the fire in me to life. You must pay forfeit."
"Pay forfeit?"
"Yes. I'm your servant no longer, but your lover and your master--and Iintend to marry you."
"How ridiculous," she derided. "Have you forgotten Alice?"
"I have forgotten everything but you--and that I'm going to marry you."
She laughed a little tremulously. "You had better forget that too. I'mlike Alice. My answer is, 'No, thank you, kind sir.'"
"And my answer, royal Hebe, is this." His hot lips met hers again inabandonment to the racing passion in him.
"You--barbarian," she gasped, pushing him away.
"Perhaps. But the man who is going to marry you."
She looked at him with a flash of almost shy curiosity that had thecharm of an untasted sensation. "Would you beat me?"
"I don't know." He still breathed unevenly. "I'd teach you how to live."
"And love?" She was beginning to recover her lightness of tone, thoughthe warm color still dabbed her cheeks.
"Why not?" His eyes were diamond bright. "Why not? You have never knownthe great moments, the buoyant zest of living in the land that belongsonly to the Heirs o Life."
"And can you guide me there?" The irony in her voice was not untouchedwith wistfulness.
"Try me."
She laughed softly, stepped to the table, and chose a cigarette. "Myfriend, you promise impossibilities. I was not born to that incomparablecompany. To be frank, neither were you. Alice, grant you, belongs there.And that mad cousin of yours. But not we two earth creepers. We'reneither of us star dwellers. In the meantime"--she lit her Egyptian andstopped to make sure of her light every moment escaping more definitelyfrom the glamor of his passion--"you mentioned an engagement that wasimperative. Don't let me keep you from it."
The Vision Splendid Page 12