Latter-Day Sweethearts

In going aboard the "Baltic" that exceptionally fine October morning, Miss Carstairs convinced herself that, of the people assembled to see her off, no one could reasonably discern in her movement the suggestion of a retreat. The commonplace of a sailing for the other side would not, indeed, have met with the recognition of any attendance at the pier among her set, save for her hint that she might remain abroad a year. There had been a small rally on the part of a few friends who had chanced to meet at a dinner overnight, to go down to the White Star docks and say good-by to Helen Carstairs. Helen sincerely wished they had not come, both because the ceremony proved a little flat, and because, when she had time to think them over, she was not so sure they were her friends.

But the main thing was that she had been able to withdraw, easily and naturally, from a doubly trying situation. She had not wanted to go abroad. All the novelty and sparkle had gone out of that business long ago. She knew foreign travel from A to Z, and she loathed tables d'hote, even more than the grim prospect of private meals with Miss Bleecker in sitting-rooms redolent of departed food, insufficiently atoned for by an encircling wilderness of gilding and red plush. The very thought of a concierge with brass buttons lifting his cap to her every time she crossed the hall, of hotel corridors decked with strange foot gear upon which unmade bedrooms yawned, of cabs and galleries and harpy dressmakers, of sights and fellow tourists, gave her a mental qualm. But it was better than staying at home this winter in the big house in Fifth Avenue where Mr. Carstairs had just brought a stepmother for her, in the person of "that Mrs. Coxe."

There was apparently no valid reason for Helen's shuddering antipathy to the lady, who had been the widow of a junior partner of her father, a man whom Mr. Carstairs had "made," like many another beginning in his employ.

Mr. Coxe had died two years before, of nervous overstrain, leaving this flamboyantly handsome, youngish woman to profit by his gains. Helen had always disliked having to ask the Coxes to dinner when her father's fiat compelled her to preside over the dull banquets of certain smartly-dressed women and weary, driven men, whom he assembled at intervals around his board. She could not say what she objected to in Mrs. Coxe; she thought it might be her giggle and her double chin. It had been always a relief when one of these "business" dinners was over, and she knew she would not have to do it soon again. When Mr. Carstairs dined in return with the Coxes, they had him at some fashionable restaurant, taking him afterward to the play. Mrs. Coxe had shown sense enough for that! During the interregnum of Mrs. Coxe's mourning following the demise of her exhausted lord, Mr. Carstairs had had the yacht meet Helen and himself at Gibraltar, and cruised all that winter in the Mediterranean.

That had been life abroad, Helen thought, with a throb of yearning! She was very fond of her father, rather a stony image to most people, and immensely proud of the way people looked up to his achievements in the Street, the resistless rush of his business combinations, his massive wealth, and his perfect imperturbability to newspaper cavil and attacks by enemies. She had loved to be at the head of his establishment, and to receive the clever and distinguished and notable people, foreign and domestic, who accepted Mr. Carstairs' invitation to meet one another, because they were clever and distinguished and notable, not because they wanted to talk all the evening what they had talked all day.

When they had come home from their cruise, Helen spent the summer in Newport, where her father rarely went. The yacht was his summer home, he was wont to say; and Helen did not suspect how often that season the noble "Sans Peur" had been anchored off the shores of a settlement in Long Island where Mrs. Coxe was enjoying the seclusion of a shingled villa with broad verandas set in a pocket handkerchief of lawn. Back and forth flew the owner's steam launch between the "Sans Peur" and the landing, and yet nobody told Helen. That autumn she had affairs of her own to absorb her time and give her a sobering view of humanity. For the first time in her life her father had vacated his throne as masculine ruler of her thoughts. She had passed into the grip of a strong, real passion for a man "nobody" knew.

That is to say, John Glynn was too hard at work to let himself be found out. Helen had indulged in her affair with him almost unknown to her acquaintances, most of whom regarded the foot of the ladder of wealth, where he distinctly stood, as the one spot where dalliance in sentiment was to be shunned. Her movements were hampered by the fact that, although the daughter of a plutocrat, she had only a trifle of her own; Mr. Carstairs having announced, with the insolent eccentricity of some men of his stripe, that she should go dowerless to her husband, hoping thus to protect her from fortune-seekers, foreign and native. So long as she remained unmarried under his roof she was to enjoy great wealth and the importance it confers. Until now Helen had not cared. Her brain was clear, her head was cool, she had tastes and occupations that filled every hour, and plenty of people who flocked around her, paying court to the dispenser of liberal hospitalities.

Her love passage had ended in disaster, but exactly what had passed between her and the unknown Glynn, no one was sufficiently intimate with Helen to ascertain.

