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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7171-0.txt b/7171-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..74239be --- /dev/null +++ b/7171-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6343 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Linda Condon, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Linda Condon + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7171] +This file was first posted on March 20, 2003 +Last Updated: March 12, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + + + + +Produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +LINDA CONDON + +By Joseph Hergesheimer + + + +_To_ CARL VAN VECHTEN + +_This, Linda Condon's Gravest Bow._ + + + +The Works Of Joseph Hergesheimer + +The Lay Anthony + +Mountain Blood + +The Three Black Pennys + +Gold And Iron + +Java Head + +The Happy End + +Linda Condon + + + + +LINDA CONDON + + + + +I + + +A black bang was, but not ultimately, the most notable feature of her +uncommon personality--straight and severe and dense across her clear +pale brow and eyes. Her eyes were the last thing to remember and wonder +about; in shade blue, they had a velvet richness, a poignant intensity +of lovely color, that surprised the heart. Aside from that she was slim, +perhaps ten years old, and graver than gay. + +Her mother was gay for them both, and, therefore, for the entire family. +No father was in evidence; he was dead and never spoken of, and Linda +was the only child. Linda's dresses, those significant trivialities, +plainly showed two tendencies--the gaiety of her mother and her own +always formal gravity. If Linda appeared at dinner, in the massive +Renaissance materialism of the hotel dining-room, with a preposterous +magenta hair-ribbon on her shapely head, her mother had succeeded in +expressing her sense of the appropriately decorative; while if Linda +wore an unornamented but equally “unsuitable” frock of dark velvet, she, +in her turn, had been vindicated. + +Again, but far more rarely, the child's selection was evident on the +woman. As a rule Mrs. Condon garbed her flamboyant body in large and +expensive patterns or extremely tailored suits; and of the two, the +evening satins and powdered arms barely retaining an admissible line, +and the suits, the latter were the most, well--spectacular. + +She was not dark in color but brightly golden; a gold, it must be said +in all honesty, her own, a metallic gold crisply and solidly marcelled; +with hazel-brown eyes, and a mouth which, set against her daughter's +deep-blue gaze, was her particular attraction. It was rouged to a +nicety, the under lip a little full and never quite against the upper. +If Linda's effect was cool and remote, Mrs. Condon, thanks to her +mouth, was reassuringly imminent. She was, too, friendly; she talked to +women--in her not overfrequent opportunities--in a rapid warm inaccurate +confession of almost everything they desired to hear. The women, of +course, were continually hampered by the unfortunate fact that +the questions nearest their hearts, or curiosity, were entirely +inadmissible. + +Viewed objectively, they all, with the exception of Linda, seemed alike; +but that might have been due to their common impressive setting. The +Boscombe, in its way, was as lavish as Mrs. Condon's dresses. The main +place of congregation, for instance, was a great space of white marble +columns, Turkey-red carpet and growing palms. It was lighted at night +indirectly by alabaster bowls hanging on gilded chains--a soft bright +flood of radiance falling on the seated or slowly promenading women with +bare shoulders. + +Usually they were going with a restrained sharp eagerness toward the +dining-room or leaving it in a more languid flushed repletion. There +were, among them, men; but somehow the men never seemed to be of the +least account. It was a women's paradise. The glow from above always +emphasized the gowns, the gowns like orchids and tea-roses and the +leaves of magnolias. It sparkled in the red and green and crystal +jewels like exotic dew scattered over the exotic human flowers. Very +occasionally there was a complacent or irritable masculine utterance, +and then it was immediately lost in the dominant feminine sibilance. + +Other children than Linda sped in the manner of brilliant fretful tops +literally on the elaborate outskirts of the throng; but they were as +different from her as she was from the elders. Indeed Linda resembled +the latter, rather than her proper age, remarkably. She had an air of +responsibility, sometimes expressed in a troubled frown, and again by +the way she hurried sedately through drifting figures toward a definite +purpose and end. + +Usually it was in the service of one of her mother's small innumerable +requests or necessities; if the latter were sitting with a gentleman on +the open hotel promenade that overlooked the sea and needed a heavier +wrap, Linda returned immediately with a furred cloak on her arm; if the +elder, going out after dinner, had brought down the wrong gloves, Linda +knew the exact wanted pair in the long perfumed box; while countless +trifles were needed from the convenient drug-store. + +The latter was a place of white mosaic floor and glittering glass, with +a marble counter heaped with vivid fruit and silver-covered bowls of +sirups and creams with chopped nuts. Linda often found time to stop here +for a delectable glass of assorted sweet compounds. She was on terms of +intimacy with the colored man in a crisp linen coat who presided over +the refreshments, and he invariably gave her an extra spoonful of the +marron paste she preferred. When at lunch, it might be, she cared for +very little, her mother would complain absently: + +“You must stop eating those sickening mixtures. They'd ruin any skin.” + At this she invariably found the diminutive mirror in the bag on her +lap and glanced at her own slightly improved color. The burden of the +feminine conversations in which Mrs. Condon was privileged to join, +Linda discovered, was directed toward these overwhelming considerations +of appearance. And their importance, communicated to her, resulted in +a struggle between the desire to preserve her skin from ruin and the +seductions of marron paste and maple chocolates. + +Now, with an uncomfortable sense of impending disaster, she would +hastily consume one or the other; again, supported by a beginning +self-imposed inflexibility, she would turn steadily away from +temptation. In the end the latter triumphed; and her normal appetite, +always moderate, was unimpaired. + +This spirit of resolution, it sometimes happened, was a cause of +humorous dismay to her mother. “I declare, Linda,” she would observe +with an air of helplessness, “you make me feel like the giddy one and +as if you were mama. It's the way you look, so disapproving. I have to +remind myself you're only--just how old are you? I keep forgetting.” + Linda would inform her exactly and the other sigh: + +“The years slip around disgustingly. It seems only yesterday I was at +my first party.” Usually, in spite of Linda's eagerness to hear of that +time when her mother was a girl, the elder would stop abruptly. On rare +occasions solitary facts emerged from the recalled existence of a +small town in the country. There were such details as buggy-riding +and prayer-meetings and excursions to a Boiling Springs where the +dancing-floor, open among the trees, was splendid. At these memories +Mrs. Condon had been known to cry. + +But she would recover shortly. Her emotions were like that--easily +roused, highly colored and soon forgotten. She forgot, Linda realized +leniently, a great deal. It wasn't safe to rely on her promises. +However, if she neglected a particular desire of Linda's, she +continually brought back unexpected gifts of candy, boxes of silk +stockings, or lovely half-wilted flowers. + +The flowers, they discovered, although they stayed fresh for a long +while pinned to Linda's slim waist, died almost at once if worn by her +mother. “It's my warm nature, I am certain,” the latter proclaimed to +her daughter; “while you are a little refrigerator. I must say it's +wonderful how you keep your clothes the same. Neat as a pin.” Somehow, +with this commendation, she managed to include a slight uncomplimentary +impatience. Linda didn't specially want to resemble a pin, a +disagreeable object with a sharp point. She considered this in the long +periods when, partly by preference, she was alone. + +Seated, perhaps, in the elaborate marble and deep red of the Boscombe's +reception-rooms, isolated in the brilliant expensive throng, she would +speculate over what passed in the light of her own special problems. But +nothing, really, came out to her satisfaction. There was, notably, no +one she might ask. Her mother, approached seriously, declared that Linda +gave her the creeps; while others made it plain that it was their duty +to repress the forwardness inevitable from the scandalous neglect of her +upbringing. + +They, the women of the Boscombe, glancing at their finger-nails stained +and buffed to a shining pale vermilion, lightly rubbing their rings on +the dry palm of a hand, wondered pessimistically within Linda's hearing +what could come out of such an association. That term, she vaguely +gathered, referred to her mother. The latter evidently interested them +tremendously; because, she explained, they had no affairs of their +own to attend to. This was perfectly clear to Linda until Mrs. Condon +further characterized them as “busy.” + +The women, stopped by conventions from really satisfactory investigation +at the source, drew her on occasion into a laboriously light +inquisition. How long would Linda and her mama stay at the Boscombe? Had +they closed their apartment? Where was it? Hadn't Mrs. Condon mentioned +Cleveland? Wasn't Linda lonely with her mama out so much--they even said +late--in rolling chairs? Had she ever seen Mr. Jasper before his arrival +last week? + +No, of course she hadn't. + +Here they exchanged skeptical glances beneath relentlessly pulled +eyebrows. He was really very nice, Mr. Jasper. Linda in a matter-of-fact +voice replied that he had given her a twenty-dollar gold piece. Mr. +Jasper was very generous. But perhaps he had rewarded her for being a +good little girl and not--not bothering or hanging about. “Why should +he?” was Linda's just perceptibly impatient response. Then they told her +to be quiet because they wanted to listen to the music. + +This consisted in studying, through suspended glasses in chased +platinum, a discreet programme. At the end of a selection they either +applauded condescendingly or told each other that they hadn't cared for +that last--really too peculiar. Whichever happened, the leader of the +small orchestra, an extravagant Italian with a supple waist, turned and +bowed repeatedly with a grimacing smile. The music, usually Viennese, +was muted and emotional; its strains blended perfectly with the floating +scents of the women and the faintly perceptible pungent odors of dinner. +Every little while a specially insinuating melody became, apparently, +tangled in the women's breathing, and their breasts, cunningly traced +and caressed in tulle, would be disturbed. + +Mrs. Condon applauded more vigorously than was sanctioned by the others' +necessity for elegance; the frank clapping of her pink palms never +failed to betray a battery of affected and significant surprise in eyes +like--polished cold agates. Linda, seated beside her parent, could be +seen to lay a hand, narrow and blanched and marked by an emerald, on +the elder's knee. Her pale fine lips moved rapidly with the shadow of +trouble beneath the intense black bang. + +“I wish you wouldn't do it so loudly, mother,” was what she whispered. + + + + +II + + +The jealously guarded truth was that, by her daughter at least, Mrs. +Condon was adored. Linda observed that she was not like an ordinary +mother, but more nearly resembled a youthful companion. Mrs. Condon's +gaiety was as genuine as her fair hair. Not kept for formal occasion, it +got out of bed with her, remained through the considerable difficulties +of dressing with no maid but Linda, and if the other were not asleep +called a cheerful or funny good night. + +Their rooms were separated by a bath, but Linda was scarcely ever in her +own--her mother's lovely things, acting like a magnet, constantly drew +her to their arrangement in the drawers. When the laundry came up, crisp +and fragile webs heaped on the bed, Linda laid it away in a sort of +ritual. Even with these publicly invisible garments a difference +of choice existed between the two: Mrs. Condon's preference was for +insertions, and Linda's for shadow embroidery and fine shell edges. Mrs. +Condon, shaking into position a foam of ribbon and lace, would say with +her gurgle of amusement, “I want to be ready when I fall down; if I +followed your advice they'd take me for a nun.” + +This brought out Linda's low clear laugh, the expression of her extreme +happiness. It sounded, for an instant, like a chime of small silver +bells; then died away, leaving the faintest perceptible flush on her +healthy pallor. At other times her mother's humor made her vaguely +uncomfortable, usually after wine or other drinks that left the elder's +breath thick and oppressive. Linda failed completely to grasp the +allusions of this wit but a sharp uneasiness always responded like the +lingering stale memory of a bad dream. + +Once, at the Boscombe, her mother had been too silly for words: she had +giggled and embraced her sweet little girl, torn an expensive veil to +shreds and dropped a French model hat into the tub. After a distressing +sickness she had gone to sleep fully dressed, and Linda, unable to move +or wake her, had sat long beyond dinner into the night, fearful of the +entrance of the chambermaid. + +The next day Mrs. Condon had been humble with remorse. Men, she said, +were too beastly for description. This was not an unusual opinion. Linda +observed that she was always condemning men in general and dressing for +them in particular. She offered Linda endless advice in an abstracted +manner: + +“They're all liars, Lin, and stingy about everything but their pleasure. +Women are different but men are all alike. You get sick to death of +them! Never bother them when they are smoking a cigar; cigarettes +don't matter. Leave the cigarette-smokers alone, anyhow; they're not +as dependable as the others. A man with a good cigar--you must know +the good from the bad--is usually discreet. I ought to bring you up +different, but, Lord, life's too short. Besides, you will learn more +useful things right with mama, whose eyes are open, than anywhere else. + +“Powder my back, darling; I can't reach. If I'm a little late to-night +go to sleep like a duck. You think Mr. Jasper's nice, don't you? So does +mother. But you mustn't let him give you any more money. It'll make him +conceited.” + +Linda wondered what she meant by the last phrase. How could it make Mr. +Jasper conceited to give her a gold piece? However, she decided that she +had better not ask. + +It was like that with a great many of her mother's mysterious +remarks--Linda had an instinctive feeling of drawing away. The other +kissed her warmly and left a print of vivid red on her cheek. + +She examined the mark in the mirror when her mother had gone; it was, +she decided, the kiss made visible. Then she laid away the things +scattered about the room by Mrs. Condon's hasty dressing. Her own +belongings were always in precise order. + +A sudden hesitation seized her at the thought of going down to the crowd +at the music. The women made her uncomfortable. It wasn't what they +said, but the way they said it; and the endless questions wearied her. +She was, as well, continually bothered by her inability to impress upon +them how splendid her mother was. Some of them she was certain did not +appreciate her. Mrs. Condon at once admitted and was entertained by +this, but it disturbed Linda. However, she understood the reason--when +any nice men came along they always liked her mother best. This made the +women mad. + +The world, she gathered, was a place where women played a game of men +with each other. It was very difficult, she couldn't comprehend the +rules or reason; and Linda was afraid that she would be unsuccessful +and never have the perfect time her mother wanted for her. In the first +place, she was too thin, and then she knew that she could never talk +like her dearest. Perhaps when she had had some wine it would be +different. + +She decided, after all, to go down to the assemblage; and, by one of +the white marble pillars, Mrs. Randall captured her. “Why, here's +Linda-all-alone,” Mrs. Randall said. “Mama out again?” Linda replied +stoutly, “She has a dreadful lot of invitations.” + +Mrs. Randall, who wore much brighter clothes than her mother, was called +by the latter an old buzzard. She was very old, Linda could see, with +perfectly useless staring patches of paint on her wrinkled cheeks, and +eyes that look as though they might come right out of her head. Her +frizzled hair supported a dead false twist with a glittering diamond +pin, and her soft cold hands were loaded with jewels. She frightened +Linda, really, although she could not say why. Mrs. Randall was a great +deal like the witch in a fairy-story, but that wasn't it. Linda hadn't +the belief in witches necessary for dread. It might be her scratching +voice; or the way she turned her head, without any chin at all, like a +turtle; or her dresses, which led you to expect a person very different +from an old buzzard. + +“Of course she does,” said Mrs. Randall, “any number of invitations, and +why shouldn't she? Your mother is very pleasant, to be sure.” She nodded +wisely to the woman beside her, Miss Skillern. + +Miss Skillern was short and broad and, in the evening, always wore +curled ostrich plumes on tightly filled gray puffs. She reminded Linda +of a wadded chair. Mrs. Randall, after the other's slight stiff assent, +continued: + +“Your mama would never be lonely, not she. All I wonder is she doesn't +get married again--with that blondine of hers. Wouldn't you rather have +one papa than, in a way of speaking, a different one at every hotel?” + +Linda, completely at a loss for answer, studied Mrs. Randall with her +direct deep blue gaze. Miss Skillern again inclined her plumes. With the +rest of her immobile she was surprisingly like one of those fat china +figures with a nodding head. Linda was assaulted by the familiar +bewildered feeling of not understanding what was said and, at the same +time, passionately resenting it from an inner sensitive recognition of +something wrong. + +“How could I have that?” she finally asked. + +“How?” repeated Miss Skillern, breathing loudly. + +“Yes, how?” Mrs. Randall echoed. “You can ask your mama. You really can. +And you may say that, as a matter of fact, the question came from us,” + she included her companion. + +“From you,” Miss Skillern exactly corrected her. + +“Indeed,” the other cried heatedly, “from me! I think not. Didn't you +ask? Answer me that, if you please. I heard you with my own ears say, +'How?' While now, before my face, you try to deny it.” It was plain to +Linda that Miss Skillern was totally unmoved by the charge. She moved +her lorgnette up, gazing stolidly at the musical programme. “From you,” + she said again, after a little. Mrs. Randall suddenly regained her +equilibrium. + +“If the ladies of this hotel are afraid to face that creature I--I--am +not. I'll tell her in a minute what a respectable person thinks of +her goings-on. More than that, I shall complain to Mr. Rennert. 'Mr. +Rennert,' I'll say, 'either she leaves or me. Choose as you will. The +reputation of your hotel--'” she spluttered and paused. + +“Proof,” Miss Skillern pronounced judicially; “proof. We know, but +that's not proof.” + +“He has a wife,” Mrs. Randall replied in a shrill whisper; “a wife +who is an invalid. Mrs. Zoock, she who had St. Vitus' dance and left +yesterday, heard it direct. George A. Jasper, woolen mills in Frankford, +Pennsylvania. Mr. Rennert would thank me for that information.” + +They had forgotten Linda. She stood rigid and cold--they were blaming +her mother for going out in a rolling chair with Mr. Jasper because he +was married. But her mother didn't know that; probably Mr. Jasper had +not given it a thought. She was at the point of making this clear, when +it seemed to her that it might be better to say that her mother knew +everything there was about Mr. Jasper's wife; she could even add that +they were all friends. + +Linda would have to tell her mother the second she came in, and then, +of course, she'd stop going with Mr. Jasper. Men, she thought in the +elder's phrase, were too beastly for words. + +“After all,” Mrs. Randall was addressing her again, “you needn't say +anything at all to your mama. It might make her so cross that she'd +spank you.” + +“Mother never spanks me,” Linda replied with dignity. + +“If you were my little girl,” said Miss Skillern, with rolling lips, +“I'd put you over my knee with your skirts up and paddle you.” + +Never, Linda thought, had she heard anything worse; she was profoundly +shocked. The vision of Miss Skillern performing such an operation as +she had described cut its horror on her mind. There was a sinking at her +heart and a misty threat of tears. + +To avert this she walked slowly away. It was hardly past nine o'clock; +her mother wouldn't be back for a long while, and she was too restless +and unhappy to sit quietly above. Instead, she continued down to the +floor where there were various games in the corridor leading to the +billiard-room. The hall was dull, no one was clicking the balls about +the green tables, and a solitary sick-looking man, with inky shadows +under fixed eyes, was smoking a cigarette in a chair across from the +cigar-stand. + +He looked over a thick magazine in a chocolate cover, his gaze arrested +by her irresolute passage. “Hello, Bellina,” he said. + +She stopped. “Linda,” she corrected him, “Linda Condon.” Obeying a +sudden impulse, she dropped, with a sigh, into a place beside him. + +“You're bored,” he went on, the magazine put away. “So am I, but my term +is short.” + +She wondered, principally, what he was doing, among so many women, at +the Boscombe. He was different from Mr. Jasper, or the other men with +fat stomachs, the old men with dragging feet. It embarrassed her to meet +his gaze, it was so--so investigating. She guessed he was by the sea +because he felt as badly as he looked. He asked surprisingly: + +“Why are you here?” + +“On the account of my mother,” she explained. “But it doesn't matter +much where I am. Places are all alike,” she continued conversationally. +“We're mostly at hotels--Florida in winter and Lake George in summer. +This is kind of between.” + +“Oh!” he said; and she was sure, from that short single exclamation, he +understood everything. + +“Like all true beauty,” he added, “it's plain that you are durable.” + +“I don't like the seashore,” she went on easily; “I'd rather be in a +garden with piles of flowers and a big hedge.” + +“Have you ever lived in a garden-close?” + +“No,” she admitted; “it's just an idea. I told mother but she laughed at +me and said a roof-garden was her choice.” + +“Some day you'll have the place you describe,” he assured her. “It is +written all over you. I would like to see you, Bellina, in a space +of emerald sod and geraniums.” She decided to accept without further +protest his name for her. “You are right, too, about the hedge--the +highest and thickest in creation. I should recommend a pseudo-classic +house, Georgian, rather small, a white façade against the grass. A +Jacobean dining-room, dark certainly, the French windows open on dipping +candle flames. You'd wear white, with your hair low and the midnight +bang as it is now.” + +“That would be awfully nice,” Linda replied vaguely. She sighed. + +“But a very light drawing-room!” he cried. “White panels and arches and +Canton-blue rugs--the brothers Adam. A fluted mantel, McIntires, and a +brass hod. Curiously enough, I always see you in the evening ... at the +piano. I'm not so bored, now.” Little flames of red burned in either +thin cheek. “What nonsense!” Suddenly he was tired. “This is a practical +and earnest world,” his voice grew thin and hurt her. “Yet beauty is +relentless. You'll have your garden, but I shouldn't be surprised at +difficulties first.” + +“It won't be so hard to get,” she declared confidently. “I mean to +choose the right man. Mother says that's the answer. Women, she says, +won't use their senses.” + +“Ah.” + +Linda began to think this was a most unpleasant monosyllable. + +“So that's the lay! Has she succeeded?” + +“She has a splendid time. She's out tonight with Mr. Jasper in a rolling +chair, and he has loads and loads of money. It makes all the other women +cross.” + +“Here you are, then, till she gets back?” + +“There's no one else.” + +“But, as a parent, infinitely preferable to the righteous,” he murmured. +“And you--” + +“I think mother's perfect,” she answered simply. + +He shook his head. “You won't succeed at it, though. Your mother, for +example, isn't dark.” + +“The loveliest gold hair,” she said ecstatically. “She's much much +prettier than I'll ever be.” + +“Prettier, yes. The trouble is, you are lovely, magical. You will stay +for a lifetime in the memory. The merest touch of you will be more +potent than any duty or fidelity. A man's only salvation will be his +blindness.” + +Although she didn't understand a word of this, Linda liked to hear +him; he was talking as though she were grown up, and in response to the +flattery she was magnetic and eager. + +“One time,” he said, “very long ago, beauty was worshiped. Men, you +see, know better now. They want their dollar's worth. The world was +absolutely different then--there were deep adventurous forests with holy +chapels in the green combe for an orison, and hermits rising to Paradise +on the _Te Deum Laudamus_ of the angels and archangels. There were black +castles and, in the broad meadows, silk tents with ivory pegs and poles +of gold. + +“The enchantments were as thick as shadows under the trees: perhaps the +loveliest of women riding a snow-white mule, with a saddle cloth of red +samite, or, wrapped in her shining hair, on a leopard with yellow eyes, +lured you to a pavilion, scattered with rushes and flowers and magical +herbs, and a shameful end. Or a silver doe would weep, begging you to +pierce her with your sword, and, when you did, there knelt the daughter +of the King of Wales. + +“But I started to tell you about the worship of beauty. Plato started it +although Cardinal Pietro Bembo was responsible for the creed. He lived +in Italy, in an age like a lily. It developed mostly at Florence in +the Platonic Academy of Cosomo and Pico della Mirandola. Love was the +supreme force, and its greatest expression a desire beyond the body.” + +He gazed at Linda with a quizzical light in his eyes deep in shadow. + +“Love,” he said again, and then paused. “One set of words will do +as well as another. You will understand, or not, with something far +different from intellectual comprehension. The endless service of +beauty. Of course, a woman--but never the animal; the spirit always. +Born in the spirit, served in the spirit, ending in the spirit. A direct +contradiction, you see, to nature and common sense, frugality and the +sacred symbol of the dollar. + +“It wouldn't please your Mr. Jasper, with his heaps and heaps of money. +Mr. Jasper would consider himself sold. But Novalis, not so very long +ago, understood.... A dead girl more real than all earth. You mustn't +suppose it to be mere mysticism.” + +Linda said, “Very well, I won't.” + +He nodded. “No one could call Michelangelo hysterical. Sometime in the +history of man, of a salt solution, this divinity has touched them. +Touched them hopefully, and perhaps gone--banished by the other +destination. Or I can comprehend nature killing it relentlessly, since +it didn't lead to propagation. Then, too, as much as was useful was +turned into a dogma for politics and priests. + +“You saw in the rushlight a woman against the arras; there was a +humming of viola d'amore from the musicians' balcony; she smiled at you, +lingering, and then vanished with a whisper of brocade de Lyons on a +sanded floor. Nothing else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, +in your habergeon, an eternally fragrant memory; the dim vision in stone +street and coppice; a word, a message, it might be, sent across the +world of steel at death. And then, in the last flicker of vision, the +arras and the clear insistent strings, the whispering brocade de Lyons +on the landing. + +“The philosophy of it,” he said in a different tone, “is exact, even +a scientific truth. But men have been more concerned with turning lead +into gold; naturally the spirit has been neglected. The science of love +has been incredibly soiled: + +“The old gesture toward the stars, the bridge of perfection, the escape +from the fatality of flesh. Yet it was a service of the body made +incredibly lovely in actuality and still never to be grasped. Never to +be won. It ought to be clear to you that realized it would diminish into +quite a different thing-- + +“'_La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa idea._'” + +His voice grew so faint that Linda could scarcely distinguish articulate +sounds. All that he said, without meaning for her, stirred her heart. +She was used to elder enigmas of speech; her normal response was +instinctively emotional, and nothing detracted from the gravity of her +attention. + +“Not in pious men,” he continued, more uncertain; “nor in seminaries of +virtue. They have their reward. But in men whose bitterness of longing +grew out of hideous fault. The distinction of beauty--not a payment for +prayers or chastity. The distinction of love ... above chests of linen +and a banker's talent and patents of nobility.... Divine need. Idiotic. +But what else, what better, offers?” + +He was, she saw, terribly sick. His hands were clenched and his entire +being strained and rigid, as though he were trying to do something +tremendously difficult. At last, with infinite pain, he succeeded. + +“I must get away,” he articulated. + +Linda was surprised at the effort necessary for this slight +accomplishment when he had said the most bewildering things with +complete ease. Well, the elevators were right in front of him. He rose +slowly, and, with Linda standing at his side, dug a sharp hand into her +shoulder. It hurt, but instinctively she bore it and, moving forward, +partly supported him. She pressed the bell that signaled for the +elevator and it almost immediately sank into view. “Hurry,” he said +harshly to the colored operator in a green uniform; and quite suddenly, +leaving a sense of profound mystery, he disappeared. + + + + +III + + +Linda decided that he had told her a rather stupid fairy story. She was +too old for such ridiculous things as ladies in their shining hair on a +leopard. She remembered clearly seeing one of the latter at a zoological +garden. It had yellow eyes, but no one would care to ride on it. Her +mother, she was certain, knew more about love than any man. His words +faded quickly from her memory, but a confused rich sense stirred her +heart, a feeling such as she experienced after an unusually happy day: +white gloves and music and Mr. Jasper displeased. + +A clock chimed ten, and she proceeded to her mother's room, where she +must wait up with her information about Mr. Jasper's wife. She was +furious at him for a carelessness that had brought her mother such +unfavorable criticism. Everything had been put away before going down, +and there was nothing for her to do. The time dragged tediously. The +hands of the traveling-clock in purple leather on the dressing-table +moved deliberately around to eleven. A ringing of ice in one of the +metal pitchers carried by the bell boys sounded from the corridor. There +was the faint wail of a baby. + +Suddenly and acutely Linda was lonely--a new kind of loneliness that had +nothing to do with the fact that she was by herself. It was a strange +cold unhappiness, pressing over her like a cloud and, at the same time, +it was nothing at all. That is, there was no reason for it. The room was +brightly lighted and, anyhow, she wasn't afraid of “things.” She thought +that at any minute she must cry like that baby. After a little she felt +better; rather the unhappiness changed to wanting. What she wanted was +a puzzle; but nothing else would satisfy her. It might be a necklace of +little pearls, but it wasn't. It might be--. Now it was twelve o'clock. +Dear, dear, why didn't she come back! + +Music, awfully faint, and a whisper, like a dress, across the floor. +Her emotion changed again, to an extraordinary delight, a glow like that +which filled her at the expression of her adoration for her mother, but +infinitely greater. She was seated, and she lifted her head with her +eyes closed and hands clasped. The clock pointed to one and her parent +came into the room. + +“Linda,” she exclaimed crossly, “whatever are you doing up? A bad little +girl. I told you to be asleep hours before this.” + +“There is something you had to know right away,” Linda informed her +solemnly. “I only just heard it from Mrs. Randall and Miss Skillern.” + Her mother's flushed face hardened. “Mr. Jasper is married,” Linda said. + +Mrs. Condon dropped with an angry flounce into a chair. Her broad scarf +of sealskin slipped from one shoulder. Her hat was crooked and her hair +disarranged. “So that's it,” she said bitterly; “and they went to you. +The dam' old foxes. They went to you, nothing more than a child.” + +Linda put in, “They didn't mean to; it just sort of came out. I knew +you'd stop as soon as you heard. Wasn't it horrid of him?” + +“And this,” Mrs. Condon declared, “is what I get for being, yes--proper. + +“I said to-night, 'George,' I said, 'go right back home. It's the only +thing. They have a right to you.' I told him that only to-night. And, +'No, I must consider my little Linda.' If I had held up my finger,” + she held up a finger to show the smallness of the act necessary, “where +would we have all been? + +“But this is what I get. You might think the world would notice a +woman's best efforts. No, they all try to crowd her and see her slip. If +they don't watch out I'll skid, all right, and with some one they least +expect. I have opportunities.” + +Linda realized with a sense of confusion that her mother had known of +Mr. Jasper's marriage all the while. But she had nobly tried to save him +from something; just what Linda couldn't make out. The other's breath +was heavy with drinking. + +“You go to bed, Lin,” she continued; “and thank you for taking care of +mama. I hope to goodness you'll learn from all this--pick out what +you want and make for it. Don't bother with the antique frumps, the +disappointed old tabbies. Have your fun. There's nothing else. If you +like a man, be on the level with him--give and take. Men are not saints +and we're better for it; we don't live in a heaven. You've got a sweet +little figure. Always remember mama telling you that the most expensive +corsets are the cheapest in the end.” + +Linda undressed slowly and methodically, her mother's words ringing +in her head. Always remember--but of course she would have the nicest +things possible.... A keepsake and faint music. She thought, privately, +that she was too thin; she'd rather be her mother, with shoulders like +bunches of smooth pink roses. In bed, just as she was falling asleep, a +sound disturbed her from the corridor above--the slow tramping of heavy +feet, like a number of men carefully bearing an awkward object. She +listened with suspended breath while they passed. The footfalls seemed +to pound on her heart. Slowly, slowly they went, unnatural and measured. +They were gone now, but she still heard them. The crashing of her mother +into bed followed with a deep sigh. The long fall of a wave on the shore +was audible. Two things contended in her stilled brain--the mysterious +feeling of desire and her mother's advice. They were separate and +fought, yet they were strangely incomprehensibly joined. + + + + +IV + + +In the morning Mrs. Condon, with a very late breakfast-tray in bed, had +regained her usual cheerful manner. “The truth is,” she told Linda, “I'm +glad that Jasper man has gone. He had no idea of discretion; tired of +them anyhow.” Linda radiated happiness. This was the mother she loved +above all others. Her mind turned a little to the man who had talked to +her the night before. She wondered if he were better. His thin blanched +face, his eyes gleaming uncomfortably in smudges, recurred to her. +Perhaps he'd be down by the cigar-stand again. She went, presently, to +see, but the row of chairs was empty. + +However, the neglected thick brown-covered magazine was still on the +ledge by which he had been sitting. There was a name on it, and while, +ordinarily, she couldn't read handwriting, this was so clear and +regular, but minutely small, that she was able to spell it out--Howard +Welles. + +It disappointed her not to find him; at lunch she observed nearly every +one present, but still he was lost. He wasn't listening to the music +after dinner, nor below. A deep sense of disappointment grew within her. +Linda wanted to see him, hear him talk; at times a sharp hurt in the +shoulder he had grasped brought him back vividly. The next day it was +the same, and finally, diffidently, she approached the hotel desk. A +clerk she knew, Mr. Fiske, was rapidly sorting mail, and she waited +politely until he had finished. + +“Well?” he asked. + +“I found this down-stairs,” she said, giving him the magazine. “Perhaps +he'll want it.” Mr. Fiske looked at the written name, and then glanced +sharply at her. “No,” he told her brusquely, “he won't want it.” He +turned away with the magazine and left Linda standing irresolutely. She +wanted to ask if Mr. Welles were still at the Boscombe; if the latter +didn't want the magazine she'd love to have it, Linda couldn't tell why. +But the clerk went into the treasurer's office and she was forced to +move away. + +Later, lingering inexplicably about the spot where she had heard so +many bewildering words, a very different man spoke to her. He, Linda +observed, was smoking a cigar, a good one, she was certain. He was +smallish and had a short bristling mustache and head partly bald. +His shoes were very shiny and altogether he had a look of prosperity. +“Hello, cutie!” he cried, capturing her arm. She responded listlessly. +The other produced a crisp dollar bill. “Do you see the chocolates in +that case?” he said, indicating the cigar-stand. “Well, get the best. If +they cost more, let me know. Our financial rating is number one.” Linda +answered that she didn't think she cared for any. “All right,” the man +agreed; “sink the note in the First National Ladies Bank, if you know +where that is.” + +He engineered her unwillingly onto a knee. “How's papa?” he demanded. “I +suppose he will be here Saturday to take his family through the stores?” + +She replied with dignity, “There is only my mother and me.” + +At this information he exclaimed “Ah!” and touched his mustache with a +diminutive gold-backed brush from a leather case. “That's more than I +have,” he confided to her; “there is only myself. Isn't that sad? You +must be sorry for the lonely old boy.” + +She wasn't. Probably he, too, had a wife somewhere; men were beastly. “I +guess your mother wants a little company at times herself?” + +Linda, straining away from him, replied, “Oh, dear, no; there are just +packs of gentlemen whenever she likes. But she is tired of them all.” + She escaped and he settled his waistcoat. + +“You mustn't run away,” he admonished her; “nice children don't. Your +mother didn't bring you up like that, I'm sure. She wouldn't like it.” + +Linda hesitated, plainly conveying the fact that, if she were to wait, +he would have to say something really important. + +“Just you two,” he deliberated; “Miss and Mrs. Jones.” + +“Not at all,” Linda asserted shortly; “our name is Condon.” + +“I wonder if you'd tell her this,” he went on: “a gentleman's here by +himself named Bardwell, who has seen her and admires her a whole lot. +Tell her he's no young sprig but he likes a good time all the better. +Dependable, too. Remember that, cutie. And he wouldn't presume if he had +a short pocket. He knows class when he sees it.” + +“It won't do any good,” Linda assured him in her gravest manner. “She +said only this morning she was sick of them.” + +“That was before dinner,” he replied cheerfully. “Things look different +later in the day. You do what I tell you.” + +All this Linda dutifully repeated. Her mother was at the dressing-table, +rubbing cream into her cheeks, and she paused, surveying her reflection +in the mirror. “He was smoking a big cigar,” Linda added. The other +laughed. “What a sharp little thing you are!” she exclaimed. “A body +ought to be careful what they tell you.” She wiped off the cream and +rubbed a soft pinkish powder into her skin. + +“He saw me, did he?” she apparently addressed the glass. “Admired me a +whole lot. Was he nice, Linda?” she turned. “Were his clothes right? You +must point him out to me to-night. But do it carefully, darling. No one +should notice. Your mother isn't on the shelf yet; she can hold her own, +even in the Boscombe, against the whole barnyard.” + +Linda, at the entrance to the dining-room, whispered, “There he is.” But +immediately Mr. Bardwell was smiling and speaking to them. + +“I had a delightful conversation with your little girl to-day,” he told +Mrs. Condon; “such a pretty child and well brought up.” + +“And good, too,” her mother replied; “not a minute's trouble. The common +sense of the grown; you'd never believe it.” + +“Why shouldn't I?” he protested gallantly. “Every reason to.” Mrs. +Condon blushed becomingly. + +“She had to make up for a lot,” she sighed. + +An hour or more after dinner Mrs. Randall stopped Linda in the hall +beyond the music. “Mama out?” she inquired brightly. “I thought Mr. +Jasper left this morning?” + +Linda told her that Mr. Jasper had gone; she added nothing else. + +“I must look at the register,” Mrs. Randall continued; “I really must.” + +Obeying an uncontrollable impulse Linda half cried, “I'd like to see you +riding on a leopard!” A flood of misery enveloped her, and she hurried +up to the silence of her mother's deserted room. + + + + +V + + +It was on her fourteenth birthday that Linda noticed a decided change +in her mother; a change, unfortunately, that most of all affected +the celebrated good humors. In the first place Mrs. Condon spent +an increasingly large part of the day before the mirror of her +dressing-table, but without any proportionate pleasure; or, if there +was a proportion kept, it exhibited the negative result of a growing +annoyance. “God knows why they all show at once,” she exclaimed +discontentedly, seated--as customary--before the eminently truthful +reflection of a newly discovered set of lines. “I'm not old enough to +begin to look like a hag.” + +“Oh, mother,” Linda protested, shocked, “you mustn't say such horrid +things about yourself. Why, you're perfectly lovely, and you don't seem +a speck older than you did years ago.” + +The other, biting her full underlip at the unwelcome fact in turn biting +a full lower lip back at her, made no reply. Linda lingered for a moment +at her mother's ruffled pink shoulders; then, with a sigh, she turned to +the reception-room of their small suite at the Hotel Gontram. It was a +somber chamber furnished in red plush, with a complication of shades and +gray-white net curtains at long windows and a deep green carpet. There +was a fireplace, with a grate, supported by varnished oak pillars and +elaborate mantel and glass, a glittering reddish center-table with a +great many small odd shelves below, a desk with sheaves of hotel writing +paper and the telephone. + +The Gontram was entirely different from the hotels at the lakes or +seashore or in the South. It was a solid part of a short block west of +Fifth Avenue in the middle of the city. Sherry's filled a corner with +its massive stone bulk and glimpses of dining-rooms with glittering +chandeliers and solemn gaiety, then impressive clubs and wide entrances +under heavy glass and metal, tall porters in splendid livery, succeeded +each other to the Hotel Gontram and the dull thunder of the elevated +trains beyond. + +The revolving door, through which Linda sedately permitted herself to +be moved, opened into a high space of numerous columns and benches, +writing-desks and palms. At the back was the white room where, usually +alone, she had breakfast, while the dining-room, discreetly lighted, +was at the left. It was more interesting here than, for example, at +the Boscombe; people were always coming in or going, and there were +quantities of men. She watched them arriving with shoals of leather bags +in the brisk care of the bellboys, disappear into the elevator, and, if +it was evening, come down in dinner coats with vivid silk scarfs folded +over their white shirts. + +The women were perpetually in street clothes or muffled in satin wraps; +Linda only regarded them when they were exceptional. Usually she was +intent on the men. It often happened that they returned her frank gaze +with a smile, or stopped to converse with her. Sometimes it was an actor +with a face dryly pink like a woman's from make-up; they were familiar +and pinched her cheeks, calling her endearing names in conscious echoing +voices as if they were quite hollow within. Then there were simply +business men, who never appeared to take off their derby hats, and spoke +to her of their little girls at home. She was entirely at ease with the +latter--so many of her mother's friends were similar--and critically +valued the details of their dress, the cigar-cases with or without gold +corners, the watch-chains with jeweled insignia, the cuff-links and +embroidered handkerchiefs. + +If her mother approached while Linda was so engaged the elder would +linger with a faint smile, at which, now, the girl was conscious of a +growing impatience. She'd rise with dignity and, if possible, escape +with her parent from florid courtesies. This sense of annoyance +oppressed her, too, in the dining-room, where her mother, a cocktail in +her hand, would engage in long cheerful discussions with the captains or +waiters. Other women, Linda observed, spoke with complete indifference +and their attention on the _carte de jour_. Of course it was much more +friendly to be interested in the servants' affairs--they told her mother +about their wives and the number of their children, the difficulties of +bringing both ends together, and served her with the promptest care; but +instinctively Linda avoided any but the most formal contact. + +She had to insist, as well, on paying the tips; for Mrs. Condon, her +sympathies engaged, was quite apt to leave on the table a five-dollar +bill or an indiscriminate heap of silver. “You are a regular little +Jew,” she would reply lightly to Linda's protests. This, the latter +thought, was unfair; for the only Jew she knew, Mr. Moses Feldt, an +acquaintance of their present period in New York, was quite the most +generous person she knew. “Certainly you don't take after your mama.” + +After she said this she always paused with tight lips. It was charged +with the assumption that, while Linda didn't resemble her, she did +very much a mysterious and unfavorably regarded personage. Her father, +probably. More and more Linda wondered about him. He was dead, she knew, +but that, she began to see, was no reason for the positive prohibition +to mention him at all. Perhaps he had done something dreadful, with +money, and had disgraced them all. Yet she was convinced that this was +not so. + +She had heard a great many uncomplimentary words applied to husbands, +most of which she had been unable to comprehend; and she speculated +blankly on them in her mother's connection. On the whole the women +agreed that they were remarkably stupid and transparent, they protested +that they understood and guided every move husbands made; and this +surely gave her father no opportunity for independent crime. She was +held from questioning not so much by her mother's command--at times she +calmly and successfully ignored that--as from its unfortunate effect on +the elder. + +Mrs. Condon would burn with a generalized anger that sank to a +despondency fortified by the brandy flask. Straining embraces and tears, +painful to support, would follow, or more unbearable silliness. The old +difficulties with giggling or sympathetic chambermaid;--Linda couldn't +decide which was worse--then confronted her with the necessity for rigid +lies, misery, and the procuring of sums of money from the bag in the +top drawer. Altogether, and specially with the fresh difficulties of +her mother's unaccountable irritation and apprehensions, things were +frightfully complicated. + +It was late afternoon in November, and the electric lights were on; +however, they were lighted when they rose, whenever they were in the +rooms, for it was always gloomy if not positively dark; the bedroom +looked into a deep exterior well and the windows of the other chamber +opened on an uncompromising blank wall. Yet Linda, now widely learned in +such settings, rather liked her present situation. They had occupied the +same suite before, for one thing; and going back into it had given her a +sense of familiarity in so much that always shifted. + +Linda, personally, had changed very little; she was taller than four +years before, but not a great deal; she was, perhaps, more graceful--her +movements had become less sudden--more assured, the rapidly maturing +qualities of her mind made visible; and she had gained a surprising +repose. + +Now, for example, she sat in a huge chair cushioned with black leather +and thought, with a frowning brow, of her mother. It was clear that the +latter was obviously worried about--to put it frankly--her face. Her +figure, she repeatedly asserted, could be reasoned with; she had always +been reconciled to a certain jolly stoutness, but her face, the +lines that appeared about her eyes overnight, fairly drove her to hot +indiscreet tears. She had been to see about it, Linda knew; and returned +from numerous beauty-parlors marvelously rejuvenated--for the evening. + +She had been painted, enameled, vibrated, massaged; she had had electric +treatment, rays and tissue builders; and once she had been baked. To-day +the toilet table would be loaded with milkweed, cerates and vanishing +cream; tomorrow they would all be swept away, given to delighted +chambermaids, while Mrs. Condon declared that, when all was said, cold +water and a rough towel was nature's way. + +This afternoon, apparently everything, including hope, had failed. She +was as cross as cross. From the manner in which she spoke it might have +been Linda's fault. The worst of it was that even the latter saw that +nothing could be done. Her mother was growing--well, a little tired in +appearance. Swift tears gathered in Linda's eyes. She hadn't been quite +truthful in that reassuring speech of hers. She set herself to the +examination of various older women with whom she had more or less lately +come in contact. How had they regarded and met the loss of whatever good +looks they had possessed? + +It was terribly mixed up, but, as she thought about it, it seemed to her +that the world of women was divided into two entirely different groups, +the ones men liked, and who had such splendid parties; and the ones +who sat together and gossiped in sharp lowered voices. She hoped +passionately that her mother would not become one of the latter for a +long long while. But eventually it seemed that there was no escape +from the circle of brilliantly dressed creatures with ruined faces who +congregated in the hotels and whispered and nodded in company until they +went severally to bed. + +The great difference between one and the other, of course, was the favor +of men. Their world revolved about that overwhelming fact. Her mother +had informed her of this on a hundred occasions and in countless ways; +but more by her actions, her present wretchedness, than by speech. It +was perfectly clear to Linda that nothing else mattered. She was even +beginning, in a vague way, to think of it in connection with herself; +but still most of her preoccupation was in her mother. She decided +gravely that a great deal, yet, could be done. For instance, lunch +to-day: + +Her mother had given her a birthday celebration at Henri's, the famous +confectioner but a door or two from their hotel, and at the end, when +a plate of the most amazing and delightful little cakes had been set on +the table, the elder had eaten more than half. Afterwards she had sworn +ruefully at her lack of character, begging Linda--in a momentary return +of former happy companionship--never to let her make such a silly pig +of herself again. Then she got so tired, Linda continued her mental +deliberations; if she could only rest, go away from cities and resorts +for a number of months, the lines in turn would soon vanish. + +The elder moved impatiently, with a fretful exclamation, in the inner +room; from outside came the subdued dull ceaseless clamor of New York. +Formerly it had frightened Linda; but her dread had become a wordless +excitement at the thought of so much just beyond the windows; her hands +grew cold and her heart suddenly pounded, destroying the vicarious image +of her mother. + + + + +VI + + +“I wish now I'd been different,” Mrs. Condon said, standing in the door. +Her dress was not yet on, but her underthings were fully as elaborate +and shimmering as any gown could hope to be. “And above everything else, +I am sorry for the kind of mother you've had.” This was so unexpected, +the other's voice was so unhappy, that Linda was startled. She hurried +across the room and laid a slim palm on her mother's full bare arm. +“Don't say that,” Linda begged, distressed; “you've been the best in the +world.” + +“You know nothing about it,” the elder returned, momentarily seated, her +hands clasped on her full silken lap. “But perhaps it's not too late. +You ought to go to a good school, where you'd learn everything, but +principally what a bad thoughtless mama you have.” + +“I shouldn't stay a second in a place where they said that,” Linda +declared. A new apprehension touched her. “You're not really thinking of +sending me away!” she cried. “Why, you simply could not get along. You +know you couldn't! The maids never do up your dresses right; and you'd +be so lonely in the mornings you would nearly die.” + +“That's true,” Mrs. Condon admitted wearily. “I would expire; but I was +thinking of you--you're only beginning life; and the start you'll get +with me is all wrong. Or, anyway, most people think so.” + +“They are only jealous.” + +“Will you go into the closet, darling, and pour out a teeny little sip +from my flask; mama feels a thousand years old this evening.” + +Returning with the silver cup of the flask half full of pale pungent +brandy Linda could scarcely keep the tears from spilling over her +cheeks. She had never before felt so sad. Her mother hastily drank, +the stinging odor was transferred to her lips; and there was a palpable +recovery of her customary spirit. + +“I don't know what gets over me,” she asserted. “I'm certain, from what +I've heard of them, that you wouldn't be a bit better off in one of +those fashionable schools for girls. Woman, young and older, were never +meant to be a lot together in one place. It's unnatural. They don't like +each other, ever, and it's all hypocritical and nasty. You will get more +from life, yes, and me. I'm honest, too honest for my own good, if the +truth was known.” + +She rose and unconsciously strayed to the mirror over the mantel where +she examined her countenance in absorbed detail. + +“My skin is getting soft like putty,” she remarked aloud to herself. +“The thing is, I've had my time and don't want to pay for it. Blondes +go quicker than dark women; you ought to last a long while, Linda.” Mrs. +Condon had turned, and her tone was again almost complaining, almost +ill-natured. Linda considered this information with a troubled face. It +was quite clear that it made her mother cross. “I've seen men stop and +look at you right now, too, and you nothing more than a slip fourteen +years old. Of course, when I was fifteen I had a proposal; but I was +very forward; and somehow you're different--so dam' serious.” + +She couldn't help it, Linda thought, if she was serious; she really had +a great deal to think about, their income among other things. If she +didn't watch it, pay the bills every three months when it arrived, her +mother would never have a dollar in the gold mesh bag. Then, lately, the +dresses the elder threatened to buy were often impossible; Linda learned +this from the comments she heard after the wearing of evening affairs +sent home against her earnest protests. They were, other women more +discreetly gowned had agreed, ridiculous. + +Linda calmly realized that in this her judgment was superior to her +mother's. In other ways, too, she felt she was really the elder; and her +dismay at the possibility of going away to school had been mostly made +up of the realization of how much her mother's well-being was dependent +on her. + +Mrs. Condon, finishing her dressing in the bedroom, at times called out +various injunctions, general or immediate. “Tell them to have a taxi +at the door for seven sharp. Have you talked to that little girl in the +black velvet?” Linda hadn't and made a mental note to avoid her more +pointedly in the future. “Get out mother's carriage boots from the +hall closet; no, the others--you know I don't wear the black with coral +stockings. They come off and the fur sticks to my legs. It will be very +gay to-night; I hope to heaven Ross doesn't take too much again.” Linda +well remembered that the last time Ross had taken too much her mother's +Directoire wrap had been completely torn in half. “There, it is all +nonsense about my fading; I look as well as I ever did.” + +Mrs. Condon stood before her daughter like a large flame-pink tulle +flower. Her bright gold hair was constrained by black gauze knotted +behind, her bare shoulders were like powdered rosy marble and the +floating skirts gathered in a hand showed marvelously small satin-tied +carriage boots. Indeed Linda's exclamation of delight was entirely +frank. She had never seen her mother more radiant. The cunningly applied +rouge, the enhanced brilliancy of her long-lashed eyes, had perfectly +the illusion of unspent beauty. + +“Do stay down-stairs after dinner and play,” the elder begged. “And if +you want to go to the theatre, ask Mr. Bendix, at the desk, to send +you with that chauffeur we have had so much. I positively forbid your +leaving the hotel else. It's a comfort after all, that you are serious. +Kiss mama--” + +However, she descended with her mother in the elevator; there was a more +public caress; and the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed Linda +at a small table against the wall. There she had clams--she adored +iced clams--creamed shrimps and oysters with potatoes _bordure_, +alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte cream with black walnuts. +After this she sedately instructed the captain what to sign on the back +of the dinner check--Linda Condon, room five hundred and seven--placed +thirty-five cents beside the finger-bowl for the waiter, and made her +way out to the news stand and the talkative girl who had it in charge. +Exhausting the possibilities of gossip, and deciding not to go out to +the theatre--in spite of the news girl's exciting description of a play +called “The New Sin”--she was walking irresolutely through the high +gilded and marble assemblage space when, unfortunately, she was captured +by Mr. Moses Feldt. + + + + +VII + + +He led her to a high-backed lounge against the wall, where, seated +on its extreme edge, he gazed silently at her with an expression of +sentimental concern. Mr. Moses Feldt was a short round man, bald but +for a fluffy rim of pale hair, and with the palest imaginable eyes in +a countenance perpetually flushed by the physical necessity of +accommodating his rotundity to awkward edges and conditions. As usual +he was dressed with the nicest care--a band of white linen laid in the +opening of his waistcoat, his scarf ornamented by a pear-shaped pearl +on a diamond finished stem; his cloth-topped varnished black shoes +glistened, while his short fat fingers clasped a prodigious unlighted +cigar. At last, in a tone exactly suited to his gaze, he exclaimed: + +“So that naughty mama has gone out again and deserted Moses and her +little Linda!” In what way her mother had deserted Mr. Feldt she failed +to understand. Of course he wanted to marry them--the comprehensive +phrase was his own--but that didn't include him in whatever they did. +Principally it made a joke for their private entertainment. Mrs. Condon +would mimic his eager manner, “Stella, let me take you both home where +you'll have the best in the land,” And, “Ladies like you ought to have a +loving protection.” Linda would laugh in her cool bell-like manner, and +her mother add a satirical comment on the chance any Moses Feldt had of +marrying her. + +Linda at once found him ridiculous and a being who forced a slighting +warmth of liking. His appearance was preposterous, the ready emotion +often too foolish for words; but underneath there was a--a goodness, a +mysterious quality that stirred her heart to recognition. Certain rare +things in life and experience affected her like that memory of an old +happiness. She could never say what they might be, they came at +the oddest times and by the most extraordinary means; but at their +occurrence she would thrill for a moment as if in response to a sound of +music. + +It was, for example, absurd that Mr. Moses Feldt, who was a Jew, should +make her feel like that, but he did. And all the while that she +was disagreeable to him, or mocking him behind his back, she was as +uncomfortable and “horrid” as possible. While this fact, of course, only +served to make her horrider still. At present she adopted the manner of +a patience that nothing could quite exhaust; she was polite and formal, +relentlessly correct in position. + +Mr. Moses Feldt, the cigar in his grasp, pressed a hand to the probable +region of his heart. “You don't know how I think of you,” he protested, +tears in his eyes; “just the idea of you exposed to anything at all in +hotels keeps me awake nights. Now it's a drunk, or a fresh feller on the +elevator, or--” + +“It's nice of you,” Linda said, “but you needn't worry. No one would +dare to bother us. No one ever has.” + +“You wouldn't know it if they did,” he replied despondently, “at your +age. And then your mother is so trustful and pleasant. Take those +parties where she is so much--roof frolics and cocoanut groves and +submarine cafés; they don't come to any good. Rowdy.” Linda studied +him coldly; if he criticized them further she would leave. He mopped a +shining brow with a large colorful silk handkerchief. “It throws me into +a sweat,” he admitted. + +“Really, Mr. Feldt, you mustn't bother,” she told him in one of her few +impulses of friendliness. “You see, we are very experienced.” He nodded +without visible happiness at this truth. “I'm a jackass!” he cried. +“Judith tells me that all the time. If you could only see my daughters,” + he continued with a new vigor; “such lovely girls as they are. One dark +like you and the other fair as a daisy. Judith and Pansy. And my home +that darling mama made before she died.” The handkerchief was again in +evidence. + +“Women and girls are funny. I can't get you there and not for nothing +will Judith make a step. It may be pride but it seems to me such +nonsense. I guess I'm old-fashioned and love's old-fashioned. Homes have +gone out of style with the rest. It's all these restaurants and roofs +now, yes, and studios. I tell the girls to stay away from them and from +artists and so on. I don't encourage them at the apartment--a big lump +of a feller with platinum bracelets on his wrists. What kind of a man +would that be! I'd like to know who'd buy goods from him. + +“Sometimes, I'm sorry I got a lot of money, but it made mama happy. When +she laid there at the last sick and couldn't live, I said, 'Oh, if you +only won't leave me I'll give you gold to eat.'” He was so moved, his +face so red, that Linda grew acutely embarrassed. People were looking +at them. She rose stiffly but, in spite of her effort to escape him, he +caught both her hands in his: + +“You say I'm an old idiot like Judith,” he begged. This Linda declined +to do. And, “Ask your mother if you won't come to dinner with the girls +and me, cozy and at home--just once.” + +“I'm afraid it will do no good,” she admitted; “but I'll try.” She +realized that he was about to kiss her and moved quickly back. “I am +almost afraid of you,” he told her; “you're so distant and elegant. +Judith and Pansy would get on with you first rate. I'll telephone +tomorrow, in the afternoon. If the last flowers I sent you came I never +heard of it.” + +She thanked him appropriately for the roses and stood, erect and +impersonal, as a man in the hotel livery helped him into a coat. Mr. +Moses Feldt waved the still unlighted cigar at her and disappeared +through the rotating door to the street. + +She gave a half-affected sigh of relief. Couldn't he see that her mother +would never marry him. At the same time the strange thrill touched her; +the sense of his absurdity vanished and she no longer remembered him +perched like a painted rubber ball on the edge of the lounge. + +In the somber red plush and varnished wood of the reception-room of +their suite he seemed again charming. Perhaps it was because he, +too, adored her mother. That wasn't the reason. The familiar rare joy +lingered. It seemed now as though she were to capture and understand it +... there was the vibration of music; and then, as always, she felt at +once sad and brave. But, in spite of her old effort to the contrary, the +feeling died away. Some day it would be clear to her; in the meanwhile +Mr. Moses Feldt became once more only ridiculous. + + + + +VIII + + +In the morning she was dressed and had returned from breakfast before +her mother stirred. The latter moved sharply, brought an arm up over her +head, and swore. It was a long while before she got up or spoke again, +and Linda never remembered her in a worse temper. When, finally, +she came into the room where the breakfast-tray was laid, Linda was +inexpressibly shocked--all that her mother had dreaded about her +appearance had come disastrously true. Her face was hung with shadows +like smudges of dirt and her eyes were netted with lines. + +Examining the dishes with distaste she told Linda that positively she +could slap her for letting them bring up orange-juice. “How often must +I explain to you that it freezes my fingers.” Linda replied that she +had repeated this in the breakfast-room and perhaps they had the wrong +order. Neither her mother nor she said anything more until Mrs. Condon +had finished her coffee and started a second cigarette. Then Linda +related something of Mr. Moses Feldt's call on the evening before. “He +cried right into his handkerchief,” she said, “until I thought I should +sink.” + +Mrs. Condon eyed her daughter speculatively. “Now if you were only four +years older,” she declared, “it would be a good thing. He was simply +born to be a husband.” Horror filled Linda at the other's implication. +“Yes,” the elder insisted; “you couldn't do better; except, perhaps, +for those girls of his. But then you'd have no trouble making them +miserable. It's time to talk to you seriously about marriage.” The smoke +from the cigarette eddied in a gray veil across her unrefreshed face. + +“You're old for your age, Linda; your life has made you that; and, like +I said last night, it is rather better than not. Well, for you marriage, +and soon as possible, is the proper thing. Mind, I have never said a +word against it; only what suits one doesn't suit another. Where it +wouldn't be anything more than an old ladies' home to me you need it +early and plenty. You are too intense. That doesn't go in the world. Men +don't like it. They want their pleasure and comfort without strings tied +to them; the intensity has to be theirs. + +“What you must get through your head is that love--whatever it is--and +marriage are two different things, and if you are going to be successful +they must be kept separate. You can't do anything with a man if you love +him; but then you can't do anything with him if he doesn't love you. +That's the whole thing in a breath. I am not crying down love, either; +only I don't want you to think it is the bread and butter while it's +nothing more than those little sweet cakes at Henri's. + +“Now any girl who marries a poor man or for love--they are the same +thing--is a fool and deserves what she gets. No one thanks her for it, +him least of all; because if she does love him it is only to make them +miserable. She's always at him--where did he go and why did he stay so +long, and no matter what he says she knows it's a lie. More times than +not she's right, too. I can't tell you too often--men don't want to be +loved, they like to be flattered and flattered and then flattered again. +You'd never believe how childish they are. + +“Make them think they're it and don't give too much--that's the secret. +Above all else don't be easy on them. Don't say 'all right, darling, +next spring will do as well for a new suit.' Get it then and let him +worry about paying for it, if worry he must. If they don't give it to +you some one smarter will wear it. But I started to talk about getting +married. + +“Choose a Moses Feldt, who will always be grateful to you, and keep him +at it. They are so easy to land it's a kind of shame, too. Perhaps I am +telling you this too soon, but I don't want any mistakes. Well, pick +out your Moses--and mama will help you there--and suddenly, at the right +time, show him that you can be affectionate; surprise him with it and +you so staid and particular generally. Don't overdo it, promise more +than you ever give-- + +“In the closet, dearie, just a little. That's a good girl. Mama's so +dry.” She rose, the silver cup of the flask in her hand, and moved +inevitably to the mirror. “My hair's a sight,” she remarked; “all +strings. I believe I'll get a permanent wave. They say it lasts for +six months or more, till the ends grow out. Makes a lot of it, too, and +holds the front together. If you've ever had dye in your hair, I hear, +it will break off like grass.” + +Linda pondered over what she had been told of love and marriage; on the +whole the exposition had been unsatisfactory. The latter she was able to +grasp, but her mother had admitted an inability exactly to fix love. +One fact, apparently, was clear--it was a nuisance and a hindrance to +happiness, or rather to success. Love upset things. Still she had the +strongest objection possible to living forever with a man like Mr. +Moses Feldt. At once all that she had hoped for from life grew flat and +uninteresting. She had no doubt of her mother's correctness and wisdom; +the world was like that; she must make the best of it. + +There was some telephoning, inquiries, and she heard the elder make an +appointment with a hair-dresser for three that afternoon. She wondered +what it would be like to have your hair permanently waved and hoped +that she would see it done. This, too, she realized, was a part of the +necessity of always considering men--they liked your hair to be wavy. +Hers was as straight and stupid as possible. She, in turn, examined +herself in a mirror: the black bang fell exactly to her eyebrows, her +face had no color other than the carnation of her lips and her deep +blue eyes. She moved away and critically studied her figure; inches and +inches too thin, she decided. Undoubtedly her mother was right, and she +must marry at the first opportunity--if she could find a man, a rich +man, who was willing. + +Her thoughts returned vaguely to the mystery, the nuisance, of love. +Surely she had heard something before, immensely important, about it, +and totally different from all her mother had said. Her mind was filled +with the fantastic image of a forest, of dangers, and a fat china figure +with curled plumes, a nodding head, that brushed her with fear and +disgust. A shuddering panic took possession of her, flashes burned +before her eyes, and she ran gasping to the perfumed soft reassurances +of her mother. + + + + +IX + + +In a recurrence of her surprising concern of the day before Mrs. Condon +declined to leave her dearest Linda alone; and, their arms caught +together in a surging affection, they walked down Fifth Avenue toward +the hairdresser's. There was a diffused gray sparkle of sunlight--it +was early for the throngs--through which they passed rapidly to the +accompaniment of a rapid eager chatter. Linda wore a deep smooth camel's +hair cape, over which her intense black hair poured like ink, and her +face was shaded by a dipping green velvet hat. Her mother, in one of +the tightly cut suits she affected, had never been more like a perfect +companion. + +They saw, in the window of a store for men, a set of violent purple +wool underwear, and barely escaped hysterics at the thought of Mr. Moses +Feldt in such a garb. They giggled idiotically at the spectacle of a +countryman fearfully making the sharp descent from the top of a lurching +omnibus. And then, when they had reached the place of Mrs. Condon's +appointment, stopped at the show of elaborately waved hair on wax heads +and chose which, probably, would resemble the elder and which, in a very +short while now, Linda. + +There was an impressive interior, furnished in gray panels and silvery +wood; and the young woman at the desk was more surprisingly waved than +anything they had yet seen. M. Joseph would be ready almost immediately; +and in the meanwhile Mrs. Condon could lay aside her things in +preparation for the hair to be washed. She did this while Linda followed +every movement with the deepest interest. + +At the back of the long room was a succession of small alcoves, each +with an important-looking chair and mirror and shelves, a white basin, +water-taps and rubber tubes. Settled, in comfort, Mrs. Condon's hair was +spread out in a bright metal tray fastened to the back of the chair, and +the attendant, a moist tired girl in a careless waist, sprayed the short +thick gold-colored strands. + +“My,” she observed, “what some wouldn't give for your shade! Never been +touched, I can see, either. A lady comes in with real Titian, but yours +is more select. It positively is Lillian Russell.” While she talked +her hands sped with incredible rapidity and skill. “The gentlemen don't +notice it; of course not; oh, no! There was a girl here, a true blonde, +but she didn't stay long--her own car, yes, indeed. Married her right +out of the establishment. There wasn't any nonsense to her. + +“So this is your little girl! I'd never have believed it. Not that she +hasn't a great deal of style, a great deal--almost, you might say, like +an Egyptian. In the movies last night; her all over. It's a type that +will need studying. Bertha Kalich. But for me--” + +Already, Linda saw, this part of the operation was done. The girl +wheeled into position a case that had a fan and ring of blue flickering +flames, and a cupped tube through which hot air was poured over her +mother's head. M. Joseph strutted in, a small carefully dressed man with +a diminutive pointed gray beard and formal curled mustache. He spoke +with what Linda supposed was a French accent, and his manners, at least +to them, were beautiful. But because the girl had not put out the blue +flames quickly enough he turned to her with a voice of quivering rage. + +It was so unexpected, in the middle of his bowing and smooth assurances, +that Linda was startled, and had to think about him all over. The result +of this was a surprising dislike; she hated, even, to see him touch her +mother, as he unnecessarily did in directing them into the enclosure for +the permanent wave. + +The place itself filled her with the faint horror of instruments and the +unknown. Above the chair where Mrs. Condon now sat there was a circle +in the ceiling like the base of a chandelier and hanging down from it +on twisted green wires were a great number of the strangest things +imaginable: they were as thick as her wrist, but round, longer and +hollow, white china inside and covered with brown wrapping. The wires +of each, she discovered, led over a little wheel and down again to +a swinging clock-like weight. In addition to this there were strange +depressing handles on the wall by a dial with a jiggling needle and +clearly marked numbers. + +The skill of the girl who had washed her mother's hair, however, was +slight compared with M. Joseph's dexterity. The comb flashed in his +white narrow hands; in no time at all every knot was urged out into a +shining smoothness. “Just the front?” he inquired. Not waiting for +Mrs. Condon's reply, he detached a strand from the mass over her brow, +impaled it on a hairpin, while he picked up what might have been a thick +steel knitting-needle with one end fastened in the middle of a silver +quarter. The latter, it developed, had a hole in it, through which he +drew the strand of hair, and then wrapped it with an angry tightness +about the long projection. + +At this exact moment a new girl, but tired and moist, appeared, took a +hank of white threads from a dressing-table, and tied that separate lock +firmly. This, Linda counted, was repeated fifteen times; and when it was +accomplished she was unable to repress a nervous laughter. Really, her +mother looked too queer for words: the long rigid projections stood out +all over her head like--like a huge pincushion; no, it was a porcupine. +Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain recognition of her daughter's mirth. + +Then Linda's attention followed M. Joseph to a table against a +partition, where he secured a white cotton strip from a film of them +soaking in a shallow tray, took up some white powder on the blade of +a dessert knife and transferred it to the strip. This he wrapped and +wrapped about the hair fastened on a spindle, tied it in turn, and +dragged down one of the brown objects on wires, which, to Linda's +great astonishment, fitted precisely over the cotton-bound hair. Again, +fifteen times, M. Joseph did this, fastening each connection with the +turn of a screw. When so much was accomplished her mother's hair, it +seemed, had grown fast to the ceiling in a tangle of green ends. It was +the most terrifying spectacle Linda had ever witnessed. Obscure thoughts +of torture, of criminals executed by electricity, froze her in a set +apprehension. + +The hair-dresser stepped over to the dials on the wall, and, with a +sharp comprehensive glance at his apparatus, moved a handle as far as it +would go. Nothing immediately happened, and Linda gave a relaxing sigh +of relief. M. Joseph, however, became full of a painful attention. + + + + +X + + +He brought into view an unsuspected tube, with a cone of paper at its +end, and bent over her mother, directing a stream of cold air against +her head. “How do you feel?” he asked, with, Linda noticed, a startling +loss of his first accent. Mrs. Condon so far felt well enough. +Then, before Linda's startled gaze, every single one of the fifteen +imprisoning tubes began to steam with an extraordinary vigor; not only +did they steam, like teapots, but drops of water formed and slowly slid +over her mother's face. If the process appeared weird at the beginning, +now it was utterly fantastic. + +The little white vapor spurts played about Mrs. Condon's dripping +countenance; they increased rather than diminished; actually it +resembled a wrecked locomotive she had once seen. “How are you?” M. +Joseph demanded nervously. “Is it hot anywhere?” With a sudden gesture +she replied in a shaking voice, “Here.” + +Instantly he was holding the paper cone with its cold air against her +scalp, and the heat was subdued. He glanced nervously at his watch, and +Mrs. Condon managed to ask, “How long?” + +“Twenty minutes.” + +Dangerous as the whole proceeding seemed nothing really happened, and +Linda's fears gradually faded into a mere curiosity and interest. A +curtain hung across the door to the rest of the establishment, but it +had been brushed partly aside; and she could see, in the compartment +they had vacated, another man bending with waving irons over the +liberated mass of a woman's hair. He was very much like M. Joseph, but +he was younger and had only a dark scrap of mustache. As he caught up +the hair with a quick double twist he leaned very close to the woman's +face, whispering with an expression that never changed, an expression +like that of the wax heads in the show-case. He bent so low that Linda +was certain their cheeks had touched. She pondered at length over this, +gazing now at the man beyond and now at M. Joseph flitting with the +cold-air tube about her mother; wondering if, when she grew older, she +would like a hair-dresser's cheek against hers. Linda decided not. The +idea didn't shock her, the woman in the other space plainly liked +it; still she decided she wouldn't. A different kind of man, she told +herself, would be nicer. + +Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, unpleasant odor--the odor of +scorched hair; and she was absolutely rigid with horror at an agonized +cry from her mother. + +“It's burning me terribly,” the latter cried. “Oh, I can't stand it. +Stop! Stop!” + +M. Joseph, as white as plaster, rushed to the wall and reversed the +handle, and Mrs. Condon started from the chair, her face now streaming +with actual tears; but before she could escape the man threw himself on +her shoulders. + +“You mustn't move,” he whispered desperately, “you'll tear your hair +out. I tell you no harm's been done. Everything is all right. Please, +please don't cry like that. It will ruin my business. There are others +in the establishment. Stop!” he shook her viciously. + +Linda had risen, terrorized; and Mrs. Condon, with waving plucking +hands, was sobbing an appeal to be released. “My head, my head,” she +repeated. “I assure you”--the man motioned to a pallid girl to hold her +in the chair. With a towel to protect his hand he undid a screw, +lifted off the cap and untwisted the cotton from a bound lock of hair; +releasing it, in turn, from the spindle it fell forward in a complete +corkscrew over Mrs. Condon's face. + +“Do you see!” he demanded. “Perfect. I give you my word they'll all be +like that. The cursed heat ran up on me,” he added in a swift aside to +his assistant. “Has Mrs. Bellows gone? Who's still in the place? Here, +loose that binding ... thank God, that one is all right, too.” + +Together they unfastened most of the connections, and a growing fringe +of long remarkable curls marked Mrs. Condon's pain-drawn and dabbled +face. Linda sobbed uncontrollably; but perhaps, after all, nothing +frightful had happened. Her poor mother! Then fear again tightened about +her heart at the perturbed expression that overtook the hair-dresser. +He was trying in vain to remove one of the caps. She caught enigmatic +words--“the borax, crystallized ... solid. It would take a plumber ... +have to go.” + +The connection was immovable. Even in her suffering Mrs. Condon implored +M. Joseph to save her hair. Nothing, however, could be done; he admitted +it with pale lips. The thing might be chiseled off; in the end he tried +to force a release and the strand, with a renewal of Mrs. +Condon's agony--now, in the interest of her appearance, heroically +withstood--snapped short in the container. + +Rapidly recovering her vigor, she launched on a tirade against M. Joseph +and his permanent waving establishment--Linda had never before heard her +mother talk in such a loud brutal manner, nor use such heated unpleasant +words, and the girl was flooded with a wretched shame. Still another +lock, it was revealed, had been ruined, and crumbled to mere dust in its +owner's fingers. + +“The law will provide for you,” she promised. + +“Your hair was dyed,” the proprietor returned vindictively. “The girl +who washed it will testify. Every one is warned against the permanent if +their hair has been colored. So it was at your own risk.” + +“My head's never been touched with dye,” Mrs. Condon shrilly answered. +“You lying little ape. And well does that young woman know it. She +complimented me herself on a true blonde.” The girl had, too, right +before Linda. + +“You ought to be thrashed out of the city.” + +“Your money will be given back to you,” M. Joseph told her. + +Outside they found a taxi, and sped back to their hotel. Above, Mrs. +Condon removed her hat; and, before the uncompromising mirror, studied +her wrecked hair--a frizzled vacancy was directly over her left +brow--and haggard face. When she finally turned to Linda, her manner, +her words, were solemn. + +“I'm middle-aged,” she said. + +A dreary silence enveloped them sitting in the dark reception-room while +Mrs. Condon restlessly shredded unlighted cigarettes on the floor. She +had made no effort to repair the damages to her appearance, and when the +telephone bell sharply sounded, she reached out in a slovenly negligence +of manner. Linda could hear a blurred articulation and her mother +answering listlessly. The latter at last said: “Very well, at seven +then; you'll stop for us.” She hung up the receiver, stared blankly at +Linda, and then went off into a harsh mirth. “Oh, my God!” she cried; +“the old ladies' home!” + + + + +XI + + +With her mother away on a wedding-trip with Mr. Moses Feldt, Linda was +suddenly projected into the companionship of his two daughters. One, +as he had said, was light, but a different fairness from Mrs. +Condon's--richly thick, like honey; while Judith, the elder, who must +have been twenty, was dark in skin, in everything but her eyes, which +were a contrasting ashen-violet. She spoke at once of Linda's flawless +whiteness: + +“A magnolia,” she said, in a deliberate dark voice; “you are quite +a gorgeous child. Do you mind my saying that your clothes are rather +quaint? They aren't inevitable, and yours ought to be that.” + +They were at lunch in the Feldt dining-room, an interior of heavy +ornately carved black wood, panels of Chinese embroidery in imperial +yellow, and a neutral mauve carpet. The effect, with glittering +iridescent pyramids of glass, massive frosted repoussé silver, burnished +gold-plate and a wide table decoration of orchids and fern, was tropical +and intense. It was evident to Linda that the Feldts were very rich +indeed. + +The entire apartment resembled the dining-room, while the building +itself filled a whole city block, with a garden and fountains like an +elaborate public square. Linda, however, wasn't particularly impressed +by such show; she saw that Judith and Pansy had expected that of her; +but she was determined not to exhibit a surprise that would imply any +changes in her mother's and her condition. In addition, Linda calmly +took such surroundings for granted. Her primary conception of possible +existence was elegance; its necessity had so entered into her being that +it had departed from her consciousness. + +“I must take you to Lorice,” Judith continued; “she will know better +than any one else what you ought to have. You seem terribly pure--at +first. But you're not a snowdrop; oh, no--something very rare in a +conservatory. Much better style than your mother.” + +“I hope you won't mind Judith,” Pansy put in; “she's always like that.” + A silence followed in which they industriously dipped the leaves of +mammoth artichokes into a buttery sauce. Linda, as customary, said very +little, she listened with patient care to the others and endeavored to +arrive at conclusions. She liked Pansy, who was as warm and simple as +her father. Judith was harder to understand. She was absorbed in color +and music, and declared that ugliness gave her a headache at once. +Altogether, Linda decided, she was rather silly, especially about men; +and at times her emotions would rise beyond control until she wept in a +thin hysterical gasping. + +The room where, mostly, they sat was small, but with a high ceiling, +and hung in black, with pagoda-like vermilion chairs. The light, in the +evening, was subdued; and Pansy and Judith, in extremely clinging vivid +dresses, the former's hair piled high in an amber mass and Judith's +drawn severely across her ears, were lovely. Linda thought of the +tropical butterflies of the river Amazon, of orchids like those always +on the dining-room table. A miniature grand piano stood against the +drapery, and Judith often played. Linda learned to recognize some of +the composers. Pansy liked best the modern waltzes; Judith insisted that +Richard Strauss was incomparable; but Linda developed an overwhelming +preference for Gluck. The older girl insisted that this was an +affectation; for a while she tried to confuse Linda's knowledge; but +finally, playing the airs of “Orpheus and Eurydice,” she admitted that +the latter was sincere. + +“They sound so cool,” Linda said in a clear and decided manner. + +There was a man with them, and he shook his head in a mock sadness. +“So young and yet so formal. If, with the rest, you had Judith's +temperament, you would be the most irresistible creature alive. For see, +my dear child, as it is you stir neither tenderness nor desire; you are +remote and perfect, and faintly wistful. I can't imagine being human or +even comfortable with you about. Then, too, you have too much wisdom.” + +“She is frightful,” Pansy agreed; “she's never upset nor her hair a +sight; and, above all else, Linda won't tell you a thing.” + +“Some day,” Judith informed them from the rippling whisper of the piano, +“she will be magnificently loved.” + +“Certainly,” the man continued; “but what will Linda, Linda Condon, give +in return?” + +“It's a mistake to give much,” Linda said evenly. + +“No, no, no!” Judith cried. “Give everything; spend every feeling, every +nerve.” + +“You are remarkable, of course; almost no women have the courage of +their emotions.” His name was Reynold Chase, a long thin grave young +man in a dinner coat, who wrote brilliant and successful comedies. “Yet +Linda isn't parsimonious.” He turned to her. “Just what are you? What do +you think of love?” + +“I haven't thought about it much,” she replied slowly. “I'm not sure +that I know what it means. At least it hasn't anything to do with +marriage--” + +“Ah!” he interrupted her. + +Her usually orderly mind grew confused; it eddied as though with the +sound of the piano. “It is not marriage,” she vaguely repeated her +mother's instruction. Reynold Chase supported her. + +“That destroys it,” he asserted. “This love is as different as possible +from the ignominious impulse eternally tying the young into knots. It's +anti-social.” + +“How stupid you are, Reynold,” Pansy protested. “If you want to use +those complicated words take Judith into the drawing-room. I'm sure +Linda is dizzy, too.” + +The latter's mental confusion lingered; she had a strong sense of having +heard Reynold Chase say these strange things long before. Judith left +the piano, sat beside him, and he lightly kissed her. A new dislike of +Judith Feldt deepened in Linda's being. She had no reason for it, but +suddenly she felt absolutely opposed to her. The manner in which Judith +rested against the man by her was very distasteful. It offended Linda +inexplicably; she wanted to draw into an infinity of distance from all +contact with men and life. + +She didn't even want to make one of those marriages that had nothing to +do with love, but was only a sensible arrangement for the securing +of gowns and velvet hangings and the luxury of enclosed automobiles. +Suddenly she felt lonely, and hoped that her mother would come back +soon. + + + + +XII + + +But when her mother, now Mrs. Moses Feldt, did return, Linda was +conscious of a keen disappointment. Somehow she never actually came +back. It wasn't only that, after so many years together, she occupied +a room with another than Linda, but her manner was changed; it had lost +all freedom of heart and speech. The new Mrs. Feldt was heavily polite +to her husband's daughters; Linda saw that she liked Pansy, but Judith +made her uncomfortable. She expressed this in an isolated return of the +old confidences: + +“That girl,” she said sharply, “likes petting. She can talk all night +about her soul and beauty, and play the piano till her fingers drop +off, but I--I--know. You can't fool me where they are concerned. I can +recognize an unhealthy sign. I never believed in going to all those +concerts and kidding yourself into a fever. I may have shown myself a +time, but you mark my word--I was honest compared to Judith Feldt. Don't +you be impressed with all her art talk and the books she reads. I was +looking into one yesterday, and it made me blush; you can believe it or +not, it takes some book for that!” + +At the same time she treated Judith with a studious sweetness. Mr. Moses +Feldt--Linda always thought of him as that--was a miracle of kindly +cheerfulness. He made his wife and her daughter, and his own girls, an +unbroken succession of elaborate and costly presents. “What's it for +if not to spend on those you love?” he would remark, bringing a small +jeweler's box wrapped in creamy-pink paper from his pocket. “You can't +take it with you. I wasn't born with it--mama and I were as poor as +any--you'll forgive me, Stella, I know, for speaking of her. I got +enough heart to love you both. 'Oh, mama!' I said, and she dying, 'if +you only won't go, I'll give you gold to eat.'” + +Curiously, as Linda grew older, the consciousness of her stepfather +as an absurd fat little man dwindled; she lost all sense of his actual +person; and, as the influence of her mother slipped from her life, the +mental conception of Mr. Moses Feldt deepened. She thought about him a +great deal and very seriously; the things he said, the warm impact of +his being, vibrated in her memory. He had the effect on her of the music +of Christopher Gluck--the effect of a pure fine chord. + +Pansy she now thought of with a faint contempt: she was rapidly growing +thick-waisted and heavy, and she was engaged to a dull young man not +rich enough to be interesting. They sat about in frank embraces and +indulged in a sentimental speech that united Judith and Linda in common +oppression. + +There were, not infrequently, gatherings of the Feldts at dinner, a +noisy good-tempered uproar of a great many voices speaking at once; +extraordinary quantities of superlative jewels and dresses of superfine +textures; but the latter, Linda thought, were too vivid in pattern or +color for the short full maternal figures they often adorned. But no +one, it seemed, considered himself ageing or even, in spite of the most +positive indications, aged. The wives with faded but fashionable hair +and animated eyes in spent faces talked with vigorous raillery about +the “boys,” who, it might have happened, had gone in a small masculine +company to a fervid musical show the evening before. While they, in +their turn, thick like their brother or cousin Moses, with time-wasted +hair and countenances marked with the shrewdness in the service of which +the greater part of their lives had vanished, had their little jokes +about the “girls” and the younger and handsomer beaux who threatened +their happiness. + +At times the topic of business crept into the lighter discussion, and, +in an instant, the gaiety evaporated and left expressionless men +and quick sharp sentences steely with decision, or indirect and +imperturbably blank. A memorandum book and a gold pencil would appear +for an enigmatic note, after which the cheerfulness slowly revived. + +The daughters resembled Judith or the slower placidity of Pansy; while +there was still another sort, more vigorous in being, who consciously +discussed riding academies, the bridle-paths of Central Park, and the +international tennis. Their dress held a greater restraint than the +elders; though Linda recognized that it was no less lavish; and their +feminine trifles, the morocco beauty-cases and powder-boxes, the +shoulder-pins, their slipper and garter buckles were extravagant in +exquisite metals and workings. + +They arrived in limousines with dove-colored upholstery and crystal +vases of maidenhair fern and moss-roses; and often, in such a car, Linda +went to the theatre with Judith or Pansy and some cousins. Usually it +was a matinee, where their seats were the best procurable, directly at +the stage; and they sat in a sleek expensive row eating black chocolates +from painted boxes ruffled in rose silk. The audience, composed mostly +of their own world, followed the exotic fortunes of the plays with a +complete discrimination in every possible emotional display and crisis. + +Lithe actresses in a revealing severity of attire, like spoiled nuns +with carmine lips, suffering in ingenuous problems of the passions, +agonized in shuddering tones; or else they went to concerts to hear +young violinists, slender, with intense faces and dramatic hair, play +concertos that irritated Linda with little shivers of delight. + +Sometimes they had lunch in a restaurant of Circassian walnut and velvet +carpets, with cocktails, and eggs elaborate with truffles and French +pastry. Then, afterward, they would stop at a confectioner's, or at a +cafe where there was dancing, for tea. They all danced in a perfection +of slow graceful abandon, with youths who, it seemed to Linda, did +nothing else. + +She accepted her part in this existence as inevitable, yet she was +persistently aware of a feeling of strangeness, of essential difference +from it. She was unable to lose a sense of looking on, as if morning, +noon and night she were at another long play. Linda regarded it--as she +did so much else--with neither enthusiasm nor marked annoyance. Probably +it would continue without change through her entire life. All that was +necessary, and easily obtained, was a sufficient amount of money. + +Her manner, Pansy specially complained, was not intimate and inviting; +in her room Linda usually closed the door; the frank community of the +sisters was distasteful to her. She demanded an extraordinary amount +of personal privacy. Linda never consulted Judith's opinion about her +clothes, nor exchanged the more significant aspects of feeling. Alone in +a bed-chamber furnished in silvery Hungarian ash, her bed a pale quilted +luxury with Madeira linen crusted in monograms, without head or foot +boards, and a dressing-table noticeably bare, she would deliberately and +delicately prepare for the night. + +While Judith's morning bath steamed with the softness and odor of +lavender crystals, Linda slipped into water almost cold. This, with her +clear muslins and heavy black silk stockings, her narrow unornamented +slippers, represented the perfection of niceness. + +There were others than Pansy, however, who commented on what they called +her superiority--the young men who appeared in the evening. A number +of them, cousins of the Feldt dinner parties or more casual, tried to +engage her sympathies in their persons and prospects. It was a society +of early maturity. But, without apparent effort, she discouraged them, +principally by her serene lack of interest. It was a fundamental part +of her understanding of things that younger men were unprofitable; she +liked far better the contemporaries of Moses Feldt. + +Reynold Chase had ceased his visits, but his place had been taken by +another and still another emotionally gifted man. The present one was +dark and imperturbable: they knew little of him beyond the facts that +he had been a long while in the Orient, that his manner and French were +unsurpassed, and that practically every considerable creative talent in +New York was entertained in his rooms. + +Judith had been to one of his parties; and, the following morning in +bed, she told Pansy and Linda the most remarkable things. + +“It would never do for Pansy,” she concluded; “but I must get Markue to +ask you sometime, Linda. How old are you now? Well, that's practically +sixteen, and you are very grown up. You would be quite sensational, in +one of your plain white frocks, in his apartment. You'd have to promise +not to tell your mother, though. She thinks I'm leading you astray +now--the old dear. Does she think I am blind? I met a man last week, +a friend of father's, who used to know her. Of course he wouldn't say +anything, men are such idiots about that--like ostriches with their +pasts buried and all the feathers sticking out--but there was a +champagne expression in his smile.” + +Linda wondered, later, if she'd care to go to a party of Markue's. There +was a great deal of drinking at such affairs; and though she rather +liked cordials, crême de thé and Grand Marnier, even stronger +things flavored with limes and an occasional frigid cocktail, she +disliked--from a slight experience--men affected by drink. Judith had +called her a constitutional prude; this, she understood, was a term of +reproach; and she wondered if, applied to her, it were just. + +Usually it meant a religious person or one fussy about the edge of her +skirt; neither of which she ever considered. She didn't like to sit in +a corner and be hugged--even that she could now assert with a degree +of knowledge--but it wasn't because she was shocked. Nothing, she told +herself gravely, shocked her; only certain acts and moments annoyed her +excessively. It was as if her mind were a crisp dress with ribbons which +she hated to have mussed or disarranged. + +Linda didn't take the trouble to explain this. Now that her mother had +withdrawn from her into a perpetual and uncomfortable politeness she +confided in no one. She would have been at a loss to put her complicated +sensations and thoughts into words. Mr. Moses Feldt, the only one to +whom she could possibly talk intimately, would be upset by her feelings. +He would give her a hug and the next day bring up a new present from his +pocket. + +Her clothes, with the entire support of Lorice, were all delicate +in fabric, mostly white with black sashes, and plainly ruffled. She +detested the gray crepe de Chine from which Judith's undergarments were +made and the colored embroidery of Pansy's; while she ignored scented +toilet-waters and extracts. Markue, in finally asking her to a party at +his rooms, said that there she would resemble an Athenian marble, of the +un-painted epoch, in the ballet of Scheherazade. + + + + +XIII + + +“There's nothing special to say about Markue's parties,” Judith, +dressing, told Linda. “You will simply have to take what comes your way. +There is always some one serious at them, if you insist, as usual, on +dignity.” She stood slim and seductive, like a perverse pierrot, +before the oppressive depths of a black mirror. Linda had finished her +preparations for the evening. There was no departure from her customary +blanched exactness. She studied her reflection across Judith's shoulder; +her intense blue eyes, under the level blot of her bang, were grave on +the delicate pallor of her face. + +In the taxi, slipping rapidly down-town, Linda was conscious of a slight +unusual disturbance of her indifference. This had nothing to do with +whether or not she'd be a success; her own social demands were so small +that any considerable recognition of her was unimportant. Her present +feeling came from the fact that to-night, practically, she was making +her first grown-up appearance in the world, the world from which she +must select the materials of her happiness and success. To-night she +would have an opportunity to put into being all that--no matter how +firmly held--until now had been but convictions. + +Her interest was not in whom or what she might meet, but in herself. +Judith, smoking a cigarette in a mist of silver fox, was plainly +excited. “I like Markue awfully,” she admitted. + +“Does he care for you?” Linda asked. + +“That,” said Judith, “I can't make out--if he likes me or if it's +just anonymous woman. I wish it were the first, Linda.” Her voice was +shadowed; suddenly, in spite of her youth and exhilaration, she seemed +haggard and spent. Linda recognized this in a cold scrutiny. Privately +she decided that the other was a fool--she didn't watch her complexion +at all. + +The motor turned west in the low Forties and stopped before a high +narrow stone façade with a massive griffon-guarded door. Judith led the +way directly into the elevator and designated Markue's floor. It was +at the top of the building, where he met them with his impenetrable +courtesy and took them into a bare room evidently planned for a studio. +There were an empty easel, the high blank dusty expanse of the skylight, +and chairs with the somber hats and coats of men and women's wraps like +the glistening shed skins of brilliant snakes. + +They turned through the hall to an interior more remarkable than +anything Linda could have imagined; it seemed to her very high, without +windows and peaked like a tent. Draperies of intricate Eastern color +hung in long folds. There were no chairs, but low broad divans about the +walls, a thick carpet with inlaid stands in the center laden with boxes +of cigarettes, sugared exotic sweets and smoking incense. It was so dim +and full of thick scent, the shut effect was so complete, that for a +moment Linda felt painfully oppressed; it seemed impossible to breathe +in the wavering bluish atmosphere. + +Markue, who had appeared sufficiently familiar outside, now had a +strange portentous air; the gleams of his quick black eyes, the dusky +tone of his cheeks, his impassive grace, startled her. New York was +utterly removed: the taxi that had brought Judith and her, the swirling +traffic of Columbus Circle and smooth undulations of Fifth Avenue, were +lost with a different life. She saw, however, the open door to another +room full of clear light, and her self-possession rapidly returned. +Judith--as she had threatened--at once deserted her; and Linda found an +inconspicuous corner of a divan. + +There were, perhaps, twenty people in the two rooms, and each one +engaged her attention. A coffee-colored woman was sitting beyond her, +clad in loose red draperies to which were sewed shining patterns of +what she thought was gold. Markue was introducing Judith, and the seated +figure smiled pleasantly with a flash of beautiful teeth and the supple +gesture of a raised brown palm. That, Linda decided, was the way she +shook hands. Two dark-skinned men, one in conventional evening dress, +were with her; they had small fine features and hair like carved ebony. + +Linda had never before been at an affair with what she was forced to +call colored people; instinctively she was antagonistic and superior. +She turned to a solemn masculine presence with a ruffled shirt and +high black stock; he was talking in a resonant voice and with dramatic +gestures to a woman with a white face and low-drawn hair. Linda was +fascinated by the latter, dressed in a soft clinging dull garnet. +It wasn't her clothes, although they were remarkable, that held her +attention, but the woman's mouth. Apparently, it had no corners. Like a +little band of crimson rubber, or a ring of vivid flame, it shifted +and changed in the oddest shapes. It was an unhappy mouth, and made her +think of pain; but perhaps not so much that as hunger ... not for food, +Linda was certain. What did she want? + +There was a light appealing laugh from another seated on the floor in a +floating black dinner dress with lovely ankles in delicate Spanish lace +stockings; her head was thrown back for the whisper of a heavy man with +ashen hair, a heavenly scarf and half-emptied glass. + +Her bare shoulders, Linda saw, were as white as her own, as white but +more sloping. The other's hair, though, was the loveliest red possible. +The entire woman, relaxed and laughing in the perfumery and swimming +shadows, was irresistible. A man with a huge nose and blank eyes, his +hands disfigured with extraordinary rings, momentarily engaged her. +Then, at the moment when she saw an inviting and correctly conventional +youth, he crossed and sat at her side. + +“Quite a show,” he said in the manner she had expected and approved. The +glow of his cigarette wavered over firmly cut lips. “We've just come to +New York,” he continued. “I don't know any one here but Markue, do you?” + Linda explained her own limitations. “The Victory's fine and familiar.” + +She followed his gaze to where a winged statue with flying drapery was +set on a stand. She had seen it before, but without interest. Now it +held her attention. It wasn't a large cast, not over three feet high, +but suddenly Linda thought that it was the biggest thing in the room; it +seemed to expand as she watched it. + +Beside the Victory, in a glass case with an enclosed concealed light, +was a statue, greenish gray, a few inches tall, with a sneering +placidity of expression as notable as the sweep of the other white +fragment. “That's Chinese,” her companion decided; “it looks as old as +lust.” There was the stir of new arrivals--a towering heavy man with +a slight woman in emerald satin. “There's Pleydon, the sculptor,” the +youth told her animatedly. “I've seen him at the exhibitions. It must be +Susanna Noda, the Russian singer, with him. He's a tremendous swell.” + + + + +XIV + + +Linda watched Pleydon as he met Markue in the middle of the room. He was +dressed carelessly, improperly for the evening; but she forgave that as +the result of indifference. The informal flannels and soft collar, too, +suited the largeness of his being and gestures. There was a murmur of +meeting, Susanna Noda smiled appealingly; and then, as Pleydon found a +place on a divan, she at once contentedly sat on his lap. Watching her, +Linda thought of a brilliant parrot; but that was only the effect of her +color; for her face, with a tilted nose and wide golden eyes, generous +warm lips, was charming. She lighted a cigarette, turned her graceful +back on the room and company, and chatted in French to the composed +sculptor. + +Linda divined that he was the most impressive figure she had +encountered; the quality of his indifference was beautiful and could +only have come in the security of being a “tremendous swell.” That +phrase described all for which she had cared most. It included +everything that her mother had indicated as desirable and a lot that +she, Linda, had added. Money, certainly, was an absolute necessity; +but there were other things now that vaguely she desired. She tried to +decide what they were. + +Only the old inner confusion resulted, the emotion that might have +been born in music; however, it was sharper than usual, and bred a new +dissatisfaction with the easier accomplishments. Really it was very +disturbing, for the pressure of her entire experience, all she had +been told, could be exactly weighed and held. The term luxury, too, was +revealing; it covered everything--except her present unformed longing. + +There were still newcomers, and Linda was aware of a sudden constraint. +A woman volubly French had appeared with a long pinkish-white dog in a +blanket, and the three Arabians--she had learned that much--had risen +with a concerted expression of surprise and displeasure. Their anxiety, +though, was no more dramatic than that of the dog's proprietor. The +gesture of her hands and lifted eyebrows were keenly expressive of her +impatience with any one who couldn't accept, with her, her dog. + +“Markue ought to have it out,” some one murmured. “Dogs, to high caste +Mohammedans, are unclean animals.” Another added, “Worse than that, if +it should touch them, they would have to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.” + +Without any knowledge of the situation of Mecca, Linda yet realized that +it must be a very long journey to result from the mere touch of a dog. +She didn't wonder at the restrained excitement of the “colored” people. +The situation was reduced to a sub-acid argument between the Frenchwoman +and the Begum; Madame couldn't exist without her “_p'tit_.” The Oriental +lady could not breathe a common air with the beast. The former managed a +qualified triumph--the “_p'tit_” was caged with a chair in a corner, and +the episode, for the moment, dropped. + +Soon, however, Linda saw that the dog had wriggled out of captivity. It +made a cautious progress to where the candy stood on a low stand and +ran an appreciative tongue over the exposed sweet surfaces. Rapidly a +sugared fig was snapped up. Linda held her breath; no one had noticed +the animal yet--perhaps it would reach one of the objectors and she +would have the thrill of witnessing the departure for Mecca. + +But, as always, nothing so romantic occurred; the dog was discovered, +and the Mohammedans, with a hurried politeness, made their salaams. +Instead, a man with a quizzical scrutiny through glasses that made him +resemble an owl, stopped before her. + +“'Here we go 'round the mulberry-bush,'” he chanted. “Hello, Kate +Greenaway. Have you had a drink?” + +“Yes, thank you,” she replied sedately. + +“Certified milk?” + +“It was something with gin,” she particularized, “and too sweet.” He +took the place beside her and solemnly recited a great many nursery +rhymes. On the whole she liked him, deciding that he was very wicked. +Soon he was holding her hand in both of his. “I know you're not real,” + he proceeded. “Verlaine wrote you--_'Les Ingenus':_ + + “'From which the sudden gleam of whiteness shed + Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming.' + +“What if I'd kiss you?” + +“Nothing,” she returned coldly. + +“You're remarkable!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. “If you are not +already one of the celebrated beauties you're about to be. As cool as a +fish! Look--Pleydon is going to rise and spill little Russia. Have you +heard her sing Scriabine?” Linda ignored him in a sharp return of her +interest in the big carelessly-dressed man. He put Susanna Noda aside +and moved to the dim middle of the room. His features, Linda saw, were +rugged and pronounced; he was very strong. + +For a moment he stood gazing at the Winged Victory, his brow gathered +into a frown, while he made a caressing gesture with his whole hand. +Then he swung about and, from the heavy shadows of his face, he looked +down at her. He was still for a disconcerting length of time, but +through which Linda steadily met his interrogation. Then he bent over +and seriously removed the man beside her. + +“Adieu, Louis,” he said. + +The weight of Pleydon's body depressed the entire divan. “An ordinary +man,” he told her, “would ask how the devil you got here. Then he would +take you to your home with some carefully chosen words for whatever +parents you had. But I can see that all this is needless. You are an +extremely immaculate person. + +“That isn't necessarily admirable,” he added. + +“I don't believe I am admirable at all,” Linda replied. + +“How old are you?” he demanded abruptly. + +She told him. + +“Age doesn't exist for some women, they are eternal,” he continued. “You +see, I call you a woman, but you are not, and neither are you a child. +You are Art--Art the deathless,” his gaze strayed back to the Victory. + +As she, too, looked at it, it seemed to Linda that the cast filled +all the room with a swirl of great white wings and heroic robes. In an +instant the incense and the dark colors, the uncertain pallid faces +and bare shoulders, were swept away into a space through which she was +dizzily borne. The illusion was so overpowering that involuntarily she +caught at the heavy arm by her. + + + + +XV + + +“Why did you do that?” he asked quickly, with a frowning regard. Linda +replied easily and directly. “It seemed as if it were carrying me with +it,” she specified; “on and on and on, without ever stopping. I felt as +if I were up among the stars.” She paused, leaning forward, and gazed +at the statue. Even now she was certain that she saw a slight flutter of +its draperies. “It is beautiful, isn't it? I think it's the first thing +I ever noticed like that. You know what I mean--the first thing that +hadn't a real use.” + +“But it has,” he returned. “Do you think it is nothing to be swept into +heaven? I suppose by 'real' you mean oatmeal and scented soap. Women +usually do. But no one, it appears, has any conception of the practical +side of great art. You might try to remember that it is simply +permanence given to beauty. It's like an amber in which beautiful and +fragile things are kept forever in a lovely glow. That is all, and it is +enough. + +“When I said that you were Art I didn't mean that you were skilfully +painted and dressed, but that there was a quality in you which recalled +all the charming women who had ever lived to draw men out of the +mud--something, probably, of which you are entirely unconscious, and +certainly beyond your control. You have it in a remarkable degree. It +doesn't belong to husbands but to those who create 'Homer's children.' + +“That's a dark saying of Plato's, and it means that the _Alcestis_ is +greater than any momentary offspring of the flesh.” + +Linda admitted seriously, “Of course, I don't understand, yet it seems +quite familiar--” + +“Don't, for Heaven's sake, repeat the old cant about reincarnation;” he +interrupted, “and sitting together, smeared with antimony, on a roof of +Babylon.” + +She hadn't intended to, she assured him. “Tell me about yourself,” he +directed. It was as natural to talk with him as it was, with others, +to keep still. Her frank speech flowed on and on, supported by the +realization of his attention. + +“There really isn't much, besides hotels, all different; but you'd be +surprised how alike they were, too. I mean the things to eat, and the +people. I never realized how tired I was of them until mother married +Mr. Moses Feldt. The children were simply dreadful, the children and +the women; the men weren't much better.” She said this in a tone of +surprise, and he nodded. “I can see now--I am supposed to be too old for +my age, and it was the hotels. You learn a great deal.” + +“Do you like Mr. Moses Feldt?” + +“Enormously; he is terribly sweet. I intend to marry a man just like +him. Or, at least, he was the second kind I decided on: the first only +had money, then I chose one with money who was kind, but now I don't +know. It's very funny: kindness makes me impatient. I'm perfectly sure +I'll never care for babies, they are so mussy. I don't read, and I can't +stand being--well, loved. + +“Mother went to a great many parties; every one liked her and she liked +every one back; so it was easy for her. I used to long for the time when +I'd wear a lovely cloak and go out in a little shut motor with a man +with pearls; but now that's gone. They want to kiss you so much. I wish +that satisfied me. Why doesn't it? Is there anything the matter with me, +do you think? I've been told that I haven't any heart.” + +As he laughed at her she noticed how absurdly small a cigarette seemed +in his broad powerful hand. “What has happened to you is this,” he +explained: “a combination of special circumstances has helped you in +every way to be what, individually, you were. As a rule, children are +brought up in a house of lies, like taking a fine naked body and binding +it into hideous rigid clothes. You escaped the damnation of cheap +ready-cut morals and education. Your mother ought to have a superb +monument--the perfect parent. Of course you haven't a 'heart.' From the +standpoint of nature and society you're as depraved as possible. You are +worse than any one else here--than all of them rolled together.” + +Curiously, she thought, this didn't disturb her, which proved at once +that he was right. Linda regarded herself with interest as a supremely +reprehensible person, perhaps a vampire. The latter, though, was a +rather stout woman who, dressed in frightful lingerie, occupied couches +with her arms caught about the neck of a man bending over her. Every +detail of this was distasteful. + +What was she? + +Her attention wandered to the squat Chinese god in the glass case. It +was clear that he hadn't stirred for ages. A difficult thought partly +formed in her mind--the Chinese was the god of this room, of Markue's +party, of the women seated in the dim light on the floor and the divans; +the low gurgle of their laughter, the dusky whiteness of their shoulders +in the upcoiling incense, the smothered gleams of their hair, with the +whispering men, were the world of the grayish-green image. + +She explained this haltingly to Pleydon, who listened with a flattering +interest. “I expect you're laughing at me inside,” she ended impotently. +“And the other, the Greek Victory,” he added, “is the goddess of the +other world, of the spirit. It's quaint a heathen woman should be that.” + +Linda discovered that she liked Pleydon enormously. She continued +daringly that he might be the sort of man she wanted to marry. But he +wouldn't be easy to manage; probably he could not be managed at all. Her +mother had always insisted upon the presence of that possibility in any +candidate for matrimony. And, until now, Linda's philosophy had been in +accord with her. But suddenly she entertained the idea of losing herself +completely in--in love. + +A struggle was set up within her: on one hand was everything that she +had been, all her experience, all advice, and her innate detachment; +on the other an obscure delicious thrill. Perhaps this was what she now +wanted. Linda wondered if she could try it--just a little, let herself +go experimentally. She glanced swiftly at Pleydon, and his bulk, his +heavy features, the sullen mouth, appalled her. + +Men usually filled her with an unaccountable shrinking into her remotest +self. Pleydon was different; her liking for him had destroyed a large +part of her reserve; but a surety of instinct told her that she couldn't +experiment there. It was characteristic that a lesser challenge left her +cold. She had better marry as she had planned. + +Susanna Noda came up petulantly and sank in a brilliant graceful swirl +at his feet. Her golden eyes, half shut, studied Linda intently. + + + + +XVI + + +“I am fatigued,” she complained; “you know how weary I get when you +ignore me.” He gazed down at her untouched. “I have left Lao-tze for +Greece,” he replied. She found this stupid and said so. “Has he been no +more amusing than this?” she asked Linda. “But then, you are a child, +it all intrigues you. You listen with the flattery of your blue eyes and +mouth, both open.” + +“Don't be rude, Susanna,” Pleydon commanded. “You are so feminine that +you are foolish. I'm not the stupid one--look again at our 'child.' Tell +me what you see.” + +“I see Siberia,” she said finally. “I see the snow that seems so pure +while it is as blank and cold as death. You are right, Dodge. I was the +dull one. This girl will be immensely loved; perhaps by you. A calamity, +I promise you. Men are pigs,” she turned again to Linda; “no--imbeciles, +for only idiots destroy the beauty that is given to them. They take your +reputation with a smile, they take your heart with iron fingers; your +beauty they waste like a drunken Russian with gold.” + +“Susanna, like all spendthrifts, is amazed by poverty.” + +Even in the gloom Linda could see the pallor spreading over the other's +face; she was glad that Susanna Noda spoke in Russian. However, with a +violent effort, she subdued her bitterness. “Go into your Siberia!” she +cried. “I always thought you were capable of the last folly of marriage. +If you do it will spoil everything. You are not great, you know, not +really great, not in the first rank. You've only the slightest chance of +that, too much money. You were never in the gutter as I was--” + +“Chateaubriand,” he interrupted, “Dante, Velasquez.” + +“No, not spiritually!” she cried again. “What do you know of the +inferno! Married, you will get fat.” Pleydon turned lightly to Linda: + +“As a supreme favor do not, when I ask you, marry me.” + +This, for Linda, was horribly embarrassing. However, she gravely +promised. The Russian lighted a cigarette; almost she was serene again. +Linda said, “Fatness is awful, isn't it?” + +Pleydon replied, “Death should be the penalty. If women aren't lovely--” + he waved away every other consideration. + +“And if men have fingers like carrots--” Susanna mimicked him. Judith, +flushed, her hair loosened, approached. “Linda,” she demanded, “do you +remember when we ordered the taxi? Was it two or three?” Markue, at her +shoulder, begged her not to consider home. + +“I'm going almost immediately,” Pleydon said, “and taking your Linda.” + His height and determined manner scattered all objections. + +Linda, at the entrance to the apartment, found to her great surprise--in +place of the motor she had expected--a small graceful single-horse +victoria, the driver buttoned into a sealskin rug. Deep in furs, beside +Pleydon, she was remarkably comfortable, and she was soothed by the +rhythmic beat of the hoofs, the even progress through the crystal night +of Fifth Avenue. + +Her companion flooded his being with the frozen air. They had, it +seemed, lost all desire to talk. The memory of Markue's party lingered +like the last vanishing odor of his incense; there was a confused vision +of the murmurous room against the lighted exterior where the drinks +sparkled on a table. Linda made up her mind that she would not go to +another. Then she wondered if she'd see Pleydon again. The Russian +singer had been too silly for words. + +It suddenly occurred to her that the man now with her had taken Susanna +Noda, and that he had left her planted. He had preferred driving her, +Linda Condon, home. He wasn't very enthusiastic about it, though; his +face was gloomy. + +“The truth is,” he remarked at last, “that Susanna is right--I am not +in the first rank. But that was all nonsense about the necessity of the +gutter--sentimental lies.” + +Linda was not interested in this, but it left her free to explore her +own emotions. The night had been eventful because it had shaken all the +foundation of what she intended. That single momentary delicious thrill +had been enough to threaten the entire rest. At the same time her native +contempt of the other women, of Judith with her tumbled hair, persisted. +Was there no other way to capture such happiness? Was it all hopelessly +messy with drinks and unpleasant familiarity? + +What did Pleydon mean by spirit? Surely there must be more kinds of love +than one--he had intimated that. She gathered that “Homer's children,” + those airs of Gluck that she liked so well, were works of art, +sculpture, such as he did. Yet she had never thought of them as +important, important as oatmeal or delicate soap. She made up her mind +to ask him about it, when she saw that they had reached the Eighties; +she was almost home. + +“I am going away to-morrow,” he told her, “for the winter, to South +America. When I come back we'll see each other. If you should change +address send me a line to the Harvard Club.” The carriage had stopped +before the great arched entrance to the apartment-house, towering in its +entire block. He got out and lifted her to the pavement as if she had +been no more than a flower in his hands. Then he walked with her into +the darkness of the garden. + +The fountains were cased in boards; the hedged borders, the bushes and +grass, were dead. High above them on the dark wall a window was bright. +Linda's heart began to pound loudly, she was trembling ... from the +cold. There was a faint sound in the air--the elevated trains, or +stirring wings? It was nothing, then, to be lifted into heaven. There +was the door to the hall and elevator. She turned, to thank Dodge +Pleydon for all his goodness to her, when he lifted her--was it toward +heaven?--and kissed her mouth. + +She was still in his arms, with her eyes closed. “Linda Condon?” he +said, in a tone of inquiry. + +At the same breath in which she realized a kiss was of no importance a +sharp icy pain cut at her heart. It hurt her so that she gasped. Then, +and this was strange, she realized that--as a kiss--it hadn't annoyed +her. Suddenly she felt that it wasn't just that, but something far more, +a part of all her inner longing. He had put her down and was looking +away, a face in shadow with an ugly protruding lip. + +She saw him that way in her dreams--in the court under the massive +somber walls, with a troubled frown over his eyes. It seemed to her +that, reaching up, she smoothed it away as they stood together in a +darkness with the fountains, the hedges, dead, the world with never a +sound sleeping in the prison of winter. + + + + +XVII + + +Linda thought about Dodge Pleydon on a warm evening of the following +May. At four o'clock, in a hotel, Pansy had been married; and the entire +Feldt connection had risen to a greater height of clamorous cheer than +ever before. Extravagant unseasonable dishes, wines and banked flowers +were lavishly mingled with sentimental speeches, healths and tears. +Linda had been acutely restless, impatient of all the loud good humor +and stupid compliments. The sense of her isolation from their life was +unbearably keen. She would have a very different wedding with a man in +no particular like Pansy's. + +After dinner--an occasion, with Pansy absent, where Mr. Moses Feldt's +tears persisted in flowing--she had strayed into the formal chamber +across from the dining-room and leaned out of a window, gazing into the +darkening court. Directly below was where Pleydon had kissed her. She +often re-examined her feelings about that; but only to find that they +had dissolved into an indefinite sense of the inevitable. Not alone had +it failed to shock her--she hadn't even been surprised. Linda thought +still further about kissing, with the discovery that if, while it was +happening, she was conscious of the kiss, it was a failure; successful, +it carried her as far as possible from the actuality. + +Pleydon, of course, had not written to her; he had intimated nothing to +the contrary, only asking her to let him know, at the Harvard Club, if +she changed address. That wasn't necessary, and now, probably, he was +back from South America. Where, except by accident, might she see him? +Markue, with his parties, had dropped from Judith's world, his place +taken by a serious older dealer in Dutch masters with an impressive +gallery just off Fifth Avenue. + +That she would see him Linda was convinced; this feeling absorbed any +desire; it was no good wanting it or not wanting it; consequently she +was undisturbed. She considered him gravely and in detail. Had there +been any more Susanna Nodas in his stay south? She had heard somewhere +that the women of Argentine were irresistible. Her life had taught her +nothing if not the fact that a number of women figured in every man's +history. It was deplorable but couldn't be avoided; and whether or not +it continued after marriage depended on the cunning of any wife. + +Now, however, Linda felt weary already at the prospect of a married life +that rested on the constant play of her ingenuity. A great many things +that, but a little before, she had willingly accepted, seemed to her +probably not less necessary but distinctly tiresome. Linda began to +think that she couldn't really bother; the results weren't sufficiently +important. + +Dodge Pleydon. + +She slept in a composed order until the sun was well up. It was warmer +than yesterday; and, going to an afternoon concert with Judith, she +decided to walk. Linda strolled, in a short severe jacket and skirt, a +black straw hat turned back with a cockade and a crisp flushed mass of +sweet peas at her waist. The occasion, as it sometimes happened, found +her in no mood for music. The warmth of the sunlight, the open city +windows and beginning sounds of summer, had enveloped her in a mood in +which the jangling sentimentality of a street organ was more potent than +the legato of banked violins. + +She was relieved when the concert was over, but lingered at her seat +until the crowd had surged by; it made Linda furious to be shoved +or indiscriminately touched. Judith had gone ahead, when Linda was +conscious of the scrutiny of a pale well-dressed woman of middle age. +It became evident that the other was debating whether or not to speak; +clearly such an action was distasteful to her; and Linda had turned away +before a restrained voice addressed her: + +“You will have to forgive me if I ask your name ... because of a certain +resemblance. Seeing you I--I couldn't let you go.” + +“Linda Condon,” she replied. + +The elder, Linda saw, grew even paler. She put out a gloved hand. “Then +I was right,” she said in a slightly unsteady voice. “But perhaps, when +I explain, you will think it even stranger, inexcusable. My dear child, +I am your father's sister.” + +Linda was invaded by a surprise equally made up of interest and +resentment. The first was her own and the second largely borrowed +from her mother. Besides, why had her father's family never made the +slightest effort to see her. This evidently had simultaneously occurred +to the other. + +“Of course,” she added, quite properly, “we can't undertake family +questions here. I shouldn't blame you a bit, either, if you went +directly away. I had to speak, to risk that, because you were so +unmistakably a Lowrie. It is not a common appearance. We--I--” she +floundered for a painful moment; then she gathered herself with a +considerable dignity. “Seeing you has affected me tremendously, changed +everything. I have nothing to say in our defense, you must understand +that. I am certain, too, that my sister will feel the same--we live +together in Philadelphia. I hope you will give me your address and let +us write to you. Elouise will join with me absolutely.” + +Linda told her evenly where she lived, and then allowed Miss Lowrie to +precede her toward the entrance. She said nothing of this to Judith, +nor, momentarily, to her mother. She wanted to consider it undisturbed +by a flood of talk and blame. It was evident to her that the Lowries had +behaved very badly, but just how she couldn't make out. She recalled her +father's sister--her aunt--minutely, forced to the realization that she +was a person of entire superiority. Here, she suddenly saw, had been +the cause of all their difficulties--the Lowries hadn't approved of the +marriage, they had objected to her mother. + +Five years ago she would have been incensed at this; but now, +essentially, she was without personal indignation. She wanted, for +herself, to discover as much as possible about her father and his +family. A need independent of maternal influences stirred her. Linda was +reassured by the fact that her father had been gently born; while she +realized that she had always taken this for granted. Her mother must +know nothing about the meeting with Miss Lowrie until the latter had +written. + +That was Friday and the letter came the following Tuesday. Linda, alone +at the breakfast-table, instantly aware of the source of the square +envelope addressed in a delicate regular writing, opened it and read in +an unusual mental disturbance: + +“My dear Linda, + +I hope you will not consider it peculiar for me to call you this, +for nothing else seems possible. Meeting you in that abrupt manner upset +me, as you must have noticed. Of course I knew of you, and even now I +can not go into our long unhappy affair, but until I saw you, and so +remarkably like the Lowries, I did not realize how wicked Elouise and I +had been. But I am obliged to add only where you were concerned. We have +no desire to be ambiguous in that. + +However, I am writing to say that we should love to have you visit us +here. It is possible under the circumstances that your mother will not +wish you to come. Yet I know the Lowries, a very independent and +decided family, and although it is my last intention to be the cause of +difficulty with your mother, still I hope it may be arranged. + +In closing I must add how happy I was at the evidence of your blood. +But that, I now see, was a certainty. You will have to forgive us for a +large measure of blindness. Affectionately, + +AMELIA VIGNÉ LOWRIE.” + + +Almost instantaneously Linda was aware that she would visit the Lowries. +She liked the letter extremely, as well as all that she remembered of +its sender. At the same time she prepared for a scene with her mother, +different from those of the past--with the recourse to the brandy +flask--but no less unpleasant. They had very little to say to each other +now; and, when she went into her mother's room with an evident definite +purpose, the latter showed a constrained surprise, a palpable annoyance +that her daughter had found her at the daily renovation of her worn +face. + + + + +XVIII + + +Linda said directly, “I met Miss Lowrie, father's sister, at a concert +last week, and this morning I had a letter asking me to stay with them +in Philadelphia.” + +Mrs. Feldt's face suddenly had no need for the color she held poised +on a cloth. Her voice, sharp at the beginning, rose to a shrill +unrestrained wrath. + +“I wonder at the brass of her speaking to you at all let alone writing +here. Just you give me the letter and I'll shut her up. The idea! I hope +you were cool to her, the way they treated us. Stay with them--I guess +not!” + +“But I thought of going,” Linda replied. “It's only natural. After all, +you must see that he was my father.” + +“A pretty father he was, too good for the girl he married. It's my fault +I didn't tell you long ago, but I just couldn't abide the mention of +him. He deserted me, no, us, cold, without a word--walked out of the +door one noon, taking his hat as quiet as natural, and never came back. +I never saw him again nor heard except through lawyers. That was the +kind of heart he had, and his sisters are worse. I hadn't a decent +speech of any kind out of them. The Lowries,” she managed to inject a +surprising amount of contempt into her pronouncement of that name. “What +it was all about you nor any sensible person would never believe: + +“The house smelled a little of boiled cabbage. That's why he left me, +and you expected in a matter of a few months. He said in his dam' frigid +way that it had become quite impossible and took down his hat.” + +“There must have been more,” Linda protested, suppressing a mad desire +to laugh. + +“Not an inch,” her mother asserted. “Nothing, after a little, suited +him. He'd sit up like a poker, just as I've seen you, with his lips +tight together in the Lowrie manner. It didn't please him no matter what +you'd do. He wouldn't blow out at you like a Christian and I never knew +where I was at. I'd come down in a matinée, the prettiest I could buy, +and then see he didn't like it. He would expect you to be dressed in the +morning like it was afternoon and you going out. And as for loosening +your corsets for a little comfort about the house, you might as well +have slapped him direct. + +“That wasn't the worst, though; but his going away without as much as a +flicker of his hand; and with me like I was. Nobody on earth but would +blame him for that. I only got what was allowed me after we had changed +back to my old name, me and you. He never asked one single question +about you nor tried to see or serve you a scrap. For all he knew, at a +place called Santa Margharita in Italy, you might have been born dead.” + +She was unable, Linda recognized, to defend him in any way; he had acted +frightfully. She acknowledged this logically with her power of reason, +but somehow it didn't touch her as it had her mother, and as, evidently, +the latter expected. She was absorbed in the vision of her father +sitting, in the Lowrie manner, rigid as a poker; she saw him quietly +take up his hat and go away forever. Linda understood his process +completely; she was capable of doing precisely the same thing. Whatever +was the matter with her--in the heartlessness so often laid to her +account--had been equally true of her father. + +“You ought to know what to say to them,” Mrs. Moses Feldt cried, “or +I'll do it for you! If only I had seen her she would have heard a thing +or two not easy forgotten.” + +Linda's determination to go to Philadelphia had not been shaken, and she +made a vain effort to explain her attitude. “Of course, it was horrid +for you,” she said. “I can understand how you'd never never forgive him. +But I am different, and, I expect, not at all nice. It's very possible, +since he was my father, that we are alike. I wish you had told me this +before--it explains so much and would have made things easier for me. I +am afraid I must see them.” + +She was aware of the bitterness and enmity that stiffened her mother +into an unaccustomed adequate scorn: + +“I might have expected nothing better of you, and me watching it coming +all these years. You can go or stay. I had my life in spite of the both +of you, as gay as I pleased and a good husband just the same. I don't +care if I never see you again, and if it wasn't for the fuss it would +make I'd take care I didn't. You'll have your father's money now I'm +married; I wonder you stay around here at all with your airs of being +better than the rest. God's truth is you ain't near as good, even if I +did bring you into the world.” + +“I am willing to agree with you,” Linda answered. “No one could be +sweeter than the Feldts. I sha'n't do nearly as well. But that isn't +it, really. People don't choose themselves; I'm certain father didn't at +that lonely Italian place. If you weren't happy laced in the morning it +wasn't your fault. You see, I am trying to excuse myself, and that isn't +any good, either.” + +“Unnatural,” Mrs. Moses Feldt pronounced. And Linda, weary and +depressed, allowed her the last word. + + + + +XIX + + +Nothing further during the subsequent brief exchange of notes between +Miss Lowrie and Linda was said of the latter's intention to visit her +father's family. Mrs. Feldt, however, whose attitude toward Linda had +been negatively polite, now displayed an animosity carefully hidden from +her husband but evident to the two girls. The elder never neglected an +opportunity to emphasize Linda's selfishness or make her personality +seem ridiculous. But this Linda ignored from her wide sense of the +inconsequence of most things. + +Yet she was relieved when, finally, she had actually left New York. She +looked forward with an unusual hopeful curiosity to the Lowries. To +her surprise their house--miles, it appeared, from the center of the +city--was directly on a paved street with electric cars, unpretentious +stores and very humble dwellings nearby. Back from the thoroughfare, +however, there were spacious green lawns. The street itself, she saw +at once, was old--a highway of gray stone with low aged stone façades, +steep eaves and blackened chimney-pots reaching, dusty with years, into +the farther hilly country. + +A gable of the Lowrie house, with a dignified white door, a fanlight of +faintly iridescent glass and polished brasses, faced the brick sidewalk, +while to the left there was a high board fence and an entrance with a +small grille open on a somber reach of garden. A maid in a stiff white +cap answered the fall of the knocker; she took Linda's bag; and, in a +hall that impressed her by its bareness, Linda was greeted by the Miss +Lowrie she had seen. + +Her aunt was composed, but there was a perceptible flush on her cheeks, +and she said in a rapid voice, after a conventional welcome, “You must +meet Elouise at once, before you go up to your room.” + +Elouise Lowrie was older than Amelia, but she, too, was slender +and erect, with black hair startling in its density on her wasted +countenance. Linda noticed a fine ruby on a crooked finger and beautiful +rose point lace. “It was good of you,” the elder proceeded, “to come and +see two old women. I don't know whether we have more to say or to keep +still about. But I, for one, am going to avoid explanations. You are +here, a fool could see that you were Bartram's girl, and that is enough +for a Lowrie.” + +The room was nearly as bare as the hall: in place of the deep carpets of +the Feldts' the floor, of dark uneven oak boards, was merely waxed and +covered by a rough-looking oval rug. The walls were paneled in white, +with white ruffled curtains at small windows; and the furniture, the +dull mahogany ranged against the immaculate paint, the rocking-chairs +of high slatted walnut and rush bottoms, the slender formality of tables +with fluted legs, was dignified but austere. There were some portraits +in heavy old gilt--men with florid faces and tied hair, and the delicate +replicas of high-breasted women in brocades. + +There was, plainly, an air of the exceptional in Amelia Lowrie's +conduction of Linda to her room. She waited at the door while the other +moved forward to the center of a chamber empty of all the luxury Linda +had grown to demand. There was a bed with tall graceful posts supporting +a canopy like a frosting of sugar, a solemn set of drawers with a +diminutive framed mirror in which she could barely see her shoulders, +a small unenclosed brass clock with long exposed weights, and two +uninviting painted wooden chairs. This was not, although very nearly, +all. Linda's attention was attracted by a framed and long-faded +photograph of a young man, bareheaded, with a loosely knotted scarf, a +striped blazer and white flannels. His face was thin and sensitive, +his lips level, and his eyes gazed with a steady questioning at the +observer. + +“That was Bartram,” Amelia Lowrie told her; “your father. This was his +room.” + +She went down almost immediately and left Linda, in a maze of dim +emotions, seated on one of the uncomfortable painted chairs. Her father! +This was his room; nothing, she realized, had been disturbed. The mirror +had held the vaguely unsteady reflection of his face; he had slept under +the arched canopy of the bed. She rose and went to a window from which +he, too, had looked. + +Below her was the garden shut in on its front by the high fence. There +was a magnolia-tree, now covered with thick smooth white flowers, and, +at the back, low-massed rhododendron with fragile lavender blossoms on +a dark glossy foliage. But the space was mainly green and shadowed +in tone; while beyond were other gardens, other emerald lawns and +magnolia-trees, an ordered succession of tranquillity with separate +brick or stone or white dwellings in the lengthening afternoon shadows +of vivid maples. + +It was as different as possible from all that Linda had known, from the +elaborate hotels and gigantic apartment houses, the tropical interiors, +of her New York life. She unpacked her bag, putting her gold toilet +things on the chest of drawers, precisely arranging in a shallow closet +what clothes she had brought, and then, changing, went down to the +Lowries. + +They surveyed her with eminent approval at a dinner-table lighted only +with candles, beside long windows open on a dusk with a glimmer of +fireflies. Suddenly Linda felt amazingly at ease; it seemed to her +that she had sat here before, with the night flowing gently in over the +candle-flames. The conversation, she discovered, never strayed far +from the concerns and importance of the Lowrie blood. “My grandmother, +Natalie Vigné,” Elouise informed her, “came with her father to +Philadelphia from France, in eighteen hundred and one, at the invitation +of Stephen Girard, who was French as well. She married Hallet Lowrie +whose mother was a Bartram. + +“That, my dear, explains our black hair and good figgers. There never +was a lumpy Lowrie. Well, Hallet built this house, or rather enlarged +it, for his wife; and it has never been out of the family. Our nephew, +Arnaud Hallet--Arnaud was old Vigné's name--owns it now. Isaac Hallet, +you may recall, was suspected of being a Tory; at any rate his brother's +descendants, Fanny Rodwell is the only one left, won't speak.” + +The placid conversation ran on unchanged throughout dinner and the +evening. Linda was relieved by the absence of any questioning; indeed +nothing contemporary, she realized, was held to be significant. “I +thought Arnaud would be in to-night,” Elouise Lowrie said; “he knew +Linda was expected.” No one, however, appeared; and Linda went up early +to her room. There, too, were only candles, a pale wavering illumination +in which the past, her father, were extraordinarily nearby. A sense of +pride was communicated to her by so much that time had been unable to +shake. The bed was steeped in the magic of serene traditions. + + + + +XX + + +Arnaud Hallet appeared for dinner the evening after Linda's arrival; +a quiet man with his youth lost, slightly stooped shoulders, crumpled +shoes and a green cloth bag. But he had a memorable voice and an easy +distinction of manner; in addition to these she discovered, at the +table, a lighter amusing sense of the absurd. She watched him--as +he poured the sherry from a decanter with a silver label hung on a +chain--with a feeling of mild approbation. On the whole he was nice but +uninteresting. What a different man from Pleydon! + +The days passed in a pleasant deliberation, with Arnaud Hallet +constantly about the house or garden, while Linda's thoughts continually +returned to the sculptor. He was clearer than the actuality of her +mother and the Feldts or the recreated image of her father. At times she +was thrilled by the familiar obscure sense of music, of longing slowly +translated into happiness. Then more actual problems would envelop her +in doubt. Mostly she was confused--in her cool material necessity for +understanding--by the temper of her feeling for Dodge Pleydon. Linda +wondered if this were love. Perhaps, when she saw him again, she'd be +able to decide. Then she remembered promising to let him know if she +changed her address. It was possible that already he had called at the +Feldts', or written, and that her mother had refused to inform him where +she had gone. + +Linda had been at the Lowries' two weeks now, but they were acutely +distressed when she suggested that her visit was unreasonably prolonged. +“My dear,” they protested together, “we hoped you'd stay the summer. +Bartram's girl! Unless, of course, it is dull with us. Something +brighter must be arranged. No doubt we have only thought of our own +pleasure in having you.” + +Linda replied honestly that she enjoyed being with them extremely. Her +mother's dislike, the heavy luxury of the Feldt apartment, held little +attraction for her. Then, too, losing the sense of the bareness of the +house Hallet Lowrie had built for his French wife, she began to find it +surprisingly appealing. + +Her mind returned to her promise to Pleydon. She told herself +that probably he had forgotten her existence, but she had a strong +unreasoning conviction that this was not so. It seemed the most natural +thing in the world to write him and, almost before she was aware of +the intention, she had put “Dear Mr. Pleydon” at the head of a sheet of +note-paper. + +I promised to let you know in the spring when you came back from South +America where I was. I did not think I would have to do it, but here I +am in Philadelphia with my father's sisters. I do not know just how long +for, but a month, anyhow. It is very quiet, but charming. I have the +room that was my father's when he was young, and look out of the window +like he must have. If you should come to Philadelphia my aunts ask me to +say that they would be glad to have you for dinner. This is how you get +here.... + +Very sincerely, + +LINDA CONDON. + +She walked to a street crossing, where she dropped the envelope into a +letter-box on a lamppost, and returned to find Arnaud Hallet waiting for +her. He said: + +“Everyone agrees I'm serious, but actually you are worse than the +Assembly.” They went through the dining-room to the garden, and sat +on the stone step of a deep window. It was quite late, perhaps eleven +o'clock, and the fireflies, slowly rising into the night, had vanished. +Linda was cool and remote and grave, silently repeating and weighing the +phrases of her letter to Pleydon. + +She realized that Arnaud Hallet was coming to like her a very great +deal; but she gave this only the slightest attention. She liked him, +really, and that dismissed him from serious consideration. Anyhow, +in spite of the perfection of his manner, Arnaud's careless dress +displeased her: his shoes and the shoulders of his coat were perpetually +dusty, and his hair, growing scant, was always ruffled. Linda understood +that he was highly intellectual, and frequently contributed historical +and genealogical papers to societies and bulletins, but compared with +Dodge Pleydon's brilliant personality and reputation, Pleydon surrounded +by the Susanna Nodas of life, Arnaud was as dingy as his shoes. + +She wondered idly when the latter would actually try to love her. He was +holding her hand and it might well be to-night. Linda decided that he +would do it delicately; and when, almost immediately, he kissed her, she +was undisturbed. No, surprisingly, it had been quite pleasant. He hadn't +mussed her ribbons, nor her spirit, a particle. In addition he did not +at once become impossible and urgently sentimental; there was even a +shade of amusement on his heavy face. + +“You appear to take a lot for granted,” he complained. + +“I'd been wondering when it would happen,” she admitted coolly. + +“It always does, then?” + +“Usually I stop it,” she continued. “I don't believe I'll ever like +being kissed. Can you tell me why? No one ever has; they all think they +can bring me around to it.” + +“And to them,” he added. + +“But they end by being furious at me. I've been sworn at and called +dreadful names. Sometimes they're only silly. One cried; I hated that +the most.” + +“Do you mean that you were sorry for him?” + +“Oh, dear, no. Why should I be? He looked so odious all smeared with +tears.” + +Arnaud Hallet returned promptly: “Linda, you're a little beast.” To +counteract his rude speech he kissed her again. “This,” he said with +less security, “threatens to become a habit. I thought, at forty-five, +that I was safely by the island of sirens, but I'll be on the rocks +before I know it.” + +She laughed with the cool remoteness of running water. + +“I wonder you haven't been murdered,” he proceeded, “in a moonless +garden by an elderly lawyer. Do you ever think of the lyric day when, +preceded by a flock of bridesmaids and other flowery pagan truck, you'll +meet justice?” + +“Marriage?” she asked. “But of course. I have everything perfectly +planned--” + +“Then, my dear Linda, describe him.” + +“Very straight,” she said, “with beautiful polished shoes and brushed +hair.” + +“You ought to have no trouble finding that. Any number of my friends +have one--to open the door and take your things. I might arrange a very +satisfactory introduction for everybody concerned--a steady man well on +his way to preside over the pantry and table.” + +“You're not as funny as usual,” Linda decided critically. “That, too, +disturbs me,” he replied. “It looks even more unpromising for the near +future.” + + + + +XXI + + +In her room Linda thought, momentarily, of Arnaud Hallet; whatever might +have been serious in her attitude toward him dissolved by the lightness +of his speech. Dodge Pleydon appealed irresistibly to her deepest +feelings. Now her mental confusion was at least clear in that she knew +what troubled her. It was not new, it extended even to times before +Pleydon had entered her life--the difficulties presented by the term +“love.” + +In her mind it was divided into two or three widely different aspects, +phases which she was unable to reconcile. Her mother, in the beginning, +had informed her that love was a nuisance. To be happy, a man must love +you without any corresponding return; this was necessary to his complete +management, the securing of the greatest possible amount of new clothes. +It was as far as love should be allowed to enter marriage. But that +reality, with a complete expression in shopping, was distant from the +immaterial and delicate emotions that in her responded to Pleydon. + +Linda had been familiar with the materials, the processes, of what, she +had been assured, was veritable love since early childhood. Her mother's +dressing, the irritable hours of fittings and at her mirror, the paint +she put on her cheeks, the crimping of her hair were for the favor of +men. These struggles had absorbed the elder, all the women Linda had +encountered, to the exclusion of everything else. This, it seemed, must, +from its overwhelming predominance, be the greatest thing in life. + +There was nothing mysterious about it. You did certain things +intelligently, if you had the figure to do them with, for a practical +end. The latter, carefully controlled, like an essence of which a drop +was delightful and more positively stifling, was as real as the +methods of approach. Oatmeal or scented soap! The force of example and +association combined to bathe such developments in the sanest light +possible, and Linda had every intention of the successful grasping of an +easy and necessary luxury. She had, until--vaguely--now, been entirely +willing to accept the unescapable conditions of love used as a means or +the element of pleasure at parties. Now, however, the unexpected element +of Dodge Pleydon disturbed her philosophy. + +Suddenly all the lacing and painting and crimping, the pretense and lies +and carefully planned accidental effects, filled her with revolt. The +insinuations of women, the bareness of their revelations, her +mother returning unsteady and mussed from a dinner, were unutterably +disgusting. Even to think of them hurt her fundamentally: so much of +what she was, of what she had determined, had been destroyed by an +emotion apparently as slight as echoed music. + +Here was the real mystery and for which nothing in her experience had +prepared her. She began to see why it was called a nuisance--if this +were love--and wondered if she had better not suppress it at once. It +wouldn't be suppressed. Her thoughts continually came back to Pleydon, +and the warmth, the disturbing thrill, always resulted. It led her away +from herself, from Linda Condon; a sufficiently strange accomplishment. +A concern for Dodge Pleydon, little schemes for his happiness and +well-being, put aside her clothes and complexion and her future. + +Until the present her acts had been the result of deliberation. She had +been impressed by the necessity for planning with care; but, in the cool +gloom of the covered bed, a sharp joy held her at the possibility of +flinging caution away. Yet she couldn't quite, no matter how much she +desired it, lose herself. Linda was glad that Pleydon was rich; and +there were, she remembered, moments for surrender. + +As usual these problems, multiplying toward night, were fewer in the +bright flood of morning. She laughed at the memory of Arnaud Hallet's +humor; and then, it was late afternoon, the maid told her that Pleydon +was in the drawing room. Her appearance satisfactory she was able to see +him at once. To her great pleasure neither Pleydon nor his clothes had +changed. He was dressed in light-gray flannels; a big easy man with a +crushing palm, large features and an expression of intolerance. + +“Linda,” he said, “what a splendid place to find you. So much better +than Markue's.” He was, she realized, very glad to see her, and dropped +at once, as if they had been uninterruptedly together, into intimate +talk. “My work has been going badly,” he proceeded; “or rather not at +all. I made a rather decent fountain at Newport; but--remember what +Susanna said?--it's not in the first rank. A happy balance and strong +enough conception; yet it is like a Cellini ewer done in granite. The +truth is, too much interests me; an artist ought to be the victim of a +monomania. I'm a normal animal.” He studied her contentedly: + +“How lovely you are. I came over--in an automobile at last--because I +was certain you couldn't exist as I remembered you. But you could and +do. Lovely Linda! And what a gem of a letter. It might have been copied +from 'The Perfect Correspondent for Young Females.' You're not going to +lose me again. When I was a little boy I had a passion for sherbets.” + +She smiled at him with half-closed eyes and the conviction that, with +Pleydon, she could easily be different. He leaned forward and his voice +startled her with the impression that he had read her mind: + +“If you could care for any one a lifetime would be short to get you. +Look, you have never been out of my thoughts--or within my reach. It +seems a myth that I kissed you; impossible ... Linda.” + +“But you did,” she told him, gaining happiness from the mere assurance. +They were alone in the drawing-room, and he rose, sweeping her up +into his arms. Yet the expected joy evaded her desire and the sudden +determination to lose utterly her reserve. It was evident that he as +well was conscious of this, for he released her and stood frowning, his +protruding lower lip uglier than ever. + +“A lifetime would be nothing,” he said again; “or it might be everything +wasted. Which are you--all soul and spirit, or none?” + +“I don't know,” she replied, in her bitter disappointment, her heart +pinched by the sharpest pain she remembered. There was the stir of +skirts at the door; Linda turned with a sense of relief to Amelia +Lowrie. However, dinner progressed very well indeed. “Then your aunt,” + Elouise said to Pleydon, “was Carrie Dodge. I recall her perfectly.” + That established, the Lowrie women talked with a gracious freedom, +exploring the furthermost infiltrations of blood and marriages. + +Linda was again serene. She watched Pleydon with an extraordinary +formless conviction--each of them was a part of the other's life; while +in some way marriage and love were now hopelessly confused. It was +beyond effort or planning. That was all she could grasp, but she was +contented. Sometimes when he talked he made the familiar descriptive +gesture with his hand, as if he were shaping the form of his speech: a +sculptor's gesture, Linda realized. + +Later they wandered into the garden, a dark enclosure with the long +ivy-covered façade of the house broken by the lighted spaces of windows. +Beyond the fence at regular intervals an electric car passed with +an increasing and diminishing clangor. The white petals of the +magnolia-tree had fallen and been wheeled away; the blossoms of the +rhododendron were dead on their stems. It was, Linda felt, a very old +garden that had known many momentary emotions and lives. + +Dodge Pleydon, standing before her, put his hands on her shoulders. +“Would I have any success?” he asked. “Do you think you'd care for me?” + +She smiled confidently up at his intent face. “Oh, yes.” Yet she hoped +that he would not kiss her--just then. The delicacy of her longing and +need were far removed from material expressions. This, of course, meant +marriage; but marriage was money, comfort, the cold thing her mother had +impressed on her. Love, her love, was a mistake here. But in a little +it would all come straight and she would understand. She no longer had +confidence in her mother's wisdom. + +In spite of her shrinking, of a half articulate appeal, he crushed her +against his face. Whatever that had filled her with hope, she thought, +was being torn from her. A sickening aversion over which she had no +control made her stark in his arms. The memories of the painted coarse +satiety of women and the sly hard men for which they schemed, the loose +discussions of calculated advances and sordid surrenders, flooded her +with a loathing for what she passionately needed to be beautiful. + +Yet deep within her, surprising in its vitality, a fragile ardor +persisted. If she could explain, not only might he understand, but be +able to make her own longing clear and secure. But all she managed +to say was, “If you kiss me again I think it will kill me.” Even that +failed to stop him. “You were never alive,” he asserted. “I'll put some +feeling into you. It has been done before with marble.” + +Linda, unresponsive, suffered inordinately. + +Again on her feet she saw that Pleydon was angry, his face grim. He +seemed changed, threatening and unfamiliar; it was exactly as if, in +place of Dodge Pleydon, a secretive impersonal ugliness stood disclosed +before her. He said harshly: + +“When will you marry me?” + +It was what, above all else, she had wanted; and Linda realized that to +marry him was still the crown of whatever happiness she could imagine. +But her horror of the past recreated by his beating down of her +gossamer-like aspiration, the vision of him flushed and ruthless, an +image of indiscriminate nameless man, made it impossible for her to +reply. An abandon of shrinking fear numbed her heart and lips. + +“You won't get rid of me as you do the others about you,” he continued. +“This time you made a mistake. I haven't any pride that you can insult; +but I have all that you--with your character--require. I have more money +even than you can want.” She cried despairingly: + +“It isn't that now! I had forgotten everything to do with money and +depended on you to take me away from it always.” + +“When will you marry me?” + +In a flash of blinding perception, leaving her as dazed as though it had +been a physical actuality, she realized that marrying him had become an +impossibility. At the barest thought of it the dread again closed about +her like ice. She tried, with all the force of old valuations, with even +an effort to summon back the vanquished thrill, to give herself to +him. But a quality overpowering and instinctive, the response of her +incalculable injury, made any contact with him hateful. It was +utterly beyond her power to explain. A greater mystery still partly +unfolded--whatever she had hoped from Pleydon belonged to the special +emotion that had possessed her since earliest childhood. + +In the immediate tragedy of her helplessness, with Dodge Pleydon +impatient for an assurance, she paused involuntarily to wonder about +that hidden imperative sense. There was a broken mental fantasy of--of a +leopard bearing a woman in shining hair. This was succeeded by a bright +thrust of happiness and, all about her, a surging like the imagined +beat of the wings of the Victory in Markue's room. Almost Pleydon had +explained everything, almost he was everything; and then the other, +putting him aside, had swept her back into the misery of doubt and +loneliness. + +“I can't marry you,” she said in a flat and dragged voice. He demanded +abruptly: + +“Why not?” + +“I don't know.” She recognized his utter right to the temper that +mastered him. For a moment Linda thought Pleydon would shake her. “You +feel that way now,” he declared; “and perhaps next month; but you will +change; in the end I'll have you.” + +“No,” she told him, with a certainty from a source outside her +consciousness. “It has been spoiled.” + +He replied, “Time will discover which of us is right. I'm almost willing +to stay away till you send for me. But that would only make you more +stubborn. What a strong little devil you are, Linda. I have no doubt I'd +do better to marry a human being. Then I think we both forget how young +you are--you can't pretend to be definite yet.” + +He captured her hands; too exhausted for any resentment or feeling she +made no effort to evade him. “I'll never say good-bye to you.” + +His voice had the absolute quality of her own conviction. To her +amazement her cheeks were suddenly wet with tears. “I want to go now,” + she said unsteadily; “and--and thank you.” + +His old easy formality returned as he made his departure. In reply to +Pleydon's demand she told him listlessly that she would be here for, +perhaps, a week longer. Then he'd see her, he continued, in New York, at +the Feldts'. + +In her room all emotion faded. Pleydon had said that she was still +young; but she was sure she could never, in experience or feeling, be +older. She became sorry for herself; or rather for the illusions, the +Linda, of a few hours ago. She examined her features in the limited +uncertain mirror--strong sensations, she knew, were a charge on the +appearance--but she was unable to find any difference in her regular +pallor. Then, mechanically conducting her careful preparations for the +night, her propitiation of the only omnipotence she knew, she put out +the candles of her May. + + + + +XXII + + +What welcome Linda met in New York came from Mr. Moses Feldt, who +embraced her warmly enough, but with an air slightly ill at ease. He +begged her to kiss her mama, who was sometimes hurt by Linda's coldness. +She made no reply, and found the same influence and evidence of the +power of suggestion in Judith. “We thought maybe you wouldn't care to +come back here,” the latter said pointedly, over her shoulder, while +she was directing the packing of a trunk. The Feldts were preparing for +their summer stay at the sea. + +Her mother's room resembled one of the sales of obvious and expensive +attire conducted in the lower salons of pleasure hotels. There were +airy piles of chiffon and satin, inappropriate hats and the inevitable +confections of silk and lace. “It's not necessary to ask if you were +right at home with your father's family,” Mrs. Condon observed with an +assumed casual inattention. “I can see you sitting with those old women +as dry and false as any. No one saved me in the clacking, I'm sure.” + +“We didn't speak of you,” Linda replied. She studied, unsparing, +the loose flesh of the elder's ravaged countenance. Her mother, she +recognized, hated her, both because she was like Bartram Lowrie and +still young, with everything unspent that the other valued and had lost. +In support of herself Mrs. Feldt asserted again that she had “lived,” + with stacks of friends and flowers, lavish parties and devoted +attendance. + +“You may be smarter than I was,” she went on, “but what good it does +you who can say? And if you expect to get something for nothing you're +fooled before you start.” She shook out the airy breadths of a vivid +echo of past daring. “From the way you act a person might think you +were pretty, but you are too thin and pulled out. I've heard your looks +called peculiar, and that was, in a manner of speaking, polite. You're +not even stylish any more--the line is full again and not suitable for +bony shoulders and no bust.” She still cherished a complacency in her +amplitude. + +Linda turned away unmoved. Of all the world, she thought, only Dodge +Pleydon had the power actually to hurt her. She knew that she would +see him soon again and that again he would ask her to marry him. She +considered, momentarily, the possibility of saying yes; and instantly +the dread born with him in the Lowrie garden swept over her. Linda told +herself that he was the only man for whom she could ever deeply care; +that--for every conceivable reason--such a marriage was perfect. But the +shrinking from its implications grew too painful for support. + +Her mother's bitterness increased hourly; she no longer hid her feelings +from her husband and Judith; and dinner, accompanied by her elaborate +sarcasm, was a difficult period in which, plainly, Mr. Moses Feldt +suffered most and Linda was the least concerned. This condition, she +admitted silently, couldn't go on indefinitely; it was too vulgar if for +no other reason. And she determined to ask the Lowries for another and +more extended invitation. + +Pleydon came, as she had expected, and they sat in the small +reception-room with the high ceiling and dark velvet hangings, the piano +at which, long ago it now seemed, Judith had played the airs of Gluck +for her. He said little, but remained for a long while spread over +the divan and watching her--in a formal chair--discontentedly. He rose +suddenly and stood above her, a domineering bulk obliterating nearly +everything else. In response to his demand she said, pale and composed, +that she was not “reasonable”; she omitted the “yet” included in his +question. Pleydon frowned. However, then, he insisted no further. + +When he had gone Linda was as spent as though there had been a fresh +brutal scene; and the following day she was enveloped in an unrelieved +depression. Her mother mocked her silence as another evidence of +ridiculous pretentiousness. Mr. Moses Feldt regarded her with a furtive +concerned kindliness; while Judith followed her with countless small +irritating complaints. It was the last day at the apartment before their +departure for the summer. Linda was insuperably tired. She had gone to +her room almost directly after dinner, and when a maid came to her door +with a card, she exclaimed, before looking at it, that she was not in. +It was, however, Arnaud Hallet; and, with a surprise tempered by a faint +interest, she told the servant that she would see him. + +There was, Linda observed at once, absolutely no difference in Arnaud's +clothing, no effort to make himself presentable for New York or her. In +a way, it amused her--it was so characteristic of his forgetfulness, and +it made him seem doubly familiar. He waved a hand toward the luxury of +the interior. “This,” he declared, “is downright impressive, and lifted, +I'm sure, out of a novel of Ouida's. + +“You will remember,” he continued, “complaining about my sense of humor +one evening; and that, at the time, I warned you it might grow worse. +It has. I am afraid, where you are concerned, that it has absolutely +vanished. My dear, you'll recognize this as a proposal. I thought my +mind was made up, after forty, not to marry; and I specially tried not +to bring you into it. You were too young, I felt. I doubted if I +could make you happy, and did everything possible, exhausted all the +arguments, but it was no good. + +“Linda, dear, I adore you.” + +She was glad, without the slightest answering emotion, that Arnaud, +well--liked her. At the same time all her wisdom declared that she +couldn't marry him; and, with the unsparing frankness of youth and her +individual detachment, she told him exactly why. + +“I need a great deal of money,” she proceeded, “because I am frightfully +extravagant. All I have is expensive; I hate cheap things--even what +satisfies most rich girls. Why, just my satin slippers cost hundreds of +dollars and I'll pay unlimited amounts for a little fulling of lace or +some rare flowers. You'd call it wicked, but I can't help it--it's me. + +“I've always intended to marry a man with a hundred thousand dollars a +year. Of course, that's a lot--do you hate me for telling you?--but I +wouldn't think of any one with less than fifty--” + +Arnaud Hallet interrupted quietly, “I have that.” + +Linda gazed incredulously at his neglected shoes, the wrinkles of his +inconsiderable coat and unstudied scarf. She saw that, actually, he had +spoken apologetically of his possessions; and a stinging shame spread +through her at the possibility that she had seemed common to an +infinitely finer delicacy than hers. + + + + +XIII + + +Most of these circumstances Linda Hallet quietly recalled sitting with +her husband in the house that had been occupied by the Lowries'. A +letter from Pleydon had taken her into a past seven years gone by; while +ordinarily her memory was indistinct; ordinarily she was fully occupied +by the difficulties, or rather compromises, of the present. But, in the +tranquil open glow of a Franklin stove and the withdrawn intentness of +Arnaud reading, her mind had returned to the distressed period of her +wedding. + +Elouise Lowrie--Amelia was dead--sunk in a stupor of extreme old age, +her bloodless hands folded in an irreproachable black surah silk lap, +sat beyond the stove; and Lowrie, Linda's elder child, five and a half, +together with his sister Vigné, had been long asleep above. Linda was +privately relieved by this: her children presented enormous obligations. +The boy, already at a model school, appalled her inadequate preparations +by his flashes of perceptive intelligence; while she was frankly abashed +at the delicate rosy perfection of her daughter. + +The present letter was the third she had received from Dodge Pleydon, +whom she had not seen since her marriage. At first he had been enraged +at the wrong, he had every reason to feel, she had done him. Then his +anger had dissolved into a meager correspondence of outward and obvious +facts. There was so much that she had been unable to explain. He had +always been impatient, even contemptuous, of the emotion that made her +surrender to him unthinkable--Linda realized now that it had been the +strongest impulse of her life--and, of course, she had never accounted +for the practically unbalanced enmity of her mother. + +The latter had deepened to an incredible degree, so much so that Mr. +Moses Feldt, though he had never taken an actual part in it--such +bitterness was entirely outside his generous sentimentality--had become +acutely uncomfortable in his own home, imploring Linda, with ready +tears, to be kinder to her mama. Judith, too, had grown cutting, jealous +of Linda's serenity of youth, as her appearance showed the effect of her +wasting emotions. Things quite extraordinary had happened: once +Linda's skin had been almost seriously affected by an irritation that +immediately followed the trace of her powder-puff; and at several times +she had had clumsily composed anonymous notes of a most distressing +nature. + +She had wondered, calmly enough, which of the two bitter women were +responsible, and decided that it was her mother. At this the situation +at the Feldts', increasingly strained, had become an impossibility. +Arnaud Hallet, after his first visit, had soon returned. There was no +more mention of his money; but every time he saw her he asked her +again, in his special manner--a formality flavored by a slight diffident +humor--to marry him. Arnaud's proposals had alternated with Pleydon's +utterly different demand. + +Linda remembered agonized evenings when, in a return of his brutal +manner of the unforgettable night in the Lowrie garden, he tried to +force a recognition of his passion. It had left her cold, exhausted, +the victim of a mingled disappointment at her failure to respond with +a hatred of all essential existence. At last, on a particularly trying +occasion, she had desperately agreed to marry him. + +The aversion of her mother, becoming really dangerous, had finally +appalled her; and a headache weighed on her with a leaden pain. Dodge, +too, had been unusually considerate; he talked about the future--tied +up, he asserted, in her--of his work; and suddenly, at the signal of her +rare tears, Linda agreed to a wedding. + +In the middle of the night she had wakened oppressed by a dread +resulting in an uncontrollable chill. She thought first that her mother +was bending a malignant face over her; and then realized that her +feeling was caused by her promise to Dodge Pleydon. It had grown worse +instead of vanishing, waves of nameless shrinking swept over her; and in +the morning, further harrowed by the actualities of being, she had sent +a telegram to Arnaud Hallet--to Arnaud's kindness and affection, his +detachment not unlike her own. + +They were married immediately; and through the ceremony and the +succeeding days she had been almost entirely absorbed in a sensation of +escape. At the death of Amelia Lowrie, soon after, Arnaud had suggested +a temporary period in the house she remembered with pleasure; and, +making small alterations with the months and years, they had tacitly +agreed to remain. + +Linda often wondered, walking about the lower floor, why it seemed so +familiar to her: she would stand in the dining-room, with its ceiling of +darkened beams, and gaze absent-minded through the long windows at the +close-cut walled greenery without. The formal drawing-room, at the right +of the street entrance, equally held her--a cool interior with slatted +wooden blinds, a white mantelpiece with delicately reeded supports and a +bas-relief of Minerva on the center panel, a polished brass scuttle for +cannel-coal and chairs with wide severely fretted backs upholstered in +old pale damask. + +The house seemed familiar, but she could never grow accustomed to the +undeniable facts of her husband, the children and her completely changed +atmosphere. She admitted to herself that her principal feeling in +connection with Lowrie and Vigné was embarrassment. Here she always +condemned herself as an indifferent, perhaps unnatural, mother. She +couldn't help it. In the same sense she must be an unsatisfactory wife. +Linda was unable to shake off the conviction that it was like a play in +which she had no more than a spectator's part. + +This was her old disability, the result of her habit of sitting, as +a child, apart from the concerns and stir of living. She made every +possible effort to overcome it, to surrender to her new conditions; but, +if nothing else, an instinctive shyness prevented. It went back further, +even, she thought, than her own experience, and she recalled all she had +heard and reconstructed of her father--a man shut in on himself who had, +one day, without a word walked out of the door and left his wife, +never to return. These realizations, however, did little to clarify her +vision; she was continually trying to adjust her being to circumstances +that persistently remained a little distant and blurred. + +In appearance, anyhow, Linda told herself with a measure of reassurance, +she was practically unchanged. She still, with the support of Arnaud, +disregarding current fashion, wore her hair in a straight bang across +her brow and blue gaze. She was as slender as formerly, but more +gracefully round, in spite of the faint characteristic stiffness that +was the result of her mental hesitation. Her clothes, too, had hardly +varied--she wore, whenever possible, white lawns ruffled about the +throat and hem, with broad soft black sashes, while her more formal +dresses were sheaths of dull unornamented satin extravagant in the +perfection of their simplicity. + + + + +XXIV + + +Arnaud Hallet stirred, sharply closing his book. He had changed--except +for a palpable settling down of grayness--as little as Linda. For a +while she had tried to bring about an improvement in his appearance, and +he had met her expressed wish whenever he remembered it; but this was +not often. In the morning a servant polished his shoes, brushed and +ironed his suits; yet by evening, somehow, he managed to look as though +he hadn't been attended to for days. She would have liked him to change +for dinner; other men of his connection did, it was a part of his +inheritance. Arnaud, however, in his slight scoffing disparagement, +declined individually to annoy himself. He was, she learned, enormously +absorbed in his historical studies and papers. + +“Did you enjoy it?” she asked politely of his reading. “Extremely,” he +replied. “The American Impressions of Tyrone Power, the English actor, +through eighteen thirty-three and four. His account of a European packet +with its handbells and Saratoga water and breakfast of spitch-cock +is inimitable. I'd like to have sat at Cato's then, with a julep or +hail-storm, and watched the trotting races.” + +Elouise Lowrie rose unsteadily, confused with dozing; but almost +immediately she gathered herself into a relentless propriety and a +formal goodnight. + +“What has been running through that mysterious mind of yours?” + +“I had a letter from Dodge,” she told him simply; “and I was thinking a +little about the past.” He exhibited the nice unstrained interest of +his admirable personality. “Is he still in France?” he queried. “Pleydon +should be a strong man; I am sure we are both conscious of a little +disappointment in him.” She said: “I'll read you his letter, it's on the +table. + +“'You will see, my dear Linda, that I have not moved from the Rue de +Penthièvre, although I have given up the place at Etretat, and I am not +going to renew the lease here. Rodin insists, and I coming to agree with +him, that I ought to be in America. But the serious attitude here toward +art, how impossible that word has been made, is charming. And you will +be glad to know that I have had some success in the French good opinion. +A marble, Cotton Mather, that I cut from the stone, has been bought for +the Luxembourg. + +“'I can hear you both exclaim at the subject, but it is very +representative of me now. I am tired of mythological naiads in a +constant state of pursuit. Get Hallet to tell you something about +Mather. What a somber flame! I have a part Puritan ancestry, as any +Lowrie will inform you. Well, I shall be back in a few months, very +serious, and a politician--a sculptor has to be that if he means to land +any public monuments in America. + +“'I hope to see you.'” + +The letter ended abruptly, with the signature, “Pleydon.” + +“Are you happy, Linda?” Arnaud Hallet asked unexpectedly after a short +silence. So abruptly interrogated she was unable to respond. “What +I mean is,” he explained, “do you think you would have been happier +married to him? I knew, certainly, that it was the closest possible +thing between us.” Now, however, she was able to satisfy him: + +“I couldn't marry Dodge.” + +“Is it possible to tell me why?” + +“He hurt me very much once. I tried to marry him, I tried to forget it, +but it was useless. I was dreadfully unhappy, in a great many ways--” + +“So you sent for me,” he put in as she paused reflectively. “I didn't +hurt you, at any rate.” It seemed to her that his tone was shadowed. +“You have never hurt me, Arnaud,” she assured him, conscious of the +inadequacy of her words. “You were everything I wanted.” + +“Except for my hats,” he said in a brief flash of his saving humor. “It +would be better for me, perhaps, if I could hurt you. That ability +comes dangerously close to a constant of love. You mustn't think I +am complaining. I haven't the slightest reason in the face of your +devastating honesty. I didn't distress you and I had the necessary +minimum--the fifty thousand.” His manner was so even, so devoid of +sting, that she could smile at the expression of her material ambitions. +“I realize exactly your feeling for myself, but what puzzles me is your +attitude toward the children.” + +“I don't understand it either,” she admitted, “except that I am quite +afraid of them. They are so different from all my own childhood; often +they are too much for me. Then I dread the time when they will discover +how stupid and uneducated I am at bottom. I'm sure you already ask +questions before them to amuse yourself at my doubt. What shall I do, +Arnaud, when they are really at school and bring home their books?” + +“Retreat behind your dignity as a parent,” he advised. “They are certain +to display their knowledge and ask you to bound things or name the +capital of Louisiana.” She cried, “Oh, but I know that, it's New +Orleans!” She saw at once, from his entertained expression, that she +was wrong again, and became conscious of a faint flush of annoyance. “It +will be even worse,” she continued, “when Vigné looks to me for advice; +I mean when she is older and has lovers.” + +“She won't seriously; they never do. She'll tell you when it's all over. +Lowrie will depend more on you. I may have my fun about the capital of +Louisiana, Linda, but I have the greatest confidence in your wisdom. God +knows what an unhappy experience your childhood was, but it has given +you a superb worldly balance.” + +“I suppose you're saying that I am cold,” she told him. “It must be +true, because it is repeated by every one. Yet, at times, I used to be +very different--you'd never imagine what a romantic thrill or strange +ideas were inside of me. Like a memory of a deep woods, and--and the +loveliest adventure. Often I would hear music as clearly as possible, +and it made me want I don't know what terrifically.” + +“An early experience,” he replied. Suddenly she saw that he was tired, +his face was lined and dejected. “You read too much,” Linda declared. +He said: “But only out of the printed book.” She wondered vainly what he +meant. As he stood before the glimmering coals, in the room saturated +in repose, she wished that she might give him more; she wanted to +spend herself in a riot of feeling on Arnaud and their children. What a +detestable character she had! Her desire, her efforts, were wasted. + +He went about putting up the windows and closing the outside shutters, a +confirmed habit. Linda rose with her invariable sense of separation, the +feeling that, bound on a journey with a hidden destination, she was only +temporarily in a place of little importance. It was like being always in +her hat and jacket. Arnaud shook down the grate; then he gazed over +the room; it was all, she was sure, as it had been a century ago, as it +should be--all except herself. + + + + +XXV + + +Yet her marriage had realized in almost every particular what she +had--so much younger--planned. The early suggestion, becoming through +constant reiteration a part of her knowledge, had been followed and +accomplished; and, as well, her later needs were served. Linda told +herself that, in a world where a very great deal was muddled, she had +been unusually fortunate. And this made her angry at her pervading lack +of interest in whatever she had obtained. + +Other women, she observed, obviously less fortunate than she, were +volubly and warmly absorbed in any number of engagements and pleasures; +she continually heard them, Arnaud's connections--the whole superior +society, eternally and vigorously discussing servants and bridge, family +and cotillions, indiscretions and charities. These seemed enough for +them; their lives were filled, satisfied, extraordinarily busy. Linda, +for the most part, had but little to do. Her servants, managed with +remote exactness, gave no trouble; she had an excellent woman for the +children; her dress presented no new points of anxiety nor departure ... +she was, in short, Arnaud admitted, perfectly efficient. She disposed of +such details mechanically, almost impatiently, and was contemptuous, no +envious, of the women whose demands they contented. + +At the dinners, the balls, to which Arnaud's sense of obligation both +to family and her took them against his inclination, it was the +same--everyone, it appeared to Linda, was flushed with an intentness she +could not share. Men, she found, some of them extremely pleasant, still +made adroit and reassuring efforts for her favor; the air here, she +discovered, was even freer than the bravado of her earlier surroundings. +This love-making didn't disturb her--it was, ultimately, the men who +were fretted--indeed, she had rather hoped that it would bring her the +relief she lacked. + +But again the observations and speculation of her mature childhood, what +she had heard revealed in the most skillful feminine dissections, had +cleared her understanding to a point that made the advances of hopeful +men quite entertainingly obvious. Their method was appallingly similar +and monotonous. She liked, rather than not, the younger ones, whose +confidence that their passion was something new on earth at times +refreshed her; but the navigated materialism of greater experience +finally became distasteful. She discussed this sharply with Arnaud: + +“You simply can't help believing that most women are complete idiots.” + +“You haven't said much more for men.” + +“The whole thing is too silly! Why is it, Arnaud? It ought to be +impressive and sweep you off your feet, up--” + +“Instead of merely behind some rented palms,” he added. “But I must say, +Linda, that you are not a very highly qualified judge of sentiment.” + He pronounced this equably, but she was conscious of the presence of an +injury in his voice. She was a little weary at being eternally condemned +for what she couldn't help. Any failure was as much Arnaud Hallet's as +hers; he had had his opportunity, all that for which he had implored +her. Her thoughts returned to Dodge Pleydon. April was well advanced, +and he had written that he'd be back and see them in the spring. Linda +listened to her heart but it was unhastened by a beat. She would be very +glad to have him at hand, in her life again, of course. + +Then the direction of her mind veered--what did he still think of her? +Probably he had altogether recovered from his love for her. It had been +a warm day, and Arnaud had opened a window; but now she was aware of a +cold air on her shoulder and she asked him abruptly to lower the sash. +Linda remembered, with a lingering sense of triumph, the Susanna Noda +whom Dodge had left at a party for her. There had been a great many +Susannas in his life; the reason for this was the absence of any +overwhelming single influence. It might be that now--he had written of +the change in the subjects of his work--such a guide had come into his +existence. She hoped she had. Yet, in view of the announced silliness of +women, she didn't want him to be cheaply deluded. + +He was an extremely human man. + +But she, Linda, it seemed, was an inhuman woman. The days ran into weeks +that added another month to spring; a June advanced sultry with heat; +and, suddenly as usual, a maid at the door of her room announced +Pleydon. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, she had to dress, and she +sent him a message that he mustn't expect her in a hurry. She paused in +her deliberate preparations for a long thoughtful gaze into a mirror; +there was not yet a shadow on her face, the trace of a line at her eyes. +The sharp smooth turning and absolute whiteness of her bare shoulders +were flawless. + +At first it appeared to Linda that he, too, had not changed. They were +in the library opening into the dining-room, a space shut against the +sun by the Venetian blinds, and faintly scented by a bowl of early tea +roses. He appeared the same--large and informally clad in gray flannels, +with aggressive features and sensitive strong hands. He was quiet but +plainly happy to be with her again and sat leaning forward on his knees, +watching her intently as she chose a seat. + +Then it slowly dawned on her that he had changed, yes--tragically. +Pleydon, in every way, was years older. His voice, less arbitrary, +had new depths of questioning, his mouth was more repressed, his face +notably sparer of flesh. He was immediately aware of the result of her +scrutiny. “I have been working like a fool,” he explained. “A breath of +sickness, too, four years ago in Soochow. One of the damnable Asiatic +fevers that a European is supposed to be immune from. You are a miracle, +Linda. How long has it been--nearly eight years; you have two children +and Arnaud Hallet and yet you are the girl I met at Markue's. I wanted +to see you different, just a little, a trace of something that should +have happened to you. It hasn't. You're the most remarkable mother +alive.” + +“If I am,” she returned, “it is not as a success, or at least for me. +Lowrie and Vigné are healthy, and happy enough; but I can't lose myself +in them, Dodge; I can't lose myself at all.” + +He was quiet at this, the smoke of his cigarette climbing bluely in a +space with the aqueous stillness of a lake's depths. “The same,” he went +on after a long pause; “nothing has touched you. I ought to be relieved +but, do you know, it frightens me. You are relentless. You have no +right, at the same time, to be beautiful. I have seen a great many +celebrated women at their best moments, but you are lovelier than any. +It isn't a simple affair of proportion and features--I wish I could hold +it in a phrase, the turn of a chisel. I can't. It's deathless romance in +a bang cut blackly across heavenly blue.” He was silent again, and Linda +glad that he still found her attractive. She discovered that the misery +his presence once caused her had entirely vanished, its place taken +by an eager interest in his affairs, a lightness of spirit at the +realization that, while his love for her might have grown calm, no other +woman possessed it. + +At the dinner-table she listened--cool and fresh, Arnaud complained, +in spite of the heat--to the talk of the two men. By her side Elouise +Lowrie occasionally repeated, in a voice like the faint jangle of an old +thin piano, the facts of a family connection or a commendation of the +Dodges. Arnaud really knew a surprising lot, and his conversation with +Pleydon was strung with terms completely unintelligible to her. It +developed, finally, into an argument over the treatment of the acanthus +motive in rococo ornament. France was summoned against Spain; the +architectural degrading of Italy deplored.... It amazed her that any one +could remember so much. + + + + +XXVI + + +Linda without a conscious reason suddenly stopped the investigation of +her feeling for Pleydon. Even in the privacy of her thoughts an added +obscurity kept her from the customary clear reasoning. After dinner, +out in the close gloom of the garden, she watched the flicker of the +cigarettes. There was thunder, so distant and vague that for a long +while Linda thought she was deceived. She had a keen rushing sensation +of the strangeness of her situation here--Linda Hallet. The night was +like a dream from which she would stir, sigh, to find herself back again +in the past waiting for the return of her mother from one of her late +parties. + +But it was Arnaud who moved and, accompanying Elouise Lowrie, went into +the house for his interminable reading. Pleydon's voice began in a low +remembering tone: + +“What a fantastic place the Feldt apartment was, with that smothered +room where you said you would marry me. You must have got hold of Hallet +in the devil of a hurry. I've often tried to understand what happened; +why, all the time, you were upset--why, why, why?” + +“In a way it was because a ridiculous hairdresser burned out some of my +mother's front wave,” she explained. + +“Of course,” he replied derisively, “nothing could be plainer.” + +She agreed calmly. “It was very plain. If you want me to try to tell you +don't interrupt. It isn't a happy memory, and I am only doing it because +I was so rotten to you. + +“Yes, I can see now that it was the hairdresser and a hundred other +things exactly the same. My mother, all the women we knew, did nothing +but lace and paint and frizzle for men. I used to think it was a game +they played and wonder where the fun was. There were even hints about +that and later they particularized and it made me as sick as possible. +The men, too, were odious; mostly fat and bald; and after a while, when +they pinched or kissed me, I wanted to die. + +“That was all I knew about love, I had never heard of any other--men +away from their families for what they called a good time and women +plotting and planning to give it to them or not give it to them. Then +mother, after her looks were spoiled, married Mr. Moses Feldt, and I +met Judith, who only existed for men and men's rooms and told me worse +things, I'm sure, than mother ever dreamed; and, on top of that, I met +you and you kissed me. + +“But it was different from any other; it didn't shock me, and it brought +back a thrill I have always had. I wanted, then, to love you, and have +you ask me to marry you, more than anything else in the world. I was +sure, if you would only be patient, that I could change what had hurt +me into a beautiful feeling. I couldn't tell you because I didn't +understand myself.” She stopped, and Pleydon repeated, bitterly and +slow: + +“Fat old bald men; and I was one with them destroying your exquisite +hope.” She heard the creak of the basket chair as he leaned forward, his +face masked in darkness. “Perhaps you think I haven't paid. + +“You will never know what love is unless I can manage somehow to make +you understand how much I love you. Hallet will have to endure your +hearing it. This doesn't belong to him; it has not touched the earth. +Every one, more or less, talks about love; but not one in a thousand, +not one in a million, has such an experience. If they did it would tear +the world into shreds. It would tear them as it has me. I realize the +other, the common thing--who experimented more! This has nothing to do +with it. A boy lost in the idealism of his first worship has a faint +reflection. Listen: + +“I can always, with a wish, see you standing before me. You +yourself--the folds of your sash, the sharp narrow print of your +slippers on the pavement or the matting or the rug, the ruffles about +your hands. I have the feeling of you near me with your breathing +disturbing the delicacy of your breast. There is the odor and shimmer of +your hair ... your lips move ... but without a sound. + +“This vision is more real than reality, than an opera-house full of +people or the Place Vendôme; and it, you, is all I care for, all I think +about, all I want. I find quiet places and stay there for hours, with +you; or, if that isn't possible, I turn into a blind man, a dead man +warm again at the bare thought of your face. Listen: + +“I've been in shining heaven with you. I have been melted to nothing and +made over again, in you, good. We have been walking together in a new +world with rapture instead of air to breathe. A slow walk through dark +trees--God knows why--like pines. And every time I think of you it is +exactly as though I could never die, as though you had burned all the +corruption out of me and I was made of silver fire. And listen: + +“Nothing else is of any importance, now or afterward, you are now and +the hereafter. I see people and people and hear words and words, and I +forget them the moment they have gone, the second they are still. But I +haven't lost an inflection of your voice. When I work in clay or stone I +model and cut you into every surface and fold. I see you looking back at +me out of marble and bronze. And here, in this garden, you tried to give +me more--” + +The infinitely removed thunder was like the continued echo of his voice. +There was a stirring of the leaves above her head; and the light that +had shone against the house in Elouise Lowrie's window was suddenly +extinguished. All that she felt was weariness and a confused dejection, +the weight of an insuperable disappointment. She could say nothing. +Words, even Pleydon's, seemed to her vain. The solid fact of Arnaud, of +what Dodge, more than seven years before, had robbed her, put everything +else aside, crushed it. + +She realized that she would never get from life what supremely +repaid the suffering of other women, made up for them the failure of +practically every vision. She was sorry for herself, yes, and for Dodge +Pleydon. Yet he had his figures in metal and stone; his sense of the +importance of his work had increased enormously; and, well, there were +Lowrie and Vigné; it would be difficult, every one agreed, to find +better or handsomer children. But they seemed no more than shadows or +colored mist. This terrified her--what a hopelessly deficient woman she +must be! But even in the profundity of her depression the old vibration +of nameless joy reached her heart. + + + + +XXVII + + +In the morning there was a telegram from Judith Feldt, saying that her +mother was dangerously sick, and she had lunch on the train for New +York. The apartment seemed stuffy; there was a trace of dinginess, +neglect, about the black velvet rugs and hangings. Her mother, she +found, had pneumonia; there was practically no chance of her recovering. +Linda sat for a short while by the elder's bed, intent upon a totally +strange woman, darkly flushed and ravished in an agonizing difficulty of +breathing. Linda had a remembered vision of her gold-haired and gay +in floating chiffons, and suddenly life seemed shockingly brief. A +serious-visaged clergyman entered the room as she left and she heard the +rich soothing murmur of a confident phrase. + +The Stella Condon who had become Mrs. Moses Feldt had had little time +for the support of the church; although Linda recalled that she had +uniformly spoken well of its offices. To condemn Christianity, she had +asserted, was to invite bad luck. She treated this in exactly the way +she regarded walking under ladders or spilling salt or putting on a +stocking wrong. Linda, however, had disregarded these possibilities of +disaster and, with them, religion. + +A great many people, she noticed, talked at length about it; women in +their best wraps and with expensive little prayer books left the hotels +for various Sunday morning services, and ministers came in later for +tea. All this, she understood, was in preparation for heaven, where +everybody, who was not in hell, was to be forever the same and yet +radiantly different. It seemed very vague and far away to Linda, and, +since there was such a number of immediate problems for her to consider, +she had easily ignored the future. When now, with her mother dying, it +was thrust most uncomfortably before her. + +She half remembered sentences, admonitions, of the godly--a woman had +once told her that dancing and low gowns were hateful in the sight of +God, some one else that playing-cards were an instrument of the devil. +Pleasure, she had gathered, was considered wrong, and she instinctively +put these opinions, together with a great deal else, aside as envious. + +That expressed her whole experience. She had never keenly associated the +thought of death with herself before, and she was unutterably revolted +by the impending destruction of her fine body, the delicate care +of which formed her main preoccupation in life. Age was supremely +distasteful, but this other ... she shuddered. + +Linda wanted desperately to preserve the whiteness of her skin, the +flexible black distinction of her hair, yes--her beauty. Here, again, +with other women the vicarious immortality of children would be +sufficient. But not for her. She was in the room that had been hers +before marriage, with her infinite preparations for the night at an +end; and, her hair loose across the blanched severity of her attire, +her delicately full arms bare, she clasped her cold hands in stabbing +apprehension. + +She would do anything, anything, to escape that repulsive fatality to +her lavished care. It was only to be accomplished by being good; and +goodness was in the charge of the minister. She saw clearly and at once +her difficulty--how could she go to a solemn man in a clerical vest and +admit that she was solely concerned by the impending loss of her beauty. +The promised splendor of heaven, in itself, failed to move her--it +threatened to be monotonous; and she was honest in her recognition that +charity, the ugliness of poverty, repelled her. Linda was certain that +she could never change in these particulars; she could only pretend. + +A surprising multiplication of such pretense occurred to her in people +regarded as impressively religious. She had seen men like that--she +vaguely thought of the name Jasper--going off with her mother in cabs +to dinners that must have been “godless.” She wondered if this mere +attitude, the public show, were enough. And an instinctive response told +her that it was not. If all she had been informed about the future were +true she decided that her mother's chance was no worse than that of any +false display of virtue. + +She, Linda, could do nothing. + +The funeral ceremony with its set form--so inappropriate to her mother's +qualities--was even more remote from Linda's sympathies than was common +in her encounters. But Mr. Moses Feldt's grief appeared to her actual +and affecting. He invested every one with the purity of his own spirit. + +She left New York at the first possible moment with the feeling that she +was definitely older. The realization, she discovered, happened in +that way--ordinarily giving the flight of time no consideration it was +brought back to her at intervals of varying length. As she aged they +would grow shorter. + +The result of this experience was an added sense of failure; she tried +more than ever to overcome her indifference, get a greater happiness +from her surroundings and activity. Linda cultivated an attention to +Lowrie and Vigné. They responded charmingly but her shyness with them +persisted in the face of her inalienable right to their full possession. +She insisted, too, on going about vigorously in spite of Arnaud's +humorous groans and protests. She forced herself to talk more to the +men attracted to her, and assumed, with disconcerting ease, an air of +sympathetic interest. But, unfortunately, this brought on her a rapid +increase of the love-making that she found so fatiguing. + +She studied her husband thoughtfully through the evenings at home, +before the Franklin stove, or, in summer, in the secluded garden. +Absolutely nothing was wrong with him; he had, after several deaths, +inherited even more money; and, in his deprecating manner where it was +concerned, devoted it to her wishes. Except for books, and the clothes +she was forced to remind him to get, he had no personal expenses. In +addition to the money he never offended her, his relationships and +manner were conducted with an inborn nice formality that preserved her +highest self-opinion. + +Yet she was never able to escape from the limitations of a calm +admiration; she couldn't lose herself, disregard herself in a flood of +generous emotion. When, desperately, she tried, he, too, was perceptibly +ill at ease. Usually he was undisturbed, but once, when she stood beside +him with her coffee cup at dinner, he disastrously lost his equanimity. +Tensely putting the cup away he caught her with straining hands. + +“Oh, Linda,” he cried, “is it true that you love me! Do you really +belong to us--to Vigné and Lowrie and me? I can't stand it if you won't +... some day.” + +She backed away into the opening of a window, against the night, from +the justice of his desire; and she was cold with self-detestation as her +fingers touched the glass. Linda tried to speak, to lie; but, miserably +still, she was unable to deceive him. The animation, the fervor of his +longing, swiftly perished. His arms dropped to his side. An unbearable +constraint deepened with the silence in the room, and later he lightly +said: + +“You mustn't trifle with my ancient heart, Linda, folly and age--” + + + + +XXVIII + + +The only other quantity in her life was Dodge Pleydon. He wrote her +again, perhaps three months after the explanation of his love; but his +letter was devoted wholly to his work, and so technical that she had to +ask Arnaud to interpret it. He added: + +“That is the mind of an impressive man. He has developed +enormously--curious, so late in life. Pleydon must be fully as old as +myself. It's clear that he has dropped his women. I saw a photograph +of the Cotton Mather reproduced in a weekly, and it was as gaunt as a +Puritan Sunday. Brimmed with power. Why don't we see him oftener? Write +and say I'd like to contradict him again about the Eastlake period.” + +He made no further reference to Pleydon then, and Linda failed to write +as Arnaud suggested. Though she wasn't disturbed at the possibility of +a continuation of his admissions of love she was weary of the thought of +its uselessness. Linda was, she told herself, damned by practicability. +Her husband used the familiar term of reproach, material. She didn't +in the least want to be. Circumstance, she had a feeling, had forced it +upon her. + +Arnaud, however, who had met Dodge Pleydon in Philadelphia, brought him +home. Linda saw with a strange constriction of the heart that Pleydon's +hair was definitely gray. He had had a recurrence of the fever +contracted in Soochow. The men at once entered on another discussion +which she was unable to follow; but it was clear that her husband +now listened with an increasing surrender of opinion to the sculptor. +Pleydon, it was true, was correspondingly more impatient with minds that +disagreed with his. He was at once thinner and bigger, his face deeply +lined; but his eyes had a steady vital intensity difficult to encounter. + +She considered him in detail as the talk left dinner, the glasses and +candles spent. He drank, from a tall tumbler with a single piece of +ice, the special whisky Arnaud kept. He had been neglecting himself, +too--there were traces of clay about his finger-nails, and he ate +hurriedly and insufficiently. When she had an opportunity, Linda +decided, she would speak to him about these necessary trifles. Then, she +had no chance; and it was not until the following winter, at a Thursday +afternoon concert during the yearly exhibition of the Academy of Fine +Arts, that she could gently complain. + +It was gloomy, with a promise of snow outside; and the great space of +the stairway to the galleries was filled with shadow and the strains +of _Armide_ echoing from the orchestra playing at the railing above +the entrance. Pleydon, together with a great many others, had spread +an overcoat on the masonry of the steps, and they were seated in the +obscurity of the balustrade. + +“You look as though you hadn't had enough to eat,” she observed. “You +used to be almost thick but now you are a thing of terrifying grimness. +You look like a monk. I wonder why you're like a monk, Dodge?” + +“Linda Condon,” he replied. + +“That can't be it now; I haven't been Linda Condon for years, but Mrs. +Arnaud Hallet. It's very pretty, of course, and I'd like to think +you could keep a young love alive so long. Experience makes me doubt +anything of the sort; but then I was always skeptical.” + +“You have never been anyone else,” he asserted positively. “You were +born Linda Condon and you'll die that, except for some extraordinary +accident. I can't imagine what it would be--a miracle like quaker-ladies +in the Antarctic.” + +“It sounds uncomplimentary, and I'm sick of being compared with polar +places. What are quaker-ladies?” + +“Fragile little flowers in the spring meadows.” + +“I'd rather listen to the music than you.” + +“That is why loving you is so eternal, why it doesn't fluctuate like a +human emotion. You can't exhaust it and rest before a new tide sweeps +back; the timeless ecstasy of a worship of God ... breeding madness.” + +She failed to understand and turned a troubled gaze to his bitter +repression. “I don't like to make you unhappy, Dodge,” she said in a low +tone. “What can I do? I am a horrid disappointment to all of you, but +most to myself. I can't go over it again.” + +“Beauty has nothing to do with happiness,” he declared harshly. He rose, +without consulting her wishes; and Linda followed him as he proceeded +above, irresistibly drawn to the bronze he was showing in the Rotunda. + +It was the head and part of the shoulders of a very old woman, +infinitely worn, starved by want and spent in brutal labor. There was a +thin wisp of hair pinned in a meager knot on her skull; her bones were +mercilessly indicated, barely covered with drum-like skin; her mouth +was stamped with timid humility; while her eyes peered weakly from their +sunken depths. + +“Well?” he demanded, interrogating her in the interest of his work. + +“I--I suppose it's perfectly done,” she replied, at a loss for a +satisfactory appreciation. “It's true, certainly. But isn't it more +unpleasant than necessary?” Pleydon smiled patiently. “Beauty,” he said, +with his mobile gesture. “Pity, _Katharsis_--the wringing out of all +dross.” + +The helpless feeling of her overwhelming ignorance returned. She was +like a woman held beyond the closed door of treasure. “Come over here.” + He unceremoniously led her to the modeling of a ruffled grouse, faithful +in every diversified feather. Linda thought it admirable, really +amazing; but he dismissed it with a passionate energy. “The dull +figuriste!” he exclaimed. “Daguerre. Once I could have done that, yes, +and been entertained by its adroitness and insolence--before you made +me. Do you suppose I was able then to understand the sheer +tragic fortitude to live of a scrubwoman! The head you thought +unpleasant--haven't you seen her going home in the March slush of a +city? Did you notice the gaps in her shoes, the ragged shawl about a +body twisted with forty, fifty, sixty years of wet stone floors and +steps? Did you wonder what she had for supper?” + +“No, Dodge, I didn't. They always make me wretched.” + +“Well, to realize all that, to feel the degradation of her nature, +to lie, sick with exhaustion, on the broken slats of her bed under a +ravelled-out travesty of a quilt, and get up morning after morning in +an iron winter dark--to experience that in your spirit and put it into +durable metal, hard stone--is to hold beauty in your hands.” + +Her interest in his speech was mingled with the knowledge that, in order +to dress comfortably for dinner, she must leave immediately. Pleydon +helped her into the Hallet open motor landaulet. Linda demanded +quantities of air. He was, he told her at the door, leaving in an hour +for New York. “I wish you could be happier,” she insisted. He reminded +her that he had had the afternoon with her. It was so little, she +thought, carried rapidly over a smooth wide street. His love for her +increased rather than lessened. How wonderful it was.... The woman +outside that barred door of treasure. + + + + +XXIX + + +Linda thought frequently about Dodge and his feeling for her; memories +of his words, his appearance, speculations, spread through her tranquil +daily affairs like the rich subdued pattern of a fine carpet on the +bare floor of her life. She was puzzled by the depth of a passion that, +apparently, made no demands other than the occasional necessity to be +with her and the knowledge that she existed. If she had been a very +intelligent woman, and, of course, not quite bad-looking, she might +have understood both Pleydon and Arnaud, the latter a man whose mind was +practically absorbed in the pages of books. There could be no doubt, no +question, of their love for her. + +Then there had always been the others--the men at the parties, in her +garden, through the old days of her childhood in hotels. It was very +stupid, very annoying, but at the same time she became interested +in what, with her candid indifference, affected them. She had never, +really, even when she desired, succeeded in giving them anything, +anything conscious or for which they moved. Judith Feldt, on the +contrary, had been prodigal. And, while certainly numbers of men had +been attracted to her, they all tired of her with marked rapidity. Men +met Judith, Linda recalled, with eagerness, they came immediately and +often to see her ... for, perhaps, a month. Then, temporarily deserted, +she was submerged in depression and nervous tears. + +But, while it was obviously impossible for all lovers to be constant, +two extraordinary and superior men would be faithful to her as long as +she lived, no--as long as they lived. This was beyond doubt. One was +celebrated--she watched with a quiet pride Pleydon's fame penetrate +the country--and the other, her husband, a person of the most exacting +delicacy of habits, intellect and wit. + +What was it, she wondered, that made the supreme importance of women to +men worth consideration. Linda was thinking of this now in connection +with her daughter. Vigné was fourteen; a larger girl than she had ever +been, with her father's fine abundant cinnamon-brown hair, a shapely +sensitive mouth, and a wide brown gaze with a habit of straying, at +inappropriate moments, from things seen to the invisible. She was, Linda +realized thankfully, transparently honest; her only affectation was +the slight supercilious manner of her associations; and she read, +ridiculously like her father, with increasing pleasure. + +However, what engaged Linda most was the fact that Vigné already liked +men; she had been at the fringe, as it were, of young dances, with a +sparkling satisfaction to herself and the securely nice youths who “cut +in” at her brief appearances. + +The truth was that Linda saw that more than a trace of Stella Condon's +warm generosity of emotion had been brought by herself to Arnaud's +daughter. The faults of every life, every circumstance, were endlessly +multiplied through all existence. At fourteen, it was Linda's frowning +impression, her mother had very fully instructed her in the wiles and +structure of admirable marriage, and she had never completely lost some +hard pearls of the elder's wisdom. Should she, in turn, communicate them +to Vigné? + +The moment, the anxiety, she dreaded was arriving, and it found her no +freer of doubt than had the other aspects of her own responses. Yet +here she was possessed by the keenest need for absolute rectitude; and +perhaps this, she thought, with an unusual pleasure, was an evidence of +the affection she had seemed to lack. But in the end she said nothing. + +She was still unable to disentangle the flesh from the spirit, love--the +love that so amazingly illuminated Dodge Pleydon--from comfort. Dodge +had disturbed all her sense of values, even to the point of unsettling +her allegiance to the supremacy of a great deal of money. He had worked +this without giving her anything definite, that she could explain to +Vigné, in return. Linda preserved her demand for the actual. If she +could only comprehend the force animating Dodge she felt life would be +clear. + +She was tempted to experiment--when had such a possibility occurred to +her before?--and discover just how far in several directions Pleydon's +devotion went. This would be easy now, she was unrestrained by the fact +of Arnaud, and the old shrinking from the sculptor happily vanished. Yet +with him before her, on one of his infrequent visits to their house, +she realized that her courage was insufficient. Was it that or something +deeper--a reluctance to turn herself like a knife in the source of the +profoundest compliment a woman could be paid. Linda thought too +highly of his love for that; the texture of the carpet had become too +gratifying. + +They were all three in the library, as customary; and Linda, restless, +saw her reflection in a closed long window. She was wearing yellow, the +color of the jonquils on a candle-stand; but with her familiar sash tied +and the ends falling to the hem of her skirt. The pointed oval of her +face was unchanged, her pallor, the straight line of her black bang, the +blueness of her eyes, were as they had been a surprisingly long while +ago. Arnaud, with a disconcerting comprehension, demanded, “Well, are +you satisfied?” She replied coolly, “Entirely.” Pleydon, seated for +over an hour without moving, or even the trivial relief of a cigarette, +followed her with his luminous uncomfortable gaze, his disembodied +passion. + + + + +XXX + + +Linda heard Vigné's laugh, the expression of a sheer lightness of heart, +following a low eager murmur of voices in her daughter's room, and she +was startled by its resemblance to the gay pitch of Mrs. Moses Feldt's +old merriment. Three of Vigné's friends were with her, all approximately +eighteen, talking, Linda knew, men and--it was autumn--anticipating the +excitements of their bow to formal society that winter. They had, she +silently added, little enough to learn about the latter. Through the +year past they had been to a dancing-class identical, except for an +earlier hour and age, with mature affairs; but before that they had been +practically introduced to the pleasures of their inheritance. + +The men were really boys at the university, past the first year, +receptacles of unlimited worldly knowledge and experience. They belonged +to exclusive university societies and eating clubs, and Linda found +their stiff similarity of correct bigoted pattern highly entertaining. +She had no illusions about what might be called their morals; they were +midway in the period of youthful unrestraint; but she recognized as well +that their attitude toward, for example, Vigné was irreproachable. Such +boys affected to disdain the girls of their associated families ... or +imagined themselves incurably in love. + +The girls, for their part, while insisting that forty was the ideal age +for a lover--the terms changed with the seasons, last year “suitor” had +been the common phrase--were occasionally swept in young company into a +high irrational passion. Mostly, through skillful adult pressure or firm +negation, such affairs came to nothing; but even these were sometimes +overcome. And, when Linda had been disturbed by the echo of old days in +her daughter's tones, she was considering exactly such a state. + +One of the nicest youths imaginable, Bailey Sandby, had lost all trace +of superior aloofness in a devotion to Vigné. He was short, squarely +built, with clear pink cheeks, steady light blue eyes and crisp very +fair hair. This was his last season of academic instruction, after +which a number of years, at an absurdly low payment, awaited him in +his father's bond brokerage concern. However, he was, Linda gathered, +imperious in his urgent need for Vigné's favor. + +Ridiculous, she thought, at the same time illogically rehearsing the +resemblances of Vigné to her grandmother. She had no doubt that the +parties Vigné shared on the terraces and wide lawns, in the informal +dancing at country houses, were sufficiently sophisticated; there was +on occasion champagne, and--for the masculine element anyhow--cocktails. +The aroma of wine, lightly clinging to her young daughter's breath, +filled her with an old instinctive sickness. + +She had spoken to Arnaud who, in turn, severely addressed Vigné; +but during this Linda had been oppressed by the familiar feeling of +impotence. The girl, of course, had properly heard them; but she gave +her mother the effect of slipping easily beyond their grasp. When she +had gone to bed Arnaud repeated a story brought to him by the juvenile +Lowrie, under the influence of a temporary indignation at his sister's +unwarranted imposition of superiority. Arnaud went on: + +“Actually they had this kissing contest, it was at Chestnut Hill, with +a watch held; and Vigné, or so Lowrie insisted, won the prize for length +of time--something like a minute. Now, when I was young--” + +Submerged in apprehensive memory Linda lost most of his account of +the Eden-like youth of his earlier day. When, at last, his assertions +pierced her abstraction, it was only to bring her to the realization of +how pathetically little he knew of either Vigné or her. She weighed +the question of utter frankness here--the quality enhanced by universal +obscurity--but she was obliged to check her desire for perfect +understanding. A purely feminine need to hide, even from Arnaud, any +detracting facts about women shut her into a diplomatic silence. In +reality he could offer them no help; their problems--in a world +created more objectively by the hand of man than God--were singular to +themselves. Women were quite like spoiled captives to foreign princes, +masking, in their apparent complacency, a necessarily secret but +insidiously tyrannical control. It wouldn't do, in view of this, to +expose too much. + +The following morning it was Arnaud, rather than herself, who had a +letter from Pleydon. “He wants us to come over to New York and his +studio,” the former explained. “He has some commission or other from a +city in the Middle West, and a study to show us. I'd like it very +much; we haven't seen this place, and his surroundings are not to be +overlooked.” + +Pleydon's rooms were directly off Central Park West, in an apartment +house obviously designed for prosperous creative arts, with a hall +frescoed in the tones of Puvis de Chavannes and an elevator cage +beautifully patterned in iron grilling. Dodge Pleydon met them in his +narrow entry and conducted them into a pleasant reception-room. “It's a +duplex,” he explained of his quarters; “the dining-room you see and the +kitchen's beyond, while the baths and all that are over our heads; the +studio fills both floors.” + +There were low book cases with their continuous top used as a shelf for +a hundred various objects, deep long chairs of caressing ease and chairs +of coffee-colored wicker with amazingly high backs woven with designs of +polished shells into the semblance of spread peacocks' tails. The yellow +silk curtains at the windows, the rug with the intricate coloring of a +cashmere shawl, the Russian tea service, were in a perfection of order; +and Linda almost resentfully acknowledged the skilful efficiency of his +maid. It was surprising that, without a wife, a man could manage such a +degree of comfort! + +Over tea far better than hers, in china of an infinitely finer +fragility, she studied Pleydon thoughtfully. He looked still again +perceptibly older, his face continued to grow sparer of flesh, +emphasizing the aggressively bony structure of his head. When he shut +his mouth after a decided statement she could see the projection of the +jaw and the knotted sinews at the base of his cheeks. No, Dodge didn't +seem well. She asked if there had been any return of the fever and he +nodded in an impatient affirmative, returning at once to the temporarily +suspended conversation with Arnaud. There was a vast difference, too, in +the way in which he talked. + +His attitude was as assertive as ever, but it had less expression in +words; unaccountable periods of silence, almost ill-natured, overtook +him, spaces of abstraction when it was plain that he had forgotten the +presence of whoever might be by. Even direct questions sometimes failed +to pierce immediately his consciousness. Dodge, Linda told herself, +lived entirely too much alone. Then she said this aloud, thoughtlessly, +and she was startled by the sudden intolerable flash of his gaze. +An awkward pause followed, broken by the uprearing of Pleydon's +considerable length. + +“I must take you into the studio before it is too dark,” he proceeded. +“Every creative spirit knows when its great moment has come. Well, mine +is here.” The men stood aside as Linda, her head positively ringing with +the thrill that was like a strain of Gluck, the happy sadness, entered +the bare high spaciousness of Dodge Pleydon's workroom. + + + + +XXXI + + +Everything she saw, the stripped floor, the white walls bare but for +some casts like the dismembered fragments of flawless blanched bodies, +the inclined plane of the wide skylight, bore an impalpable white dust +of dried clay. In a corner, enclosed in low boards, a stooped individual +with wood-soled shoes and a shovel was working a mass of clay over which +at intervals he sprinkled water, and at intervals halted to make pliable +lumps of a uniform size which he added to a pile wrapped in damp cloths. +There were a number of modeling stands with twisted wires grotesquely +resembling a child's line drawing of a human being; while a stand with +some modeling tools on its edge bore an upright figure shapeless in its +swathing of dampened cloths. + +“The great moment,” Pleydon said again, in a vibrant tone. “But you know +nothing of all this,” he directly addressed Linda. “Neither, probably, +will you have heard of Simon Downige. He was born at Cottarsport, in +Massachusetts, about eighteen forty; and, after--in the support of his +hatred of any slavery--he fought through the Civil War, he came home +and found that his town stifled him. He didn't marry at once, as so many +returning soldiers did; instead he was wedded to a vision of freedom, +freedom of opinion, of spirit, worship--any kind of spaciousness +whatever. And, in the pursuit of that, he went West. + +“He told them that he was going to find--but found was the word--a place +where men could live together in a purity of motives and air. No more, +you understand; he hadn't a personal fanatical belief to exploit +and attract the hysteria of women and insufficient men. He was not a +pathological messiah; but only Simon Downige, an individual who couldn't +comfortably breathe the lies and injustice and hypocrisy of the ordinary +community. No doubt he was unbalanced--his sensitiveness to a universal +condition would prove that. Normally people remain undisturbed by such +trivialities. If they didn't an end would come to one or the other, the +lies or the world. + +“He traveled part way in a Conestoga wagon--a flight out of Egypt; they +were common then, slow canvas-covered processions with entire families +drawn by the mysterious magnetism of the West. Then, leaving even such +wayfarers, he walked, alone, until he came on a meadow by a little river +and a grove of trees, probably cottonwoods.... That was Simon Downige, +and that, too, was Hesperia. Yes, he was unbalanced--the old Greek +name for beautiful lands. It is a city now, successful and corruptly +administered--what always happens to such visions. + +“It is necessary, Linda, as I've always told you, to understand the +whole motive behind a creation in permanent form. A son of Simon's--yes, +he finally married--a unique and very rich character, wife dead and no +children, commissioned a monument to the founder of Hesperia, in Ohio, +and of his fortune. + +“They even have a civic body for the control of public building; and +they came East to approve my statue, or rather the clay sketch for it. +They were very solemn, and one, himself a sculptor, a graduate of the +Beaux Arts, ran a suggestive thumb over Simon and did incredible damage. +But, after a great deal of hesitation, and a description from +the sculptor of what he thought excellently appropriate for +such magnificence, they accepted my study. The present Downige, +really--though I understand there is another pretentious branch in +Hesperia--bullied them into it. He cursed the Beaux-Arts graduate with +the most brutal and satisfactory freedom--the tyranny of his money; the +crown, you see, of Simon's hope.” + +He unwrapped one by one the wet cloths; and Linda, in an eagerness sharp +like anxiety, finally saw the statue, under life-size, of a seated man +with a rough stick and bundle at his feet. A limp hat was in his hand, +and, beneath a brow to which the hair was plastered by sweat, his eyes +gazed fixed and aspiring into a hidden dream perfectly created by his +desire. Here, she realized at last, she had a glimmer of the beauty, the +creative force, that animated Dodge Pleydon. Simon Downige's shoes were +clogged with mud, his entire body, she felt, ached with weariness; but +his gaze--nothing Linda discovered but shadows over two depressions--was +far away in the attainment of his place of justice and truth. + +She found a stool and, careless of the film of dust, sat absorbed in the +figure. Pleydon again had lost all consciousness of their presence; he +stood, hands in pockets, his left foot slightly advanced, looking at his +work from under drawn brows. Arnaud spoke first: + +“It's impertinent to congratulate you, Pleydon. You know what you've +done better than any one else could. You have all our admiration.” Linda +watched the tenderness with which the other covered Simon Downige's +vision in clay. Later, returning home after dinner, Arnaud speculated +about Pleydon's remarkable increase in power. “I had given him up,” he +went on; “I thought he was lost in those notorious debauches of esthetic +emotions. Does he still speak of loving you?” + +“Yes,” Linda replied. “Are you annoyed by it?” He answered, “What +good if I were?” She considered him, turned in his chair to face +her, thoughtfully. “I haven't the slightest doubt of its quality, +however--all in that Hesperia of old Downige's. To love you, my dear +Linda, has certain well-defined resemblances to a calamity. If you ask +me if I object to what you do give him, my answer must shock the gods of +art. I would rather you didn't.” + +“What is it, Arnaud?” she demanded. “I haven't the slightest idea. I +wish I had.” + +“Platonic,” he told her shortly. “The term has been hopelessly ruined, +yet the sense, the truth, I am forced to believe, remains.” + +“But you know how stupid I am and that I can't understand you.” + +“The woman in whom a man sees God,” he proceeded irritably: + +“'_La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa, idea_.'” + +“Oh,” she cried, wrung with a sharp obscure hurt. “I know that, I've +heard it before.” Her excitement faded at her absolute inability to +place the circumstances of her memory. The sound of the words vanished, +leaving no more than the familiar deep trouble, the disappointing +sensation of almost grasping--Linda was unable to think what. + +“After all, you are my wife.” He had recovered his normal shy humor. +“I can prove it. You are the irreproachable mother of our unsurpassed +children. You have a hopeless vision--like this Simon's--of seeing me +polished and decently pressed; and I insist on your continuing with the +whole show.” + +Her mind arbitrarily shifted to the thought of her father, who had +walked out of his house, left--yes--his family, without any intimation. +Then, erratically, it turned to Vigné, to Vigné and young Sandby with +his fresh cheeks and impending penniless years acquiring a comprehension +of the bond market. She said, “I wonder if she really likes Bailey?” + Arnaud's energy of dismay was laughable, “What criminal folly! They +haven't finished Mother Goose yet.” + + + + +XXII + + +Linda, who expected to see Pleydon's statue of Simon Downige finished +immediately in a national recognition of its splendor, was disappointed +by his explanation that, probably, it would not be ready for casting +within two years. He intended to model it again, life-size, before he +was ready for the heroic. April, the vivifying, had returned; and, +as always in the spring, Linda was mainly conscious of the mingled +assuaging sounds of life newly admitted through open windows. A single +shaded lamp was lighted by a far table, where Arnaud sat cutting the +pages of _The Living Age_ with an ivory blade; Dodge was blurred in the +semi-obscurity. + +He came over to see them more frequently now, through what he called the +great moment--so tiresomely extended--of his life. Pleydon came oftener +but he said infinitely less. It was his custom to arrive for dinner and +suddenly depart early or late in the evening. At times she went up +to her room and left the two almost morosely silent men to their own +thoughts or pages; at others she complained--no other woman alive would +stay with such uninteresting and thoroughly selfish creatures. They +never made the pretense of an effort to consider or amuse her. At this +Arnaud would put aside his book and begin an absurd social conversation +in the manner of Vigné's associates. Pleydon, however, wouldn't speak; +nothing broke the somberness of his passionate absorption in invisible +tyrannies. She gave up, finally, a persistent effort to lighten his +moods. Annoyed she told him that if he did not change he'd be sick, and +then where would everything be. + +All at once, through the open window, she heard Stella, her mother, +laughing; the carelessly gay sound overwhelmed her with an instinctive +unreasoning dread. Linda rose with a half gasp--but of course it was +Vigné in the garden with Bailey Sandby. + +She sank back angry because she had been startled; but her irritation +perished in disturbing thought. It wasn't, she told herself, Vigné's +actions that made her fear the future so much as her, Linda's, knowledge +of the possibilities of the past. Her undying hatred of that existence +choked in her throat; the chance of its least breath touching Vigné, +Arnaud's daughter, roused her to any embittered hazard. + +The girl, she was certain, returned a part at least of Bailey's feeling. +Linda expected no confidences--what had she done to have them?--and +Arnaud was right, affairs of the heart were never revealed until +consummated. Her conclusion had been reached by indirect quiet +deductions. Vigné, lately, was different; her attitude toward her mother +had changed to the subtle reserve of feminine maturity. Her appearance, +overnight, it seemed, had improved; her color was deeper, a delicate +flush burned at any surprise in her cheeks, and the miracle of her body +was perfected. + +It wasn't, Linda continued silently, that Vigné could ever follow the +example of Stella Condon through the hotels and lives of men partly +bald, prodigal, and with distant families. Whatever happened to her +would be in excellent surroundings and taste; but the result--the +sordid havoc, inside and out, the satiety alternating with the points +of brilliancy, and finally, inexorably, sweeping over them in a leaden +tide--would be identical. She wondered a little at the strength of her +detestation for such living; it wasn't moral in any sense with which she +was familiar; in fact it appeared to have a vague connection with her +own revolt from the destruction of death. She wanted Vigné as well to +escape that catastrophe, to hold inviolate the beauty of her youth, her +fineness and courage. + +She was convinced, too, that if she loved Bailey, and was disappointed, +some of the harm would be done immediately; Linda saw, in imagination, +the pure flame of Vigné's passion fanned and then arbitrarily +extinguished. She saw the resemblance of the dead woman, all those other +painted shades, made stronger. A sentence formed so vividly in her mind +that she looked up apprehensively, certain that she had spoken it aloud: + +If Vigné does come to care for him they must marry. + +Her thoughts left the girl for Arnaud--he would absolutely oppose her +there, and she speculated about the probable length his opposition would +reach. What would he say to her? It couldn't be helped, in particular it +couldn't be explained, neither to him nor to the friendly correctness of +Bailey Sandby's mother. She, alone, must accept any responsibility, all +blame. + +The threatened situation developed more quickly than she had +anticipated. Linda met Bailey, obviously disturbed, in the portico, +leaving their house; his manner, mechanically, was good; and then, with +an irrepressible boyish rush of feeling, he stopped her: + +“Vigné and I love each other and Mr. Hallet won't hear of it. He +insulted us with the verse about the old woman who went to the cupboard +to get a bone, and if he hadn't been her father--” he breathed a +portentous and difficult self-repression. “Then he took a cowardly +advantage of my having no money, just now; right after I explained how I +was going to make wads--with Vigné.” + +An indefinable excitement possessed Linda, accompanied by a sudden acute +fear of what Arnaud might say. She wanted more than anything else in +life to go quickly, inattentively, past Bailey Sandby and up to her +room. Nothing could be easier, more obvious, than her disapproval of a +moneyless boy. She made a step forward with an assumed resolute ignoring +of his disturbed presence. It was useless. A dread greater than her +fright at Arnaud held her in the portico, her hand lifted to the +polished knob of the inner door. Linda turned slowly, cold and white, +“Wait,” she said to his shoulder in an admirable coat; then she gazed +steadily into his frank pained eyes. + +“How do you know that you love Vigné?” she demanded. “You are so young +to be certain it will last always. And Vigné--” + +“How does any one know?” he replied. “How did you? Married people always +forget their own experiences, the happy way things went with them. +From all I see money hasn't much to do with loving each other. But, of +course, I'm not going to be poor, not with Vigné. Nobody could. She'd +inspire them. Mr. Hallet knows all about me, too; and he's the oldest +kind of a friend of the family. I suppose when he sees father at the +Rittenhouse Club they'll have a laugh--a laugh at Vigné and me.” His +hand, holding the brim of a soft brown hat, clenched tensely. + +“No,” Linda told him, “they won't do that.” Her obscure excitement was +communicated to him. “Why not?” he demanded. + +“Because,” she paused to steady her voice, “because I am going to take a +very great responsibility. If it fails, if you let it fail, you'll ruin +ever so much. Yes, Mr. Hallet, I am sure, will consent to your marrying +Vigné.” She escaped at the first opening from his incoherent gratitude. +Arnaud was in the library, and she stopped in the hall, busy with the +loosening of her veil. Perhaps it would be better to speak to him after +dinner; she ought to question Vigné first; but, as she stood debating, +her daughter passed her tempestuously, blurred with crying, and Arnaud +angrily demanded her presence. + + + + +XXXIII + + +“You were quite right,” he cried; “this young idiot Sandby has been +telling Vigné that he loves her; and now Vigné assures me, with tears, +that she likes it! They want to get married--next week, tomorrow, this +evening.” Linda stood by the window; soon the magnolia-tree would be +again laden with flowers. She gathered her courage into a determined +composure of tone. “I saw Bailey outside,” she admitted. “He told me. It +seems excellent to me.” + +Arnaud Hallet incredulously challenged her. “What do you mean--that you +gave him a trace of encouragement!” Linda replied: + +“I said that I was certain you would consent.” She halted his +exasperated gesture. “You think Vigné is nothing but a child, and yet +she is as old as I was at our wedding. My mother was no older when +Bartram Lowrie married her. I think Vigné is very fortunate, Bailey is +as nice as possible; and, as he said, it isn't as if you knew nothing of +the Sandbys; they are as dignified as the Lowries.” + +An expression she had never before seen hardened his countenance into +a sarcasm that travestied his customary humor. “You realize, of course, +that except for what his father gives him young Sandby is wretchedly +poor. He's nice enough but what has that to do with it? And, in +particular, how does it touch you, Linda Condon? Do you suppose I can +ever forget your answer that time I first asked you to marry me? You +wouldn't consider a poor man; you were worth, really, a hundred thousand +a year; but, if nothing better came along, you might sacrifice yourself +for fifty.” + +“I remember very well,” she answered; “and, curiously enough, I am +not ashamed. I was very sensible then, in a horrible position with +extravagant habits. They were me. I couldn't change myself. Without +money I should have made you, any man, entirely miserable. Arnaud, I +hadn't--I haven't now--the ability to see everything important through +the affections, like so many many women. You often told me that; who +hasn't? I have always admitted it wasn't pleasant nor praiseworthy. But +how, to use your own words, does all that affect Vigné? She isn't cold +but very warm-hearted; and, instead of my experience, she has her own so +much better feeling.” + +“I absolutely refuse to allow anything of the sort,” he declared +sharply. “I won't even discuss it--for three years. Tell this Sandby +infant, if you like, to come back then.” + +“In three years, or in one year, Vigné may be quite different, yes-less +lovable. Happiness, too, is queer, Arnaud; there isn't a great deal of +it. Not an overwhelming amount. If it appears for an instant it must be +held as tightly as possible. It doesn't come back, you know. Don't turn +to your book yet--you can't get rid of us, of Vigné and me, like that; +and then it's rude; the first time, I believe, you have ever been +impolite to me.” + +“Forgive me,” he spoke formally. “You seem to think that I am as +indifferent as yourself. You might be asking the day of the week to +judge from your calm appearance. The emotion of a father, or even of +a mother, perhaps, you have never explored. On the whole you are +fortunate. And you are always protected by your celebrated honesty.” She +said: + +“I promised Bailey your consent.” + +“Why bother about that? It isn't necessary for your new romantic mood. +An elopement, with you to steady the ladder, would be more appropriate.” + +She repeated the fact of her engagement. Her dread for him had vanished, +its place now taken by a distrust of what, in her merged detachment and +suffering, she might blunderingly do. At the back of this she realized +that his case, his position, was hopeless. Without warning, keen and +undimmed, his love for her flashed through his resentful misery. There +was no spoken acknowledgement of surrender; he sank into his chair +dejected and pitiable, infinitely gray. His shoes, on the brightness of +the hooked rug, were dingy, his coat drawn and wrinkled. + +Linda saw herself on her knees before him, before his patience and +generosity, sobbing her contrition into his forgiving hands. She +longed with every nerve--as she had so often before--to lose herself in +passionate emotion. She had never been more erect or withdrawn, never +essentially less touched. After a little, waiting for him to speak, +she saw that he, too, had retreated into the profound depths of his own +illusions and despairs. + + + + +XXXIV + + +For a surprising while--even in the face of Vigné's radiance--Arnaud +was as still and shadowed as the inert surface of a dammed stream. Then +slowly, the slenderest trickle at first, his wit revived his spirit; and +he opened an unending mock-solemn attack on Bailey Sandby's eminently +serious acceptance of the responsibilities of his allowed love. + +The boy had left the university, and his father--a striking replica of +Arnaud's prejudices, impatience and fundamental kindness--exchanged with +Vigné's male parent the most dismal prophecies together with concrete +plans for their children's future security. This, inevitably, resulted +in Vigné's marriage; a ceremony unattended by Pleydon except by the +presence of a very liberal check. + +The life-size version of his Simon Downige was again under way--it had +been torn down, Linda knew, more than once--and he was in a fever of +composition. Nor was this, she decided with Arnaud, his only oppression: +the Asiatic fever clung to him with disquieting persistence. Pleydon +himself admitted he had a degree or two in the evening. + +Linda was seated in his studio near Central Park West, perhaps a year +later, and she observed aloud that so much wet clay around was bad for +him. He laughed: nothing now could happen to him, he was forever beyond +accident, sickness, death--his statue for the monument in Hesperia was +finished. It stood revealed before them, practically as Linda had first +seen it, but enlarged, towering, as if the vision it portrayed had +grown, would continue to grow eternally, because of the dignity of its +hope, the necessity of its realization. + +“Now,” she said, “it will go to the foundry and be cast.” He corrected +her. “You will go to the foundry and be cast ... in bronze.” A distinct +graceful happiness possessed her at the knowledge that his love for her +was as constant as though it, too, were metal. Not flesh but bronze, +spirit, he insisted. + +The multiplying years made that no more comprehensible than when, a +child, she had thrilled in a waking dream. Love, spirit, death. Three +mysteries. But only one, she thought, was inevitably hers, the last. To +be loved was not love itself, but only the edge of its cloak; +response was an indivisible part of realization. No, sterility was the +measure--of its absence. And she was, Linda felt, in spite of Vigné and +Lowrie, the latter a specially vigorous contradiction, the most sterile +woman alive. There were always Dodge's assurances, but clay, stone, +metal, were cold for a belief to embrace. And she was, she knew, +lovelier now than she had ever been before, than she would ever be +again. + + + + +XXXV + + +The faint ringing of the bell from outside that probably announced +Arnaud sounded unreal, futile, to Linda. He came into the studio, and +at once a discussion began between the two men of the difference in +the surfaces of clay and bronze. The talk then shifted to the pictorial +sources of the heroic Simon Downige before them, and Linda declared, +“Dodge, you have never made a head of me. How very unflattering!” + +“You're an affair for a painter,” he replied; “Goya or Alfred Stevens. +No one but Goya could have found a white for you, with the quality of +flower petals; and Stevens would have fixed you in an immortality of +delicate color, surrounded by your Philadelphia garden.” He stood quite +close to her, with his jacket dragged forward by hands thrust into its +pockets, and he added at the end of a somber interrogation, “But if you +would really like to know why--” + +In a moment more, she recognized, Dodge would explain his feeling for +her--to Arnaud, to any one who might be present. The gleam in his +eyes, his remoteness from earthly concern, were definitely not normal. +Pleydon, his love, terrified her. “No,” she said with an assumed hurried +lightness, “don't try to explain. I must manage to survive the injury to +my vanity.” + +They left New York almost immediately, Pleydon suddenly determining to +go with them; and later were scattered through the Hallet household. +Vigné and her husband were temporarily living there; with their heads +close together they were making endless computations, numerous floor +plans and elevations. Linda, at the piano in the drawing-room, could +hear them through the hall. Pleydon was lounging in a chair beyond her. +She couldn't play but she was able, slowly, to pick out the notes +of simple and familiar airs--echoes of Gluck and blurred motives of +Scarlatti. It was for herself, she explained; the sounds, however crude +and disconnected, brought things back to her. What things, she replied +to Pleydon's query, she didn't in the least know; but pleasant. + +The fact that she understood so little depressed her with increasing +frequency. It was well enough to be ignorant as a girl, or even as a +young woman newly married; but she had left all that behind; she had +lost her youth without any compensating gain of knowledge. Linda could +not assure herself that life was clearer than it had been to her serious +childhood. It had always been easily measured on the surface; she +had had a very complete grasp of its material aspects almost at once, +accomplishing exactly what she had planned. Perhaps this was all; +and her trouble an evidence of weakness--the indecision, she saw +with contempt, that kept so many people in a constant agitation of +disappointment. + +Perhaps this was enough; more than the majority had or accomplished. She +made, again, a resolute effort to be contented, at rest. Her straying +fingers clumsily wrought a fragmentary refrain that mocked her +determination. It wasn't new, this--this dissatisfaction; but it had +grown sharper. As she was older her restlessness increased at the +realization that life, opportunity, were slipping from her. Soon she +would be forty. + +The conviction seized her that most lives reflected hers in that their +questioning was never answered. The fortunate, then, were the incurious +and the hearts undisturbed by a maddening thrill. She said aloud, “The +ones who never heard music.” Pleydon was without a sign that she had +spoken. Her emotions were very delicate, very fragile, and enormously +difficult to perceive. They were like plants in stony ground. Where had +she heard that--out of the Bible? Then she thought of her failure to get +anything from religion--a part of her inability to drink at the springs +which others declared so refreshing. Linda pressed her hands more +sharply on the keys and the answering discord had the effect of waking +her to reality. + +Pleydon remained until the following afternoon, and then was lost--in +the foundry casting his statue--for six months. Arnaud went over to view +the completion of the bronze and returned filled with enthusiasm. “Its +simplicity is the surprising part,” he told her. “The barest statement +possible. But Pleydon himself is in a disturbing condition; I can't +decide if it is mental or physical. The fever of course; yet that +doesn't account for his distance from ordinary living. The truth is, I +suppose, that men weren't designed for great arts, and nature, like +the jealous God of the Hebrews, retaliates. It is absurd, but Pleydon +reminds me of you; you're totally different. I suppose it's because of +the detachment you have in common.” He veered to a detail of Lowrie's +first year at a university, and exhibited, against a decent endeavor to +the contrary, his boundless pride in their son. + +The boy was, Linda acknowledged, more than commonly dependable and +able. He was heavy, like his father, and so diffident that he almost +stuttered; but his mental processes flashed in quick intuitive +perceptions. Lowrie was an easy and brilliant student; and, perhaps +because of this, of his mental certainty, he was not intimate with +her as Arnaud had hoped and predicted. It seemed to Linda that he +instinctively penetrated her inner doubt and regarded it without +sympathy. In this he was her son. Lowrie was a confident and +unsympathetic critic of humanity. + +Even now, so soon, there was no question of his success in the law his +fitness had elected. The springs of his being were purely intellectual, +reasoning. In him Linda saw magnified her own coldness; and, turned on +herself, she viewed it with an arbitrary feminine resentment. He was +actually courteous to her; but under all their intercourse there was a +perceptible impatience. His scorn of other women, girls, however, was +openly expressed and honest; it had no trace of the mere affectation +of pessimism natural to his age. Arnaud, less thoughtful than she, was +vastly entertained by this, and drew Lowrie out in countless sly sallies +and contradictions. + +Yes, he would succeed, but, after all, what would his success be +worth--placed, that was, against Vigné's radiant happiness, Bailey +Sandby's quiet eyes and the quality of his return home each evening? + +Her thoughts came back to Pleydon--she had before her a New York paper +describing the ceremony of unveiling his Simon Downige at Hesperia. +There was a long learned article praising its beauty and emphasizing +Pleydon's eminence. He was, it proceeded, an anomaly in an age of +momentary experimental talents--a humanized Greek force. He didn't +belong to to-day but to yesterday and to-morrow. This gave her an +uncomfortable vision of Dodge in space, with no warm points of contact. +She, too, was suspended in that vague emptiness. Linda had the sensation +of grasping at streamers, forms, of sparkling mist. A strange position +in view of her undeniable common sense, the solid foundations of her +temperament and experience. She saw from the paper, further, that the +Downige who had commissioned the monument was dead. + + + + +XXXVI + + +In the middle of the festive period that connected Christmas with the +new year Arnaud turned animatedly from his breakfast scanning of the +news. “It seems,” he told her, “that a big rumpus has developed in +Hesperia over the Pleydon statue--the present Downige omnipotence, never +friendly with our old gentleman, has condemned its bronze founder. +You know what I mean. It's an insult to their pride, their money and +position, to see him perpetuated as a tramp. On the contrary he was a +very respectable individual from a prominent family and town. + +“They have been moving the local heavens, ever since the monument was +placed, to have it set aside. I suppose they would have succeeded, +too, if a large amount given to the city were not contingent on its +preservation. But then they can always donate more money in the cause of +their sacred respectability.” + +Linda had never, she exclaimed, heard of anything more disgusting. It +was plain that Hesperia knew nothing of art. “Every one,” she ran on +in the heat of her resentment, “every one, that is, who should decide, +agrees it's magnificent. They were frightfully lucky to get it--Dodge's +finest work.” She wrote at once to Pleydon commanding his presence and +expressing her contempt of such depravity of opinion. To her surprise he +was undisturbed, apparently, by the condemnation of his monument. + +He even laughed at her energy of scorn. She was hurt, perceptibly +silenced, with a feeling of having been misunderstood or rather +undervalued. Her disturbance at any blame attached to the statue of +Simon Downige was extremely acute. But, she thought, if it failed to +worry Dodge why should she bother. She did, in spite of this philosophy; +Simon was tremendously important to her. + +He stood for things: she had watched his evolution from the clay sketch, +and in Pleydon's mind, to the final heroic proportions; and she had +taken for granted that a grateful world would see him in her light. +A woman, she decided, had made the trouble; and she hated her with a +personal vigor. Pleydon said: + +“I told you that old Simon was unbalanced; now you can see it by his +reception in a successful city. The sculptor--do you remember him, a +Beaux-Arts graduate?--admits that he had always opposed it, but that +political motives overbore his pure protest. There is a scheme now to +build a pavilion, for babies, and shut out the monument from open view. +They may do that but time will sweep away their walls. If I had +modeled Simon Downige, yes, he would go; but I modeled his vision, his +aspiration--the hope of all men for release and purity. + +“Downige and the individual babies are unimportant compared to a vision +of perfection, of escape. As long as men live, if they live, they'll +reach up; and that gesture in itself is heaven. Not accomplishment. The +spirit dragging the flesh higher; but spirit alone--empty balloons. A +dream in bronze, harder even than men's heads, more durable than their +prejudices, so permanent that it will wear out their ignorance; and in +the end--always in the end--they'll bring their wreath. + +“A replica has gone to Cottarsport, from me; and you ought to see +it there, on a block of New England granite. It's in the Common, a +windswept reach with low houses and a white steeple and the sea. It +might have been there from the beginning, rising on rock against the +pale salt day. They can go to hell in Hesperia.” + +Still Linda's hurt persisted; she saw the unfortunate occurrence as a +direct blow at her pride. Arnaud, too, failed her; he was splendid in +his assault upon such rapacious stupidity; but it was only an impersonal +concern. His manner expressed the conviction that it might have been +expected. He was blind to her special enthusiasm, her long intimate +connection with the statue. Exasperated she almost told him that it was +more real to her than their house, than Vigné and Lowrie, than he. She +was stopped, fortunately, by the perception that, amazingly, the statue +was more actual than Dodge Pleydon. It touched the center of her life +more nearly. + +Why, she didn't know. + +If her mental confusion increased by as much as a feeling, Linda +thought, she would be close to madness. It was unbearable at practically +forty. + +Lowrie said, at the worst possible moment, that he found the entire +episode ridiculously overemphasized. A statue more or less was of small +importance. If the Downige family were upset why didn't they employ +an able lawyer to dispose of it? There were many ways for such a +proceeding-- + +“I have no desire to hear them,” she interrupted. “You seem to know a +tremendous lot, but what good it will do you in the end who can say! +And, with all your cleverness, you haven't an ounce of appreciation for +art. Besides, I hate to see any one as young as you so sure of himself. +Often I suspect you are patronizing your father and me. It's not pretty +nor polite.” + +Lowrie was obviously embarrassed by her attack, and managed the abrupt +semblance of an apology. Arnaud, who had put down his eternal book, said +nothing until the boy had vanished. “Wasn't that rather sharp?” he +asked mildly. “Perhaps,” she replied in a tone without warmth or regret. +“Somehow I am never comfortable with Lowrie.” + +“You are too much alike,” he shrewdly observed. “It is laughable at +times. Did you expect your children to be fountains of sentiment? +And, look here--if I can get along in comfort with you for life you in +particular ought to put up peacefully with Lowrie. He is a damned sight +more human than, at bottom, you are; a woman of alabaster.” + +“I loathe quarrels,” she admitted; “they are so vulgar. You know that +they are not like me and just said so. Oh, Arnaud, why does life get +harder instead of easier?” + +He put his book aside completely and gazed at her in patient thought. +“Linda,” he said finally, “I have never heard anything that stirred me +so much; not what you said, my dear, but the recognition in your voice.” + A wistfulness of love for her enveloped him; an ineffable desire as vain +as the passion she struggled to give him in return. She smiled in an +unhappiness of apology. + +“Perhaps--” he stopped, waiting any assurance whatever, his face eager +like a dusty lamp in which the light had been turned sharply up. She was +unable to stir, to move her gaze from his hopeful eyes, to mitigate by a +breath her slender white aloofness. A smile different from hers, +tender with remission, lingered in his fading irradiation. The dusk was +gathering, adding its melancholy to his age--sixty-five now. Why that +was an old man! Her sympathy vanished in her shrinking from the twilight +that was, as well, slowly, inevitably, deepening about her. + +It was laughable that, as she approached an age whose only resource +was tranquillity, she grew more restless. Her present vague agitation +belonged ridiculously to youth. The philosophy of the evident that had +supported her so firmly was breaking at the most inopportune time. And +it was, she told herself, too late for anything new; the years for +that had been spent insensibly with Arnaud. Linda was very angry with +herself, for, in all her shifting state of mind, she preserved an inner +necessity for the quality of exactness expressed in her clothes. There +were literally no neglected spaces in her conscious living. + +Her thoughts finally centered about the statue in Hesperia--it presented +an actual mark for her fleeting resentments. She wondered why it so +largely occupied her thoughts, moved her so personally. She watched the +papers for the scattered reports of the progress of the contention it +had roused, some ill-natured, others supposedly humorous, and nearly +all uninformed. She became, Arnaud said, the champion of the esthetic +against Dagon. He elaborated this picture until she was forced to smile +against her inclination, her profound seriousness. Linda had the feeling +that she, too, was on the pedestal that held the bronze effigy of Simon +Downige challenging the fog that obscured men. Its fate was hers. She +didn't pretend to explain how. + +As time passed it seemed to her that it took her longer and longer to +dress in the morning, while her preparations couldn't be simpler; her +habit of deliberation had become nearly a vice, the precision of her +ruffles, her hair, a tyranny. She never quite lost the satisfaction of +her mirror's faultless reflection; and stopped, now, for a moment's +calm interrogation of the being--hardly more silvery cool than the +reality--before her. + +Arnaud was at the table, and the gaze with which he met her was +troubled. The morning paper, she saw, was, against custom, at her place, +and she picked it up with an instinctive sense of calamity. The blackly +printed sensational headline that immediately established her fear sank +vivid and entire into her brain: an anonymous inflamed mob in Hesperia +had pulled down and destroyed Pleydon's statue. Their act was described +as a tribute to the liberality of the present Downige family in the +light of its objection to the monument. + +As if in the development of her feeling Linda had a sensation of +crashing with a sickening violence from a pedestal to the ground. +Actually, it seemed, the catastrophe had happened to her. She heard, +with a sense of inutility, Arnaud denouncing the outrage; he had a +pencil in his hand for the composition of a telegram to Dodge. He +paid--but perhaps only naturally--no attention to her, suffering dully +from her fall. She shuddered before the recreated lawless approaching +voice of the mob; the naked ugly violence froze her with terror; she +felt the gross hurried hands winding ropes about her, the rending +brutality of force-- + +She sat and automatically took a small carved glass of orange-juice +from a bed of ice, and her chilled fingers recalled a dim image of her +mother. Arnaud was speaking, “I'm afraid this will cut through Pleydon's +security, it was such a wanton destruction of his unique power. You see, +he worked lovingly over the cast with little files and countless finite +improvements. The mold, I think, was broken. What a piece of luck the +thing's at Cottarsport.” He paused, obviously expecting her to comment; +but suddenly phrases failed her. + +In place of herself she should be considering Dodge; her sympathy even +for him was submerged in her own extraordinary injury. However, she +recovered from her first gasping shock, and made an utterly commonplace +remark. Never had her sense of isolation been stronger. “I must admit,” + her husband continued, “that I looked for some small display of concern. +I give you my word there are moments when I think Pleydon himself cut +you out of stone. He isn't great enough for that, though; in the way +of perfection you successfully gild the lily. A thing held to be +impossible.” + +Linda told him with amazing inanity that his opinion of her was +unreliable; and, contented, he lightly pursued his admiration of what +he called her boreal charm. At intervals she responded appropriately +and proceeded with breakfast. She had entered a region of dispassionate +consideration, her characteristic detachment, she thought, regained. She +mentally, calmly, reconstructed the motives and events that had led to +the destruction of the statue; they, at least, were evident to her. +She reaffirmed silently her conviction that it had resulted from the +stupidity, the vanity, of a woman. The limitations of men, fully as +narrow, operated in other directions. + +Then, with an incredulous surprise, she was aware that the clear space +of her reason was filling with anger. Never before had such a flood +of emotion possessed her; and she surrendered herself, in an +enormous relief, to the novelty of its obliterating tide. It deepened +immeasurably, sweeping her far from the security of old positions of +indifference and critical self-possession. Linda became enraged at +a world that had concentrated all its degraded vulgarity in one +unspeakable act. + + + + +XXXVII + + +It was fall, October, and the day was a space of pale gold foliage +wreathed in blue garlands of mist. The gardener was busy with a wooden +rake and wheelbarrow in which he carted away dead leaves for burning. +The fire was back of the low fence, in the rear, and Linda, at the +dining-room window, could hear the fierce small crackle of flames; the +drifting pungent smoke was like a faint breath of ammonia. Arnaud had +left for the day, Lowrie was at the university, while Vigné and her +husband--moving toward their ultimate colonial threshold--had taken a +small house. She was alone. + +As usual. + +However, in her present state her solitude had lost its inevitability; +she failed to see why it must continue until the end of time. She could +no longer discover a sufficient reason for her limitless endurance, +her placid acceptance of all that chance, or any inconsiderable person, +happened to dictate. She wasn't like that in the least. Her temper had +solidified as though it were ice, taking everywhere the form in which +it was held. It was a reality. She determined, as well, that her feeling +should not melt back into the familiar acceptance of a routine that had +led her blindfolded across such an extent of life. + +She understood now, in a large part, her disturbance at the indignity +to Dodge's monument--he had assured her that she was its inspiration; +except for her it would never have been realized, he would have kept +on modeling those Newport fountains, continued with the Susanna Nodas, +spending himself ignobly. He loved her, and that love had resulted in a +statue the world of art, of taste, honored. But it was she all the while +they were approving, discussing, writing about, Linda Condon. + +She had always been that, Pleydon had informed her, never Linda +Hallet--in spite of Arnaud and their children. It sounded like nonsense; +but, at the bottom, it was truth. Of course it couldn't be explained, +for example, to the man who had every right, every evidence, to consider +himself her husband. Nothing was susceptible of explanation. Absolutely +nothing! There was the earth, which appeared to be everything, the +houses you entered, the streets you passed over, the people among whom +you lived, yet that wasn't all. Heavens, no! It was quite unimportant +compared with--with other facts latent in the mind and blood. + +Dodge Pleydon's love was one of those other facts; it was simply +impossible to deny its existence, its power. Dodge had been totally +changed by it, born over again. But she, who had been the source, had +had no good from it, nothing except the thrill that had always been +hers. No one knew of it, counted it as her achievement, paid the +slightest attention to her. Arnaud smiled indulgently, Lowrie scoffed. +When the statue had been thrown down they thought of it merely as a +deplorable part of the day's news. They hadn't seen that she, Linda +Condon, was unspeakably insulted. + +She doubted if she could bring them to comprehend what had happened--to +her. Or if Arnaud understood, if she made it plain, what good would be +done! That wouldn't save her, put her back again on the pedestal. The +latter was necessary. Linda recognized that a great deal of her feeling +was based on pride; but it was a pride entirely justified. She had no +intention of submitting to the coarse hands and ropes of public affront. +Throughout her life she had rebelled against any profanation of her +person, she had hated to be touched. + +Every instinct, she found, every delicate self-opinion, was bound into +Pleydon's success; the latter had kept her alive. Without it existence +would have been intolerable. It was unbearable now. + +She discharged the small daily duties of her efficient housekeeping with +a contemptuous exactness; for years she had accomplished, in herself, +nothing more. But at last a break had come. Linda recognized this +without any knowledge of what reparation it would find. She wasn't +concerned with that, a small detail. It would be apparent. Arnaud +was silent through dinner; tired, it seemed. She saw him as if at the +distant end of a dull corridor--as she looked back. There was no change +in her liking for him. Mechanically she noticed the disorder of his +scant hair and rumpled sleeves. + +Not until, waking sharply, in the middle of the night, did she have a +glimpse of a possible course--she might live with Dodge and perfectly +express both her retaliation and her accomplishment. In that way she +would reestablish herself beside him and place their vision in bronze on +an elevation beyond the spite of the envious and the blind. + +It was so directly simple that she was surprised it hadn't occurred +to her before. The possibility had always been a part, unsuspected and +valuable, of her special being; the largely condemned faults of +her character and experience had at least brought her this--a not +inconsiderable freedom in a world everywhere barred by the necessity +for upholding a hypocritical show of superiority to honest desire. The +detachment that deprived her of life's conventional joys released +her from its common obligations. That conviction, however, was too +intimately connected with all her inheritance to bring her any conscious +dramatic sense of rebellion or high feeling of justified indignation. + +Sleep had deserted her, and she waited for the dawn in the windows that +would bring her escape. It was very slow coming; the blackness took on +a grayer tone, like ink with added faint infusions of water. Slowly the +blackness dissolved and she heard the stir of the sparrows in the ivy. +There was the passing rumble of an early electric car on the paved aged +street, the blurred hurried shuffle of a workman's clumsy shoes. The +brightening morning was cool with a premonitory touch of frost; at the +window she saw a vanishing silver sheen on the lawn and board fence. + +A sensation of youth pervaded her; and while, perhaps, it was out of +keeping with her years, she had still her vitality unspent; she was +without a trace of the momentary frost on the grass. She was tranquil, +leisurely; her heart evenly sent its life through her unflushed body. +Piece by piece she put on her web-like garments, black and white; +brushing the heavy stream of her hair and tying the inevitable sash +about her supple waist. + +Below she met Arnaud with an unpleasant shock--she hadn't given him +a thought. Her feeling now was hardly more than annoyance at her +forgetfulness. He would be terribly distressed at her going, and she was +genuinely sorry for this, poised at the edge of an explanation of her +purpose. Arnaud was putting butter and salt into his egg-cup, after +that he would grind the pepper from a French mill--pure spices were a +precision of his--and she waited until the operation was completed. + +Then it occurred to her that all she could hope to accomplish by +admitting her intention was the ruin of his last hour alone with her. +He was happier, gayer, than usual. But his age was evident in his voice, +his gestures. Linda marveled at her coldness, her ruthless disregard of +Arnaud's claim on her, of his affection as deep as Pleydon's, perhaps no +less fine but not so imperative. Yet Arnaud had had over twenty years of +her life, the best; and she had never deceived him about the quality +of her gift. It was right, now, for Dodge to have the remainder. +But whether it were right or wrong, there was no failure of her +determination to go to Pleydon in the vindication of her existence. + +She delayed speaking to Arnaud until, suddenly, breakfast was over. He +seldom went to the law office where he had been a partner, but stayed +about the lower floor of his house, in the library or directing small +outside undertakings. Either that or he left, late, for the Historical +Society, with which his connection and interest were uninterrupted. +As Linda passed him in the hall he was fumbling in the green bag that +accompanied all his journeyings into the city; and she gathered that he +intended to make one of his occasional sallies. She proceeded above, +to her room, where with steady hands she pinned on her hat. It would +be impossible to take any additional clothes, and she'd have to content +herself with something ready-made until she could order others in +the establishment of her living with Dodge. Her close-fitting jacket, +gloves, and a short cape of sables were collected; she gazed finally, +thoughtfully, about the room, and then, with a subdued whisper of +skirts, descended the stair. Arnaud was in the library, bending over +the table that bore his accumulation of papers and serious journals. A +lingering impulse to speak was overborne by the memory of what, lately, +she had endured--she saw him at the dusty end of that long corridor +through which she had monotonously journeyed, denied of her one triumph, +lost in inconsequential shadows--and she continued firmly to the door +which closed behind her with a normal mute smoothness, an inanimate +silence. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +The maid who admitted Linda to Pleydon's apartment, first replying, +“Yes, Mrs. Hallet. No, Mrs. Hallet,” to her questions, continued in +fuller sentences expressing a triumph of sympathy over mere correctness. +She lingered at the door of the informal drawing-room, imparting the +information that Mr. Pleydon had become very irregular indeed about his +meals, and that his return for lunch was uncertain. Something, however, +would be prepared for her. Linda acknowledged this briefly. Often, with +Mr. Pleydon at home, he wouldn't so much as look at his dinner. Times, +too, it seemed as though he had been in the studio all night. He went +out but seldom now, and rarely remained away for more than an hour or +two. Linda heard this without an indication of responsive interest, +and the servant, returning abruptly from the excursion into humanity, +disappeared. + +She was glad to have this opportunity alone to accustom herself to a +novel position. But she was once more annoyingly calm. Annoyingly, she +reiterated; the fervor of her anger, which at the same time had been +bitterly cold, had lessened. She was practically normal. She regarded +this, the loss of her unprecedented emotion, in the light of a fraud on +her sanguine decision. Linda had counted on its support, its generous +irresistible tide, to carry her through the remainder of her life with +the exhilaration she had so largely missed. + +Here in Dodge's room she was as placid, almost, as though she were in +the library at home. That customary term took its place in her thoughts +before she recognized that, with her, it had shifted. However, it was +unimportant--home had never been a magical word to her; it belonged in +the vast category which, of such universal weight, left her unstirred. +She resembled those Eastern people restlessly and perpetually moving +across sandy deserts as they exhausted, one after another, widely +separated scanty oases. + +She studied the objects around her with the pleased recognition that +they were unique, valuable, and in faultless taste. Then she fell to +wondering at the difference had Dodge been poor: she would have come to +him, Linda knew, just the same. But, she admitted frankly, it would +have been uncomfortable. Perhaps that--actual poverty, actual +deprivation--was what her character needed. A popular sentiment upheld +such a view; she decided it was without foundation. There was no reason +why beauty, finely appropriate surroundings, should damage the spirit. + +Her mind turned to an examination of her desertion of Arnaud, but she +could find no trace of conventional regret; of what, she felt, her +sensation ought to be. The instinctive revolt from oblivion was an +infinitely stronger reality than any allegiance to abstract duty. She +was consumed by the passionate need to preserve the integrity of being +herself. The word selfish occurred to her but to be met unabashed by the +query, why not? Selfishness was a reproach applied by those who failed +to get what they wanted to all who succeeded. Linda wasn't afraid of +public opinion, censure; she didn't shrink even from the injury to her +husband. What Dodge would think, however, was hidden from her. + +She had no doubt of his complete acceptance of all she offered; ordinary +obligations to society bound him as little as they held her. It would be +enough that she wanted to come to him. + +She would bother him, change his habit of living, very little. Long +years of loneliness had taught her to be self-sufficient. Linda would +be too wise to insist on distasteful regularity in the interest of a +comparatively unimportant well-being. In short, she wouldn't bother him. +That must be made clear at once. + +More than anything else he would be inexpressibly delighted to have her +with him, to find--at last--his love. Little intimacies of satin +mules, glimpses, charming to an artist! He'd be faultless, too, in the +relationships where Arnaud as well had never for a moment deviated from +beautiful consideration. Two remarkable men. While her deficiency in +humor was admitted, she saw a glimmer of the absurd in her attitude and +present situation. The combination, at least, was uncommon. There had +been no change in her feeling for either Arnaud or Dodge, their places +in her being were undisturbed; she liked her husband no less, Dodge no +better. + +Lunch was announced, a small ceremony of covered silver dishes, heavy +crystal, Nankin china, and flowers. The linen, which was old, bore a +monogram unfamiliar to her--that of Dodge's mother, probably. When she +had finished, but was still lingering at the narrow refectory table, she +heard Pleydon enter the hall and the explanatory voice of the servant. +An unexpected embarrassment pervaded her, but she overcame it by the +realization that there was no need for an immediate announcement of +her purpose. Dodge would naturally suppose that she was in New York +shopping. + +He did, to her intense relief, with a moving pleasure that she had +lunched with him. “It's seldom,” he went on, “that you are so sensible. +I hope you haven't any plans or concerts to drag you away immediately. +I owe you a million strawberries; but, aside from that, I'd like you to +stay as long as possible.” + +“Very well,” she replied quietly; “I will.” + +She hadn't seen him since the statue at Hesperia had been destroyed, and +she tried faintly to tell him how much that outrage had hurt her. It had +injured him too, she realized; just as Arnaud predicted. He showed his +age more gauntly, more absolutely, than the other. His skin was dry as +though the vitality of his countenance had been burned out by the flame +visible in his eyes. + +“The drunken fools!” he exclaimed of the mob that had torn Simon Downige +from his eminence; “they came by way of all the saloons in the city. +Free drinks! That is the disturbing thing about what the optimistic call +civilization--the fact that it is always at the mercy of the ignorant +and the brutal. There is no security; none, that is, except in the +individual spirit. And they, mostly, are the victims of a singular +insane resentment--Savonarola and there were greater. + +“But you mustn't think, you mustn't suppose, that I mean it's +hopeless. How could I? Who has had more from living? Love and complete +self-expression. That exhausts every possibility. Three words. Remember +Cottarsport. But the love--ah,” he smiled, but not directly at her. +Linda was at once reassured and disturbed; and she rose, proceeding into +the drawing-room. + +There she sat gracefully composed and with still hands; she never +embroidered or employed her leisure with trivial useful tasks. Pleydon +was extended on a chair, his fingers caught beyond his head and his long +legs thrust out and crossed at the ankles. His gaze was fixed on her +unwaveringly; and yet, when she tried to meet its focus, it went behind +her as though it pierced the solidity of her body and the walls in the +contemplation of a far-removed shining image. Her disturbance grew to +the inclusion of a degree of fretfulness at his unbroken silence, his +apparent absorption in whatever his meditation projected or found. + + + + +XXXIX + + +Now, she decided, was the moment for her revelation; or rather, it +couldn't very well be further deferred, for it promised to be halting. +But, with her lips forming the words, he abruptly spoke: + +“I have lived so long with your spirit, it has become so familiar--I +mean the ability of completely making you out of my heart--that when you +are here the difference isn't staggering. You see, you are never away. +I have that ability; it came out of the other wreck. But you know about +it--from years back. Time has only managed a greater power. Lately, and +I have nothing to do with it, I have been seeing you again as a girl; +as young as at Markue's party; younger. Not more than ten. I don't +mean that there is anything--isn't the present fashionable word +subliminal?--esoteric. God forbid. You'll remember my hatred of that +brutal deception. + +“No, it's only a part of my ability to create the shape of feeling, of +Simon's hope. I see things as realities capable of exact statement; and, +naturally, more than all the rest, you come to me that way. But as a +child--who knows why?” he relinquished the answer with an opened +palm. “And young like that, perhaps ten, I love you more sharply, more +unutterably, than at any other age. What is it I love? Not your adorable +plastic body, not that. It isn't necessary to understand. + +“You have, as a child, a quality of blinding loveliness in a world I +absolutely distrust. An Elysian flower. Is it possible, do you suppose, +to worship an abstract idea? It's not important to insist on my sanity.” + +The question of that had occurred independently to Linda; his hurried +voice and lost gaze filled her with apprehension. A dull reddish patch, +she saw, burned in either thin cheek; and she told herself that the +fever had revived in him. Pleydon continued: + +“Yet it is a timeless vision, because you never get old. I see Hallet +failing year by year, and your children, only yesterday dabs of soft +flesh, grow up and pass through college and marry. I hear myself in the +studio with an old man's cough; the chisels slip under the mall and I +can't move the clay about without help--all fading, decaying, but you. +Candles burn out, hundreds of them, while your whiteness, your flame-- + +“Strange, too, how you light a world, a sky, eternity. A word we have no +business with; a high-sounding word for a penny purpose. Look, we try +to keep alive because it's necessary to life, to nature; and the effort, +the struggle, breeds the dream. You can understand that. Men who ought +to know say that love is nothing more.” He rose and stood over her, +towering and portentous against the curtained light. “I don't pretend to +guess. I'm a creative artist--Simon Downige at Cottarsport--I have you. +If it's God so much the better.” + +What principally swept over Linda was the knowledge that his possession +of her must keep them always apart. The reality, all realities, were +veils to Pleydon. Her momentary vision of things beyond brick and earth +was magnified in him until everything else was obliterated. The fever! +Oh, yes, that and his passion for work merged in his passion for her. +She could bring him nothing; and she had a curious picture of two Lindas +visible to him here--the Linda that was actual and the other, the child. +And of them it was the latter he cared most for, recreated out of his +desire to defraud his loneliness, to repay the damage to his spirit +realized in bronze. + +She was, suddenly, too weary to stir or lift her hand; a depression +as absolute as her flare of rage enveloped her. Now the reason for her +coming seemed inexplicable, as if, for the while, her mind had failed. +She repressed a shudder at the thought of being, through the long nights +of his restlessness and wandering voice, alone with Pleydon. She hadn't, +Linda discovered, any of the transmuting feeling for him which alone +made surrender possible. She calculated mentally how long it would take +her to reach the station, what train would be available. + +Linda accepted dumbly the fatality to her own hope; for a few hours she +had thought it possible to break out of the prison of circumstance, to +walk free from all hindrance; but it had been vain. She gazed at Dodge +Pleydon intensely--a comprehensive view of the man she had so nearly +married, and who, more than any other force, dominated her being. It was +already too late for anything but memory; she saw--filled with pity for +them both--hardly more than a strange old man with deadened hair and a +yellow parchment-like skin. His suit of loose gray flannel gave her a +feeling that it had been borrowed from some one she lovingly knew. The +gesture of his hand, too, had been copied from a brilliant personage +with a consuming impatience at all impotence. + +“Remember me to Arnaud,” he said, holding her gloves and the short fur +cape. “Wait!” he cried sharply, turning to the bookcase against the +wall. Pleydon fumbled in a box of lacquered gilt with a silk cord and +produced a glove once white but now brown and fragile with age. “You +never missed it,” he proceeded in a gleeful triumph; “but then you had +so many pairs. Once I sent you nine dozen together from Grenoble. They +were nothing, but this you had worn. For a long while it kept the shape +of your hand.” + +“Dodge,” she tried without success to steady her voice, “it stayed with +you anyhow, my--my hand.” + +“But yes,” he answered impatiently. He returned the glove to its box, +carefully tying the tasselled cord. Then, after clumsily helping her +with the cape, he accompanied her to the elevator. “There were other +things,” he told her. “Did you see the letters about the Hesperia +affair? Heaps of them. Rodin.... But what can you expect in a world +where there is no safety--” The stopping cage cut off his remark. She +held out the hand that was less real to him than the dream. + +“Good-by, Dodge.” + +“Yes, Linda. But watch that door, your skirt might easily be caught in +it.” He fussed over her safety until, abruptly, he seemed to rise in +space, shut out from her by the limitations of her faith. + +The evening overshadowed her in the train, as though she were whirling +in the swiftest passage possible, through an indeterminate grayness, +from day to night. The latter descended on her as she reached the steps +of her home. It was still that; now it would continue to be until +death. Nothing could ever again offer her change, release, vindication; +nothing, that was, which might give her, for a day, what even her mother +had plentifully experienced--the igniting exultation of the body. + +It was inevitable, she thought, for Arnaud to be in the library. He rose +unsteadily as she stood in the doorway. “Linda,” he articulated with +difficulty. A book had rested open on the table beside him and, closing +it, he put it back in its place. His arm trembled so that it took a +painfully long while. Then he moved forward, still confused. + +“What a confounded time you were gone. I had the most idiotic fancy. You +see, it was so unlike you; none more exact in habit. All day. I didn't +get to the Historical Society, it seemed so devilish far off. I'd never +blame you for leaving an old man without any gumption.” He must never +think that again, she replied. Wasn't she, too, middle-aged? + + + + +XL + + +Linda admitted, definitely, the loss of her youth; and yet a stubborn +inner conviction remained that she was unchanged. In this she had for +support her appearance; practically she was as freshly and gracefully +pale as the girl who had married Arnaud Hallet. Even Vigné, with +indelible traces of her motherhood, had faint lines absent from Linda's +flawless countenance. Her children, and Arnaud, were immensely proud of +her beauty; it had become a part--in the form of her ridiculously young +air--of the family conversational resources. She was increasingly aware +of its supreme significance to her. + +One of her few certainties had been the discovery that, while small +truths might be had from others, all that intimately and deeply +concerned her was beyond questioning and advice. The importance of her +attractiveness, for example, which seemed the base of her entire being, +was completely out of accord with the accepted standard of values +for middle-aged women. Other things, called moral and spiritual, she +inferred, should take up her days and thoughts. There was a course of +discipline--exactly like exercises in the morning--for the preparation +of the willingness to die. + +But such an attitude was eternally beyond her; she repudiated it with +a revolt stringing every nerve indignantly tense. She had had, on the +whole, singularly little from life but her fine body; it had always been +the temple and altar of her service, and no mere wordy reassurance could +now repay her for its swift or gradual destruction. The latter, except +for accident, would be her fate; she was remarkably sound. In her social +adventures, the balls to which, without Arnaud, she occasionally went, +she was morbid in her sensitive dread of discovering, through a waning +admiration, that she was faded. + +It would be impossible to spend more care on her person than she had in +the past; but that was unrelenting. Linda was inexorable in her demands +on the establishments that made her suits and dresses. The slightest +imperfection of fit exasperated her; and she regarded the endless change +of fashions with contempt. This same shifting, she observed, occurred +not only in women's clothes but in the women themselves. + +Linda remembered her mother, eternal in gaiety, but very obviously +different from her in states of mind affecting her appearance. She was +unable to define the change; but it was unmistakable--Stella Condon +seemed a little old-fashioned. When now, to Lowrie's wife, Linda was +unmistakably out-of-date. Lowrie, fast accomplishing all that had been +predicted for him, had married a girl incomprehensible to his mother. +Observing this later feminine development she had the baffled feeling of +inspecting a creature of a new order. + +To Linda, Jean Tynedale, now a Hallet, seemed harder than ever her own +famous coldness had succeeded in being. This came mostly from Jean's +imposing education; there had been, in addition to the politest of +finishing schools, college--a woman's concern, Bryn Mawr--and then +post-graduate honors in a noteworthy university. She was entirely +addressed, in a concrete way, to the abstract problems of social +progress and hygiene; and, under thirty, the animating spirit, as well +as financial support, of an incredible number of Settlements and allied +undertakings. She spoke crisply before civic and other clubs; even, in +the interest of suffrage, addressing nondescript audiences from a box on +the street. + +But it was her unperturbed dissection of the motives of sex, the +denouncement of a criminal mysterious ignorance, that most daunted +Linda. She listened to Jean with a series of distinct shocks to her +sense of propriety. What she had agreed to consider a nameless attribute +of women, or, if anything more exact, the power of their charm over men, +the other defined in unequivocal scientific terms. She understood +every impulse veiled for Linda in a reticence absolutely needful to its +appeal. + +This, of course, the elder distrusted; just as she had no approval for +Jean's public activities. Linda didn't like public women; her every +instinct cried for a fine seclusion, fine in the meaning of an +appropriate setting for feminine distinction, the magic of dress and cut +roses. Her private inelegant word for Lowrie's wife was “bold;” indeed, +describing to herself the younger woman's patronage of her bearing, she +descended to her mother's colloquialism “brass.” + +She thought this sitting at a dinner-table which held Vigné and her +husband and Lowrie and Jean Hallet. Arnaud, drawing life from the +vitality of an atmosphere charged with youth, was unflagging in splendid +spirits and his valorous wit. Jean would never inspire the affection +Arnaud had given her; nor the passion that, in Pleydon, had burned unfed +even by hope. + +Her thoughts slipped away from the present to the sculptor. Three years +had vanished since she had gone with an intention of finality to his +apartment, and in that time he had neither been in their house nor +written. Linda had expected this; she was without the desire to see +or hear from him. Dodge Pleydon was finished for her; as a man, a +potentiality, he had departed from her life. He was a piece with her +memories, the triumphs of her young days. Without an actual knowledge of +the moment of its accomplishment she had passed over the border of that +land, leaving it complete and fair and radiant for her lingering view. +Whether or not she had been happy was now of no importance; the magic +of its light showed only a garden and a girl in white with a black bang +against her blue eyes. + +The bang, the blueness of gaze, were still hers; but, only this +morning, brush in hand, the former had offered less resistance in its +arrangement; it was thinner, and the color perceptibly not so dense. At +this, with a chill edge of fear, she had determined to go at once to +her hairdresser; no one, neither Arnaud, who loved its luster, nor an +unsympathetic bold scrutiny, a scrutiny of brass, should see that she +was getting gray. There was no fault about her figure; she had that for +her satisfaction; she was more graceful than Jean's square thinness, +more slim than Vigné's maternal presence. + +Linda had the feeling that she was engaged in a struggle with time, a +ruthless antagonist whom she viewed with a personal enmity. Time must, +would, of course, triumph in the end; but there would be no sign of her +surrender in the meanwhile; she wouldn't bend an inch, relinquish by a +fraction the pride and delicacy of her person. The skilful dyeing of +her hair to its old absolute blackness, as natural and becoming in +appearance as ever, was a symbol of her determination to cheat an +intolerable tyranny. + +The process, dismaying her soul, she bore with a rigid fortitude; as she +endured the coldness of a morning bath from which, often, she was slow +to react. This, to her, was widely different from the futile efforts +of her mother, those women of the past, to preserve for practical ends +their flushes of youth and exhilaration. She felt obscurely that she was +serving a deeper reality created by the hands of Pleydon, Arnaud's +faith and pure pleasure, all that countless men had seen in her for +admiration, solace and power. + +But it was inevitable, she told herself bitterly, that she should +hear the first intimation of her decline from Jean Hallet. Rather, she +overheard it, the discussion of her, from the loiterers at breakfast +as she moved about the communicating library. Jean's emphatic slightly +rough-textured voice arrested her in the arrangement of a bowl of +zinnias: + +“You can't say just where she has failed, but it's evident. Perhaps a +general dryness. Perfectly natural. Thoroughly silly to fight against +it--” Vigné interrupted her. “I think mother's wonderful. I can't +remember any other woman nearly her age who looks so enchanting in the +evening.” + +Linda quietly left the flowers as they were and went up to the room that +had been her father's. It was now used as a spare bedroom; and she had +turned into it, in place of her own chamber, instinctively, without +reason. She had kept it exactly as it had been when Amelia Lowrie first +conducted her there, as it was when her father, a boy, slept under the +white canopy. + +Linda advanced to the mirror; and, her hands so tightly clenched that +the finger-nails dug into the palms, forced herself to gaze steadily +at the wavering reflection. It seemed to her that there had been a +malicious magic in Jean's detraction; for immediately, as though the +harm had been wrought by the girl's voice, she saw that her clear +freshness had gone. Her face had a wax-like quality, the violet shadows +under her eyes were brown. Who had once called her a gardenia? Now she +was wilting--how many gardenias had she seen droop, turn brown. Her +heart beat with a disturbing echo in her ears, and, with a slight gasp +that resembled a sob, she sank on one of the uncomfortable painted +chairs. + +What, above every other sensation, oppressed her was a feeling of +terrific loneliness--the familiar isolation magnified until it was past +bearing. Yet, there was Arnaud, infallible in his tender comprehension, +she ought to go to him at once and find support. But it was impossible; +all that he could give her was, to her special necessity, useless. She +had never been able to establish herself in his sympathy; the reason for +that lay in the fact that she could bring nothing similar in return. + +The room--except for the timed clangor of the electric cars, like the +measure of lost minutes--was quiet. The photograph of Bartram Hallet in +cricketing clothes had faded until it was almost indistinguishable. Soon +the faint figure would disappear entirely, as though the picture were +amenable to the relentless principle operating in her. + +The peace about her finally lessened her acute suffering, stilled her +heart. She told herself with a show of vigor that she was a coward, a +charge that roused an unexpected activity of denial. She discovered that +cowardice was intolerable to her. What had happened, too, was so far out +of her hands that a trace of philosophical acceptance, recognition, came +to her support. The loveliest woman alive must do the same, meet in a +looking-glass--that eternal accompanying sibyl--her disaster. She rose, +her lips firmly set, composed and pale, and returned to the neglected +flowers in the library. + +Vigné entered and put an affectionate arm about her shoulders, +repeating--unconscious that Linda had heard the discussion which had +given it being--the conviction that her mother was wonderful, specially +in the black dinner dress with the girdle of jet. With no facility of +expression she gave her daughter's arm a quick light pressure. + +From then she watched the slow progress of age with a new realization, +but an unabated distaste and, wherever it was possible, a determined +artifice. Arnaud had failed swiftly in the past months; and, while she +was inspecting the impaired supports of an arbor in the garden, he came +to her with an unopened telegram. “I abhor these things,” he declared +fretfully; “they are so sudden. Why don't people write decent letters +any more! It's like the telephone.... Good manners have been ruined.” + +She tore open the envelope, read the brief line within, and, a hand +suddenly put out to the arbor, sank on its bench. There had been rain, +but a late sun was again pouring over the sparkling grass, and robins +were singing with a lyrical clearness. “What is it?” Arnaud demanded +anxiously, tremulous in the unsparing sunlight. She replied: + +“Dodge died this morning.” + +His concern was as much for her as for Pleydon's death. “I'm sorry, +Linda,” his hand was on her shoulder. “It is a shock to you. A fine man, +a genius--none stronger in our day. When you were young and for so +long after.... I was lucky, Linda, to get you; have you all this while. +Nothing in Pleydon's life, not even his success, could have made up for +your loss.” + +She wondered dully if Dodge had missed her, if Arnaud Hallet had ever +had her in his possession. The robins filled the immaculate air +with song. It was impossible that Dodge, who was so imperious in his +certainty that he would never say good-by to her, was dead. + + + + +XLI + + +There was a revival of public interest in the destruction of Pleydon's +statue at Hesperia, the papers again printed accounts colored by a +variety of attitudes unembarrassed by fact; and the serious journals +united in a dignity of eminently safe praise. At first Linda made an +effort to preserve these; but soon their similarity, her inability to +find, among sonorous periods, any trace of Dodge's spirit--in reality +she knew so blindingly much more than the most penetrating critical +intellect--caused her to leave the reviews unread. No one else living +had understood Pleydon; and when descriptions of his life spoke of the +austerity in his later years, his fanatical aversion to women, Linda +thought of the brittle glove in the gilt-lacquer box. + +Her own emotion, it seemed to her, was the most confused of all the +unintelligible pressures that had converted her life into an enigma. +She had a distinct sense of overwhelming loss--of something, Linda was +obliged to add, she had never owned. However, she realized that during +Pleydon's life she had dimly expected a happy accident of explanation; +until almost the last, yes--after she had returned from that ultimate +journey, she had been conscious of the presence of hope. The hope had +been for herself, created out of her constant baffled dissatisfaction. + +But now the man in whom solely she had been expressed, the only possible +reason for her obstinate pride, had left her in a world that, but +for Arnaud's fondness, looked on her without remark. The loss of her +distinction had been finally evident at balls, in the dresses in which +Vigné had thought her so wonderful, and she dropped them. Here, she +repeated, was when affection, generously radiated through life, should +have reflected over her a tranquil and contented joy. She had never +given it, and she was without the ability to receive. She admitted to +herself, with a little annoyed laugh, that her old desire for inviolable +charm, for the integrity of a memorable slimness, was unimpaired. It +was, she thought, too ridiculously inappropriate for words. + +Yet it had changed slightly into the recognition that what so often had +been called her beauty was all she now had for sustenance, all she had +ever had. Her mind returned continually to Pleydon, and--deep in the +mystery of his passion--she was suddenly invaded by an insistent desire +to see the monument at Cottarsport. She spoke to Arnaud at once about +this; and alone, through his delicacy of perception, Linda went to +Boston the following day. + +The further ride to Cottarsport followed the sea--a brilliant serene +blue, fretted on the landward side by innumerable bare promontories, +hideous towns and factories, but bowed in a far unbroken arc at the +immaculate horizon. She left the train for a hilly cluster of houses, +gray and low like the rock everywhere apparent, dropping to a harbor +that bore a company of motionless boats with half-spread drying sails. + +The day was at noon, and the sky, blue like the sea, held, still as the +anchored schooners, faint, chalky symmetrical clouds. Linda found the +Common without guidance; and at once saw, on its immovable base of +rugged granite, the bronze statue of Simon Downige. It stood well in +advance of what, evidently, was the court-house, the white steeple Dodge +had described. She found a bench by a path in the thin grass; and there, +her gloved hands folded, at rest in her lap, her gaze and longing were +lifted to the fixed aspiration. + +From where she sat the seated figure was projected against the sky; +Simon's face was turned toward the west; the West that, for him, was the +future, but which for Linda represented all the past. This conviction +flooded her with unutterable sadness. A sense of failure weighed on her, +no less heavy for the fact that it was perpetually vague. Her thoughts +gathered about Dodge himself; and she recalled the curious vividness of +his vision of her as a child, perhaps ten. She, too, tried to remember +that time and age. It was almost in her grasp, but her realization was +spoiled by absurd mental fragments--the familiar illusion of a leopard +and a rider with bright hair, a forest with the ascending voices of +angels, and an ominous squat figure with a slowly nodding plumed head. + +The vista of a hotel returned, a fleet recollection of marble columns +and a wide red carpet ... the white gleam and carbolized smell of a +drug-store ... a thick magazine in a brown cover. These, changed into +emotions of mingled joy and pain, shifted in bright or dim colors and +sensations. There was a slow heavy plodding of feet, now above her head, +the passage of a carried weight; and, in a flash of perception, she knew +it was a coffin. She raised her clasped hands to her breast, crying into +the sunny silence, to the figure of Simon Downige lost in dream: + +“He died that night, at the Boscombe, after he had told me about the +meadows with silk tents--” + +Her memory, thrilling with the echoed miraculous chord of the child of +ten, sitting gravely, alone, among the shrill satins and caustic voices +of a feminine throng, was complete. She saw herself, Linda Condon, as +objectively as Pleydon's described vision: there was a large bow on her +straight black hair, and, from under the bang, her gaze was clear and +wondering. How marvelously young she was! The vindictive curiosity of +the questioning women, intent on their rings, brought out her eager +defense of her mother, the effort to explain away the ugly fact +that--that Mr. Jasper was married. + +She saw Linda descending the marble stairs to the lower floor where +the games were kept in a somber corridor, and heard a voice halting her +irresolute passage: + +“Hello, Bellina.” + +That wasn't her name, and she corrected him, waiting afterward to listen +to a strange fairy-like tale. The solitary, sick-looking man, with inky +shadows under fixed eyes, was so actual that she recaptured the pungent +drift of his burning cigarette. He talked about love in a bitter +intensity that hurt her. Yet, at first, he had said that she was lovely, +a touch of her ... forever in the memory. Mostly, however, he spoke of +a beautiful passion. It had largely vanished, his explanation continued; +men had come to worship other things. Plato started it. + +She recalled Plato, as well, in connection with Dodge; now, it +appeared to her, that remote name had always been at the back of her +consciousness. There were other names, other men, of an age long ago in +Italy. Their ideal, religion, was contained in the adoration of a woman, +but not her body--it was a love of her spirit, the spirit their purity +of need recognized, perhaps helped to create. It was a passion as +different as possible in essence from all she had observed about her. It +was useless for common purposes, withheld from Arnaud Hallet. + +The man, seriously addressing the serious uncomprehending interest of +ten, proceeded with a description of violins--but she had heard them +through all her life--and a parting that left only a white glove for +remembrance. Then he had repeated that line, in Italian, which, not long +back, her husband had recalled. The old gesture toward the stars, the +need to escape fatality--how she had suffered from that! + +Yet it was a service of the body, a faith spiritual because, here, it +was never to be won, never to be realized in warm embrace. It had no +recognition in flesh, and it was the reward of no prayer or humility +or righteousness. Only beauty knew and possessed it. His image grew dim +like the blurring of his voice by pain and the shadow of death. Linda's +thoughts and longing turned again to Dodge; it seemed to her that he no +more than took up the recital where the other was silent. + +Pleydon--was it at Markue's party or later?--talking about “Homer's +children” had meant the creations of great artists, in sound or color or +words or form, through that supreme love unrealized in other life. The +statue of Simon Downige, towering before her against the sky and above +the sea, held in immutable bronze his conviction. The meager bundle and +crude stick rested by shoes clogged with mud; Simon's body was crushed +with weariness; but under the sweat-plastered brow his gaze pierced +indomitable and undismayed to the vision of a place of truth. + +She was choked by a sharp rush of joy at Dodge's accomplishment, +an entire understanding of the beauty he had vainly explained, the +deathless communication of old splendid courage, an unshaken divine +need, to succeeding men and hope. This had been hers. She had always +felt her presence in his success; but, until now, it had belonged +exclusively to him. Dodge had, in his love, absorbed her, and that +resulted in the statues the world applauded. She, Linda thought, had +been an element easily dismissed. It had hurt her pride almost beyond +endurance, the pride that took the form of an inner necessity for the +survival of her grace--all she had. + +She had even asked him, in a passing resentment, why he had never +directly modeled her, kept, with his recording genius, the shape of her +features. She had gone to him in a blinder vanity for the purpose of +stamping her participation in his triumph on the stupid insensibility +of their world. How incredible! But at last she could see that he had +preserved her spirit, her secret self, from destruction. He had cheated +death of her fineness. The delicate perfection of her youth would +never perish, never be dulled by old age or corrupted in death. It had +inspired and entered into Pleydon's being, and he had lifted it on the +pedestal rising between the sea and sky. + +She was in the Luxembourg, in that statue of Cotton Mather, the somber +flame, about which he had written with a comment on the changing +subjects of his creations. From the moment when he sat beside her on +the divan in that room stifling with incense, with the naked glimmer of +women's shoulders, she had been the source of his power. She had +been his power. Linda smiled quietly, in retrospect, at her years of +uncertainty, the feeling of waste, that had robbed her of peace. How +complete her mystification had been! And, all the while, she had had +the thrill of delight, of premonition, born in her through the forgotten +hour with the man who had died. + +The sun, moving in celestial space, shifted the shadow about the base +of Simon Downige's monument. The afternoon was advancing. She rose and +turned, looking out over the sea to the horizon as brightly sharp as a +curved sword. The life of Cottarsport, below her, proceeded in detached +figures, an occasional unhurried passage. The boats in the harbor were +slumberous. It was time to go. She gazed again, for a last view, at the +bronze seated figure; and a word of Pleydon's, but rather it was Greek, +wove its significance in the placid texture of her thoughts. Its exact +shape evaded her, a difficult word to recall--_Katharsis_, the purging +of the heart. About her was the beating of the white wings of a Victory +sweeping her--a faded slender woman in immaculate gloves and a small +matchless hat--into a region without despair. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Linda Condon, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + +***** This file should be named 7171-0.txt or 7171-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/7/7171/ + +Produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Linda Condon + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7171] +This file was first posted on March 20, 2003 +Last Updated: June 12, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + + + + +Produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +LINDA CONDON + +By Joseph Hergesheimer + + + +_To_ CARL VAN VECHTEN + +_This, Linda Condon's Gravest Bow._ + + + +The Works Of Joseph Hergesheimer + +The Lay Anthony + +Mountain Blood + +The Three Black Pennys + +Gold And Iron + +Java Head + +The Happy End + +Linda Condon + + + + +LINDA CONDON + + + + +I + + +A black bang was, but not ultimately, the most notable feature of her +uncommon personality--straight and severe and dense across her clear +pale brow and eyes. Her eyes were the last thing to remember and wonder +about; in shade blue, they had a velvet richness, a poignant intensity +of lovely color, that surprised the heart. Aside from that she was slim, +perhaps ten years old, and graver than gay. + +Her mother was gay for them both, and, therefore, for the entire family. +No father was in evidence; he was dead and never spoken of, and Linda +was the only child. Linda's dresses, those significant trivialities, +plainly showed two tendencies--the gaiety of her mother and her own +always formal gravity. If Linda appeared at dinner, in the massive +Renaissance materialism of the hotel dining-room, with a preposterous +magenta hair-ribbon on her shapely head, her mother had succeeded in +expressing her sense of the appropriately decorative; while if Linda +wore an unornamented but equally "unsuitable" frock of dark velvet, she, +in her turn, had been vindicated. + +Again, but far more rarely, the child's selection was evident on the +woman. As a rule Mrs. Condon garbed her flamboyant body in large and +expensive patterns or extremely tailored suits; and of the two, the +evening satins and powdered arms barely retaining an admissible line, +and the suits, the latter were the most, well--spectacular. + +She was not dark in color but brightly golden; a gold, it must be said +in all honesty, her own, a metallic gold crisply and solidly marcelled; +with hazel-brown eyes, and a mouth which, set against her daughter's +deep-blue gaze, was her particular attraction. It was rouged to a +nicety, the under lip a little full and never quite against the upper. +If Linda's effect was cool and remote, Mrs. Condon, thanks to her +mouth, was reassuringly imminent. She was, too, friendly; she talked to +women--in her not overfrequent opportunities--in a rapid warm inaccurate +confession of almost everything they desired to hear. The women, of +course, were continually hampered by the unfortunate fact that +the questions nearest their hearts, or curiosity, were entirely +inadmissible. + +Viewed objectively, they all, with the exception of Linda, seemed alike; +but that might have been due to their common impressive setting. The +Boscombe, in its way, was as lavish as Mrs. Condon's dresses. The main +place of congregation, for instance, was a great space of white marble +columns, Turkey-red carpet and growing palms. It was lighted at night +indirectly by alabaster bowls hanging on gilded chains--a soft bright +flood of radiance falling on the seated or slowly promenading women with +bare shoulders. + +Usually they were going with a restrained sharp eagerness toward the +dining-room or leaving it in a more languid flushed repletion. There +were, among them, men; but somehow the men never seemed to be of the +least account. It was a women's paradise. The glow from above always +emphasized the gowns, the gowns like orchids and tea-roses and the +leaves of magnolias. It sparkled in the red and green and crystal +jewels like exotic dew scattered over the exotic human flowers. Very +occasionally there was a complacent or irritable masculine utterance, +and then it was immediately lost in the dominant feminine sibilance. + +Other children than Linda sped in the manner of brilliant fretful tops +literally on the elaborate outskirts of the throng; but they were as +different from her as she was from the elders. Indeed Linda resembled +the latter, rather than her proper age, remarkably. She had an air of +responsibility, sometimes expressed in a troubled frown, and again by +the way she hurried sedately through drifting figures toward a definite +purpose and end. + +Usually it was in the service of one of her mother's small innumerable +requests or necessities; if the latter were sitting with a gentleman on +the open hotel promenade that overlooked the sea and needed a heavier +wrap, Linda returned immediately with a furred cloak on her arm; if the +elder, going out after dinner, had brought down the wrong gloves, Linda +knew the exact wanted pair in the long perfumed box; while countless +trifles were needed from the convenient drug-store. + +The latter was a place of white mosaic floor and glittering glass, with +a marble counter heaped with vivid fruit and silver-covered bowls of +sirups and creams with chopped nuts. Linda often found time to stop here +for a delectable glass of assorted sweet compounds. She was on terms of +intimacy with the colored man in a crisp linen coat who presided over +the refreshments, and he invariably gave her an extra spoonful of the +marron paste she preferred. When at lunch, it might be, she cared for +very little, her mother would complain absently: + +"You must stop eating those sickening mixtures. They'd ruin any skin." +At this she invariably found the diminutive mirror in the bag on her +lap and glanced at her own slightly improved color. The burden of the +feminine conversations in which Mrs. Condon was privileged to join, +Linda discovered, was directed toward these overwhelming considerations +of appearance. And their importance, communicated to her, resulted in +a struggle between the desire to preserve her skin from ruin and the +seductions of marron paste and maple chocolates. + +Now, with an uncomfortable sense of impending disaster, she would +hastily consume one or the other; again, supported by a beginning +self-imposed inflexibility, she would turn steadily away from +temptation. In the end the latter triumphed; and her normal appetite, +always moderate, was unimpaired. + +This spirit of resolution, it sometimes happened, was a cause of +humorous dismay to her mother. "I declare, Linda," she would observe +with an air of helplessness, "you make me feel like the giddy one and +as if you were mama. It's the way you look, so disapproving. I have to +remind myself you're only--just how old are you? I keep forgetting." +Linda would inform her exactly and the other sigh: + +"The years slip around disgustingly. It seems only yesterday I was at +my first party." Usually, in spite of Linda's eagerness to hear of that +time when her mother was a girl, the elder would stop abruptly. On rare +occasions solitary facts emerged from the recalled existence of a +small town in the country. There were such details as buggy-riding +and prayer-meetings and excursions to a Boiling Springs where the +dancing-floor, open among the trees, was splendid. At these memories +Mrs. Condon had been known to cry. + +But she would recover shortly. Her emotions were like that--easily +roused, highly colored and soon forgotten. She forgot, Linda realized +leniently, a great deal. It wasn't safe to rely on her promises. +However, if she neglected a particular desire of Linda's, she +continually brought back unexpected gifts of candy, boxes of silk +stockings, or lovely half-wilted flowers. + +The flowers, they discovered, although they stayed fresh for a long +while pinned to Linda's slim waist, died almost at once if worn by her +mother. "It's my warm nature, I am certain," the latter proclaimed to +her daughter; "while you are a little refrigerator. I must say it's +wonderful how you keep your clothes the same. Neat as a pin." Somehow, +with this commendation, she managed to include a slight uncomplimentary +impatience. Linda didn't specially want to resemble a pin, a +disagreeable object with a sharp point. She considered this in the long +periods when, partly by preference, she was alone. + +Seated, perhaps, in the elaborate marble and deep red of the Boscombe's +reception-rooms, isolated in the brilliant expensive throng, she would +speculate over what passed in the light of her own special problems. But +nothing, really, came out to her satisfaction. There was, notably, no +one she might ask. Her mother, approached seriously, declared that Linda +gave her the creeps; while others made it plain that it was their duty +to repress the forwardness inevitable from the scandalous neglect of her +upbringing. + +They, the women of the Boscombe, glancing at their finger-nails stained +and buffed to a shining pale vermilion, lightly rubbing their rings on +the dry palm of a hand, wondered pessimistically within Linda's hearing +what could come out of such an association. That term, she vaguely +gathered, referred to her mother. The latter evidently interested them +tremendously; because, she explained, they had no affairs of their +own to attend to. This was perfectly clear to Linda until Mrs. Condon +further characterized them as "busy." + +The women, stopped by conventions from really satisfactory investigation +at the source, drew her on occasion into a laboriously light +inquisition. How long would Linda and her mama stay at the Boscombe? Had +they closed their apartment? Where was it? Hadn't Mrs. Condon mentioned +Cleveland? Wasn't Linda lonely with her mama out so much--they even said +late--in rolling chairs? Had she ever seen Mr. Jasper before his arrival +last week? + +No, of course she hadn't. + +Here they exchanged skeptical glances beneath relentlessly pulled +eyebrows. He was really very nice, Mr. Jasper. Linda in a matter-of-fact +voice replied that he had given her a twenty-dollar gold piece. Mr. +Jasper was very generous. But perhaps he had rewarded her for being a +good little girl and not--not bothering or hanging about. "Why should +he?" was Linda's just perceptibly impatient response. Then they told her +to be quiet because they wanted to listen to the music. + +This consisted in studying, through suspended glasses in chased +platinum, a discreet programme. At the end of a selection they either +applauded condescendingly or told each other that they hadn't cared for +that last--really too peculiar. Whichever happened, the leader of the +small orchestra, an extravagant Italian with a supple waist, turned and +bowed repeatedly with a grimacing smile. The music, usually Viennese, +was muted and emotional; its strains blended perfectly with the floating +scents of the women and the faintly perceptible pungent odors of dinner. +Every little while a specially insinuating melody became, apparently, +tangled in the women's breathing, and their breasts, cunningly traced +and caressed in tulle, would be disturbed. + +Mrs. Condon applauded more vigorously than was sanctioned by the others' +necessity for elegance; the frank clapping of her pink palms never +failed to betray a battery of affected and significant surprise in eyes +like--polished cold agates. Linda, seated beside her parent, could be +seen to lay a hand, narrow and blanched and marked by an emerald, on +the elder's knee. Her pale fine lips moved rapidly with the shadow of +trouble beneath the intense black bang. + +"I wish you wouldn't do it so loudly, mother," was what she whispered. + + + + +II + + +The jealously guarded truth was that, by her daughter at least, Mrs. +Condon was adored. Linda observed that she was not like an ordinary +mother, but more nearly resembled a youthful companion. Mrs. Condon's +gaiety was as genuine as her fair hair. Not kept for formal occasion, it +got out of bed with her, remained through the considerable difficulties +of dressing with no maid but Linda, and if the other were not asleep +called a cheerful or funny good night. + +Their rooms were separated by a bath, but Linda was scarcely ever in her +own--her mother's lovely things, acting like a magnet, constantly drew +her to their arrangement in the drawers. When the laundry came up, crisp +and fragile webs heaped on the bed, Linda laid it away in a sort of +ritual. Even with these publicly invisible garments a difference +of choice existed between the two: Mrs. Condon's preference was for +insertions, and Linda's for shadow embroidery and fine shell edges. Mrs. +Condon, shaking into position a foam of ribbon and lace, would say with +her gurgle of amusement, "I want to be ready when I fall down; if I +followed your advice they'd take me for a nun." + +This brought out Linda's low clear laugh, the expression of her extreme +happiness. It sounded, for an instant, like a chime of small silver +bells; then died away, leaving the faintest perceptible flush on her +healthy pallor. At other times her mother's humor made her vaguely +uncomfortable, usually after wine or other drinks that left the elder's +breath thick and oppressive. Linda failed completely to grasp the +allusions of this wit but a sharp uneasiness always responded like the +lingering stale memory of a bad dream. + +Once, at the Boscombe, her mother had been too silly for words: she had +giggled and embraced her sweet little girl, torn an expensive veil to +shreds and dropped a French model hat into the tub. After a distressing +sickness she had gone to sleep fully dressed, and Linda, unable to move +or wake her, had sat long beyond dinner into the night, fearful of the +entrance of the chambermaid. + +The next day Mrs. Condon had been humble with remorse. Men, she said, +were too beastly for description. This was not an unusual opinion. Linda +observed that she was always condemning men in general and dressing for +them in particular. She offered Linda endless advice in an abstracted +manner: + +"They're all liars, Lin, and stingy about everything but their pleasure. +Women are different but men are all alike. You get sick to death of +them! Never bother them when they are smoking a cigar; cigarettes +don't matter. Leave the cigarette-smokers alone, anyhow; they're not +as dependable as the others. A man with a good cigar--you must know +the good from the bad--is usually discreet. I ought to bring you up +different, but, Lord, life's too short. Besides, you will learn more +useful things right with mama, whose eyes are open, than anywhere else. + +"Powder my back, darling; I can't reach. If I'm a little late to-night +go to sleep like a duck. You think Mr. Jasper's nice, don't you? So does +mother. But you mustn't let him give you any more money. It'll make him +conceited." + +Linda wondered what she meant by the last phrase. How could it make Mr. +Jasper conceited to give her a gold piece? However, she decided that she +had better not ask. + +It was like that with a great many of her mother's mysterious +remarks--Linda had an instinctive feeling of drawing away. The other +kissed her warmly and left a print of vivid red on her cheek. + +She examined the mark in the mirror when her mother had gone; it was, +she decided, the kiss made visible. Then she laid away the things +scattered about the room by Mrs. Condon's hasty dressing. Her own +belongings were always in precise order. + +A sudden hesitation seized her at the thought of going down to the crowd +at the music. The women made her uncomfortable. It wasn't what they +said, but the way they said it; and the endless questions wearied her. +She was, as well, continually bothered by her inability to impress upon +them how splendid her mother was. Some of them she was certain did not +appreciate her. Mrs. Condon at once admitted and was entertained by +this, but it disturbed Linda. However, she understood the reason--when +any nice men came along they always liked her mother best. This made the +women mad. + +The world, she gathered, was a place where women played a game of men +with each other. It was very difficult, she couldn't comprehend the +rules or reason; and Linda was afraid that she would be unsuccessful +and never have the perfect time her mother wanted for her. In the first +place, she was too thin, and then she knew that she could never talk +like her dearest. Perhaps when she had had some wine it would be +different. + +She decided, after all, to go down to the assemblage; and, by one of +the white marble pillars, Mrs. Randall captured her. "Why, here's +Linda-all-alone," Mrs. Randall said. "Mama out again?" Linda replied +stoutly, "She has a dreadful lot of invitations." + +Mrs. Randall, who wore much brighter clothes than her mother, was called +by the latter an old buzzard. She was very old, Linda could see, with +perfectly useless staring patches of paint on her wrinkled cheeks, and +eyes that look as though they might come right out of her head. Her +frizzled hair supported a dead false twist with a glittering diamond +pin, and her soft cold hands were loaded with jewels. She frightened +Linda, really, although she could not say why. Mrs. Randall was a great +deal like the witch in a fairy-story, but that wasn't it. Linda hadn't +the belief in witches necessary for dread. It might be her scratching +voice; or the way she turned her head, without any chin at all, like a +turtle; or her dresses, which led you to expect a person very different +from an old buzzard. + +"Of course she does," said Mrs. Randall, "any number of invitations, and +why shouldn't she? Your mother is very pleasant, to be sure." She nodded +wisely to the woman beside her, Miss Skillern. + +Miss Skillern was short and broad and, in the evening, always wore +curled ostrich plumes on tightly filled gray puffs. She reminded Linda +of a wadded chair. Mrs. Randall, after the other's slight stiff assent, +continued: + +"Your mama would never be lonely, not she. All I wonder is she doesn't +get married again--with that blondine of hers. Wouldn't you rather have +one papa than, in a way of speaking, a different one at every hotel?" + +Linda, completely at a loss for answer, studied Mrs. Randall with her +direct deep blue gaze. Miss Skillern again inclined her plumes. With the +rest of her immobile she was surprisingly like one of those fat china +figures with a nodding head. Linda was assaulted by the familiar +bewildered feeling of not understanding what was said and, at the same +time, passionately resenting it from an inner sensitive recognition of +something wrong. + +"How could I have that?" she finally asked. + +"How?" repeated Miss Skillern, breathing loudly. + +"Yes, how?" Mrs. Randall echoed. "You can ask your mama. You really can. +And you may say that, as a matter of fact, the question came from us," +she included her companion. + +"From you," Miss Skillern exactly corrected her. + +"Indeed," the other cried heatedly, "from me! I think not. Didn't you +ask? Answer me that, if you please. I heard you with my own ears say, +'How?' While now, before my face, you try to deny it." It was plain to +Linda that Miss Skillern was totally unmoved by the charge. She moved +her lorgnette up, gazing stolidly at the musical programme. "From you," +she said again, after a little. Mrs. Randall suddenly regained her +equilibrium. + +"If the ladies of this hotel are afraid to face that creature I--I--am +not. I'll tell her in a minute what a respectable person thinks of +her goings-on. More than that, I shall complain to Mr. Rennert. 'Mr. +Rennert,' I'll say, 'either she leaves or me. Choose as you will. The +reputation of your hotel--'" she spluttered and paused. + +"Proof," Miss Skillern pronounced judicially; "proof. We know, but +that's not proof." + +"He has a wife," Mrs. Randall replied in a shrill whisper; "a wife +who is an invalid. Mrs. Zoock, she who had St. Vitus' dance and left +yesterday, heard it direct. George A. Jasper, woolen mills in Frankford, +Pennsylvania. Mr. Rennert would thank me for that information." + +They had forgotten Linda. She stood rigid and cold--they were blaming +her mother for going out in a rolling chair with Mr. Jasper because he +was married. But her mother didn't know that; probably Mr. Jasper had +not given it a thought. She was at the point of making this clear, when +it seemed to her that it might be better to say that her mother knew +everything there was about Mr. Jasper's wife; she could even add that +they were all friends. + +Linda would have to tell her mother the second she came in, and then, +of course, she'd stop going with Mr. Jasper. Men, she thought in the +elder's phrase, were too beastly for words. + +"After all," Mrs. Randall was addressing her again, "you needn't say +anything at all to your mama. It might make her so cross that she'd +spank you." + +"Mother never spanks me," Linda replied with dignity. + +"If you were my little girl," said Miss Skillern, with rolling lips, +"I'd put you over my knee with your skirts up and paddle you." + +Never, Linda thought, had she heard anything worse; she was profoundly +shocked. The vision of Miss Skillern performing such an operation as +she had described cut its horror on her mind. There was a sinking at her +heart and a misty threat of tears. + +To avert this she walked slowly away. It was hardly past nine o'clock; +her mother wouldn't be back for a long while, and she was too restless +and unhappy to sit quietly above. Instead, she continued down to the +floor where there were various games in the corridor leading to the +billiard-room. The hall was dull, no one was clicking the balls about +the green tables, and a solitary sick-looking man, with inky shadows +under fixed eyes, was smoking a cigarette in a chair across from the +cigar-stand. + +He looked over a thick magazine in a chocolate cover, his gaze arrested +by her irresolute passage. "Hello, Bellina," he said. + +She stopped. "Linda," she corrected him, "Linda Condon." Obeying a +sudden impulse, she dropped, with a sigh, into a place beside him. + +"You're bored," he went on, the magazine put away. "So am I, but my term +is short." + +She wondered, principally, what he was doing, among so many women, at +the Boscombe. He was different from Mr. Jasper, or the other men with +fat stomachs, the old men with dragging feet. It embarrassed her to meet +his gaze, it was so--so investigating. She guessed he was by the sea +because he felt as badly as he looked. He asked surprisingly: + +"Why are you here?" + +"On the account of my mother," she explained. "But it doesn't matter +much where I am. Places are all alike," she continued conversationally. +"We're mostly at hotels--Florida in winter and Lake George in summer. +This is kind of between." + +"Oh!" he said; and she was sure, from that short single exclamation, he +understood everything. + +"Like all true beauty," he added, "it's plain that you are durable." + +"I don't like the seashore," she went on easily; "I'd rather be in a +garden with piles of flowers and a big hedge." + +"Have you ever lived in a garden-close?" + +"No," she admitted; "it's just an idea. I told mother but she laughed at +me and said a roof-garden was her choice." + +"Some day you'll have the place you describe," he assured her. "It is +written all over you. I would like to see you, Bellina, in a space +of emerald sod and geraniums." She decided to accept without further +protest his name for her. "You are right, too, about the hedge--the +highest and thickest in creation. I should recommend a pseudo-classic +house, Georgian, rather small, a white faade against the grass. A +Jacobean dining-room, dark certainly, the French windows open on dipping +candle flames. You'd wear white, with your hair low and the midnight +bang as it is now." + +"That would be awfully nice," Linda replied vaguely. She sighed. + +"But a very light drawing-room!" he cried. "White panels and arches and +Canton-blue rugs--the brothers Adam. A fluted mantel, McIntires, and a +brass hod. Curiously enough, I always see you in the evening ... at the +piano. I'm not so bored, now." Little flames of red burned in either +thin cheek. "What nonsense!" Suddenly he was tired. "This is a practical +and earnest world," his voice grew thin and hurt her. "Yet beauty is +relentless. You'll have your garden, but I shouldn't be surprised at +difficulties first." + +"It won't be so hard to get," she declared confidently. "I mean to +choose the right man. Mother says that's the answer. Women, she says, +won't use their senses." + +"Ah." + +Linda began to think this was a most unpleasant monosyllable. + +"So that's the lay! Has she succeeded?" + +"She has a splendid time. She's out tonight with Mr. Jasper in a rolling +chair, and he has loads and loads of money. It makes all the other women +cross." + +"Here you are, then, till she gets back?" + +"There's no one else." + +"But, as a parent, infinitely preferable to the righteous," he murmured. +"And you--" + +"I think mother's perfect," she answered simply. + +He shook his head. "You won't succeed at it, though. Your mother, for +example, isn't dark." + +"The loveliest gold hair," she said ecstatically. "She's much much +prettier than I'll ever be." + +"Prettier, yes. The trouble is, you are lovely, magical. You will stay +for a lifetime in the memory. The merest touch of you will be more +potent than any duty or fidelity. A man's only salvation will be his +blindness." + +Although she didn't understand a word of this, Linda liked to hear +him; he was talking as though she were grown up, and in response to the +flattery she was magnetic and eager. + +"One time," he said, "very long ago, beauty was worshiped. Men, you +see, know better now. They want their dollar's worth. The world was +absolutely different then--there were deep adventurous forests with holy +chapels in the green combe for an orison, and hermits rising to Paradise +on the _Te Deum Laudamus_ of the angels and archangels. There were black +castles and, in the broad meadows, silk tents with ivory pegs and poles +of gold. + +"The enchantments were as thick as shadows under the trees: perhaps the +loveliest of women riding a snow-white mule, with a saddle cloth of red +samite, or, wrapped in her shining hair, on a leopard with yellow eyes, +lured you to a pavilion, scattered with rushes and flowers and magical +herbs, and a shameful end. Or a silver doe would weep, begging you to +pierce her with your sword, and, when you did, there knelt the daughter +of the King of Wales. + +"But I started to tell you about the worship of beauty. Plato started it +although Cardinal Pietro Bembo was responsible for the creed. He lived +in Italy, in an age like a lily. It developed mostly at Florence in +the Platonic Academy of Cosomo and Pico della Mirandola. Love was the +supreme force, and its greatest expression a desire beyond the body." + +He gazed at Linda with a quizzical light in his eyes deep in shadow. + +"Love," he said again, and then paused. "One set of words will do +as well as another. You will understand, or not, with something far +different from intellectual comprehension. The endless service of +beauty. Of course, a woman--but never the animal; the spirit always. +Born in the spirit, served in the spirit, ending in the spirit. A direct +contradiction, you see, to nature and common sense, frugality and the +sacred symbol of the dollar. + +"It wouldn't please your Mr. Jasper, with his heaps and heaps of money. +Mr. Jasper would consider himself sold. But Novalis, not so very long +ago, understood.... A dead girl more real than all earth. You mustn't +suppose it to be mere mysticism." + +Linda said, "Very well, I won't." + +He nodded. "No one could call Michelangelo hysterical. Sometime in the +history of man, of a salt solution, this divinity has touched them. +Touched them hopefully, and perhaps gone--banished by the other +destination. Or I can comprehend nature killing it relentlessly, since +it didn't lead to propagation. Then, too, as much as was useful was +turned into a dogma for politics and priests. + +"You saw in the rushlight a woman against the arras; there was a +humming of viola d'amore from the musicians' balcony; she smiled at you, +lingering, and then vanished with a whisper of brocade de Lyons on a +sanded floor. Nothing else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, +in your habergeon, an eternally fragrant memory; the dim vision in stone +street and coppice; a word, a message, it might be, sent across the +world of steel at death. And then, in the last flicker of vision, the +arras and the clear insistent strings, the whispering brocade de Lyons +on the landing. + +"The philosophy of it," he said in a different tone, "is exact, even +a scientific truth. But men have been more concerned with turning lead +into gold; naturally the spirit has been neglected. The science of love +has been incredibly soiled: + +"The old gesture toward the stars, the bridge of perfection, the escape +from the fatality of flesh. Yet it was a service of the body made +incredibly lovely in actuality and still never to be grasped. Never to +be won. It ought to be clear to you that realized it would diminish into +quite a different thing-- + +"'_La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa idea._'" + +His voice grew so faint that Linda could scarcely distinguish articulate +sounds. All that he said, without meaning for her, stirred her heart. +She was used to elder enigmas of speech; her normal response was +instinctively emotional, and nothing detracted from the gravity of her +attention. + +"Not in pious men," he continued, more uncertain; "nor in seminaries of +virtue. They have their reward. But in men whose bitterness of longing +grew out of hideous fault. The distinction of beauty--not a payment for +prayers or chastity. The distinction of love ... above chests of linen +and a banker's talent and patents of nobility.... Divine need. Idiotic. +But what else, what better, offers?" + +He was, she saw, terribly sick. His hands were clenched and his entire +being strained and rigid, as though he were trying to do something +tremendously difficult. At last, with infinite pain, he succeeded. + +"I must get away," he articulated. + +Linda was surprised at the effort necessary for this slight +accomplishment when he had said the most bewildering things with +complete ease. Well, the elevators were right in front of him. He rose +slowly, and, with Linda standing at his side, dug a sharp hand into her +shoulder. It hurt, but instinctively she bore it and, moving forward, +partly supported him. She pressed the bell that signaled for the +elevator and it almost immediately sank into view. "Hurry," he said +harshly to the colored operator in a green uniform; and quite suddenly, +leaving a sense of profound mystery, he disappeared. + + + + +III + + +Linda decided that he had told her a rather stupid fairy story. She was +too old for such ridiculous things as ladies in their shining hair on a +leopard. She remembered clearly seeing one of the latter at a zoological +garden. It had yellow eyes, but no one would care to ride on it. Her +mother, she was certain, knew more about love than any man. His words +faded quickly from her memory, but a confused rich sense stirred her +heart, a feeling such as she experienced after an unusually happy day: +white gloves and music and Mr. Jasper displeased. + +A clock chimed ten, and she proceeded to her mother's room, where she +must wait up with her information about Mr. Jasper's wife. She was +furious at him for a carelessness that had brought her mother such +unfavorable criticism. Everything had been put away before going down, +and there was nothing for her to do. The time dragged tediously. The +hands of the traveling-clock in purple leather on the dressing-table +moved deliberately around to eleven. A ringing of ice in one of the +metal pitchers carried by the bell boys sounded from the corridor. There +was the faint wail of a baby. + +Suddenly and acutely Linda was lonely--a new kind of loneliness that had +nothing to do with the fact that she was by herself. It was a strange +cold unhappiness, pressing over her like a cloud and, at the same time, +it was nothing at all. That is, there was no reason for it. The room was +brightly lighted and, anyhow, she wasn't afraid of "things." She thought +that at any minute she must cry like that baby. After a little she felt +better; rather the unhappiness changed to wanting. What she wanted was +a puzzle; but nothing else would satisfy her. It might be a necklace of +little pearls, but it wasn't. It might be--. Now it was twelve o'clock. +Dear, dear, why didn't she come back! + +Music, awfully faint, and a whisper, like a dress, across the floor. +Her emotion changed again, to an extraordinary delight, a glow like that +which filled her at the expression of her adoration for her mother, but +infinitely greater. She was seated, and she lifted her head with her +eyes closed and hands clasped. The clock pointed to one and her parent +came into the room. + +"Linda," she exclaimed crossly, "whatever are you doing up? A bad little +girl. I told you to be asleep hours before this." + +"There is something you had to know right away," Linda informed her +solemnly. "I only just heard it from Mrs. Randall and Miss Skillern." +Her mother's flushed face hardened. "Mr. Jasper is married," Linda said. + +Mrs. Condon dropped with an angry flounce into a chair. Her broad scarf +of sealskin slipped from one shoulder. Her hat was crooked and her hair +disarranged. "So that's it," she said bitterly; "and they went to you. +The dam' old foxes. They went to you, nothing more than a child." + +Linda put in, "They didn't mean to; it just sort of came out. I knew +you'd stop as soon as you heard. Wasn't it horrid of him?" + +"And this," Mrs. Condon declared, "is what I get for being, yes--proper. + +"I said to-night, 'George,' I said, 'go right back home. It's the only +thing. They have a right to you.' I told him that only to-night. And, +'No, I must consider my little Linda.' If I had held up my finger," +she held up a finger to show the smallness of the act necessary, "where +would we have all been? + +"But this is what I get. You might think the world would notice a +woman's best efforts. No, they all try to crowd her and see her slip. If +they don't watch out I'll skid, all right, and with some one they least +expect. I have opportunities." + +Linda realized with a sense of confusion that her mother had known of +Mr. Jasper's marriage all the while. But she had nobly tried to save him +from something; just what Linda couldn't make out. The other's breath +was heavy with drinking. + +"You go to bed, Lin," she continued; "and thank you for taking care of +mama. I hope to goodness you'll learn from all this--pick out what +you want and make for it. Don't bother with the antique frumps, the +disappointed old tabbies. Have your fun. There's nothing else. If you +like a man, be on the level with him--give and take. Men are not saints +and we're better for it; we don't live in a heaven. You've got a sweet +little figure. Always remember mama telling you that the most expensive +corsets are the cheapest in the end." + +Linda undressed slowly and methodically, her mother's words ringing +in her head. Always remember--but of course she would have the nicest +things possible.... A keepsake and faint music. She thought, privately, +that she was too thin; she'd rather be her mother, with shoulders like +bunches of smooth pink roses. In bed, just as she was falling asleep, a +sound disturbed her from the corridor above--the slow tramping of heavy +feet, like a number of men carefully bearing an awkward object. She +listened with suspended breath while they passed. The footfalls seemed +to pound on her heart. Slowly, slowly they went, unnatural and measured. +They were gone now, but she still heard them. The crashing of her mother +into bed followed with a deep sigh. The long fall of a wave on the shore +was audible. Two things contended in her stilled brain--the mysterious +feeling of desire and her mother's advice. They were separate and +fought, yet they were strangely incomprehensibly joined. + + + + +IV + + +In the morning Mrs. Condon, with a very late breakfast-tray in bed, had +regained her usual cheerful manner. "The truth is," she told Linda, "I'm +glad that Jasper man has gone. He had no idea of discretion; tired of +them anyhow." Linda radiated happiness. This was the mother she loved +above all others. Her mind turned a little to the man who had talked to +her the night before. She wondered if he were better. His thin blanched +face, his eyes gleaming uncomfortably in smudges, recurred to her. +Perhaps he'd be down by the cigar-stand again. She went, presently, to +see, but the row of chairs was empty. + +However, the neglected thick brown-covered magazine was still on the +ledge by which he had been sitting. There was a name on it, and while, +ordinarily, she couldn't read handwriting, this was so clear and +regular, but minutely small, that she was able to spell it out--Howard +Welles. + +It disappointed her not to find him; at lunch she observed nearly every +one present, but still he was lost. He wasn't listening to the music +after dinner, nor below. A deep sense of disappointment grew within her. +Linda wanted to see him, hear him talk; at times a sharp hurt in the +shoulder he had grasped brought him back vividly. The next day it was +the same, and finally, diffidently, she approached the hotel desk. A +clerk she knew, Mr. Fiske, was rapidly sorting mail, and she waited +politely until he had finished. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"I found this down-stairs," she said, giving him the magazine. "Perhaps +he'll want it." Mr. Fiske looked at the written name, and then glanced +sharply at her. "No," he told her brusquely, "he won't want it." He +turned away with the magazine and left Linda standing irresolutely. She +wanted to ask if Mr. Welles were still at the Boscombe; if the latter +didn't want the magazine she'd love to have it, Linda couldn't tell why. +But the clerk went into the treasurer's office and she was forced to +move away. + +Later, lingering inexplicably about the spot where she had heard so +many bewildering words, a very different man spoke to her. He, Linda +observed, was smoking a cigar, a good one, she was certain. He was +smallish and had a short bristling mustache and head partly bald. +His shoes were very shiny and altogether he had a look of prosperity. +"Hello, cutie!" he cried, capturing her arm. She responded listlessly. +The other produced a crisp dollar bill. "Do you see the chocolates in +that case?" he said, indicating the cigar-stand. "Well, get the best. If +they cost more, let me know. Our financial rating is number one." Linda +answered that she didn't think she cared for any. "All right," the man +agreed; "sink the note in the First National Ladies Bank, if you know +where that is." + +He engineered her unwillingly onto a knee. "How's papa?" he demanded. "I +suppose he will be here Saturday to take his family through the stores?" + +She replied with dignity, "There is only my mother and me." + +At this information he exclaimed "Ah!" and touched his mustache with a +diminutive gold-backed brush from a leather case. "That's more than I +have," he confided to her; "there is only myself. Isn't that sad? You +must be sorry for the lonely old boy." + +She wasn't. Probably he, too, had a wife somewhere; men were beastly. "I +guess your mother wants a little company at times herself?" + +Linda, straining away from him, replied, "Oh, dear, no; there are just +packs of gentlemen whenever she likes. But she is tired of them all." +She escaped and he settled his waistcoat. + +"You mustn't run away," he admonished her; "nice children don't. Your +mother didn't bring you up like that, I'm sure. She wouldn't like it." + +Linda hesitated, plainly conveying the fact that, if she were to wait, +he would have to say something really important. + +"Just you two," he deliberated; "Miss and Mrs. Jones." + +"Not at all," Linda asserted shortly; "our name is Condon." + +"I wonder if you'd tell her this," he went on: "a gentleman's here by +himself named Bardwell, who has seen her and admires her a whole lot. +Tell her he's no young sprig but he likes a good time all the better. +Dependable, too. Remember that, cutie. And he wouldn't presume if he had +a short pocket. He knows class when he sees it." + +"It won't do any good," Linda assured him in her gravest manner. "She +said only this morning she was sick of them." + +"That was before dinner," he replied cheerfully. "Things look different +later in the day. You do what I tell you." + +All this Linda dutifully repeated. Her mother was at the dressing-table, +rubbing cream into her cheeks, and she paused, surveying her reflection +in the mirror. "He was smoking a big cigar," Linda added. The other +laughed. "What a sharp little thing you are!" she exclaimed. "A body +ought to be careful what they tell you." She wiped off the cream and +rubbed a soft pinkish powder into her skin. + +"He saw me, did he?" she apparently addressed the glass. "Admired me a +whole lot. Was he nice, Linda?" she turned. "Were his clothes right? You +must point him out to me to-night. But do it carefully, darling. No one +should notice. Your mother isn't on the shelf yet; she can hold her own, +even in the Boscombe, against the whole barnyard." + +Linda, at the entrance to the dining-room, whispered, "There he is." But +immediately Mr. Bardwell was smiling and speaking to them. + +"I had a delightful conversation with your little girl to-day," he told +Mrs. Condon; "such a pretty child and well brought up." + +"And good, too," her mother replied; "not a minute's trouble. The common +sense of the grown; you'd never believe it." + +"Why shouldn't I?" he protested gallantly. "Every reason to." Mrs. +Condon blushed becomingly. + +"She had to make up for a lot," she sighed. + +An hour or more after dinner Mrs. Randall stopped Linda in the hall +beyond the music. "Mama out?" she inquired brightly. "I thought Mr. +Jasper left this morning?" + +Linda told her that Mr. Jasper had gone; she added nothing else. + +"I must look at the register," Mrs. Randall continued; "I really must." + +Obeying an uncontrollable impulse Linda half cried, "I'd like to see you +riding on a leopard!" A flood of misery enveloped her, and she hurried +up to the silence of her mother's deserted room. + + + + +V + + +It was on her fourteenth birthday that Linda noticed a decided change +in her mother; a change, unfortunately, that most of all affected +the celebrated good humors. In the first place Mrs. Condon spent +an increasingly large part of the day before the mirror of her +dressing-table, but without any proportionate pleasure; or, if there +was a proportion kept, it exhibited the negative result of a growing +annoyance. "God knows why they all show at once," she exclaimed +discontentedly, seated--as customary--before the eminently truthful +reflection of a newly discovered set of lines. "I'm not old enough to +begin to look like a hag." + +"Oh, mother," Linda protested, shocked, "you mustn't say such horrid +things about yourself. Why, you're perfectly lovely, and you don't seem +a speck older than you did years ago." + +The other, biting her full underlip at the unwelcome fact in turn biting +a full lower lip back at her, made no reply. Linda lingered for a moment +at her mother's ruffled pink shoulders; then, with a sigh, she turned to +the reception-room of their small suite at the Hotel Gontram. It was a +somber chamber furnished in red plush, with a complication of shades and +gray-white net curtains at long windows and a deep green carpet. There +was a fireplace, with a grate, supported by varnished oak pillars and +elaborate mantel and glass, a glittering reddish center-table with a +great many small odd shelves below, a desk with sheaves of hotel writing +paper and the telephone. + +The Gontram was entirely different from the hotels at the lakes or +seashore or in the South. It was a solid part of a short block west of +Fifth Avenue in the middle of the city. Sherry's filled a corner with +its massive stone bulk and glimpses of dining-rooms with glittering +chandeliers and solemn gaiety, then impressive clubs and wide entrances +under heavy glass and metal, tall porters in splendid livery, succeeded +each other to the Hotel Gontram and the dull thunder of the elevated +trains beyond. + +The revolving door, through which Linda sedately permitted herself to +be moved, opened into a high space of numerous columns and benches, +writing-desks and palms. At the back was the white room where, usually +alone, she had breakfast, while the dining-room, discreetly lighted, +was at the left. It was more interesting here than, for example, at +the Boscombe; people were always coming in or going, and there were +quantities of men. She watched them arriving with shoals of leather bags +in the brisk care of the bellboys, disappear into the elevator, and, if +it was evening, come down in dinner coats with vivid silk scarfs folded +over their white shirts. + +The women were perpetually in street clothes or muffled in satin wraps; +Linda only regarded them when they were exceptional. Usually she was +intent on the men. It often happened that they returned her frank gaze +with a smile, or stopped to converse with her. Sometimes it was an actor +with a face dryly pink like a woman's from make-up; they were familiar +and pinched her cheeks, calling her endearing names in conscious echoing +voices as if they were quite hollow within. Then there were simply +business men, who never appeared to take off their derby hats, and spoke +to her of their little girls at home. She was entirely at ease with the +latter--so many of her mother's friends were similar--and critically +valued the details of their dress, the cigar-cases with or without gold +corners, the watch-chains with jeweled insignia, the cuff-links and +embroidered handkerchiefs. + +If her mother approached while Linda was so engaged the elder would +linger with a faint smile, at which, now, the girl was conscious of a +growing impatience. She'd rise with dignity and, if possible, escape +with her parent from florid courtesies. This sense of annoyance +oppressed her, too, in the dining-room, where her mother, a cocktail in +her hand, would engage in long cheerful discussions with the captains or +waiters. Other women, Linda observed, spoke with complete indifference +and their attention on the _carte de jour_. Of course it was much more +friendly to be interested in the servants' affairs--they told her mother +about their wives and the number of their children, the difficulties of +bringing both ends together, and served her with the promptest care; but +instinctively Linda avoided any but the most formal contact. + +She had to insist, as well, on paying the tips; for Mrs. Condon, her +sympathies engaged, was quite apt to leave on the table a five-dollar +bill or an indiscriminate heap of silver. "You are a regular little +Jew," she would reply lightly to Linda's protests. This, the latter +thought, was unfair; for the only Jew she knew, Mr. Moses Feldt, an +acquaintance of their present period in New York, was quite the most +generous person she knew. "Certainly you don't take after your mama." + +After she said this she always paused with tight lips. It was charged +with the assumption that, while Linda didn't resemble her, she did +very much a mysterious and unfavorably regarded personage. Her father, +probably. More and more Linda wondered about him. He was dead, she knew, +but that, she began to see, was no reason for the positive prohibition +to mention him at all. Perhaps he had done something dreadful, with +money, and had disgraced them all. Yet she was convinced that this was +not so. + +She had heard a great many uncomplimentary words applied to husbands, +most of which she had been unable to comprehend; and she speculated +blankly on them in her mother's connection. On the whole the women +agreed that they were remarkably stupid and transparent, they protested +that they understood and guided every move husbands made; and this +surely gave her father no opportunity for independent crime. She was +held from questioning not so much by her mother's command--at times she +calmly and successfully ignored that--as from its unfortunate effect on +the elder. + +Mrs. Condon would burn with a generalized anger that sank to a +despondency fortified by the brandy flask. Straining embraces and tears, +painful to support, would follow, or more unbearable silliness. The old +difficulties with giggling or sympathetic chambermaid;--Linda couldn't +decide which was worse--then confronted her with the necessity for rigid +lies, misery, and the procuring of sums of money from the bag in the +top drawer. Altogether, and specially with the fresh difficulties of +her mother's unaccountable irritation and apprehensions, things were +frightfully complicated. + +It was late afternoon in November, and the electric lights were on; +however, they were lighted when they rose, whenever they were in the +rooms, for it was always gloomy if not positively dark; the bedroom +looked into a deep exterior well and the windows of the other chamber +opened on an uncompromising blank wall. Yet Linda, now widely learned in +such settings, rather liked her present situation. They had occupied the +same suite before, for one thing; and going back into it had given her a +sense of familiarity in so much that always shifted. + +Linda, personally, had changed very little; she was taller than four +years before, but not a great deal; she was, perhaps, more graceful--her +movements had become less sudden--more assured, the rapidly maturing +qualities of her mind made visible; and she had gained a surprising +repose. + +Now, for example, she sat in a huge chair cushioned with black leather +and thought, with a frowning brow, of her mother. It was clear that the +latter was obviously worried about--to put it frankly--her face. Her +figure, she repeatedly asserted, could be reasoned with; she had always +been reconciled to a certain jolly stoutness, but her face, the +lines that appeared about her eyes overnight, fairly drove her to hot +indiscreet tears. She had been to see about it, Linda knew; and returned +from numerous beauty-parlors marvelously rejuvenated--for the evening. + +She had been painted, enameled, vibrated, massaged; she had had electric +treatment, rays and tissue builders; and once she had been baked. To-day +the toilet table would be loaded with milkweed, cerates and vanishing +cream; tomorrow they would all be swept away, given to delighted +chambermaids, while Mrs. Condon declared that, when all was said, cold +water and a rough towel was nature's way. + +This afternoon, apparently everything, including hope, had failed. She +was as cross as cross. From the manner in which she spoke it might have +been Linda's fault. The worst of it was that even the latter saw that +nothing could be done. Her mother was growing--well, a little tired in +appearance. Swift tears gathered in Linda's eyes. She hadn't been quite +truthful in that reassuring speech of hers. She set herself to the +examination of various older women with whom she had more or less lately +come in contact. How had they regarded and met the loss of whatever good +looks they had possessed? + +It was terribly mixed up, but, as she thought about it, it seemed to her +that the world of women was divided into two entirely different groups, +the ones men liked, and who had such splendid parties; and the ones +who sat together and gossiped in sharp lowered voices. She hoped +passionately that her mother would not become one of the latter for a +long long while. But eventually it seemed that there was no escape +from the circle of brilliantly dressed creatures with ruined faces who +congregated in the hotels and whispered and nodded in company until they +went severally to bed. + +The great difference between one and the other, of course, was the favor +of men. Their world revolved about that overwhelming fact. Her mother +had informed her of this on a hundred occasions and in countless ways; +but more by her actions, her present wretchedness, than by speech. It +was perfectly clear to Linda that nothing else mattered. She was even +beginning, in a vague way, to think of it in connection with herself; +but still most of her preoccupation was in her mother. She decided +gravely that a great deal, yet, could be done. For instance, lunch +to-day: + +Her mother had given her a birthday celebration at Henri's, the famous +confectioner but a door or two from their hotel, and at the end, when +a plate of the most amazing and delightful little cakes had been set on +the table, the elder had eaten more than half. Afterwards she had sworn +ruefully at her lack of character, begging Linda--in a momentary return +of former happy companionship--never to let her make such a silly pig +of herself again. Then she got so tired, Linda continued her mental +deliberations; if she could only rest, go away from cities and resorts +for a number of months, the lines in turn would soon vanish. + +The elder moved impatiently, with a fretful exclamation, in the inner +room; from outside came the subdued dull ceaseless clamor of New York. +Formerly it had frightened Linda; but her dread had become a wordless +excitement at the thought of so much just beyond the windows; her hands +grew cold and her heart suddenly pounded, destroying the vicarious image +of her mother. + + + + +VI + + +"I wish now I'd been different," Mrs. Condon said, standing in the door. +Her dress was not yet on, but her underthings were fully as elaborate +and shimmering as any gown could hope to be. "And above everything else, +I am sorry for the kind of mother you've had." This was so unexpected, +the other's voice was so unhappy, that Linda was startled. She hurried +across the room and laid a slim palm on her mother's full bare arm. +"Don't say that," Linda begged, distressed; "you've been the best in the +world." + +"You know nothing about it," the elder returned, momentarily seated, her +hands clasped on her full silken lap. "But perhaps it's not too late. +You ought to go to a good school, where you'd learn everything, but +principally what a bad thoughtless mama you have." + +"I shouldn't stay a second in a place where they said that," Linda +declared. A new apprehension touched her. "You're not really thinking of +sending me away!" she cried. "Why, you simply could not get along. You +know you couldn't! The maids never do up your dresses right; and you'd +be so lonely in the mornings you would nearly die." + +"That's true," Mrs. Condon admitted wearily. "I would expire; but I was +thinking of you--you're only beginning life; and the start you'll get +with me is all wrong. Or, anyway, most people think so." + +"They are only jealous." + +"Will you go into the closet, darling, and pour out a teeny little sip +from my flask; mama feels a thousand years old this evening." + +Returning with the silver cup of the flask half full of pale pungent +brandy Linda could scarcely keep the tears from spilling over her +cheeks. She had never before felt so sad. Her mother hastily drank, +the stinging odor was transferred to her lips; and there was a palpable +recovery of her customary spirit. + +"I don't know what gets over me," she asserted. "I'm certain, from what +I've heard of them, that you wouldn't be a bit better off in one of +those fashionable schools for girls. Woman, young and older, were never +meant to be a lot together in one place. It's unnatural. They don't like +each other, ever, and it's all hypocritical and nasty. You will get more +from life, yes, and me. I'm honest, too honest for my own good, if the +truth was known." + +She rose and unconsciously strayed to the mirror over the mantel where +she examined her countenance in absorbed detail. + +"My skin is getting soft like putty," she remarked aloud to herself. +"The thing is, I've had my time and don't want to pay for it. Blondes +go quicker than dark women; you ought to last a long while, Linda." Mrs. +Condon had turned, and her tone was again almost complaining, almost +ill-natured. Linda considered this information with a troubled face. It +was quite clear that it made her mother cross. "I've seen men stop and +look at you right now, too, and you nothing more than a slip fourteen +years old. Of course, when I was fifteen I had a proposal; but I was +very forward; and somehow you're different--so dam' serious." + +She couldn't help it, Linda thought, if she was serious; she really had +a great deal to think about, their income among other things. If she +didn't watch it, pay the bills every three months when it arrived, her +mother would never have a dollar in the gold mesh bag. Then, lately, the +dresses the elder threatened to buy were often impossible; Linda learned +this from the comments she heard after the wearing of evening affairs +sent home against her earnest protests. They were, other women more +discreetly gowned had agreed, ridiculous. + +Linda calmly realized that in this her judgment was superior to her +mother's. In other ways, too, she felt she was really the elder; and her +dismay at the possibility of going away to school had been mostly made +up of the realization of how much her mother's well-being was dependent +on her. + +Mrs. Condon, finishing her dressing in the bedroom, at times called out +various injunctions, general or immediate. "Tell them to have a taxi +at the door for seven sharp. Have you talked to that little girl in the +black velvet?" Linda hadn't and made a mental note to avoid her more +pointedly in the future. "Get out mother's carriage boots from the +hall closet; no, the others--you know I don't wear the black with coral +stockings. They come off and the fur sticks to my legs. It will be very +gay to-night; I hope to heaven Ross doesn't take too much again." Linda +well remembered that the last time Ross had taken too much her mother's +Directoire wrap had been completely torn in half. "There, it is all +nonsense about my fading; I look as well as I ever did." + +Mrs. Condon stood before her daughter like a large flame-pink tulle +flower. Her bright gold hair was constrained by black gauze knotted +behind, her bare shoulders were like powdered rosy marble and the +floating skirts gathered in a hand showed marvelously small satin-tied +carriage boots. Indeed Linda's exclamation of delight was entirely +frank. She had never seen her mother more radiant. The cunningly applied +rouge, the enhanced brilliancy of her long-lashed eyes, had perfectly +the illusion of unspent beauty. + +"Do stay down-stairs after dinner and play," the elder begged. "And if +you want to go to the theatre, ask Mr. Bendix, at the desk, to send +you with that chauffeur we have had so much. I positively forbid your +leaving the hotel else. It's a comfort after all, that you are serious. +Kiss mama--" + +However, she descended with her mother in the elevator; there was a more +public caress; and the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed Linda +at a small table against the wall. There she had clams--she adored +iced clams--creamed shrimps and oysters with potatoes _bordure_, +alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte cream with black walnuts. +After this she sedately instructed the captain what to sign on the back +of the dinner check--Linda Condon, room five hundred and seven--placed +thirty-five cents beside the finger-bowl for the waiter, and made her +way out to the news stand and the talkative girl who had it in charge. +Exhausting the possibilities of gossip, and deciding not to go out to +the theatre--in spite of the news girl's exciting description of a play +called "The New Sin"--she was walking irresolutely through the high +gilded and marble assemblage space when, unfortunately, she was captured +by Mr. Moses Feldt. + + + + +VII + + +He led her to a high-backed lounge against the wall, where, seated +on its extreme edge, he gazed silently at her with an expression of +sentimental concern. Mr. Moses Feldt was a short round man, bald but +for a fluffy rim of pale hair, and with the palest imaginable eyes in +a countenance perpetually flushed by the physical necessity of +accommodating his rotundity to awkward edges and conditions. As usual +he was dressed with the nicest care--a band of white linen laid in the +opening of his waistcoat, his scarf ornamented by a pear-shaped pearl +on a diamond finished stem; his cloth-topped varnished black shoes +glistened, while his short fat fingers clasped a prodigious unlighted +cigar. At last, in a tone exactly suited to his gaze, he exclaimed: + +"So that naughty mama has gone out again and deserted Moses and her +little Linda!" In what way her mother had deserted Mr. Feldt she failed +to understand. Of course he wanted to marry them--the comprehensive +phrase was his own--but that didn't include him in whatever they did. +Principally it made a joke for their private entertainment. Mrs. Condon +would mimic his eager manner, "Stella, let me take you both home where +you'll have the best in the land," And, "Ladies like you ought to have a +loving protection." Linda would laugh in her cool bell-like manner, and +her mother add a satirical comment on the chance any Moses Feldt had of +marrying her. + +Linda at once found him ridiculous and a being who forced a slighting +warmth of liking. His appearance was preposterous, the ready emotion +often too foolish for words; but underneath there was a--a goodness, a +mysterious quality that stirred her heart to recognition. Certain rare +things in life and experience affected her like that memory of an old +happiness. She could never say what they might be, they came at +the oddest times and by the most extraordinary means; but at their +occurrence she would thrill for a moment as if in response to a sound of +music. + +It was, for example, absurd that Mr. Moses Feldt, who was a Jew, should +make her feel like that, but he did. And all the while that she +was disagreeable to him, or mocking him behind his back, she was as +uncomfortable and "horrid" as possible. While this fact, of course, only +served to make her horrider still. At present she adopted the manner of +a patience that nothing could quite exhaust; she was polite and formal, +relentlessly correct in position. + +Mr. Moses Feldt, the cigar in his grasp, pressed a hand to the probable +region of his heart. "You don't know how I think of you," he protested, +tears in his eyes; "just the idea of you exposed to anything at all in +hotels keeps me awake nights. Now it's a drunk, or a fresh feller on the +elevator, or--" + +"It's nice of you," Linda said, "but you needn't worry. No one would +dare to bother us. No one ever has." + +"You wouldn't know it if they did," he replied despondently, "at your +age. And then your mother is so trustful and pleasant. Take those +parties where she is so much--roof frolics and cocoanut groves and +submarine cafs; they don't come to any good. Rowdy." Linda studied +him coldly; if he criticized them further she would leave. He mopped a +shining brow with a large colorful silk handkerchief. "It throws me into +a sweat," he admitted. + +"Really, Mr. Feldt, you mustn't bother," she told him in one of her few +impulses of friendliness. "You see, we are very experienced." He nodded +without visible happiness at this truth. "I'm a jackass!" he cried. +"Judith tells me that all the time. If you could only see my daughters," +he continued with a new vigor; "such lovely girls as they are. One dark +like you and the other fair as a daisy. Judith and Pansy. And my home +that darling mama made before she died." The handkerchief was again in +evidence. + +"Women and girls are funny. I can't get you there and not for nothing +will Judith make a step. It may be pride but it seems to me such +nonsense. I guess I'm old-fashioned and love's old-fashioned. Homes have +gone out of style with the rest. It's all these restaurants and roofs +now, yes, and studios. I tell the girls to stay away from them and from +artists and so on. I don't encourage them at the apartment--a big lump +of a feller with platinum bracelets on his wrists. What kind of a man +would that be! I'd like to know who'd buy goods from him. + +"Sometimes, I'm sorry I got a lot of money, but it made mama happy. When +she laid there at the last sick and couldn't live, I said, 'Oh, if you +only won't leave me I'll give you gold to eat.'" He was so moved, his +face so red, that Linda grew acutely embarrassed. People were looking +at them. She rose stiffly but, in spite of her effort to escape him, he +caught both her hands in his: + +"You say I'm an old idiot like Judith," he begged. This Linda declined +to do. And, "Ask your mother if you won't come to dinner with the girls +and me, cozy and at home--just once." + +"I'm afraid it will do no good," she admitted; "but I'll try." She +realized that he was about to kiss her and moved quickly back. "I am +almost afraid of you," he told her; "you're so distant and elegant. +Judith and Pansy would get on with you first rate. I'll telephone +tomorrow, in the afternoon. If the last flowers I sent you came I never +heard of it." + +She thanked him appropriately for the roses and stood, erect and +impersonal, as a man in the hotel livery helped him into a coat. Mr. +Moses Feldt waved the still unlighted cigar at her and disappeared +through the rotating door to the street. + +She gave a half-affected sigh of relief. Couldn't he see that her mother +would never marry him. At the same time the strange thrill touched her; +the sense of his absurdity vanished and she no longer remembered him +perched like a painted rubber ball on the edge of the lounge. + +In the somber red plush and varnished wood of the reception-room of +their suite he seemed again charming. Perhaps it was because he, +too, adored her mother. That wasn't the reason. The familiar rare joy +lingered. It seemed now as though she were to capture and understand it +... there was the vibration of music; and then, as always, she felt at +once sad and brave. But, in spite of her old effort to the contrary, the +feeling died away. Some day it would be clear to her; in the meanwhile +Mr. Moses Feldt became once more only ridiculous. + + + + +VIII + + +In the morning she was dressed and had returned from breakfast before +her mother stirred. The latter moved sharply, brought an arm up over her +head, and swore. It was a long while before she got up or spoke again, +and Linda never remembered her in a worse temper. When, finally, +she came into the room where the breakfast-tray was laid, Linda was +inexpressibly shocked--all that her mother had dreaded about her +appearance had come disastrously true. Her face was hung with shadows +like smudges of dirt and her eyes were netted with lines. + +Examining the dishes with distaste she told Linda that positively she +could slap her for letting them bring up orange-juice. "How often must +I explain to you that it freezes my fingers." Linda replied that she +had repeated this in the breakfast-room and perhaps they had the wrong +order. Neither her mother nor she said anything more until Mrs. Condon +had finished her coffee and started a second cigarette. Then Linda +related something of Mr. Moses Feldt's call on the evening before. "He +cried right into his handkerchief," she said, "until I thought I should +sink." + +Mrs. Condon eyed her daughter speculatively. "Now if you were only four +years older," she declared, "it would be a good thing. He was simply +born to be a husband." Horror filled Linda at the other's implication. +"Yes," the elder insisted; "you couldn't do better; except, perhaps, +for those girls of his. But then you'd have no trouble making them +miserable. It's time to talk to you seriously about marriage." The smoke +from the cigarette eddied in a gray veil across her unrefreshed face. + +"You're old for your age, Linda; your life has made you that; and, like +I said last night, it is rather better than not. Well, for you marriage, +and soon as possible, is the proper thing. Mind, I have never said a +word against it; only what suits one doesn't suit another. Where it +wouldn't be anything more than an old ladies' home to me you need it +early and plenty. You are too intense. That doesn't go in the world. Men +don't like it. They want their pleasure and comfort without strings tied +to them; the intensity has to be theirs. + +"What you must get through your head is that love--whatever it is--and +marriage are two different things, and if you are going to be successful +they must be kept separate. You can't do anything with a man if you love +him; but then you can't do anything with him if he doesn't love you. +That's the whole thing in a breath. I am not crying down love, either; +only I don't want you to think it is the bread and butter while it's +nothing more than those little sweet cakes at Henri's. + +"Now any girl who marries a poor man or for love--they are the same +thing--is a fool and deserves what she gets. No one thanks her for it, +him least of all; because if she does love him it is only to make them +miserable. She's always at him--where did he go and why did he stay so +long, and no matter what he says she knows it's a lie. More times than +not she's right, too. I can't tell you too often--men don't want to be +loved, they like to be flattered and flattered and then flattered again. +You'd never believe how childish they are. + +"Make them think they're it and don't give too much--that's the secret. +Above all else don't be easy on them. Don't say 'all right, darling, +next spring will do as well for a new suit.' Get it then and let him +worry about paying for it, if worry he must. If they don't give it to +you some one smarter will wear it. But I started to talk about getting +married. + +"Choose a Moses Feldt, who will always be grateful to you, and keep him +at it. They are so easy to land it's a kind of shame, too. Perhaps I am +telling you this too soon, but I don't want any mistakes. Well, pick +out your Moses--and mama will help you there--and suddenly, at the right +time, show him that you can be affectionate; surprise him with it and +you so staid and particular generally. Don't overdo it, promise more +than you ever give-- + +"In the closet, dearie, just a little. That's a good girl. Mama's so +dry." She rose, the silver cup of the flask in her hand, and moved +inevitably to the mirror. "My hair's a sight," she remarked; "all +strings. I believe I'll get a permanent wave. They say it lasts for +six months or more, till the ends grow out. Makes a lot of it, too, and +holds the front together. If you've ever had dye in your hair, I hear, +it will break off like grass." + +Linda pondered over what she had been told of love and marriage; on the +whole the exposition had been unsatisfactory. The latter she was able to +grasp, but her mother had admitted an inability exactly to fix love. +One fact, apparently, was clear--it was a nuisance and a hindrance to +happiness, or rather to success. Love upset things. Still she had the +strongest objection possible to living forever with a man like Mr. +Moses Feldt. At once all that she had hoped for from life grew flat and +uninteresting. She had no doubt of her mother's correctness and wisdom; +the world was like that; she must make the best of it. + +There was some telephoning, inquiries, and she heard the elder make an +appointment with a hair-dresser for three that afternoon. She wondered +what it would be like to have your hair permanently waved and hoped +that she would see it done. This, too, she realized, was a part of the +necessity of always considering men--they liked your hair to be wavy. +Hers was as straight and stupid as possible. She, in turn, examined +herself in a mirror: the black bang fell exactly to her eyebrows, her +face had no color other than the carnation of her lips and her deep +blue eyes. She moved away and critically studied her figure; inches and +inches too thin, she decided. Undoubtedly her mother was right, and she +must marry at the first opportunity--if she could find a man, a rich +man, who was willing. + +Her thoughts returned vaguely to the mystery, the nuisance, of love. +Surely she had heard something before, immensely important, about it, +and totally different from all her mother had said. Her mind was filled +with the fantastic image of a forest, of dangers, and a fat china figure +with curled plumes, a nodding head, that brushed her with fear and +disgust. A shuddering panic took possession of her, flashes burned +before her eyes, and she ran gasping to the perfumed soft reassurances +of her mother. + + + + +IX + + +In a recurrence of her surprising concern of the day before Mrs. Condon +declined to leave her dearest Linda alone; and, their arms caught +together in a surging affection, they walked down Fifth Avenue toward +the hairdresser's. There was a diffused gray sparkle of sunlight--it +was early for the throngs--through which they passed rapidly to the +accompaniment of a rapid eager chatter. Linda wore a deep smooth camel's +hair cape, over which her intense black hair poured like ink, and her +face was shaded by a dipping green velvet hat. Her mother, in one of +the tightly cut suits she affected, had never been more like a perfect +companion. + +They saw, in the window of a store for men, a set of violent purple +wool underwear, and barely escaped hysterics at the thought of Mr. Moses +Feldt in such a garb. They giggled idiotically at the spectacle of a +countryman fearfully making the sharp descent from the top of a lurching +omnibus. And then, when they had reached the place of Mrs. Condon's +appointment, stopped at the show of elaborately waved hair on wax heads +and chose which, probably, would resemble the elder and which, in a very +short while now, Linda. + +There was an impressive interior, furnished in gray panels and silvery +wood; and the young woman at the desk was more surprisingly waved than +anything they had yet seen. M. Joseph would be ready almost immediately; +and in the meanwhile Mrs. Condon could lay aside her things in +preparation for the hair to be washed. She did this while Linda followed +every movement with the deepest interest. + +At the back of the long room was a succession of small alcoves, each +with an important-looking chair and mirror and shelves, a white basin, +water-taps and rubber tubes. Settled, in comfort, Mrs. Condon's hair was +spread out in a bright metal tray fastened to the back of the chair, and +the attendant, a moist tired girl in a careless waist, sprayed the short +thick gold-colored strands. + +"My," she observed, "what some wouldn't give for your shade! Never been +touched, I can see, either. A lady comes in with real Titian, but yours +is more select. It positively is Lillian Russell." While she talked +her hands sped with incredible rapidity and skill. "The gentlemen don't +notice it; of course not; oh, no! There was a girl here, a true blonde, +but she didn't stay long--her own car, yes, indeed. Married her right +out of the establishment. There wasn't any nonsense to her. + +"So this is your little girl! I'd never have believed it. Not that she +hasn't a great deal of style, a great deal--almost, you might say, like +an Egyptian. In the movies last night; her all over. It's a type that +will need studying. Bertha Kalich. But for me--" + +Already, Linda saw, this part of the operation was done. The girl +wheeled into position a case that had a fan and ring of blue flickering +flames, and a cupped tube through which hot air was poured over her +mother's head. M. Joseph strutted in, a small carefully dressed man with +a diminutive pointed gray beard and formal curled mustache. He spoke +with what Linda supposed was a French accent, and his manners, at least +to them, were beautiful. But because the girl had not put out the blue +flames quickly enough he turned to her with a voice of quivering rage. + +It was so unexpected, in the middle of his bowing and smooth assurances, +that Linda was startled, and had to think about him all over. The result +of this was a surprising dislike; she hated, even, to see him touch her +mother, as he unnecessarily did in directing them into the enclosure for +the permanent wave. + +The place itself filled her with the faint horror of instruments and the +unknown. Above the chair where Mrs. Condon now sat there was a circle +in the ceiling like the base of a chandelier and hanging down from it +on twisted green wires were a great number of the strangest things +imaginable: they were as thick as her wrist, but round, longer and +hollow, white china inside and covered with brown wrapping. The wires +of each, she discovered, led over a little wheel and down again to +a swinging clock-like weight. In addition to this there were strange +depressing handles on the wall by a dial with a jiggling needle and +clearly marked numbers. + +The skill of the girl who had washed her mother's hair, however, was +slight compared with M. Joseph's dexterity. The comb flashed in his +white narrow hands; in no time at all every knot was urged out into a +shining smoothness. "Just the front?" he inquired. Not waiting for +Mrs. Condon's reply, he detached a strand from the mass over her brow, +impaled it on a hairpin, while he picked up what might have been a thick +steel knitting-needle with one end fastened in the middle of a silver +quarter. The latter, it developed, had a hole in it, through which he +drew the strand of hair, and then wrapped it with an angry tightness +about the long projection. + +At this exact moment a new girl, but tired and moist, appeared, took a +hank of white threads from a dressing-table, and tied that separate lock +firmly. This, Linda counted, was repeated fifteen times; and when it was +accomplished she was unable to repress a nervous laughter. Really, her +mother looked too queer for words: the long rigid projections stood out +all over her head like--like a huge pincushion; no, it was a porcupine. +Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain recognition of her daughter's mirth. + +Then Linda's attention followed M. Joseph to a table against a +partition, where he secured a white cotton strip from a film of them +soaking in a shallow tray, took up some white powder on the blade of +a dessert knife and transferred it to the strip. This he wrapped and +wrapped about the hair fastened on a spindle, tied it in turn, and +dragged down one of the brown objects on wires, which, to Linda's +great astonishment, fitted precisely over the cotton-bound hair. Again, +fifteen times, M. Joseph did this, fastening each connection with the +turn of a screw. When so much was accomplished her mother's hair, it +seemed, had grown fast to the ceiling in a tangle of green ends. It was +the most terrifying spectacle Linda had ever witnessed. Obscure thoughts +of torture, of criminals executed by electricity, froze her in a set +apprehension. + +The hair-dresser stepped over to the dials on the wall, and, with a +sharp comprehensive glance at his apparatus, moved a handle as far as it +would go. Nothing immediately happened, and Linda gave a relaxing sigh +of relief. M. Joseph, however, became full of a painful attention. + + + + +X + + +He brought into view an unsuspected tube, with a cone of paper at its +end, and bent over her mother, directing a stream of cold air against +her head. "How do you feel?" he asked, with, Linda noticed, a startling +loss of his first accent. Mrs. Condon so far felt well enough. +Then, before Linda's startled gaze, every single one of the fifteen +imprisoning tubes began to steam with an extraordinary vigor; not only +did they steam, like teapots, but drops of water formed and slowly slid +over her mother's face. If the process appeared weird at the beginning, +now it was utterly fantastic. + +The little white vapor spurts played about Mrs. Condon's dripping +countenance; they increased rather than diminished; actually it +resembled a wrecked locomotive she had once seen. "How are you?" M. +Joseph demanded nervously. "Is it hot anywhere?" With a sudden gesture +she replied in a shaking voice, "Here." + +Instantly he was holding the paper cone with its cold air against her +scalp, and the heat was subdued. He glanced nervously at his watch, and +Mrs. Condon managed to ask, "How long?" + +"Twenty minutes." + +Dangerous as the whole proceeding seemed nothing really happened, and +Linda's fears gradually faded into a mere curiosity and interest. A +curtain hung across the door to the rest of the establishment, but it +had been brushed partly aside; and she could see, in the compartment +they had vacated, another man bending with waving irons over the +liberated mass of a woman's hair. He was very much like M. Joseph, but +he was younger and had only a dark scrap of mustache. As he caught up +the hair with a quick double twist he leaned very close to the woman's +face, whispering with an expression that never changed, an expression +like that of the wax heads in the show-case. He bent so low that Linda +was certain their cheeks had touched. She pondered at length over this, +gazing now at the man beyond and now at M. Joseph flitting with the +cold-air tube about her mother; wondering if, when she grew older, she +would like a hair-dresser's cheek against hers. Linda decided not. The +idea didn't shock her, the woman in the other space plainly liked +it; still she decided she wouldn't. A different kind of man, she told +herself, would be nicer. + +Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, unpleasant odor--the odor of +scorched hair; and she was absolutely rigid with horror at an agonized +cry from her mother. + +"It's burning me terribly," the latter cried. "Oh, I can't stand it. +Stop! Stop!" + +M. Joseph, as white as plaster, rushed to the wall and reversed the +handle, and Mrs. Condon started from the chair, her face now streaming +with actual tears; but before she could escape the man threw himself on +her shoulders. + +"You mustn't move," he whispered desperately, "you'll tear your hair +out. I tell you no harm's been done. Everything is all right. Please, +please don't cry like that. It will ruin my business. There are others +in the establishment. Stop!" he shook her viciously. + +Linda had risen, terrorized; and Mrs. Condon, with waving plucking +hands, was sobbing an appeal to be released. "My head, my head," she +repeated. "I assure you"--the man motioned to a pallid girl to hold her +in the chair. With a towel to protect his hand he undid a screw, +lifted off the cap and untwisted the cotton from a bound lock of hair; +releasing it, in turn, from the spindle it fell forward in a complete +corkscrew over Mrs. Condon's face. + +"Do you see!" he demanded. "Perfect. I give you my word they'll all be +like that. The cursed heat ran up on me," he added in a swift aside to +his assistant. "Has Mrs. Bellows gone? Who's still in the place? Here, +loose that binding ... thank God, that one is all right, too." + +Together they unfastened most of the connections, and a growing fringe +of long remarkable curls marked Mrs. Condon's pain-drawn and dabbled +face. Linda sobbed uncontrollably; but perhaps, after all, nothing +frightful had happened. Her poor mother! Then fear again tightened about +her heart at the perturbed expression that overtook the hair-dresser. +He was trying in vain to remove one of the caps. She caught enigmatic +words--"the borax, crystallized ... solid. It would take a plumber ... +have to go." + +The connection was immovable. Even in her suffering Mrs. Condon implored +M. Joseph to save her hair. Nothing, however, could be done; he admitted +it with pale lips. The thing might be chiseled off; in the end he tried +to force a release and the strand, with a renewal of Mrs. +Condon's agony--now, in the interest of her appearance, heroically +withstood--snapped short in the container. + +Rapidly recovering her vigor, she launched on a tirade against M. Joseph +and his permanent waving establishment--Linda had never before heard her +mother talk in such a loud brutal manner, nor use such heated unpleasant +words, and the girl was flooded with a wretched shame. Still another +lock, it was revealed, had been ruined, and crumbled to mere dust in its +owner's fingers. + +"The law will provide for you," she promised. + +"Your hair was dyed," the proprietor returned vindictively. "The girl +who washed it will testify. Every one is warned against the permanent if +their hair has been colored. So it was at your own risk." + +"My head's never been touched with dye," Mrs. Condon shrilly answered. +"You lying little ape. And well does that young woman know it. She +complimented me herself on a true blonde." The girl had, too, right +before Linda. + +"You ought to be thrashed out of the city." + +"Your money will be given back to you," M. Joseph told her. + +Outside they found a taxi, and sped back to their hotel. Above, Mrs. +Condon removed her hat; and, before the uncompromising mirror, studied +her wrecked hair--a frizzled vacancy was directly over her left +brow--and haggard face. When she finally turned to Linda, her manner, +her words, were solemn. + +"I'm middle-aged," she said. + +A dreary silence enveloped them sitting in the dark reception-room while +Mrs. Condon restlessly shredded unlighted cigarettes on the floor. She +had made no effort to repair the damages to her appearance, and when the +telephone bell sharply sounded, she reached out in a slovenly negligence +of manner. Linda could hear a blurred articulation and her mother +answering listlessly. The latter at last said: "Very well, at seven +then; you'll stop for us." She hung up the receiver, stared blankly at +Linda, and then went off into a harsh mirth. "Oh, my God!" she cried; +"the old ladies' home!" + + + + +XI + + +With her mother away on a wedding-trip with Mr. Moses Feldt, Linda was +suddenly projected into the companionship of his two daughters. One, +as he had said, was light, but a different fairness from Mrs. +Condon's--richly thick, like honey; while Judith, the elder, who must +have been twenty, was dark in skin, in everything but her eyes, which +were a contrasting ashen-violet. She spoke at once of Linda's flawless +whiteness: + +"A magnolia," she said, in a deliberate dark voice; "you are quite +a gorgeous child. Do you mind my saying that your clothes are rather +quaint? They aren't inevitable, and yours ought to be that." + +They were at lunch in the Feldt dining-room, an interior of heavy +ornately carved black wood, panels of Chinese embroidery in imperial +yellow, and a neutral mauve carpet. The effect, with glittering +iridescent pyramids of glass, massive frosted repouss silver, burnished +gold-plate and a wide table decoration of orchids and fern, was tropical +and intense. It was evident to Linda that the Feldts were very rich +indeed. + +The entire apartment resembled the dining-room, while the building +itself filled a whole city block, with a garden and fountains like an +elaborate public square. Linda, however, wasn't particularly impressed +by such show; she saw that Judith and Pansy had expected that of her; +but she was determined not to exhibit a surprise that would imply any +changes in her mother's and her condition. In addition, Linda calmly +took such surroundings for granted. Her primary conception of possible +existence was elegance; its necessity had so entered into her being that +it had departed from her consciousness. + +"I must take you to Lorice," Judith continued; "she will know better +than any one else what you ought to have. You seem terribly pure--at +first. But you're not a snowdrop; oh, no--something very rare in a +conservatory. Much better style than your mother." + +"I hope you won't mind Judith," Pansy put in; "she's always like that." +A silence followed in which they industriously dipped the leaves of +mammoth artichokes into a buttery sauce. Linda, as customary, said very +little, she listened with patient care to the others and endeavored to +arrive at conclusions. She liked Pansy, who was as warm and simple as +her father. Judith was harder to understand. She was absorbed in color +and music, and declared that ugliness gave her a headache at once. +Altogether, Linda decided, she was rather silly, especially about men; +and at times her emotions would rise beyond control until she wept in a +thin hysterical gasping. + +The room where, mostly, they sat was small, but with a high ceiling, +and hung in black, with pagoda-like vermilion chairs. The light, in the +evening, was subdued; and Pansy and Judith, in extremely clinging vivid +dresses, the former's hair piled high in an amber mass and Judith's +drawn severely across her ears, were lovely. Linda thought of the +tropical butterflies of the river Amazon, of orchids like those always +on the dining-room table. A miniature grand piano stood against the +drapery, and Judith often played. Linda learned to recognize some of +the composers. Pansy liked best the modern waltzes; Judith insisted that +Richard Strauss was incomparable; but Linda developed an overwhelming +preference for Gluck. The older girl insisted that this was an +affectation; for a while she tried to confuse Linda's knowledge; but +finally, playing the airs of "Orpheus and Eurydice," she admitted that +the latter was sincere. + +"They sound so cool," Linda said in a clear and decided manner. + +There was a man with them, and he shook his head in a mock sadness. +"So young and yet so formal. If, with the rest, you had Judith's +temperament, you would be the most irresistible creature alive. For see, +my dear child, as it is you stir neither tenderness nor desire; you are +remote and perfect, and faintly wistful. I can't imagine being human or +even comfortable with you about. Then, too, you have too much wisdom." + +"She is frightful," Pansy agreed; "she's never upset nor her hair a +sight; and, above all else, Linda won't tell you a thing." + +"Some day," Judith informed them from the rippling whisper of the piano, +"she will be magnificently loved." + +"Certainly," the man continued; "but what will Linda, Linda Condon, give +in return?" + +"It's a mistake to give much," Linda said evenly. + +"No, no, no!" Judith cried. "Give everything; spend every feeling, every +nerve." + +"You are remarkable, of course; almost no women have the courage of +their emotions." His name was Reynold Chase, a long thin grave young +man in a dinner coat, who wrote brilliant and successful comedies. "Yet +Linda isn't parsimonious." He turned to her. "Just what are you? What do +you think of love?" + +"I haven't thought about it much," she replied slowly. "I'm not sure +that I know what it means. At least it hasn't anything to do with +marriage--" + +"Ah!" he interrupted her. + +Her usually orderly mind grew confused; it eddied as though with the +sound of the piano. "It is not marriage," she vaguely repeated her +mother's instruction. Reynold Chase supported her. + +"That destroys it," he asserted. "This love is as different as possible +from the ignominious impulse eternally tying the young into knots. It's +anti-social." + +"How stupid you are, Reynold," Pansy protested. "If you want to use +those complicated words take Judith into the drawing-room. I'm sure +Linda is dizzy, too." + +The latter's mental confusion lingered; she had a strong sense of having +heard Reynold Chase say these strange things long before. Judith left +the piano, sat beside him, and he lightly kissed her. A new dislike of +Judith Feldt deepened in Linda's being. She had no reason for it, but +suddenly she felt absolutely opposed to her. The manner in which Judith +rested against the man by her was very distasteful. It offended Linda +inexplicably; she wanted to draw into an infinity of distance from all +contact with men and life. + +She didn't even want to make one of those marriages that had nothing to +do with love, but was only a sensible arrangement for the securing +of gowns and velvet hangings and the luxury of enclosed automobiles. +Suddenly she felt lonely, and hoped that her mother would come back +soon. + + + + +XII + + +But when her mother, now Mrs. Moses Feldt, did return, Linda was +conscious of a keen disappointment. Somehow she never actually came +back. It wasn't only that, after so many years together, she occupied +a room with another than Linda, but her manner was changed; it had lost +all freedom of heart and speech. The new Mrs. Feldt was heavily polite +to her husband's daughters; Linda saw that she liked Pansy, but Judith +made her uncomfortable. She expressed this in an isolated return of the +old confidences: + +"That girl," she said sharply, "likes petting. She can talk all night +about her soul and beauty, and play the piano till her fingers drop +off, but I--I--know. You can't fool me where they are concerned. I can +recognize an unhealthy sign. I never believed in going to all those +concerts and kidding yourself into a fever. I may have shown myself a +time, but you mark my word--I was honest compared to Judith Feldt. Don't +you be impressed with all her art talk and the books she reads. I was +looking into one yesterday, and it made me blush; you can believe it or +not, it takes some book for that!" + +At the same time she treated Judith with a studious sweetness. Mr. Moses +Feldt--Linda always thought of him as that--was a miracle of kindly +cheerfulness. He made his wife and her daughter, and his own girls, an +unbroken succession of elaborate and costly presents. "What's it for +if not to spend on those you love?" he would remark, bringing a small +jeweler's box wrapped in creamy-pink paper from his pocket. "You can't +take it with you. I wasn't born with it--mama and I were as poor as +any--you'll forgive me, Stella, I know, for speaking of her. I got +enough heart to love you both. 