No comment.
"You don't believe it?"
"Do you?" A pause. "Why ask these questions you've already answered
yourself?"
"I'll tell you why," replied she, her face suddenly flushed with
earnestness. "Because I want you to help me. You help everyone else.
Why not me?"
"You never asked me," said he.
"I didn't know I wanted it until just now--as I said it. But YOU must
have known, because you are so much more experienced than I--and
understand people--what's going on in their minds, deeper than they can
see." Her tone became indignant, reproachful. "Yes, you must have
known I needed your help. And you ought to have helped me, even if you
did dislike me. You've no right to dislike anyone as young as I."
He was looking at her now, the intensely alive blue eyes sympathetic,
penetrating, understanding. It was frightful to be so thoroughly
understood--all one's weaknesses laid bare--yet it was a relief and a
joy, too--like the cruel healing knife of the surgeon. Said he:
"I do not like kept women."
She gasped, grew ghastly. It was a frightful insult, one for which she
was wholly unprepared. "You--believe--that?" she said slowly.
"Another of those questions," he said. And he looked calmly away, out
over the sea, as if his interest in the conversation were at an end.
What should she say? How deny--how convince him? For convince him she
must, and then go away and never permit him to speak to her again until
he had apologized. She said quietly: "Mr. Keith, you have insulted
me."
"I do not like kept women, either with or without a license," said he
in the same even, indifferent way. "When you ceased to be a kept woman,
I would help you, if I could. But no one can help a kept woman."
There was nothing to do but to rise and go away. She rose and went
toward the house. At the veranda she paused. He had not moved. She
returned. He was still inspecting the horizon, the cigarette depending
from his lips--how DID he keep it alight? She said:
"Mr. Keith, I am sure you did not mean to insult me. What did you mean?"
"Another of those questions," said he.
"Honestly, I do not understand."
"Then think. And when you have thought, you will understand."
"But I have thought. I do not understand."
"Then it would be useless to explain," said he. "That is one of those
vital things which, if one cannot understand them for oneself, one is
hopeless--is beyond helping."
"You mean I am not in earnest about my career?"
"Another of those questions. If you had not seen clearly what I meant,
you would have been really offended. You'd have gone away and not come
back."
She saw that this was true. And, seeing, she wondered how she could
have been so stupid as not to have seen it at once. She had yet to
learn that overlooking the obvious is a universal human failing and
that seeing the obvious is the talent and the use of the superior of
earth--the few who dominate and determine the race.
"You reproach me for not having helped you," he went on. "How does it
happen that you are uneasy in mind--so uneasy that you are quarreling
at me?"
A light broke upon her. "You have been drawing me on, from the
beginning," she cried. "You have been helping me--making me see that I
needed help."
"No," said he. "I've been waiting to see whether you would rouse from
your dream of grandeur."
"YOU have been rousing me."
"No," he said. "You've roused yourself. So you may be worth helping
or, rather, worth encouraging, for no one can HELP you but yourself."
She looked at him pathetically. "But what shall I do?" she asked.
"I've got no money, no experience, no sense. I'm a vain, luxury-loving
fool, cursed with a--with a--is it a conscience?"
"I hope it's something more substantial. I hope it's common sense."
"But I have been working--honestly I have."
"Don't begin lying to yourself again."
"Don't be harsh with me."
He drew in his legs, in preparation for rising--no doubt to go away.
"I don't mean that," she cried testily. "You are not harsh with me.
It's the truth that's harsh--the truth I'm beginning to see--and feel.
I am afraid--afraid. I haven't the courage to face it."
"Why whine?" said he. "There's nothing in that."
"Do you think there's any hope for me?"
"That depends," said he.
"On what?"
"On what you want."
"I want to be a singer, a great singer."
"No, there's no hope."
She grew cold with despair. He had a way of saying a thing that gave
it the full weight of a verdict from which there was no appeal.
"Now, if you wanted to make a living," he went on, "and if you were
determined to learn to sing as well as you could, with the idea that
you might be able to make a living--why, then there might be hope."
