These days Larry Pole began to think well of himself once more. He had made
his mistakes,--what man hasn't?--but he had wiped out the score, and he was
fulfilling the office of under-secretary to the great Malachite Company
admirably. He was conscious that the men in the office felt that his
personality, his bearing, and associations gave distinction to the place.
And he still secretly looked for some turn in the game which would put him
where he desired to be. In New York the game is always on, the tables
always set: from the newsboy to the magnate the gambler's hope is open to
every man.
Only one thing disturbed his self-complacency,--Margaret treated him
indifferently, coldly. He even suspected that though by some accident she
had borne him three children he had never won her love, that she had never
been really his. Since their return from Europe and establishing themselves
in the country, she had withdrawn more and more from him--where? Into
herself. She had her own room and dressing-room, beyond the children's
quarters, in the rear of the rambling house, and her life seemed to go on
in those rooms more and more. It was almost, Larry observed discontentedly,
as if there were not a husband in the situation. Well, he reflected
philosophically, women were like that,--American women; they thought they
owned themselves even after they had married. If a wife took that attitude,
she must not complain if the husband went his way, too. Larry in these
injured moods felt vague possibilities of wickedness within him,--justified
errancies....
One day he was to see deep into that privacy, to learn all--all he was
capable of understanding--about his wife. Margaret had been to the city,--a
rare event,--had lunched with Isabella, and gone to see a new actress in a
clever little German play. She and Isabelle had talked it over,--very
animatedly. Then she had brought back with her some new books and foreign
reviews. After dinner she was lying on the great lounge before the fire,
curled up in a soft dress of pale lilac, seriously absorbing an article on
a Russian playwright. Hers was a little face,--pale, thin, with sunken
eyes. The brow was too high, and latterly Margaret paid no attention to
arranging her hair becomingly. It was not a face that could be called
pretty; it would not be attractive to most men, her husband thought as he
watched her. But it had drawn some men strongly, fired them; and Larry
still longed for its smiles,--desired her.
He had felt talkative that evening, had chattered all through dinner, and
she had listened tolerantly, as she might to her younger boy when he had a
great deal to say about nothing. But now she had taken refuge in this
review, and Larry had dropped from sight. When he had finished his
cigarette, he sat down on the edge of the lounge, taking her idle hand in
his. She let him caress it, still reading on. After a time, as he continued
to press the hand, his wife said without raising her eyes:--
"What do you want?"
"'What do you want?'" Larry mimicked! "Lord! you American women are as hard
as stone."
"Are the others different?" Margaret asked, raising her eyes.
"They say they are--how should I know?"
"I thought you might know from experience," she observed equably.
"I have never loved any woman but you, Margaret!" he said tenderly. "You
know that!"
Margaret made no response. The statement seemed to demand something of her
which she could not give. He took her hand again, caressed it, and finally
kissed her. She looked at him steadily, coldly.
"Please--sit over there!" As her husband continued to caress her, she sat
upright. "I want to say something to you, Larry."
"What is it?"
"There can't be any more of _that_--you understand?--between us."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean--_that_, what you call love, passion, is over between us."
"Why? ... what have I done?"
Margaret waved her hand impatiently:--
"It makes no difference,--I don't want it--I can't--that is all."
"You refuse to be my wife?"
"Yes,--that way."
"You take back your marriage vow?" (Larry was a high churchman, which fact
had condoned much in the Bishop's eyes.)
"I take back--myself!"
Margaret's eyes shone, but her voice was calm.
"If you loved any other man--but you are as cold as ice!"
"Am I?"
"Yes! ... I have been faithful to you always," he observed by way of
defence and accusation.
Margaret rose from the couch, and looked down at her husband, almost
compassionately. But when she spoke, her low voice shook with scorn:--
"That is your affair,--I have never wanted to know.... You seem to pride
yourself on that. Good God! if you were more of a man,--if you were man
enough to want anything, even sin,--I might love you!"
It was like a bolt of white fire from the clear heavens. Her husband
gasped, scarcely comprehending the words.
"I don't believe you know what you are saying. Something has upset you....
