The Moneychangers | Page 4

play that part for you," said Montague, laughing, "I am

afraid we'll very soon clash with my brother."
Montague had very little confidence in his ability to fill the part. As he
watched Lucy, he had a sense of tragedy impending. He knew enough
to feel sure that Lucy was not rich, according to New York standards of
wealth; and he felt that the lure of the city was already upon her. She
was dazzled by the vision of automobiles and shops and hotels and
theatres, and all the wonders which these held out to her. She had come
with all her generous enthusiasms; and she was hungry with a terrible
hunger for life.
Montague had been through the mill, and he saw ahead so clearly that it
was impossible for him not to try to guide her, and to save her from the
worst of her mistakes. Hence arose a strange relationship between them;
from the beginning Lucy made him her confidant, and told him all her
troubles. To be sure, she never took his advice; she would say, with her
pretty laugh, that she did not want him to keep her out of trouble, but
only to sympathise with her afterwards. And Montague followed her;
he told himself again and again that there was no excuse for Lucy; but
all the while he was making excuses.
She went over the next morning to see Oliver's mother, and Mammy
Lucy, who had been named after her grandmother. Then in the
afternoon she went shopping with Alice--declaring that it was
impossible for her to appear anywhere in New York until she had made
herself "respectable." And then in the evening Montague called for her,
and took her to Mrs. Billy Alden's Fifth Avenue palace.
On the way he beguiled the time by telling her about the terrible Mrs.
Billy and her terrible tongue; and about the war between the great lady
and her relatives, the Wallings. "You must not be surprised," he said,
"if she pins you in a corner and asks all about you. Mrs. Billy is a
privileged character, and the conventions do not apply to her."
Montague had come to take the Alden magnificence as a matter of
course by this time, but he felt Lucy thrill with excitement at the vision
of the Doge's palace, with its black marble carvings and its lackeys in
scarlet and gold. Then came Mrs. Billy herself, resplendent in dark
purple brocade, with a few ropes of pearls flung about her neck. She
was almost tall enough to look over the top of Lucy's head, and she
stood away a little so as to look at her comfortably.
"I tried to have Mrs. Winnie here for you," she said to Montague, as she

placed him at her right hand. "But she was not able to come, so you
will have to make out with me."
"Have you many more beauties like that down in Mississippi?" she
asked, when they were seated. "If so, I don't see why you came up
here."
"You like her, do you?" he asked.
"I like her looks," said Mrs. Billy. "Has she got any sense? It is quite
impossible to believe that she's a widow. She needs someone to take
care of her just the same."
"I will recommend her to your favour," said Montague. "I have been
telling her about you."
"What have you told her?" asked Mrs. Billy, serenely,--"that I win too
much money at bridge, and drink Scotch at dinner?" Then, seeing
Montague blush furiously, she laughed. "I know it is true. I have caught
you thinking it half a dozen times."
And she reached out for the decanter which the butler had just placed in
front of her, and proceeded to help herself to her opening glass.
Montague told her all about Lucy; and, in the meantime, he watched
the latter, who sat near the centre of the table, talking with Stanley
Ryder. Montague had played bridge with this man once or twice at Mrs.
Winnie's, and he thought to himself that Lucy could hardly have met a
man who would embody in himself more of the fascinations of the
Metropolis. Ryder was president of the Gotham Trust Company, an
institution whose magnificent marble front was one of the sights of
Fifth Avenue. He was a man a trifle under fifty, tall and
distinguished-looking, with an iron-grey mustache, and the manners of
a diplomat. He was not only a banker, he was also a man of culture; he
had run away to sea in his youth, and he had travelled in every country
of the world. He was also a bit of an author, in an amateur way, and if
there was any book which he had not dipped into, it was not a