There was the soft sound of a footstep on the padded stairs, and Percy
Woodyard glanced into the room.
"Hello, Tom!" he said briskly, and crossed to Conny, whose smooth brow he
touched softly with the tips of his fingers. "How goes it, Tom?"
"You are home early," Conny complained in her treble drawl.
"Must go to Albany to-night," Percy explained, a weary note in his voice.
"Not dining out to-night, Tom?"
It was a little joke they had, that when Cairy was not with them he was
"dining out."...
When Cairy had left, Conny rose from her lounging position as if to resume
the burden of life.
"It's the Commission?" she inquired.
"Yes! I sent you the governor's letter."
For a time they discussed the political situation in the new Commission, to
which Woodyard had recently been appointed, his first conspicuous public
position. Then his wife observed wearily: "I was at Potts's this morning
and saw Isabelle Lane there. She was in mourning."
"Her father died,--you know we saw it in the papers."
"She must be awfully rich."
"He left considerable property,--I don't know to whom."
"Well, they are in New York. Her husband has been made something or other
in the railroad, so they are going to live here."
"He is a very able man, I am told."
After a time Conny drawled: "I suppose we must have 'em here to
dinner,--they are at a hotel up town. Whom shall we have?"
Evidently after due consideration Conny had concluded that the Lanes must
come under her cognizance. She ran over half a dozen names from her best
dinner list, and added, "And Tom."
"Why Tom this time?" Percy demanded.
"He's met Isabelle--and we always have Tommy! You aren't jealous, are you,
Percy?" She glanced at him in amusement.
"I must dress," Percy observed negligently, setting down his cup of tea.
"Come here and tell me you are not jealous," Conny commanded. As her
husband smiled and brushed her fair hair with his lips, she muttered, "You
silly!" just as she had to Cairy's unreasonableness. Why! She was Percy's
destiny and he knew it.... She had a contempt for people who ruffled
themselves over petty emotions. This sex matter had been exaggerated by
Poets and Prudes, and their hysterical utterances should not inhibit her
impulses.
Nevertheless she did not consider it a suitable opportunity to tell Percy
about the kiss.
* * * * *
Percy Woodyard and Cornelia Pallanton had married on a new, radical basis.
They had first met in the house of an intellectual woman, the wife of a
university professor, where clever young persons were drawn in and taught
to read Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Ibsen and George Moore, and to engage
gracefully in perilous topics. They had been rather conscious that they
were radicals,--"did their own thinking," as they phrased it, these young
persons. They were not willing to accept the current morality, not even
that part of it engraved in law; but so far as regarded all of morality
that lay outside the domain of sex their actions were not in conflict with
society, though they were Idealists, and in most cases Sentimentalists. But
in the matter of sex relation, which is the knot of the tangle for youth,
they believed in the "development of the individual." It must be determined
by him, or her, whether this development could be obtained best through
regular or irregular relations. The end of all this individual development?
"The fullest activity, the largest experience, the most complete
presentation of personality," etc. Or as Fosdick railed, "Suck all and spit
out what you don't like!"
So when these two young souls had felt sufficiently moved, one to the
other, to contemplate marriage, they had had an "understanding": they would
go through with the customary formula and oaths of marriage, to please
their relatives and a foolish world; but neither was to be "bound" by any
such piece of silly archaism as the marriage contract. Both recognized that
both had diversified natures, which might require in either case more
varied experience than the other could give. In their enlightened affection
for each other, neither would stand in the light of the other's best
good.... There are many such young people, in whom intellectual pride has
erased deeper human instincts. But as middle life draws on, they
conform--or seek refuge in the divorce court.
Neither Percy nor Cornelia had any intention of practising adultery as a
habit: they merely wished to be honest with themselves, and felt superior
to the herd in recognizing the errant or variant possibilities in
themselves. Conny took pleasure in throwing temptation in Percy's way, in
encouraging him to know other women,--secretly gratified that he proved
hopelessly domestic. And on her side we have seen the innocent lengths to
which she had hitherto gone.
