Part 35 (2/2)

Mrs. Van Reinberg on the steamer was a somewhat formidable person; Mrs.

Van Reinberg in her own house was despotism personified. Her word was law, her rule was absolute. Consequently, when she swept out on to the sunny piazza, where a little party of us were busy discussing our plans for the day, we all turned towards her expectantly. We might propose, but Mrs. Van Reinberg would surely dispose. We waited to hear what she might have to say.

”I want to talk to Mr. Courage,” she declared. ”All the rest of you go away!”

They obeyed her at once. We were alone in less than a minute. Mrs. Van Reinberg established herself in a low wicker chair, and I took up my position within a few feet of her, leaning against the wooden rail.

”I am entirely at your service, Mrs. Van Reinberg,” I declared. ”What is it to be about--Adele?”

”No! not Adele,” she answered. ”I leave you and Adele to arrange your own affairs. You can manage that without any interference from me.”

I smiled and waited for her to proceed. She was evidently thinking out her way. Her brows were knitted, her eyes were fixed upon a distant spot in the forest landscape of orange and red. Yet I was very sure that at that moment, the wonderful autumnal tints, which she seemed to be so steadily regarding, held no place in her thoughts.

”Mr. Courage,” she said at last, ”you are a sensible man, and a man of honor. I should like to talk to you confidentially.”

I murmured something about being flattered, but I do not think that she heard me.

”I should like,” she continued, ”to have you understand certain things which are in my mind just now, and which concern also--Mr. de Valentin.”

I nodded. The Prince's ident.i.ty was an open secret, but his incognito was jealously observed.

”I wonder,” she said slowly, looking for the first time directly towards me, ”whether you have ever seriously considered the question of the American woman--such as myself, for instance!”

I was a little puzzled, and no doubt I looked it. Mrs. Van Reinberg proceeded calmly. It was made clear to me that, for the present, at any rate, my role was to be simply that of listener.

”My own case,” she said, ”is typical. At least I suppose so! I speak for myself; and there are others in the house, at the present moment, who profess to feel as I do, and suffer--as I have done. In this country, we are taught that wealth is power. We, or rather our husbands, acquire or inherit it; afterwards we set ourselves to test the truth of that little maxim. We begin at home. In about three years, more or less, we reach our limitations. Then it begins to dawn upon us that, whatever else America is good for, it's no place for a woman with ambitions. We're on the top too soon, and when we're there it doesn't amount to anything.”

”Which accounts,” I remarked, ”for the invasion of Europe!”

Mrs. Van Reinberg leaned her fair, little head upon her white be-ringed fingers, and looked steadily at me. I had never for a moment under-estimated her, but she had probably never so much impressed me.

There was something Napoleonic about this slow unfolding of her carefully thought-out plans.

”Naturally,” she answered. ”What, however, so few of us are able to realize is our utter and miserable failure in what you are pleased to call that invasion.”

”Failure!” I repeated incredulously. ”I do not understand that. One hears everywhere of the social triumphs of the American woman.”

Mrs. Van Reinberg's eyes shone straight into mine. Her face expressed the most unmitigated contempt.

”Social triumphs!” she repeated scornfully. ”What clap-trap! I tell you that a season in London or Paris, much more Vienna, is enough to drive a real American woman crazy. Success, indeed! What does it amount to?”

She paused for a moment to take breath. I realized then that the woman whom I had known was something of a fraud, a puppet hung out with the rags of a European manner, according to the study and observation of the shrewd, little lady who pulled the strings. It was Mrs. Van Reinberg of London and Paris whom I had met upon the steamer; it was Mrs. Van Reinberg of New York who was talking to me now, and she was speaking in her own language.

”Look here, Mr. Courage,” she said, leaning towards me with her elbows upon her knees, and nothing left of that elegant pose which she had at first a.s.sumed. ”I suppose I've got my full share of the American spirit, and I tell you I'm a bad hand at taking a back seat anywhere, or even a front one on sufferance. And yet, wherever we go in Europe, that's what we've got to put up with! You think we're mad on t.i.tles over here! We aren't, but we are keen on what a t.i.tle brings over your side. Take your Debrett--there are I don't know how many baronets and lords and marquises and earls, and all the rest of it. Do you realize that whatever public place I'm in, or even at a friend's dinner-party, the homely, stupid wives of those men have got to go in before me, and if they don't--why I know all the time it's a matter of courtesy? That's what makes me mad!

Don't you dare to smile at me now. I'm in deadly earnest. In this country, so far as society goes, I'm at the top. You may say it doesn't amount to much, and you're right. But it makes it all the worse when I'm in Europe, and see the sort of women I have to give place to. Say, don't you sit there, Mr. Courage, and look at me as though I were a woman with some cranky grievance to talk about. It's got beyond that, let me tell you!”

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