_ Chapter Thirteen
Just before Lent, and about three months after the death of Vandover's father, Henrietta Vance gave a reception and dance at her house. The affair was one of a series that the girls of the Cotillon had been giving to the men of the same club. Vandover had gone to all but the last, which had occurred while he was at Coronado. He was sure of meeting Geary, young Haight, Turner Ravis, and all the people of his set at these functions, and had always managed to have a very jolly time. He had been very quiet since his father's death and had hardly gone out at all; in fact, since Ida Wade's death and his trip down the coast he had seen none of his acquaintances except the boys. But he determined now that he would go to this dance and in so doing return once more to the world that he knew. By this time he had become pretty well accustomed to his father's death and saw no reason why he should not have a good time.
At first he thought he would ask Turner to go with him, but in the end made up his mind to go alone, instead; one always had a better time when one went alone. Young Haight would have liked to have asked Turner, but did not because he supposed, of course, that Vandover would take her. In the end Turner had Delphine act as her escort.
Vandover arrived at Henrietta Vance's house at about half-past eight. A couple of workmen were stretching the last guy ropes of the awning that reached over the sidewalk; every window of the house was lighted. The front door was opened for the guest before he could ring, and he passed up the stairs, catching a glimpse of the parlours through the portieres of the doors. As yet they were empty of guests, the floors were covered with canvas, and the walls decorated with fern leaves. In a window recess one of the caterer's men was setting out two punch bowls and a multitude of glass cups; three or four musicians were gathered about the piano, tuning up, and one heard the subdued note of a cornet; the air was heavy with the smell of pinks and of La France roses.
At the turn of the stairs the Vances' second girl in a white lawn cap directed him to the gentlemen's dressing-room, which was the room of Henrietta Vance's older brother. About a dozen men were here before him, some rolling up their overcoats into balls and stowing them with their canes in the corners of the room; others laughing and smoking together, and still others who were either brushing their hair before the mirrors or sitting on the bed in their stocking feet, breathing upon their patent leathers, warming them before putting them on. There were one or two who knew no one and who stood about unhappily, twisting the tissue paper from the buttons of their new gloves, and looking stupidly at the pictures on the walls of the room. Occasionally one of the gentlemen would step to the door and look out into the hall to see if the ladies whom they were escorting were yet come out of their dressing-room, ready to go down.
On the centre table stood three boxes of cigars and a great many packages of cigarettes, while extra hairbrushes, whiskbrooms, and papers of pins had been placed about the bureau.
As Vandover came in, he nodded pleasantly to such of the men as he knew, and, after hiding his hat and coat under the bed, shook himself into his clothes again and rearranged his dress tie.
The house was filling up rapidly; one heard the deadened roll of wheels in the street outside, the banging of carriage doors, and an incessant rustle of stiff skirts ascending the stairs. From the ladies' dressing-room came an increasing soprano chatter, while downstairs the orchestra around the piano in the back parlour began to snarl and whine louder and louder. About the halls and stairs one caught brief glimpses of white and blue opera cloaks edged with swan's-down alternating with the gleam of a starched shirt bosom and the glint of a highly polished silk hat. Odours of sachet and violets came and went elusively or mingled with those of the roses and pinks. An air of gayety and excitement began to spread throughout the house.
"Hello, old man!" "Hello, Van!" Charlie Geary, young Haight, and Ellis came in together. "Hello, boys!" answered Vandover, hairbrush in hand, turning about from the mirror, where he had been trying to make his hair lie very flat and smooth.
"Look here," said Geary, showing him a dance-card already full, "I've got every dance promised. I looked out for that at the last one of these affairs; made all my arrangements and engagements then. Ah, you bet, I don't get left on any dance. That's the way you want to rustle. Ah," he went on, "had a bully sleep last night. I knew I was going to be out late to-night, so I went to bed at nine; didn't wake up till seven. Had a fine cutlet for breakfast."
