The season had opened in a whirl of social absorption for Paula, once
more established in their city house for the winter. She had never known
her husband so interested in these functions nor so solicitous that her
entertainments should be characterized by a species of magnificence that
would once have dazzled and delighted her, but that now seemed only to
illustrate his wealth and predominance. He was critical and fretful
because of small, very small, deficiencies, as--some flower being
unattainable that one less costly should be used in decoration, or a
shade of an electrolier being broken that another, dissimilar to the
rest in design, should be temporarily substituted. Her own toilets were
submitted to his scrutiny and preference, and when she revolted, saying
that she knew far more of such matters than he did, he lapsed into surly
dissatisfaction. Once he spoke of a costume of delicate, chaste elegance
as “common”--“nothing on it.” Then he added significantly, “You ought to
have married a poor man, Paula, if that is your taste.”
She held the gown up when she was disrobing afterward and examined its
points. She saw that the effect could have been duplicated in simple
materials costing a trifle; thus beautifully and gracefully could she
have gowned herself if she _had_ married a poor man as once she had
thought to do.
Of her own initiative she could not have given the series of dinners of
which the lavish richness astonished, as was intended, the guests, and
of which, strangely enough, she was tired before they began. More than
once, as she took up her position beside her husband in the glittering
drawing-room, hearing the approach of the first of the guests, he said
to her in a low voice, the tone like a pinch: “Don’t seem so dull,
Paula--you have gone off awfully in your looks lately, and that gown is
no good. For Heaven’s sake be more animated, and not so much like a rag
doll.” It was poor preparation to meet the coterie of men and women
keyed to a high pitch of effort toward charm and brilliancy, as doing
honor to the occasion, their hosts, and themselves. A large ball was
also among the functions he planned, to be given in compliment to
Hildegarde Dean, whose beauty he affected to admire extravagantly. He
had remembered his wife’s obvious jealousy of her attractions when
Randal Ducie had seemed interested and delighted, and it did not soothe
his unquiet spirit to note that now she had no grudging, but joined
ardently in making the festivity a great success and an elaborate
tribute to the reigning belle and beauty. She was required to invite the
wives of certain men whom he desired to compliment,--yet who were not of
his list of dinner guests,--to luncheons, and teas, and afternoon
receptions, till she was tired out with the meaningless routine and sick
at heart. Yet this was what she had craved--all her dream come true,
pressed down and running over. Why had it no longer an interest for her?
Was it sheer satiety, or was it that naught is of value when love has
flown. And it had gone--even such poor semblance as had worn its name
had vanished. She could not delude herself, though she might make shift
to masquerade in such wise that he should not know. She hoped for this,
for she had begun to fear him. He was so arrogant, so self-sufficient,
so dominant, so coercive. She feared his frown, his surly slumbrous
eyes, his hasty outbursts of gusty temper.
One evening in this arid existence, this feast of dead-sea fruit, there
was on hand no social duty--the pretty phrase for the empty
frivolity--and she was glad of it. It was a gala night at the opera, for
a star of distinction was to sing in a Wagnerian rôle, and the
Floyd-Rosneys would occupy their box, according to their habit when
aught worth while was billed. She was dressed for the occasion and
awaiting him in the library, but he had not yet come in. She was more
placid than her wont of late, for she realized that it would rest her
nerves to be still and listen, a respite, however brief, from the
tiresome round; and she had just come from the nursery where the baby
was being put to bed--very playful, and freakish, and comical. She had
been laughing with him, and at him, and the glow of this simple
happiness was still warm in her heart when the door opened and her
husband entered. He was not yet dressed for the evening, and, as she
looked her surprise, he responded directly:
“No,--we are not going.”
He often changed his plans thus, regardless of her preferences, and she
had grown so plastic to his will that she was able to readjust her
evening or her day without regard to her previous expectations.
The spacious room might have seemed the ideal expression of a home of
culture and affluence. The walls were lined with books from floor to
ceiling, unbroken save where a painting of value and distinction was
inserted, special favorites of their owner, and placed here where his
eyes might constantly rest upon them, rather than consigned to the
gallery of his art treasures. The furniture was all of a fashion
illustrating the extremity of luxury,--such soft cushions, such elastic
springs, such deep pile into which the feet sunk treading the Oriental
rugs. Not a sound from the street nor from any portion of the house
could penetrate this choice seclusion, and over the fireplace, where the
hickory logs flared genially, the legend “Fair Quiet, have I found thee
here?” was especially accented by a finely sculptured statue of Silence,
her finger on her lip, which stood on its pedestal at a little distance
from the deep bay of a window.
