§ 15
The next morning came a note from van Tuiver. He was sure that Miss Castleman must have reconsidered her cruel decision, and he begged her to grant him one brief interview. Might he take her riding in his car that morning? The bearer would wait for an answer. Sylvia replied that her decision was unchanged and unchangeable—she was sorry to hurt his feelings, but she must ask him to give up all thought of her.
A couple of hours later came van Tuiver himself, and sent up his card and with a line scribbled on it, “What have I done to anger you?” She wrote back, “I am not angry, but I cannot see you.” After which an hour more elapsed and there came a telephone-call from “Tubby” Bates, who begged the honor of a few minutes talk.
“I ought to refuse to speak to you again,” said Sylvia. But in the end she gave way and told him he might call.
He had come as an emissary, of course. The young millionaire was in a dreadful state, he explained, being convinced that he had committed some unmentionable offence.
“I don’t care to talk about the matter,” said Sylvia.
“But,” persisted Bates, “he declares that I got him into the predicament, and now I’m honor-bound to get him out.”
So she had to set to work to explain her point of view. Mr. Bates, who himself owed no particular allegiance to Royalty, should be able to understand; he must realize that her annoyance was not personal, but was, so to speak, an affair of State. This had been her first experience at Court, she said; and the atmosphere had proven bad for her—had made her pale, and would soon turn her into a faded old woman.
Evidently “Tubby” had heard that part of the story also; first he grinned, and then in his rôle of diplomat set to work to smooth away her objections. “You surely don’t mind a little thing like that,” he pleaded. “Haven’t you any jealous ladies down South?”
“If we are going to discuss this question, Mr. Bates, I must speak frankly. Our hostesses are polite to their guests.”
The other began suddenly to laugh. “Even when the guests steal?”
“When they steal?”
“Jewels!” exclaimed the other. “Bright, particular, conspicuous jewels—crown-jewels, precious beyond replacing! Think, Miss Castleman, you trust a guest, you admit him to your castle—and suddenly you find that the great ruby of your diadem is gone!”
“Is it that Mrs. Winthrop hopes to marry van Tuiver to her daughter?” asked Sylvia, crossly.
“Oh, no,” said Bates. “He is to marry Dorothy Cortlandt—that was arranged when they were babies, and Mrs. Winthrop wouldn’t dream of cutting in on it.”
“But then, if I haven’t robbed Edith——”
“My dear Miss Castleman,” said the other, “you’ve robbed Mrs. Winthrop herself.”
“But I don’t understand,” said the girl.
“Please don’t misunderstand,” said Bates. “It’s all perfectly proper and noble, you know—and all that. I’ve nothing to say against Mrs. Winthrop—she’s a charming woman, and has a right to be admired by everybody. But being a queen, you see, she has to have a court, with a lot of distinguished courtiers. She reads poetry to them, and they write it to her, and they sit at her feet and dream wonderful dreams, and she gazes at them. I know a dozen fellows who’ve been that way all through college; and I suppose it does them good—they tell me I haven’t any soul and can’t understand these things. What I’ve always said is, ‘Maybe you’re right, and maybe I’m a brute, but it looks to me like the same old game.’”
“The same old game,” repeated Sylvia, wonderingly. She found herself thinking suddenly of one of the maxims of Lady Dee—one which she had been too young to understand, but had been made to learn nevertheless: “The young girl’s deadliest enemy is the married flirt!” Could it be that Mrs. Winthrop was anything so desperate as that?
“Mr. van Tuiver is one of these poets?” she asked, finally.
“I don’t think van Tuiver goes in for poetry; but he’s strong on manners and things like that, and he says that Mrs. Winthrop is the only hostess in America who has the old-world charm. Of course that ravished her, and they’ve been great chums.”
“And I came and spoiled it all!” exclaimed the girl.
“You came and spoiled it all!” said Bates.
Sylvia sat for a while in thought. “You know, Mr. Bates,” she remarked, “it rather puzzles me that people consider Mr. van Tuiver as having distinguished manners. I really haven’t been impressed that way.”
The other laughed. “My dear Miss Castleman, don’t you know that van Tuiver’s in love with you!”
“No! Surely not!”
“Perfectly head over heels in love with you. He’s been that way since the first moment he laid eyes on you. And the way you’ve treated him—you know you are rather high-handed. Anyhow, it’s rattled him so, he simply doesn’t know whether he’s on his head or his feet.”
“Did he tell you that, Mr. Bates?”
“Not in words—but by everything about him. I never saw a man so changed. Honestly, you don’t know him at all, as we’ve known him. You’d not believe it if I described him.”
“Tell me what you mean?”
“Well, in the first place, he’s always dignified—stately, even. When he speaks, it’s he speaking, and his Yea is Yea and his Nay is Nay. Then he’s very precise—he never does anything upon impulse, but always considers whether it’s the right thing for Douglas van Tuiver to do. You see, he has an acute consciousness of his social task—I mean, being a model to all the little people in the world. You wouldn’t understand his manners unless you realized that they’re imported from England. In England—have you ever been there?”
“No,” said Sylvia.
“Well, you’re walking along a country road, and you’re lost, and you see a gentleman coming the other way. You stop and begin, ‘I beg pardon’—and he goes by you with his eyes to the front, military fashion. You see, you’re not supposed to exist.”
“How perfectly dreadful!”
