Sylvia: A Novel

There followed after this meeting a trying time for the girl. She went to a theatre in the evening, and when she came back to the hotel she found her aunt suffering acutely, with symptoms of appendicitis. Although there was a doctor and a nurse, she spent the entire night and half the next day by her aunt’s bedside. Sylvia’s love for her family appeared at a time like this a sort of frenzy; she would have died a thousand deaths to save them from suffering, and there was no getting her to spare herself in any way.

Her sympathy for Aunt Varina was the greater, because this poor little lady was so patient and unselfish. Whenever there was anything the matter with her, she would make no trouble for anyone, but crawl away and endure by herself. She was one of those devoted souls, of which there is one to be found in every big family, who do not have a life of their own, but are ground up daily, as it were, to make oil to keep the great machine running smoothly. Sylvia, who had in herself the making of such a family lubricant, was irresistibly drawn to this gentle soul in distress.

All night she helped the nurse with hot “stoups;” and even when the danger was passed she could not be persuaded to rest, but sat by the bedside, applying various kinds of smelling salts and lavender water, trying to be so cheerful that the patient would forget her pain. She smoothed the white forehead, noticing as she did so how thin the gray hairs were getting. She could look back to childhood days, when Aunt Varina had been bright and young-looking—there were even pictures of her as a girlish beauty; but now her neck was scrawny and her cheeks were wan, and most of her hair lay upon her dressing-table.

The day passed, and then Sylvia was reminded that she had promised to go to a college entertainment with Harley. She ought to have gone to bed, but she did not like to disappoint her cousin, so she drank a cup or two of strong coffee, and was ready for anything that might come along.

I used to say that I never knew a person who could disappear so rapidly as Sylvia; who could literally eat up the flesh off her bones by nervous excitement. After a night and a day like this she was another woman—that strange arresting creature who made men start when they saw her, and set poets to dreaming about angels and stars. She wore a soft white muslin dress and a hat with a white plume in it—not intending to be ethereal, but because an instinct always guided her hand towards the color that was right.

The entertainment being not very interesting, and the hall being close, after an hour or so she asked her cousin to take her out. It was a perfect night, and she drank in the soft breeze and strolled along, happy to watch the lights through the trees and to hear singing in the distance. But suddenly she discovered that she had lost a medallion which she had worn about her neck. “We must find it!” she exclaimed. “It’s the one with the picture of Aunt Lady!”

“Are you sure you had it?”

“I remember perfectly having it in the hall. We’ll find it if we’re quick. Hurry! I can’t, with these heels on my shoes.” So Harley started back, and Sylvia began to walk slowly, looking on the sidewalk.

Five or ten minutes passed thus; when, hearing steps behind her, she glanced up, and saw a man attired in evening dress. There was a light near by, shining into her face, and she saw that he looked at her; also, with her woman’s intuition, she realized that he had been startled.

He stopped. “Have you lost something?” he asked, hesitatingly.

“Yes,” she said.

“Could I be of any help?”

“Thank you,” said Sylvia. “My cousin has gone back to look. He will be here soon.”

That was all. Sylvia resumed her search. But the man’s way was the same as hers, and he did not go as fast as before. She was really worried about her loss, and barely thought of him. His voice was that of a gentleman, so his nearness did not disturb her.

“Was it something valuable?” he asked, at last.

“It was a medallion with a picture that I prize.”

She stopped at a corner, uncertain of the street by which she and Harley had come. He stopped also. “I would be very glad to help,” he said, “if you would permit me.”

“Thank you,” she said, “but I really think that my cousin will find it. We had not come far.”

Again there was a pause. As she went on, he was near her, looking diligently. After a while she began to find the silence awkward, but she did not like to send him away, and she did not like to speak again. So it was with real relief that, looking down the street, she saw Harley coming. “There’s my cousin!” she said. “Oh, I do hope he’s found it.”

“He doesn’t act as if he had,” remarked the other; and Sylvia’s heart sank, for she saw that Harley walked slowly, and with his eyes on the ground.

When he was near enough she asked, “You haven’t found it?”

“No,” he answered. “It’s gone, I fear.”

“Oh, too bad! too bad! What can we do?”

Harley had come near. Sylvia saw that he looked at the man she was with, but there was no recognition between them. Evidently they did not know each other. Then, without offering to stop, Harley passed them, saying, “I’ll look back this way.”

“I don’t think that’s worth while,” said the girl. “I’ve searched carefully there.”

“I’d better look,” replied the other, who had quickened his pace and was already some distance off.

“But wait, Harley!” she called. She wanted to explain to him how thoroughly she had searched; and, more important yet, she wanted to get decently rid of the stranger.

But Harley went on, paying no attention to her. She called him again, with some annoyance, but he did not stop, and in a moment more had turned a corner. She was perplexed and angered by his conduct—more and more so as she thought of it. How preposterous for him to brush past in that fashion, and leave her with a man she did not know! “What in the world can he mean?” she exclaimed. “There’s no need to search back there any more!”

She stood, staring into the half-darkness. When after a moment he did not reappear, she repeated, helplessly, “What did he mean? What did he mean?”

She looked at her companion, and saw an amused smile upon his face. Her eyes questioned him, and he said, “I suspect he saw you were with me.”

For a moment Sylvia continued to stare at him. Then, realizing that here was a serious matter, she looked down at the ground—something which the search for the medallion gave her the pretext for doing.

