At just what point Horatia realized that Anthony still loved her and
that his love could be called by no other name was quite cloudy in her
own mind. Perhaps her first intimation of it came that very afternoon
when he stood looking at her silently after Marjorie slipped away. It
was a very revealing look and Horatia would have been stupid indeed not
to have felt its quality. She pulled herself alert from the relaxed
position she had been indulging in on the cushioned settee and put her
hands laughingly to her disheveled hair.
“Please don’t embarrass me, Anthony. I know I’m tousled.”
“I love to look at you tousled. I love to look at you anyway and at any
time. It’s all----” he stopped and pulled her to her feet, retrieving
himself gaily. “Don’t bewitch me, young woman. Didn’t I get my orders
not to be in love with you?”
But there was a tense look in his eyes that set Horatia wondering.
Five months ago she had been filled with humiliation and actual distaste
by his declaration of love for her. Two months before, when she had
first come to the country, she would have been revolted and frightened
away. But the situation was changed. Anthony had grown to be a part of
her life. And he was more skilful than he had been in the spring. He was
very slow in his love-making, careful not to outrage her feelings,
careful not to ask for anything. By words sometimes, but more often by
the devotion of actions, by the constant protective care with which he
surrounded her, Horatia was brought into consciousness of his love. It
was easy for her because he asked for nothing. She could like him as
much as she pleased and take comfort in the hundred intangible
expressions of his love without feeling that she was involved in a love
affair. And Jim was not there and his letters were few and repressed in
tone. He was her lover--and she was his, thought Horatia, whether she
was disappointed or not. That was her promise, but it seemed one which
her mind insisted on rather than a conviction springing from the depth
of her heart.
Accepting the love-making of two men is often possible, even to a fine,
high-minded virtuous woman, if only fastidious ways save her from any
sense of promiscuity. Anthony’s first attack coming in the spring, when
Horatia was surrounded by the very present sense of Jim’s love, when she
was fresh from his arms, had made her feel indecent. But now, removed
from Jim, cooled and drawn little by little into a new atmosphere,
Anthony’s love filled her at first with a gentle regret and then little
by little, accepting his attentions and never finding the moment when
she was both able and willing to tell him that she did not want him to
care for her, there came to be a question about Anthony in her mind. It
was, for instance, difficult to say to him when he was folding a wrap
about her shoulders, “You must not be so considerate of me if your
consideration means that you love me.” Yet, accepting publicly a hundred
special attentions and thoughtfulnesses, seeing in Maud’s glances and in
Marjorie’s what they hoped and expected, the thing lost its repugnant
aspect. She could hardly feel that this devotion of Anthony’s which
everyone approved of and which was so gentle a thing, could be shameful,
especially when she was not reinforced by the expression of Jim’s love.
Sometimes an unpleasant thought rose in her mind, contrasting this
steady devotion, unreturned and unwelcomed, with the love of Jim which
circumstances seemed to have so easily defeated. Yet it was significant
that Anthony did not find a chance to make love to her openly and
fervently and that she kept him from any declaration. One thing she knew
very clearly--that she would hate to put Anthony definitely out of her
life and that the moment of doing so could be postponed. Her sister did
not plan to return until October. There was still a month before she
need face issues. If she dabbled sometimes in the thought of Anthony’s
life, that was only natural for he spread his plans before her. It would
be an orderly, progressive life, fine, easeful and not selfish so much
as concentrated on self-development.
“But Anthony, where does your duty to society come in?”
“In being a decent, useful citizen myself. Not in trying to pauperize
other people--or humiliate them. In voting right and standing right on
things--sounds awfully priggish, but really I suppose it’s summed up in
being an example as far as a very imperfect person can be, and in doing
my own job.”
“But somebody has to pioneer for the weak ones.” She was thinking of
Langley to whom it could never have occurred to be an example to society
but who worked unremittingly on the chance that he might reduce the
hypocrisy and selfishness and viciousness around him. It came to her
that Anthony’s method was infallible as far as it went and Jim’s
dangerously fallible and uncomfortable. Anthony would never have
anything to reproach himself with--Jim might have much. He was
answering.
“There wouldn’t be so many weak ones if everyone did his job and did it
right. The weak ones are the result of bad living and the ones who go
out to reform all this weakness--who are they?--old maids--unhealthy and
unhappy--freak men, abnormal in their living. I tell you the country
needs steadying, Horatia, and steadying by example, not by
speech-making.”
“And that method is self-preservation for you, of course--and comfort,”
said Horatia, a little caustically.
“Yes--of course. I think it should be. I think--I think it’s much more
sensible to preserve yourself, for you and all women to establish homes
and families and keep healthy instead of running around city streets and
city slums.”
Horatia chuckled. “You’re a divine advocate of woman’s place in the
home. You make it seem so tempting.”
The feeling in his face leapt into flame.
“Can I make it tempting enough?”
She drew away a little nervously.
“Oh, personally, I’ll always prefer the streets. I’m a natural born
gutter-pup.”
“You’re naturally the most wonderful woman in the world and you’re meant
for the truest and best things.”
“Don’t praise me, please, Anthony. I hate it.”
“Then don’t say such silly things.”
He walked up and down and then returned to her, still trying to plead
impersonally.
“I’m not a bully or a reactionary--I don’t want to run anybody’s life. I
don’t believe in this male superiority stuff either. And I’ve been with
you and Marjorie enough to have an enormous respect for women. She’s not
tied down. She’s the freest woman I know.”
