CHAPTER III

MISTRESS OF HER HOUSE

But at just this moment there was a smart rap at the library door, it was partly opened, and a cheery masculine voice called out:—

"May I come in, mother?"

"You, Jack. You may," was the somewhat eager response from Mrs. De Peyster.

The door swung entirely open, Miss Gardner stepped out, and there entered a young man of twenty-two or three, good-natured confidence in his manner, flawlessly dressed, with hands that were swathed in bandages. He crossed limpingly to Mrs. De Peyster, who, her affection now under control, stood regarding him with reproving and sternly questioning eyes.

"Good-morning, mother,—glad to get back," he said, imprinting an undaunted kiss upon her stately cheek.

Her reply was a continuance of her reproving look. The young man turned to Mrs. De Peyster's faithful satellite.

"Hello, Olivetta. Hands out of commission. You'll have to shake my elbow." And he held out his angled arm.

"Good-morning, Jack," responded Olivetta, in trepidation, hardly daring to be gracious where Mrs. De Peyster had been cool.

Jack slipped an arm across Matilda's shoulders. "How are you, Matilda? Glad to see you again."

"And I'm glad to see you again, Mr. Jack," returned Matilda, with a look of stealthy affection.

"Please go, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster crisply. "And now, Jack," she continued with frigid dignity after Matilda had withdrawn, "I trust that you will explain your absence, and your long silence."

"Certainly, mother," said Jack, pushing a slip-covered chair before the fireplace—for an open wood fire burned here as in her sitting-room above—and letting himself down into the chair slowly and with extreme care and crossing his legs. "I got a sudden invitation from Reggie Atwater to—"

"You know I do not approve of that young scape-grace!"

"I know you don't. I suppose that's one reason I didn't tell you beforehand what I was up to."

"What have you been doing?"

"Reggie asked me to go on a long trip to try out his new car. It's a hummer. Hundred-and-twenty horse-power—bloody-eyed, fire-spitting devil—"

"Such cars are dangerous," severely commented Mrs. De Peyster, who still kept to her horses and carriage as better maintaining old-family distinction.

"I know. That's another reason I didn't tell you—especially since we were planning a thousand-mile lark."

"What's the matter with your hands?" suddenly demanded Mrs. De Peyster.

Jack gazed meditatively at the bandaged members.

"You were right about that car being dangerous, mother," said he. "I'll confess the whole business. We were whizzing around a corner coming into Yonkers this morning when the machine skidded. I did a loop-the-loop and lit on my hands. But the skin of my palms—"

"Oh!" shuddered Olivetta.

"Were you much hurt?" asked Mrs. De Peyster, for a moment forgetting her reproving manner in her affectionate concern.

"Mother, with your love for old lace, you certainly would like the openwork effect of my skin. But—the patient will recover."

"I trust this experience has been a lesson to you!" said Mrs. De Peyster with returned severity.

"Oh, it has—a big lesson!" Jack heartily agreed.

"Then I trust you will do nothing of the kind again."

"I trust I won't have to!"

There was rather an odd quality in Jack's tone.

"Won't have to? What do you mean?"

"You've questioned me a lot, mother. I'd like to put a few leading questions to you. And—u'm—alone. Olivetta," he remarked pleasantly, "do you know that Sherlock Holmes found it an instructive and valuable occupation to count the stair-steps in a house? Suppose you run out for five minutes and count 'em. I'll bet you a box of—"

Olivetta had risen, somewhat indignantly.

"I never eat candy!"

"A box of hairpins," continued Jack, clumsily picking up one from the floor, "that there aren't more than seventy-five."

"Oh, if you want me out of the way, all right!" said Olivetta, sticking the pin into place.

"Here, is that your purse?" asked Jack, fishing an open purse from beneath the chair Olivetta had just vacated.

"Yes, I'm always dropping it. I lost two—"

"I must say, Olivetta," put in Mrs. De Peyster reprovingly, "that you really must not be so careless!"

Jack was looking at a card that had fallen from the purse.

"Hello! And a ticket to the exhibition of paintings of—"

"Give it to me!" And Olivetta, with suddenly crimson face, snatched purse and card from Jack's hands. "I'll wait up in your bedroom, Caroline, and look at your new gowns." And with a rapidity that approached instantaneity she disappeared.

"Jack," his mother demanded suspiciously, "what was that card?"

"Just an old admission ticket to varnishing day at the spring exhibit of the American Society of Painters," said Jack easily. And without giving Mrs. De Peyster an instant in which to pursue the matter further, he awkwardly pushed her favorite chair toward the fire to a place beside his own. "Come sit down, mother. There's a lot of things I want to tell you."

