The beginning of the story was really that day when Mrs. Radigan entered my office, but I did not know it then, and made no full record of the event. My books tell me that it was in June, and my memory that the day was piping hot, a Friday, I think, for my partner had gone to Easthampton for a Sunday with the Van Rundouns, and I was left alone with the office-boy, cursing the fate that held me in town in such weather. I envied my partner then. Since, I have blessed the day, for it brought me Mrs. Radigan and life. He still visits the Van Rundouns.
She came in a hansom. Standing at the window, smoking a cigarette, I was listlessly watching the almost deserted street, when a two-wheeler bowled up to the curb, and the scene offering nothing better—only a few delivery wagons and antiquated traps full of families parkward bound—I noted every movement of the horse, the vehicle, the cabby, and the fare. The horse went down on one leg, forward, resting easily and drooping his head to dodge the sun. As Mr. Howells or Mr. James would say in describing such an event, his right eyelid closed and his skin shivered as he shook from him an insistent fly. The jehu opened the roof-window and bawled something. A parasol, a white, filmy thing, shot out in front, opened, and came toward me with a woman appended. I could not see her face for the sunshade. I saw only her figure, a large figure clad in summery things, gauzy, fluffy, in colors bright and cheery, yet subdued and blending with the day, a paradox of some Parisian modiste. The clothes, the carriage, the delicate parasol spoke of means, and instinctively I tossed aside my cigarette and, to be frank, posed in my revolving chair, for I knew that this could not be for the tailor overhead or the music-college still a story higher.
The door creaked behind me, but I was absorbed in papers. Then the office-boy spoke, and I wheeled to find her towering over me.
"Scorching, isn't it?" she said, when I had fetched a chair, and she sat fanning herself with a tiny handkerchief.
While she fanned, I observed. She was a large woman, not fat nor merely heavy, but strong and well-knit—masterful, I said at once when I saw her face and could consider all. There was health in that face, color and life, but not beauty as we judge it. The nose was too broad and tilted up, the mouth was too large, the chin inclined to corpulence; the eyes were small, but there was in them a twinkle of good-humor. Altogether I liked her immensely.
"Well," she went on after a minute, "now that I have my breath again, I shall explain. I am Mrs. John Radigan."
Instinctively I glanced across the street to a great plate-glass window bearing in golden letters the legend that within was the uptown office of Radigan & Co., Bankers and Brokers, of New York, London, Paris, and Chicago. The name of Radigan was synonymous with wealth the world over. It had become so with the last bulge in the stock-market, and now hardly a Sunday passed without some paper covering a page with the story of this newest of our great fortunes, of its marvellous growth and its present lucky owner. From this I knew the story well. The elder Radigan went West in the early eighties with a tidy sum which he had accumulated as a book-maker. He had multiplied this a hundredfold by speculating in worthless mining properties, and had quadrupled that in real estate and wrecked railroads. At his death, a few years before, he had left an estate estimated by the popular writers at two hundred million dollars. Dividing this figure by four, as is necessary to get at the truth in such cases, we see that his only son inherited about fifty. But as well be on a desert island with such a sum as in Kansas City. The Radigans were wise as well as wealthy. Charming as was their home, they saw that it was no place for persons with millions.
Now you can come from Kansas City to New York to stay at a hotel or to exist. To come here to live, the way lies by London and Paris, Long Island and Newport. The dust of the plain is swept away by the Riviera breezes; London's gloom reduces the fever of life; Paris beats down the rough edges of the voice and the manner, giving finish and form. The Radigans followed the rule, but they hurried. They toured abroad, did not live there, and the dust still clung.
"You see, we have just got back, from Paris," said my visitor, impressively. "We had a villa at Cannes in April, you know, and met some very recherche people there. Our apartment in Paris was most delightful, and we should have liked to stay on, but we intend to make New York our permanent home, and thought it would be well to come over and get settled."