I
As Ellenora Vibert quietly descended the stairs of the apartment house
in Harlem where she had lived with her husband until this hot morning in
May, she wondered at her courage. She was taking a tremendous step, and
one that she hoped would not be a backward one. She was leaving Arthur
Vibert after a brief year of marriage for another man. Yet her pulse
fluttered not, and before she reached the open doorway a mocking humor
possessed her.
Her active brain pictured herself in the person of Ibsen's Nora Helmer.
But Nora left children behind, and deserted them in hot blood; no woman
could be cold after such a night in the Doll's House--the champagne, the
tarantella, the letter and the scene with Torvald! No, she was not quite
Nora Helmer; and Paul, her young husband, was hardly a Scandinavian
bureaucrat. When Ellenora faced the cutting sunshine and saw Mount
Morris Park, green and sweet, she stopped and pressed a hand to her hip.
It was a characteristic pose, and the first inspiration of the soft air
gave her peace and hardihood.
"I've been penned behind the bars too long," she thought. Arthur's
selfish, artistic absorption in his musical work and needless
indifference to the development of her own gifts must count no longer.
She was free, and she meant to remain so as long as she lived.
Then she went to the elevated railroad and entered a down-town train,
left it at Cortlandt Street, reached the Pennsylvania depot before
midday, and in the waiting-room met Paul Goddard. A few minutes later
they were on the Philadelphia train. The second chapter of Ellenora
Vibert's life began--and most happily.