These days of stress, mental upheaval, and emotional unrest were having
their effect upon Jerry's work, as well as upon his mind. He painted
with a veritable fury. Melisande in the wood became the outlet for his
surcharged feelings. Jane came upon him, one late afternoon, after
Althea had gone, studying his work from every angle.
"Jerry, do you realize how this grows? I find it absorbing to watch."
"Do you, Jane?" gratefully.
"It has been like a miracle, like spring. First the bare outlines; then
came the trees, sky, earth; then branches, clouds, the grass; then a
sweep of colour, soft as a May wind; then you did something to it that
made it a place of mystery."
"Does it have all that for you, Jane?"
"Yes, and more. It has the proof of my belief in your power."
"Why do you hate the portraits so?"
"Because they are not you--they are things to sell. You are clever
enough to make people look as they want to look, not as you know they
are."
"Heavens, Jane, that would ruin us!"
"There, you've said it. We are prostituting your soul to pay our rent."
"It's just a crutch, Jane. I'll discard it as soon as I can. Don't take
it too seriously."
"I can't help it. You see, I take the creative instinct seriously; it is
our share of Godhood."
"I know, but all of us have to pot boil."
"Not all of us."
"You chose manual labour instead, didn't you? But we aren't all made of
the stuff you are, Jane."
"It isn't that. It is only that if you worship Godhood, even in
yourself, you cannot prostitute it."
"But Baby and you and I must live. Doesn't the motive make any
difference, to your mind?"
"We don't have to live in this house with those things about us."
"Yes, we do. The very wells of my soul dry up in poverty and ugliness.
I'm not a genius, Jane, I'm only just a talent."
"When I am doing my share, you will be freer to grow, Jerry."
He made no answer to that. He began to put away the canvas.
"Won't you leave it out? Martin and Bobs are coming to dinner, you
remember. They would enjoy seeing it."
"Better wait until it's finished," he said, but left it in easy reach.
Bobs arrived early to see the baby put to bed. She adored him, even to
his mother's entire content. She referred to him as His Majesty, brought
him gifts, surrounded him with adoration and incense.
"Great excitement in my shop to-day," she said, when they were down in
the studio, waiting for Martin. "I got a commission for a fountain to
stand in a public square in Columbus, Ohio."
"Good work, Bobs, we'll crack a bottle on it to-night and celebrate your
luck," cried Jerry, wringing her hand.
"I am delighted, dear," said Jane. "Any plans for it?"
"Not yet. I'm in that agonized state of groping for the idea. You
know--something inside clutching in the dark, darting here and there,
trying to get hold of things that slip away. No torture like it."
"Also no satisfaction like the minute when the idea comes, like the
night-blooming cereus, in the dark."
"Yes, that's the fun, and later, examining the leaves, the blossom, the
calyx, the stem, saying to yourself, 'Why, of course, how else?'"
"Queer, isn't it, how it comes to each one of us differently--one plant
for you, another for me, and still another for Jane," Jerry remarked.
"That is why it seems to me so important to cultivate your own, it is so
essentially yours," Jane said, in her serious way.
"Yes, if you don't forget that, at a big flower show, you may be a
violet in the chrysanthemum exhibit," Bobs teased.
Martin came in, on the laugh that followed.
"This sounds like a happy party," he remarked, as he greeted them.
"Bobs has an order, and she is exuberant," explained Jerry.
He proceeded to offer her various ridiculous suggestions as to fitting
subjects for the fountain. They all went into dinner, laughing. But
Jane's observing eye marked signs of weariness and feeling in Martin's
face. He was his usual, spontaneous, interested self to the casual
onlooker, but in moments when the others were talking, she caught him
off guard, mask down.
Bobs and Jerry fell into a discussion over a line which Bobs quoted from
Jane's book.
"But I don't agree with Jane's hypothesis, that every life is an end in
itself, because it cannot be lived again: that the personal reaction to
life, expressed in art, is of value, because it is individual."
"What is the individual's value, then?" Bobs demanded. "Yours, for
instance?"
"I'm part of a whole. I'm an eye or an ear in the big organism. My job
is no more important than--nor as important as--the function of the leg,
or the arm."
"Then you think it is just accident that you happen to be the eye?"
Martin inquired.
"Yes."
"I think you've been trained from the beginning of the world to be the
eye," Jane said. "I believe your personality to be an asset that will
never happen again, that you must live the fullest, freest life
possible, so that you may be a normal, clear-sighted eye, and see
truly."
"It puts a whole new emphasis on the individual, doesn't it?" Martin
mused.
"It seems to me slightly lacking in a sense of humour, but that is not
an unusual fault in women, I am told," smiled Jerry tolerantly.
"We think that is a fault of men," said Bobs. "Nobody with a real sense
of humour could go on raving against women in careers as you do, Jerry."
"What has my sense of humour got to do with my objection to women with
careers?" testily.
"Everything. If you had such a sense you would see that you are only
concerned about the women who are getting into _your_ career, the arts.
