Waythorn flushed. This was even less to his taste. "The question is,"
he repeated, "what authority has he over her?"
She looked downward, twisting herself a little in her seat. "I am
willing to see him--I thought you objected," she faltered.
In a flash he understood that she knew the extent of Haskett's claims.
Perhaps it was not the first time she had resisted them.
"My objecting has nothing to do with it," he said coldly; "if Haskett
has a right to be consulted you must consult him."
She burst into tears, and he saw that she expected him to regard her as
a victim.
Haskett did not abuse his rights. Waythorn had felt miserably sure that
he would not. But the governess was dismissed, and from time to time
the little man demanded an interview with Alice. After the first
outburst she accepted the situation with her usual adaptability.
Haskett had once reminded Waythorn of the piano-tuner, and Mrs.
Waythorn, after a month or two, appeared to class him with that
domestic familiar. Waythorn could not but respect the father's
tenacity. At first he had tried to cultivate the suspicion that Haskett
might be "up to" something, that he had an object in securing a
foothold in the house. But in his heart Waythorn was sure of Haskett's
single-mindedness; he even guessed in the latter a mild contempt for
such advantages as his relation with the Waythorns might offer.
Haskett's sincerity of purpose made him invulnerable, and his successor
had to accept him as a lien on the property.
Mr. Sellers was sent to Europe to recover from his gout, and Varick's
affairs hung on Waythorn's hands. The negotiations were prolonged and
complicated; they necessitated frequent conferences between the two
men, and the interests of the firm forbade Waythorn's suggesting that
his client should transfer his business to another office.
Varick appeared well in the transaction. In moments of relaxation his
coarse streak appeared, and Waythorn dreaded his geniality; but in the
office he was concise and clear-headed, with a flattering deference to
Waythorn's judgment. Their business relations being so affably
established, it would have been absurd for the two men to ignore each
other in society. The first time they met in a drawing-room, Varick
took up their intercourse in the same easy key, and his hostess's
grateful glance obliged Waythorn to respond to it. After that they ran
across each other frequently, and one evening at a ball Waythorn,
wandering through the remoter rooms, came upon Varick seated beside his
wife. She colored a little, and faltered in what she was saying; but
Varick nodded to Waythorn without rising, and the latter strolled on.
In the carriage, on the way home, he broke out nervously: "I didn't
know you spoke to Varick."
Her voice trembled a little. "It's the first time--he happened to be
standing near me; I didn't know what to do. It's so awkward, meeting
everywhere--and he said you had been very kind about some business."
"That's different," said Waythorn.
She paused a moment. "I'll do just as you wish," she returned pliantly.
"I thought it would be less awkward to speak to him when we meet."
Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him. Had she really no will of her
own--no theory about her relation to these men? She had accepted
Haskett--did she mean to accept Varick? It was "less awkward," as she
had said, and her instinct was to evade difficulties or to circumvent
them. With sudden vividness Waythorn saw how the instinct had
developed. She was "as easy as an old shoe"--a shoe that too many feet
had worn. Her elasticity was the result of tension in too many
different directions. Alice Haskett--Alice Varick--Alice Waythorn--she
had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of
her privacy, a little of her personality, a little of the inmost self
where the unknown god abides.
"Yes--it's better to speak to Varick," said Waythorn wearily.
"Earth's Martyrs." By Stephen Phillips.
V
THE WINTER wore on, and society took advantage of the Waythorns'
acceptance of Varick. Harassed hostesses were grateful to them for
bridging over a social difficulty, and Mrs. Waythorn was held up as a
miracle of good taste. Some experimental spirits could not resist the
diversion of throwing Varick and his former wife together, and there
were those who thought he found a zest in the propinquity. But Mrs.
Waythorn's conduct remained irreproachable. She neither avoided Varick
nor sought him out. Even Waythorn could not but admit that she had
discovered the solution of the newest social problem.
He had married her without giving much thought to that problem. He had
fancied that a woman can shed her past like a man. But now he saw that
Alice was bound to hers both by the circumstances which forced her into
continued relation with it, and by the traces it had left on her
nature. With grim irony Waythorn compared himself to a member of a
syndicate. He held so many shares in his wife's personality and his
predecessors were his partners in the business. If there had been any
element of passion in the transaction he would have felt less
deteriorated by it. The fact that Alice took her change of husbands
like a change of weather reduced the situation to mediocrity. He could
have forgiven her for blunders, for excesses; for resisting Hackett,
for yielding to Varick; for anything but her acquiescence and her tact.
She reminded him of a juggler tossing knives; but the knives were blunt
and she knew they would never cut her.
And then, gradually, habit formed a protecting surface for his
sensibilities. If he paid for each day's comfort with the small change
of his illusions, he grew daily to value the comfort more and set less
store upon the coin. He had drifted into a dulling propinquity with
Haskett and Varick and he took refuge in the cheap revenge of
satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the advantages
which accrued from it, to ask himself if it were not better to own a
third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy than a whole one who
had lacked opportunity to acquire the art. For it _was_ an art, and
made up, like all others, of concessions, eliminations and
embellishments; of lights judiciously thrown and shadows skillfully
softened. His wife knew exactly how to manage the lights, and he knew
exactly to what training she owed her skill. He even tried to trace the
source of his obligations, to discriminate between the influences which
had combined to produce his domestic happiness: he perceived that
Haskett's commonness had made Alice worship good breeding, while
Varick's liberal construction of the marriage bond had taught her to
value the conjugal virtues; so that he was directly indebted to his
predecessors for the devotion which made his life easy if not inspiring.
