The Golden House

III

It was indeed a busy day for Jack. Great injustice would be done him if it were supposed that he did not take himself and his occupations seriously. His mind was not disturbed by trifles. He knew that he had on the right sort of four-in-hand necktie, with the appropriate pin of pear-shaped pearl, and that he carried the cane of the season. These things come by a sort of social instinct, are in the air, as it were, and do not much tax the mind. He had to hasten a little to keep his half-past-eleven o'clock appointment at Stalker's stables, and when he arrived several men of his set were already waiting, who were also busy men, and had made a little effort to come round early and assist Jack in making up his mind about the horse.

When Mr. Stalker brought out Storm, and led him around to show his action, the connoisseurs took on a critical attitude, an attitude of judgment, exhibited not less in the poise of the head and the serious face than in the holding of the cane and the planting of legs wide apart. And the attitude had a refined nonchalance which professional horsemen scarcely ever attain. Storm could not have received more critical and serious attention if he had been a cooked terrapin. He could afford to stand this scrutiny, and he seemed to move about with the consciousness that he knew more about being a horse than his judges.

Storm was, in fact, a splendid animal, instinct with life from his thin flaring nostril to his small hoof; black as a raven, his highly groomed skin took the polish of ebony, and showed the play of his powerful muscles, and, one might say, almost the nervous currents that thrilled his fine texture. His large, bold eyes, though not wicked, flamed now and then with an energy and excitement that gave ample notice that he would obey no master who had not stronger will and nerve than his own. It was a tribute to Jack's manliness that, when he mounted him for a turn in the ring, Storm seemed to recognize the fine quality of both seat and hand, and appeared willing to take him on probation.

“He's got good points,” said Mr. Herbert Albert Flick, “but I'd like a straighter back.”

“I'll be hanged, though, Jack,” was Mr. Mowbray Russell's comment, “if I'd ride him in the Park before he's docked. Say what you like about action, a horse has got to have style.”

“Moves easy, falls off a little too much to suit me in the quarter,” suggested Mr. Pennington Docstater, sucking the head of his cane. “How about his staying quality, Stalker?”

“That's just where he is, Mr. Docstater; take him on the road, he's a stayer for all day. Goes like a bird. He'll take you along at the rate of nine miles in forty-five minutes as long as you want to sit there.”

“Jump?” queried little Bobby Simerton, whose strong suit at the club was talking about meets and hunters.

“Never refused anything I put him at,” replied Stalker; “takes every fence as if it was the regular thing.”

Storm was in this way entirely taken to pieces, praised and disparaged, in a way to give Stalker, it might be inferred from his manner, a high opinion of the knowledge of these young gentlemen. “It takes a gentleman,” in fact, Stalker said, “to judge a hoss, for a good hoss is a gentleman himself.” It was much discussed whether Storm would do better for the Park or for the country, whether it would be better to put him in the field or keep him for a roadster. It might, indeed, be inferred that Jack had not made up his mind whether he should buy a horse for use in the Park or for country riding. Even more than this might be inferred from the long morning's work, and that was that while Jack's occupation was to buy a horse, if he should buy one his occupation would be gone. He was known at the club to be looking for the right sort of a horse, and that he knew what he wanted, and was not easily satisfied; and as long as he occupied this position he was an object of interest to sellers and to his companions.

Perhaps Mr. Stalker understood this, for when the buyers had gone he remarked to the stable-boy, “Mr. Delancy, he don't want to buy no hoss.”

When the inspection of the horse was finished it was time for lunch, and the labors of the morning were felt to justify this indulgence, though each of the party had other engagements, and was too busy to waste the time. They went down to the Knickerbocker.

The lunch was slight, but its ordering took time and consideration, as it ought, for nothing is so destructive of health and mental tone as the snatching of a mid-day meal at a lunch counter from a bill of fare prepared by God knows whom. Mr. Russell said that if it took time to buy a horse, it ought to take at least equal time and care to select the fodder that was to make a human being wretched or happy. Indeed, a man who didn't give his mind to what he ate wouldn't have any mind by-and-by to give to anything. This sentiment had the assent of the table, and was illustrated by varied personal experience; and a deep feeling prevailed, a serious feeling, that in ordering and eating the right sort of lunch a chief duty of a useful day had been discharged.

