Chapter SIX: I

Angelica was very nervous about having dinner with Mr. Eddie. He was obviously fastidious and hard to please, and she hadn’t the vaguest idea what his standards might be. She did what she could with her appearance; she washed her hands and face and brushed her hair, and then, having no watch or clock to advise her, went down-stairs.

She hadn’t been in the dining-room before, and she stopped, profoundly impressed, in the doorway. It was so exactly the dining-room she had expected--the grand, stately dining-room of the cinema drama, with paneled walls and sideboard loaded with plate, the opulently set table, the high-backed chairs, the flowers all about, the very air of dignity and richness.

There was the essential butler, too. She felt sure that the man bending over the sideboard was a butler; busy, no doubt, with work about which she was quite ignorant. She drew near to ask him the time, and was surprised to see him stuffing cigars into his pocket from three or four boxes that lay in a drawer. She didn’t know whether this was proper, whether it was part of a butler’s proper functions; but when she saw the man’s face, and observed his stealthy and hurried manner, she grew certain that he was stealing. One of those society thieves of whom she had read!

He was in evening dress, and he had some sort of perfume about him. He was a slender little man with neat, snow-white hair and a dapper white mustache. His face was bland, with a long upper lip that gave it a humorous look, and intelligent blue eyes.

He turned suddenly and saw her.

"Well!" he cried. "Upon my word! And who are _you_?"

"That’s my business," said Angelica.

This was her idea of a non-committal answer. She could not decide whether he was a servant, a member of the family, or merely an outside thief who had dropped in, and she was anxious to make no avoidable mistakes.

"Of course it is!" he replied, cheerfully. "No doubt I’ll learn in the course of time. But perhaps you’ll enlighten me as to your status?"

She didn’t understand him, and she scowled.

"Perhaps you’ll tell me what you’re doing here?" he inquired.

"Well, what are _you_ doing here?" she returned.

"Waiting," he answered imperturbably. "Waiting for dinner and Mr. Eddie."

"Oh, him! Well, he’s in. I saw him up-stairs."

"But do, for pity’s sake, tell me who you are! We don’t take pretty girls wandering about this house as a matter of course. You’re quite a startling vision, you know."

She didn’t like his airy gallantry; but she was sure now that he wasn’t an outside thief or a servant, and that he must therefore be a member of the family, entitled to answers for questions.

"I’m _her_ companion," she said.

"Aha! And what is your name, if you please?"

"It’s Kennedy."

"Oh! Scotch, are you? You don’t look Scotch. You look like a French girl, I should say--one of these dark, passionate creatures...."

"All right!" she interrupted, scowling more heavily. "That’ll do about me. What’s the time?"

He pulled out his watch.

"Six-thirty. Do you dine with us, Miss Kennedy? I hope so. I feel----”

Just then Eddie came in, also in a dinner-jacket and incredibly neat--the very model of a correct young man. He bowed ceremoniously, if somewhat severely, to Angelica.

"Good evening, doctor!" he said to the white-haired man.

He touched an electric bell with his foot. The parlour maid came hastening in.

"I said half-past six!" said Mr. Eddie.

"Yes, sir, I know; but cook----”

"No excuses! You can certainly get some sort of dinner ready for me when I ask for it. Now hurry up! Never mind about what’s ready and what isn’t; just bring me _something_ at once."

He pulled out a chair for Angelica, and they all sat down in silence.

"Good Lord!" said Eddie suddenly. "What a life! I’m tired as a dog, and I’ve got to work all evening."

"Too bad!" said the doctor. "Anything I could do, my boy?"

"No, thanks."

There was silence again. The soup had come in, and Mr. Eddie gave it his undivided attention. He ate with amazing rapidity, one course after the other, and he expected to be served without an instant’s delay. Neither the doctor nor Angelica had ever finished when he had, and their plates were always whisked away with choice and coveted morsels on them. There was no sort of conversation--nothing more than Mr. Eddie muttering, with his mouth full, "All right, Annie!" and having one plate replaced by another.

But this was as Angelica liked it. She didn’t wish to talk or to be talked to; she wanted to sit at that table, with two men in evening dress, to contemplate the silver and china and linen, and to reflect with amazed delight upon her situation. A dream fulfilled!

