The late John Stewart had, in his lifetime, achieved the distinction of
being a model husband. He was devoted to his wife in more senses of the
word than one; he was content to appear stupid so she might shine the
more; content to slave at Mammon's shrine for his wife's sake. His fund
of patience, of tolerance, of faith, had been infinite. It was in return
for these things that his wife, as he lay in the dying moments of
typhoid, whispered to him, with a tremendous suspicion that she had
seemed blind to much of her fortune, "John, dear John, you musn't go,
not yet. I--I--"
And though John assured her that he was going to get well, the next day
found the promise broken.
Mrs. Stewart, after his death, realized all that he had been to her, all
that she, except in his loving fancy, had not been to him. And brooding
over such recollections she began to feel the ban of morbidness, the old
rooms, the dear, familiar haunts that had once known his voice, were
peopled now with sadness, and she resolved to seek escape, for a time at
least, from these living voices of a silenced lip. She had some cousins
in London; she determined to travel, to visit them. With her went her
nearer cousin, Miss Leigh, whose whimsical, cynical sincerities she
loved the while she combated them.
So, in the spring, they found themselves in London, then harboring the
whirl of society at its swiftest. But that had palled on Mrs. Stewart,
and she dragged Miss Leigh off for an apparently aimless tour through
Wales, and the Lake district, and on up to Scotland.
September found them in St. Andrews.
Although it was one of the months that constitute the "short season" of
that dear old academic village, it was easily possible to escape the
crowds of golf-enthusiasts that studded the links with their glaringly
colorful costumes. The old castle, the ruins of the cathedral, the
legends of the historic, bloody occurrences that had taken place here
for religion's sake,--all these were full of charms to these two
American women, saturated, as is nearly all that Nation, with a
peculiar, wistful reverence for things antique.
There were drives, too, that gave opportunities for enjoyment of the
Scotch autumn scenery. Along the banks of the Tay, with the solemn
Crampians showing dim in the distance.
Mrs. Stewart loved to sit in the silent coolness of the college
quadrangles and dream. It seemed to her that only for such places were
dreams fit companions.
One day, they were sitting together on the turf that once had marked a
cathedral wall. Miss Leigh was reading; Mrs. Stewart idly watching the
breakers roll up to the cliffs.
"I beg your pardon!"
The two ladies looked up, and turned to find Lancaster standing before
them, with his hat off and a look of amused surprise on his face.
"Well," said Mrs. Stewart, shaking hands heartily, "the world is small
as ever, is it not? It's like home, seeing you!"
"It strikes me the same way." He sat down beside them. They noticed that
he was browned and furrowed; the marks of travel, the brace of different
climes, the scars caught in the thick of life's battle were all sharply
dominant in his externals.
"We ought to feel honored," smiled Miss Leigh. "You are such a celebrity
nowadays! We have heard the most weird anecdotes about you of late, you
know. You are pictured as the Sphinx and the Chimera in one."
"You are still," he answered, "as cruel as ever."
"But we really feel very proud of you," said Mrs. Stewart. "We know each
other too well, I hope, to veil our honest opinions. I admire your work
immensely; but I think you're terribly bitter sometimes."
"Ah," he laughed gently, "I'm glad it strikes you that way. Bitterness
is the only taste that lives after a complete course of life. But we
really must talk of something less embarassing than myself. Do tell me
the news! How are all the dear familiars?" He paused, and lowered his
voice a little. "If it pains you," he said gently, "let us talk of other
things. I--have heard. Believe me, I am sorry, very sorry. It is a poor
word, but--" he stopped as she looked up at him gratefully for an
instant, and then said with an effort at cheerfulness:
"Oh, they were all well, when we left."
"Yes," put in Miss Leigh, "and doing about the same old things. Mr.
Wreath still expounds, in and out of season, the doctrine of his own
surpassingly correct theories on veritism in literature; and
incidentally takes all occasions to assail the sincerity of every other
living writer. He's an amusing man, and if he had only been given a
sense of honor he would find himself an ever re-direct jest. Clarence
Miller has written another novel, and all society is wondering whether
it will be translated into Magyar or Mongolian. He calls it 'Five Loaves
and Two Fishes.' His brother-in-law has composed another comic opera
that some people have the originality to declare original. And--but why
continue the catalogue? It's just the same ridiculous circus it ever
was."
