The next morning Eden awoke in her great room that overlooked Fifth
Avenue. The night had been constellated with dreams, and now as they
faded from her there was one that lingered behind. Through a rift of
consciousness she had seen herself talking with feverish animation to
Arnswald, on some subject of vital importance, the which, however, she
was unable to recall; it had gone with the night, leaving on the camera
of memory only the tableau behind. For a little space she groped after
it unavailingly, and then dismissed it from her. But still the tableau
lingered until it became obscured by her own vexation. She felt annoyed
as at an impertinence. What right had Arnswald to trespass in her
dreams?
She rang the bell, and when in answer to the summons her maid appeared,
she gave herself up to the woman's ministrations. The annoyance faded as
the dream had done, and she fell to thinking of the day and of her
husband. At one there was a luncheon at which she was expected, and in
the evening there was a dinner at Mrs. Manhattan's. Her husband, she
knew, had gone to his office hours ago and would not return until late.
It had occurred to her before that he worked harder than his clerks;
even Arnswald seemed to have more leisure than he. But on this
particular forenoon, when her equipment was completed, but one idea
channeled her ruminations, and that was that if her husband worked
harder than his clerks, it was because of her.
She smiled a little at the thought, and then at herself in the mirror.
Truly the guests at the luncheon might have been recruited from the four
quarters of the globe, and few could be fairer than she. She was
contented with her appearance, not in any sense because it might
eclipse that of other women, but because he was proud of it, and because
his pride and laborious days were all in all for her. She gave to her
gown and to the arrangement of her hair that _coup de maitre_ which no
maid, however expert, is able to administer, and presently had herself
driven up the avenue to the house at which she was to be entertained.
The luncheon, as the phrase is, went off very well. Made up of fresh
gossip and new dishes, it was stupid yet agreeable, as women's luncheons
are apt to be. But on leaving it Eden felt depressed. It was the first
of the kind which in her quality of married woman she had attended, and
as her carriage rolled down the avenue again, she wondered were it
possible that such things as she heard could be true, the story that had
been told about Viola Raritan, for instance, and the general agreement
following it that married men were the worst[1]. Surely, she told
herself, they might be, all of them indeed save one, who was above
reproach. As for her recent companions, they discredited virtue in
seeming to possess it. At the memory of things they had implied, the
color mounted to her cheeks.
[Footnote 1: The reader is referred to _The truth about Tristrem
Varick_.]
On the opposite sidewalk a girl was loitering. For a second, Eden,
through the open window, eyed her gown. She raised some flowers to her
face, and when she put them down again her face was white. Through the
window she had seen a cab pass, and in the cab her husband and a woman.
In a conflict of emotions such as visit those who learn the dishonor and
the death of one they cherished most, Eden reached her door. She left
the carriage before the groom had descended from the box, and hurried
into the house. There she entered the drawing-room and sought for a
moment to collect her thoughts. It was impossible, she kept telling
herself, that such a thing could be. She had been mistaken; it was not
her husband that she had seen, and if it were her husband then was he on
some errand as innocent as her own. But it was her husband. The effort
she was making to deceive herself was useless as broken glass. And as
for the woman with whom he was driving, what had he to do with her or
she with him? She was certain she had seen her face before.
In her nervousness she rose from her seat and paced the room, tearing
her gloves off and tossing them from her as she walked.
In the lives of most of us there are hours of such distress that in
search of a palliative we strive as best we may to cheat ourselves into
thinking that the distress is but a phase of our own individual
imagination, close-locked therein, barred out of real existence, and
unimportant and delusive as the creations of dream. And as Eden paced
the room she tried to feel that her distress was but a figment of fancy,
an illusory representation evoked out of nothing. She had been enervated
by the gossip of the lunch-table; a child startled by the possible
horrors of a dark closet was never more absurd than she. It was nonsense
to suppose that a man such as her husband could be capable of a vulgar
intrigue.
