# The Red Book Magazine/Volume 14/Number 4/The Uses of Adversity

Extracted from The Red Book Magazine, 1910 Feb, pp. 653–663. Accompanying illustrations by John Newton Howitt may be omitted.
Dinner was served in the teak-wood saloon in the forward deck-house
The Uses of Adversity
BY HULBERT FOOTNER
Author of “The Silver-Backed Brush,” etc.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN NEWTON HOWITT
I
IT is a thing everyone says—and no one in his heart quite believes—that one's circumstances have nothing to do with happiness. Here was an example of the truth of it: Marjorie Varick, twenty-two years old and the beauty of three seasons, heiress of one of the few old New York families whose preëminence has survived the western invasion, and engaged to the catch of London and New York, a lord and a first-rate fellow to boot—and here she was wishing she were dead!
The desperate desire was pronounced on the deck of the Algonquin lying at anchor off Great Neck—the same Algonquin that, wherever yachts congregate is famous for the stately simplicity of her lines and the splendor and comfort of her interior arrangements. It was an afternoon in July of the summer following the Great Panic, that season no New Yorker will likely soon forget. On shore everyone was stifling in the heat, but a delicious breeze wafted itself under the awning of the after deck with its luxurious eastern rugs and ingeniously comfortable seats; there was, moreover, an extensive refrigerating plant below, and a corps of stewards to minister to the comfort of those on board.
None of them apparently was sensible of the advantages; Mr. Brocklin Varick, the owner, had been sitting for an hour with an unlighted cigar between his fingers, gazing across the water with a face like a mask; his sister, Mrs. Varick Crawfurd, alternately dozed and awoke to complain of indigestion; young Lord Kendal was collapsed in his chair in a state of suspended animation, like a lizard in the sun; and Marjorie Varick was desperate, as we have heard. The supine attitude of her fiancé was particularly exasperating to her; she upbraided him for his idleness, and he good-humoredly rose and disappeared within the music room in the after deck-house, whence presently issued the sounds of the pianola furiously played; whereupon Marjorie shuddered and sent a steward to close the door.
It was then she had announced her disgust with life.
Mrs. Crawfurd sat up and read her niece a little homily on the sin of discontent; lent additional tartness, no doubt, by her inward digestive pangs. She then went below to continue her nap undisturbed.
Left alone with his daughter, Mr. Varick, who had not moved or spoken since they sat down after lunch, suddenly tossed his cigar overboard without having lighted it, and looked at Marjorie oddly. He was a tall, straight, fine drawn old gentleman, like a portrait by Vandyke.
“I assume you said that merely to provoke your aunt,” he said quietly.
“Not altogether,” returned Marjorie frowning stormily.
His eyebrows made two points. “Why, child, what could you have to trouble you?” he asked.
“Nothing!” said Marjorie, bitterly; “that's exactly it! No one can understand, I suppose: for me to complain sounds like the merest folly! But oh, Pater!”—she turned her beautiful, troubled face on him, and unconsciously clasped her hands; there could be no doubt of her sincerity now—“if you knew how sick I am of all this: these empty pleasures; these aimless people! I am wrapped round and round in ease until I suffocate! Other times I seem to be existing in an immense, formless void! It is something real that I long for—no matter how it hurts!”
To her astonishment her father laughed, a short, harsh chuckle that was anything but merry.
“It happens to be easy for me to satisfy your desire,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she asked, startled.
And then he told her in his level, unemotional voice, what the financial world knew already, or guessed, that his affairs were hopelessly involved. The panic had caught him, like many others, wholly unprepared, and at a cruel disadvantage in that he was old and proud, and would neither confess his errors nor accept assistance. Throughout that terrible time when the strongest clung to each other he had essayed to stand alone; and when no one was paying had met his obligations with old-fashioned punctiliousness—and at ruinous cost. Now, when the frantic days had been succeeded by what was almost worse, the sluggishness of utter depression, he confessed—and here the quiet voice shook a little—that he had lost his grasp. He no longer possessed the clearness of vision necessary to unravel the snarl; he found his overstrained brain wandering. If it were only possible to keep going until the deadness of this unexampled summer had passed, he said, he could realize fair values for his properties, and utter ruin might be averted—but he had come to the end of his resources; his relatives and former associates held aloof; he had at last given up!
