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For instance, only a few weeks previous to her meeting with Braxmar she had been visiting at the country estate of the Corscaden Batjers, at Redding Hills, Long Island, and had been sitting with her hostess in the morning room of Hillcrest, which commanded a lovely though distant view of Long Island Sound. Mrs. Fredericka Batjer was a chestnut blonde, fair, cool, quiescent a type out of Dutch art.
The younger of the two sons of Auguste Duelma, banker, promoter, multimillionaire, he would come into a fortune estimated roughly at between six and eight millions. At the Haggertys' the year before he had hung about her in an aimless fashion. Mrs. Batjer studied Berenice curiously for a moment, then returned to her needlework. "I've asked him down over this week-end," she suggested.
The work was subtle, remote, fanciful a snow scene with purple edges; a thinking satyr, iron-like in his heaviness, brooding over a cloudy valley; a lurking devil peering at a praying Marguerite; a Dutch interior inspired by Mrs. Batjer, and various dancing figures. Phlegmatic dealers of somber mien admitted some promise, but pointed out the difficulty of sales. Beginners were numerous.
Batjer accompanied her suggestions nearly always with a slight sniff and cough. Berenice could see that the mere fact of this conversation made a slight difference. In Mrs. Batjer's world poverty was a dangerous topic. The mere odor of it suggested a kind of horror perhaps the equivalent of error or sin. Others, Berenice now suspected, would take affright even more swiftly.
No direct affront was offered; she was simply no longer invited. Also one morning she read in the Tribune that Mrs. Corscaden Batjer had sailed for Italy. No word of this had been sent to Berenice. Yet Mrs. Batjer was supposedly one of her best friends. A hint to some is of more avail than an open statement to others. Berenice knew quite well in which direction the tide was setting.
Batjer, declaring that she would enjoy the artistic outlet it would afford, and indicating at the same time that it might provide the necessary solution of a problem of ways and means. "Why, Bevy, how you talk!" commented Mrs. Batjer. "And with your possibilities. Why don't you marry first, and do your dancing afterward? You might compel a certain amount of attention that way." "Because of hubby?
How droll! Whom would you suggest that I marry at once?" "Oh, when it comes to that " replied Mrs. Batjer, with a slight reproachful lift in her voice, and thinking of Kilmer Duelma. "But surely your need isn't so pressing. If you were to take up professional dancing I might have to cut you afterward particularly if any one else did." She smiled the sweetest, most sensible smile. Mrs.
Yet the drive was a bore, conversation a burden, the struggle to respond titanic, impossible. When Monday came she fled, leaving three days between that and a week-end at Morristown. Mrs. Batjer who read straws most capably sighed. Her own Corscaden was not much beyond his money, but life must be lived and the ambitious must inherit wealth or gather it wisely.
It was all true. One must begin early to take thought of one's life. She suffered a disturbing sense of duty. A cleverly contrived compliment supposed to have emanated from Miss Fleming and conveyed to him with tact by Mrs. Batjer brought him ambling into Berenice's presence suggesting a Sunday drive to Saddle Rock. "Haw! haw! You know, I'm delighted to see you again. Haw! haw!
"Yes?" queried Berenice, sweetly. "Are there others?" "Of course," assented Mrs. Batjer, remotely. "Kilmer doesn't interest you, I presume." Berenice smiled enigmatically. "You remember Clarissa Faulkner, don't you, Bevy?" pursued Mrs. Batjer. "She married Romulus Garrison." "Perfectly. Where is she now?" "They have leased the Chateau Brieul at Ars for the winter.
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