Eden: An Episode

At this Eden experienced a mental start. The possibility of mating him to some charming girl whom she was herself to discover had suddenly become remote. But she nodded encouragingly to the confidence.

"Yes," he continued, and into his polar-eyes came a sudden flicker. "Yes, there is one whom I have recently come to know and who is to me as a prayer fulfilled. Were I called upon to make a sacrifice for her, no matter what the nature of that sacrifice might be, the mere doing of it would constitute a well-spring of delight."

Eden smiled at the dithyramb as were she listening to some fay she did not see. Arnswald had been looking at her, but now, as though ashamed of the outburst, he affected a little laugh and dropped back into the conventional. Presently he rose and took his polar-eyes away. When he had gone Eden smiled again. "He may have the genius of finance," she mused, "but he has the genius of love as well."

III

Eden had but recently returned to town and the claims of mantua-makers and milliners were oppressive. They took her time, they came to her in the morning, and she, with the courtesy of kings, returned the visit in the afternoon. But to little purpose. They were vexatious people, she discovered. They deceived her wantonly. They promised and did not fulfill. The live-long day they had irritated her, they had obtained her confidence by false pretences, and now, after a round of interviews each more profitless than the last, on reaching her house the dust of shops was on her mantle, and she could have gone in a corner and sworn.

Moreover it was late, dinner would presently be served. Arnswald, she learned, had already arrived, he was in the parlor with her husband, and as she hurried to her room she told herself that she would have to dress in haste, an operation which to her was always fertile in annoyance. An entire hour was never too much. But her maid was agile, dexterous of hand, and before the clock marked seven she was fully equipped, arrayed for dinner and the opera as well.

On leaving the room, Eden left her vexation behind her. It had been fleeting and inoffensive as the anger of a canary. And now, on descending the stairs, she was in great good spirits again, the crimes of mantua-makers and milliners were forgotten, and she prepared to meet her husband and her guest. Half-way on her journey to the drawing-room, however, she discovered that she was empty-handed; she had omitted to take a fan and she called to her maid to bring her one. And as she called the front door-bell rang. She hesitated a second, and called again. But presumably the maid did not hear. Thereupon Eden re-ascended the stairs and went back to her room.

The maid was busying herself in a closet and the fan was on the table; Eden picked it up, and as she did so she noticed that one of the sticks was broken. It took several minutes to find another which suited her gown, and when she again descended the stair some little time had intervened.

On reaching the parlor she drew the portière aside and peered into the room. At the furthermost end stood Arnswald, his back turned to her, and near him in a low arm-chair was her husband. He seemed to be reading something, and it was evident that her entrance had been unobserved either by him or by his guest.

For a second's space Eden stood very still. There was much of the child in her nature, and during that second she meditated on the feasibility of giving them both some little surprise. Then at once, as though impelled by invisible springs, she crossed the room very swiftly, very noiselessly, her fan and the fold of her dress in one hand, the other free for mischief, and just when she reached the chair in which her husband sat, she bent over him, from his unwarned fingers she snatched a note, and with a rippling laugh that was like the shiver of sound on the strings of a guitar, she waved it exultingly in the air.

Mr. Usselex looked up at once, but he had looked too late; the note had gone from him. He started, he made a movement to repossess himself of it, but Eden, with the ripple still in her voice, stepped back, laughed again, and nodded to Arnswald, who had turned and bowed. "What is it?" she cried; "what have you two been concocting? No, you don't," she continued. Her voice was unsteady with merriment, her eyes wickedly jubilant. Usselex had made another attempt to recapture the letter, and flaunting it, Tantalus-fashion, above her head, she defied and eluded him, gliding backwards, her head held like a swan's, a trifle to one side. "No, you don't," she repeated, and still the laughter rippled from her.

"Eden!" her husband expostulated, "Eden – "

"You shall not have it, sir; you shall not." And with a pirouette she fluttered yet further away, the bit of paper held daintily and aloft between forefinger and thumb. "Tell me this instant what you have been doing all day. There, you needn't look at Mr. Arnswald. He won't help you. Will you, Mr. Arnswald? Of course you won't."

Usselex, conscious of the futility of pursuit, made no further effort. In his face was an anxiety which his fair tormentor did not see. Once he turned to Arnswald, and Arnswald gave him an answering glance, and once his lips moved, but whatever he may have intended to say the words must have stuck in his throat. And Eden, woman-like, seeing that she was no longer pursued, advanced to a spot just beyond his reach, where she hovered tauntingly, yet wary of his slightest movement and prepared at the first suspicion of reprisal to spread her wings in flight.

