Chapter I: Part 1

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THE BLIND BOW-BOY

_The first edition of_ +THE BLIND BOW-BOY+ _consists of thirty-six hundred and fifteen copies as follows: fifteen on Borzoi all rag paper signed by the author and numbered A to O; one hundred copies on Borzoi all rag paper signed by the author and numbered 1 to 100; and thirty-five hundred copies on English featherweight paper_.

_This is Number_ 36

THE BLIND
BOW-BOY

_Carl Van Vechten_

_With a decoration by
Robert E. Locher_

New York Alfred · A · Knopf
MCMXXIII

COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

_To
ALFRED A. KNOPF
My publisher and my friend_

_La vie est un jour de Mi-Carême. Quelques-uns se
masquent; moi je ris._
CATULLE MENDÈS

CONTENTS.

Page

Chapter I 1

Chapter II 20

Chapter III 32

Chapter IV 56

Chapter V 92

Chapter VI 106

Chapter VII 123

Chapter VIII 152

Chapter IX 182

Chapter X 202

Chapter XI 214

Chapter XII 225

Chapter XIII 241

Chapter XIV 250

_Chapter I_

Harold Prewett sat in the broad, black-walnut seat of an ambiguous piece of furniture which branched above, in spreading antlers, into a rack for coats and hats and which below, at either side, provided means for the disposition of canes and umbrellas. The mere presence of these heavy, sullen antlers was sufficiently dispiriting to increase the gloomy atmosphere which environed the young man. The room in which he sat waiting was a hallway. Through a vestibule one entered it from the street, and it served its purpose as the main artery through which the life of the house flowed, by offering entrances and exits to the other rooms on that floor and, by way of a staircase, carpeted in turkey-red and guarded by black-walnut banisters, it led to regions above. There was a high wainscot of the oppressive black-walnut, and the wall from the wainscot to the solid panelled ceiling was covered with a thick embossed paper, bronze in colour, embellished with a grandiose and florid, semi-heraldic pattern. The vestibule door and the door into the street beyond were both open and the warm June light filtered through and somewhat dispelled the moroseness of the 1875 grandeur of the place. On the first landing of the staircase, midway between the two floors, a stained-glass window, of purple and blue and green diamond panes, permitted a little more light to enter. Underneath this window the great pendulum of a high hall-clock swung slowly back and forth, marking the sluggish passage of time with its sharp, tiresome ticks.

Harold Prewett was an attractive young man, with chestnut-coloured hair, brown eyes, a healthy complexion, and a fairly competent build. He looked well in his clothes, a double-breasted brown suit, which any sophisticated person could have told you came from a Fifth Avenue tailor, and the modest shade of his cravat indicated a conservative taste in tinges. The young man had recently graduated from college, but there was nothing in his demeanour to suggest excessive confidence on this account. He fidgeted a good deal; he mumbled to himself, evidently rehearsing words and phrases of which he hoped presently to deliver himself in the presence of an audience. He twirled his straw hat nervously between his fingers and, occasionally, he stood up and walked about, but, after a moment or two of this restless marching, he invariably returned to his seat in the hat-rack under the spreading antlers.

The cause of his perturbation was somewhat grotesque. He had been summoned to a conference with his father. Now, most boys, in good health, well-dressed, with no special crimes on their consciences, would be able to face even the most irascible of parents without any great amount of diffidence. The facts in this case, however, were decidedly peculiar. Father and son had yet to meet for the first time. The reasons governing the postponement of this encounter were not unknown to a few of George Prewett’s friends, but Harold himself was entirely uninitiated in regard to them. Before going away to college he had lived with an aunt in Connecticut. He had always been provided with plenty of pocket-money and, on rare occasions, he had received instructions on minor points of conduct from his father’s legal adviser. During his college years his vacations had invariably been spent at the home of his aunt, who, under orders, probably, never mentioned his father’s name, although she was his sister. He had not, indeed, been entirely certain that his father was alive until, on the day that he graduated, he had received a telegraphic summons from the lawyer, bidding him to come to his father’s house on West Eighty-second Street in New York. His father, at last, desired to see him.

Now the nature of this unnatural father’s plans in his behalf held sinister terrors for Harold. This aloof parent, having footed the bills unquestioningly for twenty-one years, might conceivably have it in mind to take advantage of this fact to make unpleasant conditions in regard to the future. He might wish his son to become a bond salesman or to embark in the cloak and suit business. Harold was a little dubious about the future. He seemed to lack strong desires, but he was conscious of a few strong aversions. The cloak and suit business was one of these, for a reason hereinafter to be noted.

Moodily occupied with such morbid meditations, Harold had been sitting in the hat-rack for ten or fifteen minutes. He sat there for another five before the approach of the man who had met him at the door announced to him that his suspense was presently to be relieved in however unpleasant a manner.

The man spoke: Mr. Prewett will see you now, sir.