Mrs. De Peyster lowered herself into the chair. "Yes?"

Jack's eyes had meditatively followed Olivetta. "Do you know, mother, that Olivetta would really be an awfully good sort if she only had the right chance?"

"The right chance?"

"Yes. Think of her living on and on in that deadly proper little hotel—chuck full of primped and crimped and proud poor relations who don't dare draw a single full-sized breath without first considering whether such a daring act might not disturb the social standing of somebody over on Fifth Avenue or down here on Washington Square—Oh, I say, mother, five more years of that life and Olivetta will be choked—dessicated—salted away—a regular forever-and-ever-amen old maid. But if—" He hesitated.

"Yes—if?"

"If Olivetta were only to marry some one—some decent fellow—she'd blossom out, grow as young as she actually is—and, who knows, perhaps even her hairpins might stay in."

"Marry, yes. But whom?"

"I've seen a few things—there's a certain party—and—" He stumbled a bit, conscious that he was becoming indiscreet. "And, oh, well, just on general principles marriage is a good thing."

"That is just the opinion I have been urging upon you in regard to yourself," returned his mother in her even, confident tone.

"U'm—yes," Jack said hastily. "But that was not—not the first thing I wanted to speak about."

"I believe you did say there were several matters."

"So there are." He rubbed his face tentatively with his bandaged hand; then smiled blandly at his mother. "Yes, there are a few."

"Well?"

"Well, first of all, mother, I want to make a kick."

She frowned. "How often must I request you not to use such common expressions!"

"All right, all right," said he. "Suppose I say, then, that I'm dissatisfied."

"Dissatisfied!" She straightened up. "Dissatisfied! What about? Do I not allow you all the money you want?"

"Yes."

"And have I not practically arranged a match between you and Ethel Quintard? Ethel will have three millions some day. And there is no better family to marry into; that is, except our own."

"Yes, yes,—I know."

"And yet you say you are dissatisfied!" She stared. "What more can you want?"

"Well, for one thing, to go to school," was Jack's amiable response.

"Go to school! Why—why, you've already had the best of educations! Exeter—Yale—not to speak of private tutors!"

"And what did I learn? That is," he added, "over and above being a fairly decent half-back and learning how to spend money—u'm—pretty thoroughly."

"I trust," said Mrs. De Peyster with all her dignity, "that you learned to be a gentleman!"

"Oh, I suppose I learned that all right," Jack acquiesced. "And I've been working hard at the profession ever since—sixteen to twenty hours a day, no half-holidays and no Sundays off. I can't stand it any longer. So I've decided to go on strike."

"Strike?" exclaimed his mother, bewildered.

"Yes. For better conditions. I'm tired loafing such long hours. I'd like a little leisure in which to work."

"Work!" repeated his mother—and human voice could hardly express amazement greater than did hers. "Work! Jack—you're not in earnest?"

He held upon her a clear-eyed, humorous, but resolute face.

"Don't I look in earnest?"

He did; and his mother could only dazedly repeat, "Work! You go to work!"

"Oh, not at once. No, thank you! I want to ask you to give me a little proper education first that will equip me to do something. You've spent—how much have you spent on my education, mother? Tens and tens of thousands, I know. Pretty big investment, on the whole. Now, how large returns do you suppose I can draw on that investment?"

"I was not thinking about dividends; I was thinking about fitting you for your station," returned his mother stiffly.

"Well, as for me, I've been thinking of late about how much I could get out of that investment. I've wanted to test myself and find what I was worth—as a worker." He leaned a little closer. "I say, mother," he said confidentially, "you remember that little explanation I just gave you of my absence."

"About your trip in that high-powered automobile?"

"That was just a high-powered fib. Just a bit of diplomatic romance—for Olivetta's consumption."

"Then where have you been?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.

"Prospecting. Prospecting to find out just how much that hundred thousand or two or three you've sunk in me is worth. And I've found out. It's present value is not quite nine a week."

"You mean?"

"I mean," he said pleasantly, "I've been at work."

"At work!"

Mrs. De Peyster slowly rose and looked down at him with staring, loose-fallen face.

"At work!" she gasped again. "At work!"

"Yes, mother. At work."

"But—but that skidding automobile? Those hands?"

"Blisters, mother dear. Most horrible blisters."

"You've worked—you've worked—at what?"

"Well, you see, mother, if I could have knocked out a home run, say a job as a railroad president, when I stepped up to the plate in the first inning, I suppose I wouldn't have backed away from the chance. But I wanted to find my real value, so I wore cheap clothes and kept clear of my friends. 'What could I do?' every one asked me. You know my answer. And their answer! I thought only sub-way guards could say, 'Step lively,' like that. Lordy, how I tramped! But finally I met a kind gentleman who gave me a chance."

