The following day was unstarred by any particular luncheon, or at least
by none at which Eden was expected. Her own repast she consumed in
solitude, and as she rose again from the table, Mrs. Manhattan was
announced.
Mrs. Manhattan was a woman of that class which grows rarer with the
days. She was very clever and knew how to appear absolutely stupid.
According to the circumstances in which she was placed, she could be
frivolous or sagacious, worldly, and sensible. In fact, all things to
all men. Born in Virginia, a Leigh of Leighton, she had married a rich
and popular New Yorker. After marriage, and on removing to Fifth Avenue,
she had the tact to leave her accent and her family tree behind. Her
husband's great-grandfather was lost in the magnificence of myth; her
own figured in Burke. If Nicholas Manhattan had been a snob--which he
was not--that fact would have constituted his sole grievance against
her. But from Laura Leigh, of a North country descent and a feudal
castle in Northumberland, never an allusion could be wrung. In marrying
a New Yorker she espoused all New York, its customs, its prejudices, its
morals, its vices, everything, even to the high pitch of its voice; and
so well did she succeed in identifying herself with it and with its
narrow localisms, that in a few years after her arrival, not to visit
and be visited by Mrs. Nicholas Manhattan was to argue one's self out
into the nethermost limbo of insignificance.
Had Mrs. Manhattan been any other than herself, Eden would have sent
back some femininely prevaricatory excuse. She was enervated still by
the emotions of the preceding day, and her desire for companionship was
slight. But Mrs. Manhattan was not only Mrs. Manhattan, she was a woman
for whom Eden entertained a quasi-filial, quasi-sororal affection. She
went forward therefore at once, her hands outstretched to greet.
On ordinary occasions it was Mrs. Manhattan's custom to salute Eden with
a kiss, but on this particular afternoon she contented herself with
taking the outstretched hands in her own, holding Eden, as it were, at
arms length.
"You abominable little beauty," she began, "what did you mean by leaving
me in the lurch last night? I came here expecting to find you in bed
with the doctor. _Mais pas du tout. Madame s'embellit a vu d'[oe]il._"
"Laura, dear," Eden answered, when they had found seats, "don't be
annoyed at me. I wanted very much to come. But you know the proverb: man
proposes----"
"--And woman accepts. Yes, I know; go on."
"Well, I simply couldn't help it."
"Couldn't help it! What do you mean by saying you couldn't help it?
Don't sit there with your back to the light; I want to look at you.
Eden, as sure as my name is Laura Leigh, something has gone wrong with
you. What business have you, at your age, to have circles under your
eyes?"
"Presumably because I was unable to get to your dinner. I am really
sorry, Laura. Did you have many people?"
"Of course I didn't. Nicholas won't let me give large dinners. There
were only eighteen of us. I suppose I could have got the Boltens to come
and take your place. But then you know how people are. Unless you invite
them a fortnight in advance they think they are asked to fill up--as
they are. H'm! I was mad enough. Nicholas was to have taken you in, and
by way of compensation you were to have had your old flame, Dugald
Maule, on the other side of you. Parenthetically, it is my opinion that
he loves you still--beyond the tomb, as they love in Germany. However,
that is not to the point; the dinner was a failure. Afterwards we all
went to the Amsterdams; all of us, that is, except Jones, who said he
had an engagement, which meant I suppose, that he was not expected."
"Jones, the novelist?"
"Yes, Alphabet Jones. Personally he is as inoffensive as a glass of
lemonade, but I can't bear his books. He uses words I don't understand,
and tells of things that I don't want to. Nicholas, however, will have
him."
And at the thought of her husband's tyranny, Mrs. Manhattan shrugged her
shoulders and gazed complacently in her lap.
"Laura, I don't believe your dinner was a failure."
"Well, not exactly a failure perhaps, but it is always upsetting to have
people at the last moment send word that they can't come. It is not only
upsetting, it's dangerous. It takes the flavor of the soup away. It
makes everything taste bad." And as Mrs. Manhattan said this she glared
at Eden with the ferocity of an irritated Madonna. "Now tell me," she
continued, "what was the matter with you?"
"Really, Laura, it was nothing. I can't tell you." She hesitated a
second and into the corners of her exquisite mouth there passed a smile.
"I saw my husband in a cab with--with----"
"A woman?"
Eden stared at her friend with the astonishment of a gomeril at a
contortionist. The smile left her lips.
"Did you see him too?" she asked.
"Why, no, you little simpleton, I didn't see him; but I haven't got a
husband of my own for nothing."
"Do you mean that your husband deceives you?"
"Deceives me? no, not a bit of it. He only thinks he does. Is that what
has been the matter with you?"
"Laura----"
"And was it because you caught your husband in a cab that you couldn't
come to dinner? But, heavens and earth! if other women were to act like
you no one would even dare to attempt to entertain. As it is," Mrs.
