Morgan Russell and I were lolling one day on the beach at Rock Ledge
watching the bathers. We had played three sets of tennis, followed by
a dip in the ocean, and were waiting for the luncheon hour. Though
Russell was my junior by four years, we were old friends, and had
prearranged our vacation to renew our intimacy, which the force of
circumstances had interrupted since we were students together at
Harvard. Russell had been a Freshman when I was a Senior, but as we
happened to room in the same entry, this propinquity had resulted in
warm mutual liking. I had been out of college for eight years, had
studied law, and was the managing clerk of a large law firm, and in
receipt of what I then thought a tremendous salary. Russell was still
at Cambridge. He had elected at graduation to pursue post-graduate
courses in chemistry and physics, and had recently accepted a
tutorship. He had not discovered until the beginning of the Junior
year his strong predilection for scientific investigation, but he had
given himself up to it with an ardor which dwarfed everything else on
the horizon of his fancy. It was of his future we were talking, for he
wished to take his old chum into his confidence and to make plain his
ambition. “I recognize of course,” he told me, “that I’ve an uphill
fight ahead of me, but my heart is in it. My heart wouldn’t be in it
if I felt that the best years of my life were to be eaten up by mere
teaching. Nowadays a man who’s hired to teach is expected to teach
until his daily supply of gray matter has run out, and his original
work has to wait until after he’s dead. There’s where I’m more
fortunate than some. The fifteen hundred dollars--a veritable
godsend--which I receive annually under the will of my aunt, will keep
the wolf at a respectful distance and enable me to play the
investigator to my heart’s content. I’m determined to be thorough,
George. There is no excuse for superficiality in science. But in the
end I intend to find out something new. See if I don’t, old man.”
“I haven’t a doubt you will, Morgan,” I replied. “I don’t mind letting
on that I ran across Professor Drayson last winter, and he told me you
were the most promising enthusiast he had seen for a long time; that
you were patient and level-headed as well as eager. Drayson doesn’t
scatter compliments lightly. But fifteen hundred dollars isn’t a very
impressive income.”
“It was very good of the old fellow to speak so well of me.”
“Suppose you marry?”
“Marry?” Russell looked up from the sea-shells with which he had been
playing, and smiled brightly. He had a thin, slightly delicate face
with an expression which was both animated and amiable, and keen,
strong gray eyes. “I’ve thought of that. I’m not what is called
contemplating matrimony at the moment; but I’ve considered the
possibility, and it doesn’t appall me.”
“On fifteen hundred a year?”
“And why not, George?” he responded a little fiercely. “Think of the
host of teachers, clerks, small tradesmen, and innumerable other
reputable human beings who marry and bring up families on that or
less. Which do you think I would prefer, to amass a fortune in
business and have my town and country house and steam yacht, or to
exist on a pittance and discover before I die something to benefit the
race of man?”
“Knowing you as I do, there’s only one answer to that conundrum,” said
I. “And you’re right, too, theoretically, Morgan. My ancestors in
Westford would have thought fifteen hundred downright comfort, and in
admitting to you that five thousand in New York is genteel poverty, I
merely reveal what greater comforts the ambitious American demands. I
agree with you that from the point of view of real necessity one-half
the increase is sheer materialism. But who’s the girl?”
“There is no girl. Probably there never will be. But I’m no crank. I
like a good dinner and a seat at the play and an artistic domestic
hearth as well as the next man. If I were to marry, of course I should
retain the tutorship which I accepted temporarily as a means of
training my own perceptions, though I should try to preserve as at
present a considerable portion of my time free from the grind of
teaching. Then much as I despise the method of rushing into print
prematurely in order to achieve a newspaper scientific reputation, I
should expect to eke out my income by occasional magazine articles and
presently a book. With twenty-five hundred or three thousand a year we
should manage famously.”
“It would all depend upon the woman,” said I with the definiteness of
an oracle.
“If the savants in England, France, and Germany--the men who have been
content to starve in order to attain immortality--could find wives to
keep them company, surely their counterparts are to be found here
where woman is not the slave but the companion of man and is
encouraged to think not merely about him but think of him.” After this
preroration Russell stopped abruptly, then raised himself on one
elbow. Attracted by his sudden interest I turned lazily in the same
direction, and after a moment’s scrutiny ejaculated: “It looks just
like her.”