"And who do you suppose was here at lunch to-day? You must guess or you shan't have your letter back. I'll give you just one minute. Oh! I saw Laura Manhattan at Fantasia's. Don't forget that we are to dine with her to-morrow. She came in to row about a dress. I was rowing, too. You have no idea what a day I have had. You will have to give Fantasia a talking to. Look at the frippery I have on. And she promised that I should have something for to-night. There ought to be some punishment for such people. Don't you think so, Mr. Arnswald? When people in Wall Street don't keep their promises, they are put in jail, aren't they? Well, jail is too good for that horrid old French-woman of a dressmaker, she ought to have the thumb-screws, the rack, and the hot side of the fagot. I will never believe her again, no, not even when I know she is telling the truth. She is the most ornamental liar I ever encountered. It is my opinion she would rather lie than not. Laura told me – but here, the minute's up – you must guess, you must guess rightly, and you can only guess once."

And Eden waved the letter again and laughed in her husband's beard.

The gown which she wore, and which she had characterized as frippery, was an artful combination of tulle and of silk; it was colorless, yet silvery, and in it Eden, bare of arm and of neck, looked a water nymph garmented in sheen and foam. From her hair came an odor of distant oases. In her eyes were evocations of summer, and beneath them, on her cheeks and on the lobes of her ears, health had placed its token in pink. The corners of her mouth were upraised like the ends of the Greek bow, and now that she was laughing her lips suggested a red fruit cut in twain. She was the personification of caprice, adorably constructed, and constructed to be adored. Arnswald evidently found her appearance alluring, for his eyes followed her every movement.

"Hurry up," she continued, as merrily as before; "the minute's gone."

Usselex may have been annoyed, but he affected to enter into the jest. "Your father – " he hazarded, and stretched his hand for the note.

But Eden again retreated. "You have lost," she cried; "no one was here." And finding herself at a safe distance, "I am a better guesser than you," she added, "I can tell what is in this letter without reading it. Now answer me, what will you give me if I do? What ought he to give me, Mr. Arnswald? Prompt him, can't you? I have never seen anyone so stupid."

"Give it to me, Eden; you shall make your own terms – "

"Ah! you capitulate, do you? It's too late! It's too late!" she repeated in ringing crescendo. "You ought to have guessed;" and for greater safety she held the letter behind her. "It's about stocks, Kansas-back bonds, seven sights offered and nothing bid – I have guessed right, have I not?"

"Eden – "

"Answer me; I have guessed right, I know I have." And laughing still, she whisked the letter from behind her and held it to her eyes. "Why, it's from a woman," she cried. "What is this? 'You have filled my life with living springs.' Whose life have you filled?"

The merriment had deserted her lips, the color had gone from her cheeks. The hand which held the letter fell with it to her side. In her face was the contraction of pain. She looked at her husband. "Whose life is it that you have filled?" she asked, and her voice, that had rippled with laughter a moment before, became suddenly chill and subdued.

In the doorway before her the butler appeared in silent announcement that dinner was served.

Arnswald made a step forward. "The letter is mine, Mrs. Usselex," he said, "I – "

"Oh," she murmured, with a sigh that might have been accounted one of relief. "Oh, it is yours, is it?" And eying him inquisitorially for a second's space, she placed the letter in his hand.

"We may as well go in to dinner," she added at once, and with a glance at her husband she led the way.

IV

In Dogian days there was a Libro d'Oro in which the First Families of Venice were inscribed in illuminated script. In New York there is also a Golden Book, unwritten, yet voiced, and whoso's name appears thereon has earned the cataloguing not from the idlesse of imbecile forefathers, but from shrewdness in coping with the public, forethought in the Stock Exchange, and prescience in the values of land and grain.

At the opera that night the aristocrats of the New World were in full force. Among them were men who could not alone have wedded the Adriatic but have dowered her as well. Venice in her greatest splendor had never dreamed such wealth as theirs. There was Jabez Robinson, his wife and children, familiarly known as the Swiss Family Robinson, the founder of their dynasty having emigrated from some Helvetian vale. A lightning calculator might have passed a week in the summing up of their possessions. There was old Jerolomon, who through the manipulation of monopolies exhaled an odor of Sing-Sing, the which had been so attractive to the nostrils of an English peer that he had taken his daughter as wife. There was Madden, who controlled an entire state. There was Bucholz, who declared himself Above the Law, and who had erupted in New York three decades before with the seven sins for sole capital. There was Bleecker Bleecker, who each year gave away a pope's ransom to charity and pursued his debtors to the grave. There was Dunwoodie, whose coat smelled of benzine and whose signature was potent as a king's. There was Forbush, who lunched furtively on an apple and had given a private establishment to each one of his twelve children. There was Gwathmeys, who had twice ruined himself for his enemies and made a fortune from his friends. There was Attersol, who could have bought the White House and whose sole pleasures were window-gardening and the accord of violins.

