I
On the way to Thursday dinner with the Aunts, Wilfred went around by Sixth avenue in order to have a look at the news-stand. Yes, the Century was out! Good old Century in its plain yellow dress, and neat lettering! Wilfred’s heart set up a slightly accelerated beating. Before paying over his thirty-five cents, he took the precaution of consulting the table of contents. “Romance in Rivington Street. . . . Wilfred Pell.” A sigh of satisfaction relieved his breast.
Oblivious to the uproar at Sixth avenue and Eighth street, he leaned against a shop window to get the light over his shoulder, reading the sentences that he already knew by heart, with a delighted grin pressing into his cheeks. How human and funny it was! how offhand and graceful! He had got it that time! At the same time an inner voice was saying dryly, in Hilgy’s manner: Oh, it’s not as good as all that! His delight was mixed with apprehension: Would he ever be able to get it again?
He gave his private ring at the Aunts’ door-bell, that the maid might not be brought up-stairs from her work. Aunt May opened the door. Wilfred had shoved the magazine in his overcoat pocket. He would not blurt out his news. Besides, his Aunts would be sure to say the wrong thing. Aunt May held up her cheek to be kissed, without looking at him. It was one of the most amusing characteristics of his people, the way they took each other for granted.
The reason for Aunt May’s abstraction was revealed. “I think a rat must have died under the floor. . . . Huh?” she said sniffing. “These old houses . . . !”
“How inconsiderate!” said Wilfred.
She was already on her way back to the drawing-room, and did not get it. Wilfred presently followed, carrying the magazine in his hand.
“I am just finishing a letter,” said Aunt May at her desk.
Wilfred looked around the room with a warm feeling about his heart. How pleasant the sight of something that was unchanged. The Brussels carpet with its all-over design; the skimmed-milk wall-paper with its neo-Gothic ornaments traced in gilt; the square piano with yellowed keys and absurd muscle-bound legs; the carved walnut furniture. Could he not do something in a story with that tranquillizing room, with the whole quaint little house which was of a piece with it—but no! He was still too close to it. At the thought of the room up-stairs which had been his, he shivered with old pains and ardors.
Wilfred commenced to read the delicious story all over again.
Having sealed her letter, Aunt May became aware of his smile. “What is amusing you?” she asked.
“Damn good story!” said Wilfred.
“Wilfred! This is not South Washington Square!”
“Oh, beg pardon, Aunt. They tell me that profanity is becoming fashionable.”
“Not in this house! . . . Who is the story by?”
Wilfred affected to turn back to the beginning. “Chap called Wilfred Pell.”
“Wilfred! Give me that magazine!”
Together they studied the illustration to Wilfred’s story.
“I don’t think much of that,” remarked Aunt May.
“Putrid!”
“Wilfred . . . !”
“One is prepared for it,” said Wilfred like a long-suffering author. “He’s made my young lad look like a race track tout. Twenty years out of date. Why can’t these fellows look about them when they go into the streets? . . . However, it’s a Dugan, you see. That lends importance to the story. They paid more for that one picture than they did for the story.”
“How unjust!”
The placid, rosy Aunt Fanny came into the room.
“Fanny!” cried her sister. “Wilfred’s story in the Century!”
Aunt Fanny seized the magazine, and while her eyes fastened upon it, she held up her cheek sideways to be kissed.
Said Aunt May with a thoughtful air: “Wilfred, how many of those could you . . . Huh? . . . About the same amount of writing as ten letters, I should say. And if you had nothing else to do. . . .”
“Oh, but I have not your facility, Aunt May.”
“Don’t try to be funny! . . . Say, two a month anyway. . . .”
“It’s not how many you can write, but how many you can sell, my dear.”
“Oh, but the cheaper magazines will all be after you . . . Huh? now that the Century. . . .”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that. The cheaper magazines have a grand conceit of themselves, you see. They affect to look upon the Century as a back number.”
“All the best people read the Century!”
“Unfortunately there are so many more people of the other kind!”
Later, at the table, Aunt May said with a casual air—but her hazy grey eyes were intent upon her thought: “Wilfred, now that you are becoming known . . . Huh? . . . you ought to . . . Do sit up straight in your chair! . . . you ought to go about more . . . !”
“Why, I circulate like a dollar bill!” said Wilfred. “I am worn and greasy with handling.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be vulgar!”
“Seriously, I have dozens of friends now.”
“Oh, South Washington Square!”
