Mrs. Watson's apartment (to which Ferdinand betook himself after idling
a couple of hours at his club) was toward the top of a tall building
which overlooked great fields of city. It was but three blocks distant
from Ferdinand's own humbler apartment, in uptown New York, but it was
large, and... well, Mr.
Wimple calculated, harbouring the sordid thought for an instant, that
the rent must cost her seven or eight, thousand dollars a year.
Mrs. Watson's life was delicately scented with an attar of expense. She
would not drench her rooms or her existence with wealth, any more than
she would spill perfume upon her garments with a careless hand. But the
sensitive' nostrils of the aesthetic Mr. Wimple quivered in reaction to
the aroma. For a person who despised gold, as Mr. Wimple professed to
despise it, he was strangely unrepelled. Perhaps he thought it to be his
spiritual duty to purify this atmosphere with his message.
There were eighteen or twenty women there when Ferdinand arrived, and
no man... except a weakeyed captive husband or two, and an epicene
creature with a violin, if you want to call them men. Ferdinand,
with his bovine body and his leonine head, seemed almost startlingly
masculine in this assemblage, and felt so. His spirit, he had often
confessed, was an instrument that vibrated best in unison with the
subtle feminine soul; he felt it play upon him and woo him, with little
winds that ran their fingers through his hair. These were women who had
no occupation, and a number of them had money; they felt delightfully
cultivated when persons such as Ferdinand talked to them about the Soul.
They warmed, they expanded, half unconsciously they projected those
breaths and breezes which thrilled our Ferdinand and wrought upon his
mood. If a woman, idle and mature, cannot find romance anywhere else or
anyhow other she will pick upon a preacher or an artist.
Mrs. Watson collected Ferdinands. Just how seriously she took them--how
she regarded himself, specifically--Mr. Wimple could not be quite
certain.
“She is a woman of mystery,” Mr. Wimple often murmured to himself. And
he wondered a good deal about her... sometimes he wondered if she were
not in love with him.
He had once written to her, a poem, which he entitled “Mystery.” She
had let him see that she understood it, but she had not vouchsafed a
solution of herself. It might be possible, Ferdinand thought, that she
did _not_ love him... but she sympathized with him; she appreciated
him; she had even fallen into a dreamy sadness one day, at the thought
of how he must suffer from the disharmony in his home. For somehow,
without much having been said by one or by the other, the knowledge had
passed from Ferdinand to Mrs. Watson that there was not harmony in his
home. She had understood. They had looked at each other, and she had
understood.
“Alethea!” he had murmured, under his breath. Alethea was her name. He
was sure she had heard it; but she had neither accepted it from him, nor
rejected it. And he had gone away without quite daring to say it again
in a louder tone.
There was only one thing about her that sometimes jarred upon Mr.
Wimple... a sudden vein of levity. Sometimes Ferdinand, in his thoughts,
even accused her of irony. And he was vaguely distrustful of a sense
of the humorous in women; whether it took the form of a feeling for
nonsense or a talent for sarcasm, it worried him.
But she understood. She always understood... him and his message.
And this afternoon she seemed to be understanding him, to be absorbing
him and his message, with an increased sensitiveness. She regarded him
with a new intentness, he thought; she was taking him with an expanded
spiritual capacity.
It was after the music, and what a creature overladen with “art jewelry”
called “the eats,” harrowing Ferdinand with the vulgar word, that he
delivered his message, sitting not far from Mrs. Watson in the carefully
graduated light.
It was, upon the whole, a cheerful message, Ferdinand's. It was...
succinctly... Love.
Ferdinand was not pessimistic or cynical about Love. It was all around
us, he thought, if we could only see it, could only feel it, could only
open our beings for its reception.
“If we could only see into the hearts! If we could only see into the
homes!” said Ferdinand. If we could only see, it was Ferdinand's belief,
we should see Love there, unexpected treasures of Love, waiting dormant
for the arousing touch; slumbering, as Endymion slumbered, until Diana's
kiss awakened him.
“Mush!” muttered one of the captive husbands to the young violinist.
But the young violinist scowled; he was in accord with Ferdinand. “Mush,
slush, and gush!” whispered the first captive husband to the second
captive husband. But captive husband number two only nodded and grinned
in an idiotic way; he was lucky enough to be quite deaf, and no matter
where his wife took him he could sit and think of his Liberty Bonds,
without being bothered by the lion of the hour....
The world, Ferdinand went on, was trembling on the verge of a great
spiritual awakening. The Millennium was about to stoop and kiss it, as
Morning kissed the mountain tops. It was coming soon. Already the first
faint streaks of the new dawn were in the orient sky... for eyes that
could see them. Ah, if one could only see! In more and more bosoms, the
world around, Love was becoming conscious of itself, Love was beginning
to understand that there was love in other bosoms, too! At this point,
at least a dozen bosoms, among those bosoms present, heaved with sighs.
