"Go on, laugh away!" continued MacWhirter. "The whole thing, I tell you, is a fraud and a sham. Social ladders are only a few feet long, and the top round, after all, is not very far from the earth. When you climb up to that rung, if you are worth anything, you begin to get lonely for the other fellow, who couldn"t climb so high. If it wasn"t for our wood fire even our dear Lonnegan would freeze to death. He thinks he"s real mahogany, and so he sits round and helps furnish some swell"s drawing-room. But that"s only Lonny"s veneer; his heart"s all right underneath, and it"s solid hickory all the way through."
When the last of the guests had gone, followed by Chief and some of the habitues, only Boggs, Marny, Mac, and I remained. Our rooms were within a few steps of the fire and it mattered not how late we sat up. The mugs were refilled, pipes relighted, some extra sticks thrown on the andirons, and the chairs drawn closer. The fire responded bravely--the old logs were always willing to make a night of it. The best part of the evening was to come--that part when its incidents are talked over.
"Mac," said Marny, "you deride money, cla.s.s distinctions, ambition. What would you want most if you had your wish?"
"Not much."
"Well, let"s have it; out with it!" insisted Marny.
"What would I want? Why just what I"ve got. An easy chair, a pipe, a dog once in a while, some books, a wood fire, and you on the other side, old man," and he laid his hand affectionately on Marny"s shoulder.
"Anything more?" asked Boggs, who had been eying his friend closely.
"Yes; a picture that really satisfied me, instead of the truck I"m turning out."
"And you can think of nothing else?" asked Boggs, still keeping his eyes on Mac, his own face struggling with a suppressed smile.
"No--" Then catching the twinkle in Boggs"s eyes--"What?"
"A climbing millionnaire to buy it and a swell Murray Hill palace to hang it up in," laughed Boggs.
Mac smiled faintly and leaned forward in his chair, the glow of the fire lighting up his kindly face. For some minutes he did not move; then a half-smothered sigh escaped him.
Instantly there rose in my mind the figure of the girl in the steamer chair, the roses in her lap.
"Was there nothing more?" I asked myself.
PART VIII
_In Which Murphy and Lonnegan Introduce Some Mysterious Characters._
The Old Building was being treated to a sensation, the first of the winter, or rather the first of the spring, for the squatty j.a.panese bowl standing on top of Mac"s mantel was already filled with p.u.s.s.y-willows which the great man had himself picked on one of his strolls under the Palisades.
Strange things were going on downstairs. Outside on the street curb stood a darkey in white cotton gloves, in the main door stood another, the two connected by a red carpet laid across the sidewalk; at the end of the dingy corridor stood a third, and inside the room on the right a fourth and fifth--all in white gloves and all bowing like salaaming Hindoos to a throng of people in smart toilettes.
Woods was having a tea!
The portrait of Miss B. J.--in a leghorn hat and feathers, one hand on her chin, her pet dog in her lap--was finished, and the B. Js. were a.s.sisting Woods"s aunt and Woods in celebrating that historical event.
The function being an exclusive one, all the details were perfect: There were innumerable candles sputtering away in improvised holders of twisted iron, china, and dingy bra.s.s, the grease running down the sides of their various ornaments; there were burning joss sticks; loose heaps of bric-a-brac which looked as if they had been thrown pell-mell together, but which it had taken Woods hours to group; there were combinations of partly screened lights falling on pots of roses; easels draped in stuffs; screens hung with j.a.panese and Chinese robes; divans covered with rugs and nested with green and yellow cushions; and last, but by no means least, there was the counterfeit presentment of the young girl who held court on the divan surrounded by an admiring group of admirers; some of whom declared that the likeness was perfect; others that it did not do her justice, and still another--this time an art critic--who said under his breath that the dog was the only thing on the canvas that looked alive.
Upstairs, before his wood fire, sat MacWhirter, with only Marny and me to keep him company. He never went to teas; didn"t believe in mixing with society.
"Better shut the door, hadn"t I?" said Mac. "Those joss sticks of Woods"s smell like an opium joint," and he began shifting the screen.
"h.e.l.lo, Lonnegan, that you?"
"That"s me, Mac," answered the architect in a cheery tone. "Are you moving house?"
"No, trying to get my breath. Did you ever smell anything worse than that heathen punk Woods is burning?"
"You ought to get a whiff of it inside his studio," answered Lonnegan.
"Got every window tight shut, the room darkened, and jammed with people.
Came near getting my clothes torn off wedging myself in and out," he continued, readjusting his scarf, pulling up the collar of his Prince Albert coat, and tightening the gardenia in his b.u.t.ton-hole. "You"re going down, Mac, aren"t you?"
"No, going to stay right here; so is Marny and the Colonel."
"Woods won"t like it."
"Can"t help it. Woods ought to have better sense than to turn his studio upside down for a lot of people that don"t know a Velasquez from an "Old Oaken Bucket" chromo. Art is a religion, not a Punch and Judy show.
