"And so you will not give me the poor satisfaction of punishing and
exposing the scoundrel who has treated you so basely?" said John to his
sister, as they sat in her little studio.
"No," said Gertrude; "he has taken that trouble off your hands--he has
punished himself. He has traveled all over the Union in search of
employment, and succeeded in nothing he has undertaken. He has met with
losses and disappointments in every shape, and occupies, at present, a
most inferior business position, I am told. Now that I have become
famous, and it is out of his power to injure me, he quails at the
mention of my name in public, and dreads nothing so much as recognition
by those who are acquainted with his baseness. He sneaks through life,
with the consciousness that he has played the part of a scoundrel--what
could even you add to this?"
"But the idea of such a miserable apology for a man getting a divorce
from a sister of _mine_," said John, striding impatiently across the
room. "Why did you not anticipate him, Gertrude? and with right on your
side, too."
"Had I been pecuniarily able to do so," replied Gertrude, "I had not
the slightest _wish_ to oppose a divorce, especially as I knew it could
be obtained on no grounds that would compromise me. For months after
Stahle left me, and, indeed, before, he and his spies had been on my
track. Had there been a shadow of a charge they could have preferred
against my good name, _then_ would have been their hour of triumph! I
have a copy of the divorce papers in my possession, and the only
allegation there preferred is, that I did not accept Stahle's invitation
to join him when he wrote me, in the manner I have related to you."
"But the world, Gertrude, the world," said the irritated John, "will not
understand this."
"My dear John," said Gertrude, "they who _desire_ to believe a lie, will
do so in the face of the clearest evidence to the contrary. But I have
found out that though a person (a woman especially) may suffer much from
the bitter persecution of such persons, from the general undeserved
suspicion of wrong, and from the pusillanimity of those who _should_ be
her defenders, yet even in such a position, a woman can never be injured
_essentially_, save by her own acts, for God is just, and truth and
innocence will triumph. I am righted before the world; my untiring
industry and uprightness of life are the refutal of his calumnies. Leave
him to his kennel obscurity, my dear John. I do not _now_ need the blow
that I am sure you would not have been slow to strike for me had you
known how your sister was oppressed."
"I don't know but you are right, Gertrude, and yet--if he ever should
cross my path, my opinion might undergo a sudden revulsion. Does he
still keep up the show of piety?"
"So I have heard," said Gertrude. "The first thing he does, when he goes
into a new place is to connect himself with some church. What a pity,
John, such men should bring religion into disrepute."
"You think so, do you? And yet you refuse to expose it. It is just
because of this that so many hypocrites go unmasked. Sift them out, I
say--if there is not a communicant left in the church. I do not believe
in throwing a wide mantle over such whited sepulchers."
"Do you suppose," said Gertrude, "that they whose houses are built on
such a sandy foundation will quietly see them undermined? _Such_ a hue
and cry as they will raise (all for the honor of the cause, of course!)
about your 'speaking lightly of religion and its professors!'"
"Very true," said John, "it is speaking lightly of its _professors_ but
not of its _possessors_. They might as well tell you to keep dumb about
a gang of counterfeiters, lest it should do injury to the money-market;
bah! Gertrude, I have no patience with such tampering; but to dismiss an
unpleasant topic, you have plenty of employment, I see;" and John
glanced round the room at Gertrude's pictures. "I am proud of you,
Gertrude; I honor you for your self-reliance; but what is your fancy,
with your artistic reputation, for living such a nun's life?"
"Well," said Gertrude, "in the first place, my time is too valuable to
me to be thrown away on bores and idlers, and the Paul Pry family, in
all its various ramifications. Autograph hunters I have found not
without their use, as I never answer their communications, and they find
me in letter stamps. But _entre nous_, John, I have no very exalted
opinion of the sex to which you belong.
"Men are so gross and unspiritual, John, so wedded to making money and
promiscuous love, so selfish and unchivalric; of course there are
occasionally glorious exceptions, but who would be foolish enough to
wade through leagues of brambles, and briars, to find perchance one
flower? Female friends, of course, are out of the question, always
excepting Rose, whose title is no misnomer. And as to general society,
it is so seldom one finds a congenial circle that, having resources of
my own, I feel disinclined to encounter the risk."
"This isolation is unnatural; Gertrude, you can not be happy."
"Who is?" asked Gertrude. "Are you? Is Rose? Where is the feast at
which there is no skeleton? I make no complaint. I enjoyed more
happiness in the five years of my first wedded life than falls to the
lot of most mortals in a life-time. I know that such an experience can
not be repeated, so I live on the past. You say I am not happy; I am
negatively happy. If I gather no honey, I at least escape the sting."
"I wish for my sake, Gertrude, you would go into society. I can not but
think you would form new ties that would brighten life. As a woman, you
can not be insensible to your attractive power."
"I have no desire to exert it," replied Gertrude; "there are undoubtedly
men in want of housekeepers, and plenty of widowers in want of nurses
for their children. My desires do not point that way."
"You are incorrigible, Gertrude. Do you suppose there is no man who has
sense enough to love you for yourself alone?"
"What if I do not want to be loved?" asked his sister.
"But you do," persisted John; "so long as there is any vitality in a
women, she likes to be loved."
"Well, then, granting your proposition for the sake of the argument,
please give me credit for a most martyr-like and persistent
self-denial," said Gertrude, laughing.
"I will give you credit for nothing, till your heart gets thawed out a
little; and I think I know a friend of mine who can do it."
"Forewarned forearmed," said his sister.