In their home town of Keepsburg, the Keeps were the reigning dynasty, socially and in every way.Old man Keep was president of the trolley line, the telephone company, and the Keep National Bank.But Fred, his son, and the heir apparent, did not inherit the business ability of his father; or, if he did, he took pains to conceal that fact.Fred had gone through Harvard, but as to that also, unless he told people, they would not have known it.
Ten minutes after Fred met a man he generally told him.
When Fred arranged an alliance with Winnie Platt, who also was of the innermost inner set of Keepsburg, everybody said Keepsburg would soon lose them.And everybody was right.When single, each had sighed for other social worlds to conquer, and when they combined their fortunes and ambitions they found Keepsburg impossible, and they left it to lay siege to New York.They were too crafty to at once attack New York itself.A widow lady they met while on their honeymoon at Palm Beach had told them not to attempt that.And she was the Palm Beach correspondent of a society paper they naturally accepted her advice.She warned them that in New York the waiting-list is already interminable, and that, if you hoped to break into New York society, the clever thing to do was to lay siege to it by way of the suburbs and the country clubs.If you went direct to New York knowing no one, you would at once expose that fact, and the result would be disastrous.
She told them of a couple like themselves, young and rich and from the West, who, at the first dance to which they were invited, asked, "Who is the old lady in the wig?" and that question argued them so unknown that it set them back two years.
It was a terrible story, and it filled the Keeps with misgivings.
They agreed with the lady correspondent that it was far better to advance leisurely; first firmly to intrench themselves in the suburbs, and then to enter New York, not as the Keeps from Keepsburg, which meant nothing, but as the Fred Keeps of Long Island, or Westchester, or Bordentown.
"In all of those places," explained the widow lady, "our smartest people have country homes, and at the country club you may get to know them.Then, when winter comes, you follow them on to the city."The point from which the Keeps elected to launch their attack was Scarboro-on-the-Hudson.They selected Scarboro because both of them could play golf, and they planned that their first skirmish should be fought and won upon the golf-links of the Sleepy Hollow Country Club.But the attack did not succeed.Something went wrong.They began to fear that the lady correspondent had given them the wrong dope.For, although three months had passed, and they had played golf together until they were as loath to clasp a golf club as a red-hot poker, they knew no one, and no one knew them.That is, they did not know the Van Wardens; and if you lived at Scarboro and were not recognized by the Van Wardens, you were not to be found on any map.
Since the days of Hendrik Hudson the country-seat of the Van Wardens had looked down upon the river that bears his name, and ever since those days the Van Wardens had looked down upon everybody else.They were so proud that at all their gates they had placed signs reading, "No horses allowed.Take the other road." The other road was an earth road used by tradespeople from Ossining; the road reserved for the Van Wardens, and automobiles, was of bluestone.It helped greatly to give the Van Warden estate the appearance of a well kept cemetery.And those Van Wardens who occupied the country-place were as cold and unsociable as the sort of people who occupy cemeteries--except "Harry" Van Warden, and she lived in New York at the Turf Club.
Harry, according to all local tradition--for he frequently motored out to Warden Koopf, the Van Warden country-seat--and, according to the newspapers, was a devil of a fellow and in no sense cold or unsociable.So far as the Keeps read of him, he was always being arrested for overspeeding, or breaking his collar-bone out hunting, or losing his front teeth at polo.This greatly annoyed the proud sisters at Warden Koopf; not because Harry was arrested or had broken his collar-bone, but because it dragged the family name into the newspapers.
"If you would only play polo or ride to hounds instead of playing golf," sighed Winnie Keep to her husband, "you would meet Harry Van Warden, and he'd introduce you to his sisters, and then we could break in anywhere.""If I was to ride to hounds," returned her husband, "the only thing I'd break would be my neck."The country-place of the Keeps was completely satisfactory, and for the purposes of their social comedy the stage-setting was perfect.The house was one they had rented from a man of charming taste and inflated fortune; and with it they had taken over his well-disciplined butler, his pictures, furniture, family silver, and linen.It stood upon an eminence, was heavily wooded, and surrounded by many gardens; but its chief attraction was an artificial lake well stocked with trout that lay directly below the terrace of the house and also in full view from the road to Albany.
This latter fact caused Winnie Keep much concern.In the neighborhood were many Italian laborers, and on several nights the fish had tempted these born poachers to trespass; and more than once, on hot summer evenings, small boys from Tarrytown and Ossining had broken through the hedge, and used the lake as a swimming-pool.
"It makes me nervous," complained Winnie."I don't like the idea of people prowling around so near the house.And think of those twelve hundred convicts, not one mile away, in Sing Sing.Most of them are burglars, and if they ever get out, our house is the very first one they'll break into.""I haven't caught anybody in this neighborhood breaking into our house yet," said Fred, "and I'd be glad to see even a burglar!"They were seated on the brick terrace that overlooked the lake.