It was precisely at this moment that Geary got his first advancement in life. Mr. Beale, Jr., head clerk in the great firm of Beale & Story, came up to him as he was drawing off his overcoat:
"How is Fischer?" asked Geary.
Beale, Jr., pulled him over into a corner, talking in a low voice. "He's even worse than yesterday," he answered. "I think we shall have to give him a vacation, and that's what I want to speak to you about. If you can, Geary, I should like to have you take his place for a while, at least until we get through with this contract case. I don't know about Fischer. He's sick so often, I'm afraid we may have to let him go altogether."
Suddenly the orchestra downstairs broke out into a clash of harmony and then swung off with the beat and cadence of a waltz. The dance was beginning; a great bustle and hurrying commenced about the dressing-rooms and at the head of the stairs; everybody went down. In the front parlour by the mantel Henrietta Vance and Turner stood on either side of Mrs. Vance, receiving, shaking hands, and laughing and talking with the different guests who came up singly, in couples, or in noisy groups.
No one was dancing yet. The orchestra stopped with a flourish of the cornet, and at once a great crowding and pushing began amidst a vast hum of talk. The cards were being filled up, a swarm of men gathered about each of the more popular girls, passing her card from hand to hand while she smiled upon them all helplessly and good-naturedly. The dance-cards had run short and some of the men were obliged to use their visiting cards; with these in one hand and the stump of a pencil in the other, they ran about from group to group, pushing, elbowing, and calling over one another's heads like brokers in a stock exchange.
Geary, however, walked about calmly, smiling contentedly, very good-humoured. From time to time he stopped such a one of the hurrying, excited men as he knew and showed him his card made out weeks before, saying, "Ah, how's that? _I_ am all fixed; made all my engagements at the last one of these affairs, even up to six extras. That's the way you want to rustle."
Young Haight was very popular; everywhere the girls nodded and smiled at him, many even saving a place on their cards for him before he had asked.
Ellis took advantage of the confusion to disappear. He went up into the deserted dressing-room, chose a cigar, unbuttoned his vest and sat down in one chair, putting his feet upon another. The hum of the dance came to him in a prolonged and soothing murmur and he enjoyed it in some strange way of his own, listening and smoking, stretched out at ease in the deserted dressing-room.
Vandover went up to Turner Ravis smiling and holding out his hand. She seemed to be curiously embarrassed when she saw him, and did not smile back at him. He asked to see her card, but she drew her hand quickly from his, telling him that she was going home early and was not dancing at all, that in fact she had to "receive" instead of dance. It was evident to Vandover that he had done something to displease her, and he quickly concluded that it was because he had not asked her to go with him that evening.
He turned from her to Henrietta Vance as though nothing unusual had happened, resolving to see her later in the evening and in the meanwhile invent some suitable excuse. Henrietta Vance did not even see his hand; she was a very jolly girl, ordinarily, and laughed all the time. Now she looked him squarely in the face without so much as a smile, at once angry and surprised; never had anything seemed so hateful and disagreeable. Vandover put his hand back into his pocket, trying to carry it all off with a laugh, saying in order to make her laugh with him as he used to do, "Hello! how do you do this evening? It's a pleasant morning this afternoon." "How do you do?" she answered nervously, refusing to laugh. Then she turned from him abruptly to talk to young Haight's little cousin Hetty.
Mrs. Vance was neither embarrassed nor nervous as the girls had been. She stared calmly at Vandover and said with a peculiar smile, "I am surprised to see you here, Mr. Vandover."
An hour later the dance was in full swing. Almost every number was a waltz or a two-step, the music being the topical songs and popular airs of the day set to dance music.
About half-past ten o'clock, between two dances, the cornet sounded a trumpet call; the conversation ceased in a moment, and Henrietta Vance's brother, standing by the piano, called out, "The next dance will be the _first extra_," adding immediately, "a _waltz_." The dance recommenced; in the pauses of the music one heard the rhythmic movement of the feet shuffling regularly in one-two-three time.
