As she spoke there was a frou-frou of skirts in the hall, and Lily Osborne came slowly and gracefully through the portière. She was a handsome woman with an abundance of reddish gold hair and long black eyes which had the effect of having no white, a peculiarity possessed by Rachel and also, we are told, by the devil.
The two women bowed stiffly and Rose slipped out, attended by Fox and Sandy, leaving Allestree to devour his chagrin and receive his accomplished visitor.
IV
ALLESTREE lived alone with his widowed mother in a roomy, old-fashioned mansion in one of the older residential sections, which stand now like decadent environs of the more brilliant quarters where the millionaire and the multi-millionaire erect their palaces. But these changes, in matters of fashion and display, did not trouble the serene bosom of old Mrs. Allestree, who felt that she held her place in the world by the inalienable rights of birth, blood, and long established family position, for, happily, she had as yet no notion of the shadowy nature of such claims in the event of financial disaster, which is as impersonal as the deluge. She was contentedly aware that her old-fashioned drawing-rooms had been the scene of many a brilliant gathering even before her nephew, William Fox, became such a figure in the public eye that his frequent presence in her house was enough to draw there the most distinguished and representative men at the capital. But the old lady herself was clever, shrewdly conversant with the world and its affairs, and not averse to giving ear to the current gossip; she was, indeed, often amused at her son’s aloofness from these worldly concerns which pleased and interested her the most. For, though a detached spectator, because of her age and her comparatively delicate health, she was yet keenly aware of the drift of events both social and political, and possessed the advantages of age in being able to make comparisons between the past and the present, with a touch of eclecticism amusing in one who had been so devotedly attached to the frivolities of fashion. She could draw more accurate deductions than many who were more intimately concerned in the whirling conflict of social and political ambitions which was raging around her. When the President quarrelled with the party leaders, when Congress administered a rebuke by withholding a vote of confidence, she was able to recall this or that parallel case, this or that precedent for an action which to many seemed unprecedented, and when the entertainments at the White House began to evolve a new system of exclusions she could point out an incident when some former President’s wife had tried to introduce a similar measure and had met with disaster on leaving her stronghold, lost at once in the current of a social millrace which whirls to oblivion the queen of yesterday and the leader of to-day, engulfing all past glories in a maelstrom of forgetfulness; the inevitable condition in a republican society where there can be no hereditary distinction and those of class are constantly fluctuating with the rise and fall of fortunes, the manipulations of the Stock Exchange, while birth and breeding have no consideration at all in comparison with the purchase power of gold.
Fully aware of these things, and rejoicing in the rich memories of a varied past, when she had known all the great men of her day, old Mrs. Allestree delighted in observing the world of fashion from her retired corner and, though devoted to her son and admiring and believing in his talent, she sometimes suffered a keen pang of regret that her sister and not she had borne William Fox. But she was jealously afraid of this secret thought, scarcely admitting it even to herself, because of her intuitive feeling that Allestree had already suffered and might suffer more at the hands of his brilliant and careless cousin, and that he was supremely gifted in the refinements of self-torture.
It was twilight, and Mrs. Allestree sat alone by her drawing-room window watching for her son’s return from his workshop. She had been a very handsome woman, and even in age retained much of her beauty and dignity, and her figure and face were finely outlined as she sat against the folds of heavy velvet curtains, looking down into the street where the lamps had just been lighted and shone with the vivid whiteness of electricity on the smooth pavements, while the carriages and motor-cars were beginning to wheel by on their return from afternoon receptions, teas, and matinées. Below, at the circle, she saw the gayly lighted electric cars sweeping around the curve and receding to a final vanishing point of light at the top of a distant hill, while above it the sky was still bright with the afterglow and one star shone like the tip of a naked sword. The city in this retired quarter showed its most kind and friendly aspect, suggesting nothing of the struggle and rush of modern life, but only the whirl of winter gayety, the ceaseless rounds of society.
Within was an atmosphere of repose and comfort; the tea-table was set by the open fire, and the rose-patterned, silver tea kettle was emitting a little cloud of steam when Allestree finally opened the door.
“Well, mother, you here alone in the dark?” he remarked, as he turned on some light and revealed the warm homeliness of the large old-fashioned room, with its mahogany furniture, its soft rugs and velvet hangings, and its long, oval mirrors framed in gold and surmounted by cupids and lovers’ knots.
“Never less alone than when alone,” she replied brightly, and then glancing shrewdly at his slightly perturbed expression, she added: “you’ll take some tea, you look tired.”
“No,” he replied, throwing himself into an easy chair by the fire; “Rose made some tea in the studio, and it’s a bit too late now for another cup.”