When the Lanes went to Sunday luncheon at the Woodyards', the impression on
Isabelle was exactly what Conny wished it to be. The little house had a
distinct "atmosphere," Conny herself had an "atmosphere," and the people,
who seemed much at home there and very gay, were what is termed
"interesting." That is, each person had his ticket of "distinction," as
Isabelle quickly found out. One was a lawyer whose name often appeared in
the newspapers as counsel for powerful interests; another was a woman
novelist, whose last book was then running serially in a magazine and
causing discussion; a third--a small man with a boyish open face--Isabelle
discovered with a thrill of delight was the Ned Silver whose clever little
articles on the current drama she had read in a fashionable weekly paper.
Isabelle found her hostess leaning against the mantelpiece with the air of
having just come in and discovered her guests.
"How are you, dearie?" she drawled in greeting. "This is Mr. Thomas Randall
Cairy, Margaret's cousin,--do you remember? He says he has met you before,
but Thomas usually believes he has met ladies whom he wants to know!" Then
Conny turned away, and thereafter paid little attention to the Lanes, as
though she wished them to understand that the luncheon was not given for
them.
"In this case," Cairy remarked, "Mrs. Woodyard's gibe happens to miss. I
haven't forgotten the Virginian hills, and I hope you haven't."
It was Cairy who explained the people to Isabelle:--
"There is Gossom, the little moth-eaten, fat man at the door. He is the
mouthpiece of the _People's_, but he doesn't dislike to feast with the
classes. He is probably telling Woodyard at this moment what the President
said to him last week about Princhard's articles on the distillery trust!"
Among the Colonel's friends the magazine reporter Princhard had been
considered an ignorant and malicious liar. Isabelle looked eagerly as Cairy
pointed him out,--a short, bespectacled man with a thin beard, who was
talking to Silver.
"There is the only representative of the fashionable world present, Mrs.
George Bertram, just coming in the door. We do not go in for the purely
fashionable--yet," he remarked mockingly. "Mrs. Bertram is interested in
music,--she has a history, too."...
By the time the company were ready to lunch, Isabelle's pulse had risen
with excitement. She had known, hitherto, but two methods of assimilating
friends and acquaintances,--pure friendship, a good-natured acceptance of
those likable or endurable people fate threw in one's way; and
fashion,--the desire to know people who were generally supposed to be the
people best worth knowing. But here she perceived quickly there was a third
principle of selection--"interest." And as she glanced about the
appointments of Conny's smart little house, her admiration for her old
schoolmate rose. Conny evidently had a definite purpose in life, and had
the power and intelligence to pursue it. To the purposeless person, such as
Isabelle had been, the evidences of this power were almost mysterious.
At first the talk at the table went quite over Isabelle's head. It
consisted of light gibe and allusion to persons and things she had never
heard of,--a new actress whom the serious Percy was supposed to be in love
with, Princhard's adventure with a political notability, a new very
"American" play. Isabelle glanced apprehensively at her husband, who was at
Conny's end of the table. Lane was listening appreciatively, now and then
exchanging a remark with the lawyer across the table. John Lane had that
solid acquaintance with life which made him at home in almost all
circumstances. If he felt as she did, hopelessly countrified, he would
never betray it. Presently the conversation got to politics, the President,
the situation at Albany. Conny, with her negligent manner and her childish
treble voice, gave the talk a poke here and there and steered it skilfully,
never allowing it to get into serious pools or become mere noise. In one of
the shifts Cairy asked Isabelle, "Have you seen Margaret since her return?"
"Yes; tell me why they came back!"
Cairy raised his eyebrows. "Too much husband, I should say,--shouldn't
you?"
"I don't know him. Margaret seemed older, not strong,--what is the matter
with us all!"
"You'll understand what is the matter with Margaret when you see Larry! And
then she has three children,--an indecent excess, with her health and that
husband."...
The company broke up after the prolonged luncheon almost at once, to
Isabelle's regret; for she wished to see more of these people. As they
strolled upstairs to the library Cairy followed her and said:--
"Are you going to Mrs. Bertram's with us? She has some music and people
Sundays--I'll tell Mrs. Woodyard," and before she could reply he had
slipped over to Conny. That lady glanced at Isabelle, smiled on Cairy, and
nodded. What she said to Cairy was: "So you've got a new interest. Take
care, Tommy,--you'll complicate your life!" But apparently she did not
regard Isabelle seriously; for presently she was saying to her, "Mrs.
Bertram wants me to bring you around with us this afternoon,--you'll like
it."
Lane begged off and walked back to the hotel in company with the lawyer.