For it proved as life began in earnest for these two that much of their
clear philosophy crumbled. Instead of the vision of feminine Idealism that
the young lawyer had worshipped, Conny developed a neat, practical nature,
immensely capable of "making things go." As her husband was the most
obvious channel through which things could move, her husband became her
chief care. She had no theory of exploiting him,--she had no theories at
all. She saw him as so much capacity to be utilized. Just as she never was
entrapped into a useless acquaintance, never had a "wrong person" at her
house, never wasted her energies on the mere ebullition of good feeling, so
she never allowed Percy to waste his energies on fruitless works.
Everything must count. Their life was a pattern of simple and pronounced
design, from the situation of their house to the footing on which it was
established and the people who were encouraged to attach themselves there.
Woodyard had been interested in social good works, and as a young man had
served the Legal Aid Society. A merely worldly woman would have discouraged
this mild weakness for philanthropy. But Conny knew her material; out of
such as Percy, corporation lawyers--those gross feeders at the public
trough--were not made. Woodyard was a man of fine fibre, rather
unaggressive. He must either be steered into a shady pool of legal
sinecure, or take the more dangerous course through the rapids of public
life. It was the moment of Reform. Conny realized the capabilities of
Reform, and Percy's especial fitness for it; Reform, if not remunerative,
was fashionable and prominent.
So Conny had steered their little bark, hoisting sail to every favorable
wind, no matter how slight the puff, until Woodyard now was a minor figure
in the political world. When his name occurred in the newspapers, a good
many people knew who he was, and his remarks at dinners and his occasional
speeches were quoted from, if there was not more valuable matter. He had
been spoken of for Congress. (Conny, of course, would never permit him to
engulf himself in that hopeless sea.) Just what Conny designed as the
ultimate end, she herself did not know; like all great generals, she was an
opportunist and took what seemed to her worth taking from the fortunes of
the day. The last good thing which had floated up on her shore was this
Commissionership. She had fished that up with the aid of the amiable
Senator, who had spoken a word here and a word there in behalf of young
Woodyard.
Conny was very well pleased with herself as a wife, and she knew that her
husband was pleased with her. Moreover, she had not the slightest intention
of permitting anything to interfere with her wifely duties as she saw
them....
Percy had gone upstairs to that roof story where in New York children are
housed, to see his boy and girl. He was very fond of his children. When he
came down, his thoughtful face was worried.
"The kids seem always to have colds," he remarked.
"I know it," Conny admitted. "I must take them to Dr. Snow to-morrow."
(They had their own doctor, and also their own throat specialist.)
"I wonder if it is good for them here, so far down in the city,--they have
only that scrap of park to play in."
Conny, who had been over this question a good many times, answered
irrefutably,--
"There seem to be a good many children growing up all right in the same
conditions."
She knew that Percy would like some excuse to escape into the country.
Conny had no liking for suburban life, and with her husband's career at the
critical point the real country was out of the question.
"I suppose Jack will have to go to boarding school another year," Percy
said with a sigh.
He was not a strong man himself, though of solid build and barely thirty.
He had that bloodless whiteness of skin so often found among young American
men, which contrasted with his dark mustache, and after a long day's work
like this his step dragged. He wore glasses over his blue eyes, and when he
removed them the dark circles could be seen. Conny knew the limits of his
strength and looked carefully to his physical exercise.
"You didn't get your squash this afternoon?"
When Percy was worried about anything, she immediately searched for a
physical cause.
"No! I had to finish up things at the office so that I could get away
to-night."
Then husband and wife went to their dinner, and Woodyard gave Conny a
short-hand account of his doings, the people he had seen, what they had
said, the events at the office. Conny required this account each day,
either in the morning or in the evening. And Woodyard yielded quite
unconsciously to his wife's strong will, to her singularly definite idea of
"what is best." He admired her deeply, was grateful to her for that
complete mastery of the detail of life which she had shown, aware that if
it were not for the dominating personality of this woman he had somehow had
the good fortune to marry, life would have been a smaller matter for him.