“I’m known as far North as Fifty-Ninth street. The Fifty-Ninth street crowd of artists and writers are most respectable. They sell their work, too. I know Walter Sherman, and Louis Sala and Frances Mary Lore. Miss Lore is a special friend of mine.”
The two Aunts exchanged an anxious glance. “Lore?” said Aunt Fanny. “Who are her people . . . Huh? . . .”
“Let me see,” said Wilfred, “her father was a letter carrier in Memphis. Or else he was the garbage collector. I forget.”
“Wilfred!”
“Well, it doesn’t signify, does it? Frances Mary stands on her own bottom.”
“Wilfred!”
“Oh, Aunt! I didn’t mean what you mean!”
“Seriously, Wilfred,” said Aunt May, “you are twenty-six years old. . . .”
“We should hate to see you marry on South Washington Square,” put in Aunt Fanny.
Aunt May frowned at Aunt Fanny. This was too direct.
Wilfred grinned at them both. An outrageous retort trembled on his tongue, but he bit it back. After all, they were dear old dears. And he was his own man now. “Well, thank God! that’s not an issue,” he said. “I don’t want to marry and I couldn’t if I did!”
“You ought to know the people who count,” said Aunt May.
“So I do,” said Wilfred. “In my world.”
“But that’s a very small world, my dear. . . . Huh? . . . I mean the great world.”
“Society?” said Wilfred. “I can hardly see myself performing with that troupe of trained seals.”
“And why not, pray?” asked Aunt May, bridling. “That is where you belong, on both sides of the house. Your name alone. . . . Huh? . . . the sole representative of your branch. . . .”
“And you have become quite nice-looking,” added Aunt Fanny.
“Thanks, ladies, thanks,” said Wilfred bowing.
“Nor are we entirely forgotten,” said Aunt May with dignity, “notwithstanding the parvenues who crowd everywhere. . . .”
“And the girls of that world are so much prettier and more charming,” put in Aunt Fanny.
Aunt May frowned at her again. But it was the seeming injudicious remark of Aunt Fanny’s which arrested Wilfred’s attention, and sent his mind cavorting down the very avenue that they wished. It was true! The girls of his world, writers and artists, good fellows as they were—well, that was just the trouble with them, they were such good fellows! When women descended into the arena to compete with men, they lost something of their allure. What cynic had he heard say that? He himself, would never have dared say it out loud amongst his friends; but was it not true? And sometimes, confound them! they beat a man at his own trade! How could you make love to a girl whose stories were in greater demand by the editors than your own? . . . Why not be honest with yourself, and confess that you were enough of a Turk at heart to be attracted by the idea of exquisite girls especially trained and groomed to please men. Very reprehensible, of course, but as long as there were such girls going, why not have one?
Wilfred was recalled to his surroundings by hearing Aunt May say, casually:
“Every time we see Cousin Emily Gore she asks after you.”
So that was the milk in the cocoanut! “Kind of her,” said Wilfred.
“She has several times given you an opening to call; but you never would.”
“That was when I was working for her husband,” said Wilfred. “No sucking up to the boss’s wife for me, thanks.”
“Wilfred! What an expression!”
“But I’m on my own now; the case is altered.”
“And Cousin Emily says,” added Aunt Fanny, “that there’s such a shortage of dancing men in society, they’re at a premium!”
Aunt May looked annoyed. Fanny would say the word too much!
“Yes, so I’ve heard,” drawled Wilfred. “Low society is really more select.”
“Will you call on Cousin Emily Gore? . . . Huh?” asked Aunt May.
“Haven’t got a Prince Albert.”
“We are told it is no longer indispensable.”
“Oh, they’ll take us in anything now, eh?”
“Do be sensible, Wilfred! . . . Will you go?”
“Oh well, I suppose an author’s got to know all sides of life—even the lowest.”
The two ladies exchanged a look of mutual congratulation.
“Wednesday is her day,” said Aunt May. “And Wilfred, dear, do allow yourself to be . . . Huh? . . . As you know so well how to be. . . . This mocking air may be . . . But not in Cousin Emily’s world, my dear. . . .”
It was then, Wilfred saw, Aunt Fanny’s turn to feel that May was risking all they had gained by saying too much. Their faces were so transparent! “Cousin Emily takes a special interest in the débutantes,” Aunt Fanny hastily put in. “They say that this year’s débutantes are the loveliest in years!”
“Well I may be a Turk,” said Wilfred, “but I’m not as much of a Turk as that—no débutantes!”
“A Turk. . . . Huh? . . .” said Aunt May. “I’ll let her know you’re coming.”