Cautiously she surveyed her two companions--Mr. Eddie, looking rather harassed, and as oblivious of her as if she were invisible to him, and the dapper little white-haired man, whose eye often met hers with a glance stealthy and curious. She decided that he must be Polly’s physician, and a man who must be given no leeway. She had seen his kind, standing outside stage entrances, with walking-stick and boutonnière and a smirk, or on corners where working girls passed on their way home.

Instantly he had finished, Mr. Eddie got up and went over to the sideboard, from the drawer of which he took the three rifled boxes. He didn’t seem to notice that they had been tampered with, but passed two to the doctor.

"Help yourself," he said. "I got these from a chap who imports them for private consumption. Put a couple in your pocket. They’re good."

The doctor helped himself modestly from both boxes, and sniffed at them.

"Ah!" he said. "I can tell! My boy, you can afford to indulge yourself; you’re one of the lucky ones."

"Yes," said Eddie. "Nothing but luck, of course!"

"I didn’t mean to disparage you," cried the doctor. "No one appreciates what you’ve done, and how hard you’ve worked, better than I. Just a little joke, Eddie!" He pushed back his chair and rose. "I’ll have to run out and fetch your mother home from the club," he said. "_Au revoir!_"

Mr. Eddie followed him so quickly that before she knew it Angelica found herself left alone at the table. She, too, hastened out of the room and up-stairs, and in a sort of panic knocked at Polly’s door.

"Who is it?" inquired Polly’s voice, languidly.

"Angelica!" she answered, forgetting, and hastily added: "Kennedy."

"I don’t need anything this evening, thank you. Good night!"

She turned away, completely at a loss. It was only half-past seven, hours before bedtime. What was she to do?

She went into her room. It was as charming and comfortable as she had remembered it, but it offered no prospect of amusement. She didn’t know whether she ought to go into the library or any of the rooms down-stairs. She wanted to, but she had a dread of being spoken to by a servant.

"Well, I’ll take a walk, then," she said. "No one can say a word against that!"

She put on her jacket and her rakish big black hat, and went sauntering down the hall. She had to pass the open door of a room, and in it she saw Mr. Eddie, writing. He saw her, too.

"Hello!" he cried. "Where are you going?"

"Out for a walk."

"Better not. It’s dark and lonely around here."

Angelica had paused.

"I’ve got to do something," she said.

"Sit down and read," he said, rather impatiently.

"I don’t like to read."

"Nonsense! Here, come in! Sit down! I’ll give you something you’ll like."

But she hesitated. His bedroom! Surely he didn’t expect her to go in there?

He did, though.

"Come in! Come in!" he cried, and she obeyed.

She couldn’t really believe that there was anything evil or dangerous about this worried young man sitting before a desk covered with papers. He tapped the back of a big armchair.

"Better take off your hat," he said. "It keeps off all the light."

She turned over the pages of the book he gave her, pleased to see that it had a great many pictures, and began dutifully to read. In spite of herself she became interested.

It was the third volume of a series, "Magnificent Women of the Past," and it contained sketches of the lives of the Empress Josephine, Mme. du Barry, Mme. de Montespan, Mary Stuart, Lady Hamilton, and many others. It was sensational, impossible stuff; but Angelica was neither a well-informed nor a discriminating reader. She was enthralled by this description of courts, of gallantry, of balls, fêtes, and levées, of kings, emperors, and princes; above all, by the radiant women who ruled over this amazing world.

She went on, page after page, stopping only to study the portraits of the dazzling beauties. She had never imagined anything like this. Of course, she had studied what was called history in the public school, but that was entirely concerned with battles and treaties; not a word of woman, except, very rarely, an entirely respectable heroine. She had thought of kings and queens as rather dull and solemn persons, also concerned with battles and treaties. She had never conceived of such a passionate and colourful and exciting life as was revealed in this book. It was a life unfortunately impossible in this actual world.

She came to the end of the life of Mme. de Montespan as imagined by the author, and closed the book, the better to reflect upon it. She sighed; she was disturbed by dim longings for an existence of this sort. She was full of dissatisfaction and preposterous ambitions. She was so immersed in the scenes of court life and in the pictures her imagination created that it was almost a shock to see Mr. Eddie sitting there in front of her, still working.

She stared at him thoughtfully. A nice-looking boy--perhaps something more than that. His face was boyish, but in no way weak; the features were all good, fine, firm, regular. She fancied--still dreaming of what she had been reading--that he looked like a young prince, that there was something in his brow, in his presence, that was noble.

Her glance wandered round his room. It was austere, handsome, immaculately neat. She liked it; it was manly.

