musicians and singers, European painters and sculptors, discoveries
of ancient pottery in the isles of the Ægean, to the manufacture of
fine glass on Long Island, the character of certain collectors and
collections of paintings in America, and the present state of the
Fine Arts Museum. Duer listened eagerly, for, as yet, he was a little
uncertain of himself, his position in the art world. He did not quite
know how to take these fine and able personages who seemed so powerful
in the world’s affairs. Joseph Newcorn, as M. Bland calmly indicated
to him, must be worth in the neighborhood of fifteen million dollars.
He thought nothing, so he said, of paying ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty
thousand dollars for a picture if it appealed to him. Mr. Morris was
a graduate of Harvard, formerly curator of a Western museum, the
leader of one of the excavating expeditions to Melos in the Grecian
Archipelago. Sydney Borg was a student of musical history, who appeared
to have a wide knowledge of art tendencies here and abroad, but who,
nevertheless, wrote musical criticisms for a living. He was a little
man of Norse extraction on his father’s side, but, as he laughingly
admitted, born and raised in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. He liked Duer
for his simple acknowledgment of the fact that he came from a small
town in the Middle West, and a drug business out in Illinois.
“It’s curious how our nation brings able men from the ranks,” he said
to Duer. “It’s one of the great, joyous, hopeful facts about this
country.”
“Yes,” said Duer; “that’s why I like it so much.”
Duer thought, as he dined here, how strange America was, with its
mixture of races, its unexpected sources of talent, its tremendous
wealth and confidence. His own beginning, so very humble at first,
so very promising now--one of the most talked of pianists of his
day--was in its way an illustration of its resources in so far as
talent was concerned. Mr. Newcorn, who had once been a tailor, so he
was told, and his wife was another case in point. They were such solid,
unemotional, practical-looking people, and yet he could see that this
solid looking man whom some musicians might possibly have sneered at
for his self-complacency and curiously accented English, was as wise
and sane and keen and kindly as any one present, perhaps more so, and
as wise in matters musical. The only difference between him and the
average American was that he was exceptionally practical and not given
to nervous enthusiasm. Marjorie liked him, too.
It was at this particular dinner that the thought occurred to Marjorie
that the real merit of the art and musical world was not so much in
the noisy studio palaver which she heard at so many places frequented
by Duer, in times past at least--Charlotte Russell’s, Mildred Ayres’s
and elsewhere--but in the solid commercial achievements of such men
as Joseph Newcorn, Georges Bland, Melville Ogden Morris, and Sydney
Borg. She liked the laconic “Yes, yes,” of Mr. Newcorn, when anything
was said that suited him particularly well, and his “I haf seen dat
bardicular berformance” with which he interrupted several times when
Grand Opera and its stars were up for consideration. She was thinking
if only a man like that would take an interest in Duer, how much better
it would be for him than all the enthusiasm of these silly noisy studio
personalities. She was glad to see also that, intellectually, Duer
could hold his own with any and all of these people. He was as much at
ease here with Mr. Morris, talking about Greek excavations, as he was
with Mr. Borg, discussing American musical conditions. She could not
make out much what it was all about, but, of course, it must be very
important if these men discussed it. Duer was not sure as yet whether
any one knew much more about life than he did. He suspected not, but it
might be that some of these eminent curators, art critics, bankers,
and managers like M. Bland, had a much wider insight into practical
affairs. Practical affairs--he thought. If he only knew something about
money! Somehow, though, his mind could not grasp how money was made. It
seemed so easy for some people, but for him a grim, dark mystery.
After this dinner it was that Marjorie began to feel that Duer ought
to be especially careful with whom he associated. She had talked with
Mrs. Newcorn and Mrs. Morris, and found them simple, natural people
like herself. They were not puffed up with vanity and self-esteem, as
were those other men and women to whom Duer had thus far introduced
her. As compared to Charlotte Russell and Mildred Ayres or her own
mother and sisters and her Western friends, they were more like the
latter. Mrs. Newcorn, wealthy as she was, spoke of her two sons and
three daughters as any good-natured, solicitous mother would. One of
her sons was at Harvard, the other at Yale. She asked Marjorie to
come and see her some time, and gave her her address. Mrs. Morris was
more cultured apparently, more given to books and art; but even she
was interested in what, to Marjorie, were the more important or, at
least, more necessary things, the things on which all art and culture
primarily based themselves--the commonplace and necessary details of
the home. Cooking, housekeeping, shopping, sewing, were not beneath
her consideration, as indeed they were not below Mrs. Newcorn’s. The
former spoke of having to go and look for a new spring bonnet in the
morning, and how difficult it was to find the time. Once when the men
were getting especially excited about European and American artistic
standards, Marjorie asked:
“Are you very much interested in art, Mrs. Morris?”