Lancaster laughed. "Thank you. That's really a volume in a nutshell. I
wonder if the performers in that circus really know how amusing they
are?"
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Stewart, "but they keep it up nevertheless. Of
course, it's only when one gets away from it that one really gets the
most entertaining focus on that sort of a thing. I'm sure," she sighed,
"I don't seem to belong to those ranks at all, now." She shivered a
little. The sun was setting, and a chill breeze blowing off the sea.
"I'm afraid we must go," she said, rising, "but you must be sure and
come to see us." She gave Lancaster a small card, and then, with smiles
and bows, and rustling of skirts, they were gone.
In the weeks that followed Lancaster availed himself of the privilege
accorded in Mrs. Stewart's invitation as often as possible. The three
were together almost daily, if only for a few moments. Lancaster was
busily employed, the while, in fixing in black-and-white some of the
types and features that prevailed in this fashionable corner of Fife.
The London and Paris journals soon gave evidences of his industry.
Fortunately, but few of these papers found their way to St. Andrews, and
Lancaster's love of incognito was not disturbed. Sometimes the artist
would disappear for days; a fishing-boat would be his hope for the time,
and he would drink in the free winds of the sea, and the passing joy of
that toilsome life of the fishermen. The winds and the freshness of the
life were like a tonic to him, but he knew that it would presently pall
and he would give way to the fever for the metropolitan whirlpool.
Occasionally Miss Leigh preferred to remain in her apartments, leaving
Mrs. Stewart to stroll along the links alone with the young artist. "Do
you know," remarked Mrs. Stewart, on one such occasion, "that my
cousin's tremendously fond of you?"
Lancaster looked up in surprise: Then he gave a short laugh. "She's
tremendously mistaken," he said, "I'm not the sort that anyone should be
fond of--now." He looked out over the sea. "There goes a steamer. I
suppose it's the Aberdeen boat." He watched it wistfully.
"She thinks," continued Mrs. Stewart, heedless of his abstraction, "that
you are a young man much to be envied. Already you have a name that is
known far and wide, and all life is yet before you. She--"
He interrupted, bitterly: "Life is all behind me, you should say. All,
all! I have tried everything, the good and the evil. The one broke my
belief in all things; the other gives me the belief that the only thing
to do is to laugh. Strange! I heard that phrase first in your
drawing-room, Mrs. Stewart! Suppose we sit down. These rocks are
fashioned delightfully for easy chairs."
The sun was burnishing the water with a lustre of copper. The sea-gulls
moaned as they circled about hungrily. The breakers hissed sullenly
below them.
"My philosophy," he went on, after he had seen that Mrs. Stewart was
comfortably seated, "is very simple, now. Laugh! That is the text of
it."
She mused in silence. "You used to be so different," she murmured,
presently. "You were, not so long ago, at the other extreme. You thought
everything was solemn, awful, important, that there were majestic duties
in life, splendid obligations, and splendid things to live for.
Now,--you say it is all a jest, and the only thing to do is to laugh. I
think you have had too much curiosity."
"Perhaps. Curiosity is a guide that takes us into a labyrinth and leaves
us there. But why," he shrugged his shoulders impatiently, "why must we
be forever talking of this hapless personage, me? Suppose we talk,
instead, of you?"
"Oh, no. You are the interesting one. You are a study. I should like to
help you. I think you are doing yourself an injustice: letting yourself
drift as you are. Your fame, alone, won't bring you happiness."
"I'm not expecting happiness."
Mrs. Stewart watched his face, hard set, with it's bitter drop to the
right corner of the mouth, and something of pity came to her. "Once,"
she went on, "it seemed to me that there was a woman who meant for you
the same thing as happiness."
"Perhaps." His voice was as hard as before. "That was a very long time
ago,--counting by experiences. Why talk of marriage? I don't think I
could stand it for an instant; I don't think any woman could stand me.
