Owen Wister - Lady Baltimore

I found the girl behind the counter at her post, grateful to me for coming to ask how she was after the shock of yesterday, but unwilling to speak of it at all; all which she expressed by her charming manner, and by the other subjects she chose for conversation, and especially by the way in which she held out her hand when I took my leave.

Near the post-office I was hailed by Beverly Rodgers, who proclaimed to me at once a comic but genuine distress. He had already walked, he said (and it was but half-past nine o'clock, as he bitterly bade me observe on the church dial), more miles in search of a drink than his unarithmetical brain had the skill to compute. And he confounded such a town heartily; he should return as soon as possible to Charley's yacht, where there was civilization, and where he had spent the night. During his search he had at length come to a door of promising appearance, and gone in there, and they had explained to him that it was a dispensary. A beastly arrangement. What was the name of the razor-back hog they said had invented it? And what did you do for a drink in this confounded water-hole?

He would find it no water-hole, I told him; but there were methods which a stranger upon his first morning could scarce be expected to grasp. "I could direct you to a Dutchman," I said, "but you're too well dressed to win his confidence at once."

"Well, old man," began Beverly, "I don't speak Dutch, but give me a crack at the confidence."

However, he renounced the project upon learning what a Dutchman was. Since my hours were no longer dedicated to establishing the presence of royal blood in my veins I had spent them upon various local investigations of a character far more entertaining and akin to my taste. It was in truth quite likely that Beverly could in a very few moments, with his smile and his manner, find his way to any Dutchman's heart; he had that divine gift of winning over to him quickly all sorts and conditions of men; and my account of the ingenious and law-baffling contrivances, which you found at these little grocery shops, at once roused his curiosity to make a trial; but he decided that the club was better, if less picturesque. And he told me that all the men of the automobile party had received from John Mayrant cards of invitation to the club.

"Your fire-eater is a civil chap," said Beverly. "And by the way, do you happen to know," here he pulled from his pocket a letter and consulted its address, "Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael?"

I was delighted that he brought an introduction to this lady; Hortense Rieppe could not open for him any of those haughty doors; and I wished not only that Beverly (since he was just the man to appreciate it and understand it) should see the fine flower of Kings Port, but also that the fine flower of Kings Port should see him; the best blood of the South could not possibly turn out anything better than Beverly Rodgers, and it was horrible and humiliating to think of the other Northern specimens of men whom Hortense had imported with her. I was here suddenly reminded that the young woman was a guest of the Cornerlys, the people who swept their garden, the people whom Eliza La Heu at the Exchange did not "know"; and at this the remark of Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, when I had walked with her and Mrs. Weguelin, took on an added lustre of significance —

"We shall have to call."

Call on the Cornerlys! Would they do that? Were they ready to stand by their John to that tune? A hotel would be nothing; you could call on anybody at a hotel, if you had to; but here would be a demarche indeed! Yet, nevertheless, I felt quite certain that, if Hortense, though the Cornerlys' guest, was also the guaranteed fiancee of John Mayrant, the old ladies would come up to the scratch, hate and loathe it as they might, and undoubtedly would: they could be trusted to do the right thing.

I told Beverly how glad I was that he would meet Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael. "The rest of your party, my friend," I said, "are not very likely to." And I generalized to him briefly upon the town of Kings Port. "Supposing I take you to call upon Mrs. St. Michael when I come back this afternoon?" I suggested.

Beverly thought it over, and then shook his head. "Wouldn't do, old man. If these people are particular and know, as you say they do, hadn't I better leave the letter with my card, and then wait till she sends some word?"

He was right, as he always was, unerringly. Consorting with all the Charleys, and the Bohms, and the Cohns, and the Kitties hadn't taken the fine edge from Beverly's good inheritance and good bringing up; his instinct had survived his scruples, making of him an agile and charming cynic, whom you could trust to see the right thing always, and never do it unless it was absolutely necessary; he would marry any amount of Kitties for their money, and always know that beside his mother and sisters they were as dirt; and he would see to it that his children took after their father, went to school in England for a good accent and enunciation, as he had done, went to college in America for the sake of belonging in their own country, as he had done, and married as many fortunes, and had as few divorces, as possible.

"Who was that girl on the bridge?" he now inquired as we reached the steps of the post-office; and when I had told him again, because he had asked me about Eliza La Heu at the time, "She's the real thing," he commented. "Quite extraordinary, you know, her dignity, when poor old awful Charley was messing everything — he's so used to mere money, you know, that half the time he forgets people are not dollars, and you have to kick him to remind him — yes, quite perfect dignity. Gad, it took a lady to climb up and sit by that ragged old darky and take her dead dog away in the cart! The cart and the darky only made her look what she was all the more. Poor Kitty couldn't do that — she'd look like a chambermaid! Well, old man, see you again."

I stood on the post-office steps looking after Beverly Rodgers as he crossed Court Street. His admirably good clothes, the easy finish of his whole appearance, even his walk, and his back, and the slope of his shoulders, were unmistakable. The Southern men, going to their business in Court Street, looked at him. Alas, in his outward man he was as a rose among weeds! And certainly, no well-born American could unite with an art more hedonistic than Beverly's the old school and the nouveau jeu!

Over at the other corner he turned and stood admiring the church and gazing at the other buildings, and so perceived me still on the steps. With a gesture of remembering something he crossed back again.

"You've not seen Miss Rieppe?"

"Why, of course I haven't!" I exclaimed. Was everybody going to ask me that?

"Well, something's up, old boy. Charley has got the launch away with him — and I'll bet he's got her away with him, too. Charley lied this morning."

"Is lying, then, so rare with him?"

"Why, it rather is, you know. But I've come to be able to spot him when he does it. Those little bulgy eyes of his look at you particularly straight and childlike. He said he had to hunt up a man on business — V–C Chemical Company, he called it—"

"There is such a thing here," I said.

"Oh, Charley'd never make up a thing, and get found out in that way! But he was lying all the same, old man."

"Do you mean they've run off and got married?"

"What do you take them for? Much more like them to run off and not get married. But they haven't done that either. And, speaking of that, I believe I've gone a bit adrift. Your fire-eater, you know — she is an extraordinary woman!" And Beverly gave his mellow, little humorous chuckle. "Hanged if I don't begin to think she does fancy him."

"Well!" I cried, "that would explain — no, it wouldn't. Whence comes your theory?"

"Saw her look at him at dinner once last night. We dined with some people — Cornerly. She looked at him just once. Well, if she intends — by gad, it upsets one's whole notion of her!"