The man led the way, Harold following closely at his heels, up the red-carpeted staircase, along the upper hallway to the very front, where he knocked on a closed door. There was a moment of hesitation before a brusque Come in! concluded all this preliminary ceremony. Harold’s heart was beating very fast; he was entirely unaware of the opening and closing of the door, the departure of the servant, and his own eventual shuffling to the centre of the room. When he had recovered himself sufficiently to look about, he noted that he seemed to be standing in a vast library. A man, who was, he assumed, his father, sat facing him, bent over a desk, apparently intent on the perusal of a quantity of papers. Harold became a trifle calmer as he began to realize that the man at the desk was almost certainly as much perturbed and embarrassed as he himself had been. Presently, after a few more seconds of silence, during which the boy stood perfectly still, the elder man (a much older man than Harold had expected to see) rose and leaned over the desk to shake hands with his son.

How do you do? were his first words and his voice sounded suspiciously choked.

Harold echoed this polite cliché.

George Prewett pointed to a chair and then, seemingly entirely overcome by the meeting, by the first words, and by his thoughts of past and future, sank back into his seat and again appeared to busy himself with the pile of papers on his desk.

Completely confident by now that his father was certainly more terrified than he had been at any stage of this strange game, Harold grew steadily cooler. He stared at the rows of books in shelves against the walls, at the steel-engravings above the shelves, at the curtained alcoves framing the windows, and then he ventured to look back at this eccentric figure who seemed to be ostentatiously pretending to be unaware of his presence, a stout, half-bald, rapidly aging man, who wore eye-glasses framed in tortoise-shell, and a suit of purple mohair.

This scene in the comedy was now abruptly terminated. The elder man spoke again.

Fond of athletics, I suppose? he queried, almost sharply, in a voice which was deep but not unpleasant in quality.

Not games so much, but I like to ride and swim, Harold answered.

No football or baseball?

No, I don’t care much for those.

Good!

Following this exchange of information there was another brief silence.

Well, what do you want to do now?

I don’t know, sir. Your lawyer informed me that I was to make no decisions regarding my future. He asked me to wait.

And you have strictly regarded this injunction? George Prewett seemed almost anxiously eager.

Naturally I have endeavoured to follow the instructions of one to whom I was indebted for my income. Also, quite naturally, I have at times speculated on my future. I must admit that certain occupations appear to me to be extremely distasteful.

Those are? The older man was gruff.

Harold paused and blushed. Then he spoke out: I have no wish, sir, to engage in the cloak and suit business.

It was the turn of George Prewett to blush, but beyond the obvious embarrassment which convulsed his features, it was possible to discern what seemed to be the evidence of a deep and abiding joy and relief.

You are my son! he cried. Embrace me.

He rose from his seat and Harold stood up to meet him. The older man grasped the younger man’s shoulders. The son tried to encircle his father’s waist. This constrained attempt at a display of affection seemed to exhaust them both, and, dropping their arms, they sank back into their chairs. The father was the first to rally.

You are my son! he repeated. My son! Your answers are music to my ears. You are saying exactly what I would have you say. Then, with an air of suspicion, You haven’t been warned?

Warned? By whom? The young man sufficiently showed his bewilderment.

George Prewett was reassured. No, he said, Sanderson would never break my trust, betray my confidence. No more, I think, would my sister. It is fate, he cried, fate, which has given me the son I would have asked for, had I asked for a son at all, he wound up, musing on some hidden grief.

Then, with one of those quick transitions which marked his character, Have you had your lunch?

Why yes, father; it is nearly four o’clock.

So it is. So it is. I never know the time. I have been so occupied today that I have forgotten to eat, but the dinner hour is approaching and one meal a day is enough for any man. Well, I’m pleased with you, delighted would be a better word. Yes, I’m delighted with you.

Harold said nothing.

And now, I suppose that you wish to know about your future, so far as I have any concern with your future. Or would you rather, perhaps, learn something of your past?

It is for you to say, father. Tell me what you feel like telling me.

It is no easy task I have set myself. You may turn against me. You don’t know me at all, and it is difficult to tell a boy what I have to tell you. But you must believe that I am pleased with you--he paused for a moment to wipe the moisture from his eye-glasses--or I would not be willing, or able, to tell you what I am about to tell you now.

I do believe it, father.

I am sure you do. You must know then--the hand of George Prewett shook and there were traces of emotion in his voice--that your mother was an extremely beautiful woman, and that she was the only person I have ever really loved. I was past forty when I married her, but she was a young girl at this period. A few months later I learned to my delight that, in the course of time, she would be delivered of a child. The plans I made for the life of that little girl, for it never occurred to me to consider the possibility that I might have a son, were prodigious. I will not take up your time, young sir, in describing them, but you can judge of my supreme disappointment when I learned that my wife had given birth to a boy. My grief and rage were merged in despair when I was informed by her physician that my beloved wife had but a few more hours to live.

At this point in his narrative, the elderly gentleman began to choke. He pounded the desk for a few seconds with an ivory paper-cutter before he resumed his story. Harold, meanwhile, sat perfectly quiet.

I was told that my wife was aware of her fatal condition and wished to see me for the last time before she died. Our meeting for this parting was the saddest moment of my life. I will not dwell upon it--he mopped his brow with his large white linen handkerchief--but upon its results. On her deathbed, my wife, who knew that under such conditions I would promise anything, exacted an oath from me. That oath concerns you. I swore before God over your mother’s deathbed that you should have a college education.

But, sir! Harold now began plainly to exhibit his astonishment.

