What an arrival it was! She was attended by two maids, one French, the
other Italian. She had trained them--she and their former fashionable
mistresses--to treat her as if she was a royal person, requiring the
most minute assistance, incapable even of ascertaining for herself
whether it was daylight or dark, rain or shine. She was clad in the
latest Paris fashions, adapted and improved for her own especial
charms. She wore much jewelry, but nothing noisy. There never was
anything noisy about her--any more than there is about a burst of
sunshine that fills and floods the whole place, permeating everywhere
and dominating everything. She talked by turns in English--with a
superb British accent--in French that sounded Parisian and in Italian
that seemed as liquid and swift as the Italian maid’s. It was a vast
ship, and there were about a thousand passengers, and much luggage. To
me, to all on the pier that day, there seemed to be but one landing and
but one lot of luggage.
How many trunks had she? Heaven only knows. The customs people were
glad to expedite her after a glance at the exhibit imposing both in
extent and in costliness. She affected a delightful, most aristocratic
unconsciousness of the stir she was making, of the excited admiration
of men, of the gaping or jeering envy of women. Yes, it was a great
day, and as I accompanied her in the auto to the Plaza, I felt dowdy
and insignificant--felt like a humble male menial, a courier or valet.
“I did not fully appreciate your magnificence,” said I, “until I saw
you on these humble shores.”
“It is shocking here--isn’t it?” said she. “So incomplete, so crude. No
wonder the ideals are low. The surroundings give no inspiration.”
“None--except for work,” said I. “It’s a land for working people only.
No doubt you’ll be going back soon?”
“As soon as I can,” replied she. With a friendly but not tender smile:
“As soon as you’ll let me.”
The absence of her customary effusiveness confirmed my theory of her
coming. I had thought all out with the utmost care. I felt it would be
in every way unwise to let her see that I was eager for the divorce.
She must open the subject. It had ever been my rule, when I wanted
anything, so to maneuver that the other person should propose the
exchange. It is the rule of successful operation in every department of
life. Therefore, adhering strictly to my prearranged programme, I could
only sit tight and wait.
How she tried my patience! I was mad to have the preliminaries over,
to have the divorce under way--mad, not with the hysterical impatience
of those short-sighted people who mess their purposes through lack of
self-restraint, but with the white-hot repressed patience of those who
have their way in this world. Day followed day, and she did not speak.
I gave up the evenings and a large part of the afternoons to her. I
stayed on after dinner until there was no further excuse for lingering.
I listened to her interminable recital of fashionable names, dates,
gossip, adventure. A week of this, and just as my fortitude was wearing
itself out and I had begun to debate opening the subject myself, she
said:
“I’ve been down looking at our house. Really it’s not half bad. Why
shouldn’t we open it?”
I did not know what to say. Was I mistaken in her purpose in coming?
Or was this proposal to open the house the clever move of a clever
gamester to force me to speak first?
“This lovely weather!” she went on. “It’s a shame such a climate should
be wasted upon such a vulgar city. When I think of the dreadful rains
that infest Paris and the rains and fogs of London-- How they would
glory in this sun and sparkling air.”
To my notion New York was vastly more attractive than dreary London or
rainy, sloppy Paris. But I made no defense of New York. I wished her
to think it crude and tiresome.
“And the fashionable society here,” she went on. “What a silly copy of
the real thing over there!”
“It must remind you of Passaic,” said I.
She visibly shivered.
I was suddenly seized of a base inspiration. In my despair I did not
hesitate. Said I: “That reminds me. We must go over to see the old
people.”
“Oh, yes,” she murmured. “I’m so neglectful.”
I felt--I saw--that I was on the right track at last. “When will you
go?” I persisted. “Next Sunday?”
“Perhaps,” said she faintly.
“Yes, we’ll go Sunday. They fret because you never write.”
“They are well?”
“In splendid health. There’s no reason why all four of them shouldn’t
outlive us.”
“You--you go often?” she faltered.
“I haven’t been for some time,” said I. “You see, I’ve been away.... If
we opened the house, we could have them visit us. That would make up to
them for the way we’ve acted.”
She gazed at me in large-eyed horror. Suddenly she smiled with patient
scorn and shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, I had forgotten your passion for
jesting.”
“I am in earnest,” said I--and I was indeed in the full flood of
a virtuous penitence whose hypocrisy I did not detect until I was
thinking about the matter afterwards. You, gentle reader, would in
the same circumstances never have permitted yourself to discover the
hypocrisy. I went on: “I’m ashamed of the way I’ve acted.”
“They’ve got everything they need or want,” said Edna.
“Material comfort,” replied I. “But haven’t parents a right to expect
something more? And now that our social position is secure, we’ve no
excuse for acting snobbishly.”
I enjoyed this virtuous talk for itself; still more, I enjoyed teasing
her. Her delicate, refined, ladylike nerves were aristocratically
sensitive. Have you observed that peculiarity of lady nerves? A lady
will live with the most shocking husband for luxury. She will endure
the most degrading humiliations to get dresses, jewels, motor cars.
She will crawl in the dirt to gain or to improve social position.
She will, without a quiver, kiss her worst enemy, cut her dearest
friends, in the furtherance of any ladylike purpose. But talk to her of
self-respecting independence, of earning her own living, or of any of
the homely decencies of life--of her ignorant old parents or unsightly
poor relatives--and what a fairy princess of high-strung nerves she
straightway becomes. Yes, Edna was a lady--a perfect lady, as perfect
as if she had been born to it.
To my surprise I had daunted her only for the day; the following
afternoon she began again. “This heavenly weather!” she exclaimed. “It
tempts me to stay on and on.”
“I hope it will last over Sunday,” said I.
She ignored the shaft, and went on with undiminished enthusiasm: “And
really New York has improved. In some respects it can be compared to
Paris--though, of course, it has no background. A city can be built in
a generation or so. But to build up the country--that takes centuries.”
“It’s building up rapidly,” said I. “You’ll be astonished Sunday by the
change down where the old folks are. The Fosdicks have bought up twenty
farms or so, and are making a park. I saw Amy Siersdorf not long ago
and she spoke of having stopped at father’s place and got milk and corn
bread.”
“The fluffy little cat,” said Edna, not especially ruffled. “I shall
snub her the first time we meet. But I was about to speak of our house.
I am arranging to open it. Of course, Margot can’t come over _this_
winter, but I don’t really need her. We owe it to our friends here to
do something socially. I want to stop the gossip.”
