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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e023ad4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60169 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60169) diff --git a/old/60169-0.txt b/old/60169-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1f755b5..0000000 --- a/old/60169-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6261 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The House of Helen, by Corra Harris - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: The House of Helen - -Author: Corra Harris - -Release Date: August 25, 2019 [EBook #60169] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF HELEN *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - THE HOUSE - OF HELEN - - CORRA HARRIS - - - - - THE - HOUSE OF HELEN - - - BY - - CORRA HARRIS - - AUTHOR OF “A DAUGHTER OF ADAM,” “THE EYES OF LOVE,” - “MY SON,” “HAPPILY MARRIED,” “A CIRCUIT RIDER’S - WIFE,” “THE RECORDING ANGEL,” ETC. - AND IN COLLABORATION WITH FAITH HARRIS LEECH: - “FROM SUNUP TO SUNDOWN” - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1923, - BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - [Illustration] - - - COPYRIGHT, 1922, 1923, - BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY - - - THE HOUSE OF HELEN. II - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - -PART ONE - - - - -THE - -HOUSE OF HELEN - - - - -PART ONE - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -The town of Shannon lay like a wreath flung wide upon the hills above -one of those long, green, fertile valleys to be seen everywhere below -the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Georgia. It was nothing like a city, -merely a neat, little town built by thrifty people since the Civil -War. Therefore, there were no colonial residences in it to remind you -of the strutting, magnificent past, but the houses in it were smaller, -painted any color that pleased the fancy, ruffled from end to end, with -spindle-legged porches and scalloped gables. White church spires stuck -up out of it like the forefingers of faith in God. There was a town -square, around which business was done comfortably and leisurely on a -credit basis. - -The red-brick courthouse stood in this square, with a long, wide -flight of white cement steps to it, showing like the teeth of the law; -not that any one minded these teeth. The dome of this courthouse was -covered with galvanized tin. It shone above the tufted trees on bright -days like an immense silver helmet. And beneath this helmet there was -the town clock, a good, old man with a plain, round face with only -the wrinkles that marked the hours on it. Half the men in Shannon who -carried watch chains carried no watches because this clock was so -infallibly faithful to the sun. - -At the time of which I write no one in Shannon called the narrow or -even the wide spaces, which separated their respective homes from the -street, a lawn. It was the “front yard,” and usually divided with a -picket fence from the back yard, where the hens attended to business. -Flowers, of the kind in service to “ladies” who wear aprons and do -their own work and have an artless affection for blooming things, -inhabited these front yards, regardless of law and order in the matter -of background or perspective. The forsythia, syringas, roses and -altheas had been planted with reference to their health in relation -to the sun, and, whatever happened, they bloomed. Only the smaller -plants, like annuals, were sternly disciplined. They stood up in beds -or along the graveled walks, like spelling classes in a properly graded -school, every one of them reciting a bloom after the manner of its kind. - -These ladies of Shannon also kept “potted plants” and exchanged -cuttings. It is only after you have ceased to be thrifty and have -become rich that you imprison your flowers in a conservatory or a -greenhouse. Shannon reached this scandalous pinnacle of prosperity -years later, but at this time there was what may be called miniature -“bleachers” on the front porches in Shannon where red and pink and -white geraniums doubled up gorgeous fists of bloom, and fuchsias hung -their waxened bells in the breeze, and begonias flaunted their rich, -dark leaves, and that unspeakably gross and hardy vine, the Wandering -Jew, wandered at will. - -These flower-laden bleachers were especially characteristic of Wiggs -Street, because this was the principal residence street of Shannon. And -it was all a family affair. The nieces of the geraniums on Mrs. Adams’ -porch bloomed on the porch of the Cutter home across the way. And Mrs. -Adams had obtained the root of her sword fern from Mrs. Cutter, and so -on and so forth. You might multiply it by the seeds or shoots or roots -of ten thousand flowers. - -This was why Shannon showed like a wreath on the hills above the -valley. The women there were diligent. They loved their homes. So their -front yards looked like flowered calico aprons, tied onto these homes -as their own aprons were tied about their plump waists. The women were -very good; the men were reasonably respectable. There was ambition -without culture. But give them time. Already Mr. George William Cutter -had sent his son, young George William, to college for two years. That -ought to amount to something, culturally speaking. And Mrs. Mary Anne -Adams was considering whether she could afford to send her daughter -Helen to a boarding school for a year, or whether she would leave Helen -to take her chances at George with only a high-school education and her -music and a little drawing for accomplishments! But if she did decide -to send Helen “off to school,” it ought to amount to a great deal more, -culturally speaking. Girls acquire the gloss of elegance and refinement -more rapidly than boys do, and it is apt to stay on them longer, no -matter what stays in them. - -The first definite upward trend in a tacky little town begins when -some insolently prosperous citizen sends his suburban-bred son to -college just long enough for him to claim that he is a “college man,” -and when some valorous mother, usually a widow, follows suit and sends -her daughter to a “seminary,” because she is not to be outdone by the -above-mentioned prosperous citizen, even if she is not prosperous. When -these two young beings return with their intellectual noses in the air, -you may look out. The scenes in that town must change. - -Business gets a hunch, or somebody’s business goes into bankruptcy. -The domestic sphere spins around, loses its ancient balance and the -girl gives a really fashionable tea party, after removing the precious -potted plants from the front porch and placing her tables there, if it -is a pleasant day. These things happen and you cannot help it. Give -them an inch of education abroad and they will take an ell of license -with your manners, convictions, and prejudices when they come home. - -Nothing like this had yet happened in Shannon. Only drummers and -salesmen really knew and saw what was going on in the world, and no -drummers or salesmen lived there. The town was passing tranquilly -through its religious and golden-oak periods. Most people went to -church, and everybody who was anybody had golden-oak furniture, -including an upright piano, as distinguished from the antiquated square -piano. If the latter was for the present beyond their means, they had -an elaborately carved and bracketed organ of the same durable wood, -through which the Sabbath-afternoon air passed in hymnal strains at -about the same hour it bore the aroma of boiling coffee on week days. - -This is a mere flash of what Shannon was in those days; such an -impression as you might have received from the window of your car if -you had been passing through on one of those fast trains that did not -stop at Shannon, but roared by as if this little town did not exist. -And if you knew all that was to happen there within the next twenty -years to only two people, not to mention the remaining six thousand -of her inhabitants, to whom a great deal more must have happened, -you would agree that I am justified in detaining you a moment before -beginning this tale. - -Otherwise, how could you understand that Helen belonged by tradition, -by environment, by the very petunias that bordered her mother’s flower -beds, to the Agnes tribe of meek and enduring women. I am not claiming -that this is a wiser, abler tribe than the numerous modern tribes of -insurgent women, many of whom have faced the same emergencies. I leave -each one of you to decide that question according to your lights, -leaving out the traditions and the petunias, because doubtless you have -long since made way with them. - -My task is simply to set down here exactly what happened, with no more -regard for the moral than the facts themselves carry. And so I give -you my word that this is a true story, and that the events I have -recorded did happen and that the “House of Helen” does stand to this -day in Shannon. You may see it from the window of your car, as you -pass through, halfway down Wiggs Street, on the right-hand side, and -facing you. It is not so large, so pretentious as the other residences -which have taken the place of the cottages that stood along this street -during the golden-oak period, but it looks different, that house, -serene, as a house should that has weathered the storm and has fair -weather forever within. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -It was a day in June, in the year 1902. They are much the same -everywhere, only in Georgia there is more June in such a day. Farther -south the withering heat hints of July; farther north there may be an -edge of cold to the air; but in Georgia it is always perfectly June -in June, all softness, fragrance, filled with the fearless growth and -bloom of every living thing--the sort of day that seems to hum to -itself with the wings of a thousand bees; adolescent weather, fragrant, -soft, filled with the growth and yearning of every living thing from -the frailest flower that blooms to the oldest tree and the oldest man. - -On such a day this story begins, somewhere between half past three and -four o’clock in the afternoon. The exact moment makes no difference -because nothing that you could see with the naked eye happened when the -first scene was laid. (It is only the comedies and crimes of living -that catch the eye. The great dramas and the great tragedies begin -within, and they end there.) The town was somnambulent--very little -traffic; none at all on Wiggs Street. You could only have known by -the gentle bending of the frailer-stemmed flowers before the cottages -on either side that even a breeze was passing by. But over all this -stillness and piercing this droning silence came the notes of a piano, -sad, sweet and frequently too far apart, as if this piano waited -patiently while the performer found the next note, and then found it -again on the keyboard. These desiccated fragments of Narcissus, a -popular instrumental piece at that time, issued from the parlor windows -of the Adams cottage. Some one, who had no ear for music, but only a -conscience, was practicing inside. - -Presently this conscience was satisfied, for the lid of the piano went -down with a thud. There was a quick step, the whisk of white skirts in -the darkened hall, the opening and closing of a door, followed by what -we must infer was a sort of primping silence. - -Then a voice, firm and maternal, came through the front bedroom window -on that side of the house: “Helen, why are you wearing your organdie?” - -“I don’t know, mother,” a young voice answered. - -I doubt if she did know. Some of the shrewdest acts of a maiden are -unintelligible to her. - -“Well, it is silly, putting on your nice things to go to choir -practice.” - -It was silly, but one frequently makes the silliest preparations for -happiness. This is the wisdom of youth. Age cannot beat it. - -After a pause, the same elder voice, made smoother--“Have you seen -George?” - -“Not in two years. Why?” - -“He has been at home a week, hasn’t he?” - -“I don’t know when he came.” - -The tone implied that the comings and goings of this George were -matters of supreme indifference to her. - -“Mrs. Cutter told me his father means for him to work this summer.” - -No response. - -“He had three months in the University School of Finance last summer, -she told me. This summer his father plans to put him through, she said.” - -Still no response. - -“Don’t forget to call for my pass book at the bank, Helen,” this was -said in a slightly higher key, indicating that the girl had left the -room. “You had better go by the bank on your way to the church. It -closes at four o’clock.” - -“Yes, mother;” and at the same moment this young girl came out of the -house, down the steps, walking hurriedly. - -When she reached the street she began to move more sedately, giving -herself an air. Her ankles were slim; her black satin pumps had low -French heels. She wore a white organdie. The fineness, tucks and lace -of her petticoat showed through the full skirt. The bodice was plain, -finished at the neck with an edge of lace, and gathered puffily in at -the belt. The fineness, tucks and lace of an underbody clung daintily -to her shoulders and showed through. The sleeves were short. Her arms -round and very fair. A wide taffeta ribbon sash of pale blue, crushed -crinklingly about her waist, was tied in a butterfly bow behind, very -stiff and upstanding. - -She wore a broad-brimmed, white leghorn hat, trimmed with tiny bunches -of field flowers. This hat was tilted slightly to one side, as if she -lacked the courage to pull it down, lest she should reveal more than -she dared tell of what she was and meant. It rested, therefore, at the -merest, most innocent angle of coquetry. - -The girl herself was utterly and entrancingly fair. She had straight -hair, of the shade called ash blond; no deeper golden lights in it; -most of it hidden beneath the encompassing hat. If you found it, -you must do so by an act of the imagination. And the absurd primness -with which it lay so close and smoothly above her ears teased the -imagination. Her skin was white, with that underglow of pink so faint -it could scarcely be called color--cheeks round, not too full. The oval -chin had the softness of youth. She had a mouth made for silence; it -was serious. The under lip was a straight pink line, prettily turned, -which did not go very far; the upper lip was distinctly full in the -center, with a sort of flute there which ended in a dainty, pointed, -white scallop beneath the nose, and it closed purposefully over the -lower lip. This was due to the fact that if she was not mindful, it let -go, curled up and showed the only flaw she had--two lovely teeth, a -trifle prominent because they lapped at the lower edge after the manner -of some Anglo-Saxon ancestor from whom she must have inherited them. -Her nose might amount to something later in life as an indication of -character, but now it was merely a good little nose, rounded at the end -where it should have been pointed, and too brief for beauty. - -The eyes were this girl’s distinguishing feature. They remained so long -after all her loveliness and fairness had changed and failed. They -were large, blue, white-lidded, heavily fringed with lashes darker than -her hair. And they looked at you, at him, at all the world and the -weather, calmly, from beneath long, sweeping brows, as if these brows -were the slender wings of the thoughts she had when she looked at you. - -This is what a girl is, and nothing more--loveliness, innocence, and -the wordless sweet desire of herself. You cannot predict her. Anything -may change her; one thing only is certain--she is sure to change. -The woman will be profoundly different. This is why writers of mere -fiction have discarded the young girl heroine. Nothing can make her -interesting but a tragedy, until she develops her human perversities -and attributes, which may require more years than the tale can afford. - -Helen walked sedately through Wiggs Street, as if every window of every -house was an eye that observed her. But when she came to the end, -where this street entered the public square, her gait changed, much as -your voice changes inflection according to the tune you sing. This was -a livelier tune now to which she walked. She stepped along briskly, -prettily. Her skirts whisked, her body swayed a little as if this might -turn out to be a waltz. Every shop window she passed was a mirror, in -which she caught an encouraging glimpse of herself. Once she halted -long enough to draw the brim of her hat forward and sidewise. Then she -went on, the published truth of herself at last. And her own mother -would not have known her. - -Few mothers, even in that prunes-and-prism period, relatively speaking, -would have recognized their daughters abroad. But every man would. It -is Nature having her way, you understand, and no harm done; because in -the end these maidens must--and they will--take Nature, which after all -is the very nearest relative of maidenhood, into their confidence and -be guided by her. - -The First National Bank of Shannon was no great institution. Still -it was modestly conspicuous. What I mean is that you could tell at a -glance and from a distance that this was a bank, not a doctor’s office, -by the tall cement columns in front, the only example of four-legged -magnificence in the shakily diversified architecture surrounding this -square. - -But Mr. George William Cutter would never have thought of exalting -himself in a private office with a ground glass door, showing the title -“President,” published on this door. He sat at a rolled-top desk in -a space reserved for him to the left of the door, by a stout oaken -banister which divided it from the lobby. The only distinction he -permitted himself was to sit with his back to the window which looked -on the square. What was more to the point he faced the long cage of -the bank proper, and was always in a position to see, know or at least -shrewdly infer what was going on inside and outside in the lobby. - -But if you were a customer, seeking a loan or even planning to open -an account, you must come in and face about before you could face the -president. There was dignity, financial assurance, but no offensive -pride, in his sitting posture to the public. He was a man with a -recognized girth, not entirely bald. His hair was gray; so was his -short, clipped mustache. He wore light gray clothes in summer and -dark gray clothes in the winter. And he had a fine strong commercial -countenance. He might almost have cashed it, his face was so well -certified by a pair of shrewd gray eyes, as distinguished from the -cunning of similar eyes. - -On this June afternoon he sat reared back, his coat thrust clear of the -wide expanse of his white shirt front, like the wings of an old gray -rooster cocked up on a hot day. He was smoking a black cigar. From time -to time he shot a glance into the cage of the bank; and each time the -corners of his mouth went up, the fired end of the cigar also went up, -his eyes narrowed to a mere gray slit of light as sharp as a lance, and -his whole face crinkled into an expression of humor and satisfaction. -Sometimes an experienced turfman so regards a young and mettlesome -colt that is being broken to the gait, when the colt acts up to his -breeding, takes the bit and goes, even if he does waste wind and sweat -in the performance. - -Directly in line with his vision a tall, broad-shouldered young man was -standing before an adding machine in his shirt sleeves. This was George -William Cutter, Junior, inducted into the rear end of the banking -business a week since. He was working furiously with the halting -earnestness of a man not accustomed to grind up figures in a machine -and pedal them out on a long strip of paper with his foot. His hair was -red and stood up like a torch on his head. His mouth was warped, his -nose snarled, his face was flushed and there was an angry squint in his -red brown eyes as he struck the keys, jerked the lever and slammed the -pedal once in so often--forty little movements that kept the muscles of -his big body in a sort of frivolous activity. - -Mr. Cutter, Senior, was thinking: “He’s got it in him, the go. He will -make good if he can be made to stick. Ought to marry, ought’er marry -right now. That would stamp him down to it.” - -What young George was thinking as he paused to mop his steaming brow -was: “Gad! If three days in here takes it out of a fellow like this, -what will thirty years do to him?” - -He knew that he was being groomed to succeed his father. It might be a -bright future for a young man, but as a human being it held no brighter -prospect than escaping from this cage and sitting where his father -sat now, fat and sedentary in all his habits. He was restless. He was -red-headed. He was an athlete on the university team. There had been -some question about whether he should take his final year. He would let -the “old man” know that he was willing and anxious to go back to the -university in the fall. He was not ready to be imprisoned for life with -dollars, not yet! - -At this moment the street door, that had admitted everybody all day -from the leading merchants, workers, widows, all the way down to the -fat woman who kept the fruit stand, opened again. A young girl came in. -It was as if spring and snow and sweetness had entered. There was so -much whiteness and coolness in the presence she made. A mere hint of -far-off blue skies, and as if Nature had granted her the flowers she -wore on this hat. She passed the teller’s window, also the cashier’s -window. She looked neither to the right nor the left. The white scallop -in the pink upper lip was pressed primly, holding it, like a word she -would not say, upon the round pink under lip. She came directly to the -bookkeeper’s window, faced it, stared at him and waited. - -When she entered he had made three steps backward, which brought him to -the wall behind him. He was conscious of being without his coat. But if -you are a man in a bank you are not supposed to scamper out of sight -like a lady in negligee, if some one comes to call. You stood your -ground with dignity, no matter how you looked. He stood his; he did not -move a muscle. He may have breathed, but if so it was no more than a -secret breath merely to sustain life. Their eyes met; his filled with -the fire of an amazement, hers calm and speechless. She regarded him as -one regards a picture on the wall. - -This was all that happened, lasting no longer than the instant of time -required for the bookkeeper to look up, see her and slide himself with -one step like a little, thin-necked, bald-headed, stooped-shouldered -fact before the window, blotting out the vision of her. - -Young Cutter heard her murmur something, saw the bookkeeper draw a -pass book from a stack of these dingy records and slide it beneath the -wicket of the window. - -He heard her say “thank you” in a faint, soft, bell-like voice. Then -she turned and went out. - -He stared about him. How was this? He expected a wave of excitement -to mark her passing, as people exclaim at the sight of something -ineffable. Had no one seen her but himself? Apparently not. Every man -in there was working with his usual air of absorption. For another -instant he stood free, exalted, his eyes filled with the explosive -brightness of a great emotion. Then it faded into self-consciousness, a -downward look as he sneaked back to his machine, hoping that he had not -been observed. - -This is the only kind of modesty of which men are capable. If one of -them went out with this look of neighing valor on his face he would -be arrested, of course, because it is such a perfectly scandalous -expression. But if a maid walks abroad with love published in her eyes -and on her very lips, you are moved to reverence, because it is a sort -of piety which seems to sanctify her. - -He bent lower over his task, shot the lever down with a bang, struck -the pedal harshly and rhythmically--made a noise, implying that he was -and had been, without interruption, wholly engrossed with this business. - -“Remember her, George?” came his father’s voice like a shot out of a -clear sky. - -“Who?” asked George, instantly on his guard. - -“The girl that came in just now.” - -“I didn’t notice. Who was she?” - -“Helen Adams.” - -“Never should have recognized her.” This was the truth. He had -recognized only loveliness, not the maiden name of it. - -“Last time you saw her she was a long-legged, saucer-faced youngster, -wearing her hair plaited and tied with a blue ribbon, I reckon.” - -“That’s the way I remember little Helen,” George admitted, grinning. - -“Two years make a lot of difference in a girl of that age. Pretty, -ain’t she?” - -The young man did not answer. He was suddenly and unaccountably -annoyed. When your whole mind is concentrated on a girl, she becomes -your religion and you do not care to enter into a doctrinal discussion -of this religion with another man, not even your old, gray-haired -father, because she has become the sacred silence of your own soul, no -matter what or who she was yesterday, nor even if you never had so much -as a twinge of soul until this moment. You practically invent your soul -then and there out of the joy and daylight of your youth, because it is -the only place suitable for such a creature to occupy. Let Moses and -the prophets stand aside! This is your pagan period of vestal virgins; -not that you know it, but it is. - -Mr. Cutter stood up, produced a heavy gold watch, studied the face of -it, grinned, jerked his coat down and around, buttoned one button of -it by the hardest work and reached for his hat. “Well, George, I guess -you’ll finish before you quit,” he said. - -This was a hint. The son took it. “All right, sir. I’ll be along about -midnight,” he answered good-naturedly, at the same time making a wry -face. - -“Oh, you’ll probably get in before suppertime. The work will come -easier in a day or two,” the father retorted as he stalked out. - -He was scarcely out of sight before the cashier, teller and bookkeeper -followed in quick procession. - -George was now alone. He changed his scene instantly, as most people -do when they are left alone. He straightened up, started smoking, moved -directly into the current of the electric fan, folded his arms and -thought profoundly, his head lifted, eyes fixed in a noble gaze, as -if on no particular object; a heroic figure, blowing volumes of smoke -through his nose. - -What a young man thinks in this mood may be imagined, but it never can -be known. And the writer does not live with the wisdom or grace to -translate his deep, singing dumbness into words. - -Presently he went back to his task, working now with swiftness and -concentration, as if his whole future depended upon finishing what he -was doing in the shortest possible time. He finished in thirty minutes, -disappeared into the rear of the bank and reappeared five minutes -later through the side door. He was brushed, groomed and freshened -to the last degree of elegance. His homespun fitted him with an air. -He stepped with a long, prideful stride--and got no farther than the -corner of the next street. Here he halted, looking all possible ways at -once--nobody in sight; plenty of people, you understand, but not the -girl. He had seen her pass this corner. - -He waited. Wherever she had gone, she should be returning by this -time. This one and that one hailed him as they went by. A fellow he -knew stopped and engaged him in conversation. He was annoyed. Suppose -the girl appeared, how was he to escape from this ass? The ass finally -took in the situation and moved on, looking back as he turned the next -corner. - -George looked at his watch--after five! She certainly should be going -home by this time. Everybody in sight was on his way home. Suppose he -had missed her; suppose she had gone around the other way! Jumping -cats, what a fool he had been, wasting time here! He started off, -walking rapidly but still with that magnificent, stiff-legged strut. - -Some one came alongside, caught his arm and whirled him half around. -“Where you going in such a hurry, Cutter?” - -This was Charley Harman, a friend, but this was no time for friends to -be butting in. - -“Home,” said George briefly, by way of implying that he was not -inviting company home with him. - -“So am I, but I never walk fast when I’m going home. Let’s get a drink -in here”; halting as they came opposite a drug store. - -“Take one for me,” Cutter said with a short laugh and moved on so -hurriedly that Harman took the hint. - -Nothing else happened until he reached the place where Wiggs Street -opened on the square. He stared down the flower-blooming vista of this -street. He could see men watering their front yards and the women -watering their flowers. He could hear the boom of his father’s voice -half a block down, talking to some one in the next yard. He saw Mrs. -Adams sitting, large and amorphous, in a rocking-chair on her front -porch. He supposed that she also was waiting for Helen. - -Then he saw her approaching from the other end of the street, not -distant, but divided from him by the eyes of all these people sitting -and puttering around in their front yards. He thought she walked as if -she were sad or good or something. And he had this consolation, as she -finally turned in and went up the steps of the Adams’ cottage, he was -sure that she had seen him. He was sure that their eyes had met. He -also observed when he came down into the street to his own home that -she had not stopped on the porch with her mother, but had gone directly -inside. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -When you are in love, everything is important and everything is secret. -You become a consummate actor and liar in vain, because the whole world -knows your secret almost as soon as you do. - -That evening at the dinner table, George was so gay, so full of -himself, so ready to laugh and make a joke that Mrs. Cutter was beside -herself with pride and happiness. - -“He is such a good boy, so unconscious of his good looks and his -intellect,” she told Mr. Cutter when they were alone together after -dinner. - -“Intellect!” said Mr. Cutter in that tone of voice. - -“Yes; you know how smart he is; but he is not the least conceited, just -light-hearted and happy as he should be at his age. I say it shows he -is a good boy.” - -“Where is he now?” Mr. Cutter wanted to know. - -The question appeared to Mrs. Cutter to be irrelevant. She said she did -not know; why? - -“Nothing,” answered her husband. - -She said he was around somewhere, probably in his room. She went to the -bottom of the stairs. “Georgie!” she called. - -No answer. Well, then he must be out front somewhere, and went to prove -that he was. But she could not find him. Then she came back and wanted -to know of Mr. Cutter what difference did it make, if they did not know -where he was? George was no longer a child. Couldn’t he trust his own -son? - -Oh, yes; in reason he could and did trust him. “But I’ll tell you -one thing, Maggie,” he added, laying aside his paper and looking her -squarely in the face, “George should get married.” - -“Married; just as he is ready to enjoy his youth and not even out -of the university yet--and only twenty-one. What do you mean?” she -demanded indignantly. - -“That a blaze-faced horse and a red-headed man are both vain things for -safety,” he retorted. - -“Do you know anything wrong about George?” she demanded, after a -gasping pause. - -“No.” - -“A single thing?” - -“Not a single thing. I was merely stating a natural fact.” - -She had risen, a little, slim, fiery-eyed woman. She drew herself up. -He watched her ascend. He refused to quail beneath the spark in her eye. - -“Mr. Cutter,” she began ominously, because she gave him this title only -when she was ominous, “when you married me I had red hair. My hair is -still red.” - -“Yes, my dear; but you were a girl. I said a man. I meant a young -man with red hair. There is all the latitudes and longitudes in life -between the one and the other. If you were a red-haired young man, I -should think twice before I’d give a daughter of mine in marriage to -you. But you will recall that I had black hair,” he concluded, laughing. - -A father who would traduce his own son for inheriting hair the color of -his mother’s and without cause--well, she could not understand such a -father. Whereupon she left the room in high dudgeon, but really to go -and look for this son. Her confidence in him had not been shaken, but -she was anxious without reason, which is the keenest anxiety from which -women suffer. - -She found him pacing back and forth in the vegetable garden, arms -folded, face lifted like a yowling puppy’s to the moon; not that this -simile occurred to her. He appeared to her a potentially great man, -breathing his thoughts in this quiet place. - -He was annoyed at this interruption. Was he never to have a moment -alone to think this thing out! He really thought he was thinking, you -understand, when he was only visualizing a girl in a white dress, with -a blue sash, blue eyes and blue cornflowers on her hat; blue was the -most entrancing color in the world, and so on and so forth. He was -trying to imagine what she would say if she said anything, when he -saw his mother approaching. He repressed his impatience. They walked -together between the bald-headed cabbage and the young, curled-up, -green lettuce. She thought she was sharing his thoughts. Something had -been said about his experiences in the bank. Many a mother and some -fathers would leap with amazement, if they really knew the thoughts -they do not share with their sons and daughters at such times. - -Still this was an innocent young man, as men go, a good son, as sons -are reckoned. He was well within his rights to be pursuing his love -fancies. And for a long period of this time he remained in a state of -legal innocence of which any man or husband might boast. Mrs. Cutter -was entirely justified in despising the opinion Mr. Cutter had given -that night of this excellent young man. Sometimes more than twenty -years are required to fulfill a paternal prophecy. - -Mrs. Adams remained seated on the porch. She supposed Helen had gone to -her room to take off her hat and would return presently. It was much -cooler out here, and the street was interesting at this hour of the -late afternoon, like watching a very good human play, where all the -characters are decent. - -She saw Mrs. Shaw bustling in and out, herding her numerous family. -This meant that they were having early supper, probably cold supper, -and that they would go to the band concert afterwards. The Shaws spent -a good deal on amusements. She hoped they could afford it. - -There was Mr. Flitch sitting alone on his front porch, with his heels -cocked up on the banister. This meant that he was in a state of -rebellion, because he never stuck his feet on to this immaculately -white banister if he was in a proper frame of mind. It also meant that -Mrs. Flitch had her feelings hurt again and was probably in her room -suffering from this ailment. She had heard that the Flitches did not -get on well together. In her opinion this was Ella Flitch’s fault. You -could not live diagonally across the street from a waspish woman and -belong to the same missionary society without knowing that she was -waspish. - -I am writing this into the record--it was no part of Mrs. Adams’ -reflections--that if you are a woman you always blame the wife for her -marital unhappiness; if you are a man you know, of course, that the -husband is at fault, even if you listen cordially to your own wife when -she is taking the contrary view. - -Mrs. Adams turned her neat, little, gray head slowly, surreptitiously -and took a swift glance up the street at the Cutter residence. Then -she turned it back again. But she had read all the news up there to be -seen with the naked eye, assisted by powerful spectacles. Mr. and Mrs. -Cutter were seated comfortably in their respective porch chairs. And -George was out in the swing, elegantly folded into a sitting posture -where he commanded a view of her front porch. If you are the mother -of a daughter, you notice such little circumstances whether they mean -anything or not, because they may be very significant. - -The sight of this young man sentinel reminded her of something. Where -was Helen? What was she doing so long inside? She arose at once and -went in to see about this. - -“Helen!” she called from the hall. - -No answer. - -She walked heavily to the closed bedroom door and knocked -authoritatively. - -No answer. Not a sound. - -“Helen, are you in there?” - -“Yes, mother,” came the faint reply. - -“What are you doing?” - -“Nothing,” in a wailing, muffled voice, as if this person who was doing -“nothing” was being smothered. - -Mrs. Cutter thrust the door open and went in. She was astounded. -Her daughter lay face downward across the bed, with her arms wound -above her head in two beautifully curved lines of mute despair. Two -pretty legs extended stiffly beyond the uttermost that skirts could -do to cover them. One slippered foot worked slowly as you move a -foot in pain, and at quick intervals the slender form rose and fell -convulsively to the passionate rhythm of sobs. - -“What on earth is the matter?” the mother exclaimed. - -“Nothing.” - -“Are you ill?” - -“No.” - -“Has anything happened?” - -“Not a thing.” - -“Why are you crying?” - -“I don’t know. Oh, mother, I just want to be left alone”--followed by -another paroxysm of weeping. - -Mrs. Adams waited grimly until the distressing convulsions of the -slender young body subsided. Then she began again: “Well, you can’t be -left in this fix. Turn over, Helen. You are mussing your dress.” - -The girl turned obediently, her face poignantly, sweetly pink, very -sad. Her eyes bright with tears like violets after a summer rain. The -flush was ominous. Mrs. Adams had never seen Helen this color before, -never in her life. She bent and laid a palm on the girl’s brow--warm, -but moist; certainly not feverish. - -She stood regarding her daughter thoughtfully. Then she sat down on the -side of the bed, took one of Helen’s hands in her own harsher, stronger -hand, where it lay like a plucked lily, wilted, icy cold. She stroked -it gently. Her face softened, her eyes brooded, as if through a mist -she beheld a memory of herself long ago, which suddenly freshened and -brightened into the figure of the girl she had been. - -Mothers are omniscient. They have little paths back and forth through -their years by which the ghosts of them can always find you, wherever -you are. Not another word was spoken for a long time between these two; -the younger, overcome by the future, holding the unsolved, longed-for -mystery of love; the other, overcome by the past, which held for -her the dreadful reality of love. Neither had or could escape. They -accomplished a wordless sympathy on this basis. - -Mrs. Adams’ reflections were strangely mixed, what with that sundown -feeling she had of her own youth and the anxieties of a mother growing -stronger every moment. She would like to know, for example, if Helen -had seen George Cutter. Had she gone by the bank for the pass book? But -even when she caught sight of this book lying on the dresser, with the -ends of many checks sticking out of it, she did not put the question. -Love is a wound too painful to be dressed with the tenderest words when -it is first made, much less scraped with a question. - -She was, over and above her emotions as a woman and a mother, fairly -well satisfied with the situation. She inferred that George and Helen -had had some sort of passage at arms. And she did not suppose that any -man in or out of his senses could actually resist for long a girl of -Helen’s soft charm. Mothers have their pride, you understand. This one -was shrewd, eminently practical. You must be, to deal with youth at -this stage. - -The room was flooded with the golden effulgence of a summer twilight -when at last she arose, moved gently toward the door, picking up the -bank book as she passed the dresser and thrusting it into her pocket. -“Helen,” she said from the doorway, “it is the heat. This has been a -very warm day. You will be better presently.” - -“Yes, mother, I think it was the heat; and I do feel better,” the girl -answered faintly. - -“There is ice tea and chicken salad for supper,” Mrs. Adams suggested. - -“I don’t think I care for anything.” - -“Well, later then. I’ll leave the tea and your salad on the ice,” the -mother said, going out and closing the door. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -This was the beginning of that affair. Helen remembered the day well. A -woman never forgets the sky and the weather of the day upon which love -called her forth to the vicissitudes of love. But as things turned out, -I doubt if she would mention that day now, as other women do when the -bloom of their years has past. But at the best a courtship is strangely -ephemeral, if you consider the consequences. It is like fugitive verses -published to-day, gone to-morrow, like the fragrance of flowers blown -upon a wind that passes and never returns. So much of it cannot be made -into words; a glance of the eye, quick as light, revealing all; but -who can translate the look or the long silences between lovers? Nature -knows her business. The whole world, the heavens and the earth and -the fullness thereof is an incantation made to ensnare lovers to her -purpose. And not a word grows anywhere to betray this charm. You may be -strong or weak, wise or simple, cynical, disillusioned, protected with -all the knowledge of men, but there is no escape. Nature gets you at -last; on honor or dishonor you must pay your debt to her in love. When -you are done, nothing remains but your dust, a handful of something -with which to fertilize love again--a little retail economy Nature -makes in her procreating plans. - -The next day after this first day was a Sabbath. I do not believe in -predestination, doctrinally speaking. The meaning of that term, I -should say, was strictly human, and is derived from our short-winded -conception of time, which does not exist either, except in the mortal -sense. But by some prearranged prudence of Providence, by which all -things come to pass whether we will or no, including the most intimate -and personal things, the Cutters attended the same church that the -remaining mother and daughter of the Adams family attended. It was -a very good little church, glistening white within, shining white -without, like an enameled bathtub with a roof and a steeple. I will not -be sure, but my impression is that the denomination was Baptist. In any -case, Helen Adams belonged to the choir. - -On this Sunday morning she sang a solo, Jerusalem the Golden. She had a -fresh young voice, roomy and soft at the bottom, triumphantly high and -keen at the top. She wore white as usual and little fluttering skylines -of blue tied in a bow as usual. When she stood up to sing she lifted -her eyes as if these eyes and this face were the words of a young -morning prayer; she let go her beautifully crimped upper lip, opened -her mouth as if this mouth were a rose bursting into bloom--and sang. -I do not know if she sang well, having no skill in these matters; but -it is certain that she looked like an angel. What I mean is that if you -had no visual acquaintance with angels, you would have known at once -that this was the very image of the way an angel should look. - -The congregation listened with the peaceful apathy peculiar to every -small town congregation, when it is being mulled in the music of a hymn -or the Word. This made the one exception the more noticeable. - -George William Cutter, Junior, looked and listened with a fervor which -far surpassed anything that mere piety could do for a young man’s -praying countenance. Fortunately he was seated far back in the publican -and sinner section of the church. Thus he escaped the sophisticated -attention of the elder saints toward the front. Never had he seen -anything so lovely as this girl, the high look she had with the notes -of this hymn, trembling as they came from her round, white throat or -flaring into a perfect ecstasy of joy. - -When she had finally caroled out and sat down, he whispered under his -breath, “Lord! Lord!” although he was not a religious man and meant -nothing of the sort by this exclamation. - -The moment the benediction was pronounced, he stepped briskly from his -place in that sparsely settled part of the church, met the slow-moving -tattling tide of the congregation coming out as he hurried down the -aisle like a good swimmer in sluggish waters until he reached Helen -standing in the rear ranks with her mother. - -He bowed to Mrs. Adams. He hoped she remembered him--George Cutter, -extending his hand. - -Oh, yes; she remembered him, she said mildly. No excitement in her -mind over the recollection either! Did he think he had improved that -much? She let him know that so far as she was concerned he was the same -little George Cutter who used to live across the street and sometimes -threw stones at her chickens. - -No matter if you are a very handsome young man, with athletic -laurels hanging to your college coat tails, you cannot make a deep -or flattering impression on a middle-aged woman who has a practical, -computing mind and knows the romantic value of her beautiful daughter. -If Helen had been homely, a little, starched mouse of a girl, who -could not sing Jerusalem the Golden or anything else, she would have -received George’s salutations more cordially. As it was, she did not -have to be more than invincibly polite. All this she let him know with -a flat look of her calm blue eye. - -It was a waste of excellent maternal diplomacy so far as he was -concerned. He had already turned to Helen. He was almost speechless -from having so much to say. She was entirely so for a moment. Then she -gave him her hand and managed to say, “Howdy do, George,” in a tone a -girl uses when the man owes her an apology. - -This accusative welcome dashed him. No smile! When he was himself -the very pedestal of a smile. Good heavens, what had he done? He was -conscious of being innocent; yet he felt guilty. - -Mrs. Adams paid no more attention to them. She had gone on, caught -up with the Flitches and passed out. This was the only permission he -received that he might, if he could, walk with Helen. - -The girl’s inclemency stirred him as frosty weather stimulates -energy. So they followed. I doubt if they were aware themselves -that the distance lengthened between them and other groups of this -congregation, which divided and dwindled at every street corner. -Lovers are recognized on sight, long before they know themselves to -be lovers. People make room for their privacy in public places. These -two had a whole block to themselves by the time they entered Wiggs -Street. Mrs. Adams had already disappeared in her house. The broad back -of Mr. Cutter and the slim back of little Mrs. Cutter were visible -for a moment before they also faded through the doorway of the Cutter -residence. - -Only the Flitches stood _en masse_ on their spider-legged veranda, -their eyes glued upon these two stragglers, coming slowly down the -sunlit street. The Flitches were good people, of the round-eyed breed. -They had a candid, perpetually interrogative curiosity which nothing -could satisfy. You know the kind. It is never you, but the family -that lives across the street from you, or in the next house with thin -eyelid curtains over their windows through which they are perpetually -regarding you, striving after omniscience about you and your affairs. - -Helen had admitted that it was a “nice day” when he said it was, as -they came out of the church and faced the fair brow of this June -sabbath. - -He had told her how much he enjoyed her solo. It was wonderful. - -She merely replied that she “liked to sing.” - -He was still conscious of being in the arctic region of her regard and -cast about, with a lover’s distracted compass, to discover the way out. -“Weren’t you in the bank yesterday afternoon?” he asked suddenly. - -“Yes,” she answered coldly after a slight pause; “I was about to speak -to you, but you did not recognize me,” she added. - -“It is the truth. I did not,” he admitted quickly and waited. He could -not be sure she got it, the compliment implied. He remembered her as -merely sensible, not smart. “You have changed, grown or something,” -he resumed. “I couldn’t be expected to know you. All the other girls -here look just as they did when I left here two years ago. But you -don’t; you are amazingly different. How did you do it?” he exclaimed, -regarding her with charmed amazement. - -He saw her take it, caught the glance she gave him one instant before -she dropped it. The faintest smile sweetened the comers of her mouth. -He got that too. - -If only he had known of the tears she had shed after the visit to -the bank, what a triumph! Fortunately, men do not know what maidens -confess with tears to their pillows. If they did it would change many a -courtship to one kind or another of ruthless tyranny. - -We who study love as if it were a medicine or a disease sometimes speak -of “love at first sight,” as if this were an unusual seizure. But love -is always love at first sight. You may know this man or he may know -you for years without getting that angle of vision; but if you ever -do, it is as if you had never really seen him before. In a moment you -have endowed him with attributes his Maker would never have squandered -on a man of that quality. This is what love is, the conferring of -virtues and qualities upon the object of your awakened emotion like so -many degrees. He may be a drug clerk, or a chicken-breasted, fat man, -or a swank young rascal, but from that moment when love gets sight of -him he is a fellow of the royal society of heroes, and you may be so -bemused you live a lifetime with him, always conferring more degrees to -keep him tenderly concealed from your clearer vision. Or it may happen -in a year or twenty years the scales fall from your eyes. Then love -becomes a servant, and life a tragedy. But there is nothing in the -Scriptures against such a servant or such a life. Rather, I should say -the Scriptures make wide and permanent provisions for this deflation in -the marital relation. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -From this day George Cutter spent his spare time in and about the -Adams cottage. You might have inferred that he was a homeless man. He -accompanied Helen to such entertainments as society consisted of in -Shannon, chiefly picnics and fishing excursions at this season of the -year. He was by nature an importunate lover, and he was in love. He did -not ask himself whether Helen would make a suitable wife for such a man -as he was, and would become. He did not know what kind of man he was. -He only knew that he wanted this girl, and that no other man should -have her. - -The decision was natural, entirely creditable. But the approach must be -made. So far as he was concerned he was ready to propose to Helen at -once; girls, however, were squeamish in matters of love. His instinct -warned him that he might lose by an immediate declaration. He spent the -time agreeably displaying his wares. He was a university man. He had a -smattering of ideas, caught carelessly and selected from the mouthings -of this professor and that. He had no doubt that he could make an -impression. Helen was village born, village bred. It was well enough to -startle her into a profound admiration. Nothing subdued and impressed a -woman like brains. He not only had brains, he had views. - -Bear in mind this was twenty years ago. The muckrakers were still -mucking in the best magazines. The “social conscience,” a favorite -phrase at the time, had passed the period of gestation, and had become -a sentimental conviction claimed by the best people. Old patriarchal -Russian anarchists with pink whiskers, spewed out of Russia, were -pouring into this country, the shade of their whiskers due entirely -to the action of the salt air during the voyage over on the dye used -upon these whiskers by way of disguise until they were safe in a clean -land. They brought their doctrines with them. They created a market for -socialism, radicalism and communism. - -There was no provision then or even now at Ellis Island to exclude -these lepers of decaying civilization afflicted with the most insidious -social diseases of the mind. They had a fine time working up conditions -which were presently to result in mental, moral and social unrest, -strikes and the perversions of all sound doctrines. The universities -in particular received these doctrines gladly--mere theories, so far -as the deans and doctors were concerned, upon which they performed -intellectual stunts before their classes; trapeze work, nothing more. -At that time the most unscrupulous men in this nation were these -teachers of youth. Now they may name their converts by the millions; -but then the “young gentlemen” who listened had not got a working use -of this diablerie. They talked of liberty as if liberty was license by -way of appearing swank intellectually. - -George had come home that summer fresh cut from the classroom of a -certain professor who held advanced views on what men were really -entitled to in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. - -One evening he was seated beside Helen on a bench beneath an arbor -covered with vines of trailing clematis. They had been there a long -time. Nothing had happened, to put it exactly as Helen inwardly -interpreted the situation. Nothing could happen yet, to put it -according to George’s decision. He had been home barely two weeks. -Helen impressed him as being so ineffably innocent, so remote from his -passion that it would be almost an insult to make love to her. Love -enjoined silence like the benediction in a church. - -They sat beneath the star-white clematis blossoms, confounded with each -other. Helen waited. If only he would say something that would ease her -of this pain, this humiliation of feeling as she did toward a man who -might regard her merely as a friend! She thought he might be interested -in her; he had been there almost every evening since his return. But -she did not know. What suspense lovers bear when the whole tittering -world knows the truth they dare not believe. - -George started to smoke, tilted his chin up, expelled a twin bugle -of smoke from his nostrils, narrowed his eyes and stared into the -immensity of the night. He was very handsome posed like this, and knew -it. - -Men are much more presumptuously vain than women. They can be vain with -no preparation, in their shirt sleeves, with a three days’ stubble of -beard on their faces and no hair at all on their heads. Their vanity -seems to be a sort of rooster-tail instinct, with which they have been -endowed so that they may do the work of the world and waste no time -primping. It is an illusion, of course, this physical egotism, but the -queer thing is that it is an illusion of them shared by most women. So -they get away with it. And few of them ever know how purposefully and -sardonically they are afflicted by Nature with homeliness. - -On the other hand, when you get down to the psychological facts, I -doubt if women are vain at all. They may be beautiful, but even at -that they have so little confidence in their beauty that the last one -of them must finance her assurance with all the make-believe art of -loveliness. I suppose she has discovered that it is not beauty that -wins the lover, but it is the deliberate proclamation she thus makes -to him of her charms. And this is no illusion. For the history of that -grotesque sex is that the average man will pass a naturally beautiful -woman every time to pay his court to a painted, powdered and puffed -woman who is not nearly so good-looking, if you washed her face and -buttoned her up to the neck-line of modesty. - -Here was Helen, for example, seated beside this young man, all -whiteness and sweetness, eyes so blue that even in this moonlit -darkness they showed like sunlit skies, lips pink, parted like the -petals of a rose, teeth like pearls glistening between--the very emblem -of loveliness; and yet she was in an anguish of uncertainty, lest he -did not and never would care for her. I don’t know--this may be one of -the scurvy tricks Nature plays on women to keep them humble. If so, it -is not the only one. I admire the achievements and beauties of Nature -as much as any one, but I must say from first to last her methods -appear to me unscrupulous. - -The silence had grown oppressive. Helen made some slight movement. She -probably clasped her hands and squeezed her patience. It was hard to -be omitted so long from his thoughts. The rustle she made, faint as it -was, recalled him, as he let her know with a glance. - -“I was just thinking, Helen, what a sorry little runt of a town this -is,” he said, lifting his chin a trifle higher over the little runt of -a town. - -There was a slight pause. You must have a moment in which to adjust -yourself to the incredible, especially when you have not been thinking -about anything so far removed. - -“Shannon?” she asked in an exclamatory tone. - -“Yes; it is. You can’t imagine how it looks to me after two years away -from it, how it compares with the big places I have seen--dried up, -sun-baked, no atmosphere, no culture.” - -She said nothing. What can you say when you hear a man blaspheming the -very cradle where he was rocked in infancy. Besides, the contempt -seemed to include her. She was a part of it, and she loved it. - -“I saw a handsome plant of some sort blooming in a tin bucket on Mrs. -Flitch’s front porch the other day. That’s what I mean,” he went on. - -“But what do you mean?” she asked, regarding him vaguely. - -“Well, the bucket was tinware, as I said, and published on it, still in -red letters, was the red label of a superior shortening.” He laughed. - -“She is so fond of flowers,” Helen expounded gravely. - -His eyes snickered at her. “But the bucket,” he exclaimed, “the tin -bucket, the old tin bucket with the red label--with a gardenia blooming -in it. Naïve, I’ll admit, but about as appropriate as sticking an -ostrich plume over the kitchen sink.” - -Helen made a hasty mental inventory of the Adams flower pots and -thanked heaven they were correct. - -“The people here do not think; they merely gossip,” he went on. “They -have no ideas, no purely mental conceptions. They do not know what is -going on in the mind of the world, how men’s views of life are changing -and broadening.” - -She did not follow him, but she felt the wind of the world beneath her -wing. - -“Two years here made no difference. You don’t grow. You don’t develop. -But away in a university, where your business is to get what’s going -and learn to think, two years change a man. I am a stranger here now. -My own father and mother do not know me.” - -“Oh, George, yes, they do!” she exclaimed consolingly. - -Then she caught his eye and perceived that he was in no need of -consolation. He was boasting, prouder than otherwise of being this -stranger. “It’s a fact; they make me feel like a whited sepulcher,” he -complained. - -“But you don’t,” she exclaimed loyally, but really in great trepidation -lest he might be this awful thing. - -“Of course not,” he returned, pleased to have excited her anxiety. “But -what would my father think if he knew I am interested in socialism, -that my best friends in the university are radicals?” - -She was not competent to express an opinion. She was not skilled in -politics. - -“And what would my mother think if she knew that I no longer accept -the Scriptures literally as she does, as you all do in this town; that -I know the Bible to be fragments of history and tradition, much of it -mythical, the priestly literature of the Jews, gathered from dreams and -hearsay, and interpreted to control the lives and liberties of men.” - -“Oh, George! you must not say such things. You are a member of the -church. I remember the Sunday morning when you were baptized.” - -“A public bath! And there is no ‘the Church,’ Helen; did you know -that--unless it’s the world; that’s the big church,” said this grand -young man, delivered from the faith of his fathers. - -This was awful. She stared at him through tears, but not with any -shrinking; rather her heart yearned toward him. There is no doubt about -this--all women, however young, have wings and a sort of clucking mind, -spiritually speaking. - -He was moved by the sight of these tears to a loftier, transient mood -of himself. He turned so as to face her, seized her hand, bent his -brows upon her in a strained, long look. It was powerful, this gaze. -She trembled. Her hand became icy in his hot palm. He tightened his -clasp upon it. - -“Listen, Helen,” in the deep bass tones of a terrific emotion, “I -wish you to know me as I am. I would not take advantage of a girl like -you. I will keep nothing from you. It is necessary if--if my hopes are -realized.” He left her in this suspense while he bowed his head and -struggled to stem his tide. “I am not a good man,” he began. It was -the opening sentence of a proclamation, not a confession, as if he -had said: “I have a cloven foot and am proud of it.” “But I have my -convictions, and no man on God’s green earth is more faithful to his -convictions.” - -She was holding her breath, only letting it out when she could hold it -no longer in a soft sigh, and taking in another for the next sigh. If -you are doing it for exercise you call it “deep breathing.” - -“And I have my ideals,” he added impressively. - -She was relieved. If he was not an entirely good man, he could not be a -bad one; he had “convictions” and he had “ideals.” What more could she -ask? - -“For example, I believe in the freedom of love,” he announced, and -waited for this shocking piece of news to take effect. - -The effect was marvelous. Her cheeks bloomed scarlet. Nature flung a -wreath of palest pink upon her forehead--only for an instant; then -this aurora of love’s emotion faded. “I am afraid I don’t know much -about love,” she said faintly, lowering her eyes before his gaze. - -He leaned back, gratified. He had her secret; but she had not got his -meaning. The dear little innocent! He was tempted to kiss her. - -This was really the case. She had not recognized the phrase. There was -no use for it in Shannon. The worst thing she had ever heard was Sammy -Duncan swearing at the cat. Her reading had been sternly censored. Mrs. -Adams took no morning paper, “on account of Helen”; a magazine, yes; -and there were Scott’s novels. These had been the girl’s text books -of love. She had never even read the Song of Solomon. Mrs. Adams had -forbidden her this richer scriptural food. “You won’t understand it,” -the mother had said. And Helen obediently skipped it when she turned -the pages of her Bible. She had secretly wondered why Solomon was in -the Bible anyway. He was not a proper person, if one believed the -preacher, and one must do that. Neither was David all he should have -been by all accounts. But here she veered again and merely learned her -Psalms, making no inquiries into the author’s private life, which was -very ladylike of her. In short, brought up according to a standard -of innocence which amounted to a deformity, at this moment she was -stripped of every weapon by which she might have defended herself -against an iniquitous doctrine. - -George decided not to go too fast with his teaching on this subject, -for he was determined that she should learn it and accept it. He kissed -her hand instead and told her that she was all there was of love so far -as he was concerned. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -From this time their affair progressed with reeling swiftness. Helen -assumed an air of independence, as if she had suddenly come into -possession of a private fortune. This is ever the effect of riches -upon the meekest of us. She was now a lovely young insurrection in -her mother’s house. She had opinions and expressed them boldly in -opposition to those of her mother. - -This had never happened before. Mrs. Adams was astonished, but she -conformed to the natural order of parents. She abdicated, merely -trailing clouds of futile protests as she descended, also after -the manner of parents. You may manage a son in love by putting the -financial brakes on him; but you can do literally nothing with a -daughter in love, because her sense of responsibility is purely -devotional and sentimental. She will risk a husband because she will -not be obliged to support him. This is the difference, which she may -discover afterwards does not exist. But she thinks it does, which comes -to the same thing. - -If you are a girl you cannot stir up any great issue. Helen simply -made those within her reach. For one thing she decided to wear “pink.” - -“But blue is your color,” Mrs. Adams objected. - -“But it is not one of my principles, mother. I am tired of blue. I have -worn it all my life as a rabbit wears one kind of skin. I’m human. I -can wear any color.” - -And she did. She tried every shade of the rainbow that summer. She was -extravagant. - -“Helen, where are your economies?” Mrs. Adams exclaimed, as if she -referred to certain necessary fastenings on the feminine character. - -This was a day in August, when Helen wanted yet another hat and frock. - -“They were never mine; they were yours, mother,” was the unfeeling -reply. “I want the dress and the hat.” - -“You have had two hats this season.” - -“This one then will make three.” - -Clothes had become her obsession, a silent way she had of extorting -admiration from George. - -“Well, if this keeps up I cannot afford to send you away to school this -fall,” Mrs. Adams told her. - -“I don’t want to go away to school. I am tired of being just taught. I -want to do my own learning,” Helen informed her. - -And when you consider how simple she was, this was a rather profound -thing to say. The desire to chase our own knowledge is as old as Eve. -But from then until now it has led to a sort of independent, sweating -self-respect. We pay the highest price of all for it, as Helen was -destined to learn--among other things. But I reckon it is worth it, if -anything is worth what we pay for the experience by which life unfolds. - -Mrs. Adams was not crushed by this flare of ingratitude. She was simply -confirmed in her suspicions. - -Meanwhile Mr. Cutter, Senior, was also confirmed in his suspicions. -Young George informed him early in August that he just about had enough -of the university; he believed the wisest thing for him to do under -the circumstances was to settle down to business. He did not name -the circumstances, but by this time everybody knew what they were, -including Mr. Cutter. - -“You are of age--your own man; the decision rests with you,” he had -said to George on this occasion, by way of washing his hands of any -responsibility, after the cool-headed manner of fathers. - -As a matter of fact, he was very well satisfied. Helen Adams was a good -girl; pretty; she would eventually inherit some property. Besides, -he thought George had better settle early in life, else he might not -settle at all. - -“I’ve made the decision,” said George, like a man in a hurry. “With -the hope of getting a raise in salary soon,” he added, with a note of -financial stress in his voice. - -“Oh, I guess we could manage that in case of an emergency,” his father -replied in the same matter-of-fact tones. - -This is the way men deal with one another, even if somewhere behind -the dealing deathless love is at stake. And it is not the way women -deal with one another. For some reason, when they settle down in their -years, and recover the powers of sight according to reason, they are -ready to inflict death on love upon the slightest provocation. - -Mrs. Adams suddenly and for no apparent cause ceased to speak to Mrs. -Cutter. And Mrs. Cutter with no apparent reason began to refer to -Helen as “that Adams girl.” The mother of a son is always jealous. She -over-estimates him; no matter whom he chooses for a wife, she thinks -he might have done better. Mrs. Cutter was free to tell anybody, and -did tell quite a number, that she hoped George would marry sometime; -but when he did it was natural that she should wish him to choose a -girl who would be equal to the position he could give her in the world. -George had a future before him. He was no ordinary young man. By these -sentiments she left you to infer what she thought of the “Adams girl.” -If you ask me, I say she was correct in her opinion, but futilely so. - -Mrs. Adams knew that her daughter could not do better in a worldly way -than to marry this young man. But when it came to the pinch, she forgot -the world and thought anxiously of Helen. She was a good mother. Her -instinct, sharpened by years of living in a world where love plays -havoc with hopes and happiness, warned her that while George might -settle down in business and become eminently successful, she doubted -if he could be domesticated in the strictly marital virtues. He had -too much temperament. Perhaps this was the way she had of admitting -that Helen was a trifle short on temperament, even if she did have a -good singing voice. On the other hand, Helen had the awful sanity of -seeing things as they are. She had observed this walking mind of her -daughter--no wings upon which to carry illusions. How would such a -woman adjust herself to a husband who might have recurrent periods of -adolescence? She did not know. Therefore she regarded George with a -hostile beam in her eye and quit speaking to Mrs. Cutter. - -When you consider the seismic disturbances created about them by only -two lovers and multiply them by all the other lovers to the uttermost -parts of the earth, it is clear that there never can be any lasting -peace in this world, though disarmament might be complete, and all -nations might pass a law confirming peace and good will. For this -is a natural disturbance beyond the diplomacy of diplomats or of -confederated congresses to control. It is the perpetual insurrection of -life everlasting in the terms of love, which are never peaceful terms. - -Some time during this August, probably the latter part, Helen wore her -third degree hat and the new frock. This hat lies now in an old trunk -above the attic stairs in the house of Helen. I have seen it. A leghorn -with a wide floppy brim, stiff, a little askew and out of shape, as you -would be yourself if you had lain so long without so much as a breath -of wind to stir you. There is a good deal of lace and ribbon on it and -a wreath of wild roses. It looks funny, as a hat always does when it is -long out of style, or as a love letter reads when you have been married -twenty years to the man who wrote it. But with all there remained -something gay and confident about this hat, like the wistful smile and -sweetness of a girl’s face, as no doubt there remains in the latter -those former scriptures of a valorous love. - -Helen was standing beside me when I fished up this little ghost of -a hat and held it up in the warm light of the attic. “Put it on,” I -exclaimed, not meaning to be irreverent. - -“No; oh, no,” she said, drawing back. “It would not become me now.” - -And it would not, any more than the love letter would have become the -sentiments of the poor, tired, old, middle-aged husband who wrote it -long ago. - -But what I set out to tell when the former Helen’s hat intrigued me -was that she went for a walk with George the first time she wore it. -Shannon at that time was such a brief little town that you could step -out of it into the open country almost at once. - -They took the river road, which was not in very good repute with the -guardians and parents of Shannon, for no better reason than that it -was sanctified by the vows of so many lovers. But what would you have? -These lovers require privacy and some fairness of scenery for their -business. You may involuntarily publish love on a street corner, but -you cannot declare it there. Your very nature revolts at the idea. So -does society. You would be arrested for staging a love scene in public. -Old people are not reasonable about this. Parental parlor-supervision -has produced more unhappy old maids than the homely features of these -victims. - -When they had come some distance along the road, George drew her arm in -his, and they went on in this beatific silence. “Helen,” he said, “if -you should say anything, what would you say?” - -She looked, caught his red brown eyes smiling down at her and blushed. -“Why, I was not going to say anything. I was just thinking,” she -answered. - -“What?” he insisted. - -“How happy I am now, this moment, and--” she halted. - -“Well, go on.” - -“Well, just how easy it is to be happy. How little it really takes to -make happiness,” she answered truthfully. - -“Just you and me,” he agreed. - -They went on again walking slowly. - -“I never loved a girl before,” he informed her, as if they had been -discussing this miracle of love in open speech for hours. - -She believed him. We always do believe them when they tell us this, -because we need so much to keep this happiness which is founded upon -the shifting sands of lovers. - -“And you, my beautiful one, you do love me?” he asked, suddenly halting -and swinging her in front of him. - -She laid her hand upon her breast, looked at him through a mist of -tears. “Is this love?” she asked, as if her hand covered leaves and -blossoms and singing birds. - -“Of course it is,” cried her high priest, clasping her and kissing her. - -“Are you sure?” she gasped, with another wide look of joyful fear. - -“Absolutely!” - -“But, George, how can you know for certain, if you’ve never loved -before?” - -Sometimes I think for every woman love is an alarm bell which rings -perpetually to disturb her peace. It really was a staggering question -she had asked, and George staggered like a man. “You know what you feel -is love, don’t you?” he evaded. - -“What I feel is terror and happiness.” - -“Well, that’s love for you. This is love for me,” he exclaimed, kissing -her again. “And to know that you are mine entirely, aren’t you?” - -“Yes,” she whispered. - -The conversation of lovers in fiction rarely tallies with what they -actually say to each other in real life. I have read the dialogue of -many a brilliant courtship in a novel, but never as an eavesdropper or -observer have I known two people in love to utter a single sentence -which was sensible or that even escaped absurdity, if you repeated -it along with other gossip you have to tell. And yet it is very -important, this primer talk, these watching eyes of lovers who place -the profoundest significance upon the most trivial act, or even the -wavering of a glance between them. - -I merely say this in passing, as a challenge to the reader, who may -feel a trifle let down, disappointed at the above record of what took -place between George and Helen on that day. What I have written is -the artless truth of love, not the fabricated philosophy of love, -because there is no such philosophy. Love is a state of being beyond -our academic powers to expound. It exists, it functions amazingly -and that is all we know about it or ever will know about it, the -passion-mongers and biologists to the contrary, notwithstanding. -They shed no light on this phenomenon, only upon the obvious material -results. They do in truth obscure it by gratifying your desire, dear -reader, to indulge vicariously in something not suitable to the proper -furnishing of your elegant mind. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -The ruins of an old iron foundry stood on this river road. The roof had -fallen in long ago. The walls and gables, built of rough stone alone -remained. Creeping vines covered them. The sun dipping low upon the -horizon shone through the open places where windows had been. But the -shadows were already deepening in the great, open doorway beside the -road. - -Helen was for turning back now. She was all brisked up with the desire -to hurry home with this sweet burden of happiness. - -“No, let’s go up there,” he said, making a gesture toward this door. - -They climbed the slope from the road, hand in hand, and sat upon a -long stone step, the fields before them changing already beneath the -lavender mists of twilight, the river singing below, the bright squares -of sunlight fading from the black smoked walls within, the shadows in -there deepening to darkness behind them. But what soft effulgence in -this girl’s face! Already the candles upon her altar burned. For so -many years she kept that look of pale candle light in the dark. Her -features changed; the skin lost its rosy glow; her beauty passed away; -but this serene brightness never faded. When I knew her long afterwards -she was in the full bloom of her years, her eyes of that calmer blue -women get when all the storms of love and loving have passed and left -the heart motionless with the awful peace of victory over love. And she -was still thinking of love, as one recalls an epitaph! - -Besides the happiness of having her beside him, clasped like a banner -to his side, George had something to say. He must make Helen understand -one thing, and he thought he could do this now without risking his -happiness. He did not anticipate that any emergency would ever arise -between them that would force him to fall back on this conviction about -love; but he had it; he had studied the science of social ethics in the -university--an illuminating subject under a singularly broad-minded -doctor of philosophy named Herron. - -The ethics were binding, of course, but between the lines and the -laws Herron interpolated his own views on love. He had more than -once attacked what he called the barbarous “contract of marriage.” -Divorce was one of the articles of his creed. When Nature called for a -separation of the contracting parties, it was abominable not to yield -to this natural law, otherwise you profaned that most sacred of all -things--love, and so on and so forth. - -George entertained a profound respect for Herron. Most of the young -men in his classes did. Still, they referred to him as “that fellow -Herron,” and discussed his views more than they did those of any -other member of the faculty. In this way George had obtained one of -his strongest convictions, a sort of pet moral; and as he had already -taken occasion to inform Helen, “no man on God’s green earth was more -faithful to his convictions.” - -“You know what I believe about love,” he began, drawing her closer to -him according to this faith, it appeared. - -“Me!” she answered with charming confidence. - -“Oh, yes,” kissing her; “you are love, and my life.” - -She sighed. - -“That is why I believe in the freedom of love,” he began again. “There -can be no bondage--ever--in love.” - -“Only the vows we take,” she whispered. - -“Yes, of course, marriage,” he admitted. - -“It is like being confirmed--in love--isn’t it?” - -“Why, yes, for those who love.” - -“And we do,” she said. - -“Yes, indeed,” he returned heartily--and hurriedly, if she had noticed; -for she was getting off on the wrong tack, and he wanted to say what he -had to say before this wind filled her sails. “But it is by love, not -law, that you chose me; isn’t it?” - -“Oh, yes, my love,” she answered softly. - -“Otherwise you would not take me,” he went on. - -“But I do love you.” - -“But if the time ever came when--when you ceased to care for me--” he -stammered and did not finish, feeling her stiffen as if by a resolve in -his arms. - -“It could not come, such a time,” she interrupted, “because I could -never cease to love you.” - -“I know it, my sweetheart,” speaking with tender gratitude, “but I am -only supposing the case, that if either of us ceased to care--” - -She tore herself from him. She covered him with her wide, blue gaze. -“Could you--cease to care?” she demanded. - -“Absolutely no! You are my very life. I think, live and hope everything -in terms of you,” he assured her. - -But she was not assured. She remained apart, no longer yielding to his -arms about her. “Well, why think about what will not happen?” she asked. - -“I told you we were only supposing--” - -“Not I?” - -“--that if you or I,” he went on determined to make his point, “ceased -to love, it would be profanation to--pretend--to live as if we did, -wouldn’t it?” - -“But, George,” with a note of pain, with the brightening of tears in -her eyes, “we shall be one. It says so everywhere, in the Bible, in the -vows we take, that we are one flesh. Then how can either of us cease to -love?” - -“We won’t; we never shall,” he cried eloquently, and drawing her -fearful, only half-willing in a close embrace. “But I must be honest -with you. This is my conviction, the sanctity and freedom of love.” - -“It sounds well, but it feels dangerous,” she whispered. - -“Don’t you believe in me, Helen?” in an offended tone. - -“I do, oh, I do; but not in your conviction,” she moaned. - -“What difference does it make, my heart? We love. We have chosen each -other,” he laughed. - -“Forever?” she wanted to know. - -“Forever!” he repeated with emphasis. - -She leaned close to his side, her head upon his breast, her eyes -closed, lips parted, white teeth gleaming. He knew for certain that -nothing could separate him from this goodness, this sweetness, this -loveliness. He merely wished to be on the level, to conceal nothing -from her that concerned them so nearly. He kissed her rapturously. - -She opened her eyes, human violets, blue like these flowers, innocent -like a maid, but troubled as if far away cold winds were sweeping down. -“Do you feel the wind?” she said. - -“There is no wind.” - -“Yes; and cold; I feel the chill.” - -“The air from the river,” he said, releasing her. - -“And the sun is down. It is late. We must go,” she said. - -They went back down the slope to the road, hand in hand as they had -come up, but not the same. The pain which accompanies love had entered -her heart. - -She was never to be perfectly easy again. No woman ever is who loves. -Some months, some days, at last a few hours and a few moments of -happiness she was to have with which to balance the years of life with -love and this pain. But ask her! She will tell you that they were worth -more than the years. So many more women than we know are like that. - -Once when they were near the town, he looked at her happily and said: -“I have not told you the news. It concerns you, too, now. I got a raise -in salary yesterday.” - -“I am so glad,” she answered smiling. - -“Oh, I deserved it. I am making good. Father knows it,” he put in. - -“You do work hard,” she agreed. - -“But not near as hard as I mean to work now--for you,” he assured her. - -She tightened her fingers upon his in reply. - -“I mean to be a successful man, Helen, for you. You shall have -everything.” - -“I need only you,” she answered. - -“The world is a wolf, did you know that?” - -She did not, she said. - -“Yes, it is; and the man that makes good in it has got to be a wolf -too.” - -The lamb looked up at the wolf and smiled. She was merely noticing for -the hundredth time how handsome he was, and wishing he had compared -himself to a lion. She preferred to think of him as a lion. - - - - -PART TWO - - - - -PART TWO - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -Three days after the homing birds flitting about the old foundry on the -river road witnessed the betrothal of George and Helen, Mrs. George -William Cutter was seen to issue from her residence at five o’clock in -the afternoon. It was barely possible at any time to do this on Wiggs -Street without being observed by the secret eyes of your neighbors and -exciting a purely private interest in where you were going. But it was -absurdly impossible for Mrs. Cutter to have escaped on this occasion -without exciting the liveliest curiosity, owing to the way she looked -and her obvious destination, as compared with what she had been saying -quite freely for the last three months to any one who wanted to know -what her feelings and opinions were concerning a certain matter. - -Her hair was crimped, although this was Thursday and she never put -it up on hairpins except on Saturday nights “for Sunday.” She wore a -small, glistening, lavender straw hat wreathed in lilacs of that shade -of pink grown only by milliners. A helpless thing securely pinned on, -which somehow gave the impression of having involuntarily drawn back -from her face in a mild flowerlike terror of this face. Any one seeing -her might have understood the feelings of this hat. Her countenance -seemed to burn, probably from the summer heat, possibly from some fiery -emotion. Her red brown eyes spat sparks, her neck was bowed until she -accomplished what Nature had not designed she should have, a wrinkle -that made a thin double chin. - -Her frock was of gray silk, high at the neck, tight at the waist, full -in the skirt, “garnished” with three graduated bands of satin ribbon -above a flounce at the bottom. It rustled richly as she walked, and she -fairly crimped the ground as she walked, taking short, emphatic steps, -as if the high heels of her slippers were stings with which she stung -whatever was lawful for an indignant woman to sting with her heels. - -She was on her way to Helen Adams and her mother. She had tried to -reason with George about this hasty marriage. She had pointed out to -him that while the girl was a nice girl, and so on and so forth, only -to have George fling out of the room as if she had insulted him. She -had talked to Mr. Cutter about it, who had told her briefly, if not -rudely, that she had better mind her own business and leave these young -people to attend to theirs since they would do it, anyhow. As if George -was not, and had not been, her own and chief business from the day of -his birth. She had moped and suffered these three days. At last she -had resolved to do her duty, since it was the only thing left that she -could do. She would go and call on the Adamses, “recognize” them, and -thus by the sacrifice of her pride and convictions, reinstate herself -with George. - -The lot of a mother was a sad one! She had the pangs by which her -child, in this case a son, was born. She nursed him. She had the care -of him, never thinking of herself. Then when he was old enough to give -her some returns, he goes off against her advice and gives himself to -another woman who, she knows, and will live to see, is unsuited to -him, and on top of all this she must sacrifice her feelings, stultify -herself, boot-lick George by going over there! She was so moved to -pity of herself that the imminence of tears reminded her that she had -forgotten her handkerchief. She went back to get it, thus keeping the -neighbors in suspense, because she had to stop and powder her nose -after blowing it. - -This time she came out, moving swiftly and rustlingly across the street -to the Adams cottage. She did not doubt that she would be received -cordially there. She did not know that Mrs. Adams had ceased to “speak” -to her some time ago, because she had never been more than civil to -Mrs. Adams, and therefore would not have known if that lady had passed -a year without speaking to her. - -She was received, of course, but by no stretch of imagination could the -reception have been called cordial. Mrs. Adams did it. She asked her -in, and admitted coolly that yes, Helen was at home. She would “tell” -her. She went out to do this. Mrs. Cutter’s eyes took one flight about -the room. She made the best of what she saw. There certainly were some -good pieces of golden oak in it. She wondered if the girl would be -allowed to take her piano when she married. She hoped-- - -Mrs. Adams returned, large, serene, dignified, very cool. She hoped -Mrs. Cutter had been well? - -Oh, yes, quite well, thanks. - -Then she told Mrs. Cutter voluntarily that if she had not been worried -to death about Helen she supposed she might have been in her usual -health. - -Mrs. Cutter raised her brows and said she hoped there was nothing the -matter with Helen. - -Oh, no, the child was well and sillily happy, but this engagement! - -The two women stared at each other, ice and fire in these looks. Mrs. -Cutter was astounded. Did her ears deceive her? They did not. - -Mrs. Adams was speaking in her large, welkin-ringing voice, distinctly -audible in the street, across the street, for that matter. Helen was -too young to marry, she was saying. She had not finished school. She -had expected to give her the best advantages in music. Helen had -talent, a future before her. But what good would talent do a married -woman? - -She asked Mrs. Cutter this and paused for a reply if Mrs. Cutter could -make one. Evidently she could not. - -No good in the world! Mrs. Adams retorted by way of answering herself. -The less personal promise she had of a future, the better it was for a -married woman. To have a gift in you that you could not develop made -for unhappiness. And what time would Helen have for her music now? -None. What use would she have for it? Practically none. And Helen -had a very nice little talent for drawing. She had painted several -placques, waving her hand at the evidences of her daughter’s art on the -walls of the parlor. It was there--a placque the size of a dinner plate -full of pansies, another one with roses painted on it. - -Mrs. Cutter’s eyes flew up obedient to these artless efforts in art, -and immediately resumed their position on Mrs. Adams’ face, which was -as full of meaning as the portrait of a Dutch mother done by an old -master. - -“Of course you don’t know how I feel about it. You have never had a -daughter,” she told Mrs. Cutter. “But I can tell you what it means. -Your whole life is centered in her. You sacrifice and plan for her. You -think she is yours. Well, you are mistaken. She belongs to some man she -has never seen. About the time you are beginning to have some peace and -satisfaction in her, he comes and gets her, marries her, regardless of -you. Then you spend the rest of your life watching her do her duty by -him, go through what you have gone through in your own married life, if -not worse, when if you could only have had your way a little while it -would have been so different, and--” - -Fortunately she did not finish this sentence. Helen came in at this -moment and gave a sweeter, politer turn to the conversation. - -Mrs. Cutter had intended to discuss the situation--in a kind way of -course, but frankly. She wanted to give some advice, let Helen know -how important it was for her to exert every effort to fit herself for -the position she would have in the Cutter family. But she did nothing -of the kind. She said a few pleasant things, kissed the girl cordially -on both cheeks and hoped George would make her happy, to which Helen -replied that he had already made her happy. Then she took her leave. - -Helen accompanied her to the door, Mrs. Adams remained in the parlor. -She had seen Mrs. Cutter’s transit across the street when she came to -make this call. She had read truly the mood of George’s mother. And -she had attended to her. She had let her know a thing or two. Now she -stood behind the parlor curtains watching her again cross the street. -This time it was less in the nature of a transit, she perceived, -nodding her head grimly. Mrs. Cutter’s neck was limber, her proud look -had disappeared. Her hat, although she had not touched it, was tilted -absurdly to one side, as if an invisible blow had struck it. And she -was walking hurriedly, like a person in retreat. - -Mrs. Cutter barely made it across her own doorsill before she began to -wring her hands. Oh! her Father in heaven, what kind of mother-in-law -would that woman make to poor Georgie? She received no immediate -answer to this interrogative prayer. We never do. An answer to prayer -comes when you wait until it is worked out somewhere in life. Her own -suspicions answered it clearly enough, however; she must knuckle to -some sort of courtship of that old Adams woman, or there was no telling -what might happen. - -She had taken it for granted that George would bring his wife to his -own home. One look at Mrs. Adams convinced her that if the young couple -lived with anybody they would live with Helen’s mother. That would -never do! Since George was determined to marry the girl the only wise -course to follow would be to give him a home of his own. She would tell -Mr. Cutter so, and why. He could afford to do something for George. -He might make him a wedding present of the old Carrol place. It would -cost something to repair the house, but anything would be better than -sitting across the street and seeing George domesticated in the Adams -home. - -All this is important to set down in order that you may realize the -difficulty so many young people have in disentangling themselves from -the lives of their elders and starting out for themselves. We have -escaped the old tribal instinct in everything more than in this. The -son is persuaded to bring his wife into his father’s house, or he does -do it for the sake of economy. Nothing can be more disintegrating to -the welding and growth of such a marriage. - -But the chief reason I have recorded what happened on this day is -because it was by this accident of maternal jealousy that Helen came -into possession of her house. So far from believing in any sort of -orderly destiny, my belief is that the Fates which change and control -our lives are as uncertain as the flight of birds. The world about us -is filled with contending forces. - -Some one whom you never saw or heard of looks at the ticker in his -office and sells out that day. The next day that little package of -bonds or stock in your safety-deposit box is not worth the embossed -paper they are written on. Or, you turn a street corner, meet a -man, walk two blocks with him, learn from him something about this -same market which he does not know he has told in the course of his -conversation, and you get the opportunity to become a rich man in this -same market before night. Or, you who have always been a reasonably -decent young man meet the eyes of a woman in a crowded place, and you -pass on with her to a fate which leads to every dishonor. You had no -intention of doing such a thing; it is contrary to your principles and -your habits; but you do it. So many are subject to these whirlwinds of -fate that you cannot tell by looking at them or even by hearing them -pray which ones are steady and safe from disaster. It all depends upon -the compass within whether we swing at the right moment into the right -current. - -Just so, if Mrs. Adams had not resented the bow of Mrs. Cutter’s neck, -the offensive emphasis of her little wrinkle of a double chin, when -she came to make that call, she might have received her amiably. And -if Mrs. Cutter had been received amiably, her maternal jealousy might -not have been so aroused and she would not have persuaded Mr. Cutter -to give George the Carrol place. In that case the House of Helen might -have been some other house, or no house at all. And her life would have -been in all probability a different kind of existence. Because the -house in which a woman lives, moves and does her duties, determines her -character much more than the bank does in which her husband transacts -his affairs. - -If the reader is another woman, and has spent her spare time for -nearly forty years, as I have, in a sort of involuntary study of men, -she knows, as well as I do, that there is nothing you can see with -the naked eye or put even your gloved finger on that does determine -the character of a man. He never breaks his own personal confidence. -It is no use to keep either your eye or your finger on him. You will -never know him unless he goes to pieces like the one-horse shay, after -which it is very unfortunate to know him at all. I am putting this -down merely to give you a line on how effervescently Helen came into -possession of her house, though it seemed so natural that she should -have it, and to warn you that while you think you know what will happen -in this story, you do not know, because you do not know George. You do -not, even if your own husband is a similar George. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -There is an old copy of the Shannon _Sentinel_, dated October 17, 1902, -which contains an account of the Adams-Cutter marriage. It lies folded -in the trunk with Helen’s last girlhood hat, and a few other things of -that tearful nature. I do not know why women keep these little yellowed -and faded tokens of past hopes, unless it is for the same reason they -devote themselves cheerfully and industriously to the cultivation of -flower gardens on their cemetery lots where their dead lie so deeply -buried. - -The dim type still tells how the altar in this church was decorated -with flowers and ferns, who played the wedding march and who performed -the ceremony. The bride was the beautiful and accomplished daughter of -the late Sam Adams and Mrs. Mary Adams. - -“Late” is the adjective you get, instead of the plain civilian title -of “Mister” you had while you were in the flesh. It depends whether -this exchange implies demotion or immortal inflation. But there can be -no doubt about the significance of “Sam” in this connection. Mr. Adams -was a carpenter, and a good one, but he never received credit in this -present world for the concluding, dignifying syllables of his Christian -name. - -In this same paragraph it tells how the bride was dressed, who her -attendants were and what they wore. And simmers down in the last -sentence to a description of the gowns worn by the respective mothers -of the bride and groom. The word “exeunt” does not occur, of course; -but that lick-and-a-promise praise of their toilettes really implies -that this is the last prominent appearance of these worthy women. - -The concluding paragraph is devoted to the groom. And it is evident -that the writer saved his most obsequious words for this final flare of -flattery. The groom was the son of “our distinguished fellow townsman, -Mr. George William Cutter”--a “university man”; some reference was -made to his “sterling qualities” and bright future. He had recently -“accepted” a position in the First National Bank where he had already -“made an enviable record”--cordial finger pointing to “bright future.” -“The young couple left on the noon train for a wedding tour in the -East. Upon their return they will take up their residence in their new -home on Wiggs Street.” - -You and I may both believe that either one of us could have written a -better account of this wedding, imparted more dignity to the occasion, -as undoubtedly a real artist might paint a more pleasing portrait of -you or me. But for a naively truthful likeness, we both know that -a country-town photographer surpasses the artist when it comes to -portraying the warped noses of our countenances, the worried eye and -the mouths we really have. This is why we avoid his brutal veracity -when we can afford the expense. Neither one of us cares to leave the -very scriptures of our faces to appall posterity. - -In the same manner, I contend there is always an artless charm, a sweet -and scandalous candor in what appears in a country newspaper, which is -more refreshing and informing than the elegance of our best writers -in the use of words. For example, does not the _Sentinel’s_ account -furnish a clearer picture and even a more intimate interpretation of -this bride and groom and the whole scene, than you could possibly -receive of a fashionable wedding from the social columns of a big -city paper? Personally, I have frequently been offended by the cool, -bragging insolence of these announcements of city weddings, as if -all we were entitled to know is that they can afford the pomp and -circumstance; nothing about their “bright future,” or the bride’s -“accomplishments,” or the groom’s “sterling qualities” to bid for our -interest and good will. Why swagger in print about being married? It is -not a thing to boast about, but to be humble about, and to entreat the -prayers of all Christian people, that they may behave themselves, keep -their vows and do the square thing by each other and society. - -George and Helen returned to Shannon and their new home on Wiggs Street -the last of October. - -Helen was far more beautiful than she had ever been, with that sedate -air young wives acquire before they are becalmed by the stupefying -monotony of love, peace and duty. The lines in George’s handsome young -face were firmer. He had that look of resolution men of his type show, -before it is confirmed into the next look of arrogance and success. - -When Helen and George became engaged in August the Carrol house was -simply an old gray farmhouse, overtaken years ago by the spreading -skirts of Shannon, but never assimilated. This was due to the fact that -when Wiggs Street was lengthened, it must be made straight whatever -happened. The old house was left far to one side on a wide lawn. No one -lived in it. Altheas and roses bloomed among the weeds, like gentle -folk who have lost their station in life and make common lot with the -mean and the poor. Grass grew between the bricks of the walk which -led to the front door. There was a hedge of bulbous-bodied boxwood on -either side of this walk. The windows of the old house looked out on -this green and growing desolation with the vacant stare they always -have in an empty house. - -But since the end of August carpenters, plasterers and painters had -swarmed over it and through it. Laborers had cleaned and cleared and -pruned. At last came van loads of carpets, furniture and draperies. -These had been smoothed, placed and hung inside. Now it looked like -the same old house that had suddenly come into a modest fortune, gone -to town and bought itself a lot of nice things to wear. Not a gable -had been changed, but the new roof had been painted green. The walls -were so white that they glistened. The windows were so clean that they -looked like the bright eyes of a lady with her veil lifted. - -On the evening of her first day in this house, Helen stood on the -veranda waiting for George, watching the elm leaves sweeping past, a -golden shower in the November wind. She had been very busy all day, -not that there was anything to do, because everything had been done. -But she had been going over her possessions, feeling the fullness -and vastness of her estate. She had silver, yes, and fine linen. Her -furniture was good, golden oak, every piece. Her rugs were florescent, -very cheerful. - -She needed more furniture; the rooms looked sparsely settled, -especially the parlor. A bookcase would help, and a few pictures on the -walls, but all in good time. She would be contented, ask for nothing -else. She meant to be a thrifty, helpful wife, do her own work, take -care of George. She was simply speechlessly happy. So it was just as -well she had no one to talk to. She wished to be alone except for -George, to concentrate upon all this joy. It seemed too good to be -true. She had this house, to be sweetened into a home, and all these -things; above and transcending everything, she had George. She was -absolutely sure of him. Is there anything more certain than sunshine -when the sun shines? - -This day was a criterion of all her days. She was very busy. She -expected to find time for her music, and to read a little. She must -keep up with what was going on for George’s sake, so that she would -be an intelligent companion for him. But she never found time; -besides, George cared less than she had supposed for music, and he -was strangely indifferent to intelligent conversation, seeing what an -intelligent man he was. - -Sometimes she returned a few calls, merely from a sense of duty. She -was never lonely. Sometimes her mother came to lunch and spent the -afternoon. On Sundays they went to church and had dinner with George’s -father and mother. As the months passed, Mrs. Cutter frequently asked -her how she “felt.” She always felt well and told her so. She did not -notice that Mrs. Cutter took little pleasure in her abounding health. -The spring and summer passed. She was very busy in her garden among the -flowers. - -One day Mrs. Adams warned her against taking so much violent exercise. - -“But why?” Helen asked, standing up with a trowel in her hand, -radiantly flushed. - -Mrs. Adams said nothing. She merely measured her daughter this way and -that with a sort of tape-line gaze. - -“I like working out here, and I am perfectly well,” Helen insisted. - -“A married woman never knows when she is perfectly well. It is your -duty to be careful,” was the reply. - -Helen flushed and remained silent. She felt that her mother was -staring at her inquisitively through this silence as she had sometimes -seen her peep through the drawn curtains before a window to satisfy her -curiosity or her anxiety. - -When at last Mrs. Adams took her departure, Helen went in, closed the -door of her room and sat down on the side of her bed. - -I do not know how it is with men, but there are thoughts a woman -cannot think if the door is open, even if there is not another soul -in the house. Helen was now engaged in this sort of secret-prayer -contemplation of herself, a slim, pretty figure, sitting with her knees -crossed, hands folded, lips parted, eyes fixed in a long blue gaze upon -the clean white walls of this room. - -So that was it! She was the object of--anticipation which had not -been--rewarded. The color in her cheeks deepened. She recalled this -question, that remark, made by George’s mother. She understood the -curious look of suspense with which Mrs. Cutter frequently regarded -her. She wished to remind her of a duty she owed the Cutter family. -The meaning of it all was perfectly clear to her now. As if it was -anybody’s business! She was indignant by this time. She began to -shake one foot. Her eyes flew this way and that, like the wings of a -distracted bird. She was really arguing fiercely with George’s mother, -saying the things which we never dare to say in fact. She flounced, -bobbing up and down on the springs beneath her, set her impatient foot -down, closed her lips firmly and looked really fierce. Evidently she -was getting the better of this argument, chiefly, no doubt, because -Mrs. Cutter was not there. - -Suddenly she lifted her left hand, counted the fingers and in turn used -up all the fingers of her right hand in this triumphant enumeration. -Yes, she had been married exactly ten months. Not a year yet. Why was -everybody in such a hurry, even her mother? - -Then something happened. She became very still, as you do sometimes -when the future, which always keeps its bright back to you, suddenly -turns around and permits you to behold the face of the years to come. -The color faded from her cheeks; her eyes widened into a look of -terror. She gave a gasp and buried her face in the pillow. - -Oh, God, oh, her Father in heaven, suppose it should always be like -this! Suppose she lived to be an old woman and never had a child. Doing -just the same things over, alone in the house. Nothing to look forward -to all day except George’s return at the end of it. And nothing for -him to expect except herself coming from the kitchen to welcome him -and hurrying back again, lest something burned or boiled over if she -delayed a moment. What would she be in her husband’s house if she did -not become a mother to his children? - -She sprang to her feet and tore off the pink apron she was wearing over -her summer frock. “I shall be a servant, nothing else,” she cried, -tidying her hair before the mirror. “I shall grow old and gray; my skin -will be yellow and, if I don’t--if we do not have children, I shall -begin presently to look like a good servant, the kind that never gives -notice, but just stays on and dies in the family. Oh!” - -She flew back to the bed, cast herself upon it and wept aloud to the -ceiling. - -An audience makes hypocrites of us all. The very mirror in your room -will do it. The best acting is always done in secret. If you could see -that little mouse of a woman whom you never suspect of having more than -the timid sniff of an emotion, charging up and down the room in her -nightdress, tearing her hair and raving with her eyes, making no sound -lest you should hear her, you would be astonished. And she might be -no less amazed if she could see you carrying on like a proud female -Cicero, delivering the mere gestures of an eloquent oration. No acting -we ever see on the stage equals the histrionic ability of the least -talented woman when it comes to these bed-chamber theatricals of her -secret emotions. - -Helen was calmer when George returned from the bank an hour later. She -met him as usual. But the sight of him unnerved her. She flung herself -upon his breast and clung to him, as if a strong wind was blowing which -might sweep her away from him forever. - -“Helen! My heart, what is the matter?” he exclaimed. - -She sobbed. - -“Are you ill?” he said, turning her face so that it lay upon his -breast, chin quivering, eyes closed. - -No, she was not ill, she said. The white lids lifted. She regarded -him sorrowfully. “Only I want to ask you something. I must know,” she -whispered. - -“Ask anything; only don’t cry. I can’t stand it,” kissing her. - -“George,” she began after a pause. - -“Yes, my life,” in grave suspense. - -“Am I a good wife?” - -Good heaven! What a question. Of course she was, the best and -loveliest wife a man ever had. - -“But aren’t you--have you been disappointed in me?” - -“You surpass my happiest dreams of happiness,” he assured her hastily. -Now was everything all right? - -Apparently not. She had gone off into another paroxysm of sobs. He -stood with this storm of loveliness clasped to his breast amazed and -horrified. What was the matter with Helen? He had left her calm and -happy at noon. He found her now in torrential tears. She must be ill. - -He lifted her tenderly in his arms, strode down the hall to their room -and deposited her on the bed. - -“You will always love me, whatever happens?” she insisted, clinging to -his hand. - -He sat down beside her. He filled his lungs; he expanded himself. He -must meet this emergency. “Helen, I could not live without loving you,” -he exclaimed in a deep and powerful voice. - -“But if nothing happens, if nothing ever happens?” she wailed. - -He was speechless. When you are caught up without a moment’s notice and -made to swear to every article of undying love, what else can you do? -But she lay wilted, deadly pale, her eyes fixed upon him dolorously, as -if he might be going to slay her with the next word. Therefore-- - -He did not finish thinking what he was about to think. A sort of shock -passed through him, he caught his breath, looked off, the faintest -shade of embarrassment in this look addressed to the ceiling, but -not painful. On the contrary you might have inferred that this was a -pleasurable confusion. He was instantly calmed, no longer disturbed -about Helen. He stared at her politely as at an unknown but highly -satisfactory phenomenon. He had no experience in a case like this, -but he had instincts. Every young husband is a father, at least by -anticipation. His impression was that she must be soothed, kept quiet. - -He bent and kissed her gravely, as you kiss the Bible when you take an -oath. “Don’t worry, my sweet; you will come around all right,” he told -her. - -She turned her face away, closed her eyes in tearful despair. He had -not answered her question. He had evaded with soft words. This would -never do. She was beginning to weep again. He said he would go to the -phone and call her mother. - -“Don’t call mother. She has been here all afternoon,” she cried. - -So, then Mrs. Adams knew. Well, he didn’t care if the whole world knew. -“Helen, you must not let go like this. You will hurt yourself,” he said -with a note of authority. - -Her ears heard him; her eyes caught him. For one moment she lay still -and sobless. Then she sat up, hair streaming over her shoulders, cheeks -reddening. “You too!” she cried. “Oh, you have all had the same thought -in your minds. And it isn’t so,” she informed him. - -“Well, if nothing is the matter, what is the matter?” he demanded after -a pause in the voice of a man sliding from the top of a climax. - -“That is,” covering her face with her hands. “Your mother, my mother, -you, too, all of you have been expecting something that may never -happen. And I did not know, did not realize until this day the meaning -of these hints, these questions, this solicitude. It was not for me. I -do not deserve it, you understand. I am not that way.” Oh! her Heavenly -Father, she knew what was before her now if she never had a child. She -would not be the same to him! - -“Of course you will, you silly darling,” he laughed, gathering her in -his arms. “The fact is, I am immensely relieved.” - -In this wise they took a new lease on their happiness. Helen’s skies -cleared. It was good to be free and well and just a girl “a while -longer,” as George put it. Still this was a form of probation. That -phrase, “a while longer,” was the involuntary admission he made of his -ultimate expectations. For his own part, he declared it was much better -for him to make some headway in the bank before they could really -afford the expensive luxury of having children. Still he felt a bit let -down at the contemplation for the first time of the bare possibility of -his wife not bearing these children for him. - -Thus the first year of their married life ended and the next one began. -In the main you can see that every sign for the future was propitious. -These two young people had the right mind toward each other; no modern -decadence, no desire to sidestep Nature or fail in their duty. Their -instincts were normal, their hopes honorable. - -How is it then that, with all good intentions, they both missed their -cue? It is not for me to say. My task is to tell this story and leave -each reader to judge for himself where the blame lay. No doubt there -will be many decisions. I have often wondered if even three judges who -passed on the same case without knowing each other’s decision, would -not each of them render a different judgment. But in regard to this -matter, I may be permitted to remark in passing that most of us miss -our cue in the business of living, whether we are escorted by the best -intentions or a few valorous vices. And my theory is that if we live -long enough, we shall hear the Prompter in time to make a good ending. -If we do not, there is a considerable stretch of eternity before us -where no doubt adjustments may be made with a wider mind. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -In 1913, Shannon had grown amazingly. The square was now a “plaza,” -surrounded by handsome brick business houses. There were two or three -factories on the outskirts of the town. The little old churches that -used to be filled on Sabbath mornings had given place to fine churches -with stained-glass windows, which were greatly reduced in membership. -What I mean is that the town was prosperous, and had a beam in its eye. -Wiggs Street was completely changed and there was some talk of changing -the name to “Cutter Avenue.” But this was not done. Every man has his -enemies. There were many pretentious residences now where cottages -formerly stood. Some of them had conservatories. Nobody kept potted -plants on the front porch, but some of them had got as far as keeping -potted cedars on their stone gate posts and a colored man in rubber -boots to scrub the front steps. - -George Cutter, no longer known as “young George” since the death of -his father, received much credit for the growth and development of the -town. It was Mr. Cutter who had induced certain Eastern capitalists -to locate these factories near Shannon. He was more than a prominent -citizen at home. He was somebody in New York. He had “influence” -in Washington. Otherwise Shannon would never have obtained her -hundred-thousand-dollar post office. He carried Shannon County in his -pocket, politically speaking, and he kept his congressman in the other -pocket, in the same figurative manner. - -Five years after he entered the bank, he was occupying the chair and -desk on the left side of the door where his father sat when George -began his career on the adding machine in the cage. Mr. Cutter, -Senior, was still the nominal president, but he had a finer desk and -more comfortable, less businesslike chair in the rear of his son. -He was now a fat old man, drooling down to a heavy old age. He was -merely president from force of habit. He did nothing but watch, with -slumberous pride, his son paw the markets, reach out, speculate, risk -and win, make a name for himself in the financial world. - -But in 1913 all this was ancient history. The young wolf had been -just beginning then to get a toothhold. Now he had arrived. He had -“interests” in the big corporations. When he became president, after -the death of his father, the first thing he did was to sell this small -building to a local trust company and build a finer, larger place for -his bank. Here he had an office, off the directors’ room in the rear, -as magnificent and grave as a sanctuary. And it was so proudly private -that there was no spangled glass door leading to it visible to the -vulgar public eye. Capitalists and promoters visited him here, but the -regular customers of the bank rarely saw him except by accident when -he issued from this office, hatted, spatted, coated, carrying a cane -hooked over his arm, and stepping briskly across the lobby through -the door to where his car stood and shone against the curb. In that -case their eyes followed him. And if these eyes belonged to women, of -whatever age, they were likely to exclaim, breathe or think, “What a -handsome man!” - -He was more than handsome, a “presence,” almost a perfect imitation of -elegance. He was the kind of man who kept his years under foot. He trod -them down with so much swiftness and power in this business of getting -on that they had not marked him. His face was smooth, his red hair -still opulent, his eyes brilliant, masterful. When he came in or went -out or passed by, they were always fixed on something straight ahead, -as if you were not there, anxious to catch his glance and have the -honor of speaking to him. Probably you wanted to remind him of how well -you remembered when he started to work in the old bank. And you were a -friend of his father, and had always kept your account in this bank and -would continue to do so. But you must be a wheedling, forward old man -to get the chance to say such things to him, because your account means -nothing to him now, and your good memory only annoys him. - -The reason so many men, after they become distinguished or successful, -get this habit of looking straight ahead when we are standing -ingratiatingly near, wishing to claim acquaintanceship with them in -their humbler past, is because they wish to forget this past, and -especially you who retain the speaking tongue of it. - -George Cutter had outgrown Shannon. Shannon might be proud of him, -but it could not be intimate with him. He did not belong there. He -was a big town man. You could almost smell Wall Street as he passed -you, Williams Street, anyhow, which is only one of the elbows of Wall -Street--a notable perfume, I can tell you, of pop-eyed dollars and busy -bonds that never rested, but were always being sold again. - -Seeing George thus, enhanced by ten additional years, you naturally -want to know what changes have taken place in Helen. - -Sometimes a slender, fair woman might be seen in Cutter’s limousine, -waiting at the curb before the bank. But if you saw her, you scarcely -noticed her, because there was nothing distinguishing in her -appearance. She always sat very still with her hands folded, her lips -closed so tightly that they appeared to be primped, and with her eyes -wide open, very blue like curtains drawn before windows, concealing -every thought and feeling within. When Cutter came through the door -of the bank, stepped quickly forward and swung himself into this car -with the air of a man who has not a moment to spare, she always drew -a trifle closer into her corner of the seat. Then they slid away -noiselessly across the square and out Wiggs Street. Even the chauffeur -knew that Mr. Cutter never had a moment to spare and invariably -exceeded the speed limit. - -No word of greeting was exchanged between this husband and wife--not -even a look. She did not so much as unpurse her lips to smile. His -arrogant silence implied that he was alone in this car. Yet we must -know that it was his wish she should come for him, since she so often -did come and wait for him with this look of dutiful patience. - -The married relation is not vocative. It tends toward silence and a -sort of dreary neutrality, arrived at by years of mutual defeats. It is -easier for a man to be agreeable to another woman who is not his wife -for the simple reason that he is innocent of this stranger. She knows -none of his faults and she has not failed him in anything. And every -woman knows that she is instinctively more entertaining to a man who -is not her husband, even if she despises this man and truly, patiently -loves her husband, because she is under no bond to agree with him nor -to avoid his prejudices. There is nothing accusative or immoral in this -fact, any more than there is in a momentary change of thought. It is -perfectly natural, when you consider how many years they must dwell -upon the same common sense of each other. - -If the weather was fine, Cutter only stopped long enough to drop Helen -at the house. He might tell her he would be late for dinner or he might -be late without telling her. Then he was driven at the same spanking, -glittering speed to the golf and country club for a foursome previously -arranged. - -Cutter had imported the idea of this club. As Cadmus introduced -letters into Greece, so had he brought golf to the business men of -Shannon. Until then middle-aged citizens accepted the sedentary habits -of their years and went down to their graves corpulent and muscleless, -developing only a little miserliness toward the last or a few crapulous -vices. But now these men, grown bald and gray, who had never spent a -surplus nickel nor taken more exercise than healthy invalids, hired -caddies for fifty cents an hour, and spent recklessly for golf sticks -and especially golf stockings and breeches. And they were to be seen -any afternoon stepping springily over these links, whacking balls--for -the ninth hole at least--with all the reared-back, straddle-legged, -arm-swinging genuflections of enthusiastic youth. Missionaries have -spent twenty years in the heart of Africa without accomplishing so much -healthful good for the savages there. But in that case the idea of -course is not to prolong the life of a savage, but to save his soul. -Still, Cutter was a successful missionary in this matter of golf, -because the souls of the men in Shannon had long been sufficiently -enured to the gospel to be saved, if they could be. - -As for the women, that was a different matter. Very few people ever -worry seriously about the salvation of these milder creatures. Until -quite recently they have been so securely preserved, sheltered and -possessed that it was actually difficult for a woman to lose her soul -by any obvious overt transgression. Even then you could not be sure she -had lost it, since she suffered such overwhelming martyrdom for her -offense. And we do not know what kind balances may be arranged in the -Book of Life for these poor victims of life in the flesh. - -There was also a different standard for women in the matter of outdoor -exercise, even at so recent a date as this of which I write. They might -caper adventuresomely in the open as girls, but the idea of a married -woman spreading her feet and swinging her club at a ball on the golf -links at Shannon was unthinkable. If they wanted the air, let them go -out-of-doors; if they wanted exercise, let them go back indoors and do -something. - -So Helen never accompanied her husband to the golf links. She always -went in the house and did things that would please him, or at least -satisfy him when he came home. - -They were still living in the house at the end of Wiggs Street. No -changes had been made in it, not a stitch had been added to it. It was -simply laundered, so to speak, once in so often with a fresh coat of -white paint. - -But it was not so sparsely settled within as it had been when she came -there as a bride. - -Two years after Helen’s marriage Mrs. Adams had passed away with -no to-do about going at all. She was ill three days, very quietly -and comfortably unconscious. Then she had gone to join that highly -respectable class of saints in paradise to which no doubt her carpenter -husband already belonged. Helen inherited her mother’s estate, which -consisted of a few thousand dollars’ worth of securities in her safety -box at the bank, the cottage on Wiggs Street and the contents of this -cottage. The cottage was promptly sold and, together with the sale -of the securities, furnished George with the money for his first -successful speculation. - -But Helen would not part with the furniture. She had it brought to her -own house. When she had distributed it in the rooms, the hall, all -available spaces were filled with it. Her father’s portrait, done in -crayon, hung above the parlor mantel. Her mother’s portrait, also a -crayon, hung on the opposite wall. For years to come these two Adams -parents were to stare at each other in a grim silence, as much as to -say, “There will be a reckoning in this house some day!” which was -due, of course, to the crudely veracious expression the amateur artist -always gets with a crayon pencil. For at that time there was nothing -but love and happiness and hope in this house. George was really -planning then to build a mansion where this house stood. For a while -they amused themselves drawing plans for this mansion. Then George -became more and more absorbed in his business. He had less time for -fanciful conversation with Helen. In any case the subject of the new -house was dropped. It had not been mentioned for years. - -I suppose if there had been children the new house would have been -built. But nothing had “happened.” Helen kept a cat, a canary bird -and two servants. The cat was a sort of serial cat, exchanged once in -so often for a kitten. The bird was the same one. She did not really -care for cats, nor much for canaries, but they served the purpose of -furnishing some sort of sound and motion in this silent house. She did -not want the servants, either. She preferred to do her own work. She -would have made an excellent wife for a poor man. She was a marvelously -good one to George, who was rapidly becoming a rich man. - -She might have been a wonderful caretaker of a great man; she had -exactly the right spirit of service and self-effacement. She developed -a serene silence which was restful, never irritating. But George was -not and never would be a great man. He needed a brilliant woman, and -Helen was only a beautiful woman. He needed a charming hostess for his -home, with social gifts. And Helen was only an excellent housekeeper. -He knew that this house was atrociously furnished, but he did not know -how it should be furnished. You may be highly appreciative of music -without being a musician. He felt the need of fine, quiet things and -neutral tones in his home, but he had neither the time nor the ability -to achieve these effects. - -Once, indeed, shortly after Helen had rearranged the parlor with the -old Adams whatnot and the Adams sofa with a golden-oak spindle back, -he had sent out two handsome mahogany armchairs, his idea being to -overcome the monotonous color and cheapness of this room. These chairs -looked like two bishops at a populist meeting. Helen was pleased, but -he had sense enough to know that he had blundered. - -I am merely giving you his side of this affair, frankly admitting that -she was by nature disqualified to fill the position of wife to such -a man. In the last analysis, of course, it would depend upon which of -these two people such a man as George Cutter or such a woman and wife -as Helen is the worthier type, or the more serviceable to his day and -generation. It is not the reaping of what we sow ourselves--sometimes -it is the reaping of what the other fellow sowed, the way we bear the -burden of that--which determines our quality and courage. - -As for Helen, the elder Mrs. Cutter said it all shortly before her -death. - -One summer evening she lay propped high in bed, her thin knees sticking -up, her thin face stingingly vivid, her eyes spiteful with pain and -discontent. Helen had just gone home after her daily visit, during -which she ministered with exasperating patience to this invalid. Mr. -Cutter sat beside his wife’s bed concerned for her, anxious to comfort -her, but secretly wondering where she would strike. For he perceived by -the spitting spark in her eye that she was about to strike. - -“Helen is hopeless,” she exclaimed. - -He was relieved not to be the target. Still he said something in reply -about Helen’s being a “good girl.” - -“Yes, and that is all she is. She is not the wife for George. I knew it -from the first,” she keyed off irritably. - -Mr. Cutter ventured timidly that she had made George a “good wife.” - -“Good, good, good,” she repeated. “I wish somebody could think of some -other word for her. But they can’t. Good’s the adjective she’s been -known by all her life.” - -“Well, it is a very good way to be known, my dear,” he returned mildly. - -“There you go again. Lower my pillow, Mr. Cutter. I can’t keep my head -up and think about her. She weighs on me like a load of commonest -virtues.” - -He let her gently down. She glared at him. He smoothed her pillow. -Would she like a sip of water? - -No! and she was not to be diverted, if that was what he was trying to -do. “Do you know what a merely good woman can be?” she demanded. - -The word good occurred to him again. He wanted to say that there -was nothing better than a good woman, but he refrained. He must not -irritate Maggie; if only she would not work herself up. - -“She can be the least intelligent creature alive, obsessed with the -practice of her duties. Her mind inside her, never in touch with what -is bigger and more important outside. She can be the stone around her -husband’s neck. That is what Helen is.” - -Mr. Cutter sighed. He was fond of Helen. - -“What has she ever done for George? I ask you that.” She waited for his -answer as if she defied him to name one thing Helen had done to help -her husband. - -“Well, she’s been a good wife to him,” he repeated futilely. - -“There you go again,” she exclaimed. “I’ve been a good wife to you, -too, haven’t I?” - -“Indeed you have, my dear,” he answered gratefully. - -“But was I contented with being just that? When we came to this town as -poor as church mice and you got the position in the bank, I made up my -mind that you should be president of that bank some day, and you are, -aren’t you?” - -“Yes, my dear, and I owe everything to you--” - -“Not everything, Mr. Cutter,” she interrupted with a sniff; “but I -helped you; I made friends for you; I showed off before people to let -them know you were prosperous and a coming man. I had some pride.” - -“You did, my dear. You were game and looked it,” he answered with a -watery smile of memory in his eye. - -“And I bore a son for you.” - -“You ought not to blame Helen; you can’t--” he began. - -“Yes, I can,” she interrupted; “if she isn’t to have children, if poor -George’s name is to die with him, she might at least help him enjoy his -own career. But she doesn’t; she is becalmed. She hasn’t got it in her, -I tell you, to do what I have done to show my pride and appreciation of -the position you have made for us.” - -“But, Maggie, you are one woman in ten thousand. You have not only been -the best of wives, you have been everything to me a man needs.” - -This reduced her to proud tears, and ended the scene, he holding one -hand, she pressing a scented handkerchief to her eyes with the other. -She was really quite happy in a sort of fiercely indignant fashion. - -I suppose every husband tells his wife some such yarn as this. And -he usually gets away with it. He may even believe it for all I know, -although there are some millions of other husbands controverting his -testimony by the same flattery to their respective wives. - -We have biographies of great women, even if they are bad ones. But -I doubt if there is a single biography to be found of a merely good -woman, because for some reason goodness does not distinguish women, -and for another reason, while it may make them useful, dependable and -absolutely essential to others, it does not make them sufficiently -interesting to hold the reader’s attention or the world’s attention. -You never heard of one being knighted for virtue. It is not done. You -never saw a monument raised to just one woman who was invincibly good -and faithful in the discharge of her intimate private duties as a wife -or a mother. She must do something publicly, like leading a reform or -creating a disturbance. - -And the only feminine autobiographies I have read were written by women -who should not have done so. They have been without exception written -by some ignobly good woman, with every mean and detestable use of her -virtues at the expense of other people, or they were indecent exposures -of moral degeneracy and neurasthenic disorders. Good women cannot write -their autobiographies. The poor things are inarticulate. They lack the -egocentricity essential for such a performance. This statement stands, -even if the author eventually publishes some such looking-glass of -herself. - -I would not discourage any woman who is preparing to make of herself -a sacrifice wholly acceptable to her husband and family, but it is my -honest conviction that it will not pay her in this present world. And -that she will wind up like the sundown saint of herself, respected, -held in affectionate regard, maybe, but unhonored and unsung. So go -ahead with your sacrifice, but do not complain about it. Men, as well -as gods, accept sacrifices, but they rarely ever return the compliment. - -Helen Cutter belonged to this class. The first years of her marriage -passed happily enough. She was not too good. She was often exacting in -her pretty, soft, white way. But she always produced this impression of -whiteness and simplicity. She was in the confidence of her husband to -this extent, she knew how rapidly he was forging ahead in business. She -marveled at the swiftness with which he turned over money and doubled -it. And she never questioned his methods. - -Then the time came when business engrossed him to the exclusion of -every other interest. He was obliged to make frequent trips to money -markets in the East and the West. He began to be hurried, preoccupied, -irritable. - -This is the history of many successful men in the married relation. It -usually results in the wife’s finding another life of her own, in her -children, in social diversions or some other activity. Cutter wished -for this solution for his wife. He provided her amply with funds. But -it seemed that she did not know how to spend money foolishly. She was -invincibly moral about everything. She performed her tea-party duties -at regular intervals without any distinction as a hostess, paid a few -calls and remained a “home body.” - -She perceived the change in her husband. He was not now the man she had -married. He was no longer even of her class. She could not keep up with -him. She knew that she was not even within speaking distance of him, -because she could not talk of the things he talked about. Finances, -big enterprises, the plays in New York, life in New York. The one bond -which might have held them did not exist. She had no children. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -A trivial circumstance finally enlightened her as to the length and -breadth of the distance between them. - -One morning at the breakfast table Cutter looked at his wife -appraisingly. They had been married eleven years. She was still pretty, -but it was a beauty maturing into a sort of serenity, no vivacity. She -had, in fact, a noble look. Stupid women do frequently get it. He had -long since made up his mind that Helen was, to say the least of it, -mentally prismatic. She had no elasticity of charm. Still he resolved -to risk her. - -“Helen, Shippen gets in from New York this afternoon. I want to bring -him out here for dinner. Do you think you can manage it?” he asked. - -“The dinner? Why, yes, of course, George,” she replied, having no -doubt about being able to manage a dinner. This Mr. Shippen could not -possibly be more exacting than George was himself. - -“He is coming down to look at that pyrites mine I want to sell. We -are going to get into this war, and the Government is bound to need -pyrites. Shippen is tremendously rich, something of a sport, I imagine. -He was rather nice to me when I was in New York last month, introduced -me to a lot of men I need to know,” he explained. “So you must help me -out by doing your best,” he added significantly. - -“I will, dear,” she assured him, still unperturbed. - -This serene confidence disturbed him. He doubted if she could put -across the simplest meal in a correct manner. During the lifetime of -his mother, his father had entertained such out-of-town guests; but -these excellent parents had been dead for years. He was obliged to fall -back on Helen. - -“You must do your best and look your best. You are lovely, you know.” - -“Am I?” she asked, not coquettishly, but as if this was an opportunity -to assure herself about something which was causing her anxiety. - -“Yes, of course, you are,” he returned in a matter-of-fact tone. -This was no time to get personal with his wife. He wanted her to do -something and do it well. - -“Wear that gown I bought you from Madame Lily’s,” he suggested. - -“Oh! must I?” she exclaimed as if she asked, Would it be as bad as that? - -“The very thing, and wear the necklace.” - -She said she would, but what she thought was that if she must dress -like this she could not stay in the kitchen and help Maria with the -dinner, and Maria was not to be trusted. She was “heavy handed” when it -came to salt, for example. Her chief concern was for the dinner, not -herself. She always missed her cue. - -Nevertheless, Shippen had the shock of his swift life when he was -presented to Mrs. Cutter that evening. - -The weather was very cold. A bright fire burned in the grate. A -chandelier of four lights overhead left scarcely a shadow in this -cheap little parlor. Everything in it glared. The white walls stared -you out of countenance. The golden-oak piano turned a broadside of -yellow brilliance across the flowered rug. The whatnot showed off. -The spindle-back sofa fairly twinkled varnish. Inanimate things can -sometimes produce the impression of tittering excitement. The furniture -in this pop-eyed room seemed to be expecting company. Only the two -mahogany armchairs on either side of the fireplace preserved their -gravity and indifference, as if they had been born and bred to be sat -in by the best people. - -Shippen saw all this at a glance; at least he felt it without knowing -what ailed him. Later he was to quail in a sort of artistic anguish -beneath the cold, calm, crayon gaze of that excellent carpenter, the -late Sam Adams, whose portrait still hung above the mantel. And he was -to feel the colder, grimmer crayon eyes of the late Mrs. Mary Adams -piercing him between the shoulder blades from the opposite wall. But -that which riveted his attention this first moment when he entered the -room with Cutter was Mrs. Cutter. - -She stood on the rug before the fire, a slim figure, but not tall. She -was wearing a cloth gown of the palest rose lavender, the bodice cut -low, fitting close to her white shoulders, lace on it somewhere like a -mist, a wildly disheveled bow of twisted black velvet that seemed to -strike at him, it was so vivid by contrast with all this gem paleness -of color. A necklace of opals, very small and bound together by the -thinnest thread of gold, with a pendant lay upon her breast. Her pale -blond hair was dressed simply, bound about her head like piety, not -a crown. No color in her skin, only the soft pink lips, sweetened -somehow by that pointed flute in the upper lip, long sweeping brows, -darker than her hair, spread like slender wings above the wide open -blue eyes, seeing all things gravely, neither asking nor giving -confidences. - -“This is Mr. Shippen, Helen. My wife, Shippen,” George finished -cheerfully. - -He had made a hasty survey of Helen. She would do, he decided, if only -she would go, move off, say the right thing. - -Helen offered her hand. She was glad to meet Mr. Shippen. - -He bowed over this hand, very glad, and so forth and so on. - -She said something about the weather; he did not notice what she said -nor what he answered; something about the same weather of course. But -whatever he said had not released him from her gaze. She kept him -covered. Cutter had joined in with his feelings and opinion on the -weather. What was said made no difference. Shippen had to keep his eyes -down or running along the floor, not on Mrs. Cutter. Men do that when -they are startled or ill at ease with a woman, if they are uncertain -about where to place her in the category of her sex. Shippen was very -uncertain on this point. He had seen many a woman better gowned, more -beautiful, but never had he seen one with this winged look. - -“Are we late?” Cutter asked, addressing his wife. - -“No,” she answered briefly, as if words were an item with her. - -“Well, anyhow we are hungry,” he laughed. “Took Shippen out for a -little winter golf. Links rotten after all this rain. No game. All we -got was an appetite.” - -Shippen glanced at Cutter. For the first time he recognized Cutter. -Smart fellow, pipping his village shell. But, good heaven, this room! -Might have got further than this in his scenery. - -He went on catching impressions. He felt very keen. It occurred to -him suddenly that Cutter’s wife was responsible for the room. This -fellow who could fly like a kite in the markets couldn’t fly here -or move or change anything. Odd situation. If this was her taste in -house furnishing, who chose her frock for her? She was dressed like a -fashionable woman, and she looked like a madonna; not virginal, but -awfully still like the image of something immortally removed. She gave -him a queer feeling. Still it was distinctly a sensation; he handed it -to her for that. - -All this time Cutter was talking like a man covering some kind of -breach, laughing at the end of every sentence. He heard himself making -replies, also laughing. Nothing from Mrs. Cutter. He looked across at -her seated in the other mahogany chair, and dropped his eyes. Her gaze -was still fixed on him, no shadow of a smile on her face. He understood -why instantly. This was not mirth, this was laughter he and Cutter -were executing as people do when they make conversation. He was amazed -at this woman’s independence. She had nothing to say and said it in -silence. She heard nothing amusing, therefore she was not smiling. She -was not even embarrassed. - -It all depends upon your experience and angle of vision what you see in -another person. This is why your husband may discover that some other -woman understands him better than you do. She knows him better than -you do because she knows more about men than you do. And if there is -anything that weakens the moral knees of a man quicker even than strong -drink, it is to feel the soothing flattery of being better understood -by another woman. - -Precisely in this way Shippen understood Helen, and knew perfectly -that Cutter was not the man who could do it. She was invincible, he -saw that; stupid, he saw that. And he was enough of a connoisseur -in this matter to realize that intelligence would sully this lovely -thing. Merriment would be a facial transgression. She was that rare -and most mysterious of all creatures, a simply good woman without the -self-consciousness they usually feel in their virtues. - -He kept on with these reflections during dinner, which was served -presently. He had no idea what kind of dinner it was. He was assembling -plans for a speculation. He had been successful in many lines besides -those involving money. - -“You come to New York occasionally, don’t you, Mrs. Cutter?” he asked, -endeavoring to engage her in conversation. - -“Not that often. I have been there only once,” she told him with a -faint smile. She had referred to her wedding journey without naming it. -At that time she and George had spent a week in New York. - -“You liked it, of course?” Shippen went on. - -“It is like a book with too many pages, too many illustrations, too -many quotations, isn’t it?” she evaded. - -Shippen threw back his handsome black head and laughed. - -Cutter shot a bright glance at his wife and joined in this applause. -He had no idea she could think anything as good as that to say. And she -could not have done so if he had asked the question. - -“What I mean is that one must live there a long time before he could -know whether he liked it or not,” she explained. - -“Well, I think you would,” he answered, meaning some flattery which she -did not get. - -Having said so much, she had nothing else to say. The two men went on -with this discussion of New York life. Cutter was determined to let -Shippen know that he was no stranger to it--old stuff, such as brokers -and buyers get, under the impression that they are bounding up the -social ladder of the great metropolis. Shippen heard him give quite -frankly his café experiences, not omitting soubrettes. No harm in what -he was telling, of course, but as a rule men didn’t do it at home. - -Once or twice he glanced at Mrs. Cutter, ready to come to heel, change -the subject if he saw the faintest shade of annoyance on her face. -There was no shade there at all, only a calm, clear look. And this look -was fixed on him as if he were a page she read out of the book of this -city. Apparently she was indifferent to what Cutter was saying. He -decided that she was not jealous of her husband. - -He wondered if Cutter had the least conception of the kind of woman his -wife was. He thought not. Some day she would stand immovable in the -way of his ambitions, he decided. In that case what would Cutter do? -This was--well, it might prove very interesting. He went on speculating -personally along this line. - -The reason why so many men try to climb Mount Everest is because they -cannot do it. Let even one reach the summit, and that exalted peak -has fallen into the hands of the tame geographers and scientists. It -becomes a business then, not an adventure, to chart those terrific -altitudes. For the same reason the most attractive woman to men is -the unattainable woman. Shippen found Mrs. Cutter attractive. He did -not analyze the reason why. It was not her beauty. He had had success -with far more beautiful women. He doubted his success here. Heavens! -To find a woman who could not be won! What an adventure. That steady, -unrevealing gaze in her blue eyes--what did it conceal? What did she -know? He doubted if she knew anything. That was it; she was something -real, not built up out of little knowledges, little virtues, spiced -with little vices, and finished like her furniture with the varnish of -feminine charms. What a noble change from the skittish kittens and the -secret viragoes and the mercenary starlings he had known. - -It is astonishing what terrible things a man can be thinking, while he -looks at you frankly and laughs honestly and takes your food like a -brother. Certainly Cutter would have been astonished if he had known -what was passing through the mind of his guest as they talked and -laughed together at this table. But it is a question if Helen would -have been moved. She did not know this man, but she felt him like a -darkness, in no way personal to her, but there, with George frisking -around like an ambitious spark in this blackness. She was thinking of -George chiefly, interpreting him according to Shippen. It was a fearful -experience, and no one suspected her pain, because a woman can dig her -own grave and step down into it behind the look and the smile and the -duty she gives you, and it may be years before you discover that she is -gone. - -All this is put in for the emotional reader who knows it is the truth, -and has probably felt the sod above herself, even while she is sadly -dressing beautifully for an evening’s pleasure with a husband who -has slain her or a lover whose perfidy has brought on these private -obsequies. But all such truth is unhealthy, like the failure of courage -in invalids. And in this particular I warn you that the fate of Helen -differs from your own. She died a few times, as the most valorous women -do; but she had a sublime instinct for surviving these incidental -passings. - -Shortly after dinner Cutter took Shippen back to his hotel. They had -some affairs to discuss further before he should leave on the early -morning train. Cutter explained to Helen, because this was unusual. It -was his invariable habit to spend his evenings at home. He was a good -husband, according to the strictest law of the scribes and Pharisees, -so to speak. What I mean is that he was literally faithful to his wife, -though you may have suspected to the contrary. This is not the author’s -fault, but due to the evil culturing of your own mind. A man may be -faithful to his wife, and at the same time frisk through the night life -of a place like New York. He may be doing nothing worse than taking a -whiff and an eyeful of the naughty world, getting something to talk -about to the other fellows when he comes home. It is silly, but not -wicked, as you are inclined to believe. I do not know why it is that so -many respectable women are disposed to suspect the worst where men are -concerned; but it is a fact which even their pastors will not deny. - -When Cutter came in that night Helen had retired. He turned on the -light. “Asleep, my dear?” he asked. - -“No,” she replied in that tone a woman has when her voice sounds like -the nice, small voice of your conscience. - -He came and sat down on the side of the bed, regarded her cheerfully, -like the messenger of good tidings. She lay very flat, hands folded -across her breast, face in repose, no expression, eyes wide open, a -state of self-consciousness bordering onto unconsciousness which women -sometimes sink into as a sort of last ditch. - -Cutter was so elated about something he did not observe that his wife -was dying momentarily. He wanted to talk. He had something to tell her. -“You were splendid to-night, Helen,” he began. - -She revived sufficiently to ask him if the dinner was “all right.” - -“Dinner!” he exclaimed. “I scarcely noticed what we had to eat. You -took the shine off the dinner. You were stunning. Means a lot to a man -for his wife to--make good; sets him up. Shippen was impressed, I can -tell you that.” - -Shippen! She did not speak the name, but her glance, slowly turned on -him, meant it. - -“How did you like him?” he wanted to know. - -“I did not like him,” she answered distinctly. - -He stared at her. Her respiration was the same; her eyes coldly -impersonal. He sprang to his feet, kicked off his shoes, flung off his -clothes, snapped off the light and retired to the bitter frost of that -bed. He lay flat, clinched his hands across his breast and worked his -toes as if these toes were the claws of a particularly savage beast. -His chest rose and fell like bellows. His red brown eyes snapped in the -dark. - -Helen was the antidote for success, he reflected furiously. She was the -medicine he had to take, a depressant that kept him down when he might -have been up. Just let him get the wind in his sails, and she reefed -him every time. He had been patient, leaving her to have her own way -when it was not his way. Hadn’t he lived in his own house with those -blamed Adams pictures glaring at him for nine years? Yet he had endured -them for Helen’s sake. And the druggets, and the very cast-off teacups -of Helen’s family. - -Right now he was lying in old Mrs. Adams’ bed and had done so for nine -years, when he much preferred his own bed. He had tried to bring Helen -out, and she would not be moved. He had tried to dress her according -to her station in life, and she would not be dressed. He had humored -her in everything. But now when he had an opportunity, a big chance -which he could not take without her, she planted her feet as usual. -She obstructed him at every turn. She didn’t like Shippen. That showed -which way the wind would blow when he told her. And he had to tell her. -He could not move hand or foot without her. But, by heaven! if she -didn’t come across this time-- - -“George,” came a voice from the adjacent pillow. - -“Umph!” he answered, startled out of finishing that threat he was about -to think. - -“You asked me, or I should not have told you what I think of Mr. -Shippen. But since you want to know--” - -“I don’t want to know. I am trying to get a little sleep. I’m tired,” -he interrupted. - -“But since you ask,” she went on, “I think he is horrible. He reminds -me of the powers and principalities of darkness. He made my flesh -creep--” - -“For the love of peace, Helen, stop. You know absolutely nothing about -him.” - -“Yes, I do.” - -“What?” - -“I know that he is wicked.” - -“How do you know?” - -“I feel it.” - -He snorted and turned over. He slept that night with his back to this -slanderer, who did not sleep at all. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -The next day George Cutter’s spirits had revived and with them a -certain hope. He resolved to have it out with Helen. She was not -reasonable. Few women were, but he knew that she loved him. He might -count on that. - -In the evening after dinner they sat before the fire in the parlor. -Helen wore a dark dress, plain, durable, unbecoming. He considered this -dress, the woman in it, with a coolly impartial eye. His heart failed -him. He doubted if she could pull it off if she would. If, for example, -she could be made to realize the importance of dressing handsomely and -extravagantly every day. If she could be induced to live the life she -would have to live. He admitted it was a sort of puppet existence. But -as necessary to his success as the dummies in a shop window are to -advertise the owner’s trade. Ten thousand women did it all the time, -liked it. Still Helen was not one of them. She was removed by nature, -every instinct, from that class. He was half a mind to give up the -whole thing. At this moment, Helen looked across at him. There was -a hint of tears in her eyes, a fugitive smile on her lips as if this -smile pleaded with him for a certain forgiveness. - -He laughed. He stood up and took her in his arms. - -“Am I all right now, George?” she asked, as if she had been shriven by -this embrace. - -“Absolutely,” he assured her. - -They sat down. Helen sighed, being now full of that sad peace which -makes sighs. - -“The trouble with you is, dear, that you are never wrong. That cuts you -out of life. We who are in the thick of it must be a little wrong,” he -explained. - -“I suppose so,” she agreed. - -“Not so rigid. We can’t be,” he said. - -She agreed to that also. - -“If you could be a little less perfect, it would help me a lot.” - -She smiled, implying that in that case she was in a position to help -him. But what could she do? She had often felt how little service she -was. - -Her meekness intrigued him. “How would you like to live in New York?” -he asked. - -“I would not like it,” she answered after a pause. - -He might have known what her answer would be, Cutter reflected -bitterly. His face reddened. His anger was rising. - -“Why? Do you want to live there?” she asked, feeling this silence -directed against her. - -“Oh, it makes no difference what I want, because if we lived on -separate planets you could not differ more widely than you do from my -way of life and my desires, my very needs,” he exclaimed. - -This was unjust, she knew. Still she felt guilty. - -“George, I can’t pretend that I should like to live in New York, but if -you want to go there, I will go. I must not stand ever in the way of -your success.” - -He sat in brooding, bitter silence, staring into the fire. - -“We might live very quietly; at least I could, couldn’t I?” she asked -timidly, ready to make every other concession. - -“No; you could not. You’d have to play the game as other women do. You -would not do that. You--your whole mind is against the idea--you would -not adjust yourself. You would not even try to adjust yourself to the -world as it is. You want to make one yourself, six hundred feet long -and seven hundred feet wide with this house in the middle of it. You -have done it. Look at it,” he exclaimed, with a glance that swept this -room like a conflagration. - -This was the first time she had suspected that the parlor was not -furnished according to his liking. She was that simple, and he had been -that patient. - -“You have created a place to live in where nobody can live except as -you do,” he went on. - -He took no notice of the fact that she sat with one hand on her breast, -staring at him with a look of mortal pain. - -“Well, I will be more considerate of you than you can be of me, Helen,” -he began again. “We will drop the idea of going to New York. You like -this place. I might be contented here myself, if I had nothing to do -except keep it. But I have my business, a man’s name and reputation to -make. I will stay here when my affairs don’t require me to be somewhere -else. You understand,” giving her an eye thrust. - -“Yes,” she answered, meeting this thrust steadily. She was dying to her -happiness, not without reproach, but without fear. - -He crossed his legs and swung his foot after this deed. He did not tell -her that Shippen had offered him a partnership in a big business the -night before. In view of her unreasonable prejudice against Shippen, -this information would only have furnished her with stronger objections -to his plans. - -The point was that she had failed him as a helpmate in the career he -had chosen. He purposed to alter his course accordingly. He would -do the square thing by her. She was his wife. He had that affection -for her; but she should not block his way. He meant to get on with -her or--without her. Other men did. He knew successful men in New -York, whose wives spent half their time in Europe or somewhere else. -He supposed he might do better than that. The bank in Shannon would -require a good deal of his time. He would come home occasionally. He -must spend a few days out of every month there. - -This was the end. Helen sensed it. She saw his side of the situation. -She had failed her husband. She had been obliged to do so. He had never -expressed the least regret because she had not borne children, but -she knew that if they had had children, this would have made all the -difference. She supposed she herself might have been a different sort -of woman if she could have been a mother. Her influence as a wife had -never reached beyond the door of their home. Now she had failed him at -this upward turn in his career. - -She had been a good wife to him according to the Scriptures, but he -needed another kind of wife, one who could fill a public position, a -wife according to the world. She grasped this fact clearly, held it -before her, regarded it with remarkable intelligence during a strictly -private interview she had with herself on this subject some time the -next day. She wondered how many wives combined the two offices which -George required of her. If you were the social official of his home, -if you “played the game,” as he called it, how could you be--well, the -kind of wife she had been to George? - -She thought of Shippen in connection with this reflection. She could -not have told why, but she did. She was not so stupid as not to suspect -that Shippen had something to do with this sudden desire that George -had to live in New York. “Playing the game” meant coming in constant -contact with men like Shippen, women like the women they had discussed -that night at dinner--Shippen and soubrettes; somebody’s wife they had -seen in a café with a man who was not her husband and whom they had -discussed with a curious sort of grinning admiration, as if this lady -was a lady to be reckoned with. - -Helen was wrong, of course, in the picture she drew of the game the -worldly wife must play. But there was this much sanity in her point of -view: Such a wife cannot always choose her partner nor the card she -must play. It is a skin game, matrimonially speaking, and sometimes the -one skinned is the husband, more frequently it is the wife, even if it -is only the gossips who do the skinning. - -Helen made her way through such reflections as these, not as I have -written them down in words, but as one walking through the dark in a -dangerous place, with cautious steps and outstretched hands, feeling -the edges of strange abysses with her feet, touching unknown things -that might be alive with reptilian life. - -The private mental life of all women, good or bad, is usually morbid, -consisting of thoughts or speculations which bring an emotional crisis -and leave them in fears and tears more frequently than we can believe, -judging by the faces they show. - -Helen passed at this time through some such crisis. She was not changed -by it, because women of that sort are the “amens” of their sex. But -she was confirmed. She remembered what George had said long ago about -this belief in the freedom of love. She had often recalled it, always -with a pang of terror. If she had ever been jealous of him, it was in -this indefinite way. Now the way that led to such love seemed to widen -before her eyes. - -She was alone in her room, sitting on the side of her bed during this -scene with herself. You know by your own experience, if you are a -married woman, that you always sit on the side of your bed when you -are dramatizing the sadder prospects of going on doing your duty by -this husband--or of not doing it. You chose the bed instead of a chair -because of a potential sense of prostration. You prepare yourself to -fall back in a storm of tears or to sink upon your knees in prayer for -strength to bear this “cross.” The more modern woman is said frequently -to rise unshriven, stride majestically across the room and stare at her -own proudly rebellious reflection in the mirror. - -Helen did none of these things. She simply sat there, dry-eyed, -unprayerful, not rebellious, reviewing the future. This can be done -with amazing vividness, because the future is always a repetition and -development of the past. Then she made a resolution. It was that later -secret marriage vow a wife sometimes takes after she is acquainted with -the deflation and vicissitudes of this relation. Whatever happened, -she would be a good and dutiful wife to George. She would be patient. -Nothing should move her to reproach him. Thus she abandoned her rights -and self-respect. I do not say that she ought to have done this; I -doubt it; but the fact remains that many women do it. And in the end -they frequently become sanctuaries for disgracefully defeated husbands. -But to say so is not to recommend the practice. My task is to show how -it worked out in this instance. And you are warned therefore that a -sanctuary may become a very fine edifice, even smacking a little of -worldly grandeur. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -The little pale image of goodness so frequently seen sitting in -Cutter’s car before the bank waiting for him around five o’clock in the -afternoon was what remained of the original Helen two years after he -had relinquished his plan to live in New York. - -Keeping an entirely good resolution may be strengthening to character, -but it is fearfully damaging to feminine beauty. For one thing such -women lose the sense of clothes. Helen had known how to dress in the -happy, wild-rose period of her youth; but how can you keep up the -flaunting, flowing sweetness of your draperies when you are no longer -a girl to be won, but have become a wife who has been reduced to her -duties and her virtues? - -Still, things had not been as bad for her as she had expected they -would be. George was away from home now much of the time. He had -interests in New York and spent at least a part of every month there. -But she heard from him regularly, usually a wire, sometimes a brief -note. When he was at home, it was the same old routine, except that he -spent more time at the golf and country club. - -The truth was that Helen got on his nerves frightfully with her silence -and dutifulness and patience. The impeccable wife is a difficult -proposition, if you tackle it. Cutter instinctively avoided the issue. -He accepted Helen for this awfully “better” woman than he had bargained -for. There was none of that human “worse” in her, so amply provided for -in the marriage ceremony, with which to vary the monotony of their life -together. Often he wished for a stormy scene, such as by nature married -people are entitled to have. If he was irritable, she left him alone. -If he was calm, she would come and sit and sew a fine seam in a sweet -silence that was perfectly maddening. If he flung the paper he was -reading on the floor, slammed his feet down and groaned, she would look -up at him, then drop her eyes once more to this seam--or she would rise -and leave the room noiselessly. - -Good heavens! He could not stand it, meaning “her.” Why didn’t she -complain that he neglected her? Why didn’t she say something, show -some spirit? Why didn’t she appeal to his conscience? That was what a -wife was for--one thing, at least. If she would only show some fight, -he might regain control of himself; as it was, he was slipping. Why -couldn’t she see that and stop him? He really wanted to slow up; but -how was a man to do it with his wife letting him go like this? - -Cutter was the kind of man who would eventually account for his -transgression by saying if he had married another sort of woman he -might have been a better man. In that case, you may be sure, if his -wife had married a totally different kind of man, she would have been a -happier woman. - -Meanwhile Helen was prepared for the worst. This is a terrific -preparation, but sometimes the only one a woman can make; and it -leaves her in a singularly placid state of mind. If she had understood -the situation, she might have behaved differently. But she did not -understand Cutter. - -The woman who knows only one man never knows much about him. To -understand a husband, you must do a lot of collateral reading of -mankind. He is all of them, from the best to the worst. You are not so -apt then to be mystified by his various manifestations. And if you have -any sense of the proper courage of your sex, you will act according to -his symptoms, not your own sanity, even if it is to burst into tears -and cry: “Undone! Undone! Oh, my God!” - -He will fall for it and react every time; because God, upon whom you -have just called, no doubt having your emergencies in view, has created -men so that almost without exception they have no defense against a -weeping woman. - -At the same time it is the worst possible governing principle not -to vary your tears with laughter, tyranny and some sort of lovely -unreasonableness. Men cannot endure a perfectly logical and sane woman. -She is too much like a petticoated edition of themselves. They want -action. You must keep your ball rolling, you must convince your husband -of your mental inferiority and of your tender superiority. - -Helen, poor girl, was not that much smarter than her husband. She was -straight. She lacked the dearer deviousness of her sex, and, within her -limits, was utterly all to the good. Whether a state of unmitigated -morality is profitable is a thing I have always wanted to know. And -in the course of a long life, the only answer I have ever been able -to find is that any state bordering on immorality, or unmoralness, is -sure to prove unprofitable. The difference between these two equations -offered the only light at the time on Helen’s future. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -In April of 1917 this country joined the Allies in the Great War. The -nation was transfigured with that spiritual and sacrificial emotion -which invariably follows the sending of vast armies of men to be -slain. The profits on patriotism were enormous for those who knew how -to do business at the expense of the people. Cutter was one of these -eminently sane profiteers. He had doubled his fortune during the first -few months. He remained in New York most of the time. He had been away -from home the whole of July. - -One morning early in August he arrived at the door of his own house in -Shannon. Helen had not expected him. She was flustered. Breakfast had -been served, but she would have another breakfast prepared at once. - -No, George explained briefly, he had had something on the train; she -was not to trouble herself on his account. - -This consideration was unusual. Well, he must go in and lie down; she -knew he must be worn out, Helen suggested. - -No, he was not tired; and no, he would not go in and lie down. - -He behaved like a visitor in the house. But he remained at home all -day, puttering about the house and garden with a curious gentle air. -After lunch he took a nap on the sofa in the parlor. To Helen’s -question as to whether he would go out for some golf as usual, he had -replied that he would not play golf and that she might have an early -dinner. Afterwards she remembered a faint embarrassment in his manner -during the whole of this day, as if it were an effort to talk or reveal -the simplest word of himself. But at the time Helen was pleased without -questioning why he was behaving in this vaguely domestic fashion. - -Late in the afternoon she had followed him into the garden, seated -herself on a bench there with her hands folded--merely present, you -understand. Cutter continued to pace slowly back and forth along the -walk. Helen observed him gently. She thought he looked spent. She was -glad he was taking the day off; this was all she thought about that. - -Now and again Cutter regarded his wife with a sort of remorseful -tenderness. He was experiencing one of those futile reactions a bad man -has toward ineffable goodness when he knows he is about to be rid of -the burden and reproach of it. Presently he came and sat down beside -her in the sweet, unaccusing silence she always made for him. - -Her skin was still very fair, her hair darker, with golden lights, her -brows much darker, the same blue eyes, white lidded. Strange he had -never noticed before that the clothes she wore were like her--this -grave little frock she was wearing now, white, sheer, like a veil, long -pretty sleeves, a kind little waist with darts in it to fit her figure. -Who but Helen would ever think of taking up darts in her bodice this -year when every other woman was fluffing herself? He smiled at this, -but the humor of his face was neither intimate nor affectionate. It was -a sort of grinning footnote to Helen’s character. - -He began presently to feel the old irritation at her silence. He -halted, dropped down on the bench beside her, but at the other end, -hung himself by one elbow over the back of it, crossed his legs and -addressed her with a question which he frequently used like a key to -turn in the lock of his wife’s silence. - -“Helen, if you were about to say anything, what would you say?” he -asked. - -“I was just thinking,” she answered, implying that she preferred not -to publish these thoughts in speech. - -But he wanted to know. His manner was that of a husband who wanted to -start something. - -“If we had children,” she began, looking at him, then away from him, “I -was wondering what they would be doing now.” - -His eyes widened over her, but she did not feel this amazement. Her own -gaze appeared to be trailing these children among the flowers in this -garden. - -“I often think of them,” she went on. “Our son--I always expected the -first one to be a son--he should be quite a lad now. What do boys of -fourteen do at this hour of the day?” regarding him with a sort of -dreaming seriousness. - -He made no reply. He had slumped; with lowered lids he was staring at -the graveled walk in front of this bench. - -“But the two little girls, much younger, would be here in the garden -with us. Isn’t it strange, I always know what they would be doing, -but not the boy. I have seen them in my heart like bright images in a -mirror; I have heard them laugh many a time.” - -He was appalled. Never before had he known Helen to talk like this. -Why was she doing it? Did she knew what was in his mind? Was she -deliberately torturing him? - -“Everything would have been so different if they had lived,” she went -on, as if she had actually lost these children, “your life and mine. -They would have changed us, our ways and our hopes. We should have -built the house we planned--for them,” turning to him with a dim smile. - -“I suppose so,” he said, obliged to answer this look; “but you know I -have never regretted that we have no children.” - -“At first you wanted them,” she reminded him. - -“But not now. It is better as it is,” he returned moodily. - -“No; not for me; not for either of us,” she sighed. - -For the first time in her life she saw tears in his eyes. - -“For them?” she asked putting out her hand to him. - -“No, for you,” he answered, drawing back from this hand. - -She noticed that. Her attitude toward him was one of submission. She -did not ask herself now why he shrank from her touch. She knew nothing -about the psychology of passion, its strange and merciless revulsions. - -“A son or a daughter would be company for you now,” he said after a -pause. - -“Yes; it’s been dull, not having them with me now. One grows so quiet -inside. It must be a little like dying, to be getting older and stiller -all the time.” - -He could not bear this. He had a vision of what had happened to her. -And now it was too late; she was predestined, even as he was doomed to -his fate.... What follies love imposed upon youth! He had loved her -and taken her, when she belonged to another kind of man, when he might -have been happy with another kind of woman. Now he no longer loved -her, and the other woman might give him pleasure, but never peace or -happiness.... He supposed, after all, there must be something moral -about happiness. Well, then, why had he missed happiness with Helen? -Heaven knew she was made of every virtue. And he had kept his vows to -her. He had not actually broken faith with her--yet. - -He rose and walked to the other end of the garden. He stood with his -back to Helen, still thinking fiercely, like a man trying with his -mind to break the bonds that held him.... What a horror that this -woman should be his wife. Nothing could change that. She was not of -his kind. She was different; that was the whole trouble. If she were -not his wife she would be the sort of woman he would never notice or -meet. In view of everything--the vision of life and society, and what -was coming to a man of his quality--he regarded it as remarkable that -he had been so long faithful to her. It was stupid, silly, bucolic--the -kind of husband he had been to this kind of wife! - -He turned. Helen was still seated on the bench. The sight of her filled -him with irritation, a sort of peevish remorse. He was going to have -the deuce of a time getting through his next encounter with her. He -meant to put it off to the last minute. Meanwhile he simply must get to -himself, away from her. If she hung about he felt that he might lose -control of himself. And he must be careful not to say anything which he -might regret afterwards. - -He came back, stepping briskly along the walk, passed her as he would -have passed a carpenter’s wife on the street and went on toward the -house. - -Helen’s eyes had met him far down the walk. They followed him until -he disappeared around the corner of the house. Then, as if she had -received some dreadful warning from within, she pressed her hand to -her breast, her lips unfolded, her cheeks blanched, her eyes widened as -if she beheld the very face of fear. - -What was this? George was not like himself. She was aware of some -frightful change in him. There was a flare about him, something -feverish, disheveled in his apparent neatness. She began to think over -this day, his unexpected return that morning. Now that she came to -think of it, there was no train upon which he could have arrived at -that hour. His reserve, it was a fortification. She realized that now. - -She sprang up, started for the house. Something had happened, something -horrible. What was it? She must see George. She must touch him, speak -to him. - -She found him seated on the veranda with the afternoon paper spread -before him, held up so that she could see only the top of his head, not -his face. She stood struggling with herself. She wished to run to him, -fling herself upon his breast and cry out: “George, what has happened? -Do you love me? I am your wife. Kiss me.” - -Never had she felt like this, the nameless terror, the beating of her -heart like hammers in her breast. And all in this maddening moment, -she realized that she dared not approach him. He did not feel like a -husband, but like a stranger who did not belong in this house. - -She stood leaning against the spindle-legged pillar of the veranda and -waited. She did not know for what, but as if she expected a blow. And -she wanted it to fall. She wished to be put out of this pain as soon as -possible. - -Cutter laid aside his paper, stood up, swept a glance this way and that -as if he could not decide which way to retreat, then he went inside, -and affected to be looking for a book on the shelves in the parlor. He -heard Helen pass down the hall, knew that she had halted a moment in -the doorway. He felt as if he was being trailed. What he wished was -that she would have dinner, so that he could get through with this -business. It must be done after dinner, because he could not sit down -to the table with her afterward. - -She came back presently to fetch him to this meal. She wanted to cling -on his arm, as she used to do years ago. But he evaded her, she could -not have told how, only that if he had shouted to her not to touch him, -she would not have been surer of what he meant. - -They accomplished this dinner together. Cutter keeping his eyes -withdrawn from her, taking his food with that sort of foreign -correctness which a man never practices at his own table. Many times -they had passed through a meal in silence, but not a silence like this, -potential, strained. Once Cutter caught sight of Helen’s hand, which -was trembling. But he spared himself the sight of her face. - -She scanned his, marked the new lines in it, the sullen droop to his -eyes, usually so frank. She recalled the fact that he had not gone into -their bedroom during this day; that he had kept to the public places in -this house, as if it were no longer his house; that he had answered all -her questions briefly; that in the garden he had drawn back from the -touch of her hand; that now he was hurrying secretly to finish dining. -She had premonitions of some unimaginable disaster which intimately -concerned herself, but she could not bear to think what it was. By a -forlorn faith many a woman receives strength to remain stupidly blind -to her fate. Helen had some sort of faith that, if she kept perfectly -quiet, this horror, whatever it was, would pass without being revealed -to her. Then suddenly her courage broke. - -Cutter thrust back his chair, rose from the table and made for the -door. - -She followed him. “George,” she cried, “what is it? I am frightened”; -the last word keyed to a wail. - -They were standing where she had overtaken him in the hall. He took out -his watch, stared at it. “Twenty minutes past seven. The express is due -at eight,” he muttered with the air of a man who times himself, leaving -not a minute to spare. - -“Yes, the express is due then, but--” she began. - -“I am leaving on that train for New York,” he said, addressing her -point-blank. - -“But, George, this is only one day for me; and you have been away five -weeks,” she exclaimed. - -“Helen, come in here. I have something to tell you, and very few -minutes to spare,” standing aside that she might precede him into the -parlor. - -She went in, sat in one of the mahogany chairs and regarded him with -that long, winged look. The suppressed harshness of his voice had -steadied her. She was calm. Women can withdraw to some quiet corner, -sit perfectly still and watch you condemn yourself without a tremor, -although the moment before they may have been distracted by every fear. -I have sometimes thought it might be a form of spiritual catalepsy. In -any case, it is a very fortunate seizure. - -“I am returning to New York to-night,” Cutter informed her, still -standing as if this departure was imminent. “I shall make my home there -in the future.” - -“Without me?” she asked, as if it was merely information she wanted. - -“Without you,” he repeated, nodding his head for emphasis. - -“For how long?” - -“I have resigned as president of the bank here, disposed of all my -interests. It is not my intention ever to come back to Shannon.” He -did not look around to see how she had received this blow. He waited; -silence, no movement, not a sound. “You can get a divorce. It will be -easy,” he suggested. - -“No,” she answered. - -“I inferred that you would not now. Later, you may decide differently.” - -She said “No,” and she did not repeat it. - -“Meanwhile, I have provided for you. The house, the car, everything -here is yours. The deeds are made to you. And I have placed securities -to the amount of exactly half my estate in the bank here. They are in -your name. You will have an income of something more than ten thousand -a year. It is not much; but more, I think, than you will care to -spend.” He thrust two fingers into his waistcoat pocket and drew forth -a slender key. “This is the key to your safety deposit box,” dropping -it on the table. “You will need only to clip the coupons and cash -them,” he explained. - -She had not moved, but as she listened her face changed to scarlet. Her -eyes sparkled and were dry. - -There was another moment’s silence. Cutter picked up his hat, fumbled -it. He had not expected much of a scene, since Helen was so little -given to emotional scenery. But neither had he been able to predict -this indictment in fearful silence. - -“You have been a good wife, Helen. I have not one reproach. But things -cannot go on as they have gone. My life and my opportunities lie in a -broader field. I have sacrificed them too long already. You have not -been happy here as my wife; but you would be miserable in New York as -my wife. I am doing the wisest--in the long run the kindest--thing for -both of us, giving you your liberty and taking mine.” - -Since she would not answer he went on nervously. - -“I have told no one of--our plans. I leave that to you also. The one -thing I must have is the right to achieve my own life in my own way. I -give you the same privilege and--” - -“You have only ten minutes before the train is due,” she interrupted. - - - - -PART THREE - - - - -PART THREE - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -Sometimes when a man has been shot, he stands for the briefest moment -before he falls. So Cutter stood, still facing the window, while the -fatal shock passed through him. This was Helen who had spoken, who had -reminded him of the time when his train left, but not his wife. He -flirted his head around and snatched a glance at her. - -She was sitting very erect, not touching the back of her chair. The -little frills on her dress stuck up stiffly, like the petals of a very -fine white flower. Her cheeks were scarlet above this whiteness; but -there were no tears. Her chin was lifted; her lips closed; her eyes -covering him like a frost on a cold clear night, one of those still -nights when the whole of Nature’s business is to freeze. He turned, -took a step toward her, and did not dare take the next step. - -You may think you are making the best of a bad situation by ending it. -You may persuade yourself that you are doing the square thing, praise -yourself for behaving better than the average man does in a similar -predicament. Then suddenly something happens, a word falls upon your -ear, or you see yourself revealed in the eye of your victim as a rogue, -a common fellow who has lost his standing. - -Cutter had some such sensation as this, confused but devastating. He -was determined to be free, to be no longer bound to this woman who -ceased to appeal to him and who did not belong to the world he had won -by success. But how was this? She had turned the tables on him. She was -not only taking him at his word; she was dismissing him. - -I do not say that it is a queer thing about a man of this quality, -but it is one of the abortive characteristics of every man of this -quality, that he has a dog-in-the-manger instinct always toward the -wife he discards. He expects her to remain cravenly faithful to him, -to love and cherish him tearfully and patiently while he takes a whiff -around, because, heaven bless us, isn’t that the nature of good and -chaste women? It was. And yet here was Helen, instantly assuming the -autonomous attitude of a free state. She was making no effort to hold -him or save him. - -Hang it all, a man never could understand a woman! Here he was -standing before his discarded wife, having done the best he could for -her, divided his fortune with her, released her from her normal duties -to him, while he might have kept this property and lived as he pleased. -And in spite of all this, he was made to feel strangely humiliated, -worthless and unspeakable to her. This was what her look and manner -meant. Good heaven, he could not slink off defeated like this! He had -meant to go with his head up, not diminished. The sting of that would -interfere with his pleasure, and he had made expensive plans for a -gratifying existence in New York. - -“What I want, Helen,” he began after this tumultuous pause, speaking in -the husband tone of voice, “is a sensible understanding, not a breach. -I have provided for you as my wife should be provided for. If you -should ever need my help or protection--” - -“You have barely time to make your train,” she interrupted, glancing at -the clock and keeping her eye now on this clock. Her voice was not that -of a wife, but of a lady, speaking probably to some agent whom she was -determined to get out of the house before he sold her something she did -not want and could not use. - -“Oh, very well, if you won’t be reasonable!” he exclaimed as he strode -flashily past her. - -But when he reached the door he halted, looked back at her like an -actor being put out of the scene and required by his lines to pause, -show indecision, the fangs of his outraged emotions to the appreciative -audience. But there was no audience to witness Cutter’s histrionic -exit; only this neat, cool, little star of a lady with flaming cheeks, -whose eyes remained resolutely upon the face of the clock. - -This man, who a while ago could not bear the touch of his wife’s hand, -experienced a momentary revulsion toward his own future, to all it -offered. He wanted to go back, take Helen in his arms, kiss her, feel -the cleanness and sweetness of her goodness and nearness to him. But -this was only momentary. He remembered the dullness of the years. He -must buck up, he told himself hastily; just let him get through, escape -this last tug of the old life and he would be a free man. Beneath this -shrewd calculation of himself, there was a faint premonition that he -had better not go back in there to perform these last sacred rites of -parting with his wife. He was afraid of her, as criminals fear law. - -He went out, closing the front door softly behind him. He walked -hurriedly toward the station, disturbed and shamed by the thoughts his -very steps seemed to toss up in his mind. For months, while his affair -in New York was progressing lightly but surely toward this crisis, he -had dreaded this scene with Helen. He had felt for her, the distress -and anguish she must suffer at the idea of losing him. He had always -been as sure as that of her deep devotion. Now it appeared that he had -lost Helen. He realized suddenly that he had counted on her. Whatever -he became, back here in that quiet house Helen would always be his -wife. She was not the woman to think of a divorce. - -Well, he had been a fool not to have understood all along that Helen -would be true to herself as usual, to her own convictions, whatever -they were. And he was no longer one of these convictions. Life was -a mess, anyhow. If a man failed, he had poverty pawing at his door. -If he succeeded, made a fortune, his nature, his tastes and desires -all changed. If only Helen had gone out and made a name or a fortune, -achieved something in the world, he supposed she would be different -too. Maybe she would have understood-- - -The whistle of a locomotive in the distance ended these speculations. -He stepped from the pavement and swung with long strides down the -railroad track to where the sleeping cars would stop. A moment later -there was a rattle of the rails, a roar and a grinding of brakes. The -self-bereaved husband climbed aboard, walked magnificently up the aisle -of the car to his section, sat down, rumbled a command to the porter -and heaved a sigh. - -He was immensely relieved. The worst of it was over. He had suffered -some, but he was feeling very fit now, animated. He was done with the -past. He was headed for New York, the city that whetted a man’s senses -and ambitions. He had worked hard. The world owed him something for -that. No place like New York for collecting what the world owed a -fellow, and so on and so forth. - -The other passengers in the coach stared at him. People always did. -Impressive looking man, must be somebody, they decided. No one would -have dared drop his bag in that section and sit down opposite such an -oppressively prosperous looking person, not even if he had a ticket for -the “upper.” He would have glanced at his ticket, at Cutter; then he -would have gone on to the “smoker” and arranged with the porter to let -him know when he might climb into his berth, which, of course, would be -after the great man had gone to bed in the lower one. - -This is the professional pose of the recent-rich man. Every one who -rides in sleepers and parlor cars is familiar with the type. Sometimes -a shoe drummer can put it on to perfection; but as a rule it is a -fellow like Cutter, whose character and tastes and manners have been -developed by the shock of wealth, a diseased man morally who receives -more involuntary respect than any really distinguished man could bear. - -A man in mental, moral or financial distress will frequently pace the -floor all night. But women never do, because the forms of grief and -anxiety to which they are subject weaken them physically so that they -immediately take to their beds in anticipation of this prostration. -Therefore I hold that it is a circumstance worth mentioning that Helen -did not retire that night. She remained seated as he had left her until -she heard the express go by. Then she went through the house turning -out the lights. - -Maria, she observed by the seam of light under the kitchen door, was -still in there. If all her faculties had not been concentrated on -something else, she might have wondered why Maria was later than usual -in clearing up after dinner. She passed back up the hall without so -much as a look at her bed through the open door of her room, and sat -down again in the same chair in the parlor, as you go back to the place -where you left off in a book or to a train of thought when you have -been interrupted. - -There could never be real darkness in Shannon any more, because the -city had “water and electric lights” now. Still the room was nearly -dark, with only a faint reflection of the street light far below -through the window. Helen sat like the ghost of herself in this dimness -and silence. She was not thinking nor feeling. She had literally been -drugged by the horror of this last hour. She was numb--past all pain. -Presently she must return to consciousness; but she instinctively -prolonged this trance. Sometimes she changed her position in her chair, -but never once did she languish or cover her face with her hands or -address her Father in heaven. - -Here was a woman on her mettle at last, asking no odds of heaven. -So long as you have a husband, it is natural to remain in prayerful -communication with Providence for help and guidance, but when your -husband has abandoned you there is no such tearful feminine reason for -engaging the assistance of the Almighty. You may do it later; but for -the moment you feel quite alone in the universe. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -Sometime after midnight Helen stirred herself, much as if she was -awaking early in the morning with a busy day before her. She stood up, -stared about her in the shadowy room, moved to the windows and pulled -down all the shades. Then she turned on the lights. She stood directly -beneath the chandelier, lifted her hand to her head, unpinned her hair, -skewed it up tightly and pinned it like a harsh duty on the back of -her head. It was perfectly evident that she had made up her mind to -do something, and to do it thoroughly. She had a sort of merciless -house-cleaning expression. - -She glanced around the room, reached for two Cutter photographs on the -mantel, removed a recent excellent likeness of her husband from a frame -on the piano and left the room, carrying these things in her hand and -the frames under her arm. She paused long enough in the back hall to -lay the frames on the bottom step of the attic stairs. Then she went -out on the back porch and dropped the photographs down the cellar steps. - -She walked briskly back to her own room. For the next hour she -went through the house--drawers, closets and trunks--like the -fine-toothed-comb of femininity, her cheeks scarlet, her lips primped -purposefully, her eyes wide and busy, like the condemning eyes of a -censor who is determined to leave nothing that should be cut out, -removed and destroyed. From time to time she issued forth, her arms -laden with somebody’s worldly goods, obviously a man’s things, to toss -them down the cellar stairs and return for more. Finally she came out -with a shaving brush, the cord of a bathrobe and an old four-in-hand -tie, evidently the last gleanings. - -She descended the stairs, clearing the steps as she went of shirts, -collars, trousers, dress suits, overcoats, hats, brushes, shoes, -slippers, pajamas, even buttons. She worked hurriedly, cramming this -mass of clothing into the hot air furnace. She struck a match to these -things, watched the flame creep greedily along the sleeve of a fine -white shirt and lick the broadcloth back of a Tuxedo coat. Then she -closed the door, went back upstairs, took a glance around, to make sure -that everything was in its usual order, withdrew at last to her own -room, undressed, let down her hair, braided it, turned out the light -and went to bed. - -She could hear the furnace roaring below. She hoped all that -inflammable stuff would not set the roof on fire. That is to say, -she did not want to attract attention by the burning of her house. -Otherwise she was indifferent about what might happen. If only she -might escape notice for a while, until she could adjust herself to this -horror! In spite of the closed registers, a strong odor of burning wool -filled the house. She got up and raised the windows. She hoped the -scent would be gone before Maria and Buck came in the morning. Then she -rested, as one does after accomplishing something that must be done, no -matter how unhappy one is. - -At seven o’clock she heard stirrings in the kitchen as usual, but no -voices. This was not as usual, because there was always the subdued -rumble of conversation between these two servants early in the morning. -But she did not notice it. She rang for Maria and informed her that she -would take her breakfast in bed. She had never done this before; still -Maria showed no signs of surprise. She rolled her eyes and sniffed the -air of this house, which did not smell pure and undefiled. She was in -such a state of suppressed excitement that she could barely wait to get -back to the kitchen to whisper the news to Buck, who was just coming -up the stairs from the basement where he had been to interview the -furnace. Servants are the scavengers of all domesticity, especially of -wrecked domesticity. - -For the next three days Helen remained in bed. She was not ill; but she -was not able to face life on her feet. When your whole existence has -been absorbed by the life of another person--his will, his desires and -his habits have determined your every act--it is not so easy to have -freedom and the pursuit of your own happiness suddenly thrust upon you. -It is necessary to acquire new motives and new interests. - -Besides, Helen was obliged to face the humiliation of her abandonment. -So, as I have said, she remained in bed, very quiet, very pale, very -submissive to Maria’s ministrations. When she was alone, she lay for -hours scarcely moving, strangely abstracted. No doubt we come somewhat -after this fashion always into the next existence. One thing was -certain: The burden of her thoughts was not her recreant husband, else -there would have been tears, anguish, fever and presently the doctor in -attendance. - -A great grief may be a great exaltation. Helen had this high look when -Maria brought her breakfast tray in on the fourth morning. She was -not merry; she had nothing to say; but she had arrived somewhere in -her mind. It was obvious even to Maria that her mistress was about to -do something. She wanted to know what day of the month this was, as a -person who has been deliriously ill always asks about the time of day -when he recovers consciousness. - -Maria told her that this was the fifth. - -“Of what month?” was the astonishing next question. - -“August, Miss Helen.” - -“Oh, yes, of course,” she returned, apparently gratified that this was -still August. “Tell Buck to bring the car around at ten o’clock,” she -said. - -“She’s come out of her swoon, Buck, and wants you to have the car ready -at ten,” was the news Maria carried back to the kitchen. - -“Whar is we gwine?” he asked. - -“I dunno. But ef I knows Miss Helen like I thinks I does, they ain’t -gwine to be no grass growin’ under your feet no time soon.” - -She was polishing Mrs. Cutter’s pumps during this conversation. Now she -started back with them. She was about to lay her hand upon the knob -of Helen’s door when she stiffened, turned her head to one side and -listened. The sound of a voice issued through this door, one voice, -Helen’s. She was alone in there with her God, but it was obvious to -Maria that this was not any woman’s praying voice. Neither were the -astounding words she heard suitable for prayer. - -The fat old negress bent, laid her ear against the keyhole, rolled her -eyes and listened. Then, as if she could not bear the amazement of what -she heard, she flew back to the kitchen, caught hold of the astonished -Buck and moaned: “Oh, my Lord; oh, my Lord! And her a white ’oman!” - -“What’s de matter wid you, gal?” he demanded, shaking himself from her -grasp and staring at her. - -She refused to tell him. She implied that such information as she had -might cost them both their innocent lives, if she should repeat it. - -“You don’t know nothin’, and you ain’t heard nothin’,” he retorted, -going out, pausing at the door long enough to point at the pumps which -she still held in her hand. “You better take dem shoes to Miss Helen, -er she’ll be tellin’ you somethin’,” he warned her. - -Shortly after ten o’clock Mrs. George William Cutter appeared at the -Shannon National Bank. She wanted to look at some papers in her safety -deposit box, she told the cashier. - -She remained a long time closeted with this box. When she came out -she carried a sheaf of coupons in her hand; and she was very pale, not -gratified as a woman should look under these circumstances. Beneath the -coupons there was a check, drawn on a New York bank for ten thousand -dollars and signed by her husband. This check lay on top when she -opened the box; attached to it was a note stating with studied brevity -that this sum, including interest, was the amount she inherited from -her mother’s estate, which he “herewith returned.” It began, “Dear -Helen,” and was signed, “George,” with no softening, affectionate -prefix. - -It was this note, not the clipping of her coupons, that had detained -Helen so long in the little dark anteroom of the vault. There was no -date, but from the date on the check, she perceived that it had been -made on the tenth of July, when George had been in Shannon for a week. -As early as that, then, he had contemplated this separation! He was -planning this spurious honesty, paying back the money she had advanced -him years ago for his first adventure in stocks while he cheated her -of his love and her dignity as a wife. When you think about this, it -is always some relatively insignificant thing that excites your most -lasting contempt. So, now Cutter fell to the nadir of his wife’s -regard. She was obliged to remain in this little closet of the vault -after she had finished everything, endeavoring to compose herself -before she dared meet the scrutiny of the eyes outside. We do this so -often when really no one takes particular notice of us. - -It was the merest accident that Arnold, the new president, was coming -in and caught sight of her as she was leaving the wicket after -depositing the check and the amount of the coupons to her account. - -He greeted her effusively. “You are looking well,” he informed her. - -She knew that she was not, but she told him, yes, she was very well. - -“And how’s Cutter?” smiling as a man does when he thinks he has -introduced an agreeable topic. - -She said that she had not heard from Mr. Cutter since he returned to -New York. - -“Busy man! Busy man! Goes at everything like a house afire. You will -have to take care of him, Mrs. Cutter, or he’ll break down, go smash -one of these days.” - -She made no reply, merely swept her glance over Arnold’s shoulder -toward the door. - -“We were sorry to lose him as president of this bank. His resignation -came as a complete surprise. And now I suppose we shall be losing you. -You will join him in New York, of course.” - -“No,” she answered steadily. She had resolved to tell no lies and to -make no explanations. - -“Keep your home here then! Well, that’s good news. Means Cutter’s -anchored in Shannon, after all. He’ll be dropping in on us here at the -bank when he comes down; be mighty glad to see him.” - -She said she did not know, bade him good morning and went out. - -Arnold stood watching her through the window until she stepped into -the car. Then he turned to the cashier. “Nice woman, Mrs. Cutter, -but--well, she’s not vivacious, is she?” he said, grinning. - -“I have often wondered how a man like Cutter came to choose such a -wife,” the cashier returned with a slower grin. - -“Wasn’t a man like Cutter is now when he courted her. Young fellow; -I remember him well; had a fine physical sense of himself. Nobody -suspected he would ever develop the money-making talents of a wolf in -the market then. Fell in love with a pretty girl. She was the prettiest -thing in Shannon. Married her. That’s how it happened,” Arnold -explained. - -“Seems to have turned out all right.” - -“Never heard anything to the contrary; but you can’t tell. Something is -in the wind. I thought Mrs. Cutter looked pretty shaky this morning. -Had a sort of dying gasp in her eye. Pale, noncommittal. Couldn’t get -a darn thing out of her about Cutter. But she may be trained that way. -Wives of great men often remind us that what’s husband’s business is -none of our business,” he laughed. “Cutter’s a sort of cheap great man. -How much did she deposit?” lowering his voice. - -“Fifteen thousand.” - -“Open account?” - -The cashier nodded. - -Arnold whistled. - -“Show’s Cutter trusts her, anyhow.” - -“Shows she’s not being guided by her husband’s advice, or she’d never -keep that much money idle,” Arnold retorted. - -As things turned out, however, this was the busiest money in Shannon -that autumn. It was spent with amazing swiftness at a time when the war -extravagance of our government had already set the pace for reckless -spending. - -A situation frequently develops under our very eyes, and we have -no suspicion of it. The fact is, most situations that develop into -sensations begin this way. Then we discover that what has happened had -been “going on” a long time. Otherwise, I ask you how should we obtain -those breathless sensations with which the press and society nourish -our groggy minds? It is the unexpected that stirs and animates our -greedy, pop-eyed interest in life, especially the other fellow’s life. - -I will not go so far as to say that Helen acted from design, for she -was the least devious or designing woman I ever knew; but she must have -counted on the probability that some time must elapse before the breach -between Cutter and herself could be suspected in Shannon. His absence -would not be significant, because his business interests in New York -had kept him away from home most of the time for a year. The war, the -violent emotions and the terrific demands it imposed had unsettled all -life. - -People who never left home arose and flew this way and that, like -flocks of distracted birds. Old maids with dutiful domestic records, -suddenly laid aside their darning gourds and church work and sailed -for France, went into canteens and became the honorable mothers -of whole regiments. Young girls did likewise, and earned for -themselves distinctions that will become a heritage to womankind, all -mordant-tongued gossips to the contrary notwithstanding. In Shannon the -women worked like bees. If you paid your Red Cross assessments, turned -in sweaters and wash rags for the soldiers in France, no further notice -was taken of you. Because all womanly interests and affections were -centered on these boys in France. - -Helen made her contributions to these enterprises, bought a few bonds -and disappeared before the middle of October. The inference was that -she had joined her husband in New York. The _Shannon Sentinel_ so -stated in a brief local on no better authority than that the editor had -seen her board the express one evening. Passengers bound for New York -always took this train. And where else could Mrs. Cutter be going when -every finger of your imagination pointed to New York and her husband as -her logical and legitimate destination? - -This long-legged logical faculty, directed by imagination, is -responsible for much that is fictitious in current gossip and even in -written records; witness, for example, that master work of fiction, -Mr. H. G. Wells’ “Outline of History.” It is logical, convincing, and -much of it is based upon the most entrancing interpretation of rocks, -fossils and bones--which does not prove anything except that the -sciences of geology, anthropology and the rest of them are bright-eyed -sciences, full of delightfully imaginary conclusions. While it may all -be the truth, we do not know that it is true, and Mr. Wells cannot -prove that it is. Meanwhile, if we could exercise as much faith and -imagination toward God and the future as he has shown in revealing the -Paleozoic and previous periods in the past, somebody would be born -presently fledged with wings and a skyward mind. - -But, all that aside, what I set out to tell was that Helen did not go -to New York and that she did not return to Shannon until the beginning -of the following year. - -Shortly after her departure, a tall, dark young man with high black -hair, who carried his head bare, apparently out of deference to or -pride in this hair, descended from the morning train at Shannon. He -was accompanied by an ordinary looking man, apparently of the higher -artisan class. The two of them entered a taxi and disappeared out Wiggs -Street. - -No notice would ever have been taken of them, if they had not been -seen at a distance, standing in front of the Cutter residence, staring -at it, gesticulating, evidently engaged in fervid conversation, moving -from one side of the lawn to the other to stare again, talk and swing -up high gestures at this little, low, white setting hen of a house, as -if it was of the uttermost importance to do something about it. - -Mrs. Flitch watched these two strangers until she reached a certain -conclusion. Then she went to the telephone and called Mrs. Shaw. She -asked her if she had heard that the Cutter home was to be sold. - -Mrs. Shaw replied that she had not; but that she knew Mrs. Cutter had -stored all her furniture and things in the barn before she left. - -Mrs. Flitch said, well, that settled it. They were evidently about -to sell the place. Some men were out there looking at it now. No, -strangers. She had seen them pass just after the morning train from -Atlanta came in. Real-estate men, probably. She said she knew all the -time that the place would be sold. The wonder to her was that Helen had -stayed out there so long, with her husband practically living in New -York. And so on and so forth until they reached the usual discussion of -Red Cross supplies. - -A few days later the ordinary man of the artisan type returned to -Shannon with a roll of blue print under his arm. The next thing Shannon -knew the roof was off the Cutter house and there was a corps of workmen -out there, spreading wings to it, putting on another story and setting -up magnificent columns in front to support the coronet-countenance of -this house. And from the awful rumpus going on within, it was evident -that partitions were being torn out and elegant changes being made. - -There was no Creel to censor news in Shannon. Rumors started and -turned back, or rumors died during a Liberty Loan drive. Finally, it -was settled that the Cutters had not sold their place, but that they -were spending a fortune rebuilding it. They were not obliged to count -the costs, even during these strenuous times when the price of labor -and materials were beyond the reach of most people. They had plenty of -money and no children. Still, a display of wealth at such a time was -certainly in bad taste. Had anybody heard a word from Helen since she -went to New York? This query went the rounds of the Red Cross room late -in November. No one had heard from Helen. Mrs. Arnold said that her -husband had received one or two letters from Mr. Cutter on matters of -business. She understood that Mr. Cutter had some kind of government -contract and was making a great deal of money. - -Mrs. Flitch tossed her little gray head, snapped her black eyes and -said she supposed the Cutters would come back now and then, with their -maids and butlers and valets and fancy dogs, and quarantine themselves -in this fine house and refer to the people of Shannon as the “natives.” -If they did, it would make no difference to her. She had known the -Cutters since George Cutter’s father and mother came to Shannon and -lived in a three-room house, and Maggie Cutter did her own work. And -she lived next door to the Adamses for twenty years. Helen was nobody -but the daughter of Sam Adams who was a carpenter, and she never would -be anything else to her. - -Mrs. Shaw said if it had been her house she would not have painted it -colonial yellow. But she admitted the tall white columns “set it off.” - -Mrs. Arnold said she and Mr. Arnold had strolled out there on the last -bank holiday. They had gone through the house, because they expected to -build and wanted “ideas.” The rooms were large now, lofty ceilinged; -and the walls were beautiful. She had been especially impressed with -the big room added on the west side. “It is different from the others -which are done in a misty gray with the woodwork finished in old ivory. -They are elegant and sober. But this one is not sober, very bright.” - -“Probably the ball room,” Mrs. Flitch suggested. - -Mrs. Arnold glanced up from the bandage, she was rolling. “No,” -she said, “I am sure it is not a ball room, because it opens into -the one Mrs. Cutter has reserved for herself, they told me. The -decorations--are unusual. I was surprised.” - -This was as far as she got. She had a neat little mind and only -gossiped like a perfect lady, which is a very fine art. Still, she -thought it interesting, if not sensational in a pleasant way, that -this room had a decoration of Mother Goose pictures around the top of -it--all the literature of infancy illustrated there, in fact, from this -wandering goose mounting a highly ornamental staircase to the lurid cow -with exalted tail in the act of jumping over the moon. And she was glad -Mrs. Cutter had “this” to look forward to after so many years. A woman -without children was to be pitied. - -Then Helen Cutter came home late in January, quite unobtrusively and -alone. No maid, no wig-tailed man servant, no fancy dog. Evidently Mr. -Cutter was still in New York. - -But rich people continually did queer things that other people could -not afford to do. From that point of view everything looked all right. -Their wives went about the world alone, and their husbands frequently -did business in some other part of the world. No one in Shannon -suspected that the relations between Helen and her husband were even -strained. They merely heard that she had “come down” to superintend the -furnishing of her new house, that she had engaged an interior decorator -for this purpose, that a great many fine things had been shipped in, -and that she was having some of the best pieces of her golden oak done -over for her own room. These pieces were painted gray and delicately -ornamented with tiny wreaths of flowers. As it turned out, however, -most of this old stuff was used to furnish that large, bright and -sprightly room with the Mother Goose wall paper. - -As usual, Helen saw little of her neighbors. The weather was bad; her -house was topsy-turvy; she was very busy; and she had an established -reputation for reserve. Still, they met her here and there on the -street, in the shops, in passing. And once shortly after her return she -had paid a brief visit to the Red Cross rooms to deliver her quota of -sweaters. She would have remained longer: she craved the comradeship of -these women whom she had known all her life, but the consciousness of -her humiliation, yet unknown to them, affected her courage. - -Sometimes the woman who has fallen secretly avoids her friends and -acquaintances, because she knows that to keep up relations is a form -of cheating, for which she will be the more severely punished when -her deflection is known. I suppose Helen, who had every virtue, felt -the impending mortification of her situation, when it became known in -Shannon that her husband had deserted her. - -She came in, wearing a plain, long coat with a fine fur collar and a -close-fitting fur hat. She was received cordially and a place was made -for her at the long table where the bandages were being rolled. She sat -on the edge of her chair, as if she must be going presently. She was -not smiling. She appeared years younger, and there was a lost look in -her blue eyes which no one noticed. - -She took off her coat, in response to Mrs. Shaw’s invitation; but she -had only a moment to stay, slipping off this garment and revealing her -figure slender as a pencil in a blue frock of some smooth stuff smartly -buttoned to her chin. - -“We are glad to see you back here, Helen,” Mrs. Shaw said. - -Helen said “Thank you” for the simple reason that she could not pretend -to be glad of anything. A mania for veracity makes you inelastic, -uncouth and ungraceful socially. - -Mrs. Flitch asked her when she was expecting “George.” It was a shot -in the dark, and she did not mean it. But she was a woman whose very -instinct could aim accurately at your vulnerable point. - -“I am not expecting Mr. Cutter at all,” Helen replied. - -Mrs. Flitch had to take this answer, which was too frank to excite -suspicion. But she did want to know if Helen expected to make her home -in New York. “I suppose you will only come here now and then,” she -suggested, looking over the top of her glasses at her victim. - -“I shall never live in New York. My home is here,” Helen answered, with -the air of a person who would do this, but would not discuss her plans. - -She was one of those human “short circuits” who drops the periods in -conversations and compels you to start another sentence on another -topic. These women went back to the perpetual discussions that raged -at that time in every Red Cross working room, about the specifications -for wounded soldiers’ dressing gowns. Mrs. So-and-So’s work had -been returned, because she had put too many pockets--or not enough -pockets--on the gowns she had made. - -Mrs. Flitch had suffered the outrage of having two sweaters returned -because she had finished them around the bottom with a fancy rib -stitch. “As if that made any difference. There is too much red tape in -these Red Cross regulations,” she exclaimed. “They obstruct us more in -the work than the wire entanglements in France obstruct the advance of -the German Army.” - -This was not true, but it was so aptly put that a murmur of sympathetic -comment followed while needles flew and threads snapped. - -Mrs. Flitch was so fluffed up by this involuntary vote of confidence in -her rib stitch and her point of view that she turned to Helen and asked -her if she did not “think so too.” - -Helen answered no, she did not think so, because then everybody would -follow their own fancies in the making of these supplies, and there -would be no system. - -Mrs. Flitch’s needle flickered like a tiny spear as she hoisted it with -a jerk, bent over and bit off her thread as if this thread was the head -of an enemy. - -Another “short circuit”! Another fuse of conversation burned out! -Tongues flew like babbling wings to cover the breach. Mrs. Flitch sat -drawn up and reared back, cheeks reddening as if a wasp had stung her -in the face. - -Helen was like a tactless person who contributes an adverse opinion -upon stepmothers in a company where several eminently respectable -ladies have married widowers with children. She felt the sparks about -her, but she was not dismayed. She did not care how Mrs. Flitch felt. -She had reached that invulnerable stage of indifference arrived at only -through great suffering or moral abandonment. In either case, it is -always a state of mental courage. - -Mrs. Arnold was chairman of the Red Cross Chapter in Shannon. She sat -at the head of the work table during these snapped-off conversations, -discreetly silent. She was pursuing her own train of thought. Helen -stood up presently to put on her coat. She regarded this supple, -wisp-waisted woman with secret amazement. For she was the only one -there who had seen the nursery decorations in that new west wing room -of the Cutter residence. Her mind worked like the nose of a rabbit at -Helen, as the latter took her departure. - -The consensus of opinion after she went out was that she had “changed,” -with Mrs. Flitch in the minority. She said she could not see any -difference. “She’s only changed her ugly gray coat and blue hat for a -good-looking coat and fur hat.” This was all that was said about her. -Gossip, if you remember, was much neglected during this period. We -indulged in it briefly and went back to the transfiguring sensations of -our martial emotions. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -And Helen went home, let herself into her fine house, took off her -things and sat down before the library fire. - -She really had imported a maid, an ex-modiste of mature years, who -would be of service to her in the choosing of her clothes and dressing -herself properly. She could hear this woman now moving about in the -next room getting out her things. She was practicing dressing for the -evening, because now she had a purpose and a future in view which some -years hence might involve toilettes and magnificence. - -It certainly does change a woman to lose her husband. It buries her -or brings her out. I suppose if Helen’s husband had been properly -and providentially parted from her by death, she might have retired -sorrowfully into her widow’s state and effaced herself or devoted -herself quite differently to good works. But the passing of George -Cutter left no such sanctities to dignify her. On the contrary she had -been abandoned on account of her virtues and stupid devotion to home. -She was like Job. She held on to her integrity and was sustained, as he -was, by her conceit. - -But unlike Job, who suffered considerable financial losses during -this period, she had come into a considerable estate. She had been -paid off by this deflecting husband. Money will sustain your pride -and courage as an outraged woman when mere faith in God may leave you -exalted in the ditch of every worldly misfortune. Helen had remained -the proper resurrection period flat on her back in bed, not from -histrionic design; but she was actually able to rise on the third day. -My belief is that everything in the Scriptures is true, if you adjust -yourself to the way it is true. Thus, if you will not waste your vital -forces in emotional dissipations of grief when overtaken by sorrow or -humiliation, if you are really willing to live again normally, three -days down will usually put you on your feet with sufficient courage -and strength for the performance. It is no use to send for the doctor. -In cases of this kind a physician is a sort of psychic drug you take, -which requires a repetition of his soothing presence. Thrice fortunate -are they who dare to discover that the wings of adversity are the -strongest wings upward in human affairs. - -Helen, penguin bred, had acquired this serene flying power. She had -been absolved from a depressing devotion to an ignoble man. She came -out of her travail informed with pride, the cold fury which good women, -scorned, feel, and with a determination to have what she had always -wanted and could not have as a wife. - -She leaned back in her chair before the library fire, clasped her -hands over her head and looked anticipatingly at the ceiling, a queer -expression on this formerly merely dutiful woman’s face, like a song in -her eyes, like faith that smooths the brow, like a hope that lifted and -sweetened the corners of her mouth; there were no shadows of fear to -dim this gentle effulgence of eyes, lips and brow. - -To be loved does make a woman happy, but it never endows her with her -own peace, only protection. There is a difference, if you know how to -read it, between love and hope in her face. The former is conferred and -may be taken away: the latter is an act of faith and cannot be dimmed -or destroyed. Helen had this look of “anticipation,” as some physicians -call it, a mark which Nature confers upon women like a meek distinction. - -Helen finally went to her room to practice her evening toilette. At -five o’clock she was dressed and standing before the mirror studying -this cream-colored frock of crêpe, that clung to her figure like -long folded wings. It was not “trimmed.” She insisted upon a certain -primness, as good women do who have no sense of style. - -Some women live and die so virginal that they never know why other -women wear a rose, or display the sparkle of a jewel upon their breast. -If they put on these invitations to love it is merely copying the -universal feminine custom. They do not know how to mean the rose or -catch the sparkle of the jewel in their manner. - -Helen wore no invitations. She was simply anxious to look the mistress -of this establishment, never to be mistaken for a dutiful servant. The -horror she had felt of this impending fate since shortly after her -marriage, when she knew that she was not to have children, and the long -sentence she had actually served in this capacity rankled. - -A bell rang somewhere in the house. She paid no attention, since -she had no visitors and the front door bell never rang except when -something was delivered. - -A moment later there was a tap on her door and the maid entered. “Some -one to see you, Mrs. Cutter,” she announced. - -“Who is she?” - -“A man.” - -“Not Read?” referring to one of the workmen. - -“No, Mrs. Cutter; this is a gentleman. I left him in the parlor.” - -Helen frowned. - -“He is somebody. I am sure of that. And he said that you knew him,” the -woman explained. - -“That I knew him? Then he--why, it must be Mr. Arnold,” Helen said. -Arnold was the only man in Shannon who might have any reason for -calling on her. - -The woman hesitated, gave her mistress a fluttering glance as if some -sort of gibbering, peeping thought had suddenly popped up in her mind. -“This is not Mr. Arnold,” she said. “I think he is a stranger. Shall I -tell him you are not at home?” - -“I will see him; but hereafter, Charlotte, I am not at home to any one -who does not give his name.” - -“Yes, Mrs. Cutter,” Charlotte answered meekly, closing the door behind -her. Then she glanced again at the crumpled bill she held in her hand, -thrust it into her pocket, wrinkled her nose, sniffed and discreetly -disappeared. - -Helen stood for a moment with her back to the mirror, as we all do -sometimes when we cannot bear to read in our own faces the fear we have -in our hearts. Since that night six months ago, when Cutter had left -her, she had received no word from him. She had sternly repressed every -thought of him. But never for a day had she been free from the vague -fear that he might return. She no longer loved him; she despised him. -Yet the old habit of submission--if he should return, how could she -find the courage to send him away, if he asserted his claim upon her -as his wife? She must do it. Her plans were made for a different life -altogether. But suppose now, when she was on the point of realizing -her dearest hope, this man waiting for her in the parlor should be her -husband? - -She came slowly into the hall and advanced toward the open door of -the parlor. Reproaches, words inconceivable to her until this moment, -trembled upon her lips. This was her house; she had built it for her -own peace and happiness. She would not share it, not for the space of -a breath, with a man so depraved that he could betray his own wife, -abandon her--and so on and so forth as she advanced, halted, and -finally came steadily up the long hall, pale with fury, eyes blazing -blue flames, convinced by her own fears that this man was Cutter. She -was ready to deal with him according to the natural vocabulary of an -outraged woman. - -For the gentlest woman, wronged, may suddenly change into a virago -after you have made sure that she will endure anything. But if she ever -breaks, it is like any other form of hysteria, incurable. She will be -subject to verbal frenzies upon the slightest provocation so long as -she lives. - -For one instant Helen stood upon the threshold of her parlor, -speechless with amazement. Shaded lights cast a soft glow from above -over the room, where the faintest outline of castles showed between -shadowy trees in the wall paper. And tufted, spindle-legged chairs, -covered with blue-and-golden brocades, flashed like spots of sunlight -in the pale gray gloom. - -The visitor was undoubtedly enjoying these effects. He sat, the elegant -figure of a man, on the sofa beyond the circle of light cast from the -reading lamp behind him. His knees were crossed. He was working one -foot musingly after the manner of a man pleased with his reflections. -And he was smiling--not a smile you could possibly understand, unless -you are familiar with the outlaw mind of certain rich men. But, in -case you are scandalously psychic, you might have inferred that he was -smiling at these dim castles in Helen’s wall paper as a prospective -tourist in the romantic lands, where passing rivers sing to these -castles and where scenes, centuries old, are laid for lovers. - -He was so much absorbed in whatever he was trailing with his thoughts -that he had not seen Helen when she appeared in the doorway, but almost -at once some sense warned him of her presence. - -His startled glance caught her. He was on his feet at once. “Oh, Mrs. -Cutter! This is indeed good of you. I was afraid you would not see me,” -he exclaimed, hurrying to meet her. - -“Mr. Shippen!” she gasped, with no marks of pleasure in the look she -gave him. It was strictly interrogative, unfeelingly so. - -“Yes,” he returned hastily, interpreting her manner. “I came down to -look after the sale of that mining property. Couldn’t resist dropping -in on my way back to town this afternoon. Wanted to see you.” - -She moved past him, sat down some distance beyond and fixed her wide -blue gaze upon him. - -He followed, not quite sure about sitting, feeling somehow that she -might be going to keep him on his feet. Still he risked it and chose -a chair politely removed from her immediate neighborhood, which was -chilly, he could not tell whether or not from design. - -“You wish to see me?” she asked after a pause. - -The question disconcerted him. He flushed, recovered himself and showed -his teeth in a handsome smile. “Yes, do you mind?” he retorted. - -“But what do you want to see me about?” she insisted, as if this must -be a matter of business, a painful business, since she knew that he was -associated with her husband. - -He snickered nervously, recovered his gravity at once, warned by the -tightening of her lips. “When are you coming to New York?” he asked -suddenly. - -She drew back from this adder of a question. “Is this why you came--you -were sent?” she barely breathed the words, laying a hand like a -confession upon her breast. - -“I was not sent,” he returned quickly. “You understand?” - -She signified that she did with a nod of her head. She released him for -one moment from her steady gaze; then she fixed her eyes on him again -with the same interrogative suspense, as much as to say, “Well, then, -if you were not sent, why are you here?” She could not sense a meaning -that would have been plain to another woman. - -It was the stupidity of goodness, he decided, and was charmed by a -certain experimental fear of her. He must proceed cautiously. That -was the delightful part of it, to be obliged to watch his step in an -affair of this kind. He had no doubt of his ultimate success--a married -woman, abandoned by her husband. He knew all about that by inference -from Cutter. Cutter was too brazen in the conducting of his “bachelor” -apartments not to feel perfectly safe. - -He supposed there had been some sort of financial adjustment between -him and his wife. He knew very well that the situation in New York -would not last. Cutter was simply the profitable investment a certain -beautiful and brilliant woman had chosen, who had the record of a -sentimental rocket among the sporting financiers of the East. The first -time he came a cropper in the markets, she would abandon him with the -swiftness and insolence that would make the fellow’s head swim. Then -Cutter would return to his wife. They always did. - -Sometimes he had regretted not having a wife laid by himself as a sort -of permanent stake, domestically speaking. If only he did not feel -such revulsion toward the candor and monotonous details of actual -married life. His decadent delicacy would be offended by the squalor of -licensed intimacy with a woman. “Squalor” was the word he invariably -used in discussing the psychology of marriage. - -Still, he might marry Helen Cutter. She would never be in his way. She -was not in her husband’s way now. And she was singularly refreshing -to his jaded fancy. He had been so corrupt that, by revulsion rather -than repentance, invincible virtue in a woman attracted him. Besides, -it would be a good joke on Cutter to lose his wife--such a wife--while -he was philandering in New York. He had always entertained a secret -contempt for the fellow--a bounder who did not know how to bound; a -gambler with the nerve of a financial adventurer. New York teemed with -men of his type. - -They had exchanged some commonplace remarks while he hit this line of -reflection in the high places, having gone over it many times before. -That is to say, he offered the remarks--on the weather, on the growth -of Shannon, and more particularly upon the current aspects of the war. -Helen’s contributions to these topics had been brief. He comprehended -perfectly that she was still in suspense as to the meaning of his visit. - -He rose presently, took his chair, advanced with a friendly air and sat -down near her, potentially within reach. And was amused to see that she -still regarded him as from a great distance. “But you have not answered -my question,” he said, going back to that. “When are you coming to New -York to live? Thought you would have been settled there long before -this time.” - -“I shall live here.” - -“Never in New York?” - -“No.” - -“But you are not planning to neglect us entirely! Cutter would not -stand for that. You will be coming up occasionally, of course,” he -insisted, smiling. - -“No; this is my home.” - -Gad, couldn’t she even squirm a bit? Why didn’t she blaze forth at -Cutter or cover the situation with a few lies? He wondered how it would -feel to live with a woman who hit the truth on the head every time, as -if the truth was a nail to be driven in, even if it pierced your vitals. - -Shippen swept a complimentary glance around the room as if in reply -to her last remark. “Well, you have certainly made it a beautiful -home,” he said, feeling by the growing emergency of the question in -her eyes that if he did not get off on another tack, she might force -an explanation of his presence here which he was not ready to make -until he had won more of her confidence. “This room is marvelous,” he -went on, “sedate and feminine. It escapes the austerity of being a -noble room by a miracle. What is it? Piety with a flash of color, I -should say. However did you think of such an effect? And how did you -accomplish it?” - -“I did not do it. I have learned something,” she said, off her guard -for the first time, following his eyes about this room as if she -accompanied his thoughts. - -“What have you learned?” he asked, smiling. - -“To buy what I want--not mere things, but taste in the choice of these -things. It is for sale, like any other commodity.” - -He laughed, with an appreciative glint of the eye. - -“For so long I did not know that taste is the one thing most people -have not got. They only look as if they had it, when in fact they have -purchased it. You buy it from your tailor. The woman whose clothes -please you pays the modiste who makes them much more for her taste than -for her work. You can buy any kind of taste, good, bad or indifferent; -but nearly everybody buys it.” - -What she said was not interesting; but he was interested that she could -think it; it showed that she had a mind, which he had doubted. He hoped -she would not develop too much along this line. The perfect woman, in -his opinion, should have loveliness, health, and only a rudimentary -intelligence. He was very tired, indeed, of the rhinestone sparkle of -feminine wit. - -“It is the same with the building and furnishing of a house,” Helen -showed up again. “They hire an architect and a decorator. And then -they hire a landscape gardener. And when the whole scene inside and -out is laid, they live in it as if they had planned it and achieved -it. But they have bought every line, every shadow, and all the -perspective--things that you feel and see, but cannot touch. It is not -the house, but the idea it suggests for which you pay most. I had my -own ideas, but I employed professionals to produce them. This is what -I have learned,” she concluded, “not to cobble my own ideas. I simply -told those men what I wanted.” - -“I should have liked to hear your instructions,” he said. - -“They were short. I told the architect that I wanted an honorable -looking house, not a grand one.” - -He nodded, appreciatively, and waited. Some subtle change had taken -place in her mind toward him during this last moment. There was a -compelling power in her expression, as if now she wished to hold his -attention. She had a purpose. He became uneasy and curious. - -“And I told the man who was to choose the furniture and do the inside -decorations that I wanted a home, a mild kind of place with some -sadness in it, like the heart of a mother; and rifts of brightness in -it, like the face of a mother when she smiles; and everything very fine -to honor her, the mother, you understand, in the eyes of her children.” - -Shippen’s agreeable attention changed for one instant to a blank stare; -then he dropped his eyes as she went on with this intimate account of -what she wanted her home to be. Mother! And she had no children. The -term had for him a sort of embarrassing animal significance. It was not -discussed this way in polite circles, even by women who were mothers. -You were supposed not to know it or to forget that this sparkling being -with whom you were conversing, or maybe flirting, had passed through -the experiences of an accouchement. His feelings suffered a revulsion -toward her. But she held him as if she meant that he should carry away -with him the dimensions, the waist measure, the countenance and the -germinating biography of this house. - -“I told him,” she went on, still referring to the decorator, “that I -wanted a home inside, where children would look as if they belonged in -it, and not as if they had escaped from their own hidden quarters--soft -places in it, you know, where a baby could just fall asleep, like the -sofa over there,” indicating with a nod a wide, low, old-fashioned soda -shrouded in shadows. - -He cast an embarrassed glance at it. His feelings were that a babe -should be kept concealed until it was a child of an age to be decently -exposed and confessed. Some men are like that, and a few women. Their -parent instincts have decayed. - -“And when they become grown sons and daughters,” she continued, taking -no notice of his discomfiture, “there should be wide, happy spaces in -here for their joys--a house for lovers and weddings.” - -He waited. Apparently she had finished. He raised his eyes and saw her -flushed, animated. “But why should you want such a house?” he asked, -not that it made any difference now what she wanted. So far as he was -concerned the spell of her charm was broken. His one desire was to -escape this disenchantment and to find out what was in the wind for -Cutter. He clung to that joke. - -“Because all the time I was a wife I wanted this house, and I longed -for children. Now I can have them.” - -Shippen stood up. She remained seated, eyes lifted with that rapt look -fixed upon him. - -“Did you say--children, Mrs. Cutter?” he stammered. - -“Yes; now I shall have children,” she repeated. - -“Well, all right; but under the circumstances, it is a little unusual; -don’t you think so?” he said, the compass of his mind already pointed -toward the door. - -“Yes, it is,” she agreed, and was evidently about to launch into -this feature of the case when she saw that he was about to take his -departure. This reminded her of something. “But what was it you wished -to see me about, Mr. Shippen?” she asked, with a return of that vague -anxiety in the tones of her voice. - -“Why, merely to resume a pleasant acquaintance, I suppose,” he answered -politely. - -“Oh.” - -“Thank you for receiving me,” he said. “Can I do anything for you in -New York?” - -“No,” she answered quickly, but with no shade of embarrassment to -indicate that she knew he referred to her husband. - -He took his departure politely and formally, but he had all the -sensations of flight. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed the moment he was -out of the house. “To think I was on the point of letting myself in for -her! What is a woman, anyhow? Some confounded provision Nature makes -against her own defeat--a snare laid for us, nothing else. They have -their own mind and purposes, contrary to our mind and purposes, whether -they are good or bad. Something infernally tricky about the bad ones: -something infernally permanent about the good ones. They all want to -set, like hens,” he snorted. “No wonder Cutter kicked out. Don’t blame -him. She’s crazy, crazy as a loon, if she is not worse, and of course -she isn’t that. Well, the joke is on me, not Cutter. And mum’s the word -when I get back to New York. Children! Gad, she must be planning an -orphanage. Wonder if he knows what she’s doing with his money. Wonder -if this town is on to the racket.” - -He halted under the first street light and looked at his watch; barely -time to meet Arnold at the hotel. They were to dine together and -discuss the sale of the mining property which was to be handled through -the Shannon National Bank. He quickened his step. He must get off on -the eight o’clock express for New York. He had received a shock, a -revulsion of his romantic emotions. Something distasteful had happened -to him. He wanted to get away and recover from this nausea. - -We all excite a certain amount of interest among our fellow men, -not because we are interesting, perhaps, but because we live, and -to that extent are in a degree mysterious. But when suddenly a man -or woman becomes aware of a silent and persistent attention, it is -disconcerting, because in secret, at least, he knows he has done enough -to queer himself, if it should be known or even suspected. He has, -however, the usual human confidence in the deferred publication of -these deeds until the day of all revelations, when the Final Courts sit -to judge all men. At this end of time it will not matter, because of -the leveling effects of knowing all men even as they know him. - -In my opinion this will be a day of gasping astonishments among the -dusty saints and sinners hurriedly summoned so long after they shall -have forgotten even their virtues, much less their sins, which in -the flesh we manage to bury beyond painful recollection as soon as -possible. But now and then we get a whiff of what will happen, when -a great and good man in the community defaults and absconds with the -church funds. Meanwhile the news that still travels fastest is the news -of some one’s business which is nobody else’s business. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -The next day after Shippen’s visit Helen went into Shannon to make some -purchases and to make sure of the amount of her balance at the bank. - -When she stepped from the car in front of Brim’s general merchandise -store, it was as if she had stepped into a foreign land. The street, -all things about her, were so familiar that she only remembered -afterwards the strangeness of familiar faces. Two men whom she knew -passed her with their eyes down. A woman regarded her with furtive -curiosity and returned her salutation with the briefest bow, as if she -did not really know her. All this happened so quickly that she was not -yet aware that something very personal to her was happening. - -She was still off her guard when Mrs. Flitch sailed by her between -the lace and stocking counter, merely giving her an eye-for-an-eye -look, but with no further recognition, although Helen had wished her a -“Good afternoon, Mrs. Flitch.” She disposed of this hint by wondering -what she had done to Mrs. Flitch, because this lady was notoriously -sensitive. She had a turgid temper and reserved the right to show her -poverty and independence on the slightest provocation by ceasing to -speak to you. - -Half an hour later when she came out to her car, a cold rain was -beginning. She saw Mrs. Shaw approaching with no umbrella to protect -her new spring hat. She waited, meaning to pick her up and take her -wherever she should be going. But when she hailed her, this lady -affected not to understand. She bowed coldly with the rain in her face -and said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Cutter,” although she had always called -her “Helen,” and passed on. - -It is depressing to find yourself suddenly outlawed by the people whom -you have always known. Helen was never popular in Shannon. Unhappy -people rarely ever are. They have so little to contribute to the common -fund of human animation. But she had a certain standing in the good -will of her neighbors. - -It was not until she reached the bank that the explanation of what was -going on really dawned upon her. She had known that it must come, this -news of her abandonment by her husband, but she had not expected it to -fall upon her like a curse. - -Arnold, who occupied the chair at the president’s desk inside the -doorway of the bank, having resumed this custom of the elder Cutter, -had always risen to meet her when she came in. He would conduct her to -the chair near his desk and attend personally to her affairs, if it was -no more than the cashing of a check. This morning he was at his desk as -usual. So was the extra chair, and nobody in it, but beyond a glance -and a bow he took no notice of her. She went on to the cashier’s window -and presented a check. She was startled to see him glance at it, then -step swiftly back to the bookkeeper and make eye sure of her balance -before he cashed it. - -She took the bills, thrust under the wicket and stared about her -confused. She had lost prestige here. Why? She wondered. She had -spent the money left from her mother’s estate on the house, and a few -thousands besides. But she was amply supplied with funds. She had never -overdrawn her account. - -Silly reflections! Childish defense against this financial coldness! -If Arnold had known that she still had securities to the amount of -considerably more than one hundred thousand dollars in her safety -deposit box, his manner would have continued balmy. But he did not know -this. He only knew that she was spending a great deal of money. And he -had dined with Shippen the previous evening. - -Shippen had told him that she was separated from her husband. When he -expressed surprise, Shippen expressed regret that he had “let the thing -out”; he supposed the facts were already known in Shannon, he said. - -Arnold assured him to the contrary. He said that he had had a “hunch,” -because he was subject to hunches as a financial man; but he had rather -expected Cutter himself to fail. He had never entertained the slightest -suspicion of Mrs. Cutter. How long had she been separated from her -husband? - -Shippen replied that he did not know; but he had thought probably some -time before Cutter resigned from the presidency of the Shannon bank and -took up his residence in New York. - -Arnold said he thought it must have occurred quite recently, because -Mrs. Cutter had been with her husband in New York for at least five -months. In fact, she had only returned to Shannon late in January. - -“I am associated with Cutter. I see him every day. I am constantly in -his home, a bachelor apartment, and I positively know that his wife has -never been in the place,” Shippen replied. - -“But I tell you she left here soon after Cutter did, and she did not -return until about two months ago,” Arnold insisted, round-eyed with -amazement. - -Shippen closed his lips grimly, implying that these were the lips of a -gentlemen. A woman scorned may be dangerous, but a man defeated can be -meanly revengeful. Shippen was reacting, after the manner of his kind, -from the disgust he now felt toward this innocent woman. - -No, he answered in reply to Arnold’s next question, there had been no -divorce yet, though he had reason to believe Cutter would be glad to -get one. - -“Cutter!” Arnold exclaimed. - -Shippen nodded; then after a pause he added: “My impression is that -Mrs. Cutter will not be the one to bring the suit, if it is ever -brought.” - -“But he--man, do you know what you are saying about that woman?” Arnold -exclaimed. - -“I am saying nothing about her. I have seen something of her. I paid -her a visit this afternoon, in fact; but--” - -“You know her?” - -“Since 1914,” he nodded. - -A silence followed this news. Men know one another. Arnold knew -Shippen. He sat now staring at the tablecloth. It was his duty, but -he would be sorry to tell his wife. She liked Mrs. Cutter. Also, it -was his duty to see that the bank was secure in its dealings with -her. Until this moment he would have advanced her any reasonable sum. -He would warn Lambkin in the morning to keep an eye on her balance. -A woman like that had very few financial scruples, and no sense of -the future. They usually lived by the day. Still, this fellow Shippen -might be mistaken. Arnold had been a resident of Shannon only a few -years, but he had inferred that Mrs. Cutter was devoted to her home and -husband, an ordinary woman, good looking but not attractive. He would -have sworn she was not attractive. She had never attracted him and in a -discreet way he had a man’s eye. - -He accompanied Shippen to his train; then he went home and told Mrs. -Arnold. - -She was indignant. She said she did not believe a word of it. Later, -Mrs. Shaw came in to borrow some yarn for a sweater she wished to -finish that evening. She got the yarn, and this story about Mrs. Cutter. - -She agreed with Mrs. Arnold that in her opinion there was not a word of -truth in it. Still they speculated about how and where Helen had spent -those five months when she was not in Shannon nor with her husband in -New York. - -We may live above reproach, but few of us live above suspicion of one -sort or another. It is the active character-sketching faculty we all -have for drawing real or imaginary likenesses of each other’s secret -faces. Women are especially felicitous in this art, once they get the -suggestion. They rarely originate the idea. The most damaging gossip we -ever hear descends to us almost invariably from men. They whisper it to -us; we tell it and get more credit for authorship than we deserve. - -Thus Mr. Arnold had repeated to his wife what Shippen had told and -intimated about the Cutters. It is not in the nature of any woman to -retain such stuff. She must expel it. Therefore Mrs. Arnold told Mrs. -Shaw. - -And so the news flew, until the town was posted with it by the time -Helen descended into it the next afternoon. - -It is one thing to suffer a great humiliation in secret, and quite -another thing to read it in the eyes of every familiar face. Helen -understood that her secret was out at last. Nothing else could account -for the manner of the various people whom she met. She had known, of -course, that it could not be kept; but she had hoped she might have -had a little more time to protect herself with the one defense she had -planned. - -Her lips were trembling when she came out of the bank and entered the -car. “Drive out the River road,” she said. - -Buck glanced back, startled by some emotional quality in her voice, -which was usually a smooth and literal-speaking voice. He was much -more surprised by the order she had given, for the rain was coming in -rattling gusts on the March winds and the River road would be “slick as -glass.” Still, he took it, the big limousine reeling and sliding. - -Helen sat as if she had been flung into the corner of the seat. She -stared through the streaming window at the turgid river. She remembered -every tree and slope of its banks, although years had passed since -she had been on this road. Sometimes, when all is ready, when we have -survived and are about to live, the power of hope fails and the vision -fades. Helen passed into this coma of defeat. How was she to face these -looks, this knowledge, this judgment in the eyes of the people of -Shannon for years and years? Could anything ease this pain? What could -she love enough to make her indifferent to this perpetual publicity? -After all, would it not be wiser to give up everything and go away? - -The old foundry loomed desolately in the distance, drenched in rain, -the bare boughs of the trees whipping against it. The great doorway -seemed to yawn darkness. Nothing green now, no brightness! How long -ago since in the shadow of this door she had said her prayers to love -and listened to George’s vows. She remembered everything--the yellow -primroses at their feet, the blue wings of a bird suddenly spread in -flight over their heads, the fresh, sweet smell of thyme and George’s -face bent above her in passionate tenderness. - -The world had passed away since then! How could she bear this? It was -loneliness. She had been dying of loneliness for months. She had never -been out of pain, not for a moment; she knew this now. She wanted her -husband--nothing else! Tears filled her eyes; she caught back a sob. -For an instant her mind held one image, that of the man whom she had -loved and married; one thought, the whole thought of him, a reeling -picture of the years filled with only her devotion to him. - -Then the wind and tide in her breast died away. The color faded from -her cheeks. All that had failed. She shivered, sat up, astounded that -she could suffer like this for a man who had abandoned her. - -We are not the only ones who fail, my masters. Sometimes the very -will of God fails too. A world slips, waggles in its orbit, and goes -rocketing, catching the light of a thousand suns as it falls and falls -forever through space. - -When they were directly below the foundry, Buck halted. - -“Why do you stop here? Go on,” she commanded sharply. - -“Miss Helen, we can’t,” he protested. “They ain’t no bottom to this -road out yonder. Folks don’t go no farther’n where we is now.” - -There was a moment’s suspense while the motor purred and he waited, by -no means enthusiastic about driving in this storm. - -“Very well; we will turn back,” she said in a queer voice. She was -thinking about this road with no bottom in it beyond the place where so -many lovers came to plight their troth. - -Half an hour later, the disgruntled Buck had taken his mud-spattered -car to the garage, and Helen was still standing on the veranda of her -house, looking out over her small world. - -The rain had passed like a silver veil over the hills. The clouds, -split by this March wind, were rolling back like huge wagon covers. The -grass was beginning to show a misty green on the lawn. Pink petals of -peach blossoms, blown from the orchard behind the house, lay in rifts -above it. The flowering shrubs, massed on either side of the driveway, -were budding. The elm trees were shaking their beards of bloom. The -last rays of the setting sun made all the windows of her house flame -with golden light. - -She could not leave this place; this was her house and her world. Every -bloom to be was so sweetly foretold to her in this warm air. She could -not give it up. There must be something to live for and love. She -suffered most from the breaking of this habit of loving. And the shock -she had of discovering that she still loved her husband disturbed her -more than the possible attitude Shannon might assume toward her. She -was that far from suspecting, you understand, the imaginary activities -of gossips who are never contented with the bare facts, but must invent -explanations of these facts according to their fancies. - -Well, she decided, she would not go away. She would hold to her -original plan for happiness. Surely there must be peace and joy in -love you nurtured yourself. - -Then she turned and paced slowly the length of the veranda. Her step -changed to increasing swiftness as she came back from the far end, her -face also. She looked as she might have looked if flames enveloped her, -and she was flying through the wind, a wildness and horror in her eyes. - -She dashed into the house, caught sight of the maid in coming up the -hall, who halted abruptly at this sudden vision of her mistress. - -“Charlotte, get my things ready. Pack my trunk. I am leaving on the -early morning train,” Helen exclaimed as she brushed past her and -disappeared into her room. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -There is a place called an Inn above a city in the mountains--it -was built only a few years ago by a man with a Brobdingnagian -imagination--a huge pile of bowlders, tunneled and dragged down from -the mountain sides and put together as if the ages had soldered them -into a great castle. The walls within are rough and covered with -strange scripts, fragments of great lines from great poets, sentences -from philosophers and saints. It is not a place for tourists, but for -people weary with the strife of living, made obedient to peace and -silence by exhaustion. - -I have seen this place. It is marvelous, and strangely effective -morally. Bad people get a somnambulant look there, because they are -sleepwalking in their virtues. They get a look of naïve innocence; or, -if the system of moral compensation in them is broken, they take a -horrified look around and escape on the next train. - -One morning, so early that the day was still a gray cavern between -earth and sky with the wild March winds whirling in it, a slender -woman descended from a taxicab at the gateway to the drive which -led down the mountain slope to this Inn. She wore a blue coat with a -fur collar drawn close about her fair face, a small fur hat with an -exceeding vivid rose tucked into the band of thicker fur around the -crown and fitted so snugly that a mere line of her bright hair showed -beneath. She had eyes the color of blue flowers, paler than violets, -the kind that always look up at you meaningly from the cold ground in -March--but you do not know what they mean--exactly as this woman’s eyes -looked upward and abroad now beneath the narrow sweeping line of her -swallow-winged brows. - -She was not young; she was touched with the same sadness of those pale -blue flowers above the winter earth. But she appeared young in this -half light of the early dawn. Any man at the sight of her, swinging -gracefully down the winding road between the naked trees, beneath the -pearling skies of daybreak, might have conceived the idea of courting -her. But he would have dismissed it instantly after a nearer reading -look. He would have perceived that she was already “taken,” that -she belonged either to a man or to his children. She was not in the -possessive case. - -She loitered along the way, as one familiar with this place, looking -for remembered things, ferns between the rocks, puffs of green moss -above these rocks, flashes of wild azalea deeply bowered among the -laurel bushes, tall stalks of shooting star blossoms white against -the gray bluff, and a path leading from the roadway up the side of -the bluff. I suppose there is not even one little high place on this -earth which has not somewhere upon it a path that goes to the top. And -frequently the idlest people in the world make them. It is due to the -futile persistence of the altar instinct in them. - -She had come down into the paved plaza in front of the Inn before -the porter carrying her bags overtook her. She followed him through -the door and paused at the breath-taking majesty of this huge room. -Filled with guests, its dignity was diminished; but bare and solemn -and silent in this early morning hour, it was tremendous. She cast -a glance upward at the rough walls, scrolled over with those mighty -texts taken from the Scriptures that men have made for themselves, but -not one from Moses or the Prophets--the idea being, I suppose, not to -open the bleeding wounds of conscience in many guests by reminders too -authoritatively worded about their sins and trespasses. - -She caught sight of one at last from Marcus Aurelius as if she had been -looking for it. The wisdom of it did not apply to her case, but it -soothed her for that reason, because she remembered it as an exit she -used to take from her unhappy thoughts during those first months of her -unnatural widowhood. When you are bedridden within by a secret grief, -these old negative philosophers are very good drug doctors for your -complaints. This is why so many miserable women take to the narcotics -of theosophy and other forms of recumbent mysticisms. They are mental -opiates. - -“Good morning, Mrs. Cutter! Glad to see you back here,” the night clerk -said, smiling sleepy-eyed at her as she approached the desk. He swung -the register around and offered her a pen. - -“You received my wire?” she asked, when she had written her name. - -“Yes, and fortunately we were able to reserve the same room for you,” -he answered, evidently referring to a request which she had wired. - -“Shall you want a car, as usual, Mrs. Cutter?” he called after her as -she was about to enter the elevator. - -“Not until this afternoon. How are the roads?” - -“Very good, at least your favorite one is,” he assured her. - -She had come to this Inn immediately after Cutter left her the previous -year. She had recovered her health of mind and strength of body in this -quiet place; she had profited by the patterns of peace and imagination -it afforded; and she had spent much time visiting fine old houses, -studying the manners, ways and clothes of the people who came and went. -She acquired for the first time in her life some feeling and sense of -elegance, lines and colors. And it was here that she met the architect -who drew the plans for remodeling her house at Shannon. - -She resumed her old diversions now. She mingled little with the other -guests, but spent her time driving about the country. She was still -oppressed by the rude awakening she had, that last day in Shannon, to -the fact that she loved and longed for her husband. She was disturbed -and humiliated by this revelation, as one is by the awakening of some -weakness we believe we have outgrown. - -The issue constantly in her mind was whether, after all, it would not -be wiser to give up her house in Shannon and live this idle, pleasant -existence. There were no associations here to remind her of the -past. And in spite of her huge expense in the effort to destroy these -memories, it was after she came back to Shannon that the old pain and -unhappiness had returned to overwhelm her. Then this issue was settled -for her with a horrible, irrevocable decision, and she was flung -violently back upon the one refuge, her house in Shannon, and the one -plan she had for substituting love with affection, which she had been -on the point of abandoning. - -One evening she came down late for dinner, passed through the swinging -doors and sat down at the table reserved for her, which was near these -doors. The room was filled with week-end guests. She had an excellent -view of this brilliant company. There were handsomely gowned women, -rouged and sparkling with jewels; there were more men than were usually -to be seen at leisure during this man-grasping war period; and quite a -sprinkling of military officers, evidently on leave from Washington. - -Helen had given her order and sat idly scanning the scene before her, -listening to snatches of conversation from the nearer tables. - -She was barely enough like these other women in her ivory-white, -embroidered Canton crêpe not to attract attention. She was pale, as -they were painted. Her hair lay in a soft golden coil on her head, -where their hair ruffled in a thousand glistening convolutions. Her -lips were parted, showing the lapped edge of the two white teeth. The -dark lashes of her eyes were more apparent, because of the blueness of -these eyes and of the whiteness of her skin. - -Once she caught the steady, dark gaze of a woman seated directly -opposite her, but at a distant table. She lifted her own glance and -hurried by this overhead route back to the bunch of violets in the vase -on her own table. She could not have told why she did this, probably -for the same reason one flinches and draws back from the sudden flash -of a brilliant flame. She sat staring at the violets, wondering about -this woman, not intelligently, with a sort of amazement which was not -pleasant. Never before had she seen such a fury of commanding beauty. -She thought she must be tall. She was very dark--olive skin, flushed -like a velvet rose; black hair, daringly coiffured and heightened by a -Spanish comb; a straight, imperious nose; a fine-lipped mouth, red and -cruelly turned to mirth. But the fury of her beauty lay in the smoking -black eyes. And the maroon velvet gown she wore seemed somehow to -enhance the heat of terrible, searing beauty, as if the body of this -woman had been forged, slim and strong, in a furnace and still glowed -dangerously and dully. - -Helen wondered why she had not seen her when she entered the dining -room, for now she could almost hear her crackle. Yet she did not look -up again in that direction. There was a man at the table with this -woman, she knew; but she had been so startled by the native malice of -those dark eyes that she had only a blurred impression of his back. - -Suddenly there was a sound in this place where the confused murmur of -many voices made a thousand sounds. It was the rich, rollicking laugh -of a man, one high note quickly suppressed. - -Helen stiffened, her hand flew to her breast as if she had received a -mortal wound. This trumpeting note of mirth was as much a part of her -experience as her husband’s kisses had been. Her lips tightened, her -eyes wide with horror flew this way and that, scanning every face. Then -they fell again upon the dark woman whom she had forgotten in this -sudden anguish. Instantly she felt the red lash of this woman’s smile, -as if she had reached across the space between them to strike a blow. -There was contempt and recognition in the smoldering black eyes--no -defiance, but triumph. - -The man facing her at this table with his back to Helen caught it, -flirted his head around to find the object of it--and looked straight -into the eyes of his wife! - -For one instant they held this silent interview with each other in that -crowded room. Then the woman struck her hands together with a sharp, -little smack, and let out a gale of laughter, too keen, too high in -this decent place. Every head was turned toward her, every eye fell -upon her in polite amazement. Still she laughed. And still George -Cutter’s eyes followed his wife. For Helen had risen at the first note -of that stinging laugh and had made her way blindly from the room. - -“What happened?” asked a fat man, rolling a pop-eyed look across the -table at his wife. - -“I didn’t see anything,” she replied, taking her soup with the -absorption of an innocent person. - -“Who was the pale lady? Didn’t you see her going out?” - -“A lot of people are coming in and going out,” his wife returned, -skinning the bottom of her soup plate with her spoon. - -“And there’s the one that did the laugh,” he said, nodding at the woman. - -“She looks like a jade; probably is one,” his wife announced, with one -appraising look. - -“Fellow with her is all in then--head down, knees sprung, tail -drooping. He’s come a cropper and knows it. Look at him, Lily.” - -The old Lily looked at the man before the “jade” indifferently, then -passed the look on to the service door from whence cometh, or should -come, the next course of this very good dinner. “Henry, you are a born -scandalmonger,” she said reproachfully. - -“No, it’s an acquired taste, but I have it; and if ever I saw a fine -scene in a matrimonial melodrama, I’ve just witnessed one. Pale lady’s -the wife, t’other one’s the gallant gal bandit, and the man’s the -victim,” he snickered. - -Before these guests had finished dining, Helen Cutter had left the Inn. - -A week later Charlotte received a wire from her mistress, instructing -her to send Buck with the car to Atlanta in time to meet a certain -train at the Terminal Station on a certain day. This message was sent -from Baltimore, which had not been Mrs. Cutter’s destination when she -left home, Charlotte observed with a sniff. She did not like Mrs. -Cutter’s ways, referring to this tendency she had of flying about the -world alone when she had a perfectly good maid, who had expected to -accompany her. And she did not like the company she kept, referring to -Shippen who was the only visitor she had received. And what was more to -the point, she had no idea of being buried alive in this little speck -of a town. Therefore she meant to go back to Atlanta in the car, and -stay there--strong emphasis on the last two words. - -It was known in Shannon that “Helen Cutter had gone again.” But as late -as the third week in April, no one knew that she had returned. There -was a rumor current that probably she would not come back, since she -must have realized that everybody knew what had happened. - -Then Mrs. Flitch, who was out selling Liberty Bonds one afternoon, -passed the Cutter place and beheld a baby carriage on the lawn! Not -only that, but the carriage was obviously occupied, because Maria, -togged out in a nurse’s cap and apron, was rolling it back and forth -along the driveway. Mrs. Flitch said later that you could have “knocked -her down with a feather,” but she decided no matter what kind of woman -Helen Cutter was, it was no more than right that she should be called -upon to buy these bonds. Therefore she turned in and walked briskly up -the drive, meeting Maria directly front of the house. - -“Is Mrs. Cutter at home?” she asked, ignoring the old woman’s -occupation. - -“No’m, she ain’t here; she’s gone to git a goat,” Maria answered. - -“A goat!” - -“Yes’m, a milk goat for the baby,” rolling her eyes. - -Mrs. Flitch stood perfectly still, the incarnation of malignant -virtue, allowing her eyes to pass back and forth between Maria and the -carriage. The wicker hood concealed the contents from her avid gaze. -When she could endure her curiosity no longer, she moved slowly around -to the front, but maintaining a decent distance, and stared. - -The baby recognized her at once, grinned, showing several teeth, and -waved a highly ornamental teething ring. - -“Maria, whose child is this?” Mrs. Flitch demanded sternly, as if it -was her duty to know. - -“Miss Helen says it’s her’n,” was the noncommittal reply. - -Followed a series of questions as to the age and possible complexion of -this child. One confidence led to another question until Maria let go -and told all that she knew, which only increased the cloud hanging over -the origin of this baby. - -She said that she had gone in to clear the table that night in August -of last year when Mr. Cutter left his wife. She had heard him tell her -that he was going to leave her. - -“What did Mrs. Cutter say to that?” - -“Not a word. From first to last I did not hear her open her mouth, Mrs. -Flitch. But he talked a right smart. I disremember what he said, but -it wa’n’t praisin’. Then he goes out and banged the door after him. He -ain’t been here since.” - -“And she does not hear from him?” - -“Not as I knows of. Miss Helen left ’reckly after he did, and she was -gone five months. But she wa’n’t wid him. We used to git letters from -her from a place in Ca’lina.” - -“Which, North or South Carolina?” - -“I don’t know, ’m. Buck read the letters.” - -“This is a strange baby,” Mrs. Flitch announced grimly. - -Maria wiped her eyes. She was working herself up to an emotional pitch -by some act of memory. Mrs. Flitch waited for the revelation she knew -must be coming. - -“I’m goin’ to tell you all I know about how come dis baby. Not as it -kin explain somethings, like her having black hair and being dark -complected, but it’s all I know,” she began. - -“Go on.” - -“After Mr. Cutter was gone, Miss Helen laid in bed three days. She jest -laid there, white as a corpse, with her eyes open. She didn’t shed no -tears and she didn’t say anything, mor’n for me to hand her a glass of -water or somethin’ like that. Then one mornin’ she hops out of bed, -dresses herself an’ goes downtown to the bank. While she was dressin’ -I comes to the door to fetch her slippers, which I’d been polishin’ in -the kitchen.” Maria left off and rolled her eyes lugubriously, as if -such a tongue as she had could not reveal the rest. - -“Go on; what happened?” - -“Mrs. Flitch,” lowering her voice to a tragic whisper, “she was talkin’ -to herself! ‘Now,’ she says, ‘I kin have children.’ She said them words -over and over, ’s if she was glad of the chance.” - -“But what did she mean?” - -“I d’no, ’m. I been in this world a long time, an’ I ain’t never heerd -no ’oman, white or black, say sech things and her husband jest that -minute ’sertin’ her. But she’s done it--what she said she’d do. Here’s -the child,” she concluded, standing like a black exclamation point -beside the baby carriage. - -Mrs. Flitch counted her fingers surreptitiously and regarded the infant -once more with a sort of expert scientific stare. - -“Where is the maid? I understood Mrs. Cutter had a maid?” she asked -suddenly, as if she was on the point of subpoenaing a more competent -witness. - -“She’s gone. Said she didn’t like the looks of it.” - -“Of what?” - -“I d’no, ’m.” - -“Maria,” Mrs. Flitch said after a staccato silence, “you need not tell -Mrs. Cutter that I called.” - -“La! Mrs. Flitch, hit don’t make no difference. This baby ain’t no -secret, whatever else it is. Miss Helen don’t keer who knows she’s got -it,” Maria called after her. - -All these months this servant had known what Helen believed no one knew -in Shannon, the minutest details of that last scene with her husband. - -There are no secrets. We may give alms so privately that the twin right -hand of our left hand remains blissfully ignorant of what we spent -on these alms. Nothing is easier than to conceal a good deed, if you -really wish to do so, because it is not our nature to suspect each -other of secret goodness. It is hard enough to obtain credit when we -stand on the street corner and proclaim our charity in a loud voice, or -get the whole beautiful thing exploited in the public press. This is -what we usually do, being in some mortal doubt whether, after all, the -reward promised by our Heavenly Father will be conferred openly enough -or soon enough to pay for the unnatural expense of secrecy. This is a -mistake, of course, because, while we are duly credited, the smiling, -cynical interpretation placed upon our motive takes the shine off the -deed and the alms. - -But let one of the best of us become involved in a doubtful deed, -however innocently, and it is known. Witnesses spring from the very -ground to swear to your guilt, even if you have gone into your closet -to taste a pleasant fault. Even if, as in Helen’s case, the evidence -is flimsy and circumstantial, there is always an eye that sees, an -ear that hears, a tongue to tell what happened or what apparently -happened. The deeper truth--the innocence of the wicked, the guilt of -the saints--remains hidden save from the omniscience of the Almighty. -This is why it seems to me highly probable that there really may -be a super-record kept in a Book of Life far removed from the laws -and judgments of this present world. We shall be graded accordingly, -exalted or demoted, not so furiously condemned as our own heinous -imaginations demand. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -The flamboyant display Helen made of her baby shocked Shannon and -finally conquered the willful suspicions entertained by her neighbors. -Her diffidence and reserve vanished. She was exalted. She glowed. She -had passed into another state of being. This child had related her to -everybody. - -She would have Buck stop the car before the Shaw residence and summoned -Mrs. Shaw forth to look at it and advise her about whether to keep -stockings on it or not. Mrs. Shaw said she never did. - -On the other hand, Mrs. Arnold said that would depend upon whether -the baby was cutting her eye teeth. In that case she advised not only -stockings, but a flannel band about the body. Did Mrs. Cutter know -whether the little thing was approaching its second summer and stomach -and eye teeth or not? This question was put very casually, but with a -shrewd glance. - -Helen said she would “see.” Whereupon she thrust an exploring finger -into the squirming infant’s mouth, felt about in there, withdrew it, -and announced that she could detect no heralding signs of these -malignant teeth, but they might be coming. This was an unusually -precocious baby! Therefore she would get the bands and keep the -stockings on. - -Then she passed on, apparently with no compunctions about having -defrauded Mrs. Arnold of legitimate information about the baby. - -But that lady hurried across the street to tell Mrs. Flitch something. -“It is not her own child, my dear; I am sure of that,” she said, after -reporting what Helen had done. - -“Well, it could be,” Mrs. Flitch insisted. - -“But it isn’t. I don’t think she knows exactly how old the child is. -And a real mother, you know, can feel when her baby is teething.” - -Mrs. Flitch nodded emphatically, held her note of silence a moment, -then added: “If it isn’t her own, there is no telling what kind of baby -it is, nor how it will turn out.” - -“Well, it is turning out happily for that poor girl anyway. She looks -years younger, and happy,” Mrs. Arnold replied. - -“If Mr. Flitch deserted me, I couldn’t be happy. I’d never hold up my -head again.” - -“She has courage.” - -“And she seems to have money,” Mrs. Flitch put in. - -“Yes, Mr. Arnold thinks she has ample means.” - -“Then it must be alimony.” - -“We have heard nothing of a divorce.” - -“I think, when people are married, they should live together until -death parts them. And if they won’t, they should make a clean breast of -it, and let folks know exactly where they stand, inside the law or out -of it,” Mrs. Flitch announced virtuously. - -“Nothing like that is ever hidden. In time I suppose something -clarifying will happen.” - -“Well, I hope it won’t be disgraceful.” - -“It is not easy for scandal to touch a woman who devotes her life to -bringing up children. Did you ever think of that?” Mrs. Arnold shot -back. “I think we should stand by Mrs. Cutter and help her all we can -with this baby,” she added. - -“Oh, I’m willing to do my duty. But she never gives me the chance to do -anything. I’m the mother of five healthy children, yet she will pass by -my door and ask somebody about that baby’s diet who never had a child,” -Mrs. Flitch complained. - -Thus the wind of private opinion, which is more dangerous than public -opinion, veered and changed toward Helen Cutter. Her skies cleared, -without her ever having suspected the fury with which they were charged -against her. Of all the good women I have ever known, she was the least -concerned for her reputation. And this is one of the weaknesses of -that class, a craven, almost guilty fear of evil tongues, which more -vulnerable women do not share. - -There were broken hours, I suppose, when some fleeting vision of the -past absorbed her peace and joy. We never do escape those whispering -tongues of memory that make speech with us from the years behind us. -Sometimes in the late summer afternoon Helen, walking in her garden, -would halt, transfixed as if a blow had fallen upon her. For the -briefest moment she would see her young husband swinging along the -path that led through the old shrubbery to this garden, his eyes fixed -brightly upon her, the dear object of his love and hopes. And her heart -leaped as in those first happy years. Then she would close her eyes, -not always in time to hold back the tears. But if one is proud enough, -there are tears which leave no trace upon a woman’s face. - -More frequently however, it was that last sight she had of him in the -dining room of the Inn, held so firmly in the grasp of another woman -that he dared not to rise when she, his wife, passed so near her -skirts almost brushed him. She would never forget the livid shame and -horror when he looked back and caught her eye nor the woman’s crackling -laugh. Sometimes this scene flared before her, and she saw herself, -with her hand still pressed to her breast, making her blind, staggering -escape. It was a kind of insurance she carried against the awakening of -the old tenderness for her husband. - -A year had gone by, another spring was at hand; and little Helen was -learning to toddle on her sturdy legs, a pink rose of a baby with -short, dark curls. - -“She is so good. Are all little children good?” Helen asked, smiling at -Mrs. Arnold, who was paying one of her frequent visits. - -“At this age, yes,” the elder woman replied dryly. - -“And I have so little time to devote to her, now that the other baby -has come,” Helen sighed. - -“The other baby!” Mrs. Arnold gasped. - -“Why, don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? I have just got a lovely boy,” -Helen informed her. - -“Here? You have him now?” - -Helen nodded. “Come and see him. He is too young to bring out yet,” she -explained. - -She led the way to the small crib in the nursery, where a very young -infant lay asleep. - -“It is a fine child,” Mrs. Arnold announced gravely. “How many do you -expect to--have?” she asked. - -“I don’t know yet. It will depend on how I get on with these; but at -least three. This is little Samuel, named for father. The next one will -be a girl, named Mary Elizabeth, for mother. I had to call the first -one Helen. And I am afraid I shall always love her best. She was my -first happiness, you see, after--after,” she repeated, “unhappiness. -I doubt if the others will mean so much to me. Do they?” she asked -anxiously. “I mean do mothers grow to love all their children alike?” - -“I don’t know, my dear; but you will,” Mrs. Arnold answered, her eyes -filling with tears. - -“They are treasures I am laying up for my old age. They will be my life -and joy and hope, when I shall have grown too old to achieve these -things. Their laughter will lift me. Their love will be my perpetual -spring. And we shall have weddings in this house,” she concluded. - -“You believe in marriage?” the other could not refrain from asking. - -“Oh, yes. Even in my own.” - -“You would go back to your husband?” - -“Never.” - -There was a silence. - -“But if he comes back to you?” - -“He will not come,” she returned. - -When I came to know her later, she must have been confirmed in this -opinion. For I had lived a year in Shannon before I learned that George -Cutter was not a dead and buried man. He had passed with that flotsam -and jetsam tide created by the Great War. And the House of Helen had -become the center of social life in Shannon. She was a sedate hostess, -always garnished with her children. She had declared this kind of -natural peace, and kept it in a world rocking with the confusion which -followed the war. - -She belonged to the deep furrow of life, where the soil is rich and -strong. If she had been an herb of the fields, she would have been an -evergreen herb. If she had been a tree, her boughs would never have -shed their leaves. If she had been a rose, she would have bloomed -fairest above a hoarfrost. The lives of many of us, who were drawn to -her during this time by one sort of distress or another, took root -in her quiet heart, and it was her wish that not one of these should -suffer or perish. - -The ignobly wise believe that this opulence of kindness is no more -than the manifestation of the nature of women, not a virtue, but the -maternal instinct common to all mammals. - -If you ask me, I should point to the prevailing type of modern woman -as an example of what mere Nature does for a woman. She is a brilliant -creature, ready to show the iridescent wings of her charms to all -men, not one man; a childless wife, ready to sue for her liberty and -alimony on the slightest provocation; an ambitious person, futilely -active, who farms out her home to servants that she may become the -dupe and handmaiden of politicians. She belongs to the fashionable -scrubwoman class, who take the job of cleaning up the town and setting -the table for the next convention. She is subsidized by compliments and -favors. There is nothing permanent in her; and she will not increase -nor multiply after the manner of her kind. She is the lightest, most -transient phase of her sex we have yet seen. But she is astonishingly -natural. - -Few tales end with the death of the principal characters. They usually -end just as the heroes and heroines begin to live happy ever after. -And you are obliged to take the author’s word for that, because the -statement is contrary to all human experience. - -Still you must expect the approaching end of this chronicle, because -the House of Helen has been established. There remains one last scene. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - -Beginning with the year 1921 many men, who had too swiftly acquired -fortunes in the handling of government contracts, began to pass under -the rod of investigations concerning such wartime profits. George -Cutter was one of these. Somebody, with a talent for figuring up the -cost and sales price of lumber left over from a half-finished training -camp for soldiers, discovered that the said George William Cutter had -failed to turn in one million eight hundred and some odd thousands -of dollars due the government. This statement appeared in a New York -paper. Nothing followed. And nothing was heard of Mr. Cutter for -another year. - -Then one afternoon in May, of 1922, a corpulent, extremely bald-headed -man, with a seamy face and pouched eyes, stood up in the day coach of -a train which was pulling into Shannon. He reached for his hat in the -rack overhead, put it on jauntily, pulled down his vest, which had -wrinkled up so often when he sat down and had been pressed so rarely -that it remained faintly fluted diagonally across his broad expanse. -He squared his shoulders, you may say with a former air, and stepped -briskly down the aisle and waited meekly on the platform between the -coaches while several people descended at the station. Then he came -down, and moved off hurriedly. - -No one recognized him. Misfortune does something to you. It changes -your manner, and takes the swagger out of your step, especially if you -are the author of your misfortune. - -This man walked heavily out Wiggs Street, looking about him furtively -until he came to the Cutter residence. Then he lifted his eyes and -beheld it in utter amazement--a fine, wide-winged, colonial mansion -where a cottage had stood when he left Shannon five years before. - -“I have missed her. She is gone,” he mumbled. - -At this moment he caught sight of a small girl, who had already got -sight of him and was regarding him curiously from the shade of a lilac -bush. - -There was a time when he would have strode finely up to the door, rung -the bell and inquired for Mrs. Cutter; but now he was not equal to that -display. He had lost his presence. He would get the information he -needed from this child after the manner of the class to which he now -belonged, the surreptitious class. - -“How do you do, my dear,” he said from the pavement to the small lady -under the lilac bush. - -She stuck a finger in her mouth and continued to regard him. - -“Who lives here?” - -“My muvver,” she answered, not pridefully, but with assurance. - -“And what is your name?” - -“Helen.” - -He sat down on the terraced wall and stared so long at the ground that -she feared he had forgotten her, and she was not of the age or sex to -endure the idea of being forgotten. - -“My muvver’s name is Helen, too,” she informed him. “And my brover’s -name is Sammy. What’s yours?” - -“Mine’s George. Ever heard it?” he asked. - -She shook her head. - -“What is your father’s name?” - -“We don’t keep him wiv us,” she explained. - -“Oh, you don’t? Where is he?” - -She did not know where this parent was, but she could show him Sammy. -And off she ran, dark curls flying. - -The man watched her. Then he fell again to staring at the ground. -Fervent ejaculations occurred to him, but he uttered not a word. The -histrionic had died in him. - -He saw a car coming rapidly along the street. When it passed, he would -get up and move on. This house, these children made him a stranger and -an outcast here as he was everywhere. Why had he returned? Why had he -not accepted the sentence of shame and defeat, slid on down where men -rest from honor and hope, that last refuge of complete degradation? - -But the car turned into the driveway, covering him with dust as it -whirled past, and through the dust he beheld the face of his wife. He -came to his feet and followed with a hurried, shuffling step. He was -still some distance away when the driver halted before the house, then -drove on out of sight. - -At this moment Helen, who had been about to mount the steps, caught -sight of him. - -He came on, wondering if she recognized him. It was incredible that -she should know him. When you have been defeated, degraded, caught the -shadows of prison bars that never lift from before your vision, you do -not expect recognition; you only fear it. He feared now, with a sort of -truculent impotence, what might be going to happen. Still he came on -with that courage of mean despair which men still show when they have -fallen to the last degree of shameless shame. - -Their eyes met--hers calm and steady as the horizon of a perfect day, -his wavering between doubt and determination. - -“Helen!” - -Her lips moved as if speechless words died there. - -Thus they stood, he at bay, she with the light falling upon her, grave -and sweet, not condemning him, seeing in him the answer that love and -fate make to such women. - -“Helen,” he cried again, “are you my wife?” - -She lifted her hand in that old gesture to her breast, the same pale -look of ineffable goodness which he remembered. Then, still looking -back, she turned, mounted the steps and entered the door of her house -and stood before him as if she waited. She showed against the shadows -like the figure of a shrine upon a dark hillside above a dusty road -over which pilgrims come and go. They are never moved, these shrines, -from age to age. They are altars that do not fall. So are some women. -They are the sanctuaries of mankind. It is the fashion to despise them, -but they hold the world together. - -Cutter came slowly up the step, with a flash of life and hope in -his face--an ignoble and worthless man made safe in the shelter of a -woman’s heart, whose wish was that none should perish who looked to her -for comfort. It was not love, but honor that opened the door of her -house to him. - - -THE END - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The House of Helen, by Corra Harris - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF HELEN *** - -***** This file should be named 60169-0.txt or 60169-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/1/6/60169/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. 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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: The House of Helen - -Author: Corra Harris - -Release Date: August 25, 2019 [EBook #60169] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF HELEN *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<h1>THE HOUSE<br /> -OF HELEN</h1> -<hr class="tiny" /> -<p class="ph1">CORRA HARRIS</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - - -<p class="ph2"> -THE<br /> -HOUSE OF HELEN</p> - -<p>BY<br /> -<span class="large">CORRA HARRIS</span><br /> -<br /> -<span class="small">AUTHOR OF “A DAUGHTER OF ADAM,” “THE EYES OF LOVE,”<br /> -“MY SON,” “HAPPILY MARRIED,” “A CIRCUIT RIDER’S<br /> -WIFE,” “THE RECORDING ANGEL,” ETC.<br /> -AND IN COLLABORATION WITH FAITH HARRIS LEECH:<br /> -“FROM SUNUP TO SUNDOWN”</span></p> - - - -<p>NEW <img src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt="" height="50" width="50" /> YORK<br /> -GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - - -<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1923,<br /> -BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_colophon.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1922, 1923,<br /> -BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY</p> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<p class="center">THE HOUSE OF HELEN. II<br /> -<br /> -PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - - - -<h2 class="nobreak">PART ONE</h2> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> - -<h2>THE<br /> - -HOUSE OF HELEN</h2> - - - - -<h2 class="nobreak">PART ONE<br /> - -<br /> - -CHAPTER I</h2></div> - - -<p>The town of Shannon lay like a wreath flung -wide upon the hills above one of those long, green, -fertile valleys to be seen everywhere below the -Blue Ridge Mountains in North Georgia. It was -nothing like a city, merely a neat, little town built -by thrifty people since the Civil War. Therefore, -there were no colonial residences in it to -remind you of the strutting, magnificent past, but -the houses in it were smaller, painted any color -that pleased the fancy, ruffled from end to end, -with spindle-legged porches and scalloped gables. -White church spires stuck up out of it like the -forefingers of faith in God. There was a town -square, around which business was done comfortably -and leisurely on a credit basis.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>The red-brick courthouse stood in this square, -with a long, wide flight of white cement steps to -it, showing like the teeth of the law; not that any -one minded these teeth. The dome of this courthouse -was covered with galvanized tin. It shone -above the tufted trees on bright days like an immense -silver helmet. And beneath this helmet -there was the town clock, a good, old man with -a plain, round face with only the wrinkles that -marked the hours on it. Half the men in Shannon -who carried watch chains carried no watches -because this clock was so infallibly faithful to -the sun.</p> - -<p>At the time of which I write no one in Shannon -called the narrow or even the wide spaces, -which separated their respective homes from the -street, a lawn. It was the “front yard,” and usually -divided with a picket fence from the back -yard, where the hens attended to business. Flowers, -of the kind in service to “ladies” who wear -aprons and do their own work and have an artless -affection for blooming things, inhabited these -front yards, regardless of law and order in the -matter of background or perspective. The forsythia, -syringas, roses and altheas had been -planted with reference to their health in relation -to the sun, and, whatever happened, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -bloomed. Only the smaller plants, like annuals, -were sternly disciplined. They stood up in beds -or along the graveled walks, like spelling classes -in a properly graded school, every one of them -reciting a bloom after the manner of its kind.</p> - -<p>These ladies of Shannon also kept “potted -plants” and exchanged cuttings. It is only after -you have ceased to be thrifty and have become -rich that you imprison your flowers in a conservatory -or a greenhouse. Shannon reached this scandalous -pinnacle of prosperity years later, but at -this time there was what may be called miniature -“bleachers” on the front porches in Shannon -where red and pink and white geraniums doubled -up gorgeous fists of bloom, and fuchsias hung their -waxened bells in the breeze, and begonias flaunted -their rich, dark leaves, and that unspeakably gross -and hardy vine, the Wandering Jew, wandered at -will.</p> - -<p>These flower-laden bleachers were especially -characteristic of Wiggs Street, because this was -the principal residence street of Shannon. And -it was all a family affair. The nieces of the -geraniums on Mrs. Adams’ porch bloomed on the -porch of the Cutter home across the way. And -Mrs. Adams had obtained the root of her sword -fern from Mrs. Cutter, and so on and so forth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -You might multiply it by the seeds or shoots or -roots of ten thousand flowers.</p> - -<p>This was why Shannon showed like a wreath -on the hills above the valley. The women there -were diligent. They loved their homes. So their -front yards looked like flowered calico aprons, -tied onto these homes as their own aprons were -tied about their plump waists. The women were -very good; the men were reasonably respectable. -There was ambition without culture. But give -them time. Already Mr. George William Cutter -had sent his son, young George William, to college -for two years. That ought to amount to -something, culturally speaking. And Mrs. Mary -Anne Adams was considering whether she could -afford to send her daughter Helen to a boarding -school for a year, or whether she would leave -Helen to take her chances at George with only a -high-school education and her music and a little -drawing for accomplishments! But if she did -decide to send Helen “off to school,” it ought to -amount to a great deal more, culturally speaking. -Girls acquire the gloss of elegance and refinement -more rapidly than boys do, and it is apt -to stay on them longer, no matter what stays in -them.</p> - -<p>The first definite upward trend in a tacky little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -town begins when some insolently prosperous citizen -sends his suburban-bred son to college just -long enough for him to claim that he is a “college -man,” and when some valorous mother, -usually a widow, follows suit and sends her -daughter to a “seminary,” because she is not to -be outdone by the above-mentioned prosperous -citizen, even if she is not prosperous. When -these two young beings return with their intellectual -noses in the air, you may look out. The -scenes in that town must change.</p> - -<p>Business gets a hunch, or somebody’s business -goes into bankruptcy. The domestic sphere -spins around, loses its ancient balance and the -girl gives a really fashionable tea party, after removing -the precious potted plants from the front -porch and placing her tables there, if it is a -pleasant day. These things happen and you cannot -help it. Give them an inch of education -abroad and they will take an ell of license with -your manners, convictions, and prejudices when -they come home.</p> - -<p>Nothing like this had yet happened in Shannon. -Only drummers and salesmen really knew -and saw what was going on in the world, and no -drummers or salesmen lived there. The town -was passing tranquilly through its religious and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -golden-oak periods. Most people went to church, -and everybody who was anybody had golden-oak -furniture, including an upright piano, as distinguished -from the antiquated square piano. If the -latter was for the present beyond their means, -they had an elaborately carved and bracketed -organ of the same durable wood, through which -the Sabbath-afternoon air passed in hymnal -strains at about the same hour it bore the aroma -of boiling coffee on week days.</p> - -<p>This is a mere flash of what Shannon was in -those days; such an impression as you might have -received from the window of your car if you had -been passing through on one of those fast trains -that did not stop at Shannon, but roared by as -if this little town did not exist. And if you knew -all that was to happen there within the next -twenty years to only two people, not to mention -the remaining six thousand of her inhabitants, to -whom a great deal more must have happened, you -would agree that I am justified in detaining you a -moment before beginning this tale.</p> - -<p>Otherwise, how could you understand that -Helen belonged by tradition, by environment, by -the very petunias that bordered her mother’s -flower beds, to the Agnes tribe of meek and enduring -women. I am not claiming that this is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -wiser, abler tribe than the numerous modern -tribes of insurgent women, many of whom have -faced the same emergencies. I leave each one of -you to decide that question according to your -lights, leaving out the traditions and the petunias, -because doubtless you have long since made way -with them.</p> - -<p>My task is simply to set down here exactly -what happened, with no more regard for the -moral than the facts themselves carry. And so -I give you my word that this is a true story, and -that the events I have recorded did happen and -that the “House of Helen” does stand to this -day in Shannon. You may see it from the window -of your car, as you pass through, halfway -down Wiggs Street, on the right-hand side, and -facing you. It is not so large, so pretentious as -the other residences which have taken the place -of the cottages that stood along this street during -the golden-oak period, but it looks different, that -house, serene, as a house should that has weathered -the storm and has fair weather forever -within.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II</h2></div> - - -<p>It was a day in June, in the year 1902. They -are much the same everywhere, only in Georgia -there is more June in such a day. Farther -south the withering heat hints of July; farther -north there may be an edge of cold to the air; -but in Georgia it is always perfectly June in -June, all softness, fragrance, filled with the fearless -growth and bloom of every living thing—the -sort of day that seems to hum to itself with the -wings of a thousand bees; adolescent weather, fragrant, -soft, filled with the growth and yearning -of every living thing from the frailest flower that -blooms to the oldest tree and the oldest man.</p> - -<p>On such a day this story begins, somewhere between -half past three and four o’clock in the -afternoon. The exact moment makes no difference -because nothing that you could see with the -naked eye happened when the first scene was -laid. (It is only the comedies and crimes of living -that catch the eye. The great dramas and the -great tragedies begin within, and they end there.) -The town was somnambulent—very little traffic; -none at all on Wiggs Street. You could only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -have known by the gentle bending of the frailer-stemmed -flowers before the cottages on either side -that even a breeze was passing by. But over all -this stillness and piercing this droning silence -came the notes of a piano, sad, sweet and frequently -too far apart, as if this piano waited -patiently while the performer found the next -note, and then found it again on the keyboard. -These desiccated fragments of Narcissus, a popular -instrumental piece at that time, issued from -the parlor windows of the Adams cottage. Some -one, who had no ear for music, but only a conscience, -was practicing inside.</p> - -<p>Presently this conscience was satisfied, for the -lid of the piano went down with a thud. There -was a quick step, the whisk of white skirts in the -darkened hall, the opening and closing of a door, -followed by what we must infer was a sort of -primping silence.</p> - -<p>Then a voice, firm and maternal, came through -the front bedroom window on that side of the -house: “Helen, why are you wearing your organdie?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, mother,” a young voice answered.</p> - -<p>I doubt if she did know. Some of the shrewdest -acts of a maiden are unintelligible to her.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>“Well, it is silly, putting on your nice things -to go to choir practice.”