Forbes spoke. "Sha"n"t we stroll back to the club-house? I"m expected there for luncheon."
"By all means," said Tait. "And I want you to meet Mildred again."
"I"d love to," said Forbes, absently. He said nothing more, but strode on so rapidly down the steep slope that Tait had to take his arm for support and to hold him back.
"You"re visiting at the Enslees", Mrs. Neff tells me," the old man panted.
"Yes."
"Excuse my fatherly familiarity, but how can you afford to gad with those wild a.s.ses?"
"I can"t."
"What"s her name?" Tait laughed.
"I may be able to tell you later, and I may not."
"Well, my boy, I don"t know who she is, but I bet she isn"t worth it--not if she trails with the Enslee pack."
"Oh, but she is beautiful--she is wonderful."
"You must be hit d.a.m.ned hard."
"Am."
And then, not heeding the connotation, he exclaimed, as Persis emerged from the eclipsing shrubbery:
"There"s only one woman can ride like that."
Tait stared again, and now he made her out. Instantly, with the exultance one feels over a secret some one else lets slip, he cried: "Oho, my boy, that"s the woman who keeps you here! Mrs. Neff hinted at it, but I wouldn"t believe it till I had it from you." His gloating sank again to fatherly solicitude as he pleaded earnestly: "For G.o.d"s sake, boy, don"t love her! Of all women don"t love Persis Cabot! She"s the most heartless of them all."
Forbes was tempted to ask him how he could accept a reputation as a proof of character, but he was still calm enough to pay Tait"s white hair the homage of silence. Tait, feeling the import of his silence, grew uneasy, and demanded:
"Harvey, it"s not possible that you love her--actually love her?"
"Is it possible not to?"
"But you"ve not known her long."
"No, but I"ve known her well. Do you know her?"
"Yes, and I knew her mother. Once I thought I loved her mother. But I had less money--when I proposed to her than I have now--Heaven be praised!"
"Heaven be praised?"
"Yes, for she might have married me. Harvey, a certain part of the society here is like a big aquarium. The people are all fish--the men goldfish, the women catfish. Their blood is cold--Lord, how cold! Just look at their eyes! Hard eyes, hard hearts. They despise sincerity; they laugh at honest emotion."
"But Persis has soft eyes," Forbes broke in, "and a warm heart."
"Has she?" Tait sighed, feeling that the siren had already sung Forbes"
wits away. "Well, maybe, in the moonlight. But she"ll soon freeze. Now, if she had been born poor--"
"But, Senator, the rich can"t all be bad," Forbes complained.
"The rich are no worse than anybody else as a cla.s.s," said Tait. "My father and mother were rich, and they were as good and sweet and simple as any poor people that ever lived. They were like Romeo and Juliet. The Montagues and Capulets were both rich. But if young Mr. Montague had been poor we might have had a different story. Or, if you had only gone into finance."
"It"s too late for me to dream of money. I"m a soldier."
"And it"s too late for you to dream of Persis Cabot, not merely because she"s wealthy. One cla.s.s is as good as another; it"s the set that counts. And she gallops with the rich runaways. Their life is one long stampede. There are rich women who toil like slaves for the poor, who lead lives of earnestness and purity, who respond to every appeal, and make organized charity possible. But there are others, rich and poor, that never think of anybody but themselves, never have real pity except for themselves, never toil or fret except for their own amus.e.m.e.nt. And those people gravitate together into colonies and cliques. Don"t run with that pack, Harvey."
He was not the first man of eld that had warned youth against beauty.
Nor was he the last that shall fail to be heeded. He tried another tack.
"I understand that Willie Enslee expects to marry her."
"She doesn"t expect to marry him."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, I have my reasons for believing that she doesn"t love him."
"n.o.body ever accused her of that, but--well, does she think what Mrs.
Neff thinks--that you have money?"
Forbes did not answer except with a blush. The Senator spared him any pressure on that point. He said, simply:
"Enslee has a lot of money--more than her father has. In fact, her father is in a very bad plight."
"How do you know?"
"I am about six bank directors, Harvey, and a few other things. Her father is about to be forced into involuntary bankruptcy; her father"s pet railroad may go into receiver"s hands to-day or to-morrow."
"Poor Persis!" Forbes groaned. "Poor Persis!"
There was such anguish in his tone that the Senator gripped his arm hard and murmured:
"Do you care so much for her?"
Forbes stopped short and stared into the old man"s eyes. "A man like me loves once, and loves hard. If I lost her, my life wouldn"t be worth the snap of my finger." And he added in a raucous voice, "Or the click of a trigger."
The Senator leaned heavily on him and closed his eyes in a wince of pain. He had heard his own dead son speak just that way.
When he opened his eyes he saw that Forbes was smiling glowingly.
"Look at her, Senator! She"s so beautiful! I can"t let Enslee have her!
Look at him! He"s as afraid of his horse as his horse is ashamed of him.
What"s he up to now? Rein him in, you fool! He"d drive a hobbyhorse into hysterics. And now he"s sent Persis" horse in the air! What"s the matter with him? Why doesn"t he--"