It was obviously a relief to the old man to unburden his bosom at last; he talked more and more freely. His daughter was overwhelmed; her own little troubles evaporated like mist; she listened in a white, dazed silence, her head averted. The words “poverty” and “ruin” had no direct significance to her, but all her life this proud old man, in her girl mind, had represented Jove, and to hear him confessing to weakness and defeat brought her world about her ears. When, at last, he paused, she sat dulled and still, wondering what she ought to say. He leaned over and took one of her hands; and she felt his tremble.
“My poor child!” he murmured; “it is only of you I have been thinking!”
The warm blood rushed back to her heart; she flung her arms about him and the words of comfort came at last. What they had to say to each other in that rare moment it would be sacrilege to inquire; that they were ordinarily an undemonstrative pair made it the sweeter.
When Lord Kendal came on deck a little later it needed no second glance to tell him he was not wanted; he went forward for a solitary smoke. Half an hour later, when he returned, their heads were still close together; he went below, and Marjorie and her father had the deck to themselves until it was time to dress for dinner. It was their first intimacy; like many another father and daughter, they had never become acquainted.
More than once in his talk Mr. Varick mentioned Jacob Cleaver, the multi-millionaire from Nevada who, he said, bade fair to quadruple his fortune by reason of the misfortunes of the New York crowd.
Marjorie was fully aroused and bent on understanding everything.
“How can that be?” she asked.
“Because he alone of all of us has ample funds, and unlimited credit in the West.”
“Is he so unscrupulous?”
“On the contrary,” Mr. Varick said a little bitterly, “they give him credit for holding the bottom in the market. He is called the savior of the nation's credit.”
“Couldn't you and he—” Marjorie began, then stopped on seeing the look in her father's face.
“I wrote to him,” he said in a low tone; “no doubt he has many demands on his time—anyway I did not hear from him. A Varick cannot sue for assistance,” he finished slowly.
“Of course not!” echoed Marjorie.
She was silent for a while, stroking her father's hand.
“Has he any family?” she asked at last.
“A wife and daughter, I have heard.”
“Do they live here?”
“Why, yes. Everyone has heard of the forty-thousand dollar apartment.”
“No one knows them, I suppose.”
“Probably not. They are newcomers.”
Marjorie suddenly leaned over and kissed her father.
“Pater, dear, I have a plan,” she said hopefully. “All your good-for-nothing daughter has learned in the world are the social graces. I'm going to try to realize on them!”
II
In the supremely gorgeous state apartments of New York's latest and most gorgeous hotel, the suite for which Jacob Cleaver was reputed to be paying nearly a thousand dollars a week, sat the quaint, little, old fashioned figure of his wife, regarding an open letter in her hand with a perplexed and anxious expression; meanwhile, Miss Daisy Cleaver, as finished and as gorgeous a product of civilization as the room, was pacing up and down with every evidence of excitement; and from the depths of an armchair close by, Cleaver himself, the man on whom the eyes of all New York were fixed, regarded them both with a quizzical expression, turning a cigar around and around between his teeth. The greatness of the man was evident in the symmetrical bulk of him, in the noble form of his head, in his air of careless assurance.
Mrs. Cleaver read the letter aloud for the third time.
Thus it ran;
    Dear Mr. Cleaver:
    My daughter joins me in hoping that Mrs. Cleaver, Miss Cleaver, and yourself, will be able to dine with us on the Algonquin on Thursday, and spend the night on board. Our only other guest will be Lord Kendal. There will be a launch waiting at the yacht club landing foot of east Twenty-sixth Street, at a quarter to seven. Trusting to 'have the pleasure of seeing you, believe me,
Yours sincerely, Brocklin Varick.
“The Algonquin!” exclaimed Daisy Cleaver rapturously. “Kings and Emperors have been entertained on board!”
“What does it mean?” asked Mrs. Cleaver plaintively.
Her husband chuckled.
“That's easy,” he said. “Means the Varicks are hard up!”
“But none of the other New York men you have been concerned with ever asked mother and me to meet their families,” protested Daisy.
Cleaver's smile broadened.
“Well, perhaps it means the Varicks are damned hard up!” he said.