The marriage of her father with Mrs. Coxe had taken place in June, after which Mr. Carstairs had withdrawn his apparent objections to Newport, and blossomed out there as a villa resident of supreme importance. The months of this but partially successful experiment on the part of the new Mrs. Carstairs had been passed by Helen in suppressed misery. She had gone into camp in the Adirondacks, had visited friends at Dark Harbor, and welcomed with thankfulness the invitation to spend September with a young couple of her acquaintance who had a house at Lenox, filled, with the exception of one spare room, with assorted dogs.

Early in October her father, visibly inspired by the lady who no longer giggled in Helen's presence, but had not lost her double chin, gave his recalcitrant daughter "a good talking to." If she persisted in her rebellious demeanor towards her stepmother, the more reprehensible because reserved, she was at liberty to do one of two things, viz., take a furnished house in town and engage Miss Bleecker, or somebody, to be her chaperon; or else go where she liked, abroad.

Choosing the latter alternative, Helen had been considered fortunate in securing for her companion the lady in question, who was certified by her believers to be rarely disengaged. Miss Bleecker, in earlier days, had given readings in New York drawing-rooms and elsewhere about the country, until the gradual fading away of audiences had turned her thoughts into the present more lucrative and less fatiguing channel of genteelest occupation.

Nature had gifted her with an ephemerally imposing presence, large, cold, projecting eyes, an authoritative voice and an excellent knowledge of the art of dress. It was familiarly said that to see her come into a room was a lesson to any girl; and her acquaintance with the ins and outs of New York society and fond pride in the display of it, put the dull lady beyond criticism as a general conversationalist.

The two travellers were attended by a French maid, closely modelled in exterior upon previous employers of rank abroad, whose service she had relinquished for the higher wage resulting from her American decadence in social standing. Her large wad of suspiciously golden hair, frizzed over the eyebrows, was a souvenir of a "Lady Reggie"; while the flat waist, girdled low upon the hips of a portly person, was her best tribute to the slim young Princess Bartolozzi who had had her two years in Rome. This composite rendering of great ladies did not rob Mademoiselle Eulalie of the coarse modelling of her features; but, on the other hand, as Miss Bleecker said, she was safe from couriers, and her packing was a dream.

When Helen went to the cabin de luxe secured by her father's secretary, into which Miss Bleecker's room opened, she felt impatient with the girls who followed her, exclaiming approvingly over its comforts; with the maid who stood sentinel by her gold-fitted dressing-case; with Miss Bleecker, who, in colloquy with a white-capped stewardess, was already laying down the law as to their requirements on the voyage. She hurried out again, encompassed by her friends, to gain the upper deck, where the men of the visiting party, looking unanimously bored, awaited anxiously the ringing of the last gong that should drive them from the ship. All had been said that could be said on either side. Vague repetitions had set in. Helen's eyes roved eagerly over the crowds on the pier below, over the congested gangway. She was hoping to see her father, and--perhaps, but improbably--one other. Late in the fray a brougham rattled along the pier and drew up below. Helen recognized her father's big brown horse and his steady coachman in sober livery, the down-town outfit of the financier, who, below Fourteenth Street, was simplicity itself. Mr. Carstairs, with a preoccupied air, got out and ascended the gangway. The official in charge at the top of it, who would have barred the way to a lesser man, smiled and waved the magnate into his daughter's embraces. Everything insensibly yielded to the subtle power of this ruler of the destinies of men. Helen, as she drew out of the lax clasp of the paternal arm, felt a thrill of her old pride in him; a sense of despair that she was nevermore to be his chosen companion for a voyage; a sharp pang of resentment at the image of the absent interloper of their peace.

"It was too good of you to find time to come, papa!" she exclaimed, turning to nod to the secretary who accompanied him. "Who knows when we shall be together again!"

"Yes, there is a board of directors waiting for me now," said Mr. Carstairs abstractedly. "Of course, you will be all right, my dear. Foster has seen to everything, and Miss Bleecker will--ah. Miss Bleecker, here you are; glad to see you looking so fit for the voyage. Nothing to speak of, though, a crossing in this monster. Wish I were getting away myself. I'm off now, Helen, my dear. Wish you good luck and a good time generally!"

"It won't be with you and the 'Sans Peur,' father," exclaimed the girl, with filling eyes.

"Well, well, we did get along pretty well last cruise, didn't we? I was to tell you," he added, lowering his tone, "that if you are in the humor for it, in the Spring--in the humor, mind you, we'll be out, probably in March, and take you and Miss Bleecker on at Villefranche, or anywhere you like."

"Thank you, sir," said Helen, rigid in a moment, her eyes dried of moisture.

"Think it over, my dear! You'll find it better worth while."