If there were any cloud upon his horizon, it was the thought of Laura. She
had barely been to the house since Edith had come back to town; and at
times, especially in the days when things had looked dark for Roger, he had
caught himself reproaching this giddy-gaddy youngest child, so engrossed in
her small "ménage" that apparently she could not spare a thought for her
widowed sister. Laura on her return from abroad had brought as a gift for
Edith a mourning gown from Paris, a most alluring creation--so much so, in
fact, that Edith had felt it simply indecent, insulting, and had returned
it to her sister with a stilted note of thanks. But Roger did not know of
this. There were so many ways, he thought, in which Laura might have been
nice to Edith. She had a gorgeous limousine in which she might so easily
have come and taken her sister off on little trips uptown. But no, she kept
her car to herself. And from her small apartment, where a maid whom she had
brought from Rome dressed her several times each day, that limousine rushed
her noiselessly forth, gay and wild as ever, immaculate and elegant,
radiant and very rich. To what places did she go? What new friends was she
making? What was Laura up to?
He did not like her manner, one evening when she came to the house. As he
helped her off with her cloak, a sleek supple leopard skin which fitted her
figure like a glove, he asked,
"Where's Hal this evening?" And she answered lightly,
"Oh, don't ask _me_ what he does with himself."
"You mean, I suppose," said Edith, with quiet disapproval, "that he is
rushed to death this year with all this business from the war."
"Yes, it's business," Laura replied, as she deftly smoothed and patted her
soft, abundant, reddish hair. "And it's war, too," she added.
"What do you mean?" her father asked. He knew what she meant, war with her
husband. But before Laura could answer him, Edith cut in hastily, for two
of her children were present. At dinner she turned the talk to the war. But
even on this topic, Laura's remarks were disturbing. She did not consider
the war wholly bad--by no means, it had many good points. It was clearing
away a lot of old rubbish, customs, superstitions and institutions out of
date. "Musty old relics," she called them. She spoke as though repeating
what someone else had told her. Laura with her chicken's mind could never
have thought it all out by herself. When asked what she meant, she was
smilingly vague, with a glance at Edith's youngsters. But she threw out
hints about the church and even Christianity, as though it were falling to
pieces. She spoke of a second Renaissance, "a glorious pagan era" coming.
And then she exploded a little bomb by inquiring of Edith.
"What do you think the girls over there are going to do for husbands, with
half the marriageable men either killed or hopelessly damaged? They're not
going to be nuns all their lives!"
Again her sister cut her off, and the rest of the brief evening was
decidedly awkward. Yes, she was changing, growing fast. And Roger did not
like it. Here she was spending money like water, absorbed in her pleasures,
having no baby, apparently at loose ends with her husband, and through it
all so cocksure of herself and her outrageous views about war, and smiling
about them with such an air, and in her whole manner, such a tone of amused
superiority. She talked about a world for the strong, bits of gabble from
Nietzsche and that sort of rot; she spoke blithely of a Rome reborn, the
"Wings of the Eagles" heard again. This part of it she had taken, no doubt,
from her new Italian friend, her husband's shrapnel partner.
Pshaw! What was Laura up to?
But that was only one evening. It was not repeated, another month went
quickly by, and Roger had soon shaken it from him, for he had troubles
enough at home. One daughter at a time, he had thought. And as the dark
clouds close above him had cleared, the other cloud too had drifted away,
until it was small, just on the horizon, far away from Roger's house. What
was Laura up to? He barely ever thought of that now.
* * * * *
But one night when he came home, Edith, who sat in the living room reading
aloud to her smaller boys, gave him a significant look which warned him
something had happened. And turning to take off his overcoat, in the hall
he almost stumbled upon a pile of hand luggage, two smart patent leather
bags, a hat trunk and a sable cloak.
"Hello," he exclaimed. "What's this? Who's here?"
"Laura," Edith answered. "She's up in Deborah's room, I think--they've been
up there for over an hour." Roger looked indignantly in at his daughter.
"What has happened?" he asked.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you," Edith replied. "They didn't seem to need me.
They made it rather plain, in fact. Another quarrel, I presume. She came
into the house like a whirlwind, asked at once for Deborah and flew up to
Deborah's room."