It must not be imagined from this, however, that the conversation was about trifles. Business men and operators could have learned something about stocks and investments, and politicians about city politics. Mademoiselle Vivienne, the new skirt dancer, might have been surprised at the intimate tone in which she was alluded to, but she could have got some useful hints in effects, for her judges were cosmopolitans who had seen the most suggestive dancing in all parts of the world. It came out incidentally that every one at table had been “over” in the course of the season, not for any general purpose, not as a sightseer, but to look at somebody's stables, or to attend a wedding, or a sale of etchings, or to see his bootmaker, or for a little shooting in Scotland, just as one might run down to Bar Harbor or Tuxedo. It was only an incident in a busy season; and one of the fruits of it appeared to be as perfect a knowledge of the comparative merits of all the ocean racers and captains as of the English and American stables and the trainers. One not informed of the progress of American life might have been surprised to see that the fad is to be American, with a sort of patronage of things and ways foreign, especially of things British, a large continental kind of attitude, begotten of hearing much about Western roughing it, of Alaska, of horse-breeding and fruit-raising on the Pacific, of the Colorado River Canon. As for stuffs, well yes, London. As for style, you can't mistake a man who is dressed in New York.

The wine was a white Riesling from California. Docstater said his attention had been called to it by Tom Dillingham at the Union, who had a ranch somewhere out there. It was declared to be sound and palatable; you know what you are drinking. This led to a learned discussion of the future of American wines, and a patriotic impulse was given to the trade by repeated orders. It was declared that in American wines lay the solution of the temperance question. Bobby Simerton said that Burgundy was good enough for him, but Russell put him down, as he saw the light yellow through his glass, by the emphatic affirmation that plenty of cheap American well-made wine would knock the bottom out of all the sentimental temperance societies and shut up the saloons, dry up all those not limited to light wines and beer. It was agreed that the saloons would have to go.

This satisfactory conclusion was reached before the coffee came on and the cigarettes, and the sound quality of the Riesling was emphasized by a pony of cognac.

It is fortunate when the youth of a country have an ideal. No nation is truly great without a common ideal, capable of evoking enthusiasm and calling out its energies. And where are we to look for this if not in the youth, and especially in those to whom fortune and leisure give an opportunity of leadership? It is they who can inspire by their example, and by their pursuits attract others to a higher conception of the national life. It may take the form of patriotism, as in this country, pride in the great republic, jealousy of its honor and credit, eagerness for its commanding position among the nations, patriotism which will show itself, in all the ardor of believing youth, in the administration of law, in the purity of politics, in honest local government, and in a noble aspiration for the glory of the country. It may take the form of culture, of a desire that the republic-liable, like all self-made nations, to worship wealth-should be distinguished not so much by a vulgar national display as by an advance in the arts, the sciences, the education that adorns life, in the noble spirit of humanity, and in the nobler spirit of recognition of a higher life, which will be content with no civilization that does not tend to make the country for every citizen a better place to live in today than it was yesterday. Happy is the country, happy the metropolis of that country, whose fortunate young men have this high conception of citizenship!

What is the ideal of their country which these young men cherish? There was a moment—was there not for them?—in the late war for the Union, when the republic was visible to them in its beauty, in its peril, and in a passion of devotion they were eager—were they not?—to follow the flag and to give their brief lives to its imperishable glory. Nothing is impossible to a nation with an ideal like that. It was this flame that ran over Europe in the struggle of France against a world in arms. It was this national ideal that was incarnate in Napoleon, as every great idea that moves the world is sooner or later incarnated. What was it that we saw in Washington on his knees at Valley Forge, or blazing with wrath at the cowardice on Monmouth? in Lincoln entering Richmond with bowed head and infinite sorrow and yearning in his heart? An embodiment of a great national idea and destiny.

In France this ideal burns yet like a flame, and is still evoked by a name. It is the passion of glory, but the desire of a nation, and Napoleon was the incarnation of passion. They say that he is not dead as others are dead, but that he may come again and ride at the head of his legions, and strike down the enemies of France; that his bugle will call the youth from every hamlet, that the roll of his drum will transform France into a camp, and the grenadiers will live again and ride with him, amid hurrahs, and streaming tears, and shouts of “My Emperor! Oh, my Emperor!” Is it only a legend? But the spirit is there; not a boy but dreams of it, not a girl but knots the thought in with her holiday tricolor. That is to have an abiding ideal, and patiently to hold it, in isolation, in defeat, even in an overripe civilization.