Would you like me to love another woman? That's a pretty idea for a wife to
advance!"
"I want you to--oh, what's the use of talking about it, Larry? You know
what I mean--what I think, what I have felt--for a long time, even before
little Elsa came. How can you want love with a woman who feels towards you
as I do?"
"It is natural enough for a man who cares for his wife--"
"Too natural," Margaret laughed bitterly. "No, Larry; that's all over! You
can do as you like,--I shan't ask questions. And we shall get on very well,
like this."
"This comes of the rotten books you read!" he fumed.
"I do my own thinking."
"Suppose I don't want the freedom you hand out so readily?" he asked with
an appealing note. "Suppose I still love you, my wife? have always loved
you! You married me.... I've been unfortunate--"
"It isn't that, you know! It isn't the money--the fact that you would have
beggared your mother--not quite that. It's everything--_you!_ Why go into
it? I don't blame you, Larry. But I know you now, and I don't love
you--that is all."
"You knew me when you married me. Why did you marry me?"
"Why--why did I marry you?"
Margaret's voice had the habit of growing lower and stiller as passion
touched her heart. "Yes--you may well ask that! Why does a woman see those
things she wants to see in a man, and is blind to what she might see! ...
Oh, why does any woman marry, my husband?"
And in the silence that followed they were both thinking of those days in
Washington, eight years before, when they had met. He was acting as
secretary to some great man then, and was flashing in the pleasant light of
youth, popularity, social approbation. He had "won out" against the
Englishman, Hollenby,--why, he had never exactly known.
Margaret was thinking of that why, as a woman does think at times for long
years afterwards, trying to solve the psychological puzzle of her foolish
youth! Hollenby was certainly the abler man, as well as the more brilliant
prospect. And there were others who had loved her, and whom even as a girl
she had wit enough to value.... A girl's choice, when her heart speaks, as
the novelists say, is a curious process, compounded of an infinite number
of subtle elements,--suggestions, traits of character, and above all
temporary atmospheric conditions of mind. It is a marvel if it ever can be
resolved into its elements! ... The Englishman--she was almost his--had
lost her because once he had betrayed to the girl the brute. One frightened
glimpse of the animal in his nature had been enough. And in the rebound
from this chance perception of man as brute, she had listened to Lawrence
Pole, because he seemed to her all that the other was not,--high-souled,
poetic, restrained, tender,--all the ideals. With him life would be a
communion of lovely and lovable things. He would secure some place in the
diplomatic service abroad, and they would live on the heights, with art,
ideas, beauty....
"Wasn't I a fool--not to know!" she remarked aloud. She was thinking, with
the tolerance of mature womanhood: 'I could have tamed the brute in the
other one. At least he was a man!' "Well, we dream our dreams, sentimental
little girls that we are! And after a time we open our eyes like kittens on
life. I have opened mine, Larry,--very wide open. There isn't a sentimental
chord in my being that you can twang any longer.... But we can be
good-tempered and sensible about it. Run along now and have your cigar, or
go over to the country club and find some one to play billiards,--only let
me finish what you are pleased to call my rotten reading,--it is so
amusing!"
She had descended from the crest of her passion, and could play with the
situation. But her husband, realizing in some small way the significance of
these words they had exchanged, still probed the ground:--
"If you feel like that, why do you still live with me? Why do you consent
to bear my name?"
The pomposity of the last words roused a wicked gleam in his wife's eyes.
She looked up from her article again.
"Perhaps I shan't always 'consent to bear your name,' Larry. I'm still
thinking, and I haven't thought it all out yet. When I do, I may give up
your name,--go away. Meanwhile I think we get on very well: I make a
comfortable home for you; you have your children,--and they are well
brought up. I have kept you trying to toe the mark, too. Take it all in
all, I haven't been a bad wife,--if we are to present references?"
"No," Larry admitted generously; "I have always said you were too good for
me,--too fine."
"And so, still being a good wife, I have decided to take myself back." She
drew her small body together, clasping her arms about the review. "My body
and my soul,--what is personally most mine. But I will serve you--make you
comfortable. And after a time you won't mind, and you will see that it was
best."
