In justice to John Cabot, the spirit-girl Dolores related next an
interview between the financier and his wife of which she was told
afterward. So she explained to her demon audience when able to proceed.
Three days had passed since that incomprehensible thing misnamed on
Earth as “life” had departed the unsightly physical of the young heir.
The great surgeon, after having established--to his own satisfaction
at least--that the patient had died of “nerve shock” and not of an
operation which he pronounced successful in all details, had departed
with his check. The servants were recovering from the emotional debauch
of the last offices and beginning to think consciously, rather than
subconsciously, in terms of tasks.
The governess, immediately on her return from the cemetery where
had been consigned to dust her second safe love, had sought the
boy’s mother in her boudoir. She had come, she said, to express her
appreciation of the many kindnesses heaped upon her and to announce her
departure, since her engagement had come to so sudden and sad an end.
Catherine, however, had insisted that she stay on in the house; in
a pitiful outburst had clung to her as the one who had been nearest
and dearest to the departed lad. Time enough later to decide in what
capacity she should remain. Her gentle companionship was “comforting”
to the bereaved mother. She must not “desert.”
Dolores had hesitated, riven with doubts. She felt that she should
go. Yet she longed to stay. Catherine was suffering from one of the
headaches which would seem to have become chronic. Fragrant and pale
as a valley-lily in her crepe, she looked a lovely child, dependent
upon kindness. Dolores glanced away from the dew-wet eyes and compared
her own sense of loss with what a mother’s must be. Although she had
not forgotten that brutal anticipation of Jack’s death, hate hurt.
Catherine looked in need of forgiveness and she---- She _needed_ to
forgive.
She was considering the somewhat vague disposal of her near future when
Mr. Cabot knocked. Advised by the set look of his face and his grave
manner, she at once excused herself; left them alone. Following is the
conversation between them, as reported to her later on.
“This is the first time in several years that you, my wedded lord, have
visited my rooms. To what do I owe the rather unusual honor?” Catherine
asked.
“To a rather unusual request.”
John did not draw up the chair toward which she had waved him. He stood
through the interview--stood or paced from one object to another of
the luxurious room. At times he stopped quite near the _chaise longue_
where she sat propped up by cushions, to study her guileless face and
the suffering air with which she sniffed a gold bottle of salts.
“The boy is dead, Catherine.”
“Yes, John.”
“I loved the boy.”
“I believe you did. Still, he must have been a great disappointment to
a fine specimen like you.”
The compliment was repeated in her appreciative, uplifted gaze. But he
felt far from pleased.
“You will oblige me by not referring to Jack’s infirmity again. He was
the only creature I’ve had to love since my mother, and I loved him as
he was. You and I, Catherine, should be the last to depreciate him for
what he symbolized.”
“Symbolized? Oh, don’t tell me that again!”
“Your criticism forces me to remind you. Outwardly our son was the
symbol of our malformed union.”
“_John_, what a grim thought!”
“Grim as the inheritance law--even to the third and fourth generation.
He paid the price in his person of our crime in giving him birth.
Through our fault, not his own, his body was warped and his temper
uncertain. I often remembered when I looked at him--remembered that no
amount of love was enough to atone for the wrong we had done him. I,
for one, am grateful that we three were spared the greater punishment.
So easily, in the sardonic scheme of things, the soul of him, too,
might have been warped. But his was as gallant and large and sweet as
ever outgrew injustice.”
The implications against herself had turned Catherine to one of the
many mirrors conveniently placed.
“How can you take such stern pride in your loyalty? You used to say,
you know, that you loved me.”
He, also, studied her reflection.
“I suppose you would call that a self-respecting statement? All
right, we’ll give it the benefit of my doubt that it is mere vanity.
I did love what I thought you were. But that was taken away, like my
mother--like Jack.”
She showed the flurry that caught her up whenever inspired by one of
her “brainy” thoughts.
“Has a man a right to think things about a woman which aren’t true,
marry her on the strength of them and then blame her for the rest of
their unnatural lives because he made a mistake?”
“In our case I had--every right. Have you forgotten the details of
our first meeting, Catherine? Your father had invited me to the house
really to see you, not the pictures he hoped to sell me. Your mother
had selected me, sight unseen, by virtue of my bank account. They
helped you to make an impression on me which all of you knew to be
false. You were dressed in white, which you afterward told me you never
expected to wear again until your funeral. You looked innocent and
tender and dependent--all of which you were not. You sat upon a hassock
and played with a white Persian kitten--oh, every detail of the studied
effect made a lasting impression upon me! You had well-developed claws
then, but you held them in far more carefully than did the kitten.
Later, I learned, with quite a shock, that you detested cats. Yet you
held this one to your cheek and understudied its appeal to the best of
your feline ability.”
“Thanks for admitting that I have some sort of ability,” the gentle
voice purred.
“You have more than ability. You have positive power.”
“My dear John! But don’t pay me all your stored-up compliments in one
visit. Save some and call again.”
“You have that most potent of acquisitive forces, unassailable egotism.
