And then, seeing that the sober look was not to be expelled from his brother’s face, Oliver seated himself and crossed his legs, and proceeded to set forth the paradoxical philosophy of extravagance. His brother had come into a city of millionaires. There was a certain group of people—“the right set,” was Oliver’s term for them—and among them he would find that money was as free as air. So far as his career was concerned, he would find that there was nothing in all New York so costly as economy. If he did not live like a gentleman, he would find himself excluded from the circle of the elect—and how he would manage to exist then was a problem too difficult for his brother to face.
And so, as quickly as he could, he was to bring himself to a state of mind where things did not surprise him; where he did what others did and paid what others paid, and did it serenely, as if he had done it all his life. He would soon find his place; meantime all he had to do was to put himself into his brother’s charge. “You’ll find in time that I have the strings in my hands,” the latter added. “Just take life easy, and let me introduce you to the right people.”
All of which sounded very attractive. “But are you sure,” asked Montague, “that you understand what I’m here for? I don’t want to get into the Four Hundred, you know—I want to practise law.”
“In the first place,” replied Oliver, “don’t talk about the Four Hundred—it’s vulgar and silly; there’s no such thing. In the next place, you’re going to live in New York, and you want to know the right people. If you know them, you can practise law, or practise billiards, or practise anything else that you fancy. If you don’t know them, you might as well go practise in Dahomey, for all you can accomplish. You might come on here and start in for yourself, and in twenty years you wouldn’t get as far as you can get in two weeks, if you’ll let me attend to it.”
Montague was nearly five years his brother’s senior, and at home had taken a semi-paternal attitude toward him. Now, however, the situation seemed to have reversed itself. With a slight smile of amusement, he subsided, and proceeded to put himself into the attitude of a docile student of the mysteries of the Metropolis.
They agreed that they would say nothing about these matters to the others. Mrs. Montague was half blind, and would lead her placid, indoor existence with old Mammy Lucy. As for Alice, she was a woman, and would not trouble herself with economics; if fairy godmothers chose to shower gifts upon her, she would take them.
Alice was built to live in a palace, anyway, Oliver said. He had cried out with delight when he first saw her. She had been sixteen when he left, and tall and thin; now she was nineteen, and with the pale tints of the dawn in her hair and face. In the auto, Oliver had turned and, stared at her, and pronounced the cryptic judgment, “You’ll go!”
Just now she was wandering about the rooms, exclaiming with wonder. Everything here was so quiet and so harmonious that at first one’s suspicions were lulled. It was simplicity, but of a strange and perplexing kind—simplicity elaborately studied. It was luxury, but grown assured of itself, and gazing down upon itself with aristocratic disdain. And after a while this began to penetrate the vulgarest mind, and to fill it with awe; one cannot remain long in an apartment which is trimmed and furnished in rarest Circassian walnut, and “papered” with hand-embroidered silk cloth, without feeling some excitement—even though there be no one to mention that the furniture has cost eight thousand dollars per room, and that the wall covering has been imported from Paris at a cost of seventy dollars per yard.
Montague also betook himself to gazing about. He noted the great double windows, with sashes of bronze; the bronze fire-proof doors; the bronze electric candles and chandeliers, from which the room was flooded with a soft radiance at the touch of a button; the “duchesse” and “marquise” chairs, with upholstery matching the walls; the huge leather “slumber-couch,” with adjustable lamp at its head. When one opened the door of the dressing-room closet, it was automatically filled with light; there was an adjustable three-sided mirror, at which one could study his own figure from every side. There was a little bronze box near the bed, in which one might set his shoes, and with a locked door opening out into the hall, so that the floor-porter could get them without disturbing one. Each of the bath-rooms was the size of an ordinary man’s parlour, with floor and walls of snow-white marble, and a door composed of an imported plate-glass mirror. There was a great porcelain tub, with glass handles upon the wall by which you could help yourself out of it, and a shower-bath with linen duck curtains, which were changed every day; and a marble slab upon which you might lie to be rubbed by the masseur who would come at the touch of a button.
There was no end to the miracles of this establishment, as Montague found in the course of time. There was no chance that the antique bronze clock on the mantel might go wrong, for it was electrically controlled from the office. You did not open the window and let in the dust, for the room was automatically ventilated, and you turned a switch marked “hot” and “cold.” The office would furnish you a guide who would show you the establishment; and you might see your bread being kneaded by electricity, upon an opal glass table, and your eggs being tested by electric light; you might peer into huge refrigerators, ventilated by electric fans, and in which each tiny lamb chop reposed in a separate holder. Upon your own floor was a pantry, provided with hot and cold storage-rooms and an air-tight dumb-waiter; you might have your own private linen and crockery and plate, and your own family butler, if you wished. Your children, however, would not be permitted in the building, even though you were dying—this was a small concession which you made to a host who had invested a million dollars and a half in furniture alone.
A few minutes later the telephone bell rang, and Oliver answered it and said, “Send him up.”
“Here’s the tailor,” he remarked, as he hung up the receiver.
“Whose tailor?” asked his brother.
“Yours,” said he.
“Do I have to have some new clothes?” Montague asked.
“You haven’t any clothes at present,” was the reply.
Montague was standing in front of the “costumer,” as the elaborate mirror was termed. He looked himself over, and then he looked at his brother. Oliver’s clothing was a little like the Circassian walnut; at first you thought that it was simple, and even a trifle careless—it was only by degrees you realized that it was original and distinguished, and very expensive.
“Won’t your New York friends make allowance for the fact that I am fresh from the country?” asked Montague, quizzically.
“They might,” was the reply. “I know a hundred who would lend me money, if I asked them. But I don’t ask them.”
“Then how soon shall I be able to appear?” asked Montague, with visions of himself locked up in the room for a week or two.
“You are to have three suits to-morrow morning,” said Oliver. “Genet has promised.”
“Suits made to order?” gasped the other, in perplexity.
“He never heard of any other sort of suits,” said Oliver, with grave rebuke in his voice.
M. Genet had the presence of a Russian grand duke, and the manner of a court chamberlain. He brought a subordinate to take Montague’s measure, while he himself studied his colour-scheme. Montague gathered from the conversation that he was going to a house-party in the country the next morning, and that he would need a dress-suit, a hunting-suit, and a “morning coat.” The rest might wait until his return. The two discussed him and his various “points” as they might have discussed a horse; he possessed distinction, he learned, and a great deal could be done with him—with a little skill he might be made into a personality. His French was not in training, but he managed to make out that it was M. Genet’s opinion that the husbands of New York would tremble when he made his appearance among them.