Fool and His Money,' isn't it? Of course we're coming."
"I told them to put a box away for you in case you wanted it," Seldon
continued. "Don't expect much. It's a silly piece, and I've a silly
part, and I'm very bad in it. You must come around to supper, and tell
me where I'm bad in it, and we will talk it over. You're coming,
Stuart?"
"My dear old man," said Stuart, reproachfully, "of course I am. I've
had my seats for the last three weeks. Do you suppose I could miss
hearing you mispronounce all the Hindostanee I've taught you?"
"Well, good-night then," said the actor, waving his hand to his
friends as he moved away. "'We, who are about to die, salute you!'"
"Good luck to you," said Sloane, holding up his glass. "To the Fool
and His Money," he laughed. He turned to the table again, and sounded
the bell for the waiter. "Now let's send him a telegram and wish him
success, and all sign it," he said, "and don't you fellows tell him
that I wasn't in front to-night. I've got to go to a dinner the
Travellers' Club are giving me." There was a protesting chorus of
remonstrance. "Oh, I don't like it any better than you do," said
Sloane, "but I'll get away, early and join you before the play's over.
No one in the Travellers' Club, you see, has ever travelled farther
from New York than London or the Riviera, and so when a member starts
for Abyssinia they give him a dinner, and he has to take himself very
seriously indeed, and cry with Seldon, 'I, who am about to die, salute
you!' If that man there was any use," he added, interrupting himself
and pointing with his glass at Stuart, "he'd pack up his things
to-night and come with me."
"Oh, don't urge him," remonstrated Weimer, who had travelled all over
the world in imagination, with the aid of globes and maps, but never
had got any farther from home than Montreal. "We can't spare Stuart.
He has to stop here and invent a preliminary marriage state, so that
if he finds he doesn't like a girl, he can leave her before it is too
late."
"You sail at seven, I believe, and from Hoboken, don't you?" asked
Stuart, undisturbed. "If you'll start at eleven from the New York
side, I think I'll go with you, but I hate getting up early; and then
you see--I know what dangers lurk in Abyssinia, but who could tell
what might not happen to him in Hoboken?"
When Stuart returned to his room, he found a large package set upright
in an armchair and enveloped by many wrappings; but the handwriting on
the outside told him at once from whom it came and what it might be,
and he pounced upon it eagerly and tore it from its covers. The
photograph was a very large one, and the likeness to the original so
admirable that the face seemed to smile and radiate with all the
loveliness and beauty of Miss Delamar herself. Stuart beamed upon it
with genuine surprise and pleasure, and exclaimed delightedly to
himself. There was a living quality about the picture which made him
almost speak to it, and thank Miss Delamar through it for the pleasure
she had given him and the honor she had bestowed. He was proud,
flattered, and triumphant, and while he walked about the room deciding
where he would place it, and holding the picture respectfully before
him, he smiled upon it with grateful satisfaction.
He decided against his dressing-table as being too intimate a place
for it, and so carried the picture on from his bedroom to the
dining-room beyond, where he set it among his silver on the sideboard.
But so little of his time was spent in this room that he concluded he
would derive but little pleasure from it there, and so bore it back
again into his library, where there were many other photographs and
portraits, and where to other eyes than his own it would be less
conspicuous.
He tried it first in one place and then in another; but in each
position the picture predominated and asserted itself so markedly,
that Stuart gave up the idea of keeping it inconspicuous, and placed
it prominently over the fireplace, where it reigned supreme above
every other object in the room. It was not only the most conspicuous
object there, but the living quality which it possessed in so marked a
degree, and which was due to its naturalness of pose and the
excellence of the likeness, made it permeate the place like a presence
and with the individuality of a real person. Stuart observed this
effect with amused interest, and noted also that the photographs of
other women had become commonplace in comparison like lithographs in a
shop-window, and that the more masculine accessories of a bachelor's
apartment had grown suddenly aggressive and out of keeping. The
liquor-case and the racks of arms and of barbarous weapons which he
had collected with such pride seemed to have lost their former value
and meaning, and he instinctively began to gather up the mass of books
and maps and photographs and pipes and gloves which lay scattered upon
the table, and to put them in their proper place, or to shove them out
of sight altogether. "If I'm to live up to that picture," he thought,
"I must see that George keeps this room in better order--and I must
stop wandering round here in my bath-robe."