“The gossip?” said I.
“The talk because we are not living together. It isn’t dangerous, but
it’s uncomfortable. I believe people like us ought to maintain the best
social traditions--ought to set a good example to the lower classes.”
“Oh, bother!” said I as good-humoredly as I could. “We’ll do as we
please. Otherwise, where’s the use in having money?”
A pause which I felt was hopeful. Edna said with affected carelessness:
“_You_ don’t think people have a right to--to divorce?”
At last! My intuition had been correct! “Why not?” replied I, my tone
as casual as hers. “Certainly, if they wish.”
A long silence. Then she: “Sometimes I feel that way myself. When
two people find that they’re uncongenial, that they’d be better
off--happier--if free to go their separate ways and to realize to the
full their own ideals of life-- Why not?”
“Precisely my view,” said I.
Again a long silence. She finally said: “Has it ever occurred to you,
Godfrey, that you and I might be better off--apart?”
I laughed. “It’s a good many years now since we were together,” replied
I. “We might as well be divorced as living the way we do.”
“It’s because I’ve been feeling those very things, that I’ve come
back,” said she. “It seemed to me that, now I’ve fulfilled my duty to
Margot, I ought to do my duty to you.”
“That’s like you,” said I. “For you life is one long sacrifice.”
If she scented irony she dissembled well. “Sacrifice is the woman’s
part,” replied she sweetly.
“No doubt,” I went on, “you’re willing to stay here where you’re
unhappy, and for my sake to jam the house night after night with
people you care nothing about, and disport yourself in splendor to
make the world envy me. I appreciate your nobility of character, but I
positively can’t allow it.”
“We must do our duty,” said she. “Society expects certain things of us,
and we must do them.”
“Not I, my dear. Open the house if you like. But I stick to my bachelor
apartment.”
“Do you want me to go back to Europe?” said she with a fine show of
quiet melancholy.
“I want you to do as you please,” was my answer.
“But unless I stay here, and you and I take our place in society
together, I--” She hesitated. “Now that Margot is settled,” she went on
desperately, “I am adrift. And--Godfrey, we _can’t_ go on as we are.”
“I see that,” said I. “What do you propose?”
“To stay in New York,” replied she, with the promptness of the skilled
fencer. “To stay here and be the mistress of your establishment.”
“My establishment is an apartment at Sherry’s.”
“But that’s impossible!” remonstrated she.
“Be calm, my dear. I don’t ask you to lead my kind of life.”
“Then--what do you propose?” ventured she.
I shrugged my shoulders and settled myself more comfortably in her
luxurious motor. I gazed with absorbed interest at the bunch of orchids
in the flower-holder.
“I don’t see how we can continue neither free nor bound,” pursued she.
“Whatever you like,” said I. “Only--no fashionable capering for me.”
“Do you want me to get a divorce, Godfrey?” said she.
“I want you to be happy,” said I. “Divorce has no terrors for me.
Aren’t we practically divorced already?”
“That’s true,” said she. “We never did have much in common.” Then she
reddened--for, she could not quite forget those first days of our
married life, before I got the money to feed her ambition. “You make
me feel as if you were a--no, not a stranger, but only a friend.”
“And we _are_ friends,” said I heartily. “And always shall be.” For I
was beginning to like her, to take the amiably indifferent outsider’s
view of her, now that she was freeing me.
“Godfrey, do you want to marry again?” she asked with a sudden shrewd
look straight into my eyes.
I laughed easily. “That question might better come from me,” said I.
“You will never be happy, I suppose, until you are the Duchess or
Princess Something-or-other.”
A flush stole over her small sweet face, making it lovelier than ever.
“I never thought of such a thing,” she protested--but too energetically.
“Nonsense,” said I. “You’ve dreamed it for years. Be honest with me,
Edna.”
“How could I dream it?” replied she. “It would take an awful lot of
money.”
“You have quite a bunch,” said I. “And if we parted, naturally I’d give
you more.”
Once again--but this time slowly--the searching gaze turned upon me.
I bore it well. “You can’t live as I live,” I went on. “I won’t live
as you live. You say that means divorce. I don’t think so. Many rich
American couples live apart without divorce. I believe usually the
reason is the wife has found she couldn’t get a large enough slice of
the husband’s fortune, if she divorced him. Still, for whatever reason,
they stay married. You don’t like the idea. So I say, if you want to
go I’ll give you as much as I gave Margot--in addition to what you
already have--and my blessing. I’ve some sentiment about the past, but
it is as a past.”
“I am--stunned,” said she. And I think her vanity was.
“It’s what you want?” rejoined I.
“You put me in a hard position, Godfrey. You give me no alternative but
to accept.”
“I am a hard man,” said I suavely.
“You are really willing to let me go?”
“You expected to have a difficult time persuading me?” laughed I.
She looked at me reproachfully. “Do be serious, Godfrey, about these
serious things.”
“All right. What do you say, Edna? Yes or no?”
“I must have time to think,” replied she. “This is a very solemn
moment.”
“Why fake?” said I pleasantly. “You have it all thought out.”
“It is solemn to _me_, Godfrey.”
“There’s nothing solemn about our married life. It’s a farce.”
But she was searching for confirmation of her fear of some kind of
trap. “You really mean that you wish to free me?” she said.
“I mean precisely what I say,” replied I. “Freedom and the cash are
yours for the asking. But you must ask, my dear. I’ll not have any more
of your favorite comedy of making yourself out a martyr.”
“You don’t know how you hurt me,” cried she. “But you always have hurt
me--always. I know--” very gently--“that you didn’t mean to, but you
haven’t understood.”
“I did my best,” said I, with the pleasant smile of which she was so
intolerant. “But what can be expected of a plain, coarse materialist of
a business man?”
“Yet you are generous in many ways,” mused she. “It’s simply that you
can’t understand me.”
“Perhaps it’s _you_ that don’t understand _me_,” said I.
“What do you mean?” inquired she.
“Oh, nothing,” I replied carelessly. How hope to make a vain woman,
obsessed of the notion that she has a profound and mysterious soul when
she simply has a fog-bank--how hope to make her see the truth about
herself? “It isn’t worth explaining. Only--when you are free and you
find some one who appreciates and sympathizes with that soul of yours,
be careful to pay him well, and to keep on paying. You can always be
flattered and fooled, if you pay for it. But if you don’t pay-- Look
out. You may hear the truth.”
