in the same room and there was no way of getting rid of each other’s
obnoxious presence, to find a common ground on which we could work
and talk. There had never been any real bitterness between us--just
jest, you know, but serious jest, a kind of silent sorrow for many fine
things gone. Yet still that had been enough to keep everything out
of order. Now from time to time each of us thought of restoring the
old life in some form, however weak it might be. Without some form of
humor the shop was a bore to the mate and the captain, anyhow. Finally
the captain sobering to his old state, and the routine work becoming
dreadfully monotonous, both mate and captain began to think of some way
in which they, at least, could agree.
“Remember the _Idlewild_, Henry?” asked the ex-captain one day
genially, long after time and fair weather had glossed over the
wretched memory of previous quarrels and dissensions.
“That I do, John,” I replied pleasantly.
“Great old boat she was, wasn’t she, Henry?”
“She was, John.”
“An’ the bos’n’s mate, he wasn’t such a bad old scout, was he, Henry,
even if he wouldn’t quit sweepin’ up the shavin’s?”
“He certainly wasn’t, John. He was a fine little fellow. Remember the
chains, John?”
“Haw! Haw!” echoed that worthy, and then, “Do you think the old
_Idlewild_ could ever be found where she’s lyin’ down there on the
bottom, mate?”
“Well, she might, Captain, only she’d hardly be the same old boat that
she was now that she’s been down there so long, would she--all these
dissensions and so on? Wouldn’t it be easier to build a new one--don’t
you think?”
“I don’t know but what you’re right, mate. What’d we call her if we
did?”
“Well, how about the _Harmony_, Captain? That sounds rather
appropriate, doesn’t it?”
“The _Harmony_, mate? You’re right--the _Harmony_. Shall we? Put ’er
there!”
“Put her there,” replied the mate with a will. “We’ll organize a new
crew right away, Captain--eh, don’t you think?”
“Right! Wait, we’ll call the bos’n an’ see what he says.”
Just then the bos’n appeared, smiling goodnaturedly.
“Well, what’s up?” he inquired, noting our unusually cheerful faces, I
presume. “You ain’t made it up, have you, you two?” he exclaimed.
“That’s what we have, bos’n, an’ what’s more, we’re thinkin’ of raisin’
the old _Idlewild_ an’ re-namin’ her the _Harmony_, or, rather,
buildin’ a new one. What say?” It was the captain talking.
“Well, I’m mighty glad to hear it, only I don’t think you can have your
old bos’n’s mate any longer, boys. He’s gonna quit.”
“Gonna quit!” we both exclaimed at once, and sadly, and John added
seriously and looking really distressed, “What’s the trouble there?
Who’s been doin’ anything to him now?” We both felt guilty because of
our part in his pains.
“Well, Ike kind o’ feels that the shop’s been rubbin’ it into him of
late for some reason,” observed the bos’n heavily. “I don’t know why.
He thinks you two have been tryin’ to freeze him out, I guess. Says he
can’t do anything any more, that everybody makes fun of him and shuts
him out.”
We stared at each other in wise illumination, the new captain and the
new mate. After all, we were plainly the cause of poor little Ike’s
depression, and we were the ones who could restore him to favor if
we chose. It was the captain’s cabin he sighed for--his old pleasant
prerogatives.
“Oh, we can’t lose Ike, Captain,” I said. “What good would the
_Harmony_ be without him? We surely can’t let anything like that
happen, can we? Not now, anyhow.”
“You’re right, mate,” he replied. “There never was a better bos’n’s
mate, never. The _Harmony’s_ got to have ’im. Let’s talk reason to him,
if we can.”
In company then we three went to him, this time not to torment or
chastise, but to coax and plead with him not to forsake the shop,
or the ship, now that everything was going to be as before--only
better--and----
Well, we did.
MARRIED
In connection with their social adjustment, one to the other, during
the few months they had been together, there had occurred a number
of things which made clearer to Duer and Marjorie the problematic
relationship which existed between them, though it must be confessed
it was clearer chiefly to him. The one thing which had been troubling
Duer was not whether he would fit agreeably into her social dreams--he
knew he would, so great was her love for him--but whether she would fit
herself into his. Of all his former friends, he could think of only
a few who would be interested in Marjorie, or she in them. She cared
nothing for the studio life, except as it concerned him, and he knew no
other.