"You think I can sing?"
"I never heard you. Can you?"
"They say I can."
"What do YOU say?"
"I don't know," she confessed. "I've never been able to judge.
Sometimes I think I'm singing well, and I find out afterward that I've
sung badly. Again, it's the other way."
"Then, obviously, what's the first thing to do?"
"To learn to judge myself," said she. "I never thought of it
before--how important that is. Do you know Jennings--Eugene Jennings?"
"The singing teacher? No."
"Is he a good teacher?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because he has not taught you that you will never sing until you are
your own teacher. Because he has not taught you that singing is a
small and minor part of a career as a singer."
"But it isn't," protested she.
A long silence. Looking at him, she felt that he had dismissed her and
her affairs from his mind.
"Is it?" she said, to bring him back.
"What?" asked he vaguely.
"You said that a singer didn't have to be able to sing."
"Did I?" He glanced down the shore toward the house. "It feels like
lunch-time." He rose.
"What did you mean by what you said?"
"When you have thought about your case a while longer, we'll talk of it
again--if you wish. But until you've thought, talking is a waste of
time."
She rose, stood staring out to sea. He was observing her, a faint
smile about his lips. He said:
"Why bother about a career? After all, kept woman is a thoroughly
respectable occupation--or can be made so by any preacher or justice of
the peace. It's followed by many of our best women--those who pride
themselves on their high characters--and on their pride."
"I could not belong to a man unless I cared for him," said she. "I
tried it once. I shall never do it again."
"That sounds fine," said he. "Let's go to lunch."
"You don't believe me?"
"Do you?"
She sank down upon the sand and burst into a wild passion of sobs and
tears. When her fight for self-control was over and she looked up to
apologize for her pitiful exhibition of weakness--and to note whether
she had made an impression upon his sympathies--she saw him just
entering the house, a quarter of a mile away. To anger succeeded a
mood of desperate forlornness. She fell upon herself with gloomy
ferocity. She could not sing. She had no brains. She was taking
money--a disgracefully large amount of money--from Stanley Baird under
false pretenses. How could she hope to sing when her voice could not
be relied upon? Was not her throat at that very moment slightly sore?
Was it not always going queer? She--sing! Absurd. Did Stanley Baird
suspect? Was he waiting for the time when she would gladly accept what
she must have from him, on his own terms? No, not on his terms, but on
the terms she herself would arrange--the only terms she could make. No,
Stanley believed in her absolutely--believed in her career. When he
discovered the truth, he would lose interest in her, would regard her
as a poor, worthless creature, would be eager to rid himself of her.
Instead of returning to the house, she went in the opposite direction,
made a circuit and buried herself in the woods beyond the Shrewsbury.
She was mad to get away from her own company; but the only company she
could fly to was more depressing than the solitude and the taunt and
sneer and lash of her own thoughts. It was late in the afternoon
before she nerved herself to go home. She hoped the others would have
gone off somewhere; but they were waiting for her, Stanley anxious and
Cyrilla Brindley irritated. Her eyes sought Keith. He was, as usual,
the indifferent spectator.
"Where have you been?" cried Stanley.
"Making up my mind," said she in the tone that forewarns of a storm.
A brief pause. She struggled in vain against an impulse to look at
Keith. When her eyes turned in his direction he, not looking at her,
moved in his listless way toward the door. Said he:
"The auto's waiting. Come on."
She vacillated, yielded, began to put on the wraps Stanley was
collecting for her. It was a big touring-car, and they sat two and
two, with the chauffeur alone. Keith was beside Mildred. When they
were under way, she said:
"Why did you stop me? Perhaps I'll never have the courage again."
"Courage for what?" asked he.
"To take your advice, and break off."
"MY advice?"
"Yes, your advice."
"You have to clutch at and cling to somebody, don't you? You can't
bear the idea of standing up by your own strength."
"You think I'm trying to fasten to you?" she said, with an angry laugh.
