there was but one resource—that was Cousin Cora. Next morning he took the three-hour ride to Culpepper Bay.
It was the first time he had seen her for a year and a half, since the disastrous termination of his summer visit. She was offended—that he knew—especially since she had heard from his mother of the unexpected success. She greeted him coldly and reproachfully; but she told him what he wanted to know, because Juan asked his questions while she was still startled and surprised by his visit. He left Culpepper Bay with the information that Mrs Garneau had one sister, the famous Mrs Morton Poindexter, with whom Noel was on terms of great intimacy. Juan took the midnight train for New York.
Morton Poindexters’ telephone number was not in the New York book, and Information refused to divulge it; but Juan procured it reference to the Social Register. He called the house from his
“Miss Noel Garneau—is she in the city?” he inquired, according to hi plan. If the name was not immediately familiar, the servant would rent that he had the wrong number.
“Who wants to speak to her, please?”
That was a relief; his heart sank comfortably back into place.
“Oh—a friend.”
“No name?”
“No name.”
“I’ll see.”
The servant returned in a moment.
No, Miss Garneau was not there, was not in the city, was not expected.
The phone clicked off suddenly.
Late that afternoon a taxi dropped him in front of the Morton Poindexters’ house. It was the most elaborate house that he had ever seen, rising to five storeys on a corner of Fifth Avenue and adorned even with that ghost of a garden which, however minute, is the proudest gesture of money in New York.
He handed no card to the butler, but it occurred to him that he must be expected, for he was shown immediately into the drawing-room. When, after a short wait, Mrs Poindexter entered he experienced for the first time in five days a touch of uncertainty.
Mrs Poindexter was perhaps thirty-five, and of that immaculate fashion which the French describe as bien soignee. The inexpressible loveliness of her face was salted with another quality which for want of a better word might be called dignity. But it was more than dignity, for it wore no rigidity, but instead a softness so adaptable, so elastic, that it would withdraw from any attack which life might bring against it, only to spring back at the proper moment, taut, victorious and complete. San Juan saw that even though his guess was correct as to Noel’s being in the house, he was up against a force with which he had no contact before. This woman seemed to be not entirely of America, to possess resources which the American woman lacked or handled ineptly.
She received him with a graciousness which, though it was largely external, seemed to conceal no perturbation underneath. Indeed, her attitude appeared to be perfectly passive, just short of encouraging. It was with an effort that he resisted the inclination to lay his cards on the table. “Good evening.” She sat down on a stiff chair in the centre of the room and asked him to take an easy-chair near by. She sat looking at him silently until he spoke.
“Mrs Poindexter, I am very anxious to see Miss Garneau. I telephoned your house this morning and was told that she was not here.” Mrs Poindexter nodded. “However, I know she is here,” he continued evenly. “And I’m determined to see her. The idea that her father and mother can prevent me from seeing her, as though I had disgraced myself in some way—or that you, Mrs Poindexter, can prevent me from seeing her”—his voice rose a little——“is preposterous. This is not the year 1500—nor even the year 1910.”
He paused. Mrs Poindexter waited for a moment to see if he had finished. Then she said, quietly and unequivocally, “I quite agree with you.”
Save for Noel, Juan thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful before.
“Mrs Poindexter,” he began again, in a more friendly tone, “I’m sorry to seem rude. I’ve been called presumptuous in this matter, and perhaps to some extent I am. Perhaps all poor boys who are in love with wealthy girls are presumptuous. But it happens that I am no longer a poor boy, and I have good reason to believe that Noel cares for me.”
“I see,” said Mrs Poindexter attentively. “But of course I knew nothing about all that.”
Juan hesitated, again disarmed by her complaisance. Then a surge of determination went over him.
“Will you let me see her?” he demanded. “Or will you insist on keeping up this farce a little longer?”
Mrs Poindexter looked at him as though considering.
“Why should I let you see her?”
“Simply because I ask you. Just as, when someone says ‘Excuse me’ you step aside for him in a doorway.”
Mrs Poindexter frowned.
“But Noel is concerned in this matter as much as you. And I’m not like person in a crowd. I’m more like a bodyguard, with instructions to let no one pass, even if they say ‘Excuse me’ in a most appealing voice.”
“You have instructions only from her father and mother,” said Juan, with rising impatience. “She’s the person concerned.”
“I’m glad you begin to admit that.”
“Of course I admit it,” he broke out. “I want you to admit it.”
“I do.”
“Then what’s the point of all this absurd discussion?” he demanded heatedly.
She stood up suddenly. “I bid you good evening, sir.”
Taken aback, Juan stood up too. “Why, what’s the matter?”
“I will not be spoken to like that,” said Mrs Poindexter, still in a low cool voice. “Either you can conduct yourself quietly or you can leave this house at once.”
Juan realized that he had taken the wrong tone. The words stung at him and for a moment he had nothing to say—as though he were a scolded boy at school. “This is beside the question,” he stammered finally. “I want to talk to Noel.”
“Noel doesn’t want to talk to you.” Suddenly Mrs Poindexter held out a sheet of note paper to him. He opened it. It said:
Aunt Jo: As to what we talked about this afternoon: If that intolerable bore calls, as he will probably do, and begins his presumptuous whining, please speak to him frankly. Tell him I never loved him, that I never at any time claimed to love him and that his persistence is revolting to me. Say that I am old enough to know my own mind and that my greatest wish is never to see him again in this world.
Juan stood there aghast. His universe was suddenly about him. Noel did not care, she had never cared. It was all a preposterous joke on him, played by those to whom the business of life had been such jokes from the beginning. He realized now that fundamentally they were all akin—Cousin Cora, Noel, her father, this cold, lovely woman here—affirming the prerogative of the rich to marry always within their caste, to erect artificial