Do not interrupt me! his father resumed harshly. Hear me out. I have no intention of leaving anything unexplained. I have asked you to come here today solely for the purpose of explaining everything. Understand then, young man, that I myself am the victim of a college education. I went to college ... and learned nothing. I left the doors of the university without the slightest preparation for the life to come. Commencement! What an ironic word. It should be called bewilderment. I had studied Latin, Greek, and English prose. I was conversant with the principles of mathematics and chemistry, but I was utterly unfamiliar with life and how to live it. I had no specific talents. I was not an artist. I had no capacity for writing. I discovered, in fact, that, far from establishing any of the laws of existence, my education had completely unfitted me for any sort of intercourse with men. I had been much better off had I never seen a campus.

My people were not poor, but their means were moderate. I had brothers and sisters. The necessity of my making a living for myself was borne in upon me by my well-intentioned parents, who had thrown me in the way of forgetting how to make it. In the face of their hope that I would quickly choose some occupation or profession, I found myself completely helpless. I felt no calling for the ministry, the law, or medicine; nor had my education fitted me for any of these pursuits. My father, therefore, a physician in a small town, could give me no assistance. In my extremity I received a letter from one of my college mates, who had inherited from his father a modest but prosperous cloak and suit business. He, too, was bitterly despondent, and felt himself utterly incapable of undertaking the management of the firm. It had occurred to him, however, that together we might minimize the chances of failure. This opportunity to enter a stray edge of the business world was worse than anything that I had dreamed might happen, but I was forced to consider that no alternatives had presented themselves and that my father, who had generously provided me with what he thought was a good education, could not reasonably be expected to look longer after my welfare. I accepted, therefore, the offer of my friend and engaged in the pursuit of the cloak and suit business.

During this discourse, Harold’s eyes dilated with horror, but, obeying his father’s expressed command, he refrained from making any comment.

We made a great many mistakes in the beginning, as was but natural, Prewett senior continued, but one grows accustomed to anything, and it was not long before we found ourselves quite capable of running our plant in a satisfactory manner. Had it not been for my sister Sadie, however, the aunt who has brought you up, I doubt if I should have been in a position to marry or to liberally provide for your whims. My sister, who was our head designer, invented the famous Ninon de Lenclos cloak, the sensation of the season of 1897. The fame of this garment swept the country. We sent a model to Mrs. Potter Palmer and, after she had appeared in public in the cloak, its success was made. Our limited capacity proved insufficient to meet the flood of orders and we erected a larger plant. Since then the business has moved ahead triumphantly. Never, however, has this success seemed to me to be deserved; never has it interested me.

Had I not been educated in college, doubtless I should have slipped automatically into my proper niche. I might have been a brakeman on a railroad or a sailor before the mast, but at any rate there would have been some intention or meaning in my occupation. All that college did for me was to unfit me for decision. It unwilled me and threw me forward into the first opportunity that presented itself.

The gloom on the elderly gentleman’s face was apparently ineffaceable.

Realizing, he went on after a moment’s pause, that with the advent of a boy, my difficulties would be repeated in his life, I wished with all my heart that my dear wife would present me with a little girl. Through no fault of hers, she failed me. Immediately the news of your birth was brought to me, I began to conceive ways by which I might spare you the agony of my own experience. I will never send him to college, I promised myself, never. My wife, who was acquainted with my opinions on this subject, had always pooh-poohed my sentiments. Have you not been successful? she would ask. What more do you wish? You have made plenty of money and your college education has made it possible for you to enjoy the best books, to travel with pleasure, even to marry me. There was, beyond doubt, some logic in this reasoning, but it did not appeal to me. I could not dispel from my mind the memory of that horrible summer of perplexity and its obvious cause. All I could remember was that a college education had thrown me into the cloak and suit business, which was not, I felt certain, my predestined field. I determined to spare my son, if possible, a repetition of this experience. Aware of my intentions, my wife took advantage of my emotional weakness and made me promise, over her deathbed, that I would send you to college. I gave her the promise. She died, and I closed her eyes.

During the relation of this remarkable history George Prewett had several times permitted his gaze to wander about the room, but now he fastened his eyes securely on his son.

The fact that you were not a girl did not endear you in my eyes; the further fact that you had caused the death of your mother made it impossible for me to entertain the thought of seeing you. The reflection that she had christened you Harold made the alienation complete. I arranged at once for your care. You were brought up first by a wet-nurse, later by my sister, who, amply rewarded for her skill in designing the Ninon de Lenclos cloak, had retired to a life of peace in the country. I have kept my promise. You have been sent to college. And, latterly, I have grown less bitter. After all, it is not your fault that you are a boy, not your fault that you killed your mother, not your fault, even, that you were named Harold. I determined, therefore, to assume the usual paternal relationship towards you, and I began to consider ways and means by which I might possibly counteract the dangerous effects of your education. I believe I have hit upon a method.

There now fell a complete silence, and the young man gathered from the extended pause that his father would raise no further objections to his speaking.

Father, he began, when I told you that I had an aversion for the cloak and suit business I had no idea....

Of course, you hadn’t! That’s why your remarks delighted me so much. I was expecting opposition, he added, rather ambiguously.

