It could not last too long after that, but they ran the whole gamut of
possible moods. There were times when the antagonism between them seemed
to one or the other so intangible, so imaginary as to be ludicrous; days
when the air seemed cleared of dissension and unhappiness; any incident
could alter the whole shape of things for them. Some new delight in the
progress of the children, some anniversary which it seemed too cruel to
let pass in anger, would make them both happy. But they never quite
relaxed, never quite felt faith in each other. And the most trivial
thing could upset their balance--a fancied slight, a casual statement
which was translated into a criticism. On their guard constantly,
neither of them felt peace.
The days were absorbing for Dick just at this time, too. In July Matthew
had unexpectedly yielded to the pressure upon him to become a candidate
for United States Senator to fill the unexpired term of the incumbent
who had just died. He had refused many political honors and
opportunities before, but this time the political situation looked so
black that he could not justify refusal. He knew his usefulness well in
a state where blind conservatism and dangerous dissatisfaction were in
constant ferment; and his acquaintance and high standing among all kinds
of men made his nomination fairly certain. But his decision left Dick
alone and depressed. It was not that he did not approve of Matthew’s
action, but that they had come to depend upon each other more and more
in business. They had worked out the development of the mines together
lately. With Matthew away for even a part of the year, responsibility
would fall very heavily on Dick, and things were far from satisfactory.
A spreading sense of loneliness encompassed Dick. He tried to satisfy
himself in the children, but an hour’s play with them, refreshing and
delightful as it was, did not give him all he sought or all he needed.
Gradually there came silent moods in which he spent most of his hours of
relaxation and which were only broken by a plunge into business or into
the midst of some noisy party at which Cecily might or might not join
him. It did not matter whether she did or not. He was tied to the sense
of her instinctive criticism of many of the things he liked and she to
her sense of failure.
They were both much interested in Matthew’s campaign. That gave them
something to talk about and something to focus a mutual interest upon.
But Cecily was suffering even more from a fear of Matthew’s departure
than was Dick. Since her mother had died, she, like Dick, had been
lonely, but that did not help them to find refuge in each other. Matthew
and, curiously enough, Ellen, were the only people in whom Cecily felt
there was comprehension of her and approval. She had one conversation
with Mother Fénelon when she and Dick reached the breaking point.
“There’s no reason for this,” said Mother Fénelon. “You are a good woman
and your husband is a good man. You have duties to each other.”
“Virtue and duties are the least part of marriage to-day, Mother
Fénelon. You can’t manage with just those things. You have to use the
modern methods. It’s a science to-day to have a husband.”
“Marriage is what it always has been.”
“I’m afraid not. It’s altered with the jazz band and the servant problem
and the ‘keep young’ crusade.”
There was more, but to no purpose. The break came immediately after
Matthew’s election. Reaction helped perhaps, as did the fact that little
by little every one had come to guess that the young Harrisons were
unhappy and Della and Madeline and others had come to give Cecily
advice.
“You’ve humiliated me beyond all decency,” Cecily told Dick bitterly.
“There’s no dignity, no privacy left between us.”
“Then I’d better go,” answered Dick.
She weakened then, but it was all useless and in her mind she knew that
Dick must go, that they could not keep on this rending life, which was
exhausting them both. Dick went to his club. He wanted to leave the
city, but with Matthew’s departure imminent he couldn’t. And with Dick’s
definite action bruited about, the young Harrisons became the favorite
topic for discussion--discussion which carried its probing back to tales
of the first unhappy marriage of Mrs. Warner and made strange and
foolish deductions.
Mr. Warner, after listening for an hour to Della, who brought the news
home and philosophized extempore on just what Cecily’s mistake had been,
took his hat and proceeded to Cecily’s house. It was the day on which
the few personal effects which Dick needed had left the house. She met
her stepfather in the living-room, rising from a dusky corner where she
was sitting with her hands in her lap, strangely idle. The soft white
silk of her dress was hardly whiter than her face.
Mr. Warner put his hat and cane down slowly and went towards her, taking
both her hands.
“My poor Cecily.”
She did not show any sign of collapse or tears. It seemed to him that
she was broken, but the impression did not come from her appearance or
her voice.
“Dick thought he’d better go.”
He sat down and tapped on the arms of his chair, an old man habit that
had come over him lately.
“Do you want a divorce from Dick, Cecily?”
“Not now. Neither of us wants that now. We’re too--raw.” She shuddered.
“And you’re going to live here alone?”
“Here, with the children.”
“How is Dick going to do without the children?”
“I think he can. He can’t bear living with me for the sake of them and I
must have them.”
“Ah, Cecily, this won’t last. You and Dick are a pair of naughty
children. I’ve a notion to go down to the club and bring him home by the
ear.”