“I remember once I was walking in the country, and there came a carriage with two ladies in it. It stopped as I passed, and so I stopped. ‘Can you tell me where such and such a house is?’ she asked, and I replied that it was in such and such a direction. And then, without even a look, she sank back in her cushions, and the coachman drove on. She was a lady, and she thought it was a grand carelessness.”
“Oh, but surely she must have belonged to the ‘nouveaux riches’!” exclaimed Sylvia.
“On the contrary, she may have had the best blood in England. You see, that’s their system. They have a ruling caste, whose rudeness is their religion.”
“We have our family pride in the South,” said Sylvia, “but it’s supposed to show itself in a superior courtesy. In fact, if a person’s rude to his inferiors, we’re sure there must be plebeian blood somewhere.”
“Exactly, Miss Castleman—that’s what I’ve always been taught.” There was a pause; then suddenly Bates began to laugh. “They tell such a funny story about van Tuiver,” he went on. “It was a club-tea, and there were two ladies whom everybody knew to be social rivals. Van Tuiver was talking to Mrs. A. and suddenly, without any warning, he walked over and began to talk to Mrs. B. Afterwards somebody said to him, ‘Why did you leave Mrs. A. and go directly to Mrs. B.? You know they hate each other—did you want to make it worse?’ ‘No, I never thought of it,’ he said. ‘The point was, there was a fireplace at my back, and I don’t like a fireplace at my back.’ ‘But did you tell that to Mrs. A?’ asked the friend. ‘No,’ said van Tuiver—‘I told it to Mrs. B.’”
“Oh, dear me!” cried Sylvia.
“And you must understand that he saw nothing funny in it. And the significant thing is that he gets away with that pose!”
“In other words, he has introduced the English system into America,” said Sylvia.
“That’s what it comes to, Miss Castleman.”
“You have a king at Harvard!”
The man hesitated, and then a smile spread over his face. “Of course you realize,” he said, “that it’s a game we’re playing.”
“A game?” she repeated.
“Do you know they had a queen in New York, Miss Castleman—until she died, just recently? You came to the city, you intrigued and pulled wires, and perhaps she condescended to receive you—seated upon a regular throne of state, painted and covered with jewels like a Hindoo idol. Everybody agreed she was the queen, and nobody could go anywhere or do anything unless she said so. Only, of course, ninety-nine people out of a hundred paid no attention to her, and went ahead and lived their lives just as if she weren’t queen. And it’s the same way here.”
“Tubby” paused for encouragement; this was unusual eloquence for him.
“As to our king,” he continued, “one-eighth of the college pays him homage, and another eighth rebels against him—and the other three-quarters don’t know that he’s here. They’re busy cramming for exams, or training for the boat-race, or having a good time spending papa’s money. In other words, Miss Castleman, van Tuiver is our king when we are snobs; and some of us are snobs all the time, and others of us only when we go calling on the ladies. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” said Sylvia, intensely amused. “I suspect that you are one of the rebellious subjects. You are certainly a frank ambassador, Mr. Bates!”
It was his turn to laugh. “The truth is, van Tuiver’s been three years posing in a certain rôle, and he can’t turn round now and play a different one for you. I thought it over as I was coming here, and I said to myself, ‘I’ll ask her to see him, but I’ll be damned’—pardon me, but that’s what I said—‘I’ll be damned if I’ll help him to deceive her.’ You see, Miss Castleman—I hope I don’t presume—but I know van Tuiver’s in love with you, and I thought—well—I——”
The genial “Tubby” had turned several shades redder, and now he fell silent. “You may feel quite at ease, Mr. Bates,” smiled Sylvia. “The danger you fear does not exist at all.”
“Not by any possibility, Miss Castleman?”
“Not by any possibility, Mr. Bates.”
“He—he has an enormous lot of money!”
“After all our conversation! There are surely a few things in America which are not for sale.”
“Tubby” drew a deep breath of relief. “I was scared,” he said—“honest.”
“How lovely of you!” said Sylvia. She suddenly felt like a mother to this big fat boy who was said to have no soul.
“I said to myself,” he continued, “‘I’ll tell her the truth about van Tuiver, even if she never forgives me for it.’ You see, Miss Castleman, I see the real man—as you’d never be allowed to, not in a thousand years. And you must take my word and be careful, for van Tuiver’s a man who has never had to do without anything in his whole lifetime. No matter what it’s been that he’s wanted, he’s had it—always, always! I’ve seen one or two times when it looked as if he mightn’t get it—and I can tell you that he’s cunning, and that he persists and persists—he’s a perfect demon when he’s got his mind fixed on something he wants and hasn’t got.”
“Dear me!” said Sylvia. “That is a new view of him!”
“Well, I said I’d warn you. I hope you don’t mind.”
Sylvia smiled. “I thought you had set out to persuade me to see him again!”
Bates watched her. “I don’t know,” he said, “maybe mine was the best way to persuade you.”
“Why, how charming!” she exclaimed, with a laugh. “You are really subtle.”
“We want to fight the introduction of the English system, Miss Castleman! I don’t mind an aristocracy, because I’m one of ’em; but I don’t want any kings in America! It’s a patriotic duty to pull them off their thrones and keep them off.”
Sylvia pondered. It was a most entertaining view. “And the queens too?” she laughed.
“Yes, and the queens too!”
There was a pause, while she thought. Then she said, “Yes, I think you’re right, Mr. Bates. You may tell His Majesty that I’ll see him—once more!”