Something in his voice made his daughter ask anxiously if he meant to decline the invitation.
“That was my idea,” said Cleaver coolly. “These Varicks are much too high and mighty for my taste. No man on earth is good enough to patronize my wife and daughter.”
Daisy's eyes filled with tears.
Every strong man has his vulnerable point; in Cleaver's it was Daisy. He frowned uncomfortably at the evidences of her disappointment.
“Did you want to go so much?” he growled.
Daisy dropped beside his chair and wreathed her arms around him.
“Father, it means everything to us!” she said breathlessly. “Think of mother and me stopping here alone in this hotel day after day! This means recognition; it means getting right to the top without any tiresome, struggle or humiliating rebuffs! If I were friends with Marjorie Varick I could know whomever I pleased and go wherever I wanted! It would be heaven!”
“This lord-fellow—” grumbled Cleaver. “Mind you, I don't want any truck like that in the family. There's a real man waiting for you, and he'll be along here directly. John Fenner wouldn't thank me if I let you get your head turned.”
“Lord Kendal is engaged to Miss Varick,” said Daisy.
In the end he gave way just as she had hoped he would.
“But understand,” he said, “we're giving them the pleasure of our company. We don't owe them any more than a dinner, and we can pay that by giving them a better one here. This is not going to influence me a little bit in my business. And remember this,” he added, “and keep your head up on board this pleasure-yacht, Her father may be a descendant, but yours is an ancestor!”
III
The disadvantage of being born into one of these old families is that every act from infancy is regulated by a set of cast-iron precedents, and terrible is the wrath and horror aroused by the suggestion of breaking one of them. This Marjorie discovered on making known her intention to invite the Cleavers to dinner. Mrs. Crawfurd protested with all the force of her soul, and brought up various battalions of the family to her support, by mail. Upon Marjorie's quietly persisting in her purpose, she packed up and abandoned the Algonquin, sooner than be obliged to meet the “uncouth Westerners.”
This passage, together with certain things her father had let fall about the insensibility of other relatives to his misfortunes, left Marjorie with small reverence for the family traditions. She was in a mood to smash the whole set. Nevertheless, she was not without her own apprehensions; she had been “most carefully brought up,” with the result that she was surprisingly ignorant in certain respects. Westerners were fearful and unknown beings to her, a kind of cross between Indians and emigrants. She was therefore secretly relieved when the Cleavers arrived in the garb of polite society, attended by a man-servant and a maid, as subdued and accomplished as any of her own. Later she found they differed in no important respects from the people she knew; her mother had had friends like old-fashioned little Mrs. Cleaver; and an able, forceful man like Jacob Cleaver is much the same East or West. Daisy, with her high finish, was more embarrassing to Marjorie, but she had wit enough to distinguish an excellent girl under the polish.
“Miss Varick, I hear you think I'm rude”
Dinner was served in the teak-wood saloon in the forward deck house, while the Algonquin, running under half speed, poked her slender nose through Hell Gate and into the Sound. The beautiful little room, with its soft-shaded lights, the flowers and silver on the table, and the cool night air floating in through the open windows after the heat and dust of the city, was like Paradise. The dinner and the service embodied the perfection of unostentation; the delighted Daisy was conscious of breathing a new and more delicate atmosphere. Moreover, she was as agreeably surprised in the Varicks as Marjorie had been in the Cleavers. The stately Mr. Varick at the head of his own board unbent and was affability itself, and in Marjorie there was not a trace of languor or that tendency to elevate the eyebrows which Daisy associated with “exclusiveness.” Mr. Varick looked after Mrs. Cleaver, Lord Kendal according to his orders, devoted himself to Daisy, leaving Marjorie free to win Jacob Cleaver to her cause, if she could. Never in her life before had it been necessary for her to exert herself to please; she found that form of activity not distasteful and that she liked the big-headed, outspoken man of affairs, made her task easier. As for Cleaver, he saw at once her pride and her determination to win his good will, and he could not help but be both flattered and charmed.
After dinner they dispersed on deck in the same arrangement of couples. Marjorie took her companion to the stern of the yacht, where a wide cushioned seat encircled the rail, and invited him to occupy it; Cleaver sank back, preparing to take a huge enjoyment in his cigar. Marjorie sat in front of him with her hands loosely clasped in her lap; for all her cool exterior, her heart was beating like a runner's, and she sought in her mind for the proper words to broach her subject.