“He saw you were with me.” The more she pondered the words, the more incredible they seemed to her. Taken as they had come, with the tone and the accent and the smile, there was only one thing they could mean. A week ago Sylvia would have been incapable of comprehending that meaning; but now she had seen so much of social climbing that she had developed a new sensitiveness. She understood—and yet she could not believe that she understood. This man did not know Harley, but Harley knew him, and knew him to be somebody of importance—of such importance that he had deliberately gone on and left her standing there, so that she might pick up an acquaintance with him on the street! And the man had watched the little comedy, and knowing his own importance, was chuckling with amusement.

As the realization of this forced itself upon Sylvia, the blood mounted to the very roots of her hair. She was seized by a perfect fury of shame and indignation; it was all that she could do to keep from turning upon the man and telling him what a cad and a puppy she thought him. But then came a second thought—wasn’t it true, what he believed? What other explanation could there be of Harley’s conduct? It was her cousin who was the puppy and the cad; she wanted to run after him and tell him in the man’s hearing. But then again her anger turned upon the stranger. If he had been a gentleman, would he ever have let her know what he thought? Would he have stood there now, grinning like a pot-boy?

Sylvia finished her meditations, and lifted her eyes from the ground. She was clear as to what she would do—she would punish this man, as never in her life had she punished a man before. She would punish him, even though to do it she had to walk on the proprieties with the sharp heels of her white suede slippers.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, gently. “I hope I don’t presume——”

“What is it?” he asked, and she looked him over. He was a tall man, with a pale, lean face, prominent features, and a large mouth which drooped at the corners with heavy lines. He was evidently a serious person, mature looking for a student.

“Are you by any chance an instructor in the University?” she asked.

“No, no,” he said, surprised.

“But then—are you a public official of some sort?”

“No,” he said, still more surprised. “Why should you think that?”

“Well, my cousin seemed to know you, and yet not to know you. He seemed willing to leave me with you, so I thought you might be—possibly a city detective——”

She saw him wince, and she feigned quick embarrassment. “I hope you’ll excuse me!” she said. “You see, my position is difficult.” Then, with one of her shining smiles, “Or have I perchance met Sir Galahad—or some other comforter of distressed damsels—St. George, or Don Quixote?”

When an outrage is offered to you by one of the loveliest beings that you have ever beheld, with the face of a higher order of angels, and a look straight into your eyes, so eloquent of simplicity and trustfulness—what more can you do than to look uncomfortable?

And Sylvia, of course, did not help him. She just continued to gaze and smile. He got his breath and stammered, “Really—I think—if you will permit me——” He paused, and then drew himself up. “I think that I had best introduce myself.”

“I am willing to accept the rebuke,” said Sylvia, “without putting you to that trouble.”

She saw that he did not even understand. He went on—his manner that of a man laboring with a very serious purpose. “I really think that I should introduce myself.”

“Are we not having a pleasant time without it?” she countered.

This, of course, was a complete blockade. He stood at a loss; and meantime Sylvia waited, with every weapon ready and every sense alert. “I beg pardon,” he said, at last, “but may I ask you something? I’ve a feeling as if I had met you before.”

“I am sure that you have not,” she said, promptly.

“You are from the South, are you not? I have been in the South several times.”

But still she would not give an inch; and he became desperate. “Pardon me,” he said, “if I tell you my name. I am Douglas van Tuiver.”

Now if there was ever a moment in her life when Sylvia needed her social training, it was then. He was looking into her face, watching for the effect of his announcement. But he never saw so much as the flicker of an eyelid. Sylvia said, quietly, “Thank you,” and waited to load her batteries. She had meant harm to him before. Imagine what she meant now!

“It is an unusual name,” she observed, casually. “German, I presume?”

“Dutch,” said he.

“Ah, Dutch. But then—you speak English perfectly.”

“My ancestors,” he said, “came to this country in sixteen hundred and forty.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Sylvia. “How curious! Mine came the same year. Perhaps that was where we met—in a previous incarnation.” Then, after a pause, “Van Tuivel, did you say?”

She could feel his start, and she waited breathlessly to see what he would do. But there were the soft, red-brown eyes and the look of utter innocence—how could he gaze into them and doubt? “Van Tuiver,” he said, gravely. “Douglas van Tuiver.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Sylvia responded. “Van Tuiver. I have it now.”

She waited, feeling sure that he could not bear to leave it there. And so it proved. “The name is well known in New York,” he remarked.

“Ah,” she said, “but then—there are so many people in New York!”

Again there was a pause, while he took thought. Sylvia remarked, helpfully, “In the South, you see, everybody knows everybody else.”

“I am not at all sure,” said he, stiffly, “that I should find that a desirable state of affairs.”

“Neither should I,” said she—“in New York.”

Now perhaps you think that this kind of thing is no particular strain upon the nerves of a young girl; but Sylvia was seeking a way of escape. Where was the villain Harley, and how much longer did he mean to keep her on the rack? At this moment she saw a taxicab coming down the street, and she recognized her chance.

“Please call it!” she exclaimed.

Instinctively her companion raised his hand. Equally instinctive was his exclamation: “Are you going?”

Her answer was her action; as the vehicle drew up by the curb, she opened the door herself, and stepped in. “To Boston,” she said; and the cab moved on. “Good-bye, Mr. van Tuiver,” she called to her surprised companion. “Good-bye, until the next incarnation!”

§ 10

News spread rapidly in Cambridge, Sylvia found. The next afternoon she received a call from Mr. “Tubby” Bates, and one glimpse of his features told her that he was moved by some compelling impulse.

“May I sit down, Miss Castleman?” he asked. “I’ve something to ask you about. But I’m not sure, Miss Castleman—that is—whether I’ve a right to talk about it. You may think that I’m gossiping——”

“Oh, but I adore gossiping,” put in the girl; whereat the other stopped stammering and beamed with relief. He was more like a Southern man than anyone Sylvia had met here; she knew just how to deal with him.