Some of the couples waltzed fast, whirling about the rooms, bearing around corners with a swirl and swing of silk skirts, the girls' faces flushed and perspiring, their eyes half-closed, their bare, white throats warm, moist, and alternately swelling and contracting with their quick breathing. On certain of these girls the dancing produced a peculiar effect. The continued motion, the whirl of the lights, the heat of the room, the heavy perfume of the flowers, the cadence of the music, even the physical fatigue, reacted in some strange way upon their oversensitive feminine nerves, the monotony of repeated sensation producing some sort of mildly hypnotic effect, a morbid hysterical pleasure the more exquisite because mixed with pain. These were the girls whom one heard declaring that they could dance all night, the girls who could dance until they dropped.
Other of the couples danced with the greatest languor and gravity, their arms held out rigid and at right angles with their bodies.
About the doors and hallways stood the unhappy gentlemen who knew no one, watching the others dance, feigning to be amused. Some of them, however, had ascended to the dressing-room and began to strike up an acquaintance with each other and with Ellis, smoking incessantly, discussing business, politics, and even religion.
In the ladies' dressing-room two of the maids were holding a long conversation in low tones, their heads together; evidently it was concerning something dreadful. They continually exclaimed "Oh!" and "Ah!" suddenly sitting back from each other, shaking their heads, and biting their nether lips. On the top floor in the hall the servants in their best clothes leaned over the balustrade, nudging each other, talking in hoarse whispers or pointing with thick fingers swollen with dish-water. All up and down the stairs were the couples who were sitting out the dance, some of them even upon the circular sofa in the hall over the first landing.
The music stopped, leaving a babel of talk in the air, the couples fell apart for an instant, but a great clapping of hands broke out and the tired musicians heroically recommenced.
As soon as the short _encore_ was done there was a rush for the lemonade and punch bowls. The guests thronged around them joking each other. "Hello! are you here _again_?" "Oh, this is dreadful!" "This makes _six_ times I've seen you here."
A smell of coffee rose into the air from the basement. It was about half-past eleven; the next dance was the supper dance and the gentlemen hurried about anxiously searching the stairs, the parlours, and the conservatory for the girls who had promised them this dance weeks before. The musicians were playing a march, and the couples crowded down the narrow stairs in single file, the ladies drawing off their gloves. The tired musicians stretched themselves, rubbed their eyes, and began to talk aloud in the deserted parlours.
Supper was served in the huge billiard-room in the basement and was eaten in a storm of gayety. The same parties and "sets" tried to get together at the same table; Henrietta Vance's party was particularly noisy: at her table there was an incessant clamour of screams and shouts of laughter. One ate oysters _a la poulette_, terrapin-salads, and croquettes; the wines were Sauternes and champagnes. With the nuts and dessert the caps came on, and in a few minutes were cracking and snapping all over the room.
Six of the unfortunates who knew no one, but who had managed through a common affliction to become acquainted with each other, gathered at a separate table. Ellis was one of their number; he levied a twenty-five assessment, and tipped the waiter a dollar and a half. This one accordingly brought them extra bottles of champagne in which they found consolation for all the _ennui_ of the evening.
After supper the dancing began again. The little stiffness and constraint of the earlier part of the evening was gone; by this time nearly everybody, except the unfortunates, knew everybody else. The good dinner and the champagne had put them all into an excellent humour, and they all commenced to be very jolly. They began a Virginia Reel still wearing the magician's caps and Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper.
Young Haight was with Turner Ravis as much as possible during the evening, very happy and excited. Something had happened; it was impossible for him to say precisely what, for on the face of things Turner was the same as ever. Nothing in her speech or actions was different, but there was in her manner, in the very air that surrounded her, something elusive and subtle that set him all in a tremor. There was a change in his favour; he felt that she liked to have him with her and that she was trying to have him feel as much in some mysterious way of her own. He could see, however, that she was hardly conscious of doing this and that the change was more apparent to his eyes than it was to hers.
