The opal: A Novel

Philip Morley ascended the steps of Mr. Elton’s house on the afternoon of the “very informal” reception, at the psychological moment between the hours of four and six, when the first reluctant black-coated figures began to give character to the steadily flowing stream of gayly dressed women. Having succeeded in fighting his way to the door of the drawing-room, the young man paused a moment to nerve himself for the plunge into a noise and heat that seemed almost tangible. The sharp, shrill voices of women buzzed in his ears like the trills of persecuting insects, and high mirthless laughs cut his nerves like little steel blades.

“This is not civilization, it is barbarism!” Philip exclaimed to another timid male explorer into the wilderness of women. “Talk about giving the franchise to any class of human beings who take pleasure in assemblies of this sort! It’s preposterous! Women may be very charming individually, but collectively--O Lord!”

He looked helplessly into the room to try and locate his hostess, who would be sure to straighten him out into his customary ease of body and mind with a grasp of her friendly hand.

“Why are the men so thick in that corner?” he continued querulously. “Oh, I see.”

The crowd had thinned a little at the entrance to the room, and between eager faces and nodding heads, Philip Morley caught sight of a girl standing beside Mary Elton. Her beauty, her extraordinary quality, defied description or comparison. To say that she was tall, graceful, dignified,--radiant in coloring and expression,--would have been to describe half a dozen other good-looking women in the room. She positively seemed to radiate light, and to give a dazzling impression of eternal youth and of the beauty that is in living, moving things; not the cold perfection of a statue, or any work of art, but the vitality of the work of nature,--the sparkle of running water, the changing wonder of a landscape played upon by sun and cloud and breeze. Her very dress seemed part of her, and to a man’s ignorant eyes gave a bewildering impression of misty gray, toning into a delicate pink that in turn melted into the color of pale heliotropes, as it caught different rays of light. Her own soft yet vivid coloring was opalescent like her dress, for her hair was of the warm brown that grows golden in the light, her eyes were so clear that they seemed to reflect blue, green, and gray shadows, and the delicate color in her cheek came and went as she talked. Nor was her wonderful beauty that of line and color only, for intelligence, sympathy, and humor shone from her speaking face. Assuredly Mary Elton’s guest was possessed of the kind of beauty one reads of in old-fashioned romantic novels, but with an added touch of indefinable modernity and subtle mystery. In contrast, Mary Elton looked plainer than usual,--which was saying much. She was so far from good-looking that no one but herself ever commented on it. Plainness of feature was simply one of her attributes, like height in a tower or strength in a fortress, and invited no comment.

She caught sight of Philip standing by the door, and made a humorous face at him, signifying her own aversion to the hubbub around. Then she beckoned to him, pointed encouragingly at Edith Dudley, as to a goal that was worth much pushing and elbowing to attain. When he was within arm’s length, she held out her hand.

“Quick, what do you think of her? Isn’t she lovely? Isn’t she wonderful? Shouldn’t you think I was the last person in the world to get hold of such a drawing card? Aren’t we splendid foils for each other? Oughtn’t she to pay me to travel about with her? Why don’t you say what you think of her? You’re always so slow, Philip!”

“On the contrary, it’s you who are fast,” he replied laughing. “I am by no means slow to admire Miss Dudley. She is certainly stunning, but I am not sure that I want to meet any one so lovely. She can’t fail to be a disappointment with such a face as a handicap to her brain.”

“You just wait. She’s wonderful,” Mary exclaimed triumphantly. “Stop, look, and listen, as the railroad warnings say. Don’t meet her for a little while, but just stand on the outskirts, and watch her tact and grace and cleverness. Oh, she’s wonderful!” Mary repeated. Here Mary’s uncle came up to give to Philip the official greetings of a semi-host.

Mr. Elton was a fair type of the average business man. His mental horizon seemed bounded by the wool in which he dealt, but he was kindly in disposition, and truly attached to the niece who had lived with him since she was left an orphan at twelve years of age. There was no intimacy between them,--perhaps the difference in their temperaments had helped to encourage the girl’s introspection, and forced her to find her best companionship in herself,--but there was genuine affection, even although Mr. Elton might be said to have cared for his niece with all his conscience, rather than with all his heart.

“Our young friend seems to be meeting with a fair measure of success,” he stated, with the precision that characterized all his trite utterances. “It is not often that one finds so good an intelligence combined with so beautiful a face. I was really surprised at the knowledge she showed of the way in which a big business,--like that of wool, for instance,--is conducted. She seems to be well informed on many subjects, without being superficial; a rare quality nowadays.”