“Not so very much, to tell you the truth, Mrs. Wilde. Oh, I like some
pictures, and I hear most of the important recitals each season, but,
as I often tell my husband, when you have one baby two years old and
another of five and another of seven, it takes considerable time to
attend to the art of raising them. I let him do the art for the family,
and I take care of the home.”
This was sincere consolation for Marjorie. Up to this time she appeared
to be in danger of being swamped by this artistic storm which she had
encountered. Her arts of cooking, sewing, housekeeping, appeared as
nothing in this vast palaver about music, painting, sculpture, books
and the like. She knew nothing, as she had most painfully discovered
recently, of Strauss, Dvorák, Debussy, almost as little of Cézanne,
Gauguin, Matisse, Van Gogh, Rodin, Ibsen, Shaw and Maeterlinck, with
whom the studios were apparently greatly concerned. And when people
talked of singers, musicians, artists, sculptors, and playwrights,
often she was compelled to keep silent, whereas Duer could stand with
his elbow on some mantel or piano and discuss by the half hour or hour
individuals of whom she had never heard--Verlaine, Tchaikowsky,
Tolstoy, Turgenieff, Tagore, Dostoyevsky, Whistler, Velasquez--anybody
and everybody who appeared to interest the studio element. It was
positively frightening.
A phase of this truth was that because of his desire to talk,
his pleasure in meeting people, his joy in hearing of new things,
his sense of the dramatic, Duer could catch quickly and retain
vigorously anything which related to social, artistic, or intellectual
development. He had no idea of what a full-orbed, radiant, receptive
thing his mind was. He only knew that life, things, intellect--anything
and everything--gave him joy when he was privileged to look into them,
whereas Marjorie was not so keenly minded artistically, and he gave
as freely as he received. In this whirl of discussion, this lofty
transcendentalism, Marjorie was all but lost; but she clung tenaciously
to the hope that, somehow, affection, regard for the material needs of
her husband, the care of his clothes, the preparation of his meals,
the serving of him quite as would a faithful slave, would bind him
to her. At once and quickly, she hated and feared these artistically
arrayed, artistically minded, vampirish-looking maidens and women
who appeared from this quarter and that to talk to Duer, all of whom
apparently had known him quite well in the past--since he had come to
New York. When she would see him standing or leaning somewhere, intent
on the rendering of a song, the narration of some dramatic incident,
the description of some book or picture, or personage, by this or that
delicately chiseled Lorelei of the art or music or dramatic world, her
heart contracted ominously and a nameless dread seized her. Somehow,
these creatures, however intent they might be on their work, or however
indifferent actually to the artistic charms of her husband, seemed to
be intent on taking him from her. She saw how easily and naturally
he smiled, how very much at home he seemed to be in their company,
how surely he gravitated to the type of girl who was beautifully
and artistically dressed, who had ravishing eyes, fascinating hair,
a sylphlike figure, and vivacity of manner--or how naturally they
gravitated to him. In the rush of conversation and the exchange of
greetings he was apt to forget her, to stroll about by himself engaging
in conversation first with one and then another, while she stood or sat
somewhere gazing nervously or regretfully on, unable to hold her own in
the cross-fire of conversation, unable to retain the interest of most
of the selfish, lovesick, sensation-seeking girls and men.