Heart was reaching out to Heart in a new confidence, Ferdinand said.
One knew what was in one's own heart; but hitherto one had often been so
blind that one did not realize that the same thing was in the hearts of
one's fellows. Ah, if one could only see!
Maeterlinck saw, Ferdinand said.
“Ah, Maeterlinck!” whispered the bosoms.
Yes, Maeterlinck saw, said Ferdinand. Nietzsche, said Ferdinand, had
possessed a bosom full of yearning for all humanity, but he had been
driven back upon himself and embittered by the world... by the German
world in which he lived, said Ferdinand. So Nietzsche's strength had
little sweetness in it, and Nietzsche had not lived to see the new light
in the orient sky.
“Ah, Nietzsche!” moaned several sympathetic bosoms.
Bergson knew, Ferdinand opined. Several of the women present did not
quite catch the connection between Bergson and Ferdinand's message, but
they assumed that everyone else caught it. Bergson's was a name they
knew and... and in a moment Ferdinand was on more familiar ground
again. Tagore knew, said Ferdinand.
“Ah, Rabindranath Tagore!” And the bosoms fluttered as doves flutter
when they coo and settle upon the eaves. Love! That was Ferdinand's
message. And it appeared from the remarks with which he introduced and
interspersed his own poems, that all the really brilliant men of the day
were thinking in harmony with Ferdinand. He had the gift of introducing
a celebrated name every now and then in such a manner that these women,
who were at least familiar with the names, actually felt that they were
also familiar with the work for which the names stood. And, for his
part, he was repaid, this afternoon, as he had never been repaid before
... never before had he been so wrought upon and electrically vivified
as to-day by these emanations of the feminine soul; never before had he
felt these little winds run their fingers through his hair with such
a caressing touch. Once or twice the poignancy of the sensation almost
unsteadied him for an instant. And never before had Mrs. Watson regarded
him with such singular intentness.
Love! That was Ferdinand's message! And, ah! if one could only see!
When the others were going, Mrs. Watson asked him to stay a while, and
Ferdinand stayed. She led him to a little sitting room, high above the
town, and stood by the window. And he stood beside her.
“Your message this afternoon,” she said, presently, “I enjoyed more than
anything I have ever heard you say before. If we could only see! If we
could only see!”
Mrs. Watson lifted her blue eyes to him... and for an instant Ferdinand
felt that she was more the woman of mystery than ever. For there lurked
within the eyes an equivocal ripple of light; an unsteady glint that
came and went. Had it not been for her words, Ferdinand might have
feared that she was about to break into one of her disconcerting
ebullitions of levity. But he perceived in her, at the same time, a
certain tension, an unusual strain, and was reassured... she was a
little strange, perhaps, because of his near presence. She was reacting
to the magnetism which was flowing out of him in great waves, and she
was striving to conceal from him her psychic excitement. That would
account for any strangeness in her manner, any constraint.
“If we could only see!” she repeated.
“_You_ always see,” hazarded Ferdinand.
“I sometimes see,” said Mrs. Watson. “I have sometimes seen more than it
was intended for me to see.”
What could she mean by that? Ferdinand asked himself. And for an instant
he was unpleasantly conscious again of the something ambiguous in her
mood. Suddenly she turned and switched on the electric light in the
room, and then went and stood by the window again. Ferdinand's psychic
feathers were a trifle rumpled by the action. It was growing dusk...
but he would have liked to talk to her in the twilight, looking out over
the roofs.
“If we could only see into the hearts ... into the homes,” she mused
yet again.
“If you could see into my heart now ... Alethea...”
He left the sentence unfinished. She did not look at him. She turned her
face so he could not see it.
He tried to take her hand. But she avoided that, without actually
moving, without giving ground... as a boxer in the ring may escape the
full effect of a blow he does not parry by shrugging it off, without
retreating.
After a moment's silence she said: “Ferdinand...” and paused....
He felt sure of her, then. He drew a long breath. He wished they were
not standing by that window, framed in it, with the lighted room behind
them... but since she _would_ stand there... anyhow, now was the
time....
And then he heard himself pleading with her, eloquently, fervently. She
was his ideal! She was... he hated the word “affinity,” because it
had been cheapened and vulgarized by gross contacts... but she _was_ his
affinity. They were made for one another. It was predestined that they
should meet and love. She was what he needed to complete him, to fulfill
him. They would go forth together... not into the world, but away from
it... they would dwell upon the heights, and... and... so forth.