"A gentleman?"

"About the size of your piano—only he had a red mustache and a red shirt and I should say his complexion needed re-decorating. Irish—foreman on a water-main trench."

"And you—you took it?"

"Took it? I grabbed it!"

"J—a—c—k D—e P—e—y—s—t—e—r!" his appalled mother slowly exclaimed—so slowly that each letter seemed to shiver out by itself in horrified disjunction. "Well, at any rate," she declared with returning vigor, "I'm glad you have had enough of it to bring you to your senses and bring you home!"

"Oh, I've had enough all right. My cubic contents of ache is—well, you wouldn't believe a man of my size could hold so much discomfort. But that isn't the only thing that brought me home. It was—er—I might say, mother, that it was suggested to me."

"Suggested? I do not understand."

"If you will permit the use of so inelegant an expression, I was 'fired.'"

"Fired?"

"Yes. The foreman intimated—I won't repeat his language, mother, but the muscles stood out on his profanity in regular knots—he intimated, in a way that left no doubt as to his meaning, that I was not quite up to the nine per week standard. I'll be honest with you and admit that I didn't lean against the pay-shed and weep. I still wanted to work, but I decided that I didn't want to start life at its pick-and-shovel end—if I could help it. So here I am, mother, asking you to give me a little real education—say as a mining engineer, or something like that."

Mrs. De Peyster was trembling with indignation.

"J—a—c—k D—e P—e—y—s—t—e—r!" again a letter at a time. "J—a—c—k D—e P—e—y—s—t—e—r! I'm astounded at you!"

"I thought you might be—a little," he admitted.

"I think you might have some consideration for me! And my position!"

"I suppose it is rather selfish of me to want to earn my own living. But you don't know what dreary hard work being a gentleman becomes."

"I won't have it!" cried Mrs. De Peyster wrathfully. "This is what comes of your attending that Intercollegiate Socialist thing in college! I protested to the president against the college harboring such unsettling influences, and urged him to put it out."

"Well, dear old prexy did his best to comply."

"It's that Socialist thing! As for what you propose, I simply will not have it!"

"No? I could have started in up at Columbia, and kept it from you. But I wanted to be all on the level—"

"I won't have it!"

"You really mean that you are not going to add a few thousand more to my hundred thousands' worth of education?"

"I certainly shall not!"

"Then," said Jack regretfully, "I suppose after all I've got to start in at the pick-and-shovel end."

"No, you will not! I have reared you to be a gentleman! And you are going to be a gentleman!"

"Well, if that's the way you feel about it," he sighed, "we'll drop the matter—temporarily."

"We'll drop it permanently!" said Mrs. De Peyster decisively. "Besides, all this talk is utterly footless. You seem to forget that you are sailing with me to Europe to-morrow."

"That brings me to the second point. I was hoping," Jack said mildly, "that you would consent to take my regrets to Europe. Don't you think Europe might be willing to overlook my negligence—just this once?"

"Jack—I can't endure your facetiousness!"

"I'm not facetious, mother dear. I'm most confoundedly and consummately serious. I really want you to let me off on this Europe business. Won't you—there's a dear?"

"No!"

"No?"

"Why, your passage is paid for, and my plans—You know Ethel Quintard and her mother are sailing on the same boat. No, most certainly I shall not let you off!"

"Well, if that's the way you feel about it," he sighed again, "perhaps we'd better drop this matter also—temporarily."

"This matter we'll also drop permanently," his mother said, again with her calm, incontrovertible emphasis.

"Well, that brings us to the third point." He drew a copy of the "Record" from his pocket and pointed to a paragraph. "Mother, this is the second time my engagement to Ethel Quintard has been in print. I must say that I don't think it's nice of Ethel and Mrs. Quintard to let those rumors stand. I would deny them myself, only it seems rather a raw thing for a fellow to do. Mother, you must deny them."

"Jack, this marriage is bound to come!"

"Mother, you are simply hypnotizing yourself into the belief that I am going to marry Ethel Quintard. When"—he painfully recrossed his legs, and smiled pleasantly at his mother—"when, as a matter of fact, what I have been trying to lead up to is to tell you that I shall never lead Ethel's three millions to the altar."

"What's that?"

"It's all off."

"Off?"

Jack slowly nodded his head. "Yes, all off."

"And why, if you please?"

"Oh, for several reasons," he returned mildly. "But one of the reasons is, that I happen to be engaged to someone else."

"Engaged!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster, falling back. "And without my knowing it! Who is she?"

"Mary Morgan."

"Mary Morgan! I never heard of her. Who's her father?"

"First name Henry, I believe."

