The Metropolis

Alice divided her time between the Wallings and her costumers, and every evening she came home with a new tale of important developments. Alice was new at the game, and could afford to be excited; and Mrs. Robbie liked to see her bright face, and to smile indulgently at

157

Digitized by Microsoft®

her eager inquiries. Mrs. Robbie herself had given her orders to her steward and her florist and her secretary, and went on her way and thought no more about it. That was the way of the great ladies — or at any rate, it was their pose.

The town-house of the Robbies was a stately palace occupying a block upon Fifth Avenue — one of the half-dozen mansions of the Walling family which were among the show places of the city. It would take a catalogue to list the establishments maintained by the Wallings — there was an estate in Georgia, and another in the Adirondacks, and others on Long Island and in New Jersey. Also there were several jn Newport — one which was almost never occupied, and which Mrs. Billy Alden sarcastically described as " a three-million-dollar castle on a desert."

Montague accompanied Alice once or twice, and had an opportunity to study Mrs. Robbie at home. There were thirty-eight servants in her establishment; it was a little state all in itself, with Mrs. Robbie as queen, and her housekeeper as prime minister, and under them as many different ranks and classes and castes as in a feudal principality. There had to be six separate dining rooms for the various kinds of servants who scorned each other; there were servants' servants and servants of servants' servants. There were only three to whom the mistress was supposed to give orders — the butler, the steward, and the housekeeper; she did not even know the names of many of them, and

Digitized by Microsoft®

they were changed so often, that, as she declared, she had to leave it to her detective ta distinguish between employees and burglars.

Mrs. Robbie was quite a young woman, but it pleased her to pose as a care-worn matron, weary of the responsibilities of her exalted station. The ignorant looked on and pictured her as living in the lap of ease, endowed with every opportunity; in reality the meanest kitchen maid was freer — she was quite worn thin with the burdens that fell upon her. The huge machine was forever threatening to fall to pieces, and required the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job to keep it running. One paid one's steward a fortune, and yet he robbed right and left, and quarrelled with the chef besides. The butler was suspected of getting drunk upon rare and costly vintages, and the new parlourmaid had turned out to be a Sunday reporter in disguise. The man who had come every day for ten years to wind the clocks of the establishment was dead, and the one who took care of the bric-a-brac was sick, and the housekeeper was in a panic over the prospect of having ta train another.

And even suppose that you escaped from these things, the real problems of your life had still to be faced. It was not enough to keep alive; you had your career — your duties as a leader of Society. There was the daily mail, with all the pitiful letters from people begging money — actually in one single week there were demands for two million dollars. There were geniuses with patent incubators and stove-lifters.

Digitized by Microsoft®

and every time you gave a ball you stirred up swarms of anarchists and cranks. And then there were the letters you reaUy had to answer, and the calls that had to be paid. These latter were so many that people in the same neighbourhood had arranged to have the same day at home; thus, if you lived on Madison Avenue you had Thursday; but even then it took a whole afternoon to leave your cards. And then there were invitations to be sent and accepted; and one was always ma,king mistakes and offending somebody — people would become mortal enemies over night, and expect all the world to know it the next morning. And now there were so many divorces and remarryings, with consequent changing of names; and some men knew about their wives' lovers and didn't care, and some did care, but didn't know — all together it was like carrying a dozen chess games in your head. And then there was the hair-dresser and the manicurist and the masseuse, and the tailor and the bootmaker and the jeweller; and then one absolutely had to glance through a newspaper, and to see one's children now and then.

All this Mrs. Robbie explained at luncheon; it was the rich man's burden, about which common people had no conception whatever. A person with a lot of money was like a barrel of molasses — all the flies in the neighbourhood came buzzing about. It was perfectly incredible, the lengths to which people would go to get invited to your house; not only would they write and beg you, they might attack your business

Digitized by Microsoft®