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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Descent of Man and Other Stories + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Posting Date: August 11, 2009 [EBook #4519] +Release Date: October, 2003 +First Posted: January 29, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESCENT OF MAN, OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE DESCENT OF MAN +<BR> +AND OTHER STORIES +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BY EDITH WHARTON +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +TABLE OF CONTENTS +</H2> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#descent">The Descent of Man</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#other">The Other Two</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#expiation">Expiation</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#bell">The Lady's Maid's Bell</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#jane">The Mission of Jane</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#reckoning">The Reckoning</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#letter">The Letter</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#dilettante">The Dilettante</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#quicksand">The Quicksand</A> +<BR> +<A HREF="#venetian">A Venetian Night's Entertainment</A> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="descent"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DESCENT OF MAN +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +When Professor Linyard came back from his holiday in the Maine woods +the air of rejuvenation he brought with him was due less to the +influences of the climate than to the companionship he had enjoyed on +his travels. To Mrs. Linyard's observant eye he had appeared to set out +alone; but an invisible traveller had in fact accompanied him, and if +his heart beat high it was simply at the pitch of his adventure: for +the Professor had eloped with an idea. +</P> + +<P> +No one who has not tried the experiment can divine its exhilaration. +Professor Linyard would not have changed places with any hero of +romance pledged to a flesh-and-blood abduction. The most fascinating +female is apt to be encumbered with luggage and scruples: to take up a +good deal of room in the present and overlap inconveniently into the +future; whereas an idea can accommodate itself to a single molecule of +the brain or expand to the circumference of the horizon. The +Professor's companion had to the utmost this quality of adaptability. +As the express train whirled him away from the somewhat inelastic +circle of Mrs. Linyard's affections, his idea seemed to be sitting +opposite him, and their eyes met every moment or two in a glance of +joyous complicity; yet when a friend of the family presently joined him +and began to talk about college matters, the idea slipped out of sight +in a flash, and the Professor would have had no difficulty in proving +that he was alone. +</P> + +<P> +But if, from the outset, he found his idea the most agreeable of +fellow-travellers, it was only in the aromatic solitude of the woods +that he tasted the full savour of his adventure. There, during the long +cool August days, lying full length on the pine-needles and gazing up +into the sky, he would meet the eyes of his companion bending over him +like a nearer heaven. And what eyes they were!—clear yet unfathomable, +bubbling with inexhaustible laughter, yet drawing their freshness and +sparkle from the central depths of thought! To a man who for twenty +years had faced an eye reflecting the obvious with perfect accuracy, +these escapes into the inscrutable had always been peculiarly inviting; +but hitherto the Professor's mental infidelities had been restricted by +an unbroken and relentless domesticity. Now, for the first time since +his marriage, chance had given him six weeks to himself, and he was +coming home with his lungs full of liberty. +</P> + +<P> +It must not be inferred that the Professor's domestic relations were +defective: they were in fact so complete that it was almost impossible +to get away from them. It is the happy husbands who are really in +bondage; the little rift within the lute is often a passage to freedom. +Marriage had given the Professor exactly what he had sought in it; a +comfortable lining to life. The impossibility of rising to sentimental +crises had made him scrupulously careful not to shirk the practical +obligations of the bond. He took as it were a sociological view of his +case, and modestly regarded himself as a brick in that foundation on +which the state is supposed to rest. Perhaps if Mrs. Linyard had cared +about entomology, or had taken sides in the war over the transmission +of acquired characteristics, he might have had a less impersonal notion +of marriage; but he was unconscious of any deficiency in their +relation, and if consulted would probably have declared that he didn't +want any woman bothering with his beetles. His real life had always +lain in the universe of thought, in that enchanted region which, to +those who have lingered there, comes to have so much more colour and +substance than the painted curtain hanging before it. The Professor's +particular veil of Maia was a narrow strip of homespun woven in a +monotonous pattern; but he had only to lift it to step into an empire. +</P> + +<P> +This unseen universe was thronged with the most seductive shapes: the +Professor moved Sultan-like through a seraglio of ideas. But of all the +lovely apparitions that wove their spells about him, none had ever worn +quite so persuasive an aspect as this latest favourite. For the others +were mostly rather grave companions, serious-minded and elevating +enough to have passed muster in a Ladies' Debating Club; but this new +fancy of the Professor's was simply one embodied laugh. It was, in +other words, the smile of relaxation at the end of a long day's toil: +the flash of irony that the laborious mind projects, irresistibly, over +labour conscientiously performed. The Professor had always been a hard +worker. If he was an indulgent friend to his ideas, he was also a stern +task-master to them. For, in addition to their other duties, they had +to support his family: to pay the butcher and baker, and provide for +Jack's schooling and Millicent's dresses. The Professor's household was +a modest one, yet it tasked his ideas to keep it up to his wife's +standard. Mrs. Linyard was not an exacting wife, and she took enough +pride in her husband's attainments to pay for her honours by turning +Millicent's dresses and darning Jack's socks, and going to the College +receptions year after year in the same black silk with shiny seams. It +consoled her to see an occasional mention of Professor Linyard's +remarkable monograph on the Ethical Reactions of the Infusoria, or an +allusion to his investigations into the Unconscious Cerebration of the +Amoeba. +</P> + +<P> +Still there were moments when the healthy indifference of Jack and +Millicent reacted on the maternal sympathies; when Mrs. Linyard would +have made her husband a railway-director, if by this transformation she +might have increased her boy's allowance and given her daughter a new +hat, or a set of furs such as the other girls were wearing. Of such +moments of rebellion the Professor himself was not wholly unconscious. +He could not indeed understand why any one should want a new hat; and +as to an allowance, he had had much less money at college than Jack, +and had yet managed to buy a microscope and collect a few "specimens"; +while Jack was free from such expensive tastes! But the Professor did +not let his want of sympathy interfere with the discharge of his +paternal obligations. He worked hard to keep the wants of his family +gratified, and it was precisely in the endeavor to attain this end that +he at length broke down and had to cease from work altogether. +</P> + +<P> +To cease from work was not to cease from thought of it; and in the +unwonted pause from effort the Professor found himself taking a general +survey of the field he had travelled. At last it was possible to lift +his nose from the loom, to step a moment in front of the tapestry he +had been weaving. From this first inspection of the pattern so long +wrought over from behind, it was natural to glance a little farther and +seek its reflection in the public eye. It was not indeed of his special +task that he thought in this connection. He was but one of the great +army of weavers at work among the threads of that cosmic woof; and what +he sought was the general impression their labour had produced. +</P> + +<P> +When Professor Linyard first plied his microscope, the audience of the +man of science had been composed of a few fellow-students, sympathetic +or hostile as their habits of mind predetermined, but versed in the +jargon of the profession and familiar with the point of departure. In +the intervening quarter of a century, however, this little group had +been swallowed up in a larger public. Every one now read scientific +books and expressed an opinion on them. The ladies and the clergy had +taken them up first; now they had passed to the school-room and the +kindergarten. Daily life was regulated on scientific principles; the +daily papers had their "Scientific Jottings"; nurses passed +examinations in hygienic science, and babies were fed and dandled +according to the new psychology. +</P> + +<P> +The very fact that scientific investigation still had, to some minds, a +flavour of heterodoxy, gave it a perennial interest. The mob had broken +down the walls of tradition to batten in the orchard of forbidden +knowledge. The inaccessible goddess whom the Professor had served in +his youth now offered her charms in the market-place. And yet it was +not the same goddess after all, but a pseudo-science masquerading in +the garb of the real divinity. This false goddess had her ritual and +her literature. She had her sacred books, written by false priests and +sold by millions to the faithful. In the most successful of these +works, ancient dogma and modern discovery were depicted in a close +embrace under the lime-lights of a hazy transcendentalism; and the +tableau never failed of its effect. Some of the books designed on this +popular model had lately fallen into the Professor's hands, and they +filled him with mingled rage and hilarity. The rage soon died: he came +to regard this mass of pseudo-literature as protecting the truth from +desecration. But the hilarity remained, and flowed into the form of his +idea. And the idea—the divine, incomparable idea—was simply that he +should avenge his goddess by satirizing her false interpreters. He +would write a skit on the "popular" scientific book; he would so heap +platitude on platitude, fallacy on fallacy, false analogy on false +analogy, so use his superior knowledge to abound in the sense of the +ignorant, that even the gross crowd would join in the laugh against its +augurs. And the laugh should be something more than the distension of +mental muscles; it should be the trumpet-blast bringing down the walls +of ignorance, or at least the little stone striking the giant between +the eyes. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +The Professor, on presenting his card, had imagined that it would +command prompt access to the publisher's sanctuary; but the young man +who read his name was not moved to immediate action. It was clear that +Professor Linyard of Hillbridge University was not a specific figure to +the purveyors of popular literature. But the publisher was an old +friend; and when the card had finally drifted to his office on the +languid tide of routine he came forth at once to greet his visitor. +</P> + +<P> +The warmth of his welcome convinced the Professor that he had been +right in bringing his manuscript to Ned Harviss. He and Harviss had +been at Hillbridge together, and the future publisher had been one of +the wildest spirits in that band of college outlaws which yearly turns +out so many inoffensive citizens and kind husbands and fathers. The +Professor knew the taming qualities of life. He was aware that many of +his most reckless comrades had been transformed into prudent +capitalists or cowed wage-earners; but he was almost sure that he could +count on Harviss. So rare a sense of irony, so keen a perception of +relative values, could hardly have been blunted even by twenty years' +intercourse with the obvious. +</P> + +<P> +The publisher's appearance was a little disconcerting. He looked as if +he had been fattened on popular fiction; and his fat was full of +optimistic creases. The Professor seemed to see him bowing into his +office a long train of spotless heroines laden with the maiden tribute +of the hundredth thousand volume. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, his welcome was reassuring. He did not disown his early +enormities, and capped his visitor's tentative allusions by such +flagrant references to the past that the Professor produced his +manuscript without a scruple. +</P> + +<P> +"What—you don't mean to say you've been doing something in our line?" +</P> + +<P> +The Professor smiled. "You publish scientific books sometimes, don't +you?" +</P> + +<P> +The publisher's optimistic creases relaxed a little. "H'm—it all +depends—I'm afraid you're a little <I>too</I> scientific for us. We have a +big sale for scientific breakfast foods, but not for the concentrated +essences. In your case, of course, I should be delighted to stretch a +point; but in your own interest I ought to tell you that perhaps one of +the educational houses would do you better." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor leaned back, still smiling luxuriously. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, look it over—I rather think you'll take it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, we'll <I>take</I> it, as I say; but the terms might not—" +</P> + +<P> +"No matter about the terms—" +</P> + +<P> +The publisher threw his head back with a laugh. "I had no idea that +science was so profitable; we find our popular novelists are the +hardest hands at a bargain." +</P> + +<P> +"Science is disinterested," the Professor corrected him. "And I have a +fancy to have you publish this thing." +</P> + +<P> +"That's immensely good of you, my dear fellow. Of course your name goes +with a certain public—and I rather like the originality of our +bringing out a work so out of our line. I daresay it may boom us both." +His creases deepened at the thought, and he shone encouragingly on the +Professor's leave-taking. +</P> + +<P> +Within a fortnight, a line from Harviss recalled the Professor to town. +He had been looking forward with immense zest to this second meeting; +Harviss's college roar was in his tympanum, and he pictured himself +following up the protracted chuckle which would follow his friend's +progress through the manuscript. He was proud of the adroitness with +which he had kept his secret from Harviss, had maintained to the last +the pretense of a serious work, in order to give the keener edge to his +reader's enjoyment. Not since under-graduate days had the Professor +tasted such a draught of pure fun as his anticipations now poured for +him. +</P> + +<P> +This time his card brought instant admission. He was bowed into the +office like a successful novelist, and Harviss grasped him with both +hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—do you mean to take it?" he asked, with a lingering coquetry. +</P> + +<P> +"Take it? Take it, my dear fellow? It's in press already—you'll excuse +my not waiting to consult you? There will be no difficulty about terms, +I assure you, and we had barely time to catch the autumn market. My +dear Linyard, why didn't you <I>tell</I> me?" His voice sank to a +reproachful solemnity, and he pushed forward his own arm-chair. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor dropped into it with a chuckle. "And miss the joy of +letting you find out?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well—it <I>was</I> a joy." Harviss held out a box of his best cigars. "I +don't know when I've had a bigger sensation. It was so deucedly +unexpected—and, my dear fellow, you've brought it so exactly to the +right shop." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad to hear you say so," said the Professor modestly. +</P> + +<P> +Harviss laughed in rich appreciation. "I don't suppose you had a doubt +of it; but of course I was quite unprepared. And it's so +extraordinarily out of your line—" +</P> + +<P> +The Professor took off his glasses and rubbed them with a slow smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you have thought it so—at college?" +</P> + +<P> +Harviss stared. "At college?—Why, you were the most iconoclastic +devil—" +</P> + +<P> +There was a perceptible pause. The Professor restored his glasses and +looked at his friend. "Well—?" he said simply. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—?" echoed the other, still staring. "Ah—I see; you mean that +that's what explains it. The swing of the pendulum, and so forth. Well, +I admit it's not an uncommon phenomenon. I've conformed myself, for +example; most of our crowd have, I believe; but somehow I hadn't +expected it of you." +</P> + +<P> +The close observer might have detected a faint sadness under the +official congratulation of his tone; but the Professor was too amazed +to have an ear for such fine shades. +</P> + +<P> +"Expected it of me? Expected what of me?" he gasped. "What in heaven do +you think this thing is?" And he struck his fist on the manuscript +which lay between them. +</P> + +<P> +Harviss had recovered his optimistic creases. He rested a benevolent +eye on the document. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, your apologia—your confession of faith, I should call it. You +surely must have seen which way you were going? You can't have written +it in your sleep?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, I was wide awake enough," said the Professor faintly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, why are you staring at me as if I were <I>not?"</I> Harviss +leaned forward to lay a reassuring hand on his visitor's worn +coat-sleeve. "Don't mistake me, my dear Linyard. Don't fancy there was +the least unkindness in my allusion to your change of front. What is +growth but the shifting of the stand-point? Why should a man be +expected to look at life with the same eyes at twenty and at—our age? +It never occurred to me that you could feel the least delicacy in +admitting that you have come round a little—have fallen into line, so +to speak." +</P> + +<P> +But the Professor had sprung up as if to give his lungs more room to +expand; and from them there issued a laugh which shook the editorial +rafters. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Lord, oh Lord—is it really as good as that?" he gasped. +</P> + +<P> +Harviss had glanced instinctively toward the electric bell on his desk; +it was evident that he was prepared for an emergency. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear fellow—" he began in a soothing tone. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let me have my laugh out, do," implored the Professor. "I'll—I'll +quiet down in a minute; you needn't ring for the young man." He dropped +into his chair again, and grasped its arms to steady his shaking. "This +is the best laugh I've had since college," he brought out between his +paroxysms. And then, suddenly, he sat up with a groan. "But if it's as +good as that it's a failure!" he exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +Harviss, stiffening a little, examined the tip of his cigar. "My dear +Linyard," he said at length, "I don't understand a word you're saying." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor succumbed to a fresh access, from the vortex of which he +managed to fling out—"But that's the very core of the joke!" +</P> + +<P> +Harviss looked at him resignedly. "What is?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, your not seeing—your not understanding—" +</P> + +<P> +"Not understanding <I>what?"</I> +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what the book is meant to be." His laughter subsided again and he +sat gazing thoughtfully at the publisher. "Unless it means," he wound +up, "that I've over-shot the mark." +</P> + +<P> +"If I am the mark, you certainly have," said Harviss, with a glance at +the clock. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor caught the glance and interpreted it. "The book is a +skit," he said, rising. +</P> + +<P> +The other stared. "A skit? It's not serious, you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not to me—but it seems you've taken it so." +</P> + +<P> +"You never told me—" began the publisher in a ruffled tone. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I never told you," said the Professor. +</P> + +<P> +Harviss sat staring at the manuscript between them. "I don't pretend to +be up in such recondite forms of humour," he said, still stiffly. "Of +course you address yourself to a very small class of readers." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, infinitely small," admitted the Professor, extending his hand +toward the manuscript. +</P> + +<P> +Harviss appeared to be pursuing his own train of thought. "That is," he +continued, "if you insist on an ironical interpretation." +</P> + +<P> +"If I insist on it—what do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +The publisher smiled faintly. "Well—isn't the book susceptible of +another? If <I>I</I> read it without seeing—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" murmured the other, fascinated.—"why shouldn't the rest of the +world?" declared Harviss boldly. "I represent the Average +Reader—that's my business, that's what I've been training myself to do +for the last twenty years. It's a mission like another—the thing is to +do it thoroughly; not to cheat and compromise. I know fellows who are +publishers in business hours and dilettantes the rest of the time. +Well, they never succeed: convictions are just as necessary in business +as in religion. But that's not the point—I was going to say that if +you'll let me handle this book as a genuine thing I'll guarantee to +make it go." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor stood motionless, his hand still on the manuscript. +</P> + +<P> +"A genuine thing?" he echoed. +</P> + +<P> +"A serious piece of work—the expression of your convictions. I tell +you there's nothing the public likes as much as convictions—they'll +always follow a man who believes in his own ideas. And this book is +just on the line of popular interest. You've got hold of a big thing. +It's full of hope and enthusiasm: it's written in the religious key. +There are passages in it that would do splendidly in a Birthday +Book—things that popular preachers would quote in their sermons. If +you'd wanted to catch a big public you couldn't have gone about it in a +better way. The thing's perfect for my purpose—I wouldn't let you +alter a word of it. It'll sell like a popular novel if you'll let me +handle it in the right way." +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +When the Professor left Harviss's office, the manuscript remained +behind. He thought he had been taken by the huge irony of the +situation—by the enlarged circumference of the joke. In its original +form, as Harviss had said, the book would have addressed itself to a +very limited circle: now it would include the world. The elect would +understand; the crowd would not; and his work would thus serve a double +purpose. And, after all, nothing was changed in the situation; not a +word of the book was to be altered. The change was merely in the +publisher's point of view, and in the "tip" he was to give the +reviewers. The Professor had only to hold his tongue and look serious. +</P> + +<P> +These arguments found a strong reinforcement in the large premium which +expressed Harviss's sense of his opportunity. As a satire, the book +would have brought its author nothing; in fact, its cost would have +come out of his own pocket, since, as Harviss assured him, no publisher +would have risked taking it. But as a profession of faith, as the +recantation of an eminent biologist, whose leanings had hitherto been +supposed to be toward a cold determinism, it would bring in a steady +income to author and publisher. The offer found the Professor in a +moment of financial perplexity. His illness, his unwonted holiday, the +necessity of postponing a course of well-paid lectures, had combined to +diminish his resources; and when Harviss offered him an advance of a +thousand dollars the esoteric savour of the joke became irresistible. +It was still as a joke that he persisted in regarding the transaction; +and though he had pledged himself not to betray the real intent of the +book, he held <I>in petto</I> the notion of some day being able to take the +public into his confidence. As for the initiated, they would know at +once: and however long a face he pulled, his colleagues would see the +tongue in his cheek. Meanwhile it fortunately happened that, even if +the book should achieve the kind of triumph prophesied by Harviss, it +would not appreciably injure its author's professional standing. +Professor Linyard was known chiefly as a microscopist. On the structure +and habits of a certain class of coleoptera he was the most +distinguished living authority; but none save his intimate friends knew +what generalizations on the destiny of man he had drawn from these +special studies. He might have published a treatise on the Filioque +without disturbing the confidence of those on whose approval his +reputation rested; and moreover he was sustained by the thought that +one glance at his book would let them into its secret. In fact, so sure +was he of this that he wondered the astute Harviss had cared to risk +such speedy exposure. But Harviss had probably reflected that even in +this reverberating age the opinions of the laboratory do not easily +reach the street; and the Professor, at any rate, was not bound to +offer advice on this point. +</P> + +<P> +The determining cause of his consent was the fact that the book was +already in press. The Professor knew little about the workings of the +press, but the phrase gave him a sense of finality, of having been +caught himself in the toils of that mysterious engine. If he had had +time to think the matter over, his scruples might have dragged him +back; but his conscience was eased by the futility of resistance. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +Mrs. Linyard did not often read the papers; and there was therefore a +special significance in her approaching her husband one evening after +dinner with a copy of the <I>New York Investigator</I> in her hand. Her +expression lent solemnity to the act: Mrs. Linyard had a limited but +distinctive set of expressions, and she now looked as she did when the +President of the University came to dine. +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't tell me of this, Samuel," she said in a slightly tremulous +voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell you of what?" returned the Professor, reddening to the margin of +his baldness. +</P> + +<P> +"That you had published a book—I might never have heard of it if Mrs. +Pease hadn't brought me the paper." +</P> + +<P> +Her husband rubbed his eye-glasses with a groan. "Oh, you would have +heard of it," he said gloomily. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Linyard stared. "Did you wish to keep it from me, Samuel?" And as +he made no answer, she added with irresistible pride: "Perhaps you +don't know what beautiful things have been said about it." +</P> + +<P> +He took the paper with a reluctant hand. "Has Pease been saying +beautiful things about it?" +</P> + +<P> +"The Professor? Mrs. Pease didn't say he had mentioned it." +</P> + +<P> +The author heaved a sigh of relief. His book, as Harviss had +prophesied, had caught the autumn market: had caught and captured it. +The publisher had conducted the campaign like an experienced +strategist. He had completely surrounded the enemy. Every newspaper, +every periodical, held in ambush an advertisement of "The Vital Thing." +Weeks in advance the great commander had begun to form his lines of +attack. Allusions to the remarkable significance of the coming work had +appeared first in the scientific and literary reviews, spreading thence +to the supplements of the daily journals. Not a moment passed without a +quickening touch to the public consciousness: seventy millions of +people were forced to remember at least once a day that Professor +Linyard's book was on the verge of appearing. Slips emblazoned with the +question: <I>Have you read "The Vital Thing"?</I> fell from the pages of +popular novels and whitened the floors of crowded street-cars. The +query, in large lettering, assaulted the traveller at the railway +bookstall, confronted him on the walls of "elevated" stations, and +seemed, in its ascending scale, about to supplant the interrogations as +to soap and stove-polish which animate our rural scenery. +</P> + +<P> +On the day of publication, the Professor had withdrawn to his +laboratory. The shriek of the advertisements was in his ears, and his +one desire was to avoid all knowledge of the event they heralded. A +reaction of self-consciousness had set in, and if Harviss's cheque had +sufficed to buy up the first edition of "The Vital Thing" the Professor +would gladly have devoted it to that purpose. But the sense of +inevitableness gradually subdued him, and he received his wife's copy +of the <I>Investigator</I> with a kind of impersonal curiosity. The review +was a long one, full of extracts: he saw, as he glanced over them, how +well they would look in a volume of "Selections." The reviewer began by +thanking his author "for sounding with no uncertain voice that note of +ringing optimism, of faith in man's destiny and the supremacy of good, +which has too long been silenced by the whining chorus of a decadent +nihilism.... It is well," the writer continued, "when such reminders +come to us not from the moralist but from the man of science—when from +the desiccating atmosphere of the laboratory there rises this glorious +cry of faith and reconstruction." +</P> + +<P> +The review was minute and exhaustive. Thanks no doubt to Harviss's +diplomacy, it had been given to the <I>Investigator's</I> "best man," and +the Professor was startled by the bold eye with which his emancipated +fallacies confronted him. Under the reviewer's handling they made up +admirably as truths, and their author began to understand Harviss's +regret that they should be used for any less profitable purpose. +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Investigator</I>, as Harviss phrased it, "set the pace," and the +other journals followed, finding it easier to let their critical +man-of-all-work play a variation on the first reviewer's theme than to +secure an expert to "do" the book afresh. But it was evident that the +Professor had captured his public, for all the resources of the +profession could not, as Harviss gleefully pointed out, have carried +the book so straight to the heart of the nation. There was something +noble in the way in which Harviss belittled his own share in the +achievement, and insisted on the inutility of shoving a book which had +started with such headway on. +</P> + +<P> +"All I ask you is to admit that I saw what would happen," he said with +a touch of professional pride. "I knew you'd struck the right note—I +knew they'd be quoting you from Maine to San Francisco. Good as +fiction? It's better—it'll keep going longer." +</P> + +<P> +"Will it?" said the Professor with a slight shudder. He was resigned to +an ephemeral triumph, but the thought of the book's persistency +frightened him. +</P> + +<P> +"I should say so! Why, you fit in everywhere—science, theology, +natural history—and then the all-for-the-best element which is so +popular just now. Why, you come right in with the How-to-Relax series, +and they sell way up in the millions. And then the book's so full of +tenderness—there are such lovely things in it about flowers and +children. I didn't know an old Dryasdust like you could have such a lot +of sentiment in him. Why, I actually caught myself snivelling over that +passage about the snowdrops piercing the frozen earth; and my wife was +saying the other day that, since she's read 'The Vital Thing,' she +begins to think you must write the 'What-Cheer Column,' in the +<I>Inglenook."</I> He threw back his head with a laugh which ended in the +inspired cry: "And, by George, sir, when the thing begins to slow off +we'll start somebody writing against it, and that will run us straight +into another hundred thousand." +</P> + +<P> +And as earnest of this belief he drew the Professor a supplementary +cheque. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +Mrs. Linyard's knock cut short the importunities of the lady who had +been trying to persuade the Professor to be taken by flashlight at his +study table for the Christmas number of the <I>Inglenook</I>. On this point +the Professor had fancied himself impregnable; but the unwonted smile +with which he welcomed his wife's intrusion showed that his defences +were weakening. +</P> + +<P> +The lady from the <I>Inglenook</I> took the hint with professional +promptness, but said brightly, as she snapped the elastic around her +note-book: "I shan't let you forget me, Professor." +</P> + +<P> +The groan with which he followed her retreat was interrupted by his +wife's question: "Do they pay you for these interviews, Samuel?" +</P> + +<P> +The Professor looked at her with sudden attention. "Not directly," he +said, wondering at her expression. +</P> + +<P> +She sank down with a sigh. "Indirectly, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"What is the matter, my dear? I gave you Harviss's second cheque the +other day—" +</P> + +<P> +Her tears arrested him. "Don't be hard on the boy, Samuel! I really +believe your success has turned his head." +</P> + +<P> +"The boy—what boy? My success—? Explain yourself, Susan!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's only that Jack has—has borrowed some money—which he can't +repay. But you mustn't think him altogether to blame, Samuel. Since the +success of your book he has been asked about so much—it's given the +children quite a different position. Millicent says that wherever they +go the first question asked is, 'Are you any relation of the author of +"The Vital Thing"?' Of course we're all very proud of the book; but it +entails obligations which you may not have thought of in writing it." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor sat gazing at the letters and newspaper clippings on the +study-table which he had just successfully defended from the camera of +the <I>Inglenook</I>. He took up an envelope bearing the name of a popular +weekly paper. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know that the <I>Inglenook</I> would help much," he said, "but I +suppose this might." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Linyard's eyes glowed with maternal avidity. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, Samuel?" +</P> + +<P> +"A series of 'Scientific Sermons' for the Round-the-Gas-Log column of +<I>The Woman's World</I>. I believe that journal has a larger circulation +than any other weekly, and they pay in proportion." +</P> + +<P> +He had not even asked the extent of Jack's indebtedness. It had been so +easy to relieve recent domestic difficulties by the timely production +of Harviss's two cheques, that it now seemed natural to get Mrs. +Linyard out of the room by promising further reinforcements. The +Professor had indignantly rejected Harviss's suggestion that he should +follow up his success by a second volume on the same lines. He had +sworn not to lend more than a passive support to the fraud of "The +Vital Thing"; but the temptation to free himself from Mrs. Linyard +prevailed over his last scruples, and within an hour he was at work on +the Scientific Sermons. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor was not an unkind man. He really enjoyed making his +family happy; and it was his own business if his reward for so doing +was that it kept them out of his way. But the success of "The Vital +Thing" gave him more than this negative satisfaction. It enlarged his +own existence and opened new doors into other lives. The Professor, +during fifty virtuous years, had been cognizant of only two types of +women: the fond and foolish, whom one married, and the earnest and +intellectual, whom one did not. Of the two, he infinitely preferred the +former, even for conversational purposes. But as a social instrument +woman was unknown to him; and it was not till he was drawn into the +world on the tide of his literary success that he discovered the +deficiencies in his classification of the sex. Then he learned with +astonishment of the existence of a third type: the woman who is fond +without foolishness and intellectual without earnestness. Not that the +Professor inspired, or sought to inspire, sentimental emotions; but he +expanded in the warm atmosphere of personal interest which some of his +new acquaintances contrived to create about him. It was delightful to +talk of serious things in a setting of frivolity, and to be personal +without being domestic. +</P> + +<P> +Even in this new world, where all subjects were touched on lightly, and +emphasis was the only indelicacy, the Professor found himself +constrained to endure an occasional reference to his book. It was +unpleasant at first; but gradually he slipped into the habit of hearing +it talked of, and grew accustomed to telling pretty women just how "it +had first come to him." +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the success of the Scientific Sermons was facilitating his +family relations. His photograph in the <I>Inglenook</I>, to which the lady +of the note-book had succeeded in appending a vivid interview, carried +his fame to circles inaccessible even to "The Vital Thing"; and the +Professor found himself the man of the hour. He soon grew used to the +functions of the office, and gave out hundred-dollar interviews on +every subject, from labour-strikes to Babism, with a frequency which +reacted agreeably on the domestic exchequer. Presently his head began +to figure in the advertising pages of the magazines. Admiring readers +learned the name of the only breakfast-food in use at his table, of the +ink with which "The Vital Thing" had been written, the soap with which +the author's hands were washed, and the tissue-builder which fortified +him for further effort. These confidences endeared the Professor to +millions of readers, and his head passed in due course from the +magazine and the newspaper to the biscuit-tin and the chocolate-box. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H4> + +<P> +The Professor, all the while, was leading a double life. While the +author of "The Vital Thing" reaped the fruits of popular approval, the +distinguished microscopist continued his laboratory work unheeded save +by the few who were engaged in the same line of investigations. His +divided allegiance had not hitherto affected the quality of his work: +it seemed to him that he returned to the laboratory with greater zest +after an afternoon in a drawing-room where readings from "The Vital +Thing" had alternated with plantation melodies and tea. He had long +ceased to concern himself with what his colleagues thought of his +literary career. Of the few whom he frequented, none had referred to +"The Vital Thing"; and he knew enough of their lives to guess that +their silence might as fairly be attributed to indifference as to +disapproval. They were intensely interested in the Professor's views on +beetles, but they really cared very little what he thought of the +Almighty. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor entirely shared their feelings, and one of his chief +reasons for cultivating the success which accident had bestowed on him, +was that it enabled him to command a greater range of appliances for +his real work. He had known what it was to lack books and instruments; +and "The Vital Thing" was the magic wand which summoned them to his +aid. For some time he had been feeling his way along the edge of a +discovery: balancing himself with professional skill on a plank of +hypothesis flung across an abyss of uncertainty. The conjecture was the +result of years of patient gathering of facts: its corroboration would +take months more of comparison and classification. But at the end of +the vista victory loomed. The Professor felt within himself that +assurance of ultimate justification which, to the man of science, makes +a life-time seem the mere comma between premiss and deduction. But he +had reached the point where his conjectures required formulation. It +was only by giving them expression, by exposing them to the comment and +criticism of his associates, that he could test their final value; and +this inner assurance was confirmed by the only friend whose confidence +he invited. +</P> + +<P> +Professor Pease, the husband of the lady who had opened Mrs. Linyard's +eyes to the triumph of "The Vital Thing," was the repository of her +husband's scientific experiences. What he thought of "The Vital Thing" +had never been divulged; and he was capable of such vast exclusions +that it was quite possible that pervasive work had not yet reached him. +In any case, it was not likely to affect his judgment of the author's +professional capacity. +</P> + +<P> +"You want to put that all in a book, Linyard," was Professor Pease's +summing-up. "I'm sure you've got hold of something big; but to see it +clearly yourself you ought to outline it for others. Take my +advice—chuck everything else and get to work tomorrow. It's time you +wrote a book, anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +<I> It's time you wrote a book, anyhow!</I> The words smote the Professor +with mingled pain and ecstasy: he could have wept over their +significance. But his friend's other phrase reminded him with a start +of Harviss. "You have got hold of a big thing—" it had been the +publisher's first comment on "The Vital Thing." But what a world of +meaning lay between the two phrases! It was the world in which the +powers who fought for the Professor were destined to wage their final +battle; and for the moment he had no doubt of the outcome. The next day +he went to town to see Harviss. He wanted to ask for an advance on the +new popular edition of "The Vital Thing." He had determined to drop a +course of supplementary lectures at the University, and to give himself +up for a year to his book. To do this, additional funds were necessary; +but thanks to "The Vital Thing" they would be forthcoming. +</P> + +<P> +The publisher received him as cordially as usual; but the response to +his demand was not as prompt as his previous experience had entitled +him to expect. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course we'll be glad to do what we can for you, Linyard; but the +fact is, we've decided to give up the idea of the new edition for the +present." +</P> + +<P> +"You've given up the new edition?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes—we've done pretty well by 'The Vital Thing,' and we're +inclined to think it's <I>your</I> turn to do something for it now." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor looked at him blankly. "What can I do for it?" he +asked—"what <I>more</I>" his accent added. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, put a little new life in it by writing something else. The secret +of perpetual motion hasn't yet been discovered, you know, and it's one +of the laws of literature that books which start with a rush are apt to +slow down sooner than the crawlers. We've kept 'The Vital Thing' going +for eighteen months—but, hang it, it ain't so vital any more. We +simply couldn't see our way to a new edition. Oh, I don't say it's dead +yet—but it's moribund, and you're the only man who can resuscitate it." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor continued to stare. "I—what can I do about it?" he +stammered. +</P> + +<P> +"Do? Why write another like it—go it one better: you know the trick. +The public isn't tired of you by any means; but you want to make +yourself heard again before anybody else cuts in. Write another +book—write two, and we'll sell them in sets in a box: The Vital Thing +Series. That will take tremendously in the holidays. Try and let us +have a new volume by October—I'll be glad to give you a big advance if +you'll sign a contract on that." +</P> + +<P> +The Professor sat silent: there was too cruel an irony in the +coincidence. +</P> + +<P> +Harviss looked up at him in surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what's the matter with taking my advice—you're not going out of +literature, are you?" +</P> + +<P> +The Professor rose from his chair. "No—I'm going into it," he said +simply. +</P> + +<P> +"Going into it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to write a real book—a serious one." +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord! Most people think 'The Vital Thing' 's serious." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—but I mean something different." +</P> + +<P> +"In your old line—beetles and so forth?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said the Professor solemnly. +</P> + +<P> +Harviss looked at him with equal gravity. "Well, I'm sorry for that," +he said, "because it takes you out of our bailiwick. But I suppose +you've made enough money out of 'The Vital Thing' to permit yourself a +little harmless amusement. When you want more cash come back to +us—only don't put it off too long, or some other fellow will have +stepped into your shoes. Popularity don't keep, you know; and the +hotter the success the quicker the commodity perishes." +</P> + +<P> +He leaned back, cheerful and sententious, delivering his axioms with +conscious kindliness. +</P> + +<P> +The Professor, who had risen and moved to the door, turned back with a +wavering step. +</P> + +<P> +"When did you say another volume would have to be ready?" he faltered. +</P> + +<P> +"I said October—but call it a month later. You don't need any pushing +nowadays." +</P> + +<P> +"And—you'd have no objection to letting me have a little advance now? +I need some new instruments for my real work." +</P> + +<P> +Harviss extended a cordial hand. "My dear fellow, that's talking—I'll +write the cheque while you wait; and I daresay we can start up the +cheap edition of 'The Vital Thing' at the same time, if you'll pledge +yourself to give us the book by November.—How much?" he asked, poised +above his cheque-book. +</P> + +<P> +In the street, the Professor stood staring about him, uncertain and a +little dazed. +</P> + +<P> +"After all, it's only putting it off for six months," he said to +himself; "and I can do better work when I get my new instruments." +</P> + +<P> +He smiled and raised his hat to the passing victoria of a lady in whose +copy of "The Vital Thing" he had recently written: +</P> + +<P> +<I>Labor est etiam ipsa voluptas.</I> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="other"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE OTHER TWO +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +WAYTHORN, on the drawing-room hearth, waited for his wife to come down +to dinner. +</P> + +<P> +It was their first night under his own roof, and he was surprised at +his thrill of boyish agitation. He was not so old, to be sure—his +glass gave him little more than the five-and-thirty years to which his +wife confessed—but he had fancied himself already in the temperate +zone; yet here he was listening for her step with a tender sense of all +it symbolized, with some old trail of verse about the garlanded nuptial +door-posts floating through his enjoyment of the pleasant room and the +good dinner just beyond it. +</P> + +<P> +They had been hastily recalled from their honeymoon by the illness of +Lily Haskett, the child of Mrs. Waythorn's first marriage. The little +girl, at Waythorn's desire, had been transferred to his house on the +day of her mother's wedding, and the doctor, on their arrival, broke +the news that she was ill with typhoid, but declared that all the +symptoms were favorable. Lily could show twelve years of unblemished +health, and the case promised to be a light one. The nurse spoke as +reassuringly, and after a moment of alarm Mrs. Waythorn had adjusted +herself to the situation. She was very fond of Lily—her affection for +the child had perhaps been her decisive charm in Waythorn's eyes—but +she had the perfectly balanced nerves which her little girl had +inherited, and no woman ever wasted less tissue in unproductive worry. +Waythorn was therefore quite prepared to see her come in presently, a +little late because of a last look at Lily, but as serene and +well-appointed as if her good-night kiss had been laid on the brow of +health. Her composure was restful to him; it acted as ballast to his +somewhat unstable sensibilities. As he pictured her bending over the +child's bed he thought how soothing her presence must be in illness: +her very step would prognosticate recovery. +</P> + +<P> +His own life had been a gray one, from temperament rather than +circumstance, and he had been drawn to her by the unperturbed gayety +which kept her fresh and elastic at an age when most women's activities +are growing either slack or febrile. He knew what was said about her; +for, popular as she was, there had always been a faint undercurrent of +detraction. When she had appeared in New York, nine or ten years +earlier, as the pretty Mrs. Haskett whom Gus Varick had unearthed +somewhere—was it in Pittsburgh or Utica?—society, while promptly +accepting her, had reserved the right to cast a doubt on its own +discrimination. Inquiry, however, established her undoubted connection +with a socially reigning family, and explained her recent divorce as +the natural result of a runaway match at seventeen; and as nothing was +known of Mr. Haskett it was easy to believe the worst of him. +</P> + +<P> +Alice Haskett's remarriage with Gus Varick was a passport to the set +whose recognition she coveted, and for a few years the Varicks were the +most popular couple in town. Unfortunately the alliance was brief and +stormy, and this time the husband had his champions. Still, even +Varick's stanchest supporters admitted that he was not meant for +matrimony, and Mrs. Varick's grievances were of a nature to bear the +inspection of the New York courts. A New York divorce is in itself a +diploma of virtue, and in the semi-widowhood of this second separation +Mrs. Varick took on an air of sanctity, and was allowed to confide her +wrongs to some of the most scrupulous ears in town. But when it was +known that she was to marry Waythorn there was a momentary reaction. +Her best friends would have preferred to see her remain in the role of +the injured wife, which was as becoming to her as crape to a rosy +complexion. True, a decent time had elapsed, and it was not even +suggested that Waythorn had supplanted his predecessor. Still, people +shook their heads over him, and one grudging friend, to whom he +affirmed that he took the step with his eyes open, replied oracularly: +"Yes—and with your ears shut." +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn could afford to smile at these innuendoes. In the Wall Street +phrase, he had "discounted" them. He knew that society has not yet +adapted itself to the consequences of divorce, and that till the +adaptation takes place every woman who uses the freedom the law accords +her must be her own social justification. Waythorn had an amused +confidence in his wife's ability to justify herself. His expectations +were fulfilled, and before the wedding took place Alice Varick's group +had rallied openly to her support. She took it all imperturbably: she +had a way of surmounting obstacles without seeming to be aware of them, +and Waythorn looked back with wonder at the trivialities over which he +had worn his nerves thin. He had the sense of having found refuge in a +richer, warmer nature than his own, and his satisfaction, at the +moment, was humorously summed up in the thought that his wife, when she +had done all she could for Lily, would not be ashamed to come down and +enjoy a good dinner. +</P> + +<P> +The anticipation of such enjoyment was not, however, the sentiment +expressed by Mrs. Waythorn's charming face when she presently joined +him. Though she had put on her most engaging teagown she had neglected +to assume the smile that went with it, and Waythorn thought he had +never seen her look so nearly worried. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" he asked. "Is anything wrong with Lily?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; I've just been in and she's still sleeping." Mrs. Waythorn +hesitated. "But something tiresome has happened." +</P> + +<P> +He had taken her two hands, and now perceived that he was crushing a +paper between them. +</P> + +<P> +"This letter?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—Mr. Haskett has written—I mean his lawyer has written." +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn felt himself flush uncomfortably. He dropped his wife's hands. +</P> + +<P> +"What about?" +</P> + +<P> +"About seeing Lily. You know the courts—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes," he interrupted nervously. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing was known about Haskett in New York. He was vaguely supposed to +have remained in the outer darkness from which his wife had been +rescued, and Waythorn was one of the few who were aware that he had +given up his business in Utica and followed her to New York in order to +be near his little girl. In the days of his wooing, Waythorn had often +met Lily on the doorstep, rosy and smiling, on her way "to see papa." +</P> + +<P> +"I am so sorry," Mrs. Waythorn murmured. +</P> + +<P> +He roused himself. "What does he want?" +</P> + +<P> +"He wants to see her. You know she goes to him once a week." +</P> + +<P> +"Well—he doesn't expect her to go to him now, does he?" +</P> + +<P> +"No—he has heard of her illness; but he expects to come here." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Here?</I>" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Waythorn reddened under his gaze. They looked away from each other. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid he has the right....You'll see...." She made a proffer of +the letter. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal. He stood staring about +the softly lighted room, which a moment before had seemed so full of +bridal intimacy. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so sorry," she repeated. "If Lily could have been moved—" +</P> + +<P> +"That's out of the question," he returned impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose so." +</P> + +<P> +Her lip was beginning to tremble, and he felt himself a brute. +</P> + +<P> +"He must come, of course," he said. "When is—his day?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid—to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well. Send a note in the morning." +</P> + +<P> +The butler entered to announce dinner. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn turned to his wife. "Come—you must be tired. It's beastly, +but try to forget about it," he said, drawing her hand through his arm. +</P> + +<P> +"You're so good, dear. I'll try," she whispered back. +</P> + +<P> +Her face cleared at once, and as she looked at him across the flowers, +between the rosy candle-shades, he saw her lips waver back into a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"How pretty everything is!" she sighed luxuriously. +</P> + +<P> +He turned to the butler. "The champagne at once, please. Mrs. Waythorn +is tired." +</P> + +<P> +In a moment or two their eyes met above the sparkling glasses. Her own +were quite clear and untroubled: he saw that she had obeyed his +injunction and forgotten. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + + + +<P> +WAYTHORN, the next morning, went down town earlier than usual. Haskett +was not likely to come till the afternoon, but the instinct of flight +drove him forth. He meant to stay away all day—he had thoughts of +dining at his club. As his door closed behind him he reflected that +before he opened it again it would have admitted another man who had as +much right to enter it as himself, and the thought filled him with a +physical repugnance. +</P> + +<P> +He caught the "elevated" at the employees' hour, and found himself +crushed between two layers of pendulous humanity. At Eighth Street the +man facing him wriggled out and another took his place. Waythorn +glanced up and saw that it was Gus Varick. The men were so close +together that it was impossible to ignore the smile of recognition on +Varick's handsome overblown face. And after all—why not? They had +always been on good terms, and Varick had been divorced before +Waythorn's attentions to his wife began. The two exchanged a word on +the perennial grievance of the congested trains, and when a seat at +their side was miraculously left empty the instinct of +self-preservation made Waythorn slip into it after Varick. +</P> + +<P> +The latter drew the stout man's breath of relief. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord—I was beginning to feel like a pressed flower." He leaned back, +looking unconcernedly at Waythorn. "Sorry to hear that Sellers is +knocked out again." +</P> + +<P> +"Sellers?" echoed Waythorn, starting at his partner's name. +</P> + +<P> +Varick looked surprised. "You didn't know he was laid up with the gout?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. I've been away—I only got back last night." Waythorn felt himself +reddening in anticipation of the other's smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—yes; to be sure. And Sellers's attack came on two days ago. I'm +afraid he's pretty bad. Very awkward for me, as it happens, because he +was just putting through a rather important thing for me." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah?" Waythorn wondered vaguely since when Varick had been dealing in +"important things." Hitherto he had dabbled only in the shallow pools +of speculation, with which Waythorn's office did not usually concern +itself. +</P> + +<P> +It occurred to him that Varick might be talking at random, to relieve +the strain of their propinquity. That strain was becoming momentarily +more apparent to Waythorn, and when, at Cortlandt Street, he caught +sight of an acquaintance, and had a sudden vision of the picture he and +Varick must present to an initiated eye, he jumped up with a muttered +excuse. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you'll find Sellers better," said Varick civilly, and he +stammered back: "If I can be of any use to you—" and let the departing +crowd sweep him to the platform. +</P> + +<P> +At his office he heard that Sellers was in fact ill with the gout, and +would probably not be able to leave the house for some weeks. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry it should have happened so, Mr. Waythorn," the senior clerk +said with affable significance. "Mr. Sellers was very much upset at the +idea of giving you such a lot of extra work just now." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's no matter," said Waythorn hastily. He secretly welcomed the +pressure of additional business, and was glad to think that, when the +day's work was over, he would have to call at his partner's on the way +home. +</P> + +<P> +He was late for luncheon, and turned in at the nearest restaurant +instead of going to his club. The place was full, and the waiter +hurried him to the back of the room to capture the only vacant table. +In the cloud of cigar-smoke Waythorn did not at once distinguish his +neighbors; but presently, looking about him, he saw Varick seated a few +feet off. This time, luckily, they were too far apart for conversation, +and Varick, who faced another way, had probably not even seen him; but +there was an irony in their renewed nearness. +</P> + +<P> +Varick was said to be fond of good living, and as Waythorn sat +despatching his hurried luncheon he looked across half enviously at the +other's leisurely degustation of his meal. When Waythorn first saw him +he had been helping himself with critical deliberation to a bit of +Camembert at the ideal point of liquefaction, and now, the cheese +removed, he was just pouring his <I>cafe double</I> from its little +two-storied earthen pot. He poured slowly, his ruddy profile bent above +the task, and one beringed white hand steadying the lid of the +coffee-pot; then he stretched his other hand to the decanter of cognac +at his elbow, filled a liqueur-glass, took a tentative sip, and poured +the brandy into his coffee-cup. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn watched him in a kind of fascination. What was he thinking +of—only of the flavor of the coffee and the liqueur? Had the morning's +meeting left no more trace in his thoughts than on his face? Had his +wife so completely passed out of his life that even this odd encounter +with her present husband, within a week after her remarriage, was no +more than an incident in his day? And as Waythorn mused, another idea +struck him: had Haskett ever met Varick as Varick and he had just met? +The recollection of Haskett perturbed him, and he rose and left the +restaurant, taking a circuitous way out to escape the placid irony of +Varick's nod. +</P> + +<P> +It was after seven when Waythorn reached home. He thought the footman +who opened the door looked at him oddly. +</P> + +<P> +"How is Miss Lily?" he asked in haste. +</P> + +<P> +"Doing very well, sir. A gentleman—" +</P> + +<P> +"Tell Barlow to put off dinner for half an hour," Waythorn cut him off, +hurrying upstairs. +</P> + +<P> +He went straight to his room and dressed without seeing his wife. When +he reached the drawing-room she was there, fresh and radiant. Lily's +day had been good; the doctor was not coming back that evening. +</P> + +<P> +At dinner Waythorn told her of Sellers's illness and of the resulting +complications. She listened sympathetically, adjuring him not to let +himself be overworked, and asking vague feminine questions about the +routine of the office. Then she gave him the chronicle of Lily's day; +quoted the nurse and doctor, and told him who had called to inquire. He +had never seen her more serene and unruffled. It struck him, with a +curious pang, that she was very happy in being with him, so happy that +she found a childish pleasure in rehearsing the trivial incidents of +her day. +</P> + +<P> +After dinner they went to the library, and the servant put the coffee +and liqueurs on a low table before her and left the room. She looked +singularly soft and girlish in her rosy pale dress, against the dark +leather of one of his bachelor armchairs. A day earlier the contrast +would have charmed him. +</P> + +<P> +He turned away now, choosing a cigar with affected deliberation. +</P> + +<P> +"Did Haskett come?" he asked, with his back to her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes—he came." +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't see him, of course?" +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated a moment. "I let the nurse see him." +</P> + +<P> +That was all. There was nothing more to ask. He swung round toward her, +applying a match to his cigar. Well, the thing was over for a week, at +any rate. He would try not to think of it. She looked up at him, a +trifle rosier than usual, with a smile in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Ready for your coffee, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +He leaned against the mantelpiece, watching her as she lifted the +coffee-pot. The lamplight struck a gleam from her bracelets and tipped +her soft hair with brightness. How light and slender she was, and how +each gesture flowed into the next! She seemed a creature all compact of +harmonies. As the thought of Haskett receded, Waythorn felt himself +yielding again to the joy of possessorship. They were his, those white +hands with their flitting motions, his the light haze of hair, the lips +and eyes.... +</P> + +<P> +She set down the coffee-pot, and reaching for the decanter of cognac, +measured off a liqueur-glass and poured it into his cup. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn uttered a sudden exclamation. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the matter?" she said, startled. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing; only—I don't take cognac in my coffee." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, how stupid of me," she cried. +</P> + +<P> +Their eyes met, and she blushed a sudden agonized red. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +TEN DAYS later, Mr. Sellers, still house-bound, asked Waythorn to call +on his way down town. +</P> + +<P> +The senior partner, with his swaddled foot propped up by the fire, +greeted his associate with an air of embarrassment. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry, my dear fellow; I've got to ask you to do an awkward thing +for me." +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn waited, and the other went on, after a pause apparently given +to the arrangement of his phrases: "The fact is, when I was knocked out +I had just gone into a rather complicated piece of business for—Gus +Varick." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" said Waythorn, with an attempt to put him at his ease. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—it's this way: Varick came to me the day before my attack. He +had evidently had an inside tip from somebody, and had made about a +hundred thousand. He came to me for advice, and I suggested his going +in with Vanderlyn." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, the deuce!" Waythorn exclaimed. He saw in a flash what had +happened. The investment was an alluring one, but required negotiation. +He listened intently while Sellers put the case before him, and, the +statement ended, he said: "You think I ought to see Varick?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid I can't as yet. The doctor is obdurate. And this thing +can't wait. I hate to ask you, but no one else in the office knows the +ins and outs of it." +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn stood silent. He did not care a farthing for the success of +Varick's venture, but the honor of the office was to be considered, and +he could hardly refuse to oblige his partner. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," he said, "I'll do it." +</P> + +<P> +That afternoon, apprised by telephone, Varick called at the office. +Waythorn, waiting in his private room, wondered what the others thought +of it. The newspapers, at the time of Mrs. Waythorn's marriage, had +acquainted their readers with every detail of her previous matrimonial +ventures, and Waythorn could fancy the clerks smiling behind Varick's +back as he was ushered in. +</P> + +<P> +Varick bore himself admirably. He was easy without being undignified, +and Waythorn was conscious of cutting a much less impressive figure. +Varick had no head for business, and the talk prolonged itself for +nearly an hour while Waythorn set forth with scrupulous precision the +details of the proposed transaction. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm awfully obliged to you," Varick said as he rose. "The fact is I'm +not used to having much money to look after, and I don't want to make +an ass of myself—" He smiled, and Waythorn could not help noticing +that there was something pleasant about his smile. "It feels uncommonly +queer to have enough cash to pay one's bills. I'd have sold my soul for +it a few years ago!" +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn winced at the allusion. He had heard it rumored that a lack of +funds had been one of the determining causes of the Varick separation, +but it did not occur to him that Varick's words were intentional. It +seemed more likely that the desire to keep clear of embarrassing topics +had fatally drawn him into one. Waythorn did not wish to be outdone in +civility. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll do the best we can for you," he said. "I think this is a good +thing you're in." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm sure it's immense. It's awfully good of you—" Varick broke +off, embarrassed. "I suppose the thing's settled now—but if—" +</P> + +<P> +"If anything happens before Sellers is about, I'll see you again," said +Waythorn quietly. He was glad, in the end, to appear the more +self-possessed of the two. +</P> + +<P> +The course of Lily's illness ran smooth, and as the days passed +Waythorn grew used to the idea of Haskett's weekly visit. The first +time the day came round, he stayed out late, and questioned his wife as +to the visit on his return. She replied at once that Haskett had merely +seen the nurse downstairs, as the doctor did not wish any one in the +child's sick-room till after the crisis. +</P> + +<P> +The following week Waythorn was again conscious of the recurrence of +the day, but had forgotten it by the time he came home to dinner. The +crisis of the disease came a few days later, with a rapid decline of +fever, and the little girl was pronounced out of danger. In the +rejoicing which ensued the thought of Haskett passed out of Waythorn's +mind and one afternoon, letting himself into the house with a latchkey, +he went straight to his library without noticing a shabby hat and +umbrella in the hall. +</P> + +<P> +In the library he found a small effaced-looking man with a thinnish +gray beard sitting on the edge of a chair. The stranger might have been +a piano-tuner, or one of those mysteriously efficient persons who are +summoned in emergencies to adjust some detail of the domestic +machinery. He blinked at Waythorn through a pair of gold-rimmed +spectacles and said mildly: "Mr. Waythorn, I presume? I am Lily's +father." +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn flushed. "Oh—" he stammered uncomfortably. He broke off, +disliking to appear rude. Inwardly he was trying to adjust the actual +Haskett to the image of him projected by his wife's reminiscences. +Waythorn had been allowed to infer that Alice's first husband was a +brute. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry to intrude," said Haskett, with his over-the-counter +politeness. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't mention it," returned Waythorn, collecting himself. "I suppose +the nurse has been told?" +</P> + +<P> +"I presume so. I can wait," said Haskett. He had a resigned way of +speaking, as though life had worn down his natural powers of resistance. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn stood on the threshold, nervously pulling off his gloves. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry you've been detained. I will send for the nurse," he said; +and as he opened the door he added with an effort: "I'm glad we can +give you a good report of Lily." He winced as the <I>we</I> slipped out, but +Haskett seemed not to notice it. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, Mr. Waythorn. It's been an anxious time for me." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, well, that's past. Soon she'll be able to go to you." Waythorn +nodded and passed out. +</P> + +<P> +In his own room, he flung himself down with a groan. He hated the +womanish sensibility which made him suffer so acutely from the +grotesque chances of life. He had known when he married that his wife's +former husbands were both living, and that amid the multiplied contacts +of modern existence there were a thousand chances to one that he would +run against one or the other, yet he found himself as much disturbed by +his brief encounter with Haskett as though the law had not obligingly +removed all difficulties in the way of their meeting. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn sprang up and began to pace the room nervously. He had not +suffered half so much from his two meetings with Varick. It was +Haskett's presence in his own house that made the situation so +intolerable. He stood still, hearing steps in the passage. +</P> + +<P> +"This way, please," he heard the nurse say. Haskett was being taken +upstairs, then: not a corner of the house but was open to him. Waythorn +dropped into another chair, staring vaguely ahead of him. On his +dressing-table stood a photograph of Alice, taken when he had first +known her. She was Alice Varick then—how fine and exquisite he had +thought her! Those were Varick's pearls about her neck. At Waythorn's +instance they had been returned before her marriage. Had Haskett ever +given her any trinkets—and what had become of them, Waythorn wondered? +He realized suddenly that he knew very little of Haskett's past or +present situation; but from the man's appearance and manner of speech +he could reconstruct with curious precision the surroundings of Alice's +first marriage. And it startled him to think that she had, in the +background of her life, a phase of existence so different from anything +with which he had connected her. Varick, whatever his faults, was a +gentleman, in the conventional, traditional sense of the term: the +sense which at that moment seemed, oddly enough, to have most meaning +to Waythorn. He and Varick had the same social habits, spoke the same +language, understood the same allusions. But this other man...it was +grotesquely uppermost in Waythorn's mind that Haskett had worn a +made-up tie attached with an elastic. Why should that ridiculous detail +symbolize the whole man? Waythorn was exasperated by his own +paltriness, but the fact of the tie expanded, forced itself on him, +became as it were the key to Alice's past. He could see her, as Mrs. +Haskett, sitting in a "front parlor" furnished in plush, with a +pianola, and a copy of "Ben Hur" on the centre-table. He could see her +going to the theatre with Haskett—or perhaps even to a "Church +Sociable"—she in a "picture hat" and Haskett in a black frock-coat, a +little creased, with the made-up tie on an elastic. On the way home +they would stop and look at the illuminated shop-windows, lingering +over the photographs of New York actresses. On Sunday afternoons +Haskett would take her for a walk, pushing Lily ahead of them in a +white enameled perambulator, and Waythorn had a vision of the people +they would stop and talk to. He could fancy how pretty Alice must have +looked, in a dress adroitly constructed from the hints of a New York +fashion-paper; how she must have looked down on the other women, +chafing at her life, and secretly feeling that she belonged in a bigger +place. +</P> + +<P> +For the moment his foremost thought was one of wonder at the way in +which she had shed the phase of existence which her marriage with +Haskett implied. It was as if her whole aspect, every gesture, every +inflection, every allusion, were a studied negation of that period of +her life. If she had denied being married to Haskett she could hardly +have stood more convicted of duplicity than in this obliteration of the +self which had been his wife. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn started up, checking himself in the analysis of her motives. +What right had he to create a fantastic effigy of her and then pass +judgment on it? She had spoken vaguely of her first marriage as +unhappy, had hinted, with becoming reticence, that Haskett had wrought +havoc among her young illusions....It was a pity for Waythorn's peace +of mind that Haskett's very inoffensiveness shed a new light on the +nature of those illusions. A man would rather think that his wife has +been brutalized by her first husband than that the process has been +reversed. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +"MR. WAYTHORN, I don't like that French governess of Lily's." +</P> + +<P> +Haskett, subdued and apologetic, stood before Waythorn in the library, +revolving his shabby hat in his hand. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn, surprised in his armchair over the evening paper, stared back +perplexedly at his visitor. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll excuse my asking to see you," Haskett continued. "But this is +my last visit, and I thought if I could have a word with you it would +be a better way than writing to Mrs. Waythorn's lawyer." +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn rose uneasily. He did not like the French governess either; +but that was irrelevant. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not so sure of that," he returned stiffly; "but since you wish it +I will give your message to—my wife." He always hesitated over the +possessive pronoun in addressing Haskett. +</P> + +<P> +The latter sighed. "I don't know as that will help much. She didn't +like it when I spoke to her." +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn turned red. "When did you see her?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not since the first day I came to see Lily—right after she was taken +sick. I remarked to her then that I didn't like the governess." +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn made no answer. He remembered distinctly that, after that +first visit, he had asked his wife if she had seen Haskett. She had +lied to him then, but she had respected his wishes since; and the +incident cast a curious light on her character. He was sure she would +not have seen Haskett that first day if she had divined that Waythorn +would object, and the fact that she did not divine it was almost as +disagreeable to the latter as the discovery that she had lied to him. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't like the woman," Haskett was repeating with mild persistency. +"She ain't straight, Mr. Waythorn—she'll teach the child to be +underhand. I've noticed a change in Lily—she's too anxious to +please—and she don't always tell the truth. She used to be the +straightest child, Mr. Waythorn—" He broke off, his voice a little +thick. "Not but what I want her to have a stylish education," he ended. +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn was touched. "I'm sorry, Mr. Haskett; but frankly, I don't +quite see what I can do." +</P> + +<P> +Haskett hesitated. Then he laid his hat on the table, and advanced to +the hearth-rug, on which Waythorn was standing. There was nothing +aggressive in his manner; but he had the solemnity of a timid man +resolved on a decisive measure. +</P> + +<P> +"There's just one thing you can do, Mr. Waythorn," he said. "You can +remind Mrs. Waythorn that, by the decree of the courts, I am entitled +to have a voice in Lily's bringing up." He paused, and went on more +deprecatingly: "I'm not the kind to talk about enforcing my rights, Mr. +Waythorn. I don't know as I think a man is entitled to rights he hasn't +known how to hold on to; but this business of the child is different. +I've never let go there—and I never mean to." +</P> + +<P> +The scene left Waythorn deeply shaken. Shamefacedly, in indirect ways, +he had been finding out about Haskett; and all that he had learned was +favorable. The little man, in order to be near his daughter, had sold +out his share in a profitable business in Utica, and accepted a modest +clerkship in a New York manufacturing house. He boarded in a shabby +street and had few acquaintances. His passion for Lily filled his life. +Waythorn felt that this exploration of Haskett was like groping about +with a dark-lantern in his wife's past; but he saw now that there were +recesses his lantern had not explored. He had never inquired into the +exact circumstances of his wife's first matrimonial rupture. On the +surface all had been fair. It was she who had obtained the divorce, and +the court had given her the child. But Waythorn knew how many +ambiguities such a verdict might cover. The mere fact that Haskett +retained a right over his daughter implied an unsuspected compromise. +Waythorn was an idealist. He always refused to recognize unpleasant +contingencies till he found himself confronted with them, and then he +saw them followed by a special train of consequences. His next days +were thus haunted, and he determined to try to lay the ghosts by +conjuring them up in his wife's presence. +</P> + +<P> +When he repeated Haskett's request a flame of anger passed over her +face; but she subdued it instantly and spoke with a slight quiver of +outraged motherhood. +</P> + +<P> +"It is very ungentlemanly of him," she said. +</P> + +<P> +The word grated on Waythorn. "That is neither here nor there. It's a +bare question of rights." +</P> + +<P> +She murmured: "It's not as if he could ever be a help to Lily—" +</P> + +<P> +Waythorn flushed. This was even less to his taste. "The question is," +he repeated, "what authority has he over her?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked downward, twisting herself a little in her seat. "I am +willing to see him—I thought you objected," she faltered. +</P> + +<P> +In a flash he understood that she knew the extent of Haskett's claims. +Perhaps it was not the first time she had resisted them. +</P> + +<P> +"My objecting has nothing to do with it," he said coldly; "if Haskett +has a right to be consulted you must consult him." +</P> + +<P> +She burst into tears, and he saw that she expected him to regard her as +a victim. +</P> + +<P> +Haskett did not abuse his rights. Waythorn had felt miserably sure that +he would not. But the governess was dismissed, and from time to time +the little man demanded an interview with Alice. After the first +outburst she accepted the situation with her usual adaptability. +Haskett had once reminded Waythorn of the piano-tuner, and Mrs. +Waythorn, after a month or two, appeared to class him with that +domestic familiar. Waythorn could not but respect the father's +tenacity. At first he had tried to cultivate the suspicion that Haskett +might be "up to" something, that he had an object in securing a +foothold in the house. But in his heart Waythorn was sure of Haskett's +single-mindedness; he even guessed in the latter a mild contempt for +such advantages as his relation with the Waythorns might offer. +Haskett's sincerity of purpose made him invulnerable, and his successor +had to accept him as a lien on the property. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Sellers was sent to Europe to recover from his gout, and Varick's +affairs hung on Waythorn's hands. The negotiations were prolonged and +complicated; they necessitated frequent conferences between the two +men, and the interests of the firm forbade Waythorn's suggesting that +his client should transfer his business to another office. +</P> + +<P> +Varick appeared well in the transaction. In moments of relaxation his +coarse streak appeared, and Waythorn dreaded his geniality; but in the +office he was concise and clear-headed, with a flattering deference to +Waythorn's judgment. Their business relations being so affably +established, it would have been absurd for the two men to ignore each +other in society. The first time they met in a drawing-room, Varick +took up their intercourse in the same easy key, and his hostess's +grateful glance obliged Waythorn to respond to it. After that they ran +across each other frequently, and one evening at a ball Waythorn, +wandering through the remoter rooms, came upon Varick seated beside his +wife. She colored a little, and faltered in what she was saying; but +Varick nodded to Waythorn without rising, and the latter strolled on. +</P> + +<P> +In the carriage, on the way home, he broke out nervously: "I didn't +know you spoke to Varick." +</P> + +<P> +Her voice trembled a little. "It's the first time—he happened to be +standing near me; I didn't know what to do. It's so awkward, meeting +everywhere—and he said you had been very kind about some business." +</P> + +<P> +"That's different," said Waythorn. +</P> + +<P> +She paused a moment. "I'll do just as you wish," she returned pliantly. +"I thought it would be less awkward to speak to him when we meet." +</P> + +<P> +Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him. Had she really no will of her +own—no theory about her relation to these men? She had accepted +Haskett—did she mean to accept Varick? It was "less awkward," as she +had said, and her instinct was to evade difficulties or to circumvent +them. With sudden vividness Waythorn saw how the instinct had +developed. She was "as easy as an old shoe"—a shoe that too many feet +had worn. Her elasticity was the result of tension in too many +different directions. Alice Haskett—Alice Varick—Alice Waythorn—she +had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of +her privacy, a little of her personality, a little of the inmost self +where the unknown god abides. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—it's better to speak to Varick," said Waythorn wearily. +</P> + +<P> +"Earth's Martyrs." By Stephen Phillips. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +THE WINTER wore on, and society took advantage of the Waythorns' +acceptance of Varick. Harassed hostesses were grateful to them for +bridging over a social difficulty, and Mrs. Waythorn was held up as a +miracle of good taste. Some experimental spirits could not resist the +diversion of throwing Varick and his former wife together, and there +were those who thought he found a zest in the propinquity. But Mrs. +Waythorn's conduct remained irreproachable. She neither avoided Varick +nor sought him out. Even Waythorn could not but admit that she had +discovered the solution of the newest social problem. +</P> + +<P> +He had married her without giving much thought to that problem. He had +fancied that a woman can shed her past like a man. But now he saw that +Alice was bound to hers both by the circumstances which forced her into +continued relation with it, and by the traces it had left on her +nature. With grim irony Waythorn compared himself to a member of a +syndicate. He held so many shares in his wife's personality and his +predecessors were his partners in the business. If there had been any +element of passion in the transaction he would have felt less +deteriorated by it. The fact that Alice took her change of husbands +like a change of weather reduced the situation to mediocrity. He could +have forgiven her for blunders, for excesses; for resisting Hackett, +for yielding to Varick; for anything but her acquiescence and her tact. +She reminded him of a juggler tossing knives; but the knives were blunt +and she knew they would never cut her. +</P> + +<P> +And then, gradually, habit formed a protecting surface for his +sensibilities. If he paid for each day's comfort with the small change +of his illusions, he grew daily to value the comfort more and set less +store upon the coin. He had drifted into a dulling propinquity with +Haskett and Varick and he took refuge in the cheap revenge of +satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the advantages +which accrued from it, to ask himself if it were not better to own a +third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy than a whole one who +had lacked opportunity to acquire the art. For it <I>was</I> an art, and +made up, like all others, of concessions, eliminations and +embellishments; of lights judiciously thrown and shadows skillfully +softened. His wife knew exactly how to manage the lights, and he knew +exactly to what training she owed her skill. He even tried to trace the +source of his obligations, to discriminate between the influences which +had combined to produce his domestic happiness: he perceived that +Haskett's commonness had made Alice worship good breeding, while +Varick's liberal construction of the marriage bond had taught her to +value the conjugal virtues; so that he was directly indebted to his +predecessors for the devotion which made his life easy if not inspiring. +</P> + +<P> +From this phase he passed into that of complete acceptance. He ceased +to satirize himself because time dulled the irony of the situation and +the joke lost its humor with its sting. Even the sight of Haskett's hat +on the hall table had ceased to touch the springs of epigram. The hat +was often seen there now, for it had been decided that it was better +for Lily's father to visit her than for the little girl to go to his +boarding-house. Waythorn, having acquiesced in this arrangement, had +been surprised to find how little difference it made. Haskett was never +obtrusive, and the few visitors who met him on the stairs were unaware +of his identity. Waythorn did not know how often he saw Alice, but with +himself Haskett was seldom in contact. +</P> + +<P> +One afternoon, however, he learned on entering that Lily's father was +waiting to see him. In the library he found Haskett occupying a chair +in his usual provisional way. Waythorn always felt grateful to him for +not leaning back. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you'll excuse me, Mr. Waythorn," he said rising. "I wanted to +see Mrs. Waythorn about Lily, and your man asked me to wait here till +she came in." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," said Waythorn, remembering that a sudden leak had that +morning given over the drawing-room to the plumbers. +</P> + +<P> +He opened his cigar-case and held it out to his visitor, and Haskett's +acceptance seemed to mark a fresh stage in their intercourse. The +spring evening was chilly, and Waythorn invited his guest to draw up +his chair to the fire. He meant to find an excuse to leave Haskett in a +moment; but he was tired and cold, and after all the little man no +longer jarred on him. +</P> + +<P> +The two were inclosed in the intimacy of their blended cigar-smoke when +the door opened and Varick walked into the room. Waythorn rose +abruptly. It was the first time that Varick had come to the house, and +the surprise of seeing him, combined with the singular inopportuneness +of his arrival, gave a new edge to Waythorn's blunted sensibilities. He +stared at his visitor without speaking. +</P> + +<P> +Varick seemed too preoccupied to notice his host's embarrassment. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear fellow," he exclaimed in his most expansive tone, "I must +apologize for tumbling in on you in this way, but I was too late to +catch you down town, and so I thought—" He stopped short, catching +sight of Haskett, and his sanguine color deepened to a flush which +spread vividly under his scant blond hair. But in a moment he recovered +himself and nodded slightly. Haskett returned the bow in silence, and +Waythorn was still groping for speech when the footman came in carrying +a tea-table. +</P> + +<P> +The intrusion offered a welcome vent to Waythorn's nerves. "What the +deuce are you bringing this here for?" he said sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"I beg your pardon, sir, but the plumbers are still in the +drawing-room, and Mrs. Waythorn said she would have tea in the +library." The footman's perfectly respectful tone implied a reflection +on Waythorn's reasonableness. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, very well," said the latter resignedly, and the footman proceeded +to open the folding tea-table and set out its complicated appointments. +While this interminable process continued the three men stood +motionless, watching it with a fascinated stare, till Waythorn, to +break the silence, said to Varick: "Won't you have a cigar?" +</P> + +<P> +He held out the case he had just tendered to Haskett, and Varick helped +himself with a smile. Waythorn looked about for a match, and finding +none, proffered a light from his own cigar. Haskett, in the background, +held his ground mildly, examining his cigar-tip now and then, and +stepping forward at the right moment to knock its ashes into the fire. +</P> + +<P> +The footman at last withdrew, and Varick immediately began: "If I could +just say half a word to you about this business—" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly," stammered Waythorn; "in the dining-room—" +</P> + +<P> +But as he placed his hand on the door it opened from without, and his +wife appeared on the threshold. +</P> + +<P> +She came in fresh and smiling, in her street dress and hat, shedding a +fragrance from the boa which she loosened in advancing. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall we have tea in here, dear?" she began; and then she caught sight +of Varick. Her smile deepened, veiling a slight tremor of surprise. +"Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +As she shook hands with Varick she saw Haskett standing behind him. Her +smile faded for a moment, but she recalled it quickly, with a scarcely +perceptible side-glance at Waythorn. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do, Mr. Haskett?" she said, and shook hands with him a +shade less cordially. +</P> + +<P> +The three men stood awkwardly before her, till Varick, always the most +self-possessed, dashed into an explanatory phrase. +</P> + +<P> +"We—I had to see Waythorn a moment on business," he stammered, +brick-red from chin to nape. +</P> + +<P> +Haskett stepped forward with his air of mild obstinacy. "I am sorry to +intrude; but you appointed five o'clock—" he directed his resigned +glance to the time-piece on the mantel. +</P> + +<P> +She swept aside their embarrassment with a charming gesture of +hospitality. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so sorry—I'm always late; but the afternoon was so lovely." She +stood drawing her gloves off, propitiatory and graceful, diffusing +about her a sense of ease and familiarity in which the situation lost +its grotesqueness. "But before talking business," she added brightly, +"I'm sure every one wants a cup of tea." +</P> + +<P> +She dropped into her low chair by the tea-table, and the two visitors, +as if drawn by her smile, advanced to receive the cups she held out. +</P> + +<P> +She glanced about for Waythorn, and he took the third cup with a laugh. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="expiation"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +EXPIATION +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I. +</H4> + +<P> +"I CAN never," said Mrs. Fetherel, "hear the bell ring without a +shudder." +</P> + +<P> +Her unruffled aspect—she was the kind of woman whose emotions never +communicate themselves to her clothes—and the conventional background +of the New York drawing-room, with its pervading implication of an +imminent tea-tray and of an atmosphere in which the social functions +have become purely reflex, lent to her declaration a relief not lost on +her cousin Mrs. Clinch, who, from the other side of the fireplace, +agreed with a glance at the clock, that it <I>was</I> the hour for bores. +</P> + +<P> +"Bores!" cried Mrs. Fetherel impatiently. "If I shuddered at <I>them</I>, I +should have a chronic ague!" +</P> + +<P> +She leaned forward and laid a sparkling finger on her cousin's shabby +black knee. "I mean the newspaper clippings," she whispered. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch returned a glance of intelligence. "They've begun already?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet; but they're sure to now, at any minute, my publisher tells +me." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel's look of apprehension sat oddly on her small features, +which had an air of neat symmetry somehow suggestive of being set in +order every morning by the housemaid. Some one (there were rumors that +it was her cousin) had once said that Paula Fetherel would have been +very pretty if she hadn't looked so like a moral axiom in a copy-book +hand. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch received her confidence with a smile. "Well," she said, "I +suppose you were prepared for the consequences of authorship?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel blushed brightly. "It isn't their coming," she +owned—"it's their coming <I>now</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Now?" +</P> + +<P> +"The Bishop's in town." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch leaned back and shaped her lips to a whistle which +deflected in a laugh. "Well!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"You see!" Mrs. Fetherel triumphed. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—weren't you prepared for the Bishop?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not now—at least, I hadn't thought of his seeing the clippings." +</P> + +<P> +"And why should he see them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bella—<I>won't</I> you understand? It's John." +</P> + +<P> +"John?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who has taken the most unexpected tone—one might almost say out of +perversity." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, perversity—" Mrs. Clinch murmured, observing her cousin between +lids wrinkled by amusement. "What tone has John taken?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel threw out her answer with the desperate gesture of a +woman who lays bare the traces of a marital fist. "The tone of being +proud of my book." +</P> + +<P> +The measure of Mrs. Clinch's enjoyment overflowed in laughter. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you may laugh," Mrs. Fetherel insisted, "but it's no joke to me. +In the first place, John's liking the book is so—so—such a false +note—it puts me in such a ridiculous position; and then it has set him +watching for the reviews—who would ever have suspected John of knowing +that books were <I>reviewed?</I> Why, he's actually found out about the +Clipping Bureau, and whenever the postman rings I hear John rush out of +the library to see if there are any yellow envelopes. Of course, when +they <I>do</I> come he'll bring them into the drawing-room and read them +aloud to everybody who happens to be here—and the Bishop is sure to +happen to be here!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch repressed her amusement. "The picture you draw is a lurid +one," she conceded, "but your modesty strikes me as abnormal, +especially in an author. The chances are that some of the clippings +will be rather pleasant reading. The critics are not all union men." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel stared. "Union men?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I mean they don't all belong to the well-known +Society-for-the-Persecution-of-Rising-Authors. Some of them have even +been known to defy its regulations and say a good word for a new +writer." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I dare say," said Mrs. Fetherel, with the laugh her cousin's +epigram exacted. "But you don't quite see my point. I'm not at all +nervous about the success of my book—my publisher tells me I have no +need to be—but I <I>am</I> afraid of its being a succes de scandale." +</P> + +<P> +"Mercy!" said Mrs. Clinch, sitting up. +</P> + +<P> +The butler and footman at this moment appeared with the tea-tray, and +when they had withdrawn, Mrs. Fetherel, bending her brightly rippled +head above the kettle, continued in a murmur of avowal, "The title, +even, is a kind of challenge." +</P> + +<P> +"'Fast and Loose,'" Mrs. Clinch mused. "Yes, it ought to take." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't choose it for that reason!" the author protested. "I should +have preferred something quieter—less pronounced; but I was determined +not to shirk the responsibility of what I had written. I want people to +know beforehand exactly what kind of book they are buying." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Mrs. Clinch, "that's a degree of conscientiousness that +I've never met with before. So few books fulfil the promise of their +titles that experienced readers never expect the fare to come up to the +menu." +</P> + +<P> +"'Fast and Loose' will be no disappointment on that score," her cousin +significantly returned. "I've handled the subject without gloves. I've +called a spade a spade." +</P> + +<P> +"You simply make my mouth water! And to think I haven't been able to +read it yet because every spare minute of my time has been given to +correcting the proofs of 'How the Birds Keep Christmas'! There's an +instance of the hardships of an author's life!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel's eye clouded. "Don't joke, Bella, please. I suppose to +experienced authors there's always something absurd in the nervousness +of a new writer, but in my case so much is at stake; I've put so much +of myself into this book and I'm so afraid of being misunderstood...of +being, as it were, in advance of my time... like poor Flaubert....I +<I>know</I> you'll think me ridiculous... and if only my own reputation were +at stake, I should never give it a thought...but the idea of dragging +John's name through the mire..." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch, who had risen and gathered her cloak about her, stood +surveying from her genial height her cousin's agitated countenance. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you use John's name, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's another of my difficulties! I <I>had</I> to. There would have been +no merit in publishing such a book under an assumed name; it would have +been an act of moral cowardice. 'Fast and Loose' is not an ordinary +novel. A writer who dares to show up the hollowness of social +conventions must have the courage of her convictions and be willing to +accept the consequences of defying society. Can you imagine Ibsen or +Tolstoy writing under a false name?" Mrs. Fetherel lifted a tragic eye +to her cousin. "You don't know, Bella, how often I've envied you since +I began to write. I used to wonder sometimes—you won't mind my saying +so?—why, with all your cleverness, you hadn't taken up some more +exciting subject than natural history; but I see now how wise you were. +Whatever happens, you will never be denounced by the press!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is that what you're afraid of?" asked Mrs. Clinch, as she grasped the +bulging umbrella which rested against her chair. "My dear, if I had +ever had the good luck to be denounced by the press, my brougham would +be waiting at the door for me at this very moment, and I shouldn't have +to ruin this umbrella by using it in the rain. Why, you innocent, if +I'd ever felt the slightest aptitude for showing up social conventions, +do you suppose I should waste my time writing 'Nests Ajar' and 'How to +Smell the Flowers'? There's a fairly steady demand for pseudo-science +and colloquial ornithology, but it's nothing, simply nothing, to the +ravenous call for attacks on social institutions—especially by those +inside the institutions!" +</P> + +<P> +There was often, to her cousin, a lack of taste in Mrs. Clinch's +pleasantries, and on this occasion they seemed more than usually +irrelevant. +</P> + +<P> +"'Fast and Loose' was not written with the idea of a large sale." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch was unperturbed. "Perhaps that's just as well," she +returned, with a philosophic shrug. "The surprise will be all the +pleasanter, I mean. For of course it's going to sell tremendously; +especially if you can get the press to denounce it." +</P> + +<P> +"Bella, how <I>can</I> you? I sometimes think you say such things expressly +to tease me; and yet I should think you of all women would understand +my purpose in writing such a book. It has always seemed to me that the +message I had to deliver was not for myself alone, but for all the +other women in the world who have felt the hollowness of our social +shams, the ignominy of bowing down to the idols of the market, but have +lacked either the courage or the power to proclaim their independence; +and I have fancied, Bella dear, that, however severely society might +punish me for revealing its weaknesses, I could count on the sympathy +of those who, like you"—Mrs. Fetherel's voice sank—"have passed +through the deep waters." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch gave herself a kind of canine shake, as though to free her +ample shoulders from any drop of the element she was supposed to have +traversed. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, call them muddy rather than deep," she returned; "and you'll find, +my dear, that women who've had any wading to do are rather shy of +stirring up mud. It sticks—especially on white clothes." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel lifted an undaunted brow. "I'm not afraid," she +proclaimed; and at the same instant she dropped her tea-spoon with a +clatter and shrank back into her seat. "There's the bell," she +exclaimed, "and I know it's the Bishop!" +</P> + +<P> +It was in fact the Bishop of Ossining, who, impressively announced by +Mrs. Fetherel's butler, now made an entry that may best be described as +not inadequate to the expectations the announcement raised. The Bishop +always entered a room well; but, when unannounced, or preceded by a Low +Church butler who gave him his surname, his appearance lacked the +impressiveness conferred on it by the due specification of his diocesan +dignity. The Bishop was very fond of his niece Mrs. Fetherel, and one +of the traits he most valued in her was the possession of a butler who +knew how to announce a bishop. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch was also his niece; but, aside from the fact that she +possessed no butler at all, she had laid herself open to her uncle's +criticism by writing insignificant little books which had a way of +going into five or ten editions, while the fruits of his own episcopal +leisure—"The Wail of Jonah" (twenty cantos in blank verse), and +"Through a Glass Brightly; or, How to Raise Funds fora Memorial +Window"—inexplicably languished on the back shelves of a publisher +noted for his dexterity in pushing "devotional goods." Even this +indiscretion the Bishop might, however, have condoned, had his niece +thought fit to turn to him for support and advice at the painful +juncture of her history when, in her own words, it became necessary for +her to invite Mr. Clinch to look out for another situation. Mr. +Clinch's misconduct was of the kind especially designed by Providence +to test the fortitude of a Christian wife and mother, and the Bishop +was absolutely distended with seasonable advice and edification; so +that when Bella met his tentative exhortations with the curt remark +that she preferred to do her own housecleaning unassisted, her uncle's +grief at her ingratitude was not untempered with sympathy for Mr. +Clinch. +</P> + +<P> +It is not surprising, therefore, that the Bishop's warmest greetings +were always reserved for Mrs. Fetherel; and on this occasion Mrs. +Clinch thought she detected, in the salutation which fell to her share, +a pronounced suggestion that her own presence was superfluous—a hint +which she took with her usual imperturbable good humor. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +Left alone with the Bishop, Mrs. Fetherel sought the nearest refuge +from conversation by offering him a cup of tea. The Bishop accepted +with the preoccupied air of a man to whom, for the moment, tea is but a +subordinate incident. Mrs. Fetherel's nervousness increased; and +knowing that the surest way of distracting attention from one's own +affairs is to affect an interest in those of one's companion, she +hastily asked if her uncle had come to town on business. +</P> + +<P> +"On business—yes—" said the Bishop in an impressive tone. "I had to +see my publisher, who has been behaving rather unsatisfactorily in +regard to my last book." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—your last book?" faltered Mrs. Fetherel, with a sickening sense of +her inability to recall the name or nature of the work in question, and +a mental vow never again to be caught in such ignorance of a +colleague's productions. +</P> + +<P> +"'Through a Glass Brightly,'" the Bishop explained, with an emphasis +which revealed his detection of her predicament. "You may remember that +I sent you a copy last Christmas?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I do!" Mrs. Fetherel brightened. "It was that delightful +story of the poor consumptive girl who had no money, and two little +brothers to support—" +</P> + +<P> +"Sisters—idiot sisters—" the Bishop gloomily corrected. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean sisters; and who managed to collect money enough to put up a +beautiful memorial window to her—her grandfather, whom she had never +seen—" +</P> + +<P> +"But whose sermons had been her chief consolation and support during +her long struggle with poverty and disease." The Bishop gave the +satisfied sigh of the workman who reviews his completed task. "A +touching subject, surely; and I believe I did it justice; at least, so +my friends assured me." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes—I remember there was a splendid review of it in the +'Reredos'!" cried Mrs. Fetherel, moved by the incipient instinct of +reciprocity. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—by my dear friend Mrs. Gollinger, whose husband, the late Dean +Gollinger, was under very particular obligations to me. Mrs. Gollinger +is a woman of rare literary acumen, and her praise of my book was +unqualified; but the public wants more highly seasoned fare, and the +approval of a thoughtful churchwoman carries less weight than the +sensational comments of an illiterate journalist." The Bishop lent a +meditative eye on his spotless gaiters. "At the risk of horrifying you, +my dear," he added, with a slight laugh, "I will confide to you that my +best chance of a popular success would be to have my book denounced by +the press." +</P> + +<P> +"Denounced?" gasped Mrs. Fetherel. "On what ground?" +</P> + +<P> +"On the ground of immorality." The Bishop evaded her startled gaze. +"Such a thing is inconceivable to you, of course; but I am only +repeating what my publisher tells me. If, for instance, a critic could +be induced—I mean, if a critic were to be found, who called in +question the morality of my heroine in sacrificing her own health and +that of her idiot sisters in order to put up a memorial window to her +grandfather, it would probably raise a general controversy in the +newspapers, and I might count on a sale of ten or fifteen thousand +within the next year. If he described her as morbid or decadent, it +might even run to twenty thousand; but that is more than I permit +myself to hope. In fact, I should be satisfied with any general charge +of immorality." The Bishop sighed again. "I need hardly tell you that I +am actuated by no mere literary ambition. Those whose opinion I most +value have assured me that the book is not without merit; but, though +it does not become me to dispute their verdict, I can truly say that my +vanity as an author is not at stake. I have, however, a special reason +for wishing to increase the circulation of 'Through a Glass Brightly'; +it was written for a purpose—a purpose I have greatly at heart—" +</P> + +<P> +"I know," cried his niece sympathetically. "The chantry window—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Is still empty, alas! and I had great hopes that, under Providence, my +little book might be the means of filling it. All our wealthy +parishioners have given lavishly to the cathedral, and it was for this +reason that, in writing 'Through a Glass,' I addressed my appeal more +especially to the less well-endowed, hoping by the example of my +heroine to stimulate the collection of small sums throughout the entire +diocese, and perhaps beyond it. I am sure," the Bishop feelingly +concluded, "the book would have a wide-spread influence if people could +only be induced to read it!" +</P> + +<P> +His conclusion touched a fresh thread of association in Mrs. Fetherel's +vibrating nerve-centers. "I never thought of that!" she cried. +</P> + +<P> +The Bishop looked at her inquiringly. +</P> + +<P> +"That one's books may not be read at all! How dreadful!" she exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +He smiled faintly. "I had not forgotten that I was addressing an +authoress," he said. "Indeed, I should not have dared to inflict my +troubles on any one not of the craft." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel was quivering with the consciousness of her involuntary +self-betrayal. "Oh, uncle!" she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +"In fact," the Bishop continued, with a gesture which seemed to brush +away her scruples, "I came here partly to speak to you about your +novel. 'Fast and Loose,' I think you call it?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel blushed assentingly. +</P> + +<P> +"And is it out yet?" the Bishop continued. +</P> + +<P> +"It came out about a week ago. But you haven't touched your tea, and it +must be quite cold. Let me give you another cup..." +</P> + +<P> +"My reason for asking," the Bishop went on, with the bland +inexorableness with which, in his younger days, he had been known to +continue a sermon after the senior warden had looked four times at his +watch—"my reason for asking is, that I hoped I might not be too late +to induce you to change the title." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel set down the cup she had filled. "The title?" she +faltered. +</P> + +<P> +The Bishop raised a reassuring hand. "Don't misunderstand me, dear +child; don't for a moment imagine that I take it to be in anyway +indicative of the contents of the book. I know you too well for that. +My first idea was that it had probably been forced on you by an +unscrupulous publisher—I know too well to what ignoble compromises one +may be driven in such cases!..." He paused, as though to give her the +opportunity of confirming this conjecture, but she preserved an +apprehensive silence, and he went on, as though taking up the second +point in his sermon—"Or, again, the name may have taken your fancy +without your realizing all that it implies to minds more alive than +yours to offensive innuendoes. It is—ahem—excessively suggestive, and +I hope I am not too late to warn you of the false impression it is +likely to produce on the very readers whose approbation you would most +value. My friend Mrs. Gollinger, for instance—" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel, as the publication of her novel testified, was in theory +a woman of independent views; and if in practise she sometimes failed +to live up to her standard, it was rather from an irresistible tendency +to adapt herself to her environment than from any conscious lack of +moral courage. The Bishop's exordium had excited in her that sense of +opposition which such admonitions are apt to provoke; but as he went on +she felt herself gradually enclosed in an atmosphere in which her +theories vainly gasped for breath. The Bishop had the immense +dialectical advantage of invalidating any conclusions at variance with +his own by always assuming that his premises were among the necessary +laws of thought. This method, combined with the habit of ignoring any +classifications but his own, created an element in which the first +condition of existence was the immediate adoption of his standpoint; so +that his niece, as she listened, seemed to feel Mrs. Gollinger's +Mechlin cap spreading its conventual shadow over her rebellious brow +and the "Revue de Paris" at her elbow turning into a copy of the +"Reredos." She had meant to assure her uncle that she was quite aware +of the significance of the title she had chosen, that it had been +deliberately selected as indicating the subject of her novel, and that +the book itself had been written indirect defiance of the class of +readers for whose susceptibilities she was alarmed. The words were +almost on her lips when the irresistible suggestion conveyed by the +Bishop's tone and language deflected them into the apologetic murmur, +"Oh, uncle, you mustn't think—I never meant—" How much farther this +current of reaction might have carried her, the historian is unable to +computer, for at this point the door opened and her husband entered the +room. +</P> + +<P> +"The first review of your book!" he cried, flourishing a yellow +envelope. "My dear Bishop, how lucky you're here!" +</P> + +<P> +Though the trials of married life have been classified and catalogued +with exhaustive accuracy, there is one form of conjugal misery which +has perhaps received inadequate attention; and that is the suffering of +the versatile woman whose husband is not equally adapted to all her +moods. Every woman feels for the sister who is compelled to wear a +bonnet which does not "go" with her gown; but how much sympathy is +given to her whose husband refuses to harmonize with the pose of the +moment? Scant justice has, for instance, been done to the misunderstood +wife whose husband persists in understanding her; to the submissive +helpmate whose taskmaster shuns every opportunity of browbeating her; +and to the generous and impulsive being whose bills are paid with +philosophic calm. Mrs. Fetherel, as wives go, had been fairly exempt +from trials of this nature, for her husband, if undistinguished by +pronounced brutality or indifference, had at least the negative merit +of being her intellectual inferior. Landscape gardeners, who are aware +of the usefulness of a valley in emphasizing the height of a hill, can +form an idea of the account to which an accomplished woman may turn +such deficiencies; and it need scarcely be said that Mrs. Fetherel had +made the most of her opportunities. It was agreeably obvious to every +one, Fetherel included, that he was not the man to appreciate such a +woman; but there are no limits to man's perversity, and he did his best +to invalidate this advantage by admiring her without pretending to +understand her. What she most suffered from was this fatuous approval: +the maddening sense that, however she conducted herself, he would +always admire her. Had he belonged to the class whose conversational +supplies are drawn from the domestic circle, his wife's name would +never have been off his lips; and to Mrs. Fetherel's sensitive +perceptions his frequent silences were indicative of the fact that she +was his one topic. +</P> + +<P> +It was, in part, the attempt to escape this persistent approbation that +had driven Mrs. Fetherel to authorship. She had fancied that even the +most infatuated husband might be counted onto resent, at least +negatively, an attack on the sanctity of the hearth; and her +anticipations were heightened by a sense of the unpardonableness of her +act. Mrs. Fetherel's relations with her husband were in fact +complicated by an irrepressible tendency to be fond of him; and there +was a certain pleasure in the prospect of a situation that justified +the most explicit expiation. +</P> + +<P> +These hopes Fetherel's attitude had already defeated. He read the book +with enthusiasm, he pressed it on his friends, he sent a copy to his +mother; and his very soul now hung on the verdict of the reviewers. It +was perhaps this proof of his general ineptitude that made his wife +doubly alive to his special defects; so that his inopportune entrance +was aggravated by the very sound of his voice and the hopeless +aberration of his smile. Nothing, to the observant, is more indicative +of a man's character and circumstances than his way of entering a room. +The Bishop of Ossining, for instance, brought with him not only an +atmosphere of episcopal authority, but an implied opinion on the verbal +inspiration of the Scriptures, and on the attitude of the church toward +divorce; while the appearance of Mrs. Fetherel's husband produced an +immediate impression of domestic felicity. His mere aspect implied that +there was a well-filled nursery upstairs; that this wife, if she did +not sew on his buttons, at least superintended the performance of that +task; that they both went to church regularly, and that they dined with +his mother every Sunday evening punctually at seven o'clock. +</P> + +<P> +All this and more was expressed in the affectionate gesture with which +he now raised the yellow envelope above Mrs. Fetherel's clutch; and +knowing the uselessness of begging him not to be silly, she said, with +a dry despair, "You're boring the Bishop horribly." +</P> + +<P> +Fetherel turned a radiant eye on that dignitary. "She bores us all +horribly, doesn't she, sir?" he exulted. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you read it?" said his wife, uncontrollably. +</P> + +<P> +"Read it? Of course not—it's just this minute come. I say, Bishop, +you're not going—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not till I've heard this," said the Bishop, settling himself in his +chair with an indulgent smile. +</P> + +<P> +His niece glanced at him despairingly. "Don't let John's nonsense +detain you," she entreated. +</P> + +<P> +"Detain him? That's good," guffawed Fetherel. "It isn't as long as one +of his sermons—won't take me five minutes to read. Here, listen to +this, ladies and gentlemen: 'In this age of festering pessimism and +decadent depravity, it is no surprise to the nauseated reviewer to open +one more volume saturated with the fetid emanations of the sewer—'" +</P> + +<P> +Fetherel, who was not in the habit of reading aloud, paused with a +gasp, and the Bishop glanced sharply at his niece, who kept her gaze +fixed on the tea-cup she had not yet succeeded in transferring to his +hand.—"'Of the sewer,'" her husband resumed; "'but his wonder is +proportionately great when he lights on a novel as sweetly inoffensive +as Paula Fetherel's "Fast and Loose." Mrs. Fetherel is, we believe, a +new hand at fiction, and her work reveals frequent traces of +inexperience; but these are more than atoned for by her pure, fresh +view of life and her altogether unfashionable regard for the reader's +moral susceptibilities. Let no one be induced by its distinctly +misleading title to forego the enjoyment of this pleasant picture of +domestic life, which, in spite of a total lack of force in +character-drawing and of consecutiveness in incident, may be described +as a distinctly pretty story.'" +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +It was several weeks later that Mrs. Clinch once more brought the +plebeian aroma of heated tram-cars and muddy street-crossings into the +violet-scented atmosphere of her cousin's drawing-room. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she said, tossing a damp bundle of proof into the corner of a +silk-cushioned bergere, "I've read it at last and I'm not so awfully +shocked!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel, who sat near the fire with her head propped on a languid +hand, looked up without speaking. +</P> + +<P> +"Mercy, Paula," said her visitor, "you're ill." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel shook her head. "I was never better," she said, +mournfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Then may I help myself to tea? Thanks." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch carefully removed her mended glove before taking a buttered +tea-cake; then she glanced again at her cousin. +</P> + +<P> +"It's not what I said just now—?" she ventured. +</P> + +<P> +"Just now?" +</P> + +<P> +"About 'Fast and Loose'? I came to talk it over." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel sprang to her feet. "I never," she cried dramatically, +"want to hear it mentioned again!" +</P> + +<P> +"Paula!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, setting down her cup. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel slowly turned on her an eye brimming with the +incommunicable; then, dropping into her seat again, she added, with a +tragic laugh, "There's nothing left to say." +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing—?" faltered Mrs. Clinch, longing for another tea-cake, but +feeling the inappropriateness of the impulse in an atmosphere so +charged with the portentous. "Do you mean that everything <I>has</I> been +said?" She looked tentatively at her cousin. "Haven't they been nice?" +</P> + +<P> +"They've been odious—odious—" Mrs. Fetherel burst out, with an +ineffectual clutch at her handkerchief. "It's been perfectly +intolerable!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch, philosophically resigning herself to the propriety of +taking no more tea, crossed over to her cousin and laid a sympathizing +hand on that lady's agitated shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"It <I>is</I> a bore at first," she conceded; "but you'll be surprised to +see how soon one gets used to it." +</P> + +<P> +"I shall—never—get—used to it—" Mrs. Fetherel brokenly declared. +</P> + +<P> +"Have they been so very nasty—all of them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Every one of them!" the novelist sobbed. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so sorry, dear; it <I>does</I> hurt, I know—but hadn't you rather +expected it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Expected it?" cried Mrs. Fetherel, sitting up. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch felt her way warily. "I only mean, dear, that I fancied +from what you said before the book came out—that you rather +expected—that you'd rather discounted—" +</P> + +<P> +"Their recommending it to everybody as a perfectly harmless story?" +</P> + +<P> +"Good gracious! Is <I>that</I> what they've done?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel speechlessly nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"Every one of them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Every one—" +</P> + +<P> +"Whew!" said Mrs. Clinch, with an incipient whistle. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, you've just said it yourself!" her cousin suddenly reproached her. +</P> + +<P> +"Said what?" +</P> + +<P> +"That you weren't so <I>awfully</I> shocked—" +</P> + +<P> +"I? Oh, well—you see, you'd keyed me up to such a pitch that it wasn't +quite as bad as I expected—" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel lifted a smile steeled for the worst. "Why not say at +once," she suggested, "that it's a distinctly pretty story?" +</P> + +<P> +"They haven't said <I>that?</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"They've all said it." +</P> + +<P> +"My poor Paula!" +</P> + +<P> +"Even the Bishop—" +</P> + +<P> +"The Bishop called it a pretty story?" +</P> + +<P> +"He wrote me—I've his letter somewhere. The title rather scared +him—he wanted me to change it; but when he'd read the book he wrote +that it was all right and that he'd sent several copies to his friends." +</P> + +<P> +"The old hypocrite!" cried Mrs. Clinch. "That was nothing but +professional jealousy." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think so?" cried her cousin, brightening. +</P> + +<P> +"Sure of it, my dear. His own books don't sell, and he knew the +quickest way to kill yours was to distribute it through the diocese +with his blessing." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you don't really think it's a pretty story?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me, no! Not nearly as bad as that—" +</P> + +<P> +"You're so good, Bella—but the reviewers?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, the reviewers," Mrs. Clinch jeered. She gazed meditatively at the +cold remains of her tea-cake. "Let me see," she said, suddenly; "do you +happen to remember if the first review came out in an important paper?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—the 'Radiator.'" +</P> + +<P> +"That's it! I thought so. Then the others simply followed suit: they +often do if a big paper sets the pace. Saves a lot of trouble. Now if +you could only have got the 'Radiator' to denounce you—" +</P> + +<P> +"That's what the Bishop said!" cried Mrs. Fetherel. +</P> + +<P> +"He did?" +</P> + +<P> +"He said his only chance of selling 'Through a Glass Brightly' was to +have it denounced on the ground of immorality." +</P> + +<P> +"H'm," said Mrs. Clinch. "I thought he knew a trick or two." She turned +an illuminated eye on her cousin. "You ought to get <I>him</I> to denounce +'Fast and Loose'!" she cried. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel looked at her suspiciously. "I suppose every book must +stand or fall on its own merits," she said in an unconvinced tone. +</P> + +<P> +"Bosh! That view is as extinct as the post-chaise and the +packet-ship—it belongs to the time when people read books. Nobody does +that now; the reviewer was the first to set the example, and the public +were only too thankful to follow it. At first they read the reviews; +now they read only the publishers' extracts from them. Even these are +rapidly being replaced by paragraphs borrowed from the vocabulary of +commerce. I often have to look twice before I am sure if I am reading a +department-store advertisement or the announcement of a new batch of +literature. The publishers will soon be having their 'fall and spring +openings' and their 'special importations for Horse-Show Week.' But the +Bishop is right, of course—nothing helps a book like a rousing attack +on its morals; and as the publishers can't exactly proclaim the +impropriety of their own wares, the task has to be left to the press or +the pulpit." +</P> + +<P> +"The pulpit—?" Mrs. Fetherel mused. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes—look at those two novels in England last year—" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel shook her head hopelessly. "There is so much more +interest in literature in England than here." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we've got to make the supply create the demand. The Bishop could +run your novel up into the hundred thousands in no time." +</P> + +<P> +"But if he can't make his own sell—?" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, a man can't very well preach against his own writings!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Clinch rose and picked up her proofs. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm awfully sorry for you, Paula dear," she concluded, "but I can't +help being thankful that there's no demand for pessimism in the field +of natural history. Fancy having to write 'The Fall of a Sparrow,' or +'How the Plants Misbehave!'" +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel, driving up to the Grand Central Station one morning +about five months later, caught sight of the distinguished novelist, +Archer Hynes, hurrying into the waiting-room ahead of her. Hynes, on +his side, recognizing her brougham, turned back to greet her as the +footman opened the carriage-door. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear colleague! Is it possible that we are traveling together?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel blushed with pleasure. Hynes had given her two columns of +praise in the Sunday "Meteor," and she had not yet learned to disguise +her gratitude. +</P> + +<P> +"I am going to Ossining," she said, smilingly. +</P> + +<P> +"So am I. Why, this is almost as good as an elopement." +</P> + +<P> +"And it will end where elopements ought to—in church." +</P> + +<P> +"In church? You're not going to Ossining to go to church?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why not? There's a special ceremony in the cathedral—the chantry +window is to be unveiled." +</P> + +<P> +"The chantry window? How picturesque! What <I>is</I> a chantry? And why do +you want to see it unveiled? Are you after copy—doing something in the +Huysmans manner? 'La Cathedrale,' eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no." Mrs. Fetherel hesitated. "I'm going simply to please my +uncle," she said, at last. +</P> + +<P> +"Your uncle?" +</P> + +<P> +"The Bishop, you know." She smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"The Bishop—the Bishop of Ossining? Why, wasn't he the chap who made +that ridiculous attack on your book? Is that prehistoric ass your +uncle? Upon my soul, I think you're mighty forgiving to travel all the +way to Ossining for one of his stained-glass sociables!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel's smile flowed into a gentle laugh. "Oh, I've never +allowed that to interfere with our friendship. My uncle felt dreadfully +about having to speak publicly against my book—it was a great deal +harder for him than for me—but he thought it his duty to do so. He has +the very highest sense of duty." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Hynes, with a shrug, "I don't know that he didn't do you a +good turn. Look at that!" +</P> + +<P> +They were standing near the book-stall, and he pointed to a placard +surmounting the counter and emblazoned with the conspicuous +announcement: "Fast and Loose. New Edition with Author's Portrait. +Hundred and Fiftieth Thousand." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel frowned impatiently. "How absurd! They've no right to use +my picture as a poster!" +</P> + +<P> +"There's our train," said Hynes; and they began to push their way +through the crowd surging toward one of the inner doors. +</P> + +<P> +As they stood wedged between circumferent shoulders, Mrs. Fetherel +became conscious of the fixed stare of a pretty girl who whispered +eagerly to her companion: "Look Myrtle! That's Paula Fetherel right +behind us—I knew her in a minute!" +</P> + +<P> +"Gracious—where?" cried the other girl, giving her head a twist which +swept her Gainsborough plumes across Mrs. Fetherel's face. +</P> + +<P> +The first speaker's words had carried beyond her companion's ear, and a +lemon-colored woman in spectacles, who clutched a copy of the "Journal +of Psychology" on one drab-cotton-gloved hand, stretched her disengaged +hand across the intervening barrier of humanity. +</P> + +<P> +"Have I the privilege of addressing the distinguished author of 'Fast +and Loose'? If so, let me thank you in the name of the Woman's +Psychological League of Peoria for your magnificent courage in raising +the standard of revolt against—" +</P> + +<P> +"You can tell us the rest in the car," said a fat man, pressing his +good-humored bulk against the speaker's arm. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel, blushing, embarrassed and happy, slipped into the space +produced by this displacement, and a few moments later had taken her +seat in the train. +</P> + +<P> +She was a little late, and the other chairs were already filled by a +company of elderly ladies and clergymen who seemed to belong to the +same party, and were still busy exchanging greetings and settling +themselves in their places. +</P> + +<P> +One of the ladies, at Mrs. Fetherel's approach, uttered an exclamation +of pleasure and advanced with outstretched hand. "My dear Mrs. +Fetherel! I am so delighted to see you here. May I hope you are going +to the unveiling of the chantry window? The dear Bishop so hoped that +you would do so! But perhaps I ought to introduce myself. I am Mrs. +Gollinger"—she lowered her voice expressively—"one of your uncle's +oldest friends, one who has stood close to him through all this sad +business, and who knows what he suffered when he felt obliged to +sacrifice family affection to the call of duty." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel, who had smiled and colored slightly at the beginning of +this speech, received its close with a deprecating gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, pray don't mention it," she murmured. "I quite understood how my +uncle was placed—I bore him no ill will for feeling obliged to preach +against my book." +</P> + +<P> +"He understood that, and was so touched by it! He has often told me +that it was the hardest task he was ever called upon to perform—and, +do you know, he quite feels that this unexpected gift of the chantry +window is in some way a return for his courage in preaching that +sermon." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel smiled faintly. "Does he feel that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; he really does. When the funds for the window were so +mysteriously placed at his disposal, just as he had begun to despair of +raising them, he assured me that he could not help connecting the fact +with his denunciation of your book." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear uncle!" sighed Mrs. Fetherel. "Did he say that?" +</P> + +<P> +"And now," continued Mrs. Gollinger, with cumulative rapture—"now that +you are about to show, by appearing at the ceremony to-day, that there +has been no break in your friendly relations, the dear Bishop's +happiness will be complete. He was so longing to have you come to the +unveiling!" +</P> + +<P> +"He might have counted on me," said Mrs. Fetherel, still smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, that is so beautifully forgiving of you!" cried Mrs. Gollinger, +enthusiastically. "But then, the Bishop has always assured me that your +real nature was very different from that which—if you will pardon my +saying so—seems to be revealed by your brilliant but—er—rather +subversive book. 'If you only knew my niece, dear Mrs. Gollinger,' he +always said, 'you would see that her novel was written in all innocence +of heart;' and to tell you the truth, when I first read the book I +didn't think it so very, <I>very</I> shocking. It wasn't till the dear +Bishop had explained tome—but, dear me, I mustn't take up your time in +this way when so many others are anxious to have a word with you." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel glanced at her in surprise, and Mrs. Gollinger continued, +with a playful smile: "You forget that your face is familiar to +thousands whom you have never seen. We all recognized you the moment +you entered the train, and my friends here are so eager to make your +acquaintance—even those"—her smile deepened—"who thought the dear +Bishop not <I>quite unjustified</I> in his attack on your remarkable novel." +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +A religious light filled the chantry of Ossining Cathedral, filtering +through the linen curtain which veiled the central window, and mingling +with the blaze of tapers on the richly adorned altar. +</P> + +<P> +In this devout atmosphere, agreeably laden with the incense-like aroma +of Easter lilies and forced lilacs, Mrs. Fetherel knelt with a sense of +luxurious satisfaction. Beside her sat Archer Hynes, who had remembered +that there was to be a church scene in his next novel, and that his +impressions of the devotional environment needed refreshing. Mrs. +Fetherel was very happy. She was conscious that her entrance had sent a +thrill through the female devotees who packed the chantry, and she had +humor enough to enjoy the thought that, but for the good Bishop's +denunciation of her book, the heads of his flock would not have been +turned so eagerly in her direction. Moreover, as she had entered she +had caught sight of a society reporter, and she knew that her presence, +and the fact that she was accompanied by Hynes, would be conspicuously +proclaimed in the morning papers. All these evidences of the success of +her handiwork might have turned a calmer head than Mrs. Fetherel's; and +though she had now learned to dissemble her gratification, it still +filled her inwardly with a delightful glow. +</P> + +<P> +The Bishop was somewhat late in appearing, and she employed the +interval in meditating on the plot of her next novel, which was already +partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to find a +satisfactory denouement. By a not uncommon process of ratiocination, +Mrs. Fetherel's success had convinced her of her vocation. She was sure +now that it was her duty to lay bare the secret plague-spots of +society, and she was resolved that there should be no doubt as to the +purpose of her new book. Experience had shown her that where she had +fancied she was calling a spade a spade she had in fact been alluding +in guarded terms to the drawing-room shovel. She was determined not to +repeat the same mistake, and she flattered herself that her coming +novel would not need an episcopal denunciation to insure its sale, +however likely it was to receive this crowning evidence of success. +</P> + +<P> +She had reached this point in her meditations when the choir burst into +song and the ceremony of the unveiling began. The Bishop, almost always +felicitous in his addresses to the fair sex, was never more so than +when he was celebrating the triumph of one of his cherished purposes. +There was a peculiar mixture of Christian humility and episcopal +exultation in the manner with which he called attention to the +Creator's promptness in responding to his demand for funds, and he had +never been more happily inspired than in eulogizing the mysterious gift +of the chantry window. +</P> + +<P> +Though no hint of the donor's identity had been allowed to escape him, +it was generally understood that the Bishop knew who had given the +window, and the congregation awaited in a flutter of suspense the +possible announcement of a name. None came, however, though the Bishop +deliciously titillated the curiosity of his flock by circling ever +closer about the interesting secret. He would not disguise from them, +he said, that the heart which had divined his inmost wish had been a +woman's—is it not to woman's intuitions that more than half the +happiness of earth is owing? What man is obliged to learn by the +laborious process of experience, woman's wondrous instinct tells her at +a glance; and so it had been with this cherished scheme, this +unhoped-for completion of their beautiful chantry. So much, at least, +he was allowed to reveal; and indeed, had he not done so, the window +itself would have spoken for him, since the first glance at its +touching subject and exquisite design would show it to have originated +in a woman's heart. This tribute to the sex was received with an +audible sigh of contentment, and the Bishop, always stimulated by such +evidence of his sway over his hearers, took up his theme with gathering +eloquence. +</P> + +<P> +Yes—a woman's heart had planned the gift, a woman's hand had executed +it, and, might he add, without too far withdrawing the veil in which +Christian beneficence ever loved to drape its acts—might he add that, +under Providence, a book, a simple book, a mere tale, in fact, had had +its share in the good work for which they were assembled to give thanks? +</P> + +<P> +At this unexpected announcement, a ripple of excitement ran through the +assemblage, and more than one head was abruptly turned in the direction +of Mrs. Fetherel, who sat listening in an agony of wonder and +confusion. It did not escape the observant novelist at her side that +she drew down her veil to conceal an uncontrollable blush, and this +evidence of dismay caused him to fix an attentive gaze on her, while +from her seat across the aisle, Mrs. Gollinger sent a smile of unctuous +approval. +</P> + +<P> +"A book—a simple book—" the Bishop's voice went on above this flutter +of mingled emotions. "What is a book? Only a few pages and a little +ink—and yet one of the mightiest instruments which Providence has +devised for shaping the destinies of man . .. one of the most powerful +influences for good or evil which the Creator has placed in the hands +of his creatures..." +</P> + +<P> +The air seemed intolerably close to Mrs. Fetherel, and she drew out her +scent-bottle, and then thrust it hurriedly away, conscious that she was +still the center of an unenviable attention. And all the while the +Bishop's voice droned on... +</P> + +<P> +"And of all forms of literature, fiction is doubtless that which has +exercised the greatest sway, for good or ill, over the passions and +imagination of the masses. Yes, my friends, I am the first to +acknowledge it—no sermon, however eloquent, no theological treatise, +however learned and convincing, has ever inflamed the heart and +imagination like a novel—a simple novel. Incalculable is the power +exercised over humanity by the great magicians of the pen—a power ever +enlarging its boundaries and increasing its responsibilities as popular +education multiplies the number of readers....Yes, it is the novelist's +hand which can pour balm on countless human sufferings, or inoculate +mankind with the festering poison of a corrupt imagination...." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel had turned white, and her eyes were fixed with a blind +stare of anger on the large-sleeved figure in the center of the chancel. +</P> + +<P> +"And too often, alas, it is the poison and not the balm which the +unscrupulous hand of genius proffers to its unsuspecting readers. But, +my friends, why should I continue? None know better than an assemblage +of Christian women, such as I am now addressing, the beneficent or +baleful influences of modern fiction; and so, when I say that this +beautiful chantry window of ours owes its existence in part to the +romancer's pen"—the Bishop paused, and bending forward, seemed to seek +a certain face among the countenances eagerly addressed to his—"when I +say that this pen, which for personal reasons it does not become me to +celebrate unduly—" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel at this point half rose, pushing back her chair, which +scraped loudly over the marble floor; but Hynes involuntarily laid a +warning hand on her arm, and she sank down with a confused murmur about +the heat. +</P> + +<P> +"—When I confess that this pen, which for once at least has proved +itself so much mightier than the sword, is that which was inspired to +trace the simple narrative of 'Through a Glass Brightly'"—Mrs. +Fetherel looked up with a gasp of mingled relief and anger—"when I +tell you, my dear friends, that it was your Bishop's own work which +first roused the mind of one of his flock to the crying need of a +chantry window, I think you will admit that I am justified in +celebrating the triumphs of the pen, even though it be the modest +instrument which your own Bishop wields." +</P> + +<P> +The Bishop paused impressively, and a faint gasp of surprise and +disappointment was audible throughout the chantry. Something very +different from this conclusion had been expected, and even Mrs. +Gollinger's lips curled with a slightly ironic smile. But Archer +Hynes's attention was chiefly reserved for Mrs. Fetherel, whose face +had changed with astonishing rapidity from surprise to annoyance, from +annoyance to relief, and then back again to something very like +indignation. +</P> + +<P> +The address concluded, the actual ceremony of the unveiling was about +to take place, and the attention of the congregation soon reverted to +the chancel, where the choir had grouped themselves beneath the veiled +window, prepared to burst into a chant of praise as the Bishop drew +back the hanging. The moment was an impressive one, and every eye was +fixed on the curtain. Even Hynes's gaze strayed to it for a moment, but +soon returned to his neighbor's face; and then he perceived that Mrs. +Fetherel, alone of all the persons present, was not looking at the +window. Her eyes were fixed in an indignant stare on the Bishop; a +flush of anger burned becomingly under her veil, and her hands +nervously crumpled the beautifully printed program of the ceremony. +</P> + +<P> +Hynes broke into a smile of comprehension. He glanced at the Bishop, +and back at the Bishop's niece; then, as the episcopal hand was +solemnly raised to draw back the curtain, he bent and whispered in Mrs. +Fetherel's ear: +</P> + +<P> +"Why, you gave it yourself! You wonderful woman, of course you gave it +yourself!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Fetherel raised her eyes to his with a start. Her blush deepened +and her lips shaped a hasty "No"; but the denial was deflected into the +indignant murmur—"It wasn't <I>his</I> silly book that did it anyhow!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="bell"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LADY'S MAID'S BELL +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +IT was the autumn after I had the typhoid. I'd been three months in +hospital, and when I came out I looked so weak and tottery that the two +or three ladies I applied to were afraid to engage me. Most of my money +was gone, and after I'd boarded for two months, hanging about the +employment-agencies, and answering any advertisement that looked any +way respectable, I pretty nearly lost heart, for fretting hadn't made +me fatter, and I didn't see why my luck should ever turn. It did +though—or I thought so at the time. A Mrs. Railton, a friend of the +lady that first brought me out to the States, met me one day and +stopped to speak to me: she was one that had always a friendly way with +her. She asked me what ailed me to look so white, and when I told her, +"Why, Hartley," says she, "I believe I've got the very place for you. +Come in to-morrow and we'll talk about it." +</P> + +<P> +The next day, when I called, she told me the lady she'd in mind was a +niece of hers, a Mrs. Brympton, a youngish lady, but something of an +invalid, who lived all the year round at her country-place on the +Hudson, owing to not being able to stand the fatigue of town life. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Hartley," Mrs. Railton said, in that cheery way that always made +me feel things must be going to take a turn for the better—"now +understand me; it's not a cheerful place i'm sending you to. The house +is big and gloomy; my niece is nervous, vaporish; her husband—well, +he's generally away; and the two children are dead. A year ago, I would +as soon have thought of shutting a rosy active girl like you into a +vault; but you're not particularly brisk yourself just now, are you? +and a quiet place, with country air and wholesome food and early hours, +ought to be the very thing for you. Don't mistake me," she added, for I +suppose I looked a trifle downcast; "you may find it dull, but you +won't be unhappy. My niece is an angel. Her former maid, who died last +spring, had been with her twenty years and worshipped the ground she +walked on. She's a kind mistress to all, and where the mistress is +kind, as you know, the servants are generally good-humored, so you'll +probably get on well enough with the rest of the household. And you're +the very woman I want for my niece: quiet, well-mannered, and educated +above your station. You read aloud well, I think? That's a good thing; +my niece likes to be read to. She wants a maid that can be something of +a companion: her last was, and I can't say how she misses her. It's a +lonely life...Well, have you decided?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, ma'am," I said, "I'm not afraid of solitude." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, go; my niece will take you on my recommendation. I'll +telegraph her at once and you can take the afternoon train. She has no +one to wait on her at present, and I don't want you to lose any time." +</P> + +<P> +I was ready enough to start, yet something in me hung back; and to gain +time I asked, "And the gentleman, ma'am?" +</P> + +<P> +"The gentleman's almost always away, I tell you," said Mrs. Ralston, +quick-like—"and when he's there," says she suddenly, "you've only to +keep out of his way." +</P> + +<P> +I took the afternoon train and got out at D—— station at about four +o'clock. A groom in a dog-cart was waiting, and we drove off at a smart +pace. It was a dull October day, with rain hanging close overhead, and +by the time we turned into the Brympton Place woods the daylight was +almost gone. The drive wound through the woods for a mile or two, and +came out on a gravel court shut in with thickets of tall black-looking +shrubs. There were no lights in the windows, and the house <I>did</I> look a +bit gloomy. +</P> + +<P> +I had asked no questions of the groom, for I never was one to get my +notion of new masters from their other servants: I prefer to wait and +see for myself. But I could tell by the look of everything that I had +got into the right kind of house, and that things were done handsomely. +A pleasant-faced cook met me at the back door and called the house-maid +to show me up to my room. "You'll see madam later," she said. "Mrs. +Brympton has a visitor." +</P> + +<P> +I hadn't fancied Mrs. Brympton was a lady to have many visitors, and +somehow the words cheered me. I followed the house-maid upstairs, and +saw, through a door on the upper landing, that the main part of the +house seemed well-furnished, with dark panelling and a number of old +portraits. Another flight of stairs led us up to the servants' wing. It +was almost dark now, and the house-maid excused herself for not having +brought a light. "But there's matches in your room," she said, "and if +you go careful you'll be all right. Mind the step at the end of the +passage. Your room is just beyond." +</P> + +<P> +I looked ahead as she spoke, and half-way down the passage, I saw a +woman standing. She drew back into a doorway as we passed, and the +house-maid didn't appear to notice her. She was a thin woman with a +white face, and a darkish stuff gown and apron. I took her for the +housekeeper and thought it odd that she didn't speak, but just gave me +a long look as she went by. My room opened into a square hall at the +end of the passage. Facing my door was another which stood open: the +house-maid exclaimed when she saw it. +</P> + +<P> +"There—Mrs. Blinder's left that door open again!" said she, closing it. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Mrs. Blinder the housekeeper?" +</P> + +<P> +"There's no housekeeper: Mrs. Blinder's the cook." +</P> + +<P> +"And is that her room?" +</P> + +<P> +"Laws, no," said the house-maid, cross-like. "That's nobody's room. +It's empty, I mean, and the door hadn't ought to be open. Mrs. Brympton +wants it kept locked." +</P> + +<P> +She opened my door and led me into a neat room, nicely furnished, with +a picture or two on the walls; and having lit a candle she took leave, +telling me that the servants'-hall tea was at six, and that Mrs. +Brympton would see me afterward. +</P> + +<P> +I found them a pleasant-spoken set in the servants' hall, and by what +they let fall I gathered that, as Mrs. Railton had said, Mrs. Brympton +was the kindest of ladies; but I didn't take much notice of their talk, +for I was watching to see the pale woman in the dark gown come in. She +didn't show herself, however, and I wondered if she ate apart; but if +she wasn't the housekeeper, why should she? Suddenly it struck me that +she might be a trained nurse, and in that case her meals would of +course be served in her room. If Mrs. Brympton was an invalid it was +likely enough she had a nurse. The idea annoyed me, I own, for they're +not always the easiest to get on with, and if I'd known, I shouldn't +have taken the place. But there I was, and there was no use pulling a +long face over it; and not being one to ask questions, I waited to see +what would turn up. +</P> + +<P> +When tea was over, the house-maid said to the footman: "Has Mr. Ranford +gone?" and when he said yes, she told me to come up with her to Mrs. +Brympton. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Brympton was lying down in her bedroom. Her lounge stood near the +fire and beside it was a shaded lamp. She was a delicate-looking lady, +but when she smiled I felt there was nothing I wouldn't do for her. She +spoke very pleasantly, in a low voice, asking me my name and age and so +on, and if I had everything I wanted, and if I wasn't afraid of feeling +lonely in the country. +</P> + +<P> +"Not with you I wouldn't be, madam," I said, and the words surprised me +when I'd spoken them, for I'm not an impulsive person; but it was just +as if I'd thought aloud. +</P> + +<P> +She seemed pleased at that, and said she hoped I'd continue in the same +mind; then she gave me a few directions about her toilet, and said +Agnes the house-maid would show me next morning where things were kept. +</P> + +<P> +"I am tired to-night, and shall dine upstairs," she said. "Agnes will +bring me my tray, that you may have time to unpack and settle yourself; +and later you may come and undress me." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, ma'am," I said. "You'll ring, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +I thought she looked odd. +</P> + +<P> +"No—Agnes will fetch you," says she quickly, and took up her book +again. +</P> + +<P> +Well—that was certainly strange: a lady's maid having to be fetched by +the house-maid whenever her lady wanted her! I wondered if there were +no bells in the house; but the next day I satisfied myself that there +was one in every room, and a special one ringing from my mistress's +room to mine; and after that it did strike me as queer that, whenever +Mrs. Brympton wanted anything, she rang for Agnes, who had to walk the +whole length of the servants' wing to call me. +</P> + +<P> +But that wasn't the only queer thing in the house. The very next day I +found out that Mrs. Brympton had no nurse; and then I asked Agnes about +the woman I had seen in the passage the afternoon before. Agnes said +she had seen no one, and I saw that she thought I was dreaming. To be +sure, it was dusk when we went down the passage, and she had excused +herself for not bringing a light; but I had seen the woman plain enough +to know her again if we should meet. I decided that she must have been +a friend of the cook's, or of one of the other women-servants: perhaps +she had come down from town for a night's visit, and the servants +wanted it kept secret. Some ladies are very stiff about having their +servants' friends in the house overnight. At any rate, I made up my +mind to ask no more questions. +</P> + +<P> +In a day or two, another odd thing happened. I was chatting one +afternoon with Mrs. Blinder, who was a friendly disposed woman, and had +been longer in the house than the other servants, and she asked me if I +was quite comfortable and had everything I needed. I said I had no +fault to find with my place or with my mistress, but I thought it odd +that in so large a house there was no sewing-room for the lady's maid. +</P> + +<P> +"Why," says she, "there <I>is</I> one; the room you're in is the old +sewing-room." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said I; "and where did the other lady's maid sleep?" +</P> + +<P> +At that she grew confused, and said hurriedly that the servants' rooms +had all been changed about last year, and she didn't rightly remember. +</P> + +<P> +That struck me as peculiar, but I went on as if I hadn't noticed: +"Well, there's a vacant room opposite mine, and I mean to ask Mrs. +Brympton if I mayn't use that as a sewing-room." +</P> + +<P> +To my astonishment, Mrs. Blinder went white, and gave my hand a kind of +squeeze. "Don't do that, my dear," said she, trembling-like. "To tell +you the truth, that was Emma Saxon's room, and my mistress has kept it +closed ever since her death." +</P> + +<P> +"And who was Emma Saxon?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Brympton's former maid." +</P> + +<P> +"The one that was with her so many years?" said I, remembering what +Mrs. Railton had told me. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Blinder nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"What sort of woman was she?" +</P> + +<P> +"No better walked the earth," said Mrs. Blinder. "My mistress loved her +like a sister." +</P> + +<P> +"But I mean—what did she look like?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Blinder got up and gave me a kind of angry stare. "I'm no great +hand at describing," she said; "and I believe my pastry's rising." And +she walked off into the kitchen and shut the door after her. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +I HAD been near a week at Brympton before I saw my master. Word came +that he was arriving one afternoon, and a change passed over the whole +household. It was plain that nobody loved him below stairs. Mrs. +Blinder took uncommon care with the dinner that night, but she snapped +at the kitchen-maid in a way quite unusual with her; and Mr. Wace, the +butler, a serious, slow-spoken man, went about his duties as if he'd +been getting ready for a funeral. He was a great Bible-reader, Mr. Wace +was, and had a beautiful assortment of texts at his command; but that +day he used such dreadful language that I was about to leave the table, +when he assured me it was all out of Isaiah; and I noticed that +whenever the master came Mr. Wace took to the prophets. +</P> + +<P> +About seven, Agnes called me to my mistress's room; and there I found +Mr. Brympton. He was standing on the hearth; a big fair bull-necked +man, with a red face and little bad-tempered blue eyes: the kind of man +a young simpleton might have thought handsome, and would have been like +to pay dear for thinking it. +</P> + +<P> +He swung about when I came in, and looked me over in a trice. I knew +what the look meant, from having experienced it once or twice in my +former places. Then he turned his back on me, and went on talking to +his wife; and I knew what <I>that</I> meant, too. I was not the kind of +morsel he was after. The typhoid had served me well enough in one way: +it kept that kind of gentleman at arm's-length. +</P> + +<P> +"This is my new maid, Hartley," says Mrs. Brympton in her kind voice; +and he nodded and went on with what he was saying. +</P> + +<P> +In a minute or two he went off, and left my mistress to dress for +dinner, and I noticed as I waited on her that she was white, and chill +to the touch. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Brympton took himself off the next morning, and the whole house +drew a long breath when he drove away. As for my mistress, she put on +her hat and furs (for it was a fine winter morning) and went out for a +walk in the gardens, coming back quite fresh and rosy, so that for a +minute, before her color faded, I could guess what a pretty young lady +she must have been, and not so long ago, either. +</P> + +<P> +She had met Mr. Ranford in the grounds, and the two came back together, +I remember, smiling and talking as they walked along the terrace under +my window. That was the first time I saw Mr. Ranford, though I had +often heard his name mentioned in the hall. He was a neighbor, it +appeared, living a mile or two beyond Brympton, at the end of the +village; and as he was in the habit of spending his winters in the +country he was almost the only company my mistress had at that season. +He was a slight tall gentleman of about thirty, and I thought him +rather melancholy-looking till I saw his smile, which had a kind of +surprise in it, like the first warm day in spring. He was a great +reader, I heard, like my mistress, and the two were forever borrowing +books of one another, and sometimes (Mr. Wace told me) he would read +aloud to Mrs. Brympton by the hour, in the big dark library where she +sat in the winter afternoons. The servants all liked him, and perhaps +that's more of a compliment than the masters suspect. He had a friendly +word for every one of us, and we were all glad to think that Mrs. +Brympton had a pleasant companionable gentleman like that to keep her +company when the master was away. Mr. Ranford seemed on excellent terms +with Mr. Brympton too; though I couldn't but wonder that two gentlemen +so unlike each other should be so friendly. But then I knew how the +real quality can keep their feelings to themselves. +</P> + +<P> +As for Mr. Brympton, he came and went, never staying more than a day or +two, cursing the dulness and the solitude, grumbling at everything, and +(as I soon found out) drinking a deal more than was good for him. After +Mrs. Brympton left the table he would sit half the night over the old +Brympton port and madeira, and once, as I was leaving my mistress's +room rather later than usual, I met him coming up the stairs in such a +state that I turned sick to think of what some ladies have to endure +and hold their tongues about. +</P> + +<P> +The servants said very little about their master; but from what they +let drop I could see it had been an unhappy match from the beginning. +Mr. Brympton was coarse, loud and pleasure-loving; my mistress quiet, +retiring, and perhaps a trifle cold. Not that she was not always +pleasant-spoken to him: I thought her wonderfully forbearing; but to a +gentleman as free as Mr. Brympton I daresay she seemed a little offish. +</P> + +<P> +Well, things went on quietly for several weeks. My mistress was kind, +my duties were light, and I got on well with the other servants. In +short, I had nothing to complain of; yet there was always a weight on +me. I can't say why it was so, but I know it was not the loneliness +that I felt. I soon got used to that; and being still languid from the +fever, I was thankful for the quiet and the good country air. +Nevertheless, I was never quite easy in my mind. My mistress, knowing I +had been ill, insisted that I should take my walk regular, and often +invented errands for me:—a yard of ribbon to be fetched from the +village, a letter posted, or a book returned to Mr. Ranford. As soon as +I was out of doors my spirits rose, and I looked forward to my walks +through the bare moist-smelling woods; but the moment I caught sight of +the house again my heart dropped down like a stone in a well. It was +not a gloomy house exactly, yet I never entered it but a feeling of +gloom came over me. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Brympton seldom went out in winter; only on the finest days did +she walk an hour at noon on the south terrace. Excepting Mr. Ranford, +we had no visitors but the doctor, who drove over from D—— about once +a week. He sent for me once or twice to give me some trifling direction +about my mistress, and though he never told me what her illness was, I +thought, from a waxy look she had now and then of a morning, that it +might be the heart that ailed her. The season was soft and unwholesome, +and in January we had a long spell of rain. That was a sore trial to +me, I own, for I couldn't go out, and sitting over my sewing all day, +listening to the drip, drip of the eaves, I grew so nervous that the +least sound made me jump. Somehow, the thought of that locked room +across the passage began to weigh on me. Once or twice, in the long +rainy nights, I fancied I heard noises there; but that was nonsense, of +course, and the daylight drove such notions out of my head. Well, one +morning Mrs. Brympton gave me quite a start of pleasure by telling me +she wished me to go to town for some shopping. I hadn't known till then +how low my spirits had fallen. I set off in high glee, and my first +sight of the crowded streets and the cheerful-looking shops quite took +me out of myself. Toward afternoon, however, the noise and confusion +began to tire me, and I was actually looking forward to the quiet of +Brympton, and thinking how I should enjoy the drive home through the +dark woods, when I ran across an old acquaintance, a maid I had once +been in service with. We had lost sight of each other for a number of +years, and I had to stop and tell her what had happened to me in the +interval. When I mentioned where I was living she rolled up her eyes +and pulled a long face. +</P> + +<P> +"What! The Mrs. Brympton that lives all the year at her place on the +Hudson? My dear, you won't stay there three months." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but I don't mind the country," says I, offended somehow at her +tone. "Since the fever I'm glad to be quiet." +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. "It's not the country I'm thinking of. All I know +is she's had four maids in the last six months, and the last one, who +was a friend of mine, told me nobody could stay in the house." +</P> + +<P> +"Did she say why?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No—she wouldn't give me her reason. But she says to me, <I>Mrs. Ansey</I>, +she says, <I>if ever a young woman as you know of thinks of going there, +you tell her it's not worth while to unpack her boxes</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Is she young and handsome?" said I, thinking of Mr. Brympton. +</P> + +<P> +"Not her! She's the kind that mothers engage when they've gay young +gentlemen at college." +</P> + +<P> +Well, though I knew the woman was an idle gossip, the words stuck in my +head, and my heart sank lower than ever as I drove up to Brympton in +the dusk. There <I>was</I> something about the house—I was sure of it now... +</P> + +<P> +When I went in to tea I heard that Mr. Brympton had arrived, and I saw +at a glance that there had been a disturbance of some kind. Mrs. +Blinder's hand shook so that she could hardly pour the tea, and Mr. +Wace quoted the most dreadful texts full of brimstone. Nobody said a +word to me then, but when I went up to my room Mrs. Blinder followed me. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my dear," says she, taking my hand, "I'm so glad and thankful +you've come back to us!" +</P> + +<P> +That struck me, as you may imagine. "Why," said I, "did you think I was +leaving for good?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, to be sure," said she, a little confused, "but I can't a-bear +to have madam left alone for a day even." She pressed my hand hard, +and, "Oh, Miss Hartley," says she, "be good to your mistress, as you're +a Christian woman." And with that she hurried away, and left me staring. +</P> + +<P> +A moment later Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton. Hearing Mr. Brympton's +voice in her room, I went round by the dressing-room, thinking I would +lay out her dinner-gown before going in. The dressing-room is a large +room with a window over the portico that looks toward the gardens. Mr. +Brympton's apartments are beyond. When I went in, the door into the +bedroom was ajar, and I heard Mr. Brympton saying angrily:—"One would +suppose he was the only person fit for you to talk to." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't have many visitors in winter," Mrs. Brympton answered quietly. +</P> + +<P> +"You have <I>me!</I>" he flung at her, sneering. +</P> + +<P> +"You are here so seldom," said she. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—whose fault is that? You make the place about as lively as a +family vault—" +</P> + +<P> +With that I rattled the toilet-things, to give my mistress warning and +she rose and called me in. +</P> + +<P> +The two dined alone, as usual, and I knew by Mr. Wace's manner at +supper that things must be going badly. He quoted the prophets +something terrible, and worked on the kitchen-maid so that she declared +she wouldn't go down alone to put the cold meat in the ice-box. I felt +nervous myself, and after I had put my mistress to bed I was +half-tempted to go down again and persuade Mrs. Blinder to sit up +awhile over a game of cards. But I heard her door closing for the +night, and so I went on to my own room. The rain had begun again, and +the drip, drip, drip seemed to be dropping into my brain. I lay awake +listening to it, and turning over what my friend in town had said. What +puzzled me was that it was always the maids who left... +</P> + +<P> +After a while I slept; but suddenly a loud noise wakened me. My bell +had rung. I sat up, terrified by the unusual sound, which seemed to go +on jangling through the darkness. My hands shook so that I couldn't +find the matches. At length I struck a light and jumped out of bed. I +began to think I must have been dreaming; but I looked at the bell +against the wall, and there was the little hammer still quivering. +</P> + +<P> +I was just beginning to huddle on my clothes when I heard another +sound. This time it was the door of the locked room opposite mine +softly opening and closing. I heard the sound distinctly, and it +frightened me so that I stood stock still. Then I heard a footstep +hurrying down the passage toward the main house. The floor being +carpeted, the sound was very faint, but I was quite sure it was a +woman's step. I turned cold with the thought of it, and for a minute or +two I dursn't breathe or move. Then I came to my senses. +</P> + +<P> +"Alice Hartley," says I to myself, "someone left that room just now and +ran down the passage ahead of you. The idea isn't pleasant, but you may +as well face it. Your mistress has rung for you, and to answer her bell +you've got to go the way that other woman has gone." +</P> + +<P> +Well—I did it. I never walked faster in my life, yet I thought I +should never get to the end of the passage or reach Mrs. Brympton's +room. On the way I heard nothing and saw nothing: all was dark and +quiet as the grave. When I reached my mistress's door the silence was +so deep that I began to think I must be dreaming, and was half-minded +to turn back. Then a panic seized me, and I knocked. +</P> + +<P> +There was no answer, and I knocked again, loudly. To my astonishment +the door was opened by Mr. Brympton. He started back when he saw me, +and in the light of my candle his face looked red and savage. +</P> + +<P> +<I>"You!"</I> he said, in a queer voice. <I>"How many of you are there, in +God's name?"</I> +</P> + +<P> +At that I felt the ground give under me; but I said to myself that he +had been drinking, and answered as steadily as I could: "May I go in, +sir? Mrs. Brympton has rung for me." +</P> + +<P> +"You may all go in, for what I care," says he, and, pushing by me, +walked down the hall to his own bedroom. I looked after him as he went, +and to my surprise I saw that he walked as straight as a sober man. +</P> + +<P> +I found my mistress lying very weak and still, but she forced a smile +when she saw me, and signed to me to pour out some drops for her. After +that she lay without speaking, her breath coming quick, and her eyes +closed. Suddenly she groped out with her hand, and "<I>Emma</I>," says she, +faintly. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Hartley, madam," I said. "Do you want anything?" +</P> + +<P> +She opened her eyes wide and gave me a startled look. +</P> + +<P> +"I was dreaming," she said. "You may go, now, Hartley, and thank you +kindly. I'm quite well again, you see." And she turned her face away +from me. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +THERE was no more sleep for me that night, and I was thankful when +daylight came. +</P> + +<P> +Soon afterward, Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton. I was afraid she was +ill again, for she seldom sent for me before nine, but I found her +sitting up in bed, pale and drawn-looking, but quite herself. +</P> + +<P> +"Hartley," says she quickly, "will you put on your things at once and +go down to the village for me? I want this prescription made up—" here +she hesitated a minute and blushed—"and I should like you to be back +again before Mr. Brympton is up." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, madam," I said. +</P> + +<P> +"And—stay a moment—" she called me back as if an idea had just struck +her—"while you're waiting for the mixture, you'll have time to go on +to Mr. Ranford's with this note." +</P> + +<P> +It was a two-mile walk to the village, and on my way I had time to turn +things over in my mind. It struck me as peculiar that my mistress +should wish the prescription made up without Mr. Brympton's knowledge; +and, putting this together with the scene of the night before, and with +much else that I had noticed and suspected, I began to wonder if the +poor lady was weary of her life, and had come to the mad resolve of +ending it. The idea took such hold on me that I reached the village on +a run, and dropped breathless into a chair before the chemist's +counter. The good man, who was just taking down his shutters, stared at +me so hard that it brought me to myself. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Limmel," I says, trying to speak indifferent, "will you run your +eye over this, and tell me if it's quite right?" +</P> + +<P> +He put on his spectacles and studied the prescription. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, it's one of Dr. Walton's," says he. "What should be wrong with +it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well—is it dangerous to take?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dangerous—how do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +I could have shaken the man for his stupidity. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean—if a person was to take too much of it—by mistake of +course—" says I, my heart in my throat. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord bless you, no. It's only lime-water. You might feed it to a baby +by the bottleful." +</P> + +<P> +I gave a great sigh of relief, and hurried on to Mr. Ranford's. But on +the way another thought struck me. If there was nothing to conceal +about my visit to the chemist's, was it my other errand that Mrs. +Brympton wished me to keep private? Somehow, that thought frightened me +worse than the other. Yet the two gentlemen seemed fast friends, and I +would have staked my head on my mistress's goodness. I felt ashamed of +my suspicions, and concluded that I was still disturbed by the strange +events of the night. I left the note at Mr. Ranford's—and, hurrying +back to Brympton, slipped in by a side door without being seen, as I +thought. +</P> + +<P> +An hour later, however, as I was carrying in my mistress's breakfast, I +was stopped in the hall by Mr. Brympton. +</P> + +<P> +"What were you doing out so early?" he says, looking hard at me. +</P> + +<P> +"Early—me, sir?" I said, in a tremble. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, come," he says, an angry red spot coming out on his forehead, +"didn't I see you scuttling home through the shrubbery an hour or more +ago?" +</P> + +<P> +I'm a truthful woman by nature, but at that a lie popped out +ready-made. "No, sir, you didn't," said I, and looked straight back at +him. +</P> + +<P> +He shrugged his shoulders and gave a sullen laugh. "I suppose you think +I was drunk last night?" he asked suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +"No, sir, I don't," I answered, this time truthfully enough. +</P> + +<P> +He turned away with another shrug. "A pretty notion my servants have of +me!" I heard him mutter as he walked off. +</P> + +<P> +Not till I had settled down to my afternoon's sewing did I realize how +the events of the night had shaken me. I couldn't pass that locked door +without a shiver. I knew I had heard someone come out of it, and walk +down the passage ahead of me. I thought of speaking to Mrs. Blinder or +to Mr. Wace, the only two in the house who appeared to have an inkling +of what was going on, but I had a feeling that if I questioned them +they would deny everything, and that I might learn more by holding my +tongue and keeping my eyes open. The idea of spending another night +opposite the locked room sickened me, and once I was seized with the +notion of packing my trunk and taking the first train to town; but it +wasn't in me to throw over a kind mistress in that manner, and I tried +to go on with my sewing as if nothing had happened. +</P> + +<P> +I hadn't worked ten minutes before the sewing-machine broke down. It +was one I had found in the house, a good machine, but a trifle out of +order: Mrs. Blinder said it had never been used since Emma Saxon's +death. I stopped to see what was wrong, and as I was working at the +machine a drawer which I had never been able to open slid forward and a +photograph fell out. I picked it up and sat looking at it in a maze. It +was a woman's likeness, and I knew I had seen the face somewhere—the +eyes had an asking look that I had felt on me before. And suddenly I +remembered the pale woman in the passage. +</P> + +<P> +I stood up, cold all over, and ran out of the room. My heart seemed to +be thumping in the top of my head, and I felt as if I should never get +away from the look in those eyes. I went straight to Mrs. Blinder. She +was taking her afternoon nap, and sat up with a jump when I came in. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Blinder," said I, "who is that?" And I held out the photograph. +</P> + +<P> +She rubbed her eyes and stared. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Emma Saxon," says she. "Where did you find it?" +</P> + +<P> +I looked hard at her for a minute. "Mrs. Blinder," I said, "I've seen +that face before." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Blinder got up and walked over to the looking-glass. "Dear me! I +must have been asleep," she says. "My front is all over one ear. And +now do run along, Miss Hartley, dear, for I hear the clock striking +four, and I must go down this very minute and put on the Virginia ham +for Mr. Brympton's dinner." +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +TO all appearances, things went on as usual for a week or two. The only +difference was that Mr. Brympton stayed on, instead of going off as he +usually did, and that Mr. Ranford never showed himself. I heard Mr. +Brympton remark on this one afternoon when he was sitting in my +mistress's room before dinner. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's Ranford?" says he. "He hasn't been near the house for a week. +Does he keep away because I'm here?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Brympton spoke so low that I couldn't catch her answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he went on, "two's company and three's trumpery; I'm sorry to +be in Ranford's way, and I suppose I shall have to take myself off +again in a day or two and give him a show." And he laughed at his own +joke. +</P> + +<P> +The very next day, as it happened, Mr. Ranford called. The footman said +the three were very merry over their tea in the library, and Mr. +Brympton strolled down to the gate with Mr. Ranford when he left. +</P> + +<P> +I have said that things went on as usual; and so they did with the rest +of the household; but as for myself, I had never been the same since +the night my bell had rung. Night after night I used to lie awake, +listening for it to ring again, and for the door of the locked room to +open stealthily. But the bell never rang, and I heard no sound across +the passage. At last the silence began to be more dreadful to me than +the most mysterious sounds. I felt that <I>someone</I> were cowering there, +behind the locked door, watching and listening as I watched and +listened, and I could almost have cried out, "Whoever you are, come out +and let me see you face to face, but don't lurk there and spy on me in +the darkness!" +</P> + +<P> +Feeling as I did, you may wonder I didn't give warning. Once I very +nearly did so; but at the last moment something held me back. Whether +it was compassion for my mistress, who had grown more and more +dependent on me, or unwillingness to try a new place, or some other +feeling that I couldn't put a name to, I lingered on as if spell-bound, +though every night was dreadful to me, and the days but little better. +</P> + +<P> +For one thing, I didn't like Mrs. Brympton's looks. She had never been +the same since that night, no more than I had. I thought she would +brighten up after Mr. Brympton left, but though she seemed easier in +her mind, her spirits didn't revive, nor her strength either. She had +grown attached to me, and seemed to like to have me about; and Agnes +told me one day that, since Emma Saxon's death, I was the only maid her +mistress had taken to. This gave me a warm feeling for the poor lady, +though after all there was little I could do to help her. +</P> + +<P> +After Mr. Brympton's departure, Mr. Ranford took to coming again, +though less often than formerly. I met him once or twice in the +grounds, or in the village, and I couldn't but think there was a change +in him too; but I set it down to my disordered fancy. +</P> + +<P> +The weeks passed, and Mr. Brympton had now been a month absent. We +heard he was cruising with a friend in the West Indies, and Mr. Wace +said that was a long way off, but though you had the wings of a dove +and went to the uttermost parts of the earth, you couldn't get away +from the Almighty. Agnes said that as long as he stayed away from +Brympton, the Almighty might have him and welcome; and this raised a +laugh, though Mrs. Blinder tried to look shocked, and Mr. Wace said the +bears would eat us. +</P> + +<P> +We were all glad to hear that the West Indies were a long way off, and +I remember that, in spite of Mr. Wace's solemn looks, we had a very +merry dinner that day in the hall. I don't know if it was because of my +being in better spirits, but I fancied Mrs. Brympton looked better too, +and seemed more cheerful in her manner. She had been for a walk in the +morning, and after luncheon she lay down in her room, and I read aloud +to her. When she dismissed me I went to my own room feeling quite +bright and happy, and for the first time in weeks walked past the +locked door without thinking of it. As I sat down to my work I looked +out and saw a few snow-flakes falling. The sight was pleasanter than +the eternal rain, and I pictured to myself how pretty the bare gardens +would look in their white mantle. It seemed to me as if the snow would +cover up all the dreariness, indoors as well as out. +</P> + +<P> +The fancy had hardly crossed my mind when I heard a step at my side. I +looked up, thinking it was Agnes. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Agnes—" said I, and the words froze on my tongue; for there, in +the door, stood Emma Saxon. +</P> + +<P> +I don't know how long she stood there. I only know I couldn't stir or +take my eyes from her. Afterward I was terribly frightened, but at the +time it wasn't fear I felt, but something deeper and quieter. She +looked at me long and long, and her face was just one dumb prayer to +me—but how in the world was I to help her? Suddenly she turned, and I +heard her walk down the passage. This time I wasn't afraid to follow—I +felt that I must know what she wanted. I sprang up and ran out. She was +at the other end of the passage, and I expected her to take the turn +toward my mistress's room; but instead of that she pushed open the door +that led to the backstairs. I followed her down the stairs, and across +the passageway to the back door. The kitchen and hall were empty at +that hour, the servants being off duty, except for the footman, who was +in the pantry. At the door she stood still a moment, with another look +at me; then she turned the handle, and stepped out. For a minute I +hesitated. Where was she leading me to? The door had closed softly +after her, and I opened it and looked out, half-expecting to find that +she had disappeared. But I saw her a few yards off, hurrying across the +court-yard to the path through the woods. Her figure looked black and +lonely in the snow, and for a second my heart failed me and I thought +of turning back. But all the while she was drawing me after her; and +catching up an old shawl of Mrs. Blinder's I ran out into the open. +</P> + +<P> +Emma Saxon was in the wood-path now. She walked on steadily, and I +followed at the same pace, till we passed out of the gates and reached +the high-road. Then she struck across the open fields to the village. +By this time the ground was white, and as she climbed the slope of a +bare hill ahead of me I noticed that she left no foot-prints behind +her. At sight of that, my heart shrivelled up within me, and my knees +were water. Somehow, it was worse here than indoors. She made the whole +countryside seem lonely as the grave, with none but us two in it, and +no help in the wide world. +</P> + +<P> +Once I tried to go back; but she turned and looked at me, and it was as +if she had dragged me with ropes. After that I followed her like a dog. +We came to the village, and she led me through it, past the church and +the blacksmith's shop, and down the lane to Mr. Ranford's. Mr. +Ranford's house stands close to the road: a plain old-fashioned +building, with a flagged path leading to the door between box-borders. +The lane was deserted, and as I turned into it, I saw Emma Saxon pause +under the old elm by the gate. And now another fear came over me. I saw +that we had reached the end of our journey, and that it was my turn to +act. All the way from Brympton I had been asking myself what she wanted +of me, but I had followed in a trance, as it were, and not till I saw +her stop at Mr. Ranford's gate did my brain begin to clear itself. It +stood a little way off in the snow, my heart beating fit to strangle +me, and my feet frozen to the ground; and she stood under the elm and +watched me. +</P> + +<P> +I knew well enough that she hadn't led me there for nothing. I felt +there was something I ought to say or do—but how was I to guess what +it was? I had never thought harm of my mistress and Mr. Ranford, but I +was sure now that, from one cause or another, some dreadful thing hung +over them. <I>She</I> knew what it was; she would tell me if she could; +perhaps she would answer if I questioned her. +</P> + +<P> +It turned me faint to think of speaking to her; but I plucked up heart +and dragged myself across the few yards between us. As I did so, I +heard the house-door open, and saw Mr. Ranford approaching. He looked +handsome and cheerful, as my mistress had looked that morning, and at +sight of him the blood began to flow again in my veins. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Hartley," said he, "what's the matter? I saw you coming down the +lane just now, and came out to see if you had taken root in the snow." +He stopped and stared at me. "What are you looking at?" he says. +</P> + +<P> +I turned toward the elm as he spoke, and his eyes followed me; but +there was no one there. The lane was empty as far as the eye could +reach. +</P> + +<P> +A sense of helplessness came over me. She was gone, and I had not been +able to guess what she wanted. Her last look had pierced me to the +marrow; and yet it had not told me! All at once, I felt more desolate +than when she had stood there watching me. It seemed as if she had left +me all alone to carry the weight of the secret I couldn't guess. The +snow went round me in great circles, and the ground fell away from +me.... +</P> + +<P> +A drop of brandy and the warmth of Mr. Ranford's fire soon brought me +to, and I insisted on being driven back at once to Brympton. It was +nearly dark, and I was afraid my mistress might be wanting me. I +explained to Mr. Ranford that I had been out for a walk and had been +taken with a fit of giddiness as I passed his gate. This was true +enough; yet I never felt more like a liar than when I said it. +</P> + +<P> +When I dressed Mrs. Brympton for dinner she remarked on my pale looks +and asked what ailed me. I told her I had a headache, and she said she +would not require me again that evening, and advised me to go to bed. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fact that I could scarcely keep on my feet; yet I had no fancy +to spend a solitary evening in my room. I sat downstairs in the hall as +long as I could hold my head up; but by nine I crept upstairs, too +weary to care what happened if I could but get my head on a pillow. The +rest of the household went to bed soon afterward; they kept early hours +when the master was away, and before ten I heard Mrs. Blinder's door +close, and Mr. Wace's soon after. +</P> + +<P> +It was a very still night, earth and air all muffled in snow. Once in +bed I felt easier, and lay quiet, listening to the strange noises that +come out in a house after dark. Once I thought I heard a door open and +close again below: it might have been the glass door that led to the +gardens. I got up and peered out of the window; but it was in the dark +of the moon, and nothing visible outside but the streaking of snow +against the panes. +</P> + +<P> +I went back to bed and must have dozed, for I jumped awake to the +furious ringing of my bell. Before my head was clear I had sprung out +of bed, and was dragging on my clothes. <I>It is going to happen now</I>, I +heard myself saying; but what I meant I had no notion. My hands seemed +to be covered with glue—I thought I should never get into my clothes. +At last I opened my door and peered down the passage. As far as my +candle-flame carried, I could see nothing unusual ahead of me. I +hurried on, breathless; but as I pushed open the baize door leading to +the main hall my heart stood still, for there at the head of the stairs +was Emma Saxon, peering dreadfully down into the darkness. +</P> + +<P> +For a second I couldn't stir; but my hand slipped from the door, and as +it swung shut the figure vanished. At the same instant there came +another sound from below stairs—a stealthy mysterious sound, as of a +latch-key turning in the house-door. I ran to Mrs. Brympton's room and +knocked. +</P> + +<P> +There was no answer, and I knocked again. This time I heard some one +moving in the room; the bolt slipped back and my mistress stood before +me. To my surprise I saw that she had not undressed for the night. She +gave me a startled look. +</P> + +<P> +"What is this, Hartley?" she says in a whisper. "Are you ill? What are +you doing here at this hour?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am not ill, madam; but my bell rang." +</P> + +<P> +At that she turned pale, and seemed about to fall. +</P> + +<P> +"You are mistaken," she said harshly; "I didn't ring. You must have +been dreaming." I had never heard her speak in such a tone. "Go back to +bed," she said, closing the door on me. +</P> + +<P> +But as she spoke I heard sounds again in the hall below: a man's step +this time; and the truth leaped out on me. +</P> + +<P> +"Madam," I said, pushing past her, "there is someone in the house—" +</P> + +<P> +"Someone—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Brympton, I think—I hear his step below—" +</P> + +<P> +A dreadful look came over her, and without a word, she dropped flat at +my feet. I fell on my knees and tried to lift her: by the way she +breathed I saw it was no common faint. But as I raised her head there +came quick steps on the stairs and across the hall: the door was flung +open, and there stood Mr. Brympton, in his travelling-clothes, the snow +dripping from him. He drew back with a start as he saw me kneeling by +my mistress. +</P> + +<P> +"What the devil is this?" he shouted. He was less high-colored than +usual, and the red spot came out on his forehead. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Brympton has fainted, sir," said I. +</P> + +<P> +He laughed unsteadily and pushed by me. "It's a pity she didn't choose +a more convenient moment. I'm sorry to disturb her, but—" +</P> + +<P> +I raised myself up, aghast at the man's action. +</P> + +<P> +"Sir," said I, "are you mad? What are you doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Going to meet a friend," said he, and seemed to make for the +dressing-room. +</P> + +<P> +At that my heart turned over. I don't know what I thought or feared; +but I sprang up and caught him by the sleeve. +</P> + +<P> +"Sir, sir," said I, "for pity's sake look at your wife!" +</P> + +<P> +He shook me off furiously. +</P> + +<P> +"It seems that's done for me," says he, and caught hold of the +dressing-room door. +</P> + +<P> +At that moment I heard a slight noise inside. Slight as it was, he +heard it too, and tore the door open; but as he did so he dropped back. +On the threshold stood Emma Saxon. All was dark behind her, but I saw +her plainly, and so did he. He threw up his hands as if to hide his +face from her; and when I looked again she was gone. +</P> + +<P> +He stood motionless, as if the strength had run out of him; and in the +stillness my mistress suddenly raised herself, and opening her eyes +fixed a look on him. Then she fell back, and I saw the death-flutter +pass over her.... +</P> + +<P> +We buried her on the third day, in a driving snow-storm. There were few +people in the church, for it was bad weather to come from town, and +I've a notion my mistress was one that hadn't many near friends. Mr. +Ranford was among the last to come, just before they carried her up the +aisle. He was in black, of course, being such a friend of the family, +and I never saw a gentleman so pale. As he passed me, I noticed that he +leaned a trifle on a stick he carried; and I fancy Mr. Brympton noticed +it too, for the red spot came out sharp on his forehead, and all +through the service he kept staring across the church at Mr. Ranford, +instead of following the prayers as a mourner should. +</P> + +<P> +When it was over and we went out to the graveyard, Mr. Ranford had +disappeared, and as soon as my poor mistress's body was underground, +Mr. Brympton jumped into the carriage nearest the gate and drove off +without a word to any of us. I heard him call out, "To the station," +and we servants went back alone to the house. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="jane"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE MISSION OF JANE +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +LETHBURY, surveying his wife across the dinner table, found his +transient conjugal glance arrested by an indefinable change in her +appearance. +</P> + +<P> +"How smart you look! Is that a new gown?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +Her answering look seemed to deprecate his charging her with the +extravagance of wasting a new gown on him, and he now perceived that +the change lay deeper than any accident of dress. At the same time, he +noticed that she betrayed her consciousness of it by a delicate, almost +frightened blush. It was one of the compensations of Mrs. Lethbury's +protracted childishness that she still blushed as prettily as at +eighteen. Her body had been privileged not to outstrip her mind, and +the two, as it seemed to Lethbury, were destined to travel together +through an eternity of girlishness. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what you mean," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Since she never did, he always wondered at her bringing this out as a +fresh grievance against him; but his wonder was unresentful, and he +said good-humoredly: "You sparkle so that I thought you had on your +diamonds." +</P> + +<P> +She sighed and blushed again. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be," he continued, "that you've been to a dressmaker's +opening. You're absolutely brimming with illicit enjoyment." +</P> + +<P> +She stared again, this time at the adjective. His adjectives always +embarrassed her: their unintelligibleness savored of impropriety. +</P> + +<P> +"In short," he summed up, "you've been doing something that you're +thoroughly ashamed of." +</P> + +<P> +To his surprise she retorted: "I don't see why I should be ashamed of +it!" +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury leaned back with a smile of enjoyment. When there was nothing +better going he always liked to listen to her explanations. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +She was becoming breathless and ejaculatory. "Of course you'll +laugh—you laugh at everything!" +</P> + +<P> +"That rather blunts the point of my derision, doesn't it?" he +interjected; but she rushed on without noticing: +</P> + +<P> +"It's so easy to laugh at things." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," murmured Lethbury with relish, "that's Aunt Sophronia's, isn't +it?" +</P> + +<P> +Most of his wife's opinions were heirlooms, and he took a quaint +pleasure in tracing their descent. She was proud of their age, and saw +no reason for discarding them while they were still serviceable. Some, +of course, were so fine that she kept them for state occasions, like +her great-grandmother's Crown Derby; but from the lady known as Aunt +Sophronia she had inherited a stout set of every-day prejudices that +were practically as good as new; whereas her husband's, as she noticed, +were always having to be replaced. In the early days she had fancied +there might be a certain satisfaction in taxing him with the fact; but +she had long since been silenced by the reply: "My dear, I'm not a rich +man, but I never use an opinion twice if I can help it." +</P> + +<P> +She was reduced, therefore, to dwelling on his moral deficiencies; and +one of the most obvious of these was his refusal to take things +seriously. On this occasion, however, some ulterior purpose kept her +from taking up his taunt. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not in the least ashamed!" she repeated, with the air of shaking a +banner to the wind; but the domestic atmosphere being calm, the banner +drooped unheroically. +</P> + +<P> +"That," said Lethbury judicially, "encourages me to infer that you +ought to be, and that, consequently, you've been giving yourself the +unusual pleasure of doing something I shouldn't approve of." +</P> + +<P> +She met this with an almost solemn directness. "No," she said. "You +won't approve of it. I've allowed for that." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," he exclaimed, setting down his liqueur-glass. "You've worked out +the whole problem, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"I believe so." +</P> + +<P> +"That's uncommonly interesting. And what is it?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him quietly. "A baby." +</P> + +<P> +If it was seldom given her to surprise him, she had attained the +distinction for once. +</P> + +<P> +"A baby?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"A—human baby?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course!" she cried, with the virtuous resentment of the woman who +has never allowed dogs in the house. +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury's puzzled stare broke into a fresh smile. "A baby I sha'n't +approve of? Well, in the abstract I don't think much of them, I admit. +Is this an abstract baby?" +</P> + +<P> +Again she frowned at the adjective; but she had reached a pitch of +exaltation at which such obstacles could not deter her. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the loveliest baby—" she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, then it's concrete. It exists. In this harsh world it draws its +breath in pain—" +</P> + +<P> +"It's the healthiest child I ever saw!" she indignantly corrected. +</P> + +<P> +"You've seen it, then?" +</P> + +<P> +Again the accusing blush suffused her. "Yes—I've seen it." +</P> + +<P> +"And to whom does the paragon belong?" +</P> + +<P> +And here indeed she confounded him. "To me—I hope," she declared. +</P> + +<P> +He pushed his chair back with an inarticulate murmur. "To <I>you</I>—?" +</P> + +<P> +"To <I>us</I>," she corrected. +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord!" he said. If there had been the least hint of hallucination +in her transparent gaze—but no: it was as clear, as shallow, as easily +fathomable as when he had first suffered the sharp surprise of striking +bottom in it. +</P> + +<P> +It occurred to him that perhaps she was trying to be funny: he knew +that there is nothing more cryptic than the humor of the unhumorous. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it a joke?" he faltered. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I hope not. I want it so much to be a reality—" +</P> + +<P> +He paused to smile at the limitations of a world in which jokes were +not realities, and continued gently: "But since it is one already—" +</P> + +<P> +"To us, I mean: to you and me. I want—" her voice wavered, and her +eyes with it. "I have always wanted so dreadfully...it has been such a +disappointment...not to..." +</P> + +<P> +"I see," said Lethbury slowly. +</P> + +<P> +But he had not seen before. It seemed curious, now, that he had never +thought of her taking it in that way, had never surmised any hidden +depths beneath her outspread obviousness. He felt as though he had +touched a secret spring in her mind. +</P> + +<P> +There was a moment's silence, moist and tremulous on her part, awkward +and slightly irritated on his. +</P> + +<P> +"You've been lonely, I suppose?" he began. It was odd, having suddenly +to reckon with the stranger who gazed at him out of her trivial eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"At times," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry." +</P> + +<P> +"It was not your fault. A man has so many occupations; and women who +are clever—or very handsome—I suppose that's an occupation too. +Sometimes I've felt that when dinner was ordered I had nothing to do +till the next day." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," he groaned. +</P> + +<P> +"It wasn't your fault," she insisted. "I never told you—but when I +chose that rose-bud paper for the front room upstairs, I always +thought—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well—?" +</P> + +<P> +"It would be such a pretty paper—for a baby—to wake up in. That was +years ago, of course; but it was rather an expensive paper... and it +hasn't faded in the least..." she broke off incoherently. +</P> + +<P> +"It hasn't faded?" +</P> + +<P> +"No—and so I thought...as we don't use the room for anything ... now +that Aunt Sophronia is dead...I thought I might... you might...oh, +Julian, if you could only have seen it just waking up in its crib!" +</P> + +<P> +"Seen what—where? You haven't got a baby upstairs?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no—not <I>yet</I>," she said, with her rare laugh—the girlish +bubbling of merriment that had seemed one of her chief graces in the +early days. It occurred to him that he had not given her enough things +to laugh about lately. But then she needed such very elementary things: +it was as difficult to amuse her as a savage. He concluded that he was +not sufficiently simple. +</P> + +<P> +"Alice," he said, almost solemnly, "what <I>do</I> you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated a moment: he saw her gather her courage for a supreme +effort. Then she said slowly, gravely, as though she were pronouncing a +sacramental phrase: +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so lonely without a little child—and I thought perhaps you'd let +me adopt one....It's at the hospital...its mother is dead...and I +could...pet it, and dress it, and do things for it...and it's such a +good baby...you can ask any of the nurses...it would never, <I>never</I> +bother you by crying..." +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +Lethbury accompanied his wife to the hospital in a mood of chastened +wonder. It did not occur to him to oppose her wish. He knew, of course, +that he would have to bear the brunt of the situation: the jokes at the +club, the inquiries, the explanations. He saw himself in the comic role +of the adopted father, and welcomed it as an expiation. For in his +rapid reconstruction of the past he found himself cutting a shabbier +figure than he cared to admit. He had always been intolerant of stupid +people, and it was his punishment to be convicted of stupidity. As his +mind traversed the years between his marriage and this unexpected +assumption of paternity, he saw, in the light of an overheated +imagination, many signs of unwonted crassness. It was not that he had +ceased to think his wife stupid: she <I>was</I> stupid, limited, inflexible; +but there was a pathos in the struggles of her swaddled mind, in its +blind reachings toward the primal emotions. He had always thought she +would have been happier with a child; but he had thought it +mechanically, because it had so often been thought before, because it +was in the nature of things to think it of every woman, because his +wife was so eminently one of a species that she fitted into all the +generalizations on the sex. But he had regarded this generalization as +merely typical of the triumph of tradition over experience. Maternity +was no doubt the supreme function of primitive woman, the one end to +which her whole organism tended; but the law of increasing complexity +had operated in both sexes, and he had not seriously supposed that, +outside the world of Christmas fiction and anecdotic art, such truisms +had any special hold on the feminine imagination. Now he saw that the +arts in question were kept alive by the vitality of the sentiments they +appealed to. +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury was in fact going through a rapid process of readjustment. His +marriage had been a failure, but he had preserved toward his wife the +exact fidelity of act that is sometimes supposed to excuse any +divagation of feeling; so that, for years, the tie between them had +consisted mainly in his abstaining from making love to other women. The +abstention had not always been easy, for the world is surprisingly +well-stocked with the kind of woman one ought to have married but did +not; and Lethbury had not escaped the solicitation of such +alternatives. His immunity had been purchased at the cost of taking +refuge in the somewhat rarified atmosphere of his perceptions; and his +world being thus limited, he had given unusual care to its details, +compensating himself for the narrowness of his horizon by the minute +finish of his foreground. It was a world of fine shadings and the +nicest proportions, where impulse seldom set a blundering foot, and the +feast of reason was undisturbed by an intemperate flow of soul. To such +a banquet his wife naturally remained uninvited. The diet would have +disagreed with her, and she would probably have objected to the other +guests. But Lethbury, miscalculating her needs, had hitherto supposed +that he had made ample provision for them, and was consequently at +liberty to enjoy his own fare without any reproach of mendicancy at his +gates. Now he beheld her pressing a starved face against the windows of +his life, and in his imaginative reaction he invested her with a pathos +borrowed from the sense of his own shortcomings. +</P> + +<P> +In the hospital, the imaginative process continued with increasing +force. He looked at his wife with new eyes. Formerly she had been to +him a mere bundle of negations, a labyrinth of dead walls and bolted +doors. There was nothing behind the walls, and the doors led +no-whither: he had sounded and listened often enough to be sure of +that. Now he felt like a traveller who, exploring some ancient ruin, +comes on an inner cell, intact amid the general dilapidation, and +painted with images which reveal the forgotten uses of the building. +</P> + +<P> +His wife stood by a white crib in one of the wards. In the crib lay a +child, a year old, the nurse affirmed, but to Lethbury's eye a mere +dateless fragment of humanity projected against a background of +conjecture. Over this anonymous particle of life Mrs. Lethbury leaned, +such ecstasy reflected in her face as strikes up, in Correggio's +Night-piece, from the child's body to the mother's countenance. It was +a light that irradiated and dazzled her. She looked up at an inquiry of +Lethbury's, but as their glances met he perceived that she no longer +saw him, that he had become as invisible to her as she had long been to +him. He had to transfer his question to the nurse. +</P> + +<P> +"What is the child's name?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"We call her Jane," said the nurse. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +Lethbury, at first, had resisted the idea of a legal adoption; but when +he found that his wife's curiously limited imagination prevented her +regarding the child as hers till it had been made so by process of law, +he promptly withdrew his objection. On one point only he remained +inflexible; and that was the changing of the waif's name. Mrs. +Lethbury, almost at once, had expressed a wish to rechristen it: she +fluctuated between Muriel and Gladys, deferring the moment of decision +like a lady wavering between two bonnets. But Lethbury was unyielding. +In the general surrender of his prejudices this one alone held out. +</P> + +<P> +"But Jane is so dreadful," Mrs. Lethbury protested. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we don't know that <I>she</I> won't be dreadful. She may grow up a +Jane." +</P> + +<P> +His wife exclaimed reproachfully. "The nurse says she's the loveliest—" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't they always say that?" asked Lethbury patiently. He was prepared +to be inexhaustibly patient now that he had reached a firm foothold of +opposition. +</P> + +<P> +"It's cruel to call her Jane," Mrs. Lethbury pleaded. +</P> + +<P> +"It's ridiculous to call her Muriel." +</P> + +<P> +"The nurse is <I>sure</I> she must be a lady's child." +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury winced: he had tried, all along, to keep his mind off the +question of antecedents. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, let her prove it," he said, with a rising sense of exasperation. +He wondered how he could ever have allowed himself to be drawn into +such a ridiculous business; for the first time he felt the full irony +of it. He had visions of coming home in the afternoon to a house +smelling of linseed and paregoric, and of being greeted by a chronic +howl as he went up stairs to dress for dinner. He had never been a +club-man, but he saw himself becoming one now. +</P> + +<P> +The worst of his anticipations were unfulfilled. The baby was +surprisingly well and surprisingly quiet. Such infantile remedies as +she absorbed were not potent enough to be perceived beyond the nursery; +and when Lethbury could be induced to enter that sanctuary, there was +nothing to jar his nerves in the mild pink presence of his adopted +daughter. Jars there were, indeed: they were probably inevitable in the +disturbed routine of the household; but they occurred between Mrs. +Lethbury and the nurses, and Jane contributed to them only a placid +stare which might have served as a rebuke to the combatants. +</P> + +<P> +In the reaction from his first impulse of atonement, Lethbury noted +with sharpened perceptions the effect of the change on his wife's +character. He saw already the error of supposing that it could work any +transformation in her. It simply magnified her existing qualities. She +was like a dried sponge put in water: she expanded, but she did not +change her shape. From the stand-point of scientific observation it was +curious to see how her stored instincts responded to the +pseudo-maternal call. She overflowed with the petty maxims of the +occasion. One felt in her the epitome, the consummation, of centuries +of animal maternity, so that this little woman, who screamed at a mouse +and was nervous about burglars, came to typify the cave-mother rending +her prey for her young. +</P> + +<P> +It was less easy to regard philosophically the practical effects of her +borrowed motherhood. Lethbury found with surprise that she was becoming +assertive and definite. She no longer represented the negative side of +his life; she showed, indeed, a tendency to inconvenient affirmations. +She had gradually expanded her assumption of motherhood till it +included his own share in the relation, and he suddenly found himself +regarded as the father of Jane. This was a contingency he had not +foreseen, and it took all his philosophy to accept it; but there were +moments of compensation. For Mrs. Lethbury was undoubtedly happy for +the first time in years; and the thought that he had tardily +contributed to this end reconciled him to the irony of the means. +</P> + +<P> +At first he was inclined to reproach himself for still viewing the +situation from the outside, for remaining a spectator instead of a +participant. He had been allured, for a moment, by the vision of +severed hands meeting over a cradle, as the whole body of domestic +fiction bears witness to their doing; and the fact that no such +conjunction took place he could explain only on the ground that it was +a borrowed cradle. He did not dislike the little girl. She still +remained to him a hypothetical presence, a query rather than a fact; +but her nearness was not unpleasant, and there were moments when her +tentative utterances, her groping steps, seemed to loosen the dry +accretions enveloping his inner self. But even at such moments—moments +which he invited and caressed—she did not bring him nearer to his +wife. He now perceived that he had made a certain place in his life for +Mrs. Lethbury, and that she no longer fitted into it. It was too late +to enlarge the space, and so she overflowed and encroached. Lethbury +struggled against the sense of submergence. He let down barrier after +barrier, yielded privacy after privacy; but his wife's personality +continued to dilate. She was no longer herself alone: she was herself +and Jane. Gradually, in a monstrous fusion of identity, she became +herself, himself and Jane; and instead of trying to adapt her to a +spare crevice of his character, he found himself carelessly squeezed +into the smallest compartment of the domestic economy. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H4> + +<P> +He continued to tell himself that he was satisfied if his wife was +happy; and it was not till the child's tenth year that he felt a doubt +of her happiness. +</P> + +<P> +Jane had been a preternaturally good child. During the eight years of +her adoption she had caused her foster-parents no anxiety beyond those +connected with the usual succession of youthful diseases. But her +unknown progenitors had given her a robust constitution, and she passed +unperturbed through measles, chicken-pox and whooping-cough. If there +was any suffering it was endured vicariously by Mrs. Lethbury, whose +temperature rose and fell with the patient's, and who could not hear +Jane sneeze without visions of a marble angel weeping over a broken +column. But though Jane's prompt recoveries continued to belie such +premonitions, though her existence continued to move forward on an even +keel of good health and good conduct, Mrs. Lethbury's satisfaction +showed no corresponding advance. Lethbury, at first, was disposed to +add her disappointment to the long list of feminine inconsistencies +with which the sententious observer of life builds up his favorite +induction; but circumstances presently led him to take a kindlier view +of the case. +</P> + +<P> +Hitherto his wife had regarded him as a negligible factor in Jane's +evolution. Beyond providing for his adopted daughter, and effacing +himself before her, he was not expected to contribute to her +well-being. But as time passed he appeared to his wife in a new light. +It was he who was to educate Jane. In matters of the intellect, Mrs. +Lethbury was the first to declare her deficiencies—to proclaim them, +even, with a certain virtuous superiority. She said she did not pretend +to be clever, and there was no denying the truth of the assertion. Now, +however, she seemed less ready, not to own her limitations, but to +glory in them. Confronted with the problem of Jane's instruction, she +stood in awe of the child. +</P> + +<P> +"I have always been stupid, you know," she said to Lethbury with a new +humility, "and I'm afraid I sha'n't know what is best for Jane. I'm +sure she has a wonderfully good mind, and I should reproach myself if I +didn't give her every opportunity." She looked at him helplessly. "You +must tell me what ought to be done." +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury was not unwilling to oblige her. Somewhere in his mental +lumber-room there rusted a theory of education such as usually lingers +among the impedimenta of the childless. He brought this out, +refurbished it, and applied it to Jane. At first he thought his wife +had not overrated the quality of the child's mind. Jane seemed +extraordinarily intelligent. Her precocious definiteness of mind was +encouraging to her inexperienced preceptor. She had no difficulty in +fixing her attention, and he felt that every fact he imparted was being +etched in metal. He helped his wife to engage the best teachers, and +for a while continued to take an ex-official interest in his adopted +daughter's studies. But gradually his interest waned. Jane's ideas did +not increase with her acquisitions. Her young mind remained a mere +receptacle for facts: a kind of cold-storage from which anything that +had been put there could be taken out at a moment's notice, intact but +congealed. She developed, moreover, an inordinate pride in the capacity +of her mental storehouse, and a tendency to pelt her public with its +contents. She was overheard to jeer at her nurse for not knowing when +the Saxon Heptarchy had fallen, and she alternately dazzled and +depressed Mrs. Lethbury by the wealth of her chronological allusions. +She showed no interest in the significance of the facts she amassed: +she simply collected dates as another child might have collected stamps +or marbles. To her foster-mother she seemed a prodigy of wisdom; but +Lethbury saw, with a secret movement of sympathy, how the aptitudes in +which Mrs. Lethbury gloried were slowly estranging her from their +possessor. +</P> + +<P> +"She is getting too clever for me," his wife said to him, after one of +Jane's historical flights, "but I am so glad that she will be a +companion to you." +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury groaned in spirit. He did not look forward to Jane's +companionship. She was still a good little girl: but there was +something automatic and formal in her goodness, as though it were a +kind of moral calisthenics that she went through for the sake of +showing her agility. An early consciousness of virtue had moreover +constituted her the natural guardian and adviser of her elders. Before +she was fifteen she had set about reforming the household. She took +Mrs. Lethbury in hand first; then she extended her efforts to the +servants, with consequences more disastrous to the domestic harmony; +and lastly she applied herself to Lethbury. She proved to him by +statistics that he smoked too much, and that it was injurious to the +optic nerve to read in bed. She took him to task for not going to +church more regularly, and pointed out to him the evils of desultory +reading. She suggested that a regular course of study encourages mental +concentration, and hinted that inconsecutiveness of thought is a sign +of approaching age. +</P> + +<P> +To her adopted mother her suggestions were equally pertinent. She +instructed Mrs. Lethbury in an improved way of making beef stock, and +called her attention to the unhygienic qualities of carpets. She poured +out distracting facts about bacilli and vegetable mould, and +demonstrated that curtains and picture-frames are a hot-bed of animal +organisms. She learned by heart the nutritive ingredients of the +principal articles of diet, and revolutionized the cuisine by an +attempt to establish a scientific average between starch and +phosphates. Four cooks left during this experiment, and Lethbury fell +into the habit of dining at his club. +</P> + +<P> +Once or twice, at the outset, he had tried to check Jane's ardor; but +his efforts resulted only in hurting his wife's feelings. Jane remained +impervious, and Mrs. Lethbury resented any attempt to protect her from +her daughter. Lethbury saw that she was consoled for the sense of her +own inferiority by the thought of what Jane's intellectual +companionship must be to him; and he tried to keep up the illusion by +enduring with what grace he might the blighting edification of Jane's +discourse. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H4> + +<P> +As Jane grew up, he sometimes avenged himself by wondering if his wife +was still sorry that they had not called her Muriel. Jane was not ugly; +she developed, indeed, a kind of categorical prettiness that might have +been a projection of her mind. She had a creditable collection of +features, but one had to take an inventory of them to find out that she +was good-looking. The fusing grace had been omitted. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Lethbury took a touching pride in her daughter's first steps in +the world. She expected Jane to take by her complexion those whom she +did not capture by her learning. But Jane's rosy freshness did not work +any perceptible ravages. Whether the young men guessed the axioms on +her lips and detected the encyclopaedia in her eye, or whether they +simply found no intrinsic interest in these features, certain it is, +that, in spite of her mother's heroic efforts, and of incessant calls +on Lethbury's purse, Jane, at the end of her first season, had dropped +hopelessly out of the running. A few duller girls found her +interesting, and one or two young men came to the house with the object +of meeting other young women; but she was rapidly becoming one of the +social supernumeraries who are asked out only because they are on +people's lists. +</P> + +<P> +The blow was bitter to Mrs. Lethbury; but she consoled herself with the +idea that Jane had failed because she was too clever. Jane probably +shared this conviction; at all events she betrayed no consciousness of +failure. She had developed a pronounced taste for society, and went +out, unweariedly and obstinately, winter after winter, while Mrs. +Lethbury toiled in her wake, showering attentions on oblivious +hostesses. To Lethbury there was something at once tragic and +exasperating in the sight of their two figures, the one conciliatory, +the other dogged, both pursuing with unabated zeal the elusive prize of +popularity. He even began to feel a personal stake in the pursuit, not +as it concerned Jane, but as it affected his wife. He saw that the +latter was the victim of Jane's disappointment: that Jane was not above +the crude satisfaction of "taking it out" of her mother. Experience +checked the impulse to come to his wife's defence; and when his +resentment was at its height, Jane disarmed him by giving up the +struggle. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing was said to mark her capitulation; but Lethbury noticed that +the visiting ceased, and that the dressmaker's bills diminished. At the +same time, Mrs. Lethbury made it known that Jane had taken up +charities; and before long Jane's conversation confirmed this +announcement. At first Lethbury congratulated himself on the change; +but Jane's domesticity soon began to weigh on him. During the day she +was sometimes absent on errands of mercy; but in the evening she was +always there. At first she and Mrs. Lethbury sat in the drawing-room +together, and Lethbury smoked in the library; but presently Jane formed +the habit of joining him there, and he began to suspect that he was +included among the objects of her philanthropy. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Lethbury confirmed the suspicion. "Jane has grown very +serious-minded lately," she said. "She imagines that she used to +neglect you, and she is trying to make up for it. Don't discourage +her," she added innocently. +</P> + +<P> +Such a plea delivered Lethbury helpless to his daughter's +ministrations: and he found himself measuring the hours he spent with +her by the amount of relief they must be affording her mother. There +were even moments when he read a furtive gratitude in Mrs. Lethbury's +eye. +</P> + +<P> +But Lethbury was no hero, and he had nearly reached the limit of +vicarious endurance when something wonderful happened. They never quite +knew afterward how it had come about, or who first perceived it; but +Mrs. Lethbury one day gave tremulous voice to their inferences. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," she said, "he comes here because of Elise." The young lady +in question, a friend of Jane's, was possessed of attractions which had +already been found to explain the presence of masculine visitors. +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury risked a denial. "I don't think he does," he declared. +</P> + +<P> +"But Elise is thought very pretty," Mrs. Lethbury insisted. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't help that," said Lethbury doggedly. +</P> + +<P> +He saw a faint light in his wife's eyes; but she remarked carelessly: +"Mr. Budd would be a very good match for Elise." +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury could hardly repress a chuckle: he was so exquisitely aware +that she was trying to propitiate the gods. +</P> + +<P> +For a few weeks neither said a word; then Mrs. Lethbury once more +reverted to the subject. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a month since Elise went abroad," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"And Mr. Budd seems to come here just as often—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," said Lethbury with heroic indifference; and his wife hastily +changed the subject. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Winstanley Budd was a young man who suffered from an excess of +manner. Politeness gushed from him in the driest seasons. He was always +performing feats of drawing-room chivalry, and the approach of the most +unobtrusive female threw him into attitudes which endangered the +furniture. His features, being of the cherubic order, did not lend +themselves to this role; but there were moments when he appeared to +dominate them, to force them into compliance with an aquiline ideal. +The range of Mr. Budd's social benevolence made its object hard to +distinguish. He spread his cloak so indiscriminately that one could not +always interpret the gesture, and Jane's impassive manner had the +effect of increasing his demonstrations: she threw him into paroxysms +of politeness. +</P> + +<P> +At first he filled the house with his amenities; but gradually it +became apparent that his most dazzling effects were directed +exclusively to Jane. Lethbury and his wife held their breath and looked +away from each other. They pretended not to notice the frequency of Mr. +Budd's visits, they struggled against an imprudent inclination to leave +the young people too much alone. Their conclusions were the result of +indirect observation, for neither of them dared to be caught watching +Mr. Budd: they behaved like naturalists on the trail of a rare +butterfly. +</P> + +<P> +In his efforts not to notice Mr. Budd, Lethbury centred his attentions +on Jane; and Jane, at this crucial moment, wrung from him a reluctant +admiration. While her parents went about dissembling their emotions, +she seemed to have none to conceal. She betrayed neither eagerness nor +surprise; so complete was her unconcern that there were moments when +Lethbury feared it was obtuseness, when he could hardly help whispering +to her that now was the moment to lower the net. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the velocity of Mr. Budd's gyrations increased with the ardor +of courtship: his politeness became incandescent, and Jane found +herself the centre of a pyrotechnical display culminating in the "set +piece" of an offer of marriage. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Lethbury imparted the news to her husband one evening after their +daughter had gone to bed. The announcement was made and received with +an air of detachment, as though both feared to be betrayed into +unseemly exultation; but Lethbury, as his wife ended, could not repress +the inquiry, "Have they decided on a day?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Lethbury's superior command of her features enabled her to look +shocked. "What can you be thinking of? He only offered himself at five!" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course—of course—" stammered Lethbury—"but nowadays people marry +after such short engagements—" +</P> + +<P> +"Engagement!" said his wife solemnly. "There is no engagement." +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury dropped his cigar. "What on earth do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"Jane is thinking it over." +</P> + +<P> +<I>"Thinking it over?"</I> "She has asked for a month before deciding." +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury sank back with a gasp. Was it genius or was it madness? He +felt incompetent to decide; and Mrs. Lethbury's next words showed that +she shared his difficulty. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I don't want to hurry Jane—" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not," he acquiesced. +</P> + +<P> +"But I pointed out to her that a young man of Mr. Budd's impulsive +temperament might—might be easily discouraged—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; and what did she say?" +</P> + +<P> +"She said that if she was worth winning she was worth waiting for." +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H4> + +<P> +The period of Mr. Budd's probation could scarcely have cost him as much +mental anguish as it caused his would-be parents-in-law. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Lethbury, by various ruses, tried to shorten the ordeal, but Jane +remained inexorable; and each morning Lethbury came down to breakfast +with the certainty of finding a letter of withdrawal from her +discouraged suitor. +</P> + +<P> +When at length the decisive day came, and Mrs. Lethbury, at its close, +stole into the library with an air of chastened joy, they stood for a +moment without speaking; then Mrs. Lethbury paid a fitting tribute to +the proprieties by faltering out: "It will be dreadful to have to give +her up—" +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury could not repress a warning gesture; but even as it escaped +him, he realized that his wife's grief was genuine. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, of course," he said, vainly sounding his own emotional +shallows for an answering regret. And yet it was his wife who had +suffered most from Jane! +</P> + +<P> +He had fancied that these sufferings would be effaced by the milder +atmosphere of their last weeks together; but felicity did not soften +Jane. Not for a moment did she relax her dominion: she simply widened +it to include a new subject. Mr. Budd found himself under orders with +the others; and a new fear assailed Lethbury as he saw Jane assume +prenuptial control of her betrothed. Lethbury had never felt any strong +personal interest in Mr. Budd; but, as Jane's prospective husband, the +young man excited his sympathy. To his surprise, he found that Mrs. +Lethbury shared the feeling. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid he may find Jane a little exacting," she said, after an +evening dedicated to a stormy discussion of the wedding arrangements. +"She really ought to make some concessions. If he <I>wants</I> to be married +in a black frock-coat instead of a dark gray one—" She paused and +looked doubtfully at Lethbury. +</P> + +<P> +"What can I do about it?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"You might explain to him—tell him that Jane isn't always—" +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury made an impatient gesture. "What are you afraid of? His +finding her out or his not finding her out?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Lethbury flushed. "You put it so dreadfully!" +</P> + +<P> +Her husband mused for a moment; then he said with an air of cheerful +hypocrisy: "After all, Budd is old enough to take care of himself." +</P> + +<P> +But the next day Mrs. Lethbury surprised him. Late in the afternoon she +entered the library, so breathless and inarticulate that he scented a +catastrophe. +</P> + +<P> +"I've done it!" she cried. +</P> + +<P> +"Done what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Told him." She nodded toward the door. "He's just gone. Jane is out, +and I had a chance to talk to him alone." +</P> + +<P> +Lethbury pushed a chair forward and she sank into it. +</P> + +<P> +"What did you tell him? That she is <I>not</I> always—" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Lethbury lifted a tragic eye. "No; I told him that she always +<I>is</I>—" +</P> + +<P> +"Always <I>is</I>—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +There was a pause. Lethbury made a call on his hoarded philosophy. He +saw Jane suddenly reinstated in her evening seat by the library fire; +but an answering chord in him thrilled at his wife's heroism. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—what did he say?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Lethbury's agitation deepened. It was clear that the blow had +fallen. +</P> + +<P> +"He...he said...that we...had never understood Jane... or appreciated +her..." The final syllables were lost in her handkerchief, and she left +him marvelling at the mechanism of a woman. +</P> + +<P> +After that, Lethbury faced the future with an undaunted eye. They had +done their duty—at least his wife had done hers—and they were reaping +the usual harvest of ingratitude with a zest seldom accorded to such +reaping. There was a marked change in Mr. Budd's manner, and his +increasing coldness sent a genial glow through Lethbury's system. It +was easy to bear with Jane in the light of Mr. Budd's disapproval. +</P> + +<P> +There was a good deal to be borne in the last days, and the brunt of it +fell on Mrs. Lethbury. Jane marked her transition to the married state +by an appropriate but incongruous display of nerves. She became +sentimental, hysterical and reluctant. She quarrelled with her +betrothed and threatened to return the ring. Mrs. Lethbury had to +intervene, and Lethbury felt the hovering sword of destiny. But the +blow was suspended. Mr. Budd's chivalry was proof against all his +bride's caprices, and his devotion throve on her cruelty. Lethbury +feared that he was too faithful, too enduring, and longed to urge him +to vary his tactics. Jane presently reappeared with the ring on her +finger, and consented to try on the wedding-dress; but her +uncertainties, her reactions, were prolonged till the final day. +</P> + +<P> +When it dawned, Lethbury was still in an ecstasy of apprehension. +Feeling reasonably sure of the principal actors, he had centred his +fears on incidental possibilities. The clergyman might have a stroke, +or the church might burn down, or there might be something wrong with +the license. He did all that was humanly possible to avert such +contingencies, but there remained that incalculable factor known as the +hand of God. Lethbury seemed to feel it groping for him. +</P> + +<P> +In the church it almost had him by the nape. Mr. Budd was late; and for +five immeasurable minutes Lethbury and Jane faced a churchful of +conjecture. Then the bridegroom appeared, flushed but chivalrous, and +explaining to his father-in-law under cover of the ritual that he had +torn his glove and had to go back for another. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be losing the ring next," muttered Lethbury; but Mr. Budd +produced this article punctually, and a moment or two later was bearing +its wearer captive down the aisle. +</P> + +<P> +At the wedding-breakfast Lethbury caught his wife's eye fixed on him in +mild disapproval, and understood that his hilarity was exceeding the +bounds of fitness. He pulled himself together, and tried to subdue his +tone; but his jubilation bubbled over like a champagne-glass +perpetually refilled. The deeper his draughts, the higher it rose. +</P> + +<P> +It was at the brim when, in the wake of the dispersing guests, Jane +came down in her travelling-dress and fell on her mother's neck. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't leave you!" she wailed, and Lethbury felt as suddenly sobered +as a man under a douche. But if the bride was reluctant her captor was +relentless. Never had Mr. Budd been more dominant, more aquiline. +Lethbury's last fears were dissipated as the young man snatched Jane +from her mother's bosom and bore her off to the brougham. +</P> + +<P> +The brougham rolled away, the last milliner's girl forsook her post by +the awning, the red carpet was folded up, and the house door closed. +Lethbury stood alone in the hall with his wife. As he turned toward +her, he noticed the look of tired heroism in her eyes, the deepened +lines of her face. They reflected his own symptoms too accurately not +to appeal to him. The nervous tension had been horrible. He went up to +her, and an answering impulse made her lay a hand on his arm. He held +it there a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us go off and have a jolly little dinner at a restaurant," he +proposed. +</P> + +<P> +There had been a time when such a suggestion would have surprised her +to the verge of disapproval; but now she agreed to it at once. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that would be so nice," she murmured with a great sigh of relief +and assuagement. +</P> + +<P> +Jane had fulfilled her mission after all: she had drawn them together +at last. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="reckoning"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE RECKONING +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +"THE marriage law of the new dispensation will be: <I>Thou shalt not be +unfaithful—to thyself</I>." +</P> + +<P> +A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the haze +of cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement Westall, as her husband descended from +his improvised platform, saw him merged in a congratulatory group of +ladies. Westall's informal talks on "The New Ethics" had drawn about +him an eager following of the mentally unemployed—those who, as he had +once phrased it, liked to have their brain-food cut up for them. The +talks had begun by accident. Westall's ideas were known to be +"advanced," but hitherto their advance had not been in the direction of +publicity. He had been, in his wife's opinion, almost pusillanimously +careful not to let his personal views endanger his professional +standing. Of late, however, he had shown a puzzling tendency to +dogmatize, to throw down the gauntlet, to flaunt his private code in +the face of society; and the relation of the sexes being a topic always +sure of an audience, a few admiring friends had persuaded him to give +his after-dinner opinions a larger circulation by summing them up in a +series of talks at the Van Sideren studio. +</P> + +<P> +The Herbert Van Siderens were a couple who subsisted, socially, on the +fact that they had a studio. Van Sideren's pictures were chiefly +valuable as accessories to the <I>mise en scene</I> which differentiated his +wife's "afternoons" from the blighting functions held in long New York +drawing-rooms, and permitted her to offer their friends +whiskey-and-soda instead of tea. Mrs. Van Sideren, for her part, was +skilled in making the most of the kind of atmosphere which a lay-figure +and an easel create; and if at times she found the illusion hard to +maintain, and lost courage to the extent of almost wishing that Herbert +could paint, she promptly overcame such moments of weakness by calling +in some fresh talent, some extraneous re-enforcement of the "artistic" +impression. It was in quest of such aid that she had seized on Westall, +coaxing him, somewhat to his wife's surprise, into a flattered +participation in her fraud. It was vaguely felt, in the Van Sideren +circle, that all the audacities were artistic, and that a teacher who +pronounced marriage immoral was somehow as distinguished as a painter +who depicted purple grass and a green sky. The Van Sideren set were +tired of the conventional color-scheme in art and conduct. +</P> + +<P> +Julia Westall had long had her own views on the immorality of marriage; +she might indeed have claimed her husband as a disciple. In the early +days of their union she had secretly resented his disinclination to +proclaim himself a follower of the new creed; had been inclined to tax +him with moral cowardice, with a failure to live up to the convictions +for which their marriage was supposed to stand. That was in the first +burst of propagandism, when, womanlike, she wanted to turn her +disobedience into a law. Now she felt differently. She could hardly +account for the change, yet being a woman who never allowed her +impulses to remain unaccounted for, she tried to do so by saying that +she did not care to have the articles of her faith misinterpreted by +the vulgar. In this connection, she was beginning to think that almost +every one was vulgar; certainly there were few to whom she would have +cared to intrust the defence of so esoteric a doctrine. And it was +precisely at this point that Westall, discarding his unspoken +principles, had chosen to descend from the heights of privacy, and +stand hawking his convictions at the street-corner! +</P> + +<P> +It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously focussed +upon herself Mrs. Westall's wandering resentment. In the first place, +the girl had no business to be there. It was "horrid"—Mrs. Westall +found herself slipping back into the old feminine vocabulary—simply +"horrid" to think of a young girl's being allowed to listen to such +talk. The fact that Una smoked cigarettes and sipped an occasional +cocktail did not in the least tarnish a certain radiant innocency which +made her appear the victim, rather than the accomplice, of her parents' +vulgarities. Julia Westall felt in a hot helpless way that something +ought to be done—that some one ought to speak to the girl's mother. +And just then Una glided up. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mrs. Westall, how beautiful it was!" Una fixed her with large +limpid eyes. "You believe it all, I suppose?" she asked with seraphic +gravity. +</P> + +<P> +"All—what, my dear child?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl shone on her. "About the higher life—the freer expansion of +the individual—the law of fidelity to one's self," she glibly recited. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Westall, to her own wonder, blushed a deep and burning blush. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Una," she said, "you don't in the least understand what it's +all about!" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. "Don't <I>you</I>, +then?" she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Westall laughed. "Not always—or altogether! But I should like +some tea, please." +</P> + +<P> +Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were dispensed. As +Julia received her cup she scrutinized the girl more carefully. It was +not such a girlish face, after all—definite lines were forming under +the rosy haze of youth. She reflected that Una must be six-and-twenty, +and wondered why she had not married. A nice stock of ideas she would +have as her dower! If <I>they</I> were to be a part of the modern girl's +trousseau— +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Westall caught herself up with a start. It was as though some one +else had been speaking—a stranger who had borrowed her own voice: she +felt herself the dupe of some fantastic mental ventriloquism. +Concluding suddenly that the room was stifling and Una's tea too sweet, +she set down her cup, and looked about for Westall: to meet his eyes +had long been her refuge from every uncertainty. She met them now, but +only, as she felt, in transit; they included her parenthetically in a +larger flight. She followed the flight, and it carried her to a corner +to which Una had withdrawn—one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van +Sideren attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment +later, had overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl's side. +She bent forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the +depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him to +swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of appetite. +Julia winced at her own definition of the smile. +</P> + +<P> +On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his +wife by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. "Did I open their eyes a +bit? Did I tell them what you wanted me to?" he asked gaily. +</P> + +<P> +Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. "What <I>I</I> +wanted—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, haven't you—all this time?" She caught the honest wonder of his +tone. "I somehow fancied you'd rather blamed me for not talking more +openly—before—You've made me feel, at times, that I was sacrificing +principles to expediency." +</P> + +<P> +She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: "What made +you decide not to—any longer?" +</P> + +<P> +She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. "Why—the wish to +please you!" he answered, almost too simply. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you would not go on, then," she said abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the +darkness. +</P> + +<P> +"Not go on—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Call a hansom, please. I'm tired," broke from her with a sudden rush +of physical weariness. +</P> + +<P> +Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally +hot—and then that confounded cigarette smoke—he had noticed once or +twice that she looked pale—she mustn't come to another Saturday. She +felt herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence of his +concern for her, the feminine in her leaning on the man in him with a +conscious intensity of abandonment. He put her in the hansom, and her +hand stole into his in the darkness. A tear or two rose, and she let +them fall. It was so delicious to cry over imaginary troubles! +</P> + +<P> +That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the +subject of his talk. He combined a man's dislike of uncomfortable +questions with an almost feminine skill in eluding them; and she knew +that if he returned to the subject he must have some special reason for +doing so. +</P> + +<P> +"You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did I put +the case badly?" +</P> + +<P> +"No—you put it very well." +</P> + +<P> +"Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have me go +on with it?" +</P> + +<P> +She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention deepening +her sense of helplessness. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think I care to hear such things discussed in public." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't understand you," he exclaimed. Again the feeling that his +surprise was genuine gave an air of obliquity to her own attitude. She +was not sure that she understood herself. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you explain?" he said with a tinge of impatience. +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes wandered about the familiar drawing-room which had been the +scene of so many of their evening confidences. The shaded lamps, the +quiet-colored walls hung with mezzotints, the pale spring flowers +scattered here and there in Venice glasses and bowls of old Sevres, +recalled, she hardly knew why, the apartment in which the evenings of +her first marriage had been passed—a wilderness of rosewood and +upholstery, with a picture of a Roman peasant above the mantel-piece, +and a Greek slave in "statuary marble" between the folding-doors of the +back drawing-room. It was a room with which she had never been able to +establish any closer relation than that between a traveller and a +railway station; and now, as she looked about at the surroundings which +stood for her deepest affinities—the room for which she had left that +other room—she was startled by the same sense of strangeness and +unfamiliarity. The prints, the flowers, the subdued tones of the old +porcelains, seemed to typify a superficial refinement that had no +relation to the deeper significances of life. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she heard her husband repeating his question. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know that I can explain," she faltered. +</P> + +<P> +He drew his arm-chair forward so that he faced her across the hearth. +The light of a reading-lamp fell on his finely drawn face, which had a +kind of surface-sensitiveness akin to the surface-refinement of its +setting. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it that you no longer believe in our ideas?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"In our ideas—?" +</P> + +<P> +"The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are supposed to +stand for." He paused a moment. "The ideas on which our marriage was +founded." +</P> + +<P> +The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then—she was sure +now that he had his reasons! In the ten years of their marriage, how +often had either of them stopped to consider the ideas on which it was +founded? How often does a man dig about the basement of his house to +examine its foundation? The foundation is there, of course—the house +rests on it—but one lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It was +she, indeed, who in the beginning had insisted on reviewing the +situation now and then, on recapitulating the reasons which justified +her course, on proclaiming, from time to time, her adherence to the +religion of personal independence; but she had long ceased to feel the +need of any such ideal standards, and had accepted her marriage as +frankly and naturally as though it had been based on the primitive +needs of the heart, and needed no special sanction to explain or +justify it. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course I still believe in our ideas!" she exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I repeat that I don't understand. It was a part of your theory +that the greatest possible publicity should be given to our view of +marriage. Have you changed your mind in that respect?" +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated. "It depends on circumstances—on the public one is +addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about them +don't care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are attracted +simply by its novelty." +</P> + +<P> +"And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and +learned the truth from each other." +</P> + +<P> +"That was different." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such +things never <I>are</I> discussed before young girls; but that is beside the +point, for I don't remember seeing any young girl in my audience +to-day—" +</P> + +<P> +"Except Una Van Sideren!" +</P> + +<P> +He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Miss Van Sideren—naturally—" +</P> + +<P> +"Why naturally?" +</P> + +<P> +"The daughter of the house—would you have had her sent out with her +governess?" +</P> + +<P> +"If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my +house!" +</P> + +<P> +Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. "I +fancy Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself." +</P> + +<P> +"No girl knows how to take care of herself—till it's too late." +</P> + +<P> +"And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of +self-defence?" +</P> + +<P> +"What do you call the surest means of self-defence?" +</P> + +<P> +"Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the +marriage tie." +</P> + +<P> +She made an impatient gesture. "How should you like to marry that kind +of a girl?" +</P> + +<P> +"Immensely—if she were my kind of girl in other respects." +</P> + +<P> +She took up the argument at another point. +</P> + +<P> +"You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young +girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation—" She broke +off, wondering why she had spoken. +</P> + +<P> +Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning of +their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely flattering to my +oratorical talent—but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you +that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for her. +She's quite capable of doing it herself." +</P> + +<P> +"You seem very familiar with her mental processes!" flashed unguardedly +from his wife. +</P> + +<P> +He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting. +</P> + +<P> +"I should like to be," he answered. "She interests me." +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to +Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was ready to +excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John +Arment was "impossible," and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the +thought that it would no longer be necessary to ask him to dine. +</P> + +<P> +There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither side had +accused the other of the offence euphemistically described as +"statutory." The Arments had indeed been obliged to transfer their +allegiance to a State which recognized desertion as a cause for +divorce, and construed the term so liberally that the seeds of +desertion were shown to exist in every union. Even Mrs. Arment's second +marriage did not make traditional morality stir in its sleep. It was +known that she had not met her second husband till after she had parted +from the first, and she had, moreover, replaced a rich man by a poor +one. Though Clement Westall was acknowledged to be a rising lawyer, it +was generally felt that his fortunes would not rise as rapidly as his +reputation. The Westalls would probably always have to live quietly and +go out to dinner in cabs. Could there be better evidence of Mrs. +Arment's complete disinterestedness? +</P> + +<P> +If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was somewhat +cruder and less complex than her own elucidation of the matter, both +explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment was impossible. +The only difference was that, to his wife, his impossibility was +something deeper than a social disqualification. She had once said, in +ironical defence of her marriage, that it had at least preserved her +from the necessity of sitting next to him at dinner; but she had not +then realized at what cost the immunity was purchased. John Arment was +impossible; but the sting of his impossibility lay in the fact that he +made it impossible for those about him to be other than himself. By an +unconscious process of elimination he had excluded from the world +everything of which he did not feel a personal need: had become, as it +were, a climate in which only his own requirements survived. This might +seem to imply a deliberate selfishness; but there was nothing +deliberate about Arment. He was as instinctive as an animal or a child. +It was this childish element in his nature which sometimes for a moment +unsettled his wife's estimate of him. Was it possible that he was +simply undeveloped, that he had delayed, somewhat longer than is usual, +the laborious process of growing up? He had the kind of sporadic +shrewdness which causes it to be said of a dull man that he is "no +fool"; and it was this quality that his wife found most trying. Even to +the naturalist it is annoying to have his deductions disturbed by some +unforeseen aberrancy of form or function; and how much more so to the +wife whose estimate of herself is inevitably bound up with her judgment +of her husband! +</P> + +<P> +Arment's shrewdness did not, indeed, imply any latent intellectual +power; it suggested, rather, potentialities of feeling, of suffering, +perhaps, in a blind rudimentary way, on which Julia's sensibilities +naturally declined to linger. She so fully understood her own reasons +for leaving him that she disliked to think they were not as +comprehensible to her husband. She was haunted, in her analytic +moments, by the look of perplexity, too inarticulate for words, with +which he had acquiesced to her explanations. +</P> + +<P> +These moments were rare with her, however. Her marriage had been too +concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had been +unhappy for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though it +had been uncomplicated. Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and Julia +was wounded in every fibre of her spirit. Her husband's personality +seemed to be closing gradually in on her, obscuring the sky and cutting +off the air, till she felt herself shut up among the decaying bodies of +her starved hopes. A sense of having been decoyed by some world-old +conspiracy into this bondage of body and soul filled her with despair. +If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in +ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature. She, for +one, would have no share in maintaining the pretence of which she had +been a victim: the pretence that a man and a woman, forced into the +narrowest of personal relations, must remain there till the end, though +they may have outgrown the span of each other's natures as the mature +tree outgrows the iron brace about the sapling. +</P> + +<P> +It was in the first heat of her moral indignation that she had met +Clement Westall. She had seen at once that he was "interested," and had +fought off the discovery, dreading any influence that should draw her +back into the bondage of conventional relations. To ward off the peril +she had, with an almost crude precipitancy, revealed her opinions to +him. To her surprise, she found that he shared them. She was attracted +by the frankness of a suitor who, while pressing his suit, admitted +that he did not believe in marriage. Her worst audacities did not seem +to surprise him: he had thought out all that she had felt, and they had +reached the same conclusion. People grew at varying rates, and the yoke +that was an easy fit for the one might soon become galling to the +other. That was what divorce was for: the readjustment of personal +relations. As soon as their necessarily transitive nature was +recognized they would gain in dignity as well as in harmony. There +would be no farther need of the ignoble concessions and connivances, +the perpetual sacrifice of personal delicacy and moral pride, by means +of which imperfect marriages were now held together. Each partner to +the contract would be on his mettle, forced to live up to the highest +standard of self-development, on pain of losing the other's respect and +affection. The low nature could no longer drag the higher down, but +must struggle to rise, or remain alone on its inferior level. The only +necessary condition to a harmonious marriage was a frank recognition of +this truth, and a solemn agreement between the contracting parties to +keep faith with themselves, and not to live together for a moment after +complete accord had ceased to exist between them. The new adultery was +unfaithfulness to self. +</P> + +<P> +It was, as Westall had just reminded her, on this understanding that +they had married. The ceremony was an unimportant concession to social +prejudice: now that the door of divorce stood open, no marriage need be +an imprisonment, and the contract therefore no longer involved any +diminution of self-respect. The nature of their attachment placed them +so far beyond the reach of such contingencies that it was easy to +discuss them with an open mind; and Julia's sense of security made her +dwell with a tender insistence on Westall's promise to claim his +release when he should cease to love her. The exchange of these vows +seemed to make them, in a sense, champions of the new law, pioneers in +the forbidden realm of individual freedom: they felt that they had +somehow achieved beatitude without martyrdom. +</P> + +<P> +This, as Julia now reviewed the past, she perceived to have been her +theoretical attitude toward marriage. It was unconsciously, +insidiously, that her ten years of happiness with Westall had developed +another conception of the tie; a reversion, rather, to the old instinct +of passionate dependency and possessorship that now made her blood +revolt at the mere hint of change. Change? Renewal? Was that what they +had called it, in their foolish jargon? Destruction, extermination +rather—this rending of a myriad fibres interwoven with another's +being! Another? But he was not other! He and she were one, one in the +mystic sense which alone gave marriage its significance. The new law +was not for them, but for the disunited creatures forced into a mockery +of union. The gospel she had felt called on to proclaim had no bearing +on her own case.... She sent for the doctor and told him she was sure +she needed a nerve tonic. +</P> + +<P> +She took the nerve tonic diligently, but it failed to act as a sedative +to her fears. She did not know what she feared; but that made her +anxiety the more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to the subject +of his Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and considerate, with a +softening of his quick manner, a touch of shyness in his consideration, +that sickened her with new fears. She told herself that it was because +she looked badly—because he knew about the doctor and the nerve +tonic—that he showed this deference to her wishes, this eagerness to +screen her from moral draughts; but the explanation simply cleared the +way for fresh inferences. +</P> + +<P> +The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday +the morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren. Would dear Julia +ask Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier than usual, as there was +to be some music after his "talk"? Westall was just leaving for his +office when his wife read the note. She opened the drawing-room door +and called him back to deliver the message. +</P> + +<P> +He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. "What a bore! I shall have +to cut my game of racquets. Well, I suppose it can't be helped. Will +you write and say it's all right?" +</P> + +<P> +Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chair-back against +which she leaned. +</P> + +<P> +"You mean to go on with these talks?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I—why not?" he returned; and this time it struck her that his +surprise was not quite unfeigned. The discovery helped her to find +words. +</P> + +<P> +"You said you had started them with the idea of pleasing me—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"I told you last week that they didn't please me." +</P> + +<P> +"Last week? Oh—" He seemed to make an effort of memory. "I thought you +were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next day." +</P> + +<P> +"It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance—" +</P> + +<P> +"My assurance?" +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair +with a choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away from her +like straws down a whirling flood. +</P> + +<P> +"Clement," she cried, "isn't it enough for you to know that I hate it?" +</P> + +<P> +He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her and +sat down. "What is it that you hate?" he asked gently. +</P> + +<P> +She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't bear to have you speak as if—as if—our marriage—were like +the other kind—the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the other +afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people, proclaiming +that husbands and wives had a right to leave each other whenever they +were tired—or had seen some one else—" +</P> + +<P> +Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the carpet. +</P> + +<P> +"You <I>have</I> ceased to take this view, then?" he said as she broke off. +"You no longer believe that husbands and wives <I>are</I> justified in +separating—under such conditions?" +</P> + +<P> +"Under such conditions?" she stammered. "Yes—I still believe that—but +how can we judge for others? What can we know of the circumstances—?" +</P> + +<P> +He interrupted her. "I thought it was a fundamental article of our +creed that the special circumstances produced by marriage were not to +interfere with the full assertion of individual liberty." He paused a +moment. "I thought that was your reason for leaving Arment." +</P> + +<P> +She flushed to the forehead. It was not like him to give a personal +turn to the argument. +</P> + +<P> +"It was my reason," she said simply. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then—why do you refuse to recognize its validity now?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't—I don't—I only say that one can't judge for others." +</P> + +<P> +He made an impatient movement. "This is mere hair-splitting. What you +mean is that, the doctrine having served your purpose when you needed +it, you now repudiate it." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," she exclaimed, flushing again, "what if I do? What does it +matter to us?" +</P> + +<P> +Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood before +his wife with something of the formality of a stranger. +</P> + +<P> +"It matters to me," he said in a low voice, "because I do <I>not</I> +repudiate it." +</P> + +<P> +"Well—?" +</P> + +<P> +"And because I had intended to invoke it as"— +</P> + +<P> +He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost deafened +by her heart-beats.—"as a complete justification of the course I am +about to take." +</P> + +<P> +Julia remained motionless. "What course is that?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +He cleared his throat. "I mean to claim the fulfilment of your promise." +</P> + +<P> +For an instant the room wavered and darkened; then she recovered a +torturing acuteness of vision. Every detail of her surroundings pressed +upon her: the tick of the clock, the slant of sunlight on the wall, the +hardness of the chair-arms that she grasped, were a separate wound to +each sense. +</P> + +<P> +"My promise—" she faltered. +</P> + +<P> +"Your part of our mutual agreement to set each other free if one or the +other should wish to be released." +</P> + +<P> +She was silent again. He waited a moment, shifting his position +nervously; then he said, with a touch of irritability: "You acknowledge +the agreement?" +</P> + +<P> +The question went through her like a shock. She lifted her head to it +proudly. "I acknowledge the agreement," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"And—you don't mean to repudiate it?" +</P> + +<P> +A log on the hearth fell forward, and mechanically he advanced and +pushed it back. +</P> + +<P> +"No," she answered slowly, "I don't mean to repudiate it." +</P> + +<P> +There was a pause. He remained near the hearth, his elbow resting on +the mantel-shelf. Close to his hand stood a little cup of jade that he +had given her on one of their wedding anniversaries. She wondered +vaguely if he noticed it. +</P> + +<P> +"You intend to leave me, then?" she said at length. +</P> + +<P> +His gesture seemed to deprecate the crudeness of the allusion. +</P> + +<P> +"To marry some one else?" +</P> + +<P> +Again his eye and hand protested. She rose and stood before him. +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you be afraid to tell me? Is it Una Van Sideren?" +</P> + +<P> +He was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you good luck," she said. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how +he had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there. The fire +still smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight had left the +wall. +</P> + +<P> +Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that +she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no +crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or +evasion. She had marched straight up to the guns. +</P> + +<P> +Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked +about her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her identity seemed +to be slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical swoon. "This is +my room—this is my house," she heard herself saying. Her room? Her +house? She could almost hear the walls laugh back at her. +</P> + +<P> +She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room +frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door close +a long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her brain. Her +husband must have left the house, then—her <I>husband?</I> She no longer +knew in what terms to think: the simplest phrases had a poisoned edge. +She sank back into her chair, overcome by a strange weakness. The clock +struck ten—it was only ten o'clock! Suddenly she remembered that she +had not ordered dinner...or were they dining out that evening? +<I>Dinner—dining out</I>—the old meaningless phraseology pursued her! She +must try to think of herself as she would think of some one else, a +some one dissociated from all the familiar routine of the past, whose +wants and habits must gradually be learned, as one might spy out the +ways of a strange animal... +</P> + +<P> +The clock struck another hour—eleven. She stood up again and walked to +the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her room. <I>Her</I> room? +Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the narrow +hall, and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed Westall's +sticks and umbrellas: a pair of his gloves lay on the hall table. The +same stair-carpet mounted between the same walls; the same old French +print, in its narrow black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual +continuity was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm; without, the same +untroubled and familiar surface. She must get away from it before she +could attempt to think. But, once in her room, she sat down on the +lounge, a stupor creeping over her... +</P> + +<P> +Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the +interval—a wild marching and countermarching of emotions, arguments, +ideas—a fury of insurgent impulses that fell back spent upon +themselves. She had tried, at first, to rally, to organize these +chaotic forces. There must be help somewhere, if only she could master +the inner tumult. Life could not be broken off short like this, for a +whim, a fancy; the law itself would side with her, would defend her. +The law? What claim had she upon it? She was the prisoner of her own +choice: she had been her own legislator, and she was the predestined +victim of the code she had devised. But this was grotesque, +intolerable—a mad mistake, for which she could not be held +accountable! The law she had despised was still there, might still be +invoked...invoked, but to what end? Could she ask it to chain Westall +to her side? <I>She</I> had been allowed to go free when she claimed her +freedom—should she show less magnanimity than she had exacted? +Magnanimity? The word lashed her with its irony—one does not strike an +attitude when one is fighting for life! She would threaten, grovel, +cajole...she would yield anything to keep her hold on happiness. Ah, +but the difficulty lay deeper! The law could not help her—her own +apostasy could not help her. She was the victim of the theories she +renounced. It was as though some giant machine of her own making had +caught her up in its wheels and was grinding her to atoms... +</P> + +<P> +It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked with +an aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day was radiant, +metallic: one of those searching American days so calculated to reveal +the shortcomings of our street-cleaning and the excesses of our +architecture. The streets looked bare and hideous; everything stared +and glittered. She called a passing hansom, and gave Mrs. Van Sideren's +address. She did not know what had led up to the act; but she found +herself suddenly resolved to speak, to cry out a warning. It was too +late to save herself—but the girl might still be told. The hansom +rattled up Fifth Avenue; she sat with her eyes fixed, avoiding +recognition. At the Van Siderens' door she sprang out and rang the +bell. Action had cleared her brain, and she felt calm and +self-possessed. She knew now exactly what she meant to say. +</P> + +<P> +The ladies were both out...the parlor-maid stood waiting for a card. +Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door and lingered a +moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that she had not paid the +cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her purse and handed it to him. He +touched his hat and drove off, leaving her alone in the long empty +street. She wandered away westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where +she was not likely to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness +had returned. Once she found herself in the afternoon torrent of +Broadway, swept past tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with +a succession of meaningless faces gliding by in the opposite +direction... +</P> + +<P> +A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since +morning. She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with rows of +ash-barrels behind bent area railings. In a basement window she saw the +sign <I>Ladies' Restaurant:</I> a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay against +the dusty pane like petrified food in an ethnological museum. She +entered, and a young woman with a weak mouth and a brazen eye cleared a +table for her near the window. The table was covered with a red and +white cotton cloth and adorned with a bunch of celery in a thick +tumbler and a salt-cellar full of grayish lumpy salt. Julia ordered +tea, and sat a long time waiting for it. She was glad to be away from +the noise and confusion of the streets. The low-ceilinged room was +empty, and two or three waitresses with thin pert faces lounged in the +background staring at her and whispering together. At last the tea was +brought in a discolored metal teapot. Julia poured a cup and drank it +hastily. It was black and bitter, but it flowed through her veins like +an elixir. She was almost dizzy with exhilaration. Oh, how tired, how +unutterably tired she had been! +</P> + +<P> +She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind was once +more working clearly. She felt as vigorous, as decisive, as when she +had stood on the Van Siderens' door-step—but the wish to return there +had subsided. She saw now the futility of such an attempt—the +humiliation to which it might have exposed her... The pity of it was +that she did not know what to do next. The short winter day was fading, +and she realized that she could not remain much longer in the +restaurant without attracting notice. She paid for her tea and went out +into the street. The lamps were alight, and here and there a basement +shop cast an oblong of gas-light across the fissured pavement. In the +dusk there was something sinister about the aspect of the street, and +she hastened back toward Fifth Avenue. She was not used to being out +alone at that hour. +</P> + +<P> +At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the stream +of carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and signed to her +that he would take her across. She had not meant to cross the street, +but she obeyed automatically, and presently found herself on the +farther corner. There she paused again for a moment; but she fancied +the policeman was watching her, and this sent her hastening down the +nearest side street... After that she walked a long time, vaguely... +Night had fallen, and now and then, through the windows of a passing +carriage, she caught the expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer +of an opera cloak... +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a +moment, breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without noticing +whither it led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw the house in +which she had once lived—her first husband's house. The blinds were +drawn, and only a faint translucence marked the windows and the transom +above the door. As she stood there she heard a step behind her, and a +man walked by in the direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a +heavy middle-aged gait, his head sunk a little between the shoulders, +the red crease of his neck visible above the fur collar of his +overcoat. He crossed the street, went up the steps of the house, drew +forth a latch-key, and let himself in... +</P> + +<P> +There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against +the area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front of the house. +The feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the strong tea +still throbbed in her veins and lit her brain with an unnatural +clearness. Presently she heard another step draw near, and moving +quickly away, she too crossed the street and mounted the steps of the +house. The impulse which had carried her there prolonged itself in a +quick pressure of the electric bell—then she felt suddenly weak and +tremulous, and grasped the balustrade for support. The door opened and +a young footman with a fresh inexperienced face stood on the threshold. +Julia knew in an instant that he would admit her. +</P> + +<P> +"I saw Mr. Arment going in just now," she said. "Will you ask him to +see me for a moment?" +</P> + +<P> +The footman hesitated. "I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for +dinner, madam." +</P> + +<P> +Julia advanced into the hall. "I am sure he will see me—I will not +detain him long," she said. She spoke quietly, authoritatively, in the +tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his hand on +the drawing-room door. +</P> + +<P> +"I will tell him, madam. What name, please?" +</P> + +<P> +Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. "Merely say a lady," she +returned carelessly. +</P> + +<P> +The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that instant +the door opened from within and John Arment stepped into the hall. He +drew back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning sallow with +the shock; then the blood poured back to it, swelling the veins on his +temples and reddening the lobes of his thick ears. +</P> + +<P> +It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the +change in his appearance. He had thickened, coarsened, settled down +into the enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one +conscious thought was that, now she was face to face with him, she must +not let him escape till he had heard her. Every pulse in her body +throbbed with the urgency of her message. +</P> + +<P> +She went up to him as he drew back. "I must speak to you," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman, and +her look acted as a warning. The instinctive shrinking from a "scene" +predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said slowly: "Will +you come this way?" +</P> + +<P> +He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as +she advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was unchanged: +time had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from +the chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the +inner room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from +every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles +of the rosewood furniture. But while some subordinate agency was +carrying these impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was +centred in the act of dominating Arment's will. The fear that he would +refuse to hear her mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her +purpose melt before it, words and arguments running into each other in +the heat of her longing. For a moment her voice failed her, and she +imagined herself thrust out before she could speak; but as she was +struggling for a word, Arment pushed a chair forward, and said quietly: +"You are not well." +</P> + +<P> +The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind—a +voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen +developments. She supported herself against the back of the chair and +drew a deep breath. "Shall I send for something?" he continued, with a +cold embarrassed politeness. +</P> + +<P> +Julia raised an entreating hand. "No—no—thank you. I am quite well." +</P> + +<P> +He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. "Then may I ask—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she interrupted him. "I came here because I wanted to see you. +There is something I must tell you." +</P> + +<P> +Arment continued to scrutinize her. "I am surprised at that," he said. +"I should have supposed that any communication you may wish to make +could have been made through our lawyers." +</P> + +<P> +"Our lawyers!" She burst into a little laugh. "I don't think they could +help me—this time." +</P> + +<P> +Arment's face took on a barricaded look. "If there is any question of +help—of course—" +</P> + +<P> +It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some +shabby devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she +wanted him to put his name down for so much in sympathy—or even in +money... The thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change +slowly to perplexity. All his facial changes were slow, and she +remembered, suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that +lumbering scenery with a word. For the first time it struck her that +she had been cruel. "There <I>is</I> a question of help," she said in a +softer key: "you can help me; but only by listening... I want to tell +you something..." +</P> + +<P> +Arment's resistance was not yielding. "Would it not be easier +to—write?" he suggested. +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. "There is no time to write...and it won't take +long." She raised her head and their eyes met. "My husband has left +me," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Westall—?" he stammered, reddening again. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired of me." +</P> + +<P> +The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the +limit of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his embarrassed +glance returned to Julia. +</P> + +<P> +"I am very sorry," he said awkwardly. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +"But I don't see—" +</P> + +<P> +"No—but you will—in a moment. Won't you listen to me? Please!" +Instinctively she had shifted her position putting herself between him +and the door. "It happened this morning," she went on in short +breathless phrases. "I never suspected anything—I thought we +were—perfectly happy... Suddenly he told me he was tired of me... +there is a girl he likes better... He has gone to her..." As she spoke, +the lurking anguish rose upon her, possessing her once more to the +exclusion of every other emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled +with it, and two painful tears burnt a way down her face. +</P> + +<P> +Arment's constraint was increasing visibly. "This—this is very +unfortunate," he began. "But I should say the law—" +</P> + +<P> +"The law?" she echoed ironically. "When he asks for his freedom?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are not obliged to give it." +</P> + +<P> +"You were not obliged to give me mine—but you did." +</P> + +<P> +He made a protesting gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"You saw that the law couldn't help you—didn't you?" she went on. +"That is what I see now. The law represents material rights—it can't +go beyond. If we don't recognize an inner law...the obligation that +love creates...being loved as well as loving... there is nothing to +prevent our spreading ruin unhindered...is there?" She raised her head +plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. "That is what I see +now...what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he's tired...but +<I>I</I> was not tired; and I don't understand why he is. That's the +dreadful part of it—the not understanding: I hadn't realized what it +meant. But I've been thinking of it all day, and things have come back +to me—things I hadn't noticed...when you and I..." She moved closer to +him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond +words. "I see now that <I>you</I> didn't understand—did you?" +</P> + +<P> +Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be +lifted between them. Arment's lip trembled. +</P> + +<P> +"No," he said, "I didn't understand." +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. "I knew it! I knew it! You +wondered—you tried to tell me—but no words came... You saw your life +falling in ruins...the world slipping from you...and you couldn't speak +or move!" +</P> + +<P> +She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. "Now I +know—now I know," she repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"I am very sorry for you," she heard Arment stammer. +</P> + +<P> +She looked up quickly. "That's not what I came for. I don't want you to +be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me...for not understanding that +<I>you</I> didn't understand... That's all I wanted to say." She rose with a +vague sense that the end had come, and put out a groping hand toward +the door. +</P> + +<P> +Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile. +</P> + +<P> +"You forgive me?" +</P> + +<P> +"There is nothing to forgive—" +</P> + +<P> +"Then will you shake hands for good-by?" She felt his hand in hers: it +was nerveless, reluctant. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by," she repeated. "I understand now." +</P> + +<P> +She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so, Arment +took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman, who was +evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the background to let +her out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman threw open the door, +and she found herself outside in the darkness. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="letter"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LETTER +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +For many years he had lived withdrawn from the world in which he had +once played so active and even turbulent a part. The study of Tuscan +art was his only pursuit, and it was to help him in the classification +of his notes and documents that I was first called to his villa. +Colonel Alingdon had then the look of a very old man, though his age +can hardly have exceeded seventy. He was small and bent, with a finely +wrinkled face which still wore the tan of youthful exposure. But for +this dusky redness it would have been hard to reconstruct from the +shrunken recluse, with his low fastidious voice and carefully tended +hands, an image of that young knight of adventure whose sword had been +at the service of every uprising which stirred the uneasy soil of Italy +in the first half of the nineteenth century. +</P> + +<P> +Though I was more of a proficient in Colonel Alingdon's later than his +earlier pursuits, the thought of his soldiering days was always coming +between me and the pacific work of his old age. As we sat collating +papers and comparing photographs, I had the feeling that this dry and +quiet old man had seen even stranger things than people said: that he +knew more of the inner history of Europe than half the diplomatists of +his day. +</P> + +<P> +I was not alone in this conviction; and the friend who had engaged me +for Colonel Alingdon had appended to his instructions the injunction to +"get him to talk." But this was what no one could do. Colonel Alingdon +was ready to discuss by the hour the date of a Giottesque triptych, or +the attribution of a disputed master; but on the history of his early +life he was habitually silent. +</P> + +<P> +It was perhaps because I recognized this silence and respected it that +it afterward came to be broken for me. Or it was perhaps merely +because, as the failure of Colonel Alingdon's sight cut him off from +his work, he felt the natural inclination of age to revert from the +empty present to the crowded past. For one cause or another he <I>did</I> +talk to me in the last year of his life; and I felt myself mingled, to +an extent inconceivable to the mere reader of history, with the +passionate scenes of the Italian struggle for liberty. Colonel Alingdon +had been mixed with it in all its phases: he had known the last +Carbonari and the Young Italy of Mazzini; he had been in Perugia when +the mercenaries of a liberal Pope slaughtered women and children in the +streets; he had been in Sicily with the Thousand, and in Milan during +the <I>Cinque Giornate</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"They say the Italians didn't know how to fight," he said one day, +musingly—"that the French had to come down and do their work for them. +People forget how long it was since they had had any fighting to do. +But they hadn't forgotten how to suffer and hold their tongues; how to +die and take their secrets with them. The Italian war of independence +was really carried on underground: it was one of those awful silent +struggles which are so much more terrible than the roar of a battle. +It's a deuced sight easier to charge with your regiment than to lie +rotting in an Austrian prison and know that if you give up the name of +a friend or two you can go back scot-free to your wife and children. +And thousands and thousands of Italians had the choice given them—and +hardly one went back." +</P> + +<P> +He sat silent, his meditative fingertips laid together, his eyes fixed +on the past which was the now only thing clearly visible to them. +</P> + +<P> +"And the women?" I said. "Were they as brave as the men?" +</P> + +<P> +I had not spoken quite at random. I had always heard that there had +been as much of love as of war in Colonel Alingdon's early career, and +I hoped that my question might give a personal turn to his +reminiscences. +</P> + +<P> +"The women?" he repeated. "They were braver—for they had more to bear +and less to do. Italy could never have been saved without them." +</P> + +<P> +His eye had kindled and I detected in it the reflection of some vivid +memory. It was then that I asked him what was the bravest thing he had +ever known of a woman's doing. +</P> + +<P> +The question was such a vague one that I hardly knew why I had put it, +but to my surprise he answered almost at once, as though I had touched +on a subject of frequent meditation. +</P> + +<P> +"The bravest thing I ever saw done by a woman," he said, "was brought +about by an act of my own—and one of which I am not particularly +proud. For that reason I have never spoken of it before—there was a +time when I didn't even care to think of it—but all that is past now. +She died years ago, and so did the Jack Alingdon she knew, and in +telling you the story I am no more than the mouthpiece of an old +tradition which some ancestor might have handed down to me." +</P> + +<P> +He leaned back, his clear blind gaze fixed smilingly on me, and I had +the feeling that, in groping through the labyrinth of his young +adventures, I had come unawares upon their central point. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +When I was in Milan in 'forty-seven an unlucky thing happened to me. +</P> + +<P> +I had been sent there to look over the ground by some of my Italian +friends in England. As an English officer I had no difficulty in +getting into Milanese society, for England had for years been the +refuge of the Italian fugitives, and I was known to be working in their +interests. It was just the kind of job I liked, and I never enjoyed +life more than I did in those days. There was a great deal going +on—good music, balls and theatres. Milan kept up her gayety to the +last. The English were shocked by the <I>insouciance</I> of a race who could +dance under the very nose of the usurper; but those who understood the +situation knew that Milan was playing Brutus, and playing it uncommonly +well. +</P> + +<P> +I was in the thick of it all—it was just the atmosphere to suit a +young fellow of nine-and-twenty, with a healthy passion for waltzing +and fighting. But, as I said, an unlucky thing happened to me. I was +fool enough to fall in love with Donna Candida Falco. You have heard of +her, of course: you know the share she had in the great work. In a +different way she was what the terrible Princess Belgioioso had been to +an earlier generation. But Donna Candida was not terrible. She was +quiet, discreet and charming. When I knew her she was a widow of +thirty, her husband, Andrea Falco, having died ten years previously, +soon after their marriage. The marriage had been notoriously unhappy, +and his death was a release to Donna Candida. Her family were of +Modena, but they had come to live in Milan soon after the execution of +Ciro Menotti and his companions. You remember the details of that +business? The Duke of Modena, one of the most adroit villains in +Europe, had been bitten with the hope of uniting the Italian states +under his rule. It was a vision of Italian liberation—of a sort. A few +madmen were dazzled by it, and Ciro Menotti was one of them. You know +the end. The Duke of Modena, who had counted on Louis Philippe's +backing, found that that astute sovereign had betrayed him to Austria. +Instantly, he saw that his first business was to get rid of the +conspirators he had created. There was nothing easier than for a +Hapsburg Este to turn on a friend. Ciro Menotti had staked his life for +the Duke—and the Duke took it. You may remember that, on the night +when seven hundred men and a cannon attacked Menotti's house, the Duke +was seen looking on at the slaughter from an arcade across the square. +</P> + +<P> +Well, among the lesser fry taken that night was a lad of eighteen, +Emilio Verna, who was the only brother of Donna Candida. The Verna +family was one of the most respected in Modena. It consisted, at that +time, of the mother, Countess Verna, of young Emilio and his sister. +Count Verna had been in Spielberg in the twenties. He had never +recovered from his sufferings there, and died in exile, without seeing +his wife and children again. Countess Verna had been an ardent patriot +in her youth, but the failure of the first attempts against Austria had +discouraged her. She thought that in losing her husband she had +sacrificed enough for her country, and her one idea was to keep Emilio +on good terms with the government. But the Verna blood was not +tractable, and his father's death was not likely to make Emilio a good +subject of the Estes. Not that he had as yet taken any active share in +the work of the conspirators: he simply hadn't had time. At his trial +there was nothing to show that he had been in Menotti's confidence; but +he had been seen once or twice coming out of what the ducal police +called "suspicious" houses, and in his desk were found some verses to +Italy. That was enough to hang a man in Modena, and Emilio Verna was +hanged. +</P> + +<P> +The Countess never recovered from the blow. The circumstances of her +son's death were too abominable, to unendurable. If he had risked his +life in the conspiracy, she might have been reconciled to his losing +it. But he was a mere child, who had sat at home, chafing but +powerless, while his seniors plotted and fought. He had been sacrificed +to the Duke's insane fear, to his savage greed for victims, and the +Countess Verna was not to be consoled. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as possible, the mother and daughter left Modena for Milan. +There they lived in seclusion till Candida's marriage. During her +girlhood she had had to accept her mother's view of life: to shut +herself up in the tomb in which the poor woman brooded over her +martyrs. But that was not the girl's way of honoring the dead. At the +moment when the first shot was fired on Menotti's house she had been +reading Petrarch's Ode to the Lords of Italy, and the lines <I>l'antico +valor nell'italici cor non e ancor morto</I> had lodged like a bullet in +her brain. From the day of her marriage she began to take a share in +the silent work which was going on throughout Italy. Milan was at that +time the centre of the movement, and Candida Falco threw herself into +it with all the passion which her unhappy marriage left unsatisfied. At +first she had to act with great reserve, for her husband was a prudent +man, who did not care to have his habits disturbed by political +complications; but after his death there was nothing to restrain her, +except the exquisite tact which enabled her to work night and day in +the Italian cause without giving the Austrian authorities a pretext for +interference. +</P> + +<P> +When I first knew Donna Candida, her mother was still living: a tragic +woman, prematurely bowed, like an image of death in the background of +the daughter's brilliant life. The Countess, since her son's death, had +become a patriot again, though in a narrower sense than Candida. The +mother's first thought was that her dead must be avenged, the +daughter's that Italy must be saved; but from different motives they +worked for the same end. Candida felt for the Countess that protecting +tenderness with which Italian children so often regard their parents, a +feeling heightened by the reverence which the mother's sufferings +inspired. Countess Verna, as the wife and mother of martyrs, had done +what Candida longed to do: she had given her utmost to Italy. There +must have been moments when the self-absorption of her grief chilled +her daughter's ardent spirit; but Candida revered in her mother the +image of their afflicted country. +</P> + +<P> +"It was too terrible," she said, speaking of what the Countess had +suffered after Emilio's death. "All the circumstances were too +unmerciful. It seemed as if God had turned His face from my mother; as +if she had been singled out to suffer more than any of the others. All +the other families received some message or token of farewell from the +prisoners. One of them bribed the gaoler to carry a letter—another +sent a lock of hair by the chaplain. But Emilio made no sign, sent no +word. My mother felt as though he had turned his back on us. She used +to sit for hours, saying again and again, 'Why was he the only one to +forget his mother?' I tried to comfort her, but it was useless: she had +suffered too much. Now I never reason with her; I listen, and let her +ease her poor heart. Do you know, she still asks me sometimes if I +think he may have left a letter—if there is no way of finding out if +he left one? She forgets that I have tried again and again: that I have +sent bribes and messages to the gaoler, the chaplain, to every one who +came near him. The answer is always the same—no one has ever heard of +a letter. I suppose the poor boy was stunned, and did not think of +writing. Who knows what was passing through his poor bewildered brain? +But it would have been a great help to my mother to have a word from +him. If I had known how to imitate his writing I should have forged a +letter." +</P> + +<P> +I knew enough of the Italians to understand how her boy's silence must +have aggravated the Countess's grief. Precious as a message from a +dying son would be to any mother, such signs of tenderness have to the +Italians a peculiar significance. The Latin race is rhetorical: it +possesses the gift of death-bed eloquence, the knack of saying the +effective thing on momentous occasions. The letters which the Italian +patriots sent home from their prisons or from the scaffold are not the +halting farewells that anguish would have wrung from a less expressive +race: they are veritable "compositions," saved from affectation only by +the fact that fluency and sonority are a part of the Latin inheritance. +Such letters, passed from hand to hand among the bereaved families, +were not only a comfort to the survivors but an incentive to fresh +sacrifices. They were the "seed of the martyrs" with which Italy was +being sown; and I knew what it meant to the Countess Verna to have no +such treasure in her bosom, to sit silent while other mothers quoted +their sons' last words. +</P> + +<P> +I said just now that it was an unlucky day for me when I fell in love +with Donna Candida; and no doubt you have guessed the reason. She was +in love with some one else. It was the old situation of Heine's song. +That other loved another—loved Italy, and with an undivided passion. +His name was Fernando Briga, and at that time he was one of the +foremost liberals in Italy. He came of a middle-class Modenese family. +His father was a doctor, a prudent man, engrossed in his profession and +unwilling to compromise it by meddling in politics. His irreproachable +attitude won the confidence of the government, and the Duke conferred +on him the sinister office of physician to the prisons of Modena. It +was this Briga who attended Emilio Falco, and several of the other +prisoners who were executed at the same time. +</P> + +<P> +Under shelter of his father's loyalty young Fernando conspired in +safety. He was studying medicine, and every one supposed him to be +absorbed in his work; but as a matter of fact he was fast ripening into +one of Mazzini's ablest lieutenants. His career belongs to history, so +I need not enlarge on it here. In 1847 he was in Milan, and had become +one of the leading figures in the liberal group which was working for a +coalition with Piedmont. Like all the ablest men of his day, he had +cast off Mazziniism and pinned his faith to the house of Savoy. The +Austrian government had an eye on him, but he had inherited his +father's prudence, though he used it for nobler ends, and his +discretion enabled him to do far more for the cause than a dozen +enthusiasts could have accomplished. No one understood this better than +Donna Candida. She had a share of his caution, and he trusted her with +secrets which he would not have confided to many men. Her drawing-room +was the centre of the Piedmontese party, yet so clever was she in +averting suspicion that more than one hunted conspirator hid in her +house, and was helped across the Alps by her agents. +</P> + +<P> +Briga relied on her as he did on no one else; but he did not love her, +and she knew it. Still, she was young, she was handsome, and he loved +no one else: how could she give up hoping? From her intimate friends +she made no secret of her feelings: Italian women are not reticent in +such matters, and Donna Candida was proud of loving a hero. You will +see at once that I had no chance; but if she could not give up hope, +neither could I. Perhaps in her desire to secure my services for the +cause she may have shown herself overkind; or perhaps I was still young +enough to set down to my own charms a success due to quite different +causes. At any rate, I persuaded myself that if I could manage to do +something conspicuous for Italy I might yet make her care for me. With +such an incentive you will not wonder that I worked hard; but though +Donna Candida was full of gratitude she continued to adore my rival. +</P> + +<P> +One day we had a hot scene. I began, I believe, by reproaching her with +having led me on; and when she defended herself, I retaliated by +taunting her with Briga's indifference. She grew pale at that, and said +it was enough to love a hero, even without hope of return; and as she +said it she herself looked so heroic, so radiant, so unattainably the +woman I wanted, that a sneer may have escaped me:—was she so sure then +that Briga was a hero? I remember her proud silence and our wretched +parting. I went away feeling that at last I had really lost her; and +the thought made me savage and vindictive. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after, as it happened, came the <I>Five Days</I>, and Milan was free. I +caught a distant glimpse of Donna Candida in the hospital to which I +was carried after the fight; but my wound was a slight one and in +twenty-four hours I was about again on crutches. I hoped she might send +for me, but she did not, and I was too sulky to make the first advance. +A day or two later I heard there had been a commotion in Modena, and +not being in fighting trim I got leave to go over there with one or two +men whom the Modenese liberals had called in to help them. When we +arrived the precious Duke had been swept out and a provisional +government set up. One of my companions, who was a Modenese, was made a +member, and knowing that I wanted something to do, he commissioned me +to look up some papers in the ducal archives. It was fascinating work, +for in the pursuit of my documents I uncovered the hidden springs of +his late Highness's paternal administration. The principal papers +relative to the civil and criminal administration of Modena have since +been published, and the world knows how that estimable sovereign cared +for the material and spiritual welfare of his subjects. +</P> + +<P> +Well—in the course of my search, I came across a file of old papers +marked: "Taken from political prisoners. A.D. 1831." It was the year of +Menotti's conspiracy, and everything connected with that date was +thrilling. I loosened the band and ran over the letters. Suddenly I +came across one which was docketed: "Given by Doctor Briga's son to the +warder of His Highness's prisons." <I>Doctor Briga's son?</I> That could be +no other than Fernando: I knew he was an only child. But how came such +a paper into his hands, and how had it passed from them into those of +the Duke's warder? My own hands shook as I opened the letter—I felt +the man suddenly in my power. +</P> + +<P> +Then I began to read. "My adored mother, even in this lowest circle of +hell all hearts are not closed to pity, and I have been given the hope +that these last words of farewell may reach you...." My eyes ran on +over pages of plaintive rhetoric. "Embrace for me my adored +Candida...let her never forget the cause for which her father and +brother perished...let her keep alive in her breast the thought of +Spielberg and Reggio. Do not grieve that I die so young... though not +with those heroes in deed I was with them in spirit, and am worthy to +be enrolled in the sacred phalanx..." and so on. Before I reached the +signature I knew the letter was from Emilio Verna. +</P> + +<P> +I put it in my pocket, finished my work and started immediately for +Milan. I didn't quite know what I meant to do—my head was in a whirl. +I saw at once what must have happened. Fernando Briga, then a lad of +fifteen or sixteen, had attended his father in prison during Emilio +Verna's last hours, and the latter, perhaps aware of the lad's liberal +sympathies, had found an opportunity of giving him the letter. But why +had Briga given it up to the warder? That was the puzzling question. +The docket said: "<I>Given by</I> Doctor Briga's son"—but it might mean +"taken from." Fernando might have been seen to receive the letter and +might have been searched on leaving the prison. But that would not +account for his silence afterward. How was it that, if he knew of the +letter, he had never told Emilio's family of it? There was only one +explanation. If the letter had been taken from him by force he would +have had no reason for concealing its existence; and his silence was +clear proof that he had given it up voluntarily, no doubt in the hope +of standing well with the authorities. But then he was a traitor and a +coward; the patriot of 'forty-eight had begun life as an informer! But +does innate character ever change so radically that the lad who has +committed a base act at fifteen may grow up into an honorable man? A +good man may be corrupted by life, but can the years turn a born sneak +into a hero? +</P> + +<P> +You may fancy how I answered my own questions....If Briga had been +false and cowardly then, was he not sure to be false and cowardly +still? In those days there were traitors under every coat, and more +than one brave fellow had been sold to the police by his best +friend....You will say that Briga's record was unblemished, that he had +exposed himself to danger too frequently, had stood by his friends too +steadfastly, to permit of a rational doubt of his good faith. So reason +might have told me in a calmer moment, but she was not allowed to make +herself heard just then. I was young, I was angry, I chose to think I +had been unfairly treated, and perhaps at my rival's instigation. It +was not unlikely that Briga knew of my love for Donna Candida, and had +encouraged her to use it in the good cause. Was she not always at his +bidding? My blood boiled at the thought, and reaching Milan in a rage I +went straight to Donna Candida. +</P> + +<P> +I had measured the exact force of the blow I was going to deal. The +triumph of the liberals in Modena had revived public interest in the +unsuccessful struggle of their predecessors, the men who, sixteen years +earlier, had paid for the same attempt with their lives. The victors of +'forty-eight wished to honor the vanquished of 'thirty-two. All the +families exiled by the ducal government were hastening back to recover +possession of their confiscated property and of the graves of their +dead. Already it had been decided to raise a monument to Menotti and +his companions. There were to be speeches, garlands, a public holiday: +the thrill of the commemoration would run through Europe. You see what +it would have meant to the poor Countess to appear on the scene with +her boy's letter in her hand; and you see also what the memorandum on +the back of the letter would have meant to Donna Candida. Poor Emilio's +farewell would be published in all the journals of Europe: the finding +of the letter would be on every one's lips. And how conceal those fatal +words on the back? At the moment, it seemed to me that fortune could +not have given me a handsomer chance of destroying my rival than in +letting me find the letter which he stood convicted of having +suppressed. +</P> + +<P> +My sentiment was perhaps not a strictly honorable one; yet what could I +do but give the letter to Donna Candida? To keep it back was out of the +question; and with the best will in the world I could not have erased +Briga's name from the back. The mistake I made was in thinking it lucky +that the paper had fallen into my hands. +</P> + +<P> +Donna Candida was alone when I entered. We had parted in anger, but she +held out her hand with a smile of pardon, and asked what news I brought +from Modena. The smile exasperated me: I felt as though she were trying +to get me into her power again. +</P> + +<P> +"I bring you a letter from your brother," I said, and handed it to her. +I had purposely turned the superscription downward, so that she should +not see it. +</P> + +<P> +She uttered an incredulous cry and tore the letter open. A light struck +up from it into her face as she read—a radiance that smote me to the +soul. For a moment I longed to snatch the paper from her and efface the +name on the back. It hurt me to think how short-lived her happiness +must be. +</P> + +<P> +Then she did a fatal thing. She came up to me, caught my two hands and +kissed them. "Oh, thank you—bless you a thousand times! He died +thinking of us—he died loving Italy!" +</P> + +<P> +I put her from me gently: it was not the kiss I wanted, and the touch +of her lips hardened me. +</P> + +<P> +She shone on me through her happy tears. "What happiness—what +consolation you have brought my poor mother! This will take the +bitterness from her grief. And that it should come to her now! Do you +know, she had a presentiment of it? When we heard of the Duke's flight +her first word was: 'Now we may find Emilio's letter.' At heart she was +always sure that he had written—I suppose some blessed instinct told +her so." She dropped her face on her hands, and I saw her tears fall on +the wretched letter. +</P> + +<P> +In a moment she looked up again, with eyes that blessed and trusted me. +"Tell me where you found it," she said. +</P> + +<P> +I told her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, the savages! They took it from him—" +</P> + +<P> +My opportunity had come. "No," I said, "it appears they did <I>not</I> take +it from him." +</P> + +<P> +"Then how—" +</P> + +<P> +I waited a moment. "The letter," I said, looking full at her, "was +given up to the warder of the prison by the son of Doctor Briga." +</P> + +<P> +She stared, repeating the words slowly. "The son of Doctor Briga? But +that is—Fernando," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I have always understood," I replied, "that your friend was an only +son." +</P> + +<P> +I had expected an outcry of horror; if she had uttered it I could have +forgiven her anything. But I heard, instead, an incredulous +exclamation: my statement was really too preposterous! I saw that her +mind had flashed back to our last talk, and that she charged me with +something too nearly true to be endurable. +</P> + +<P> +"My brother's letter? Given to the prison warder by Fernando Briga? My +dear Captain Alingdon—on what authority do you expect me to believe +such a tale?" +</P> + +<P> +Her incredulity had in it an evident implication of bad faith, and I +was stung to a quick reply. +</P> + +<P> +"If you will turn over the letter you will see." +</P> + +<P> +She continued to gaze at me a moment: then she obeyed. I don't think I +ever admired her more than I did then. As she read the name a tremor +crossed her face; and that was all. Her mind must have reached out +instantly to the farthest consequences of the discovery, but the long +habit of self-command enabled her to steady her muscles at once. If I +had not been on the alert I should have seen no hint of emotion. +</P> + +<P> +For a while she looked fixedly at the back of the letter; then she +raised her eyes to mine. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you tell me who wrote this?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +Her composure irritated me. She had rallied all her forces to Briga's +defence, and I felt as though my triumph were slipping from me. +</P> + +<P> +"Probably one of the clerks of the archives," I answered. "It is +written in the same hand as all the other memoranda relating to the +political prisoners of that year." +</P> + +<P> +"But it is a lie!" she exclaimed. "He was never admitted to the +prisons." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you sure?" +</P> + +<P> +"How should he have been?" +</P> + +<P> +"He might have gone as his father's assistant." +</P> + +<P> +"But if he had seen my poor brother he would have told me long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Not if he had really given up this letter," I retorted. +</P> + +<P> +I supposed her quick intelligence had seized this from the first; but I +saw now that it came to her as a shock. She stood motionless, clenching +the letter in her hands, and I could guess the rapid travel of her +thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she came up to me. "Colonel Alingdon," she said, "you have +been a good friend of mine, though I think you have not liked me +lately. But whether you like me or not, I know you will not deceive me. +On your honor, do you think this memorandum may have been written later +than the letter?" +</P> + +<P> +I hesitated. If she had cried out once against Briga I should have +wished myself out of the business; but she was too sure of him. +</P> + +<P> +"On my honor," I said, "I think it hardly possible. The ink has faded +to the same degree." +</P> + +<P> +She made a rapid comparison and folded the letter with a gesture of +assent. +</P> + +<P> +"It may have been written by an enemy," I went on, wishing to clear +myself of any appearance of malice. +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head. "He was barely fifteen—and his father was on the +side of the government. Besides, this would have served him with the +government, and the liberals would never have known of it." +</P> + +<P> +This was unanswerable—and still not a word of revolt against the man +whose condemnation she was pronouncing! +</P> + +<P> +"Then—" I said with a vague gesture. +</P> + +<P> +She caught me up. "Then—?" +</P> + +<P> +"You have answered my objections," I returned. +</P> + +<P> +"Your objections?" +</P> + +<P> +"To thinking that Signor Briga could have begun his career as a patriot +by betraying a friend." +</P> + +<P> +I had brought her to the test at last, but my eyes shrank from her face +as I spoke. There was a dead silence, which I broke by adding lamely: +"But no doubt Signor Briga could explain." +</P> + +<P> +She lifted her head, and I saw that my triumph was to be short. She +stood erect, a few paces from me, resting her hand on a table, but not +for support. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course he can explain," she said; "do you suppose I ever doubted +it? But—" she paused a moment, fronting me nobly—"he need not, for I +understand it all now." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," I murmured with a last flicker of irony. +</P> + +<P> +"I understand," she repeated. It was she, now, who sought my eyes and +held them. "It is quite simple—he could not have done otherwise." +</P> + +<P> +This was a little too oracular to be received with equanimity. I +suppose I smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"He could not have done otherwise," she repeated with tranquil +emphasis. "He merely did what is every Italian's duty—he put Italy +before himself and his friends." She waited a moment, and then went on +with growing passion: "Surely you must see what I mean? He was +evidently in the prison with his father at the time of my poor +brother's death. Emilio perhaps guessed that he was a friend—or +perhaps appealed to him because he was young and looked kind. But don't +you see how dangerous it would have been for Briga to bring this letter +to us, or even to hide it in his father's house? It is true that he was +not yet suspected of liberalism, but he was already connected with +Young Italy, and it is just because he managed to keep himself so free +of suspicion that he was able to do such good work for the cause." She +paused, and then went on with a firmer voice. "You don't know the +danger we all lived in. The government spies were everywhere. The laws +were set aside as the Duke pleased—was not Emilio hanged for having an +ode to Italy in his desk? After Menotti's conspiracy the Duke grew mad +with fear—he was haunted by the dread of assassination. The police, to +prove their zeal, had to trump up false charges and arrest innocent +persons—you remember the case of poor Ricci? Incriminating papers were +smuggled into people's houses—they were condemned to death on the paid +evidence of brigands and galley-slaves. The families of the +revolutionists were under the closest observation and were shunned by +all who wished to stand well with the government. If Briga had been +seen going into our house he would at once have been suspected. If he +had hidden Emilio's letter at home, its discovery might have ruined his +family as well as himself. It was his duty to consider all these +things. In those days no man could serve two masters, and he had to +choose between endangering the cause and failing to serve a friend. He +chose the latter—and he was right." +</P> + +<P> +I stood listening, fascinated by the rapidity and skill with which she +had built up the hypothesis of Briga's defence. But before she ended a +strange thing happened—her argument had convinced me. It seemed to me +quite likely that Briga had in fact been actuated by the motives she +suggested. +</P> + +<P> +I suppose she read the admission in my face, for hers lit up +victoriously. +</P> + +<P> +"You see?" she exclaimed. "Ah, it takes one brave man to understand +another." +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps I winced a little at being thus coupled with her hero; at any +rate, some last impulse of resistance made me say: "I should be quite +convinced, if Briga had only spoken of the letter afterward. If brave +people understand each other, I cannot see why he should have been +afraid of telling you the truth." +</P> + +<P> +She colored deeply, and perhaps not quite resentfully. +</P> + +<P> +"You are right," she said; "he need not have been afraid. But he does +not know me as I know him. I was useful to Italy, and he may have +feared to risk my friendship." +</P> + +<P> +"You are the most generous woman I ever knew!" I exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +She looked at me intently. "You also are generous," she said. +</P> + +<P> +I stiffened instantly, suspecting a purpose behind her praise. "I have +given you small proof of it!" I said. +</P> + +<P> +She seemed surprised. "In bringing me this letter? What else could you +do?" She sighed deeply. "You can give me proof enough now." +</P> + +<P> +She had dropped into a chair, and I saw that we had reached the most +difficult point in our interview. +</P> + +<P> +"Captain Alingdon," she said, "does any one else know of this letter?