The Main Chance

by Meredith Nicholson

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE GIRL THAT TRIES HARD

  The Girl That Tries Hard was giving a dance at the Country Club. TheGirl That Tries Hard was otherwise Mabel Margrave, wherein lay the onlypoint of difference between herself and other Girls That Try Hard. Therewas hardly room in Clarkson for cliques; and yet one often heard theexpression "Mabel Margrave and her set" and this indicated that MabelMargrave had a following and that to some extent she was a leader. Sheprided herself on doing things differently, which is what The Girl ThatTries Hard is forever doing everywhere. She was the only girl in thetown that gave dinners at the Clarkson Club; and while these functionswere not necessarily a shock to the Clarkson moral sense, yet the firstof these entertainments, at which Mabel Margrave danced a skirt dance atthe end of the dinner, caused talk in conservative circles. It might beassumed that Mabel's father and mother could have checked herexuberance, but the fact was that Mabel's parents wielded littleinfluence in their own household. Timothy Margrave was busy with hisrailroad and his wife was a timid, shrinking person, who viewed herdaughter's social performances with wonder and admiration. It wouldhave been much better for Mabel if she had not tried so hard, but thiswas something that she did not understand, and there was no one to teachher. She derived an immense pleasure from her father's private car, inwhich she had been over most of the United States, and had gone even toMexico. In the Margrave household it was always spoken of as "the car."Its cook and porter were kept on the pay-roll of the company, but whenthey were not on active service in the car, one of them drove theMargrave carriage, and the other opened the Margrave front door.

  The Margrave house was one of the handsomest in Clarkson. Margrave hadnot coursed in the orbits of luminaries greater than himself withoutacquiring wisdom. When he built a house he turned the whole matter overto a Boston architect with instructions to go ahead just as if agentleman had employed him; he did not want a house which his neighborscould say was exactly what any one would expect of the Margraves.Clarkson was proud of the Margrave house, which was better than thePorter house, though it lacked the setting of the Porter grounds. Thearchitect had done everything; Margrave kept his own hands off and senthis wife and Mabel abroad to stay until it was ready for occupancy. Whenthe house was nearly completed Margrave took Warry Raridan up to see itand displayed with pride a large and handsomely furnished library whoseample shelves were devoid of books.

  "Now, Warry," he said, "I want books for this house and I want 'emright. I never read any books, and I never expect to, and I guess therest of the family ain't very literary, either. I want you to fillthese shelves, and I don't want trash. Are you on?"

  The situation appealed to Warry and he had given his best attention toMargrave's request. He took his time and bought a representative libraryin good bindings. As Mrs. Margrave was a Roman Catholic, Warry thoughtit well that theological literature should be represented. Mrs.Margrave's parish priest, dining early at the new home, contemplated the"libery," as its owner called it, with amazement.

  "Ain't they all there, Father Donovan?" asked Margrave. "I hope you likemy selection."

  "Couldn't be better," declared the priest, "if I'd picked them myself."He had taken down a volume of a rare edition of Cornelius a Lapide andpassed his hand over the Latin title page with a scholar's satisfaction.

  Mabel had declined to go to the convent which her mother selected forher; convents were not fashionable; and she herself selected Tyringhambecause she had once met a Tyringham graduate who was the most "stylish"girl she had ever seen. Since her return from school she had found itconvenient to abandon, as far as possible, the church of her baptism.There had been no other Roman Catholics at her school; the Episcopalchurch was the official spiritual channel of Tyringham; and she broughthome a pretty Anglican prayer book, and attended early masses with hermother only to the end that she might go later to the services of St.Paul's, to the scandal of Father Donovan, and somewhat to the sneakingdelight of her father. Margrave held that religion of whatever kind wasa matter for women, and that they were entitled to their whim about it.

  Tyringham is, it is well known, a place where girls of the properinstinct and spirit acquire a manner that is everywhere unmistakable.Mabel had given new grace and impressiveness to Tyringham itself; shetouched nothing that she did not improve, and she came home with anambition to give tone to Clarkson society. A great phrase with Mabel wasThe Men; this did not mean the _genus homo_ in any philosophicalabstraction, but certain young gentlemen that followed much in hertrain. There were a few young women who were much in Mabel's company andwho conscientiously imitated Mabel's ways. All the devices and desiresof Mabel's heart tended toward one consummation, and that was thedestruction of monotony.

  Mabel had announced to a few of her cronies that she would show EvelynPorter how things were done; and as the Country Club was new, she choseit as the place for her exhibition. Mabel was two years older thanEvelyn; they had never been more than casually acquainted, and now thatEvelyn's college days were over,--Mabel had "finished" several yearsbefore,--and they were to live in the same town, it seemed expedient tothe older girl to take the initiative, to the end that their respectivepositions in the community might be definitely fixed. Evelyn's namecarried far more prestige than Mabel's; the Margraves had not been inthe Clarkson Blue Book at all, until Mabel came home from school anddemonstrated her right to enlistment among the elect.

