The subject occupied Mrs. Anthon’s mind until it was banished by the irritation of the Italian customhouse. When she got back to it, the next day, she comforted herself with the reflection that, God willing, this unmanageable daughter should be married before Erard reappeared on her horizon.
The six nomadic months that followed were a queer jumble of hotels and people and “points of interest.” Miss Anthon said to herself during the three months of vagrancy in Italy: ‘Patience, now! Some day a different I will return to understand and possess.’
In the same manner of passive sufferance she endured for another three months the little vaudeville of the various spas, which was played over and over each day with a sameness that rasped the nerves. She grew accustomed to the trim gardens with the glaring contrast between hot gravel and metallic green lawn, the stereotyped idle men and overfed women, the endless tinkle of hotel bands, and the hours spent with her maid contriving how to make the most of her tall, individual self.
The sultry weeks as they wore on gradually sapped her energy, even her desire to rebel. The reading suggested by Erard, which she had attacked at first with the fervour of a novice, seemed in the air and useless. Letters from Erard filled with details of his studies in Spain barely aroused her. She envied him the career, and was proud to have him deal with her as he would with a man, lecturing her on his hobbies, asking her help in verifying facts at Rome, or in judging delicate questions. “It is very hot,” he wrote once casually, “but I manage to work early mornings and nights and lose little. Six weeks more will take me back to Paris.” Then a month passed without letters, and, when he wrote next he mentioned briefly, “I have been ill, but I have my work nearly finished, and some sketches that aren’t bad. Will you be in Paris to see them next winter?”
She carried on another correspondence, about her “business” as she was fond of calling her new investments. Wilbur “kept her posted” almost daily of the doings of the Water-Hoister and Improvement Co. Whole broadsides of newspapers came, filled with bombastic accounts of “the future of the arid lands.” It seemed that Wilbur’s invention could be turned to a number of purposes. “Through its instrumentality,” solemnly concluded one Kansas City paragraphist, “we are about to open up an era in this country hitherto undreamed of, an era when the desolate plains of the mighty Rockies shall flow with milk and honey, and the seat of the national capital shall be moved westward to the centre of a new civilization.” The newspapers gave minute accounts of Wilbur’s life from his earliest childhood, with accompanying photographs of him at every stage of development. He was pictured—in the Omaha Hawk—as a young man, musing profoundly on a desolate field, a black line in the far distance indicating water, and in one corner a small cut of the Hoister. Wilbur sent everything that appeared (marked with a broad blue pencil) to his “silent partner” as he called Miss Anthon. A “ten cent magazine” with a vast circulation published a profusely illustrated article on “The New American Inventor,” with autobiographical notes at the head, containing information on Wilbur’s personal habits, his hour of rising, the number of cups of coffee he indulged in, his temperance principles, etc., etc.
All this fuss and gossip seemed to amuse Wilbur, so far as he paid attention to it, yet he realized its serious side. Stock in the company continued to rise. Subsidiary companies for placer-mining in cañons and for fruit-raising on the reclaimed lands were being formed. Wilbur had already embarked on new schemes. In spite of his belief in the divine service of the Hoister, he was never imposed on by noise. At the very time when all was “booming merrily,” he took part in a syndicate formed to buy forest lands in Alaska, and soberly recommended his partner to “join in the deal.” He was about to make a short expedition to examine the ground (and also to look into some mines near Juneau), and if she cabled him at once, he would sell part of her stock in the Hoister and place the proceeds in his new schemes. He had the prices of the various stocks which she owned, cabled her at the close of each week, and it added zest to the Sunday morning coffee to receive a little blue despatch, to know each week that she was richer than the week before.
Money gives power and freedom, she told herself again and again. It had freed Wilbur. Instead of spending his days as a small lawyer or clerk, he was striding on, growing each month in shrewdness, in experience, in grasp. Money had freed Erard, assured him the priceless leisure for tranquil, unharassed work. Would it free her? enrich her? cut through circumstances so that the restless, savage beast in her could grow and possess and be satisfied? Not yet, she reflected bitterly, and again the word must be patience.
CHAPTER X
October found the Anthons in Paris at a new Americanized hotel just off the Avenue de l’Opera. Mrs. Anthon talked of London, of taking a house for the winter, “where Walter could be at home.” Miss Anthon threatened in that case to run off to Egypt with Molly Parker and a maid. They spent the brilliant days of the early fall in the usual round of shops and dressmakers, in company with the flight of tourists returning from their summer roosts in Europe, who were tarrying for feathers before swooping back to America.