“Thank you ever so much!” he exclaimed. “It’s really very good of you.” He drew his chair an inch or two nearer, and in a confidential voice began, “It’s about Douglas van Tuiver.”

“Yes, I supposed so,” said Sylvia, with a smile.

“Oh, then something did happen!”

“Now, Mr. Bates,” she laughed, “tell your story.”

“This noon,” he said, “van Tuiver called me on the ’phone—or at least his secretary did—and asked me if I’d lunch at the club. When we sat down, there were two other chaps, both wondering what was up. Pretty soon he got to a subject—” Bates stopped uneasily. “I’m afraid that perhaps I won’t express myself in the right way, Miss Castleman—that I may say something you don’t like——”

“Go on,” smiled Sylvia. “I’m possessed by curiosity.”

“Well, it came out that he’d had an adventure. He was walking last evening, and he met a lady. She was tall and rather pale, he said—a Southern girl. She was dressed in white and had golden hair. ‘Have any of you met such a girl?’ he asked. I kept silent and let the rest do the answering. They hadn’t. ‘It was a lady in distress,’ van Tuiver went on, ‘and I offered my assistance and she accepted’——”

“Oh, I did not!” cried Sylvia.

“Oho!” exclaimed Bates, “I knew it! Tell me, what did you do?”

“This is your story,” she laughed.

“Well, he said it was a novel rôle for him—that of Sir Galahad, or St. George, or Don Quixote. He found it embarrassing. I said, ‘Was it the novelty of the rôle—or perhaps the novelty of the lady?’ ‘Well,’ said van Tuiver, ‘that’s just it. She was one of the most bewildering people I ever met. She talked’—you won’t mind my telling this, Miss Castleman?”

“Not a bit—go on.”

“Some of it isn’t very complimentary——”

“I’m wild with suspense, Mr. Bates!”

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘she looked like a lady, but she talked like an actress in a comedy. I never heard anybody rattle so—I never knew a girl so pert. She talked just—amazingly.’ That was his word. I asked him just what he meant, but that was all I could get him to say. Finally he asked, ‘Do you know the lady?’ and of course I had to answer that I thought I did; I could be sure if he’d give me a sample of her conversation. ‘She has a cousin named Harley,’ he said, and I said, ‘Yes—he’s Chilton, a Freshman. Her name is Miss Castleman.’ Then he wanted to know all about you. I said, ‘I met her at a tea at Thurlow’s, and about all I know of her is that she talks amazingly.’ I thought that was paying him back.”

“And then?” laughed Sylvia.

“Well, he wanted to know what I thought of you; and I said I thought you were the loveliest, and the cleverest, and the sweetest person that I’d ever met in my life. I really think that, you know. And then van Tuiver said—” But here Bates stopped himself suddenly. “That’s all,” he said.

“No, surely not, Mr. Bates!”

“But really it is. You see, we were interrupted——”

“But not until Mr. van Tuiver had said that he thought I was horrid, and he thought I was shallow, and he thought I was vain.”

The other flushed slightly. Sylvia went on, “I don’t mind it, because the truth is, I’d been thinking it myself. You see, I really was mean to him, Mr. Bates. I said things to hurt him, without his knowing I meant them; but after he went off, he must have understood. Why should we want to hurt people?”

“I don’t know,” said Tubby, bewildered by this unexpected new turn. He wanted Sylvia to tell him the story of what had happened that evening; but she refused. Then he went on to a new proposition—he wished to bring van Tuiver to call. But she refused again and begged him not to think about the matter any further. He pleaded with her, in semi-comic distress; he was so anxious to see what would happen—everyone was anxious to see what would happen! He implored her, in the name of good society; it was cruel, wicked of her to refuse! But Sylvia was obdurate, and in the end he took his departure lamenting, but vowing that he would not give up.

Just as he was leaving, Harley arrived. He came to get his scolding for his conduct of the previous night. But the scolding was more serious than he had expected. To his dismay Sylvia declared that she was sincere in her refusal to meet van Tuiver again.

“The truth is,” she said, “I’ve changed my mind about the whole matter. I don’t care to have anything to do with the man.”

“But why not?” asked Harley, in amazement.

“Because—I don’t think that poor people like us have any right to. We can’t meet him and keep our self-respect.”

“Great God, girl! Aren’t we van Tuiver’s social equals.”

“We think we are, but he doesn’t; and his view prevails. When you came up here and fell in love with a girl in his set, you found that his view prevailed. And look what you did last night! Don’t you see the degradation—simply to be near such a man?”

“That’s all very well,” objected Harley, “but can I keep van Tuiver from coming to Harvard?”

“No, you can’t; but you can help to keep him from having his way after he has got here. You can stand out against him and all that he represents.”

There was a pause. Harley had nothing to say to that. Sylvia stood with her brows knitted in thought. “I’ve made up my mind,” she said, “there’s something very wrong about it all. The man has too much money. He has no right to have so much—certainly not unless he’s earned it.”

Whereat her cousin exclaimed, “For God’s sake, Sylvia, you talk like an Anarchist!”

§ 11

A couple of days later came Mrs. Winthrop’s “Progressive Love” party. At this party there were twenty-four guests, twelve men and twelve women, appearing in purple silk dominoes and golden silk masks supplied by the hostess. Twelve short dances were followed by intermissions, during which the guests retired to cosy corners, and the men made ardent love to their unknown partners. “Tubby” Bates, of whom there was too much to be concealed by any domino, was appointed door-keeper, and it was his business to select the couples, so that each would have a new partner for every dance. At the end, every person voted for the most successful “lover” and also the worst, and there were prizes and “booby” prizes.

