XIV.

She sent for Kindelon at once, but before her message could possibly

have reached the office of the "Asteroid," he presented himself.

He had recently seen the article, and told her so with a lover-like

tenderness that she found balsamic, if not precisely curative.

"It is fiendish," he at length said, "and if I thought any man had done

it I would thrash him into confessing so. But I am nearly sure that a

woman did it."

"Miss Cragge?"

"Yes."

"You can't thrash her, Ralph. But you can punish her."

"How?"

"Through your own journal--the 'Asteroid.' You can show the world just

what a virago she is."

"No," he replied, after a reflective pause, "that can't be."

"Can't be!" exclaimed Pauline, almost hysterically reproachful. "The

'Asteroid' can call the 'Herald,' the 'Times' and the 'Tribune' every

possible bad name; it can fly at the throats of politicians whom it

doesn't indorse; it can seethe and hiss like a witch's caldron in

editorials about some recent regretted measure at Albany! But when I ask

it to defend me against slanderous ridicule it refuses--it"--

"Ah," cried Kindelon, interrupting her, "it refuses because it is

powerless to defend you."

"Powerless!"

"_Qui s'excuse s'accuse._ Any attempted vindication would be merely to

direct the public eye still more closely upon this matter. All evil

things hold within themselves the germ of their own destruction. Let

this villainy die a natural death, Pauline; to fight it will be to

perpetuate its power. In the meanwhile I can probably gain a clue to its

authorship. But I do not promise, mind. No, I do not promise!"

"And this is all!" faltered Pauline. "Oh, Ralph, according to your

argument, every known wrong should be endured because of the notoriety

which attaches to the redressing of it."

He looked very troubled and very compassionate as he answered her. "The

notoriety is in many cases of no importance, my love. If I were

coarsely assailed, for instance, I should not hesitate to openly

confront my assailant. But with a pure woman it is different; and with

_some_ pure women--yourself I quote as a most shining example of these

latter--it is unspeakably different! The chastity of some names is so

perfect that any touch whatever will soil it."

"If so, then mine has been soiled already!" cried Pauline. "Oh," she

went on, "you men are all alike toward us women! Our worst crime is that

you yourselves should talk about us! To have your fellow-men say, 'This

woman has been rendered the object of a scandalous insult, but has

retaliated with courage,' is to make her seem in your eyes as if the

insult were really a deserved one! Whenever we are prominent, except in

a social way, we are called notorious. If our husbands are drunkards or

brutes who abuse us, and we fly to the refuge of the divorce-court, we

are notorious. If we go on the stage, no matter how well we may guard

our honest womanhood there, we are notorious. If we turn ministers,

doctors, lecturers, philanthropists, political agitators, it is all the

same; we are observed, discussed, criticised; hence we are notorious.

Now, I've never rebelled against this finely just system, though like

nearly all other yoked human beings I have indulged certain private

views upon my own bondage. And in my case it was hardly a bondage....

Except for certain years where discontent was in a large measure

remorse, I have been lifted by exceptional circumstance above those

pangs and torments which I have felt certain must have beset many

another woman through no act of her own. But now an occasion suddenly

dawns when I find myself demanding a man's full justice. To tell me that

I can't get it because I am a woman is no answer whatever. I want it,

all the same."

Kindelon gazed at her with a sort of woe-begone amazement. "I don't tell

you that you can't get it, as far as it is to be had," he almost

groaned. "I merely remind you that this is the nineteenth century, and

neither the twentieth nor the twenty-first."

Pauline gave a fierce little motion of her shapely head. "I am reminded

of that nearly every day that I live," she retorted. "You fall back, of

course, upon public opinion. All of you always do, where a woman is

concerned, whenever you are cornered. And it is so easy to corner

you--to make you swing at us this cudgel of 'domestic retirement' and

'feminine modesty.' I once talked for two hours in Paris with one of

the strongest French radical thinkers of modern times. For the first

hour and a half he delighted me; he spoke of the immense things that

modern scientific developments were doing for the human race. For the

last half-hour he disgusted me. And why? I discovered that his 'human

race' meant a race entirely masculine. He left woman out of the question

altogether. She might get along the best way she could. When he spoke of

his own sex he was superbly broad; when he spoke of ours he was narrower

than any Mohammedan with a harem full of wives and a prospective

Paradise full of subservient houris."

