Captivating Mary Carstairs.

by Henry Sydnor Harrison.

_NOTE_

_This book, representing the writer's first effort at a long story, has something of a story of its own. First planned in 1900 or 1901, it was begun in 1905, and finished at length, in a version, three years later.

Through the two years succeeding it underwent various adventures, including, if memory serves, two complete overhauling. Having thus reached by stages something like its present form, it was, in August, 1910, favorably reported on by the publishers; but yet another rewriting preceded its final acceptance, a few weeks later. Meanwhile, I had turned to fresh work; and, as it chanced, "Queed" was both begun and finished in the interval while "Captivating Mary Carstairs" was taking her last journeys abroad. Turned away by two publishers, the newer ma.n.u.script shortly found welcome from a third. So it befell that I, as yet more experienced in rejections, suddenly found myself with two books, of widely different sorts and intentions, scheduled for publication by different publishers, almost simultaneously. As this seemed to be more books than society required from an unknown writer, it was decided to put out the present story--which is a "story," as I conceive the terms, and not a novel--over a pen name.

At that time, be it said, with an optimism that now has its humorous side, I viewed myself prospectively as a ready and fertile writer, producing a steady flow of books of very various sorts. Hence it occurred to me that a pseudonym might have a permament serviceability.

So far from these antic.i.p.ations proving justified, I am now moved to abandon the pseudonym in the only instance I have had occasion to use it. Writers have sometimes been charged with seeking to capitalize their own good fortune. My motive, in authorizing the republication of this story over my name, is not that. The fact is only that experience has taught me not to like pseudonymity: my feeling being that those who take an interest in my work are ent.i.tled, if they so desire, to see it as a whole_.

H.S.H.

_Charleston, West Virginia, 16 March, 1914_

CAPTIVATING MARY CARSTAIRS

CHAPTER I

THE CHIEF CONSPIRATOR SECURES A PAL

In a rear room of a quaint little house uptown, a great bronzed-faced man sat at a piano, a dead pipe between his teeth, and absently played the most difficult of Beethoven's sonatas. Though he played it divinely, the three men who sat smoking and talking in a near-by corner paid not the least attention to him. The player, it seemed, did not expect them to: he paid very little attention himself.

Next to the selection of members, that is, no doubt, the most highly prized thing about the Curzon Club: you are not expected to pay attention unless you want to. It is a sanctuary where no one can bore you, except yourself. The members have been chosen with this in mind, and not chosen carelessly.

Lord Pembroke, who married a Philadelphian, is quoted as saying that the Curzon is the most democratic club in a too confoundedly democratic country. M. Arly, the editor, has told Paris that it is the most exclusive club in the world. Probably both were right. The electing board is the whole club, and a candidate is stone-dead at the first blackball; but no stigma attaches to him for that. Of course, it is a small club. Also, though money is the least of all pa.s.sports there, it is a wealthy club. No stretch of the imagination could describe its dues as low. But through its sons of plutocracy, and their never-ending elation at finding themselves in, has arisen the Fund, by which poor but honest men can join, and do join, with never a thought of ways and means. Of these Herbert Horning, possibly the best-liked man in the club, who supported a large family off the funny department of a magazine, was one. He had spurned the suggestion when it was first made to him, and had reluctantly foregone his election; whereon Peter Maginnis had taken him aside, a dash of red in his ordinarily composed eye.

"How much?" he demanded brutally.

"How much for what?"

"How much for you?" roared Peter. "How much must the club pay you to get you in?"

Horning stared, pained.

"G.o.d meant no man to be a self-conscious a.s.s," said Peter more mildly.

"The club pays you a high compliment, and you have the nerve to reply that you don't take charity. I suppose if Congress voted you a medal for writing the funniest joke in America, you'd have it a.s.sayed and remit the cash. Chuck it, will you? Once in a year we find a man we want, and then we go ahead and take him. We don't think much of money here but--as I say, how much?"

The "but" implied that Horning did, and hurt as it was meant to. He came into the club, took cheerfully what they offered him that way, and felt grateful ever afterwards that Maginnis had steered him to the light.

The big man, Maginnis himself, sat on at the piano, his great fingers rambling deftly over the keys. He was playing Brahms now and doing it magnificently. He was fifteen stone, all bone and muscle, and looked thirty pounds heavier, because you imagined, mistakenly, that he carried a little fat. He was the richest man in the club, at least so far as prospects went, but he wore ready-made clothes, and one inferred, correctly, that a suit of them lasted him a long time. He looked capable of everything, but the fact was that he had done nothing. But for his money and a past consisting of thirty years of idleness, he might have been the happiest dog alive.

"The best government," said one of the three men who were not listening to the piano, "is simply the surest method for putting public opinion into power."

The sentence drifted over the player's shoulder and Brahms ended with a crash.

"Balzac said that," he cried, rising abruptly, "and said it better! But, good heavens, how you both miss the point! Why, let me tell you."

But this they stoutly declined to do. Amid laughter and protests--for the big man's hobbies were well known to the club--two of them sprang up in mock terror, and headed for the door. They indicated that they had promised each other to play billiards and dared not break the engagement.

"I couldn't stay to the end, anyway, Peter," explained one, from the door. "My wife sits up when I'm out after midnight. Meet me here for breakfast some bank-holiday, and we'll give the day to it."

Maginnis, who never got over feeling disappointed when he saw his audience slipping away from him, sighed, searched through his frowzy pockets for a match, lit his pipe, and fell upon a lounge near to all the society that was left him.

"Why weren't you up?" said this society presently.

"The idea of dinner was repellent to me."

"To you, Peter--the famous trencherman of song and story? Why this unwonted daintiness?"

"La.s.situde. Too weary to climb the stairs. Besides, I wasn't hungry."

"Ah," said Reggie Townes, "you have the caveman's idea of dinner, I see.

It strikes you as purely an occasion for purveying provender to man's interior. The social feature eludes you. You know what I think, Peter?

You ought to go to work."

"_Work!_"

"That's the word. What of it?"

"Not a thing. The idea was new to me; that's all."

"Persiflage and all that aside, why don't you take a stab at politics?"

"Politics! Here in New York! I'd sooner go into Avernus of the easy descent. If you had a town to run all by yourself now, there might be something in it. That idea of yours as to going to work, while unquestionably novel, strikes me as rather clever."

"No credit belongs to me," said Townes, "if I happened to be born brilliant instead of good-looking."

"I'll ponder it," said Peter; and stretching out his great hand with a gesture which banished the subject, he pushed a service b.u.t.ton and begged Townes to be so kind as to name his poison.

Outside in the hall a voice just then called his name, and Maginnis answered.

A young man in evening dress strolled through the doorway, a tallish, lithe young man with a pleasant clean-cut face and very light hair. It was evident enough that he patronized a good tailor. He glanced at the two men, nodded absently, and dropped without speech into a chair near the door. Townes eyed him somewhat quizzically.

"Evening, Larry. A little introspective to-night, yes?"

Peter said: "By bull luck you have stumbled into a company of gentlemen about to place an order. Go ahead. Mention a preference."

The young man, unseeing eyes on Peter, did not answer. Instead, he sprang up, as though struck by a thought of marked interest and bolted out the door. They saw him vanish into the telephone booth across the hall and bang the gla.s.s door shut behind him.

"Forgot an engagement."

"You mean remembered one," said Peter.