"That's right: we must think seriously," he repeated solemnly, and
reached for the papers, after eying the telephone for a long time.
Gunther called up later in the morning to give him an astonishing bit of
news--Garraboy had sailed for Europe at nine that morning, and on the
same ship had gone Mrs. Cheever. But this news did not excite him in
the least. He spent the morning very heavily, keeping to his promise
not to telephone with great difficulty. He did not go to his club for
luncheon, but took his meal alone at a chance restaurant.
Then he went to call on Emma Fornez.
"Aha, you have called to talk to me about your little Charters," said
the prima donna at once.
"How do you know?" he said bluntly.
"It's very simple; when a man's in love he never talks it over with a
man--no, he always goes to another woman."
"Well, would you be surprised if I married Miss Charters?" he said, glad
to have arrived at the only topic which interested him.
"If you what!" exclaimed Mme. Fornez, catapulting from the sofa.
"If I marry," he repeated firmly.
"Marry? Oh, no, no, no!" she cried, with her hands on her hips and
bobbing her head to each negation. "Amuse yourself--love--flirt--break
her heart or break yours--_est-ce que je sais_--but marry? What! You
are mad!"
"I mean it."
"No, impossible! Marry one of us--an actress--you--a nice boy? _Allons
donc_. You ought to be shut up. Marry Charters. You might just as
well marry Emma Fornez, and when I say that--oh, la, la! My poor boy, I
pity you!"
"But you all marry."
"True. But what difference does it make to us?" she threw out her chin,
the gesture of the peasant. "You are serious?"
"Very."
"Let me talk to you. I have only a minute. My masseuse is coming and
in America one doesn't receive with a masseuse--_enfin_. Listen to me
well. You want to marry seriously--for good, then? Children and all the
rest? Well, my boy, you might just as well marry Emma Fornez and expect
her to spend her days over a ragout as to marry Charters. Will she give
up her career?"
"We haven't thought of that."
"It makes no difference. On the stage, off the stage, it's the same
thing. She won't change. Do you want to play the part of a valet, a
little dancing dog, _hein_? For that's just what you'll be; and one of
twenty. For she's used to crowds of men. She won't change. Love, my
dear boy, is madness, hallucination, you are drunk; but everything
returns as it was before--believe me. If I were a man I'd never fall in
love with a woman until I married her--it's easy enough then. You would
know what you're getting!"
The masseuse came in, sliding on tiptoe from one door to another.
"Victorine--_ma masseuse_! In a minute, in a minute, Madame Tenier.
I'll be with you in a minute. Where was I? Teddy, you do not know us
professional women--we are wrestlers, we are always struggling with you
men--I warn you. No two ways. She will never be happy, my dear
boy--because she never is happy. We are never happy, or we would not be
what we are. And what of moods, day in and day out. _Tiens_--I'll tell
you what you'll be--another Victorine. Victorine, _ou diable es-tu_?
No, no, Teddy; don't be a big fool; don't be an idiot. You are so nice.
You can amuse yourself so well. Don't put your head in a noose. If she
loves you now, she won't to-morrow; she can't help it. Then where'll
you be--in the soup, _hein_. And she? No, no, believe me, Teddy, never
marry, in the first place, and then never marry one of us."
"There's something in what she says," thought Beecher, as he moodily
descended in the elevator. "She knows her own kind better than I do."
He looked undecidedly at the clock and went to pay a dinner call on Mrs.
Craig Fontaine. In ten minutes they were on the same subject.
"I am terribly upset," said the young widow. "I don't want any trouble
to come to you, and I can't help thinking that what you are considering
is a very risky step. In the first place, Teddy, you are too young."
He made a movement of impatience at this repetition, which had begun to
offend his sense of dignity.
"You don't know what is ahead," she said warmly. "You do not realize
that points of view change. What you seek now, romance, adventure, is
not what you'll seek at thirty-five, and life is mostly after
thirty-five, Ted. Today you are willing to sacrifice every friend in
the world for one love; tomorrow you will realize that friends are our
life, their ways, their companionship, their interests. Today you hold
yourself very cheaply; tomorrow you will wake up, look round you, see
what other women have brought to their husbands, and you will say, 'What
am I worth?'"
