Black Oxen Part 38

"There's something terrifying about you, Mary." Miss Trevor had flushed a dark purple, but she had very honest eyes, and they did not falter. "But I respect you more than any woman I have ever known. And although you are not very sympathetic you are the only person on earth to whom I could even mention such a subject."

"Well, go ahead," said Mary resignedly. "If you want my advice, take your courage in your hands and do it. However people may carp, there is nothing they so much admire as courage."

"Yes, but they make you suffer tortures just because they do admire it--or to keep themselves from admitting it."

"True enough. But after all, they don't matter. Life would be so much simpler if we'd all make up our minds that what other people think about us does not signify in the least. It's only permitting it to signify that permits it to exist."

"That's all very well for you, but it's really a question of temperament. Do you think I'd dare come back here looking like a girl again--and I suppose I should. I'm sixteen years younger than you... . You must know how many of the women hate you."

"That sort of hate may be very stimulating, my dear Agnes," said Madame Zattiany drily.

"I can understand that. But I should return to what it is hardly an exaggeration to call a life of a thousand intimacies. The ridicule!

The contempt! The merciless criticism! I don't want to live anywhere else. I can't face it! But, oh, I do so want it! I do so want it!"

"But just think of the compensations. No doubt you would marry immediately. If you were happy, and with a man to protect you, how much would you care?"

"Oh!" Once more the thin ascetic face was dyed with an unbecoming flush. "Oh!" And then the barriers fell with a crash and she hurried on, the words tumbling over one another, as her memory, its inhibitions shattered, swept back into the dark vortex of her secret past. "Oh, Mary! You don't know! You don't know! You, who've had all the men you ever wanted. Who, they say, have a young man now. The nights of horror I've pa.s.sed. I've never slept a wink the nights our girls married. I could have killed them. I could have killed every man I've met for asking nothing of _me_. It seems to me that I've thought of nothing else for twenty years. When I've been teaching, counselling good thoughts, virtue, good conduct, to those girls down there, it's been in the background of my mind every minute like a terrible obsession. I wonder I haven't gone mad. Some of us old maids do go mad. And no one knew until they raved what was the matter with them.

When Hannah de Lacey lost her mind three years ago I heard one of the doctors telling Peter Vane that her talk was the most libidinous he had ever listened to. And she was the most forbidding old maid in New York. I know if I lose my mind it will be the same, and that alone is enough to drive any decent woman mad... . I thought I'd get over it in time--I used to pray--and fight with my will--but when the time came when I should have been released I was afraid I would, and then I deliberately did everything I could to keep it alive. I couldn't lose my right---- It _was_ my right. I couldn't tell you all the things I've---- Oh, I tell you that unless I can be young again and have some man--any man--I don't care whether he'll marry me or not--I'll go mad--mad!"

Her voice had risen to a shriek. She would be in hysterics in another moment. Mary, who was on the point of nausea, went hastily into her dressing-room and poured out a dose of sal-volatile. "Here!" she said peremptorily. "Drink this. I'll not listen to another word. And I don't wish to be obliged to call an ambulance."

Miss Trevor gulped it down, and then permitted herself to be led to a sofa, where she lay sprawled, her immaculate hat on one side, giving her the look of a debauched gerontic virgin. She lay panting for a few moments, while Madame Zattiany paced up and down the room.

She turned as she heard a groan. Miss Trevor was sitting up, straightening her hat. "Feel better?" she asked unsympathetically.

"Oh, yes--my nerves feel better! But what have I said? What must you think of me? I never expected to give way like that when I came. I thought I could put it all to you in a few delicate hints, knowing that you would understand. _What_ have I said? I can hardly remember."

"Better not try! I'll promise to forget it myself." She sat down beside the sofa. "Now, listen to me. It would not be wise for you to go to Vienna. They would suspect, if not at once, then certainly when you returned. It can be done here. The rejuvenescence is so gradual that it would hardly be noticed. Fully a year. You do not have to go into a hospital, nor even to bed. You are not spied on, so no one would suspect that you were taking the treatment. At your age success is practically a.s.sured. Take it, and don't be a fool. If you don't it's only a question of time when that superb self-control you have practised for so many years will go again. And, too possibly, in the wrong place... . It is quite likely that you will never be suspected, because women often bloom out in their forties, take on a new lease of life. Begin to put on a little make-up----"

Miss Trevor interrupted with a horrified exclamation.

"It would be judicious. If they criticize you, remember that nothing they can say will be as bad--from your point of view--as their finding out the truth. They will lay it to that, and to the fact that you have grown a little stouter. And let me tell you, you won't care in the least, even if conservatism attacks you in solid battalions, for your mental att.i.tude to life will be entirely changed. Remember that you will be young again, and too gay and happy to mind what people think of you. Now, promise me that you will take my advice, and then go home and to bed."

Miss Trevor got up and went to the mirror. "Yes, I'll do it." And then she said, no doubt for the first time in her life: "And I'll not give a d.a.m.n, no matter what happens."

When she had left Mary Zattiany stood for a few moments striking her hands together, her face distorted. A wave of nausea overwhelmed her.