“Mr. Cleaver,” she said at last, “may I talk business with you?”
Cleaver chuckled under his breath. At this moment of supreme comfort she had him at a disadvantage and he knew it.
“Certainly,” he said good-humoredly.
Nevertheless, Marjorie was conscious of a gradual hardening of the man, and, indeed, he was a terrible antagonist. But she clenched her hands and plunged ahead.
“I don't know anything about business,” she said: “all I can do is to be frank with you. I like you, Mr. Cleaver, and I didn't expect to.” She added with proud candor: “That makes it easier.”
Cleaver bowed slightly.
“It's about my father,” she went on; “his affairs have come to a desperate pass.”
Cleaver nodded, to show her that he already knew.
“And what is worse,” continued Marjorie, “his powers are failing. He has lost his initiative and resourcefulness.”
“It's been a tough time for New Yorkers,” said Cleaver.
“He's a very proud man,” said Marjorie. “He can't bear to let anyone know where he stands, so I've been trying to help him. I've realized what I could on my own little fortune, and I've sold my jewels to meet the most pressing claims. But there is a mortgage on the Algonquin; it is to be foreclosed in a week. We realize that if that happens it will bring them all down on us; it will be the end.”
“Well?” said Cleaver looking at her inscrutably from under his bushy brows, as she paused.
“The Algonquin is worth much more than the total of her incumbrances,” she continued. “My father has had many offers for her, but, of course, this summer no one but you has the means to purchase such a boat. I thought perhaps you would like to take her, and so save a public foreclosure.”
Cleaver knocked the ashes off his cigar, and examined it to see if it were burning evenly.
Finally he shook his head.
“Much obliged for the compliment,” he said, “but I couldn't use her. I'm no sailorman. I'd be like a chicken afloat on a shingle!”
Marjorie flushed painfully. Having humbled herself to make the offer, it was intolerable that she should be refused. She was conscious, besides, of a sickening sense of disappointment; after all, she was very young. She hurriedly got to her feet.
“Shall we join the others?” she said, trying to carry it off lightly.
But Cleaver put out his hand to stop her.
“I can't accept your proposition,” he said, “but let me make one.”
She returned to her seat,
“Firstly,” he began with a sly twinkle, “I like you, young lady—and I didn't expect to! I had an idea women of your world were hard and shiny outside and hollow within, like my wife's china ornaments. But it's been plain to me you had a hard part to play to-night, and I want to say you carried it off bravely!”
Marjorie felt very much inclined to cry.
“Now, I'm in a position to do you and yours a great service,” continued Cleaver coolly, “and you can do the same for me; therefore, the deal I propose can be entered into with honor on both sides.”
Marjorie looked at him inquiringly.
“First, tell me roughly how things stand with your father,” he said. “I ask it in all kindness.”
Marjorie believed him, and told him all she had learned in the last few days, winning Cleaver's admiration afresh by her clearness and brevity.
“So,” he commented when she had finished, “all he really needs is a bit of time to recover himself.”
Marjorie eagerly nodded.
“Well, then,” said Cleaver, “I propose an offensive and defensive alliance. I have the money and you have the position—not that I need position myself—but its different with my wife and daughter. You see, I've transplanted them to New York, and they don't seem to take root; they're lonesome for the lack of friends. Now Daisy, she's too proud-spirited to put up with second-class people. She wants the best, and I want her to have 'em. So there you are!”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Marjorie.
“Have mother and Daisy on the boat here with you until the end of the season. Introduce such of your friends to them as may be convenient, and let them stand or fall by their own merits. On my part, I will take over your father's affairs, and carry them until such a time as they can be settled to the greatest advantage. The mere fact of my taking them over will improve his credit fifty per cent,” he concluded with his splendid egotism.
“What do you mean by 'carrying?'” asked Marjorie.
”Assuming all obligations, meeting all calls for money, reducing interest charges—in short, keeping the water pumped out until the leaks are mended.”
“We couldn't let a stranger take this risk,” objected the girl with the old pride.
