Montague towered over his brother, white-hot and terrible. Oliver shrank from him—he never had seen such a burst of wrath from him before. “Do you understand me now?” Montague cried; and he answered, in a despairing voice, “Yes, yes.”
“I see it’s all up,” he added weakly. “You and I can’t pull together.”
“No,” exclaimed the other, passionately, “we can’t. And we might as well give up trying. You have chosen to be a time-server and a lick-spittle, and I don’t choose it! Do you think I’ve learned nothing in the time I’ve been here? Why, man, you used to be daring and clever—and now you never draw a breath without wondering if these rich snobs will like the way you do it! And you want Alice to sell herself to them—you want me to sell my career to them!”
There was a long pause. Oliver had turned very pale. And then suddenly his brother caught himself together, and said: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to quarrel, but you’ve goaded me too much. I’m grateful for what you have tried to do for me, and I’ll pay you back as soon as I can. But I can’t go on with this game. I’ll quit, and you can disown me to your friends—tell them that I’ve run amuck, and to forget they ever knew me. They’ll hardly blame you for it—they know you too well for that. And as for Alice, I’ll talk it out with her to-morrow, and let her decide for herself—if she wants to be a Society queen, she can put herself in your hands, and I’ll get out of her way. On the other hand, if she approves of what I’m doing, why we’ll both quit, and you won’t have to bother with either of us.”
That was the basis upon which they parted for the night; but like most resolutions taken at white heat, it was not followed literally. It was very hard for Montague to have to confront Alice with such a choice; and as for Oliver, when he went home and thought it over, he began to discover gleams of hope. He might make it clear to every one that he was not responsible for his brother’s business vagaries, and take his chances upon that basis. After all, there were wheels within wheels in Society; and if the Robbie Wallings chose to break with him—why, they had plenty of enemies. There might even be interests which would be benefited by Allan’s course, and would take him up.
Montague had resolved to write and break every engagement which he had made, and to sever his connection with Society at one stroke. But the next day his brother came again, with compromises and new protestations. There was no use going to the other extreme: he, Oliver, would have it out with the Wallings, and they might all go on their way as if nothing had happened.
So Montague made his début in the rôle of knight-errant. He went with many qualms and misgivings, uncertain how each new person would take it. The next evening he was promised for a theatre-party with Siegfried Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at Delmonico’s, and there came Mrs. Winnie, resplendent as an apple tree in early April—and murmuring with bated breath, “Oh, you dreadful man, what have you been doing?”
“Have I been poaching on YOUR preserves?” he asked promptly.
“No, not mine,” she said, “but—” and then she hesitated.
“On Mr. Duval’s?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “not his—but everybody else’s! He was telling me about it to-day—there’s a most dreadful uproar. He wanted me to try to find out what you were up to, and who was behind it.”
Montague listened, wonderingly. Did Mrs. Winnie mean to imply that her husband had asked her to try to worm his business secrets out of him? That was what she seemed to imply. “I told him I never talked business with my friends,” she said. “He can ask you himself, if he chooses. But what DOES it all mean, anyhow?”
Montague smiled at the naive inconsistency.
“It means nothing,” said he, “except that I am trying to get justice for a client.”
“But can you afford to make so many powerful enemies?” she asked.
“I’ve taken my chances on that,” he replied.
Mrs. Winnie answered nothing, but looked at him with wondering admiration in her eyes. “You arc different from the men about you,” she remarked, after a while-and her tone gave Montague to understand that there was one person who meant to stand by him.
But Mrs. Winnie Duval was not all Society. Montague was amused to notice with what suddenness the stream of invitations slacked up; it was necessary for Alice to give her calling list many revisions. Freddie Vandam had promised to invite them to his place on Long Island, and of course that invitation would never come; likewise they would never again see the palace of the Lester Todds, upon the Jersey mountain-top.
Oliver put in the next few days in calling upon people to explain his embarrassing situation. He washed his hands of his brother’s affairs, he said; and his friends might do the same, if they saw fit. With the Robbie Wallings he had a stormy half hour, about which he thought it best to say little to the rest of the family. Robbie did not break with him utterly, because of their Wall Street Alliance; but Mrs. Robbie’s feeling was so bitter, he said, that it would be best if Alice saw nothing of her for a while. He had a long talk with Alice, and explained the situation. The girl was utterly dumbfounded, for she was deeply grateful to Mrs. Robbie, and fond of her as well; and she could not believe that a friend could be so cruelly unjust to her.
The upshot of the whole situation was a very painful episode. A few days later Alice met Mrs. Robbie at a reception; and she took the lady aside, and tried to tell her how distressed and helpless she was. And the result was that Mrs. Robbie flew into a passion and railed at her, declaring in the presence of several people that she had sponged upon her and abused her hospitality! And so poor Alice came home, weeping and half hysterical.
All of which, of course, was like oil upon a fire; the heavens were lighted up with the conflagration. The next development was a paragraph in Society’s scandal-sheet—telling with infinite gusto how a certain ultra-fashionable matron had taken up a family of stranded waifs from a far State, and introduced them into the best circles, and even gone so far as to give a magnificent dance in their honour; and how the discovery had been made that the head of the family had been secretly preparing an attack upon their business interests; and of the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth which had followed—and the violent quarrel in a public place. The paragraph concluded with the prediction that the strangers would find themselves the centre of a merry social war.
Oliver was the first to show them this paper. But lest by any chance they should miss it, half a dozen unknown friends were good enough to mail them copies, carefully marked.—And then came Reggie Mann, who as free-lance and gossip-gatherer sat on the fence and watched the fun; Reggie wore a thin veil of sympathy over his naked glee, and brought them the latest reports from all portions of the battle-ground. Thus they were able to know exactly what everybody was saying about them—who was amused and who was outraged, and who proposed to drop them and who to take them up.
Montague listened for a while, but then he got tired of it, and went for a walk to escape it—but only to run into another trap. It was dark, and he was strolling down the Avenue, when out of a brilliantly lighted jewellery shop came Mrs. Billy Alden to her carriage. And she hailed him with an exclamation.