The Open Question Part 48

Had his grandfather been a little forbearing, he could have had the young man back in Boston in six months; but now, too much had been sacrificed on the altar of an impetuous resolve for Gano to consider kindly going to America at once. There was plenty of time for that. He had sent instructions to Messrs. Bostwick & Allen, and he allowed the "great political organ" to remain in the experienced hands that had done so well by it in Aaron Tallmadge's declining years.

He went to Nice, and brought the De Poincys back with him to Paris, where he had taken a house. Henri de Poincy, even when little by little he learned something of those years of struggle, could not see that his friend was essentially changed by their rough lessoning. Ethan had never, even in the ignorant and care-free days, been either very outgoing or very light of heart. De Poincy, as the elder, had long ago recognized his friend as one of those unexpected, but not uncommon, products of luxurious modern life--a young man whose vivid perception of the underlying tragedy of the common lot had seemed out of all proportion to his possible experience. If any difference appeared in him now, it was that his old easy faith in concrete human nature, as opposed to his deep mistrust of life in the abstract, had been somewhat corrected--and that was well, Henri de Poincy thought. The young diplomat did not discover that, of all the faith-destroying spectacles his friend had looked upon, not the least, to just his cast of mind, was the hot haste made, in that same city where he had walked wanting bread, to court and fete the new millionaire. But Gano had left this phase of life so far behind him, he had got so out of touch with it, that he was obliged to learn over and over again that inevitable lesson taught affluent young America by the sage Old World--that money-bags are less easily and quickly filled in Europe, and the man who carries one that overflows will lack little that the craftier civilization can lay at his feet. Gano's particular kind of self-love revolted at some of his experiences at the hands of certain elegant and well-born adventurers, male and female, who, the American had fancied, liked him and sought him for himself. He was very young in many ways, for all his hards.h.i.+ps and his twenty-six years. Still, he was not so much of a fool but that in time he learned his lesson. His fault lay in taking it too seriously. So it was that, despite his renewed literary activities and successes, and the need impressed on him of studying _les moeurs_, he yielded more and more to his fondness for camping out, for fis.h.i.+ng, and for cruising about the Mediterranean with Henri de Poincy.

"I never knew a fellow," that amiable young Frenchman would say--"never knew a fellow so much at his ease in the world, who seemed so anxious to be rid of people as you are."

"I'm not at my ease in the world."

"Ah, I should have said in drawing-rooms."

"Another matter. The drawing-room is the best place I know to avoid knowing people. I should like to spend all my days that aren't spent with a rod on a river-bank, or lying in a boat with you, in drawing-rooms. I'd like"--he stared up into the high-piled clouds sailing across the intense blue--"I'd like the big Engine-driver up yonder to look down through the white steam-puffs, and say: 'My boy, I give you my word of honor that I'll never run you into any closer quarters with life than you are in now.'"

"I see," laughed De Poincy, "lovely woman has pursued you till you fight shy. But don't lay it all to your looks and your winning ways, my friend; you're known to have dollars."

"Yes." His dark face flushed under some quick wave of feeling. "The most surprising thing I've found in Europe is the dominance of the money motive, that quality that they had told me distinguished the American."

He laughed a little bitterly.

"Well," said De Poincy, "you know you do hear more in America about money than you do anywhere."

"Exactly. Money's talked about with childlike and d.a.m.nable iteration; but, by all the G.o.ds! if decent people with us want it, they work for it; they don't cringe and angle for it; they offer labor in exchange, not _themselves_. They don't, as a nation, make it the basis of friends.h.i.+p, of marriage."

"If you don't, it's because American women are too self-willed to hear prudence."

"Yes, thank G.o.d! And yet we have the intelligent foreigner saying the climate makes our women s.e.xless." He stopped and laughed. "I admit les Americaines don't so universally look on love and marriage as a profession, their only means of settlement in life. But I'll tell you what it is, my friend: the American, with all his outward frankness and _navete_, cares more, like men of other nations, for the thing he doesn't talk about than for things he's always flinging in your face.

With people on this side, it's money which is too sacred to be mentioned except on solemn occasions"--he made the slightest possible grimace--"but which is the supreme consideration. With us, the thing we don't talk about, and yet care for the more, is the relation between the s.e.xes, the ideal of a chivalry that the elder world has lost, or, more truly, never had, I think."

"The truth is, you've been long enough away from America to begin to idealize it. By the way, I thought you were of the _elite_ asked to the Chateau d'Avrancheville this autumn."

"This is better than Normandy," he said, shortly.

"Ah, but think of the dear creatures gathered there?"

"I'd rather think about 'em."

"Mademoiselle Lucie this time, _hein_?"

"Oh no--only that I don't love my kind."

De Poincy shook his head.

"That you don't love _that_ kind shows you're getting _blase_."

Gano sat up, and fixed his dark eyes on his friend's face.

"You know you're talking nonsense. You'll allow I met her under peculiar circ.u.mstances."

"After helping you to fish her out of an Italian lake, I will allow the circ.u.mstances were romantic."

"I thought she--"

"Of course, love at first sight. Just the thing to fetch you."

"I thought she liked me as a girl at home might have liked me, who hadn't heard that my grandfather--"

He thumped out an oath as he thrust his hands deep down in his yachtman's jacket.

De Poincy smiled.

"She's so young," Gano went on--"probably less sophisticated, I thought, than our American girls."

"To be sure, a ravis.h.i.+ng _ingenue_."

"And here she was, ready to throw over poor Parthenay like that"--he tossed his cigarette overboard--"caring for him all the time, as Parthenay showed me. Then this _ingenue_, after turning the Tallmadge dollars into francs in her pretty baby head, was calmly arranging to help me to spend them here in France. How the devil they knew on such short acquaintance--before the settlement question came up--"

"Oh, her brother asked me that first day."

"What?"

De Poincy nodded.

"And when I thought they didn't so much as know that I was American!" He laughed with that excessive bitterness of youth perturbed, and pretended to speak apologetically. "You see, I've plumed myself on my French since I was seven, and my name tells nothing."

"Your French is all right, but you don't imagine people like that would put themselves out for the _premier venu_ as they did for you from the start."

Gano shrugged.

"My mistake was that, even without my banker's reference, I didn't look upon myself as the _premier venu_."

"I must say I admired the charming way they conveyed the idea to you that Mademoiselle Lucie--"

"Shut up."

"My dear fellow, you would never have dreamed of Mademoiselle Lucie, enchanting as she is, if it hadn't been for their tact in pointing out that--"

"And you looked on!"

"To be sure, and envied you your d.a.m.ned good luck. She's an adorable creature, and would spend your money with distinction."

"Thanks. I needn't have come so far to find a woman who could manage that."

"I'm in the enemy's camp," De Poincy went on. "I want you to settle in France."

"And I--I want--"

Gano looked out over the dancing waves, face to face on a sudden with something so new and unexpected as to be almost incredible.

"What do you want?" asked De Poincy.

"I want to go back to America by the first boat."