Part 52 (1/2)

”Examples of what?”

”Of our American tendencies.”

”'Tendencies' is a big word, dear lady; tendencies are difficult to calculate.” I used even a greater freedom. ”And you shouldn't abuse those good Rucks, who have been so kind to your daughter. They've invited her to come and stay with them in Thirty-Seventh Street near Fourth Avenue.”

”Aurora has told me. It might be very serious.”

”It might be very droll,” I said.

”To me,” she declared, ”it's all too terrible. I think we shall have to leave the Pension Beaurepas. I shall go back to Madame Chamousset.”

”On account of the Rucks?” I asked.

”Pray why don't they go themselves? I've given them some excellent addresses-written down the very hours of the trains. They were going to Appenzell; I thought it was arranged.”

”They talk of Chamouni now,” I said; ”but they're very helpless and undecided.”

”I'll give them some Chamouni addresses. Mrs. Ruck will send for a _chaise a porteurs_; I'll give her the name of a man who lets them lower than you get them at the hotels. After that they _must_ go.”

She had thoroughly fixed it, as we said; but her large a.s.sumptions ruffled me. ”I nevertheless doubt,” I returned, ”if Mr. Ruck will ever really be seen on the Mer de Glace-great as might be the effect there of that high hat. He's not like you; he doesn't value his European privileges. He takes no interest. He misses Wall Street all the time.

As his wife says, he's deplorably restless, but I guess Chamouni won't quiet him. So you mustn't depend too much on the effect of your addresses.”

”Is it, in its strange mixture of the barbaric and the effete, a frequent type?” asked Mrs. Church with all the force of her n.o.ble appet.i.te for knowledge.

”I'm afraid so. Mr. Ruck's a broken-down man of business. He's broken-down in health and I think he must be broken-down in fortune. He has spent his whole life in buying and selling and watching prices, so that he knows how to do nothing else. His wife and daughter have spent their lives, not in selling, but in buying-with a considerable indifference to prices-and they on their side know how to do nothing else. To get something in a 'store' that they can put on their backs-that's their one idea; they haven't another in their heads. Of course they spend no end of money, and they do it with an implacable persistence, with a mixture of audacity and of cunning. They do it in his teeth and they do it behind his back; the mother protects the daughter, while the daughter eggs on the mother. Between them they're bleeding him to death.”

”Ah what a picture!” my friend calmly sighed. ”I'm afraid they're grossly illiterate.”

”I share your fears. We make a great talk at home about education, but see how little that ideal has ever breathed on them. The vision of fine clothes rides them like a fury. They haven't an idea of any sort-not even a worse one-to compete with it. Poor Mr. Ruck, who's a mush of personal and private concession-I don't know what he may have been in the business world-strikes me as a really tragic figure. He's getting bad news every day from home; his affairs may be going to the dogs. He's unable, with his lost nerve, to apply himself; so he has to stand and watch his fortunes ebb. He has been used to doing things in a big way and he feels 'mean' if he makes a fuss about bills. So the ladies keep sending them in.”

”But haven't they common sense? Don't they know they're marching to ruin?”

”They don't believe it. The duty of an American husband and father is to keep them going. If he asks them how, that's his own affair. So by way of not being mean, of being a good American husband and father, poor Ruck stands staring at bankruptcy.”

Mrs. Church, with her cold competence, picked my story over. ”Why, if Aurora were to go to stay with them she mightn't even have a good _nourriture_.”

”I don't on the whole recommend,” I smiled, ”that your daughter should pay a visit to Thirty-Seventh Street.”

She took it in-with its various bearings-and had after all, I think, to renounce the shrewd view of a contingency. ”Why should I be subjected to such trials-so sadly eprouvee?” From the moment nothing at all was to be got from the Rucks-not even eventual gratuitous board-she washed her hands of them altogether. ”Why should a daughter of mine like that dreadful girl?”

”_Does_ she like her?”

She challenged me n.o.bly. ”Pray do you mean that Aurora's such a hypocrite?”

I saw no reason to hesitate. ”A little, since you inquire. I think you've forced her to be.”

”I?”-she was shocked. ”I _never_ force my daughter!”

”She's nevertheless in a false position,” I returned. ”She hungers and thirsts for her own great country; she wants to 'come out' in New York, which is certainly, socially speaking, the El Dorado of young ladies.

She likes any one, for the moment, who will talk to her of that and serve as a connecting-link with the paradise she imagines there. Miss Ruck performs this agreeable office.”