The Spenders | Page 9

attention. The visitor, after eyeing it with cautious side-glances, goes jauntily up to it, affecting to have been stirred by the mere impulse of elegant idleness. Under the affectedly careless scrutiny of the hostess he falls dramatically into an attitude of awed entrancement. Reverently he gazes upon the priceless bibelots within: the mother-of-pearl fan, half open; the tiny cup and saucer of Sèvres on their brass easel; the miniature Cupid and Psyche in marble; the Japanese wrestlers carved in ivory; the ballet-dancer in bisque; the coral necklace; the souvenir spoon from the Paris Exposition; the jade bracelet; and the silver snuff-box that grandfather carried to the day of his death. If the gazing visitor be a person of abandoned character he makes humourous pretence that the householder has done wisely to turn a key upon these treasures, against the ravishings of the overwhelmed and frenzied connoisseur. He wears the look of one who is gnawed with envy, and he heaves the sigh of despair.
But when he notes presently that he has ceased to be observed he sneaks cheerfully to another part of the room.
The what-not is obsolete. The Empire cabinet is regnant. Yet, though one is the lineal descendant of the other--its sophisticated grandchild--they are hostile and irreconcilable.
Twenty years hence the cabinet will be proscribed and its contents catalogued in those same terms of disparagement that the what-not became long since too dead to incur. Both will then have attained the state of honourable extinction now enjoyed by the dodo.
The what-not had curiously survived in the Bines home--survived unto the coming of the princely cabinet--survived to give battle if it might.
Here, perhaps, may be found the symbolic clue to the strife's cause.
The sole non-combatant was Mrs. Bines, the widow. A neutral was this good woman, and a well-wisher to each faction.
"I tell you it's all the same to me," she declared, "Montana City or Fifth Avenue in New York. I guess I can do well enough in either place so long as the rest of you are satisfied."
It had been all the same to Mrs. Bines for as many years as a woman of fifty can remember. It was the lot of wives in her day and environment early to learn the supreme wisdom of abolishing preferences. Riches and poverty, ease and hardship, mountain and plain, town and wilderness, they followed in no ascertainable sequence, and a superiority of indifference to each was the only protection against hurts from the unexpected.
This trained neutrality of Mrs. Bines served her finely now. She had no leading to ally herself against her children in their wish to go East, nor against Uncle Peter Bines in his stubborn effort to keep them West. She folded her hands to wait on the others.
And the battle raged.
The old man, sole defender of the virtuous and stalwart West against an East that he alleged to be effete and depraved, had now resorted to sarcasm,--a thing that Mr. Carlyle thought was as good as the language of the devil.
"And here, now, how about this dog-luncheon?" he continued, glancing at a New York newspaper clutched accusingly in his hand. "It was give, I see, by one of your Newport cronies. Now, that's healthy doin's fur a two-fisted Christian, ain't it? I want to know. Shappyronging a select company of lady and gentlemen dogs from soup to coffee; pressing a little more of the dog-biscuit on this one, and seein' that the other don't misplay its finger-bowl no way. How I would love to read of a Bines standin' up, all in purty velvet pants, most likely, to receive at one of them bow-wow functions;--functions, I believe, is the name of it?" he ended in polite inquiry.
"There, there, Uncle Peter!" the young man broke in, soothingly; "you mustn't take those Sunday newspapers as gospel truth; those stories are printed for just such rampant old tenderfoots as you are; and even if there is one foolish freak, he doesn't represent all society in the better sense of the term."
"Yes, and you!" Uncle Peter broke out again, reminded of another grievance. "You know well enough your true name is Peter--Pete and Petie when you was a baby and Peter when you left for college. And you're ashamed of what you've done, too, for you tried to hide them callin'-cards from me the other day, only you wa'n't quick enough. Bring 'em out! I'm bound your mother and Pish shall see 'em. Out with 'em!"
The young man, not without embarrassment, drew forth a Russia leather card-case which the old man took from him as one having authority.
"Here you are, Marthy Bines!" he exclaimed, handing her a card; "here you are! read it! Mr. P. Percival Bines.' Now don't you feel proud of havin' stuck out for Percival when you see it in cold