Cecily stiffened. “Promise me you won’t do anything like that! Don’t
make it begin all over again now. We’ve tried and tried, and we can’t.”
“But what is it? Is this nonsense Della talks about Dick’s wanting to go
out more and your refusing the actual reason you’ve dared to break up
your home?”
“That’s what people will say,” answered Cecily, “but of course that’s
just a symptom of what’s the matter with us. The trouble is that we
don’t think marriage means the same thing; we don’t mean the same thing
by it. And every outward expression of my idea jars on him--and his on
me. We’ve become angry and furtive and quarrelsome and condemning.”
“And yet I’ll bet you will be reconciled within a month. Perhaps sooner.
It may be that this little separation is just what you both need to
straighten out all this trouble.”
“Reconciled! Reconciled!” repeated Cecily. “We’ve been reconciled a
dozen times in the past year. No, father, that won’t do it.”
He sat silent for a while and she watched from the window in a strange,
still way.
“It’s not right nor necessary. I wish your mother were here.”
“I wouldn’t like her to see me a failure,” said Cecily with that note of
complete depression.
“Don’t be foolish. You’re not a failure. How could any one with three
fine, husky children be a failure?”
“It’s not enough to make success.”
She rose after a little and offered him a cigar.
“Some Dick left.”
“He’ll be back after them,” said Mr. Warner.
She smiled, but it was a tragic little smile.
“You’ll have to smile better than that for the children.”
“I will--for them.”
“Then why not for Dick?”
“Dick doesn’t care for me.”
“Dick does.”
She gave the dreariest little gesture of negation.
“You and your mother are curiously alike, Cecily.”
“No.”
“I have often wondered,” he went on ruminatively after a moment, “if
there wasn’t something of a case for Allgate Moore. Of course he treated
your mother badly. She never even told me about it, but we all knew.
After I married your mother--and I was an older man with somewhat cool
judgments, my share of discretion and years of experience--I wondered
about him sometimes. Because I had a hard time understanding your mother
and a hard time being good to her.”
“But you were good to her.”
“After I had learned how; after I had studied and planned how, so that I
might not shock her or frighten her or disgust her or hurt her. You are
like her--fastidious, delicate minded, not delicate only in mood, but
delicate always. You like fine things and beautiful things. So do most
men, but most men like other things too. Your mother could not tolerate
in any one what was unbeautiful or coarse--many human things.”
“But she could, for she told me to be tolerant.”
Mr. Warner moved a little in the shadow which had fallen on his chair.
“That’s what I taught her,--what I tried to teach her so that contacts
would not be too hard for her.”
“What if contacts are hard? Isn’t it better to preserve truth, to live
according to beauty--not to be cheap? I know how silly, how common it
all sounds, will sound; the things they will say about Dick and me. But
it isn’t true that trivialities have made the trouble. It’s big things,
basic things. I don’t want to compromise with an age that seems all
wrong in its standards. I can’t bear to form myself on people like Della
and Fliss.”
“It wouldn’t do you any good to try that,” said Mr. Warner with a
chuckle, “but I wish, my dear, that your humor was a little nearer the
surface and that it could come to your assistance when you are unhappy
as well as when you are happy.”
“It’s queer about that. I can only see things black and white--happy or
sad. It’s a great drawback. Sometimes I try to pretend, but it’s always
so easy to see through my pretense.”
Mr. Warner was pursuing his previous line of thought.
“You and your mother are such women as foster the ideals men have about
women--if they have any--making ideals for the home which every man
treasures or respects. But it’s hard for men to live by their ideals
alone and you demand that.”
“I don’t understand it at all,” said Cecily, wearily, “why an effort to
keep things close to the ideal men promise you before they marry you
should end in failure.”
“If it is failure; but I don’t believe it is. I don’t think you’ve hit
the real reason for it. Cecily, is there any third person involved in
this?”
“Woman, you mean?”
He nodded.
“Not in the way you mean. We disagree awfully over one woman whom Dick
admires,--Fliss Allenby.”
“He’s not in love with her.”
“No. That makes it all the worse. If he were you could understand his
taking up her defense every time a criticism of her is made. But as a
matter of fact he prefers even her--for whom he doesn’t care and whom I
can remember his scorning when I first took her up after we were
married--to me. He prefers almost anything to me.”
“Don’t get bitter, Cecily.”
“I didn’t know what that word meant except abstractly seven years ago.
Now it seems to express me.”
“Nonsense. Turn on the lights, my dear. We’re too gloomy.”
The conversation became more practical.
“Have you made any money arrangement with Dick?”
“I don’t want any money from Dick. If he’s not living with me, I don’t
want his money. I couldn’t bear to touch it.”
“That’s quixotic, my dear, but if you won’t take his, you must let me
help.”