"Must you really go home now?" he said, as Turner began to talk of leaving, soon after supper. They had been sitting out the dance under a palm at the angle of the stairs.
"Yes," answered Turner; "Howard has the measles and I promised to be home early. Delphine was to come for me and she ought to be here now."
"Delphine?" exclaimed young Haight. "Didn't you come with Van?"
"No," answered Turner quietly. Only by her manner, and by something in the way she said the word, Haight knew at once that she had broken definitely with Vandover. The talk he had had with her at her house came back to him on the instant. He hesitated a moment and then asked:
"There is something wrong? Has Van done anything--never mind, I don't mean that; it's no business of mine, I suppose. But I know you care for him. I'm sorry if--"
But he was not sorry. Try as he would, his heart was leaping in him for joy. With Vandover out of the way, he knew that all would be different; Turner herself had said so.
"Oh, everything is wrong," said Turner, with tears in her eyes. "I have been so disappointed in Van; oh, terribly disappointed."
"I know; yes, I think I know what you mean," answered young Haight in a low voice.
"Oh, please don't let's talk about it at all," cried Turner. But young Haight could not stop now.
"Is Van really out of the question, then?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, not seeing what he was coming to. "Oh, yes; how could I--how _could_ I care for him after--after what has happened?"
Very much embarrassed, young Haight went on: "I know it's unfair to take advantage of you now, but do you remember what you said once? That if Vandover were out of the question, that _'perhaps'_ you might--that it would be--that there might be a chance for me?"
Turner was silent for a long time, and then she said: "Yes, I remember."
"Well, how about that _now_?" asked young Haight with a nervous laugh.
"Ah," answered Turner, "how do I know--so soon!"
"But what do you _think_, Turner?" he persisted.
"But I haven't thought at all," she returned.
"Well, think now!" he went on. "Tell me--how about that?"
"About _what_?"
"Ah, you know what I mean," young Haight replied, feeling like a little boy, "about what you said at your house that Sunday night. Please tell me; you don't know how much it means to me."
"Oh, there's Delphine at the door!" suddenly exclaimed Turner. "Now, really, I _must_ go down. She doesn't know where to go; she's so stupid!"
"No," he answered, "not until you tell me!" He caught her hand, refusing to let it go.
"Ah, how mean you are to corner me so!" she cried laughing and embarrassed. "Must I--well--I know I shouldn't. _O-oh_, I just _detest_ you!" Young Haight turned her hand palm upward and kissed the little circle of crumpled flesh that showed where her glove buttoned. Then she tore her hand away and ran downstairs, while he followed more slowly.
On her way back to the dressing-room she met him again, crossing the hall.
"Don't you want to see me home?" she said.
"Do I _want_ to?" shouted young Haight.
"Oh, but I forgot," she cried. "You can't. I won't let you. You have your other dances engaged!"
"Oh, damn the other dances!" he exclaimed, but instead of being offended, Turner only smiled.
Toward one o'clock there was a general movement to go. Henrietta Vance and Mrs. Vance were inquired for, and the blue and white opera cloaks reappeared, descending the stairs, disturbing the couples who were seated there. The banging of carriage doors and the rumble of wheels recommenced in the street. The musicians played a little longer. As the party thinned out, there was greater dance room and a consequent greater pleasure in dancing. These last dances at the end of the evening were enjoyed more than all the others. But the party was breaking up fast: Turner had already gone home; Mrs. Vance and Henrietta were back at their places in front of the mantel, surrounded by a group of gentlemen in capecoats and ladies in opera wraps. Every one was crying "Good-bye" or "Good night!" and assuring Mrs. Vance and Henrietta of the enjoyableness of the occasion. Suddenly the musicians played "Home Sweet Home." Those still dancing uttered an exclamation of regret, but continued waltzing to this air the same as ever. Some began to dance again in their overcoats and opera wraps. Then at last the tired musicians stopped and reached for the cases of their instruments, and the remaining guests, seized with a sudden panic lest they should be the last to leave, fled to the dressing-rooms. These were in the greatest confusion, every one was in a hurry; in the gentlemen's dressing-room there was a great putting on of coats and mufflers and a searching for misplaced gloves, hats and canes. A base hum of talk rose in the air, bits and ends of conversation being tossed back and forth across the room. "_You_ haven't seen my hat, have you, Jimmy?" "Did you meet that girl I was telling you about?" "Hello, old man! have a good time to-night?" "Lost your hat? No, I haven't seen it." "Yes, about half-past ten!" "Well, I told him that myself!" "Ah, you bet it's the man that rustles that gets there." "Come round about four, then." "What's the matter with coming home in _our_ carriage?"