“What a cynic you are!” she cried. “Thank God, I haven’t your low views
of life.”
“Keep your views, by all means,” said I. “But don’t forget my advice.
You are lovely. You are charming. You dress beautifully and have good
taste. But it’s the money, my dear, that causes the excitement about
those charms and graces. Hold on to your principal, and spend your
income freely but judiciously.”
“If I could only convince you that there is something beside money in
the world.”
“Not for those to whom money is the breath of life,” replied I.
When we returned to her hotel she urged me to come in for tea. We went
into the greenroom, to listen to the music and to observe the crowds.
There was a sprinkling of men, but two thirds were women--women of
all classes and conditions, above the working class. Women obviously
fashionable as well as rich. Women obviously only rich. Women living
off men respectably. Women “trimming” here and there. An army of pretty
women--well-cared-for bodies, attractive faces, inviting the various
kinds of sensual attack from the subtlest to the frankest. This woman
at the next table is rather cheaply dressed, except a gorgeous hat.
That woman yonder has contrived to “trim” only a handsome set of
furs; it looks grotesque with the rest of the costume. A third has a
huge gilt bag as her sole claim to sisterhood with the throng of fair
pampered parasites upon husbands, fathers, lovers. A charming and a
useless throng. No, not charming, unless a man happens to be in the
mood in which he succumbs to the trimming process with pleasure--and
then, he would not think them altogether useless.
“New York grows more and more like Europe,” said my wife, gazing around
with shining eyes, and inhaling the heavily scented atmosphere with
dilating nostrils. “More and more like Europe.”
“More and more,” replied I. “Especially the women.”
“Oh, they’re ahead of the European women,” said she.
“So they are,” said I. “Yes--they beat the European women at it. But
I’m not sure whether that’s because they are really cleverer, or merely
because our men trim more readily.”
She regarded me with an expression of mildly interested perplexity, as
if she couldn’t imagine what was the “it” I was talking about. “You
must admit they are lovely,” said she.
“Admit it?” said I. “I proclaim it. If a man’s notion of dinner is only
the dessert, he couldn’t do better.”
She looked still more vague--one of her tricks when she wished to avoid
or to ignore. “I never touch desserts,” said she.
As I was leaving--for we were not dining together that evening--she
said:
“I shall think about your proposal.”
I looked straight at her. “Tell me whether you will or will not confirm
your own proposal,” said I. “And don’t delay too long. Unfinished
business makes me nervous.”
She returned my look with quiet composure. “I shall let you know
to-morrow,” said she.
X
Among my acquaintances, both in and out of fashionable society, there
were not a few jealous husbands. I knew one man who, in the evening,
made his wife account for every moment of the day, and tell him in
detail how she was going to spend the following day, and during
business hours he called up irregularly on the telephone. He was not
content with the effective system of espionage which a retinue of
servants automatically establishes. Another man--to give a typical
instance of each of the two types--hired detectives from time to time
to watch his wife living abroad “for her health and to educate her
children.” In a decently ordered society this sort of jealousy is
rare. Only where the women are luxuriously supported parasites and the
men are attaching but the one value to the women--the only value they
possess for them--only there do you find this defiling jealousy the
rule instead of the exception. Naturally, if the woman is mere property
the man guards her as he guards the rest of his material possessions;
and the woman who consents to be mere property probably needs guarding
if she has qualities of desirability discoverable by other eyes than
those of her overprizing owner.
This jealousy was in the air of the offices and clubs I frequented.
But it had somehow or other never infected me. Was I occupied too
deeply with other matters? Was I indifferent? Did my own disinclination
to dalliance make me slow to appreciate the large part dalliance now
plays in American life? I do not know why I was free from jealousy.
I only know that never once had my mind been shadowed by a sinister
thought as to what my wife might be about, far away and free. Possibly
my knowledge of her absorption in social ambition kept me quiet.
Certainly a woman whose whole mind and heart are set upon social
climbing is about the last person a seeker for dalliance would invest.
I had never heard a word or a hint of a scandal about her--for the
best of reasons; she did nothing to cause that kind of talk. But, how
curious is coincidence! On the very evening of the day of our divorce
discussion Edna had her first experience of scandal, and I immediately
knew of it. After leaving her I went to the Federal Club, where I
often took a hand in a rather stiff game of bridge before dinner. I
drifted into the reading room, glanced idly at the long row of current
magazines. In full view lay the weekly purveyor of social news, a
paper I had not looked at half a dozen times in my life, and then only
because some one had asked me to read a particular paragraph. The
week’s issue of this scandal monger had just come in. I threw back
the cover, let my glance drop upon the page. I was hardly aware that
I was reading--for my thoughts were elsewhere--when I became vaguely
conscious that the print had some relation to me. I reread it; it was a
veiled attack upon Edna. All unsuspected by her husband--so the story
ran--she had come to America to divorce him that she might marry a
German nobleman of almost royal rank. A voice close beside me said:
“What is it amuses you so in that dirty sheet?”
It was Armitage. I started guiltily. Then my common sense asserted
itself, and I pointed to the paragraph. When he had read it I said:
“Who’s the German? I’m not well enough up on the nobility to be able to
guess, though it’s probably plainly told.”
“The Count von Biestrich,” said he.
“Thanks,” said I, no wiser than before, and we went up to play bridge.
A year or so before I might possibly have talked freely with Armitage;
but the day of our closest intimacy had passed. He was still my
intimate friend; I was his--with several large reservations. Why?
Chiefly because when he passed the critical age his mind took the
turn for the worse. At forty to forty-five a man begins to reap his
harvest. Armitage had many and varied interests, but the one that
affected his nature most profoundly was women. He mocked at them; he
was always inventing or relating stories about them of the more or less
gamey sort. But, somewhat like his pretensions of disdain for birth
and fashion, his wordy scorn of women concealed a slavish weakness for
them. After forty this began to disclose itself in his features. Their
handsome intellectuality began to be marred by a sensual heaviness; and
presently his wit degenerated toward a repellent coarseness. It takes
delicate juggling to make filth attractive. After forty a man does well
to be careful how he attempts it; for, after forty, the hand loses its
lightness. I rather avoided Armitage; not that I was squeamish, but
my sense of humor somehow rarely has responded to rude rootings and
pawings in the garbage barrel.