"I know it. You admitted it. You are not satisfied with the way
things are going. You have doubts about your career. You shrink from
your only comfortable alternative, if the career winks out. You ask me
my opinion about yourself and about careers. I give it. Now, I find
you asked only that you might have someone to lean on, to accuse of
having got you into a mess, if doing what you think you ought to do
turns out as badly as you fear."
It was the longest speech she had heard him make. She had no
inclination to dispute his analysis of her motives. "I did not realize
it," said she, "but that is probably so. But--remember how I was
brought up."
"There's only one thing for you to do."
"Go back to my husband? You know--about me--don't you?"
"Yes"
"I can't go back to him."
"No."
"Then--what?" she asked.
"Go on, as now," replied he.
"You despise me, don't you?"
"No."
"But you said you did."
"Dislike and despise are not at all the same."
"You admit that you dislike me," cried she triumphantly. He did not
answer.
"You think me a weak, clinging creature, not able to do anything but
make pretenses."
No answer.
"Don't you?" she persisted.
"Probably I have about the same opinion of you that you have of
yourself."
"What WILL become of me?" she said. Her face lighted up with an
expression of reckless beauty. "If I could only get started I'd go to
the devil, laughing and dancing--and taking a train with me."
"You ARE started," said he, with an amiable smile. "Keep on. But I
doubt if you'll be so well amused as you may imagine. Going to the
devil isn't as it's painted in novels by homely old maids and by men
too timid to go out of nights. A few steps farther, and your
disillusionment will begin. But there'll be no turning back. Already,
you are almost too old to make a career."
"I'm only twenty-four. I flattered myself I looked still younger."
"It's worse than I thought," said he. "Most of the singers, even the
second-rate ones, began at fifteen--began seriously. And you haven't
begun yet."
"That's unjust," she protested. "I've done a little. Many great people
would think it a great deal."
"You haven't begun yet," repeated he calmly. "You have spent a lot of
money, and have done a lot of dreaming and talking and listening to
compliments, and have taken a lot of lessons of an expensive charlatan.
But what have those things to do with a career?"
"You've never heard me sing."
"I do not care for singing."
"Oh!" said she in a tone of relief. "Then you know nothing about all
this."
"On the contrary, I know everything about a career. And we were talking
of careers, not of singing."
"You mean that my voice is worthless because I haven't the other
elements?"
"What else could I have meant?" said he. "You haven't the strength.
You haven't the health."
She laughed as she straightened herself. "Do I look weak and sickly?"
cried she.
"For the purposes of a career as a female you are strong and well,"
said he. "For the purpose of a career as a singer--" He smiled and
shook his head. "A singer must have muscles like wire ropes, like a
blacksmith or a washerwoman. The other day we were climbing a hill--a
not very steep hill. You stopped five times for breath, and twice you
sat down to rest."
She was literally hanging her head with shame. "I wasn't very well
that day," she murmured.
"Don't deceive yourself," said he. "Don't indulge in the fatal folly
of self-excuse."
"Go on," she said humbly. "I want to hear it all."
"Is your throat sore to-day?" pursued he.
She colored. "It's better," she murmured.
"A singer with sore throat!" mocked he. "You've had a slight fogginess
of the voice all summer."
"It's this sea air," she eagerly protested. "It affects everyone."
"No self-excuse, please," interrupted he. "Cigarettes, champagne, all
kinds of foolish food, an impaired digestion--that's the truth, and you
know it."
"I've got splendid digestion! I can eat anything!" she cried. "Oh,
you don't know the first thing about singing. You don't know about
temperament, about art, about all the things that singing really means."
"We were talking of careers," said he. "A career means a person who
can be relied upon to do what is demanded of him. A singer's career
means a powerful body, perfect health, a sound digestion. Without
them, the voice will not be reliable. What you need is not singing
teachers, but teachers of athletics and of hygiene. To hear you talk
about a career is like listening to a child. You think you can become
a professional singer by paying money to a teacher. There are lawyers
and doctors and business men in all lines who think that way about
their professions--that learning a little routine of technical
knowledge makes a lawyer or a doctor or a merchant or a financier."