After a time which was filled with the flutter of amiable little speeches,
appointments, and good-bys, Isabelle found herself in company with the
Silvers and Gossom, Cornelia and Cairy on her way to Mrs. Bertram's, which
was "just around the corner,"--that is, half a dozen blocks farther up town
on Madison Avenue. Mrs. Silver was a pretty, girlish woman with a troubled
face, who seemed to be making great efforts to be gay. She and Cornelia
called each other by first names, and when Isabelle asked about her later,
Conny replied with a preoccupied drawl:--
"Yes, Annie Silver is a nice little thing,--an awful drag on him, you know.
They haven't a dollar, and she is going to have a baby; she is in fits
about it."
As a matter of fact Silver managed to earn by his swiftly flowing pen over
four thousand dollars a year, without any more application than the average
clerk.
"But in New York, you know!" as Conny explained. "They have lived in a
little apartment, very comfortably, and know nice people. Their friends are
good to them. But if they take to having children!" It meant, according to
Conny's expressive gesture, suburban life, or something "way up town," "no
friends." Small wonder that Annie Silver's face was drawn, and that she was
making nervous efforts to keep up to the last. Isabelle felt that it must
be a tragedy, and as Conny said, "Such a clever man, too!"
* * * * *
Mrs. Bertram's deep rooms were well filled, and Cairy, who still served as
her monitor, told Isabelle that most of the women were merely fashionable.
The men--and there was a good sprinkling of them--counted; they all had
tickets of one sort or another, and he told them off with a keen phrase for
each. When the music began, Isabelle found herself in a recess of the
farther room with several people whom she did not know. Cairy had
disappeared, and Isabelle settled back to enjoy the music and study the
company. In the kaleidoscope of the day, however, another change was to
come,--one that at the time made no special impression on her, but one that
she was to remember years afterward.
A young man had been singing some songs. When he rose from the piano, the
people near Isabelle began to chatter:--
"Isn't he good looking! ... That was his own music,--the Granite City ...
Can't you see the tall buildings, hear the wind sweeping from the sea and
rushing through the streets!" etc. Presently there was a piece of music for
a quartette. At its conclusion a voice said to Isabelle from behind her
chair:--
"Pardon me, but do you know what that was?"
She looked over her shoulder expecting to see an acquaintance. The man who
had spoken was leaning forwards, resting one elbow on her chair, his hand
carelessly plucking his gray hair. He had deep piercing black eyes, and an
odd bony face. In spite of his gray hair and lined face she saw that he was
not old.
"Something Russian, I heard some one say," Isabelle replied.
"I don't like to sit through music and not know anything about it," the
stranger continued with a delicate, deliberate enunciation. "I don't
believe that I should be any wiser if I heard the name of the piece; but it
flatters your vanity, I suppose, to know it. There is Carova standing
beside Mrs. Bertram; he's going to sing."
"Who is Carova?" Isabelle demanded eagerly.
"The new tenor at the Manhattan,--you haven't heard him?"
"No," Isabelle faltered and felt ashamed as she added, "You see I am almost
a stranger in New York."
"Mrs. Bertram knows a lot of these musical chaps."
Then the tenor sang, and after the applause had given way to another rustle
of talk, the gray-haired man continued as if there had been no
interruption:--
"So you don't live in New York?--lucky woman!"
Isabelle moved her chair to look at this person, who wanted to talk. She
thought him unusual in appearance, and liked his friendliness. His face was
lined and thin, and the long, thin hand on his knee was muscular. Isabelle
decided that he must be Somebody.
"I am here for my health, but I expect to live in New York," she explained.
"In New York for your health?" he asked in a puzzled tone. "You see, I am a
doctor."
"Yes--I came to consult Dr. Potts. I gave out,--am always giving out,"
Isabelle continued with that confiding frankness that always pleased men.
"I'm like so many women these days,--no good, nerves! If you are a doctor,
please tell me why we should all go to pieces in this foolish fashion?"
"If _I_ could do that satisfactorily and also tell you how not to go to
pieces, I should be a very famous man," he replied pleasantly.
"Perhaps you are!"
"Perhaps. But I haven't discovered that secret, yet."
"Dr. Potts says it's all the chemistry inside us--autointoxication,
poison!"
"Yes, that is the latest theory."
"It seems reasonable; but why didn't our grandmothers get poisoned?"
"Perhaps they did,--but they didn't know what to call it."
"You think that is so,--that we are poor little chemical retorts? It
sounds--horrid."
"It sounds sensible, but it isn't the whole of it."
"Tell me what you think!"
"I don't like to interfere with Dr. Potts," he suggested.
"I shouldn't talk to you professionally, I know; but it is in my mind most
of the time. What is the matter? What is wrong?"
"I, too, have thought about it a great deal." He smiled and his black eyes
had a kindly gleam.