His mind continued on the picture while he was dressing, and he was so
absorbed in it and in analyzing the effect it had had upon him, that
his servant spoke twice before he heard him.
"No," he answered, "I shall not dine here to-night." Dining at home
was with him a very simple affair, and a somewhat lonely one, and he
avoided it almost nightly by indulging himself in a more expensive
fashion.
But even as he spoke an idea came to Stuart which made him reconsider
his determination, and which struck him as so amusing, that he stopped
pulling at his tie and smiled delightedly at himself in the glass
before him.
"Yes," he said, still smiling, "I will dine here to-night. Get me
anything in a hurry. You need not wait now; go get the dinner up as
soon as possible."
The effect which the photograph of Miss Delamar had upon him, and the
transformation it had accomplished in his room, had been as great as
would have marked the presence there of the girl herself. While
considering this it had come to Stuart, like a flash of inspiration,
that here was a way by which he could test the responsibilities and
conditions of married life without compromising either himself or the
girl to whom he would suppose himself to be married.
"I will put that picture at the head of the table," he said, "and I
will play that it is she herself, her own beautiful, lovely self, and
I will talk to her and exchange views with her, and make her answer me
just as she would were we actually married and settled." He looked at
his watch and found it was just seven o'clock. "I will begin now," he
said, "and I will keep up the delusion until midnight. To-night is the
best time to try the experiment, because the picture is new now, and
its influence will be all the more real. In a few weeks it may have
lost some of its freshness and reality and will have become one of the
fixtures in the room."
Stuart decided that under these new conditions it would be more
pleasant to dine at Delmonico's, and he was on the point of asking the
Picture what she thought of it, when he remembered that while it had
been possible for him to make a practise of dining at that place as a
bachelor, he could not now afford so expensive a luxury, and he
decided that he had better economize in that particular and go instead
to one of the _table d'hôte_ restaurants in the neighborhood. He
regretted not having thought of this sooner, for he did not care to
dine at a _table d'hôte_ in evening dress, as in some places it
rendered him conspicuous. So, sooner than have this happen he decided
to dine at home, as he had originally intended when he first thought
of attempting this experiment, and then conducted the Picture in to
dinner and placed her in an armchair facing him, with the candles full
upon the face.
"Now this is something like," he exclaimed, joyously. "I can't imagine
anything better than this. Here we are all to ourselves with no one to
bother us, with no chaperon, or chaperon's husband either, which is
generally worse. Why is it, my dear," he asked, gayly, in a tone he
considered affectionate and husbandly, "that the attractive chaperons
are always handicapped by such stupid husbands, and vice versa?"
"If that is true," replied the Picture, or replied Stuart, rather, for
the Picture, "I cannot be a very attractive chaperon." Stuart bowed
politely at this, and then considered the point it had raised as to
whether he had, in assuming both characters, the right to pay himself
compliments. He decided against himself in this particular instance,
but agreed that he was not responsible for anything the Picture might
say, so long as he sincerely and fairly tried to make it answer him as
he thought the original would do under like circumstances. From what
he knew of the original under other conditions, he decided that he
could give a very close imitation of her point of view.
Stuart's interest in his dinner was so real that he found himself
neglecting his wife, and he had to pull himself up to his duty with a
sharp reproof. After smiling back at her for a moment or two until his
servant had again left them alone, he asked her to tell him what she
had been doing during the day.
"Oh, nothing very important," said the Picture. "I went shopping in
the morning and--"
Stuart stopped himself and considered this last remark doubtfully.
"Now, how do I know she would go shopping?" he asked himself. "People
from Harlem and women who like bargain-counters, and who eat chocolate
meringue for lunch, and then stop in at a continuous performance, go
shopping. It must be the comic-paper sort of wives who go about
matching shades and buying hooks and eyes. Yes, I must have made Miss
Delamar's understudy misrepresent her. I beg your pardon, my dear," he
said aloud to the Picture. "You did _not_ go shopping this
morning. You probably went to a woman's luncheon somewhere. Tell me
about that."
