When in Disgrace with Fortune
CALLENDER had only to see her a few times to realize that as far as he was concerned the search for the eternal feminine was at an end—he had found the one woman. This in no wise implied he had claimed her. He might as well fall enamored of a star; until the more ultimate perfection of an air-ship he was as likely to win it. Such was his conviction. In truth she was infinitely removed—farther than Callender conceived. It would require a new adjustment of the spirit of the times, a more correct balance between theory and sentiment, a mental, spiritual, and physical revolution, in order to bring this complex entity, this theoretic, pleasure-loving woman—overrefined, overcultured, a veritable incrustation of modern fads and soulless schemes,—to the plane of the commonplace Callender—nothing more unusual than that of a well-minded, healthy individual, a man in love seeking a wife.
"Why don't you ask Miss Van Alsten to marry you?"
To the man who so brusquely divined his passion, Callender said with a flush:
"I have nothing to offer her!"
His companion exclaimed:
"Oh, I think you are quite rich enough."
"It takes," returned Callender with distaste, "more than money, to win the right woman."
"Does it?" The other's voice had the proper intonation. " I fancy you will find it takes money to buy a woman of Edith Van Alsten's type, and more to keep her."
Just why Callender should have singed his harmless wings at this bright particular flame would be hard to say. There was in Miss Van Alsten's circle of admirers no one quite like this Westerner, who rode, drove, shot, and played bridge all below the mark. He was timid with her: she wanted a master. But although she could wound him with her caprices, there was that about him which called forth tenderness of emotion so sincere that she not only failed to recognize it amongst the lifeless sentiments with which her unnatural life was filled, but she was ashamed of it.
Had Callender seen the moment for his honest passion to be declared—if he could properly have valued the false, tawdry standpoints he failed to satisfy—stormed her citadel and taken her by force—as a woman, be she never so effete, so modern, longs to be won,—he would have been master. But, alas! he adored her, to his own confounding. He loved so timorously that the semblance of flame he kindled was overlaid in the woman's heart.
He went out to the suburban town where Miss Van Alsten lived. From the
nutshell of an unpretentious frame house she made her brilliant sorties to town, and there, despite "her poverty" (as her friends called it), she was the spoiled favorite of an arbitrary set unable to deny her the success charm, beauty, and family command.
When Callender, left at the door by the little, rattling station trap, saw the small house bright with vines, the fluttering awnings, and the air of modest living it suggested, his heart contracted. Not that he found it difficult to connect his beautiful lady with simplicity, but that he had so longed to do so! Her environment appealed to his tastes. Instead of buying her from surroundings such as these, he would have adored to lead her with love, thus simply home.
She had not taken an hour to dress; she had taken it to make up her mind about Callender, and she had decided. As she came in to him there was a yielding about her—something like defeat, that rendered her more womanly, more
