Because of what he had said, I did not expect Steele to come near me,
and he didn’t. In sauntering about the two decks looking for arresting
scenes I did not see him. Because I wanted at least one or two spoon
deck scenes, I finally fixed on a couple that was half-hidden in the
shadow back of the pilot-house. They had crumpled themselves up forward
of an air-vent and not far from the two smoke-stacks and under the
walking-beam, which rose and fell above them. The full moon was just
above the eastern horizon, offering a circular background for them, and
I thought they made a romantic picture outlined against it. I could not
see their faces—just their outlines. Her head was upon his shoulder.
His face was turned, and so concealed, and inclined toward hers. Her
hat had been taken off and was held over her knee by one hand. I
stepped back a little toward a companion-way, where was a light, in
order to outline my impression. When I returned, they were sitting up.
It was Steele and his rooming-house proprietress! It struck me as odd
that of all the couple and group scenes that I had noted, the most
romantic should have been that provided by Steele and this woman. His
wife would be interested in his solicitude for her loneliness and her
lack of opportunities to get out into the open air, I was sure. Yet, I
was not envious then—just curious and a little amused.
Well, that was the end of that. The sketches were made, and the
story published. Because he and this girl had provided my best scene
I disguised it a little, making it not seem exactly back of the
pilot-house, since otherwise he might recognize it. He was, for once,
fascinated by the color and romance of the occasion, and did a better
story than I thought he could. It dwelt on the beauty of the river, the
freedom from heat, the loveliness of the moon, the dancing. I thought
it was very good, quite exceptional for him, and I thought I knew the
reason why.
And then one day, about a month or six weeks later, being in the city
room, I encountered the wife of Steele and their little son, a child
of about five years. She had stopped in about three or four in the
afternoon, being downtown shopping, I presume. After seeing him with
the young woman on the steamer, I was, I confess, not a little shocked.
This woman was so pinched, so homely, so faded—veritably a rail of a
woman, everything and anything that a woman, whether wife, daughter,
mother or sweetheart, as I saw it then, should not be. As a matter
of fact, I was too wrought up about love and youth and marriage and
happiness at that time to rightly judge of the married. At any rate,
after having seen that other woman on that deck with Steele, I was
offended by this one.
She seemed to me, after the other, too narrow, too methodical, too
commonplace, too humdrum. She was a woman whose pulchritudinous favors,
whatever they may have been, must have been lost at the altar. In
heaven’s name, I thought to myself, how could a man like this come to
marry such a woman? He isn’t so very good-looking himself, perhaps, but
still.... No wonder he wanted to take his rooming-house landlady for
an outing! I would, too. I could understand it now. In fact, as little
as I cared for Steele, I felt sorry that a man of his years and of his
still restless proclivities should be burdened with such a wife. And
not only that, but there was their child, looking not unlike him but
more like her, one of those hostages to fortune by reason of which it
is never easy to free oneself from the error of a mistaken marriage.
His plight, as I saw it, was indeed unfortunate. And it was still
summer and there was this other woman!
Well, I was introduced by him as the man who worked on some of his
stories with him. I noticed that the woman had a thin, almost a
falsetto voice. She eyed me, as I thought, unintelligently, yet
genially enough. I was invited to come out to their place some Sunday
and take dinner. Because of his rooming-house story I was beginning to
wonder whether he had been lying to me, when she went on to explain
that they had been boarding up to a few weeks ago, but had now taken a
cottage for themselves and could have their friends. I promised. Yes,
yes. But I never went—not to dinner, anyhow.