By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
Copyright 1909 by J. B. Lippincott Company.
I
Van Buren tossed his gloves impatiently on the table, removed his overcoat, and sat down before the fire. He was apparently deeply concerned about something, for when Niki, his Japanese valet, entered the room and placed the whisky and soda on the little table at his side, Van Buren paid no more attention to him than he would to a vagrant sunmote that crossed his path. Long and steadily he gazed into the broad fireplace, watching the dancing flames at play, pausing only to light his pipe, upon which he pulled fiercely. Finally he spoke, leaning forward and to all intents and purposes addressing the andirons.
"Confound the money!" he said impatiently. "I wish to thunder the Governor had left it to some orphan asylum or to found a Chair in Choctaw at some New England university, instead of to me—then I might have made something of myself. Here am I twenty-seven years old and all the fame I ever got came from leading cotillions at Newport, and my sole contribution to the common weal has consisted of the fines I've paid into the public treasury for exceeding the speed limit. Life! I've seen a lot of it—haven't I, in this empty social shell I've been born into!"
He paused for a moment and poured a stiff four fingers of whisky into a glass at his side.
"Bah!" he shuddered as the odor of it greeted his nostrils. "You're a poor kind of fuel for such an engine as I might have been if I'd been started on the right track. By Jove! Ethel is right. What good am I? What have I ever done to make myself worth while or to show that I have any character in me that is a jot better than that of any of the rest of our poor stenciled, gold-plated society."
He looked at the glass and made a wry face.
"I'll cut you out anyhow," he said, pushing the liquor away from him. "That's something. Niki!" he called.
The inscrutable Niki obeyed the summons on the word.