"Pshaw!" Roger heavily mounted the stairs. He at least did not feel like
flying. A whirlwind, eh--a nice evening ahead!
* * * * *
Meanwhile, in her room upstairs Deborah sat motionless, sternly holding her
feelings down, while in a tone now kindly but more often full of a sharp
dismay, she threw out question after question to Laura who was walking the
floor in a quick, feverish sort of way, with gestures half hysterical, her
voice bursting with emotions of mingled fright and rage.
"No, this time it's divorce!" she declared, at the end of her first
outburst, in which she had told in fragments of her husband's double life.
"I've stood it long enough! I'm through!"
"You mean you don't care for him," Deborah said. She was fighting for time
to think it out. "You want a divorce. Very well, Laura dear--but how do you
think you are going to get it? The laws are rather strict in this state.
They allow but one cause. Have you any proofs?"
"No, I haven't--but I don't need any proofs! He wants it as badly as I do!
Wait--I'll give you his very words!" Laura's face grew white with fury.
"'It's entirely up to you, Sweetie'--the beast!--'You can have any kind of
divorce you like. You can let me bring suit on the quiet or you can try to
fight me in court, climb up into the witness chair in front of the
reporters and tell them all about yourself!'"
"_Your husband is to bring suit against you_?" Deborah's voice was loud and
harsh. "For God's sake, Laura, what do you mean?"
"Mean? I mean that _he has proofs_! He has used a detective, the mean
little cur, and he's treating me like the dirt under his feet! Just as
though it were one thing for a man, and another--quite--for a woman! He
even had the nerve to be mad, to get on a high horse, call me names! Turn
me!--turn me out on the street!" Deborah winced as though from a blow. "Oh,
it was funny, funny!" Laura was almost sobbing now.
"Stop, this minute!" Deborah said. "You say that you've been doing--what he
has?" she demanded.
"Why shouldn't I? What do you know about it? Are you going to turn against
me, too?"
"I am--pretty nearly--"
"Oh, good God!" Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her walking.
"Quiet! Please try to be clear and explain."
"Explain--to you? How can I? _You_ don't understand--you know nothing about
it--all you know about is schools! You're simply a nun when it comes to
this. I see it now--I didn't before--I thought you a modern woman--with
your mind open to new ideas. But it isn't, it seems, when it comes to a
pinch--it's shut as tight as Edith's is--"
"Yes, tight!"
"Thank you very much! Then for the love of Heaven will you kindly leave me
alone! I'll have a talk with father!"
"You will _not_ have a talk with father--"
"I most certainly will--and he'll understand! He's a man, at least--and he
led a man's life before he was married!"
"Laura!"
"_You_ can't see it in him--_but I can_!"
"You'll say not a word to him, not one word! He has had enough this year as
it is!"
"Has he? Then I'm sorry! If _you_ were any help to me--instead of acting
like a nun--"
"Will you please stop talking like a fool?"
"I'm not! I'm speaking the truth and you know it! You know no more about
love like mine than a nun of the middle ages! You needn't tell me about
Allan Baird. You think you're in love with him, don't you? Well then, I'll
tell you that you're not--your love is the kind that can wait for
years--because it's cold, it's cold, it's cold--it's all in your mind and
your reason! And so I say you're no help to me now! Here--look at yourself
in the glass over there! You're just plain angry--frightened!"
"Yes--I am--I'm frightened." While she strove to think clearly, to form
some plan, she let her young sister talk rapidly on:
"I know you are! And you can't be fair! You're like nearly all American
women--married or single, young or old--you're all of you scared to death
about sex--just as your Puritan mothers were! And you leave it alone--you
keep it down--you never give it a chance--you're afraid! But I'm not
afraid--and I'm living my life! And let me tell you I'm not alone! There
are hundreds and thousands doing the same--right here in New York City
to-night! It's been so abroad for years and years--in Rome and Berlin, in
Paris and London--and now, thank God, it has come over here! If our
husbands can do it, why can't we? And we are--we're starting--it's come
with the war! You think war is hell and nothing else, don't you--but you're
wrong! It's not only killing men--it's killing a lot of hypocrisies
too--it's giving a jolt to marriage! You'll see what the women will do soon
enough--when there aren't enough men any longer--"
"Suppose you stop this tirade and tell me exactly what you've done,"
Deborah interrupted. A simple course of action had just flashed into her
mind.