'Oh, mama!' I said, and she dying, 'if +you only won't go, I'll give you gold to eat.'" + +Curiously, as Linda grew older, the consciousness of her stepfather +as an absurd fat little man dwindled; she lost all sense of his actual +person; and, as the influence of her mother slipped from her life, the +mental conception of Mr. Moses Feldt deepened. She thought about him a +great deal and very seriously; the things he said, the warm impact of +his being, vibrated in her memory. He had the effect on her of the music +of Christopher Gluck--the effect of a pure fine chord. + +Pansy she now thought of with a faint contempt: she was rapidly growing +thick-waisted and heavy, and she was engaged to a dull young man not +rich enough to be interesting. They sat about in frank embraces and +indulged in a sentimental speech that united Judith and Linda in common +oppression. + +There were, not infrequently, gatherings of the Feldts at dinner, a +noisy good-tempered uproar of a great many voices speaking at once; +extraordinary quantities of superlative jewels and dresses of superfine +textures; but the latter, Linda thought, were too vivid in pattern or +color for the short full maternal figures they often adorned. But no +one, it seemed, considered himself ageing or even, in spite of the most +positive indications, aged. The wives with faded but fashionable hair +and animated eyes in spent faces talked with vigorous raillery about +the "boys," who, it might have happened, had gone in a small masculine +company to a fervid musical show the evening before. While they, in +their turn, thick like their brother or cousin Moses, with time-wasted +hair and countenances marked with the shrewdness in the service of which +the greater part of their lives had vanished, had their little jokes +about the "girls" and the younger and handsomer beaux who threatened +their happiness. + +At times the topic of business crept into the lighter discussion, and, +in an instant, the gaiety evaporated and left expressionless men +and quick sharp sentences steely with decision, or indirect and +imperturbably blank. A memorandum book and a gold pencil would appear +for an enigmatic note, after which the cheerfulness slowly revived. + +The daughters resembled Judith or the slower placidity of Pansy; while +there was still another sort, more vigorous in being, who consciously +discussed riding academies, the bridle-paths of Central Park, and the +international tennis. Their dress held a greater restraint than the +elders; though Linda recognized that it was no less lavish; and their +feminine trifles, the morocco beauty-cases and powder-boxes, the +shoulder-pins, their slipper and garter buckles were extravagant in +exquisite metals and workings. + +They arrived in limousines with dove-colored upholstery and crystal +vases of maidenhair fern and moss-roses; and often, in such a car, Linda +went to the theatre with Judith or Pansy and some cousins. Usually it +was a matinee, where their seats were the best procurable, directly at +the stage; and they sat in a sleek expensive row eating black chocolates +from painted boxes ruffled in rose silk. The audience, composed mostly +of their own world, followed the exotic fortunes of the plays with a +complete discrimination in every possible emotional display and crisis. + +Lithe actresses in a revealing severity of attire, like spoiled nuns +with carmine lips, suffering in ingenuous problems of the passions, +agonized in shuddering tones; or else they went to concerts to hear +young violinists, slender, with intense faces and dramatic hair, play +concertos that irritated Linda with little shivers of delight. + +Sometimes they had lunch in a restaurant of Circassian walnut and velvet +carpets, with cocktails, and eggs elaborate with truffles and French +pastry. Then, afterward, they would stop at a confectioner's, or at a +cafe where there was dancing, for tea. They all danced in a perfection +of slow graceful abandon, with youths who, it seemed to Linda, did +nothing else. + +She accepted her part in this existence as inevitable, yet she was +persistently aware of a feeling of strangeness, of essential difference +from it. She was unable to lose a sense of looking on, as if morning, +noon and night she were at another long play. Linda regarded it--as she +did so much else--with neither enthusiasm nor marked annoyance. Probably +it would continue without change through her entire life. All that was +necessary, and easily obtained, was a sufficient amount of money. + +Her manner, Pansy specially complained, was not intimate and inviting; +in her room Linda usually closed the door; the frank community of the +sisters was distasteful to her. She demanded an extraordinary amount +of personal privacy. Linda never consulted Judith's opinion about her +clothes, nor exchanged the more significant aspects of feeling. Alone in +a bed-chamber furnished in silvery Hungarian ash, her bed a pale quilted +luxury with Madeira linen crusted in monograms, without head or foot +boards, and a dressing-table noticeably bare, she would deliberately and +delicately prepare for the night. + +While Judith's morning bath steamed with the softness and odor of +lavender crystals, Linda slipped into water almost cold. This, with her +clear muslins and heavy black silk stockings, her narrow unornamented +slippers, represented the perfection of niceness. + +There were others than Pansy, however, who commented on what they called +her superiority--the young men who appeared in the evening. A number +of them, cousins of the Feldt dinner parties or more casual, tried to +engage her sympathies in their persons and prospects. It was a society +of early maturity. But, without apparent effort, she discouraged them, +principally by her serene lack of interest. It was a fundamental part +of her understanding of things that younger men were unprofitable; she +liked far better the contemporaries of Moses Feldt. + +Reynold Chase had ceased his visits, but his place had been taken by +another and still another emotionally gifted man. The present one was +dark and imperturbable: they knew little of him beyond the facts that +he had been a long while in the Orient, that his manner and French were +unsurpassed, and that practically every considerable creative talent in +New York was entertained in his rooms. + +Judith had been to one of his parties; and, the following morning in +bed, she told Pansy and Linda the most remarkable things. + +"It would never do for Pansy," she concluded; "but I must get Markue to +ask you sometime, Linda. How old are you now? Well, that's practically +sixteen, and you are very grown up. You would be quite sensational, in +one of your plain white frocks, in his apartment. You'd have to promise +not to tell your mother, though. She thinks I'm leading you astray +now--the old dear. Does she think I am blind? I met a man last week, +a friend of father's, who used to know her. Of course he wouldn't say +anything, men are such idiots about that--like ostriches with their +pasts buried and all the feathers sticking out--but there was a +champagne expression in his smile." + +Linda wondered, later, if she'd care to go to a party of Markue's. There +was a great deal of drinking at such affairs; and though she rather +liked cordials, crme de th and Grand Marnier, even stronger +things flavored with limes and an occasional frigid cocktail, she +disliked--from a slight experience--men affected by drink. Judith had +called her a constitutional prude; this, she understood, was a term of +reproach; and she wondered if, applied to her, it were just. + +Usually it meant a religious person or one fussy about the edge of her +skirt; neither of which she ever considered. She didn't like to sit in +a corner and be hugged--even that she could now assert with a degree +of knowledge--but it wasn't because she was shocked. Nothing, she told +herself gravely, shocked her; only certain acts and moments annoyed her +excessively. It was as if her mind were a crisp dress with ribbons which +she hated to have mussed or disarranged. + +Linda didn't take the trouble to explain this. Now that her mother had +withdrawn from her into a perpetual and uncomfortable politeness she +confided in no one. She would have been at a loss to put her complicated +sensations and thoughts into words. Mr. Moses Feldt, the only one to +whom she could possibly talk intimately, would be upset by her feelings. +He would give her a hug and the next day bring up a new present from his +pocket. + +Her clothes, with the entire support of Lorice, were all delicate +in fabric, mostly white with black sashes, and plainly ruffled. She +detested the gray crepe de Chine from which Judith's undergarments were +made and the colored embroidery of Pansy's; while she ignored scented +toilet-waters and extracts. Markue, in finally asking her to a party at +his rooms, said that there she would resemble an Athenian marble, of the +un-painted epoch, in the ballet of Scheherazade. + + + + +XIII + + +"There's nothing special to say about Markue's parties," Judith, +dressing, told Linda. "You will simply have to take what comes your way. +There is always some one serious at them, if you insist, as usual, on +dignity." She stood slim and seductive, like a perverse pierrot, +before the oppressive depths of a black mirror. Linda had finished her +preparations for the evening. There was no departure from her customary +blanched exactness. She studied her reflection across Judith's shoulder; +her intense blue eyes, under the level blot of her bang, were grave on +the delicate pallor of her face. + +In the taxi, slipping rapidly down-town, Linda was conscious of a slight +unusual disturbance of her indifference. This had nothing to do with +whether or not she'd be a success; her own social demands were so small +that any considerable recognition of her was unimportant. Her present +feeling came from the fact that to-night, practically, she was making +her first grown-up appearance in the world, the world from which she +must select the materials of her happiness and success. To-night she +would have an opportunity to put into being all that--no matter how +firmly held--until now had been but convictions. + +Her interest was not in whom or what she might meet, but in herself. +Judith, smoking a cigarette in a mist of silver fox, was plainly +excited. "I like Markue awfully," she admitted. + +"Does he care for you?" Linda asked. + +"That," said Judith, "I can't make out--if he likes me or if it's +just anonymous woman. I wish it were the first, Linda." Her voice was +shadowed; suddenly, in spite of her youth and exhilaration, she seemed +haggard and spent. Linda recognized this in a cold scrutiny. Privately +she decided that the other was a fool--she didn't watch her complexion +at all. + +The motor turned west in the low Forties and stopped before a high +narrow stone faade with a massive griffon-guarded door. Judith led the +way directly into the elevator and designated Markue's floor. It was +at the top of the building, where he met them with his impenetrable +courtesy and took them into a bare room evidently planned for a studio. +There were an empty easel, the high blank dusty expanse of the skylight, +and chairs with the somber hats and coats of men and women's wraps like +the glistening shed skins of brilliant snakes. + +They turned through the hall to an interior more remarkable than +anything Linda could have imagined; it seemed to her very high, without +windows and peaked like a tent. Draperies of intricate Eastern color +hung in long folds. There were no chairs, but low broad divans about the +walls, a thick carpet with inlaid stands in the center laden with boxes +of cigarettes, sugared exotic sweets and smoking incense. It was so dim +and full of thick scent, the shut effect was so complete, that for a +moment Linda felt painfully oppressed; it seemed impossible to breathe +in the wavering bluish atmosphere. + +Markue, who had appeared sufficiently familiar outside, now had a +strange portentous air; the gleams of his quick black eyes, the dusky +tone of his cheeks, his impassive grace, startled her. New York was +utterly removed: the taxi that had brought Judith and her, the swirling +traffic of Columbus Circle and smooth undulations of Fifth Avenue, were +lost with a different life. She saw, however, the open door to another +room full of clear light, and her self-possession rapidly returned. +Judith--as she had threatened--at once deserted her; and Linda found an +inconspicuous corner of a divan. + +There were, perhaps, twenty people in the two rooms, and each one +engaged her attention. A coffee-colored woman was sitting beyond her, +clad in loose red draperies to which were sewed shining patterns of +what she thought was gold. Markue was introducing Judith, and the seated +figure smiled pleasantly with a flash of beautiful teeth and the supple +gesture of a raised brown palm. That, Linda decided, was the way she +shook hands. Two dark-skinned men, one in conventional evening dress, +were with her; they had small fine features and hair like carved ebony. + +Linda had never before been at an affair with what she was forced to +call colored people; instinctively she was antagonistic and superior. +She turned to a solemn masculine presence with a ruffled shirt and +high black stock; he was talking in a resonant voice and with dramatic +gestures to a woman with a white face and low-drawn hair. Linda was +fascinated by the latter, dressed in a soft clinging dull garnet. +It wasn't her clothes, although they were remarkable, that held her +attention, but the woman's mouth. Apparently, it had no corners. Like a +little band of crimson rubber, or a ring of vivid flame, it shifted +and changed in the oddest shapes. It was an unhappy mouth, and made her +think of pain; but perhaps not so much that as hunger ... not for food, +Linda was certain. What did she want? + +There was a light appealing laugh from another seated on the floor in a +floating black dinner dress with lovely ankles in delicate Spanish lace +stockings; her head was thrown back for the whisper of a heavy man with +ashen hair, a heavenly scarf and half-emptied glass. + +Her bare shoulders, Linda saw, were as white as her own, as white but +more sloping. The other's hair, though, was the loveliest red possible. +The entire woman, relaxed and laughing in the perfumery and swimming +shadows, was irresistible. A man with a huge nose and blank eyes, his +hands disfigured with extraordinary rings, momentarily engaged her. +Then, at the moment when she saw an inviting and correctly conventional +youth, he crossed and sat at her side. + +"Quite a show," he said in the manner she had expected and approved. The +glow of his cigarette wavered over firmly cut lips. "We've just come to +New York," he continued. "I don't know any one here but Markue, do you?" +Linda explained her own limitations. "The Victory's fine and familiar." + +She followed his gaze to where a winged statue with flying drapery was +set on a stand. She had seen it before, but without interest. Now it +held her attention. It wasn't a large cast, not over three feet high, +but suddenly Linda thought that it was the biggest thing in the room; it +seemed to expand as she watched it. + +Beside the Victory, in a glass case with an enclosed concealed light, +was a statue, greenish gray, a few inches tall, with a sneering +placidity of expression as notable as the sweep of the other white +fragment. "That's Chinese," her companion decided; "it looks as old as +lust." There was the stir of new arrivals--a towering heavy man with +a slight woman in emerald satin. "There's Pleydon, the sculptor," the +youth told her animatedly. "I've seen him at the exhibitions. It must be +Susanna Noda, the Russian singer, with him. He's a tremendous swell." + + + + +XIV + + +Linda watched Pleydon as he met Markue in the middle of the room. He was +dressed carelessly, improperly for the evening; but she forgave that as +the result of indifference. The informal flannels and soft collar, too, +suited the largeness of his being and gestures. There was a murmur of +meeting, Susanna Noda smiled appealingly; and then, as Pleydon found a +place on a divan, she at once contentedly sat on his lap. Watching her, +Linda thought of a brilliant parrot; but that was only the effect of her +color; for her face, with a tilted nose and wide golden eyes, generous +warm lips, was charming. She lighted a cigarette, turned her graceful +back on the room and company, and chatted in French to the composed +sculptor. + +Linda divined that he was the most impressive figure she had +encountered; the quality of his indifference was beautiful and could +only have come in the security of being a "tremendous swell." That +phrase described all for which she had cared most. It included +everything that her mother had indicated as desirable and a lot that +she, Linda, had added. Money, certainly, was an absolute necessity; +but there were other things now that vaguely she desired. She tried to +decide what they were. + +Only the old inner confusion resulted, the emotion that might have +been born in music; however, it was sharper than usual, and bred a new +dissatisfaction with the easier accomplishments. Really it was very +disturbing, for the pressure of her entire experience, all she had +been told, could be exactly weighed and held. The term luxury, too, was +revealing; it covered everything--except her present unformed longing. + +There were still newcomers, and Linda was aware of a sudden constraint. +A woman volubly French had appeared with a long pinkish-white dog in a +blanket, and the three Arabians--she had learned that much--had risen +with a concerted expression of surprise and displeasure. Their anxiety, +though, was no more dramatic than that of the dog's proprietor. The +gesture of her hands and lifted eyebrows were keenly expressive of her +impatience with any one who couldn't accept, with her, her dog. + +"Markue ought to have it out," some one murmured. "Dogs, to high caste +Mohammedans, are unclean animals." Another added, "Worse than that, if +it should touch them, they would have to make the pilgrimage to Mecca." + +Without any knowledge of the situation of Mecca, Linda yet realized that +it must be a very long journey to result from the mere touch of a dog. +She didn't wonder at the restrained excitement of the "colored" people. +The situation was reduced to a sub-acid argument between the Frenchwoman +and the Begum; Madame couldn't exist without her "_p'tit_." The Oriental +lady could not breathe a common air with the beast. The former managed a +qualified triumph--the "_p'tit_" was caged with a chair in a corner, and +the episode, for the moment, dropped. + +Soon, however, Linda saw that the dog had wriggled out of captivity. It +made a cautious progress to where the candy stood on a low stand and +ran an appreciative tongue over the exposed sweet surfaces. Rapidly a +sugared fig was snapped up. Linda held her breath; no one had noticed +the animal yet--perhaps it would reach one of the objectors and she +would have the thrill of witnessing the departure for Mecca. + +But, as always, nothing so romantic occurred; the dog was discovered, +and the Mohammedans, with a hurried politeness, made their salaams. +Instead, a man with a quizzical scrutiny through glasses that made him +resemble an owl, stopped before her. + +"'Here we go 'round the mulberry-bush,'" he chanted. "Hello, Kate +Greenaway. Have you had a drink?" + +"Yes, thank you," she replied sedately. + +"Certified milk?" + +"It was something with gin," she particularized, "and too sweet." He +took the place beside her and solemnly recited a great many nursery +rhymes. On the whole she liked him, deciding that he was very wicked. +Soon he was holding her hand in both of his. "I know you're not real," +he proceeded. "Verlaine wrote you--_'Les Ingenus':_ + + "'From which the sudden gleam of whiteness shed + Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming.' + +"What if I'd kiss you?" + +"Nothing," she returned coldly. + +"You're remarkable!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "If you are not +already one of the celebrated beauties you're about to be. As cool as a +fish! Look--Pleydon is going to rise and spill little Russia. Have you +heard her sing Scriabine?" Linda ignored him in a sharp return of her +interest in the big carelessly-dressed man. He put Susanna Noda aside +and moved to the dim middle of the room. His features, Linda saw, were +rugged and pronounced; he was very strong. + +For a moment he stood gazing at the Winged Victory, his brow gathered +into a frown, while he made a caressing gesture with his whole hand. +Then he swung about and, from the heavy shadows of his face, he looked +down at her. He was still for a disconcerting length of time, but +through which Linda steadily met his interrogation. Then he bent over +and seriously removed the man beside her. + +"Adieu, Louis," he said. + +The weight of Pleydon's body depressed the entire divan. "An ordinary +man," he told her, "would ask how the devil you got here. Then he would +take you to your home with some carefully chosen words for whatever +parents you had. But I can see that all this is needless. You are an +extremely immaculate person. + +"That isn't necessarily admirable," he added. + +"I don't believe I am admirable at all," Linda replied. + +"How old are you?" he demanded abruptly. + +She told him. + +"Age doesn't exist for some women, they are eternal," he continued. "You +see, I call you a woman, but you are not, and neither are you a child. +You are Art--Art the deathless," his gaze strayed back to the Victory. + +As she, too, looked at it, it seemed to Linda that the cast filled +all the room with a swirl of great white wings and heroic robes. In an +instant the incense and the dark colors, the uncertain pallid faces +and bare shoulders, were swept away into a space through which she was +dizzily borne. The illusion was so overpowering that involuntarily she +caught at the heavy arm by her. + + + + +XV + + +"Why did you do that?" he asked quickly, with a frowning regard. Linda +replied easily and directly. "It seemed as if it were carrying me with +it," she specified; "on and on and on, without ever stopping. I felt as +if I were up among the stars." She paused, leaning forward, and gazed +at the statue. Even now she was certain that she saw a slight flutter of +its draperies. "It is beautiful, isn't it? I think it's the first thing +I ever noticed like that. You know what I mean--the first thing that +hadn't a real use." + +"But it has," he returned. "Do you think it is nothing to be swept into +heaven? I suppose by 'real' you mean oatmeal and scented soap. Women +usually do. But no one, it appears, has any conception of the practical +side of great art. You might try to remember that it is simply +permanence given to beauty. It's like an amber in which beautiful and +fragile things are kept forever in a lovely glow. That is all, and it is +enough. + +"When I said that you were Art I didn't mean that you were skilfully +painted and dressed, but that there was a quality in you which recalled +all the charming women who had ever lived to draw men out of the +mud--something, probably, of which you are entirely unconscious, and +certainly beyond your control. You have it in a remarkable degree. It +doesn't belong to husbands but to those who create 'Homer's children.' + +"That's a dark saying of Plato's, and it means that the _Alcestis_ is +greater than any momentary offspring of the flesh." + +Linda admitted seriously, "Of course, I don't understand, yet it seems +quite familiar--" + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, repeat the old cant about reincarnation;" he +interrupted, "and sitting together, smeared with antimony, on a roof of +Babylon." + +She hadn't intended to, she assured him. "Tell me about yourself," he +directed. It was as natural to talk with him as it was, with others, +to keep still. Her frank speech flowed on and on, supported by the +realization of his attention. + +"There really isn't much, besides hotels, all different; but you'd be +surprised how alike they were, too. I mean the things to eat, and the +people. I never realized how tired I was of them until mother married +Mr. Moses Feldt. The children were simply dreadful, the children and +the women; the men weren't much better." She said this in a tone of +surprise, and he nodded. "I can see now--I am supposed to be too old for +my age, and it was the hotels. You learn a great deal." + +"Do you like Mr. Moses Feldt?" + +"Enormously; he is terribly sweet. I intend to marry a man just like +him. Or, at least, he was the second kind I decided on: the first only +had money, then I chose one with money who was kind, but now I don't +know. It's very funny: kindness makes me impatient. I'm perfectly sure +I'll never care for babies, they are so mussy. I don't read, and I can't +stand being--well, loved. + +"Mother went to a great many parties; every one liked her and she liked +every one back; so it was easy for her. I used to long for the time when +I'd wear a lovely cloak and go out in a little shut motor with a man +with pearls; but now that's gone. They want to kiss you so much. I wish +that satisfied me. Why doesn't it? Is there anything the matter with me, +do you think? I've been told that I haven't any heart." + +As he laughed at her she noticed how absurdly small a cigarette seemed +in his broad powerful hand. "What has happened to you is this," he +explained: "a combination of special circumstances has helped you in +every way to be what, individually, you were. As a rule, children are +brought up in a house of lies, like taking a fine naked body and binding +it into hideous rigid clothes. You escaped the damnation of cheap +ready-cut morals and education. Your mother ought to have a superb +monument--the perfect parent. Of course you haven't a 'heart.' From the +standpoint of nature and society you're as depraved as possible. You are +worse than any one else here--than all of them rolled together." + +Curiously, she thought, this didn't disturb her, which proved at once +that he was right. Linda regarded herself with interest as a supremely +reprehensible person, perhaps a vampire. The latter, though, was a +rather stout woman who, dressed in frightful lingerie, occupied couches +with her arms caught about the neck of a man bending over her. Every +detail of this was distasteful. + +What was she? + +Her attention wandered to the squat Chinese god in the glass case. It +was clear that he hadn't stirred for ages. A difficult thought partly +formed in her mind--the Chinese was the god of this room, of Markue's +party, of the women seated in the dim light on the floor and the divans; +the low gurgle of their laughter, the dusky whiteness of their shoulders +in the upcoiling incense, the smothered gleams of their hair, with the +whispering men, were the world of the grayish-green image. + +She explained this haltingly to Pleydon, who listened with a flattering +interest. "I expect you're laughing at me inside," she ended impotently. +"And the other, the Greek Victory," he added, "is the goddess of the +other world, of the spirit. It's quaint a heathen woman should be that." + +Linda discovered that she liked Pleydon enormously. She continued +daringly that he might be the sort of man she wanted to marry. But he +wouldn't be easy to manage; probably he could not be managed at all. Her +mother had always insisted upon the presence of that possibility in any +candidate for matrimony. And, until now, Linda's philosophy had been in +accord with her. But suddenly she entertained the idea of losing herself +completely in--in love. + +A struggle was set up within her: on one hand was everything that she +had been, all her experience, all advice, and her innate detachment; +on the other an obscure delicious thrill. Perhaps this was what she now +wanted. Linda wondered if she could try it--just a little, let herself +go experimentally. She glanced swiftly at Pleydon, and his bulk, his +heavy features, the sullen mouth, appalled her. + +Men usually filled her with an unaccountable shrinking into her remotest +self. Pleydon was different; her liking for him had destroyed a large +part of her reserve; but a surety of instinct told her that she couldn't +experiment there. It was characteristic that a lesser challenge left her +cold. She had better marry as she had planned. + +Susanna Noda came up petulantly and sank in a brilliant graceful swirl +at his feet. Her golden eyes, half shut, studied Linda intently. + + + + +XVI + + +"I am fatigued," she complained; "you know how weary I get when you +ignore me." He gazed down at her untouched. "I have left Lao-tze for +Greece," he replied. She found this stupid and said so. "Has he been no +more amusing than this?" she asked Linda. "But then, you are a child, +it all intrigues you. You listen with the flattery of your blue eyes and +mouth, both open." + +"Don't be rude, Susanna," Pleydon commanded. "You are so feminine that +you are foolish. I'm not the stupid one--look again at our 'child.' Tell +me what you see." + +"I see Siberia," she said finally. "I see the snow that seems so pure +while it is as blank and cold as death. You are right, Dodge. I was the +dull one. This girl will be immensely loved; perhaps by you. A calamity, +I promise you. Men are pigs," she turned again to Linda; "no--imbeciles, +for only idiots destroy the beauty that is given to them. They take your +reputation with a smile, they take your heart with iron fingers; your +beauty they waste like a drunken Russian with gold." + +"Susanna, like all spendthrifts, is amazed by poverty." + +Even in the gloom Linda could see the pallor spreading over the other's +face; she was glad that Susanna Noda spoke in Russian. However, with a +violent effort, she subdued her bitterness. "Go into your Siberia!" she +cried. "I always thought you were capable of the last folly of marriage. +If you do it will spoil everything. You are not great, you know, not +really great, not in the first rank. You've only the slightest chance of +that, too much money. You were never in the gutter as I was--" + +"Chateaubriand," he interrupted, "Dante, Velasquez." + +"No, not spiritually!" she cried again. "What do you know of the +inferno! Married, you will get fat." Pleydon turned lightly to Linda: + +"As a supreme favor do not, when I ask you, marry me." + +This, for Linda, was horribly embarrassing. However, she gravely +promised. The Russian lighted a cigarette; almost she was serene again. +Linda said, "Fatness is awful, isn't it?" + +Pleydon replied, "Death should be the penalty. If women aren't lovely--" +he waved away every other consideration. + +"And if men have fingers like carrots--" Susanna mimicked him. Judith, +flushed, her hair loosened, approached. "Linda," she demanded, "do you +remember when we ordered the taxi? Was it two or three?" Markue, at her +shoulder, begged her not to consider home. + +"I'm going almost immediately," Pleydon said, "and taking your Linda." +His height and determined manner scattered all objections. + +Linda, at the entrance to the apartment, found to her great surprise--in +place of the motor she had expected--a small graceful single-horse +victoria, the driver buttoned into a sealskin rug. Deep in furs, beside +Pleydon, she was remarkably comfortable, and she was soothed by the +rhythmic beat of the hoofs, the even progress through the crystal night +of Fifth Avenue. + +Her companion flooded his being with the frozen air. They had, it +seemed, lost all desire to talk. The memory of Markue's party lingered +like the last vanishing odor of his incense; there was a confused vision +of the murmurous room against the lighted exterior where the drinks +sparkled on a table. Linda made up her mind that she would not go to +another. Then she wondered if she'd see Pleydon again. The Russian +singer had been too silly for words. + +It suddenly occurred to her that the man now with her had taken Susanna +Noda, and that he had left her planted. He had preferred driving her, +Linda Condon, home. He wasn't very enthusiastic about it, though; his +face was gloomy. + +"The truth is," he remarked at last, "that Susanna is right--I am not +in the first rank. But that was all nonsense about the necessity of the +gutter--sentimental lies." + +Linda was not interested in this, but it left her free to explore her +own emotions. The night had been eventful because it had shaken all the +foundation of what she intended. That single momentary delicious thrill +had been enough to threaten the entire rest. At the same time her native +contempt of the other women, of Judith with her tumbled hair, persisted. +Was there no other way to capture such happiness? Was it all hopelessly +messy with drinks and unpleasant familiarity? + +What did Pleydon mean by spirit? Surely there must be more kinds of love +than one--he had intimated that. She gathered that "Homer's children," +those airs of Gluck that she liked so well, were works of art, +sculpture, such as he did. Yet she had never thought of them as +important, important as oatmeal or delicate soap. She made up her mind +to ask him about it, when she saw that they had reached the Eighties; +she was almost home. + +"I am going away to-morrow," he told her, "for the winter, to South +America. When I come back we'll see each other. If you should change +address send me a line to the Harvard Club." The carriage had stopped +before the great arched entrance to the apartment-house, towering in its +entire block. He got out and lifted her to the pavement as if she had +been no more than a flower in his hands. Then he walked with her into +the darkness of the garden. + +The fountains were cased in boards; the hedged borders, the bushes and +grass, were dead. High above them on the dark wall a window was bright. +Linda's heart began to pound loudly, she was trembling ... from the +cold. There was a faint sound in the air--the elevated trains, or +stirring wings? It was nothing, then, to be lifted into heaven. There +was the door to the hall and elevator. She turned, to thank Dodge +Pleydon for all his goodness to her, when he lifted her--was it toward +heaven?--and kissed her mouth. + +She was still in his arms, with her eyes closed. "Linda Condon?" he +said, in a tone of inquiry. + +At the same breath in which she realized a kiss was of no importance a +sharp icy pain cut at her heart. It hurt her so that she gasped. Then, +and this was strange, she realized that--as a kiss--it hadn't annoyed +her. Suddenly she felt that it wasn't just that, but something far more, +a part of all her inner longing. He had put her down and was looking +away, a face in shadow with an ugly protruding lip. + +She saw him that way in her dreams--in the court under the massive +somber walls, with a troubled frown over his eyes. It seemed to her +that, reaching up, she smoothed it away as they stood together in a +darkness with the fountains, the hedges, dead, the world with never a +sound sleeping in the prison of winter. + + + + +XVII + + +Linda thought about Dodge Pleydon on a warm evening of the following +May. At four o'clock, in a hotel, Pansy had been married; and the entire +Feldt connection had risen to a greater height of clamorous cheer than +ever before. Extravagant unseasonable dishes, wines and banked flowers +were lavishly mingled with sentimental speeches, healths and tears. +Linda had been acutely restless, impatient of all the loud good humor +and stupid compliments. The sense of her isolation from their life was +unbearably keen. She would have a very different wedding with a man in +no particular like Pansy's. + +After dinner--an occasion, with Pansy absent, where Mr. Moses Feldt's +tears persisted in flowing--she had strayed into the formal chamber +across from the dining-room and leaned out of a window, gazing into the +darkening court. Directly below was where Pleydon had kissed her. She +often re-examined her feelings about that; but only to find that they +had dissolved into an indefinite sense of the inevitable. Not alone had +it failed to shock her--she hadn't even been surprised. Linda thought +still further about kissing, with the discovery that if, while it was +happening, she was conscious of the kiss, it was a failure; successful, +it carried her as far as possible from the actuality. + +Pleydon, of course, had not written to her; he had intimated nothing to +the contrary, only asking her to let him know, at the Harvard Club, if +she changed address. That wasn't necessary, and now, probably, he was +back from South America. Where, except by accident, might she see him? +Markue, with his parties, had dropped from Judith's world, his place +taken by a serious older dealer in Dutch masters with an impressive +gallery just off Fifth Avenue. + +That she would see him Linda was convinced; this feeling absorbed any +desire; it was no good wanting it or not wanting it; consequently she +was undisturbed. She considered him gravely and in detail. Had there +been any more Susanna Nodas in his stay south? She had heard somewhere +that the women of Argentine were irresistible. Her life had taught her +nothing if not the fact that a number of women figured in every man's +history. It was deplorable but couldn't be avoided; and whether or not +it continued after marriage depended on the cunning of any wife. + +Now, however, Linda felt weary already at the prospect of a married life +that rested on the constant play of her ingenuity. A great many things +that, but a little before, she had willingly accepted, seemed to her +probably not less necessary but distinctly tiresome. Linda began to +think that she couldn't really bother; the results weren't sufficiently +important. + +Dodge Pleydon. + +She slept in a composed order until the sun was well up. It was warmer +than yesterday; and, going to an afternoon concert with Judith, she +decided to walk. Linda strolled, in a short severe jacket and skirt, a +black straw hat turned back with a cockade and a crisp flushed mass of +sweet peas at her waist. The occasion, as it sometimes happened, found +her in no mood for music. The warmth of the sunlight, the open city +windows and beginning sounds of summer, had enveloped her in a mood in +which the jangling sentimentality of a street organ was more potent than +the legato of banked violins. + +She was relieved when the concert was over, but lingered at her seat +until the crowd had surged by; it made Linda furious to be shoved +or indiscriminately touched. Judith had gone ahead, when Linda was +conscious of the scrutiny of a pale well-dressed woman of middle age. +It became evident that the other was debating whether or not to speak; +clearly such an action was distasteful to her; and Linda had turned away +before a restrained voice addressed her: + +"You will have to forgive me if I ask your name ... because of a certain +resemblance. Seeing you I--I couldn't let you go." + +"Linda Condon," she replied. + +The elder, Linda saw, grew even paler. She put out a gloved hand. "Then +I was right," she said in a slightly unsteady voice. "But perhaps, when +I explain, you will think it even stranger, inexcusable. My dear child, +I am your father's sister." + +Linda was invaded by a surprise equally made up of interest and +resentment. The first was her own and the second largely borrowed +from her mother. Besides, why had her father's family never made the +slightest effort to see her. This evidently had simultaneously occurred +to the other. + +"Of course," she added, quite properly, "we can't undertake family +questions here. I shouldn't blame you a bit, either, if you went +directly away. I had to speak, to risk that, because you were so +unmistakably a Lowrie. It is not a common appearance. We--I--" she +floundered for a painful moment; then she gathered herself with a +considerable dignity. "Seeing you has affected me tremendously, changed +everything. I have nothing to say in our defense, you must understand +that. I am certain, too, that my sister will feel the same--we live +together in Philadelphia. I hope you will give me your address and let +us write to you. Elouise will join with me absolutely." + +Linda told her evenly where she lived, and then allowed Miss Lowrie to +precede her toward the entrance. She said nothing of this to Judith, +nor, momentarily, to her mother. She wanted to consider it undisturbed +by a flood of talk and blame. It was evident to her that the Lowries had +behaved very badly, but just how she couldn't make out. She recalled her +father's sister--her aunt--minutely, forced to the realization that she +was a person of entire superiority. Here, she suddenly saw, had been +the cause of all their difficulties--the Lowries hadn't approved of the +marriage, they had objected to her mother. + +Five years ago she would have been incensed at this; but now, +essentially, she was without personal indignation. She wanted, for +herself, to discover as much as possible about her father and his +family. A need independent of maternal influences stirred her. Linda was +reassured by the fact that her father had been gently born; while she +realized that she had always taken this for granted. Her mother must +know nothing about the meeting with Miss Lowrie until the latter had +written. + +That was Friday and the letter came the following Tuesday. Linda, alone +at the breakfast-table, instantly aware of the source of the square +envelope addressed in a delicate regular writing, opened it and read in +an unusual mental disturbance: + +"My dear Linda, + +I hope you will not consider it peculiar for me to call you this, +for nothing else seems possible. Meeting you in that abrupt manner upset +me, as you must have noticed. Of course I knew of you, and even now I +can not go into our long unhappy affair, but until I saw you, and so +remarkably like the Lowries, I did not realize how wicked Elouise and I +had been. But I am obliged to add only where you were concerned. We have +no desire to be ambiguous in that. + +However, I am writing to say that we should love to have you visit us +here. It is possible under the circumstances that your mother will not +wish you to come. Yet I know the Lowries, a very independent and +decided family, and although it is my last intention to be the cause of +difficulty with your mother, still I hope it may be arranged. + +In closing I must add how happy I was at the evidence of your blood. +But that, I now see, was a certainty. You will have to forgive us for a +large measure of blindness. Affectionately, + +AMELIA VIGN LOWRIE." + + +Almost instantaneously Linda was aware that she would visit the Lowries. +She liked the letter extremely, as well as all that she remembered of +its sender. At the same time she prepared for a scene with her mother, +different from those of the past--with the recourse to the brandy +flask--but no less unpleasant. They had very little to say to each other +now; and, when she went into her mother's room with an evident definite +purpose, the latter showed a constrained surprise, a palpable annoyance +that her daughter had found her at the daily renovation of her worn +face. + + + + +XVIII + + +Linda said directly, "I met Miss Lowrie, father's sister, at a concert +last week, and this morning I had a letter asking me to stay with them +in Philadelphia." + +Mrs. Feldt's face suddenly had no need for the color she held poised +on a cloth. Her voice, sharp at the beginning, rose to a shrill +unrestrained wrath. + +"I wonder at the brass of her speaking to you at all let alone writing +here. Just you give me the letter and I'll shut her up. The idea! I hope +you were cool to her, the way they treated us. Stay with them--I guess +not!" + +"But I thought of going," Linda replied. "It's only natural. After all, +you must see that he was my father." + +"A pretty father he was, too good for the girl he married. It's my fault +I didn't tell you long ago, but I just couldn't abide the mention of +him. He deserted me, no, us, cold, without a word--walked out of the +door one noon, taking his hat as quiet as natural, and never came back. +I never saw him again nor heard except through lawyers. That was the +kind of heart he had, and his sisters are worse. I hadn't a decent +speech of any kind out of them. The Lowries," she managed to inject a +surprising amount of contempt into her pronouncement of that name. "What +it was all about you nor any sensible person would never believe: + +"The house smelled a little of boiled cabbage. That's why he left me, +and you expected in a matter of a few months. He said in his dam' frigid +way that it had become quite impossible and took down his hat." + +"There must have been more," Linda protested, suppressing a mad desire +to laugh. + +"Not an inch," her mother asserted. "Nothing, after a little, suited +him. He'd sit up like a poker, just as I've seen you, with his lips +tight together in the Lowrie manner. It didn't please him no matter what +you'd do. He wouldn't blow out at you like a Christian and I never knew +where I was at. I'd come down in a matine, the prettiest I could buy, +and then see he didn't like it. He would expect you to be dressed in the +morning like it was afternoon and you going out. And as for loosening +your corsets for a little comfort about the house, you might as well +have slapped him direct. + +"That wasn't the worst, though; but his going away without as much as a +flicker of his hand; and with me like I was. Nobody on earth but would +blame him for that. I only got what was allowed me after we had changed +back to my old name, me and you. He never asked one single question +about you nor tried to see or serve you a scrap. For all he knew, at a +place called Santa Margharita in Italy, you might have been born dead." + +She was unable, Linda recognized, to defend him in any way; he had acted +frightfully. She acknowledged this logically with her power of reason, +but somehow it didn't touch her as it had her mother, and as, evidently, +the latter expected. She was absorbed in the vision of her father +sitting, in the Lowrie manner, rigid as a poker; she saw him quietly +take up his hat and go away forever. Linda understood his process +completely; she was capable of doing precisely the same thing. Whatever +was the matter with her--in the heartlessness so often laid to her +account--had been equally true of her father. + +"You ought to know what to say to them," Mrs. Moses Feldt cried, "or +I'll do it for you! If only I had seen her she would have heard a thing +or two not easy forgotten." + +Linda's determination to go to Philadelphia had not been shaken, and she +made a vain effort to explain her attitude. "Of course, it was horrid +for you," she said. "I can understand how you'd never never forgive him. +But I am different, and, I expect, not at all nice. It's very possible, +since he was my father, that we are alike. I wish you had told me this +before--it explains so much and would have made things easier for me. I +am afraid I must see them." + +She was aware of the bitterness and enmity that stiffened her mother +into an unaccustomed adequate scorn: + +"I might have expected nothing better of you, and me watching it coming +all these years. You can go or stay. I had my life in spite of the both +of you, as gay as I pleased and a good husband just the same. I don't +care if I never see you again, and if it wasn't for the fuss it would +make I'd take care I didn't. You'll have your father's money now I'm +married; I wonder you stay around here at all with your airs of being +better than the rest. God's truth is you ain't near as good, even if I +did bring you into the world." + +"I am willing to agree with you," Linda answered. "No one could be +sweeter than the Feldts. I sha'n't do nearly as well. But that isn't +it, really. People don't choose themselves; I'm certain father didn't at +that lonely Italian place. If you weren't happy laced in the morning it +wasn't your fault. You see, I am trying to excuse myself, and that isn't +any good, either." + +"Unnatural," Mrs. Moses Feldt pronounced. And Linda, weary and +depressed, allowed her the last word. + + + + +XIX + + +Nothing further during the subsequent brief exchange of notes between +Miss Lowrie and Linda was said of the latter's intention to visit her +father's family. Mrs. Feldt, however, whose attitude toward Linda had +been negatively polite, now displayed an animosity carefully hidden from +her husband but evident to the two girls. The elder never neglected an +opportunity to emphasize Linda's selfishness or make her personality +seem ridiculous. But this Linda ignored from her wide sense of the +inconsequence of most things. + +Yet she was relieved when, finally, she had actually left New York. She +looked forward with an unusual hopeful curiosity to the Lowries. To +her surprise their house--miles, it appeared, from the center of the +city--was directly on a paved street with electric cars, unpretentious +stores and very humble dwellings nearby. Back from the thoroughfare, +however, there were spacious green lawns. The street itself, she saw +at once, was old--a highway of gray stone with low aged stone faades, +steep eaves and blackened chimney-pots reaching, dusty with years, into +the farther hilly country. + +A gable of the Lowrie house, with a dignified white door, a fanlight of +faintly iridescent glass and polished brasses, faced the brick sidewalk, +while to the left there was a high board fence and an entrance with a +small grille open on a somber reach of garden. A maid in a stiff white +cap answered the fall of the knocker; she took Linda's bag; and, in a +hall that impressed her by its bareness, Linda was greeted by the Miss +Lowrie she had seen. + +Her aunt was composed, but there was a perceptible flush on her cheeks, +and she said in a rapid voice, after a conventional welcome, "You must +meet Elouise at once, before you go up to your room." + +Elouise Lowrie was older than Amelia, but she, too, was slender +and erect, with black hair startling in its density on her wasted +countenance. Linda noticed a fine ruby on a crooked finger and beautiful +rose point lace. "It was good of you," the elder proceeded, "to come and +see two old women. I don't know whether we have more to say or to keep +still about. But I, for one, am going to avoid explanations. You are +here, a fool could see that you were Bartram's girl, and that is enough +for a Lowrie." + +The room was nearly as bare as the hall: in place of the deep carpets of +the Feldts' the floor, of dark uneven oak boards, was merely waxed and +covered by a rough-looking oval rug. The walls were paneled in white, +with white ruffled curtains at small windows; and the furniture, the +dull mahogany ranged against the immaculate paint, the rocking-chairs +of high slatted walnut and rush bottoms, the slender formality of tables +with fluted legs, was dignified but austere. There were some portraits +in heavy old gilt--men with florid faces and tied hair, and the delicate +replicas of high-breasted women in brocades. + +There was, plainly, an air of the exceptional in Amelia Lowrie's +conduction of Linda to her room. She waited at the door while the other +moved forward to the center of a chamber empty of all the luxury Linda +had grown to demand. There was a bed with tall graceful posts supporting +a canopy like a frosting of sugar, a solemn set of drawers with a +diminutive framed mirror in which she could barely see her shoulders, +a small unenclosed brass clock with long exposed weights, and two +uninviting painted wooden chairs. This was not, although very nearly, +all. Linda's attention was attracted by a framed and long-faded +photograph of a young man, bareheaded, with a loosely knotted scarf, a +striped blazer and white flannels. His face was thin and sensitive, +his lips level, and his eyes gazed with a steady questioning at the +observer. + +"That was Bartram," Amelia Lowrie told her; "your father. This was his +room." + +She went down almost immediately and left Linda, in a maze of dim +emotions, seated on one of the uncomfortable painted chairs. Her father! +This was his room; nothing, she realized, had been disturbed. The mirror +had held the vaguely unsteady reflection of his face; he had slept under +the arched canopy of the bed. She rose and went to a window from which +he, too, had looked. + +Below her was the garden shut in on its front by the high fence. There +was a magnolia-tree, now covered with thick smooth white flowers, and, +at the back, low-massed rhododendron with fragile lavender blossoms on +a dark glossy foliage. But the space was mainly green and shadowed +in tone; while beyond were other gardens, other emerald lawns and +magnolia-trees, an ordered succession of tranquillity with separate +brick or stone or white dwellings in the lengthening afternoon shadows +of vivid maples. + +It was as different as possible from all that Linda had known, from the +elaborate hotels and gigantic apartment houses, the tropical interiors, +of her New York life. She unpacked her bag, putting her gold toilet +things on the chest of drawers, precisely arranging in a shallow closet +what clothes she had brought, and then, changing, went down to the +Lowries. + +They surveyed her with eminent approval at a dinner-table lighted only +with candles, beside long windows open on a dusk with a glimmer of +fireflies. Suddenly Linda felt amazingly at ease; it seemed to her +that she had sat here before, with the night flowing gently in over the +candle-flames. The conversation, she discovered, never strayed far +from the concerns and importance of the Lowrie blood. "My grandmother, +Natalie Vign," Elouise informed her, "came with her father to +Philadelphia from France, in eighteen hundred and one, at the invitation +of Stephen Girard, who was French as well. She married Hallet Lowrie +whose mother was a Bartram. + +"That, my dear, explains our black hair and good figgers. There never +was a lumpy Lowrie. Well, Hallet built this house, or rather enlarged +it, for his wife; and it has never been out of the family. Our nephew, +Arnaud Hallet--Arnaud was old Vign's name--owns it now. Isaac Hallet, +you may recall, was suspected of being a Tory; at any rate his brother's +descendants, Fanny Rodwell is the only one left, won't speak." + +The placid conversation ran on unchanged throughout dinner and the +evening. Linda was relieved by the absence of any questioning; indeed +nothing contemporary, she realized, was held to be significant. "I +thought Arnaud would be in to-night," Elouise Lowrie said; "he knew +Linda was expected." No one, however, appeared; and Linda went up early +to her room. There, too, were only candles, a pale wavering illumination +in which the past, her father, were extraordinarily nearby. A sense of +pride was communicated to her by so much that time had been unable to +shake. The bed was steeped in the magic of serene traditions. + + + + +XX + + +Arnaud Hallet appeared for dinner the evening after Linda's arrival; +a quiet man with his youth lost, slightly stooped shoulders, crumpled +shoes and a green cloth bag. But he had a memorable voice and an easy +distinction of manner; in addition to these she discovered, at the +table, a lighter amusing sense of the absurd. She watched him--as +he poured the sherry from a decanter with a silver label hung on a +chain--with a feeling of mild approbation. On the whole he was nice but +uninteresting. What a different man from Pleydon! + +The days passed in a pleasant deliberation, with Arnaud Hallet +constantly about the house or garden, while Linda's thoughts continually +returned to the sculptor. He was clearer than the actuality of her +mother and the Feldts or the recreated image of her father. At times she +was thrilled by the familiar obscure sense of music, of longing slowly +translated into happiness. Then more actual problems would envelop her +in doubt. Mostly she was confused--in her cool material necessity for +understanding--by the temper of her feeling for Dodge Pleydon. Linda +wondered if this were love. Perhaps, when she saw him again, she'd be +able to decide. Then she remembered promising to let him know if she +changed her address. It was possible that already he had called at the +Feldts', or written, and that her mother had refused to inform him where +she had gone. + +Linda had been at the Lowries' two weeks now, but they were acutely +distressed when she suggested that her visit was unreasonably prolonged. +"My dear," they protested together, "we hoped you'd stay the summer. +Bartram's girl! Unless, of course, it is dull with us. Something +brighter must be arranged. No doubt we have only thought of our own +pleasure in having you." + +Linda replied honestly that she enjoyed being with them extremely. Her +mother's dislike, the heavy luxury of the Feldt apartment, held little +attraction for her. Then, too, losing the sense of the bareness of the +house Hallet Lowrie had built for his French wife, she began to find it +surprisingly appealing. + +Her mind returned to her promise to Pleydon. She told herself +that probably he had forgotten her existence, but she had a strong +unreasoning conviction that this was not so. It seemed the most natural +thing in the world to write him and, almost before she was aware of +the intention, she had put "Dear Mr. Pleydon" at the head of a sheet of +note-paper. + +I promised to let you know in the spring when you came back from South +America where I was. I did not think I would have to do it, but here I +am in Philadelphia with my father's sisters. I do not know just how long +for, but a month, anyhow. It is very quiet, but charming. I have the +room that was my father's when he was young, and look out of the window +like he must have. If you should come to Philadelphia my aunts ask me to +say that they would be glad to have you for dinner. This is how you get +here.... + +Very sincerely, + +LINDA CONDON. + +She walked to a street crossing, where she dropped the envelope into a +letter-box on a lamppost, and returned to find Arnaud Hallet waiting for +her. He said: + +"Everyone agrees I'm serious, but actually you are worse than the +Assembly." They went through the dining-room to the garden, and sat +on the stone step of a deep window. It was quite late, perhaps eleven +o'clock, and the fireflies, slowly rising into the night, had vanished. +Linda was cool and remote and grave, silently repeating and weighing the +phrases of her letter to Pleydon. + +She realized that Arnaud Hallet was coming to like her a very great +deal; but she gave this only the slightest attention. She liked him, +really, and that dismissed him from serious consideration. Anyhow, +in spite of the perfection of his manner, Arnaud's careless dress +displeased her: his shoes and the shoulders of his coat were perpetually +dusty, and his hair, growing scant, was always ruffled. Linda understood +that he was highly intellectual, and frequently contributed historical +and genealogical papers to societies and bulletins, but compared with +Dodge Pleydon's brilliant personality and reputation, Pleydon surrounded +by the Susanna Nodas of life, Arnaud was as dingy as his shoes. + +She wondered idly when the latter would actually try to love her. He was +holding her hand and it might well be to-night. Linda decided that he +would do it delicately; and when, almost immediately, he kissed her, she +was undisturbed. No, surprisingly, it had been quite pleasant. He hadn't +mussed her ribbons, nor her spirit, a particle. In addition he did not +at once become impossible and urgently sentimental; there was even a +shade of amusement on his heavy face. + +"You appear to take a lot for granted," he complained. + +"I'd been wondering when it would happen," she admitted coolly. + +"It always does, then?" + +"Usually I stop it," she continued. "I don't believe I'll ever like +being kissed. Can you tell me why? No one ever has; they all think they +can bring me around to it." + +"And to them," he added. + +"But they end by being furious at me. I've been sworn at and called +dreadful names. Sometimes they're only silly. One cried; I hated that +the most." + +"Do you mean that you were sorry for him?" + +"Oh, dear, no. Why should I be? He looked so odious all smeared with +tears." + +Arnaud Hallet returned promptly: "Linda, you're a little beast." To +counteract his rude speech he kissed her again. "This," he said with +less security, "threatens to become a habit. I thought, at forty-five, +that I was safely by the island of sirens, but I'll be on the rocks +before I know it." + +She laughed with the cool remoteness of running water. + +"I wonder you haven't been murdered," he proceeded, "in a moonless +garden by an elderly lawyer. Do you ever think of the lyric day when, +preceded by a flock of bridesmaids and other flowery pagan truck, you'll +meet justice?" + +"Marriage?" she asked. "But of course. I have everything perfectly +planned--" + +"Then, my dear Linda, describe him." + +"Very straight," she said, "with beautiful polished shoes and brushed +hair." + +"You ought to have no trouble finding that. Any number of my friends +have one--to open the door and take your things. I might arrange a very +satisfactory introduction for everybody concerned--a steady man well on +his way to preside over the pantry and table." + +"You're not as funny as usual," Linda decided critically. "That, too, +disturbs me," he replied. "It looks even more unpromising for the near +future." + + + + +XXI + + +In her room Linda thought, momentarily, of Arnaud Hallet; whatever might +have been serious in her attitude toward him dissolved by the lightness +of his speech. Dodge Pleydon appealed irresistibly to her deepest +feelings. Now her mental confusion was at least clear in that she knew +what troubled her. It was not new, it extended even to times before +Pleydon had entered her life--the difficulties presented by the term +"love." + +In her mind it was divided into two or three widely different aspects, +phases which she was unable to reconcile. Her mother, in the beginning, +had informed her that love was a nuisance. To be happy, a man must love +you without any corresponding return; this was necessary to his complete +management, the securing of the greatest possible amount of new clothes. +It was as far as love should be allowed to enter marriage. But that +reality, with a complete expression in shopping, was distant from the +immaterial and delicate emotions that in her responded to Pleydon. + +Linda had been familiar with the materials, the processes, of what, she +had been assured, was veritable love since early childhood. Her mother's +dressing, the irritable hours of fittings and at her mirror, the paint +she put on her cheeks, the crimping of her hair were for the favor of +men. These struggles had absorbed the elder, all the women Linda had +encountered, to the exclusion of everything else. This, it seemed, must, +from its overwhelming predominance, be the greatest thing in life. + +There was nothing mysterious about it. You did certain things +intelligently, if you had the figure to do them with, for a practical +end. The latter, carefully controlled, like an essence of which a drop +was delightful and more positively stifling, was as real as the +methods of approach. Oatmeal or scented soap! The force of example and +association combined to bathe such developments in the sanest light +possible, and Linda had every intention of the successful grasping of an +easy and necessary luxury. She had, until--vaguely--now, been entirely +willing to accept the unescapable conditions of love used as a means or +the element of pleasure at parties. Now, however, the unexpected element +of Dodge Pleydon disturbed her philosophy. + +Suddenly all the lacing and painting and crimping, the pretense and lies +and carefully planned accidental effects, filled her with revolt. The +insinuations of women, the bareness of their revelations, her +mother returning unsteady and mussed from a dinner, were unutterably +disgusting. Even to think of them hurt her fundamentally: so much of +what she was, of what she had determined, had been destroyed by an +emotion apparently as slight as echoed music. + +Here was the real mystery and for which nothing in her experience had +prepared her. She began to see why it was called a nuisance--if this +were love--and wondered if she had better not suppress it at once. It +wouldn't be suppressed. Her thoughts continually came back to Pleydon, +and the warmth, the disturbing thrill, always resulted. It led her away +from herself, from Linda Condon; a sufficiently strange accomplishment. +A concern for Dodge Pleydon, little schemes for his happiness and +well-being, put aside her clothes and complexion and her future. + +Until the present her acts had been the result of deliberation. She had +been impressed by the necessity for planning with care; but, in the cool +gloom of the covered bed, a sharp joy held her at the possibility of +flinging caution away. Yet she couldn't quite, no matter how much she +desired it, lose herself. Linda was glad that Pleydon was rich; and +there were, she remembered, moments for surrender. + +As usual these problems, multiplying toward night, were fewer in the +bright flood of morning. She laughed at the memory of Arnaud Hallet's +humor; and then, it was late afternoon, the maid told her that Pleydon +was in the drawing room. Her appearance satisfactory she was able to see +him at once. To her great pleasure neither Pleydon nor his clothes had +changed. He was dressed in light-gray flannels; a big easy man with a +crushing palm, large features and an expression of intolerance. + +"Linda," he said, "what a splendid place to find you. So much better +than Markue's." He was, she realized, very glad to see her, and dropped +at once, as if they had been uninterruptedly together, into intimate +talk. "My work has been going badly," he proceeded; "or rather not at +all. I made a rather decent fountain at Newport; but--remember what +Susanna said?--it's not in the first rank. A happy balance and strong +enough conception; yet it is like a Cellini ewer done in granite. The +truth is, too much interests me; an artist ought to be the victim of a +monomania. I'm a normal animal." He studied her contentedly: + +"How lovely you are. I came over--in an automobile at last--because I +was certain you couldn't exist as I remembered you. But you could and +do. Lovely Linda! And what a gem of a letter. It might have been copied +from 'The Perfect Correspondent for Young Females.' You're not going to +lose me again. When I was a little boy I had a passion for sherbets." + +She smiled at him with half-closed eyes and the conviction that, with +Pleydon, she could easily be different. He leaned forward and his voice +startled her with the impression that he had read her mind: + +"If you could care for any one a lifetime would be short to get you. +Look, you have never been out of my thoughts--or within my reach. It +seems a myth that I kissed you; impossible ... Linda." + +"But you did," she told him, gaining happiness from the mere assurance. +They were alone in the drawing-room, and he rose, sweeping her up +into his arms. Yet the expected joy evaded her desire and the sudden +determination to lose utterly her reserve. It was evident that he as +well was conscious of this, for he released her and stood frowning, his +protruding lower lip uglier than ever. + +"A lifetime would be nothing," he said again; "or it might be everything +wasted. Which are you--all soul and spirit, or none?" + +"I don't know," she replied, in her bitter disappointment, her heart +pinched by the sharpest pain she remembered. There was the stir of +skirts at the door; Linda turned with a sense of relief to Amelia +Lowrie. However, dinner progressed very well indeed. "Then your aunt," +Elouise said to Pleydon, "was Carrie Dodge. I recall her perfectly." +That established, the Lowrie women talked with a gracious freedom, +exploring the furthermost infiltrations of blood and marriages. + +Linda was again serene. She watched Pleydon with an extraordinary +formless conviction--each of them was a part of the other's life; while +in some way marriage and love were now hopelessly confused. It was +beyond effort or planning. That was all she could grasp, but she was +contented. Sometimes when he talked he made the familiar descriptive +gesture with his hand, as if he were shaping the form of his speech: a +sculptor's gesture, Linda realized. + +Later they wandered into the garden, a dark enclosure with the long +ivy-covered faade of the house broken by the lighted spaces of windows. +Beyond the fence at regular intervals an electric car passed with +an increasing and diminishing clangor. The white petals of the +magnolia-tree had fallen and been wheeled away; the blossoms of the +rhododendron were dead on their stems. It was, Linda felt, a very old +garden that had known many momentary emotions and lives. + +Dodge Pleydon, standing before her, put his hands on her shoulders. +"Would I have any success?" he asked. "Do you think you'd care for me?" + +She smiled confidently up at his intent face. "Oh, yes." Yet she hoped +that he would not kiss her--just then. The delicacy of her longing and +need were far removed from material expressions. This, of course, meant +marriage; but marriage was money, comfort, the cold thing her mother had +impressed on her. Love, her love, was a mistake here. But in a little +it would all come straight and she would understand. She no longer had +confidence in her mother's wisdom. + +In spite of her shrinking, of a half articulate appeal, he crushed her +against his face. Whatever that had filled her with hope, she thought, +was being torn from her. A sickening aversion over which she had no +control made her stark in his arms. The memories of the painted coarse +satiety of women and the sly hard men for which they schemed, the loose +discussions of calculated advances and sordid surrenders, flooded her +with a loathing for what she passionately needed to be beautiful. + +Yet deep within her, surprising in its vitality, a fragile ardor +persisted. If she could explain, not only might he understand, but be +able to make her own longing clear and secure. But all she managed +to say was, "If you kiss me again I think it will kill me." Even that +failed to stop him. "You were never alive," he asserted. "I'll put some +feeling into you. It has been done before with marble." + +Linda, unresponsive, suffered inordinately. + +Again on her feet she saw that Pleydon was angry, his face grim. He +seemed changed, threatening and unfamiliar; it was exactly as if, in +place of Dodge Pleydon, a secretive impersonal ugliness stood disclosed +before her. He said harshly: + +"When will you marry me?" + +It was what, above all else, she had wanted; and Linda realized that to +marry him was still the crown of whatever happiness she could imagine. +But her horror of the past recreated by his beating down of her +gossamer-like aspiration, the vision of him flushed and ruthless, an +image of indiscriminate nameless man, made it impossible for her to +reply. An abandon of shrinking fear numbed her heart and lips. + +"You won't get rid of me as you do the others about you," he continued. +"This time you made a mistake. I haven't any pride that you can insult; +but I have all that you--with your character--require. I have more money +even than you can want." She cried despairingly: + +"It isn't that now! I had forgotten everything to do with money and +depended on you to take me away from it always." + +"When will you marry me?" + +In a flash of blinding perception, leaving her as dazed as though it had +been a physical actuality, she realized that marrying him had become an +impossibility. At the barest thought of it the dread again closed about +her like ice. She tried, with all the force of old valuations, with even +an effort to summon back the vanquished thrill, to give herself to +him. But a quality overpowering and instinctive, the response of her +incalculable injury, made any contact with him hateful. It was +utterly beyond her power to explain. A greater mystery still partly +unfolded--whatever she had hoped from Pleydon belonged to the special +emotion that had possessed her since earliest childhood. + +In the immediate tragedy of her helplessness, with Dodge Pleydon +impatient for an assurance, she paused involuntarily to wonder about +that hidden imperative sense. There was a broken mental fantasy of--of a +leopard bearing a woman in shining hair. This was succeeded by a bright +thrust of happiness and, all about her, a surging like the imagined +beat of the wings of the Victory in Markue's room. Almost Pleydon had +explained everything, almost he was everything; and then the other, +putting him aside, had swept her back into the misery of doubt and +loneliness. + +"I can't marry you," she said in a flat and dragged voice. He demanded +abruptly: + +"Why not?" + +"I don't know." She recognized his utter right to the temper that +mastered him. For a moment Linda thought Pleydon would shake her. "You +feel that way now," he declared; "and perhaps next month; but you will +change; in the end I'll have you." + +"No," she told him, with a certainty from a source outside her +consciousness. "It has been spoiled." + +He replied, "Time will discover which of us is right. I'm almost willing +to stay away till you send for me. But that would only make you more +stubborn. What a strong little devil you are, Linda. I have no doubt I'd +do better to marry a human being. Then I think we both forget how young +you are--you can't pretend to be definite yet." + +He captured her hands; too exhausted for any resentment or feeling she +made no effort to evade him. "I'll never say good-bye to you." + +His voice had the absolute quality of her own conviction. To her +amazement her cheeks were suddenly wet with tears. "I want to go now," +she said unsteadily; "and--and thank you." + +His old easy formality returned as he made his departure. In reply to +Pleydon's demand she told him listlessly that she would be here for, +perhaps, a week longer. Then he'd see her, he continued, in New York, at +the Feldts'. + +In her room all emotion faded. Pleydon had said that she was still +young; but she was sure she could never, in experience or feeling, be +older. She became sorry for herself; or rather for the illusions, the +Linda, of a few hours ago. She examined her features in the limited +uncertain mirror--strong sensations, she knew, were a charge on the +appearance--but she was unable to find any difference in her regular +pallor. Then, mechanically conducting her careful preparations for the +night, her propitiation of the only omnipotence she knew, she put out +the candles of her May. + + + + +XXII + + +What welcome Linda met in New York came from Mr. Moses Feldt, who +embraced her warmly enough, but with an air slightly ill at ease. He +begged her to kiss her mama, who was sometimes hurt by Linda's coldness. +She made no reply, and found the same influence and evidence of the +power of suggestion in Judith. "We thought maybe you wouldn't care to +come back here," the latter said pointedly, over her shoulder, while +she was directing the packing of a trunk. The Feldts were preparing for +their summer stay at the sea. + +Her mother's room resembled one of the sales of obvious and expensive +attire conducted in the lower salons of pleasure hotels. There were +airy piles of chiffon and satin, inappropriate hats and the inevitable +confections of silk and lace. "It's not necessary to ask if you were +right at home with your father's family," Mrs. Condon observed with an +assumed casual inattention. "I can see you sitting with those old women +as dry and false as any. No one saved me in the clacking, I'm sure." + +"We didn't speak of you," Linda replied. She studied, unsparing, +the loose flesh of the elder's ravaged countenance. Her mother, she +recognized, hated her, both because she was like Bartram Lowrie and +still young, with everything unspent that the other valued and had lost. +In support of herself Mrs. Feldt asserted again that she had "lived," +with stacks of friends and flowers, lavish parties and devoted +attendance. + +"You may be smarter than I was," she went on, "but what good it does +you who can say? And if you expect to get something for nothing you're +fooled before you start." She shook out the airy breadths of a vivid +echo of past daring. "From the way you act a person might think you +were pretty, but you are too thin and pulled out. I've heard your looks +called peculiar, and that was, in a manner of speaking, polite. You're +not even stylish any more--the line is full again and not suitable for +bony shoulders and no bust." She still cherished a complacency in her +amplitude. + +Linda turned away unmoved. Of all the world, she thought, only Dodge +Pleydon had the power actually to hurt her. She knew that she would +see him soon again and that again he would ask her to marry him. She +considered, momentarily, the possibility of saying yes; and instantly +the dread born with him in the Lowrie garden swept over her. Linda told +herself that he was the only man for whom she could ever deeply care; +that--for every conceivable reason--such a marriage was perfect. But the +shrinking from its implications grew too painful for support. + +Her mother's bitterness increased hourly; she no longer hid her feelings +from her husband and Judith; and dinner, accompanied by her elaborate +sarcasm, was a difficult period in which, plainly, Mr. Moses Feldt +suffered most and Linda was the least concerned. This condition, she +admitted silently, couldn't go on indefinitely; it was too vulgar if for +no other reason. And she determined to ask the Lowries for another and +more extended invitation. + +Pleydon came, as she had expected, and they sat in the small +reception-room with the high ceiling and dark velvet hangings, the piano +at which, long ago it now seemed, Judith had played the airs of Gluck +for her. He said little, but remained for a long while spread over +the divan and watching her--in a formal chair--discontentedly. He rose +suddenly and stood above her, a domineering bulk obliterating nearly +everything else. In response to his demand she said, pale and composed, +that she was not "reasonable"; she omitted the "yet" included in his +question. Pleydon frowned. However, then, he insisted no further. + +When he had gone Linda was as spent as though there had been a fresh +brutal scene; and the following day she was enveloped in an unrelieved +depression. Her mother mocked her silence as another evidence of +ridiculous pretentiousness. Mr. Moses Feldt regarded her with a furtive +concerned kindliness; while Judith followed her with countless small +irritating complaints. It was the last day at the apartment before their +departure for the summer. Linda was insuperably tired. She had gone to +her room almost directly after dinner, and when a maid came to her door +with a card, she exclaimed, before looking at it, that she was not in. +It was, however, Arnaud Hallet; and, with a surprise tempered by a faint +interest, she told the servant that she would see him. + +There was, Linda observed at once, absolutely no difference in Arnaud's +clothing, no effort to make himself presentable for New York or her. In +a way, it amused her--it was so characteristic of his forgetfulness, and +it made him seem doubly familiar. He waved a hand toward the luxury of +the interior. "This," he declared, "is downright impressive, and lifted, +I'm sure, out of a novel of Ouida's. + +"You will remember," he continued, "complaining about my sense of humor +one evening; and that, at the time, I warned you it might grow worse. +It has. I am afraid, where you are concerned, that it has absolutely +vanished. My dear, you'll recognize this as a proposal. I thought my +mind was made up, after forty, not to marry; and I specially tried not +to bring you into it. You were too young, I felt. I doubted if I +could make you happy, and did everything possible, exhausted all the +arguments, but it was no good. + +"Linda, dear, I adore you." + +She was glad, without the slightest answering emotion, that Arnaud, +well--liked her. At the same time all her wisdom declared that she +couldn't marry him; and, with the unsparing frankness of youth and her +individual detachment, she told him exactly why. + +"I need a great deal of money," she proceeded, "because I am frightfully +extravagant. All I have is expensive; I hate cheap things--even what +satisfies most rich girls. Why, just my satin slippers cost hundreds of +dollars and I'll pay unlimited amounts for a little fulling of lace or +some rare flowers. You'd call it wicked, but I can't help it--it's me. + +"I've always intended to marry a man with a hundred thousand dollars a +year. Of course, that's a lot--do you hate me for telling you?--but I +wouldn't think of any one with less than fifty--" + +Arnaud Hallet interrupted quietly, "I have that." + +Linda gazed incredulously at his neglected shoes, the wrinkles of his +inconsiderable coat and unstudied scarf. She saw that, actually, he had +spoken apologetically of his possessions; and a stinging shame spread +through her at the possibility that she had seemed common to an +infinitely finer delicacy than hers. + + + + +XIII + + +Most of these circumstances Linda Hallet quietly recalled sitting with +her husband in the house that had been occupied by the Lowries'. A +letter from Pleydon had taken her into a past seven years gone by; while +ordinarily her memory was indistinct; ordinarily she was fully occupied +by the difficulties, or rather compromises, of the present. But, in the +tranquil open glow of a Franklin stove and the withdrawn intentness of +Arnaud reading, her mind had returned to the distressed period of her +wedding. + +Elouise Lowrie--Amelia was dead--sunk in a stupor of extreme old age, +her bloodless hands folded in an irreproachable black surah silk lap, +sat beyond the stove; and Lowrie, Linda's elder child, five and a half, +together with his sister Vign, had been long asleep above. Linda was +privately relieved by this: her children presented enormous obligations. +The boy, already at a model school, appalled her inadequate preparations +by his flashes of perceptive intelligence; while she was frankly abashed +at the delicate rosy perfection of her daughter. + +The present letter was the third she had received from Dodge Pleydon, +whom she had not seen since her marriage. At first he had been enraged +at the wrong, he had every reason to feel, she had done him. Then his +anger had dissolved into a meager correspondence of outward and obvious +facts. There was so much that she had been unable to explain. He had +always been impatient, even contemptuous, of the emotion that made her +surrender to him unthinkable--Linda realized now that it had been the +strongest impulse of her life--and, of course, she had never accounted +for the practically unbalanced enmity of her mother. + +The latter had deepened to an incredible degree, so much so that Mr. +Moses Feldt, though he had never taken an actual part in it--such +bitterness was entirely outside his generous sentimentality--had become +acutely uncomfortable in his own home, imploring Linda, with ready +tears, to be kinder to her mama. Judith, too, had grown cutting, jealous +of Linda's serenity of youth, as her appearance showed the effect of her +wasting emotions. Things quite extraordinary had happened: once +Linda's skin had been almost seriously affected by an irritation that +immediately followed the trace of her powder-puff; and at several times +she had had clumsily composed anonymous notes of a most distressing +nature. + +She had wondered, calmly enough, which of the two bitter women were +responsible, and decided that it was her mother. At this the situation +at the Feldts', increasingly strained, had become an impossibility. +Arnaud Hallet, after his first visit, had soon returned. There was no +more mention of his money; but every time he saw her he asked her +again, in his special manner--a formality flavored by a slight diffident +humor--to marry him. Arnaud's proposals had alternated with Pleydon's +utterly different demand. + +Linda remembered agonized evenings when, in a return of his brutal +manner of the unforgettable night in the Lowrie garden, he tried to +force a recognition of his passion. It had left her cold, exhausted, +the victim of a mingled disappointment at her failure to respond with +a hatred of all essential existence. At last, on a particularly trying +occasion, she had desperately agreed to marry him. + +The aversion of her mother, becoming really dangerous, had finally +appalled her; and a headache weighed on her with a leaden pain. Dodge, +too, had been unusually considerate; he talked about the future--tied +up, he asserted, in her--of his work; and suddenly, at the signal of her +rare tears, Linda agreed to a wedding. + +In the middle of the night she had wakened oppressed by a dread +resulting in an uncontrollable chill. She thought first that her mother +was bending a malignant face over her; and then realized that her +feeling was caused by her promise to Dodge Pleydon. It had grown worse +instead of vanishing, waves of nameless shrinking swept over her; and in +the morning, further harrowed by the actualities of being, she had sent +a telegram to Arnaud Hallet--to Arnaud's kindness and affection, his +detachment not unlike her own. + +They were married immediately; and through the ceremony and the +succeeding days she had been almost entirely absorbed in a sensation of +escape. At the death of Amelia Lowrie, soon after, Arnaud had suggested +a temporary period in the house she remembered with pleasure; and, +making small alterations with the months and years, they had tacitly +agreed to remain. + +Linda often wondered, walking about the lower floor, why it seemed so +familiar to her: she would stand in the dining-room, with its ceiling of +darkened beams, and gaze absent-minded through the long windows at the +close-cut walled greenery without. The formal drawing-room, at the right +of the street entrance, equally held her--a cool interior with slatted +wooden blinds, a white mantelpiece with delicately reeded supports and a +bas-relief of Minerva on the center panel, a polished brass scuttle for +cannel-coal and chairs with wide severely fretted backs upholstered in +old pale damask. + +The house seemed familiar, but she could never grow accustomed to the +undeniable facts of her husband, the children and her completely changed +atmosphere. She admitted to herself that her principal feeling in +connection with Lowrie and Vign was embarrassment. Here she always +condemned herself as an indifferent, perhaps unnatural, mother. She +couldn't help it. In the same sense she must be an unsatisfactory wife. +Linda was unable to shake off the conviction that it was like a play in +which she had no more than a spectator's part. + +This was her old disability, the result of her habit of sitting, as +a child, apart from the concerns and stir of living. She made every +possible effort to overcome it, to surrender to her new conditions; but, +if nothing else, an instinctive shyness prevented. It went back further, +even, she thought, than her own experience, and she recalled all she had +heard and reconstructed of her father--a man shut in on himself who had, +one day, without a word walked out of the door and left his wife, +never to return. These realizations, however, did little to clarify her +vision; she was continually trying to adjust her being to circumstances +that persistently remained a little distant and blurred. + +In appearance, anyhow, Linda told herself with a measure of reassurance, +she was practically unchanged. She still, with the support of Arnaud, +disregarding current fashion, wore her hair in a straight bang across +her brow and blue gaze. She was as slender as formerly, but more +gracefully round, in spite of the faint characteristic stiffness that +was the result of her mental hesitation. Her clothes, too, had hardly +varied--she wore, whenever possible, white lawns ruffled about the +throat and hem, with broad soft black sashes, while her more formal +dresses were sheaths of dull unornamented satin extravagant in the +perfection of their simplicity. + + + + +XXIV + + +Arnaud Hallet stirred, sharply closing his book. He had changed--except +for a palpable settling down of grayness--as little as Linda. For a +while she had tried to bring about an improvement in his appearance, and +he had met her expressed wish whenever he remembered it; but this was +not often. In the morning a servant polished his shoes, brushed and +ironed his suits; yet by evening, somehow, he managed to look as though +he hadn't been attended to for days. She would have liked him to change +for dinner; other men of his connection did, it was a part of his +inheritance. Arnaud, however, in his slight scoffing disparagement, +declined individually to annoy himself. He was, she learned, enormously +absorbed in his historical studies and papers. + +"Did you enjoy it?" she asked politely of his reading. "Extremely," he +replied. "The American Impressions of Tyrone Power, the English actor, +through eighteen thirty-three and four. His account of a European packet +with its handbells and Saratoga water and breakfast of spitch-cock +is inimitable. I'd like to have sat at Cato's then, with a julep or +hail-storm, and watched the trotting races." + +Elouise Lowrie rose unsteadily, confused with dozing; but almost +immediately she gathered herself into a relentless propriety and a +formal goodnight. + +"What has been running through that mysterious mind of yours?" + +"I had a letter from Dodge," she told him simply; "and I was thinking a +little about the past." He exhibited the nice unstrained interest of +his admirable personality. "Is he still in France?" he queried. "Pleydon +should be a strong man; I am sure we are both conscious of a little +disappointment in him." She said: "I'll read you his letter, it's on the +table. + +"'You will see, my dear Linda, that I have not moved from the Rue de +Penthivre, although I have given up the place at Etretat, and I am not +going to renew the lease here. Rodin insists, and I coming to agree with +him, that I ought to be in America. But the serious attitude here toward +art, how impossible that word has been made, is charming. And you will +be glad to know that I have had some success in the French good opinion. +A marble, Cotton Mather, that I cut from the stone, has been bought for +the Luxembourg. + +"'I can hear you both exclaim at the subject, but it is very +representative of me now. I am tired of mythological naiads in a +constant state of pursuit. Get Hallet to tell you something about +Mather. What a somber flame! I have a part Puritan ancestry, as any +Lowrie will inform you. Well, I shall be back in a few months, very +serious, and a politician--a sculptor has to be that if he means to land +any public monuments in America. + +"'I hope to see you.'" + +The letter ended abruptly, with the signature, "Pleydon." + +"Are you happy, Linda?" Arnaud Hallet asked unexpectedly after a short +silence. So abruptly interrogated she was unable to respond. "What +I mean is," he explained, "do you think you would have been happier +married to him? I knew, certainly, that it was the closest possible +thing between us." Now, however, she was able to satisfy him: + +"I couldn't marry Dodge." + +"Is it possible to tell me why?" + +"He hurt me very much once. I tried to marry him, I tried to forget it, +but it was useless. I was dreadfully unhappy, in a great many ways--" + +"So you sent for me," he put in as she paused reflectively. "I didn't +hurt you, at any rate." It seemed to her that his tone was shadowed. +"You have never hurt me, Arnaud," she assured him, conscious of the +inadequacy of her words. "You were everything I wanted." + +"Except for my hats," he said in a brief flash of his saving humor. "It +would be better for me, perhaps, if I could hurt you. That ability +comes dangerously close to a constant of love. You mustn't think I +am complaining. I haven't the slightest reason in the face of your +devastating honesty. I didn't distress you and I had the necessary +minimum--the fifty thousand." His manner was so even, so devoid of +sting, that she could smile at the expression of her material ambitions. +"I realize exactly your feeling for myself, but what puzzles me is your +attitude toward the children." + +"I don't understand it either," she admitted, "except that I am quite +afraid of them. They are so different from all my own childhood; often +they are too much for me. Then I dread the time when they will discover +how stupid and uneducated I am at bottom. I'm sure you already ask +questions before them to amuse yourself at my doubt. What shall I do, +Arnaud, when they are really at school and bring home their books?" + +"Retreat behind your dignity as a parent," he advised. "They are certain +to display their knowledge and ask you to bound things or name the +capital of Louisiana." She cried, "Oh, but I know that, it's New +Orleans!" She saw at once, from his entertained expression, that she +was wrong again, and became conscious of a faint flush of annoyance. "It +will be even worse," she continued, "when Vign looks to me for advice; +I mean when she is older and has lovers." + +"She won't seriously; they never do. She'll tell you when it's all over. +Lowrie will depend more on you. I may have my fun about the capital of +Louisiana, Linda, but I have the greatest confidence in your wisdom. God +knows what an unhappy experience your childhood was, but it has given +you a superb worldly balance." + +"I suppose you're saying that I am cold," she told him. "It must be +true, because it is repeated by every one. Yet, at times, I used to be +very different--you'd never imagine what a romantic thrill or strange +ideas were inside of me. Like a memory of a deep woods, and--and the +loveliest adventure. Often I would hear music as clearly as possible, +and it made me want I don't know what terrifically." + +"An early experience," he replied. Suddenly she saw that he was tired, +his face was lined and dejected. "You read too much," Linda declared. +He said: "But only out of the printed book." She wondered vainly what he +meant. As he stood before the glimmering coals, in the room saturated +in repose, she wished that she might give him more; she wanted to +spend herself in a riot of feeling on Arnaud and their children. What a +detestable character she had! Her desire, her efforts, were wasted. + +He went about putting up the windows and closing the outside shutters, a +confirmed habit. Linda rose with her invariable sense of separation, the +feeling that, bound on a journey with a hidden destination, she was only +temporarily in a place of little importance. It was like being always in +her hat and jacket. Arnaud shook down the grate; then he gazed over +the room; it was all, she was sure, as it had been a century ago, as it +should be--all except herself. + + + + +XXV + + +Yet her marriage had realized in almost every particular what she +had--so much younger--planned. The early suggestion, becoming through +constant reiteration a part of her knowledge, had been followed and +accomplished; and, as well, her later needs were served. Linda told +herself that, in a world where a very great deal was muddled, she had +been unusually fortunate. And this made her angry at her pervading lack +of interest in whatever she had obtained. + +Other women, she observed, obviously less fortunate than she, were +volubly and warmly absorbed in any number of engagements and pleasures; +she continually heard them, Arnaud's connections--the whole superior +society, eternally and vigorously discussing servants and bridge, family +and cotillions, indiscretions and charities. These seemed enough for +them; their lives were filled, satisfied, extraordinarily busy. Linda, +for the most part, had but little to do. Her servants, managed with +remote exactness, gave no trouble; she had an excellent woman for the +children; her dress presented no new points of anxiety nor departure ... +she was, in short, Arnaud admitted, perfectly efficient. She disposed of +such details mechanically, almost impatiently, and was contemptuous, no +envious, of the women whose demands they contented. + +At the dinners, the balls, to which Arnaud's sense of obligation both +to family and her took them against his inclination, it was the +same--everyone, it appeared to Linda, was flushed with an intentness she +could not share. Men, she found, some of them extremely pleasant, still +made adroit and reassuring efforts for her favor; the air here, she +discovered, was even freer than the bravado of her earlier surroundings. +This love-making didn't disturb her--it was, ultimately, the men who +were fretted--indeed, she had rather hoped that it would bring her the +relief she lacked. + +But again the observations and speculation of her mature childhood, what +she had heard revealed in the most skillful feminine dissections, had +cleared her understanding to a point that made the advances of hopeful +men quite entertainingly obvious. Their method was appallingly similar +and monotonous. She liked, rather than not, the younger ones, whose +confidence that their passion was something new on earth at times +refreshed her; but the navigated materialism of greater experience +finally became distasteful. She discussed this sharply with Arnaud: + +"You simply can't help believing that most women are complete idiots." + +"You haven't said much more for men." + +"The whole thing is too silly! Why is it, Arnaud? It ought to be +impressive and sweep you off your feet, up--" + +"Instead of merely behind some rented palms," he added. "But I must say, +Linda, that you are not a very highly qualified judge of sentiment." +He pronounced this equably, but she was conscious of the presence of an +injury in his voice. She was a little weary at being eternally condemned +for what she couldn't help. Any failure was as much Arnaud Hallet's as +hers; he had had his opportunity, all that for which he had implored +her. Her thoughts returned to Dodge Pleydon. April was well advanced, +and he had written that he'd be back and see them in the spring. Linda +listened to her heart but it was unhastened by a beat. She would be very +glad to have him at hand, in her life again, of course. + +Then the direction of her mind veered--what did he still think of her? +Probably he had altogether recovered from his love for her. It had been +a warm day, and Arnaud had opened a window; but now she was aware of a +cold air on her shoulder and she asked him abruptly to lower the sash. +Linda remembered, with a lingering sense of triumph, the Susanna Noda +whom Dodge had left at a party for her. There had been a great many +Susannas in his life; the reason for this was the absence of any +overwhelming single influence. It might be that now--he had written of +the change in the subjects of his work--such a guide had come into his +existence. She hoped she had. Yet, in view of the announced silliness of +women, she didn't want him to be cheaply deluded. + +He was an extremely human man. + +But she, Linda, it seemed, was an inhuman woman. The days ran into weeks +that added another month to spring; a June advanced sultry with heat; +and, suddenly as usual, a maid at the door of her room announced +Pleydon. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, she had to dress, and she +sent him a message that he mustn't expect her in a hurry. She paused in +her deliberate preparations for a long thoughtful gaze into a mirror; +there was not yet a shadow on her face, the trace of a line at her eyes. +The sharp smooth turning and absolute whiteness of her bare shoulders +were flawless. + +At first it appeared to Linda that he, too, had not changed. They were +in the library opening into the dining-room, a space shut against the +sun by the Venetian blinds, and faintly scented by a bowl of early tea +roses. He appeared the same--large and informally clad in gray flannels, +with aggressive features and sensitive strong hands. He was quiet but +plainly happy to be with her again and sat leaning forward on his knees, +watching her intently as she chose a seat. + +Then it slowly dawned on her that he had changed, yes--tragically. +Pleydon, in every way, was years older. His voice, less arbitrary, +had new depths of questioning, his mouth was more repressed, his face +notably sparer of flesh. He was immediately aware of the result of her +scrutiny. "I have been working like a fool," he explained. "A breath of +sickness, too, four years ago in Soochow. One of the damnable Asiatic +fevers that a European is supposed to be immune from. You are a miracle, +Linda. How long has it been--nearly eight years; you have two children +and Arnaud Hallet and yet you are the girl I met at Markue's. I wanted +to see you different, just a little, a trace of something that should +have happened to you. It hasn't. You're the most remarkable mother +alive." + +"If I am," she returned, "it is not as a success, or at least for me. +Lowrie and Vign are healthy, and happy enough; but I can't lose myself +in them, Dodge; I can't lose myself at all." + +He was quiet at this, the smoke of his cigarette climbing bluely in a +space with the aqueous stillness of a lake's depths. "The same," he went +on after a long pause; "nothing has touched you. I ought to be relieved +but, do you know, it frightens me. You are relentless. You have no +right, at the same time, to be beautiful. I have seen a great many +celebrated women at their best moments, but you are lovelier than any. +It isn't a simple affair of proportion and features--I wish I could hold +it in a phrase, the turn of a chisel. I can't. It's deathless romance in +a bang cut blackly across heavenly blue." He was silent again, and Linda +glad that he still found her attractive. She discovered that the misery +his presence once caused her had entirely vanished, its place taken +by an eager interest in his affairs, a lightness of spirit at the +realization that, while his love for her might have grown calm, no other +woman possessed it. + +At the dinner-table she listened--cool and fresh, Arnaud complained, +in spite of the heat--to the talk of the two men. By her side Elouise +Lowrie occasionally repeated, in a voice like the faint jangle of an old +thin piano, the facts of a family connection or a commendation of the +Dodges. Arnaud really knew a surprising lot, and his conversation with +Pleydon was strung with terms completely unintelligible to her. It +developed, finally, into an argument over the treatment of the acanthus +motive in rococo ornament. France was summoned against Spain; the +architectural degrading of Italy deplored.... It amazed her that any one +could remember so much. + + + + +XXVI + + +Linda without a conscious reason suddenly stopped the investigation of +her feeling for Pleydon. Even in the privacy of her thoughts an added +obscurity kept her from the customary clear reasoning. After dinner, +out in the close gloom of the garden, she watched the flicker of the +cigarettes. There was thunder, so distant and vague that for a long +while Linda thought she was deceived. She had a keen rushing sensation +of the strangeness of her situation here--Linda Hallet. The night was +like a dream from which she would stir, sigh, to find herself back again +in the past waiting for the return of her mother from one of her late +parties. + +But it was Arnaud who moved and, accompanying Elouise Lowrie, went into +the house for his interminable reading. Pleydon's voice began in a low +remembering tone: + +"What a fantastic place the Feldt apartment was, with that smothered +room where you said you would marry me. You must have got hold of Hallet +in the devil of a hurry. I've often tried to understand what happened; +why, all the time, you were upset--why, why, why?" + +"In a way it was because a ridiculous hairdresser burned out some of my +mother's front wave," she explained. + +"Of course," he replied derisively, "nothing could be plainer." + +She agreed calmly. "It was very plain. If you want me to try to tell you +don't interrupt. It isn't a happy memory, and I am only doing it because +I was so rotten to you. + +"Yes, I can see now that it was the hairdresser and a hundred other +things exactly the same. My mother, all the women we knew, did nothing +but lace and paint and frizzle for men. I used to think it was a game +they played and wonder where the fun was. There were even hints about +that and later they particularized and it made me as sick as possible. +The men, too, were odious; mostly fat and bald; and after a while, when +they pinched or kissed me, I wanted to die. + +"That was all I knew about love, I had never heard of any other--men +away from their families for what they called a good time and women +plotting and planning to give it to them or not give it to them. Then +mother, after her looks were spoiled, married Mr. Moses Feldt, and I +met Judith, who only existed for men and men's rooms and told me worse +things, I'm sure, than mother ever dreamed; and, on top of that, I met +you and you kissed me. + +"But it was different from any other; it didn't shock me, and it brought +back a thrill I have always had. I wanted, then, to love you, and have +you ask me to marry you, more than anything else in the world. I was +sure, if you would only be patient, that I could change what had hurt +me into a beautiful feeling. I couldn't tell you because I didn't +understand myself." She stopped, and Pleydon repeated, bitterly and +slow: + +"Fat old bald men; and I was one with them destroying your exquisite +hope." She heard the creak of the basket chair as he leaned forward, his +face masked in darkness. "Perhaps you think I haven't paid. + +"You will never know what love is unless I can manage somehow to make +you understand how much I love you. Hallet will have to endure your +hearing it. This doesn't belong to him; it has not touched the earth. +Every one, more or less, talks about love; but not one in a thousand, +not one in a million, has such an experience. If they did it would tear +the world into shreds. It would tear them as it has me. I realize the +other, the common thing--who experimented more! This has nothing to do +with it. A boy lost in the idealism of his first worship has a faint +reflection. Listen: + +"I can always, with a wish, see you standing before me. You +yourself--the folds of your sash, the sharp narrow print of your +slippers on the pavement or the matting or the rug, the ruffles about +your hands. I have the feeling of you near me with your breathing +disturbing the delicacy of your breast. There is the odor and shimmer of +your hair ... your lips move ... but without a sound. + +"This vision is more real than reality, than an opera-house full of +people or the Place Vendme; and it, you, is all I care for, all I think +about, all I want. I find quiet places and stay there for hours, with +you; or, if that isn't possible, I turn into a blind man, a dead man +warm again at the bare thought of your face. Listen: + +"I've been in shining heaven with you. I have been melted to nothing and +made over again, in you, good. We have been walking together in a new +world with rapture instead of air to breathe. A slow walk through dark +trees--God knows why--like pines. And every time I think of you it is +exactly as though I could never die, as though you had burned all the +corruption out of me and I was made of silver fire. And listen: + +"Nothing else is of any importance, now or afterward, you are now and +the hereafter. I see people and people and hear words and words, and I +forget them the moment they have gone, the second they are still. But I +haven't lost an inflection of your voice. When I work in clay or stone I +model and cut you into every surface and fold. I see you looking back at +me out of marble and bronze. And here, in this garden, you tried to give +me more--" + +The infinitely removed thunder was like the continued echo of his voice. +There was a stirring of the leaves above her head; and the light that +had shone against the house in Elouise Lowrie's window was suddenly +extinguished. All that she felt was weariness and a confused dejection, +the weight of an insuperable disappointment. She could say nothing. +Words, even Pleydon's, seemed to her vain. The solid fact of Arnaud, of +what Dodge, more than seven years before, had robbed her, put everything +else aside, crushed it. + +She realized that she would never get from life what supremely +repaid the suffering of other women, made up for them the failure of +practically every vision. She was sorry for herself, yes, and for Dodge +Pleydon. Yet he had his figures in metal and stone; his sense of the +importance of his work had increased enormously; and, well, there were +Lowrie and Vign; it would be difficult, every one agreed, to find +better or handsomer children. But they seemed no more than shadows or +colored mist. This terrified her--what a hopelessly deficient woman she +must be! But even in the profundity of her depression the old vibration +of nameless joy reached her heart. + + + + +XXVII + + +In the morning there was a telegram from Judith Feldt, saying that her +mother was dangerously sick, and she had lunch on the train for New +York. The apartment seemed stuffy; there was a trace of dinginess, +neglect, about the black velvet rugs and hangings. Her mother, she +found, had pneumonia; there was practically no chance of her recovering. +Linda sat for a short while by the elder's bed, intent upon a totally +strange woman, darkly flushed and ravished in an agonizing difficulty of +breathing. Linda had a remembered vision of her gold-haired and gay +in floating chiffons, and suddenly life seemed shockingly brief. A +serious-visaged clergyman entered the room as she left and she heard the +rich soothing murmur of a confident phrase. + +The Stella Condon who had become Mrs. Moses Feldt had had little time +for the support of the church; although Linda recalled that she had +uniformly spoken well of its offices. To condemn Christianity, she had +asserted, was to invite bad luck. She treated this in exactly the way +she regarded walking under ladders or spilling salt or putting on a +stocking wrong. Linda, however, had disregarded these possibilities of +disaster and, with them, religion. + +A great many people, she noticed, talked at length about it; women in +their best wraps and with expensive little prayer books left the hotels +for various Sunday morning services, and ministers came in later for +tea. All this, she understood, was in preparation for heaven, where +everybody, who was not in hell, was to be forever the same and yet +radiantly different. It seemed very vague and far away to Linda, and, +since there was such a number of immediate problems for her to consider, +she had easily ignored the future. When now, with her mother dying, it +was thrust most uncomfortably before her. + +She half remembered sentences, admonitions, of the godly--a woman had +once told her that dancing and low gowns were hateful in the sight of +God, some one else that playing-cards were an instrument of the devil. +Pleasure, she had gathered, was considered wrong, and she instinctively +put these opinions, together with a great deal else, aside as envious. + +That expressed her whole experience. She had never keenly associated the +thought of death with herself before, and she was unutterably revolted +by the impending destruction of her fine body, the delicate care +of which formed her main preoccupation in life. Age was supremely +distasteful, but this other ... she shuddered. + +Linda wanted desperately to preserve the whiteness of her skin, the +flexible black distinction of her hair, yes--her beauty. Here, again, +with other women the vicarious immortality of children would be +sufficient. But not for her. She was in the room that had been hers +before marriage, with her infinite preparations for the night at an +end; and, her hair loose across the blanched severity of her attire, +her delicately full arms bare, she clasped her cold hands in stabbing +apprehension. + +She would do anything, anything, to escape that repulsive fatality to +her lavished care. It was only to be accomplished by being good; and +goodness was in the charge of the minister. She saw clearly and at once +her difficulty--how could she go to a solemn man in a clerical vest and +admit that she was solely concerned by the impending loss of her beauty. +The promised splendor of heaven, in itself, failed to move her--it +threatened to be monotonous; and she was honest in her recognition that +charity, the ugliness of poverty, repelled her. Linda was certain that +she could never change in these particulars; she could only pretend. + +A surprising multiplication of such pretense occurred to her in people +regarded as impressively religious. She had seen men like that--she +vaguely thought of the name Jasper--going off with her mother in cabs +to dinners that must have been "godless." She wondered if this mere +attitude, the public show, were enough. And an instinctive response told +her that it was not. If all she had been informed about the future were +true she decided that her mother's chance was no worse than that of any +false display of virtue. + +She, Linda, could do nothing. + +The funeral ceremony with its set form--so inappropriate to her mother's +qualities--was even more remote from Linda's sympathies than was common +in her encounters. But Mr. Moses Feldt's grief appeared to her actual +and affecting. He invested every one with the purity of his own spirit. + +She left New York at the first possible moment with the feeling that she +was definitely older. The realization, she discovered, happened in +that way--ordinarily giving the flight of time no consideration it was +brought back to her at intervals of varying length. As she aged they +would grow shorter. + +The result of this experience was an added sense of failure; she tried +more than ever to overcome her indifference, get a greater happiness +from her surroundings and activity. Linda cultivated an attention to +Lowrie and Vign. They responded charmingly but her shyness with them +persisted in the face of her inalienable right to their full possession. +She insisted, too, on going about vigorously in spite of Arnaud's +humorous groans and protests. She forced herself to talk more to the +men attracted to her, and assumed, with disconcerting ease, an air of +sympathetic interest. But, unfortunately, this brought on her a rapid +increase of the love-making that she found so fatiguing. + +She studied her husband thoughtfully through the evenings at home, +before the Franklin stove, or, in summer, in the secluded garden. +Absolutely nothing was wrong with him; he had, after several deaths, +inherited even more money; and, in his deprecating manner where it was +concerned, devoted it to her wishes. Except for books, and the clothes +she was forced to remind him to get, he had no personal expenses. In +addition to the money he never offended her, his relationships and +manner were conducted with an inborn nice formality that preserved her +highest self-opinion. + +Yet she was never able to escape from the limitations of a calm +admiration; she couldn't lose herself, disregard herself in a flood of +generous emotion. When, desperately, she tried, he, too, was perceptibly +ill at ease. Usually he was undisturbed, but once, when she stood beside +him with her coffee cup at dinner, he disastrously lost his equanimity. +Tensely putting the cup away he caught her with straining hands. + +"Oh, Linda," he cried, "is it true that you love me! Do you really +belong to us--to Vign and Lowrie and me? I can't stand it if you won't +... some day." + +She backed away into the opening of a window, against the night, from +the justice of his desire; and she was cold with self-detestation as her +fingers touched the glass. Linda tried to speak, to lie; but, miserably +still, she was unable to deceive him. The animation, the fervor of his +longing, swiftly perished. His arms dropped to his side. An unbearable +constraint deepened with the silence in the room, and later he lightly +said: + +"You mustn't trifle with my ancient heart, Linda, folly and age--" + + + + +XXVIII + + +The only other quantity in her life was Dodge Pleydon. He wrote her +again, perhaps three months after the explanation of his love; but his +letter was devoted wholly to his work, and so technical that she had to +ask Arnaud to interpret it. He added: + +"That is the mind of an impressive man. He has developed +enormously--curious, so late in life. Pleydon must be fully as old as +myself. It's clear that he has dropped his women. I saw a photograph +of the Cotton Mather reproduced in a weekly, and it was as gaunt as a +Puritan Sunday. Brimmed with power. Why don't we see him oftener? Write +and say I'd like to contradict him again about the Eastlake period." + +He made no further reference to Pleydon then, and Linda failed to write +as Arnaud suggested. Though she wasn't disturbed at the possibility of +a continuation of his admissions of love she was weary of the thought of +its uselessness. Linda was, she told herself, damned by practicability. +Her husband used the familiar term of reproach, material. She didn't +in the least want to be. Circumstance, she had a feeling, had forced it +upon her. + +Arnaud, however, who had met Dodge Pleydon in Philadelphia, brought him +home. Linda saw with a strange constriction of the heart that Pleydon's +hair was definitely gray. He had had a recurrence of the fever +contracted in Soochow. The men at once entered on another discussion +which she was unable to follow; but it was clear that her husband +now listened with an increasing surrender of opinion to the sculptor. +Pleydon, it was true, was correspondingly more impatient with minds that +disagreed with his. He was at once thinner and bigger, his face deeply +lined; but his eyes had a steady vital intensity difficult to encounter. + +She considered him in detail as the talk left dinner, the glasses and +candles spent. He drank, from a tall tumbler with a single piece of +ice, the special whisky Arnaud kept. He had been neglecting himself, +too--there were traces of clay about his finger-nails, and he ate +hurriedly and insufficiently. When she had an opportunity, Linda +decided, she would speak to him about these necessary trifles. Then, she +had no chance; and it was not until the following winter, at a Thursday +afternoon concert during the yearly exhibition of the Academy of Fine +Arts, that she could gently complain. + +It was gloomy, with a promise of snow outside; and the great space of +the stairway to the galleries was filled with shadow and the strains +of _Armide_ echoing from the orchestra playing at the railing above +the entrance. Pleydon, together with a great many others, had spread +an overcoat on the masonry of the steps, and they were seated in the +obscurity of the balustrade. + +"You look as though you hadn't had enough to eat," she observed. "You +used to be almost thick but now you are a thing of terrifying grimness. +You look like a monk. I wonder why you're like a monk, Dodge?" + +"Linda Condon," he replied. + +"That can't be it now; I haven't been Linda Condon for years, but Mrs. +Arnaud Hallet. It's very pretty, of course, and I'd like to think +you could keep a young love alive so long. Experience makes me doubt +anything of the sort; but then I was always skeptical." + +"You have never been anyone else," he asserted positively. "You were +born Linda Condon and you'll die that, except for some extraordinary +accident. I can't imagine what it would be--a miracle like quaker-ladies +in the Antarctic." + +"It sounds uncomplimentary, and I'm sick of being compared with polar +places. What are quaker-ladies?" + +"Fragile little flowers in the spring meadows." + +"I'd rather listen to the music than you." + +"That is why loving you is so eternal, why it doesn't fluctuate like a +human emotion. You can't exhaust it and rest before a new tide sweeps +back; the timeless ecstasy of a worship of God ... breeding madness." + +She failed to understand and turned a troubled gaze to his bitter +repression. "I don't like to make you unhappy, Dodge," she said in a low +tone. "What can I do? I am a horrid disappointment to all of you, but +most to myself. I can't go over it again." + +"Beauty has nothing to do with happiness," he declared harshly. He rose, +without consulting her wishes; and Linda followed him as he proceeded +above, irresistibly drawn to the bronze he was showing in the Rotunda. + +It was the head and part of the shoulders of a very old woman, +infinitely worn, starved by want and spent in brutal labor. There was a +thin wisp of hair pinned in a meager knot on her skull; her bones were +mercilessly indicated, barely covered with drum-like skin; her mouth +was stamped with timid humility; while her eyes peered weakly from their +sunken depths. + +"Well?" he demanded, interrogating her in the interest of his work. + +"I--I suppose it's perfectly done," she replied, at a loss for a +satisfactory appreciation. "It's true, certainly. But isn't it more +unpleasant than necessary?" Pleydon smiled patiently. "Beauty," he said, +with his mobile gesture. "Pity, _Katharsis_--the wringing out of all +dross." + +The helpless feeling of her overwhelming ignorance returned. She was +like a woman held beyond the closed door of treasure. "Come over here." +He unceremoniously led her to the modeling of a ruffled grouse, faithful +in every diversified feather. Linda thought it admirable, really +amazing; but he dismissed it with a passionate energy. "The dull +figuriste!" he exclaimed. "Daguerre. Once I could have done that, yes, +and been entertained by its adroitness and insolence--before you made +me. Do you suppose I was able then to understand the sheer +tragic fortitude to live of a scrubwoman! The head you thought +unpleasant--haven't you seen her going home in the March slush of a +city? Did you notice the gaps in her shoes, the ragged shawl about a +body twisted with forty, fifty, sixty years of wet stone floors and +steps? Did you wonder what she had for supper?" + +"No, Dodge, I didn't. They always make me wretched." + +"Well, to realize all that, to feel the degradation of her nature, +to lie, sick with exhaustion, on the broken slats of her bed under a +ravelled-out travesty of a quilt, and get up morning after morning in +an iron winter dark--to experience that in your spirit and put it into +durable metal, hard stone--is to hold beauty in your hands." + +Her interest in his speech was mingled with the knowledge that, in order +to dress comfortably for dinner, she must leave immediately. Pleydon +helped her into the Hallet open motor landaulet. Linda demanded +quantities of air. He was, he told her at the door, leaving in an hour +for New York. "I wish you could be happier," she insisted. He reminded +her that he had had the afternoon with her. It was so little, she +thought, carried rapidly over a smooth wide street. His love for her +increased rather than lessened. How wonderful it was.... The woman +outside that barred door of treasure. + + + + +XXIX + + +Linda thought frequently about Dodge and his feeling for her; memories +of his words, his appearance, speculations, spread through her tranquil +daily affairs like the rich subdued pattern of a fine carpet on the +bare floor of her life. She was puzzled by the depth of a passion that, +apparently, made no demands other than the occasional necessity to be +with her and the knowledge that she existed. If she had been a very +intelligent woman, and, of course, not quite bad-looking, she might +have understood both Pleydon and Arnaud, the latter a man whose mind was +practically absorbed in the pages of books. There could be no doubt, no +question, of their love for her. + +Then there had always been the others--the men at the parties, in her +garden, through the old days of her childhood in hotels. It was very +stupid, very annoying, but at the same time she became interested +in what, with her candid indifference, affected them. She had never, +really, even when she desired, succeeded in giving them anything, +anything conscious or for which they moved. Judith Feldt, on the +contrary, had been prodigal. And, while certainly numbers of men had +been attracted to her, they all tired of her with marked rapidity. Men +met Judith, Linda recalled, with eagerness, they came immediately and +often to see her ... for, perhaps, a month. Then, temporarily deserted, +she was submerged in depression and nervous tears. + +But, while it was obviously impossible for all lovers to be constant, +two extraordinary and superior men would be faithful to her as long as +she lived, no--as long as they lived. This was beyond doubt. One was +celebrated--she watched with a quiet pride Pleydon's fame penetrate +the country--and the other, her husband, a person of the most exacting +delicacy of habits, intellect and wit. + +What was it, she wondered, that made the supreme importance of women to +men worth consideration. Linda was thinking of this now in connection +with her daughter. Vign was fourteen; a larger girl than she had ever +been, with her father's fine abundant cinnamon-brown hair, a shapely +sensitive mouth, and a wide brown gaze with a habit of straying, at +inappropriate moments, from things seen to the invisible. She was, Linda +realized thankfully, transparently honest; her only affectation was +the slight supercilious manner of her associations; and she read, +ridiculously like her father, with increasing pleasure. + +However, what engaged Linda most was the fact that Vign already liked +men; she had been at the fringe, as it were, of young dances, with a +sparkling satisfaction to herself and the securely nice youths who "cut +in" at her brief appearances. + +The truth was that Linda saw that more than a trace of Stella Condon's +warm generosity of emotion had been brought by herself to Arnaud's +daughter. The faults of every life, every circumstance, were endlessly +multiplied through all existence. At fourteen, it was Linda's frowning +impression, her mother had very fully instructed her in the wiles and +structure of admirable marriage, and she had never completely lost some +hard pearls of the elder's wisdom. Should she, in turn, communicate them +to Vign? + +The moment, the anxiety, she dreaded was arriving, and it found her no +freer of doubt than had the other aspects of her own responses. Yet +here she was possessed by the keenest need for absolute rectitude; and +perhaps this, she thought, with an unusual pleasure, was an evidence of +the affection she had seemed to lack. But in the end she said nothing. + +She was still unable to disentangle the flesh from the spirit, love--the +love that so amazingly illuminated Dodge Pleydon--from comfort. Dodge +had disturbed all her sense of values, even to the point of unsettling +her allegiance to the supremacy of a great deal of money. He had worked +this without giving her anything definite, that she could explain to +Vign, in return. Linda preserved her demand for the actual. If she +could only comprehend the force animating Dodge she felt life would be +clear. + +She was tempted to experiment--when had such a possibility occurred to +her before?--and discover just how far in several directions Pleydon's +devotion went. This would be easy now, she was unrestrained by the fact +of Arnaud, and the old shrinking from the sculptor happily vanished. Yet +with him before her, on one of his infrequent visits to their house, +she realized that her courage was insufficient. Was it that or something +deeper--a reluctance to turn herself like a knife in the source of the +profoundest compliment a woman could be paid. Linda thought too +highly of his love for that; the texture of the carpet had become too +gratifying. + +They were all three in the library, as customary; and Linda, restless, +saw her reflection in a closed long window. She was wearing yellow, the +color of the jonquils on a candle-stand; but with her familiar sash tied +and the ends falling to the hem of her skirt. The pointed oval of her +face was unchanged, her pallor, the straight line of her black bang, the +blueness of her eyes, were as they had been a surprisingly long while +ago. Arnaud, with a disconcerting comprehension, demanded, "Well, are +you satisfied?" She replied coolly, "Entirely." Pleydon, seated for +over an hour without moving, or even the trivial relief of a cigarette, +followed her with his luminous uncomfortable gaze, his disembodied +passion. + + + + +XXX + + +Linda heard Vign's laugh, the expression of a sheer lightness of heart, +following a low eager murmur of voices in her daughter's room, and she +was startled by its resemblance to the gay pitch of Mrs. Moses Feldt's +old merriment. Three of Vign's friends were with her, all approximately +eighteen, talking, Linda knew, men and--it was autumn--anticipating the +excitements of their bow to formal society that winter. They had, she +silently added, little enough to learn about the latter. Through the +year past they had been to a dancing-class identical, except for an +earlier hour and age, with mature affairs; but before that they had been +practically introduced to the pleasures of their inheritance. + +The men were really boys at the university, past the first year, +receptacles of unlimited worldly knowledge and experience. They belonged +to exclusive university societies and eating clubs, and Linda found +their stiff similarity of correct bigoted pattern highly entertaining. +She had no illusions about what might be called their morals; they were +midway in the period of youthful unrestraint; but she recognized as well +that their attitude toward, for example, Vign was irreproachable. Such +boys affected to disdain the girls of their associated families ... or +imagined themselves incurably in love. + +The girls, for their part, while insisting that forty was the ideal age +for a lover--the terms changed with the seasons, last year "suitor" had +been the common phrase--were occasionally swept in young company into a +high irrational passion. Mostly, through skillful adult pressure or firm +negation, such affairs came to nothing; but even these were sometimes +overcome. And, when Linda had been disturbed by the echo of old days in +her daughter's tones, she was considering exactly such a state. + +One of the nicest youths imaginable, Bailey Sandby, had lost all trace +of superior aloofness in a devotion to Vign. He was short, squarely +built, with clear pink cheeks, steady light blue eyes and crisp very +fair hair. This was his last season of academic instruction, after +which a number of years, at an absurdly low payment, awaited him in +his father's bond brokerage concern. However, he was, Linda gathered, +imperious in his urgent need for Vign's favor. + +Ridiculous, she thought, at the same time illogically rehearsing the +resemblances of Vign to her grandmother. She had no doubt that the +parties Vign shared on the terraces and wide lawns, in the informal +dancing at country houses, were sufficiently sophisticated; there was +on occasion champagne, and--for the masculine element anyhow--cocktails. +The aroma of wine, lightly clinging to her young daughter's breath, +filled her with an old instinctive sickness. + +She had spoken to Arnaud who, in turn, severely addressed Vign; +but during this Linda had been oppressed by the familiar feeling of +impotence. The girl, of course, had properly heard them; but she gave +her mother the effect of slipping easily beyond their grasp. When she +had gone to bed Arnaud repeated a story brought to him by the juvenile +Lowrie, under the influence of a temporary indignation at his sister's +unwarranted imposition of superiority. Arnaud went on: + +"Actually they had this kissing contest, it was at Chestnut Hill, with +a watch held; and Vign, or so Lowrie insisted, won the prize for length +of time--something like a minute. Now, when I was young--" + +Submerged in apprehensive memory Linda lost most of his account of +the Eden-like youth of his earlier day. When, at last, his assertions +pierced her abstraction, it was only to bring her to the realization of +how pathetically little he knew of either Vign or her. She weighed +the question of utter frankness here--the quality enhanced by universal +obscurity--but she was obliged to check her desire for perfect +understanding. A purely feminine need to hide, even from Arnaud, any +detracting facts about women shut her into a diplomatic silence. In +reality he could offer them no help; their problems--in a world +created more objectively by the hand of man than God--were singular to +themselves. Women were quite like spoiled captives to foreign princes, +masking, in their apparent complacency, a necessarily secret but +insidiously tyrannical control. It wouldn't do, in view of this, to +expose too much. + +The following morning it was Arnaud, rather than herself, who had a +letter from Pleydon. "He wants us to come over to New York and his +studio," the former explained. "He has some commission or other from a +city in the Middle West, and a study to show us. I'd like it very +much; we haven't seen this place, and his surroundings are not to be +overlooked." + +Pleydon's rooms were directly off Central Park West, in an apartment +house obviously designed for prosperous creative arts, with a hall +frescoed in the tones of Puvis de Chavannes and an elevator cage +beautifully patterned in iron grilling. Dodge Pleydon met them in his +narrow entry and conducted them into a pleasant reception-room. "It's a +duplex," he explained of his quarters; "the dining-room you see and the +kitchen's beyond, while the baths and all that are over our heads; the +studio fills both floors." + +There were low book cases with their continuous top used as a shelf for +a hundred various objects, deep long chairs of caressing ease and chairs +of coffee-colored wicker with amazingly high backs woven with designs of +polished shells into the semblance of spread peacocks' tails. The yellow +silk curtains at the windows, the rug with the intricate coloring of a +cashmere shawl, the Russian tea service, were in a perfection of order; +and Linda almost resentfully acknowledged the skilful efficiency of his +maid. It was surprising that, without a wife, a man could manage such a +degree of comfort! + +Over tea far better than hers, in china of an infinitely finer +fragility, she studied Pleydon thoughtfully. He looked still again +perceptibly older, his face continued to grow sparer of flesh, +emphasizing the aggressively bony structure of his head. When he shut +his mouth after a decided statement she could see the projection of the +jaw and the knotted sinews at the base of his cheeks. No, Dodge didn't +seem well. She asked if there had been any return of the fever and he +nodded in an impatient affirmative, returning at once to the temporarily +suspended conversation with Arnaud. There was a vast difference, too, in +the way in which he talked. + +His attitude was as assertive as ever, but it had less expression in +words; unaccountable periods of silence, almost ill-natured, overtook +him, spaces of abstraction when it was plain that he had forgotten the +presence of whoever might be by. Even direct questions sometimes failed +to pierce immediately his consciousness. Dodge, Linda told herself, +lived entirely too much alone. Then she said this aloud, thoughtlessly, +and she was startled by the sudden intolerable flash of his gaze. +An awkward pause followed, broken by the uprearing of Pleydon's +considerable length. + +"I must take you into the studio before it is too dark," he proceeded. +"Every creative spirit knows when its great moment has come. Well, mine +is here." The men stood aside as Linda, her head positively ringing with +the thrill that was like a strain of Gluck, the happy sadness, entered +the bare high spaciousness of Dodge Pleydon's workroom. + + + + +XXXI + + +Everything she saw, the stripped floor, the white walls bare but for +some casts like the dismembered fragments of flawless blanched bodies, +the inclined plane of the wide skylight, bore an impalpable white dust +of dried clay. In a corner, enclosed in low boards, a stooped individual +with wood-soled shoes and a shovel was working a mass of clay over which +at intervals he sprinkled water, and at intervals halted to make pliable +lumps of a uniform size which he added to a pile wrapped in damp cloths. +There were a number of modeling stands with twisted wires grotesquely +resembling a child's line drawing of a human being; while a stand with +some modeling tools on its edge bore an upright figure shapeless in its +swathing of dampened cloths. + +"The great moment," Pleydon said again, in a vibrant tone. "But you know +nothing of all this," he directly addressed Linda. "Neither, probably, +will you have heard of Simon Downige. He was born at Cottarsport, in +Massachusetts, about eighteen forty; and, after--in the support of his +hatred of any slavery--he fought through the Civil War, he came home +and found that his town stifled him. He didn't marry at once, as so many +returning soldiers did; instead he was wedded to a vision of freedom, +freedom of opinion, of spirit, worship--any kind of spaciousness +whatever. And, in the pursuit of that, he went West. + +"He told them that he was going to find--but found was the word--a place +where men could live together in a purity of motives and air. No more, +you understand; he hadn't a personal fanatical belief to exploit +and attract the hysteria of women and insufficient men. He was not a +pathological messiah; but only Simon Downige, an individual who couldn't +comfortably breathe the lies and injustice and hypocrisy of the ordinary +community. No doubt he was unbalanced--his sensitiveness to a universal +condition would prove that. Normally people remain undisturbed by such +trivialities. If they didn't an end would come to one or the other, the +lies or the world. + +"He traveled part way in a Conestoga wagon--a flight out of Egypt; they +were common then, slow canvas-covered processions with entire families +drawn by the mysterious magnetism of the West. Then, leaving even such +wayfarers, he walked, alone, until he came on a meadow by a little river +and a grove of trees, probably cottonwoods.... That was Simon Downige, +and that, too, was Hesperia. Yes, he was unbalanced--the old Greek +name for beautiful lands. It is a city now, successful and corruptly +administered--what always happens to such visions. + +"It is necessary, Linda, as I've always told you, to understand the +whole motive behind a creation in permanent form. A son of Simon's--yes, +he finally married--a unique and very rich character, wife dead and no +children, commissioned a monument to the founder of Hesperia, in Ohio, +and of his fortune. + +"They even have a civic body for the control of public building; and +they came East to approve my statue, or rather the clay sketch for it. +They were very solemn, and one, himself a sculptor, a graduate of the +Beaux Arts, ran a suggestive thumb over Simon and did incredible damage. +But, after a great deal of hesitation, and a description from +the sculptor of what he thought excellently appropriate for +such magnificence, they accepted my study. The present Downige, +really--though I understand there is another pretentious branch in +Hesperia--bullied them into it. He cursed the Beaux-Arts graduate with +the most brutal and satisfactory freedom--the tyranny of his money; the +crown, you see, of Simon's hope." + +He unwrapped one by one the wet cloths; and Linda, in an eagerness sharp +like anxiety, finally saw the statue, under life-size, of a seated man +with a rough stick and bundle at his feet. A limp hat was in his hand, +and, beneath a brow to which the hair was plastered by sweat, his eyes +gazed fixed and aspiring into a hidden dream perfectly created by his +desire. Here, she realized at last, she had a glimmer of the beauty, the +creative force, that animated Dodge Pleydon. Simon Downige's shoes were +clogged with mud, his entire body, she felt, ached with weariness; but +his gaze--nothing Linda discovered but shadows over two depressions--was +far away in the attainment of his place of justice and truth. + +She found a stool and, careless of the film of dust, sat absorbed in the +figure. Pleydon again had lost all consciousness of their presence; he +stood, hands in pockets, his left foot slightly advanced, looking at his +work from under drawn brows. Arnaud spoke first: + +"It's impertinent to congratulate you, Pleydon. You know what you've +done better than any one else could. You have all our admiration." Linda +watched the tenderness with which the other covered Simon Downige's +vision in clay. Later, returning home after dinner, Arnaud speculated +about Pleydon's remarkable increase in power. "I had given him up," he +went on; "I thought he was lost in those notorious debauches of esthetic +emotions. Does he still speak of loving you?" + +"Yes," Linda replied. "Are you annoyed by it?" He answered, "What +good if I were?" She considered him, turned in his chair to face +her, thoughtfully. "I haven't the slightest doubt of its quality, +however--all in that Hesperia of old Downige's. To love you, my dear +Linda, has certain well-defined resemblances to a calamity. If you ask +me if I object to what you do give him, my answer must shock the gods of +art. I would rather you didn't." + +"What is it, Arnaud?" she demanded. "I haven't the slightest idea. I +wish I had." + +"Platonic," he told her shortly. "The term has been hopelessly ruined, +yet the sense, the truth, I am forced to believe, remains." + +"But you know how stupid I am and that I can't understand you." + +"The woman in whom a man sees God," he proceeded irritably: + +"'_La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa, idea_.'" + +"Oh," she cried, wrung with a sharp obscure hurt. "I know that, I've +heard it before." Her excitement faded at her absolute inability to +place the circumstances of her memory. The sound of the words vanished, +leaving no more than the familiar deep trouble, the disappointing +sensation of almost grasping--Linda was unable to think what. + +"After all, you are my wife." He had recovered his normal shy humor. +"I can prove it. You are the irreproachable mother of our unsurpassed +children. You have a hopeless vision--like this Simon's--of seeing me +polished and decently pressed; and I insist on your continuing with the +whole show." + +Her mind arbitrarily shifted to the thought of her father, who had +walked out of his house, left--yes--his family, without any intimation. +Then, erratically, it turned to Vign, to Vign and young Sandby with +his fresh cheeks and impending penniless years acquiring a comprehension +of the bond market. She said, "I wonder if she really likes Bailey?" +Arnaud's energy of dismay was laughable, "What criminal folly! They +haven't finished Mother Goose yet." + + + + +XXII + + +Linda, who expected to see Pleydon's statue of Simon Downige finished +immediately in a national recognition of its splendor, was disappointed +by his explanation that, probably, it would not be ready for casting +within two years. He intended to model it again, life-size, before he +was ready for the heroic. April, the vivifying, had returned; and, +as always in the spring, Linda was mainly conscious of the mingled +assuaging sounds of life newly admitted through open windows. A single +shaded lamp was lighted by a far table, where Arnaud sat cutting the +pages of _The Living Age_ with an ivory blade; Dodge was blurred in the +semi-obscurity. + +He came over to see them more frequently now, through what he called the +great moment--so tiresomely extended--of his life. Pleydon came oftener +but he said infinitely less. It was his custom to arrive for dinner and +suddenly depart early or late in the evening. At times she went up +to her room and left the two almost morosely silent men to their own +thoughts or pages; at others she complained--no other woman alive would +stay with such uninteresting and thoroughly selfish creatures. They +never made the pretense of an effort to consider or amuse her. At this +Arnaud would put aside his book and begin an absurd social conversation +in the manner of Vign's associates. Pleydon, however, wouldn't speak; +nothing broke the somberness of his passionate absorption in invisible +tyrannies. She gave up, finally, a persistent effort to lighten his +moods. Annoyed she told him that if he did not change he'd be sick, and +then where would everything be. + +All at once, through the open window, she heard Stella, her mother, +laughing; the carelessly gay sound overwhelmed her with an instinctive +unreasoning dread. Linda rose with a half gasp--but of course it was +Vign in the garden with Bailey Sandby. + +She sank back angry because she had been startled; but her irritation +perished in disturbing thought. It wasn't, she told herself, Vign's +actions that made her fear the future so much as her, Linda's, knowledge +of the possibilities of the past. Her undying hatred of that existence +choked in her throat; the chance of its least breath touching Vign, +Arnaud's daughter, roused her to any embittered hazard. + +The girl, she was certain, returned a part at least of Bailey's feeling. +Linda expected no confidences--what had she done to have them?--and +Arnaud was right, affairs of the heart were never revealed until +consummated. Her conclusion had been reached by indirect quiet +deductions. Vign, lately, was different; her attitude toward her mother +had changed to the subtle reserve of feminine maturity. Her appearance, +overnight, it seemed, had improved; her color was deeper, a delicate +flush burned at any surprise in her cheeks, and the miracle of her body +was perfected. + +It wasn't, Linda continued silently, that Vign could ever follow the +example of Stella Condon through the hotels and lives of men partly +bald, prodigal, and with distant families. Whatever happened to her +would be in excellent surroundings and taste; but the result--the +sordid havoc, inside and out, the satiety alternating with the points +of brilliancy, and finally, inexorably, sweeping over them in a leaden +tide--would be identical. She wondered a little at the strength of her +detestation for such living; it wasn't moral in any sense with which she +was familiar; in fact it appeared to have a vague connection with her +own revolt from the destruction of death. She wanted Vign as well to +escape that catastrophe, to hold inviolate the beauty of her youth, her +fineness and courage. + +She was convinced, too, that if she loved Bailey, and was disappointed, +some of the harm would be done immediately; Linda saw, in imagination, +the pure flame of Vign's passion fanned and then arbitrarily +extinguished. She saw the resemblance of the dead woman, all those other +painted shades, made stronger. A sentence formed so vividly in her mind +that she looked up apprehensively, certain that she had spoken it aloud: + +If Vign does come to care for him they must marry. + +Her thoughts left the girl for Arnaud--he would absolutely oppose her +there, and she speculated about the probable length his opposition would +reach. What would he say to her? It couldn't be helped, in particular it +couldn't be explained, neither to him nor to the friendly correctness of +Bailey Sandby's mother. She, alone, must accept any responsibility, all +blame. + +The threatened situation developed more quickly than she had +anticipated. Linda met Bailey, obviously disturbed, in the portico, +leaving their house; his manner, mechanically, was good; and then, with +an irrepressible boyish rush of feeling, he stopped her: + +"Vign and I love each other and Mr. Hallet won't hear of it. He +insulted us with the verse about the old woman who went to the cupboard +to get a bone, and if he hadn't been her father--" he breathed a +portentous and difficult self-repression. "Then he took a cowardly +advantage of my having no money, just now; right after I explained how I +was going to make wads--with Vign." + +An indefinable excitement possessed Linda, accompanied by a sudden acute +fear of what Arnaud might say. She wanted more than anything else in +life to go quickly, inattentively, past Bailey Sandby and up to her +room. Nothing could be easier, more obvious, than her disapproval of a +moneyless boy. She made a step forward with an assumed resolute ignoring +of his disturbed presence. It was useless. A dread greater than her +fright at Arnaud held her in the portico, her hand lifted to the +polished knob of the inner door. Linda turned slowly, cold and white, +"Wait," she said to his shoulder in an admirable coat; then she gazed +steadily into his frank pained eyes. + +"How do you know that you love Vign?" she demanded. "You are so young +to be certain it will last always. And Vign--" + +"How does any one know?" he replied. "How did you? Married people always +forget their own experiences, the happy way things went with them. +From all I see money hasn't much to do with loving each other. But, of +course, I'm not going to be poor, not with Vign. Nobody could. She'd +inspire them. Mr. Hallet knows all about me, too; and he's the oldest +kind of a friend of the family. I suppose when he sees father at the +Rittenhouse Club they'll have a laugh--a laugh at Vign and me." His +hand, holding the brim of a soft brown hat, clenched tensely. + +"No," Linda told him, "they won't do that." Her obscure excitement was +communicated to him. "Why not?" he demanded. + +"Because," she paused to steady her voice, "because I am going to take a +very great responsibility. If it fails, if you let it fail, you'll ruin +ever so much. Yes, Mr. Hallet, I am sure, will consent to your marrying +Vign." She escaped at the first opening from his incoherent gratitude. +Arnaud was in the library, and she stopped in the hall, busy with the +loosening of her veil. Perhaps it would be better to speak to him after +dinner; she ought to question Vign first; but, as she stood debating, +her daughter passed her tempestuously, blurred with crying, and Arnaud +angrily demanded her presence. + + + + +XXXIII + + +"You were quite right," he cried; "this young idiot Sandby has been +telling Vign that he loves her; and now Vign assures me, with tears, +that she likes it! They want to get married--next week, tomorrow, this +evening." Linda stood by the window; soon the magnolia-tree would be +again laden with flowers. She gathered her courage into a determined +composure of tone. "I saw Bailey outside," she admitted. "He told me. It +seems excellent to me." + +Arnaud Hallet incredulously challenged her. "What do you mean--that you +gave him a trace of encouragement!" Linda replied: + +"I said that I was certain you would consent." She halted his +exasperated gesture. "You think Vign is nothing but a child, and yet +she is as old as I was at our wedding. My mother was no older when +Bartram Lowrie married her. I think Vign is very fortunate, Bailey is +as nice as possible; and, as he said, it isn't as if you knew nothing of +the Sandbys; they are as dignified as the Lowries." + +An expression she had never before seen hardened his countenance into +a sarcasm that travestied his customary humor. "You realize, of course, +that except for what his father gives him young Sandby is wretchedly +poor. He's nice enough but what has that to do with it? And, in +particular, how does it touch you, Linda Condon? Do you suppose I can +ever forget your answer that time I first asked you to marry me? You +wouldn't consider a poor man; you were worth, really, a hundred thousand +a year; but, if nothing better came along, you might sacrifice yourself +for fifty." + +"I remember very well," she answered; "and, curiously enough, I am +not ashamed. I was very sensible then, in a horrible position with +extravagant habits. They were me. I couldn't change myself. Without +money I should have made you, any man, entirely miserable. Arnaud, I +hadn't--I haven't now--the ability to see everything important through +the affections, like so many many women. You often told me that; who +hasn't? I have always admitted it wasn't pleasant nor praiseworthy. But +how, to use your own words, does all that affect Vign? She isn't cold +but very warm-hearted; and, instead of my experience, she has her own so +much better feeling." + +"I absolutely refuse to allow anything of the sort," he declared +sharply. "I won't even discuss it--for three years. Tell this Sandby +infant, if you like, to come back then." + +"In three years, or in one year, Vign may be quite different, yes-less +lovable. Happiness, too, is queer, Arnaud; there isn't a great deal of +it. Not an overwhelming amount. If it appears for an instant it must be +held as tightly as possible. It doesn't come back, you know. Don't turn +to your book yet--you can't get rid of us, of Vign and me, like that; +and then it's rude; the first time, I believe, you have ever been +impolite to me." + +"Forgive me," he spoke formally. "You seem to think that I am as +indifferent as yourself. You might be asking the day of the week to +judge from your calm appearance. The emotion of a father, or even of +a mother, perhaps, you have never explored. On the whole you are +fortunate. And you are always protected by your celebrated honesty." She +said: + +"I promised Bailey your consent." + +"Why bother about that? It isn't necessary for your new romantic mood. +An elopement, with you to steady the ladder, would be more appropriate." + +She repeated the fact of her engagement. Her dread for him had vanished, +its place now taken by a distrust of what, in her merged detachment and +suffering, she might blunderingly do. At the back of this she realized +that his case, his position, was hopeless. Without warning, keen and +undimmed, his love for her flashed through his resentful misery. There +was no spoken acknowledgement of surrender; he sank into his chair +dejected and pitiable, infinitely gray. His shoes, on the brightness of +the hooked rug, were dingy, his coat drawn and wrinkled. + +Linda saw herself on her knees before him, before his patience and +generosity, sobbing her contrition into his forgiving hands. She +longed with every nerve--as she had so often before--to lose herself in +passionate emotion. She had never been more erect or withdrawn, never +essentially less touched. After a little, waiting for him to speak, +she saw that he, too, had retreated into the profound depths of his own +illusions and despairs. + + + + +XXXIV + + +For a surprising while--even in the face of Vign's radiance--Arnaud +was as still and shadowed as the inert surface of a dammed stream. Then +slowly, the slenderest trickle at first, his wit revived his spirit; and +he opened an unending mock-solemn attack on Bailey Sandby's eminently +serious acceptance of the responsibilities of his allowed love. + +The boy had left the university, and his father--a striking replica of +Arnaud's prejudices, impatience and fundamental kindness--exchanged with +Vign's male parent the most dismal prophecies together with concrete +plans for their children's future security. This, inevitably, resulted +in Vign's marriage; a ceremony unattended by Pleydon except by the +presence of a very liberal check. + +The life-size version of his Simon Downige was again under way--it had +been torn down, Linda knew, more than once--and he was in a fever of +composition. Nor was this, she decided with Arnaud, his only oppression: +the Asiatic fever clung to him with disquieting persistence. Pleydon +himself admitted he had a degree or two in the evening. + +Linda was seated in his studio near Central Park West, perhaps a year +later, and she observed aloud that so much wet clay around was bad for +him. He laughed: nothing now could happen to him, he was forever beyond +accident, sickness, death--his statue for the monument in Hesperia was +finished. It stood revealed before them, practically as Linda had first +seen it, but enlarged, towering, as if the vision it portrayed had +grown, would continue to grow eternally, because of the dignity of its +hope, the necessity of its realization. + +"Now," she said, "it will go to the foundry and be cast." He corrected +her. "You will go to the foundry and be cast ... in bronze." A distinct +graceful happiness possessed her at the knowledge that his love for her +was as constant as though it, too, were metal. Not flesh but bronze, +spirit, he insisted. + +The multiplying years made that no more comprehensible than when, a +child, she had thrilled in a waking dream. Love, spirit, death. Three +mysteries. But only one, she thought, was inevitably hers, the last. To +be loved was not love itself, but only the edge of its cloak; +response was an indivisible part of realization. No, sterility was the +measure--of its absence. And she was, Linda felt, in spite of Vign and +Lowrie, the latter a specially vigorous contradiction, the most sterile +woman alive. There were always Dodge's assurances, but clay, stone, +metal, were cold for a belief to embrace. And she was, she knew, +lovelier now than she had ever been before, than she would ever be +again. + + + + +XXXV + + +The faint ringing of the bell from outside that probably announced +Arnaud sounded unreal, futile, to Linda. He came into the studio, and +at once a discussion began between the two men of the difference in +the surfaces of clay and bronze. The talk then shifted to the pictorial +sources of the heroic Simon Downige before them, and Linda declared, +"Dodge, you have never made a head of me. How very unflattering!" + +"You're an affair for a painter," he replied; "Goya or Alfred Stevens. +No one but Goya could have found a white for you, with the quality of +flower petals; and Stevens would have fixed you in an immortality of +delicate color, surrounded by your Philadelphia garden." He stood quite +close to her, with his jacket dragged forward by hands thrust into its +pockets, and he added at the end of a somber interrogation, "But if you +would really like to know why--" + +In a moment more, she recognized, Dodge would explain his feeling for +her--to Arnaud, to any one who might be present. The gleam in his +eyes, his remoteness from earthly concern, were definitely not normal. +Pleydon, his love, terrified her. "No," she said with an assumed hurried +lightness, "don't try to explain. I must manage to survive the injury to +my vanity." + +They left New York almost immediately, Pleydon suddenly determining to +go with them; and later were scattered through the Hallet household. +Vign and her husband were temporarily living there; with their heads +close together they were making endless computations, numerous floor +plans and elevations. Linda, at the piano in the drawing-room, could +hear them through the hall. Pleydon was lounging in a chair beyond her. +She couldn't play but she was able, slowly, to pick out the notes +of simple and familiar airs--echoes of Gluck and blurred motives of +Scarlatti. It was for herself, she explained; the sounds, however crude +and disconnected, brought things back to her. What things, she replied +to Pleydon's query, she didn't in the least know; but pleasant. + +The fact that she understood so little depressed her with increasing +frequency. It was well enough to be ignorant as a girl, or even as a +young woman newly married; but she had left all that behind; she had +lost her youth without any compensating gain of knowledge. Linda could +not assure herself that life was clearer than it had been to her serious +childhood. It had always been easily measured on the surface; she +had had a very complete grasp of its material aspects almost at once, +accomplishing exactly what she had planned. Perhaps this was all; +and her trouble an evidence of weakness--the indecision, she saw +with contempt, that kept so many people in a constant agitation of +disappointment. + +Perhaps this was enough; more than the majority had or accomplished. She +made, again, a resolute effort to be contented, at rest. Her straying +fingers clumsily wrought a fragmentary refrain that mocked her +determination. It wasn't new, this--this dissatisfaction; but it had +grown sharper. As she was older her restlessness increased at the +realization that life, opportunity, were slipping from her. Soon she +would be forty. + +The conviction seized her that most lives reflected hers in that their +questioning was never answered. The fortunate, then, were the incurious +and the hearts undisturbed by a maddening thrill. She said aloud, "The +ones who never heard music." Pleydon was without a sign that she had +spoken. Her emotions were very delicate, very fragile, and enormously +difficult to perceive. They were like plants in stony ground. Where had +she heard that--out of the Bible? Then she thought of her failure to get +anything from religion--a part of her inability to drink at the springs +which others declared so refreshing. Linda pressed her hands more +sharply on the keys and the answering discord had the effect of waking +her to reality. + +Pleydon remained until the following afternoon, and then was lost--in +the foundry casting his statue--for six months. Arnaud went over to view +the completion of the bronze and returned filled with enthusiasm. "Its +simplicity is the surprising part," he told her. "The barest statement +possible. But Pleydon himself is in a disturbing condition; I can't +decide if it is mental or physical. The fever of course; yet that +doesn't account for his distance from ordinary living. The truth is, I +suppose, that men weren't designed for great arts, and nature, like +the jealous God of the Hebrews, retaliates. It is absurd, but Pleydon +reminds me of you; you're totally different. I suppose it's because of +the detachment you have in common." He veered to a detail of Lowrie's +first year at a university, and exhibited, against a decent endeavor to +the contrary, his boundless pride in their son. + +The boy was, Linda acknowledged, more than commonly dependable and +able. He was heavy, like his father, and so diffident that he almost +stuttered; but his mental processes flashed in quick intuitive +perceptions. Lowrie was an easy and brilliant student; and, perhaps +because of this, of his mental certainty, he was not intimate with +her as Arnaud had hoped and predicted. It seemed to Linda that he +instinctively penetrated her inner doubt and regarded it without +sympathy. In this he was her son. Lowrie was a confident and +unsympathetic critic of humanity. + +Even now, so soon, there was no question of his success in the law his +fitness had elected. The springs of his being were purely intellectual, +reasoning. In him Linda saw magnified her own coldness; and, turned on +herself, she viewed it with an arbitrary feminine resentment. He was +actually courteous to her; but under all their intercourse there was a +perceptible impatience. His scorn of other women, girls, however, was +openly expressed and honest; it had no trace of the mere affectation +of pessimism natural to his age. Arnaud, less thoughtful than she, was +vastly entertained by this, and drew Lowrie out in countless sly sallies +and contradictions. + +Yes, he would succeed, but, after all, what would his success be +worth--placed, that was, against Vign's radiant happiness, Bailey +Sandby's quiet eyes and the quality of his return home each evening? + +Her thoughts came back to Pleydon--she had before her a New York paper +describing the ceremony of unveiling his Simon Downige at Hesperia. +There was a long learned article praising its beauty and emphasizing +Pleydon's eminence. He was, it proceeded, an anomaly in an age of +momentary experimental talents--a humanized Greek force. He didn't +belong to to-day but to yesterday and to-morrow. This gave her an +uncomfortable vision of Dodge in space, with no warm points of contact. +She, too, was suspended in that vague emptiness. Linda had the sensation +of grasping at streamers, forms, of sparkling mist. A strange position +in view of her undeniable common sense, the solid foundations of her +temperament and experience. She saw from the paper, further, that the +Downige who had commissioned the monument was dead. + + + + +XXXVI + + +In the middle of the festive period that connected Christmas with the +new year Arnaud turned animatedly from his breakfast scanning of the +news. "It seems," he told her, "that a big rumpus has developed in +Hesperia over the Pleydon statue--the present Downige omnipotence, never +friendly with our old gentleman, has condemned its bronze founder. +You know what I mean. It's an insult to their pride, their money and +position, to see him perpetuated as a tramp. On the contrary he was a +very respectable individual from a prominent family and town. + +"They have been moving the local heavens, ever since the monument was +placed, to have it set aside. I suppose they would have succeeded, +too, if a large amount given to the city were not contingent on its +preservation. But then they can always donate more money in the cause of +their sacred respectability." + +Linda had never, she exclaimed, heard of anything more disgusting. It +was plain that Hesperia knew nothing of art. "Every one," she ran on +in the heat of her resentment, "every one, that is, who should decide, +agrees it's magnificent. They were frightfully lucky to get it--Dodge's +finest work." She wrote at once to Pleydon commanding his presence and +expressing her contempt of such depravity of opinion. To her surprise he +was undisturbed, apparently, by the condemnation of his monument. + +He even laughed at her energy of scorn. She was hurt, perceptibly +silenced, with a feeling of having been misunderstood or rather +undervalued. Her disturbance at any blame attached to the statue of +Simon Downige was extremely acute. But, she thought, if it failed to +worry Dodge why should she bother. She did, in spite of this philosophy; +Simon was tremendously important to her. + +He stood for things: she had watched his evolution from the clay sketch, +and in Pleydon's mind, to the final heroic proportions; and she had +taken for granted that a grateful world would see him in her light. +A woman, she decided, had made the trouble; and she hated her with a +personal vigor. Pleydon said: + +"I told you that old Simon was unbalanced; now you can see it by his +reception in a successful city. The sculptor--do you remember him, a +Beaux-Arts graduate?--admits that he had always opposed it, but that +political motives overbore his pure protest. There is a scheme now to +build a pavilion, for babies, and shut out the monument from open view. +They may do that but time will sweep away their walls. If I had +modeled Simon Downige, yes, he would go; but I modeled his vision, his +aspiration--the hope of all men for release and purity. + +"Downige and the individual babies are unimportant compared to a vision +of perfection, of escape. As long as men live, if they live, they'll +reach up; and that gesture in itself is heaven. Not accomplishment. The +spirit dragging the flesh higher; but spirit alone--empty balloons. A +dream in bronze, harder even than men's heads, more durable than their +prejudices, so permanent that it will wear out their ignorance; and in +the end--always in the end--they'll bring their wreath. + +"A replica has gone to Cottarsport, from me; and you ought to see +it there, on a block of New England granite. It's in the Common, a +windswept reach with low houses and a white steeple and the sea. It +might have been there from the beginning, rising on rock against the +pale salt day. They can go to hell in Hesperia." + +Still Linda's hurt persisted; she saw the unfortunate occurrence as a +direct blow at her pride. Arnaud, too, failed her; he was splendid in +his assault upon such rapacious stupidity; but it was only an impersonal +concern. His manner expressed the conviction that it might have been +expected. He was blind to her special enthusiasm, her long intimate +connection with the statue. Exasperated she almost told him that it was +more real to her than their house, than Vign and Lowrie, than he. She +was stopped, fortunately, by the perception that, amazingly, the statue +was more actual than Dodge Pleydon. It touched the center of her life +more nearly. + +Why, she didn't know. + +If her mental confusion increased by as much as a feeling, Linda +thought, she would be close to madness. It was unbearable at practically +forty. + +Lowrie said, at the worst possible moment, that he found the entire +episode ridiculously overemphasized. A statue more or less was of small +importance. If the Downige family were upset why didn't they employ +an able lawyer to dispose of it? There were many ways for such a +proceeding-- + +"I have no desire to hear them," she interrupted. "You seem to know a +tremendous lot, but what good it will do you in the end who can say! +And, with all your cleverness, you haven't an ounce of appreciation for +art. Besides, I hate to see any one as young as you so sure of himself. +Often I suspect you are patronizing your father and me. It's not pretty +nor polite." + +Lowrie was obviously embarrassed by her attack, and managed the abrupt +semblance of an apology. Arnaud, who had put down his eternal book, said +nothing until the boy had vanished. "Wasn't that rather sharp?" he +asked mildly. "Perhaps," she replied in a tone without warmth or regret. +"Somehow I am never comfortable with Lowrie." + +"You are too much alike," he shrewdly observed. "It is laughable at +times. Did you expect your children to be fountains of sentiment? +And, look here--if I can get along in comfort with you for life you in +particular ought to put up peacefully with Lowrie. He is a damned sight +more human than, at bottom, you are; a woman of alabaster." + +"I loathe quarrels," she admitted; "they are so vulgar. You know that +they are not like me and just said so. Oh, Arnaud, why does life get +harder instead of easier?" + +He put his book aside completely and gazed at her in patient thought. +"Linda," he said finally, "I have never heard anything that stirred me +so much; not what you said, my dear, but the recognition in your voice." +A wistfulness of love for her enveloped him; an ineffable desire as vain +as the passion she struggled to give him in return. She smiled in an +unhappiness of apology. + +"Perhaps--" he stopped, waiting any assurance whatever, his face eager +like a dusty lamp in which the light had been turned sharply up. She was +unable to stir, to move her gaze from his hopeful eyes, to mitigate by a +breath her slender white aloofness. A smile different from hers, +tender with remission, lingered in his fading irradiation. The dusk was +gathering, adding its melancholy to his age--sixty-five now. Why that +was an old man! Her sympathy vanished in her shrinking from the twilight +that was, as well, slowly, inevitably, deepening about her. + +It was laughable that, as she approached an age whose only resource +was tranquillity, she grew more restless. Her present vague agitation +belonged ridiculously to youth. The philosophy of the evident that had +supported her so firmly was breaking at the most inopportune time. And +it was, she told herself, too late for anything new; the years for +that had been spent insensibly with Arnaud. Linda was very angry with +herself, for, in all her shifting state of mind, she preserved an inner +necessity for the quality of exactness expressed in her clothes. There +were literally no neglected spaces in her conscious living. + +Her thoughts finally centered about the statue in Hesperia--it presented +an actual mark for her fleeting resentments. She wondered why it so +largely occupied her thoughts, moved her so personally. She watched the +papers for the scattered reports of the progress of the contention it +had roused, some ill-natured, others supposedly humorous, and nearly +all uninformed. She became, Arnaud said, the champion of the esthetic +against Dagon. He elaborated this picture until she was forced to smile +against her inclination, her profound seriousness. Linda had the feeling +that she, too, was on the pedestal that held the bronze effigy of Simon +Downige challenging the fog that obscured men. Its fate was hers. She +didn't pretend to explain how. + +As time passed it seemed to her that it took her longer and longer to +dress in the morning, while her preparations couldn't be simpler; her +habit of deliberation had become nearly a vice, the precision of her +ruffles, her hair, a tyranny. She never quite lost the satisfaction of +her mirror's faultless reflection; and stopped, now, for a moment's +calm interrogation of the being--hardly more silvery cool than the +reality--before her. + +Arnaud was at the table, and the gaze with which he met her was +troubled. The morning paper, she saw, was, against custom, at her place, +and she picked it up with an instinctive sense of calamity. The blackly +printed sensational headline that immediately established her fear sank +vivid and entire into her brain: an anonymous inflamed mob in Hesperia +had pulled down and destroyed Pleydon's statue. Their act was described +as a tribute to the liberality of the present Downige family in the +light of its objection to the monument. + +As if in the development of her feeling Linda had a sensation of +crashing with a sickening violence from a pedestal to the ground. +Actually, it seemed, the catastrophe had happened to her. She heard, +with a sense of inutility, Arnaud denouncing the outrage; he had a +pencil in his hand for the composition of a telegram to Dodge. He +paid--but perhaps only naturally--no attention to her, suffering dully +from her fall. She shuddered before the recreated lawless approaching +voice of the mob; the naked ugly violence froze her with terror; she +felt the gross hurried hands winding ropes about her, the rending +brutality of force-- + +She sat and automatically took a small carved glass of orange-juice +from a bed of ice, and her chilled fingers recalled a dim image of her +mother. Arnaud was speaking, "I'm afraid this will cut through Pleydon's +security, it was such a wanton destruction of his unique power. You see, +he worked lovingly over the cast with little files and countless finite +improvements. The mold, I think, was broken. What a piece of luck the +thing's at Cottarsport." He paused, obviously expecting her to comment; +but suddenly phrases failed her. + +In place of herself she should be considering Dodge; her sympathy even +for him was submerged in her own extraordinary injury. However, she +recovered from her first gasping shock, and made an utterly commonplace +remark. Never had her sense of isolation been stronger. "I must admit," +her husband continued, "that I looked for some small display of concern. +I give you my word there are moments when I think Pleydon himself cut +you out of stone. He isn't great enough for that, though; in the way +of perfection you successfully gild the lily. A thing held to be +impossible." + +Linda told him with amazing inanity that his opinion of her was +unreliable; and, contented, he lightly pursued his admiration of what +he called her boreal charm. At intervals she responded appropriately +and proceeded with breakfast. She had entered a region of dispassionate +consideration, her characteristic detachment, she thought, regained. She +mentally, calmly, reconstructed the motives and events that had led to +the destruction of the statue; they, at least, were evident to her. +She reaffirmed silently her conviction that it had resulted from the +stupidity, the vanity, of a woman. The limitations of men, fully as +narrow, operated in other directions. + +Then, with an incredulous surprise, she was aware that the clear space +of her reason was filling with anger. Never before had such a flood +of emotion possessed her; and she surrendered herself, in an +enormous relief, to the novelty of its obliterating tide. It deepened +immeasurably, sweeping her far from the security of old positions of +indifference and critical self-possession. Linda became enraged at +a world that had concentrated all its degraded vulgarity in one +unspeakable act. + + + + +XXXVII + + +It was fall, October, and the day was a space of pale gold foliage +wreathed in blue garlands of mist. The gardener was busy with a wooden +rake and wheelbarrow in which he carted away dead leaves for burning. +The fire was back of the low fence, in the rear, and Linda, at the +dining-room window, could hear the fierce small crackle of flames; the +drifting pungent smoke was like a faint breath of ammonia. Arnaud had +left for the day, Lowrie was at the university, while Vign and her +husband--moving toward their ultimate colonial threshold--had taken a +small house. She was alone. + +As usual. + +However, in her present state her solitude had lost its inevitability; +she failed to see why it must continue until the end of time. She could +no longer discover a sufficient reason for her limitless endurance, +her placid acceptance of all that chance, or any inconsiderable person, +happened to dictate. She wasn't like that in the least. Her temper had +solidified as though it were ice, taking everywhere the form in which +it was held. It was a reality. She determined, as well, that her feeling +should not melt back into the familiar acceptance of a routine that had +led her blindfolded across such an extent of life. + +She understood now, in a large part, her disturbance at the indignity +to Dodge's monument--he had assured her that she was its inspiration; +except for her it would never have been realized, he would have kept +on modeling those Newport fountains, continued with the Susanna Nodas, +spending himself ignobly. He loved her, and that love had resulted in a +statue the world of art, of taste, honored. But it was she all the while +they were approving, discussing, writing about, Linda Condon. + +She had always been that, Pleydon had informed her, never Linda +Hallet--in spite of Arnaud and their children. It sounded like nonsense; +but, at the bottom, it was truth. Of course it couldn't be explained, +for example, to the man who had every right, every evidence, to consider +himself her husband. Nothing was susceptible of explanation. Absolutely +nothing! There was the earth, which appeared to be everything, the +houses you entered, the streets you passed over, the people among whom +you lived, yet that wasn't all. Heavens, no! It was quite unimportant +compared with--with other facts latent in the mind and blood. + +Dodge Pleydon's love was one of those other facts; it was simply +impossible to deny its existence, its power. Dodge had been totally +changed by it, born over again. But she, who had been the source, had +had no good from it, nothing except the thrill that had always been +hers. No one knew of it, counted it as her achievement, paid the +slightest attention to her. Arnaud smiled indulgently, Lowrie scoffed. +When the statue had been thrown down they thought of it merely as a +deplorable part of the day's news. They hadn't seen that she, Linda +Condon, was unspeakably insulted. + +She doubted if she could bring them to comprehend what had happened--to +her. Or if Arnaud understood, if she made it plain, what good would be +done! That wouldn't save her, put her back again on the pedestal. The +latter was necessary. Linda recognized that a great deal of her feeling +was based on pride; but it was a pride entirely justified. She had no +intention of submitting to the coarse hands and ropes of public affront. +Throughout her life she had rebelled against any profanation of her +person, she had hated to be touched. + +Every instinct, she found, every delicate self-opinion, was bound into +Pleydon's success; the latter had kept her alive. Without it existence +would have been intolerable. It was unbearable now. + +She discharged the small daily duties of her efficient housekeeping with +a contemptuous exactness; for years she had accomplished, in herself, +nothing more. But at last a break had come. Linda recognized this +without any knowledge of what reparation it would find. She wasn't +concerned with that, a small detail. It would be apparent. Arnaud +was silent through dinner; tired, it seemed. She saw him as if at the +distant end of a dull corridor--as she looked back. There was no change +in her liking for him. Mechanically she noticed the disorder of his +scant hair and rumpled sleeves. + +Not until, waking sharply, in the middle of the night, did she have a +glimpse of a possible course--she might live with Dodge and perfectly +express both her retaliation and her accomplishment. In that way she +would reestablish herself beside him and place their vision in bronze on +an elevation beyond the spite of the envious and the blind. + +It was so directly simple that she was surprised it hadn't occurred +to her before. The possibility had always been a part, unsuspected and +valuable, of her special being; the largely condemned faults of +her character and experience had at least brought her this--a not +inconsiderable freedom in a world everywhere barred by the necessity +for upholding a hypocritical show of superiority to honest desire. The +detachment that deprived her of life's conventional joys released +her from its common obligations. That conviction, however, was too +intimately connected with all her inheritance to bring her any conscious +dramatic sense of rebellion or high feeling of justified indignation. + +Sleep had deserted her, and she waited for the dawn in the windows that +would bring her escape. It was very slow coming; the blackness took on +a grayer tone, like ink with added faint infusions of water. Slowly the +blackness dissolved and she heard the stir of the sparrows in the ivy. +There was the passing rumble of an early electric car on the paved aged +street, the blurred hurried shuffle of a workman's clumsy shoes. The +brightening morning was cool with a premonitory touch of frost; at the +window she saw a vanishing silver sheen on the lawn and board fence. + +A sensation of youth pervaded her; and while, perhaps, it was out of +keeping with her years, she had still her vitality unspent; she was +without a trace of the momentary frost on the grass. She was tranquil, +leisurely; her heart evenly sent its life through her unflushed body. +Piece by piece she put on her web-like garments, black and white; +brushing the heavy stream of her hair and tying the inevitable sash +about her supple waist. + +Below she met Arnaud with an unpleasant shock--she hadn't given him +a thought. Her feeling now was hardly more than annoyance at her +forgetfulness. He would be terribly distressed at her going, and she was +genuinely sorry for this, poised at the edge of an explanation of her +purpose. Arnaud was putting butter and salt into his egg-cup, after +that he would grind the pepper from a French mill--pure spices were a +precision of his--and she waited until the operation was completed. + +Then it occurred to her that all she could hope to accomplish by +admitting her intention was the ruin of his last hour alone with her. +He was happier, gayer, than usual. But his age was evident in his voice, +his gestures. Linda marveled at her coldness, her ruthless disregard of +Arnaud's claim on her, of his affection as deep as Pleydon's, perhaps no +less fine but not so imperative. Yet Arnaud had had over twenty years of +her life, the best; and she had never deceived him about the quality +of her gift. It was right, now, for Dodge to have the remainder. +But whether it were right or wrong, there was no failure of her +determination to go to Pleydon in the vindication of her existence. + +She delayed speaking to Arnaud until, suddenly, breakfast was over. He +seldom went to the law office where he had been a partner, but stayed +about the lower floor of his house, in the library or directing small +outside undertakings. Either that or he left, late, for the Historical +Society, with which his connection and interest were uninterrupted. +As Linda passed him in the hall he was fumbling in the green bag that +accompanied all his journeyings into the city; and she gathered that he +intended to make one of his occasional sallies. She proceeded above, +to her room, where with steady hands she pinned on her hat. It would +be impossible to take any additional clothes, and she'd have to content +herself with something ready-made until she could order others in +the establishment of her living with Dodge. Her close-fitting jacket, +gloves, and a short cape of sables were collected; she gazed finally, +thoughtfully, about the room, and then, with a subdued whisper of +skirts, descended the stair. Arnaud was in the library, bending over +the table that bore his accumulation of papers and serious journals. A +lingering impulse to speak was overborne by the memory of what, lately, +she had endured--she saw him at the dusty end of that long corridor +through which she had monotonously journeyed, denied of her one triumph, +lost in inconsequential shadows--and she continued firmly to the door +which closed behind her with a normal mute smoothness, an inanimate +silence. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +The maid who admitted Linda to Pleydon's apartment, first replying, +"Yes, Mrs. Hallet. No, Mrs. Hallet," to her questions, continued in +fuller sentences expressing a triumph of sympathy over mere correctness. +She lingered at the door of the informal drawing-room, imparting the +information that Mr. Pleydon had become very irregular indeed about his +meals, and that his return for lunch was uncertain. Something, however, +would be prepared for her. Linda acknowledged this briefly. Often, with +Mr. Pleydon at home, he wouldn't so much as look at his dinner. Times, +too, it seemed as though he had been in the studio all night. He went +out but seldom now, and rarely remained away for more than an hour or +two. Linda heard this without an indication of responsive interest, +and the servant, returning abruptly from the excursion into humanity, +disappeared. + +She was glad to have this opportunity alone to accustom herself to a +novel position. But she was once more annoyingly calm. Annoyingly, she +reiterated; the fervor of her anger, which at the same time had been +bitterly cold, had lessened. She was practically normal. She regarded +this, the loss of her unprecedented emotion, in the light of a fraud on +her sanguine decision. Linda had counted on its support, its generous +irresistible tide, to carry her through the remainder of her life with +the exhilaration she had so largely missed. + +Here in Dodge's room she was as placid, almost, as though she were in +the library at home. That customary term took its place in her thoughts +before she recognized that, with her, it had shifted. However, it was +unimportant--home had never been a magical word to her; it belonged in +the vast category which, of such universal weight, left her unstirred. +She resembled those Eastern people restlessly and perpetually moving +across sandy deserts as they exhausted, one after another, widely +separated scanty oases. + +She studied the objects around her with the pleased recognition that +they were unique, valuable, and in faultless taste. Then she fell to +wondering at the difference had Dodge been poor: she would have come to +him, Linda knew, just the same. But, she admitted frankly, it would +have been uncomfortable. Perhaps that--actual poverty, actual +deprivation--was what her character needed. A popular sentiment upheld +such a view; she decided it was without foundation. There was no reason +why beauty, finely appropriate surroundings, should damage the spirit. + +Her mind turned to an examination of her desertion of Arnaud, but she +could find no trace of conventional regret; of what, she felt, her +sensation ought to be. The instinctive revolt from oblivion was an +infinitely stronger reality than any allegiance to abstract duty. She +was consumed by the passionate need to preserve the integrity of being +herself. The word selfish occurred to her but to be met unabashed by the +query, why not? Selfishness was a reproach applied by those who failed +to get what they wanted to all who succeeded. Linda wasn't afraid of +public opinion, censure; she didn't shrink even from the injury to her +husband. What Dodge would think, however, was hidden from her. + +She had no doubt of his complete acceptance of all she offered; ordinary +obligations to society bound him as little as they held her. It would be +enough that she wanted to come to him. + +She would bother him, change his habit of living, very little. Long +years of loneliness had taught her to be self-sufficient. Linda would +be too wise to insist on distasteful regularity in the interest of a +comparatively unimportant well-being. In short, she wouldn't bother him. +That must be made clear at once. + +More than anything else he would be inexpressibly delighted to have her +with him, to find--at last--his love. Little intimacies of satin +mules, glimpses, charming to an artist! He'd be faultless, too, in the +relationships where Arnaud as well had never for a moment deviated from +beautiful consideration. Two remarkable men. While her deficiency in +humor was admitted, she saw a glimmer of the absurd in her attitude and +present situation. The combination, at least, was uncommon. There had +been no change in her feeling for either Arnaud or Dodge, their places +in her being were undisturbed; she liked her husband no less, Dodge no +better. + +Lunch was announced, a small ceremony of covered silver dishes, heavy +crystal, Nankin china, and flowers. The linen, which was old, bore a +monogram unfamiliar to her--that of Dodge's mother, probably. When she +had finished, but was still lingering at the narrow refectory table, she +heard Pleydon enter the hall and the explanatory voice of the servant. +An unexpected embarrassment pervaded her, but she overcame it by the +realization that there was no need for an immediate announcement of +her purpose. Dodge would naturally suppose that she was in New York +shopping. + +He did, to her intense relief, with a moving pleasure that she had +lunched with him. "It's seldom," he went on, "that you are so sensible. +I hope you haven't any plans or concerts to drag you away immediately. +I owe you a million strawberries; but, aside from that, I'd like you to +stay as long as possible." + +"Very well," she replied quietly; "I will." + +She hadn't seen him since the statue at Hesperia had been destroyed, and +she tried faintly to tell him how much that outrage had hurt her. It had +injured him too, she realized; just as Arnaud predicted. He showed his +age more gauntly, more absolutely, than the other. His skin was dry as +though the vitality of his countenance had been burned out by the flame +visible in his eyes. + +"The drunken fools!" he exclaimed of the mob that had torn Simon Downige +from his eminence; "they came by way of all the saloons in the city. +Free drinks! That is the disturbing thing about what the optimistic call +civilization--the fact that it is always at the mercy of the ignorant +and the brutal. There is no security; none, that is, except in the +individual spirit. And they, mostly, are the victims of a singular +insane resentment--Savonarola and there were greater. + +"But you mustn't think, you mustn't suppose, that I mean it's +hopeless. How could I? Who has had more from living? Love and complete +self-expression. That exhausts every possibility. Three words. Remember +Cottarsport. But the love--ah," he smiled, but not directly at her. +Linda was at once reassured and disturbed; and she rose, proceeding into +the drawing-room. + +There she sat gracefully composed and with still hands; she never +embroidered or employed her leisure with trivial useful tasks. Pleydon +was extended on a chair, his fingers caught beyond his head and his long +legs thrust out and crossed at the ankles. His gaze was fixed on her +unwaveringly; and yet, when she tried to meet its focus, it went behind +her as though it pierced the solidity of her body and the walls in the +contemplation of a far-removed shining image. Her disturbance grew to +the inclusion of a degree of fretfulness at his unbroken silence, his +apparent absorption in whatever his meditation projected or found. + + + + +XXXIX + + +Now, she decided, was the moment for her revelation; or rather, it +couldn't very well be further deferred, for it promised to be halting. +But, with her lips forming the words, he abruptly spoke: + +"I have lived so long with your spirit, it has become so familiar--I +mean the ability of completely making you out of my heart--that when you +are here the difference isn't staggering. You see, you are never away. +I have that ability; it came out of the other wreck. But you know about +it--from years back. Time has only managed a greater power. Lately, and +I have nothing to do with it, I have been seeing you again as a girl; +as young as at Markue's party; younger. Not more than ten. I don't +mean that there is anything--isn't the present fashionable word +subliminal?