Ours was to be one of the most beautiful and beneficial loves of
history. Almost we fell in love with our new way of loving. It had,
we felt, a dignity and a purpose lacking in other loves. To look each
other in the eyes, and feel that in a moment of strength, spurred by
pity for those who had no such love as ours to sustain them, we had
renounced each other, was a state of serenity and peace.
It added to the beauty of our renunciation that it claimed no luster of
publicity, but had been made in quiet privacy. No one, we thought,
will ever know; yet it will have been strong and pure, so that the
world cannot but be the better for it.
We delighted for a while in our supreme renunciation as children
delight in a new toy. And even now I can look back upon that time and
wish that there could have been a little more substance to the shadow.
It was a time of wonderful and sweet intimacy. We were to tell each
other everything. There was delight in that. There was the delight of
looking ahead and planning the meetings that should be ours in other
places, until at last John himself came to realize that in our loving
friendship was nothing unbeautiful, or unbeneficent, and meetings would
happen when or where we pleased, the world silenced by the husband's
approval.
So I did not take Harry Colemain's well-meant advice, and leave Aiken.
For a while it would suffice John to know that Lucy intended to stand
by him and be the keeper of his house; to put his interests first, and
to make up to him in dutifulness and economy for the love which she
could not but reserve. Yes, indeed! Riding slowly through the spring
woods, I made bold to preach a gospel of new life to her, and she
listened very meekly, like a blessed angel, and she felt sure that from
me she would derive the will and the strength. Mostly it was a gospel
of economy that I preached and how best she might help her husband back
upon his feet. And before his return from Palm Beach she had made a
beginning. She bought a book to keep accounts in, and she got together
all the bills she could lay hands on, and added them up to an appalling
total (several, for it came different each time) and she stacked the
bills in order of their pressingness, with the requests for payment
from lawyers and collectors on top, and she felt an unparalleled glow
of virtue and helpfulness.
And one day she took Jock and Hurry in the runabout (Cornelius Twombly
behind) and drove to the station to welcome John home. How sweet the
sight of those three faces must have seemed to him after absence!
Indeed they had seemed very sweet to me as I looked into them just
before they drove stationward. I was not to show up for two or three
days. That was one compromise on Harry Colemain's advice. It would
show John that Lucy and I were not entirely engrossed in each other's
society. It would give him time to turn around and see how he liked
the fact that Lucy was going to stick to him, and in many ways be a
better wife to him. It would give me an opportunity to see, and be
seen by many people. It would, in short, be a beginning of knocking on
the head and silencing most of the talk that there had been about Lucy
and me.
When you have a secret you might as well do your best to keep it.
So I did not see John Fulton for three days after his return from Palm
Beach, and then by accident.
He had stopped at my father's house to leave the rod and tackle-box
which I had loaned him, and I, happening to be in the hall, opened the
door myself, and went out to speak with him.
"Have a good time?" I asked.
The man looked so sick that I pitied him.
"Mechanically, yes. I went through the motions," he said. "That's a
beautiful rod. It was the most useful thing I had along. Going to the
club? I'll drive you."
"Will you? Thanks. I'll just put these things in the hall."
We drove slowly toward the club.
"Glad to be back?"
"Very. I couldn't have stayed away from Lucy and the kids much longer,
even if I'd been held."
He laughed gently.
"Lucy," he said, "must have thought that I wasn't ever coming back.
She's been trying to put the house in order."
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, finding out how much money's owed, and making a beginning of tying
up loose ends."
"Kids all right? I haven't set eyes on 'em for three or four days."
"Yes, the kids are fine," and he added, after a pause, "and Lucy's fine
too."
There were several men in the club and they made John heartily welcome,
and told him how much better he looked than when he went away. As a
matter of fact he looked much worse.
We all had tea together and asked questions about Palm Beach, and if he
had seen so and so, and if he'd brought any money away from the
gambling place, and what was new, and amusing, etc.
"Do you know," he said all of a sudden, "there was one very interesting
thing that happened. Anybody mind if I talk shop?"