"All right, I will. I'm not ashamed. I've given you this 'tirade' to show
you exactly how I feel--that it's not any question of sin or guilt or any
musty old rubbish like that! I know I'm right! I know just what I'm doing!"
"Who's the man? That Italian?"
"Yes."
"Where is he?"
"Right here in New York."
"Does he mean to stand by you?"
"Of course he does."
"Will he marry you, Laura?"
"Yes, he will--the minute I'm free from my beast of a husband!"
"And your husband will keep his suit quiet, you said, if you agree not to
fight him."
"Yes."
Deborah rose abruptly.
"Then will you stay right here to-night, and leave this matter to me?" she
asked.
"What do _you_ mean to do?"
"See your husband."
"What for? When?"
"To-night, if I can. I want to be sure."
Laura looked for the moment nonplussed.
"And what of my wishes?" she inquired.
"_Your_ wishes," said Deborah steadily. "You want a divorce, don't you--so
do I. And you want it quiet--and so do I. I want it so hard that I want to
make sure." Deborah's tone was kinder now, and she came over close to her
sister. "Look here, Laura, if I've been hard, forgive me--please--and let
me help. I'm not so narrow as you think. I've been through a good deal of
this before--downtown, I mean, with girls in my school. They come to me, we
have long talks. Maybe I _am_ a nun--as you say--but I'm one with a
confessional. Not for sins," she added, as Laura looked up angrily. "Sins
don't interest me very much. But troubles do. And heaven knows that
marriage is one," she said with a curious bitterness. "And when it has
failed and there's no love left--as in your case--I'm for divorce. Only--"
her wide sensitive lips quivered just a little, "I'm sorry it had to come
like this. But I love you, dear, and I want to help, I want to see you
safely through. And while I'm doing it, if we can, I want to keep dad out
of it--at least until it's settled." She paused a moment. "So if you agree,
I'll go to your husband. I want to be sure, absolutely, just what we can
count on. And until I come back, stay here in my room. You don't want to
talk to father and Edith--"
"Most certainly not!" Laura muttered.
"Good. Then stay here until I return. I'll send you up some supper."
"I don't want any, thank you."
Laura went and threw herself on the bed, while her sister finished
dressing.
"It's decent of you, Deborah." Her voice was muffled and relaxed. "I wasn't
fair," she added. "I'm sorry for some of the things I said."
"About me and marriage?" Deborah looked at herself in the glass in a
peculiar searching way. A slight spasm crossed her features. "I'm not sure
but that you were right. At times I feel far from certain," she said. Laura
lifted her head from the pillow, watched her sister a moment, dropped back.
"Don't let this affect _you_, Deborah."
"Oh, don't worry, dearie." And Deborah moved toward the door. "My affair is
just mine, you see, and this won't make any difference."
But in her heart she knew it would. What an utter loathing she had to-night
for all that people meant by sex! Suddenly she was quivering, her limbs and
her whole body hot.
"You say I'm cold," she was thinking. "Cold toward Allan, calm and cool,
nothing but mind and reason! You say it means little to me, all that! But
if I had had trouble with Allan, would I have come running home to talk?
Wouldn't I have hugged it tight? And isn't that love? What do _you_ know of
me and the life I've led? Do you know how it feels to want to work, to be
something yourself, without any man? And can't _that_ be a passion? Have
you had to live with Edith here and see what motherhood can be, what it can
do to a woman? And now you come with _another_ side, just as narrow as
hers, devouring everything else in sight! And because I'm a little afraid
of that, for myself and all I want to do, you say I don't know what love
is! But I do! And my love's worth more than yours! It's deeper, richer, it
will last!... Then why do I loathe it _all_ to-night?... But I don't, I
only loathe _your_ side!... But yours is the very heart of it!... All
right, then what am I going to do?"
She was going slowly down the stairs. She stopped for a moment, frowning.