Because of his volatile, enthusiastic temperament, it was easy to see,
now that she was with him constantly, that he could easily be led into
one relationship and another which concerned her not at all. He was for
running here, there, and everywhere, just as he had before marriage,
and it was very hard for him to see that Marjorie should always be with
him. As a matter of fact, it occurred to him as strange that she should
want to be. She would not be interested in all the people he knew,
he thought. Now that he was living with her and observing her more
closely, he was quite sure that most of the people he had known in the
past, even in an indifferent way, would not appeal to her at all.
Take Cassandra Draper, for instance, or Neva Badger, or Edna
Bainbridge, with her budding theatrical talent, or Cornelia Skiff, or
Volida Blackstone--any of these women of the musical art-studio world
with their radical ideas, their indifference to appearances, their
semisecret immorality. And yet any of these women would be glad to see
him socially, unaccompanied by his wife, and he would be glad to see
them. He liked them. Most of them had not seen Marjorie, but, if they
had, he fancied that they would feel about her much as he did--that
is, that she did not like them, really did not fit with their world.
She could not understand their point of view, he saw that. She was for
one life, one love. All this excitement about entertainment, their
gathering in this studio and that, this meeting of radicals and models
and budding theatrical stars which she had heard him and others talking
about--she suspected of it no good results. It was too feverish,
too far removed from the commonplace of living to which she had been
accustomed. She had been raised on a farm where, if she was not
actually a farmer’s daughter, she had witnessed what a real struggle
for existence meant.
Out in Iowa, in the neighborhood of Avondale, there were no artists,
no models, no budding actresses, no incipient playwrights, such as
Marjorie found here about her. There, people worked, and worked hard.
Her father was engaged at this minute in breaking the soil of his
fields for the spring planting--an old man with a white beard, an
honest, kindly eye, a broad, kindly charity, a sense of duty. Her
mother was bending daily over a cook-stove, preparing meals, washing
dishes, sewing clothes, mending socks, doing the thousand and one
chores which fall to the lot of every good housewife and mother. Her
sister Cecily, for all her gaiety and beauty, was helping her mother,
teaching school, going to church, and taking the commonplace facts of
mid-Western life in a simple, good-natured unambitious way. And there
was none of that toplofty sense of superiority which marked the manner
of these Eastern upstarts.
Duer had suggested that they give a tea, and decided that they should
invite Charlotte Russell and Mildred Ayres, who were both still
conventionally moral in their liberalism; Francis Hatton, a young
sculptor, and Miss Ollie Stearns, the latter because she had a charming
contralto voice and could help them entertain. Marjorie was willing to
invite both Miss Russell and Miss Ayres, not because she really wanted
to know either of them but because she did not wish to appear arbitrary
and especially contrary. In her estimation, Duer liked these people too
much. They were friends of too long standing. She reluctantly wrote
them to come, and because they liked Duer and because they wished to
see the kind of wife he had, they came.
There was no real friendship to be established between Marjorie and
Miss Ayres, however, for their outlook on life was radically different,
though Miss Ayres was as conservative as Marjorie in her attitude, and
as set in her convictions. But the latter had decided, partly because
Duer had neglected her, partly because Marjorie was the victor in this
contest, that he had made a mistake; she was convinced that Marjorie
had not sufficient artistic apprehension, sufficient breadth of
outlook, to make a good wife for him. She was charming enough to look
at, of course, she had discovered that in her first visit; but there
was really not enough in her socially, she was not sufficiently trained
in the ways of the world, not sufficiently wise and interesting to
make him an ideal companion. In addition she insisted on thinking this
vigorously and, smile as she might and be as gracious as she might, it
showed in her manner. Marjorie noticed it. Duer did, too. He did not
dare intimate to either what he thought, but he felt that there would
be no peace. It worried him, for he liked Mildred very much; but, alas!
Marjorie had no good to say of her.
As for Charlotte Russell, he was grateful to her for the pleasant
manner in which she steered between Scylla and Charybdis. She saw at
once what Marjorie’s trouble was, and did her best to allay suspicions
by treating Duer formally in her presence. It was “Mr. Wilde” here and
“Mr. Wilde” there, with most of her remarks addressed to Marjorie; but
she did not find it easy sailing, after all. Marjorie was suspicious.
