there was unaccustomed silence for a time after the porter finished speaking. he left the car at once, perturbed, it may be, by his own disclosure of his condition and emotions. those who had listened to him, whatever may have been their views concerning one of the great problems of the age, could not but feel a certain sympathy for the man condemned to be thus isolated—the man without a race. that his case might be somewhat exceptional detracted in no way from its curious pathos. it was recognized as one of the tragedies of human life as it is, and the recital had induced a thoughtful mood among the porter's audience. what should be the attitude of the ordinary man or woman in a case like this? and, seeking honestly in their own minds, those pondering could not answer the question satisfactorily, either to judgment or to conscience. by what law should they be guided?
the colonel was among the thinkers, but[152] he rose superior, as usual. that gilded optimist wanted not even reflection among the snowbound. had his company been of males exclusively he might even have been tempted to introduce the flowing bowl, but for his knowledge of the inevitable depressing aftermath. he wanted but carelessness and distraction and forgetfulness until the time of pale monotony should end. now he was tempted to an act most ruthless and unconjugal.
his glance was toward his wife, whom he adored openly, and toward whom he, at all times, showed the greatest consideration, but who, through some prescience, was fidgeting a little.
"madam," he began pompously, slapping his hand upon his chest, "the husband is the head of the family—he really isn't," he added in an audible aside, "but we'll assume it for the present. madam, he is the head of the family and must be obeyed. i order, command and direct you to tell a story; if need be i will even abdicate for the moment and so far humiliate myself as to implore you to tell a story. tell about that affair which took place at the grand cattaraugus, when we were stopping there last summer."[153]
the pleasant-faced lady appeared hesitant: "but it's almost a naughty story," she protested; "it's about a stocking, and, oh dear! there's something about a"—and she blushed prettily, as is always the case when a middle-aged woman thus demeans herself, "there's an ankle in it, too."
"nonsense," retorted the colonel. "do you mean in the story or in the stocking? in either case an ankle is all right. go ahead, my dear."
mrs. livingston yielded: "after all," she said, "it's not so very wicked and the story is chiefly about matching colors, which is a subject not unlikely to interest ladies. anyhow, it interested me in this instance. i know all the shocking circumstances, and, since i've gone so far i may as well be reckless. i suppose the story might be called
the purple stocking
maxwell, a gentleman stopping at the hotel, was bored. there existed no particular excuse for his frame of mind, but the fact remained. he had fairly earned a vacation, but when the time came for escape from the midsummer heat of his offices he had found himself with no well-defined idea of where his outing should be[154] spent. circumstances rendered it necessary that it should be a brief one this time, else he would have known what to do with himself, for the man knew the rocky mountains. as it was, he had but taken train for one of the nearby summer resorts, where the grand cattaraugus caravansary, consisting, as those places do, of an enormous piazza with a hotel attached to its rear, loomed up beside and overlooked the pretty hill-surrounded lake with its blue waters, narrow beach and many pleasure boats. it was not a bad place and maxwell had decided that it would be endurable for a week or two, especially after the arrival of his friend, jim farrington, who had promised to follow and loaf genially with him.
but first impressions are not always final. maxwell found the hotel full of people, mostly women. it was a fashionable place, and the women were fair to look upon, but there were not men enough to go round. there were two or three dowagers who knew maxwell and, seek to avoid it as he might, he was soon generally introduced and his eligibility made widely known. then came monotonous attention and, for his own peace, the man, who hadn't come after women, was driven to daily[155] exile either to his room or to the lake or hills. the elder ladies with daughters hunted him as hounds might hunt a rabbit. he resolved promptly upon escape and, within a week, an afternoon found him engaged in packing for that purpose.
his laundry had just come in and among the articles he picked up first were a lot of blazing silken handkerchiefs. colored silk handkerchiefs were a fad of his in summer. he tossed them idly into his valise when the color of one of them attracted his attention.