Love-making, more or less disguised, being the principal occupation of men and women in the South, Sylvia counted herself an expert at this game. She had learned to assume a different personality, disguising her voice, and doing it quite naturally—not by the crude method of putting a button under her tongue. She took her seat after the first dance, perfectly mistress of herself and pleasantly thrilled with curiosity. All of the “younger set” at home had made love to her in earnest, and their methods were an oft-told tale. But how would these strange men of Harvard play the game?

The tall domino at her side was in no hurry to begin. He sat very stiff and straight upon the velvet cushions; and finally it came to Sylvia that he was suffering from embarrassment. She leaned towards him, so as to display “a more coming-on disposition.” “Sir,” she whispered, “faint heart ne’er won fair lady.”

The tall domino considered this in silence. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, “I never played this game before.”

“It is the most wonderful game in the world!” said Sylvia, fervently.

“Perhaps,” was the reply. “To me it seems a very foolish game, and I think it was poor taste on Mrs. Winthrop’s part.”

“Dear me!” thought the girl, “what kind of a fish have I caught here?” There was something strangely familiar about the voice, but she could not place it. She had met so many men in the last week or two.

“Sir,” she said, “I fear me that you lack a little of that holiday glee which is necessary to such occasion as this. I would that I could sing a song to cheer your moping spirit—”

Then, leaning a little nearer yet, “Come, sir, you must make an effort.”

“What shall I do?”

“You must manage to throw yourself into a state of rapture. You must tell me that you adore me. You must say that my blue eyes make dim the vault of heaven——”

“But I can hardly see your eyes.”

“You should not expect to see them. Have you not been told that Love is blind?”

So she tried to drive this tall domino to play; but it was sorry frisking that he did. “You must fall down upon your knees before me,” she said; but he protested that he could really not do that. And when she insisted, “You must!” he got down, with such deliberation that the girl was half convulsed with laughter.

“Sir,” she chided, “that will not do. When you stop to ease each trouser-knee, how can I believe that you are overcome with the ardor of your feelings? You must get up and try again.” And actually she made him get up and plump down suddenly upon his knees; and was so mischievous and so merry about it that she got even him to laughing in the end.

She was sure by this time that she had met the man before, and she found herself running over the list of her acquaintances, trying to imagine which one could be capable of making love in such a fashion. But she could not think of one. She fell to studying the domino and the mask before her, wondering what feelings could be behind them. Was it timidity and lack of imagination? Or could it be that the man was sulky and uncivil as he seemed? When the bell rang and she rose, she breathed to herself the prayer that she might be spared running into another “stick” like that.

The next partner was Harmon, as she recognized before he had said a dozen sentences. Harmon did not know her, but being in love, he knew how to behave. He poured out to Sylvia all the things which she had known for the past week he was longing to say to her; and Sylvia said in reply everything which she had no intention of saying in reality. So the episode passed pleasantly, and the girl thought somewhat better of Mrs. Winthrop’s talents as a hostess.

Number Three was again a tall domino. He seated himself, and there was a long pause. “Well, sir,” said Sylvia, inquiringly.

The domino delayed again. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, at last; “I never played this game before.”

And Sylvia realized in a flash of dismay that it was the first man again! The same voice—even the same words! “Sir,” she said, coldly, “you are mistaken. You played the same game with me not twenty minutes ago.”

The tall domino expressed bewilderment. “I beg your pardon—there has been some mistake.”

“There has indeed,” said Sylvia. “The door-keeper has evidently got our numbers mixed.” She pondered for a moment. Should she go and tell Mr. Bates?

But she realized that it was too late. The couples were all settled and the game proceeding. It was the kind of blunder that was always being made at these parties—either because the door-keeper was stupid, or was bribed by some man who wanted to make love in earnest. It spoiled the game—but then, as Sylvia had just said, Love is blind.

“What shall we do—wait?” she asked; to which the man replied, “I don’t mind.”

“Thank you,” she said, graciously. “We’ll have to make the best of it. Don’t you think you can manage to do a little better than the last time?”

“I’ll try,” he replied. “It’s beastly stupid, I think.”

Sylvia considered. “No,” she declared, “I believe it’s the game of all games for you.”

“How so?”

“Go down into the deeps of you. Haven’t you something there that is real—something primitive and untamed, that chafes against propriety, and wishes it had not been born in Boston?”

“I was not born in Boston,” said he.

“Perhaps not in your body,” said Sylvia, “but your soul is a Boston soul. And now think of this opportunity to fling loose, to be just as bad as you want to be—and quite without danger of detection, of having your reputation damaged! Surely, sir, there could be no game more adapted to the New England conscience!”

“By Jove!” exclaimed the man; and actually there was warmth in his tone. Sylvia’s heart leaped, and she caught him by the hand. “Quick! Quick!” she cried. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may—old time is still a-flying!”

“By Jove!” exclaimed the man again; and Sylvia, kindling with mischief, pressed his hand more tightly and brought him upon his knees before her. “Make haste! You have but one life—one chance to be yourself—to vent your emotions! I’ve no idea who you are, I can’t possibly tell on you—and so you may utter those things which you keep hidden even from yourself!”

“By Jove!” he exclaimed for the third time. “Really, if I had you to make love to——”

“But you have me! You have me! For several precious minutes—alone and undisturbed! You are not a Boston Brahmin in a domino—you are a faun in the forests of Arcady. Come, Mr. Faun!” And Sylvia began to sing in a low, caressing manner:

There was a pause. She could feel the man’s hand trembling. “I am waiting!” she whispered; to which he answered, “I wish you would talk! You make love so much better than I!”