At the doors of the dressing-rooms the ladies joined their escorts, and a great crowd formed in the halls, worming down the stairs and out upon the front steps. As the first groups reached the open air there was a great cry: "Why, it's pouring rain!" This was taken up and repeated and carried all the way back into the house. There were exclamations of dismay and annoyance: "Why, it's raining right _down_!" "What _shall_ we do!" Tempers were lost, brothers and sisters quarrelling with each other over the question of umbrellas. "Ah," said Geary, delighted, peeling the cover from his umbrella in the vestibule, "I _thought_ it was going to rain before I left and brought mine along with me. Ah, you bet I always look out for rain!" On the horse-block stood the caller, chanting up the carriages at the top of his voice. The street was full of coupes, carriages, and hacks, the raindrops showing in a golden blur as they fell across the streaming light of their lamps. The horses were smoking and restless, and the drivers in oilskins and rubber blankets were wrangling and shouting. At every instant there was a long roll of wheels interrupted by the banging of the doors. Near the caller stood a useless policeman, his shield pinned on the outside of his wet rubber coat, on which the carriage lamps were momentarily reflected in long vertical streaks.
In a short time all the guests were gone except the one young lady whose maid and carriage had somehow not been sent. Henrietta Vance's brother took this one home in a hired hack. Mrs. Vance and Henrietta sat down to rest for a moment in the empty parlours. The canvas-covered floors were littered with leaves of smilax and La France roses, with bits of ribbon, ends of lace, and discarded Phrygian bonnets of tissue paper. The butler and the second girl were already turning down the gas in the other rooms.
* * * * *
Long before the party broke up Vandover had gone home, stunned and dazed, as yet hardly able to realize the meaning of what had happened. Some strange and dreadful change had taken place; things were different, people were different to him; not every one had been so outspoken as Turner, Henrietta Vance and her mother, but even amongst others who had talked to him politely and courteously enough, the change was no less apparent. It was in the air, a certain vague shrinking and turning of the shoulder, a general atmosphere of aversion and repulsion, an unseen frown, an unexpressed rebuff, intangible, illusive, but as unmistakable as his own existence. The world he had known knew him now no longer. It was ostracism at last.
But why? Why? Sitting over his tiled flamboyant stove, brooding into the winking coals, Vandover asked himself the question in vain. He knew what latitude young men were allowed by society; he was sure nothing short of discovered crime could affect them. True enough he had at one time allowed himself to drift into considerable dissipation, but he was done with that now, he had reformed, he had turned over a new leaf. Even at his worst he had only lived the life of the other young men around him, the other young men who were received as much as ever, even though people, the girls themselves, practically knew of what they did, knew that they were often drunk, and that they frequented the society of abandoned women. What had he done to merit this casting off? What _could_ he have done? He even went so far as to wonder if there was anything wrong about his father or his sudden death.
A little after one o'clock he heard Geary's whistle in the street outside. "Hello, old man!" he cried as Vandover opened the window. "I was just on my way home from the hoe-down; saw a light in your window and thought I'd call you up. Say, have you got anything wet up there? I'm extra dry."
