Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

and Mrs. Peyton, who was romantically given to the cultivation of such generosities, had seconded his enthusiasm by the kindest offers of hospitality to the young student. Darrow thus became the grateful frequenter of their little salon; and after their return to New York the intimacy between the young men was renewed, though Mrs. Peyton found it more difficult to coax Dick’s friend to her New York drawing-room than to the informal surroundings of the Rue de Varennes. There, no doubt, secluded and absorbed in her son’s work, she had seemed to Darrow almost a fellow-student; but seen among her own associates she became once more the woman of fashion, divided from him by the whole breadth of her ease and his awkwardness. Mrs. Peyton, whose tact had divined the cause of his estrangement, would not for an instant let it affect the friendship of the two young men. She encouraged Dick to frequent Darrow, in whom she divined a persistency of effort, an artistic self-confidence, in curious contrast to his social hesitancies. The example of his obstinate capacity for work was just the influence her son needed, and if Darrow would not come to them she insisted that Dick must seek him out, must never let him think that any social discrepancy could affect a friendship based on deeper things. Dick, who had all the loyalties, and who took an honest pride in his friend’s growing success, needed no urging to maintain the intimacy; and his copious reports of midnight colloquies in Darrow’s lodgings showed Mrs. Peyton that she had a strong ally in her invisible friend.

      It had been, therefore, somewhat of a shock to learn in the course of time that Darrow’s influence was being shared, if not counteracted, by that of a young lady in whose honour Dick was now giving his first professional tea. Mrs. Peyton had heard a great deal about Miss Clemence Verney, first from the usual purveyors of such information, and more recently from her son, who, probably divining that rumour had been before him, adopted his usual method of disarming his mother by taking her into his confidence. But, ample as her information was, it remained perplexing and contradictory, and even her own few meetings with the girl had not helped her to a definite opinion. Miss Verney, in conduct and ideas, was patently of the “new school”: a young woman of feverish activities and broad-cast judgments, whose very versatility made her hard to define. Mrs. Peyton was shrewd enough to allow for the accidents of environment; what she wished to get at was the residuum of character beneath Miss Verney’s shifting surface.

      “It looks charmingly,” Mrs. Peyton repeated, giving a loosening touch to the chrysanthemums in a tall vase on her son’s desk.

      Dick laughed, and glanced at his watch.

      “They won’t be here for another quarter of an hour. I think I’ll tell Gill to clean out the work-room before they come.”

      “Are we to see the drawings for the competition?” his mother asked.

      He shook his head smilingly. “Can’t—I’ve asked one or two of the Beaux Arts fellows, you know; and besides, old Darrow’s actually coming.”

      “Impossible!” Mrs. Peyton exclaimed.

      “He swore he would last night.” Dick laughed again, with a tinge of self-satisfaction. “I’ve an idea he wants to see Miss Verney.”

      “Ah,” his mother murmured. There was a pause before she added: “Has Darrow really gone in for this competition?”

      “Rather! I should say so! He’s simply working himself to the bone.”

      Mrs. Peyton sat revolving her muff on a meditative hand; at length she said: “I’m not sure I think it quite nice of him.”

      Her son halted before her with an incredulous stare. “Mother!” he exclaimed.

      The rebuke sent a blush to her forehead. “Well—considering your friendship—and everything.”

      “Everything? What do you mean by everything? The fact that he has more ability than I have and is therefore more likely to succeed? The fact that he needs the money and the success a deuced sight more than any of us? Is that the reason you think he oughtn’t to have entered? Mother! I never heard you say an ungenerous thing before.”

      The blush deepened to crimson, and she rose with a nervous laugh. “It was ungenerous,” she conceded. “I suppose I’m jealous for you. I hate these competitions!”

      Her son smiled reassuringly. “You needn’t. I’m not afraid: I think I shall pull it off this time. In fact, Paul’s the only man I’m afraid of—I’m always afraid of Paul—but the mere fact that he’s in the thing is a tremendous stimulus.”

      His mother continued to study him with an anxious tenderness. “Have you worked out the whole scheme? Do you see it yet?”

      “Oh, broadly, yes. There’s a gap here and there—a hazy bit, rather—it’s the hardest problem I’ve ever had to tackle; but then it’s my biggest opportunity, and I’ve simply got to pull it off!”

      Mrs. Peyton sat silent, considering his flushed face and illumined eye, which were rather those of the victor nearing the goal than of the runner just beginning the race. She remembered something that Darrow had once said of him: “Dick always sees the end too soon.”

      “You haven’t too much time left,” she murmured.

      “Just a week. But I shan’t go anywhere after this. I shall renounce the world.” He glanced smilingly at the festal tea-table and the embowered desk. “When I next appear, it will either be with my heel on Paul’s neck—poor old Paul—or else—or else—being dragged lifeless from the arena!”

      His mother nervously took up the laugh with which he ended. “Oh, not lifeless,” she said.

      His face clouded. “Well, maimed for life, then,” he muttered.

      Mrs. Peyton made no answer. She knew how much hung on the possibility of his winning the competition which for weeks past had engrossed him. It was a design for the new museum of sculpture, for which the city had recently voted half a million. Dick’s taste ran naturally to the grandiose, and the erection of public buildings had always been the object of his ambition. Here was an unmatched opportunity, and he knew that, in a competition of the kind, the newest man had as much chance of success as the firm of most established reputation, since every competitor entered on his own merits, the designs being submitted to a jury of architects who voted on them without knowing the names of the contestants. Dick, characteristically, was not afraid of the older firms; indeed, as he had told his mother, Paul Darrow was the only rival he feared. Mrs. Peyton knew that, to a certain point, self-confidence was a good sign; but somehow her son’s did not strike her as being of the right substance—it seemed to have no dimension but extent. Her fears were complicated by a suspicion that, under his professional eagerness for success, lay the knowledge that Miss Verney’s favour hung on the victory. It was that, perhaps, which gave a feverish touch to his ambition; and Mrs. Peyton, surveying the future from the height of her maternal apprehensions, divined that the situation depended mainly on the girl’s view of it. She would have given a great deal to know Clemence Verney’s conception of success.

      —————

II.

      Miss Verney, when she presently appeared, in the wake of the impersonal and exclamatory young married woman who served as a background to her vivid outline, seemed competent to impart at short notice any information required of her. She had never struck Mrs. Peyton as more alert and efficient. A melting grace of line and colour tempered her edges with the charming haze of youth; but it occurred to her critic that she might emerge from this morning mist as a dry and metallic old woman.

      If Miss Verney suspected a personal application in Dick’s hospitality, it did not call forth in her the usual tokens of self-consciousness. Her manner may have been a shade more vivid than usual, but she preserved all her bright composure of glance and speech, so that one guessed, under the rapid dispersal of words, an undisturbed steadiness of perception. She was lavishly but not indiscriminately interested in the evidences of her host’s industry, and as the other guests assembled, straying with vague ejaculations through the labyrinth of scale drawings