On the mantel a clock ticked dolently, as though in sympathy with her
woe, and presently to her inattentive ears, it rang out four times. In
an hour, she reflected, in two hours at most, he would return. She would
ask him where he had been, and everything would be explained. It was
nonsense for her to torment herself. Of course it would be explained,
and meanwhile----
And as she determined that meanwhile she would give the matter no
further thought the butler entered the room, bearing a note on a salver,
which he gave to her and withdrew. The superscription was in her
husband's handwriting and she pulled the envelope apart, confident that
the explanation for which she sought was contained therein. But in it no
explanation was visible. It was dated from Wall Street. "Dearest Eden,"
it ran, "I am detained on business. Send excuses to Mrs. Manhattan. In
haste, as ever, J. U."
"Detained on business," she repeated aloud very firmly and pressed her
hand to her head. She was calm, less agitated than she had been before.
It behooved her to determine what she should do. Seemingly, but one
course was open to her, and suddenly she perceived that she had stopped
thinking. Night had seized and surrounded her; it was of this, perhaps,
that she had spoken to Arnswald in her dream.
In the morning her faith had been unobscured, confident as a flower at
dawn. Then doubt had come, and now, as the afternoon departed, so did
all belief as well. It was no more hers to recall than the promise of an
earlier day. She had done her best to detain it, she had clutched it;
but she had questioned, and faith is impatient of coercion and restless
if examined. Save its own fair face it brings no letter of introduction;
welcome it for that, and it is at once at home; but look askance, and it
dissolves into a memory and a reproach. Eden had startled it,
unwittingly perhaps; but she had startled it none the less. It had
watched its opportunity as a guest illy treated may watch for his; and
when suspicion, like the lackey that it is, had held the door ajar, it
had eluded her and gone.
Automatically, as though others than herself guided her movement, Eden
touched a bell. "Harris," she said, when the man appeared, "go to Mrs.
Manhattan's and say that Mr. Usselex and myself are unavoidably
prevented from dining with her to-night. That will do." And this order
delivered, she resumed her former seat. Down the street she marked
advancing dusk. The sun had sunk in cataracts of champagne. Westward the
sky was like the apotheosis in Faust, green-barred and crimson, with
background of oscillant yellow. The east was already grey. Overhead was
a shade of salmon which presently disappeared. Then dusk came, and with
it a colorless vapor through which Night, cautious at first as misers
are, displayed one sequin, then another, till taking heart it unbarred
all its treasury to the world.
For some time after the man had gone Eden remained in the drawing-room.
She found her gloves and drew one on again, but the other she tormented
abstractedly in her hand. In her enforced inaction she fell to consoling
herself as children do, arguing with discomfiture as though its shadow
was ineffectual, as though trouble and she were face to face, and yet
too far removed one from another to ever really meet. An hour passed,
and still she sat unassured, restless of thought and conscious only that
an encroaching darkness had obscured a vista on which her eyes had loved
to dwell.
Truly the heart has logic that logic does not know, and as Eden let the
incidents of the afternoon and of the previous evening parade in dumb
show before her, something there was that kept whispering that she was
taking appearances for facts. She strove to listen to the whisper, but
the fantoches were froward and insistent; the sturdier her effort to
dispel them the closer they swarmed. Sometimes of their own accord they
would leave her, she would think herself done with them, her eyes filled
in testimony to her deliverance, and abruptly back they came. But still
the whisper persisted, it was growing potent, and its voice was clear.
It kept exhorting to patience, it exorcised appearances, and advanced
little pleas of its own.
Eden was only too willing to be guided. "I am impatient," she mused,
"but I will wait."
Another hour limped away, and though an hour limps it may leave a balm
behind. The lamps in the drawing-room had been lighted, but the servant
had come and gone unobserved. Eden was still closeted in herself.
"Surely, by eleven at the latest he will return," she reflected, "and
then all will be explained. It is a thankless task this of building
imaginary dungeons. There are hours in which I let fancies resolve
themselves into facts and the facts fossilize into skeletons." An
episode of her girlhood came back to her and she smiled. "Perhaps father
was right; I may have hemiopia, after all."
She stood up from her seat and was about to leave the room when she
heard the front door open, and in a second her husband's step.