</p> - -<p>It was silly, but one frequently makes the silliest -preparations for happiness. This is the wisdom -of youth. Age cannot beat it.</p> - -<p>After a pause, the same elder voice, made -smoother—“Have you seen George?”</p> - -<p>“Not in two years. Why?”</p> - -<p>“He has been at home a week, hasn’t he?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know when he came.”</p> - -<p>The tone implied that the comings and goings -of this George were matters of supreme indifference -to her.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Cutter told me his father means for him -to work this summer.”</p> - -<p>No response.</p> - -<p>“He had three months in the University School -of Finance last summer, she told me. This summer -his father plans to put him through, she -said.”</p> - -<p>Still no response.</p> - -<p>“Don’t forget to call for my pass book at the -bank, Helen,” this was said in a slightly higher -key, indicating that the girl had left the room. -“You had better go by the bank on your way to -the church. It closes at four o’clock.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, mother;” and at the same moment this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -young girl came out of the house, down the steps, -walking hurriedly.</p> - -<p>When she reached the street she began to move -more sedately, giving herself an air. Her ankles -were slim; her black satin pumps had low -French heels. She wore a white organdie. The -fineness, tucks and lace of her petticoat showed -through the full skirt. The bodice was plain, finished -at the neck with an edge of lace, and gathered -puffily in at the belt. The fineness, tucks -and lace of an underbody clung daintily to her -shoulders and showed through. The sleeves -were short. Her arms round and very fair. A -wide taffeta ribbon sash of pale blue, crushed -crinklingly about her waist, was tied in a butterfly -bow behind, very stiff and upstanding.</p> - -<p>She wore a broad-brimmed, white leghorn hat, -trimmed with tiny bunches of field flowers. This -hat was tilted slightly to one side, as if she lacked -the courage to pull it down, lest she should reveal -more than she dared tell of what she was -and meant. It rested, therefore, at the merest, -most innocent angle of coquetry.</p> - -<p>The girl herself was utterly and entrancingly -fair. She had straight hair, of the shade called -ash blond; no deeper golden lights in it; most -of it hidden beneath the encompassing hat. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -you found it, you must do so by an act of the -imagination. And the absurd primness with -which it lay so close and smoothly above her ears -teased the imagination. Her skin was white, with -that underglow of pink so faint it could scarcely -be called color—cheeks round, not too full. The -oval chin had the softness of youth. She had a -mouth made for silence; it was serious. The under -lip was a straight pink line, prettily turned, -which did not go very far; the upper lip was distinctly -full in the center, with a sort of flute there -which ended in a dainty, pointed, white scallop -beneath the nose, and it closed purposefully over -the lower lip. This was due to the fact that if -she was not mindful, it let go, curled up and -showed the only flaw she had—two lovely teeth, -a trifle prominent because they lapped at the -lower edge after the manner of some Anglo-Saxon -ancestor from whom she must have inherited -them. Her nose might amount to something later -in life as an indication of character, but now it -was merely a good little nose, rounded at the end -where it should have been pointed, and too brief -for beauty.</p> - -<p>The eyes were this girl’s distinguishing feature. -They remained so long after all her loveliness -and fairness had changed and failed. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -were large, blue, white-lidded, heavily fringed -with lashes darker than her hair. And they -looked at you, at him, at all the world and the -weather, calmly, from beneath long, sweeping -brows, as if these brows were the slender wings -of the thoughts she had when she looked at you.</p> - -<p>This is what a girl is, and nothing more—loveliness, -innocence, and the wordless sweet desire -of herself. You cannot predict her. Anything -may change her; one thing only is certain—she -is sure to change. The woman will be profoundly -different. This is why writers of mere fiction -have discarded the young girl heroine. Nothing -can make her interesting but a tragedy, until she -develops her human perversities and attributes, -which may require more years than the tale can -afford.</p> - -<p>Helen walked sedately through Wiggs Street, -as if every window of every house was an eye that -observed her. But when she came to the end, -where this street entered the public square, her gait -changed, much as your voice changes inflection -according to the tune you sing. This was a livelier -tune now to which she walked. She stepped -along briskly, prettily. Her skirts whisked, her -body swayed a little as if this might turn out to -be a waltz. Every shop window she passed was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -a mirror, in which she caught an encouraging -glimpse of herself. Once she halted long enough -to draw the brim of her hat forward and sidewise. -Then she went on, the published truth of herself -at last. And her own mother would not have -known her.</p> - -<p>Few mothers, even in that prunes-and-prism -period, relatively speaking, would have recognized -their daughters abroad. But every man would. -It is Nature having her way, you understand, and -no harm done; because in the end these maidens -must—and they will—take Nature, which after -all is the very nearest relative of maidenhood, into -their confidence and be guided by her.</p> - -<p>The First National Bank of Shannon was no -great institution. Still it was modestly conspicuous. -What I mean is that you could tell at a -glance and from a distance that this was a bank, -not a doctor’s office, by the tall cement columns -in front, the only example of four-legged magnificence -in the shakily diversified architecture surrounding -this square.</p> - -<p>But Mr. George William Cutter would never -have thought of exalting himself in a private -office with a ground glass door, showing the title -“President,” published on this door. He sat at -a rolled-top desk in a space reserved for him to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -the left of the door, by a stout oaken banister -which divided it from the lobby. The only distinction -he permitted himself was to sit with his -back to the window which looked on the square. -What was more to the point he faced the long -cage of the bank proper, and was always in a position -to see, know or at least shrewdly infer what -was going on inside and outside in the lobby.</p> - -<p>But if you were a customer, seeking a loan or -even planning to open an account, you must come -in and face about before you could face the president. -There was dignity, financial assurance, but -no offensive pride, in his sitting posture to the -public. He was a man with a recognized girth, -not entirely bald. His hair was gray; so was his -short, clipped mustache. He wore light gray -clothes in summer and dark gray clothes in the -winter. And he had a fine strong commercial -countenance. He might almost have cashed it, -his face was so well certified by a pair of shrewd -gray eyes, as distinguished from the cunning of -similar eyes.</p> - -<p>On this June afternoon he sat reared back, his -coat thrust clear of the wide expanse of his white -shirt front, like the wings of an old gray rooster -cocked up on a hot day. He was smoking a black -cigar. From time to time he shot a glance into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -the cage of the bank; and each time the corners -of his mouth went up, the fired end of the cigar -also went up, his eyes narrowed to a mere gray -slit of light as sharp as a lance, and his whole -face crinkled into an expression of humor and satisfaction. -Sometimes an experienced turfman so -regards a young and mettlesome colt that is being -broken to the gait, when the colt acts up to his -breeding, takes the bit and goes, even if he does -waste wind and sweat in the performance.</p> - -<p>Directly in line with his vision a tall, broad-shouldered -young man was standing before an -adding machine in his shirt sleeves. This was -George William Cutter, Junior, inducted into the -rear end of the banking business a week since. -He was working furiously with the halting earnestness -of a man not accustomed to grind up -figures in a machine and pedal them out on a -long strip of paper with his foot. His hair was -red and stood up like a torch on his head. His -mouth was warped, his nose snarled, his face was -flushed and there was an angry squint in his red -brown eyes as he struck the keys, jerked the lever -and slammed the pedal once in so often—forty -little movements that kept the muscles of his big -body in a sort of frivolous activity.</p> - -<p>Mr. Cutter, Senior, was thinking: “He’s got it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -in him, the go. He will make good if he can be -made to stick. Ought to marry, ought’er marry -right now. That would stamp him down to -it.”</p> - -<p>What young George was thinking as he paused -to mop his steaming brow was: “Gad! If three -days in here takes it out of a fellow like this, what -will thirty years do to him?”</p> - -<p>He knew that he was being groomed to succeed -his father. It might be a bright future for a -young man, but as a human being it held no -brighter prospect than escaping from this cage and -sitting where his father sat now, fat and sedentary -in all his habits. He was restless. He was -red-headed. He was an athlete on the university -team. There had been some question about -whether he should take his final year. He would -let the “old man” know that he was willing and -anxious to go back to the university in the fall. -He was not ready to be imprisoned for life with -dollars, not yet!</p> - -<p>At this moment the street door, that had admitted -everybody all day from the leading merchants, -workers, widows, all the way down to the -fat woman who kept the fruit stand, opened -again. A young girl came in. It was as if spring -and snow and sweetness had entered. There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -so much whiteness and coolness in the presence -she made. A mere hint of far-off blue skies, and -as if Nature had granted her the flowers she wore -on this hat. She passed the teller’s window, also -the cashier’s window. She looked neither to the -right nor the left. The white scallop in the pink -upper lip was pressed primly, holding it, like a -word she would not say, upon the round pink -under lip. She came directly to the bookkeeper’s -window, faced it, stared at him and waited.</p> - -<p>When she entered he had made three steps -backward, which brought him to the wall behind -him. He was conscious of being without his coat. -But if you are a man in a bank you are not supposed -to scamper out of sight like a lady in -negligee, if some one comes to call. You stood -your ground with dignity, no matter how you -looked. He stood his; he did not move a muscle. -He may have breathed, but if so it was no more -than a secret breath merely to sustain life. Their -eyes met; his filled with the fire of an amazement, -hers calm and speechless. She regarded -him as one regards a picture on the wall.</p> - -<p>This was all that happened, lasting no longer -than the instant of time required for the bookkeeper -to look up, see her and slide himself with -one step like a little, thin-necked, bald-headed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -stooped-shouldered fact before the window, blotting -out the vision of her.</p> - -<p>Young Cutter heard her murmur something, -saw the bookkeeper draw a pass book from a stack -of these dingy records and slide it beneath the -wicket of the window.</p> - -<p>He heard her say “thank you” in a faint, soft, -bell-like voice. Then she turned and went out.</p> - -<p>He stared about him. How was this? He expected -a wave of excitement to mark her passing, -as people exclaim at the sight of something ineffable. -Had no one seen her but himself? Apparently -not. Every man in there was working -with his usual air of absorption. For another instant -he stood free, exalted, his eyes filled with -the explosive brightness of a great emotion. Then -it faded into self-consciousness, a downward look -as he sneaked back to his machine, hoping that he -had not been observed.</p> - -<p>This is the only kind of modesty of which men -are capable. If one of them went out with this -look of neighing valor on his face he would be -arrested, of course, because it is such a perfectly -scandalous expression. But if a maid walks -abroad with love published in her eyes and on her -very lips, you are moved to reverence, because -it is a sort of piety which seems to sanctify her.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>He bent lower over his task, shot the lever -down with a bang, struck the pedal harshly and -rhythmically—made a noise, implying that he -was and had been, without interruption, wholly -engrossed with this business.</p> - -<p>“Remember her, George?” came his father’s -voice like a shot out of a clear sky.</p> - -<p>“Who?” asked George, instantly on his guard.</p> - -<p>“The girl that came in just now.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t notice. Who was she?”</p> - -<p>“Helen Adams.”</p> - -<p>“Never should have recognized her.” This -was the truth. He had recognized only loveliness, -not the maiden name of it.</p> - -<p>“Last time you saw her she was a long-legged, -saucer-faced youngster, wearing her hair plaited -and tied with a blue ribbon, I reckon.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the way I remember little Helen,” -George admitted, grinning.</p> - -<p>“Two years make a lot of difference in a girl -of that age. Pretty, ain’t she?”</p> - -<p>The young man did not answer. He was suddenly -and unaccountably annoyed. When your -whole mind is concentrated on a girl, she becomes -your religion and you do not care to enter into -a doctrinal discussion of this religion with another -man, not even your old, gray-haired father,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -because she has become the sacred silence of your -own soul, no matter what or who she was yesterday, -nor even if you never had so much as a -twinge of soul until this moment. You practically -invent your soul then and there out of the -joy and daylight of your youth, because it is the -only place suitable for such a creature to occupy. -Let Moses and the prophets stand aside! This is -your pagan period of vestal virgins; not that you -know it, but it is.</p> - -<p>Mr. Cutter stood up, produced a heavy gold -watch, studied the face of it, grinned, jerked his -coat down and around, buttoned one button of it -by the hardest work and reached for his hat. -“Well, George, I guess you’ll finish before you -quit,” he said.</p> - -<p>This was a hint. The son took it. “All right, -sir. I’ll be along about midnight,” he answered -good-naturedly, at the same time making a wry -face.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’ll probably get in before suppertime. -The work will come easier in a day or two,” the -father retorted as he stalked out.</p> - -<p>He was scarcely out of sight before the cashier, -teller and bookkeeper followed in quick procession.</p> - -<p>George was now alone. He changed his scene<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -instantly, as most people do when they are left -alone. He straightened up, started smoking, -moved directly into the current of the electric -fan, folded his arms and thought profoundly, his -head lifted, eyes fixed in a noble gaze, as if on -no particular object; a heroic figure, blowing volumes -of smoke through his nose.</p> - -<p>What a young man thinks in this mood may be -imagined, but it never can be known. And the -writer does not live with the wisdom or grace to -translate his deep, singing dumbness into words.</p> - -<p>Presently he went back to his task, working -now with swiftness and concentration, as if his -whole future depended upon finishing what he -was doing in the shortest possible time. He finished -in thirty minutes, disappeared into the rear -of the bank and reappeared five minutes later -through the side door. He was brushed, groomed -and freshened to the last degree of elegance. His -homespun fitted him with an air. He stepped -with a long, prideful stride—and got no farther -than the corner of the next street. Here he halted, -looking all possible ways at once—nobody in -sight; plenty of people, you understand, but not -the girl. He had seen her pass this corner.</p> - -<p>He waited. Wherever she had gone, she should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -be returning by this time. This one and that one -hailed him as they went by. A fellow he knew -stopped and engaged him in conversation. He -was annoyed. Suppose the girl appeared, how -was he to escape from this ass? The ass finally -took in the situation and moved on, looking back -as he turned the next corner.</p> - -<p>George looked at his watch—after five! She -certainly should be going home by this time. -Everybody in sight was on his way home. Suppose -he had missed her; suppose she had gone -around the other way! Jumping cats, what a -fool he had been, wasting time here! He started -off, walking rapidly but still with that magnificent, -stiff-legged strut.</p> - -<p>Some one came alongside, caught his arm and -whirled him half around. “Where you going in -such a hurry, Cutter?”</p> - -<p>This was Charley Harman, a friend, but this -was no time for friends to be butting in.</p> - -<p>“Home,” said George briefly, by way of implying -that he was not inviting company home -with him.</p> - -<p>“So am I, but I never walk fast when I’m going -home. Let’s get a drink in here”; halting as -they came opposite a drug store.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>“Take one for me,” Cutter said with a short -laugh and moved on so hurriedly that Harman -took the hint.</p> - -<p>Nothing else happened until he reached the -place where Wiggs Street opened on the square. -He stared down the flower-blooming vista of this -street. He could see men watering their front -yards and the women watering their flowers. He -could hear the boom of his father’s voice half a -block down, talking to some one in the next yard. -He saw Mrs. Adams sitting, large and amorphous, -in a rocking-chair on her front porch. He supposed -that she also was waiting for Helen.</p> - -<p>Then he saw her approaching from the other -end of the street, not distant, but divided from -him by the eyes of all these people sitting and -puttering around in their front yards. He -thought she walked as if she were sad or good or -something. And he had this consolation, as she -finally turned in and went up the steps of the -Adams’ cottage, he was sure that she had seen him. -He was sure that their eyes had met. He also observed -when he came down into the street to his -own home that she had not stopped on the porch -with her mother, but had gone directly inside.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III</h2></div> - - -<p>When you are in love, everything is important -and everything is secret. You become a consummate -actor and liar in vain, because the whole -world knows your secret almost as soon as you do.</p> - -<p>That evening at the dinner table, George was -so gay, so full of himself, so ready to laugh and -make a joke that Mrs. Cutter was beside herself -with pride and happiness.</p> - -<p>“He is such a good boy, so unconscious of his -good looks and his intellect,” she told Mr. Cutter -when they were alone together after dinner.</p> - -<p>“Intellect!” said Mr. Cutter in that tone of -voice.</p> - -<p>“Yes; you know how smart he is; but he is not -the least conceited, just light-hearted and happy -as he should be at his age. I say it shows he is -a good boy.”</p> - -<p>“Where is he now?” Mr. Cutter wanted to -know.</p> - -<p>The question appeared to Mrs. Cutter to be -irrelevant. She said she did not know; why?</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” answered her husband.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>She said he was around somewhere, probably -in his room. She went to the bottom of the stairs. -“Georgie!” she called.</p> - -<p>No answer. Well, then he must be out front -somewhere, and went to prove that he was. But -she could not find him. Then she came back and -wanted to know of Mr. Cutter what difference -did it make, if they did not know where he was? -George was no longer a child. Couldn’t he trust -his own son?</p> - -<p>Oh, yes; in reason he could and did trust him. -“But I’ll tell you one thing, Maggie,” he added, -laying aside his paper and looking her squarely in -the face, “George should get married.”</p> - -<p>“Married; just as he is ready to enjoy his youth -and not even out of the university yet—and only -twenty-one. What do you mean?” she demanded -indignantly.</p> - -<p>“That a blaze-faced horse and a red-headed -man are both vain things for safety,” he retorted.</p> - -<p>“Do you know anything wrong about George?” -she demanded, after a gasping pause.</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“A single thing?”</p> - -<p>“Not a single thing. I was merely stating a -natural fact.”</p> - -<p>She had risen, a little, slim, fiery-eyed woman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -She drew herself up. He watched her ascend. -He refused to quail beneath the spark in her -eye.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Cutter,” she began ominously, because she -gave him this title only when she was ominous, -“when you married me I had red hair. My hair -is still red.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, my dear; but you were a girl. I said a -man. I meant a young man with red hair. There -is all the latitudes and longitudes in life between -the one and the other. If you were a red-haired -young man, I should think twice before I’d give a -daughter of mine in marriage to you. But you -will recall that I had black hair,” he concluded, -laughing.</p> - -<p>A father who would traduce his own son for -inheriting hair the color of his mother’s and without -cause—well, she could not understand such a -father. Whereupon she left the room in high -dudgeon, but really to go and look for this son. -Her confidence in him had not been shaken, but -she was anxious without reason, which is the keenest -anxiety from which women suffer.</p> - -<p>She found him pacing back and forth in the -vegetable garden, arms folded, face lifted like a -yowling puppy’s to the moon; not that this simile -occurred to her. He appeared to her a potentially<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -great man, breathing his thoughts in this quiet -place.</p> - -<p>He was annoyed at this interruption. Was he -never to have a moment alone to think this thing -out! He really thought he was thinking, you -understand, when he was only visualizing a girl -in a white dress, with a blue sash, blue eyes and -blue cornflowers on her hat; blue was the most -entrancing color in the world, and so on and so -forth. He was trying to imagine what she would -say if she said anything, when he saw his mother -approaching. He repressed his impatience. They -walked together between the bald-headed cabbage -and the young, curled-up, green lettuce. She -thought she was sharing his thoughts. Something -had been said about his experiences in the bank. -Many a mother and some fathers would leap with -amazement, if they really knew the thoughts they -do not share with their sons and daughters at such -times.</p> - -<p>Still this was an innocent young man, as men -go, a good son, as sons are reckoned. He was -well within his rights to be pursuing his love -fancies. And for a long period of this time he -remained in a state of legal innocence of which -any man or husband might boast. Mrs. Cutter -was entirely justified in despising the opinion Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -Cutter had given that night of this excellent -young man. Sometimes more than twenty years -are required to fulfill a paternal prophecy.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams remained seated on the porch. -She supposed Helen had gone to her room to take -off her hat and would return presently. It was -much cooler out here, and the street was interesting -at this hour of the late afternoon, like -watching a very good human play, where all the -characters are decent.</p> - -<p>She saw Mrs. Shaw bustling in and out, herding -her numerous family. This meant that they -were having early supper, probably cold supper, -and that they would go to the band concert afterwards. -The Shaws spent a good deal on amusements. -She hoped they could afford it.</p> - -<p>There was Mr. Flitch sitting alone on his front -porch, with his heels cocked up on the banister. -This meant that he was in a state of rebellion, because -he never stuck his feet on to this immaculately -white banister if he was in a proper frame -of mind. It also meant that Mrs. Flitch had her -feelings hurt again and was probably in her room -suffering from this ailment. She had heard that -the Flitches did not get on well together. In her -opinion this was Ella Flitch’s fault. You could -not live diagonally across the street from a waspish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -woman and belong to the same missionary society -without knowing that she was waspish.</p> - -<p>I am writing this into the record—it was no -part of Mrs. Adams’ reflections—that if you are -a woman you always blame the wife for her marital -unhappiness; if you are a man you know, of -course, that the husband is at fault, even if you -listen cordially to your own wife when she is -taking the contrary view.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams turned her neat, little, gray head -slowly, surreptitiously and took a swift glance up -the street at the Cutter residence. Then she -turned it back again. But she had read all the -news up there to be seen with the naked eye, assisted -by powerful spectacles. Mr. and Mrs. -Cutter were seated comfortably in their respective -porch chairs. And George was out in the swing, -elegantly folded into a sitting posture where he -commanded a view of her front porch. If you are -the mother of a daughter, you notice such little -circumstances whether they mean anything or not, -because they may be very significant.</p> - -<p>The sight of this young man sentinel reminded -her of something. Where was Helen? What -was she doing so long inside? She arose at once -and went in to see about this.</p> - -<p>“Helen!” she called from the hall.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>No answer.</p> - -<p>She walked heavily to the closed bedroom door -and knocked authoritatively.</p> - -<p>No answer. Not a sound.</p> - -<p>“Helen, are you in there?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, mother,” came the faint reply.</p> - -<p>“What are you doing?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing,” in a wailing, muffled voice, as if -this person who was doing “nothing” was being -smothered.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Cutter thrust the door open and went in. -She was astounded. Her daughter lay face downward -across the bed, with her arms wound above -her head in two beautifully curved lines of mute -despair. Two pretty legs extended stiffly beyond -the uttermost that skirts could do to cover them. -One slippered foot worked slowly as you move a -foot in pain, and at quick intervals the slender -form rose and fell convulsively to the passionate -rhythm of sobs.</p> - -<p>“What on earth is the matter?” the mother -exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Are you ill?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Has anything happened?”</p> - -<p>“Not a thing.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>“Why are you crying?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. Oh, mother, I just want to be -left alone”—followed by another paroxysm of -weeping.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams waited grimly until the distressing -convulsions of the slender young body subsided. -Then she began again: “Well, you can’t be left -in this fix. Turn over, Helen. You are mussing -your dress.”</p> - -<p>The girl turned obediently, her face poignantly, -sweetly pink, very sad. Her eyes bright -with tears like violets after a summer rain. The -flush was ominous. Mrs. Adams had never seen -Helen this color before, never in her life. She -bent and laid a palm on the girl’s brow—warm, -but moist; certainly not feverish.</p> - -<p>She stood regarding her daughter thoughtfully. -Then she sat down on the side of the bed, took -one of Helen’s hands in her own harsher, stronger -hand, where it lay like a plucked lily, wilted, icy -cold. She stroked it gently. Her face softened, -her eyes brooded, as if through a mist she beheld -a memory of herself long ago, which suddenly -freshened and brightened into the figure of the -girl she had been.</p> - -<p>Mothers are omniscient. They have little -paths back and forth through their years by which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -the ghosts of them can always find you, wherever -you are. Not another word was spoken for a -long time between these two; the younger, overcome -by the future, holding the unsolved, longed-for -mystery of love; the other, overcome by the -past, which held for her the dreadful reality of -love. Neither had or could escape. They accomplished -a wordless sympathy on this basis.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams’ reflections were strangely mixed, -what with that sundown feeling she had of her -own youth and the anxieties of a mother growing -stronger every moment. She would like to -know, for example, if Helen had seen George -Cutter. Had she gone by the bank for the pass -book? But even when she caught sight of this -book lying on the dresser, with the ends of many -checks sticking out of it, she did not put the question. -Love is a wound too painful to be dressed -with the tenderest words when it is first made, -much less scraped with a question.</p> - -<p>She was, over and above her emotions as a -woman and a mother, fairly well satisfied with -the situation. She inferred that George and -Helen had had some sort of passage at arms. -And she did not suppose that any man in or -out of his senses could actually resist for long a -girl of Helen’s soft charm. Mothers have their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -pride, you understand. This one was shrewd, -eminently practical. You must be, to deal with -youth at this stage.</p> - -<p>The room was flooded with the golden effulgence -of a summer twilight when at last she arose, -moved gently toward the door, picking up the -bank book as she passed the dresser and thrusting -it into her pocket. “Helen,” she said from the -doorway, “it is the heat. This has been a very -warm day. You will be better presently.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, mother, I think it was the heat; and I -do feel better,” the girl answered faintly.</p> - -<p>“There is ice tea and chicken salad for supper,” -Mrs. Adams suggested.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I care for anything.”</p> - -<p>“Well, later then. I’ll leave the tea and your -salad on the ice,” the mother said, going out and -closing the door.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV</h2></div> - - -<p>This was the beginning of that affair. Helen -remembered the day well. A woman never forgets -the sky and the weather of the day upon -which love called her forth to the vicissitudes of -love. But as things turned out, I doubt if she -would mention that day now, as other women do -when the bloom of their years has past. But at -the best a courtship is strangely ephemeral, if -you consider the consequences. It is like fugitive -verses published to-day, gone to-morrow, like the -fragrance of flowers blown upon a wind that -passes and never returns. So much of it cannot -be made into words; a glance of the eye, quick -as light, revealing all; but who can translate the -look or the long silences between lovers? Nature -knows her business. The whole world, the heavens -and the earth and the fullness thereof is an -incantation made to ensnare lovers to her purpose. -And not a word grows anywhere to betray -this charm. You may be strong or weak, wise or -simple, cynical, disillusioned, protected with all -the knowledge of men, but there is no escape. -Nature gets you at last; on honor or dishonor you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -must pay your debt to her in love. When you -are done, nothing remains but your dust, a handful -of something with which to fertilize love again—a -little retail economy Nature makes in her -procreating plans.</p> - -<p>The next day after this first day was a Sabbath. -I do not believe in predestination, doctrinally -speaking. The meaning of that term, I -should say, was strictly human, and is derived -from our short-winded conception of time, which -does not exist either, except in the mortal sense. -But by some prearranged prudence of Providence, -by which all things come to pass whether we will -or no, including the most intimate and personal -things, the Cutters attended the same church that -the remaining mother and daughter of the Adams -family attended. It was a very good little -church, glistening white within, shining white -without, like an enameled bathtub with a roof -and a steeple. I will not be sure, but my impression -is that the denomination was Baptist. In -any case, Helen Adams belonged to the choir.</p> - -<p>On this Sunday morning she sang a solo, Jerusalem -the Golden. She had a fresh young voice, -roomy and soft at the bottom, triumphantly high -and keen at the top. She wore white as usual -and little fluttering skylines of blue tied in a bow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -as usual. When she stood up to sing she lifted -her eyes as if these eyes and this face were the -words of a young morning prayer; she let go her -beautifully crimped upper lip, opened her mouth -as if this mouth were a rose bursting into bloom—and -sang. I do not know if she sang well, having -no skill in these matters; but it is certain that -she looked like an angel. What I mean is that if -you had no visual acquaintance with angels, you -would have known at once that this was the very -image of the way an angel should look.</p> - -<p>The congregation listened with the peaceful -apathy peculiar to every small town congregation, -when it is being mulled in the music of a -hymn or the Word. This made the one exception -the more noticeable.</p> - -<p>George William Cutter, Junior, looked and -listened with a fervor which far surpassed anything -that mere piety could do for a young man’s -praying countenance. Fortunately he was seated -far back in the publican and sinner section of -the church. Thus he escaped the sophisticated -attention of the elder saints toward the front. -Never had he seen anything so lovely as this girl, -the high look she had with the notes of this hymn, -trembling as they came from her round, white -throat or flaring into a perfect ecstasy of joy.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>When she had finally caroled out and sat down, -he whispered under his breath, “Lord! Lord!” -although he was not a religious man and meant -nothing of the sort by this exclamation.</p> - -<p>The moment the benediction was pronounced, -he stepped briskly from his place in that sparsely -settled part of the church, met the slow-moving -tattling tide of the congregation coming out as he -hurried down the aisle like a good swimmer in -sluggish waters until he reached Helen standing -in the rear ranks with her mother.</p> - -<p>He bowed to Mrs. Adams. He hoped she remembered -him—George Cutter, extending his -hand.</p> - -<p>Oh, yes; she remembered him, she said mildly. -No excitement in her mind over the recollection -either! Did he think he had improved that -much? She let him know that so far as she was -concerned he was the same little George Cutter -who used to live across the street and sometimes -threw stones at her chickens.</p> - -<p>No matter if you are a very handsome young -man, with athletic laurels hanging to your college -coat tails, you cannot make a deep or flattering -impression on a middle-aged woman who has a -practical, computing mind and knows the romantic -value of her beautiful daughter. If Helen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -had been homely, a little, starched mouse of a -girl, who could not sing Jerusalem the Golden or -anything else, she would have received George’s -salutations more cordially. As it was, she did -not have to be more than invincibly polite. All -this she let him know with a flat look of her calm -blue eye.</p> - -<p>It was a waste of excellent maternal diplomacy -so far as he was concerned. He had already -turned to Helen. He was almost speechless from -having so much to say. She was entirely so for -a moment. Then she gave him her hand and -managed to say, “Howdy do, George,” in a -tone a girl uses when the man owes her an -apology.</p> - -<p>This accusative welcome dashed him. No -smile! When he was himself the very pedestal -of a smile. Good heavens, what had he done? -He was conscious of being innocent; yet he felt -guilty.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams paid no more attention to them. -She had gone on, caught up with the Flitches and -passed out. This was the only permission he received -that he might, if he could, walk with -Helen.</p> - -<p>The girl’s inclemency stirred him as frosty -weather stimulates energy. So they followed. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -doubt if they were aware themselves that the distance -lengthened between them and other groups -of this congregation, which divided and dwindled -at every street corner. Lovers are recognized on -sight, long before they know themselves to be -lovers. People make room for their privacy in -public places. These two had a whole block to -themselves by the time they entered Wiggs -Street. Mrs. Adams had already disappeared in -her house. The broad back of Mr. Cutter and -the slim back of little Mrs. Cutter were visible -for a moment before they also faded through the -doorway of the Cutter residence.</p> - -<p>Only the Flitches stood <i>en masse</i> on their -spider-legged veranda, their eyes glued upon these -two stragglers, coming slowly down the sunlit -street. The Flitches were good people, of the -round-eyed breed. They had a candid, perpetually -interrogative curiosity which nothing could -satisfy. You know the kind. It is never you, -but the family that lives across the street from -you, or in the next house with thin eyelid curtains -over their windows through which they are perpetually -regarding you, striving after omniscience -about you and your affairs.</p> - -<p>Helen had admitted that it was a “nice day” -when he said it was, as they came out of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -church and faced the fair brow of this June sabbath.</p> - -<p>He had told her how much he enjoyed her solo. -It was wonderful.</p> - -<p>She merely replied that she “liked to sing.”</p> - -<p>He was still conscious of being in the arctic -region of her regard and cast about, with a lover’s -distracted compass, to discover the way out. -“Weren’t you in the bank yesterday afternoon?” -he asked suddenly.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered coldly after a slight pause; -“I was about to speak to you, but you did not -recognize me,” she added.</p> - -<p>“It is the truth. I did not,” he admitted -quickly and waited. He could not be sure she -got it, the compliment implied. He remembered -her as merely sensible, not smart. “You have -changed, grown or something,” he resumed. “I -couldn’t be expected to know you. All the other -girls here look just as they did when I left here -two years ago. But you don’t; you are amazingly -different. How did you do it?” he exclaimed, -regarding her with charmed amazement.</p> - -<p>He saw her take it, caught the glance she gave -him one instant before she dropped it. The faintest -smile sweetened the comers of her mouth. He -got that too.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>If only he had known of the tears she had shed -after the visit to the bank, what a triumph! -Fortunately, men do not know what maidens confess -with tears to their pillows. If they did it -would change many a courtship to one kind or -another of ruthless tyranny.</p> - -<p>We who study love as if it were a medicine or -a disease sometimes speak of “love at first sight,” -as if this were an unusual seizure. But love is -always love at first sight. You may know this -man or he may know you for years without getting -that angle of vision; but if you ever do, it -is as if you had never really seen him before. -In a moment you have endowed him with attributes -his Maker would never have squandered -on a man of that quality. This is what love is, -the conferring of virtues and qualities upon the -object of your awakened emotion like so many -degrees. He may be a drug clerk, or a chicken-breasted, -fat man, or a swank young rascal, but -from that moment when love gets sight of him -he is a fellow of the royal society of heroes, and -you may be so bemused you live a lifetime with -him, always conferring more degrees to keep him -tenderly concealed from your clearer vision. Or -it may happen in a year or twenty years the scales -fall from your eyes. Then love becomes a servant,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -and life a tragedy. But there is nothing in -the Scriptures against such a servant or such a -life. Rather, I should say the Scriptures make -wide and permanent provisions for this deflation -in the marital relation.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER V</h2></div> - - -<p>From this day George Cutter spent his spare -time in and about the Adams cottage. You might -have inferred that he was a homeless man. He -accompanied Helen to such entertainments as -society consisted of in Shannon, chiefly picnics -and fishing excursions at this season of the year. -He was by nature an importunate lover, and he -was in love. He did not ask himself whether -Helen would make a suitable wife for such a man -as he was, and would become. He did not know -what kind of man he was. He only knew that -he wanted this girl, and that no other man should -have her.</p> - -<p>The decision was natural, entirely creditable. -But the approach must be made. So far as he -was concerned he was ready to propose to Helen -at once; girls, however, were squeamish in matters -of love. His instinct warned him that he -might lose by an immediate declaration. He -spent the time agreeably displaying his wares. -He was a university man. He had a smattering -of ideas, caught carelessly and selected from the -mouthings of this professor and that. He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -no doubt that he could make an impression. -Helen was village born, village bred. It was -well enough to startle her into a profound admiration. -Nothing subdued and impressed a -woman like brains. He not only had brains, he -had views.</p> - -<p>Bear in mind this was twenty years ago. The -muckrakers were still mucking in the best magazines. -The “social conscience,” a favorite phrase -at the time, had passed the period of gestation, -and had become a sentimental conviction claimed -by the best people. Old patriarchal Russian -anarchists with pink whiskers, spewed out of -Russia, were pouring into this country, the shade -of their whiskers due entirely to the action of the -salt air during the voyage over on the dye used -upon these whiskers by way of disguise until they -were safe in a clean land. They brought their -doctrines with them. They created a market for -socialism, radicalism and communism.</p> - -<p>There was no provision then or even now at -Ellis Island to exclude these lepers of decaying -civilization afflicted with the most insidious social -diseases of the mind. They had a fine time working -up conditions which were presently to result -in mental, moral and social unrest, strikes and the -perversions of all sound doctrines. The universities<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -in particular received these doctrines gladly—mere -theories, so far as the deans and doctors -were concerned, upon which they performed intellectual -stunts before their classes; trapeze work, -nothing more. At that time the most unscrupulous -men in this nation were these teachers of -youth. Now they may name their converts by -the millions; but then the “young gentlemen” who -listened had not got a working use of this diablerie. -They talked of liberty as if liberty was -license by way of appearing swank intellectually.</p> - -<p>George had come home that summer fresh cut -from the classroom of a certain professor who held -advanced views on what men were really entitled -to in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.</p> - -<p>One evening he was seated beside Helen on a -bench beneath an arbor covered with vines of -trailing clematis. They had been there a long -time. Nothing had happened, to put it exactly -as Helen inwardly interpreted the situation. -Nothing could happen yet, to put it according to -George’s decision. He had been home barely two -weeks. Helen impressed him as being so ineffably -innocent, so remote from his passion that -it would be almost an insult to make love to her. -Love enjoined silence like the benediction in a -church.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>They sat beneath the star-white clematis blossoms, -confounded with each other. Helen waited. -If only he would say something that would ease -her of this pain, this humiliation of feeling as -she did toward a man who might regard her -merely as a friend! She thought he might be -interested in her; he had been there almost every -evening since his return. But she did not know. -What suspense lovers bear when the whole tittering -world knows the truth they dare not believe.</p> - -<p>George started to smoke, tilted his chin up, expelled -a twin bugle of smoke from his nostrils, -narrowed his eyes and stared into the immensity -of the night. He was very handsome posed like -this, and knew it.</p> - -<p>Men are much more presumptuously vain than -women. They can be vain with no preparation, -in their shirt sleeves, with a three days’ stubble -of beard on their faces and no hair at all on their -heads. Their vanity seems to be a sort of rooster-tail -instinct, with which they have been endowed -so that they may do the work of the world and -waste no time primping. It is an illusion, of -course, this physical egotism, but the queer thing -is that it is an illusion of them shared by most -women. So they get away with it. And few of -them ever know how purposefully and sardonically<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -they are afflicted by Nature with homeliness.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, when you get down to the -psychological facts, I doubt if women are vain -at all. They may be beautiful, but even at that -they have so little confidence in their beauty that -the last one of them must finance her assurance -with all the make-believe art of loveliness. I -suppose she has discovered that it is not beauty -that wins the lover, but it is the deliberate proclamation -she thus makes to him of her charms. -And this is no illusion. For the history of that -grotesque sex is that the average man will pass -a naturally beautiful woman every time to pay -his court to a painted, powdered and puffed -woman who is not nearly so good-looking, if you -washed her face and buttoned her up to the neck-line -of modesty.</p> - -<p>Here was Helen, for example, seated beside this -young man, all whiteness and sweetness, eyes so -blue that even in this moonlit darkness they -showed like sunlit skies, lips pink, parted like the -petals of a rose, teeth like pearls glistening between—the -very emblem of loveliness; and yet -she was in an anguish of uncertainty, lest he did -not and never would care for her. I don’t know—this -may be one of the scurvy tricks Nature<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -plays on women to keep them humble. If so, it is -not the only one. I admire the achievements and -beauties of Nature as much as any one, but I must -say from first to last her methods appear to me -unscrupulous.</p> - -<p>The silence had grown oppressive. Helen made -some slight movement. She probably clasped her -hands and squeezed her patience. It was hard to -be omitted so long from his thoughts. The rustle -she made, faint as it was, recalled him, as he let -her know with a glance.</p> - -<p>“I was just thinking, Helen, what a sorry little -runt of a town this is,” he said, lifting his chin a -trifle higher over the little runt of a town.</p> - -<p>There was a slight pause. You must have a -moment in which to adjust yourself to the incredible, -especially when you have not been thinking -about anything so far removed.</p> - -<p>“Shannon?” she asked in an exclamatory -tone.</p> - -<p>“Yes; it is. You can’t imagine how it looks to -me after two years away from it, how it compares -with the big places I have seen—dried up, sun-baked, -no atmosphere, no culture.”</p> - -<p>She said nothing. What can you say when you -hear a man blaspheming the very cradle where -he was rocked in infancy. Besides, the contempt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -seemed to include her. She was a part of it, and -she loved it.</p> - -<p>“I saw a handsome plant of some sort blooming -in a tin bucket on Mrs. Flitch’s front porch -the other day. That’s what I mean,” he went on.</p> - -<p>“But what do you mean?” she asked, regarding -him vaguely.</p> - -<p>“Well, the bucket was tinware, as I said, and -published on it, still in red letters, was the red -label of a superior shortening.” He laughed.</p> - -<p>“She is so fond of flowers,” Helen expounded -gravely.</p> - -<p>His eyes snickered at her. “But the bucket,” -he exclaimed, “the tin bucket, the old tin bucket -with the red label—with a gardenia blooming in -it. Nave, I’ll admit, but about as appropriate -as sticking an ostrich plume over the kitchen -sink.”</p> - -<p>Helen made a hasty mental inventory of the -Adams flower pots and thanked heaven they were -correct.</p> - -<p>“The people here do not think; they merely -gossip,” he went on. “They have no ideas, no -purely mental conceptions. They do not know -what is going on in the mind of the world, how -men’s views of life are changing and broadening.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>She did not follow him, but she felt the wind -of the world beneath her wing.</p> - -<p>“Two years here made no difference. You -don’t grow. You don’t develop. But away in a -university, where your business is to get what’s -going and learn to think, two years change a -man. I am a stranger here now. My own father -and mother do not know me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, George, yes, they do!” she exclaimed consolingly.</p> - -<p>Then she caught his eye and perceived that he -was in no need of consolation. He was boasting, -prouder than otherwise of being this stranger. -“It’s a fact; they make me feel like a whited -sepulcher,” he complained.</p> - -<p>“But you don’t,” she exclaimed loyally, but -really in great trepidation lest he might be this -awful thing.</p> - -<p>“Of course not,” he returned, pleased to have -excited her anxiety. “But what would my father -think if he knew I am interested in socialism, that -my best friends in the university are radicals?”</p> - -<p>She was not competent to express an opinion. -She was not skilled in politics.</p> - -<p>“And what would my mother think if she knew -that I no longer accept the Scriptures literally as -she does, as you all do in this town; that I know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -the Bible to be fragments of history and tradition, -much of it mythical, the priestly literature of the -Jews, gathered from dreams and hearsay, and interpreted -to control the lives and liberties of -men.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, George! you must not say such things. -You are a member of the church. I remember -the Sunday morning when you were baptized.”</p> - -<p>“A public bath! And there is no ‘the Church,’ -Helen; did you know that—unless it’s the world; -that’s the big church,” said this grand young man, -delivered from the faith of his fathers.</p> - -<p>This was awful. She stared at him through -tears, but not with any shrinking; rather her heart -yearned toward him. There is no doubt about -this—all women, however young, have wings and -a sort of clucking mind, spiritually speaking.</p> - -<p>He was moved by the sight of these tears to a -loftier, transient mood of himself. He turned so -as to face her, seized her hand, bent his brows -upon her in a strained, long look. It was powerful, -this gaze. She trembled. Her hand became -icy in his hot palm. He tightened his clasp -upon it.</p> - -<p>“Listen, Helen,” in the deep bass tones of a -terrific emotion, “I wish you to know me as I am.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -I would not take advantage of a girl like you. -I will keep nothing from you. It is necessary if—if -my hopes are realized.” He left her in this -suspense while he bowed his head and struggled -to stem his tide. “I am not a good man,” he -began. It was the opening sentence of a proclamation, -not a confession, as if he had said: “I have -a cloven foot and am proud of it.” “But I have -my convictions, and no man on God’s green earth -is more faithful to his convictions.”</p> - -<p>She was holding her breath, only letting it out -when she could hold it no longer in a soft sigh, -and taking in another for the next sigh. If you -are doing it for exercise you call it “deep breathing.”</p> - -<p>“And I have my ideals,” he added impressively.</p> - -<p>She was relieved. If he was not an entirely -good man, he could not be a bad one; he had “convictions” -and he had “ideals.” What more could -she ask?</p> - -<p>“For example, I believe in the freedom of -love,” he announced, and waited for this shocking -piece of news to take effect.</p> - -<p>The effect was marvelous. Her cheeks bloomed -scarlet. Nature flung a wreath of palest pink -upon her forehead—only for an instant; then this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -aurora of love’s emotion faded. “I am afraid I -don’t know much about love,” she said faintly, -lowering her eyes before his gaze.</p> - -<p>He leaned back, gratified. He had her secret; -but she had not got his meaning. The dear little -innocent! He was tempted to kiss her.</p> - -<p>This was really the case. She had not recognized -the phrase. There was no use for it in -Shannon. The worst thing she had ever heard -was Sammy Duncan swearing at the cat. Her -reading had been sternly censored. Mrs. Adams -took no morning paper, “on account of Helen”; -a magazine, yes; and there were Scott’s novels. -These had been the girl’s text books of love. She -had never even read the Song of Solomon. Mrs. -Adams had forbidden her this richer scriptural -food. “You won’t understand it,” the mother -had said. And Helen obediently skipped it when -she turned the pages of her Bible. She had -secretly wondered why Solomon was in the Bible -anyway. He was not a proper person, if one -believed the preacher, and one must do that. -Neither was David all he should have been by all -accounts. But here she veered again and merely -learned her Psalms, making no inquiries into the -author’s private life, which was very ladylike of -her. In short, brought up according to a standard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -of innocence which amounted to a deformity, -at this moment she was stripped of every weapon -by which she might have defended herself against -an iniquitous doctrine.</p> - -<p>George decided not to go too fast with his -teaching on this subject, for he was determined -that she should learn it and accept it. He kissed -her hand instead and told her that she was all -there was of love so far as he was concerned.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VI</h2></div> - - -<p>From this time their affair progressed with reeling -swiftness. Helen assumed an air of independence, -as if she had suddenly come into possession -of a private fortune. This is ever the effect of -riches upon the meekest of us. She was now a -lovely young insurrection in her mother’s house. -She had opinions and expressed them boldly in -opposition to those of her mother.</p> - -<p>This had never happened before. Mrs. Adams -was astonished, but she conformed to the natural -order of parents. She abdicated, merely trailing -clouds of futile protests as she descended, also -after the manner of parents. You may manage a -son in love by putting the financial brakes on him; -but you can do literally nothing with a daughter -in love, because her sense of responsibility is -purely devotional and sentimental. She will risk -a husband because she will not be obliged to support -him. This is the difference, which she may -discover afterwards does not exist. But she -thinks it does, which comes to the same thing.</p> - -<p>If you are a girl you cannot stir up any great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -issue. Helen simply made those within her reach. -For one thing she decided to wear “pink.”</p> - -<p>“But blue is your color,” Mrs. Adams objected.</p> - -<p>“But it is not one of my principles, mother. I -am tired of blue. I have worn it all my life as a -rabbit wears one kind of skin. I’m human. I can -wear any color.”</p> - -<p>And she did. She tried every shade of the rainbow -that summer. She was extravagant.</p> - -<p>“Helen, where are your economies?” Mrs. -Adams exclaimed, as if she referred to certain -necessary fastenings on the feminine character.</p> - -<p>This was a day in August, when Helen wanted -yet another hat and frock.</p> - -<p>“They were never mine; they were yours, -mother,” was the unfeeling reply. “I want the -dress and the hat.”</p> - -<p>“You have had two hats this season.”</p> - -<p>“This one then will make three.”</p> - -<p>Clothes had become her obsession, a silent way -she had of extorting admiration from George.</p> - -<p>“Well, if this keeps up I cannot afford to send -you away to school this fall,” Mrs. Adams told -her.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to go away to school. I am -tired of being just taught. I want to do my own -learning,” Helen informed her.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>And when you consider how simple she was, -this was a rather profound thing to say. The -desire to chase our own knowledge is as old as -Eve. But from then until now it has led to a -sort of independent, sweating self-respect. We -pay the highest price of all for it, as Helen was -destined to learn—among other things. But I -reckon it is worth it, if anything is worth what -we pay for the experience by which life unfolds.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams was not crushed by this flare of -ingratitude. She was simply confirmed in her -suspicions.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Mr. Cutter, Senior, was also confirmed -in his suspicions. Young George informed -him early in August that he just about had enough -of the university; he believed the wisest thing for -him to do under the circumstances was to settle -down to business. He did not name the circumstances, -but by this time everybody knew what -they were, including Mr. Cutter.</p> - -<p>“You are of age—your own man; the decision -rests with you,” he had said to George on this -occasion, by way of washing his hands of any -responsibility, after the cool-headed manner of -fathers.</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact, he was very well satisfied. -Helen Adams was a good girl; pretty; she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -eventually inherit some property. Besides, he -thought George had better settle early in life, else -he might not settle at all.</p> - -<p>“I’ve made the decision,” said George, like a -man in a hurry. “With the hope of getting a -raise in salary soon,” he added, with a note of -financial stress in his voice.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I guess we could manage that in case of an -emergency,” his father replied in the same matter-of-fact -tones.</p> - -<p>This is the way men deal with one another, -even if somewhere behind the dealing deathless -love is at stake. And it is not the way women -deal with one another. For some reason, when -they settle down in their years, and recover the -powers of sight according to reason, they are ready -to inflict death on love upon the slightest provocation.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams suddenly and for no apparent -cause ceased to speak to Mrs. Cutter. And Mrs. -Cutter with no apparent reason began to refer to -Helen as “that Adams girl.” The mother of a -son is always jealous. She over-estimates him; -no matter whom he chooses for a wife, she thinks -he might have done better. Mrs. Cutter was free -to tell anybody, and did tell quite a number, that -she hoped George would marry sometime; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -when he did it was natural that she should wish -him to choose a girl who would be equal to the -position he could give her in the world. George -had a future before him. He was no ordinary -young man. By these sentiments she left you to -infer what she thought of the “Adams girl.” If -you ask me, I say she was correct in her opinion, -but futilely so.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams knew that her daughter could not -do better in a worldly way than to marry this -young man. But when it came to the pinch, she -forgot the world and thought anxiously of Helen. -She was a good mother. Her instinct, sharpened -by years of living in a world where love plays -havoc with hopes and happiness, warned her that -while George might settle down in business and -become eminently successful, she doubted if he -could be domesticated in the strictly marital virtues. -He had too much temperament. Perhaps -this was the way she had of admitting that Helen -was a trifle short on temperament, even if she -did have a good singing voice. On the other -hand, Helen had the awful sanity of seeing things -as they are. She had observed this walking mind -of her daughter—no wings upon which to carry -illusions. How would such a woman adjust herself -to a husband who might have recurrent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -periods of adolescence? She did not know. -Therefore she regarded George with a hostile -beam in her eye and quit speaking to Mrs. Cutter.</p> - -<p>When you consider the seismic disturbances -created about them by only two lovers and multiply -them by all the other lovers to the uttermost -parts of the earth, it is clear that there never -can be any lasting peace in this world, though -disarmament might be complete, and all nations -might pass a law confirming peace and good will. -For this is a natural disturbance beyond the diplomacy -of diplomats or of confederated congresses -to control. It is the perpetual insurrection of life -everlasting in the terms of love, which are never -peaceful terms.</p> - -<p>Some time during this August, probably the -latter part, Helen wore her third degree hat and -the new frock. This hat lies now in an old trunk -above the attic stairs in the house of Helen. I -have seen it. A leghorn with a wide floppy brim, -stiff, a little askew and out of shape, as you would -be yourself if you had lain so long without so -much as a breath of wind to stir you. There is -a good deal of lace and ribbon on it and a wreath -of wild roses. It looks funny, as a hat always -does when it is long out of style, or as a love -letter reads when you have been married twenty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -years to the man who wrote it. But with all -there remained something gay and confident about -this hat, like the wistful smile and sweetness of -a girl’s face, as no doubt there remains in the -latter those former scriptures of a valorous love.</p> - -<p>Helen was standing beside me when I fished -up this little ghost of a hat and held it up in the -warm light of the attic. “Put it on,” I exclaimed, -not meaning to be irreverent.</p> - -<p>“No; oh, no,” she said, drawing back. “It -would not become me now.”</p> - -<p>And it would not, any more than the love letter -would have become the sentiments of the poor, -tired, old, middle-aged husband who wrote it -long ago.</p> - -<p>But what I set out to tell when the former -Helen’s hat intrigued me was that she went for -a walk with George the first time she wore it. -Shannon at that time was such a brief little town -that you could step out of it into the open country -almost at once.</p> - -<p>They took the river road, which was not in very -good repute with the guardians and parents of -Shannon, for no better reason than that it was -sanctified by the vows of so many lovers. But -what would you have? These lovers require privacy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -and some fairness of scenery for their business. -You may involuntarily publish love on a -street corner, but you cannot declare it there. -Your very nature revolts at the idea. So does -society. You would be arrested for staging a love -scene in public. Old people are not reasonable -about this. Parental parlor-supervision has produced -more unhappy old maids than the homely -features of these victims.</p> - -<p>When they had come some distance along the -road, George drew her arm in his, and they went -on in this beatific silence. “Helen,” he said, “if -you should say anything, what would you say?”</p> - -<p>She looked, caught his red brown eyes smiling -down at her and blushed. “Why, I was not going -to say anything. I was just thinking,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“What?” he insisted.</p> - -<p>“How happy I am now, this moment, and—” -she halted.</p> - -<p>“Well, go on.”</p> - -<p>“Well, just how easy it is to be happy. How -little it really takes to make happiness,” she answered -truthfully.</p> - -<p>“Just you and me,” he agreed.</p> - -<p>They went on again walking slowly.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>“I never loved a girl before,” he informed her, -as if they had been discussing this miracle of love -in open speech for hours.</p> - -<p>She believed him. We always do believe them -when they tell us this, because we need so much -to keep this happiness which is founded upon the -shifting sands of lovers.</p> - -<p>“And you, my beautiful one, you do love me?” -he asked, suddenly halting and swinging her in -front of him.</p> - -<p>She laid her hand upon her breast, looked at -him through a mist of tears. “Is this love?” she -asked, as if her hand covered leaves and blossoms -and singing birds.</p> - -<p>“Of course it is,” cried her high priest, clasping -her and kissing her.</p> - -<p>“Are you sure?” she gasped, with another wide -look of joyful fear.</p> - -<p>“Absolutely!”</p> - -<p>“But, George, how can you know for certain, -if you’ve never loved before?”</p> - -<p>Sometimes I think for every woman love is an -alarm bell which rings perpetually to disturb -her peace. It really was a staggering question she -had asked, and George staggered like a man. -“You know what you feel is love, don’t you?” -he evaded.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>“What I feel is terror and happiness.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s love for you. This is love for -me,” he exclaimed, kissing her again. “And to -know that you are mine entirely, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>The conversation of lovers in fiction rarely tallies -with what they actually say to each other -in real life. I have read the dialogue of many a -brilliant courtship in a novel, but never as an -eavesdropper or observer have I known two -people in love to utter a single sentence which -was sensible or that even escaped absurdity, if -you repeated it along with other gossip you have -to tell. And yet it is very important, this primer -talk, these watching eyes of lovers who place the -profoundest significance upon the most trivial act, -or even the wavering of a glance between them.</p> - -<p>I merely say this in passing, as a challenge to -the reader, who may feel a trifle let down, disappointed -at the above record of what took place -between George and Helen on that day. What -I have written is the artless truth of love, not the -fabricated philosophy of love, because there is no -such philosophy. Love is a state of being beyond -our academic powers to expound. It exists, it -functions amazingly and that is all we know -about it or ever will know about it, the passion-mongers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -and biologists to the contrary, notwithstanding. -They shed no light on this phenomenon, -only upon the obvious material results. They -do in truth obscure it by gratifying your desire, -dear reader, to indulge vicariously in something -not suitable to the proper furnishing of your elegant -mind.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VII</h2></div> - - -<p>The ruins of an old iron foundry stood on this -river road. The roof had fallen in long ago. -The walls and gables, built of rough stone alone -remained. Creeping vines covered them. The -sun dipping low upon the horizon shone through -the open places where windows had been. But -the shadows were already deepening in the great, -open doorway beside the road.</p> - -<p>Helen was for turning back now. She was all -brisked up with the desire to hurry home with -this sweet burden of happiness.</p> - -<p>“No, let’s go up there,” he said, making a gesture -toward this door.</p> - -<p>They climbed the slope from the road, hand in -hand, and sat upon a long stone step, the fields -before them changing already beneath the lavender -mists of twilight, the river singing below, the -bright squares of sunlight fading from the black -smoked walls within, the shadows in there deepening -to darkness behind them. But what soft -effulgence in this girl’s face! Already the candles -upon her altar burned. For so many years she -kept that look of pale candle light in the dark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -Her features changed; the skin lost its rosy glow; -her beauty passed away; but this serene brightness -never faded. When I knew her long afterwards -she was in the full bloom of her years, her eyes of -that calmer blue women get when all the storms -of love and loving have passed and left the heart -motionless with the awful peace of victory over -love. And she was still thinking of love, as one -recalls an epitaph!</p> - -<p>Besides the happiness of having her beside him, -clasped like a banner to his side, George had something -to say. He must make Helen understand -one thing, and he thought he could do this now -without risking his happiness. He did not anticipate -that any emergency would ever arise between -them that would force him to fall back on this -conviction about love; but he had it; he had -studied the science of social ethics in the university—an -illuminating subject under a singularly -broad-minded doctor of philosophy named -Herron.</p> - -<p>The ethics were binding, of course, but between -the lines and the laws Herron interpolated his -own views on love. He had more than once attacked -what he called the barbarous “contract of -marriage.” Divorce was one of the articles of -his creed. When Nature called for a separation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -of the contracting parties, it was abominable not -to yield to this natural law, otherwise you profaned -that most sacred of all things—love, and -so on and so forth.</p> - -<p>George entertained a profound respect for -Herron. Most of the young men in his classes -did. Still, they referred to him as “that fellow -Herron,” and discussed his views more than they -did those of any other member of the faculty. -In this way George had obtained one of his strongest -convictions, a sort of pet moral; and as he had -already taken occasion to inform Helen, “no man -on God’s green earth was more faithful to his convictions.”</p> - -<p>“You know what I believe about love,” he -began, drawing her closer to him according to this -faith, it appeared.</p> - -<p>“Me!” she answered with charming confidence.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” kissing her; “you are love, and my -life.”</p> - -<p>She sighed.</p> - -<p>“That is why I believe in the freedom of love,” -he began again. “There can be no bondage—ever—in -love.”</p> - -<p>“Only the vows we take,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“Yes, of course, marriage,” he admitted.</p> - -<p>“It is like being confirmed—in love—isn’t it?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>“Why, yes, for those who love.”</p> - -<p>“And we do,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, indeed,” he returned heartily—and hurriedly, -if she had noticed; for she was getting off -on the wrong tack, and he wanted to say what he -had to say before this wind filled her sails. “But -it is by love, not law, that you chose me; isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, my love,” she answered softly.</p> - -<p>“Otherwise you would not take me,” he -went on.</p> - -<p>“But I do love you.”</p> - -<p>“But if the time ever came when—when you -ceased to care for me—” he stammered and did -not finish, feeling her stiffen as if by a resolve in -his arms.</p> - -<p>“It could not come, such a time,” she interrupted, -“because I could never cease to love you.”</p> - -<p>“I know it, my sweetheart,” speaking with -tender gratitude, “but I am only supposing the -case, that if either of us ceased to care—”</p> - -<p>She tore herself from him. She covered him -with her wide, blue gaze. “Could you—cease to -care?” she demanded.</p> - -<p>“Absolutely no! You are my very life. I -think, live and hope everything in terms of you,” -he assured her.</p> - -<p>But she was not assured. She remained apart,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -no longer yielding to his arms about her. “Well, -why think about what will not happen?” she -asked.</p> - -<p>“I told you we were only supposing—”</p> - -<p>“Not I?”</p> - -<p>“—that if you or I,” he went on determined -to make his point, “ceased to love, it would be -profanation to—pretend—to live as if we did, -wouldn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“But, George,” with a note of pain, with the -brightening of tears in her eyes, “we shall be one. -It says so everywhere, in the Bible, in the vows -we take, that we are one flesh. Then how can -either of us cease to love?”</p> - -<p>“We won’t; we never shall,” he cried eloquently, -and drawing her fearful, only half-willing -in a close embrace. “But I must be honest -with you. This is my conviction, the sanctity and -freedom of love.”</p> - -<p>“It sounds well, but it feels dangerous,” she -whispered.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you believe in me, Helen?” in an offended -tone.</p> - -<p>“I do, oh, I do; but not in your conviction,” -she moaned.</p> - -<p>“What difference does it make, my heart? We -love. We have chosen each other,” he laughed.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>“Forever?” she wanted to know.