The baby grew and thrived, as the habit is with healthy children well
taken care of. Mrs. Norman soon got back her strength, her figure, and
perhaps more than her former beauty--as the habit is with healthy women
well taken care of. Norman's career continued to prosper, likewise
according to the habit of all healthy things well taken care of. In a
world where nothing happens by chance, mischance, to be serious, must
have some grave fault as its hidden cause. We mortals, who love to live
at haphazard and to blame God or destiny or "bad luck" for our
calamities, hate to take this modern and scientific view of the world
and life. But, whether we like it or not, it is the truth--and, as we
can't get round it, why not accept it cheerfully and, so appear a little
less ignorant and ridiculous?
During their first year at the Hempstead place the results in luxury and
comfort had at no time accounted for the money it cost and the servants
it employed--that is to say, paid. But Norman was neither unreasonable
nor impatient. Also, in his years of experience with his sister's
housekeeping, and of observation of the other women, he had grown
exceedingly moderate in his estimate of the ability of women and in his
expectations from them. He had reached the conclusion that the women who
were sheltered and pampered by the men of the successful classes were
proficient only in those things that call for no skill or effort beyond
the wagging of the tongue. He saw that Dorothy was making honest
endeavor to learn her business, and he knew that learning takes
time--much time.
He believed that in the end she would do better than any other wife of
his acquaintance, at the business of wife and mother.
Before the baby was two years old, his belief was rewarded. Things began
to run better--began to run well, even. Dorothy--a serious person,
unhampered of a keen sense of humor, had taught herself the duties of
her new position in much the same slow plodding way in which she had
formerly made of herself a fair stenographer and a tolerable typewriter.
Mrs. Lowell had helped--and Ursula, too--and Norman not a little. But
Dorothy, her husband discovered, was one of those who thoroughly
assimilate what they take in--who make it over into part of themselves.
So, her manner of keeping house, of arranging the gardens, of bringing
up the baby, of dressing herself, was peculiarly her own. It was not by
any means the best imaginable way. It was even what many energetic,
systematic and highly competent persons would speak contemptuously of.
But it satisfied Norman--and that was all Dorothy had in mind.
If those who have had any considerable opportunity to observe married
life will forget what they have read in novels and will fix their minds
on what they have observed at first hand, they will recognize the Norman
marriage, with the husband and wife living together yet apart as not
peculiar but of a rather common type. Neither Fred nor Dorothy had any
especial reason on any given day to try to alter their relations; so the
law of inertia asserted itself and matters continued as they had begun.
It was, perhaps, a chance remark of Tetlow's that was the remote but
efficient cause of a change, as the single small stone slipping high up
on the mountain side results in a vast landslide into the valley miles
below. Tetlow said one day, in connection with some estate they were
settling:
"I've always pitied the only child. It must be miserably lonesome."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he colored violently;
for, he remembered that the Normans had but one child and he knew the
probable reason for it. Norman seemed not to have heard or seen. Tetlow
hoped he hadn't, but, knowing the man, feared otherwise. And he was
right.
In the press of other matters Norman forgot Tetlow's remark--remembered
it again a few days later when he was taking the baby out for an airing
in the motor--forgot it again--finally, when he took a several days'
rest at home, remembered it and kept it in mind. He began to think of
Dorothy once more in a definite, personal way, began to observe her as
his wife, instead of as mere part of his establishment. An intellectual
person she certainly was not. She had a quaint individual way of
speaking and of acting. She had the marvelous changeable beauty that had
once caused him to take the bit in his teeth and run wild. But he would
no more think of talking with her about the affairs that really
interested him than--well, than the other men of large career in his
acquaintance would think of talking those matters to their wives.
But--He was astonished to discover that he liked this slim, quiet,
unobtrusive little wife of his better than he liked anyone else in the
world, that he eagerly turned away from the clever and amusing
companionship he might have at his clubs to come down to the country and
be with her and the baby--not the baby alone, but her also. Why? He
could not find a satisfactory reason. He saw that she created at that
Hempstead place an atmosphere of rest, of tranquility. But this merely
thrust the mystery one step back. _How_ did she create this
atmosphere--and for a man of his varied and discriminating tastes? To
that question he could work out no answer. She had for him now a charm
as different from the infatuation of former days as calm sea is from
tempest-racked sea--utterly different, yet fully as potent. As he
observed her and wondered at these discoveries of his, the ghost of a
delight he had thought forever dead stirred in his heart, in his fancy.
Yes, it was a pleasure, a thrilling pleasure to watch her. There was
music in those quiet, graceful movements of hers, in that quiet, sweet
voice. Not the wild, blood-heating music of the former days, but a kind
far more melodious--tender, restful to nerves sorely tried by the
tensions of ambition. He made some sort of an attempt to define his
feeling for her, but could not. It seemed to fit into none of the usual
classifications.