Opposition! But, father, you have provided for me thus far and I understand very well, after what you have told me, how repugnant the idea of meeting me must have been to you. I can see no reason for opposing you, father, especially since you assure me that you have no desire for me to enter the cloak--your business.

Enter it! I would see you dead first! I would give the business away! However, we need not speak of that, since no such contingency has arisen. Our conversation has fortified and delighted me beyond measure. I am relieved to find you so tractable and I have the highest hopes for your future. It had been my original intention to spin this interview out over several meetings, two weeks or a month, perhaps, but it has been so simple to go thus far that I can see no reason for hesitating to go farther. I think I am completely justified in believing that I can make you acquainted with my plans for you at once.

I am waiting to hear them, father.

Know then that I have reasoned that you may be only prepared to struggle with life as it exists by a certain reversal of preparation. You have been prepared ... for what? For nothing! But, perhaps, in spite of your present uncertainty, you are not entirely convinced of that fact. You must be convinced. You must see more of life and learn to live; you must learn to discount what you have been taught. In other words, you must learn to think for yourself, and become capable of _choosing_ an occupation which will do you credit, which will be a reflection of your own personality and not of mine. I care not what this occupation may be, so long as it represents the results of experience and mature judgment. I have decided, therefore, to make somewhat of an experiment.

If this interview had not been the expected ordeal, at least it had held elements of surprise. This new turn again caused lines of amazement to collect about the young man’s eyes.

I cannot, continued George Prewett, throw you out into the world to gain your own experience. You would be as helpless, in that case, as if you were asked at once to choose your future occupation. You have been unfitted for going out into the world. I have determined, therefore, to provide you with a tutor.

Am I to study longer, then?

Study is not the word. You are, as a matter of fact, to do exactly what you please. Your tutor will guide you, however, guide you carefully into the ways of life, and some of its byways. There may be hours for reflection and what you call study. He may conceivably suggest certain courses of reading. I have left him a more or less free hand in this respect, for the young man I have discovered is so uncannily like the ideal I set before myself that I think I am justified in permitting him almost unlimited discretion.

May I ask...?

Certainly, certainly, I am coming to that. Harold’s father betrayed a touch of impatience at this point. This young man is no old and valued friend. I secured him through an advertisement.

An advertisement!

An advertisement. I shall have no further secrets from you. Here it is. Mr. Prewett picked a clipping from the clutter on his desk and began to read:

Wanted: Young man of good character but no moral sense. Must know three languages and possess a sense of humour. Autodidact preferred, one whose experience has led him to whatever books he has read. It is absolutely essential that he should have been the central figure in some public scandal. Age, not above thirty. Right person will receive suitable emolument. Answer BCX.

Harold’s stupefaction had merged into terror again; this time something very like panic had seized him.

And you found one ... like that? he stammered.

A dozen. At least a dozen. Two hundred replied to my advertisement. With the aid of my very competent attorney, who has succeeded in baffling you in regard to your parentage for twenty-one years, I selected twenty-five of the most promising letters. The writers of these I interviewed personally. Twelve were singled out for future investigation. Many knew the languages and had at least a limited sense of humour, a few were lacking, I am quite certain, in a moral sense, but only one qualified completely as to the public scandal.

But I cannot imagine the advantage....

No more you can, of course. Your education has unfitted your mind for the reception of such ideas. I shall, therefore, make no effort to explain them to you. It will suffice, perhaps, if I inform you that I regard this young man as the apple of my eye. I have conversed with him on several occasions. He has been interrogated by my lawyer, who has made the most minute inquiries into his life. In every respect I find myself entirely satisfied in regard to his manner of living, his past and his present. He is a delightfully irresponsible and unmoral person and I place you in his care without any reservations whatever.

There were several points in these remarks that astounded the young man. He wished to ask many questions, but he judged from his father’s expression that he had better limit himself to one, which was:

What is his name, father?

Paul Moody.

The man who went to Ludlow for refusing to pay his wife alimony?

The same.

The papers were full of him a month or two ago!

They were. And now, I think it would be unwise to prolong this interview. You are not as yet prepared to fully comprehend its purport and further conversation might lead us into emotional relations which would be very unfortunate at the present stage of our acquaintanceship. I like you very well to begin with, and I might grow fond enough of you to quarrel with you. I have judged it best, therefore, that for the present we continue to live apart.

The young man opened his mouth to speak again.

Do not interrupt me. To live apart. George Prewett was staring hard at the ceiling. To this end, I have leased an apartment for you on East Eighteenth Street. Moody lives in Gramercy Park. Here is your key. The address is on the attached tag. You will find the apartment ready for occupancy, and there is a man there who will attend to your wants which, I hope, will not be modest. If you feel inclined to move about, to lease larger quarters, you are your own master. Sanderson will confer with you in regard to such matters, but I may assure you that your means are practically unlimited. Mr. Moody will doubtless inspire you, but when you have ideas of your own, you will discover that he will be only too ready to assist you to carry them out.

In the meantime, we shall resume our former status. A year from today you are to return to tell me what you have learned. Then, having established a proper foundation for mutual intercourse, it will be possible to begin to discuss your future. Thereafter, I have every hope that you will not only be a man of the world but an excellent companion for me as well. That is all. Good-bye, young man.