"Tell me--WHAT ought I to learn?"
"Learn to think--and to persist. Learn to concentrate. Learn to make
sacrifices. Learn to handle yourself as a great painter handles his
brush and colors. Then perhaps you'll make a career as a singer. If
not, it'll be a career as something or other."
She was watching him with a wistful, puzzled expression. "Could I ever
do all that?"
"Anyone could, by working away at it every day. If you gain only one
inch a day, in a year you'll have gained three hundred and sixty-five
inches. And if you gain an inch a day for a while and hold it, you
soon begin to gain a foot a day. But there's no need to worry about
that." He was gazing at her now with an expression of animation that
showed how feverishly alive he was behind that mask of calmness. "The
day's work--that's the story of success. Do the day's work
persistently, thoroughly, intelligently. Never mind about to-morrow.
Thinking of it means dreaming or despairing--both futilities. Just the
day's work."
"I begin to understand," she said thoughtfully. "You are right. I've
done nothing. Oh, I've been a fool--more foolish even than I thought."
A long silence, then she said, somewhat embarrassed and in a low voice,
though there was no danger of those in front of them hearing:
"I want you to know that there has been nothing wrong--between Stanley
and me."
"Do you wish me to put that to your credit or to your discredit?"
inquired he.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, you've just told me that you haven't given Stanley anything at
all for his money--that you've cheated him outright. The thing itself
is discreditable, but your tone suggests that you think I'll admire you
for it."
"Do you mean to say that you'd think more highly of me if I were--what
most women would be in the same circumstances?"
"I mean to say that I think the whole business is discreditable to both
of you--to his intelligence, to your character."
"You are frank," said she, trying to hide her anger.
"I am frank," replied he, undisturbed. He looked at her. "Why should
I not be?"
"You know that I need you, that I don't dare resent," said she. "So
isn't it--a little cowardly?"
"Why do you need me? Not for money, for you know you'll not get that."
"I don't want it," cried she, agitated. "I never thought of it."
"Yes, you've probably thought of it," replied he coolly. "But you will
not get it."
"Well, that's settled--I'll not get it."
"Then why do you need me? Of what use can I be to you? Only one use
in the world. To tell you the truth--the exact truth. Is not that so?"
"Yes," she said. "That is what I want from you--what I can't get from
anyone else. No one else knows the truth--not even Mrs. Brindley,
though she's intelligent. I take back what I said about your being
cowardly. Oh, you do stab my vanity so! You mustn't mind my crying
out. I can't help it--at least, not till I get used to you."
"Cry out," said he. "It does no harm."
"How wonderfully you understand me!" exclaimed she. "That's why I let
you say to me anything you please."
He was smiling peculiarly--a smile that somehow made her feel
uncomfortable. She nerved herself for some still deeper stab into her
vanity. He said, his gaze upon her and ironical:
"I'm sorry I can't return the compliment."
"What compliment?" asked she.
"Can't say that you understand me. Why do you think I am doing this?"
She colored. "Oh, no indeed, Mr. Keith," she protested, "I don't think
you are in love with me--or anything of that sort. Indeed, I do not. I
know you better than that."
"Really?" said he, amused. "Then you are not human."
"How can you think me so vain?" she protested.
"Because you are so," replied he. "You are as vain--no more so, but
just as much so--as the average pretty and attractive woman brought up
as you have been. You are not obsessed by the notion that your
physical charms are all-powerful, and in that fact there is hope for
you. But you attach entirely too much importance to them. You will
find them a hindrance for a long time before they begin to be a help to
you in your career. And they will always be a temptation to you to
take the easy, stupid way of making a living--the only way open to most
women that is not positively repulsive."
"I think it is the most repulsive," said Mildred.
"Don't cant," replied he, unimpressed. "It's not so repulsive to your
sort of woman as manual labor--or as any kind of work that means no
leisure, no luxury and small pay."
"I wonder," said Mildred. "I--I'm afraid you're right. But I WON'T
admit it. I don't dare."