The beautiful woman, in the blended radiance of the electric light and
the home-like blaze, seemed as one of the favored of the earth. She had
dressed with great care, and her gown of lavender gauze over satin of
the same shade, with a string of fine pearls about her throat and
another in her fair hair, could scarcely have incurred his unfavorable
criticism. Her gloves of the same tint lay ready on the table and an
evening cloak of white brocaded satin hung over a chair. Great pains and
some time such a toilette cost; but she had learned never to count
trouble if peace might ensue.
She was prepared to be left in ignorance of his reason for a change of
plans, but he seemed, this evening, disposed to explain. He came and
stood opposite to her, one hand lifted on the shelf of the massive
mantel-piece, while he held his hat with the other. He was still in his
overcoat, its collar and lining of fur bringing out in strong relief
the admirable points of his handsome face, its red and white tints, the
brilliancy of his full lordly eyes, the fine shade of his chestnut hair.
He was notably splendid this evening, vitally alert, powerful of aspect,
yet graceful, all the traits of his manly beauty finished with such
minutely delicate detail. She noticed the embellishment of his aspect,
as if the evident quickening of his interest in some matter had enhanced
it, and she remembered a day--long ago, it seemed, foolish and transient
when she had had a proud possessory sentiment toward this fair outer
semblance of the identity within, so little known to her then, so
overwhelming all other attributes of his personality.
She did not ask a question--she was too well trained by experience. He
would tell her if he would; if not, it was futile to speculate as to his
intentions.
“Well, the Oriental tour is _un fait accompli_,” he said, smiling. “You
sail within the week.”
She started in surprise. She had definitely been denied this desire,
which she had once harbored, on the score of all others most seemingly
untenable--expense. But it was her husband’s habit to make everything
inordinately costly. He would not appear in public except _en prince_,
nor travel abroad save with a most elaborate and extensive itinerary and
a suite of attendants.
“This week--why--I don’t know----” she hesitated. “I suppose--I can get
ready.”
“Oh, you will scarcely need any preparation,” he said cavalierly. “Any
old things will answer.”
This was so out of character with his wonted solicitude in small
matters that she was surprised and vaguely agitated. She saw a quiver in
the tip of her dainty lavender slipper, extended on a hassock before her
in the relaxed attitude she had occupied, and she withdrew it that the
disquietude of her nerves might not be noticed. She raised herself to an
upright posture in her chair before she replied in a matter-of-fact
tone.
“I wasn’t alluding to dress. What I am wearing here will answer, of
course--but I was thinking of the arrangements for the nurse. Will we
take his old colored nurse, or do you suppose she would not be equal to
the requirements of the trip? Had Elise better go in her place?”
“Oh, that cuts no ice. For the baby won’t go at all,” he replied, as
simply as if this were an obvious conclusion.
She sat petrified for one moment. Then she found her voice--loud and
strong and definite.
“The baby won’t go!” she exclaimed. “Then I won’t go--not one foot! What
do you take me for?”
“For a sensible woman,” he retorted.
He looked angry, as always, when opposed, but not surprised. He had
evidently anticipated her objection, and he controlled himself with care
unusual to his ungoverned temper. “Who wants to go dragging a child
three years old all around Europe and the Holy Land! You won’t be gone
more than a year!”
“A year! Why, Edward--are you crazy? To think I would leave the baby for
a year! No--nor a month! No--nor a day! He has scarcely been out of my
sight for two hours together since he was born.”
“How many women leave their children to take a trip abroad,” he argued,
and she began to feel vaguely that he would much prefer that she should
agree peaceably--he was even willing to exert such self-control as was
necessary to persuade her.
“Never--never would I,” she declared, “and he would be miserable without
me.”
“Not with me here,” her husband urged. “He is pleased to regard me with
considerable favor.” And he bent upon her his rare, intimate,
confidential smile.
For, unknown to him, she had been at great pains to build up a sort of
idolatry of his father in the breast of the little boy, such as children
usually feel without prompting. He was taught to disregard
Floyd-Rosney’s averse, selfish inattention, to rejoice and bask in the
sun of his favor, to run to greet him with pretty little graces, to
admire him extravagantly as the finest man in all the world, to regulate
his infantile conduct by the paternal prepossessions, being stealthily
rewarded by his mother whenever his wiles attained the meed of praise.
