As Claire was descending into the lower hall, at about four o'clock the
next afternoon, she saw her husband enter the house with his latch-key.
She quickened her step a little, and met him at the landing of the
stairs. They had not seen each other for twenty-four hours; she had
breakfasted in her room, that morning, as was of late almost habitual
with her, and by the time that she left it he had been driven away in
his brougham. On the previous night he had reached home long after she
had retired to bed. All this was no new thing. Its first and second
occurrence had shocked them both, as an unforeseen result of their
altered existence. But repetition had set it securely among the
commonplaces. They accepted it, now, with a matter-of-course placidity.
"I was going to the Vanvelsors' reception," Claire said. "Did you think
of dropping in?"
"No," answered Hollister. He had taken her hand, and was holding it
while he spoke. The next moment he kissed her cheek, and soon let his
eye wander over the complex tastefulness of her attire. He then drew her
arm within his own, and led her toward the near drawing-room, whose
threshold they crossed. Except his recorded monosyllable, he had said
nothing for an appreciable time, and Claire, regarding his face with a
sidelong glance, had already detected there marked signs of worriment.
"No," he presently continued, taking a seat on one of the rich-clad
sofas, and gently forcing her to sit beside him. "I had no idea of going
there. I don't feel like anything gay, Claire. Things are doing horribly
on the Street. There's a dreadful squall. I hope it will be only a
squall, and soon blow over." He then named a certain stock in which he
had very comprehensive interests. "It has dropped in the most furious
fashion," he proceeded. "Claire, I've lost seventy thousand dollars
to-day, if I've lost a penny."
He talked more technically of his ill-luck after that, and told her what
he believed to be the reason of the adverse change. She listened with
great attention. She knew so much of Wall Street matters that she
scarcely missed a point in all that he explained.
"So Goldwin is on the other side," she said, when he had finished.
"Yes, Goldwin is safe. But you can't tell what to-morrow will bring. No
one is really safe. Prices are flying about. It's a shocking state of
affairs."
"There is nothing for you to do just now, is there?" Claire asked, after
a little pause.
"Oh, no; I may get a few telegrams later. But nothing serious will
happen till to-morrow."
She laid her hand on his arm. She was more alarmed and perplexed than
she chose to show. "Then come with me to the reception," she said; "you
might as well, Herbert. It is better than to brood over the state of
matters down there."
He shook his head negatively. "I should make a very bad guest," he
replied. "Go yourself, Claire. But remember one thing." He was looking
at her very fixedly; his frank blue eyes were full of a soft yet
assertive pain. "Our life may alter suddenly for the worse. We may have
to give up all this." He waved one hand here and there, as though
generalizing the whole luxurious encompassment. "There is no telling
what _may_ happen. I never felt the insecurity of my career as I feel it
now. Do you know, Claire, that a few more such days as this may ruin
me?"
"Ruin you?" she repeated.
She was pale as those words left her lips. Hollister had proposed to her
a terrible possibility.
"Yes, Claire, I mean it. Of course I am looking at the worst that might
happen. But I want to prepare you."
She rose, keeping her eyes on his. "I don't know what I should do," she
said, "if I lost what I have now. I have grown used to it, Herbert. I
won't let myself think that it might pass away--that I should be left
without all these good and precious things."
As she spoke the last words he rose also, and caught both her hands,
looking eagerly into her face.
"Claire," he exclaimed, "you _must_ think of losing it all! You _must_
try to reconcile yourself with the idea! If you don't, the ordeal will
be all the harder when it comes."
"When it comes?" she again repeated.
"Yes--you see just how I stand. You have grasped the whole wretched
situation. Of course there's a chance that I may right myself, but" ...
"I'll take that chance," she broke in, quite forcibly withdrawing her
hands. "So will you, Herbert. I prefer to look at it this way. We will
both take the chance."
Hollister's face was full of reproach.
"Claire!" he exclaimed. "I see that you love this new life with a
positive passion!"
"I love it very much," she answered. "I love it so much that I should
suffer fearfully if I were turned adrift from it.... Come, we will both
go to the Vanvelsors' reception."
"No," replied Hollister. He walked away from her. By her lack of
sympathy she had dealt him a cruel sting.
"Very well," responded Claire, as she watched his receding figure, "_I_
am going."
His back was turned to her, but he suddenly veered round, facing her,
and saying, with a bitter sharpness: "Go, if you please! Go, and leave
me to my misery! If you cared for me in the right manner, you would not
want to go. You would want to stay with me, and forget, for a while at
least, the gay crowds that admire and court you!"
These words were utterly unexpected. He had never before alluded to her
lack of fondness. She was embarrassed, ashamed. For a moment she could
not speak. Then she simulated an affronted demeanor; it seemed her sole
refuge. "I--I care for you as much as I have always cared," she said.
"No more and no less."
She moved toward the door at once, after thus speaking. She wondered if
he would seek to detain her. He did not.... She entered her coupe very
soon afterward. During the drive to Mrs. Vanvelsor's reception she had a
keen remembrance of just how Hollister had looked when her final gaze
had dwelt upon him. She knew that she had stung at last into life the
perception of how much he had been giving and how little he had
received. Her conscience sternly smote her; she was more than once on
the verge of ordering that the vehicle should be driven home again. But
in her then mood any attempt at amendment seemed wildly futile. What
could she say to her husband? That she deplored his possible ruin? Yes;
but not that such regret sprang from the sweet sources of a wifely,
unselfish love. She could not regard the possibility of being flung
downward from her present high place with any unselfish feeling. Mrs.
Diggs had touched the living and sensitive truth last night: her thirst
for luxury had grown a vice. Soft raiment, obsequious attendance, a
place of supreme social distinction, all these had become vitally,
imperiously needful to her happiness.
It was not the sort of happiness which she believed high or fine. She
could most clearly conceive of another, less fervid, less material, less
intoxicating, fraught with a spiritual incentive and an intellectual
meaning. But it was too late to dream of that now. She had taken the
bent; she must have power or nothing. She regarded the idea of being
obscure and with straitened funds as a calamity simply horrible.
Hollister must think her cruel as death; that was inevitable. She did
not blame him for blaming her. She blamed herself for having married him
with loveless apathy. His reproachful words haunted her--but what could
she do? He wanted genuine tenderness, sympathy, fortifying cheer. But he
wanted these from an impulse of which her heart had always been
incapable. Fate was avenging itself upon her. She had tampered with holy
things. Her marriage oath had been a mockery. Could she go back and tell
him this? Could she go back and lie to him, feign before him? No; best
that she should not go back at all.
The reception was a great crush. But they seemed to make way for her
with a sort of obeisance. No one jostled against her; they all appeared
to give her a little elbow-room in the throng, while they either bowed
or stared. She was secretly agonized. She smiled and spoke as
effectively as usual; she held her court among them all, as of late she
had invariably held it. But her heart was sick; she was besieged by a
portentous dread, and she was pierced with that self-contempt whose
length of thrust is measured by a consciousness of how far the being we
might have become surpasses the being that we are. While she stood the
centre of a small, courtly group, a gentleman softly pushed his way into
her notice and held out his hand. She took the hand, and looked well
into the face of him who had extended it. The new-comer was Beverley
Thurston. As Claire looked she swiftly noted that his familiar face wore
marked signs of change. He had distinctly aged. The gray at his temples
had grown grayer; the crows'-feet under his hazel eyes were a little
more apparent; perhaps, too, his gravity of manner was more clearly
suggested by a first glance. At the same time she felt herself regarding
him in a new light and by the aid of amplified experience. She silently
and fleetly made him stand a test, so to speak, and at once decided that
he stood it well. She had met no man since they had parted who bespoke
high-breeding and gentility with more immediate directness.
"I thought I should find you here," he said, as their hands dropped
apart.
"Did you come on that account?" she asked.
"Not entirely, because I had great fears of not being able to do more
than watch you from a distance."
"Ah," she said, with a pretty graciousness, and loud enough for all the
others to hear, "you have an excellent claim upon me--that of old
acquaintance."
Her surrounders felt that there was either dismissal or desertion
waiting for them. She managed to make it promptly plain that her
favoring heed had been wholly transferred to Thurston; she showed it to
them with a cool boldness which they would have resented with resolves
of future neglect if indulged in by many another woman present; for they
were all men who put a solid worth upon their courtesies, and had a
fastidious reluctance ever to be charged with sowing them broadcast.
But Claire had long ago learned that the security of her reign depended
upon an occasional open proof of how she herself trusted its power. She
had guessed the peril of continuing monotonously clement. To talk with
Thurston now interested her more than any other conversational project.
It was not long before she had slipped her hand into his arm, and was
saying, as they moved through the crowd:--
"If you care to go into the conservatory, we shall find it much
pleasanter there, I think."
The house was one of those new and majestic structures near the Park. It
occupied a corner, sweeping far backward from Fifth Avenue into an
adjacent street. It had an almost imperial amplitude, and was a building
in which no lordly or pleasurable detail seemed to have been overlooked.
The conservatory, whose spacious interior wooed through breadths of
glass its kindest warmth from the churlish winter sunshine, was of
refreshing temperature after the heated rooms beyond, while its masses
of leafing or blooming plants loaded the air with delightful odors.
A few people were strolling about the cool courts, as Claire and
Thurston now entered them. The entertainment of to-day was a kind of
house-warming; the Vanvelsors, in current metropolitan phrase, were old
people, but their present mansion was new in a decisive sense; they had
migrated hither from a residence in Bond Street, where they had dwelt
for forty years or more. The push of the younger generation, left with
inherited millions, had thus architecturally asserted itself. Few of
their guests knew the ways of their changed and palatial home. But
Claire knew them; she had dined in this imposing abode not less than a
fortnight ago. There were many bearers of precious Dutch names who had
known the Vanvelsors for many decades; but Claire had been preferred to
hosts of these nice-lineaged legitimists. She was the fashion; other
people were paying homage to her; the younger Vanvelsors liked
everything that was the fashion; they had paid homage, too.
"We can find a seat," Claire said to her companion; "the place is not
full, as you see; we might sit yonder, in those two vacant chairs--that
is, if you care to sit; I do; I am tired."
It was not until they were both seated, with glossy tropical leaves
touching their heads, that Thurston answered:--
"You say you are tired. That might mean a little or a great deal. Which
does it mean?"
Claire responded with a question, looking at him fixedly.
"Why did you write me that letter?" she said.
"Did it offend you?" he asked.
"No and yes. You might not have reproached me until you knew more of the
real truth."
Thurston stroked his gray mustache. "I think I knew all the truth," he
said. "I know it now, at least."
"Your sister has told you," Claire retorted, with speed.
"Yes and no," he responded, not mocking her own recent words, yet
leaving a distinct impression that he had half repeated them. "You
forget that I have seen you reigning on your new throne."
"Let us be candid," said Claire. "Your note was almost a sneer."