The Transgression of Andrew Vane: A Novel. Carryl Guy Wetmore

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      "That's just the trouble, Mr. Vane," volunteered Mrs. Ratchett. "So many Americans are content just to 'get on' over here. That isn't the cue to Paris at all! It only means that you and she are on terms of bowing acquaintance. You'll never get to know her till you can talk to her in her own tongue."

      "Or listen to her talk to you," observed Radwalader. "So long as we're using the feminine gender – "

      "Oh!" interrupted Mrs. Carnby. "A remark like that does come with extreme grace from you, I must say. Here," she added, turning to Mrs. Ratchett, and indicating Radwalader with her fish-fork, "here's a man, my dear, who spent two solid hours of last Monday telling me the story of his life. And it reminded me precisely of a peacock – one long, stuck-up tale with a hundred I's in it. Radwalader, you're a brute!"

      Carnby, with his eyes fixed vacantly upon a spot midway between a pepper-mill and a little dish of salted almonds, appeared to be revolving some complicated business problem in his mind; and, as his wife caught sight of him, her fish-fork swung round a quarter-circle in her fingers, like a silver weathercock, until, instead of Radwalader, it indicated the point of her husband's nose.

      "That person," she said to Andrew, "is either in Trieste or Buda. His company has an incapable agent in both cities, and whenever he glares at vacancy, like a hairdresser's image, I know he is in either one town or the other. With practice, I shall come to detect the shade of difference in his expression which will tell me which it is. Mr. Ratchett – some more of the éperlans?"

      Ratchett was deeply engaged in dressing morsels of smelts in little overcoats of sauce tartare, assisting them carefully with his knife to scramble aboard his fork, and, having braced them there firmly with cubes of creamed potato, conveying the whole arrangement to his mouth, where he instantly secured it from escape by popping in a piece of bread upon its very heels. He looked up, as Mrs. Carnby spoke to him, murmured "'k you," and immediately returned to the business in hand. Radwalader and Mrs. Ratchett had fallen foul of each other over a chance remark of his, and were now just disappearing into a fog of art discussion, from which, in his voice, an abrupt "Besnard" popped, at intervals, as indignantly as a ball from a Roman candle, or, in hers, the word "Whistler" rolled forth with an inflection which suggested the name of a cathedral.

      "Tell me a little about yourself," said Mrs. Carnby, turning again to Andrew.

      "If it's to be about myself," he answered, "I think it's apt to be little indeed. I've been in college almost three years, but I've been kept back, more or less, by a touch of fever I picked up on a trip to Cuba. It crops out every now and again, and knocks me into good-for-nothingness for a while. I'm not sure that I shall go back to Harvard. You see, I want to do something."

      "What?" demanded Mrs. Carnby.

      "I'm not sure. I'm over here in search of a hint."

      "And a very excellent idea, too!" said his hostess. "Because, if you will keep your eyes open in the American Colony, you'll see about everything which a man ought not to do; and after that it should be comparatively easy to make a choice among the few things that remain."

      "You're not very flattering to the American Colony," said Andrew.

      "That's because I belong to it," replied Mrs. Carnby, "and you'll find I'm about the only woman in it, able to speak French, who will make that admission. I belong to it, and I love it – for its name. It's about as much like America as a cold veal cutlet with its gravy coagulated – if you've ever seen that! – is like the same thing fresh off the grill. But I don't allow any one but myself to say so!"

      "You're patriotic," suggested Andrew.

      "Only passively. I'm extremely doubtful as to the exact location of 'God's country,' and, even if you were to prove to my satisfaction that it lies between Seattle and Tampa, I'm not sure I should want to live there. America's a kind of conservatory on my estate. I don't care to sit in it continually, but, at the same time, I don't like to have other people throwing stones through the roof. But about what you want to do?"

      "I really haven't the most remote idea. I want it to be something worth while – something which will attract attention."

      "Nothing does, nowadays," said Mrs. Carnby, "except air-ships and remarriage within two hours of divorce."

      "What are you talking about?" asked Mrs. Ratchett, suddenly abandoning the argument in which it was evident that she was coming out second best.

      "My choice of a profession," replied Andrew. "I don't want to make a mistake. But everything seems to be overcrowded."

      "Exactly," observed Radwalader. "It isn't so much a question of selecting what's right as of getting what's left. Haven't you a special talent?"

      "I'm afraid not," said Andrew.

      "And if you had, it wouldn't do you much good in the States," commented Mrs. Carnby. "Nothing counts over there but money and social position. It's the only country on earth where it's less blessed to be gifted than received."

      "I had thought of civil engineering," said Andrew.

      "Civil engineering?" repeated Mrs. Carnby. "But, my dear Mr. Vane, that's not a profession. It's only a synonym for getting on in society. We're all of us civil engineers!"

      She pushed back her chair as she spoke.

      "We'll wait for you in the salon," she added, "and, meanwhile, Mrs. Ratchett and I will think up a profession for Mr. Vane. Jeremy, you're to give them the shortest cigars you have."

      "I was once in the same quandary," said Radwalader to Andrew, when the men were left alone, "and concluded to let Time answer the question for me. You may have noticed that Time is prone to reticence. So far, he has not committed himself one way or another."

      "I'm afraid I haven't the patience for that," said Andrew. "Besides, it's different in America. One has to do something over there. It's almost against the law to be idle."

      "Of course. The only remedy for that is to live in Paris. You might do that. It's a profession all by itself – of faith, if nothing else. Only one has need of the golden means."

      "I think I am a homeopathist, so far as Europe is concerned," said Andrew. "I'm already a little homesick for the Common."

      "It's a bad pun," answered Radwalader, "but is there anything in America but – the common?"

      "You can't expect me to agree with you there."

      "I don't. I never expect any one to agree with me. It takes all the charm out of conversation. You may remember that Mark Twain once said that it's a difference of opinion which makes horse-races. He should have made it human races. That would have been truer, and so, more original. But a homeopathist is only a man who has never tried allopathy. You must let me convert you by showing you something of Paris. If I've any profession at all, it's that of guide."

      "You're very kind," said Andrew, "but you mustn't let your courtesy put you to inconvenience on my account. There must be a penalty attached to knowing Paris well, in the form of fellow country-men who want to be shown about."

      "'Never a rose but has its thorn,'" quoted Radwalader. "If you know Paris well, you're overrun; and if you don't, you're run over. Of the two, the former is the less objectionable. When we leave here, perhaps you'd like to go out to the races for a while? If you haven't been, Auteuil is well worth seeing of a Sunday afternoon."

      "I should be very glad," said Andrew.

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