There was none of the old freedom any more which had existed between
Charlotte and Duer. He saw, by Marjorie’s manner, the moment he became
the least exuberant and free that it would not do. That evening he
said, forgetting himself:
“Hey, Charlotte, you skate! Come over here. I want to show you
something.”
He forgot all about it afterward, but Marjorie reminded him.
“Honey,” she began, when she was in his arms before the fire, and he
was least expecting it, “what makes you be so free with people when
they call here? You’re not the kind of man that can really afford to
be free with any one. Don’t you know you can’t? You’re too big; you’re
too great. You just belittle yourself when you do it, and it makes them
think that they are your equal when they are not.”
“Who has been acting free now?” he asked sourly, on the instant,
and yet with a certain make-believe of manner, dreading the storm
of feeling, the atmosphere of censure and control which this remark
forboded.
“Why, you have!” she persisted correctively, and yet apparently mildly
and innocently. “You always do. You don’t exercise enough dignity,
dearie. It isn’t that you haven’t it naturally--you just don’t exercise
it. I know how it is; you forget.”
Duer stirred with opposition at this, for she was striking him on
his tenderest spot--his pride. It was true that he did lack dignity
at times. He knew it. Because of his affection for the beautiful
or interesting things--women, men, dramatic situations, songs,
anything--he sometimes became very gay and free, talking loudly,
using slang expressions, laughing boisterously. It was a failing with
him, he knew. He carried it to excess at times. His friends, his most
intimate ones in the musical profession had noted it before this. In
his own heart he regretted these things afterward, but he couldn’t help
them, apparently. He liked excitement, freedom, gaiety--naturalness,
as he called it--it helped him in his musical work, but it hurt him
tremendously if he thought that any one else noticed it as out of the
ordinary. He was exceedingly sensitive, and this developing line of
criticism of Marjorie’s was something new to him. He had never noticed
anything of that in her before marriage.
Up to the time of the ceremony, and for a little while afterward, it
had appeared to him as if he were lord and master. She had always
seemed so dependent on him, so anxious that he should take her. Why,
her very life had been in his hands, as it were, or so he had thought!
And now--he tried to think back over the evening and see what it was he
had done or said, but he couldn’t remember anything. Everything seemed
innocent enough. He couldn’t recall a single thing, and yet----
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied sourly,
withdrawing into himself. “I haven’t noticed that I lack dignity so
much. I have a right to be cheerful, haven’t I? You seem to be finding
a lot that’s wrong with me.”
“Now please don’t get angry, Duer,” she persisted, anxious to apply the
corrective measure of her criticism, but willing, at the same time, to
use the quickness of his sympathy for her obvious weakness and apparent
helplessness to shield herself from him. “I can’t ever tell you
anything if you’re going to be angry. You don’t lack dignity generally,
honey-bun! You only forget at times. Don’t you know how it is?”
She was cuddling up to him, her voice quavering, her hand stroking his
cheek, in a curious effort to combine affection and punishment at the
same time. Duer felt nothing but wrath, resentment, discouragement,
failure.
“No, I don’t,” he replied crossly. “What did I do? I don’t recall doing
anything that was so very much out of the way.”
“It wasn’t that it was so very much, honey; it was just the way you did
it. You forget, I know. But it doesn’t look right. It belittles you.”
“What did I do?” he insisted impatiently.
“Why, it wasn’t anything so very much. It was just when you had the
pictures of those new sculptures which Mr. Hatton lent you, and
you were showing them to Miss Russell. Don’t you remember what you
said--how you called her over to you?”
“No,” he answered, having by now completely forgotten. He was thinking
that accidentally he might have slipped his arm about Charlotte, or
that he might have said something out of the way jestingly about the
pictures; but Marjorie could not have heard. He was so careful these
days, anyway.
“Why, you said: ‘Hey, Charlotte, you skate! Come over here.’ Now, what
a thing to say to a girl! Don’t you see how ugly it sounds, how vulgar?
She can’t enjoy that sort of remark, particularly in my presence, do
you think? She must know that I can’t like it, that I’d rather you
wouldn’t talk that way, particularly here. And if she were the right
sort of girl she wouldn’t want you to talk to her at all that way.
