Jane lay awake until she heard Jerry tiptoe up to his room, in the early
morning. It gave her an excited sense of satisfaction that, however much
he opposed her confessed profession, the thing she had created held him
spellbound. The artist in him could not withstand good workmanship. Or
perhaps he found her ideas interesting. She could scarcely wait until
morning to hear his verdict--and at the same time she dreaded it. She
was tempted to go to his room now, and demand it, so that she might
sleep.
She had suffered deeply through his facetious recital of her story, it
was not until she understood that he was hurt by her neglect to offer
him the book that she could force herself to forgive it. How they
stumbled about in the dark, missing each other! Was it so in better
regulated marriages? Did men and women really ever truly understand each
other?
Jane pondered the question as to whether the initial dissimilarity
between them was being widened by the engulfing current that was
sweeping woman on so rapidly into new waters of unrest. If this storm
was carrying her into any more than a temporary separation of interest
from man's, then it meant destruction and the need of rebuilding. Men
seemed to be blaming women with the unrest in the world to-day. Jerry
voiced a grievance against them as trouble makers. It was like blaming
the sea for its attraction for the moon--accusing the sun for sailing
through its orbit. A force--generated who knows how or where?--had been
set in motion. Call it education, industrial and economic freedom, or
what you will, it had happened. Women could not start it--could not stop
it. Nor could men.
Ours is an age of conflict, of rapid change, taking place in our
knowledge and all about us. The conflict is psychological as well as
material. Take one small detail of our machinery. In Jane's own lifetime
had come a total revolution in man's method of transportation. Subways,
elevated trains, automobiles, aeroplanes. How swiftly must the
individual readjust himself. He has within him, intensified, the
struggle and the discoordination which is taking place in the large
social group. He has to meet the crisis of accepting daily new truths,
while he is bound, even tortured, by traditional convictions.
It was because the Jerry type of man did not see that this
discoordination ramified into every corner of our lives--that it is
religious, social, political, as well as material and domestic. But
boy-man that he was, he recognized it only where it struck home quickest
to him, in his sex life, in his marital relations. He could not realize
that this was not the basis of the whole unrest and therefore to be laid
at woman's door--that it was only reaction from an universal
discoordination.
She had tried to work this out in her book; she had striven with all her
power to get above this seething, boiling, electrified whirlpool that
we call life, to find purpose in it--direction and ultimate calm. She
wanted to drive home her conviction that, whether we swim with the
torrent or against it, we must do it together--men and women--adjusting
and readjusting.
Dawn came. She heard Anna stirring below, before she dropped asleep.
Jerry was still asleep when she left the house. She was relieved that
she did not have to meet him, in the disorganized condition of mind and
body in which she found herself after her sleepless and perturbed night.
She took a brisk walk before she went to her work, and compromised by
setting herself to revision rather than creation.
When she came into the nursery on her return, she found Jerry there. At
sight of her he put the baby down quickly on the bed, and came toward
her, with a look on his face she could not fathom.
"Jane, why, Jane...." he began and stopped. He held out his hand and she
laid hers in it, while he still stared at her in the most intense way.
"I can hardly believe it--I couldn't lay it down."
"I'm so glad. I came and peeped at you at three o'clock and I was so
excited that I couldn't sleep any more after that. I wanted so to know
what you thought about it."
"I almost came in to wake you up, but I thought I'd just take the rest
of the night to think it over."
"You--liked it?"
"No. I think you've done it wonderfully. I couldn't believe that you
could do it," he broke off. "I suppose the whole truth is that I don't
know you at all, any more than if we met last night."
"Oh, you know some of me, Jerry. You couldn't know what I kept secret."
"How did you learn all that, in that book?"
"Well, I've read a great deal of other people's wisdom. I've lived and
watched and studied people. I don't know; how does any artist acquire
what he gives out? It's like breath, you inhale atmosphere outside of
you, make it part of your blood and tissue, exhale it something quite
different--essentially yours!"
"And I've been living along with you, just thinking you were any woman."