"i never owned a handkerchief like that," he muttered.
he raised the article to examine it more closely, and to his amazement it unfolded and lengthened out. it was not a handkerchief at all. it was a lady's stocking—a brilliant purple stocking!
maxwell wondered. "washing's been mixed," he said, and then devoted closer and more earnest attention to his prize. it was a charming affair, small of foot but not too small otherwise, and possessed, somehow, an especial symmetry, even in its present state.
"it's number eight—number three shoe,"[156] thought maxwell, "and it's the prettiest stocking i ever saw."
his comment was fully justified. the stocking was a dream in its department of lingerie. the purple was relieved, from the ankle upward a little way, by a clocking of snow-white sprays of lilies-of-the-valley, and the purple itself was of such a hue as to send one dreaming of the glories of the ancients. it was a wonderful stocking, a fascinating stocking. it lured like a will-o'-the wisp.
maxwell abandoned his packing and sat stroking and admiring the hypnotizing object. he became vastly interested. "i wonder whom it belongs to?" he mused. then—there's no explaining it with authority, and discreetly—a sudden fancy seized upon him. "i'll not leave to-night!" he said, "i'll find the owner of that stocking! it will give me something to do and add a little zest to things. might as well be stocking-hunting as anything else. by jove, what a neat little foot she must have!"
the packing was left undone. the man had an object now, one which might have seemed trivial to the bloodless and unimaginative, but which to him became a serious matter. talk about the round table fellows after the holy[157] grail or diogenes after an honest man, they were not in it with maxwell! he dawdled and mooned over that stocking and made and unmade plans. he bribed a gentleman, youthful and dirty, connected with the laundry department of the hotel, and it came to naught. his gaze was ever downward. he appeared more frequently on the piazza among the scores of "porchers" engaged in idle converse there. he strolled along the little beach, ever with furtive eyes on twinkling feet, and neat ones he saw galore and stockings rainbow-hued galore, but never a purple one among them.
it was the quality of the purple, he decided, which must have so enthralled him in the first place. he had never seen a purple like it. he read up on purples. he learned that royal purple is made up of fifty-five parts red, twelve parts blue and thirty-three parts black, and concluded that the stocking must be almost a royal purple, so wonderfully did the white lilies show out against its richness. tyrian purple he rejected as being too dull for the comparison. then he considered the purple of amorgos, the wonderfully brilliant color obtained from the seaweed of the grecian island, and this met with greater favor in his eyes.[158] he decided, finally, that the hue of the stocking was between the royal and the purple of amorgos, and this relieved his mind. but this didn't help him to find the girl—and how vain a thing is even the most beautiful stocking in the world without a girl attached!
then the unexpected happened as usual. there came a lapse in the search. the cure for maxwell's dream was homeopathic. like cures like. one girl blighted most of interest in the vague search for another. maxwell was caught by the concrete. miss ward, a guest of the hotel, in company with her aunt, was not, maxwell decided, like any of the other women. she was dignified, but piquant, pretty, certainly, and well educated. likewise, she had self-possession and much wit. maxwell enjoyed her society and they became close friends. he began to feel as if the world, if hollow, had at least a substantial crust. he was no longer bored and the stocking fancy was put aside.
then came farrington. farrington had spirits. he lightened up the hotel piazza and flirted with every one, from dowagers down to the little girls to whom he told liver-colored stories as evening and the gloom came. he was deeply interested when maxwell told him[159] of the stocking and the marvel. he became full of ardor.
"don't give up the search!" he expostulated. "such a stocking as that must belong to the one woman in four hundred and eighty-three thousand. why, it's like finding a nugget in a valley! there's bound to be gold in the mountains!"
so the interest of maxwell became largely revived and his mind was on stockings when he was not in the company of miss ward. one day an inspiration came to him with the gentle suddenness of a love pat. he took farrington into his confidence. that evening on the piazza that gifted friend adroitly turned the conversation to the subject of matching goods and colors.
the debate became most animated. the ladies, one and all, declared that in the matter of matching things men were scarcely above the beasts that perish, while as for themselves, there was not a woman, young or old, among them who was not an adept. maxwell, who had seemed at first uninterested, broke into the conversation.