"Yes," said Vandover, "come on up!"
"Did you hear what Beale said to me this evening?" said Geary, as he mixed himself a cocktail at the sideboard. "Oh, I tell you, I'm getting right in, down at that office. Beale wants me to take the place of one of the assistants in the firm, a fellow who's got the consumption, coughing up his lungs all the time. It's an important place, hundred a month; that's right. Yes, sir; you bet, I'm going to get in and rustle now and make myself so indispensable in that fellow's place that they can't get along without me. I'll crowd him right out; I know it may be selfish, but, damn it! that's what you have to do to get along. It's human nature. I'll tell you right here to-night," he exclaimed with sudden energy, clenching his fist and slowly rapping the knuckles on the table to emphasize each word, "that I'll be the head of that firm some day, or I'll know the reason why."
When Geary finally became silent, the two looked into the fire for some time without speaking. At last Geary said:
"You came home early to-night, didn't you?"
"Yes," answered Vandover, stirring uneasily. "Yes, I did."
There was another silence. Then Geary said abruptly: "It's too bad. They are kind of stinky-pinky to you."
"Yes," said Vandover with a grin. "_I_ don't know what's the matter. Everybody seems nasty!"
"It's that business with Ida Wade, you know," replied Geary. "It got around somehow that she killed herself on your account. Everybody seems to be on to it. I heard it--oh, nearly a month ago."
"Oh," said Vandover with a short laugh, "that's it, is it? I was wondering."
"Yes, that's it," answered Geary. "You see they don't know for sure; no one _knows_, but all at once every one seemed to be talking about it, and they suspect an awful lot. I guess they are pretty near right, aren't they?" He did not wait for an answer, but laughed clumsily and went on: "You see, you always have to be awfully careful in those things, or you'll get into a box. Ah, you bet I don't let any girl _I_ go with know _my_ last name or _my_ address if I can help it. I'm clever enough for that; you have to manage very carefully; ah, you bet! You ought to have looked out for that, old man!" He paused a moment and then went on: "Oh, I guess it will be all right, all right, in a little while. They will forget about it, you know. I wouldn't worry. I guess it will be all right."
"Yes," answered Vandover absently, "I guess so--perhaps."
A few days later Vandover was in the reading-room of the Mechanics Library, listlessly turning over the pages of a volume of _l'Art_. It was Saturday morning and the place was full of ladies who were downtown for their shopping and marketing, and who had come in either to change their books or to keep appointments with each other. On a sudden Vandover saw Turner just passing into the Biography alcove. He got up and followed her. She was standing at the end of the dim book-lined tunnel, searching the upper shelves, her head and throat bent back, and her gloved finger on her lip. The faint odour of the perfume she always affected came to him mingled with the fragrance of the jonquils at her belt and the smell of leather and of books that exhaled from the shelves on either side. He did not offer to take her hand, but came up slowly, speaking in a low voice.
It was the last time that Vandover ever met Turner Ravis. They talked for upward of an hour, leaning against the opposite book-shelves, Vandover with his fists in his pockets, his head bent down, and the point of his shoe tracing the pattern in the linoleum carpet; Turner, her hands clasped in front of her, looking him squarely in the face, speaking calmly and frankly.