They always began talking about the opera, or the play, or the latest
sensation in society, or some new singer or dancer or poet, and
Marjorie, being new to this atmosphere and knowing so little of it,
was compelled to confess that she did not know. It chagrined, dazed,
and frightened her for a time. She longed to be able to grasp quickly
and learn what this was all about. She wondered where she had been
living--how--to have missed all this. Why, goodness gracious, these
things were enough to wreck her married life! Duer would think so
poorly of her--how could he help it? She watched these girls and women
talking to him, and by turns, while imitating them as best she could,
became envious, fearful, regretful, angry; charging, first, herself
with unfitness; next, Duer with neglect; next, these people with
insincerity, immorality, vanity; and lastly, the whole world and life
with a conspiracy to cheat her out of what was rightfully her own. Why
wouldn’t these people be nice to her? Why didn’t they give of their
time and patience to make her comfortable and at home--as freely, say,
as they did to him? Wasn’t she his wife, now? Why did Duer neglect
her? Why did they hang on his words in their eager, seductive, alluring
way? She hated them and, at moments, she hated him, only to be struck
by a terrifying wave of remorse and fear a moment later. What if he
should grow tired of her? What if his love should change? He had seemed
so enamored of her only a little while before they were married,
so taken by what he called her naturalness, grace, simplicity and
emotional pull.
On one of these occasions, or rather after it, when they had returned
from an evening at Francis Hatton’s at which she felt that she had
been neglected, she threw herself disconsolately into Duer’s arms and
exclaimed:
“What’s the matter with me, Duer? Why am I so dull--so
uninteresting--so worthless?”
The sound of her voice was pathetic, helpless, vibrant with the quality
of an unuttered sob, a quality which had appealed to him intensely long
before they were married, and now he stirred nervously.
“Why, what’s the matter with you now, Margie?” he asked
sympathetically, sure that a new storm of some sort was coming. “What’s
come over you? There’s nothing the matter with you. Why do you ask?
Who’s been saying there is?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing--nobody! Everybody! Everything!” exclaimed
Marjorie dramatically, and bursting into tears. “I see how it is. I see
what is the matter with me. Oh! Oh! It’s because I don’t know anything,
I suppose. It’s because I’m not fit to associate with you. It’s because
I haven’t had the training that some people have had. It’s because I’m
dull! Oh! Oh!” and a torrent of heart-breaking sobs which shook her
frame from head to toe followed the outburst and declamation.
Duer, always moved by her innate emotional force and charm, whatever
other lack he had reason to bewail, gazed before him in startled
sympathy, astonishment, pain, wonder, for he was seeing very clearly
and keenly in these echoing sounds what the trouble was. She was
feeling neglected, outclassed, unconsidered, helpless; and because it
was more or less true it was frightening and wounding her. She was,
for the first time no doubt, beginning to feel the tragedy of life,
its uncertainty, its pathos and injury, as he so often had. Hitherto
her home, her relatives and friends had more or less protected her
from that, for she had come from a happy home, but now she was out and
away from all that and had only him. Of course she had been neglected.
He remembered that now. It was partly his fault, partly the fault of
surrounding conditions. But what could he do about it? What say? People
had conditions fixed for them in this world by their own ability.
Perhaps he should not have married her at all, but how should he
comfort her in this crisis? How say something that would ease her soul?
“Why, Margie,” he said seriously, “you know that’s not true! You know
you’re not dull. Your manners and your taste and your style are as good
as those of anybody. Who has hinted that they aren’t? What has come
over you? Who has been saying anything to you? Have I done anything?
If so, I’m sorry!” He had a guilty consciousness of misrepresenting
himself and his point of view even while saying this, but kindness,
generosity, affection, her legal right to his affection, as he now
thought, demanded it.
“No! No!” she exclaimed brokenly and without ceasing her tears. “It
isn’t you. It isn’t anybody. It’s me--just me! That’s what’s the matter
with me. I’m dull; I’m not stylish; I’m not attractive. I don’t know
anything about music or books or people or anything. I sit and listen,
but I don’t know what to say. People talk to you--they hang on your
words--but they haven’t anything to say to me. They can’t talk to me,
and I can’t talk to them. It’s because I don’t know anything--because
I haven’t anything to say! Oh dear! Oh dear!” and she beat her thin,
artistic little hands on the shoulders of his coat.
Duer could not endure this storm without an upwelling of pity for her.