“Not the slightest risk,” declared Cleaver coolly; “everything your father owns will be worth half as much again in six months. We will both profit by it. Moreover, I'll teach you the game, so that you can manage his affairs, yourself, later on.”
Marjorie considered. A month earlier her pride would have found such a proposal insufferable, but she had learned much during the past weeks and especially this evening; moreover, she was not, as we have seen, in a frame of mind to lay much stress on family usages; on the contrary, the idea of outraging the whole clan was not unpleasing.
“I accept,” she said, offering Cleaver her hand, “and thank you.”
Cleaver enfolded her hand in his own great paw.
“Thank you,” he said. “Remember, we're quits in this.”
IV
On another hot afternoon two weeks later the Algonquin was once more lying off Great Neck. Mrs. Cleaver and Daisy were established on board, and Mrs. Crawfurd had returned under a flag of truce. The two elder ladies were enjoying their afternoon nap below; Daisy Cleaver and Lord Kendal were up on the bridge; and Marjorie was supposed to be reading to her father on the after deck. But Mr. Varick had fallen asleep, and the magazine lay unheeded in Marjorie's lap, as she gazed over the water, absorbed in her thoughts. There was a glow of deeper fires in her fine eyes; the last two weeks had been extraordinarily full ones, and Life had come to be a splendid, busy affair.
She looked at her father from time to time, and her face softened; there was a subtle change in the old man; he had aged and mellowed. With an unquestioning faith, quite foreign to his old self, he had yielded up the direction of his affairs to Jacob Cleaver and his daughter, and confessed to enjoying quiet days and peaceful nights for the first time in several years.
In the skillful hands of Cleaver order was already issuing out of chaos; what had seemed as complicated as a nightmare had suddenly become a simple matter of arithmetic; such is the magic of a great reputation. And Marjorie had been concerned in it all; her heart swelled at the recollection of Cleaver's brusque praises of her capacity and understanding.
The remaining factor in her state of satisfaction was the thought of her fiancé. Her first move on learning of her father's troubles had been to break off her engagement with Lord Kendal; but the young man would have none of it. He had stoutly insisted that even if her father lost all he possessed, they would still have enough to get along on; and he had been altogether so manly and sincere that Marjorie's heart had warmed to him more than it had yet done; and she forgot, for the time, at least, her growing dissatisfaction with his charming inefficiency in the world. It was a curious relation that existed between this pair: friendly, considerate, off-hand; in other words. a thoroughly well-bred and up-to-date attachment, such as never fails to astonish old-fashioned people who persist in regarding love as something soul-stirring.
Chere may have been a shade too much self-gratulation in Marjorie's state of well-being; at any rate, a fall was preparing for her.
She became aware, by-and-by, of a rowboat circling the Algonguin, one of the dingy and invariably leaky punts that are for hire in the village. It contained a brawny young man in his shirt-sleeves, who stared curiously up at the yacht's deck. The Algonquin was naturally a mark for the curiosity seeker, so Marjorie merely wrapped herself in her mantle of unconsciousness, and returned to the magazine. What was her astonishment, presently, to see the head of the young man rising above the deck on the starboard side, and looking over the rail she perceived that he had coolly tied his boat to the grating. There happened to be no steward near, so Marjorie arose in some indignation, prepared to repel boarders on her own account.
He struggled into his coat on reaching the deck, and had the grace to doff his hat at her approach. But to her astonishment he neither quailed nor cringed before her, but met her glance with eyes as steady, yes, and as scornful, as her own. The imperious Marjorie, accustomed to unhesitating submission from his sex, was very much taken aback, and actually became conscious of a sudden doubt of herself. The worst of it was, she could not help but take note that the young man, in spite of his ill-fitting ready-made clothes and extraordinary hat, was rather better-looking and somehow manlier than any young man of her acquaintance.
As she became less sure of herself, her hauteur increased.
“You should use the port gangway if you have business on board,” she said, severely.
“Beg pardon,” he replied, as_ stiffly as she, “I am ignorant of the customs of the water.”
“What do you want?” demanded Marjorie, coldly.
“I would like to speak to Miss Cleaver,” he declared.
“Oh!” said Marjorie, turning on her heel. “Please sit down. I will ring for a steward to take your name to her.”