She felt as if there had been an earthquake in her own soul and its muck were riding the surface. She loathed herself and all women and all men. She knew that the violence of the revulsion must be temporary, but for the moment it was beyond her control. She went to the telephone and called up Clavering and told him that she had a severe headache and was going to bed. And she cut short both his protests and his expression of sympathy by hanging up the receiver.

And then she picked up a vase and hurled it to the floor and smashed it.

XLIII

Clavering stood on his high balcony and looked down upon Madison Square. Spring had come. The Square looked like an oasis in a rocky gorge. The trees were covered with the tender greens of the new birth, and even President Arthur and Roscoe Conkling, less green than in winter, looked reconciled to their lot. A few people were sunning themselves on the benches, many more were on top of the busses over on Fifth Avenue, and even the hurrying throngs, preoccupied with cra.s.s business, seemed to walk with a lighter step, their heads up, instead of sullenly defying winds and sleet. The eight streets that surrounded or debouched into the Square poured forth continuous streams of figures, constantly augmented by throngs rising out of the earth itself. There was a vivid color running like ribbons through the crowds, for it was nearly nine o'clock and the doors of offices and shops and business houses were open to women as to men. Overhead a yellow sun shone in a pale filmy sky and the air was both warm and sharp. The doves were circling and settling.

The prize-fighters had taken their prowess elsewhere, and a circus had come to Madison Square Garden. Clavering had heard the roar of lions in the night. A far different crowd would stand under the arcade in a few hours, but the peanut venders would ply their trade, and a little booth for candies and innocuous juices had been erected in an alcove in the front wall, presided over by a plump pretty blonde. She alternated "jollying" and selling with quiet intervals of beading a bag, undisturbed either by ogling or the hideous noises of Twenty-sixth Street.

In spite of his disappointment two nights before he found it impossible to feel depressed in that gay spring suns.h.i.+ne. He did not believe in the headache, but she had written him a charming note and he supposed that a man must get accustomed to the caprices of women if he intended to live with one. And a month from now they would be in the Dolomites, and she would be his. Let her have her caprices. He had his own.

There were times when he didn't want to see her.

Moreover, he was still too jubilant over his play to feel depressed for long over anything; the warm and constantly manifested enthusiasm of his friends had kept his spirits from suffering any natural reaction.

Their demand for his companions.h.i.+p was almost peremptory, and his thoughts turned to them as he stood on his balcony looking down on the waning throngs: the great stone buildings were humming like hives, and figures were pa.s.sing busily to and fro behind the open windows. It astonished him a little. True, it was his first play and he was very popular. But he had a vague uneasy idea they were overdoing it. They talked of nothing else: his play, his brilliant future, his sure place in the crack regiment "if he hung on"; and they insisted that he must also express himself at least once through the medium of the novel.

The great New York novel had yet to be written. They fairly dinned his gifts into his ears, until he was almost sick of them, and wondered if Mary were not also. She had seen a good deal of the Sophisticates lately, and from what she had let drop he inferred that even when he had not been present they had talked of little else. They had by no means waited for his play to be finished and read to a select few.

Hogarth and Scores had a.s.sured them long before it was finished that it would be a great play.

Once or twice there was a rustling in the back of his mind. They were not given to wild enthusiasms of this sort. They thought too highly of themselves. He realized how genuinely fond they were of him, but he had not hoped for more than critical appreciation, from the men, at least. Could it be possible ...

But he was still in the first flush of his triumph, his brain hummed with pleasant memories of those hours at Gora Dwight's, three nights ago. He had cleared the base of the pedestal on whose narrow and unaccommodating top he was soon to have his foothold, and it was not in human nature, at this stage of his progress, to suspect the sincerity of the adulation so generously poured at his feet.

And Mary, during this past fortnight (when he had been present, at least) had seemed to bask contentedly in reflected glory, and smiled sympathetically while they talked of the many Clavering first-nights they would attend in the sure antic.i.p.ation of that cla.s.s of entertainment up to which the Little Theatres and the Theatre Guild were striving to educate the public. They took it as a matter of course that he was to abide in the stimulating atmosphere of New York for the rest of his days. And they invariably insisted that "Madame Zattiany" must always sit in a stage box and be a part of the entertainment. They were too well-bred (and too astute) to hint at the engagement they were positive existed, but "hoped" she would be willing to add to the prestige of one who was now as much her friend as theirs.

It was a curious position in which to place a woman like Mary Zattiany, but Sophisticate New York was not Diplomatic Europe, and he thought he saw her smile deepen into humor once or twice; no doubt she was reflecting that she had lived long enough to take people as she found them.

His reverie was interrupted by a buzzing at the end of his hall and he went to the door quickly, wondering who could have sent him a special delivery letter or a note at this hour. It proved to be a cablegram.

He read it when he returned to his living-room. It was dated Rome, Italy, and read:

"I'll have you yet: Janet."