Don’t you know she wouldn’t? She couldn’t. Now, really, no good woman
would, would she?”
Duer flushed angrily. Good heaven! Were such innocent, simple things
as this to be made the subject of comment and criticism! Was his
life, because of his sudden, infatuated marriage, to be pulled down
to a level he had never previously even contemplated? Why--why--This
catechising, so new to his life, so different to anything he had ever
endured in his youth or since, was certain to irritate him greatly, to
be a constant thorn in his flesh. It cut him to the core. He got up,
putting Marjorie away from him, for they were sitting in a big chair
before the fire, and walked to the window.
“I don’t see that at all,” he said stubbornly. “I don’t see anything in
that remark to raise a row about. Why, for goodness’ sake! I have known
Charlotte Russell--for years and years, it seems, although it has only
been a little while at that. She’s like a sister to me. I like her. She
doesn’t mind what I say. I’d stake my life she never thought anything
about it. No one would who likes me as well as she does. Why do you
pitch on that to make a fuss about, for heaven’s sake?”
“Please don’t swear, Duer,” exclaimed Marjorie anxiously, using this
expression for criticising him further. “It isn’t nice in you, and
it doesn’t sound right toward me. I’m your wife. It doesn’t make any
difference how long you’ve known her; I don’t think it’s nice to talk
to her in that way, particularly in my presence. You say you’ve known
her so well and you like her so much. Very well. But don’t you think
you ought to consider me a little, now that I’m your wife? Don’t you
think that you oughtn’t to want to do anything like that any more, even
if you have known her so well--don’t you think? You’re married now, and
it doesn’t look right to others, whatever you think of me. It can’t
look right to her, if she’s as nice as you say she is.”
Duer listened to this semipleading, semichastising harangue with
disturbed, opposed, and irritated ears. Certainly, there was some truth
in what she said; but wasn’t it an awfully small thing to raise a row
about? Why should she quarrel with him for that? Couldn’t he ever be
lightsome in his form of address any more? It was true that it did
sound a little rough, now that he thought of it. Perhaps it wasn’t
exactly the thing to say in her presence, but Charlotte didn’t mind.
They had known each other much too long. She hadn’t noticed it one way
or the other; and here was Marjorie charging him with being vulgar and
inconsiderate, and Charlotte with being not the right sort of girl, and
practically vulgar, also, on account of it. It was too much. It was too
narrow, too conventional. He wasn’t going to tolerate anything like
that permanently.
He was about to say something mean in reply, make some cutting
commentary, when Marjorie came over to him. She saw that she had lashed
him and Charlotte and his generally easy attitude pretty thoroughly,
and that he was becoming angry. Perhaps, because of his sensitiveness,
he would avoid this sort of thing in the future. Anyhow, now that
she had lived with him four months, she was beginning to understand
him better, to see the quality of his moods, the strength of his
passions, the nature of his weaknesses, how quickly he responded to the
blandishments of pretended sorrow, joy, affection, or distress. She
thought she could reform him at her leisure. She saw that he looked
upon her in his superior way as a little girl--largely because of the
size of her body. He seemed to think that, because she was little, she
must be weak, whereas she knew that she had the use and the advantage
of a wisdom, a tactfulness and a subtlety of which he did not even
dream. Compared to her, he was not nearly as wise as he thought, at
least in matters relating to the affections. Hence, any appeal to his
sympathies, his strength, almost invariably produced a reaction from
any antagonistic mood in which she might have placed him. She saw him
now as a mother might see a great, overgrown, sulking boy, needing only
to be coaxed to be brought out of a very unsatisfactory condition, and
she decided to bring him out of it. For a short period in her life she
had taught children in school, and knew the incipient moods of the race
very well.
“Now, Duer,” she coaxed, “you’re not really going to be angry with
me, are you? You’re not going to be ‘mad to me’?” (imitating childish
language).
“Oh, don’t bother, Marjorie,” he replied distantly. “It’s all right.
No; I’m not angry. Only let’s not talk about it any more.”
“You are angry, though, Duer,” she wheedled, slipping her arm around
him. “Please don’t be mad to me. I’m sorry now. I talk too much. I get
mad. I know I oughtn’t. Please don’t be mad at me, honey-bun. I’ll get
over this after a while. I’ll do better. Please, I will. Please don’t
be mad, will you?”