Sylvia broke into one of her merry laughs. “A leap-year party!” she cried.

But the other was in earnest. “I like to listen to you,” he said. “Please go on!”

Sylvia was laughing so that she felt tears in her eyes, and she wanted to wipe them away under her mask. Her handkerchief was gone, and she looked for it—in her lap, beside her on the seat, and then on the floor. This led to a curious and unexpected turn in the adventure—her recognition of this New England faun. Seeing what she was doing, he said, “I beg pardon. Have you lost something?”

It was like an explosion in Sylvia’s mind. Not merely the same words—but the same manner, the same accent, the same personality!

The search for the handkerchief gave her the chance to recover her breath. The Lord had delivered him into her hands again!

“Sir,” she said. “I resume. You have overwhelmed me with the torrent of your ardor. I feel myself swept away in a flood which my feeble will cannot resist. You come to me like a royal wooer—like some god out of the skies, stunning the senses of a mere mortal maiden! Who can this be—I ask myself. From what source can such superhuman eloquence and fervor spring? Can I endure it? I cry—or shall I be burned up and destroyed, like Danaï in the legend? It is just so that he descends upon me—like Jupiter, in a shower of gold!”

Sylvia could feel the tall domino stiffen and rear himself. She had meant to go on, but she stopped, so great was her curiosity. How would he take it?

At last came the voice from under the mask. “I see,” it said, “that you have the advantage of me. You do know who I am.”

Sylvia was almost transported—by a combination of amazement and amusement. “Know who you are?” she cried. “How could I fail to know who you are? You, my divinity! You, to whom all the world bends the knee! Sire, receive my homage—I bow in adoration before the Golden Calf!”

And she sunk down upon one knee before the tall domino!

It was putting herself into his hands. She was fully prepared to see him rise and stalk away—but so possessed was she that she would have enjoyed even that! Fortunately, however, at this moment the bell rang, saving her. She sprang to her feet, and caught the hand of her divinity in one quick clasp of parting. “Good-bye, Mr. van Tuiver!” she exclaimed. “Good-bye—until the next incarnation!”

For the next dance Sylvia’s partner was a youth whom she could not identify. He had evidently been reading the poets, for his declarations of devotion were lacking in naught but rhyme. Sylvia accepted him politely, hardly hearing his words—so busy was she with the thought of van Tuiver. Had it been accident, or a trick? She would soon know.

There came another dance—and again a tall domino. Sylvia suspected, but was not sure, until they were in their seats, when the domino sat stiff and straight, and she was certain. “Is that you?” she asked; and the answer came, “It is.”

“It is evident that some one is amusing himself at our expense,” said Sylvia, coldly. “I really think we shall have to stop it.”

“Miss Castleman,” broke in the other. “I hope you will believe me that I have had absolutely nothing to do with this.”

She answered, consolingly, “I assure you, Mr. van Tuiver, your unpreparedness has been quite evident.”

There was a pause, while he considered that. “What shall we do?” he asked.

“I think that you had best see Mr. Bates, and make clear to him that we have had enough.”

He hesitated. “Is—is that really necessary?”

“What else can we do—spend the evening together?”

“I really wish we could, Miss Castleman!”

“What—and you making love as you have been?”

“I can do better now. I really am quite charmed with the game. I’d like to make love to you—for a long time.”

“Most flattering, Mr. van Tuiver—but how about me? We’ve conversed a lot already, and you haven’t said one interesting thing.”

“Miss Castleman!”

“Not one—excepting one or two that have been insolent.”

There was a pause. “Really,” he pleaded, “that is a hard thing to say!”

“Do you mean,” she inquired, coldly, “that you have not realized the meaning of what you said to me when we met on the street?”

“I don’t know just what you refer to,” he replied, “but you must admit that you had me at a great disadvantage that evening.”

“What disadvantage, Mr. van Tuiver? The fact that I did not know who you were?”

She could feel him wince. She was prepared for a retort—but not so severe as the one which came. “The disadvantage,” he said, “that you pretended not to know who I was.”

“Why,” she exclaimed, “what do you mean?”

He answered. “If we are going to fight, it ought to be upon a fair field. You pretended that evening that you had never heard my name. But I learned since that only a day or two before you had had a quite elaborate conversation about me.”

Sylvia’s first impulse was to inquire sarcastically what right he had to assume that his illustrious name would stay in her memory. But she realized that that was a poor retort; and then her sense of fair play came in. After all, he was right—the joke was on her, and she rather admired his nerve.

So she began to laugh. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, “you have annoyed me so that I won’t even take the trouble to think up new lies to tell you. Realize, if you can, the impression you managed to make upon a young girl—you and your reputation together—that she should be moved to use such weapons against you!”

He forgot his anger at this. “That’s just it, Miss Castleman! I don’t understand it at all! What have I done that you should take such an attitude towards me?”

Sylvia pondered. “I fear,” she said, “that you would not thank me for telling you.”

“You are mistaken!” he exclaimed. “I really would like to know.”

“I could not bring myself to do it.”

“But why not?”

“I know it could not do any good.”

“But how can you say that—when I assure you I am in earnest? I have a very sincere admiration for you—truly. You are one of the most—one of the most amazing young women I ever met. I don’t say that in a bad sense, you understand——”

“I understand,” said Sylvia, smiling. “I have tried my best to be amazing.”

“It is evident that you dislike me intensely,” he went on. “I ask you to tell me why. What have I done?”

“It isn’t so much what you have done—it is what you are.”

“And what am I, Miss Castleman?”

