XLII

She was not sorry to forego the doubtful luxury of meditation on the

sadness of life. When Miss Trevor's card was brought to her she told

the servant to show her up and bring tea immediately. She was not

interested in Agnes Trevor, a younger sister of Polly Vane, but at all

events she would talk about her settlement work and give a comfortably

commonplace atmosphere to the room in which tragic clouds were rising.

As it had happened, Mary, during these past weeks, had seen little of

New York women between the relics of her old set and their lively

Society-loving daughters. The women between forty and fifty, whether

devoted to fashion, politics, husbands, children, or good works, had so

far escaped her, and Agnes Trevor, who lived with Mrs. Vane, was

practically the only representative of the intermediate age with whom

she had exchanged a dozen words. But the admirable spinster had taken

up the cause of the Vienna children with enthusiasm and raised a good

deal of money, besides contributing liberally herself. She was

forty-two, and, although she was said to have been a beautiful girl,

was now merely patrician in appearance, very tall and thin and

spinsterish, with a clean but faded complexion, and hair-colored hair

beginning to turn gray. She had left Society in her early twenties and

devoted herself to moralizing the East Side.

She came in with a light step and an air of subdued bright energy, very

smartly but plainly dressed in dark blue tweed, with a large black hat

in which a wing had been accurately placed by the best milliner in New

York. Her clothes were so well-worn, and her grooming was so

meticulous, her accent so clean and crisp, her manner so devoid of

patronage, yet subtly remote, her controlled heart so kind that she

perennially fascinated the buxom, rather sloppy, preternaturally acute,

and wholly unaristocratic young ladies of the East Side.

Mary, who had a dangerous habit of characterizing people in her Day

Book, had written when she met Agnes Trevor: "She radiates

intelligence, good will, cheeriness, innate superiority and

uncompromising virginity."

"Dear Mary!" she exclaimed in her crisp bright tones as she kissed her

amiable hostess. "How delightful to find you alone. I was afraid you

would be surrounded as usual."

"Oh, my novelty is wearing off," said Mary drily. "But I will tell

them to admit no one else today. I find I enjoy one person at a time.

One gets rather tired in New York of the unfinished sentence."

"Oh, do." Mary's quick eye took note of a certain repressed excitement

in the fine eyes of her guest, who had taken an upright chair.

Lounging did not accord with that spare ascetic figure. "And you are

quite right. It is seldom one has anything like real conversation.

One has to go for that to those of our older women who have given up

Society to cultivate the intellects God gave them."

"Are there any?" murmured Mary.

"Oh, my dear, yes. But, of course, you've had no time to meet them in

your mad whirl. Now that things have slowed down a bit you _must_ meet

them."

"I'm afraid it's too late. I sail in a fortnight."

"Oh!" Miss Trevor's voice shook oddly, and the slow color crept up her

cheeks. But at that moment the tea was brought in.

"Will you pour it out?" asked Mary. "I'm feeling rather lazy."

"Of course." Miss Trevor was brightly acquiescent. She seated herself

before the table. The man retired with instructions that Madame was

not at home to other callers.

Mary watched her closely as she stirred the tea with a little

business-like air, warmed the cups, distributed the lemon and then

poured out the clear brown fluid.

"Formosa Oolong," she said, sniffing daintily. "The only tea. I hate

people who drink scented teas, don't you? I'm going to have a very

strong cup, so I'll wait a minute or two. I'm--rather tired."

"You? You look as if you never relaxed in your sleep. How do you keep

it up?"

"Oh, think of the life the younger women lead. Mine is a quiet amble

along a country road by comparison. . . . But . . . monotonous!"

The last word came out with the effect of a tiny explosion. It

evidently surprised Miss Trevor herself, for she frowned, poured out a

cup of tea that was almost black, and began sipping it with a somewhat

elaborate concentration for one so simple and direct of method.

"I'm afraid good works are apt to grow monotonous. A sad commentary on

the triumphs of civilization over undiluted nature." Mary continued to

watch the torch bearer of the East Side. "Don't you sometimes hate it?"

She asked the question idly, interested for the moment in probing under

another shell hardened in the mould of time, and half-hoping that Agnes

would be natural and human for once, cease to be the bright well-oiled

machine. She was by no means prepared for what she got.

Miss Trevor gulped down the scalding tea in an almost unladylike

manner, and put the cup down with a shaking hand.

"That's what I've come to see you about," she said in a low intense

voice, and her teeth set for a moment as if she had taken a bit between

them. "Mary, you've upset my life."

"I? What next!"

