"Yes; when there's nothing else left." She stared a moment at the
pictures. "My poor child," she broke out, "I've heard all you say so
often before!"
"You've heard it?"
"Yes--from myself. I felt as you do, I argued as you do, I acted as I
mean to prevent your doing, when I married Alan's father."
The long empty gallery seemed to reverberate with the girl's startled
exclamation--"Oh, Mrs. Quentin--"
"Hush; let me speak. Do you suppose I'd do this if you were the kind of
pink-and-white idiot he ought to have married? It's because I see
you're alive, as I was, tingling with beliefs, ambitions, energies, as
I was--that I can't see you walled up alive, as I was, without
stretching out a hand to save you!" She sat gazing rigidly forward, her
eyes on the pictures, speaking in the low precipitate tone of one who
tries to press the meaning of a lifetime into a few breathless
sentences.
"When I met Alan's father," she went on, "I knew nothing of his--his
work. We met abroad, where I had been living with my mother. That was
twenty-six years ago, when the _Radiator_ was less--less notorious than
it is now. I knew my husband owned a newspaper--a great newspaper--and
nothing more. I had never seen a copy of the _Radiator_; I had no
notion what it stood for, in politics--or in other ways. We were
married in Europe, and a few months afterward we came to live here.
People were already beginning to talk about the _Radiator_. My husband,
on leaving college, had bought it with some money an old uncle had left
him, and the public at first was merely curious to see what an
ambitious, stirring young man without any experience of journalism was
going to make out of his experiment. They found first of all that he
was going to make a great deal of money out of it. I found that out
too. I was so happy in other ways that it didn't make much difference
at first; though it was pleasant to be able to help my mother, to be
generous and charitable, to live in a nice house, and wear the handsome
gowns he liked to see me in. But still it didn't really count--it
counted so little that when, one day, I learned what the _Radiator_
was, I would have gone out into the streets barefooted rather than live
another hour on the money it brought in...." Her voice sank, and she
paused to steady it. The girl at her side did not speak or move. "I
shall never forget that day," she began again. "The paper had stripped
bare some family scandal--some miserable bleeding secret that a dozen
unhappy people had been struggling to keep out of print--that _would_
have been kept out if my husband had not--Oh, you must guess the rest!
I can't go on!"
She felt a hand on hers. "You mustn't go on, Mrs. Quentin," the girl
whispered.
"Yes, I must--I must! You must be made to understand." She drew a deep
breath. "My husband was not like Alan. When he found out how I felt
about it he was surprised at first--but gradually he began to see--or
at least I fancied he saw--the hatefulness of it. At any rate he saw
how I suffered, and he offered to give up the whole thing--to sell the
paper. It couldn't be done all of a sudden, of course--he made me see
that--for he had put all his money in it, and he had no special
aptitude for any other kind of work. He was a born journalist--like
Alan. It was a great sacrifice for him to give up the paper, but he
promised to do it--in time--when a good opportunity offered. Meanwhile,
of course, he wanted to build it up, to increase the circulation--and
to do that he had to keep on in the same way--he made that clear to me.
I saw that we were in a vicious circle. The paper, to sell well, had to
be made more and more detestable and disgraceful. At first I
rebelled--but somehow--I can't tell you how it was--after that first
concession the ground seemed to give under me: with every struggle I
sank deeper. And then--then Alan was born. He was such a delicate baby
that there was very little hope of saving him. But money did it--the
money from the paper. I took him abroad to see the best physicians--I
took him to a warm climate every winter. In hot weather the doctors
recommended sea air, and we had a yacht and cruised every summer. I
owed his life to the _Radiator_. And when he began to grow stronger the
habit was formed--the habit of luxury. He could not get on without the
things he had always been used to. He pined in bad air; he drooped
under monotony and discomfort; he throve on variety, amusement, travel,
every kind of novelty and excitement. And all I wanted for him his
inexhaustible foster-mother was there to give!
"My husband said nothing, but he must have seen how things were going.