"Do you believe as Dr. Potts does that it is all what you eat, just matter?
If your mind is so much troubled, if you have these queer ideas, it can't
be altogether the chemistry?"
"It might be the soul."
"Don't laugh--"
"But I really think it might be the soul."
The music burst upon them, and when there was another interval, Isabelle
persisted with the topic which filled her mind.
"Will you tell me what you mean by the soul?"
"Can _you_ answer the question? ... Well, since we are both in doubt, let
us drop the term for a while and get back to the body."
"Only we must not end with it, as Potts does!"
"No, we must not end with the body."
"First, what causes it,--hysterics, nerves, no-goodness,--the whole thing?"
"Improper food, bad education, steam heat, variable climate, inbreeding,
lack of children,--shall I stop?"
"No! I can't find a reasonable cause yet."
"I haven't really begun.... The brain is a delicate instrument. It can do a
good deal of work in its own way, if you don't abuse it--"
"Overwork it?" suggested Isabelle.
"I never knew an American woman who overworked her brain," he retorted
impatiently. "I mean abuse it. It's grossly abused."
"Wrong ideas?"
"No ideas at all, in the proper sense,--it's stuffed with all sorts of
things,--sensations, emotions.... Where are you living?"
"At the Metropole."
"And where were you last month?"
"In St. Louis."
"And the month before?"
"I went to Washington with my husband and--"
"Precisely--that's enough!" he waved his thin hand.
"But it rests me to travel," Isabelle protested.
"It seems to rest you. Did you ever think what all those whisking changes
in your environment mean to the brain cells? And it isn't just travelling,
with new scenes, new people; it is everything in your life,--every act from
the time you get up to the time you go to bed. You are cramming those brain
cells all the time, giving them new records to make,--even when you lie
down with an illustrated paper. Why, the merest backwoodsman in Iowa is
living faster in a sense than Cicero or Webster.... The gray matter cannot
stand the strain. It isn't the quality of what it has to do; it is the mere
amount! Understand?"
"I see! I never thought before what it means to be tired. I have worked the
machine foolishly. But one must travel fast--be geared up, as you say--or
fall behind and become dull and uninteresting. What is living if we can't
keep the pace others do?"
"Must we? Is that _living_?" he asked ironically. "I have a diary kept by
an old great-aunt of mine. She was a country clergyman's wife, away back in
a little village. She brought up four sons, helped her husband fit them for
college as well as pupils he took in, and baked and washed and sewed. And
learned German for amusement when she was fifty! I think she lived
somewhat, but she probably never lived at the pressure you have the past
month."
"One can't repeat--can't go back to old conditions. Each generation has its
own lesson, its own way."
"But is our way _living_? Are we living now this very minute, listening to
music we don't apparently care for, that means nothing to us, with our mind
crammed full of distracting purposes and reflections? When I read my aunt
Merelda's journal of the silent winter days on the snowy farm, I think
_she_ lived, as much as one should live. Living doesn't consist in the
number of muscular or nervous reactions that you undergo."
"What is your formula?"
"We haven't yet mentioned the most formidable reason for the American
plague," he continued, ignoring her question. "It has to do with that
troublesome term we evaded,--the Soul."
"The Soul?"...
The music had come to an end, and the people were moving about them.
Cornelia came up and drawled:--
"Tom and I are going on,--will you go with us?"
When Isabelle reached her hostess, she had but one idea in her mind, and
exclaimed impulsively to that somewhat bored lady:--
"Who is that man just going out? With gray hair? The tall, thin man?"
"Dr. Renault? He's a surgeon, operates on children,--has done something or
other lately."...
She smiled at Isabelle's impulsiveness, and turned to another.
'A surgeon,' Isabelle thought. 'What has he to do with the soul?'
In a few moments she had a chance to repeat her question aloud to Dr.
Renault when they left the house together.
"Did you ever hear," he replied directly, "that a house divided against
itself will fall?"
"Of course."
"I should say that this national disease, which we have been discussing, is
one of the results of trying to live with divided souls,--souls torn,
distraught!"
"And we need--?"
"A religion."
The doctor raised his hat and sauntered down the avenue.
"A religion!" Isabelle murmured,--a queer word, here at the close of Mrs.
Bertram's pleasantly pagan Sunday afternoon, with ladies of undoubted
social position getting into their motors, and men lighting cigarettes and
cigars to solace them on the way to their clubs. Religion! and the need of
it suggested by a surgeon, a man of science....
When the three reached the Woodyards' house, Conny paused with, "When shall
I see you again?" which Isabelle understood as a polite dismissal. Cairy to
her surprise proposed to walk to the hotel with her. Isabelle felt that
this arrangement was not in the plan, but Conny merely waved her hand with
a smile,--"By-by, children."