</p> - -<p>“Forever!” he repeated with emphasis.</p> - -<p>She leaned close to his side, her head upon his -breast, her eyes closed, lips parted, white teeth -gleaming. He knew for certain that nothing -could separate him from this goodness, this sweetness, -this loveliness. He merely wished to be on -the level, to conceal nothing from her that concerned -them so nearly. He kissed her rapturously.</p> - -<p>She opened her eyes, human violets, blue like -these flowers, innocent like a maid, but troubled -as if far away cold winds were sweeping down. -“Do you feel the wind?” she said.</p> - -<p>“There is no wind.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; and cold; I feel the chill.”</p> - -<p>“The air from the river,” he said, releasing her.</p> - -<p>“And the sun is down. It is late. We must -go,” she said.</p> - -<p>They went back down the slope to the road, -hand in hand as they had come up, but not the -same. The pain which accompanies love had entered -her heart.</p> - -<p>She was never to be perfectly easy again. No -woman ever is who loves. Some months, some -days, at last a few hours and a few moments -of happiness she was to have with which to balance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -the years of life with love and this pain. -But ask her! She will tell you that they were -worth more than the years. So many more -women than we know are like that.</p> - -<p>Once when they were near the town, he looked -at her happily and said: “I have not told you the -news. It concerns you, too, now. I got a raise in -salary yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“I am so glad,” she answered smiling.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I deserved it. I am making good. Father -knows it,” he put in.</p> - -<p>“You do work hard,” she agreed.</p> - -<p>“But not near as hard as I mean to work now—for -you,” he assured her.</p> - -<p>She tightened her fingers upon his in reply.</p> - -<p>“I mean to be a successful man, Helen, for -you. You shall have everything.”</p> - -<p>“I need only you,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“The world is a wolf, did you know that?”</p> - -<p>She did not, she said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is; and the man that makes good in it -has got to be a wolf too.”</p> - -<p>The lamb looked up at the wolf and smiled. -She was merely noticing for the hundredth time -how handsome he was, and wishing he had compared -himself to a lion. She preferred to think -of him as a lion.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak">PART TWO</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> - - - -<h2 class="nobreak">PART TWO<br /> -<br /> - -CHAPTER VIII</h2></div> - - -<p>Three days after the homing birds flitting -about the old foundry on the river road witnessed -the betrothal of George and Helen, Mrs. George -William Cutter was seen to issue from her residence -at five o’clock in the afternoon. It was -barely possible at any time to do this on Wiggs -Street without being observed by the secret eyes -of your neighbors and exciting a purely private -interest in where you were going. But it was -absurdly impossible for Mrs. Cutter to have escaped -on this occasion without exciting the liveliest -curiosity, owing to the way she looked and -her obvious destination, as compared with what -she had been saying quite freely for the last three -months to any one who wanted to know what -her feelings and opinions were concerning a certain -matter.</p> - -<p>Her hair was crimped, although this was Thursday -and she never put it up on hairpins except on -Saturday nights “for Sunday.” She wore a small,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -glistening, lavender straw hat wreathed in lilacs -of that shade of pink grown only by milliners. -A helpless thing securely pinned on, which somehow -gave the impression of having involuntarily -drawn back from her face in a mild flowerlike -terror of this face. Any one seeing her might -have understood the feelings of this hat. Her -countenance seemed to burn, probably from the -summer heat, possibly from some fiery emotion. -Her red brown eyes spat sparks, her neck was -bowed until she accomplished what Nature had -not designed she should have, a wrinkle that -made a thin double chin.</p> - -<p>Her frock was of gray silk, high at the neck, -tight at the waist, full in the skirt, “garnished” -with three graduated bands of satin ribbon above -a flounce at the bottom. It rustled richly as she -walked, and she fairly crimped the ground as -she walked, taking short, emphatic steps, as if -the high heels of her slippers were stings with -which she stung whatever was lawful for an indignant -woman to sting with her heels.</p> - -<p>She was on her way to Helen Adams and her -mother. She had tried to reason with George -about this hasty marriage. She had pointed out -to him that while the girl was a nice girl, and -so on and so forth, only to have George fling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -out of the room as if she had insulted him. She -had talked to Mr. Cutter about it, who had told -her briefly, if not rudely, that she had better -mind her own business and leave these young -people to attend to theirs since they would do -it, anyhow. As if George was not, and had not -been, her own and chief business from the day -of his birth. She had moped and suffered these -three days. At last she had resolved to do her -duty, since it was the only thing left that she -could do. She would go and call on the Adamses, -“recognize” them, and thus by the sacrifice of her -pride and convictions, reinstate herself with -George.</p> - -<p>The lot of a mother was a sad one! She had -the pangs by which her child, in this case a son, -was born. She nursed him. She had the care of -him, never thinking of herself. Then when he -was old enough to give her some returns, he goes -off against her advice and gives himself to another -woman who, she knows, and will live to -see, is unsuited to him, and on top of all this she -must sacrifice her feelings, stultify herself, boot-lick -George by going over there! She was so -moved to pity of herself that the imminence of -tears reminded her that she had forgotten her -handkerchief. She went back to get it, thus keeping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -the neighbors in suspense, because she had to -stop and powder her nose after blowing it.</p> - -<p>This time she came out, moving swiftly and -rustlingly across the street to the Adams cottage. -She did not doubt that she would be received -cordially there. She did not know that Mrs. -Adams had ceased to “speak” to her some time -ago, because she had never been more than civil -to Mrs. Adams, and therefore would not have -known if that lady had passed a year without -speaking to her.</p> - -<p>She was received, of course, but by no stretch -of imagination could the reception have been -called cordial. Mrs. Adams did it. She asked -her in, and admitted coolly that yes, Helen was -at home. She would “tell” her. She went out to -do this. Mrs. Cutter’s eyes took one flight about -the room. She made the best of what she saw. -There certainly were some good pieces of golden -oak in it. She wondered if the girl would be -allowed to take her piano when she married. She -hoped—</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams returned, large, serene, dignified, -very cool. She hoped Mrs. Cutter had been well?</p> - -<p>Oh, yes, quite well, thanks.</p> - -<p>Then she told Mrs. Cutter voluntarily that if -she had not been worried to death about Helen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -she supposed she might have been in her usual -health.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Cutter raised her brows and said she hoped -there was nothing the matter with Helen.</p> - -<p>Oh, no, the child was well and sillily happy, -but this engagement!</p> - -<p>The two women stared at each other, ice and -fire in these looks. Mrs. Cutter was astounded. -Did her ears deceive her? They did not.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams was speaking in her large, welkin-ringing -voice, distinctly audible in the street, -across the street, for that matter. Helen was too -young to marry, she was saying. She had not finished -school. She had expected to give her the -best advantages in music. Helen had talent, a -future before her. But what good would talent -do a married woman?</p> - -<p>She asked Mrs. Cutter this and paused for a -reply if Mrs. Cutter could make one. Evidently -she could not.</p> - -<p>No good in the world! Mrs. Adams retorted -by way of answering herself. The less personal -promise she had of a future, the better it was for -a married woman. To have a gift in you that -you could not develop made for unhappiness. -And what time would Helen have for her music -now? None. What use would she have for it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -Practically none. And Helen had a very nice -little talent for drawing. She had painted several -placques, waving her hand at the evidences -of her daughter’s art on the walls of the parlor. -It was there—a placque the size of a dinner plate -full of pansies, another one with roses painted -on it.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Cutter’s eyes flew up obedient to these -artless efforts in art, and immediately resumed -their position on Mrs. Adams’ face, which was -as full of meaning as the portrait of a Dutch -mother done by an old master.</p> - -<p>“Of course you don’t know how I feel about -it. You have never had a daughter,” she told -Mrs. Cutter. “But I can tell you what it means. -Your whole life is centered in her. You sacrifice -and plan for her. You think she is yours. -Well, you are mistaken. She belongs to some -man she has never seen. About the time you -are beginning to have some peace and satisfaction -in her, he comes and gets her, marries her, regardless -of you. Then you spend the rest of -your life watching her do her duty by him, go -through what you have gone through in your -own married life, if not worse, when if you could -only have had your way a little while it would -have been so different, and—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>Fortunately she did not finish this sentence. -Helen came in at this moment and gave a sweeter, -politer turn to the conversation.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Cutter had intended to discuss the situation—in -a kind way of course, but frankly. She -wanted to give some advice, let Helen know how -important it was for her to exert every effort to -fit herself for the position she would have in the -Cutter family. But she did nothing of the kind. -She said a few pleasant things, kissed the girl -cordially on both cheeks and hoped George would -make her happy, to which Helen replied that he -had already made her happy. Then she took her -leave.</p> - -<p>Helen accompanied her to the door, Mrs. -Adams remained in the parlor. She had seen -Mrs. Cutter’s transit across the street when she -came to make this call. She had read truly the -mood of George’s mother. And she had attended -to her. She had let her know a thing or two. -Now she stood behind the parlor curtains watching -her again cross the street. This time it was -less in the nature of a transit, she perceived, nodding -her head grimly. Mrs. Cutter’s neck was -limber, her proud look had disappeared. Her -hat, although she had not touched it, was tilted -absurdly to one side, as if an invisible blow had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -struck it. And she was walking hurriedly, like -a person in retreat.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Cutter barely made it across her own -doorsill before she began to wring her hands. -Oh! her Father in heaven, what kind of mother-in-law -would that woman make to poor Georgie? -She received no immediate answer to this interrogative -prayer. We never do. An answer to -prayer comes when you wait until it is worked out -somewhere in life. Her own suspicions answered -it clearly enough, however; she must knuckle to -some sort of courtship of that old Adams woman, -or there was no telling what might happen.</p> - -<p>She had taken it for granted that George would -bring his wife to his own home. One look at -Mrs. Adams convinced her that if the young -couple lived with anybody they would live with -Helen’s mother. That would never do! Since -George was determined to marry the girl the only -wise course to follow would be to give him a home -of his own. She would tell Mr. Cutter so, and -why. He could afford to do something for -George. He might make him a wedding present -of the old Carrol place. It would cost something -to repair the house, but anything would be better -than sitting across the street and seeing George -domesticated in the Adams home.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>All this is important to set down in order that -you may realize the difficulty so many young -people have in disentangling themselves from the -lives of their elders and starting out for themselves. -We have escaped the old tribal instinct -in everything more than in this. The son is persuaded -to bring his wife into his father’s house, -or he does do it for the sake of economy. Nothing -can be more disintegrating to the welding and -growth of such a marriage.</p> - -<p>But the chief reason I have recorded what -happened on this day is because it was by this -accident of maternal jealousy that Helen came -into possession of her house. So far from believing -in any sort of orderly destiny, my belief is -that the Fates which change and control our lives -are as uncertain as the flight of birds. The world -about us is filled with contending forces.</p> - -<p>Some one whom you never saw or heard of -looks at the ticker in his office and sells out that -day. The next day that little package of bonds -or stock in your safety-deposit box is not worth -the embossed paper they are written on. Or, you -turn a street corner, meet a man, walk two blocks -with him, learn from him something about this -same market which he does not know he has told -in the course of his conversation, and you get the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -opportunity to become a rich man in this same -market before night. Or, you who have always -been a reasonably decent young man meet the -eyes of a woman in a crowded place, and you -pass on with her to a fate which leads to every -dishonor. You had no intention of doing such -a thing; it is contrary to your principles and your -habits; but you do it. So many are subject to -these whirlwinds of fate that you cannot tell by -looking at them or even by hearing them pray -which ones are steady and safe from disaster. It -all depends upon the compass within whether we -swing at the right moment into the right current.</p> - -<p>Just so, if Mrs. Adams had not resented the -bow of Mrs. Cutter’s neck, the offensive emphasis -of her little wrinkle of a double chin, when -she came to make that call, she might have received -her amiably. And if Mrs. Cutter had -been received amiably, her maternal jealousy -might not have been so aroused and she would -not have persuaded Mr. Cutter to give George -the Carrol place. In that case the House of -Helen might have been some other house, or no -house at all. And her life would have been in all -probability a different kind of existence. Because -the house in which a woman lives, moves -and does her duties, determines her character<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -much more than the bank does in which her husband -transacts his affairs.</p> - -<p>If the reader is another woman, and has spent -her spare time for nearly forty years, as I have, -in a sort of involuntary study of men, she knows, -as well as I do, that there is nothing you can see -with the naked eye or put even your gloved finger -on that does determine the character of a man. -He never breaks his own personal confidence. It -is no use to keep either your eye or your finger -on him. You will never know him unless he goes -to pieces like the one-horse shay, after which -it is very unfortunate to know him at all. I am -putting this down merely to give you a line on -how effervescently Helen came into possession of -her house, though it seemed so natural that she -should have it, and to warn you that while you -think you know what will happen in this story, -you do not know, because you do not know -George. You do not, even if your own husband -is a similar George.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IX</h2></div> - - -<p>There is an old copy of the Shannon <i>Sentinel</i>, -dated October 17, 1902, which contains an account -of the Adams-Cutter marriage. It lies -folded in the trunk with Helen’s last girlhood -hat, and a few other things of that tearful nature. -I do not know why women keep these little yellowed -and faded tokens of past hopes, unless it -is for the same reason they devote themselves -cheerfully and industriously to the cultivation of -flower gardens on their cemetery lots where their -dead lie so deeply buried.</p> - -<p>The dim type still tells how the altar in this -church was decorated with flowers and ferns, who -played the wedding march and who performed -the ceremony. The bride was the beautiful and -accomplished daughter of the late Sam Adams -and Mrs. Mary Adams.</p> - -<p>“Late” is the adjective you get, instead of the -plain civilian title of “Mister” you had while you -were in the flesh. It depends whether this exchange -implies demotion or immortal inflation. -But there can be no doubt about the significance -of “Sam” in this connection. Mr. Adams was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -carpenter, and a good one, but he never received -credit in this present world for the concluding, -dignifying syllables of his Christian name.</p> - -<p>In this same paragraph it tells how the bride -was dressed, who her attendants were and what -they wore. And simmers down in the last sentence -to a description of the gowns worn by the -respective mothers of the bride and groom. The -word “exeunt” does not occur, of course; but that -lick-and-a-promise praise of their toilettes really -implies that this is the last prominent appearance -of these worthy women.</p> - -<p>The concluding paragraph is devoted to the -groom. And it is evident that the writer saved -his most obsequious words for this final flare of -flattery. The groom was the son of “our distinguished -fellow townsman, Mr. George William -Cutter”—a “university man”; some reference -was made to his “sterling qualities” and bright -future. He had recently “accepted” a position in -the First National Bank where he had already -“made an enviable record”—cordial finger pointing -to “bright future.” “The young couple left -on the noon train for a wedding tour in the East. -Upon their return they will take up their residence -in their new home on Wiggs Street.”</p> - -<p>You and I may both believe that either one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -us could have written a better account of this -wedding, imparted more dignity to the occasion, -as undoubtedly a real artist might paint a more -pleasing portrait of you or me. But for a naively -truthful likeness, we both know that a country-town -photographer surpasses the artist when it -comes to portraying the warped noses of our -countenances, the worried eye and the mouths we -really have. This is why we avoid his brutal -veracity when we can afford the expense. Neither -one of us cares to leave the very scriptures of -our faces to appall posterity.</p> - -<p>In the same manner, I contend there is always -an artless charm, a sweet and scandalous candor -in what appears in a country newspaper, which is -more refreshing and informing than the elegance -of our best writers in the use of words. For -example, does not the <i>Sentinel’s</i> account furnish a -clearer picture and even a more intimate interpretation -of this bride and groom and the whole -scene, than you could possibly receive of a fashionable -wedding from the social columns of a big -city paper? Personally, I have frequently been -offended by the cool, bragging insolence of these -announcements of city weddings, as if all we were -entitled to know is that they can afford the pomp -and circumstance; nothing about their “bright future,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -or the bride’s “accomplishments,” or the -groom’s “sterling qualities” to bid for our interest -and good will. Why swagger in print about being -married? It is not a thing to boast about, -but to be humble about, and to entreat the prayers -of all Christian people, that they may behave -themselves, keep their vows and do the square -thing by each other and society.</p> - -<p>George and Helen returned to Shannon and -their new home on Wiggs Street the last of -October.</p> - -<p>Helen was far more beautiful than she had ever -been, with that sedate air young wives acquire -before they are becalmed by the stupefying -monotony of love, peace and duty. The lines in -George’s handsome young face were firmer. He -had that look of resolution men of his type show, -before it is confirmed into the next look of arrogance -and success.</p> - -<p>When Helen and George became engaged in -August the Carrol house was simply an old gray -farmhouse, overtaken years ago by the spreading -skirts of Shannon, but never assimilated. This -was due to the fact that when Wiggs Street was -lengthened, it must be made straight whatever -happened. The old house was left far to one side -on a wide lawn. No one lived in it. Altheas and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -roses bloomed among the weeds, like gentle folk -who have lost their station in life and make common -lot with the mean and the poor. Grass grew -between the bricks of the walk which led to the -front door. There was a hedge of bulbous-bodied -boxwood on either side of this walk. The windows -of the old house looked out on this green -and growing desolation with the vacant stare they -always have in an empty house.</p> - -<p>But since the end of August carpenters, plasterers -and painters had swarmed over it and through -it. Laborers had cleaned and cleared and pruned. -At last came van loads of carpets, furniture and -draperies. These had been smoothed, placed and -hung inside. Now it looked like the same old -house that had suddenly come into a modest fortune, -gone to town and bought itself a lot of nice -things to wear. Not a gable had been changed, -but the new roof had been painted green. The -walls were so white that they glistened. The -windows were so clean that they looked like the -bright eyes of a lady with her veil lifted.</p> - -<p>On the evening of her first day in this house, -Helen stood on the veranda waiting for George, -watching the elm leaves sweeping past, a golden -shower in the November wind. She had been -very busy all day, not that there was anything to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -do, because everything had been done. But she -had been going over her possessions, feeling the -fullness and vastness of her estate. She had -silver, yes, and fine linen. Her furniture was -good, golden oak, every piece. Her rugs were -florescent, very cheerful.</p> - -<p>She needed more furniture; the rooms looked -sparsely settled, especially the parlor. A bookcase -would help, and a few pictures on the walls, -but all in good time. She would be contented, -ask for nothing else. She meant to be a thrifty, -helpful wife, do her own work, take care of -George. She was simply speechlessly happy. -So it was just as well she had no one to talk to. -She wished to be alone except for George, to concentrate -upon all this joy. It seemed too good to -be true. She had this house, to be sweetened into -a home, and all these things; above and transcending -everything, she had George. She was absolutely -sure of him. Is there anything more certain -than sunshine when the sun shines?</p> - -<p>This day was a criterion of all her days. She -was very busy. She expected to find time for -her music, and to read a little. She must keep -up with what was going on for George’s sake, -so that she would be an intelligent companion for -him. But she never found time; besides, George<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -cared less than she had supposed for music, and -he was strangely indifferent to intelligent conversation, -seeing what an intelligent man he was.</p> - -<p>Sometimes she returned a few calls, merely -from a sense of duty. She was never lonely. -Sometimes her mother came to lunch and spent -the afternoon. On Sundays they went to church -and had dinner with George’s father and mother. -As the months passed, Mrs. Cutter frequently -asked her how she “felt.” She always felt well -and told her so. She did not notice that Mrs. -Cutter took little pleasure in her abounding -health. The spring and summer passed. She was -very busy in her garden among the flowers.</p> - -<p>One day Mrs. Adams warned her against taking -so much violent exercise.</p> - -<p>“But why?” Helen asked, standing up with a -trowel in her hand, radiantly flushed.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Adams said nothing. She merely measured -her daughter this way and that with a sort -of tape-line gaze.</p> - -<p>“I like working out here, and I am perfectly -well,” Helen insisted.</p> - -<p>“A married woman never knows when she is -perfectly well. It is your duty to be careful,” -was the reply.</p> - -<p>Helen flushed and remained silent. She felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -that her mother was staring at her inquisitively -through this silence as she had sometimes seen her -peep through the drawn curtains before a window -to satisfy her curiosity or her anxiety.</p> - -<p>When at last Mrs. Adams took her departure, -Helen went in, closed the door of her room and -sat down on the side of her bed.</p> - -<p>I do not know how it is with men, but there are -thoughts a woman cannot think if the door is -open, even if there is not another soul in the -house. Helen was now engaged in this sort of -secret-prayer contemplation of herself, a slim, -pretty figure, sitting with her knees crossed, hands -folded, lips parted, eyes fixed in a long blue gaze -upon the clean white walls of this room.</p> - -<p>So that was it! She was the object of—anticipation -which had not been—rewarded. The color -in her cheeks deepened. She recalled this question, -that remark, made by George’s mother. She -understood the curious look of suspense with -which Mrs. Cutter frequently regarded her. She -wished to remind her of a duty she owed the -Cutter family. The meaning of it all was perfectly -clear to her now. As if it was anybody’s -business! She was indignant by this time. She -began to shake one foot. Her eyes flew this way -and that, like the wings of a distracted bird. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -was really arguing fiercely with George’s mother, -saying the things which we never dare to say in -fact. She flounced, bobbing up and down on the -springs beneath her, set her impatient foot down, -closed her lips firmly and looked really fierce. -Evidently she was getting the better of this argument, -chiefly, no doubt, because Mrs. Cutter was -not there.</p> - -<p>Suddenly she lifted her left hand, counted the -fingers and in turn used up all the fingers of her -right hand in this triumphant enumeration. Yes, -she had been married exactly ten months. Not a -year yet. Why was everybody in such a hurry, -even her mother?</p> - -<p>Then something happened. She became very -still, as you do sometimes when the future, which -always keeps its bright back to you, suddenly -turns around and permits you to behold the face -of the years to come. The color faded from her -cheeks; her eyes widened into a look of terror. -She gave a gasp and buried her face in the pillow.</p> - -<p>Oh, God, oh, her Father in heaven, suppose it -should always be like this! Suppose she lived to -be an old woman and never had a child. Doing -just the same things over, alone in the house. -Nothing to look forward to all day except -George’s return at the end of it. And nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -for him to expect except herself coming from the -kitchen to welcome him and hurrying back again, -lest something burned or boiled over if she delayed -a moment. What would she be in her husband’s -house if she did not become a mother to -his children?</p> - -<p>She sprang to her feet and tore off the pink -apron she was wearing over her summer frock. -“I shall be a servant, nothing else,” she cried, tidying -her hair before the mirror. “I shall grow old -and gray; my skin will be yellow and, if I don’t—if -we do not have children, I shall begin presently -to look like a good servant, the kind that -never gives notice, but just stays on and dies in -the family. Oh!”</p> - -<p>She flew back to the bed, cast herself upon it -and wept aloud to the ceiling.</p> - -<p>An audience makes hypocrites of us all. The -very mirror in your room will do it. The best -acting is always done in secret. If you could see -that little mouse of a woman whom you never -suspect of having more than the timid sniff of -an emotion, charging up and down the room in -her nightdress, tearing her hair and raving with -her eyes, making no sound lest you should hear -her, you would be astonished. And she might -be no less amazed if she could see you carrying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -on like a proud female Cicero, delivering the mere -gestures of an eloquent oration. No acting we -ever see on the stage equals the histrionic ability -of the least talented woman when it comes to -these bed-chamber theatricals of her secret emotions.</p> - -<p>Helen was calmer when George returned from -the bank an hour later. She met him as usual. -But the sight of him unnerved her. She flung -herself upon his breast and clung to him, as if a -strong wind was blowing which might sweep her -away from him forever.</p> - -<p>“Helen! My heart, what is the matter?” he -exclaimed.</p> - -<p>She sobbed.</p> - -<p>“Are you ill?” he said, turning her face so that -it lay upon his breast, chin quivering, eyes closed.</p> - -<p>No, she was not ill, she said. The white lids -lifted. She regarded him sorrowfully. “Only I -want to ask you something. I must know,” she -whispered.</p> - -<p>“Ask anything; only don’t cry. I can’t stand -it,” kissing her.</p> - -<p>“George,” she began after a pause.</p> - -<p>“Yes, my life,” in grave suspense.</p> - -<p>“Am I a good wife?”</p> - -<p>Good heaven! What a question. Of course<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -she was, the best and loveliest wife a man ever -had.</p> - -<p>“But aren’t you—have you been disappointed -in me?”</p> - -<p>“You surpass my happiest dreams of happiness,” -he assured her hastily. Now was everything -all right?</p> - -<p>Apparently not. She had gone off into another -paroxysm of sobs. He stood with this storm of -loveliness clasped to his breast amazed and horrified. -What was the matter with Helen? He had -left her calm and happy at noon. He found her -now in torrential tears. She must be ill.</p> - -<p>He lifted her tenderly in his arms, strode down -the hall to their room and deposited her on the -bed.</p> - -<p>“You will always love me, whatever happens?” -she insisted, clinging to his hand.</p> - -<p>He sat down beside her. He filled his lungs; -he expanded himself. He must meet this emergency. -“Helen, I could not live without loving -you,” he exclaimed in a deep and powerful voice.</p> - -<p>“But if nothing happens, if nothing ever happens?” -she wailed.</p> - -<p>He was speechless. When you are caught up -without a moment’s notice and made to swear to -every article of undying love, what else can you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -do? But she lay wilted, deadly pale, her eyes -fixed upon him dolorously, as if he might be going -to slay her with the next word. Therefore—</p> - -<p>He did not finish thinking what he was about -to think. A sort of shock passed through him, -he caught his breath, looked off, the faintest shade -of embarrassment in this look addressed to the -ceiling, but not painful. On the contrary you -might have inferred that this was a pleasurable -confusion. He was instantly calmed, no longer -disturbed about Helen. He stared at her politely -as at an unknown but highly satisfactory phenomenon. -He had no experience in a case like -this, but he had instincts. Every young husband -is a father, at least by anticipation. His impression -was that she must be soothed, kept quiet.</p> - -<p>He bent and kissed her gravely, as you kiss the -Bible when you take an oath. “Don’t worry, my -sweet; you will come around all right,” he told -her.</p> - -<p>She turned her face away, closed her eyes in -tearful despair. He had not answered her question. -He had evaded with soft words. This -would never do. She was beginning to weep -again. He said he would go to the phone and -call her mother.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>“Don’t call mother. She has been here all -afternoon,” she cried.</p> - -<p>So, then Mrs. Adams knew. Well, he didn’t -care if the whole world knew. “Helen, you must -not let go like this. You will hurt yourself,” he -said with a note of authority.</p> - -<p>Her ears heard him; her eyes caught him. For -one moment she lay still and sobless. Then she -sat up, hair streaming over her shoulders, cheeks -reddening. “You too!” she cried. “Oh, you -have all had the same thought in your minds. -And it isn’t so,” she informed him.</p> - -<p>“Well, if nothing is the matter, what is the -matter?” he demanded after a pause in the voice -of a man sliding from the top of a climax.</p> - -<p>“That is,” covering her face with her hands. -“Your mother, my mother, you, too, all of you -have been expecting something that may never -happen. And I did not know, did not realize -until this day the meaning of these hints, these -questions, this solicitude. It was not for me. I -do not deserve it, you understand. I am not that -way.” Oh! her Heavenly Father, she knew what -was before her now if she never had a child. She -would not be the same to him!</p> - -<p>“Of course you will, you silly darling,” he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -laughed, gathering her in his arms. “The fact is, -I am immensely relieved.”</p> - -<p>In this wise they took a new lease on their -happiness. Helen’s skies cleared. It was good -to be free and well and just a girl “a while -longer,” as George put it. Still this was a form -of probation. That phrase, “a while longer,” was -the involuntary admission he made of his ultimate -expectations. For his own part, he declared -it was much better for him to make some headway -in the bank before they could really afford the -expensive luxury of having children. Still he -felt a bit let down at the contemplation for the -first time of the bare possibility of his wife not -bearing these children for him.</p> - -<p>Thus the first year of their married life ended -and the next one began. In the main you can -see that every sign for the future was propitious. -These two young people had the right mind -toward each other; no modern decadence, no desire -to sidestep Nature or fail in their duty. -Their instincts were normal, their hopes honorable.</p> - -<p>How is it then that, with all good intentions, -they both missed their cue? It is not for me to -say. My task is to tell this story and leave each -reader to judge for himself where the blame lay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -No doubt there will be many decisions. I have -often wondered if even three judges who passed -on the same case without knowing each other’s -decision, would not each of them render a different -judgment. But in regard to this matter, -I may be permitted to remark in passing that most -of us miss our cue in the business of living, -whether we are escorted by the best intentions or -a few valorous vices. And my theory is that if -we live long enough, we shall hear the Prompter -in time to make a good ending. If we do not, -there is a considerable stretch of eternity before -us where no doubt adjustments may be made with -a wider mind.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER X</h2></div> - - -<p>In 1913, Shannon had grown amazingly. The -square was now a “plaza,” surrounded by handsome -brick business houses. There were two or -three factories on the outskirts of the town. The -little old churches that used to be filled on Sabbath -mornings had given place to fine churches -with stained-glass windows, which were greatly -reduced in membership. What I mean is that -the town was prosperous, and had a beam in its -eye. Wiggs Street was completely changed and -there was some talk of changing the name to -“Cutter Avenue.” But this was not done. Every -man has his enemies. There were many pretentious -residences now where cottages formerly -stood. Some of them had conservatories. Nobody -kept potted plants on the front porch, but -some of them had got as far as keeping potted -cedars on their stone gate posts and a colored man -in rubber boots to scrub the front steps.</p> - -<p>George Cutter, no longer known as “young -George” since the death of his father, received -much credit for the growth and development of -the town. It was Mr. Cutter who had induced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -certain Eastern capitalists to locate these factories -near Shannon. He was more than a prominent -citizen at home. He was somebody in New -York. He had “influence” in Washington. -Otherwise Shannon would never have obtained -her hundred-thousand-dollar post office. He carried -Shannon County in his pocket, politically -speaking, and he kept his congressman in the other -pocket, in the same figurative manner.</p> - -<p>Five years after he entered the bank, he was -occupying the chair and desk on the left side of -the door where his father sat when George began -his career on the adding machine in the cage. Mr. -Cutter, Senior, was still the nominal president, -but he had a finer desk and more comfortable, -less businesslike chair in the rear of his son. He -was now a fat old man, drooling down to a heavy -old age. He was merely president from force of -habit. He did nothing but watch, with slumberous -pride, his son paw the markets, reach out, -speculate, risk and win, make a name for himself -in the financial world.</p> - -<p>But in 1913 all this was ancient history. The -young wolf had been just beginning then to get a -toothhold. Now he had arrived. He had “interests” -in the big corporations. When he became -president, after the death of his father, the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -thing he did was to sell this small building to a -local trust company and build a finer, larger place -for his bank. Here he had an office, off the directors’ -room in the rear, as magnificent and grave as -a sanctuary. And it was so proudly private that -there was no spangled glass door leading to it -visible to the vulgar public eye. Capitalists and -promoters visited him here, but the regular customers -of the bank rarely saw him except by -accident when he issued from this office, hatted, -spatted, coated, carrying a cane hooked over his -arm, and stepping briskly across the lobby -through the door to where his car stood and -shone against the curb. In that case their eyes -followed him. And if these eyes belonged to -women, of whatever age, they were likely to exclaim, -breathe or think, “What a handsome -man!”</p> - -<p>He was more than handsome, a “presence,” -almost a perfect imitation of elegance. He was -the kind of man who kept his years under foot. -He trod them down with so much swiftness and -power in this business of getting on that they had -not marked him. His face was smooth, his red -hair still opulent, his eyes brilliant, masterful. -When he came in or went out or passed by, they -were always fixed on something straight ahead, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -if you were not there, anxious to catch his glance -and have the honor of speaking to him. Probably -you wanted to remind him of how well you remembered -when he started to work in the old bank. -And you were a friend of his father, and had -always kept your account in this bank and would -continue to do so. But you must be a wheedling, -forward old man to get the chance to say such -things to him, because your account means nothing -to him now, and your good memory only -annoys him.</p> - -<p>The reason so many men, after they become -distinguished or successful, get this habit of looking -straight ahead when we are standing ingratiatingly -near, wishing to claim acquaintanceship -with them in their humbler past, is because they -wish to forget this past, and especially you who -retain the speaking tongue of it.</p> - -<p>George Cutter had outgrown Shannon. Shannon -might be proud of him, but it could not be -intimate with him. He did not belong there. -He was a big town man. You could almost smell -Wall Street as he passed you, Williams Street, -anyhow, which is only one of the elbows of Wall -Street—a notable perfume, I can tell you, of -pop-eyed dollars and busy bonds that never -rested, but were always being sold again.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>Seeing George thus, enhanced by ten additional -years, you naturally want to know what changes -have taken place in Helen.</p> - -<p>Sometimes a slender, fair woman might be seen -in Cutter’s limousine, waiting at the curb before -the bank. But if you saw her, you scarcely -noticed her, because there was nothing distinguishing -in her appearance. She always sat very -still with her hands folded, her lips closed so -tightly that they appeared to be primped, and -with her eyes wide open, very blue like curtains -drawn before windows, concealing every thought -and feeling within. When Cutter came through -the door of the bank, stepped quickly forward and -swung himself into this car with the air of a -man who has not a moment to spare, she always -drew a trifle closer into her corner of the seat. -Then they slid away noiselessly across the square -and out Wiggs Street. Even the chauffeur knew -that Mr. Cutter never had a moment to spare and -invariably exceeded the speed limit.</p> - -<p>No word of greeting was exchanged between -this husband and wife—not even a look. She -did not so much as unpurse her lips to smile. -His arrogant silence implied that he was alone in -this car. Yet we must know that it was his wish -she should come for him, since she so often did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -come and wait for him with this look of dutiful -patience.</p> - -<p>The married relation is not vocative. It tends -toward silence and a sort of dreary neutrality, -arrived at by years of mutual defeats. It is -easier for a man to be agreeable to another woman -who is not his wife for the simple reason that he -is innocent of this stranger. She knows none of -his faults and she has not failed him in anything. -And every woman knows that she is instinctively -more entertaining to a man who is not her husband, -even if she despises this man and truly, -patiently loves her husband, because she is under -no bond to agree with him nor to avoid his prejudices. -There is nothing accusative or immoral in -this fact, any more than there is in a momentary -change of thought. It is perfectly natural, when -you consider how many years they must dwell -upon the same common sense of each other.</p> - -<p>If the weather was fine, Cutter only stopped -long enough to drop Helen at the house. He -might tell her he would be late for dinner or he -might be late without telling her. Then he was -driven at the same spanking, glittering speed to -the golf and country club for a foursome previously -arranged.</p> - -<p>Cutter had imported the idea of this club. As<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -Cadmus introduced letters into Greece, so had -he brought golf to the business men of Shannon. -Until then middle-aged citizens accepted the sedentary -habits of their years and went down to -their graves corpulent and muscleless, developing -only a little miserliness toward the last or a few -crapulous vices. But now these men, grown bald -and gray, who had never spent a surplus nickel -nor taken more exercise than healthy invalids, -hired caddies for fifty cents an hour, and spent -recklessly for golf sticks and especially golf stockings -and breeches. And they were to be seen any -afternoon stepping springily over these links, -whacking balls—for the ninth hole at least—with -all the reared-back, straddle-legged, arm-swinging -genuflections of enthusiastic youth. Missionaries -have spent twenty years in the heart of -Africa without accomplishing so much healthful -good for the savages there. But in that case the -idea of course is not to prolong the life of a -savage, but to save his soul. Still, Cutter was a -successful missionary in this matter of golf, because -the souls of the men in Shannon had long -been sufficiently enured to the gospel to be saved, -if they could be.</p> - -<p>As for the women, that was a different matter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -Very few people ever worry seriously about the -salvation of these milder creatures. Until quite -recently they have been so securely preserved, -sheltered and possessed that it was actually difficult -for a woman to lose her soul by any obvious -overt transgression. Even then you could not be -sure she had lost it, since she suffered such overwhelming -martyrdom for her offense. And we do -not know what kind balances may be arranged in -the Book of Life for these poor victims of life in -the flesh.</p> - -<p>There was also a different standard for women -in the matter of outdoor exercise, even at so recent -a date as this of which I write. They might -caper adventuresomely in the open as girls, but -the idea of a married woman spreading her feet -and swinging her club at a ball on the golf links -at Shannon was unthinkable. If they wanted the -air, let them go out-of-doors; if they wanted exercise, -let them go back indoors and do something.</p> - -<p>So Helen never accompanied her husband to -the golf links. She always went in the house and -did things that would please him, or at least satisfy -him when he came home.</p> - -<p>They were still living in the house at the end -of Wiggs Street. No changes had been made in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -it, not a stitch had been added to it. It was -simply laundered, so to speak, once in so often -with a fresh coat of white paint.</p> - -<p>But it was not so sparsely settled within as it -had been when she came there as a bride.</p> - -<p>Two years after Helen’s marriage Mrs. Adams -had passed away with no to-do about going at -all. She was ill three days, very quietly and -comfortably unconscious. Then she had gone to -join that highly respectable class of saints in -paradise to which no doubt her carpenter husband -already belonged. Helen inherited her mother’s -estate, which consisted of a few thousand dollars’ -worth of securities in her safety box at the bank, -the cottage on Wiggs Street and the contents of -this cottage. The cottage was promptly sold and, -together with the sale of the securities, furnished -George with the money for his first successful -speculation.</p> - -<p>But Helen would not part with the furniture. -She had it brought to her own house. When she -had distributed it in the rooms, the hall, all available -spaces were filled with it. Her father’s portrait, -done in crayon, hung above the parlor -mantel. Her mother’s portrait, also a crayon, -hung on the opposite wall. For years to come -these two Adams parents were to stare at each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -other in a grim silence, as much as to say, “There -will be a reckoning in this house some day!” -which was due, of course, to the crudely veracious -expression the amateur artist always gets with a -crayon pencil. For at that time there was nothing -but love and happiness and hope in this -house. George was really planning then to build -a mansion where this house stood. For a while -they amused themselves drawing plans for this -mansion. Then George became more and more -absorbed in his business. He had less time for -fanciful conversation with Helen. In any case -the subject of the new house was dropped. It -had not been mentioned for years.</p> - -<p>I suppose if there had been children the new -house would have been built. But nothing had -“happened.” Helen kept a cat, a canary bird and -two servants. The cat was a sort of serial cat, -exchanged once in so often for a kitten. The bird -was the same one. She did not really care for -cats, nor much for canaries, but they served the -purpose of furnishing some sort of sound and -motion in this silent house. She did not want the -servants, either. She preferred to do her own -work. She would have made an excellent wife -for a poor man. She was a marvelously good one -to George, who was rapidly becoming a rich man.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>She might have been a wonderful caretaker of -a great man; she had exactly the right spirit of -service and self-effacement. She developed a -serene silence which was restful, never irritating. -But George was not and never would be a great -man. He needed a brilliant woman, and Helen -was only a beautiful woman. He needed a charming -hostess for his home, with social gifts. And -Helen was only an excellent housekeeper. He -knew that this house was atrociously furnished, -but he did not know how it should be furnished. -You may be highly appreciative of music without -being a musician. He felt the need of fine, quiet -things and neutral tones in his home, but he had -neither the time nor the ability to achieve these -effects.</p> - -<p>Once, indeed, shortly after Helen had rearranged -the parlor with the old Adams whatnot -and the Adams sofa with a golden-oak spindle -back, he had sent out two handsome mahogany -armchairs, his idea being to overcome the monotonous -color and cheapness of this room. These -chairs looked like two bishops at a populist meeting. -Helen was pleased, but he had sense enough -to know that he had blundered.</p> - -<p>I am merely giving you his side of this affair, -frankly admitting that she was by nature disqualified<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -to fill the position of wife to such a -man. In the last analysis, of course, it would depend -upon which of these two people such a man -as George Cutter or such a woman and wife as -Helen is the worthier type, or the more serviceable -to his day and generation. It is not the -reaping of what we sow ourselves—sometimes it -is the reaping of what the other fellow sowed, the -way we bear the burden of that—which determines -our quality and courage.</p> - -<p>As for Helen, the elder Mrs. Cutter said it all -shortly before her death.</p> - -<p>One summer evening she lay propped high in -bed, her thin knees sticking up, her thin face -stingingly vivid, her eyes spiteful with pain and -discontent. Helen had just gone home after her -daily visit, during which she ministered with exasperating -patience to this invalid. Mr. Cutter sat -beside his wife’s bed concerned for her, anxious -to comfort her, but secretly wondering where she -would strike. For he perceived by the spitting -spark in her eye that she was about to strike.</p> - -<p>“Helen is hopeless,” she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>He was relieved not to be the target. Still he -said something in reply about Helen’s being a -“good girl.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and that is all she is. She is not the wife<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -for George. I knew it from the first,” she keyed -off irritably.</p> - -<p>Mr. Cutter ventured timidly that she had made -George a “good wife.”</p> - -<p>“Good, good, good,” she repeated. “I wish -somebody could think of some other word for her. -But they can’t. Good’s the adjective she’s been -known by all her life.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it is a very good way to be known, my -dear,” he returned mildly.</p> - -<p>“There you go again. Lower my pillow, Mr. -Cutter. I can’t keep my head up and think about -her. She weighs on me like a load of commonest -virtues.”</p> - -<p>He let her gently down. She glared at him. -He smoothed her pillow. Would she like a sip -of water?</p> - -<p>No! and she was not to be diverted, if that was -what he was trying to do. “Do you know what -a merely good woman can be?” she demanded.</p> - -<p>The word good occurred to him again. He -wanted to say that there was nothing better than -a good woman, but he refrained. He must not -irritate Maggie; if only she would not work herself -up.</p> - -<p>“She can be the least intelligent creature alive, -obsessed with the practice of her duties. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -mind inside her, never in touch with what is -bigger and more important outside. She can be -the stone around her husband’s neck. That is -what Helen is.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cutter sighed. He was fond of Helen.</p> - -<p>“What has she ever done for George? I ask -you that.” She waited for his answer as if she -defied him to name one thing Helen had done to -help her husband.</p> - -<p>“Well, she’s been a good wife to him,” he repeated -futilely.</p> - -<p>“There you go again,” she exclaimed. “I’ve -been a good wife to you, too, haven’t I?”</p> - -<p>“Indeed you have, my dear,” he answered -gratefully.</p> - -<p>“But was I contented with being just that? -When we came to this town as poor as church -mice and you got the position in the bank, I -made up my mind that you should be president -of that bank some day, and you are, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, my dear, and I owe everything to you—”</p> - -<p>“Not everything, Mr. Cutter,” she interrupted -with a sniff; “but I helped you; I made friends -for you; I showed off before people to let them -know you were prosperous and a coming man. I -had some pride.”</p> - -<p>“You did, my dear. You were game and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -looked it,” he answered with a watery smile of -memory in his eye.</p> - -<p>“And I bore a son for you.”</p> - -<p>“You ought not to blame Helen; you can’t—” -he began.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I can,” she interrupted; “if she isn’t to -have children, if poor George’s name is to die -with him, she might at least help him enjoy his -own career. But she doesn’t; she is becalmed. -She hasn’t got it in her, I tell you, to do what -I have done to show my pride and appreciation -of the position you have made for us.”</p> - -<p>“But, Maggie, you are one woman in ten thousand. -You have not only been the best of wives, -you have been everything to me a man needs.”</p> - -<p>This reduced her to proud tears, and ended the -scene, he holding one hand, she pressing a scented -handkerchief to her eyes with the other. She -was really quite happy in a sort of fiercely indignant -fashion.</p> - -<p>I suppose every husband tells his wife some -such yarn as this. And he usually gets away with -it. He may even believe it for all I know, although -there are some millions of other husbands -controverting his testimony by the same -flattery to their respective wives.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>We have biographies of great women, even if -they are bad ones. But I doubt if there is a -single biography to be found of a merely good -woman, because for some reason goodness does -not distinguish women, and for another reason, -while it may make them useful, dependable and -absolutely essential to others, it does not make -them sufficiently interesting to hold the reader’s -attention or the world’s attention. You never -heard of one being knighted for virtue. It is not -done. You never saw a monument raised to just -one woman who was invincibly good and faithful -in the discharge of her intimate private duties as -a wife or a mother. She must do something publicly, -like leading a reform or creating a disturbance.</p> - -<p>And the only feminine autobiographies I have -read were written by women who should not have -done so. They have been without exception written -by some ignobly good woman, with every -mean and detestable use of her virtues at the expense -of other people, or they were indecent exposures -of moral degeneracy and neurasthenic disorders. -Good women cannot write their autobiographies. -The poor things are inarticulate. -They lack the egocentricity essential for such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -performance. This statement stands, even if the -author eventually publishes some such looking-glass -of herself.</p> - -<p>I would not discourage any woman who is preparing -to make of herself a sacrifice wholly acceptable -to her husband and family, but it is my -honest conviction that it will not pay her in this -present world. And that she will wind up like -the sundown saint of herself, respected, held in -affectionate regard, maybe, but unhonored and -unsung. So go ahead with your sacrifice, but do -not complain about it. Men, as well as gods, -accept sacrifices, but they rarely ever return the -compliment.</p> - -<p>Helen Cutter belonged to this class. The first -years of her marriage passed happily enough. -She was not too good. She was often exacting -in her pretty, soft, white way. But she always -produced this impression of whiteness and simplicity. -She was in the confidence of her husband -to this extent, she knew how rapidly he was -forging ahead in business. She marveled at the -swiftness with which he turned over money and -doubled it. And she never questioned his -methods.</p> - -<p>Then the time came when business engrossed -him to the exclusion of every other interest. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -was obliged to make frequent trips to money -markets in the East and the West. He began to -be hurried, preoccupied, irritable.</p> - -<p>This is the history of many successful men in -the married relation. It usually results in the -wife’s finding another life of her own, in her children, -in social diversions or some other activity. -Cutter wished for this solution for his wife. He -provided her amply with funds. But it seemed -that she did not know how to spend money foolishly. -She was invincibly moral about everything. -She performed her tea-party duties at -regular intervals without any distinction as a -hostess, paid a few calls and remained a “home -body.”</p> - -<p>She perceived the change in her husband. He -was not now the man she had married. He was -no longer even of her class. She could not keep -up with him. She knew that she was not even -within speaking distance of him, because she could -not talk of the things he talked about. Finances, -big enterprises, the plays in New York, life in -New York. The one bond which might have held -them did not exist. She had no children.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XI</h2></div> - - -<p>A trivial circumstance finally enlightened her -as to the length and breadth of the distance between -them.</p> - -<p>One morning at the breakfast table Cutter -looked at his wife appraisingly. They had been -married eleven years. She was still pretty, but -it was a beauty maturing into a sort of serenity, -no vivacity. She had, in fact, a noble look. -Stupid women do frequently get it. He had -long since made up his mind that Helen was, -to say the least of it, mentally prismatic. She -had no elasticity of charm. Still he resolved to -risk her.</p> - -<p>“Helen, Shippen gets in from New York this -afternoon. I want to bring him out here for -dinner. Do you think you can manage it?” he -asked.</p> - -<p>“The dinner? Why, yes, of course, George,” -she replied, having no doubt about being able to -manage a dinner. This Mr. Shippen could not -possibly be more exacting than George was himself.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>“He is coming down to look at that pyrites -mine I want to sell. We are going to get into -this war, and the Government is bound to need -pyrites. Shippen is tremendously rich, something -of a sport, I imagine. He was rather nice to me -when I was in New York last month, introduced -me to a lot of men I need to know,” he explained. -“So you must help me out by doing your best,” -he added significantly.</p> - -<p>“I will, dear,” she assured him, still unperturbed.</p> - -<p>This serene confidence disturbed him. He -doubted if she could put across the simplest meal -in a correct manner. During the lifetime of his -mother, his father had entertained such out-of-town -guests; but these excellent parents had been -dead for years. He was obliged to fall back on -Helen.</p> - -<p>“You must do your best and look your best. -You are lovely, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Am I?” she asked, not coquettishly, but as if -this was an opportunity to assure herself about -something which was causing her anxiety.</p> - -<p>“Yes, of course, you are,” he returned in a -matter-of-fact tone. This was no time to get -personal with his wife. He wanted her to do -something and do it well.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>“Wear that gown I bought you from Madame -Lily’s,” he suggested.</p> - -<p>“Oh! must I?” she exclaimed as if she asked, -Would it be as bad as that?</p> - -<p>“The very thing, and wear the necklace.”</p> - -<p>She said she would, but what she thought was -that if she must dress like this she could not stay -in the kitchen and help Maria with the dinner, -and Maria was not to be trusted. She was “heavy -handed” when it came to salt, for example. Her -chief concern was for the dinner, not herself. -She always missed her cue.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, Shippen had the shock of his -swift life when he was presented to Mrs. Cutter -that evening.</p> - -<p>The weather was very cold. A bright fire -burned in the grate. A chandelier of four lights -overhead left scarcely a shadow in this cheap little -parlor. Everything in it glared. The white -walls stared you out of countenance. The golden-oak -piano turned a broadside of yellow brilliance -across the flowered rug. The whatnot showed off. -The spindle-back sofa fairly twinkled varnish. -Inanimate things can sometimes produce the impression -of tittering excitement. The furniture -in this pop-eyed room seemed to be expecting -company. Only the two mahogany armchairs on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -either side of the fireplace preserved their gravity -and indifference, as if they had been born and -bred to be sat in by the best people.</p> - -<p>Shippen saw all this at a glance; at least he -felt it without knowing what ailed him. Later -he was to quail in a sort of artistic anguish beneath -the cold, calm, crayon gaze of that excellent -carpenter, the late Sam Adams, whose portrait -still hung above the mantel. And he was -to feel the colder, grimmer crayon eyes of the -late Mrs. Mary Adams piercing him between the -shoulder blades from the opposite wall. But that -which riveted his attention this first moment when -he entered the room with Cutter was Mrs. Cutter.</p> - -<p>She stood on the rug before the fire, a slim -figure, but not tall. She was wearing a cloth gown -of the palest rose lavender, the bodice cut low, -fitting close to her white shoulders, lace on it -somewhere like a mist, a wildly disheveled bow of -twisted black velvet that seemed to strike at him, -it was so vivid by contrast with all this gem paleness -of color. A necklace of opals, very small and -bound together by the thinnest thread of gold, -with a pendant lay upon her breast. Her pale -blond hair was dressed simply, bound about her -head like piety, not a crown. No color in her -skin, only the soft pink lips, sweetened somehow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -by that pointed flute in the upper lip, long sweeping -brows, darker than her hair, spread like slender -wings above the wide open blue eyes, seeing -all things gravely, neither asking nor giving confidences.</p> - -<p>“This is Mr. Shippen, Helen. My wife, Shippen,” -George finished cheerfully.</p> - -<p>He had made a hasty survey of Helen. She -would do, he decided, if only she would go, -move off, say the right thing.</p> - -<p>Helen offered her hand. She was glad to meet -Mr. Shippen.</p> - -<p>He bowed over this hand, very glad, and so -forth and so on.</p> - -<p>She said something about the weather; he did -not notice what she said nor what he answered; -something about the same weather of course. But -whatever he said had not released him from her -gaze. She kept him covered. Cutter had joined -in with his feelings and opinion on the weather. -What was said made no difference. Shippen had -to keep his eyes down or running along the floor, -not on Mrs. Cutter. Men do that when they are -startled or ill at ease with a woman, if they are -uncertain about where to place her in the category -of her sex. Shippen was very uncertain on this -point. He had seen many a woman better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -gowned, more beautiful, but never had he seen -one with this winged look.</p> - -<p>“Are we late?” Cutter asked, addressing his -wife.</p> - -<p>“No,” she answered briefly, as if words were -an item with her.</p> - -<p>“Well, anyhow we are hungry,” he laughed. -“Took Shippen out for a little winter golf. Links -rotten after all this rain. No game. All we got -was an appetite.”</p> - -<p>Shippen glanced at Cutter. For the first time -he recognized Cutter. Smart fellow, pipping his -village shell. But, good heaven, this room! -Might have got further than this in his scenery.</p> - -<p>He went on catching impressions. He felt very -keen. It occurred to him suddenly that Cutter’s -wife was responsible for the room. This fellow -who could fly like a kite in the markets couldn’t -fly here or move or change anything. Odd situation. -If this was her taste in house furnishing, -who chose her frock for her? She was dressed -like a fashionable woman, and she looked like a -madonna; not virginal, but awfully still like the -image of something immortally removed. She -gave him a queer feeling. Still it was distinctly -a sensation; he handed it to her for that.</p> - -<p>All this time Cutter was talking like a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -covering some kind of breach, laughing at the end -of every sentence. He heard himself making replies, -also laughing. Nothing from Mrs. Cutter. -He looked across at her seated in the other mahogany -chair, and dropped his eyes. Her gaze -was still fixed on him, no shadow of a smile on -her face. He understood why instantly. This -was not mirth, this was laughter he and Cutter -were executing as people do when they make conversation. -He was amazed at this woman’s independence. -She had nothing to say and said it in -silence. She heard nothing amusing, therefore -she was not smiling. She was not even embarrassed.</p> - -<p>It all depends upon your experience and angle -of vision what you see in another person. This -is why your husband may discover that some other -woman understands him better than you do. She -knows him better than you do because she knows -more about men than you do. And if there is -anything that weakens the moral knees of a man -quicker even than strong drink, it is to feel the -soothing flattery of being better understood by -another woman.</p> - -<p>Precisely in this way Shippen understood -Helen, and knew perfectly that Cutter was not -the man who could do it. She was invincible, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -saw that; stupid, he saw that. And he was -enough of a connoisseur in this matter to realize -that intelligence would sully this lovely thing. -Merriment would be a facial transgression. She -was that rare and most mysterious of all creatures, -a simply good woman without the self-consciousness -they usually feel in their virtues.</p> - -<p>He kept on with these reflections during dinner, -which was served presently. He had no idea -what kind of dinner it was. He was assembling -plans for a speculation. He had been successful -in many lines besides those involving money.</p> - -<p>“You come to New York occasionally, don’t -you, Mrs. Cutter?” he asked, endeavoring to -engage her in conversation.</p> - -<p>“Not that often. I have been there only once,” -she told him with a faint smile. She had referred -to her wedding journey without naming it. At -that time she and George had spent a week in -New York.</p> - -<p>“You liked it, of course?” Shippen went on.</p> - -<p>“It is like a book with too many pages, too -many illustrations, too many quotations, isn’t it?” -she evaded.</p> - -<p>Shippen threw back his handsome black head -and laughed.</p> - -<p>Cutter shot a bright glance at his wife and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -joined in this applause. He had no idea she could -think anything as good as that to say. And she -could not have done so if he had asked the question.</p> - -<p>“What I mean is that one must live there a long -time before he could know whether he liked it or -not,” she explained.</p> - -<p>“Well, I think you would,” he answered, meaning -some flattery which she did not get.</p> - -<p>Having said so much, she had nothing else to -say. The two men went on with this discussion -of New York life. Cutter was determined to -let Shippen know that he was no stranger to it—old -stuff, such as brokers and buyers get, under -the impression that they are bounding up the social -ladder of the great metropolis. Shippen -heard him give quite frankly his caf experiences, -not omitting soubrettes. No harm in what he was -telling, of course, but as a rule men didn’t do it -at home.</p> - -<p>Once or twice he glanced at Mrs. Cutter, ready -to come to heel, change the subject if he saw the -faintest shade of annoyance on her face. There -was no shade there at all, only a calm, clear look. -And this look was fixed on him as if he were a -page she read out of the book of this city. Apparently -she was indifferent to what Cutter was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -saying. He decided that she was not jealous of -her husband.</p> - -<p>He wondered if Cutter had the least conception -of the kind of woman his wife was. He -thought not. Some day she would stand immovable -in the way of his ambitions, he decided. In -that case what would Cutter do? This was—well, -it might prove very interesting. He went on -speculating personally along this line.</p> - -<p>The reason why so many men try to climb -Mount Everest is because they cannot do it. Let -even one reach the summit, and that exalted peak -has fallen into the hands of the tame geographers -and scientists. It becomes a business then, not an -adventure, to chart those terrific altitudes. For -the same reason the most attractive woman to men -is the unattainable woman. Shippen found Mrs. -Cutter attractive. He did not analyze the reason -why. It was not her beauty. He had had success -with far more beautiful women. He doubted -his success here. Heavens! To find a woman -who could not be won! What an adventure. -That steady, unrevealing gaze in her blue eyes—what -did it conceal? What did she know? He -doubted if she knew anything. That was it; she -was something real, not built up out of little -knowledges, little virtues, spiced with little vices,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -and finished like her furniture with the varnish of -feminine charms. What a noble change from the -skittish kittens and the secret viragoes and the -mercenary starlings he had known.</p> - -<p>It is astonishing what terrible things a man can -be thinking, while he looks at you frankly and -laughs honestly and takes your food like a -brother. Certainly Cutter would have been astonished -if he had known what was passing through -the mind of his guest as they talked and laughed -together at this table. But it is a question if -Helen would have been moved. She did not -know this man, but she felt him like a darkness, -in no way personal to her, but there, with George -frisking around like an ambitious spark in this -blackness. She was thinking of George chiefly, -interpreting him according to Shippen. It was a -fearful experience, and no one suspected her pain, -because a woman can dig her own grave and step -down into it behind the look and the smile and -the duty she gives you, and it may be years before -you discover that she is gone.</p> - -<p>All this is put in for the emotional reader who -knows it is the truth, and has probably felt the -sod above herself, even while she is sadly dressing -beautifully for an evening’s pleasure with a -husband who has slain her or a lover whose perfidy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -has brought on these private obsequies. But -all such truth is unhealthy, like the failure of -courage in invalids. And in this particular I -warn you that the fate of Helen differs from your -own. She died a few times, as the most valorous -women do; but she had a sublime instinct for -surviving these incidental passings.</p> - -<p>Shortly after dinner Cutter took Shippen back -to his hotel. They had some affairs to discuss -further before he should leave on the early morning -train. Cutter explained to Helen, because this -was unusual. It was his invariable habit to spend -his evenings at home. He was a good husband, -according to the strictest law of the scribes and -Pharisees, so to speak. What I mean is that he -was literally faithful to his wife, though you may -have suspected to the contrary. This is not the -author’s fault, but due to the evil culturing of -your own mind. A man may be faithful to his -wife, and at the same time frisk through the night -life of a place like New York. He may be doing -nothing worse than taking a whiff and an eyeful -of the naughty world, getting something to talk -about to the other fellows when he comes home. -It is silly, but not wicked, as you are inclined to -believe. I do not know why it is that so many -respectable women are disposed to suspect the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -worst where men are concerned; but it is a fact -which even their pastors will not deny.</p> - -<p>When Cutter came in that night Helen had retired. -He turned on the light. “Asleep, my -dear?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“No,” she replied in that tone a woman has -when her voice sounds like the nice, small voice -of your conscience.</p> - -<p>He came and sat down on the side of the bed, -regarded her cheerfully, like the messenger of -good tidings. She lay very flat, hands folded -across her breast, face in repose, no expression, -eyes wide open, a state of self-consciousness bordering -onto unconsciousness which women sometimes -sink into as a sort of last ditch.</p> - -<p>Cutter was so elated about something he did -not observe that his wife was dying momentarily. -He wanted to talk. He had something to tell -her. “You were splendid to-night, Helen,” he -began.</p> - -<p>She revived sufficiently to ask him if the dinner -was “all right.”</p> - -<p>“Dinner!” he exclaimed. “I scarcely noticed -what we had to eat. You took the shine off the -dinner. You were stunning. Means a lot to a -man for his wife to—make good; sets him up. -Shippen was impressed, I can tell you that.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>Shippen! She did not speak the name, but her -glance, slowly turned on him, meant it.</p> - -<p>“How did you like him?” he wanted to know.</p> - -<p>“I did not like him,” she answered distinctly.