the mortimer hickses were in rome; not, as they would in formertimes have been, in one of the antiquated hostelries of thepiazza di spagna or the porta del popolo, where of old they hadso gaily defied fever and nourished themselves on local colour;but spread out, with all the ostentation of philistinemillionaires, under the piano nobile ceilings of one of thehigh-perched "palaces," where, as mrs. hicks shamelesslydeclared, they could "rely on the plumbing," and "have theprivilege of over-looking the queen mother's gardens."it was that speech, uttered with beaming aplomb at a dinner-table surrounded by the cosmopolitan nobility of the eternalcity, that had suddenly revealed to lansing the profound changein the hicks point of view.
as he looked back over the four months since he had sounexpectedly joined the ibis at genoa, he saw that the change,at first insidious and unperceived, dated from the ill-fated daywhen the hickses had run across a reigning prince on histravels.
hitherto they had been proof against such perils: both mr. andmrs. hicks had often declared that the aristocracy of theintellect was the only one which attracted them. but in thiscase the prince possessed an intellect, in addition to his fewsquare miles of territory, and to one of the most beautifulfield marshal's uniforms that had ever encased a royal warrior.
the prince was not a warrior, however; he was stooping, pacificand spectacled, and his possession of the uniform had beenrevealed to mrs. hicks only by the gift of a full-lengthphotograph in a bond street frame, with anastasius writtenslantingly across its legs. the prince--and herein lay thehickses' undoing--the prince was an archaeologist: an earnestanxious enquiring and scrupulous archaeologist. delicate health(so his suite hinted) banished him for a part of each year fromhis cold and foggy principality; and in the company of hismother, the active and enthusiastic dowager princess, hewandered from one mediterranean shore to another, now assistingat the exhumation of ptolemaic mummies, now at the excavation ofdelphic temples or of north african basilicas. the beginning ofwinter usually brought the prince and his mother to rome ornice, unless indeed they were summoned by family duties toberlin, vienna or madrid; for an extended connection with theprincipal royal houses of europe compelled them, as the princessmother said, to be always burying or marrying a cousin. atother moments they were seldom seen in the glacial atmosphere ofcourts, preferring to royal palaces those of the other, and moremodern type, in one of which the hickses were now lodged.
yes: the prince and his mother (they gaily avowed it) revelledin palace hotels; and, being unable to afford the luxury ofinhabiting them, they liked, as often as possible, to be invitedto dine there by their friends--"or even to tea, my dear," theprincess laughingly avowed, "for i'm so awfully fond of butteredscones; and anastasius gives me so little to eat in the desert."the encounter with these ambulant highnesses had been fatal--lansing now perceived it--to mrs. hicks's principles. she hadknown a great many archaeologists, but never one as agreeable asthe prince, and above all never one who had left a throne tocamp in the desert and delve in libyan tombs. and it seemed toher infinitely pathetic that these two gifted beings, whogrumbled when they had to go to "marry a cousin" at the palaceof st. james or of madrid, and hastened back breathlessly to thefar-off point where, metaphorically speaking, pick-axe and spadehad dropped from their royal hands--that these heirs of the agesshould be unable to offer themselves the comforts of up-to-datehotel life, and should enjoy themselves "like babies" when theywere invited to the other kind of "palace," to feast on butteredscones and watch the tango.
she simply could not bear the thought of their privations; andneither, after a time, could mr. hicks, who found the princemore democratic than anyone he had ever known at apex city, andwas immensely interested by the fact that their spectacles camefrom the same optician.
but it was, above all, the artistic tendencies of the prince andhis mother which had conquered the hickses. there wasfascination in the thought that, among the rabble of vulgaruneducated royalties who overran europe from biarritz to theengadine, gambling, tangoing, and sponging on no less vulgarplebeians, they, the unobtrusive and self-respecting hickses,should have had the luck to meet this cultivated pair, whojoined them in gentle ridicule of their own frivolous kinsfolk,and whose tastes were exactly those of the eccentric, unreliableand sometimes money-borrowing persons who had hithertorepresented the higher life to the hickses.
now at last mrs. hicks saw the possibility of being at onceartistic and luxurious, of surrendering herself to the joys ofmodern plumbing and yet keeping the talk on the highest level.