"Now, I hope you see just how it is, Van," she said at length. "What has happened hasn't made me cease to care for you, because if I had really cared for you the way I thought I did, the way a girl ought to care for the man she wants to marry, I would have stood by you through everything, no matter what you did. I don't do so now, because I find I don't care for you as much as I thought I did. What has happened has only shown me that. I'm sorry, oh, so sorry to be disappointed in you, but it's because I only think of you as being once a very good friend of mine, not because I love you as you think I did. Once--a long time ago--when we first knew each other, then, perhaps--things were different then. But somehow we seem to have grown away from that. Since then we have both been mistaken; you thought I cared for you in that way, and I thought so, too, and I thought you cared for me; but it was only that we were keeping up appearances, pretending to ourselves just for the sake of old times. We don't love each other now; you know it. But I have never intentionally deceived you or tried to lead you on; when I told you I cared for you I really thought I did. I meant to be sincere; I always thought so until this happened, and then when I saw how easily I could let you go, it only proved to me that I did not care for you as I thought I did. It was wrong of me, I know, and I should have known my own mind before, but I didn't, I didn't. You talk about Dolly Haight; but it is not Dolly Haight at all who has changed my affection for you. I will be just as frank as I can with you, Van. I may learn really to love Dolly Haight; I don't know, I think perhaps I will, but it isn't that I care for him _just_ because I don't care for you. Can't you see, it's just as if I had never met you. You know it's very hard for me to say this to you, Van, and I suppose it's all mixed up, but I can't help it. You don't know how sorry I am, because we have been such old friends--because I really did care for you as a friend; it's a proof of it, that there is no other man in the world I could talk to like this. I think, too, Van, that was the only way you cared for me, just as a good friend--except perhaps at first, when we first knew each other. You know yourself that is so. We really haven't loved each other at all for a long time, and now we have found it out before it was too late. And even if everything were different, Van, don't you know how it is with girls? They really love the man who loves them the most. Half the time they're just in love with being loved. That's the way most girls love nowadays, and you know yourself, Van, that Dolly Haight really loves me more than you do." She gathered up her books and went on after a pause, straightening up, ready to go: "If I should let myself think of what you have done, I feel--as if--as if--why, dreadful--I--that I should hate you, loathe you; but I try not to do that. I have been thinking it all over since the other night. I shall always try to think of you at your best; I have tried to forget everything else, and in forgetting it I forgive you. I can honestly say that," she said, holding out her hand, "I forgive you, and you must forgive me because once, by deceiving myself, I deceived you, and made you think that I cared for you in that way when I didn't." As their hands fell apart Turner faced him and added, with tears in her eyes: "You know this must be good-bye for good. You don't know how it hurts me to tell you. I know it looks as if I were deserting you when you were alone in the world and had most need of some one to influence you for the good. But, Van, won't you be better now? Won't you break from it all and be your own self again? I have faith in you. I believe it's in you to become a great man and a good man. It isn't too late to begin all over again. Just be your better self; live up to the best that's in you; if not for your own sake, then for the sake of that other girl that's coming into your life some time; that other girl who is good and sweet and pure, whom you will really, really love and who will really, really love you."
* * * * *
All the rest of that month Vandover was wretched. So great was his shame and humiliation over this fresh disaster that he hardly dared to show himself out of doors. His grief was genuine and it was profound. Yet he took his punishment in the right spirit. He did not blame any one but himself; it was only a just retribution for the thing he had done. Only what made it hard to bear was the fact that the chastisement had fallen upon him long after he had repented of the crime, long after he had resolved to lead a new and upright life; but with shut teeth he determined still to carry out that resolve; he would devote all his future life to living down the past. It might be hard; it might be one long struggle through many, many years, but he would do it. Ah, yes, he would show them; they had cast him off, but he would go away to Paris now as he had always intended. As invariably happened when he was deeply moved, he turned to his art, blindly and instinctively. He would go to Paris now and study his paintings, five, ten years, and come back at last a great artist, when these same people who had cast him off would be proud to receive him. Turner was right in saying that he had in him the making of a great man. He _knew_ that she was right; knew that if he only gave the better part of him, the other Vandover, the chance, that he would become a great artist. Well, he would do so, and then when he came back again, when all the world was at his feet, and there were long articles in the paper announcing his arrival, these people would throng around him; he would show them what a great and noble nature he really had; he would forgive them; he would ignore what they had done. He even dramatized a little scene between himself and Turner, then Mrs. Haight. They would both be pretty old then and he would take her children on his lap and look at her over their heads--he could almost see those heads, white, silky and very soft--and he would nod at her thoughtfully, and say, "Well, I have taken your advice, do you remember?" and she was to answer, "Yes, I remember." There were actually tears in his eyes as he saw the scene.