“I don’t know just how to put it into words. You are some sort of monstrosity; something that when I see it, fills me with a blind rage, so that I want to fly at its throat. And then I realize that even in attacking it I am putting myself upon a level with it—and so I want to turn and flee for my life—or rather for my self-respect. I want to flee from it, Mr. van Tuiver, and never see it, never hear its voice, never even know of its existence! Do you see?”

“I see,” said the man, in a voice so faint as to be hardly audible; and then suddenly came the sound of the bell, and Sylvia sprang up.

“I flee!” she said.

§ 13

There came a new dance, the sixth, and a new partner, who was short, and was speedily discovered to be Jackson. Then came the seventh dance, and Sylvia expected that it would be her Faun again, but was disappointed. It was a man unknown, and she wondered if Bates had lost his nerve. But with Number Eight came the inevitable return.

Van Tuiver was so anxious this time that he asked before he began to dance, “Is that you?” And when Sylvia answered “Yes,” she could hear his sigh of relief. All through the dance she could feel his excitement. Once or twice he tried to talk, but she whispered to him to keep the rules.

The moment they were seated he said, “Miss Castleman, you must explain to me what you mean.”

“I knew I’d have to explain,” she responded. “I’ve been thinking how I could make you understand. You see, I’m a comparative stranger to this world of yours, and things might shock me which would seem to you quite a matter of course. I suppose I’m what you’d call a country girl, and have a provincial outlook.”

“Please go on,” he said.

“Well, Mr. van Tuiver, you have an enormous amount of money. Twenty or thirty million dollars—forty or fifty million dollars—the authorities don’t seem to agree about it. As well as I can put the matter, you have so much that it has displaced you; it isn’t you who think, it isn’t you who speak—it’s your money. You seem to be a sort of quivering, uneasy consciousness of uncounted millions of dollars; and the only thing that comes back to you from your surroundings is an echo of that quivering consciousness.”

“Do I really seem like that to you?”

“It’s the impression you’ve made upon everyone who knows you.”

“Oh, surely not!” he cried.

“Quite literally that,” said Sylvia. “I hated you before I ever laid eyes on you—because of the way you’d impressed your friends.”

There was a pause; when van Tuiver spoke again it was in a low and uncertain voice. “Miss Castleman,” he said, “has it ever occurred to you to think what might be the difficulties of my situation?”

“No, I haven’t had time for that.”

“Well, take this one fact. You say that I have made a certain impression upon everyone who knows me. But you are the first person in my whole lifetime who’s ever told me.”

Sylvia gave an exclamation of incredulity.

“Don’t you see?” pressed on the other, eagerly. “What is a man to do? I have a great deal of money. I can’t help that. And I can’t help the fact that it gives me a great deal of power. I can’t help having a sense of responsibility.”

“The sense of responsibility has been too much for you,” said Sylvia.

This was too subtle for him. He hurried on: “Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s wrong—but circumstances have given me a certain position, and I have to maintain it. I have certain duties which I must fulfill, which I can’t possibly get away from.”

There was a pause. He seemed to feel that the situation was not satisfactory, and started again. “It’s all very well for you, who don’t realize my position, the responsibilities I have—it’s all very well for you to talk about my consciousness of money. But how can I get away from it? People know about my money, they think about it—they expect certain things of me. They put me in a certain position, whether I will or not.”

He stopped again. He was so greatly agitated that Sylvia was beginning to feel pity. “Do you have to be what people expect you to be?” she said.

“But,” he argued, “I have the money, and I have to make use of it—to invest it—to protect it——”

“Ah, but all that is in the business world. What I’m talking about is in a separate sphere—your social relations.”

“But, Miss Castleman, that’s just it—is it separate? It ought to be, you’ll say—but is it? I tell you, you simply don’t know, that’s all. People profess friendship for me, but they want something, and by and by I find out what it is they want. You say that’s monstrous; I know, I used to think it was, myself. You say, I ought not to know it; but I can’t help knowing it; it’s forced upon me by all the circumstances of my life. Sometimes I think I’ve never had a disinterested friend since I was born!”

Sylvia perceived the intensity behind his words, and was silent for a minute. “But surely,” she said, “here—in the democracy of college life——”

“It’s exactly the same here as anywhere else. Here are clubs, social cabals, everybody pushing and intriguing, exactly as in New York society. Take that fact you spoke of—that all the fellows dislike me, and yet not one of them has dared to tell me so!”

“Dared?” repeated Sylvia.

“Oh, well, perhaps they dared—the point is, they didn’t. The ones who had to make their own way were busy making it; and the others, who had got in of right—well, they believe in money. They’d all shrug their shoulders and say, ‘What’s the use of antagonizing such a man?’”

“I see,” said Sylvia, fascinated.

“Whatever the reason is, they never call me down—not a man of them. And then, as for the women——”

Sylvia had not made any sound, but somehow he felt her sudden interest. He said, with signs of agitation, “Please, Miss Castleman, don’t be offended. You asked me to talk about it.”

“Go on,” she said. “I’m really most curious. I suppose all the women want to marry you?”

“It isn’t only that. They want anything. They just want to be seen with me. Of course, when they start to make love to me—” He paused.

“You stop them, I hope,” said Sylvia, modestly.

“I do when I know it. But, you see——”

He paused again; it was evidently a difficult topic. “Pray don’t mind,” said Sylvia, laughing. “They’re subtle creatures, I know. Do many of them make love to you?”

“I know you’re laughing at me, Miss Castleman. But believe me, it’s no joke. If you’d see some of the letters I get!”

“Oh, they write you love letters?”

“Not only love letters. I don’t mind them—but the letters from women in distress, the most terrible stories you can imagine. Once I was foolish enough—didn’t anybody tell you the scrape I got into?”

