CHAPTER XIV
PIERCE DISAPPROVES
Mrs. Hutchins came out to the spring-house the next morning. She was
dressed in a black silk with real lace collar and cuffs, and she was so
puffed up with pride that she forgot to be nasty to me.
"I thought I'd better come to you, Minnie," she said. "There seems to be
nobody in authority here any more. Mr. Carter has put the—has put Mr.
von Inwald in the north wing. I can not imagine why he should have given
him the coldest and most disagreeable part of the house."
I said I'd speak to Mr. Carter and try to have him moved, and she
rustled over to where I was brushing the hearth and stooped down.
"Mr. von Inwald is incognito, of course," she said, "but he belongs to a
very old family in his own country—a noble family. He ought to have the
best there is in the house."
I promised that, too, and she went away, but I made up my mind to talk
to Mr. Pierce. The sanatorium business isn't one where you can put your
own likes and dislikes against the comfort of the guests.
Miss Cobb came out a few minutes after; she had on her new green silk
with the white lace trimming. She saw me staring as she threw off her
cape and put her curler on the log.
"It's a little dressy for so early, of course, Minnie," she said, "but
I wish you'd see some of the other women! Breakfast looked like an
afternoon reception. What would you think of pinning this black velvet
ribbon around my head?"
"It might have done twenty years ago, Miss Cobb," I answered, "but I
wouldn't advise it now." I was working at the slot-machine, and I heard
her sniff behind me as she hung up her mirror on the window-frame.
She tried the curler on the curtain, which she knows I object to, but
she was too full of her subject to be sulky for long.
"I wish you could see Blanche Moody!" she began again, standing holding
the curler, with a thin wreath of smoke making a halo over her head.
"Drawn in—my dear, I don't see how she can breathe! I guess there's no
doubt about Mr. von Inwald."
"I'd like to know who put this beer check in the slot-machine
yesterday," I said as indifferently as I could. "What about Mr. von
Inwald?"
She tiptoed over to me, the halo trailing after her.
"About his being a messenger from the prince to Miss Jennings!" she
answered in a whisper. "He spent last night closeted with papa, and
the chambermaid on that floor told Lily Biggs that there was almost a
quarrel."
"That doesn't mean anything," I objected. "If the Angel Gabriel was shut
in with Mr. Jennings for ten minutes he'd be blowing his trumpet for
help."
Miss Cobb shrugged her shoulders and took hold of a fresh wisp of hair
with the curler.
"I dare say," she assented, "but the Angel Gabriel wouldn't have
waited to breakfast with Miss Jennings, and have kissed her hand before
everybody at the foot of the stairs!"
"Is he handsome?" I asked, curious to know how he would impress other
women. But Miss Cobb had never seen a man she would call ugly.
"Handsome!" she said. "My dear, he's beautiful! He has a duel scar on
his left cheek—all the nobility have them over there. I've a cousin
living in Berlin—she's the wittiest person—and she says the German
child of the future will be born with a scarred left cheek!"
Well, I was sick enough of hearing of Mr. von Inwald before the day was
over. All morning in the spring-house they talked Mr. von Inwald. They
pretended to play cards, but they were really playing European royalty.
Every time somebody laid down a queen, he'd say, "Is the queen still
living, or didn't she die a few years ago?" And when they played the
knave, they'd start off about the prince again. They'd all decided that
Mr. von Inwald was noble—somebody said that the "von" was a sort of
title. The women were planning to make the evenings more cheerful, too.
They couldn't have a dance with the men using canes or forbidden to
exercise, but Miss Cobb had a lot of what she called "parlor games" that
she wanted to try out. "Introducing the Jones family" was one of them.
In the afternoon Mr. von Inwald came out to the spring-house and sat
around, very affable and friendly, drinking the water. He and the bishop
grew quite chummy. Miss Patty was not there, but about four o'clock Mr.
Pierce came out. He did not sit down, but wandered around the room, not
talking to anybody, but staring, whenever he could, at the prince. Once
I caught Mr. von Inwald's eyes fixed on him, as if he might have seen
him before. After a while Mr. Pierce sat down in a corner like a sulky
child and filled his pipe, and as nobody noticed him except to complain
about the pipe, which he didn't even hear, he sat there for a half-hour,
bent forward, with his pipe clenched in his teeth, and never took his
eyes off Mr. von Inwald's face.