"Oh, yes, I went to lunch with the Antwerps," said the Picture, "and
they had that Russian woman there who is getting up subscriptions for
the Siberian prisoners. It's rather fine of her, because it exiles her
from Russia. And she is a princess."
"That's nothing," Stuart interrupted; "they're all princesses when you
see them on Broadway."
"I beg your pardon," said the Picture.
"It's of no consequence," said Stuart, apologetically, "it's a comic
song. I forgot you didn't like comic songs. Well--go on."
"Oh, then I went to a tea, and then I stopped in to hear Madame Ruvier
read a paper on the Ethics of Ibsen, and she--"
Stuart's voice had died away gradually, and he caught himself
wondering whether he had told George to lay in a fresh supply of
cigars. "I beg your pardon," he said, briskly, "I was listening, but I
was just wondering whether I had any cigars left. You were saying that
you had been at Madame Ruvier's, and--"
"I am afraid that you were not interested," said the Picture. "Never
mind, it's my fault. Sometimes I think I ought to do things of more
interest, so that I should have something to talk to you about when
you come home."
Stuart wondered at what hour he would come home now that he was
married. As a bachelor he had been in the habit of stopping on his way
up-town from the law-office at the club, or to take tea at the houses
of the different girls he liked. Of course he could not do that now as
a married man. He would instead have to limit his calls to married
women, as all the other married men of his acquaintance did. But at
the moment he could not think of any attractive married women who
would like his dropping in on them in such a familiar manner, and the
other sort did not as yet appeal to him.
He seated himself in front of the coal fire in the library, with the
Picture in a chair close beside him, and as he puffed pleasantly on
his cigar he thought how well this suited him, and how delightful it
was to find content in so simple and continuing a pleasure. He could
almost feel the pressure of his wife's hand as it lay in his own, as
they sat in silent sympathy looking into the friendly glow of the
fire.
There was a long, pleasant pause.
"They're giving Sloane a dinner to-night at the 'Travellers'," Stuart
said, at last, "in honor of his going to Abyssinia."
Stuart pondered for some short time as to what sort of a reply Miss
Delamar's understudy ought to make to this innocent remark. He
recalled the fact that on numerous occasions the original had shown
not only a lack of knowledge of far-away places, but, what was more
trying, a lack of interest as well. For the moment he could not see
her robbed of her pretty environment and tramping through undiscovered
countries at his side. So the Picture's reply, when it came, was
strictly in keeping with several remarks which Miss Delamar herself
had made to him in the past.
"Yes," said the Picture, politely, "and where is Abyssinia--in India,
isn't it?"
"No, not exactly," corrected Stuart, mildly; "you pass it on your way
to India, though, as you go through the Red Sea. Sloane is taking
Winchesters with him and a double express and a 'five fifty.' He wants
to test their penetration. I think myself that the express is the
best, but he says Selous and Chanler think very highly of the
Winchester. I don't know, I never shot a rhinoceros. The time I killed
that elephant," he went on, pointing at two tusks that stood with some
assegais in a corner, "I used an express, and I had to let go with
both barrels. I suppose, though, if I'd needed a third shot, I'd have
wished it was a Winchester. He was charging the smoke, you see, and I
couldn't get away because I'd caught my foot--but I told you about
that, didn't I?" Stuart interrupted himself to ask politely.
"Yes," said the Picture, cheerfully, "I remember it very well; it was
very foolish of you."
Stuart straightened himself with a slightly injured air and avoided
the Picture's eye. He had been stopped midway in what was one of his
favorite stories, and it took a brief space of time for him to recover
himself, and to sink back again into the pleasant lethargy in which he
had been basking.
"Still," he said, "I think the express is the better gun."
"Oh, is an 'express' a gun?" exclaimed the Picture, with sudden
interest. "Of course, I might have known."
Stuart turned in his chair, and surveyed the Picture in some surprise.
"But, my dear girl," he remonstrated, kindly, "why didn't you ask, if
you didn't know what I was talking about? What did you suppose it
was?"