"That's the finest, truest thing I've ever heard you say," said Keith.
Mildred was pleased out of all proportion to the compliment. Said she
with frank eagerness, "Then I'm not altogether hopeless?"
"As a character, no indeed," replied he. "But as a career-- I was
about to say, you may set your mind at rest. I shall never try to
collect for my services. I am doing all this solely out of obstinacy."
"Obstinacy?" asked the puzzled girl.
"The impossible attracts me. That's why I've never been interested to
make a career in law or politics or those things. I care only for the
thing that can't be done. When I saw you and studied you, as I study
every new thing, I decided that you could not possibly make a career."
"Why have you changed your mind?" she interrupted eagerly.
"I haven't," replied he. "If I had, I should have lost interest in
you. Just as soon as you show signs of making a career, I shall lose
interest in you. I have a friend, a doctor, who will take only cases
where cure is impossible. Looking at you, it occurred to me that here
was a chance to make an experiment more interesting than any of his.
And as I have no other impossible task inviting me at present, I
decided to undertake you--if you were willing."
"Why do you tell me this?" she asked. "To discourage me?"
"No. Your vanity will prevent that."
"Then why?"
"To clear myself of all responsibility for you. You understand--I bind
myself to nothing. I am free to stop or to go on at any time."
"And I?" said Mildred.
"You must do exactly as I tell you."
"But that is not fair," cried she.
"Why not?" inquired he. "Without me you have no hope--none whatever."
"I don't believe that," declared she. "It is not true."
"Very well. Then we'll drop the business," said he tranquilly. "If
the time comes when you see that I'm your only hope, and if then I'm in
my present humor, we will go on."
And he lapsed into silence from which she soon gave over trying to
rouse him. She thought of what he had said, studied him, but could
make nothing of it. She let four days go by, days of increasing unrest
and unhappiness. She could not account for herself. Donald Keith
seemed to have cast a spell over her--an evil spell. Her throat gave
her more and more trouble. She tried her voice, found that it had
vanished. She examined herself in the glass, and saw or fancied that
her looks were going--not so that others would note it, but in the
subtle ways that give the first alarm to a woman who has beauty worth
taking care of and thinks about it intelligently. She thought Mrs.
Brindley was beginning to doubt her, suspected a covert uneasiness in
Stanley. Her foundations, such as they were, seemed tottering and
ready to disintegrate. She saw her own past with clear vision for the
first time--saw how futile she had been, and why Keith believed there
was no hope for her. She made desperate efforts to stop thinking about
past and future, to absorb herself in present comfort and luxury and
opportunities for enjoyment. But Keith was always there--and to see
him was to lose all capacity for enjoyment. She was curt, almost rude
to him--had some vague idea of forcing him to stay away. Yet every
time she lost sight of him, she was in terror until she saw him again.
She was alone on the small veranda facing the high-road. She happened
to glance toward the station; her gaze became fixed, her body rigid,
for, coming leisurely and pompously toward the house, was General
Siddall, in the full panoply of his wonderful tailoring and
haberdashery. She thought of flight, but instantly knew that flight
was useless; the little general was not there by accident. She waited,
her rigidity giving her a deceptive seeming of calm and even ease. He
entered the little yard, taking off his glossy hat and exposing the
rampant toupee. He smiled at her so slightly that the angle of the
needle-pointed mustaches and imperial was not changed. The cold,
expressionless, fishy eyes simply looked at her.
"A delightful little house," said he, with a patronizing glance around.
"May I sit down?"
She inclined her head.
"And you are looking well, charming," he went on, and he seated himself
and carefully planted his neat boots side by side. "For the summer
there's nothing equal to the seashore. You are surprised to see me?"
"I thought you were abroad," said Mildred.
"So I was--until yesterday. I came back because my men had found you.
And I'm here because I venture to hope that you have had enough of this
foolish escapade. I hope we can come to an understanding. I've lost my
taste for wandering about. I wish to settle down--to have a home and
to stay in it. By that I mean, of course, two or three--or possibly
four--houses, according to the season." Mildred sent her glance
darting about. The little general saw and began to talk more rapidly.
