In the Academy at Venice is that famous picture of t.i.tian's representing the little Virgin climbing up the steps of the Temple, a pathetic, frightened figure bearing no trace of the supreme radiance that was to be hers. There was something of the same religious awe in Kedzie's heart as she mounted the steps of the house that was a temple in her religion.

She was going up to her heaven already. It was perfection because it was the next thing.

When Kedzie reaches the scriptural heaven, if she does (and it will be hard for Anybody to deny her anything that she sets her heart on), she will be happy till she gets there and finds that she is only in the first of the seven heavens. But what will the poor girl do when she goes on up and up and up and learns at last that there is no eighth? She will weep like another Alexander the Great, because there are no more heavens to hope for.

Jim led her into the best room there was up-stairs, and told her that a duke had slept there. At first she was thrilled through. Later it would occur to her, not tragically, yet a bit quellingly, that, after all, she had not married a duke herself, but only a commoner. She had as much right to a t.i.tle as any other American girl. A foreign t.i.tle is part of a Yankee woman's birthright. Hundreds of women had acquired theirs.

Kedzie got only a plain "Mr."

Still, she told herself that she must not be too critical, and she let her enthusiasm fly. She did not have to pose before Jim, and she ran about the suite as about a garden.

CHAPTER VIII

Kedzie was smitten with two facts: the canopied bed was raised on a platform, and the marble bath-tub was sunk in the floor. She sat on the bed and bounced up and down on the springs. She stared up at the ta.s.seled baldachin with its furled draperies, and fingered the lace covering and the silken comforter.

She sat in the best chairs, studied the dressing-table with its royal equipment. She went to the window and gazed out into Fifth Avenue, reviewing its slow-flowing lava of humanity--young royalty overlooking her subjects.

Mrs. Abby, the housekeeper, knocked and came in to be presented to the new Princess of Wales, and to present the personal maid who had been a.s.signed to her. Even Mrs. Dyckman was afraid of Mrs. Abby, who lacked the suavities of Wotton. Mrs. Abby gave Kedzie the chill of her life, and Kedzie responded with an ardent hatred.

The maid, a young Frenchwoman, found her black dress with its black silk ap.r.o.n an appropriate uniform, since her father, three brothers, a dozen cousins, and two or three of her sweethearts were at the wars. Some of them were dead, she knew, and the others were on their way along the red stream that was bleeding France white, according to German hopes.

Liliane, being a foreigner, saw in Kedzie the pathos of the alien, and with the unequaled democracy of the French, forgave her her plebeiance for that sake. She welcomed Kedzie's beauty, too, and regarded her as a doll of the finest ware, whom it would be fascinating to dress up.

Kedzie and Liliane would prosper famously.

Liliane resolved that when Kedzie appeared at dinner she should reflect credit not only on "Monsieur Zheem," but on Liliane as well. When Kedzie's trunk arrived and Liliane drew forth the confections of Lady Powell-Carewe she knew that she had all the necessary weapons for a sensation.

Kedzie felt more aristocracy in being fluttered over by a French maid with an accent than in anything she had encountered yet. Liliane's phrase "Eef madame pair-meet" was a constant tribute to her distinction.

Jim retired to his own dressing-room and faced the veiled contempt of his valet, leaving Kedzie to the ministrations of Liliane, who drew the tub and saw that it was just hot enough, sprinkled the aromatic bath-salts, and laid out the towels and Kedzie's things.

Women are born linen-lovers, and Kedzie was not ashamed to have even a millionaire maid see the things she wore next to her skin, and Liliane was delighted to find by this secret wardrobe that her new mistress was beautifully equipped.

She waited outside the door till Kedzie had stepped from the fragrant pool--then came in to aid in the harnessing. She saw nothing but the successive garments and had those ready magically. She laced the stays and slid the stockings on and locked the garters and set the slippers in place. She was miraculously deft with Kedzie's hair, and her suggestions were the last word in tact. Then she fetched the dinner-gown, floated it about Kedzie as delicately as if it were a ring of smoke, hooked it, snapped it, and murmured little compliments that were more tonic than c.o.c.ktails.

When Jim came in he was struck aglow by Kedzie's comeliness and by a certain authority she had, Liliane pointed to her, as an artist might point to a canvas with which he has had success, and demanded his admiration. His eyes paid the tribute his lips stammered over.

Kedzie was incandescent with her triumph, and she went down the stairway to collect her dues.

Her parents-in-law were waiting, and she could see how tremendously they were impressed and relieved by her grace. What did it matter who she was or whence she came? She was as irresistible as some haunting phrase from a folk-song, its authorship unknown and unimportant, its perfection inspired.

Kedzie floated into the dining-room and pa.s.sed the gantlet of the servants. Ignoring them haughtily, she did not ignore the sudden change of their scorn to homage. Nothing was said or done; yet the air was full of her victory. Much was forgiven her for her beauty, and she forgave the whole household much because of its surrender.

It was a family dinner and not elaborate. Mr. and Mrs. Dyckman had arrived at the stage when nearly everything they liked to eat or drink was forbidden to them. Jim had an athlete's appet.i.te for simples, and Kedzie had an actress' dread of fattening things and sweets. There was a procession of dishes submitted to her inspection, but seeing them refused first by Mrs. Dyckman, she declined most of them in her turn.

Kedzie had been afraid that she would blunder in choice among a long array of forks, but she escaped the test, since each course was accompanied by the tools to eat it with. There was a little champagne to toast the bride in.

