Linda thought frequently about Dodge and his feeling for her; memories
of his words, his appearance, speculations, spread through her tranquil
daily affairs like the rich subdued pattern of a fine carpet on the
bare floor of her life. She was puzzled by the depth of a passion that,
apparently, made no demands other than the occasional necessity to be
with her and the knowledge that she existed. If she had been a very
intelligent woman, and, of course, not quite bad-looking, she might
have understood both Pleydon and Arnaud, the latter a man whose mind was
practically absorbed in the pages of books. There could be no doubt, no
question, of their love for her.
Then there had always been the others--the men at the parties, in her
garden, through the old days of her childhood in hotels. It was very
stupid, very annoying, but at the same time she became interested
in what, with her candid indifference, affected them. She had never,
really, even when she desired, succeeded in giving them anything,
anything conscious or for which they moved. Judith Feldt, on the
contrary, had been prodigal. And, while certainly numbers of men had
been attracted to her, they all tired of her with marked rapidity. Men
met Judith, Linda recalled, with eagerness, they came immediately and
often to see her ... for, perhaps, a month. Then, temporarily deserted,
she was submerged in depression and nervous tears.
But, while it was obviously impossible for all lovers to be constant,
two extraordinary and superior men would be faithful to her as long as
she lived, no--as long as they lived. This was beyond doubt. One was
celebrated--she watched with a quiet pride Pleydon's fame penetrate
the country--and the other, her husband, a person of the most exacting
delicacy of habits, intellect and wit.
What was it, she wondered, that made the supreme importance of women to
men worth consideration. Linda was thinking of this now in connection
with her daughter. Vigné was fourteen; a larger girl than she had ever
been, with her father's fine abundant cinnamon-brown hair, a shapely
sensitive mouth, and a wide brown gaze with a habit of straying, at
inappropriate moments, from things seen to the invisible. She was, Linda
realized thankfully, transparently honest; her only affectation was
the slight supercilious manner of her associations; and she read,
ridiculously like her father, with increasing pleasure.
However, what engaged Linda most was the fact that Vigné already liked
men; she had been at the fringe, as it were, of young dances, with a
sparkling satisfaction to herself and the securely nice youths who “cut
in” at her brief appearances.
The truth was that Linda saw that more than a trace of Stella Condon's
warm generosity of emotion had been brought by herself to Arnaud's
daughter. The faults of every life, every circumstance, were endlessly
multiplied through all existence. At fourteen, it was Linda's frowning
impression, her mother had very fully instructed her in the wiles and
structure of admirable marriage, and she had never completely lost some
hard pearls of the elder's wisdom. Should she, in turn, communicate them
to Vigné?
The moment, the anxiety, she dreaded was arriving, and it found her no
freer of doubt than had the other aspects of her own responses. Yet
here she was possessed by the keenest need for absolute rectitude; and
perhaps this, she thought, with an unusual pleasure, was an evidence of
the affection she had seemed to lack. But in the end she said nothing.
She was still unable to disentangle the flesh from the spirit, love--the
love that so amazingly illuminated Dodge Pleydon--from comfort. Dodge
had disturbed all her sense of values, even to the point of unsettling
her allegiance to the supremacy of a great deal of money. He had worked
this without giving her anything definite, that she could explain to
Vigné, in return. Linda preserved her demand for the actual. If she
could only comprehend the force animating Dodge she felt life would be
clear.
She was tempted to experiment--when had such a possibility occurred to
her before?--and discover just how far in several directions Pleydon's
devotion went. This would be easy now, she was unrestrained by the fact
of Arnaud, and the old shrinking from the sculptor happily vanished. Yet
with him before her, on one of his infrequent visits to their house,
she realized that her courage was insufficient. Was it that or something
deeper--a reluctance to turn herself like a knife in the source of the
profoundest compliment a woman could be paid. Linda thought too
highly of his love for that; the texture of the carpet had become too
gratifying.
They were all three in the library, as customary; and Linda, restless,
saw her reflection in a closed long window. She was wearing yellow, the
color of the jonquils on a candle-stand; but with her familiar sash tied
and the ends falling to the hem of her skirt. The pointed oval of her
face was unchanged, her pallor, the straight line of her black bang, the
blueness of her eyes, were as they had been a surprisingly long while
ago. Arnaud, with a disconcerting comprehension, demanded, “Well, are
you satisfied?” She replied coolly, “Entirely.” Pleydon, seated for
over an hour without moving, or even the trivial relief of a cigarette,
followed her with his luminous uncomfortable gaze, his disembodied
passion.