About an hour after dinner Edna called me to the telephone and asked me
to come to her. I found her in high excitement, her color vivid, her
manner nervous beyond its natural vivacity even as now expanded upon
the best Continental models. “I got rid of my guests,” said she, “and
sent for you as soon as I could. Have you heard?”
“About von Biestrich?” said I.
“It is hideous!--hideous!” she cried. “I who have kept my name
unsullied--I who have----”
“I’m sure of that,” I interrupted. “I’m dead tired and, if you’ll
excuse me, I’ll go home.”
She caught me by the arm. “Godfrey, you think this was what I had in
mind. I swear to you----”
“I’m sure you’ve been all that a wife is expected to be,” said I, in
my usual manner of good-natured raillery. “And I’m also sure you would
wait until you were free, and would deliberate very carefully before
deciding----”
“Godfrey, how can you!” cried she, in her most exaggerated tone for
outraged spirituality. “Have you _no_ heart? Have you no respect for
me--your wife, the mother of your daughter?”
“Have I not said I did not suspect you?” remonstrated I. “Why so
agitated, my dear? Do you wish to make me begin to suspect?”
She shrank and began to cool down. “I’ve never had such an experience
before,” she apologized. “I don’t know how to take it.”
“It’s nothing--nothing,” I declared.
“I give you my word of honor that if I were free I should not consider
marrying that German.”
“I believe you.” I put out a friendly hand. “Good night.”
“This ends all talk of divorce,” said she.
I dropped my hand. “I don’t see that the situation is changed in the
least.”
“That’s because you are not a woman,” replied she. “You can’t
appreciate how I feel.”
“You wished to be free before this paragraph appeared. You still wish
to be free.”
“Oh, _how_ can you be so insensible!” cried she, all unstrung again
and, I could not but see, genuinely so. “I _never_ could face the
scandal of a divorce. I didn’t realize. It would kill me. How _did_
Hilda face it?--and all these other nice women? I should hide and never
show my face again.”
She was agitating me so wildly that I felt I could not much longer
conceal it. “I must go,” said I, pretending to yawn. “Sleep on it.
Perhaps to-morrow you’ll feel differently.”
She tried to detain me, but I broke away and fled. To be almost free
and then to have freedom snatched away! Not out of reach, but where it
can be reached easily if one will simply stretch out his hand somewhat
ruthlessly. By no means so ruthless as my wife had been a score of
times in gaining her ends without regard to me. Why not be ruthless?
Had she not been ruthless? Had she not given me the right to compel
her to free me? More, did she not herself wish to be free? And was she
not now restrained, not by consideration for me, not by any decent
instinct whatsoever, but solely by a snobbish groveling fear of public
opinion?--a senseless fear, too?
We are constantly criticising people--by way of patting ourselves on
the back--because they take what they want regardless of the feelings
of others. A form of self-righteousness as shameless as common; for
we happen not to fancy the things they show themselves inconsiderate
and swinish about. But--when we really do want a thing--what then? How
industrious we become in appeal to conscience--that most perfect of
courtiers--to show us how just and right it is that we should have this
thing _we_ want! Having set myself drastically to cure self-fooling
years before--when first I realized how dangerous it is and how common
a cause of failure and ruin--I was unable to conceal from myself the
cruelty of forcing Edna to divorce me. My conscience--as sly a sophist
and flatterer as yours, gentle reader--my conscience could not convince
me. Cruel things I had never done--that is, not directly. Of course I,
like all men of action, had again and again been compelled to do them
indirectly. But not by my own direct act had I ever made any human
being suffer. I would not begin now. I would not commit the stupidity
of trying to found my happiness upon the wretchedness of another. I
could feel the withering scorn that would blaze in Mary Kirkwood’s
honest eyes if I should go to her after having freed myself by force,
and she should find it out. I see your sarcastic smile, gentle reader,
as I thus ingenuously confess the selfish fear that was the hidden
spring of my virtue. Your smile betrays your shallowness. If you knew
human nature you would know that all _real_ motives are selfish.
The differences of character in human beings are not differences
between selfish and unselfish. They are differences between petty,
short-sighted selfishness and broad, far-sighted selfishness.
When I saw Edna again she was still wavering. She had come to
America with her mind made up for divorce, if I could by hook or by
crook be induced to consent. She had been frightened by this attack
upon her--frightened as only those who live a life of complete
self-deception can be frightened by a sudden and public holding up of
the mirror to reflect their naked selves. She was, of course, easily
able to convince herself that her own motives in seeking a divorce
were fine and high and self-martyring. But she could now see no way to
convince others. In the public estimation she saw she would be classed
with Lady Blankenship, with Mrs. Ramsdell, with all the other women who
had got divorces to better themselves socially or financially.
Instead of dying out the scandal grew. The daily papers took up the
hints in the society journal’s veiled paragraph, had long cabled
accounts of Count von Biestrich, of his attentions to Edna, told when
and where they had been guests at the same châteaus and country houses,
made it appear that they had been no better than they should be for
nearly a year. Edna was prostrated.
“There’s only one answer to these attacks,” she said to me. “You must
give up your apartment and move to this hotel. We must open the house
and live in it together and entertain together.”
I was not unprepared. I had threshed out the whole matter with myself,
had made my choice between the two courses open to me--or, rather, had
forced myself to see the truth that there was in decency but the one
course. “Very well,” said I to her--and that was all.
I moved to the Plaza the same day; I was seen constantly with her; I
did my best to show the world that all was serene between us. In fact,
if you saw us during those scandal-clouded days you may have thought
us a couple on a honeymoon. Behind the scenes we quarreled--about
anything, about everything, about nothing--as people do when forced to
play in public the farce of billing and cooing lovers. Especially if
one of them has not the faintest glimmer of a sense of humor. But in
public----
The newspapers soon had to drop their campaign of slander by
insinuation.
So it came to pass that by the opening of the season Edna and I were
installed in the big house, decidedly improved now thanks to the
collecting both of ideas and of things she had done abroad. And we
were giving all kinds of parties, with me taking part to an extent I
should have laughed at beforehand as impossible. She had become so
irritating to me that the mere sight of her put me in a rage. Have you
ever been forced into intimate daily contact with a nature that is
thoroughly artificial--after you have discovered its artificiality,
its lack of sincerity, its vanity and pretense and sex trickery? There
is, as we all know, in everyone of us a streak of artificiality, of
self-consciousness, a fondness for posing to seem better than we are.