There was no more talk of giving up the _Radiator_. He never reproached
me with my inconsistency, but I thought he must despise me, and the
thought made me reckless. I determined to ignore the paper
altogether--to take what it gave as though I didn't know where it came
from. And to excuse this I invented the theory that one may, so to
speak, purify money by putting it to good uses. I gave away a great
deal in charity--I indulged myself very little at first. All the money
that was not spent on Alan I tried to do good with. But gradually, as
my boy grew up, the problem became more complicated. How was I to
protect Alan from the contamination I had let him live in? I couldn't
preach by example--couldn't hold up his father as a warning, or
denounce the money we were living on. All I could do was to disguise
the inner ugliness of life by making it beautiful outside--to build a
wall of beauty between him and the facts of life, turn his tastes and
interests another way, hide the _Radiator_ from him as a smiling woman
at a ball may hide a cancer in her breast! Just as Alan was entering
college his father died. Then I saw my way clear. I had loved my
husband--and yet I drew my first free breath in years. For the
_Radiator_ had been left to Alan outright--there was nothing on earth
to prevent his selling it when he came of age. And there was no excuse
for his not selling it. I had brought him up to depend on money, but
the paper had given us enough money to gratify all his tastes. At last
we could turn on the monster that had nourished us. I felt a savage joy
in the thought--I could hardly bear to wait till Alan came of age. But
I had never spoken to him of the paper, and I didn't dare speak of it
now. Some false shame kept me back, some vague belief in his ignorance.
I would wait till he was twenty-one, and then we should be free.
"I waited--the day came, and I spoke. You can guess his answer, I
suppose. He had no idea of selling the _Radiator_. It wasn't the money
he cared for--it was the career that tempted him. He was a born
journalist, and his ambition, ever since he could remember, had been to
carry on his father's work, to develop, to surpass it. There was
nothing in the world as interesting as modern journalism. He couldn't
imagine any other kind of life that wouldn't bore him to death. A
newspaper like the _Radiator_ might be made one of the biggest powers
on earth, and he loved power, and meant to have all he could get. I
listened to him in a kind of trance. I couldn't find a word to say. His
father had had scruples--he had none. I seemed to realize at once that
argument would be useless. I don't know that I even tried to plead with
him--he was so bright and hard and inaccessible! Then I saw that he
was, after all, what I had made him--the creature of my concessions, my
connivances, my evasions. That was the price I had paid for him--I had
kept him at that cost!
"Well--I _had_ kept him, at any rate. That was the feeling that
survived. He was my boy, my son, my very own--till some other woman
took him. Meanwhile the old life must go on as it could. I gave up the
struggle. If at that point he was inaccessible, at others he was close
to me. He has always been a perfect son. Our tastes grew together--we
enjoyed the same books, the same pictures, the same people. All I had
to do was to look at him in profile to see the side of him that was
really mine. At first I kept thinking of the dreadful other side--but
gradually the impression faded, and I kept my mind turned from it, as
one does from a deformity in a face one loves. I thought I had made my
last compromise with life--had hit on a _modus vivendi_ that would last
my time.
"And then he met you. I had always been prepared for his marrying, but
not a girl like you. I thought he would choose a sweet thing who would
never pry into his closets--he hated women with ideas! But as soon as I
saw you I knew the struggle would have to begin again. He is so much
stronger than his father--he is full of the most monstrous convictions.
And he has the courage of them, too--you saw last year that his love
for you never made him waver. He believes in his work; he adores it--it
is a kind of hideous idol to which he would make human sacrifices! He
loves you still--I've been honest with you--but his love wouldn't
change him. It is you who would have to change--to die gradually, as I
have died, till there is only one live point left in me. Ah, if one
died completely--that's simple enough! But something persists--remember
that--a single point, an aching nerve of truth. Now and then you may
drug it--but a touch wakes it again, as your face has waked it in me.
There's always enough of one's old self left to suffer with...."
She stood up and faced the girl abruptly. "What shall I tell Alan?" she
said.
Miss Fenno sat motionless, her eyes on the ground. Twilight was falling
on the gallery--a twilight which seemed to emanate not so much from the
glass dome overhead as from the crepuscular depths into which the faces
of the pictures were receding. The custodian's step sounded warningly
down the corridor. When the girl looked up she was alone.