</p> - -<p>He stared at her. Her respiration was the -same; her eyes coldly impersonal. He sprang to -his feet, kicked off his shoes, flung off his clothes, -snapped off the light and retired to the bitter frost -of that bed. He lay flat, clinched his hands across -his breast and worked his toes as if these toes -were the claws of a particularly savage beast. -His chest rose and fell like bellows. His red -brown eyes snapped in the dark.</p> - -<p>Helen was the antidote for success, he reflected -furiously. She was the medicine he had to take, -a depressant that kept him down when he might -have been up. Just let him get the wind in his -sails, and she reefed him every time. He had -been patient, leaving her to have her own way -when it was not his way. Hadn’t he lived in his -own house with those blamed Adams pictures -glaring at him for nine years? Yet he had endured -them for Helen’s sake. And the druggets, -and the very cast-off teacups of Helen’s family.</p> - -<p>Right now he was lying in old Mrs. Adams’ -bed and had done so for nine years, when he much -preferred his own bed. He had tried to bring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -Helen out, and she would not be moved. He had -tried to dress her according to her station in life, -and she would not be dressed. He had humored -her in everything. But now when he had an opportunity, -a big chance which he could not take -without her, she planted her feet as usual. She -obstructed him at every turn. She didn’t like -Shippen. That showed which way the wind -would blow when he told her. And he had to -tell her. He could not move hand or foot without -her. But, by heaven! if she didn’t come -across this time—</p> - -<p>“George,” came a voice from the adjacent -pillow.</p> - -<p>“Umph!” he answered, startled out of finishing -that threat he was about to think.</p> - -<p>“You asked me, or I should not have told you -what I think of Mr. Shippen. But since you want -to know—”</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to know. I am trying to get a -little sleep. I’m tired,” he interrupted.</p> - -<p>“But since you ask,” she went on, “I think -he is horrible. He reminds me of the powers and -principalities of darkness. He made my flesh -creep—”</p> - -<p>“For the love of peace, Helen, stop. You know -absolutely nothing about him.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>“Yes, I do.”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“I know that he is wicked.”</p> - -<p>“How do you know?”</p> - -<p>“I feel it.”</p> - -<p>He snorted and turned over. He slept that -night with his back to this slanderer, who did -not sleep at all.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XII</h2></div> - - -<p>The next day George Cutter’s spirits had revived -and with them a certain hope. He resolved -to have it out with Helen. She was not reasonable. -Few women were, but he knew that she -loved him. He might count on that.</p> - -<p>In the evening after dinner they sat before the -fire in the parlor. Helen wore a dark dress, -plain, durable, unbecoming. He considered this -dress, the woman in it, with a coolly impartial eye. -His heart failed him. He doubted if she could -pull it off if she would. If, for example, she -could be made to realize the importance of dressing -handsomely and extravagantly every day. If -she could be induced to live the life she would -have to live. He admitted it was a sort of puppet -existence. But as necessary to his success as the -dummies in a shop window are to advertise the -owner’s trade. Ten thousand women did it all -the time, liked it. Still Helen was not one of -them. She was removed by nature, every instinct, -from that class. He was half a mind to -give up the whole thing. At this moment, Helen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -looked across at him. There was a hint of tears -in her eyes, a fugitive smile on her lips as if this -smile pleaded with him for a certain forgiveness.</p> - -<p>He laughed. He stood up and took her in his -arms.</p> - -<p>“Am I all right now, George?” she asked, as if -she had been shriven by this embrace.</p> - -<p>“Absolutely,” he assured her.</p> - -<p>They sat down. Helen sighed, being now full -of that sad peace which makes sighs.</p> - -<p>“The trouble with you is, dear, that you are -never wrong. That cuts you out of life. We -who are in the thick of it must be a little wrong,” -he explained.</p> - -<p>“I suppose so,” she agreed.</p> - -<p>“Not so rigid. We can’t be,” he said.</p> - -<p>She agreed to that also.</p> - -<p>“If you could be a little less perfect, it would -help me a lot.”</p> - -<p>She smiled, implying that in that case she was -in a position to help him. But what could she -do? She had often felt how little service she was.</p> - -<p>Her meekness intrigued him. “How would you -like to live in New York?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I would not like it,” she answered after a -pause.</p> - -<p>He might have known what her answer would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -be, Cutter reflected bitterly. His face reddened. -His anger was rising.</p> - -<p>“Why? Do you want to live there?” she -asked, feeling this silence directed against her.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it makes no difference what I want, because -if we lived on separate planets you could -not differ more widely than you do from my way -of life and my desires, my very needs,” he exclaimed.</p> - -<p>This was unjust, she knew. Still she felt -guilty.</p> - -<p>“George, I can’t pretend that I should like to -live in New York, but if you want to go there, -I will go. I must not stand ever in the way of -your success.”</p> - -<p>He sat in brooding, bitter silence, staring into -the fire.</p> - -<p>“We might live very quietly; at least I could, -couldn’t I?” she asked timidly, ready to make -every other concession.</p> - -<p>“No; you could not. You’d have to play the -game as other women do. You would not do -that. You—your whole mind is against the idea—you -would not adjust yourself. You would not -even try to adjust yourself to the world as it is. -You want to make one yourself, six hundred feet -long and seven hundred feet wide with this house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -in the middle of it. You have done it. Look at -it,” he exclaimed, with a glance that swept this -room like a conflagration.</p> - -<p>This was the first time she had suspected that -the parlor was not furnished according to his liking. -She was that simple, and he had been that -patient.</p> - -<p>“You have created a place to live in where nobody -can live except as you do,” he went on.</p> - -<p>He took no notice of the fact that she sat with -one hand on her breast, staring at him with a look -of mortal pain.</p> - -<p>“Well, I will be more considerate of you than -you can be of me, Helen,” he began again. “We -will drop the idea of going to New York. You -like this place. I might be contented here myself, -if I had nothing to do except keep it. But -I have my business, a man’s name and reputation -to make. I will stay here when my affairs don’t -require me to be somewhere else. You understand,” -giving her an eye thrust.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered, meeting this thrust steadily. -She was dying to her happiness, not without -reproach, but without fear.</p> - -<p>He crossed his legs and swung his foot after -this deed. He did not tell her that Shippen had -offered him a partnership in a big business the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> -night before. In view of her unreasonable prejudice -against Shippen, this information would only -have furnished her with stronger objections to his -plans.</p> - -<p>The point was that she had failed him as a -helpmate in the career he had chosen. He purposed -to alter his course accordingly. He would -do the square thing by her. She was his wife. -He had that affection for her; but she should not -block his way. He meant to get on with her or—without -her. Other men did. He knew successful -men in New York, whose wives spent half -their time in Europe or somewhere else. He supposed -he might do better than that. The bank in -Shannon would require a good deal of his time. -He would come home occasionally. He must -spend a few days out of every month there.</p> - -<p>This was the end. Helen sensed it. She saw -his side of the situation. She had failed her husband. -She had been obliged to do so. He had -never expressed the least regret because she had -not borne children, but she knew that if they had -had children, this would have made all the difference. -She supposed she herself might have -been a different sort of woman if she could have -been a mother. Her influence as a wife had never -reached beyond the door of their home. Now she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -had failed him at this upward turn in his career.</p> - -<p>She had been a good wife to him according to -the Scriptures, but he needed another kind of -wife, one who could fill a public position, a wife -according to the world. She grasped this fact -clearly, held it before her, regarded it with remarkable -intelligence during a strictly private -interview she had with herself on this subject -some time the next day. She wondered how -many wives combined the two offices which -George required of her. If you were the social -official of his home, if you “played the game,” -as he called it, how could you be—well, the kind -of wife she had been to George?</p> - -<p>She thought of Shippen in connection with this -reflection. She could not have told why, but she -did. She was not so stupid as not to suspect that -Shippen had something to do with this sudden -desire that George had to live in New York. -“Playing the game” meant coming in constant -contact with men like Shippen, women like the -women they had discussed that night at dinner—Shippen -and soubrettes; somebody’s wife they -had seen in a caf with a man who was not her -husband and whom they had discussed with a -curious sort of grinning admiration, as if this -lady was a lady to be reckoned with.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>Helen was wrong, of course, in the picture she -drew of the game the worldly wife must play. -But there was this much sanity in her point of -view: Such a wife cannot always choose her partner -nor the card she must play. It is a skin game, -matrimonially speaking, and sometimes the one -skinned is the husband, more frequently it is the -wife, even if it is only the gossips who do the -skinning.</p> - -<p>Helen made her way through such reflections -as these, not as I have written them down in -words, but as one walking through the dark in a -dangerous place, with cautious steps and outstretched -hands, feeling the edges of strange -abysses with her feet, touching unknown things -that might be alive with reptilian life.</p> - -<p>The private mental life of all women, good or -bad, is usually morbid, consisting of thoughts or -speculations which bring an emotional crisis and -leave them in fears and tears more frequently than -we can believe, judging by the faces they show.</p> - -<p>Helen passed at this time through some such -crisis. She was not changed by it, because women -of that sort are the “amens” of their sex. But -she was confirmed. She remembered what George -had said long ago about this belief in the freedom -of love. She had often recalled it, always with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -a pang of terror. If she had ever been jealous -of him, it was in this indefinite way. Now the -way that led to such love seemed to widen before -her eyes.</p> - -<p>She was alone in her room, sitting on the side -of her bed during this scene with herself. You -know by your own experience, if you are a married -woman, that you always sit on the side of -your bed when you are dramatizing the sadder -prospects of going on doing your duty by this -husband—or of not doing it. You chose the bed -instead of a chair because of a potential sense of -prostration. You prepare yourself to fall back -in a storm of tears or to sink upon your knees in -prayer for strength to bear this “cross.” The -more modern woman is said frequently to rise -unshriven, stride majestically across the room and -stare at her own proudly rebellious reflection in -the mirror.</p> - -<p>Helen did none of these things. She simply -sat there, dry-eyed, unprayerful, not rebellious, -reviewing the future. This can be done with -amazing vividness, because the future is always a -repetition and development of the past. Then she -made a resolution. It was that later secret marriage -vow a wife sometimes takes after she is acquainted -with the deflation and vicissitudes of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -relation. Whatever happened, she would be a -good and dutiful wife to George. She would be -patient. Nothing should move her to reproach -him. Thus she abandoned her rights and self-respect. -I do not say that she ought to have done -this; I doubt it; but the fact remains that many -women do it. And in the end they frequently -become sanctuaries for disgracefully defeated husbands. -But to say so is not to recommend the -practice. My task is to show how it worked out -in this instance. And you are warned therefore -that a sanctuary may become a very fine edifice, -even smacking a little of worldly grandeur.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIII</h2></div> - - -<p>The little pale image of goodness so frequently -seen sitting in Cutter’s car before the bank waiting -for him around five o’clock in the afternoon -was what remained of the original Helen two -years after he had relinquished his plan to live in -New York.</p> - -<p>Keeping an entirely good resolution may be -strengthening to character, but it is fearfully -damaging to feminine beauty. For one thing such -women lose the sense of clothes. Helen had -known how to dress in the happy, wild-rose -period of her youth; but how can you keep up the -flaunting, flowing sweetness of your draperies -when you are no longer a girl to be won, but -have become a wife who has been reduced to her -duties and her virtues?</p> - -<p>Still, things had not been as bad for her as -she had expected they would be. George was -away from home now much of the time. He had -interests in New York and spent at least a part -of every month there. But she heard from him -regularly, usually a wire, sometimes a brief note. -When he was at home, it was the same old routine,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -except that he spent more time at the golf -and country club.</p> - -<p>The truth was that Helen got on his nerves -frightfully with her silence and dutifulness and -patience. The impeccable wife is a difficult -proposition, if you tackle it. Cutter instinctively -avoided the issue. He accepted Helen for this -awfully “better” woman than he had bargained -for. There was none of that human “worse” in -her, so amply provided for in the marriage ceremony, -with which to vary the monotony of their -life together. Often he wished for a stormy scene, -such as by nature married people are entitled to -have. If he was irritable, she left him alone. If -he was calm, she would come and sit and sew a -fine seam in a sweet silence that was perfectly -maddening. If he flung the paper he was reading -on the floor, slammed his feet down and -groaned, she would look up at him, then drop her -eyes once more to this seam—or she would rise -and leave the room noiselessly.</p> - -<p>Good heavens! He could not stand it, meaning -“her.” Why didn’t she complain that he neglected -her? Why didn’t she say something, show -some spirit? Why didn’t she appeal to his conscience? -That was what a wife was for—one -thing, at least. If she would only show some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -fight, he might regain control of himself; as it -was, he was slipping. Why couldn’t she see that -and stop him? He really wanted to slow up; but -how was a man to do it with his wife letting him -go like this?</p> - -<p>Cutter was the kind of man who would eventually -account for his transgression by saying if -he had married another sort of woman he might -have been a better man. In that case, you may -be sure, if his wife had married a totally different -kind of man, she would have been a happier -woman.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Helen was prepared for the worst. -This is a terrific preparation, but sometimes the -only one a woman can make; and it leaves her -in a singularly placid state of mind. If she had -understood the situation, she might have behaved -differently. But she did not understand Cutter.</p> - -<p>The woman who knows only one man never -knows much about him. To understand a husband, -you must do a lot of collateral reading of -mankind. He is all of them, from the best to the -worst. You are not so apt then to be mystified -by his various manifestations. And if you have -any sense of the proper courage of your sex, -you will act according to his symptoms, not your -own sanity, even if it is to burst into tears<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -and cry: “Undone! Undone! Oh, my God!”</p> - -<p>He will fall for it and react every time; because -God, upon whom you have just called, no -doubt having your emergencies in view, has -created men so that almost without exception they -have no defense against a weeping woman.</p> - -<p>At the same time it is the worst possible governing -principle not to vary your tears with laughter, -tyranny and some sort of lovely unreasonableness. -Men cannot endure a perfectly logical and -sane woman. She is too much like a petticoated -edition of themselves. They want action. You -must keep your ball rolling, you must convince -your husband of your mental inferiority and of -your tender superiority.</p> - -<p>Helen, poor girl, was not that much smarter -than her husband. She was straight. She lacked -the dearer deviousness of her sex, and, within -her limits, was utterly all to the good. Whether -a state of unmitigated morality is profitable is a -thing I have always wanted to know. And in the -course of a long life, the only answer I have ever -been able to find is that any state bordering on -immorality, or unmoralness, is sure to prove unprofitable. -The difference between these two -equations offered the only light at the time on -Helen’s future.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIV</h2></div> - - -<p>In April of 1917 this country joined the Allies -in the Great War. The nation was transfigured -with that spiritual and sacrificial emotion which -invariably follows the sending of vast armies of -men to be slain. The profits on patriotism were -enormous for those who knew how to do business -at the expense of the people. Cutter was one of -these eminently sane profiteers. He had doubled -his fortune during the first few months. He remained -in New York most of the time. He had -been away from home the whole of July.</p> - -<p>One morning early in August he arrived at the -door of his own house in Shannon. Helen had -not expected him. She was flustered. Breakfast -had been served, but she would have another -breakfast prepared at once.</p> - -<p>No, George explained briefly, he had had something -on the train; she was not to trouble herself -on his account.</p> - -<p>This consideration was unusual. Well, he -must go in and lie down; she knew he must be -worn out, Helen suggested.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>No, he was not tired; and no, he would not go -in and lie down.</p> - -<p>He behaved like a visitor in the house. But -he remained at home all day, puttering about the -house and garden with a curious gentle air. After -lunch he took a nap on the sofa in the parlor. -To Helen’s question as to whether he would go -out for some golf as usual, he had replied that -he would not play golf and that she might have an -early dinner. Afterwards she remembered a faint -embarrassment in his manner during the whole -of this day, as if it were an effort to talk or reveal -the simplest word of himself. But at the time -Helen was pleased without questioning why he -was behaving in this vaguely domestic fashion.</p> - -<p>Late in the afternoon she had followed him -into the garden, seated herself on a bench there -with her hands folded—merely present, you understand. -Cutter continued to pace slowly back -and forth along the walk. Helen observed him -gently. She thought he looked spent. She was -glad he was taking the day off; this was all she -thought about that.</p> - -<p>Now and again Cutter regarded his wife with a -sort of remorseful tenderness. He was experiencing -one of those futile reactions a bad man has -toward ineffable goodness when he knows he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -about to be rid of the burden and reproach of it. -Presently he came and sat down beside her in -the sweet, unaccusing silence she always made for -him.</p> - -<p>Her skin was still very fair, her hair darker, -with golden lights, her brows much darker, the -same blue eyes, white lidded. Strange he had -never noticed before that the clothes she wore -were like her—this grave little frock she was -wearing now, white, sheer, like a veil, long pretty -sleeves, a kind little waist with darts in it to fit -her figure. Who but Helen would ever think -of taking up darts in her bodice this year when -every other woman was fluffing herself? He -smiled at this, but the humor of his face was -neither intimate nor affectionate. It was a sort -of grinning footnote to Helen’s character.</p> - -<p>He began presently to feel the old irritation at -her silence. He halted, dropped down on the -bench beside her, but at the other end, hung himself -by one elbow over the back of it, crossed his -legs and addressed her with a question which he -frequently used like a key to turn in the lock of -his wife’s silence.</p> - -<p>“Helen, if you were about to say anything, -what would you say?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I was just thinking,” she answered, implying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -that she preferred not to publish these thoughts -in speech.</p> - -<p>But he wanted to know. His manner was that -of a husband who wanted to start something.</p> - -<p>“If we had children,” she began, looking at -him, then away from him, “I was wondering what -they would be doing now.”</p> - -<p>His eyes widened over her, but she did not feel -this amazement. Her own gaze appeared to be -trailing these children among the flowers in this -garden.</p> - -<p>“I often think of them,” she went on. “Our -son—I always expected the first one to be a son—he -should be quite a lad now. What do boys -of fourteen do at this hour of the day?” regarding -him with a sort of dreaming seriousness.</p> - -<p>He made no reply. He had slumped; with -lowered lids he was staring at the graveled walk -in front of this bench.</p> - -<p>“But the two little girls, much younger, would -be here in the garden with us. Isn’t it strange, I -always know what they would be doing, but not -the boy. I have seen them in my heart like bright -images in a mirror; I have heard them laugh many -a time.”</p> - -<p>He was appalled. Never before had he known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -Helen to talk like this. Why was she doing it? -Did she knew what was in his mind? Was she -deliberately torturing him?</p> - -<p>“Everything would have been so different if -they had lived,” she went on, as if she had actually -lost these children, “your life and mine. -They would have changed us, our ways and our -hopes. We should have built the house we -planned—for them,” turning to him with a dim -smile.</p> - -<p>“I suppose so,” he said, obliged to answer this -look; “but you know I have never regretted that -we have no children.”</p> - -<p>“At first you wanted them,” she reminded him.</p> - -<p>“But not now. It is better as it is,” he returned -moodily.</p> - -<p>“No; not for me; not for either of us,” she -sighed.</p> - -<p>For the first time in her life she saw tears in -his eyes.</p> - -<p>“For them?” she asked putting out her hand to -him.</p> - -<p>“No, for you,” he answered, drawing back from -this hand.</p> - -<p>She noticed that. Her attitude toward him -was one of submission. She did not ask herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -now why he shrank from her touch. She knew -nothing about the psychology of passion, its -strange and merciless revulsions.</p> - -<p>“A son or a daughter would be company for -you now,” he said after a pause.</p> - -<p>“Yes; it’s been dull, not having them with me -now. One grows so quiet inside. It must be a -little like dying, to be getting older and stiller all -the time.”</p> - -<p>He could not bear this. He had a vision of -what had happened to her. And now it was too -late; she was predestined, even as he was doomed -to his fate.... What follies love imposed upon -youth! He had loved her and taken her, when -she belonged to another kind of man, when he -might have been happy with another kind of -woman. Now he no longer loved her, and the -other woman might give him pleasure, but never -peace or happiness.... He supposed, after all, -there must be something moral about happiness. -Well, then, why had he missed happiness with -Helen? Heaven knew she was made of every -virtue. And he had kept his vows to her. He -had not actually broken faith with her—yet.</p> - -<p>He rose and walked to the other end of the -garden. He stood with his back to Helen, still -thinking fiercely, like a man trying with his mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -to break the bonds that held him.... What a -horror that this woman should be his wife. Nothing -could change that. She was not of his kind. -She was different; that was the whole trouble. If -she were not his wife she would be the sort of -woman he would never notice or meet. In view -of everything—the vision of life and society, and -what was coming to a man of his quality—he regarded -it as remarkable that he had been so long -faithful to her. It was stupid, silly, bucolic—the -kind of husband he had been to this kind of wife!</p> - -<p>He turned. Helen was still seated on the -bench. The sight of her filled him with irritation, -a sort of peevish remorse. He was going to -have the deuce of a time getting through his next -encounter with her. He meant to put it off to the -last minute. Meanwhile he simply must get to -himself, away from her. If she hung about he -felt that he might lose control of himself. And -he must be careful not to say anything which he -might regret afterwards.</p> - -<p>He came back, stepping briskly along the walk, -passed her as he would have passed a carpenter’s -wife on the street and went on toward the house.</p> - -<p>Helen’s eyes had met him far down the walk. -They followed him until he disappeared around -the corner of the house. Then, as if she had received<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -some dreadful warning from within, she -pressed her hand to her breast, her lips unfolded, -her cheeks blanched, her eyes widened as if she -beheld the very face of fear.</p> - -<p>What was this? George was not like himself. -She was aware of some frightful change in him. -There was a flare about him, something feverish, -disheveled in his apparent neatness. She began -to think over this day, his unexpected return that -morning. Now that she came to think of it, there -was no train upon which he could have arrived at -that hour. His reserve, it was a fortification. -She realized that now.</p> - -<p>She sprang up, started for the house. Something -had happened, something horrible. What -was it? She must see George. She must touch -him, speak to him.</p> - -<p>She found him seated on the veranda with the -afternoon paper spread before him, held up so -that she could see only the top of his head, not -his face. She stood struggling with herself. She -wished to run to him, fling herself upon his breast -and cry out: “George, what has happened? Do -you love me? I am your wife. Kiss me.”</p> - -<p>Never had she felt like this, the nameless terror, -the beating of her heart like hammers in her -breast. And all in this maddening moment, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -realized that she dared not approach him. He -did not feel like a husband, but like a stranger -who did not belong in this house.</p> - -<p>She stood leaning against the spindle-legged -pillar of the veranda and waited. She did not -know for what, but as if she expected a blow. -And she wanted it to fall. She wished to be put -out of this pain as soon as possible.</p> - -<p>Cutter laid aside his paper, stood up, swept -a glance this way and that as if he could not -decide which way to retreat, then he went inside, -and affected to be looking for a book on the -shelves in the parlor. He heard Helen pass down -the hall, knew that she had halted a moment in -the doorway. He felt as if he was being trailed. -What he wished was that she would have dinner, -so that he could get through with this business. -It must be done after dinner, because he could -not sit down to the table with her afterward.</p> - -<p>She came back presently to fetch him to this -meal. She wanted to cling on his arm, as she used -to do years ago. But he evaded her, she could -not have told how, only that if he had shouted -to her not to touch him, she would not have been -surer of what he meant.</p> - -<p>They accomplished this dinner together. Cutter -keeping his eyes withdrawn from her, taking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -his food with that sort of foreign correctness -which a man never practices at his own table. -Many times they had passed through a meal in -silence, but not a silence like this, potential, -strained. Once Cutter caught sight of Helen’s -hand, which was trembling. But he spared himself -the sight of her face.</p> - -<p>She scanned his, marked the new lines in it, the -sullen droop to his eyes, usually so frank. She -recalled the fact that he had not gone into their -bedroom during this day; that he had kept to -the public places in this house, as if it were no -longer his house; that he had answered all her -questions briefly; that in the garden he had drawn -back from the touch of her hand; that now he -was hurrying secretly to finish dining. She had -premonitions of some unimaginable disaster which -intimately concerned herself, but she could not -bear to think what it was. By a forlorn faith -many a woman receives strength to remain -stupidly blind to her fate. Helen had some -sort of faith that, if she kept perfectly quiet, this -horror, whatever it was, would pass without being -revealed to her. Then suddenly her courage -broke.</p> - -<p>Cutter thrust back his chair, rose from the table -and made for the door.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>She followed him. “George,” she cried, “what -is it? I am frightened”; the last word keyed to -a wail.</p> - -<p>They were standing where she had overtaken -him in the hall. He took out his watch, stared -at it. “Twenty minutes past seven. The express -is due at eight,” he muttered with the air of a -man who times himself, leaving not a minute to -spare.</p> - -<p>“Yes, the express is due then, but—” she began.</p> - -<p>“I am leaving on that train for New York,” -he said, addressing her point-blank.</p> - -<p>“But, George, this is only one day for me; and -you have been away five weeks,” she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Helen, come in here. I have something to -tell you, and very few minutes to spare,” standing -aside that she might precede him into the parlor.</p> - -<p>She went in, sat in one of the mahogany chairs -and regarded him with that long, winged look. -The suppressed harshness of his voice had steadied -her. She was calm. Women can withdraw to -some quiet corner, sit perfectly still and watch -you condemn yourself without a tremor, although -the moment before they may have been distracted -by every fear. I have sometimes thought it might -be a form of spiritual catalepsy. In any case, it -is a very fortunate seizure.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>“I am returning to New York to-night,” Cutter -informed her, still standing as if this departure -was imminent. “I shall make my home there in -the future.”</p> - -<p>“Without me?” she asked, as if it was merely -information she wanted.</p> - -<p>“Without you,” he repeated, nodding his head -for emphasis.</p> - -<p>“For how long?”</p> - -<p>“I have resigned as president of the bank here, -disposed of all my interests. It is not my intention -ever to come back to Shannon.” He did -not look around to see how she had received this -blow. He waited; silence, no movement, not a -sound. “You can get a divorce. It will be easy,” -he suggested.</p> - -<p>“No,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“I inferred that you would not now. Later, -you may decide differently.”</p> - -<p>She said “No,” and she did not repeat it.</p> - -<p>“Meanwhile, I have provided for you. The -house, the car, everything here is yours. The -deeds are made to you. And I have placed securities -to the amount of exactly half my estate in -the bank here. They are in your name. You -will have an income of something more than ten -thousand a year. It is not much; but more, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -think, than you will care to spend.” He thrust -two fingers into his waistcoat pocket and drew -forth a slender key. “This is the key to your -safety deposit box,” dropping it on the table. -“You will need only to clip the coupons and cash -them,” he explained.</p> - -<p>She had not moved, but as she listened her face -changed to scarlet. Her eyes sparkled and were -dry.</p> - -<p>There was another moment’s silence. Cutter -picked up his hat, fumbled it. He had not expected -much of a scene, since Helen was so little -given to emotional scenery. But neither had he -been able to predict this indictment in fearful -silence.</p> - -<p>“You have been a good wife, Helen. I have -not one reproach. But things cannot go on as -they have gone. My life and my opportunities -lie in a broader field. I have sacrificed them too -long already. You have not been happy here as -my wife; but you would be miserable in New -York as my wife. I am doing the wisest—in the -long run the kindest—thing for both of us, giving -you your liberty and taking mine.”</p> - -<p>Since she would not answer he went on -nervously.</p> - -<p>“I have told no one of—our plans. I leave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -that to you also. The one thing I must have is -the right to achieve my own life in my own way. -I give you the same privilege and—”</p> - -<p>“You have only ten minutes before the train -is due,” she interrupted.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak">PART THREE</h2> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p> - - - -<h2 class="nobreak">PART THREE<br /> -<br /> - -CHAPTER XV</h2></div> - - -<p>Sometimes when a man has been shot, he stands -for the briefest moment before he falls. So -Cutter stood, still facing the window, while the -fatal shock passed through him. This was Helen -who had spoken, who had reminded him of the -time when his train left, but not his wife. He -flirted his head around and snatched a glance at -her.</p> - -<p>She was sitting very erect, not touching the -back of her chair. The little frills on her dress -stuck up stiffly, like the petals of a very fine -white flower. Her cheeks were scarlet above this -whiteness; but there were no tears. Her chin -was lifted; her lips closed; her eyes covering him -like a frost on a cold clear night, one of those -still nights when the whole of Nature’s business -is to freeze. He turned, took a step toward her, -and did not dare take the next step.</p> - -<p>You may think you are making the best of a -bad situation by ending it. You may persuade -yourself that you are doing the square thing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -praise yourself for behaving better than the average -man does in a similar predicament. Then -suddenly something happens, a word falls upon -your ear, or you see yourself revealed in the eye -of your victim as a rogue, a common fellow who -has lost his standing.</p> - -<p>Cutter had some such sensation as this, confused -but devastating. He was determined to be free, -to be no longer bound to this woman who ceased -to appeal to him and who did not belong to the -world he had won by success. But how was this? -She had turned the tables on him. She was not -only taking him at his word; she was dismissing -him.</p> - -<p>I do not say that it is a queer thing about a -man of this quality, but it is one of the abortive -characteristics of every man of this quality, that -he has a dog-in-the-manger instinct always toward -the wife he discards. He expects her to remain -cravenly faithful to him, to love and cherish him -tearfully and patiently while he takes a whiff -around, because, heaven bless us, isn’t that the -nature of good and chaste women? It was. And -yet here was Helen, instantly assuming the autonomous -attitude of a free state. She was making -no effort to hold him or save him.</p> - -<p>Hang it all, a man never could understand a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -woman! Here he was standing before his discarded -wife, having done the best he could for -her, divided his fortune with her, released her -from her normal duties to him, while he might -have kept this property and lived as he pleased. -And in spite of all this, he was made to feel -strangely humiliated, worthless and unspeakable -to her. This was what her look and manner -meant. Good heaven, he could not slink off defeated -like this! He had meant to go with his -head up, not diminished. The sting of that would -interfere with his pleasure, and he had made expensive -plans for a gratifying existence in New -York.</p> - -<p>“What I want, Helen,” he began after this tumultuous -pause, speaking in the husband tone of -voice, “is a sensible understanding, not a breach. -I have provided for you as my wife should be -provided for. If you should ever need my help -or protection—”</p> - -<p>“You have barely time to make your train,” -she interrupted, glancing at the clock and keeping -her eye now on this clock. Her voice was not -that of a wife, but of a lady, speaking probably -to some agent whom she was determined to get -out of the house before he sold her something she -did not want and could not use.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>“Oh, very well, if you won’t be reasonable!” -he exclaimed as he strode flashily past her.</p> - -<p>But when he reached the door he halted, looked -back at her like an actor being put out of the -scene and required by his lines to pause, show -indecision, the fangs of his outraged emotions to -the appreciative audience. But there was no audience -to witness Cutter’s histrionic exit; only -this neat, cool, little star of a lady with flaming -cheeks, whose eyes remained resolutely upon the -face of the clock.</p> - -<p>This man, who a while ago could not bear the -touch of his wife’s hand, experienced a momentary -revulsion toward his own future, to all it offered. -He wanted to go back, take Helen in his arms, -kiss her, feel the cleanness and sweetness of her -goodness and nearness to him. But this was -only momentary. He remembered the dullness -of the years. He must buck up, he told himself -hastily; just let him get through, escape this -last tug of the old life and he would be a free -man. Beneath this shrewd calculation of himself, -there was a faint premonition that he had -better not go back in there to perform these last -sacred rites of parting with his wife. He was -afraid of her, as criminals fear law.</p> - -<p>He went out, closing the front door softly behind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -him. He walked hurriedly toward the -station, disturbed and shamed by the thoughts -his very steps seemed to toss up in his mind. For -months, while his affair in New York was progressing -lightly but surely toward this crisis, he -had dreaded this scene with Helen. He had felt -for her, the distress and anguish she must suffer at -the idea of losing him. He had always been as -sure as that of her deep devotion. Now it appeared -that he had lost Helen. He realized suddenly -that he had counted on her. Whatever he -became, back here in that quiet house Helen -would always be his wife. She was not the -woman to think of a divorce.</p> - -<p>Well, he had been a fool not to have understood -all along that Helen would be true to -herself as usual, to her own convictions, whatever -they were. And he was no longer one of these -convictions. Life was a mess, anyhow. If a man -failed, he had poverty pawing at his door. If -he succeeded, made a fortune, his nature, his -tastes and desires all changed. If only Helen had -gone out and made a name or a fortune, achieved -something in the world, he supposed she would -be different too. Maybe she would have understood—</p> - -<p>The whistle of a locomotive in the distance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -ended these speculations. He stepped from the -pavement and swung with long strides down the -railroad track to where the sleeping cars would -stop. A moment later there was a rattle of the -rails, a roar and a grinding of brakes. The self-bereaved -husband climbed aboard, walked magnificently -up the aisle of the car to his section, -sat down, rumbled a command to the porter and -heaved a sigh.</p> - -<p>He was immensely relieved. The worst of it -was over. He had suffered some, but he was -feeling very fit now, animated. He was done -with the past. He was headed for New York, -the city that whetted a man’s senses and ambitions. -He had worked hard. The world owed -him something for that. No place like New York -for collecting what the world owed a fellow, and -so on and so forth.</p> - -<p>The other passengers in the coach stared at -him. People always did. Impressive looking -man, must be somebody, they decided. No one -would have dared drop his bag in that section and -sit down opposite such an oppressively prosperous -looking person, not even if he had a ticket for -the “upper.” He would have glanced at his -ticket, at Cutter; then he would have gone on to -the “smoker” and arranged with the porter to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -let him know when he might climb into his berth, -which, of course, would be after the great man -had gone to bed in the lower one.</p> - -<p>This is the professional pose of the recent-rich -man. Every one who rides in sleepers and parlor -cars is familiar with the type. Sometimes a shoe -drummer can put it on to perfection; but as a -rule it is a fellow like Cutter, whose character -and tastes and manners have been developed by -the shock of wealth, a diseased man morally who -receives more involuntary respect than any really -distinguished man could bear.</p> - -<p>A man in mental, moral or financial distress -will frequently pace the floor all night. But -women never do, because the forms of grief and -anxiety to which they are subject weaken them -physically so that they immediately take to their -beds in anticipation of this prostration. Therefore -I hold that it is a circumstance worth mentioning -that Helen did not retire that night. She -remained seated as he had left her until she heard -the express go by. Then she went through the -house turning out the lights.</p> - -<p>Maria, she observed by the seam of light under -the kitchen door, was still in there. If all her -faculties had not been concentrated on something -else, she might have wondered why Maria was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -later than usual in clearing up after dinner. She -passed back up the hall without so much as a -look at her bed through the open door of her -room, and sat down again in the same chair in -the parlor, as you go back to the place where you -left off in a book or to a train of thought when -you have been interrupted.</p> - -<p>There could never be real darkness in Shannon -any more, because the city had “water and electric -lights” now. Still the room was nearly dark, -with only a faint reflection of the street light far -below through the window. Helen sat like the -ghost of herself in this dimness and silence. She -was not thinking nor feeling. She had literally -been drugged by the horror of this last hour. She -was numb—past all pain. Presently she must -return to consciousness; but she instinctively prolonged -this trance. Sometimes she changed her -position in her chair, but never once did she languish -or cover her face with her hands or address -her Father in heaven.</p> - -<p>Here was a woman on her mettle at last, asking -no odds of heaven. So long as you have a husband, -it is natural to remain in prayerful communication -with Providence for help and guidance, -but when your husband has abandoned you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -there is no such tearful feminine reason for engaging -the assistance of the Almighty. You may -do it later; but for the moment you feel quite -alone in the universe.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVI</h2></div> - - -<p>Sometime after midnight Helen stirred herself, -much as if she was awaking early in the -morning with a busy day before her. She stood -up, stared about her in the shadowy room, moved -to the windows and pulled down all the shades. -Then she turned on the lights. She stood directly -beneath the chandelier, lifted her hand -to her head, unpinned her hair, skewed it up -tightly and pinned it like a harsh duty on the -back of her head. It was perfectly evident that -she had made up her mind to do something, and -to do it thoroughly. She had a sort of merciless -house-cleaning expression.</p> - -<p>She glanced around the room, reached for two -Cutter photographs on the mantel, removed a -recent excellent likeness of her husband from a -frame on the piano and left the room, carrying -these things in her hand and the frames under -her arm. She paused long enough in the back -hall to lay the frames on the bottom step of the -attic stairs. Then she went out on the back -porch and dropped the photographs down the -cellar steps.</p> - -<p>She walked briskly back to her own room. For<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -the next hour she went through the house—drawers, -closets and trunks—like the fine-toothed-comb -of femininity, her cheeks scarlet, her lips -primped purposefully, her eyes wide and busy, -like the condemning eyes of a censor who is determined -to leave nothing that should be cut out, -removed and destroyed. From time to time she -issued forth, her arms laden with somebody’s -worldly goods, obviously a man’s things, to toss -them down the cellar stairs and return for more. -Finally she came out with a shaving brush, the -cord of a bathrobe and an old four-in-hand tie, -evidently the last gleanings.</p> - -<p>She descended the stairs, clearing the steps as -she went of shirts, collars, trousers, dress suits, -overcoats, hats, brushes, shoes, slippers, pajamas, -even buttons. She worked hurriedly, cramming -this mass of clothing into the hot air furnace. -She struck a match to these things, watched the -flame creep greedily along the sleeve of a fine -white shirt and lick the broadcloth back of a -Tuxedo coat. Then she closed the door, went -back upstairs, took a glance around, to make -sure that everything was in its usual order, withdrew -at last to her own room, undressed, let down -her hair, braided it, turned out the light and went -to bed.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>She could hear the furnace roaring below. She -hoped all that inflammable stuff would not set -the roof on fire. That is to say, she did not -want to attract attention by the burning of her -house. Otherwise she was indifferent about what -might happen. If only she might escape notice -for a while, until she could adjust herself to -this horror! In spite of the closed registers, a -strong odor of burning wool filled the house. She -got up and raised the windows. She hoped the -scent would be gone before Maria and Buck came -in the morning. Then she rested, as one does -after accomplishing something that must be done, -no matter how unhappy one is.</p> - -<p>At seven o’clock she heard stirrings in the -kitchen as usual, but no voices. This was not -as usual, because there was always the subdued -rumble of conversation between these two servants -early in the morning. But she did not -notice it. She rang for Maria and informed her -that she would take her breakfast in bed. She -had never done this before; still Maria showed -no signs of surprise. She rolled her eyes and -sniffed the air of this house, which did not smell -pure and undefiled. She was in such a state of -suppressed excitement that she could barely wait -to get back to the kitchen to whisper the news<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -to Buck, who was just coming up the stairs from -the basement where he had been to interview the -furnace. Servants are the scavengers of all domesticity, -especially of wrecked domesticity.</p> - -<p>For the next three days Helen remained in -bed. She was not ill; but she was not able to face -life on her feet. When your whole existence has -been absorbed by the life of another person—his -will, his desires and his habits have determined -your every act—it is not so easy to have freedom -and the pursuit of your own happiness suddenly -thrust upon you. It is necessary to acquire new -motives and new interests.</p> - -<p>Besides, Helen was obliged to face the humiliation -of her abandonment. So, as I have said, she -remained in bed, very quiet, very pale, very submissive -to Maria’s ministrations. When she was -alone, she lay for hours scarcely moving, strangely -abstracted. No doubt we come somewhat after -this fashion always into the next existence. One -thing was certain: The burden of her thoughts -was not her recreant husband, else there would -have been tears, anguish, fever and presently the -doctor in attendance.</p> - -<p>A great grief may be a great exaltation. Helen -had this high look when Maria brought her breakfast -tray in on the fourth morning. She was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -merry; she had nothing to say; but she had arrived -somewhere in her mind. It was obvious -even to Maria that her mistress was about to do -something. She wanted to know what day of the -month this was, as a person who has been deliriously -ill always asks about the time of day when -he recovers consciousness.</p> - -<p>Maria told her that this was the fifth.</p> - -<p>“Of what month?” was the astonishing next -question.</p> - -<p>“August, Miss Helen.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, of course,” she returned, apparently -gratified that this was still August. “Tell Buck -to bring the car around at ten o’clock,” she said.</p> - -<p>“She’s come out of her swoon, Buck, and wants -you to have the car ready at ten,” was the news -Maria carried back to the kitchen.</p> - -<p>“Whar is we gwine?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I dunno. But ef I knows Miss Helen like I -thinks I does, they ain’t gwine to be no grass -growin’ under your feet no time soon.”</p> - -<p>She was polishing Mrs. Cutter’s pumps during -this conversation. Now she started back with -them. She was about to lay her hand upon the -knob of Helen’s door when she stiffened, turned -her head to one side and listened. The sound -of a voice issued through this door, one voice,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -Helen’s. She was alone in there with her God, -but it was obvious to Maria that this was not -any woman’s praying voice. Neither were the -astounding words she heard suitable for prayer.</p> - -<p>The fat old negress bent, laid her ear against -the keyhole, rolled her eyes and listened. Then, -as if she could not bear the amazement of what -she heard, she flew back to the kitchen, caught -hold of the astonished Buck and moaned: “Oh, -my Lord; oh, my Lord! And her a white ’oman!”</p> - -<p>“What’s de matter wid you, gal?” he demanded, -shaking himself from her grasp and staring -at her.</p> - -<p>She refused to tell him. She implied that such -information as she had might cost them both their -innocent lives, if she should repeat it.</p> - -<p>“You don’t know nothin’, and you ain’t heard -nothin’,” he retorted, going out, pausing at the -door long enough to point at the pumps which she -still held in her hand. “You better take dem -shoes to Miss Helen, er she’ll be tellin’ you somethin’,” -he warned her.</p> - -<p>Shortly after ten o’clock Mrs. George William -Cutter appeared at the Shannon National Bank. -She wanted to look at some papers in her safety -deposit box, she told the cashier.</p> - -<p>She remained a long time closeted with this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -box. When she came out she carried a sheaf of -coupons in her hand; and she was very pale, not -gratified as a woman should look under these -circumstances. Beneath the coupons there was a -check, drawn on a New York bank for ten thousand -dollars and signed by her husband. This -check lay on top when she opened the box; attached -to it was a note stating with studied brevity -that this sum, including interest, was the -amount she inherited from her mother’s estate, -which he “herewith returned.” It began, “Dear -Helen,” and was signed, “George,” with no softening, -affectionate prefix.</p> - -<p>It was this note, not the clipping of her coupons, -that had detained Helen so long in the little -dark anteroom of the vault. There was no date, -but from the date on the check, she perceived that -it had been made on the tenth of July, when -George had been in Shannon for a week. As -early as that, then, he had contemplated this -separation! He was planning this spurious honesty, -paying back the money she had advanced him -years ago for his first adventure in stocks while -he cheated her of his love and her dignity as a -wife. When you think about this, it is always -some relatively insignificant thing that excites -your most lasting contempt. So, now Cutter fell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -to the nadir of his wife’s regard. She was obliged -to remain in this little closet of the vault after she -had finished everything, endeavoring to compose -herself before she dared meet the scrutiny of the -eyes outside. We do this so often when really -no one takes particular notice of us.</p> - -<p>It was the merest accident that Arnold, the -new president, was coming in and caught sight -of her as she was leaving the wicket after depositing -the check and the amount of the coupons -to her account.</p> - -<p>He greeted her effusively. “You are looking -well,” he informed her.</p> - -<p>She knew that she was not, but she told him, -yes, she was very well.</p> - -<p>“And how’s Cutter?” smiling as a man does -when he thinks he has introduced an agreeable -topic.</p> - -<p>She said that she had not heard from Mr. -Cutter since he returned to New York.</p> - -<p>“Busy man! Busy man! Goes at everything -like a house afire. You will have to take care -of him, Mrs. Cutter, or he’ll break down, go smash -one of these days.”</p> - -<p>She made no reply, merely swept her glance -over Arnold’s shoulder toward the door.</p> - -<p>“We were sorry to lose him as president of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -this bank. His resignation came as a complete -surprise. And now I suppose we shall be -losing you. You will join him in New York, of -course.”</p> - -<p>“No,” she answered steadily. She had resolved -to tell no lies and to make no explanations.</p> - -<p>“Keep your home here then! Well, that’s good -news. Means Cutter’s anchored in Shannon, after -all. He’ll be dropping in on us here at the bank -when he comes down; be mighty glad to see -him.”</p> - -<p>She said she did not know, bade him good morning -and went out.</p> - -<p>Arnold stood watching her through the window -until she stepped into the car. Then he turned -to the cashier. “Nice woman, Mrs. Cutter, but—well, -she’s not vivacious, is she?” he said, grinning.</p> - -<p>“I have often wondered how a man like Cutter -came to choose such a wife,” the cashier returned -with a slower grin.</p> - -<p>“Wasn’t a man like Cutter is now when he -courted her. Young fellow; I remember him -well; had a fine physical sense of himself. Nobody -suspected he would ever develop the money-making -talents of a wolf in the market then. Fell -in love with a pretty girl. She was the prettiest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -thing in Shannon. Married her. That’s how it -happened,” Arnold explained.</p> - -<p>“Seems to have turned out all right.”</p> - -<p>“Never heard anything to the contrary; but -you can’t tell. Something is in the wind. I -thought Mrs. Cutter looked pretty shaky this -morning. Had a sort of dying gasp in her eye. -Pale, noncommittal. Couldn’t get a darn thing -out of her about Cutter. But she may be trained -that way. Wives of great men often remind us -that what’s husband’s business is none of our business,” -he laughed. “Cutter’s a sort of cheap great -man. How much did she deposit?” lowering his -voice.</p> - -<p>“Fifteen thousand.”</p> - -<p>“Open account?”</p> - -<p>The cashier nodded.</p> - -<p>Arnold whistled.</p> - -<p>“Show’s Cutter trusts her, anyhow.”</p> - -<p>“Shows she’s not being guided by her husband’s -advice, or she’d never keep that much money -idle,” Arnold retorted.</p> - -<p>As things turned out, however, this was the -busiest money in Shannon that autumn. It was -spent with amazing swiftness at a time when the -war extravagance of our government had already -set the pace for reckless spending.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>A situation frequently develops under our very -eyes, and we have no suspicion of it. The fact is, -most situations that develop into sensations begin -this way. Then we discover that what has happened -had been “going on” a long time. Otherwise, -I ask you how should we obtain those -breathless sensations with which the press and -society nourish our groggy minds? It is the unexpected -that stirs and animates our greedy, pop-eyed -interest in life, especially the other fellow’s -life.</p> - -<p>I will not go so far as to say that Helen acted -from design, for she was the least devious or designing -woman I ever knew; but she must have -counted on the probability that some time must -elapse before the breach between Cutter and herself -could be suspected in Shannon. His absence -would not be significant, because his business interests -in New York had kept him away from -home most of the time for a year. The war, the -violent emotions and the terrific demands it imposed -had unsettled all life.</p> - -<p>People who never left home arose and flew -this way and that, like flocks of distracted birds. -Old maids with dutiful domestic records, suddenly -laid aside their darning gourds and church -work and sailed for France, went into canteens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -and became the honorable mothers of whole regiments. -Young girls did likewise, and earned -for themselves distinctions that will become a -heritage to womankind, all mordant-tongued -gossips to the contrary notwithstanding. In -Shannon the women worked like bees. If you -paid your Red Cross assessments, turned in sweaters -and wash rags for the soldiers in France, no -further notice was taken of you. Because all -womanly interests and affections were centered -on these boys in France.</p> - -<p>Helen made her contributions to these enterprises, -bought a few bonds and disappeared before -the middle of October. The inference was -that she had joined her husband in New York. -The <i>Shannon Sentinel</i> so stated in a brief local on -no better authority than that the editor had seen -her board the express one evening. Passengers -bound for New York always took this train. And -where else could Mrs. Cutter be going when every -finger of your imagination pointed to New York -and her husband as her logical and legitimate -destination?</p> - -<p>This long-legged logical faculty, directed by -imagination, is responsible for much that is fictitious -in current gossip and even in written records; -witness, for example, that master work of fiction,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -Mr. H. G. Wells’ “Outline of History.” It is -logical, convincing, and much of it is based upon -the most entrancing interpretation of rocks, fossils -and bones—which does not prove anything -except that the sciences of geology, anthropology -and the rest of them are bright-eyed sciences, full -of delightfully imaginary conclusions. While it -may all be the truth, we do not know that it is -true, and Mr. Wells cannot prove that it is. -Meanwhile, if we could exercise as much faith -and imagination toward God and the future as -he has shown in revealing the Paleozoic and previous -periods in the past, somebody would be born -presently fledged with wings and a skyward mind.</p> - -<p>But, all that aside, what I set out to tell was -that Helen did not go to New York and that -she did not return to Shannon until the beginning -of the following year.</p> - -<p>Shortly after her departure, a tall, dark young -man with high black hair, who carried his head -bare, apparently out of deference to or pride in -this hair, descended from the morning train at -Shannon. He was accompanied by an ordinary -looking man, apparently of the higher artisan -class. The two of them entered a taxi and disappeared -out Wiggs Street.</p> - -<p>No notice would ever have been taken of them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -if they had not been seen at a distance, standing -in front of the Cutter residence, staring at it, -gesticulating, evidently engaged in fervid conversation, -moving from one side of the lawn to -the other to stare again, talk and swing up high -gestures at this little, low, white setting hen of a -house, as if it was of the uttermost importance -to do something about it.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch watched these two strangers until -she reached a certain conclusion. Then she went -to the telephone and called Mrs. Shaw. She -asked her if she had heard that the Cutter home -was to be sold.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Shaw replied that she had not; but that -she knew Mrs. Cutter had stored all her furniture -and things in the barn before she left.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch said, well, that settled it. They -were evidently about to sell the place. Some men -were out there looking at it now. No, strangers. -She had seen them pass just after the morning -train from Atlanta came in. Real-estate men, -probably. She said she knew all the time that -the place would be sold. The wonder to her -was that Helen had stayed out there so long, -with her husband practically living in New York. -And so on and so forth until they reached the -usual discussion of Red Cross supplies.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>A few days later the ordinary man of the artisan -type returned to Shannon with a roll of blue -print under his arm. The next thing Shannon -knew the roof was off the Cutter house and there -was a corps of workmen out there, spreading wings -to it, putting on another story and setting up -magnificent columns in front to support the -coronet-countenance of this house. And from the -awful rumpus going on within, it was evident that -partitions were being torn out and elegant changes -being made.</p> - -<p>There was no Creel to censor news in Shannon. -Rumors started and turned back, or rumors died -during a Liberty Loan drive. Finally, it was -settled that the Cutters had not sold their place, -but that they were spending a fortune rebuilding -it. They were not obliged to count the costs, -even during these strenuous times when the price -of labor and materials were beyond the reach of -most people. They had plenty of money and no -children. Still, a display of wealth at such a -time was certainly in bad taste. Had anybody -heard a word from Helen since she went to New -York? This query went the rounds of the Red -Cross room late in November. No one had heard -from Helen. Mrs. Arnold said that her husband -had received one or two letters from Mr. Cutter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -on matters of business. She understood that Mr. -Cutter had some kind of government contract and -was making a great deal of money.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch tossed her little gray head, snapped -her black eyes and said she supposed the Cutters -would come back now and then, with their maids -and butlers and valets and fancy dogs, and quarantine -themselves in this fine house and refer to -the people of Shannon as the “natives.” If they -did, it would make no difference to her. She had -known the Cutters since George Cutter’s father -and mother came to Shannon and lived in a three-room -house, and Maggie Cutter did her own work. -And she lived next door to the Adamses for -twenty years. Helen was nobody but the daughter -of Sam Adams who was a carpenter, and she -never would be anything else to her.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Shaw said if it had been her house she -would not have painted it colonial yellow. But -she admitted the tall white columns “set it -off.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Arnold said she and Mr. Arnold had -strolled out there on the last bank holiday. They -had gone through the house, because they expected -to build and wanted “ideas.” The rooms -were large now, lofty ceilinged; and the walls -were beautiful. She had been especially impressed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -with the big room added on the west -side. “It is different from the others which are -done in a misty gray with the woodwork finished -in old ivory. They are elegant and sober. But -this one is not sober, very bright.”</p> - -<p>“Probably the ball room,” Mrs. Flitch suggested.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Arnold glanced up from the bandage, she -was rolling. “No,” she said, “I am sure it is not -a ball room, because it opens into the one Mrs. -Cutter has reserved for herself, they told me. -The decorations—are unusual. I was surprised.”</p> - -<p>This was as far as she got. She had a neat little -mind and only gossiped like a perfect lady, which -is a very fine art. Still, she thought it interesting, -if not sensational in a pleasant way, that -this room had a decoration of Mother Goose pictures -around the top of it—all the literature of -infancy illustrated there, in fact, from this wandering -goose mounting a highly ornamental staircase -to the lurid cow with exalted tail in the act -of jumping over the moon. And she was glad -Mrs. Cutter had “this” to look forward to after -so many years. A woman without children was to -be pitied.</p> - -<p>Then Helen Cutter came home late in January, -quite unobtrusively and alone. No maid, no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -wig-tailed man servant, no fancy dog. Evidently -Mr. Cutter was still in New York.</p> - -<p>But rich people continually did queer things -that other people could not afford to do. From -that point of view everything looked all right. -Their wives went about the world alone, and -their husbands frequently did business in some -other part of the world. No one in Shannon suspected -that the relations between Helen and her -husband were even strained. They merely heard -that she had “come down” to superintend the furnishing -of her new house, that she had engaged -an interior decorator for this purpose, that a -great many fine things had been shipped in, and -that she was having some of the best pieces of -her golden oak done over for her own room. -These pieces were painted gray and delicately -ornamented with tiny wreaths of flowers. As it -turned out, however, most of this old stuff was -used to furnish that large, bright and sprightly -room with the Mother Goose wall paper.</p> - -<p>As usual, Helen saw little of her neighbors. -The weather was bad; her house was topsy-turvy; -she was very busy; and she had an established -reputation for reserve. Still, they met her here -and there on the street, in the shops, in passing. -And once shortly after her return she had paid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -a brief visit to the Red Cross rooms to deliver -her quota of sweaters. She would have remained -longer: she craved the comradeship of these -women whom she had known all her life, but -the consciousness of her humiliation, yet unknown -to them, affected her courage.</p> - -<p>Sometimes the woman who has fallen secretly -avoids her friends and acquaintances, because she -knows that to keep up relations is a form of cheating, -for which she will be the more severely punished -when her deflection is known. I suppose -Helen, who had every virtue, felt the impending -mortification of her situation, when it became -known in Shannon that her husband had deserted -her.</p> - -<p>She came in, wearing a plain, long coat with -a fine fur collar and a close-fitting fur hat. She -was received cordially and a place was made for -her at the long table where the bandages were -being rolled. She sat on the edge of her chair, -as if she must be going presently. She was not -smiling. She appeared years younger, and there -was a lost look in her blue eyes which no one -noticed.</p> - -<p>She took off her coat, in response to Mrs. -Shaw’s invitation; but she had only a moment to -stay, slipping off this garment and revealing her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -figure slender as a pencil in a blue frock of some -smooth stuff smartly buttoned to her chin.</p> - -<p>“We are glad to see you back here, Helen,” -Mrs. Shaw said.</p> - -<p>Helen said “Thank you” for the simple reason -that she could not pretend to be glad of anything. -A mania for veracity makes you inelastic, -uncouth and ungraceful socially.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch asked her when she was expecting -“George.” It was a shot in the dark, and she -did not mean it. But she was a woman whose -very instinct could aim accurately at your vulnerable -point.</p> - -<p>“I am not expecting Mr. Cutter at all,” Helen -replied.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch had to take this answer, which -was too frank to excite suspicion. But she did -want to know if Helen expected to make her -home in New York. “I suppose you will only -come here now and then,” she suggested, looking -over the top of her glasses at her victim.</p> - -<p>“I shall never live in New York. My home is -here,” Helen answered, with the air of a person -who would do this, but would not discuss her -plans.</p> - -<p>She was one of those human “short circuits” -who drops the periods in conversations and compels<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -you to start another sentence on another -topic. These women went back to the perpetual -discussions that raged at that time in every Red -Cross working room, about the specifications for -wounded soldiers’ dressing gowns. Mrs. So-and-So’s -work had been returned, because she had put -too many pockets—or not enough pockets—on the -gowns she had made.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch had suffered the outrage of having -two sweaters returned because she had finished -them around the bottom with a fancy rib stitch. -“As if that made any difference. There is too -much red tape in these Red Cross regulations,” -she exclaimed. “They obstruct us more in the -work than the wire entanglements in France obstruct -the advance of the German Army.”</p> - -<p>This was not true, but it was so aptly put that -a murmur of sympathetic comment followed while -needles flew and threads snapped.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch was so fluffed up by this involuntary -vote of confidence in her rib stitch and her -point of view that she turned to Helen and asked -her if she did not “think so too.”</p> - -<p>Helen answered no, she did not think so, because -then everybody would follow their own -fancies in the making of these supplies, and there -would be no system.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>Mrs. Flitch’s needle flickered like a tiny spear -as she hoisted it with a jerk, bent over and bit -off her thread as if this thread was the head of -an enemy.</p> - -<p>Another “short circuit”! Another fuse of conversation -burned out! Tongues flew like babbling -wings to cover the breach. Mrs. Flitch sat -drawn up and reared back, cheeks reddening as if -a wasp had stung her in the face.</p> - -<p>Helen was like a tactless person who contributes -an adverse opinion upon stepmothers in a company -where several eminently respectable ladies -have married widowers with children. She felt -the sparks about her, but she was not dismayed. -She did not care how Mrs. Flitch felt. She had -reached that invulnerable stage of indifference -arrived at only through great suffering or moral -abandonment. In either case, it is always a state -of mental courage.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Arnold was chairman of the Red Cross -Chapter in Shannon. She sat at the head of the -work table during these snapped-off conversations, -discreetly silent. She was pursuing her own train -of thought. Helen stood up presently to put on -her coat. She regarded this supple, wisp-waisted -woman with secret amazement. For she was the -only one there who had seen the nursery decorations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -in that new west wing room of the Cutter -residence. Her mind worked like the nose of a -rabbit at Helen, as the latter took her departure.</p> - -<p>The consensus of opinion after she went out -was that she had “changed,” with Mrs. Flitch in -the minority. She said she could not see any -difference. “She’s only changed her ugly gray -coat and blue hat for a good-looking coat and fur -hat.” This was all that was said about her. -Gossip, if you remember, was much neglected -during this period. We indulged in it briefly and -went back to the transfiguring sensations of our -martial emotions.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVII</h2></div> - - -<p>And Helen went home, let herself into her fine -house, took off her things and sat down before -the library fire.</p> - -<p>She really had imported a maid, an ex-modiste -of mature years, who would be of service to her -in the choosing of her clothes and dressing herself -properly. She could hear this woman now moving -about in the next room getting out her things. -She was practicing dressing for the evening, because -now she had a purpose and a future in view -which some years hence might involve toilettes -and magnificence.</p> - -<p>It certainly does change a woman to lose her -husband. It buries her or brings her out. I -suppose if Helen’s husband had been properly -and providentially parted from her by death, she -might have retired sorrowfully into her widow’s -state and effaced herself or devoted herself quite -differently to good works. But the passing of -George Cutter left no such sanctities to dignify -her. On the contrary she had been abandoned -on account of her virtues and stupid devotion to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -home. She was like Job. She held on to her integrity -and was sustained, as he was, by her -conceit.