But somewhere beneath the pose there is usually a core of sincerity, a
genuine individuality, perhaps a poor thing but still a real thing. It
may be there was this reality somewhere in Edna. I can only say that I
was never granted a sight of it. And I rather suspect that she, like
most of the fashion-rotted women and men, had lost by a process of
atrophy through suppression and disuse the last fragment of reality.
Had Gabriel’s trumpet sounded and the great light from the Throne
revealed the secrets of all hearts, it would have penetrated in her to
nothing but posing within posing.
I shall get no sympathy from man or woman--or fellow-beast--after
talking thus of a woman and a lady. It is the convention to speak
gallant lies to and about women--and to treat them as if they were
beneath contempt. So my habit of treating them well and speaking the
truth about them will be condemned and denounced with the triple curse.
Well--I shall try to live through it.
Except in occasional outbursts when her rude candor toward me would
anger me into retort in kind, I concealed my feeling about her. I knew
it was just, yet I was ashamed of it. Our quarrels were all surface
affairs--outbursts of irritation--the blowing off of surplus steam,
not the bursting of the boiler and the wrecking of the machinery.
If you happen to take into your employ any of the servants we had in
those days--Edna’s maids or my valet or any other of the menials so
placed that they could spy upon our innermost privacy--I am confident
that in return for your adroit, searching questionings you will hear
we were no more inharmonious than the usual married couple past the
best-foot-foremost stage. I did not swear at her; she did not throw
bric-à-brac at me. And once, I remember, when I had a bad headache she
stayed home from the opera--on a Monday night, too--to read to me. It
is true the new dress in which she had expected to show herself was not
ready. But that is a detail for a cynic to linger upon.
Three months of New York, and she was bored to extinction. I had
confidently been expecting this. I watched the signs of it with
gnawing anxiety, for I was very near to the end of my good behavior.
If possible I wished to stay on and help her toward a rational frame
of mind--one in which she would see that divorce was the only possible
solution of our impossible situation. But I began to fear I should
have to give up and fly--to hunt or to inspect western mines and
railways. She was bored by the women; they seemed shallow dabblers in
culture after the European women. She was offended by their nervousness
about their position; it made them seem common in contrast with the
Europeans, born swells and impregnably ensconced. She was bored by the
men--by their fewness, by the insufferable dullness of those few--all
of them feeble imitations of the European type of elegant loafer.
“These men have no subtlety,” she cried. “They have no conversation.
When they’re alone with a woman--you should hear them try to flatter.
They are as different from the European men as--as----”
“As a fence-painter from an artist,” I suggested.
“Quite that,” said she, and I saw her making a mental note of the
comparison for future use--one of her best tricks. “Really, I prefer
the business men to them. But one cannot get the business men. What a
country, where everyone who has any brains is at work!”
“If you are unhappy here, why not go abroad?” said I amiably. “Margot
is always waiting for you.”
“But how _can_ I go abroad?” railed she. “There’ll be another outbreak
of scandal. Was ever a woman so wretchedly placed! What _shall_ I do!
If I had some one to advise me!”
It was interesting to hear her, determined, self-reliant character
though she was, thus confess to the universal weakness of the female
sex. Women, not trained to act for themselves, can hardly overcome this
fundamental defect. That is why you so often see an apparently, and
probably, superior woman weaken and yield where a distinctly ordinary
man would be strong and would march ahead. The trouble with Edna was
that she had no definite man behind her, spurring her on to action. In
all she had done from the beginning of our married life she had felt
that she had me to fall back on, should emergency arise--an unconscious
dependence, one she would have scornfully denied, but none the less
real. In this affair there was no man to fall back on.
I saw this. Yet I refrained from giving her the support she needed and
all but asked. Her cry, “If I had some one to advise me,” meant, “If I
had some one to give me the courage to act.” I knew what it meant. But
eager though I was to be quit of her, I would not give her the thrust
toward divorce that would have put into her the courage of anger and
of the feeling that she was a martyr to my brutality. Why did I hold
myself in check? Candidly, I do not know. I distrust the suggestion
that it may have been due to essential goodness of heart. At any rate,
I did restrain myself. She--naturally enough--misunderstood; and she
proceeded to explain it to the gratifying of her vanity. I saw in her
eyes, in her way of treating me, that she thought me her secret adorer,
convinced of my unworthiness, of her god-to-mortal superiority; not
daring openly to resist her desire to be free from me, but opposing
it humbly, silently. I saw that she pitied me. Did this add to my
anger? Not in the least. I have a perhaps queer sense of humor. I
rather welcomed the chance to get a little amusement out of a situation
otherwise dreary and infuriating.
Curiously enough, it was Armitage who came to her rescue--and to mine.
Bob had been in retirement several weeks, having himself rejuvenated
by a beauty doctor. You are astonished, gentle reader, perhaps
incredulous, that a man of his position--high both socially and
financially--should stoop to such triviality--not a woman but a man.
And the serious, masculine sort of man he was, I assure you. But you,
being a confirmed accepter of the trash written and talked about human
nature, do not appreciate what a power physical vanity is in the
world. Of course, if you are a man, you know about your own carefully
hid physical vanity. But you think it in yourself a virtue, quite
natural, not a vanity at all. Bob Armitage was not vain enough to fail
to see the beginning of the ravages of time and dissipation. Another
man would have looked in the glass and would have seen a reflection
ever handsomer as the years went by, would have discovered in the
creases and crow’s-feet and lengthening wattles a superb beauty of
manly strength of character showing at last in the face. Bob was not
that sort of fool. He wished to fascinate the ladies; so, he strove
to retain the fair insignia of youth as long as he possibly could. He
knew as well as the next man that his wealth had value with the women
far beyond any degree of beauty or charm. But like most men he wished
to feel that he was at least not a “winner” in spite of his personal
self; and his young good looks even helped toward the pleasantest of
delusions--that he was loved for himself chiefly.
The beauty doctor did well by him, I must say. He looked ten years
younger, would have passed in artificial light for a youth of thirty
or thereabouts. He reappeared in his haunts, freshened up mentally,
too; for physical content reacts powerfully upon the mind, and while it
is true that feeling young helps one to look young, it is truer that
looking young compels one to feel young.
