"Me answer," replied the messenger calmly.
"Oh, you were told to bring back an answer?"
"Ya-as."
"Then give me your pencil, my infant Chesterfield." And West scribbled on the same yellow blank:
"Checks for you on your desks Monday. Congratulations. I"ll see you through, you damfools.
"WEST."
"Here"s a quarter for you," observed West, eying the messenger.
"T"anks. Gimme the note."
West glanced at the moist, fat poet; then suddenly that intuition which is bred in men of his stamp set him thinking. And presently he tentatively added two and two.
"Mr. Guilford," he said, "I wonder whether this note--and my answer to it--concerns you."
The poet used his handkerchief, adjusted a pair of gla.s.ses, and blinked at the penciled scrawl. Twice he read it; then, like the full sun breaking through a drizzle--like the glory of a search-light dissolving a sticky fog, _the_ smile of smiles illuminated everything: footmen, messenger, financier.
"Thank you," he said thickly; "thank you for your thought. Thought is but a trifle to bestow--a little thing in itself. But it is the little things that are most important--the smaller the thing the more vital its importance, until"--he added in a genuine burst of his old eloquence--"the thing becomes so small that it isn"t anything at all, and then the value of nothing becomes so enormous that it is past all computation. That is a very precious thought! Thank you for it; thank you for understanding. Bless you!"
Exuding a rich sweetness from every feature the poet moved toward the door at a slow fleshy waddle, head wagging, small eyes half closed, thumbing the atmosphere, while his lips moved in wordless self-communion: "The attainment of nothing at all--that is rarest, the most precious, the most priceless of triumphs--very, very precious.
So"--and his glance was sideways and nimbly intelligent--"so if nothing at all is of such inestimable value, those two young pups can live on their expectations--_quod erat demonstrandum_."
He shuddered and looked up at the facade of the gorgeous house which he had just quitted.
"So many sunny windows to sit in--to dream in. I--I should have found it agreeable. Pups!"
Crawling into his cab he sank into a pulpy mound, partially closing his eyes. And upon his pursed-up lips, unuttered yet imminent, a word trembled and wabbled as the cab bounced down the avenue. It may have been "precious"; it was probably "pups!"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
XI
[Ill.u.s.tration]
But there were further poignant emotions in store for the poet, for, as his cab swung out of the avenue and drew up before the great house on the southwest corner of Seventy-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, he caught a glimpse of his eldest daughter, Iole, vanishing into the house, and, at the same moment, he perceived his son-in-law, Mr. Wayne, paying the driver of a hansom-cab, while several liveried servants bore houseward the luggage of the wedding journey.
"George!" he cried dramatically, thrusting his head from the window of his own cab as that vehicle drew up with a jolt that made his stomach vibrate, "George! I am here!"
Wayne looked around, paid the hansom-driver, and, advancing slowly, offered his hand as the poet descended to the sidewalk. "How are you?"
he inquired without enthusiasm as the poet evinced a desire to paw him.
"All is well here, I hope."
"George! Son!" The poet gulped till his dewlap contracted. He laid a large plump hand on Wayne"s shoulders. "Where are my lambs?" he quavered; "where are they?"
"Which lambs?" inquired the young man uneasily. "If you mean Iole and Vanessa----"
"No! My ravished lambs! Give me my stolen lambs. Trifle no longer with a father"s affections! Lissa!--Cybele! Great Heavens! Where are they?" he sobbed hoa.r.s.ely.
"Well, _where_ are they?" retorted his son-in-law, horrified. "Come into the house; people in the street are looking."
In the broad hall the poet paused, staggered, strove to paw Wayne, then attempted to fold his arms in an att.i.tude of bitter scorn.
"Two penniless wastrels," he muttered, "are wedded to my lambs. But there are laws to invoke----"
An avalanche of pretty girls in pink pajamas came tumbling down the bronze and marble staircase, smothering poet and son-in-law in happy embraces; and "Oh, George!" they cried, "how sunburned you are! So is Iole, but she is too sweet! Did you have a perfectly lovely honeymoon?