“No.”

“That’s curious—they generally like to tell it. I was weak enough to let one woman get into my house in Cambridge. She had a tragedy to rehearse, and I listened to her, and finally she wanted ten thousand dollars. I didn’t know if her story was true, and I said No, and then she began to scream for help. The servants came running, and she said—well, you can imagine, how I’d insulted her, and all that. I told my man to throw her out, but she said she’d scratch his eyes out, she’d scream from the window, she’d stand on the street outside and denounce me till the police came, she’d give the newspapers the whole story of the way I’d abused her. And so finally I had to give her all the money I happened to have on me.”

“Great Heavens!” exclaimed Sylvia, who had not thought of anything so serious as that.

“You see how it is. For the most part I’ve escaped that kind of thing, because I was taught. My Great-uncle Douglas, who died recently—he was my guardian, and he taught me all about women when I was very young—not more than ten. He had charge of my upbringing, and he wouldn’t allow a woman in my household.”

“Dear me,” said Sylvia, “what a cynic he must have been!”

“He died a bachelor,” said the other, “and left me a great deal of money. So you see—that is——”

“He’d had to be a cynic!” laughed the girl. And van Tuiver laughed with her—more humanly than she had ever thought possible.

She considered for a moment, and then suddenly asked, “Mr. van Tuiver, has it never occurred to you that I might be making love to you?”

She could not see his face, but she knew that he was staring at her in dismay. “Oh, surely not, Miss Castleman!” he exclaimed.

“But how can you be sure?” she asked. “Where is your training?”

“Miss Castleman,” he said, “please take me seriously.”

“I’m quite serious. In fact, I think I ought to tell you, I have been making love to you.”

“Surely not!” he said.

“I mean it, quite literally. I’ve been doing it from the first moment I met you—doing it in spite of all my resolutions to the contrary!”

“But why?”

“Well, because I hated you, and also because I pitied you. I said, I’ll get him in my power and punish him—and at the same time teach him.”

“Oh!” exclaimed van Tuiver; and she thought that she detected a note of relief in the word.

“You are glad I don’t mean to marry you,” she said; and when he started to protest, she cut him short with, “You’re not applying the wisdom of your great-uncle! I say I don’t want to marry you, but most likely that’s a device to disarm you, to make you want to marry me.”

In spite of his evident distress, she was incorrigible. “You ought to be up and away,” she declared—“scared out of your wits. I tell you I’m the most dangerous woman you’ve ever met. And I mean it literally. I’ll wager that if your great-uncle had ever met my great-aunt, he would not have died a bachelor! Take my advice, and fall ill and leave this party at once.”

“Why should I be afraid of you?” he demanded. “Why shouldn’t I marry you if I want to?”

“What! a poor girl like me?”

“Well, I don’t know. I can afford to marry a poor girl if I feel like it.”

“But—think of the ignominy of being trapped!”

He considered this. “I’m not afraid of that either,” he said. “If you’ve had the wit to do it—and none of the others had——”

“Oh!” she laughed. “Then you’re willing to be hunted!”

“Miss Castleman,” he protested, “you are unkind. I’ve thought seriously. You really are a most beautiful woman, and at the same time a most amazingly clever woman. You would be an ornament in my life—I’d always be proud of you—”

He paused. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she demanded, “am I to understand that this is a serious proposal?”

She could feel his quiver of fear. “Why,” he stammered—“really——”

“Don’t you see how dangerous it is!” she exclaimed. “You were almost caught! Make your escape, Mr. van Tuiver!”

And then came the sound of the bell. She started up. “Go and tell Mr. Bates!” she cried. “Don’t let him do this again—if you do, you are lost forever!”

§ 14

The next partner was Harley. It was a nuisance having to entertain your own cousin, but Sylvia amused herself by keeping Harley from recognizing her. And in the meantime she was wondering what her Victim would do next.

She knew his very style of dancing by now, and needed to make no inquiries of Number Ten. “You did not take my advice,” she remarked, when they were seated.

“No,” he said. “On the contrary, I told Bates to put us together the rest of the time.”

“Oh, no!” she protested.

“I want to talk to you,” he declared. “I must talk to you.”

“But you had no right! He will tell, and everybody will be talking about it.”

“I don’t care if they do.”

“But I care, Mr. van Tuiver—you should not have taken such a liberty.”

“Please, Miss Castleman,” he hurried on, “please listen to me. I’ve been thinking about it, and it interests me keenly. I believe that in you I might really have a friend—if only you would. A real friend, I mean—who’d tell me the truth—who’d be absolutely disinterested——”

The fun of it was too much for Sylvia. “Haven’t I explained to you that I mightn’t be disinterested?”

“I’ll trust you.”

“Of course,” she went on, gravely. “I might give you my word of honor that I wouldn’t marry you.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “I suppose so——”

The girl was convulsed with laughter. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she remarked, “I see you are an earnest man; I really ought to stop teasing you. Don’t you think I ought?”

“Yes,” he replied, dubiously. “At least—I never liked to be teased before.”

“Well, I will tell you this for your comfort. There’s no remotest possibility of my ever marrying you, so you can feel quite safe.”

Somehow he did not seem sure whether he was pleased at this pledge. After a pause he went on: “What I mean is that I think a man in my position ought to have somebody to tell him the truth.”

“Something like the court-jesters in old days,” said Sylvia.

But he was not interested in mediæval customs. He was interested in his own need, and she had to promise that she would admit him to the arcanum of her friendship, and that she would always tell him exactly what she thought about him—his actions, his ideas, even his manners. In fulfilment of which promise she spent the rest of that séance, and the two that followed, in listening to him talk about himself and his life.