"i'm not ungallant," he asserted as a preliminary. "when it comes to gallantry i'll venture to say i'd outdo any medieval troubadour,[160] if i could only sing and twang a harp, but, though angels can do almost anything, to tell the truth i'm a shade doubtful concerning their absolute infallibility in matching hues and fabrics. i've a piece of silk i'd like matched for my sister, and i hereby, in the presence of all witnesses, offer a prize of one box of gloves to any lady who will match it for me within a week," and he produced about six inches square—thirty-six square inches—of splendid purple silk.
as the war horse snuffeth the battle and says "ha! ha!" to the trumpets; as the sea mew rises from the waves to riot in the spindrift; as the needle to the pole; as the river to the sea or the cat to the catnip in wild enthusiasm—so rose the ladies to the silken lure. match the silk? why, the gloves must be distributed among the score!
and then ensued a busy week. the sample, divided into thirty-six pieces an inch square, was surrendered. there were trips to the nearest city and, as excitement grew, even to the metropolis. the afternoon for the test arrived and maxwell, seated judicially beside a table on the piazza and provided with another sample[161] of his silk, awaited with manly dignity the onslaught of the gathered contestants.
one by one they came and laid down their little pieces of purple silk; one by one the samples were compared by the judge with the piece held in his hand, and, one by one, he passed them back with a regretful and unnecessarily audible sigh. last of all came miss ward, who had not been to town and who had, apparently, taken slight interest in the competition. it was too trivial for her, had been maxwell's firm conclusion. now she approached the table and laid down, as had the others, a piece of purple silk. maxwell's heart thumped. there was no mistaking that wondrous hue!
"miss ward has won the gloves," he said.
there were congratulations and any amount of fun and curious speculation.
that evening maxwell caught miss ward upon the piazza and induced her to sit with him awhile, to improve his mind, he said. they chatted indifferently until he took occasion to compliment her upon her success in matching the purple silk. "you have a wonderful sense of color," he declared.
she answered that she had always enjoyed[162] matching things, and then he ventured to expatiate a little on the particular silk which had been matched: "what pretty trimming for a hat, or what pretty stockings it would make," he said.
she asked him why the nighthawks circling overhead and about gave utterance to their shrill cries so frequently, and he said he didn't know. then they talked about the coming boat race.
for a week maxwell's chief occupation was what farrington described as "concentrated musing." he walked much. one afternoon he was strolling along the narrow beach, which lay, a sandy stretch, between the water and a tree-grown grassy ledge, about fifteen feet in height, which was a favorite place of rest and outlook for the hotel guests. he was looking downward, but there came a moment when the heavens fell. chancing to look upward to determine if any of the usual idlers there were of a companionable sort for him, he saw that which turned aside the current of his life as easily as an avalanche may turn a rivulet.
there, projecting a little beyond the crest-crowning grass and greenery of the ledge above, was something trim and gloriously purple and[163] gloriously perfect. the tan of the neatest of number three shoes blended upward into the purple paradise, and from the tan seemed growing a snowy spray of lilies-of-the-valley. delicate is the subject, but it must be treated. delicate is the making of a watch, but we must have watches; eggs are delicate, but we must eat them; goldfish are delicate, but we must lift them by hand occasionally. duty first!
perfect the exterior of that wondrous stocking, perfect, absolutely so, but its contour and its contents! ah, me! the flat, thin ankle—let arabian fillies hide their heads! the even upward swell—just full enough, just trim enough, revealed, but not in view, as one sees things by starlight. ah, me!
maxwell's eyes dimmed and he reeled. what is known as locomotor ataxia smote him there suddenly in his prime and pride of life. then after a moment or two a degree of health came back and he turned and retraced his steps, feebly at first, then more rapidly, and then as hies the antlered stag. he gained the ledge and followed it and found miss ward seated demurely at its very crest and surrounded by a group of friends.
within three months he owned, after the[164] wedding, not merely what was left of one, but two similar purple stockings, and their contents, together with, all and singular, the hereditaments and appurtenances thereunto belonging or in anywise appertaining.
