Lois, would you mind very much if we didnt move into the new house,
after all?
Not move into the new house! What do you mean? I thought it would be
finished next week.
It means that I shall not be able to increase my living expenses this
year, said Justin.
Husband and wife were sitting on the piazza, in the shade of the purple
wistaria-vines, on a warm Sunday afternoon, a month after Dosias
return. At the side of the steps a bed of lilies-of-the-valley made the
place fragrant; the air was full of a sort of glitter that touched the
leaves whenever they swayed into the sunshine or the shadow, and made
the grass brilliant in its new greenness. From within, the voices of the
children sounded peacefully over their early supper.
The afternoon, so far, had savored only of domestic monotony, with no
foreshadowing of events to come. Dosia was out walking with George
Sutton, and the people who might drop in, as they often did on
Sundays, had other engagements to-day. Lois, gowned in lavender muslin,
had been sitting on the piazza for an hour, trying to read while waiting
for Justin to join her. She had counted each minute, but now that he was
here she put down her book with a show of reluctance as she said:
Why didnt you tell me before? I gave the order for the window-shades
yesterday when I was in townthat was what I wanted to talk to you
about this afternoon. You have to leave your order at least two weeks
beforehand at this season of the year.
You can countermand it, cant you?
I suppose Ill have toif were not to move into the house, said Lois
in a high-keyed voice, with those tiresome tears coming, as usual, to
her eyes. She felt inexpressibly hurt, disappointed, fooled. I thought
you said you were having so many orders lately. Does the money _all_
have to go back into the business, she quoted sardonically, as
usual? I think there might be some left for your own family sometimes.
Im tired of always going without for the business. It was a complaint
she had made many times before, but in each fresh pang of her resentment
she felt as if she were saying it for the first time.
We have orders, Im glad to say, but weve had one big setback lately,
he answered.
He knew, with a twinge, that she had some reason on her sidethe very
effort for success was meat and drink to him, he cared not what else he
went without, so the business grew; but she _might_ have had a little
more out of it as they went along, instead of waiting for the grand
climax of undoubted prosperity. A little means so much to a wife
sometimes, because it means the recognition of her right.
Ive been in a lot of trouble lately, Lois, though I havent talked
about it, he continued, with an unusual appeal in his voice. The
blasting fact of those returned machines had been all he could cope
with; he had been tongue-tied when it came to speaking about itthe
whirl and counter-whirl in his brain demanded concentration, not
diffusion and easy words to interpret. But now that he had begun to see
his way clear again, he had a sudden deep craving for the unreasoning
sympathy of love.
I waited until the last possible moment to tell you, in hopes that I
shouldnt have to, Lois. Anyway, Saunders is going to put up a couple of
houses for next year that youll like much better, he says.
Oh, it will be just the same next year; therell always be something,
said Lois indifferently, getting up to go into the house. I hate the
whole thing!
He was bitterly hurt, and far too proud to show it. He could have
counted on quickest sympathy from her once; he knew in his heart that he
could call it out even now if he chose, but he did not choose. If his
own wife could be like that, she might be.
Papa dear, I love you so much!
He looked down to see his little fair-haired girl, white-ruffled and
blue-ribboned, standing beside him a-tiptoe in her little white shoes,
her arms reached up to tighten instantly around his neck as he bent
over.
Zaidee, my little Zaidee, he said, and, lifting her on his knee,
strained her tightly to him with a rush of such passionate affection
that it almost unmanned him for the moment. She lay against his heart
perfectly still. After a few moments she put her small hand to his lips,
and he kissed it, and she smiled up at him, warm and securehis little
darling girl, his little princess. Yet, even in that joy of his child,
he felt a new heart-hunger which no child love, beautiful as it was,
could ever satisfy, any more than it could satisfy the heart-hunger of
his wife.
She had begun, since the ball, to go around again as usual, and the
house looked as if it had a mistress in it once more, though the
atmosphere of a home was lacking. She was languid, irritable, and
unsmiling, accepting Justins occasional caresses as if they made little
difference to her, though sometimes she showed a sort of fierce,
passionate remorse and longing. Either mood was unpleasing to him; it
contained tacit reproach for his separateness. Then, there were still
occasionally evenings when he came home to find her windows darkened and
everything in the household upset and forlorn; when every footfall must
be adjusted to her earthat ear that had strained and ached for his
coming. Her whole day culminated in that poor, meager half-hour in which
he sat by her, and in which her personality hardly reached him until he
kissed her, on leaving, with a quick, remorseful affection at being so
glad to go.
The typometer disaster had proved as bad as, and worse than, he had
feared, but he was working retrieval with splendid effort, calling all
his personal magnetism into play where it was possible. He had borrowed
a large sum from Lewistons,a young private banking firm, glad at the
moment to lend at a fairly large interest for a term of months,holding
on to the dissatisfied customers and creating new demand for the
machine, so that the sales forged ahead of Caters, with whom there was
still a good-natured we-rise-together sort of rivalry, though it seemed
at times as if it might take a sharper edge. Leverichs dictum regarding
Cater embodied an extension of the policy to be pursued with minor,
outlying competitors: Youll have to force that fellow out of business
or get him to come into the combine.
