CHAPTER X.
A MENTAL PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY.
After Helen left, Hermia went up to her room. There she did what she never failed to do the moment she entered her bedroom—walked over to the glass and looked at herself. She had not even yet got used to the idea of her beauty, and sometimes approached the mirror with dread lest her new self should prove a dream. She saw nothing to alarm her. A year’s dissipation had not impaired her looks. Excitement and good living agreed with her, and Miss Newton tyrannized over her like the hygienic duenna that she was.
She sank down on the floor before the long glass, resting her elbow on a cushion. Her crouching attitude reminded her of the women whose lines had fallen in days of barbaric splendor. It is not to be supposed for a moment that this effect was accidental. Hermia had determined, before she burst upon New York, that her peculiar individuality should be the suggestion of the untrammeled barbarian held in straining leash by the requirements of civilization. Her green eyes and tawny hair were the first requisites, and she managed her pliant body with a lithe grace which completed the semblance.
She wore to-day a tea-gown of Louis XIV. brocade and lace, and she watched herself with an amused smile. A year and a half ago her wardrobe had consisted of coarse serges and gingham aprons.
She put her head on the cushion, nestled her body into the feather rug, and in a vague, indolent way let her memory rove through the little photograph gallery in her brain set apart for the accumulations of the past twelve months. There were a great many photographs in that gallery, and their shapes and dimensions were as diverse as their subjects. Some were so large that they swept from floor to ceiling, although their surface might reflect but one impression; others were too small to catch the eye of the casual observer, and the imprint on them was like one touch of a water-colorist’s brush. Many pasteboards of medium size were there whose surfaces were crowded like an ant-hill at sundown; and pushed into corners or lying under a dust-heap were negatives, undeveloped and fading. At one end of the gallery was a great square plate, and on it there was no impression of any sort, nor ever had been.
Hermia pushed up her loose sleeve and pressed her face into the warm bend of her arm. On the whole, the past year had been almost satisfactory. A clever brain, an iron will, and a million dollars can do much, and that much Hermia’s combined gifts had accomplished.
She opened the windows of her photograph gallery and dusted out the cobwebs, then, beginning at the top, sauntered slowly down. She looked at her first appearance in the world of fashion. It is after the completion of her winter’s wardrobe by a bevy of famous tailors, and she wears a gown of light-gray cloth and a tiny bonnet of silvery birds. The début is in St. Mark’s; and as she walks up the center aisle to the Suydam pew, her form as straight as a young sapling, her head haughtily yet nonchalantly poised, every curve of her glove-fitting gown proclaiming the hand that cut it, Second Avenue catches its breath, raises its eyebrows, and exchanges glances of well-bred, aristocratic surprise. Late that week it calls, and this time is not repulsed, but goes away enchanted. It does not take long for the unseen town crier to flit from Second Avenue to Fifth, and one day his budget of news sends a ripple over the central stream. John Suydam’s heiress, a beautiful girl of twenty, with a style all her own, yet not violating a law of good form! The old red-brick house transformed into an enchanted palace, with a remarkably wide-awake princess, and a sacrifice to modern proprieties in the shape of a New England aunt! How unusual and romantic! yet all as it should be. We begin to remember poor Crosby Suydam and his charming young wife. We recall the magnificence of their entertainments in the house on lower Fifth Avenue—now resplendent with a milliner’s sign. Both dead? How sad! And to think that John Suydam had a million all the time! The old wretch! But how enchanting that he had the decency to leave it to this beautiful girl! We will call.
They do call; and a distant relative of Hermia’s father, Mrs. Cotton Dykman, comes forward with stately tread and gracious welcome and offers her services as social sponsor. Hermia accepts the offer with gratitude, and places her brougham at Mrs. Dykman’s disposal.
Mrs. Dykman is a widow approaching fifty, with lagging steps yet haughty mien. Her husband omitted to leave her more than a competence; but she lives in Washington Square in a house which was her husband’s grandfather’s, and holds her head so high and wears so much old lace and so many family diamonds (which she hid in the wall during the late Cotton’s lifetime) that the Four Hundred have long since got into the habit of forgetting her bank account. To her alone does Hermia confide the secret of her past external self and the methods of reconstruction, and Mrs. Dykman respects her ever after.