At a quarter past eight the following night Roger drove up to the vast
entrance to Red Hill in the buggy he had hired from Burke, the Deer
Spring liveryman. Five lackeys in gorgeous livery, with powdered hair
and white silk stockings--five strapping fellows with the dumb faces
and the stalwart figures the rich select as menial showpieces--appeared
in the huge doorway. Three of them advanced to assist Roger. A fourth
disappeared--to telephone the stables about this unexpected, humble
equipage. The fifth stood upon the threshold, ready to take the hat
and coat of the evening’s one guest from without. The moon was high,
almost directly above the towers of the great, gray chateau. By the
soft, abundant light Roger surveyed the splendid, broad terraces
that broke the long and steep descent to Lake Wauchong; the enormous
panorama of untouched wilderness covering little mountain, big hill and
valley far as the eye could reach--all of it the property of Daniel
Richmond. Nearer, in the immediate neighborhood of the house were the
elaborations of the skilled landscape gardener. It was indeed a scene
of beauty--beauty as well as magnificence--an interesting exhibit of
the grandiose style of living wherein the rich sacrifice practically
all the joys of life and most of its comforts for the sake of tickling
their own vanity and stimulating the envy of their fellow-beings.
As Roger advanced into the lofty, gloomily paneled entrance hall--its
carvings had cost a fortune--he drew off his overcoat, disclosing
evening dress that would have passed muster on a figure far less in
need of ornamentation than his massive yet admirably proportioned
frame with its climax of godlike head. And the most impressive feature
of that head was the frank simplicity of the expression of the
face--that expression which marks the man who is something and lifts
him high above the flocks and herds of men who are trying--not too
successfully--to seem to be something. The modern evening dress for
men is one of the few conventions--perhaps the only one--not designed
to bolster up insignificance by reducing all to the same level of
smooth elegance. It is one of the curiosities of the history of manners
how such a blunder came to be firmly established as a propriety. In
evening dress, as in no other kind of costume or lack of costume, the
personality, the individuality, of the wearer obtrudes itself to every
eye. At a glance one may classify any number of men by their qualities
and quantities of head and heart. Beatrice Richmond, coming along the
corridor leading into the entrance hall from the east, stopped short at
sight of her artist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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