Black Oxen. Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

      "Yes, but they are still behind the European novelists, who find women interesting at any age, and their intelligent readers agree with them. Young women have little psychology. They are too fluid."

      "Quite right. But I am afraid we are too young a country to tolerate middle-aged heroines. We are steeped in conventionalism, for all our fads. We have certain cast-iron formulae for life, and associate love with youth alone. I think we have a vague idea that autumnal love is rather indecent."

      "And you—yourself?" She looked at him speculatively. "Are you too obsessed?"

      "I? Good lord, no. I was in love with a woman of forty when I was seventeen."

      His eyes were glowing into hers and she demanded abruptly: "Do you think I am forty?"

      "Rather not!"

      "Well, I am young," she said with a deep sigh of content. "But look! I see nothing, but I see everything."

      Clavering glanced about him. Every neck in the boxes and neighboring seats was craned. It was evident that the people in front—and no doubt behind—were listening intently, although they could have caught no more than an occasional word of the murmured conversation. Eyes across the aisle, when not distended with surprise, glared at him. He laughed softly.

      "I am the best hated man in New York tonight." Then he asked abruptly: "If you wish to avoid fashionable society why not see something of this? It would be quite a new experience and vary the monotony of books and plays."

      "I may—some time, if you will kindly arrange it. But I am not a stranger to the cognoscenti. In London, of course, they are received, sought after. In Paris not so much, but one still meets them.—the most distinguished. In Berlin the men might go to court but not the women. In Vienna—well, genius will not give quarterings. But alas! so many gifted people seem to come out of the bourgeoisie, or lower down still—whether they are received or not depends largely on their table manners."

      "Oh, I assure you, our cognoscenti have very good table manners indeed!"

      "I am sure of it," she said graciously. "I have an idea that American table manners are the best in the world. Is it true that one never sees toothpicks on the table here?"

      "Good lord, yes!"

      "Well, you see them on every aristocratic table in Europe, royalty not excepted."

      "One more reason for revolution—— Oh! Hang it!"

      The lights had gone out. Clavering half rose, then settled himself back and folded his arms. A man stood over him. "Just take my seat, Billy, will you?" he asked casually of the eminent critic. "It's only two back."

      The eminent critic gave him a look of hate, emitted a noise that resembled a hiss, hesitated long enough to suggest violence, then with the air of a bloodhound with his tail between his legs, slunk up the aisle.

      "Will you tell me how you always manage to get one of these prize seats?" asked Clavering at the fall of the second curtain. "Nothing in New York is more difficult of attainment than a good seat—any seat—for a first-night. All these people, including myself, have a pull of some sort—know the author, star, manager. Many of us receive notifications long in advance."

      "Judge Trent has a pull, as you call it."

      "That explains it. There has been almost as much speculation on that point as about your own mysterious self. Well, this time I suppose I must. But I'm coming back."

      He gave Mr. Dinwiddie his seat and went out for a cigarette. The foyer was full of people and he was surrounded at once. Who was she? Where had he met her? Dog that he was to keep her to himself! Traitor! He satisfied their curiosity briefly. He happened to know Judge Trent, who was her trustee. His acquaintance with the lady was only a week old. Well, he hadn't thought to mention it to such friends as he had happened to meet. Been too busy digging up matter for that infernal column. Yes, he thought he could manage to introduce them to her later. She had brought no letters and as she was a Virginian by birth and had gone abroad in her childhood and married a foreigner as soon as she grew up she knew practically no one in New York and didn't seem to wish to know any one. But he fancied she was getting rather bored. She had been here for a month—resting—before she even went to the theatre. Oh, yes, she could be quite animated. Was interested in everything one would expect of a woman of her intelligence. But the war had tired her out. She had seen no one but Judge Trent until the past week. …

      He kept one eye on the still resentful Abbott, who refused to enhance his triumph by joining his temporary court, and slipped away before the beginning of the last act. Dinwiddie resigned his seat with a sigh but looked flushed and happy.

      "Poor old codger," thought Clavering as he received a welcoming smile, and then he told her of the excitement in the foyer.

      "But that is amusing!" she said. "How naïve people are after all, even in a great city like New York."

      "Oh, people as active mentally as this crowd never grow blasé, however they may affect it. But surely you had your triumphs in Europe."

      "Oh, yes. Once an entire house—it was at the opera—rose as I entered my box at the end of the first act. But that was a thousand years ago—like everything else before the war."

      "That must be an experience a woman never forgets."

      "It is sometimes sad to remember it."

      "Dinwiddie tells me that your cousin, who was Mary Ogden, once had a similar experience. It certainly must be a sad memory for her."

      "Yes, Mary was one of the great beauties of Europe in her day—and of a fascination! Men went mad over her—but mad! She took growing old very hard. Her husband was handsome and attractive, but—well, fortunately he preferred other women, and was soon too indifferent to Mary to be jealous. He was the sort of man no woman could hold, but Mary soon cared as little about him. And she had her consolations! She could pick and choose. It was a sad day for Mary when men left her for younger women."

      "But I thought that European men were not such blind worshippers of youth as we are?"

      "Yes, within reason. Mary was too intellectual, too brilliant, too well-informed on every subject that is discussed in salons, not to attract men always. But with a difference! Quite elderly women in Europe have liaisons, but alas! they can no longer send men off their heads. It is technique meeting technique, intellectual companionship, blowing on old ashes—or creating passion with the imagination. Life is very sad for the women who have made a cult of men, and the cult of men is the European woman's supreme achievement."

      The delayed curtain rose and the house was silent. First-nighters, unlike less distinguished audiences, never disgrace themselves by whispering and chattering while the actors are on the stage.

      At the end of this, the last act, while the audience, now on their feet, were wildly applauding and fairly howling for the author of "the first authentic success of the season," Clavering and Madame Zattiany went swiftly up the aisle. A few others also hastened out, less interested in authors than in taxi-cabs.

      He handed her into her car and she invited him to enter and return with her for a sandwich and a whiskey-and-soda. He hesitated a moment. "I'll go with pleasure," he said. "But I think I'll walk. It—it—would be better."

      "Oh!" A curious expression that for the second it lasted seemed to banish both youth and loveliness spread even to her nostrils. Sardonic amusement hardly described it. Then it vanished and she said sweetly: "You are very considerate. I shall expect you."

      He did not walk. He took a taxi.

XI

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      She opened the door as he ran up the steps. "I never ask my servants to sit up," she said. "Judge Trent warned me that the American servant is