With him came a Prince Frascatoni, head of one of the great families
of Italy, one of the few that have retained German titles and estates
from the days of the Holy Roman Empire. Frascatoni was sufficiently
rich for all ordinary purposes, and could therefore pose as a traveler
for pleasure with no matrimonial designs. He was, in fact, poor for
a _grand seigneur_ and was on the same business in America that has
attracted here every other visiting foreigner of rank--except those who
come for political purposes, and those who come to shoot in the West.
And those classes give our fashionable society as wide a berth as they
would its middle-class prototype in their home countries.
The first time I saw Frascatoni--when he and Armitage strolled into
the reading room of the Federal Club together--I thought him about the
handsomest and, in a certain way, the most distinguished-looking man
I had ever seen. He was a black Italian--dark olive skin, coal-black
hair, dark-gray eyes that seemed black or brown at a glance. They were
weary-looking eyes; they gazed at you with the ineffable dreamy satiric
repose of a sphinx who has seen the futile human procession march into
the grave for countless centuries. He had a slow sweet smile, a manner
made superior by the effacement of every trace of superiority. He had
the quiet, leisurely voice of one used to being listened to attentively.
“Loring--the Prince Frascatoni. Prince, I particularly wish you to know
my friend Godfrey Loring. Don’t be deceived by his look of the honest
simple youth into thinking him either young or unsophisticated.”
The prince gave me his hand. As it had also been my habit ever since
I learned the valuable trick merely to give my hand, the gesture
was a draw. Neither had trapped the other into making an advance.
We talked commonplaces of New York sky line, American energy and
business enthusiasm for perhaps half an hour. Then we three and some
one else, a professional cultivator of millionaires named Chassory,
I believe, played bridge and afterwards dined together. It came out
sometime during the evening that Frascatoni had met my wife in Rome
and in Paris, and that he knew my son-in-law--not surprising, as the
fashionable set is international, and is small enough to be acquainted
all round.
Armitage must have told him that my wife and I were not altogether
inconsolable if we did not see too much of each other. For, the prince,
taking Edna in to dinner a few nights later, laid siege at once. I
recall noting how he would talk to her in his quiet, leisurely way
until she looked at him; then, how his weary eyes would suddenly light
up with interest--not with ardor--nothing so banal as that--but a
fleeting gleam of interest that was more flattering than the ardor of
another man would have been. As Frascatoni, an unusual type, attracted
me, I saved myself from boredom by observing him all evening. And it
was highly instructive in the art of winning--whether women or men--to
see how he led her on to try to make that fascinating fugitive gleam
reappear in his eyes. I afterwards discovered that he accompanied the
gleam with a peculiar veiled caress of inflection in his calm, even
voice--a trick that doubly reënforced the flattery of the gleam.
“What a charming man Prince Frascatoni is,” said my wife, when our
guests were gone.
“Very,” said I. “If I were writing a novel I’d make him the hero--or
the villain.”
“He is one of the greatest nobles in Europe.”
“He looks it and acts it,” said I.
“Why, I thought him very simple and natural,” protested she.
“Exactly,” said I. “So many of the nobles I’ve met looked and acted
like frauds. They seemed afraid it wouldn’t be known that they were of
the aristocracy.”
“You are prejudiced,” said Edna.
“Then why do I size up Frascatoni so well?”
“You happen to like him.”
“But I don’t,” replied I.
“Of course not,” said Edna with sarcasm. “He isn’t in business.”
“Precisely,” I answered. “He couldn’t do anything--build a railroad,
run a factory, write a book, paint a picture. He and his kind are
simply amateurs at life, and their pretense that they could be
professionals if they chose ought to deceive nobody. He probably could
ride a horse a little worse than a professional jockey, or handle a
foil almost as well as a fencing master, or play on the piano or the
violin passably. I don’t admire that sort of people, and I can’t like
where I don’t admire.”
Edna yawned and prepared to go up to her own rooms. “I hope he’ll stay
a while,” said she. “And I hope he’ll let me see something of him. He’s
the first ray of interest I’ve had this winter.”
“You will see something of him,” said I. “He liked you.”
“You think so?” said she, seating herself on the arm of a chair.
“I know it. Unless he finds what he’s looking for, he’ll attach himself
to you.”
“What is he looking for?”
“A very rich wife,” said I. “But she must be attractive as well as
rich, Armitage tells me. Frascatoni doesn’t need money badly enough to
annex a frump. And Armitage says that while Englishmen and Germans and
the heiress-hunting sort of French don’t care a rap what the lady looks
like, the Italians--of the old families--are rather particular--not
exacting, but particular. Unless, of course, the fortune is huge.”
Edna yawned again. That sort of talk either irritated or bored her.
Frascatoni was constantly with her thenceforth--not pointedly or
scandalously so; there are discreet ways of doing those things, and
of discretion in all its forms the Italian was a supreme master. The
game of man and woman had been his especial game from precocious and
maddeningly handsome boyhood. He had learned both by being conquered
and by conquering. They say--and I believe it--that of all the
foreigners a clean Italian nobleman is the most fascinating.
The Hungarian or Russian is a wild, barbaric love-maker, the German
a wordy sentimentalist, the Englishman dominates and absorbs, the
Frenchman knows how to flatter the most subtly, how to make the woman
feel that life with him would be full of interest and charm. But the
right sort of Italian combines the best of all these qualities, and
adds to them the allure of the unfathomably mysterious. He constantly
satisfies yet always baffles. He reveals himself, only to disclose in
the inner wall of what seemed to be his innermost self a strangely
carved door ajar.
My first intimation of what Frascatoni was about came from my wife.
Not words, of course, but actions. She abruptly ceased quarreling,
rebuking, reproaching, scoffing. She soothed, sympathized, agreed. She
became as sweet as she had formerly been. I was puzzled, and waited
for light. It came with her next move. She began to talk of going back
to Europe, to deplore that scandalmongers would not let her. She began
to chaff me on my love of a bachelor’s life, on my dislike of married
life. She said with reproachful, yet smiling gentleness, that I made
her feel ashamed to stay on.
“Admit,” said she, “that you’d be better pleased if I were in Guinea.”
“You oughtn’t have given me so many years of freedom,” said I.
“You’d have been glad if I had gone on and gotten a divorce,” pursued
she.
My drowsing soul startled and listened. “I was willing that you should
do as you liked,” said I. “Divorce is a matter of more importance to
the woman than to the man--just as marriage is.”
“And it’s a sensible thing, too--isn’t it?”
