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He had seen men of Ned Van Alstyne's type bring their hats and sticks into a drawing-room, and he thought it added a touch of elegant familiarity to their appearance. Lily was silent, smiling faintly, with her eyes absently resting on his face.
We made the passage of the Hudson by Van Alstyne's Ferry, landing at Bath, and finding our way, somehow or other, to Greenbush, the terminus of the railroad. The friends gathered to see us off, watched on the bank with anxiety until we reached Bath in safety as there was ice running in the river.
"I've just been thinking," he remarked, "here we are a group of people all struggling like mad for one thing, but with different motives. Mine are plain enough and mercenary enough, although a certain red-haired girl with a fine loyalty to an old doctor and a sanatorium is carrying me along with her enthusiasm. And Van Alstyne's motives are clear enough and selfish.
Happily Van Alstyne prided himself on his summing up of social aspects, and with Selden for audience was eager to show the sureness of his touch. Mrs. Fisher lived in an East side street near the Park, and as the two men walked down Fifth Avenue the new architectural developments of that versatile thoroughfare invited Van Alstyne's comment.
The ice was about as thick as paper, but it was enough to awaken new fears in the maternal heart as to the perils of the dreaded journey. Van Alstyne's Ferry consisted of a scow, propelled by horsepower, and equipped with a hinged platform at each end which, when let down to touch the shelving shore, afforded the means of ingress and egress.
They drove on steadily and slowly, the silence only interrupted by occasional remarks of Elinor's companions, as they offered her some assistance. When they came in sight of the Hubbard cottage, Mary Van Alstyne's heart sunk anew, as she remembered the blow which had also fallen upon their good neighbours.
"'You don't know; 'there's a mistake; 'you never saw the letter before! Oh, if I were only a man!" "I'll tell you what we'll do," Mr. Pierce said, with something like hope in his voice. "We'll send for Mr. Van Alstyne! That's the thing, of course. I'll send for er Jim." Mr. Van Alstyne's name is Sam, but nobody noticed. "Mr. Van Alstyne!" repeated Miss Patty in a dazed way.
He was sorry enough for the episode in the coach, yet couldn't resist the temptation to show he was not to be driven. "Because I shall then have nothing whatever to eat," said Polly merrily, "for of course I can't take a bit from anybody else after refusing Mr. Alstyne's kindness. Don't you see? Oh, Percy! you wouldn't quite do that?" Van laughed. "She's got us, Percy," he said, "quite fast.
It would be a curious thing to study the effect of cigarettes on the relation of the sexes. Smoke is almost as great a solvent as divorce: both tend to obscure the moral issue." Nothing could have been less consonant with Selden's mood than Van Alstyne's after-dinner aphorisms, but as long as the latter confined himself to generalities his listener's nerves were in control.
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