It was Lily who in the end mentioned the affair. She spoke of it as they
sat at lunch in the paneled dining room.
“Mama,” she said suddenly, “tells me that you know all about Jean.”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Tolliver, in a queer unearthly voice. “She told me.”
“I’m glad, because I wanted to tell you before, only she wouldn’t let
me. She said you wouldn’t understand.”
There was an awesome little pause and Mrs. Tolliver, her fork poised,
said, “I don’t quite understand, Lily. I must say it’s puzzling. But I
guessed you knew what you were doing. It wasn’t as if you were a common
woman who took lovers.” She must have seen the faint tinge of color that
swept over Lily’s face, but she continued in the manner of a virtuous
woman doing her duty, seeing a thing in the proper light, being fair and
honest. “I guessed there was some reason. Of course, I wouldn’t want a
daughter of mine to do such a thing. I would rather see her in her
grave.”
Her manner was emphatic and profound. It was clear that however she
might forgive Lily in the eyes of the world, she had her own opinions
which none should ever know but herself and Lily.
Lily blushed, the color spreading over her lovely face to the soft
fringe of her hair. “You needn’t worry, Cousin Hattie,” she said. “Ellen
would never do such a thing. You see, Ellen is complete. She doesn’t
need anything but herself. She’s not like me at all. She isn’t weak. She
would never do anything because she lost her head.”
Ellen’s mother, who had stopped eating, regarded her with a look of
astonishment. “But your mother said you hadn’t lost your head. She said
it was you who wouldn’t marry the Governor.”
Lily’s smile persisted. She leaned over to touch her cousin’s hand,
gently as though pleading with her to be tolerant.
“It’s true,” she said. “Some of what mother told you. It’s true about my
refusing to marry him. You see the trouble is that I’m not afraid when I
should be. I’m not afraid of the things I should be afraid of. When
there is danger, I can’t run away. If I could run away I’d be saved, but
I can’t. Something makes me see it through. It’s something that betrays
me ... something that is stronger than myself. That’s what happened with
the Governor. It was I who was more guilty than he. It is I who played
with fire. If I was not unwilling, what could you expect of him ... a
man. Men love the strength of women as a refuge from their own
weakness.” She paused and her face grew serious. “When it was done, I
was afraid ... not afraid, you understand of bearing a child or even
afraid of what people would say of me. I was afraid of losing myself,
because I knew I couldn’t always love him.... I knew it. I knew it. I
knew that something had betrayed me. I couldn’t give up all my life to a
man because I’d given an hour of it to him. I was afraid of what he
would become. Can you understand that? That was the only thing I was
afraid of ... nothing else but that. It was I who was wrong in the very
beginning.”
But Mrs. Tolliver’s expression of bewilderment failed to dissolve before
this disjointed explanation. “No,” she said, “I don’t understand.... I
should think you would have wanted a home and children and a successful
husband. He’s been elected senator, you know, and they talk of making
him president.”
Lily’s red lip curved in a furtive, secret, smile. “And what’s that to
me?” she asked. “They can make him what they like. A successful husband
isn’t always the best. I could see what they would make him. That’s why
I couldn’t face being his wife. I wasn’t a girl when it happened. I was
twenty-four and I knew a great many things. I wasn’t a poor innocent
seduced creature. But it wasn’t so much that I thought it out. I
couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t marry him. Something inside me wouldn’t
let me. A part of me was wise. You see, only half of me loved him ...
my body, shall we say, desired him. That is not enough for a lifetime.
The body changes.” For a second she cast down her eyes as if in shame
and Mrs. Tolliver, who never before had heard such talk, looked away,
out of the tall window across the snow covered park.
“Besides,” Lily continued, after a little silence, “I have a home and I
have a child. Both of them are perfect. I am a very happy woman, Cousin
Hattie ... much happier than if I had married him. I know that from what
he taught me ... in that one hour.”
Mrs. Tolliver regarded her now with a curious, prying, look. Plainly it
was a miracle she had found in a woman who had sinned and still was
happy. “But you have no husband,” she said presently, with the air of
presenting a final argument.
“No,” replied Lily, “I have no husband.”
“But that must mean something.”
“Yes, I suppose it does mean something.”
And then the approach of the mulatto woman put an end to the talk for
the time being. When she had disappeared once more, it was Mrs. Tolliver
who spoke. “You know,” she said, “I sometimes think Irene would be
better off if such a thing had happened to her. It isn’t natural, the
way she carries on. It’s morbid. I’ve told her so often enough.”
“But it couldn’t have happened to Irene. She will never marry. You see
Irene’s afraid of men ... in that way. Such a thing I’m sure would drive
her mad.” And Lily bowed her lovely head for a moment. “We must be good
to Irene. She can’t help being as she is. You see she believes all love
is a kind of sin. Love, I mean, of the sort you and I have known.”
