Part 30 (2/2)
”They have time enough to go chicken chasing--”
”Well, aside from that? At least they do work. And the younger women?
You knew before that they were frivolous because they had too much money and too few responsibilities. Many of the older women have a serious and useful side, even if they do waste an unholy amount of time at cards.”
”Well, if you ask me, their manners, when they remember to use 'em, are better than I expected. Only that Miss Thornd.y.k.e is cold and haughty, but perhaps that's because she's poor (for her), or is covering up something, or is just plain stupid.... Mrs. Dwight's manners are always perfect. She's my idea of a lady--just! And in the new system there'll be a long sight more ladies than is possible now, only no aristocrats.... Yes, they're decent enough considering they're rotten poisoned by money and thinkin' themselves better'n the ma.s.s; and I like their affection for one another. But they could be all that in the socialist state and more too. They'd have to cut out drink and gambling, and a few other diversions some of 'em'll drift into, if one or two of 'em haven't already--just through being bored to death.”
”Do you honestly think socialism means universal virtue?”
”No, I don't. I'm no such greenhorn; though there's some that does, or pretends to.... But I mean there'd be no _drifting_ into vice like there is now, no indulgence of any old weakness because temptation was always following them about or just round the corner. That's the trouble now.... But in the most perfect state some would be watching out for their chance, just because the old Adam was too strong in spite of the fact that all the old reminders had disappeared.”
”More likely they'd all murder one another because they were some ten thousand times more bored than that poor little group whose brains you are addling.”
”I don't like to hear you talk like that, Miss Gora. You ought to give that pen of yours to socialism. There would be all the revenge you could want--and it's what you're ent.i.tled to. Then I could call you Comrade Gora.”
”Call me Comarade by all means if it hurts you to say Miss to a fellow worker.... You admit then that envy of a society you were not born into and which refuses to acknowledge you as an equal, is the secret of your desire to pull it down?”
”Partly that.” he admitted cooly. ”Not that I'd change places with any of those fat millionaires I see shuffling down the steps of the Pacific-Union Club--although I'll admit to you what I wouldn't to these young devils in my cla.s.s, that I know some socialists who would. I hate the sight of 'em. But I want to do away with cla.s.s-rights and cla.s.s-distinctions, not only because I just naturally have no use for them but because I want to put an end to the misery of the world.”
”You mean the material misery. What would you do with the other seven hundred different varieties?”
”Well.... I guess each case would have to take care of itself. Perhaps we'd get round to it after a while. Get power and cla.s.s-envy out of the world, and some genius, like as not, would invent a post-graduate course of colleges for human nature. All things are possible.”
”You are an optimist! Here's our car. Come home with me and share the supper that I pay for with the tainted money of a plutocrat. Only we haven't any real plutocrats in San Francisco. Only modest millionaires.
Will you?”
”Yes.” said Mr. Kirkpatrick. ”And thank you kindly.” He even smiled, for he was developing a latent heavily overlain seed of humor; inherited from the full bay tree that had flourished in his grandfather, born in County Clare, where men sometimes indulged in rebellion but did not take themselves too seriously withal.
CHAPTER II
I
That winter and the following seasons for the next few years pa.s.sed very rapidly for Alexina. Besides her cla.s.ses and the constant companions.h.i.+p of her friends (to say nothing of the excitement of helping one or two of them out of not infrequent sc.r.a.pes), she had for a time the absorbing interest of refurnis.h.i.+ng the best part of her house.
The square lower hall which had been scantily furnished with the grandfather's clock, a hat-rack, and a settee, and whose walls were covered with ”marble paper,” was painted, walls and wood, a deep ivory white, and refurnished with light wicker furniture, palms, and growing plants. The hat-rack was abolished, and the small library on the left of the entrance turned into a men's dressing-room. The folding doors were removed from the great double parlors, the ”body brussels”
replaced by hardwood floors, the walls tinted a pale gray as a background for the really valuable pictures (including the proud and gracious and beautiful Alexina Ballinger, dust long since in Lone Mountain), and the splendid pieces of Italian furniture which had always seemed to sulk and bulge against the dull brown walls. The rep and walnut sets were sent to the auction room and replaced by comfortable chairs and sofas whose colors varied, but harmonized not only with one another but with the rugs that Alexina under Gora's direction had bought at auction. In fact she bought many of her new pieces at auction and with Aileen found it vastly exciting to pore over the advertis.e.m.e.nts and then go down to the crowded rooms and bid.
The billiard room behind the former library she left as it was. Her mother's large bedroom upstairs she turned into a library with bookcases to the ceiling on three sides, and one of the carved oaken tables against an expanse of Pompeiian red relieved by one painting (a wedding gift from Judge Lawton, who believed in patronizing local art) that had despoiled a desert of its gorgeous yellow sunrise.
The carpet and curtains were red without pattern. The coal grate had been removed and a fireplace built for logs. It was to be her own den for long rainy winter afternoons, or the cold and foggy days of summer when she remained in the city.
The dining-room was also given a hardwood floor and a j.a.panese red and gold wall paper as a compliment to her martial ancestors; but as the sideboards were built into the wails end could be replaced only at great cost; they remained as a brooding reminder of the solid sixties, and no doubt exchanged resentful reminiscences at night with the chairs which had been merely recovered.
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