“One moment,” he interrupted. Then to his wife: “Anything special?”
She flushed. “No--nothing special. I just came to see you. But if I am
disturbing you--as usual--”
“Not at all,” said he. “When Blacklock and I have finished, I'll come to
you. It won't be longer than an hour--or so.”
“Is that all?” she said almost savagely. Evidently she was one of those
women who dare not make “scenes” with their husbands in private and so are
compelled to take advantage of the presence of strangers to ease their
minds. She was an extremely pretty woman, would have been beautiful but for
the worn, strained, nervous look that probably came from her jealousy. She
was small in stature; her figure was approaching that stage at which a
woman is called “well rounded” by the charitable, fat by the frank and
accurate. A few years more and she would be hunting down and destroying
early photographs. There was in the arrangement of her hair and in the
details of her toilet--as well as in her giving way to her tendency to
fat--that carelessness that so many women allow themselves, once they are
safely married to a man they care for.
“Curious,” thought I, “that being married to him should make her feel
secure enough of him to let herself go, although her instinct is warning
her all the time that she isn't in the least sure of him. Her laziness must
be stronger than her love--her laziness or her vanity.”
While I was thus sizing her up, she was reluctantly leaving. She didn't
even give me the courtesy of a bow--whether from self-absorption or from
haughtiness I don't know; probably from both. She was a Western woman,
and when those Western women do become perverts to New York's gospel of
snobbishness, they are the worst snobs in the push. Langdon, regardless of
my presence, looked after her with a faintly amused, faintly contemptuous
expression that--well, it didn't fit in with _my_ notion of what
constitutes a gentleman. In fact, I didn't know which of them had come off
the worse in that brief encounter in my presence. It was my first glimpse
of a fashionable behind-the-scenes, and it made a profound impression upon
me--an impression that has grown deeper as I have learned how much of the
typical there was in it. Dirt looks worse in the midst of finery than where
one naturally expects to find it--looks worse, and is worse.
When we were seated again, Langdon, after a few reflective puffs at his
cigarette, said: “So you're about to marry?”
“I hope so,” said I. “But as I haven't asked her yet, I can't be quite
sure.” For obvious reasons I wasn't so enamored of the idea of matrimony as
I had been a few minutes before.
“I trust you're making a sensible marriage,” said he. “If the part that may
be glamour should by chance rub clean away, there ought to be something to
make one feel he wasn't wholly an ass.”
“Very sensible,” I replied with emphasis. “I want the woman. I need her.”
He inspected the coal of his cigarette, lifting his eyebrows at it.
Presently he said: “And she?”
“I don't know how she feels about it--as I told you,” I replied curtly. In
spite of myself, my eyes shifted and my skin began to burn. “By the way,
Langdon, what's the name of your architect?”
“Wilder and Marcy,” said he. “They're fairly satisfactory, if you tell
'em exactly what you want and watch 'em all the time. They're perfectly
conventional and so can't distinguish between originality that's artistic
and originality that's only bizarre. They're like most people--they keep to
the beaten track and fight tooth and nail against being drawn out of it and
against those who do go out of it.”
“I'll have a talk with Marcy this very day,” said I.
“Oh, you're in a hurry!” He laughed. “And you haven't asked her. You remind
me of that Greek philosopher who was in love with Lais. They asked him:
'But does she love you?' And he said: 'One does not inquire of the fish one
likes whether it likes one.'”
I flushed. “You'll pardon me, Langdon,” said I, “but I don't like that. It
isn't my attitude at all toward--the right sort of women.”
He looked half-quizzical, half-apologetic. “Ah, to be sure,” said he. “I
forgot you weren't a married man.”
“I don't think I'll ever lose the belief that there's a quality in a good
woman for a man to--to respect and look up to.”
“I envy you,” said he, but his eyes were mocking still. I saw he was a
little disdainful of my rebuking _him_--and angry at me, too.
“Woman's a subject of conversation that men ought to avoid,” said I
easily--for, having set myself right, I felt I could afford to smooth him
down.
“Well, good-by--good luck--or, if I may be permitted to say it to one so
touchy, the kind of luck you're bent on having, whether it's good or bad.”
“If my luck ain't good, I'll make it good,” said I with a laugh.
And so I left him, with a look in his eyes that came back to me long
afterward when I realized the full meaning of that apparently almost
commonplace interview.
That same day I began to plunge on Textile, watching the market closely,
that I might go more slowly should there be signs of a dangerous break--for
no more than Langdon did I want a sudden panicky slump. The price held
steady, however; but I, fool that I was, certain the fall must come,
plunged on, digging the pit for my own destruction deeper and deeper.