第94章

Imbued with the highest ambition of my time,I had set my barque on a great circle,and almost before I realized it the barque was burdened with a wife and family and the steering had insensibly become more difficult;for Maude cared nothing about the destination,and when I took any hand off the wheel our ship showed a tendency to make for a quiet harbour.Thus the social initiative,which I believed should have been the woman's,was thrust back on me.It was almost incredible,yet indisputable,in a day when most American women were credited with a craving for social ambition that I,of all men,should have married a wife in whom the craving was wholly absent!She might have had what other women would have given their souls for.There were many reasons why I wished her to take what I deemed her proper place in the community as my wife--not that I cared for what is called society in the narrow sense;with me,it was a logical part of a broader scheme of life;an auxiliary rather than an essential,but a needful auxiliary;a means of dignifying and adorning the position I was taking.Not only that,but Ifelt the need of intercourse--of intercourse of a lighter and more convivial nature with men and women who saw life as I saw it.In the evenings when we did not go out into that world our city afforded ennui took possession of me:I had never learned to care for books,I had no resources outside of my profession,and when I was not working on some legal problem I dawdled over the newspapers and went to bed.I don't mean to imply that our existence,outside of our continued intimacy with the Peterses and the Blackwoods,was socially isolated.We gave little dinners that Maude carried out with skill and taste;but it was I who suggested them;we went out to other dinners,sometimes to Nancy's--though we saw less and less of her--sometimes to other houses.But Maude had given evidence of domestic tastes and a disinclination for gaiety that those who entertained more were not slow to sense.I should have liked to take a larger house,but I felt the futility of suggesting it;the children were still small,and she was occupied with them.Meanwhile I beheld,and at times with considerable irritation,the social world changing,growing larger and more significant,a more important function of that higher phase of American existence the new century seemed definitely to have initiated.A segregative process was away to which Maude was wholly indifferent.Our city was throwing off its social conservatism;wealth (which implied ability and superiority)was playing a greater part,entertainments were more luxurious,lines more strictly drawn.We had an elaborate country club for those who could afford expensive amusements.Much of this transformation had been due to the initiative and leadership of Nancy Durrett....

Great and sudden wealth,however,if combined with obscure antecedents and questionable qualifications,was still looked upon askance.In spite of the fact that Adolf Scherer had "put us on the map,"the family of the great iron-master still remained outside of the social pale.He himself might have entered had it not been for his wife,who was supposed to be "queer,"who remained at home in her house opposite Gallatin Park and made little German cakes,--a huge house which an unknown architect had taken unusual pains to make pretentious and hideous,for it was Rhenish,Moorish and Victorian by turns.Its geometric grounds matched those of the park,itself a monument to bad taste in landscape.The neighbourhood was highly respectable,and inhabited by families of German extraction.

There were two flaxen-haired daughters who had just graduated from an expensive boarding-school in New York,where they had received the polish needful for future careers.But the careers were not forthcoming.

I was thrown constantly with Adolf Scherer;I had earned his gratitude,Ihad become necessary to him.But after the great coup whereby he had fulfilled Mr.Watling's prophecy and become the chief factor in our business world he began to show signs of discontent,of an irritability that seemed foreign to his character,and that puzzled me.One day,however,I stumbled upon the cause of this fermentation,to wonder that Ihad not discovered it before.In many ways Adolf Scherer was a child.

We were sitting in the Boyne Club.

"Money--yes!"he exclaimed,apropos of some demand made upon him by a charitable society."They come to me for my money--there is always Scherer,they say.He will make up the deficit in the hospitals.But what is it they do for me?Nothing.Do they invite me to their houses,to their parties?"This was what he wanted,then,--social recognition.I said nothing,but I saw my opportunity:I had the clew,now,to a certain attitude he had adopted of late toward me,an attitude of reproach;as though,in return for his many favours to me,there were something I had left undone.And when I went home I asked Maude to call on Mrs.Scherer.

"On Mrs.Scherer!"she repeated.

"Yes,I want you to invite them to dinner."The proposal seemed to take away her breath."I owe her husband a great deal,and I think he feels hurt that the wives of the men he knows down town haven't taken up his family."I felt that it would not be wise,with Maude,to announce my rather amazing discovery of the iron-master's social ambitions.

"But,Hugh,they must be very happy,they have their friends.And after all this time wouldn't it seem like an intrusion?""I don't think so,"I said,"I'm sure it would please him,and them.You know how kind he's been to us,how he sent us East in his private car last year.""Of course I'll go if you wish it,if you're sure they feel that way."She did make the call,that very week,and somewhat to my surprise reported that she liked Mrs.Scherer and the daughters:Maude's likes and dislikes,needless to say,were not governed by matters of policy.