第34章

After a pause Pauline said ambiguously: "The resemblance is stronger there than in life."Olivia glanced at her and was made vaguely uneasy by the look she was directing at the face of the portrait.But though Pauline must have seen that she was observed, she did not change expression.They went out upon the east veranda and Olivia stood at the railing.She hardly noted the view in the press of thoughts roused by the hints of what was behind the richly embroidered curtain of her cousin's life.

All along the bluff, some exposed, some half hid by dense foliage, were the pretentious houses of the thirty or forty families who had grown rich through the industries developed within the past ten years.Two foreign-looking servants in foreign-looking house-liveries were bringing a table on which was an enormous silver tray with a tea-service of antique silver and artistic china.As Olivia turned to seat herself a young man and a woman of perhaps forty, obviously from the East, came through the doors at the far end of the long porch.Both were in white, carefully dressed and groomed; both suggested a mode of life whose leisure had never been interrupted.

"Who are coming?" asked Olivia.She wished she had gone to her room before tea.These people made her feel dowdy and mussy.

Pauline glanced round, smiled and nodded, turned back to her cousin.

"Mrs.Herron and Mr.Langdon.She's the wife of a New York lawyer, and she takes Mr.Langdon everywhere with her to amuse her, and he goes to amuse himself.He's a socialist, or something like that.He thinks up and says things to shock conservative, conventional people.He's rich and never has worked--couldn't if he would, probably.But he denounces leisure classes and large fortunes and advocates manual labor every day for everybody.He's clever in a queer, cynical way."A Mrs.Fanshaw, also of New York, came from the library in a tea-gown of chiffon and real lace.All were made acquainted and Pauline poured the tea.As Olivia felt shy and was hungry, she ate the little sandwiches and looked and listened and thought--looked and thought rather than listened.These were certainly well-bred people, yet she did not like them.

"They're in earnest about trifles," she said to herself, "and trifle about earnest things." Yet it irritated her to feel that, though they would care not at all for her low opinion of them, she did care a great deal because they would fail to appreciate her.

"They ought to be jailed," Langdon was drawling with considerable emphasis.

"Who, Mr.Langdon?" inquired Mrs.Fanshaw--she had been as abstracted as Olivia."You've been filling the jails rapidly to-day, and hanging not a few."Mrs.Herron laughed."He says your husband and Mrs.Dumont's and mine should be locked up as conspirators.""Precisely," said Langdon, tranquilly."They'll sign a few papers, and when they're done, what'll have happened? Not one more sheep'll be raised.Not one more pound of wool will be shorn.Not one more laborer'll be employed.Not a single improvement in any process of manufacture.But, on the other hand, the farmer'll have to sell his wool cheaper, the consumer'll have to pay a bigger price for blankets and all kinds of clothes, for carpets--for everything wool goes into.And these few men will have trebled their fortunes and at least trebled their incomes.Does anybody deny that such a performance is a crime? Why, in comparison, a burglar is honorable and courageous.HE risks liberty and life.""Dreadful! Dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs.Fanshaw, in mock horror.

"You must go at once, Mowbray, and lead the police in a raid on Jack's office.""Thanks--it's more comfortable here." Langdon took a piece of a curious-looking kind of hot bread."Extraordinary good stuff this is," he interjected; then went on: "And I've done my duty when I've stated the facts.Also, I'm taking a little stock in the new trust.But I don't pose as a `captain of industry' or `promoter of civilization.' I admit I'm a robber.My point is the rotten hypocrisy of my fellow bandits--no, pickpockets, by gad!"Olivia looked at him with disapproving interest.It was the first time she had been present at a game of battledore and shuttlecock with what she regarded as fundamental morals.

Langdon noted her expression and said to Pauline in a tone of contrition that did not conceal his amusement: "I've shocked your cousin, Mrs.Dumont.""I hope so," replied Pauline."I'm sure we all ought to be shocked--and should be, if it weren't you who are trying to do the shocking.She'll soon get used to you.""Then it was a jest?" said Olivia to Langdon.

"A jest?" He looked serious."Not at all, my dear Mrs.

Pierson.Every word I said was true, and worse.They----""Stop your nonsense, Mowbray," interrupted Mrs.Herron, who appreciated that Olivia was an "outsider." "Certainly he was jesting, Mrs.Pierson.Mr.Langdon pretends to have eccentric ideas--one of them is that everybody with brains should be put under the feet of the numskulls; another is that anybody who has anything should be locked up and his property given to those who have nothing.""Splendid!" exclaimed Langdon.And he took out a gold cigarette case and lighted a large, expensive-looking cigarette with a match from a gold safe."Go on, dear lady! Herron should get you to write our prospectus when we're ready to unload on the public.The dear public! How it does yearn for a share in any piratical enterprise that flies the snowy flag of respectability." He rose."Who'll play English billiards?""All right," said Mrs.Herron, rising.

"And I, too," said Mrs.Fanshaw.

"Give me one of your cigarettes, Mowbray," said Mrs.Herron.

"I left my case in my room."

Pauline, answering Olivia's expression, said as soon as the three had disappeared: