”Only as a salesman,” he said bitterly, and then added, after a pause, ”It is not worth while being ashamed of it. Lillian’s infernal extravagance ruined me, and I was compelled to do something.”
I could make no reply, and there was a pause of some seconds, when he continued, with increasing volubility, as all men do when speaking of their misfortunes:
”Lillian’s old uncle, from whom we expected a great deal, died insolvent. I spent half of what I had in my last political contest, and was defeated by the——treachery of my friends. Still, after that we had enough to have lived comfortably, by economizing a little; but Lillian would have her brown stone and her carriage, her silks and her laces. and now she has to take the street cars if she rides at all, and that isn’t often. I could stand it all better if she wouldn’t cut up so, and mope about her poverty, as she calls it. She turns up her nose at the neighborhood because we’ve had to come down to Bleecker street. She spends half her time crying and looking over old finery, and talking of better days. She puts all sorts of foolish notions into our little girl’s head, and makes her continually beg me for things I have not the money to buy. I would ask you to call and see us, but ‘twould not be pleasant for you, and only make her worse. It is improper, I know, for me to talk thus to a comparative stranger, but I am full of bitterness when I think of Lillian’s conduct, and as you used to know her I have been communicative. Pardon me. Yonder’s Mr. Bantam. I must go back to my customers. Good day! But take this piece of advice: don’t marry a belle,” he added, over his shoulder, as he walked off.
As I stood on the sidewalk to hail an omnibus, my sympathy turned from him to poor Lillian, reduced to poverty, and her very sighs and tears ridiculed, to any one who might listen, by her unfeeling husband.
When I knocked at No.—West Thirty-fourth street a servant in livery appeared and took up my card. I waited a few moments in a very handsome parlor, when he returned and requested me to walk up stairs. Going up with him I was ushered into a sitting room furnished with cosy magnificence, that is, with a splendid Moquette carpet, on which you were not afraid to tread; velvet divans, on which you did not hesitate to recline; a rosewood table, on which an inkstand and pens were scattered; a marble mantel, with a half-smoked cigar tossed on it, an etagere with a smoking cap, a broken meerschaum, and a Sevres vase of Latakia, perched among articles of rarest vertu. With my first glance around the apartment Monte came in through a folding door from his dressing room, wiping his hands on a Russian towel, and giving me one to shake that was still damp.
”Smith! old fellow, I am devilish glad to see you. When did you arrive? We had a gay time at Saratoga that season, didn’t we! Where the deuce have you kept yourself ever since? Sit down.”
”I thought you were aware, Monte,” I said, adopting his free and easy manner, and lolling carelessly down in an arm chair, ”that we had had a little unpleasantness down our way. I’ve been in camp four years.”
”Ah, yes,” he said, slipping his arm through the coat his attendant held ready for him, ”I had overlooked that. So they made a soldier of you, did they—powder, blood and all? I was captain of a company our fellows here got up, but when they went down South I resigned. If the—— States wanted to secede I had no idea of getting my brains blown out to prevent them.”
”We were defending our country, you know, and, of course, had to fight,” I remarked, smiling at his idea of patriotism.
”I suppose so,” he said, sitting down near me and arranging his cuffs; then looking up at his servant, who stood waiting, ”James, tell Thomas to put the bay colt to the wagon; I will drive to Harlem this afternoon. By the way, Smith,” he continued, when the man had left the room, ”what ever became of that devil of a beauty that flirted with us all, and with whom you left the Springs?”