He could not stand this coaxing very long. Just as she thought, he did
look upon her as a child, and this pathetic baby-talk was irresistible.
He smiled grimly after a while. She was so little. He ought to endure
her idiosyncrasies of temperament. Besides, he had never treated her
right. He had not been faithful to his engagement-vows. If she only
knew how bad he really was!
Marjorie slipped her arm through his and stood leaning against him. She
loved this tall, slender distinguished-looking youth, and she wanted
to take care of him. She thought that she was doing this now, when she
called attention to his faults. Some day, by her persistent efforts
maybe, he would overcome these silly, disagreeable, offensive traits.
He would overcome being undignified; he would see that he needed to
show her more consideration than he now seemed to think he did. He
would learn that he was married. He would become a quiet, reserved,
forceful man, weary of the silly women who were buzzing round him
solely because he was a musician and talented and good-looking, and
then he would be truly great. She knew what they wanted, these nasty
women--they would like to have him for themselves. Well, they wouldn’t
get him. And they needn’t think they would. She had him. He had married
her. And she was going to keep him. They could just buzz all they
pleased, but they wouldn’t get him. So there!
There had been other spats following this--one relating to Duer
not having told his friends of his marriage for some little time
afterward, an oversight which in his easy going bohemian brain augured
no deep planted seed of disloyalty, but just a careless, indifferent
way of doing things, whereas in hers it flowered as one of the most
unpardonable things imaginable! Imagine any one in the Middle West
doing anything like that--any one with a sound, sane conception of the
responsibilities and duties of marriage, its inviolable character! For
Marjorie, having come to this estate by means of a hardly won victory,
was anxious lest any germ of inattentiveness, lack of consideration,
alien interest, or affection flourish and become a raging disease
which would imperil or destroy the conditions on which her happiness
was based. After every encounter with Miss Ayres, for instance, whom
she suspected of being one of his former flames, a girl who might
have become his wife, there were fresh charges to be made. She didn’t
invite Marjorie to sit down sufficiently quickly when she called at her
studio, was one complaint; she didn’t offer her a cup of tea at the
hour she called another afternoon, though it was quite time for it. She
didn’t invite her to sing or play on another occasion, though there
were others there who were invited.
“I gave her one good shot, though,” said Marjorie, one day, to Duer,
in narrating her troubles. “She’s always talking about her artistic
friends. I as good as asked her why she didn’t marry, if she is so much
sought after.”
Duer did not understand the mental sword-thrusts involved in these
feminine bickerings. He was likely to be deceived by the airy geniality
which sometimes accompanied the bitterest feeling. He could stand
by listening to a conversation between Marjorie and Miss Ayres, or
Marjorie and any one else whom she did not like, and miss all the
subtle stabs and cutting insinuations which were exchanged, and of
which Marjorie was so thoroughly capable. He did not blame her for
fighting for herself if she thought she was being injured, but he did
object to her creating fresh occasions, and this, he saw, she was quite
capable of doing. She was constantly looking for new opportunities
to fight with Mildred Ayres and Miss Russell or any one else whom
she thought he truly liked, whereas with those in whom he could not
possibly be interested she was genial (and even affectionate) enough.
But Duer also thought that Mildred might be better engaged than in
creating fresh difficulties. Truly, he had thought better of her. It
seemed a sad commentary on the nature of friendship between men and
women, and he was sorry.
But, nevertheless, Marjorie found a few people whom she felt to be of
her own kind. M. Bland, who had sponsored Duer’s first piano recital
a few months before, invited Duer and Marjorie to a--for them--quite
sumptuous dinner at the Plaza, where they met Sydney Borg, the
musical critic of an evening paper; Melville Ogden Morris, curator
of the Museum of Fine Arts, and his wife; Joseph Newcorn, one of the
wealthy sponsors of the opera and its geniuses, and Mrs. Newcorn.
Neither Duer nor Marjorie had ever seen a private dining-room set
in so scintillating a manner. It fairly glittered with Sèvres and
Venetian tinted glass. The wine-goblets were seven in number, set in an
ascending row. The order of food was complete from Russian caviare to
dessert, black coffee, nuts, liqueurs, and cigars.