Mary rescued Philip from the wearisome task of feigning an interest in her uncle’s dry and woolly comments, by sending Mr. Elton off to do the polite to a lady whose deaf smile was the index to her infirmity. “There, Uncle Charles, do go and scream at poor Miss Green. She won’t hear a word you say, but she is touchingly grateful if one merely recites the alphabet to her. Why will deaf people come to afternoon teas, and why does every one who isn’t deaf assume that every one else is? I never heard such a cackling. The parlor is turned into a barn-yard. Oh, how do you do, Miss Milton?”

Mary turned suddenly to greet a new arrival, who bore the hall-mark of a charitable spinster, from the neat little white path that divided an expanse of smoothly plastered hair, to the broad soles of her sensible shoes. She was the scion of a family which had many branches and was less conspicuous for its manners than its customs.

She proved her birthright by staring across her hostess at Miss Dudley for a moment before answering Mary’s greeting, and then saying abruptly, “What an extraordinary-looking young woman to be a friend of yours! Who is she? Has she relations in Boston?”

“Nothing nearer than myself. But she’s all right, Miss Milton. I shouldn’t have asked you to meet her if she hadn’t been,” Mary suavely declared, with an intentional humor that missed fire. “You’ll find she isn’t as frivolous as you think. She has an extraordinary insight, and will probably divine by intuition that you are more interested in the poor than the prosperous, and she will unquestionably give you the latest wrinkle in philanthropy. You just see. Come,” Mary continued, dragging her elderly victim after her by one end of her dateless mantilla. “Edith, I want you to meet Miss Eliza Milton. This, Miss Milton, is my friend--and cousin by courtesy--Miss Dudley. Be acquainted, as they say in the country.”

Philip saw the girl turn from the young men surrounding her, and speak to the unfashionable aristocrat in a low rich tone that fell soothingly on the ear among the sharp staccato waves of sound that filled the room. The sympathy and kindly human interest that beamed from the girl’s face could not be the result of training alone. Even her double-distilled inheritance of Southern courtesy and French grace could not explain a responsiveness that had no touch of the professional veneer that glazes eyes and lips into a perfunctory assumption of interest. Miss Milton had not been talking to the girl two minutes before the conversation had veered from the general to the particular, and Edith Dudley was giving the charitable spinster a little account of an experience she had had among the poor in a New York college settlement.

“I am very much interested in sociology,” Philip was astounded to hear the young girl glibly declare, “and I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen a little of the practical workings of various schemes for the regeneration of mankind.”

Miss Milton drew herself up with pride at representing the One Perfectly Organized Body of Workers on Earth.

“It is easy to dispose of a large subject with superficial catch-words,” she proclaimed.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Miss Dudley agreed sympathetically. “Some personal experience, some knowledge from the inside, is necessary. I have had a little,--less than I should like,--but I should be so grateful to you, Miss Milton, if you would put me in the way of taking some small part in the special form of philanthropy in which you are interested. Of course I have already read and heard a good deal about the Associated Charities here in Boston.”

“Naturally,” Miss Milton interposed.

“I am immensely impressed by its aims and accomplishments,” Miss Dudley continued. “I wonder if I couldn’t do a little visiting for you while I am in Boston.”

“We are always glad of intelligent assistance,” the Philanthropist guardedly admitted.

“I don’t know about the intelligence,” the girl said smilingly, “but I speak Italian fairly well. I believe you always need some additional visitors in the Italian quarter, don’t you? I should be so glad if you would let me practice my Italian on some transplanted organ-grinders and fruit-venders.”

Miss Milton acquiesced, with a slightly distrustful manner, in a suggestion that seemed to her as surprising as if a butterfly had suddenly offered to lead the strenuous life of a bee. Her frankly expressed astonishment was broken in upon by the introduction of a clerical young man, whose studiedly sympathetic smile seemed to preach the duty of cheerfulness to a quite professional extent, and whose air of worldly ease was the logical sequence to his ministerial waistcoat.

“Ah, this does make me feel at home!” Miss Dudley exclaimed, with a cordial grasp of the ineffective white hand extended to meet hers. “I never expected to see anything so anomalous as a clergyman of the Church of England in Mary Elton’s drawing-room. I haven’t dared to breathe my sympathy for anything so conservative as--as you, in this hot-bed, no, cold-bed of radicalism.”

“There are a few of us left, Miss Dudley, a few of us left,” he replied, with the easy reiteration of the obvious in which his calling had perfected him. He grasped an imaginary surplice with two delicate fingers. “May I hope that you will persuade Miss Elton to bring you to St. Matthew’s next Sunday, and see for yourself that Unitarians and Christian Scientists do not yet control all Boston,--not quite all of this fair city?” he eloquently preached.

“Of course I’ll come, but my cousin won’t come with me. I feel sure that she secretly goes to some hall where Emerson is the Deity worshiped, although she pretends not to go anywhere. She is much too unconventional to attend any church that preaches legitimate doctrine, but I’ll come alone.”