There was a certain sense of relief in these last words as if this interview had taxed his powers almost to the limits of his endurance.

Good-bye, father, echoed the bewildered Harold.

_Chapter II_

Harold had been brought up among the flutter of petticoats. That fact had established his character more conclusively than the subsequent college years. His aunt, born Prewett, had never married. Christened Sarah, she was soon dubbed Sadie; after a trip to Europe she herself had altered this to Sadi. The trip to Europe was responsible for other phenomena: one was the aforementioned Ninon de Lenclos cloak, which was a modification of a model she had observed at a famous Parisian couturière’s; another was a passion for the method of Delsarte, which, for a time, she had contemplated imparting to New York débutantes; a third was an obsession for the Anna Song from Nanon, which had caught her fancy at a performance of the opera she had heard in Munich and which had held it to the present day. Nearly every morning, indeed, it was her custom to seat herself before her old rosewood square piano, with its thin metallic tone, and perform this waltz, somewhat woodenly, singing the words in her bedizened German and, latterly, in a voice which frequently cracked:

Anna, zu Dir ist mein liebster Gang,
Mein liebster Gang,
Mein liebster Gang;
Anna, Dir tönet mein bester Sang,
Mein bester Sang,
Mein bester Sang;
Anna, Annettchen, welch’ holder Klang,
Welch’ holder Klang,
Welch’ holder Klang;
Anna, Dir sing’ ich mein Lebelang!
Ja, mein Lebelang!

Long after her visit to Paris, Sadi had succumbed to one more foreign influence. Visiting a New York shop, she had seen a Fortuny gown, one of those crinkly crêpe robes, knotted at the shoulders with cords of gold, hanging straight like a Mother Hubbard, but belted at the waist with an ornate girdle. She had purchased this garment, and since that date she had never worn anything else. For ten years, two or three times a year, a box arrived with a new Fortuny gown; there had been red ones, blue ones, green ones, and brown ones, old gold and old rose, but the model was always exactly the same. Wearing one of these dresses, Sadi drove along the dusty roads in her surrey, as Louise de la Ramé, in white velvet costumes designed by Worth, had driven along the roads of Tuscany.

Sadi was a large woman, with large bones, large hands, large feet, a large nose, and large eyes. She had a large mole on her throat under her large left ear. Her hair remained a deep, glossy black, and probably would so remain until the day of her death, unless she stopped sending to Buffalo for certain bottles. Every morning she curled it, parted it in the centre, and tied it in a knot at the back of her head.

She had no taste for the kind of New York social life which was open to her; she was too exclusive and eccentric a person for that. Her friends were few, and those few were all women. Consequently, after the success of the Ninon de Lenclos cloak, she had retired to one of those old Connecticut farmhouses, boarded with oiled but unpainted and now weather-beaten shingles. The rooms were all on different levels, and the ceilings were so low that, in the ascension and descension of the slight flights of stairs between the chambers, tall people, like Harold and Sadi, familiar though they were with the contours of the place, frequently bumped their heads. There were stone fireplaces in this house, wide enough to burn four-foot logs, and provided with ovens and cranes, and Sadi had scoured the surrounding country, attending auction sales and persuading indigent country-folk that they were tired of their chairs and tables, in order to furnish her home appropriately. Ever since Harold could remember, Persia Blaine, an old Negress, had been a constant servitor. Other servants, all women, had come and gone, but Persia was a fixture.

Sadi professed a love for children and she was not unkind to them, but it cannot be said that she understood them. She was apparently delighted when fate placed Harold in her hands. After he had learned to speak she lavished affection on him in her own way. She talked to him, as she imagined children should be talked to, very deliberately, and in words of one syllable, when she could think of them, but solemnly, and often in the third person. Good little boys, etc. Bad little boys, etc. Bad little boys, it seemed, played with neighbouring farmers’ sons. Good little boys stayed at home. Sadi never kept a watch-dog: her mere appearance would have frightened a tramp away, but there were pigs and chickens, and Harold was permitted occasionally to visit the pens and scratch the old sow’s back with a corn-cob or a stick. Sadi kept a hired man to look after the live stock, but he was never allowed to come into the house--his meals were all delivered to him in the barn where he lived--and Harold was instructed never to talk with him. This and similar prohibitions might have infuriated another boy, might have stimulated a taste for secret disobedience, but in the make-up of Harold’s character there was no curiosity, and little initiative. Further, he was conspicuously lacking in imagination. He was proud, and like most unimaginative people, could be disagreeably obstinate. Auntie Persia, as he called her, was his favourite companion. She told him stories which she had heard as a child on a southern plantation, and she sang him old darkey folksongs. They had a game which they played with a song which began, Come on! It’s Sat’day night! Auntie Persia, indeed, understood children....

Meanwhile, Sadi Prewett continued to live her life, which consisted in rising, dressing, eating a hearty country breakfast, playing the Anna Song from Nanon, eating lunch, taking her afternoon drive, taking her tea, eating dinner, sitting for an hour or so before the fire in the winter, or on the lawn in the summer, and then retiring. These habits were invariable. Other unimportant incidents might be added to her day, however. Sometimes, she read a little, almost always from two little books of poems by Mrs. Hemans and Adah Isaacs Menken. The pale and fragile passion of Mrs. Hemans seemed very moving to her. Tears, indeed, consistently obscured her vision, as she read the lyric narrative of Gertrude von der Wart:

And bid me not depart, she cried,
My Rudolph, say not so!
This is no time to quit thy side;
Peace, peace, I cannot go.
Hath the world aught for _me_ to fear,
When death is on thy brow?
The world! what means it--_mine_ is _here_--
I will not leave thee now.