Eden drew the portiere aside and looked out in the hall. Usselex had his
back to her. He was taking off his overcoat. She spoke to him and he
turned at once, one arm still unreleased. At last he freed himself and
came to her.
"You got my note, did you not?" he began. "I am sorry about this
evening. Could you not go to Mrs. Manhattan's without me? Something
always seems to turn up at the last moment."
"I hardly expected you so early," Eden answered. "I sent word to Laura."
She was looking at her husband, but her husband was not looking at her.
He seemed preoccupied and nodded his head abstractedly.
"Yes, yes," he muttered, with singular inappositeness. "Yes, of course.
But there," he added and turned again to the door, "I must hurry."
"Whom were you with this afternoon?" Eden asked.
It was as though she had checked him with a rein. He stopped at once and
glanced at her.
"Did you see me?" he inquired; and accepting her silence for answer he
continued at once: "It's a long story; I have hardly time to tell it
now."
Eden put her hand on his sleeve. "Tell it me," she pleaded.
For the moment he stood irresolute. "Tell me," she repeated, and moved
back, motioning him to a chair.
Usselex took out his watch. "I must hurry," he said again. "But there,"
he added tenderly, "since you wish it, a moment lost is small matter,
after all."
Again he glanced at her and hesitated as though expectant of a respite.
Eden had her everyday air; outwardly she was calm, but something in her
appearance, the twitch of an eyelid, the quiver of a nostril perhaps,
revealed her impatience.
Usselex shrugged his shoulders, and for a second, with a gesture that
was habitual to him, he plucked at his beard. "No," he repeated, "a
moment is small matter, after all. H'm. Eden, some years ago I went
abroad. During my absence a cashier whom I trusted, and whom I would
trust again, speculated with money that passed through his hands. It was
not until my return that I learned of the affair. But meanwhile, as is
usual in such cases, he was on the wrong side of the market. The money
which he had taken had to be accounted for. I had a partner then, and
the cashier confessed the defalcation to him; it was the only thing he
could do, and he promised, I believe, that if time were given him he
would make good the loss. The amount after all was not large--fifteen
thousand perhaps, or twenty at the outside. But my partner was not
lenient. He came of a line of New England divines, and had, if I
remember rightly, at one time contemplated studying for the ministry. In
any event he was then an elder in some up-town Presbyterian church. But
virtue is not amiable. Without so much as communicating with me he put
the matter in the hands of the authorities, and when I returned the
cashier was in Sing-Sing. Eden, you will hardly understand how sorry I
was. He had a wife dependent on him--he had children. He had been with
me longer than my partner had, and I liked him. Of the two I liked him
the better. What he took I have never been able to view as a theft. It
was what might be called a forced loan. Had I been here it would have
been different; but my partner was obdurate. You see, the fault, if
fault there were, was mine. The salary I gave him was small, and each
day I allowed temptation to pass between his hands. People say that we
should resist temptation. I agree with them; temptation should be
resisted; but when a rich man preaches that sermon to the poor, he
forgets that where temptation is vague to him it may be potent to his
hearer. Oh, I don't mean to uphold derelictions, but to my thinking
Charity is the New Testament told in a word. I think that forgiveness is
the essence of the teaching of every founder of an enduring creed.
However, that is not to the point. The fact remained, the cashier was
sent to Sing-Sing, and since then I have done what I could to get him
out. It was his wife that I was with to-day. Poor girl! I have been
sorry for her; she is but little older than you, and she has had trials
to bear such as might have sent another to worse than the grave." He
paused, and plucking again at his beard, he looked down at the rug. Eden
needed no assurance to feel that his words were heart-whole and sincere.
She moved to where he stood and touched him on the arm.
"Don't tell me any more," she said, and as she spoke there came to her
voice a tremulousness that was as unusual as it was sweet. "You must let
me help her, too."
"Yes, Eden, that I will. It is good of you to speak that way. It is not
only good, it is Edenesque. But let me tell you the rest. Governor
Blanchford is in town. I went yesterday to the Buckingham, where he is
stopping. He could only see me for a moment then, and this afternoon I
went again with her. I am to dine with him this evening. When he returns
to Albany I think the pardon will be signed." Again he paused and looked
at his watch. "I must dress," he added; "will you forgive me--?"