He cuddled her close in his arms, extremely sad that she should be
compelled to suffer so. What should he do? What could he do? He could
see how it was. She was hurt; she was neglected. He neglected her when
among others. These smart women whom he knew and liked to talk with
neglected her. They couldn’t see in her what he could. Wasn’t life
pathetic? They didn’t know how sweet she was, how faithful, how glad
she was to work for him. That really didn’t make any difference in
the art world, he knew, but still it almost seemed as if it ought to.
There one must be clever, he knew that--everybody knew it. And Marjorie
was not clever--at least, not in their way. She couldn’t play or sing
or paint or talk brilliantly, as they could. She did not really know
what the world of music, art, and literature was doing. She was only
good, faithful, excellent as a housewife, a fine mender of clothes, a
careful buyer, saving, considerate, dependable, but----
As he thought of this and then of this upwelling depth of emotion of
hers, a thing quite moving to him always, he realized, or thought he
did, that no woman that he had ever known had anything quite like this.
He had known many women intimately. He had associated with Charlotte
and Mildred and Neva Badger and Volida Blackstone, and quite a number
of interesting, attractive young women whom he had met here and there
since, but outside of the stage--that art of Sarah Bernhardt and
Clara Morris and some of the more talented English actresses of these
later days--he persuaded himself that he had never seen any one quite
like Marjorie. This powerful upwelling of emotion which she was now
exhibiting and which was so distinctive of her, was not to be found
elsewhere, he thought. He had felt it keenly the first days he had
visited her at her father’s home in Avondale. Oh, those days with her
in Avondale! How wonderful they were! Those delicious nights! Flowers,
moonlight, odors, came back--the green fields, the open sky. Yes; she
was powerful emotionally. She was compounded of many and all of these
things.
It was true she knew nothing of art, nothing of music--the great, new
music--nothing of books in the eclectic sense, but she had real, sweet,
deep, sad, stirring emotion, the most appealing thing he knew. It might
not be as great as that exhibited by some of the masters of the stage,
or the great composers--he was not quite sure, so critical is life--but
nevertheless it was effective, dramatic, powerful. Where did she get
it? No really common soul could have it. Here must be something of the
loneliness of the prairies, the sad patience of the rocks and fields,
the lonesomeness of the hush of the countryside at night, the aimless,
monotonous, pathetic chirping of the crickets. Her father following
down a furrow in the twilight behind straining, toil-worn horses; her
brothers binding wheat in the July sun; the sadness of furrow scents
and field fragrances in the twilight--there was something of all these
things in her sobs.
It appealed to him, as it might well have to any artist. In his way
Duer understood this, felt it keenly.
“Why, Margie,” he insisted, “you mustn’t talk like that! You’re better
than you say you are. You say you don’t know anything about books or
art or music. Why, that isn’t all. There are things, many things, which
are deeper than those things. Emotion is a great thing in itself,
dearest, if you only knew. You have that. Sarah Bernhardt had it;
Clara Morris had it, but who else? In ‘La Dame aux Camelias,’ ‘Sapho,’
‘Carmen,’ ‘Mademoiselle de Maupin,’ it is written about, but it is
never commonplace. It’s great. I’d rather have your deep upwelling of
emotion than all those cheap pictures, songs, and talk put together.
For, sweet, don’t you know”--and he cuddled her more closely--“great
art is based on great emotion. There is really no great art without it.
I know that best of all, being a musician. You may not have the power
to express yourself in music or books or pictures--you play charmingly
enough for me--but you have the thing on which these things are based;
you have the power to feel them. Don’t worry over yourself, dear. I see
that, and I know what you are, whether any one else does or not. Don’t
worry over me. I have to be nice to these people. I like them in their
way, but I love you. I married you--isn’t that proof enough? What more
do you want? Don’t you understand, little Margie? Don’t you see? Now
aren’t you going to cheer up and be happy? You have me. Ain’t I enough,
sweetie? Can’t you be happy with just me? What more do you want? Just
tell me.”
“Nothing more, honey-bun!” she went on sobbing and cuddling close;
“nothing more, if I can have you. Just you! That’s all I want--you,
you, you!”
She hugged him tight. Duer sighed secretly. He really did not believe
all he said, but what of it? What else could he do, say, he asked
himself? He was married to her. In his way, he loved her--or at least
sympathized with her intensely.