"I suppose you have troubles of your own, dear, and I hate to bother

you with mine----"

"Oh, mine amount to nothing at present. And if I can help you----"

She felt no enthusiasm at the prospect, but she saw that the woman was

laboring under excitement of some sort, and if she could not give her

sympathy at least she might help her with sound practical advice.

Moreover, she was in for it. "Better tell me all about it."

"It is terribly hard. I'm so humiliated--and--and I suppose no more

reticent woman ever lived."

"Oh, reticence! Why not emulate the younger generation? I'm not

sure--although I prefer the happy medium myself--that they are not

wiser than their grandmothers and their maiden aunts. On the principle

that confession is good for the soul, I don't believe that women will

be so obsessed by--well, let us say, sex, in the future."

Miss Trevor flushed darkly. "It is possible. . . . That's what I

am--a maiden aunt. Just that and nothing more."

"Nothing more? I thought you were accounted one of the most useful

women in serious New York. A sort of mother to the East Side."

"Mother? How could I be a mother? I'm only a maiden aunt even down

there. Not that I want to be a mother----"

"I was going to ask you why you did not marry even now. It is not too

late to have children of your own----"

"Oh, yes, it is. That's all over--or nearly. But I can't say that I

ever did long for children of my own, although I get on beautifully

with them."

"Well?" asked Mary patiently, "what is it you do want?"

"A husband!" This time there was no doubt about the explosion.

Mary felt a faint sensation of distaste, and wondered if she were

reverting to type as a result of this recent association with the

generation that still clung to the distastes and the disclaimers of the

nineteenth century. "Why didn't you marry when you were a girl? I am

told that you were quite lovely."

"I hated the thought. I was in love twice; but I had a sort of cold

purity that I was proud of. The bare idea of--of _that_ nauseated me."

"Pity you hadn't done settlement work first. That must have knocked

prudishness out of you, I should think."

"It horrified me so that for several years I hardly could go on with

it, and I have always refused to mix the sexes in my house down there,

but, of course, I could not help hearing things--seeing things--and

after a while I did get hardened--and ceased to be revolted. I learned

to look upon all that sort of thing as a matter of course. But it was

too late then. I had lost what little looks I had ever possessed. I

grew to look like an old maid long before I was thirty. Why is nature

so cruel, Mary?"

"I fancy a good many American women develop very slowly sexually. You

were merely one of them. I wonder you had the climacteric so early.

But nature is very fond of taking her little revenges. You defied her

and she smote you."

"Oh, yes, she smote me! But I never fully realized it until you came."

"I hardly follow you."

"Oh, don't you see? You have shown us that women can begin life over

again, undo their awful mistakes. And yet I don't dare--don't dare----"

"Why not, pray? Better come with me to Vienna if you haven't the

courage to face the music here."

"Oh, I haven't the courage. I couldn't carry things off with such a

high hand as you do. You were always high and mighty, they say, and

have done as you pleased all your life. You don't care a pin whether

we approve of what you've done or not. It's the way you're made. But

I--couldn't stand it. The admission of vanity, of--of--after the life

I've led. The young women would say, in their nasty slang, that I was

probably man-crazy."

"And aren't you?" asked Mary coolly. "Isn't that just what is the

matter? The sex-imagination often outlives the withering of the

sex-glands. Come now, admit it. Forget that you are a pastel-tinted

remnant of the old order and call a spade a spade."

"There's something terrifying about you, Mary." Miss Trevor had

flushed a dark purple, but she had very honest eyes, and they did not

falter. "But I respect you more than any woman I have ever known. And

although you are not very sympathetic you are the only person on earth

to whom I could even mention such a subject."

"Well, go ahead," said Mary resignedly. "If you want my advice, take

your courage in your hands and do it. However people may carp, there

is nothing they so much admire as courage."

"Yes, but they make you suffer tortures just because they do admire

it--or to keep themselves from admitting it."

"True enough. But after all, they don't matter. Life would be so much

simpler if we'd all make up our minds that what other people think

about us does not signify in the least. It's only permitting it to

signify that permits it to exist."

"That's all very well for you, but it's really a question of

temperament. Do you think I'd dare come back here looking like a girl

again--and I suppose I should. I'm sixteen years younger than

you. . . . You must know how many of the women hate you."

"That sort of hate may be very stimulating, my dear Agnes," said Madame

Zattiany drily.

"I can understand that. But I should return to what it is hardly an

exaggeration to call a life of a thousand intimacies. The ridicule!