When is Vanessa coming? And how is Mr. Briggs? And--oh, do you know the news? Cybele and Lissa married two such extremely attractive young men this afternoon----"
"Married!" cried Wayne, releasing Dione"s arms from his neck. "_Whom_ did they marry?"
"Pups!" sniveled the poet--"penniless, wastrel pups!"
"Their names," said Aphrodite coolly, from the top of the staircase, "are James Harrow and Henry Lethbridge. I wish there had been three----"
"Harrow! Lethbridge!" gasped Wayne. "When"--he turned helplessly to the poet--"when did they do this?"
Through the gay babble of voices and amid cries and interruptions, Wayne managed to comprehend the story. He tried to speak, but everybody except the poet laughed and chatted, and the poet, suffused now with a sort of sad sweetness, waved his hand in slow unctuous waves until even the footmen"s eyes protruded.
"It"s all right," said Wayne, raising his voice; "it"s topsyturvy and irregular, but it"s all right. I"ve known Harrow and Leth--For Heaven"s sake, Dione, don"t kiss me like that; I want to talk!--You"re hugging me too hard, Philodice. Oh, Lord! _will_ you stop chattering all together!
I--I--Do you want the house to be pinched?"
He glanced up at Aphrodite, who sat astride the banisters lighting a cigarette. "Who taught you to do that?" he cried.
"I"m sixteen, now," she said coolly, "and I thought I"d try it."
Her voice was drowned in the cries and laughter; Wayne, with his hands to his ears, stared up at the piquant figure in its pink pajamas and sandals, then his distracted gaze swept the groups of parlor maids and footmen around the doors: "Great guns!" he thundered, "this is the limit and they"ll pull the house! Morton!"--to a footman--"ring up 7--00--9B Murray Hill. My compliments and congratulations to Mr. Lethbridge and to Mr. Harrow, and say that we usually dine at eight! Philodice! stop that howling! Oh, just you wait until Iole has a talk with you all for running about the house half-dressed----"
"I _won"t_ wear straight fronts indoors, and my garters hurt!" cried Aphrodite defiantly, preparing to slide down the banisters.
"Help!" said Wayne faintly, looking from Dione to Chlorippe, from Chlorippe to Philodice, from Philodice to Aphrodite. "I won"t have my house turned into a confounded Art Nouveau music hall. I tell you----"
"Let _me_ tell them," said Iole, laughing and kissing her hand to the poet as she descended the stairs in her pretty bride"s traveling gown.
She checked Aphrodite, looked wisely around at her lovely sisters, then turned to remount the stairs, summoning them with a gay little confidential gesture.
And when the breathless crew had trooped after her, and the pad of little, eager, sandaled feet had died away on the thick rugs of the landing above, the poet, clasping his fat white hands, thumbs joined, across his rotund abdomen, stole a glance at his dazed son-in-law, which was partly apprehensive and partly significant, almost cunning. "An innocent saturnalia," he murmured. "The charming abandon of children."
He unclasped one hand and waved it. "Did you note the unstudied beauty of the composition as my babes glided in and out following the natural and archaic yet exquisitely balanced symmetry of the laws which govern ma.s.s and line composition, all unconsciously, yet perhaps"--he reversed his thumb and left his sign manual upon the atmosphere--"perhaps," he mused, overflowing with sweetness--"perhaps the laws of Art Nouveau are divine!--perhaps angels and cherubim, unseen, watch fondly o"er my babes, lest all unaware they guiltlessly violate some subtle canon of Art, marring the perfect symmetry of eternal preciousness."
Wayne"s mouth was partly open, his eyes hopeless yet fixed upon the poet with a fearful fascination.
"Art," breathed the poet, "is a solemn, a fearful responsibility. _You_ are responsible, George, and some day you must answer for every violation of Art, to the eternal outraged fitness of things. _You_ must answer, _I_ must answer, every soul must answer!"