“Very,” said I.
“Godfrey, would you honestly be willing?”
“I’d not lay a straw in your way.”
“What nonsense we’re talking!” cried she, with a nervous laugh. “And
yet there’s no denying that we don’t get on together. I see how trying
it is to you to have me about.”
“And you want to be free and living abroad.”
“I wonder how much I’d really mind the scandal,” pursued she. “I don’t
care especially about these New York people. And at the worst what harm
could they do _me_?”
“None,” said I.
“They could only talk. How they’d blame me!”
“Behind your back, perhaps,” said I. “Unless they thought I was to
blame--which is more likely.”
“You talk of divorce as if it were nothing.”
“It’s merely a means to an end,” said I. “You’ve got only the one life,
you know.”
“And I’m no longer so _dreadfully_ young. Though, I heard that Armitage
said the other day he would never dream I was over twenty-eight if he
didn’t know.”
She laughed with the pleasure we all take in a compliment that is
genuine; for she knew as well as did Armitage that she could pass for
twenty-eight--and a radiant twenty-eight--even in her least lovely hour.
“No one has youth to waste,” observed I. “In your heart you wish to be
free--don’t you?”
“We are not suited to each other, Godfrey,” said she with gentle
friendliness.
“There’s not a doubt of that,” said I.
“Why should we spoil each other’s lives? I conceal it from you, but I
am so unhappy here.”
“You can’t blame _me_,” said I. “I’m not detaining you.”
A long silence, then she said: “Suppose I were to consent--” I laughed,
she reddened, corrected herself: “Suppose we were to decide to do
it--what then?”
“Why--a divorce,” said I.
“Can’t those things be done quietly?”
“Certainly. No publicity until the decree is entered and the papers
sealed.”
“Does that mean no scandal beyond just the fact?”
“No scandal at all. Just the fact, and some newspaper comment.”
“And we needn’t be here.”
“Not then.”
“Would it take long?”
I reflected. “Let me see--if you begin action say within a month, the
divorce would take-- I could have it pushed through in another month or
so, and then--by next fall you’d be free.”
“But doesn’t one have to have grounds for divorce, beside not wanting
to be married?”
“All that easily arranges itself,” said I.
She lapsed into a deep study, I furtively watching her. I saw an
expression of fright, at the daring of her thoughts, gather--fright,
yet fascination, too. Said she in a low voice: “Godfrey, are you
_serious_?”
“Entirely so,” was my careless reply. “Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know whether I am or not.... I am _wretched_ here!”
“All you have to do is to say the word. We don’t in the least need each
other, and mutual need is the only respectable excuse for marriage. And
I must tell you, I’ll not stand for any more of this social nonsense
that compels me to participate. I’m done.”
She looked at me pityingly. Our season had been a brilliant success,
yet I remained unconverted, coarsely unsympathetic. “If I should decide
to--to do it--what then?”
“Nothing. I’d go away. The rest would be for the lawyers.”
She looked at me dazedly. “I’ll see--I’ll see,” she said, and went to
her own part of the house.
A week passed. Frascatoni sailed for home, sending by her his polite
regrets at not having seen me before his departure. I waited,
confident. I knew she had a definite goal at last, and, therefore,
a definite purpose. Aside from the danger of frightening her back
by showing my own eagerness there was the matter of property. I was
willing to pay a good round price for freedom. I have always hated
money wrangles; I had never had one with her, and I did not purpose to
have. On the other hand, that is, on her side, she would have given me
short shrift had it not been that she wished a slice of my fortune--and
a generous slice--to add to her own. I’ve not a doubt that the fierce
social campaign she put me through that winter was not so much for her
own pleasure, though she delighted in it, as for goading me to demand
a divorce, and, so, enable her to ease her conscience and to drive a
better bargain.
My seeming indifference, combined with her now trembling eagerness to
be free and away, soon forced her hand. The break came on a Sunday
afternoon. Life is so inartistic--that is, from the standpoint of the
cheap novelists and playwrights with their dramatic claptrap. Here is
how the grand crash was precipitated:
Said I: “Well, I’m off for a few weeks’ fishing.”
“You’re not starting now?” said she.
“Day after to-morrow,” said I.
“But I’ve made several engagements for you.”
“Get a substitute,” said I. “No one will miss me.”
“How inconsiderate you are!”
“That’s pretty good--after all I’ve borne this winter.”
“You are insufferable!” cried she.
“Then--why suffer me?” said I coolly.
“If you torture me much further, I won’t,” retorted she.
“I think I’ll clear out to-night,” said I.
“With people coming to dinner to-morrow! A big dinner!”
“Yes--to-night,” said I. “I had forgotten to-morrow’s horrors.”
“If I were free!”
“That’s easy.”
“Yes--I _will_ be free!”
“I’ll send you a lawyer at eleven to-morrow morning.”
She was pale and trembling. The quarrel was a mere pretense--a pretext
so flimsy that each knew the other was not deceived by it. Her tones of
anger, my tones of abrupt and contemptuous indifference were obviously
false and forced. As I left the room I cast a furtive glance at her,
saw that her daring was so terrifying her that she could hardly keep a
plausible front of haughty anger.
It was several hours before I could get away from the house, though I
made all haste. Every moment I expected some word from her. But none
came. I sent the lawyer the following morning. I was surprised when
later in the day, by the necessary roundabout way, I learned that she
had actually consented.
She showed that she had made an exhaustive study of the subject, like
the wise campaigner she was. She thoroughly understood how to proceed;
for, she told her lawyer--the one of my lawyers whom I assigned to
her--that my coldness to her had filled her with suspicion and that she
wished detectives employed. She needed no coaching whatever; he found
her prepared on every point.
How far had matters gone between her and Frascatoni? Not so far as you
imagine; but perhaps farther than I think. Both the husband and the
world are poor judges in those affairs.
* * * * *
I shall pass over the suit. It was commonplace throughout. There has
been much speculation as to the person named by my wife in the sealed
papers. I can truthfully say that I know as little about that person
as does the public. It is usually so, I believe, in these arranged
suits. I did not appear at any of the hearings, all of them held
secretly. Nor did Edna appear, though I believe that, to comply with
the forms of law, she made some sort of deposition in the presence
of the lawyers for both sides. It so happened that the first and
only public step--the judge’s ordering of the decree of divorce--was
published on the same day with the news of a big prize fight, a
sensational murder, and a terrific earthquake. So, we got off with
little public attention. At the time the law provided that a decree
should not become valid for six months. We were nominally free; but
actually neither could marry again for six months and meanwhile either
of us could reopen the case--and she could by merely requesting put an
end to it and restore her status as my wife. So, I was free--unless
Edna should change her mind sometime within the six months.