At this speech Mrs. Tolliver grew suddenly tense. Her large, honest face
became scarlet with indignation. “But it isn’t the same,” she protested.
“What I knew and what you knew. They’re very different things. My love
was consecrated.”
Lily’s dark eyes grew thoughtful. “It would have been the same if I had
married the Governor. People would have said that we loved each other as
you and Cousin Charles love each other. They wouldn’t have known the
truth. One doesn’t wash one’s dirty linen in public.”
Her cousin interrupted her abruptly. “It is not the same. I could not
have had children by Charlie until I was married to him. I mean there
could have been nothing like that between us beforehand.”
“That’s only because you were stronger than me,” said Lily. “You see I
was born as I am. That much I could not help. There are times when I
cannot save myself. You are more fortunate. Irene is like me. That is
the reason she behaves as she does. After all, it is the same thing in
us both.”
But Mrs. Tolliver, it was plain to be seen, understood none of this. It
was quite beyond her simple code of conduct. Her life bore witness to
her faith in the creed that breaking the rules meant disaster.
“I know,” continued Lily, “that I was lucky to have been rich. If I had
been poor it would have been another matter. I should have married him.
But because I was rich, I was free. I was independent to do as I wished,
independent ... like a man, you understand. Free to do as I pleased.”
All at once she leaned forward impulsively. “Tell me, Cousin Hattie ...
it has not made me hard, has it? It has not made me old and evil? It has
not made people dislike me?”
Mrs. Tolliver regarded her for a moment as if weighing arguments,
seeking reasons, why Lily seemed content and happy despite everything.
At length, finding no better retort, she said weakly, “How could they
dislike you? No one ever knew anything about it.”
A look of triumph shone in Lily’s dark eyes. “Ah, that’s it!” she cried.
“That’s it! They didn’t know anything, so they don’t dislike me. If they
had known they would have found all sorts of disagreeable things in me.
They would have said, ‘We cannot speak to Lily Shane. She is an immoral
woman.’ They would have made me into a hard and unhappy creature. They
would have created the traits which they believed I should possess. It
is the knowing that counts and not the act itself. It is the old story.
It is worse to be found out in a little sin than to commit secretly a
big one. There is only one thing that puzzles them.” She raised her
slim, soft hands in a little gesture of badinage. “Do you know what it
is? They can’t understand why I have never married and why I am not old
and rattly as a spinster should be. It puzzles them that I am young and
fresh.”
For a time Mrs. Tolliver considered the dark implications of this
speech. But she was not to be downed. “Just the same, I don’t approve,
Lily,” she said. “I don’t want you to think for a minute that I approve.
If my daughter had done it, it would have killed me. It’s not right. One
day you will pay for it, in this world or the next.”
At this threat Lily grew serious once more and the smoldering light of
rebellion came into her eyes. She was leaning back in her old indolent
manner. It was true that there was about her something inexpressibly
voluptuous and beautiful which alarmed her cousin. It was a dangerous,
flaunting beauty, undoubtedly wicked to the Presbyterian eyes of Mrs.
Tolliver. And she was young too. At that moment she might have been
taken for a woman in her early twenties.
After a time she raised her head. “But I am happy,” she said, defiantly,
“completely happy.”
“I wish,” said Mrs. Tolliver with a frown, “that you wouldn’t say such
things. I can’t bear to hear you.”
And presently the talk turned once more to Irene. “She is interested in
this young fellow called Krylenko,” said Mrs. Tolliver. “And your mother
is willing to have her marry him, though I can’t see why. I would rather
see her die an old maid than be married to a foreigner.”
“He is clever, isn’t he?” asked Lily.
“I don’t know about that. He made all this trouble about the strike.
Everything would be peaceful still if he hadn’t stirred up trouble.
Maybe that’s being clever. I don’t know.”
“But he must be clever if he could do all that. He must be able to lead
the workers. I’m glad he did it, myself. The Harrison crowd has ruled
the roost long enough. It’ll do them good to have a jolt ... especially
when it touches their pocketbooks. I saw him once, myself. He looks like
a powerful fellow. I should say that some day you will hear great
things of him.”
Mrs. Tolliver sniffed scornfully. “Perhaps ... perhaps. If he is, it
will be because Irene made him great. All the same I can’t see her
marrying him ... a common immigrant ... a Russian!”
“You needn’t worry. She won’t. She could never marry him. To her he
isn’t a man at all. He’s a sort of idea ... a plaster saint!” And for
the first time in all her discussion of Irene a shade of hard scorn
colored her voice.