"I don"t know," said Alice, "but I think that Victoria Landis is a horrible woman. I know she herself does exactly as she pleases. And she tells such shocking stories--"
Montague said nothing.
"Tell me," asked the other, after a pause, "because you"ve given up Lucy"s business affairs, are we to have nothing to do with her at all?"
"I don"t know," he answered. "I don"t imagine she will care to see me. I have told her about the mistake she"s making, and she chooses to go her own way. So what more can I do?"
That evening Montague found himself settled on a sofa next to Mrs.
Billy Alden. "What"s this I hear about your friend, Mrs. Taylor?"
she asked.
"I don"t know," said he, abruptly.
"The fascinating widow seems to be throwing herself away," continued the other.
"What makes you say that?" he asked.
"Vivie Patton told me," said she. "She"s an old flame of Stanley Ryder"s, you know; and so I imagine it came directly from him."
Montague was dumb; he could think of nothing to say.
"It"s too bad," said Mrs. Billy. "She is really a charming creature.
And it will hurt her, you know--she is a stranger, and it"s a trifle too sudden. Is that the Mississippi way?"
Montague forced himself to say, "Lucy is her own mistress." But his feeble impulse toward conversation was checked by Mrs. Billy"s prompt response, "Vivie said she was Stanley Ryder"s."
"I understand how you feel," continued the great lady, after a pause. "Everybody will be talking about it.--Your friend Reggie Mann heard what Vivie said, and he will see to that."
"Reggie Mann is no friend of mine," said Montague, abruptly.
There was a pause. "How in the world do you stand that man?" he asked, by way of changing the conversation.
"Oh, Reggie fills his place," was the reply. And Mrs. Billy gazed about the room. "You see all these women?" she said. "Take them in the morning and put half a dozen of them together in one room; they all hate each other like poison, and there are no men around, and there is nothing to do; and how are you to keep them from quarrelling?"
"Is that Reggie"s role?" asked the other.
"Precisely. He sees a spark fly, and he jumps up and cracks a joke.
It doesn"t make any difference what he does--I"ve known him to crow like a rooster, or stumble over his own feet--anything to raise a laugh."
"Aren"t you afraid these epigrams may reach your victim?" asked Montague, with a smile.
"That is what they are intended to do," was the reply.
"I judge you have not many enemies," added Mrs. Billy, after a pause.
"No especial ones," said he.
"Well," said she, "you should cultivate some. Enemies are the spice of life. I mean it, really," she declared, as she saw him smile.
"I had never thought of it," said he.
"Have you never known what it is to get into a really good fight?
You see, you are conventional, and you don"t like to acknowledge it.
But what is there that wakes one up more than a good, vigorous hatred? Some day you will realise it--the chief zest in life is to go after somebody who hates you, and to get him down and see him squirm."
"But suppose he gets you down?" interposed Montague.
"Ah!" said she, "you mustn"t let him! That is what you go into the fight for. Get after him, and do him first."
"It sounds rather barbarous," said he.
"On the contrary," was the answer, "it"s the highest reach of civilisation. That is what Society is for--the cultivation of the art of hatred. It is the survival of the fittest in a new realm. You study your victim, you find out his weaknesses and his foibles, and you know just where to plant your sting. You learn what he wants, and you take it away from him. You choose your allies carefully, and you surround him and overwhelm him; then when you get through with him, you go after another."
And Mrs. Billy glanced about her at the exquisite a.s.semblage in Mrs.
Devon"s Louis Seize drawing-room. "What do you suppose these people are here for to-night?" she asked.
CHAPTER IX
A weekor two had pa.s.sed, when one day Oliver called his brother on the "phone. "Have you or Alice any engagement this evening?" he asked. "I want to bring a friend around to dinner."
"Who is it?" inquired Montague.
"n.o.body you have heard of," said Oliver. "But I want you to meet him. You will think he"s rather queer, but I will explain to you afterwards. Tell Alice to take my word for him."
Montague delivered the message, and at seven o"clock they went downstairs. In the reception room they met Oliver and his friend, and it was all that Montague could do to repress a look of consternation.
The name of the personage was Mr. Gamble. He was a little man, a trifle over five feet high, and so fat that one wondered how he could get about alone; his chin and neck were a series of rolls of fat. His face was round like a full moon, and out of it looked two little eyes like those of a pig. It was only after studying them for a while that one discovered that they twinkled shrewdly.
Mr. Gamble was altogether the vulgarest-looking personage that Alice Montague had ever met. He put out a fat little hand to her, and she touched it gingerly, and then gazed at Oliver and his brother in helpless dismay.
"Good evening. Good evening," he began volubly. "I am charmed to meet you. Mr. Montague, I have heard so much about you from your brother that I feel as if we were old friends."
There was a moment"s pause. "Shall we go into the dining-room?"
asked Montague.
He did not much relish the stares which would follow them, but he could see no way out of the difficulty. They went into the room and seated themselves, Montague wondering in a flash whether Mr.
Gamble"s arms would be long enough to reach to the table in front of him.
"A warm evening," he said, puffing slightly. "I have been on the train all day."
"Mr. Gamble comes from Pittsburg," interposed Oliver.