Black Oxen Part 3

She walked with a light swift step down the hall, the narrow tail of her black velvet gown wriggling after her. Clavering followed in a daze, but his trained eye took note of the fine old rugs and carved Italian furniture, two splendid tapestries, and great vases of flowers that filled the air with a drowsy perfume. He had heard of the Ogden house, built and furnished some fifty years ago. The couple that had leased it had been childless and it showed little wear. The stairs curving on the left had evidently been recarpeted, but in a very dull red that harmonized with the mellow tints of the old house.

She opened a door at the end of the hall on the right and he found himself in a large library whose walls were covered with books to the ceiling. Dinwiddie had told him that the Ogdens were bookish people and that "Mary's" grandfather had been an eminent jurist. The room was as dark in tone as the hall, but the worn chairs and sofas looked very comfortable. A log was burning on the hearth.

She took a key from a drawer and handed it to him.

"You will find whiskey and a syphon in that cabinet, Mr. Clavering. I keep them for Judge Trent."

"Mr. Cla----" He came out of his daze. "You know who I am then?"

"But certainly. I am not as reckless as all that."

Her accent was slight but indubious, yet impossible to place. It might be that of a European who spoke many languages, or of an American with a susceptible ear who had lived the greater part of her life abroad.

"I was driving one day with Judge Trent and saw you walking with Mr.

Dinwiddie."

"Trent--ah!"

He had his first full look into those wise unfathomable eyes. Standing close to her, she seemed somewhat older than he had guessed her to be, although her face was unlined. Probably it was her remarkable poise, her air of power and security--and those eyes! What had not they looked upon? She smiled and poured broth from a thermos bottle.

"You are forgetting your whiskey and soda," she reminded him.

He filled his gla.s.s, took a sandwich and sank into the depths of a leather chair. She had seated herself on an upright throne-like chair opposite. Her black velvet gown was like a vase supporting a subtly moulded flower of dazzling fairness. She wore the three rows of pearls that had excited almost as much speculation as her mysterious self. As she drank her mild beverage she looked at him over the brim of her cup and once more appeared to be on the verge of laughter.

"Will you tell me who you are?" asked Clavering bluntly. "This is hardly fair, you know."

"Mr. Dinwiddie really managed to coax nothing from Judge Trent? He called three times, I understand."

"Not a word."

"He had my orders," she said coolly. "I am obliged to pa.s.s some time in New York and I have my reasons for remaining obscure."

"Then you should have avoided first-nights."

"But I understood that Society did not attend first-nights. So Judge Trent informed me. I love the play. Judge Trent told me that first-nights were very amusing and that I would be sure to be seen by no one I had ever met in European Society."

"Probably not," he said drily and feeling decidedly nettled at her calm a.s.sumption that nothing but the society of fas.h.i.+on counted. "But the people who do attend them are a long sight more distinguished in the only way that counts these days, and the women are often as well dressed as any in the sacrosanct preserves."

"Oh, I noticed that," she said quickly. "Charming intelligent faces, a great variety of types, and many--but many--quite admirable gowns. But who are they, may I ask? I thought there was nothing between New York Society and the poor but--well, the bourgeoisie."

He informed her.

"Ah! You see--well, I always heard that your people of the artistic and intellectual cla.s.s were rather eccentric--rather cultivated a pose."

"Once, maybe. They all make too much money these days. But there are freaks, if you care to look for them. Some of the suddenly prosperous authors and dramatists have rather dizzy-looking wives; and I suppose you saw those two girls from Greenwich Village that sat across the aisle from you tonight?"

She shuddered. "One merely looked like a Hottentot, but the other!--with that thin upper layer of her short black hair dyed a greenish white, and her haggard degenerate green face. What do they do in Greenwich Village? Is it an isolation camp for defectives?"

"It was once a colony of real artists, but the big fish left and the minnows swim slimily about, giving off nothing but their own sickly phosph.o.r.escence."

"How interesting. A sort of Latin Quarter, although I never saw anything in Paris quite like those dreadful girls."

"Probably not. As a race we are p.r.o.ne to exaggerations. But are you not going to tell me your name?"

She had finished her supper and was leaning against the high back of her chair, her long slender but oddly powerful looking hands folded lightly on the black velvet of her lap. Once more he was struck by her absolute repose.

"But certainly. I am the Countess Zattiany."

"The Countess Zattiany!"

"The Countess Josef Zattiany, to be exact. I went to Europe when I was a child, and when I finished school visited my cousin, Mary Zattiany--I belong to the Virginian branch of her mother's family--at her palace in Vienna and married her cousin's nephew."

"Ah! That accounts for the resemblance!" exclaimed Clavering. And then, quite abruptly, he did not believe a word of it.

"Resemblance?"

"Yes, poor old Dinwiddie was completely bowled over when you stood up and surveyed the house that night. Thought he had seen the ghost of his old flame. I had to take him out in the alley and give him a drink."

She met his eyes calmly. "That was the cause of his interest? Cousin Mary always said that the likeness to herself as a young woman was rather remarkable, that we might be mother and daughter instead of only third cousins."

"Ah--yes--exactly. Is--is she with you?"

"No, alas! She is in a sanitarium in Vienna and likely to remain there for a long time. When Judge Trent wrote that it would be well for her interests if she came to New York she asked me to come instead and gave me her power of attorney. As my husband was killed in the first year of the war and I had no other ties, I can a.s.sure you I was glad to come." She s.h.i.+vered slightly. "Oh, yes! Vienna! To see so much misery and to be able to give so little help! But now that Mary's and my own fortune are restored I can a.s.sure you it gives me the greatest satisfaction of my life to send a large share of our incomes to our agent in Vienna."

This time there was an unmistakable ring of truth in her deep tones.

And she was human. Clavering had begun to doubt it, notwithstanding her powerful disturbing magnetism. But was he falling in love with her? He was attracted, dazzled, and he still felt romantic. But love!

In spite of his suspicions she seemed to move on a plane infinitely remote.

"Shall you stay here?"

"Oh, for a time, yes. I cannot see Cousin Mary, and even Paris is spoiled. Besides, Judge Trent wishes me to learn something of business. He is growing old and says that women nowadays take an interest in their investments. I certainly find it highly diverting."

"No doubt. But surely you will not continue to shut yourself up? You could know any one you choose. Judge Trent has only to give you a dinner. Unfortunately most of his respectable friends are a great many years older than yourself----"

"I have no desire to know them. In Paris, off and on, I met many of those elderly New York ladies of position. They all have that built-up look, with hats too small and high for their bony old faces, which they do not even soften with powder or the charming accessories of the toilet known to every European woman of fas.h.i.+on. And feathers! Why are they so fond of feathers--not charming drooping feathers, but a sort of clipped hedge, all of a size, like a garden plot; sometimes oblong, sometimes round? And why do they never look _a la mode_, in spite of their expensive furs and materials?"

"That is the sign manual of their intense respectability. The old regime would not compromise with fas.h.i.+on in all its extravagant changes for the world. Moreover, it is their serene belief that they may dress exactly as they choose, and they choose to keep an old tradition alive.

Are not English d.u.c.h.esses much the same?"

"So. Well, I do not bore myself."

"But the younger women. They are the smartest in the world. There is not the least necessity you should bore yourself with the elders.

Surely you must long for the society of women of your age."

She moved restlessly for the first time. "They were always in Europe before the war. I met many of them. They did not interest me. I hardly knew what they were talking about."

"But men. Surely a woman as young--and beautiful----"

"Oh, men!" Clavering had never heard as profound disillusion in any woman's tones. And then a curious expression of fear flitted through her eyes and she seemed to draw herself together.