  She dressed herself as sumptuously as she dared for a morning call anddrove the highest trap that Clarkson had ever seen up Porter Hill. Theman beside her was the only correctly liveried adjunct of any Clarksonstable,--at least this was Mabel's opinion. Whatever people said ofMabel and her ways, they could not deny that her clothes were good,though they were usually a trifle pronounced in color and cut. She woreabout her neck a long, thin chain from which dangled a silver heart.Mabel's was the largest that could be found at any Chicago jeweler's.Its purpose in Mabel's case was to convey to the curious the impressionthat there was a photograph of a young man inside. This was no fraud onMabel's part, for she carried in this trinket the photograph of apopular actor, whose pictures were purchasable anywhere in the countryat twenty-five cents each. While Mabel waited for Evelyn to appear, shethrew open her new driving coat, which forced the season a trifle, andstudied the furnishings of the Porter parlor, criticising themadversely. She was not clear in her mind whether she should call Evelyn"Miss Porter" or not. Clarkson people usually said "Evelyn Porter" whenspeaking of her. In Mabel's own case they all said "Mabel."

  When Evelyn came into the parlor she seemed very tall to Mabel, andimpulse solved the problem of how to address her.

  "Good morning, Miss Porter."

  She gave her hand to Evelyn, thrusting it out straight before her, yethanging back from it archly as if in rebuke of her own forwardness. Thiswas decidedly Tyringhamesque, and was only one of the many amiable anduseful things she had learned at Miss Alton's school.

  Mabel sat up very straight in her chair when she talked, and playedwith the silver heart.

  "I didn't ask for the others, as it's a wretchedly indecent hour to bemaking a call."

  "Oh, the girls are up and about," said Evelyn. "I shall be glad--"

  "Oh, please don't trouble to call them! I came on an errand. You knowthe Country Club has just taken a new lease of life. Have you been outyet? It's a bit crude"--this phrase was taught as a separate course atTyringham--"but there's the making of a lovely place there."

  "Yes, I've barely seen it. I went out the other day to look at the golfcourse. The golf wave seems to be sweeping the country."

  "Do you play?"

  "A little; we had a course near the college that we used."

  "You college girls are awfully athletic. I'm crazy about golf. I thoughtit might be good sport to ask a few girls and some of the men to go tothe club for supper,--we really couldn't have dinner there, you know.This heavenly weather won't last always. We'll get a drag and CaptainWheelock will see that I don't drive you into trouble.
He's a very safewhip, you know, if I'm not; and we'll come back in the moonlight. Thisincludes your guests, of course."

  "That will be delightful," said Evelyn. "I'm sure we'll all be glad togo. I'm anxious to have the girls see as much as possible. I want themto be favorably impressed, and this will be an event."

  When Mabel had taken herself off, Evelyn returned to the tower whereBelle Marshall and Annie Warren awaited her. These young women werelounging in the low window-seat exchanging reminiscences of collegedays.

  "It was Mabel Margrave," explained Evelyn. "She's asked us to gocoaching with her to the Country Club and have supper there and I tookthe liberty of accepting for you."

  "What's she like?" asked Annie.

  "Tyringham," said Evelyn succinctly.

  "Oh! your words affect me strangely, child," drawled Belle, casting upher eyes in a pretended imitation of the Tyringham manner.

  "How are her _a's_?" asked Annie.

  "Broader than the Atlantic. I think she wants to patronize me. She's areal Tyringham in that she thinks us college women very slow."

  "Well, they do have a style," said Belle, sighing. "You can always tellone of Miss Alton's girls."

  "Yes, there's no doubt about that," retorted Annie coolly. She had takenher education seriously and was disposed to look down upon the productof fashionable boarding schools.

  "Cheer up! The worst is yet to come," declared Evelyn. "You'd better notencourage the idea here that we are different from young women of anyother sort. I've got to live here! I'm going to be pretty lonely too,the first thing you know, after you desert me."

  "You'll have plenty of chances to root for the college," suggestedBelle. "You won't have anything like the time I'll have. In Virginia wehave traditions that I've got to reconcile myself to, in some way; outhere, you can start even."

  "Yes, and we have the Tyringham type, and a few of the convent sort, anda few of the co-eds to combat."

  "Well, there's nothing so radically wrong with the co-eds, is there?"asked Annie, who believed in education for its own sake.

  "Only the ones that want to go in for politics and that sort of thing.There's a lady--I said lady--doctor of philosophy here in town whocasually invited me to become a candidate for school commissioner a fewweeks ago."

  "I'm not sure that you oughtn't to have done it," said Annie, "assumingthat you declined. It would have been a good stroke for alma mater."

  "No; that's what it wouldn't have been," said Evelyn seriously. "If youand I believe that college education is good for women, we'd bettersuppress this notion that's abroad in the world that college makes awoman different. I hold that we're not necessarily unlike our sisters ofthe convent, or the Tyringham teach-you-how-to-enter-a-room variety."Evelyn drew herself up with an oratorical gesture and inflection. "I'mhere to defend my rights as a human being--"

  "You will be hit with a pillow in a minute," remarked Belle, rising andpreparing to make her threat good. "Let's talk about what to wear toLady Tyringham's party."