I used to look into the faces of the painted parasites riding along
Fifth Avenue in their cars and wonder why so much was laid at their
feet. That was before I learned--_you_.”
“To think that you, John, should learn anything from me!”
“Egotism is the most acquiring force in the world. All great men have
it, but in them it is covered or excused by their greatness. All women
successful with men have it to the degree of a sort of hypnotism. They
blind men to what they are with the bright light of what they think
they are. You, for instance, think so well of yourself that one needs
strong lenses to see your faults. I used to hope that you’d dim some
day--have a doubt of yourself. But you never did. You are all strength
in your egotism.”
Hard words they were, yet sadly spoken. During them the beautiful
subject had wavered between pique and pleasure. At their finish, she
offered her child-sweet laugh.
“After this, I can refuse you nothing. Name the rather unusual favor
which you say you have come to ask!”
“I wish you, Catherine, to get a divorce.”
“You--_you_ want a divorce?”
Astonishment overcame both pique and pleasure.
“The boy was our only link. Now that he is gone, free me. You may have
the money--as much of it as you want. I can make more. Of late I’ve had
literally forced on me plenty of that which is my value in your eyes.
I’ll try to meet any demands you make. You see, I assume that you have
no reason other than money for keeping up this pretense longer.”
“So, it has come to this?”
Both face and form relaxed as she coaxed the cushions to give her
greater comfort. The astonishment in her eyes had been replaced by
shrewdness; that, in turn, by mild amusement. But the golden lines of
her eye-brows were arched, as always when she was at mental tension.
“Do you intend this request, my hitherto immaculate John, to be taken
as a confession of guilt?”
“_Guilt?_”
The one repeated word, weighted by disgust, was the whole of his denial.
“Whence--where--how, then, a divorce, without _cause_? Are we not
citizens of the supposedly respectable commonwealth of New York?”
“There is Reno.”
“_Reno!_” As if from force of her emphasis, Catherine sprang up from
her lounge, crossed the room and faced him. “So you’ve been calculating
on Reno? A nice, chivalrous plan--for _me_ to endure such tedium and
long-suffering to oblige you with a divorce! Four days’ train travel
from New York and six months’ residence in a Wild West town in the kind
of hotel that has only one bath to a floor and wouldn’t know what you
meant by _à la carte_ if you spelled it backward and translated it into
Indian. My dear husband, what could you offer that would repay me for
one of those awful exiles in Nevada’s make-believe metropolis?”
“What sum has d’Elie named?”
“_John!_ Are you trying to insult me?”
“No, Catherine. I am trying to settle with you.”
For a tight-strung moment man and wife regarded each the other, he not
unkindly, she with twisting lips. The next, she turned and herself
began to glide from object to object of the room, as if she too were
strange to them. When she again stopped before him, her face had
beautified. She laid a hand upon his arm.
“Tell me, _why_ a divorce, dear?”
“Why not a divorce?” His eyes held forbiddingly on the clutch of her
polish-pointed fingers. “Let’s not go into unnecessary explanations. I
understand something of your ambitions and shall be glad to help you
achieve them. You will wear a title well--one thing that I could never
give you. And you’ll do better, I am sure, with a man whose devotion is
for hire.”
“A beautiful sentiment, as Clarke Shayle would say,” she commented. “It
is fortunate that I didn’t marry you for any supposed amiability. As
for yourself?”
“As for myself----” He flung off the hand that still clung, a note of
passion in his voice. “Has your memory utterly failed you, Catherine?
Can’t you or won’t you remember what I used to be? Once I tried to make
you understand something of what I hoped from life and love. Do you
suppose that it has been comfortable for me to appear a stone man? You
don’t want me. Let me find a life--perhaps even love--for myself. Oh,
Catherine, you used at least to seem kind in the early days! Try to be
a little kind again.”
“Just kind enough to free you. And _she_?”
Certainly there was no promise in the bite of her response or the
curiosity with which she eyed the emotion on his face.
In reply to her question, John Cabot simply looked at her--a warning
look, known and feared on the Street.
“This lady with whom you hope to find life and love--did she suggest
the plan to lay me on the shelf?” Catherine inquired. “It’s an ill
wind that blows nobody good, they say. Of course I can’t blame her for
wishing to take advantage of poor Jack’s death by----”
“That will do, Catherine.” He voiced the warning look. “There is no
other woman in my life.”
As if relieved of an unhappy suspicion, she lifted a smile of the
self-believing sort which ten years before would have blinded him to
the lies behind her lips.
“Then why,” she asked, “suggest the Union Pacific--the road to Reno?
How can you, a mere husband, feel sure that you know your wife’s heart?
I defy the laws of Nevada or any other state to give you the key. What
if I should say that I still do want you?”
“You cannot say that and speak the truth.”
In his positiveness she saw that her past power to beguile him indeed
was gone. But no ineffectualness on that account depressed her, as
proved by the light laugh with which she returned to the pleasanter
assurances of her mirror.