"I don't mean his name. But who is he—what's his family—his financial affiliations?"

"Oh, I see. Mary told me he runs a shoe store up in Buffalo."

"A shoe store! A shoe store!"

"Or perhaps," Jack corrected, "it was a grocery. I'm not certain."

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "Oh! And—and this—this—Mary person—"

"She plays the piano, and is going to be a professional."

For a moment Mrs. De Peyster's horror was inarticulate. Then it began to regain its power of speech.

"What—you throw away—Ethel Quintard—for a little pianist! You compare a girl like—like that—to Ethel Quintard!"

"Compare them? Not for one little minute, mother, dear! For Mary has brains and—"

"Stop!" exploded Mrs. De Peyster, in majestic rage. "Young man, have you considered the social disgrace you are plunging us all into? But—but surely you cannot be in earnest!"

He looked imperturbably up into her face. "Not in earnest, mother? I'm as earnest as a preacher on Sunday."

"Then—then—"

She choked with her words. Before she could get them out, Jack was on his feet and had an arm around her shoulders.

"Come, mother, don't be angry—please!" he cried with warm boyish eagerness. "Before you say another word, let me bring Mary to see you. I can get her here before you go on board. The sight of her will show you how right I am. She is the dearest, sweetest—"

"Stop!" She caught his arm. "I shall not see this—this Mary person!"

"No?"

She was the perfect figure of wrath and pride and confident power of domination. "I shall never see her! Never! And what is more," she continued, with the energy of one who believes her will to be equivalent to the accomplished fact, "you are going to give up, yes, and entirely forget, all those foolish things you have just been speaking of!"

He gazed squarely back into her flashing eyes. His face had tightened, and at that moment there was a remarkable likeness between the two faces, usually so dissimilar.

"Pardon me, mother; you are mistaken," he said quietly. "I am going to give up nothing."

"What, you defy me?" she gasped.

"I am not defying you. I tried to tell you in as pleasant a way as I could what my plans are. But everything I said, I am going to do."

"Then—then—" At first the words would not come forth; she stood trembling, clutching the back of her chair. "Then I beg to inform you," she was saying thickly in her outraged majesty, when Matilda opened the hall door and ushered in an erect, slender man of youngish middle age and with graying hair and dark mustache, and with a pleasant, distinguished face.

"I beg pardon; I fear I come inopportunely," he said, as he sighted Mrs. De Peyster's militant attitude. "But I was told to come right up. I'll just wait—"

"Do not go, Judge Harvey," Mrs. De Peyster commanded, as he started to withdraw. "On the other hand, your arrival is most opportune. Please come here."

"Good-morning, Uncle Bob," Jack said cheerfully. "Excuse me for not shaking hands. Just a little automobile accident."

"Jack, you home!" cried the Judge. "My boy, but you have given us all a scare!" And then in affectionate concern, noticing his hands: "Nothing serious, I hope?"

"Nothing serious about the accident," said Jack, glancing at his mother.

Mrs. De Peyster glared at her son, then crossed to the safe, larger and more formidable than the one above from which she had been removing her jewels, took out a document and returned to the two men. She had something of the ominous air of a tragedy queen who is foreshadowing an approaching climax.

"Judge Harvey, I do not care to go into explanations," said she. "But I desire to give you an order and to have you be a witness to my act."

"Of course, I am at your service, Caroline."

"In the first place," she said, striving to speak calmly, "I beg to request my son to move such of his things as he may wish out of this house—and within the hour."

"Certainly, mother," Jack said pleasantly.

"And to you, Judge Harvey,—I wish my son's allowance, which is paid through your office, to be discontinued from this moment."

"Why—of course—just as you say," said the astonished Judge. "But perhaps if the case were—"

"This paper is my will," interrupted Mrs. De Peyster, holding up the document she had taken from the safe. "As my man of affairs, I believe you are acquainted with its contents."

"I am."

"It gives the bulk of my fortune to my son here."

"Why, yes," admitted the Judge with increasing bewilderment.

"His share amounts to two millions, or thereabouts."

"Thereabouts."

Mrs. De Peyster took two rustling, majestic steps toward her fireplace. "Until my son gives me very definite assurance that his conduct will be more suitable to me and my position, he is no longer my son." And so saying she tossed the will upon the fire. She allowed a moment of effective silence to elapse. "That is all, Jack. You are excused."

Jack stood and watched the flaming will flicker down to a glowing ash. One bandaged hand slowly smoothed his blond hair.

"Gee! I've seen people burning up money, and I've burnt up quite a bit myself, but I never saw two millions go as quick! Well, mother," he sighed, shaking his head, "I never suspected I'd end in such a little blaze. With such a pile I could have made a bigger bonfire than that."