"Con," he said when they had gone back to the library for their coffee, "I
am afraid this Commission is going to be ticklish business."
"Why?" she demanded alertly.
"There are some dreadful grafters on it,--I suspect that the chairman is a
wolf. I suspect further that it has been arranged to whitewash certain rank
deals."
"But why should the governor have appointed you?"
"Possibly to hold the whitewash brush."
"You think that the Senator knows that?"
"You can't tell where the Senator's tracks lead."
"Well, don't worry! Keep your eyes open. You can always resign, you know."
Woodyard went off to his train after kissing his wife affectionately. Conny
called out as he was getting into his coat:--
"Will you be back Sunday? Shall I have the Lanes then?"
"Yes,--and you will go to the Hillyers to-morrow?"
"I think so,--Tom will take me."
After the door closed Conny went to her desk and wrote the note to
Isabelle. Then after meditating a few moments, more notes of invitation.
She had decided on her combination,--Gossom, the Silvers, the Hillyers (to
get them off her mind), Senator Thomas, and Cairy. She did not take Percy's
objection to Tom seriously.
She had decided to present a variety of people to the Lanes. Isabelle and
she had never been intimate, and Conny had a woman's desire to show an
accomplished superiority to the rich friend, who had been inclined to snub
her in boarding school. Conny was eminently skilful in "combinations."
Every one that composed her circle or even entered it might some day be of
use in creating what is called "publicity." That, as Cornelia Woodyard
felt, was the note of the day. "You must be talked about by the right
people, if you want to be heard, if you want your show!" she had said to
Cairy. Thanks to Lane's rapid rise in the railroad corporation, Isabelle
had come legitimately within the zone of interest.
After she had settled this matter to her satisfaction, she turned to some
house accounts and made various calculations. It was a wonder to every one
who knew them how the Woodyards "could do so much on what they had." As a
matter of fact, with the rising scale of living, it required all Conny's
practical adroitness to make the household come out nearly even. Thanks to
a great-aunt who admired Percy, they had been able to buy this house and
alter it over, and with good business judgment it had been done so that the
property was now worth nearly a third more than when they took it. But a
second man-servant had been added, and Conny felt that she must have a
motor; she pushed away the papers and glanced up, thinking, planning.
The Senator and she had talked investments the last time they had met. She
had a little money of her own. If the old fox would only take it and roll
it up into a big snowball! Isabelle, now, with all that wealth! Conny
pursed her lips in disgust to think that so much of the ammunition of war
had fallen into such incompetent hands. "Yes," she said to herself, "the
Senator must show me how to do it." Perhaps it flitted vaguely through her
mind that Percy might object to using stock market tips from the Senator.
But Percy must accept her judgment on this matter. They could not go on any
longer with only twenty thousand a year.
Turning out the lights, she went to her bedroom. It was very plain and
bare, with none of the little toilette elegances or chamber comforts that
women usually love. Conny never spent except where it showed saliently. Her
evening gowns were sometimes almost splendid, but her dressing gowns were
dowdy, and poor little Bessie Falkner spent twice as much on lingerie.
Having discharged the duties of her day, her mind returned to Cairy, to his
work for Gossom, to his appealing self, and her lips relaxed in a gentle
smile. Hers was a simple nature, the cue once caught. She had come of
rather plain people, who knew the worth of a dollar, and had spent their
lives saving or investing money. The energy of the proletariat had been
handed to her undiminished. The blood was evident in the large bones, the
solid figure, and tenacious fingers, as well as in the shrewdness with
which she had created this household. It was her instinct to push out into
the troubled waters of the material world. She never weakened herself by
questioning values. She knew--what she wanted.
Nevertheless, as she reached up her hand to turn out the night light, she
was smiling with dreamy eyes, and her thoughts were no longer practical!