“You are right. I hope you are as grateful as I am that I can’t. I’d
be bored to extinction with the ordinary state called ‘marital bliss,’
either with a man who doted upon me or one upon whom I doted. Fact
is----” Bending closer to the glass, she focused into the twin pair of
eyes a look of assured capability, “I never did care for you. Lately
I quite dislike you. You are, you know, superior. I don’t wish to be
superior myself and I resent people who are. There now! You say you
like honesty--won’t you give me a good mark?”
With one of her unaccountable transitions, her manner changed from
frank spite to pathos. Brushing her hand across her eyes, as if to hide
from him any sign of the feeling to which she had declared herself
immune, she crossed to the window and leaned, looking out, against the
effective background of its bronze hanging.
“No, my only husband--the answer is no.” The cynicism in what she
said was weakened by the way she said it. “I’m sorry to refuse any
little request of yours, but I cannot give you up. And I don’t think,
really, that you have been quite nice. Since the challenge was to
come from you, you might have been heroic enough to let me name the
weapons--swords or pistols, you know--that impossible Reno or New York.
Don’t you think yourself that you have added insult to injury?”
He did not dignify the appeal with a reply. He was about to go; had
bowed to her formally and was crossing to the door.
“John, dear.”
Her quavery cry stopped him on the threshold.
She followed him and stood with her gold-gloried head hung low over her
twisting hands. “You say I have lost all kindness, John. I think _you_
have. You are not what you used to be, any more than am I. You haven’t
had a thought for me in what you ask. Perhaps a man cannot realize what
it means to a woman to--to be faced with a demand like yours of to-day.
For me to divorce you for deserting me--to admit to our world that you
have tired of me---- Even supposing there is nothing to me but what you
say, don’t you know that would crucify my vanity? But there is more to
me, John. I once _was_ that kitten-girl you thought me. At times--even
yet--I have my softer feelings. I am used to compliments and I--I am
hurt to the heart by your insult.”
John did not take advantage of her pause. He continued to wait and
wonder.
“I see far less beautiful women than I being understood and
appreciated,” she continued after a quivering sigh. “Is it too much
that I ask to be endured? And yet, I don’t want to ask that--I really
don’t. I want you to be happy, but---- Oh, John, why couldn’t you have
waited until I’d recovered? What with the accident and poor Jack’s
death and the funeral and now _this_, I feel that I’ve had almost more
than I can stand. To-day my head aches until----”
Again she paused. And again he did not speak.
“Dr. Shayle says that I ought to go away somewhere for a change of air
and scene,” she continued after a moment, in a lower, more pathetic
voice. “I was hesitating, in my mistaken viewpoint, feeling that I
shouldn’t leave you in the house alone just at this time. But after
what you’ve said to me I see that you’d be glad to have me go. I’ll
start to-morrow for--for somewhere--anywhere.”
Soon her sobs allowed her to add: “And I’ll think things over while
I’m gone, dear. Perhaps, when I get used to your idea, it won’t sound
so brutal as it does to-day. I just _might_ come to see it more your
way. Or perhaps you will miss me enough to--to----”
He realized that she was giving him every chance, but still failed to
improve it.
With only a reproachful glance for his lack of generosity, she changed
the subject. “I want to speak to you about one thing in particular.
It’s Miss Trent. As you may know, I have conceived an unusual affection
for her. I don’t feel that we should send a young creature of her
beauty and fatal charm out into the world again. On account of her
devotion to Jackie and the wonderfully good influence she exerted over
him, I feel the responsibility of seeing her safely settled, either
with us or elsewhere. She is really quite refined. And how her looks
came out in that evening dress I--we gave her! For one, I don’t intend
that the he-wolves outside shall get on the trail again of a girl who
was so dear to our--our boy.”
“Your sentiments do you proud, Catherine.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, John. You may think I have no heart, but there are
people who wouldn’t agree with you. Dolores, for instance. I show her
every day my appreciation for what she did for Jack.”
“And I intend to show mine,” John inserted quietly, “by some suitable
arrangement and provision. Jack’s last request was that I look out for
her. I, too, have a high opinion of Miss Trent.”
“Then do, John, unbend toward her! You treat her--really--like a
servant in the house. It offends my finer sensibilities to see how
afraid the poor thing is of you. You can’t doubt her devotion to the
boy. Try to realize, as I do, that her heart is aching for him almost
as much as our own. Be kinder to her while I’m gone, won’t you, John?”
“Don’t worry. I shall be kind to her.”
“I do thank you for that promise. You’re a dear. I should have worried
for fear you’d hurt her hyper-sensitive feelings in some way--as--as
you’ve hurt mine. You see, she has agreed to stay on in the house at
least until I get back. I’ve made her believe that I need someone above
Morrison to look after things in my place.”
“In that case,” said John, “I shall move to one of the clubs.”
“Oh, no,” she protested. “Dolores would suspect that you had been
driven out of your home and be most uncomfortable. It isn’t at all
necessary for you to go.”
“Pardon me. I think it is.”
He left her, disappointed and dismayed. The “mere husband” of her
accusation, he felt he must have misunderstood his wife. That affection
for him should outweigh her cupidity seemed incredible. And yet what
else could have prompted her refusal of his “rather unusual” request?