Edna was in London and I in Paris when the news came. Curiously enough,
as I stood in the doorway of the Ritz restaurant, that evening, looking
about for a table where I could dine alone, in came Prince Frascatoni
with another Italian whose name I cannot recall. I bowed to Frascatoni.
He said:
“You are alone, sir?”
“Unluckily, yes,” replied I.
He introduced his companion and suggested that we three dine at the
same table. “Why not share our dinner?” said he. “I can easily change
my order. Perhaps you will go with us afterwards to some amusing little
plays in a Montmartre theater?”
I accepted the courteous invitation. The situation appealed to my
sense of humor. Also I knew that Edna--toward whom I now felt most
kindly--would be delighted to read in the papers: “Prince Frascatoni
had as his guest at dinner last night Mr. Godfrey Loring.” It would
put an immediate stop to any tendency to gossip. As the prince did not
speak of my former wife I assumed that he had heard the news.
When we were separating I said: “You will dine with me to-morrow night?”
“Unfortunately I’m leaving town in the morning,” said he.
I thought I could guess which way he was journeying. With perhaps a
twinkle in my eyes, I said: “So soon? Well--thank you, and good-by--and
good luck.”
I thought I saw a sardonic smile flit over his face. He probably
imagined I was in the dark as to his maneuverings and designs and
smiled to himself as he thought, “How differently this American would
be treating me if he knew!” Do not fancy, because Edna had no charm
for me, I thought it strange she should have charm for other men.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I appreciated her attractive
points perhaps more than any other man possibly could. Also, I
appreciated--and still appreciate--that another man would not be so
peculiarly annoyed by her lack of any sense of humor as I was. Indeed,
had not circumstances forced me into the acutely critical mood toward
her, I doubt not I could have continued to bear with that lack, though
it made conversation with her all but impossible and precipitated
quarrels without number.
Beyond question the strongest and most enduring hold a man can get
upon a woman or a woman upon a man is the physical. We--even the least
intellectual of us--are something more than physical; but the physical
must be contented first, and must remain contented, because we are
first of all physical. The physical is the fundamental; but it takes
more than foundations to make a house. And a marriage such as ours was
could not endure. Each of us had but the one charm for the other. It
wore itself out like a fire that is not supplied with fuel.
If I had not fallen in love with another woman, there might have
remained a feeling for Edna that would have made me jealous, perhaps
domineering toward her. As it was, I viewed her calmly; when I said
“good luck” to Frascatoni, I meant it. I hoped he would make Edna
happy, for, I wished her well.
Through Armitage I had provided myself with Mary Kirkwood’s address--an
apartment overlooking the Parc Monceau which she and Neva Armstrong had
taken for the spring months. That very afternoon I went to leave cards.
As I feared she was not at home. “But,” said Mrs. Armstrong, “you may
find her walking in the park with Hartley Beechman.”
“Oh, is he here?” said I.
“Naturally,” replied she.
You may picture me as suddenly dashed down by this word whose meaning
there was no mistaking. If so, you have discovered little about me in
these pages. Life had made me a competent judge of the situation that
is really hopeless, the situation where to struggle is folly, and that
situation which seems hopeless to the small of earth, accustomed to
defeat in their desires, but seems only difficult to the other sort of
human beings.
“He has taken a studio over in the Latin quarter,” continued Mrs.
Armstrong. “We are all going back together in July.”
Mrs. Armstrong is an attractive woman--singularly so for one who
is obviously wholly absorbed in her husband. She has the sort of
personality her paintings prepare you to expect. But I had difficulty
in concealing my impatience to get away. I strolled several times
through the park, which is not large, before I finally came upon Mary
and Beechman seated in one of the less-frequented paths. As I was
moving directly toward them, both saw me at the same instant. Her
welcoming smile was radiant. I did not notice his, but I assume it was
more reserved.
Never had I seen her looking so well. You may say what you please,
but an American woman who knows how to dress, in touch with a French
dressmaker who is rather artist than dressmaker, is the supreme
combination for æsthetic beauty. Mrs. Kirkwood, of the ivory skin and
the coal-black hair, was a thrilling sight to see in her white dress
and big black hat, with that background of fresh spring foliage and
late afternoon light. Her eyes and her smile, I noted for the first
time, had somewhat the same quality as Frascatoni’s--the weary eyes,
the slow sweet smile.
“Mr. Loring!” she cried, rising and extending her hand impulsively. “I
thought I was never to see you again.”
I hid my emotion and greeted her, then Beechman, in my habitual manner
which, they tell me, is the reverse of effusive. I suppose, when I am
deeply moved, its lack of cordiality becomes even more pronounced.
After a few minutes of the talk necessary among acquaintances who have
not met in a long time Beechman rose.
“You and Beechman will dine with me, I hope?” I said. “Mrs. Armstrong
says she will go if you can.”
It was arranged and, as the day was warm, d’Armenonville was fixed
upon as the place. “Until half-past eight,” said Beechman as he left.
Mary and I sat silent watching him walk away. A superb figure of
young manhood, supremely fortunate in that his body was an adequate
expression of a strong and simple nature.
As he passed from view at the turn of the walk I transferred my gaze to
her. Her eyes slowly lowered, and a faint flush came into her cheeks.
Said I:
“You saw the news--about me?”
“Hartley and I were talking of it as you appeared.”
“You were not surprised?”
“Yes--and no,” replied she, with constraint and some confusion. “A year
or so ago I--people thought--you and she had--had drifted apart. Then
it looked as though you had come together again. It seemed the natural
thing. She is beautiful and has so much charm.”
“She was unhappy in America. She wished to be free.”
Mary looked at me reflectively. “You are not--inconsolable, I see,”
said she with a smile of faint raillery. “My brother has often told me
about you--how indifferent you are to women. Perhaps that is why you
are attractive to them.”
“Am I?” said I. “I did not know it.”
“You are terribly impersonal,” she went on laughingly. “Last summer
I--well, I was not--that is, not exactly--trying to flirt with
you. But your absolute unconsciousness of me as a woman was often
very--baffling.”