"You believe in mercenary marriages, then?" he said irritably.
"No, but I believe in staying in the same society in which you belong.
I don't want to be cruel, but Miss Charters is of another world. I know
there is nothing against her. She may be able to enter your world, and
then again she may not want to--may prefer the freedom of her own, and
you will follow her. Have you thought of that? Your friends must be
your wife's friends, or you will give them up. Marriage, Teddy, which
can be the most decisive act in a man's life, is the one he throws away
the most lightly. I'm only afraid you may wake up to what you might
have done, Teddy. You are young, eager, you are not yet bored. You may
feel the desire to be something, to do something that counts in your
life. I don't want you then to wake up and realize that another
marriage might have given you the connections you wanted, the added
opportunity. At this moment marriage appears to you the only thing that
counts; you will realize some day that it is the least thing in it."
She smiled, as he looked amazed, and added: "No amount of discussion can
make you understand these things--they must be lived. But, Teddy,
before you leap, ask yourself seriously what you are worth."
When he left Mrs. Fontaine's presence, he did so with lagging steps.
The advice of these three women, so various and viewing life from such
divergent points of view, profoundly impressed him. He tried to argue
against what had been told him, and as this process irritated him beyond
measure, he broke off, acknowledging their superior insight. But all at
once he stopped short, enlightened by a sudden reflection.
"If what they say is true ... why did they all marry?"
This answer, which might seem no answer at all, appeared to the mind of
the lover, which is to say to the mind seeking to be convinced, so
complete and startling a refutation, that he swung on his heel, and went
directly to offer himself to Miss Charters.
*EPILOGUE*
Three years after the close of these events there were gathered in a box
of the Metropolitan Opera, Mr. and Mrs. Gunther, senior, the Teddy
Beechers, Bruce Gunther and a Miss Clarice Fanning, of the Virginia
Fannings, a young girl demure, direct, with already in the youthful
instincts of her pose more than a suggestion of the dignity and elegance
which would come to grace the woman. From time to time, by a little
movement of her fan, she brought to her shoulder for a whispered comment
Bruce Gunther, who, though he had seated himself behind Mrs. Beecher,
was compensated by the advantage of thus exchanging glances. All these
little messages, which the young girl flattered herself were so cleverly
executed as to remain invisible, were seen by every one in the box with
discreet enjoyment.
At the end of the act the two young men excused themselves and departed
to make a round of visits.
"Nan's charming, Ted," said Gunther, who saw them both for the first
time since their long stay in Europe. He added with the extra
enthusiasm with which a man of the world conveys his surprise at an
unexpected development: "By George! she has the manners of a duchess!
The governor, crabby old critic, too, is quite won over by her."
"She has developed beautifully," said Beecher, with a certain
proprietary responsibility which young husbands feel deeply. "She is a
remarkable woman! ... remarkable!"
"Well, you fooled all the prophets," said Gunther in his blunt way.
"How so?"
"We gave you a year, at the most," said Gunther, who stopped short and
looked at his friend as though to ask the explanation of such a miracle.
"My wife adores me," said Beecher, with a smile.
Gunther smiled to himself and thought that if the wife had developed as
though by right into the sure and brilliant woman of the world, the
husband at heart had retained the same boyish irreverence of the
mysterious depths of life.
"You ought to get into something, Ted," he said abruptly. "You can't
loaf in America! ... I'll give you an opening."
"That's why the Missus brought me back," said Beecher. "Look out, I may
take up that offer!"
This reply, unconsciously delivered, gave Gunther the first glimpse of
light into the perplexing success of his friend's marriage.
"Well, where's the first call?" he said, registering in his mind this
last perception.
"I want to drop in on Mrs. Fontaine, Mrs. Slade," ... he considered a
moment and added, "Mrs. Bloodgood, too, I am anxious to see..."
"Don't forget Emma Fornez ... you ought to go behind," said Gunther, for
the opera was _Carmen_.
"Yes," said Beecher, with a little hesitation.
"Next act ... Let's drop in on Louise Fontaine, first..."