In Miss Menken’s Infelicia, she preferred the opening poem, Resurgam, and it was a very easy matter to persuade her to declaim it aloud:

Yes, yes, dear love! I am dead!
Dead to you!
Dead to the world!
Dead for ever!
It was one young night in May.
The stars were strangled, and the moon was blind with the flying
clouds of a black despair.
Years and years the songless soul waited to drift out beyond the sea
of pain where the shapeless life was wrecked.
The red mouth closed down the breath that was hard and fierce.
The mad pulse beat back the baffled life with a low sob.
And so the stark and naked soul unfolded its wings to the dimness
of Death!
A lonely, unknown Death.
A Death that left this dumb living body as his endless mark.
And left these golden billows of hair to drown the whiteness of my
bosom.
Left these crimson roses gleaming on my forehead to hide the dust of
the grave.
And Death left an old light in my eyes, and old music for my tongue,
to deceive the crawling worms that would seek my warm flesh.
But the purple wine that I quaff sends no thrill of Love and Song
through my empty veins.
Yet my red lips are not pallid and horrified.
Thy kisses are doubtless sweet that throb out an eternal passion
for me!
But I feel neither pleasure, passion nor pain.
So I am certainly dead.
Dead in this beauty!
Dead in this velvet and lace!
Dead in these jewels of light!
Dead in the music!
Dead in the dance!
etc.

Occasionally, some acquaintance or friend of an earlier day would spend a few days or a week with her. One lady, especially, who, at the time when Delsarte was fashionable, had taught his method, was often favoured with an invitation, and Sadi would converse with her by the hour about the French Master and his Message, as she called it. Then, if it were summer, robed in Grecian garments cut from pale-green cheese-cloth, they would stand on the grass underneath a spreading crab-apple tree, to avoid the direct rays of the sun, and wave their arms and sway their bodies in a manner calculated to give the butcher’s boy fits, whenever he passed the gate and saw them. This picture of his large-boned aunt, formidable in appearance but gentle at heart, and the stout Miss Perkins, who reached about to Sadi’s arm-pit, delsarting on the lawn was one of Harold’s earliest memories.

Until Harold was seven Sadi had kept him in kilts, although the boys of his epoch were usually put into baby-trousers at the age of two. These kilts and his long curls were frequently the object of attention and scorn from passing lads, who, though not over five, sported long and ragged trousers and flannel shirts and wore their hair clipped and frowzy. These boys went by the house with fishing-rods or, in the fall, with baskets to gather hickory-nuts. When they saw Harold in the yard they yelled, Sissy! and Baby girl! at him until he retreated sobbing to the shelter of Auntie Persia’s skirts.

When he was seven, Elliot Sanderson, George Prewett’s attorney, arrived, and engaged in a long conference with his aunt, the immediate result of which was the purchase of a few suits proper for a small boy, and a hair-cut. Another result was the subsequent arrival of a tall young man with glasses, solemner, on the whole, than his Aunt Sadi, who was to act, Harold learned, as his tutor. At the age of ten, Harold could read and write and do his sums, and knew something of geography, although it cannot be said that he held imaginatively any real sense of this big world. He himself had never been farther than a neighbouring village, whither he was occasionally permitted to drive with his aunt.

There were piles of old bound magazines in the house, Harper’s and Godey’s and Putnam’s, and a few other books besides, left behind by an earlier occupant, Thaddeus of Warsaw and The Scottish Chiefs, Pride and Prejudice, Cranford, Ivanhoe, Pendennis, David Copperfield, The Woman in White, the Poems of Ossian, the Poems of Owen Meredith, The Initials, Charles Auchester, Nothing to Wear, Felix Holt, The Alhambra, Our Old Home, Little Women, Emerson’s Essays, the works of Margaret Fuller, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Pilot, Under Two Flags, Redburn, Two Years Before the Mast, Neighbour Jackwood, and the Poems of James Whitcomb Riley. Harold read all these books, some of them twice.

He suffered from the usual slight childish illnesses, but his constitution was good and he was seldom really sick. When he was twelve, a new tutor arrived. He was slightly older than his predecessor and slightly more solemn. These tutors, it is to be inferred, represented the rather sedate taste of Elliot Sanderson, Esq. Mr. Sanderson had strict orders never to mention Harold’s name in his father’s presence. See that the boy is educated and keep him out of my sight, were his full instructions. With his new tutor Harold began to study algebra, English literature, history, physics, and botany. It was also during this epoch that he learned to swim. The tutor, unaccountably, was an adept at this art and in a small pond near the house, discreetly screened by hazel-brush and cat-tails, he imparted his knowledge to Harold, who never took more than a languid interest in study of any kind. Harold also began to ride a kind old horse named President McKinley.