Ferdinand, as he pleaded, perhaps thought nothing consciously of the
fact that she must be spending money at the rate of fifty or sixty
thousand dollars a year. But, nevertheless, that subconscious mind of
his, of which he had so often spoken, that subliminal self, must have
been considering the figures, for suddenly there flashed before his
inner eye the result of a mathematical calculation..._ fifty thousand
dollars a year is the interest on one million dollars at five per cent_.
Ah, that would make his dreams possible! How his service to the human
race might be increased in value if all his time could be but given to
carrying his message! Farewell to the sordid struggle for bread! And in
the poetic depths of him there moved, unuttered, a phrase which he had
spoken aloud earlier in the day: _“I shall never wash another dish, nor
yet another undergarment_.” This secondary line of thought, however, did
not interfere with the lyric passion of his speech.
“You are asking me to... to... _elope_ with you!”
She still drooped her head, but she let him feel her nearness. He
wished--how he wished!--that they were away from that window. But he
would not break the spell by suggesting that they move. Perhaps he could
not reestablish it.
“Elope?” Ferdinand critically considered the word.
“I want you to come away with me, Alethea, into Paradise. I want you to
help me rediscover Eden! I want you! I want you!”
“But... your family?” she murmured.
He had her hand again, and this time she let him keep it. “That episode,
that unfortunate and foolish episode, my marriage, is ended,” said
Ferdinand, as he kissed her hand.
“Ah! Ended?” said Mrs. Watson. “You are no longer living with your
wife? The marriage is dissolved?” Mrs. Watson's own marriage had been
dissolved for some time; whether by death or by divorce Ferdinand had
never taken the trouble to inquire.
“In the spiritual sense--and that is all that counts--dissolved,” said
Ferdinand. And he could not help adding: “To-day.”
Mrs. Watson was breathing quickly... and suddenly she turned and
put her head on his shoulder. And yet even as Ferdinand's mind cried
“Victory!” he was aware of a strange doubt; for when he attempted to
take her in his arms, she put up her hands and prevented a real embrace.
He stood in perplexity. He felt that she was shaking with emotion; he
heard muffled sounds... she was sobbing and weeping on his shoulder,
or...
No! It could not be! Yes, the woman was laughing! Joy? Hysteria? What?
Suddenly she pushed him away from her, and faced him, controlling her
laughter.
“Excuse me,” said Mrs. Watson, with the levity he had feared dancing in
her eyes, “but such a silly idea occurred to me just as I was about to
tell you that I would elope with you... it occurred to me that I had
better tell you that all my money is tied up in a trust fund. I can
never touch anything but the interest, you know.”
“Alethea,” said Ferdinand, chokingly, “such a thought at a time like
this is unworthy of both of us!” And he advanced toward her again. But
she stopped him.
“Just a moment, Ferdinand! I haven't told you all of my silly idea! I
wondered also, you know, whether, if we ever got hard up and had to do
our own work, you would break my dishes with a wooden stick and twist my
arm until I howled!”
As Ferdinand slowly took in her words, he felt a sudden recession of
vitality. He said nothing, but his knees felt weak, and he sat down on a
chair.
“Get up!” said Mrs. Watson, with a cold little silver tinkle of a laugh.
“I didn't ask you to sit down!”
Ferdinand got up.
“I don't spy on my neighbours as a rule,” continued Mrs. Watson, “but
a little after noon to-day I happened to be standing by this window
looking out over the town, and this pair of opera glasses happened to be
on the table there and... well, take them, you oaf! You fat fool! And
look at that window, down there! It's your own kitchen window!”
Ferdinand took them and looked... he was crushed and speechless, and he
obeyed mechanically.
He dropped the glasses with a gasp. He had not only seen into his own
kitchen window, lighted as this one was, but he had seen Nell there...
and, as perverse fate would have it, some whim had inspired Nell to take
her own opera glasses and look out over the city. She was standing there
with them now. Had she seen him a moment before, with Mrs. Watson's head
upon his shoulder?
He started out.
“Wait a moment,” said Mrs. Watson. Ferdinand stopped. He still seemed
oddly without volition. It reminded him of what he had heard about
certain men suffering from shell shock.
“There... I wanted to do that before you went,” said Mrs. Watson, and
slapped him across the face. And Ferdinand's soul registered once more
the flavour of a damp dishcloth. “It's the second time a woman has
slapped you to-day,” said Mrs. Watson. “Try and finish the rest of the
day without getting a third one. You can go now.”
Ferdinand went. He reached the street, and walked several blocks in
silence. Neither his voice nor his assurance seemed to be inclined to
return to him speedily. His voice came back first, with a little of his
complacence, after fifteen or twenty minutes. And:
“Hell!” said Ferdinand, in his rich, harplike voice, running his fingers
through his tawny hair. “Hell!”