Paula looked dazed, bewildered.
“You know, dearest, I am held here by the pressure of that villainous
lawsuit, and as it will absorb all my leisure I thought that now is your
chance for your Oriental tour--for I really don’t care to go again, and
you may never have another opportunity.”
He paused, somewhat at a loss. She was leaning forward, gazing at him
searchingly.
“What _can_ possess you to imagine for one moment that I would go
without the boy! What is the Orient to me--or my silly fad for Eastern
travel! I wish my tongue had been withered before I ever spoke the
word!”
“Why, you talk as if I were proposing something amazing--abnormally
brutal. Don’t other women leave their children?”
“But with their mothers, or some one who stands in that tender,
solicitous relation,--and I have no mother!” Her words ended in a wail.
“But he will be with me--and surely I care for him as much as you do,”
he argued, vehemently.
“But why can’t I take him with me,” she sought to adjust the difficulty,
“even though the pleasure of the trip is lost if you don’t go?”
“Because--because,” he hesitated. “Because I cannot bear the separation
from him,” he declared bluntly. “I am afraid something--I don’t know
what--might happen to him. I know I am a fool. I couldn’t bear it.”
His folly went to her heart in his behalf as nothing else could have
done. This evidence of his love for the child, his son and hers, atoned
for a thousand slights and tyrannies which she forgave on the spot. Her
brow cleared, her face relaxed, her cheek flushed.
“Aha!” she cried jubilantly, “you know how it feels, too!” She gleefully
shook her fan at him. “We will let the trip to the Orient drop, now and
forever. I can’t go without little Edward, and you”--she gave him a
radiant, rallying smile--“can’t spare him, so we will just stay at home
and see as much of each other as the old lawsuit will let you. And what
I want to know,” she added, with a touch of indignation, “is, why do
those lawyers of yours allow the matter to harass you? It is their
business to take the care of it off your shoulders.”
He stood silent throughout this speech, changing expressions flitting
across his face, but it hardened upon the allusion to the lawsuit and
his vacillation solidified into resolve.
“Come, Paula, this talk is idle; the matter is arranged. The Hardingtons
start for New York to-morrow, and sail as soon as they strike the town.
Mrs. Hardington says she will be enchanted to have you of her party, and
I have telegraphed and received an answer engaging your stateroom on the
ship. Your section in the Pullman is also reserved,--couldn’t get the
stateroom on the train--already taken, hang it.”
She had risen to her feet and was gazing at him with a sort of averse
amazement, once more pale and agitated, and with a strange difficulty of
articulation. “Why, Edward, what do you mean? Why should you want to get
me out of the country? There’s something behind all this, evidently.”
She noted that he winced by so slight a token as the flicker of an
eyelash. “You know that I would not consent to go without my child for
any earthly consideration.”
“I know no such thing, as I have told you,” he retorted hotly. “The
arrangements are all made. Your passage is taken. I have ready your
letter of credit. I do think you are the most ungrateful wretch alive,”
he exclaimed, his eyes aglow with anger. “A beautiful and costly trip,
that you have longed for, planned out for you in every detail, and
you----” he broke off with a gesture of repudiation.
“I wouldn’t be separated from my child for one night for all the
jauntings about the globe that could be devised,” she declared.
Floyd-Rosney suddenly lost all self-control. “Well, you certainly will
be separated from him for one night--for many nights,--for he is gone!”
“Gone?” She sprang forward with a shriek and started toward the door.
Then with a desperate effort to compose herself she paused even in the
attitude of flight. “For God’s sake, Edward, where has he gone? What do
you mean?”
“He has been sent to the place where I propose to have him cared for in
your absence. Knowing that your time is short I tried to smooth the
way.”
“But where?--where?”
“Where you shall not know,--you shall not follow. You may as well make
up your mind to take the trip.”
She seemed taller, to tower, as she drew herself up in her wrath,
standing on the threshold in the ghastly incongruity of her festival
evening gown and her tragic face. “Oh, you brute!” she shrilled at him.
“You fiend!”
Then she turned and fled through the great square hall and up the
massive staircase to the nursery that she had quitted so lately, that
had been so full of cheer and cosy comfort and infantile laughter and
caresses.
