Part 47

"I thank you very much, very, very much, Mr. Millard; it will make my mother feel a leetle better. And I will pay you wheneffer I haf the good luck to get some money."

"Don't worry about that. Don't pay me till I ask you for it. Was Miss Callender with you when your sister died?"

"Yes. Oh, yes; she is better as anybody I effer see."

Millard said no more, and Rudolph thanked him again, put on his cap, and went out to try his luck at finding the door to the freight-elevator for a descent from this lofty height to the dark caves of the basement--vaulted caves with mazes of iron pipes of all sizes overhead, the narrow passages beset by busy porters bearing parcels and trunks, and by polyglot servants in dress-coats and white aprons running hither and thither with trays balanced on their finger-tips and mostly quite above replying to the questions of a bewildered intruder clad in trousers of well-worn brown denim.

XXX.

PHILLIDA AND PHILIP.

Mrs. Gouverneur concluded not to try her clever hand on Millard and Phillida again. Pessimistic Philip could no longer reproach her for having blasted his hopes, for he had a new chance if he chose to improve it. But to improve any opportunity seemed to be out of Philip's power, except perhaps the opportunity to spend his last available dollars on a rare book. He had of late been seeking a chance to invest some hundreds in a copy of Captain John Smith's "Generall Historie of Virginia," provided that he could find a copy with 1624 on the title-page. The 1626 was rare and almost, if not exactly, word for word the same as the 1624; but it would not do. For there were already several twenty-sixes in this country, and there was no fun in possessing a book that two or three other people could boast of having. When not busy with his books Philip was mostly crouched in an armchair in his library, or for a change crouched in an armchair at the Terrapin Club--in either case smoking and, as his mother believed, making profound reflections which might one day come to something. For how could a bright-minded man like Philip fail to bring forth something of value, seeing he bought expensive books and gave so much of his time to meditation?

That Phillida should be specially asked to dine at her aunt's was rather inevitable under the circumstances, and Mrs. Gouverneur saw to it that she came when Philip was at home and when there was no other company. This arrangement pleased Phillida; Uncle Gouverneur was dull enough, but Cousin Philip was always interesting in talk, and a good fellow, if he did spend his life in collecting books mostly of no particular value to anybody but a curiosity-hunter, and in poking good-natured fun at other people's cherished beliefs.

The meal was well-nigh finished when Philip said to his cousin who confronted him--there were only four at the table:

"Phillida, I saw Mrs. Maginnis day before yesterday at Mrs. Benthuysen's. She is still sounding your praises as a faith-healer, but she confided to me that a pious girl and a minister's daughter ought not to be proud. She suggested that you didn't get that from your father. 'Her pride comes from the mother's side, they tell me,' she said. 'How's that, Mr. Gouverneur?' and she laughed at what she regarded a capital drive at me."

Phillida was not pleased at the mention of Mrs. Maginnis. Since the death of Wilhelmina, two weeks before, her mind had been disturbed as to the substantial value of faith-cures. Dr. Beswick's rationalism on the subject rose to trouble her. Happily she had not been sent for to visit any new cases, the death of Wilhelmina, her first notable example, having a little spoiled the charm of her success, as Dr. Beswick had foreseen. Doubt had made her cowardly, and there lurked in her mind a hope that she might no more be called upon to exercise her gift in the direction of faith-healing, and that she might thus without the necessity of a formal decision creep out of responsibility and painful notoriety in a matter concerning which she could not always feel absolutely sure of her ground. To this shrinking the revolt of her taste against such getters-on as Miss Bowyer had contributed, for her mind was after all that of a young woman, and in a young woman's mind taste is likely to go for more than logic. To Philip's words about Mrs. Maginnis she only replied:

"Curious woman, isn't she?"

"Yes," interposed Mrs. Gouverneur, desirous of turning the talk away from what she saw was a disagreeable subject to Phillida--"yes; and I don't see the use of taking such people into society in such a hurry, merely because they are exceedingly rich."

"Mrs. Maginnis is respectable enough," said Philip, "and interesting," he added with a laugh; "and I thought her the most brilliant of the party at Mrs. Benthuysen's, taking her diamond necklace into the account."

"Yes; no doubt she's entirely respectable," said Mrs. Gouverneur. "So are ten thousand other people whom one doesn't care to meet in society. It seems to me that New York society is too easy nowadays."

"It's not too easy toward the poor; eh, Phillida?"

"That's no great deprivation to the poor," said Phillida. "They could not indulge in fashionable amusements anyhow, and some of the most sensible among them believe that the families of fairly prosperous workingmen are happier and more content than the rich."

"Certainly people in the social world are not examples of peace of mind," said Philip. "For me, now, I would have sworn last week that I should be as perfectly happy as a phoebe-bird on a chimneytop if I could only get a John Smith of 1624, which I've been trying for so long. But I got it yesterday, and now I'm just miserable again."

"You want something else?" queried Phillida, laughing.

"Indeed I do. You see the splendid John Smith looks lonesome. It needs a complete set of De Bry's Voyages to keep it company. But I couldn't find a complete De Bry for sale probably, and I couldn't afford to buy it if I should stumble on it. John Smith has eaten up the remainder of my book allowance for this year and nibbled about two hundred dollars out of next year."

When dinner was over Philip said:

"Come up-stairs, Phillida, you and mother, and see my lovely old Captain Smith in the very first edition, with the fresh-looking portrait of Pocahontas as Lady Rebecca."

"You go, Phillida; I'll follow you in a minute," said Mrs. Gouverneur.

"The book is of the earliest impression known," went on Philip with enthusiasm as he led the way up-stairs followed by his cousin, "and is perfect throughout except that one page has been mended."

"Mended?" queried Phillida, as she followed Philip into his library and sitting room. "Do they darn old books as they do old stockings?"

"Oh, yes! it is a regular trade to patch books."

Saying this, Philip turned up the gas, and then unlocked a glass case which held what he called his "nuggets," and took down the two precious volumes of the bravest and boastfullest of all the Smiths, laying them tenderly on a table under the chandelier. Turning the leaves, he directed Phillida's attention to one that seemed to have the slightest discoloration of one corner; rather the corner seemed just perceptibly less time-stained than the rest of the leaf.

"There," he said; "the most skillful mender in London did that."