University of Virginia Library

42. CHAPTER XLII.
THE PLAIN DEALING OF TRUE FRIENDS.

COUNT POLOSKI had just decided that he would put his covetousness of
Miss Dinneford's money into such affectionate and love-making English
as he could command, and fire it off at both mother and daughter together, in
the reasonable hope of bringing down at least one of them, when the door bell
checked him with its intrusive, unsympathetic tinkle, and in walked Edward
Wetherel and Lehming.

It will be remembered that they believed him to be a perilous adventurer,
if not a vulgar ruffian, and that they came to exorcise him out of this household.
But there was no violence, and even no outright, candid explanation, so
forbearing are the manners of American society, at least in the North, and so
little pugnacious is its very hostility. Wetherel and Lehming were young men
of the modern Puritan type, resolute and tenacious enough at heart, but outwardly
composed and mild. During the walk hitherward they had talked
over their errand in a tranquil, business-like, considerate fashion, and had said
that while the Count must if possible be got rid of, the feelings of the Dinnefords
must be handled delicately. So they bowed to Poloski, and took his hand
when he put it forth in his vivacious, genial way, and otherwise treated him
decorously. Of course he was exceedingly conciliatory to the relatives of
Alice; he addressed Edward as “My dear Wetherel,” and called Lehming
“Mon savant.”

“I did not see you the other evening at the Van Leers,” he remarked to
Edward. “They gave a splendid soirée, the Van Leers. Mrs. Van Leer was
very gracious to me; she always is gracious. I admire Mrs. Van Leer, she is
so gracious and spiritual. She is no longer quite young, but she is excessively
delicious, she is so gracious. I was very sorry not to see you there, my dear
Wetherel. I always miss you. And I missed you, too, Mrs. Dinneford and
Miss Dinneford. I had very little pleasure there, because I did not see any of
you.”

“We were not invited,” answered Mrs. Dinneford with self-respectful
frankness, while Alice colored deeply, and barely refrained from biting her
lips with vexation; for the Van Leers were what she called “awfully fashionable,”
and the fact that they had overlooked her was mortifying. Let us remember,
by the way, that it was mainly because the Count “went everywhere”
that he seemed so desirable in her eyes. If she should become the
Countess Poloski, she too would be able to “go everywhere,” certainly in New
York and probably in Europe.

“Oh, I am sure there was an invitation, but it did not arrive,” replied the
ready Poloski. “The Van Leers have often spoken to me of Mrs. and Miss
Dinneford with distinguished consideration,” he continued, romancing with admirable
volubility. “They must have invited you, they are so gracious.
Did you not receive your invitation, my dear Wetherel?”

“Yes,” admitted Edward unwillingly, for he detected Alice's mortification,
and was sorry to increase it by publishing his own superior fashionableness.
“But I seldom go out of late. These crushes are uninteresting to me.”

“You forget that Mr. Wetherel has suffered a bereavement lately,” whispered
Mrs. Dinneford to Poloski.

“Ah—yes,” murmured the Count with an air of extreme confusion, quite
remarkable in such a veteran of society.

He seemed to be painfully overwhelmed by his blunder, and sank into silence.
Alice discerned his embarrassment, and was affectionately minded to
come to his relief, and did so with all a woman's vivacity and fluency, giving
forth corruscations of her thin, sparkling prattle. But somehow the noble foreigner's
extinguished taper could not be relighted, and after grinning and
bowing and saying “Oh yes” a few times, he took a flourishing departure.

As soon as he had vanished, Alice became taciturn and moody. She had
an impression that somehow her two relatives had driven the Count away, and
she almost hated them for it. What young lady had he gone to see now, and
what would he say to her, and what would she reply, and what would he say
then, and what would be the result? were the important questions which perturbed
her soul and darkened her brow. She did not seem the same girl that
she had been during Poloski's visit. She was not merely speechless and sober;
she had suddenly turned a little haggard and pale.

“You appear to be unwell, Alice,” observed Lehming, always promptly
sympathetic.

“I am not well,” she said, rising in a state of uncontrollable nervousness,
so that the tears almost came into her eyes. “I wish you two would excuse
me for going to bed. I have a horrid headache. You can talk to mother, or
rather you can listen to her,” she added, forcing a gleam of her natural gayety.
“She will be so glad to get me off and have all the say to herself! Good-night.”

“Good-night,” answered the young men, gazing after her pitifully, for
they were going to do a hard duty by her, and they were sensitive enough to
know it.

Alice gone, Edward took a seat by Mrs. Dinneford, and began: “My dear
aunt, we have come to speak of this very man whom we found here, Mr. Poloski.”

Then he told her, without alluding to Alice's supposed heart affairs, what
Wolverton had reported to him of the Count's evil repute and suspicious ways.
Before he had finished his story the good woman's eyes were full of anxiety.

“Oh dear!” she groaned. “What a world of snares and of pitfalls for the
feet we live in! It is the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The slough is on
the right hand and the black, miry ditch on the left, and devils roaming up and
down the footway.”

“Until this man clears himself of these charges, and shows that he is a person
of reputable life, he is not fit to enter your house,” continued Wetherel.

