At five o'clock the sombre egg-shaped room at the Ritz ripens to a
subtle melody--the light _clat-clat_ of one lump, two lumps, into the
cup, and the _ding_ of the shining teapots and cream-pots as they kiss
elegantly in transit upon a silver tray. There are those who cherish
that amber hour above all other hours, for now the pale, pleasant toil
of the lilies who inhabit the Ritz is over--the singing decorative part
of the day remains.
Moving your eyes around the slightly raised horseshoe balcony you might,
one spring afternoon, have seen young Mrs. Alphonse Karr and young Mrs.
Charles Hemple at a table for two. The one in the dress was Mrs.
Hemple--when I say "the dress" I refer to that black immaculate affair
with the big buttons and the red ghost of a cape at the shoulders, a
gown suggesting with faint and fashionable irreverence the garb of a
French cardinal, as it was meant to do when it was invented in the Rue
de la Paix. Mrs. Karr and Mrs. Hemple were twenty-three years old, and
their enemies said that they had done very well for themselves. Either
might have had her limousine waiting at the hotel door, but both of them
much preferred to walk home (up Park Avenue) through the April twilight.
Luella Hemple was tall, with the sort of flaxen hair that English
country girls should have, but seldom do. Her skin was radiant, and
there was no need of putting anything on it at all, but in deference to
an antiquated fashion--this was the year 1920--she had powdered out its
high roses and drawn on it a new mouth and new eyebrows--which were no
more successful than such meddling deserves. This, of course, is said
from the vantage-point of 1925. In those days the effect she gave was
exactly right.
"I've been married three years," she was saying as she squashed out a
cigarette in an exhausted lemon. "The baby will be two years old
to-morrow. I must remember to get----"
She took a gold pencil from her case and wrote "Candles" and "Things you
pull, with paper caps," on an ivory date-pad. Then, raising her eyes,
she looked at Mrs. Karr and hesitated.
"Shall I tell you something outrageous?"
"Try," said Mrs. Karr cheerfully.
"Even my baby bores me. That sounds unnatural, Ede, but it's true. He
doesn't _begin_ to fill my life. I love him with all my heart, but when
I have him to take care of for an afternoon, I get so nervous that I
want to scream. After two hours I begin praying for the moment the
nurse'll walk in the door."
When she had made this confession, Luella breathed quickly and looked
closely at her friend. She didn't really feel unnatural at all. This was
the truth. There couldn't be anything vicious in the truth.
"It may be because you don't love Charles," ventured Mrs. Karr, unmoved.
"But I do! I hope I haven't given you that impression with all this
talk." She decided that Ede Karr was stupid. "It's the very fact that I
do love Charles that complicates matters. I cried myself to sleep last
night because I know we're drifting slowly but surely toward a divorce.
It's the baby that keeps us together."
Ede Karr, who had been married five years, looked at her critically to
see if this was a pose, but Luella's lovely eyes were grave and sad.
"And what is the trouble?" Ede inquired.
"It's plural," said Luella, frowning. "First, there's food. I'm a vile
housekeeper, and I have no intention of turning into a good one. I hate
to order groceries, and I hate to go into the kitchen and poke around to
see if the ice-box is clean, and I hate to pretend to the servants that
I'm interested in their work, when really I never want to hear about
food until it comes on the table. You see, I never learned to cook, and
consequently a kitchen is about as interesting to me as a--as a
boiler-room. It's simply a machine that I don't understand. It's easy to
say, 'Go to cooking school,' the way people do in books--but, Ede, in
real life does anybody ever change into a model _Hausfrau_ unless they
have to?"
"Go on," said Ede non-committally. "Tell me more."
"Well, as a result, the house is always in a riot. The servants leave
every week. If they're young and incompetent, I can't train them, so we
have to let them go. If they're experienced, they hate a house where a
woman doesn't take an intense interest in the price of asparagus. So
they leave--and half the time we eat at restaurants and hotels."
"I don't suppose Charles likes that."
"Hates it. In fact, he hates about everything that I like. He's lukewarm
about the theatre, hates the opera, hates dancing, hates cocktail
parties--sometimes I think he hates everything pleasant in the world. I
sat home for a year or so. While Chuck was on the way, and while I was
nursing him, I didn't mind. But this year I told Charles frankly that I
was still young enough to want some fun. And since then we've been going
out whether he wants to or not." She paused, brooding. "I'm so sorry for
him I don't know what to do, Ede--but if we sat home, I'd just be sorry
for myself. And to tell you another true thing, I'd rather that he'd be
unhappy than me."
Luella was not so much stating a case as thinking aloud. She considered
that she was being very fair. Before her marriage men had always told
her that she was "a good sport," and she had tried to carry this fairness
into her married life. So she always saw Charley's point of view as
clearly as she saw her own.
If she had been a pioneer wife, she would probably have fought the fight
side by side with her husband. But here in New York there wasn't any
fight. They weren't struggling together to obtain a far-off peace and
leisure--she had more of either than she could use. Luella, like several
thousand other young wives in New York, honestly wanted something to do.
If she had had a little more money and a little less love, she could
have gone in for horses or for vagarious amour. Or if they had had a
little less money, her surplus energy would have been absorbed by hope
and even by effort. But the Charles Hemples were in between. They were
of that enormous American class who wander over Europe every summer,
sneering rather pathetically and wistfully at the customs and traditions
and pastimes of other countries, because they have no customs or
traditions or pastimes of their own. It is a class sprung yesterday from
fathers and mothers who might just as well have lived two hundred years
ago.
The tea-hour had turned abruptly into the before-dinner hour. Most of
the tables had emptied until the room was dotted rather than crowded
with shrill isolated voices and remote, surprising laughter--in one
corner the waiters were already covering the tables with white for
dinner.
"Charles and I are on each other's nerves." In the new silence Luella's
voice rang out with startling clearness, and she lowered it precipitately.
"Little things. He keeps rubbing his face with his hand--all the time,
at table, at the theatre--even when he's in bed. It drives me wild, and
when things like that begin to irritate you, it's nearly over." She
broke off and, reaching backward, drew up a light fur around her neck.
"I hope I haven't bored you, Ede. It's on my mind, because to-night
tells the story. I made an engagement for to-night--an interesting
engagement, a supper after the theatre to meet some Russians, singers or
dancers or something, and Charles says he won't go. If he doesn't--then
I'm going alone. And that's the end."
She put her elbows on the table suddenly and, bending her eyes down into
her smooth gloves, began to cry, stubbornly and quietly. There was no
one near to see, but Ede Karr wished that she had taken her gloves off.
She would have reached out consolingly and touched her bare hand. But
the gloves were a symbol of the difficulty of sympathizing with a woman
to whom life had given so much. Ede wanted to say that it would "come
out all right," that it wasn't "so bad as it seemed," but she said
nothing. Her only reaction was impatience and distaste.
A waiter stepped near and laid a folded paper on the table, and Mrs.
Karr reached for it.
"No, you mustn't," murmured Luella brokenly. "No, I invited _you_! I've
got the money right here."