Manhattan grumbled to herself, "the Mayor ought to pass an ordinance on
the subject. He has little enough to do in return for his double
lamp-posts."
"No, Laura, how absurd you are!" Eden exclaimed. "John was detained on
business."
"Ah! I see." And Mrs. Manhattan looked at her in a gingerly fashion out
of the corner of one eye.
"Yes, he sent me word that he was detained on business and for me to
send word to you."
"That was most thoughtful of him. And it was after you got the note that
the cab episode occurred?"
"No, it was just before."
"Yes, yes, I can understand." Mrs. Manhattan paused a moment. To anyone
else save Eden the pause would have been significant. "H'm," she went
on, "business may mean other men's money, or it may mean other men's
wives. I do hope, though, you were sensible enough not to mention
anything about the lady and the cab."
"Oh, but indeed, I did. He explained the whole thing at once."
"From the cab window?"
"When he came back, I mean--in the evening."
"Some little time must have intervened."
"Yes, two hours, I should judge."
Mrs. Manhattan nodded. "Well," she said, with an air of profound
sapience, "no man ever talks to a woman for two hours unless he keeps
saying the same thing all the time."
"Laura, that is not like you. You know perfectly well that friendship
can exist between a man and a woman without there being any thought of
love-making."
"Oh, I know what you are going to say. But there is the difference
between love and friendship. To those who have witnessed a bull-fight,
the circus I hear is commonplace."
"You mean to imply that my husband was enjoying a bull-fight?"
"I don't mean anything of the sort. But what a way you have of reducing
generalities to particulars! No, I don't mean that at all. I am speaking
in the air. What I meant to imply was that love has consolations which
friendship does not possess."
"Laura, you don't understand. It is not a question of that. This woman's
husband has got into trouble and John was trying to get him out."
Mrs. Manhattan eyed her again in the same gingerly fashion as before.
"He said that, did he?"
Eden nodded.
"I hope you pretended to believe him."
"Pretended! Why, I did believe him. I believed him at once."
"Yes, that's a good way." Mrs. Manhattan tormented the point of her nose
reflectively. "I used to too," she added. "Now I simply don't see. That
I find even better. It makes everything go so smoothly. No arguments, no
recriminations, perfect peace. Nicholas, as you know, is the most
delightful man in the world. I have the highest respect for him. If he
took it into his head to leave the planet and me behind, I should feel
it my duty as a Christian woman to see that the trappings of my woe were
becoming to his memory. But--but, well, I should feel that I had been
vaccinated. I should feel that a minor evil had protected me from a
greater one. In other words, I would not marry again. It is my opinion,
an opinion I believe which is shared by a good many other people, that
a woman who marries a second time does not deserve to have lost her
first husband. Now, as I say of Nicholas, I have the greatest respect
for him. He is charming. I haven't the vaguest idea how he would get
along without me. I do everything for him, but I am careful not to exact
the impossible. We get along splendidly together. He makes the most
elaborate efforts to throw dust in my eyes, and I aid him to the best of
my ability, but I always know what he is up to. I can tell at a glance
where he is in any affair. The moment he gives up his after-dinner cigar
I can hear the fifes in the distance--he is making himself agreeable to
someone with whom he intends to pass the evening. The second stage is
when he comes in of an afternoon with a rose in his button-hole. That
means that he has been sending flowers and that the siege is
progressing. The third stage is when he begins to smoke again. That
means that the castle has capitulated and further diplomacy is
unnecessary. The fourth and final stage is when he says in an off-hand
way, 'Laura, I saw some stones this afternoon at Tiffany's.' That means
remorse and reward--remorse at his own wickedness, and reward for my
non-interference. There is nothing in the world that a man appreciates
more than that. Yes, I certainly do my duty. Nicholas, as you know, was
a widower when I married him. By his first wife he had one child and a
great deal to put up with. Whereas, now--why, Eden, what are you crying
about?"
"I am not crying." In a moment Eden had choked back a sob. Her eyes
flashed the more brilliant for their tears, but her voice had lost its
former gentleness, it had grown vibrant and resolute. "Laura, if he has
deceived me, I will leave him."
"If who has deceived you? Surely Nicholas----"
"Laura, I am in no mood for jest. Last night I believed my husband,
to-day I do not. If I can get proof, I leave him."
"That is what we all say, but we don't."
"If he has deceived me----"
"Eden, how foolish you are! No, but, Eden, you are simply childish. You
are sunshine one minute and tornado the next. Why, I haven't a doubt in
the world but that Mr. Usselex was trying to get the cab-lady's husband
out of trouble. I haven't the faintest doubt of it."
"Nor had I before you came."
"Oh, Eden, forgive me. What I said was idle chatter. There, do be your
old sweet self again."
Eden stood up and pinioned her forehead with her hands. "I wonder," she
exclaimed, "I wonder--Laura, do you know that it is of a thing like this
that hatred comes?"
"My dear, I had no idea that you were so much in love."
