“He hates to flirt before his little sister,” laughed Mrs. Gower. “Never mind, dear—I think you’ll soon be even with him.” And when Tony Duval arrived, all his simple soul went out to Mrs. Hay. “She is the finest woman I ever saw,” he would say to Arthur, almost with a sigh. And he sent to Long Island for his two best blooded horses; and the first day they rode out he spilled Mrs. Hay over a four-barred fence, just as they were returning, and brought the fair burden home in his brawny arms. Her eyes unclosed soon after she was in the house; and she was not seriously injured. And Arthur, who had indited a telegram to Wilton Hay at Washington, sensibly put the despatch in his pocket.
So the days went by delightfully. Arthur had fears that he was sometimes the odd man; but after all, they seemed to like him pretty well; and if even Pussie Duval failed him, there were other fair in Lenox with no cavaliers imported, like the fruit in the hampers, from the city. So June waned toward July, and everyone almost cheered at Flossie Gower’s proposal that they should have one more drive—to Lake George—before they parted. This new excursion was duly chronicled in all the newspapers, where Mamie Livingstone, eager, and perhaps a little envious, saw it. Arthur wrote and got his leave of absence extended at the office. They were easy-going people at the office.
Meantime, Derwent was “hunting big game” out in the Rockies, and Charlie Townley was sweltering in the city—“working like a dog, by Jove,” he would say—at the affairs of Messrs. Townley & Tamms. And Gracie Holyoke was in great Barrington, alone.
CHAPTER XXII.
A HOUSE BUILT WITH HANDS.
CHARLIE TOWNLEY’S ways were not like the ways of other young stock-brokers. He worked at the most unusual times, and usually made ostentation of idleness. Many others much delighted him by thinking him a fool, chiefly because he wore a single eye-glass; and had a drawl, up-town. He had begun the summer—in the latter part of May, after Arthur had gone to Mrs. Gower’s—by showing a considerable amount of attention to no greater a person than Miss Mamie Livingstone; thereby delighting her (as yet rudimentary) soul. The rest of his mind seemed given, as usual, to his person, his other equipages, and the various fashionable meetings of the season. His homage to Miss Mamie had been of the ostentatious variety, rendered at races and at horse-shows. He had even invited her to drive out to the Hill-and-Dale Club with him in his dog-cart; and it had only been as a favor reluctantly accorded to Gracie that she had not gone. Mamie was convinced that such an expedition would make her the most talked of débutante of the coming season; and she knew that in society (as perhaps in other things to-day) the main element of success is advertisement. When an article has once attracted notice, a clever person can make that notice favorable or the reverse almost at will.
But Gracie was gaining a very powerful influence over Mamie—almost as powerful as all the world outside. Her parents possessed none; they were not only of a previous generation, but ex officio prejudiced advisers; the girl of the period holds their evidence almost as cheaply as the business man holds his minister’s upon theological subjects. Herein also was she a girl of our age, when men go to Ingersoll and Tyndall for their theories of the unknown God, and their wives to faith-cures and esoteric Buddhism for the practice of Christianity, and leave the outworn Scriptures. Still, a nature like Gracie’s had its effect, even upon a girl like Mamie. She was too quick not to be conscious of this, and sought to make it up by chaffing and patronizing her elder cousin.
When Gracie persuaded Mamie to go with her to Great Barrington, Charlie was left entirely to his own devices. Some reader may say, his vices; but Charlie was not more vicious than another. He was almost alone—always excepting Mr. Phineas Tamms—in the office that summer. He showed, nevertheless, no desire to get away, but manifested a very strict attention to business. If Arthur had but known it, he had only been asked in Charlie’s place upon the coaching party; but Charlie was one who never made himself the cause of another’s knowing a disagreeable fact. He had his room permanently taken at Manhattan Beach; and he divided his leisure between this and divers clubs, urban and suburban. Occasionally he passed a Sunday on the yacht of an acquaintance.
Old Mr. Townley still dropped into the office two or three times a week; he still fancied their reputation unchanged, and the business the same as in the old concern of Charles Townley & Son, before they had helped young Tamms out of difficulties and given him a clerkship in the firm; and he bobbed his gray head sagely over Tamms’s exposition of his plans. Business was quiet enough. But after the old gentleman had fairly gone to Newport for the summer, things seemed to take a little start. Tamms’s family were away, his wife and two showy daughters travelling in Europe by themselves, and spending a great deal of money. Tamms himself lived at a small hotel down at Long Branch, where he had his private wire, and where he would occasionally rest a day in rustic seclusion, having his mail and stock-reports brought down to him to read. For Tamms never read books: like Mrs. Gower, he preferred the realities.
One day early in August Charlie was invited to go down and spend the night with his master, “the Governor,” as Charlie termed him. He marvelled much at this, and went with much curiosity, never having witnessed any of Mr. Tamms’s domestic arrangements. He knew that Tamms’s womankind were travelling abroad; for he had had frequent occasion to cash their drafts. He had often speculated at their lack of social ambition on this side the ocean, and had come to the conclusion that it was either because they thought it easier “over there,” or because Tamms deemed the time had not come for that as yet. But if not, why not?