“Nothing a woman loves so much--an American woman with a little
miseducation befogging her mind and fooling her as to its limited
extent--nothing she so dearly loves as to hear that she has a
great intellect and a great soul, complex, mysterious, beyond the
comprehension of the vulgar male clods about her. That’s why they
like foreigners. You ought to watch those foreign chaps flatter our
women--make perfect fools of them.”
But I had no desire to watch women in any circumstances. I had no
active resentment against them as had Armitage. I simply wished to
be let alone, to be free to pursue my ambitions and my ideas of
self-development. I had ceased to feel about Margot. I was merely glad
she was not a boy; for I felt that if she were a boy, I should have
to assert myself and do some drastic and disagreeable--and almost
certainly disastrous--disciplining in my family.
About a year and a half after my wife achieved her ambition, I began to
feel that she was spiritually bearing down upon me in pursuance of some
new secret plan.
During the year and a half she had been playing the fashionable social
game with the strenuous enthusiasm which only a woman--I had almost
said only an American woman--seems able to inject into the pursuit
of objects that are of no consequences whatsoever. And, in spite of
the useful MacIlvane I had been compelled to assist her far more than
was to my liking. I went about enough to get a thorough insight into
fashionableness--and a profound distaste for it. Of the many phases,
ludicrous, repellent, despicable, pitiful, there was one that made a
deep impression upon me. It amazed me to find that the “best” class
of people was, if possible, more vulgarly snobbish than the class
from which I had come--even than the “Brooklyn bounders.” I could
not comprehend--I cannot comprehend--how those who have had the best
opportunities are no more intelligent, no broader of mind than those
who have had no opportunities at all. The ignorance, the narrowness of
the men and women of the comfortable classes!--the laziness of their
minds!--the shallow cant about literature, art and the like! Really,
intelligence, activity of mind, seems confined to the few who are
pushing upward; and the masses of mankind in all classes seem contented
each class with its own peculiar wallow of ignorance.
But to Edna’s secret plan. If you are a married man you will at once
understand what I mean when I speak of having a vague sensation of
being borne down upon. She said nothing; she did nothing. But I knew
she was making ready to ask something to which she believed she could
get my consent only by the use of all her tact and skill and charm--for
she did not know her charms had ceased to charm, but thought them more
potent than ever. I waited with patience and composure; and in due time
she began cautious open approaches.
“Margot is almost ready to come out,” said she.
“Money?” said I, smiling.
She rebuked this coarseness amiably. “_Everybody_ isn’t _always_
thinking of money, dear,” said she.
“But why talk to _me_ about anything else? That’s my only department in
the family.”
She deigned a smile for my pleasantry, then went on in her usual
serious way: “I wish to consult you about her education.”
“Oh--finish as you’ve begun,” said I. “I suppose it’s the best that can
be done for a girl.”
“But I can’t find what I want,” said she, with an expression of sweet
maternal solicitude. “I’ve always been determined Margot should have
the best education any girl in the whole world could get.”
“Go ahead,” said I. “See that she gets it.”
“She shall have the perfect equipment of a lady--of a woman of the
world,” continued Edna, with growing enthusiasm. “She has the beauty to
set it off--and we can afford to give it to her. I am willing to make
any sacrifices that may be necessary.”
I pricked up my ears. I always do when anyone, male or female, uses
that word sacrifice. I know a piece of selfishness is coming.
“As I was saying,” pursued Edna, with the serene look of the
self-confident woman who is taking her husband in firm, strong hands,
“I have been unable to find what I want for her. Mrs. Armitage tells me
I’ll not find it except in Paris.”
“Well--why not go to Paris?” said I.
Did you ever lift an empty box that you thought full and heavy? My wife
looked as if she had just done that exceedingly uncomfortable thing.
“But I don’t see-- I--I-- It would be a terrible sacrifice to have to
go and live in Paris,” stammered she.
“Then don’t do it,” said I.
“But I must think of Margot!” exclaimed she hastily.
“Oh, Margot seems to be stepping along all right. She’ll never miss
what she doesn’t know about.”
“But you must realize, dear, what an education she’d get in Paris. And
I suppose it would do me good, too. It’s a shame that I don’t speak
French. Everyone except me speaks it. They all had French governesses
when they were children.”
“Some of them had--and some hadn’t,” said I. “Armitage has told me
things about your friends that make me suspect they’re doing fully as
much bluffing as we are.”
She winced, and sighed the sigh of the lady patient with a low husband.
“Then you think I ought to go?” said she.
“I think you ought to do as you like,” said I. “I always have thought
so. I always shall.”
“And,” continued she absently, “the society over there must be
charming. Really, I need the education as much as Margot does. I do
surprisingly well, considering what my early opportunities were.”
“I’ve never once heard you give yourself away,” said I.
“I’m not that stupid,” replied she. “But--a while in France--on the
Continent--and in England perhaps----”
“How long would you be gone?” interrupted I, to show her that all this
beating round Robin’s barn was superfluous.
She gave me a coquettish look: “How long could you spare me?”
“I can’t tell till I’ve tried,” said I, with a gallant smile--but with
no move toward her. You women who would be wise, distrust the gallantry
that is content with speech and look.
“You understand,” pursued she, “if I started this thing I’d put it
through--no matter how much I missed you or how homesick I was over
there.”
“You always do put things through,” said I admiringly. “When have you
planned to start?”
“I haven’t planned at all, as yet,” replied she--and I saw she thought
I had set a trap for her, and was delighted with herself for having
dodged it. Certainly never was there a husband with whom indirection
was more unnecessary. Yet she would not realize this, partly because
she had never bothered to discover what manner of man I was, partly
because she had one of those natures that move only by secrecy and
indirection.
“Do you expect me to go over with you?” inquired I.
“I only wish you would!” exclaimed she, but I distrusted her enthusiasm.
“Couldn’t MacIlvane take you over and settle you?”
Her face clouded. Her lip curled slightly. “I don’t like him as I did,”
said she. “I’ve found out he’s ridiculously vain and egotistical.”