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. I was alone in the archives when I found it." +</P> + +<P> +"And you spoke of it to no one?" +</P> + +<P> +"To no one." +</P> + +<P> +"Then no one must know." +</P> + +<P> +I bowed. "It is for you to decide." +</P> + +<P> +She paused. "Not even my mother," she continued, with a painful blush. +</P> + +<P> +I looked at her in amazement. "Not even—?" +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head sadly. "You think me a cruel daughter? Well—<I>he</I> +was a cruel friend. What he did was done for Italy: shall I allow +myself to be surpassed?" +</P> + +<P> +I felt a pang of commiseration for the mother. "But you will at least +tell the Countess—" +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes filled with tears. "My poor mother—don't make it more +difficult for me!" +</P> + +<P> +"But I don't understand—" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you see that she might find it impossible to forgive him? She +has suffered so much! And I can't risk that—for in her anger she might +speak. And even if she forgave him, she might be tempted to show the +letter. Don't you see that, even now, a word of this might ruin him? I +will trust his fate to no one. If Italy needed him then she needs him +far more to-day." +</P> + +<P> +She stood before me magnificently, in the splendor of her great +refusal; then she turned to the writing-table at which she had been +seated when I came in. Her sealing-taper was still alight, and she held +her brother's letter to the flame. +</P> + +<P> +I watched her in silence while it burned; but one more question rose to +my lips. +</P> + +<P> +"You will tell <I>him</I>, then, what you have done for him?" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +And at that the heroine turned woman, melted and pressed unhappy hands +in mine. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you see that I can never tell him what I do for him? That is my +gift to Italy," she said. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="dilettante"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DILETTANTE +</H3> + +<P> +IT was on an impulse hardly needing the arguments he found himself +advancing in its favor, that Thursdale, on his way to the club, turned +as usual into Mrs. Vervain's street. +</P> + +<P> +The "as usual" was his own qualification of the act; a convenient way +of bridging the interval—in days and other sequences—that lay between +this visit and the last. It was characteristic of him that he +instinctively excluded his call two days earlier, with Ruth Gaynor, +from the list of his visits to Mrs. Vervain: the special conditions +attending it had made it no more like a visit to Mrs. Vervain than an +engraved dinner invitation is like a personal letter. Yet it was to +talk over his call with Miss Gaynor that he was now returning to the +scene of that episode; and it was because Mrs. Vervain could be trusted +to handle the talking over as skilfully as the interview itself that, +at her corner, he had felt the dilettante's irresistible craving to +take a last look at a work of art that was passing out of his +possession. +</P> + +<P> +On the whole, he knew no one better fitted to deal with the unexpected +than Mrs. Vervain. She excelled in the rare art of taking things for +granted, and Thursdale felt a pardonable pride in the thought that she +owed her excellence to his training. Early in his career Thursdale had +made the mistake, at the outset of his acquaintance with a lady, of +telling her that he loved her and exacting the same avowal in return. +The latter part of that episode had been like the long walk back from a +picnic, when one has to carry all the crockery one has finished using: +it was the last time Thursdale ever allowed himself to be encumbered +with the debris of a feast. He thus incidentally learned that the +privilege of loving her is one of the least favors that a charming +woman can accord; and in seeking to avoid the pitfalls of sentiment he +had developed a science of evasion in which the woman of the moment +became a mere implement of the game. He owed a great deal of delicate +enjoyment to the cultivation of this art. The perils from which it had +been his refuge became naively harmless: was it possible that he who +now took his easy way along the levels had once preferred to gasp on +the raw heights of emotion? Youth is a high-colored season; but he had +the satisfaction of feeling that he had entered earlier than most into +that chiar'oscuro of sensation where every half-tone has its value. +</P> + +<P> +As a promoter of this pleasure no one he had known was comparable to +Mrs. Vervain. He had taught a good many women not to betray their +feelings, but he had never before had such fine material to work in. +She had been surprisingly crude when he first knew her; capable of +making the most awkward inferences, of plunging through thin ice, of +recklessly undressing her emotions; but she had acquired, under the +discipline of his reticences and evasions, a skill almost equal to his +own, and perhaps more remarkable in that it involved keeping time with +any tune he played and reading at sight some uncommonly difficult +passages. +</P> + +<P> +It had taken Thursdale seven years to form this fine talent; but the +result justified the effort. At the crucial moment she had been +perfect: her way of greeting Miss Gaynor had made him regret that he +had announced his engagement by letter. It was an evasion that +confessed a difficulty; a deviation implying an obstacle, where, by +common consent, it was agreed to see none; it betrayed, in short, a +lack of confidence in the completeness of his method. It had been his +pride never to put himself in a position which had to be quitted, as it +were, by the back door; but here, as he perceived, the main portals +would have opened for him of their own accord. All this, and much more, +he read in the finished naturalness with which Mrs. Vervain had met +Miss Gaynor. He had never seen a better piece of work: there was no +over-eagerness, no suspicious warmth, above all (and this gave her art +the grace of a natural quality) there were none of those damnable +implications whereby a woman, in welcoming her friend's betrothed, may +keep him on pins and needles while she laps the lady in complacency. So +masterly a performance, indeed, hardly needed the offset of Miss +Gaynor's door-step words—"To be so kind to me, how she must have liked +you!"—though he caught himself wishing it lay within the bounds of +fitness to transmit them, as a final tribute, to the one woman he knew +who was unfailingly certain to enjoy a good thing. It was perhaps the +one drawback to his new situation that it might develop good things +which it would be impossible to hand on to Margaret Vervain. +</P> + +<P> +The fact that he had made the mistake of underrating his friend's +powers, the consciousness that his writing must have betrayed his +distrust of her efficiency, seemed an added reason for turning down her +street instead of going on to the club. He would show her that he knew +how to value her; he would ask her to achieve with him a feat +infinitely rarer and more delicate than the one he had appeared to +avoid. Incidentally, he would also dispose of the interval of time +before dinner: ever since he had seen Miss Gaynor off, an hour earlier, +on her return journey to Buffalo, he had been wondering how he should +put in the rest of the afternoon. It was absurd, how he missed the +girl....Yes, that was it; the desire to talk about her was, after all, +at the bottom of his impulse to call on Mrs. Vervain! It was absurd, if +you like—but it was delightfully rejuvenating. He could recall the +time when he had been afraid of being obvious: now he felt that this +return to the primitive emotions might be as restorative as a holiday +in the Canadian woods. And it was precisely by the girl's candor, her +directness, her lack of complications, that he was taken. The sense +that she might say something rash at any moment was positively +exhilarating: if she had thrown her arms about him at the station he +would not have given a thought to his crumpled dignity. It surprised +Thursdale to find what freshness of heart he brought to the adventure; +and though his sense of irony prevented his ascribing his intactness to +any conscious purpose, he could but rejoice in the fact that his +sentimental economies had left him such a large surplus to draw upon. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Vervain was at home—as usual. When one visits the cemetery one +expects to find the angel on the tombstone, and it struck Thursdale as +another proof of his friend's good taste that she had been in no undue +haste to change her habits. The whole house appeared to count on his +coming; the footman took his hat and overcoat as naturally as though +there had been no lapse in his visits; and the drawing-room at once +enveloped him in that atmosphere of tacit intelligence which Mrs. +Vervain imparted to her very furniture. +</P> + +<P> +It was a surprise that, in this general harmony of circumstances, Mrs. +Vervain should herself sound the first false note. +</P> + +<P> +"You?" she exclaimed; and the book she held slipped from her hand. +</P> + +<P> +It was crude, certainly; unless it were a touch of the finest art. The +difficulty of classifying it disturbed Thursdale's balance. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" he said, restoring the book. "Isn't it my hour?" And as she +made no answer, he added gently, "Unless it's some one else's?" +</P> + +<P> +She laid the book aside and sank back into her chair. "Mine, merely," +she said. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope that doesn't mean that you're unwilling to share it?" +</P> + +<P> +"With you? By no means. You're welcome to my last crust." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at her reproachfully. "Do you call this the last?" +</P> + +<P> +She smiled as he dropped into the seat across the hearth. "It's a way +of giving it more flavor!" +</P> + +<P> +He returned the smile. "A visit to you doesn't need such condiments." +</P> + +<P> +She took this with just the right measure of retrospective amusement. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, but I want to put into this one a very special taste," she +confessed. +</P> + +<P> +Her smile was so confident, so reassuring, that it lulled him into the +imprudence of saying, "Why should you want it to be different from what +was always so perfectly right?" +</P> + +<P> +She hesitated. "Doesn't the fact that it's the last constitute a +difference?" +</P> + +<P> +"The last—my last visit to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, metaphorically, I mean—there's a break in the continuity." +</P> + +<P> +Decidedly, she was pressing too hard: unlearning his arts already! +</P> + +<P> +"I don't recognize it," he said. "Unless you make me—" he added, with +a note that slightly stirred her attitude of languid attention. +</P> + +<P> +She turned to him with grave eyes. "You recognize no difference +whatever?" +</P> + +<P> +"None—except an added link in the chain." +</P> + +<P> +"An added link?" +</P> + +<P> +"In having one more thing to like you for—your letting Miss Gaynor see +why I had already so many." He flattered himself that this turn had +taken the least hint of fatuity from the phrase. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Vervain sank into her former easy pose. "Was it that you came +for?" she asked, almost gaily. +</P> + +<P> +"If it is necessary to have a reason—that was one." +</P> + +<P> +"To talk to me about Miss Gaynor?" +</P> + +<P> +"To tell you how she talks about you." +</P> + +<P> +"That will be very interesting—especially if you have seen her since +her second visit to me." +</P> + +<P> +"Her second visit?" Thursdale pushed his chair back with a start and +moved to another. "She came to see you again?" +</P> + +<P> +"This morning, yes—by appointment." +</P> + +<P> +He continued to look at her blankly. "You sent for her?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't have to—she wrote and asked me last night. But no doubt you +have seen her since." +</P> + +<P> +Thursdale sat silent. He was trying to separate his words from his +thoughts, but they still clung together inextricably. "I saw her off +just now at the station." +</P> + +<P> +"And she didn't tell you that she had been here again?" +</P> + +<P> +"There was hardly time, I suppose—there were people about—" he +floundered. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, she'll write, then." +</P> + +<P> +He regained his composure. "Of course she'll write: very often, I hope. +You know I'm absurdly in love," he cried audaciously. +</P> + +<P> +She tilted her head back, looking up at him as he leaned against the +chimney-piece. He had leaned there so often that the attitude touched a +pulse which set up a throbbing in her throat. "Oh, my poor Thursdale!" +she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose it's rather ridiculous," he owned; and as she remained +silent, he added, with a sudden break—"Or have you another reason for +pitying me?" +</P> + +<P> +Her answer was another question. "Have you been back to your rooms +since you left her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Since I left her at the station? I came straight here." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes—you <I>could:</I> there was no reason—" Her words passed into a +silent musing. +</P> + +<P> +Thursdale moved nervously nearer. "You said you had something to tell +me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I had better let her do so. There may be a letter at your +rooms." +</P> + +<P> +"A letter? What do you mean? A letter from <I>her?</I> What has happened?" +</P> + +<P> +His paleness shook her, and she raised a hand of reassurance. "Nothing +has happened—perhaps that is just the worst of it. You always <I>hated</I>, +you know," she added incoherently, "to have things happen: you never +would let them." +</P> + +<P> +"And now—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that was what she came here for: I supposed you had guessed. To +know if anything had happened." +</P> + +<P> +"Had happened?" He gazed at her slowly. "Between you and me?" he said +with a rush of light. +</P> + +<P> +The words were so much cruder than any that had ever passed between +them that the color rose to her face; but she held his startled gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"You know girls are not quite as unsophisticated as they used to be. +Are you surprised that such an idea should occur to her?" +</P> + +<P> +His own color answered hers: it was the only reply that came to him. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Vervain went on, smoothly: "I supposed it might have struck you +that there were times when we presented that appearance." +</P> + +<P> +He made an impatient gesture. "A man's past is his own!" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps—it certainly never belongs to the woman who has shared it. +But one learns such truths only by experience; and Miss Gaynor is +naturally inexperienced." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course—but—supposing her act a natural one—" he floundered +lamentably among his innuendoes—"I still don't see—how there was +anything—" +</P> + +<P> +"Anything to take hold of? There wasn't—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then—?" escaped him, in crude satisfaction; but as she did not +complete the sentence he went on with a faltering laugh: "She can +hardly object to the existence of a mere friendship between us!" +</P> + +<P> +"But she does," said Mrs. Vervain. +</P> + +<P> +Thursdale stood perplexed. He had seen, on the previous day, no trace +of jealousy or resentment in his betrothed: he could still hear the +candid ring of the girl's praise of Mrs. Vervain. If she were such an +abyss of insincerity as to dissemble distrust under such frankness, she +must at least be more subtle than to bring her doubts to her rival for +solution. The situation seemed one through which one could no longer +move in a penumbra, and he let in a burst of light with the direct +query: "Won't you explain what you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Vervain sat silent, not provokingly, as though to prolong his +distress, but as if, in the attenuated phraseology he had taught her, +it was difficult to find words robust enough to meet his challenge. It +was the first time he had ever asked her to explain anything; and she +had lived so long in dread of offering elucidations which were not +wanted, that she seemed unable to produce one on the spot. +</P> + +<P> +At last she said slowly: "She came to find out if you were really free." +</P> + +<P> +Thursdale colored again. "Free?" he stammered, with a sense of physical +disgust at contact with such crassness. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—if I had quite done with you." She smiled in recovered security. +"It seems she likes clear outlines; she has a passion for definitions." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—well?" he said, wincing at the echo of his own subtlety. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—and when I told her that you had never belonged to me, she +wanted me to define <I>my</I> status—to know exactly where I had stood all +along." +</P> + +<P> +Thursdale sat gazing at her intently; his hand was not yet on the clue. +"And even when you had told her that—" +</P> + +<P> +"Even when I had told her that I had <I>had</I> no status—that I had never +stood anywhere, in any sense she meant," said Mrs. Vervain, +slowly—"even then she wasn't satisfied, it seems." +</P> + +<P> +He uttered an uneasy exclamation. "She didn't believe you, you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"I mean that she <I>did</I> believe me: too thoroughly." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then—in God's name, what did she want?" +</P> + +<P> +"Something more—those were the words she used." +</P> + +<P> +"Something more? Between—between you and me? Is it a conundrum?" He +laughed awkwardly. +</P> + +<P> +"Girls are not what they were in my day; they are no longer forbidden +to contemplate the relation of the sexes." +</P> + +<P> +"So it seems!" he commented. "But since, in this case, there wasn't +any—" he broke off, catching the dawn of a revelation in her gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"That's just it. The unpardonable offence has been—in our not +offending." +</P> + +<P> +He flung himself down despairingly. "I give it up!—What did you tell +her?" he burst out with sudden crudeness. +</P> + +<P> +"The exact truth. If I had only known," she broke off with a beseeching +tenderness, "won't you believe that I would still have lied for you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lied for me? Why on earth should you have lied for either of us?" +</P> + +<P> +"To save you—to hide you from her to the last! As I've hidden you from +myself all these years!" She stood up with a sudden tragic import in +her movement. "You believe me capable of that, don't you? If I had only +guessed—but I have never known a girl like her; she had the truth out +of me with a spring." +</P> + +<P> +"The truth that you and I had never—" +</P> + +<P> +"Had never—never in all these years! Oh, she knew why—she measured us +both in a flash. She didn't suspect me of having haggled with you—her +words pelted me like hail. 'He just took what he wanted—sifted and +sorted you to suit his taste. Burnt out the gold and left a heap of +cinders. And you let him—you let yourself be cut in bits'—she mixed +her metaphors a little—'be cut in bits, and used or discarded, while +all the while every drop of blood in you belonged to him! But he's +Shylock—and you have bled to death of the pound of flesh he has cut +out of you.' But she despises me the most, you know—far the most—" +Mrs. Vervain ended. +</P> + +<P> +The words fell strangely on the scented stillness of the room: they +seemed out of harmony with its setting of afternoon intimacy, the kind +of intimacy on which at any moment, a visitor might intrude without +perceptibly lowering the atmosphere. It was as though a grand +opera-singer had strained the acoustics of a private music-room. +</P> + +<P> +Thursdale stood up, facing his hostess. Half the room was between them, +but they seemed to stare close at each other now that the veils of +reticence and ambiguity had fallen. +</P> + +<P> +His first words were characteristic. "She <I>does</I> despise me, then?" he +exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"She thinks the pound of flesh you took was a little too near the +heart." +</P> + +<P> +He was excessively pale. "Please tell me exactly what she said of me." +</P> + +<P> +"She did not speak much of you: she is proud. But I gather that while +she understands love or indifference, her eyes have never been opened +to the many intermediate shades of feeling. At any rate, she expressed +an unwillingness to be taken with reservations—she thinks you would +have loved her better if you had loved some one else first. The point +of view is original—she insists on a man with a past!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, a past—if she's serious—I could rake up a past!" he said with a +laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"So I suggested: but she has her eyes on his particular portion of it. +She insists on making it a test case. She wanted to know what you had +done to me; and before I could guess her drift I blundered into telling +her." +</P> + +<P> +Thursdale drew a difficult breath. "I never supposed—your revenge is +complete," he said slowly. +</P> + +<P> +He heard a little gasp in her throat. "My revenge? When I sent for you +to warn you—to save you from being surprised as <I>I</I> was surprised?" +</P> + +<P> +"You're very good—but it's rather late to talk of saving me." He held +out his hand in the mechanical gesture of leave-taking. +</P> + +<P> +"How you must care!—for I never saw you so dull," was her answer. +"Don't you see that it's not too late for me to help you?" And as he +continued to stare, she brought out sublimely: "Take the rest—in +imagination! Let it at least be of that much use to you. Tell her I +lied to her—she's too ready to believe it! And so, after all, in a +sense, I sha'n't have been wasted." +</P> + +<P> +His stare hung on her, widening to a kind of wonder. She gave the look +back brightly, unblushingly, as though the expedient were too simple to +need oblique approaches. It was extraordinary how a few words had swept +them from an atmosphere of the most complex dissimulations to this +contact of naked souls. +</P> + +<P> +It was not in Thursdale to expand with the pressure of fate; but +something in him cracked with it, and the rift let in new light. He +went up to his friend and took her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"You would do it—you would do it!" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him, smiling, but her hand shook. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by," he said, kissing it. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-by? You are going—?" +</P> + +<P> +"To get my letter." +</P> + +<P> +"Your letter? The letter won't matter, if you will only do what I ask." +</P> + +<P> +He returned her gaze. "I might, I suppose, without being out of +character. Only, don't you see that if your plan helped me it could +only harm her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Harm <I>her?</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"To sacrifice you wouldn't make me different. I shall go on being what +I have always been—sifting and sorting, as she calls it. Do you want +my punishment to fall on <I>her?</I>" +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him long and deeply. "Ah, if I had to choose between +you—!" +</P> + +<P> +"You would let her take her chance? But I can't, you see. I must take +my punishment alone." +</P> + +<P> +She drew her hand away, sighing. "Oh, there will be no punishment for +either of you." +</P> + +<P> +"For either of us? There will be the reading of her letter for me." +</P> + +<P> +She shook her head with a slight laugh. "There will be no letter." +</P> + +<P> +Thursdale faced about from the threshold with fresh life in his look. +"No letter? You don't mean—" +</P> + +<P> +"I mean that she's been with you since I saw her—she's seen you and +heard your voice. If there <I>is</I> a letter, she has recalled it—from the +first station, by telegraph." +</P> + +<P> +He turned back to the door, forcing an answer to her smile. "But in the +mean while I shall have read it," he said. +</P> + +<P> +The door closed on him, and she hid her eyes from the dreadful +emptiness of the room. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="quicksand"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE QUICKSAND +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +AS Mrs. Quentin's victoria, driving homeward, turned from the Park into +Fifth Avenue, she divined her son's tall figure walking ahead of her in +the twilight. His long stride covered the ground more rapidly than +usual, and she had a premonition that, if he were going home at that +hour, it was because he wanted to see her. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin, though not a fanciful woman, was sometimes aware of a +sixth sense enabling her to detect the faintest vibrations of her son's +impulses. She was too shrewd to fancy herself the one mother in +possession of this faculty, but she permitted herself to think that few +could exercise it more discreetly. If she could not help overhearing +Alan's thoughts, she had the courage to keep her discoveries to +herself, the tact to take for granted nothing that lay below the +surface of their spoken intercourse: she knew that most people would +rather have their letters read than their thoughts. For this +superfeminine discretion Alan repaid her by—being Alan. There could +have been no completer reward. He was the key to the meaning of life, +the justification of what must have seemed as incomprehensible as it +was odious, had it not all-sufficingly ended in himself. He was a +perfect son, and Mrs. Quentin had always hungered for perfection. +</P> + +<P> +Her house, in a minor way, bore witness to the craving. One felt it to +be the result of a series of eliminations: there was nothing fortuitous +in its blending of line and color. The almost morbid finish of every +material detail of her life suggested the possibility that a diversity +of energies had, by some pressure of circumstance, been forced into the +channel of a narrow dilettanteism. Mrs. Quentin's fastidiousness had, +indeed, the flaw of being too one-sided. Her friends were not always +worthy of the chairs they sat in, and she overlooked in her associates +defects she would not have tolerated in her bric-a-brac. Her house was, +in fact, never so distinguished as when it was empty; and it was at its +best in the warm fire-lit silence that now received her. +</P> + +<P> +Her son, who had overtaken her on the door-step, followed her into the +drawing-room, and threw himself into an armchair near the fire, while +she laid off her furs and busied herself about the tea table. For a +while neither spoke; but glancing at him across the kettle, his mother +noticed that he sat staring at the embers with a look she had never +seen on his face, though its arrogant young outline was as familiar to +her as her own thoughts. The look extended itself to his negligent +attitude, to the droop of his long fine hands, the dejected tilt of his +head against the cushions. It was like the moral equivalent of physical +fatigue: he looked, as he himself would have phrased it, dead-beat, +played out. Such an air was so foreign to his usual bright +indomitableness that Mrs. Quentin had the sense of an unfamiliar +presence, in which she must observe herself, must raise hurried +barriers against an alien approach. It was one of the drawbacks of +their excessive intimacy that any break in it seemed a chasm. +</P> + +<P> +She was accustomed to let his thoughts circle about her before they +settled into speech, and she now sat in motionless expectancy, as +though a sound might frighten them away. +</P> + +<P> +At length, without turning his eyes from the fire, he said: "I'm so +glad you're a nice old-fashioned intuitive woman. It's painful to see +them think." +</P> + +<P> +Her apprehension had already preceded him. "Hope Fenno—?" she faltered. +</P> + +<P> +He nodded. "She's been thinking—hard. It was very painful—to me, at +least; and I don't believe she enjoyed it: she said she didn't." He +stretched his feet to the fire. "The result of her cogitations is that +she won't have me. She arrived at this by pure ratiocination—it's not +a question of feeling, you understand. I'm the only man she's ever +loved—but she won't have me. What novels did you read when you were +young, dear? I'm convinced it all turns on that. If she'd been brought +up on Trollope and Whyte-Melville, instead of Tolstoi and Mrs. Ward, we +should have now been vulgarly sitting on a sofa, trying on the +engagement-ring." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin at first was kept silent by the mother's instinctive anger +that the girl she has not wanted for her son should have dared to +refuse him. Then she said, "Tell me, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"My good woman, she has scruples." +</P> + +<P> +"Scruples?" +</P> + +<P> +"Against the paper. She objects to me in my official capacity as owner +of the <I>Radiator</I>." +</P> + +<P> +His mother did not echo his laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"She had found a solution, of course—she overflows with expedients. I +was to chuck the paper, and we were to live happily ever afterward on +canned food and virtue. She even had an alternative ready—women are so +full of resources! I was to turn the <I>Radiator</I> into an independent +organ, and run it at a loss to show the public what a model newspaper +ought to be. On the whole, I think she fancied this plan more than the +other—it commended itself to her as being more uncomfortable and +aggressive. It's not the fashion nowadays to be good by stealth." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin said to herself, "I didn't know how much he cared!" Aloud +she murmured, "You must give her time." +</P> + +<P> +"Time?" +</P> + +<P> +"To move out the old prejudices and make room for new ones." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear mother, those she has are brand-new; that's the trouble with +them. She's tremendously up-to-date. She takes in all the moral +fashion-papers, and wears the newest thing in ethics." +</P> + +<P> +Her resentment lost its way in the intricacies of his metaphor. "Is she +so very religious?" +</P> + +<P> +"You dear archaic woman! She's hopelessly irreligious; that's the +difficulty. You can make a religious woman believe almost anything: +there's the habit of credulity to work on. But when a girl's faith in +the Deluge has been shaken, it's very hard to inspire her with +confidence. She makes you feel that, before believing in you, it's her +duty as a conscientious agnostic to find out whether you're not +obsolete, or whether the text isn't corrupt, or somebody hasn't proved +conclusively that you never existed, anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin was again silent. The two moved in that atmosphere of +implications and assumptions where the lightest word may shake down the +dust of countless stored impressions; and speech was sometimes more +difficult between them than had their union been less close. +</P> + +<P> +Presently she ventured, "It's impossible?" +</P> + +<P> +"Impossible?" +</P> + +<P> +She seemed to use her words cautiously, like weapons that might slip +and inflict a cut. "What she suggests." +</P> + +<P> +Her son, raising himself, turned to look at her for the first time. +Their glance met in a shock of comprehension. He was with her against +the girl, then! Her satisfaction overflowed in a murmur of tenderness. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not, dear. One can't change—change one's life...." +</P> + +<P> +"One's self," he emended. "That's what I tell her. What's the use of my +giving up the paper if I keep my point of view?" +</P> + +<P> +The psychological distinction attracted her. "Which is it she minds +most?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, the paper—for the present. She undertakes to modify the point of +view afterward. All she asks is that I shall renounce my heresy: the +gift of grace will come later." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin sat gazing into her untouched cup. Her son's first words +had produced in her the hallucinated sense of struggling in the thick +of a crowd that he could not see. It was horrible to feel herself +hemmed in by influences imperceptible to him; yet if anything could +have increased her misery it would have been the discovery that her +ghosts had become visible. +</P> + +<P> +As though to divert his attention, she precipitately asked, "And you—?" +</P> + +<P> +His answer carried the shock of an evocation. "I merely asked her what +she thought of <I>you</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Of me?" +</P> + +<P> +"She admires you immensely, you know." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment Mrs. Quentin's cheek showed the lingering light of +girlhood: praise transmitted by her son acquired something of the +transmitter's merit. "Well—?" she smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—you didn't make my father give up the <I>Radiator</I>, did you?" +</P> + +<P> +His mother, stiffening, made a circuitous return: "She never comes +here. How can she know me?" +</P> + +<P> +"She's so poor! She goes out so little." He rose and leaned against the +mantel-piece, dislodging with impatient fingers a slender bronze +wrestler poised on a porphyry base, between two warm-toned Spanish +ivories. "And then her mother—" he added, as if involuntarily. +</P> + +<P> +"Her mother has never visited me," Mrs. Quentin finished for him. +</P> + +<P> +He shrugged his shoulders. "Mrs. Fenno has the scope of a wax doll. Her +rule of conduct is taken from her grandmother's sampler." +</P> + +<P> +"But the daughter is so modern—and yet—" +</P> + +<P> +"The result is the same? Not exactly. <I>She</I> admires you—oh, +immensely!" He replaced the bronze and turned to his mother with a +smile. "Aren't you on some hospital committee together? What especially +strikes her is your way of doing good. She says philanthropy is not a +line of conduct, but a state of mind—and it appears that you are one +of the elect." +</P> + +<P> +As, in the vague diffusion of physical pain, relief seems to come with +the acuter pang of a single nerve, Mrs. Quentin felt herself suddenly +eased by a rush of anger against the girl. "If she loved you—" she +began. +</P> + +<P> +His gesture checked her. "I'm not asking you to get her to do that." +</P> + +<P> +The two were again silent, facing each other in the disarray of a +common catastrophe—as though their thoughts, at the summons of danger, +had rushed naked into action. Mrs. Quentin, at this revealing moment, +saw for the first time how many elements of her son's character had +seemed comprehensible simply because they were familiar: as, in reading +a foreign language, we take the meaning of certain words for granted +till the context corrects us. Often as in a given case, her maternal +musings had figured his conduct, she now found herself at a loss to +forecast it; and with this failure of intuition came a sense of the +subserviency which had hitherto made her counsels but the anticipation +of his wish. Her despair escaped in the moan, "What <I>is</I> it you ask me?" +</P> + +<P> +"To talk to her." +</P> + +<P> +"Talk to her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Show her—tell her—make her understand that the paper has always been +a thing outside your life—that hasn't touched you—that needn't touch +<I>her</I>. Only, let her hear you—watch you—be with you—she'll see...she +can't help seeing..." +</P> + +<P> +His mother faltered. "But if she's given you her reasons—?" +</P> + +<P> +"Let her give them to you! If she can—when she sees you...." His +impatient hand again displaced the wrestler. "I care abominably," he +confessed. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +On the Fenno threshold a sudden sense of the futility of the attempt +had almost driven Mrs. Quentin back to her carriage; but the door was +already opening, and a parlor-maid who believed that Miss Fenno was in +led the way to the depressing drawing-room. It was the kind of room in +which no member of the family is likely to be found except after dinner +or after death. The chairs and tables looked like poor relations who +had repaid their keep by a long career of grudging usefulness: they +seemed banded together against intruders in a sullen conspiracy of +discomfort. Mrs. Quentin, keenly susceptible to such influences, read +failure in every angle of the upholstery. She was incapable of the +vulgar error of thinking that Hope Fenno might be induced to marry Alan +for his money; but between this assumption and the inference that the +girl's imagination might be touched by the finer possibilities of +wealth, good taste admitted a distinction. The Fenno furniture, +however, presented to such reasoning the obtuseness of its black-walnut +chamferings; and something in its attitude suggested that its owners +would be as uncompromising. The room showed none of the modern attempts +at palliation, no apologetic draping of facts; and Mrs. Quentin, +provisionally perched on a green-reps Gothic sofa with which it was +clearly impossible to establish any closer relations, concluded that, +had Mrs. Fenno needed another seat of the same size, she would have set +out placidly to match the one on which her visitor now languished. +</P> + +<P> +To Mrs. Quentin's fancy, Hope Fenno's opinions, presently imparted in a +clear young voice from the opposite angle of the Gothic sofa, partook +of the character of their surroundings. The girl's mind was like a +large light empty place, scantily furnished with a few massive +prejudices, not designed to add to any one's comfort but too ponderous +to be easily moved. Mrs. Quentin's own intelligence, in which its +owner, in an artistically shaded half-light, had so long moved amid a +delicate complexity of sensations, seemed in comparison suddenly close +and crowded; and in taking refuge there from the glare of the young +girl's candor, the older woman found herself stumbling in an unwonted +obscurity. Her uneasiness resolved itself into a sense of irritation +against her listener. Mrs. Quentin knew that the momentary value of any +argument lies in the capacity of the mind to which it is addressed, and +as her shafts of persuasion spent themselves against Miss Fenno's +obduracy, she said to herself that, since conduct is governed by +emotions rather than ideas, the really strong people are those who +mistake their sensations for opinions. Viewed in this light, Miss Fenno +was certainly very strong: there was an unmistakable ring of finality +in the tone with which she declared, +</P> + +<P> +"It's impossible." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin's answer veiled the least shade of feminine resentment. "I +told Alan that, where he had failed, there was no chance of my making +an impression." +</P> + +<P> +Hope Fenno laid on her visitor's an almost reverential hand. "Dear Mrs. +Quentin, it's the impression you make that confirms the impossibility." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin waited a moment: she was perfectly aware that, where her +feelings were concerned, her sense of humor was not to be relied on. +"Do I make such an odious impression?" she asked at length, with a +smile that seemed to give the girl her choice of two meanings. +</P> + +<P> +"You make such a beautiful one! It's too beautiful—it obscures my +judgment." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin looked at her thoughtfully. "Would it be permissible, I +wonder, for an older woman to suggest that, at your age, it isn't +always a misfortune to have what one calls one's judgment temporarily +obscured?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Fenno flushed. "I try not to judge others—" +</P> + +<P> +"You judge Alan." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, <I>he</I> is not others," she murmured, with an accent that touched the +older woman. +</P> + +<P> +"You judge his mother." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't; I don't!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin pressed her point. "You judge yourself, then, as you would +be in my position—and your verdict condemns me." +</P> + +<P> +"How can you think it? It's because I appreciate the difference in our +point of view that I find it so difficult to defend myself—" +</P> + +<P> +"Against what?" +</P> + +<P> +"The temptation to imagine that I might be as <I>you</I> are—feeling as I +do." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin rose with a sigh. "My child, in my day love was less +subtle." She added, after a moment, "Alan is a perfect son." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, that again—that makes it worse!" +</P> + +<P> +"Worse?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just as your goodness does, your sweetness, your immense indulgence in +letting me discuss things with you in a way that must seem almost an +impertinence." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin's smile was not without irony. "You must remember that I +do it for Alan." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I love you for!" the girl instantly returned; and again +her tone touched her listener. +</P> + +<P> +"And yet you're sacrificing him—and to an idea!" +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it to ideas that all the sacrifices that were worth while have +been made?" +</P> + +<P> +"One may sacrifice one's self." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Fenno's color rose. "That's what I'm doing," she said gently. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin took her hand. "I believe you are," she answered. "And it +isn't true that I speak only for Alan. Perhaps I did when I began; but +now I want to plead for you too—against yourself." She paused, and +then went on with a deeper note: "I have let you, as you say, speak +your mind to me in terms that some women might have resented, because I +wanted to show you how little, as the years go on, theories, ideas, +abstract conceptions of life, weigh against the actual, against the +particular way in which life presents itself to us—to women +especially. To decide beforehand exactly how one ought to behave in +given circumstances is like deciding that one will follow a certain +direction in crossing an unexplored country. Afterward we find that we +must turn out for the obstacles—cross the rivers where they're +shallowest—take the tracks that others have beaten—make all sorts of +unexpected concessions. Life is made up of compromises: that is what +youth refuses to understand. I've lived long enough to doubt whether +any real good ever came of sacrificing beautiful facts to even more +beautiful theories. Do I seem casuistical? I don't know—there may be +losses either way...but the love of the man one loves...of the child +one loves... that makes up for everything...." +</P> + +<P> +She had spoken with a thrill which seemed to communicate itself to the +hand her listener had left in hers. Her eyes filled suddenly, but +through their dimness she saw the girl's lips shape a last desperate +denial: +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you see it's because I feel all this that I mustn't—that I +can't?" +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin, in the late spring afternoon, had turned in at the doors +of the Metropolitan Museum. She had been walking in the Park, in a +solitude oppressed by the ever-present sense of her son's trouble, and +had suddenly remembered that some one had added a Beltraffio to the +collection. It was an old habit of Mrs. Quentin's to seek in the +enjoyment of the beautiful the distraction that most of her +acquaintances appeared to find in each other's company. She had few +friends, and their society was welcome to her only in her more +superficial moods; but she could drug anxiety with a picture as some +women can soothe it with a bonnet. +</P> + +<P> +During the six months that had elapsed since her visit to Miss Fenno +she had been conscious of a pain of which she had supposed herself no +longer capable: as a man will continue to feel the ache of an amputated +arm. She had fancied that all her centres of feeling had been +transferred to Alan; but she now found herself subject to a kind of +dual suffering, in which her individual pang was the keener in that it +divided her from her son's. Alan had surprised her: she had not +foreseen that he would take a sentimental rebuff so hard. His +disappointment took the uncommunicative form of a sterner application +to work. He threw himself into the concerns of the <I>Radiator</I> with an +aggressiveness that almost betrayed itself in the paper. Mrs. Quentin +never read the <I>Radiator</I>, but from the glimpses of it reflected in the +other journals she gathered that it was at least not being subjected to +the moral reconstruction which had been one of Miss Fenno's +alternatives. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin never spoke to her son of what had happened. She was +superior to the cheap satisfaction of avenging his injury by +depreciating its cause. She knew that in sentimental sorrows such +consolations are as salt in the wound. The avoidance of a subject so +vividly present to both could not but affect the closeness of their +relation. An invisible presence hampered their liberty of speech and +thought. The girl was always between them; and to hide the sense of her +intrusion they began to be less frequently together. It was then that +Mrs. Quentin measured the extent of her isolation. Had she ever dared +to forecast such a situation, she would have proceeded on the +conventional theory that her son's suffering must draw her nearer to +him; and this was precisely the relief that was denied her. Alan's +uncommunicativeness extended below the level of speech, and his mother, +reduced to the helplessness of dead-reckoning, had not even the solace +of adapting her sympathy to his needs. She did not know what he felt: +his course was incalculable to her. She sometimes wondered if she had +become as incomprehensible to him; and it was to find a moment's refuge +from the dogging misery of such conjectures that she had now turned in +at the Museum. +</P> + +<P> +The long line of mellow canvases seemed to receive her into the rich +calm of an autumn twilight. She might have been walking in an enchanted +wood where the footfall of care never sounded. So deep was the sense of +seclusion that, as she turned from her prolonged communion with the new +Beltraffio, it was a surprise to find she was not alone. +</P> + +<P> +A young lady who had risen from the central ottoman stood in suspended +flight as Mrs. Quentin faced her. The older woman was the first to +regain her self-possession. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Fenno!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +The girl advanced with a blush. As it faded, Mrs. Quentin noticed a +change in her. There had always been something bright and bannerlike in +her aspect, but now her look drooped, and she hung at half-mast, as it +were. Mrs. Quentin, in the embarrassment of surprising a secret that +its possessor was doubtless unconscious of betraying, reverted +hurriedly to the Beltraffio. +</P> + +<P> +"I came to see this," she said. "It's very beautiful." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Fenno's eye travelled incuriously over the mystic blue reaches of +the landscape. "I suppose so," she assented; adding, after another +tentative pause, "You come here often, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very often," Mrs. Quentin answered. "I find pictures a great help." +</P> + +<P> +"A help?" +</P> + +<P> +"A rest, I mean...if one is tired or out of sorts." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," Miss Fenno murmured, looking down. +</P> + +<P> +"This Beltraffio is new, you know," Mrs. Quentin continued. "What a +wonderful background, isn't it? Is he a painter who interests you?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl glanced again at the dusky canvas, as though in a final +endeavor to extract from it a clue to the consolations of art. "I don't +know," she said at length; "I'm afraid I don't understand pictures." +She moved nearer to Mrs. Quentin and held out her hand. +</P> + +<P> +"You're going?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin looked at her. "Let me drive you home," she said, +impulsively. She was feeling, with a shock of surprise, that it gave +her, after all, no pleasure to see how much the girl had suffered. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Fenno stiffened perceptibly. "Thank you; I shall like the walk." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin dropped her hand with a corresponding movement of +withdrawal, and a momentary wave of antagonism seemed to sweep the two +women apart. Then, as Mrs. Quentin, bowing slightly, again addressed +herself to the picture, she felt a sudden touch on her arm. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Quentin," the girl faltered, "I really came here because I saw +your carriage." Her eyes sank, and then fluttered back to her hearer's +face. "I've been horribly unhappy!" she exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin was silent. If Hope Fenno had expected an immediate +response to her appeal, she was disappointed. The older woman's face +was like a veil dropped before her thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +"I've thought so often," the girl went on precipitately, "of what you +said that day you came to see me last autumn. I think I understand now +what you meant—what you tried to make me see.... Oh, Mrs. Quentin," +she broke out, "I didn't mean to tell you this—I never dreamed of it +till this moment—but you <I>do</I> remember what you said, don't you? You +must remember it! And now that I've met you in this way, I can't help +telling you that I believe—I begin to believe—that you were right, +after all." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin had listened without moving; but now she raised her eyes +with a slight smile. "Do you wish me to say this to Alan?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +The girl flushed, but her glance braved the smile. "Would he still care +to hear it?" she said fearlessly. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin took momentary refuge in a renewed inspection of the +Beltraffio; then, turning, she said, with a kind of reluctance: "He +would still care." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" broke from the girl. +</P> + +<P> +During this exchange of words the two speakers had drifted +unconsciously toward one of the benches. Mrs. Quentin glanced about +her: a custodian who had been hovering in the doorway sauntered into +the adjoining gallery, and they remained alone among the silvery +Vandykes and flushed bituminous Halses. Mrs. Quentin sank down on the +bench and reached a hand to the girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit by me," she said. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Fenno dropped beside her. In both women the stress of emotion was +too strong for speech. The girl was still trembling, and Mrs. Quentin +was the first to regain her composure. +</P> + +<P> +"You say you've suffered," she began at last. "Do you suppose <I>I</I> +haven't?" +</P> + +<P> +"I knew you had. That made it so much worse for me—that I should have +been the cause of your suffering for Alan!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin drew a deep breath. "Not for Alan only," she said. Miss +Fenno turned on her a wondering glance. "Not for Alan only. <I>That</I> pain +every woman expects—and knows how to bear. We all know our children +must have such disappointments, and to suffer with them is not the +deepest pain. It's the suffering apart—in ways they don't understand." +She breathed deeply. "I want you to know what I mean. You were +right—that day—and I was wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," the girl faltered. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin went on in a voice of passionate lucidity. "I knew it +then—I knew it even while I was trying to argue with you—I've always +known it! I didn't want my son to marry you till I heard your reasons +for refusing him; and then—then I longed to see you his wife!