The strong romantic strain in her was quickened by the meeting. All
afternoon her thoughts played about Bob Cummings. She reviewed their
associations in childhood on through those last attentions after the
Cummingses left the Military Park neighborhood. Her mother had probably
been right in saying that if fortune hadn’t borne the Cummingses
steadily upward, leaving the Durlands behind, Bob might have married
her. It had been a mistake for him to marry a society girl who was,
she surmised, incapable of appreciating his temperament. A matter of
propinquity very likely; she had heard that the girl was not rich but
belonged to one of the old families; and very likely on her side it had
been an advantageous arrangement.
Why did men marry the wrong women? she asked herself with proneness of
youth to propound and answer unanswerable questions. There was Trenton,
who had so frankly admitted the failure of his own marriage and with
equal frankness took the burden of his failure upon himself. No two men
could be more utterly unlike than Ward Trenton and Bob Cummings, and
she busied herself contrasting them. Trenton was practical-minded; Bob
a dreamer, and save for his college experiences the range of his life
had been narrow. If both were free which would she choose? So great
was her preoccupation with these speculations that her work suffered;
through sheer inattention she let a promising customer escape without
making a purchase.
In the afternoon distribution of mail she received a letter from
Trenton. It began, “Dear Grace” and read:
“I expected to see you again this week--that is, of course, if you’d be
willing; but I’m called to Kansas City unexpectedly and may not touch
your port for ten days or so. I’m not conceited enough to assume that
you will be grief-stricken over my delay, and strictly speaking there’s
no excuse for writing except that you’ve rather haunted me,--a welcome
ghost, I assure you! I talked far too much about myself the other
night. One matter I shouldn’t have spoken of at all. No question of
confidence in you or anything of that sort. But it’s something I never
discuss even with old and intimate friends. You have guessed what I
mean. Bad taste, you probably thought it. It was quite that! I want you
to think as well of me as you can. I’m counting very much on seeing you
again. I hope you are well and happy and that nothing has happened to
your eyes since I saw them last!”
This was all except that he named a Kansas City club where he could
be reached for the next week if she felt moved to write. She hadn’t
expected to hear from him and the note was a distinct surprise. At
every opportunity she reread it, and, catching her in the act, Irene
teased her about it.
“Oh, you’ve started something! I’ll wager he signed his name in full;
that’s just like him. Tommy never writes to me and when he wires he
signs an assumed name. But Ward Trenton’s different. I think if he
decided to commit murder he’d send his own account of it to the papers.
He didn’t talk to you about his wife, I suppose, when Tommy and I left
you alone so long at The Shack? Tommy’s known him for years but he says
he wouldn’t think of mentioning his wife to him. I’d like to see Ward
in love! These quiet ones go strong when they get started.”
“Oh, his letter’s just a little friendly jolly. He’s had to go to
Kansas City instead of coming back here right away.”
“Of course he just had to explain that!” Irene laughed. “I can see
this is going to be a real case. See what you can do with that woman
just coming in. She looks as though she might really have some of the
mazuma.”
It was not so easy as Grace had imagined in her spiritual ardor of
Sunday to begin retreating from Irene. She realized that Irene would
hardly listen in an amiable spirit to the warning she had thought in
her hours of contrition it was her duty to give her friend. Irene’s
serenity as she paced the aisles of the department, her friendliness
and unfailing good humor were all disarming. Irene wasn’t so bad
perhaps; Grace was much more tolerant of Irene than she had thought on
Sunday would ever be possible again.
The letter from Ward Trenton had the effect of reopening a door which
Grace had believed closed and the key thrown away. She found herself
wondering whether he might not always write to girls he met and liked;
and yet as his image appeared before her--and he lived vividly in her
thoughts--she accepted as sincere his statement that he had broken an
established reserve in talking of his wife. This of course was what he
referred to; and she saw a fine nobility in his apprehension lest the
recipient of his confidences might think the less of him for mentioning
his wife at all.