She found the grandeur of the room belittling to the small party at table. There were brave efforts to make her feel at home and brief sallies of high spirits, but there was no real gaiety. How could there be, when there was no possible congeniality? The elder couple had lived in a world unknown to Kedzie. Their son had dazed them by his sudden return with a strange captive from beyond the pale. She was a pretty barbarian, but a barbarian she was, and no mistake. She was not so barbaric as they had feared, but they knew nothing of her past or of her.

It is not good manners to deal in personal questions; yet how else could such strangers come to know one another? The Dyckmans were afraid to quiz her about herself, and she dared not cross-examine them. They had no common acquaintances or experiences to talk over. The presence of the servants was depressing, and when the long meal was over and the four Dyckmans were alone in the drawing-room, they were less at ease than before. They had not even knives and forks to play with.

Mrs. Dyckman said at length, "Are you going to the theater, do you think?"

Jim did not care--or dare--to take his bride abroad just yet. He shook his head. Mrs. Dyckman tried again:

"Does your wife play--or sing, perhaps?"

"No, thank you," said Kedzie, and sank again.

Mrs. Dyckman was about to ask if she cared for cards, but she was afraid that she might say yes. She grew so desperate at last that she made a cowardly escape:

"I think we old people owe it to you youngsters to leave you alone." She caught up her husband with a glance like a clutching hand, and he made haste to follow her into the library.

Jim and Kedzie looked at each other sheepishly. Kedzie was taking her initiation into the appalling boredom that can close down in a black fog on the homes and souls of the very wealthy. She was astounded and terrified to realize that there is no essential delight attending the possession of vast means. Later she was to find herself often one of large and glittering companies where nothing imaginable was lacking to make one happy except the power to be happy. She would go to dinners where an acute melancholia seemed to poison the food, where people of the widest travel and unfettered opportunities could find nothing to say to one another.

If she had loved Jim more truly, or he her, they could have been blissful in spite of their lack of hardships; but the excitement of flirtation had gone out of their lives. There seemed to be nothing more to be afraid of except unhappiness. There seemed to be nothing to be excited about at all. Time would soon provide them with wild anxieties, but he withheld his hand for the moment.

Jim saw that Kedzie was growing restless. He dragged himself from his chair and clasped her in his arms, but the element of pity in his deed took all the fire out of it. He led her about the house and showed her the pictures in the art gallery, but she knew nothing about painters or paintings, and once around the gallery finished that room for her forever. There were treasures in the library to fascinate a bibliophile for years, but Kedzie knew nothing and cared less about books as books; and a glance into the somber chamber where the old people played cards listlessly drove her from that door.

The dinner had begun at eight and finished at half past nine. It was ten o'clock now, and too late to go to the theater. The opera season was over. There would be the dancing-places, but neither of the two felt vivacity enough for dancing or watching others dance.

For lack of anything better, Jim proposed a drive. He was mad for air and exercise. He would have preferred a long walk, and so would Kedzie, but she could not have walked far without changing her costume and her slippers.

She was glad of the chance to escape from the house. Jim rang for Wotton and asked to have a car brought round. They put on light wraps and went down the steps to the limousine.

The Avenue was lonely and the Park was lonelier. And, strangely, now that they were together in the dark they felt happier; they drew more closely together. They were common people now, and they had moonlight and stars, a breeze and a shadowy landscape; they shared them with the mult.i.tude, and they were happy for a while.

Something in Kedzie's heart whispered: "What's the use of being rich?

What's the good of living in a palace with a gang of servants hanging over your shoulder? Happiness evidently doesn't come from ordering whatever you want, for by the time somebody brings it to you you don't want it any longer. Happiness must be the going after something yourself and being anxious about it."

If she had listened to that airy whisperer she might have had an inkling of a truth. But she dismissed philosophy as something stupid. She turned into Jim's arms like a child afraid and clung to him, moaning:

"Jim, what do I want? Tell me. I'm bluer than blue, and I don't know why."

This was sufficiently discouraging for Jim. He had given the petulant child the half of his kingdom, and she was blue. If anything could have made him bluer than he was it would have been this proclamation of his failure. He had done the honorable thing, and it had profited n.o.body.

He petted her as one pets a spoiled and fretful child at the end of a long, long rainy day, with a rainy to-morrow ahead.

When they returned home the coziness of their hour together was lost.

The big mansion was as cozy as a court-house. It no longer had even novelty. Climbing the steps had no further mystery than the Louvre has to an American tourist who has promenaded through it once.

Her room was brilliant and beautiful, but the things she liked about it most were the homely, comfortable touches: her bedroom slippers by her chair, her nightgown laid across her pillow, and the turned-down covers of the bed.

Liliane knocked and came in, and Jim retreated. It was pleasant for the indolent Kedzie to have the harness taken from her. She yawned and stretched and rubbed her sides when her corsets were off, and when her things were whisked from sight and she was only Kedzie Thropp alone in a nightgown she was more nearly glad than she had been for ever so long.

She flung her hair loose and ran about the room. She sang grotesquely as she brushed her teeth and sc.u.mbled her face with cold-cream, rubbed it in and rubbed it out again. She was so glad to be a mere girl in her own flesh and not much else that she went about the room crooning to herself. She peeked out of the window at the Avenue, as quiet as a country lane at this hour, save for the motors that slid by as on skees and the jog-trot of an occasional hansom-horse.

She was crooning when she turned to see her husband come in in a great bath-robe; he might have been a solemn monk, save for the big cigar he smoked.