When a subterranean disturbance shakes a city it is the most clumsily constructed houses that go down first. In like manner, when the most select circle of society is in trouble, it is the man who has no very good claim to recognition in that circle who first feels the effects of the internal agitation.
As Buchanan Budd listened to the current gossip at his clubs, and read in the newspapers impudent criticisms on the doings of the people with whom he associated, he came reluctantly, but firmly, to the conclusion that it behooved him to take some step that would strengthen his position as a recognized member of the most exclusive social clique in the country—perhaps in the world.
It did not take him long to decide that the only fitting strategical move on his part lay along the line of matrimony. Not that he came to this conviction willingly. He enjoyed life as a bachelor, and he felt that in taking to himself a wife he would be making a most dangerous experiment. He could not blind himself to the fact that the unpleasant publicity at that time being thrust upon certain members of the inner circle had had its origin in unfortunate marriages. Nevertheless, he realized that society expected of him, at some time or other, a personal sacrifice of his liberty on the altar of matrimony; and the present crisis seemed to be an appropriate moment for propitiating the powers controlling the inner circle by taking to himself a wife who would render him safe for the future in any sifting process in which society might indulge.
After going over the list of eligible young women in his set, he had decided, without much hesitation, that Gertrude Van Vleck was, as he put it to himself, the card for him to play. She possessed several characteristics that rendered her especially eligible. In the first place, her position in society was thoroughly assured. Furthermore, she possessed sufficient mental alertness to render her companionable to a man who had not been quite able to crush all fondness for originality out of his make-up. Then again—and this was an important consideration—he had never made love to her. They had been good friends, to use a rather meaningless phrase, and Budd was encouraged by the thought that he had never prejudiced his chances with her by invoking sentiment to add spice to their intercourse.
That she had rejected several suitors was a fact well known to society, and there had been a good deal of discussion as to Gertrude Van Vleck’s motive for refusing at least two offers that were generally considered especially desirable. In weighing this phase of the case, Buchanan Budd, who was not an abnormally modest man, asked himself if the explanation of her reluctance to enter into wedlock had not been due to the fact that he, in certain respects one of the most eligible bachelors in the city, had hitherto approached her only as a friend. It is true that she had sometimes appeared to indulge in a little sarcasm at his expense, but her tongue might have been inspired by pique. What more likely than that his failure to put any special warmth into his manner, when she had hoped for something more than friendship, had been the underlying cause of those shafts of satire that she had sometimes launched at him? The more Buchanan Budd questioned himself on this point, the more he became convinced that Gertrude Van Vleck concealed a fondness for him that she only awaited a change in his manner to reveal.
There was one peculiarity possessed by Budd that might have enabled him to earn his own living, if fate had not ordained that he should lie on a bed of roses. When he had decided upon a course of action, he never hesitated to begin operations at once. But, as he seldom reached any conclusion that demanded the exercise of energy and directness, there was something novel and inspiring in the emotions that animated him as he sent in his card to Gertrude Van Vleck on the very evening on which he had pursued, while smoking a cigar at his favorite club, the mental processes outlined above. He felt that there was something Napoleonic in thus moving on the enemy’s stronghold at once, and he entered her drawing-room with almost the air of a conqueror. One fact that rendered bachelorhood so satisfactory to Buchanan Budd was that he possessed quite a vivid imagination. No man will grow too lonely if he can constantly delude himself with flattering fancies, and picture himself as the centre of the universe, with the ends of space to do his bidding.
“And what am I to have from you this evening, Mr. Budd?” asked Gertrude, seating herself for a chat that she knew would prove amusing. “Censure for the new woman?”
“No, Miss Van Vleck; I crave advice for the old-fashioned man.”
Gertrude smiled, and her eyes flashed merrily as she exclaimed,—
“There is a mystery here! Mr. Buchanan Budd seeking advice from a woman whom he suspects of holding advanced ideas! That seems hardly reasonable.”