Leverich again smiled on Justin. Immediate success was the price
demanded for the continuance of a backing; there was just a little of
the high-handed quality in his manner which says, No more nonsense, if
you please. That morning after the ball had shown Justin the fangs that
were ready, if he showed symptoms of falling down, to shake him
ratlike by the neck and cast him out.
Papa dear, papa dear! Theres a man coming up the walk, my papa dear.
Why, so there is, said Justin, rising and setting the child down
gently as he went forward with outstretched hand, while Lois
simultaneously appeared once more on the piazza. Why, how are you,
Larue? Im mighty glad to see you back again. When did you get home?
The steamer got in day before yesterday, said the newcomer, shaking
hands heartily with host and hostess. He was a man with a dark, pointed
beard and mustache, deep-set eyes, and an unusually pleasant deep voice
that seemed to imply a grave kindliness. His glance lingered over Lois.
How are you, Mrs. Alexander? Better, I hope? Which chair shall I push
out of the sun for youthis one?
Yes, thank you, responded Lois, sinking into it, with her billows of
lilac muslin and her rich brown hair against the background of green
vines. Arent you going to sit down yourself?
Thank you, Ive only a minute, said the visitor, leaning against one
of the piazza-posts, his wide hat in his hand. Im out at my place at
Collingswood for the summer, and the trains dont connect very well on
Sunday. I had to run down here to see some people, but I thought I
wouldnt pass you by.
Did you have a pleasant trip? asked Lois.
Very pleasant, rejoined Mr. Larue, without enthusiasm. Oh, by the
way, Alexander, I heard that you were inquiring for me at the office
last week. Anything I can do for you?
Have you any money lying around just now that you dont know what to do
with? asked Justin significantly.
Mr. Larues dark, deep-set eyes took on the guarded change which the
mention of money brings into social relations.
Perhaps, he admitted.
May I come around to-morrow at three oclock and talk to you?
Yes, do, said the other, preparing to move on. Please dont get up,
Mrs. Alexander; you dont look as well as Id like to see you.
Oh, Im all right, said Lois.
You must try and get strong this summer, said Mr. Larue, his eyes
dwelling on her with an intimate, penetrating thoughtfulness before he
turned away and went, Justin accompanying him down the walk, Zaidee
dancing on behind. Lois looked after them. At the gate, Mr. Larue turned
once more and lifted his hat to her.
A faint, lovely color had come into Lois cheek, brought there by the
powerful tonic which she always felt in Eugene Larues presence; she
felt cheered, invigorated, comforted, by a man with whom she had hardly
talked alone for a couple of hours altogether in their whole five years
acquaintance. He had a way of taking thought for her on the slightest
occasion, as he had to-day; he knew when she entered a room or left it,
and she knew that he knew.
It was one of those peculiar, unspoken sympathetic intimacies which
exist between certain men and women, without the conscious volition of
either. He knew as soon as his eyes fell on her whether she were glad or
sorry, lonely or confident, and his glance or the tone of his voice was
a response to her mood; he saw instinctively when she was too warm or
too cold, or needed a rest. Her husband, who loved her, had no such
intuitions; he had to be told clumsily, and even then might not
understand. Yet she had not loved him the less because she must beat
down such little barriers herself; perhaps she had loved him the more
for ithe was the man to whom she belonged heart and soulbut the
barriers were a fact. She had an absolute conviction that she could do
nothing that Eugene Larue would misunderstand, any more than she
misunderstood her involuntary attraction for him. Above all things, he
reverenced her as his ideal of what a wife and mother should be. He
would have given all he possessed to have the kind of love which Justin
took as a matter of course.
Eugene Larue had been married himself for ten years, for more than half
of which time his wife, whom Lois had never seen, had lived abroad for
the further study of music, an art to which she was passionately
devoted. If there had been any effort to bring a hint of scandal into
the semi-separation, it had been instantly frowned away; there was
nothing for it to feed on. Mrs. Larue lived in Dresden, under the
undoubted chaperonage of an elderly aunt and in the constant publicity
of large musical entertainments and gatherings. She sometimes played the
accompaniments of great singers. Her husband went over every spring,
presumably to be with her, living alone for the greater part of the year
at his large place at Collingswood. Neither was ever known to speak of
the other without the greatest respect, and questions as to when either
had been heard from were usual and in order; it was always tacitly
taken for granted that Mrs. Larues expatriation was but temporary.
But Lois knew, without needing to be told, that he was a man who had
suffered, and still suffered at times profoundly, from having all the
tenderness of his nature thrown back upon itself, without reference to
that sting of the known comment of other men: It must be pretty tough
to have your wife go back on you like that. In some mysterious way his
wife had not needed the richness of the affection that he lavished on
her. If her heart had been warmed by it a little when she married him,
it had soon cooled off; she was glad to get away, and he had proudly let
her go.
Lois smiled up at Justin with sudden coquetry as he mounted the porch
steps, but he only looked at her absently as he said:
There seems to be a shower coming up. Dosias hurrying down the road. I
think Id better take the chairs in now.