An Ambitious Woman: A Novel. Fawcett Edgar
points, the likeness of stately galleys gliding after nightfall to some opulent port. All their horrors of nautical architecture were deadened by merciful shadow. Claire felt the quiet splendor of the suggestion. Her varied educational past made this fully possible. But the whole effect of transformation, of magic, of mystery, and of beauty, which follows the advent of night along all the watery environs of our great metropolis, appealed to her with deep force.
She had a fancy that the hard prose had left her life forever; that she was now being softly swept into luxurious and romantic surroundings; that the festal and poetic look of city and river symbolized a fairer and kindlier future. The indulgence of this fancy thrilled her delightfully; it was a sort of intoxication; she no longer felt culpable, unfilial; she leaned her graceful young head far over the boat-rail, as though to gain by this act a stronger intimacy with the sweet, drowsy sorceries that encompassed her.
"My! ain't it reel chilly out here, though?" said Josie. "We'd ought to 'a stayed inside, hadn't we, Miss Twining?"
This half broke the spell with Claire. "I like it so much better out here," she answered. "The air isn't too sharp for me, and then everything is so beautiful and strange." She slightly waved one hand toward the brilliant city as she spoke.
Josie did not understand at all. How could there be anything beautiful in a lot of boats screaming to each other after dark with steam-whistles? But she said "yes," and cast a glance at Mr. MacNab, which was meant to veto in him the first symptom of surprise. Claire's superiority must not have the least slight cast upon it. It would never do to encourage Mr. MacNab in undervaluing the compliment of her companionship.
The boat soon landed, and all Claire's lovely illusions fled. Still, here was the city, noisy, populous, alluring. After disembarking at the ferry they were yet far away from Niblo's, and a long ride ensued, in a car crowded and of ill odor. Then came a walk of considerable length, fleetly taken, for they were a little late by Mr. MacNab's silver time-piece, which afterward proved to be fast.
Mr. MacNab was meanwhile in a sort of nervous trance. He had made what for him was a tour de force in mental arithmetic, though he still remained insecure about the exactitude of his calculation. However, he felt confident of one thing: three seats, of a certain kind, would cost three dollars. A dollar would solidly remain to him, though the precise amount of surplus change now in his pocket defied all his mathematical modes of discovery. Pride forbade that he should take out the silver bits and count them. But his residual dollar could at least pay the homeward fares. Cold as this comfort may have been, it took, no doubt, a certain relative warmth when contrasted with dire pecuniary exposure.
They at length reached the theatre, and easily procured upstairs seats that commanded an excellent view of the stage. The curtain had not yet risen. Claire was glad of that; she had the desire not to miss a single detail of the coming performance. She was intently examining her play-bill, when, on a sudden, a man's voice, close at her right, spoke to this effect: —
"Hello, Jimmy, is that yerself?"
The next moment Claire perceived a hand and arm to have been unceremoniously thrust in front of her, while a young man leaned his body very much sideways indeed. She receded, herself, not without annoyance.
Josie sat next to her, and then came Mr. MacNab, who now permitted himself to be shaken hands with across the laps of the two girls.
"Hello, Jack," he responded, at the same time. "What you doin' here?"
"Come t' see the show," said the person called Jack.
"Is that so?"
"'Course. Nuthin' strange 'bout it, is there?"
"That's all right."
"S'pose you're on the same racket yerself. Hey?"
"You bet, ole boy."
All these utterances were exchanged in tones of the most easy cordiality. The two young men had ceased to shake hands, but were leaning each toward the other, apparently quite unconscious of the inconvenience which they inflicted upon both Josie and Claire.
"I got sold t'night," Jack continued, with a blended wink and giggle.
"How's that?"
Jack gave a demonstrative jerk of the elbow, meant to indicate a vacant seat on his further side. "Me an' my gal was comin' t'gether, but she gimme the slip after I'd got mer seats. Sent word she had the headache. Well, I dunno how 'tis, but I reckon I'll have to punch some feller's head, 'fore long. Hey, Jimmy?"
This hostile prophecy was hailed by Jimmy with a laugh whose repressed enjoyment took the semblance of a goose's hiss, except that its tone was more guttural and its volume more massive.
"I guess that's 'bout the size of it, Jack," he replied. The next moment he straightened himself in his seat, having received an exasperated nudge from Josie.
Mr. MacNab's friend followed his example. Claire felt relieved. She examined her programme again. She had already managed to see quite as much as she wished of the person seated next her.
His name was Slocumb. He had a cousin in Greenpoint, an undertaker's son, whom he would occasionally visit of a Sunday, bringing across the river to the doleful quarters of his kinsfolk a demeanor of high condescension and patronage. He was in reality a loafer of very vicious sort, feeding his idleness upon the alms of an infatuated woman, whose devotion he did not repay with even the saving grace of fidelity. He had contrived to hide his real badness of life and lowness of repute from both uncle and cousin, and had won the latter to believe him a superior kind of metropolitan product. Together MacNab and he had partaken of refreshment at the shop of the former's employer, and from such events had sprung an intimacy with the oyster-opener which had found its most active development in a near drinking-shop. Mr. John Slocumb had a dull, brownish complexion, a light-brown eye, and a faint brown mustache. His face was not ugly, judged by line and feature, but it had a hardness that resembled bronze; you fancied that you might touch its cheek and meet no resistance. There was a look of vice and depravity about it that was not to be explained; the repulsive element was there, but it eluded direct proof; it was no more in eyelid than in nostril, but it was as much in forehead and chin as in either. Claire felt the repelling force almost instantly. Mr. Slocumb's dress was not designed in a fashion to decrease its effect. He wore a suit of green-and-blue plaid, each tint being happily moderated, like evil that prefers to lurk in ambush. The collar of his shirt sloped down at the breast, leaving an unwonted glimpse of his neck visible. But you saw a good deal of his cravat, which was green, barred with broad yellow stripes, and pierced by a pin that appeared to be a hand of pink coral clutching a golden dumb-bell. His figure was slender almost to litheness, but his shoulders outspread two such long and bulky ridges that you at once placed their athletic proportions among the most courageous frauds of tailoring.
The orchestra had now begun to play a lively and rather clangorous prelude. And meanwhile Claire was gradually made to learn that Mr. John Slocumb was keeping up a cool, persistent stare at her half-averted face. She soon became troubled by this unrelaxing scrutiny, as minutes slipped by. Mr. Slocumb had a slim black cane that looked like a polished and rounded whalebone and ended in the head of a bull-dog, with two white specks of ivory for its eyes. Holding this between his knees, he flung it from one hand to another in nervous oscillation, while continuing his stare.
He had decided that Claire was a damned good-looking girl. He had a secret contempt for her escort, Mr. MacNab. He judged all men by the capabilities of their muscle, and he had practical reasons for feeling sure that his own wiry frame held easy resources for the annihilation of "poor little Jimmy." 'She looks putty high-toned,' he was reflecting, 'but I guess that's on'y a put-up job to tease a feller. She can't be much if she's along with that young un. I'll say somepn.'
He was on the verge of carrying out this resolve and addressing Claire, when an event occurred which had the effect of thwarting his meditated impertinence.
The mind of James MacNab was dull and sluggish. But he had seen a way of perhaps securing for himself the undivided attention of Josie. He did not wait for the latter to sanction his design; he feared her opposition to it, and suddenly spoke, leaning forward again with his look directed full upon Claire.
"Miss Twinin'," he said, "'low me t' intrerdooce