The time has passed in a whirl. Helen feels constantly dazed. She is
ill; at times, terribly ill. Braine does not know it. He is with her
almost constantly. His tenderness is extreme. He divines and gratifies
her desires almost before she knows of them herself. Every glance, every
touch, every word is a caress, and a love message. But there is the
never-to-be-forgotten expression of rebellion and resignation. She has
never by word or action alluded to it. He will never know that she has
seen it--indeed, he is not conscious that his face has ever worn such an
expression. He knows what his heart felt in the moment of
disappointment, but he does not know that his emotion was expressed in
his face.
He tells Helen of his plans, his work, for she seems to have a mania for
"helping" him. He manufactures writing for her to do, when he
accidentally discovers that it delights her to do it. At night, when he
comes home late, she stands in her door as he ascends the stairs, draws
him into the room, and makes him lie on the divan and tell her how
things are going.
Since the first time, he has never protested against the procedure,
though he feels that she is often worn out. He would never have
protested but for her sake, and she seemed so uncontrollably grieved on
the one occasion when he tried to reason about her late hours, that he
has thought it best to indulge her.
He thinks it is an intense interest and desire to be pushing things with
him which prompts her. He does not know that she has hours of madness
over the thought that in the months to come, she will be forced out of
his life, because of his hurry and her necessity--to be passive in it
all; that she is a monomaniac on the subject; that she is afraid of the
responsibility of his failure; that she has grown to be a madwoman on
the subject of "interest."
She has but one thought: that she must appear interested in everything
concerning him, in order to keep her place in his life. He does not know
that night after night, hour after hour, as she sits with her face
eager, questioning, offering suggestions with a woman's quick
intelligence, which he accepts with readiness and gladness, and which
are often of practical service to him, she is suffering tortures.
He plans a speech and tells her, as she insists, the arguments on either
side, and the value of her interpolations amaze him. He is a logical
man; she, a woman of intuitive perceptions only. The combination is
capable of accomplishing much.
Braine finds himself deferring to her judgment in the smallest thing. He
is amazed at his sudden dependence on her. She has developed a quality
which would never have been developed under other circumstances, and the
strain is terrible in its effects upon her. She is frantic with the
necessity she feels for effort of some kind in his behalf.
She works like a demon when he is not present, and is "interested" to
the verge of insanity when he is near.
He knows nothing of her state, mental or physical. He has no conception
of her suffering. He is constantly solicitous about her health, and she
is always "Well; perfectly well!"
Gladys Grayson is now in a whirl of social excitement. She brings to the
Braine mansion all the news of society's doings. Helen goes out only in
her carriage.
Once, Mr. Everet calls. She is seized with an aversion to seeing him,
and sends word that she is engaged. Many other people call. She seldom
sees any of them. Few have other than a vague idea of the reason. They
have heard from Gladys and some others, of her exquisite charm and
beauty, but forget about her in the attending to her husband.
Braine's first great effort in the Senate was a magnificent one. All
that day Helen walked the floor of her room, saying to herself: "If he
fails, I am to blame. If he fails, I am to blame."
When Braine came home she was temporarily a lunatic, and his enthusiasm
of success was forgotten in an agony of apprehension for her safety.
When she finally understood that he had suddenly become of interest to
thousands of people, she accepted the triumph almost passively, the
strain for days had been so great.
She now thinks constantly of the time she is losing. She thinks with
terror of being left in the rush, and finally--not of Braine stopping
for her, but of his rushing on without her.
Braine himself has become sternly calm--to all but his wife, the only
person who understands him. To her the atmosphere is electric. She has
constantly in her ears the whirr of the wheels of the political
machinery. Braine is lovingly impatient for her to share it all, to be
in it all, and says with an eager smile, full of tender happiness:
"When this is over, dearest, and I can have you with me in all this!"
And she smiles back as eagerly and says:
"Yes, when this is over!" And sometimes her hands are clasped beneath
the table where he sits to write. She thinks constantly:
"I must keep up. I must impress him with my strength. I must make him
feel that I am to be depended on; I must lose none of my power to charm;
for fear my face grow unattractive, I must cultivate my mind,"--and her
face is the face of a seraph.
Then she falls to planning how the child shall be effaced so that in
these years of endeavor that are to come, Braine may find nothing to
impede him, nothing to annoy him. If her child should weary him, would
not the responsibility be hers, and would he not grow to look upon her
with aversion?
She no longer thinks of the child as his, or "ours," but as "mine." It
is a responsibility that she alone must bear. He must never find it a
burden. She plans constantly how she shall accomplish this, and yet do
all her duty to the child. She thinks she will not love it. It will
only be hers. What is there to recommend it? No, she will not love it,
therefore she must be over-careful in the matter of duty towards it. She
will instil into it all those traits of character and qualities that
Braine loves and admires most, if she can. She will keep it from its
father's knowledge as much as possible; as soon as practicable, she will
send it away to school, that Edgar may forget it as nearly as may be,
until some day, perhaps, when the hurry and anxiety are past, and that
time has come when he can pause, she will be able to bring the
child--man or woman, if it must be years from now--before him, and not
be ashamed of her work, and perhaps it will find favor in his eyes.
Perhaps the old feeling will come back, when he has nothing else to
think about, and he will even love the child a little because it is
hers. She has longed so to love it, and _cannot_--because it is only
hers.
Braine never hears a complaint, nor sees an expression of pain or
suffering on her face. He knows nothing of her monstrous, morbid
imaginings, and cannot set things right. He only says eagerly:
"When it is over!" And she responds in the same tone:
"Yes, when it is over," and thinks:
"Then I must catch up. Then I must make up this lost time. I must not be
left; I must not be left!" She sobs away the night on her knees.
The months have rushed by. The time is long enough for the
suffering--very short for so many agonies to be crowded into. Braine
loves her as he has never loved her before. Sometimes he experiences a
momentary emotion of gladness and desire for this child--but not often.
He seldom thinks of all that her condition means; and sometimes almost
forgets that anything unaccustomed is or will be,--made forgetful by
Helen's beauty and charm and brightness. He seldom thinks of her
condition save as a cause that has had the effect to make him love her
more.
And so, the winter wears away--and Helen with it.