As I once was--that was different."
"Some women are very patient."
"Yes. And then I should go mad until they came out of their deadly
patience into something more exciting. A woman's fury would amuse me
vastly, I think." He twisted his stick into the rocks, and outlined
vague designs in the sandstone. "Why, supposing, for the sake of the
argument, that I asked you to marry me, you would, I am sure, consider
me a madman to expect you to make such a fool of yourself?"
She flushed slightly. "Merely for the sake of the argument, I don't say
that I would do anything of the sort. I might consider it ill-timed,
inconsiderate."
"Ah, I beg your pardon, humbly. I realize that deeply. Merely, I said,
for the sake of the argument. I want to show you the utter hopelessness
of my position. Suppose then, that I asked you that question, what would
you tell yourself? That I was a man, young in years, old in experiences,
soured in thought and taste, bitter in mind, selfish, a slave to the
most egoistic of epicureanisms. A man who considers nothing too sacred
for laughter, or too ridiculous for tears. A man who is a perpetual
evidence of the corroding influences of flippancy; whose very art, even,
is merely a means for amusement. No,--you, clever, shrewd, adaptable
woman of the world though you are, would realize at once that to enter
into a life-partnership with a man of that sort were to invite immediate
misery. Think: the man would be ungovernable, save by his moods; when he
should be at home acting as host to a dinner-party he would be tramping
the moors in a wild passion for solitude? A man who would perpetually
fling at his wife the most mordant of sarcasms, merely for the pleasure
they caused his powers of creation. If a biting jest came to him, he
would hurl it at his wife, without malice, but because she happened to
be present. Not even the cleverest woman in the world can decide between
the words and the motive in a case like that. No; this man has fed too
much on the lees of disenchantment to be himself aught but a sorry-devil
of a jester."
She signed. "You have the modern disease in terrible
development--self-analysis. It seems to me to be quite as cruel as
vivisection. And I think you exaggerate your vices. After all--I may
speak frankly, may I not? I am a woman that has ever kept her eyes
open--you represent nothing so very dreadful. You are young, impetuous;
you have had the bandages of stern puritanism roughly torn from you, and
you have had a little of what the world calls 'your fling!' You realize
yourself far too much. You are not one whit worse than others. All men
worship, for a time, at the shrine of their animal natures, I suppose.
But instead of letting the thought of it all drive you further and
further into bitterness, why not resolve to shake off the whole cloak,
and put it back into the limbo of thinks henceforth to be avoided?" She
paused, and looked at him with a smile. "Get married. I believe, in
spite of your fears, that you will make a good husband. Believe me, you
will be a much better one than if you had never taught yourself the
revolting nausea that the other side of life brings."
"Marry?" he repeated, "why do you harp on that? I tell you, there is no
one, no one at all! Unless--" he looked over the breakers to the setting
sun, "unless there were a woman somewhere that could understand and
forgive. A woman that knew something of the world, of the stings of
experience and the hollowness of hope. With a woman like that I might
become the owner of the new youth, might sink all these bitternesses,
live earnest in ambition and.... But there is no such woman, none...." A
sudden light flashed into his eyes, and with passion he continued,
"Except-yourself. Yes--you are the only one. You know; you understand.
Oh, listen to me, listen! Why tell me that this is a sacrilege, an
insult to a memory. Do you suppose I don't know that? I do; I feel it
deeply; but I also feel that I am pleading for a helping hand, that I
see in you the only chance of safety, that you mean for me a new life,
and that I must tell you so now, before the opportunity is gone. Oh,
don't tell me I'm a coward--I know that, too, well enough. I confess it;
I am a coward, a broken-hearted cur." He groaned, and getting up, began
to walk slowly up and down before her. "Is it so impossible? I
would--you yourself admitted that hope!--improve. Is there no hope?"