--esoteric. God forbid. You'll remember my hatred of that +brutal deception. + +"No, it's only a part of my ability to create the shape of feeling, of +Simon's hope. I see things as realities capable of exact statement; and, +naturally, more than all the rest, you come to me that way. But as a +child--who knows why?" he relinquished the answer with an opened +palm. "And young like that, perhaps ten, I love you more sharply, more +unutterably, than at any other age. What is it I love? Not your adorable +plastic body, not that. It isn't necessary to understand. + +"You have, as a child, a quality of blinding loveliness in a world I +absolutely distrust. An Elysian flower. Is it possible, do you suppose, +to worship an abstract idea? It's not important to insist on my sanity." + +The question of that had occurred independently to Linda; his hurried +voice and lost gaze filled her with apprehension. A dull reddish patch, +she saw, burned in either thin cheek; and she told herself that the +fever had revived in him. Pleydon continued: + +"Yet it is a timeless vision, because you never get old. I see Hallet +failing year by year, and your children, only yesterday dabs of soft +flesh, grow up and pass through college and marry. I hear myself in the +studio with an old man's cough; the chisels slip under the mall and I +can't move the clay about without help--all fading, decaying, but you. +Candles burn out, hundreds of them, while your whiteness, your flame-- + +"Strange, too, how you light a world, a sky, eternity. A word we have no +business with; a high-sounding word for a penny purpose. Look, we try +to keep alive because it's necessary to life, to nature; and the effort, +the struggle, breeds the dream. You can understand that. Men who ought +to know say that love is nothing more." He rose and stood over her, +towering and portentous against the curtained light. "I don't pretend to +guess. I'm a creative artist--Simon Downige at Cottarsport--I have you. +If it's God so much the better." + +What principally swept over Linda was the knowledge that his possession +of her must keep them always apart. The reality, all realities, were +veils to Pleydon. Her momentary vision of things beyond brick and earth +was magnified in him until everything else was obliterated. The fever! +Oh, yes, that and his passion for work merged in his passion for her. +She could bring him nothing; and she had a curious picture of two Lindas +visible to him here--the Linda that was actual and the other, the child. +And of them it was the latter he cared most for, recreated out of his +desire to defraud his loneliness, to repay the damage to his spirit +realized in bronze. + +She was, suddenly, too weary to stir or lift her hand; a depression +as absolute as her flare of rage enveloped her. Now the reason for her +coming seemed inexplicable, as if, for the while, her mind had failed. +She repressed a shudder at the thought of being, through the long nights +of his restlessness and wandering voice, alone with Pleydon. She hadn't, +Linda discovered, any of the transmuting feeling for him which alone +made surrender possible. She calculated mentally how long it would take +her to reach the station, what train would be available. + +Linda accepted dumbly the fatality to her own hope; for a few hours she +had thought it possible to break out of the prison of circumstance, to +walk free from all hindrance; but it had been vain. She gazed at Dodge +Pleydon intensely--a comprehensive view of the man she had so nearly +married, and who, more than any other force, dominated her being. It was +already too late for anything but memory; she saw--filled with pity for +them both--hardly more than a strange old man with deadened hair and a +yellow parchment-like skin. His suit of loose gray flannel gave her a +feeling that it had been borrowed from some one she lovingly knew. The +gesture of his hand, too, had been copied from a brilliant personage +with a consuming impatience at all impotence. + +"Remember me to Arnaud," he said, holding her gloves and the short fur +cape. "Wait!" he cried sharply, turning to the bookcase against the +wall. Pleydon fumbled in a box of lacquered gilt with a silk cord and +produced a glove once white but now brown and fragile with age. "You +never missed it," he proceeded in a gleeful triumph; "but then you had +so many pairs. Once I sent you nine dozen together from Grenoble. They +were nothing, but this you had worn. For a long while it kept the shape +of your hand." + +"Dodge," she tried without success to steady her voice, "it stayed with +you anyhow, my--my hand." + +"But yes," he answered impatiently. He returned the glove to its box, +carefully tying the tasselled cord. Then, after clumsily helping her +with the cape, he accompanied her to the elevator. "There were other +things," he told her. "Did you see the letters about the Hesperia +affair? Heaps of them. Rodin.... But what can you expect in a world +where there is no safety--" The stopping cage cut off his remark. She +held out the hand that was less real to him than the dream. + +"Good-by, Dodge." + +"Yes, Linda. But watch that door, your skirt might easily be caught in +it." He fussed over her safety until, abruptly, he seemed to rise in +space, shut out from her by the limitations of her faith. + +The evening overshadowed her in the train, as though she were whirling +in the swiftest passage possible, through an indeterminate grayness, +from day to night. The latter descended on her as she reached the steps +of her home. It was still that; now it would continue to be until +death. Nothing could ever again offer her change, release, vindication; +nothing, that was, which might give her, for a day, what even her mother +had plentifully experienced--the igniting exultation of the body. + +It was inevitable, she thought, for Arnaud to be in the library. He rose +unsteadily as she stood in the doorway. "Linda," he articulated with +difficulty. A book had rested open on the table beside him and, closing +it, he put it back in its place. His arm trembled so that it took a +painfully long while. Then he moved forward, still confused. + +"What a confounded time you were gone. I had the most idiotic fancy. You +see, it was so unlike you; none more exact in habit. All day. I didn't +get to the Historical Society, it seemed so devilish far off. I'd never +blame you for leaving an old man without any gumption." He must never +think that again, she replied. Wasn't she, too, middle-aged? + + + + +XL + + +Linda admitted, definitely, the loss of her youth; and yet a stubborn +inner conviction remained that she was unchanged. In this she had for +support her appearance; practically she was as freshly and gracefully +pale as the girl who had married Arnaud Hallet. Even Vign, with +indelible traces of her motherhood, had faint lines absent from Linda's +flawless countenance. Her children, and Arnaud, were immensely proud of +her beauty; it had become a part--in the form of her ridiculously young +air--of the family conversational resources. She was increasingly aware +of its supreme significance to her. + +One of her few certainties had been the discovery that, while small +truths might be had from others, all that intimately and deeply +concerned her was beyond questioning and advice. The importance of her +attractiveness, for example, which seemed the base of her entire being, +was completely out of accord with the accepted standard of values +for middle-aged women. Other things, called moral and spiritual, she +inferred, should take up her days and thoughts. There was a course of +discipline--exactly like exercises in the morning--for the preparation +of the willingness to die. + +But such an attitude was eternally beyond her; she repudiated it with +a revolt stringing every nerve indignantly tense. She had had, on the +whole, singularly little from life but her fine body; it had always been +the temple and altar of her service, and no mere wordy reassurance could +now repay her for its swift or gradual destruction. The latter, except +for accident, would be her fate; she was remarkably sound. In her social +adventures, the balls to which, without Arnaud, she occasionally went, +she was morbid in her sensitive dread of discovering, through a waning +admiration, that she was faded. + +It would be impossible to spend more care on her person than she had in +the past; but that was unrelenting. Linda was inexorable in her demands +on the establishments that made her suits and dresses. The slightest +imperfection of fit exasperated her; and she regarded the endless change +of fashions with contempt. This same shifting, she observed, occurred +not only in women's clothes but in the women themselves. + +Linda remembered her mother, eternal in gaiety, but very obviously +different from her in states of mind affecting her appearance. She was +unable to define the change; but it was unmistakable--Stella Condon +seemed a little old-fashioned. When now, to Lowrie's wife, Linda was +unmistakably out-of-date. Lowrie, fast accomplishing all that had been +predicted for him, had married a girl incomprehensible to his mother. +Observing this later feminine development she had the baffled feeling of +inspecting a creature of a new order. + +To Linda, Jean Tynedale, now a Hallet, seemed harder than ever her own +famous coldness had succeeded in being. This came mostly from Jean's +imposing education; there had been, in addition to the politest of +finishing schools, college--a woman's concern, Bryn Mawr--and then +post-graduate honors in a noteworthy university. She was entirely +addressed, in a concrete way, to the abstract problems of social +progress and hygiene; and, under thirty, the animating spirit, as well +as financial support, of an incredible number of Settlements and allied +undertakings. She spoke crisply before civic and other clubs; even, in +the interest of suffrage, addressing nondescript audiences from a box on +the street. + +But it was her unperturbed dissection of the motives of sex, the +denouncement of a criminal mysterious ignorance, that most daunted +Linda. She listened to Jean with a series of distinct shocks to her +sense of propriety. What she had agreed to consider a nameless attribute +of women, or, if anything more exact, the power of their charm over men, +the other defined in unequivocal scientific terms. She understood +every impulse veiled for Linda in a reticence absolutely needful to its +appeal. + +This, of course, the elder distrusted; just as she had no approval for +Jean's public activities. Linda didn't like public women; her every +instinct cried for a fine seclusion, fine in the meaning of an +appropriate setting for feminine distinction, the magic of dress and cut +roses. Her private inelegant word for Lowrie's wife was "bold;" indeed, +describing to herself the younger woman's patronage of her bearing, she +descended to her mother's colloquialism "brass." + +She thought this sitting at a dinner-table which held Vign and her +husband and Lowrie and Jean Hallet. Arnaud, drawing life from the +vitality of an atmosphere charged with youth, was unflagging in splendid +spirits and his valorous wit. Jean would never inspire the affection +Arnaud had given her; nor the passion that, in Pleydon, had burned unfed +even by hope. + +Her thoughts slipped away from the present to the sculptor. Three years +had vanished since she had gone with an intention of finality to his +apartment, and in that time he had neither been in their house nor +written. Linda had expected this; she was without the desire to see +or hear from him. Dodge Pleydon was finished for her; as a man, a +potentiality, he had departed from her life. He was a piece with her +memories, the triumphs of her young days. Without an actual knowledge of +the moment of its accomplishment she had passed over the border of that +land, leaving it complete and fair and radiant for her lingering view. +Whether or not she had been happy was now of no importance; the magic +of its light showed only a garden and a girl in white with a black bang +against her blue eyes. + +The bang, the blueness of gaze, were still hers; but, only this +morning, brush in hand, the former had offered less resistance in its +arrangement; it was thinner, and the color perceptibly not so dense. At +this, with a chill edge of fear, she had determined to go at once to +her hairdresser; no one, neither Arnaud, who loved its luster, nor an +unsympathetic bold scrutiny, a scrutiny of brass, should see that she +was getting gray. There was no fault about her figure; she had that for +her satisfaction; she was more graceful than Jean's square thinness, +more slim than Vign's maternal presence. + +Linda had the feeling that she was engaged in a struggle with time, a +ruthless antagonist whom she viewed with a personal enmity. Time must, +would, of course, triumph in the end; but there would be no sign of her +surrender in the meanwhile; she wouldn't bend an inch, relinquish by a +fraction the pride and delicacy of her person. The skilful dyeing of +her hair to its old absolute blackness, as natural and becoming in +appearance as ever, was a symbol of her determination to cheat an +intolerable tyranny. + +The process, dismaying her soul, she bore with a rigid fortitude; as she +endured the coldness of a morning bath from which, often, she was slow +to react. This, to her, was widely different from the futile efforts +of her mother, those women of the past, to preserve for practical ends +their flushes of youth and exhilaration. She felt obscurely that she was +serving a deeper reality created by the hands of Pleydon, Arnaud's +faith and pure pleasure, all that countless men had seen in her for +admiration, solace and power. + +But it was inevitable, she told herself bitterly, that she should +hear the first intimation of her decline from Jean Hallet. Rather, she +overheard it, the discussion of her, from the loiterers at breakfast +as she moved about the communicating library. Jean's emphatic slightly +rough-textured voice arrested her in the arrangement of a bowl of +zinnias: + +"You can't say just where she has failed, but it's evident. Perhaps a +general dryness. Perfectly natural. Thoroughly silly to fight against +it--" Vign interrupted her. "I think mother's wonderful. I can't +remember any other woman nearly her age who looks so enchanting in the +evening." + +Linda quietly left the flowers as they were and went up to the room that +had been her father's. It was now used as a spare bedroom; and she had +turned into it, in place of her own chamber, instinctively, without +reason. She had kept it exactly as it had been when Amelia Lowrie first +conducted her there, as it was when her father, a boy, slept under the +white canopy. + +Linda advanced to the mirror; and, her hands so tightly clenched that +the finger-nails dug into the palms, forced herself to gaze steadily +at the wavering reflection. It seemed to her that there had been a +malicious magic in Jean's detraction; for immediately, as though the +harm had been wrought by the girl's voice, she saw that her clear +freshness had gone. Her face had a wax-like quality, the violet shadows +under her eyes were brown. Who had once called her a gardenia? Now she +was wilting--how many gardenias had she seen droop, turn brown. Her +heart beat with a disturbing echo in her ears, and, with a slight gasp +that resembled a sob, she sank on one of the uncomfortable painted +chairs. + +What, above every other sensation, oppressed her was a feeling of +terrific loneliness--the familiar isolation magnified until it was past +bearing. Yet, there was Arnaud, infallible in his tender comprehension, +she ought to go to him at once and find support. But it was impossible; +all that he could give her was, to her special necessity, useless. She +had never been able to establish herself in his sympathy; the reason for +that lay in the fact that she could bring nothing similar in return. + +The room--except for the timed clangor of the electric cars, like the +measure of lost minutes--was quiet. The photograph of Bartram Hallet in +cricketing clothes had faded until it was almost indistinguishable. Soon +the faint figure would disappear entirely, as though the picture were +amenable to the relentless principle operating in her. + +The peace about her finally lessened her acute suffering, stilled her +heart. She told herself with a show of vigor that she was a coward, a +charge that roused an unexpected activity of denial. She discovered that +cowardice was intolerable to her. What had happened, too, was so far out +of her hands that a trace of philosophical acceptance, recognition, came +to her support. The loveliest woman alive must do the same, meet in a +looking-glass--that eternal accompanying sibyl--her disaster. She rose, +her lips firmly set, composed and pale, and returned to the neglected +flowers in the library. + +Vign entered and put an affectionate arm about her shoulders, +repeating--unconscious that Linda had heard the discussion which had +given it being--the conviction that her mother was wonderful, specially +in the black dinner dress with the girdle of jet. With no facility of +expression she gave her daughter's arm a quick light pressure. + +From then she watched the slow progress of age with a new realization, +but an unabated distaste and, wherever it was possible, a determined +artifice. Arnaud had failed swiftly in the past months; and, while she +was inspecting the impaired supports of an arbor in the garden, he came +to her with an unopened telegram. "I abhor these things," he declared +fretfully; "they are so sudden. Why don't people write decent letters +any more! It's like the telephone.... Good manners have been ruined." + +She tore open the envelope, read the brief line within, and, a hand +suddenly put out to the arbor, sank on its bench. There had been rain, +but a late sun was again pouring over the sparkling grass, and robins +were singing with a lyrical clearness. "What is it?" Arnaud demanded +anxiously, tremulous in the unsparing sunlight. She replied: + +"Dodge died this morning." + +His concern was as much for her as for Pleydon's death. "I'm sorry, +Linda," his hand was on her shoulder. "It is a shock to you. A fine man, +a genius--none stronger in our day. When you were young and for so +long after.... I was lucky, Linda, to get you; have you all this while. +Nothing in Pleydon's life, not even his success, could have made up for +your loss." + +She wondered dully if Dodge had missed her, if Arnaud Hallet had ever +had her in his possession. The robins filled the immaculate air +with song. It was impossible that Dodge, who was so imperious in his +certainty that he would never say good-by to her, was dead. + + + + +XLI + + +There was a revival of public interest in the destruction of Pleydon's +statue at Hesperia, the papers again printed accounts colored by a +variety of attitudes unembarrassed by fact; and the serious journals +united in a dignity of eminently safe praise. At first Linda made an +effort to preserve these; but soon their similarity, her inability to +find, among sonorous periods, any trace of Dodge's spirit--in reality +she knew so blindingly much more than the most penetrating critical +intellect--caused her to leave the reviews unread. No one else living +had understood Pleydon; and when descriptions of his life spoke of the +austerity in his later years, his fanatical aversion to women, Linda +thought of the brittle glove in the gilt-lacquer box. + +Her own emotion, it seemed to her, was the most confused of all the +unintelligible pressures that had converted her life into an enigma. +She had a distinct sense of overwhelming loss--of something, Linda was +obliged to add, she had never owned. However, she realized that during +Pleydon's life she had dimly expected a happy accident of explanation; +until almost the last, yes--after she had returned from that ultimate +journey, she had been conscious of the presence of hope. The hope had +been for herself, created out of her constant baffled dissatisfaction. + +But now the man in whom solely she had been expressed, the only possible +reason for her obstinate pride, had left her in a world that, but +for Arnaud's fondness, looked on her without remark. The loss of her +distinction had been finally evident at balls, in the dresses in which +Vign had thought her so wonderful, and she dropped them. Here, she +repeated, was when affection, generously radiated through life, should +have reflected over her a tranquil and contented joy. She had never +given it, and she was without the ability to receive. She admitted to +herself, with a little annoyed laugh, that her old desire for inviolable +charm, for the integrity of a memorable slimness, was unimpaired. It +was, she thought, too ridiculously inappropriate for words. + +Yet it had changed slightly into the recognition that what so often had +been called her beauty was all she now had for sustenance, all she had +ever had. Her mind returned continually to Pleydon, and--deep in the +mystery of his passion--she was suddenly invaded by an insistent desire +to see the monument at Cottarsport. She spoke to Arnaud at once about +this; and alone, through his delicacy of perception, Linda went to +Boston the following day. + +The further ride to Cottarsport followed the sea--a brilliant serene +blue, fretted on the landward side by innumerable bare promontories, +hideous towns and factories, but bowed in a far unbroken arc at the +immaculate horizon. She left the train for a hilly cluster of houses, +gray and low like the rock everywhere apparent, dropping to a harbor +that bore a company of motionless boats with half-spread drying sails. + +The day was at noon, and the sky, blue like the sea, held, still as the +anchored schooners, faint, chalky symmetrical clouds. Linda found the +Common without guidance; and at once saw, on its immovable base of +rugged granite, the bronze statue of Simon Downige. It stood well in +advance of what, evidently, was the court-house, the white steeple Dodge +had described. She found a bench by a path in the thin grass; and there, +her gloved hands folded, at rest in her lap, her gaze and longing were +lifted to the fixed aspiration. + +From where she sat the seated figure was projected against the sky; +Simon's face was turned toward the west; the West that, for him, was the +future, but which for Linda represented all the past. This conviction +flooded her with unutterable sadness. A sense of failure weighed on her, +no less heavy for the fact that it was perpetually vague. Her thoughts +gathered about Dodge himself; and she recalled the curious vividness of +his vision of her as a child, perhaps ten. She, too, tried to remember +that time and age. It was almost in her grasp, but her realization was +spoiled by absurd mental fragments--the familiar illusion of a leopard +and a rider with bright hair, a forest with the ascending voices of +angels, and an ominous squat figure with a slowly nodding plumed head. + +The vista of a hotel returned, a fleet recollection of marble columns +and a wide red carpet ... the white gleam and carbolized smell of a +drug-store ... a thick magazine in a brown cover. These, changed into +emotions of mingled joy and pain, shifted in bright or dim colors and +sensations. There was a slow heavy plodding of feet, now above her head, +the passage of a carried weight; and, in a flash of perception, she knew +it was a coffin. She raised her clasped hands to her breast, crying into +the sunny silence, to the figure of Simon Downige lost in dream: + +"He died that night, at the Boscombe, after he had told me about the +meadows with silk tents--" + +Her memory, thrilling with the echoed miraculous chord of the child of +ten, sitting gravely, alone, among the shrill satins and caustic voices +of a feminine throng, was complete. She saw herself, Linda Condon, as +objectively as Pleydon's described vision: there was a large bow on her +straight black hair, and, from under the bang, her gaze was clear and +wondering. How marvelously young she was! The vindictive curiosity of +the questioning women, intent on their rings, brought out her eager +defense of her mother, the effort to explain away the ugly fact +that--that Mr. Jasper was married. + +She saw Linda descending the marble stairs to the lower floor where +the games were kept in a somber corridor, and heard a voice halting her +irresolute passage: + +"Hello, Bellina." + +That wasn't her name, and she corrected him, waiting afterward to listen +to a strange fairy-like tale. The solitary, sick-looking man, with inky +shadows under fixed eyes, was so actual that she recaptured the pungent +drift of his burning cigarette. He talked about love in a bitter +intensity that hurt her. Yet, at first, he had said that she was lovely, +a touch of her ... forever in the memory. Mostly, however, he spoke of +a beautiful passion. It had largely vanished, his explanation continued; +men had come to worship other things. Plato started it. + +She recalled Plato, as well, in connection with Dodge; now, it +appeared to her, that remote name had always been at the back of her +consciousness. There were other names, other men, of an age long ago in +Italy. Their ideal, religion, was contained in the adoration of a woman, +but not her body--it was a love of her spirit, the spirit their purity +of need recognized, perhaps helped to create. It was a passion as +different as possible in essence from all she had observed about her. It +was useless for common purposes, withheld from Arnaud Hallet. + +The man, seriously addressing the serious uncomprehending interest of +ten, proceeded with a description of violins--but she had heard them +through all her life--and a parting that left only a white glove for +remembrance. Then he had repeated that line, in Italian, which, not long +back, her husband had recalled. The old gesture toward the stars, the +need to escape fatality--how she had suffered from that! + +Yet it was a service of the body, a faith spiritual because, here, it +was never to be won, never to be realized in warm embrace. It had no +recognition in flesh, and it was the reward of no prayer or humility +or righteousness. Only beauty knew and possessed it. His image grew dim +like the blurring of his voice by pain and the shadow of death. Linda's +thoughts and longing turned again to Dodge; it seemed to her that he no +more than took up the recital where the other was silent. + +Pleydon--was it at Markue's party or later?--talking about "Homer's +children" had meant the creations of great artists, in sound or color or +words or form, through that supreme love unrealized in other life. The +statue of Simon Downige, towering before her against the sky and above +the sea, held in immutable bronze his conviction. The meager bundle and +crude stick rested by shoes clogged with mud; Simon's body was crushed +with weariness; but under the sweat-plastered brow his gaze pierced +indomitable and undismayed to the vision of a place of truth. + +She was choked by a sharp rush of joy at Dodge's accomplishment, +an entire understanding of the beauty he had vainly explained, the +deathless communication of old splendid courage, an unshaken divine +need, to succeeding men and hope. This had been hers. She had always +felt her presence in his success; but, until now, it had belonged +exclusively to him. Dodge had, in his love, absorbed her, and that +resulted in the statues the world applauded. She, Linda thought, had +been an element easily dismissed. It had hurt her pride almost beyond +endurance, the pride that took the form of an inner necessity for the +survival of her grace--all she had. + +She had even asked him, in a passing resentment, why he had never +directly modeled her, kept, with his recording genius, the shape of her +features. She had gone to him in a blinder vanity for the purpose of +stamping her participation in his triumph on the stupid insensibility +of their world. How incredible! But at last she could see that he had +preserved her spirit, her secret self, from destruction. He had cheated +death of her fineness. The delicate perfection of her youth would +never perish, never be dulled by old age or corrupted in death. It had +inspired and entered into Pleydon's being, and he had lifted it on the +pedestal rising between the sea and sky. + +She was in the Luxembourg, in that statue of Cotton Mather, the somber +flame, about which he had written with a comment on the changing +subjects of his creations. From the moment when he sat beside her on +the divan in that room stifling with incense, with the naked glimmer of +women's shoulders, she had been the source of his power. She had +been his power. Linda smiled quietly, in retrospect, at her years of +uncertainty, the feeling of waste, that had robbed her of peace. How +complete her mystification had been! And, all the while, she had had +the thrill of delight, of premonition, born in her through the forgotten +hour with the man who had died. + +The sun, moving in celestial space, shifted the shadow about the base +of Simon Downige's monument. The afternoon was advancing. She rose and +turned, looking out over the sea to the horizon as brightly sharp as a +curved sword. The life of Cottarsport, below her, proceeded in detached +figures, an occasional unhurried passage. The boats in the harbor were +slumberous. It was time to go. She gazed again, for a last view, at the +bronze seated figure; and a word of Pleydon's, but rather it was Greek, +wove its significance in the placid texture of her thoughts. Its exact +shape evaded her, a difficult word to recall--_Katharsis_, the purging +of the heart. About her was the beating of the white wings of a Victory +sweeping her--a faded slender woman in immaculate gloves and a small +matchless hat--into a region without despair. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Linda Condon, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + +***** This file should be named 7171-8.txt or 7171-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/7/7171/ + +Produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Linda Condon + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7171] +This file was first posted on March 20, 2003 +Last Updated: March 12, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + + + + +Text file produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + LINDA CONDON + </h1> + <h2> + By Joseph Hergesheimer + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <div class="middle"> + <p> + <i>To</i> CARL VAN VECHTEN + </p> + <p> + <i>This, Linda Condon's Gravest Bow.</i> + </p> + <br /> <br /> + <p> + The Works Of Joseph Hergesheimer + </p> + <p> + The Lay Anthony + </p> + <p> + Mountain Blood + </p> + <p> + The Three Black Pennys + </p> + <p> + Gold And Iron + </p> + <p> + Java Head + </p> + <p> + The Happy End + </p> + <p> + Linda Condon + </p> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>LINDA CONDON</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> XVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> XVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> XVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> XIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> XX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> XXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> XXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> XXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> XXV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> XXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> XXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> XXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> XXIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> XXX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> XXXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> XXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> XXXIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> XXXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> XXXV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> XXXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> XXXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> XXXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> XXXIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> XL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> XLI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> THE END </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LINDA CONDON + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + A black bang was, but not ultimately, the most notable feature of her + uncommon personality—straight and severe and dense across her clear + pale brow and eyes. Her eyes were the last thing to remember and wonder + about; in shade blue, they had a velvet richness, a poignant intensity of + lovely color, that surprised the heart. Aside from that she was slim, + perhaps ten years old, and graver than gay. + </p> + <p> + Her mother was gay for them both, and, therefore, for the entire family. + No father was in evidence; he was dead and never spoken of, and Linda was + the only child. Linda's dresses, those significant trivialities, plainly + showed two tendencies—the gaiety of her mother and her own always + formal gravity. If Linda appeared at dinner, in the massive Renaissance + materialism of the hotel dining-room, with a preposterous magenta + hair-ribbon on her shapely head, her mother had succeeded in expressing + her sense of the appropriately decorative; while if Linda wore an + unornamented but equally “unsuitable” frock of dark velvet, she, in her + turn, had been vindicated. + </p> + <p> + Again, but far more rarely, the child's selection was evident on the + woman. As a rule Mrs. Condon garbed her flamboyant body in large and + expensive patterns or extremely tailored suits; and of the two, the + evening satins and powdered arms barely retaining an admissible line, and + the suits, the latter were the most, well—spectacular. + </p> + <p> + She was not dark in color but brightly golden; a gold, it must be said in + all honesty, her own, a metallic gold crisply and solidly marcelled; with + hazel-brown eyes, and a mouth which, set against her daughter's deep-blue + gaze, was her particular attraction. It was rouged to a nicety, the under + lip a little full and never quite against the upper. If Linda's effect was + cool and remote, Mrs. Condon, thanks to her mouth, was reassuringly + imminent. She was, too, friendly; she talked to women—in her not + overfrequent opportunities—in a rapid warm inaccurate confession of + almost everything they desired to hear. The women, of course, were + continually hampered by the unfortunate fact that the questions nearest + their hearts, or curiosity, were entirely inadmissible. + </p> + <p> + Viewed objectively, they all, with the exception of Linda, seemed alike; + but that might have been due to their common impressive setting. The + Boscombe, in its way, was as lavish as Mrs. Condon's dresses. The main + place of congregation, for instance, was a great space of white marble + columns, Turkey-red carpet and growing palms. It was lighted at night + indirectly by alabaster bowls hanging on gilded chains—a soft bright + flood of radiance falling on the seated or slowly promenading women with + bare shoulders. + </p> + <p> + Usually they were going with a restrained sharp eagerness toward the + dining-room or leaving it in a more languid flushed repletion. There were, + among them, men; but somehow the men never seemed to be of the least + account. It was a women's paradise. The glow from above always emphasized + the gowns, the gowns like orchids and tea-roses and the leaves of + magnolias. It sparkled in the red and green and crystal jewels like exotic + dew scattered over the exotic human flowers. Very occasionally there was a + complacent or irritable masculine utterance, and then it was immediately + lost in the dominant feminine sibilance. + </p> + <p> + Other children than Linda sped in the manner of brilliant fretful tops + literally on the elaborate outskirts of the throng; but they were as + different from her as she was from the elders. Indeed Linda resembled the + latter, rather than her proper age, remarkably. She had an air of + responsibility, sometimes expressed in a troubled frown, and again by the + way she hurried sedately through drifting figures toward a definite + purpose and end. + </p> + <p> + Usually it was in the service of one of her mother's small innumerable + requests or necessities; if the latter were sitting with a gentleman on + the open hotel promenade that overlooked the sea and needed a heavier + wrap, Linda returned immediately with a furred cloak on her arm; if the + elder, going out after dinner, had brought down the wrong gloves, Linda + knew the exact wanted pair in the long perfumed box; while countless + trifles were needed from the convenient drug-store. + </p> + <p> + The latter was a place of white mosaic floor and glittering glass, with a + marble counter heaped with vivid fruit and silver-covered bowls of sirups + and creams with chopped nuts. Linda often found time to stop here for a + delectable glass of assorted sweet compounds. She was on terms of intimacy + with the colored man in a crisp linen coat who presided over the + refreshments, and he invariably gave her an extra spoonful of the marron + paste she preferred. When at lunch, it might be, she cared for very + little, her mother would complain absently: + </p> + <p> + “You must stop eating those sickening mixtures. They'd ruin any skin.” At + this she invariably found the diminutive mirror in the bag on her lap and + glanced at her own slightly improved color. The burden of the feminine + conversations in which Mrs. Condon was privileged to join, Linda + discovered, was directed toward these overwhelming considerations of + appearance. And their importance, communicated to her, resulted in a + struggle between the desire to preserve her skin from ruin and the + seductions of marron paste and maple chocolates. + </p> + <p> + Now, with an uncomfortable sense of impending disaster, she would hastily + consume one or the other; again, supported by a beginning self-imposed + inflexibility, she would turn steadily away from temptation. In the end + the latter triumphed; and her normal appetite, always moderate, was + unimpaired. + </p> + <p> + This spirit of resolution, it sometimes happened, was a cause of humorous + dismay to her mother. “I declare, Linda,” she would observe with an air of + helplessness, “you make me feel like the giddy one and as if you were + mama. It's the way you look, so disapproving. I have to remind myself + you're only—just how old are you? I keep forgetting.” Linda would + inform her exactly and the other sigh: + </p> + <p> + “The years slip around disgustingly. It seems only yesterday I was at my + first party.” Usually, in spite of Linda's eagerness to hear of that time + when her mother was a girl, the elder would stop abruptly. On rare + occasions solitary facts emerged from the recalled existence of a small + town in the country. There were such details as buggy-riding and + prayer-meetings and excursions to a Boiling Springs where the + dancing-floor, open among the trees, was splendid. At these memories Mrs. + Condon had been known to cry. + </p> + <p> + But she would recover shortly. Her emotions were like that—easily + roused, highly colored and soon forgotten. She forgot, Linda realized + leniently, a great deal. It wasn't safe to rely on her promises. However, + if she neglected a particular desire of Linda's, she continually brought + back unexpected gifts of candy, boxes of silk stockings, or lovely + half-wilted flowers. + </p> + <p> + The flowers, they discovered, although they stayed fresh for a long while + pinned to Linda's slim waist, died almost at once if worn by her mother. + “It's my warm nature, I am certain,” the latter proclaimed to her + daughter; “while you are a little refrigerator. I must say it's wonderful + how you keep your clothes the same. Neat as a pin.” Somehow, with this + commendation, she managed to include a slight uncomplimentary impatience. + Linda didn't specially want to resemble a pin, a disagreeable object with + a sharp point. She considered this in the long periods when, partly by + preference, she was alone. + </p> + <p> + Seated, perhaps, in the elaborate marble and deep red of the Boscombe's + reception-rooms, isolated in the brilliant expensive throng, she would + speculate over what passed in the light of her own special problems. But + nothing, really, came out to her satisfaction. There was, notably, no one + she might ask. Her mother, approached seriously, declared that Linda gave + her the creeps; while others made it plain that it was their duty to + repress the forwardness inevitable from the scandalous neglect of her + upbringing. + </p> + <p> + They, the women of the Boscombe, glancing at their finger-nails stained + and buffed to a shining pale vermilion, lightly rubbing their rings on the + dry palm of a hand, wondered pessimistically within Linda's hearing what + could come out of such an association. That term, she vaguely gathered, + referred to her mother. The latter evidently interested them tremendously; + because, she explained, they had no affairs of their own to attend to. + This was perfectly clear to Linda until Mrs. Condon further characterized + them as “busy.” + </p> + <p> + The women, stopped by conventions from really satisfactory investigation + at the source, drew her on occasion into a laboriously light inquisition. + How long would Linda and her mama stay at the Boscombe? Had they closed + their apartment? Where was it? Hadn't Mrs. Condon mentioned Cleveland? + Wasn't Linda lonely with her mama out so much—they even said late—in + rolling chairs? Had she ever seen Mr. Jasper before his arrival last week? + </p> + <p> + No, of course she hadn't. + </p> + <p> + Here they exchanged skeptical glances beneath relentlessly pulled + eyebrows. He was really very nice, Mr. Jasper. Linda in a matter-of-fact + voice replied that he had given her a twenty-dollar gold piece. Mr. Jasper + was very generous. But perhaps he had rewarded her for being a good little + girl and not—not bothering or hanging about. “Why should he?” was + Linda's just perceptibly impatient response. Then they told her to be + quiet because they wanted to listen to the music. + </p> + <p> + This consisted in studying, through suspended glasses in chased platinum, + a discreet programme. At the end of a selection they either applauded + condescendingly or told each other that they hadn't cared for that last—really + too peculiar. Whichever happened, the leader of the small orchestra, an + extravagant Italian with a supple waist, turned and bowed repeatedly with + a grimacing smile. The music, usually Viennese, was muted and emotional; + its strains blended perfectly with the floating scents of the women and + the faintly perceptible pungent odors of dinner. Every little while a + specially insinuating melody became, apparently, tangled in the women's + breathing, and their breasts, cunningly traced and caressed in tulle, + would be disturbed. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon applauded more vigorously than was sanctioned by the others' + necessity for elegance; the frank clapping of her pink palms never failed + to betray a battery of affected and significant surprise in eyes like—polished + cold agates. Linda, seated beside her parent, could be seen to lay a hand, + narrow and blanched and marked by an emerald, on the elder's knee. Her + pale fine lips moved rapidly with the shadow of trouble beneath the + intense black bang. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you wouldn't do it so loudly, mother,” was what she whispered. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + The jealously guarded truth was that, by her daughter at least, Mrs. + Condon was adored. Linda observed that she was not like an ordinary + mother, but more nearly resembled a youthful companion. Mrs. Condon's + gaiety was as genuine as her fair hair. Not kept for formal occasion, it + got out of bed with her, remained through the considerable difficulties of + dressing with no maid but Linda, and if the other were not asleep called a + cheerful or funny good night. + </p> + <p> + Their rooms were separated by a bath, but Linda was scarcely ever in her + own—her mother's lovely things, acting like a magnet, constantly + drew her to their arrangement in the drawers. When the laundry came up, + crisp and fragile webs heaped on the bed, Linda laid it away in a sort of + ritual. Even with these publicly invisible garments a difference of choice + existed between the two: Mrs. Condon's preference was for insertions, and + Linda's for shadow embroidery and fine shell edges. Mrs. Condon, shaking + into position a foam of ribbon and lace, would say with her gurgle of + amusement, “I want to be ready when I fall down; if I followed your advice + they'd take me for a nun.” + </p> + <p> + This brought out Linda's low clear laugh, the expression of her extreme + happiness. It sounded, for an instant, like a chime of small silver bells; + then died away, leaving the faintest perceptible flush on her healthy + pallor. At other times her mother's humor made her vaguely uncomfortable, + usually after wine or other drinks that left the elder's breath thick and + oppressive. Linda failed completely to grasp the allusions of this wit but + a sharp uneasiness always responded like the lingering stale memory of a + bad dream. + </p> + <p> + Once, at the Boscombe, her mother had been too silly for words: she had + giggled and embraced her sweet little girl, torn an expensive veil to + shreds and dropped a French model hat into the tub. After a distressing + sickness she had gone to sleep fully dressed, and Linda, unable to move or + wake her, had sat long beyond dinner into the night, fearful of the + entrance of the chambermaid. + </p> + <p> + The next day Mrs. Condon had been humble with remorse. Men, she said, were + too beastly for description. This was not an unusual opinion. Linda + observed that she was always condemning men in general and dressing for + them in particular. She offered Linda endless advice in an abstracted + manner: + </p> + <p> + “They're all liars, Lin, and stingy about everything but their pleasure. + Women are different but men are all alike. You get sick to death of them! + Never bother them when they are smoking a cigar; cigarettes don't matter. + Leave the cigarette-smokers alone, anyhow; they're not as dependable as + the others. A man with a good cigar—you must know the good from the + bad—is usually discreet. I ought to bring you up different, but, + Lord, life's too short. Besides, you will learn more useful things right + with mama, whose eyes are open, than anywhere else. + </p> + <p> + “Powder my back, darling; I can't reach. If I'm a little late to-night go + to sleep like a duck. You think Mr. Jasper's nice, don't you? So does + mother. But you mustn't let him give you any more money. It'll make him + conceited.” + </p> + <p> + Linda wondered what she meant by the last phrase. How could it make Mr. + Jasper conceited to give her a gold piece? However, she decided that she + had better not ask. + </p> + <p> + It was like that with a great many of her mother's mysterious remarks—Linda + had an instinctive feeling of drawing away. The other kissed her warmly + and left a print of vivid red on her cheek. + </p> + <p> + She examined the mark in the mirror when her mother had gone; it was, she + decided, the kiss made visible. Then she laid away the things scattered + about the room by Mrs. Condon's hasty dressing. Her own belongings were + always in precise order. + </p> + <p> + A sudden hesitation seized her at the thought of going down to the crowd + at the music. The women made her uncomfortable. It wasn't what they said, + but the way they said it; and the endless questions wearied her. She was, + as well, continually bothered by her inability to impress upon them how + splendid her mother was. Some of them she was certain did not appreciate + her. Mrs. Condon at once admitted and was entertained by this, but it + disturbed Linda. However, she understood the reason—when any nice + men came along they always liked her mother best. This made the women mad. + </p> + <p> + The world, she gathered, was a place where women played a game of men with + each other. It was very difficult, she couldn't comprehend the rules or + reason; and Linda was afraid that she would be unsuccessful and never have + the perfect time her mother wanted for her. In the first place, she was + too thin, and then she knew that she could never talk like her dearest. + Perhaps when she had had some wine it would be different. + </p> + <p> + She decided, after all, to go down to the assemblage; and, by one of the + white marble pillars, Mrs. Randall captured her. “Why, here's + Linda-all-alone,” Mrs. Randall said. “Mama out again?” Linda replied + stoutly, “She has a dreadful lot of invitations.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Randall, who wore much brighter clothes than her mother, was called + by the latter an old buzzard. She was very old, Linda could see, with + perfectly useless staring patches of paint on her wrinkled cheeks, and + eyes that look as though they might come right out of her head. Her + frizzled hair supported a dead false twist with a glittering diamond pin, + and her soft cold hands were loaded with jewels. She frightened Linda, + really, although she could not say why. Mrs. Randall was a great deal like + the witch in a fairy-story, but that wasn't it. Linda hadn't the belief in + witches necessary for dread. It might be her scratching voice; or the way + she turned her head, without any chin at all, like a turtle; or her + dresses, which led you to expect a person very different from an old + buzzard. + </p> + <p> + “Of course she does,” said Mrs. Randall, “any number of invitations, and + why shouldn't she? Your mother is very pleasant, to be sure.” She nodded + wisely to the woman beside her, Miss Skillern. + </p> + <p> + Miss Skillern was short and broad and, in the evening, always wore curled + ostrich plumes on tightly filled gray puffs. She reminded Linda of a + wadded chair. Mrs. Randall, after the other's slight stiff assent, + continued: + </p> + <p> + “Your mama would never be lonely, not she. All I wonder is she doesn't get + married again—with that blondine of hers. Wouldn't you rather have + one papa than, in a way of speaking, a different one at every hotel?” + </p> + <p> + Linda, completely at a loss for answer, studied Mrs. Randall with her + direct deep blue gaze. Miss Skillern again inclined her plumes. With the + rest of her immobile she was surprisingly like one of those fat china + figures with a nodding head. Linda was assaulted by the familiar + bewildered feeling of not understanding what was said and, at the same + time, passionately resenting it from an inner sensitive recognition of + something wrong. + </p> + <p> + “How could I have that?” she finally asked. + </p> + <p> + “How?” repeated Miss Skillern, breathing loudly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, how?” Mrs. Randall echoed. “You can ask your mama. You really can. + And you may say that, as a matter of fact, the question came from us,” she + included her companion. + </p> + <p> + “From you,” Miss Skillern exactly corrected her. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed,” the other cried heatedly, “from me! I think not. Didn't you ask? + Answer me that, if you please. I heard you with my own ears say, 'How?' + While now, before my face, you try to deny it.” It was plain to Linda that + Miss Skillern was totally unmoved by the charge. She moved her lorgnette + up, gazing stolidly at the musical programme. “From you,” she said again, + after a little. Mrs. Randall suddenly regained her equilibrium. + </p> + <p> + “If the ladies of this hotel are afraid to face that creature I—I—am + not. I'll tell her in a minute what a respectable person thinks of her + goings-on. More than that, I shall complain to Mr. Rennert. 'Mr. Rennert,' + I'll say, 'either she leaves or me. Choose as you will. The reputation of + your hotel—'” she spluttered and paused. + </p> + <p> + “Proof,” Miss Skillern pronounced judicially; “proof. We know, but that's + not proof.” + </p> + <p> + “He has a wife,” Mrs. Randall replied in a shrill whisper; “a wife who is + an invalid. Mrs. Zoock, she who had St. Vitus' dance and left yesterday, + heard it direct. George A. Jasper, woolen mills in Frankford, + Pennsylvania. Mr. Rennert would thank me for that information.” + </p> + <p> + They had forgotten Linda. She stood rigid and cold—they were blaming + her mother for going out in a rolling chair with Mr. Jasper because he was + married. But her mother didn't know that; probably Mr. Jasper had not + given it a thought. She was at the point of making this clear, when it + seemed to her that it might be better to say that her mother knew + everything there was about Mr. Jasper's wife; she could even add that they + were all friends. + </p> + <p> + Linda would have to tell her mother the second she came in, and then, of + course, she'd stop going with Mr. Jasper. Men, she thought in the elder's + phrase, were too beastly for words. + </p> + <p> + “After all,” Mrs. Randall was addressing her again, “you needn't say + anything at all to your mama. It might make her so cross that she'd spank + you.” + </p> + <p> + “Mother never spanks me,” Linda replied with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “If you were my little girl,” said Miss Skillern, with rolling lips, “I'd + put you over my knee with your skirts up and paddle you.” + </p> + <p> + Never, Linda thought, had she heard anything worse; she was profoundly + shocked. The vision of Miss Skillern performing such an operation as she + had described cut its horror on her mind. There was a sinking at her heart + and a misty threat of tears. + </p> + <p> + To avert this she walked slowly away. It was hardly past nine o'clock; her + mother wouldn't be back for a long while, and she was too restless and + unhappy to sit quietly above. Instead, she continued down to the floor + where there were various games in the corridor leading to the + billiard-room. The hall was dull, no one was clicking the balls about the + green tables, and a solitary sick-looking man, with inky shadows under + fixed eyes, was smoking a cigarette in a chair across from the + cigar-stand. + </p> + <p> + He looked over a thick magazine in a chocolate cover, his gaze arrested by + her irresolute passage. “Hello, Bellina,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She stopped. “Linda,” she corrected him, “Linda Condon.” Obeying a sudden + impulse, she dropped, with a sigh, into a place beside him. + </p> + <p> + “You're bored,” he went on, the magazine put away. “So am I, but my term + is short.” + </p> + <p> + She wondered, principally, what he was doing, among so many women, at the + Boscombe. He was different from Mr. Jasper, or the other men with fat + stomachs, the old men with dragging feet. It embarrassed her to meet his + gaze, it was so—so investigating. She guessed he was by the sea + because he felt as badly as he looked. He asked surprisingly: + </p> + <p> + “Why are you here?” + </p> + <p> + “On the account of my mother,” she explained. “But it doesn't matter much + where I am. Places are all alike,” she continued conversationally. “We're + mostly at hotels—Florida in winter and Lake George in summer. This + is kind of between.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” he said; and she was sure, from that short single exclamation, he + understood everything. + </p> + <p> + “Like all true beauty,” he added, “it's plain that you are durable.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't like the seashore,” she went on easily; “I'd rather be in a + garden with piles of flowers and a big hedge.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever lived in a garden-close?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” she admitted; “it's just an idea. I told mother but she laughed at + me and said a roof-garden was her choice.” + </p> + <p> + “Some day you'll have the place you describe,” he assured her. “It is + written all over you. I would like to see you, Bellina, in a space of + emerald sod and geraniums.” She decided to accept without further protest + his name for her. “You are right, too, about the hedge—the highest + and thickest in creation. I should recommend a pseudo-classic house, + Georgian, rather small, a white façade against the grass. A Jacobean + dining-room, dark certainly, the French windows open on dipping candle + flames. You'd wear white, with your hair low and the midnight bang as it + is now.” + </p> + <p> + “That would be awfully nice,” Linda replied vaguely. She sighed. + </p> + <p> + “But a very light drawing-room!” he cried. “White panels and arches and + Canton-blue rugs—the brothers Adam. A fluted mantel, McIntires, and + a brass hod. Curiously enough, I always see you in the evening ... at the + piano. I'm not so bored, now.” Little flames of red burned in either thin + cheek. “What nonsense!” Suddenly he was tired. “This is a practical and + earnest world,” his voice grew thin and hurt her. “Yet beauty is + relentless. You'll have your garden, but I shouldn't be surprised at + difficulties first.” + </p> + <p> + “It won't be so hard to get,” she declared confidently. “I mean to choose + the right man. Mother says that's the answer. Women, she says, won't use + their senses.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah.” + </p> + <p> + Linda began to think this was a most unpleasant monosyllable. + </p> + <p> + “So that's the lay! Has she succeeded?” + </p> + <p> + “She has a splendid time. She's out tonight with Mr. Jasper in a rolling + chair, and he has loads and loads of money. It makes all the other women + cross.” + </p> + <p> + “Here you are, then, till she gets back?” + </p> + <p> + “There's no one else.” + </p> + <p> + “But, as a parent, infinitely preferable to the righteous,” he murmured. + “And you—” + </p> + <p> + “I think mother's perfect,” she answered simply. + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “You won't succeed at it, though. Your mother, for + example, isn't dark.” + </p> + <p> + “The loveliest gold hair,” she said ecstatically. “She's much much + prettier than I'll ever be.” + </p> + <p> + “Prettier, yes. The trouble is, you are lovely, magical. You will stay for + a lifetime in the memory. The merest touch of you will be more potent than + any duty or fidelity. A man's only salvation will be his blindness.” + </p> + <p> + Although she didn't understand a word of this, Linda liked to hear him; he + was talking as though she were grown up, and in response to the flattery + she was magnetic and eager. + </p> + <p> + “One time,” he said, “very long ago, beauty was worshiped. Men, you see, + know better now. They want their dollar's worth. The world was absolutely + different then—there were deep adventurous forests with holy chapels + in the green combe for an orison, and hermits rising to Paradise on the <i>Te + Deum Laudamus</i> of the angels and archangels. There were black castles + and, in the broad meadows, silk tents with ivory pegs and poles of gold. + </p> + <p> + “The enchantments were as thick as shadows under the trees: perhaps the + loveliest of women riding a snow-white mule, with a saddle cloth of red + samite, or, wrapped in her shining hair, on a leopard with yellow eyes, + lured you to a pavilion, scattered with rushes and flowers and magical + herbs, and a shameful end. Or a silver doe would weep, begging you to + pierce her with your sword, and, when you did, there knelt the daughter of + the King of Wales. + </p> + <p> + “But I started to tell you about the worship of beauty. Plato started it + although Cardinal Pietro Bembo was responsible for the creed. He lived in + Italy, in an age like a lily. It developed mostly at Florence in the + Platonic Academy of Cosomo and Pico della Mirandola. Love was the supreme + force, and its greatest expression a desire beyond the body.” + </p> + <p> + He gazed at Linda with a quizzical light in his eyes deep in shadow. + </p> + <p> + “Love,” he said again, and then paused. “One set of words will do as well + as another. You will understand, or not, with something far different from + intellectual comprehension. The endless service of beauty. Of course, a + woman—but never the animal; the spirit always. Born in the spirit, + served in the spirit, ending in the spirit. A direct contradiction, you + see, to nature and common sense, frugality and the sacred symbol of the + dollar. + </p> + <p> + “It wouldn't please your Mr. Jasper, with his heaps and heaps of money. + Mr. Jasper would consider himself sold. But Novalis, not so very long ago, + understood.... A dead girl more real than all earth. You mustn't suppose + it to be mere mysticism.” + </p> + <p> + Linda said, “Very well, I won't.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded. “No one could call Michelangelo hysterical. Sometime in the + history of man, of a salt solution, this divinity has touched them. + Touched them hopefully, and perhaps gone—banished by the other + destination. Or I can comprehend nature killing it relentlessly, since it + didn't lead to propagation. Then, too, as much as was useful was turned + into a dogma for politics and priests. + </p> + <p> + “You saw in the rushlight a woman against the arras; there was a humming + of viola d'amore from the musicians' balcony; she smiled at you, + lingering, and then vanished with a whisper of brocade de Lyons on a + sanded floor. Nothing else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, in + your habergeon, an eternally fragrant memory; the dim vision in stone + street and coppice; a word, a message, it might be, sent across the world + of steel at death. And then, in the last flicker of vision, the arras and + the clear insistent strings, the whispering brocade de Lyons on the + landing. + </p> + <p> + “The philosophy of it,” he said in a different tone, “is exact, even a + scientific truth. But men have been more concerned with turning lead into + gold; naturally the spirit has been neglected. The science of love has + been incredibly soiled: + </p> + <p> + “The old gesture toward the stars, the bridge of perfection, the escape + from the fatality of flesh. Yet it was a service of the body made + incredibly lovely in actuality and still never to be grasped. Never to be + won. It ought to be clear to you that realized it would diminish into + quite a different thing— + </p> + <p> + “'<i>La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa idea.</i>'” + </p> + <p> + His voice grew so faint that Linda could scarcely distinguish articulate + sounds. All that he said, without meaning for her, stirred her heart. She + was used to elder enigmas of speech; her normal response was instinctively + emotional, and nothing detracted from the gravity of her attention. + </p> + <p> + “Not in pious men,” he continued, more uncertain; “nor in seminaries of + virtue. They have their reward. But in men whose bitterness of longing + grew out of hideous fault. The distinction of beauty—not a payment + for prayers or chastity. The distinction of love ... above chests of linen + and a banker's talent and patents of nobility.... Divine need. Idiotic. + But what else, what better, offers?” + </p> + <p> + He was, she saw, terribly sick. His hands were clenched and his entire + being strained and rigid, as though he were trying to do something + tremendously difficult. At last, with infinite pain, he succeeded. + </p> + <p> + “I must get away,” he articulated. + </p> + <p> + Linda was surprised at the effort necessary for this slight accomplishment + when he had said the most bewildering things with complete ease. Well, the + elevators were right in front of him. He rose slowly, and, with Linda + standing at his side, dug a sharp hand into her shoulder. It hurt, but + instinctively she bore it and, moving forward, partly supported him. She + pressed the bell that signaled for the elevator and it almost immediately + sank into view. “Hurry,” he said harshly to the colored operator in a + green uniform; and quite suddenly, leaving a sense of profound mystery, he + disappeared. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + Linda decided that he had told her a rather stupid fairy story. She was + too old for such ridiculous things as ladies in their shining hair on a + leopard. She remembered clearly seeing one of the latter at a zoological + garden. It had yellow eyes, but no one would care to ride on it. Her + mother, she was certain, knew more about love than any man. His words + faded quickly from her memory, but a confused rich sense stirred her + heart, a feeling such as she experienced after an unusually happy day: + white gloves and music and Mr. Jasper displeased. + </p> + <p> + A clock chimed ten, and she proceeded to her mother's room, where she must + wait up with her information about Mr. Jasper's wife. She was furious at + him for a carelessness that had brought her mother such unfavorable + criticism. Everything had been put away before going down, and there was + nothing for her to do. The time dragged tediously. The hands of the + traveling-clock in purple leather on the dressing-table moved deliberately + around to eleven. A ringing of ice in one of the metal pitchers carried by + the bell boys sounded from the corridor. There was the faint wail of a + baby. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly and acutely Linda was lonely—a new kind of loneliness that + had nothing to do with the fact that she was by herself. It was a strange + cold unhappiness, pressing over her like a cloud and, at the same time, it + was nothing at all. That is, there was no reason for it. The room was + brightly lighted and, anyhow, she wasn't afraid of “things.” She thought + that at any minute she must cry like that baby. After a little she felt + better; rather the unhappiness changed to wanting. What she wanted was a + puzzle; but nothing else would satisfy her. It might be a necklace of + little pearls, but it wasn't. It might be—. Now it was twelve + o'clock. Dear, dear, why didn't she come back! + </p> + <p> + Music, awfully faint, and a whisper, like a dress, across the floor. Her + emotion changed again, to an extraordinary delight, a glow like that which + filled her at the expression of her adoration for her mother, but + infinitely greater. She was seated, and she lifted her head with her eyes + closed and hands clasped. The clock pointed to one and her parent came + into the room. + </p> + <p> + “Linda,” she exclaimed crossly, “whatever are you doing up? A bad little + girl. I told you to be asleep hours before this.” + </p> + <p> + “There is something you had to know right away,” Linda informed her + solemnly. “I only just heard it from Mrs. Randall and Miss Skillern.” Her + mother's flushed face hardened. “Mr. Jasper is married,” Linda said. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon dropped with an angry flounce into a chair. Her broad scarf of + sealskin slipped from one shoulder. Her hat was crooked and her hair + disarranged. “So that's it,” she said bitterly; “and they went to you. The + dam' old foxes. They went to you, nothing more than a child.” + </p> + <p> + Linda put in, “They didn't mean to; it just sort of came out. I knew you'd + stop as soon as you heard. Wasn't it horrid of him?” + </p> + <p> + “And this,” Mrs. Condon declared, “is what I get for being, yes—proper. + </p> + <p> + “I said to-night, 'George,' I said, 'go right back home. It's the only + thing. They have a right to you.' I told him that only to-night. And, 'No, + I must consider my little Linda.' If I had held up my finger,” she held up + a finger to show the smallness of the act necessary, “where would we have + all been? + </p> + <p> + “But this is what I get. You might think the world would notice a woman's + best efforts. No, they all try to crowd her and see her slip. If they + don't watch out I'll skid, all right, and with some one they least expect. + I have opportunities.” + </p> + <p> + Linda realized with a sense of confusion that her mother had known of Mr. + Jasper's marriage all the while. But she had nobly tried to save him from + something; just what Linda couldn't make out. The other's breath was heavy + with drinking. + </p> + <p> + “You go to bed, Lin,” she continued; “and thank you for taking care of + mama. I hope to goodness you'll learn from all this—pick out what + you want and make for it. Don't bother with the antique frumps, the + disappointed old tabbies. Have your fun. There's nothing else. If you like + a man, be on the level with him—give and take. Men are not saints + and we're better for it; we don't live in a heaven. You've got a sweet + little figure. Always remember mama telling you that the most expensive + corsets are the cheapest in the end.” + </p> + <p> + Linda undressed slowly and methodically, her mother's words ringing in her + head. Always remember—but of course she would have the nicest things + possible.... A keepsake and faint music. She thought, privately, that she + was too thin; she'd rather be her mother, with shoulders like bunches of + smooth pink roses. In bed, just as she was falling asleep, a sound + disturbed her from the corridor above—the slow tramping of heavy + feet, like a number of men carefully bearing an awkward object. She + listened with suspended breath while they passed. The footfalls seemed to + pound on her heart. Slowly, slowly they went, unnatural and measured. They + were gone now, but she still heard them. The crashing of her mother into + bed followed with a deep sigh. The long fall of a wave on the shore was + audible. Two things contended in her stilled brain—the mysterious + feeling of desire and her mother's advice. They were separate and fought, + yet they were strangely incomprehensibly joined. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + In the morning Mrs. Condon, with a very late breakfast-tray in bed, had + regained her usual cheerful manner. “The truth is,” she told Linda, “I'm + glad that Jasper man has gone. He had no idea of discretion; tired of them + anyhow.” Linda radiated happiness. This was the mother she loved above all + others. Her mind turned a little to the man who had talked to her the + night before. She wondered if he were better. His thin blanched face, his + eyes gleaming uncomfortably in smudges, recurred to her. Perhaps he'd be + down by the cigar-stand again. She went, presently, to see, but the row of + chairs was empty. + </p> + <p> + However, the neglected thick brown-covered magazine was still on the ledge + by which he had been sitting. There was a name on it, and while, + ordinarily, she couldn't read handwriting, this was so clear and regular, + but minutely small, that she was able to spell it out—Howard Welles. + </p> + <p> + It disappointed her not to find him; at lunch she observed nearly every + one present, but still he was lost. He wasn't listening to the music after + dinner, nor below. A deep sense of disappointment grew within her. Linda + wanted to see him, hear him talk; at times a sharp hurt in the shoulder he + had grasped brought him back vividly. The next day it was the same, and + finally, diffidently, she approached the hotel desk. A clerk she knew, Mr. + Fiske, was rapidly sorting mail, and she waited politely until he had + finished. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I found this down-stairs,” she said, giving him the magazine. “Perhaps + he'll want it.” Mr. Fiske looked at the written name, and then glanced + sharply at her. “No,” he told her brusquely, “he won't want it.” He turned + away with the magazine and left Linda standing irresolutely. She wanted to + ask if Mr. Welles were still at the Boscombe; if the latter didn't want + the magazine she'd love to have it, Linda couldn't tell why. But the clerk + went into the treasurer's office and she was forced to move away. + </p> + <p> + Later, lingering inexplicably about the spot where she had heard so many + bewildering words, a very different man spoke to her. He, Linda observed, + was smoking a cigar, a good one, she was certain. He was smallish and had + a short bristling mustache and head partly bald. His shoes were very shiny + and altogether he had a look of prosperity. “Hello, cutie!” he cried, + capturing her arm. She responded listlessly. The other produced a crisp + dollar bill. “Do you see the chocolates in that case?” he said, indicating + the cigar-stand. “Well, get the best. If they cost more, let me know. Our + financial rating is number one.” Linda answered that she didn't think she + cared for any. “All right,” the man agreed; “sink the note in the First + National Ladies Bank, if you know where that is.” + </p> + <p> + He engineered her unwillingly onto a knee. “How's papa?” he demanded. “I + suppose he will be here Saturday to take his family through the stores?” + </p> + <p> + She replied with dignity, “There is only my mother and me.” + </p> + <p> + At this information he exclaimed “Ah!” and touched his mustache with a + diminutive gold-backed brush from a leather case. “That's more than I + have,” he confided to her; “there is only myself. Isn't that sad? You must + be sorry for the lonely old boy.” + </p> + <p> + She wasn't. Probably he, too, had a wife somewhere; men were beastly. “I + guess your mother wants a little company at times herself?” + </p> + <p> + Linda, straining away from him, replied, “Oh, dear, no; there are just + packs of gentlemen whenever she likes. But she is tired of them all.” She + escaped and he settled his waistcoat. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't run away,” he admonished her; “nice children don't. Your + mother didn't bring you up like that, I'm sure. She wouldn't like it.” + </p> + <p> + Linda hesitated, plainly conveying the fact that, if she were to wait, he + would have to say something really important. + </p> + <p> + “Just you two,” he deliberated; “Miss and Mrs. Jones.” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” Linda asserted shortly; “our name is Condon.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if you'd tell her this,” he went on: “a gentleman's here by + himself named Bardwell, who has seen her and admires her a whole lot. Tell + her he's no young sprig but he likes a good time all the better. + Dependable, too. Remember that, cutie. And he wouldn't presume if he had a + short pocket. He knows class when he sees it.” + </p> + <p> + “It won't do any good,” Linda assured him in her gravest manner. “She said + only this morning she was sick of them.” + </p> + <p> + “That was before dinner,” he replied cheerfully. “Things look different + later in the day. You do what I tell you.” + </p> + <p> + All this Linda dutifully repeated. Her mother was at the dressing-table, + rubbing cream into her cheeks, and she paused, surveying her reflection in + the mirror. “He was smoking a big cigar,” Linda added. The other laughed. + “What a sharp little thing you are!” she exclaimed. “A body ought to be + careful what they tell you.” She wiped off the cream and rubbed a soft + pinkish powder into her skin. + </p> + <p> + “He saw me, did he?” she apparently addressed the glass. “Admired me a + whole lot. Was he nice, Linda?” she turned. “Were his clothes right? You + must point him out to me to-night. But do it carefully, darling. No one + should notice. Your mother isn't on the shelf yet; she can hold her own, + even in the Boscombe, against the whole barnyard.” + </p> + <p> + Linda, at the entrance to the dining-room, whispered, “There he is.” But + immediately Mr. Bardwell was smiling and speaking to them. + </p> + <p> + “I had a delightful conversation with your little girl to-day,” he told + Mrs. Condon; “such a pretty child and well brought up.” + </p> + <p> + “And good, too,” her mother replied; “not a minute's trouble. The common + sense of the grown; you'd never believe it.” + </p> + <p> + “Why shouldn't I?” he protested gallantly. “Every reason to.” Mrs. Condon + blushed becomingly. + </p> + <p> + “She had to make up for a lot,” she sighed. + </p> + <p> + An hour or more after dinner Mrs. Randall stopped Linda in the hall beyond + the music. “Mama out?” she inquired brightly. “I thought Mr. Jasper left + this morning?” + </p> + <p> + Linda told her that Mr. Jasper had gone; she added nothing else. + </p> + <p> + “I must look at the register,” Mrs. Randall continued; “I really must.” + </p> + <p> + Obeying an uncontrollable impulse Linda half cried, “I'd like to see you + riding on a leopard!” A flood of misery enveloped her, and she hurried up + to the silence of her mother's deserted room. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + It was on her fourteenth birthday that Linda noticed a decided change in + her mother; a change, unfortunately, that most of all affected the + celebrated good humors. In the first place Mrs. Condon spent an + increasingly large part of the day before the mirror of her + dressing-table, but without any proportionate pleasure; or, if there was a + proportion kept, it exhibited the negative result of a growing annoyance. + “God knows why they all show at once,” she exclaimed discontentedly, + seated—as customary—before the eminently truthful reflection + of a newly discovered set of lines. “I'm not old enough to begin to look + like a hag.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, mother,” Linda protested, shocked, “you mustn't say such horrid + things about yourself. Why, you're perfectly lovely, and you don't seem a + speck older than you did years ago.” + </p> + <p> + The other, biting her full underlip at the unwelcome fact in turn biting a + full lower lip back at her, made no reply. Linda lingered for a moment at + her mother's ruffled pink shoulders; then, with a sigh, she turned to the + reception-room of their small suite at the Hotel Gontram. It was a somber + chamber furnished in red plush, with a complication of shades and + gray-white net curtains at long windows and a deep green carpet. There was + a fireplace, with a grate, supported by varnished oak pillars and + elaborate mantel and glass, a glittering reddish center-table with a great + many small odd shelves below, a desk with sheaves of hotel writing paper + and the telephone. + </p> + <p> + The Gontram was entirely different from the hotels at the lakes or + seashore or in the South. It was a solid part of a short block west of + Fifth Avenue in the middle of the city. Sherry's filled a corner with its + massive stone bulk and glimpses of dining-rooms with glittering + chandeliers and solemn gaiety, then impressive clubs and wide entrances + under heavy glass and metal, tall porters in splendid livery, succeeded + each other to the Hotel Gontram and the dull thunder of the elevated + trains beyond. + </p> + <p> + The revolving door, through which Linda sedately permitted herself to be + moved, opened into a high space of numerous columns and benches, + writing-desks and palms. At the back was the white room where, usually + alone, she had breakfast, while the dining-room, discreetly lighted, was + at the left. It was more interesting here than, for example, at the + Boscombe; people were always coming in or going, and there were quantities + of men. She watched them arriving with shoals of leather bags in the brisk + care of the bellboys, disappear into the elevator, and, if it was evening, + come down in dinner coats with vivid silk scarfs folded over their white + shirts. + </p> + <p> + The women were perpetually in street clothes or muffled in satin wraps; + Linda only regarded them when they were exceptional. Usually she was + intent on the men. It often happened that they returned her frank gaze + with a smile, or stopped to converse with her. Sometimes it was an actor + with a face dryly pink like a woman's from make-up; they were familiar and + pinched her cheeks, calling her endearing names in conscious echoing + voices as if they were quite hollow within. Then there were simply + business men, who never appeared to take off their derby hats, and spoke + to her of their little girls at home. She was entirely at ease with the + latter—so many of her mother's friends were similar—and + critically valued the details of their dress, the cigar-cases with or + without gold corners, the watch-chains with jeweled insignia, the + cuff-links and embroidered handkerchiefs. + </p> + <p> + If her mother approached while Linda was so engaged the elder would linger + with a faint smile, at which, now, the girl was conscious of a growing + impatience. She'd rise with dignity and, if possible, escape with her + parent from florid courtesies. This sense of annoyance oppressed her, too, + in the dining-room, where her mother, a cocktail in her hand, would engage + in long cheerful discussions with the captains or waiters. Other women, + Linda observed, spoke with complete indifference and their attention on + the <i>carte de jour</i>. Of course it was much more friendly to be + interested in the servants' affairs—they told her mother about their + wives and the number of their children, the difficulties of bringing both + ends together, and served her with the promptest care; but instinctively + Linda avoided any but the most formal contact. + </p> + <p> + She had to insist, as well, on paying the tips; for Mrs. Condon, her + sympathies engaged, was quite apt to leave on the table a five-dollar bill + or an indiscriminate heap of silver. “You are a regular little Jew,” she + would reply lightly to Linda's protests. This, the latter thought, was + unfair; for the only Jew she knew, Mr. Moses Feldt, an acquaintance of + their present period in New York, was quite the most generous person she + knew. “Certainly you don't take after your mama.” + </p> + <p> + After she said this she always paused with tight lips. It was charged with + the assumption that, while Linda didn't resemble her, she did very much a + mysterious and unfavorably regarded personage. Her father, probably. More + and more Linda wondered about him. He was dead, she knew, but that, she + began to see, was no reason for the positive prohibition to mention him at + all. Perhaps he had done something dreadful, with money, and had disgraced + them all. Yet she was convinced that this was not so. + </p> + <p> + She had heard a great many uncomplimentary words applied to husbands, most + of which she had been unable to comprehend; and she speculated blankly on + them in her mother's connection. On the whole the women agreed that they + were remarkably stupid and transparent, they protested that they + understood and guided every move husbands made; and this surely gave her + father no opportunity for independent crime. She was held from questioning + not so much by her mother's command—at times she calmly and + successfully ignored that—as from its unfortunate effect on the + elder. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon would burn with a generalized anger that sank to a despondency + fortified by the brandy flask. Straining embraces and tears, painful to + support, would follow, or more unbearable silliness. The old difficulties + with giggling or sympathetic chambermaid;—Linda couldn't decide + which was worse—then confronted her with the necessity for rigid + lies, misery, and the procuring of sums of money from the bag in the top + drawer. Altogether, and specially with the fresh difficulties of her + mother's unaccountable irritation and apprehensions, things were + frightfully complicated. + </p> + <p> + It was late afternoon in November, and the electric lights were on; + however, they were lighted when they rose, whenever they were in the + rooms, for it was always gloomy if not positively dark; the bedroom looked + into a deep exterior well and the windows of the other chamber opened on + an uncompromising blank wall. Yet Linda, now widely learned in such + settings, rather liked her present situation. They had occupied the same + suite before, for one thing; and going back into it had given her a sense + of familiarity in so much that always shifted. + </p> + <p> + Linda, personally, had changed very little; she was taller than four years + before, but not a great deal; she was, perhaps, more graceful—her + movements had become less sudden—more assured, the rapidly maturing + qualities of her mind made visible; and she had gained a surprising + repose. + </p> + <p> + Now, for example, she sat in a huge chair cushioned with black leather and + thought, with a frowning brow, of her mother. It was clear that the latter + was obviously worried about—to put it frankly—her face. Her + figure, she repeatedly asserted, could be reasoned with; she had always + been reconciled to a certain jolly stoutness, but her face, the lines that + appeared about her eyes overnight, fairly drove her to hot indiscreet + tears. She had been to see about it, Linda knew; and returned from + numerous beauty-parlors marvelously rejuvenated—for the evening. + </p> + <p> + She had been painted, enameled, vibrated, massaged; she had had electric + treatment, rays and tissue builders; and once she had been baked. To-day + the toilet table would be loaded with milkweed, cerates and vanishing + cream; tomorrow they would all be swept away, given to delighted + chambermaids, while Mrs. Condon declared that, when all was said, cold + water and a rough towel was nature's way. + </p> + <p> + This afternoon, apparently everything, including hope, had failed. She was + as cross as cross. From the manner in which she spoke it might have been + Linda's fault. The worst of it was that even the latter saw that nothing + could be done. Her mother was growing—well, a little tired in + appearance. Swift tears gathered in Linda's eyes. She hadn't been quite + truthful in that reassuring speech of hers. She set herself to the + examination of various older women with whom she had more or less lately + come in contact. How had they regarded and met the loss of whatever good + looks they had possessed? + </p> + <p> + It was terribly mixed up, but, as she thought about it, it seemed to her + that the world of women was divided into two entirely different groups, + the ones men liked, and who had such splendid parties; and the ones who + sat together and gossiped in sharp lowered voices. She hoped passionately + that her mother would not become one of the latter for a long long while. + But eventually it seemed that there was no escape from the circle of + brilliantly dressed creatures with ruined faces who congregated in the + hotels and whispered and nodded in company until they went severally to + bed. + </p> + <p> + The great difference between one and the other, of course, was the favor + of men. Their world revolved about that overwhelming fact. Her mother had + informed her of this on a hundred occasions and in countless ways; but + more by her actions, her present wretchedness, than by speech. It was + perfectly clear to Linda that nothing else mattered. She was even + beginning, in a vague way, to think of it in connection with herself; but + still most of her preoccupation was in her mother. She decided gravely + that a great deal, yet, could be done. For instance, lunch to-day: + </p> + <p> + Her mother had given her a birthday celebration at Henri's, the famous + confectioner but a door or two from their hotel, and at the end, when a + plate of the most amazing and delightful little cakes had been set on the + table, the elder had eaten more than half. Afterwards she had sworn + ruefully at her lack of character, begging Linda—in a momentary + return of former happy companionship—never to let her make such a + silly pig of herself again. Then she got so tired, Linda continued her + mental deliberations; if she could only rest, go away from cities and + resorts for a number of months, the lines in turn would soon vanish. + </p> + <p> + The elder moved impatiently, with a fretful exclamation, in the inner + room; from outside came the subdued dull ceaseless clamor of New York. + Formerly it had frightened Linda; but her dread had become a wordless + excitement at the thought of so much just beyond the windows; her hands + grew cold and her heart suddenly pounded, destroying the vicarious image + of her mother. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + “I wish now I'd been different,” Mrs. Condon said, standing in the door. + Her dress was not yet on, but her underthings were fully as elaborate and + shimmering as any gown could hope to be. “And above everything else, I am + sorry for the kind of mother you've had.” This was so unexpected, the + other's voice was so unhappy, that Linda was startled. She hurried across + the room and laid a slim palm on her mother's full bare arm. “Don't say + that,” Linda begged, distressed; “you've been the best in the world.” + </p> + <p> + “You know nothing about it,” the elder returned, momentarily seated, her + hands clasped on her full silken lap. “But perhaps it's not too late. You + ought to go to a good school, where you'd learn everything, but + principally what a bad thoughtless mama you have.” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn't stay a second in a place where they said that,” Linda + declared. A new apprehension touched her. “You're not really thinking of + sending me away!” she cried. “Why, you simply could not get along. You + know you couldn't! The maids never do up your dresses right; and you'd be + so lonely in the mornings you would nearly die.” + </p> + <p> + “That's true,” Mrs. Condon admitted wearily. “I would expire; but I was + thinking of you—you're only beginning life; and the start you'll get + with me is all wrong. Or, anyway, most people think so.” + </p> + <p> + “They are only jealous.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you go into the closet, darling, and pour out a teeny little sip + from my flask; mama feels a thousand years old this evening.” + </p> + <p> + Returning with the silver cup of the flask half full of pale pungent + brandy Linda could scarcely keep the tears from spilling over her cheeks. + She had never before felt so sad. Her mother hastily drank, the stinging + odor was transferred to her lips; and there was a palpable recovery of her + customary spirit. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what gets over me,” she asserted. “I'm certain, from what + I've heard of them, that you wouldn't be a bit better off in one of those + fashionable schools for girls. Woman, young and older, were never meant to + be a lot together in one place. It's unnatural. They don't like each + other, ever, and it's all hypocritical and nasty. You will get more from + life, yes, and me. I'm honest, too honest for my own good, if the truth + was known.” + </p> + <p> + She rose and unconsciously strayed to the mirror over the mantel where she + examined her countenance in absorbed detail. + </p> + <p> + “My skin is getting soft like putty,” she remarked aloud to herself. “The + thing is, I've had my time and don't want to pay for it. Blondes go + quicker than dark women; you ought to last a long while, Linda.” Mrs. + Condon had turned, and her tone was again almost complaining, almost + ill-natured. Linda considered this information with a troubled face. It + was quite clear that it made her mother cross. “I've seen men stop and + look at you right now, too, and you nothing more than a slip fourteen + years old. Of course, when I was fifteen I had a proposal; but I was very + forward; and somehow you're different—so dam' serious.” + </p> + <p> + She couldn't help it, Linda thought, if she was serious; she really had a + great deal to think about, their income among other things. If she didn't + watch it, pay the bills every three months when it arrived, her mother + would never have a dollar in the gold mesh bag. Then, lately, the dresses + the elder threatened to buy were often impossible; Linda learned this from + the comments she heard after the wearing of evening affairs sent home + against her earnest protests. They were, other women more discreetly + gowned had agreed, ridiculous. + </p> + <p> + Linda calmly realized that in this her judgment was superior to her + mother's. In other ways, too, she felt she was really the elder; and her + dismay at the possibility of going away to school had been mostly made up + of the realization of how much her mother's well-being was dependent on + her. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon, finishing her dressing in the bedroom, at times called out + various injunctions, general or immediate. “Tell them to have a taxi at + the door for seven sharp. Have you talked to that little girl in the black + velvet?” Linda hadn't and made a mental note to avoid her more pointedly + in the future. “Get out mother's carriage boots from the hall closet; no, + the others—you know I don't wear the black with coral stockings. + They come off and the fur sticks to my legs. It will be very gay to-night; + I hope to heaven Ross doesn't take too much again.” Linda well remembered + that the last time Ross had taken too much her mother's Directoire wrap + had been completely torn in half. “There, it is all nonsense about my + fading; I look as well as I ever did.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon stood before her daughter like a large flame-pink tulle + flower. Her bright gold hair was constrained by black gauze knotted + behind, her bare shoulders were like powdered rosy marble and the floating + skirts gathered in a hand showed marvelously small satin-tied carriage + boots. Indeed Linda's exclamation of delight was entirely frank. She had + never seen her mother more radiant. The cunningly applied rouge, the + enhanced brilliancy of her long-lashed eyes, had perfectly the illusion of + unspent beauty. + </p> + <p> + “Do stay down-stairs after dinner and play,” the elder begged. “And if you + want to go to the theatre, ask Mr. Bendix, at the desk, to send you with + that chauffeur we have had so much. I positively forbid your leaving the + hotel else. It's a comfort after all, that you are serious. Kiss mama—” + </p> + <p> + However, she descended with her mother in the elevator; there was a more + public caress; and the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed Linda at + a small table against the wall. There she had clams—she adored iced + clams—creamed shrimps and oysters with potatoes <i>bordure</i>, + alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte cream with black walnuts. + After this she sedately instructed the captain what to sign on the back of + the dinner check—Linda Condon, room five hundred and seven—placed + thirty-five cents beside the finger-bowl for the waiter, and made her way + out to the news stand and the talkative girl who had it in charge. + Exhausting the possibilities of gossip, and deciding not to go out to the + theatre—in spite of the news girl's exciting description of a play + called “The New Sin”—she was walking irresolutely through the high + gilded and marble assemblage space when, unfortunately, she was captured + by Mr. Moses Feldt. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + He led her to a high-backed lounge against the wall, where, seated on its + extreme edge, he gazed silently at her with an expression of sentimental + concern. Mr. Moses Feldt was a short round man, bald but for a fluffy rim + of pale hair, and with the palest imaginable eyes in a countenance + perpetually flushed by the physical necessity of accommodating his + rotundity to awkward edges and conditions. As usual he was dressed with + the nicest care—a band of white linen laid in the opening of his + waistcoat, his scarf ornamented by a pear-shaped pearl on a diamond + finished stem; his cloth-topped varnished black shoes glistened, while his + short fat fingers clasped a prodigious unlighted cigar. At last, in a tone + exactly suited to his gaze, he exclaimed: + </p> + <p> + “So that naughty mama has gone out again and deserted Moses and her little + Linda!” In what way her mother had deserted Mr. Feldt she failed to + understand. Of course he wanted to marry them—the comprehensive + phrase was his own—but that didn't include him in whatever they did. + Principally it made a joke for their private entertainment. Mrs. Condon + would mimic his eager manner, “Stella, let me take you both home where + you'll have the best in the land,” And, “Ladies like you ought to have a + loving protection.” Linda would laugh in her cool bell-like manner, and + her mother add a satirical comment on the chance any Moses Feldt had of + marrying her. + </p> + <p> + Linda at once found him ridiculous and a being who forced a slighting + warmth of liking. His appearance was preposterous, the ready emotion often + too foolish for words; but underneath there was a—a goodness, a + mysterious quality that stirred her heart to recognition. Certain rare + things in life and experience affected her like that memory of an old + happiness. She could never say what they might be, they came at the oddest + times and by the most extraordinary means; but at their occurrence she + would thrill for a moment as if in response to a sound of music. + </p> + <p> + It was, for example, absurd that Mr. Moses Feldt, who was a Jew, should + make her feel like that, but he did. And all the while that she was + disagreeable to him, or mocking him behind his back, she was as + uncomfortable and “horrid” as possible. While this fact, of course, only + served to make her horrider still. At present she adopted the manner of a + patience that nothing could quite exhaust; she was polite and formal, + relentlessly correct in position. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Moses Feldt, the cigar in his grasp, pressed a hand to the probable + region of his heart. “You don't know how I think of you,” he protested, + tears in his eyes; “just the idea of you exposed to anything at all in + hotels keeps me awake nights. Now it's a drunk, or a fresh feller on the + elevator, or—” + </p> + <p> + “It's nice of you,” Linda said, “but you needn't worry. No one would dare + to bother us. No one ever has.” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn't know it if they did,” he replied despondently, “at your age. + And then your mother is so trustful and pleasant. Take those parties where + she is so much—roof frolics and cocoanut groves and submarine cafés; + they don't come to any good. Rowdy.” Linda studied him coldly; if he + criticized them further she would leave. He mopped a shining brow with a + large colorful silk handkerchief. “It throws me into a sweat,” he + admitted. + </p> + <p> + “Really, Mr. Feldt, you mustn't bother,” she told him in one of her few + impulses of friendliness. “You see, we are very experienced.” He nodded + without visible happiness at this truth. “I'm a jackass!” he cried. + “Judith tells me that all the time. If you could only see my daughters,” + he continued with a new vigor; “such lovely girls as they are. One dark + like you and the other fair as a daisy. Judith and Pansy. And my home that + darling mama made before she died.” The handkerchief was again in + evidence. + </p> + <p> + “Women and girls are funny. I can't get you there and not for nothing will + Judith make a step. It may be pride but it seems to me such nonsense. I + guess I'm old-fashioned and love's old-fashioned. Homes have gone out of + style with the rest. It's all these restaurants and roofs now, yes, and + studios. I tell the girls to stay away from them and from artists and so + on. I don't encourage them at the apartment—a big lump of a feller + with platinum bracelets on his wrists. What kind of a man would that be! + I'd like to know who'd buy goods from him. + </p> + <p> + “Sometimes, I'm sorry I got a lot of money, but it made mama happy. When + she laid there at the last sick and couldn't live, I said, 'Oh, if you + only won't leave me I'll give you gold to eat.'” He was so moved, his face + so red, that Linda grew acutely embarrassed. People were looking at them. + She rose stiffly but, in spite of her effort to escape him, he caught both + her hands in his: + </p> + <p> + “You say I'm an old idiot like Judith,” he begged. This Linda declined to + do. And, “Ask your mother if you won't come to dinner with the girls and + me, cozy and at home—just once.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid it will do no good,” she admitted; “but I'll try.” She + realized that he was about to kiss her and moved quickly back. “I am + almost afraid of you,” he told her; “you're so distant and elegant. Judith + and Pansy would get on with you first rate. I'll telephone tomorrow, in + the afternoon. If the last flowers I sent you came I never heard of it.” + </p> + <p> + She thanked him appropriately for the roses and stood, erect and + impersonal, as a man in the hotel livery helped him into a coat. Mr. Moses + Feldt waved the still unlighted cigar at her and disappeared through the + rotating door to the street. + </p> + <p> + She gave a half-affected sigh of relief. Couldn't he see that her mother + would never marry him. At the same time the strange thrill touched her; + the sense of his absurdity vanished and she no longer remembered him + perched like a painted rubber ball on the edge of the lounge. + </p> + <p> + In the somber red plush and varnished wood of the reception-room of their + suite he seemed again charming. Perhaps it was because he, too, adored her + mother. That wasn't the reason. The familiar rare joy lingered. It seemed + now as though she were to capture and understand it ... there was the + vibration of music; and then, as always, she felt at once sad and brave. + But, in spite of her old effort to the contrary, the feeling died away. + Some day it would be clear to her; in the meanwhile Mr. Moses Feldt became + once more only ridiculous. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + In the morning she was dressed and had returned from breakfast before her + mother stirred. The latter moved sharply, brought an arm up over her head, + and swore. It was a long while before she got up or spoke again, and Linda + never remembered her in a worse temper. When, finally, she came into the + room where the breakfast-tray was laid, Linda was inexpressibly shocked—all + that her mother had dreaded about her appearance had come disastrously + true. Her face was hung with shadows like smudges of dirt and her eyes + were netted with lines. + </p> + <p> + Examining the dishes with distaste she told Linda that positively she + could slap her for letting them bring up orange-juice. “How often must I + explain to you that it freezes my fingers.” Linda replied that she had + repeated this in the breakfast-room and perhaps they had the wrong order. + Neither her mother nor she said anything more until Mrs. Condon had + finished her coffee and started a second cigarette. Then Linda related + something of Mr. Moses Feldt's call on the evening before. “He cried right + into his handkerchief,” she said, “until I thought I should sink.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon eyed her daughter speculatively. “Now if you were only four + years older,” she declared, “it would be a good thing. He was simply born + to be a husband.” Horror filled Linda at the other's implication. “Yes,” + the elder insisted; “you couldn't do better; except, perhaps, for those + girls of his. But then you'd have no trouble making them miserable. It's + time to talk to you seriously about marriage.” The smoke from the + cigarette eddied in a gray veil across her unrefreshed face. + </p> + <p> + “You're old for your age, Linda; your life has made you that; and, like I + said last night, it is rather better than not. Well, for you marriage, and + soon as possible, is the proper thing. Mind, I have never said a word + against it; only what suits one doesn't suit another. Where it wouldn't be + anything more than an old ladies' home to me you need it early and plenty. + You are too intense. That doesn't go in the world. Men don't like it. They + want their pleasure and comfort without strings tied to them; the + intensity has to be theirs. + </p> + <p> + “What you must get through your head is that love—whatever it is—and + marriage are two different things, and if you are going to be successful + they must be kept separate. You can't do anything with a man if you love + him; but then you can't do anything with him if he doesn't love you. + That's the whole thing in a breath. I am not crying down love, either; + only I don't want you to think it is the bread and butter while it's + nothing more than those little sweet cakes at Henri's. + </p> + <p> + “Now any girl who marries a poor man or for love—they are the same + thing—is a fool and deserves what she gets. No one thanks her for + it, him least of all; because if she does love him it is only to make them + miserable. She's always at him—where did he go and why did he stay + so long, and no matter what he says she knows it's a lie. More times than + not she's right, too. I can't tell you too often—men don't want to + be loved, they like to be flattered and flattered and then flattered + again. You'd never believe how childish they are. + </p> + <p> + “Make them think they're it and don't give too much—that's the + secret. Above all else don't be easy on them. Don't say 'all right, + darling, next spring will do as well for a new suit.' Get it then and let + him worry about paying for it, if worry he must. If they don't give it to + you some one smarter will wear it. But I started to talk about getting + married. + </p> + <p> + “Choose a Moses Feldt, who will always be grateful to you, and keep him at + it. They are so easy to land it's a kind of shame, too. Perhaps I am + telling you this too soon, but I don't want any mistakes. Well, pick out + your Moses—and mama will help you there—and suddenly, at the + right time, show him that you can be affectionate; surprise him with it + and you so staid and particular generally. Don't overdo it, promise more + than you ever give— + </p> + <p> + “In the closet, dearie, just a little. That's a good girl. Mama's so dry.” + She rose, the silver cup of the flask in her hand, and moved inevitably to + the mirror. “My hair's a sight,” she remarked; “all strings. I believe + I'll get a permanent wave. They say it lasts for six months or more, till + the ends grow out. Makes a lot of it, too, and holds the front together. + If you've ever had dye in your hair, I hear, it will break off like + grass.” + </p> + <p> + Linda pondered over what she had been told of love and marriage; on the + whole the exposition had been unsatisfactory. The latter she was able to + grasp, but her mother had admitted an inability exactly to fix love. One + fact, apparently, was clear—it was a nuisance and a hindrance to + happiness, or rather to success. Love upset things. Still she had the + strongest objection possible to living forever with a man like Mr. Moses + Feldt. At once all that she had hoped for from life grew flat and + uninteresting. She had no doubt of her mother's correctness and wisdom; + the world was like that; she must make the best of it. + </p> + <p> + There was some telephoning, inquiries, and she heard the elder make an + appointment with a hair-dresser for three that afternoon. She wondered + what it would be like to have your hair permanently waved and hoped that + she would see it done. This, too, she realized, was a part of the + necessity of always considering men—they liked your hair to be wavy. + Hers was as straight and stupid as possible. She, in turn, examined + herself in a mirror: the black bang fell exactly to her eyebrows, her face + had no color other than the carnation of her lips and her deep blue eyes. + She moved away and critically studied her figure; inches and inches too + thin, she decided. Undoubtedly her mother was right, and she must marry at + the first opportunity—if she could find a man, a rich man, who was + willing. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts returned vaguely to the mystery, the nuisance, of love. + Surely she had heard something before, immensely important, about it, and + totally different from all her mother had said. Her mind was filled with + the fantastic image of a forest, of dangers, and a fat china figure with + curled plumes, a nodding head, that brushed her with fear and disgust. A + shuddering panic took possession of her, flashes burned before her eyes, + and she ran gasping to the perfumed soft reassurances of her mother. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX + </h2> + <p> + In a recurrence of her surprising concern of the day before Mrs. Condon + declined to leave her dearest Linda alone; and, their arms caught together + in a surging affection, they walked down Fifth Avenue toward the + hairdresser's. There was a diffused gray sparkle of sunlight—it was + early for the throngs—through which they passed rapidly to the + accompaniment of a rapid eager chatter. Linda wore a deep smooth camel's + hair cape, over which her intense black hair poured like ink, and her face + was shaded by a dipping green velvet hat. Her mother, in one of the + tightly cut suits she affected, had never been more like a perfect + companion. + </p> + <p> + They saw, in the window of a store for men, a set of violent purple wool + underwear, and barely escaped hysterics at the thought of Mr. Moses Feldt + in such a garb. They giggled idiotically at the spectacle of a countryman + fearfully making the sharp descent from the top of a lurching omnibus. And + then, when they had reached the place of Mrs. Condon's appointment, + stopped at the show of elaborately waved hair on wax heads and chose + which, probably, would resemble the elder and which, in a very short while + now, Linda. + </p> + <p> + There was an impressive interior, furnished in gray panels and silvery + wood; and the young woman at the desk was more surprisingly waved than + anything they had yet seen. M. Joseph would be ready almost immediately; + and in the meanwhile Mrs. Condon could lay aside her things in preparation + for the hair to be washed. She did this while Linda followed every + movement with the deepest interest. + </p> + <p> + At the back of the long room was a succession of small alcoves, each with + an important-looking chair and mirror and shelves, a white basin, + water-taps and rubber tubes. Settled, in comfort, Mrs. Condon's hair was + spread out in a bright metal tray fastened to the back of the chair, and + the attendant, a moist tired girl in a careless waist, sprayed the short + thick gold-colored strands. + </p> + <p> + “My,” she observed, “what some wouldn't give for your shade! Never been + touched, I can see, either. A lady comes in with real Titian, but yours is + more select. It positively is Lillian Russell.” While she talked her hands + sped with incredible rapidity and skill. “The gentlemen don't notice it; + of course not; oh, no! There was a girl here, a true blonde, but she + didn't stay long—her own car, yes, indeed. Married her right out of + the establishment. There wasn't any nonsense to her. + </p> + <p> + “So this is your little girl! I'd never have believed it. Not that she + hasn't a great deal of style, a great deal—almost, you might say, + like an Egyptian. In the movies last night; her all over. It's a type that + will need studying. Bertha Kalich. But for me—” + </p> + <p> + Already, Linda saw, this part of the operation was done. The girl wheeled + into position a case that had a fan and ring of blue flickering flames, + and a cupped tube through which hot air was poured over her mother's head. + M. Joseph strutted in, a small carefully dressed man with a diminutive + pointed gray beard and formal curled mustache. He spoke with what Linda + supposed was a French accent, and his manners, at least to them, were + beautiful. But because the girl had not put out the blue flames quickly + enough he turned to her with a voice of quivering rage. + </p> + <p> + It was so unexpected, in the middle of his bowing and smooth assurances, + that Linda was startled, and had to think about him all over. The result + of this was a surprising dislike; she hated, even, to see him touch her + mother, as he unnecessarily did in directing them into the enclosure for + the permanent wave. + </p> + <p> + The place itself filled her with the faint horror of instruments and the + unknown. Above the chair where Mrs. Condon now sat there was a circle in + the ceiling like the base of a chandelier and hanging down from it on + twisted green wires were a great number of the strangest things + imaginable: they were as thick as her wrist, but round, longer and hollow, + white china inside and covered with brown wrapping. The wires of each, she + discovered, led over a little wheel and down again to a swinging + clock-like weight. In addition to this there were strange depressing + handles on the wall by a dial with a jiggling needle and clearly marked + numbers. + </p> + <p> + The skill of the girl who had washed her mother's hair, however, was + slight compared with M. Joseph's dexterity. The comb flashed in his white + narrow hands; in no time at all every knot was urged out into a shining + smoothness. “Just the front?” he inquired. Not waiting for Mrs. Condon's + reply, he detached a strand from the mass over her brow, impaled it on a + hairpin, while he picked up what might have been a thick steel + knitting-needle with one end fastened in the middle of a silver quarter. + The latter, it developed, had a hole in it, through which he drew the + strand of hair, and then wrapped it with an angry tightness about the long + projection. + </p> + <p> + At this exact moment a new girl, but tired and moist, appeared, took a + hank of white threads from a dressing-table, and tied that separate lock + firmly. This, Linda counted, was repeated fifteen times; and when it was + accomplished she was unable to repress a nervous laughter. Really, her + mother looked too queer for words: the long rigid projections stood out + all over her head like—like a huge pincushion; no, it was a + porcupine. Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain recognition of her daughter's + mirth. + </p> + <p> + Then Linda's attention followed M. Joseph to a table against a partition, + where he secured a white cotton strip from a film of them soaking in a + shallow tray, took up some white powder on the blade of a dessert knife + and transferred it to the strip. This he wrapped and wrapped about the + hair fastened on a spindle, tied it in turn, and dragged down one of the + brown objects on wires, which, to Linda's great astonishment, fitted + precisely over the cotton-bound hair. Again, fifteen times, M. Joseph did + this, fastening each connection with the turn of a screw. When so much was + accomplished her mother's hair, it seemed, had grown fast to the ceiling + in a tangle of green ends. It was the most terrifying spectacle Linda had + ever witnessed. Obscure thoughts of torture, of criminals executed by + electricity, froze her in a set apprehension. + </p> + <p> + The hair-dresser stepped over to the dials on the wall, and, with a sharp + comprehensive glance at his apparatus, moved a handle as far as it would + go. Nothing immediately happened, and Linda gave a relaxing sigh of + relief. M. Joseph, however, became full of a painful attention. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + He brought into view an unsuspected tube, with a cone of paper at its end, + and bent over her mother, directing a stream of cold air against her head. + “How do you feel?” he asked, with, Linda noticed, a startling loss of his + first accent. Mrs. Condon so far felt well enough. Then, before Linda's + startled gaze, every single one of the fifteen imprisoning tubes began to + steam with an extraordinary vigor; not only did they steam, like teapots, + but drops of water formed and slowly slid over her mother's face. If the + process appeared weird at the beginning, now it was utterly fantastic. + </p> + <p> + The little white vapor spurts played about Mrs. Condon's dripping + countenance; they increased rather than diminished; actually it resembled + a wrecked locomotive she had once seen. “How are you?” M. Joseph demanded + nervously. “Is it hot anywhere?” With a sudden gesture she replied in a + shaking voice, “Here.” + </p> + <p> + Instantly he was holding the paper cone with its cold air against her + scalp, and the heat was subdued. He glanced nervously at his watch, and + Mrs. Condon managed to ask, “How long?” + </p> + <p> + “Twenty minutes.” + </p> + <p> + Dangerous as the whole proceeding seemed nothing really happened, and + Linda's fears gradually faded into a mere curiosity and interest. A + curtain hung across the door to the rest of the establishment, but it had + been brushed partly aside; and she could see, in the compartment they had + vacated, another man bending with waving irons over the liberated mass of + a woman's hair. He was very much like M. Joseph, but he was younger and + had only a dark scrap of mustache. As he caught up the hair with a quick + double twist he leaned very close to the woman's face, whispering with an + expression that never changed, an expression like that of the wax heads in + the show-case. He bent so low that Linda was certain their cheeks had + touched. She pondered at length over this, gazing now at the man beyond + and now at M. Joseph flitting with the cold-air tube about her mother; + wondering if, when she grew older, she would like a hair-dresser's cheek + against hers. Linda decided not. The idea didn't shock her, the woman in + the other space plainly liked it; still she decided she wouldn't. A + different kind of man, she told herself, would be nicer. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, unpleasant odor—the odor + of scorched hair; and she was absolutely rigid with horror at an agonized + cry from her mother. + </p> + <p> + “It's burning me terribly,” the latter cried. “Oh, I can't stand it. Stop! + Stop!” + </p> + <p> + M. Joseph, as white as plaster, rushed to the wall and reversed the + handle, and Mrs. Condon started from the chair, her face now streaming + with actual tears; but before she could escape the man threw himself on + her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't move,” he whispered desperately, “you'll tear your hair out. + I tell you no harm's been done. Everything is all right. Please, please + don't cry like that. It will ruin my business. There are others in the + establishment. Stop!” he shook her viciously. + </p> + <p> + Linda had risen, terrorized; and Mrs. Condon, with waving plucking hands, + was sobbing an appeal to be released. “My head, my head,” she repeated. “I + assure you”—the man motioned to a pallid girl to hold her in the + chair. With a towel to protect his hand he undid a screw, lifted off the + cap and untwisted the cotton from a bound lock of hair; releasing it, in + turn, from the spindle it fell forward in a complete corkscrew over Mrs. + Condon's face. + </p> + <p> + “Do you see!” he demanded. “Perfect. I give you my word they'll all be + like that. The cursed heat ran up on me,” he added in a swift aside to his + assistant. “Has Mrs. Bellows gone? Who's still in the place? Here, loose + that binding ... thank God, that one is all right, too.” + </p> + <p> + Together they unfastened most of the connections, and a growing fringe of + long remarkable curls marked Mrs. Condon's pain-drawn and dabbled face. + Linda sobbed uncontrollably; but perhaps, after all, nothing frightful had + happened. Her poor mother! Then fear again tightened about her heart at + the perturbed expression that overtook the hair-dresser. He was trying in + vain to remove one of the caps. She caught enigmatic words—“the + borax, crystallized ... solid. It would take a plumber ... have to go.” + </p> + <p> + The connection was immovable. Even in her suffering Mrs. Condon implored + M. Joseph to save her hair. Nothing, however, could be done; he admitted + it with pale lips. The thing might be chiseled off; in the end he tried to + force a release and the strand, with a renewal of Mrs. Condon's agony—now, + in the interest of her appearance, heroically withstood—snapped + short in the container. + </p> + <p> + Rapidly recovering her vigor, she launched on a tirade against M. Joseph + and his permanent waving establishment—Linda had never before heard + her mother talk in such a loud brutal manner, nor use such heated + unpleasant words, and the girl was flooded with a wretched shame. Still + another lock, it was revealed, had been ruined, and crumbled to mere dust + in its owner's fingers. + </p> + <p> + “The law will provide for you,” she promised. + </p> + <p> + “Your hair was dyed,” the proprietor returned vindictively. “The girl who + washed it will testify. Every one is warned against the permanent if their + hair has been colored. So it was at your own risk.” + </p> + <p> + “My head's never been touched with dye,” Mrs. Condon shrilly answered. + “You lying little ape. And well does that young woman know it. She + complimented me herself on a true blonde.” The girl had, too, right before + Linda. + </p> + <p> + “You ought to be thrashed out of the city.” + </p> + <p> + “Your money will be given back to you,” M. Joseph told her. + </p> + <p> + Outside they found a taxi, and sped back to their hotel. Above, Mrs. + Condon removed her hat; and, before the uncompromising mirror, studied her + wrecked hair—a frizzled vacancy was directly over her left brow—and + haggard face. When she finally turned to Linda, her manner, her words, + were solemn. + </p> + <p> + “I'm middle-aged,” she said. + </p> + <p> + A dreary silence enveloped them sitting in the dark reception-room while + Mrs. Condon restlessly shredded unlighted cigarettes on the floor. She had + made no effort to repair the damages to her appearance, and when the + telephone bell sharply sounded, she reached out in a slovenly negligence + of manner. Linda could hear a blurred articulation and her mother + answering listlessly. The latter at last said: “Very well, at seven then; + you'll stop for us.” She hung up the receiver, stared blankly at Linda, + and then went off into a harsh mirth. “Oh, my God!” she cried; “the old + ladies' home!” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI + </h2> + <p> + With her mother away on a wedding-trip with Mr. Moses Feldt, Linda was + suddenly projected into the companionship of his two daughters. One, as he + had said, was light, but a different fairness from Mrs. Condon's—richly + thick, like honey; while Judith, the elder, who must have been twenty, was + dark in skin, in everything but her eyes, which were a contrasting + ashen-violet. She spoke at once of Linda's flawless whiteness: + </p> + <p> + “A magnolia,” she said, in a deliberate dark voice; “you are quite a + gorgeous child. Do you mind my saying that your clothes are rather quaint? + They aren't inevitable, and yours ought to be that.” + </p> + <p> + They were at lunch in the Feldt dining-room, an interior of heavy ornately + carved black wood, panels of Chinese embroidery in imperial yellow, and a + neutral mauve carpet. The effect, with glittering iridescent pyramids of + glass, massive frosted repoussé silver, burnished gold-plate and a wide + table decoration of orchids and fern, was tropical and intense. It was + evident to Linda that the Feldts were very rich indeed. + </p> + <p> + The entire apartment resembled the dining-room, while the building itself + filled a whole city block, with a garden and fountains like an elaborate + public square. Linda, however, wasn't particularly impressed by such show; + she saw that Judith and Pansy had expected that of her; but she was + determined not to exhibit a surprise that would imply any changes in her + mother's and her condition. In addition, Linda calmly took such + surroundings for granted. Her primary conception of possible existence was + elegance; its necessity had so entered into her being that it had departed + from her consciousness. + </p> + <p> + “I must take you to Lorice,” Judith continued; “she will know better than + any one else what you ought to have. You seem terribly pure—at + first. But you're not a snowdrop; oh, no—something very rare in a + conservatory. Much better style than your mother.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you won't mind Judith,” Pansy put in; “she's always like that.” A + silence followed in which they industriously dipped the leaves of mammoth + artichokes into a buttery sauce. Linda, as customary, said very little, + she listened with patient care to the others and endeavored to arrive at + conclusions. She liked Pansy, who was as warm and simple as her father. + Judith was harder to understand. She was absorbed in color and music, and + declared that ugliness gave her a headache at once. Altogether, Linda + decided, she was rather silly, especially about men; and at times her + emotions would rise beyond control until she wept in a thin hysterical + gasping. + </p> + <p> + The room where, mostly, they sat was small, but with a high ceiling, and + hung in black, with pagoda-like vermilion chairs. The light, in the + evening, was subdued; and Pansy and Judith, in extremely clinging vivid + dresses, the former's hair piled high in an amber mass and Judith's drawn + severely across her ears, were lovely. Linda thought of the tropical + butterflies of the river Amazon, of orchids like those always on the + dining-room table. A miniature grand piano stood against the drapery, and + Judith often played. Linda learned to recognize some of the composers. + Pansy liked best the modern waltzes; Judith insisted that Richard Strauss + was incomparable; but Linda developed an overwhelming preference for + Gluck. The older girl insisted that this was an affectation; for a while + she tried to confuse Linda's knowledge; but finally, playing the airs of + “Orpheus and Eurydice,” she admitted that the latter was sincere. + </p> + <p> + “They sound so cool,” Linda said in a clear and decided manner. + </p> + <p> + There was a man with them, and he shook his head in a mock sadness. “So + young and yet so formal. If, with the rest, you had Judith's temperament, + you would be the most irresistible creature alive. For see, my dear child, + as it is you stir neither tenderness nor desire; you are remote and + perfect, and faintly wistful. I can't imagine being human or even + comfortable with you about. Then, too, you have too much wisdom.” + </p> + <p> + “She is frightful,” Pansy agreed; “she's never upset nor her hair a sight; + and, above all else, Linda won't tell you a thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Some day,” Judith informed them from the rippling whisper of the piano, + “she will be magnificently loved.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” the man continued; “but what will Linda, Linda Condon, give + in return?” + </p> + <p> + “It's a mistake to give much,” Linda said evenly. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no!” Judith cried. “Give everything; spend every feeling, every + nerve.” + </p> + <p> + “You are remarkable, of course; almost no women have the courage of their + emotions.” His name was Reynold Chase, a long thin grave young man in a + dinner coat, who wrote brilliant and successful comedies. “Yet Linda isn't + parsimonious.” He turned to her. “Just what are you? What do you think of + love?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't thought about it much,” she replied slowly. “I'm not sure that + I know what it means. At least it hasn't anything to do with marriage—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” he interrupted her. + </p> + <p> + Her usually orderly mind grew confused; it eddied as though with the sound + of the piano. “It is not marriage,” she vaguely repeated her mother's + instruction. Reynold Chase supported her. + </p> + <p> + “That destroys it,” he asserted. “This love is as different as possible + from the ignominious impulse eternally tying the young into knots. It's + anti-social.” + </p> + <p> + “How stupid you are, Reynold,” Pansy protested. “If you want to use those + complicated words take Judith into the drawing-room. I'm sure Linda is + dizzy, too.” + </p> + <p> + The latter's mental confusion lingered; she had a strong sense of having + heard Reynold Chase say these strange things long before. Judith left the + piano, sat beside him, and he lightly kissed her. A new dislike of Judith + Feldt deepened in Linda's being. She had no reason for it, but suddenly + she felt absolutely opposed to her. The manner in which Judith rested + against the man by her was very distasteful. It offended Linda + inexplicably; she wanted to draw into an infinity of distance from all + contact with men and life. + </p> + <p> + She didn't even want to make one of those marriages that had nothing to do + with love, but was only a sensible arrangement for the securing of gowns + and velvet hangings and the luxury of enclosed automobiles. Suddenly she + felt lonely, and hoped that her mother would come back soon. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII + </h2> + <p> + But when her mother, now Mrs. Moses Feldt, did return, Linda was conscious + of a keen disappointment. Somehow she never actually came back. It wasn't + only that, after so many years together, she occupied a room with another + than Linda, but her manner was changed; it had lost all freedom of heart + and speech. The new Mrs. Feldt was heavily polite to her husband's + daughters; Linda saw that she liked Pansy, but Judith made her + uncomfortable. She expressed this in an isolated return of the old + confidences: + </p> + <p> + “That girl,” she said sharply, “likes petting. She can talk all night + about her soul and beauty, and play the piano till her fingers drop off, + but I—I—know. You can't fool me where they are concerned. I + can recognize an unhealthy sign. I never believed in going to all those + concerts and kidding yourself into a fever. I may have shown myself a + time, but you mark my word—I was honest compared to Judith Feldt. + Don't you be impressed with all her art talk and the books she reads. I + was looking into one yesterday, and it made me blush; you can believe it + or not, it takes some book for that!” + </p> + <p> + At the same time she treated Judith with a studious sweetness. Mr. Moses + Feldt—Linda always thought of him as that—was a miracle of + kindly cheerfulness. He made his wife and her daughter, and his own girls, + an unbroken succession of elaborate and costly presents. “What's it for if + not to spend on those you love?” he would remark, bringing a small + jeweler's box wrapped in creamy-pink paper from his pocket. “You can't + take it with you. I wasn't born with it—mama and I were as poor as + any—you'll forgive me, Stella, I know, for speaking of her. I got + enough heart to love you both. 'Oh, mama!' I said, and she dying, 'if you + only won't go, I'll give you gold to eat.'” + </p> + <p> + Curiously, as Linda grew older, the consciousness of her stepfather as an + absurd fat little man dwindled; she lost all sense of his actual person; + and, as the influence of her mother slipped from her life, the mental + conception of Mr. Moses Feldt deepened. She thought about him a great deal + and very seriously; the things he said, the warm impact of his being, + vibrated in her memory. He had the effect on her of the music of + Christopher Gluck—the effect of a pure fine chord. + </p> + <p> + Pansy she now thought of with a faint contempt: she was rapidly growing + thick-waisted and heavy, and she was engaged to a dull young man not rich + enough to be interesting. They sat about in frank embraces and indulged in + a sentimental speech that united Judith and Linda in common oppression. + </p> + <p> + There were, not infrequently, gatherings of the Feldts at dinner, a noisy + good-tempered uproar of a great many voices speaking at once; + extraordinary quantities of superlative jewels and dresses of superfine + textures; but the latter, Linda thought, were too vivid in pattern or + color for the short full maternal figures they often adorned. But no one, + it seemed, considered himself ageing or even, in spite of the most + positive indications, aged. The wives with faded but fashionable hair and + animated eyes in spent faces talked with vigorous raillery about the + “boys,” who, it might have happened, had gone in a small masculine company + to a fervid musical show the evening before. While they, in their turn, + thick like their brother or cousin Moses, with time-wasted hair and + countenances marked with the shrewdness in the service of which the + greater part of their lives had vanished, had their little jokes about the + “girls” and the younger and handsomer beaux who threatened their + happiness. + </p> + <p> + At times the topic of business crept into the lighter discussion, and, in + an instant, the gaiety evaporated and left expressionless men and quick + sharp sentences steely with decision, or indirect and imperturbably blank. + A memorandum book and a gold pencil would appear for an enigmatic note, + after which the cheerfulness slowly revived. + </p> + <p> + The daughters resembled Judith or the slower placidity of Pansy; while + there was still another sort, more vigorous in being, who consciously + discussed riding academies, the bridle-paths of Central Park, and the + international tennis. Their dress held a greater restraint than the + elders; though Linda recognized that it was no less lavish; and their + feminine trifles, the morocco beauty-cases and powder-boxes, the + shoulder-pins, their slipper and garter buckles were extravagant in + exquisite metals and workings. + </p> + <p> + They arrived in limousines with dove-colored upholstery and crystal vases + of maidenhair fern and moss-roses; and often, in such a car, Linda went to + the theatre with Judith or Pansy and some cousins. Usually it was a + matinee, where their seats were the best procurable, directly at the + stage; and they sat in a sleek expensive row eating black chocolates from + painted boxes ruffled in rose silk. The audience, composed mostly of their + own world, followed the exotic fortunes of the plays with a complete + discrimination in every possible emotional display and crisis. + </p> + <p> + Lithe actresses in a revealing severity of attire, like spoiled nuns with + carmine lips, suffering in ingenuous problems of the passions, agonized in + shuddering tones; or else they went to concerts to hear young violinists, + slender, with intense faces and dramatic hair, play concertos that + irritated Linda with little shivers of delight. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes they had lunch in a restaurant of Circassian walnut and velvet + carpets, with cocktails, and eggs elaborate with truffles and French + pastry. Then, afterward, they would stop at a confectioner's, or at a cafe + where there was dancing, for tea. They all danced in a perfection of slow + graceful abandon, with youths who, it seemed to Linda, did nothing else. + </p> + <p> + She accepted her part in this existence as inevitable, yet she was + persistently aware of a feeling of strangeness, of essential difference + from it. She was unable to lose a sense of looking on, as if morning, noon + and night she were at another long play. Linda regarded it—as she + did so much else—with neither enthusiasm nor marked annoyance. + Probably it would continue without change through her entire life. All + that was necessary, and easily obtained, was a sufficient amount of money. + </p> + <p> + Her manner, Pansy specially complained, was not intimate and inviting; in + her room Linda usually closed the door; the frank community of the sisters + was distasteful to her. She demanded an extraordinary amount of personal + privacy. Linda never consulted Judith's opinion about her clothes, nor + exchanged the more significant aspects of feeling. Alone in a bed-chamber + furnished in silvery Hungarian ash, her bed a pale quilted luxury with + Madeira linen crusted in monograms, without head or foot boards, and a + dressing-table noticeably bare, she would deliberately and delicately + prepare for the night. + </p> + <p> + While Judith's morning bath steamed with the softness and odor of lavender + crystals, Linda slipped into water almost cold. This, with her clear + muslins and heavy black silk stockings, her narrow unornamented slippers, + represented the perfection of niceness. + </p> + <p> + There were others than Pansy, however, who commented on what they called + her superiority—the young men who appeared in the evening. A number + of them, cousins of the Feldt dinner parties or more casual, tried to + engage her sympathies in their persons and prospects. It was a society of + early maturity. But, without apparent effort, she discouraged them, + principally by her serene lack of interest. It was a fundamental part of + her understanding of things that younger men were unprofitable; she liked + far better the contemporaries of Moses Feldt. + </p> + <p> + Reynold Chase had ceased his visits, but his place had been taken by + another and still another emotionally gifted man. The present one was dark + and imperturbable: they knew little of him beyond the facts that he had + been a long while in the Orient, that his manner and French were + unsurpassed, and that practically every considerable creative talent in + New York was entertained in his rooms. + </p> + <p> + Judith had been to one of his parties; and, the following morning in bed, + she told Pansy and Linda the most remarkable things. + </p> + <p> + “It would never do for Pansy,” she concluded; “but I must get Markue to + ask you sometime, Linda. How old are you now? Well, that's practically + sixteen, and you are very grown up. You would be quite sensational, in one + of your plain white frocks, in his apartment. You'd have to promise not to + tell your mother, though. She thinks I'm leading you astray now—the + old dear. Does she think I am blind? I met a man last week, a friend of + father's, who used to know her. Of course he wouldn't say anything, men + are such idiots about that—like ostriches with their pasts buried + and all the feathers sticking out—but there was a champagne + expression in his smile.” + </p> + <p> + Linda wondered, later, if she'd care to go to a party of Markue's. There + was a great deal of drinking at such affairs; and though she rather liked + cordials, crême de thé and Grand Marnier, even stronger things flavored + with limes and an occasional frigid cocktail, she disliked—from a + slight experience—men affected by drink. Judith had called her a + constitutional prude; this, she understood, was a term of reproach; and + she wondered if, applied to her, it were just. + </p> + <p> + Usually it meant a religious person or one fussy about the edge of her + skirt; neither of which she ever considered. She didn't like to sit in a + corner and be hugged—even that she could now assert with a degree of + knowledge—but it wasn't because she was shocked. Nothing, she told + herself gravely, shocked her; only certain acts and moments annoyed her + excessively. It was as if her mind were a crisp dress with ribbons which + she hated to have mussed or disarranged. + </p> + <p> + Linda didn't take the trouble to explain this. Now that her mother had + withdrawn from her into a perpetual and uncomfortable politeness she + confided in no one. She would have been at a loss to put her complicated + sensations and thoughts into words. Mr. Moses Feldt, the only one to whom + she could possibly talk intimately, would be upset by her feelings. He + would give her a hug and the next day bring up a new present from his + pocket. + </p> + <p> + Her clothes, with the entire support of Lorice, were all delicate in + fabric, mostly white with black sashes, and plainly ruffled. She detested + the gray crepe de Chine from which Judith's undergarments were made and + the colored embroidery of Pansy's; while she ignored scented toilet-waters + and extracts. Markue, in finally asking her to a party at his rooms, said + that there she would resemble an Athenian marble, of the un-painted epoch, + in the ballet of Scheherazade. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII + </h2> + <p> + “There's nothing special to say about Markue's parties,” Judith, dressing, + told Linda. “You will simply have to take what comes your way. There is + always some one serious at them, if you insist, as usual, on dignity.” She + stood slim and seductive, like a perverse pierrot, before the oppressive + depths of a black mirror. Linda had finished her preparations for the + evening. There was no departure from her customary blanched exactness. She + studied her reflection across Judith's shoulder; her intense blue eyes, + under the level blot of her bang, were grave on the delicate pallor of her + face. + </p> + <p> + In the taxi, slipping rapidly down-town, Linda was conscious of a slight + unusual disturbance of her indifference. This had nothing to do with + whether or not she'd be a success; her own social demands were so small + that any considerable recognition of her was unimportant. Her present + feeling came from the fact that to-night, practically, she was making her + first grown-up appearance in the world, the world from which she must + select the materials of her happiness and success. To-night she would have + an opportunity to put into being all that—no matter how firmly held—until + now had been but convictions. + </p> + <p> + Her interest was not in whom or what she might meet, but in herself. + Judith, smoking a cigarette in a mist of silver fox, was plainly excited. + “I like Markue awfully,” she admitted. + </p> + <p> + “Does he care for you?” Linda asked. + </p> + <p> + “That,” said Judith, “I can't make out—if he likes me or if it's + just anonymous woman. I wish it were the first, Linda.” Her voice was + shadowed; suddenly, in spite of her youth and exhilaration, she seemed + haggard and spent. Linda recognized this in a cold scrutiny. Privately she + decided that the other was a fool—she didn't watch her complexion at + all. + </p> + <p> + The motor turned west in the low Forties and stopped before a high narrow + stone façade with a massive griffon-guarded door. Judith led the way + directly into the elevator and designated Markue's floor. It was at the + top of the building, where he met them with his impenetrable courtesy and + took them into a bare room evidently planned for a studio. There were an + empty easel, the high blank dusty expanse of the skylight, and chairs with + the somber hats and coats of men and women's wraps like the glistening + shed skins of brilliant snakes. + </p> + <p> + They turned through the hall to an interior more remarkable than anything + Linda could have imagined; it seemed to her very high, without windows and + peaked like a tent. Draperies of intricate Eastern color hung in long + folds. There were no chairs, but low broad divans about the walls, a thick + carpet with inlaid stands in the center laden with boxes of cigarettes, + sugared exotic sweets and smoking incense. It was so dim and full of thick + scent, the shut effect was so complete, that for a moment Linda felt + painfully oppressed; it seemed impossible to breathe in the wavering + bluish atmosphere. + </p> + <p> + Markue, who had appeared sufficiently familiar outside, now had a strange + portentous air; the gleams of his quick black eyes, the dusky tone of his + cheeks, his impassive grace, startled her. New York was utterly removed: + the taxi that had brought Judith and her, the swirling traffic of Columbus + Circle and smooth undulations of Fifth Avenue, were lost with a different + life. She saw, however, the open door to another room full of clear light, + and her self-possession rapidly returned. Judith—as she had + threatened—at once deserted her; and Linda found an inconspicuous + corner of a divan. + </p> + <p> + There were, perhaps, twenty people in the two rooms, and each one engaged + her attention. A coffee-colored woman was sitting beyond her, clad in + loose red draperies to which were sewed shining patterns of what she + thought was gold. Markue was introducing Judith, and the seated figure + smiled pleasantly with a flash of beautiful teeth and the supple gesture + of a raised brown palm. That, Linda decided, was the way she shook hands. + Two dark-skinned men, one in conventional evening dress, were with her; + they had small fine features and hair like carved ebony. + </p> + <p> + Linda had never before been at an affair with what she was forced to call + colored people; instinctively she was antagonistic and superior. She + turned to a solemn masculine presence with a ruffled shirt and high black + stock; he was talking in a resonant voice and with dramatic gestures to a + woman with a white face and low-drawn hair. Linda was fascinated by the + latter, dressed in a soft clinging dull garnet. It wasn't her clothes, + although they were remarkable, that held her attention, but the woman's + mouth. Apparently, it had no corners. Like a little band of crimson + rubber, or a ring of vivid flame, it shifted and changed in the oddest + shapes. It was an unhappy mouth, and made her think of pain; but perhaps + not so much that as hunger ... not for food, Linda was certain. What did + she want? + </p> + <p> + There was a light appealing laugh from another seated on the floor in a + floating black dinner dress with lovely ankles in delicate Spanish lace + stockings; her head was thrown back for the whisper of a heavy man with + ashen hair, a heavenly scarf and half-emptied glass. + </p> + <p> + Her bare shoulders, Linda saw, were as white as her own, as white but more + sloping. The other's hair, though, was the loveliest red possible. The + entire woman, relaxed and laughing in the perfumery and swimming shadows, + was irresistible. A man with a huge nose and blank eyes, his hands + disfigured with extraordinary rings, momentarily engaged her. Then, at the + moment when she saw an inviting and correctly conventional youth, he + crossed and sat at her side. + </p> + <p> + “Quite a show,” he said in the manner she had expected and approved. The + glow of his cigarette wavered over firmly cut lips. “We've just come to + New York,” he continued. “I don't know any one here but Markue, do you?” + Linda explained her own limitations. “The Victory's fine and familiar.” + </p> + <p> + She followed his gaze to where a winged statue with flying drapery was set + on a stand. She had seen it before, but without interest. Now it held her + attention. It wasn't a large cast, not over three feet high, but suddenly + Linda thought that it was the biggest thing in the room; it seemed to + expand as she watched it. + </p> + <p> + Beside the Victory, in a glass case with an enclosed concealed light, was + a statue, greenish gray, a few inches tall, with a sneering placidity of + expression as notable as the sweep of the other white fragment. “That's + Chinese,” her companion decided; “it looks as old as lust.” There was the + stir of new arrivals—a towering heavy man with a slight woman in + emerald satin. “There's Pleydon, the sculptor,” the youth told her + animatedly. “I've seen him at the exhibitions. It must be Susanna Noda, + the Russian singer, with him. He's a tremendous swell.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV + </h2> + <p> + Linda watched Pleydon as he met Markue in the middle of the room. He was + dressed carelessly, improperly for the evening; but she forgave that as + the result of indifference. The informal flannels and soft collar, too, + suited the largeness of his being and gestures. There was a murmur of + meeting, Susanna Noda smiled appealingly; and then, as Pleydon found a + place on a divan, she at once contentedly sat on his lap. Watching her, + Linda thought of a brilliant parrot; but that was only the effect of her + color; for her face, with a tilted nose and wide golden eyes, generous + warm lips, was charming. She lighted a cigarette, turned her graceful back + on the room and company, and chatted in French to the composed sculptor. + </p> + <p> + Linda divined that he was the most impressive figure she had encountered; + the quality of his indifference was beautiful and could only have come in + the security of being a “tremendous swell.” That phrase described all for + which she had cared most. It included everything that her mother had + indicated as desirable and a lot that she, Linda, had added. Money, + certainly, was an absolute necessity; but there were other things now that + vaguely she desired. She tried to decide what they were. + </p> + <p> + Only the old inner confusion resulted, the emotion that might have been + born in music; however, it was sharper than usual, and bred a new + dissatisfaction with the easier accomplishments. Really it was very + disturbing, for the pressure of her entire experience, all she had been + told, could be exactly weighed and held. The term luxury, too, was + revealing; it covered everything—except her present unformed + longing. + </p> + <p> + There were still newcomers, and Linda was aware of a sudden constraint. A + woman volubly French had appeared with a long pinkish-white dog in a + blanket, and the three Arabians—she had learned that much—had + risen with a concerted expression of surprise and displeasure. Their + anxiety, though, was no more dramatic than that of the dog's proprietor. + The gesture of her hands and lifted eyebrows were keenly expressive of her + impatience with any one who couldn't accept, with her, her dog. + </p> + <p> + “Markue ought to have it out,” some one murmured. “Dogs, to high caste + Mohammedans, are unclean animals.” Another added, “Worse than that, if it + should touch them, they would have to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.” + </p> + <p> + Without any knowledge of the situation of Mecca, Linda yet realized that + it must be a very long journey to result from the mere touch of a dog. She + didn't wonder at the restrained excitement of the “colored” people. The + situation was reduced to a sub-acid argument between the Frenchwoman and + the Begum; Madame couldn't exist without her “<i>p'tit</i>.” The Oriental + lady could not breathe a common air with the beast. The former managed a + qualified triumph—the “<i>p'tit</i>” was caged with a chair in a + corner, and the episode, for the moment, dropped. + </p> + <p> + Soon, however, Linda saw that the dog had wriggled out of captivity. It + made a cautious progress to where the candy stood on a low stand and ran + an appreciative tongue over the exposed sweet surfaces. Rapidly a sugared + fig was snapped up. Linda held her breath; no one had noticed the animal + yet—perhaps it would reach one of the objectors and she would have + the thrill of witnessing the departure for Mecca. + </p> + <p> + But, as always, nothing so romantic occurred; the dog was discovered, and + the Mohammedans, with a hurried politeness, made their salaams. Instead, a + man with a quizzical scrutiny through glasses that made him resemble an + owl, stopped before her. + </p> + <p> + “'Here we go 'round the mulberry-bush,'” he chanted. “Hello, Kate + Greenaway. Have you had a drink?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, thank you,” she replied sedately. + </p> + <p> + “Certified milk?” + </p> + <p> + “It was something with gin,” she particularized, “and too sweet.” He took + the place beside her and solemnly recited a great many nursery rhymes. On + the whole she liked him, deciding that he was very wicked. Soon he was + holding her hand in both of his. “I know you're not real,” he proceeded. + “Verlaine wrote you—<i>'Les Ingenus':</i> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'From which the sudden gleam of whiteness shed + Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming.' +</pre> + <p> + “What if I'd kiss you?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” she returned coldly. + </p> + <p> + “You're remarkable!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. “If you are not already + one of the celebrated beauties you're about to be. As cool as a fish! Look—Pleydon + is going to rise and spill little Russia. Have you heard her sing + Scriabine?” Linda ignored him in a sharp return of her interest in the big + carelessly-dressed man. He put Susanna Noda aside and moved to the dim + middle of the room. His features, Linda saw, were rugged and pronounced; + he was very strong. + </p> + <p> + For a moment he stood gazing at the Winged Victory, his brow gathered into + a frown, while he made a caressing gesture with his whole hand. Then he + swung about and, from the heavy shadows of his face, he looked down at + her. He was still for a disconcerting length of time, but through which + Linda steadily met his interrogation. Then he bent over and seriously + removed the man beside her. + </p> + <p> + “Adieu, Louis,” he said. + </p> + <p> + The weight of Pleydon's body depressed the entire divan. “An ordinary + man,” he told her, “would ask how the devil you got here. Then he would + take you to your home with some carefully chosen words for whatever + parents you had. But I can see that all this is needless. You are an + extremely immaculate person. + </p> + <p> + “That isn't necessarily admirable,” he added. + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe I am admirable at all,” Linda replied. + </p> + <p> + “How old are you?” he demanded abruptly. + </p> + <p> + She told him. + </p> + <p> + “Age doesn't exist for some women, they are eternal,” he continued. “You + see, I call you a woman, but you are not, and neither are you a child. You + are Art—Art the deathless,” his gaze strayed back to the Victory. + </p> + <p> + As she, too, looked at it, it seemed to Linda that the cast filled all the + room with a swirl of great white wings and heroic robes. In an instant the + incense and the dark colors, the uncertain pallid faces and bare + shoulders, were swept away into a space through which she was dizzily + borne. The illusion was so overpowering that involuntarily she caught at + the heavy arm by her. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV + </h2> + <p> + “Why did you do that?” he asked quickly, with a frowning regard. Linda + replied easily and directly. “It seemed as if it were carrying me with + it,” she specified; “on and on and on, without ever stopping. I felt as if + I were up among the stars.” She paused, leaning forward, and gazed at the + statue. Even now she was certain that she saw a slight flutter of its + draperies. “It is beautiful, isn't it? I think it's the first thing I ever + noticed like that. You know what I mean—the first thing that hadn't + a real use.” + </p> + <p> + “But it has,” he returned. “Do you think it is nothing to be swept into + heaven? I suppose by 'real' you mean oatmeal and scented soap. Women + usually do. But no one, it appears, has any conception of the practical + side of great art. You might try to remember that it is simply permanence + given to beauty. It's like an amber in which beautiful and fragile things + are kept forever in a lovely glow. That is all, and it is enough. + </p> + <p> + “When I said that you were Art I didn't mean that you were skilfully + painted and dressed, but that there was a quality in you which recalled + all the charming women who had ever lived to draw men out of the mud—something, + probably, of which you are entirely unconscious, and certainly beyond your + control. You have it in a remarkable degree. It doesn't belong to husbands + but to those who create 'Homer's children.' + </p> + <p> + “That's a dark saying of Plato's, and it means that the <i>Alcestis</i> is + greater than any momentary offspring of the flesh.” + </p> + <p> + Linda admitted seriously, “Of course, I don't understand, yet it seems + quite familiar—” + </p> + <p> + “Don't, for Heaven's sake, repeat the old cant about reincarnation;” he + interrupted, “and sitting together, smeared with antimony, on a roof of + Babylon.” + </p> + <p> + She hadn't intended to, she assured him. “Tell me about yourself,” he + directed. It was as natural to talk with him as it was, with others, to + keep still. Her frank speech flowed on and on, supported by the + realization of his attention. + </p> + <p> + “There really isn't much, besides hotels, all different; but you'd be + surprised how alike they were, too. I mean the things to eat, and the + people. I never realized how tired I was of them until mother married Mr. + Moses Feldt. The children were simply dreadful, the children and the + women; the men weren't much better.” She said this in a tone of surprise, + and he nodded. “I can see now—I am supposed to be too old for my + age, and it was the hotels. You learn a great deal.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you like Mr. Moses Feldt?” + </p> + <p> + “Enormously; he is terribly sweet. I intend to marry a man just like him. + Or, at least, he was the second kind I decided on: the first only had + money, then I chose one with money who was kind, but now I don't know. + It's very funny: kindness makes me impatient. I'm perfectly sure I'll + never care for babies, they are so mussy. I don't read, and I can't stand + being—well, loved. + </p> + <p> + “Mother went to a great many parties; every one liked her and she liked + every one back; so it was easy for her. I used to long for the time when + I'd wear a lovely cloak and go out in a little shut motor with a man with + pearls; but now that's gone. They want to kiss you so much. I wish that + satisfied me. Why doesn't it? Is there anything the matter with me, do you + think? I've been told that I haven't any heart.” + </p> + <p> + As he laughed at her she noticed how absurdly small a cigarette seemed in + his broad powerful hand. “What has happened to you is this,” he explained: + “a combination of special circumstances has helped you in every way to be + what, individually, you were. As a rule, children are brought up in a + house of lies, like taking a fine naked body and binding it into hideous + rigid clothes. You escaped the damnation of cheap ready-cut morals and + education. Your mother ought to have a superb monument—the perfect + parent. Of course you haven't a 'heart.' From the standpoint of nature and + society you're as depraved as possible. You are worse than any one else + here—than all of them rolled together.” + </p> + <p> + Curiously, she thought, this didn't disturb her, which proved at once that + he was right. Linda regarded herself with interest as a supremely + reprehensible person, perhaps a vampire. The latter, though, was a rather + stout woman who, dressed in frightful lingerie, occupied couches with her + arms caught about the neck of a man bending over her. Every detail of this + was distasteful. + </p> + <p> + What was she? + </p> + <p> + Her attention wandered to the squat Chinese god in the glass case. It was + clear that he hadn't stirred for ages. A difficult thought partly formed + in her mind—the Chinese was the god of this room, of Markue's party, + of the women seated in the dim light on the floor and the divans; the low + gurgle of their laughter, the dusky whiteness of their shoulders in the + upcoiling incense, the smothered gleams of their hair, with the whispering + men, were the world of the grayish-green image. + </p> + <p> + She explained this haltingly to Pleydon, who listened with a flattering + interest. “I expect you're laughing at me inside,” she ended impotently. + “And the other, the Greek Victory,” he added, “is the goddess of the other + world, of the spirit. It's quaint a heathen woman should be that.” + </p> + <p> + Linda discovered that she liked Pleydon enormously. She continued daringly + that he might be the sort of man she wanted to marry. But he wouldn't be + easy to manage; probably he could not be managed at all. Her mother had + always insisted upon the presence of that possibility in any candidate for + matrimony. And, until now, Linda's philosophy had been in accord with her. + But suddenly she entertained the idea of losing herself completely in—in + love. + </p> + <p> + A struggle was set up within her: on one hand was everything that she had + been, all her experience, all advice, and her innate detachment; on the + other an obscure delicious thrill. Perhaps this was what she now wanted. + Linda wondered if she could try it—just a little, let herself go + experimentally. She glanced swiftly at Pleydon, and his bulk, his heavy + features, the sullen mouth, appalled her. + </p> + <p> + Men usually filled her with an unaccountable shrinking into her remotest + self. Pleydon was different; her liking for him had destroyed a large part + of her reserve; but a surety of instinct told her that she couldn't + experiment there. It was characteristic that a lesser challenge left her + cold. She had better marry as she had planned. + </p> + <p> + Susanna Noda came up petulantly and sank in a brilliant graceful swirl at + his feet. Her golden eyes, half shut, studied Linda intently. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVI + </h2> + <p> + “I am fatigued,” she complained; “you know how weary I get when you ignore + me.” He gazed down at her untouched. “I have left Lao-tze for Greece,” he + replied. She found this stupid and said so. “Has he been no more amusing + than this?” she asked Linda. “But then, you are a child, it all intrigues + you. You listen with the flattery of your blue eyes and mouth, both open.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be rude, Susanna,” Pleydon commanded. “You are so feminine that you + are foolish. I'm not the stupid one—look again at our 'child.' Tell + me what you see.” + </p> + <p> + “I see Siberia,” she said finally. “I see the snow that seems so pure + while it is as blank and cold as death. You are right, Dodge. I was the + dull one. This girl will be immensely loved; perhaps by you. A calamity, I + promise you. Men are pigs,” she turned again to Linda; “no—imbeciles, + for only idiots destroy the beauty that is given to them. They take your + reputation with a smile, they take your heart with iron fingers; your + beauty they waste like a drunken Russian with gold.” + </p> + <p> + “Susanna, like all spendthrifts, is amazed by poverty.” + </p> + <p> + Even in the gloom Linda could see the pallor spreading over the other's + face; she was glad that Susanna Noda spoke in Russian. However, with a + violent effort, she subdued her bitterness. “Go into your Siberia!” she + cried. “I always thought you were capable of the last folly of marriage. + If you do it will spoil everything. You are not great, you know, not + really great, not in the first rank. You've only the slightest chance of + that, too much money. You were never in the gutter as I was—” + </p> + <p> + “Chateaubriand,” he interrupted, “Dante, Velasquez.” + </p> + <p> + “No, not spiritually!” she cried again. “What do you know of the inferno! + Married, you will get fat.” Pleydon turned lightly to Linda: + </p> + <p> + “As a supreme favor do not, when I ask you, marry me.” + </p> + <p> + This, for Linda, was horribly embarrassing. However, she gravely promised. + The Russian lighted a cigarette; almost she was serene again. Linda said, + “Fatness is awful, isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + Pleydon replied, “Death should be the penalty. If women aren't lovely—” + he waved away every other consideration. + </p> + <p> + “And if men have fingers like carrots—” Susanna mimicked him. + Judith, flushed, her hair loosened, approached. “Linda,” she demanded, “do + you remember when we ordered the taxi? Was it two or three?” Markue, at + her shoulder, begged her not to consider home. + </p> + <p> + “I'm going almost immediately,” Pleydon said, “and taking your Linda.” His + height and determined manner scattered all objections. + </p> + <p> + Linda, at the entrance to the apartment, found to her great surprise—in + place of the motor she had expected—a small graceful single-horse + victoria, the driver buttoned into a sealskin rug. Deep in furs, beside + Pleydon, she was remarkably comfortable, and she was soothed by the + rhythmic beat of the hoofs, the even progress through the crystal night of + Fifth Avenue. + </p> + <p> + Her companion flooded his being with the frozen air. They had, it seemed, + lost all desire to talk. The memory of Markue's party lingered like the + last vanishing odor of his incense; there was a confused vision of the + murmurous room against the lighted exterior where the drinks sparkled on a + table. Linda made up her mind that she would not go to another. Then she + wondered if she'd see Pleydon again. The Russian singer had been too silly + for words. + </p> + <p> + It suddenly occurred to her that the man now with her had taken Susanna + Noda, and that he had left her planted. He had preferred driving her, + Linda Condon, home. He wasn't very enthusiastic about it, though; his face + was gloomy. + </p> + <p> + “The truth is,” he remarked at last, “that Susanna is right—I am not + in the first rank. But that was all nonsense about the necessity of the + gutter—sentimental lies.” + </p> + <p> + Linda was not interested in this, but it left her free to explore her own + emotions. The night had been eventful because it had shaken all the + foundation of what she intended. That single momentary delicious thrill + had been enough to threaten the entire rest. At the same time her native + contempt of the other women, of Judith with her tumbled hair, persisted. + Was there no other way to capture such happiness? Was it all hopelessly + messy with drinks and unpleasant familiarity? + </p> + <p> + What did Pleydon mean by spirit? Surely there must be more kinds of love + than one—he had intimated that. She gathered that “Homer's + children,” those airs of Gluck that she liked so well, were works of art, + sculpture, such as he did. Yet she had never thought of them as important, + important as oatmeal or delicate soap. She made up her mind to ask him + about it, when she saw that they had reached the Eighties; she was almost + home. + </p> + <p> + “I am going away to-morrow,” he told her, “for the winter, to South + America. When I come back we'll see each other. If you should change + address send me a line to the Harvard Club.” The carriage had stopped + before the great arched entrance to the apartment-house, towering in its + entire block. He got out and lifted her to the pavement as if she had been + no more than a flower in his hands. Then he walked with her into the + darkness of the garden. + </p> + <p> + The fountains were cased in boards; the hedged borders, the bushes and + grass, were dead. High above them on the dark wall a window was bright. + Linda's heart began to pound loudly, she was trembling ... from the cold. + There was a faint sound in the air—the elevated trains, or stirring + wings? It was nothing, then, to be lifted into heaven. There was the door + to the hall and elevator. She turned, to thank Dodge Pleydon for all his + goodness to her, when he lifted her—was it toward heaven?—and + kissed her mouth. + </p> + <p> + She was still in his arms, with her eyes closed. “Linda Condon?” he said, + in a tone of inquiry. + </p> + <p> + At the same breath in which she realized a kiss was of no importance a + sharp icy pain cut at her heart. It hurt her so that she gasped. Then, and + this was strange, she realized that—as a kiss—it hadn't + annoyed her. Suddenly she felt that it wasn't just that, but something far + more, a part of all her inner longing. He had put her down and was looking + away, a face in shadow with an ugly protruding lip. + </p> + <p> + She saw him that way in her dreams—in the court under the massive + somber walls, with a troubled frown over his eyes. It seemed to her that, + reaching up, she smoothed it away as they stood together in a darkness + with the fountains, the hedges, dead, the world with never a sound + sleeping in the prison of winter. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVII + </h2> + <p> + Linda thought about Dodge Pleydon on a warm evening of the following May. + At four o'clock, in a hotel, Pansy had been married; and the entire Feldt + connection had risen to a greater height of clamorous cheer than ever + before. Extravagant unseasonable dishes, wines and banked flowers were + lavishly mingled with sentimental speeches, healths and tears. Linda had + been acutely restless, impatient of all the loud good humor and stupid + compliments. The sense of her isolation from their life was unbearably + keen. She would have a very different wedding with a man in no particular + like Pansy's. + </p> + <p> + After dinner—an occasion, with Pansy absent, where Mr. Moses Feldt's + tears persisted in flowing—she had strayed into the formal chamber + across from the dining-room and leaned out of a window, gazing into the + darkening court. Directly below was where Pleydon had kissed her. She + often re-examined her feelings about that; but only to find that they had + dissolved into an indefinite sense of the inevitable. Not alone had it + failed to shock her—she hadn't even been surprised. Linda thought + still further about kissing, with the discovery that if, while it was + happening, she was conscious of the kiss, it was a failure; successful, it + carried her as far as possible from the actuality. + </p> + <p> + Pleydon, of course, had not written to her; he had intimated nothing to + the contrary, only asking her to let him know, at the Harvard Club, if she + changed address. That wasn't necessary, and now, probably, he was back + from South America. Where, except by accident, might she see him? Markue, + with his parties, had dropped from Judith's world, his place taken by a + serious older dealer in Dutch masters with an impressive gallery just off + Fifth Avenue. + </p> + <p> + That she would see him Linda was convinced; this feeling absorbed any + desire; it was no good wanting it or not wanting it; consequently she was + undisturbed. She considered him gravely and in detail. Had there been any + more Susanna Nodas in his stay south? She had heard somewhere that the + women of Argentine were irresistible. Her life had taught her nothing if + not the fact that a number of women figured in every man's history. It was + deplorable but couldn't be avoided; and whether or not it continued after + marriage depended on the cunning of any wife. + </p> + <p> + Now, however, Linda felt weary already at the prospect of a married life + that rested on the constant play of her ingenuity. A great many things + that, but a little before, she had willingly accepted, seemed to her + probably not less necessary but distinctly tiresome. Linda began to think + that she couldn't really bother; the results weren't sufficiently + important. + </p> + <p> + Dodge Pleydon. + </p> + <p> + She slept in a composed order until the sun was well up. It was warmer + than yesterday; and, going to an afternoon concert with Judith, she + decided to walk. Linda strolled, in a short severe jacket and skirt, a + black straw hat turned back with a cockade and a crisp flushed mass of + sweet peas at her waist. The occasion, as it sometimes happened, found her + in no mood for music. The warmth of the sunlight, the open city windows + and beginning sounds of summer, had enveloped her in a mood in which the + jangling sentimentality of a street organ was more potent than the legato + of banked violins. + </p> + <p> + She was relieved when the concert was over, but lingered at her seat until + the crowd had surged by; it made Linda furious to be shoved or + indiscriminately touched. Judith had gone ahead, when Linda was conscious + of the scrutiny of a pale well-dressed woman of middle age. It became + evident that the other was debating whether or not to speak; clearly such + an action was distasteful to her; and Linda had turned away before a + restrained voice addressed her: + </p> + <p> + “You will have to forgive me if I ask your name ... because of a certain + resemblance. Seeing you I—I couldn't let you go.” + </p> + <p> + “Linda Condon,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + The elder, Linda saw, grew even paler. She put out a gloved hand. “Then I + was right,” she said in a slightly unsteady voice. “But perhaps, when I + explain, you will think it even stranger, inexcusable. My dear child, I am + your father's sister.” + </p> + <p> + Linda was invaded by a surprise equally made up of interest and + resentment. The first was her own and the second largely borrowed from her + mother. Besides, why had her father's family never made the slightest + effort to see her. This evidently had simultaneously occurred to the + other. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” she added, quite properly, “we can't undertake family + questions here. I shouldn't blame you a bit, either, if you went directly + away. I had to speak, to risk that, because you were so unmistakably a + Lowrie. It is not a common appearance. We—I—” she floundered + for a painful moment; then she gathered herself with a considerable + dignity. “Seeing you has affected me tremendously, changed everything. I + have nothing to say in our defense, you must understand that. I am + certain, too, that my sister will feel the same—we live together in + Philadelphia. I hope you will give me your address and let us write to + you. Elouise will join with me absolutely.” + </p> + <p> + Linda told her evenly where she lived, and then allowed Miss Lowrie to + precede her toward the entrance. She said nothing of this to Judith, nor, + momentarily, to her mother. She wanted to consider it undisturbed by a + flood of talk and blame. It was evident to her that the Lowries had + behaved very badly, but just how she couldn't make out. She recalled her + father's sister—her aunt—minutely, forced to the realization + that she was a person of entire superiority. Here, she suddenly saw, had + been the cause of all their difficulties—the Lowries hadn't approved + of the marriage, they had objected to her mother. + </p> + <p> + Five years ago she would have been incensed at this; but now, essentially, + she was without personal indignation. She wanted, for herself, to discover + as much as possible about her father and his family. A need independent of + maternal influences stirred her. Linda was reassured by the fact that her + father had been gently born; while she realized that she had always taken + this for granted. Her mother must know nothing about the meeting with Miss + Lowrie until the latter had written. + </p> + <p> + That was Friday and the letter came the following Tuesday. Linda, alone at + the breakfast-table, instantly aware of the source of the square envelope + addressed in a delicate regular writing, opened it and read in an unusual + mental disturbance: + </p> + <p> + “My dear Linda, + </p> + <p> + I hope you will not consider it peculiar for me to call you this, for + nothing else seems possible. Meeting you in that abrupt manner upset me, + as you must have noticed. Of course I knew of you, and even now I can not + go into our long unhappy affair, but until I saw you, and so remarkably + like the Lowries, I did not realize how wicked Elouise and I had been. But + I am obliged to add only where you were concerned. We have no desire to be + ambiguous in that. + </p> + <p> + However, I am writing to say that we should love to have you visit us + here. It is possible under the circumstances that your mother will not + wish you to come. Yet I know the Lowries, a very independent and decided + family, and although it is my last intention to be the cause of difficulty + with your mother, still I hope it may be arranged. + </p> + <p> + In closing I must add how happy I was at the evidence of your blood. But + that, I now see, was a certainty. You will have to forgive us for a large + measure of blindness. Affectionately, + </p> + <p> + AMELIA VIGNÉ LOWRIE.” + </p> + <p> + Almost instantaneously Linda was aware that she would visit the Lowries. + She liked the letter extremely, as well as all that she remembered of its + sender. At the same time she prepared for a scene with her mother, + different from those of the past—with the recourse to the brandy + flask—but no less unpleasant. They had very little to say to each + other now; and, when she went into her mother's room with an evident + definite purpose, the latter showed a constrained surprise, a palpable + annoyance that her daughter had found her at the daily renovation of her + worn face. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVIII + </h2> + <p> + Linda said directly, “I met Miss Lowrie, father's sister, at a concert + last week, and this morning I had a letter asking me to stay with them in + Philadelphia.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Feldt's face suddenly had no need for the color she held poised on a + cloth. Her voice, sharp at the beginning, rose to a shrill unrestrained + wrath. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder at the brass of her speaking to you at all let alone writing + here. Just you give me the letter and I'll shut her up. The idea! I hope + you were cool to her, the way they treated us. Stay with them—I + guess not!” + </p> + <p> + “But I thought of going,” Linda replied. “It's only natural. After all, + you must see that he was my father.” + </p> + <p> + “A pretty father he was, too good for the girl he married. It's my fault I + didn't tell you long ago, but I just couldn't abide the mention of him. He + deserted me, no, us, cold, without a word—walked out of the door one + noon, taking his hat as quiet as natural, and never came back. I never saw + him again nor heard except through lawyers. That was the kind of heart he + had, and his sisters are worse. I hadn't a decent speech of any kind out + of them. The Lowries,” she managed to inject a surprising amount of + contempt into her pronouncement of that name. “What it was all about you + nor any sensible person would never believe: + </p> + <p> + “The house smelled a little of boiled cabbage. That's why he left me, and + you expected in a matter of a few months. He said in his dam' frigid way + that it had become quite impossible and took down his hat.” + </p> + <p> + “There must have been more,” Linda protested, suppressing a mad desire to + laugh. + </p> + <p> + “Not an inch,” her mother asserted. “Nothing, after a little, suited him. + He'd sit up like a poker, just as I've seen you, with his lips tight + together in the Lowrie manner. It didn't please him no matter what you'd + do. He wouldn't blow out at you like a Christian and I never knew where I + was at. I'd come down in a matinée, the prettiest I could buy, and then + see he didn't like it. He would expect you to be dressed in the morning + like it was afternoon and you going out. And as for loosening your corsets + for a little comfort about the house, you might as well have slapped him + direct. + </p> + <p> + “That wasn't the worst, though; but his going away without as much as a + flicker of his hand; and with me like I was. Nobody on earth but would + blame him for that. I only got what was allowed me after we had changed + back to my old name, me and you. He never asked one single question about + you nor tried to see or serve you a scrap. For all he knew, at a place + called Santa Margharita in Italy, you might have been born dead.” + </p> + <p> + She was unable, Linda recognized, to defend him in any way; he had acted + frightfully. She acknowledged this logically with her power of reason, but + somehow it didn't touch her as it had her mother, and as, evidently, the + latter expected. She was absorbed in the vision of her father sitting, in + the Lowrie manner, rigid as a poker; she saw him quietly take up his hat + and go away forever. Linda understood his process completely; she was + capable of doing precisely the same thing. Whatever was the matter with + her—in the heartlessness so often laid to her account—had been + equally true of her father. + </p> + <p> + “You ought to know what to say to them,” Mrs. Moses Feldt cried, “or I'll + do it for you! If only I had seen her she would have heard a thing or two + not easy forgotten.” + </p> + <p> + Linda's determination to go to Philadelphia had not been shaken, and she + made a vain effort to explain her attitude. “Of course, it was horrid for + you,” she said. “I can understand how you'd never never forgive him. But I + am different, and, I expect, not at all nice. It's very possible, since he + was my father, that we are alike. I wish you had told me this before—it + explains so much and would have made things easier for me. I am afraid I + must see them.” + </p> + <p> + She was aware of the bitterness and enmity that stiffened her mother into + an unaccustomed adequate scorn: + </p> + <p> + “I might have expected nothing better of you, and me watching it coming + all these years. You can go or stay. I had my life in spite of the both of + you, as gay as I pleased and a good husband just the same. I don't care if + I never see you again, and if it wasn't for the fuss it would make I'd + take care I didn't. You'll have your father's money now I'm married; I + wonder you stay around here at all with your airs of being better than the + rest. God's truth is you ain't near as good, even if I did bring you into + the world.” + </p> + <p> + “I am willing to agree with you,” Linda answered. “No one could be sweeter + than the Feldts. I sha'n't do nearly as well. But that isn't it, really. + People don't choose themselves; I'm certain father didn't at that lonely + Italian place. If you weren't happy laced in the morning it wasn't your + fault. You see, I am trying to excuse myself, and that isn't any good, + either.” + </p> + <p> + “Unnatural,” Mrs. Moses Feldt pronounced. And Linda, weary and depressed, + allowed her the last word. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIX + </h2> + <p> + Nothing further during the subsequent brief exchange of notes between Miss + Lowrie and Linda was said of the latter's intention to visit her father's + family. Mrs. Feldt, however, whose attitude toward Linda had been + negatively polite, now displayed an animosity carefully hidden from her + husband but evident to the two girls. The elder never neglected an + opportunity to emphasize Linda's selfishness or make her personality seem + ridiculous. But this Linda ignored from her wide sense of the + inconsequence of most things. + </p> + <p> + Yet she was relieved when, finally, she had actually left New York. She + looked forward with an unusual hopeful curiosity to the Lowries. To her + surprise their house—miles, it appeared, from the center of the city—was + directly on a paved street with electric cars, unpretentious stores and + very humble dwellings nearby. Back from the thoroughfare, however, there + were spacious green lawns. The street itself, she saw at once, was old—a + highway of gray stone with low aged stone façades, steep eaves and + blackened chimney-pots reaching, dusty with years, into the farther hilly + country. + </p> + <p> + A gable of the Lowrie house, with a dignified white door, a fanlight of + faintly iridescent glass and polished brasses, faced the brick sidewalk, + while to the left there was a high board fence and an entrance with a + small grille open on a somber reach of garden. A maid in a stiff white cap + answered the fall of the knocker; she took Linda's bag; and, in a hall + that impressed her by its bareness, Linda was greeted by the Miss Lowrie + she had seen. + </p> + <p> + Her aunt was composed, but there was a perceptible flush on her cheeks, + and she said in a rapid voice, after a conventional welcome, “You must + meet Elouise at once, before you go up to your room.” + </p> + <p> + Elouise Lowrie was older than Amelia, but she, too, was slender and erect, + with black hair startling in its density on her wasted countenance. Linda + noticed a fine ruby on a crooked finger and beautiful rose point lace. “It + was good of you,” the elder proceeded, “to come and see two old women. I + don't know whether we have more to say or to keep still about. But I, for + one, am going to avoid explanations. You are here, a fool could see that + you were Bartram's girl, and that is enough for a Lowrie.” + </p> + <p> + The room was nearly as bare as the hall: in place of the deep carpets of + the Feldts' the floor, of dark uneven oak boards, was merely waxed and + covered by a rough-looking oval rug. The walls were paneled in white, with + white ruffled curtains at small windows; and the furniture, the dull + mahogany ranged against the immaculate paint, the rocking-chairs of high + slatted walnut and rush bottoms, the slender formality of tables with + fluted legs, was dignified but austere. There were some portraits in heavy + old gilt—men with florid faces and tied hair, and the delicate + replicas of high-breasted women in brocades. + </p> + <p> + There was, plainly, an air of the exceptional in Amelia Lowrie's + conduction of Linda to her room. She waited at the door while the other + moved forward to the center of a chamber empty of all the luxury Linda had + grown to demand. There was a bed with tall graceful posts supporting a + canopy like a frosting of sugar, a solemn set of drawers with a diminutive + framed mirror in which she could barely see her shoulders, a small + unenclosed brass clock with long exposed weights, and two uninviting + painted wooden chairs. This was not, although very nearly, all. Linda's + attention was attracted by a framed and long-faded photograph of a young + man, bareheaded, with a loosely knotted scarf, a striped blazer and white + flannels. His face was thin and sensitive, his lips level, and his eyes + gazed with a steady questioning at the observer. + </p> + <p> + “That was Bartram,” Amelia Lowrie told her; “your father. This was his + room.” + </p> + <p> + She went down almost immediately and left Linda, in a maze of dim + emotions, seated on one of the uncomfortable painted chairs. Her father! + This was his room; nothing, she realized, had been disturbed. The mirror + had held the vaguely unsteady reflection of his face; he had slept under + the arched canopy of the bed. She rose and went to a window from which he, + too, had looked. + </p> + <p> + Below her was the garden shut in on its front by the high fence. There was + a magnolia-tree, now covered with thick smooth white flowers, and, at the + back, low-massed rhododendron with fragile lavender blossoms on a dark + glossy foliage. But the space was mainly green and shadowed in tone; while + beyond were other gardens, other emerald lawns and magnolia-trees, an + ordered succession of tranquillity with separate brick or stone or white + dwellings in the lengthening afternoon shadows of vivid maples. + </p> + <p> + It was as different as possible from all that Linda had known, from the + elaborate hotels and gigantic apartment houses, the tropical interiors, of + her New York life. She unpacked her bag, putting her gold toilet things on + the chest of drawers, precisely arranging in a shallow closet what clothes + she had brought, and then, changing, went down to the Lowries. + </p> + <p> + They surveyed her with eminent approval at a dinner-table lighted only + with candles, beside long windows open on a dusk with a glimmer of + fireflies. Suddenly Linda felt amazingly at ease; it seemed to her that + she had sat here before, with the night flowing gently in over the + candle-flames. The conversation, she discovered, never strayed far from + the concerns and importance of the Lowrie blood. “My grandmother, Natalie + Vigné,” Elouise informed her, “came with her father to Philadelphia from + France, in eighteen hundred and one, at the invitation of Stephen Girard, + who was French as well. She married Hallet Lowrie whose mother was a + Bartram. + </p> + <p> + “That, my dear, explains our black hair and good figgers. There never was + a lumpy Lowrie. Well, Hallet built this house, or rather enlarged it, for + his wife; and it has never been out of the family. Our nephew, Arnaud + Hallet—Arnaud was old Vigné's name—owns it now. Isaac Hallet, + you may recall, was suspected of being a Tory; at any rate his brother's + descendants, Fanny Rodwell is the only one left, won't speak.” + </p> + <p> + The placid conversation ran on unchanged throughout dinner and the + evening. Linda was relieved by the absence of any questioning; indeed + nothing contemporary, she realized, was held to be significant. “I thought + Arnaud would be in to-night,” Elouise Lowrie said; “he knew Linda was + expected.” No one, however, appeared; and Linda went up early to her room. + There, too, were only candles, a pale wavering illumination in which the + past, her father, were extraordinarily nearby. A sense of pride was + communicated to her by so much that time had been unable to shake. The bed + was steeped in the magic of serene traditions. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XX + </h2> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet appeared for dinner the evening after Linda's arrival; a + quiet man with his youth lost, slightly stooped shoulders, crumpled shoes + and a green cloth bag. But he had a memorable voice and an easy + distinction of manner; in addition to these she discovered, at the table, + a lighter amusing sense of the absurd. She watched him—as he poured + the sherry from a decanter with a silver label hung on a chain—with + a feeling of mild approbation. On the whole he was nice but uninteresting. + What a different man from Pleydon! + </p> + <p> + The days passed in a pleasant deliberation, with Arnaud Hallet constantly + about the house or garden, while Linda's thoughts continually returned to + the sculptor. He was clearer than the actuality of her mother and the + Feldts or the recreated image of her father. At times she was thrilled by + the familiar obscure sense of music, of longing slowly translated into + happiness. Then more actual problems would envelop her in doubt. Mostly + she was confused—in her cool material necessity for understanding—by + the temper of her feeling for Dodge Pleydon. Linda wondered if this were + love. Perhaps, when she saw him again, she'd be able to decide. Then she + remembered promising to let him know if she changed her address. It was + possible that already he had called at the Feldts', or written, and that + her mother had refused to inform him where she had gone. + </p> + <p> + Linda had been at the Lowries' two weeks now, but they were acutely + distressed when she suggested that her visit was unreasonably prolonged. + “My dear,” they protested together, “we hoped you'd stay the summer. + Bartram's girl! Unless, of course, it is dull with us. Something brighter + must be arranged. No doubt we have only thought of our own pleasure in + having you.” + </p> + <p> + Linda replied honestly that she enjoyed being with them extremely. Her + mother's dislike, the heavy luxury of the Feldt apartment, held little + attraction for her. Then, too, losing the sense of the bareness of the + house Hallet Lowrie had built for his French wife, she began to find it + surprisingly appealing. + </p> + <p> + Her mind returned to her promise to Pleydon. She told herself that + probably he had forgotten her existence, but she had a strong unreasoning + conviction that this was not so. It seemed the most natural thing in the + world to write him and, almost before she was aware of the intention, she + had put “Dear Mr. Pleydon” at the head of a sheet of note-paper. + </p> + <p> + I promised to let you know in the spring when you came back from South + America where I was. I did not think I would have to do it, but here I am + in Philadelphia with my father's sisters. I do not know just how long for, + but a month, anyhow. It is very quiet, but charming. I have the room that + was my father's when he was young, and look out of the window like he must + have. If you should come to Philadelphia my aunts ask me to say that they + would be glad to have you for dinner. This is how you get here.... + </p> + <p> + Very sincerely, + </p> + <h3> + LINDA CONDON. + </h3> + <p> + She walked to a street crossing, where she dropped the envelope into a + letter-box on a lamppost, and returned to find Arnaud Hallet waiting for + her. He said: + </p> + <p> + “Everyone agrees I'm serious, but actually you are worse than the + Assembly.” They went through the dining-room to the garden, and sat on the + stone step of a deep window. It was quite late, perhaps eleven o'clock, + and the fireflies, slowly rising into the night, had vanished. Linda was + cool and remote and grave, silently repeating and weighing the phrases of + her letter to Pleydon. + </p> + <p> + She realized that Arnaud Hallet was coming to like her a very great deal; + but she gave this only the slightest attention. She liked him, really, and + that dismissed him from serious consideration. Anyhow, in spite of the + perfection of his manner, Arnaud's careless dress displeased her: his + shoes and the shoulders of his coat were perpetually dusty, and his hair, + growing scant, was always ruffled. Linda understood that he was highly + intellectual, and frequently contributed historical and genealogical + papers to societies and bulletins, but compared with Dodge Pleydon's + brilliant personality and reputation, Pleydon surrounded by the Susanna + Nodas of life, Arnaud was as dingy as his shoes. + </p> + <p> + She wondered idly when the latter would actually try to love her. He was + holding her hand and it might well be to-night. Linda decided that he + would do it delicately; and when, almost immediately, he kissed her, she + was undisturbed. No, surprisingly, it had been quite pleasant. He hadn't + mussed her ribbons, nor her spirit, a particle. In addition he did not at + once become impossible and urgently sentimental; there was even a shade of + amusement on his heavy face. + </p> + <p> + “You appear to take a lot for granted,” he complained. + </p> + <p> + “I'd been wondering when it would happen,” she admitted coolly. + </p> + <p> + “It always does, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Usually I stop it,” she continued. “I don't believe I'll ever like being + kissed. Can you tell me why? No one ever has; they all think they can + bring me around to it.” + </p> + <p> + “And to them,” he added. + </p> + <p> + “But they end by being furious at me. I've been sworn at and called + dreadful names. Sometimes they're only silly. One cried; I hated that the + most.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean that you were sorry for him?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dear, no. Why should I be? He looked so odious all smeared with + tears.” + </p> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet returned promptly: “Linda, you're a little beast.” To + counteract his rude speech he kissed her again. “This,” he said with less + security, “threatens to become a habit. I thought, at forty-five, that I + was safely by the island of sirens, but I'll be on the rocks before I know + it.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed with the cool remoteness of running water. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder you haven't been murdered,” he proceeded, “in a moonless garden + by an elderly lawyer. Do you ever think of the lyric day when, preceded by + a flock of bridesmaids and other flowery pagan truck, you'll meet + justice?” + </p> + <p> + “Marriage?” she asked. “But of course. I have everything perfectly planned—” + </p> + <p> + “Then, my dear Linda, describe him.” + </p> + <p> + “Very straight,” she said, “with beautiful polished shoes and brushed + hair.” + </p> + <p> + “You ought to have no trouble finding that. Any number of my friends have + one—to open the door and take your things. I might arrange a very + satisfactory introduction for everybody concerned—a steady man well + on his way to preside over the pantry and table.” + </p> + <p> + “You're not as funny as usual,” Linda decided critically. “That, too, + disturbs me,” he replied. “It looks even more unpromising for the near + future.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXI + </h2> + <p> + In her room Linda thought, momentarily, of Arnaud Hallet; whatever might + have been serious in her attitude toward him dissolved by the lightness of + his speech. Dodge Pleydon appealed irresistibly to her deepest feelings. + Now her mental confusion was at least clear in that she knew what troubled + her. It was not new, it extended even to times before Pleydon had entered + her life—the difficulties presented by the term “love.” + </p> + <p> + In her mind it was divided into two or three widely different aspects, + phases which she was unable to reconcile. Her mother, in the beginning, + had informed her that love was a nuisance. To be happy, a man must love + you without any corresponding return; this was necessary to his complete + management, the securing of the greatest possible amount of new clothes. + It was as far as love should be allowed to enter marriage. But that + reality, with a complete expression in shopping, was distant from the + immaterial and delicate emotions that in her responded to Pleydon. + </p> + <p> + Linda had been familiar with the materials, the processes, of what, she + had been assured, was veritable love since early childhood. Her mother's + dressing, the irritable hours of fittings and at her mirror, the paint she + put on her cheeks, the crimping of her hair were for the favor of men. + These struggles had absorbed the elder, all the women Linda had + encountered, to the exclusion of everything else. This, it seemed, must, + from its overwhelming predominance, be the greatest thing in life. + </p> + <p> + There was nothing mysterious about it. You did certain things + intelligently, if you had the figure to do them with, for a practical end. + The latter, carefully controlled, like an essence of which a drop was + delightful and more positively stifling, was as real as the methods of + approach. Oatmeal or scented soap! The force of example and association + combined to bathe such developments in the sanest light possible, and + Linda had every intention of the successful grasping of an easy and + necessary luxury. She had, until—vaguely—now, been entirely + willing to accept the unescapable conditions of love used as a means or + the element of pleasure at parties. Now, however, the unexpected element + of Dodge Pleydon disturbed her philosophy. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly all the lacing and painting and crimping, the pretense and lies + and carefully planned accidental effects, filled her with revolt. The + insinuations of women, the bareness of their revelations, her mother + returning unsteady and mussed from a dinner, were unutterably disgusting. + Even to think of them hurt her fundamentally: so much of what she was, of + what she had determined, had been destroyed by an emotion apparently as + slight as echoed music. + </p> + <p> + Here was the real mystery and for which nothing in her experience had + prepared her. She began to see why it was called a nuisance—if this + were love—and wondered if she had better not suppress it at once. It + wouldn't be suppressed. Her thoughts continually came back to Pleydon, and + the warmth, the disturbing thrill, always resulted. It led her away from + herself, from Linda Condon; a sufficiently strange accomplishment. A + concern for Dodge Pleydon, little schemes for his happiness and + well-being, put aside her clothes and complexion and her future. + </p> + <p> + Until the present her acts had been the result of deliberation. She had + been impressed by the necessity for planning with care; but, in the cool + gloom of the covered bed, a sharp joy held her at the possibility of + flinging caution away. Yet she couldn't quite, no matter how much she + desired it, lose herself. Linda was glad that Pleydon was rich; and there + were, she remembered, moments for surrender. + </p> + <p> + As usual these problems, multiplying toward night, were fewer in the + bright flood of morning. She laughed at the memory of Arnaud Hallet's + humor; and then, it was late afternoon, the maid told her that Pleydon was + in the drawing room. Her appearance satisfactory she was able to see him + at once. To her great pleasure neither Pleydon nor his clothes had + changed. He was dressed in light-gray flannels; a big easy man with a + crushing palm, large features and an expression of intolerance. + </p> + <p> + “Linda,” he said, “what a splendid place to find you. So much better than + Markue's.” He was, she realized, very glad to see her, and dropped at + once, as if they had been uninterruptedly together, into intimate talk. + “My work has been going badly,” he proceeded; “or rather not at all. I + made a rather decent fountain at Newport; but—remember what Susanna + said?—it's not in the first rank. A happy balance and strong enough + conception; yet it is like a Cellini ewer done in granite. The truth is, + too much interests me; an artist ought to be the victim of a monomania. + I'm a normal animal.” He studied her contentedly: + </p> + <p> + “How lovely you are. I came over—in an automobile at last—because + I was certain you couldn't exist as I remembered you. But you could and + do. Lovely Linda! And what a gem of a letter. It might have been copied + from 'The Perfect Correspondent for Young Females.' You're not going to + lose me again. When I was a little boy I had a passion for sherbets.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled at him with half-closed eyes and the conviction that, with + Pleydon, she could easily be different. He leaned forward and his voice + startled her with the impression that he had read her mind: + </p> + <p> + “If you could care for any one a lifetime would be short to get you. Look, + you have never been out of my thoughts—or within my reach. It seems + a myth that I kissed you; impossible ... Linda.” + </p> + <p> + “But you did,” she told him, gaining happiness from the mere assurance. + They were alone in the drawing-room, and he rose, sweeping her up into his + arms. Yet the expected joy evaded her desire and the sudden determination + to lose utterly her reserve. It was evident that he as well was conscious + of this, for he released her and stood frowning, his protruding lower lip + uglier than ever. + </p> + <p> + “A lifetime would be nothing,” he said again; “or it might be everything + wasted. Which are you—all soul and spirit, or none?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” she replied, in her bitter disappointment, her heart + pinched by the sharpest pain she remembered. There was the stir of skirts + at the door; Linda turned with a sense of relief to Amelia Lowrie. + However, dinner progressed very well indeed. “Then your aunt,” Elouise + said to Pleydon, “was Carrie Dodge. I recall her perfectly.” That + established, the Lowrie women talked with a gracious freedom, exploring + the furthermost infiltrations of blood and marriages. + </p> + <p> + Linda was again serene. She watched Pleydon with an extraordinary formless + conviction—each of them was a part of the other's life; while in + some way marriage and love were now hopelessly confused. It was beyond + effort or planning. That was all she could grasp, but she was contented. + Sometimes when he talked he made the familiar descriptive gesture with his + hand, as if he were shaping the form of his speech: a sculptor's gesture, + Linda realized. + </p> + <p> + Later they wandered into the garden, a dark enclosure with the long + ivy-covered façade of the house broken by the lighted spaces of windows. + Beyond the fence at regular intervals an electric car passed with an + increasing and diminishing clangor. The white petals of the magnolia-tree + had fallen and been wheeled away; the blossoms of the rhododendron were + dead on their stems. It was, Linda felt, a very old garden that had known + many momentary emotions and lives. + </p> + <p> + Dodge Pleydon, standing before her, put his hands on her shoulders. “Would + I have any success?” he asked. “Do you think you'd care for me?” + </p> + <p> + She smiled confidently up at his intent face. “Oh, yes.” Yet she hoped + that he would not kiss her—just then. The delicacy of her longing + and need were far removed from material expressions. This, of course, + meant marriage; but marriage was money, comfort, the cold thing her mother + had impressed on her. Love, her love, was a mistake here. But in a little + it would all come straight and she would understand. She no longer had + confidence in her mother's wisdom. + </p> + <p> + In spite of her shrinking, of a half articulate appeal, he crushed her + against his face. Whatever that had filled her with hope, she thought, was + being torn from her. A sickening aversion over which she had no control + made her stark in his arms. The memories of the painted coarse satiety of + women and the sly hard men for which they schemed, the loose discussions + of calculated advances and sordid surrenders, flooded her with a loathing + for what she passionately needed to be beautiful. + </p> + <p> + Yet deep within her, surprising in its vitality, a fragile ardor + persisted. If she could explain, not only might he understand, but be able + to make her own longing clear and secure. But all she managed to say was, + “If you kiss me again I think it will kill me.” Even that failed to stop + him. “You were never alive,” he asserted. “I'll put some feeling into you. + It has been done before with marble.” + </p> + <p> + Linda, unresponsive, suffered inordinately. + </p> + <p> + Again on her feet she saw that Pleydon was angry, his face grim. He seemed + changed, threatening and unfamiliar; it was exactly as if, in place of + Dodge Pleydon, a secretive impersonal ugliness stood disclosed before her. + He said harshly: + </p> + <p> + “When will you marry me?” + </p> + <p> + It was what, above all else, she had wanted; and Linda realized that to + marry him was still the crown of whatever happiness she could imagine. But + her horror of the past recreated by his beating down of her gossamer-like + aspiration, the vision of him flushed and ruthless, an image of + indiscriminate nameless man, made it impossible for her to reply. An + abandon of shrinking fear numbed her heart and lips. + </p> + <p> + “You won't get rid of me as you do the others about you,” he continued. + “This time you made a mistake. I haven't any pride that you can insult; + but I have all that you—with your character—require. I have + more money even than you can want.” She cried despairingly: + </p> + <p> + “It isn't that now! I had forgotten everything to do with money and + depended on you to take me away from it always.” + </p> + <p> + “When will you marry me?” + </p> + <p> + In a flash of blinding perception, leaving her as dazed as though it had + been a physical actuality, she realized that marrying him had become an + impossibility. At the barest thought of it the dread again closed about + her like ice. She tried, with all the force of old valuations, with even + an effort to summon back the vanquished thrill, to give herself to him. + But a quality overpowering and instinctive, the response of her + incalculable injury, made any contact with him hateful. It was utterly + beyond her power to explain. A greater mystery still partly unfolded—whatever + she had hoped from Pleydon belonged to the special emotion that had + possessed her since earliest childhood. + </p> + <p> + In the immediate tragedy of her helplessness, with Dodge Pleydon impatient + for an assurance, she paused involuntarily to wonder about that hidden + imperative sense. There was a broken mental fantasy of—of a leopard + bearing a woman in shining hair. This was succeeded by a bright thrust of + happiness and, all about her, a surging like the imagined beat of the + wings of the Victory in Markue's room. Almost Pleydon had explained + everything, almost he was everything; and then the other, putting him + aside, had swept her back into the misery of doubt and loneliness. + </p> + <p> + “I can't marry you,” she said in a flat and dragged voice. He demanded + abruptly: + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” She recognized his utter right to the temper that mastered + him. For a moment Linda thought Pleydon would shake her. “You feel that + way now,” he declared; “and perhaps next month; but you will change; in + the end I'll have you.