"Your hat is a little to one side, Stubby, as usual."
{84}
She put her hand up tentatively to the confection of fur, yellow lace,
and violet orchids.
"I don't think Lenore ballasts my hats properly," she said
plaintively. "It can't be my fault that they slide about so. But I did
n't come to talk about hats."
I sighed. "No, you came to talk about Desire. Mary, how long have you
known about this deplorable affair?"
"Oh--ever since there has been anything to know! Desire has always
talked to me more than to her mother. You know, Ben, one would n't
choose Lucretia as a confidante in any kind of a heart affair."
"Don't put on that worldly air with me, Mary Greening," I said
crossly. "Lucretia is a little austere, but it seems to me that
austerity has its {85} advantages. For instance, it keeps one out of
the newspapers. Am I to infer that you sympathize with Desire?"
"Not at all," she protested. "You may not believe me, but I have
suffered and suffered, over this thing. I can't count the nights I
have lain awake thinking about it. At first it seemed to me I simply
could not have it, and I thought I was going to influence Desire. But
nobody ever influences people in matters of the heart. Of course this
is an affair on the highest possible plane--so I thought they might be
more reasonable. But I don't observe that they are."
"On the highest possible plane," I mused. "Mary, be candid with me. I
would like a good woman's point of view on this. If a game of hearts
ends in the courts, breaking up a home and smashing the lives
concerned to {86} flinders, do you really think it matters whether
that affair is on a high plane or a low one? Does it seem any better
to you for being the finer variety?"
"Certainly it does," returned Mary Greening promptly; "though," she
added reflectively, "judged by results, I see it is illogical to feel
so."
She cogitated a little longer.
"You put the thing too crudely. Here is the point, Ben. The Devil
never makes the mistake of offering the coarser temptation to persons
of taste. You couldn't have tempted Desire to break up her home with
any temptation that did n't include her intellect, her spirit, and her
aesthetic instincts. And when one gets up in that corner of one's
nature, people like you or me or Desire are so used to regarding all
the demands emanating from there as legitimate, as something to be
{87} proud of, to be satisfied at almost any cost, that it takes a
very clear sense of right and wrong to prevent confusion. And,
nowadays, hardly anybody but old fogies and back numbers, and people
who have lived the kind of life Lucretia has, possesses a clear sense
of right and wrong. It has gone out."
"What became of Desire's married happiness, Mary? I thought there was
so much of it, and that it was of a durable variety."
"Oh, it leaked away through small cracks, as happiness usually does.
It is hard to explain to a man, but if Arnold were a woman, you might
almost say that he nagged. He is too detailed, too exact, for Desire.
If, for instance, she said in May, I believe I will have a green
cloth, embroidered, for a fall suit, about the first of November, you
{88} might expect Arnold to remark, I don't see that green cloth suit
you said you were going to have. What made you change your mind?
Desire delights to say things she does n't mean and lay plans she does
n't expect to carry out, so a constant repetition of such incidents
was really pretty wearing. I have seen her when she reminded me of a
captive balloon in a high wind.
"A woman in your position ought not to make unconsidered speeches was
one of his pet remarks. He is scientific, she is temperamental--and
each of them expected the other one to be born again, and born
different by virtue of mutual affection and requirements. Arnold will
go on wondering to the end of his life why Desire can't be more
accurate, more purposeful. As if he did n't fall in love with her the
{89} way she is! And then along comes the Westerner--"
"Where did they meet?"
"Bessie Fleming introduced them--at some silly place like Atlantic
City. It was after Desire had that nervous breakdown two years ago. I
know they were both in wheeled chairs at the time, and they rode up
and down together, talking, like long-separated twin souls, about the
theory of aesthetics and kindred matters. They did n't require
diagrams to see each other's jokes, and that is always a strong tie.
He was a man used to getting what he wanted, and when he became
bewitched--can't you see how it would all work together? I know
Lucretia thinks there is no excuse for Desire. But I see this excuse
for her. None of us ever trained her to know she could n't have
everything she wanted. Of course, we never {90} expected her to want
anything but the finest, the highest. But she is human, and when she
found a most wonderful thing in her path that she wanted more than she
had ever wanted anything before--she put out her hand to take it, as
she had taken other things when we were all applauding her choice. And
I will do her the justice to say that I don't believe she has the
faintest notion Arnold will really fight to keep the children. You
see, she still thinks the world is hers."
"Perhaps it is," I offered. The comfort of Mary's presence was
beginning to rest and appease me, and I was a little less conscious of
my aching conscience. "The Westerner--is he--is he--"
"Perfectly presentable. Quite a scholar. Collects pictures. Has all
kinds of notions. He and Desire are {91} ideally congenial. Very
properly he is keeping himself at long distance and entirely out of
it. No one but ourselves surmises that he exists. And it really is an
enormous fortune. I can imagine Desire doing all kinds of interesting
things with it."
"Do you know what Lucretia said to me, Mary?"
She shook her head.
_"You, too? Can money buy you, too?"_ I quoted. "I shall never forget
how Lucretia looked as she said it."
"Stub--the world moves. It may be moving in the wrong direction, but
if we don't move with it, we are bound to be left behind."
"Mary Greening," I retorted, "do you really mean that you detect in
yourself a willingness to have an unjustified divorce and a huge,
vulgar {92} fortune in the family, just because they are up to date?"
"Benjamin Raynie, if down at the bottom of my soul there is crawling
and sneaking a microscopical acquiescence in the muddle Desire is
making of life, it is probably due to the reason you mention. I am
just as ashamed of it as I can be! I ought to be plunged in grief,
like Lucretia. And I _am_--only--well, I want to help Desire, and I
can't help her if I let myself feel like that. I suppose you'll think
I'm an unmoral old thing, but I see it this way: if these affairs are
going to happen in one's very own family, one might as well put them
through with a high hand. I intend to stand by Desire. Of course the
Ackroyds will do the same by Arnold. Desire will never be received in
this town again with their consent. They are entirely in the right.
But I shall {93} have to fight them for Desire's sake, just the same."
"Stubby! Stubby! There is n't a particle of logic as big as a pin-head
about you, and I don't approve of you at all--but I do like you
tremendously!"
Mary Greening rose abruptly, crossed to the window, and stood looking
out for a time. Then she came back and, dropping awkwardly beside my
chair, buried her convulsed and quivering face in the woolly sleeve of
my jacket, while the tears dripped fast from her overflowing eyes.
"Stub," she brought out jerkily, between her sudden choking sobs, "I
did n't make a long face and tell Desire 'whom God hath joined'--I--I
tried to appeal to her common sense. Irreligious people often do have
a great deal of common sense, you know. {94} But--I am the child of our
fathers, too. I wish--I _wish_ she would n't do it!"