"I am--just that--and I've written the story of any woman in the world
to-day. Why didn't you like it, Jerry?"
"Because I don't like what you say--we've gone over it so often."
"It wasn't convincing to you, then?"
"I don't know. I was mainly interested in how you were doing it. I'm
going to read it again and see if what you say is really sense."
She laid her hands on his shoulders.
"Jerry, promise. Read it with an open mind. Pretend you haven't any
prejudices in the matter and give me a chance."
He laughed, then sobered quickly.
"This business is terribly upsetting, Jane. I'm all in. I'm going for a
walk before lunch. By the way, the announcement is in the morning
papers," he added as he left.
She seized the _Times_ and ran through the book advertisements. There it
was:
"'Wisdom Hath Builded Her a House,' by Jane Paxton. A remarkable book by
a new author, ready May 15th."
She read it over and over with a beating heart. She carried it over to
Baby and showed it to him. He reached for it, with apparent interest.
"Sonny boy, this is about your little sister. She was born of your
mother, just as truly as you were. Will you love her and be proud of
her? She already knows and loves you."
The telephone called her and Martin's voice answered her question.
"You've seen the announcements?"
"Yes, yes--and you?"
"I've only just read it. I'm so thrilled--I feel as if I could sing or
cry."
"Dear child! I could not come to tell you my congratulations, because I
must go away again this afternoon, so this is my compromise."
"I never was so happy, Martin."
"Oh, that is right; I'm happy, too, and I prophesy again a fine future
for you, Jane Judd."
"My dear master!"
"Master? Humph, not I!"
"I told Jerry. He read the book last night."
"Oh? What does our Jerry say to that?"
"He's very upset. He hates careers for married women--he doesn't want me
to have one--but he sat up all night to read the book."
Martin's laugh interrupted her.
"Thank Heaven, his artist instinct is quite unrelated to his mind!"
She laughed at that.
"He is impressed with my artistry but he dislikes my ideas."
"Dear soul, you've got a problem there, but I know your faculty for
solving them."
"It's easier in books than in life, Martin."
"Yes, but the satisfaction is greater."
"I'm so used to the thought of my work, that I had never foreseen what a
bomb it would explode among my family and friends."
"Well, here's to a big, public explosion and subsequent fame. My
thoughts will be with you."
"Thanks, dear friend, come back to us soon."
Bobs arrived, breathless with haste, at this moment.
"No sleep, nor food, nor work in my house since I got home last night!"
she cried.
"Bobs, you dear."
"Jane, you...."
Then without rhyme or reason, she flew into Jane's arms, clung to her,
weeping bitterly. Jane held her close, her own eyes full of tears. When
Bobs found her composure she held her friend away from her, and looked
into her wet, tender eyes.
"You've said it all, Jane, like a prophet among women. I've learned it,
and my soul has dried up with bitterness, but you've kept sweet. The
world will listen to you--even men will listen," she said.
"Bobs, you dear old fraud, such loyalty and devotion and character as
yours do not grow out of a soul-soil of bitterness. You've helped me
with that book almost more than anybody else."
"How, Jane?"
"By being a good soldier!"
"Jane, I haven't cried in years and if you say another word like that,
I'm going to cry again."
Jerry came in and Bobs turned to him her tear-stained face.
"Have you read it?"
"Yes."
"You know what you've done, then?"
"What I've done?"
"Yes. You've married a woman and an artist, so much bigger than
yourself, that you've got to spend all your time growing big enough to
live with her!"
"Oh, Bobs, dear. You must forgive her, Jerry," Jane protested.
He shook his head slowly and said with a sort of solemnity:
"I know she speaks the truth!"
"Jerry, don't!" Jane exclaimed in distress.
"I've got to see this situation and you and me from all sides now, Jane.
It means too much to us all, for me to go on blundering with my eyes
shut."
"It must be my eyes that are shut, because it seems so simple to me; we
know the truth about each other now and I've come one step nearer to
you, by reason of my art."
"I hope so, Jane," he said earnestly.