</p> - -<p>But unlike Job, who suffered considerable -financial losses during this period, she had come -into a considerable estate. She had been paid off -by this deflecting husband. Money will sustain -your pride and courage as an outraged woman -when mere faith in God may leave you exalted -in the ditch of every worldly misfortune. Helen -had remained the proper resurrection period flat -on her back in bed, not from histrionic design; -but she was actually able to rise on the third day. -My belief is that everything in the Scriptures is -true, if you adjust yourself to the way it is true. -Thus, if you will not waste your vital forces in -emotional dissipations of grief when overtaken -by sorrow or humiliation, if you are really willing -to live again normally, three days down will -usually put you on your feet with sufficient courage -and strength for the performance. It is no -use to send for the doctor. In cases of this kind -a physician is a sort of psychic drug you take, -which requires a repetition of his soothing presence. -Thrice fortunate are they who dare to -discover that the wings of adversity are the strongest -wings upward in human affairs.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>Helen, penguin bred, had acquired this serene -flying power. She had been absolved from a -depressing devotion to an ignoble man. She came -out of her travail informed with pride, the cold -fury which good women, scorned, feel, and with -a determination to have what she had always -wanted and could not have as a wife.</p> - -<p>She leaned back in her chair before the library -fire, clasped her hands over her head and looked -anticipatingly at the ceiling, a queer expression -on this formerly merely dutiful woman’s face, like -a song in her eyes, like faith that smooths the -brow, like a hope that lifted and sweetened the -corners of her mouth; there were no shadows of -fear to dim this gentle effulgence of eyes, lips -and brow.</p> - -<p>To be loved does make a woman happy, but it -never endows her with her own peace, only protection. -There is a difference, if you know how -to read it, between love and hope in her face. -The former is conferred and may be taken away: -the latter is an act of faith and cannot be dimmed -or destroyed. Helen had this look of “anticipation,” -as some physicians call it, a mark which -Nature confers upon women like a meek distinction.</p> - -<p>Helen finally went to her room to practice her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -evening toilette. At five o’clock she was dressed -and standing before the mirror studying this -cream-colored frock of crpe, that clung to her -figure like long folded wings. It was not -“trimmed.” She insisted upon a certain primness, -as good women do who have no sense of -style.</p> - -<p>Some women live and die so virginal that they -never know why other women wear a rose, or -display the sparkle of a jewel upon their breast. -If they put on these invitations to love it is merely -copying the universal feminine custom. They do -not know how to mean the rose or catch the -sparkle of the jewel in their manner.</p> - -<p>Helen wore no invitations. She was simply -anxious to look the mistress of this establishment, -never to be mistaken for a dutiful servant. The -horror she had felt of this impending fate since -shortly after her marriage, when she knew that -she was not to have children, and the long sentence -she had actually served in this capacity -rankled.</p> - -<p>A bell rang somewhere in the house. She paid -no attention, since she had no visitors and the -front door bell never rang except when something -was delivered.</p> - -<p>A moment later there was a tap on her door<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -and the maid entered. “Some one to see you, -Mrs. Cutter,” she announced.</p> - -<p>“Who is she?”</p> - -<p>“A man.”</p> - -<p>“Not Read?” referring to one of the workmen.</p> - -<p>“No, Mrs. Cutter; this is a gentleman. I left -him in the parlor.”</p> - -<p>Helen frowned.</p> - -<p>“He is somebody. I am sure of that. And -he said that you knew him,” the woman explained.</p> - -<p>“That I knew him? Then he—why, it must -be Mr. Arnold,” Helen said. Arnold was the -only man in Shannon who might have any reason -for calling on her.</p> - -<p>The woman hesitated, gave her mistress a fluttering -glance as if some sort of gibbering, peeping -thought had suddenly popped up in her mind. -“This is not Mr. Arnold,” she said. “I think he -is a stranger. Shall I tell him you are not at -home?”</p> - -<p>“I will see him; but hereafter, Charlotte, I -am not at home to any one who does not give -his name.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Cutter,” Charlotte answered -meekly, closing the door behind her. Then she -glanced again at the crumpled bill she held in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -her hand, thrust it into her pocket, wrinkled her -nose, sniffed and discreetly disappeared.</p> - -<p>Helen stood for a moment with her back to the -mirror, as we all do sometimes when we cannot -bear to read in our own faces the fear we have -in our hearts. Since that night six months ago, -when Cutter had left her, she had received no -word from him. She had sternly repressed every -thought of him. But never for a day had she -been free from the vague fear that he might -return. She no longer loved him; she despised -him. Yet the old habit of submission—if he -should return, how could she find the courage to -send him away, if he asserted his claim upon her -as his wife? She must do it. Her plans were -made for a different life altogether. But suppose -now, when she was on the point of realizing -her dearest hope, this man waiting for her in -the parlor should be her husband?</p> - -<p>She came slowly into the hall and advanced -toward the open door of the parlor. Reproaches, -words inconceivable to her until this moment, -trembled upon her lips. This was her house; she -had built it for her own peace and happiness. -She would not share it, not for the space of a -breath, with a man so depraved that he could -betray his own wife, abandon her—and so on and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -so forth as she advanced, halted, and finally came -steadily up the long hall, pale with fury, eyes -blazing blue flames, convinced by her own fears -that this man was Cutter. She was ready to -deal with him according to the natural vocabulary -of an outraged woman.</p> - -<p>For the gentlest woman, wronged, may suddenly -change into a virago after you have made -sure that she will endure anything. But if she -ever breaks, it is like any other form of hysteria, -incurable. She will be subject to verbal frenzies -upon the slightest provocation so long as she -lives.</p> - -<p>For one instant Helen stood upon the threshold -of her parlor, speechless with amazement. Shaded -lights cast a soft glow from above over the room, -where the faintest outline of castles showed between -shadowy trees in the wall paper. And -tufted, spindle-legged chairs, covered with blue-and-golden -brocades, flashed like spots of sunlight -in the pale gray gloom.</p> - -<p>The visitor was undoubtedly enjoying these effects. -He sat, the elegant figure of a man, on -the sofa beyond the circle of light cast from the -reading lamp behind him. His knees were -crossed. He was working one foot musingly after -the manner of a man pleased with his reflections.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -And he was smiling—not a smile you could possibly -understand, unless you are familiar with the -outlaw mind of certain rich men. But, in case you -are scandalously psychic, you might have inferred -that he was smiling at these dim castles in Helen’s -wall paper as a prospective tourist in the romantic -lands, where passing rivers sing to these -castles and where scenes, centuries old, are laid -for lovers.</p> - -<p>He was so much absorbed in whatever he was -trailing with his thoughts that he had not seen -Helen when she appeared in the doorway, but -almost at once some sense warned him of her -presence.</p> - -<p>His startled glance caught her. He was on -his feet at once. “Oh, Mrs. Cutter! This is indeed -good of you. I was afraid you would not -see me,” he exclaimed, hurrying to meet her.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Shippen!” she gasped, with no marks of -pleasure in the look she gave him. It was strictly -interrogative, unfeelingly so.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he returned hastily, interpreting her -manner. “I came down to look after the sale of -that mining property. Couldn’t resist dropping -in on my way back to town this afternoon. -Wanted to see you.”</p> - -<p>She moved past him, sat down some distance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> -beyond and fixed her wide blue gaze upon him.</p> - -<p>He followed, not quite sure about sitting, feeling -somehow that she might be going to keep him -on his feet. Still he risked it and chose a chair -politely removed from her immediate neighborhood, -which was chilly, he could not tell whether -or not from design.</p> - -<p>“You wish to see me?” she asked after a pause.</p> - -<p>The question disconcerted him. He flushed, recovered -himself and showed his teeth in a handsome -smile. “Yes, do you mind?” he retorted.</p> - -<p>“But what do you want to see me about?” she -insisted, as if this must be a matter of business, a -painful business, since she knew that he was associated -with her husband.</p> - -<p>He snickered nervously, recovered his gravity -at once, warned by the tightening of her lips. -“When are you coming to New York?” he asked -suddenly.</p> - -<p>She drew back from this adder of a question. -“Is this why you came—you were sent?” she -barely breathed the words, laying a hand like a -confession upon her breast.</p> - -<p>“I was not sent,” he returned quickly. “You -understand?”</p> - -<p>She signified that she did with a nod of her -head. She released him for one moment from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -her steady gaze; then she fixed her eyes on him -again with the same interrogative suspense, as -much as to say, “Well, then, if you were not -sent, why are you here?” She could not sense a -meaning that would have been plain to another -woman.</p> - -<p>It was the stupidity of goodness, he decided, -and was charmed by a certain experimental fear -of her. He must proceed cautiously. That was -the delightful part of it, to be obliged to watch -his step in an affair of this kind. He had no -doubt of his ultimate success—a married woman, -abandoned by her husband. He knew all about -that by inference from Cutter. Cutter was too -brazen in the conducting of his “bachelor” apartments -not to feel perfectly safe.</p> - -<p>He supposed there had been some sort of -financial adjustment between him and his wife. -He knew very well that the situation in New -York would not last. Cutter was simply the -profitable investment a certain beautiful and brilliant -woman had chosen, who had the record of a -sentimental rocket among the sporting financiers -of the East. The first time he came a cropper in -the markets, she would abandon him with the -swiftness and insolence that would make the fellow’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> -head swim. Then Cutter would return to -his wife. They always did.</p> - -<p>Sometimes he had regretted not having a wife -laid by himself as a sort of permanent stake, -domestically speaking. If only he did not feel -such revulsion toward the candor and monotonous -details of actual married life. His decadent delicacy -would be offended by the squalor of licensed -intimacy with a woman. “Squalor” was the word -he invariably used in discussing the psychology of -marriage.</p> - -<p>Still, he might marry Helen Cutter. She would -never be in his way. She was not in her husband’s -way now. And she was singularly refreshing to -his jaded fancy. He had been so corrupt that, by -revulsion rather than repentance, invincible virtue -in a woman attracted him. Besides, it would be a -good joke on Cutter to lose his wife—such a wife—while -he was philandering in New York. He -had always entertained a secret contempt for the -fellow—a bounder who did not know how to -bound; a gambler with the nerve of a financial -adventurer. New York teemed with men of his -type.</p> - -<p>They had exchanged some commonplace remarks -while he hit this line of reflection in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> -high places, having gone over it many times before. -That is to say, he offered the remarks—on -the weather, on the growth of Shannon, and -more particularly upon the current aspects of the -war. Helen’s contributions to these topics had -been brief. He comprehended perfectly that she -was still in suspense as to the meaning of his visit.</p> - -<p>He rose presently, took his chair, advanced with -a friendly air and sat down near her, potentially -within reach. And was amused to see that she -still regarded him as from a great distance. “But -you have not answered my question,” he said, going -back to that. “When are you coming to New -York to live? Thought you would have been -settled there long before this time.”</p> - -<p>“I shall live here.”</p> - -<p>“Never in New York?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“But you are not planning to neglect us entirely! -Cutter would not stand for that. You -will be coming up occasionally, of course,” he insisted, -smiling.</p> - -<p>“No; this is my home.”</p> - -<p>Gad, couldn’t she even squirm a bit? Why -didn’t she blaze forth at Cutter or cover the situation -with a few lies? He wondered how it -would feel to live with a woman who hit the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> -truth on the head every time, as if the truth was -a nail to be driven in, even if it pierced your -vitals.</p> - -<p>Shippen swept a complimentary glance around -the room as if in reply to her last remark. “Well, -you have certainly made it a beautiful home,” he -said, feeling by the growing emergency of the -question in her eyes that if he did not get off on -another tack, she might force an explanation of -his presence here which he was not ready to make -until he had won more of her confidence. “This -room is marvelous,” he went on, “sedate and feminine. -It escapes the austerity of being a noble -room by a miracle. What is it? Piety with a -flash of color, I should say. However did you -think of such an effect? And how did you accomplish -it?”</p> - -<p>“I did not do it. I have learned something,” -she said, off her guard for the first time, following -his eyes about this room as if she accompanied -his thoughts.</p> - -<p>“What have you learned?” he asked, smiling.</p> - -<p>“To buy what I want—not mere things, but -taste in the choice of these things. It is for sale, -like any other commodity.”</p> - -<p>He laughed, with an appreciative glint of the -eye.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>“For so long I did not know that taste is -the one thing most people have not got. They -only look as if they had it, when in fact they -have purchased it. You buy it from your tailor. -The woman whose clothes please you pays the -modiste who makes them much more for her taste -than for her work. You can buy any kind of -taste, good, bad or indifferent; but nearly everybody -buys it.”</p> - -<p>What she said was not interesting; but he was -interested that she could think it; it showed that -she had a mind, which he had doubted. He -hoped she would not develop too much along this -line. The perfect woman, in his opinion, should -have loveliness, health, and only a rudimentary -intelligence. He was very tired, indeed, of the -rhinestone sparkle of feminine wit.</p> - -<p>“It is the same with the building and furnishing -of a house,” Helen showed up again. “They -hire an architect and a decorator. And then they -hire a landscape gardener. And when the whole -scene inside and out is laid, they live in it as if -they had planned it and achieved it. But they -have bought every line, every shadow, and all the -perspective—things that you feel and see, but cannot -touch. It is not the house, but the idea it suggests -for which you pay most. I had my own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> -ideas, but I employed professionals to produce -them. This is what I have learned,” she concluded, -“not to cobble my own ideas. I simply -told those men what I wanted.”</p> - -<p>“I should have liked to hear your instructions,” -he said.</p> - -<p>“They were short. I told the architect that I -wanted an honorable looking house, not a grand -one.”</p> - -<p>He nodded, appreciatively, and waited. Some -subtle change had taken place in her mind toward -him during this last moment. There was a compelling -power in her expression, as if now she -wished to hold his attention. She had a purpose. -He became uneasy and curious.</p> - -<p>“And I told the man who was to choose the -furniture and do the inside decorations that I -wanted a home, a mild kind of place with some -sadness in it, like the heart of a mother; and rifts -of brightness in it, like the face of a mother when -she smiles; and everything very fine to honor her, -the mother, you understand, in the eyes of her -children.”</p> - -<p>Shippen’s agreeable attention changed for one -instant to a blank stare; then he dropped his eyes -as she went on with this intimate account of what -she wanted her home to be. Mother! And she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> -had no children. The term had for him a sort of -embarrassing animal significance. It was not discussed -this way in polite circles, even by women -who were mothers. You were supposed not to -know it or to forget that this sparkling being -with whom you were conversing, or maybe flirting, -had passed through the experiences of an -accouchement. His feelings suffered a revulsion -toward her. But she held him as if she meant -that he should carry away with him the dimensions, -the waist measure, the countenance and the -germinating biography of this house.</p> - -<p>“I told him,” she went on, still referring to the -decorator, “that I wanted a home inside, where -children would look as if they belonged in it, and -not as if they had escaped from their own hidden -quarters—soft places in it, you know, where a -baby could just fall asleep, like the sofa over -there,” indicating with a nod a wide, low, old-fashioned -soda shrouded in shadows.</p> - -<p>He cast an embarrassed glance at it. His feelings -were that a babe should be kept concealed -until it was a child of an age to be decently exposed -and confessed. Some men are like that, and -a few women. Their parent instincts have decayed.</p> - -<p>“And when they become grown sons and daughters,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> -she continued, taking no notice of his discomfiture, -“there should be wide, happy spaces in -here for their joys—a house for lovers and weddings.”</p> - -<p>He waited. Apparently she had finished. He -raised his eyes and saw her flushed, animated. -“But why should you want such a house?” he -asked, not that it made any difference now what -she wanted. So far as he was concerned the spell -of her charm was broken. His one desire was to -escape this disenchantment and to find out what -was in the wind for Cutter. He clung to that -joke.</p> - -<p>“Because all the time I was a wife I wanted -this house, and I longed for children. Now I can -have them.”</p> - -<p>Shippen stood up. She remained seated, eyes -lifted with that rapt look fixed upon him.</p> - -<p>“Did you say—children, Mrs. Cutter?” he -stammered.</p> - -<p>“Yes; now I shall have children,” she repeated.</p> - -<p>“Well, all right; but under the circumstances, -it is a little unusual; don’t you think so?” he -said, the compass of his mind already pointed -toward the door.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is,” she agreed, and was evidently -about to launch into this feature of the case when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> -she saw that he was about to take his departure. -This reminded her of something. “But what was -it you wished to see me about, Mr. Shippen?” -she asked, with a return of that vague anxiety -in the tones of her voice.</p> - -<p>“Why, merely to resume a pleasant acquaintance, -I suppose,” he answered politely.</p> - -<p>“Oh.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you for receiving me,” he said. “Can -I do anything for you in New York?”</p> - -<p>“No,” she answered quickly, but with no shade -of embarrassment to indicate that she knew he referred -to her husband.</p> - -<p>He took his departure politely and formally, -but he had all the sensations of flight. “Good -heavens!” he exclaimed the moment he was out of -the house. “To think I was on the point of letting -myself in for her! What is a woman, anyhow? -Some confounded provision Nature makes -against her own defeat—a snare laid for us, nothing -else. They have their own mind and purposes, -contrary to our mind and purposes, whether -they are good or bad. Something infernally -tricky about the bad ones: something infernally -permanent about the good ones. They all want to -set, like hens,” he snorted. “No wonder Cutter -kicked out. Don’t blame him. She’s crazy, crazy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -as a loon, if she is not worse, and of course she -isn’t that. Well, the joke is on me, not Cutter. -And mum’s the word when I get back to New -York. Children! Gad, she must be planning an -orphanage. Wonder if he knows what she’s doing -with his money. Wonder if this town is on to -the racket.”</p> - -<p>He halted under the first street light and looked -at his watch; barely time to meet Arnold at the -hotel. They were to dine together and discuss the -sale of the mining property which was to be -handled through the Shannon National Bank. -He quickened his step. He must get off on the -eight o’clock express for New York. He had -received a shock, a revulsion of his romantic emotions. -Something distasteful had happened to -him. He wanted to get away and recover from -this nausea.</p> - -<p>We all excite a certain amount of interest -among our fellow men, not because we are interesting, -perhaps, but because we live, and to -that extent are in a degree mysterious. But when -suddenly a man or woman becomes aware of a -silent and persistent attention, it is disconcerting, -because in secret, at least, he knows he has done -enough to queer himself, if it should be known or -even suspected. He has, however, the usual human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -confidence in the deferred publication of -these deeds until the day of all revelations, when -the Final Courts sit to judge all men. At this end -of time it will not matter, because of the leveling -effects of knowing all men even as they know him.</p> - -<p>In my opinion this will be a day of gasping astonishments -among the dusty saints and sinners -hurriedly summoned so long after they shall have -forgotten even their virtues, much less their sins, -which in the flesh we manage to bury beyond painful -recollection as soon as possible. But now and -then we get a whiff of what will happen, when a -great and good man in the community defaults -and absconds with the church funds. Meanwhile -the news that still travels fastest is the news of -some one’s business which is nobody else’s business.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVIII</h2></div> - - -<p>The next day after Shippen’s visit Helen went -into Shannon to make some purchases and to make -sure of the amount of her balance at the bank.</p> - -<p>When she stepped from the car in front of -Brim’s general merchandise store, it was as if she -had stepped into a foreign land. The street, all -things about her, were so familiar that she only -remembered afterwards the strangeness of familiar -faces. Two men whom she knew passed -her with their eyes down. A woman regarded -her with furtive curiosity and returned her salutation -with the briefest bow, as if she did not -really know her. All this happened so quickly -that she was not yet aware that something very -personal to her was happening.</p> - -<p>She was still off her guard when Mrs. Flitch -sailed by her between the lace and stocking counter, -merely giving her an eye-for-an-eye look, but -with no further recognition, although Helen had -wished her a “Good afternoon, Mrs. Flitch.” She -disposed of this hint by wondering what she had -done to Mrs. Flitch, because this lady was notoriously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> -sensitive. She had a turgid temper and -reserved the right to show her poverty and independence -on the slightest provocation by ceasing -to speak to you.</p> - -<p>Half an hour later when she came out to her -car, a cold rain was beginning. She saw Mrs. -Shaw approaching with no umbrella to protect her -new spring hat. She waited, meaning to pick her -up and take her wherever she should be going. -But when she hailed her, this lady affected not to -understand. She bowed coldly with the rain in -her face and said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Cutter,” -although she had always called her “Helen,” and -passed on.</p> - -<p>It is depressing to find yourself suddenly outlawed -by the people whom you have always -known. Helen was never popular in Shannon. -Unhappy people rarely ever are. They have so -little to contribute to the common fund of human -animation. But she had a certain standing in -the good will of her neighbors.</p> - -<p>It was not until she reached the bank that the -explanation of what was going on really dawned -upon her. She had known that it must come, this -news of her abandonment by her husband, but she -had not expected it to fall upon her like a curse.</p> - -<p>Arnold, who occupied the chair at the president’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -desk inside the doorway of the bank, having -resumed this custom of the elder Cutter, had -always risen to meet her when she came in. He -would conduct her to the chair near his desk and -attend personally to her affairs, if it was no more -than the cashing of a check. This morning he was -at his desk as usual. So was the extra chair, and -nobody in it, but beyond a glance and a bow he -took no notice of her. She went on to the cashier’s -window and presented a check. She was startled -to see him glance at it, then step swiftly back to -the bookkeeper and make eye sure of her balance -before he cashed it.</p> - -<p>She took the bills, thrust under the wicket and -stared about her confused. She had lost prestige -here. Why? She wondered. She had spent the -money left from her mother’s estate on the house, -and a few thousands besides. But she was amply -supplied with funds. She had never overdrawn -her account.</p> - -<p>Silly reflections! Childish defense against this -financial coldness! If Arnold had known that -she still had securities to the amount of considerably -more than one hundred thousand dollars in -her safety deposit box, his manner would have -continued balmy. But he did not know this. He -only knew that she was spending a great deal of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -money. And he had dined with Shippen the -previous evening.</p> - -<p>Shippen had told him that she was separated -from her husband. When he expressed surprise, -Shippen expressed regret that he had “let the -thing out”; he supposed the facts were already -known in Shannon, he said.</p> - -<p>Arnold assured him to the contrary. He said -that he had had a “hunch,” because he was subject -to hunches as a financial man; but he had -rather expected Cutter himself to fail. He had -never entertained the slightest suspicion of Mrs. -Cutter. How long had she been separated from -her husband?</p> - -<p>Shippen replied that he did not know; but he -had thought probably some time before Cutter -resigned from the presidency of the Shannon bank -and took up his residence in New York.</p> - -<p>Arnold said he thought it must have occurred -quite recently, because Mrs. Cutter had been with -her husband in New York for at least five months. -In fact, she had only returned to Shannon late in -January.</p> - -<p>“I am associated with Cutter. I see him every -day. I am constantly in his home, a bachelor -apartment, and I positively know that his wife -has never been in the place,” Shippen replied.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>“But I tell you she left here soon after Cutter -did, and she did not return until about two -months ago,” Arnold insisted, round-eyed with -amazement.</p> - -<p>Shippen closed his lips grimly, implying that -these were the lips of a gentlemen. A woman -scorned may be dangerous, but a man defeated -can be meanly revengeful. Shippen was reacting, -after the manner of his kind, from the disgust -he now felt toward this innocent woman.</p> - -<p>No, he answered in reply to Arnold’s next question, -there had been no divorce yet, though he had -reason to believe Cutter would be glad to get one.</p> - -<p>“Cutter!” Arnold exclaimed.</p> - -<p>Shippen nodded; then after a pause he added: -“My impression is that Mrs. Cutter will not be -the one to bring the suit, if it is ever brought.”</p> - -<p>“But he—man, do you know what you are saying -about that woman?” Arnold exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“I am saying nothing about her. I have seen -something of her. I paid her a visit this afternoon, -in fact; but—”</p> - -<p>“You know her?”</p> - -<p>“Since 1914,” he nodded.</p> - -<p>A silence followed this news. Men know one -another. Arnold knew Shippen. He sat now -staring at the tablecloth. It was his duty, but he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> -would be sorry to tell his wife. She liked Mrs. -Cutter. Also, it was his duty to see that the -bank was secure in its dealings with her. Until -this moment he would have advanced her any -reasonable sum. He would warn Lambkin in the -morning to keep an eye on her balance. A woman -like that had very few financial scruples, and no -sense of the future. They usually lived by the -day. Still, this fellow Shippen might be mistaken. -Arnold had been a resident of Shannon -only a few years, but he had inferred that Mrs. -Cutter was devoted to her home and husband, an -ordinary woman, good looking but not attractive. -He would have sworn she was not attractive. -She had never attracted him and in a discreet way -he had a man’s eye.</p> - -<p>He accompanied Shippen to his train; then he -went home and told Mrs. Arnold.</p> - -<p>She was indignant. She said she did not believe -a word of it. Later, Mrs. Shaw came in to -borrow some yarn for a sweater she wished to -finish that evening. She got the yarn, and this -story about Mrs. Cutter.</p> - -<p>She agreed with Mrs. Arnold that in her opinion -there was not a word of truth in it. Still they -speculated about how and where Helen had spent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> -those five months when she was not in Shannon -nor with her husband in New York.</p> - -<p>We may live above reproach, but few of us live -above suspicion of one sort or another. It is the -active character-sketching faculty we all have for -drawing real or imaginary likenesses of each -other’s secret faces. Women are especially felicitous -in this art, once they get the suggestion. -They rarely originate the idea. The most damaging -gossip we ever hear descends to us almost -invariably from men. They whisper it to us; -we tell it and get more credit for authorship than -we deserve.</p> - -<p>Thus Mr. Arnold had repeated to his wife what -Shippen had told and intimated about the Cutters. -It is not in the nature of any woman to -retain such stuff. She must expel it. Therefore -Mrs. Arnold told Mrs. Shaw.</p> - -<p>And so the news flew, until the town was posted -with it by the time Helen descended into it the -next afternoon.</p> - -<p>It is one thing to suffer a great humiliation in -secret, and quite another thing to read it in the -eyes of every familiar face. Helen understood -that her secret was out at last. Nothing else -could account for the manner of the various<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> -people whom she met. She had known, of course, -that it could not be kept; but she had hoped she -might have had a little more time to protect -herself with the one defense she had planned.</p> - -<p>Her lips were trembling when she came out of -the bank and entered the car. “Drive out the -River road,” she said.</p> - -<p>Buck glanced back, startled by some emotional -quality in her voice, which was usually a smooth -and literal-speaking voice. He was much more -surprised by the order she had given, for the rain -was coming in rattling gusts on the March winds -and the River road would be “slick as glass.” -Still, he took it, the big limousine reeling and -sliding.</p> - -<p>Helen sat as if she had been flung into the -corner of the seat. She stared through the streaming -window at the turgid river. She remembered -every tree and slope of its banks, although years -had passed since she had been on this road. -Sometimes, when all is ready, when we have survived -and are about to live, the power of hope -fails and the vision fades. Helen passed into -this coma of defeat. How was she to face these -looks, this knowledge, this judgment in the eyes -of the people of Shannon for years and years? -Could anything ease this pain? What could she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> -love enough to make her indifferent to this perpetual -publicity? After all, would it not be -wiser to give up everything and go away?</p> - -<p>The old foundry loomed desolately in the distance, -drenched in rain, the bare boughs of the -trees whipping against it. The great doorway -seemed to yawn darkness. Nothing green now, -no brightness! How long ago since in the shadow -of this door she had said her prayers to love and -listened to George’s vows. She remembered -everything—the yellow primroses at their feet, -the blue wings of a bird suddenly spread in -flight over their heads, the fresh, sweet smell of -thyme and George’s face bent above her in passionate -tenderness.</p> - -<p>The world had passed away since then! How -could she bear this? It was loneliness. She had -been dying of loneliness for months. She had -never been out of pain, not for a moment; she -knew this now. She wanted her husband—nothing -else! Tears filled her eyes; she caught back -a sob. For an instant her mind held one image, -that of the man whom she had loved and married; -one thought, the whole thought of him, a -reeling picture of the years filled with only her -devotion to him.</p> - -<p>Then the wind and tide in her breast died away.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -The color faded from her cheeks. All that had -failed. She shivered, sat up, astounded that she -could suffer like this for a man who had abandoned -her.</p> - -<p>We are not the only ones who fail, my masters. -Sometimes the very will of God fails too. A -world slips, waggles in its orbit, and goes rocketing, -catching the light of a thousand suns as it -falls and falls forever through space.</p> - -<p>When they were directly below the foundry, -Buck halted.</p> - -<p>“Why do you stop here? Go on,” she commanded -sharply.</p> - -<p>“Miss Helen, we can’t,” he protested. “They -ain’t no bottom to this road out yonder. Folks -don’t go no farther’n where we is now.”</p> - -<p>There was a moment’s suspense while the motor -purred and he waited, by no means enthusiastic -about driving in this storm.</p> - -<p>“Very well; we will turn back,” she said in a -queer voice. She was thinking about this road -with no bottom in it beyond the place where so -many lovers came to plight their troth.</p> - -<p>Half an hour later, the disgruntled Buck had -taken his mud-spattered car to the garage, and -Helen was still standing on the veranda of her -house, looking out over her small world.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>The rain had passed like a silver veil over the -hills. The clouds, split by this March wind, were -rolling back like huge wagon covers. The grass -was beginning to show a misty green on the lawn. -Pink petals of peach blossoms, blown from the -orchard behind the house, lay in rifts above it. -The flowering shrubs, massed on either side of -the driveway, were budding. The elm trees were -shaking their beards of bloom. The last rays of -the setting sun made all the windows of her house -flame with golden light.</p> - -<p>She could not leave this place; this was her -house and her world. Every bloom to be was so -sweetly foretold to her in this warm air. She -could not give it up. There must be something -to live for and love. She suffered most from -the breaking of this habit of loving. And the -shock she had of discovering that she still loved -her husband disturbed her more than the possible -attitude Shannon might assume toward her. She -was that far from suspecting, you understand, the -imaginary activities of gossips who are never contented -with the bare facts, but must invent explanations -of these facts according to their -fancies.</p> - -<p>Well, she decided, she would not go away. -She would hold to her original plan for happiness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> -Surely there must be peace and joy in -love you nurtured yourself.</p> - -<p>Then she turned and paced slowly the length -of the veranda. Her step changed to increasing -swiftness as she came back from the far end, her -face also. She looked as she might have looked -if flames enveloped her, and she was flying through -the wind, a wildness and horror in her eyes.</p> - -<p>She dashed into the house, caught sight of the -maid in coming up the hall, who halted abruptly -at this sudden vision of her mistress.</p> - -<p>“Charlotte, get my things ready. Pack my -trunk. I am leaving on the early morning train,” -Helen exclaimed as she brushed past her and disappeared -into her room.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIX</h2></div> - - -<p>There is a place called an Inn above a city in -the mountains—it was built only a few years ago -by a man with a Brobdingnagian imagination—a -huge pile of bowlders, tunneled and dragged -down from the mountain sides and put together -as if the ages had soldered them into a great -castle. The walls within are rough and covered -with strange scripts, fragments of great lines from -great poets, sentences from philosophers and -saints. It is not a place for tourists, but for -people weary with the strife of living, made obedient -to peace and silence by exhaustion.</p> - -<p>I have seen this place. It is marvelous, and -strangely effective morally. Bad people get a -somnambulant look there, because they are sleepwalking -in their virtues. They get a look of nave -innocence; or, if the system of moral compensation -in them is broken, they take a horrified look -around and escape on the next train.</p> - -<p>One morning, so early that the day was still -a gray cavern between earth and sky with the wild -March winds whirling in it, a slender woman descended -from a taxicab at the gateway to the drive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> -which led down the mountain slope to this Inn. -She wore a blue coat with a fur collar drawn close -about her fair face, a small fur hat with an exceeding -vivid rose tucked into the band of thicker -fur around the crown and fitted so snugly that -a mere line of her bright hair showed beneath. -She had eyes the color of blue flowers, paler than -violets, the kind that always look up at you meaningly -from the cold ground in March—but you -do not know what they mean—exactly as this -woman’s eyes looked upward and abroad now -beneath the narrow sweeping line of her swallow-winged -brows.</p> - -<p>She was not young; she was touched with the -same sadness of those pale blue flowers above -the winter earth. But she appeared young in -this half light of the early dawn. Any man at -the sight of her, swinging gracefully down the -winding road between the naked trees, beneath -the pearling skies of daybreak, might have conceived -the idea of courting her. But he would -have dismissed it instantly after a nearer reading -look. He would have perceived that she was already -“taken,” that she belonged either to a -man or to his children. She was not in the possessive -case.</p> - -<p>She loitered along the way, as one familiar with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -this place, looking for remembered things, ferns -between the rocks, puffs of green moss above these -rocks, flashes of wild azalea deeply bowered -among the laurel bushes, tall stalks of shooting -star blossoms white against the gray bluff, and a -path leading from the roadway up the side of the -bluff. I suppose there is not even one little high -place on this earth which has not somewhere -upon it a path that goes to the top. And frequently -the idlest people in the world make them. -It is due to the futile persistence of the altar instinct -in them.</p> - -<p>She had come down into the paved plaza in -front of the Inn before the porter carrying her -bags overtook her. She followed him through the -door and paused at the breath-taking majesty of -this huge room. Filled with guests, its dignity -was diminished; but bare and solemn and silent -in this early morning hour, it was tremendous. -She cast a glance upward at the rough walls, -scrolled over with those mighty texts taken from -the Scriptures that men have made for themselves, -but not one from Moses or the Prophets—the -idea being, I suppose, not to open the bleeding -wounds of conscience in many guests by reminders -too authoritatively worded about their -sins and trespasses.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>She caught sight of one at last from Marcus -Aurelius as if she had been looking for it. The -wisdom of it did not apply to her case, but it -soothed her for that reason, because she remembered -it as an exit she used to take from her -unhappy thoughts during those first months of -her unnatural widowhood. When you are -bedridden within by a secret grief, these old negative -philosophers are very good drug doctors for -your complaints. This is why so many miserable -women take to the narcotics of theosophy and -other forms of recumbent mysticisms. They are -mental opiates.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, Mrs. Cutter! Glad to see you -back here,” the night clerk said, smiling sleepy-eyed -at her as she approached the desk. He -swung the register around and offered her a pen.</p> - -<p>“You received my wire?” she asked, when she -had written her name.</p> - -<p>“Yes, and fortunately we were able to reserve -the same room for you,” he answered, evidently -referring to a request which she had wired.</p> - -<p>“Shall you want a car, as usual, Mrs. Cutter?” -he called after her as she was about to enter the -elevator.</p> - -<p>“Not until this afternoon. How are the -roads?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>“Very good, at least your favorite one is,” he -assured her.</p> - -<p>She had come to this Inn immediately after -Cutter left her the previous year. She had recovered -her health of mind and strength of body -in this quiet place; she had profited by the patterns -of peace and imagination it afforded; and -she had spent much time visiting fine old houses, -studying the manners, ways and clothes of the -people who came and went. She acquired for the -first time in her life some feeling and sense of elegance, -lines and colors. And it was here that she -met the architect who drew the plans for remodeling -her house at Shannon.</p> - -<p>She resumed her old diversions now. She -mingled little with the other guests, but spent her -time driving about the country. She was still -oppressed by the rude awakening she had, that -last day in Shannon, to the fact that she loved -and longed for her husband. She was disturbed -and humiliated by this revelation, as one is by the -awakening of some weakness we believe we have -outgrown.</p> - -<p>The issue constantly in her mind was whether, -after all, it would not be wiser to give up her -house in Shannon and live this idle, pleasant existence. -There were no associations here to remind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> -her of the past. And in spite of her huge expense -in the effort to destroy these memories, it was -after she came back to Shannon that the old pain -and unhappiness had returned to overwhelm her. -Then this issue was settled for her with a horrible, -irrevocable decision, and she was flung violently -back upon the one refuge, her house in Shannon, -and the one plan she had for substituting love with -affection, which she had been on the point of -abandoning.</p> - -<p>One evening she came down late for dinner, -passed through the swinging doors and sat down -at the table reserved for her, which was near -these doors. The room was filled with week-end -guests. She had an excellent view of this brilliant -company. There were handsomely gowned -women, rouged and sparkling with jewels; there -were more men than were usually to be seen at -leisure during this man-grasping war period; and -quite a sprinkling of military officers, evidently -on leave from Washington.</p> - -<p>Helen had given her order and sat idly scanning -the scene before her, listening to snatches of -conversation from the nearer tables.</p> - -<p>She was barely enough like these other -women in her ivory-white, embroidered Canton -crpe not to attract attention. She was pale, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> -they were painted. Her hair lay in a soft golden -coil on her head, where their hair ruffled in a -thousand glistening convolutions. Her lips were -parted, showing the lapped edge of the two white -teeth. The dark lashes of her eyes were more -apparent, because of the blueness of these eyes -and of the whiteness of her skin.</p> - -<p>Once she caught the steady, dark gaze of a -woman seated directly opposite her, but at a -distant table. She lifted her own glance and hurried -by this overhead route back to the bunch of -violets in the vase on her own table. She could -not have told why she did this, probably for the -same reason one flinches and draws back from -the sudden flash of a brilliant flame. She sat -staring at the violets, wondering about this -woman, not intelligently, with a sort of amazement -which was not pleasant. Never before had -she seen such a fury of commanding beauty. She -thought she must be tall. She was very dark—olive -skin, flushed like a velvet rose; black hair, -daringly coiffured and heightened by a Spanish -comb; a straight, imperious nose; a fine-lipped -mouth, red and cruelly turned to mirth. But the -fury of her beauty lay in the smoking black eyes. -And the maroon velvet gown she wore seemed -somehow to enhance the heat of terrible, searing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> -beauty, as if the body of this woman had been -forged, slim and strong, in a furnace and still -glowed dangerously and dully.</p> - -<p>Helen wondered why she had not seen her -when she entered the dining room, for now she -could almost hear her crackle. Yet she did not -look up again in that direction. There was a -man at the table with this woman, she knew; but -she had been so startled by the native malice of -those dark eyes that she had only a blurred impression -of his back.</p> - -<p>Suddenly there was a sound in this place where -the confused murmur of many voices made a thousand -sounds. It was the rich, rollicking laugh -of a man, one high note quickly suppressed.</p> - -<p>Helen stiffened, her hand flew to her breast as -if she had received a mortal wound. This trumpeting -note of mirth was as much a part of her -experience as her husband’s kisses had been. -Her lips tightened, her eyes wide with horror flew -this way and that, scanning every face. Then -they fell again upon the dark woman whom she -had forgotten in this sudden anguish. Instantly -she felt the red lash of this woman’s smile, -as if she had reached across the space between -them to strike a blow. There was contempt and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> -recognition in the smoldering black eyes—no defiance, -but triumph.</p> - -<p>The man facing her at this table with his back -to Helen caught it, flirted his head around to find -the object of it—and looked straight into the eyes -of his wife!</p> - -<p>For one instant they held this silent interview -with each other in that crowded room. Then the -woman struck her hands together with a sharp, -little smack, and let out a gale of laughter, too -keen, too high in this decent place. Every head -was turned toward her, every eye fell upon her in -polite amazement. Still she laughed. And still -George Cutter’s eyes followed his wife. For -Helen had risen at the first note of that stinging -laugh and had made her way blindly from the -room.</p> - -<p>“What happened?” asked a fat man, rolling a -pop-eyed look across the table at his wife.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t see anything,” she replied, taking her -soup with the absorption of an innocent person.</p> - -<p>“Who was the pale lady? Didn’t you see her -going out?”</p> - -<p>“A lot of people are coming in and going out,” -his wife returned, skinning the bottom of her soup -plate with her spoon.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>“And there’s the one that did the laugh,” he -said, nodding at the woman.</p> - -<p>“She looks like a jade; probably is one,” his -wife announced, with one appraising look.</p> - -<p>“Fellow with her is all in then—head down, -knees sprung, tail drooping. He’s come a cropper -and knows it. Look at him, Lily.”</p> - -<p>The old Lily looked at the man before the -“jade” indifferently, then passed the look on to -the service door from whence cometh, or should -come, the next course of this very good dinner. -“Henry, you are a born scandalmonger,” she said -reproachfully.</p> - -<p>“No, it’s an acquired taste, but I have it; and -if ever I saw a fine scene in a matrimonial melodrama, -I’ve just witnessed one. Pale lady’s the -wife, t’other one’s the gallant gal bandit, and the -man’s the victim,” he snickered.</p> - -<p>Before these guests had finished dining, Helen -Cutter had left the Inn.</p> - -<p>A week later Charlotte received a wire from -her mistress, instructing her to send Buck with -the car to Atlanta in time to meet a certain train -at the Terminal Station on a certain day. This -message was sent from Baltimore, which had not -been Mrs. Cutter’s destination when she left -home, Charlotte observed with a sniff. She did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> -not like Mrs. Cutter’s ways, referring to this tendency -she had of flying about the world alone -when she had a perfectly good maid, who had expected -to accompany her. And she did not like -the company she kept, referring to Shippen who -was the only visitor she had received. And what -was more to the point, she had no idea of being -buried alive in this little speck of a town. Therefore -she meant to go back to Atlanta in the car, -and stay there—strong emphasis on the last two -words.</p> - -<p>It was known in Shannon that “Helen Cutter -had gone again.” But as late as the third week -in April, no one knew that she had returned. -There was a rumor current that probably she -would not come back, since she must have realized -that everybody knew what had happened.</p> - -<p>Then Mrs. Flitch, who was out selling Liberty -Bonds one afternoon, passed the Cutter place and -beheld a baby carriage on the lawn! Not only -that, but the carriage was obviously occupied, because -Maria, togged out in a nurse’s cap and -apron, was rolling it back and forth along the -driveway. Mrs. Flitch said later that you could -have “knocked her down with a feather,” but she -decided no matter what kind of woman Helen -Cutter was, it was no more than right that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -should be called upon to buy these bonds. Therefore -she turned in and walked briskly up the -drive, meeting Maria directly front of the house.</p> - -<p>“Is Mrs. Cutter at home?” she asked, ignoring -the old woman’s occupation.</p> - -<p>“No’m, she ain’t here; she’s gone to git a goat,” -Maria answered.</p> - -<p>“A goat!”</p> - -<p>“Yes’m, a milk goat for the baby,” rolling her -eyes.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch stood perfectly still, the incarnation -of malignant virtue, allowing her eyes to pass -back and forth between Maria and the carriage. -The wicker hood concealed the contents from her -avid gaze. When she could endure her curiosity -no longer, she moved slowly around to the front, -but maintaining a decent distance, and stared.</p> - -<p>The baby recognized her at once, grinned, showing -several teeth, and waved a highly ornamental -teething ring.</p> - -<p>“Maria, whose child is this?” Mrs. Flitch demanded -sternly, as if it was her duty to know.</p> - -<p>“Miss Helen says it’s her’n,” was the noncommittal -reply.</p> - -<p>Followed a series of questions as to the age -and possible complexion of this child. One confidence -led to another question until Maria let go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> -and told all that she knew, which only increased -the cloud hanging over the origin of this baby.</p> - -<p>She said that she had gone in to clear the table -that night in August of last year when Mr. Cutter -left his wife. She had heard him tell her that he -was going to leave her.</p> - -<p>“What did Mrs. Cutter say to that?”</p> - -<p>“Not a word. From first to last I did not hear -her open her mouth, Mrs. Flitch. But he talked -a right smart. I disremember what he said, but -it wa’n’t praisin’. Then he goes out and banged -the door after him. He ain’t been here since.”</p> - -<p>“And she does not hear from him?”</p> - -<p>“Not as I knows of. Miss Helen left ’reckly -after he did, and she was gone five months. But -she wa’n’t wid him. We used to git letters from -her from a place in Ca’lina.”</p> - -<p>“Which, North or South Carolina?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, ’m. Buck read the letters.”</p> - -<p>“This is a strange baby,” Mrs. Flitch announced -grimly.</p> - -<p>Maria wiped her eyes. She was working herself -up to an emotional pitch by some act of -memory. Mrs. Flitch waited for the revelation -she knew must be coming.</p> - -<p>“I’m goin’ to tell you all I know about how -come dis baby. Not as it kin explain somethings,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> -like her having black hair and being dark complected, -but it’s all I know,” she began.</p> - -<p>“Go on.”</p> - -<p>“After Mr. Cutter was gone, Miss Helen laid -in bed three days. She jest laid there, white as a -corpse, with her eyes open. She didn’t shed no -tears and she didn’t say anything, mor’n for me -to hand her a glass of water or somethin’ like -that. Then one mornin’ she hops out of bed, -dresses herself an’ goes downtown to the bank. -While she was dressin’ I comes to the door to fetch -her slippers, which I’d been polishin’ in the -kitchen.” Maria left off and rolled her eyes -lugubriously, as if such a tongue as she had could -not reveal the rest.</p> - -<p>“Go on; what happened?”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Flitch,” lowering her voice to a tragic -whisper, “she was talkin’ to herself! ‘Now,’ -she says, ‘I kin have children.’ She said them -words over and over, ’s if she was glad of the -chance.”</p> - -<p>“But what did she mean?”</p> - -<p>“I d’no, ’m. I been in this world a long time, -an’ I ain’t never heerd no ’oman, white or black, -say sech things and her husband jest that minute -’sertin’ her. But she’s done it—what she said -she’d do. Here’s the child,” she concluded, standing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> -like a black exclamation point beside the baby -carriage.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch counted her fingers surreptitiously -and regarded the infant once more with a sort of -expert scientific stare.</p> - -<p>“Where is the maid? I understood Mrs. Cutter -had a maid?” she asked suddenly, as if she was on -the point of subpoenaing a more competent witness.</p> - -<p>“She’s gone. Said she didn’t like the looks -of it.”</p> - -<p>“Of what?”</p> - -<p>“I d’no, ’m.”</p> - -<p>“Maria,” Mrs. Flitch said after a staccato silence, -“you need not tell Mrs. Cutter that I -called.”</p> - -<p>“La! Mrs. Flitch, hit don’t make no difference. -This baby ain’t no secret, whatever else -it is. Miss Helen don’t keer who knows she’s -got it,” Maria called after her.</p> - -<p>All these months this servant had known what -Helen believed no one knew in Shannon, the -minutest details of that last scene with her husband.</p> - -<p>There are no secrets. We may give alms so -privately that the twin right hand of our left -hand remains blissfully ignorant of what we spent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> -on these alms. Nothing is easier than to conceal -a good deed, if you really wish to do so, because -it is not our nature to suspect each other of secret -goodness. It is hard enough to obtain credit -when we stand on the street corner and proclaim -our charity in a loud voice, or get the whole beautiful -thing exploited in the public press. This -is what we usually do, being in some mortal doubt -whether, after all, the reward promised by our -Heavenly Father will be conferred openly enough -or soon enough to pay for the unnatural expense -of secrecy. This is a mistake, of course, because, -while we are duly credited, the smiling, cynical interpretation -placed upon our motive takes the -shine off the deed and the alms.</p> - -<p>But let one of the best of us become involved -in a doubtful deed, however innocently, and it is -known. Witnesses spring from the very ground -to swear to your guilt, even if you have gone into -your closet to taste a pleasant fault. Even if, -as in Helen’s case, the evidence is flimsy and circumstantial, -there is always an eye that sees, an -ear that hears, a tongue to tell what happened or -what apparently happened. The deeper truth—the -innocence of the wicked, the guilt of the saints—remains -hidden save from the omniscience of -the Almighty. This is why it seems to me highly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> -probable that there really may be a super-record -kept in a Book of Life far removed from the laws -and judgments of this present world. We shall -be graded accordingly, exalted or demoted, not so -furiously condemned as our own heinous imaginations -demand.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XX</h2></div> - - -<p>The flamboyant display Helen made of her -baby shocked Shannon and finally conquered the -willful suspicions entertained by her neighbors. -Her diffidence and reserve vanished. She was -exalted. She glowed. She had passed into another -state of being. This child had related her -to everybody.</p> - -<p>She would have Buck stop the car before the -Shaw residence and summoned Mrs. Shaw forth -to look at it and advise her about whether to keep -stockings on it or not. Mrs. Shaw said she never -did.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, Mrs. Arnold said that would -depend upon whether the baby was cutting her -eye teeth. In that case she advised not only stockings, -but a flannel band about the body. Did -Mrs. Cutter know whether the little thing was approaching -its second summer and stomach and eye -teeth or not? This question was put very casually, -but with a shrewd glance.</p> - -<p>Helen said she would “see.” Whereupon she -thrust an exploring finger into the squirming infant’s -mouth, felt about in there, withdrew it, and -announced that she could detect no heralding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> -signs of these malignant teeth, but they might be -coming. This was an unusually precocious baby! -Therefore she would get the bands and keep the -stockings on.</p> - -<p>Then she passed on, apparently with no compunctions -about having defrauded Mrs. Arnold -of legitimate information about the baby.</p> - -<p>But that lady hurried across the street to tell -Mrs. Flitch something. “It is not her own child, -my dear; I am sure of that,” she said, after reporting -what Helen had done.</p> - -<p>“Well, it could be,” Mrs. Flitch insisted.</p> - -<p>“But it isn’t. I don’t think she knows exactly -how old the child is. And a real mother, you -know, can feel when her baby is teething.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Flitch nodded emphatically, held her note -of silence a moment, then added: “If it isn’t her -own, there is no telling what kind of baby it is, nor -how it will turn out.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it is turning out happily for that poor -girl anyway. She looks years younger, and -happy,” Mrs. Arnold replied.</p> - -<p>“If Mr. Flitch deserted me, I couldn’t be -happy. I’d never hold up my head again.”</p> - -<p>“She has courage.”</p> - -<p>“And she seems to have money,” Mrs. Flitch -put in.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>“Yes, Mr. Arnold thinks she has ample -means.”</p> - -<p>“Then it must be alimony.”</p> - -<p>“We have heard nothing of a divorce.”</p> - -<p>“I think, when people are married, they should -live together until death parts them. And if they -won’t, they should make a clean breast of it, and -let folks know exactly where they stand, inside -the law or out of it,” Mrs. Flitch announced -virtuously.</p> - -<p>“Nothing like that is ever hidden. In time I -suppose something clarifying will happen.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I hope it won’t be disgraceful.”</p> - -<p>“It is not easy for scandal to touch a woman -who devotes her life to bringing up children. Did -you ever think of that?” Mrs. Arnold shot back. -“I think we should stand by Mrs. Cutter and help -her all we can with this baby,” she added.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m willing to do my duty. But she never -gives me the chance to do anything. I’m the -mother of five healthy children, yet she will pass -by my door and ask somebody about that baby’s -diet who never had a child,” Mrs. Flitch complained.</p> - -<p>Thus the wind of private opinion, which is -more dangerous than public opinion, veered and -changed toward Helen Cutter. Her skies cleared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> -without her ever having suspected the fury with -which they were charged against her. Of all the -good women I have ever known, she was the least -concerned for her reputation. And this is one of -the weaknesses of that class, a craven, almost -guilty fear of evil tongues, which more vulnerable -women do not share.</p> - -<p>There were broken hours, I suppose, when some -fleeting vision of the past absorbed her peace and -joy. We never do escape those whispering -tongues of memory that make speech with us -from the years behind us. Sometimes in the late -summer afternoon Helen, walking in her garden, -would halt, transfixed as if a blow had fallen -upon her. For the briefest moment she would -see her young husband swinging along the path -that led through the old shrubbery to this garden, -his eyes fixed brightly upon her, the dear object of -his love and hopes. And her heart leaped as in -those first happy years. Then she would close -her eyes, not always in time to hold back the tears. -But if one is proud enough, there are tears which -leave no trace upon a woman’s face.</p> - -<p>More frequently however, it was that last -sight she had of him in the dining room of the -Inn, held so firmly in the grasp of another woman -that he dared not to rise when she, his wife, passed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> -so near her skirts almost brushed him. She would -never forget the livid shame and horror when he -looked back and caught her eye nor the woman’s -crackling laugh. Sometimes this scene flared before -her, and she saw herself, with her hand still -pressed to her breast, making her blind, staggering -escape. It was a kind of insurance she carried -against the awakening of the old tenderness -for her husband.</p> - -<p>A year had gone by, another spring was at -hand; and little Helen was learning to toddle on -her sturdy legs, a pink rose of a baby with short, -dark curls.</p> - -<p>“She is so good. Are all little children good?” -Helen asked, smiling at Mrs. Arnold, who was -paying one of her frequent visits.</p> - -<p>“At this age, yes,” the elder woman replied -dryly.</p> - -<p>“And I have so little time to devote to her, -now that the other baby has come,” Helen sighed.</p> - -<p>“The other baby!” Mrs. Arnold gasped.</p> - -<p>“Why, don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? -I have just got a lovely boy,” Helen informed -her.</p> - -<p>“Here? You have him now?”</p> - -<p>Helen nodded. “Come and see him. He is too -young to bring out yet,” she explained.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>She led the way to the small crib in the nursery, -where a very young infant lay asleep.</p> - -<p>“It is a fine child,” Mrs. Arnold announced -gravely. “How many do you expect to—have?” -she asked.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know yet. It will depend on how I -get on with these; but at least three. This is -little Samuel, named for father. The next one -will be a girl, named Mary Elizabeth, for mother. -I had to call the first one Helen. And I am -afraid I shall always love her best. She was my -first happiness, you see, after—after,” she repeated, -“unhappiness. I doubt if the others will -mean so much to me. Do they?” she asked anxiously. -“I mean do mothers grow to love all their -children alike?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, my dear; but you will,” Mrs. -Arnold answered, her eyes filling with tears.</p> - -<p>“They are treasures I am laying up for my old -age. They will be my life and joy and hope, -when I shall have grown too old to achieve these -things. Their laughter will lift me. Their love -will be my perpetual spring. And we shall have -weddings in this house,” she concluded.</p> - -<p>“You believe in marriage?” the other could -not refrain from asking.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes. Even in my own.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>“You would go back to your husband?”</p> - -<p>“Never.”</p> - -<p>There was a silence.</p> - -<p>“But if he comes back to you?”</p> - -<p>“He will not come,” she returned.</p> - -<p>When I came to know her later, she must have -been confirmed in this opinion. For I had lived -a year in Shannon before I learned that George -Cutter was not a dead and buried man. He had -passed with that flotsam and jetsam tide created -by the Great War. And the House of Helen had -become the center of social life in Shannon. She -was a sedate hostess, always garnished with her -children. She had declared this kind of natural -peace, and kept it in a world rocking with the -confusion which followed the war.</p> - -<p>She belonged to the deep furrow of life, where -the soil is rich and strong. If she had been an -herb of the fields, she would have been an evergreen -herb. If she had been a tree, her boughs -would never have shed their leaves. If she had -been a rose, she would have bloomed fairest above -a hoarfrost. The lives of many of us, who were -drawn to her during this time by one sort of distress -or another, took root in her quiet heart, and -it was her wish that not one of these should suffer -or perish.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>The ignobly wise believe that this opulence of -kindness is no more than the manifestation of the -nature of women, not a virtue, but the maternal -instinct common to all mammals.</p> - -<p>If you ask me, I should point to the prevailing -type of modern woman as an example of what -mere Nature does for a woman. She is a brilliant -creature, ready to show the iridescent wings of -her charms to all men, not one man; a childless -wife, ready to sue for her liberty and alimony on -the slightest provocation; an ambitious person, -futilely active, who farms out her home to servants -that she may become the dupe and handmaiden -of politicians. She belongs to the fashionable -scrubwoman class, who take the job of -cleaning up the town and setting the table for the -next convention. She is subsidized by compliments -and favors. There is nothing permanent -in her; and she will not increase nor -multiply after the manner of her kind. She -is the lightest, most transient phase of her sex -we have yet seen. But she is astonishingly natural.</p> - -<p>Few tales end with the death of the principal -characters. They usually end just as the heroes -and heroines begin to live happy ever after. And -you are obliged to take the author’s word for that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -because the statement is contrary to all human -experience.</p> - -<p>Still you must expect the approaching end of -this chronicle, because the House of Helen has -been established. There remains one last scene.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXI</h2></div> - - -<p>Beginning with the year 1921 many men, who -had too swiftly acquired fortunes in the handling -of government contracts, began to pass under the -rod of investigations concerning such wartime -profits. George Cutter was one of these. Somebody, -with a talent for figuring up the cost and -sales price of lumber left over from a half-finished -training camp for soldiers, discovered -that the said George William Cutter had failed -to turn in one million eight hundred and some odd -thousands of dollars due the government. This -statement appeared in a New York paper. Nothing -followed. And nothing was heard of Mr. -Cutter for another year.</p> - -<p>Then one afternoon in May, of 1922, a corpulent, -extremely bald-headed man, with a seamy -face and pouched eyes, stood up in the day coach -of a train which was pulling into Shannon. He -reached for his hat in the rack overhead, put it -on jauntily, pulled down his vest, which had -wrinkled up so often when he sat down and had -been pressed so rarely that it remained faintly -fluted diagonally across his broad expanse. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> -squared his shoulders, you may say with a former -air, and stepped briskly down the aisle and waited -meekly on the platform between the coaches while -several people descended at the station. Then -he came down, and moved off hurriedly.</p> - -<p>No one recognized him. Misfortune does something -to you. It changes your manner, and takes -the swagger out of your step, especially if you are -the author of your misfortune.</p> - -<p>This man walked heavily out Wiggs Street, -looking about him furtively until he came to the -Cutter residence. Then he lifted his eyes and -beheld it in utter amazement—a fine, wide-winged, -colonial mansion where a cottage had -stood when he left Shannon five years before.</p> - -<p>“I have missed her. She is gone,” he mumbled.</p> - -<p>At this moment he caught sight of a small girl, -who had already got sight of him and was regarding -him curiously from the shade of a lilac -bush.</p> - -<p>There was a time when he would have strode -finely up to the door, rung the bell and inquired -for Mrs. Cutter; but now he was not equal to that -display. He had lost his presence. He would -get the information he needed from this child -after the manner of the class to which he now -belonged, the surreptitious class.</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>“How do you do, my dear,” he said from the -pavement to the small lady under the lilac -bush.</p> - -<p>She stuck a finger in her mouth and continued -to regard him.</p> - -<p>“Who lives here?”</p> - -<p>“My muvver,” she answered, not pridefully, -but with assurance.</p> - -<p>“And what is your name?”</p> - -<p>“Helen.”</p> - -<p>He sat down on the terraced wall and stared -so long at the ground that she feared he had forgotten -her, and she was not of the age or sex to -endure the idea of being forgotten.</p> - -<p>“My muvver’s name is Helen, too,” she informed -him. “And my brover’s name is Sammy. -What’s yours?”</p> - -<p>“Mine’s George. Ever heard it?” he asked.</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>“What is your father’s name?”</p> - -<p>“We don’t keep him wiv us,” she explained.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you don’t? Where is he?”</p> - -<p>She did not know where this parent was, but -she could show him Sammy. And off she ran, -dark curls flying.</p> - -<p>The man watched her. Then he fell again to -staring at the ground. Fervent ejaculations occurred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> -to him, but he uttered not a word. The -histrionic had died in him.</p> - -<p>He saw a car coming rapidly along the street. -When it passed, he would get up and move on. -This house, these children made him a stranger -and an outcast here as he was everywhere. Why -had he returned? Why had he not accepted the -sentence of shame and defeat, slid on down where -men rest from honor and hope, that last refuge of -complete degradation?</p> - -<p>But the car turned into the driveway, covering -him with dust as it whirled past, and through -the dust he beheld the face of his wife. He came -to his feet and followed with a hurried, shuffling -step. He was still some distance away when -the driver halted before the house, then drove on -out of sight.</p> - -<p>At this moment Helen, who had been about -to mount the steps, caught sight of him.</p> - -<p>He came on, wondering if she recognized him. -It was incredible that she should know him. -When you have been defeated, degraded, caught -the shadows of prison bars that never lift from -before your vision, you do not expect recognition; -you only fear it. He feared now, with a sort -of truculent impotence, what might be going to -happen. Still he came on with that courage of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> -mean despair which men still show when they -have fallen to the last degree of shameless shame.</p> - -<p>Their eyes met—hers calm and steady as the -horizon of a perfect day, his wavering between -doubt and determination.</p> - -<p>“Helen!”</p> - -<p>Her lips moved as if speechless words died -there.</p> - -<p>Thus they stood, he at bay, she with the light -falling upon her, grave and sweet, not condemning -him, seeing in him the answer that love and -fate make to such women.</p> - -<p>“Helen,” he cried again, “are you my wife?”</p> - -<p>She lifted her hand in that old gesture to her -breast, the same pale look of ineffable goodness -which he remembered. Then, still looking back, -she turned, mounted the steps and entered the -door of her house and stood before him as if she -waited. She showed against the shadows like -the figure of a shrine upon a dark hillside above -a dusty road over which pilgrims come and go. -They are never moved, these shrines, from age to -age. They are altars that do not fall. So are -some women. They are the sanctuaries of mankind. -It is the fashion to despise them, but they -hold the world together.</p> - -<p>Cutter came slowly up the step, with a flash<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -of life and hope in his face—an ignoble and -worthless man made safe in the shelter of a -woman’s heart, whose wish was that none should -perish who looked to her for comfort. It was -not love, but honor that opened the door of her -house to him.</p> - - -<p class="center">THE END</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="transnote"> - -<p class="ph3">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:</p> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> -</div> - - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The House of Helen, by Corra Harris - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE OF HELEN *** - -***** This file should be named 60169-h.htm or 60169-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/1/6/60169/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. 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