Nobody did; so he went on: "I had a telegram from a Baron Schroeder
asking if it would be convenient for me to see him. He came all the
way down to Palm Beach, talked to me all the time between trains, and
flew away north again. He wanted to know how many rifle cartridges I
could make in a year, at a price, a very round price, how many in five
years. He wanted to know if I could convert any of my plant into a
manufactory for shrapnel, and so on. What interested me is that he
should take all that trouble over a small concern like mine. It looks
as if someone saw a time when there would be a great dearth of
ammunition. Two days ago Schroeder had gone away. I was braced, while
in swimming, by a Russian gentleman. He apologized and plied me with
the same sort of questions; I gave him the same sort of offhand answers
that I had given Schroeder, and then I asked him what it was all about,
and I told him about Schroeder without mentioning names. He said he
could only guess, but that if I would sign a contract he would keep my
plant running full for five years. It looks, doesn't it, as if
somebody had decided to change the map of Europe, and as if others
suspected the design?"
"Well, what came of it? Did you land a contract? Tell more."
"Nothing has come of it yet. But I think something will. I'm to meet
the Russian in New York shortly."
"Why the Russian? The Baron saw you first."
"The Russian had better manners," said Fulton simply. "I think he
liked me, and I know I liked him!"
Fulton asked me to dinner, but I refused, and so it was nearly four
days before I saw Lucy again. In the meanwhile Harry Colemain told me
more about the Palm Beach trip. The ammunition inquiries had, it
seemed, strengthened Fulton's nerves; there had been no repetition of
the hysterics.
"A man," Harry said, "must be even more down and out than Fulton not to
be braced by a prospect of good business. From what he told me, if the
contract goes through, he stands to make a fortune."
"Is there anything peculiarly good about the Fulton cartridges, or is
Europe just out to gather up all the ammunition she can?"
"It looks rather like a sudden general demand. But of course nobody
_knows_ anything except the insiders. Fulton says if the contract goes
through he can die any time and be sure that his family will be well
provided for. That feeling will stiffen his backbone. But you haven't
told me if you said anything to Lucy?"
I had been dreading that question as one which could not be answered
with complete frankness. I don't enjoy lying. Not that my moral sense
revolts, but because I am lazy. Lying calls for deliberate efforts of
invention.
"In a general way, yes," I evaded. "But her own good sense has come to
the rescue. John's absence gave her a chance to see how she really
felt about things. She won't leave him. Indeed, she'll try to make up
to him in every way she can for her failure of affection."
"If she does _that_," said Harry, "I daresay the affection will come
back. The more you benefit a person the more you like that person.
The more you fail in your duty to a person, the less you like that
person. I'm delighted with what you say. With all her charm and
beauty she can make him happy if she tries."
"I think it's not a question of charm and beauty," I said. "It's a
question of keeping house for him, and being a good mother to the
children, and being loyal to him and them."
"There are reservations?"
"She doesn't love him."
"Oh," said Harry scornfully, "_that_ sort of thing won't work."
"We know a good many cases where that sort of thing seems to work."
"It only works when the husband acts like a natural man. Fulton won't.
For him only Lucy is possible. There can be no substitute. No. In
this case it won't work. He's too young and she's too good-looking."
"Then it won't work," I said shortly.
"She makes me sick," said Harry. "She gets her board and lodging and
her clothes and spending money from him, and love and protection,
and--Oh, it isn't as if there'd never been anything between them.
After all, as far as he's concerned, she's no novice."
"The moment she stopped loving him she became spiritually separated
from him."
"Spiritually be damned!" exclaimed Harry. "Don't talk to me. There
are women in New York who to keep from starvation, will make love to
any man that comes along, for a pittance. They do the very best they
can to earn the money. I can't help admiring 'em. But your
fashionable married woman, she's too refined, too delicately souled,
too spiritual to do anything but eat herself sick on her man's money
and spend him into a hole. It's bad enough to be a prostitute who
plays the game, but it's a damned sight worse to be a prostitute who
doesn't."
"I'm not going to get angry with you, Harry. We've been through too
much together. But I think you have said enough. Lucy is one of the
finest, purest-minded women in the world."
"Then she ought to be her husband's wife, or get out. If she's not his
wife, she's no business grafting on him for board and lodging and
pocket money. How long does a pure-minded, good-looking woman keep off
the streets if she can't raise the wind any other way? Not long. And
how many men can she graft on? Plenty of 'em--once. But not twice.
The word goes round about her. 'She's a beauty to look at,' says the
word, 'but she doesn't earn her money.'"
"Many marriages," I said, "_have_ to be re-arranged and compromised."
"Don't say _have_ to be, say _are_."
"Harry," I said with great firmness, "the country needs rain like the
devil."
After a moment, good humor returned to his face. He said; "You've just
won an argument. I also am dry as a bone."