The contempt! The merciless criticism! I don't want to live anywhere

else. I can't face it! But, oh, I do so want it! I do so want it!"

"But just think of the compensations. No doubt you would marry

immediately. If you were happy, and with a man to protect you, how

much would you care?"

"Oh!" Once more the thin ascetic face was dyed with an unbecoming

flush. "Oh!" And then the barriers fell with a crash and she hurried

on, the words tumbling over one another, as her memory, its inhibitions

shattered, swept back into the dark vortex of her secret past. "Oh,

Mary! You don't know! You don't know! You, who've had all the men

you ever wanted. Who, they say, have a young man now. The nights of

horror I've passed. I've never slept a wink the nights our girls

married. I could have killed them. I could have killed every man I've

met for asking nothing of _me_. It seems to me that I've thought of

nothing else for twenty years. When I've been teaching, counselling

good thoughts, virtue, good conduct, to those girls down there, it's

been in the background of my mind every minute like a terrible

obsession. I wonder I haven't gone mad. Some of us old maids do go

mad. And no one knew until they raved what was the matter with them.

When Hannah de Lacey lost her mind three years ago I heard one of the

doctors telling Peter Vane that her talk was the most libidinous he had

ever listened to. And she was the most forbidding old maid in New

York. I know if I lose my mind it will be the same, and that alone is

enough to drive any decent woman mad. . . . I thought I'd get over it

in time--I used to pray--and fight with my will--but when the time came

when I should have been released I was afraid I would, and then I

deliberately did everything I could to keep it alive. I couldn't lose

my right---- It _was_ my right. I couldn't tell you all the things

I've---- Oh, I tell you that unless I can be young again and have some

man--any man--I don't care whether he'll marry me or not--I'll go

mad--mad!"

Her voice had risen to a shriek. She would be in hysterics in another

moment. Mary, who was on the point of nausea, went hastily into her

dressing-room and poured out a dose of sal-volatile. "Here!" she said

peremptorily. "Drink this. I'll not listen to another word. And I

don't wish to be obliged to call an ambulance."

Miss Trevor gulped it down, and then permitted herself to be led to a

sofa, where she lay sprawled, her immaculate hat on one side, giving

her the look of a debauched gerontic virgin. She lay panting for a few

moments, while Madame Zattiany paced up and down the room.

She turned as she heard a groan. Miss Trevor was sitting up,

straightening her hat. "Feel better?" she asked unsympathetically.

"Oh, yes--my nerves feel better! But what have I said? What must you

think of me? I never expected to give way like that when I came. I

thought I could put it all to you in a few delicate hints, knowing that

you would understand. _What_ have I said? I can hardly remember."

"Better not try! I'll promise to forget it myself." She sat down

beside the sofa. "Now, listen to me. It would not be wise for you to

go to Vienna. They would suspect, if not at once, then certainly when

you returned. It can be done here. The rejuvenescence is so gradual

that it would hardly be noticed. Fully a year. You do not have to go

into a hospital, nor even to bed. You are not spied on, so no one

would suspect that you were taking the treatment. At your age success

is practically assured. Take it, and don't be a fool. If you don't

it's only a question of time when that superb self-control you have

practised for so many years will go again. And, too possibly, in the

wrong place. . . . It is quite likely that you will never be

suspected, because women often bloom out in their forties, take on a

new lease of life. Begin to put on a little make-up----"

Miss Trevor interrupted with a horrified exclamation.

"It would be judicious. If they criticize you, remember that nothing

they can say will be as bad--from your point of view--as their finding

out the truth. They will lay it to that, and to the fact that you have

grown a little stouter. And let me tell you, you won't care in the

least, even if conservatism attacks you in solid battalions, for your

mental attitude to life will be entirely changed. Remember that you

will be young again, and too gay and happy to mind what people think of

you. Now, promise me that you will take my advice, and then go home

and to bed."

Miss Trevor got up and went to the mirror. "Yes, I'll do it." And

then she said, no doubt for the first time in her life: "And I'll not

give a damn, no matter what happens."

When she had left Mary Zattiany stood for a few moments striking her

hands together, her face distorted. A wave of nausea overwhelmed her.

She felt as if there had been an earthquake in her own soul and its

muck were riding the surface. She loathed herself and all women and

all men. She knew that the violence of the revulsion must be

temporary, but for the moment it was beyond her control. She went to

the telephone and called up Clavering and told him that she had a

severe headache and was going to bed. And she cut short both his

protests and his expression of sympathy by hanging up the receiver.

And then she picked up a vase and hurled it to the floor and smashed it.