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mrs. Quentin!" +</P> + +<P> +"I longed for it; but I knew it mustn't be." +</P> + +<P> +"Mustn't be?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Quentin shook her head sadly, and the girl, gaining courage from +this mute negation, cried with an uncontrollable escape of feeling: +</P> + +<P> +"It's because you thought me hard, obstinate narrow-minded? Oh, I +understand that so well! My self-righteousness must have seemed so +petty! A girl who could sacrifice a man's future to her own moral +vanity—for it <I>was</I> a form of vanity; you showed me that plainly +enough—how you must have despised me! But I am not that girl +now—indeed I'm not. I'm not impulsive—I think things out. I've +thought this out. I know Alan loves me—I know <I>how</I> he loves me—and I +believe I can help him—oh, not in the ways I had fancied before—but +just merely by loving him." She paused, but Mrs. Quentin made no sign. +"I see it all so differently now. I see what an influence love itself +may be—how my believing in him, loving him, accepting him just as he +is, might help him more than any theories, any arguments. I might have +seen this long ago in looking at <I>you</I>—as he often told me—in seeing +how you'd kept yourself apart from—from—Mr. Quentin's work and +his—been always the beautiful side of life to them—kept their faith +alive in spite of themselves—not by interfering, preaching, reforming, +but by—just loving them and being there—" She looked at Mrs. Quentin +with a simple nobleness. "It isn't as if I cared for the money, you +know; if I cared for that, I should be afraid—" +</P> + +<P> +"You will care for it in time," Mrs. Quentin said suddenly. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Fenno drew back, releasing her hand. "In time?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; when there's nothing else left." She stared a moment at the +pictures. "My poor child," she broke out, "I've heard all you say so +often before!" +</P> + +<P> +"You've heard it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—from myself. I felt as you do, I argued as you do, I acted as I +mean to prevent your doing, when I married Alan's father." +</P> + +<P> +The long empty gallery seemed to reverberate with the girl's startled +exclamation—"Oh, Mrs. Quentin—" +</P> + +<P> +"Hush; let me speak. Do you suppose I'd do this if you were the kind of +pink-and-white idiot he ought to have married? It's because I see +you're alive, as I was, tingling with beliefs, ambitions, energies, as +I was—that I can't see you walled up alive, as I was, without +stretching out a hand to save you!" She sat gazing rigidly forward, her +eyes on the pictures, speaking in the low precipitate tone of one who +tries to press the meaning of a lifetime into a few breathless +sentences. +</P> + +<P> +"When I met Alan's father," she went on, "I knew nothing of his—his +work. We met abroad, where I had been living with my mother. That was +twenty-six years ago, when the <I>Radiator</I> was less—less notorious than +it is now. I knew my husband owned a newspaper—a great newspaper—and +nothing more. I had never seen a copy of the <I>Radiator</I>; I had no +notion what it stood for, in politics—or in other ways. We were +married in Europe, and a few months afterward we came to live here. +People were already beginning to talk about the <I>Radiator</I>. My husband, +on leaving college, had bought it with some money an old uncle had left +him, and the public at first was merely curious to see what an +ambitious, stirring young man without any experience of journalism was +going to make out of his experiment. They found first of all that he +was going to make a great deal of money out of it. I found that out +too. I was so happy in other ways that it didn't make much difference +at first; though it was pleasant to be able to help my mother, to be +generous and charitable, to live in a nice house, and wear the handsome +gowns he liked to see me in. But still it didn't really count—it +counted so little that when, one day, I learned what the <I>Radiator</I> +was, I would have gone out into the streets barefooted rather than live +another hour on the money it brought in...." Her voice sank, and she +paused to steady it. The girl at her side did not speak or move. "I +shall never forget that day," she began again. "The paper had stripped +bare some family scandal—some miserable bleeding secret that a dozen +unhappy people had been struggling to keep out of print—that <I>would</I> +have been kept out if my husband had not—Oh, you must guess the rest! +I can't go on!" +</P> + +<P> +She felt a hand on hers. "You mustn't go on, Mrs. Quentin," the girl +whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I must—I must! You must be made to understand." She drew a deep +breath. "My husband was not like Alan. When he found out how I felt +about it he was surprised at first—but gradually he began to see—or +at least I fancied he saw—the hatefulness of it. At any rate he saw +how I suffered, and he offered to give up the whole thing—to sell the +paper. It couldn't be done all of a sudden, of course—he made me see +that—for he had put all his money in it, and he had no special +aptitude for any other kind of work. He was a born journalist—like +Alan. It was a great sacrifice for him to give up the paper, but he +promised to do it—in time—when a good opportunity offered. Meanwhile, +of course, he wanted to build it up, to increase the circulation—and +to do that he had to keep on in the same way—he made that clear to me. +I saw that we were in a vicious circle. The paper, to sell well, had to +be made more and more detestable and disgraceful. At first I +rebelled—but somehow—I can't tell you how it was—after that first +concession the ground seemed to give under me: with every struggle I +sank deeper. And then—then Alan was born. He was such a delicate baby +that there was very little hope of saving him. But money did it—the +money from the paper. I took him abroad to see the best physicians—I +took him to a warm climate every winter. In hot weather the doctors +recommended sea air, and we had a yacht and cruised every summer. I +owed his life to the <I>Radiator</I>. And when he began to grow stronger the +habit was formed—the habit of luxury. He could not get on without the +things he had always been used to. He pined in bad air; he drooped +under monotony and discomfort; he throve on variety, amusement, travel, +every kind of novelty and excitement. And all I wanted for him his +inexhaustible foster-mother was there to give! +</P> + +<P> +"My husband said nothing, but he must have seen how things were going. +There was no more talk of giving up the <I>Radiator</I>. He never reproached +me with my inconsistency, but I thought he must despise me, and the +thought made me reckless. I determined to ignore the paper +altogether—to take what it gave as though I didn't know where it came +from. And to excuse this I invented the theory that one may, so to +speak, purify money by putting it to good uses. I gave away a great +deal in charity—I indulged myself very little at first. All the money +that was not spent on Alan I tried to do good with. But gradually, as +my boy grew up, the problem became more complicated. How was I to +protect Alan from the contamination I had let him live in? I couldn't +preach by example—couldn't hold up his father as a warning, or +denounce the money we were living on. All I could do was to disguise +the inner ugliness of life by making it beautiful outside—to build a +wall of beauty between him and the facts of life, turn his tastes and +interests another way, hide the <I>Radiator</I> from him as a smiling woman +at a ball may hide a cancer in her breast! Just as Alan was entering +college his father died. Then I saw my way clear. I had loved my +husband—and yet I drew my first free breath in years. For the +<I>Radiator</I> had been left to Alan outright—there was nothing on earth +to prevent his selling it when he came of age. And there was no excuse +for his not selling it. I had brought him up to depend on money, but +the paper had given us enough money to gratify all his tastes. At last +we could turn on the monster that had nourished us. I felt a savage joy +in the thought—I could hardly bear to wait till Alan came of age. But +I had never spoken to him of the paper, and I didn't dare speak of it +now. Some false shame kept me back, some vague belief in his ignorance. +I would wait till he was twenty-one, and then we should be free. +</P> + +<P> +"I waited—the day came, and I spoke. You can guess his answer, I +suppose. He had no idea of selling the <I>Radiator</I>. It wasn't the money +he cared for—it was the career that tempted him. He was a born +journalist, and his ambition, ever since he could remember, had been to +carry on his father's work, to develop, to surpass it. There was +nothing in the world as interesting as modern journalism. He couldn't +imagine any other kind of life that wouldn't bore him to death. A +newspaper like the <I>Radiator</I> might be made one of the biggest powers +on earth, and he loved power, and meant to have all he could get. I +listened to him in a kind of trance. I couldn't find a word to say. His +father had had scruples—he had none. I seemed to realize at once that +argument would be useless. I don't know that I even tried to plead with +him—he was so bright and hard and inaccessible! Then I saw that he +was, after all, what I had made him—the creature of my concessions, my +connivances, my evasions. That was the price I had paid for him—I had +kept him at that cost! +</P> + +<P> +"Well—I <I>had</I> kept him, at any rate. That was the feeling that +survived. He was my boy, my son, my very own—till some other woman +took him. Meanwhile the old life must go on as it could. I gave up the +struggle. If at that point he was inaccessible, at others he was close +to me. He has always been a perfect son. Our tastes grew together—we +enjoyed the same books, the same pictures, the same people. All I had +to do was to look at him in profile to see the side of him that was +really mine. At first I kept thinking of the dreadful other side—but +gradually the impression faded, and I kept my mind turned from it, as +one does from a deformity in a face one loves. I thought I had made my +last compromise with life—had hit on a <I>modus vivendi</I> that would last +my time. +</P> + +<P> +"And then he met you. I had always been prepared for his marrying, but +not a girl like you. I thought he would choose a sweet thing who would +never pry into his closets—he hated women with ideas! But as soon as I +saw you I knew the struggle would have to begin again. He is so much +stronger than his father—he is full of the most monstrous convictions. +And he has the courage of them, too—you saw last year that his love +for you never made him waver. He believes in his work; he adores it—it +is a kind of hideous idol to which he would make human sacrifices! He +loves you still—I've been honest with you—but his love wouldn't +change him. It is you who would have to change—to die gradually, as I +have died, till there is only one live point left in me. Ah, if one +died completely—that's simple enough! But something persists—remember +that—a single point, an aching nerve of truth. Now and then you may +drug it—but a touch wakes it again, as your face has waked it in me. +There's always enough of one's old self left to suffer with...." +</P> + +<P> +She stood up and faced the girl abruptly. "What shall I tell Alan?" she +said. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Fenno sat motionless, her eyes on the ground. Twilight was falling +on the gallery—a twilight which seemed to emanate not so much from the +glass dome overhead as from the crepuscular depths into which the faces +of the pictures were receding. The custodian's step sounded warningly +down the corridor. When the girl looked up she was alone. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="venetian"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A VENETIAN NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +THIS is the story that, in the dining-room of the old Beacon Street +house (now the Aldebaran Club), Judge Anthony Bracknell, of the famous +East India firm of Bracknell & Saulsbee, when the ladies had withdrawn +to the oval parlour (and Maria's harp was throwing its gauzy web of +sound across the Common), used to relate to his grandsons, about the +year that Buonaparte marched upon Moscow. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H4> + +<P> +"Him Venice!" said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony +Bracknell, leaning on the high gunwale of his father's East Indiaman, +the Hepzibah B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a faint vision of +towers and domes dissolved in golden air. +</P> + +<P> +It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly of +age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack merchantman of old +Bracknell's fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city trembled +into shape. <I>Venice!</I> The name, since childhood, had been a magician's +wand to him. In the hall of the old Bracknell house at Salem there hung +a series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard Saulsbee had brought +home from one of his long voyages: views of heathen mosques and +palaces, of the Grand Turk's Seraglio, of St. Peter's Church in Rome; +and, in a corner—the corner nearest the rack where the old flintlocks +hung—a busy merry populous scene, entitled: <I>St. Mark's Square in +Venice</I>. This picture, from the first, had singularly taken little +Tony's fancy. His unformulated criticism on the others was that they +lacked action. True, in the view of St. Peter's an experienced-looking +gentleman in a full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious +monument to a bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to +raise his eyes to it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of +turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled +lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things were happening at +once—more, Tony was sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a +twelve-month or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, +were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and +many more, mixed with a parti-coloured throng of gentry, lacqueys, +chapmen, hucksters, and tall personages in parsons' gowns who stalked +through the crowd with an air of mastery, a string of parasites at +their heels. And all these people seemed to be diverting themselves +hugely, chaffering with the hucksters, watching the antics of trained +dogs and monkeys, distributing doles to maimed beggars or having their +pockets picked by slippery-looking fellows in black—the whole with +such an air of ease and good-humour that one felt the cut-purses to be +as much a part of the show as the tumbling acrobats and animals. +</P> + +<P> +As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming lost its +magic; but not so the early imaginings it had excited. For the old +picture had been but the spring-board of fancy, the first step of a +cloud-ladder leading to a land of dreams. With these dreams the name of +Venice remained associated; and all that observation or report +subsequently brought him concerning the place seemed, on a sober +warranty of fact, to confirm its claim to stand midway between reality +and illusion. There was, for instance, a slender Venice glass, +gold-powdered as with lily-pollen or the dust of sunbeams, that, +standing in the corner cabinet betwixt two Lowestoft caddies, seemed, +among its lifeless neighbours, to palpitate like an impaled butterfly. +There was, farther, a gold chain of his mother's, spun of that same +sun-pollen, so thread-like, impalpable, that it slipped through the +fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a heavy pendant which +seemed held in air as if by magic. <I>Magic!</I> That was the word which the +thought of Venice evoked. It was the kind of place, Tony felt, in which +things elsewhere impossible might naturally happen, in which two and +two might make five, a paradox elope with a syllogism, and a conclusion +give the lie to its own premiss. Was there ever a young heart that did +not, once and again, long to get away into such a world as that? Tony, +at least, had felt the longing from the first hour when the axioms in +his horn-book had brought home to him his heavy responsibilities as a +Christian and a sinner. And now here was his wish taking shape before +him, as the distant haze of gold shaped itself into towers and domes +across the morning sea! +</P> + +<P> +The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony's governor and bear-leader, was just +putting a hand to the third clause of the fourth part of a sermon on +Free-Will and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.'s anchor rattled +overboard. Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would have made one plunge +with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on being roused from his +lucubrations, earnestly protested against leaving his argument in +suspense. What was the trifle of an arrival at some Papistical foreign +city, where the very churches wore turbans like so many Moslem +idolators, to the important fact of Mr. Mounce's summing up his +conclusions before the Muse of Theology took flight? He should be +happy, he said, if the tide served, to visit Venice with Mr. Bracknell +the next morning. +</P> + +<P> +The next morning, ha!—Tony murmured a submissive "Yes, sir," winked at +the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed his hat down with +a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at his next +deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in the Hepzibah's gig. +</P> + +<P> +A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very world of +the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, and bubbling +with merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed in fantastic +painted buildings, and peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling, +laughing, jostling, sweating mob, parti-coloured, parti-speeched, +crackling and sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over +a kitchen fire. Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, +aware at once that, spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the +gesticulation, there was no undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency +to horse-play, as in such crowds on market-day at home, but a kind of +facetious suavity which seemed to include everybody in the +circumference of one huge joke. In such an air the sense of strangeness +soon wore off, and Tony was beginning to feel himself vastly at home, +when a lift of the tide bore him against a droll-looking bell-ringing +fellow who carried above his head a tall metal tree hung with +sherbet-glasses. +</P> + +<P> +The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off and +clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all the saints, +and Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a ducat by +mistake for a sequin. The fellow's eyes shot out of their orbits, and +just then a personable-looking young man who had observed the +transaction stepped up to Tony and said pleasantly, in English: +</P> + +<P> +"I perceive, sir, that you are not familiar with our currency." +</P> + +<P> +"Does he want more?" says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other laughed +and replied: "You have given him enough to retire from his business and +open a gaming-house over the arcade." +</P> + +<P> +Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the preliminaries, +the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a glass of Canary in +front of one of the coffee-houses about the square. Tony counted +himself lucky to have run across an English-speaking companion who was +good-natured enough to give him a clue to the labyrinth; and when he +had paid for the Canary (in the coin his friend selected) they set out +again to view the town. The Italian gentleman, who called himself Count +Rialto, appeared to have a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to +point out to Tony all the chief dignitaries of the state, the men of +ton and ladies of fashion, as well as a number of other characters of a +kind not openly mentioned in taking a census of Salem. +</P> + +<P> +Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better offered, had +perused the "Merchant of Venice" and Mr. Otway's fine tragedy; but +though these pieces had given him a notion that the social usages of +Venice differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the +surprising appearance and manners of the great people his friend named +to him. The gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped +trousers, short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and +doctor's gown, another a black velvet tunic slashed with rose-colour; +while the President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible +strutting fellow with a rapier-like nose, a buff leather jerkin and a +trailing scarlet cloak that the crowd was careful not to step on. +</P> + +<P> +It was all vastly diverting, and Tony would gladly have gone on +forever; but he had given his word to the captain to be at the +landing-place at sunset, and here was dusk already creeping over the +skies! Tony was a man of honour; and having pressed on the Count a +handsome damascened dagger selected from one of the goldsmiths' shops +in a narrow street lined with such wares, he insisted on turning his +face toward the Hepzibah's gig. The Count yielded reluctantly; but as +they came out again on the square they were caught in a great throng +pouring toward the doors of the cathedral. +</P> + +<P> +"They go to Benediction," said the Count. "A beautiful sight, with many +lights and flowers. It is a pity you cannot take a peep at it." +</P> + +<P> +Tony thought so too, and in another minute a legless beggar had pulled +back the leathern flap of the cathedral door, and they stood in a haze +of gold and perfume that seemed to rise and fall on the mighty +undulations of the organ. Here the press was as thick as without; and +as Tony flattened himself against a pillar, he heard a pretty voice at +his elbow:—"Oh, sir, oh, sir, your sword!" +</P> + +<P> +He turned at sound of the broken English, and saw a girl who matched +the voice trying to disengage her dress from the tip of his scabbard. +She wore one of the voluminous black hoods which the Venetian ladies +affected, and under its projecting eaves her face spied out at him as +sweet as a nesting bird. +</P> + +<P> +In the dusk their hands met over the scabbard, and as she freed herself +a shred of her lace flounce clung to Tony's enchanted fingers. Looking +after her, he saw she was on the arm of a pompous-looking graybeard in +a long black gown and scarlet stockings, who, on perceiving the +exchange of glances between the young people, drew the lady away with a +threatening look. +</P> + +<P> +The Count met Tony's eye with a smile. "One of our Venetian beauties," +said he; "the lovely Polixena Cador. She is thought to have the finest +eyes in Venice." +</P> + +<P> +"She spoke English," stammered Tony. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh—ah—precisely: she learned the language at the Court of Saint +James's, where her father, the Senator, was formerly accredited as +Ambassador. She played as an infant with the royal princes of England." +</P> + +<P> +"And that was her father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Assuredly: young ladies of Donna Polixena's rank do not go abroad save +with their parents or a duenna." +</P> + +<P> +Just then a soft hand slid into Tony's. His heart gave a foolish bound, +and he turned about half-expecting to meet again the merry eyes under +the hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some kind of fanciful +page's dress, who thrust a folded paper between his fingers and +vanished in the throng. Tony, in a tingle, glanced surreptitiously at +the Count, who appeared absorbed in his prayers. The crowd, at the +ringing of a bell, had in fact been overswept by a sudden wave of +devotion; and Tony seized the moment to step beneath a lighted shrine +with his letter. +</P> + +<P> +"I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena"—he read; +but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand fell on his +shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat, and bearing a kind +of rod or mace, pronounced a few words in Venetian. +</P> + +<P> +Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to jerk +himself free; but the harder he jerked the tighter grew the other's +grip, and the Count, presently perceiving what had happened, pushed his +way through the crowd, and whispered hastily to his companion: "For +God's sake, make no struggle. This is serious. Keep quiet and do as I +tell you." +</P> + +<P> +Tony was no chicken-heart. He had something of a name for pugnacity +among the lads of his own age at home, and was not the man to stand in +Venice what he would have resented in Salem; but the devil of it was +that this black fellow seemed to be pointing to the letter in his +breast; and this suspicion was confirmed by the Count's agitated +whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"This is one of the agents of the Ten.—For God's sake, no outcry." He +exchanged a word or two with the mace-bearer and again turned to Tony. +"You have been seen concealing a letter about your person—" +</P> + +<P> +"And what of that?" says Tony furiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Gently, gently, my master. A letter handed to you by the page of Donna +Polixena Cador.—A black business! Oh, a very black business! This +Cador is one of the most powerful nobles in Venice—I beseech you, not +a word, sir! Let me think—deliberate—" +</P> + +<P> +His hand on Tony's shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with the +potentate in the cocked hat. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry, sir—but our young ladies of rank are as jealously guarded +as the Grand Turk's wives, and you must be answerable for this scandal. +The best I can do is to have you taken privately to the Palazzo Cador, +instead of being brought before the Council. I have pleaded your youth +and inexperience"—Tony winced at this—"and I think the business may +still be arranged." +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a +sharp-featured shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like a +lawyer's clerk, who laid a grimy hand on Tony's arm, and with many +apologetic gestures steered him through the crowd to the doors of the +church. The Count held him by the other arm, and in this fashion they +emerged on the square, which now lay in darkness save for the many +lights twinkling under the arcade and in the windows of the +gaming-rooms above it. +</P> + +<P> +Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would go +where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to the mate of +the Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or more at +the landing-place. +</P> + +<P> +The Count repeated this to Tony's custodian, but the latter shook his +head and rattled off a sharp denial. +</P> + +<P> +"Impossible, sir," said the Count. "I entreat you not to insist. Any +resistance will tell against you in the end." +</P> + +<P> +Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of +escape. In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his captors, and +boyhood's ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself equal to +outwitting a dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see that at a cry +the crowd would close in on him. Space was what he wanted: a clear ten +yards, and he would have laughed at Doge and Council. But the throng +was thick as glue, and he walked on submissively, keeping his eye alert +for an opening. Suddenly the mob swerved aside after some new show. +Tony's fist shot out at the black fellow's chest, and before the latter +could right himself the young New Englander was showing a clean pair of +heels to his escort. On he sped, cleaving the crowd like a flood-tide +in Gloucester bay, diving under the first arch that caught his eye, +dashing down a lane to an unlit water-way, and plunging across a narrow +hump-back bridge which landed him in a black pocket between walls. But +now his pursuers were at his back, reinforced by the yelping mob. The +walls were too high to scale, and for all his courage Tony's breath +came short as he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck had landed +him. Suddenly a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of a +servant wench looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to weigh +chances. Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed and bolted +it, and the two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H4> + +<P> +THE servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her. They +climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a corridor, +and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp hung from the +painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former splendour in his +surroundings, but he had no time to examine them, for a figure started +up at his approach and in the dim light he recognized the girl who was +the cause of all his troubles. +</P> + +<P> +She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced her +face changed and she shrank back abashed. +</P> + +<P> +"This is a misunderstanding—a dreadful misunderstanding," she cried +out in her pretty broken English. "Oh, how does it happen that you are +here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!" retorted Tony, not +over-pleased by his reception. +</P> + +<P> +"But why—how—how did you make this unfortunate mistake?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, madam, if you'll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was +yours—" +</P> + +<P> +"Mine?"—"in sending me a letter—" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>You</I>—a letter?"—"by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand it +to me under your father's very nose—" +</P> + +<P> +The girl broke in on him with a cry. "What! It was <I>you</I> who received +my letter?" She swept round on the little maid-servant and submerged +her under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in the same +jargon, and as she did so, Tony's astonished eye detected in her the +doubleted page who had handed him the letter in Saint Mark's. +</P> + +<P> +"What!" he cried, "the lad was this girl in disguise?" +</P> + +<P> +Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded +instantly and she returned to the charge. +</P> + +<P> +"This wicked, careless girl—she has ruined me, she will be my undoing! +Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not intended for +you—it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old friend of my +mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance—oh, how can I ever +excuse myself to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No excuses are needed, madam," said Tony, bowing; "though I am +surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador." +</P> + +<P> +Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, you must +pardon my poor girl's mistake. She heard you speaking English, +and—and—I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest foreigner +in the church." Tony bowed again, more profoundly. "The English +Ambassador," Polixena added simply, "is a very handsome man." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!" +</P> + +<P> +She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a look +of anguish. "Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I am in +dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on you +also—Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!" She turned pale and +leaned tremblingly upon the little servant. +</P> + +<P> +Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment +later the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by +half-a-dozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the +square. At sight of him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst +into furious outcries; and though their jargon was unintelligible to +the young man, their tones and gestures made their meaning unpleasantly +plain. The Senator, with a start of anger, first flung himself on the +intruder; then, snatched back by his companions, turned wrathfully on +his daughter, who, at his feet, with outstretched arms and streaming +face, pleaded her cause with all the eloquence of young distress. +Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated vehemently among themselves, +and one, a truculent-looking personage in ruff and Spanish cape, +stalked apart, keeping a jealous eye on Tony. The latter was at his +wit's end how to comport himself, for the lovely Polixena's tears had +quite drowned her few words of English, and beyond guessing that the +magnificoes meant him a mischief he had no notion what they would be at. +</P> + +<P> +At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on +the scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room. He +pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man to be +silent, and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The latter, at +first, would not draw breath to hear him; but presently, sobering, he +walked apart with the Count, and the two conversed together out of +earshot. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear sir," said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a +perturbed countenance, "it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a +great misfortune." +</P> + +<P> +"A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!" shouted Tony, whose +blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the +beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed up +to the forehead. +</P> + +<P> +"Be careful," said the Count, in a low tone. "Though his +Illustriousness does not speak your language, he understands a few +words of it, and—" +</P> + +<P> +"So much the better!" broke in Tony; "I hope he will understand me if I +ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me." +</P> + +<P> +The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count, +stepping between, answered quickly: "His grievance against you is that +you have been detected in secret correspondence with his daughter, the +most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this gentleman, the +most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo—" and he waved a deferential hand +at the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff. +</P> + +<P> +"Sir," said Tony, "if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with +the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal—" but here he +stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified glance +at him. +</P> + +<P> +"Sir," interposed the Count, "we are not accustomed in Venice to take +shelter behind a lady's reputation." +</P> + +<P> +"No more are we in Salem," retorted Tony in a white heat. "I was merely +about to remark that, by the young lady's avowal, she has never seen me +before." +</P> + +<P> +Polixena's eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have died +to defend her. +</P> + +<P> +The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: "His +Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter's misconduct +has been all the more reprehensible." +</P> + +<P> +"Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark's, a letter +which you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The +incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo, +who, in consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride." +</P> + +<P> +Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. "If his +Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on so +trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of her +father's resentment." +</P> + +<P> +"That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your only +excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for you to +advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio." +</P> + +<P> +It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his enemies, +and the thought sharpened his retort. +</P> + +<P> +"I had supposed," said he, "that men of sense had much the same +behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman +would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was +seen to read reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady, and +has in fact nothing to do with what you suppose." +</P> + +<P> +As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as far +as he dared commit himself. +</P> + +<P> +There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the +Count then said:—"We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to +meet certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the +means of immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to her +father?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to +look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance +toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied by +unmistakable signs of apprehension. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor girl!" he thought, "she is in a worse case than I imagined, and +whatever happens I must keep her secret." +</P> + +<P> +He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. "I am not," said he, "in the +habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers." +</P> + +<P> +The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena's father, dashing +his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while the Marquess +continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof. +</P> + +<P> +The Count shook his head funereally. "Alas, sir, it is as I feared. +This is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to fatal +imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the obligation +incumbent upon you as a man of honour." +</P> + +<P> +Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the +Marquess. "And what obligation is that?" +</P> + +<P> +"To repair the wrong you have done—in other words, to marry the lady." +</P> + +<P> +Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: "Why in +heaven does she not bid me show the letter?" Then he remembered that it +had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing them +to have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to disarm +suspicion. The sense of the girl's grave plight effaced all thought of +his own risk, but the Count's last words struck him as so preposterous +that he could not repress a smile. +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot flatter myself," said he, "that the lady would welcome this +solution." +</P> + +<P> +The Count's manner became increasingly ceremonious. "Such modesty," he +said, "becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were +justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed in +this country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her father +has selected." +</P> + +<P> +"But I understood just now," Tony interposed, "that the gentleman +yonder was in that enviable position." +</P> + +<P> +"So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in +your favour." +</P> + +<P> +"He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness +obliges me to decline—" +</P> + +<P> +"You are still," interrupted the Count, "labouring under a +misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be consulted +than the lady's. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is necessary +that you should marry her within the hour." +</P> + +<P> +Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his +veins. He looked in silence at the threatening visages between himself +and the door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows of the +apartment, and then turned to Polixena, who had fallen sobbing at her +father's feet. +</P> + +<P> +"And if I refuse?" said he. +</P> + +<P> +The Count made a significant gesture. "I am not so foolish as to +threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the +consequences would be to the lady." +</P> + +<P> +Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few impassioned +words to the Count and her father; but the latter put her aside with an +obdurate gesture. +</P> + +<P> +The Count turned to Tony. "The lady herself pleads for you—at what +cost you do not guess—but as you see it is vain. In an hour his +Illustriousness's chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his Illustriousness +consents to leave you in the custody of your betrothed." +</P> + +<P> +He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony to +Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key turn in +the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H4> + +<P> +THE girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame and +agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again forgot his own +extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled beside her, +drawing her hands from her face. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, don't make me look at you!" she sobbed; but it was on his bosom +that she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing-space, as he +might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put him +gently from her. +</P> + +<P> +"What humiliation!" she lamented. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think I blame you for what has happened?" +</P> + +<P> +"Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight? +And how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of you not to show +the letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador to save +me from this dreadful marriage his anger against me would be even +greater." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—it was that you wrote for?" cried Tony with unaccountable relief. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course—what else did you think?" +</P> + +<P> +"But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?" +</P> + +<P> +"From <I>you?</I>" A smile flashed through her tears. "Alas, yes." She drew +back and hid her face again, as though overcome by a fresh wave of +shame. +</P> + +<P> +Tony glanced about him. "If I could wrench a bar out of that window—" +he muttered. +</P> + +<P> +"Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.—Oh, I +must speak!" She sprang up and paced the room. "But indeed you can +scarce think worse of me than you do already—" +</P> + +<P> +"I think ill of you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has chosen +for me—" +</P> + +<P> +"Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you married +him." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no choice." +</P> + +<P> +"It is infamous, I say—infamous!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no—I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others." +</P> + +<P> +"Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!" +</P> + +<P> +"He has a dreadful name for violence—his gondolier has told my little +maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when it is of you +I should be thinking?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of me, poor child?" cried Tony, losing his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and how to save you—for I <I>can</I> save you! But every moment +counts—and yet what I have to say is so dreadful." +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, now at least you are free of him," said Tony, a little wildly; +but at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I am not free," she said; "but you are, if you will do as I tell +you." +</P> + +<P> +Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight +through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the +fall had stunned him. +</P> + +<P> +"What am I to do?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Look away from me, or I can never tell you." +</P> + +<P> +He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded him, +and reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of the +window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his back +was turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as though +she were reciting a lesson. +</P> + +<P> +"You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is not +a rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate +spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of +ready money.—If you turn round I shall not go on!—He wrangled +horribly with my father over my dowry—he wanted me to have more than +either of my sisters, though one married a Procurator and the other a +grandee of Spain. But my father is a gambler too—oh, such fortunes as +are squandered over the arcade yonder! And so—and so—don't turn, I +implore you—oh, do you begin to see my meaning?" +</P> + +<P> +She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his eyes +from her. +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You +don't know us Venetians—we're all to be bought for a price. It is not +only the brides who are marketable—sometimes the husbands sell +themselves too. And they think you rich—my father does, and the +others—I don't know why, unless you have shown your money too +freely—and the English are all rich, are they not? And—oh, oh—do you +understand? Oh, I can't bear your eyes!" +</P> + +<P> +She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash was +at her side. +</P> + +<P> +"My poor child, my poor Polixena!" he cried, and wept and clasped her. +</P> + +<P> +"You <I>are</I> rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?" she +persisted. +</P> + +<P> +"To enable you to marry the Marquess?" +</P> + +<P> +"To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see +your face again." She fell to weeping once more, and he drew away and +paced the floor in a fever. +</P> + +<P> +Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed to +a clock against the wall. "The hour is nearly over. It is quite true +that my father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore you, be +warned by me! There is no other way of escape." +</P> + +<P> +"And if I do as you say—?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it." +</P> + +<P> +"And you—you are married to that villain?" +</P> + +<P> +"But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to +myself when I am alone." +</P> + +<P> +"My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow." +</P> + +<P> +"You forgive me, Anthony? You don't think too badly of me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I say you must not marry that fellow." +</P> + +<P> +She laid a trembling hand on his arm. "Time presses," she adjured him, +"and I warn you there is no other way." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on a +Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson's sermons in the best parlour at +Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both her hands in +his. "Yes, there is," he cried, "if you are willing. Polixena, let the +priest come!" +</P> + +<P> +She shrank back from him, white and radiant. "Oh, hush, be silent!" she +said. +</P> + +<P> +"I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates," he cried. "My +father is a plain India merchant in the colony of Massachusetts—but if +you—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, hush, I say! I don't know what your long words mean. But I bless +you, bless you, bless you on my knees!" And she knelt before him, and +fell to kissing his hands. +</P> + +<P> +He drew her up to his breast and held her there. +</P> + +<P> +"You are willing, Polixena?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"No, no!" She broke from him with outstretched hands. "I am not +willing. You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell you!" +</P> + +<P> +"On my money?" he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, on your money," she said sadly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?" +</P> + +<P> +She was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?" he persisted. +</P> + +<P> +"You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past." +</P> + +<P> +"Let it pass. I'll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a finger +to help another man to marry you." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, madman, madman!" she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned against the +wall a few feet off from him. Her breast throbbed under its lace and +falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and entreaty. +</P> + +<P> +"Polixena, I love you!" he cried. +</P> + +<P> +A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to the +verge of her troubled brows. +</P> + +<P> +"I love you! I love you!" he repeated. +</P> + +<P> +And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in their +lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as a bird's poise and before he +knew it he clasped empty air, and half the room was between them. +</P> + +<P> +She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. "I took it from +your fob," she said. "It is of no value, is it? And I shall not get any +of the money, you know." +</P> + +<P> +She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire in her +ashen face. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you talking of?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall never +see you again, Anthony!" She gave him a dreadful look. "Oh, my poor +boy, my poor love—'<I>I love you, I love you, Polixena!</I>'" +</P> + +<P> +He thought she had turned light-headed, and advanced to her with +soothing words; but she held him quietly at arm's length, and as he +gazed he read the truth in her face. +</P> + +<P> +He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his head on +his hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Only, for God's sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul play +here," she said. +</P> + +<P> +As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a burst of +voices on the threshold. +</P> + +<P> +"It is all a lie," she gasped out, "about my marriage, and the +Marquess, and the Ambassador, and the Senator—but not, oh, not about +your danger in this place—or about my love," she breathed to him. And +as the key rattled in the door she laid her lips on his brow. +</P> + +<P> +The key rattled, and the door swung open—but the black-cassocked +gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary of +idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias +Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very much +on the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was supported, to his evident +relief, by the captain of the Hepzibah B., and the procession was +closed by an escort of stern-looking fellows in cocked hats and +small-swords, who led between them Tony's late friends the magnificoes, +now as sorry a looking company as the law ever landed in her net. +</P> + +<P> +The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of +satisfaction as he clapped eyes on Tony. +</P> + +<P> +"So, Mr. Bracknell," said he, "you have been seeing the Carnival with +this pack of mummers, have you? And this is where your pleasuring has +landed you? H'm—a pretty establishment, and a pretty lady at the head +of it." He glanced about the apartment and doffed his hat with mock +ceremony to Polixena, who faced him like a princess. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, my girl," said he, amicably, "I think I saw you this morning in +the square, on the arm of the Pantaloon yonder; and as for that Captain +Spavent—" and he pointed a derisive finger at the Marquess—"I've +watched him drive his bully's trade under the arcade ever since I first +dropped anchor in these waters. Well, well," he continued, his +indignation subsiding, "all's fair in Carnival, I suppose, but this +gentleman here is under sailing orders, and I fear we must break up +your little party." +</P> + +<P> +At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small and +explanatory, and uncovering obsequiously to the captain. +</P> + +<P> +"I can assure you, sir," said the Count in his best English, "that this +incident is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding, and if you +will oblige us by dismissing these myrmidons, any of my friends here +will be happy to offer satisfaction to Mr. Bracknell and his +companions." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Mounce shrank visibly at this, and the captain burst into a loud +guffaw. +</P> + +<P> +"Satisfaction?" says he. "Why, my cock, that's very handsome of you, +considering the rope's at your throats. But we'll not take advantage of +your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed on it +too long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!" he spluttered suddenly, +"decoying young innocents with that devil's bait of yours—" His eye +fell on Polixena, and his voice softened unaccountably. "Ah, well, we +must all see the Carnival once, I suppose," he said. "All's well that +ends well, as the fellow says in the play; and now, if you please, Mr. +Bracknell, if you'll take the reverend gentleman's arm there, we'll bid +adieu to our hospitable entertainers, and right about face for the +Hepzibah." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Descent of Man and Other Stories, by +Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESCENT OF MAN, OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 4519-h.htm or 4519-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/1/4519/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo. 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