The room was empty now. The fire was low in the grate, seen through the
bars of the high fender that kept the little fellow from danger of
contact with the flames. The dull, spiritless, red glow of the embers
enabled her to discern the switch to turn on the electric light, and
instantly the apartment sprang into keen visibility. The bed was
vacant, the coverlets disarranged where the child had been taken thence,
doubtless after he had fallen asleep. The drawers of the bureau, the
doors of the wardrobe stood ajar, the receptacles ransacked of all his
little garments, his hats and shoes. Evidently a trunk had been packed
in view of a prolonged absence while she had sat downstairs in the
library, all unconscious of the machinations in progress against her in
her own home. She was numb with the realization of the tremendous import
of the situation. She could not understand the motive--she only
perceived the fact. It was her husband’s scheme to get her out of the
country, and he had fancied that he could force her to go without her
child. She took no account of her grief, her fears, the surging anguish
of separation. She was saying to herself as she turned into her own room
adjoining that she must be strong in this crisis for the child’s sake,
as well as her own. She must discern clearly, and reason accurately, and
act promptly and without vacillation. If she should remain here she
might be seized and on some pretext coerced into leaving the country on
that lovely trip which he had planned for her. She burst into a sudden
bitter laugh, and the sound startled her into silence again. When had
her husband ever planned aught for her save to serve some purpose of his
own? She would not go--she would not, she said over and over to herself.
Her determination, her instinct were to ascertain where the child had
been hidden, and if possible to capture him; if not to be near, on the
chance of seeing him sometimes, to watch over him, to guard him from
danger. In her self-pity at this poor hope the tears welled up and she
shook with sobs. But on this momentary collapse ensued renewed strength.
It might be, she thought, she could appeal to the law. She knew that her
husband’s was the superior claim to the child, but in view of his tender
years, his delicate health in certain respects, might not a court grant
his custody to his mother? At all events his restoration to her care was
henceforward her one object, and if she allowed herself to be forced out
of the country, to serve this unknown, unimagined whim of her cruel
husband’s, she might never see the child again.
A knock at the door startled her nerves like a clap of thunder. A maid
had come to say that dinner had been served--indeed the butler had
announced it an hour ago--and should it still wait?
“Have it taken down,” Paula said with stiff lips. “Mr. Floyd-Rosney will
not dine at home.”
For Paula had heard the street door bang as she fled up the stairs, and
she knew that he was not in the house. The girl gazed at her with a
sharp point of curiosity in her little black eyes as she obsequiously
withdrew. Despite the humility of the manner of her domestics Mrs.
Floyd-Rosney had not the ascendency in her household due a chatelaine so
magnificently placed. It was his wealth--she was an appendage. It was
his will that ruled, not hers. As the servants loved to remark to each
other, “She has got no more say-so here than me,” and the insecurity of
her authority and the veneer of her position affected unfavorably the
estimation in which she was held. The girl perceived readily enough that
a clash had supervened between the couple and sagely opined that the
master would have the best of it. Below stairs they ascribed to it the
strange removal of the child at this hour of the night and the change
in their employer’s plans for the evening. Their unrestrained voices
came up through doors carelessly left ajar, along with the clatter of
the dishes of the superfluous dinner, and Paula, with some unoccupied
faculty, albeit all seemed burdened to the point of breaking with her
heavy thoughts, realized that this breach of domestic etiquette could
never have chanced had the master of the house been within its walls.
As she hastily divested herself of her dainty evening attire, with
trembling fingers her spirits fell, her courage waned. No one would heed
her, she said to herself. What value would a court attach to her
representations as against the word and the will of a man of her
husband’s wealth and prominence? And how could she expect aught of aid
from any quarter? She had literally no individual position in the world.
She had no influence on her husband, no real hold on his heart. She
could command not one moment’s attention, save as his wife. Bereft of
his favor and countenance she would be more of a nullity than a woman,
poor but independent, working for a weekly wage. Truly Floyd-Rosney
could ship her out of the country as if she were a mare or a cow.
Decorum would forbid open resistance, for indeed if she clamored and
protested she could be sent with a trained nurse as the victim of
hysteria or monomania. She must get away. Her liberty was threatened.