"I didn't know," said the Picture; "I thought it was something to do
with his luggage. Abyssinia sounds so far away," she explained,
smiling sweetly. "You can't expect one to be interested in such queer
places, can you?"
"No," Stuart answered, reluctantly, and looking steadily at the fire,
"I suppose not. But you see, my dear," he said, "I'd have gone with
him if I hadn't married you, and so I am naturally interested in his
outfit. They wanted me to make a comparative study of the little
semi-independent states down there, and of how far the Italian
Government allows them to rule themselves. That's what I was to have
done."
But the Picture hastened to reassure him. "Oh, you mustn't think," she
exclaimed, quickly, "that I mean to keep you at home. I love to
travel, too. I want you to go on exploring places just as you've
always done, only now I will go with you. We might do the Cathedral
towns, for instance."
"The what?" gasped Stuart, raising his head. "Oh, yes, of course," he
added, hurriedly, sinking back into his chair with a slightly
bewildered expression. "That would be very nice. Perhaps your mother
would like to go, too; it's not a dangerous expedition, is it? I
_was_ thinking of taking you on a trip through the South
Seas--but I suppose the Cathedral towns are just as exciting. Or we
might even penetrate as far into the interior as the English lakes and
read Wordsworth and Coleridge as we go."
Miss Delamar's understudy observed him closely for a moment, but he
made no sign, and so she turned her eyes again to the fire with a
slightly troubled look. She had not a strong sense of humor, but she
was very beautiful.
Stuart's conscience troubled him for the next few moments, and he
endeavored to make up for his impatience of the moment before by
telling the Picture how particularly well she was looking.
"It seems almost selfish to keep it all to myself," he mused.
"You don't mean," inquired the Picture, with tender anxiety, "that you
want any one else here, do you? I'm sure I could be content to spend
every evening like this. I've had enough of going out and talking to
people I don't care about. Two seasons," she added, with the superior
air of one who has put away childish things, "was quite enough of it
for me."
"Well, I never took it as seriously as that," said Stuart, "but, of
course, I don't want any one else here to spoil our evening. It is
perfect."
He assured himself that it _was_ perfect, but he wondered what
was the loyal thing for a married couple to do when the conversation
came to a dead stop. And did the conversation come to a stop because
they preferred to sit in silent sympathy and communion, or because
they had nothing interesting to talk about? Stuart doubted if silence
was the truest expression of the most perfect confidence and sympathy.
He generally found when he was interested, that either he or his
companion talked all the time. It was when he was bored that he sat
silent. But it was probably different with married people. Possibly
they thought of each other during these pauses, and of their own
affairs and interests, and then he asked himself how many interests
could one fairly retain with which the other had nothing to do?
"I suppose," thought Stuart, "that I had better compromise and read
aloud. Should you like me to read aloud?" he asked, doubtfully.
The Picture brightened perceptibly at this, and said that she thought
that would be charming. "We might make it quite instructive," she
suggested, entering eagerly into the idea. "We ought to agree to read
so many pages every night. Suppose we begin with Guizot's 'History of
France.' I have always meant to read that, the illustrations look so
interesting."
"Yes, we might do that," assented Stuart, doubtfully. "It is in six
volumes, isn't it? Suppose now, instead," he suggested, with an
impartial air, "we begin that to-morrow night, and go this evening to
see Seldon's new play, 'The Fool and His Money.' It's not too late,
and he has saved a box for us, and Weimer and Rives and Sloane will be
there, and--"
The Picture's beautiful face settled for just an instant in an
expression of disappointment. "Of course," she replied, slowly, "if
you wish it. But I thought you said," she went on with a sweet smile,
"that this was perfect. Now you want to go out again. Isn't this
better than a hot theatre? You might put up with it for one evening,
don't you think?"
"Put up with it!" exclaimed Stuart, enthusiastically; "I could spend
every evening so. It was only a suggestion. It wasn't that I wanted to
go so much as that I thought Seldon might be a little hurt if I
didn't. But I can tell him you were not feeling very well, and that we
will come some other evening. He generally likes to have us there on
the first night, that's all. But he'll understand."
