THE MOTE IN THE EYE
A philosopher has noted that at certain periods a great many stupid
people have a good deal of stupid money. This condition, describable
as plethora, is succeeded by another catalogued as panic.
The number of stupid people who at this time stalked the streets
unchecked was phenomenal. Among them was Annandale. It was not a
beggarly twenty-five thousand a year that he had, but fifty, with, in
addition, more to come. This, though measurably satisfactory, was not
brilliant. Not brilliant, that is, as Mrs. Price used that term. Still
it was sufficient to remove him from the menagerie of paupers in which
she had classed him. Assured whereof, Mrs. Price, pocketing further
objections, gave in. Two months by the clock after the episodes at
Narragansett she assisted at his marriage to her daughter. A little
later Annandale took a house in Gramercy Park.
This house, leased fully furnished from November to June, Fanny
selected. She liked the neighborhood. Annandale, whose bachelor
quarters had, of course, been given up, liked it too. It was
convenient. He had got an idea that he ought to have something to do.
The something which he hit on consisted in going downtown every day
and standing, in a broker's office, over a ticker. Such were the
quantities of stupid money afloat that the ticker was very loquacious.
It talked and talked, generally in jumps. As it jumped Annandale
bought. As it continued to jump, he made. Whereupon he regarded
himself as a born financier. It was an illusion which that year very
many men shared.
But the illusion was agreeable to him. It was equally so to Fanny. It
took him out of the way and induced pleasant dreams. He talked of
drags and yachts. On fifty thousand a year these things are
impossibilities. But Annandale, believing himself a born financier,
believed, too, that the day was not remote when they would solidify
into facts. Pending which, Fanny, from her own carriage, distributed
to Annette, Juliette and the rest of them such orders as she liked.
It was in this carriage that Marie had seen her with Loftus. Others
also saw her. Fanny being a little more than a bride and Loftus a good
deal more than a beau, the spectacle caused comment. There were,
though, other things that the future had in charge which were to cause
more. But among those who beheld the particular spectacle was Fanny's
husband.
Annandale was in a hansom with Mr. Skitt, the broker in whose office
he looked over the tape. As Fanny drove by, Annandale raised his hat,
then, with a mimic which he meant to be humorously indignant, he shook
his stick at Loftus much as though he were saying, "Aha! making up to
my wife!"
Loftus entering into the spirit of the jest, ducked his head in
feigned alarm.
"That's a deuced pretty woman," remarked Mr. Skitt when the carriage
had passed.
"It is Mrs. Annandale," his client returned with some hauteur.
"Oh, beg pardon, I didn't know."
"Yes," Annandale resumed, "and that was Loftus, an old friend of
mine."
"Any relation to _the_ Loftus?" Mr. Skitt, glad that the subject was
out of the way, inquired.
"He is _the_ Loftus," Annandale, now entirely mollified, replied.
Others, however, took the spectacle less lightly. To Marie it was
distressing. To Mrs. Price it was absurd. Mrs. Price had not seen it,
but she heard of it. To air a few views on the subject she pounced in
on Fanny the very next day. Loftus, however, was there at the time.
She had to wait until he was gone. Then she let drive.
"Do you fancy," she asked fiercely, "that this is London? Do you?" she
repeated and menacingly pulled off a glove. "Don't you know that you
cannot have men hanging about you, and of all men that man? Great
heavens, if you wanted him you should have taken him at the start."
Fanny lit a cigarette, made a ring of smoke, poked a finger through it
and in a sugary, demure little way which she sometimes affected,
answered serenely: "At the finish perhaps I may yet."
"What!" cried Mrs. Price.
But from the door a servant was announcing Miss Waldron. The girl swam
in. Necessarily, for the time being, the subject was dropped. Later
Mrs. Price got back to it, but without notable result, without
obtaining either any elucidation of Fanny's rather curious remark.
That though, with graver things, the future had in charge. Meanwhile
Fanny, with nine servants and a housekeeper to run them, led the life
of any other young society woman, the life of an _objet de luxe_.