At the very first he thought that he could not live without Turner; that he loved her too much to be able to give her up. But in a little while he saw that this was not so. She was right, too, in saying that he had long since outlived his first sincere affection for her. He had felt for a long time that he did not love her well enough to marry her; that he did not love her as young Haight did, and he acknowledged to himself that this affair at least had ended rightly. The two loved each other, he could see that; at last he even told himself that he would be glad to see Turner married to Dolly Haight, who was his best friend. But for all that, it came very hard at first to give up Turner altogether; never to see her or speak to her again.
As the first impressions of the whole affair grew dull and blunt by the lapse of time, this humble penitential mood of Vandover's passed away and was succeeded by a feeling of gloomy revolt, a sullen rage at the world that had cast him off _only_ because he had been found out. He thought it a matter of self-respect to resent the insult they had put upon him. But little by little he ceased to regret his exile; the new life was not so bad as he had at first anticipated, and his relations with the men whom he knew best, Ellis, Geary, and young Haight, were in nowise changed. He was no longer invited anywhere, and the girls he had known never saw him when he passed them on the street. It was humiliating enough at first, but he got used to it after a while, and by dint of thrusting the disagreeable subject from his thoughts, by refusing to let the disgrace sink deep in his mind, by forgetting the whole business as much as he could, he arrived after a time to be passably contented. His pliable character had again rearranged itself to suit the new environment.
Along with this, however, came a sense of freedom. Now he no longer had anything to fear from society; it had shot its bolt, it had done its worst, there was no longer anything to restrain him, now he could do anything.
He was in precisely this state of mind when he received the cards for the opening of the roadhouse, the "resort" out on the Almshouse drive, about which Toby, the waiter at the Imperial, had spoken to him.
Vandover attended it. It was a debauch of forty-eight hours, the longest and the worst he had ever indulged in. For a long time the brute had been numb and dormant; now at last when he woke he was raging, more insatiable, more irresistible than ever.
The affair at the roadhouse was but the beginning. All at once Vandover rushed into a career of dissipation, consumed with the desire of vice, the perverse, blind, and reckless desire of the male. Drunkenness, sensuality, gambling, debauchery, he knew them all. He rubbed elbows with street walkers, with bookmakers, with saloonkeepers, with the exploiters of lost women. The bartenders of the city called him by his first name, the policemen, the night detail, were familiar with his face, the drivers of the nighthawks recognized his figure by the street lamps, paling in the light of many an early dawn. At one time and another he was associated with all the different types of people in the low "sporting set," acquaintances of an evening, whose names grew faint to his recollection amidst the jingle of glasses and the popping of corks, whose faces faded from his memory in the haze of tobacco smoke and the fumes of whisky; young men of the city, rich without apparent means of livelihood, women and girls "recently from the East" with rooms over the fast restaurants; owners of trotting horses, actresses without engagements, billiard-markers, pool-sellers and the sons of the proprietors of halfway houses and "resorts." With all these Vandover kept the pace at the Imperial, at the race-track, at the gambling tables in the saloons and bars along Kearney and Market streets, and in the disreputable houses amid the strong odours of musk and the rustle of heavy silk dresses. It lasted for a year; by the end of that time he had about forgotten his determination to go to Paris and had grown out of touch with his three old friends, Ellis, Geary, and Haight. He seldom saw them now; occasionally he met them in one of the little rooms of the Imperial over their beer and Welsh rabbits, but now he always went on to the larger rooms where one had champagne and terrapin. He felt that he no longer was one of them.
That year the opera came to San Francisco, and Vandover hired a messenger boy to stand in line all night at the door of the music store where the tickets were to be sold. Vandover could still love music. In the wreckage of all that was good that had been going on in him his love for all art was yet intact. It was the strongest side of his nature and it would be the last to go. _