From this phase he passed into that of complete acceptance. He ceased
to satirize himself because time dulled the irony of the situation and
the joke lost its humor with its sting. Even the sight of Haskett's hat
on the hall table had ceased to touch the springs of epigram. The hat
was often seen there now, for it had been decided that it was better
for Lily's father to visit her than for the little girl to go to his
boarding-house. Waythorn, having acquiesced in this arrangement, had
been surprised to find how little difference it made. Haskett was never
obtrusive, and the few visitors who met him on the stairs were unaware
of his identity. Waythorn did not know how often he saw Alice, but with
himself Haskett was seldom in contact.
One afternoon, however, he learned on entering that Lily's father was
waiting to see him. In the library he found Haskett occupying a chair
in his usual provisional way. Waythorn always felt grateful to him for
not leaning back.
"I hope you'll excuse me, Mr. Waythorn," he said rising. "I wanted to
see Mrs. Waythorn about Lily, and your man asked me to wait here till
she came in."
"Of course," said Waythorn, remembering that a sudden leak had that
morning given over the drawing-room to the plumbers.
He opened his cigar-case and held it out to his visitor, and Haskett's
acceptance seemed to mark a fresh stage in their intercourse. The
spring evening was chilly, and Waythorn invited his guest to draw up
his chair to the fire. He meant to find an excuse to leave Haskett in a
moment; but he was tired and cold, and after all the little man no
longer jarred on him.
The two were inclosed in the intimacy of their blended cigar-smoke when
the door opened and Varick walked into the room. Waythorn rose
abruptly. It was the first time that Varick had come to the house, and
the surprise of seeing him, combined with the singular inopportuneness
of his arrival, gave a new edge to Waythorn's blunted sensibilities. He
stared at his visitor without speaking.
Varick seemed too preoccupied to notice his host's embarrassment.
"My dear fellow," he exclaimed in his most expansive tone, "I must
apologize for tumbling in on you in this way, but I was too late to
catch you down town, and so I thought--" He stopped short, catching
sight of Haskett, and his sanguine color deepened to a flush which
spread vividly under his scant blond hair. But in a moment he recovered
himself and nodded slightly. Haskett returned the bow in silence, and
Waythorn was still groping for speech when the footman came in carrying
a tea-table.
The intrusion offered a welcome vent to Waythorn's nerves. "What the
deuce are you bringing this here for?" he said sharply.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but the plumbers are still in the
drawing-room, and Mrs. Waythorn said she would have tea in the
library." The footman's perfectly respectful tone implied a reflection
on Waythorn's reasonableness.
"Oh, very well," said the latter resignedly, and the footman proceeded
to open the folding tea-table and set out its complicated appointments.
While this interminable process continued the three men stood
motionless, watching it with a fascinated stare, till Waythorn, to
break the silence, said to Varick: "Won't you have a cigar?"
He held out the case he had just tendered to Haskett, and Varick helped
himself with a smile. Waythorn looked about for a match, and finding
none, proffered a light from his own cigar. Haskett, in the background,
held his ground mildly, examining his cigar-tip now and then, and
stepping forward at the right moment to knock its ashes into the fire.
The footman at last withdrew, and Varick immediately began: "If I could
just say half a word to you about this business--"
"Certainly," stammered Waythorn; "in the dining-room--"
But as he placed his hand on the door it opened from without, and his
wife appeared on the threshold.
She came in fresh and smiling, in her street dress and hat, shedding a
fragrance from the boa which she loosened in advancing.
"Shall we have tea in here, dear?" she began; and then she caught sight
of Varick. Her smile deepened, veiling a slight tremor of surprise.
"Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure.
As she shook hands with Varick she saw Haskett standing behind him. Her
smile faded for a moment, but she recalled it quickly, with a scarcely
perceptible side-glance at Waythorn.
"How do you do, Mr. Haskett?" she said, and shook hands with him a
shade less cordially.
The three men stood awkwardly before her, till Varick, always the most
self-possessed, dashed into an explanatory phrase.
"We--I had to see Waythorn a moment on business," he stammered,
brick-red from chin to nape.
Haskett stepped forward with his air of mild obstinacy. "I am sorry to
intrude; but you appointed five o'clock--" he directed his resigned
glance to the time-piece on the mantel.
She swept aside their embarrassment with a charming gesture of
hospitality.
"I'm so sorry--I'm always late; but the afternoon was so lovely." She
stood drawing her gloves off, propitiatory and graceful, diffusing
about her a sense of ease and familiarity in which the situation lost
its grotesqueness. "But before talking business," she added brightly,
"I'm sure every one wants a cup of tea."
She dropped into her low chair by the tea-table, and the two visitors,
as if drawn by her smile, advanced to receive the cups she held out.
She glanced about for Waythorn, and he took the third cup with a laugh.