Her will had long been annulled, but now she was to be bodily bound and
in effect carried whither she would not. Her liberty, her free agency
were at stake--not her life. Never, she thought, would he do a deed
that would react upon himself. She must be gone--and swiftly.
Perhaps Paula never realized the extent of her subjection until when
dressed in her dark coat suit with hat and gloves, her suitcase packed
with a few indispensable articles, she stood at her dressing table and
opened her gold mesh-bag with a sudden clutch at her heart to ascertain
what money she might have. Her white face, so scornful of herself,
looked back from the mirror, duplicating her bitter smile. She had not
five dollars in the world. Floyd-Rosney never gave money to his wife in
the raw, so to speak. All her extravagant appointments came as it were
from his hand. She could buy as she would on his accounts; she could
subscribe liberally to charities and public enterprises which he
countenanced, and he made her signature as good as his, but she could
never have undertaken the slightest plan of her own initiative. She had
no command of money. She could not go--she could not get away from under
his hand. She was as definitely a prisoner as if she were behind the
bars. Still looking scornfully, pityingly, distressfully at her pallid
image in the mirror, a strange thought occurred to her. She wondered if
she were Ran Ducie’s wife could she have been as poor as this. But she
must go--and quickly. For one wild moment she contemplated borrowing
from the servants the sum she needed. As she revolted at the degradation
she realized its futility. Their place in his favor was more secure than
hers--her necessity attested the tenuity of her position. They would not
lend money to her in order to thwart him. She looked at the strings of
pearls, the gold mesh-bag, and remembered the pawnbroker. Once more she
shivered back from her own thought. They were not hers, for her own.
They were for her to wear, to illustrate his taste, his liberality to
his wife, his wealth. She knew little of law, of life. This might be an
actual theft. But she must go--and go at once.
With her suitcase in her hand she stole down the stairs and softly let
herself out of the massive front door, closing it noiselessly behind
her, never for a moment looking up at the broad, tall façade of the
building that had been her home. She crossed the street almost
immediately, lest she encounter her husband returning with his plans
more definitely concluded and with a more complete readiness to execute
them.
The night was not cold, but bland and fresh, and she felt the vague stir
of the breeze like a caress on her cheek. The stars--they were strangers
to her now, so long it had been since she had paused to look upon
them--showed in a dark, moonless heaven high above the deep canyon of
the street. She walked rapidly, despite the weight of the suitcase, but
so long had it been since she had traversed the thoroughfares on foot
that she had forgotten the turnings--now the affair of the
chauffeur--and once she was obliged to retrace her way for a block. She
deprecated the loss of time and the drain upon her strength, but she was
still alert and active when she paused in the ladies’ entrance of a
hotel and stood waiting and looking about with her card in her hand. Oh,
how strange for her, accustomed to be so considered, so attended, so
heralded! She did not for the moment regret the coercion her splendors
were wont to exert. She only wondered how best to secure her object, if
she could not win the attention of the supercilious and reluctant
functionaries dully regarding her in the distance.
The lobby of the ladies’ entrance opened upon the larger space of the
office of the hotel, and here in a delicate haze of cigar smoke a number
of men were standing in groups about the tessellated marble floor, or
seated in the big armchairs placed at the base of the tall pillars. As
fixing her eyes on the clerk behind the desk she placed her suitcase on
the floor and started forward, he jangled a sharp summons on a hand
bell, and a bell-boy detached himself from the coterie that had been
nonchalantly regarding her, and loungingly advanced.
“Will you take that card to Mr. Randal Ducie?” she said, controlling her
voice with difficulty.
“Ain’t hyar,” airily returned the darkey. He was about to turn away from
this plainly dressed woman, who had no claim on any eagerness of service
when his eyes chanced to fall on a token of quality above her seeming
station. He suddenly noted the jeweled card case as she returned the
card to it, and the gold mesh bag, and he vouchsafed pleasantly:
“I noticed myse’f the announcement in the evenin’ paper, but it is his
brudder stoppin’ hyar.”
That moment her eyes fell upon Adrian Ducie standing in one of the
groups of men smoking in the office. Her impulse was like that of a
drowning creature clutching at a straw. Without an instant of
hesitation, without even a vague intention of appropriately employing
the intermediary services of the limp bell-boy, with a wild, hysteric
fear that a moment’s waiting would lose her the opportunity, she dashed
into the midst of the office, and, speechless, and pallid, and
trembling, she seized Adrian by the arm.