I
A great deal of water had run under the bridge since Clarinda had left
the big house and gone back to the flat. A great deal more water had run
under the bridge before Clarinda had consented to come back to the big
house and had settled permanently in its rooms and halls.
Her child had been born, it had thrived and grown, her father had aged.
Rarely he came to the house unless he was assisted by his man, and then
only when the sun was bright and the sky unclouded. Peter had grown more
successful and had acquired the Midian touch. Gold came to him as penury
comes to most. His arrogance and bombast had grown greater. Her mother
remained in the background. Removed from all contact with Clarinda and
her life, she came to the house very seldom and then only to complain.
She appeared to think her duty toward Clarinda finished and reasoned as
she had given Clarinda birth, raised her to womanhood and married her
off, she had done for her all that a mother could do.
Having finished her duty, she gave herself up to a life of pleasure, and
she caromed from one gaiety to another like the balls upon a billiard
table, propelled by a professional.
The going from the flat to the house had been considered by Clarinda for
many, many months before she reached a decision. She thought it out
carefully. She argued the thing from all sides, and came to the
conclusion that probably she might be in error, as many women err who
are in love. Without consideration of her own happiness she gave in
before the arguments of her father and of Peter.
Peter won the first great point in their lives. On the day they came
back Mrs. Caws again stood in front of them with a curious smile upon
her hard old features; he gloated upon his victory, and gave orders with
unction. It pleased him immensely, and it swelled him with his own
importance. He felt it was by his own strength of will that he compelled
Clarinda to accept the exact position he deemed proper a woman should
occupy in relation to her husband. His joy on the whole was complete,
for woman to him was a woman properly placed.
Clarinda looked at him narrowly. Her mind was in a state of chaos. She
felt in her soul that she had lost something she could never recover.
Yes, she knew his outlook, and although she knew it she hated it
fiercely.
If it had not been that by persistent effort through a term of years,
Clarinda had taught herself to control her tears, she would have wept.
But she had learned in these years how to control her tears. Tears had
no effect upon Peter, for when she wept, Peter only scorned her. So she
found that she aroused no pity in his heart.
Steadily Clarinda had fought the move from the old to the new, but Peter
had fought even as consistently. His strength resulted in her defeat and
so it came about. After they had entered the house Peter helped her off
with her wraps. At a signal to Mrs. Caws, who had been standing close
by, she left the hall. As she closed the door behind her, Clarinda
turned to Peter and said slowly as if repeating a line she had heard,
“My happiness has gone out of the window.”
Peter tossed his head. A wicked smile crossed his lips. He spoke with
bitter sarcasm.
“I can’t understand your attitude, Clarinda. It seems to me if anyone
had given me such a place as this, I would rather have said my happiness
had come in by the window.”
Clarinda paid no attention to his reply. She continued to speak in the
same painful voice:
“You’ve won, Peter,” and her lips trembled as she stopped for an
instant. “It is the little things in life that count. It is the tiny
pebble that changes the course of the stream. Yes, Peter, you’ve won—and
at what a price.”
“It represents thousands and thousands, Clarinda,” he replied, without
getting her point of view.
“Money—money—money! That is your fetish. You are carried away with gold!
It will bury eventually all that is good in you.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “Money may be rotten and all that; but
from my observation it is a most comfortable sort of possession.”
“Where is your soul?”
“Rot!” he exclaimed. “Why be trite? Souls in this world? A curious
superstition handed down from no one knows where. A relic of fear. A
thing to dangle before the eyes of the sick to help them die with a
smile. A sop to the sick. A thing to dangle before the ignorant. Of what
avail are they? Sometimes, I wonder whether you will ever graduate into
the sort of woman I want. Must you always have a child’s point of view?”
“What sort of woman do you want, Peter?” she asked looking at him
closely. “Since you’ve won this point, if you will tell me I will be
that sort.”
Peter walked away from her a few steps then after a short while he
turned and replied.
“I’ve thought a lot about the sort of woman I want. It is difficult to
come to an exact conclusion. When I am idle I picture to myself the sort
I think I should have. It is a very hard proposition.”
“Express it, Peter! You’ve never had difficulty on that score.”
“Sometime I will. I can’t do it now for it would take too long. I am
very busy. I’ll tell you some other time.”
“I want you to do it now. Explain!” Clarinda broke forth. “I don’t
believe you ever can explain! I see!—I know!—I may be stupid and only a
child—but I know! Another illusion has been torn from me, and the bare
bone is left.”
Clarinda turned to go out of the door that led to the upper reaches of
the house. Peter went after her quickly. He took her hand in his and led
her unwillingly toward the sofa that stood to one side.
“Sit down here,” he commanded, “for just a moment. I am going to try to
tell you what I mean.” Clarinda sat down and bent her head forward
looking intently at the floor in front of her. A deep serious gaze was
in her eyes. “I am going to tell you what I mean,” he continued
repeating himself. “It is true, Clarinda, that I’ve not much time, but
we might as well thrash the thing out. I am going to put before you the
position I occupy. You’ve always been square and able to see how just I
am. Now listen.”
In the more than three years they had been married, Clarinda had lost
none of her sweetness of look. Peter was forced to concede that much.
Since the baby had come, it appeared to him that an added lustre had
been given to her. She had developed wonderfully. Her figure and the
lines of her young face had been metamorphosed. The baby represented to
him another incident in life—a component part of the progress.
He sat down beside her and looked at her bent body. But he would not let
himself be swayed, for he felt this would not be just to himself. The
time had come when Clarinda must be brought to face the exalted position
he had constructed for her and for himself.
They sat close together and Peter chose his words with infinite care.
With as much certainty and deliberation as if he were placing a matter
of great moment before one of the numerous boards of directors to which
he belonged.
“This,” he began slowly, “is my position and I think you ought to
realize it perfectly. I am, what is normally termed, a successful man,
having arrived at this position by my own efforts. It is vital to me
that you fill this position with me. You know, if you have ever
considered the matter, that a wife assumes more or less the position of
either an employee or a partner in a marriage contract. A thing like
this is not all of one side. Butterflies are all well enough in a
garden, but only in a garden. In the grand scheme they amount to
nothing. If either of the contracting parties does not arise to his or
her part, the one not arising assumes a minor position in the operation.
In other words, she or he loses his standing as a partner. He or she
stands apart in the fight. You will concede that life is a fight, a
survival of the fittest. This you must acknowledge is correct. It stands
without discussion. It is a syllogism.”
Clarinda listened to his words and her mind followed each sentence as he
spoke. In her arose a wrath complete. He destroyed every foundation upon
which she had hoped to build her existence. However, she said nothing.
Peter continued: “I admit I love you. It would distress me beyond words
if I thought for an instant that love didn’t exist in me and if the same
thing didn’t animate your spirit. You must understand that my love isn’t
an effervescing thing, but a solid unfrothed condition. Stable and
certain. Pushed aside, it is true, by necessities, but existent. Now,
with that love, as I say a certainty, it is required of you to fulfill
your part of the contract to expand, to develop, to spread, even as I
have spread.”
“Do you think you love?” asked Clarinda. “Have you ever thought in your
dissection of this matter of how I have suffered for you? I suffered
terribly when the baby came. I suffered for months with a painful
illness. But that is of no importance. The baby is only part of me, a
thing—how should I say?”
“Don’t try,” he said quickly. “Suffering is part of your life, just as
this disappointment in you is an adjunct of mine, a necessary part of
our existence to be treated philosophically. It amounts to nothing. When
the pain is assuaged you cannot remember its effects. You speak of love,
our love. What of our love? My opinion of this matter of love, is this.
Love is a proper condition and should be in every house, but in the main
it amounts to nothing. It has no intrinsic value. Nature does not
recognize love. It only sees propinquity which it reduces to the
necessity of reproduction. Do you suppose love exists in the lower forms
of life? It does not. I love, but I don’t allow love to obscure my
larger view. I submerge it and put it to its proper uses. What does love
mean? Nothing but a moment’s forgetfulness—passion—children—probably
better if never born. It is useful in its place, but in the grand scheme
it has no place. Of course you suffer—why not? But you should realize
that never can a woman arrive at the proper point of view. They are too
animal-like and too physically disarranged. They are by far too bound
down by their natural destiny. It is unnecessary for me to mention what
that destiny is.”
“Do you believe what you are saying? Don’t you think you’re just
talking, Peter?” Clarinda broke in as he paused for an instant.
“I believe I am not just talking for talk’s sake. I’ve no time to waste
in idle words. There is one more thing. No doubt you probably think what
I have said is cruel. I admit it sounds cruel. It is cruel, because all
life is cruel. The coming of your child was cruel. The coming of age
upon you is cruel, nature is the epitome of cruelty, it crushes without
stint or consideration. It builds only to destroy.”
“What a curious philosophy,” Clarinda’s voice quavered. “Then I have
failed. How queer. And the baby—”
“The baby,” he went on with even as great care as he had used, “the baby
is a thing apart, an accident in life, which was desired by neither of
us. Why should we have babies? I’ve asked myself this many times and
arrived at no solution. Why produce these things? An uncontrolled animal
instinct forces us to bring them into the world, and for what? When I
see babies I generally weep. I see before me the future, the futility of
youth, the sadness of the middle period, the arrival at puberty, then
the going forth to seek a mate, the development of the sex instinct, and
then the shriveling and shrinking into the grave. I would not say,
Clarinda, that you had failed, I would not go that far. It is hard to
explain. I shall try to think it out further.”