This form of existence would have been quite to her liking if--Yet is
there not always an If? A poet declaimed on the subject two thousand
years ago. Times have changed, customs with them, but not the human
heart. Barring great wealth and its fanfares and accompaniments, Fanny
had enough to throw the average woman into stupors of envy, enough
also to even satisfy her, if only instead of one man she had married
another. Annandale was very nice. He had but one defect. But that
defect was fatal. He did not happen to be somebody else.
This defect Fanny had fancied that she could overlook. She was young,
therefore ignorant, and, in fancying that she could ignore that fatal
defect, fancied also that she had the ability to order herself about,
to command her nature and dictate to her heart. The fallacy is common.
Many of us have entertained it and kept at it too until the discovery
is made that the heart is a force which we must yield to or break.
Fanny became aware of this shortly after Loftus returned. There in her
existence was the If. As a consequence, although Annandale was quite
perfect to her, his perfection was as nothing to his one defect.
Of this defect Annandale was wholly unconscious. Yet, though he could
not see the mote in his own eye, there was one in Fanny's which,
though he saw, he was unable to define. It is true on the mote
question he was not an expert. A husband, particularly when he happens
to be big and blond, seldom is. Then, too, the effect of the mote was
odd. It affected Fanny's disposition. When he approached her he could
not but notice that she became elusive. He could not but perceive that
she was as afraid of a kiss as of a bee.
"What is the matter with you?" he inquired on one occasion when she
appeared even more tantalizingly intangible than he had seen her yet.
"Women are the very devil," he muttered as, without answering, she
moved yet further away.
The question, though, was very unreasonable. So at least Mrs. Price,
whom he tried to take into his confidence, assured him with fine
scorn. "The idea of a man asking his wife what is the matter with
her!" she exclaimed. "A man ought to know. If he doesn't, how in the
world can he expect her to?"
But that was before the episode with Loftus in the Park. Had Annandale
gone to Mrs. Price then she would have been quite capable of putting a
flea in his ear. That opportunity he neglected. Stocks were soaring.
On paper he was making money hand over fist. He had no time to bother
with women's whims. When men do have time for such things the time has
passed.
Even then it had gone. One night early in May Fanny had a few people
in, among whom were Loftus and Sylvia Waldron.
Sylvia, who long since had let bygones be bygones, was now as sisterly
as ever with Fanny, and with Annandale on terms friendly and frank, an
attitude which, as Fanny put it, "made it so easy, don't you know, all
around." Yet then in putting it in that way Fanny may have been
actuated by the fellow-feeling which makes us all so wondrous kind.
With Loftus she was rather friendly herself.
That, however, by the way. During the dinner a telegram was brought to
Annandale. It concerned the morrow's market and interested him
considerably. As soon as he decently could he got away to confer with
Skitt. Later the other guests began to go. But Loftus lingered.
Presently he and Fanny were alone.
"How is the lady?" Fanny negligently inquired.
Her arms and neck were bare. Her dress, immaterial as cobwebs, was of
starbeams' restful hue. About her throat was a string of opals. They
were colorful, though less so than her eyes and mouth.
She was seated on a sofa. Loftus was standing. As always, he was
superiorly sent out. Other men who got their things at the same places
that he got his never succeeded, however they tried, in appearing
half so well.
"Do you know," Fanny continued, "she has improved vastly since that
day when I saw you trying to pick her up. How did you ever manage?
Tell me."
Loftus, his hands in his pockets, shrugged a shoulder.
"And she is so delightfully disdainful," Fanny ran on. "In Central
Park this afternoon she turned up her nose at me. It is a very pretty
nose, Royal, did you know that?"
"I know that it is a bit out of joint," Loftus condescended at last to
reply.
"Dear me! Fancy that! But then the course of true love never did run
smooth."
Loftus assumed an air of great weariness. "Do drop it," he said. "You
know very well that I have never cared for anyone but you."
"Oh, of course," Fanny promptly and pleasantly retorted. "I may have
had a doubt or two about it. But when you put this lady in a flat
around the corner, then, naturally, you convinced me. It was a rather
circuitous way, though, to go at it, don't you think?"