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” she told him, with a certainty from a source outside her + consciousness. “It has been spoiled.” + </p> + <p> + He replied, “Time will discover which of us is right. I'm almost willing + to stay away till you send for me. But that would only make you more + stubborn. What a strong little devil you are, Linda. I have no doubt I'd + do better to marry a human being. Then I think we both forget how young + you are—you can't pretend to be definite yet.” + </p> + <p> + He captured her hands; too exhausted for any resentment or feeling she + made no effort to evade him. “I'll never say good-bye to you.” + </p> + <p> + His voice had the absolute quality of her own conviction. To her amazement + her cheeks were suddenly wet with tears. “I want to go now,” she said + unsteadily; “and—and thank you.” + </p> + <p> + His old easy formality returned as he made his departure. In reply to + Pleydon's demand she told him listlessly that she would be here for, + perhaps, a week longer. Then he'd see her, he continued, in New York, at + the Feldts'. + </p> + <p> + In her room all emotion faded. Pleydon had said that she was still young; + but she was sure she could never, in experience or feeling, be older. She + became sorry for herself; or rather for the illusions, the Linda, of a few + hours ago. She examined her features in the limited uncertain mirror—strong + sensations, she knew, were a charge on the appearance—but she was + unable to find any difference in her regular pallor. Then, mechanically + conducting her careful preparations for the night, her propitiation of the + only omnipotence she knew, she put out the candles of her May. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXII + </h2> + <p> + What welcome Linda met in New York came from Mr. Moses Feldt, who embraced + her warmly enough, but with an air slightly ill at ease. He begged her to + kiss her mama, who was sometimes hurt by Linda's coldness. She made no + reply, and found the same influence and evidence of the power of + suggestion in Judith. “We thought maybe you wouldn't care to come back + here,” the latter said pointedly, over her shoulder, while she was + directing the packing of a trunk. The Feldts were preparing for their + summer stay at the sea. + </p> + <p> + Her mother's room resembled one of the sales of obvious and expensive + attire conducted in the lower salons of pleasure hotels. There were airy + piles of chiffon and satin, inappropriate hats and the inevitable + confections of silk and lace. “It's not necessary to ask if you were right + at home with your father's family,” Mrs. Condon observed with an assumed + casual inattention. “I can see you sitting with those old women as dry and + false as any. No one saved me in the clacking, I'm sure.” + </p> + <p> + “We didn't speak of you,” Linda replied. She studied, unsparing, the loose + flesh of the elder's ravaged countenance. Her mother, she recognized, + hated her, both because she was like Bartram Lowrie and still young, with + everything unspent that the other valued and had lost. In support of + herself Mrs. Feldt asserted again that she had “lived,” with stacks of + friends and flowers, lavish parties and devoted attendance. + </p> + <p> + “You may be smarter than I was,” she went on, “but what good it does you + who can say? And if you expect to get something for nothing you're fooled + before you start.” She shook out the airy breadths of a vivid echo of past + daring. “From the way you act a person might think you were pretty, but + you are too thin and pulled out. I've heard your looks called peculiar, + and that was, in a manner of speaking, polite. You're not even stylish any + more—the line is full again and not suitable for bony shoulders and + no bust.” She still cherished a complacency in her amplitude. + </p> + <p> + Linda turned away unmoved. Of all the world, she thought, only Dodge + Pleydon had the power actually to hurt her. She knew that she would see + him soon again and that again he would ask her to marry him. She + considered, momentarily, the possibility of saying yes; and instantly the + dread born with him in the Lowrie garden swept over her. Linda told + herself that he was the only man for whom she could ever deeply care; that—for + every conceivable reason—such a marriage was perfect. But the + shrinking from its implications grew too painful for support. + </p> + <p> + Her mother's bitterness increased hourly; she no longer hid her feelings + from her husband and Judith; and dinner, accompanied by her elaborate + sarcasm, was a difficult period in which, plainly, Mr. Moses Feldt + suffered most and Linda was the least concerned. This condition, she + admitted silently, couldn't go on indefinitely; it was too vulgar if for + no other reason. And she determined to ask the Lowries for another and + more extended invitation. + </p> + <p> + Pleydon came, as she had expected, and they sat in the small + reception-room with the high ceiling and dark velvet hangings, the piano + at which, long ago it now seemed, Judith had played the airs of Gluck for + her. He said little, but remained for a long while spread over the divan + and watching her—in a formal chair—discontentedly. He rose + suddenly and stood above her, a domineering bulk obliterating nearly + everything else. In response to his demand she said, pale and composed, + that she was not “reasonable”; she omitted the “yet” included in his + question. Pleydon frowned. However, then, he insisted no further. + </p> + <p> + When he had gone Linda was as spent as though there had been a fresh + brutal scene; and the following day she was enveloped in an unrelieved + depression. Her mother mocked her silence as another evidence of + ridiculous pretentiousness. Mr. Moses Feldt regarded her with a furtive + concerned kindliness; while Judith followed her with countless small + irritating complaints. It was the last day at the apartment before their + departure for the summer. Linda was insuperably tired. She had gone to her + room almost directly after dinner, and when a maid came to her door with a + card, she exclaimed, before looking at it, that she was not in. It was, + however, Arnaud Hallet; and, with a surprise tempered by a faint interest, + she told the servant that she would see him. + </p> + <p> + There was, Linda observed at once, absolutely no difference in Arnaud's + clothing, no effort to make himself presentable for New York or her. In a + way, it amused her—it was so characteristic of his forgetfulness, + and it made him seem doubly familiar. He waved a hand toward the luxury of + the interior. “This,” he declared, “is downright impressive, and lifted, + I'm sure, out of a novel of Ouida's. + </p> + <p> + “You will remember,” he continued, “complaining about my sense of humor + one evening; and that, at the time, I warned you it might grow worse. It + has. I am afraid, where you are concerned, that it has absolutely + vanished. My dear, you'll recognize this as a proposal. I thought my mind + was made up, after forty, not to marry; and I specially tried not to bring + you into it. You were too young, I felt. I doubted if I could make you + happy, and did everything possible, exhausted all the arguments, but it + was no good. + </p> + <p> + “Linda, dear, I adore you.” + </p> + <p> + She was glad, without the slightest answering emotion, that Arnaud, well—liked + her. At the same time all her wisdom declared that she couldn't marry him; + and, with the unsparing frankness of youth and her individual detachment, + she told him exactly why. + </p> + <p> + “I need a great deal of money,” she proceeded, “because I am frightfully + extravagant. All I have is expensive; I hate cheap things—even what + satisfies most rich girls. Why, just my satin slippers cost hundreds of + dollars and I'll pay unlimited amounts for a little fulling of lace or + some rare flowers. You'd call it wicked, but I can't help it—it's + me. + </p> + <p> + “I've always intended to marry a man with a hundred thousand dollars a + year. Of course, that's a lot—do you hate me for telling you?—but + I wouldn't think of any one with less than fifty—” + </p> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet interrupted quietly, “I have that.” + </p> + <p> + Linda gazed incredulously at his neglected shoes, the wrinkles of his + inconsiderable coat and unstudied scarf. She saw that, actually, he had + spoken apologetically of his possessions; and a stinging shame spread + through her at the possibility that she had seemed common to an infinitely + finer delicacy than hers. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII + </h2> + <p> + Most of these circumstances Linda Hallet quietly recalled sitting with her + husband in the house that had been occupied by the Lowries'. A letter from + Pleydon had taken her into a past seven years gone by; while ordinarily + her memory was indistinct; ordinarily she was fully occupied by the + difficulties, or rather compromises, of the present. But, in the tranquil + open glow of a Franklin stove and the withdrawn intentness of Arnaud + reading, her mind had returned to the distressed period of her wedding. + </p> + <p> + Elouise Lowrie—Amelia was dead—sunk in a stupor of extreme old + age, her bloodless hands folded in an irreproachable black surah silk lap, + sat beyond the stove; and Lowrie, Linda's elder child, five and a half, + together with his sister Vigné, had been long asleep above. Linda was + privately relieved by this: her children presented enormous obligations. + The boy, already at a model school, appalled her inadequate preparations + by his flashes of perceptive intelligence; while she was frankly abashed + at the delicate rosy perfection of her daughter. + </p> + <p> + The present letter was the third she had received from Dodge Pleydon, whom + she had not seen since her marriage. At first he had been enraged at the + wrong, he had every reason to feel, she had done him. Then his anger had + dissolved into a meager correspondence of outward and obvious facts. There + was so much that she had been unable to explain. He had always been + impatient, even contemptuous, of the emotion that made her surrender to + him unthinkable—Linda realized now that it had been the strongest + impulse of her life—and, of course, she had never accounted for the + practically unbalanced enmity of her mother. + </p> + <p> + The latter had deepened to an incredible degree, so much so that Mr. Moses + Feldt, though he had never taken an actual part in it—such + bitterness was entirely outside his generous sentimentality—had + become acutely uncomfortable in his own home, imploring Linda, with ready + tears, to be kinder to her mama. Judith, too, had grown cutting, jealous + of Linda's serenity of youth, as her appearance showed the effect of her + wasting emotions. Things quite extraordinary had happened: once Linda's + skin had been almost seriously affected by an irritation that immediately + followed the trace of her powder-puff; and at several times she had had + clumsily composed anonymous notes of a most distressing nature. + </p> + <p> + She had wondered, calmly enough, which of the two bitter women were + responsible, and decided that it was her mother. At this the situation at + the Feldts', increasingly strained, had become an impossibility. Arnaud + Hallet, after his first visit, had soon returned. There was no more + mention of his money; but every time he saw her he asked her again, in his + special manner—a formality flavored by a slight diffident humor—to + marry him. Arnaud's proposals had alternated with Pleydon's utterly + different demand. + </p> + <p> + Linda remembered agonized evenings when, in a return of his brutal manner + of the unforgettable night in the Lowrie garden, he tried to force a + recognition of his passion. It had left her cold, exhausted, the victim of + a mingled disappointment at her failure to respond with a hatred of all + essential existence. At last, on a particularly trying occasion, she had + desperately agreed to marry him. + </p> + <p> + The aversion of her mother, becoming really dangerous, had finally + appalled her; and a headache weighed on her with a leaden pain. Dodge, + too, had been unusually considerate; he talked about the future—tied + up, he asserted, in her—of his work; and suddenly, at the signal of + her rare tears, Linda agreed to a wedding. + </p> + <p> + In the middle of the night she had wakened oppressed by a dread resulting + in an uncontrollable chill. She thought first that her mother was bending + a malignant face over her; and then realized that her feeling was caused + by her promise to Dodge Pleydon. It had grown worse instead of vanishing, + waves of nameless shrinking swept over her; and in the morning, further + harrowed by the actualities of being, she had sent a telegram to Arnaud + Hallet—to Arnaud's kindness and affection, his detachment not unlike + her own. + </p> + <p> + They were married immediately; and through the ceremony and the succeeding + days she had been almost entirely absorbed in a sensation of escape. At + the death of Amelia Lowrie, soon after, Arnaud had suggested a temporary + period in the house she remembered with pleasure; and, making small + alterations with the months and years, they had tacitly agreed to remain. + </p> + <p> + Linda often wondered, walking about the lower floor, why it seemed so + familiar to her: she would stand in the dining-room, with its ceiling of + darkened beams, and gaze absent-minded through the long windows at the + close-cut walled greenery without. The formal drawing-room, at the right + of the street entrance, equally held her—a cool interior with + slatted wooden blinds, a white mantelpiece with delicately reeded supports + and a bas-relief of Minerva on the center panel, a polished brass scuttle + for cannel-coal and chairs with wide severely fretted backs upholstered in + old pale damask. + </p> + <p> + The house seemed familiar, but she could never grow accustomed to the + undeniable facts of her husband, the children and her completely changed + atmosphere. She admitted to herself that her principal feeling in + connection with Lowrie and Vigné was embarrassment. Here she always + condemned herself as an indifferent, perhaps unnatural, mother. She + couldn't help it. In the same sense she must be an unsatisfactory wife. + Linda was unable to shake off the conviction that it was like a play in + which she had no more than a spectator's part. + </p> + <p> + This was her old disability, the result of her habit of sitting, as a + child, apart from the concerns and stir of living. She made every possible + effort to overcome it, to surrender to her new conditions; but, if nothing + else, an instinctive shyness prevented. It went back further, even, she + thought, than her own experience, and she recalled all she had heard and + reconstructed of her father—a man shut in on himself who had, one + day, without a word walked out of the door and left his wife, never to + return. These realizations, however, did little to clarify her vision; she + was continually trying to adjust her being to circumstances that + persistently remained a little distant and blurred. + </p> + <p> + In appearance, anyhow, Linda told herself with a measure of reassurance, + she was practically unchanged. She still, with the support of Arnaud, + disregarding current fashion, wore her hair in a straight bang across her + brow and blue gaze. She was as slender as formerly, but more gracefully + round, in spite of the faint characteristic stiffness that was the result + of her mental hesitation. Her clothes, too, had hardly varied—she + wore, whenever possible, white lawns ruffled about the throat and hem, + with broad soft black sashes, while her more formal dresses were sheaths + of dull unornamented satin extravagant in the perfection of their + simplicity. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIV + </h2> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet stirred, sharply closing his book. He had changed—except + for a palpable settling down of grayness—as little as Linda. For a + while she had tried to bring about an improvement in his appearance, and + he had met her expressed wish whenever he remembered it; but this was not + often. In the morning a servant polished his shoes, brushed and ironed his + suits; yet by evening, somehow, he managed to look as though he hadn't + been attended to for days. She would have liked him to change for dinner; + other men of his connection did, it was a part of his inheritance. Arnaud, + however, in his slight scoffing disparagement, declined individually to + annoy himself. He was, she learned, enormously absorbed in his historical + studies and papers. + </p> + <p> + “Did you enjoy it?” she asked politely of his reading. “Extremely,” he + replied. “The American Impressions of Tyrone Power, the English actor, + through eighteen thirty-three and four. His account of a European packet + with its handbells and Saratoga water and breakfast of spitch-cock is + inimitable. I'd like to have sat at Cato's then, with a julep or + hail-storm, and watched the trotting races.” + </p> + <p> + Elouise Lowrie rose unsteadily, confused with dozing; but almost + immediately she gathered herself into a relentless propriety and a formal + goodnight. + </p> + <p> + “What has been running through that mysterious mind of yours?” + </p> + <p> + “I had a letter from Dodge,” she told him simply; “and I was thinking a + little about the past.” He exhibited the nice unstrained interest of his + admirable personality. “Is he still in France?” he queried. “Pleydon + should be a strong man; I am sure we are both conscious of a little + disappointment in him.” She said: “I'll read you his letter, it's on the + table. + </p> + <p> + “'You will see, my dear Linda, that I have not moved from the Rue de + Penthièvre, although I have given up the place at Etretat, and I am not + going to renew the lease here. Rodin insists, and I coming to agree with + him, that I ought to be in America. But the serious attitude here toward + art, how impossible that word has been made, is charming. And you will be + glad to know that I have had some success in the French good opinion. A + marble, Cotton Mather, that I cut from the stone, has been bought for the + Luxembourg. + </p> + <p> + “'I can hear you both exclaim at the subject, but it is very + representative of me now. I am tired of mythological naiads in a constant + state of pursuit. Get Hallet to tell you something about Mather. What a + somber flame! I have a part Puritan ancestry, as any Lowrie will inform + you. Well, I shall be back in a few months, very serious, and a politician—a + sculptor has to be that if he means to land any public monuments in + America. + </p> + <p> + “'I hope to see you.'” + </p> + <p> + The letter ended abruptly, with the signature, “Pleydon.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you happy, Linda?” Arnaud Hallet asked unexpectedly after a short + silence. So abruptly interrogated she was unable to respond. “What I mean + is,” he explained, “do you think you would have been happier married to + him? I knew, certainly, that it was the closest possible thing between + us.” Now, however, she was able to satisfy him: + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't marry Dodge.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it possible to tell me why?” + </p> + <p> + “He hurt me very much once. I tried to marry him, I tried to forget it, + but it was useless. I was dreadfully unhappy, in a great many ways—” + </p> + <p> + “So you sent for me,” he put in as she paused reflectively. “I didn't hurt + you, at any rate.” It seemed to her that his tone was shadowed. “You have + never hurt me, Arnaud,” she assured him, conscious of the inadequacy of + her words. “You were everything I wanted.” + </p> + <p> + “Except for my hats,” he said in a brief flash of his saving humor. “It + would be better for me, perhaps, if I could hurt you. That ability comes + dangerously close to a constant of love. You mustn't think I am + complaining. I haven't the slightest reason in the face of your + devastating honesty. I didn't distress you and I had the necessary minimum—the + fifty thousand.” His manner was so even, so devoid of sting, that she + could smile at the expression of her material ambitions. “I realize + exactly your feeling for myself, but what puzzles me is your attitude + toward the children.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand it either,” she admitted, “except that I am quite + afraid of them. They are so different from all my own childhood; often + they are too much for me. Then I dread the time when they will discover + how stupid and uneducated I am at bottom. I'm sure you already ask + questions before them to amuse yourself at my doubt. What shall I do, + Arnaud, when they are really at school and bring home their books?” + </p> + <p> + “Retreat behind your dignity as a parent,” he advised. “They are certain + to display their knowledge and ask you to bound things or name the capital + of Louisiana.” She cried, “Oh, but I know that, it's New Orleans!” She saw + at once, from his entertained expression, that she was wrong again, and + became conscious of a faint flush of annoyance. “It will be even worse,” + she continued, “when Vigné looks to me for advice; I mean when she is + older and has lovers.” + </p> + <p> + “She won't seriously; they never do. She'll tell you when it's all over. + Lowrie will depend more on you. I may have my fun about the capital of + Louisiana, Linda, but I have the greatest confidence in your wisdom. God + knows what an unhappy experience your childhood was, but it has given you + a superb worldly balance.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you're saying that I am cold,” she told him. “It must be true, + because it is repeated by every one. Yet, at times, I used to be very + different—you'd never imagine what a romantic thrill or strange + ideas were inside of me. Like a memory of a deep woods, and—and the + loveliest adventure. Often I would hear music as clearly as possible, and + it made me want I don't know what terrifically.” + </p> + <p> + “An early experience,” he replied. Suddenly she saw that he was tired, his + face was lined and dejected. “You read too much,” Linda declared. He said: + “But only out of the printed book.” She wondered vainly what he meant. As + he stood before the glimmering coals, in the room saturated in repose, she + wished that she might give him more; she wanted to spend herself in a riot + of feeling on Arnaud and their children. What a detestable character she + had! Her desire, her efforts, were wasted. + </p> + <p> + He went about putting up the windows and closing the outside shutters, a + confirmed habit. Linda rose with her invariable sense of separation, the + feeling that, bound on a journey with a hidden destination, she was only + temporarily in a place of little importance. It was like being always in + her hat and jacket. Arnaud shook down the grate; then he gazed over the + room; it was all, she was sure, as it had been a century ago, as it should + be—all except herself. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXV + </h2> + <p> + Yet her marriage had realized in almost every particular what she had—so + much younger—planned. The early suggestion, becoming through + constant reiteration a part of her knowledge, had been followed and + accomplished; and, as well, her later needs were served. Linda told + herself that, in a world where a very great deal was muddled, she had been + unusually fortunate. And this made her angry at her pervading lack of + interest in whatever she had obtained. + </p> + <p> + Other women, she observed, obviously less fortunate than she, were volubly + and warmly absorbed in any number of engagements and pleasures; she + continually heard them, Arnaud's connections—the whole superior + society, eternally and vigorously discussing servants and bridge, family + and cotillions, indiscretions and charities. These seemed enough for them; + their lives were filled, satisfied, extraordinarily busy. Linda, for the + most part, had but little to do. Her servants, managed with remote + exactness, gave no trouble; she had an excellent woman for the children; + her dress presented no new points of anxiety nor departure ... she was, in + short, Arnaud admitted, perfectly efficient. She disposed of such details + mechanically, almost impatiently, and was contemptuous, no envious, of the + women whose demands they contented. + </p> + <p> + At the dinners, the balls, to which Arnaud's sense of obligation both to + family and her took them against his inclination, it was the same—everyone, + it appeared to Linda, was flushed with an intentness she could not share. + Men, she found, some of them extremely pleasant, still made adroit and + reassuring efforts for her favor; the air here, she discovered, was even + freer than the bravado of her earlier surroundings. This love-making + didn't disturb her—it was, ultimately, the men who were fretted—indeed, + she had rather hoped that it would bring her the relief she lacked. + </p> + <p> + But again the observations and speculation of her mature childhood, what + she had heard revealed in the most skillful feminine dissections, had + cleared her understanding to a point that made the advances of hopeful men + quite entertainingly obvious. Their method was appallingly similar and + monotonous. She liked, rather than not, the younger ones, whose confidence + that their passion was something new on earth at times refreshed her; but + the navigated materialism of greater experience finally became + distasteful. She discussed this sharply with Arnaud: + </p> + <p> + “You simply can't help believing that most women are complete idiots.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't said much more for men.” + </p> + <p> + “The whole thing is too silly! Why is it, Arnaud? It ought to be + impressive and sweep you off your feet, up—” + </p> + <p> + “Instead of merely behind some rented palms,” he added. “But I must say, + Linda, that you are not a very highly qualified judge of sentiment.” He + pronounced this equably, but she was conscious of the presence of an + injury in his voice. She was a little weary at being eternally condemned + for what she couldn't help. Any failure was as much Arnaud Hallet's as + hers; he had had his opportunity, all that for which he had implored her. + Her thoughts returned to Dodge Pleydon. April was well advanced, and he + had written that he'd be back and see them in the spring. Linda listened + to her heart but it was unhastened by a beat. She would be very glad to + have him at hand, in her life again, of course. + </p> + <p> + Then the direction of her mind veered—what did he still think of + her? Probably he had altogether recovered from his love for her. It had + been a warm day, and Arnaud had opened a window; but now she was aware of + a cold air on her shoulder and she asked him abruptly to lower the sash. + Linda remembered, with a lingering sense of triumph, the Susanna Noda whom + Dodge had left at a party for her. There had been a great many Susannas in + his life; the reason for this was the absence of any overwhelming single + influence. It might be that now—he had written of the change in the + subjects of his work—such a guide had come into his existence. She + hoped she had. Yet, in view of the announced silliness of women, she + didn't want him to be cheaply deluded. + </p> + <p> + He was an extremely human man. + </p> + <p> + But she, Linda, it seemed, was an inhuman woman. The days ran into weeks + that added another month to spring; a June advanced sultry with heat; and, + suddenly as usual, a maid at the door of her room announced Pleydon. It + was five o'clock in the afternoon, she had to dress, and she sent him a + message that he mustn't expect her in a hurry. She paused in her + deliberate preparations for a long thoughtful gaze into a mirror; there + was not yet a shadow on her face, the trace of a line at her eyes. The + sharp smooth turning and absolute whiteness of her bare shoulders were + flawless. + </p> + <p> + At first it appeared to Linda that he, too, had not changed. They were in + the library opening into the dining-room, a space shut against the sun by + the Venetian blinds, and faintly scented by a bowl of early tea roses. He + appeared the same—large and informally clad in gray flannels, with + aggressive features and sensitive strong hands. He was quiet but plainly + happy to be with her again and sat leaning forward on his knees, watching + her intently as she chose a seat. + </p> + <p> + Then it slowly dawned on her that he had changed, yes—tragically. + Pleydon, in every way, was years older. His voice, less arbitrary, had new + depths of questioning, his mouth was more repressed, his face notably + sparer of flesh. He was immediately aware of the result of her scrutiny. + “I have been working like a fool,” he explained. “A breath of sickness, + too, four years ago in Soochow. One of the damnable Asiatic fevers that a + European is supposed to be immune from. You are a miracle, Linda. How long + has it been—nearly eight years; you have two children and Arnaud + Hallet and yet you are the girl I met at Markue's. I wanted to see you + different, just a little, a trace of something that should have happened + to you. It hasn't. You're the most remarkable mother alive.” + </p> + <p> + “If I am,” she returned, “it is not as a success, or at least for me. + Lowrie and Vigné are healthy, and happy enough; but I can't lose myself in + them, Dodge; I can't lose myself at all.” + </p> + <p> + He was quiet at this, the smoke of his cigarette climbing bluely in a + space with the aqueous stillness of a lake's depths. “The same,” he went + on after a long pause; “nothing has touched you. I ought to be relieved + but, do you know, it frightens me. You are relentless. You have no right, + at the same time, to be beautiful. I have seen a great many celebrated + women at their best moments, but you are lovelier than any. It isn't a + simple affair of proportion and features—I wish I could hold it in a + phrase, the turn of a chisel. I can't. It's deathless romance in a bang + cut blackly across heavenly blue.” He was silent again, and Linda glad + that he still found her attractive. She discovered that the misery his + presence once caused her had entirely vanished, its place taken by an + eager interest in his affairs, a lightness of spirit at the realization + that, while his love for her might have grown calm, no other woman + possessed it. + </p> + <p> + At the dinner-table she listened—cool and fresh, Arnaud complained, + in spite of the heat—to the talk of the two men. By her side Elouise + Lowrie occasionally repeated, in a voice like the faint jangle of an old + thin piano, the facts of a family connection or a commendation of the + Dodges. Arnaud really knew a surprising lot, and his conversation with + Pleydon was strung with terms completely unintelligible to her. It + developed, finally, into an argument over the treatment of the acanthus + motive in rococo ornament. France was summoned against Spain; the + architectural degrading of Italy deplored.... It amazed her that any one + could remember so much. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVI + </h2> + <p> + Linda without a conscious reason suddenly stopped the investigation of her + feeling for Pleydon. Even in the privacy of her thoughts an added + obscurity kept her from the customary clear reasoning. After dinner, out + in the close gloom of the garden, she watched the flicker of the + cigarettes. There was thunder, so distant and vague that for a long while + Linda thought she was deceived. She had a keen rushing sensation of the + strangeness of her situation here—Linda Hallet. The night was like a + dream from which she would stir, sigh, to find herself back again in the + past waiting for the return of her mother from one of her late parties. + </p> + <p> + But it was Arnaud who moved and, accompanying Elouise Lowrie, went into + the house for his interminable reading. Pleydon's voice began in a low + remembering tone: + </p> + <p> + “What a fantastic place the Feldt apartment was, with that smothered room + where you said you would marry me. You must have got hold of Hallet in the + devil of a hurry. I've often tried to understand what happened; why, all + the time, you were upset—why, why, why?” + </p> + <p> + “In a way it was because a ridiculous hairdresser burned out some of my + mother's front wave,” she explained. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” he replied derisively, “nothing could be plainer.” + </p> + <p> + She agreed calmly. “It was very plain. If you want me to try to tell you + don't interrupt. It isn't a happy memory, and I am only doing it because I + was so rotten to you. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I can see now that it was the hairdresser and a hundred other things + exactly the same. My mother, all the women we knew, did nothing but lace + and paint and frizzle for men. I used to think it was a game they played + and wonder where the fun was. There were even hints about that and later + they particularized and it made me as sick as possible. The men, too, were + odious; mostly fat and bald; and after a while, when they pinched or + kissed me, I wanted to die. + </p> + <p> + “That was all I knew about love, I had never heard of any other—men + away from their families for what they called a good time and women + plotting and planning to give it to them or not give it to them. Then + mother, after her looks were spoiled, married Mr. Moses Feldt, and I met + Judith, who only existed for men and men's rooms and told me worse things, + I'm sure, than mother ever dreamed; and, on top of that, I met you and you + kissed me. + </p> + <p> + “But it was different from any other; it didn't shock me, and it brought + back a thrill I have always had. I wanted, then, to love you, and have you + ask me to marry you, more than anything else in the world. I was sure, if + you would only be patient, that I could change what had hurt me into a + beautiful feeling. I couldn't tell you because I didn't understand + myself.” She stopped, and Pleydon repeated, bitterly and slow: + </p> + <p> + “Fat old bald men; and I was one with them destroying your exquisite + hope.” She heard the creak of the basket chair as he leaned forward, his + face masked in darkness. “Perhaps you think I haven't paid. + </p> + <p> + “You will never know what love is unless I can manage somehow to make you + understand how much I love you. Hallet will have to endure your hearing + it. This doesn't belong to him; it has not touched the earth. Every one, + more or less, talks about love; but not one in a thousand, not one in a + million, has such an experience. If they did it would tear the world into + shreds. It would tear them as it has me. I realize the other, the common + thing—who experimented more! This has nothing to do with it. A boy + lost in the idealism of his first worship has a faint reflection. Listen: + </p> + <p> + “I can always, with a wish, see you standing before me. You yourself—the + folds of your sash, the sharp narrow print of your slippers on the + pavement or the matting or the rug, the ruffles about your hands. I have + the feeling of you near me with your breathing disturbing the delicacy of + your breast. There is the odor and shimmer of your hair ... your lips move + ... but without a sound. + </p> + <p> + “This vision is more real than reality, than an opera-house full of people + or the Place Vendôme; and it, you, is all I care for, all I think about, + all I want. I find quiet places and stay there for hours, with you; or, if + that isn't possible, I turn into a blind man, a dead man warm again at the + bare thought of your face. Listen: + </p> + <p> + “I've been in shining heaven with you. I have been melted to nothing and + made over again, in you, good. We have been walking together in a new + world with rapture instead of air to breathe. A slow walk through dark + trees—God knows why—like pines. And every time I think of you + it is exactly as though I could never die, as though you had burned all + the corruption out of me and I was made of silver fire. And listen: + </p> + <p> + “Nothing else is of any importance, now or afterward, you are now and the + hereafter. I see people and people and hear words and words, and I forget + them the moment they have gone, the second they are still. But I haven't + lost an inflection of your voice. When I work in clay or stone I model and + cut you into every surface and fold. I see you looking back at me out of + marble and bronze. And here, in this garden, you tried to give me more—” + </p> + <p> + The infinitely removed thunder was like the continued echo of his voice. + There was a stirring of the leaves above her head; and the light that had + shone against the house in Elouise Lowrie's window was suddenly + extinguished. All that she felt was weariness and a confused dejection, + the weight of an insuperable disappointment. She could say nothing. Words, + even Pleydon's, seemed to her vain. The solid fact of Arnaud, of what + Dodge, more than seven years before, had robbed her, put everything else + aside, crushed it. + </p> + <p> + She realized that she would never get from life what supremely repaid the + suffering of other women, made up for them the failure of practically + every vision. She was sorry for herself, yes, and for Dodge Pleydon. Yet + he had his figures in metal and stone; his sense of the importance of his + work had increased enormously; and, well, there were Lowrie and Vigné; it + would be difficult, every one agreed, to find better or handsomer + children. But they seemed no more than shadows or colored mist. This + terrified her—what a hopelessly deficient woman she must be! But + even in the profundity of her depression the old vibration of nameless joy + reached her heart. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVII + </h2> + <p> + In the morning there was a telegram from Judith Feldt, saying that her + mother was dangerously sick, and she had lunch on the train for New York. + The apartment seemed stuffy; there was a trace of dinginess, neglect, + about the black velvet rugs and hangings. Her mother, she found, had + pneumonia; there was practically no chance of her recovering. Linda sat + for a short while by the elder's bed, intent upon a totally strange woman, + darkly flushed and ravished in an agonizing difficulty of breathing. Linda + had a remembered vision of her gold-haired and gay in floating chiffons, + and suddenly life seemed shockingly brief. A serious-visaged clergyman + entered the room as she left and she heard the rich soothing murmur of a + confident phrase. + </p> + <p> + The Stella Condon who had become Mrs. Moses Feldt had had little time for + the support of the church; although Linda recalled that she had uniformly + spoken well of its offices. To condemn Christianity, she had asserted, was + to invite bad luck. She treated this in exactly the way she regarded + walking under ladders or spilling salt or putting on a stocking wrong. + Linda, however, had disregarded these possibilities of disaster and, with + them, religion. + </p> + <p> + A great many people, she noticed, talked at length about it; women in + their best wraps and with expensive little prayer books left the hotels + for various Sunday morning services, and ministers came in later for tea. + All this, she understood, was in preparation for heaven, where everybody, + who was not in hell, was to be forever the same and yet radiantly + different. It seemed very vague and far away to Linda, and, since there + was such a number of immediate problems for her to consider, she had + easily ignored the future. When now, with her mother dying, it was thrust + most uncomfortably before her. + </p> + <p> + She half remembered sentences, admonitions, of the godly—a woman had + once told her that dancing and low gowns were hateful in the sight of God, + some one else that playing-cards were an instrument of the devil. + Pleasure, she had gathered, was considered wrong, and she instinctively + put these opinions, together with a great deal else, aside as envious. + </p> + <p> + That expressed her whole experience. She had never keenly associated the + thought of death with herself before, and she was unutterably revolted by + the impending destruction of her fine body, the delicate care of which + formed her main preoccupation in life. Age was supremely distasteful, but + this other ... she shuddered. + </p> + <p> + Linda wanted desperately to preserve the whiteness of her skin, the + flexible black distinction of her hair, yes—her beauty. Here, again, + with other women the vicarious immortality of children would be + sufficient. But not for her. She was in the room that had been hers before + marriage, with her infinite preparations for the night at an end; and, her + hair loose across the blanched severity of her attire, her delicately full + arms bare, she clasped her cold hands in stabbing apprehension. + </p> + <p> + She would do anything, anything, to escape that repulsive fatality to her + lavished care. It was only to be accomplished by being good; and goodness + was in the charge of the minister. She saw clearly and at once her + difficulty—how could she go to a solemn man in a clerical vest and + admit that she was solely concerned by the impending loss of her beauty. + The promised splendor of heaven, in itself, failed to move her—it + threatened to be monotonous; and she was honest in her recognition that + charity, the ugliness of poverty, repelled her. Linda was certain that she + could never change in these particulars; she could only pretend. + </p> + <p> + A surprising multiplication of such pretense occurred to her in people + regarded as impressively religious. She had seen men like that—she + vaguely thought of the name Jasper—going off with her mother in cabs + to dinners that must have been “godless.” She wondered if this mere + attitude, the public show, were enough. And an instinctive response told + her that it was not. If all she had been informed about the future were + true she decided that her mother's chance was no worse than that of any + false display of virtue. + </p> + <p> + She, Linda, could do nothing. + </p> + <p> + The funeral ceremony with its set form—so inappropriate to her + mother's qualities—was even more remote from Linda's sympathies than + was common in her encounters. But Mr. Moses Feldt's grief appeared to her + actual and affecting. He invested every one with the purity of his own + spirit. + </p> + <p> + She left New York at the first possible moment with the feeling that she + was definitely older. The realization, she discovered, happened in that + way—ordinarily giving the flight of time no consideration it was + brought back to her at intervals of varying length. As she aged they would + grow shorter. + </p> + <p> + The result of this experience was an added sense of failure; she tried + more than ever to overcome her indifference, get a greater happiness from + her surroundings and activity. Linda cultivated an attention to Lowrie and + Vigné. They responded charmingly but her shyness with them persisted in + the face of her inalienable right to their full possession. She insisted, + too, on going about vigorously in spite of Arnaud's humorous groans and + protests. She forced herself to talk more to the men attracted to her, and + assumed, with disconcerting ease, an air of sympathetic interest. But, + unfortunately, this brought on her a rapid increase of the love-making + that she found so fatiguing. + </p> + <p> + She studied her husband thoughtfully through the evenings at home, before + the Franklin stove, or, in summer, in the secluded garden. Absolutely + nothing was wrong with him; he had, after several deaths, inherited even + more money; and, in his deprecating manner where it was concerned, devoted + it to her wishes. Except for books, and the clothes she was forced to + remind him to get, he had no personal expenses. In addition to the money + he never offended her, his relationships and manner were conducted with an + inborn nice formality that preserved her highest self-opinion. + </p> + <p> + Yet she was never able to escape from the limitations of a calm + admiration; she couldn't lose herself, disregard herself in a flood of + generous emotion. When, desperately, she tried, he, too, was perceptibly + ill at ease. Usually he was undisturbed, but once, when she stood beside + him with her coffee cup at dinner, he disastrously lost his equanimity. + Tensely putting the cup away he caught her with straining hands. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Linda,” he cried, “is it true that you love me! Do you really belong + to us—to Vigné and Lowrie and me? I can't stand it if you won't ... + some day.” + </p> + <p> + She backed away into the opening of a window, against the night, from the + justice of his desire; and she was cold with self-detestation as her + fingers touched the glass. Linda tried to speak, to lie; but, miserably + still, she was unable to deceive him. The animation, the fervor of his + longing, swiftly perished. His arms dropped to his side. An unbearable + constraint deepened with the silence in the room, and later he lightly + said: + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't trifle with my ancient heart, Linda, folly and age—” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVIII + </h2> + <p> + The only other quantity in her life was Dodge Pleydon. He wrote her again, + perhaps three months after the explanation of his love; but his letter was + devoted wholly to his work, and so technical that she had to ask Arnaud to + interpret it. He added: + </p> + <p> + “That is the mind of an impressive man. He has developed enormously—curious, + so late in life. Pleydon must be fully as old as myself. It's clear that + he has dropped his women. I saw a photograph of the Cotton Mather + reproduced in a weekly, and it was as gaunt as a Puritan Sunday. Brimmed + with power. Why don't we see him oftener? Write and say I'd like to + contradict him again about the Eastlake period.” + </p> + <p> + He made no further reference to Pleydon then, and Linda failed to write as + Arnaud suggested. Though she wasn't disturbed at the possibility of a + continuation of his admissions of love she was weary of the thought of its + uselessness. Linda was, she told herself, damned by practicability. Her + husband used the familiar term of reproach, material. She didn't in the + least want to be. Circumstance, she had a feeling, had forced it upon her. + </p> + <p> + Arnaud, however, who had met Dodge Pleydon in Philadelphia, brought him + home. Linda saw with a strange constriction of the heart that Pleydon's + hair was definitely gray. He had had a recurrence of the fever contracted + in Soochow. The men at once entered on another discussion which she was + unable to follow; but it was clear that her husband now listened with an + increasing surrender of opinion to the sculptor. Pleydon, it was true, was + correspondingly more impatient with minds that disagreed with his. He was + at once thinner and bigger, his face deeply lined; but his eyes had a + steady vital intensity difficult to encounter. + </p> + <p> + She considered him in detail as the talk left dinner, the glasses and + candles spent. He drank, from a tall tumbler with a single piece of ice, + the special whisky Arnaud kept. He had been neglecting himself, too—there + were traces of clay about his finger-nails, and he ate hurriedly and + insufficiently. When she had an opportunity, Linda decided, she would + speak to him about these necessary trifles. Then, she had no chance; and + it was not until the following winter, at a Thursday afternoon concert + during the yearly exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts, that she could + gently complain. + </p> + <p> + It was gloomy, with a promise of snow outside; and the great space of the + stairway to the galleries was filled with shadow and the strains of <i>Armide</i> + echoing from the orchestra playing at the railing above the entrance. + Pleydon, together with a great many others, had spread an overcoat on the + masonry of the steps, and they were seated in the obscurity of the + balustrade. + </p> + <p> + “You look as though you hadn't had enough to eat,” she observed. “You used + to be almost thick but now you are a thing of terrifying grimness. You + look like a monk. I wonder why you're like a monk, Dodge?” + </p> + <p> + “Linda Condon,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “That can't be it now; I haven't been Linda Condon for years, but Mrs. + Arnaud Hallet. It's very pretty, of course, and I'd like to think you + could keep a young love alive so long. Experience makes me doubt anything + of the sort; but then I was always skeptical.” + </p> + <p> + “You have never been anyone else,” he asserted positively. “You were born + Linda Condon and you'll die that, except for some extraordinary accident. + I can't imagine what it would be—a miracle like quaker-ladies in the + Antarctic.” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds uncomplimentary, and I'm sick of being compared with polar + places. What are quaker-ladies?” + </p> + <p> + “Fragile little flowers in the spring meadows.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd rather listen to the music than you.” + </p> + <p> + “That is why loving you is so eternal, why it doesn't fluctuate like a + human emotion. You can't exhaust it and rest before a new tide sweeps + back; the timeless ecstasy of a worship of God ... breeding madness.” + </p> + <p> + She failed to understand and turned a troubled gaze to his bitter + repression. “I don't like to make you unhappy, Dodge,” she said in a low + tone. “What can I do? I am a horrid disappointment to all of you, but most + to myself. I can't go over it again.” + </p> + <p> + “Beauty has nothing to do with happiness,” he declared harshly. He rose, + without consulting her wishes; and Linda followed him as he proceeded + above, irresistibly drawn to the bronze he was showing in the Rotunda. + </p> + <p> + It was the head and part of the shoulders of a very old woman, infinitely + worn, starved by want and spent in brutal labor. There was a thin wisp of + hair pinned in a meager knot on her skull; her bones were mercilessly + indicated, barely covered with drum-like skin; her mouth was stamped with + timid humility; while her eyes peered weakly from their sunken depths. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” he demanded, interrogating her in the interest of his work. + </p> + <p> + “I—I suppose it's perfectly done,” she replied, at a loss for a + satisfactory appreciation. “It's true, certainly. But isn't it more + unpleasant than necessary?” Pleydon smiled patiently. “Beauty,” he said, + with his mobile gesture. “Pity, <i>Katharsis</i>—the wringing out of + all dross.” + </p> + <p> + The helpless feeling of her overwhelming ignorance returned. She was like + a woman held beyond the closed door of treasure. “Come over here.” He + unceremoniously led her to the modeling of a ruffled grouse, faithful in + every diversified feather. Linda thought it admirable, really amazing; but + he dismissed it with a passionate energy. “The dull figuriste!” he + exclaimed. “Daguerre. Once I could have done that, yes, and been + entertained by its adroitness and insolence—before you made me. Do + you suppose I was able then to understand the sheer tragic fortitude to + live of a scrubwoman! The head you thought unpleasant—haven't you + seen her going home in the March slush of a city? Did you notice the gaps + in her shoes, the ragged shawl about a body twisted with forty, fifty, + sixty years of wet stone floors and steps? Did you wonder what she had for + supper?” + </p> + <p> + “No, Dodge, I didn't. They always make me wretched.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, to realize all that, to feel the degradation of her nature, to lie, + sick with exhaustion, on the broken slats of her bed under a ravelled-out + travesty of a quilt, and get up morning after morning in an iron winter + dark—to experience that in your spirit and put it into durable + metal, hard stone—is to hold beauty in your hands.” + </p> + <p> + Her interest in his speech was mingled with the knowledge that, in order + to dress comfortably for dinner, she must leave immediately. Pleydon + helped her into the Hallet open motor landaulet. Linda demanded quantities + of air. He was, he told her at the door, leaving in an hour for New York. + “I wish you could be happier,” she insisted. He reminded her that he had + had the afternoon with her. It was so little, she thought, carried rapidly + over a smooth wide street. His love for her increased rather than + lessened. How wonderful it was.... The woman outside that barred door of + treasure. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIX + </h2> + <p> + Linda thought frequently about Dodge and his feeling for her; memories of + his words, his appearance, speculations, spread through her tranquil daily + affairs like the rich subdued pattern of a fine carpet on the bare floor + of her life. She was puzzled by the depth of a passion that, apparently, + made no demands other than the occasional necessity to be with her and the + knowledge that she existed. If she had been a very intelligent woman, and, + of course, not quite bad-looking, she might have understood both Pleydon + and Arnaud, the latter a man whose mind was practically absorbed in the + pages of books. There could be no doubt, no question, of their love for + her. + </p> + <p> + Then there had always been the others—the men at the parties, in her + garden, through the old days of her childhood in hotels. It was very + stupid, very annoying, but at the same time she became interested in what, + with her candid indifference, affected them. She had never, really, even + when she desired, succeeded in giving them anything, anything conscious or + for which they moved. Judith Feldt, on the contrary, had been prodigal. + And, while certainly numbers of men had been attracted to her, they all + tired of her with marked rapidity. Men met Judith, Linda recalled, with + eagerness, they came immediately and often to see her ... for, perhaps, a + month. Then, temporarily deserted, she was submerged in depression and + nervous tears. + </p> + <p> + But, while it was obviously impossible for all lovers to be constant, two + extraordinary and superior men would be faithful to her as long as she + lived, no—as long as they lived. This was beyond doubt. One was + celebrated—she watched with a quiet pride Pleydon's fame penetrate + the country—and the other, her husband, a person of the most + exacting delicacy of habits, intellect and wit. + </p> + <p> + What was it, she wondered, that made the supreme importance of women to + men worth consideration. Linda was thinking of this now in connection with + her daughter. Vigné was fourteen; a larger girl than she had ever been, + with her father's fine abundant cinnamon-brown hair, a shapely sensitive + mouth, and a wide brown gaze with a habit of straying, at inappropriate + moments, from things seen to the invisible. She was, Linda realized + thankfully, transparently honest; her only affectation was the slight + supercilious manner of her associations; and she read, ridiculously like + her father, with increasing pleasure. + </p> + <p> + However, what engaged Linda most was the fact that Vigné already liked + men; she had been at the fringe, as it were, of young dances, with a + sparkling satisfaction to herself and the securely nice youths who “cut + in” at her brief appearances. + </p> + <p> + The truth was that Linda saw that more than a trace of Stella Condon's + warm generosity of emotion had been brought by herself to Arnaud's + daughter. The faults of every life, every circumstance, were endlessly + multiplied through all existence. At fourteen, it was Linda's frowning + impression, her mother had very fully instructed her in the wiles and + structure of admirable marriage, and she had never completely lost some + hard pearls of the elder's wisdom. Should she, in turn, communicate them + to Vigné? + </p> + <p> + The moment, the anxiety, she dreaded was arriving, and it found her no + freer of doubt than had the other aspects of her own responses. Yet here + she was possessed by the keenest need for absolute rectitude; and perhaps + this, she thought, with an unusual pleasure, was an evidence of the + affection she had seemed to lack. But in the end she said nothing. + </p> + <p> + She was still unable to disentangle the flesh from the spirit, love—the + love that so amazingly illuminated Dodge Pleydon—from comfort. Dodge + had disturbed all her sense of values, even to the point of unsettling her + allegiance to the supremacy of a great deal of money. He had worked this + without giving her anything definite, that she could explain to Vigné, in + return. Linda preserved her demand for the actual. If she could only + comprehend the force animating Dodge she felt life would be clear. + </p> + <p> + She was tempted to experiment—when had such a possibility occurred + to her before?—and discover just how far in several directions + Pleydon's devotion went. This would be easy now, she was unrestrained by + the fact of Arnaud, and the old shrinking from the sculptor happily + vanished. Yet with him before her, on one of his infrequent visits to + their house, she realized that her courage was insufficient. Was it that + or something deeper—a reluctance to turn herself like a knife in the + source of the profoundest compliment a woman could be paid. Linda thought + too highly of his love for that; the texture of the carpet had become too + gratifying. + </p> + <p> + They were all three in the library, as customary; and Linda, restless, saw + her reflection in a closed long window. She was wearing yellow, the color + of the jonquils on a candle-stand; but with her familiar sash tied and the + ends falling to the hem of her skirt. The pointed oval of her face was + unchanged, her pallor, the straight line of her black bang, the blueness + of her eyes, were as they had been a surprisingly long while ago. Arnaud, + with a disconcerting comprehension, demanded, “Well, are you satisfied?” + She replied coolly, “Entirely.” Pleydon, seated for over an hour without + moving, or even the trivial relief of a cigarette, followed her with his + luminous uncomfortable gaze, his disembodied passion. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXX + </h2> + <p> + Linda heard Vigné's laugh, the expression of a sheer lightness of heart, + following a low eager murmur of voices in her daughter's room, and she was + startled by its resemblance to the gay pitch of Mrs. Moses Feldt's old + merriment. Three of Vigné's friends were with her, all approximately + eighteen, talking, Linda knew, men and—it was autumn—anticipating + the excitements of their bow to formal society that winter. They had, she + silently added, little enough to learn about the latter. Through the year + past they had been to a dancing-class identical, except for an earlier + hour and age, with mature affairs; but before that they had been + practically introduced to the pleasures of their inheritance. + </p> + <p> + The men were really boys at the university, past the first year, + receptacles of unlimited worldly knowledge and experience. They belonged + to exclusive university societies and eating clubs, and Linda found their + stiff similarity of correct bigoted pattern highly entertaining. She had + no illusions about what might be called their morals; they were midway in + the period of youthful unrestraint; but she recognized as well that their + attitude toward, for example, Vigné was irreproachable. Such boys affected + to disdain the girls of their associated families ... or imagined + themselves incurably in love. + </p> + <p> + The girls, for their part, while insisting that forty was the ideal age + for a lover—the terms changed with the seasons, last year “suitor” + had been the common phrase—were occasionally swept in young company + into a high irrational passion. Mostly, through skillful adult pressure or + firm negation, such affairs came to nothing; but even these were sometimes + overcome. And, when Linda had been disturbed by the echo of old days in + her daughter's tones, she was considering exactly such a state. + </p> + <p> + One of the nicest youths imaginable, Bailey Sandby, had lost all trace of + superior aloofness in a devotion to Vigné. He was short, squarely built, + with clear pink cheeks, steady light blue eyes and crisp very fair hair. + This was his last season of academic instruction, after which a number of + years, at an absurdly low payment, awaited him in his father's bond + brokerage concern. However, he was, Linda gathered, imperious in his + urgent need for Vigné's favor. + </p> + <p> + Ridiculous, she thought, at the same time illogically rehearsing the + resemblances of Vigné to her grandmother. She had no doubt that the + parties Vigné shared on the terraces and wide lawns, in the informal + dancing at country houses, were sufficiently sophisticated; there was on + occasion champagne, and—for the masculine element anyhow—cocktails. + The aroma of wine, lightly clinging to her young daughter's breath, filled + her with an old instinctive sickness. + </p> + <p> + She had spoken to Arnaud who, in turn, severely addressed Vigné; but + during this Linda had been oppressed by the familiar feeling of impotence. + The girl, of course, had properly heard them; but she gave her mother the + effect of slipping easily beyond their grasp. When she had gone to bed + Arnaud repeated a story brought to him by the juvenile Lowrie, under the + influence of a temporary indignation at his sister's unwarranted + imposition of superiority. Arnaud went on: + </p> + <p> + “Actually they had this kissing contest, it was at Chestnut Hill, with a + watch held; and Vigné, or so Lowrie insisted, won the prize for length of + time—something like a minute. Now, when I was young—” + </p> + <p> + Submerged in apprehensive memory Linda lost most of his account of the + Eden-like youth of his earlier day. When, at last, his assertions pierced + her abstraction, it was only to bring her to the realization of how + pathetically little he knew of either Vigné or her. She weighed the + question of utter frankness here—the quality enhanced by universal + obscurity—but she was obliged to check her desire for perfect + understanding. A purely feminine need to hide, even from Arnaud, any + detracting facts about women shut her into a diplomatic silence. In + reality he could offer them no help; their problems—in a world + created more objectively by the hand of man than God—were singular + to themselves. Women were quite like spoiled captives to foreign princes, + masking, in their apparent complacency, a necessarily secret but + insidiously tyrannical control. It wouldn't do, in view of this, to expose + too much. + </p> + <p> + The following morning it was Arnaud, rather than herself, who had a letter + from Pleydon. “He wants us to come over to New York and his studio,” the + former explained. “He has some commission or other from a city in the + Middle West, and a study to show us. I'd like it very much; we haven't + seen this place, and his surroundings are not to be overlooked.” + </p> + <p> + Pleydon's rooms were directly off Central Park West, in an apartment house + obviously designed for prosperous creative arts, with a hall frescoed in + the tones of Puvis de Chavannes and an elevator cage beautifully patterned + in iron grilling. Dodge Pleydon met them in his narrow entry and conducted + them into a pleasant reception-room. “It's a duplex,” he explained of his + quarters; “the dining-room you see and the kitchen's beyond, while the + baths and all that are over our heads; the studio fills both floors.” + </p> + <p> + There were low book cases with their continuous top used as a shelf for a + hundred various objects, deep long chairs of caressing ease and chairs of + coffee-colored wicker with amazingly high backs woven with designs of + polished shells into the semblance of spread peacocks' tails. The yellow + silk curtains at the windows, the rug with the intricate coloring of a + cashmere shawl, the Russian tea service, were in a perfection of order; + and Linda almost resentfully acknowledged the skilful efficiency of his + maid. It was surprising that, without a wife, a man could manage such a + degree of comfort! + </p> + <p> + Over tea far better than hers, in china of an infinitely finer fragility, + she studied Pleydon thoughtfully. He looked still again perceptibly older, + his face continued to grow sparer of flesh, emphasizing the aggressively + bony structure of his head. When he shut his mouth after a decided + statement she could see the projection of the jaw and the knotted sinews + at the base of his cheeks. No, Dodge didn't seem well. She asked if there + had been any return of the fever and he nodded in an impatient + affirmative, returning at once to the temporarily suspended conversation + with Arnaud. There was a vast difference, too, in the way in which he + talked. + </p> + <p> + His attitude was as assertive as ever, but it had less expression in + words; unaccountable periods of silence, almost ill-natured, overtook him, + spaces of abstraction when it was plain that he had forgotten the presence + of whoever might be by. Even direct questions sometimes failed to pierce + immediately his consciousness. Dodge, Linda told herself, lived entirely + too much alone. Then she said this aloud, thoughtlessly, and she was + startled by the sudden intolerable flash of his gaze. An awkward pause + followed, broken by the uprearing of Pleydon's considerable length. + </p> + <p> + “I must take you into the studio before it is too dark,” he proceeded. + “Every creative spirit knows when its great moment has come. Well, mine is + here.” The men stood aside as Linda, her head positively ringing with the + thrill that was like a strain of Gluck, the happy sadness, entered the + bare high spaciousness of Dodge Pleydon's workroom. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXI + </h2> + <p> + Everything she saw, the stripped floor, the white walls bare but for some + casts like the dismembered fragments of flawless blanched bodies, the + inclined plane of the wide skylight, bore an impalpable white dust of + dried clay. In a corner, enclosed in low boards, a stooped individual with + wood-soled shoes and a shovel was working a mass of clay over which at + intervals he sprinkled water, and at intervals halted to make pliable + lumps of a uniform size which he added to a pile wrapped in damp cloths. + There were a number of modeling stands with twisted wires grotesquely + resembling a child's line drawing of a human being; while a stand with + some modeling tools on its edge bore an upright figure shapeless in its + swathing of dampened cloths. + </p> + <p> + “The great moment,” Pleydon said again, in a vibrant tone. “But you know + nothing of all this,” he directly addressed Linda. “Neither, probably, + will you have heard of Simon Downige. He was born at Cottarsport, in + Massachusetts, about eighteen forty; and, after—in the support of + his hatred of any slavery—he fought through the Civil War, he came + home and found that his town stifled him. He didn't marry at once, as so + many returning soldiers did; instead he was wedded to a vision of freedom, + freedom of opinion, of spirit, worship—any kind of spaciousness + whatever. And, in the pursuit of that, he went West. + </p> + <p> + “He told them that he was going to find—but found was the word—a + place where men could live together in a purity of motives and air. No + more, you understand; he hadn't a personal fanatical belief to exploit and + attract the hysteria of women and insufficient men. He was not a + pathological messiah; but only Simon Downige, an individual who couldn't + comfortably breathe the lies and injustice and hypocrisy of the ordinary + community. No doubt he was unbalanced—his sensitiveness to a + universal condition would prove that. Normally people remain undisturbed + by such trivialities. If they didn't an end would come to one or the + other, the lies or the world. + </p> + <p> + “He traveled part way in a Conestoga wagon—a flight out of Egypt; + they were common then, slow canvas-covered processions with entire + families drawn by the mysterious magnetism of the West. Then, leaving even + such wayfarers, he walked, alone, until he came on a meadow by a little + river and a grove of trees, probably cottonwoods.... That was Simon + Downige, and that, too, was Hesperia. Yes, he was unbalanced—the old + Greek name for beautiful lands. It is a city now, successful and corruptly + administered—what always happens to such visions. + </p> + <p> + “It is necessary, Linda, as I've always told you, to understand the whole + motive behind a creation in permanent form. A son of Simon's—yes, he + finally married—a unique and very rich character, wife dead and no + children, commissioned a monument to the founder of Hesperia, in Ohio, and + of his fortune. + </p> + <p> + “They even have a civic body for the control of public building; and they + came East to approve my statue, or rather the clay sketch for it. They + were very solemn, and one, himself a sculptor, a graduate of the Beaux + Arts, ran a suggestive thumb over Simon and did incredible damage. But, + after a great deal of hesitation, and a description from the sculptor of + what he thought excellently appropriate for such magnificence, they + accepted my study. The present Downige, really—though I understand + there is another pretentious branch in Hesperia—bullied them into + it. He cursed the Beaux-Arts graduate with the most brutal and + satisfactory freedom—the tyranny of his money; the crown, you see, + of Simon's hope.” + </p> + <p> + He unwrapped one by one the wet cloths; and Linda, in an eagerness sharp + like anxiety, finally saw the statue, under life-size, of a seated man + with a rough stick and bundle at his feet. A limp hat was in his hand, + and, beneath a brow to which the hair was plastered by sweat, his eyes + gazed fixed and aspiring into a hidden dream perfectly created by his + desire. Here, she realized at last, she had a glimmer of the beauty, the + creative force, that animated Dodge Pleydon. Simon Downige's shoes were + clogged with mud, his entire body, she felt, ached with weariness; but his + gaze—nothing Linda discovered but shadows over two depressions—was + far away in the attainment of his place of justice and truth. + </p> + <p> + She found a stool and, careless of the film of dust, sat absorbed in the + figure. Pleydon again had lost all consciousness of their presence; he + stood, hands in pockets, his left foot slightly advanced, looking at his + work from under drawn brows. Arnaud spoke first: + </p> + <p> + “It's impertinent to congratulate you, Pleydon. You know what you've done + better than any one else could. You have all our admiration.” Linda + watched the tenderness with which the other covered Simon Downige's vision + in clay. Later, returning home after dinner, Arnaud speculated about + Pleydon's remarkable increase in power. “I had given him up,” he went on; + “I thought he was lost in those notorious debauches of esthetic emotions. + Does he still speak of loving you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Linda replied. “Are you annoyed by it?” He answered, “What good if + I were?” She considered him, turned in his chair to face her, + thoughtfully. “I haven't the slightest doubt of its quality, however—all + in that Hesperia of old Downige's. To love you, my dear Linda, has certain + well-defined resemblances to a calamity. If you ask me if I object to what + you do give him, my answer must shock the gods of art. I would rather you + didn't.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it, Arnaud?” she demanded. “I haven't the slightest idea. I wish + I had.” + </p> + <p> + “Platonic,” he told her shortly. “The term has been hopelessly ruined, yet + the sense, the truth, I am forced to believe, remains.” + </p> + <p> + “But you know how stupid I am and that I can't understand you.” + </p> + <p> + “The woman in whom a man sees God,” he proceeded irritably: + </p> + <p> + “'<i>La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa, idea</i>.'” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she cried, wrung with a sharp obscure hurt. “I know that, I've heard + it before.” Her excitement faded at her absolute inability to place the + circumstances of her memory. The sound of the words vanished, leaving no + more than the familiar deep trouble, the disappointing sensation of almost + grasping—Linda was unable to think what. + </p> + <p> + “After all, you are my wife.” He had recovered his normal shy humor. “I + can prove it. You are the irreproachable mother of our unsurpassed + children. You have a hopeless vision—like this Simon's—of + seeing me polished and decently pressed; and I insist on your continuing + with the whole show.” + </p> + <p> + Her mind arbitrarily shifted to the thought of her father, who had walked + out of his house, left—yes—his family, without any intimation. + Then, erratically, it turned to Vigné, to Vigné and young Sandby with his + fresh cheeks and impending penniless years acquiring a comprehension of + the bond market. She said, “I wonder if she really likes Bailey?” Arnaud's + energy of dismay was laughable, “What criminal folly! They haven't + finished Mother Goose yet.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXII + </h2> + <p> + Linda, who expected to see Pleydon's statue of Simon Downige finished + immediately in a national recognition of its splendor, was disappointed by + his explanation that, probably, it would not be ready for casting within + two years. He intended to model it again, life-size, before he was ready + for the heroic. April, the vivifying, had returned; and, as always in the + spring, Linda was mainly conscious of the mingled assuaging sounds of life + newly admitted through open windows. A single shaded lamp was lighted by a + far table, where Arnaud sat cutting the pages of <i>The Living Age</i> + with an ivory blade; Dodge was blurred in the semi-obscurity. + </p> + <p> + He came over to see them more frequently now, through what he called the + great moment—so tiresomely extended—of his life. Pleydon came + oftener but he said infinitely less. It was his custom to arrive for + dinner and suddenly depart early or late in the evening. At times she went + up to her room and left the two almost morosely silent men to their own + thoughts or pages; at others she complained—no other woman alive + would stay with such uninteresting and thoroughly selfish creatures. They + never made the pretense of an effort to consider or amuse her. At this + Arnaud would put aside his book and begin an absurd social conversation in + the manner of Vigné's associates. Pleydon, however, wouldn't speak; + nothing broke the somberness of his passionate absorption in invisible + tyrannies. She gave up, finally, a persistent effort to lighten his moods. + Annoyed she told him that if he did not change he'd be sick, and then + where would everything be. + </p> + <p> + All at once, through the open window, she heard Stella, her mother, + laughing; the carelessly gay sound overwhelmed her with an instinctive + unreasoning dread. Linda rose with a half gasp—but of course it was + Vigné in the garden with Bailey Sandby. + </p> + <p> + She sank back angry because she had been startled; but her irritation + perished in disturbing thought. It wasn't, she told herself, Vigné's + actions that made her fear the future so much as her, Linda's, knowledge + of the possibilities of the past. Her undying hatred of that existence + choked in her throat; the chance of its least breath touching Vigné, + Arnaud's daughter, roused her to any embittered hazard. + </p> + <p> + The girl, she was certain, returned a part at least of Bailey's feeling. + Linda expected no confidences—what had she done to have them?—and + Arnaud was right, affairs of the heart were never revealed until + consummated. Her conclusion had been reached by indirect quiet deductions. + Vigné, lately, was different; her attitude toward her mother had changed + to the subtle reserve of feminine maturity. Her appearance, overnight, it + seemed, had improved; her color was deeper, a delicate flush burned at any + surprise in her cheeks, and the miracle of her body was perfected. + </p> + <p> + It wasn't, Linda continued silently, that Vigné could ever follow the + example of Stella Condon through the hotels and lives of men partly bald, + prodigal, and with distant families. Whatever happened to her would be in + excellent surroundings and taste; but the result—the sordid havoc, + inside and out, the satiety alternating with the points of brilliancy, and + finally, inexorably, sweeping over them in a leaden tide—would be + identical. She wondered a little at the strength of her detestation for + such living; it wasn't moral in any sense with which she was familiar; in + fact it appeared to have a vague connection with her own revolt from the + destruction of death. She wanted Vigné as well to escape that catastrophe, + to hold inviolate the beauty of her youth, her fineness and courage. + </p> + <p> + She was convinced, too, that if she loved Bailey, and was disappointed, + some of the harm would be done immediately; Linda saw, in imagination, the + pure flame of Vigné's passion fanned and then arbitrarily extinguished. + She saw the resemblance of the dead woman, all those other painted shades, + made stronger. A sentence formed so vividly in her mind that she looked up + apprehensively, certain that she had spoken it aloud: + </p> + <p> + If Vigné does come to care for him they must marry. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts left the girl for Arnaud—he would absolutely oppose her + there, and she speculated about the probable length his opposition would + reach. What would he say to her? It couldn't be helped, in particular it + couldn't be explained, neither to him nor to the friendly correctness of + Bailey Sandby's mother. She, alone, must accept any responsibility, all + blame. + </p> + <p> + The threatened situation developed more quickly than she had anticipated. + Linda met Bailey, obviously disturbed, in the portico, leaving their + house; his manner, mechanically, was good; and then, with an irrepressible + boyish rush of feeling, he stopped her: + </p> + <p> + “Vigné and I love each other and Mr. Hallet won't hear of it. He insulted + us with the verse about the old woman who went to the cupboard to get a + bone, and if he hadn't been her father—” he breathed a portentous + and difficult self-repression. “Then he took a cowardly advantage of my + having no money, just now; right after I explained how I was going to make + wads—with Vigné.” + </p> + <p> + An indefinable excitement possessed Linda, accompanied by a sudden acute + fear of what Arnaud might say. She wanted more than anything else in life + to go quickly, inattentively, past Bailey Sandby and up to her room. + Nothing could be easier, more obvious, than her disapproval of a moneyless + boy. She made a step forward with an assumed resolute ignoring of his + disturbed presence. It was useless. A dread greater than her fright at + Arnaud held her in the portico, her hand lifted to the polished knob of + the inner door. Linda turned slowly, cold and white, “Wait,” she said to + his shoulder in an admirable coat; then she gazed steadily into his frank + pained eyes. + </p> + <p> + “How do you know that you love Vigné?” she demanded. “You are so young to + be certain it will last always. And Vigné—” + </p> + <p> + “How does any one know?” he replied. “How did you? Married people always + forget their own experiences, the happy way things went with them. From + all I see money hasn't much to do with loving each other. But, of course, + I'm not going to be poor, not with Vigné. Nobody could. She'd inspire + them. Mr. Hallet knows all about me, too; and he's the oldest kind of a + friend of the family. I suppose when he sees father at the Rittenhouse + Club they'll have a laugh—a laugh at Vigné and me.” His hand, + holding the brim of a soft brown hat, clenched tensely. + </p> + <p> + “No,” Linda told him, “they won't do that.” Her obscure excitement was + communicated to him. “Why not?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Because,” she paused to steady her voice, “because I am going to take a + very great responsibility. If it fails, if you let it fail, you'll ruin + ever so much. Yes, Mr. Hallet, I am sure, will consent to your marrying + Vigné.” She escaped at the first opening from his incoherent gratitude. + Arnaud was in the library, and she stopped in the hall, busy with the + loosening of her veil. Perhaps it would be better to speak to him after + dinner; she ought to question Vigné first; but, as she stood debating, her + daughter passed her tempestuously, blurred with crying, and Arnaud angrily + demanded her presence. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIII + </h2> + <p> + “You were quite right,” he cried; “this young idiot Sandby has been + telling Vigné that he loves her; and now Vigné assures me, with tears, + that she likes it! They want to get married—next week, tomorrow, + this evening.” Linda stood by the window; soon the magnolia-tree would be + again laden with flowers. She gathered her courage into a determined + composure of tone. “I saw Bailey outside,” she admitted. “He told me. It + seems excellent to me.” + </p> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet incredulously challenged her. “What do you mean—that + you gave him a trace of encouragement!” Linda replied: + </p> + <p> + “I said that I was certain you would consent.” She halted his exasperated + gesture. “You think Vigné is nothing but a child, and yet she is as old as + I was at our wedding. My mother was no older when Bartram Lowrie married + her. I think Vigné is very fortunate, Bailey is as nice as possible; and, + as he said, it isn't as if you knew nothing of the Sandbys; they are as + dignified as the Lowries.” + </p> + <p> + An expression she had never before seen hardened his countenance into a + sarcasm that travestied his customary humor. “You realize, of course, that + except for what his father gives him young Sandby is wretchedly poor. He's + nice enough but what has that to do with it? And, in particular, how does + it touch you, Linda Condon? Do you suppose I can ever forget your answer + that time I first asked you to marry me? You wouldn't consider a poor man; + you were worth, really, a hundred thousand a year; but, if nothing better + came along, you might sacrifice yourself for fifty.” + </p> + <p> + “I remember very well,” she answered; “and, curiously enough, I am not + ashamed. I was very sensible then, in a horrible position with extravagant + habits. They were me. I couldn't change myself. Without money I should + have made you, any man, entirely miserable. Arnaud, I hadn't—I + haven't now—the ability to see everything important through the + affections, like so many many women. You often told me that; who hasn't? I + have always admitted it wasn't pleasant nor praiseworthy. But how, to use + your own words, does all that affect Vigné? She isn't cold but very + warm-hearted; and, instead of my experience, she has her own so much + better feeling.” + </p> + <p> + “I absolutely refuse to allow anything of the sort,” he declared sharply. + “I won't even discuss it—for three years. Tell this Sandby infant, + if you like, to come back then.” + </p> + <p> + “In three years, or in one year, Vigné may be quite different, yes-less + lovable. Happiness, too, is queer, Arnaud; there isn't a great deal of it. + Not an overwhelming amount. If it appears for an instant it must be held + as tightly as possible. It doesn't come back, you know. Don't turn to your + book yet—you can't get rid of us, of Vigné and me, like that; and + then it's rude; the first time, I believe, you have ever been impolite to + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Forgive me,” he spoke formally. “You seem to think that I am as + indifferent as yourself. You might be asking the day of the week to judge + from your calm appearance. The emotion of a father, or even of a mother, + perhaps, you have never explored. On the whole you are fortunate. And you + are always protected by your celebrated honesty.” She said: + </p> + <p> + “I promised Bailey your consent.” + </p> + <p> + “Why bother about that? It isn't necessary for your new romantic mood. An + elopement, with you to steady the ladder, would be more appropriate.” + </p> + <p> + She repeated the fact of her engagement. Her dread for him had vanished, + its place now taken by a distrust of what, in her merged detachment and + suffering, she might blunderingly do. At the back of this she realized + that his case, his position, was hopeless. Without warning, keen and + undimmed, his love for her flashed through his resentful misery. There was + no spoken acknowledgement of surrender; he sank into his chair dejected + and pitiable, infinitely gray. His shoes, on the brightness of the hooked + rug, were dingy, his coat drawn and wrinkled. + </p> + <p> + Linda saw herself on her knees before him, before his patience and + generosity, sobbing her contrition into his forgiving hands. She longed + with every nerve—as she had so often before—to lose herself in + passionate emotion. She had never been more erect or withdrawn, never + essentially less touched. After a little, waiting for him to speak, she + saw that he, too, had retreated into the profound depths of his own + illusions and despairs. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIV + </h2> + <p> + For a surprising while—even in the face of Vigné's radiance—Arnaud + was as still and shadowed as the inert surface of a dammed stream. Then + slowly, the slenderest trickle at first, his wit revived his spirit; and + he opened an unending mock-solemn attack on Bailey Sandby's eminently + serious acceptance of the responsibilities of his allowed love. + </p> + <p> + The boy had left the university, and his father—a striking replica + of Arnaud's prejudices, impatience and fundamental kindness—exchanged + with Vigné's male parent the most dismal prophecies together with concrete + plans for their children's future security. This, inevitably, resulted in + Vigné's marriage; a ceremony unattended by Pleydon except by the presence + of a very liberal check. + </p> + <p> + The life-size version of his Simon Downige was again under way—it + had been torn down, Linda knew, more than once—and he was in a fever + of composition. Nor was this, she decided with Arnaud, his only + oppression: the Asiatic fever clung to him with disquieting persistence. + Pleydon himself admitted he had a degree or two in the evening. + </p> + <p> + Linda was seated in his studio near Central Park West, perhaps a year + later, and she observed aloud that so much wet clay around was bad for + him. He laughed: nothing now could happen to him, he was forever beyond + accident, sickness, death—his statue for the monument in Hesperia + was finished. It stood revealed before them, practically as Linda had + first seen it, but enlarged, towering, as if the vision it portrayed had + grown, would continue to grow eternally, because of the dignity of its + hope, the necessity of its realization. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” she said, “it will go to the foundry and be cast.” He corrected + her. “You will go to the foundry and be cast ... in bronze.” A distinct + graceful happiness possessed her at the knowledge that his love for her + was as constant as though it, too, were metal. Not flesh but bronze, + spirit, he insisted. + </p> + <p> + The multiplying years made that no more comprehensible than when, a child, + she had thrilled in a waking dream. Love, spirit, death. Three mysteries. + But only one, she thought, was inevitably hers, the last. To be loved was + not love itself, but only the edge of its cloak; response was an + indivisible part of realization. No, sterility was the measure—of + its absence. And she was, Linda felt, in spite of Vigné and Lowrie, the + latter a specially vigorous contradiction, the most sterile woman alive. + There were always Dodge's assurances, but clay, stone, metal, were cold + for a belief to embrace. And she was, she knew, lovelier now than she had + ever been before, than she would ever be again. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXV + </h2> + <p> + The faint ringing of the bell from outside that probably announced Arnaud + sounded unreal, futile, to Linda. He came into the studio, and at once a + discussion began between the two men of the difference in the surfaces of + clay and bronze. The talk then shifted to the pictorial sources of the + heroic Simon Downige before them, and Linda declared, “Dodge, you have + never made a head of me. How very unflattering!” + </p> + <p> + “You're an affair for a painter,” he replied; “Goya or Alfred Stevens. No + one but Goya could have found a white for you, with the quality of flower + petals; and Stevens would have fixed you in an immortality of delicate + color, surrounded by your Philadelphia garden.” He stood quite close to + her, with his jacket dragged forward by hands thrust into its pockets, and + he added at the end of a somber interrogation, “But if you would really + like to know why—” + </p> + <p> + In a moment more, she recognized, Dodge would explain his feeling for her—to + Arnaud, to any one who might be present. The gleam in his eyes, his + remoteness from earthly concern, were definitely not normal. Pleydon, his + love, terrified her. “No,” she said with an assumed hurried lightness, + “don't try to explain. I must manage to survive the injury to my vanity.” + </p> + <p> + They left New York almost immediately, Pleydon suddenly determining to go + with them; and later were scattered through the Hallet household. Vigné + and her husband were temporarily living there; with their heads close + together they were making endless computations, numerous floor plans and + elevations. Linda, at the piano in the drawing-room, could hear them + through the hall. Pleydon was lounging in a chair beyond her. She couldn't + play but she was able, slowly, to pick out the notes of simple and + familiar airs—echoes of Gluck and blurred motives of Scarlatti. It + was for herself, she explained; the sounds, however crude and + disconnected, brought things back to her. What things, she replied to + Pleydon's query, she didn't in the least know; but pleasant. + </p> + <p> + The fact that she understood so little depressed her with increasing + frequency. It was well enough to be ignorant as a girl, or even as a young + woman newly married; but she had left all that behind; she had lost her + youth without any compensating gain of knowledge. Linda could not assure + herself that life was clearer than it had been to her serious childhood. + It had always been easily measured on the surface; she had had a very + complete grasp of its material aspects almost at once, accomplishing + exactly what she had planned. Perhaps this was all; and her trouble an + evidence of weakness—the indecision, she saw with contempt, that + kept so many people in a constant agitation of disappointment. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps this was enough; more than the majority had or accomplished. She + made, again, a resolute effort to be contented, at rest. Her straying + fingers clumsily wrought a fragmentary refrain that mocked her + determination. It wasn't new, this—this dissatisfaction; but it had + grown sharper. As she was older her restlessness increased at the + realization that life, opportunity, were slipping from her. Soon she would + be forty. + </p> + <p> + The conviction seized her that most lives reflected hers in that their + questioning was never answered. The fortunate, then, were the incurious + and the hearts undisturbed by a maddening thrill. She said aloud, “The + ones who never heard music.” Pleydon was without a sign that she had + spoken. Her emotions were very delicate, very fragile, and enormously + difficult to perceive. They were like plants in stony ground. Where had + she heard that—out of the Bible? Then she thought of her failure to + get anything from religion—a part of her inability to drink at the + springs which others declared so refreshing. Linda pressed her hands more + sharply on the keys and the answering discord had the effect of waking her + to reality. + </p> + <p> + Pleydon remained until the following afternoon, and then was lost—in + the foundry casting his statue—for six months. Arnaud went over to + view the completion of the bronze and returned filled with enthusiasm. + “Its simplicity is the surprising part,” he told her. “The barest + statement possible. But Pleydon himself is in a disturbing condition; I + can't decide if it is mental or physical. The fever of course; yet that + doesn't account for his distance from ordinary living. The truth is, I + suppose, that men weren't designed for great arts, and nature, like the + jealous God of the Hebrews, retaliates. It is absurd, but Pleydon reminds + me of you; you're totally different. I suppose it's because of the + detachment you have in common.” He veered to a detail of Lowrie's first + year at a university, and exhibited, against a decent endeavor to the + contrary, his boundless pride in their son. + </p> + <p> + The boy was, Linda acknowledged, more than commonly dependable and able. + He was heavy, like his father, and so diffident that he almost stuttered; + but his mental processes flashed in quick intuitive perceptions. Lowrie + was an easy and brilliant student; and, perhaps because of this, of his + mental certainty, he was not intimate with her as Arnaud had hoped and + predicted. It seemed to Linda that he instinctively penetrated her inner + doubt and regarded it without sympathy. In this he was her son. Lowrie was + a confident and unsympathetic critic of humanity. + </p> + <p> + Even now, so soon, there was no question of his success in the law his + fitness had elected. The springs of his being were purely intellectual, + reasoning. In him Linda saw magnified her own coldness; and, turned on + herself, she viewed it with an arbitrary feminine resentment. He was + actually courteous to her; but under all their intercourse there was a + perceptible impatience. His scorn of other women, girls, however, was + openly expressed and honest; it had no trace of the mere affectation of + pessimism natural to his age. Arnaud, less thoughtful than she, was vastly + entertained by this, and drew Lowrie out in countless sly sallies and + contradictions. + </p> + <p> + Yes, he would succeed, but, after all, what would his success be worth—placed, + that was, against Vigné's radiant happiness, Bailey Sandby's quiet eyes + and the quality of his return home each evening? + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts came back to Pleydon—she had before her a New York + paper describing the ceremony of unveiling his Simon Downige at Hesperia. + There was a long learned article praising its beauty and emphasizing + Pleydon's eminence. He was, it proceeded, an anomaly in an age of + momentary experimental talents—a humanized Greek force. He didn't + belong to to-day but to yesterday and to-morrow. This gave her an + uncomfortable vision of Dodge in space, with no warm points of contact. + She, too, was suspended in that vague emptiness. Linda had the sensation + of grasping at streamers, forms, of sparkling mist. A strange position in + view of her undeniable common sense, the solid foundations of her + temperament and experience. She saw from the paper, further, that the + Downige who had commissioned the monument was dead. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVI + </h2> + <p> + In the middle of the festive period that connected Christmas with the new + year Arnaud turned animatedly from his breakfast scanning of the news. “It + seems,” he told her, “that a big rumpus has developed in Hesperia over the + Pleydon statue—the present Downige omnipotence, never friendly with + our old gentleman, has condemned its bronze founder. You know what I mean. + It's an insult to their pride, their money and position, to see him + perpetuated as a tramp. On the contrary he was a very respectable + individual from a prominent family and town. + </p> + <p> + “They have been moving the local heavens, ever since the monument was + placed, to have it set aside. I suppose they would have succeeded, too, if + a large amount given to the city were not contingent on its preservation. + But then they can always donate more money in the cause of their sacred + respectability.” + </p> + <p> + Linda had never, she exclaimed, heard of anything more disgusting. It was + plain that Hesperia knew nothing of art. “Every one,” she ran on in the + heat of her resentment, “every one, that is, who should decide, agrees + it's magnificent. They were frightfully lucky to get it—Dodge's + finest work.” She wrote at once to Pleydon commanding his presence and + expressing her contempt of such depravity of opinion. To her surprise he + was undisturbed, apparently, by the condemnation of his monument. + </p> + <p> + He even laughed at her energy of scorn. She was hurt, perceptibly + silenced, with a feeling of having been misunderstood or rather + undervalued. Her disturbance at any blame attached to the statue of Simon + Downige was extremely acute. But, she thought, if it failed to worry Dodge + why should she bother. She did, in spite of this philosophy; Simon was + tremendously important to her. + </p> + <p> + He stood for things: she had watched his evolution from the clay sketch, + and in Pleydon's mind, to the final heroic proportions; and she had taken + for granted that a grateful world would see him in her light. A woman, she + decided, had made the trouble; and she hated her with a personal vigor. + Pleydon said: + </p> + <p> + “I told you that old Simon was unbalanced; now you can see it by his + reception in a successful city. The sculptor—do you remember him, a + Beaux-Arts graduate?—admits that he had always opposed it, but that + political motives overbore his pure protest. There is a scheme now to + build a pavilion, for babies, and shut out the monument from open view. + They may do that but time will sweep away their walls. If I had modeled + Simon Downige, yes, he would go; but I modeled his vision, his aspiration—the + hope of all men for release and purity. + </p> + <p> + “Downige and the individual babies are unimportant compared to a vision of + perfection, of escape. As long as men live, if they live, they'll reach + up; and that gesture in itself is heaven. Not accomplishment. The spirit + dragging the flesh higher; but spirit alone—empty balloons. A dream + in bronze, harder even than men's heads, more durable than their + prejudices, so permanent that it will wear out their ignorance; and in the + end—always in the end—they'll bring their wreath. + </p> + <p> + “A replica has gone to Cottarsport, from me; and you ought to see it + there, on a block of New England granite. It's in the Common, a windswept + reach with low houses and a white steeple and the sea. It might have been + there from the beginning, rising on rock against the pale salt day. They + can go to hell in Hesperia.” + </p> + <p> + Still Linda's hurt persisted; she saw the unfortunate occurrence as a + direct blow at her pride. Arnaud, too, failed her; he was splendid in his + assault upon such rapacious stupidity; but it was only an impersonal + concern. His manner expressed the conviction that it might have been + expected. He was blind to her special enthusiasm, her long intimate + connection with the statue. Exasperated she almost told him that it was + more real to her than their house, than Vigné and Lowrie, than he. She was + stopped, fortunately, by the perception that, amazingly, the statue was + more actual than Dodge Pleydon. It touched the center of her life more + nearly. + </p> + <p> + Why, she didn't know. + </p> + <p> + If her mental confusion increased by as much as a feeling, Linda thought, + she would be close to madness. It was unbearable at practically forty. + </p> + <p> + Lowrie said, at the worst possible moment, that he found the entire + episode ridiculously overemphasized. A statue more or less was of small + importance. If the Downige family were upset why didn't they employ an + able lawyer to dispose of it? There were many ways for such a proceeding— + </p> + <p> + “I have no desire to hear them,” she interrupted. “You seem to know a + tremendous lot, but what good it will do you in the end who can say! And, + with all your cleverness, you haven't an ounce of appreciation for art. + Besides, I hate to see any one as young as you so sure of himself. Often I + suspect you are patronizing your father and me. It's not pretty nor + polite.” + </p> + <p> + Lowrie was obviously embarrassed by her attack, and managed the abrupt + semblance of an apology. Arnaud, who had put down his eternal book, said + nothing until the boy had vanished. “Wasn't that rather sharp?” he asked + mildly. “Perhaps,” she replied in a tone without warmth or regret. + “Somehow I am never comfortable with Lowrie.” + </p> + <p> + “You are too much alike,” he shrewdly observed. “It is laughable at times. + Did you expect your children to be fountains of sentiment? And, look here—if + I can get along in comfort with you for life you in particular ought to + put up peacefully with Lowrie. He is a damned sight more human than, at + bottom, you are; a woman of alabaster.” + </p> + <p> + “I loathe quarrels,” she admitted; “they are so vulgar. You know that they + are not like me and just said so. Oh, Arnaud, why does life get harder + instead of easier?” + </p> + <p> + He put his book aside completely and gazed at her in patient thought. + “Linda,” he said finally, “I have never heard anything that stirred me so + much; not what you said, my dear, but the recognition in your voice.” A + wistfulness of love for her enveloped him; an ineffable desire as vain as + the passion she struggled to give him in return. She smiled in an + unhappiness of apology. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps—” he stopped, waiting any assurance whatever, his face + eager like a dusty lamp in which the light had been turned sharply up. She + was unable to stir, to move her gaze from his hopeful eyes, to mitigate by + a breath her slender white aloofness. A smile different from hers, tender + with remission, lingered in his fading irradiation. The dusk was + gathering, adding its melancholy to his age—sixty-five now. Why that + was an old man! Her sympathy vanished in her shrinking from the twilight + that was, as well, slowly, inevitably, deepening about her. + </p> + <p> + It was laughable that, as she approached an age whose only resource was + tranquillity, she grew more restless. Her present vague agitation belonged + ridiculously to youth. The philosophy of the evident that had supported + her so firmly was breaking at the most inopportune time. And it was, she + told herself, too late for anything new; the years for that had been spent + insensibly with Arnaud. Linda was very angry with herself, for, in all her + shifting state of mind, she preserved an inner necessity for the quality + of exactness expressed in her clothes. There were literally no neglected + spaces in her conscious living. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts finally centered about the statue in Hesperia—it + presented an actual mark for her fleeting resentments. She wondered why it + so largely occupied her thoughts, moved her so personally. She watched the + papers for the scattered reports of the progress of the contention it had + roused, some ill-natured, others supposedly humorous, and nearly all + uninformed. She became, Arnaud said, the champion of the esthetic against + Dagon. He elaborated this picture until she was forced to smile against + her inclination, her profound seriousness. Linda had the feeling that she, + too, was on the pedestal that held the bronze effigy of Simon Downige + challenging the fog that obscured men. Its fate was hers. She didn't + pretend to explain how. + </p> + <p> + As time passed it seemed to her that it took her longer and longer to + dress in the morning, while her preparations couldn't be simpler; her + habit of deliberation had become nearly a vice, the precision of her + ruffles, her hair, a tyranny. She never quite lost the satisfaction of her + mirror's faultless reflection; and stopped, now, for a moment's calm + interrogation of the being—hardly more silvery cool than the reality—before + her. + </p> + <p> + Arnaud was at the table, and the gaze with which he met her was troubled. + The morning paper, she saw, was, against custom, at her place, and she + picked it up with an instinctive sense of calamity. The blackly printed + sensational headline that immediately established her fear sank vivid and + entire into her brain: an anonymous inflamed mob in Hesperia had pulled + down and destroyed Pleydon's statue. Their act was described as a tribute + to the liberality of the present Downige family in the light of its + objection to the monument. + </p> + <p> + As if in the development of her feeling Linda had a sensation of crashing + with a sickening violence from a pedestal to the ground. Actually, it + seemed, the catastrophe had happened to her. She heard, with a sense of + inutility, Arnaud denouncing the outrage; he had a pencil in his hand for + the composition of a telegram to Dodge. He paid—but perhaps only + naturally—no attention to her, suffering dully from her fall. She + shuddered before the recreated lawless approaching voice of the mob; the + naked ugly violence froze her with terror; she felt the gross hurried + hands winding ropes about her, the rending brutality of force— + </p> + <p> + She sat and automatically took a small carved glass of orange-juice from a + bed of ice, and her chilled fingers recalled a dim image of her mother. + Arnaud was speaking, “I'm afraid this will cut through Pleydon's security, + it was such a wanton destruction of his unique power. You see, he worked + lovingly over the cast with little files and countless finite + improvements. The mold, I think, was broken. What a piece of luck the + thing's at Cottarsport.” He paused, obviously expecting her to comment; + but suddenly phrases failed her. + </p> + <p> + In place of herself she should be considering Dodge; her sympathy even for + him was submerged in her own extraordinary injury. However, she recovered + from her first gasping shock, and made an utterly commonplace remark. + Never had her sense of isolation been stronger. “I must admit,” her + husband continued, “that I looked for some small display of concern. I + give you my word there are moments when I think Pleydon himself cut you + out of stone. He isn't great enough for that, though; in the way of + perfection you successfully gild the lily. A thing held to be impossible.” + </p> + <p> + Linda told him with amazing inanity that his opinion of her was + unreliable; and, contented, he lightly pursued his admiration of what he + called her boreal charm. At intervals she responded appropriately and + proceeded with breakfast. She had entered a region of dispassionate + consideration, her characteristic detachment, she thought, regained. She + mentally, calmly, reconstructed the motives and events that had led to the + destruction of the statue; they, at least, were evident to her. She + reaffirmed silently her conviction that it had resulted from the + stupidity, the vanity, of a woman. The limitations of men, fully as + narrow, operated in other directions. + </p> + <p> + Then, with an incredulous surprise, she was aware that the clear space of + her reason was filling with anger. Never before had such a flood of + emotion possessed her; and she surrendered herself, in an enormous relief, + to the novelty of its obliterating tide. It deepened immeasurably, + sweeping her far from the security of old positions of indifference and + critical self-possession. Linda became enraged at a world that had + concentrated all its degraded vulgarity in one unspeakable act. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVII + </h2> + <p> + It was fall, October, and the day was a space of pale gold foliage + wreathed in blue garlands of mist. The gardener was busy with a wooden + rake and wheelbarrow in which he carted away dead leaves for burning. The + fire was back of the low fence, in the rear, and Linda, at the dining-room + window, could hear the fierce small crackle of flames; the drifting + pungent smoke was like a faint breath of ammonia. Arnaud had left for the + day, Lowrie was at the university, while Vigné and her husband—moving + toward their ultimate colonial threshold—had taken a small house. + She was alone. + </p> + <p> + As usual. + </p> + <p> + However, in her present state her solitude had lost its inevitability; she + failed to see why it must continue until the end of time. She could no + longer discover a sufficient reason for her limitless endurance, her + placid acceptance of all that chance, or any inconsiderable person, + happened to dictate. She wasn't like that in the least. Her temper had + solidified as though it were ice, taking everywhere the form in which it + was held. It was a reality. She determined, as well, that her feeling + should not melt back into the familiar acceptance of a routine that had + led her blindfolded across such an extent of life. + </p> + <p> + She understood now, in a large part, her disturbance at the indignity to + Dodge's monument—he had assured her that she was its inspiration; + except for her it would never have been realized, he would have kept on + modeling those Newport fountains, continued with the Susanna Nodas, + spending himself ignobly. He loved her, and that love had resulted in a + statue the world of art, of taste, honored. But it was she all the while + they were approving, discussing, writing about, Linda Condon. + </p> + <p> + She had always been that, Pleydon had informed her, never Linda Hallet—in + spite of Arnaud and their children. It sounded like nonsense; but, at the + bottom, it was truth. Of course it couldn't be explained, for example, to + the man who had every right, every evidence, to consider himself her + husband. Nothing was susceptible of explanation. Absolutely nothing! There + was the earth, which appeared to be everything, the houses you entered, + the streets you passed over, the people among whom you lived, yet that + wasn't all. Heavens, no! It was quite unimportant compared with—with + other facts latent in the mind and blood. + </p> + <p> + Dodge Pleydon's love was one of those other facts; it was simply + impossible to deny its existence, its power. Dodge had been totally + changed by it, born over again. But she, who had been the source, had had + no good from it, nothing except the thrill that had always been hers. No + one knew of it, counted it as her achievement, paid the slightest + attention to her. Arnaud smiled indulgently, Lowrie scoffed. When the + statue had been thrown down they thought of it merely as a deplorable part + of the day's news. They hadn't seen that she, Linda Condon, was + unspeakably insulted. + </p> + <p> + She doubted if she could bring them to comprehend what had happened—to + her. Or if Arnaud understood, if she made it plain, what good would be + done! That wouldn't save her, put her back again on the pedestal. The + latter was necessary. Linda recognized that a great deal of her feeling + was based on pride; but it was a pride entirely justified. She had no + intention of submitting to the coarse hands and ropes of public affront. + Throughout her life she had rebelled against any profanation of her + person, she had hated to be touched. + </p> + <p> + Every instinct, she found, every delicate self-opinion, was bound into + Pleydon's success; the latter had kept her alive. Without it existence + would have been intolerable. It was unbearable now. + </p> + <p> + She discharged the small daily duties of her efficient housekeeping with a + contemptuous exactness; for years she had accomplished, in herself, + nothing more. But at last a break had come. Linda recognized this without + any knowledge of what reparation it would find. She wasn't concerned with + that, a small detail. It would be apparent. Arnaud was silent through + dinner; tired, it seemed. She saw him as if at the distant end of a dull + corridor—as she looked back. There was no change in her liking for + him. Mechanically she noticed the disorder of his scant hair and rumpled + sleeves. + </p> + <p> + Not until, waking sharply, in the middle of the night, did she have a + glimpse of a possible course—she might live with Dodge and perfectly + express both her retaliation and her accomplishment. In that way she would + reestablish herself beside him and place their vision in bronze on an + elevation beyond the spite of the envious and the blind. + </p> + <p> + It was so directly simple that she was surprised it hadn't occurred to her + before. The possibility had always been a part, unsuspected and valuable, + of her special being; the largely condemned faults of her character and + experience had at least brought her this—a not inconsiderable + freedom in a world everywhere barred by the necessity for upholding a + hypocritical show of superiority to honest desire. The detachment that + deprived her of life's conventional joys released her from its common + obligations. That conviction, however, was too intimately connected with + all her inheritance to bring her any conscious dramatic sense of rebellion + or high feeling of justified indignation. + </p> + <p> + Sleep had deserted her, and she waited for the dawn in the windows that + would bring her escape. It was very slow coming; the blackness took on a + grayer tone, like ink with added faint infusions of water. Slowly the + blackness dissolved and she heard the stir of the sparrows in the ivy. + There was the passing rumble of an early electric car on the paved aged + street, the blurred hurried shuffle of a workman's clumsy shoes. The + brightening morning was cool with a premonitory touch of frost; at the + window she saw a vanishing silver sheen on the lawn and board fence. + </p> + <p> + A sensation of youth pervaded her; and while, perhaps, it was out of + keeping with her years, she had still her vitality unspent; she was + without a trace of the momentary frost on the grass. She was tranquil, + leisurely; her heart evenly sent its life through her unflushed body. + Piece by piece she put on her web-like garments, black and white; brushing + the heavy stream of her hair and tying the inevitable sash about her + supple waist. + </p> + <p> + Below she met Arnaud with an unpleasant shock—she hadn't given him a + thought. Her feeling now was hardly more than annoyance at her + forgetfulness. He would be terribly distressed at her going, and she was + genuinely sorry for this, poised at the edge of an explanation of her + purpose. Arnaud was putting butter and salt into his egg-cup, after that + he would grind the pepper from a French mill—pure spices were a + precision of his—and she waited until the operation was completed. + </p> + <p> + Then it occurred to her that all she could hope to accomplish by admitting + her intention was the ruin of his last hour alone with her. He was + happier, gayer, than usual. But his age was evident in his voice, his + gestures. Linda marveled at her coldness, her ruthless disregard of + Arnaud's claim on her, of his affection as deep as Pleydon's, perhaps no + less fine but not so imperative. Yet Arnaud had had over twenty years of + her life, the best; and she had never deceived him about the quality of + her gift. It was right, now, for Dodge to have the remainder. But whether + it were right or wrong, there was no failure of her determination to go to + Pleydon in the vindication of her existence. + </p> + <p> + She delayed speaking to Arnaud until, suddenly, breakfast was over. He + seldom went to the law office where he had been a partner, but stayed + about the lower floor of his house, in the library or directing small + outside undertakings. Either that or he left, late, for the Historical + Society, with which his connection and interest were uninterrupted. As + Linda passed him in the hall he was fumbling in the green bag that + accompanied all his journeyings into the city; and she gathered that he + intended to make one of his occasional sallies. She proceeded above, to + her room, where with steady hands she pinned on her hat. It would be + impossible to take any additional clothes, and she'd have to content + herself with something ready-made until she could order others in the + establishment of her living with Dodge. Her close-fitting jacket, gloves, + and a short cape of sables were collected; she gazed finally, + thoughtfully, about the room, and then, with a subdued whisper of skirts, + descended the stair. Arnaud was in the library, bending over the table + that bore his accumulation of papers and serious journals. A lingering + impulse to speak was overborne by the memory of what, lately, she had + endured—she saw him at the dusty end of that long corridor through + which she had monotonously journeyed, denied of her one triumph, lost in + inconsequential shadows—and she continued firmly to the door which + closed behind her with a normal mute smoothness, an inanimate silence. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVIII + </h2> + <p> + The maid who admitted Linda to Pleydon's apartment, first replying, “Yes, + Mrs. Hallet. No, Mrs. Hallet,” to her questions, continued in fuller + sentences expressing a triumph of sympathy over mere correctness. She + lingered at the door of the informal drawing-room, imparting the + information that Mr. Pleydon had become very irregular indeed about his + meals, and that his return for lunch was uncertain. Something, however, + would be prepared for her. Linda acknowledged this briefly. Often, with + Mr. Pleydon at home, he wouldn't so much as look at his dinner. Times, + too, it seemed as though he had been in the studio all night. He went out + but seldom now, and rarely remained away for more than an hour or two. + Linda heard this without an indication of responsive interest, and the + servant, returning abruptly from the excursion into humanity, disappeared. + </p> + <p> + She was glad to have this opportunity alone to accustom herself to a novel + position. But she was once more annoyingly calm. Annoyingly, she + reiterated; the fervor of her anger, which at the same time had been + bitterly cold, had lessened. She was practically normal. She regarded + this, the loss of her unprecedented emotion, in the light of a fraud on + her sanguine decision. Linda had counted on its support, its generous + irresistible tide, to carry her through the remainder of her life with the + exhilaration she had so largely missed. + </p> + <p> + Here in Dodge's room she was as placid, almost, as though she were in the + library at home. That customary term took its place in her thoughts before + she recognized that, with her, it had shifted. However, it was unimportant—home + had never been a magical word to her; it belonged in the vast category + which, of such universal weight, left her unstirred. She resembled those + Eastern people restlessly and perpetually moving across sandy deserts as + they exhausted, one after another, widely separated scanty oases. + </p> + <p> + She studied the objects around her with the pleased recognition that they + were unique, valuable, and in faultless taste. Then she fell to wondering + at the difference had Dodge been poor: she would have come to him, Linda + knew, just the same. But, she admitted frankly, it would have been + uncomfortable. Perhaps that—actual poverty, actual deprivation—was + what her character needed. A popular sentiment upheld such a view; she + decided it was without foundation. There was no reason why beauty, finely + appropriate surroundings, should damage the spirit. + </p> + <p> + Her mind turned to an examination of her desertion of Arnaud, but she + could find no trace of conventional regret; of what, she felt, her + sensation ought to be. The instinctive revolt from oblivion was an + infinitely stronger reality than any allegiance to abstract duty. She was + consumed by the passionate need to preserve the integrity of being + herself. The word selfish occurred to her but to be met unabashed by the + query, why not? Selfishness was a reproach applied by those who failed to + get what they wanted to all who succeeded. Linda wasn't afraid of public + opinion, censure; she didn't shrink even from the injury to her husband. + What Dodge would think, however, was hidden from her. + </p> + <p> + She had no doubt of his complete acceptance of all she offered; ordinary + obligations to society bound him as little as they held her. It would be + enough that she wanted to come to him. + </p> + <p> + She would bother him, change his habit of living, very little. Long years + of loneliness had taught her to be self-sufficient. Linda would be too + wise to insist on distasteful regularity in the interest of a + comparatively unimportant well-being. In short, she wouldn't bother him. + That must be made clear at once. + </p> + <p> + More than anything else he would be inexpressibly delighted to have her + with him, to find—at last—his love. Little intimacies of satin + mules, glimpses, charming to an artist! He'd be faultless, too, in the + relationships where Arnaud as well had never for a moment deviated from + beautiful consideration. Two remarkable men. While her deficiency in humor + was admitted, she saw a glimmer of the absurd in her attitude and present + situation. The combination, at least, was uncommon. There had been no + change in her feeling for either Arnaud or Dodge, their places in her + being were undisturbed; she liked her husband no less, Dodge no better. + </p> + <p> + Lunch was announced, a small ceremony of covered silver dishes, heavy + crystal, Nankin china, and flowers. The linen, which was old, bore a + monogram unfamiliar to her—that of Dodge's mother, probably. When + she had finished, but was still lingering at the narrow refectory table, + she heard Pleydon enter the hall and the explanatory voice of the servant. + An unexpected embarrassment pervaded her, but she overcame it by the + realization that there was no need for an immediate announcement of her + purpose. Dodge would naturally suppose that she was in New York shopping. + </p> + <p> + He did, to her intense relief, with a moving pleasure that she had lunched + with him. “It's seldom,” he went on, “that you are so sensible. I hope you + haven't any plans or concerts to drag you away immediately. I owe you a + million strawberries; but, aside from that, I'd like you to stay as long + as possible.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” she replied quietly; “I will.” + </p> + <p> + She hadn't seen him since the statue at Hesperia had been destroyed, and + she tried faintly to tell him how much that outrage had hurt her. It had + injured him too, she realized; just as Arnaud predicted. He showed his age + more gauntly, more absolutely, than the other. His skin was dry as though + the vitality of his countenance had been burned out by the flame visible + in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “The drunken fools!” he exclaimed of the mob that had torn Simon Downige + from his eminence; “they came by way of all the saloons in the city. Free + drinks! That is the disturbing thing about what the optimistic call + civilization—the fact that it is always at the mercy of the ignorant + and the brutal. There is no security; none, that is, except in the + individual spirit. And they, mostly, are the victims of a singular insane + resentment—Savonarola and there were greater. + </p> + <p> + “But you mustn't think, you mustn't suppose, that I mean it's hopeless. + How could I? Who has had more from living? Love and complete + self-expression. That exhausts every possibility. Three words. Remember + Cottarsport. But the love—ah,” he smiled, but not directly at her. + Linda was at once reassured and disturbed; and she rose, proceeding into + the drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + There she sat gracefully composed and with still hands; she never + embroidered or employed her leisure with trivial useful tasks. Pleydon was + extended on a chair, his fingers caught beyond his head and his long legs + thrust out and crossed at the ankles. His gaze was fixed on her + unwaveringly; and yet, when she tried to meet its focus, it went behind + her as though it pierced the solidity of her body and the walls in the + contemplation of a far-removed shining image. Her disturbance grew to the + inclusion of a degree of fretfulness at his unbroken silence, his apparent + absorption in whatever his meditation projected or found. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIX + </h2> + <p> + Now, she decided, was the moment for her revelation; or rather, it + couldn't very well be further deferred, for it promised to be halting. + But, with her lips forming the words, he abruptly spoke: + </p> + <p> + “I have lived so long with your spirit, it has become so familiar—I + mean the ability of completely making you out of my heart—that when + you are here the difference isn't staggering. You see, you are never away. + I have that ability; it came out of the other wreck. But you know about it—from + years back. Time has only managed a greater power. Lately, and I have + nothing to do with it, I have been seeing you again as a girl; as young as + at Markue's party; younger. Not more than ten. I don't mean that there is + anything—isn't the present fashionable word subliminal?—esoteric. + God forbid. You'll remember my hatred of that brutal deception. + </p> + <p> + “No, it's only a part of my ability to create the shape of feeling, of + Simon's hope. I see things as realities capable of exact statement; and, + naturally, more than all the rest, you come to me that way. But as a child—who + knows why?” he relinquished the answer with an opened palm. “And young + like that, perhaps ten, I love you more sharply, more unutterably, than at + any other age. What is it I love? Not your adorable plastic body, not + that. It isn't necessary to understand. + </p> + <p> + “You have, as a child, a quality of blinding loveliness in a world I + absolutely distrust. An Elysian flower. Is it possible, do you suppose, to + worship an abstract idea? It's not important to insist on my sanity.” + </p> + <p> + The question of that had occurred independently to Linda; his hurried + voice and lost gaze filled her with apprehension. A dull reddish patch, + she saw, burned in either thin cheek; and she told herself that the fever + had revived in him. Pleydon continued: + </p> + <p> + “Yet it is a timeless vision, because you never get old. I see Hallet + failing year by year, and your children, only yesterday dabs of soft + flesh, grow up and pass through college and marry. I hear myself in the + studio with an old man's cough; the chisels slip under the mall and I + can't move the clay about without help—all fading, decaying, but + you. Candles burn out, hundreds of them, while your whiteness, your flame— + </p> + <p> + “Strange, too, how you light a world, a sky, eternity. A word we have no + business with; a high-sounding word for a penny purpose. Look, we try to + keep alive because it's necessary to life, to nature; and the effort, the + struggle, breeds the dream. You can understand that. Men who ought to know + say that love is nothing more.” He rose and stood over her, towering and + portentous against the curtained light. “I don't pretend to guess. I'm a + creative artist—Simon Downige at Cottarsport—I have you. If + it's God so much the better.” + </p> + <p> + What principally swept over Linda was the knowledge that his possession of + her must keep them always apart. The reality, all realities, were veils to + Pleydon. Her momentary vision of things beyond brick and earth was + magnified in him until everything else was obliterated. The fever! Oh, + yes, that and his passion for work merged in his passion for her. She + could bring him nothing; and she had a curious picture of two Lindas + visible to him here—the Linda that was actual and the other, the + child. And of them it was the latter he cared most for, recreated out of + his desire to defraud his loneliness, to repay the damage to his spirit + realized in bronze. + </p> + <p> + She was, suddenly, too weary to stir or lift her hand; a depression as + absolute as her flare of rage enveloped her. Now the reason for her coming + seemed inexplicable, as if, for the while, her mind had failed. She + repressed a shudder at the thought of being, through the long nights of + his restlessness and wandering voice, alone with Pleydon. She hadn't, + Linda discovered, any of the transmuting feeling for him which alone made + surrender possible. She calculated mentally how long it would take her to + reach the station, what train would be available. + </p> + <p> + Linda accepted dumbly the fatality to her own hope; for a few hours she + had thought it possible to break out of the prison of circumstance, to + walk free from all hindrance; but it had been vain. She gazed at Dodge + Pleydon intensely—a comprehensive view of the man she had so nearly + married, and who, more than any other force, dominated her being. It was + already too late for anything but memory; she saw—filled with pity + for them both—hardly more than a strange old man with deadened hair + and a yellow parchment-like skin. His suit of loose gray flannel gave her + a feeling that it had been borrowed from some one she lovingly knew. The + gesture of his hand, too, had been copied from a brilliant personage with + a consuming impatience at all impotence. + </p> + <p> + “Remember me to Arnaud,” he said, holding her gloves and the short fur + cape. “Wait!” he cried sharply, turning to the bookcase against the wall. + Pleydon fumbled in a box of lacquered gilt with a silk cord and produced a + glove once white but now brown and fragile with age. “You never missed + it,” he proceeded in a gleeful triumph; “but then you had so many pairs. + Once I sent you nine dozen together from Grenoble. They were nothing, but + this you had worn. For a long while it kept the shape of your hand.” + </p> + <p> + “Dodge,” she tried without success to steady her voice, “it stayed with + you anyhow, my—my hand.” + </p> + <p> + “But yes,” he answered impatiently. He returned the glove to its box, + carefully tying the tasselled cord. Then, after clumsily helping her with + the cape, he accompanied her to the elevator. “There were other things,” + he told her. “Did you see the letters about the Hesperia affair? Heaps of + them. Rodin.... But what can you expect in a world where there is no + safety—” The stopping cage cut off his remark. She held out the hand + that was less real to him than the dream. + </p> + <p> + “Good-by, Dodge.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Linda. But watch that door, your skirt might easily be caught in + it.” He fussed over her safety until, abruptly, he seemed to rise in + space, shut out from her by the limitations of her faith. + </p> + <p> + The evening overshadowed her in the train, as though she were whirling in + the swiftest passage possible, through an indeterminate grayness, from day + to night. The latter descended on her as she reached the steps of her + home. It was still that; now it would continue to be until death. Nothing + could ever again offer her change, release, vindication; nothing, that + was, which might give her, for a day, what even her mother had plentifully + experienced—the igniting exultation of the body. + </p> + <p> + It was inevitable, she thought, for Arnaud to be in the library. He rose + unsteadily as she stood in the doorway. “Linda,” he articulated with + difficulty. A book had rested open on the table beside him and, closing + it, he put it back in its place. His arm trembled so that it took a + painfully long while. Then he moved forward, still confused. + </p> + <p> + “What a confounded time you were gone. I had the most idiotic fancy. You + see, it was so unlike you; none more exact in habit. All day. I didn't get + to the Historical Society, it seemed so devilish far off. I'd never blame + you for leaving an old man without any gumption.” He must never think that + again, she replied. Wasn't she, too, middle-aged? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XL + </h2> + <p> + Linda admitted, definitely, the loss of her youth; and yet a stubborn + inner conviction remained that she was unchanged. In this she had for + support her appearance; practically she was as freshly and gracefully pale + as the girl who had married Arnaud Hallet. Even Vigné, with indelible + traces of her motherhood, had faint lines absent from Linda's flawless + countenance. Her children, and Arnaud, were immensely proud of her beauty; + it had become a part—in the form of her ridiculously young air—of + the family conversational resources. She was increasingly aware of its + supreme significance to her. + </p> + <p> + One of her few certainties had been the discovery that, while small truths + might be had from others, all that intimately and deeply concerned her was + beyond questioning and advice. The importance of her attractiveness, for + example, which seemed the base of her entire being, was completely out of + accord with the accepted standard of values for middle-aged women. Other + things, called moral and spiritual, she inferred, should take up her days + and thoughts. There was a course of discipline—exactly like + exercises in the morning—for the preparation of the willingness to + die. + </p> + <p> + But such an attitude was eternally beyond her; she repudiated it with a + revolt stringing every nerve indignantly tense. She had had, on the whole, + singularly little from life but her fine body; it had always been the + temple and altar of her service, and no mere wordy reassurance could now + repay her for its swift or gradual destruction. The latter, except for + accident, would be her fate; she was remarkably sound. In her social + adventures, the balls to which, without Arnaud, she occasionally went, she + was morbid in her sensitive dread of discovering, through a waning + admiration, that she was faded. + </p> + <p> + It would be impossible to spend more care on her person than she had in + the past; but that was unrelenting. Linda was inexorable in her demands on + the establishments that made her suits and dresses. The slightest + imperfection of fit exasperated her; and she regarded the endless change + of fashions with contempt. This same shifting, she observed, occurred not + only in women's clothes but in the women themselves. + </p> + <p> + Linda remembered her mother, eternal in gaiety, but very obviously + different from her in states of mind affecting her appearance. She was + unable to define the change; but it was unmistakable—Stella Condon + seemed a little old-fashioned. When now, to Lowrie's wife, Linda was + unmistakably out-of-date. Lowrie, fast accomplishing all that had been + predicted for him, had married a girl incomprehensible to his mother. + Observing this later feminine development she had the baffled feeling of + inspecting a creature of a new order. + </p> + <p> + To Linda, Jean Tynedale, now a Hallet, seemed harder than ever her own + famous coldness had succeeded in being. This came mostly from Jean's + imposing education; there had been, in addition to the politest of + finishing schools, college—a woman's concern, Bryn Mawr—and + then post-graduate honors in a noteworthy university. She was entirely + addressed, in a concrete way, to the abstract problems of social progress + and hygiene; and, under thirty, the animating spirit, as well as financial + support, of an incredible number of Settlements and allied undertakings. + She spoke crisply before civic and other clubs; even, in the interest of + suffrage, addressing nondescript audiences from a box on the street. + </p> + <p> + But it was her unperturbed dissection of the motives of sex, the + denouncement of a criminal mysterious ignorance, that most daunted Linda. + She listened to Jean with a series of distinct shocks to her sense of + propriety. What she had agreed to consider a nameless attribute of women, + or, if anything more exact, the power of their charm over men, the other + defined in unequivocal scientific terms. She understood every impulse + veiled for Linda in a reticence absolutely needful to its appeal. + </p> + <p> + This, of course, the elder distrusted; just as she had no approval for + Jean's public activities. Linda didn't like public women; her every + instinct cried for a fine seclusion, fine in the meaning of an appropriate + setting for feminine distinction, the magic of dress and cut roses. Her + private inelegant word for Lowrie's wife was “bold;” indeed, describing to + herself the younger woman's patronage of her bearing, she descended to her + mother's colloquialism “brass.” + </p> + <p> + She thought this sitting at a dinner-table which held Vigné and her + husband and Lowrie and Jean Hallet. Arnaud, drawing life from the vitality + of an atmosphere charged with youth, was unflagging in splendid spirits + and his valorous wit. Jean would never inspire the affection Arnaud had + given her; nor the passion that, in Pleydon, had burned unfed even by + hope. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts slipped away from the present to the sculptor. Three years + had vanished since she had gone with an intention of finality to his + apartment, and in that time he had neither been in their house nor + written. Linda had expected this; she was without the desire to see or + hear from him. Dodge Pleydon was finished for her; as a man, a + potentiality, he had departed from her life. He was a piece with her + memories, the triumphs of her young days. Without an actual knowledge of + the moment of its accomplishment she had passed over the border of that + land, leaving it complete and fair and radiant for her lingering view. + Whether or not she had been happy was now of no importance; the magic of + its light showed only a garden and a girl in white with a black bang + against her blue eyes. + </p> + <p> + The bang, the blueness of gaze, were still hers; but, only this morning, + brush in hand, the former had offered less resistance in its arrangement; + it was thinner, and the color perceptibly not so dense. At this, with a + chill edge of fear, she had determined to go at once to her hairdresser; + no one, neither Arnaud, who loved its luster, nor an unsympathetic bold + scrutiny, a scrutiny of brass, should see that she was getting gray. There + was no fault about her figure; she had that for her satisfaction; she was + more graceful than Jean's square thinness, more slim than Vigné's maternal + presence. + </p> + <p> + Linda had the feeling that she was engaged in a struggle with time, a + ruthless antagonist whom she viewed with a personal enmity. Time must, + would, of course, triumph in the end; but there would be no sign of her + surrender in the meanwhile; she wouldn't bend an inch, relinquish by a + fraction the pride and delicacy of her person. The skilful dyeing of her + hair to its old absolute blackness, as natural and becoming in appearance + as ever, was a symbol of her determination to cheat an intolerable + tyranny. + </p> + <p> + The process, dismaying her soul, she bore with a rigid fortitude; as she + endured the coldness of a morning bath from which, often, she was slow to + react. This, to her, was widely different from the futile efforts of her + mother, those women of the past, to preserve for practical ends their + flushes of youth and exhilaration. She felt obscurely that she was serving + a deeper reality created by the hands of Pleydon, Arnaud's faith and pure + pleasure, all that countless men had seen in her for admiration, solace + and power. + </p> + <p> + But it was inevitable, she told herself bitterly, that she should hear the + first intimation of her decline from Jean Hallet. Rather, she overheard + it, the discussion of her, from the loiterers at breakfast as she moved + about the communicating library. Jean's emphatic slightly rough-textured + voice arrested her in the arrangement of a bowl of zinnias: + </p> + <p> + “You can't say just where she has failed, but it's evident. Perhaps a + general dryness. Perfectly natural. Thoroughly silly to fight against it—” + Vigné interrupted her. “I think mother's wonderful. I can't remember any + other woman nearly her age who looks so enchanting in the evening.” + </p> + <p> + Linda quietly left the flowers as they were and went up to the room that + had been her father's. It was now used as a spare bedroom; and she had + turned into it, in place of her own chamber, instinctively, without + reason. She had kept it exactly as it had been when Amelia Lowrie first + conducted her there, as it was when her father, a boy, slept under the + white canopy. + </p> + <p> + Linda advanced to the mirror; and, her hands so tightly clenched that the + finger-nails dug into the palms, forced herself to gaze steadily at the + wavering reflection. It seemed to her that there had been a malicious + magic in Jean's detraction; for immediately, as though the harm had been + wrought by the girl's voice, she saw that her clear freshness had gone. + Her face had a wax-like quality, the violet shadows under her eyes were + brown. Who had once called her a gardenia? Now she was wilting—how + many gardenias had she seen droop, turn brown. Her heart beat with a + disturbing echo in her ears, and, with a slight gasp that resembled a sob, + she sank on one of the uncomfortable painted chairs. + </p> + <p> + What, above every other sensation, oppressed her was a feeling of terrific + loneliness—the familiar isolation magnified until it was past + bearing. Yet, there was Arnaud, infallible in his tender comprehension, + she ought to go to him at once and find support. But it was impossible; + all that he could give her was, to her special necessity, useless. She had + never been able to establish herself in his sympathy; the reason for that + lay in the fact that she could bring nothing similar in return. + </p> + <p> + The room—except for the timed clangor of the electric cars, like the + measure of lost minutes—was quiet. The photograph of Bartram Hallet + in cricketing clothes had faded until it was almost indistinguishable. + Soon the faint figure would disappear entirely, as though the picture were + amenable to the relentless principle operating in her. + </p> + <p> + The peace about her finally lessened her acute suffering, stilled her + heart. She told herself with a show of vigor that she was a coward, a + charge that roused an unexpected activity of denial. She discovered that + cowardice was intolerable to her. What had happened, too, was so far out + of her hands that a trace of philosophical acceptance, recognition, came + to her support. The loveliest woman alive must do the same, meet in a + looking-glass—that eternal accompanying sibyl—her disaster. + She rose, her lips firmly set, composed and pale, and returned to the + neglected flowers in the library. + </p> + <p> + Vigné entered and put an affectionate arm about her shoulders, repeating—unconscious + that Linda had heard the discussion which had given it being—the + conviction that her mother was wonderful, specially in the black dinner + dress with the girdle of jet. With no facility of expression she gave her + daughter's arm a quick light pressure. + </p> + <p> + From then she watched the slow progress of age with a new realization, but + an unabated distaste and, wherever it was possible, a determined artifice. + Arnaud had failed swiftly in the past months; and, while she was + inspecting the impaired supports of an arbor in the garden, he came to her + with an unopened telegram. “I abhor these things,” he declared fretfully; + “they are so sudden. Why don't people write decent letters any more! It's + like the telephone.... Good manners have been ruined.” + </p> + <p> + She tore open the envelope, read the brief line within, and, a hand + suddenly put out to the arbor, sank on its bench. There had been rain, but + a late sun was again pouring over the sparkling grass, and robins were + singing with a lyrical clearness. “What is it?” Arnaud demanded anxiously, + tremulous in the unsparing sunlight. She replied: + </p> + <p> + “Dodge died this morning.” + </p> + <p> + His concern was as much for her as for Pleydon's death. “I'm sorry, + Linda,” his hand was on her shoulder. “It is a shock to you. A fine man, a + genius—none stronger in our day. When you were young and for so long + after.... I was lucky, Linda, to get you; have you all this while. Nothing + in Pleydon's life, not even his success, could have made up for your + loss.” + </p> + <p> + She wondered dully if Dodge had missed her, if Arnaud Hallet had ever had + her in his possession. The robins filled the immaculate air with song. It + was impossible that Dodge, who was so imperious in his certainty that he + would never say good-by to her, was dead. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XLI + </h2> + <p> + There was a revival of public interest in the destruction of Pleydon's + statue at Hesperia, the papers again printed accounts colored by a variety + of attitudes unembarrassed by fact; and the serious journals united in a + dignity of eminently safe praise. At first Linda made an effort to + preserve these; but soon their similarity, her inability to find, among + sonorous periods, any trace of Dodge's spirit—in reality she knew so + blindingly much more than the most penetrating critical intellect—caused + her to leave the reviews unread. No one else living had understood + Pleydon; and when descriptions of his life spoke of the austerity in his + later years, his fanatical aversion to women, Linda thought of the brittle + glove in the gilt-lacquer box. + </p> + <p> + Her own emotion, it seemed to her, was the most confused of all the + unintelligible pressures that had converted her life into an enigma. She + had a distinct sense of overwhelming loss—of something, Linda was + obliged to add, she had never owned. However, she realized that during + Pleydon's life she had dimly expected a happy accident of explanation; + until almost the last, yes—after she had returned from that ultimate + journey, she had been conscious of the presence of hope. The hope had been + for herself, created out of her constant baffled dissatisfaction. + </p> + <p> + But now the man in whom solely she had been expressed, the only possible + reason for her obstinate pride, had left her in a world that, but for + Arnaud's fondness, looked on her without remark. The loss of her + distinction had been finally evident at balls, in the dresses in which + Vigné had thought her so wonderful, and she dropped them. Here, she + repeated, was when affection, generously radiated through life, should + have reflected over her a tranquil and contented joy. She had never given + it, and she was without the ability to receive. She admitted to herself, + with a little annoyed laugh, that her old desire for inviolable charm, for + the integrity of a memorable slimness, was unimpaired. It was, she + thought, too ridiculously inappropriate for words. + </p> + <p> + Yet it had changed slightly into the recognition that what so often had + been called her beauty was all she now had for sustenance, all she had + ever had. Her mind returned continually to Pleydon, and—deep in the + mystery of his passion—she was suddenly invaded by an insistent + desire to see the monument at Cottarsport. She spoke to Arnaud at once + about this; and alone, through his delicacy of perception, Linda went to + Boston the following day. + </p> + <p> + The further ride to Cottarsport followed the sea—a brilliant serene + blue, fretted on the landward side by innumerable bare promontories, + hideous towns and factories, but bowed in a far unbroken arc at the + immaculate horizon. She left the train for a hilly cluster of houses, gray + and low like the rock everywhere apparent, dropping to a harbor that bore + a company of motionless boats with half-spread drying sails. + </p> + <p> + The day was at noon, and the sky, blue like the sea, held, still as the + anchored schooners, faint, chalky symmetrical clouds. Linda found the + Common without guidance; and at once saw, on its immovable base of rugged + granite, the bronze statue of Simon Downige. It stood well in advance of + what, evidently, was the court-house, the white steeple Dodge had + described. She found a bench by a path in the thin grass; and there, her + gloved hands folded, at rest in her lap, her gaze and longing were lifted + to the fixed aspiration. + </p> + <p> + From where she sat the seated figure was projected against the sky; + Simon's face was turned toward the west; the West that, for him, was the + future, but which for Linda represented all the past. This conviction + flooded her with unutterable sadness. A sense of failure weighed on her, + no less heavy for the fact that it was perpetually vague. Her thoughts + gathered about Dodge himself; and she recalled the curious vividness of + his vision of her as a child, perhaps ten. She, too, tried to remember + that time and age. It was almost in her grasp, but her realization was + spoiled by absurd mental fragments—the familiar illusion of a + leopard and a rider with bright hair, a forest with the ascending voices + of angels, and an ominous squat figure with a slowly nodding plumed head. + </p> + <p> + The vista of a hotel returned, a fleet recollection of marble columns and + a wide red carpet ... the white gleam and carbolized smell of a drug-store + ... a thick magazine in a brown cover. These, changed into emotions of + mingled joy and pain, shifted in bright or dim colors and sensations. + There was a slow heavy plodding of feet, now above her head, the passage + of a carried weight; and, in a flash of perception, she knew it was a + coffin. She raised her clasped hands to her breast, crying into the sunny + silence, to the figure of Simon Downige lost in dream: + </p> + <p> + “He died that night, at the Boscombe, after he had told me about the + meadows with silk tents—” + </p> + <p> + Her memory, thrilling with the echoed miraculous chord of the child of + ten, sitting gravely, alone, among the shrill satins and caustic voices of + a feminine throng, was complete. She saw herself, Linda Condon, as + objectively as Pleydon's described vision: there was a large bow on her + straight black hair, and, from under the bang, her gaze was clear and + wondering. How marvelously young she was! The vindictive curiosity of the + questioning women, intent on their rings, brought out her eager defense of + her mother, the effort to explain away the ugly fact that—that Mr. + Jasper was married. + </p> + <p> + She saw Linda descending the marble stairs to the lower floor where the + games were kept in a somber corridor, and heard a voice halting her + irresolute passage: + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Bellina.” + </p> + <p> + That wasn't her name, and she corrected him, waiting afterward to listen + to a strange fairy-like tale. The solitary, sick-looking man, with inky + shadows under fixed eyes, was so actual that she recaptured the pungent + drift of his burning cigarette. He talked about love in a bitter intensity + that hurt her. Yet, at first, he had said that she was lovely, a touch of + her ... forever in the memory. Mostly, however, he spoke of a beautiful + passion. It had largely vanished, his explanation continued; men had come + to worship other things. Plato started it. + </p> + <p> + She recalled Plato, as well, in connection with Dodge; now, it appeared to + her, that remote name had always been at the back of her consciousness. + There were other names, other men, of an age long ago in Italy. Their + ideal, religion, was contained in the adoration of a woman, but not her + body—it was a love of her spirit, the spirit their purity of need + recognized, perhaps helped to create. It was a passion as different as + possible in essence from all she had observed about her. It was useless + for common purposes, withheld from Arnaud Hallet. + </p> + <p> + The man, seriously addressing the serious uncomprehending interest of ten, + proceeded with a description of violins—but she had heard them + through all her life—and a parting that left only a white glove for + remembrance. Then he had repeated that line, in Italian, which, not long + back, her husband had recalled. The old gesture toward the stars, the need + to escape fatality—how she had suffered from that! + </p> + <p> + Yet it was a service of the body, a faith spiritual because, here, it was + never to be won, never to be realized in warm embrace. It had no + recognition in flesh, and it was the reward of no prayer or humility or + righteousness. Only beauty knew and possessed it. His image grew dim like + the blurring of his voice by pain and the shadow of death. Linda's + thoughts and longing turned again to Dodge; it seemed to her that he no + more than took up the recital where the other was silent. + </p> + <p> + Pleydon—was it at Markue's party or later?—talking about + “Homer's children” had meant the creations of great artists, in sound or + color or words or form, through that supreme love unrealized in other + life. The statue of Simon Downige, towering before her against the sky and + above the sea, held in immutable bronze his conviction. The meager bundle + and crude stick rested by shoes clogged with mud; Simon's body was crushed + with weariness; but under the sweat-plastered brow his gaze pierced + indomitable and undismayed to the vision of a place of truth. + </p> + <p> + She was choked by a sharp rush of joy at Dodge's accomplishment, an entire + understanding of the beauty he had vainly explained, the deathless + communication of old splendid courage, an unshaken divine need, to + succeeding men and hope. This had been hers. She had always felt her + presence in his success; but, until now, it had belonged exclusively to + him. Dodge had, in his love, absorbed her, and that resulted in the + statues the world applauded. She, Linda thought, had been an element + easily dismissed. It had hurt her pride almost beyond endurance, the pride + that took the form of an inner necessity for the survival of her grace—all + she had. + </p> + <p> + She had even asked him, in a passing resentment, why he had never directly + modeled her, kept, with his recording genius, the shape of her features. + She had gone to him in a blinder vanity for the purpose of stamping her + participation in his triumph on the stupid insensibility of their world. + How incredible! But at last she could see that he had preserved her + spirit, her secret self, from destruction. He had cheated death of her + fineness. The delicate perfection of her youth would never perish, never + be dulled by old age or corrupted in death. It had inspired and entered + into Pleydon's being, and he had lifted it on the pedestal rising between + the sea and sky. + </p> + <p> + She was in the Luxembourg, in that statue of Cotton Mather, the somber + flame, about which he had written with a comment on the changing subjects + of his creations. From the moment when he sat beside her on the divan in + that room stifling with incense, with the naked glimmer of women's + shoulders, she had been the source of his power. She had been his power. + Linda smiled quietly, in retrospect, at her years of uncertainty, the + feeling of waste, that had robbed her of peace. How complete her + mystification had been! And, all the while, she had had the thrill of + delight, of premonition, born in her through the forgotten hour with the + man who had died. + </p> + <p> + The sun, moving in celestial space, shifted the shadow about the base of + Simon Downige's monument. The afternoon was advancing. She rose and + turned, looking out over the sea to the horizon as brightly sharp as a + curved sword. The life of Cottarsport, below her, proceeded in detached + figures, an occasional unhurried passage. The boats in the harbor were + slumberous. It was time to go. She gazed again, for a last view, at the + bronze seated figure; and a word of Pleydon's, but rather it was Greek, + wove its significance in the placid texture of her thoughts. Its exact + shape evaded her, a difficult word to recall—<i>Katharsis</i>, the + purging of the heart. About her was the beating of the white wings of a + Victory sweeping her—a faded slender woman in immaculate gloves and + a small matchless hat—into a region without despair. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE END + </h2> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Linda Condon, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + +***** This file should be named 7171-h.htm or 7171-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/7/7171/ + + +Text file produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Linda Condon + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7171] +This file was first posted on March 20, 2003 +Last Updated: June 12, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + + + + +Produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +LINDA CONDON + +By Joseph Hergesheimer + + + +_To_ CARL VAN VECHTEN + +_This, Linda Condon's Gravest Bow._ + + + +The Works Of Joseph Hergesheimer + +The Lay Anthony + +Mountain Blood + +The Three Black Pennys + +Gold And Iron + +Java Head + +The Happy End + +Linda Condon + + + + +LINDA CONDON + + + + +I + + +A black bang was, but not ultimately, the most notable feature of her +uncommon personality--straight and severe and dense across her clear +pale brow and eyes. Her eyes were the last thing to remember and wonder +about; in shade blue, they had a velvet richness, a poignant intensity +of lovely color, that surprised the heart. Aside from that she was slim, +perhaps ten years old, and graver than gay. + +Her mother was gay for them both, and, therefore, for the entire family. +No father was in evidence; he was dead and never spoken of, and Linda +was the only child. Linda's dresses, those significant trivialities, +plainly showed two tendencies--the gaiety of her mother and her own +always formal gravity. If Linda appeared at dinner, in the massive +Renaissance materialism of the hotel dining-room, with a preposterous +magenta hair-ribbon on her shapely head, her mother had succeeded in +expressing her sense of the appropriately decorative; while if Linda +wore an unornamented but equally "unsuitable" frock of dark velvet, she, +in her turn, had been vindicated. + +Again, but far more rarely, the child's selection was evident on the +woman. As a rule Mrs. Condon garbed her flamboyant body in large and +expensive patterns or extremely tailored suits; and of the two, the +evening satins and powdered arms barely retaining an admissible line, +and the suits, the latter were the most, well--spectacular. + +She was not dark in color but brightly golden; a gold, it must be said +in all honesty, her own, a metallic gold crisply and solidly marcelled; +with hazel-brown eyes, and a mouth which, set against her daughter's +deep-blue gaze, was her particular attraction. It was rouged to a +nicety, the under lip a little full and never quite against the upper. +If Linda's effect was cool and remote, Mrs. Condon, thanks to her +mouth, was reassuringly imminent. She was, too, friendly; she talked to +women--in her not overfrequent opportunities--in a rapid warm inaccurate +confession of almost everything they desired to hear. The women, of +course, were continually hampered by the unfortunate fact that +the questions nearest their hearts, or curiosity, were entirely +inadmissible. + +Viewed objectively, they all, with the exception of Linda, seemed alike; +but that might have been due to their common impressive setting. The +Boscombe, in its way, was as lavish as Mrs. Condon's dresses. The main +place of congregation, for instance, was a great space of white marble +columns, Turkey-red carpet and growing palms. It was lighted at night +indirectly by alabaster bowls hanging on gilded chains--a soft bright +flood of radiance falling on the seated or slowly promenading women with +bare shoulders. + +Usually they were going with a restrained sharp eagerness toward the +dining-room or leaving it in a more languid flushed repletion. There +were, among them, men; but somehow the men never seemed to be of the +least account. It was a women's paradise. The glow from above always +emphasized the gowns, the gowns like orchids and tea-roses and the +leaves of magnolias. It sparkled in the red and green and crystal +jewels like exotic dew scattered over the exotic human flowers. Very +occasionally there was a complacent or irritable masculine utterance, +and then it was immediately lost in the dominant feminine sibilance. + +Other children than Linda sped in the manner of brilliant fretful tops +literally on the elaborate outskirts of the throng; but they were as +different from her as she was from the elders. Indeed Linda resembled +the latter, rather than her proper age, remarkably. She had an air of +responsibility, sometimes expressed in a troubled frown, and again by +the way she hurried sedately through drifting figures toward a definite +purpose and end. + +Usually it was in the service of one of her mother's small innumerable +requests or necessities; if the latter were sitting with a gentleman on +the open hotel promenade that overlooked the sea and needed a heavier +wrap, Linda returned immediately with a furred cloak on her arm; if the +elder, going out after dinner, had brought down the wrong gloves, Linda +knew the exact wanted pair in the long perfumed box; while countless +trifles were needed from the convenient drug-store. + +The latter was a place of white mosaic floor and glittering glass, with +a marble counter heaped with vivid fruit and silver-covered bowls of +sirups and creams with chopped nuts. Linda often found time to stop here +for a delectable glass of assorted sweet compounds. She was on terms of +intimacy with the colored man in a crisp linen coat who presided over +the refreshments, and he invariably gave her an extra spoonful of the +marron paste she preferred. When at lunch, it might be, she cared for +very little, her mother would complain absently: + +"You must stop eating those sickening mixtures. They'd ruin any skin." +At this she invariably found the diminutive mirror in the bag on her +lap and glanced at her own slightly improved color. The burden of the +feminine conversations in which Mrs. Condon was privileged to join, +Linda discovered, was directed toward these overwhelming considerations +of appearance. And their importance, communicated to her, resulted in +a struggle between the desire to preserve her skin from ruin and the +seductions of marron paste and maple chocolates. + +Now, with an uncomfortable sense of impending disaster, she would +hastily consume one or the other; again, supported by a beginning +self-imposed inflexibility, she would turn steadily away from +temptation. In the end the latter triumphed; and her normal appetite, +always moderate, was unimpaired. + +This spirit of resolution, it sometimes happened, was a cause of +humorous dismay to her mother. "I declare, Linda," she would observe +with an air of helplessness, "you make me feel like the giddy one and +as if you were mama. It's the way you look, so disapproving. I have to +remind myself you're only--just how old are you? I keep forgetting." +Linda would inform her exactly and the other sigh: + +"The years slip around disgustingly. It seems only yesterday I was at +my first party." Usually, in spite of Linda's eagerness to hear of that +time when her mother was a girl, the elder would stop abruptly. On rare +occasions solitary facts emerged from the recalled existence of a +small town in the country. There were such details as buggy-riding +and prayer-meetings and excursions to a Boiling Springs where the +dancing-floor, open among the trees, was splendid. At these memories +Mrs. Condon had been known to cry. + +But she would recover shortly. Her emotions were like that--easily +roused, highly colored and soon forgotten. She forgot, Linda realized +leniently, a great deal. It wasn't safe to rely on her promises. +However, if she neglected a particular desire of Linda's, she +continually brought back unexpected gifts of candy, boxes of silk +stockings, or lovely half-wilted flowers. + +The flowers, they discovered, although they stayed fresh for a long +while pinned to Linda's slim waist, died almost at once if worn by her +mother. "It's my warm nature, I am certain," the latter proclaimed to +her daughter; "while you are a little refrigerator. I must say it's +wonderful how you keep your clothes the same. Neat as a pin." Somehow, +with this commendation, she managed to include a slight uncomplimentary +impatience. Linda didn't specially want to resemble a pin, a +disagreeable object with a sharp point. She considered this in the long +periods when, partly by preference, she was alone. + +Seated, perhaps, in the elaborate marble and deep red of the Boscombe's +reception-rooms, isolated in the brilliant expensive throng, she would +speculate over what passed in the light of her own special problems. But +nothing, really, came out to her satisfaction. There was, notably, no +one she might ask. Her mother, approached seriously, declared that Linda +gave her the creeps; while others made it plain that it was their duty +to repress the forwardness inevitable from the scandalous neglect of her +upbringing. + +They, the women of the Boscombe, glancing at their finger-nails stained +and buffed to a shining pale vermilion, lightly rubbing their rings on +the dry palm of a hand, wondered pessimistically within Linda's hearing +what could come out of such an association. That term, she vaguely +gathered, referred to her mother. The latter evidently interested them +tremendously; because, she explained, they had no affairs of their +own to attend to. This was perfectly clear to Linda until Mrs. Condon +further characterized them as "busy." + +The women, stopped by conventions from really satisfactory investigation +at the source, drew her on occasion into a laboriously light +inquisition. How long would Linda and her mama stay at the Boscombe? Had +they closed their apartment? Where was it? Hadn't Mrs. Condon mentioned +Cleveland? Wasn't Linda lonely with her mama out so much--they even said +late--in rolling chairs? Had she ever seen Mr. Jasper before his arrival +last week? + +No, of course she hadn't. + +Here they exchanged skeptical glances beneath relentlessly pulled +eyebrows. He was really very nice, Mr. Jasper. Linda in a matter-of-fact +voice replied that he had given her a twenty-dollar gold piece. Mr. +Jasper was very generous. But perhaps he had rewarded her for being a +good little girl and not--not bothering or hanging about. "Why should +he?" was Linda's just perceptibly impatient response. Then they told her +to be quiet because they wanted to listen to the music. + +This consisted in studying, through suspended glasses in chased +platinum, a discreet programme. At the end of a selection they either +applauded condescendingly or told each other that they hadn't cared for +that last--really too peculiar. Whichever happened, the leader of the +small orchestra, an extravagant Italian with a supple waist, turned and +bowed repeatedly with a grimacing smile. The music, usually Viennese, +was muted and emotional; its strains blended perfectly with the floating +scents of the women and the faintly perceptible pungent odors of dinner. +Every little while a specially insinuating melody became, apparently, +tangled in the women's breathing, and their breasts, cunningly traced +and caressed in tulle, would be disturbed. + +Mrs. Condon applauded more vigorously than was sanctioned by the others' +necessity for elegance; the frank clapping of her pink palms never +failed to betray a battery of affected and significant surprise in eyes +like--polished cold agates. Linda, seated beside her parent, could be +seen to lay a hand, narrow and blanched and marked by an emerald, on +the elder's knee. Her pale fine lips moved rapidly with the shadow of +trouble beneath the intense black bang. + +"I wish you wouldn't do it so loudly, mother," was what she whispered. + + + + +II + + +The jealously guarded truth was that, by her daughter at least, Mrs. +Condon was adored. Linda observed that she was not like an ordinary +mother, but more nearly resembled a youthful companion. Mrs. Condon's +gaiety was as genuine as her fair hair. Not kept for formal occasion, it +got out of bed with her, remained through the considerable difficulties +of dressing with no maid but Linda, and if the other were not asleep +called a cheerful or funny good night. + +Their rooms were separated by a bath, but Linda was scarcely ever in her +own--her mother's lovely things, acting like a magnet, constantly drew +her to their arrangement in the drawers. When the laundry came up, crisp +and fragile webs heaped on the bed, Linda laid it away in a sort of +ritual. Even with these publicly invisible garments a difference +of choice existed between the two: Mrs. Condon's preference was for +insertions, and Linda's for shadow embroidery and fine shell edges. Mrs. +Condon, shaking into position a foam of ribbon and lace, would say with +her gurgle of amusement, "I want to be ready when I fall down; if I +followed your advice they'd take me for a nun." + +This brought out Linda's low clear laugh, the expression of her extreme +happiness. It sounded, for an instant, like a chime of small silver +bells; then died away, leaving the faintest perceptible flush on her +healthy pallor. At other times her mother's humor made her vaguely +uncomfortable, usually after wine or other drinks that left the elder's +breath thick and oppressive. Linda failed completely to grasp the +allusions of this wit but a sharp uneasiness always responded like the +lingering stale memory of a bad dream. + +Once, at the Boscombe, her mother had been too silly for words: she had +giggled and embraced her sweet little girl, torn an expensive veil to +shreds and dropped a French model hat into the tub. After a distressing +sickness she had gone to sleep fully dressed, and Linda, unable to move +or wake her, had sat long beyond dinner into the night, fearful of the +entrance of the chambermaid. + +The next day Mrs. Condon had been humble with remorse. Men, she said, +were too beastly for description. This was not an unusual opinion. Linda +observed that she was always condemning men in general and dressing for +them in particular. She offered Linda endless advice in an abstracted +manner: + +"They're all liars, Lin, and stingy about everything but their pleasure. +Women are different but men are all alike. You get sick to death of +them! Never bother them when they are smoking a cigar; cigarettes +don't matter. Leave the cigarette-smokers alone, anyhow; they're not +as dependable as the others. A man with a good cigar--you must know +the good from the bad--is usually discreet. I ought to bring you up +different, but, Lord, life's too short. Besides, you will learn more +useful things right with mama, whose eyes are open, than anywhere else. + +"Powder my back, darling; I can't reach. If I'm a little late to-night +go to sleep like a duck. You think Mr. Jasper's nice, don't you? So does +mother. But you mustn't let him give you any more money. It'll make him +conceited." + +Linda wondered what she meant by the last phrase. How could it make Mr. +Jasper conceited to give her a gold piece? However, she decided that she +had better not ask. + +It was like that with a great many of her mother's mysterious +remarks--Linda had an instinctive feeling of drawing away. The other +kissed her warmly and left a print of vivid red on her cheek. + +She examined the mark in the mirror when her mother had gone; it was, +she decided, the kiss made visible. Then she laid away the things +scattered about the room by Mrs. Condon's hasty dressing. Her own +belongings were always in precise order. + +A sudden hesitation seized her at the thought of going down to the crowd +at the music. The women made her uncomfortable. It wasn't what they +said, but the way they said it; and the endless questions wearied her. +She was, as well, continually bothered by her inability to impress upon +them how splendid her mother was. Some of them she was certain did not +appreciate her. Mrs. Condon at once admitted and was entertained by +this, but it disturbed Linda. However, she understood the reason--when +any nice men came along they always liked her mother best. This made the +women mad. + +The world, she gathered, was a place where women played a game of men +with each other. It was very difficult, she couldn't comprehend the +rules or reason; and Linda was afraid that she would be unsuccessful +and never have the perfect time her mother wanted for her. In the first +place, she was too thin, and then she knew that she could never talk +like her dearest. Perhaps when she had had some wine it would be +different. + +She decided, after all, to go down to the assemblage; and, by one of +the white marble pillars, Mrs. Randall captured her. "Why, here's +Linda-all-alone," Mrs. Randall said. "Mama out again?" Linda replied +stoutly, "She has a dreadful lot of invitations." + +Mrs. Randall, who wore much brighter clothes than her mother, was called +by the latter an old buzzard. She was very old, Linda could see, with +perfectly useless staring patches of paint on her wrinkled cheeks, and +eyes that look as though they might come right out of her head. Her +frizzled hair supported a dead false twist with a glittering diamond +pin, and her soft cold hands were loaded with jewels. She frightened +Linda, really, although she could not say why. Mrs. Randall was a great +deal like the witch in a fairy-story, but that wasn't it. Linda hadn't +the belief in witches necessary for dread. It might be her scratching +voice; or the way she turned her head, without any chin at all, like a +turtle; or her dresses, which led you to expect a person very different +from an old buzzard. + +"Of course she does," said Mrs. Randall, "any number of invitations, and +why shouldn't she? Your mother is very pleasant, to be sure." She nodded +wisely to the woman beside her, Miss Skillern. + +Miss Skillern was short and broad and, in the evening, always wore +curled ostrich plumes on tightly filled gray puffs. She reminded Linda +of a wadded chair. Mrs. Randall, after the other's slight stiff assent, +continued: + +"Your mama would never be lonely, not she. All I wonder is she doesn't +get married again--with that blondine of hers. Wouldn't you rather have +one papa than, in a way of speaking, a different one at every hotel?" + +Linda, completely at a loss for answer, studied Mrs. Randall with her +direct deep blue gaze. Miss Skillern again inclined her plumes. With the +rest of her immobile she was surprisingly like one of those fat china +figures with a nodding head. Linda was assaulted by the familiar +bewildered feeling of not understanding what was said and, at the same +time, passionately resenting it from an inner sensitive recognition of +something wrong. + +"How could I have that?" she finally asked. + +"How?" repeated Miss Skillern, breathing loudly. + +"Yes, how?" Mrs. Randall echoed. "You can ask your mama. You really can. +And you may say that, as a matter of fact, the question came from us," +she included her companion. + +"From you," Miss Skillern exactly corrected her. + +"Indeed," the other cried heatedly, "from me! I think not. Didn't you +ask? Answer me that, if you please. I heard you with my own ears say, +'How?' While now, before my face, you try to deny it." It was plain to +Linda that Miss Skillern was totally unmoved by the charge. She moved +her lorgnette up, gazing stolidly at the musical programme. "From you," +she said again, after a little. Mrs. Randall suddenly regained her +equilibrium. + +"If the ladies of this hotel are afraid to face that creature I--I--am +not. I'll tell her in a minute what a respectable person thinks of +her goings-on. More than that, I shall complain to Mr. Rennert. 'Mr. +Rennert,' I'll say, 'either she leaves or me. Choose as you will. The +reputation of your hotel--'" she spluttered and paused. + +"Proof," Miss Skillern pronounced judicially; "proof. We know, but +that's not proof." + +"He has a wife," Mrs. Randall replied in a shrill whisper; "a wife +who is an invalid. Mrs. Zoock, she who had St. Vitus' dance and left +yesterday, heard it direct. George A. Jasper, woolen mills in Frankford, +Pennsylvania. Mr. Rennert would thank me for that information." + +They had forgotten Linda. She stood rigid and cold--they were blaming +her mother for going out in a rolling chair with Mr. Jasper because he +was married. But her mother didn't know that; probably Mr. Jasper had +not given it a thought. She was at the point of making this clear, when +it seemed to her that it might be better to say that her mother knew +everything there was about Mr. Jasper's wife; she could even add that +they were all friends. + +Linda would have to tell her mother the second she came in, and then, +of course, she'd stop going with Mr. Jasper. Men, she thought in the +elder's phrase, were too beastly for words. + +"After all," Mrs. Randall was addressing her again, "you needn't say +anything at all to your mama. It might make her so cross that she'd +spank you." + +"Mother never spanks me," Linda replied with dignity. + +"If you were my little girl," said Miss Skillern, with rolling lips, +"I'd put you over my knee with your skirts up and paddle you." + +Never, Linda thought, had she heard anything worse; she was profoundly +shocked. The vision of Miss Skillern performing such an operation as +she had described cut its horror on her mind. There was a sinking at her +heart and a misty threat of tears. + +To avert this she walked slowly away. It was hardly past nine o'clock; +her mother wouldn't be back for a long while, and she was too restless +and unhappy to sit quietly above. Instead, she continued down to the +floor where there were various games in the corridor leading to the +billiard-room. The hall was dull, no one was clicking the balls about +the green tables, and a solitary sick-looking man, with inky shadows +under fixed eyes, was smoking a cigarette in a chair across from the +cigar-stand. + +He looked over a thick magazine in a chocolate cover, his gaze arrested +by her irresolute passage. "Hello, Bellina," he said. + +She stopped. "Linda," she corrected him, "Linda Condon." Obeying a +sudden impulse, she dropped, with a sigh, into a place beside him. + +"You're bored," he went on, the magazine put away. "So am I, but my term +is short." + +She wondered, principally, what he was doing, among so many women, at +the Boscombe. He was different from Mr. Jasper, or the other men with +fat stomachs, the old men with dragging feet. It embarrassed her to meet +his gaze, it was so--so investigating. She guessed he was by the sea +because he felt as badly as he looked. He asked surprisingly: + +"Why are you here?" + +"On the account of my mother," she explained. "But it doesn't matter +much where I am. Places are all alike," she continued conversationally. +"We're mostly at hotels--Florida in winter and Lake George in summer. +This is kind of between." + +"Oh!" he said; and she was sure, from that short single exclamation, he +understood everything. + +"Like all true beauty," he added, "it's plain that you are durable." + +"I don't like the seashore," she went on easily; "I'd rather be in a +garden with piles of flowers and a big hedge." + +"Have you ever lived in a garden-close?" + +"No," she admitted; "it's just an idea. I told mother but she laughed at +me and said a roof-garden was her choice." + +"Some day you'll have the place you describe," he assured her. "It is +written all over you. I would like to see you, Bellina, in a space +of emerald sod and geraniums." She decided to accept without further +protest his name for her. "You are right, too, about the hedge--the +highest and thickest in creation. I should recommend a pseudo-classic +house, Georgian, rather small, a white facade against the grass. A +Jacobean dining-room, dark certainly, the French windows open on dipping +candle flames. You'd wear white, with your hair low and the midnight +bang as it is now." + +"That would be awfully nice," Linda replied vaguely. She sighed. + +"But a very light drawing-room!" he cried. "White panels and arches and +Canton-blue rugs--the brothers Adam. A fluted mantel, McIntires, and a +brass hod. Curiously enough, I always see you in the evening ... at the +piano. I'm not so bored, now." Little flames of red burned in either +thin cheek. "What nonsense!" Suddenly he was tired. "This is a practical +and earnest world," his voice grew thin and hurt her. "Yet beauty is +relentless. You'll have your garden, but I shouldn't be surprised at +difficulties first." + +"It won't be so hard to get," she declared confidently. "I mean to +choose the right man. Mother says that's the answer. Women, she says, +won't use their senses." + +"Ah." + +Linda began to think this was a most unpleasant monosyllable. + +"So that's the lay! Has she succeeded?" + +"She has a splendid time. She's out tonight with Mr. Jasper in a rolling +chair, and he has loads and loads of money. It makes all the other women +cross." + +"Here you are, then, till she gets back?" + +"There's no one else." + +"But, as a parent, infinitely preferable to the righteous," he murmured. +"And you--" + +"I think mother's perfect," she answered simply. + +He shook his head. "You won't succeed at it, though. Your mother, for +example, isn't dark." + +"The loveliest gold hair," she said ecstatically. "She's much much +prettier than I'll ever be." + +"Prettier, yes. The trouble is, you are lovely, magical. You will stay +for a lifetime in the memory. The merest touch of you will be more +potent than any duty or fidelity. A man's only salvation will be his +blindness." + +Although she didn't understand a word of this, Linda liked to hear +him; he was talking as though she were grown up, and in response to the +flattery she was magnetic and eager. + +"One time," he said, "very long ago, beauty was worshiped. Men, you +see, know better now. They want their dollar's worth. The world was +absolutely different then--there were deep adventurous forests with holy +chapels in the green combe for an orison, and hermits rising to Paradise +on the _Te Deum Laudamus_ of the angels and archangels. There were black +castles and, in the broad meadows, silk tents with ivory pegs and poles +of gold. + +"The enchantments were as thick as shadows under the trees: perhaps the +loveliest of women riding a snow-white mule, with a saddle cloth of red +samite, or, wrapped in her shining hair, on a leopard with yellow eyes, +lured you to a pavilion, scattered with rushes and flowers and magical +herbs, and a shameful end. Or a silver doe would weep, begging you to +pierce her with your sword, and, when you did, there knelt the daughter +of the King of Wales. + +"But I started to tell you about the worship of beauty. Plato started it +although Cardinal Pietro Bembo was responsible for the creed. He lived +in Italy, in an age like a lily. It developed mostly at Florence in +the Platonic Academy of Cosomo and Pico della Mirandola. Love was the +supreme force, and its greatest expression a desire beyond the body." + +He gazed at Linda with a quizzical light in his eyes deep in shadow. + +"Love," he said again, and then paused. "One set of words will do +as well as another. You will understand, or not, with something far +different from intellectual comprehension. The endless service of +beauty. Of course, a woman--but never the animal; the spirit always. +Born in the spirit, served in the spirit, ending in the spirit. A direct +contradiction, you see, to nature and common sense, frugality and the +sacred symbol of the dollar. + +"It wouldn't please your Mr. Jasper, with his heaps and heaps of money. +Mr. Jasper would consider himself sold. But Novalis, not so very long +ago, understood.... A dead girl more real than all earth. You mustn't +suppose it to be mere mysticism." + +Linda said, "Very well, I won't." + +He nodded. "No one could call Michelangelo hysterical. Sometime in the +history of man, of a salt solution, this divinity has touched them. +Touched them hopefully, and perhaps gone--banished by the other +destination. Or I can comprehend nature killing it relentlessly, since +it didn't lead to propagation. Then, too, as much as was useful was +turned into a dogma for politics and priests. + +"You saw in the rushlight a woman against the arras; there was a +humming of viola d'amore from the musicians' balcony; she smiled at you, +lingering, and then vanished with a whisper of brocade de Lyons on a +sanded floor. Nothing else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, +in your habergeon, an eternally fragrant memory; the dim vision in stone +street and coppice; a word, a message, it might be, sent across the +world of steel at death. And then, in the last flicker of vision, the +arras and the clear insistent strings, the whispering brocade de Lyons +on the landing. + +"The philosophy of it," he said in a different tone, "is exact, even +a scientific truth. But men have been more concerned with turning lead +into gold; naturally the spirit has been neglected. The science of love +has been incredibly soiled: + +"The old gesture toward the stars, the bridge of perfection, the escape +from the fatality of flesh. Yet it was a service of the body made +incredibly lovely in actuality and still never to be grasped. Never to +be won. It ought to be clear to you that realized it would diminish into +quite a different thing-- + +"'_La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa idea._'" + +His voice grew so faint that Linda could scarcely distinguish articulate +sounds. All that he said, without meaning for her, stirred her heart. +She was used to elder enigmas of speech; her normal response was +instinctively emotional, and nothing detracted from the gravity of her +attention. + +"Not in pious men," he continued, more uncertain; "nor in seminaries of +virtue. They have their reward. But in men whose bitterness of longing +grew out of hideous fault. The distinction of beauty--not a payment for +prayers or chastity. The distinction of love ... above chests of linen +and a banker's talent and patents of nobility.... Divine need. Idiotic. +But what else, what better, offers?" + +He was, she saw, terribly sick. His hands were clenched and his entire +being strained and rigid, as though he were trying to do something +tremendously difficult. At last, with infinite pain, he succeeded. + +"I must get away," he articulated. + +Linda was surprised at the effort necessary for this slight +accomplishment when he had said the most bewildering things with +complete ease. Well, the elevators were right in front of him. He rose +slowly, and, with Linda standing at his side, dug a sharp hand into her +shoulder. It hurt, but instinctively she bore it and, moving forward, +partly supported him. She pressed the bell that signaled for the +elevator and it almost immediately sank into view. "Hurry," he said +harshly to the colored operator in a green uniform; and quite suddenly, +leaving a sense of profound mystery, he disappeared. + + + + +III + + +Linda decided that he had told her a rather stupid fairy story. She was +too old for such ridiculous things as ladies in their shining hair on a +leopard. She remembered clearly seeing one of the latter at a zoological +garden. It had yellow eyes, but no one would care to ride on it. Her +mother, she was certain, knew more about love than any man. His words +faded quickly from her memory, but a confused rich sense stirred her +heart, a feeling such as she experienced after an unusually happy day: +white gloves and music and Mr. Jasper displeased. + +A clock chimed ten, and she proceeded to her mother's room, where she +must wait up with her information about Mr. Jasper's wife. She was +furious at him for a carelessness that had brought her mother such +unfavorable criticism. Everything had been put away before going down, +and there was nothing for her to do. The time dragged tediously. The +hands of the traveling-clock in purple leather on the dressing-table +moved deliberately around to eleven. A ringing of ice in one of the +metal pitchers carried by the bell boys sounded from the corridor. There +was the faint wail of a baby. + +Suddenly and acutely Linda was lonely--a new kind of loneliness that had +nothing to do with the fact that she was by herself. It was a strange +cold unhappiness, pressing over her like a cloud and, at the same time, +it was nothing at all. That is, there was no reason for it. The room was +brightly lighted and, anyhow, she wasn't afraid of "things." She thought +that at any minute she must cry like that baby. After a little she felt +better; rather the unhappiness changed to wanting. What she wanted was +a puzzle; but nothing else would satisfy her. It might be a necklace of +little pearls, but it wasn't. It might be--. Now it was twelve o'clock. +Dear, dear, why didn't she come back! + +Music, awfully faint, and a whisper, like a dress, across the floor. +Her emotion changed again, to an extraordinary delight, a glow like that +which filled her at the expression of her adoration for her mother, but +infinitely greater. She was seated, and she lifted her head with her +eyes closed and hands clasped. The clock pointed to one and her parent +came into the room. + +"Linda," she exclaimed crossly, "whatever are you doing up? A bad little +girl. I told you to be asleep hours before this." + +"There is something you had to know right away," Linda informed her +solemnly. "I only just heard it from Mrs. Randall and Miss Skillern." +Her mother's flushed face hardened. "Mr. Jasper is married," Linda said. + +Mrs. Condon dropped with an angry flounce into a chair. Her broad scarf +of sealskin slipped from one shoulder. Her hat was crooked and her hair +disarranged. "So that's it," she said bitterly; "and they went to you. +The dam' old foxes. They went to you, nothing more than a child." + +Linda put in, "They didn't mean to; it just sort of came out. I knew +you'd stop as soon as you heard. Wasn't it horrid of him?" + +"And this," Mrs. Condon declared, "is what I get for being, yes--proper. + +"I said to-night, 'George,' I said, 'go right back home. It's the only +thing. They have a right to you.' I told him that only to-night. And, +'No, I must consider my little Linda.' If I had held up my finger," +she held up a finger to show the smallness of the act necessary, "where +would we have all been? + +"But this is what I get. You might think the world would notice a +woman's best efforts. No, they all try to crowd her and see her slip. If +they don't watch out I'll skid, all right, and with some one they least +expect. I have opportunities." + +Linda realized with a sense of confusion that her mother had known of +Mr. Jasper's marriage all the while. But she had nobly tried to save him +from something; just what Linda couldn't make out. The other's breath +was heavy with drinking. + +"You go to bed, Lin," she continued; "and thank you for taking care of +mama. I hope to goodness you'll learn from all this--pick out what +you want and make for it. Don't bother with the antique frumps, the +disappointed old tabbies. Have your fun. There's nothing else. If you +like a man, be on the level with him--give and take. Men are not saints +and we're better for it; we don't live in a heaven. You've got a sweet +little figure. Always remember mama telling you that the most expensive +corsets are the cheapest in the end." + +Linda undressed slowly and methodically, her mother's words ringing +in her head. Always remember--but of course she would have the nicest +things possible.... A keepsake and faint music. She thought, privately, +that she was too thin; she'd rather be her mother, with shoulders like +bunches of smooth pink roses. In bed, just as she was falling asleep, a +sound disturbed her from the corridor above--the slow tramping of heavy +feet, like a number of men carefully bearing an awkward object. She +listened with suspended breath while they passed. The footfalls seemed +to pound on her heart. Slowly, slowly they went, unnatural and measured. +They were gone now, but she still heard them. The crashing of her mother +into bed followed with a deep sigh. The long fall of a wave on the shore +was audible. Two things contended in her stilled brain--the mysterious +feeling of desire and her mother's advice. They were separate and +fought, yet they were strangely incomprehensibly joined. + + + + +IV + + +In the morning Mrs. Condon, with a very late breakfast-tray in bed, had +regained her usual cheerful manner. "The truth is," she told Linda, "I'm +glad that Jasper man has gone. He had no idea of discretion; tired of +them anyhow." Linda radiated happiness. This was the mother she loved +above all others. Her mind turned a little to the man who had talked to +her the night before. She wondered if he were better. His thin blanched +face, his eyes gleaming uncomfortably in smudges, recurred to her. +Perhaps he'd be down by the cigar-stand again. She went, presently, to +see, but the row of chairs was empty. + +However, the neglected thick brown-covered magazine was still on the +ledge by which he had been sitting. There was a name on it, and while, +ordinarily, she couldn't read handwriting, this was so clear and +regular, but minutely small, that she was able to spell it out--Howard +Welles. + +It disappointed her not to find him; at lunch she observed nearly every +one present, but still he was lost. He wasn't listening to the music +after dinner, nor below. A deep sense of disappointment grew within her. +Linda wanted to see him, hear him talk; at times a sharp hurt in the +shoulder he had grasped brought him back vividly. The next day it was +the same, and finally, diffidently, she approached the hotel desk. A +clerk she knew, Mr. Fiske, was rapidly sorting mail, and she waited +politely until he had finished. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"I found this down-stairs," she said, giving him the magazine. "Perhaps +he'll want it." Mr. Fiske looked at the written name, and then glanced +sharply at her. "No," he told her brusquely, "he won't want it." He +turned away with the magazine and left Linda standing irresolutely. She +wanted to ask if Mr. Welles were still at the Boscombe; if the latter +didn't want the magazine she'd love to have it, Linda couldn't tell why. +But the clerk went into the treasurer's office and she was forced to +move away. + +Later, lingering inexplicably about the spot where she had heard so +many bewildering words, a very different man spoke to her. He, Linda +observed, was smoking a cigar, a good one, she was certain. He was +smallish and had a short bristling mustache and head partly bald. +His shoes were very shiny and altogether he had a look of prosperity. +"Hello, cutie!" he cried, capturing her arm. She responded listlessly. +The other produced a crisp dollar bill. "Do you see the chocolates in +that case?" he said, indicating the cigar-stand. "Well, get the best. If +they cost more, let me know. Our financial rating is number one." Linda +answered that she didn't think she cared for any. "All right," the man +agreed; "sink the note in the First National Ladies Bank, if you know +where that is." + +He engineered her unwillingly onto a knee. "How's papa?" he demanded. "I +suppose he will be here Saturday to take his family through the stores?" + +She replied with dignity, "There is only my mother and me." + +At this information he exclaimed "Ah!" and touched his mustache with a +diminutive gold-backed brush from a leather case. "That's more than I +have," he confided to her; "there is only myself. Isn't that sad? You +must be sorry for the lonely old boy." + +She wasn't. Probably he, too, had a wife somewhere; men were beastly. "I +guess your mother wants a little company at times herself?" + +Linda, straining away from him, replied, "Oh, dear, no; there are just +packs of gentlemen whenever she likes. But she is tired of them all." +She escaped and he settled his waistcoat. + +"You mustn't run away," he admonished her; "nice children don't. Your +mother didn't bring you up like that, I'm sure. She wouldn't like it." + +Linda hesitated, plainly conveying the fact that, if she were to wait, +he would have to say something really important. + +"Just you two," he deliberated; "Miss and Mrs. Jones." + +"Not at all," Linda asserted shortly; "our name is Condon." + +"I wonder if you'd tell her this," he went on: "a gentleman's here by +himself named Bardwell, who has seen her and admires her a whole lot. +Tell her he's no young sprig but he likes a good time all the better. +Dependable, too. Remember that, cutie. And he wouldn't presume if he had +a short pocket. He knows class when he sees it." + +"It won't do any good," Linda assured him in her gravest manner. "She +said only this morning she was sick of them." + +"That was before dinner," he replied cheerfully. "Things look different +later in the day. You do what I tell you." + +All this Linda dutifully repeated. Her mother was at the dressing-table, +rubbing cream into her cheeks, and she paused, surveying her reflection +in the mirror. "He was smoking a big cigar," Linda added. The other +laughed. "What a sharp little thing you are!" she exclaimed. "A body +ought to be careful what they tell you." She wiped off the cream and +rubbed a soft pinkish powder into her skin. + +"He saw me, did he?" she apparently addressed the glass. "Admired me a +whole lot. Was he nice, Linda?" she turned. "Were his clothes right? You +must point him out to me to-night. But do it carefully, darling. No one +should notice. Your mother isn't on the shelf yet; she can hold her own, +even in the Boscombe, against the whole barnyard." + +Linda, at the entrance to the dining-room, whispered, "There he is." But +immediately Mr. Bardwell was smiling and speaking to them. + +"I had a delightful conversation with your little girl to-day," he told +Mrs. Condon; "such a pretty child and well brought up." + +"And good, too," her mother replied; "not a minute's trouble. The common +sense of the grown; you'd never believe it." + +"Why shouldn't I?" he protested gallantly. "Every reason to." Mrs. +Condon blushed becomingly. + +"She had to make up for a lot," she sighed. + +An hour or more after dinner Mrs. Randall stopped Linda in the hall +beyond the music. "Mama out?" she inquired brightly. "I thought Mr. +Jasper left this morning?" + +Linda told her that Mr. Jasper had gone; she added nothing else. + +"I must look at the register," Mrs. Randall continued; "I really must." + +Obeying an uncontrollable impulse Linda half cried, "I'd like to see you +riding on a leopard!" A flood of misery enveloped her, and she hurried +up to the silence of her mother's deserted room. + + + + +V + + +It was on her fourteenth birthday that Linda noticed a decided change +in her mother; a change, unfortunately, that most of all affected +the celebrated good humors. In the first place Mrs. Condon spent +an increasingly large part of the day before the mirror of her +dressing-table, but without any proportionate pleasure; or, if there +was a proportion kept, it exhibited the negative result of a growing +annoyance. "God knows why they all show at once," she exclaimed +discontentedly, seated--as customary--before the eminently truthful +reflection of a newly discovered set of lines. "I'm not old enough to +begin to look like a hag." + +"Oh, mother," Linda protested, shocked, "you mustn't say such horrid +things about yourself. Why, you're perfectly lovely, and you don't seem +a speck older than you did years ago." + +The other, biting her full underlip at the unwelcome fact in turn biting +a full lower lip back at her, made no reply. Linda lingered for a moment +at her mother's ruffled pink shoulders; then, with a sigh, she turned to +the reception-room of their small suite at the Hotel Gontram. It was a +somber chamber furnished in red plush, with a complication of shades and +gray-white net curtains at long windows and a deep green carpet. There +was a fireplace, with a grate, supported by varnished oak pillars and +elaborate mantel and glass, a glittering reddish center-table with a +great many small odd shelves below, a desk with sheaves of hotel writing +paper and the telephone. + +The Gontram was entirely different from the hotels at the lakes or +seashore or in the South. It was a solid part of a short block west of +Fifth Avenue in the middle of the city. Sherry's filled a corner with +its massive stone bulk and glimpses of dining-rooms with glittering +chandeliers and solemn gaiety, then impressive clubs and wide entrances +under heavy glass and metal, tall porters in splendid livery, succeeded +each other to the Hotel Gontram and the dull thunder of the elevated +trains beyond. + +The revolving door, through which Linda sedately permitted herself to +be moved, opened into a high space of numerous columns and benches, +writing-desks and palms. At the back was the white room where, usually +alone, she had breakfast, while the dining-room, discreetly lighted, +was at the left. It was more interesting here than, for example, at +the Boscombe; people were always coming in or going, and there were +quantities of men. She watched them arriving with shoals of leather bags +in the brisk care of the bellboys, disappear into the elevator, and, if +it was evening, come down in dinner coats with vivid silk scarfs folded +over their white shirts. + +The women were perpetually in street clothes or muffled in satin wraps; +Linda only regarded them when they were exceptional. Usually she was +intent on the men. It often happened that they returned her frank gaze +with a smile, or stopped to converse with her. Sometimes it was an actor +with a face dryly pink like a woman's from make-up; they were familiar +and pinched her cheeks, calling her endearing names in conscious echoing +voices as if they were quite hollow within. Then there were simply +business men, who never appeared to take off their derby hats, and spoke +to her of their little girls at home. She was entirely at ease with the +latter--so many of her mother's friends were similar--and critically +valued the details of their dress, the cigar-cases with or without gold +corners, the watch-chains with jeweled insignia, the cuff-links and +embroidered handkerchiefs. + +If her mother approached while Linda was so engaged the elder would +linger with a faint smile, at which, now, the girl was conscious of a +growing impatience. She'd rise with dignity and, if possible, escape +with her parent from florid courtesies. This sense of annoyance +oppressed her, too, in the dining-room, where her mother, a cocktail in +her hand, would engage in long cheerful discussions with the captains or +waiters. Other women, Linda observed, spoke with complete indifference +and their attention on the _carte de jour_. Of course it was much more +friendly to be interested in the servants' affairs--they told her mother +about their wives and the number of their children, the difficulties of +bringing both ends together, and served her with the promptest care; but +instinctively Linda avoided any but the most formal contact. + +She had to insist, as well, on paying the tips; for Mrs. Condon, her +sympathies engaged, was quite apt to leave on the table a five-dollar +bill or an indiscriminate heap of silver. "You are a regular little +Jew," she would reply lightly to Linda's protests. This, the latter +thought, was unfair; for the only Jew she knew, Mr. Moses Feldt, an +acquaintance of their present period in New York, was quite the most +generous person she knew. "Certainly you don't take after your mama." + +After she said this she always paused with tight lips. It was charged +with the assumption that, while Linda didn't resemble her, she did +very much a mysterious and unfavorably regarded personage. Her father, +probably. More and more Linda wondered about him. He was dead, she knew, +but that, she began to see, was no reason for the positive prohibition +to mention him at all. Perhaps he had done something dreadful, with +money, and had disgraced them all. Yet she was convinced that this was +not so. + +She had heard a great many uncomplimentary words applied to husbands, +most of which she had been unable to comprehend; and she speculated +blankly on them in her mother's connection. On the whole the women +agreed that they were remarkably stupid and transparent, they protested +that they understood and guided every move husbands made; and this +surely gave her father no opportunity for independent crime. She was +held from questioning not so much by her mother's command--at times she +calmly and successfully ignored that--as from its unfortunate effect on +the elder. + +Mrs. Condon would burn with a generalized anger that sank to a +despondency fortified by the brandy flask. Straining embraces and tears, +painful to support, would follow, or more unbearable silliness. The old +difficulties with giggling or sympathetic chambermaid;--Linda couldn't +decide which was worse--then confronted her with the necessity for rigid +lies, misery, and the procuring of sums of money from the bag in the +top drawer. Altogether, and specially with the fresh difficulties of +her mother's unaccountable irritation and apprehensions, things were +frightfully complicated. + +It was late afternoon in November, and the electric lights were on; +however, they were lighted when they rose, whenever they were in the +rooms, for it was always gloomy if not positively dark; the bedroom +looked into a deep exterior well and the windows of the other chamber +opened on an uncompromising blank wall. Yet Linda, now widely learned in +such settings, rather liked her present situation. They had occupied the +same suite before, for one thing; and going back into it had given her a +sense of familiarity in so much that always shifted. + +Linda, personally, had changed very little; she was taller than four +years before, but not a great deal; she was, perhaps, more graceful--her +movements had become less sudden--more assured, the rapidly maturing +qualities of her mind made visible; and she had gained a surprising +repose. + +Now, for example, she sat in a huge chair cushioned with black leather +and thought, with a frowning brow, of her mother. It was clear that the +latter was obviously worried about--to put it frankly--her face. Her +figure, she repeatedly asserted, could be reasoned with; she had always +been reconciled to a certain jolly stoutness, but her face, the +lines that appeared about her eyes overnight, fairly drove her to hot +indiscreet tears. She had been to see about it, Linda knew; and returned +from numerous beauty-parlors marvelously rejuvenated--for the evening. + +She had been painted, enameled, vibrated, massaged; she had had electric +treatment, rays and tissue builders; and once she had been baked. To-day +the toilet table would be loaded with milkweed, cerates and vanishing +cream; tomorrow they would all be swept away, given to delighted +chambermaids, while Mrs. Condon declared that, when all was said, cold +water and a rough towel was nature's way. + +This afternoon, apparently everything, including hope, had failed. She +was as cross as cross. From the manner in which she spoke it might have +been Linda's fault. The worst of it was that even the latter saw that +nothing could be done. Her mother was growing--well, a little tired in +appearance. Swift tears gathered in Linda's eyes. She hadn't been quite +truthful in that reassuring speech of hers. She set herself to the +examination of various older women with whom she had more or less lately +come in contact. How had they regarded and met the loss of whatever good +looks they had possessed? + +It was terribly mixed up, but, as she thought about it, it seemed to her +that the world of women was divided into two entirely different groups, +the ones men liked, and who had such splendid parties; and the ones +who sat together and gossiped in sharp lowered voices. She hoped +passionately that her mother would not become one of the latter for a +long long while. But eventually it seemed that there was no escape +from the circle of brilliantly dressed creatures with ruined faces who +congregated in the hotels and whispered and nodded in company until they +went severally to bed. + +The great difference between one and the other, of course, was the favor +of men. Their world revolved about that overwhelming fact. Her mother +had informed her of this on a hundred occasions and in countless ways; +but more by her actions, her present wretchedness, than by speech. It +was perfectly clear to Linda that nothing else mattered. She was even +beginning, in a vague way, to think of it in connection with herself; +but still most of her preoccupation was in her mother. She decided +gravely that a great deal, yet, could be done. For instance, lunch +to-day: + +Her mother had given her a birthday celebration at Henri's, the famous +confectioner but a door or two from their hotel, and at the end, when +a plate of the most amazing and delightful little cakes had been set on +the table, the elder had eaten more than half. Afterwards she had sworn +ruefully at her lack of character, begging Linda--in a momentary return +of former happy companionship--never to let her make such a silly pig +of herself again. Then she got so tired, Linda continued her mental +deliberations; if she could only rest, go away from cities and resorts +for a number of months, the lines in turn would soon vanish. + +The elder moved impatiently, with a fretful exclamation, in the inner +room; from outside came the subdued dull ceaseless clamor of New York. +Formerly it had frightened Linda; but her dread had become a wordless +excitement at the thought of so much just beyond the windows; her hands +grew cold and her heart suddenly pounded, destroying the vicarious image +of her mother. + + + + +VI + + +"I wish now I'd been different," Mrs. Condon said, standing in the door. +Her dress was not yet on, but her underthings were fully as elaborate +and shimmering as any gown could hope to be. "And above everything else, +I am sorry for the kind of mother you've had." This was so unexpected, +the other's voice was so unhappy, that Linda was startled. She hurried +across the room and laid a slim palm on her mother's full bare arm. +"Don't say that," Linda begged, distressed; "you've been the best in the +world." + +"You know nothing about it," the elder returned, momentarily seated, her +hands clasped on her full silken lap. "But perhaps it's not too late. +You ought to go to a good school, where you'd learn everything, but +principally what a bad thoughtless mama you have." + +"I shouldn't stay a second in a place where they said that," Linda +declared. A new apprehension touched her. "You're not really thinking of +sending me away!" she cried. "Why, you simply could not get along. You +know you couldn't! The maids never do up your dresses right; and you'd +be so lonely in the mornings you would nearly die." + +"That's true," Mrs. Condon admitted wearily. "I would expire; but I was +thinking of you--you're only beginning life; and the start you'll get +with me is all wrong. Or, anyway, most people think so." + +"They are only jealous." + +"Will you go into the closet, darling, and pour out a teeny little sip +from my flask; mama feels a thousand years old this evening." + +Returning with the silver cup of the flask half full of pale pungent +brandy Linda could scarcely keep the tears from spilling over her +cheeks. She had never before felt so sad. Her mother hastily drank, +the stinging odor was transferred to her lips; and there was a palpable +recovery of her customary spirit. + +"I don't know what gets over me," she asserted. "I'm certain, from what +I've heard of them, that you wouldn't be a bit better off in one of +those fashionable schools for girls. Woman, young and older, were never +meant to be a lot together in one place. It's unnatural. They don't like +each other, ever, and it's all hypocritical and nasty. You will get more +from life, yes, and me. I'm honest, too honest for my own good, if the +truth was known." + +She rose and unconsciously strayed to the mirror over the mantel where +she examined her countenance in absorbed detail. + +"My skin is getting soft like putty," she remarked aloud to herself. +"The thing is, I've had my time and don't want to pay for it. Blondes +go quicker than dark women; you ought to last a long while, Linda." Mrs. +Condon had turned, and her tone was again almost complaining, almost +ill-natured. Linda considered this information with a troubled face. It +was quite clear that it made her mother cross. "I've seen men stop and +look at you right now, too, and you nothing more than a slip fourteen +years old. Of course, when I was fifteen I had a proposal; but I was +very forward; and somehow you're different--so dam' serious." + +She couldn't help it, Linda thought, if she was serious; she really had +a great deal to think about, their income among other things. If she +didn't watch it, pay the bills every three months when it arrived, her +mother would never have a dollar in the gold mesh bag. Then, lately, the +dresses the elder threatened to buy were often impossible; Linda learned +this from the comments she heard after the wearing of evening affairs +sent home against her earnest protests. They were, other women more +discreetly gowned had agreed, ridiculous. + +Linda calmly realized that in this her judgment was superior to her +mother's. In other ways, too, she felt she was really the elder; and her +dismay at the possibility of going away to school had been mostly made +up of the realization of how much her mother's well-being was dependent +on her. + +Mrs. Condon, finishing her dressing in the bedroom, at times called out +various injunctions, general or immediate. "Tell them to have a taxi +at the door for seven sharp. Have you talked to that little girl in the +black velvet?" Linda hadn't and made a mental note to avoid her more +pointedly in the future. "Get out mother's carriage boots from the +hall closet; no, the others--you know I don't wear the black with coral +stockings. They come off and the fur sticks to my legs. It will be very +gay to-night; I hope to heaven Ross doesn't take too much again." Linda +well remembered that the last time Ross had taken too much her mother's +Directoire wrap had been completely torn in half. "There, it is all +nonsense about my fading; I look as well as I ever did." + +Mrs. Condon stood before her daughter like a large flame-pink tulle +flower. Her bright gold hair was constrained by black gauze knotted +behind, her bare shoulders were like powdered rosy marble and the +floating skirts gathered in a hand showed marvelously small satin-tied +carriage boots. Indeed Linda's exclamation of delight was entirely +frank. She had never seen her mother more radiant. The cunningly applied +rouge, the enhanced brilliancy of her long-lashed eyes, had perfectly +the illusion of unspent beauty. + +"Do stay down-stairs after dinner and play," the elder begged. "And if +you want to go to the theatre, ask Mr. Bendix, at the desk, to send +you with that chauffeur we have had so much. I positively forbid your +leaving the hotel else. It's a comfort after all, that you are serious. +Kiss mama--" + +However, she descended with her mother in the elevator; there was a more +public caress; and the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed Linda +at a small table against the wall. There she had clams--she adored +iced clams--creamed shrimps and oysters with potatoes _bordure_, +alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte cream with black walnuts. +After this she sedately instructed the captain what to sign on the back +of the dinner check--Linda Condon, room five hundred and seven--placed +thirty-five cents beside the finger-bowl for the waiter, and made her +way out to the news stand and the talkative girl who had it in charge. +Exhausting the possibilities of gossip, and deciding not to go out to +the theatre--in spite of the news girl's exciting description of a play +called "The New Sin"--she was walking irresolutely through the high +gilded and marble assemblage space when, unfortunately, she was captured +by Mr. Moses Feldt. + + + + +VII + + +He led her to a high-backed lounge against the wall, where, seated +on its extreme edge, he gazed silently at her with an expression of +sentimental concern. Mr. Moses Feldt was a short round man, bald but +for a fluffy rim of pale hair, and with the palest imaginable eyes in +a countenance perpetually flushed by the physical necessity of +accommodating his rotundity to awkward edges and conditions. As usual +he was dressed with the nicest care--a band of white linen laid in the +opening of his waistcoat, his scarf ornamented by a pear-shaped pearl +on a diamond finished stem; his cloth-topped varnished black shoes +glistened, while his short fat fingers clasped a prodigious unlighted +cigar. At last, in a tone exactly suited to his gaze, he exclaimed: + +"So that naughty mama has gone out again and deserted Moses and her +little Linda!" In what way her mother had deserted Mr. Feldt she failed +to understand. Of course he wanted to marry them--the comprehensive +phrase was his own--but that didn't include him in whatever they did. +Principally it made a joke for their private entertainment. Mrs. Condon +would mimic his eager manner, "Stella, let me take you both home where +you'll have the best in the land," And, "Ladies like you ought to have a +loving protection." Linda would laugh in her cool bell-like manner, and +her mother add a satirical comment on the chance any Moses Feldt had of +marrying her. + +Linda at once found him ridiculous and a being who forced a slighting +warmth of liking. His appearance was preposterous, the ready emotion +often too foolish for words; but underneath there was a--a goodness, a +mysterious quality that stirred her heart to recognition. Certain rare +things in life and experience affected her like that memory of an old +happiness. She could never say what they might be, they came at +the oddest times and by the most extraordinary means; but at their +occurrence she would thrill for a moment as if in response to a sound of +music. + +It was, for example, absurd that Mr. Moses Feldt, who was a Jew, should +make her feel like that, but he did. And all the while that she +was disagreeable to him, or mocking him behind his back, she was as +uncomfortable and "horrid" as possible. While this fact, of course, only +served to make her horrider still. At present she adopted the manner of +a patience that nothing could quite exhaust; she was polite and formal, +relentlessly correct in position. + +Mr. Moses Feldt, the cigar in his grasp, pressed a hand to the probable +region of his heart. "You don't know how I think of you," he protested, +tears in his eyes; "just the idea of you exposed to anything at all in +hotels keeps me awake nights. Now it's a drunk, or a fresh feller on the +elevator, or--" + +"It's nice of you," Linda said, "but you needn't worry. No one would +dare to bother us. No one ever has." + +"You wouldn't know it if they did," he replied despondently, "at your +age. And then your mother is so trustful and pleasant. Take those +parties where she is so much--roof frolics and cocoanut groves and +submarine cafes; they don't come to any good. Rowdy." Linda studied +him coldly; if he criticized them further she would leave. He mopped a +shining brow with a large colorful silk handkerchief. "It throws me into +a sweat," he admitted. + +"Really, Mr. Feldt, you mustn't bother," she told him in one of her few +impulses of friendliness. "You see, we are very experienced." He nodded +without visible happiness at this truth. "I'm a jackass!" he cried. +"Judith tells me that all the time. If you could only see my daughters," +he continued with a new vigor; "such lovely girls as they are. One dark +like you and the other fair as a daisy. Judith and Pansy. And my home +that darling mama made before she died." The handkerchief was again in +evidence. + +"Women and girls are funny. I can't get you there and not for nothing +will Judith make a step. It may be pride but it seems to me such +nonsense. I guess I'm old-fashioned and love's old-fashioned. Homes have +gone out of style with the rest. It's all these restaurants and roofs +now, yes, and studios. I tell the girls to stay away from them and from +artists and so on. I don't encourage them at the apartment--a big lump +of a feller with platinum bracelets on his wrists. What kind of a man +would that be! I'd like to know who'd buy goods from him. + +"Sometimes, I'm sorry I got a lot of money, but it made mama happy. When +she laid there at the last sick and couldn't live, I said, 'Oh, if you +only won't leave me I'll give you gold to eat.'" He was so moved, his +face so red, that Linda grew acutely embarrassed. People were looking +at them. She rose stiffly but, in spite of her effort to escape him, he +caught both her hands in his: + +"You say I'm an old idiot like Judith," he begged. This Linda declined +to do. And, "Ask your mother if you won't come to dinner with the girls +and me, cozy and at home--just once." + +"I'm afraid it will do no good," she admitted; "but I'll try." She +realized that he was about to kiss her and moved quickly back. "I am +almost afraid of you," he told her; "you're so distant and elegant. +Judith and Pansy would get on with you first rate. I'll telephone +tomorrow, in the afternoon. If the last flowers I sent you came I never +heard of it." + +She thanked him appropriately for the roses and stood, erect and +impersonal, as a man in the hotel livery helped him into a coat. Mr. +Moses Feldt waved the still unlighted cigar at her and disappeared +through the rotating door to the street. + +She gave a half-affected sigh of relief. Couldn't he see that her mother +would never marry him. At the same time the strange thrill touched her; +the sense of his absurdity vanished and she no longer remembered him +perched like a painted rubber ball on the edge of the lounge. + +In the somber red plush and varnished wood of the reception-room of +their suite he seemed again charming. Perhaps it was because he, +too, adored her mother. That wasn't the reason. The familiar rare joy +lingered. It seemed now as though she were to capture and understand it +... there was the vibration of music; and then, as always, she felt at +once sad and brave. But, in spite of her old effort to the contrary, the +feeling died away. Some day it would be clear to her; in the meanwhile +Mr. Moses Feldt became once more only ridiculous. + + + + +VIII + + +In the morning she was dressed and had returned from breakfast before +her mother stirred. The latter moved sharply, brought an arm up over her +head, and swore. It was a long while before she got up or spoke again, +and Linda never remembered her in a worse temper. When, finally, +she came into the room where the breakfast-tray was laid, Linda was +inexpressibly shocked--all that her mother had dreaded about her +appearance had come disastrously true. Her face was hung with shadows +like smudges of dirt and her eyes were netted with lines. + +Examining the dishes with distaste she told Linda that positively she +could slap her for letting them bring up orange-juice. "How often must +I explain to you that it freezes my fingers." Linda replied that she +had repeated this in the breakfast-room and perhaps they had the wrong +order. Neither her mother nor she said anything more until Mrs. Condon +had finished her coffee and started a second cigarette. Then Linda +related something of Mr. Moses Feldt's call on the evening before. "He +cried right into his handkerchief," she said, "until I thought I should +sink." + +Mrs. Condon eyed her daughter speculatively. "Now if you were only four +years older," she declared, "it would be a good thing. He was simply +born to be a husband." Horror filled Linda at the other's implication. +"Yes," the elder insisted; "you couldn't do better; except, perhaps, +for those girls of his. But then you'd have no trouble making them +miserable. It's time to talk to you seriously about marriage." The smoke +from the cigarette eddied in a gray veil across her unrefreshed face. + +"You're old for your age, Linda; your life has made you that; and, like +I said last night, it is rather better than not. Well, for you marriage, +and soon as possible, is the proper thing. Mind, I have never said a +word against it; only what suits one doesn't suit another. Where it +wouldn't be anything more than an old ladies' home to me you need it +early and plenty. You are too intense. That doesn't go in the world. Men +don't like it. They want their pleasure and comfort without strings tied +to them; the intensity has to be theirs. + +"What you must get through your head is that love--whatever it is--and +marriage are two different things, and if you are going to be successful +they must be kept separate. You can't do anything with a man if you love +him; but then you can't do anything with him if he doesn't love you. +That's the whole thing in a breath. I am not crying down love, either; +only I don't want you to think it is the bread and butter while it's +nothing more than those little sweet cakes at Henri's. + +"Now any girl who marries a poor man or for love--they are the same +thing--is a fool and deserves what she gets. No one thanks her for it, +him least of all; because if she does love him it is only to make them +miserable. She's always at him--where did he go and why did he stay so +long, and no matter what he says she knows it's a lie. More times than +not she's right, too. I can't tell you too often--men don't want to be +loved, they like to be flattered and flattered and then flattered again. +You'd never believe how childish they are. + +"Make them think they're it and don't give too much--that's the secret. +Above all else don't be easy on them. Don't say 'all right, darling, +next spring will do as well for a new suit.' Get it then and let him +worry about paying for it, if worry he must. If they don't give it to +you some one smarter will wear it. But I started to talk about getting +married. + +"Choose a Moses Feldt, who will always be grateful to you, and keep him +at it. They are so easy to land it's a kind of shame, too. Perhaps I am +telling you this too soon, but I don't want any mistakes. Well, pick +out your Moses--and mama will help you there--and suddenly, at the right +time, show him that you can be affectionate; surprise him with it and +you so staid and particular generally. Don't overdo it, promise more +than you ever give-- + +"In the closet, dearie, just a little. That's a good girl. Mama's so +dry." She rose, the silver cup of the flask in her hand, and moved +inevitably to the mirror. "My hair's a sight," she remarked; "all +strings. I believe I'll get a permanent wave. They say it lasts for +six months or more, till the ends grow out. Makes a lot of it, too, and +holds the front together. If you've ever had dye in your hair, I hear, +it will break off like grass." + +Linda pondered over what she had been told of love and marriage; on the +whole the exposition had been unsatisfactory. The latter she was able to +grasp, but her mother had admitted an inability exactly to fix love. +One fact, apparently, was clear--it was a nuisance and a hindrance to +happiness, or rather to success. Love upset things. Still she had the +strongest objection possible to living forever with a man like Mr. +Moses Feldt. At once all that she had hoped for from life grew flat and +uninteresting. She had no doubt of her mother's correctness and wisdom; +the world was like that; she must make the best of it. + +There was some telephoning, inquiries, and she heard the elder make an +appointment with a hair-dresser for three that afternoon. She wondered +what it would be like to have your hair permanently waved and hoped +that she would see it done. This, too, she realized, was a part of the +necessity of always considering men--they liked your hair to be wavy. +Hers was as straight and stupid as possible. She, in turn, examined +herself in a mirror: the black bang fell exactly to her eyebrows, her +face had no color other than the carnation of her lips and her deep +blue eyes. She moved away and critically studied her figure; inches and +inches too thin, she decided. Undoubtedly her mother was right, and she +must marry at the first opportunity--if she could find a man, a rich +man, who was willing. + +Her thoughts returned vaguely to the mystery, the nuisance, of love. +Surely she had heard something before, immensely important, about it, +and totally different from all her mother had said. Her mind was filled +with the fantastic image of a forest, of dangers, and a fat china figure +with curled plumes, a nodding head, that brushed her with fear and +disgust. A shuddering panic took possession of her, flashes burned +before her eyes, and she ran gasping to the perfumed soft reassurances +of her mother. + + + + +IX + + +In a recurrence of her surprising concern of the day before Mrs. Condon +declined to leave her dearest Linda alone; and, their arms caught +together in a surging affection, they walked down Fifth Avenue toward +the hairdresser's. There was a diffused gray sparkle of sunlight--it +was early for the throngs--through which they passed rapidly to the +accompaniment of a rapid eager chatter. Linda wore a deep smooth camel's +hair cape, over which her intense black hair poured like ink, and her +face was shaded by a dipping green velvet hat. Her mother, in one of +the tightly cut suits she affected, had never been more like a perfect +companion. + +They saw, in the window of a store for men, a set of violent purple +wool underwear, and barely escaped hysterics at the thought of Mr. Moses +Feldt in such a garb. They giggled idiotically at the spectacle of a +countryman fearfully making the sharp descent from the top of a lurching +omnibus. And then, when they had reached the place of Mrs. Condon's +appointment, stopped at the show of elaborately waved hair on wax heads +and chose which, probably, would resemble the elder and which, in a very +short while now, Linda. + +There was an impressive interior, furnished in gray panels and silvery +wood; and the young woman at the desk was more surprisingly waved than +anything they had yet seen. M. Joseph would be ready almost immediately; +and in the meanwhile Mrs. Condon could lay aside her things in +preparation for the hair to be washed. She did this while Linda followed +every movement with the deepest interest. + +At the back of the long room was a succession of small alcoves, each +with an important-looking chair and mirror and shelves, a white basin, +water-taps and rubber tubes. Settled, in comfort, Mrs. Condon's hair was +spread out in a bright metal tray fastened to the back of the chair, and +the attendant, a moist tired girl in a careless waist, sprayed the short +thick gold-colored strands. + +"My," she observed, "what some wouldn't give for your shade! Never been +touched, I can see, either. A lady comes in with real Titian, but yours +is more select. It positively is Lillian Russell." While she talked +her hands sped with incredible rapidity and skill. "The gentlemen don't +notice it; of course not; oh, no! There was a girl here, a true blonde, +but she didn't stay long--her own car, yes, indeed. Married her right +out of the establishment. There wasn't any nonsense to her. + +"So this is your little girl! I'd never have believed it. Not that she +hasn't a great deal of style, a great deal--almost, you might say, like +an Egyptian. In the movies last night; her all over. It's a type that +will need studying. Bertha Kalich. But for me--" + +Already, Linda saw, this part of the operation was done. The girl +wheeled into position a case that had a fan and ring of blue flickering +flames, and a cupped tube through which hot air was poured over her +mother's head. M. Joseph strutted in, a small carefully dressed man with +a diminutive pointed gray beard and formal curled mustache. He spoke +with what Linda supposed was a French accent, and his manners, at least +to them, were beautiful. But because the girl had not put out the blue +flames quickly enough he turned to her with a voice of quivering rage. + +It was so unexpected, in the middle of his bowing and smooth assurances, +that Linda was startled, and had to think about him all over. The result +of this was a surprising dislike; she hated, even, to see him touch her +mother, as he unnecessarily did in directing them into the enclosure for +the permanent wave. + +The place itself filled her with the faint horror of instruments and the +unknown. Above the chair where Mrs. Condon now sat there was a circle +in the ceiling like the base of a chandelier and hanging down from it +on twisted green wires were a great number of the strangest things +imaginable: they were as thick as her wrist, but round, longer and +hollow, white china inside and covered with brown wrapping. The wires +of each, she discovered, led over a little wheel and down again to +a swinging clock-like weight. In addition to this there were strange +depressing handles on the wall by a dial with a jiggling needle and +clearly marked numbers. + +The skill of the girl who had washed her mother's hair, however, was +slight compared with M. Joseph's dexterity. The comb flashed in his +white narrow hands; in no time at all every knot was urged out into a +shining smoothness. "Just the front?" he inquired. Not waiting for +Mrs. Condon's reply, he detached a strand from the mass over her brow, +impaled it on a hairpin, while he picked up what might have been a thick +steel knitting-needle with one end fastened in the middle of a silver +quarter. The latter, it developed, had a hole in it, through which he +drew the strand of hair, and then wrapped it with an angry tightness +about the long projection. + +At this exact moment a new girl, but tired and moist, appeared, took a +hank of white threads from a dressing-table, and tied that separate lock +firmly. This, Linda counted, was repeated fifteen times; and when it was +accomplished she was unable to repress a nervous laughter. Really, her +mother looked too queer for words: the long rigid projections stood out +all over her head like--like a huge pincushion; no, it was a porcupine. +Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain recognition of her daughter's mirth. + +Then Linda's attention followed M. Joseph to a table against a +partition, where he secured a white cotton strip from a film of them +soaking in a shallow tray, took up some white powder on the blade of +a dessert knife and transferred it to the strip. This he wrapped and +wrapped about the hair fastened on a spindle, tied it in turn, and +dragged down one of the brown objects on wires, which, to Linda's +great astonishment, fitted precisely over the cotton-bound hair. Again, +fifteen times, M. Joseph did this, fastening each connection with the +turn of a screw. When so much was accomplished her mother's hair, it +seemed, had grown fast to the ceiling in a tangle of green ends. It was +the most terrifying spectacle Linda had ever witnessed. Obscure thoughts +of torture, of criminals executed by electricity, froze her in a set +apprehension. + +The hair-dresser stepped over to the dials on the wall, and, with a +sharp comprehensive glance at his apparatus, moved a handle as far as it +would go. Nothing immediately happened, and Linda gave a relaxing sigh +of relief. M. Joseph, however, became full of a painful attention. + + + + +X + + +He brought into view an unsuspected tube, with a cone of paper at its +end, and bent over her mother, directing a stream of cold air against +her head. "How do you feel?" he asked, with, Linda noticed, a startling +loss of his first accent. Mrs. Condon so far felt well enough. +Then, before Linda's startled gaze, every single one of the fifteen +imprisoning tubes began to steam with an extraordinary vigor; not only +did they steam, like teapots, but drops of water formed and slowly slid +over her mother's face. If the process appeared weird at the beginning, +now it was utterly fantastic. + +The little white vapor spurts played about Mrs. Condon's dripping +countenance; they increased rather than diminished; actually it +resembled a wrecked locomotive she had once seen. "How are you?" M. +Joseph demanded nervously. "Is it hot anywhere?" With a sudden gesture +she replied in a shaking voice, "Here." + +Instantly he was holding the paper cone with its cold air against her +scalp, and the heat was subdued. He glanced nervously at his watch, and +Mrs. Condon managed to ask, "How long?" + +"Twenty minutes." + +Dangerous as the whole proceeding seemed nothing really happened, and +Linda's fears gradually faded into a mere curiosity and interest. A +curtain hung across the door to the rest of the establishment, but it +had been brushed partly aside; and she could see, in the compartment +they had vacated, another man bending with waving irons over the +liberated mass of a woman's hair. He was very much like M. Joseph, but +he was younger and had only a dark scrap of mustache. As he caught up +the hair with a quick double twist he leaned very close to the woman's +face, whispering with an expression that never changed, an expression +like that of the wax heads in the show-case. He bent so low that Linda +was certain their cheeks had touched. She pondered at length over this, +gazing now at the man beyond and now at M. Joseph flitting with the +cold-air tube about her mother; wondering if, when she grew older, she +would like a hair-dresser's cheek against hers. Linda decided not. The +idea didn't shock her, the woman in the other space plainly liked +it; still she decided she wouldn't. A different kind of man, she told +herself, would be nicer. + +Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, unpleasant odor--the odor of +scorched hair; and she was absolutely rigid with horror at an agonized +cry from her mother. + +"It's burning me terribly," the latter cried. "Oh, I can't stand it. +Stop! Stop!" + +M. Joseph, as white as plaster, rushed to the wall and reversed the +handle, and Mrs. Condon started from the chair, her face now streaming +with actual tears; but before she could escape the man threw himself on +her shoulders. + +"You mustn't move," he whispered desperately, "you'll tear your hair +out. I tell you no harm's been done. Everything is all right. Please, +please don't cry like that. It will ruin my business. There are others +in the establishment. Stop!" he shook her viciously. + +Linda had risen, terrorized; and Mrs. Condon, with waving plucking +hands, was sobbing an appeal to be released. "My head, my head," she +repeated. "I assure you"--the man motioned to a pallid girl to hold her +in the chair. With a towel to protect his hand he undid a screw, +lifted off the cap and untwisted the cotton from a bound lock of hair; +releasing it, in turn, from the spindle it fell forward in a complete +corkscrew over Mrs. Condon's face. + +"Do you see!" he demanded. "Perfect. I give you my word they'll all be +like that. The cursed heat ran up on me," he added in a swift aside to +his assistant. "Has Mrs. Bellows gone? Who's still in the place? Here, +loose that binding ... thank God, that one is all right, too." + +Together they unfastened most of the connections, and a growing fringe +of long remarkable curls marked Mrs. Condon's pain-drawn and dabbled +face. Linda sobbed uncontrollably; but perhaps, after all, nothing +frightful had happened. Her poor mother! Then fear again tightened about +her heart at the perturbed expression that overtook the hair-dresser. +He was trying in vain to remove one of the caps. She caught enigmatic +words--"the borax, crystallized ... solid. It would take a plumber ... +have to go." + +The connection was immovable. Even in her suffering Mrs. Condon implored +M. Joseph to save her hair. Nothing, however, could be done; he admitted +it with pale lips. The thing might be chiseled off; in the end he tried +to force a release and the strand, with a renewal of Mrs. +Condon's agony--now, in the interest of her appearance, heroically +withstood--snapped short in the container. + +Rapidly recovering her vigor, she launched on a tirade against M. Joseph +and his permanent waving establishment--Linda had never before heard her +mother talk in such a loud brutal manner, nor use such heated unpleasant +words, and the girl was flooded with a wretched shame. Still another +lock, it was revealed, had been ruined, and crumbled to mere dust in its +owner's fingers. + +"The law will provide for you," she promised. + +"Your hair was dyed," the proprietor returned vindictively. "The girl +who washed it will testify. Every one is warned against the permanent if +their hair has been colored. So it was at your own risk." + +"My head's never been touched with dye," Mrs. Condon shrilly answered. +"You lying little ape. And well does that young woman know it. She +complimented me herself on a true blonde." The girl had, too, right +before Linda. + +"You ought to be thrashed out of the city." + +"Your money will be given back to you," M. Joseph told her. + +Outside they found a taxi, and sped back to their hotel. Above, Mrs. +Condon removed her hat; and, before the uncompromising mirror, studied +her wrecked hair--a frizzled vacancy was directly over her left +brow--and haggard face. When she finally turned to Linda, her manner, +her words, were solemn. + +"I'm middle-aged," she said. + +A dreary silence enveloped them sitting in the dark reception-room while +Mrs. Condon restlessly shredded unlighted cigarettes on the floor. She +had made no effort to repair the damages to her appearance, and when the +telephone bell sharply sounded, she reached out in a slovenly negligence +of manner. Linda could hear a blurred articulation and her mother +answering listlessly. The latter at last said: "Very well, at seven +then; you'll stop for us." She hung up the receiver, stared blankly at +Linda, and then went off into a harsh mirth. "Oh, my God!" she cried; +"the old ladies' home!" + + + + +XI + + +With her mother away on a wedding-trip with Mr. Moses Feldt, Linda was +suddenly projected into the companionship of his two daughters. One, +as he had said, was light, but a different fairness from Mrs. +Condon's--richly thick, like honey; while Judith, the elder, who must +have been twenty, was dark in skin, in everything but her eyes, which +were a contrasting ashen-violet. She spoke at once of Linda's flawless +whiteness: + +"A magnolia," she said, in a deliberate dark voice; "you are quite +a gorgeous child. Do you mind my saying that your clothes are rather +quaint? They aren't inevitable, and yours ought to be that." + +They were at lunch in the Feldt dining-room, an interior of heavy +ornately carved black wood, panels of Chinese embroidery in imperial +yellow, and a neutral mauve carpet. The effect, with glittering +iridescent pyramids of glass, massive frosted repousse silver, burnished +gold-plate and a wide table decoration of orchids and fern, was tropical +and intense. It was evident to Linda that the Feldts were very rich +indeed. + +The entire apartment resembled the dining-room, while the building +itself filled a whole city block, with a garden and fountains like an +elaborate public square. Linda, however, wasn't particularly impressed +by such show; she saw that Judith and Pansy had expected that of her; +but she was determined not to exhibit a surprise that would imply any +changes in her mother's and her condition. In addition, Linda calmly +took such surroundings for granted. Her primary conception of possible +existence was elegance; its necessity had so entered into her being that +it had departed from her consciousness. + +"I must take you to Lorice," Judith continued; "she will know better +than any one else what you ought to have. You seem terribly pure--at +first. But you're not a snowdrop; oh, no--something very rare in a +conservatory. Much better style than your mother." + +"I hope you won't mind Judith," Pansy put in; "she's always like that." +A silence followed in which they industriously dipped the leaves of +mammoth artichokes into a buttery sauce. Linda, as customary, said very +little, she listened with patient care to the others and endeavored to +arrive at conclusions. She liked Pansy, who was as warm and simple as +her father. Judith was harder to understand. She was absorbed in color +and music, and declared that ugliness gave her a headache at once. +Altogether, Linda decided, she was rather silly, especially about men; +and at times her emotions would rise beyond control until she wept in a +thin hysterical gasping. + +The room where, mostly, they sat was small, but with a high ceiling, +and hung in black, with pagoda-like vermilion chairs. The light, in the +evening, was subdued; and Pansy and Judith, in extremely clinging vivid +dresses, the former's hair piled high in an amber mass and Judith's +drawn severely across her ears, were lovely. Linda thought of the +tropical butterflies of the river Amazon, of orchids like those always +on the dining-room table. A miniature grand piano stood against the +drapery, and Judith often played. Linda learned to recognize some of +the composers. Pansy liked best the modern waltzes; Judith insisted that +Richard Strauss was incomparable; but Linda developed an overwhelming +preference for Gluck. The older girl insisted that this was an +affectation; for a while she tried to confuse Linda's knowledge; but +finally, playing the airs of "Orpheus and Eurydice," she admitted that +the latter was sincere. + +"They sound so cool," Linda said in a clear and decided manner. + +There was a man with them, and he shook his head in a mock sadness. +"So young and yet so formal. If, with the rest, you had Judith's +temperament, you would be the most irresistible creature alive. For see, +my dear child, as it is you stir neither tenderness nor desire; you are +remote and perfect, and faintly wistful. I can't imagine being human or +even comfortable with you about. Then, too, you have too much wisdom." + +"She is frightful," Pansy agreed; "she's never upset nor her hair a +sight; and, above all else, Linda won't tell you a thing." + +"Some day," Judith informed them from the rippling whisper of the piano, +"she will be magnificently loved." + +"Certainly," the man continued; "but what will Linda, Linda Condon, give +in return?" + +"It's a mistake to give much," Linda said evenly. + +"No, no, no!" Judith cried. "Give everything; spend every feeling, every +nerve." + +"You are remarkable, of course; almost no women have the courage of +their emotions." His name was Reynold Chase, a long thin grave young +man in a dinner coat, who wrote brilliant and successful comedies. "Yet +Linda isn't parsimonious." He turned to her. "Just what are you? What do +you think of love?" + +"I haven't thought about it much," she replied slowly. "I'm not sure +that I know what it means. At least it hasn't anything to do with +marriage--" + +"Ah!" he interrupted her. + +Her usually orderly mind grew confused; it eddied as though with the +sound of the piano. "It is not marriage," she vaguely repeated her +mother's instruction. Reynold Chase supported her. + +"That destroys it," he asserted. "This love is as different as possible +from the ignominious impulse eternally tying the young into knots. It's +anti-social." + +"How stupid you are, Reynold," Pansy protested. "If you want to use +those complicated words take Judith into the drawing-room. I'm sure +Linda is dizzy, too." + +The latter's mental confusion lingered; she had a strong sense of having +heard Reynold Chase say these strange things long before. Judith left +the piano, sat beside him, and he lightly kissed her. A new dislike of +Judith Feldt deepened in Linda's being. She had no reason for it, but +suddenly she felt absolutely opposed to her. The manner in which Judith +rested against the man by her was very distasteful. It offended Linda +inexplicably; she wanted to draw into an infinity of distance from all +contact with men and life. + +She didn't even want to make one of those marriages that had nothing to +do with love, but was only a sensible arrangement for the securing +of gowns and velvet hangings and the luxury of enclosed automobiles. +Suddenly she felt lonely, and hoped that her mother would come back +soon. + + + + +XII + + +But when her mother, now Mrs. Moses Feldt, did return, Linda was +conscious of a keen disappointment. Somehow she never actually came +back. It wasn't only that, after so many years together, she occupied +a room with another than Linda, but her manner was changed; it had lost +all freedom of heart and speech. The new Mrs. Feldt was heavily polite +to her husband's daughters; Linda saw that she liked Pansy, but Judith +made her uncomfortable. She expressed this in an isolated return of the +old confidences: + +"That girl," she said sharply, "likes petting. She can talk all night +about her soul and beauty, and play the piano till her fingers drop +off, but I--I--know. You can't fool me where they are concerned. I can +recognize an unhealthy sign. I never believed in going to all those +concerts and kidding yourself into a fever. I may have shown myself a +time, but you mark my word--I was honest compared to Judith Feldt. Don't +you be impressed with all her art talk and the books she reads. I was +looking into one yesterday, and it made me blush; you can believe it or +not, it takes some book for that!" + +At the same time she treated Judith with a studious sweetness. Mr. Moses +Feldt--Linda always thought of him as that--was a miracle of kindly +cheerfulness. He made his wife and her daughter, and his own girls, an +unbroken succession of elaborate and costly presents. "What's it for +if not to spend on those you love?" he would remark, bringing a small +jeweler's box wrapped in creamy-pink paper from his pocket. "You can't +take it with you. I wasn't born with it--mama and I were as poor as +any--you'll forgive me, Stella, I know, for speaking of her. I got +enough heart to love you both. 'Oh, mama!' I said, and she dying, 'if +you only won't go, I'll give you gold to eat.'" + +Curiously, as Linda grew older, the consciousness of her stepfather +as an absurd fat little man dwindled; she lost all sense of his actual +person; and, as the influence of her mother slipped from her life, the +mental conception of Mr. Moses Feldt deepened. She thought about him a +great deal and very seriously; the things he said, the warm impact of +his being, vibrated in her memory. He had the effect on her of the music +of Christopher Gluck--the effect of a pure fine chord. + +Pansy she now thought of with a faint contempt: she was rapidly growing +thick-waisted and heavy, and she was engaged to a dull young man not +rich enough to be interesting. They sat about in frank embraces and +indulged in a sentimental speech that united Judith and Linda in common +oppression. + +There were, not infrequently, gatherings of the Feldts at dinner, a +noisy good-tempered uproar of a great many voices speaking at once; +extraordinary quantities of superlative jewels and dresses of superfine +textures; but the latter, Linda thought, were too vivid in pattern or +color for the short full maternal figures they often adorned. But no +one, it seemed, considered himself ageing or even, in spite of the most +positive indications, aged. The wives with faded but fashionable hair +and animated eyes in spent faces talked with vigorous raillery about +the "boys," who, it might have happened, had gone in a small masculine +company to a fervid musical show the evening before. While they, in +their turn, thick like their brother or cousin Moses, with time-wasted +hair and countenances marked with the shrewdness in the service of which +the greater part of their lives had vanished, had their little jokes +about the "girls" and the younger and handsomer beaux who threatened +their happiness. + +At times the topic of business crept into the lighter discussion, and, +in an instant, the gaiety evaporated and left expressionless men +and quick sharp sentences steely with decision, or indirect and +imperturbably blank. A memorandum book and a gold pencil would appear +for an enigmatic note, after which the cheerfulness slowly revived. + +The daughters resembled Judith or the slower placidity of Pansy; while +there was still another sort, more vigorous in being, who consciously +discussed riding academies, the bridle-paths of Central Park, and the +international tennis. Their dress held a greater restraint than the +elders; though Linda recognized that it was no less lavish; and their +feminine trifles, the morocco beauty-cases and powder-boxes, the +shoulder-pins, their slipper and garter buckles were extravagant in +exquisite metals and workings. + +They arrived in limousines with dove-colored upholstery and crystal +vases of maidenhair fern and moss-roses; and often, in such a car, Linda +went to the theatre with Judith or Pansy and some cousins. Usually it +was a matinee, where their seats were the best procurable, directly at +the stage; and they sat in a sleek expensive row eating black chocolates +from painted boxes ruffled in rose silk. The audience, composed mostly +of their own world, followed the exotic fortunes of the plays with a +complete discrimination in every possible emotional display and crisis. + +Lithe actresses in a revealing severity of attire, like spoiled nuns +with carmine lips, suffering in ingenuous problems of the passions, +agonized in shuddering tones; or else they went to concerts to hear +young violinists, slender, with intense faces and dramatic hair, play +concertos that irritated Linda with little shivers of delight. + +Sometimes they had lunch in a restaurant of Circassian walnut and velvet +carpets, with cocktails, and eggs elaborate with truffles and French +pastry. Then, afterward, they would stop at a confectioner's, or at a +cafe where there was dancing, for tea. They all danced in a perfection +of slow graceful abandon, with youths who, it seemed to Linda, did +nothing else. + +She accepted her part in this existence as inevitable, yet she was +persistently aware of a feeling of strangeness, of essential difference +from it. She was unable to lose a sense of looking on, as if morning, +noon and night she were at another long play. Linda regarded it--as she +did so much else--with neither enthusiasm nor marked annoyance. Probably +it would continue without change through her entire life. All that was +necessary, and easily obtained, was a sufficient amount of money. + +Her manner, Pansy specially complained, was not intimate and inviting; +in her room Linda usually closed the door; the frank community of the +sisters was distasteful to her. She demanded an extraordinary amount +of personal privacy. Linda never consulted Judith's opinion about her +clothes, nor exchanged the more significant aspects of feeling. Alone in +a bed-chamber furnished in silvery Hungarian ash, her bed a pale quilted +luxury with Madeira linen crusted in monograms, without head or foot +boards, and a dressing-table noticeably bare, she would deliberately and +delicately prepare for the night. + +While Judith's morning bath steamed with the softness and odor of +lavender crystals, Linda slipped into water almost cold. This, with her +clear muslins and heavy black silk stockings, her narrow unornamented +slippers, represented the perfection of niceness. + +There were others than Pansy, however, who commented on what they called +her superiority--the young men who appeared in the evening. A number +of them, cousins of the Feldt dinner parties or more casual, tried to +engage her sympathies in their persons and prospects. It was a society +of early maturity. But, without apparent effort, she discouraged them, +principally by her serene lack of interest. It was a fundamental part +of her understanding of things that younger men were unprofitable; she +liked far better the contemporaries of Moses Feldt. + +Reynold Chase had ceased his visits, but his place had been taken by +another and still another emotionally gifted man. The present one was +dark and imperturbable: they knew little of him beyond the facts that +he had been a long while in the Orient, that his manner and French were +unsurpassed, and that practically every considerable creative talent in +New York was entertained in his rooms. + +Judith had been to one of his parties; and, the following morning in +bed, she told Pansy and Linda the most remarkable things. + +"It would never do for Pansy," she concluded; "but I must get Markue to +ask you sometime, Linda. How old are you now? Well, that's practically +sixteen, and you are very grown up. You would be quite sensational, in +one of your plain white frocks, in his apartment. You'd have to promise +not to tell your mother, though. She thinks I'm leading you astray +now--the old dear. Does she think I am blind? I met a man last week, +a friend of father's, who used to know her. Of course he wouldn't say +anything, men are such idiots about that--like ostriches with their +pasts buried and all the feathers sticking out--but there was a +champagne expression in his smile." + +Linda wondered, later, if she'd care to go to a party of Markue's. There +was a great deal of drinking at such affairs; and though she rather +liked cordials, creme de the and Grand Marnier, even stronger +things flavored with limes and an occasional frigid cocktail, she +disliked--from a slight experience--men affected by drink. Judith had +called her a constitutional prude; this, she understood, was a term of +reproach; and she wondered if, applied to her, it were just. + +Usually it meant a religious person or one fussy about the edge of her +skirt; neither of which she ever considered. She didn't like to sit in +a corner and be hugged--even that she could now assert with a degree +of knowledge--but it wasn't because she was shocked. Nothing, she told +herself gravely, shocked her; only certain acts and moments annoyed her +excessively. It was as if her mind were a crisp dress with ribbons which +she hated to have mussed or disarranged. + +Linda didn't take the trouble to explain this. Now that her mother had +withdrawn from her into a perpetual and uncomfortable politeness she +confided in no one. She would have been at a loss to put her complicated +sensations and thoughts into words. Mr. Moses Feldt, the only one to +whom she could possibly talk intimately, would be upset by her feelings. +He would give her a hug and the next day bring up a new present from his +pocket. + +Her clothes, with the entire support of Lorice, were all delicate +in fabric, mostly white with black sashes, and plainly ruffled. She +detested the gray crepe de Chine from which Judith's undergarments were +made and the colored embroidery of Pansy's; while she ignored scented +toilet-waters and extracts. Markue, in finally asking her to a party at +his rooms, said that there she would resemble an Athenian marble, of the +un-painted epoch, in the ballet of Scheherazade. + + + + +XIII + + +"There's nothing special to say about Markue's parties," Judith, +dressing, told Linda. "You will simply have to take what comes your way. +There is always some one serious at them, if you insist, as usual, on +dignity." She stood slim and seductive, like a perverse pierrot, +before the oppressive depths of a black mirror. Linda had finished her +preparations for the evening. There was no departure from her customary +blanched exactness. She studied her reflection across Judith's shoulder; +her intense blue eyes, under the level blot of her bang, were grave on +the delicate pallor of her face. + +In the taxi, slipping rapidly down-town, Linda was conscious of a slight +unusual disturbance of her indifference. This had nothing to do with +whether or not she'd be a success; her own social demands were so small +that any considerable recognition of her was unimportant. Her present +feeling came from the fact that to-night, practically, she was making +her first grown-up appearance in the world, the world from which she +must select the materials of her happiness and success. To-night she +would have an opportunity to put into being all that--no matter how +firmly held--until now had been but convictions. + +Her interest was not in whom or what she might meet, but in herself. +Judith, smoking a cigarette in a mist of silver fox, was plainly +excited. "I like Markue awfully," she admitted. + +"Does he care for you?" Linda asked. + +"That," said Judith, "I can't make out--if he likes me or if it's +just anonymous woman. I wish it were the first, Linda." Her voice was +shadowed; suddenly, in spite of her youth and exhilaration, she seemed +haggard and spent. Linda recognized this in a cold scrutiny. Privately +she decided that the other was a fool--she didn't watch her complexion +at all. + +The motor turned west in the low Forties and stopped before a high +narrow stone facade with a massive griffon-guarded door. Judith led the +way directly into the elevator and designated Markue's floor. It was +at the top of the building, where he met them with his impenetrable +courtesy and took them into a bare room evidently planned for a studio. +There were an empty easel, the high blank dusty expanse of the skylight, +and chairs with the somber hats and coats of men and women's wraps like +the glistening shed skins of brilliant snakes. + +They turned through the hall to an interior more remarkable than +anything Linda could have imagined; it seemed to her very high, without +windows and peaked like a tent. Draperies of intricate Eastern color +hung in long folds. There were no chairs, but low broad divans about the +walls, a thick carpet with inlaid stands in the center laden with boxes +of cigarettes, sugared exotic sweets and smoking incense. It was so dim +and full of thick scent, the shut effect was so complete, that for a +moment Linda felt painfully oppressed; it seemed impossible to breathe +in the wavering bluish atmosphere. + +Markue, who had appeared sufficiently familiar outside, now had a +strange portentous air; the gleams of his quick black eyes, the dusky +tone of his cheeks, his impassive grace, startled her. New York was +utterly removed: the taxi that had brought Judith and her, the swirling +traffic of Columbus Circle and smooth undulations of Fifth Avenue, were +lost with a different life. She saw, however, the open door to another +room full of clear light, and her self-possession rapidly returned. +Judith--as she had threatened--at once deserted her; and Linda found an +inconspicuous corner of a divan. + +There were, perhaps, twenty people in the two rooms, and each one +engaged her attention. A coffee-colored woman was sitting beyond her, +clad in loose red draperies to which were sewed shining patterns of +what she thought was gold. Markue was introducing Judith, and the seated +figure smiled pleasantly with a flash of beautiful teeth and the supple +gesture of a raised brown palm. That, Linda decided, was the way she +shook hands. Two dark-skinned men, one in conventional evening dress, +were with her; they had small fine features and hair like carved ebony. + +Linda had never before been at an affair with what she was forced to +call colored people; instinctively she was antagonistic and superior. +She turned to a solemn masculine presence with a ruffled shirt and +high black stock; he was talking in a resonant voice and with dramatic +gestures to a woman with a white face and low-drawn hair. Linda was +fascinated by the latter, dressed in a soft clinging dull garnet. +It wasn't her clothes, although they were remarkable, that held her +attention, but the woman's mouth. Apparently, it had no corners. Like a +little band of crimson rubber, or a ring of vivid flame, it shifted +and changed in the oddest shapes. It was an unhappy mouth, and made her +think of pain; but perhaps not so much that as hunger ... not for food, +Linda was certain. What did she want? + +There was a light appealing laugh from another seated on the floor in a +floating black dinner dress with lovely ankles in delicate Spanish lace +stockings; her head was thrown back for the whisper of a heavy man with +ashen hair, a heavenly scarf and half-emptied glass. + +Her bare shoulders, Linda saw, were as white as her own, as white but +more sloping. The other's hair, though, was the loveliest red possible. +The entire woman, relaxed and laughing in the perfumery and swimming +shadows, was irresistible. A man with a huge nose and blank eyes, his +hands disfigured with extraordinary rings, momentarily engaged her. +Then, at the moment when she saw an inviting and correctly conventional +youth, he crossed and sat at her side. + +"Quite a show," he said in the manner she had expected and approved. The +glow of his cigarette wavered over firmly cut lips. "We've just come to +New York," he continued. "I don't know any one here but Markue, do you?" +Linda explained her own limitations. "The Victory's fine and familiar." + +She followed his gaze to where a winged statue with flying drapery was +set on a stand. She had seen it before, but without interest. Now it +held her attention. It wasn't a large cast, not over three feet high, +but suddenly Linda thought that it was the biggest thing in the room; it +seemed to expand as she watched it. + +Beside the Victory, in a glass case with an enclosed concealed light, +was a statue, greenish gray, a few inches tall, with a sneering +placidity of expression as notable as the sweep of the other white +fragment. "That's Chinese," her companion decided; "it looks as old as +lust." There was the stir of new arrivals--a towering heavy man with +a slight woman in emerald satin. "There's Pleydon, the sculptor," the +youth told her animatedly. "I've seen him at the exhibitions. It must be +Susanna Noda, the Russian singer, with him. He's a tremendous swell." + + + + +XIV + + +Linda watched Pleydon as he met Markue in the middle of the room. He was +dressed carelessly, improperly for the evening; but she forgave that as +the result of indifference. The informal flannels and soft collar, too, +suited the largeness of his being and gestures. There was a murmur of +meeting, Susanna Noda smiled appealingly; and then, as Pleydon found a +place on a divan, she at once contentedly sat on his lap. Watching her, +Linda thought of a brilliant parrot; but that was only the effect of her +color; for her face, with a tilted nose and wide golden eyes, generous +warm lips, was charming. She lighted a cigarette, turned her graceful +back on the room and company, and chatted in French to the composed +sculptor. + +Linda divined that he was the most impressive figure she had +encountered; the quality of his indifference was beautiful and could +only have come in the security of being a "tremendous swell." That +phrase described all for which she had cared most. It included +everything that her mother had indicated as desirable and a lot that +she, Linda, had added. Money, certainly, was an absolute necessity; +but there were other things now that vaguely she desired. She tried to +decide what they were. + +Only the old inner confusion resulted, the emotion that might have +been born in music; however, it was sharper than usual, and bred a new +dissatisfaction with the easier accomplishments. Really it was very +disturbing, for the pressure of her entire experience, all she had +been told, could be exactly weighed and held. The term luxury, too, was +revealing; it covered everything--except her present unformed longing. + +There were still newcomers, and Linda was aware of a sudden constraint. +A woman volubly French had appeared with a long pinkish-white dog in a +blanket, and the three Arabians--she had learned that much--had risen +with a concerted expression of surprise and displeasure. Their anxiety, +though, was no more dramatic than that of the dog's proprietor. The +gesture of her hands and lifted eyebrows were keenly expressive of her +impatience with any one who couldn't accept, with her, her dog. + +"Markue ought to have it out," some one murmured. "Dogs, to high caste +Mohammedans, are unclean animals." Another added, "Worse than that, if +it should touch them, they would have to make the pilgrimage to Mecca." + +Without any knowledge of the situation of Mecca, Linda yet realized that +it must be a very long journey to result from the mere touch of a dog. +She didn't wonder at the restrained excitement of the "colored" people. +The situation was reduced to a sub-acid argument between the Frenchwoman +and the Begum; Madame couldn't exist without her "_p'tit_." The Oriental +lady could not breathe a common air with the beast. The former managed a +qualified triumph--the "_p'tit_" was caged with a chair in a corner, and +the episode, for the moment, dropped. + +Soon, however, Linda saw that the dog had wriggled out of captivity. It +made a cautious progress to where the candy stood on a low stand and +ran an appreciative tongue over the exposed sweet surfaces. Rapidly a +sugared fig was snapped up. Linda held her breath; no one had noticed +the animal yet--perhaps it would reach one of the objectors and she +would have the thrill of witnessing the departure for Mecca. + +But, as always, nothing so romantic occurred; the dog was discovered, +and the Mohammedans, with a hurried politeness, made their salaams. +Instead, a man with a quizzical scrutiny through glasses that made him +resemble an owl, stopped before her. + +"'Here we go 'round the mulberry-bush,'" he chanted. "Hello, Kate +Greenaway. Have you had a drink?" + +"Yes, thank you," she replied sedately. + +"Certified milk?" + +"It was something with gin," she particularized, "and too sweet." He +took the place beside her and solemnly recited a great many nursery +rhymes. On the whole she liked him, deciding that he was very wicked. +Soon he was holding her hand in both of his. "I know you're not real," +he proceeded. "Verlaine wrote you--_'Les Ingenus':_ + + "'From which the sudden gleam of whiteness shed + Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming.' + +"What if I'd kiss you?" + +"Nothing," she returned coldly. + +"You're remarkable!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "If you are not +already one of the celebrated beauties you're about to be. As cool as a +fish! Look--Pleydon is going to rise and spill little Russia. Have you +heard her sing Scriabine?" Linda ignored him in a sharp return of her +interest in the big carelessly-dressed man. He put Susanna Noda aside +and moved to the dim middle of the room. His features, Linda saw, were +rugged and pronounced; he was very strong. + +For a moment he stood gazing at the Winged Victory, his brow gathered +into a frown, while he made a caressing gesture with his whole hand. +Then he swung about and, from the heavy shadows of his face, he looked +down at her. He was still for a disconcerting length of time, but +through which Linda steadily met his interrogation. Then he bent over +and seriously removed the man beside her. + +"Adieu, Louis," he said. + +The weight of Pleydon's body depressed the entire divan. "An ordinary +man," he told her, "would ask how the devil you got here. Then he would +take you to your home with some carefully chosen words for whatever +parents you had. But I can see that all this is needless. You are an +extremely immaculate person. + +"That isn't necessarily admirable," he added. + +"I don't believe I am admirable at all," Linda replied. + +"How old are you?" he demanded abruptly. + +She told him. + +"Age doesn't exist for some women, they are eternal," he continued. "You +see, I call you a woman, but you are not, and neither are you a child. +You are Art--Art the deathless," his gaze strayed back to the Victory. + +As she, too, looked at it, it seemed to Linda that the cast filled +all the room with a swirl of great white wings and heroic robes. In an +instant the incense and the dark colors, the uncertain pallid faces +and bare shoulders, were swept away into a space through which she was +dizzily borne. The illusion was so overpowering that involuntarily she +caught at the heavy arm by her. + + + + +XV + + +"Why did you do that?" he asked quickly, with a frowning regard. Linda +replied easily and directly. "It seemed as if it were carrying me with +it," she specified; "on and on and on, without ever stopping. I felt as +if I were up among the stars." She paused, leaning forward, and gazed +at the statue. Even now she was certain that she saw a slight flutter of +its draperies. "It is beautiful, isn't it? I think it's the first thing +I ever noticed like that. You know what I mean--the first thing that +hadn't a real use." + +"But it has," he returned. "Do you think it is nothing to be swept into +heaven? I suppose by 'real' you mean oatmeal and scented soap. Women +usually do. But no one, it appears, has any conception of the practical +side of great art. You might try to remember that it is simply +permanence given to beauty. It's like an amber in which beautiful and +fragile things are kept forever in a lovely glow. That is all, and it is +enough. + +"When I said that you were Art I didn't mean that you were skilfully +painted and dressed, but that there was a quality in you which recalled +all the charming women who had ever lived to draw men out of the +mud--something, probably, of which you are entirely unconscious, and +certainly beyond your control. You have it in a remarkable degree. It +doesn't belong to husbands but to those who create 'Homer's children.' + +"That's a dark saying of Plato's, and it means that the _Alcestis_ is +greater than any momentary offspring of the flesh." + +Linda admitted seriously, "Of course, I don't understand, yet it seems +quite familiar--" + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, repeat the old cant about reincarnation;" he +interrupted, "and sitting together, smeared with antimony, on a roof of +Babylon." + +She hadn't intended to, she assured him. "Tell me about yourself," he +directed. It was as natural to talk with him as it was, with others, +to keep still. Her frank speech flowed on and on, supported by the +realization of his attention. + +"There really isn't much, besides hotels, all different; but you'd be +surprised how alike they were, too. I mean the things to eat, and the +people. I never realized how tired I was of them until mother married +Mr. Moses Feldt. The children were simply dreadful, the children and +the women; the men weren't much better." She said this in a tone of +surprise, and he nodded. "I can see now--I am supposed to be too old for +my age, and it was the hotels. You learn a great deal." + +"Do you like Mr. Moses Feldt?" + +"Enormously; he is terribly sweet. I intend to marry a man just like +him. Or, at least, he was the second kind I decided on: the first only +had money, then I chose one with money who was kind, but now I don't +know. It's very funny: kindness makes me impatient. I'm perfectly sure +I'll never care for babies, they are so mussy. I don't read, and I can't +stand being--well, loved. + +"Mother went to a great many parties; every one liked her and she liked +every one back; so it was easy for her. I used to long for the time when +I'd wear a lovely cloak and go out in a little shut motor with a man +with pearls; but now that's gone. They want to kiss you so much. I wish +that satisfied me. Why doesn't it? Is there anything the matter with me, +do you think? I've been told that I haven't any heart." + +As he laughed at her she noticed how absurdly small a cigarette seemed +in his broad powerful hand. "What has happened to you is this," he +explained: "a combination of special circumstances has helped you in +every way to be what, individually, you were. As a rule, children are +brought up in a house of lies, like taking a fine naked body and binding +it into hideous rigid clothes. You escaped the damnation of cheap +ready-cut morals and education. Your mother ought to have a superb +monument--the perfect parent. Of course you haven't a 'heart.' From the +standpoint of nature and society you're as depraved as possible. You are +worse than any one else here--than all of them rolled together." + +Curiously, she thought, this didn't disturb her, which proved at once +that he was right. Linda regarded herself with interest as a supremely +reprehensible person, perhaps a vampire. The latter, though, was a +rather stout woman who, dressed in frightful lingerie, occupied couches +with her arms caught about the neck of a man bending over her. Every +detail of this was distasteful. + +What was she? + +Her attention wandered to the squat Chinese god in the glass case. It +was clear that he hadn't stirred for ages. A difficult thought partly +formed in her mind--the Chinese was the god of this room, of Markue's +party, of the women seated in the dim light on the floor and the divans; +the low gurgle of their laughter, the dusky whiteness of their shoulders +in the upcoiling incense, the smothered gleams of their hair, with the +whispering men, were the world of the grayish-green image. + +She explained this haltingly to Pleydon, who listened with a flattering +interest. "I expect you're laughing at me inside," she ended impotently. +"And the other, the Greek Victory," he added, "is the goddess of the +other world, of the spirit. It's quaint a heathen woman should be that." + +Linda discovered that she liked Pleydon enormously. She continued +daringly that he might be the sort of man she wanted to marry. But he +wouldn't be easy to manage; probably he could not be managed at all. Her +mother had always insisted upon the presence of that possibility in any +candidate for matrimony. And, until now, Linda's philosophy had been in +accord with her. But suddenly she entertained the idea of losing herself +completely in--in love. + +A struggle was set up within her: on one hand was everything that she +had been, all her experience, all advice, and her innate detachment; +on the other an obscure delicious thrill. Perhaps this was what she now +wanted. Linda wondered if she could try it--just a little, let herself +go experimentally. She glanced swiftly at Pleydon, and his bulk, his +heavy features, the sullen mouth, appalled her. + +Men usually filled her with an unaccountable shrinking into her remotest +self. Pleydon was different; her liking for him had destroyed a large +part of her reserve; but a surety of instinct told her that she couldn't +experiment there. It was characteristic that a lesser challenge left her +cold. She had better marry as she had planned. + +Susanna Noda came up petulantly and sank in a brilliant graceful swirl +at his feet. Her golden eyes, half shut, studied Linda intently. + + + + +XVI + + +"I am fatigued," she complained; "you know how weary I get when you +ignore me." He gazed down at her untouched. "I have left Lao-tze for +Greece," he replied. She found this stupid and said so. "Has he been no +more amusing than this?" she asked Linda. "But then, you are a child, +it all intrigues you. You listen with the flattery of your blue eyes and +mouth, both open." + +"Don't be rude, Susanna," Pleydon commanded. "You are so feminine that +you are foolish. I'm not the stupid one--look again at our 'child.' Tell +me what you see." + +"I see Siberia," she said finally. "I see the snow that seems so pure +while it is as blank and cold as death. You are right, Dodge. I was the +dull one. This girl will be immensely loved; perhaps by you. A calamity, +I promise you. Men are pigs," she turned again to Linda; "no--imbeciles, +for only idiots destroy the beauty that is given to them. They take your +reputation with a smile, they take your heart with iron fingers; your +beauty they waste like a drunken Russian with gold." + +"Susanna, like all spendthrifts, is amazed by poverty." + +Even in the gloom Linda could see the pallor spreading over the other's +face; she was glad that Susanna Noda spoke in Russian. However, with a +violent effort, she subdued her bitterness. "Go into your Siberia!" she +cried. "I always thought you were capable of the last folly of marriage. +If you do it will spoil everything. You are not great, you know, not +really great, not in the first rank. You've only the slightest chance of +that, too much money. You were never in the gutter as I was--" + +"Chateaubriand," he interrupted, "Dante, Velasquez." + +"No, not spiritually!" she cried again. "What do you know of the +inferno! Married, you will get fat." Pleydon turned lightly to Linda: + +"As a supreme favor do not, when I ask you, marry me." + +This, for Linda, was horribly embarrassing. However, she gravely +promised. The Russian lighted a cigarette; almost she was serene again. +Linda said, "Fatness is awful, isn't it?" + +Pleydon replied, "Death should be the penalty. If women aren't lovely--" +he waved away every other consideration. + +"And if men have fingers like carrots--" Susanna mimicked him. Judith, +flushed, her hair loosened, approached. "Linda," she demanded, "do you +remember when we ordered the taxi? Was it two or three?" Markue, at her +shoulder, begged her not to consider home. + +"I'm going almost immediately," Pleydon said, "and taking your Linda." +His height and determined manner scattered all objections. + +Linda, at the entrance to the apartment, found to her great surprise--in +place of the motor she had expected--a small graceful single-horse +victoria, the driver buttoned into a sealskin rug. Deep in furs, beside +Pleydon, she was remarkably comfortable, and she was soothed by the +rhythmic beat of the hoofs, the even progress through the crystal night +of Fifth Avenue. + +Her companion flooded his being with the frozen air. They had, it +seemed, lost all desire to talk. The memory of Markue's party lingered +like the last vanishing odor of his incense; there was a confused vision +of the murmurous room against the lighted exterior where the drinks +sparkled on a table. Linda made up her mind that she would not go to +another. Then she wondered if she'd see Pleydon again. The Russian +singer had been too silly for words. + +It suddenly occurred to her that the man now with her had taken Susanna +Noda, and that he had left her planted. He had preferred driving her, +Linda Condon, home. He wasn't very enthusiastic about it, though; his +face was gloomy. + +"The truth is," he remarked at last, "that Susanna is right--I am not +in the first rank. But that was all nonsense about the necessity of the +gutter--sentimental lies." + +Linda was not interested in this, but it left her free to explore her +own emotions. The night had been eventful because it had shaken all the +foundation of what she intended. That single momentary delicious thrill +had been enough to threaten the entire rest. At the same time her native +contempt of the other women, of Judith with her tumbled hair, persisted. +Was there no other way to capture such happiness? Was it all hopelessly +messy with drinks and unpleasant familiarity? + +What did Pleydon mean by spirit? Surely there must be more kinds of love +than one--he had intimated that. She gathered that "Homer's children," +those airs of Gluck that she liked so well, were works of art, +sculpture, such as he did. Yet she had never thought of them as +important, important as oatmeal or delicate soap. She made up her mind +to ask him about it, when she saw that they had reached the Eighties; +she was almost home. + +"I am going away to-morrow," he told her, "for the winter, to South +America. When I come back we'll see each other. If you should change +address send me a line to the Harvard Club." The carriage had stopped +before the great arched entrance to the apartment-house, towering in its +entire block. He got out and lifted her to the pavement as if she had +been no more than a flower in his hands. Then he walked with her into +the darkness of the garden. + +The fountains were cased in boards; the hedged borders, the bushes and +grass, were dead. High above them on the dark wall a window was bright. +Linda's heart began to pound loudly, she was trembling ... from the +cold. There was a faint sound in the air--the elevated trains, or +stirring wings? It was nothing, then, to be lifted into heaven. There +was the door to the hall and elevator. She turned, to thank Dodge +Pleydon for all his goodness to her, when he lifted her--was it toward +heaven?--and kissed her mouth. + +She was still in his arms, with her eyes closed. "Linda Condon?" he +said, in a tone of inquiry. + +At the same breath in which she realized a kiss was of no importance a +sharp icy pain cut at her heart. It hurt her so that she gasped. Then, +and this was strange, she realized that--as a kiss--it hadn't annoyed +her. Suddenly she felt that it wasn't just that, but something far more, +a part of all her inner longing. He had put her down and was looking +away, a face in shadow with an ugly protruding lip. + +She saw him that way in her dreams--in the court under the massive +somber walls, with a troubled frown over his eyes. It seemed to her +that, reaching up, she smoothed it away as they stood together in a +darkness with the fountains, the hedges, dead, the world with never a +sound sleeping in the prison of winter. + + + + +XVII + + +Linda thought about Dodge Pleydon on a warm evening of the following +May. At four o'clock, in a hotel, Pansy had been married; and the entire +Feldt connection had risen to a greater height of clamorous cheer than +ever before. Extravagant unseasonable dishes, wines and banked flowers +were lavishly mingled with sentimental speeches, healths and tears. +Linda had been acutely restless, impatient of all the loud good humor +and stupid compliments. The sense of her isolation from their life was +unbearably keen. She would have a very different wedding with a man in +no particular like Pansy's. + +After dinner--an occasion, with Pansy absent, where Mr. Moses Feldt's +tears persisted in flowing--she had strayed into the formal chamber +across from the dining-room and leaned out of a window, gazing into the +darkening court. Directly below was where Pleydon had kissed her. She +often re-examined her feelings about that; but only to find that they +had dissolved into an indefinite sense of the inevitable. Not alone had +it failed to shock her--she hadn't even been surprised. Linda thought +still further about kissing, with the discovery that if, while it was +happening, she was conscious of the kiss, it was a failure; successful, +it carried her as far as possible from the actuality. + +Pleydon, of course, had not written to her; he had intimated nothing to +the contrary, only asking her to let him know, at the Harvard Club, if +she changed address. That wasn't necessary, and now, probably, he was +back from South America. Where, except by accident, might she see him? +Markue, with his parties, had dropped from Judith's world, his place +taken by a serious older dealer in Dutch masters with an impressive +gallery just off Fifth Avenue. + +That she would see him Linda was convinced; this feeling absorbed any +desire; it was no good wanting it or not wanting it; consequently she +was undisturbed. She considered him gravely and in detail. Had there +been any more Susanna Nodas in his stay south? She had heard somewhere +that the women of Argentine were irresistible. Her life had taught her +nothing if not the fact that a number of women figured in every man's +history. It was deplorable but couldn't be avoided; and whether or not +it continued after marriage depended on the cunning of any wife. + +Now, however, Linda felt weary already at the prospect of a married life +that rested on the constant play of her ingenuity. A great many things +that, but a little before, she had willingly accepted, seemed to her +probably not less necessary but distinctly tiresome. Linda began to +think that she couldn't really bother; the results weren't sufficiently +important. + +Dodge Pleydon. + +She slept in a composed order until the sun was well up. It was warmer +than yesterday; and, going to an afternoon concert with Judith, she +decided to walk. Linda strolled, in a short severe jacket and skirt, a +black straw hat turned back with a cockade and a crisp flushed mass of +sweet peas at her waist. The occasion, as it sometimes happened, found +her in no mood for music. The warmth of the sunlight, the open city +windows and beginning sounds of summer, had enveloped her in a mood in +which the jangling sentimentality of a street organ was more potent than +the legato of banked violins. + +She was relieved when the concert was over, but lingered at her seat +until the crowd had surged by; it made Linda furious to be shoved +or indiscriminately touched. Judith had gone ahead, when Linda was +conscious of the scrutiny of a pale well-dressed woman of middle age. +It became evident that the other was debating whether or not to speak; +clearly such an action was distasteful to her; and Linda had turned away +before a restrained voice addressed her: + +"You will have to forgive me if I ask your name ... because of a certain +resemblance. Seeing you I--I couldn't let you go." + +"Linda Condon," she replied. + +The elder, Linda saw, grew even paler. She put out a gloved hand. "Then +I was right," she said in a slightly unsteady voice. "But perhaps, when +I explain, you will think it even stranger, inexcusable. My dear child, +I am your father's sister." + +Linda was invaded by a surprise equally made up of interest and +resentment. The first was her own and the second largely borrowed +from her mother. Besides, why had her father's family never made the +slightest effort to see her. This evidently had simultaneously occurred +to the other. + +"Of course," she added, quite properly, "we can't undertake family +questions here. I shouldn't blame you a bit, either, if you went +directly away. I had to speak, to risk that, because you were so +unmistakably a Lowrie. It is not a common appearance. We--I--" she +floundered for a painful moment; then she gathered herself with a +considerable dignity. "Seeing you has affected me tremendously, changed +everything. I have nothing to say in our defense, you must understand +that. I am certain, too, that my sister will feel the same--we live +together in Philadelphia. I hope you will give me your address and let +us write to you. Elouise will join with me absolutely." + +Linda told her evenly where she lived, and then allowed Miss Lowrie to +precede her toward the entrance. She said nothing of this to Judith, +nor, momentarily, to her mother. She wanted to consider it undisturbed +by a flood of talk and blame. It was evident to her that the Lowries had +behaved very badly, but just how she couldn't make out. She recalled her +father's sister--her aunt--minutely, forced to the realization that she +was a person of entire superiority. Here, she suddenly saw, had been +the cause of all their difficulties--the Lowries hadn't approved of the +marriage, they had objected to her mother. + +Five years ago she would have been incensed at this; but now, +essentially, she was without personal indignation. She wanted, for +herself, to discover as much as possible about her father and his +family. A need independent of maternal influences stirred her. Linda was +reassured by the fact that her father had been gently born; while she +realized that she had always taken this for granted. Her mother must +know nothing about the meeting with Miss Lowrie until the latter had +written. + +That was Friday and the letter came the following Tuesday. Linda, alone +at the breakfast-table, instantly aware of the source of the square +envelope addressed in a delicate regular writing, opened it and read in +an unusual mental disturbance: + +"My dear Linda, + +I hope you will not consider it peculiar for me to call you this, +for nothing else seems possible. Meeting you in that abrupt manner upset +me, as you must have noticed. Of course I knew of you, and even now I +can not go into our long unhappy affair, but until I saw you, and so +remarkably like the Lowries, I did not realize how wicked Elouise and I +had been. But I am obliged to add only where you were concerned. We have +no desire to be ambiguous in that. + +However, I am writing to say that we should love to have you visit us +here. It is possible under the circumstances that your mother will not +wish you to come. Yet I know the Lowries, a very independent and +decided family, and although it is my last intention to be the cause of +difficulty with your mother, still I hope it may be arranged. + +In closing I must add how happy I was at the evidence of your blood. +But that, I now see, was a certainty. You will have to forgive us for a +large measure of blindness. Affectionately, + +AMELIA VIGNE LOWRIE." + + +Almost instantaneously Linda was aware that she would visit the Lowries. +She liked the letter extremely, as well as all that she remembered of +its sender. At the same time she prepared for a scene with her mother, +different from those of the past--with the recourse to the brandy +flask--but no less unpleasant. They had very little to say to each other +now; and, when she went into her mother's room with an evident definite +purpose, the latter showed a constrained surprise, a palpable annoyance +that her daughter had found her at the daily renovation of her worn +face. + + + + +XVIII + + +Linda said directly, "I met Miss Lowrie, father's sister, at a concert +last week, and this morning I had a letter asking me to stay with them +in Philadelphia." + +Mrs. Feldt's face suddenly had no need for the color she held poised +on a cloth. Her voice, sharp at the beginning, rose to a shrill +unrestrained wrath. + +"I wonder at the brass of her speaking to you at all let alone writing +here. Just you give me the letter and I'll shut her up. The idea! I hope +you were cool to her, the way they treated us. Stay with them--I guess +not!" + +"But I thought of going," Linda replied. "It's only natural. After all, +you must see that he was my father." + +"A pretty father he was, too good for the girl he married. It's my fault +I didn't tell you long ago, but I just couldn't abide the mention of +him. He deserted me, no, us, cold, without a word--walked out of the +door one noon, taking his hat as quiet as natural, and never came back. +I never saw him again nor heard except through lawyers. That was the +kind of heart he had, and his sisters are worse. I hadn't a decent +speech of any kind out of them. The Lowries," she managed to inject a +surprising amount of contempt into her pronouncement of that name. "What +it was all about you nor any sensible person would never believe: + +"The house smelled a little of boiled cabbage. That's why he left me, +and you expected in a matter of a few months. He said in his dam' frigid +way that it had become quite impossible and took down his hat." + +"There must have been more," Linda protested, suppressing a mad desire +to laugh. + +"Not an inch," her mother asserted. "Nothing, after a little, suited +him. He'd sit up like a poker, just as I've seen you, with his lips +tight together in the Lowrie manner. It didn't please him no matter what +you'd do. He wouldn't blow out at you like a Christian and I never knew +where I was at. I'd come down in a matinee, the prettiest I could buy, +and then see he didn't like it. He would expect you to be dressed in the +morning like it was afternoon and you going out. And as for loosening +your corsets for a little comfort about the house, you might as well +have slapped him direct. + +"That wasn't the worst, though; but his going away without as much as a +flicker of his hand; and with me like I was. Nobody on earth but would +blame him for that. I only got what was allowed me after we had changed +back to my old name, me and you. He never asked one single question +about you nor tried to see or serve you a scrap. For all he knew, at a +place called Santa Margharita in Italy, you might have been born dead." + +She was unable, Linda recognized, to defend him in any way; he had acted +frightfully. She acknowledged this logically with her power of reason, +but somehow it didn't touch her as it had her mother, and as, evidently, +the latter expected. She was absorbed in the vision of her father +sitting, in the Lowrie manner, rigid as a poker; she saw him quietly +take up his hat and go away forever. Linda understood his process +completely; she was capable of doing precisely the same thing. Whatever +was the matter with her--in the heartlessness so often laid to her +account--had been equally true of her father. + +"You ought to know what to say to them," Mrs. Moses Feldt cried, "or +I'll do it for you! If only I had seen her she would have heard a thing +or two not easy forgotten." + +Linda's determination to go to Philadelphia had not been shaken, and she +made a vain effort to explain her attitude. "Of course, it was horrid +for you," she said. "I can understand how you'd never never forgive him. +But I am different, and, I expect, not at all nice. It's very possible, +since he was my father, that we are alike. I wish you had told me this +before--it explains so much and would have made things easier for me. I +am afraid I must see them." + +She was aware of the bitterness and enmity that stiffened her mother +into an unaccustomed adequate scorn: + +"I might have expected nothing better of you, and me watching it coming +all these years. You can go or stay. I had my life in spite of the both +of you, as gay as I pleased and a good husband just the same. I don't +care if I never see you again, and if it wasn't for the fuss it would +make I'd take care I didn't. You'll have your father's money now I'm +married; I wonder you stay around here at all with your airs of being +better than the rest. God's truth is you ain't near as good, even if I +did bring you into the world." + +"I am willing to agree with you," Linda answered. "No one could be +sweeter than the Feldts. I sha'n't do nearly as well. But that isn't +it, really. People don't choose themselves; I'm certain father didn't at +that lonely Italian place. If you weren't happy laced in the morning it +wasn't your fault. You see, I am trying to excuse myself, and that isn't +any good, either." + +"Unnatural," Mrs. Moses Feldt pronounced. And Linda, weary and +depressed, allowed her the last word. + + + + +XIX + + +Nothing further during the subsequent brief exchange of notes between +Miss Lowrie and Linda was said of the latter's intention to visit her +father's family. Mrs. Feldt, however, whose attitude toward Linda had +been negatively polite, now displayed an animosity carefully hidden from +her husband but evident to the two girls. The elder never neglected an +opportunity to emphasize Linda's selfishness or make her personality +seem ridiculous. But this Linda ignored from her wide sense of the +inconsequence of most things. + +Yet she was relieved when, finally, she had actually left New York. She +looked forward with an unusual hopeful curiosity to the Lowries. To +her surprise their house--miles, it appeared, from the center of the +city--was directly on a paved street with electric cars, unpretentious +stores and very humble dwellings nearby. Back from the thoroughfare, +however, there were spacious green lawns. The street itself, she saw +at once, was old--a highway of gray stone with low aged stone facades, +steep eaves and blackened chimney-pots reaching, dusty with years, into +the farther hilly country. + +A gable of the Lowrie house, with a dignified white door, a fanlight of +faintly iridescent glass and polished brasses, faced the brick sidewalk, +while to the left there was a high board fence and an entrance with a +small grille open on a somber reach of garden. A maid in a stiff white +cap answered the fall of the knocker; she took Linda's bag; and, in a +hall that impressed her by its bareness, Linda was greeted by the Miss +Lowrie she had seen. + +Her aunt was composed, but there was a perceptible flush on her cheeks, +and she said in a rapid voice, after a conventional welcome, "You must +meet Elouise at once, before you go up to your room." + +Elouise Lowrie was older than Amelia, but she, too, was slender +and erect, with black hair startling in its density on her wasted +countenance. Linda noticed a fine ruby on a crooked finger and beautiful +rose point lace. "It was good of you," the elder proceeded, "to come and +see two old women. I don't know whether we have more to say or to keep +still about. But I, for one, am going to avoid explanations. You are +here, a fool could see that you were Bartram's girl, and that is enough +for a Lowrie." + +The room was nearly as bare as the hall: in place of the deep carpets of +the Feldts' the floor, of dark uneven oak boards, was merely waxed and +covered by a rough-looking oval rug. The walls were paneled in white, +with white ruffled curtains at small windows; and the furniture, the +dull mahogany ranged against the immaculate paint, the rocking-chairs +of high slatted walnut and rush bottoms, the slender formality of tables +with fluted legs, was dignified but austere. There were some portraits +in heavy old gilt--men with florid faces and tied hair, and the delicate +replicas of high-breasted women in brocades. + +There was, plainly, an air of the exceptional in Amelia Lowrie's +conduction of Linda to her room. She waited at the door while the other +moved forward to the center of a chamber empty of all the luxury Linda +had grown to demand. There was a bed with tall graceful posts supporting +a canopy like a frosting of sugar, a solemn set of drawers with a +diminutive framed mirror in which she could barely see her shoulders, +a small unenclosed brass clock with long exposed weights, and two +uninviting painted wooden chairs. This was not, although very nearly, +all. Linda's attention was attracted by a framed and long-faded +photograph of a young man, bareheaded, with a loosely knotted scarf, a +striped blazer and white flannels. His face was thin and sensitive, +his lips level, and his eyes gazed with a steady questioning at the +observer. + +"That was Bartram," Amelia Lowrie told her; "your father. This was his +room." + +She went down almost immediately and left Linda, in a maze of dim +emotions, seated on one of the uncomfortable painted chairs. Her father! +This was his room; nothing, she realized, had been disturbed. The mirror +had held the vaguely unsteady reflection of his face; he had slept under +the arched canopy of the bed. She rose and went to a window from which +he, too, had looked. + +Below her was the garden shut in on its front by the high fence. There +was a magnolia-tree, now covered with thick smooth white flowers, and, +at the back, low-massed rhododendron with fragile lavender blossoms on +a dark glossy foliage. But the space was mainly green and shadowed +in tone; while beyond were other gardens, other emerald lawns and +magnolia-trees, an ordered succession of tranquillity with separate +brick or stone or white dwellings in the lengthening afternoon shadows +of vivid maples. + +It was as different as possible from all that Linda had known, from the +elaborate hotels and gigantic apartment houses, the tropical interiors, +of her New York life. She unpacked her bag, putting her gold toilet +things on the chest of drawers, precisely arranging in a shallow closet +what clothes she had brought, and then, changing, went down to the +Lowries. + +They surveyed her with eminent approval at a dinner-table lighted only +with candles, beside long windows open on a dusk with a glimmer of +fireflies. Suddenly Linda felt amazingly at ease; it seemed to her +that she had sat here before, with the night flowing gently in over the +candle-flames. The conversation, she discovered, never strayed far +from the concerns and importance of the Lowrie blood. "My grandmother, +Natalie Vigne," Elouise informed her, "came with her father to +Philadelphia from France, in eighteen hundred and one, at the invitation +of Stephen Girard, who was French as well. She married Hallet Lowrie +whose mother was a Bartram. + +"That, my dear, explains our black hair and good figgers. There never +was a lumpy Lowrie. Well, Hallet built this house, or rather enlarged +it, for his wife; and it has never been out of the family. Our nephew, +Arnaud Hallet--Arnaud was old Vigne's name--owns it now. Isaac Hallet, +you may recall, was suspected of being a Tory; at any rate his brother's +descendants, Fanny Rodwell is the only one left, won't speak." + +The placid conversation ran on unchanged throughout dinner and the +evening. Linda was relieved by the absence of any questioning; indeed +nothing contemporary, she realized, was held to be significant. "I +thought Arnaud would be in to-night," Elouise Lowrie said; "he knew +Linda was expected." No one, however, appeared; and Linda went up early +to her room. There, too, were only candles, a pale wavering illumination +in which the past, her father, were extraordinarily nearby. A sense of +pride was communicated to her by so much that time had been unable to +shake. The bed was steeped in the magic of serene traditions. + + + + +XX + + +Arnaud Hallet appeared for dinner the evening after Linda's arrival; +a quiet man with his youth lost, slightly stooped shoulders, crumpled +shoes and a green cloth bag. But he had a memorable voice and an easy +distinction of manner; in addition to these she discovered, at the +table, a lighter amusing sense of the absurd. She watched him--as +he poured the sherry from a decanter with a silver label hung on a +chain--with a feeling of mild approbation. On the whole he was nice but +uninteresting. What a different man from Pleydon! + +The days passed in a pleasant deliberation, with Arnaud Hallet +constantly about the house or garden, while Linda's thoughts continually +returned to the sculptor. He was clearer than the actuality of her +mother and the Feldts or the recreated image of her father. At times she +was thrilled by the familiar obscure sense of music, of longing slowly +translated into happiness. Then more actual problems would envelop her +in doubt. Mostly she was confused--in her cool material necessity for +understanding--by the temper of her feeling for Dodge Pleydon. Linda +wondered if this were love. Perhaps, when she saw him again, she'd be +able to decide. Then she remembered promising to let him know if she +changed her address. It was possible that already he had called at the +Feldts', or written, and that her mother had refused to inform him where +she had gone. + +Linda had been at the Lowries' two weeks now, but they were acutely +distressed when she suggested that her visit was unreasonably prolonged. +"My dear," they protested together, "we hoped you'd stay the summer. +Bartram's girl! Unless, of course, it is dull with us. Something +brighter must be arranged. No doubt we have only thought of our own +pleasure in having you." + +Linda replied honestly that she enjoyed being with them extremely. Her +mother's dislike, the heavy luxury of the Feldt apartment, held little +attraction for her. Then, too, losing the sense of the bareness of the +house Hallet Lowrie had built for his French wife, she began to find it +surprisingly appealing. + +Her mind returned to her promise to Pleydon. She told herself +that probably he had forgotten her existence, but she had a strong +unreasoning conviction that this was not so. It seemed the most natural +thing in the world to write him and, almost before she was aware of +the intention, she had put "Dear Mr. Pleydon" at the head of a sheet of +note-paper. + +I promised to let you know in the spring when you came back from South +America where I was. I did not think I would have to do it, but here I +am in Philadelphia with my father's sisters. I do not know just how long +for, but a month, anyhow. It is very quiet, but charming. I have the +room that was my father's when he was young, and look out of the window +like he must have. If you should come to Philadelphia my aunts ask me to +say that they would be glad to have you for dinner. This is how you get +here.... + +Very sincerely, + +LINDA CONDON. + +She walked to a street crossing, where she dropped the envelope into a +letter-box on a lamppost, and returned to find Arnaud Hallet waiting for +her. He said: + +"Everyone agrees I'm serious, but actually you are worse than the +Assembly." They went through the dining-room to the garden, and sat +on the stone step of a deep window. It was quite late, perhaps eleven +o'clock, and the fireflies, slowly rising into the night, had vanished. +Linda was cool and remote and grave, silently repeating and weighing the +phrases of her letter to Pleydon. + +She realized that Arnaud Hallet was coming to like her a very great +deal; but she gave this only the slightest attention. She liked him, +really, and that dismissed him from serious consideration. Anyhow, +in spite of the perfection of his manner, Arnaud's careless dress +displeased her: his shoes and the shoulders of his coat were perpetually +dusty, and his hair, growing scant, was always ruffled. Linda understood +that he was highly intellectual, and frequently contributed historical +and genealogical papers to societies and bulletins, but compared with +Dodge Pleydon's brilliant personality and reputation, Pleydon surrounded +by the Susanna Nodas of life, Arnaud was as dingy as his shoes. + +She wondered idly when the latter would actually try to love her. He was +holding her hand and it might well be to-night. Linda decided that he +would do it delicately; and when, almost immediately, he kissed her, she +was undisturbed. No, surprisingly, it had been quite pleasant. He hadn't +mussed her ribbons, nor her spirit, a particle. In addition he did not +at once become impossible and urgently sentimental; there was even a +shade of amusement on his heavy face. + +"You appear to take a lot for granted," he complained. + +"I'd been wondering when it would happen," she admitted coolly. + +"It always does, then?" + +"Usually I stop it," she continued. "I don't believe I'll ever like +being kissed. Can you tell me why? No one ever has; they all think they +can bring me around to it." + +"And to them," he added. + +"But they end by being furious at me. I've been sworn at and called +dreadful names. Sometimes they're only silly. One cried; I hated that +the most." + +"Do you mean that you were sorry for him?" + +"Oh, dear, no. Why should I be? He looked so odious all smeared with +tears." + +Arnaud Hallet returned promptly: "Linda, you're a little beast." To +counteract his rude speech he kissed her again. "This," he said with +less security, "threatens to become a habit. I thought, at forty-five, +that I was safely by the island of sirens, but I'll be on the rocks +before I know it." + +She laughed with the cool remoteness of running water. + +"I wonder you haven't been murdered," he proceeded, "in a moonless +garden by an elderly lawyer. Do you ever think of the lyric day when, +preceded by a flock of bridesmaids and other flowery pagan truck, you'll +meet justice?" + +"Marriage?" she asked. "But of course. I have everything perfectly +planned--" + +"Then, my dear Linda, describe him." + +"Very straight," she said, "with beautiful polished shoes and brushed +hair." + +"You ought to have no trouble finding that. Any number of my friends +have one--to open the door and take your things. I might arrange a very +satisfactory introduction for everybody concerned--a steady man well on +his way to preside over the pantry and table." + +"You're not as funny as usual," Linda decided critically. "That, too, +disturbs me," he replied. "It looks even more unpromising for the near +future." + + + + +XXI + + +In her room Linda thought, momentarily, of Arnaud Hallet; whatever might +have been serious in her attitude toward him dissolved by the lightness +of his speech. Dodge Pleydon appealed irresistibly to her deepest +feelings. Now her mental confusion was at least clear in that she knew +what troubled her. It was not new, it extended even to times before +Pleydon had entered her life--the difficulties presented by the term +"love." + +In her mind it was divided into two or three widely different aspects, +phases which she was unable to reconcile. Her mother, in the beginning, +had informed her that love was a nuisance. To be happy, a man must love +you without any corresponding return; this was necessary to his complete +management, the securing of the greatest possible amount of new clothes. +It was as far as love should be allowed to enter marriage. But that +reality, with a complete expression in shopping, was distant from the +immaterial and delicate emotions that in her responded to Pleydon. + +Linda had been familiar with the materials, the processes, of what, she +had been assured, was veritable love since early childhood. Her mother's +dressing, the irritable hours of fittings and at her mirror, the paint +she put on her cheeks, the crimping of her hair were for the favor of +men. These struggles had absorbed the elder, all the women Linda had +encountered, to the exclusion of everything else. This, it seemed, must, +from its overwhelming predominance, be the greatest thing in life. + +There was nothing mysterious about it. You did certain things +intelligently, if you had the figure to do them with, for a practical +end. The latter, carefully controlled, like an essence of which a drop +was delightful and more positively stifling, was as real as the +methods of approach. Oatmeal or scented soap! The force of example and +association combined to bathe such developments in the sanest light +possible, and Linda had every intention of the successful grasping of an +easy and necessary luxury. She had, until--vaguely--now, been entirely +willing to accept the unescapable conditions of love used as a means or +the element of pleasure at parties. Now, however, the unexpected element +of Dodge Pleydon disturbed her philosophy. + +Suddenly all the lacing and painting and crimping, the pretense and lies +and carefully planned accidental effects, filled her with revolt. The +insinuations of women, the bareness of their revelations, her +mother returning unsteady and mussed from a dinner, were unutterably +disgusting. Even to think of them hurt her fundamentally: so much of +what she was, of what she had determined, had been destroyed by an +emotion apparently as slight as echoed music. + +Here was the real mystery and for which nothing in her experience had +prepared her. She began to see why it was called a nuisance--if this +were love--and wondered if she had better not suppress it at once. It +wouldn't be suppressed. Her thoughts continually came back to Pleydon, +and the warmth, the disturbing thrill, always resulted. It led her away +from herself, from Linda Condon; a sufficiently strange accomplishment. +A concern for Dodge Pleydon, little schemes for his happiness and +well-being, put aside her clothes and complexion and her future. + +Until the present her acts had been the result of deliberation. She had +been impressed by the necessity for planning with care; but, in the cool +gloom of the covered bed, a sharp joy held her at the possibility of +flinging caution away. Yet she couldn't quite, no matter how much she +desired it, lose herself. Linda was glad that Pleydon was rich; and +there were, she remembered, moments for surrender. + +As usual these problems, multiplying toward night, were fewer in the +bright flood of morning. She laughed at the memory of Arnaud Hallet's +humor; and then, it was late afternoon, the maid told her that Pleydon +was in the drawing room. Her appearance satisfactory she was able to see +him at once. To her great pleasure neither Pleydon nor his clothes had +changed. He was dressed in light-gray flannels; a big easy man with a +crushing palm, large features and an expression of intolerance. + +"Linda," he said, "what a splendid place to find you. So much better +than Markue's." He was, she realized, very glad to see her, and dropped +at once, as if they had been uninterruptedly together, into intimate +talk. "My work has been going badly," he proceeded; "or rather not at +all. I made a rather decent fountain at Newport; but--remember what +Susanna said?--it's not in the first rank. A happy balance and strong +enough conception; yet it is like a Cellini ewer done in granite. The +truth is, too much interests me; an artist ought to be the victim of a +monomania. I'm a normal animal." He studied her contentedly: + +"How lovely you are. I came over--in an automobile at last--because I +was certain you couldn't exist as I remembered you. But you could and +do. Lovely Linda! And what a gem of a letter. It might have been copied +from 'The Perfect Correspondent for Young Females.' You're not going to +lose me again. When I was a little boy I had a passion for sherbets." + +She smiled at him with half-closed eyes and the conviction that, with +Pleydon, she could easily be different. He leaned forward and his voice +startled her with the impression that he had read her mind: + +"If you could care for any one a lifetime would be short to get you. +Look, you have never been out of my thoughts--or within my reach. It +seems a myth that I kissed you; impossible ... Linda." + +"But you did," she told him, gaining happiness from the mere assurance. +They were alone in the drawing-room, and he rose, sweeping her up +into his arms. Yet the expected joy evaded her desire and the sudden +determination to lose utterly her reserve. It was evident that he as +well was conscious of this, for he released her and stood frowning, his +protruding lower lip uglier than ever. + +"A lifetime would be nothing," he said again; "or it might be everything +wasted. Which are you--all soul and spirit, or none?" + +"I don't know," she replied, in her bitter disappointment, her heart +pinched by the sharpest pain she remembered. There was the stir of +skirts at the door; Linda turned with a sense of relief to Amelia +Lowrie. However, dinner progressed very well indeed. "Then your aunt," +Elouise said to Pleydon, "was Carrie Dodge. I recall her perfectly." +That established, the Lowrie women talked with a gracious freedom, +exploring the furthermost infiltrations of blood and marriages. + +Linda was again serene. She watched Pleydon with an extraordinary +formless conviction--each of them was a part of the other's life; while +in some way marriage and love were now hopelessly confused. It was +beyond effort or planning. That was all she could grasp, but she was +contented. Sometimes when he talked he made the familiar descriptive +gesture with his hand, as if he were shaping the form of his speech: a +sculptor's gesture, Linda realized. + +Later they wandered into the garden, a dark enclosure with the long +ivy-covered facade of the house broken by the lighted spaces of windows. +Beyond the fence at regular intervals an electric car passed with +an increasing and diminishing clangor. The white petals of the +magnolia-tree had fallen and been wheeled away; the blossoms of the +rhododendron were dead on their stems. It was, Linda felt, a very old +garden that had known many momentary emotions and lives. + +Dodge Pleydon, standing before her, put his hands on her shoulders. +"Would I have any success?" he asked. "Do you think you'd care for me?" + +She smiled confidently up at his intent face. "Oh, yes." Yet she hoped +that he would not kiss her--just then. The delicacy of her longing and +need were far removed from material expressions. This, of course, meant +marriage; but marriage was money, comfort, the cold thing her mother had +impressed on her. Love, her love, was a mistake here. But in a little +it would all come straight and she would understand. She no longer had +confidence in her mother's wisdom. + +In spite of her shrinking, of a half articulate appeal, he crushed her +against his face. Whatever that had filled her with hope, she thought, +was being torn from her. A sickening aversion over which she had no +control made her stark in his arms. The memories of the painted coarse +satiety of women and the sly hard men for which they schemed, the loose +discussions of calculated advances and sordid surrenders, flooded her +with a loathing for what she passionately needed to be beautiful. + +Yet deep within her, surprising in its vitality, a fragile ardor +persisted. If she could explain, not only might he understand, but be +able to make her own longing clear and secure. But all she managed +to say was, "If you kiss me again I think it will kill me." Even that +failed to stop him. "You were never alive," he asserted. "I'll put some +feeling into you. It has been done before with marble." + +Linda, unresponsive, suffered inordinately. + +Again on her feet she saw that Pleydon was angry, his face grim. He +seemed changed, threatening and unfamiliar; it was exactly as if, in +place of Dodge Pleydon, a secretive impersonal ugliness stood disclosed +before her. He said harshly: + +"When will you marry me?" + +It was what, above all else, she had wanted; and Linda realized that to +marry him was still the crown of whatever happiness she could imagine. +But her horror of the past recreated by his beating down of her +gossamer-like aspiration, the vision of him flushed and ruthless, an +image of indiscriminate nameless man, made it impossible for her to +reply. An abandon of shrinking fear numbed her heart and lips. + +"You won't get rid of me as you do the others about you," he continued. +"This time you made a mistake. I haven't any pride that you can insult; +but I have all that you--with your character--require. I have more money +even than you can want." She cried despairingly: + +"It isn't that now! I had forgotten everything to do with money and +depended on you to take me away from it always." + +"When will you marry me?" + +In a flash of blinding perception, leaving her as dazed as though it had +been a physical actuality, she realized that marrying him had become an +impossibility. At the barest thought of it the dread again closed about +her like ice. She tried, with all the force of old valuations, with even +an effort to summon back the vanquished thrill, to give herself to +him. But a quality overpowering and instinctive, the response of her +incalculable injury, made any contact with him hateful. It was +utterly beyond her power to explain. A greater mystery still partly +unfolded--whatever she had hoped from Pleydon belonged to the special +emotion that had possessed her since earliest childhood. + +In the immediate tragedy of her helplessness, with Dodge Pleydon +impatient for an assurance, she paused involuntarily to wonder about +that hidden imperative sense. There was a broken mental fantasy of--of a +leopard bearing a woman in shining hair. This was succeeded by a bright +thrust of happiness and, all about her, a surging like the imagined +beat of the wings of the Victory in Markue's room. Almost Pleydon had +explained everything, almost he was everything; and then the other, +putting him aside, had swept her back into the misery of doubt and +loneliness. + +"I can't marry you," she said in a flat and dragged voice. He demanded +abruptly: + +"Why not?" + +"I don't know." She recognized his utter right to the temper that +mastered him. For a moment Linda thought Pleydon would shake her. "You +feel that way now," he declared; "and perhaps next month; but you will +change; in the end I'll have you." + +"No," she told him, with a certainty from a source outside her +consciousness. "It has been spoiled." + +He replied, "Time will discover which of us is right. I'm almost willing +to stay away till you send for me. But that would only make you more +stubborn. What a strong little devil you are, Linda. I have no doubt I'd +do better to marry a human being. Then I think we both forget how young +you are--you can't pretend to be definite yet." + +He captured her hands; too exhausted for any resentment or feeling she +made no effort to evade him. "I'll never say good-bye to you." + +His voice had the absolute quality of her own conviction. To her +amazement her cheeks were suddenly wet with tears. "I want to go now," +she said unsteadily; "and--and thank you." + +His old easy formality returned as he made his departure. In reply to +Pleydon's demand she told him listlessly that she would be here for, +perhaps, a week longer. Then he'd see her, he continued, in New York, at +the Feldts'. + +In her room all emotion faded. Pleydon had said that she was still +young; but she was sure she could never, in experience or feeling, be +older. She became sorry for herself; or rather for the illusions, the +Linda, of a few hours ago. She examined her features in the limited +uncertain mirror--strong sensations, she knew, were a charge on the +appearance--but she was unable to find any difference in her regular +pallor. Then, mechanically conducting her careful preparations for the +night, her propitiation of the only omnipotence she knew, she put out +the candles of her May. + + + + +XXII + + +What welcome Linda met in New York came from Mr. Moses Feldt, who +embraced her warmly enough, but with an air slightly ill at ease. He +begged her to kiss her mama, who was sometimes hurt by Linda's coldness. +She made no reply, and found the same influence and evidence of the +power of suggestion in Judith. "We thought maybe you wouldn't care to +come back here," the latter said pointedly, over her shoulder, while +she was directing the packing of a trunk. The Feldts were preparing for +their summer stay at the sea. + +Her mother's room resembled one of the sales of obvious and expensive +attire conducted in the lower salons of pleasure hotels. There were +airy piles of chiffon and satin, inappropriate hats and the inevitable +confections of silk and lace. "It's not necessary to ask if you were +right at home with your father's family," Mrs. Condon observed with an +assumed casual inattention. "I can see you sitting with those old women +as dry and false as any. No one saved me in the clacking, I'm sure." + +"We didn't speak of you," Linda replied. She studied, unsparing, +the loose flesh of the elder's ravaged countenance. Her mother, she +recognized, hated her, both because she was like Bartram Lowrie and +still young, with everything unspent that the other valued and had lost. +In support of herself Mrs. Feldt asserted again that she had "lived," +with stacks of friends and flowers, lavish parties and devoted +attendance. + +"You may be smarter than I was," she went on, "but what good it does +you who can say? And if you expect to get something for nothing you're +fooled before you start." She shook out the airy breadths of a vivid +echo of past daring. "From the way you act a person might think you +were pretty, but you are too thin and pulled out. I've heard your looks +called peculiar, and that was, in a manner of speaking, polite. You're +not even stylish any more--the line is full again and not suitable for +bony shoulders and no bust." She still cherished a complacency in her +amplitude. + +Linda turned away unmoved. Of all the world, she thought, only Dodge +Pleydon had the power actually to hurt her. She knew that she would +see him soon again and that again he would ask her to marry him. She +considered, momentarily, the possibility of saying yes; and instantly +the dread born with him in the Lowrie garden swept over her. Linda told +herself that he was the only man for whom she could ever deeply care; +that--for every conceivable reason--such a marriage was perfect. But the +shrinking from its implications grew too painful for support. + +Her mother's bitterness increased hourly; she no longer hid her feelings +from her husband and Judith; and dinner, accompanied by her elaborate +sarcasm, was a difficult period in which, plainly, Mr. Moses Feldt +suffered most and Linda was the least concerned. This condition, she +admitted silently, couldn't go on indefinitely; it was too vulgar if for +no other reason. And she determined to ask the Lowries for another and +more extended invitation. + +Pleydon came, as she had expected, and they sat in the small +reception-room with the high ceiling and dark velvet hangings, the piano +at which, long ago it now seemed, Judith had played the airs of Gluck +for her. He said little, but remained for a long while spread over +the divan and watching her--in a formal chair--discontentedly. He rose +suddenly and stood above her, a domineering bulk obliterating nearly +everything else. In response to his demand she said, pale and composed, +that she was not "reasonable"; she omitted the "yet" included in his +question. Pleydon frowned. However, then, he insisted no further. + +When he had gone Linda was as spent as though there had been a fresh +brutal scene; and the following day she was enveloped in an unrelieved +depression. Her mother mocked her silence as another evidence of +ridiculous pretentiousness. Mr. Moses Feldt regarded her with a furtive +concerned kindliness; while Judith followed her with countless small +irritating complaints. It was the last day at the apartment before their +departure for the summer. Linda was insuperably tired. She had gone to +her room almost directly after dinner, and when a maid came to her door +with a card, she exclaimed, before looking at it, that she was not in. +It was, however, Arnaud Hallet; and, with a surprise tempered by a faint +interest, she told the servant that she would see him. + +There was, Linda observed at once, absolutely no difference in Arnaud's +clothing, no effort to make himself presentable for New York or her. In +a way, it amused her--it was so characteristic of his forgetfulness, and +it made him seem doubly familiar. He waved a hand toward the luxury of +the interior. "This," he declared, "is downright impressive, and lifted, +I'm sure, out of a novel of Ouida's. + +"You will remember," he continued, "complaining about my sense of humor +one evening; and that, at the time, I warned you it might grow worse. +It has. I am afraid, where you are concerned, that it has absolutely +vanished. My dear, you'll recognize this as a proposal. I thought my +mind was made up, after forty, not to marry; and I specially tried not +to bring you into it. You were too young, I felt. I doubted if I +could make you happy, and did everything possible, exhausted all the +arguments, but it was no good. + +"Linda, dear, I adore you." + +She was glad, without the slightest answering emotion, that Arnaud, +well--liked her. At the same time all her wisdom declared that she +couldn't marry him; and, with the unsparing frankness of youth and her +individual detachment, she told him exactly why. + +"I need a great deal of money," she proceeded, "because I am frightfully +extravagant. All I have is expensive; I hate cheap things--even what +satisfies most rich girls. Why, just my satin slippers cost hundreds of +dollars and I'll pay unlimited amounts for a little fulling of lace or +some rare flowers. You'd call it wicked, but I can't help it--it's me. + +"I've always intended to marry a man with a hundred thousand dollars a +year. Of course, that's a lot--do you hate me for telling you?--but I +wouldn't think of any one with less than fifty--" + +Arnaud Hallet interrupted quietly, "I have that." + +Linda gazed incredulously at his neglected shoes, the wrinkles of his +inconsiderable coat and unstudied scarf. She saw that, actually, he had +spoken apologetically of his possessions; and a stinging shame spread +through her at the possibility that she had seemed common to an +infinitely finer delicacy than hers. + + + + +XIII + + +Most of these circumstances Linda Hallet quietly recalled sitting with +her husband in the house that had been occupied by the Lowries'. A +letter from Pleydon had taken her into a past seven years gone by; while +ordinarily her memory was indistinct; ordinarily she was fully occupied +by the difficulties, or rather compromises, of the present. But, in the +tranquil open glow of a Franklin stove and the withdrawn intentness of +Arnaud reading, her mind had returned to the distressed period of her +wedding. + +Elouise Lowrie--Amelia was dead--sunk in a stupor of extreme old age, +her bloodless hands folded in an irreproachable black surah silk lap, +sat beyond the stove; and Lowrie, Linda's elder child, five and a half, +together with his sister Vigne, had been long asleep above. Linda was +privately relieved by this: her children presented enormous obligations. +The boy, already at a model school, appalled her inadequate preparations +by his flashes of perceptive intelligence; while she was frankly abashed +at the delicate rosy perfection of her daughter. + +The present letter was the third she had received from Dodge Pleydon, +whom she had not seen since her marriage. At first he had been enraged +at the wrong, he had every reason to feel, she had done him. Then his +anger had dissolved into a meager correspondence of outward and obvious +facts. There was so much that she had been unable to explain. He had +always been impatient, even contemptuous, of the emotion that made her +surrender to him unthinkable--Linda realized now that it had been the +strongest impulse of her life--and, of course, she had never accounted +for the practically unbalanced enmity of her mother. + +The latter had deepened to an incredible degree, so much so that Mr. +Moses Feldt, though he had never taken an actual part in it--such +bitterness was entirely outside his generous sentimentality--had become +acutely uncomfortable in his own home, imploring Linda, with ready +tears, to be kinder to her mama. Judith, too, had grown cutting, jealous +of Linda's serenity of youth, as her appearance showed the effect of her +wasting emotions. Things quite extraordinary had happened: once +Linda's skin had been almost seriously affected by an irritation that +immediately followed the trace of her powder-puff; and at several times +she had had clumsily composed anonymous notes of a most distressing +nature. + +She had wondered, calmly enough, which of the two bitter women were +responsible, and decided that it was her mother. At this the situation +at the Feldts', increasingly strained, had become an impossibility. +Arnaud Hallet, after his first visit, had soon returned. There was no +more mention of his money; but every time he saw her he asked her +again, in his special manner--a formality flavored by a slight diffident +humor--to marry him. Arnaud's proposals had alternated with Pleydon's +utterly different demand. + +Linda remembered agonized evenings when, in a return of his brutal +manner of the unforgettable night in the Lowrie garden, he tried to +force a recognition of his passion. It had left her cold, exhausted, +the victim of a mingled disappointment at her failure to respond with +a hatred of all essential existence. At last, on a particularly trying +occasion, she had desperately agreed to marry him. + +The aversion of her mother, becoming really dangerous, had finally +appalled her; and a headache weighed on her with a leaden pain. Dodge, +too, had been unusually considerate; he talked about the future--tied +up, he asserted, in her--of his work; and suddenly, at the signal of her +rare tears, Linda agreed to a wedding. + +In the middle of the night she had wakened oppressed by a dread +resulting in an uncontrollable chill. She thought first that her mother +was bending a malignant face over her; and then realized that her +feeling was caused by her promise to Dodge Pleydon. It had grown worse +instead of vanishing, waves of nameless shrinking swept over her; and in +the morning, further harrowed by the actualities of being, she had sent +a telegram to Arnaud Hallet--to Arnaud's kindness and affection, his +detachment not unlike her own. + +They were married immediately; and through the ceremony and the +succeeding days she had been almost entirely absorbed in a sensation of +escape. At the death of Amelia Lowrie, soon after, Arnaud had suggested +a temporary period in the house she remembered with pleasure; and, +making small alterations with the months and years, they had tacitly +agreed to remain. + +Linda often wondered, walking about the lower floor, why it seemed so +familiar to her: she would stand in the dining-room, with its ceiling of +darkened beams, and gaze absent-minded through the long windows at the +close-cut walled greenery without. The formal drawing-room, at the right +of the street entrance, equally held her--a cool interior with slatted +wooden blinds, a white mantelpiece with delicately reeded supports and a +bas-relief of Minerva on the center panel, a polished brass scuttle for +cannel-coal and chairs with wide severely fretted backs upholstered in +old pale damask. + +The house seemed familiar, but she could never grow accustomed to the +undeniable facts of her husband, the children and her completely changed +atmosphere. She admitted to herself that her principal feeling in +connection with Lowrie and Vigne was embarrassment. Here she always +condemned herself as an indifferent, perhaps unnatural, mother. She +couldn't help it. In the same sense she must be an unsatisfactory wife. +Linda was unable to shake off the conviction that it was like a play in +which she had no more than a spectator's part. + +This was her old disability, the result of her habit of sitting, as +a child, apart from the concerns and stir of living. She made every +possible effort to overcome it, to surrender to her new conditions; but, +if nothing else, an instinctive shyness prevented. It went back further, +even, she thought, than her own experience, and she recalled all she had +heard and reconstructed of her father--a man shut in on himself who had, +one day, without a word walked out of the door and left his wife, +never to return. These realizations, however, did little to clarify her +vision; she was continually trying to adjust her being to circumstances +that persistently remained a little distant and blurred. + +In appearance, anyhow, Linda told herself with a measure of reassurance, +she was practically unchanged. She still, with the support of Arnaud, +disregarding current fashion, wore her hair in a straight bang across +her brow and blue gaze. She was as slender as formerly, but more +gracefully round, in spite of the faint characteristic stiffness that +was the result of her mental hesitation. Her clothes, too, had hardly +varied--she wore, whenever possible, white lawns ruffled about the +throat and hem, with broad soft black sashes, while her more formal +dresses were sheaths of dull unornamented satin extravagant in the +perfection of their simplicity. + + + + +XXIV + + +Arnaud Hallet stirred, sharply closing his book. He had changed--except +for a palpable settling down of grayness--as little as Linda. For a +while she had tried to bring about an improvement in his appearance, and +he had met her expressed wish whenever he remembered it; but this was +not often. In the morning a servant polished his shoes, brushed and +ironed his suits; yet by evening, somehow, he managed to look as though +he hadn't been attended to for days. She would have liked him to change +for dinner; other men of his connection did, it was a part of his +inheritance. Arnaud, however, in his slight scoffing disparagement, +declined individually to annoy himself. He was, she learned, enormously +absorbed in his historical studies and papers. + +"Did you enjoy it?" she asked politely of his reading. "Extremely," he +replied. "The American Impressions of Tyrone Power, the English actor, +through eighteen thirty-three and four. His account of a European packet +with its handbells and Saratoga water and breakfast of spitch-cock +is inimitable. I'd like to have sat at Cato's then, with a julep or +hail-storm, and watched the trotting races." + +Elouise Lowrie rose unsteadily, confused with dozing; but almost +immediately she gathered herself into a relentless propriety and a +formal goodnight. + +"What has been running through that mysterious mind of yours?" + +"I had a letter from Dodge," she told him simply; "and I was thinking a +little about the past." He exhibited the nice unstrained interest of +his admirable personality. "Is he still in France?" he queried. "Pleydon +should be a strong man; I am sure we are both conscious of a little +disappointment in him." She said: "I'll read you his letter, it's on the +table. + +"'You will see, my dear Linda, that I have not moved from the Rue de +Penthievre, although I have given up the place at Etretat, and I am not +going to renew the lease here. Rodin insists, and I coming to agree with +him, that I ought to be in America. But the serious attitude here toward +art, how impossible that word has been made, is charming. And you will +be glad to know that I have had some success in the French good opinion. +A marble, Cotton Mather, that I cut from the stone, has been bought for +the Luxembourg. + +"'I can hear you both exclaim at the subject, but it is very +representative of me now. I am tired of mythological naiads in a +constant state of pursuit. Get Hallet to tell you something about +Mather. What a somber flame! I have a part Puritan ancestry, as any +Lowrie will inform you. Well, I shall be back in a few months, very +serious, and a politician--a sculptor has to be that if he means to land +any public monuments in America. + +"'I hope to see you.'" + +The letter ended abruptly, with the signature, "Pleydon." + +"Are you happy, Linda?" Arnaud Hallet asked unexpectedly after a short +silence. So abruptly interrogated she was unable to respond. "What +I mean is," he explained, "do you think you would have been happier +married to him? I knew, certainly, that it was the closest possible +thing between us." Now, however, she was able to satisfy him: + +"I couldn't marry Dodge." + +"Is it possible to tell me why?" + +"He hurt me very much once. I tried to marry him, I tried to forget it, +but it was useless. I was dreadfully unhappy, in a great many ways--" + +"So you sent for me," he put in as she paused reflectively. "I didn't +hurt you, at any rate." It seemed to her that his tone was shadowed. +"You have never hurt me, Arnaud," she assured him, conscious of the +inadequacy of her words. "You were everything I wanted." + +"Except for my hats," he said in a brief flash of his saving humor. "It +would be better for me, perhaps, if I could hurt you. That ability +comes dangerously close to a constant of love. You mustn't think I +am complaining. I haven't the slightest reason in the face of your +devastating honesty. I didn't distress you and I had the necessary +minimum--the fifty thousand." His manner was so even, so devoid of +sting, that she could smile at the expression of her material ambitions. +"I realize exactly your feeling for myself, but what puzzles me is your +attitude toward the children." + +"I don't understand it either," she admitted, "except that I am quite +afraid of them. They are so different from all my own childhood; often +they are too much for me. Then I dread the time when they will discover +how stupid and uneducated I am at bottom. I'm sure you already ask +questions before them to amuse yourself at my doubt. What shall I do, +Arnaud, when they are really at school and bring home their books?" + +"Retreat behind your dignity as a parent," he advised. "They are certain +to display their knowledge and ask you to bound things or name the +capital of Louisiana." She cried, "Oh, but I know that, it's New +Orleans!" She saw at once, from his entertained expression, that she +was wrong again, and became conscious of a faint flush of annoyance. "It +will be even worse," she continued, "when Vigne looks to me for advice; +I mean when she is older and has lovers." + +"She won't seriously; they never do. She'll tell you when it's all over. +Lowrie will depend more on you. I may have my fun about the capital of +Louisiana, Linda, but I have the greatest confidence in your wisdom. God +knows what an unhappy experience your childhood was, but it has given +you a superb worldly balance." + +"I suppose you're saying that I am cold," she told him. "It must be +true, because it is repeated by every one. Yet, at times, I used to be +very different--you'd never imagine what a romantic thrill or strange +ideas were inside of me. Like a memory of a deep woods, and--and the +loveliest adventure. Often I would hear music as clearly as possible, +and it made me want I don't know what terrifically." + +"An early experience," he replied. Suddenly she saw that he was tired, +his face was lined and dejected. "You read too much," Linda declared. +He said: "But only out of the printed book." She wondered vainly what he +meant. As he stood before the glimmering coals, in the room saturated +in repose, she wished that she might give him more; she wanted to +spend herself in a riot of feeling on Arnaud and their children. What a +detestable character she had! Her desire, her efforts, were wasted. + +He went about putting up the windows and closing the outside shutters, a +confirmed habit. Linda rose with her invariable sense of separation, the +feeling that, bound on a journey with a hidden destination, she was only +temporarily in a place of little importance. It was like being always in +her hat and jacket. Arnaud shook down the grate; then he gazed over +the room; it was all, she was sure, as it had been a century ago, as it +should be--all except herself. + + + + +XXV + + +Yet her marriage had realized in almost every particular what she +had--so much younger--planned. The early suggestion, becoming through +constant reiteration a part of her knowledge, had been followed and +accomplished; and, as well, her later needs were served. Linda told +herself that, in a world where a very great deal was muddled, she had +been unusually fortunate. And this made her angry at her pervading lack +of interest in whatever she had obtained. + +Other women, she observed, obviously less fortunate than she, were +volubly and warmly absorbed in any number of engagements and pleasures; +she continually heard them, Arnaud's connections--the whole superior +society, eternally and vigorously discussing servants and bridge, family +and cotillions, indiscretions and charities. These seemed enough for +them; their lives were filled, satisfied, extraordinarily busy. Linda, +for the most part, had but little to do. Her servants, managed with +remote exactness, gave no trouble; she had an excellent woman for the +children; her dress presented no new points of anxiety nor departure ... +she was, in short, Arnaud admitted, perfectly efficient. She disposed of +such details mechanically, almost impatiently, and was contemptuous, no +envious, of the women whose demands they contented. + +At the dinners, the balls, to which Arnaud's sense of obligation both +to family and her took them against his inclination, it was the +same--everyone, it appeared to Linda, was flushed with an intentness she +could not share. Men, she found, some of them extremely pleasant, still +made adroit and reassuring efforts for her favor; the air here, she +discovered, was even freer than the bravado of her earlier surroundings. +This love-making didn't disturb her--it was, ultimately, the men who +were fretted--indeed, she had rather hoped that it would bring her the +relief she lacked. + +But again the observations and speculation of her mature childhood, what +she had heard revealed in the most skillful feminine dissections, had +cleared her understanding to a point that made the advances of hopeful +men quite entertainingly obvious. Their method was appallingly similar +and monotonous. She liked, rather than not, the younger ones, whose +confidence that their passion was something new on earth at times +refreshed her; but the navigated materialism of greater experience +finally became distasteful. She discussed this sharply with Arnaud: + +"You simply can't help believing that most women are complete idiots." + +"You haven't said much more for men." + +"The whole thing is too silly! Why is it, Arnaud? It ought to be +impressive and sweep you off your feet, up--" + +"Instead of merely behind some rented palms," he added. "But I must say, +Linda, that you are not a very highly qualified judge of sentiment." +He pronounced this equably, but she was conscious of the presence of an +injury in his voice. She was a little weary at being eternally condemned +for what she couldn't help. Any failure was as much Arnaud Hallet's as +hers; he had had his opportunity, all that for which he had implored +her. Her thoughts returned to Dodge Pleydon. April was well advanced, +and he had written that he'd be back and see them in the spring. Linda +listened to her heart but it was unhastened by a beat. She would be very +glad to have him at hand, in her life again, of course. + +Then the direction of her mind veered--what did he still think of her? +Probably he had altogether recovered from his love for her. It had been +a warm day, and Arnaud had opened a window; but now she was aware of a +cold air on her shoulder and she asked him abruptly to lower the sash. +Linda remembered, with a lingering sense of triumph, the Susanna Noda +whom Dodge had left at a party for her. There had been a great many +Susannas in his life; the reason for this was the absence of any +overwhelming single influence. It might be that now--he had written of +the change in the subjects of his work--such a guide had come into his +existence. She hoped she had. Yet, in view of the announced silliness of +women, she didn't want him to be cheaply deluded. + +He was an extremely human man. + +But she, Linda, it seemed, was an inhuman woman. The days ran into weeks +that added another month to spring; a June advanced sultry with heat; +and, suddenly as usual, a maid at the door of her room announced +Pleydon. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, she had to dress, and she +sent him a message that he mustn't expect her in a hurry. She paused in +her deliberate preparations for a long thoughtful gaze into a mirror; +there was not yet a shadow on her face, the trace of a line at her eyes. +The sharp smooth turning and absolute whiteness of her bare shoulders +were flawless. + +At first it appeared to Linda that he, too, had not changed. They were +in the library opening into the dining-room, a space shut against the +sun by the Venetian blinds, and faintly scented by a bowl of early tea +roses. He appeared the same--large and informally clad in gray flannels, +with aggressive features and sensitive strong hands. He was quiet but +plainly happy to be with her again and sat leaning forward on his knees, +watching her intently as she chose a seat. + +Then it slowly dawned on her that he had changed, yes--tragically. +Pleydon, in every way, was years older. His voice, less arbitrary, +had new depths of questioning, his mouth was more repressed, his face +notably sparer of flesh. He was immediately aware of the result of her +scrutiny. "I have been working like a fool," he explained. "A breath of +sickness, too, four years ago in Soochow. One of the damnable Asiatic +fevers that a European is supposed to be immune from. You are a miracle, +Linda. How long has it been--nearly eight years; you have two children +and Arnaud Hallet and yet you are the girl I met at Markue's. I wanted +to see you different, just a little, a trace of something that should +have happened to you. It hasn't. You're the most remarkable mother +alive." + +"If I am," she returned, "it is not as a success, or at least for me. +Lowrie and Vigne are healthy, and happy enough; but I can't lose myself +in them, Dodge; I can't lose myself at all." + +He was quiet at this, the smoke of his cigarette climbing bluely in a +space with the aqueous stillness of a lake's depths. "The same," he went +on after a long pause; "nothing has touched you. I ought to be relieved +but, do you know, it frightens me. You are relentless. You have no +right, at the same time, to be beautiful. I have seen a great many +celebrated women at their best moments, but you are lovelier than any. +It isn't a simple affair of proportion and features--I wish I could hold +it in a phrase, the turn of a chisel. I can't. It's deathless romance in +a bang cut blackly across heavenly blue." He was silent again, and Linda +glad that he still found her attractive. She discovered that the misery +his presence once caused her had entirely vanished, its place taken +by an eager interest in his affairs, a lightness of spirit at the +realization that, while his love for her might have grown calm, no other +woman possessed it. + +At the dinner-table she listened--cool and fresh, Arnaud complained, +in spite of the heat--to the talk of the two men. By her side Elouise +Lowrie occasionally repeated, in a voice like the faint jangle of an old +thin piano, the facts of a family connection or a commendation of the +Dodges. Arnaud really knew a surprising lot, and his conversation with +Pleydon was strung with terms completely unintelligible to her. It +developed, finally, into an argument over the treatment of the acanthus +motive in rococo ornament. France was summoned against Spain; the +architectural degrading of Italy deplored.... It amazed her that any one +could remember so much. + + + + +XXVI + + +Linda without a conscious reason suddenly stopped the investigation of +her feeling for Pleydon. Even in the privacy of her thoughts an added +obscurity kept her from the customary clear reasoning. After dinner, +out in the close gloom of the garden, she watched the flicker of the +cigarettes. There was thunder, so distant and vague that for a long +while Linda thought she was deceived. She had a keen rushing sensation +of the strangeness of her situation here--Linda Hallet. The night was +like a dream from which she would stir, sigh, to find herself back again +in the past waiting for the return of her mother from one of her late +parties. + +But it was Arnaud who moved and, accompanying Elouise Lowrie, went into +the house for his interminable reading. Pleydon's voice began in a low +remembering tone: + +"What a fantastic place the Feldt apartment was, with that smothered +room where you said you would marry me. You must have got hold of Hallet +in the devil of a hurry. I've often tried to understand what happened; +why, all the time, you were upset--why, why, why?" + +"In a way it was because a ridiculous hairdresser burned out some of my +mother's front wave," she explained. + +"Of course," he replied derisively, "nothing could be plainer." + +She agreed calmly. "It was very plain. If you want me to try to tell you +don't interrupt. It isn't a happy memory, and I am only doing it because +I was so rotten to you. + +"Yes, I can see now that it was the hairdresser and a hundred other +things exactly the same. My mother, all the women we knew, did nothing +but lace and paint and frizzle for men. I used to think it was a game +they played and wonder where the fun was. There were even hints about +that and later they particularized and it made me as sick as possible. +The men, too, were odious; mostly fat and bald; and after a while, when +they pinched or kissed me, I wanted to die. + +"That was all I knew about love, I had never heard of any other--men +away from their families for what they called a good time and women +plotting and planning to give it to them or not give it to them. Then +mother, after her looks were spoiled, married Mr. Moses Feldt, and I +met Judith, who only existed for men and men's rooms and told me worse +things, I'm sure, than mother ever dreamed; and, on top of that, I met +you and you kissed me. + +"But it was different from any other; it didn't shock me, and it brought +back a thrill I have always had. I wanted, then, to love you, and have +you ask me to marry you, more than anything else in the world. I was +sure, if you would only be patient, that I could change what had hurt +me into a beautiful feeling. I couldn't tell you because I didn't +understand myself." She stopped, and Pleydon repeated, bitterly and +slow: + +"Fat old bald men; and I was one with them destroying your exquisite +hope." She heard the creak of the basket chair as he leaned forward, his +face masked in darkness. "Perhaps you think I haven't paid. + +"You will never know what love is unless I can manage somehow to make +you understand how much I love you. Hallet will have to endure your +hearing it. This doesn't belong to him; it has not touched the earth. +Every one, more or less, talks about love; but not one in a thousand, +not one in a million, has such an experience. If they did it would tear +the world into shreds. It would tear them as it has me. I realize the +other, the common thing--who experimented more! This has nothing to do +with it. A boy lost in the idealism of his first worship has a faint +reflection. Listen: + +"I can always, with a wish, see you standing before me. You +yourself--the folds of your sash, the sharp narrow print of your +slippers on the pavement or the matting or the rug, the ruffles about +your hands. I have the feeling of you near me with your breathing +disturbing the delicacy of your breast. There is the odor and shimmer of +your hair ... your lips move ... but without a sound. + +"This vision is more real than reality, than an opera-house full of +people or the Place Vendome; and it, you, is all I care for, all I think +about, all I want. I find quiet places and stay there for hours, with +you; or, if that isn't possible, I turn into a blind man, a dead man +warm again at the bare thought of your face. Listen: + +"I've been in shining heaven with you. I have been melted to nothing and +made over again, in you, good. We have been walking together in a new +world with rapture instead of air to breathe. A slow walk through dark +trees--God knows why--like pines. And every time I think of you it is +exactly as though I could never die, as though you had burned all the +corruption out of me and I was made of silver fire. And listen: + +"Nothing else is of any importance, now or afterward, you are now and +the hereafter. I see people and people and hear words and words, and I +forget them the moment they have gone, the second they are still. But I +haven't lost an inflection of your voice. When I work in clay or stone I +model and cut you into every surface and fold. I see you looking back at +me out of marble and bronze. And here, in this garden, you tried to give +me more--" + +The infinitely removed thunder was like the continued echo of his voice. +There was a stirring of the leaves above her head; and the light that +had shone against the house in Elouise Lowrie's window was suddenly +extinguished. All that she felt was weariness and a confused dejection, +the weight of an insuperable disappointment. She could say nothing. +Words, even Pleydon's, seemed to her vain. The solid fact of Arnaud, of +what Dodge, more than seven years before, had robbed her, put everything +else aside, crushed it. + +She realized that she would never get from life what supremely +repaid the suffering of other women, made up for them the failure of +practically every vision. She was sorry for herself, yes, and for Dodge +Pleydon. Yet he had his figures in metal and stone; his sense of the +importance of his work had increased enormously; and, well, there were +Lowrie and Vigne; it would be difficult, every one agreed, to find +better or handsomer children. But they seemed no more than shadows or +colored mist. This terrified her--what a hopelessly deficient woman she +must be! But even in the profundity of her depression the old vibration +of nameless joy reached her heart. + + + + +XXVII + + +In the morning there was a telegram from Judith Feldt, saying that her +mother was dangerously sick, and she had lunch on the train for New +York. The apartment seemed stuffy; there was a trace of dinginess, +neglect, about the black velvet rugs and hangings. Her mother, she +found, had pneumonia; there was practically no chance of her recovering. +Linda sat for a short while by the elder's bed, intent upon a totally +strange woman, darkly flushed and ravished in an agonizing difficulty of +breathing. Linda had a remembered vision of her gold-haired and gay +in floating chiffons, and suddenly life seemed shockingly brief. A +serious-visaged clergyman entered the room as she left and she heard the +rich soothing murmur of a confident phrase. + +The Stella Condon who had become Mrs. Moses Feldt had had little time +for the support of the church; although Linda recalled that she had +uniformly spoken well of its offices. To condemn Christianity, she had +asserted, was to invite bad luck. She treated this in exactly the way +she regarded walking under ladders or spilling salt or putting on a +stocking wrong. Linda, however, had disregarded these possibilities of +disaster and, with them, religion. + +A great many people, she noticed, talked at length about it; women in +their best wraps and with expensive little prayer books left the hotels +for various Sunday morning services, and ministers came in later for +tea. All this, she understood, was in preparation for heaven, where +everybody, who was not in hell, was to be forever the same and yet +radiantly different. It seemed very vague and far away to Linda, and, +since there was such a number of immediate problems for her to consider, +she had easily ignored the future. When now, with her mother dying, it +was thrust most uncomfortably before her. + +She half remembered sentences, admonitions, of the godly--a woman had +once told her that dancing and low gowns were hateful in the sight of +God, some one else that playing-cards were an instrument of the devil. +Pleasure, she had gathered, was considered wrong, and she instinctively +put these opinions, together with a great deal else, aside as envious. + +That expressed her whole experience. She had never keenly associated the +thought of death with herself before, and she was unutterably revolted +by the impending destruction of her fine body, the delicate care +of which formed her main preoccupation in life. Age was supremely +distasteful, but this other ... she shuddered. + +Linda wanted desperately to preserve the whiteness of her skin, the +flexible black distinction of her hair, yes--her beauty. Here, again, +with other women the vicarious immortality of children would be +sufficient. But not for her. She was in the room that had been hers +before marriage, with her infinite preparations for the night at an +end; and, her hair loose across the blanched severity of her attire, +her delicately full arms bare, she clasped her cold hands in stabbing +apprehension. + +She would do anything, anything, to escape that repulsive fatality to +her lavished care. It was only to be accomplished by being good; and +goodness was in the charge of the minister. She saw clearly and at once +her difficulty--how could she go to a solemn man in a clerical vest and +admit that she was solely concerned by the impending loss of her beauty. +The promised splendor of heaven, in itself, failed to move her--it +threatened to be monotonous; and she was honest in her recognition that +charity, the ugliness of poverty, repelled her. Linda was certain that +she could never change in these particulars; she could only pretend. + +A surprising multiplication of such pretense occurred to her in people +regarded as impressively religious. She had seen men like that--she +vaguely thought of the name Jasper--going off with her mother in cabs +to dinners that must have been "godless." She wondered if this mere +attitude, the public show, were enough. And an instinctive response told +her that it was not. If all she had been informed about the future were +true she decided that her mother's chance was no worse than that of any +false display of virtue. + +She, Linda, could do nothing. + +The funeral ceremony with its set form--so inappropriate to her mother's +qualities--was even more remote from Linda's sympathies than was common +in her encounters. But Mr. Moses Feldt's grief appeared to her actual +and affecting. He invested every one with the purity of his own spirit. + +She left New York at the first possible moment with the feeling that she +was definitely older. The realization, she discovered, happened in +that way--ordinarily giving the flight of time no consideration it was +brought back to her at intervals of varying length. As she aged they +would grow shorter. + +The result of this experience was an added sense of failure; she tried +more than ever to overcome her indifference, get a greater happiness +from her surroundings and activity. Linda cultivated an attention to +Lowrie and Vigne. They responded charmingly but her shyness with them +persisted in the face of her inalienable right to their full possession. +She insisted, too, on going about vigorously in spite of Arnaud's +humorous groans and protests. She forced herself to talk more to the +men attracted to her, and assumed, with disconcerting ease, an air of +sympathetic interest. But, unfortunately, this brought on her a rapid +increase of the love-making that she found so fatiguing. + +She studied her husband thoughtfully through the evenings at home, +before the Franklin stove, or, in summer, in the secluded garden. +Absolutely nothing was wrong with him; he had, after several deaths, +inherited even more money; and, in his deprecating manner where it was +concerned, devoted it to her wishes. Except for books, and the clothes +she was forced to remind him to get, he had no personal expenses. In +addition to the money he never offended her, his relationships and +manner were conducted with an inborn nice formality that preserved her +highest self-opinion. + +Yet she was never able to escape from the limitations of a calm +admiration; she couldn't lose herself, disregard herself in a flood of +generous emotion. When, desperately, she tried, he, too, was perceptibly +ill at ease. Usually he was undisturbed, but once, when she stood beside +him with her coffee cup at dinner, he disastrously lost his equanimity. +Tensely putting the cup away he caught her with straining hands. + +"Oh, Linda," he cried, "is it true that you love me! Do you really +belong to us--to Vigne and Lowrie and me? I can't stand it if you won't +... some day." + +She backed away into the opening of a window, against the night, from +the justice of his desire; and she was cold with self-detestation as her +fingers touched the glass. Linda tried to speak, to lie; but, miserably +still, she was unable to deceive him. The animation, the fervor of his +longing, swiftly perished. His arms dropped to his side. An unbearable +constraint deepened with the silence in the room, and later he lightly +said: + +"You mustn't trifle with my ancient heart, Linda, folly and age--" + + + + +XXVIII + + +The only other quantity in her life was Dodge Pleydon. He wrote her +again, perhaps three months after the explanation of his love; but his +letter was devoted wholly to his work, and so technical that she had to +ask Arnaud to interpret it. He added: + +"That is the mind of an impressive man. He has developed +enormously--curious, so late in life. Pleydon must be fully as old as +myself. It's clear that he has dropped his women. I saw a photograph +of the Cotton Mather reproduced in a weekly, and it was as gaunt as a +Puritan Sunday. Brimmed with power. Why don't we see him oftener? Write +and say I'd like to contradict him again about the Eastlake period." + +He made no further reference to Pleydon then, and Linda failed to write +as Arnaud suggested. Though she wasn't disturbed at the possibility of +a continuation of his admissions of love she was weary of the thought of +its uselessness. Linda was, she told herself, damned by practicability. +Her husband used the familiar term of reproach, material. She didn't +in the least want to be. Circumstance, she had a feeling, had forced it +upon her. + +Arnaud, however, who had met Dodge Pleydon in Philadelphia, brought him +home. Linda saw with a strange constriction of the heart that Pleydon's +hair was definitely gray. He had had a recurrence of the fever +contracted in Soochow. The men at once entered on another discussion +which she was unable to follow; but it was clear that her husband +now listened with an increasing surrender of opinion to the sculptor. +Pleydon, it was true, was correspondingly more impatient with minds that +disagreed with his. He was at once thinner and bigger, his face deeply +lined; but his eyes had a steady vital intensity difficult to encounter. + +She considered him in detail as the talk left dinner, the glasses and +candles spent. He drank, from a tall tumbler with a single piece of +ice, the special whisky Arnaud kept. He had been neglecting himself, +too--there were traces of clay about his finger-nails, and he ate +hurriedly and insufficiently. When she had an opportunity, Linda +decided, she would speak to him about these necessary trifles. Then, she +had no chance; and it was not until the following winter, at a Thursday +afternoon concert during the yearly exhibition of the Academy of Fine +Arts, that she could gently complain. + +It was gloomy, with a promise of snow outside; and the great space of +the stairway to the galleries was filled with shadow and the strains +of _Armide_ echoing from the orchestra playing at the railing above +the entrance. Pleydon, together with a great many others, had spread +an overcoat on the masonry of the steps, and they were seated in the +obscurity of the balustrade. + +"You look as though you hadn't had enough to eat," she observed. "You +used to be almost thick but now you are a thing of terrifying grimness. +You look like a monk. I wonder why you're like a monk, Dodge?" + +"Linda Condon," he replied. + +"That can't be it now; I haven't been Linda Condon for years, but Mrs. +Arnaud Hallet. It's very pretty, of course, and I'd like to think +you could keep a young love alive so long. Experience makes me doubt +anything of the sort; but then I was always skeptical." + +"You have never been anyone else," he asserted positively. "You were +born Linda Condon and you'll die that, except for some extraordinary +accident. I can't imagine what it would be--a miracle like quaker-ladies +in the Antarctic." + +"It sounds uncomplimentary, and I'm sick of being compared with polar +places. What are quaker-ladies?" + +"Fragile little flowers in the spring meadows." + +"I'd rather listen to the music than you." + +"That is why loving you is so eternal, why it doesn't fluctuate like a +human emotion. You can't exhaust it and rest before a new tide sweeps +back; the timeless ecstasy of a worship of God ... breeding madness." + +She failed to understand and turned a troubled gaze to his bitter +repression. "I don't like to make you unhappy, Dodge," she said in a low +tone. "What can I do? I am a horrid disappointment to all of you, but +most to myself. I can't go over it again." + +"Beauty has nothing to do with happiness," he declared harshly. He rose, +without consulting her wishes; and Linda followed him as he proceeded +above, irresistibly drawn to the bronze he was showing in the Rotunda. + +It was the head and part of the shoulders of a very old woman, +infinitely worn, starved by want and spent in brutal labor. There was a +thin wisp of hair pinned in a meager knot on her skull; her bones were +mercilessly indicated, barely covered with drum-like skin; her mouth +was stamped with timid humility; while her eyes peered weakly from their +sunken depths. + +"Well?" he demanded, interrogating her in the interest of his work. + +"I--I suppose it's perfectly done," she replied, at a loss for a +satisfactory appreciation. "It's true, certainly. But isn't it more +unpleasant than necessary?" Pleydon smiled patiently. "Beauty," he said, +with his mobile gesture. "Pity, _Katharsis_--the wringing out of all +dross." + +The helpless feeling of her overwhelming ignorance returned. She was +like a woman held beyond the closed door of treasure. "Come over here." +He unceremoniously led her to the modeling of a ruffled grouse, faithful +in every diversified feather. Linda thought it admirable, really +amazing; but he dismissed it with a passionate energy. "The dull +figuriste!" he exclaimed. "Daguerre. Once I could have done that, yes, +and been entertained by its adroitness and insolence--before you made +me. Do you suppose I was able then to understand the sheer +tragic fortitude to live of a scrubwoman! The head you thought +unpleasant--haven't you seen her going home in the March slush of a +city? Did you notice the gaps in her shoes, the ragged shawl about a +body twisted with forty, fifty, sixty years of wet stone floors and +steps? Did you wonder what she had for supper?" + +"No, Dodge, I didn't. They always make me wretched." + +"Well, to realize all that, to feel the degradation of her nature, +to lie, sick with exhaustion, on the broken slats of her bed under a +ravelled-out travesty of a quilt, and get up morning after morning in +an iron winter dark--to experience that in your spirit and put it into +durable metal, hard stone--is to hold beauty in your hands." + +Her interest in his speech was mingled with the knowledge that, in order +to dress comfortably for dinner, she must leave immediately. Pleydon +helped her into the Hallet open motor landaulet. Linda demanded +quantities of air. He was, he told her at the door, leaving in an hour +for New York. "I wish you could be happier," she insisted. He reminded +her that he had had the afternoon with her. It was so little, she +thought, carried rapidly over a smooth wide street. His love for her +increased rather than lessened. How wonderful it was.... The woman +outside that barred door of treasure. + + + + +XXIX + + +Linda thought frequently about Dodge and his feeling for her; memories +of his words, his appearance, speculations, spread through her tranquil +daily affairs like the rich subdued pattern of a fine carpet on the +bare floor of her life. She was puzzled by the depth of a passion that, +apparently, made no demands other than the occasional necessity to be +with her and the knowledge that she existed. If she had been a very +intelligent woman, and, of course, not quite bad-looking, she might +have understood both Pleydon and Arnaud, the latter a man whose mind was +practically absorbed in the pages of books. There could be no doubt, no +question, of their love for her. + +Then there had always been the others--the men at the parties, in her +garden, through the old days of her childhood in hotels. It was very +stupid, very annoying, but at the same time she became interested +in what, with her candid indifference, affected them. She had never, +really, even when she desired, succeeded in giving them anything, +anything conscious or for which they moved. Judith Feldt, on the +contrary, had been prodigal. And, while certainly numbers of men had +been attracted to her, they all tired of her with marked rapidity. Men +met Judith, Linda recalled, with eagerness, they came immediately and +often to see her ... for, perhaps, a month. Then, temporarily deserted, +she was submerged in depression and nervous tears. + +But, while it was obviously impossible for all lovers to be constant, +two extraordinary and superior men would be faithful to her as long as +she lived, no--as long as they lived. This was beyond doubt. One was +celebrated--she watched with a quiet pride Pleydon's fame penetrate +the country--and the other, her husband, a person of the most exacting +delicacy of habits, intellect and wit. + +What was it, she wondered, that made the supreme importance of women to +men worth consideration. Linda was thinking of this now in connection +with her daughter. Vigne was fourteen; a larger girl than she had ever +been, with her father's fine abundant cinnamon-brown hair, a shapely +sensitive mouth, and a wide brown gaze with a habit of straying, at +inappropriate moments, from things seen to the invisible. She was, Linda +realized thankfully, transparently honest; her only affectation was +the slight supercilious manner of her associations; and she read, +ridiculously like her father, with increasing pleasure. + +However, what engaged Linda most was the fact that Vigne already liked +men; she had been at the fringe, as it were, of young dances, with a +sparkling satisfaction to herself and the securely nice youths who "cut +in" at her brief appearances. + +The truth was that Linda saw that more than a trace of Stella Condon's +warm generosity of emotion had been brought by herself to Arnaud's +daughter. The faults of every life, every circumstance, were endlessly +multiplied through all existence. At fourteen, it was Linda's frowning +impression, her mother had very fully instructed her in the wiles and +structure of admirable marriage, and she had never completely lost some +hard pearls of the elder's wisdom. Should she, in turn, communicate them +to Vigne? + +The moment, the anxiety, she dreaded was arriving, and it found her no +freer of doubt than had the other aspects of her own responses. Yet +here she was possessed by the keenest need for absolute rectitude; and +perhaps this, she thought, with an unusual pleasure, was an evidence of +the affection she had seemed to lack. But in the end she said nothing. + +She was still unable to disentangle the flesh from the spirit, love--the +love that so amazingly illuminated Dodge Pleydon--from comfort. Dodge +had disturbed all her sense of values, even to the point of unsettling +her allegiance to the supremacy of a great deal of money. He had worked +this without giving her anything definite, that she could explain to +Vigne, in return. Linda preserved her demand for the actual. If she +could only comprehend the force animating Dodge she felt life would be +clear. + +She was tempted to experiment--when had such a possibility occurred to +her before?--and discover just how far in several directions Pleydon's +devotion went. This would be easy now, she was unrestrained by the fact +of Arnaud, and the old shrinking from the sculptor happily vanished. Yet +with him before her, on one of his infrequent visits to their house, +she realized that her courage was insufficient. Was it that or something +deeper--a reluctance to turn herself like a knife in the source of the +profoundest compliment a woman could be paid. Linda thought too +highly of his love for that; the texture of the carpet had become too +gratifying. + +They were all three in the library, as customary; and Linda, restless, +saw her reflection in a closed long window. She was wearing yellow, the +color of the jonquils on a candle-stand; but with her familiar sash tied +and the ends falling to the hem of her skirt. The pointed oval of her +face was unchanged, her pallor, the straight line of her black bang, the +blueness of her eyes, were as they had been a surprisingly long while +ago. Arnaud, with a disconcerting comprehension, demanded, "Well, are +you satisfied?" She replied coolly, "Entirely." Pleydon, seated for +over an hour without moving, or even the trivial relief of a cigarette, +followed her with his luminous uncomfortable gaze, his disembodied +passion. + + + + +XXX + + +Linda heard Vigne's laugh, the expression of a sheer lightness of heart, +following a low eager murmur of voices in her daughter's room, and she +was startled by its resemblance to the gay pitch of Mrs. Moses Feldt's +old merriment. Three of Vigne's friends were with her, all approximately +eighteen, talking, Linda knew, men and--it was autumn--anticipating the +excitements of their bow to formal society that winter. They had, she +silently added, little enough to learn about the latter. Through the +year past they had been to a dancing-class identical, except for an +earlier hour and age, with mature affairs; but before that they had been +practically introduced to the pleasures of their inheritance. + +The men were really boys at the university, past the first year, +receptacles of unlimited worldly knowledge and experience. They belonged +to exclusive university societies and eating clubs, and Linda found +their stiff similarity of correct bigoted pattern highly entertaining. +She had no illusions about what might be called their morals; they were +midway in the period of youthful unrestraint; but she recognized as well +that their attitude toward, for example, Vigne was irreproachable. Such +boys affected to disdain the girls of their associated families ... or +imagined themselves incurably in love. + +The girls, for their part, while insisting that forty was the ideal age +for a lover--the terms changed with the seasons, last year "suitor" had +been the common phrase--were occasionally swept in young company into a +high irrational passion. Mostly, through skillful adult pressure or firm +negation, such affairs came to nothing; but even these were sometimes +overcome. And, when Linda had been disturbed by the echo of old days in +her daughter's tones, she was considering exactly such a state. + +One of the nicest youths imaginable, Bailey Sandby, had lost all trace +of superior aloofness in a devotion to Vigne. He was short, squarely +built, with clear pink cheeks, steady light blue eyes and crisp very +fair hair. This was his last season of academic instruction, after +which a number of years, at an absurdly low payment, awaited him in +his father's bond brokerage concern. However, he was, Linda gathered, +imperious in his urgent need for Vigne's favor. + +Ridiculous, she thought, at the same time illogically rehearsing the +resemblances of Vigne to her grandmother. She had no doubt that the +parties Vigne shared on the terraces and wide lawns, in the informal +dancing at country houses, were sufficiently sophisticated; there was +on occasion champagne, and--for the masculine element anyhow--cocktails. +The aroma of wine, lightly clinging to her young daughter's breath, +filled her with an old instinctive sickness. + +She had spoken to Arnaud who, in turn, severely addressed Vigne; +but during this Linda had been oppressed by the familiar feeling of +impotence. The girl, of course, had properly heard them; but she gave +her mother the effect of slipping easily beyond their grasp. When she +had gone to bed Arnaud repeated a story brought to him by the juvenile +Lowrie, under the influence of a temporary indignation at his sister's +unwarranted imposition of superiority. Arnaud went on: + +"Actually they had this kissing contest, it was at Chestnut Hill, with +a watch held; and Vigne, or so Lowrie insisted, won the prize for length +of time--something like a minute. Now, when I was young--" + +Submerged in apprehensive memory Linda lost most of his account of +the Eden-like youth of his earlier day. When, at last, his assertions +pierced her abstraction, it was only to bring her to the realization of +how pathetically little he knew of either Vigne or her. She weighed +the question of utter frankness here--the quality enhanced by universal +obscurity--but she was obliged to check her desire for perfect +understanding. A purely feminine need to hide, even from Arnaud, any +detracting facts about women shut her into a diplomatic silence. In +reality he could offer them no help; their problems--in a world +created more objectively by the hand of man than God--were singular to +themselves. Women were quite like spoiled captives to foreign princes, +masking, in their apparent complacency, a necessarily secret but +insidiously tyrannical control. It wouldn't do, in view of this, to +expose too much. + +The following morning it was Arnaud, rather than herself, who had a +letter from Pleydon. "He wants us to come over to New York and his +studio," the former explained. "He has some commission or other from a +city in the Middle West, and a study to show us. I'd like it very +much; we haven't seen this place, and his surroundings are not to be +overlooked." + +Pleydon's rooms were directly off Central Park West, in an apartment +house obviously designed for prosperous creative arts, with a hall +frescoed in the tones of Puvis de Chavannes and an elevator cage +beautifully patterned in iron grilling. Dodge Pleydon met them in his +narrow entry and conducted them into a pleasant reception-room. "It's a +duplex," he explained of his quarters; "the dining-room you see and the +kitchen's beyond, while the baths and all that are over our heads; the +studio fills both floors." + +There were low book cases with their continuous top used as a shelf for +a hundred various objects, deep long chairs of caressing ease and chairs +of coffee-colored wicker with amazingly high backs woven with designs of +polished shells into the semblance of spread peacocks' tails. The yellow +silk curtains at the windows, the rug with the intricate coloring of a +cashmere shawl, the Russian tea service, were in a perfection of order; +and Linda almost resentfully acknowledged the skilful efficiency of his +maid. It was surprising that, without a wife, a man could manage such a +degree of comfort! + +Over tea far better than hers, in china of an infinitely finer +fragility, she studied Pleydon thoughtfully. He looked still again +perceptibly older, his face continued to grow sparer of flesh, +emphasizing the aggressively bony structure of his head. When he shut +his mouth after a decided statement she could see the projection of the +jaw and the knotted sinews at the base of his cheeks. No, Dodge didn't +seem well. She asked if there had been any return of the fever and he +nodded in an impatient affirmative, returning at once to the temporarily +suspended conversation with Arnaud. There was a vast difference, too, in +the way in which he talked. + +His attitude was as assertive as ever, but it had less expression in +words; unaccountable periods of silence, almost ill-natured, overtook +him, spaces of abstraction when it was plain that he had forgotten the +presence of whoever might be by. Even direct questions sometimes failed +to pierce immediately his consciousness. Dodge, Linda told herself, +lived entirely too much alone. Then she said this aloud, thoughtlessly, +and she was startled by the sudden intolerable flash of his gaze. +An awkward pause followed, broken by the uprearing of Pleydon's +considerable length. + +"I must take you into the studio before it is too dark," he proceeded. +"Every creative spirit knows when its great moment has come. Well, mine +is here." The men stood aside as Linda, her head positively ringing with +the thrill that was like a strain of Gluck, the happy sadness, entered +the bare high spaciousness of Dodge Pleydon's workroom. + + + + +XXXI + + +Everything she saw, the stripped floor, the white walls bare but for +some casts like the dismembered fragments of flawless blanched bodies, +the inclined plane of the wide skylight, bore an impalpable white dust +of dried clay. In a corner, enclosed in low boards, a stooped individual +with wood-soled shoes and a shovel was working a mass of clay over which +at intervals he sprinkled water, and at intervals halted to make pliable +lumps of a uniform size which he added to a pile wrapped in damp cloths. +There were a number of modeling stands with twisted wires grotesquely +resembling a child's line drawing of a human being; while a stand with +some modeling tools on its edge bore an upright figure shapeless in its +swathing of dampened cloths. + +"The great moment," Pleydon said again, in a vibrant tone. "But you know +nothing of all this," he directly addressed Linda. "Neither, probably, +will you have heard of Simon Downige. He was born at Cottarsport, in +Massachusetts, about eighteen forty; and, after--in the support of his +hatred of any slavery--he fought through the Civil War, he came home +and found that his town stifled him. He didn't marry at once, as so many +returning soldiers did; instead he was wedded to a vision of freedom, +freedom of opinion, of spirit, worship--any kind of spaciousness +whatever. And, in the pursuit of that, he went West. + +"He told them that he was going to find--but found was the word--a place +where men could live together in a purity of motives and air. No more, +you understand; he hadn't a personal fanatical belief to exploit +and attract the hysteria of women and insufficient men. He was not a +pathological messiah; but only Simon Downige, an individual who couldn't +comfortably breathe the lies and injustice and hypocrisy of the ordinary +community. No doubt he was unbalanced--his sensitiveness to a universal +condition would prove that. Normally people remain undisturbed by such +trivialities. If they didn't an end would come to one or the other, the +lies or the world. + +"He traveled part way in a Conestoga wagon--a flight out of Egypt; they +were common then, slow canvas-covered processions with entire families +drawn by the mysterious magnetism of the West. Then, leaving even such +wayfarers, he walked, alone, until he came on a meadow by a little river +and a grove of trees, probably cottonwoods.... That was Simon Downige, +and that, too, was Hesperia. Yes, he was unbalanced--the old Greek +name for beautiful lands. It is a city now, successful and corruptly +administered--what always happens to such visions. + +"It is necessary, Linda, as I've always told you, to understand the +whole motive behind a creation in permanent form. A son of Simon's--yes, +he finally married--a unique and very rich character, wife dead and no +children, commissioned a monument to the founder of Hesperia, in Ohio, +and of his fortune. + +"They even have a civic body for the control of public building; and +they came East to approve my statue, or rather the clay sketch for it. +They were very solemn, and one, himself a sculptor, a graduate of the +Beaux Arts, ran a suggestive thumb over Simon and did incredible damage. +But, after a great deal of hesitation, and a description from +the sculptor of what he thought excellently appropriate for +such magnificence, they accepted my study. The present Downige, +really--though I understand there is another pretentious branch in +Hesperia--bullied them into it. He cursed the Beaux-Arts graduate with +the most brutal and satisfactory freedom--the tyranny of his money; the +crown, you see, of Simon's hope." + +He unwrapped one by one the wet cloths; and Linda, in an eagerness sharp +like anxiety, finally saw the statue, under life-size, of a seated man +with a rough stick and bundle at his feet. A limp hat was in his hand, +and, beneath a brow to which the hair was plastered by sweat, his eyes +gazed fixed and aspiring into a hidden dream perfectly created by his +desire. Here, she realized at last, she had a glimmer of the beauty, the +creative force, that animated Dodge Pleydon. Simon Downige's shoes were +clogged with mud, his entire body, she felt, ached with weariness; but +his gaze--nothing Linda discovered but shadows over two depressions--was +far away in the attainment of his place of justice and truth. + +She found a stool and, careless of the film of dust, sat absorbed in the +figure. Pleydon again had lost all consciousness of their presence; he +stood, hands in pockets, his left foot slightly advanced, looking at his +work from under drawn brows. Arnaud spoke first: + +"It's impertinent to congratulate you, Pleydon. You know what you've +done better than any one else could. You have all our admiration." Linda +watched the tenderness with which the other covered Simon Downige's +vision in clay. Later, returning home after dinner, Arnaud speculated +about Pleydon's remarkable increase in power. "I had given him up," he +went on; "I thought he was lost in those notorious debauches of esthetic +emotions. Does he still speak of loving you?" + +"Yes," Linda replied. "Are you annoyed by it?" He answered, "What +good if I were?" She considered him, turned in his chair to face +her, thoughtfully. "I haven't the slightest doubt of its quality, +however--all in that Hesperia of old Downige's. To love you, my dear +Linda, has certain well-defined resemblances to a calamity. If you ask +me if I object to what you do give him, my answer must shock the gods of +art. I would rather you didn't." + +"What is it, Arnaud?" she demanded. "I haven't the slightest idea. I +wish I had." + +"Platonic," he told her shortly. "The term has been hopelessly ruined, +yet the sense, the truth, I am forced to believe, remains." + +"But you know how stupid I am and that I can't understand you." + +"The woman in whom a man sees God," he proceeded irritably: + +"'_La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa, idea_.'" + +"Oh," she cried, wrung with a sharp obscure hurt. "I know that, I've +heard it before." Her excitement faded at her absolute inability to +place the circumstances of her memory. The sound of the words vanished, +leaving no more than the familiar deep trouble, the disappointing +sensation of almost grasping--Linda was unable to think what. + +"After all, you are my wife." He had recovered his normal shy humor. +"I can prove it. You are the irreproachable mother of our unsurpassed +children. You have a hopeless vision--like this Simon's--of seeing me +polished and decently pressed; and I insist on your continuing with the +whole show." + +Her mind arbitrarily shifted to the thought of her father, who had +walked out of his house, left--yes--his family, without any intimation. +Then, erratically, it turned to Vigne, to Vigne and young Sandby with +his fresh cheeks and impending penniless years acquiring a comprehension +of the bond market. She said, "I wonder if she really likes Bailey?" +Arnaud's energy of dismay was laughable, "What criminal folly! They +haven't finished Mother Goose yet." + + + + +XXII + + +Linda, who expected to see Pleydon's statue of Simon Downige finished +immediately in a national recognition of its splendor, was disappointed +by his explanation that, probably, it would not be ready for casting +within two years. He intended to model it again, life-size, before he +was ready for the heroic. April, the vivifying, had returned; and, +as always in the spring, Linda was mainly conscious of the mingled +assuaging sounds of life newly admitted through open windows. A single +shaded lamp was lighted by a far table, where Arnaud sat cutting the +pages of _The Living Age_ with an ivory blade; Dodge was blurred in the +semi-obscurity. + +He came over to see them more frequently now, through what he called the +great moment--so tiresomely extended--of his life. Pleydon came oftener +but he said infinitely less. It was his custom to arrive for dinner and +suddenly depart early or late in the evening. At times she went up +to her room and left the two almost morosely silent men to their own +thoughts or pages; at others she complained--no other woman alive would +stay with such uninteresting and thoroughly selfish creatures. They +never made the pretense of an effort to consider or amuse her. At this +Arnaud would put aside his book and begin an absurd social conversation +in the manner of Vigne's associates. Pleydon, however, wouldn't speak; +nothing broke the somberness of his passionate absorption in invisible +tyrannies. She gave up, finally, a persistent effort to lighten his +moods. Annoyed she told him that if he did not change he'd be sick, and +then where would everything be. + +All at once, through the open window, she heard Stella, her mother, +laughing; the carelessly gay sound overwhelmed her with an instinctive +unreasoning dread. Linda rose with a half gasp--but of course it was +Vigne in the garden with Bailey Sandby. + +She sank back angry because she had been startled; but her irritation +perished in disturbing thought. It wasn't, she told herself, Vigne's +actions that made her fear the future so much as her, Linda's, knowledge +of the possibilities of the past. Her undying hatred of that existence +choked in her throat; the chance of its least breath touching Vigne, +Arnaud's daughter, roused her to any embittered hazard. + +The girl, she was certain, returned a part at least of Bailey's feeling. +Linda expected no confidences--what had she done to have them?