When Harold was fifteen a tailor was sent from New York to take his measurements, and this visit was repeated thereafter at regular intervals. From this time on Harold was much too well-dressed for his environment. When, at last, the boy went to college, he had only come in contact with his Aunt Sadi, Persia Blaine, and the other servants, a few female guests, Elliot Sanderson, his two solemn tutors, and his tailor. It is not astonishing, therefore, that his college years were somewhat of a trial. If Sanderson had sent him to one of the big universities, Yale or Harvard or Princeton, it is possible that the lad might have rubbed up against somebody sufficiently sympathetic or altruistic or merely meddlesome to teach him something of the world. The lawyer, however, uncertain how long his rich client’s animosity towards his offspring might continue, thought it wise to seclude the boy in a small and rather poor sectarian college where he would scarcely be likely to meet any one who could establish communication or connections with the outside world. In this respect Sanderson’s foresight was splendidly justified.

The boy’s obviously superior style of dressing, his diffident manner, his rather obstinate pride, natural enough, considering the circumstances of his bringing-up, almost completely isolated him during his freshman year. He attended his classes and studied. Afternoons, he sometimes went horseback riding. He lived in a poor professor’s house where there were no other boys. In his sophomore year he made a friend or two, because in any community, however small, complete isolation is well-nigh impossible. The boys who gravitated towards him, however, were solemn souls, semi-ostracized, like himself. This little group discussed and settled many of life’s greatest problems.

That sex had something to do with life Harold had vaguely gleaned from the naïve books in his aunt’s library. His relations with his new friends were too formal and his curiosity too small for him to add anything very tangible to this knowledge. Presently, however, even among the indigent young students about him, he noted signs of depravity. A grocer’s daughter became pregnant and a student disappeared. Bottles were smuggled into respectable boarding-houses in defiance of both college rules and United States laws. Once, out riding, he passed a barn and was horrified at the strident sounds of blasphemy and obscene verse which issued from therein.

In his senior year he had achieved a slender philosophy. He accepted, in his modest fashion, the fact that there were unknown sins in the world. He even became a trifle cynical in an humble and apologetic way: he seemed to be so separated from others by his temperament and breeding. More and more he was alone.

There remains to be told one horrible detail which left its scars. I have noted how as a freshman his clothes by themselves would have prevented any successful intercourse with his fellow students. A raucous junior crystallized the feeling of the college when he shouted at Harold one day, Hello, Cloaks and Suits! The badge seemed appropriate: it had a tremendous vogue. He never, indeed, lost it. It covered him. It labelled him. Later, another boy added a refinement to the insult: His father must be in the business! Harold heard it as he passed, cowered and blushed.

_Chapter III_

If Harold had entered his father’s house cringing, it cannot be said that he left it with his head high. To most boys the promise of a year’s freedom under such exceptional circumstances would have opened up a prospect of unbounded bliss, the security of an irresponsible existence. But Harold was not like most boys. He had entertained, it seems probable, some vague expectation that he would be invited to remain.

It was, therefore, a very dazed young man who fairly tottered down the stairs and almost jumped when the servant emerged from the darkness to present him with his hat and usher him through the open doorway. Out in the bright June glare of Eighty-second Street he thought for a moment that he was going to be sick, but he managed to summon enough force to hail a passing taxi-cab, and to give the address of his new home.

Sinking well back into the seat of the cab, he removed his hat and wiped the perspiration from his temples. Freed from the cloak and suit business by this extraordinary father, so much more extraordinary even than he had suspected, Harold seemed committed to a new life which was still more out of his line. He was decidedly alarmed at the prospect before him. This Paul Moody assumed in his eyes a somewhat libidinous character. Even with his limited imagination he could not entirely efface visions of a troubled future from his mind. It was not fair, he began to argue with himself, that he should be dependent on such a singular parent. I am more like my mother, he assured himself. I must be like my mother, and he thought of the pretty miniature of that lady which he possessed. But the possibility of disobedience did not occur to him. All his life he had lived according to the desires of others, and it seemed natural enough to go on living that way.

Suddenly, and for the first time, Harold became aware of his surroundings, for the taxi had come to a full stop. At Broadway, near Twenty-eighth Street, a heavy truck had become entangled with a taxi-cab in so intimate a manner as to completely obstruct the street. A great crowd had already collected. Out of the window of the taxi--for the occupants of neither vehicle appeared to have suffered injury--peeped the frightened and beautiful head of a maiden, a maiden with golden hair and velvet, violet eyes. She wore a blue turban and a simple, blue frock. Out of the violet eyes tears were streaming. A policeman was taking the names of the drivers. The young lady emerged and Harold caught himself staring at her. She approached the policeman.

Is it necessary for me to remain? she asked.

You must give me your name, he replied. We’ll need you as a witness.

They were standing directly outside the window of Harold’s taxi. He could plainly hear the questions and answers.

But my man was not to blame. The truck-driver turned to the left.

That’s what you can tell the judge.

The judge!

The young lady began to cry in earnest.

Your name, miss, and then you can go.

She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. She was so pitiful and so appealing: Harold felt very sorry for her.

Alice Blake.

Address?

56 East Thirty-seventh Street.

Thank you, miss. You will get a summons. You must be in court tomorrow at nine o’clock.

Isn’t there some way...?

No, miss, no other way.