"There are reasons ... just at present..." said Gunther with a slight
frown. "Anyhow, here's Slade's box--let's begin here."
Mrs. Slade at their entrance rose directly, and came to meet them in the
antechamber.
"How nice of you to come here first," she said with genuine pleasure,
extending both her hands. "Mr. Gunther, go into the box ... I want a few
minutes alone with Teddy!" She turned to Beecher, motioning him to a
seat on the cushioned settee in the little pink and white room that was
like a jewel box. "I saw you at once ... Your wife has made a
sensation!"
"It is you, Rita, who are astonishing!" he said abruptly.
"How so?" she said, already comprehending the frank wonder in his eyes.
"You always did fascinate us, you know," he said, reclining a bit, the
better to take in the elegant sinuosities of her pose. "But that was
nothing to you now ... You are the opera itself!"
"Not quite yet," she said, with a confident little bob of the head. She
added, "I am happy!"
In truth, just as men of conscious greatness who, in the period of their
struggles, have a certain brusque and impatient unease, suddenly in the
day of their success acquire a dignity and a radiating charm that
astonishes, so in her a similar transformation had operated. The old
feline restlessness, the swift and nervous changes from Slavic
somnolence to sparkling energy, has been subdued in a clear serenity,
and as she received the flattering tribute of the young man who had been
associated with her period of uncertainty, there was in her smile a new
graciousness that was not without its authority.
"You too are happy!--it shows!" she said after the moment which she
allowed Beecher to study her.
"Very!"
"You have children?"
"Two." Then recalling with a little pardonable malice the intention of
his visit, he said: "You were a bad prophet, Rita! ... You remember?"
"I do."
"Well?..."
"Well, I underestimated your intelligence, my dear Teddy," she said,
with a fugitive smile. "You are settling in America?"
"Yes, the Missus has planned to make me a captain of finance," he said
with a laugh. "However, I am ready for something active."
"Tell your wife," she said irrelevantly, "that I will come to see her
after the next act. My husband returns tomorrow ... save the night
after for us ... I want to be as good a friend to her as you have been
to me! ... Give my message exactly!"
"I promise!"
All at once his eyes, which had been searching, rested on her left hand.
On the fourth finger, guarded by the gold band of her marriage, was the
ruby ring.
"It's the same, isn't it?" he asked.
"I always wear it," she said, raising it to her eyes. "It is a fetish."
"We ran across Garraboy a couple of times ... He married her, you know."
"She married him, you mean..."
"Yes, that would be more correct ... watches the beggar like a hound ...
a pleasant life he has of it! ... By the way, did the story about the
ring ever leak out?"
"Never!" She rose, as though feeling the end of the intermission.
"Tell me one thing, Teddy...."
"A dozen!"
"Did you tell your wife I advised you not to marry?"
"Never!"
"Don't! ... There are things a woman doesn't forgive, and I want to be
good friends!"
Beecher nodded.
Gunther came out, and she gave them her fingers, remaining tall and
stately, her head inclined a little pensively, until they had left.
"Most remarkable woman here!" said Gunther briefly. "In a year or so
more she'll be the undisputed leader."
"What about John G.?"
"The coming man. You know we're in close relations with him. The
Governor has a great admiration for him, and you know it isn't often the
Governor is taken that way!"
"What's he doing?"
"Railroad unification, territorial development ... only man in this
country who can appreciate what the Canadian Pacific is doing!"
"I thought he was considered rather a freebooter?"
"So he was. Big men change when they get what they want. He had an
interview with the old man, and laid his cards on the table. Governor
said it was the frankest confidence he'd ever heard. When he went into
the railroad field, it was at the mercy of a lot of clever little
stock-jobbers, who were playing it like a game of roulette. Slade's
driven 'em out, broken their backs, bankrupted them ... Oh! he strikes
hard! ... Now there's a real railroad policy, with a national object."
"You seem quite enthusiastic over him yourself," said Beecher, glancing
at the plates on the boxes.
"I am. He's a constructive ... that's what we want!"
"When did all this happen?"
"A couple of months after that affair of the Atlantic Trust."
Beecher stopped, and with a gesture showed his companion a plate on
which was inscribed: