XIX.

Claire felt, on this same day, like casting about in her mind for some

pretext by which she might postpone her grand luncheon on the morrow.

She had passed a sleepless night, having gone to bed without seeing

Hollister. In the morning she had avoided meeting him. She had no

comfort to administer, no reparation to offer. The mask had been

stripped from her face; the comedy had been played to its end. She had a

sense of worthlessness, depravity, sin. At the same time she recklessly

told herself that no atonement was in her power. A woful weakness, which

took the form of a woful strength, over-mastered her as the hours grew

older. Her thirst for new excitements deepened with her misery and

anxiety. But she sat in her dressing-room or paced the floor till past

three in the afternoon. There were numberless people whom she might have

visited; there were several receptions that afternoon at which her

presence would have been held important by their respective givers. Even

the known jeopardy of her husband's position would have heightened the

value of her appearance, adding to her popularity the spice of curiosity

as well.

More than once she said to herself: 'I will go to one of these places. I

will show them how quietly I bear the strain. If by to-morrow no crash

has come, they will admire my nerve and courage. For if I once went,

they should never discover a trace of worriment or suspense. I think the

fact of my being closely watched would even make me talk better and

smile brighter. The wear and tear of the whole thing might make me

forget a little, too. And I want so to forget, if I can!'

But she did not go. The morning papers lay on a near table. She had read

every word that they had to tell her of the fierce financial turmoil.

Some of the stern figures they quoted made her heart flutter with

affright; some of their ominous and snarling editorials wrought an added

discomfort.

If Hollister weathered the storm, she decided, all would remain as it

had been before. Or, if not precisely that, the general outward effect

would continue quite the same. She would shine among her courtiers; she

would dazzle and rule. He would feel his wound, now that he knew the

pitiless truth of her indifference, but he would make the engrossing

ventures of his business-life drown its pain until this had perhaps

ceased forever. They would drift further apart than they had ever done

in recent months, but to the eye of the world there would be no

severance. It was possible that he would vex her with no more

reproaches. It was probable that as time passed he would forget that he

had ever had any reproaches to offer.

While Claire's reflections, nervous and fitful, took by degrees some

such shape as this, she found a desperate, yearning pleasure in the hope

that she might still drink the _vin capiteux_ of worldly success. She

almost felt like flinging herself on her knees and praying that the

delicious cup might not forever be dashed from her lips. To this stage

had her triumphs brought her. She was the same woman who had made those

resolves of abstinence and reformation which her biographer has already

duly chronicled. She was the same woman whose conscience had smitten her

with a sense of higher and purer things when the farewell of Thurston

warned her by such appalling remonstrance, and when she found herself

confronting her father's placid tomb amid the solemnities of Greenwood.

And yet how abysmal was the difference between then and now! The chance

of radical change in heart, aim, and ideal had then been given her; but

now all thought of such change woke only a willful, imperious dissent.

Her vision turned upon her own soul to-day, and showed her its mighty

lapse from grace, its supine and incapable droop. The debasing spell had

been woven; what counterspell was potent enough to break it? Occasional

flashes of regret and aspiration might well assail her spirit, or of

recognition that she had lost a high contentment in gaining a low one.

This was natural enough. It has been aptly put into metaphor that the

saddest place in Purgatory is that from which the walls of Paradise are

visible.

By four o'clock Hollister had not returned. But Mrs. Diggs had made her

appearance instead, and Claire welcomed it as a happy relief from the

torment of her own thoughts. "My dear," said this lady, "there has been

nothing so dreadful in Wall Street since the crisis of the famed Black

Friday. My poor Manhattan came home at about three o'clock, utterly

jaded out. I made him go to bed. He could scarcely speak to me. I asked

him about your husband's affairs, but he gave me only mumbling answers;

excitement had put him into a kind of stupor, don't you know?"

"Yes," assented Claire, understanding the nature of the collapse

perfectly. "So he told you nothing of Herbert's affairs? Nothing

whatever?"

"Nothing that I could really make out. I should be in a wild state, and

have a feeling about the soles of my feet as if I were already going

barefoot, don't you know, if I hadn't long ago insisted upon Manhattan's

putting a very large and comfortable sum safely away in my name."

Claire thought of the house that had been assigned to her, of her

jewels, of her costly apparel. But to remember these merely aggravated

her distress. What a meagre wreck they would leave from the largess of

her past prosperity!

"I wouldn't be awfully worried, if I were you," continued Mrs. Diggs.

"If the worst _should_ come, your husband will be sure to save something

handsome. These great speculators always do. Some odd thousands always

turn up after the storm has blown over. Perhaps he will begin again, and

do grander things than ever before."

"That is cold consolation," said Claire, with a bitter smile.

"I know it is for _you_, Claire, dear, who have been tossing away

hundreds to my dimes. I might say horrid things, but I won't. I might

talk of retribution for your extravagances, and all that. But I so

detest the _je vous l'avais bien dit_ style of rebuke. And I don't want

to rebuke you a bit. You have your faults, of course. But you're always

my sweet, beautiful Claire. My heart will ache for you if anything

frightful _should_ happen. I say it to your face, dear, as I would say

it behind your back, that you are the one woman of all others whom money

perfectly adorns. You spent it like a queen, and you looked like a queen

while you spent it. You remember how I used to gush over Cornelia Van

Horn's grand manner? It could never hold a candle to yours. I'm afraid I

abused you like a regular pickpocket the other night. Oh, yes, I pitched

into you just as hard as I could. But at the same time I was thinking

how well you carried your worldliness--what a kind of a _beau role_ you

made of it, don't you know? And whatever _should_ come, Claire, always

recollect that I'll stick to you, my dear, through thick and thin!"

The vernacular turn taken by Mrs. Diggs during this eager outburst gave

it a spontaneity and naturalness that more than once brought the mist to

Claire's eyes. She felt the true ring of friendly sympathy in every word

that was spoken; the touches of slang pleased her; they were like the

angularities of the lady's physical shape, severe and yet not

ungraceful. She was sorry when her visitor rose to go, and had a sense

of dreary loneliness after she had departed.

It would soon be the hour for dinner. But she could not dine. She knew

that the decorous butler who waited on her would perceive her efforts to

choke down the proffered food. Perhaps he would tingle with secret dread

regarding his next wages. He read the newspapers, of course; everybody

read them nowadays; and her husband's impending ruin had been their

chief and hideous topic.

As the chill winter light in the room turned blue before it wholly died,

she sat and thought of how many people would be glad to hear the very

worst. They seemed to her a pitiless legion. Then, as she thought of

how many would be sorry, three names rose uppermost in her mind: Mrs.

Diggs, Thurston, and Stuart Goldwin. Yes, Goldwin surely would have no

exultant feeling. He was full of arts and falsities, but he could not

fail to regret any calamity that brought with it her own sharp

discomfiture.

'He has lately been Herbert's rival in finance,' she told her own

thoughts. 'Circumstance has in a manner pitted them against each other.

Herbert rose so quickly. They have not been enemies, but they have stood

on opposite sides in not a few matters of speculation. Still, I am sure

he will lament the downfall, if it really comes. He will do so for my

sake, if for no other reason. I should have questioned him more closely

last night at the opera. I am sure he wanted me to speak with more

freedom of the threatening disaster. I should have asked him'--

And then Claire's distressed ruminations were cut short by the quiet

entrance of her husband. The door of the chamber had been ajar.

Hollister simply pushed it a little further open, and crossed the

threshold.

The dusk had begun, but it was still far from making his face in any way

obscure to her. As she looked at it, while slowly rising from her chair,

she saw that it had never, to her knowledge, been so wan and worn as

now. He paused before her, and at once spoke.

"Have you heard?" he said.

She felt herself grow cold. "What?" she asked.

"I'm cleaned out. Everything has gone. I thought you might have seen the

evening papers. They are full of it. Of course they don't know the real

truth. Some of them say that I have five millions hidden away." He

laughed here, and the laugh was bleak though low. "But I tell you the

plain truth, Claire--there's nothing left. The truth is best; don't you

think so?"

He was steadily watching her, as he thus spoke, and the detected irony

of his words pierced her like a knife. A wistful distress was in the

frank blue of his eyes; they seemed to reflect from her own spirit the

wrong that she had done him.

"Yes, Herbert," she answered, still keeping her seat, "I think that the

truth is always best."

A great sigh left his lips. He put both hands behind him, and began

slowly pacing the floor, with lowered head. While thus engaged, he went

on speaking.

"I can't think how I ever shot up as I did. I never was a very bright

fellow at Dartmouth. I always had pluck enough, but I never showed any

great nerve. Wall Street brought out a new set of faculties, somehow.

And then everybody liked me; I was popular; that had a great deal to do

with it, I suppose--that and a wonderful run of luck at the start. And

then there was one thing more--one very important thing, too. I see now

what a tremendous incentive it really was. I mean your wish to rise and

rule people. If it hadn't been for that, I'd have let many a big chance

slip."

He paused now, standing close beside his wife's chair. "I was always

weak where you were concerned," he said, regarding her very intently,

and with a cloud on his usually clear brow that bespoke suffering rather

than sternness. "You know that, Claire. I yielded always; I let you wind

me round your finger--I was so fond of the finger. If you had said,

'Herbert, do this or that folly,' I'd have done it, and it wouldn't have

seemed half so much a folly because of your loved command. Is not this

true?"

He came still closer to her after he had uttered the last sentence. He

was so close that his person grazed her dress.

Claire was very pale, and her eyes were shining. "It is perfectly true,"

she answered him.

Hollister's tones instantly changed. They were broken, hoarse, and of

fervid melancholy. "Perfectly true. Yes, you admit it. You know that I

am right. I gave you everything--love, interest, energy, respect,

obedience. And what did you give me? Your marriage-vows, Claire!--were

those falsehoods? Speak and tell me! I never thought so till yesterday.

Good God, woman! I never thought about it at all. You were my wife; you

were my Claire. You were stronger in nature than I, and I loved your

strength. I loved to have you lead, and to follow where you led. But

your love--oh, I counted on that as securely as we count on the sun in

heaven! And yesterday the truth burst on me! It wasn't I that you had

cared for. It was the high place I could put you in, the dresses and

diamonds I could buy for you, the"--

He suddenly broke off. A great excitement was now in his visage, his

voice, his whole manner. Whether from pain or wrath, it seemed to her

that his eyes had taken a much darker tint, and that an unwonted spark,

chill and keen, lit them.

"If it all _is_ true," he went on, speaking much more slowly, and like a

man who breathes hard without openly showing it, "then I thank God that

no child has been born of you and me!"

She sat quite still. She was utterly conscience-stricken. From all the

facile vocabulary of feminine self-excuse her bewildered and shamed soul

could shape no sentence either of propitiation or denial. At such a time

she felt the infamy, even the farce of lying to him. And how could she

respond with any sufficiency, any gleam of comforting assurance, unless

she did lie?

"You say that I led you into this disaster, Herbert," she presently

responded, with an effort, and more than a successful one, to steady her

voice. "I don't deny it, but at the same time remember that my

forethought provided for us both in a case of just the present sort. I

have the other house, you know. Its sale will bring us something. And

then there are all my jewels--and"--

His eyes flashed and his lip curled. "You talk in that business-like

style," he cried, "when I am asking you if you ever really loved me! Is

your evasion an answer, Claire? _Were_ your marriage-vows falsehoods?"

His hand grasped her wrist, though not with violence. She rose,

unsteadily, and shook the grasp off.

"Oh, Herbert," she said, "I never saw you like this before! Let us think

of what we can do in case all _is_ really lost."

He withdrew from her, breaking into a hollow laugh. He stared at her

with dilated, accusing eyes.

"You don't dare tell me. But I read it, as I read it yesterday.... What

can we do? Ah! you're not the woman to live on a thousand or two a year.

You want fine things to wear and to eat. You want your jewels,

too--don't sell them, for you couldn't get along without them, now." He

kept silence for a moment, and then hurried with swift steps toward the

door, again pausing. A kind of madness, that was born of an agony,

possessed him and visibly showed its sway. "Get some one else to put you

back into luxury," he went on, lifting one hand toward his throat, as

though to make the words less husky that were leaping from his lips.

"Get Goldwin to do it. Yes, Goldwin. You've only to nod and he'll kneel

to you--as I knelt. Perhaps he's got from you what I never could get.

You know what I mean--I've told you."

He passed at once from the room, flinging the door shut behind him. The

room was in dimness by this time. Claire almost staggered to a lounge,

and sank within it. His wild insult had dizzied her.

He had not meant a word of it. He was tortured by the thought that she

had never cared for him. He had used the first fierce reproach that his

sorrow and exasperation could hit upon. He went to his own apartments,

dressed, and then left the house. He forgot that he had not dined, but

remembered only that there might be some sort of forlorn financial hope

discovered by a certain assemblage of men less deeply involved than

himself, yet all sufferers in a similar way, which would take place

privately that same evening at a popular hotel not far distant. All

recollection of having suggested an infidelity to Claire quite escaped

from his perturbed and over-wrought brain. The piercing realization that

she had never loved him still continued its torment. But he failed to

recall that the desperate sarcasm of his mood had ever hurled at her the

name of Goldwin.

A knock at the door of the darkened room waked Claire from a kind of

stupor. The knock came from her maid, and it acted with decisive

arousing force. Lights were soon lit, and dinner, that evening, was

ordered to become a canceled ceremony.

"You may bring me some _bouillon_, Marie," Claire directed. "That, and

nothing else."

She drank the beverage when it was brought, and changed her dress. The

glass showed her a pale but tranquil face.

'I would have clung to him if he would have let me,' incessantly passed

through her thoughts. 'But now he tells me that another can give me the

luxury that I have lost. He is right. Goldwin will come this evening; I

am sure of it.'

Goldwin did come, and she received him with a mien of ice. Underneath

her coldness there was fire enough, but she kept its heat well hidden.

"I came to talk intimately with you," he at length said, "and you treat

me as if we had once met, somewhere, for about ten minutes."

The smouldering force of Claire's inward excitement started into flame

at these words. "I know with what _intimate_ feelings you came," she

replied, meeting his soft glance with one of cold opposition. "You want

to tell me that you can set Herbert right with his creditors."

"Yes," he answered, slowly, averting his eyes, "I did have that desire.

Is there anything wrong about it?"

"Yes. You should not have come to me. You should have gone to him."

"Why?" he asked.

"Why?" repeated Claire, breaking into a sharp laugh. A moment later she

tossed her head with a careless disdain. "I'm not going to tell you why.

You know well enough. See Herbert. Ask him if he will let you help him."

"You are very much excited."

"I have good reason to be."

"You mean this dreadful change in your husband's affairs?"

"Yes, I mean that, and I mean more. You mustn't question me."

"Very well, I won't."

But he soon did, breaking the silence that ensued between them with

gently harmonious voice, and fixing on Claire's half-averted face a look

that seemed to brim with sympathy.

"Would Hollister take my help if I offered it? Does he not dislike me? I

believe so--I am nearly sure so. You tap the floor with your foot. You

are miserable, and I understand your misery. So am I miserable--on your

account. I know all the ins and outs of your distress ... ah, do not

fancy that I fail to do so. He has said hard things--undeserved things.

He has perhaps mixed my name with his ... what shall I call them? ...

reproaches, impertinences? You have had a quarrel--a quarrel that has

been wholly on his side. He has accused you of not caring enough for

him. It may be that he has accused you of not caring at all. Of course

he has dilated on your love for the pomp and glitter of things. As if he

himself did not love them! As if he himself has not given all of us

proof that he loved them very much! Well; let that pass. You are to

renounce everything. You are to dine on humble fare, dress in plain

clothes, sink into obscurity. This is what he demands. Or, if it is not

demanded, it is implied. And for what reason? Because he still sees you

are beautiful, attractive, one woman in ten thousand, and that having

gambled away every other pleasure in life he can still retain you."

Claire rose from the sofa on which they were both seated. She did not

look at Goldwin while she answered him. Her voice was so low that he

just caught her words and no more.

"To what does all this tend? Tell me. Tell me at once."

Goldwin in turn slowly rose while he responded: "I will tell you, if you

will tell me whether you love your husband well enough to share poverty

with him after he has insulted you."

"I did not say that he had insulted me."

"I infer it. Am I right or wrong?"

Still not looking at him, she made an impatient gesture with both hands.

"Allowing you are right. What then?"

He did not reply for several minutes. He was stroking his amber mustache

with one white, well-shaped hand; his eyes were now turned from hers,

hers from him.

"I shall go abroad in a short time. I shall go in less than a

fortnight," he said.

It was a most audacious thing to say, and he knew it thoroughly. It was

the bold stroke that must either annul his hopes completely, or feed

them with a fresh life.

Claire seemed to answer him only with the edges of her lips.

"How does that concern me?"

"In no way. I did not say it did. But you might choose to sail a week or

two later. Alone, of course. It would be Paris, with me. You have told

me that you wanted very much to see Paris."

She turned and faced him, then, more agitated than angry.

"You speak of my husband having insulted me. What are you doing now?"

"I am trying to save you."

"Good Heavens! from what?"

"From him. Listen. I did not mean for you to go directly to Paris. You

would travel. But at a certain date I could meet you there. I could meet

you with--well, with a document of importance."

"Explain. I don't understand you at all."

"Suppose I put the case in certain legal hands here. Suppose they worked

it up with skill and shrewdness. Suppose they gained it. Suppose they

secured a divorce between you and him on--grounds" ...

"Well? What grounds?"

"Of infidelity. You know the life he has lived. Or rather, you don't

know. He has been so gay, so prominent, of late, that almost any

well-feed lawyer could"--

Claire interrupted him, there. "Leave me at once," she said, pointing

toward the door. "Leave me. I order you to do it!"

He obeyed her, but stopped when he had nearly reached the threshold.

"As my wife," he said, "you would reign more proudly than you have ever

reigned yet. The moment you were free I would be so glad to make you

mine--you, the loveliest woman I ever knew, and the most finely,

strictly pure!"

"Leave me," she repeated; but he had quitted the room before her words

were spoken.

She glanced in the direction whence his voice had come to her, and then,

seeing that he was gone, she dropped back upon the sofa, and sat there,

staring straight ahead at nothing, with tight-locked hands and

colorless, alarmed face.