Not so, however, Mr. Samuel Fetzer. If Miss Mandell had hoped to work this technique on him when she wove her languorous way to his side and casually asked: “Did you ever read anything by a man named Beddoes?”—she was in for a rude surprise. She had caught a tartar—a cherubic tartar, it is true, a benevolent tartar, an exultant, exuberant, elated tartar—but a. tartar nevertheless. For Mr. Fetzer had not only read Beddoes: he felt that he had rather discovered Beddoes. Beddoes was one of Mr. Fetzer’s philobiblic pets. So he was not only ready for Miss Mandell: it almost seemed as if he had been waiting for her. She had hardly got the words out of her mouth before he fairly pounced upon her, and his pleasant face lit up all over with a look of cherubic glee as he cried:
“Oh, Beddoes!” The name rang out with such explosive enthusiasm that Miss Mandell recoiled as if someone had thrown a lighted firecracker at her feet, “Beddoes!” he chortled. “Beddoes!“—he smacked his lips. “Hah-hah-hah! Beddoes!“—he cast back his head, shook it, and chuckled gloatingly. Then he told her about Beddoes’ birth, about his life, about his death, about his family, and his friends, about his sisters and his cousins and his aunts, about things that were well known about Beddoes, and about other things that no one in the world except Mr. Samuel Fetzer had ever known about Beddoes. “Oh, Beddoes!” cried Mr. Fetzer for the sixteenth time. “I love Beddoes! Everybody must read Beddoes! Beddoes is----”
“But he was insane, wasn’t he?” The quiet, well-bred voice was that of Mr. Lawrence Hirsch, who had just wandered up casually, as if attracted by the noise of cultural enthusiasm, and without seeming to follow anyone. “I mean,” he turned with an air of gracious explanation to Miss Mandell, “it’s an interesting example of the schizophrenic personality, don’t you think?”
She looked at him for a long moment as one might look at a large worm within the core of a chestnut that one had hoped was sound.
“Um,” said Miss Mandell, and with an expression of drowsy loathing on her face she moved away.
Mr. Hirsch did not follow her. Perfectly possessed, he had already shifted his glance back to the glowing Mr. Fetzer.
“I mean,” he continued, with that inflection of interested inquiry which is the mark everywhere of a cultivated intelligence, “it always seemed to me that it was a case of misplaced personality—an Elizabethan out of his time. Or do you think so?”
“Oh, absolutely!” cried Mr. Fetzer, with instant and enthusiastic confirmation. “You see, what I have always maintained----”
Mr. Hirsch appeared to be listening carefully. He really was not following anyone. He kept his eyes focused on Mr. Samuel Fetzer’s face, but something in their expression indicated that his mind was elsewhere.
For Mr. Lawrence Hirsch was wounded sorrowfully. But he could wait.
So it went all evening. Mr. Hirsch moved from group to sophisticated group, bowing, smiling suavely, exchanging well-bred pleasantries with all he met. Always he was imperturbable, authoritatively assured, on his aesthetic toes. And his progress through that brilliant assemblage was marked by a phosphorescent wake composed of the small nuggets of enlightenment which he dropped casually as he passed. Here it was a little confidential gossip about Sacco and Vanzetti, there a little first-hand information from Wall Street, now a sophisticated jest or so, again an amusing anecdote about what happened only last week to the President, or a little something about Russia, with a shrewd observation on Marxian economy—and to all of this a little Beddoes had been added for good measure. It was all so perfectly informed and so alertly modern that it never for a moment slipped into cliche, but always represented the very latest mode in everything, whether art, letters, politics, or economics. It was a remarkable performance, an inspiring example of what the busy man of affairs can really accomplish if he only applies himself.
And, in addition to all this, there was Miss Mandell. He never seemed to follow her, but wherever she went he was not far behind. One always knew that he was there. All evening long, whenever he came up to any group and honoured it with one of his apt observations, and then, turning casually and discovering that Miss Mandell was among the company, made as if to include her in the intimate circle of his auditors, she would just give him a smouldering look and walk away. So it was no wonder that Mr. Lawrence Hirsch was wounded sorrowfully.
Still, he did not beat his breast, or tear his hair, or cry out: “Woe is me!” He remained himself, the man of many interests, the master of immense authorities. For he could wait.