§ 14
The next partner was Harley. It was a nuisance having to entertain your own cousin, but Sylvia amused herself by keeping Harley from recognizing her. And in the meantime she was wondering what her Victim would do next.
She knew his very style of dancing by now, and needed to make no inquiries of Number Ten. “You did not take my advice,” she remarked, when they were seated.
“No,” he said. “On the contrary, I told Bates to put us together the rest of the time.”
“Oh, no!” she protested.
“I want to talk to you,” he declared. “I must talk to you.”
“But you had no right! He will tell, and everybody will be talking about it.”
“I don’t care if they do.”
“But I care, Mr. van Tuiver—you should not have taken such a liberty.”
“Please, Miss Castleman,” he hurried on, “please listen to me. I’ve been thinking about it, and it interests me keenly. I believe that in you I might really have a friend—if only you would. A real friend, I mean—who’d tell me the truth—who’d be absolutely disinterested——”
The fun of it was too much for Sylvia. “Haven’t I explained to you that I mightn’t be disinterested?”
“I’ll trust you.”
“Of course,” she went on, gravely. “I might give you my word of honor that I wouldn’t marry you.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “I suppose so——”
The girl was convulsed with laughter. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she remarked, “I see you are an earnest man; I really ought to stop teasing you. Don’t you think I ought?”
“Yes,” he replied, dubiously. “At least—I never liked to be teased before.”
“Well, I will tell you this for your comfort. There’s no remotest possibility of my ever marrying you, so you can feel quite safe.”
Somehow he did not seem sure whether he was pleased at this pledge. After a pause he went on: “What I mean is that I think a man in my position ought to have somebody to tell him the truth.”
“Something like the court-jesters in old days,” said Sylvia.
But he was not interested in mediæval customs. He was interested in his own need, and she had to promise that she would admit him to the arcanum of her friendship, and that she would always tell him exactly what she thought about him—his actions, his ideas, even his manners. In fulfilment of which promise she spent the rest of that séance, and the two that followed, in listening to him talk about himself and his life.
It was really most curious—an inside glimpse into a kind of life of which one heard, but with no idea of ever encountering it; just as one read of train-robbers and safe-blowers, but never expected to sit and chat with them. Douglas van Tuiver had achieved notoriety before he had cut a single tooth; his mother and father having been killed in a railroad accident when he was two months old, the courts had appointed trustees and guardians, and the newspapers had undertaken a kind of unofficial supervision. The precious infant had been brought up by a staff of tutors, with majordomos and lackeys in the background, and two private detectives and a great-uncle and Mrs. Harold Cliveden to oversee the whole. It did not need much questioning to get the details of this life—the lonely palace on Fifth Avenue, the monumental “cottage” at Newport, the “camp” in the Adirondacks, the yacht in the West Indies; the costly toys, the “blooded” pets, the gold plate, the tedious, suffocating solemnity. If Sylvia had been furious with van Tuiver before, she was ready now to go to the opposite extreme and weep over him. A child brought up wholly by employees, with no brothers and sisters to kick and scratch him into decency, no cousins, no playmates even—unless he was first togged out in an Eton suit and escorted by a tutor to the birthday party of some other little togged-out aristocrat!
Yes, assuredly this unhappy man needed someone to tell him the truth! Sylvia resolved that she would fill the rôle. She would be quite unmoved by his Royalty (the word by which she had come to sum up to herself the whole phenomenon of van Tuiverness). She would persist in regarding him as any other human being, saying to him what she felt like, pretending to him, and even to herself, that he really was not Royalty at all!
But alas, she soon found what a task she had undertaken! The last dance had been danced, and amid much merriment the guests unmasked—and still van Tuiver wanted to stay and talk to his one friend. He escorted her to supper, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Winthrop had other arrangements for him. And even if he had behaved himself, there was the tale which “Tubby” Bates had been diligently spreading. The girl realized all at once that she had achieved a new and startling kind of prominence; all the guests, men and women, were watching her, whispering about her, envying her. She felt a wicked thrill of triumph and pleasure. She, a stranger, an obscure girl from the provinces, who would ordinarily have been an object of suspicion and investigation—she had leaped at one moment into supremacy! She had become the favorite of the King!
Pretty soon came Harley, a-tremble with delight. “Gee whiz, old girl, you sure have scored to-night! For God’s sake, how did you manage it?” Sylvia felt herself hot with sudden shame.
And then came Bates. She tried to scold him, but he would simply not have it. “Now, Miss Castleman! Now, Miss Castleman!”—that was all he would say. What it meant was: “It is all right for you to pretend, of course; but you can’t persuade me that you are really angry!”
“Please go away,” she said at last; but he wanted to tell her what different people said, and would not be shaken off. While he was still teasing, there swept past them a girl to whom Sylvia had not been introduced—a solid-looking young Amazon with a freckled snub nose. She gave Sylvia what appeared to be a haughty look, and Bates whispered, “Do you know who that is? That’s Dorothy Cortlandt!—the girl van Tuiver is to marry.”
“Really!” exclaimed Sylvia, who was cross with all the world. “How did her nose get broken?”
And the other answered with a grin, “You ought to know—you did it!” And so, as Sylvia could not help laughing, Bates counted himself forgiven.
A little later came the encounter with Edith Winthrop. It was after supper, and the two found themselves face to face. “What a charming party it has been!” said Sylvia, and the other gave her what was meant to be a freezing stare. It was so rude that Sylvia thought she must have been misunderstood. “The party’s been a success,” she ventured. “Don’t you think so?”
“Ideas of success differ,” remarked the other, coldly, and turned her back and began an animated conversation with someone else.
“Dear me,” thought Sylvia, as she moved on, “What have I done?” She saw in another part of the room her hostess talking to van Tuiver, and made up her mind at once that she would find out if the beautiful soul-friendship was shattered also. She moved over towards the two, resisting an effort on the part of Harmon to draw her into a tête-à-tête.
“Mrs. Winthrop,” she said, “I’m so glad I stayed over.”
“Queen Isabella” turned the mystical eyes upon her, one of the deep, inscrutable gazes. Sylvia waited, knowing that it might mean anything from reverie to murder. “My dear Sylvia,” she said at last, “you are pale to-night.”
This, in the presence of van Tuiver, probably meant war. “Am I?” asked the girl.
“Yes, my dear, don’t dissipate too much! Women of your type fade quickly.”
“What?” laughed the other, gaily. “With my red eyes and red hair? A century could not extinguish me!”
She passed on, and discovered that van Tuiver was following her. “You aren’t going, are you, Miss Castleman?” he asked; and while he was begging her to stay, Sylvia saw her hostess move across the room to Dorothy Cortlandt. These two stood conversing earnestly, and one glance was enough to tell Sylvia what they were conversing about.
All this was a sore temptation, but Sylvia was in a virtuous mood. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, “there is something I want to say to you. I’ve thought it over, and made up my mind that it is impossible for me to be the friend you want.”
“Why, Miss Castleman!” he exclaimed, in distress. “What is the matter?”
“I can’t explain——”
“But what have I done?”
“It’s nothing that you’ve done. It’s simply that I couldn’t stand the world you live in. Oh, I’d be a dreadful woman if I stayed very long!”
“Please, listen—” he implored.
But she cut him short. “I am sorry to give you pain, but I have made up my mind absolutely. There is no possible way I can help you. I am not willing to see you again, and you must positively not ask it.” After which speech she went to look for her cousin, leaving van Tuiver such a picture of agitation that everyone in the room observed it. Could the King’s nose be broken too?