"Oh," said the Picture, "if you put it in the light of a duty to your
friend, of course we will go--"
"Not at all," replied Stuart, heartily; "I will read something. I
should really prefer it. How would you like something of Browning's?"
"Oh, I read all of Browning once," said the Picture. "I think I should
like something new."
Stuart gasped at this, but said nothing, and began turning over the
books on the centre-table. He selected one of the monthly magazines,
and choosing a story which neither of them had read, sat down
comfortably in front of the fire, and finished it without interruption
and to the satisfaction of the Picture and himself. The story had made
the half hour pass very pleasantly, and they both commented on it with
interest.
"I had an experience once myself something like that," said Stuart,
with a pleased smile of recollection; "it happened in Paris"--he began
with the deliberation of a man who is sure of his story--"and it
turned out in much the same way. It didn't begin in Paris; it really
began while we were crossing the English Channel to--"
"Oh, you mean about the Russian who took you for some one else and had
you followed," said the Picture. "Yes, that was like it, except that
in your case nothing happened."
Stuart took his cigar from between his lips and frowned severely at
the lighted end for some little time before he spoke.
"My dear," he remonstrated, gently, "you mustn't tell me I've told you
all my old stories before. It isn't fair. Now that I am married, you
see, I can't go about and have new experiences, and I've got to make
use of the old ones."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," exclaimed the Picture, remorsefully. "I didn't
mean to be rude. Please tell me about it. I should like to hear it
again, ever so much. I _should_ like to hear it again, really."
"Nonsense," said Stuart, laughing and shaking his head. "I was only
joking; personally I hate people who tell long stories. That doesn't
matter. I was thinking of something else."
He continued thinking of something else, which was, that though he had
been in jest when he spoke of having given up the chance of meeting
fresh experiences, he had nevertheless described a condition, and a
painfully true one. His real life seemed to have stopped, and he saw
himself in the future looking back and referring to it, as though it
were the career of an entirely different person, of a young man, with
quick sympathies which required satisfying, as any appetite requires
food. And he had an uncomfortable doubt that these many ever-ready
sympathies would rebel if fed on only one diet.
The Picture did not interrupt him in his thoughts, and he let his mind
follow his eyes as they wandered over the objects above him on the
mantel-shelf. They all meant something from the past--a busy,
wholesome past which had formed habits of thought and action, habits
he could no longer enjoy alone, and which, on the other hand, it was
quite impossible for him to share with any one else. He was no longer
to be alone.
Stuart stirred uneasily in his chair and poked at the fire before him.
"Do you remember the day you came to see me," said the Picture,
sentimentally, "and built the fire yourself and lighted some girl's
letters to make it burn?"
"Yes," said Stuart, "that is, I _said_ that they were some girl's
letters. It made it more picturesque. I am afraid they were bills. I
should say I did remember it," he continued, enthusiastically. "You
wore a black dress and little red slippers with big black rosettes,
and you looked as beautiful as--as night--as a moonlight night."
The Picture frowned slightly.
"You are always telling me about how I looked," she complained; "can't
you remember any time when we were together without remembering what I
had on and how I appeared?"
"I cannot," said Stuart, promptly. "I can recall lots of other things
besides, but I can't forget how you looked. You have a fashion of
emphasizing episodes in that way which is entirely your own. But, as I
say, I can remember something else. Do you remember, for instance,
when we went up to West Point on that yacht? Wasn't it a grand day,
with the autumn leaves on both sides of the Hudson, and the dress
parade, and the dance afterward at the hotel?"
"Yes, I should think I did," said the Picture, smiling. "You spent all
your time examining cannon, and talking to the men about 'firing in
open order,' and left me all alone."
"Left you all alone! I like that," laughed Stuart; "all alone with
about eighteen officers."
"Well, but that was natural," returned the Picture. "They were men.
It's natural for a girl to talk to men, but why should a man want to
talk to men?"
"Well, I know better than that now," said Stuart.
He proceeded to show that he knew better by remaining silent for the
next half hour, during which time he continued to wonder whether this
effort to keep up a conversation was not radically wrong. He thought
of several things he might say, but he argued that it was an
impossible situation where a man had to make conversation with his own
wife.