Clavering swore, then laughed. He tore the message into strips and sat down to read his newspapers; he had merely glanced at the headlines and his column. His eye was arrested by the picture of a man at the top of the first page of his own newspaper. Although smooth-shaven and very regular of feature, with no p.r.o.nounced racial characteristics, it was, nevertheless, a foreign face, although difficult to place. From its distinction it might be Austrian, but the name below, "Prince Hohenhauer," might as easily be German. Still, it was not a German face, and Clavering studied it for a moment before reading the news text, wondering faintly at his interest.

It was unmistakably the face of a statesman, and reminded him a little of a picture of Prince Schwarzenberg, prime minister when Franz Josef ascended the throne, he had seen lately in a history of Austria. There was the same broad placidity of brow, the long oval face, the thin long slightly curved nose, the heavy lids, the slim erectness, the same suave repose. But this man's large beautifully cut mouth was more firmly set, had a faintly satiric expression, and the eyes a powerful and penetrating gaze. It was the face of a man who was complete master of himself and accustomed to the mastery of men.

Clavering read the story under the headlines:

PRINCE HOHENHAUER ARRIVES IN NEW YORK GOES AT ONCE TO WAs.h.i.+NGTON

"Prince Hohenhauer, a distinguished political factor under the old Austrian Empire, arrived yesterday morning on the _Noordam_. He refused to be interviewed, but it is understood he has a large amount of money invested in the United States and has come to New York at the request of his lawyers to attend to certain necessary formalities. He was, in fact, met at Quarantine by Judge Trent, one of the most distinguished members of the New York Bar since his retirement from the Bench, and they went at once to the Prince's stateroom and remained there until it was time to leave the s.h.i.+p. It is significant, however, that the Prince, after engaging a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, and lunching there with Judge Trent, took the afternoon train for Was.h.i.+ngton. As he recently left his estate in Switzerland to return to Vienna and accept a position in the Cabinet, and as it is well known that Austria desires the backing of the American Government to enable her to overcome the opposition of France to her alliance with Germany, or, it is whispered, with a kingdom farther south, it is not unreasonable to infer that he has come to the United States on a special, if secret, mission.

"The Prince was the subject of lively interest on the boat and of much speculation, but he took his meals in his suite and walked the deck only in the company of his secretary.

"He is a man of striking appearance, quite six feet in height, with a spare erect figure, fine features, and hardly looks his sixty years, in spite of his white hair."

Then followed a brief biography, which ill.u.s.trated the efficiency of the newspaper "morgue," for the statesman's reputation was, so far, wholly European.

"Prince Moritz Franz Ernst Felix von Hohenhauer was born October 6th, 1862, on his ancestral estate in what was then known as Galicia. His mother was a princess of the House of Schwarzenberg. He has been the head of his own historic house for the last forty years, and has one son and two daughters. His wife, a member of the Kalnoky family, died several years ago. "Hohenhauer" was one of those almost unbelievably vast estates of sixteen million acres possessed by a few of the Austrian n.o.blemen under the old regime. In spite of the fact that Prince Hohenhauer was one of the greatest landlords in all Christendom he was a liberal in politics from the first and the author of several of the reform laws in behalf of the people which from time to time were forced upon the most conservative monarch in Europe. He was in sympathy with the revolution and offered his services at once to the new Government. They were declined, and he retired to Switzerland, where he has an estate near St. Moritz, and, it is understood, considerable money invested. His vast estates in what is now Poland were confiscated, but he was one of the wealthiest men in the Empire and is said to have transferred immense sums to the United States before the war."

Clavering dropped the newspaper. Liberal in politics. Immense sums invested in the United States. Judge Trent. There could be no possible doubt as to who the man was. The floor seemed unsteady for a moment.

And yet there was as little doubt that Mary Zattiany bad long since ceased to care for him. _That_ was over fifteen or sixteen years ago.

They had known each other in later years, both equally indifferent to the other and to the past... . Yes ... but she had then completely lost the beauty and the charm that had enthralled him, while he was still a man in his prime, who, with that appearance, no doubt had other young and beautiful women in his life.

He may or may not have heard of the metamorphosis. At all events they had been political allies. He would call on her as a matter of course.

And possibly out of more than politeness: he may have brought her an important message. Or he might find it expedient to confer with her on his present mission. That he had come on an important mission did not admit of a doubt; but at least he had not gone to her at once. His interest in her, so far, was still impersonal.

Clavering had too much of the arrogance of youth and he was too sure of Mary Zattiany's love for himself, to be apprehensive of the charms of a man of sixty, but he was invaded by a nameless and almost sickening fear. He had very swift and often very sure intuitions, and he was shaken by a premonition that in some manner, which, in his ignorance of the facts he was unable to define, this man's presence in America boded no good to himself.

But Clavering was also a man of swift decisions and resource, and he knew this was no time to lose his head, nor even to play a waiting game. And he must tread warily. Impulsive as he was by nature he could be as wary as a Red Indian when wariness would serve his purpose.

He called up Mr. Dinwiddie on the telephone and asked if he might see him at once. It was only half past nine and Mr. Dinwiddie was just finis.h.i.+ng his breakfast in bed, but he told his favorite cordially to "come along."