The Barrier: A Novel. French Allen
entertaining a dream which should properly be repugnant to one of his station. This he recognised, but he reminded himself that as a parent his daughter's good should be his care. Another mind was Mather's, disturbed by the jealousy and dread which the manliest of lovers cannot master. And one was Mrs. Harmon's; she, like Ellis, had learned much that afternoon, and meant in future to apply her knowledge.
As that evening she went to the Fennos' ball Mrs. Harmon recalled the snubs of the afternoon, and saw how insecure her footing was among these people. Sometimes she had wondered if it were worth while, this struggle to be "in"; the life was dull, lacking all natural excitements; there was no friendship possible with any of the blue-bloods. Yet she hated to knuckle to them; if she could engineer this match between Judith and Ellis, then – ! And Mrs. Harmon, with the hope of coming triumph, felt fully equal to meeting Mrs. Fenno on her own ground. Mrs. Harmon wore Ellis's jewels on her breast, she had his brain to back her, she believed she knew Judith's weaknesses, and she saw before her a bright future.
Judith Blanchard made at that ball a searching review of her world, dominated as she still was by the thoughts which Ellis aroused. For he, the strongest personality in the city, had done more than to excite her curiosity: with his deference to her opinion and his appeal for her help he had succeeded – as Mather never – in wakening her sympathy. Questioning why fashion should reject him, stirred to a new comparison of reality with sham, she looked keenly about her at the ball. She was in one of the inner sanctuaries, where society bowed down and worshiped itself. Judith sniffed the incense, listened to the chants, and weighed the words of officiating priests and priestesses. She found everything to delight the eye, except the idols; everything to charm the senses, except sense.
In the ball-room there was dancing, pagan rites to what purpose? This usually unrhythmic swaying, skipping, sliding, seemed a profitless way to pass the hours when workers were in bed. Girls more or less innocent danced with men more or less roué; this procedure, indefinitely continued, gave occasion for jealousies among the girls and selfish scheming among the men. In other rooms the older people played cards, intent at bridge or whist upon their stakes. Near the buffet thronged bachelors old or young, with not a few married men, busied in acquiring an agreeable exhilaration. Their occupation was no worse than the passionate gambling of the old women. And the house in which all this went on was beautifully classic in design and furnishings. Beside that quiet elegance, how vacant was the chatter! As Judith thought thus, slowly the spirit of revolt came to her.
The master of the house approached her; he was leonine, massive, somewhat lame from rheumatism. She saw him, as he came, speaking among his guests; his smile was cynical. It lighted upon her father, and the Colonel, his character somehow exposed by that smile, seemed shallow. It turned to the men at the sideboard, and their interests seemed less than the froth in their glasses. The smile turned on Judith, and she felt called to give an account of herself.
But he merely asked her: "Where is Beth?"
"Gone with Miss Pease to a meeting of the Charity Board," Judith answered.
Mr. Fenno grunted, looking at her sidewise. "Better employed than we!"
Then he rambled away, neither knowing nor caring what encouragement he had given to her mood. He missed Beth, for his rheumatism was sharp, the company inane, and Beth was almost the only person who could make him contented with himself. But Judith felt the reflection of his cynicism and was stirred still deeper. What was there to interest her here?
Among all the women Mrs. Harmon alone was in disaccord. No dressmaker could conceal her natural style; the eye and carriage of the Judge's wife were bolder than those of the women about her. A free humour attracted some of the men; the women avoided her, the more delicate from instinct, the stronger with a frank dislike. This antipathy Judith had often felt and expressed, yet to-night she reviewed and rejected it. Mrs. Harmon belonged to the class of the rising Americans; in that class Judith felt interest, questioning if its vigour and freshness should not outweigh external faults. She went to Mrs. Harmon and began to talk with her.
She tried to find, within the exterior, the solid qualities of the middle class. But thought and purpose seemed lacking; in Mrs. Harmon the vulgarity lay deeper than the surface. She was frivolous; she liked the sparkle and the show, the wine, the dancing, and the gaiety. Promising herself an intimacy with Judith, she talked willingly, but it was only upon the subject of Ellis that she became interesting.
She told Judith much about him. He had always been persevering and ambitious; he had left his town as a boy because even then he found it too little. Ellis had begun small; now he was big. Some day, said Mrs Harmon significantly, people would recognise him.
Why not, thought Judith as she looked about her, admit Ellis here? What was an aristocracy for but to reward success? How could it remain sound but by the infusion of new blood? Ellis had proved his quality by the things he had done; he had beaten Mather; yet these halls which to Mather were open were closed to Ellis. It was unfair to refuse to recognise him! What were the abilities of these men here, compared with his?
Thus Judith, tolerant in her broad Americanism, admiring the forces which to-day are accomplishing such marvellous results, thought of her world. At the same time Ellis also was thinking of it. His was the fifth mind moved by that afternoon's occurrence, but moved the most deeply of them all. On leaving Judith first, like a man smitten by a slender blade he had spoken, acted, thought as before. Then the inward bleeding began, and the pain. He had gone away from her thinking of her as something to be won, but no more distant, no less a commodity, than a public franchise or a seat in the legislature. Thus he had discussed her with Mrs. Harmon, but before night his thought of the girl had changed. Her refinement was new to him; he recalled her in imagination and dwelt on her features and her voice. Yet, equally with her delicacy, her spirit charmed him with its frankness and its admiration of great things. There was a subtle flattery in her interest in him; he had never thought of himself as she did; he saw himself magnified in her eyes, which seemed to refine the baseness from his employments and purposes. She gave him a new idea of himself, and held before him vague new aims.
He had entertained some of his henchmen that evening at his table, had tasted while they ate, sipped while they drank, listened while they spoke of politics. He sat at the head of the table, like the Sphinx after which he was familiarly called, indifferent to their uncouthness and their little thoughts; then at the end he suddenly called them into executive session, asked a few keen questions, gave some brief directions, and dismissed them. Thus he had always ruled them, from outside, commanding respect by his decision, almost awe by his silence. Though his purposes were not clear, the men went to obey him, having learned to support him blindly, for he never failed. Such was Ellis among his subordinates, the "old man" of whom they never asked questions, with whom they never attempted familiarity. They praised him as they went, proud of their connection with him. But he put out the lights as soon as the men were gone, and sat at the window, looking at Fenno's house.
There was the temporary focus of social life; he saw the lights; had he opened his window he might have heard the music. Carriages drove up, people entered the house, and on the curtains of the ball-room he saw moving shadows. In that house were what he wanted – recognition, a new life, Judith. But she was guarded by the powers of a whole order, was infinitely remote.
His talk with Judith had doubled his determination to enter the upper world, and yet changed his regard for it. It became Judith's world, seeming to-night like a house which she inhabited, more precious by her presence. And because she was so much finer than he had imagined the women of her class, her sphere looked farther away, and his determination to enter it was tempered by the fear of failure.
As he took the first step in his new venture, he had been half ashamed of his desire to "better himself," quite unable to justify himself by appeal to the natural American wish to obtain the highest indorsement of his community. So long as there had been anything left for him to win, he had turned instinctively toward it. Now he suddenly realised that he faced his greatest fight. He had often said that he liked fighting; he had struggled for many years with all the power of nerve and mind. To-night his brain seemed weary, bruised and scarred as a body might be. Watching the house where Judith was, contemplating her image, a softness came over Ellis, new to him; resolution became a wish, and then turned to yearning. It was with difficulty that he roused himself, surprise