“Thanks,” said the young man; “I prefer to stand.”
Marjorie rang, and returned to her chair with the languor of acute self-consciousness. She buried herself in the pages of the magazine, but was nevertheless sharply aware of the young man's eyes fixed on her with an expression of strong disapproval.
“How dare he! How dare he!” she said to herself indignantly. “What is the matter with me?” she finished weakly.
As presently Daisy appeared from up forward, Marjorie, out of the corners of her, eyes, witnessed a somewhat strained greeting between the pair, and then Daisy took him into the music-room.
“Father, it means everything to us,” she said breathlessly
He shortly afterwards departed as he had come, and Daisy joined Marjorie. The latter was on fire with curiosity, but would have plucked her tongue out sooner than ask a question. However, Daisy, being communicative, started to talk of her own accord.
“My fiancé, John Fenner,” she said.
“Oh,” Marjorie returned.
“Fancy becoming the wife of a mine superintendent in Nevada after having had a taste of this!” continued Daisy waving her hand about the deck. “It's all my father's doing anyway. He thinks there's no one like John Fenner, naturally, because he's just such another as himself.”
Marjorie pricked up her ears. After the past two weeks, for a man to resemble Jacob Cleaver was a strong recommendation to her.
She led Daisy on with apparent carelessness and learned much about John Fenner. How he had arrived in the west with a good name and no money; how he had proved the qualities that are put directly to the test in a new land—courage, honesty and determination; and how he had steadily won his way until now he was a Sharer in all of the Cleaver mining enterprises. He had won the favor of the millionaire, in the first place, on the occasion of a strike of the irresponsible foreign element in one of his mines. Daisy related how Fenner had coolly emptied a pail of water on a burning fuse that threatened the entire property; and in the end he had settled the strike with honor on both sides.
Marjorie's eye were brighter when Daisy had finished.
“Of course he's a fine fellow,” Daisy continued, “but fancy what a husband he'd make! Why, you couldn't call your soul your own! Really, the way he went on about mother and me being here was too ridiculous! He actually seems to hate the amenities of life, the things leisure and cultivation and ease bring. I can't understand it!”
“I can,” said Marjorie, gently; “it's pride—mistaken, of course, but very human!”
“Really!” exclaimed Daisy. “I didn't expect you to stand up for him!”
Marjorie was distressed to find herself blushing.
“Not at all!” she said with wholly unnecessary energy. “The young man is nothing to me; indeed, I thought him excessively rude!”
V
John Fenner came every evening thereafter to call on his fiancée. His peculiarities increased rather than diminished; he declined an invitation to stay on board, and pleaded business in town when he was asked to dinner. Neither would he accept transportation in any launch of the Algonquin, but insisted on rowing his own disreputable hired craft to and from the shore. From the rather indiscreet confidences of Daisy, Marjorie learned that the course of their engagement was a troubled one; Fenner was doggedly faithful, and steadfastly disapproving.
He was presented to Marjorie in due course, but their communications there after were limited to chilly bows when they met on deck. Fenner was the first to make an overture, and that could hardly have been called a promising one. Having left Daisy one night he saw Marjorie alone on deck. He strode up to her, and without preparation, said:
“Miss Varick, I hear you think I'm rude.”
Again the accomplished and assured Marjorie was completely at a loss. She blushed, and her eyes fell, but she was not going to lie to him.
“I—I did say so,” she stammered.
She was prepared for round abuse or scorn—one could not tell about this extraordinary young man. Great was her surprise, therefore. when he bent his stubborn neck and traced an imaginary line on the deck with his foot.
“I wanted to tell you,” he said in a low voice and with a kind of humility in which there was something very proud—Marjorie understood the combination—“my people were gentlefolk, but I have lived in mining-camps since I was a boy. You see, I recognize something better than that life when I see it; that makes me conscious of my defects—and rough. I'm sorry.”
The generous Marjorie was not one to meet an apology less than half-way.
“I'm sorry I said it!” she confessed, warmly.
But Fenner had already recovered his sang-froid.
“Good-night,” he said coolly, and hastened over the side.