"if the poor dear princess wants to dine at the nouveau luxe whyshouldn't we give her that pleasure?" mrs. hicks smilinglyenquired; "and as for enjoying her buttered scones like a baby,as she says, i think it's the sweetest thing about her."coral hicks did not join in this chorus; but she accepted, withher curious air of impartiality, the change in her parents'
manner of life, and for the first time (as nick observed)occupied herself with her mother's toilet, with the result thatmrs. hicks's outline became firmer, her garments soberer in hueand finer in material; so that, should anyone chance to detectthe daughter's likeness to her mother, the result was lesslikely to be disturbing.
such precautions were the more needful--lansing could not butnote because of the different standards of the society in whichthe hickses now moved. for it was a curious fact that admissionto the intimacy of the prince and his mother-- who continuallydeclared themselves to be the pariahs, the outlaws, thebohemians among crowned heads nevertheless involved not onlyliving in palace hotels but mixing with those who frequentedthem. the prince's aide-de-camp--an agreeable young man of easymanners--had smilingly hinted that their serene highnesses,though so thoroughly democratic and unceremonious, were yetaccustomed to inspecting in advance the names of the personswhom their hosts wished to invite with them; and lansing noticedthat mrs. hicks's lists, having been "submitted," usually cameback lengthened by the addition of numerous wealthy and titledguests. their highnesses never struck out a name; they welcomedwith enthusiasm and curiosity the hickses' oddest and mostinexplicable friends, at most putting off some of them to alater day on the plea that it would be "cosier" to meet them ona more private occasion; but they invariably added to the listany friends of their own, with the gracious hint that theywished these latter (though socially so well-provided for) tohave the "immense privilege" of knowing the hickses. and thusit happened that when october gales necessitated laying up theibis, the hickses, finding again in rome the august travellersfrom whom they had parted the previous month in athens, alsofound their visiting-list enlarged by all that the capitalcontained of fashion.
it was true enough, as lansing had not failed to note, that theprincess mother adored prehistoric art, and russian music, andthe paintings of gauguin and matisse; but she also, and with abeaming unconsciousness of perspective, adored large pearls andpowerful motors, caravan tea and modern plumbing, perfumedcigarettes and society scandals; and her son, while apparentlyless sensible to these forms of luxury, adored his mother, andwas charmed to gratify her inclinations without cost tohimself--"since poor mamma," as he observed, "is so courageouswhen we are roughing it in the desert."the smiling aide-de-camp, who explained these things to lansing,added with an intenser smile that the prince and his mother wereunder obligations, either social or cousinly, to most of thetitled persons whom they begged mrs. hicks to invite; "and itseems to their serene highnesses," he added, "the mostflattering return they can make for the hospitality of theirfriends to give them such an intellectual opportunity."the dinner-table at which their highnesses' friends were seatedon the evening in question represented, numerically, one of thegreatest intellectual opportunities yet afforded them. thirtyguests were grouped about the flower-wreathed board, from whicheldorada and mr. beck had been excluded on the plea that theprincess mother liked cosy parties and begged her hosts thatthere should never be more than thirty at table. such, atleast, was the reason given by mrs. hicks to her faithfulfollowers; but lansing had observed that, of late, the sameskilled hand which had refashioned the hickses' social circleusually managed to exclude from it the timid presences of thetwo secretaries. their banishment was the more displeasing tolansing from the fact that, for the last three months, he hadfilled mr. buttles's place, and was himself their salariedcompanion. but since he had accepted the post, his obvious dutywas to fill it in accordance with his employers' requirements;and it was clear even to eldorada and mr. beck that he had, aseldorada ungrudgingly said, "something of mr. buttles'smarvellous social gifts. "during the cruise his task had not been distasteful to him. hewas glad of any definite duties, however trivial, he felt moreindependent as the hickses' secretary than as their pamperedguest, and the large cheque which mr. hicks handed over to himon the first of each month refreshed his languishing sense ofself-respect.