"It goes deeper than that," her husband protested, groping for the idea
that he caught imperfectly; "it means practically that we are living under
the same roof but aren't married!"
"With perfect respectability, Larry, which is more than is always the case
when a man and a woman live under the same roof, either married or
unmarried! ... I am afraid that is it in plain words. But I will do my best
to make it tolerable for you."
"Perhaps some day you'll find a man,--what then?"
Margaret looked at him for a long minute before replying.
"And if I should find a Man, God alone knows what would happen!"
Then in reply to the frightened look on her husband's face, she added
lightly:--
"Don't worry, Larry! No immediate scandal. I haven't any one in view, and
living as I do it isn't likely that I shall be tempted by some knightly or
idiotic man, who wants to run away with a middle-aged woman and three
children. I am anchored safely--at any rate as long as dad lives and your
mother, and the children need my good name. Oh!" she broke off suddenly;
"don't let us talk any more about it!" ...
Leaning her head on her hands, she looked into the fire, and murmured to
herself as if she had forgotten Larry's presence:--
"God! why are we so blind, so blind,--and our feet caught in the net of
life before we know what is in our souls!"
For she realized that when she said she was middle-aged and anchored, it
was but the surface truth. At thirty, with three children, she was more the
woman, more capable of love, passion, understanding, devotion--more capable
of giving herself wholly and greatly to a mate--than any girl could be. The
well of life still poured its flood into her! Her husband could never know
that agony of longing, those arms stretched out to--what? When would this
torture of defeated capacity be ended--when had God set the term for her to
suffer!
In the black silence that had fallen between them, Pole betook himself to
the club, as his wife had suggested, for the consolation of billiards and
talk among sensible folk, "who didn't take life so damned hard." In the
intervals of these distractions his mind would revert to what had passed
between him and his wife that evening. Margaret's last remarks comforted
him somewhat. Nothing of a scandalous or public demonstration of her
feeling about her marriage was imminent. Nevertheless, his pride was hurt.
In spite of the fact that he had suspected for a long time that his wife
was cold,--was not "won,"--he had hitherto travelled along in complacent
egotism. "They were a fairly happy couple" or "they geed as well as most,"
as he would have expressed it. He had not suspected that Margaret might
feel the need of more than that. To-night he had heard and understood the
truth,--and it was a blow. Deep down in his masculine heart he felt that he
had been unjustly put in the wrong, somehow. No woman had the right--no
wife--to say without cause that having thought better of the marriage
bargain she had "taken herself back." There was something preposterous in
the idea. It was due to the modern fad of a woman's reading all sorts of
stuff, when her mind was inflammable. He recognized that his wife was the
more important, the stronger person of the two,--that was the trouble with
American women (Larry always made national generalizations when he wished
to express a personal truth)--they knew when they were strong,--felt their
oats. They needed to be "tamed."
But Larry was aware that he was not fitted for the task of woman-tamer, and
moreover it should have been begun long before this.
So having won his game of billiards Larry had a drink, which made him even
more philosophical. "Margaret is all right," he said to himself. "She was
strung up to-night,--something made her go loose. But she'll come
around,--she'll never do the other thing!" Yet in spite of a second whiskey
and soda before starting for home, he was not absolutely convinced of this
last statement.
What makes a man like Larry Pole content to remain the master of the fort
merely in name, when the woman has escaped him in spirit? Why will such men
as he live on for years, aye and get children, with women, who do not even
pretend to love them?
* * * * *
Meanwhile the wife sat there before the fire, her reading forgotten,
thinking, thinking. She had said more than she herself knew to be in her
heart. For one lives on monotonously, from day to day, unresolved, and then
on occasion there flame forth unsuspected ideas, resolves. For the soul has
not been idle.... It was true that their marriage was at an end. And it was
not because of her husband's failures, his follies,--not the money
mistakes. It was himself,--the petty nature he revealed in every act. For
women like Margaret Pole can endure vice and folly and disappointment, but
not a petty, trivial, chattering biped that masquerades as Man.