Beside her on the sofa Loftus flopped. "Why do you always go back to
that?" he asked, with the same affectation of weariness.
Fanny turned from him. "I don't seem to be able to get away from it,"
she answered, but less promptly and pleasantly than before. Her fair
face had grown serious. From her eyes the bantering look had gone.
"Besides," she added after a moment, "you took her to Europe, and that
did seem a trifle steep."
"Would you like her to go back there?" Loftus tentatively inquired.
In and out from Fanny's skirt a white slipper, butterflied with gold,
moved restlessly. "I should have preferred that you had let her alone.
It was not nice of you. It was not nice at all."
From him she had turned to the carpet. She was looking at it still. "I
wonder," she presently resumed, "if you ever suspected how it hurt
me." Pausing a bit she looked up. "But you have been so dense, Royal."
Loftus was about to interrupt. She checked him. "The first time I saw
you I was just fifteen. That is eight years ago. Since then I can
honestly say that until I accepted Arthur I had never thought of
anyone but you. Never. Not once. Can you realize now how this affair
of yours affected me? It hurt. If it had not been for that, do you
suppose I would have taken the prince in the fairy tale? You were my
prince."
"But," Loftus protested, "this affair, as you call it, came about only
_faute de mieux, faute de toi_. Why cannot I--why cannot we----?"
Fanny checked him again. "No, we cannot. Two years ago you said the
same thing to me. I forgave you then because I loved you. For the same
reason I forgive you now. But, however I care for you, never will I be
your mistress."
"Fanny----"
"No, never. If, as again and again you have told me during the past
few months, you still care for me, either you must love me openly or I
will not permit you to love me at all."
At the sudden horizon Loftus bent to her. "Let us go, then. In Europe
we can love before all the world."
Fanny drew back. "Particularly before all the half-world," she
answered with a sniff. "No. You misunderstand me. Perhaps, too, I
misunderstand you. Let my hand be."
"Fanny, I will do anything----"
"It is rather late to say that. But if I were free now, what would you
do? Would you repeat the invitation you have made?"
Loftus, his wonderful eyes looking deep into hers, answered quickly
and sweetly, "I would beg you to be my wife."
Fanny straightened herself. "Then give that girl her conge, give her a
dot too, send her abroad and let her marry some count."
"Very good, I will do so."
"When you have," said Fanny, "I will ask Arthur for a divorce."
"What?" And Loftus, with those wonderful eyes, stared in surprise. He
was in for it, let in for it, was his first impression. Yet at once,
on looking back, he realized that Fanny was incapable of trick of any
kind. "But," he objected, "supposing he refuses?"
"Then I will apply."
"But you can't, you see. He is good as gold."
"Oh, I don't mean here. I mean out West."
For a moment Loftus said nothing. Even in the West, he reflected,
divorce took time. Yet then, reflecting, too, that it would be very
gentlemanly of Annandale were he to go there and leave the coast free
for him, he smiled and remarked, with what seemed astounding
inappositeness, "I have been selling short."
"Ah!" said Fanny longly. "And what of it?"
"Unless the market turns I shall be out, God knows how much!"
"But what of it?" Yet even as she spoke she understood.
"Fiddlesticks!" she exclaimed with a gesture of annoyance. "I sha'n't
care if you haven't two cents."
To this Loftus had no chance to reply. Annandale came lounging in.
"Do you know what I have done?" he collectively and blandly inquired.
"I told Skitt to buy me, at the opening, 1,000 Atchison and 1,000
Steel. Now I would like a quiet drink."
Loftus stood up. "I am going in the Park for a quiet smoke. But I
thought you had sworn off."
Annandale tugged at his cavalry mustache and laughed. "I haven't
touched a thing for nearly a year. But on a night like this, when the
whole town is mad, I think I might have a drop. Stop, dear boy, won't
you, and have one with me? No? Well--" And, accompanying Loftus to the
door, he whispered to him there, "My compliments to Miss Leroy."
"Don't forget, Royal," Fanny called after him, "that you dine with us
on the ninth."