On the grand-tier was Mrs. Besalul, on whom society had shut its door because she had omitted to close her own. In an adjoining box was Mrs. Smithwick, the bride of a month, fairer than that queen whose face was worth the world to kiss, and who the previous winter had written a novel of such impropriety that when it was published her mother forbade her to read it. There was Miss Pickett, a débutante, who possessed the disquieting ugliness of a monkey and who had announced that there was nothing so immoral as ennui. There was Mrs. Bouvery, who claimed connection with every one whose name began with Van. Mrs. Hackensack, one of the few surviving Knickerbockers. The Coenties twins, known as Dry and Extra Mumm. And there were others less interesting. Mrs. Ponder, for instance, famous for her musicales, which no one could be bribed to attend. Mrs. Skolfield, who was so icy in her manner that a poet who had once ventured her way, had caught a cold in his head which lasted a week. Mrs. Nevers, mailed in diamonds; Mrs. Goodloe, mailed in pearls; and a senator's wife in a bonnet.

The only empty box in the house was owned by Mr. Incoul, then abroad on his honeymoon.

And in and out through these boxes sauntered a contingent of men, well-groomed, white of glove, and flowered as to their button-holes. Among them was Harry Tandem, who had inaugurated silver studs. Brewster, who had invented a new figure for the cotillion, and with him Harrison Felton, the maëstro of that decadent dance. There was George Rerick, who stuttered to the débutantes as he had stuttered to their mothers before them. Furman Fellowes, who told fairy tales to impressionable young girls, and who would presently get drunk in Sixth Avenue. Jack Rodney, M. F. H., and Alphabet Jones, the novelist, in search of points.

As Eden entered the vestibule of her box the curtain had parted on the second act. A Miss Bolten and her mother whom she had invited had already arrived, and Arnswald, she noticed, went immediately forward to salute them; then returning, he assisted her with her wrap. In a moment the vestibule was invaded by Jones; and Eden, after a word or two to her guests, settled herself in the front of the box and promenaded her opera-glass about the house. The promenade completed, she lowered it to the stalls. Near the orchestra a woman sat gazing fixedly at her. There was nothing remarkable about the woman. She was as well dressed, as young, and as pretty as were the majority of those present; it was the singularity of her attitude that arrested Eden's attention. But that attention she was not permitted to prolong. The adjoining box, the occupants of which she had not yet noticed, was tenanted by Mrs. Manhattan, who now claimed her recognition with some little feminine word of greeting. On one side of Mrs. Manhattan was an elderly man whom Eden did not remember to have seen before, and behind her stood Dugald Maule.

"Eden," whispered Mrs. Manhattan, "I want you to know Mr. Maule's uncle; he has been minister abroad you know;" and so saying, with a motion of her head, she designated the elderly man at her side. "He says," she added, "that you are the most appetizing thing he has seen."

At the brusqueness of the remark Eden started as from a sting. The old gentleman leaned forward.

"Don't be annoyed, my dear," he mumbled; "I was in love with your mother."

Then with an amiable commonplace the old beau bowed and moved back.

Maule bowed also, and presently, taking advantage of a recitative, he left Mrs. Manhattan and entered Eden's box. He seemed at home at once. He shook Mr. Usselex by the hand, saluted Miss Bolten and her mother, ignored Jones, and dislodging Arnswald, took his seat.

"The season promises well," he whispered confidentially to Eden.

Jones, who had not accorded the slightest attention to Maule, was discoursing in an animated fashion with Miss Bolten. On the stage in a canvas forest a man stood, open-mouthed, raising and lowering his right arm at regular intervals; and next to her Eden caught the motion of Mrs. Manhattan's fan.

"No," she heard Jones say, "I have every reason to doubt that Shakspere was the author of Hamlet. In the first place – "

"Ah!" murmured Miss Bolten. She did not appear particularly interested in Jones or in the man on the stage. She was occupied in scrutinizing the occupants of the different boxes. "And whom do you suspect?" she asked, her eyes foraging an opposite baignoire.

"Another man with the same name," Jones answered, and laughed a little to himself.

Eden tapped him on the sleeve. "Mr. Jones."

"Yes, Mrs. Usselex."

"Look in the orchestra, in the third row, the aisle seat on the left."

"Yes, Mrs. Usselex."