--and +Arnaud was right, affairs of the heart were never revealed until +consummated. Her conclusion had been reached by indirect quiet +deductions. Vigne, lately, was different; her attitude toward her mother +had changed to the subtle reserve of feminine maturity. Her appearance, +overnight, it seemed, had improved; her color was deeper, a delicate +flush burned at any surprise in her cheeks, and the miracle of her body +was perfected. + +It wasn't, Linda continued silently, that Vigne could ever follow the +example of Stella Condon through the hotels and lives of men partly +bald, prodigal, and with distant families. Whatever happened to her +would be in excellent surroundings and taste; but the result--the +sordid havoc, inside and out, the satiety alternating with the points +of brilliancy, and finally, inexorably, sweeping over them in a leaden +tide--would be identical. She wondered a little at the strength of her +detestation for such living; it wasn't moral in any sense with which she +was familiar; in fact it appeared to have a vague connection with her +own revolt from the destruction of death. She wanted Vigne as well to +escape that catastrophe, to hold inviolate the beauty of her youth, her +fineness and courage. + +She was convinced, too, that if she loved Bailey, and was disappointed, +some of the harm would be done immediately; Linda saw, in imagination, +the pure flame of Vigne's passion fanned and then arbitrarily +extinguished. She saw the resemblance of the dead woman, all those other +painted shades, made stronger. A sentence formed so vividly in her mind +that she looked up apprehensively, certain that she had spoken it aloud: + +If Vigne does come to care for him they must marry. + +Her thoughts left the girl for Arnaud--he would absolutely oppose her +there, and she speculated about the probable length his opposition would +reach. What would he say to her? It couldn't be helped, in particular it +couldn't be explained, neither to him nor to the friendly correctness of +Bailey Sandby's mother. She, alone, must accept any responsibility, all +blame. + +The threatened situation developed more quickly than she had +anticipated. Linda met Bailey, obviously disturbed, in the portico, +leaving their house; his manner, mechanically, was good; and then, with +an irrepressible boyish rush of feeling, he stopped her: + +"Vigne and I love each other and Mr. Hallet won't hear of it. He +insulted us with the verse about the old woman who went to the cupboard +to get a bone, and if he hadn't been her father--" he breathed a +portentous and difficult self-repression. "Then he took a cowardly +advantage of my having no money, just now; right after I explained how I +was going to make wads--with Vigne." + +An indefinable excitement possessed Linda, accompanied by a sudden acute +fear of what Arnaud might say. She wanted more than anything else in +life to go quickly, inattentively, past Bailey Sandby and up to her +room. Nothing could be easier, more obvious, than her disapproval of a +moneyless boy. She made a step forward with an assumed resolute ignoring +of his disturbed presence. It was useless. A dread greater than her +fright at Arnaud held her in the portico, her hand lifted to the +polished knob of the inner door. Linda turned slowly, cold and white, +"Wait," she said to his shoulder in an admirable coat; then she gazed +steadily into his frank pained eyes. + +"How do you know that you love Vigne?" she demanded. "You are so young +to be certain it will last always. And Vigne--" + +"How does any one know?" he replied. "How did you? Married people always +forget their own experiences, the happy way things went with them. +From all I see money hasn't much to do with loving each other. But, of +course, I'm not going to be poor, not with Vigne. Nobody could. She'd +inspire them. Mr. Hallet knows all about me, too; and he's the oldest +kind of a friend of the family. I suppose when he sees father at the +Rittenhouse Club they'll have a laugh--a laugh at Vigne and me." His +hand, holding the brim of a soft brown hat, clenched tensely. + +"No," Linda told him, "they won't do that." Her obscure excitement was +communicated to him. "Why not?" he demanded. + +"Because," she paused to steady her voice, "because I am going to take a +very great responsibility. If it fails, if you let it fail, you'll ruin +ever so much. Yes, Mr. Hallet, I am sure, will consent to your marrying +Vigne." She escaped at the first opening from his incoherent gratitude. +Arnaud was in the library, and she stopped in the hall, busy with the +loosening of her veil. Perhaps it would be better to speak to him after +dinner; she ought to question Vigne first; but, as she stood debating, +her daughter passed her tempestuously, blurred with crying, and Arnaud +angrily demanded her presence. + + + + +XXXIII + + +"You were quite right," he cried; "this young idiot Sandby has been +telling Vigne that he loves her; and now Vigne assures me, with tears, +that she likes it! They want to get married--next week, tomorrow, this +evening." Linda stood by the window; soon the magnolia-tree would be +again laden with flowers. She gathered her courage into a determined +composure of tone. "I saw Bailey outside," she admitted. "He told me. It +seems excellent to me." + +Arnaud Hallet incredulously challenged her. "What do you mean--that you +gave him a trace of encouragement!" Linda replied: + +"I said that I was certain you would consent." She halted his +exasperated gesture. "You think Vigne is nothing but a child, and yet +she is as old as I was at our wedding. My mother was no older when +Bartram Lowrie married her. I think Vigne is very fortunate, Bailey is +as nice as possible; and, as he said, it isn't as if you knew nothing of +the Sandbys; they are as dignified as the Lowries." + +An expression she had never before seen hardened his countenance into +a sarcasm that travestied his customary humor. "You realize, of course, +that except for what his father gives him young Sandby is wretchedly +poor. He's nice enough but what has that to do with it? And, in +particular, how does it touch you, Linda Condon? Do you suppose I can +ever forget your answer that time I first asked you to marry me? You +wouldn't consider a poor man; you were worth, really, a hundred thousand +a year; but, if nothing better came along, you might sacrifice yourself +for fifty." + +"I remember very well," she answered; "and, curiously enough, I am +not ashamed. I was very sensible then, in a horrible position with +extravagant habits. They were me. I couldn't change myself. Without +money I should have made you, any man, entirely miserable. Arnaud, I +hadn't--I haven't now--the ability to see everything important through +the affections, like so many many women. You often told me that; who +hasn't? I have always admitted it wasn't pleasant nor praiseworthy. But +how, to use your own words, does all that affect Vigne? She isn't cold +but very warm-hearted; and, instead of my experience, she has her own so +much better feeling." + +"I absolutely refuse to allow anything of the sort," he declared +sharply. "I won't even discuss it--for three years. Tell this Sandby +infant, if you like, to come back then." + +"In three years, or in one year, Vigne may be quite different, yes-less +lovable. Happiness, too, is queer, Arnaud; there isn't a great deal of +it. Not an overwhelming amount. If it appears for an instant it must be +held as tightly as possible. It doesn't come back, you know. Don't turn +to your book yet--you can't get rid of us, of Vigne and me, like that; +and then it's rude; the first time, I believe, you have ever been +impolite to me." + +"Forgive me," he spoke formally. "You seem to think that I am as +indifferent as yourself. You might be asking the day of the week to +judge from your calm appearance. The emotion of a father, or even of +a mother, perhaps, you have never explored. On the whole you are +fortunate. And you are always protected by your celebrated honesty." She +said: + +"I promised Bailey your consent." + +"Why bother about that? It isn't necessary for your new romantic mood. +An elopement, with you to steady the ladder, would be more appropriate." + +She repeated the fact of her engagement. Her dread for him had vanished, +its place now taken by a distrust of what, in her merged detachment and +suffering, she might blunderingly do. At the back of this she realized +that his case, his position, was hopeless. Without warning, keen and +undimmed, his love for her flashed through his resentful misery. There +was no spoken acknowledgement of surrender; he sank into his chair +dejected and pitiable, infinitely gray. His shoes, on the brightness of +the hooked rug, were dingy, his coat drawn and wrinkled. + +Linda saw herself on her knees before him, before his patience and +generosity, sobbing her contrition into his forgiving hands. She +longed with every nerve--as she had so often before--to lose herself in +passionate emotion. She had never been more erect or withdrawn, never +essentially less touched. After a little, waiting for him to speak, +she saw that he, too, had retreated into the profound depths of his own +illusions and despairs. + + + + +XXXIV + + +For a surprising while--even in the face of Vigne's radiance--Arnaud +was as still and shadowed as the inert surface of a dammed stream. Then +slowly, the slenderest trickle at first, his wit revived his spirit; and +he opened an unending mock-solemn attack on Bailey Sandby's eminently +serious acceptance of the responsibilities of his allowed love. + +The boy had left the university, and his father--a striking replica of +Arnaud's prejudices, impatience and fundamental kindness--exchanged with +Vigne's male parent the most dismal prophecies together with concrete +plans for their children's future security. This, inevitably, resulted +in Vigne's marriage; a ceremony unattended by Pleydon except by the +presence of a very liberal check. + +The life-size version of his Simon Downige was again under way--it had +been torn down, Linda knew, more than once--and he was in a fever of +composition. Nor was this, she decided with Arnaud, his only oppression: +the Asiatic fever clung to him with disquieting persistence. Pleydon +himself admitted he had a degree or two in the evening. + +Linda was seated in his studio near Central Park West, perhaps a year +later, and she observed aloud that so much wet clay around was bad for +him. He laughed: nothing now could happen to him, he was forever beyond +accident, sickness, death--his statue for the monument in Hesperia was +finished. It stood revealed before them, practically as Linda had first +seen it, but enlarged, towering, as if the vision it portrayed had +grown, would continue to grow eternally, because of the dignity of its +hope, the necessity of its realization. + +"Now," she said, "it will go to the foundry and be cast." He corrected +her. "You will go to the foundry and be cast ... in bronze." A distinct +graceful happiness possessed her at the knowledge that his love for her +was as constant as though it, too, were metal. Not flesh but bronze, +spirit, he insisted. + +The multiplying years made that no more comprehensible than when, a +child, she had thrilled in a waking dream. Love, spirit, death. Three +mysteries. But only one, she thought, was inevitably hers, the last. To +be loved was not love itself, but only the edge of its cloak; +response was an indivisible part of realization. No, sterility was the +measure--of its absence. And she was, Linda felt, in spite of Vigne and +Lowrie, the latter a specially vigorous contradiction, the most sterile +woman alive. There were always Dodge's assurances, but clay, stone, +metal, were cold for a belief to embrace. And she was, she knew, +lovelier now than she had ever been before, than she would ever be +again. + + + + +XXXV + + +The faint ringing of the bell from outside that probably announced +Arnaud sounded unreal, futile, to Linda. He came into the studio, and +at once a discussion began between the two men of the difference in +the surfaces of clay and bronze. The talk then shifted to the pictorial +sources of the heroic Simon Downige before them, and Linda declared, +"Dodge, you have never made a head of me. How very unflattering!" + +"You're an affair for a painter," he replied; "Goya or Alfred Stevens. +No one but Goya could have found a white for you, with the quality of +flower petals; and Stevens would have fixed you in an immortality of +delicate color, surrounded by your Philadelphia garden." He stood quite +close to her, with his jacket dragged forward by hands thrust into its +pockets, and he added at the end of a somber interrogation, "But if you +would really like to know why--" + +In a moment more, she recognized, Dodge would explain his feeling for +her--to Arnaud, to any one who might be present. The gleam in his +eyes, his remoteness from earthly concern, were definitely not normal. +Pleydon, his love, terrified her. "No," she said with an assumed hurried +lightness, "don't try to explain. I must manage to survive the injury to +my vanity." + +They left New York almost immediately, Pleydon suddenly determining to +go with them; and later were scattered through the Hallet household. +Vigne and her husband were temporarily living there; with their heads +close together they were making endless computations, numerous floor +plans and elevations. Linda, at the piano in the drawing-room, could +hear them through the hall. Pleydon was lounging in a chair beyond her. +She couldn't play but she was able, slowly, to pick out the notes +of simple and familiar airs--echoes of Gluck and blurred motives of +Scarlatti. It was for herself, she explained; the sounds, however crude +and disconnected, brought things back to her. What things, she replied +to Pleydon's query, she didn't in the least know; but pleasant. + +The fact that she understood so little depressed her with increasing +frequency. It was well enough to be ignorant as a girl, or even as a +young woman newly married; but she had left all that behind; she had +lost her youth without any compensating gain of knowledge. Linda could +not assure herself that life was clearer than it had been to her serious +childhood. It had always been easily measured on the surface; she +had had a very complete grasp of its material aspects almost at once, +accomplishing exactly what she had planned. Perhaps this was all; +and her trouble an evidence of weakness--the indecision, she saw +with contempt, that kept so many people in a constant agitation of +disappointment. + +Perhaps this was enough; more than the majority had or accomplished. She +made, again, a resolute effort to be contented, at rest. Her straying +fingers clumsily wrought a fragmentary refrain that mocked her +determination. It wasn't new, this--this dissatisfaction; but it had +grown sharper. As she was older her restlessness increased at the +realization that life, opportunity, were slipping from her. Soon she +would be forty. + +The conviction seized her that most lives reflected hers in that their +questioning was never answered. The fortunate, then, were the incurious +and the hearts undisturbed by a maddening thrill. She said aloud, "The +ones who never heard music." Pleydon was without a sign that she had +spoken. Her emotions were very delicate, very fragile, and enormously +difficult to perceive. They were like plants in stony ground. Where had +she heard that--out of the Bible? Then she thought of her failure to get +anything from religion--a part of her inability to drink at the springs +which others declared so refreshing. Linda pressed her hands more +sharply on the keys and the answering discord had the effect of waking +her to reality. + +Pleydon remained until the following afternoon, and then was lost--in +the foundry casting his statue--for six months. Arnaud went over to view +the completion of the bronze and returned filled with enthusiasm. "Its +simplicity is the surprising part," he told her. "The barest statement +possible. But Pleydon himself is in a disturbing condition; I can't +decide if it is mental or physical. The fever of course; yet that +doesn't account for his distance from ordinary living. The truth is, I +suppose, that men weren't designed for great arts, and nature, like +the jealous God of the Hebrews, retaliates. It is absurd, but Pleydon +reminds me of you; you're totally different. I suppose it's because of +the detachment you have in common." He veered to a detail of Lowrie's +first year at a university, and exhibited, against a decent endeavor to +the contrary, his boundless pride in their son. + +The boy was, Linda acknowledged, more than commonly dependable and +able. He was heavy, like his father, and so diffident that he almost +stuttered; but his mental processes flashed in quick intuitive +perceptions. Lowrie was an easy and brilliant student; and, perhaps +because of this, of his mental certainty, he was not intimate with +her as Arnaud had hoped and predicted. It seemed to Linda that he +instinctively penetrated her inner doubt and regarded it without +sympathy. In this he was her son. Lowrie was a confident and +unsympathetic critic of humanity. + +Even now, so soon, there was no question of his success in the law his +fitness had elected. The springs of his being were purely intellectual, +reasoning. In him Linda saw magnified her own coldness; and, turned on +herself, she viewed it with an arbitrary feminine resentment. He was +actually courteous to her; but under all their intercourse there was a +perceptible impatience. His scorn of other women, girls, however, was +openly expressed and honest; it had no trace of the mere affectation +of pessimism natural to his age. Arnaud, less thoughtful than she, was +vastly entertained by this, and drew Lowrie out in countless sly sallies +and contradictions. + +Yes, he would succeed, but, after all, what would his success be +worth--placed, that was, against Vigne's radiant happiness, Bailey +Sandby's quiet eyes and the quality of his return home each evening? + +Her thoughts came back to Pleydon--she had before her a New York paper +describing the ceremony of unveiling his Simon Downige at Hesperia. +There was a long learned article praising its beauty and emphasizing +Pleydon's eminence. He was, it proceeded, an anomaly in an age of +momentary experimental talents--a humanized Greek force. He didn't +belong to to-day but to yesterday and to-morrow. This gave her an +uncomfortable vision of Dodge in space, with no warm points of contact. +She, too, was suspended in that vague emptiness. Linda had the sensation +of grasping at streamers, forms, of sparkling mist. A strange position +in view of her undeniable common sense, the solid foundations of her +temperament and experience. She saw from the paper, further, that the +Downige who had commissioned the monument was dead. + + + + +XXXVI + + +In the middle of the festive period that connected Christmas with the +new year Arnaud turned animatedly from his breakfast scanning of the +news. "It seems," he told her, "that a big rumpus has developed in +Hesperia over the Pleydon statue--the present Downige omnipotence, never +friendly with our old gentleman, has condemned its bronze founder. +You know what I mean. It's an insult to their pride, their money and +position, to see him perpetuated as a tramp. On the contrary he was a +very respectable individual from a prominent family and town. + +"They have been moving the local heavens, ever since the monument was +placed, to have it set aside. I suppose they would have succeeded, +too, if a large amount given to the city were not contingent on its +preservation. But then they can always donate more money in the cause of +their sacred respectability." + +Linda had never, she exclaimed, heard of anything more disgusting. It +was plain that Hesperia knew nothing of art. "Every one," she ran on +in the heat of her resentment, "every one, that is, who should decide, +agrees it's magnificent. They were frightfully lucky to get it--Dodge's +finest work." She wrote at once to Pleydon commanding his presence and +expressing her contempt of such depravity of opinion. To her surprise he +was undisturbed, apparently, by the condemnation of his monument. + +He even laughed at her energy of scorn. She was hurt, perceptibly +silenced, with a feeling of having been misunderstood or rather +undervalued. Her disturbance at any blame attached to the statue of +Simon Downige was extremely acute. But, she thought, if it failed to +worry Dodge why should she bother. She did, in spite of this philosophy; +Simon was tremendously important to her. + +He stood for things: she had watched his evolution from the clay sketch, +and in Pleydon's mind, to the final heroic proportions; and she had +taken for granted that a grateful world would see him in her light. +A woman, she decided, had made the trouble; and she hated her with a +personal vigor. Pleydon said: + +"I told you that old Simon was unbalanced; now you can see it by his +reception in a successful city. The sculptor--do you remember him, a +Beaux-Arts graduate?--admits that he had always opposed it, but that +political motives overbore his pure protest. There is a scheme now to +build a pavilion, for babies, and shut out the monument from open view. +They may do that but time will sweep away their walls. If I had +modeled Simon Downige, yes, he would go; but I modeled his vision, his +aspiration--the hope of all men for release and purity. + +"Downige and the individual babies are unimportant compared to a vision +of perfection, of escape. As long as men live, if they live, they'll +reach up; and that gesture in itself is heaven. Not accomplishment. The +spirit dragging the flesh higher; but spirit alone--empty balloons. A +dream in bronze, harder even than men's heads, more durable than their +prejudices, so permanent that it will wear out their ignorance; and in +the end--always in the end--they'll bring their wreath. + +"A replica has gone to Cottarsport, from me; and you ought to see +it there, on a block of New England granite. It's in the Common, a +windswept reach with low houses and a white steeple and the sea. It +might have been there from the beginning, rising on rock against the +pale salt day. They can go to hell in Hesperia." + +Still Linda's hurt persisted; she saw the unfortunate occurrence as a +direct blow at her pride. Arnaud, too, failed her; he was splendid in +his assault upon such rapacious stupidity; but it was only an impersonal +concern. His manner expressed the conviction that it might have been +expected. He was blind to her special enthusiasm, her long intimate +connection with the statue. Exasperated she almost told him that it was +more real to her than their house, than Vigne and Lowrie, than he. She +was stopped, fortunately, by the perception that, amazingly, the statue +was more actual than Dodge Pleydon. It touched the center of her life +more nearly. + +Why, she didn't know. + +If her mental confusion increased by as much as a feeling, Linda +thought, she would be close to madness. It was unbearable at practically +forty. + +Lowrie said, at the worst possible moment, that he found the entire +episode ridiculously overemphasized. A statue more or less was of small +importance. If the Downige family were upset why didn't they employ +an able lawyer to dispose of it? There were many ways for such a +proceeding-- + +"I have no desire to hear them," she interrupted. "You seem to know a +tremendous lot, but what good it will do you in the end who can say! +And, with all your cleverness, you haven't an ounce of appreciation for +art. Besides, I hate to see any one as young as you so sure of himself. +Often I suspect you are patronizing your father and me. It's not pretty +nor polite." + +Lowrie was obviously embarrassed by her attack, and managed the abrupt +semblance of an apology. Arnaud, who had put down his eternal book, said +nothing until the boy had vanished. "Wasn't that rather sharp?" he +asked mildly. "Perhaps," she replied in a tone without warmth or regret. +"Somehow I am never comfortable with Lowrie." + +"You are too much alike," he shrewdly observed. "It is laughable at +times. Did you expect your children to be fountains of sentiment? +And, look here--if I can get along in comfort with you for life you in +particular ought to put up peacefully with Lowrie. He is a damned sight +more human than, at bottom, you are; a woman of alabaster." + +"I loathe quarrels," she admitted; "they are so vulgar. You know that +they are not like me and just said so. Oh, Arnaud, why does life get +harder instead of easier?" + +He put his book aside completely and gazed at her in patient thought. +"Linda," he said finally, "I have never heard anything that stirred me +so much; not what you said, my dear, but the recognition in your voice." +A wistfulness of love for her enveloped him; an ineffable desire as vain +as the passion she struggled to give him in return. She smiled in an +unhappiness of apology. + +"Perhaps--" he stopped, waiting any assurance whatever, his face eager +like a dusty lamp in which the light had been turned sharply up. She was +unable to stir, to move her gaze from his hopeful eyes, to mitigate by a +breath her slender white aloofness. A smile different from hers, +tender with remission, lingered in his fading irradiation. The dusk was +gathering, adding its melancholy to his age--sixty-five now. Why that +was an old man! Her sympathy vanished in her shrinking from the twilight +that was, as well, slowly, inevitably, deepening about her. + +It was laughable that, as she approached an age whose only resource +was tranquillity, she grew more restless. Her present vague agitation +belonged ridiculously to youth. The philosophy of the evident that had +supported her so firmly was breaking at the most inopportune time. And +it was, she told herself, too late for anything new; the years for +that had been spent insensibly with Arnaud. Linda was very angry with +herself, for, in all her shifting state of mind, she preserved an inner +necessity for the quality of exactness expressed in her clothes. There +were literally no neglected spaces in her conscious living. + +Her thoughts finally centered about the statue in Hesperia--it presented +an actual mark for her fleeting resentments. She wondered why it so +largely occupied her thoughts, moved her so personally. She watched the +papers for the scattered reports of the progress of the contention it +had roused, some ill-natured, others supposedly humorous, and nearly +all uninformed. She became, Arnaud said, the champion of the esthetic +against Dagon. He elaborated this picture until she was forced to smile +against her inclination, her profound seriousness. Linda had the feeling +that she, too, was on the pedestal that held the bronze effigy of Simon +Downige challenging the fog that obscured men. Its fate was hers. She +didn't pretend to explain how. + +As time passed it seemed to her that it took her longer and longer to +dress in the morning, while her preparations couldn't be simpler; her +habit of deliberation had become nearly a vice, the precision of her +ruffles, her hair, a tyranny. She never quite lost the satisfaction of +her mirror's faultless reflection; and stopped, now, for a moment's +calm interrogation of the being--hardly more silvery cool than the +reality--before her. + +Arnaud was at the table, and the gaze with which he met her was +troubled. The morning paper, she saw, was, against custom, at her place, +and she picked it up with an instinctive sense of calamity. The blackly +printed sensational headline that immediately established her fear sank +vivid and entire into her brain: an anonymous inflamed mob in Hesperia +had pulled down and destroyed Pleydon's statue. Their act was described +as a tribute to the liberality of the present Downige family in the +light of its objection to the monument. + +As if in the development of her feeling Linda had a sensation of +crashing with a sickening violence from a pedestal to the ground. +Actually, it seemed, the catastrophe had happened to her. She heard, +with a sense of inutility, Arnaud denouncing the outrage; he had a +pencil in his hand for the composition of a telegram to Dodge. He +paid--but perhaps only naturally--no attention to her, suffering dully +from her fall. She shuddered before the recreated lawless approaching +voice of the mob; the naked ugly violence froze her with terror; she +felt the gross hurried hands winding ropes about her, the rending +brutality of force-- + +She sat and automatically took a small carved glass of orange-juice +from a bed of ice, and her chilled fingers recalled a dim image of her +mother. Arnaud was speaking, "I'm afraid this will cut through Pleydon's +security, it was such a wanton destruction of his unique power. You see, +he worked lovingly over the cast with little files and countless finite +improvements. The mold, I think, was broken. What a piece of luck the +thing's at Cottarsport." He paused, obviously expecting her to comment; +but suddenly phrases failed her. + +In place of herself she should be considering Dodge; her sympathy even +for him was submerged in her own extraordinary injury. However, she +recovered from her first gasping shock, and made an utterly commonplace +remark. Never had her sense of isolation been stronger. "I must admit," +her husband continued, "that I looked for some small display of concern. +I give you my word there are moments when I think Pleydon himself cut +you out of stone. He isn't great enough for that, though; in the way +of perfection you successfully gild the lily. A thing held to be +impossible." + +Linda told him with amazing inanity that his opinion of her was +unreliable; and, contented, he lightly pursued his admiration of what +he called her boreal charm. At intervals she responded appropriately +and proceeded with breakfast. She had entered a region of dispassionate +consideration, her characteristic detachment, she thought, regained. She +mentally, calmly, reconstructed the motives and events that had led to +the destruction of the statue; they, at least, were evident to her. +She reaffirmed silently her conviction that it had resulted from the +stupidity, the vanity, of a woman. The limitations of men, fully as +narrow, operated in other directions. + +Then, with an incredulous surprise, she was aware that the clear space +of her reason was filling with anger. Never before had such a flood +of emotion possessed her; and she surrendered herself, in an +enormous relief, to the novelty of its obliterating tide. It deepened +immeasurably, sweeping her far from the security of old positions of +indifference and critical self-possession. Linda became enraged at +a world that had concentrated all its degraded vulgarity in one +unspeakable act. + + + + +XXXVII + + +It was fall, October, and the day was a space of pale gold foliage +wreathed in blue garlands of mist. The gardener was busy with a wooden +rake and wheelbarrow in which he carted away dead leaves for burning. +The fire was back of the low fence, in the rear, and Linda, at the +dining-room window, could hear the fierce small crackle of flames; the +drifting pungent smoke was like a faint breath of ammonia. Arnaud had +left for the day, Lowrie was at the university, while Vigne and her +husband--moving toward their ultimate colonial threshold--had taken a +small house. She was alone. + +As usual. + +However, in her present state her solitude had lost its inevitability; +she failed to see why it must continue until the end of time. She could +no longer discover a sufficient reason for her limitless endurance, +her placid acceptance of all that chance, or any inconsiderable person, +happened to dictate. She wasn't like that in the least. Her temper had +solidified as though it were ice, taking everywhere the form in which +it was held. It was a reality. She determined, as well, that her feeling +should not melt back into the familiar acceptance of a routine that had +led her blindfolded across such an extent of life. + +She understood now, in a large part, her disturbance at the indignity +to Dodge's monument--he had assured her that she was its inspiration; +except for her it would never have been realized, he would have kept +on modeling those Newport fountains, continued with the Susanna Nodas, +spending himself ignobly. He loved her, and that love had resulted in a +statue the world of art, of taste, honored. But it was she all the while +they were approving, discussing, writing about, Linda Condon. + +She had always been that, Pleydon had informed her, never Linda +Hallet--in spite of Arnaud and their children. It sounded like nonsense; +but, at the bottom, it was truth. Of course it couldn't be explained, +for example, to the man who had every right, every evidence, to consider +himself her husband. Nothing was susceptible of explanation. Absolutely +nothing! There was the earth, which appeared to be everything, the +houses you entered, the streets you passed over, the people among whom +you lived, yet that wasn't all. Heavens, no! It was quite unimportant +compared with--with other facts latent in the mind and blood. + +Dodge Pleydon's love was one of those other facts; it was simply +impossible to deny its existence, its power. Dodge had been totally +changed by it, born over again. But she, who had been the source, had +had no good from it, nothing except the thrill that had always been +hers. No one knew of it, counted it as her achievement, paid the +slightest attention to her. Arnaud smiled indulgently, Lowrie scoffed. +When the statue had been thrown down they thought of it merely as a +deplorable part of the day's news. They hadn't seen that she, Linda +Condon, was unspeakably insulted. + +She doubted if she could bring them to comprehend what had happened--to +her. Or if Arnaud understood, if she made it plain, what good would be +done! That wouldn't save her, put her back again on the pedestal. The +latter was necessary. Linda recognized that a great deal of her feeling +was based on pride; but it was a pride entirely justified. She had no +intention of submitting to the coarse hands and ropes of public affront. +Throughout her life she had rebelled against any profanation of her +person, she had hated to be touched. + +Every instinct, she found, every delicate self-opinion, was bound into +Pleydon's success; the latter had kept her alive. Without it existence +would have been intolerable. It was unbearable now. + +She discharged the small daily duties of her efficient housekeeping with +a contemptuous exactness; for years she had accomplished, in herself, +nothing more. But at last a break had come. Linda recognized this +without any knowledge of what reparation it would find. She wasn't +concerned with that, a small detail. It would be apparent. Arnaud +was silent through dinner; tired, it seemed. She saw him as if at the +distant end of a dull corridor--as she looked back. There was no change +in her liking for him. Mechanically she noticed the disorder of his +scant hair and rumpled sleeves. + +Not until, waking sharply, in the middle of the night, did she have a +glimpse of a possible course--she might live with Dodge and perfectly +express both her retaliation and her accomplishment. In that way she +would reestablish herself beside him and place their vision in bronze on +an elevation beyond the spite of the envious and the blind. + +It was so directly simple that she was surprised it hadn't occurred +to her before. The possibility had always been a part, unsuspected and +valuable, of her special being; the largely condemned faults of +her character and experience had at least brought her this--a not +inconsiderable freedom in a world everywhere barred by the necessity +for upholding a hypocritical show of superiority to honest desire. The +detachment that deprived her of life's conventional joys released +her from its common obligations. That conviction, however, was too +intimately connected with all her inheritance to bring her any conscious +dramatic sense of rebellion or high feeling of justified indignation. + +Sleep had deserted her, and she waited for the dawn in the windows that +would bring her escape. It was very slow coming; the blackness took on +a grayer tone, like ink with added faint infusions of water. Slowly the +blackness dissolved and she heard the stir of the sparrows in the ivy. +There was the passing rumble of an early electric car on the paved aged +street, the blurred hurried shuffle of a workman's clumsy shoes. The +brightening morning was cool with a premonitory touch of frost; at the +window she saw a vanishing silver sheen on the lawn and board fence. + +A sensation of youth pervaded her; and while, perhaps, it was out of +keeping with her years, she had still her vitality unspent; she was +without a trace of the momentary frost on the grass. She was tranquil, +leisurely; her heart evenly sent its life through her unflushed body. +Piece by piece she put on her web-like garments, black and white; +brushing the heavy stream of her hair and tying the inevitable sash +about her supple waist. + +Below she met Arnaud with an unpleasant shock--she hadn't given him +a thought. Her feeling now was hardly more than annoyance at her +forgetfulness. He would be terribly distressed at her going, and she was +genuinely sorry for this, poised at the edge of an explanation of her +purpose. Arnaud was putting butter and salt into his egg-cup, after +that he would grind the pepper from a French mill--pure spices were a +precision of his--and she waited until the operation was completed. + +Then it occurred to her that all she could hope to accomplish by +admitting her intention was the ruin of his last hour alone with her. +He was happier, gayer, than usual. But his age was evident in his voice, +his gestures. Linda marveled at her coldness, her ruthless disregard of +Arnaud's claim on her, of his affection as deep as Pleydon's, perhaps no +less fine but not so imperative. Yet Arnaud had had over twenty years of +her life, the best; and she had never deceived him about the quality +of her gift. It was right, now, for Dodge to have the remainder. +But whether it were right or wrong, there was no failure of her +determination to go to Pleydon in the vindication of her existence. + +She delayed speaking to Arnaud until, suddenly, breakfast was over. He +seldom went to the law office where he had been a partner, but stayed +about the lower floor of his house, in the library or directing small +outside undertakings. Either that or he left, late, for the Historical +Society, with which his connection and interest were uninterrupted. +As Linda passed him in the hall he was fumbling in the green bag that +accompanied all his journeyings into the city; and she gathered that he +intended to make one of his occasional sallies. She proceeded above, +to her room, where with steady hands she pinned on her hat. It would +be impossible to take any additional clothes, and she'd have to content +herself with something ready-made until she could order others in +the establishment of her living with Dodge. Her close-fitting jacket, +gloves, and a short cape of sables were collected; she gazed finally, +thoughtfully, about the room, and then, with a subdued whisper of +skirts, descended the stair. Arnaud was in the library, bending over +the table that bore his accumulation of papers and serious journals. A +lingering impulse to speak was overborne by the memory of what, lately, +she had endured--she saw him at the dusty end of that long corridor +through which she had monotonously journeyed, denied of her one triumph, +lost in inconsequential shadows--and she continued firmly to the door +which closed behind her with a normal mute smoothness, an inanimate +silence. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +The maid who admitted Linda to Pleydon's apartment, first replying, +"Yes, Mrs. Hallet. No, Mrs. Hallet," to her questions, continued in +fuller sentences expressing a triumph of sympathy over mere correctness. +She lingered at the door of the informal drawing-room, imparting the +information that Mr. Pleydon had become very irregular indeed about his +meals, and that his return for lunch was uncertain. Something, however, +would be prepared for her. Linda acknowledged this briefly. Often, with +Mr. Pleydon at home, he wouldn't so much as look at his dinner. Times, +too, it seemed as though he had been in the studio all night. He went +out but seldom now, and rarely remained away for more than an hour or +two. Linda heard this without an indication of responsive interest, +and the servant, returning abruptly from the excursion into humanity, +disappeared. + +She was glad to have this opportunity alone to accustom herself to a +novel position. But she was once more annoyingly calm. Annoyingly, she +reiterated; the fervor of her anger, which at the same time had been +bitterly cold, had lessened. She was practically normal. She regarded +this, the loss of her unprecedented emotion, in the light of a fraud on +her sanguine decision. Linda had counted on its support, its generous +irresistible tide, to carry her through the remainder of her life with +the exhilaration she had so largely missed. + +Here in Dodge's room she was as placid, almost, as though she were in +the library at home. That customary term took its place in her thoughts +before she recognized that, with her, it had shifted. However, it was +unimportant--home had never been a magical word to her; it belonged in +the vast category which, of such universal weight, left her unstirred. +She resembled those Eastern people restlessly and perpetually moving +across sandy deserts as they exhausted, one after another, widely +separated scanty oases. + +She studied the objects around her with the pleased recognition that +they were unique, valuable, and in faultless taste. Then she fell to +wondering at the difference had Dodge been poor: she would have come to +him, Linda knew, just the same. But, she admitted frankly, it would +have been uncomfortable. Perhaps that--actual poverty, actual +deprivation--was what her character needed. A popular sentiment upheld +such a view; she decided it was without foundation. There was no reason +why beauty, finely appropriate surroundings, should damage the spirit. + +Her mind turned to an examination of her desertion of Arnaud, but she +could find no trace of conventional regret; of what, she felt, her +sensation ought to be. The instinctive revolt from oblivion was an +infinitely stronger reality than any allegiance to abstract duty. She +was consumed by the passionate need to preserve the integrity of being +herself. The word selfish occurred to her but to be met unabashed by the +query, why not? Selfishness was a reproach applied by those who failed +to get what they wanted to all who succeeded. Linda wasn't afraid of +public opinion, censure; she didn't shrink even from the injury to her +husband. What Dodge would think, however, was hidden from her. + +She had no doubt of his complete acceptance of all she offered; ordinary +obligations to society bound him as little as they held her. It would be +enough that she wanted to come to him. + +She would bother him, change his habit of living, very little. Long +years of loneliness had taught her to be self-sufficient. Linda would +be too wise to insist on distasteful regularity in the interest of a +comparatively unimportant well-being. In short, she wouldn't bother him. +That must be made clear at once. + +More than anything else he would be inexpressibly delighted to have her +with him, to find--at last--his love. Little intimacies of satin +mules, glimpses, charming to an artist! He'd be faultless, too, in the +relationships where Arnaud as well had never for a moment deviated from +beautiful consideration. Two remarkable men. While her deficiency in +humor was admitted, she saw a glimmer of the absurd in her attitude and +present situation. The combination, at least, was uncommon. There had +been no change in her feeling for either Arnaud or Dodge, their places +in her being were undisturbed; she liked her husband no less, Dodge no +better. + +Lunch was announced, a small ceremony of covered silver dishes, heavy +crystal, Nankin china, and flowers. The linen, which was old, bore a +monogram unfamiliar to her--that of Dodge's mother, probably. When she +had finished, but was still lingering at the narrow refectory table, she +heard Pleydon enter the hall and the explanatory voice of the servant. +An unexpected embarrassment pervaded her, but she overcame it by the +realization that there was no need for an immediate announcement of +her purpose. Dodge would naturally suppose that she was in New York +shopping. + +He did, to her intense relief, with a moving pleasure that she had +lunched with him. "It's seldom," he went on, "that you are so sensible. +I hope you haven't any plans or concerts to drag you away immediately. +I owe you a million strawberries; but, aside from that, I'd like you to +stay as long as possible." + +"Very well," she replied quietly; "I will." + +She hadn't seen him since the statue at Hesperia had been destroyed, and +she tried faintly to tell him how much that outrage had hurt her. It had +injured him too, she realized; just as Arnaud predicted. He showed his +age more gauntly, more absolutely, than the other. His skin was dry as +though the vitality of his countenance had been burned out by the flame +visible in his eyes. + +"The drunken fools!" he exclaimed of the mob that had torn Simon Downige +from his eminence; "they came by way of all the saloons in the city. +Free drinks! That is the disturbing thing about what the optimistic call +civilization--the fact that it is always at the mercy of the ignorant +and the brutal. There is no security; none, that is, except in the +individual spirit. And they, mostly, are the victims of a singular +insane resentment--Savonarola and there were greater. + +"But you mustn't think, you mustn't suppose, that I mean it's +hopeless. How could I? Who has had more from living? Love and complete +self-expression. That exhausts every possibility. Three words. Remember +Cottarsport. But the love--ah," he smiled, but not directly at her. +Linda was at once reassured and disturbed; and she rose, proceeding into +the drawing-room. + +There she sat gracefully composed and with still hands; she never +embroidered or employed her leisure with trivial useful tasks. Pleydon +was extended on a chair, his fingers caught beyond his head and his long +legs thrust out and crossed at the ankles. His gaze was fixed on her +unwaveringly; and yet, when she tried to meet its focus, it went behind +her as though it pierced the solidity of her body and the walls in the +contemplation of a far-removed shining image. Her disturbance grew to +the inclusion of a degree of fretfulness at his unbroken silence, his +apparent absorption in whatever his meditation projected or found. + + + + +XXXIX + + +Now, she decided, was the moment for her revelation; or rather, it +couldn't very well be further deferred, for it promised to be halting. +But, with her lips forming the words, he abruptly spoke: + +"I have lived so long with your spirit, it has become so familiar--I +mean the ability of completely making you out of my heart--that when you +are here the difference isn't staggering. You see, you are never away. +I have that ability; it came out of the other wreck. But you know about +it--from years back. Time has only managed a greater power. Lately, and +I have nothing to do with it, I have been seeing you again as a girl; +as young as at Markue's party; younger. Not more than ten. I don't +mean that there is anything--isn't the present fashionable word +subliminal?--esoteric. God forbid. You'll remember my hatred of that +brutal deception. + +"No, it's only a part of my ability to create the shape of feeling, of +Simon's hope. I see things as realities capable of exact statement; and, +naturally, more than all the rest, you come to me that way. But as a +child--who knows why?" he relinquished the answer with an opened +palm. "And young like that, perhaps ten, I love you more sharply, more +unutterably, than at any other age. What is it I love? Not your adorable +plastic body, not that. It isn't necessary to understand. + +"You have, as a child, a quality of blinding loveliness in a world I +absolutely distrust. An Elysian flower. Is it possible, do you suppose, +to worship an abstract idea? It's not important to insist on my sanity." + +The question of that had occurred independently to Linda; his hurried +voice and lost gaze filled her with apprehension. A dull reddish patch, +she saw, burned in either thin cheek; and she told herself that the +fever had revived in him. Pleydon continued: + +"Yet it is a timeless vision, because you never get old. I see Hallet +failing year by year, and your children, only yesterday dabs of soft +flesh, grow up and pass through college and marry. I hear myself in the +studio with an old man's cough; the chisels slip under the mall and I +can't move the clay about without help--all fading, decaying, but you. +Candles burn out, hundreds of them, while your whiteness, your flame-- + +"Strange, too, how you light a world, a sky, eternity. A word we have no +business with; a high-sounding word for a penny purpose. Look, we try +to keep alive because it's necessary to life, to nature; and the effort, +the struggle, breeds the dream. You can understand that. Men who ought +to know say that love is nothing more." He rose and stood over her, +towering and portentous against the curtained light. "I don't pretend to +guess. I'm a creative artist--Simon Downige at Cottarsport--I have you. +If it's God so much the better." + +What principally swept over Linda was the knowledge that his possession +of her must keep them always apart. The reality, all realities, were +veils to Pleydon. Her momentary vision of things beyond brick and earth +was magnified in him until everything else was obliterated. The fever! +Oh, yes, that and his passion for work merged in his passion for her. +She could bring him nothing; and she had a curious picture of two Lindas +visible to him here--the Linda that was actual and the other, the child. +And of them it was the latter he cared most for, recreated out of his +desire to defraud his loneliness, to repay the damage to his spirit +realized in bronze. + +She was, suddenly, too weary to stir or lift her hand; a depression +as absolute as her flare of rage enveloped her. Now the reason for her +coming seemed inexplicable, as if, for the while, her mind had failed. +She repressed a shudder at the thought of being, through the long nights +of his restlessness and wandering voice, alone with Pleydon. She hadn't, +Linda discovered, any of the transmuting feeling for him which alone +made surrender possible. She calculated mentally how long it would take +her to reach the station, what train would be available. + +Linda accepted dumbly the fatality to her own hope; for a few hours she +had thought it possible to break out of the prison of circumstance, to +walk free from all hindrance; but it had been vain. She gazed at Dodge +Pleydon intensely--a comprehensive view of the man she had so nearly +married, and who, more than any other force, dominated her being. It was +already too late for anything but memory; she saw--filled with pity for +them both--hardly more than a strange old man with deadened hair and a +yellow parchment-like skin. His suit of loose gray flannel gave her a +feeling that it had been borrowed from some one she lovingly knew. The +gesture of his hand, too, had been copied from a brilliant personage +with a consuming impatience at all impotence. + +"Remember me to Arnaud," he said, holding her gloves and the short fur +cape. "Wait!" he cried sharply, turning to the bookcase against the +wall. Pleydon fumbled in a box of lacquered gilt with a silk cord and +produced a glove once white but now brown and fragile with age. "You +never missed it," he proceeded in a gleeful triumph; "but then you had +so many pairs. Once I sent you nine dozen together from Grenoble. They +were nothing, but this you had worn. For a long while it kept the shape +of your hand." + +"Dodge," she tried without success to steady her voice, "it stayed with +you anyhow, my--my hand." + +"But yes," he answered impatiently. He returned the glove to its box, +carefully tying the tasselled cord. Then, after clumsily helping her +with the cape, he accompanied her to the elevator. "There were other +things," he told her. "Did you see the letters about the Hesperia +affair? Heaps of them. Rodin.... But what can you expect in a world +where there is no safety--" The stopping cage cut off his remark. She +held out the hand that was less real to him than the dream. + +"Good-by, Dodge." + +"Yes, Linda. But watch that door, your skirt might easily be caught in +it." He fussed over her safety until, abruptly, he seemed to rise in +space, shut out from her by the limitations of her faith. + +The evening overshadowed her in the train, as though she were whirling +in the swiftest passage possible, through an indeterminate grayness, +from day to night. The latter descended on her as she reached the steps +of her home. It was still that; now it would continue to be until +death. Nothing could ever again offer her change, release, vindication; +nothing, that was, which might give her, for a day, what even her mother +had plentifully experienced--the igniting exultation of the body. + +It was inevitable, she thought, for Arnaud to be in the library. He rose +unsteadily as she stood in the doorway. "Linda," he articulated with +difficulty. A book had rested open on the table beside him and, closing +it, he put it back in its place. His arm trembled so that it took a +painfully long while. Then he moved forward, still confused. + +"What a confounded time you were gone. I had the most idiotic fancy. You +see, it was so unlike you; none more exact in habit. All day. I didn't +get to the Historical Society, it seemed so devilish far off. I'd never +blame you for leaving an old man without any gumption." He must never +think that again, she replied. Wasn't she, too, middle-aged? + + + + +XL + + +Linda admitted, definitely, the loss of her youth; and yet a stubborn +inner conviction remained that she was unchanged. In this she had for +support her appearance; practically she was as freshly and gracefully +pale as the girl who had married Arnaud Hallet. Even Vigne, with +indelible traces of her motherhood, had faint lines absent from Linda's +flawless countenance. Her children, and Arnaud, were immensely proud of +her beauty; it had become a part--in the form of her ridiculously young +air--of the family conversational resources. She was increasingly aware +of its supreme significance to her. + +One of her few certainties had been the discovery that, while small +truths might be had from others, all that intimately and deeply +concerned her was beyond questioning and advice. The importance of her +attractiveness, for example, which seemed the base of her entire being, +was completely out of accord with the accepted standard of values +for middle-aged women. Other things, called moral and spiritual, she +inferred, should take up her days and thoughts. There was a course of +discipline--exactly like exercises in the morning--for the preparation +of the willingness to die. + +But such an attitude was eternally beyond her; she repudiated it with +a revolt stringing every nerve indignantly tense. She had had, on the +whole, singularly little from life but her fine body; it had always been +the temple and altar of her service, and no mere wordy reassurance could +now repay her for its swift or gradual destruction. The latter, except +for accident, would be her fate; she was remarkably sound. In her social +adventures, the balls to which, without Arnaud, she occasionally went, +she was morbid in her sensitive dread of discovering, through a waning +admiration, that she was faded. + +It would be impossible to spend more care on her person than she had in +the past; but that was unrelenting. Linda was inexorable in her demands +on the establishments that made her suits and dresses. The slightest +imperfection of fit exasperated her; and she regarded the endless change +of fashions with contempt. This same shifting, she observed, occurred +not only in women's clothes but in the women themselves. + +Linda remembered her mother, eternal in gaiety, but very obviously +different from her in states of mind affecting her appearance. She was +unable to define the change; but it was unmistakable--Stella Condon +seemed a little old-fashioned. When now, to Lowrie's wife, Linda was +unmistakably out-of-date. Lowrie, fast accomplishing all that had been +predicted for him, had married a girl incomprehensible to his mother. +Observing this later feminine development she had the baffled feeling of +inspecting a creature of a new order. + +To Linda, Jean Tynedale, now a Hallet, seemed harder than ever her own +famous coldness had succeeded in being. This came mostly from Jean's +imposing education; there had been, in addition to the politest of +finishing schools, college--a woman's concern, Bryn Mawr--and then +post-graduate honors in a noteworthy university. She was entirely +addressed, in a concrete way, to the abstract problems of social +progress and hygiene; and, under thirty, the animating spirit, as well +as financial support, of an incredible number of Settlements and allied +undertakings. She spoke crisply before civic and other clubs; even, in +the interest of suffrage, addressing nondescript audiences from a box on +the street. + +But it was her unperturbed dissection of the motives of sex, the +denouncement of a criminal mysterious ignorance, that most daunted +Linda. She listened to Jean with a series of distinct shocks to her +sense of propriety. What she had agreed to consider a nameless attribute +of women, or, if anything more exact, the power of their charm over men, +the other defined in unequivocal scientific terms. She understood +every impulse veiled for Linda in a reticence absolutely needful to its +appeal. + +This, of course, the elder distrusted; just as she had no approval for +Jean's public activities. Linda didn't like public women; her every +instinct cried for a fine seclusion, fine in the meaning of an +appropriate setting for feminine distinction, the magic of dress and cut +roses. Her private inelegant word for Lowrie's wife was "bold;" indeed, +describing to herself the younger woman's patronage of her bearing, she +descended to her mother's colloquialism "brass." + +She thought this sitting at a dinner-table which held Vigne and her +husband and Lowrie and Jean Hallet. Arnaud, drawing life from the +vitality of an atmosphere charged with youth, was unflagging in splendid +spirits and his valorous wit. Jean would never inspire the affection +Arnaud had given her; nor the passion that, in Pleydon, had burned unfed +even by hope. + +Her thoughts slipped away from the present to the sculptor. Three years +had vanished since she had gone with an intention of finality to his +apartment, and in that time he had neither been in their house nor +written. Linda had expected this; she was without the desire to see +or hear from him. Dodge Pleydon was finished for her; as a man, a +potentiality, he had departed from her life. He was a piece with her +memories, the triumphs of her young days. Without an actual knowledge of +the moment of its accomplishment she had passed over the border of that +land, leaving it complete and fair and radiant for her lingering view. +Whether or not she had been happy was now of no importance; the magic +of its light showed only a garden and a girl in white with a black bang +against her blue eyes. + +The bang, the blueness of gaze, were still hers; but, only this +morning, brush in hand, the former had offered less resistance in its +arrangement; it was thinner, and the color perceptibly not so dense. At +this, with a chill edge of fear, she had determined to go at once to +her hairdresser; no one, neither Arnaud, who loved its luster, nor an +unsympathetic bold scrutiny, a scrutiny of brass, should see that she +was getting gray. There was no fault about her figure; she had that for +her satisfaction; she was more graceful than Jean's square thinness, +more slim than Vigne's maternal presence. + +Linda had the feeling that she was engaged in a struggle with time, a +ruthless antagonist whom she viewed with a personal enmity. Time must, +would, of course, triumph in the end; but there would be no sign of her +surrender in the meanwhile; she wouldn't bend an inch, relinquish by a +fraction the pride and delicacy of her person. The skilful dyeing of +her hair to its old absolute blackness, as natural and becoming in +appearance as ever, was a symbol of her determination to cheat an +intolerable tyranny. + +The process, dismaying her soul, she bore with a rigid fortitude; as she +endured the coldness of a morning bath from which, often, she was slow +to react. This, to her, was widely different from the futile efforts +of her mother, those women of the past, to preserve for practical ends +their flushes of youth and exhilaration. She felt obscurely that she was +serving a deeper reality created by the hands of Pleydon, Arnaud's +faith and pure pleasure, all that countless men had seen in her for +admiration, solace and power. + +But it was inevitable, she told herself bitterly, that she should +hear the first intimation of her decline from Jean Hallet. Rather, she +overheard it, the discussion of her, from the loiterers at breakfast +as she moved about the communicating library. Jean's emphatic slightly +rough-textured voice arrested her in the arrangement of a bowl of +zinnias: + +"You can't say just where she has failed, but it's evident. Perhaps a +general dryness. Perfectly natural. Thoroughly silly to fight against +it--" Vigne interrupted her. "I think mother's wonderful. I can't +remember any other woman nearly her age who looks so enchanting in the +evening." + +Linda quietly left the flowers as they were and went up to the room that +had been her father's. It was now used as a spare bedroom; and she had +turned into it, in place of her own chamber, instinctively, without +reason. She had kept it exactly as it had been when Amelia Lowrie first +conducted her there, as it was when her father, a boy, slept under the +white canopy. + +Linda advanced to the mirror; and, her hands so tightly clenched that +the finger-nails dug into the palms, forced herself to gaze steadily +at the wavering reflection. It seemed to her that there had been a +malicious magic in Jean's detraction; for immediately, as though the +harm had been wrought by the girl's voice, she saw that her clear +freshness had gone. Her face had a wax-like quality, the violet shadows +under her eyes were brown. Who had once called her a gardenia? Now she +was wilting--how many gardenias had she seen droop, turn brown. Her +heart beat with a disturbing echo in her ears, and, with a slight gasp +that resembled a sob, she sank on one of the uncomfortable painted +chairs. + +What, above every other sensation, oppressed her was a feeling of +terrific loneliness--the familiar isolation magnified until it was past +bearing. Yet, there was Arnaud, infallible in his tender comprehension, +she ought to go to him at once and find support. But it was impossible; +all that he could give her was, to her special necessity, useless. She +had never been able to establish herself in his sympathy; the reason for +that lay in the fact that she could bring nothing similar in return. + +The room--except for the timed clangor of the electric cars, like the +measure of lost minutes--was quiet. The photograph of Bartram Hallet in +cricketing clothes had faded until it was almost indistinguishable. Soon +the faint figure would disappear entirely, as though the picture were +amenable to the relentless principle operating in her. + +The peace about her finally lessened her acute suffering, stilled her +heart. She told herself with a show of vigor that she was a coward, a +charge that roused an unexpected activity of denial. She discovered that +cowardice was intolerable to her. What had happened, too, was so far out +of her hands that a trace of philosophical acceptance, recognition, came +to her support. The loveliest woman alive must do the same, meet in a +looking-glass--that eternal accompanying sibyl--her disaster. She rose, +her lips firmly set, composed and pale, and returned to the neglected +flowers in the library. + +Vigne entered and put an affectionate arm about her shoulders, +repeating--unconscious that Linda had heard the discussion which had +given it being--the conviction that her mother was wonderful, specially +in the black dinner dress with the girdle of jet. With no facility of +expression she gave her daughter's arm a quick light pressure. + +From then she watched the slow progress of age with a new realization, +but an unabated distaste and, wherever it was possible, a determined +artifice. Arnaud had failed swiftly in the past months; and, while she +was inspecting the impaired supports of an arbor in the garden, he came +to her with an unopened telegram. "I abhor these things," he declared +fretfully; "they are so sudden. Why don't people write decent letters +any more! It's like the telephone.... Good manners have been ruined." + +She tore open the envelope, read the brief line within, and, a hand +suddenly put out to the arbor, sank on its bench. There had been rain, +but a late sun was again pouring over the sparkling grass, and robins +were singing with a lyrical clearness. "What is it?" Arnaud demanded +anxiously, tremulous in the unsparing sunlight. She replied: + +"Dodge died this morning." + +His concern was as much for her as for Pleydon's death. "I'm sorry, +Linda," his hand was on her shoulder. "It is a shock to you. A fine man, +a genius--none stronger in our day. When you were young and for so +long after.... I was lucky, Linda, to get you; have you all this while. +Nothing in Pleydon's life, not even his success, could have made up for +your loss." + +She wondered dully if Dodge had missed her, if Arnaud Hallet had ever +had her in his possession. The robins filled the immaculate air +with song. It was impossible that Dodge, who was so imperious in his +certainty that he would never say good-by to her, was dead. + + + + +XLI + + +There was a revival of public interest in the destruction of Pleydon's +statue at Hesperia, the papers again printed accounts colored by a +variety of attitudes unembarrassed by fact; and the serious journals +united in a dignity of eminently safe praise. At first Linda made an +effort to preserve these; but soon their similarity, her inability to +find, among sonorous periods, any trace of Dodge's spirit--in reality +she knew so blindingly much more than the most penetrating critical +intellect--caused her to leave the reviews unread. No one else living +had understood Pleydon; and when descriptions of his life spoke of the +austerity in his later years, his fanatical aversion to women, Linda +thought of the brittle glove in the gilt-lacquer box. + +Her own emotion, it seemed to her, was the most confused of all the +unintelligible pressures that had converted her life into an enigma. +She had a distinct sense of overwhelming loss--of something, Linda was +obliged to add, she had never owned. However, she realized that during +Pleydon's life she had dimly expected a happy accident of explanation; +until almost the last, yes--after she had returned from that ultimate +journey, she had been conscious of the presence of hope. The hope had +been for herself, created out of her constant baffled dissatisfaction. + +But now the man in whom solely she had been expressed, the only possible +reason for her obstinate pride, had left her in a world that, but +for Arnaud's fondness, looked on her without remark. The loss of her +distinction had been finally evident at balls, in the dresses in which +Vigne had thought her so wonderful, and she dropped them. Here, she +repeated, was when affection, generously radiated through life, should +have reflected over her a tranquil and contented joy. She had never +given it, and she was without the ability to receive. She admitted to +herself, with a little annoyed laugh, that her old desire for inviolable +charm, for the integrity of a memorable slimness, was unimpaired. It +was, she thought, too ridiculously inappropriate for words. + +Yet it had changed slightly into the recognition that what so often had +been called her beauty was all she now had for sustenance, all she had +ever had. Her mind returned continually to Pleydon, and--deep in the +mystery of his passion--she was suddenly invaded by an insistent desire +to see the monument at Cottarsport. She spoke to Arnaud at once about +this; and alone, through his delicacy of perception, Linda went to +Boston the following day. + +The further ride to Cottarsport followed the sea--a brilliant serene +blue, fretted on the landward side by innumerable bare promontories, +hideous towns and factories, but bowed in a far unbroken arc at the +immaculate horizon. She left the train for a hilly cluster of houses, +gray and low like the rock everywhere apparent, dropping to a harbor +that bore a company of motionless boats with half-spread drying sails. + +The day was at noon, and the sky, blue like the sea, held, still as the +anchored schooners, faint, chalky symmetrical clouds. Linda found the +Common without guidance; and at once saw, on its immovable base of +rugged granite, the bronze statue of Simon Downige. It stood well in +advance of what, evidently, was the court-house, the white steeple Dodge +had described. She found a bench by a path in the thin grass; and there, +her gloved hands folded, at rest in her lap, her gaze and longing were +lifted to the fixed aspiration. + +From where she sat the seated figure was projected against the sky; +Simon's face was turned toward the west; the West that, for him, was the +future, but which for Linda represented all the past. This conviction +flooded her with unutterable sadness. A sense of failure weighed on her, +no less heavy for the fact that it was perpetually vague. Her thoughts +gathered about Dodge himself; and she recalled the curious vividness of +his vision of her as a child, perhaps ten. She, too, tried to remember +that time and age. It was almost in her grasp, but her realization was +spoiled by absurd mental fragments--the familiar illusion of a leopard +and a rider with bright hair, a forest with the ascending voices of +angels, and an ominous squat figure with a slowly nodding plumed head. + +The vista of a hotel returned, a fleet recollection of marble columns +and a wide red carpet ... the white gleam and carbolized smell of a +drug-store ... a thick magazine in a brown cover. These, changed into +emotions of mingled joy and pain, shifted in bright or dim colors and +sensations. There was a slow heavy plodding of feet, now above her head, +the passage of a carried weight; and, in a flash of perception, she knew +it was a coffin. She raised her clasped hands to her breast, crying into +the sunny silence, to the figure of Simon Downige lost in dream: + +"He died that night, at the Boscombe, after he had told me about the +meadows with silk tents--" + +Her memory, thrilling with the echoed miraculous chord of the child of +ten, sitting gravely, alone, among the shrill satins and caustic voices +of a feminine throng, was complete. She saw herself, Linda Condon, as +objectively as Pleydon's described vision: there was a large bow on her +straight black hair, and, from under the bang, her gaze was clear and +wondering. How marvelously young she was! The vindictive curiosity of +the questioning women, intent on their rings, brought out her eager +defense of her mother, the effort to explain away the ugly fact +that--that Mr. Jasper was married. + +She saw Linda descending the marble stairs to the lower floor where +the games were kept in a somber corridor, and heard a voice halting her +irresolute passage: + +"Hello, Bellina." + +That wasn't her name, and she corrected him, waiting afterward to listen +to a strange fairy-like tale. The solitary, sick-looking man, with inky +shadows under fixed eyes, was so actual that she recaptured the pungent +drift of his burning cigarette. He talked about love in a bitter +intensity that hurt her. Yet, at first, he had said that she was lovely, +a touch of her ... forever in the memory. Mostly, however, he spoke of +a beautiful passion. It had largely vanished, his explanation continued; +men had come to worship other things. Plato started it. + +She recalled Plato, as well, in connection with Dodge; now, it +appeared to her, that remote name had always been at the back of her +consciousness. There were other names, other men, of an age long ago in +Italy. Their ideal, religion, was contained in the adoration of a woman, +but not her body--it was a love of her spirit, the spirit their purity +of need recognized, perhaps helped to create. It was a passion as +different as possible in essence from all she had observed about her. It +was useless for common purposes, withheld from Arnaud Hallet. + +The man, seriously addressing the serious uncomprehending interest of +ten, proceeded with a description of violins--but she had heard them +through all her life--and a parting that left only a white glove for +remembrance. Then he had repeated that line, in Italian, which, not long +back, her husband had recalled. The old gesture toward the stars, the +need to escape fatality--how she had suffered from that! + +Yet it was a service of the body, a faith spiritual because, here, it +was never to be won, never to be realized in warm embrace. It had no +recognition in flesh, and it was the reward of no prayer or humility +or righteousness. Only beauty knew and possessed it. His image grew dim +like the blurring of his voice by pain and the shadow of death. Linda's +thoughts and longing turned again to Dodge; it seemed to her that he no +more than took up the recital where the other was silent. + +Pleydon--was it at Markue's party or later?--talking about "Homer's +children" had meant the creations of great artists, in sound or color or +words or form, through that supreme love unrealized in other life. The +statue of Simon Downige, towering before her against the sky and above +the sea, held in immutable bronze his conviction. The meager bundle and +crude stick rested by shoes clogged with mud; Simon's body was crushed +with weariness; but under the sweat-plastered brow his gaze pierced +indomitable and undismayed to the vision of a place of truth. + +She was choked by a sharp rush of joy at Dodge's accomplishment, +an entire understanding of the beauty he had vainly explained, the +deathless communication of old splendid courage, an unshaken divine +need, to succeeding men and hope. This had been hers. She had always +felt her presence in his success; but, until now, it had belonged +exclusively to him. Dodge had, in his love, absorbed her, and that +resulted in the statues the world applauded. She, Linda thought, had +been an element easily dismissed. It had hurt her pride almost beyond +endurance, the pride that took the form of an inner necessity for the +survival of her grace--all she had. + +She had even asked him, in a passing resentment, why he had never +directly modeled her, kept, with his recording genius, the shape of her +features. She had gone to him in a blinder vanity for the purpose of +stamping her participation in his triumph on the stupid insensibility +of their world. How incredible! But at last she could see that he had +preserved her spirit, her secret self, from destruction. He had cheated +death of her fineness. The delicate perfection of her youth would +never perish, never be dulled by old age or corrupted in death. It had +inspired and entered into Pleydon's being, and he had lifted it on the +pedestal rising between the sea and sky. + +She was in the Luxembourg, in that statue of Cotton Mather, the somber +flame, about which he had written with a comment on the changing +subjects of his creations. From the moment when he sat beside her on +the divan in that room stifling with incense, with the naked glimmer of +women's shoulders, she had been the source of his power. She had +been his power. Linda smiled quietly, in retrospect, at her years of +uncertainty, the feeling of waste, that had robbed her of peace. How +complete her mystification had been! And, all the while, she had had +the thrill of delight, of premonition, born in her through the forgotten +hour with the man who had died. + +The sun, moving in celestial space, shifted the shadow about the base +of Simon Downige's monument. The afternoon was advancing. She rose and +turned, looking out over the sea to the horizon as brightly sharp as a +curved sword. The life of Cottarsport, below her, proceeded in detached +figures, an occasional unhurried passage. The boats in the harbor were +slumberous. It was time to go. She gazed again, for a last view, at the +bronze seated figure; and a word of Pleydon's, but rather it was Greek, +wove its significance in the placid texture of her thoughts. Its exact +shape evaded her, a difficult word to recall--_Katharsis_, the purging +of the heart. About her was the beating of the white wings of a Victory +sweeping her--a faded slender woman in immaculate gloves and a small +matchless hat--into a region without despair. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Linda Condon, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + +***** This file should be named 7171.txt or 7171.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/7/7171/ + +Produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Linda Condon + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7171] +This file was first posted on March 20, 2003 +Last Updated: March 12, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + + + + +Text file produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + LINDA CONDON + </h1> + <h2> + By Joseph Hergesheimer + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <div class="middle"> + <p> + <i>To</i> CARL VAN VECHTEN + </p> + <p> + <i>This, Linda Condon's Gravest Bow.</i> + </p> + <br /> <br /> + <p> + The Works Of Joseph Hergesheimer + </p> + <p> + The Lay Anthony + </p> + <p> + Mountain Blood + </p> + <p> + The Three Black Pennys + </p> + <p> + Gold And Iron + </p> + <p> + Java Head + </p> + <p> + The Happy End + </p> + <p> + Linda Condon + </p> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>LINDA CONDON</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> XVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> XVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> XVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> XIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> XX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> XXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> XXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> XXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> XXV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> XXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> XXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> XXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> XXIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> XXX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> XXXI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> XXII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> XXXIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> XXXIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> XXXV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> XXXVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> XXXVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> XXXVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> XXXIX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> XL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> XLI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> THE END </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + LINDA CONDON + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + A black bang was, but not ultimately, the most notable feature of her + uncommon personality—straight and severe and dense across her clear + pale brow and eyes. Her eyes were the last thing to remember and wonder + about; in shade blue, they had a velvet richness, a poignant intensity of + lovely color, that surprised the heart. Aside from that she was slim, + perhaps ten years old, and graver than gay. + </p> + <p> + Her mother was gay for them both, and, therefore, for the entire family. + No father was in evidence; he was dead and never spoken of, and Linda was + the only child. Linda's dresses, those significant trivialities, plainly + showed two tendencies—the gaiety of her mother and her own always + formal gravity. If Linda appeared at dinner, in the massive Renaissance + materialism of the hotel dining-room, with a preposterous magenta + hair-ribbon on her shapely head, her mother had succeeded in expressing + her sense of the appropriately decorative; while if Linda wore an + unornamented but equally “unsuitable” frock of dark velvet, she, in her + turn, had been vindicated. + </p> + <p> + Again, but far more rarely, the child's selection was evident on the + woman. As a rule Mrs. Condon garbed her flamboyant body in large and + expensive patterns or extremely tailored suits; and of the two, the + evening satins and powdered arms barely retaining an admissible line, and + the suits, the latter were the most, well—spectacular. + </p> + <p> + She was not dark in color but brightly golden; a gold, it must be said in + all honesty, her own, a metallic gold crisply and solidly marcelled; with + hazel-brown eyes, and a mouth which, set against her daughter's deep-blue + gaze, was her particular attraction. It was rouged to a nicety, the under + lip a little full and never quite against the upper. If Linda's effect was + cool and remote, Mrs. Condon, thanks to her mouth, was reassuringly + imminent. She was, too, friendly; she talked to women—in her not + overfrequent opportunities—in a rapid warm inaccurate confession of + almost everything they desired to hear. The women, of course, were + continually hampered by the unfortunate fact that the questions nearest + their hearts, or curiosity, were entirely inadmissible. + </p> + <p> + Viewed objectively, they all, with the exception of Linda, seemed alike; + but that might have been due to their common impressive setting. The + Boscombe, in its way, was as lavish as Mrs. Condon's dresses. The main + place of congregation, for instance, was a great space of white marble + columns, Turkey-red carpet and growing palms. It was lighted at night + indirectly by alabaster bowls hanging on gilded chains—a soft bright + flood of radiance falling on the seated or slowly promenading women with + bare shoulders. + </p> + <p> + Usually they were going with a restrained sharp eagerness toward the + dining-room or leaving it in a more languid flushed repletion. There were, + among them, men; but somehow the men never seemed to be of the least + account. It was a women's paradise. The glow from above always emphasized + the gowns, the gowns like orchids and tea-roses and the leaves of + magnolias. It sparkled in the red and green and crystal jewels like exotic + dew scattered over the exotic human flowers. Very occasionally there was a + complacent or irritable masculine utterance, and then it was immediately + lost in the dominant feminine sibilance. + </p> + <p> + Other children than Linda sped in the manner of brilliant fretful tops + literally on the elaborate outskirts of the throng; but they were as + different from her as she was from the elders. Indeed Linda resembled the + latter, rather than her proper age, remarkably. She had an air of + responsibility, sometimes expressed in a troubled frown, and again by the + way she hurried sedately through drifting figures toward a definite + purpose and end. + </p> + <p> + Usually it was in the service of one of her mother's small innumerable + requests or necessities; if the latter were sitting with a gentleman on + the open hotel promenade that overlooked the sea and needed a heavier + wrap, Linda returned immediately with a furred cloak on her arm; if the + elder, going out after dinner, had brought down the wrong gloves, Linda + knew the exact wanted pair in the long perfumed box; while countless + trifles were needed from the convenient drug-store. + </p> + <p> + The latter was a place of white mosaic floor and glittering glass, with a + marble counter heaped with vivid fruit and silver-covered bowls of sirups + and creams with chopped nuts. Linda often found time to stop here for a + delectable glass of assorted sweet compounds. She was on terms of intimacy + with the colored man in a crisp linen coat who presided over the + refreshments, and he invariably gave her an extra spoonful of the marron + paste she preferred. When at lunch, it might be, she cared for very + little, her mother would complain absently: + </p> + <p> + “You must stop eating those sickening mixtures. They'd ruin any skin.” At + this she invariably found the diminutive mirror in the bag on her lap and + glanced at her own slightly improved color. The burden of the feminine + conversations in which Mrs. Condon was privileged to join, Linda + discovered, was directed toward these overwhelming considerations of + appearance. And their importance, communicated to her, resulted in a + struggle between the desire to preserve her skin from ruin and the + seductions of marron paste and maple chocolates. + </p> + <p> + Now, with an uncomfortable sense of impending disaster, she would hastily + consume one or the other; again, supported by a beginning self-imposed + inflexibility, she would turn steadily away from temptation. In the end + the latter triumphed; and her normal appetite, always moderate, was + unimpaired. + </p> + <p> + This spirit of resolution, it sometimes happened, was a cause of humorous + dismay to her mother. “I declare, Linda,” she would observe with an air of + helplessness, “you make me feel like the giddy one and as if you were + mama. It's the way you look, so disapproving. I have to remind myself + you're only—just how old are you? I keep forgetting.” Linda would + inform her exactly and the other sigh: + </p> + <p> + “The years slip around disgustingly. It seems only yesterday I was at my + first party.” Usually, in spite of Linda's eagerness to hear of that time + when her mother was a girl, the elder would stop abruptly. On rare + occasions solitary facts emerged from the recalled existence of a small + town in the country. There were such details as buggy-riding and + prayer-meetings and excursions to a Boiling Springs where the + dancing-floor, open among the trees, was splendid. At these memories Mrs. + Condon had been known to cry. + </p> + <p> + But she would recover shortly. Her emotions were like that—easily + roused, highly colored and soon forgotten. She forgot, Linda realized + leniently, a great deal. It wasn't safe to rely on her promises. However, + if she neglected a particular desire of Linda's, she continually brought + back unexpected gifts of candy, boxes of silk stockings, or lovely + half-wilted flowers. + </p> + <p> + The flowers, they discovered, although they stayed fresh for a long while + pinned to Linda's slim waist, died almost at once if worn by her mother. + “It's my warm nature, I am certain,” the latter proclaimed to her + daughter; “while you are a little refrigerator. I must say it's wonderful + how you keep your clothes the same. Neat as a pin.” Somehow, with this + commendation, she managed to include a slight uncomplimentary impatience. + Linda didn't specially want to resemble a pin, a disagreeable object with + a sharp point. She considered this in the long periods when, partly by + preference, she was alone. + </p> + <p> + Seated, perhaps, in the elaborate marble and deep red of the Boscombe's + reception-rooms, isolated in the brilliant expensive throng, she would + speculate over what passed in the light of her own special problems. But + nothing, really, came out to her satisfaction. There was, notably, no one + she might ask. Her mother, approached seriously, declared that Linda gave + her the creeps; while others made it plain that it was their duty to + repress the forwardness inevitable from the scandalous neglect of her + upbringing. + </p> + <p> + They, the women of the Boscombe, glancing at their finger-nails stained + and buffed to a shining pale vermilion, lightly rubbing their rings on the + dry palm of a hand, wondered pessimistically within Linda's hearing what + could come out of such an association. That term, she vaguely gathered, + referred to her mother. The latter evidently interested them tremendously; + because, she explained, they had no affairs of their own to attend to. + This was perfectly clear to Linda until Mrs. Condon further characterized + them as “busy.” + </p> + <p> + The women, stopped by conventions from really satisfactory investigation + at the source, drew her on occasion into a laboriously light inquisition. + How long would Linda and her mama stay at the Boscombe? Had they closed + their apartment? Where was it? Hadn't Mrs. Condon mentioned Cleveland? + Wasn't Linda lonely with her mama out so much—they even said late—in + rolling chairs? Had she ever seen Mr. Jasper before his arrival last week? + </p> + <p> + No, of course she hadn't. + </p> + <p> + Here they exchanged skeptical glances beneath relentlessly pulled + eyebrows. He was really very nice, Mr. Jasper. Linda in a matter-of-fact + voice replied that he had given her a twenty-dollar gold piece. Mr. Jasper + was very generous. But perhaps he had rewarded her for being a good little + girl and not—not bothering or hanging about. “Why should he?” was + Linda's just perceptibly impatient response. Then they told her to be + quiet because they wanted to listen to the music. + </p> + <p> + This consisted in studying, through suspended glasses in chased platinum, + a discreet programme. At the end of a selection they either applauded + condescendingly or told each other that they hadn't cared for that last—really + too peculiar. Whichever happened, the leader of the small orchestra, an + extravagant Italian with a supple waist, turned and bowed repeatedly with + a grimacing smile. The music, usually Viennese, was muted and emotional; + its strains blended perfectly with the floating scents of the women and + the faintly perceptible pungent odors of dinner. Every little while a + specially insinuating melody became, apparently, tangled in the women's + breathing, and their breasts, cunningly traced and caressed in tulle, + would be disturbed. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon applauded more vigorously than was sanctioned by the others' + necessity for elegance; the frank clapping of her pink palms never failed + to betray a battery of affected and significant surprise in eyes like—polished + cold agates. Linda, seated beside her parent, could be seen to lay a hand, + narrow and blanched and marked by an emerald, on the elder's knee. Her + pale fine lips moved rapidly with the shadow of trouble beneath the + intense black bang. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you wouldn't do it so loudly, mother,” was what she whispered. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + The jealously guarded truth was that, by her daughter at least, Mrs. + Condon was adored. Linda observed that she was not like an ordinary + mother, but more nearly resembled a youthful companion. Mrs. Condon's + gaiety was as genuine as her fair hair. Not kept for formal occasion, it + got out of bed with her, remained through the considerable difficulties of + dressing with no maid but Linda, and if the other were not asleep called a + cheerful or funny good night. + </p> + <p> + Their rooms were separated by a bath, but Linda was scarcely ever in her + own—her mother's lovely things, acting like a magnet, constantly + drew her to their arrangement in the drawers. When the laundry came up, + crisp and fragile webs heaped on the bed, Linda laid it away in a sort of + ritual. Even with these publicly invisible garments a difference of choice + existed between the two: Mrs. Condon's preference was for insertions, and + Linda's for shadow embroidery and fine shell edges. Mrs. Condon, shaking + into position a foam of ribbon and lace, would say with her gurgle of + amusement, “I want to be ready when I fall down; if I followed your advice + they'd take me for a nun.” + </p> + <p> + This brought out Linda's low clear laugh, the expression of her extreme + happiness. It sounded, for an instant, like a chime of small silver bells; + then died away, leaving the faintest perceptible flush on her healthy + pallor. At other times her mother's humor made her vaguely uncomfortable, + usually after wine or other drinks that left the elder's breath thick and + oppressive. Linda failed completely to grasp the allusions of this wit but + a sharp uneasiness always responded like the lingering stale memory of a + bad dream. + </p> + <p> + Once, at the Boscombe, her mother had been too silly for words: she had + giggled and embraced her sweet little girl, torn an expensive veil to + shreds and dropped a French model hat into the tub. After a distressing + sickness she had gone to sleep fully dressed, and Linda, unable to move or + wake her, had sat long beyond dinner into the night, fearful of the + entrance of the chambermaid. + </p> + <p> + The next day Mrs. Condon had been humble with remorse. Men, she said, were + too beastly for description. This was not an unusual opinion. Linda + observed that she was always condemning men in general and dressing for + them in particular. She offered Linda endless advice in an abstracted + manner: + </p> + <p> + “They're all liars, Lin, and stingy about everything but their pleasure. + Women are different but men are all alike. You get sick to death of them! + Never bother them when they are smoking a cigar; cigarettes don't matter. + Leave the cigarette-smokers alone, anyhow; they're not as dependable as + the others. A man with a good cigar—you must know the good from the + bad—is usually discreet. I ought to bring you up different, but, + Lord, life's too short. Besides, you will learn more useful things right + with mama, whose eyes are open, than anywhere else. + </p> + <p> + “Powder my back, darling; I can't reach. If I'm a little late to-night go + to sleep like a duck. You think Mr. Jasper's nice, don't you? So does + mother. But you mustn't let him give you any more money. It'll make him + conceited.” + </p> + <p> + Linda wondered what she meant by the last phrase. How could it make Mr. + Jasper conceited to give her a gold piece? However, she decided that she + had better not ask. + </p> + <p> + It was like that with a great many of her mother's mysterious remarks—Linda + had an instinctive feeling of drawing away. The other kissed her warmly + and left a print of vivid red on her cheek. + </p> + <p> + She examined the mark in the mirror when her mother had gone; it was, she + decided, the kiss made visible. Then she laid away the things scattered + about the room by Mrs. Condon's hasty dressing. Her own belongings were + always in precise order. + </p> + <p> + A sudden hesitation seized her at the thought of going down to the crowd + at the music. The women made her uncomfortable. It wasn't what they said, + but the way they said it; and the endless questions wearied her. She was, + as well, continually bothered by her inability to impress upon them how + splendid her mother was. Some of them she was certain did not appreciate + her. Mrs. Condon at once admitted and was entertained by this, but it + disturbed Linda. However, she understood the reason—when any nice + men came along they always liked her mother best. This made the women mad. + </p> + <p> + The world, she gathered, was a place where women played a game of men with + each other. It was very difficult, she couldn't comprehend the rules or + reason; and Linda was afraid that she would be unsuccessful and never have + the perfect time her mother wanted for her. In the first place, she was + too thin, and then she knew that she could never talk like her dearest. + Perhaps when she had had some wine it would be different. + </p> + <p> + She decided, after all, to go down to the assemblage; and, by one of the + white marble pillars, Mrs. Randall captured her. “Why, here's + Linda-all-alone,” Mrs. Randall said. “Mama out again?” Linda replied + stoutly, “She has a dreadful lot of invitations.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Randall, who wore much brighter clothes than her mother, was called + by the latter an old buzzard. She was very old, Linda could see, with + perfectly useless staring patches of paint on her wrinkled cheeks, and + eyes that look as though they might come right out of her head. Her + frizzled hair supported a dead false twist with a glittering diamond pin, + and her soft cold hands were loaded with jewels. She frightened Linda, + really, although she could not say why. Mrs. Randall was a great deal like + the witch in a fairy-story, but that wasn't it. Linda hadn't the belief in + witches necessary for dread. It might be her scratching voice; or the way + she turned her head, without any chin at all, like a turtle; or her + dresses, which led you to expect a person very different from an old + buzzard. + </p> + <p> + “Of course she does,” said Mrs. Randall, “any number of invitations, and + why shouldn't she? Your mother is very pleasant, to be sure.” She nodded + wisely to the woman beside her, Miss Skillern. + </p> + <p> + Miss Skillern was short and broad and, in the evening, always wore curled + ostrich plumes on tightly filled gray puffs. She reminded Linda of a + wadded chair. Mrs. Randall, after the other's slight stiff assent, + continued: + </p> + <p> + “Your mama would never be lonely, not she. All I wonder is she doesn't get + married again—with that blondine of hers. Wouldn't you rather have + one papa than, in a way of speaking, a different one at every hotel?” + </p> + <p> + Linda, completely at a loss for answer, studied Mrs. Randall with her + direct deep blue gaze. Miss Skillern again inclined her plumes. With the + rest of her immobile she was surprisingly like one of those fat china + figures with a nodding head. Linda was assaulted by the familiar + bewildered feeling of not understanding what was said and, at the same + time, passionately resenting it from an inner sensitive recognition of + something wrong. + </p> + <p> + “How could I have that?” she finally asked. + </p> + <p> + “How?” repeated Miss Skillern, breathing loudly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, how?” Mrs. Randall echoed. “You can ask your mama. You really can. + And you may say that, as a matter of fact, the question came from us,” she + included her companion. + </p> + <p> + “From you,” Miss Skillern exactly corrected her. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed,” the other cried heatedly, “from me! I think not. Didn't you ask? + Answer me that, if you please. I heard you with my own ears say, 'How?' + While now, before my face, you try to deny it.” It was plain to Linda that + Miss Skillern was totally unmoved by the charge. She moved her lorgnette + up, gazing stolidly at the musical programme. “From you,” she said again, + after a little. Mrs. Randall suddenly regained her equilibrium. + </p> + <p> + “If the ladies of this hotel are afraid to face that creature I—I—am + not. I'll tell her in a minute what a respectable person thinks of her + goings-on. More than that, I shall complain to Mr. Rennert. 'Mr. Rennert,' + I'll say, 'either she leaves or me. Choose as you will. The reputation of + your hotel—'” she spluttered and paused. + </p> + <p> + “Proof,” Miss Skillern pronounced judicially; “proof. We know, but that's + not proof.” + </p> + <p> + “He has a wife,” Mrs. Randall replied in a shrill whisper; “a wife who is + an invalid. Mrs. Zoock, she who had St. Vitus' dance and left yesterday, + heard it direct. George A. Jasper, woolen mills in Frankford, + Pennsylvania. Mr. Rennert would thank me for that information.” + </p> + <p> + They had forgotten Linda. She stood rigid and cold—they were blaming + her mother for going out in a rolling chair with Mr. Jasper because he was + married. But her mother didn't know that; probably Mr. Jasper had not + given it a thought. She was at the point of making this clear, when it + seemed to her that it might be better to say that her mother knew + everything there was about Mr. Jasper's wife; she could even add that they + were all friends. + </p> + <p> + Linda would have to tell her mother the second she came in, and then, of + course, she'd stop going with Mr. Jasper. Men, she thought in the elder's + phrase, were too beastly for words. + </p> + <p> + “After all,” Mrs. Randall was addressing her again, “you needn't say + anything at all to your mama. It might make her so cross that she'd spank + you.” + </p> + <p> + “Mother never spanks me,” Linda replied with dignity. + </p> + <p> + “If you were my little girl,” said Miss Skillern, with rolling lips, “I'd + put you over my knee with your skirts up and paddle you.” + </p> + <p> + Never, Linda thought, had she heard anything worse; she was profoundly + shocked. The vision of Miss Skillern performing such an operation as she + had described cut its horror on her mind. There was a sinking at her heart + and a misty threat of tears. + </p> + <p> + To avert this she walked slowly away. It was hardly past nine o'clock; her + mother wouldn't be back for a long while, and she was too restless and + unhappy to sit quietly above. Instead, she continued down to the floor + where there were various games in the corridor leading to the + billiard-room. The hall was dull, no one was clicking the balls about the + green tables, and a solitary sick-looking man, with inky shadows under + fixed eyes, was smoking a cigarette in a chair across from the + cigar-stand. + </p> + <p> + He looked over a thick magazine in a chocolate cover, his gaze arrested by + her irresolute passage. “Hello, Bellina,” he said. + </p> + <p> + She stopped. “Linda,” she corrected him, “Linda Condon.” Obeying a sudden + impulse, she dropped, with a sigh, into a place beside him. + </p> + <p> + “You're bored,” he went on, the magazine put away. “So am I, but my term + is short.” + </p> + <p> + She wondered, principally, what he was doing, among so many women, at the + Boscombe. He was different from Mr. Jasper, or the other men with fat + stomachs, the old men with dragging feet. It embarrassed her to meet his + gaze, it was so—so investigating. She guessed he was by the sea + because he felt as badly as he looked. He asked surprisingly: + </p> + <p> + “Why are you here?” + </p> + <p> + “On the account of my mother,” she explained. “But it doesn't matter much + where I am. Places are all alike,” she continued conversationally. “We're + mostly at hotels—Florida in winter and Lake George in summer. This + is kind of between.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” he said; and she was sure, from that short single exclamation, he + understood everything. + </p> + <p> + “Like all true beauty,” he added, “it's plain that you are durable.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't like the seashore,” she went on easily; “I'd rather be in a + garden with piles of flowers and a big hedge.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever lived in a garden-close?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” she admitted; “it's just an idea. I told mother but she laughed at + me and said a roof-garden was her choice.” + </p> + <p> + “Some day you'll have the place you describe,” he assured her. “It is + written all over you. I would like to see you, Bellina, in a space of + emerald sod and geraniums.” She decided to accept without further protest + his name for her. “You are right, too, about the hedge—the highest + and thickest in creation. I should recommend a pseudo-classic house, + Georgian, rather small, a white façade against the grass. A Jacobean + dining-room, dark certainly, the French windows open on dipping candle + flames. You'd wear white, with your hair low and the midnight bang as it + is now.” + </p> + <p> + “That would be awfully nice,” Linda replied vaguely. She sighed. + </p> + <p> + “But a very light drawing-room!” he cried. “White panels and arches and + Canton-blue rugs—the brothers Adam. A fluted mantel, McIntires, and + a brass hod. Curiously enough, I always see you in the evening ... at the + piano. I'm not so bored, now.” Little flames of red burned in either thin + cheek. “What nonsense!” Suddenly he was tired. “This is a practical and + earnest world,” his voice grew thin and hurt her. “Yet beauty is + relentless. You'll have your garden, but I shouldn't be surprised at + difficulties first.” + </p> + <p> + “It won't be so hard to get,” she declared confidently. “I mean to choose + the right man. Mother says that's the answer. Women, she says, won't use + their senses.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah.” + </p> + <p> + Linda began to think this was a most unpleasant monosyllable. + </p> + <p> + “So that's the lay! Has she succeeded?” + </p> + <p> + “She has a splendid time. She's out tonight with Mr. Jasper in a rolling + chair, and he has loads and loads of money. It makes all the other women + cross.” + </p> + <p> + “Here you are, then, till she gets back?” + </p> + <p> + “There's no one else.” + </p> + <p> + “But, as a parent, infinitely preferable to the righteous,” he murmured. + “And you—” + </p> + <p> + “I think mother's perfect,” she answered simply. + </p> + <p> + He shook his head. “You won't succeed at it, though. Your mother, for + example, isn't dark.” + </p> + <p> + “The loveliest gold hair,” she said ecstatically. “She's much much + prettier than I'll ever be.” + </p> + <p> + “Prettier, yes. The trouble is, you are lovely, magical. You will stay for + a lifetime in the memory. The merest touch of you will be more potent than + any duty or fidelity. A man's only salvation will be his blindness.” + </p> + <p> + Although she didn't understand a word of this, Linda liked to hear him; he + was talking as though she were grown up, and in response to the flattery + she was magnetic and eager. + </p> + <p> + “One time,” he said, “very long ago, beauty was worshiped. Men, you see, + know better now. They want their dollar's worth. The world was absolutely + different then—there were deep adventurous forests with holy chapels + in the green combe for an orison, and hermits rising to Paradise on the <i>Te + Deum Laudamus</i> of the angels and archangels. There were black castles + and, in the broad meadows, silk tents with ivory pegs and poles of gold. + </p> + <p> + “The enchantments were as thick as shadows under the trees: perhaps the + loveliest of women riding a snow-white mule, with a saddle cloth of red + samite, or, wrapped in her shining hair, on a leopard with yellow eyes, + lured you to a pavilion, scattered with rushes and flowers and magical + herbs, and a shameful end. Or a silver doe would weep, begging you to + pierce her with your sword, and, when you did, there knelt the daughter of + the King of Wales. + </p> + <p> + “But I started to tell you about the worship of beauty. Plato started it + although Cardinal Pietro Bembo was responsible for the creed. He lived in + Italy, in an age like a lily. It developed mostly at Florence in the + Platonic Academy of Cosomo and Pico della Mirandola. Love was the supreme + force, and its greatest expression a desire beyond the body.” + </p> + <p> + He gazed at Linda with a quizzical light in his eyes deep in shadow. + </p> + <p> + “Love,” he said again, and then paused. “One set of words will do as well + as another. You will understand, or not, with something far different from + intellectual comprehension. The endless service of beauty. Of course, a + woman—but never the animal; the spirit always. Born in the spirit, + served in the spirit, ending in the spirit. A direct contradiction, you + see, to nature and common sense, frugality and the sacred symbol of the + dollar. + </p> + <p> + “It wouldn't please your Mr. Jasper, with his heaps and heaps of money. + Mr. Jasper would consider himself sold. But Novalis, not so very long ago, + understood.... A dead girl more real than all earth. You mustn't suppose + it to be mere mysticism.” + </p> + <p> + Linda said, “Very well, I won't.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded. “No one could call Michelangelo hysterical. Sometime in the + history of man, of a salt solution, this divinity has touched them. + Touched them hopefully, and perhaps gone—banished by the other + destination. Or I can comprehend nature killing it relentlessly, since it + didn't lead to propagation. Then, too, as much as was useful was turned + into a dogma for politics and priests. + </p> + <p> + “You saw in the rushlight a woman against the arras; there was a humming + of viola d'amore from the musicians' balcony; she smiled at you, + lingering, and then vanished with a whisper of brocade de Lyons on a + sanded floor. Nothing else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, in + your habergeon, an eternally fragrant memory; the dim vision in stone + street and coppice; a word, a message, it might be, sent across the world + of steel at death. And then, in the last flicker of vision, the arras and + the clear insistent strings, the whispering brocade de Lyons on the + landing. + </p> + <p> + “The philosophy of it,” he said in a different tone, “is exact, even a + scientific truth. But men have been more concerned with turning lead into + gold; naturally the spirit has been neglected. The science of love has + been incredibly soiled: + </p> + <p> + “The old gesture toward the stars, the bridge of perfection, the escape + from the fatality of flesh. Yet it was a service of the body made + incredibly lovely in actuality and still never to be grasped. Never to be + won. It ought to be clear to you that realized it would diminish into + quite a different thing— + </p> + <p> + “'<i>La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa idea.</i>'” + </p> + <p> + His voice grew so faint that Linda could scarcely distinguish articulate + sounds. All that he said, without meaning for her, stirred her heart. She + was used to elder enigmas of speech; her normal response was instinctively + emotional, and nothing detracted from the gravity of her attention. + </p> + <p> + “Not in pious men,” he continued, more uncertain; “nor in seminaries of + virtue. They have their reward. But in men whose bitterness of longing + grew out of hideous fault. The distinction of beauty—not a payment + for prayers or chastity. The distinction of love ... above chests of linen + and a banker's talent and patents of nobility.... Divine need. Idiotic. + But what else, what better, offers?” + </p> + <p> + He was, she saw, terribly sick. His hands were clenched and his entire + being strained and rigid, as though he were trying to do something + tremendously difficult. At last, with infinite pain, he succeeded. + </p> + <p> + “I must get away,” he articulated. + </p> + <p> + Linda was surprised at the effort necessary for this slight accomplishment + when he had said the most bewildering things with complete ease. Well, the + elevators were right in front of him. He rose slowly, and, with Linda + standing at his side, dug a sharp hand into her shoulder. It hurt, but + instinctively she bore it and, moving forward, partly supported him. She + pressed the bell that signaled for the elevator and it almost immediately + sank into view. “Hurry,” he said harshly to the colored operator in a + green uniform; and quite suddenly, leaving a sense of profound mystery, he + disappeared. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + Linda decided that he had told her a rather stupid fairy story. She was + too old for such ridiculous things as ladies in their shining hair on a + leopard. She remembered clearly seeing one of the latter at a zoological + garden. It had yellow eyes, but no one would care to ride on it. Her + mother, she was certain, knew more about love than any man. His words + faded quickly from her memory, but a confused rich sense stirred her + heart, a feeling such as she experienced after an unusually happy day: + white gloves and music and Mr. Jasper displeased. + </p> + <p> + A clock chimed ten, and she proceeded to her mother's room, where she must + wait up with her information about Mr. Jasper's wife. She was furious at + him for a carelessness that had brought her mother such unfavorable + criticism. Everything had been put away before going down, and there was + nothing for her to do. The time dragged tediously. The hands of the + traveling-clock in purple leather on the dressing-table moved deliberately + around to eleven. A ringing of ice in one of the metal pitchers carried by + the bell boys sounded from the corridor. There was the faint wail of a + baby. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly and acutely Linda was lonely—a new kind of loneliness that + had nothing to do with the fact that she was by herself. It was a strange + cold unhappiness, pressing over her like a cloud and, at the same time, it + was nothing at all. That is, there was no reason for it. The room was + brightly lighted and, anyhow, she wasn't afraid of “things.” She thought + that at any minute she must cry like that baby. After a little she felt + better; rather the unhappiness changed to wanting. What she wanted was a + puzzle; but nothing else would satisfy her. It might be a necklace of + little pearls, but it wasn't. It might be—. Now it was twelve + o'clock. Dear, dear, why didn't she come back! + </p> + <p> + Music, awfully faint, and a whisper, like a dress, across the floor. Her + emotion changed again, to an extraordinary delight, a glow like that which + filled her at the expression of her adoration for her mother, but + infinitely greater. She was seated, and she lifted her head with her eyes + closed and hands clasped. The clock pointed to one and her parent came + into the room. + </p> + <p> + “Linda,” she exclaimed crossly, “whatever are you doing up? A bad little + girl. I told you to be asleep hours before this.” + </p> + <p> + “There is something you had to know right away,” Linda informed her + solemnly. “I only just heard it from Mrs. Randall and Miss Skillern.” Her + mother's flushed face hardened. “Mr. Jasper is married,” Linda said. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon dropped with an angry flounce into a chair. Her broad scarf of + sealskin slipped from one shoulder. Her hat was crooked and her hair + disarranged. “So that's it,” she said bitterly; “and they went to you. The + dam' old foxes. They went to you, nothing more than a child.” + </p> + <p> + Linda put in, “They didn't mean to; it just sort of came out. I knew you'd + stop as soon as you heard. Wasn't it horrid of him?” + </p> + <p> + “And this,” Mrs. Condon declared, “is what I get for being, yes—proper. + </p> + <p> + “I said to-night, 'George,' I said, 'go right back home. It's the only + thing. They have a right to you.' I told him that only to-night. And, 'No, + I must consider my little Linda.' If I had held up my finger,” she held up + a finger to show the smallness of the act necessary, “where would we have + all been? + </p> + <p> + “But this is what I get. You might think the world would notice a woman's + best efforts. No, they all try to crowd her and see her slip. If they + don't watch out I'll skid, all right, and with some one they least expect. + I have opportunities.” + </p> + <p> + Linda realized with a sense of confusion that her mother had known of Mr. + Jasper's marriage all the while. But she had nobly tried to save him from + something; just what Linda couldn't make out. The other's breath was heavy + with drinking. + </p> + <p> + “You go to bed, Lin,” she continued; “and thank you for taking care of + mama. I hope to goodness you'll learn from all this—pick out what + you want and make for it. Don't bother with the antique frumps, the + disappointed old tabbies. Have your fun. There's nothing else. If you like + a man, be on the level with him—give and take. Men are not saints + and we're better for it; we don't live in a heaven. You've got a sweet + little figure. Always remember mama telling you that the most expensive + corsets are the cheapest in the end.” + </p> + <p> + Linda undressed slowly and methodically, her mother's words ringing in her + head. Always remember—but of course she would have the nicest things + possible.... A keepsake and faint music. She thought, privately, that she + was too thin; she'd rather be her mother, with shoulders like bunches of + smooth pink roses. In bed, just as she was falling asleep, a sound + disturbed her from the corridor above—the slow tramping of heavy + feet, like a number of men carefully bearing an awkward object. She + listened with suspended breath while they passed. The footfalls seemed to + pound on her heart. Slowly, slowly they went, unnatural and measured. They + were gone now, but she still heard them. The crashing of her mother into + bed followed with a deep sigh. The long fall of a wave on the shore was + audible. Two things contended in her stilled brain—the mysterious + feeling of desire and her mother's advice. They were separate and fought, + yet they were strangely incomprehensibly joined. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + In the morning Mrs. Condon, with a very late breakfast-tray in bed, had + regained her usual cheerful manner. “The truth is,” she told Linda, “I'm + glad that Jasper man has gone. He had no idea of discretion; tired of them + anyhow.” Linda radiated happiness. This was the mother she loved above all + others. Her mind turned a little to the man who had talked to her the + night before. She wondered if he were better. His thin blanched face, his + eyes gleaming uncomfortably in smudges, recurred to her. Perhaps he'd be + down by the cigar-stand again. She went, presently, to see, but the row of + chairs was empty. + </p> + <p> + However, the neglected thick brown-covered magazine was still on the ledge + by which he had been sitting. There was a name on it, and while, + ordinarily, she couldn't read handwriting, this was so clear and regular, + but minutely small, that she was able to spell it out—Howard Welles. + </p> + <p> + It disappointed her not to find him; at lunch she observed nearly every + one present, but still he was lost. He wasn't listening to the music after + dinner, nor below. A deep sense of disappointment grew within her. Linda + wanted to see him, hear him talk; at times a sharp hurt in the shoulder he + had grasped brought him back vividly. The next day it was the same, and + finally, diffidently, she approached the hotel desk. A clerk she knew, Mr. + Fiske, was rapidly sorting mail, and she waited politely until he had + finished. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I found this down-stairs,” she said, giving him the magazine. “Perhaps + he'll want it.” Mr. Fiske looked at the written name, and then glanced + sharply at her. “No,” he told her brusquely, “he won't want it.” He turned + away with the magazine and left Linda standing irresolutely. She wanted to + ask if Mr. Welles were still at the Boscombe; if the latter didn't want + the magazine she'd love to have it, Linda couldn't tell why. But the clerk + went into the treasurer's office and she was forced to move away. + </p> + <p> + Later, lingering inexplicably about the spot where she had heard so many + bewildering words, a very different man spoke to her. He, Linda observed, + was smoking a cigar, a good one, she was certain. He was smallish and had + a short bristling mustache and head partly bald. His shoes were very shiny + and altogether he had a look of prosperity. “Hello, cutie!” he cried, + capturing her arm. She responded listlessly. The other produced a crisp + dollar bill. “Do you see the chocolates in that case?” he said, indicating + the cigar-stand. “Well, get the best. If they cost more, let me know. Our + financial rating is number one.” Linda answered that she didn't think she + cared for any. “All right,” the man agreed; “sink the note in the First + National Ladies Bank, if you know where that is.” + </p> + <p> + He engineered her unwillingly onto a knee. “How's papa?” he demanded. “I + suppose he will be here Saturday to take his family through the stores?” + </p> + <p> + She replied with dignity, “There is only my mother and me.” + </p> + <p> + At this information he exclaimed “Ah!” and touched his mustache with a + diminutive gold-backed brush from a leather case. “That's more than I + have,” he confided to her; “there is only myself. Isn't that sad? You must + be sorry for the lonely old boy.” + </p> + <p> + She wasn't. Probably he, too, had a wife somewhere; men were beastly. “I + guess your mother wants a little company at times herself?” + </p> + <p> + Linda, straining away from him, replied, “Oh, dear, no; there are just + packs of gentlemen whenever she likes. But she is tired of them all.” She + escaped and he settled his waistcoat. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't run away,” he admonished her; “nice children don't. Your + mother didn't bring you up like that, I'm sure. She wouldn't like it.” + </p> + <p> + Linda hesitated, plainly conveying the fact that, if she were to wait, he + would have to say something really important. + </p> + <p> + “Just you two,” he deliberated; “Miss and Mrs. Jones.” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” Linda asserted shortly; “our name is Condon.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder if you'd tell her this,” he went on: “a gentleman's here by + himself named Bardwell, who has seen her and admires her a whole lot. Tell + her he's no young sprig but he likes a good time all the better. + Dependable, too. Remember that, cutie. And he wouldn't presume if he had a + short pocket. He knows class when he sees it.” + </p> + <p> + “It won't do any good,” Linda assured him in her gravest manner. “She said + only this morning she was sick of them.” + </p> + <p> + “That was before dinner,” he replied cheerfully. “Things look different + later in the day. You do what I tell you.” + </p> + <p> + All this Linda dutifully repeated. Her mother was at the dressing-table, + rubbing cream into her cheeks, and she paused, surveying her reflection in + the mirror. “He was smoking a big cigar,” Linda added. The other laughed. + “What a sharp little thing you are!” she exclaimed. “A body ought to be + careful what they tell you.” She wiped off the cream and rubbed a soft + pinkish powder into her skin. + </p> + <p> + “He saw me, did he?” she apparently addressed the glass. “Admired me a + whole lot. Was he nice, Linda?” she turned. “Were his clothes right? You + must point him out to me to-night. But do it carefully, darling. No one + should notice. Your mother isn't on the shelf yet; she can hold her own, + even in the Boscombe, against the whole barnyard.” + </p> + <p> + Linda, at the entrance to the dining-room, whispered, “There he is.” But + immediately Mr. Bardwell was smiling and speaking to them. + </p> + <p> + “I had a delightful conversation with your little girl to-day,” he told + Mrs. Condon; “such a pretty child and well brought up.” + </p> + <p> + “And good, too,” her mother replied; “not a minute's trouble. The common + sense of the grown; you'd never believe it.” + </p> + <p> + “Why shouldn't I?” he protested gallantly. “Every reason to.” Mrs. Condon + blushed becomingly. + </p> + <p> + “She had to make up for a lot,” she sighed. + </p> + <p> + An hour or more after dinner Mrs. Randall stopped Linda in the hall beyond + the music. “Mama out?” she inquired brightly. “I thought Mr. Jasper left + this morning?” + </p> + <p> + Linda told her that Mr. Jasper had gone; she added nothing else. + </p> + <p> + “I must look at the register,” Mrs. Randall continued; “I really must.” + </p> + <p> + Obeying an uncontrollable impulse Linda half cried, “I'd like to see you + riding on a leopard!” A flood of misery enveloped her, and she hurried up + to the silence of her mother's deserted room. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + It was on her fourteenth birthday that Linda noticed a decided change in + her mother; a change, unfortunately, that most of all affected the + celebrated good humors. In the first place Mrs. Condon spent an + increasingly large part of the day before the mirror of her + dressing-table, but without any proportionate pleasure; or, if there was a + proportion kept, it exhibited the negative result of a growing annoyance. + “God knows why they all show at once,” she exclaimed discontentedly, + seated—as customary—before the eminently truthful reflection + of a newly discovered set of lines. “I'm not old enough to begin to look + like a hag.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, mother,” Linda protested, shocked, “you mustn't say such horrid + things about yourself. Why, you're perfectly lovely, and you don't seem a + speck older than you did years ago.” + </p> + <p> + The other, biting her full underlip at the unwelcome fact in turn biting a + full lower lip back at her, made no reply. Linda lingered for a moment at + her mother's ruffled pink shoulders; then, with a sigh, she turned to the + reception-room of their small suite at the Hotel Gontram. It was a somber + chamber furnished in red plush, with a complication of shades and + gray-white net curtains at long windows and a deep green carpet. There was + a fireplace, with a grate, supported by varnished oak pillars and + elaborate mantel and glass, a glittering reddish center-table with a great + many small odd shelves below, a desk with sheaves of hotel writing paper + and the telephone. + </p> + <p> + The Gontram was entirely different from the hotels at the lakes or + seashore or in the South. It was a solid part of a short block west of + Fifth Avenue in the middle of the city. Sherry's filled a corner with its + massive stone bulk and glimpses of dining-rooms with glittering + chandeliers and solemn gaiety, then impressive clubs and wide entrances + under heavy glass and metal, tall porters in splendid livery, succeeded + each other to the Hotel Gontram and the dull thunder of the elevated + trains beyond. + </p> + <p> + The revolving door, through which Linda sedately permitted herself to be + moved, opened into a high space of numerous columns and benches, + writing-desks and palms. At the back was the white room where, usually + alone, she had breakfast, while the dining-room, discreetly lighted, was + at the left. It was more interesting here than, for example, at the + Boscombe; people were always coming in or going, and there were quantities + of men. She watched them arriving with shoals of leather bags in the brisk + care of the bellboys, disappear into the elevator, and, if it was evening, + come down in dinner coats with vivid silk scarfs folded over their white + shirts. + </p> + <p> + The women were perpetually in street clothes or muffled in satin wraps; + Linda only regarded them when they were exceptional. Usually she was + intent on the men. It often happened that they returned her frank gaze + with a smile, or stopped to converse with her. Sometimes it was an actor + with a face dryly pink like a woman's from make-up; they were familiar and + pinched her cheeks, calling her endearing names in conscious echoing + voices as if they were quite hollow within. Then there were simply + business men, who never appeared to take off their derby hats, and spoke + to her of their little girls at home. She was entirely at ease with the + latter—so many of her mother's friends were similar—and + critically valued the details of their dress, the cigar-cases with or + without gold corners, the watch-chains with jeweled insignia, the + cuff-links and embroidered handkerchiefs. + </p> + <p> + If her mother approached while Linda was so engaged the elder would linger + with a faint smile, at which, now, the girl was conscious of a growing + impatience. She'd rise with dignity and, if possible, escape with her + parent from florid courtesies. This sense of annoyance oppressed her, too, + in the dining-room, where her mother, a cocktail in her hand, would engage + in long cheerful discussions with the captains or waiters. Other women, + Linda observed, spoke with complete indifference and their attention on + the <i>carte de jour</i>. Of course it was much more friendly to be + interested in the servants' affairs—they told her mother about their + wives and the number of their children, the difficulties of bringing both + ends together, and served her with the promptest care; but instinctively + Linda avoided any but the most formal contact. + </p> + <p> + She had to insist, as well, on paying the tips; for Mrs. Condon, her + sympathies engaged, was quite apt to leave on the table a five-dollar bill + or an indiscriminate heap of silver. “You are a regular little Jew,” she + would reply lightly to Linda's protests. This, the latter thought, was + unfair; for the only Jew she knew, Mr. Moses Feldt, an acquaintance of + their present period in New York, was quite the most generous person she + knew. “Certainly you don't take after your mama.” + </p> + <p> + After she said this she always paused with tight lips. It was charged with + the assumption that, while Linda didn't resemble her, she did very much a + mysterious and unfavorably regarded personage. Her father, probably. More + and more Linda wondered about him. He was dead, she knew, but that, she + began to see, was no reason for the positive prohibition to mention him at + all. Perhaps he had done something dreadful, with money, and had disgraced + them all. Yet she was convinced that this was not so. + </p> + <p> + She had heard a great many uncomplimentary words applied to husbands, most + of which she had been unable to comprehend; and she speculated blankly on + them in her mother's connection. On the whole the women agreed that they + were remarkably stupid and transparent, they protested that they + understood and guided every move husbands made; and this surely gave her + father no opportunity for independent crime. She was held from questioning + not so much by her mother's command—at times she calmly and + successfully ignored that—as from its unfortunate effect on the + elder. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon would burn with a generalized anger that sank to a despondency + fortified by the brandy flask. Straining embraces and tears, painful to + support, would follow, or more unbearable silliness. The old difficulties + with giggling or sympathetic chambermaid;—Linda couldn't decide + which was worse—then confronted her with the necessity for rigid + lies, misery, and the procuring of sums of money from the bag in the top + drawer. Altogether, and specially with the fresh difficulties of her + mother's unaccountable irritation and apprehensions, things were + frightfully complicated. + </p> + <p> + It was late afternoon in November, and the electric lights were on; + however, they were lighted when they rose, whenever they were in the + rooms, for it was always gloomy if not positively dark; the bedroom looked + into a deep exterior well and the windows of the other chamber opened on + an uncompromising blank wall. Yet Linda, now widely learned in such + settings, rather liked her present situation. They had occupied the same + suite before, for one thing; and going back into it had given her a sense + of familiarity in so much that always shifted. + </p> + <p> + Linda, personally, had changed very little; she was taller than four years + before, but not a great deal; she was, perhaps, more graceful—her + movements had become less sudden—more assured, the rapidly maturing + qualities of her mind made visible; and she had gained a surprising + repose. + </p> + <p> + Now, for example, she sat in a huge chair cushioned with black leather and + thought, with a frowning brow, of her mother. It was clear that the latter + was obviously worried about—to put it frankly—her face. Her + figure, she repeatedly asserted, could be reasoned with; she had always + been reconciled to a certain jolly stoutness, but her face, the lines that + appeared about her eyes overnight, fairly drove her to hot indiscreet + tears. She had been to see about it, Linda knew; and returned from + numerous beauty-parlors marvelously rejuvenated—for the evening. + </p> + <p> + She had been painted, enameled, vibrated, massaged; she had had electric + treatment, rays and tissue builders; and once she had been baked. To-day + the toilet table would be loaded with milkweed, cerates and vanishing + cream; tomorrow they would all be swept away, given to delighted + chambermaids, while Mrs. Condon declared that, when all was said, cold + water and a rough towel was nature's way. + </p> + <p> + This afternoon, apparently everything, including hope, had failed. She was + as cross as cross. From the manner in which she spoke it might have been + Linda's fault. The worst of it was that even the latter saw that nothing + could be done. Her mother was growing—well, a little tired in + appearance. Swift tears gathered in Linda's eyes. She hadn't been quite + truthful in that reassuring speech of hers. She set herself to the + examination of various older women with whom she had more or less lately + come in contact. How had they regarded and met the loss of whatever good + looks they had possessed? + </p> + <p> + It was terribly mixed up, but, as she thought about it, it seemed to her + that the world of women was divided into two entirely different groups, + the ones men liked, and who had such splendid parties; and the ones who + sat together and gossiped in sharp lowered voices. She hoped passionately + that her mother would not become one of the latter for a long long while. + But eventually it seemed that there was no escape from the circle of + brilliantly dressed creatures with ruined faces who congregated in the + hotels and whispered and nodded in company until they went severally to + bed. + </p> + <p> + The great difference between one and the other, of course, was the favor + of men. Their world revolved about that overwhelming fact. Her mother had + informed her of this on a hundred occasions and in countless ways; but + more by her actions, her present wretchedness, than by speech. It was + perfectly clear to Linda that nothing else mattered. She was even + beginning, in a vague way, to think of it in connection with herself; but + still most of her preoccupation was in her mother. She decided gravely + that a great deal, yet, could be done. For instance, lunch to-day: + </p> + <p> + Her mother had given her a birthday celebration at Henri's, the famous + confectioner but a door or two from their hotel, and at the end, when a + plate of the most amazing and delightful little cakes had been set on the + table, the elder had eaten more than half. Afterwards she had sworn + ruefully at her lack of character, begging Linda—in a momentary + return of former happy companionship—never to let her make such a + silly pig of herself again. Then she got so tired, Linda continued her + mental deliberations; if she could only rest, go away from cities and + resorts for a number of months, the lines in turn would soon vanish. + </p> + <p> + The elder moved impatiently, with a fretful exclamation, in the inner + room; from outside came the subdued dull ceaseless clamor of New York. + Formerly it had frightened Linda; but her dread had become a wordless + excitement at the thought of so much just beyond the windows; her hands + grew cold and her heart suddenly pounded, destroying the vicarious image + of her mother. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + “I wish now I'd been different,” Mrs. Condon said, standing in the door. + Her dress was not yet on, but her underthings were fully as elaborate and + shimmering as any gown could hope to be. “And above everything else, I am + sorry for the kind of mother you've had.” This was so unexpected, the + other's voice was so unhappy, that Linda was startled. She hurried across + the room and laid a slim palm on her mother's full bare arm. “Don't say + that,” Linda begged, distressed; “you've been the best in the world.” + </p> + <p> + “You know nothing about it,” the elder returned, momentarily seated, her + hands clasped on her full silken lap. “But perhaps it's not too late. You + ought to go to a good school, where you'd learn everything, but + principally what a bad thoughtless mama you have.” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn't stay a second in a place where they said that,” Linda + declared. A new apprehension touched her. “You're not really thinking of + sending me away!” she cried. “Why, you simply could not get along. You + know you couldn't! The maids never do up your dresses right; and you'd be + so lonely in the mornings you would nearly die.” + </p> + <p> + “That's true,” Mrs. Condon admitted wearily. “I would expire; but I was + thinking of you—you're only beginning life; and the start you'll get + with me is all wrong. Or, anyway, most people think so.” + </p> + <p> + “They are only jealous.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you go into the closet, darling, and pour out a teeny little sip + from my flask; mama feels a thousand years old this evening.” + </p> + <p> + Returning with the silver cup of the flask half full of pale pungent + brandy Linda could scarcely keep the tears from spilling over her cheeks. + She had never before felt so sad. Her mother hastily drank, the stinging + odor was transferred to her lips; and there was a palpable recovery of her + customary spirit. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what gets over me,” she asserted. “I'm certain, from what + I've heard of them, that you wouldn't be a bit better off in one of those + fashionable schools for girls. Woman, young and older, were never meant to + be a lot together in one place. It's unnatural. They don't like each + other, ever, and it's all hypocritical and nasty. You will get more from + life, yes, and me. I'm honest, too honest for my own good, if the truth + was known.” + </p> + <p> + She rose and unconsciously strayed to the mirror over the mantel where she + examined her countenance in absorbed detail. + </p> + <p> + “My skin is getting soft like putty,” she remarked aloud to herself. “The + thing is, I've had my time and don't want to pay for it. Blondes go + quicker than dark women; you ought to last a long while, Linda.” Mrs. + Condon had turned, and her tone was again almost complaining, almost + ill-natured. Linda considered this information with a troubled face. It + was quite clear that it made her mother cross. “I've seen men stop and + look at you right now, too, and you nothing more than a slip fourteen + years old. Of course, when I was fifteen I had a proposal; but I was very + forward; and somehow you're different—so dam' serious.” + </p> + <p> + She couldn't help it, Linda thought, if she was serious; she really had a + great deal to think about, their income among other things. If she didn't + watch it, pay the bills every three months when it arrived, her mother + would never have a dollar in the gold mesh bag. Then, lately, the dresses + the elder threatened to buy were often impossible; Linda learned this from + the comments she heard after the wearing of evening affairs sent home + against her earnest protests. They were, other women more discreetly + gowned had agreed, ridiculous. + </p> + <p> + Linda calmly realized that in this her judgment was superior to her + mother's. In other ways, too, she felt she was really the elder; and her + dismay at the possibility of going away to school had been mostly made up + of the realization of how much her mother's well-being was dependent on + her. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon, finishing her dressing in the bedroom, at times called out + various injunctions, general or immediate. “Tell them to have a taxi at + the door for seven sharp. Have you talked to that little girl in the black + velvet?” Linda hadn't and made a mental note to avoid her more pointedly + in the future. “Get out mother's carriage boots from the hall closet; no, + the others—you know I don't wear the black with coral stockings. + They come off and the fur sticks to my legs. It will be very gay to-night; + I hope to heaven Ross doesn't take too much again.” Linda well remembered + that the last time Ross had taken too much her mother's Directoire wrap + had been completely torn in half. “There, it is all nonsense about my + fading; I look as well as I ever did.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon stood before her daughter like a large flame-pink tulle + flower. Her bright gold hair was constrained by black gauze knotted + behind, her bare shoulders were like powdered rosy marble and the floating + skirts gathered in a hand showed marvelously small satin-tied carriage + boots. Indeed Linda's exclamation of delight was entirely frank. She had + never seen her mother more radiant. The cunningly applied rouge, the + enhanced brilliancy of her long-lashed eyes, had perfectly the illusion of + unspent beauty. + </p> + <p> + “Do stay down-stairs after dinner and play,” the elder begged. “And if you + want to go to the theatre, ask Mr. Bendix, at the desk, to send you with + that chauffeur we have had so much. I positively forbid your leaving the + hotel else. It's a comfort after all, that you are serious. Kiss mama—” + </p> + <p> + However, she descended with her mother in the elevator; there was a more + public caress; and the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed Linda at + a small table against the wall. There she had clams—she adored iced + clams—creamed shrimps and oysters with potatoes <i>bordure</i>, + alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte cream with black walnuts. + After this she sedately instructed the captain what to sign on the back of + the dinner check—Linda Condon, room five hundred and seven—placed + thirty-five cents beside the finger-bowl for the waiter, and made her way + out to the news stand and the talkative girl who had it in charge. + Exhausting the possibilities of gossip, and deciding not to go out to the + theatre—in spite of the news girl's exciting description of a play + called “The New Sin”—she was walking irresolutely through the high + gilded and marble assemblage space when, unfortunately, she was captured + by Mr. Moses Feldt. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + He led her to a high-backed lounge against the wall, where, seated on its + extreme edge, he gazed silently at her with an expression of sentimental + concern. Mr. Moses Feldt was a short round man, bald but for a fluffy rim + of pale hair, and with the palest imaginable eyes in a countenance + perpetually flushed by the physical necessity of accommodating his + rotundity to awkward edges and conditions. As usual he was dressed with + the nicest care—a band of white linen laid in the opening of his + waistcoat, his scarf ornamented by a pear-shaped pearl on a diamond + finished stem; his cloth-topped varnished black shoes glistened, while his + short fat fingers clasped a prodigious unlighted cigar. At last, in a tone + exactly suited to his gaze, he exclaimed: + </p> + <p> + “So that naughty mama has gone out again and deserted Moses and her little + Linda!” In what way her mother had deserted Mr. Feldt she failed to + understand. Of course he wanted to marry them—the comprehensive + phrase was his own—but that didn't include him in whatever they did. + Principally it made a joke for their private entertainment. Mrs. Condon + would mimic his eager manner, “Stella, let me take you both home where + you'll have the best in the land,” And, “Ladies like you ought to have a + loving protection.” Linda would laugh in her cool bell-like manner, and + her mother add a satirical comment on the chance any Moses Feldt had of + marrying her. + </p> + <p> + Linda at once found him ridiculous and a being who forced a slighting + warmth of liking. His appearance was preposterous, the ready emotion often + too foolish for words; but underneath there was a—a goodness, a + mysterious quality that stirred her heart to recognition. Certain rare + things in life and experience affected her like that memory of an old + happiness. She could never say what they might be, they came at the oddest + times and by the most extraordinary means; but at their occurrence she + would thrill for a moment as if in response to a sound of music. + </p> + <p> + It was, for example, absurd that Mr. Moses Feldt, who was a Jew, should + make her feel like that, but he did. And all the while that she was + disagreeable to him, or mocking him behind his back, she was as + uncomfortable and “horrid” as possible. While this fact, of course, only + served to make her horrider still. At present she adopted the manner of a + patience that nothing could quite exhaust; she was polite and formal, + relentlessly correct in position. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Moses Feldt, the cigar in his grasp, pressed a hand to the probable + region of his heart. “You don't know how I think of you,” he protested, + tears in his eyes; “just the idea of you exposed to anything at all in + hotels keeps me awake nights. Now it's a drunk, or a fresh feller on the + elevator, or—” + </p> + <p> + “It's nice of you,” Linda said, “but you needn't worry. No one would dare + to bother us. No one ever has.” + </p> + <p> + “You wouldn't know it if they did,” he replied despondently, “at your age. + And then your mother is so trustful and pleasant. Take those parties where + she is so much—roof frolics and cocoanut groves and submarine cafés; + they don't come to any good. Rowdy.” Linda studied him coldly; if he + criticized them further she would leave. He mopped a shining brow with a + large colorful silk handkerchief. “It throws me into a sweat,” he + admitted. + </p> + <p> + “Really, Mr. Feldt, you mustn't bother,” she told him in one of her few + impulses of friendliness. “You see, we are very experienced.” He nodded + without visible happiness at this truth. “I'm a jackass!” he cried. + “Judith tells me that all the time. If you could only see my daughters,” + he continued with a new vigor; “such lovely girls as they are. One dark + like you and the other fair as a daisy. Judith and Pansy. And my home that + darling mama made before she died.” The handkerchief was again in + evidence. + </p> + <p> + “Women and girls are funny. I can't get you there and not for nothing will + Judith make a step. It may be pride but it seems to me such nonsense. I + guess I'm old-fashioned and love's old-fashioned. Homes have gone out of + style with the rest. It's all these restaurants and roofs now, yes, and + studios. I tell the girls to stay away from them and from artists and so + on. I don't encourage them at the apartment—a big lump of a feller + with platinum bracelets on his wrists. What kind of a man would that be! + I'd like to know who'd buy goods from him. + </p> + <p> + “Sometimes, I'm sorry I got a lot of money, but it made mama happy. When + she laid there at the last sick and couldn't live, I said, 'Oh, if you + only won't leave me I'll give you gold to eat.'” He was so moved, his face + so red, that Linda grew acutely embarrassed. People were looking at them. + She rose stiffly but, in spite of her effort to escape him, he caught both + her hands in his: + </p> + <p> + “You say I'm an old idiot like Judith,” he begged. This Linda declined to + do. And, “Ask your mother if you won't come to dinner with the girls and + me, cozy and at home—just once.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid it will do no good,” she admitted; “but I'll try.” She + realized that he was about to kiss her and moved quickly back. “I am + almost afraid of you,” he told her; “you're so distant and elegant. Judith + and Pansy would get on with you first rate. I'll telephone tomorrow, in + the afternoon. If the last flowers I sent you came I never heard of it.” + </p> + <p> + She thanked him appropriately for the roses and stood, erect and + impersonal, as a man in the hotel livery helped him into a coat. Mr. Moses + Feldt waved the still unlighted cigar at her and disappeared through the + rotating door to the street. + </p> + <p> + She gave a half-affected sigh of relief. Couldn't he see that her mother + would never marry him. At the same time the strange thrill touched her; + the sense of his absurdity vanished and she no longer remembered him + perched like a painted rubber ball on the edge of the lounge. + </p> + <p> + In the somber red plush and varnished wood of the reception-room of their + suite he seemed again charming. Perhaps it was because he, too, adored her + mother. That wasn't the reason. The familiar rare joy lingered. It seemed + now as though she were to capture and understand it ... there was the + vibration of music; and then, as always, she felt at once sad and brave. + But, in spite of her old effort to the contrary, the feeling died away. + Some day it would be clear to her; in the meanwhile Mr. Moses Feldt became + once more only ridiculous. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + In the morning she was dressed and had returned from breakfast before her + mother stirred. The latter moved sharply, brought an arm up over her head, + and swore. It was a long while before she got up or spoke again, and Linda + never remembered her in a worse temper. When, finally, she came into the + room where the breakfast-tray was laid, Linda was inexpressibly shocked—all + that her mother had dreaded about her appearance had come disastrously + true. Her face was hung with shadows like smudges of dirt and her eyes + were netted with lines. + </p> + <p> + Examining the dishes with distaste she told Linda that positively she + could slap her for letting them bring up orange-juice. “How often must I + explain to you that it freezes my fingers.” Linda replied that she had + repeated this in the breakfast-room and perhaps they had the wrong order. + Neither her mother nor she said anything more until Mrs. Condon had + finished her coffee and started a second cigarette. Then Linda related + something of Mr. Moses Feldt's call on the evening before. “He cried right + into his handkerchief,” she said, “until I thought I should sink.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Condon eyed her daughter speculatively. “Now if you were only four + years older,” she declared, “it would be a good thing. He was simply born + to be a husband.” Horror filled Linda at the other's implication. “Yes,” + the elder insisted; “you couldn't do better; except, perhaps, for those + girls of his. But then you'd have no trouble making them miserable. It's + time to talk to you seriously about marriage.” The smoke from the + cigarette eddied in a gray veil across her unrefreshed face. + </p> + <p> + “You're old for your age, Linda; your life has made you that; and, like I + said last night, it is rather better than not. Well, for you marriage, and + soon as possible, is the proper thing. Mind, I have never said a word + against it; only what suits one doesn't suit another. Where it wouldn't be + anything more than an old ladies' home to me you need it early and plenty. + You are too intense. That doesn't go in the world. Men don't like it. They + want their pleasure and comfort without strings tied to them; the + intensity has to be theirs. + </p> + <p> + “What you must get through your head is that love—whatever it is—and + marriage are two different things, and if you are going to be successful + they must be kept separate. You can't do anything with a man if you love + him; but then you can't do anything with him if he doesn't love you. + That's the whole thing in a breath. I am not crying down love, either; + only I don't want you to think it is the bread and butter while it's + nothing more than those little sweet cakes at Henri's. + </p> + <p> + “Now any girl who marries a poor man or for love—they are the same + thing—is a fool and deserves what she gets. No one thanks her for + it, him least of all; because if she does love him it is only to make them + miserable. She's always at him—where did he go and why did he stay + so long, and no matter what he says she knows it's a lie. More times than + not she's right, too. I can't tell you too often—men don't want to + be loved, they like to be flattered and flattered and then flattered + again. You'd never believe how childish they are. + </p> + <p> + “Make them think they're it and don't give too much—that's the + secret. Above all else don't be easy on them. Don't say 'all right, + darling, next spring will do as well for a new suit.' Get it then and let + him worry about paying for it, if worry he must. If they don't give it to + you some one smarter will wear it. But I started to talk about getting + married. + </p> + <p> + “Choose a Moses Feldt, who will always be grateful to you, and keep him at + it. They are so easy to land it's a kind of shame, too. Perhaps I am + telling you this too soon, but I don't want any mistakes. Well, pick out + your Moses—and mama will help you there—and suddenly, at the + right time, show him that you can be affectionate; surprise him with it + and you so staid and particular generally. Don't overdo it, promise more + than you ever give— + </p> + <p> + “In the closet, dearie, just a little. That's a good girl. Mama's so dry.” + She rose, the silver cup of the flask in her hand, and moved inevitably to + the mirror. “My hair's a sight,” she remarked; “all strings. I believe + I'll get a permanent wave. They say it lasts for six months or more, till + the ends grow out. Makes a lot of it, too, and holds the front together. + If you've ever had dye in your hair, I hear, it will break off like + grass.” + </p> + <p> + Linda pondered over what she had been told of love and marriage; on the + whole the exposition had been unsatisfactory. The latter she was able to + grasp, but her mother had admitted an inability exactly to fix love. One + fact, apparently, was clear—it was a nuisance and a hindrance to + happiness, or rather to success. Love upset things. Still she had the + strongest objection possible to living forever with a man like Mr. Moses + Feldt. At once all that she had hoped for from life grew flat and + uninteresting. She had no doubt of her mother's correctness and wisdom; + the world was like that; she must make the best of it. + </p> + <p> + There was some telephoning, inquiries, and she heard the elder make an + appointment with a hair-dresser for three that afternoon. She wondered + what it would be like to have your hair permanently waved and hoped that + she would see it done. This, too, she realized, was a part of the + necessity of always considering men—they liked your hair to be wavy. + Hers was as straight and stupid as possible. She, in turn, examined + herself in a mirror: the black bang fell exactly to her eyebrows, her face + had no color other than the carnation of her lips and her deep blue eyes. + She moved away and critically studied her figure; inches and inches too + thin, she decided. Undoubtedly her mother was right, and she must marry at + the first opportunity—if she could find a man, a rich man, who was + willing. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts returned vaguely to the mystery, the nuisance, of love. + Surely she had heard something before, immensely important, about it, and + totally different from all her mother had said. Her mind was filled with + the fantastic image of a forest, of dangers, and a fat china figure with + curled plumes, a nodding head, that brushed her with fear and disgust. A + shuddering panic took possession of her, flashes burned before her eyes, + and she ran gasping to the perfumed soft reassurances of her mother. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX + </h2> + <p> + In a recurrence of her surprising concern of the day before Mrs. Condon + declined to leave her dearest Linda alone; and, their arms caught together + in a surging affection, they walked down Fifth Avenue toward the + hairdresser's. There was a diffused gray sparkle of sunlight—it was + early for the throngs—through which they passed rapidly to the + accompaniment of a rapid eager chatter. Linda wore a deep smooth camel's + hair cape, over which her intense black hair poured like ink, and her face + was shaded by a dipping green velvet hat. Her mother, in one of the + tightly cut suits she affected, had never been more like a perfect + companion. + </p> + <p> + They saw, in the window of a store for men, a set of violent purple wool + underwear, and barely escaped hysterics at the thought of Mr. Moses Feldt + in such a garb. They giggled idiotically at the spectacle of a countryman + fearfully making the sharp descent from the top of a lurching omnibus. And + then, when they had reached the place of Mrs. Condon's appointment, + stopped at the show of elaborately waved hair on wax heads and chose + which, probably, would resemble the elder and which, in a very short while + now, Linda. + </p> + <p> + There was an impressive interior, furnished in gray panels and silvery + wood; and the young woman at the desk was more surprisingly waved than + anything they had yet seen. M. Joseph would be ready almost immediately; + and in the meanwhile Mrs. Condon could lay aside her things in preparation + for the hair to be washed. She did this while Linda followed every + movement with the deepest interest. + </p> + <p> + At the back of the long room was a succession of small alcoves, each with + an important-looking chair and mirror and shelves, a white basin, + water-taps and rubber tubes. Settled, in comfort, Mrs. Condon's hair was + spread out in a bright metal tray fastened to the back of the chair, and + the attendant, a moist tired girl in a careless waist, sprayed the short + thick gold-colored strands. + </p> + <p> + “My,” she observed, “what some wouldn't give for your shade! Never been + touched, I can see, either. A lady comes in with real Titian, but yours is + more select. It positively is Lillian Russell.” While she talked her hands + sped with incredible rapidity and skill. “The gentlemen don't notice it; + of course not; oh, no! There was a girl here, a true blonde, but she + didn't stay long—her own car, yes, indeed. Married her right out of + the establishment. There wasn't any nonsense to her. + </p> + <p> + “So this is your little girl! I'd never have believed it. Not that she + hasn't a great deal of style, a great deal—almost, you might say, + like an Egyptian. In the movies last night; her all over. It's a type that + will need studying. Bertha Kalich. But for me—” + </p> + <p> + Already, Linda saw, this part of the operation was done. The girl wheeled + into position a case that had a fan and ring of blue flickering flames, + and a cupped tube through which hot air was poured over her mother's head. + M. Joseph strutted in, a small carefully dressed man with a diminutive + pointed gray beard and formal curled mustache. He spoke with what Linda + supposed was a French accent, and his manners, at least to them, were + beautiful. But because the girl had not put out the blue flames quickly + enough he turned to her with a voice of quivering rage. + </p> + <p> + It was so unexpected, in the middle of his bowing and smooth assurances, + that Linda was startled, and had to think about him all over. The result + of this was a surprising dislike; she hated, even, to see him touch her + mother, as he unnecessarily did in directing them into the enclosure for + the permanent wave. + </p> + <p> + The place itself filled her with the faint horror of instruments and the + unknown. Above the chair where Mrs. Condon now sat there was a circle in + the ceiling like the base of a chandelier and hanging down from it on + twisted green wires were a great number of the strangest things + imaginable: they were as thick as her wrist, but round, longer and hollow, + white china inside and covered with brown wrapping. The wires of each, she + discovered, led over a little wheel and down again to a swinging + clock-like weight. In addition to this there were strange depressing + handles on the wall by a dial with a jiggling needle and clearly marked + numbers. + </p> + <p> + The skill of the girl who had washed her mother's hair, however, was + slight compared with M. Joseph's dexterity. The comb flashed in his white + narrow hands; in no time at all every knot was urged out into a shining + smoothness. “Just the front?” he inquired. Not waiting for Mrs. Condon's + reply, he detached a strand from the mass over her brow, impaled it on a + hairpin, while he picked up what might have been a thick steel + knitting-needle with one end fastened in the middle of a silver quarter. + The latter, it developed, had a hole in it, through which he drew the + strand of hair, and then wrapped it with an angry tightness about the long + projection. + </p> + <p> + At this exact moment a new girl, but tired and moist, appeared, took a + hank of white threads from a dressing-table, and tied that separate lock + firmly. This, Linda counted, was repeated fifteen times; and when it was + accomplished she was unable to repress a nervous laughter. Really, her + mother looked too queer for words: the long rigid projections stood out + all over her head like—like a huge pincushion; no, it was a + porcupine. Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain recognition of her daughter's + mirth. + </p> + <p> + Then Linda's attention followed M. Joseph to a table against a partition, + where he secured a white cotton strip from a film of them soaking in a + shallow tray, took up some white powder on the blade of a dessert knife + and transferred it to the strip. This he wrapped and wrapped about the + hair fastened on a spindle, tied it in turn, and dragged down one of the + brown objects on wires, which, to Linda's great astonishment, fitted + precisely over the cotton-bound hair. Again, fifteen times, M. Joseph did + this, fastening each connection with the turn of a screw. When so much was + accomplished her mother's hair, it seemed, had grown fast to the ceiling + in a tangle of green ends. It was the most terrifying spectacle Linda had + ever witnessed. Obscure thoughts of torture, of criminals executed by + electricity, froze her in a set apprehension. + </p> + <p> + The hair-dresser stepped over to the dials on the wall, and, with a sharp + comprehensive glance at his apparatus, moved a handle as far as it would + go. Nothing immediately happened, and Linda gave a relaxing sigh of + relief. M. Joseph, however, became full of a painful attention. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + He brought into view an unsuspected tube, with a cone of paper at its end, + and bent over her mother, directing a stream of cold air against her head. + “How do you feel?” he asked, with, Linda noticed, a startling loss of his + first accent. Mrs. Condon so far felt well enough. Then, before Linda's + startled gaze, every single one of the fifteen imprisoning tubes began to + steam with an extraordinary vigor; not only did they steam, like teapots, + but drops of water formed and slowly slid over her mother's face. If the + process appeared weird at the beginning, now it was utterly fantastic. + </p> + <p> + The little white vapor spurts played about Mrs. Condon's dripping + countenance; they increased rather than diminished; actually it resembled + a wrecked locomotive she had once seen. “How are you?” M. Joseph demanded + nervously. “Is it hot anywhere?” With a sudden gesture she replied in a + shaking voice, “Here.” + </p> + <p> + Instantly he was holding the paper cone with its cold air against her + scalp, and the heat was subdued. He glanced nervously at his watch, and + Mrs. Condon managed to ask, “How long?” + </p> + <p> + “Twenty minutes.” + </p> + <p> + Dangerous as the whole proceeding seemed nothing really happened, and + Linda's fears gradually faded into a mere curiosity and interest. A + curtain hung across the door to the rest of the establishment, but it had + been brushed partly aside; and she could see, in the compartment they had + vacated, another man bending with waving irons over the liberated mass of + a woman's hair. He was very much like M. Joseph, but he was younger and + had only a dark scrap of mustache. As he caught up the hair with a quick + double twist he leaned very close to the woman's face, whispering with an + expression that never changed, an expression like that of the wax heads in + the show-case. He bent so low that Linda was certain their cheeks had + touched. She pondered at length over this, gazing now at the man beyond + and now at M. Joseph flitting with the cold-air tube about her mother; + wondering if, when she grew older, she would like a hair-dresser's cheek + against hers. Linda decided not. The idea didn't shock her, the woman in + the other space plainly liked it; still she decided she wouldn't. A + different kind of man, she told herself, would be nicer. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, unpleasant odor—the odor + of scorched hair; and she was absolutely rigid with horror at an agonized + cry from her mother. + </p> + <p> + “It's burning me terribly,” the latter cried. “Oh, I can't stand it. Stop! + Stop!” + </p> + <p> + M. Joseph, as white as plaster, rushed to the wall and reversed the + handle, and Mrs. Condon started from the chair, her face now streaming + with actual tears; but before she could escape the man threw himself on + her shoulders. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't move,” he whispered desperately, “you'll tear your hair out. + I tell you no harm's been done. Everything is all right. Please, please + don't cry like that. It will ruin my business. There are others in the + establishment. Stop!” he shook her viciously. + </p> + <p> + Linda had risen, terrorized; and Mrs. Condon, with waving plucking hands, + was sobbing an appeal to be released. “My head, my head,” she repeated. “I + assure you”—the man motioned to a pallid girl to hold her in the + chair. With a towel to protect his hand he undid a screw, lifted off the + cap and untwisted the cotton from a bound lock of hair; releasing it, in + turn, from the spindle it fell forward in a complete corkscrew over Mrs. + Condon's face. + </p> + <p> + “Do you see!” he demanded. “Perfect. I give you my word they'll all be + like that. The cursed heat ran up on me,” he added in a swift aside to his + assistant. “Has Mrs. Bellows gone? Who's still in the place? Here, loose + that binding ... thank God, that one is all right, too.” + </p> + <p> + Together they unfastened most of the connections, and a growing fringe of + long remarkable curls marked Mrs. Condon's pain-drawn and dabbled face. + Linda sobbed uncontrollably; but perhaps, after all, nothing frightful had + happened. Her poor mother! Then fear again tightened about her heart at + the perturbed expression that overtook the hair-dresser. He was trying in + vain to remove one of the caps. She caught enigmatic words—“the + borax, crystallized ... solid. It would take a plumber ... have to go.” + </p> + <p> + The connection was immovable. Even in her suffering Mrs. Condon implored + M. Joseph to save her hair. Nothing, however, could be done; he admitted + it with pale lips. The thing might be chiseled off; in the end he tried to + force a release and the strand, with a renewal of Mrs. Condon's agony—now, + in the interest of her appearance, heroically withstood—snapped + short in the container. + </p> + <p> + Rapidly recovering her vigor, she launched on a tirade against M. Joseph + and his permanent waving establishment—Linda had never before heard + her mother talk in such a loud brutal manner, nor use such heated + unpleasant words, and the girl was flooded with a wretched shame. Still + another lock, it was revealed, had been ruined, and crumbled to mere dust + in its owner's fingers. + </p> + <p> + “The law will provide for you,” she promised. + </p> + <p> + “Your hair was dyed,” the proprietor returned vindictively. “The girl who + washed it will testify. Every one is warned against the permanent if their + hair has been colored. So it was at your own risk.” + </p> + <p> + “My head's never been touched with dye,” Mrs. Condon shrilly answered. + “You lying little ape. And well does that young woman know it. She + complimented me herself on a true blonde.” The girl had, too, right before + Linda. + </p> + <p> + “You ought to be thrashed out of the city.” + </p> + <p> + “Your money will be given back to you,” M. Joseph told her. + </p> + <p> + Outside they found a taxi, and sped back to their hotel. Above, Mrs. + Condon removed her hat; and, before the uncompromising mirror, studied her + wrecked hair—a frizzled vacancy was directly over her left brow—and + haggard face. When she finally turned to Linda, her manner, her words, + were solemn. + </p> + <p> + “I'm middle-aged,” she said. + </p> + <p> + A dreary silence enveloped them sitting in the dark reception-room while + Mrs. Condon restlessly shredded unlighted cigarettes on the floor. She had + made no effort to repair the damages to her appearance, and when the + telephone bell sharply sounded, she reached out in a slovenly negligence + of manner. Linda could hear a blurred articulation and her mother + answering listlessly. The latter at last said: “Very well, at seven then; + you'll stop for us.” She hung up the receiver, stared blankly at Linda, + and then went off into a harsh mirth. “Oh, my God!” she cried; “the old + ladies' home!” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI + </h2> + <p> + With her mother away on a wedding-trip with Mr. Moses Feldt, Linda was + suddenly projected into the companionship of his two daughters. One, as he + had said, was light, but a different fairness from Mrs. Condon's—richly + thick, like honey; while Judith, the elder, who must have been twenty, was + dark in skin, in everything but her eyes, which were a contrasting + ashen-violet. She spoke at once of Linda's flawless whiteness: + </p> + <p> + “A magnolia,” she said, in a deliberate dark voice; “you are quite a + gorgeous child. Do you mind my saying that your clothes are rather quaint? + They aren't inevitable, and yours ought to be that.” + </p> + <p> + They were at lunch in the Feldt dining-room, an interior of heavy ornately + carved black wood, panels of Chinese embroidery in imperial yellow, and a + neutral mauve carpet. The effect, with glittering iridescent pyramids of + glass, massive frosted repoussé silver, burnished gold-plate and a wide + table decoration of orchids and fern, was tropical and intense. It was + evident to Linda that the Feldts were very rich indeed. + </p> + <p> + The entire apartment resembled the dining-room, while the building itself + filled a whole city block, with a garden and fountains like an elaborate + public square. Linda, however, wasn't particularly impressed by such show; + she saw that Judith and Pansy had expected that of her; but she was + determined not to exhibit a surprise that would imply any changes in her + mother's and her condition. In addition, Linda calmly took such + surroundings for granted. Her primary conception of possible existence was + elegance; its necessity had so entered into her being that it had departed + from her consciousness. + </p> + <p> + “I must take you to Lorice,” Judith continued; “she will know better than + any one else what you ought to have. You seem terribly pure—at + first. But you're not a snowdrop; oh, no—something very rare in a + conservatory. Much better style than your mother.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you won't mind Judith,” Pansy put in; “she's always like that.” A + silence followed in which they industriously dipped the leaves of mammoth + artichokes into a buttery sauce. Linda, as customary, said very little, + she listened with patient care to the others and endeavored to arrive at + conclusions. She liked Pansy, who was as warm and simple as her father. + Judith was harder to understand. She was absorbed in color and music, and + declared that ugliness gave her a headache at once. Altogether, Linda + decided, she was rather silly, especially about men; and at times her + emotions would rise beyond control until she wept in a thin hysterical + gasping. + </p> + <p> + The room where, mostly, they sat was small, but with a high ceiling, and + hung in black, with pagoda-like vermilion chairs. The light, in the + evening, was subdued; and Pansy and Judith, in extremely clinging vivid + dresses, the former's hair piled high in an amber mass and Judith's drawn + severely across her ears, were lovely. Linda thought of the tropical + butterflies of the river Amazon, of orchids like those always on the + dining-room table. A miniature grand piano stood against the drapery, and + Judith often played. Linda learned to recognize some of the composers. + Pansy liked best the modern waltzes; Judith insisted that Richard Strauss + was incomparable; but Linda developed an overwhelming preference for + Gluck. The older girl insisted that this was an affectation; for a while + she tried to confuse Linda's knowledge; but finally, playing the airs of + “Orpheus and Eurydice,” she admitted that the latter was sincere. + </p> + <p> + “They sound so cool,” Linda said in a clear and decided manner. + </p> + <p> + There was a man with them, and he shook his head in a mock sadness. “So + young and yet so formal. If, with the rest, you had Judith's temperament, + you would be the most irresistible creature alive. For see, my dear child, + as it is you stir neither tenderness nor desire; you are remote and + perfect, and faintly wistful. I can't imagine being human or even + comfortable with you about. Then, too, you have too much wisdom.” + </p> + <p> + “She is frightful,” Pansy agreed; “she's never upset nor her hair a sight; + and, above all else, Linda won't tell you a thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Some day,” Judith informed them from the rippling whisper of the piano, + “she will be magnificently loved.” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” the man continued; “but what will Linda, Linda Condon, give + in return?” + </p> + <p> + “It's a mistake to give much,” Linda said evenly. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no!” Judith cried. “Give everything; spend every feeling, every + nerve.” + </p> + <p> + “You are remarkable, of course; almost no women have the courage of their + emotions.” His name was Reynold Chase, a long thin grave young man in a + dinner coat, who wrote brilliant and successful comedies. “Yet Linda isn't + parsimonious.” He turned to her. “Just what are you? What do you think of + love?” + </p> + <p> + “I haven't thought about it much,” she replied slowly. “I'm not sure that + I know what it means. At least it hasn't anything to do with marriage—” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” he interrupted her. + </p> + <p> + Her usually orderly mind grew confused; it eddied as though with the sound + of the piano. “It is not marriage,” she vaguely repeated her mother's + instruction. Reynold Chase supported her. + </p> + <p> + “That destroys it,” he asserted. “This love is as different as possible + from the ignominious impulse eternally tying the young into knots. It's + anti-social.” + </p> + <p> + “How stupid you are, Reynold,” Pansy protested. “If you want to use those + complicated words take Judith into the drawing-room. I'm sure Linda is + dizzy, too.” + </p> + <p> + The latter's mental confusion lingered; she had a strong sense of having + heard Reynold Chase say these strange things long before. Judith left the + piano, sat beside him, and he lightly kissed her. A new dislike of Judith + Feldt deepened in Linda's being. She had no reason for it, but suddenly + she felt absolutely opposed to her. The manner in which Judith rested + against the man by her was very distasteful. It offended Linda + inexplicably; she wanted to draw into an infinity of distance from all + contact with men and life. + </p> + <p> + She didn't even want to make one of those marriages that had nothing to do + with love, but was only a sensible arrangement for the securing of gowns + and velvet hangings and the luxury of enclosed automobiles. Suddenly she + felt lonely, and hoped that her mother would come back soon. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII + </h2> + <p> + But when her mother, now Mrs. Moses Feldt, did return, Linda was conscious + of a keen disappointment. Somehow she never actually came back. It wasn't + only that, after so many years together, she occupied a room with another + than Linda, but her manner was changed; it had lost all freedom of heart + and speech. The new Mrs. Feldt was heavily polite to her husband's + daughters; Linda saw that she liked Pansy, but Judith made her + uncomfortable. She expressed this in an isolated return of the old + confidences: + </p> + <p> + “That girl,” she said sharply, “likes petting. She can talk all night + about her soul and beauty, and play the piano till her fingers drop off, + but I—I—know. You can't fool me where they are concerned. I + can recognize an unhealthy sign. I never believed in going to all those + concerts and kidding yourself into a fever. I may have shown myself a + time, but you mark my word—I was honest compared to Judith Feldt. + Don't you be impressed with all her art talk and the books she reads. I + was looking into one yesterday, and it made me blush; you can believe it + or not, it takes some book for that!” + </p> + <p> + At the same time she treated Judith with a studious sweetness. Mr. Moses + Feldt—Linda always thought of him as that—was a miracle of + kindly cheerfulness. He made his wife and her daughter, and his own girls, + an unbroken succession of elaborate and costly presents. “What's it for if + not to spend on those you love?” he would remark, bringing a small + jeweler's box wrapped in creamy-pink paper from his pocket. “You can't + take it with you. I wasn't born with it—mama and I were as poor as + any—you'll forgive me, Stella, I know, for speaking of her. I got + enough heart to love you both. 'Oh, mama!' I said, and she dying, 'if you + only won't go, I'll give you gold to eat.'” + </p> + <p> + Curiously, as Linda grew older, the consciousness of her stepfather as an + absurd fat little man dwindled; she lost all sense of his actual person; + and, as the influence of her mother slipped from her life, the mental + conception of Mr. Moses Feldt deepened. She thought about him a great deal + and very seriously; the things he said, the warm impact of his being, + vibrated in her memory. He had the effect on her of the music of + Christopher Gluck—the effect of a pure fine chord. + </p> + <p> + Pansy she now thought of with a faint contempt: she was rapidly growing + thick-waisted and heavy, and she was engaged to a dull young man not rich + enough to be interesting. They sat about in frank embraces and indulged in + a sentimental speech that united Judith and Linda in common oppression. + </p> + <p> + There were, not infrequently, gatherings of the Feldts at dinner, a noisy + good-tempered uproar of a great many voices speaking at once; + extraordinary quantities of superlative jewels and dresses of superfine + textures; but the latter, Linda thought, were too vivid in pattern or + color for the short full maternal figures they often adorned. But no one, + it seemed, considered himself ageing or even, in spite of the most + positive indications, aged. The wives with faded but fashionable hair and + animated eyes in spent faces talked with vigorous raillery about the + “boys,” who, it might have happened, had gone in a small masculine company + to a fervid musical show the evening before. While they, in their turn, + thick like their brother or cousin Moses, with time-wasted hair and + countenances marked with the shrewdness in the service of which the + greater part of their lives had vanished, had their little jokes about the + “girls” and the younger and handsomer beaux who threatened their + happiness. + </p> + <p> + At times the topic of business crept into the lighter discussion, and, in + an instant, the gaiety evaporated and left expressionless men and quick + sharp sentences steely with decision, or indirect and imperturbably blank. + A memorandum book and a gold pencil would appear for an enigmatic note, + after which the cheerfulness slowly revived. + </p> + <p> + The daughters resembled Judith or the slower placidity of Pansy; while + there was still another sort, more vigorous in being, who consciously + discussed riding academies, the bridle-paths of Central Park, and the + international tennis. Their dress held a greater restraint than the + elders; though Linda recognized that it was no less lavish; and their + feminine trifles, the morocco beauty-cases and powder-boxes, the + shoulder-pins, their slipper and garter buckles were extravagant in + exquisite metals and workings. + </p> + <p> + They arrived in limousines with dove-colored upholstery and crystal vases + of maidenhair fern and moss-roses; and often, in such a car, Linda went to + the theatre with Judith or Pansy and some cousins. Usually it was a + matinee, where their seats were the best procurable, directly at the + stage; and they sat in a sleek expensive row eating black chocolates from + painted boxes ruffled in rose silk. The audience, composed mostly of their + own world, followed the exotic fortunes of the plays with a complete + discrimination in every possible emotional display and crisis. + </p> + <p> + Lithe actresses in a revealing severity of attire, like spoiled nuns with + carmine lips, suffering in ingenuous problems of the passions, agonized in + shuddering tones; or else they went to concerts to hear young violinists, + slender, with intense faces and dramatic hair, play concertos that + irritated Linda with little shivers of delight. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes they had lunch in a restaurant of Circassian walnut and velvet + carpets, with cocktails, and eggs elaborate with truffles and French + pastry. Then, afterward, they would stop at a confectioner's, or at a cafe + where there was dancing, for tea. They all danced in a perfection of slow + graceful abandon, with youths who, it seemed to Linda, did nothing else. + </p> + <p> + She accepted her part in this existence as inevitable, yet she was + persistently aware of a feeling of strangeness, of essential difference + from it. She was unable to lose a sense of looking on, as if morning, noon + and night she were at another long play. Linda regarded it—as she + did so much else—with neither enthusiasm nor marked annoyance. + Probably it would continue without change through her entire life. All + that was necessary, and easily obtained, was a sufficient amount of money. + </p> + <p> + Her manner, Pansy specially complained, was not intimate and inviting; in + her room Linda usually closed the door; the frank community of the sisters + was distasteful to her. She demanded an extraordinary amount of personal + privacy. Linda never consulted Judith's opinion about her clothes, nor + exchanged the more significant aspects of feeling. Alone in a bed-chamber + furnished in silvery Hungarian ash, her bed a pale quilted luxury with + Madeira linen crusted in monograms, without head or foot boards, and a + dressing-table noticeably bare, she would deliberately and delicately + prepare for the night. + </p> + <p> + While Judith's morning bath steamed with the softness and odor of lavender + crystals, Linda slipped into water almost cold. This, with her clear + muslins and heavy black silk stockings, her narrow unornamented slippers, + represented the perfection of niceness. + </p> + <p> + There were others than Pansy, however, who commented on what they called + her superiority—the young men who appeared in the evening. A number + of them, cousins of the Feldt dinner parties or more casual, tried to + engage her sympathies in their persons and prospects. It was a society of + early maturity. But, without apparent effort, she discouraged them, + principally by her serene lack of interest. It was a fundamental part of + her understanding of things that younger men were unprofitable; she liked + far better the contemporaries of Moses Feldt. + </p> + <p> + Reynold Chase had ceased his visits, but his place had been taken by + another and still another emotionally gifted man. The present one was dark + and imperturbable: they knew little of him beyond the facts that he had + been a long while in the Orient, that his manner and French were + unsurpassed, and that practically every considerable creative talent in + New York was entertained in his rooms. + </p> + <p> + Judith had been to one of his parties; and, the following morning in bed, + she told Pansy and Linda the most remarkable things. + </p> + <p> + “It would never do for Pansy,” she concluded; “but I must get Markue to + ask you sometime, Linda. How old are you now? Well, that's practically + sixteen, and you are very grown up. You would be quite sensational, in one + of your plain white frocks, in his apartment. You'd have to promise not to + tell your mother, though. She thinks I'm leading you astray now—the + old dear. Does she think I am blind? I met a man last week, a friend of + father's, who used to know her. Of course he wouldn't say anything, men + are such idiots about that—like ostriches with their pasts buried + and all the feathers sticking out—but there was a champagne + expression in his smile.” + </p> + <p> + Linda wondered, later, if she'd care to go to a party of Markue's. There + was a great deal of drinking at such affairs; and though she rather liked + cordials, crême de thé and Grand Marnier, even stronger things flavored + with limes and an occasional frigid cocktail, she disliked—from a + slight experience—men affected by drink. Judith had called her a + constitutional prude; this, she understood, was a term of reproach; and + she wondered if, applied to her, it were just. + </p> + <p> + Usually it meant a religious person or one fussy about the edge of her + skirt; neither of which she ever considered. She didn't like to sit in a + corner and be hugged—even that she could now assert with a degree of + knowledge—but it wasn't because she was shocked. Nothing, she told + herself gravely, shocked her; only certain acts and moments annoyed her + excessively. It was as if her mind were a crisp dress with ribbons which + she hated to have mussed or disarranged. + </p> + <p> + Linda didn't take the trouble to explain this. Now that her mother had + withdrawn from her into a perpetual and uncomfortable politeness she + confided in no one. She would have been at a loss to put her complicated + sensations and thoughts into words. Mr. Moses Feldt, the only one to whom + she could possibly talk intimately, would be upset by her feelings. He + would give her a hug and the next day bring up a new present from his + pocket. + </p> + <p> + Her clothes, with the entire support of Lorice, were all delicate in + fabric, mostly white with black sashes, and plainly ruffled. She detested + the gray crepe de Chine from which Judith's undergarments were made and + the colored embroidery of Pansy's; while she ignored scented toilet-waters + and extracts. Markue, in finally asking her to a party at his rooms, said + that there she would resemble an Athenian marble, of the un-painted epoch, + in the ballet of Scheherazade. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII + </h2> + <p> + “There's nothing special to say about Markue's parties,” Judith, dressing, + told Linda. “You will simply have to take what comes your way. There is + always some one serious at them, if you insist, as usual, on dignity.” She + stood slim and seductive, like a perverse pierrot, before the oppressive + depths of a black mirror. Linda had finished her preparations for the + evening. There was no departure from her customary blanched exactness. She + studied her reflection across Judith's shoulder; her intense blue eyes, + under the level blot of her bang, were grave on the delicate pallor of her + face. + </p> + <p> + In the taxi, slipping rapidly down-town, Linda was conscious of a slight + unusual disturbance of her indifference. This had nothing to do with + whether or not she'd be a success; her own social demands were so small + that any considerable recognition of her was unimportant. Her present + feeling came from the fact that to-night, practically, she was making her + first grown-up appearance in the world, the world from which she must + select the materials of her happiness and success. To-night she would have + an opportunity to put into being all that—no matter how firmly held—until + now had been but convictions. + </p> + <p> + Her interest was not in whom or what she might meet, but in herself. + Judith, smoking a cigarette in a mist of silver fox, was plainly excited. + “I like Markue awfully,” she admitted. + </p> + <p> + “Does he care for you?” Linda asked. + </p> + <p> + “That,” said Judith, “I can't make out—if he likes me or if it's + just anonymous woman. I wish it were the first, Linda.” Her voice was + shadowed; suddenly, in spite of her youth and exhilaration, she seemed + haggard and spent. Linda recognized this in a cold scrutiny. Privately she + decided that the other was a fool—she didn't watch her complexion at + all. + </p> + <p> + The motor turned west in the low Forties and stopped before a high narrow + stone façade with a massive griffon-guarded door. Judith led the way + directly into the elevator and designated Markue's floor. It was at the + top of the building, where he met them with his impenetrable courtesy and + took them into a bare room evidently planned for a studio. There were an + empty easel, the high blank dusty expanse of the skylight, and chairs with + the somber hats and coats of men and women's wraps like the glistening + shed skins of brilliant snakes. + </p> + <p> + They turned through the hall to an interior more remarkable than anything + Linda could have imagined; it seemed to her very high, without windows and + peaked like a tent. Draperies of intricate Eastern color hung in long + folds. There were no chairs, but low broad divans about the walls, a thick + carpet with inlaid stands in the center laden with boxes of cigarettes, + sugared exotic sweets and smoking incense. It was so dim and full of thick + scent, the shut effect was so complete, that for a moment Linda felt + painfully oppressed; it seemed impossible to breathe in the wavering + bluish atmosphere. + </p> + <p> + Markue, who had appeared sufficiently familiar outside, now had a strange + portentous air; the gleams of his quick black eyes, the dusky tone of his + cheeks, his impassive grace, startled her. New York was utterly removed: + the taxi that had brought Judith and her, the swirling traffic of Columbus + Circle and smooth undulations of Fifth Avenue, were lost with a different + life. She saw, however, the open door to another room full of clear light, + and her self-possession rapidly returned. Judith—as she had + threatened—at once deserted her; and Linda found an inconspicuous + corner of a divan. + </p> + <p> + There were, perhaps, twenty people in the two rooms, and each one engaged + her attention. A coffee-colored woman was sitting beyond her, clad in + loose red draperies to which were sewed shining patterns of what she + thought was gold. Markue was introducing Judith, and the seated figure + smiled pleasantly with a flash of beautiful teeth and the supple gesture + of a raised brown palm. That, Linda decided, was the way she shook hands. + Two dark-skinned men, one in conventional evening dress, were with her; + they had small fine features and hair like carved ebony. + </p> + <p> + Linda had never before been at an affair with what she was forced to call + colored people; instinctively she was antagonistic and superior. She + turned to a solemn masculine presence with a ruffled shirt and high black + stock; he was talking in a resonant voice and with dramatic gestures to a + woman with a white face and low-drawn hair. Linda was fascinated by the + latter, dressed in a soft clinging dull garnet. It wasn't her clothes, + although they were remarkable, that held her attention, but the woman's + mouth. Apparently, it had no corners. Like a little band of crimson + rubber, or a ring of vivid flame, it shifted and changed in the oddest + shapes. It was an unhappy mouth, and made her think of pain; but perhaps + not so much that as hunger ... not for food, Linda was certain. What did + she want? + </p> + <p> + There was a light appealing laugh from another seated on the floor in a + floating black dinner dress with lovely ankles in delicate Spanish lace + stockings; her head was thrown back for the whisper of a heavy man with + ashen hair, a heavenly scarf and half-emptied glass. + </p> + <p> + Her bare shoulders, Linda saw, were as white as her own, as white but more + sloping. The other's hair, though, was the loveliest red possible. The + entire woman, relaxed and laughing in the perfumery and swimming shadows, + was irresistible. A man with a huge nose and blank eyes, his hands + disfigured with extraordinary rings, momentarily engaged her. Then, at the + moment when she saw an inviting and correctly conventional youth, he + crossed and sat at her side. + </p> + <p> + “Quite a show,” he said in the manner she had expected and approved. The + glow of his cigarette wavered over firmly cut lips. “We've just come to + New York,” he continued. “I don't know any one here but Markue, do you?” + Linda explained her own limitations. “The Victory's fine and familiar.” + </p> + <p> + She followed his gaze to where a winged statue with flying drapery was set + on a stand. She had seen it before, but without interest. Now it held her + attention. It wasn't a large cast, not over three feet high, but suddenly + Linda thought that it was the biggest thing in the room; it seemed to + expand as she watched it. + </p> + <p> + Beside the Victory, in a glass case with an enclosed concealed light, was + a statue, greenish gray, a few inches tall, with a sneering placidity of + expression as notable as the sweep of the other white fragment. “That's + Chinese,” her companion decided; “it looks as old as lust.” There was the + stir of new arrivals—a towering heavy man with a slight woman in + emerald satin. “There's Pleydon, the sculptor,” the youth told her + animatedly. “I've seen him at the exhibitions. It must be Susanna Noda, + the Russian singer, with him. He's a tremendous swell.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV + </h2> + <p> + Linda watched Pleydon as he met Markue in the middle of the room. He was + dressed carelessly, improperly for the evening; but she forgave that as + the result of indifference. The informal flannels and soft collar, too, + suited the largeness of his being and gestures. There was a murmur of + meeting, Susanna Noda smiled appealingly; and then, as Pleydon found a + place on a divan, she at once contentedly sat on his lap. Watching her, + Linda thought of a brilliant parrot; but that was only the effect of her + color; for her face, with a tilted nose and wide golden eyes, generous + warm lips, was charming. She lighted a cigarette, turned her graceful back + on the room and company, and chatted in French to the composed sculptor. + </p> + <p> + Linda divined that he was the most impressive figure she had encountered; + the quality of his indifference was beautiful and could only have come in + the security of being a “tremendous swell.” That phrase described all for + which she had cared most. It included everything that her mother had + indicated as desirable and a lot that she, Linda, had added. Money, + certainly, was an absolute necessity; but there were other things now that + vaguely she desired. She tried to decide what they were. + </p> + <p> + Only the old inner confusion resulted, the emotion that might have been + born in music; however, it was sharper than usual, and bred a new + dissatisfaction with the easier accomplishments. Really it was very + disturbing, for the pressure of her entire experience, all she had been + told, could be exactly weighed and held. The term luxury, too, was + revealing; it covered everything—except her present unformed + longing. + </p> + <p> + There were still newcomers, and Linda was aware of a sudden constraint. A + woman volubly French had appeared with a long pinkish-white dog in a + blanket, and the three Arabians—she had learned that much—had + risen with a concerted expression of surprise and displeasure. Their + anxiety, though, was no more dramatic than that of the dog's proprietor. + The gesture of her hands and lifted eyebrows were keenly expressive of her + impatience with any one who couldn't accept, with her, her dog. + </p> + <p> + “Markue ought to have it out,” some one murmured. “Dogs, to high caste + Mohammedans, are unclean animals.” Another added, “Worse than that, if it + should touch them, they would have to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.” + </p> + <p> + Without any knowledge of the situation of Mecca, Linda yet realized that + it must be a very long journey to result from the mere touch of a dog. She + didn't wonder at the restrained excitement of the “colored” people. The + situation was reduced to a sub-acid argument between the Frenchwoman and + the Begum; Madame couldn't exist without her “<i>p'tit</i>.” The Oriental + lady could not breathe a common air with the beast. The former managed a + qualified triumph—the “<i>p'tit</i>” was caged with a chair in a + corner, and the episode, for the moment, dropped. + </p> + <p> + Soon, however, Linda saw that the dog had wriggled out of captivity. It + made a cautious progress to where the candy stood on a low stand and ran + an appreciative tongue over the exposed sweet surfaces. Rapidly a sugared + fig was snapped up. Linda held her breath; no one had noticed the animal + yet—perhaps it would reach one of the objectors and she would have + the thrill of witnessing the departure for Mecca. + </p> + <p> + But, as always, nothing so romantic occurred; the dog was discovered, and + the Mohammedans, with a hurried politeness, made their salaams. Instead, a + man with a quizzical scrutiny through glasses that made him resemble an + owl, stopped before her. + </p> + <p> + “'Here we go 'round the mulberry-bush,'” he chanted. “Hello, Kate + Greenaway. Have you had a drink?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, thank you,” she replied sedately. + </p> + <p> + “Certified milk?” + </p> + <p> + “It was something with gin,” she particularized, “and too sweet.” He took + the place beside her and solemnly recited a great many nursery rhymes. On + the whole she liked him, deciding that he was very wicked. Soon he was + holding her hand in both of his. “I know you're not real,” he proceeded. + “Verlaine wrote you—<i>'Les Ingenus':</i> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'From which the sudden gleam of whiteness shed + Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming.' +</pre> + <p> + “What if I'd kiss you?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” she returned coldly. + </p> + <p> + “You're remarkable!” he exclaimed with enthusiasm. “If you are not already + one of the celebrated beauties you're about to be. As cool as a fish! Look—Pleydon + is going to rise and spill little Russia. Have you heard her sing + Scriabine?” Linda ignored him in a sharp return of her interest in the big + carelessly-dressed man. He put Susanna Noda aside and moved to the dim + middle of the room. His features, Linda saw, were rugged and pronounced; + he was very strong. + </p> + <p> + For a moment he stood gazing at the Winged Victory, his brow gathered into + a frown, while he made a caressing gesture with his whole hand. Then he + swung about and, from the heavy shadows of his face, he looked down at + her. He was still for a disconcerting length of time, but through which + Linda steadily met his interrogation. Then he bent over and seriously + removed the man beside her. + </p> + <p> + “Adieu, Louis,” he said. + </p> + <p> + The weight of Pleydon's body depressed the entire divan. “An ordinary + man,” he told her, “would ask how the devil you got here. Then he would + take you to your home with some carefully chosen words for whatever + parents you had. But I can see that all this is needless. You are an + extremely immaculate person. + </p> + <p> + “That isn't necessarily admirable,” he added. + </p> + <p> + “I don't believe I am admirable at all,” Linda replied. + </p> + <p> + “How old are you?” he demanded abruptly. + </p> + <p> + She told him. + </p> + <p> + “Age doesn't exist for some women, they are eternal,” he continued. “You + see, I call you a woman, but you are not, and neither are you a child. You + are Art—Art the deathless,” his gaze strayed back to the Victory. + </p> + <p> + As she, too, looked at it, it seemed to Linda that the cast filled all the + room with a swirl of great white wings and heroic robes. In an instant the + incense and the dark colors, the uncertain pallid faces and bare + shoulders, were swept away into a space through which she was dizzily + borne. The illusion was so overpowering that involuntarily she caught at + the heavy arm by her. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV + </h2> + <p> + “Why did you do that?” he asked quickly, with a frowning regard. Linda + replied easily and directly. “It seemed as if it were carrying me with + it,” she specified; “on and on and on, without ever stopping. I felt as if + I were up among the stars.” She paused, leaning forward, and gazed at the + statue. Even now she was certain that she saw a slight flutter of its + draperies. “It is beautiful, isn't it? I think it's the first thing I ever + noticed like that. You know what I mean—the first thing that hadn't + a real use.” + </p> + <p> + “But it has,” he returned. “Do you think it is nothing to be swept into + heaven? I suppose by 'real' you mean oatmeal and scented soap. Women + usually do. But no one, it appears, has any conception of the practical + side of great art. You might try to remember that it is simply permanence + given to beauty. It's like an amber in which beautiful and fragile things + are kept forever in a lovely glow. That is all, and it is enough. + </p> + <p> + “When I said that you were Art I didn't mean that you were skilfully + painted and dressed, but that there was a quality in you which recalled + all the charming women who had ever lived to draw men out of the mud—something, + probably, of which you are entirely unconscious, and certainly beyond your + control. You have it in a remarkable degree. It doesn't belong to husbands + but to those who create 'Homer's children.' + </p> + <p> + “That's a dark saying of Plato's, and it means that the <i>Alcestis</i> is + greater than any momentary offspring of the flesh.” + </p> + <p> + Linda admitted seriously, “Of course, I don't understand, yet it seems + quite familiar—” + </p> + <p> + “Don't, for Heaven's sake, repeat the old cant about reincarnation;” he + interrupted, “and sitting together, smeared with antimony, on a roof of + Babylon.” + </p> + <p> + She hadn't intended to, she assured him. “Tell me about yourself,” he + directed. It was as natural to talk with him as it was, with others, to + keep still. Her frank speech flowed on and on, supported by the + realization of his attention. + </p> + <p> + “There really isn't much, besides hotels, all different; but you'd be + surprised how alike they were, too. I mean the things to eat, and the + people. I never realized how tired I was of them until mother married Mr. + Moses Feldt. The children were simply dreadful, the children and the + women; the men weren't much better.” She said this in a tone of surprise, + and he nodded. “I can see now—I am supposed to be too old for my + age, and it was the hotels. You learn a great deal.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you like Mr. Moses Feldt?” + </p> + <p> + “Enormously; he is terribly sweet. I intend to marry a man just like him. + Or, at least, he was the second kind I decided on: the first only had + money, then I chose one with money who was kind, but now I don't know. + It's very funny: kindness makes me impatient. I'm perfectly sure I'll + never care for babies, they are so mussy. I don't read, and I can't stand + being—well, loved. + </p> + <p> + “Mother went to a great many parties; every one liked her and she liked + every one back; so it was easy for her. I used to long for the time when + I'd wear a lovely cloak and go out in a little shut motor with a man with + pearls; but now that's gone. They want to kiss you so much. I wish that + satisfied me. Why doesn't it? Is there anything the matter with me, do you + think? I've been told that I haven't any heart.” + </p> + <p> + As he laughed at her she noticed how absurdly small a cigarette seemed in + his broad powerful hand. “What has happened to you is this,” he explained: + “a combination of special circumstances has helped you in every way to be + what, individually, you were. As a rule, children are brought up in a + house of lies, like taking a fine naked body and binding it into hideous + rigid clothes. You escaped the damnation of cheap ready-cut morals and + education. Your mother ought to have a superb monument—the perfect + parent. Of course you haven't a 'heart.' From the standpoint of nature and + society you're as depraved as possible. You are worse than any one else + here—than all of them rolled together.” + </p> + <p> + Curiously, she thought, this didn't disturb her, which proved at once that + he was right. Linda regarded herself with interest as a supremely + reprehensible person, perhaps a vampire. The latter, though, was a rather + stout woman who, dressed in frightful lingerie, occupied couches with her + arms caught about the neck of a man bending over her. Every detail of this + was distasteful. + </p> + <p> + What was she? + </p> + <p> + Her attention wandered to the squat Chinese god in the glass case. It was + clear that he hadn't stirred for ages. A difficult thought partly formed + in her mind—the Chinese was the god of this room, of Markue's party, + of the women seated in the dim light on the floor and the divans; the low + gurgle of their laughter, the dusky whiteness of their shoulders in the + upcoiling incense, the smothered gleams of their hair, with the whispering + men, were the world of the grayish-green image. + </p> + <p> + She explained this haltingly to Pleydon, who listened with a flattering + interest. “I expect you're laughing at me inside,” she ended impotently. + “And the other, the Greek Victory,” he added, “is the goddess of the other + world, of the spirit. It's quaint a heathen woman should be that.” + </p> + <p> + Linda discovered that she liked Pleydon enormously. She continued daringly + that he might be the sort of man she wanted to marry. But he wouldn't be + easy to manage; probably he could not be managed at all. Her mother had + always insisted upon the presence of that possibility in any candidate for + matrimony. And, until now, Linda's philosophy had been in accord with her. + But suddenly she entertained the idea of losing herself completely in—in + love. + </p> + <p> + A struggle was set up within her: on one hand was everything that she had + been, all her experience, all advice, and her innate detachment; on the + other an obscure delicious thrill. Perhaps this was what she now wanted. + Linda wondered if she could try it—just a little, let herself go + experimentally. She glanced swiftly at Pleydon, and his bulk, his heavy + features, the sullen mouth, appalled her. + </p> + <p> + Men usually filled her with an unaccountable shrinking into her remotest + self. Pleydon was different; her liking for him had destroyed a large part + of her reserve; but a surety of instinct told her that she couldn't + experiment there. It was characteristic that a lesser challenge left her + cold. She had better marry as she had planned. + </p> + <p> + Susanna Noda came up petulantly and sank in a brilliant graceful swirl at + his feet. Her golden eyes, half shut, studied Linda intently. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVI + </h2> + <p> + “I am fatigued,” she complained; “you know how weary I get when you ignore + me.” He gazed down at her untouched. “I have left Lao-tze for Greece,” he + replied. She found this stupid and said so. “Has he been no more amusing + than this?” she asked Linda. “But then, you are a child, it all intrigues + you. You listen with the flattery of your blue eyes and mouth, both open.