Whole thing is vulgar. Imagine Rembrandt showing his "Night Watch" for the first time to the rag-tag and bob-tail of Amsterdam, or t.i.tian making a night of it over his "Ascension." Sacrilege, I tell you, this mixing up of ice-cream and paint; makes a farce of a high calling and a mountebank of the artist! If we are put here for anything in this world it is to show our fellow-sinners something of the beauty we see and they can"t; not to turn clowns for their amus.e.m.e.nt."
Boggs and Murphy--the Irish journalist had long since become a full member--had entered and stood listening to Mac"s harangue.
"Land o" Moses! Whew!" burst out the Chronic Interrupter. "What"s the matter with you, Mac? You never were more mistaken in your life. You sit up here and roast yourself over the fire and you don"t know what"s going on outside. Woods is all right. He"s got his living to make and his studio rent to pay, and his old aunt is as strong as a three-year-old and may live to be ninety. If these people want ice-cream fed to them out of oil cups and want to eat it with palette knives, let "em do it.
That doesn"t make the picture any worse. You saw it. It"s a bully good portrait. Fifty times better looking than the girl and some ripping good things in it--shadow tones under the hat and the brush work on the gown are way up in G. Don"t you think so, Lonnegan?"
"Yes, best thing Woods has done; but Mac is partly right about the jam downstairs. Half of them didn"t know Woods when they came in. One woman asked me if I was he, and when I pointed him out, beaming away, she said, "What! that little bald-headed fellow with a red face? And is that the picture? Why, I am surprised!"
"Of course she was surprised," chimed in Mac. "What she expected to see was a six-legged goat or a cow with two tails."
Jack Stirling"s head was now thrust over the Chinese screen. Jack had been South for half the winter and his genial face was the signal for a prolonged shout of welcome.
"Yes, that"s me," Jack answered, "got home this morning; almighty glad to see you fellows! Mac, old man, you look more like John Gilbert grown young than ever; getting another chin on you. Lonny, shake, old fellow!
h.e.l.lo, Boggs! you"re fat enough to kill. Mr. Murphy, glad to see you; heard you had been given a chair by Mac"s fire. Oh, biggest joke on me, fellows, you ever heard. I stopped in at Woods"s tea-party a few minutes ago. Lord! what a jam! and hot! Well, Florida is a refrigerator to it.
Struck a pretty girl--French, I think--pretty as a picture; big hat, gown fitting like a glove, eyes, mouth, teeth--well! You remember Christine, don"t you, Mac?" and he winked meaningly at our host. "Same type, only a trifle stouter. She wanted to know how old one of Woods"s tapestries was, and where one of his embroideries came from, and I got her off on a divan and we were having a beautiful time when an old lady came up and called me off, and whispered in my ear that I ought to know that my charmer was her own dressmaker, who was looking up new costumes and----"
"Fine! Glorious!" shouted Mac. "That"s something like! That"s probably the only honest guest Woods has. I hope, Jack, you went right back to her and did your prettiest to entertain her."
"I tried to, but she had skipped. Give me a pipe, Mac. Lord, fellows, but it"s good to get back! You"ll find this a haven of rest, Mr.
Murphy," and Jack laid his hand on the Irishman"s knee.
"It"s the only place that fits my shoulders and warms my heart, anyhow,"
answered Murphy. "It"s good of you to let me in. You live so fast over here that a little cranny like this, where you can get out of the rush, is a G.o.dsend. Your adventure downstairs with the dressmaker, Mr.
Stirling, reminds me of what happened at one of our great London houses last winter, and which is still the social mystery of London."
Boggs waved his hand to command attention. His friend Murphy"s yarns were the hit of the winter. "Listen, Jack," he said in a lower tone, "they are all brand-new and he tells "em like a master. n.o.body can touch him. Draw up, Pitkin--" the sculptor had just come in from Woods"s tea.
"We have the same thing in England to fight against that you have here.
Our studios and private exhibitions are blocked up with people who are never invited. Hardest thing to keep them out. The incident I refer to occurred in one of those great London houses on Grosvenor Square, occupied that winter by Lord and Lady Arbuckle--a dingy, smoky, grime-covered old mansion, with a green-painted door, flower boxes in the windows, and a line of daisies and geraniums fringing the rail of the balcony above.
"There the Arbuckles gave a series of dinners or entertainments that were the talk of London, not for their magnificence so much as for the miscellaneous lot of people Lady Arbuckle would gather together in her drawing-rooms. If somebody from Vienna had discovered microbes in cherry jam, off went an invitation to the distinguished professor to dine or tea or be received and shaken hands with. Savants with big foreheads, hollow eyes, and shabby clothes; sunburned soldiers from the Soudan; fat composers from Leipsic; long-haired painters from Munich; Indian princes in silk pajamas and kohinoors, were all run to cover, caught, and let loose at the Arbuckle"s Thursdays in Lent, or had places under her mahogany. Old Arbuckle let it go on without a murmur. If Catherine liked that sort of thing, why that was the sort of thing that Catherine liked.
He would preside at the head of the table in his white choker and immaculate shirt front and do the honors of the house. Occasionally, when Parliament was not sitting, he would stroll through the drawing-rooms, shake hands with those he knew, and return the salaams or stares of those he did not.