But as she spoke there came into Eden's face an expression so new and
unlike her own, that Mrs. Manhattan started. "Sit down," she said
coaxingly. "Do sit down." She took the girl's hands in hers and drew her
gently to the lounge on which she was seated. "Eden," she continued,
after a moment, "between ourselves, I think you are--how shall I say?--a
little--" And Mrs. Manhattan touched her forehead and nodded
significantly.
"I? Not a bit."
"So much the worse, then. It would be an excuse. Now listen to me. They
say that when a woman gets to be thirty the first thing she does is to
ignore her age, and that by the time she is forty it has escaped her
memory entirely. I am not forty yet, but I am old enough--well, I am old
enough to be wiser than you, and I say this--you can contradict it as
much as you please, but I will say it all the same--you have more pride
in yourself than love for your husband."
"Which means?"
"I mean this, that when pride gets the upper hand, love is bound to be
throttled. In some, pride is a screen; behind it they rage at their
ease: in others it is a bag of wind; prick it and behold, a tempest.
With you, just at present, it is a screen; haven't I seen you torment
your rings ever since I came in? Well, torment them, but for goodness
sake don't change the screen into a balloon. There is nothing as bad
form as that, and nothing as ineffectual. My dear, if you want to keep
your husband, think of yourself not first, but last, or, if you can't
think in that way, act as though you did."
"And be a hypocrite."
"Eden, you are impossible. Be a hypocrite? Why, of course you must be a
hypocrite. Hypocrisy is Christianity's most admirable invention. Banish
it, and what do you find? Not skeletons in the closet, but catacombs of
distasteful things. No, Eden, be a hypocrite. We all are; everyone
prefers it. There was a man once who got up in the morning with the idea
of telling everybody the truth. By sunset he was safe in an asylum.
People don't want the truth; they content themselves with sighing for
it; they know very well that when they get in its way, it bites. It is
vicious, truth is. It makes us froth at the mouth. If you haven't had
the forethought to cuirass yourself with indifference, truth can cause a
hydrophobia for which the only Pasteur is time. No, hypocrisy has had
the sanction of pope and prelate. Let us hold to it; let us hold to what
we may and not try to prove anything."
"What are you talking about then?"
"How irritating you are, Eden! I am talking about you. I am trying to
give you some advice. No one gave me any. I had to gather it on the way.
I come here, and finding you melancholy as a comic paper, I try to offer
the fruit of two decades of worldly experience, and instead of thanking
me, you ask what I am talking about." Mrs. Manhattan sank back in her
ample folds and laughed. "Don't you have any tea in this house?"
"You are right, Laura; I am irritating, I am absurd." As she spoke, she
left the lounge. The tragedy-air had departed. She rang the bell, gave
the order for tea, and during the remainder of Mrs. Manhattan's visit,
comported herself so sagaciously that she succeeded in casting dust in
that lady's eyes in a manner which would have thrown that lady's husband
into stupors of admiration.
When her friend at last decided to take herself and her experience away,
Eden remained in the drawing-room. Down the adjacent corner she saw the
sun decline. On the horizon it left an aigrette of gold. Then that
disappeared. Day closed its window, and Night, that queen who reigns
only when she falls, shook out the shroud she wears for gown.
How long Eden sat alone with her thoughts she could not afterwards
recall. For some time she was conscious only of a speck of dust which
Mrs. Manhattan had brought from the outer world and forgotten to remove.
It was such a little speck that at first Eden had pretended not to see
it, but when Mrs. Manhattan had been gone a few minutes it insisted on
her attention. She could not help eying it, and the more closely she
eyed it, the larger it grew. From dust it turned to dirt, from minim
into mountain. And presently it obscured her sight and veiled her mind
with shadows.
Strive as she might, she could not argue it away. She tried to reason
with herself, as a neurosthene, aware of his infirmity, may reason with
the phantasm which he himself has evoked. But this was a phantasm that
no argument could coerce. Did she say, You are unreal, it answered, I am
Doubt. At each effort she made to rout it, it loomed to greater
heights.
In the tremor that beset her she groped in memory for a talisman. She
recalled her husband's wooing of her, his attitude and indulgent
strength. Yet had not Mrs. Manhattan implied that men are double-faced?
She thought of his laborious days, yet had not Mrs. Manhattan defined
business as often synonymous with other men's wives? She recalled his
excuse and was mindful of Mrs. Manhattan's interpretation.
At each new effort the doubt increased, and still she kept arguing with
herself, until suddenly she perceived that she had stopped thinking.
Doubt was pushing her down into an abyss where all was dark, and still
she struggled, and still she struggled in vain; she was sinking;
strength was leaving her, for doubt is masterful, till with a start she
felt that she was safe. It was not in memory she found a talisman, but
in her heart. It was her love that worked the spell. Love, and
confidence in him whose name she bore. The mountain dissolved into
minim, the dirt into dust, and she took the speck and blew it back into
the shadows from which it had come.