Clarinda arose from the sofa, and went to one of the long windows that
gave a view out upon the garden. She gazed unseeingly over its expanse,
and spoke in a tone so low that he from his distance could barely hear
her.
“I do not believe as you believe, Peter, I am glad to say. I can’t tear
things apart as you do, and I am glad I cannot. It is terrible to think
as you think. It makes everything so black, so discouraging. Even with
this view of yours there are things even more vital; if possible, more
vital than money and success. You’ve said frightful things to me; you
think you are analytical, logical, but you are not; you only destroy. It
is horrible to me to think that it is only a little over three years
since we were married and already the good in you has died, and for
what? Money, and a false philosophy built upon—nothing! Oh! how I hate
money, success, riches and places like this. How I wish we were poor!”
“Then, probably, Clarinda, instead of lashing you with indisputable
logic, I would be beating you with a whip. Everything is comparative.
You speak in broken tones, as if a tragedy had come upon you. Life is a
tragedy. But it is foolish to think of it so. Why not face facts?”
“Facts! Facts! Nothing but facts!” Clarinda almost screamed. “It is a
tragedy. You remember, Peter, at one time Father said our lives were too
prosaic. How mistaken he was. He could not see tragedy even if it
stalked directly in front of him. Poor soul. He said, if you remember,
that it would be a good thing for us if we had a _murder_, _a great
theft_, or that you or I should lead a _double life_. That this sort of
thing would lend interest. Poor Father. He didn’t know that tragedy was
upon me. That murder was in your heart and that you were preparing to
commit murder, only in a worse way than the actual stabbing or shooting
me to death. It would have been better if you had done it that way, than
to have done it, as you say, with indisputable logic. It might have been
better for me had I been the wife of a drunkard. He might have beaten me
with whips. But at least he would have left hope in my heart. Now I have
nothing. Yes, yes, Peter, you have won. You should be proud of your
victory.”
Peter arose from the divan and walked quickly and impatiently up and
down the hall. He did not think Clarinda would take the change he was
forced to bring about so much to heart. He had convinced himself she
would see it as he did.
“You are dramatic, Clarinda, and unnecessarily so. I don’t believe you
think.”
“I’ve been taught that to think was wrong. I know now women should not
think. It might be better if they did. For without thought they only
invite disaster. We will see, Peter, but don’t be disappointed if this
philosophy doesn’t come to your end. You’ve said I have failed you. I
promise not to fail in the future.”
Clarinda turned from the window and went quickly out of the room, and
she closed the door gently behind her. Peter made a motion as if to stop
her, but he did not. He felt it were better that she should work the new
situation out in her mind. He was convinced she would see the justice of
his position.
Presently he went out of the house and entered the automobile that
waited for him at the door. As he settled himself back in the cushions
of the car, he reverted to the first refusal Clarinda had made when she
left the big house upon her first induction into it. He had never
forgiven her for this. He had tried to make excuses for her, but could
find none even when he ascribed it to her condition at the time; but her
consistent attitude in her refusal divorced this excuse from his mind.
It had hurt him immeasurably when he considered the time and the effort
he had expended to accumulate the place. Her stubborness and wilful
conduct destroyed his ambition.
He knew he would never get over the blow from the instant she had given
it to him. His mental attitude towards her underwent a change, a change
so vital that he would never be able to overcome it. Clarinda fell from
the pinnacle upon which he had placed her and had descended into the
mere wife. She had become a necessary evil in his life, but not a
component part thereof.
As he allowed her to go out of the door, he reflected he had caused a
change and he would abide by it. If it evolved a bad situation, he would
accommodate himself to the new condition. He was too busy to give it
more thought, it might take his mind off his real effort. Peter tossed
his head in the air and as the car went swiftly along his tongue evolved
the few words:
“What a hell of a bore!”
Clarinda watched him go from the window in her apartment. She heard the
automobile that waited outside. She heard the engine start and she heard
Peter give his order to the driver. A great black pall came over her.
She went from the window and sank hopelessly upon the divan. Clarinda
buried her lovely head in a cushion and thought.
With clearness she saw her position. She knew from now on that instead
of being an integral part of Peter’s life she was but his legalized
mistress, clothed with respectability. All her hopes died, and all her
anticipations for herself and her baby died and were swept by the angry
winds of adversity into space. Clarinda wept.
After a long time by superhuman effort she collected herself, and forced
a new spirit into her life. She was no more the Clarinda who had
existed. Her love for Peter died. She stood untrammelled—free.
She rang the bell that was near at hand.
“I will go out,” she said to the maid as she entered the room. “Order my
car.”
The maid whispered almost to herself. “Something has happened.”
Clarinda put on her wraps, and it was only a few moments when the car
was at the door. She entered it and gave an order to the driver.
Then, “Horrors!” she muttered.