“And am I emotionally great?” she cuddled and cooed, after she had held
him tight for a few moments. “Doesn’t it make any difference whether I
know anything much about music or books or art? I do know something,
don’t I, honey? I’m not wholly ignorant, am I?”
“No, no, sweetie; how you talk!”
“And will you always love me whether I know anything or not,
honey-bun?” she went on. “And won’t it make any difference whether I
can just cook and sew and do the marketing and keep house for you? And
will you like me because I’m just pretty and not smart? I am a little
pretty, ain’t I, dear?”
“You’re lovely,” whispered Duer soothingly. “You’re beautiful. Listen
to me, sweet. I want to tell you something. Stop crying now, and dry
your eyes, and I’ll tell you something nice. Do you remember how we
stood, one night, at the end of your father’s field there near the
barn-gate and saw him coming down the path, singing to himself,
driving that team of big gray horses, his big straw hat on the back of
his head and his sleeves rolled up above his elbows?”
“Yes,” said Marjorie.
“Do you remember how the air smelled of roses and honeysuckle and cut
hay--and oh, all those lovely scents of evening that we have out there
in the country?”
“Yes,” replied Marjorie interestedly.
“And do you remember how lovely I said the cow-bells sounded tinkling
in the pasture where the little river ran?”
“Yes.”
“And the fireflies beginning to flash in the trees?”
“Yes.”
“And that sad, deep red in the West, where the sun had gone down?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Marjorie, crushing her cheek to his neck.
“Now listen to me, honey: That water running over the bright stones in
that little river; the grass spreading out, soft and green, over the
slope; the cow-bells tinkling; the smoke curling up from your mother’s
chimney; your father looking like a patriarch out of Bible days coming
home--all the soft sounds, all the sweet odors, all the carolling of
birds--where do you suppose all that is now?”
“I don’t know,” replied Marjorie, anticipating something complimentary.
“It’s here,” he replied easily, drawing her close and petting her.
“It’s done up in one little body here in my arms. Your voice, your
hair, your eyes, your pretty body, your emotional moods--where do you
suppose they come from? Nature has a chemistry all her own. She’s like
a druggist sometimes, compounding things. She takes a little of the
beauty of the sunset, of the sky, of the fields, of the water, of the
flowers, of dreams and aspirations and simplicity and patience, and she
makes a girl. And some parents somewhere have her, and then they name
her ‘Marjorie’ and then they raise her nicely and innocently, and then
a bold, bad man like Duer comes along and takes her, and then she cries
because she thinks he doesn’t see anything in her. Now, isn’t that
funny?”
“O-oh!” exclaimed Marjorie, melted by the fire of his feeling for
beauty, the quaintness and sweetness of his diction, the subtlety of
his compliment, the manner in which he coaxed her patiently out of
herself.
“Oh, I love you, Duer dear! I love you, love you, love you! Oh, you’re
wonderful! You won’t ever stop loving me, will you, dearest? You’ll
always be true to me, won’t you, Duer? You’ll never leave me, will you?
I’ll always be your little Margie, won’t I? Oh, dear, I’m so happy!”
and she hugged him closer and closer.
“No, no,” and “Yes, yes,” assured Duer, as the occasion demanded, as
he stared patiently into the fire. This was not real passion to him,
not real love in any sense, or at least he did not feel that it was.
He was too skeptical of himself, his life and love, however much he
might sympathize with and be drawn to her. He was questioning himself
at this very time as to what it was that caused him to talk so. Was
it sympathy, love of beauty, power of poetic expression, delicacy of
sentiment?--certainly nothing more. Wasn’t it this that was already
causing him to be hailed as a great musician? He believed so. Could he
honestly say that he loved Marjorie? No, he was sure that he couldn’t,
now that he had her and realized her defects, as well as his own--his
own principally. No; he liked her, sympathized with her, felt sorry
for her. That ability of his to paint a picture in notes and musical
phrases, to extract the last ringing delicacy out of the keys of a
piano, was at the bottom of this last description. To Marjorie, for
the moment, it might seem real enough, but he--he was thinking of the
truth of the picture she had painted of herself. It was all so--every
word she said. She was not really suited to these people. She did not
understand them; she never would. He would always be soothing and
coaxing, and she would always be crying and worrying.
WHEN THE OLD CENTURY WAS NEW