he considered himself absurdly over-paid, but that was thehickses' affair; and he saw nothing humiliating in being in theemploy of people he liked and respected. but from the moment ofthe ill-fated encounter with the wandering princes, his positionhad changed as much as that of his employers. he was no longer,to mr. and mrs. hicks, a useful and estimable assistant, on thesame level as eldorada and mr. beck; he had become a socialasset of unsuspected value, equalling mr. buttles in hiscapacity for dealing with the mysteries of foreign etiquette,and surpassing him in the art of personal attraction. nicklansing, the hickses found, already knew most of the princessmother's rich and aristocratic friends. many of them hailed himwith enthusiastic "old nicks", and he was almost as familiar ashis highness's own aide-de-camp with all those secretramifications of love and hate that made dinner-giving so muchmore of a science in rome than at apex city.
mrs. hicks, at first, had hopelessly lost her way in thislabyrinth of subterranean scandals, rivalries and jealousies;and finding lansing's hand within reach she clung to it withpathetic tenacity. but if the young man's value had risen inthe eyes of his employers it had deteriorated in his own. hewas condemned to play a part he had not bargained for, and itseemed to him more degrading when paid in bank-notes than if hisretribution had consisted merely in good dinners and luxuriouslodgings. the first time the smiling aide-de-camp had caughthis eye over a verbal slip of mrs. hicks's, nick had flushed tothe forehead and gone to bed swearing that he would chuck hisjob the next day.
two months had passed since then, and he was still the paidsecretary. he had contrived to let the aide-de-camp feel thathe was too deficient in humour to be worth exchanging glanceswith; but even this had not restored his self-respect, and onthe evening in question, as he looked about the long table, hesaid to himself for the hundredth time that he would give up hisposition on the morrow.
only--what was the alternative? the alternative, apparently,was coral hicks. he glanced down the line of diners, beginningwith the tall lean countenance of the princess mother, with itssmall inquisitive eyes perched as high as attic windows under afrizzled thatch of hair and a pediment of uncleaned diamonds;passed on to the vacuous and overfed or fashionably haggardmasks of the ladies next in rank; and finally caught, betweenbranching orchids, a distant glimpse of miss hicks.
in contrast with the others, he thought, she looked surprisinglynoble. her large grave features made her appear like an oldmonument in a street of palace hotels; and he marvelled at themysterious law which had brought this archaic face out of apexcity, and given to the oldest society of europe a look of suchmixed modernity.
lansing perceived that the aide-de-camp, who was his neighbour,was also looking at miss hicks. his expression was serious, andeven thoughtful; but as his eyes met lansing's he readjusted hisofficial smile.
"i was admiring our hostess's daughter. her absence of jewelsis--er--an inspiration," he remarked in the confidential tonewhich lansing had come to dread.
"oh, miss hicks is full of inspirations," he returned curtly,and the aide-de-camp bowed with an admiring air, as ifinspirations were rarer than pearls, as in his milieu theyundoubtedly were. "she is the equal of any situation, i amsure," he replied; and then abandoned the subject with one ofhis automatic transitions.
after dinner, in the embrasure of a drawing-room window, hesurprised nick by returning to the same topic, and this timewithout thinking it needful to readjust his smile. his faceremained serious, though his manner was studiously informal.
"i was admiring, at dinner, miss hicks's invariable sense ofappropriateness. it must permit her friends to foresee for heralmost any future, however exalted."lansing hesitated, and controlled his annoyance. decidedly hewanted to know what was in his companion's mind.
"what do you mean by exalted?" he asked, with a smile of faintamusement.
"well--equal to her marvellous capacity for shining in thepublic eye."lansing still smiled. "the question is, i suppose, whether herdesire to shine equals her capacity."the aide-de-camp stared. "you mean, she's not ambitious?""on the contrary; i believe her to be immeasurably ambitious.""immeasurably?" the aide-de-camp seemed to try to measure it.
