HORACE WYLIE’S PHILOSOPHY
Let us now make a flying trip to the Pacific slope and go back to that
hour of parting at San Francisco to learn more of the motives that
prompted the tragedy in Elinor Wylie’s life.
Passenger train No. 9, eastward bound, pulled slowly out of the great
depot building of the Oakland Mole, and the hurrying and excited throng
of people pressed forward, jostling elbows and crowding one another
after the manner of travelers, who sometimes leave their politeness and
good breeding behind them when they take up their valises.
The coaches were fast becoming filled, when a gentleman entered one of
them, accompanied by a child and two ladies, one a pretty blonde, whom
he helped to a seat and bent over in tender leave-taking.
“Good-by, Nellie! Write me when you get through, or better, wire me from
Denver, so I may know all is well. Tibby is with you, so I need not
worry if the trains run right.”
The little lady smiled through tear-moistened eyelids as she replied,
and kissing her again, and the child, and shaking hands with her
companion, he sprang from the train as it began to move.
Horace Wylie stood watching the long line of coaches as they moved away
from him, biting the ends of his mustache in an absent, absorbed
inattention, then turned slowly back within the gates, a strange mixture
of emotions controlling him.
The inward monitor, conscience, was not yet stifled, and it was holding
a mental mirror before his vision. He caught a flitting glimpse of his
real self, stripped of all the sophistries and delusions under which he
loved to hide. Was he not a traitor, double-dyed? For a moment he felt
an impulse to rush after the departing train and seek to stop it in its
flight. A vision of his wife, looking trim and attractive in her
fashionable costume, remained and upbraided him with her trusting blue
eyes.
It was but a moment, however. Another face superseded it—a dark,
brilliant face, with passionate southern eyes, and red, full lips; a
face more sensuous, more bewilderingly intoxicating to him in its
voluptuous beauty and piquancy.
Horace Wylie shrugged his shoulders and shook himself as if to shake off
the oppression of self-reproach. He had made his decision and would
abide by it. After all, what mattered it? He had but one life to live.
It was right to get all the enjoyment out of it within his reach.
He had not confessed to himself before why he had been so willing, and
more than willing, that his wife should make a visit of three months at
her old home. It had been her wish to go, and he had magnanimously
granted her permission. Thus he told himself. But he knew he concealed,
under a pretense of self-denial, the secret joy he felt that her own
voluntary act should lend aid to the furtherance of his half-formed
designs. He had not told the better part of himself what these designs
were. It is doubtful whether at this time he had faced the fact that
they were designs at all. They were mere desires. At least they were
vague, shadowy, evanescent creations, taking form from his desires, and
developing slowly in the secret, dark chambers of his bosom.
He felt now, rather than thought consciously, that the barrier which had
restrained the current of his impulses was washed away and he might sink
in the lethal waters or be drifted away from prudence and engulfed in
the maelstrom of pleasure. He could not say _vice_, but a guilty
consciousness oppressed him now as he stood upon the platform watching
the last curling waves of smoke float backward.
Wylie boasted of being a man of progressive ideas, a modern philosopher,
who had outgrown the old-fogyism of the past generation and arisen to a
plane where he could sit and lay down laws unto himself—mark out a plan
of life for this world and the hereafter. He was well-read in modern
sciences and a student of mental philosophy. He confessed himself
infidel in that he denied the Divine origin of the Scriptures, laughed
at what he called the pretty fables that bound the conscience of the
orthodox Christian, and felt himself superior in his latter-day wisdom.
He claimed to be a free-thinker and a liberalist, who read Huxley and
venerated Ingersoll, but had adopted a modern creed more in accordance
with modern requirements. He confessed to a decided leaning toward
spiritism. In fact, if his ideas were really expressed, he believed a
man had a right to do about as he pleased in this world, despite moral
and civil law. Not that he would have confessed as much to himself. That
was another of his self-delusions. But he had outgrown in theory, with
the fables taught him in his youth, his boyish code of morality. He had
also outgrown, so he believed, his love for his wife, whom he had
married many years ago, when he was but twenty-one, a mere boy,
incapable of judging or choosing wisely. So he argued with the better
self. Not that he found serious fault with her. He secretly wished he
might do so, but she had been faithful to him, he believed, and upheld
the family honor; was pretty, stylish, domestic, social, and a kind
mother to his son. All this he was forced to acknowledge. But she was
one ideaed, commonplace, he told himself, and she was not his _spiritual
affinity_. Ah, there was a reason furnished by his lately adopted creed.
She was not his affinity.
He could remember a time when she was all in all to him. But he had
outgrown that time too. Of course he loved his boy, and if,—if certain
imaginings and fancies should materialize,—well, he needn’t consult his
better self about that yet.
“Hello, have you fallen asleep, watching that train off?” A friendly
hand slapped him upon the shoulder.
Wylie started as though his thoughts were patent to all observers.
“I—I have just sent off Elinor and the boy,” he said with confusion.
“Ah, that is—shall I say fortunate or unfortunate? Fortunate for them
perhaps—bad for you. And you were following them with your mind. Are
they to remain away long?”
“Three months. They will go to the Atlantic coast before they return.”
Wylie spoke with an effort.
“And what will you do while they are gone? Board at the club, I
suppose.”
“Yes, at the Bohemian. I am at the office all day, and most of the
nights, so shall have little time to miss my family.”
“I see. Well, come to the club oftener, when you can get away. By the
way, have you attended any of Mrs. Mount’s receptions lately?”
“Yes, I go often. They are enjoyable, which is saying much.”
Wylie spoke with enthusiasm. His companion shrugged his shoulders
suggestively.
“I suppose that depends whether you are in sympathy or not with the very
liberal ideas discussed there.”
“Are you not in sympathy?”
“I don’t like some of the people who go there.”
“Did you ever find a society every individual of which you deemed
companionable?”
“Possibly not, but I have reference to two or three conspicuous persons
who are notorious for their immorality.”
“To whom do you refer? Not Mr. Falkner?”
“Yes, Mr. Falkner for one. He is much married and divorced.”
“I am sure all was legal, so far as I know. He separated from number
one, and was again married. When number two ran away and left him, he
obtained a second divorce, and—married again.”
Wylie’s companion looked at him with curious eyes.
“I am surprised that you approve of him. From his conduct last evening I
should judge there will be a chance for a third divorce. I cannot like
the man.”
“His conduct? How?” Wylie inquired, shifting his weight from one foot to
the other, nervously. His companion gave him a scrutinizing look.
“With Mrs. Hartner,” he replied in a dry tone.
Horace Wylie winced, but he said in a tone of affected indifference, “I
consider Mrs. Hartner a lady.”
“Yes? Do you know where her husband is?”
“No.”
“It is rumored that he has been hired to leave the country.”
“For what reason?”
“To enable her to get a divorce.”
“So? Well, it’s none of my affairs,” and Wylie laughed a mirthless
laugh.
“Nor mine, but if I were interested in the lady I should keep her away
from Mrs. Mount’s. Ta, ta, Wylie. This is my corner.”
Young Holden sauntered around it slowly, out of sight.
“Confound the fellow! Why did he say that to me? It can’t be that he
suspects—but no, that is impossible. There is something confoundedly
disreputable about a divorce, that’s a fact. But this double life is
risky, especially with such a keen-witted wife as Elinor, and Berenice
is so determined, and insists—well, time enough to think of this later.
It’s a relief to know that Elinor is where she need not hear all the
gossip of the clubs.”