"Forgive you!" she cried, "it is your turn, now: forgive me."
Usselex moved from her, her hand still in his, and when their arms were
fully outstretched, he turned and holding her to him he kissed her on
either cheek.
As he left the room Eden could have danced with delight. She ran to the
piano and with one hand still gloved she struck out clear notes of joy.
Presently, she too left the room, and prepared for dinner. When the meal
was served she ate it in solitude, but the solitude was not irksome to
her; it was populous with recovered dreams. Among the dishes that were
brought her was one of terrapin, which she partook of with an art of her
own; and subsequently, in a manner which it must have been a pleasure to
behold, she nibbled at a peach--peaches and terrapin representing, as
everyone knows, the two articles of food which are the most difficult to
eat with grace.
Later, when the meal was done, Eden returned to the drawing-room. Mrs.
Manhattan was unregretted. The summer had been fertile enough in
entertainments to satiate her for a twelve-month. She had come and gone,
eaten and fasted, danced and driven, with no other result than the
discovery that the companionship of her husband was better than anything
else. To her thinking he needed only an incentive to conquer the
ballot. There was no reason why he should not leave Wall Street for
broader spheres. She had met senators by the dozen, and he was wiser
than them all. He might be Treasurer of State if he so willed, or
failing that, minister to the Court of St. James. Even an inferior
mission such as that to the Hague or to Brussels would be better than
the Street. It was inane, she told herself, to pass one's life in going
down town and coming up again merely that another million might be put
aside. An existence such as that might be alluring to Jerolomon or
Bleecker Bleecker, but for her husband there were other summits to be
scaled.
And as Eden, prettily flushed by the possibilities which her imagination
disclosed spectacular-wise for her own delight, sat companioned by
fancies, determining, if incentive were necessary, that incentive should
come from her, the portiere was drawn aside and the butler announced Mr.
Arnswald.
"I ventured to come in," he said, apologetically, "although I knew Mr.
Usselex was not at home. I wanted----"
"One might have thought your evenings were otherwise occupied," Eden
interrupted, a little fiercely. The intercepted note of the preceding
evening rankled still. That the young man should receive a letter from a
strange woman was, she admitted to herself, a matter which did not
concern her in the slightest. But it was impertinent on his part to
suffer that letter to be sent to him at her house.
"This evening, however, as you see----" he began blandly enough, but
Eden interrupted him again.
"What did you think of it last night?" she asked, with the
inappositeness that was peculiar to her.
"You are clairvoyant enough, Mrs. Usselex, to know untold what I
thought. It was of that I wished to speak to you. It is rare that such
an opportunity is given me."
"To hear Wagner?"
"No, not to hear Wagner particularly." He hesitated and looked down at
his pointed shoes, and at the moment Eden for the life of her could not
help thinking of a dissolute young god arrayed in modern guise. After
all, she reflected, it is probably the woman's fault.
"No, not that," he continued, and looked up at her again, his polar-eyes
ablaze with unexpected auroras. "Not that; but think what it is for a
man to love a woman, to divine that that love is returned, and yet to
feel himself as far from her as death is from life. Think what it must
be for him to love that woman so well that he would not haggle over ten
years, no, nor ten hundred years of years, could he pass an hour with
her, and then by way of contrast to find himself suddenly side by side
with her, listening to such music as we heard last night."
"Mr. Arnswald, you are out of your senses," Eden exclaimed. A suspicion
had entered her mind and declined to be dismissed.
"Am I not?" he answered. "Tell me that I am. I need to be told it. Yet
last night, for the first time, it seemed to me that perhaps all might
still be well. It was hope that I found with you, Mrs. Usselex; it was
more than hope, it was life."
And as his eyes rekindled, Eden told herself that his attitude could
have but one signification.
"I'll not play Guinevere to your Lancelot," she murmured. And turning
her back on him she left the room.