"but not, surely, beyond--" "beyond what we can offer," his eyescompleted the sentence; and it was lansing's turn to stare. theaide-de-camp faced the stare. "yes," his eyes concluded in aflash, while his lips let fall: "the princess mother admiresher immensely." but at that moment a wave of mrs. hicks's fandrew them hurriedly from their embrasure.
"professor darchivio had promised to explain to us thedifference between the sassanian and byzantine motives incarolingian art; but the manager has sent up word that the twonew creole dancers from paris have arrived, and her serenehighness wants to pop down to the ball-room and take a peep atthem .... she's sure the professor will understand ....""and accompany us, of course," the princess irresistibly added.
lansing's brief colloquy in the nouveau luxe window had liftedthe scales from his eyes. innumerable dim corners of memory hadbeen flooded with light by that one quick glance of the aide-de-camp's: things he had heard, hints he had let pass, smiles,insinuations, cordialities, rumours of the improbability of theprince's founding a family, suggestions as to the urgent need ofreplenishing the teutoburger treasury ....
miss hicks, perforce, had accompanied her parents and theirprincely guests to the ballroom; but as she did not dance, andtook little interest in the sight of others so engaged, sheremained aloof from the party, absorbed in an archaeologicaldiscussion with the baffled but smiling savant who was to haveenlightened the party on the difference between sassanian andbyzantine ornament.
lansing, also aloof, had picked out a post from which he couldobserve the girl: she wore a new look to him since he had seenher as the centre of all these scattered threads of intrigue.
yes; decidedly she was growing handsomer; or else she hadlearned how to set off her massive lines instead of trying todisguise them. as she held up her long eye-glass to glanceabsently at the dancers he was struck by the large beauty of herarm and the careless assurance of the gesture. there wasnothing nervous or fussy about coral hicks; and he was notsurprised that, plastically at least, the princess mother haddiscerned her possibilities.
nick lansing, all that night, sat up and stared at his future.
he knew enough of the society into which the hickses had driftedto guess that, within a very short time, the hint of theprince's aide-de-camp would reappear in the form of a directproposal. lansing himself would probably--as the one person inthe hicks entourage with whom one could intelligibly commune-beentrusted with the next step in the negotiations: he would beasked, as the aide-de-camp would have said, "to feel theground." it was clearly part of the state policy of teutoburgto offer miss hicks, with the hand of its sovereign, anopportunity to replenish its treasury.
what would the girl do? lansing could not guess; yet he dimlyfelt that her attitude would depend in a great degree upon hisown. and he knew no more what his own was going to be than onthe night, four months earlier, when he had flung out of hiswife's room in venice to take the midnight express for genoa.
the whole of his past, and above all the tendency, on which hehad once prided himself, to live in the present and takewhatever chances it offered, now made it harder for him to act.
he began to see that he had never, even in the closest relationsof life, looked ahead of his immediate satisfaction. he hadthought it rather fine to be able to give himself so intenselyto the fullness of each moment instead of hurrying past it inpursuit of something more, or something else, in the manner ofthe over-scrupulous or the under-imaginative, whom he had alwaysgrouped together and equally pitied. it was not till he hadlinked his life with susy's that he had begun to feel itreaching forward into a future he longed to make sure of, tofasten upon and shape to his own wants and purposes, till, by animperceptible substitution, that future had become his realpresent, his all-absorbing moment of time.
now the moment was shattered, and the power to rebuild it failedhim. he had never before thought about putting together brokenbits: he felt like a man whose house has been wrecked by anearthquake, and who, for lack of skilled labour, is called uponfor the first time to wield a trowel and carry bricks. hesimply did not know how.
will-power, he saw, was not a thing one could suddenly decreeoneself to possess. it must be built up imperceptibly andlaboriously out of a succession of small efforts to meetdefinite objects, out of the facing of daily difficultiesinstead of cleverly eluding them, or shifting their burden onothers. the making of the substance called character was aprocess about as slow and arduous as the building of thepyramids; and the thing itself, like those awful edifices, wasmainly useful to lodge one's descendants in, after they too weredust. yet the pyramid-instinct was the one which had made theworld, made man, and caused his fugitive joys to linger likefading frescoes on imperishable walls ....