"I've given considerable thought to our--our misunderstanding. I feel
that I gave too much importance to your--your-- I did not take your
youth and inexperience of the world and of married life sufficiently
into account. Also the first Mrs. Siddall was not a lady--nor the
second. A lady, a young lady, was a new experience to me. I am a
generous man. So I say frankly that I ought to have been more patient."
"You said you would never see me again until I came to you," said
Mildred. As he was not looking at her, she watched his face. She now
saw a change--behind the mask. But he went on in an unchanged voice:
"Were you aware that Mrs. Baird is about to sue her husband for a
separation--not for a divorce but for a separation--and name you?"
Mildred dropped limply back in her chair.
"That means scandal," continued Siddall, "scandal touching my name--my
honor. I may say, I do not believe what Mrs. Baird charges. My men
have had you under observation for several weeks. Also, Mrs. Brindley
is, I learn, a woman of the highest character. But the thing looks
bad--you hiding from your husband, living under an assumed name,
receiving the visits of a former admirer."
"You are mistaken," said Mildred. "Mrs. Baird would not bring such a
false, wicked charge."
"You are innocent, my dear," said the general.
"You don't realize how your conduct looks. She intends to charge that
her husband has been supporting you."
Mildred, quivering, started up, sank weakly back again.
"But," he went on, "you will easily prove that your money is your
inheritance from your father. I assured myself of that before I
consented to come here."
"Consented?" said Mildred. "At whose request?"
"That of my own generosity," replied he. "But my honor had to be
reassured. When I was satisfied that you were innocent, and simply
flighty and foolish, I came. If there had been any taint upon you, of
course I could not have taken you back. As it is, I am willing--I may
say, more than willing. Mrs. Baird can be bought off and frightened
off. When she finds you have me to protect you, she will move very
cautiously, you may be sure."
As the little man talked, Mildred saw and felt behind the mask the
thoughts, the longings of his physical infatuation for her coiling and
uncoiling and reaching tremulously out toward her like unclean,
horrible tentacles. She was drawn as far as could be back into her
chair, and her soul was shrinking within her body.
"I am willing to make you a proper allowance, and to give you all
proper freedom," he went on. He showed his sharp white teeth in a
gracious smile. "I realize I must concede something of my
old-fashioned ideas to the modern spirit. I never thought I would, but
I didn't appreciate how fond I was of you, my dear." He mumbled his
tongue and noiselessly smacked his thin lips. "Yes, you are worth
concessions and sacrifices."
"I am not going back," said Mildred. "Nothing you could offer me would
make any difference." She felt suddenly calm and strong. She stood.
"Please consider this final."
"But, my dear," said the general softly, though there was a wicked
gleam behind the mask, "you forget the scandal--"
"I forget nothing," interrupted she. "I shall not go back."
Before he could attempt further to detain her she opened the screen
door and entered. It closed on the spring and on the spring lock.
Donald Keith, coming in from the sea-front veranda, was just in time to
save her from falling. She pushed him fiercely away and sank down on
the sofa just within the pretty little drawing-room. She said:
"Thank you. I didn't mean to be rude. I was only angry with myself.
I'm getting to be one of those absurd females who blubber and keel
over."
"You're white and limp," said he. "What's the matter?"
"General Siddall is out there."
"Um--he's come back, has he?" said Keith.
"And I am afraid of him--horribly afraid of him."
"In some places and circumstances he would be a dangerous proposition,"
said Keith. "But not here in the East--and not to you."
"He would do ANYTHING. I don't know what he can do, but I am sure it
will be frightful--will destroy me."
"You are going with him?"
She laughed. "I loathe him. I thought I left him through fear and
anger. I was mistaken. It was loathing. And my fear of him--it's
loathing, too."
"You mean that?" said Keith, observing her intently. "You wish to be
rid of him?"
"What a poor opinion you have of me," said she. "Really, I don't
deserve quite that."
"Then come with me."