“Yes, because she is doing what she wants to do.”
Gradually in this way a choice was placed before Horatia, a choice of
lives. She evaded the main issue, the issue which would ultimately make
choice for her--that must be which man drew her most. She compared lives
as if it were a problem in sociology she had before her. Anthony had
respected her desire to have him keep from definite questions but she
knew that he was laying his life before her. And she reviewed it. She
saw that she and Anthony together and others like them, mental
aristocrats, secure in material things, could take their places in a
society of flux and uncertainty, and be beacon lights of strength and
security, she as a woman, raising woman’s functions to fine dignity,
strong in love and content and purpose. She saw herself taking up the
burdens which other cheaper women laid down, dignifying a home and
wifehood and maternity.
And on the other side stretched life with Jim, a life of puzzles,
inquiries, unsolved problems, a life among the problems of the world,
solving them not by keeping unsullied but by enduring with them, by
growing weary and impatient and often arriving at no solution. And the
domestic side of life with Jim would be a life without great regularity
or great certainty of ease--how could she fit Jim into domestic routine
and how could she fit in these strange friends of Jim’s whom he refused
to give up, into a life of dignity and order? Even against his protests,
the work would call her back to it and she would have to adjust her
wifehood and child-bearing to all this--and there would never be enough
money so that they could live in the careless ease which took money for
granted. Jim’s side seemed to suffer in comparison with the other life
and yet why was it that she did not make a decision against it and put
it out of her mind?
Maud came out into the open a little more. She talked Anthony. And once
she became rather fundamental in her talk--for Maud.
“I haven’t said much about Jim Langley,” she said. “And since I saw him,
I’ll admit that he is fascinating. But there are things no girl
understands, Horatia. And you don’t realize what a tremendous thing it
is to try to change a man’s habits. Langley isn’t a domestic sort and if
you marry a man you’re bound to live his life. In the end most women
want a regular kind of home. I don’t want to force you, Horatia, but it
does seem as if Anthony were so exactly the right man.”
Unexpectedly Horatia kissed her.
“Poor Maud,” she said, “you do want me to be comfortable, don’t you? But
if Jim had Anthony’s money I wonder what you’d feel about the right
man?”
“Don’t be silly,” Maud returned, with her pragmatism rising to the
surface at once. “He hasn’t the money, has he? My dear, if you knew more
about things! If you could see the scraping to get along! I don’t see as
much of it as I used to, but Heaven knows there are plenty of people who
have to do it. There are such a lot of women trying to get along on too
little and keep things up.”
“Their trouble is that they are always trying to throw a bluff.”
“Well,” her sister answered reflectively, “you must admit that some
things--babies now, for instance--take money. Of course if you don’t
want children you get along without that. But even then there are
clothes and houses--and illness.”
Horatia had an impulse to make herself understood on that point.
“As for babies,” she said, “I want babies. Marriage without them isn’t
worth bothering about. They weight marriage--make it of consequence.”
“They hold a man,” said Maud. “Now there never was a better man than
Harvey. But there have been times when I’ve seen women look at him,
wondering just how much married he was and I’ve been glad I had Jackie
and the baby. Men are funny in their feelings towards women but they are
pretty certain about their children. I’ve known women who didn’t have
children who were precious sorry before they got through.”
“You’re strictly utilitarian in your use of emotion, aren’t you, Maud?”
But Maud looked vague at that and turned to the final ordering of her
living-room. It was really all in order, deep, willow chairs with bright
cushions in their most comfortable hollows, a tea-table before the empty
fireplace and tall glasses already on it. Maud was expecting guests for
tea. She had informally asked a few important matrons and chosen this
date with much care. The last dance of the summer--the only semiformal
one, was to be held in a week at the Country Club. Maud wanted to be
sure of enjoying herself on that occasion and to be on an easy familiar
footing with the summer residents. Hence this very informal, extremely
important preceding afternoon at her cottage.
Maud was all a-flutter as her first guests came but as more arrived
until at length most of the hoped-for were assembled, her asurance rose.
The last comer was Mrs. Stanley Clifford in white organdie and a
broad-brimmed hat.
“I brought my guest, Mrs. Hill,” she said to Maud in gracious
explanation and Maud bubbled with welcomes. But as she turned to
introduce Horatia, a sudden constraint was in the air.
“I have met Miss Grant,” said Mrs. Hill, “when she was working on _The
Journal_. She went to great pains to frustrate my plan for a soldiers’
and sailors’ memorial.”
She spoke quite clearly. Horatia looked at her with cool gravity,
conscious that the eyes of everyone in the room were on her.
“I remember,” she said, without the faintest apology.
Marjorie’s laugh came to the rescue.
“Now don’t scold dear Horatia,” she pleaded gaily, “none of us really
wanted that memorial job. And Horatia had sense enough to see it.” She
moved Mrs. Hill off and the incident passed over. But Horatia felt a
little chilled. This was part of the society to which it had seemed so
dignified to belong. This woman with her ill-bred onslaught was part of
it. Her mind brushed aside these contacts, these people; they were
illusions. The strong virility of the life in the newspaper office--the
personal freedom--flashed before her. Here she was not quite free--here
she could not be quite straightforward. She could not turn to Mrs. Hill
and say again what she thought of that preposterous plan. She must let
the matter rest. It was part of the game.
She forgot certain limitations in the newspaper office. For a moment it
stood out richly against a paler background.
“Odious creature, she is,” whispered Maud over the tea-table. “Glad you
let it pass like a good sport.”