Her roving attention had distracted Mr. Eddie. He looked up, frowned, and leaned back in his chair.

"Well?" he asked.

"It’s a nice book. I like it."

"That’s right. I’m very glad. Take it with you and finish it. It’ll do you good."

"How can it?"

He ran his fingers through his hair and surveyed her thoughtfully.

"In the first place," he said, "it’s a very good thing to read history. I read a great deal of it--lives of famous men, and so on. In the second place, it’ll give you some idea of what a woman can do."

"Yes, I know; only they’re all bad women," said Angelica, with simplicity.

Eddie flushed.

"Yes, but--everything was different in those days. They didn’t have our opportunities. Anyway, in some of the other volumes there are plenty of women who weren’t bad--Romans, and so on. What I meant is that it shows you what an influence a woman can have if she tries."

"I guess they didn’t have to try."

"Of course they did. They wanted to be powerful. They wanted to be magnificent. There aren’t any women like that now--no more magnificent women."

He fell silent, to think for a time of his mother, of Polly, of the clerks in his office, of girls he had danced with, of girls on the stage, of all his limited feminine acquaintance. Not a vestige of magnificence!

II

He was a queer chap, was Eddie. Born of a selfish and frivolous mother and a morosely indifferent father, neglected, left in the care of servants of the sort that always collect about an extravagant and careless mistress, he had never acquired as a matter of course those ideals which the average boy of his class takes for granted. He had a perfectly natural inclination toward truth, honour, and justice, and toward clean living, but he had had to discover these virtues laboriously, all alone. In consequence, he gave them a sort of perverted importance. He became somewhat of a prig.

And having with such difficulty discovered his truths, he was inclined to be a bit domineering and intolerant about them. He was angry and disappointed at finding any one imperfect.

What is more, he was for the first time in his life finding himself a person of some importance. Always before he had been under a disadvantage, always conscious of his "queerness," of having a mother who was a laughing-stock and a father who was a scandal. He was priggish and unsociable, but he wasn’t a scholar. He had done very badly in all the various schools to which he had been sent by fits and starts; and when at last he had been somehow got into college, he had done still worse. He had hated his failure there; he had so longed to be popular and friendly, and had been so markedly neither.

So he had gone into business at nineteen, and he had found himself at once. He did amazingly well. He had a clever, sympathetic, imaginative brain, he had good judgment, he knew how to handle his people, how to deal with men; but at the same time he had not very much common sense.

He was like one of those musical infant prodigies, so shamelessly exploited by their families. He had this amazing talent for making money, and the people about him, well aware of his virtue and his innocence, had known perfectly how to make use of his ability. He was a cruelly driven slave to his exalted idea of family obligations.

Eddie wasn’t aware of it, however. He was willing to spend all his youth in acquiring money for other people to spend. He took a sort of pride in exhausting himself. He was young enough and strong enough to enjoy affronting his health. It seemed to him a noble thing to support one’s family. This was one of his pet ideas--ideas which he had got from books or from other people’s talk, none of which had developed quietly and wholesomely from childhood, or from experience. His instincts were sound and admirable. He practically never had a base impulse; but his ideas were grotesque. He was, in some respects, a fool, and he was treated as fools must always be treated by the self-seeking.

There was truth in Angelica’s fancy. There was something in this boy that was what men chose to call kingly--a generosity, a fine force, a self-forgetfulness, a profound sense of his obligations, even toward this waif, so recently brought to his attention. He believed it his duty to help her.

"Why don’t you go into business?" he asked her abruptly.

"Why?"

"I think you’d do well. You seem level-headed. And there’d be some sort of future in it, instead of pottering about here like an old woman."

"But I don’t like business. I like to be here, with nice people, where I can learn something."

"That’s quite right, of course; but what will you do--later?"

"Well--I don’t know, exactly. I just think that if I can--sort of improve myself--some sort of chance will come some day."

She reflected a moment.

"All these magnificent women," she said. "They just kind of waited round for something to turn up, didn’t they? I mean, they didn’t plan what they were going to be. I haven’t thought it all out; but I mean to--oh, to go _up_ all the time, to get to be somebody!"

Eddie, unconscious of his own infantile innocence, smiled at her naïveness, but admired her.

"I’ll see that you get a chance," he said. "And I’ll help you to learn, if you like. If you’ll study, I’ll give you what spare time I can."