It was really most curious—an inside glimpse into a kind of life of which one heard, but with no idea of ever encountering it; just as one read of train-robbers and safe-blowers, but never expected to sit and chat with them. Douglas van Tuiver had achieved notoriety before he had cut a single tooth; his mother and father having been killed in a railroad accident when he was two months old, the courts had appointed trustees and guardians, and the newspapers had undertaken a kind of unofficial supervision. The precious infant had been brought up by a staff of tutors, with majordomos and lackeys in the background, and two private detectives and a great-uncle and Mrs. Harold Cliveden to oversee the whole. It did not need much questioning to get the details of this life—the lonely palace on Fifth Avenue, the monumental “cottage” at Newport, the “camp” in the Adirondacks, the yacht in the West Indies; the costly toys, the “blooded” pets, the gold plate, the tedious, suffocating solemnity. If Sylvia had been furious with van Tuiver before, she was ready now to go to the opposite extreme and weep over him. A child brought up wholly by employees, with no brothers and sisters to kick and scratch him into decency, no cousins, no playmates even—unless he was first togged out in an Eton suit and escorted by a tutor to the birthday party of some other little togged-out aristocrat!

Yes, assuredly this unhappy man needed someone to tell him the truth! Sylvia resolved that she would fill the rôle. She would be quite unmoved by his Royalty (the word by which she had come to sum up to herself the whole phenomenon of van Tuiverness). She would persist in regarding him as any other human being, saying to him what she felt like, pretending to him, and even to herself, that he really was not Royalty at all!

But alas, she soon found what a task she had undertaken! The last dance had been danced, and amid much merriment the guests unmasked—and still van Tuiver wanted to stay and talk to his one friend. He escorted her to supper, in spite of the fact that Mrs. Winthrop had other arrangements for him. And even if he had behaved himself, there was the tale which “Tubby” Bates had been diligently spreading. The girl realized all at once that she had achieved a new and startling kind of prominence; all the guests, men and women, were watching her, whispering about her, envying her. She felt a wicked thrill of triumph and pleasure. She, a stranger, an obscure girl from the provinces, who would ordinarily have been an object of suspicion and investigation—she had leaped at one moment into supremacy! She had become the favorite of the King!

Pretty soon came Harley, a-tremble with delight. “Gee whiz, old girl, you sure have scored to-night! For God’s sake, how did you manage it?” Sylvia felt herself hot with sudden shame.

And then came Bates. She tried to scold him, but he would simply not have it. “Now, Miss Castleman! Now, Miss Castleman!”—that was all he would say. What it meant was: “It is all right for you to pretend, of course; but you can’t persuade me that you are really angry!”

“Please go away,” she said at last; but he wanted to tell her what different people said, and would not be shaken off. While he was still teasing, there swept past them a girl to whom Sylvia had not been introduced—a solid-looking young Amazon with a freckled snub nose. She gave Sylvia what appeared to be a haughty look, and Bates whispered, “Do you know who that is? That’s Dorothy Cortlandt!—the girl van Tuiver is to marry.”

“Really!” exclaimed Sylvia, who was cross with all the world. “How did her nose get broken?”

And the other answered with a grin, “You ought to know—you did it!” And so, as Sylvia could not help laughing, Bates counted himself forgiven.

A little later came the encounter with Edith Winthrop. It was after supper, and the two found themselves face to face. “What a charming party it has been!” said Sylvia, and the other gave her what was meant to be a freezing stare. It was so rude that Sylvia thought she must have been misunderstood. “The party’s been a success,” she ventured. “Don’t you think so?”

“Ideas of success differ,” remarked the other, coldly, and turned her back and began an animated conversation with someone else.

“Dear me,” thought Sylvia, as she moved on, “What have I done?” She saw in another part of the room her hostess talking to van Tuiver, and made up her mind at once that she would find out if the beautiful soul-friendship was shattered also. She moved over towards the two, resisting an effort on the part of Harmon to draw her into a tête-à-tête.

“Mrs. Winthrop,” she said, “I’m so glad I stayed over.”

“Queen Isabella” turned the mystical eyes upon her, one of the deep, inscrutable gazes. Sylvia waited, knowing that it might mean anything from reverie to murder. “My dear Sylvia,” she said at last, “you are pale to-night.”

This, in the presence of van Tuiver, probably meant war. “Am I?” asked the girl.

“Yes, my dear, don’t dissipate too much! Women of your type fade quickly.”

“What?” laughed the other, gaily. “With my red eyes and red hair? A century could not extinguish me!”

She passed on, and discovered that van Tuiver was following her. “You aren’t going, are you, Miss Castleman?” he asked; and while he was begging her to stay, Sylvia saw her hostess move across the room to Dorothy Cortlandt. These two stood conversing earnestly, and one glance was enough to tell Sylvia what they were conversing about.

All this was a sore temptation, but Sylvia was in a virtuous mood. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, “there is something I want to say to you. I’ve thought it over, and made up my mind that it is impossible for me to be the friend you want.”

“Why, Miss Castleman!” he exclaimed, in distress. “What is the matter?”

“I can’t explain——”

“But what have I done?”

“It’s nothing that you’ve done. It’s simply that I couldn’t stand the world you live in. Oh, I’d be a dreadful woman if I stayed very long!”

“Please, listen—” he implored.

But she cut him short. “I am sorry to give you pain, but I have made up my mind absolutely. There is no possible way I can help you. I am not willing to see you again, and you must positively not ask it.” After which speech she went to look for her cousin, leaving van Tuiver such a picture of agitation that everyone in the room observed it. Could the King’s nose be broken too?