It's the painter, the sculptor, doctor, lawyer, actress, opera singer,
whom you want to rush back into the home. You don't bother about your
cook, or your laundress, and all the women who serve you, staying in
_their_ homes."
"That's different."
"How is it different? They are made to stay at home, and bear children,
according to your idea. Why shouldn't they be allowed to do so, and
carry out Nature's intention?"
"They should, ideally."
"But in the world of fact, Jerry, women never have been devoted to this
'highest function' solely," Jane remarked. "They have always done their
half, and more than half of the physical labour of the world, and borne
the children besides."
"Under primitive conditions, maybe."
"But why should we suddenly limit her in the field of industry? Why
suddenly decide that she is fit only to bear the young? Why shouldn't
she go into new industries, if the old ones are taken from her?"
"Because she upsets all the relations of life if she pushes into
industries where men naturally excel her."
"What are the industries where men naturally excel women, Paxton?"
"In labour requiring physical strength, and professions requiring great
mental facility, like politics, government, diplomacy."
"Wait a minute, Jerry. What about the women in Europe at this very
minute? They man the factories, till the soil, work the mines, make
ammunition, run cars, motors, trucks; they are being sucked into all the
industries of the world, and they are making good," cried Bobs.
"This war in Europe reduces those countries to the early stages, to
rebuilding, reconstructing. It sets men and women back on the same plane
of cooperative labour which exists in new settlements. But if this had
not happened to us, I think we would have seen a marvel happening among
women. Who is to say that, with this increase of machinery to replace
man, with a lessening demand for bulk and strength, the sex with the
greatest muscular fineness, the preponderance of brain and nerve tissue,
would not become the one especially fitted to do the work of the
future?" Martin said.
"You must admit, Jerry, that we've had no training in politics,
government, and diplomacy," Jane objected.
"You all get away from my objection, that it upsets all our human
relationships. What else is making all this domestic unrest, this
increase of divorces? It is woman getting out of the home."
"Jerry, _have_ you read my book?" demanded Jane.
"Let me answer that," said Martin. "Woman in the home or out of it, is
only one manifestation of our social rebirth. In a world of environment
changing hourly, the individual must change hourly, too, or lose his
social value. Now, the real tragedy of modern life is not that woman is
changing more rapidly than man, but that in our confusion, it is the
most advanced type of woman who marries the most antiquated type of man,
or _vice versa_. Ages of social evolution may lie between them."
"There you are, Jane; he has put our problem in a nutshell. You have
married the most antiquated type of man," laughed Jerry.
"What does it matter whether men do this better, and women do that
better? The thing is to add to the general store of wisdom of the race;
we all have to pour in our share. A hundred years from now it will look
as if each contributed about equal amounts, won't it?" asked Bobs.
"What about this enmity between men and women?" Jerry asked.
"Men don't want us to get their jobs. They won't see the true situation,
and they blame us," Bobs answered; "that makes enmity."
"And women are superior, satirical, mad at us," he retorted.
"But you want to marry us, in spite of it, Jerry, so nothing interferes
with our 'sacred function,' as you call it," Bobs laughed.
"There cannot be sex war, Paxton. That need is the very ground work of
life. The mating instinct is not affected by a change of labour for
either sex. Mother Nature sees to that," Martin said.
"The gist of all you are saying is, that we need a new kind of marriage,
a new kind of family, a new kind of parents, and a new kind of man.
We've got the new kind of woman."
"We've got the new man. Why, Jerry, you're one of them," said Jane.
"I? Good Lord!" he exclaimed, and the discussion ended in laughter.
Talk drifted far and wide, as it was wont to do with these four friends.
Jane persuaded Jerry to show them his picture, and they discussed it,
methods of work, kinds of inspiration, all the questions of the creative
process which forever intrigue artists.
It was eleven o'clock before Bobs rose to go. Jerry insisted upon
walking to her studio with her, and Jane was glad of her opportunity to
have a few moments alone with Martin. As the door closed on them, she
turned to him.
"Martin, my friend, has it been an unusually trying visit for you?" she
asked gently.
"Yes. My freedom has come to me, Jane."
"You mean she has gone?"
"Yes, poor soul, two days ago."
"Martin, I am glad, glad for you both."
She held her hands to him impulsively and he laid his eyes against them
in silence.
"Has it hurt so deeply that you cannot be glad, Martin?"
"Jane, what does it mean to me now? I've borne my slavery all these
years without groaning, but my freedom has come too late."
"Martin, what a thing to say! Freedom can never be too late."
"Can you say that to me, Jane? Jane! Don't you know how I love you--how
I want you--how deeply I need you, my beloved?"
"Martin!"
He swept her into his arms with swift passion. She lay perfectly
motionless against his breast for several seconds, with his cheek
against her hair. Then she slowly released herself, laid her palm
against his face, and looked into his eyes.
"Forgive me," he whispered.
A sound caught her attention. She looked up, and past him. Jerry was
standing in the door of the studio.