Kindelon rose and began to pace the floor, with his hands clasped behind

him. "Well," he said, in a tone of mild distraction, "I'm very sorry for

your famous French thinker. I hope you don't want me to tell you that I

sympathize with him."

"I'm half inclined to believe it!" sped Pauline. "If my cousin

Courtlandt had spoken as you have done, I should have accepted such

ideas as perfectly natural. Courtlandt is the incarnation of

conventionalism. He is part of the rush in our social wheelwork, and yet

he makes it move more slowly. He could no more pull up his window-shades

and let in fresh sunshine than you could close your shutters and live

in his decorous _demijour_!"

Kindelon still continued his impatient pacing. "I'm very glad of your

favorable comparison," he said, with more sadness than satire. He

abruptly paused, then, facing Pauline. "What is it, in Heaven's name,

that you want me to do?"

"You should not ask; you should know!" she exclaimed. Her

clear-glistening eyes, her flushed cheeks, and the assertive, almost

imperious posture of her delicate figure made her seem to him a rarely

beautiful vision as he now watched her. "Reflect, pray reflect," she

quickly proceeded, "upon the position in which I now stand! I attempted

to do what if I had been a much better woman than I am it would not at

all have been a blameworthy thing to do. The result was failure; it was

failure through no fault of my own. I found myself in a clique of

wrangling egotists, and not in a body of sensible co-operative

supporters. Chief among these was Miss Cragge, whose repulsive traits I

foresaw--or rather you aided me to foresee them. I omitted her from my

banquet (very naturally and properly, I maintain), and this is the apple

of discord that she has thrown." Here Pauline pointed to the fatal

newspaper, which lay not far off. "Of course," she went on, with a very

searching look at Kindelon, "there can be no doubt that Miss Cragge _is_

the offender! I, for my part, am certain of it; you, for yours, are

certain as well, unless I greatly err. But this makes your refusal to

publicly chastise her insolence all the more culpable!"

"Culpable!" he echoed, hurrying toward her. "Pauline! you don't know

what you are saying! Have I the least pity, the least compunction toward

that woman?"

Pauline closed her eyes for an instant, and shook her head, with a

repulsing gesture of one hand. "Then you have a very false pity toward

another woman--and a very false compunction as well," she answered.

"How can I _act_, situated as I am?" he cried, with sharp excitement.

"You have not yet allowed our engagement to transpire. What visible or

conceded rights _have_ I to be your defender?"

"You are unjust," she said. "I give you every right. That article

insinuates that I am a sort of high-bred yet low-toned adventuress. No

_lady_ could feel anything but shame and indignation at it. Besides, it

incessantly couples your name with mine.... And as for right to be my

champion in exposing and rebuking this outrage, I--I give you every

right, as I said."

"I desire but one," returned Kindelon. His voice betrayed no further

perturbation. He seated himself at her side, and almost by force took

both her hands in the strong grasp of both his own.

"What right?" she questioned. Her mood of accusation, of reproach, was

not yet quieted; her eyes still sparkled from it; her restless lips

still betrayed it.

"The right," he answered, "of calling you my wife. As it is, what am I?

A man far below you in all worldly place, who has gained from you a

matrimonial promise. Marry me!--marry me at once!--to-morrow!--and

everything will be different! Then you shall have become mine to defend,

and I will show you how I can defend what is my own!"

"To-morrow!" murmured Pauline.

"Yes, to-morrow! You will say it is too soon. You will urge

conventionalism now, though a minute ago you accused _me_ of urging it!

When you are once my wife I shall feel empowered to lawfully befriend

you!"

"Lawfully!" she repeated. "Can you not do so manfully, as it is?"

"No--not without the interfering claims and assertions of your family!"