“I’ve a little of my own, you know,” said Cecily.
“As I remember, very little.”
“Three thousand a year. Lots of people live on that.”
“How much have you and Dick been spending?”
“About twenty-five thousand. But that was with cars and all sorts of
luxuries. We’ll just do without those and I won’t need new clothes for a
long time, nor will the children.”
“And when you do?”
“Well, we’ll have to do without them. Or maybe I could earn some money.
Anyway I will not touch Dick’s money and I won’t take yours either,
father, please. I couldn’t let you support me--and Della.”
“Cecily!”
“That was horrid, wasn’t it? Well, please let me get along as best I
can. Let me be honest with myself.”
“You are making it so hard for Dick.”
“Yes. He seemed to take that part much harder than any other. It was the
only thing that really seemed to worry him--not to be able to salve
things over with money. If he sends me money, I shall send it back.”
Mr. Warner rose.
“I’m going now, my dear. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this or
how convinced I am that it won’t last. I want you to let me help you. I
want to come and talk to you now and then.”
“Yes, please do that. I shall be lonely once in a while,” she said
bravely.
“You don’t mind all the silly talk?”
Cecily shrugged. “I shan’t hear it. No, I don’t think I do, except for
Dick a little.”
“Would you like to go away for the rest of the year?”
“I thought of that, but it doesn’t seem wise to take the children away
just now. And that, too, would be expensive.”
Mr. Warner went down the street slowly, tapping the darkened pavement
with his cane.
* * * * *
“I don’t care to discuss it, Fliss. It’s none of our business.”
“I hope not,” said Fliss.
Matthew frowned at her and she laughed at him.
“You should see the frantic interest of people whose business it most
certainly is not.”
“That’s easy to imagine,” he answered. “But I don’t care to be in their
class.”
She went on, “Cecily, you know, who has been really not of paramount
interest to any one lately, is now the real center of thought. Why she
did and why he didn’t and what was the matter and how long it has been
going on and if Dick’s stenographer is really involved or if it’s
Cecily’s iceman----”
“Spare me that stuff, Fliss.”
“I haven’t been spared. I’ve had it all day. But seriously, Matthew,
what is the matter with that fool girl? Why doesn’t she appreciate what
she’s got?”
“Does he appreciate what he’s got?”
“United States Senator judicial temperament bound to see both sides.
Well, why doesn’t some one open both the kittens’ eyes if they can’t
appreciate each other?”
He turned to look at her. “You’re pleased about all this, aren’t you?”
“Well, perhaps just a little satisfied in my heart. Cecily made me the
butt of the town for weeks with that Ellen stuff. Do you blame me for a
little human nature?”
“I don’t blame you for anything, Fliss. I accept you.”
“And Cecily?”
“I said that was none of our business.”
“Then why spend so long composing notes to her last night?”
He looked at her accusingly.
“In the wastebasket, my dear. I don’t always go over it, but I was so
interested. Evidently you hadn’t gone very far with any of the notes.”
“Once in a while I think that nothing but a spanking, Fliss----”
“Wife-beater!”
“I’ll write my notes downtown after this, you know.”
“I suppose so. I’ll have to bribe the janitor to save me the
wastebaskets. Well, if you won’t talk about Cecily, let’s talk about
Washington. I get a little weak in the knees when I think of all I’ll
have to learn. I don’t mean to get too many clothes, either. But the
ones I do get----”
“I was wondering if I hadn’t better go on alone at first. I could get a
bit adjusted and I can’t see how you can leave your mother.”
Her face clouded. “I know, Matthew. I seem a heartless brute, but
there’s nothing I can do; and she gets so irritated at me now; and
whenever I go there and try to do anything she and Mrs. Ellis are
hobnobbing over horrors in that dreadful way and everything is so awful.
Matthew, don’t leave me with them!”
“Why, no, you’d have your own house. It would only be for a little
while. But I’ll take you if you want to go so badly. I do get a little
sorry for your father. He’s----”
“But I tell you there’s nothing I can do for him. I have tried! But I
can’t sit through endless hours of moving pictures and silence.”
“Well, dear, you can’t help if you feel like that. It is probably true
you could do nothing.”
“Where are you going to-night?”
“Going to work unless you need me.”
“No, I told Polly Angell that I thought you couldn’t come to dinner and
she asked me to come anyway. She found an extra man.”
“Ames?”
Fliss nodded.
“You ought to leave him alone. What do you get out of it?”
But she parried his question with a laugh. “Well, you told me that _you_
wouldn’t make love to me. I have to have some one.”
“Run along--and behave yourself.”
She left his room and going down to the library, picked up the
Washington evening papers, turning to the page which gave the social
news. Over that she bent a puckered brow, studying names.
BOOK THREE