Marjorie was left in a sad confusion of emotions; she was angry with herself for her unreadiness in the first place; she bitterly repented apologizing to a man who could so promptly resume his callous indifference; and finally, it could not be denied that there was a dangerous weakness in her breast for this strange, proud, strong creature, who had given her a fleeting glimpse into himself.
The next night, whether led to it by this encounter or not, she broke her engagement. She was genuinely fond of the boyish lordling, and she began by being kind, almost maternal, putting it on the score of the duty he owed his family. Lord Dick balked at this and renewed his protestations, and so in the end she was compelled to be more brutal than she had intended. He finally pocketed his ring with a decent show of sorrow—but not as much as Marjorie expected. She had a humiliating suspicion that he was secretly relieved; on the whole, she was learning in a hard school.
At the same time Daisy and Fenner were having an interview in the forward saloon. Shortly after Lord Kendal had gone below, Fenner came back on deck, and heaving a mighty breath—was it relief—dropped over the rail a tiny object, which caught a sparkle from the moonlight as it fell. He then started for the gangway where his boat was tied, but halted at the top of the ladder, caught by a gleam of white along the rail. He made his way aft slowly, unevenly, as if against his will. Marjorie's arms were folded on the rail and her cheek was pillowed on them; she was looking out over the water and did not hear his approach. The moonlight revealed unmistakable traces of tears on the cheek which was revealed.
Thus to see the proud and unattainable Marjorie brought low and weeping like any mere girl, affected the young man oddly.
“Miss Varick, what is it—what is it?” he stammered, scarcely knowing what he said.
Marjorie hastily sat up, and shook the tears from her eyes.
“It's nothing,” she said, smiling at him, “really nothing! There's a weight off my mind, that's all—and the night is so lovely!”
He followed the direction of her eyes towards where the moon hung suspended, a beautiful pale globe, over the dark trees of the shore; the water between was like a mirror, strewn with the dust of moonshine.
“It is almost like she shines in the mountains,” he said.
Marjorie smiled. “Is there nothing good outside of the West?”
“You think I'm a savage,” he returned, irrelevantly.
Marjorie shook her head. “You think I'm a doll,” she said.
“No, I don't,” he denied. “Cleaver has been telling me. I know all you've done. I think it's the finest thing I ever heard!”
Marjorie waved this aside.
“Tell me about the West,” she urged.
“I can't,” he declared, uncomfortably. “Not here. I am not myself.” He leaned towards her. “Would you—let me row you about in my crazy little boat?” he asked, eagerly.
Marjorie murmured something about a wrap.
“I will put my coat around your shoulders,” he offered.
She rose and gave him her hand to help her down the gangway.
VI
On the day before the party was to break up a constraint arose between Marjorie Varick and Daisy Cleaver; each, moreover, was charged with an emotion which exhibited itself characteristically; Daisy was on wires, alternately chattering and singing; while Marjorie moved slowly, with a thoughtful air, and a large serenity. In the meantime, they had been for a cruise to Maine, for which Jacob Cleaver, who found the financial situation so far improved that he could leave town, had joined them, as did also, John Fenner, whose prejudices had in some way been overcome. Lord Kendal, too, remained of the party.
On this last day Marjorie and Daisy avoided each other instinctively until near evening, when Marjorie sought out the other in her stateroom and an explanation could no longer be deferred.
Daisy's eyes fell beneath Marjorie's inquiring glance.
“You've been so good to me!” she faltered. “I hope you wont think I'm horrid and ungrateful!”
Marjorie seated herself on a couch and pulled Daisy down beside her.
“Out with it!” she commanded.
“I wouldn't listen to him until I learned you no longer cared for him,” protested Daisy. “I have promised to marry Lord Kendal.”
Marjorie kissed her, impulsively.
“Why should I care?” she said. “I'm going to marry John Fenner.”
Daisy lifted an amazed face and stared at her friend. Then they fell into each other's arms and—laughed.
“It's so funny!” declared Daisy.
“It's so right!” affirmed Marjorie.
In the end, as was inevitable, they fell into an amiable dispute as to which were the happier.
Daisy, nursing her knee, said dreamily:
“I am going to marry a gentleman; one who understands how I long to make myself nice!”
And Marjorie, rising triumphantly, announced: “And I am going to marry a man, and live among workers!
There the discussion rested.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1944, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 79 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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