She turned to depart, hoping, doubtless, to find another cab. In the meantime, observing that it would take some moments to clear the street, Harold’s driver was attempting to turn about and escape by way of Twenty-ninth Street. At last he succeeded. On the corner stood Miss Blake, timidly bidding for a taxi, but every one that passed seemed to be occupied.

The situation inspired Harold with a hitherto unrealized degree of initiative.

You are going my way.... Can I take you home? he leaned out of the cab, not without embarrassment, to call to her.

I don’t know you, sir.

This rejoinder was made quite simply, without rudeness, but it caused Harold to turn red to the full height of his forehead.

I beg your pardon. I thought....

His confusion seemed to reassure her.

You are very good, she said, as she stepped into his cab. I look such a fright crying, I hate to be seen on the street ... I’ve been arrested. She sobbed aloud now ... Father will never forgive me.

But you weren’t driving the car.

The chauffeur, as he turned into Fifth Avenue, asked for orders, and Harold gave Alice’s address.

You know where I live! she exclaimed with amazement.

I heard you tell the policeman.

You know my name, too?

Yes.... Mine is Harold Prewett.

You see, my father says, she resumed, without seeming to have heard him, that a lady will avoid accidents.

It wasn’t your fault. He would be a brute to scold you.

I have disobeyed him. He has told me always to take a cherry taxi. He is very particular about that. I was in such a hurry ... I was late for my piano lesson ... I took a pistache taxi. There was no other about. It is my fault. Father says that the cherry taxis never have accidents.

That’s nonsense. The truck ran into you; you didn’t run into it. What happened might just as easily have happened to a Rolls-Royce.

Her manner did not indicate that she was ungrateful for his sympathy; nevertheless, she appeared to be inconsolable, and continued to sob intermittently. Nor did she speak again until they reached her door, when with a muttered, Thank you, and the slight flutter of a gloved hand, she descended and disappeared in a brown-stone house, before the diffident Harold had time to give utterance to even one of the hundred different remarks that were surging inarticulately in his brain. He gazed at the closed door. Something seemed to have come into his life and to have gone out of it again. As the taxi drove away he leaned back against the cushions and wiped his temples for the second time that warm June afternoon. He was, indeed, so bewildered by the events of the day that his head began to ache violently.

Presently, his taxi stopped before an apartment house on East Eighteenth Street, and he remembered that he had one more ordeal to go through. The boy in the elevator, a Spaniard, was most obsequious. He had quite evidently been warned of an important arrival. Harold was carried up to the fourth floor, and Pedro ran on ahead to ring the bell of apartment B. The door was opened by a properly uniformed English servant, very tall, very thin, with searching grey eyes, clean-cut, sharp features, a pointed nose, a cleft chin, and very thin hair, embellished with brilliantine and plastered severely over a dome-like head. Harold almost trembled at the sight of him.

Mr. Prewett, I believe, sir. My name is Oliver Drains.

He bowed.

Your trunks and bags have arrived, sir. Mr. Sanderson saw to that.

Harold walked into his new home, not without interest. It was a suite of four rooms and bath. There was a living-room, which was also a library, a dining-room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bath. An alcove, leading from the living-room, held a couch which could be used for a guest. Harold also noted presently that there were twin beds in the bedroom. The walls were painted, deep blue in the living-room and dining-room, rose in the bedroom. The curtains were of coarse brown linen, bordered with a narrow band of chocolate tape, and heavily lined so that when they were drawn they excluded the daylight. The furniture had slip-covers of the same linen, but such articles as tables, which remained uncovered, were of mahogany, modern-antique in style, but not disagreeable to the eye. Persian rugs made pleasant splashes on the polished oak floors. On the walls were photographs of subjects not unknown to the world: Veronese’s Marriage at Cana, Watteau’s Pierrot, Ingres’s La Source.... The selector evidently had been prejudiced in favour of the Louvre.

There were also a few books in a case and on the centre-table in the living-room: Alice in Wonderland, The Way of All Flesh, Ethan Frome, Daughters of the Rich, The Spoon River Anthology, Crome Yellow, The Three Black Pennys, Three Soldiers, Figures of Earth, Gentle Julia, Memoirs of a Midget, and a book of poems by Witter Bynner. There were a few magazines: current numbers of the Atlantic Monthly, the Saturday Evening Post, the Dial, Harper’s Bazar, the London Mercury, the Nation, the Cosmopolitan, and the Police Gazette. Harold fingered these periodicals, without much more than taking in their titles. Only the Police Gazette was strange to him, and caused him to wonder why his father had chosen that. For, apparently, every object in the apartment had been carefully chosen.

Drains interrupted his revery.

Will you have a bath, sir? I have laid out your dinner clothes.

What time is it, Oliver?

It is a quarter to six, sir.

And where do I dine?

With Mr. Moody if you like, sir. I was to telephone.

Not tonight, Harold replied in haste, acting by instinct. Telephone Mr. Moody that I will call on him tomorrow afternoon.

Very good, sir. Will you dine at home, sir?

Rapidly Harold was made aware of how much his own master he had become. It gave him size.

Is there anything to eat in the house?

Certainly, sir. What there is not I can get. The markets are open. May I suggest a chop, sir?

A chop? Yes, and....