Senator Biggs was the one who really caused the trouble. He spent a good
deal of time in the spring-house trying to fool his stomach by keeping
it filled up all the time with water. He had got past the cranky stage,
being too weak for it; his face was folded up in wrinkles like an
accordion and his double chin was so flabby you could have tucked it
away inside his collar.
"What do you think of American women, Mr. von Inwald?" he asked, and
everybody stopped playing cards and listened for the answer. As Mr.
von Inwald represented the prince, wouldn't he be likely to voice the
prince's opinion of American women?
It's my belief Mr. von Inwald was going to say something nice. He
smiled as if he meant to, but just then he saw Mr. Pierce in his corner
sneering behind his pipe. They looked at each other steadily, and nobody
could mistake the hate in Mr. Pierce's face or his sneer. After a minute
the prince looked away and shrugged his shoulders, but he didn't make
his pretty speech.
"American women!" he said, turning his glass of spring water around
on the table before him, "they are very lovely, of course." He looked
around and there were Mrs. Moody and Mrs. Biggs and Miss Cobb, and he
even glanced at me in the spring. Then he looked again at Mr. Pierce and
kept his eyes there. "But they are spoiled, fearfully spoiled. They rule
their parents and they expect to rule their husbands. In Europe we do
things better; we are not—what is the English?—hag-ridden?"
There was a sort of murmur among the men, but the women all nodded as if
they thought Europe was entirely right. They'd have agreed with him if
he'd advocated sixteen wives sitting cross-legged on a mat, like the
Turks. Mr. Pierce was still staring at the prince.
"What I don't quite understand, Mr. von Inwald," the bishop put in in
his nice way, "is your custom of expecting a girl to bring her husband
a certain definite sum of money and to place it under the husband's
control. Our wealthy American girls control their own money," He was
thinking of Miss Patty, and everybody knew it.
The prince turned red and glared at the bishop. Then I think he
remembered that they didn't know who he was, and he smiled and started
to turning the glass again.
"Pardon!" he said. "Is it not better? What do women know of money? They
throw it away on trifles, dress, jewels—American women are extravagant.
It is one result of their—of their spoiling."
Mr. Pierce got up and emptied his pipe into the fire. Then he turned.
"I'm afraid you have not known the best type of American women," he
said, looking hard at the prince. "Our representative women are our
middle-class women. They do not contract European alliances, not having
sufficient money to attract the attention of the nobility, or enough to
buy titles, as they do pearls, for the purpose of adornment."
Mr. von Inwald got up, and his face was red. Mr. Pierce was white and
sneering.
"Also," he went on, "when they marry they wish to control their own
money, and not see it spent in—ways with which you are doubtless
familiar."
We were all paralyzed. Nobody moved. Mr. Pierce put his pipe in his
pocket and stalked out, slamming the door. Then Mr. von Inwald shrugged
his shoulders and laughed.
"I see I shall have to talk to our young friend," he said and picked
up his glass. "I'm afraid I've given a wrong impression. I like the
American women very much; too well," he went on with a flash of his
teeth, looking around the room, and brought the glass to the spring for
me to fill. But as I've said before, I can tell a good bit about a man
from the way he gives me his glass, and he was in a perfect frenzy of
rage. When I reached it back to him he gripped it until his nails were
white.
My joint ached all the rest of the afternoon. About five o'clock Mr.
Thoburn stopped in long enough to say: "What's this I hear about Carter
making an ass of himself to-day?"
"I haven't heard it," I answered. "What is it?"
But he only laughed and turned up his collar to go.
"Jove, Minnie," he said, "why do women of your spirit always champion
the losing side? Be a good girl; give me a hand now and then with this
thing, and I'll see you don't lose by it."
"We're not going to lose," I retorted angrily. "Nobody has left yet. We
are still ahead on the books."
He came over and shook a finger in my face.
"Nobody has left—and why? Because they're all taking a series of baths.
Wait until they've had their fifteen, or twenty-one, or whatever the
cure is, and then see them run!"
It was true enough; I knew it. |