"I _have_ no real family. And those whom you call such are without the

right of either claim or assertion, as regards any question of what I

choose or do not choose to do!"

He still retained her hands; he put his lips against her cheek; he would

not let her withdraw, though she made a kind of aggrieved effort to do

so.

"They have no rights, Pauline, and yet they would overwhelm me with

obloquy! As your husband--once as your wedded, chosen husband, what

should I care for them all? I would laugh at them! Make it to-morrow!

Then see how I will play my wife's part, and fight her battle!..."

They talked for some time after this in lowered tones.... Pauline was in

a wholly new mood when she at length said,--

"To-morrow, then, if you choose."

"You mean it? You promise it?"

"I mean it--and I promise it, since you seem so doubtful."

"I am doubtful," he exclaimed, kissing her, "because I can scarcely

dream that this sudden happiness has fallen to me from the stars!..."

When he had left her, and she was quite alone, Pauline found her lips

murmuring over the words, in a sort of mechanical repetition: "I have

promised to marry him to-morrow."

She had indeed made this vow, and as a very sacred one. And the more

that she reflected upon it the more thoroughly praiseworthy a course it

seemed. Her nearest living relations were the Poughkeepsies and

Courtlandt. She had quarrelled with both--or it meant nearly the same

thing. There was no one left to consult. Besides, even if there had

been, why should she consult any third party in this affair, momentous

though it was? She loved; she was beloved. She was a widow with a great

personal, worldly independence. She had already been assailed; what

mattered a little more assailance? For most of those who would gossip

and sneer she had a profound and durable contempt.... Why, then, should

she regret her spoken word?

And yet she found herself not so much regretting it as fearing lest she

might regret it. She suddenly felt the need, and in keenest way, of a

near confidential, trustworthy friend. But her long residence abroad had

acted alienatingly enough toward all earlier American friendships. She

could think of twenty women--married, or widows like herself--who would

have received her solicited counsel with every apparent sign of

sympathy. But with all these she had lost the old intimate sense; new

ground must be broken in dealing with them; their views and creeds were

what her own had been when she had known and prattled platitudes with

them before her dolorous marriage: or at least she so chose to think, so

chose to decide.

"There is one whom I could seek, and with whom I could seriously discuss

the advisability of such a speedy marriage," at length ran Pauline's

reflections. "That one is Mrs. Dares. Her large, sweet, just mind would

be quite equal to telling me if I am really wrong or right.... Still,

there is an obstacle--her daughter, Cora. Yet that would make no

difference with Mrs. Dares. She would be above even a maternal

prejudice. She is all gentle equity and disinterested kindliness. I

might see her alone--quite alone--this evening. Neither Cora nor the

sister, Martha, need know anything. I would pledge her to secrecy before

I spoke a word ... I will go to her! I will go to Mrs. Dares, and will

ask her just what I ought to do."

This resolve strengthened with Pauline after she had once made it. The

hour was now somewhat late in the afternoon. She distrusted the time of

Mrs. Dares's arrival up-town from her work, and decided that the visit

had best be paid at about seven o'clock that same evening.

A little later she was amazed to receive the card of Mr. Barrowe. She

went into her reception-room to see this gentleman, with mingled

amusement and awkwardness; she was so ignorant what fatality had landed

him within her dwelling.

"I scarcely know how to greet you, Mr. Barrowe," she said, after giving

a hand to her guest. "You and I parted by no means peacefully last

night, and I--I am (yes, I confess it!) somewhat unprepared...."

At this point Mr. Barrowe made voluble interruption. His little

twinkling eyes looked smaller and acuter than before, and his gaunt,

spheroidal nose had an unusual pallor as it rose from his somewhat

depressed cheeks.

"You needn't say _you_ are unprepared, Mrs. Varick!" he exclaimed. "I am

unprepared myself. I had no idea of visiting you this afternoon. I had

no idea that you would again give me the pleasure of receiving me.

Handicapped as I am, myself, by visits, letters, applications,

mercantile matters, I have insisted, however, on getting rid of

all--yes, _all_ trammels."