Grace was again tormented by curiosity as to whether Trenton still
loved his wife and the hope that he did not. She hated herself for
this; hated herself for having lost her grip upon the good resolutions
of Sunday to forget the whole episode of Kemp’s party. She knew enough
of the mind’s processes to indulge in what she fancied was a rigid
self-analysis. She wondered whether she was really a normal being,
whether other girls’ thoughts ran riot about men as hers did; whether
there might not be something vulgar and base in her nature that caused
her within a few hours to tolerate the thought of two men, both
married, as potential lovers....
It occurred to her that she might too effectually have burned her
bridges when she left the university. There were young men she had
known during her two years in Bloomington whose interest she might
have kept alive; among them there were a number of sons of well-to-do
families in country towns. But she was unable to visualize herself
married and settled in a small town with her prospect of seeing and
knowing the world limited by a husband’s means or ambition. There were
one or two young professors who had paid her attentions. One of them,
a widower and a man of substantial attainments, had asked her to marry
him, but she was unable to see herself a professor’s wife, beset by all
the uncertainties of the teaching profession.
She had always been used to admiration, but until now she had heavily
discounted all the compliments that were paid her good looks. She found
herself covertly looking into the mirrors as she passed. Trenton had
been all over the world and no doubt had seen many beautiful women; and
yet he wrote that she haunted him, which could only mean that he was
unable to escape from the thought of her. Again, deeply humble, she
scouted the idea that he could have fallen in love with her; he was
only a little sorry for her, thinking of her probably as a rather nice
girl who was to be pitied because she had to work for her living.
He had spoken of being lonely. Maybe it was only for lack of anything
better to do that he fell to thinking of her as he sat in the club
in St. Louis and wrote to her out of his craving for sympathy. At
twenty-one Grace did not know that the only being in the world who is
more dangerous than a lonely woman is a lonely man.
V
Grace was correct in her assumption that Ward Trenton had written her
in a fit of loneliness but she did not know that in the same hour he
had written also to his wife. After a few sentences explaining his
presence in St. Louis, the letter to Mrs. Trenton ran:
“It’s almost ridiculous,--the distinctly separate lives we lead.
I was just studying the calendar and find that we haven’t met for
exactly six months. When I’m at home--if I may so refer to the house
in Pittsburgh that fixes my voting place and--pardon me!--doesn’t fix
much of anything else--I occasionally find traces of your visits. I
must say the servants do pretty well considering that they go their
own gait. You’re a wonderful housekeeper at long range! But I’m not
kicking. The gods must have their will with us.
“I read of you in the newspapers frequently and judge that you’re
living the life that suits you best. I found a copy of your ‘Clues to
a New Social Order’ on the new book table here in the club library
and reread parts of it. It never ceases to tickle me that a woman of
your upbringing, with your line of blue-nosed New England ancestors,
should want to pull down the pillars of society. I marvel at you!...
“You’ve asked me now and then not to be afraid to tell you if ever
I ran into a woman who interested me particularly. I haven’t had
anything to report till now. But the other night I met a girl,--she’s
probably just crossing the line into the twenties,--an interesting,
provocative young person. She represents in a mild degree the new
order of things you’re so mad about; going to live her own life;
marriage not in the sketch. She’s a salesgirl in a big shop, but her
people have known better days and she went half-way through college.
She’s standing with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet,
but I’m afraid won’t be satisfied to play in the brook; she’s keen
for the deeper waters. She’s as handsome as a goddess. She kissed me
very prettily--her own idea I assure you! The remembrance of this
incident is not wholly displeasing to me; it was quite spontaneous;
filial perhaps....
“Those bonds you have in the Ashawana Water Power Company are all
right. I had a look at the plant recently and the dividends are
sure....”
Having sealed and addressed the envelopes Trenton laid them side by
side on the blotter before him, lighted a cigarette, and then drew out
and opened the locket that Grace had noted at The Shack, studying the
woman’s face within a little wistfully. Then with a sigh he thrust it
into his pocket and went out into the night and tramped the streets,
coming at last to the post office where he mailed both letters.