"All right," said Angelica. "That’ll be fine! Only," she added, "what I want isn’t exactly things you study out of books. It’s--good manners, and the right way of talking."

"You’ll pick up all that from Mrs. Geraldine," returned Eddie. "You couldn’t find a better model. By the way, how did you get on with her to-day?"

"I guess she liked me. She said she wanted me to stay."

"That’s good!" he cried, very much pleased. "If Polly’ll take an interest in you, you’ll be absolutely all right. She’s a splendid woman."

"But she’s so much _older_ than you!" thought Angelica. "It’s so queer!"

"Yes," he went on, "Polly’s one of the best. Of course she’s not herself now, losing the little chap. He was nearly two years old, and a fine little fellow. Poor girl! She was wrapped up in him. We all were, for that matter."

Angelica was puzzled.

"But," she said, "don’t you----”

"Don’t I what?"

"I mean--it must be nearly as bad for you as for her."

"_What?_ Why, there’s no comparison between a son and a nephew."

"For Gawd’s sake! Wasn’t he your son?"

"Of course not! My dear girl, you didn’t think I was Polly’s husband, did you?"

"Yes, I did," she faltered.

"I’m her brother-in-law. She’s my brother’s wife."

"Oh! She’s a widow, then?"

"No, no, no! He’s alive. He’s here, in this house; but he’s a poet, you know, and when he’s working he shuts himself up for days at a time. He’s a queer chap--a regular genius."

"That’s pretty hard on his wife, I should say."

"That’s what the wife of a fellow like Vincent must expect. He is a bit trying, but you have to make allowances. He’s very remarkable--writes beautiful stuff."

"I don’t like po’try," said Angelica, who had already taken a dislike to this brother.

"I’m not very fond of it, either, but I admire it."

"I don’t," she persisted.

"You shouldn’t say that. It’s childish. Every one admires poetry."

She maintained an obstinate silence. Eddie was rather at a loss. He believed that every one ought to admire poets; he faithfully endeavored to do so, and had made himself believe that he had succeeded. He felt that his brother was a genius, accountable to no one, and not to be blamed for faults which seemed to Eddie peculiarly disgusting and unmanly; but he didn’t know how to make Angelica admire his brother. Even the fact of Vincent’s genius was by no means established, and could not be demonstrated to an outsider, for he had never published anything yet, nor attempted to do so.

"He’s a very interesting chap," Eddie said. "Very!"

"Well, I’m glad he’s not my husband," said Angelica. "Shutting himself up like that--wouldn’t suit _me_!"

Eddie frowned.

"I should think it was a privilege to be the wife of--of a genius."

Again Angelica was silent.

"Of course," said Eddie, "I don’t pretend to understand him. We’ve never seen much of each other. He lived with my father and I lived with my mother. He was brought up differently--a Roman Catholic, for one thing; then he went to an English university for a year or two, and he’s traveled. Very well-educated chap; altogether different from me. A scholar, and very artistic."

"What does he do for a living?" Angelica asked.

"He’s just beginning his career," said Eddie. "It is very hard to get started with that sort of thing."

Angelica’s silence was eloquent.

"Then who’s this feller you call ‘doctor’?" she asked abruptly. "Does he live here?"

"That’s Dr. Russell, my mother’s second husband."

"Oh, I see! I had you all mixed up. But whose house is this--his?"

"No. It’s mine."

"Yours? Do they all live here with you?"

"Certainly," he said, reddening and frowning. "I want them to. I don’t want to live alone--no social life."

Poor devil! He was conscious of something ridiculous in his position, and yet he was proud of it. There weren’t many fellows of his age who could have done this. It had meant taking fearful risks, of course, and working without rest, but the worst of it was over now. He was really prominent in his world; he was a sort of financial prodigy, admired and watched. He called himself, on his office door, a stock-broker. He was on the road to becoming a millionaire; he had made up his mind to do it, and there was nothing to stop him.

"Well," said Angelica, "you’re awful good to them."

Again he frowned. They had both grown suddenly ill at ease, at a loss for words. Angelica got up.

"Good night!" she said abruptly. It was her way of terminating an awkward moment.

"Good night!" Eddie answered, rather absent-mindedly.

With her volume of "Magnificent Women" tucked under her arm, Angelica went back into her own room.

"He’s a fool," she said to herself, "keeping all those people; but there _is_ something about him. I don’t know--I guess he’s kind of magnificent himself."