We believe—do we not?—in other triumphs than those of the drum and the sword. Our aspirations for the republic are for a nobler example of human society than the world has yet seen. Happy is the country, and the metropolis of the country, whose youth, gilded only by their virtues, have these aspirations.

When the party broke up, the street lamps were beginning to twinkle here and there, and Jack discovered to his surprise that the Twiss business would have to go over to another day. It was such a hurrying life in New York. There was just time for a cup of tea at Mrs. Trafton's. Everybody dropped in there after five o'clock, when the duties of the day were over, with the latest news, and to catch breath before rushing into the program of the evening.

There were a dozen ladies in the drawing-room when Jack entered, and his first impression was that the scream of conversation would be harder to talk against than a Wagner opera; but he presently got his cup of tea, and found a snug seat in the chimney-corner by Miss Tavish; indeed, they moved to it together, and so got a little out of the babel. Jack thought the girl looked even prettier in her walking-dress than when he saw her at the studio; she had style, there was no doubt about that; and then, while there was no invitation in her manner, one felt that she was a woman to whom one could easily say things, and who was liable at any moment to say things interesting herself.

“Is this your first appearance since last night, Mr. Delancy?”

“Oh no; I've been racing about on errands all day. It is very restful to sit down by a calm person.”

“Well, I never shut my eyes till nine o'clock. I kept seeing that Spanish woman whirl around and contort, and—do you mind my telling you?—I couldn't just help it, I” (leaning forward to Jack) “got up and tried it before the glass. There! Are you shocked?”

“Not so much shocked as excluded,” Jack dared to say. “But do you think—“.

“Yes, I know. There isn't anything that an American girl cannot do. I've made up my mind to try it. You'll see.”

“Will I?”

“No, you won't. Don't flatter yourself. Only girls. I don't want men around.”

“Neither do I,” said Jack, honestly.

Miss Tavish laughed. “You are too forward, Mr. Delancy. Perhaps some time, when we have learned, we will let in a few of you, to look in at the door, fifty dollars a ticket, for some charity. I don't see why dancing isn't just as good an accomplishment as playing the harp in a Greek dress.”

“Nor do I; I'd rather see it. Besides, you've got Scripture warrant for dancing off the heads of people. And then it is such a sweet way of doing a charity. Dancing for the East Side is the best thing I have heard yet.”

“You needn't mock. You won't when you find out what it costs you.”

“What are you two plotting?” asked Mrs. Trafton, coming across to the fireplace.

“Charity,” said Jack, meekly.

“Your wife was here this morning to get me to go and see some of her friends in Hester Street.”

“You went?”

“Not today. It's awfully interesting, but I've been.”

“Edith seems to be devoted to that sort of thing,” remarked Miss Tavish.

“Yes,” said Jack, slowly, “she's got the idea that sympathy is better than money; she says she wants to try to understand other people's lives.”

“Goodness knows, I'd like to understand my own.”

“And were you trying, Mr. Delancy, to persuade Miss Tavish into that sort of charity?”

“Oh dear, no,” said Jack; “I was trying to interest the East End in something, for the benefit of Miss Tavish.”

“You'll find that's one of the most expensive remarks you ever made,” retorted Miss Tavish, rising to go.

“I wish Lily Tavish would marry,” said Mrs. Trafton, watching the girl's slender figure as it passed through the portiere; “she doesn't know what to do with herself.”

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, she'd be a lovely wife for somebody;” and then he added, as if reminiscently, “if he could afford it. Good-by.”

“That's just a fashion of talking. I never knew a time when so many people afforded to do what they wanted to do. But you men are all alike. Good-by.”

When Jack reached home it was only a little after six o'clock, and as they were not to go out to dine till eight, he had a good hour to rest from the fatigues of the day, and run over the evening papers and dip into the foreign periodicals to catch a topic or two for the dinner-table.

“Yes, sir,” said the maid, “Mrs. Delancy came in an hour ago.”