They sauntered up the avenue, at the pace required by Cairy's disability.
The city, although filled with people loitering in holiday ease, had a
strange air of subdued life, of Sunday peace, not disturbed even by the
dashing motors. Isabelle, bubbling with the day's impressions, was eager to
talk, and Cairy, as she had found him before at the Virginia Springs, was a
sympathetic man to be with. He told her the little semi-scandalous story of
her recent hostess.... "And now they have settled down to bring up the
children like any good couple, and it threatens to end on the 'live happy
ever after' note. Sam Bertram is really domestic,--you can see he admires
her tremendously. He sits and listens to the music and nods his sleepy old
head."
"And the--other one?" Isabelle asked, laughing in spite of the fact that
she felt a little shocked.
"Who knows? ... The lady disappears at rare intervals, and there are
rumors. But she is a good sort, and you see Sam admires her, needs her."
"But it is rather awful when you stop to think of it!"
"Why more awful than if Sam had stuck a knife into the other's ribs or
punctured him with a bullet? ... I think it is rather more intelligent."
Cairy did not know Renault. "Mrs. Bertram gets everybody," he said.
Isabelle felt no inclination to discuss with Cairy her talk about
neurasthenia and religion. So their chatter drifted from the people they
had seen to Cairy himself, his last play, "which was a rank fizzle," and
the plan of the new one. One got on fast and far with Cairy, if one were a
woman and felt his charm. By the time they had reached the hotel, he was
counselling Isabelle most wisely how she should settle herself in New York.
"But why don't you live in the country? in that old village Mrs. Woodyard
told me about? The city is nothing but a club, a way-station these days, a
sort of Fair, you know, where you come two or three times a year to see
your dressmaker and hear the gossip."
"But there's my husband!" Isabelle suggested. "You see his business is
here."
"I forgot the husband,--make him change his business. Besides, men like
country life."
* * * * *
Isabelle found her husband comfortably settled near a hot radiator, reading
a novel. Lane occasionally read novels on a Sunday when there was
absolutely nothing else to do. He read them slowly, with a curious interest
in the world they depicted, the same kind of interest that he would take in
a strange civilization, like that of the Esquimaux, where phenomena would
have only an amusing significance. He dropped his glasses when his wife
appeared and helped himself to a fresh cigar from the box beside him.
"Have a good time?"
It was the formula that he used for almost every occupation pursued by
women. Isabelle, throbbing with her new impressions and ideas, found the
question depressing. John was not the person to pour out one's mind to when
that mind was in a tumult. He would listen kindly, assent at the wrong
place, and yawn at the end. Undoubtedly his life was exciting, but it had
no fine shades. He was growing stout, Isabelle perceived, and a little
heavy. New York life was not good for him.
"I thought Conny's house and the people so--interesting,"--she used the
universal term for a new sensation,--"didn't you?"
"Yes,--very pleasant," he assented as he would have if it had been the
Falkners or the Lawtons or the Frasers.
In the same undiscriminating manner he agreed with her other remarks about
the Woodyards. People were people to him, and life was life,--more or less
the same thing everywhere; while Isabelle felt the fine shades.
"I think it would be delightful to know people worth while," she observed
almost childishly, "people who _do_ something."
"You mean writers and artists and that kind? I guess it isn't very
difficult," Lane replied indulgently.
Isabelle sighed. Such a remark betrayed his remoteness from her idea; she
would have it all to do for herself, when she started her life in New York.
"I think I shall make over the place at Grafton," she said after a time.
Her husband looked at her with some surprise. She was standing at the
window, gazing down into the cavernous city in the twilight. He could not
possibly follow the erratic course of ideas through her brain, the tissue
of impression and suggestion, that resulted in such a conclusion.
"Why? what do you want to do with it? I thought you didn't care for the
country."
"One must have a background," she replied vaguely, and continued to stare
at the city. This was the sum of her new experience, with all its elements.
The man calmly smoking there did not realize that his life, their life, was
to be affected profoundly by such trivial matters as a Sunday luncheon, a
remark by Tom Cairy, the savage aspect of the great city seen through April
mist, and the low vitality of a nervous organism. But everything plays its
part with an impressionable character in which the equilibrium is not found
and fixed. As the woman stared down into the twilight, she seemed to see
afar off what she had longed for, held out her hands towards,--life.
Pictures, music, the play of interesting personalities, books,
plays,--ideas,--that was the note of the higher civilization that Conny had
caught. If Conny had absorbed all this so quickly, why could not she?
Cornelia Woodyard--that somewhat ordinary schoolmate of her youth--was
becoming for Isabelle a powerful source of suggestion, just as Isabelle had
been for Bessie Falkner in the Torso days.