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't be rude, Susanna,” Pleydon commanded. “You are so feminine that you + are foolish. I'm not the stupid one—look again at our 'child.' Tell + me what you see.” + </p> + <p> + “I see Siberia,” she said finally. “I see the snow that seems so pure + while it is as blank and cold as death. You are right, Dodge. I was the + dull one. This girl will be immensely loved; perhaps by you. A calamity, I + promise you. Men are pigs,” she turned again to Linda; “no—imbeciles, + for only idiots destroy the beauty that is given to them. They take your + reputation with a smile, they take your heart with iron fingers; your + beauty they waste like a drunken Russian with gold.” + </p> + <p> + “Susanna, like all spendthrifts, is amazed by poverty.” + </p> + <p> + Even in the gloom Linda could see the pallor spreading over the other's + face; she was glad that Susanna Noda spoke in Russian. However, with a + violent effort, she subdued her bitterness. “Go into your Siberia!” she + cried. “I always thought you were capable of the last folly of marriage. + If you do it will spoil everything. You are not great, you know, not + really great, not in the first rank. You've only the slightest chance of + that, too much money. You were never in the gutter as I was—” + </p> + <p> + “Chateaubriand,” he interrupted, “Dante, Velasquez.” + </p> + <p> + “No, not spiritually!” she cried again. “What do you know of the inferno! + Married, you will get fat.” Pleydon turned lightly to Linda: + </p> + <p> + “As a supreme favor do not, when I ask you, marry me.” + </p> + <p> + This, for Linda, was horribly embarrassing. However, she gravely promised. + The Russian lighted a cigarette; almost she was serene again. Linda said, + “Fatness is awful, isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + Pleydon replied, “Death should be the penalty. If women aren't lovely—” + he waved away every other consideration. + </p> + <p> + “And if men have fingers like carrots—” Susanna mimicked him. + Judith, flushed, her hair loosened, approached. “Linda,” she demanded, “do + you remember when we ordered the taxi? Was it two or three?” Markue, at + her shoulder, begged her not to consider home. + </p> + <p> + “I'm going almost immediately,” Pleydon said, “and taking your Linda.” His + height and determined manner scattered all objections. + </p> + <p> + Linda, at the entrance to the apartment, found to her great surprise—in + place of the motor she had expected—a small graceful single-horse + victoria, the driver buttoned into a sealskin rug. Deep in furs, beside + Pleydon, she was remarkably comfortable, and she was soothed by the + rhythmic beat of the hoofs, the even progress through the crystal night of + Fifth Avenue. + </p> + <p> + Her companion flooded his being with the frozen air. They had, it seemed, + lost all desire to talk. The memory of Markue's party lingered like the + last vanishing odor of his incense; there was a confused vision of the + murmurous room against the lighted exterior where the drinks sparkled on a + table. Linda made up her mind that she would not go to another. Then she + wondered if she'd see Pleydon again. The Russian singer had been too silly + for words. + </p> + <p> + It suddenly occurred to her that the man now with her had taken Susanna + Noda, and that he had left her planted. He had preferred driving her, + Linda Condon, home. He wasn't very enthusiastic about it, though; his face + was gloomy. + </p> + <p> + “The truth is,” he remarked at last, “that Susanna is right—I am not + in the first rank. But that was all nonsense about the necessity of the + gutter—sentimental lies.” + </p> + <p> + Linda was not interested in this, but it left her free to explore her own + emotions. The night had been eventful because it had shaken all the + foundation of what she intended. That single momentary delicious thrill + had been enough to threaten the entire rest. At the same time her native + contempt of the other women, of Judith with her tumbled hair, persisted. + Was there no other way to capture such happiness? Was it all hopelessly + messy with drinks and unpleasant familiarity? + </p> + <p> + What did Pleydon mean by spirit? Surely there must be more kinds of love + than one—he had intimated that. She gathered that “Homer's + children,” those airs of Gluck that she liked so well, were works of art, + sculpture, such as he did. Yet she had never thought of them as important, + important as oatmeal or delicate soap. She made up her mind to ask him + about it, when she saw that they had reached the Eighties; she was almost + home. + </p> + <p> + “I am going away to-morrow,” he told her, “for the winter, to South + America. When I come back we'll see each other. If you should change + address send me a line to the Harvard Club.” The carriage had stopped + before the great arched entrance to the apartment-house, towering in its + entire block. He got out and lifted her to the pavement as if she had been + no more than a flower in his hands. Then he walked with her into the + darkness of the garden. + </p> + <p> + The fountains were cased in boards; the hedged borders, the bushes and + grass, were dead. High above them on the dark wall a window was bright. + Linda's heart began to pound loudly, she was trembling ... from the cold. + There was a faint sound in the air—the elevated trains, or stirring + wings? It was nothing, then, to be lifted into heaven. There was the door + to the hall and elevator. She turned, to thank Dodge Pleydon for all his + goodness to her, when he lifted her—was it toward heaven?—and + kissed her mouth. + </p> + <p> + She was still in his arms, with her eyes closed. “Linda Condon?” he said, + in a tone of inquiry. + </p> + <p> + At the same breath in which she realized a kiss was of no importance a + sharp icy pain cut at her heart. It hurt her so that she gasped. Then, and + this was strange, she realized that—as a kiss—it hadn't + annoyed her. Suddenly she felt that it wasn't just that, but something far + more, a part of all her inner longing. He had put her down and was looking + away, a face in shadow with an ugly protruding lip. + </p> + <p> + She saw him that way in her dreams—in the court under the massive + somber walls, with a troubled frown over his eyes. It seemed to her that, + reaching up, she smoothed it away as they stood together in a darkness + with the fountains, the hedges, dead, the world with never a sound + sleeping in the prison of winter. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVII + </h2> + <p> + Linda thought about Dodge Pleydon on a warm evening of the following May. + At four o'clock, in a hotel, Pansy had been married; and the entire Feldt + connection had risen to a greater height of clamorous cheer than ever + before. Extravagant unseasonable dishes, wines and banked flowers were + lavishly mingled with sentimental speeches, healths and tears. Linda had + been acutely restless, impatient of all the loud good humor and stupid + compliments. The sense of her isolation from their life was unbearably + keen. She would have a very different wedding with a man in no particular + like Pansy's. + </p> + <p> + After dinner—an occasion, with Pansy absent, where Mr. Moses Feldt's + tears persisted in flowing—she had strayed into the formal chamber + across from the dining-room and leaned out of a window, gazing into the + darkening court. Directly below was where Pleydon had kissed her. She + often re-examined her feelings about that; but only to find that they had + dissolved into an indefinite sense of the inevitable. Not alone had it + failed to shock her—she hadn't even been surprised. Linda thought + still further about kissing, with the discovery that if, while it was + happening, she was conscious of the kiss, it was a failure; successful, it + carried her as far as possible from the actuality. + </p> + <p> + Pleydon, of course, had not written to her; he had intimated nothing to + the contrary, only asking her to let him know, at the Harvard Club, if she + changed address. That wasn't necessary, and now, probably, he was back + from South America. Where, except by accident, might she see him? Markue, + with his parties, had dropped from Judith's world, his place taken by a + serious older dealer in Dutch masters with an impressive gallery just off + Fifth Avenue. + </p> + <p> + That she would see him Linda was convinced; this feeling absorbed any + desire; it was no good wanting it or not wanting it; consequently she was + undisturbed. She considered him gravely and in detail. Had there been any + more Susanna Nodas in his stay south? She had heard somewhere that the + women of Argentine were irresistible. Her life had taught her nothing if + not the fact that a number of women figured in every man's history. It was + deplorable but couldn't be avoided; and whether or not it continued after + marriage depended on the cunning of any wife. + </p> + <p> + Now, however, Linda felt weary already at the prospect of a married life + that rested on the constant play of her ingenuity. A great many things + that, but a little before, she had willingly accepted, seemed to her + probably not less necessary but distinctly tiresome. Linda began to think + that she couldn't really bother; the results weren't sufficiently + important. + </p> + <p> + Dodge Pleydon. + </p> + <p> + She slept in a composed order until the sun was well up. It was warmer + than yesterday; and, going to an afternoon concert with Judith, she + decided to walk. Linda strolled, in a short severe jacket and skirt, a + black straw hat turned back with a cockade and a crisp flushed mass of + sweet peas at her waist. The occasion, as it sometimes happened, found her + in no mood for music. The warmth of the sunlight, the open city windows + and beginning sounds of summer, had enveloped her in a mood in which the + jangling sentimentality of a street organ was more potent than the legato + of banked violins. + </p> + <p> + She was relieved when the concert was over, but lingered at her seat until + the crowd had surged by; it made Linda furious to be shoved or + indiscriminately touched. Judith had gone ahead, when Linda was conscious + of the scrutiny of a pale well-dressed woman of middle age. It became + evident that the other was debating whether or not to speak; clearly such + an action was distasteful to her; and Linda had turned away before a + restrained voice addressed her: + </p> + <p> + “You will have to forgive me if I ask your name ... because of a certain + resemblance. Seeing you I—I couldn't let you go.” + </p> + <p> + “Linda Condon,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + The elder, Linda saw, grew even paler. She put out a gloved hand. “Then I + was right,” she said in a slightly unsteady voice. “But perhaps, when I + explain, you will think it even stranger, inexcusable. My dear child, I am + your father's sister.” + </p> + <p> + Linda was invaded by a surprise equally made up of interest and + resentment. The first was her own and the second largely borrowed from her + mother. Besides, why had her father's family never made the slightest + effort to see her. This evidently had simultaneously occurred to the + other. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” she added, quite properly, “we can't undertake family + questions here. I shouldn't blame you a bit, either, if you went directly + away. I had to speak, to risk that, because you were so unmistakably a + Lowrie. It is not a common appearance. We—I—” she floundered + for a painful moment; then she gathered herself with a considerable + dignity. “Seeing you has affected me tremendously, changed everything. I + have nothing to say in our defense, you must understand that. I am + certain, too, that my sister will feel the same—we live together in + Philadelphia. I hope you will give me your address and let us write to + you. Elouise will join with me absolutely.” + </p> + <p> + Linda told her evenly where she lived, and then allowed Miss Lowrie to + precede her toward the entrance. She said nothing of this to Judith, nor, + momentarily, to her mother. She wanted to consider it undisturbed by a + flood of talk and blame. It was evident to her that the Lowries had + behaved very badly, but just how she couldn't make out. She recalled her + father's sister—her aunt—minutely, forced to the realization + that she was a person of entire superiority. Here, she suddenly saw, had + been the cause of all their difficulties—the Lowries hadn't approved + of the marriage, they had objected to her mother. + </p> + <p> + Five years ago she would have been incensed at this; but now, essentially, + she was without personal indignation. She wanted, for herself, to discover + as much as possible about her father and his family. A need independent of + maternal influences stirred her. Linda was reassured by the fact that her + father had been gently born; while she realized that she had always taken + this for granted. Her mother must know nothing about the meeting with Miss + Lowrie until the latter had written. + </p> + <p> + That was Friday and the letter came the following Tuesday. Linda, alone at + the breakfast-table, instantly aware of the source of the square envelope + addressed in a delicate regular writing, opened it and read in an unusual + mental disturbance: + </p> + <p> + “My dear Linda, + </p> + <p> + I hope you will not consider it peculiar for me to call you this, for + nothing else seems possible. Meeting you in that abrupt manner upset me, + as you must have noticed. Of course I knew of you, and even now I can not + go into our long unhappy affair, but until I saw you, and so remarkably + like the Lowries, I did not realize how wicked Elouise and I had been. But + I am obliged to add only where you were concerned. We have no desire to be + ambiguous in that. + </p> + <p> + However, I am writing to say that we should love to have you visit us + here. It is possible under the circumstances that your mother will not + wish you to come. Yet I know the Lowries, a very independent and decided + family, and although it is my last intention to be the cause of difficulty + with your mother, still I hope it may be arranged. + </p> + <p> + In closing I must add how happy I was at the evidence of your blood. But + that, I now see, was a certainty. You will have to forgive us for a large + measure of blindness. Affectionately, + </p> + <p> + AMELIA VIGNÉ LOWRIE.” + </p> + <p> + Almost instantaneously Linda was aware that she would visit the Lowries. + She liked the letter extremely, as well as all that she remembered of its + sender. At the same time she prepared for a scene with her mother, + different from those of the past—with the recourse to the brandy + flask—but no less unpleasant. They had very little to say to each + other now; and, when she went into her mother's room with an evident + definite purpose, the latter showed a constrained surprise, a palpable + annoyance that her daughter had found her at the daily renovation of her + worn face. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVIII + </h2> + <p> + Linda said directly, “I met Miss Lowrie, father's sister, at a concert + last week, and this morning I had a letter asking me to stay with them in + Philadelphia.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Feldt's face suddenly had no need for the color she held poised on a + cloth. Her voice, sharp at the beginning, rose to a shrill unrestrained + wrath. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder at the brass of her speaking to you at all let alone writing + here. Just you give me the letter and I'll shut her up. The idea! I hope + you were cool to her, the way they treated us. Stay with them—I + guess not!” + </p> + <p> + “But I thought of going,” Linda replied. “It's only natural. After all, + you must see that he was my father.” + </p> + <p> + “A pretty father he was, too good for the girl he married. It's my fault I + didn't tell you long ago, but I just couldn't abide the mention of him. He + deserted me, no, us, cold, without a word—walked out of the door one + noon, taking his hat as quiet as natural, and never came back. I never saw + him again nor heard except through lawyers. That was the kind of heart he + had, and his sisters are worse. I hadn't a decent speech of any kind out + of them. The Lowries,” she managed to inject a surprising amount of + contempt into her pronouncement of that name. “What it was all about you + nor any sensible person would never believe: + </p> + <p> + “The house smelled a little of boiled cabbage. That's why he left me, and + you expected in a matter of a few months. He said in his dam' frigid way + that it had become quite impossible and took down his hat.” + </p> + <p> + “There must have been more,” Linda protested, suppressing a mad desire to + laugh. + </p> + <p> + “Not an inch,” her mother asserted. “Nothing, after a little, suited him. + He'd sit up like a poker, just as I've seen you, with his lips tight + together in the Lowrie manner. It didn't please him no matter what you'd + do. He wouldn't blow out at you like a Christian and I never knew where I + was at. I'd come down in a matinée, the prettiest I could buy, and then + see he didn't like it. He would expect you to be dressed in the morning + like it was afternoon and you going out. And as for loosening your corsets + for a little comfort about the house, you might as well have slapped him + direct. + </p> + <p> + “That wasn't the worst, though; but his going away without as much as a + flicker of his hand; and with me like I was. Nobody on earth but would + blame him for that. I only got what was allowed me after we had changed + back to my old name, me and you. He never asked one single question about + you nor tried to see or serve you a scrap. For all he knew, at a place + called Santa Margharita in Italy, you might have been born dead.” + </p> + <p> + She was unable, Linda recognized, to defend him in any way; he had acted + frightfully. She acknowledged this logically with her power of reason, but + somehow it didn't touch her as it had her mother, and as, evidently, the + latter expected. She was absorbed in the vision of her father sitting, in + the Lowrie manner, rigid as a poker; she saw him quietly take up his hat + and go away forever. Linda understood his process completely; she was + capable of doing precisely the same thing. Whatever was the matter with + her—in the heartlessness so often laid to her account—had been + equally true of her father. + </p> + <p> + “You ought to know what to say to them,” Mrs. Moses Feldt cried, “or I'll + do it for you! If only I had seen her she would have heard a thing or two + not easy forgotten.” + </p> + <p> + Linda's determination to go to Philadelphia had not been shaken, and she + made a vain effort to explain her attitude. “Of course, it was horrid for + you,” she said. “I can understand how you'd never never forgive him. But I + am different, and, I expect, not at all nice. It's very possible, since he + was my father, that we are alike. I wish you had told me this before—it + explains so much and would have made things easier for me. I am afraid I + must see them.” + </p> + <p> + She was aware of the bitterness and enmity that stiffened her mother into + an unaccustomed adequate scorn: + </p> + <p> + “I might have expected nothing better of you, and me watching it coming + all these years. You can go or stay. I had my life in spite of the both of + you, as gay as I pleased and a good husband just the same. I don't care if + I never see you again, and if it wasn't for the fuss it would make I'd + take care I didn't. You'll have your father's money now I'm married; I + wonder you stay around here at all with your airs of being better than the + rest. God's truth is you ain't near as good, even if I did bring you into + the world.” + </p> + <p> + “I am willing to agree with you,” Linda answered. “No one could be sweeter + than the Feldts. I sha'n't do nearly as well. But that isn't it, really. + People don't choose themselves; I'm certain father didn't at that lonely + Italian place. If you weren't happy laced in the morning it wasn't your + fault. You see, I am trying to excuse myself, and that isn't any good, + either.” + </p> + <p> + “Unnatural,” Mrs. Moses Feldt pronounced. And Linda, weary and depressed, + allowed her the last word. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIX + </h2> + <p> + Nothing further during the subsequent brief exchange of notes between Miss + Lowrie and Linda was said of the latter's intention to visit her father's + family. Mrs. Feldt, however, whose attitude toward Linda had been + negatively polite, now displayed an animosity carefully hidden from her + husband but evident to the two girls. The elder never neglected an + opportunity to emphasize Linda's selfishness or make her personality seem + ridiculous. But this Linda ignored from her wide sense of the + inconsequence of most things. + </p> + <p> + Yet she was relieved when, finally, she had actually left New York. She + looked forward with an unusual hopeful curiosity to the Lowries. To her + surprise their house—miles, it appeared, from the center of the city—was + directly on a paved street with electric cars, unpretentious stores and + very humble dwellings nearby. Back from the thoroughfare, however, there + were spacious green lawns. The street itself, she saw at once, was old—a + highway of gray stone with low aged stone façades, steep eaves and + blackened chimney-pots reaching, dusty with years, into the farther hilly + country. + </p> + <p> + A gable of the Lowrie house, with a dignified white door, a fanlight of + faintly iridescent glass and polished brasses, faced the brick sidewalk, + while to the left there was a high board fence and an entrance with a + small grille open on a somber reach of garden. A maid in a stiff white cap + answered the fall of the knocker; she took Linda's bag; and, in a hall + that impressed her by its bareness, Linda was greeted by the Miss Lowrie + she had seen. + </p> + <p> + Her aunt was composed, but there was a perceptible flush on her cheeks, + and she said in a rapid voice, after a conventional welcome, “You must + meet Elouise at once, before you go up to your room.” + </p> + <p> + Elouise Lowrie was older than Amelia, but she, too, was slender and erect, + with black hair startling in its density on her wasted countenance. Linda + noticed a fine ruby on a crooked finger and beautiful rose point lace. “It + was good of you,” the elder proceeded, “to come and see two old women. I + don't know whether we have more to say or to keep still about. But I, for + one, am going to avoid explanations. You are here, a fool could see that + you were Bartram's girl, and that is enough for a Lowrie.” + </p> + <p> + The room was nearly as bare as the hall: in place of the deep carpets of + the Feldts' the floor, of dark uneven oak boards, was merely waxed and + covered by a rough-looking oval rug. The walls were paneled in white, with + white ruffled curtains at small windows; and the furniture, the dull + mahogany ranged against the immaculate paint, the rocking-chairs of high + slatted walnut and rush bottoms, the slender formality of tables with + fluted legs, was dignified but austere. There were some portraits in heavy + old gilt—men with florid faces and tied hair, and the delicate + replicas of high-breasted women in brocades. + </p> + <p> + There was, plainly, an air of the exceptional in Amelia Lowrie's + conduction of Linda to her room. She waited at the door while the other + moved forward to the center of a chamber empty of all the luxury Linda had + grown to demand. There was a bed with tall graceful posts supporting a + canopy like a frosting of sugar, a solemn set of drawers with a diminutive + framed mirror in which she could barely see her shoulders, a small + unenclosed brass clock with long exposed weights, and two uninviting + painted wooden chairs. This was not, although very nearly, all. Linda's + attention was attracted by a framed and long-faded photograph of a young + man, bareheaded, with a loosely knotted scarf, a striped blazer and white + flannels. His face was thin and sensitive, his lips level, and his eyes + gazed with a steady questioning at the observer. + </p> + <p> + “That was Bartram,” Amelia Lowrie told her; “your father. This was his + room.” + </p> + <p> + She went down almost immediately and left Linda, in a maze of dim + emotions, seated on one of the uncomfortable painted chairs. Her father! + This was his room; nothing, she realized, had been disturbed. The mirror + had held the vaguely unsteady reflection of his face; he had slept under + the arched canopy of the bed. She rose and went to a window from which he, + too, had looked. + </p> + <p> + Below her was the garden shut in on its front by the high fence. There was + a magnolia-tree, now covered with thick smooth white flowers, and, at the + back, low-massed rhododendron with fragile lavender blossoms on a dark + glossy foliage. But the space was mainly green and shadowed in tone; while + beyond were other gardens, other emerald lawns and magnolia-trees, an + ordered succession of tranquillity with separate brick or stone or white + dwellings in the lengthening afternoon shadows of vivid maples. + </p> + <p> + It was as different as possible from all that Linda had known, from the + elaborate hotels and gigantic apartment houses, the tropical interiors, of + her New York life. She unpacked her bag, putting her gold toilet things on + the chest of drawers, precisely arranging in a shallow closet what clothes + she had brought, and then, changing, went down to the Lowries. + </p> + <p> + They surveyed her with eminent approval at a dinner-table lighted only + with candles, beside long windows open on a dusk with a glimmer of + fireflies. Suddenly Linda felt amazingly at ease; it seemed to her that + she had sat here before, with the night flowing gently in over the + candle-flames. The conversation, she discovered, never strayed far from + the concerns and importance of the Lowrie blood. “My grandmother, Natalie + Vigné,” Elouise informed her, “came with her father to Philadelphia from + France, in eighteen hundred and one, at the invitation of Stephen Girard, + who was French as well. She married Hallet Lowrie whose mother was a + Bartram. + </p> + <p> + “That, my dear, explains our black hair and good figgers. There never was + a lumpy Lowrie. Well, Hallet built this house, or rather enlarged it, for + his wife; and it has never been out of the family. Our nephew, Arnaud + Hallet—Arnaud was old Vigné's name—owns it now. Isaac Hallet, + you may recall, was suspected of being a Tory; at any rate his brother's + descendants, Fanny Rodwell is the only one left, won't speak.” + </p> + <p> + The placid conversation ran on unchanged throughout dinner and the + evening. Linda was relieved by the absence of any questioning; indeed + nothing contemporary, she realized, was held to be significant. “I thought + Arnaud would be in to-night,” Elouise Lowrie said; “he knew Linda was + expected.” No one, however, appeared; and Linda went up early to her room. + There, too, were only candles, a pale wavering illumination in which the + past, her father, were extraordinarily nearby. A sense of pride was + communicated to her by so much that time had been unable to shake. The bed + was steeped in the magic of serene traditions. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XX + </h2> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet appeared for dinner the evening after Linda's arrival; a + quiet man with his youth lost, slightly stooped shoulders, crumpled shoes + and a green cloth bag. But he had a memorable voice and an easy + distinction of manner; in addition to these she discovered, at the table, + a lighter amusing sense of the absurd. She watched him—as he poured + the sherry from a decanter with a silver label hung on a chain—with + a feeling of mild approbation. On the whole he was nice but uninteresting. + What a different man from Pleydon! + </p> + <p> + The days passed in a pleasant deliberation, with Arnaud Hallet constantly + about the house or garden, while Linda's thoughts continually returned to + the sculptor. He was clearer than the actuality of her mother and the + Feldts or the recreated image of her father. At times she was thrilled by + the familiar obscure sense of music, of longing slowly translated into + happiness. Then more actual problems would envelop her in doubt. Mostly + she was confused—in her cool material necessity for understanding—by + the temper of her feeling for Dodge Pleydon. Linda wondered if this were + love. Perhaps, when she saw him again, she'd be able to decide. Then she + remembered promising to let him know if she changed her address. It was + possible that already he had called at the Feldts', or written, and that + her mother had refused to inform him where she had gone. + </p> + <p> + Linda had been at the Lowries' two weeks now, but they were acutely + distressed when she suggested that her visit was unreasonably prolonged. + “My dear,” they protested together, “we hoped you'd stay the summer. + Bartram's girl! Unless, of course, it is dull with us. Something brighter + must be arranged. No doubt we have only thought of our own pleasure in + having you.” + </p> + <p> + Linda replied honestly that she enjoyed being with them extremely. Her + mother's dislike, the heavy luxury of the Feldt apartment, held little + attraction for her. Then, too, losing the sense of the bareness of the + house Hallet Lowrie had built for his French wife, she began to find it + surprisingly appealing. + </p> + <p> + Her mind returned to her promise to Pleydon. She told herself that + probably he had forgotten her existence, but she had a strong unreasoning + conviction that this was not so. It seemed the most natural thing in the + world to write him and, almost before she was aware of the intention, she + had put “Dear Mr. Pleydon” at the head of a sheet of note-paper. + </p> + <p> + I promised to let you know in the spring when you came back from South + America where I was. I did not think I would have to do it, but here I am + in Philadelphia with my father's sisters. I do not know just how long for, + but a month, anyhow. It is very quiet, but charming. I have the room that + was my father's when he was young, and look out of the window like he must + have. If you should come to Philadelphia my aunts ask me to say that they + would be glad to have you for dinner. This is how you get here.... + </p> + <p> + Very sincerely, + </p> + <h3> + LINDA CONDON. + </h3> + <p> + She walked to a street crossing, where she dropped the envelope into a + letter-box on a lamppost, and returned to find Arnaud Hallet waiting for + her. He said: + </p> + <p> + “Everyone agrees I'm serious, but actually you are worse than the + Assembly.” They went through the dining-room to the garden, and sat on the + stone step of a deep window. It was quite late, perhaps eleven o'clock, + and the fireflies, slowly rising into the night, had vanished. Linda was + cool and remote and grave, silently repeating and weighing the phrases of + her letter to Pleydon. + </p> + <p> + She realized that Arnaud Hallet was coming to like her a very great deal; + but she gave this only the slightest attention. She liked him, really, and + that dismissed him from serious consideration. Anyhow, in spite of the + perfection of his manner, Arnaud's careless dress displeased her: his + shoes and the shoulders of his coat were perpetually dusty, and his hair, + growing scant, was always ruffled. Linda understood that he was highly + intellectual, and frequently contributed historical and genealogical + papers to societies and bulletins, but compared with Dodge Pleydon's + brilliant personality and reputation, Pleydon surrounded by the Susanna + Nodas of life, Arnaud was as dingy as his shoes. + </p> + <p> + She wondered idly when the latter would actually try to love her. He was + holding her hand and it might well be to-night. Linda decided that he + would do it delicately; and when, almost immediately, he kissed her, she + was undisturbed. No, surprisingly, it had been quite pleasant. He hadn't + mussed her ribbons, nor her spirit, a particle. In addition he did not at + once become impossible and urgently sentimental; there was even a shade of + amusement on his heavy face. + </p> + <p> + “You appear to take a lot for granted,” he complained. + </p> + <p> + “I'd been wondering when it would happen,” she admitted coolly. + </p> + <p> + “It always does, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Usually I stop it,” she continued. “I don't believe I'll ever like being + kissed. Can you tell me why? No one ever has; they all think they can + bring me around to it.” + </p> + <p> + “And to them,” he added. + </p> + <p> + “But they end by being furious at me. I've been sworn at and called + dreadful names. Sometimes they're only silly. One cried; I hated that the + most.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean that you were sorry for him?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, dear, no. Why should I be? He looked so odious all smeared with + tears.” + </p> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet returned promptly: “Linda, you're a little beast.” To + counteract his rude speech he kissed her again. “This,” he said with less + security, “threatens to become a habit. I thought, at forty-five, that I + was safely by the island of sirens, but I'll be on the rocks before I know + it.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed with the cool remoteness of running water. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder you haven't been murdered,” he proceeded, “in a moonless garden + by an elderly lawyer. Do you ever think of the lyric day when, preceded by + a flock of bridesmaids and other flowery pagan truck, you'll meet + justice?” + </p> + <p> + “Marriage?” she asked. “But of course. I have everything perfectly planned—” + </p> + <p> + “Then, my dear Linda, describe him.” + </p> + <p> + “Very straight,” she said, “with beautiful polished shoes and brushed + hair.” + </p> + <p> + “You ought to have no trouble finding that. Any number of my friends have + one—to open the door and take your things. I might arrange a very + satisfactory introduction for everybody concerned—a steady man well + on his way to preside over the pantry and table.” + </p> + <p> + “You're not as funny as usual,” Linda decided critically. “That, too, + disturbs me,” he replied. “It looks even more unpromising for the near + future.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXI + </h2> + <p> + In her room Linda thought, momentarily, of Arnaud Hallet; whatever might + have been serious in her attitude toward him dissolved by the lightness of + his speech. Dodge Pleydon appealed irresistibly to her deepest feelings. + Now her mental confusion was at least clear in that she knew what troubled + her. It was not new, it extended even to times before Pleydon had entered + her life—the difficulties presented by the term “love.” + </p> + <p> + In her mind it was divided into two or three widely different aspects, + phases which she was unable to reconcile. Her mother, in the beginning, + had informed her that love was a nuisance. To be happy, a man must love + you without any corresponding return; this was necessary to his complete + management, the securing of the greatest possible amount of new clothes. + It was as far as love should be allowed to enter marriage. But that + reality, with a complete expression in shopping, was distant from the + immaterial and delicate emotions that in her responded to Pleydon. + </p> + <p> + Linda had been familiar with the materials, the processes, of what, she + had been assured, was veritable love since early childhood. Her mother's + dressing, the irritable hours of fittings and at her mirror, the paint she + put on her cheeks, the crimping of her hair were for the favor of men. + These struggles had absorbed the elder, all the women Linda had + encountered, to the exclusion of everything else. This, it seemed, must, + from its overwhelming predominance, be the greatest thing in life. + </p> + <p> + There was nothing mysterious about it. You did certain things + intelligently, if you had the figure to do them with, for a practical end. + The latter, carefully controlled, like an essence of which a drop was + delightful and more positively stifling, was as real as the methods of + approach. Oatmeal or scented soap! The force of example and association + combined to bathe such developments in the sanest light possible, and + Linda had every intention of the successful grasping of an easy and + necessary luxury. She had, until—vaguely—now, been entirely + willing to accept the unescapable conditions of love used as a means or + the element of pleasure at parties. Now, however, the unexpected element + of Dodge Pleydon disturbed her philosophy. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly all the lacing and painting and crimping, the pretense and lies + and carefully planned accidental effects, filled her with revolt. The + insinuations of women, the bareness of their revelations, her mother + returning unsteady and mussed from a dinner, were unutterably disgusting. + Even to think of them hurt her fundamentally: so much of what she was, of + what she had determined, had been destroyed by an emotion apparently as + slight as echoed music. + </p> + <p> + Here was the real mystery and for which nothing in her experience had + prepared her. She began to see why it was called a nuisance—if this + were love—and wondered if she had better not suppress it at once. It + wouldn't be suppressed. Her thoughts continually came back to Pleydon, and + the warmth, the disturbing thrill, always resulted. It led her away from + herself, from Linda Condon; a sufficiently strange accomplishment. A + concern for Dodge Pleydon, little schemes for his happiness and + well-being, put aside her clothes and complexion and her future. + </p> + <p> + Until the present her acts had been the result of deliberation. She had + been impressed by the necessity for planning with care; but, in the cool + gloom of the covered bed, a sharp joy held her at the possibility of + flinging caution away. Yet she couldn't quite, no matter how much she + desired it, lose herself. Linda was glad that Pleydon was rich; and there + were, she remembered, moments for surrender. + </p> + <p> + As usual these problems, multiplying toward night, were fewer in the + bright flood of morning. She laughed at the memory of Arnaud Hallet's + humor; and then, it was late afternoon, the maid told her that Pleydon was + in the drawing room. Her appearance satisfactory she was able to see him + at once. To her great pleasure neither Pleydon nor his clothes had + changed. He was dressed in light-gray flannels; a big easy man with a + crushing palm, large features and an expression of intolerance. + </p> + <p> + “Linda,” he said, “what a splendid place to find you. So much better than + Markue's.” He was, she realized, very glad to see her, and dropped at + once, as if they had been uninterruptedly together, into intimate talk. + “My work has been going badly,” he proceeded; “or rather not at all. I + made a rather decent fountain at Newport; but—remember what Susanna + said?—it's not in the first rank. A happy balance and strong enough + conception; yet it is like a Cellini ewer done in granite. The truth is, + too much interests me; an artist ought to be the victim of a monomania. + I'm a normal animal.” He studied her contentedly: + </p> + <p> + “How lovely you are. I came over—in an automobile at last—because + I was certain you couldn't exist as I remembered you. But you could and + do. Lovely Linda! And what a gem of a letter. It might have been copied + from 'The Perfect Correspondent for Young Females.' You're not going to + lose me again. When I was a little boy I had a passion for sherbets.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled at him with half-closed eyes and the conviction that, with + Pleydon, she could easily be different. He leaned forward and his voice + startled her with the impression that he had read her mind: + </p> + <p> + “If you could care for any one a lifetime would be short to get you. Look, + you have never been out of my thoughts—or within my reach. It seems + a myth that I kissed you; impossible ... Linda.” + </p> + <p> + “But you did,” she told him, gaining happiness from the mere assurance. + They were alone in the drawing-room, and he rose, sweeping her up into his + arms. Yet the expected joy evaded her desire and the sudden determination + to lose utterly her reserve. It was evident that he as well was conscious + of this, for he released her and stood frowning, his protruding lower lip + uglier than ever. + </p> + <p> + “A lifetime would be nothing,” he said again; “or it might be everything + wasted. Which are you—all soul and spirit, or none?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” she replied, in her bitter disappointment, her heart + pinched by the sharpest pain she remembered. There was the stir of skirts + at the door; Linda turned with a sense of relief to Amelia Lowrie. + However, dinner progressed very well indeed. “Then your aunt,” Elouise + said to Pleydon, “was Carrie Dodge. I recall her perfectly.” That + established, the Lowrie women talked with a gracious freedom, exploring + the furthermost infiltrations of blood and marriages. + </p> + <p> + Linda was again serene. She watched Pleydon with an extraordinary formless + conviction—each of them was a part of the other's life; while in + some way marriage and love were now hopelessly confused. It was beyond + effort or planning. That was all she could grasp, but she was contented. + Sometimes when he talked he made the familiar descriptive gesture with his + hand, as if he were shaping the form of his speech: a sculptor's gesture, + Linda realized. + </p> + <p> + Later they wandered into the garden, a dark enclosure with the long + ivy-covered façade of the house broken by the lighted spaces of windows. + Beyond the fence at regular intervals an electric car passed with an + increasing and diminishing clangor. The white petals of the magnolia-tree + had fallen and been wheeled away; the blossoms of the rhododendron were + dead on their stems. It was, Linda felt, a very old garden that had known + many momentary emotions and lives. + </p> + <p> + Dodge Pleydon, standing before her, put his hands on her shoulders. “Would + I have any success?” he asked. “Do you think you'd care for me?” + </p> + <p> + She smiled confidently up at his intent face. “Oh, yes.” Yet she hoped + that he would not kiss her—just then. The delicacy of her longing + and need were far removed from material expressions. This, of course, + meant marriage; but marriage was money, comfort, the cold thing her mother + had impressed on her. Love, her love, was a mistake here. But in a little + it would all come straight and she would understand. She no longer had + confidence in her mother's wisdom. + </p> + <p> + In spite of her shrinking, of a half articulate appeal, he crushed her + against his face. Whatever that had filled her with hope, she thought, was + being torn from her. A sickening aversion over which she had no control + made her stark in his arms. The memories of the painted coarse satiety of + women and the sly hard men for which they schemed, the loose discussions + of calculated advances and sordid surrenders, flooded her with a loathing + for what she passionately needed to be beautiful. + </p> + <p> + Yet deep within her, surprising in its vitality, a fragile ardor + persisted. If she could explain, not only might he understand, but be able + to make her own longing clear and secure. But all she managed to say was, + “If you kiss me again I think it will kill me.” Even that failed to stop + him. “You were never alive,” he asserted. “I'll put some feeling into you. + It has been done before with marble.” + </p> + <p> + Linda, unresponsive, suffered inordinately. + </p> + <p> + Again on her feet she saw that Pleydon was angry, his face grim. He seemed + changed, threatening and unfamiliar; it was exactly as if, in place of + Dodge Pleydon, a secretive impersonal ugliness stood disclosed before her. + He said harshly: + </p> + <p> + “When will you marry me?” + </p> + <p> + It was what, above all else, she had wanted; and Linda realized that to + marry him was still the crown of whatever happiness she could imagine. But + her horror of the past recreated by his beating down of her gossamer-like + aspiration, the vision of him flushed and ruthless, an image of + indiscriminate nameless man, made it impossible for her to reply. An + abandon of shrinking fear numbed her heart and lips. + </p> + <p> + “You won't get rid of me as you do the others about you,” he continued. + “This time you made a mistake. I haven't any pride that you can insult; + but I have all that you—with your character—require. I have + more money even than you can want.” She cried despairingly: + </p> + <p> + “It isn't that now! I had forgotten everything to do with money and + depended on you to take me away from it always.” + </p> + <p> + “When will you marry me?” + </p> + <p> + In a flash of blinding perception, leaving her as dazed as though it had + been a physical actuality, she realized that marrying him had become an + impossibility. At the barest thought of it the dread again closed about + her like ice. She tried, with all the force of old valuations, with even + an effort to summon back the vanquished thrill, to give herself to him. + But a quality overpowering and instinctive, the response of her + incalculable injury, made any contact with him hateful. It was utterly + beyond her power to explain. A greater mystery still partly unfolded—whatever + she had hoped from Pleydon belonged to the special emotion that had + possessed her since earliest childhood. + </p> + <p> + In the immediate tragedy of her helplessness, with Dodge Pleydon impatient + for an assurance, she paused involuntarily to wonder about that hidden + imperative sense. There was a broken mental fantasy of—of a leopard + bearing a woman in shining hair. This was succeeded by a bright thrust of + happiness and, all about her, a surging like the imagined beat of the + wings of the Victory in Markue's room. Almost Pleydon had explained + everything, almost he was everything; and then the other, putting him + aside, had swept her back into the misery of doubt and loneliness. + </p> + <p> + “I can't marry you,” she said in a flat and dragged voice. He demanded + abruptly: + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” She recognized his utter right to the temper that mastered + him. For a moment Linda thought Pleydon would shake her. “You feel that + way now,” he declared; “and perhaps next month; but you will change; in + the end I'll have you.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” she told him, with a certainty from a source outside her + consciousness. “It has been spoiled.” + </p> + <p> + He replied, “Time will discover which of us is right. I'm almost willing + to stay away till you send for me. But that would only make you more + stubborn. What a strong little devil you are, Linda. I have no doubt I'd + do better to marry a human being. Then I think we both forget how young + you are—you can't pretend to be definite yet.” + </p> + <p> + He captured her hands; too exhausted for any resentment or feeling she + made no effort to evade him. “I'll never say good-bye to you.” + </p> + <p> + His voice had the absolute quality of her own conviction. To her amazement + her cheeks were suddenly wet with tears. “I want to go now,” she said + unsteadily; “and—and thank you.” + </p> + <p> + His old easy formality returned as he made his departure. In reply to + Pleydon's demand she told him listlessly that she would be here for, + perhaps, a week longer. Then he'd see her, he continued, in New York, at + the Feldts'. + </p> + <p> + In her room all emotion faded. Pleydon had said that she was still young; + but she was sure she could never, in experience or feeling, be older. She + became sorry for herself; or rather for the illusions, the Linda, of a few + hours ago. She examined her features in the limited uncertain mirror—strong + sensations, she knew, were a charge on the appearance—but she was + unable to find any difference in her regular pallor. Then, mechanically + conducting her careful preparations for the night, her propitiation of the + only omnipotence she knew, she put out the candles of her May. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXII + </h2> + <p> + What welcome Linda met in New York came from Mr. Moses Feldt, who embraced + her warmly enough, but with an air slightly ill at ease. He begged her to + kiss her mama, who was sometimes hurt by Linda's coldness. She made no + reply, and found the same influence and evidence of the power of + suggestion in Judith. “We thought maybe you wouldn't care to come back + here,” the latter said pointedly, over her shoulder, while she was + directing the packing of a trunk. The Feldts were preparing for their + summer stay at the sea. + </p> + <p> + Her mother's room resembled one of the sales of obvious and expensive + attire conducted in the lower salons of pleasure hotels. There were airy + piles of chiffon and satin, inappropriate hats and the inevitable + confections of silk and lace. “It's not necessary to ask if you were right + at home with your father's family,” Mrs. Condon observed with an assumed + casual inattention. “I can see you sitting with those old women as dry and + false as any. No one saved me in the clacking, I'm sure.” + </p> + <p> + “We didn't speak of you,” Linda replied. She studied, unsparing, the loose + flesh of the elder's ravaged countenance. Her mother, she recognized, + hated her, both because she was like Bartram Lowrie and still young, with + everything unspent that the other valued and had lost. In support of + herself Mrs. Feldt asserted again that she had “lived,” with stacks of + friends and flowers, lavish parties and devoted attendance. + </p> + <p> + “You may be smarter than I was,” she went on, “but what good it does you + who can say? And if you expect to get something for nothing you're fooled + before you start.” She shook out the airy breadths of a vivid echo of past + daring. “From the way you act a person might think you were pretty, but + you are too thin and pulled out. I've heard your looks called peculiar, + and that was, in a manner of speaking, polite. You're not even stylish any + more—the line is full again and not suitable for bony shoulders and + no bust.” She still cherished a complacency in her amplitude. + </p> + <p> + Linda turned away unmoved. Of all the world, she thought, only Dodge + Pleydon had the power actually to hurt her. She knew that she would see + him soon again and that again he would ask her to marry him. She + considered, momentarily, the possibility of saying yes; and instantly the + dread born with him in the Lowrie garden swept over her. Linda told + herself that he was the only man for whom she could ever deeply care; that—for + every conceivable reason—such a marriage was perfect. But the + shrinking from its implications grew too painful for support. + </p> + <p> + Her mother's bitterness increased hourly; she no longer hid her feelings + from her husband and Judith; and dinner, accompanied by her elaborate + sarcasm, was a difficult period in which, plainly, Mr. Moses Feldt + suffered most and Linda was the least concerned. This condition, she + admitted silently, couldn't go on indefinitely; it was too vulgar if for + no other reason. And she determined to ask the Lowries for another and + more extended invitation. + </p> + <p> + Pleydon came, as she had expected, and they sat in the small + reception-room with the high ceiling and dark velvet hangings, the piano + at which, long ago it now seemed, Judith had played the airs of Gluck for + her. He said little, but remained for a long while spread over the divan + and watching her—in a formal chair—discontentedly. He rose + suddenly and stood above her, a domineering bulk obliterating nearly + everything else. In response to his demand she said, pale and composed, + that she was not “reasonable”; she omitted the “yet” included in his + question. Pleydon frowned. However, then, he insisted no further. + </p> + <p> + When he had gone Linda was as spent as though there had been a fresh + brutal scene; and the following day she was enveloped in an unrelieved + depression. Her mother mocked her silence as another evidence of + ridiculous pretentiousness. Mr. Moses Feldt regarded her with a furtive + concerned kindliness; while Judith followed her with countless small + irritating complaints. It was the last day at the apartment before their + departure for the summer. Linda was insuperably tired. She had gone to her + room almost directly after dinner, and when a maid came to her door with a + card, she exclaimed, before looking at it, that she was not in. It was, + however, Arnaud Hallet; and, with a surprise tempered by a faint interest, + she told the servant that she would see him. + </p> + <p> + There was, Linda observed at once, absolutely no difference in Arnaud's + clothing, no effort to make himself presentable for New York or her. In a + way, it amused her—it was so characteristic of his forgetfulness, + and it made him seem doubly familiar. He waved a hand toward the luxury of + the interior. “This,” he declared, “is downright impressive, and lifted, + I'm sure, out of a novel of Ouida's. + </p> + <p> + “You will remember,” he continued, “complaining about my sense of humor + one evening; and that, at the time, I warned you it might grow worse. It + has. I am afraid, where you are concerned, that it has absolutely + vanished. My dear, you'll recognize this as a proposal. I thought my mind + was made up, after forty, not to marry; and I specially tried not to bring + you into it. You were too young, I felt. I doubted if I could make you + happy, and did everything possible, exhausted all the arguments, but it + was no good. + </p> + <p> + “Linda, dear, I adore you.” + </p> + <p> + She was glad, without the slightest answering emotion, that Arnaud, well—liked + her. At the same time all her wisdom declared that she couldn't marry him; + and, with the unsparing frankness of youth and her individual detachment, + she told him exactly why. + </p> + <p> + “I need a great deal of money,” she proceeded, “because I am frightfully + extravagant. All I have is expensive; I hate cheap things—even what + satisfies most rich girls. Why, just my satin slippers cost hundreds of + dollars and I'll pay unlimited amounts for a little fulling of lace or + some rare flowers. You'd call it wicked, but I can't help it—it's + me. + </p> + <p> + “I've always intended to marry a man with a hundred thousand dollars a + year. Of course, that's a lot—do you hate me for telling you?—but + I wouldn't think of any one with less than fifty—” + </p> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet interrupted quietly, “I have that.” + </p> + <p> + Linda gazed incredulously at his neglected shoes, the wrinkles of his + inconsiderable coat and unstudied scarf. She saw that, actually, he had + spoken apologetically of his possessions; and a stinging shame spread + through her at the possibility that she had seemed common to an infinitely + finer delicacy than hers. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII + </h2> + <p> + Most of these circumstances Linda Hallet quietly recalled sitting with her + husband in the house that had been occupied by the Lowries'. A letter from + Pleydon had taken her into a past seven years gone by; while ordinarily + her memory was indistinct; ordinarily she was fully occupied by the + difficulties, or rather compromises, of the present. But, in the tranquil + open glow of a Franklin stove and the withdrawn intentness of Arnaud + reading, her mind had returned to the distressed period of her wedding. + </p> + <p> + Elouise Lowrie—Amelia was dead—sunk in a stupor of extreme old + age, her bloodless hands folded in an irreproachable black surah silk lap, + sat beyond the stove; and Lowrie, Linda's elder child, five and a half, + together with his sister Vigné, had been long asleep above. Linda was + privately relieved by this: her children presented enormous obligations. + The boy, already at a model school, appalled her inadequate preparations + by his flashes of perceptive intelligence; while she was frankly abashed + at the delicate rosy perfection of her daughter. + </p> + <p> + The present letter was the third she had received from Dodge Pleydon, whom + she had not seen since her marriage. At first he had been enraged at the + wrong, he had every reason to feel, she had done him. Then his anger had + dissolved into a meager correspondence of outward and obvious facts. There + was so much that she had been unable to explain. He had always been + impatient, even contemptuous, of the emotion that made her surrender to + him unthinkable—Linda realized now that it had been the strongest + impulse of her life—and, of course, she had never accounted for the + practically unbalanced enmity of her mother. + </p> + <p> + The latter had deepened to an incredible degree, so much so that Mr. Moses + Feldt, though he had never taken an actual part in it—such + bitterness was entirely outside his generous sentimentality—had + become acutely uncomfortable in his own home, imploring Linda, with ready + tears, to be kinder to her mama. Judith, too, had grown cutting, jealous + of Linda's serenity of youth, as her appearance showed the effect of her + wasting emotions. Things quite extraordinary had happened: once Linda's + skin had been almost seriously affected by an irritation that immediately + followed the trace of her powder-puff; and at several times she had had + clumsily composed anonymous notes of a most distressing nature. + </p> + <p> + She had wondered, calmly enough, which of the two bitter women were + responsible, and decided that it was her mother. At this the situation at + the Feldts', increasingly strained, had become an impossibility. Arnaud + Hallet, after his first visit, had soon returned. There was no more + mention of his money; but every time he saw her he asked her again, in his + special manner—a formality flavored by a slight diffident humor—to + marry him. Arnaud's proposals had alternated with Pleydon's utterly + different demand. + </p> + <p> + Linda remembered agonized evenings when, in a return of his brutal manner + of the unforgettable night in the Lowrie garden, he tried to force a + recognition of his passion. It had left her cold, exhausted, the victim of + a mingled disappointment at her failure to respond with a hatred of all + essential existence. At last, on a particularly trying occasion, she had + desperately agreed to marry him. + </p> + <p> + The aversion of her mother, becoming really dangerous, had finally + appalled her; and a headache weighed on her with a leaden pain. Dodge, + too, had been unusually considerate; he talked about the future—tied + up, he asserted, in her—of his work; and suddenly, at the signal of + her rare tears, Linda agreed to a wedding. + </p> + <p> + In the middle of the night she had wakened oppressed by a dread resulting + in an uncontrollable chill. She thought first that her mother was bending + a malignant face over her; and then realized that her feeling was caused + by her promise to Dodge Pleydon. It had grown worse instead of vanishing, + waves of nameless shrinking swept over her; and in the morning, further + harrowed by the actualities of being, she had sent a telegram to Arnaud + Hallet—to Arnaud's kindness and affection, his detachment not unlike + her own. + </p> + <p> + They were married immediately; and through the ceremony and the succeeding + days she had been almost entirely absorbed in a sensation of escape. At + the death of Amelia Lowrie, soon after, Arnaud had suggested a temporary + period in the house she remembered with pleasure; and, making small + alterations with the months and years, they had tacitly agreed to remain. + </p> + <p> + Linda often wondered, walking about the lower floor, why it seemed so + familiar to her: she would stand in the dining-room, with its ceiling of + darkened beams, and gaze absent-minded through the long windows at the + close-cut walled greenery without. The formal drawing-room, at the right + of the street entrance, equally held her—a cool interior with + slatted wooden blinds, a white mantelpiece with delicately reeded supports + and a bas-relief of Minerva on the center panel, a polished brass scuttle + for cannel-coal and chairs with wide severely fretted backs upholstered in + old pale damask. + </p> + <p> + The house seemed familiar, but she could never grow accustomed to the + undeniable facts of her husband, the children and her completely changed + atmosphere. She admitted to herself that her principal feeling in + connection with Lowrie and Vigné was embarrassment. Here she always + condemned herself as an indifferent, perhaps unnatural, mother. She + couldn't help it. In the same sense she must be an unsatisfactory wife. + Linda was unable to shake off the conviction that it was like a play in + which she had no more than a spectator's part. + </p> + <p> + This was her old disability, the result of her habit of sitting, as a + child, apart from the concerns and stir of living. She made every possible + effort to overcome it, to surrender to her new conditions; but, if nothing + else, an instinctive shyness prevented. It went back further, even, she + thought, than her own experience, and she recalled all she had heard and + reconstructed of her father—a man shut in on himself who had, one + day, without a word walked out of the door and left his wife, never to + return. These realizations, however, did little to clarify her vision; she + was continually trying to adjust her being to circumstances that + persistently remained a little distant and blurred. + </p> + <p> + In appearance, anyhow, Linda told herself with a measure of reassurance, + she was practically unchanged. She still, with the support of Arnaud, + disregarding current fashion, wore her hair in a straight bang across her + brow and blue gaze. She was as slender as formerly, but more gracefully + round, in spite of the faint characteristic stiffness that was the result + of her mental hesitation. Her clothes, too, had hardly varied—she + wore, whenever possible, white lawns ruffled about the throat and hem, + with broad soft black sashes, while her more formal dresses were sheaths + of dull unornamented satin extravagant in the perfection of their + simplicity. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIV + </h2> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet stirred, sharply closing his book. He had changed—except + for a palpable settling down of grayness—as little as Linda. For a + while she had tried to bring about an improvement in his appearance, and + he had met her expressed wish whenever he remembered it; but this was not + often. In the morning a servant polished his shoes, brushed and ironed his + suits; yet by evening, somehow, he managed to look as though he hadn't + been attended to for days. She would have liked him to change for dinner; + other men of his connection did, it was a part of his inheritance. Arnaud, + however, in his slight scoffing disparagement, declined individually to + annoy himself. He was, she learned, enormously absorbed in his historical + studies and papers. + </p> + <p> + “Did you enjoy it?” she asked politely of his reading. “Extremely,” he + replied. “The American Impressions of Tyrone Power, the English actor, + through eighteen thirty-three and four. His account of a European packet + with its handbells and Saratoga water and breakfast of spitch-cock is + inimitable. I'd like to have sat at Cato's then, with a julep or + hail-storm, and watched the trotting races.” + </p> + <p> + Elouise Lowrie rose unsteadily, confused with dozing; but almost + immediately she gathered herself into a relentless propriety and a formal + goodnight. + </p> + <p> + “What has been running through that mysterious mind of yours?” + </p> + <p> + “I had a letter from Dodge,” she told him simply; “and I was thinking a + little about the past.” He exhibited the nice unstrained interest of his + admirable personality. “Is he still in France?” he queried. “Pleydon + should be a strong man; I am sure we are both conscious of a little + disappointment in him.” She said: “I'll read you his letter, it's on the + table. + </p> + <p> + “'You will see, my dear Linda, that I have not moved from the Rue de + Penthièvre, although I have given up the place at Etretat, and I am not + going to renew the lease here. Rodin insists, and I coming to agree with + him, that I ought to be in America. But the serious attitude here toward + art, how impossible that word has been made, is charming. And you will be + glad to know that I have had some success in the French good opinion. A + marble, Cotton Mather, that I cut from the stone, has been bought for the + Luxembourg. + </p> + <p> + “'I can hear you both exclaim at the subject, but it is very + representative of me now. I am tired of mythological naiads in a constant + state of pursuit. Get Hallet to tell you something about Mather. What a + somber flame! I have a part Puritan ancestry, as any Lowrie will inform + you. Well, I shall be back in a few months, very serious, and a politician—a + sculptor has to be that if he means to land any public monuments in + America. + </p> + <p> + “'I hope to see you.'” + </p> + <p> + The letter ended abruptly, with the signature, “Pleydon.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you happy, Linda?” Arnaud Hallet asked unexpectedly after a short + silence. So abruptly interrogated she was unable to respond. “What I mean + is,” he explained, “do you think you would have been happier married to + him? I knew, certainly, that it was the closest possible thing between + us.” Now, however, she was able to satisfy him: + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't marry Dodge.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it possible to tell me why?” + </p> + <p> + “He hurt me very much once. I tried to marry him, I tried to forget it, + but it was useless. I was dreadfully unhappy, in a great many ways—” + </p> + <p> + “So you sent for me,” he put in as she paused reflectively. “I didn't hurt + you, at any rate.” It seemed to her that his tone was shadowed. “You have + never hurt me, Arnaud,” she assured him, conscious of the inadequacy of + her words. “You were everything I wanted.” + </p> + <p> + “Except for my hats,” he said in a brief flash of his saving humor. “It + would be better for me, perhaps, if I could hurt you. That ability comes + dangerously close to a constant of love. You mustn't think I am + complaining. I haven't the slightest reason in the face of your + devastating honesty. I didn't distress you and I had the necessary minimum—the + fifty thousand.” His manner was so even, so devoid of sting, that she + could smile at the expression of her material ambitions. “I realize + exactly your feeling for myself, but what puzzles me is your attitude + toward the children.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand it either,” she admitted, “except that I am quite + afraid of them. They are so different from all my own childhood; often + they are too much for me. Then I dread the time when they will discover + how stupid and uneducated I am at bottom. I'm sure you already ask + questions before them to amuse yourself at my doubt. What shall I do, + Arnaud, when they are really at school and bring home their books?” + </p> + <p> + “Retreat behind your dignity as a parent,” he advised. “They are certain + to display their knowledge and ask you to bound things or name the capital + of Louisiana.” She cried, “Oh, but I know that, it's New Orleans!” She saw + at once, from his entertained expression, that she was wrong again, and + became conscious of a faint flush of annoyance. “It will be even worse,” + she continued, “when Vigné looks to me for advice; I mean when she is + older and has lovers.” + </p> + <p> + “She won't seriously; they never do. She'll tell you when it's all over. + Lowrie will depend more on you. I may have my fun about the capital of + Louisiana, Linda, but I have the greatest confidence in your wisdom. God + knows what an unhappy experience your childhood was, but it has given you + a superb worldly balance.” + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you're saying that I am cold,” she told him. “It must be true, + because it is repeated by every one. Yet, at times, I used to be very + different—you'd never imagine what a romantic thrill or strange + ideas were inside of me. Like a memory of a deep woods, and—and the + loveliest adventure. Often I would hear music as clearly as possible, and + it made me want I don't know what terrifically.” + </p> + <p> + “An early experience,” he replied. Suddenly she saw that he was tired, his + face was lined and dejected. “You read too much,” Linda declared. He said: + “But only out of the printed book.” She wondered vainly what he meant. As + he stood before the glimmering coals, in the room saturated in repose, she + wished that she might give him more; she wanted to spend herself in a riot + of feeling on Arnaud and their children. What a detestable character she + had! Her desire, her efforts, were wasted. + </p> + <p> + He went about putting up the windows and closing the outside shutters, a + confirmed habit. Linda rose with her invariable sense of separation, the + feeling that, bound on a journey with a hidden destination, she was only + temporarily in a place of little importance. It was like being always in + her hat and jacket. Arnaud shook down the grate; then he gazed over the + room; it was all, she was sure, as it had been a century ago, as it should + be—all except herself. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXV + </h2> + <p> + Yet her marriage had realized in almost every particular what she had—so + much younger—planned. The early suggestion, becoming through + constant reiteration a part of her knowledge, had been followed and + accomplished; and, as well, her later needs were served. Linda told + herself that, in a world where a very great deal was muddled, she had been + unusually fortunate. And this made her angry at her pervading lack of + interest in whatever she had obtained. + </p> + <p> + Other women, she observed, obviously less fortunate than she, were volubly + and warmly absorbed in any number of engagements and pleasures; she + continually heard them, Arnaud's connections—the whole superior + society, eternally and vigorously discussing servants and bridge, family + and cotillions, indiscretions and charities. These seemed enough for them; + their lives were filled, satisfied, extraordinarily busy. Linda, for the + most part, had but little to do. Her servants, managed with remote + exactness, gave no trouble; she had an excellent woman for the children; + her dress presented no new points of anxiety nor departure ... she was, in + short, Arnaud admitted, perfectly efficient. She disposed of such details + mechanically, almost impatiently, and was contemptuous, no envious, of the + women whose demands they contented. + </p> + <p> + At the dinners, the balls, to which Arnaud's sense of obligation both to + family and her took them against his inclination, it was the same—everyone, + it appeared to Linda, was flushed with an intentness she could not share. + Men, she found, some of them extremely pleasant, still made adroit and + reassuring efforts for her favor; the air here, she discovered, was even + freer than the bravado of her earlier surroundings. This love-making + didn't disturb her—it was, ultimately, the men who were fretted—indeed, + she had rather hoped that it would bring her the relief she lacked. + </p> + <p> + But again the observations and speculation of her mature childhood, what + she had heard revealed in the most skillful feminine dissections, had + cleared her understanding to a point that made the advances of hopeful men + quite entertainingly obvious. Their method was appallingly similar and + monotonous. She liked, rather than not, the younger ones, whose confidence + that their passion was something new on earth at times refreshed her; but + the navigated materialism of greater experience finally became + distasteful. She discussed this sharply with Arnaud: + </p> + <p> + “You simply can't help believing that most women are complete idiots.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't said much more for men.” + </p> + <p> + “The whole thing is too silly! Why is it, Arnaud? It ought to be + impressive and sweep you off your feet, up—” + </p> + <p> + “Instead of merely behind some rented palms,” he added. “But I must say, + Linda, that you are not a very highly qualified judge of sentiment.” He + pronounced this equably, but she was conscious of the presence of an + injury in his voice. She was a little weary at being eternally condemned + for what she couldn't help. Any failure was as much Arnaud Hallet's as + hers; he had had his opportunity, all that for which he had implored her. + Her thoughts returned to Dodge Pleydon. April was well advanced, and he + had written that he'd be back and see them in the spring. Linda listened + to her heart but it was unhastened by a beat. She would be very glad to + have him at hand, in her life again, of course. + </p> + <p> + Then the direction of her mind veered—what did he still think of + her? Probably he had altogether recovered from his love for her. It had + been a warm day, and Arnaud had opened a window; but now she was aware of + a cold air on her shoulder and she asked him abruptly to lower the sash. + Linda remembered, with a lingering sense of triumph, the Susanna Noda whom + Dodge had left at a party for her. There had been a great many Susannas in + his life; the reason for this was the absence of any overwhelming single + influence. It might be that now—he had written of the change in the + subjects of his work—such a guide had come into his existence. She + hoped she had. Yet, in view of the announced silliness of women, she + didn't want him to be cheaply deluded. + </p> + <p> + He was an extremely human man. + </p> + <p> + But she, Linda, it seemed, was an inhuman woman. The days ran into weeks + that added another month to spring; a June advanced sultry with heat; and, + suddenly as usual, a maid at the door of her room announced Pleydon. It + was five o'clock in the afternoon, she had to dress, and she sent him a + message that he mustn't expect her in a hurry. She paused in her + deliberate preparations for a long thoughtful gaze into a mirror; there + was not yet a shadow on her face, the trace of a line at her eyes. The + sharp smooth turning and absolute whiteness of her bare shoulders were + flawless. + </p> + <p> + At first it appeared to Linda that he, too, had not changed. They were in + the library opening into the dining-room, a space shut against the sun by + the Venetian blinds, and faintly scented by a bowl of early tea roses. He + appeared the same—large and informally clad in gray flannels, with + aggressive features and sensitive strong hands. He was quiet but plainly + happy to be with her again and sat leaning forward on his knees, watching + her intently as she chose a seat. + </p> + <p> + Then it slowly dawned on her that he had changed, yes—tragically. + Pleydon, in every way, was years older. His voice, less arbitrary, had new + depths of questioning, his mouth was more repressed, his face notably + sparer of flesh. He was immediately aware of the result of her scrutiny. + “I have been working like a fool,” he explained. “A breath of sickness, + too, four years ago in Soochow. One of the damnable Asiatic fevers that a + European is supposed to be immune from. You are a miracle, Linda. How long + has it been—nearly eight years; you have two children and Arnaud + Hallet and yet you are the girl I met at Markue's. I wanted to see you + different, just a little, a trace of something that should have happened + to you. It hasn't. You're the most remarkable mother alive.” + </p> + <p> + “If I am,” she returned, “it is not as a success, or at least for me. + Lowrie and Vigné are healthy, and happy enough; but I can't lose myself in + them, Dodge; I can't lose myself at all.” + </p> + <p> + He was quiet at this, the smoke of his cigarette climbing bluely in a + space with the aqueous stillness of a lake's depths. “The same,” he went + on after a long pause; “nothing has touched you. I ought to be relieved + but, do you know, it frightens me. You are relentless. You have no right, + at the same time, to be beautiful. I have seen a great many celebrated + women at their best moments, but you are lovelier than any. It isn't a + simple affair of proportion and features—I wish I could hold it in a + phrase, the turn of a chisel. I can't. It's deathless romance in a bang + cut blackly across heavenly blue.” He was silent again, and Linda glad + that he still found her attractive. She discovered that the misery his + presence once caused her had entirely vanished, its place taken by an + eager interest in his affairs, a lightness of spirit at the realization + that, while his love for her might have grown calm, no other woman + possessed it. + </p> + <p> + At the dinner-table she listened—cool and fresh, Arnaud complained, + in spite of the heat—to the talk of the two men. By her side Elouise + Lowrie occasionally repeated, in a voice like the faint jangle of an old + thin piano, the facts of a family connection or a commendation of the + Dodges. Arnaud really knew a surprising lot, and his conversation with + Pleydon was strung with terms completely unintelligible to her. It + developed, finally, into an argument over the treatment of the acanthus + motive in rococo ornament. France was summoned against Spain; the + architectural degrading of Italy deplored.... It amazed her that any one + could remember so much. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVI + </h2> + <p> + Linda without a conscious reason suddenly stopped the investigation of her + feeling for Pleydon. Even in the privacy of her thoughts an added + obscurity kept her from the customary clear reasoning. After dinner, out + in the close gloom of the garden, she watched the flicker of the + cigarettes. There was thunder, so distant and vague that for a long while + Linda thought she was deceived. She had a keen rushing sensation of the + strangeness of her situation here—Linda Hallet. The night was like a + dream from which she would stir, sigh, to find herself back again in the + past waiting for the return of her mother from one of her late parties. + </p> + <p> + But it was Arnaud who moved and, accompanying Elouise Lowrie, went into + the house for his interminable reading. Pleydon's voice began in a low + remembering tone: + </p> + <p> + “What a fantastic place the Feldt apartment was, with that smothered room + where you said you would marry me. You must have got hold of Hallet in the + devil of a hurry. I've often tried to understand what happened; why, all + the time, you were upset—why, why, why?” + </p> + <p> + “In a way it was because a ridiculous hairdresser burned out some of my + mother's front wave,” she explained. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” he replied derisively, “nothing could be plainer.” + </p> + <p> + She agreed calmly. “It was very plain. If you want me to try to tell you + don't interrupt. It isn't a happy memory, and I am only doing it because I + was so rotten to you. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I can see now that it was the hairdresser and a hundred other things + exactly the same. My mother, all the women we knew, did nothing but lace + and paint and frizzle for men. I used to think it was a game they played + and wonder where the fun was. There were even hints about that and later + they particularized and it made me as sick as possible. The men, too, were + odious; mostly fat and bald; and after a while, when they pinched or + kissed me, I wanted to die. + </p> + <p> + “That was all I knew about love, I had never heard of any other—men + away from their families for what they called a good time and women + plotting and planning to give it to them or not give it to them. Then + mother, after her looks were spoiled, married Mr. Moses Feldt, and I met + Judith, who only existed for men and men's rooms and told me worse things, + I'm sure, than mother ever dreamed; and, on top of that, I met you and you + kissed me. + </p> + <p> + “But it was different from any other; it didn't shock me, and it brought + back a thrill I have always had. I wanted, then, to love you, and have you + ask me to marry you, more than anything else in the world. I was sure, if + you would only be patient, that I could change what had hurt me into a + beautiful feeling. I couldn't tell you because I didn't understand + myself.” She stopped, and Pleydon repeated, bitterly and slow: + </p> + <p> + “Fat old bald men; and I was one with them destroying your exquisite + hope.” She heard the creak of the basket chair as he leaned forward, his + face masked in darkness. “Perhaps you think I haven't paid. + </p> + <p> + “You will never know what love is unless I can manage somehow to make you + understand how much I love you. Hallet will have to endure your hearing + it. This doesn't belong to him; it has not touched the earth. Every one, + more or less, talks about love; but not one in a thousand, not one in a + million, has such an experience. If they did it would tear the world into + shreds. It would tear them as it has me. I realize the other, the common + thing—who experimented more! This has nothing to do with it. A boy + lost in the idealism of his first worship has a faint reflection. Listen: + </p> + <p> + “I can always, with a wish, see you standing before me. You yourself—the + folds of your sash, the sharp narrow print of your slippers on the + pavement or the matting or the rug, the ruffles about your hands. I have + the feeling of you near me with your breathing disturbing the delicacy of + your breast. There is the odor and shimmer of your hair ... your lips move + ... but without a sound. + </p> + <p> + “This vision is more real than reality, than an opera-house full of people + or the Place Vendôme; and it, you, is all I care for, all I think about, + all I want. I find quiet places and stay there for hours, with you; or, if + that isn't possible, I turn into a blind man, a dead man warm again at the + bare thought of your face. Listen: + </p> + <p> + “I've been in shining heaven with you. I have been melted to nothing and + made over again, in you, good. We have been walking together in a new + world with rapture instead of air to breathe. A slow walk through dark + trees—God knows why—like pines. And every time I think of you + it is exactly as though I could never die, as though you had burned all + the corruption out of me and I was made of silver fire. And listen: + </p> + <p> + “Nothing else is of any importance, now or afterward, you are now and the + hereafter. I see people and people and hear words and words, and I forget + them the moment they have gone, the second they are still. But I haven't + lost an inflection of your voice. When I work in clay or stone I model and + cut you into every surface and fold. I see you looking back at me out of + marble and bronze. And here, in this garden, you tried to give me more—” + </p> + <p> + The infinitely removed thunder was like the continued echo of his voice. + There was a stirring of the leaves above her head; and the light that had + shone against the house in Elouise Lowrie's window was suddenly + extinguished. All that she felt was weariness and a confused dejection, + the weight of an insuperable disappointment. She could say nothing. Words, + even Pleydon's, seemed to her vain. The solid fact of Arnaud, of what + Dodge, more than seven years before, had robbed her, put everything else + aside, crushed it. + </p> + <p> + She realized that she would never get from life what supremely repaid the + suffering of other women, made up for them the failure of practically + every vision. She was sorry for herself, yes, and for Dodge Pleydon. Yet + he had his figures in metal and stone; his sense of the importance of his + work had increased enormously; and, well, there were Lowrie and Vigné; it + would be difficult, every one agreed, to find better or handsomer + children. But they seemed no more than shadows or colored mist. This + terrified her—what a hopelessly deficient woman she must be! But + even in the profundity of her depression the old vibration of nameless joy + reached her heart. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVII + </h2> + <p> + In the morning there was a telegram from Judith Feldt, saying that her + mother was dangerously sick, and she had lunch on the train for New York. + The apartment seemed stuffy; there was a trace of dinginess, neglect, + about the black velvet rugs and hangings. Her mother, she found, had + pneumonia; there was practically no chance of her recovering. Linda sat + for a short while by the elder's bed, intent upon a totally strange woman, + darkly flushed and ravished in an agonizing difficulty of breathing. Linda + had a remembered vision of her gold-haired and gay in floating chiffons, + and suddenly life seemed shockingly brief. A serious-visaged clergyman + entered the room as she left and she heard the rich soothing murmur of a + confident phrase. + </p> + <p> + The Stella Condon who had become Mrs. Moses Feldt had had little time for + the support of the church; although Linda recalled that she had uniformly + spoken well of its offices. To condemn Christianity, she had asserted, was + to invite bad luck. She treated this in exactly the way she regarded + walking under ladders or spilling salt or putting on a stocking wrong. + Linda, however, had disregarded these possibilities of disaster and, with + them, religion. + </p> + <p> + A great many people, she noticed, talked at length about it; women in + their best wraps and with expensive little prayer books left the hotels + for various Sunday morning services, and ministers came in later for tea. + All this, she understood, was in preparation for heaven, where everybody, + who was not in hell, was to be forever the same and yet radiantly + different. It seemed very vague and far away to Linda, and, since there + was such a number of immediate problems for her to consider, she had + easily ignored the future. When now, with her mother dying, it was thrust + most uncomfortably before her. + </p> + <p> + She half remembered sentences, admonitions, of the godly—a woman had + once told her that dancing and low gowns were hateful in the sight of God, + some one else that playing-cards were an instrument of the devil. + Pleasure, she had gathered, was considered wrong, and she instinctively + put these opinions, together with a great deal else, aside as envious. + </p> + <p> + That expressed her whole experience. She had never keenly associated the + thought of death with herself before, and she was unutterably revolted by + the impending destruction of her fine body, the delicate care of which + formed her main preoccupation in life. Age was supremely distasteful, but + this other ... she shuddered. + </p> + <p> + Linda wanted desperately to preserve the whiteness of her skin, the + flexible black distinction of her hair, yes—her beauty. Here, again, + with other women the vicarious immortality of children would be + sufficient. But not for her. She was in the room that had been hers before + marriage, with her infinite preparations for the night at an end; and, her + hair loose across the blanched severity of her attire, her delicately full + arms bare, she clasped her cold hands in stabbing apprehension. + </p> + <p> + She would do anything, anything, to escape that repulsive fatality to her + lavished care. It was only to be accomplished by being good; and goodness + was in the charge of the minister. She saw clearly and at once her + difficulty—how could she go to a solemn man in a clerical vest and + admit that she was solely concerned by the impending loss of her beauty. + The promised splendor of heaven, in itself, failed to move her—it + threatened to be monotonous; and she was honest in her recognition that + charity, the ugliness of poverty, repelled her. Linda was certain that she + could never change in these particulars; she could only pretend. + </p> + <p> + A surprising multiplication of such pretense occurred to her in people + regarded as impressively religious. She had seen men like that—she + vaguely thought of the name Jasper—going off with her mother in cabs + to dinners that must have been “godless.” She wondered if this mere + attitude, the public show, were enough. And an instinctive response told + her that it was not. If all she had been informed about the future were + true she decided that her mother's chance was no worse than that of any + false display of virtue. + </p> + <p> + She, Linda, could do nothing. + </p> + <p> + The funeral ceremony with its set form—so inappropriate to her + mother's qualities—was even more remote from Linda's sympathies than + was common in her encounters. But Mr. Moses Feldt's grief appeared to her + actual and affecting. He invested every one with the purity of his own + spirit. + </p> + <p> + She left New York at the first possible moment with the feeling that she + was definitely older. The realization, she discovered, happened in that + way—ordinarily giving the flight of time no consideration it was + brought back to her at intervals of varying length. As she aged they would + grow shorter. + </p> + <p> + The result of this experience was an added sense of failure; she tried + more than ever to overcome her indifference, get a greater happiness from + her surroundings and activity. Linda cultivated an attention to Lowrie and + Vigné. They responded charmingly but her shyness with them persisted in + the face of her inalienable right to their full possession. She insisted, + too, on going about vigorously in spite of Arnaud's humorous groans and + protests. She forced herself to talk more to the men attracted to her, and + assumed, with disconcerting ease, an air of sympathetic interest. But, + unfortunately, this brought on her a rapid increase of the love-making + that she found so fatiguing. + </p> + <p> + She studied her husband thoughtfully through the evenings at home, before + the Franklin stove, or, in summer, in the secluded garden. Absolutely + nothing was wrong with him; he had, after several deaths, inherited even + more money; and, in his deprecating manner where it was concerned, devoted + it to her wishes. Except for books, and the clothes she was forced to + remind him to get, he had no personal expenses. In addition to the money + he never offended her, his relationships and manner were conducted with an + inborn nice formality that preserved her highest self-opinion. + </p> + <p> + Yet she was never able to escape from the limitations of a calm + admiration; she couldn't lose herself, disregard herself in a flood of + generous emotion. When, desperately, she tried, he, too, was perceptibly + ill at ease. Usually he was undisturbed, but once, when she stood beside + him with her coffee cup at dinner, he disastrously lost his equanimity. + Tensely putting the cup away he caught her with straining hands. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Linda,” he cried, “is it true that you love me! Do you really belong + to us—to Vigné and Lowrie and me? I can't stand it if you won't ... + some day.” + </p> + <p> + She backed away into the opening of a window, against the night, from the + justice of his desire; and she was cold with self-detestation as her + fingers touched the glass. Linda tried to speak, to lie; but, miserably + still, she was unable to deceive him. The animation, the fervor of his + longing, swiftly perished. His arms dropped to his side. An unbearable + constraint deepened with the silence in the room, and later he lightly + said: + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't trifle with my ancient heart, Linda, folly and age—” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVIII + </h2> + <p> + The only other quantity in her life was Dodge Pleydon. He wrote her again, + perhaps three months after the explanation of his love; but his letter was + devoted wholly to his work, and so technical that she had to ask Arnaud to + interpret it. He added: + </p> + <p> + “That is the mind of an impressive man. He has developed enormously—curious, + so late in life. Pleydon must be fully as old as myself. It's clear that + he has dropped his women. I saw a photograph of the Cotton Mather + reproduced in a weekly, and it was as gaunt as a Puritan Sunday. Brimmed + with power. Why don't we see him oftener? Write and say I'd like to + contradict him again about the Eastlake period.” + </p> + <p> + He made no further reference to Pleydon then, and Linda failed to write as + Arnaud suggested. Though she wasn't disturbed at the possibility of a + continuation of his admissions of love she was weary of the thought of its + uselessness. Linda was, she told herself, damned by practicability. Her + husband used the familiar term of reproach, material. She didn't in the + least want to be. Circumstance, she had a feeling, had forced it upon her. + </p> + <p> + Arnaud, however, who had met Dodge Pleydon in Philadelphia, brought him + home. Linda saw with a strange constriction of the heart that Pleydon's + hair was definitely gray. He had had a recurrence of the fever contracted + in Soochow. The men at once entered on another discussion which she was + unable to follow; but it was clear that her husband now listened with an + increasing surrender of opinion to the sculptor. Pleydon, it was true, was + correspondingly more impatient with minds that disagreed with his. He was + at once thinner and bigger, his face deeply lined; but his eyes had a + steady vital intensity difficult to encounter. + </p> + <p> + She considered him in detail as the talk left dinner, the glasses and + candles spent. He drank, from a tall tumbler with a single piece of ice, + the special whisky Arnaud kept. He had been neglecting himself, too—there + were traces of clay about his finger-nails, and he ate hurriedly and + insufficiently. When she had an opportunity, Linda decided, she would + speak to him about these necessary trifles. Then, she had no chance; and + it was not until the following winter, at a Thursday afternoon concert + during the yearly exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts, that she could + gently complain. + </p> + <p> + It was gloomy, with a promise of snow outside; and the great space of the + stairway to the galleries was filled with shadow and the strains of <i>Armide</i> + echoing from the orchestra playing at the railing above the entrance. + Pleydon, together with a great many others, had spread an overcoat on the + masonry of the steps, and they were seated in the obscurity of the + balustrade. + </p> + <p> + “You look as though you hadn't had enough to eat,” she observed. “You used + to be almost thick but now you are a thing of terrifying grimness. You + look like a monk. I wonder why you're like a monk, Dodge?” + </p> + <p> + “Linda Condon,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “That can't be it now; I haven't been Linda Condon for years, but Mrs. + Arnaud Hallet. It's very pretty, of course, and I'd like to think you + could keep a young love alive so long. Experience makes me doubt anything + of the sort; but then I was always skeptical.” + </p> + <p> + “You have never been anyone else,” he asserted positively. “You were born + Linda Condon and you'll die that, except for some extraordinary accident. + I can't imagine what it would be—a miracle like quaker-ladies in the + Antarctic.” + </p> + <p> + “It sounds uncomplimentary, and I'm sick of being compared with polar + places. What are quaker-ladies?” + </p> + <p> + “Fragile little flowers in the spring meadows.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd rather listen to the music than you.” + </p> + <p> + “That is why loving you is so eternal, why it doesn't fluctuate like a + human emotion. You can't exhaust it and rest before a new tide sweeps + back; the timeless ecstasy of a worship of God ... breeding madness.” + </p> + <p> + She failed to understand and turned a troubled gaze to his bitter + repression. “I don't like to make you unhappy, Dodge,” she said in a low + tone. “What can I do? I am a horrid disappointment to all of you, but most + to myself. I can't go over it again.” + </p> + <p> + “Beauty has nothing to do with happiness,” he declared harshly. He rose, + without consulting her wishes; and Linda followed him as he proceeded + above, irresistibly drawn to the bronze he was showing in the Rotunda. + </p> + <p> + It was the head and part of the shoulders of a very old woman, infinitely + worn, starved by want and spent in brutal labor. There was a thin wisp of + hair pinned in a meager knot on her skull; her bones were mercilessly + indicated, barely covered with drum-like skin; her mouth was stamped with + timid humility; while her eyes peered weakly from their sunken depths. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” he demanded, interrogating her in the interest of his work. + </p> + <p> + “I—I suppose it's perfectly done,” she replied, at a loss for a + satisfactory appreciation. “It's true, certainly. But isn't it more + unpleasant than necessary?” Pleydon smiled patiently. “Beauty,” he said, + with his mobile gesture. “Pity, <i>Katharsis</i>—the wringing out of + all dross.” + </p> + <p> + The helpless feeling of her overwhelming ignorance returned. She was like + a woman held beyond the closed door of treasure. “Come over here.” He + unceremoniously led her to the modeling of a ruffled grouse, faithful in + every diversified feather. Linda thought it admirable, really amazing; but + he dismissed it with a passionate energy. “The dull figuriste!” he + exclaimed. “Daguerre. Once I could have done that, yes, and been + entertained by its adroitness and insolence—before you made me. Do + you suppose I was able then to understand the sheer tragic fortitude to + live of a scrubwoman! The head you thought unpleasant—haven't you + seen her going home in the March slush of a city? Did you notice the gaps + in her shoes, the ragged shawl about a body twisted with forty, fifty, + sixty years of wet stone floors and steps? Did you wonder what she had for + supper?” + </p> + <p> + “No, Dodge, I didn't. They always make me wretched.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, to realize all that, to feel the degradation of her nature, to lie, + sick with exhaustion, on the broken slats of her bed under a ravelled-out + travesty of a quilt, and get up morning after morning in an iron winter + dark—to experience that in your spirit and put it into durable + metal, hard stone—is to hold beauty in your hands.” + </p> + <p> + Her interest in his speech was mingled with the knowledge that, in order + to dress comfortably for dinner, she must leave immediately. Pleydon + helped her into the Hallet open motor landaulet. Linda demanded quantities + of air. He was, he told her at the door, leaving in an hour for New York. + “I wish you could be happier,” she insisted. He reminded her that he had + had the afternoon with her. It was so little, she thought, carried rapidly + over a smooth wide street. His love for her increased rather than + lessened. How wonderful it was.... The woman outside that barred door of + treasure. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIX + </h2> + <p> + Linda thought frequently about Dodge and his feeling for her; memories of + his words, his appearance, speculations, spread through her tranquil daily + affairs like the rich subdued pattern of a fine carpet on the bare floor + of her life. She was puzzled by the depth of a passion that, apparently, + made no demands other than the occasional necessity to be with her and the + knowledge that she existed. If she had been a very intelligent woman, and, + of course, not quite bad-looking, she might have understood both Pleydon + and Arnaud, the latter a man whose mind was practically absorbed in the + pages of books. There could be no doubt, no question, of their love for + her. + </p> + <p> + Then there had always been the others—the men at the parties, in her + garden, through the old days of her childhood in hotels. It was very + stupid, very annoying, but at the same time she became interested in what, + with her candid indifference, affected them. She had never, really, even + when she desired, succeeded in giving them anything, anything conscious or + for which they moved. Judith Feldt, on the contrary, had been prodigal. + And, while certainly numbers of men had been attracted to her, they all + tired of her with marked rapidity. Men met Judith, Linda recalled, with + eagerness, they came immediately and often to see her ... for, perhaps, a + month. Then, temporarily deserted, she was submerged in depression and + nervous tears. + </p> + <p> + But, while it was obviously impossible for all lovers to be constant, two + extraordinary and superior men would be faithful to her as long as she + lived, no—as long as they lived. This was beyond doubt. One was + celebrated—she watched with a quiet pride Pleydon's fame penetrate + the country—and the other, her husband, a person of the most + exacting delicacy of habits, intellect and wit. + </p> + <p> + What was it, she wondered, that made the supreme importance of women to + men worth consideration. Linda was thinking of this now in connection with + her daughter. Vigné was fourteen; a larger girl than she had ever been, + with her father's fine abundant cinnamon-brown hair, a shapely sensitive + mouth, and a wide brown gaze with a habit of straying, at inappropriate + moments, from things seen to the invisible. She was, Linda realized + thankfully, transparently honest; her only affectation was the slight + supercilious manner of her associations; and she read, ridiculously like + her father, with increasing pleasure. + </p> + <p> + However, what engaged Linda most was the fact that Vigné already liked + men; she had been at the fringe, as it were, of young dances, with a + sparkling satisfaction to herself and the securely nice youths who “cut + in” at her brief appearances. + </p> + <p> + The truth was that Linda saw that more than a trace of Stella Condon's + warm generosity of emotion had been brought by herself to Arnaud's + daughter. The faults of every life, every circumstance, were endlessly + multiplied through all existence. At fourteen, it was Linda's frowning + impression, her mother had very fully instructed her in the wiles and + structure of admirable marriage, and she had never completely lost some + hard pearls of the elder's wisdom. Should she, in turn, communicate them + to Vigné? + </p> + <p> + The moment, the anxiety, she dreaded was arriving, and it found her no + freer of doubt than had the other aspects of her own responses. Yet here + she was possessed by the keenest need for absolute rectitude; and perhaps + this, she thought, with an unusual pleasure, was an evidence of the + affection she had seemed to lack. But in the end she said nothing. + </p> + <p> + She was still unable to disentangle the flesh from the spirit, love—the + love that so amazingly illuminated Dodge Pleydon—from comfort. Dodge + had disturbed all her sense of values, even to the point of unsettling her + allegiance to the supremacy of a great deal of money. He had worked this + without giving her anything definite, that she could explain to Vigné, in + return. Linda preserved her demand for the actual. If she could only + comprehend the force animating Dodge she felt life would be clear. + </p> + <p> + She was tempted to experiment—when had such a possibility occurred + to her before?—and discover just how far in several directions + Pleydon's devotion went. This would be easy now, she was unrestrained by + the fact of Arnaud, and the old shrinking from the sculptor happily + vanished. Yet with him before her, on one of his infrequent visits to + their house, she realized that her courage was insufficient. Was it that + or something deeper—a reluctance to turn herself like a knife in the + source of the profoundest compliment a woman could be paid. Linda thought + too highly of his love for that; the texture of the carpet had become too + gratifying. + </p> + <p> + They were all three in the library, as customary; and Linda, restless, saw + her reflection in a closed long window. She was wearing yellow, the color + of the jonquils on a candle-stand; but with her familiar sash tied and the + ends falling to the hem of her skirt. The pointed oval of her face was + unchanged, her pallor, the straight line of her black bang, the blueness + of her eyes, were as they had been a surprisingly long while ago. Arnaud, + with a disconcerting comprehension, demanded, “Well, are you satisfied?” + She replied coolly, “Entirely.” Pleydon, seated for over an hour without + moving, or even the trivial relief of a cigarette, followed her with his + luminous uncomfortable gaze, his disembodied passion. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXX + </h2> + <p> + Linda heard Vigné's laugh, the expression of a sheer lightness of heart, + following a low eager murmur of voices in her daughter's room, and she was + startled by its resemblance to the gay pitch of Mrs. Moses Feldt's old + merriment. Three of Vigné's friends were with her, all approximately + eighteen, talking, Linda knew, men and—it was autumn—anticipating + the excitements of their bow to formal society that winter. They had, she + silently added, little enough to learn about the latter. Through the year + past they had been to a dancing-class identical, except for an earlier + hour and age, with mature affairs; but before that they had been + practically introduced to the pleasures of their inheritance. + </p> + <p> + The men were really boys at the university, past the first year, + receptacles of unlimited worldly knowledge and experience. They belonged + to exclusive university societies and eating clubs, and Linda found their + stiff similarity of correct bigoted pattern highly entertaining. She had + no illusions about what might be called their morals; they were midway in + the period of youthful unrestraint; but she recognized as well that their + attitude toward, for example, Vigné was irreproachable. Such boys affected + to disdain the girls of their associated families ... or imagined + themselves incurably in love. + </p> + <p> + The girls, for their part, while insisting that forty was the ideal age + for a lover—the terms changed with the seasons, last year “suitor” + had been the common phrase—were occasionally swept in young company + into a high irrational passion. Mostly, through skillful adult pressure or + firm negation, such affairs came to nothing; but even these were sometimes + overcome. And, when Linda had been disturbed by the echo of old days in + her daughter's tones, she was considering exactly such a state. + </p> + <p> + One of the nicest youths imaginable, Bailey Sandby, had lost all trace of + superior aloofness in a devotion to Vigné. He was short, squarely built, + with clear pink cheeks, steady light blue eyes and crisp very fair hair. + This was his last season of academic instruction, after which a number of + years, at an absurdly low payment, awaited him in his father's bond + brokerage concern. However, he was, Linda gathered, imperious in his + urgent need for Vigné's favor. + </p> + <p> + Ridiculous, she thought, at the same time illogically rehearsing the + resemblances of Vigné to her grandmother. She had no doubt that the + parties Vigné shared on the terraces and wide lawns, in the informal + dancing at country houses, were sufficiently sophisticated; there was on + occasion champagne, and—for the masculine element anyhow—cocktails. + The aroma of wine, lightly clinging to her young daughter's breath, filled + her with an old instinctive sickness. + </p> + <p> + She had spoken to Arnaud who, in turn, severely addressed Vigné; but + during this Linda had been oppressed by the familiar feeling of impotence. + The girl, of course, had properly heard them; but she gave her mother the + effect of slipping easily beyond their grasp. When she had gone to bed + Arnaud repeated a story brought to him by the juvenile Lowrie, under the + influence of a temporary indignation at his sister's unwarranted + imposition of superiority. Arnaud went on: + </p> + <p> + “Actually they had this kissing contest, it was at Chestnut Hill, with a + watch held; and Vigné, or so Lowrie insisted, won the prize for length of + time—something like a minute. Now, when I was young—” + </p> + <p> + Submerged in apprehensive memory Linda lost most of his account of the + Eden-like youth of his earlier day. When, at last, his assertions pierced + her abstraction, it was only to bring her to the realization of how + pathetically little he knew of either Vigné or her. She weighed the + question of utter frankness here—the quality enhanced by universal + obscurity—but she was obliged to check her desire for perfect + understanding. A purely feminine need to hide, even from Arnaud, any + detracting facts about women shut her into a diplomatic silence. In + reality he could offer them no help; their problems—in a world + created more objectively by the hand of man than God—were singular + to themselves. Women were quite like spoiled captives to foreign princes, + masking, in their apparent complacency, a necessarily secret but + insidiously tyrannical control. It wouldn't do, in view of this, to expose + too much. + </p> + <p> + The following morning it was Arnaud, rather than herself, who had a letter + from Pleydon. “He wants us to come over to New York and his studio,” the + former explained. “He has some commission or other from a city in the + Middle West, and a study to show us. I'd like it very much; we haven't + seen this place, and his surroundings are not to be overlooked.” + </p> + <p> + Pleydon's rooms were directly off Central Park West, in an apartment house + obviously designed for prosperous creative arts, with a hall frescoed in + the tones of Puvis de Chavannes and an elevator cage beautifully patterned + in iron grilling. Dodge Pleydon met them in his narrow entry and conducted + them into a pleasant reception-room. “It's a duplex,” he explained of his + quarters; “the dining-room you see and the kitchen's beyond, while the + baths and all that are over our heads; the studio fills both floors.” + </p> + <p> + There were low book cases with their continuous top used as a shelf for a + hundred various objects, deep long chairs of caressing ease and chairs of + coffee-colored wicker with amazingly high backs woven with designs of + polished shells into the semblance of spread peacocks' tails. The yellow + silk curtains at the windows, the rug with the intricate coloring of a + cashmere shawl, the Russian tea service, were in a perfection of order; + and Linda almost resentfully acknowledged the skilful efficiency of his + maid. It was surprising that, without a wife, a man could manage such a + degree of comfort! + </p> + <p> + Over tea far better than hers, in china of an infinitely finer fragility, + she studied Pleydon thoughtfully. He looked still again perceptibly older, + his face continued to grow sparer of flesh, emphasizing the aggressively + bony structure of his head. When he shut his mouth after a decided + statement she could see the projection of the jaw and the knotted sinews + at the base of his cheeks. No, Dodge didn't seem well. She asked if there + had been any return of the fever and he nodded in an impatient + affirmative, returning at once to the temporarily suspended conversation + with Arnaud. There was a vast difference, too, in the way in which he + talked. + </p> + <p> + His attitude was as assertive as ever, but it had less expression in + words; unaccountable periods of silence, almost ill-natured, overtook him, + spaces of abstraction when it was plain that he had forgotten the presence + of whoever might be by. Even direct questions sometimes failed to pierce + immediately his consciousness. Dodge, Linda told herself, lived entirely + too much alone. Then she said this aloud, thoughtlessly, and she was + startled by the sudden intolerable flash of his gaze. An awkward pause + followed, broken by the uprearing of Pleydon's considerable length. + </p> + <p> + “I must take you into the studio before it is too dark,” he proceeded. + “Every creative spirit knows when its great moment has come. Well, mine is + here.” The men stood aside as Linda, her head positively ringing with the + thrill that was like a strain of Gluck, the happy sadness, entered the + bare high spaciousness of Dodge Pleydon's workroom. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXI + </h2> + <p> + Everything she saw, the stripped floor, the white walls bare but for some + casts like the dismembered fragments of flawless blanched bodies, the + inclined plane of the wide skylight, bore an impalpable white dust of + dried clay. In a corner, enclosed in low boards, a stooped individual with + wood-soled shoes and a shovel was working a mass of clay over which at + intervals he sprinkled water, and at intervals halted to make pliable + lumps of a uniform size which he added to a pile wrapped in damp cloths. + There were a number of modeling stands with twisted wires grotesquely + resembling a child's line drawing of a human being; while a stand with + some modeling tools on its edge bore an upright figure shapeless in its + swathing of dampened cloths. + </p> + <p> + “The great moment,” Pleydon said again, in a vibrant tone. “But you know + nothing of all this,” he directly addressed Linda. “Neither, probably, + will you have heard of Simon Downige. He was born at Cottarsport, in + Massachusetts, about eighteen forty; and, after—in the support of + his hatred of any slavery—he fought through the Civil War, he came + home and found that his town stifled him. He didn't marry at once, as so + many returning soldiers did; instead he was wedded to a vision of freedom, + freedom of opinion, of spirit, worship—any kind of spaciousness + whatever. And, in the pursuit of that, he went West. + </p> + <p> + “He told them that he was going to find—but found was the word—a + place where men could live together in a purity of motives and air. No + more, you understand; he hadn't a personal fanatical belief to exploit and + attract the hysteria of women and insufficient men. He was not a + pathological messiah; but only Simon Downige, an individual who couldn't + comfortably breathe the lies and injustice and hypocrisy of the ordinary + community. No doubt he was unbalanced—his sensitiveness to a + universal condition would prove that. Normally people remain undisturbed + by such trivialities. If they didn't an end would come to one or the + other, the lies or the world. + </p> + <p> + “He traveled part way in a Conestoga wagon—a flight out of Egypt; + they were common then, slow canvas-covered processions with entire + families drawn by the mysterious magnetism of the West. Then, leaving even + such wayfarers, he walked, alone, until he came on a meadow by a little + river and a grove of trees, probably cottonwoods.... That was Simon + Downige, and that, too, was Hesperia. Yes, he was unbalanced—the old + Greek name for beautiful lands. It is a city now, successful and corruptly + administered—what always happens to such visions. + </p> + <p> + “It is necessary, Linda, as I've always told you, to understand the whole + motive behind a creation in permanent form. A son of Simon's—yes, he + finally married—a unique and very rich character, wife dead and no + children, commissioned a monument to the founder of Hesperia, in Ohio, and + of his fortune. + </p> + <p> + “They even have a civic body for the control of public building; and they + came East to approve my statue, or rather the clay sketch for it. They + were very solemn, and one, himself a sculptor, a graduate of the Beaux + Arts, ran a suggestive thumb over Simon and did incredible damage. But, + after a great deal of hesitation, and a description from the sculptor of + what he thought excellently appropriate for such magnificence, they + accepted my study. The present Downige, really—though I understand + there is another pretentious branch in Hesperia—bullied them into + it. He cursed the Beaux-Arts graduate with the most brutal and + satisfactory freedom—the tyranny of his money; the crown, you see, + of Simon's hope.” + </p> + <p> + He unwrapped one by one the wet cloths; and Linda, in an eagerness sharp + like anxiety, finally saw the statue, under life-size, of a seated man + with a rough stick and bundle at his feet. A limp hat was in his hand, + and, beneath a brow to which the hair was plastered by sweat, his eyes + gazed fixed and aspiring into a hidden dream perfectly created by his + desire. Here, she realized at last, she had a glimmer of the beauty, the + creative force, that animated Dodge Pleydon. Simon Downige's shoes were + clogged with mud, his entire body, she felt, ached with weariness; but his + gaze—nothing Linda discovered but shadows over two depressions—was + far away in the attainment of his place of justice and truth. + </p> + <p> + She found a stool and, careless of the film of dust, sat absorbed in the + figure. Pleydon again had lost all consciousness of their presence; he + stood, hands in pockets, his left foot slightly advanced, looking at his + work from under drawn brows. Arnaud spoke first: + </p> + <p> + “It's impertinent to congratulate you, Pleydon. You know what you've done + better than any one else could. You have all our admiration.” Linda + watched the tenderness with which the other covered Simon Downige's vision + in clay. Later, returning home after dinner, Arnaud speculated about + Pleydon's remarkable increase in power. “I had given him up,” he went on; + “I thought he was lost in those notorious debauches of esthetic emotions. + Does he still speak of loving you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” Linda replied. “Are you annoyed by it?” He answered, “What good if + I were?” She considered him, turned in his chair to face her, + thoughtfully. “I haven't the slightest doubt of its quality, however—all + in that Hesperia of old Downige's. To love you, my dear Linda, has certain + well-defined resemblances to a calamity. If you ask me if I object to what + you do give him, my answer must shock the gods of art. I would rather you + didn't.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it, Arnaud?” she demanded. “I haven't the slightest idea. I wish + I had.” + </p> + <p> + “Platonic,” he told her shortly. “The term has been hopelessly ruined, yet + the sense, the truth, I am forced to believe, remains.” + </p> + <p> + “But you know how stupid I am and that I can't understand you.” + </p> + <p> + “The woman in whom a man sees God,” he proceeded irritably: + </p> + <p> + “'<i>La figlia della sua mente, l'amorosa, idea</i>.'” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she cried, wrung with a sharp obscure hurt. “I know that, I've heard + it before.” Her excitement faded at her absolute inability to place the + circumstances of her memory. The sound of the words vanished, leaving no + more than the familiar deep trouble, the disappointing sensation of almost + grasping—Linda was unable to think what. + </p> + <p> + “After all, you are my wife.” He had recovered his normal shy humor. “I + can prove it. You are the irreproachable mother of our unsurpassed + children. You have a hopeless vision—like this Simon's—of + seeing me polished and decently pressed; and I insist on your continuing + with the whole show.” + </p> + <p> + Her mind arbitrarily shifted to the thought of her father, who had walked + out of his house, left—yes—his family, without any intimation. + Then, erratically, it turned to Vigné, to Vigné and young Sandby with his + fresh cheeks and impending penniless years acquiring a comprehension of + the bond market. She said, “I wonder if she really likes Bailey?” Arnaud's + energy of dismay was laughable, “What criminal folly! They haven't + finished Mother Goose yet.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXII + </h2> + <p> + Linda, who expected to see Pleydon's statue of Simon Downige finished + immediately in a national recognition of its splendor, was disappointed by + his explanation that, probably, it would not be ready for casting within + two years. He intended to model it again, life-size, before he was ready + for the heroic. April, the vivifying, had returned; and, as always in the + spring, Linda was mainly conscious of the mingled assuaging sounds of life + newly admitted through open windows. A single shaded lamp was lighted by a + far table, where Arnaud sat cutting the pages of <i>The Living Age</i> + with an ivory blade; Dodge was blurred in the semi-obscurity. + </p> + <p> + He came over to see them more frequently now, through what he called the + great moment—so tiresomely extended—of his life. Pleydon came + oftener but he said infinitely less. It was his custom to arrive for + dinner and suddenly depart early or late in the evening. At times she went + up to her room and left the two almost morosely silent men to their own + thoughts or pages; at others she complained—no other woman alive + would stay with such uninteresting and thoroughly selfish creatures. They + never made the pretense of an effort to consider or amuse her. At this + Arnaud would put aside his book and begin an absurd social conversation in + the manner of Vigné's associates. Pleydon, however, wouldn't speak; + nothing broke the somberness of his passionate absorption in invisible + tyrannies. She gave up, finally, a persistent effort to lighten his moods. + Annoyed she told him that if he did not change he'd be sick, and then + where would everything be. + </p> + <p> + All at once, through the open window, she heard Stella, her mother, + laughing; the carelessly gay sound overwhelmed her with an instinctive + unreasoning dread. Linda rose with a half gasp—but of course it was + Vigné in the garden with Bailey Sandby. + </p> + <p> + She sank back angry because she had been startled; but her irritation + perished in disturbing thought. It wasn't, she told herself, Vigné's + actions that made her fear the future so much as her, Linda's, knowledge + of the possibilities of the past. Her undying hatred of that existence + choked in her throat; the chance of its least breath touching Vigné, + Arnaud's daughter, roused her to any embittered hazard. + </p> + <p> + The girl, she was certain, returned a part at least of Bailey's feeling. + Linda expected no confidences—what had she done to have them?—and + Arnaud was right, affairs of the heart were never revealed until + consummated. Her conclusion had been reached by indirect quiet deductions. + Vigné, lately, was different; her attitude toward her mother had changed + to the subtle reserve of feminine maturity. Her appearance, overnight, it + seemed, had improved; her color was deeper, a delicate flush burned at any + surprise in her cheeks, and the miracle of her body was perfected. + </p> + <p> + It wasn't, Linda continued silently, that Vigné could ever follow the + example of Stella Condon through the hotels and lives of men partly bald, + prodigal, and with distant families. Whatever happened to her would be in + excellent surroundings and taste; but the result—the sordid havoc, + inside and out, the satiety alternating with the points of brilliancy, and + finally, inexorably, sweeping over them in a leaden tide—would be + identical. She wondered a little at the strength of her detestation for + such living; it wasn't moral in any sense with which she was familiar; in + fact it appeared to have a vague connection with her own revolt from the + destruction of death. She wanted Vigné as well to escape that catastrophe, + to hold inviolate the beauty of her youth, her fineness and courage. + </p> + <p> + She was convinced, too, that if she loved Bailey, and was disappointed, + some of the harm would be done immediately; Linda saw, in imagination, the + pure flame of Vigné's passion fanned and then arbitrarily extinguished. + She saw the resemblance of the dead woman, all those other painted shades, + made stronger. A sentence formed so vividly in her mind that she looked up + apprehensively, certain that she had spoken it aloud: + </p> + <p> + If Vigné does come to care for him they must marry. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts left the girl for Arnaud—he would absolutely oppose her + there, and she speculated about the probable length his opposition would + reach. What would he say to her? It couldn't be helped, in particular it + couldn't be explained, neither to him nor to the friendly correctness of + Bailey Sandby's mother. She, alone, must accept any responsibility, all + blame. + </p> + <p> + The threatened situation developed more quickly than she had anticipated. + Linda met Bailey, obviously disturbed, in the portico, leaving their + house; his manner, mechanically, was good; and then, with an irrepressible + boyish rush of feeling, he stopped her: + </p> + <p> + “Vigné and I love each other and Mr. Hallet won't hear of it. He insulted + us with the verse about the old woman who went to the cupboard to get a + bone, and if he hadn't been her father—” he breathed a portentous + and difficult self-repression. “Then he took a cowardly advantage of my + having no money, just now; right after I explained how I was going to make + wads—with Vigné.” + </p> + <p> + An indefinable excitement possessed Linda, accompanied by a sudden acute + fear of what Arnaud might say. She wanted more than anything else in life + to go quickly, inattentively, past Bailey Sandby and up to her room. + Nothing could be easier, more obvious, than her disapproval of a moneyless + boy. She made a step forward with an assumed resolute ignoring of his + disturbed presence. It was useless. A dread greater than her fright at + Arnaud held her in the portico, her hand lifted to the polished knob of + the inner door. Linda turned slowly, cold and white, “Wait,” she said to + his shoulder in an admirable coat; then she gazed steadily into his frank + pained eyes. + </p> + <p> + “How do you know that you love Vigné?” she demanded. “You are so young to + be certain it will last always. And Vigné—” + </p> + <p> + “How does any one know?” he replied. “How did you? Married people always + forget their own experiences, the happy way things went with them. From + all I see money hasn't much to do with loving each other. But, of course, + I'm not going to be poor, not with Vigné. Nobody could. She'd inspire + them. Mr. Hallet knows all about me, too; and he's the oldest kind of a + friend of the family. I suppose when he sees father at the Rittenhouse + Club they'll have a laugh—a laugh at Vigné and me.” His hand, + holding the brim of a soft brown hat, clenched tensely. + </p> + <p> + “No,” Linda told him, “they won't do that.” Her obscure excitement was + communicated to him. “Why not?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Because,” she paused to steady her voice, “because I am going to take a + very great responsibility. If it fails, if you let it fail, you'll ruin + ever so much. Yes, Mr. Hallet, I am sure, will consent to your marrying + Vigné.” She escaped at the first opening from his incoherent gratitude. + Arnaud was in the library, and she stopped in the hall, busy with the + loosening of her veil. Perhaps it would be better to speak to him after + dinner; she ought to question Vigné first; but, as she stood debating, her + daughter passed her tempestuously, blurred with crying, and Arnaud angrily + demanded her presence. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIII + </h2> + <p> + “You were quite right,” he cried; “this young idiot Sandby has been + telling Vigné that he loves her; and now Vigné assures me, with tears, + that she likes it! They want to get married—next week, tomorrow, + this evening.” Linda stood by the window; soon the magnolia-tree would be + again laden with flowers. She gathered her courage into a determined + composure of tone. “I saw Bailey outside,” she admitted. “He told me. It + seems excellent to me.” + </p> + <p> + Arnaud Hallet incredulously challenged her. “What do you mean—that + you gave him a trace of encouragement!” Linda replied: + </p> + <p> + “I said that I was certain you would consent.” She halted his exasperated + gesture. “You think Vigné is nothing but a child, and yet she is as old as + I was at our wedding. My mother was no older when Bartram Lowrie married + her. I think Vigné is very fortunate, Bailey is as nice as possible; and, + as he said, it isn't as if you knew nothing of the Sandbys; they are as + dignified as the Lowries.” + </p> + <p> + An expression she had never before seen hardened his countenance into a + sarcasm that travestied his customary humor. “You realize, of course, that + except for what his father gives him young Sandby is wretchedly poor. He's + nice enough but what has that to do with it? And, in particular, how does + it touch you, Linda Condon? Do you suppose I can ever forget your answer + that time I first asked you to marry me? You wouldn't consider a poor man; + you were worth, really, a hundred thousand a year; but, if nothing better + came along, you might sacrifice yourself for fifty.” + </p> + <p> + “I remember very well,” she answered; “and, curiously enough, I am not + ashamed. I was very sensible then, in a horrible position with extravagant + habits. They were me. I couldn't change myself. Without money I should + have made you, any man, entirely miserable. Arnaud, I hadn't—I + haven't now—the ability to see everything important through the + affections, like so many many women. You often told me that; who hasn't? I + have always admitted it wasn't pleasant nor praiseworthy. But how, to use + your own words, does all that affect Vigné? She isn't cold but very + warm-hearted; and, instead of my experience, she has her own so much + better feeling.” + </p> + <p> + “I absolutely refuse to allow anything of the sort,” he declared sharply. + “I won't even discuss it—for three years. Tell this Sandby infant, + if you like, to come back then.” + </p> + <p> + “In three years, or in one year, Vigné may be quite different, yes-less + lovable. Happiness, too, is queer, Arnaud; there isn't a great deal of it. + Not an overwhelming amount. If it appears for an instant it must be held + as tightly as possible. It doesn't come back, you know. Don't turn to your + book yet—you can't get rid of us, of Vigné and me, like that; and + then it's rude; the first time, I believe, you have ever been impolite to + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Forgive me,” he spoke formally. “You seem to think that I am as + indifferent as yourself. You might be asking the day of the week to judge + from your calm appearance. The emotion of a father, or even of a mother, + perhaps, you have never explored. On the whole you are fortunate. And you + are always protected by your celebrated honesty.” She said: + </p> + <p> + “I promised Bailey your consent.” + </p> + <p> + “Why bother about that? It isn't necessary for your new romantic mood. An + elopement, with you to steady the ladder, would be more appropriate.” + </p> + <p> + She repeated the fact of her engagement. Her dread for him had vanished, + its place now taken by a distrust of what, in her merged detachment and + suffering, she might blunderingly do. At the back of this she realized + that his case, his position, was hopeless. Without warning, keen and + undimmed, his love for her flashed through his resentful misery. There was + no spoken acknowledgement of surrender; he sank into his chair dejected + and pitiable, infinitely gray. His shoes, on the brightness of the hooked + rug, were dingy, his coat drawn and wrinkled. + </p> + <p> + Linda saw herself on her knees before him, before his patience and + generosity, sobbing her contrition into his forgiving hands. She longed + with every nerve—as she had so often before—to lose herself in + passionate emotion. She had never been more erect or withdrawn, never + essentially less touched. After a little, waiting for him to speak, she + saw that he, too, had retreated into the profound depths of his own + illusions and despairs. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIV + </h2> + <p> + For a surprising while—even in the face of Vigné's radiance—Arnaud + was as still and shadowed as the inert surface of a dammed stream. Then + slowly, the slenderest trickle at first, his wit revived his spirit; and + he opened an unending mock-solemn attack on Bailey Sandby's eminently + serious acceptance of the responsibilities of his allowed love. + </p> + <p> + The boy had left the university, and his father—a striking replica + of Arnaud's prejudices, impatience and fundamental kindness—exchanged + with Vigné's male parent the most dismal prophecies together with concrete + plans for their children's future security. This, inevitably, resulted in + Vigné's marriage; a ceremony unattended by Pleydon except by the presence + of a very liberal check. + </p> + <p> + The life-size version of his Simon Downige was again under way—it + had been torn down, Linda knew, more than once—and he was in a fever + of composition. Nor was this, she decided with Arnaud, his only + oppression: the Asiatic fever clung to him with disquieting persistence. + Pleydon himself admitted he had a degree or two in the evening. + </p> + <p> + Linda was seated in his studio near Central Park West, perhaps a year + later, and she observed aloud that so much wet clay around was bad for + him. He laughed: nothing now could happen to him, he was forever beyond + accident, sickness, death—his statue for the monument in Hesperia + was finished. It stood revealed before them, practically as Linda had + first seen it, but enlarged, towering, as if the vision it portrayed had + grown, would continue to grow eternally, because of the dignity of its + hope, the necessity of its realization. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” she said, “it will go to the foundry and be cast.” He corrected + her. “You will go to the foundry and be cast ... in bronze.” A distinct + graceful happiness possessed her at the knowledge that his love for her + was as constant as though it, too, were metal. Not flesh but bronze, + spirit, he insisted. + </p> + <p> + The multiplying years made that no more comprehensible than when, a child, + she had thrilled in a waking dream. Love, spirit, death. Three mysteries. + But only one, she thought, was inevitably hers, the last. To be loved was + not love itself, but only the edge of its cloak; response was an + indivisible part of realization. No, sterility was the measure—of + its absence. And she was, Linda felt, in spite of Vigné and Lowrie, the + latter a specially vigorous contradiction, the most sterile woman alive. + There were always Dodge's assurances, but clay, stone, metal, were cold + for a belief to embrace. And she was, she knew, lovelier now than she had + ever been before, than she would ever be again. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXV + </h2> + <p> + The faint ringing of the bell from outside that probably announced Arnaud + sounded unreal, futile, to Linda. He came into the studio, and at once a + discussion began between the two men of the difference in the surfaces of + clay and bronze. The talk then shifted to the pictorial sources of the + heroic Simon Downige before them, and Linda declared, “Dodge, you have + never made a head of me. How very unflattering!” + </p> + <p> + “You're an affair for a painter,” he replied; “Goya or Alfred Stevens. No + one but Goya could have found a white for you, with the quality of flower + petals; and Stevens would have fixed you in an immortality of delicate + color, surrounded by your Philadelphia garden.” He stood quite close to + her, with his jacket dragged forward by hands thrust into its pockets, and + he added at the end of a somber interrogation, “But if you would really + like to know why—” + </p> + <p> + In a moment more, she recognized, Dodge would explain his feeling for her—to + Arnaud, to any one who might be present. The gleam in his eyes, his + remoteness from earthly concern, were definitely not normal. Pleydon, his + love, terrified her. “No,” she said with an assumed hurried lightness, + “don't try to explain. I must manage to survive the injury to my vanity.” + </p> + <p> + They left New York almost immediately, Pleydon suddenly determining to go + with them; and later were scattered through the Hallet household. Vigné + and her husband were temporarily living there; with their heads close + together they were making endless computations, numerous floor plans and + elevations. Linda, at the piano in the drawing-room, could hear them + through the hall. Pleydon was lounging in a chair beyond her. She couldn't + play but she was able, slowly, to pick out the notes of simple and + familiar airs—echoes of Gluck and blurred motives of Scarlatti. It + was for herself, she explained; the sounds, however crude and + disconnected, brought things back to her. What things, she replied to + Pleydon's query, she didn't in the least know; but pleasant. + </p> + <p> + The fact that she understood so little depressed her with increasing + frequency. It was well enough to be ignorant as a girl, or even as a young + woman newly married; but she had left all that behind; she had lost her + youth without any compensating gain of knowledge. Linda could not assure + herself that life was clearer than it had been to her serious childhood. + It had always been easily measured on the surface; she had had a very + complete grasp of its material aspects almost at once, accomplishing + exactly what she had planned. Perhaps this was all; and her trouble an + evidence of weakness—the indecision, she saw with contempt, that + kept so many people in a constant agitation of disappointment. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps this was enough; more than the majority had or accomplished. She + made, again, a resolute effort to be contented, at rest. Her straying + fingers clumsily wrought a fragmentary refrain that mocked her + determination. It wasn't new, this—this dissatisfaction; but it had + grown sharper. As she was older her restlessness increased at the + realization that life, opportunity, were slipping from her. Soon she would + be forty. + </p> + <p> + The conviction seized her that most lives reflected hers in that their + questioning was never answered. The fortunate, then, were the incurious + and the hearts undisturbed by a maddening thrill. She said aloud, “The + ones who never heard music.” Pleydon was without a sign that she had + spoken. Her emotions were very delicate, very fragile, and enormously + difficult to perceive. They were like plants in stony ground. Where had + she heard that—out of the Bible? Then she thought of her failure to + get anything from religion—a part of her inability to drink at the + springs which others declared so refreshing. Linda pressed her hands more + sharply on the keys and the answering discord had the effect of waking her + to reality. + </p> + <p> + Pleydon remained until the following afternoon, and then was lost—in + the foundry casting his statue—for six months. Arnaud went over to + view the completion of the bronze and returned filled with enthusiasm. + “Its simplicity is the surprising part,” he told her. “The barest + statement possible. But Pleydon himself is in a disturbing condition; I + can't decide if it is mental or physical. The fever of course; yet that + doesn't account for his distance from ordinary living. The truth is, I + suppose, that men weren't designed for great arts, and nature, like the + jealous God of the Hebrews, retaliates. It is absurd, but Pleydon reminds + me of you; you're totally different. I suppose it's because of the + detachment you have in common.” He veered to a detail of Lowrie's first + year at a university, and exhibited, against a decent endeavor to the + contrary, his boundless pride in their son. + </p> + <p> + The boy was, Linda acknowledged, more than commonly dependable and able. + He was heavy, like his father, and so diffident that he almost stuttered; + but his mental processes flashed in quick intuitive perceptions. Lowrie + was an easy and brilliant student; and, perhaps because of this, of his + mental certainty, he was not intimate with her as Arnaud had hoped and + predicted. It seemed to Linda that he instinctively penetrated her inner + doubt and regarded it without sympathy. In this he was her son. Lowrie was + a confident and unsympathetic critic of humanity. + </p> + <p> + Even now, so soon, there was no question of his success in the law his + fitness had elected. The springs of his being were purely intellectual, + reasoning. In him Linda saw magnified her own coldness; and, turned on + herself, she viewed it with an arbitrary feminine resentment. He was + actually courteous to her; but under all their intercourse there was a + perceptible impatience. His scorn of other women, girls, however, was + openly expressed and honest; it had no trace of the mere affectation of + pessimism natural to his age. Arnaud, less thoughtful than she, was vastly + entertained by this, and drew Lowrie out in countless sly sallies and + contradictions. + </p> + <p> + Yes, he would succeed, but, after all, what would his success be worth—placed, + that was, against Vigné's radiant happiness, Bailey Sandby's quiet eyes + and the quality of his return home each evening? + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts came back to Pleydon—she had before her a New York + paper describing the ceremony of unveiling his Simon Downige at Hesperia. + There was a long learned article praising its beauty and emphasizing + Pleydon's eminence. He was, it proceeded, an anomaly in an age of + momentary experimental talents—a humanized Greek force. He didn't + belong to to-day but to yesterday and to-morrow. This gave her an + uncomfortable vision of Dodge in space, with no warm points of contact. + She, too, was suspended in that vague emptiness. Linda had the sensation + of grasping at streamers, forms, of sparkling mist. A strange position in + view of her undeniable common sense, the solid foundations of her + temperament and experience. She saw from the paper, further, that the + Downige who had commissioned the monument was dead. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVI + </h2> + <p> + In the middle of the festive period that connected Christmas with the new + year Arnaud turned animatedly from his breakfast scanning of the news. “It + seems,” he told her, “that a big rumpus has developed in Hesperia over the + Pleydon statue—the present Downige omnipotence, never friendly with + our old gentleman, has condemned its bronze founder. You know what I mean. + It's an insult to their pride, their money and position, to see him + perpetuated as a tramp. On the contrary he was a very respectable + individual from a prominent family and town. + </p> + <p> + “They have been moving the local heavens, ever since the monument was + placed, to have it set aside. I suppose they would have succeeded, too, if + a large amount given to the city were not contingent on its preservation. + But then they can always donate more money in the cause of their sacred + respectability.” + </p> + <p> + Linda had never, she exclaimed, heard of anything more disgusting. It was + plain that Hesperia knew nothing of art. “Every one,” she ran on in the + heat of her resentment, “every one, that is, who should decide, agrees + it's magnificent. They were frightfully lucky to get it—Dodge's + finest work.” She wrote at once to Pleydon commanding his presence and + expressing her contempt of such depravity of opinion. To her surprise he + was undisturbed, apparently, by the condemnation of his monument. + </p> + <p> + He even laughed at her energy of scorn. She was hurt, perceptibly + silenced, with a feeling of having been misunderstood or rather + undervalued. Her disturbance at any blame attached to the statue of Simon + Downige was extremely acute. But, she thought, if it failed to worry Dodge + why should she bother. She did, in spite of this philosophy; Simon was + tremendously important to her. + </p> + <p> + He stood for things: she had watched his evolution from the clay sketch, + and in Pleydon's mind, to the final heroic proportions; and she had taken + for granted that a grateful world would see him in her light. A woman, she + decided, had made the trouble; and she hated her with a personal vigor. + Pleydon said: + </p> + <p> + “I told you that old Simon was unbalanced; now you can see it by his + reception in a successful city. The sculptor—do you remember him, a + Beaux-Arts graduate?—admits that he had always opposed it, but that + political motives overbore his pure protest. There is a scheme now to + build a pavilion, for babies, and shut out the monument from open view. + They may do that but time will sweep away their walls. If I had modeled + Simon Downige, yes, he would go; but I modeled his vision, his aspiration—the + hope of all men for release and purity. + </p> + <p> + “Downige and the individual babies are unimportant compared to a vision of + perfection, of escape. As long as men live, if they live, they'll reach + up; and that gesture in itself is heaven. Not accomplishment. The spirit + dragging the flesh higher; but spirit alone—empty balloons. A dream + in bronze, harder even than men's heads, more durable than their + prejudices, so permanent that it will wear out their ignorance; and in the + end—always in the end—they'll bring their wreath. + </p> + <p> + “A replica has gone to Cottarsport, from me; and you ought to see it + there, on a block of New England granite. It's in the Common, a windswept + reach with low houses and a white steeple and the sea. It might have been + there from the beginning, rising on rock against the pale salt day. They + can go to hell in Hesperia.” + </p> + <p> + Still Linda's hurt persisted; she saw the unfortunate occurrence as a + direct blow at her pride. Arnaud, too, failed her; he was splendid in his + assault upon such rapacious stupidity; but it was only an impersonal + concern. His manner expressed the conviction that it might have been + expected. He was blind to her special enthusiasm, her long intimate + connection with the statue. Exasperated she almost told him that it was + more real to her than their house, than Vigné and Lowrie, than he. She was + stopped, fortunately, by the perception that, amazingly, the statue was + more actual than Dodge Pleydon. It touched the center of her life more + nearly. + </p> + <p> + Why, she didn't know. + </p> + <p> + If her mental confusion increased by as much as a feeling, Linda thought, + she would be close to madness. It was unbearable at practically forty. + </p> + <p> + Lowrie said, at the worst possible moment, that he found the entire + episode ridiculously overemphasized. A statue more or less was of small + importance. If the Downige family were upset why didn't they employ an + able lawyer to dispose of it? There were many ways for such a proceeding— + </p> + <p> + “I have no desire to hear them,” she interrupted. “You seem to know a + tremendous lot, but what good it will do you in the end who can say! And, + with all your cleverness, you haven't an ounce of appreciation for art. + Besides, I hate to see any one as young as you so sure of himself. Often I + suspect you are patronizing your father and me. It's not pretty nor + polite.” + </p> + <p> + Lowrie was obviously embarrassed by her attack, and managed the abrupt + semblance of an apology. Arnaud, who had put down his eternal book, said + nothing until the boy had vanished. “Wasn't that rather sharp?” he asked + mildly. “Perhaps,” she replied in a tone without warmth or regret. + “Somehow I am never comfortable with Lowrie.” + </p> + <p> + “You are too much alike,” he shrewdly observed. “It is laughable at times. + Did you expect your children to be fountains of sentiment? And, look here—if + I can get along in comfort with you for life you in particular ought to + put up peacefully with Lowrie. He is a damned sight more human than, at + bottom, you are; a woman of alabaster.” + </p> + <p> + “I loathe quarrels,” she admitted; “they are so vulgar. You know that they + are not like me and just said so. Oh, Arnaud, why does life get harder + instead of easier?” + </p> + <p> + He put his book aside completely and gazed at her in patient thought. + “Linda,” he said finally, “I have never heard anything that stirred me so + much; not what you said, my dear, but the recognition in your voice.” A + wistfulness of love for her enveloped him; an ineffable desire as vain as + the passion she struggled to give him in return. She smiled in an + unhappiness of apology. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps—” he stopped, waiting any assurance whatever, his face + eager like a dusty lamp in which the light had been turned sharply up. She + was unable to stir, to move her gaze from his hopeful eyes, to mitigate by + a breath her slender white aloofness. A smile different from hers, tender + with remission, lingered in his fading irradiation. The dusk was + gathering, adding its melancholy to his age—sixty-five now. Why that + was an old man! Her sympathy vanished in her shrinking from the twilight + that was, as well, slowly, inevitably, deepening about her. + </p> + <p> + It was laughable that, as she approached an age whose only resource was + tranquillity, she grew more restless. Her present vague agitation belonged + ridiculously to youth. The philosophy of the evident that had supported + her so firmly was breaking at the most inopportune time. And it was, she + told herself, too late for anything new; the years for that had been spent + insensibly with Arnaud. Linda was very angry with herself, for, in all her + shifting state of mind, she preserved an inner necessity for the quality + of exactness expressed in her clothes. There were literally no neglected + spaces in her conscious living. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts finally centered about the statue in Hesperia—it + presented an actual mark for her fleeting resentments. She wondered why it + so largely occupied her thoughts, moved her so personally. She watched the + papers for the scattered reports of the progress of the contention it had + roused, some ill-natured, others supposedly humorous, and nearly all + uninformed. She became, Arnaud said, the champion of the esthetic against + Dagon. He elaborated this picture until she was forced to smile against + her inclination, her profound seriousness. Linda had the feeling that she, + too, was on the pedestal that held the bronze effigy of Simon Downige + challenging the fog that obscured men. Its fate was hers. She didn't + pretend to explain how. + </p> + <p> + As time passed it seemed to her that it took her longer and longer to + dress in the morning, while her preparations couldn't be simpler; her + habit of deliberation had become nearly a vice, the precision of her + ruffles, her hair, a tyranny. She never quite lost the satisfaction of her + mirror's faultless reflection; and stopped, now, for a moment's calm + interrogation of the being—hardly more silvery cool than the reality—before + her. + </p> + <p> + Arnaud was at the table, and the gaze with which he met her was troubled. + The morning paper, she saw, was, against custom, at her place, and she + picked it up with an instinctive sense of calamity. The blackly printed + sensational headline that immediately established her fear sank vivid and + entire into her brain: an anonymous inflamed mob in Hesperia had pulled + down and destroyed Pleydon's statue. Their act was described as a tribute + to the liberality of the present Downige family in the light of its + objection to the monument. + </p> + <p> + As if in the development of her feeling Linda had a sensation of crashing + with a sickening violence from a pedestal to the ground. Actually, it + seemed, the catastrophe had happened to her. She heard, with a sense of + inutility, Arnaud denouncing the outrage; he had a pencil in his hand for + the composition of a telegram to Dodge. He paid—but perhaps only + naturally—no attention to her, suffering dully from her fall. She + shuddered before the recreated lawless approaching voice of the mob; the + naked ugly violence froze her with terror; she felt the gross hurried + hands winding ropes about her, the rending brutality of force— + </p> + <p> + She sat and automatically took a small carved glass of orange-juice from a + bed of ice, and her chilled fingers recalled a dim image of her mother. + Arnaud was speaking, “I'm afraid this will cut through Pleydon's security, + it was such a wanton destruction of his unique power. You see, he worked + lovingly over the cast with little files and countless finite + improvements. The mold, I think, was broken. What a piece of luck the + thing's at Cottarsport.” He paused, obviously expecting her to comment; + but suddenly phrases failed her. + </p> + <p> + In place of herself she should be considering Dodge; her sympathy even for + him was submerged in her own extraordinary injury. However, she recovered + from her first gasping shock, and made an utterly commonplace remark. + Never had her sense of isolation been stronger. “I must admit,” her + husband continued, “that I looked for some small display of concern. I + give you my word there are moments when I think Pleydon himself cut you + out of stone. He isn't great enough for that, though; in the way of + perfection you successfully gild the lily. A thing held to be impossible.” + </p> + <p> + Linda told him with amazing inanity that his opinion of her was + unreliable; and, contented, he lightly pursued his admiration of what he + called her boreal charm. At intervals she responded appropriately and + proceeded with breakfast. She had entered a region of dispassionate + consideration, her characteristic detachment, she thought, regained. She + mentally, calmly, reconstructed the motives and events that had led to the + destruction of the statue; they, at least, were evident to her. She + reaffirmed silently her conviction that it had resulted from the + stupidity, the vanity, of a woman. The limitations of men, fully as + narrow, operated in other directions. + </p> + <p> + Then, with an incredulous surprise, she was aware that the clear space of + her reason was filling with anger. Never before had such a flood of + emotion possessed her; and she surrendered herself, in an enormous relief, + to the novelty of its obliterating tide. It deepened immeasurably, + sweeping her far from the security of old positions of indifference and + critical self-possession. Linda became enraged at a world that had + concentrated all its degraded vulgarity in one unspeakable act. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVII + </h2> + <p> + It was fall, October, and the day was a space of pale gold foliage + wreathed in blue garlands of mist. The gardener was busy with a wooden + rake and wheelbarrow in which he carted away dead leaves for burning. The + fire was back of the low fence, in the rear, and Linda, at the dining-room + window, could hear the fierce small crackle of flames; the drifting + pungent smoke was like a faint breath of ammonia. Arnaud had left for the + day, Lowrie was at the university, while Vigné and her husband—moving + toward their ultimate colonial threshold—had taken a small house. + She was alone. + </p> + <p> + As usual. + </p> + <p> + However, in her present state her solitude had lost its inevitability; she + failed to see why it must continue until the end of time. She could no + longer discover a sufficient reason for her limitless endurance, her + placid acceptance of all that chance, or any inconsiderable person, + happened to dictate. She wasn't like that in the least. Her temper had + solidified as though it were ice, taking everywhere the form in which it + was held. It was a reality. She determined, as well, that her feeling + should not melt back into the familiar acceptance of a routine that had + led her blindfolded across such an extent of life. + </p> + <p> + She understood now, in a large part, her disturbance at the indignity to + Dodge's monument—he had assured her that she was its inspiration; + except for her it would never have been realized, he would have kept on + modeling those Newport fountains, continued with the Susanna Nodas, + spending himself ignobly. He loved her, and that love had resulted in a + statue the world of art, of taste, honored. But it was she all the while + they were approving, discussing, writing about, Linda Condon. + </p> + <p> + She had always been that, Pleydon had informed her, never Linda Hallet—in + spite of Arnaud and their children. It sounded like nonsense; but, at the + bottom, it was truth. Of course it couldn't be explained, for example, to + the man who had every right, every evidence, to consider himself her + husband. Nothing was susceptible of explanation. Absolutely nothing! There + was the earth, which appeared to be everything, the houses you entered, + the streets you passed over, the people among whom you lived, yet that + wasn't all. Heavens, no! It was quite unimportant compared with—with + other facts latent in the mind and blood. + </p> + <p> + Dodge Pleydon's love was one of those other facts; it was simply + impossible to deny its existence, its power. Dodge had been totally + changed by it, born over again. But she, who had been the source, had had + no good from it, nothing except the thrill that had always been hers. No + one knew of it, counted it as her achievement, paid the slightest + attention to her. Arnaud smiled indulgently, Lowrie scoffed. When the + statue had been thrown down they thought of it merely as a deplorable part + of the day's news. They hadn't seen that she, Linda Condon, was + unspeakably insulted. + </p> + <p> + She doubted if she could bring them to comprehend what had happened—to + her. Or if Arnaud understood, if she made it plain, what good would be + done! That wouldn't save her, put her back again on the pedestal. The + latter was necessary. Linda recognized that a great deal of her feeling + was based on pride; but it was a pride entirely justified. She had no + intention of submitting to the coarse hands and ropes of public affront. + Throughout her life she had rebelled against any profanation of her + person, she had hated to be touched. + </p> + <p> + Every instinct, she found, every delicate self-opinion, was bound into + Pleydon's success; the latter had kept her alive. Without it existence + would have been intolerable. It was unbearable now. + </p> + <p> + She discharged the small daily duties of her efficient housekeeping with a + contemptuous exactness; for years she had accomplished, in herself, + nothing more. But at last a break had come. Linda recognized this without + any knowledge of what reparation it would find. She wasn't concerned with + that, a small detail. It would be apparent. Arnaud was silent through + dinner; tired, it seemed. She saw him as if at the distant end of a dull + corridor—as she looked back. There was no change in her liking for + him. Mechanically she noticed the disorder of his scant hair and rumpled + sleeves. + </p> + <p> + Not until, waking sharply, in the middle of the night, did she have a + glimpse of a possible course—she might live with Dodge and perfectly + express both her retaliation and her accomplishment. In that way she would + reestablish herself beside him and place their vision in bronze on an + elevation beyond the spite of the envious and the blind. + </p> + <p> + It was so directly simple that she was surprised it hadn't occurred to her + before. The possibility had always been a part, unsuspected and valuable, + of her special being; the largely condemned faults of her character and + experience had at least brought her this—a not inconsiderable + freedom in a world everywhere barred by the necessity for upholding a + hypocritical show of superiority to honest desire. The detachment that + deprived her of life's conventional joys released her from its common + obligations. That conviction, however, was too intimately connected with + all her inheritance to bring her any conscious dramatic sense of rebellion + or high feeling of justified indignation. + </p> + <p> + Sleep had deserted her, and she waited for the dawn in the windows that + would bring her escape. It was very slow coming; the blackness took on a + grayer tone, like ink with added faint infusions of water. Slowly the + blackness dissolved and she heard the stir of the sparrows in the ivy. + There was the passing rumble of an early electric car on the paved aged + street, the blurred hurried shuffle of a workman's clumsy shoes. The + brightening morning was cool with a premonitory touch of frost; at the + window she saw a vanishing silver sheen on the lawn and board fence. + </p> + <p> + A sensation of youth pervaded her; and while, perhaps, it was out of + keeping with her years, she had still her vitality unspent; she was + without a trace of the momentary frost on the grass. She was tranquil, + leisurely; her heart evenly sent its life through her unflushed body. + Piece by piece she put on her web-like garments, black and white; brushing + the heavy stream of her hair and tying the inevitable sash about her + supple waist. + </p> + <p> + Below she met Arnaud with an unpleasant shock—she hadn't given him a + thought. Her feeling now was hardly more than annoyance at her + forgetfulness. He would be terribly distressed at her going, and she was + genuinely sorry for this, poised at the edge of an explanation of her + purpose. Arnaud was putting butter and salt into his egg-cup, after that + he would grind the pepper from a French mill—pure spices were a + precision of his—and she waited until the operation was completed. + </p> + <p> + Then it occurred to her that all she could hope to accomplish by admitting + her intention was the ruin of his last hour alone with her. He was + happier, gayer, than usual. But his age was evident in his voice, his + gestures. Linda marveled at her coldness, her ruthless disregard of + Arnaud's claim on her, of his affection as deep as Pleydon's, perhaps no + less fine but not so imperative. Yet Arnaud had had over twenty years of + her life, the best; and she had never deceived him about the quality of + her gift. It was right, now, for Dodge to have the remainder. But whether + it were right or wrong, there was no failure of her determination to go to + Pleydon in the vindication of her existence. + </p> + <p> + She delayed speaking to Arnaud until, suddenly, breakfast was over. He + seldom went to the law office where he had been a partner, but stayed + about the lower floor of his house, in the library or directing small + outside undertakings. Either that or he left, late, for the Historical + Society, with which his connection and interest were uninterrupted. As + Linda passed him in the hall he was fumbling in the green bag that + accompanied all his journeyings into the city; and she gathered that he + intended to make one of his occasional sallies. She proceeded above, to + her room, where with steady hands she pinned on her hat. It would be + impossible to take any additional clothes, and she'd have to content + herself with something ready-made until she could order others in the + establishment of her living with Dodge. Her close-fitting jacket, gloves, + and a short cape of sables were collected; she gazed finally, + thoughtfully, about the room, and then, with a subdued whisper of skirts, + descended the stair. Arnaud was in the library, bending over the table + that bore his accumulation of papers and serious journals. A lingering + impulse to speak was overborne by the memory of what, lately, she had + endured—she saw him at the dusty end of that long corridor through + which she had monotonously journeyed, denied of her one triumph, lost in + inconsequential shadows—and she continued firmly to the door which + closed behind her with a normal mute smoothness, an inanimate silence. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVIII + </h2> + <p> + The maid who admitted Linda to Pleydon's apartment, first replying, “Yes, + Mrs. Hallet. No, Mrs. Hallet,” to her questions, continued in fuller + sentences expressing a triumph of sympathy over mere correctness. She + lingered at the door of the informal drawing-room, imparting the + information that Mr. Pleydon had become very irregular indeed about his + meals, and that his return for lunch was uncertain. Something, however, + would be prepared for her. Linda acknowledged this briefly. Often, with + Mr. Pleydon at home, he wouldn't so much as look at his dinner. Times, + too, it seemed as though he had been in the studio all night. He went out + but seldom now, and rarely remained away for more than an hour or two. + Linda heard this without an indication of responsive interest, and the + servant, returning abruptly from the excursion into humanity, disappeared. + </p> + <p> + She was glad to have this opportunity alone to accustom herself to a novel + position. But she was once more annoyingly calm. Annoyingly, she + reiterated; the fervor of her anger, which at the same time had been + bitterly cold, had lessened. She was practically normal. She regarded + this, the loss of her unprecedented emotion, in the light of a fraud on + her sanguine decision. Linda had counted on its support, its generous + irresistible tide, to carry her through the remainder of her life with the + exhilaration she had so largely missed. + </p> + <p> + Here in Dodge's room she was as placid, almost, as though she were in the + library at home. That customary term took its place in her thoughts before + she recognized that, with her, it had shifted. However, it was unimportant—home + had never been a magical word to her; it belonged in the vast category + which, of such universal weight, left her unstirred. She resembled those + Eastern people restlessly and perpetually moving across sandy deserts as + they exhausted, one after another, widely separated scanty oases. + </p> + <p> + She studied the objects around her with the pleased recognition that they + were unique, valuable, and in faultless taste. Then she fell to wondering + at the difference had Dodge been poor: she would have come to him, Linda + knew, just the same. But, she admitted frankly, it would have been + uncomfortable. Perhaps that—actual poverty, actual deprivation—was + what her character needed. A popular sentiment upheld such a view; she + decided it was without foundation. There was no reason why beauty, finely + appropriate surroundings, should damage the spirit. + </p> + <p> + Her mind turned to an examination of her desertion of Arnaud, but she + could find no trace of conventional regret; of what, she felt, her + sensation ought to be. The instinctive revolt from oblivion was an + infinitely stronger reality than any allegiance to abstract duty. She was + consumed by the passionate need to preserve the integrity of being + herself. The word selfish occurred to her but to be met unabashed by the + query, why not? Selfishness was a reproach applied by those who failed to + get what they wanted to all who succeeded. Linda wasn't afraid of public + opinion, censure; she didn't shrink even from the injury to her husband. + What Dodge would think, however, was hidden from her. + </p> + <p> + She had no doubt of his complete acceptance of all she offered; ordinary + obligations to society bound him as little as they held her. It would be + enough that she wanted to come to him. + </p> + <p> + She would bother him, change his habit of living, very little. Long years + of loneliness had taught her to be self-sufficient. Linda would be too + wise to insist on distasteful regularity in the interest of a + comparatively unimportant well-being. In short, she wouldn't bother him. + That must be made clear at once. + </p> + <p> + More than anything else he would be inexpressibly delighted to have her + with him, to find—at last—his love. Little intimacies of satin + mules, glimpses, charming to an artist! He'd be faultless, too, in the + relationships where Arnaud as well had never for a moment deviated from + beautiful consideration. Two remarkable men. While her deficiency in humor + was admitted, she saw a glimmer of the absurd in her attitude and present + situation. The combination, at least, was uncommon. There had been no + change in her feeling for either Arnaud or Dodge, their places in her + being were undisturbed; she liked her husband no less, Dodge no better. + </p> + <p> + Lunch was announced, a small ceremony of covered silver dishes, heavy + crystal, Nankin china, and flowers. The linen, which was old, bore a + monogram unfamiliar to her—that of Dodge's mother, probably. When + she had finished, but was still lingering at the narrow refectory table, + she heard Pleydon enter the hall and the explanatory voice of the servant. + An unexpected embarrassment pervaded her, but she overcame it by the + realization that there was no need for an immediate announcement of her + purpose. Dodge would naturally suppose that she was in New York shopping. + </p> + <p> + He did, to her intense relief, with a moving pleasure that she had lunched + with him. “It's seldom,” he went on, “that you are so sensible. I hope you + haven't any plans or concerts to drag you away immediately. I owe you a + million strawberries; but, aside from that, I'd like you to stay as long + as possible.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” she replied quietly; “I will.” + </p> + <p> + She hadn't seen him since the statue at Hesperia had been destroyed, and + she tried faintly to tell him how much that outrage had hurt her. It had + injured him too, she realized; just as Arnaud predicted. He showed his age + more gauntly, more absolutely, than the other. His skin was dry as though + the vitality of his countenance had been burned out by the flame visible + in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “The drunken fools!” he exclaimed of the mob that had torn Simon Downige + from his eminence; “they came by way of all the saloons in the city. Free + drinks! That is the disturbing thing about what the optimistic call + civilization—the fact that it is always at the mercy of the ignorant + and the brutal. There is no security; none, that is, except in the + individual spirit. And they, mostly, are the victims of a singular insane + resentment—Savonarola and there were greater. + </p> + <p> + “But you mustn't think, you mustn't suppose, that I mean it's hopeless. + How could I? Who has had more from living? Love and complete + self-expression. That exhausts every possibility. Three words. Remember + Cottarsport. But the love—ah,” he smiled, but not directly at her. + Linda was at once reassured and disturbed; and she rose, proceeding into + the drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + There she sat gracefully composed and with still hands; she never + embroidered or employed her leisure with trivial useful tasks. Pleydon was + extended on a chair, his fingers caught beyond his head and his long legs + thrust out and crossed at the ankles. His gaze was fixed on her + unwaveringly; and yet, when she tried to meet its focus, it went behind + her as though it pierced the solidity of her body and the walls in the + contemplation of a far-removed shining image. Her disturbance grew to the + inclusion of a degree of fretfulness at his unbroken silence, his apparent + absorption in whatever his meditation projected or found. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIX + </h2> + <p> + Now, she decided, was the moment for her revelation; or rather, it + couldn't very well be further deferred, for it promised to be halting. + But, with her lips forming the words, he abruptly spoke: + </p> + <p> + “I have lived so long with your spirit, it has become so familiar—I + mean the ability of completely making you out of my heart—that when + you are here the difference isn't staggering. You see, you are never away. + I have that ability; it came out of the other wreck. But you know about it—from + years back. Time has only managed a greater power. Lately, and I have + nothing to do with it, I have been seeing you again as a girl; as young as + at Markue's party; younger. Not more than ten. I don't mean that there is + anything—isn't the present fashionable word subliminal?—esoteric. + God forbid. You'll remember my hatred of that brutal deception. + </p> + <p> + “No, it's only a part of my ability to create the shape of feeling, of + Simon's hope. I see things as realities capable of exact statement; and, + naturally, more than all the rest, you come to me that way. But as a child—who + knows why?” he relinquished the answer with an opened palm. “And young + like that, perhaps ten, I love you more sharply, more unutterably, than at + any other age. What is it I love? Not your adorable plastic body, not + that. It isn't necessary to understand. + </p> + <p> + “You have, as a child, a quality of blinding loveliness in a world I + absolutely distrust. An Elysian flower. Is it possible, do you suppose, to + worship an abstract idea? It's not important to insist on my sanity.” + </p> + <p> + The question of that had occurred independently to Linda; his hurried + voice and lost gaze filled her with apprehension. A dull reddish patch, + she saw, burned in either thin cheek; and she told herself that the fever + had revived in him. Pleydon continued: + </p> + <p> + “Yet it is a timeless vision, because you never get old. I see Hallet + failing year by year, and your children, only yesterday dabs of soft + flesh, grow up and pass through college and marry. I hear myself in the + studio with an old man's cough; the chisels slip under the mall and I + can't move the clay about without help—all fading, decaying, but + you. Candles burn out, hundreds of them, while your whiteness, your flame— + </p> + <p> + “Strange, too, how you light a world, a sky, eternity. A word we have no + business with; a high-sounding word for a penny purpose. Look, we try to + keep alive because it's necessary to life, to nature; and the effort, the + struggle, breeds the dream. You can understand that. Men who ought to know + say that love is nothing more.” He rose and stood over her, towering and + portentous against the curtained light. “I don't pretend to guess. I'm a + creative artist—Simon Downige at Cottarsport—I have you. If + it's God so much the better.” + </p> + <p> + What principally swept over Linda was the knowledge that his possession of + her must keep them always apart. The reality, all realities, were veils to + Pleydon. Her momentary vision of things beyond brick and earth was + magnified in him until everything else was obliterated. The fever! Oh, + yes, that and his passion for work merged in his passion for her. She + could bring him nothing; and she had a curious picture of two Lindas + visible to him here—the Linda that was actual and the other, the + child. And of them it was the latter he cared most for, recreated out of + his desire to defraud his loneliness, to repay the damage to his spirit + realized in bronze. + </p> + <p> + She was, suddenly, too weary to stir or lift her hand; a depression as + absolute as her flare of rage enveloped her. Now the reason for her coming + seemed inexplicable, as if, for the while, her mind had failed. She + repressed a shudder at the thought of being, through the long nights of + his restlessness and wandering voice, alone with Pleydon. She hadn't, + Linda discovered, any of the transmuting feeling for him which alone made + surrender possible. She calculated mentally how long it would take her to + reach the station, what train would be available. + </p> + <p> + Linda accepted dumbly the fatality to her own hope; for a few hours she + had thought it possible to break out of the prison of circumstance, to + walk free from all hindrance; but it had been vain. She gazed at Dodge + Pleydon intensely—a comprehensive view of the man she had so nearly + married, and who, more than any other force, dominated her being. It was + already too late for anything but memory; she saw—filled with pity + for them both—hardly more than a strange old man with deadened hair + and a yellow parchment-like skin. His suit of loose gray flannel gave her + a feeling that it had been borrowed from some one she lovingly knew. The + gesture of his hand, too, had been copied from a brilliant personage with + a consuming impatience at all impotence. + </p> + <p> + “Remember me to Arnaud,” he said, holding her gloves and the short fur + cape. “Wait!” he cried sharply, turning to the bookcase against the wall. + Pleydon fumbled in a box of lacquered gilt with a silk cord and produced a + glove once white but now brown and fragile with age. “You never missed + it,” he proceeded in a gleeful triumph; “but then you had so many pairs. + Once I sent you nine dozen together from Grenoble. They were nothing, but + this you had worn. For a long while it kept the shape of your hand.” + </p> + <p> + “Dodge,” she tried without success to steady her voice, “it stayed with + you anyhow, my—my hand.” + </p> + <p> + “But yes,” he answered impatiently. He returned the glove to its box, + carefully tying the tasselled cord. Then, after clumsily helping her with + the cape, he accompanied her to the elevator. “There were other things,” + he told her. “Did you see the letters about the Hesperia affair? Heaps of + them. Rodin.... But what can you expect in a world where there is no + safety—” The stopping cage cut off his remark. She held out the hand + that was less real to him than the dream. + </p> + <p> + “Good-by, Dodge.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Linda. But watch that door, your skirt might easily be caught in + it.” He fussed over her safety until, abruptly, he seemed to rise in + space, shut out from her by the limitations of her faith. + </p> + <p> + The evening overshadowed her in the train, as though she were whirling in + the swiftest passage possible, through an indeterminate grayness, from day + to night. The latter descended on her as she reached the steps of her + home. It was still that; now it would continue to be until death. Nothing + could ever again offer her change, release, vindication; nothing, that + was, which might give her, for a day, what even her mother had plentifully + experienced—the igniting exultation of the body. + </p> + <p> + It was inevitable, she thought, for Arnaud to be in the library. He rose + unsteadily as she stood in the doorway. “Linda,” he articulated with + difficulty. A book had rested open on the table beside him and, closing + it, he put it back in its place. His arm trembled so that it took a + painfully long while. Then he moved forward, still confused. + </p> + <p> + “What a confounded time you were gone. I had the most idiotic fancy. You + see, it was so unlike you; none more exact in habit. All day. I didn't get + to the Historical Society, it seemed so devilish far off. I'd never blame + you for leaving an old man without any gumption.” He must never think that + again, she replied. Wasn't she, too, middle-aged? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XL + </h2> + <p> + Linda admitted, definitely, the loss of her youth; and yet a stubborn + inner conviction remained that she was unchanged. In this she had for + support her appearance; practically she was as freshly and gracefully pale + as the girl who had married Arnaud Hallet. Even Vigné, with indelible + traces of her motherhood, had faint lines absent from Linda's flawless + countenance. Her children, and Arnaud, were immensely proud of her beauty; + it had become a part—in the form of her ridiculously young air—of + the family conversational resources. She was increasingly aware of its + supreme significance to her. + </p> + <p> + One of her few certainties had been the discovery that, while small truths + might be had from others, all that intimately and deeply concerned her was + beyond questioning and advice. The importance of her attractiveness, for + example, which seemed the base of her entire being, was completely out of + accord with the accepted standard of values for middle-aged women. Other + things, called moral and spiritual, she inferred, should take up her days + and thoughts. There was a course of discipline—exactly like + exercises in the morning—for the preparation of the willingness to + die. + </p> + <p> + But such an attitude was eternally beyond her; she repudiated it with a + revolt stringing every nerve indignantly tense. She had had, on the whole, + singularly little from life but her fine body; it had always been the + temple and altar of her service, and no mere wordy reassurance could now + repay her for its swift or gradual destruction. The latter, except for + accident, would be her fate; she was remarkably sound. In her social + adventures, the balls to which, without Arnaud, she occasionally went, she + was morbid in her sensitive dread of discovering, through a waning + admiration, that she was faded. + </p> + <p> + It would be impossible to spend more care on her person than she had in + the past; but that was unrelenting. Linda was inexorable in her demands on + the establishments that made her suits and dresses. The slightest + imperfection of fit exasperated her; and she regarded the endless change + of fashions with contempt. This same shifting, she observed, occurred not + only in women's clothes but in the women themselves. + </p> + <p> + Linda remembered her mother, eternal in gaiety, but very obviously + different from her in states of mind affecting her appearance. She was + unable to define the change; but it was unmistakable—Stella Condon + seemed a little old-fashioned. When now, to Lowrie's wife, Linda was + unmistakably out-of-date. Lowrie, fast accomplishing all that had been + predicted for him, had married a girl incomprehensible to his mother. + Observing this later feminine development she had the baffled feeling of + inspecting a creature of a new order. + </p> + <p> + To Linda, Jean Tynedale, now a Hallet, seemed harder than ever her own + famous coldness had succeeded in being. This came mostly from Jean's + imposing education; there had been, in addition to the politest of + finishing schools, college—a woman's concern, Bryn Mawr—and + then post-graduate honors in a noteworthy university. She was entirely + addressed, in a concrete way, to the abstract problems of social progress + and hygiene; and, under thirty, the animating spirit, as well as financial + support, of an incredible number of Settlements and allied undertakings. + She spoke crisply before civic and other clubs; even, in the interest of + suffrage, addressing nondescript audiences from a box on the street. + </p> + <p> + But it was her unperturbed dissection of the motives of sex, the + denouncement of a criminal mysterious ignorance, that most daunted Linda. + She listened to Jean with a series of distinct shocks to her sense of + propriety. What she had agreed to consider a nameless attribute of women, + or, if anything more exact, the power of their charm over men, the other + defined in unequivocal scientific terms. She understood every impulse + veiled for Linda in a reticence absolutely needful to its appeal. + </p> + <p> + This, of course, the elder distrusted; just as she had no approval for + Jean's public activities. Linda didn't like public women; her every + instinct cried for a fine seclusion, fine in the meaning of an appropriate + setting for feminine distinction, the magic of dress and cut roses. Her + private inelegant word for Lowrie's wife was “bold;” indeed, describing to + herself the younger woman's patronage of her bearing, she descended to her + mother's colloquialism “brass.” + </p> + <p> + She thought this sitting at a dinner-table which held Vigné and her + husband and Lowrie and Jean Hallet. Arnaud, drawing life from the vitality + of an atmosphere charged with youth, was unflagging in splendid spirits + and his valorous wit. Jean would never inspire the affection Arnaud had + given her; nor the passion that, in Pleydon, had burned unfed even by + hope. + </p> + <p> + Her thoughts slipped away from the present to the sculptor. Three years + had vanished since she had gone with an intention of finality to his + apartment, and in that time he had neither been in their house nor + written. Linda had expected this; she was without the desire to see or + hear from him. Dodge Pleydon was finished for her; as a man, a + potentiality, he had departed from her life. He was a piece with her + memories, the triumphs of her young days. Without an actual knowledge of + the moment of its accomplishment she had passed over the border of that + land, leaving it complete and fair and radiant for her lingering view. + Whether or not she had been happy was now of no importance; the magic of + its light showed only a garden and a girl in white with a black bang + against her blue eyes. + </p> + <p> + The bang, the blueness of gaze, were still hers; but, only this morning, + brush in hand, the former had offered less resistance in its arrangement; + it was thinner, and the color perceptibly not so dense. At this, with a + chill edge of fear, she had determined to go at once to her hairdresser; + no one, neither Arnaud, who loved its luster, nor an unsympathetic bold + scrutiny, a scrutiny of brass, should see that she was getting gray. There + was no fault about her figure; she had that for her satisfaction; she was + more graceful than Jean's square thinness, more slim than Vigné's maternal + presence. + </p> + <p> + Linda had the feeling that she was engaged in a struggle with time, a + ruthless antagonist whom she viewed with a personal enmity. Time must, + would, of course, triumph in the end; but there would be no sign of her + surrender in the meanwhile; she wouldn't bend an inch, relinquish by a + fraction the pride and delicacy of her person. The skilful dyeing of her + hair to its old absolute blackness, as natural and becoming in appearance + as ever, was a symbol of her determination to cheat an intolerable + tyranny. + </p> + <p> + The process, dismaying her soul, she bore with a rigid fortitude; as she + endured the coldness of a morning bath from which, often, she was slow to + react. This, to her, was widely different from the futile efforts of her + mother, those women of the past, to preserve for practical ends their + flushes of youth and exhilaration. She felt obscurely that she was serving + a deeper reality created by the hands of Pleydon, Arnaud's faith and pure + pleasure, all that countless men had seen in her for admiration, solace + and power. + </p> + <p> + But it was inevitable, she told herself bitterly, that she should hear the + first intimation of her decline from Jean Hallet. Rather, she overheard + it, the discussion of her, from the loiterers at breakfast as she moved + about the communicating library. Jean's emphatic slightly rough-textured + voice arrested her in the arrangement of a bowl of zinnias: + </p> + <p> + “You can't say just where she has failed, but it's evident. Perhaps a + general dryness. Perfectly natural. Thoroughly silly to fight against it—” + Vigné interrupted her. “I think mother's wonderful. I can't remember any + other woman nearly her age who looks so enchanting in the evening.” + </p> + <p> + Linda quietly left the flowers as they were and went up to the room that + had been her father's. It was now used as a spare bedroom; and she had + turned into it, in place of her own chamber, instinctively, without + reason. She had kept it exactly as it had been when Amelia Lowrie first + conducted her there, as it was when her father, a boy, slept under the + white canopy. + </p> + <p> + Linda advanced to the mirror; and, her hands so tightly clenched that the + finger-nails dug into the palms, forced herself to gaze steadily at the + wavering reflection. It seemed to her that there had been a malicious + magic in Jean's detraction; for immediately, as though the harm had been + wrought by the girl's voice, she saw that her clear freshness had gone. + Her face had a wax-like quality, the violet shadows under her eyes were + brown. Who had once called her a gardenia? Now she was wilting—how + many gardenias had she seen droop, turn brown. Her heart beat with a + disturbing echo in her ears, and, with a slight gasp that resembled a sob, + she sank on one of the uncomfortable painted chairs. + </p> + <p> + What, above every other sensation, oppressed her was a feeling of terrific + loneliness—the familiar isolation magnified until it was past + bearing. Yet, there was Arnaud, infallible in his tender comprehension, + she ought to go to him at once and find support. But it was impossible; + all that he could give her was, to her special necessity, useless. She had + never been able to establish herself in his sympathy; the reason for that + lay in the fact that she could bring nothing similar in return. + </p> + <p> + The room—except for the timed clangor of the electric cars, like the + measure of lost minutes—was quiet. The photograph of Bartram Hallet + in cricketing clothes had faded until it was almost indistinguishable. + Soon the faint figure would disappear entirely, as though the picture were + amenable to the relentless principle operating in her. + </p> + <p> + The peace about her finally lessened her acute suffering, stilled her + heart. She told herself with a show of vigor that she was a coward, a + charge that roused an unexpected activity of denial. She discovered that + cowardice was intolerable to her. What had happened, too, was so far out + of her hands that a trace of philosophical acceptance, recognition, came + to her support. The loveliest woman alive must do the same, meet in a + looking-glass—that eternal accompanying sibyl—her disaster. + She rose, her lips firmly set, composed and pale, and returned to the + neglected flowers in the library. + </p> + <p> + Vigné entered and put an affectionate arm about her shoulders, repeating—unconscious + that Linda had heard the discussion which had given it being—the + conviction that her mother was wonderful, specially in the black dinner + dress with the girdle of jet. With no facility of expression she gave her + daughter's arm a quick light pressure. + </p> + <p> + From then she watched the slow progress of age with a new realization, but + an unabated distaste and, wherever it was possible, a determined artifice. + Arnaud had failed swiftly in the past months; and, while she was + inspecting the impaired supports of an arbor in the garden, he came to her + with an unopened telegram. “I abhor these things,” he declared fretfully; + “they are so sudden. Why don't people write decent letters any more! It's + like the telephone.... Good manners have been ruined.” + </p> + <p> + She tore open the envelope, read the brief line within, and, a hand + suddenly put out to the arbor, sank on its bench. There had been rain, but + a late sun was again pouring over the sparkling grass, and robins were + singing with a lyrical clearness. “What is it?” Arnaud demanded anxiously, + tremulous in the unsparing sunlight. She replied: + </p> + <p> + “Dodge died this morning.” + </p> + <p> + His concern was as much for her as for Pleydon's death. “I'm sorry, + Linda,” his hand was on her shoulder. “It is a shock to you. A fine man, a + genius—none stronger in our day. When you were young and for so long + after.... I was lucky, Linda, to get you; have you all this while. Nothing + in Pleydon's life, not even his success, could have made up for your + loss.” + </p> + <p> + She wondered dully if Dodge had missed her, if Arnaud Hallet had ever had + her in his possession. The robins filled the immaculate air with song. It + was impossible that Dodge, who was so imperious in his certainty that he + would never say good-by to her, was dead. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XLI + </h2> + <p> + There was a revival of public interest in the destruction of Pleydon's + statue at Hesperia, the papers again printed accounts colored by a variety + of attitudes unembarrassed by fact; and the serious journals united in a + dignity of eminently safe praise. At first Linda made an effort to + preserve these; but soon their similarity, her inability to find, among + sonorous periods, any trace of Dodge's spirit—in reality she knew so + blindingly much more than the most penetrating critical intellect—caused + her to leave the reviews unread. No one else living had understood + Pleydon; and when descriptions of his life spoke of the austerity in his + later years, his fanatical aversion to women, Linda thought of the brittle + glove in the gilt-lacquer box. + </p> + <p> + Her own emotion, it seemed to her, was the most confused of all the + unintelligible pressures that had converted her life into an enigma. She + had a distinct sense of overwhelming loss—of something, Linda was + obliged to add, she had never owned. However, she realized that during + Pleydon's life she had dimly expected a happy accident of explanation; + until almost the last, yes—after she had returned from that ultimate + journey, she had been conscious of the presence of hope. The hope had been + for herself, created out of her constant baffled dissatisfaction. + </p> + <p> + But now the man in whom solely she had been expressed, the only possible + reason for her obstinate pride, had left her in a world that, but for + Arnaud's fondness, looked on her without remark. The loss of her + distinction had been finally evident at balls, in the dresses in which + Vigné had thought her so wonderful, and she dropped them. Here, she + repeated, was when affection, generously radiated through life, should + have reflected over her a tranquil and contented joy. She had never given + it, and she was without the ability to receive. She admitted to herself, + with a little annoyed laugh, that her old desire for inviolable charm, for + the integrity of a memorable slimness, was unimpaired. It was, she + thought, too ridiculously inappropriate for words. + </p> + <p> + Yet it had changed slightly into the recognition that what so often had + been called her beauty was all she now had for sustenance, all she had + ever had. Her mind returned continually to Pleydon, and—deep in the + mystery of his passion—she was suddenly invaded by an insistent + desire to see the monument at Cottarsport. She spoke to Arnaud at once + about this; and alone, through his delicacy of perception, Linda went to + Boston the following day. + </p> + <p> + The further ride to Cottarsport followed the sea—a brilliant serene + blue, fretted on the landward side by innumerable bare promontories, + hideous towns and factories, but bowed in a far unbroken arc at the + immaculate horizon. She left the train for a hilly cluster of houses, gray + and low like the rock everywhere apparent, dropping to a harbor that bore + a company of motionless boats with half-spread drying sails. + </p> + <p> + The day was at noon, and the sky, blue like the sea, held, still as the + anchored schooners, faint, chalky symmetrical clouds. Linda found the + Common without guidance; and at once saw, on its immovable base of rugged + granite, the bronze statue of Simon Downige. It stood well in advance of + what, evidently, was the court-house, the white steeple Dodge had + described. She found a bench by a path in the thin grass; and there, her + gloved hands folded, at rest in her lap, her gaze and longing were lifted + to the fixed aspiration. + </p> + <p> + From where she sat the seated figure was projected against the sky; + Simon's face was turned toward the west; the West that, for him, was the + future, but which for Linda represented all the past. This conviction + flooded her with unutterable sadness. A sense of failure weighed on her, + no less heavy for the fact that it was perpetually vague. Her thoughts + gathered about Dodge himself; and she recalled the curious vividness of + his vision of her as a child, perhaps ten. She, too, tried to remember + that time and age. It was almost in her grasp, but her realization was + spoiled by absurd mental fragments—the familiar illusion of a + leopard and a rider with bright hair, a forest with the ascending voices + of angels, and an ominous squat figure with a slowly nodding plumed head. + </p> + <p> + The vista of a hotel returned, a fleet recollection of marble columns and + a wide red carpet ... the white gleam and carbolized smell of a drug-store + ... a thick magazine in a brown cover. These, changed into emotions of + mingled joy and pain, shifted in bright or dim colors and sensations. + There was a slow heavy plodding of feet, now above her head, the passage + of a carried weight; and, in a flash of perception, she knew it was a + coffin. She raised her clasped hands to her breast, crying into the sunny + silence, to the figure of Simon Downige lost in dream: + </p> + <p> + “He died that night, at the Boscombe, after he had told me about the + meadows with silk tents—” + </p> + <p> + Her memory, thrilling with the echoed miraculous chord of the child of + ten, sitting gravely, alone, among the shrill satins and caustic voices of + a feminine throng, was complete. She saw herself, Linda Condon, as + objectively as Pleydon's described vision: there was a large bow on her + straight black hair, and, from under the bang, her gaze was clear and + wondering. How marvelously young she was! The vindictive curiosity of the + questioning women, intent on their rings, brought out her eager defense of + her mother, the effort to explain away the ugly fact that—that Mr. + Jasper was married. + </p> + <p> + She saw Linda descending the marble stairs to the lower floor where the + games were kept in a somber corridor, and heard a voice halting her + irresolute passage: + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Bellina.” + </p> + <p> + That wasn't her name, and she corrected him, waiting afterward to listen + to a strange fairy-like tale. The solitary, sick-looking man, with inky + shadows under fixed eyes, was so actual that she recaptured the pungent + drift of his burning cigarette. He talked about love in a bitter intensity + that hurt her. Yet, at first, he had said that she was lovely, a touch of + her ... forever in the memory. Mostly, however, he spoke of a beautiful + passion. It had largely vanished, his explanation continued; men had come + to worship other things. Plato started it. + </p> + <p> + She recalled Plato, as well, in connection with Dodge; now, it appeared to + her, that remote name had always been at the back of her consciousness. + There were other names, other men, of an age long ago in Italy. Their + ideal, religion, was contained in the adoration of a woman, but not her + body—it was a love of her spirit, the spirit their purity of need + recognized, perhaps helped to create. It was a passion as different as + possible in essence from all she had observed about her. It was useless + for common purposes, withheld from Arnaud Hallet. + </p> + <p> + The man, seriously addressing the serious uncomprehending interest of ten, + proceeded with a description of violins—but she had heard them + through all her life—and a parting that left only a white glove for + remembrance. Then he had repeated that line, in Italian, which, not long + back, her husband had recalled. The old gesture toward the stars, the need + to escape fatality—how she had suffered from that! + </p> + <p> + Yet it was a service of the body, a faith spiritual because, here, it was + never to be won, never to be realized in warm embrace. It had no + recognition in flesh, and it was the reward of no prayer or humility or + righteousness. Only beauty knew and possessed it. His image grew dim like + the blurring of his voice by pain and the shadow of death. Linda's + thoughts and longing turned again to Dodge; it seemed to her that he no + more than took up the recital where the other was silent. + </p> + <p> + Pleydon—was it at Markue's party or later?—talking about + “Homer's children” had meant the creations of great artists, in sound or + color or words or form, through that supreme love unrealized in other + life. The statue of Simon Downige, towering before her against the sky and + above the sea, held in immutable bronze his conviction. The meager bundle + and crude stick rested by shoes clogged with mud; Simon's body was crushed + with weariness; but under the sweat-plastered brow his gaze pierced + indomitable and undismayed to the vision of a place of truth. + </p> + <p> + She was choked by a sharp rush of joy at Dodge's accomplishment, an entire + understanding of the beauty he had vainly explained, the deathless + communication of old splendid courage, an unshaken divine need, to + succeeding men and hope. This had been hers. She had always felt her + presence in his success; but, until now, it had belonged exclusively to + him. Dodge had, in his love, absorbed her, and that resulted in the + statues the world applauded. She, Linda thought, had been an element + easily dismissed. It had hurt her pride almost beyond endurance, the pride + that took the form of an inner necessity for the survival of her grace—all + she had. + </p> + <p> + She had even asked him, in a passing resentment, why he had never directly + modeled her, kept, with his recording genius, the shape of her features. + She had gone to him in a blinder vanity for the purpose of stamping her + participation in his triumph on the stupid insensibility of their world. + How incredible! But at last she could see that he had preserved her + spirit, her secret self, from destruction. He had cheated death of her + fineness. The delicate perfection of her youth would never perish, never + be dulled by old age or corrupted in death. It had inspired and entered + into Pleydon's being, and he had lifted it on the pedestal rising between + the sea and sky. + </p> + <p> + She was in the Luxembourg, in that statue of Cotton Mather, the somber + flame, about which he had written with a comment on the changing subjects + of his creations. From the moment when he sat beside her on the divan in + that room stifling with incense, with the naked glimmer of women's + shoulders, she had been the source of his power. She had been his power. + Linda smiled quietly, in retrospect, at her years of uncertainty, the + feeling of waste, that had robbed her of peace. How complete her + mystification had been! And, all the while, she had had the thrill of + delight, of premonition, born in her through the forgotten hour with the + man who had died. + </p> + <p> + The sun, moving in celestial space, shifted the shadow about the base of + Simon Downige's monument. The afternoon was advancing. She rose and + turned, looking out over the sea to the horizon as brightly sharp as a + curved sword. The life of Cottarsport, below her, proceeded in detached + figures, an occasional unhurried passage. The boats in the harbor were + slumberous. It was time to go. She gazed again, for a last view, at the + bronze seated figure; and a word of Pleydon's, but rather it was Greek, + wove its significance in the placid texture of her thoughts. Its exact + shape evaded her, a difficult word to recall—<i>Katharsis</i>, the + purging of the heart. About her was the beating of the white wings of a + Victory sweeping her—a faded slender woman in immaculate gloves and + a small matchless hat—into a region without despair. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE END + </h2> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Linda Condon, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LINDA CONDON *** + +***** This file should be named 7171-h.htm or 7171-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/7/7171/ + + +Text file produced by Anne Folland, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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