"What a boy you are, what a boy! You have all the headstrong, passionate
eagerness of youth, and yet you pretend to play the wearied liver of
many lives! No, Dick," her voice grew gentler, and it came to him like a
pleasant harmony, "we will do nothing so foolish. You and I are always
to be very good friends, and we will help each other always, but not
that, not that! You are too young; regret would come to you all too
soon. No matter how nicely each of us were to fashion his or her temper
to the other's, there would come that thought: for the hope of mere
comfort I have sacrificed an idol. For, Dick, think, think! Dorothy
Ware! Do you think I have not watched you, found you out long ago? What
was it, Dick, a tiff? A refusal?"
He stopped in his sentry-go, and began to whistle, softly, '_La donna e
Mobile_.' "I--I beg your pardon," he added, hastily, "I fear I forget my
manners. Was it a refusal? you ask. Well,--perhaps, perhaps not. At the
time, I thought it was. Since then I have found out things--things--Bah,
what does it matter!"
"Go on," she said, "tell me!"
"In Germany, I met Wooton--"
She interrupted. "Ah, yes; I remember a terrible cruel picture you drew
of a man at a café table, drinking. It was his face, unmistakably. Why
did you do that?"
"That was--only an afterthought. Well, he had been--drinking, and he
talked a good deal. Some of it was about Miss Ware."
For a moment there was silence.
Then "And you believed it?" she asked.
"At the time, no. Lord knows I did not want to. But, afterward, I
remembered the look on her face when she gave me that last refusal. It
was a strange look; it meant more than I could account for, at that
time. Yes," he sighed, "I believe it. Why shouldn't I? I know how vile a
man may be; be a woman only half as weak, or half as 'new,' and she is
a thing for loathing."
"Hush! What a conventional man it is, after all. Always the same old
tune, one thing for the man, another for the woman! Listen: I know
Dorothy Ware, better, perhaps, than you do; I know her later self, you
only know her as a child. There are great points of similarity between
you two. She has much of your absurd sensitiveness; self-torment is one
of her vices. She is very much given to making mountains out of
molehills. She--"
"No, no," he interrupted, wearily, "I tell you I believe it. All, all of
it!"
"Well," she said, somewhat angrily, "and suppose you do! What then! Who
are you, that you should judge?"
He winced slightly, but then shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, of course, of
course; I've heard all about that. But it won't do, in practice."
"Won't it? Let us put the cases plainly, for comparison's sake: You are
a young man that has had more than his share of selfish indulgence; you
have thrown aside all scruples and done everything and anything you
pleased. Your actual transgressions of the commandments we will waive;
there is a greater crime: you have allowed yourself to become a soured,
bitter, heartless creature, fit only to disseminate scorn and distaste.
She, the woman in the case, once, we will say, allowed her senses to
oust her sense. Ever since, she has suffered agonies of regret. Unlike
the man she has not told herself that she might as well let fate have
it's play out. She is as sweet as the dew of Maytime, and the slight
trace of sadness only needs the touch of love to fall and almost fade. I
think she loves you; I am not sure--she is a woman, and it is hard to
say. As for you, in spite of everything, you love her. You coward! Why
don't you ask her again? She will tell you that it is impossible, of
course. She will say there was once another. Then, unless you are a
greater coward than I think you, you will tell her that compared to
yourself she is as pure as the driven snow, and you want nothing, only
her forgiveness for yourself."
He was still stubborn. "It is the old story," he said, "one has heard it
all before. The woman is to be put on a par with the man; there is no
actual difference in ethics. But I once saw it tried; I shudder when I
think of it. To be sure--the woman was notorious."
"Ah! How can you compare the cases? And yet--" she laughed a trifle
bitterly,--"in this case the man is notorious." She watched him wince
under the callousness of triumph.
"Think," she continued, "what she could be to you, how she could help
you; how you could help each other! The happy days and dreams together,
the planning for new artistic achievements, the sweet companionship of a
soul capable of understanding! Instead of--what? Fierce flights into
forgetfulness; pursuits of vanishing pleasures, palling desires; short
triumphs in art merged into long revulsions from life! It seems, to me,
a fair exchange!" She rose, as if to end the subject. He put her shawl
about her shoulders, and they walked slowly back to the village, talking
of other things, gaily, lightly, insincerely.