“No,” sighed Mrs. Dinneford, and came to a full stop there. She did not
much doubt the tale; she was accustomed to rely upon the judgment of both
Edward and Walter; they were not men to bring railing accusations against
any one unadvisedly. But what was she to do, or rather what would she be
able to do, in this matter? Alice was a true woman; in an affair which
concerned her sentiments, she was almost ungovernable; what she wanted
with her heart, she wanted with all her mind and strength. Moreover, there
had been little government in the family since the death of its male head.
Mrs. Dinneford had been like most American mothers, and like most mothers
of only children everywhere; she was a good woman, conscientious and intelligent,

but utterly incapable of holding strict rule over her offspring. If
there had been any domestic lawgiving, any wielding of a family sceptre, it
had been mainly on the part of Alice. The affectionate mother actually
cringed before the idea of a conflict with the petted daughter.

“Mr. Wolverton himself is—is—” she presently stammered. “Are you
sure that we can trust what he says?”

“I know that Poloski is a gambler,” replied Edward firmly. “In other
times he has won hundreds of dollars from me.”

“The wages of sin!” shuddered Mrs. Dinneford.

“Gambling alone is not enough to ostracize him from society,” continued
the fair-minded young man. “In Europe gentlemen and respectable people
gamble; fathers and children win each other's francs or shillings. But Poloski
has lived by cards. He makes gambling a profession. He has no other
visible means of existence. Moreover, I suspect him of being an impostor,
and perhaps worse. I give credit to all that Wolverton reports and hints, excepting
the mere point of actual crime, violation of the laws. I do not know
that the man belongs to the criminal classes. That I must admit.”

“Oh, mysteries of wickedness!” sighed Mrs. Dinneford, her troubled eyes
fixed upon the carpet without seeing it.

“What will you do?” asked Wetherel after a pause.

“It is Alice!” confessed the wretched mother in a sort of choked cry. “I
must tell you the whole of this wretched business. Alice is bewitched about
this man. Ever so many other girls are. I have never quite liked him, but I
have put up with him for her sake. I have feared some evil, and have fought,
in my poor, unfaithful way, against it, and have prayed for help. But my
child has been stubborn, and God has not aided. What can a mother do
against her only daughter, and against her own foolish heart? I fear that we
shall both be terribly chastised. A just God will not spare such unfaithfulness.”

“I trust that there is as yet no understanding—no engagement,” put in
Lehming.

“Oh no!” gasped the mother, not quite sure of it.

“And you will see that none takes place?” begged Wetherel.

“I will—strive,” stammered Mrs. Dinneford, nearly weeping with the fear
that her strivings might be futile against the will of her child.

“Oh, we ought to have spoken before,” groaned Edward, perceiving the
mother's weakness, and anticipating the worst from it. “My only excuse is
that I have been so terribly occupied with my own wretched affairs I have forgotten
my relatives. But do be urgent with Alice! And if your remonstrances
are of no avail, call us in to plead with her. She does not and cannot realize
how miserable she might be if she should marry a reckless, characterless
adventurer, a man without standing or morals. The dissipation of all her
property would be the least of her troubles. He might lead her such a life of
domestic wretchedness as she cannot imagine. He might abandon her penniless
in some distant country. Such things have been. American girls have
caught sham nobles, and even real ones, to their own sorrow.”

He spoke with an earnestness and faithfulness which seemed little less than
cruel. Mrs. Dinneford, as she looked at him through her tears, thought of his
resolute and stern uncle, and of all the grim Wetherels of elder days.

“Be of good cheer,” smiled Lehming pitifully, as he and Edward took their
departure. “I cannot believe that the Almighty Father in whom you have

trusted will refuse you guidance and strength. If you want human help, send
for us immediately. I shall be here again to-morrow, and every day.”

“God bless you. Walter—and you too, Edward!” called Mrs. Dinneford
from the doorstep.

A hulking, gorilla-browed man, in a shaggy white overcoat, looked up with
a yellow grin, and a tawdry, painted, consumptive girl burst into a hoarse giggle.
Regardless of these two denizens of a world which was not hers, or rather
so wrapt and blindly encumbered with her trouble of mind that she could not
really see them, Mrs. Dinneford closed the door and went slowly up stairs to
enter into conflict with the being whom she loved best in all the world. “It
would seem,” she piteously thought, “as if it were always true that our foes
shall be they of our own household.”

Alice, notwithstanding her alleged headache, had not gone to bed. She sat
in a little rocking-chair, tossing one foot and biting her lips, half moping and
half petulant. She was the picture of a girl who wants her will, who fears
that she may not get it, who fears that it may hurt her, and who still wants it.
If ever a woman is stubborn and indifferent to consequences, and careless of
right and wrong, it is in a love affair. It may be fairly doubted of many, or
even of most women, whether in such matters they exercise either judgment
or conscience. They will lie, they will deceive their parents, they will commit
petty meannesses, and all this without any pungent shame or sense of
guilt. The very next Sunday they are at church with demure faces, and remain
to communion. We are furious at their hypocrisy until we turn to study
the lives of their brothers. Then, without a further doubt or growl, we concede
the purity of womanhood.

“What did they talk about?” asked Alice peevishly, as if suspicious that
the conversation below had not been such as to please her.

“They spoke of Mr. Poloski,” answered the mother, in a tone which confessed
that the speaking had not been to that person's advantage.

Alice uttered an indistinct, sulky, anxious sound, which was not loud enough
to be called an exclamation, and which decorum forbids us from describing as
a grunt. She knew that something evil was to be said of her Count, and she
did not want to hear it, and she was crazy to dispute it.