As it was nearing the luncheon hour, most of the bathers had retired.
Two women, one of them a girl of twenty-five, in the full bloom of
youth and vigor, with an open countenance and a self-reliant, slightly
effusive smile, were on the way to their bath. They were stepping
transversely across the beach from their bath-house at one end in
order to reach the place where the waves were highest, and their
course was taking them within a few yards of where we lay. For some
reason the younger woman had not put on the oil-skin cap designed to
save her abundant hair from getting wet, but carried it dangling from
her fingers, and, just as Russell noticed her, she dropped it on the
beach. After stooping to pick it up, she waited a moment for her
friend to join her, revealing her full face.
“Yes, it’s certainly she,” I announced. “I spoke to her on the pier in
New York last autumn, when she was returning from Europe, and it’s
either she or her double.”
“You know her?”
“Yes, the Widow Spaulding.”
“Widow? You mean the girl?”
There was just a trace of disappointment in the tone of Russell’s
surprise.
“Yes, I mean the girl. But you needn’t dismiss her altogether from
your fastidiously romantic soul merely because she has belonged to
another. There are extenuating circumstances. She married the Rev.
Horace Spaulding, poor fellow, on his deathbed, when he was in the
last stages of consumption, and two days later she was his widow.”
“You seem to know a good deal about her.”
“I ought to, for she was born and bred in Westford. Edna Knight was
her name--the daughter of Justin Knight, the local attorney,
half-lawyer and half-dreamer. His parents were followers of Emerson,
and there have been plain living and high thinking in that family for
three generations. Look at her,” I added, as she breasted a giant wave
and jubilantly threw herself into its embrace, “she takes to the water
like a duck. I never saw a girl so metamorphosed in three years.”
“What was she like before?” asked Russell.
“Changed physically, I mean, and--and socially, I suppose it should be
called. Three years ago, at the time of her marriage to Spaulding, she
was a slip of a girl, shy, delicate, and introspective. She and her
lover were brought up in adjacent houses, and the world for her
signified the garden hedge over which they whispered in the gloaming,
and later his prowess at the divinity school and his hope of a parish.
When galloping consumption cut him off she walked about shrouded in
her grief as one dead to the world of men and women. I passed her
occasionally when I returned home to visit my family, and she looked
as though she were going into a decline. That was a year after her
marriage. Solicitous sympathy was unavailing, and the person
responsible for her regaining her grip on life was, curiously enough,
a summer boarder whom old Mrs. Spaulding had taken into her family in
order to make both ends meet. Westford has been saved from rusting out
by the advent in the nick of time of the fashionable summer boarder,
and Mrs. Sidney Dale, whose husband is a New York banker, and who
spent two summers there as a cure for nervous prostration, fascinated
Edna without meaning to and made a new woman of her in the process.
There is the story for you. A year ago Mrs. Dale took her to Europe as
a sort of finishing touch, I suppose. I understand Westford thinks her
affliction has developed her wonderfully, and finds her immensely
improved; which must mean that she has triumphed over her grief, but
has not forgotten, for Westford would never pardon a purely material
evolution.”
“I noticed her at the hotel this morning before you arrived, and
admired the earnestness and ardor of her expression.”
“And her good looks presumably. I saw you start when she approached
just now. She may be just the woman for you.”
“Introduce me then. And her companion?”
“Will fall to my lot, of course, but I have no clew as to her
identity.”
Mrs. Spaulding enlightened me on the hotel piazza, after luncheon,
when, as a sequence to this persiflage I brought up my friend. The
stranger proved to be Mrs. Agnes Gay Spinney, a literary person, a
lecturer on history and literature. It transpired later that she and
Edna had become acquainted and intimate at Westford the previous
spring during a few weeks which Mrs. Spinney had spent there in the
preparation of three new lectures for the coming season. She was a
rather serious-looking woman of about forty with a straight figure,
good features, and a pleasant, but infrequent smile, suggesting that
its owner was not susceptible to flippancy. However, she naïvely
admitted that she had come away for pure recreation and to forget the
responsibilities of life.
Morgan and the widow were conversing with so much animation that I, to
whom this remark was addressed, took upon myself to give youth a free
field; consequently I resigned myself to Mrs. Spinney’s dignified
point of view, and, avoiding badinage or irony, evinced such an
amiable interest in drawing her out that by the end of fifteen minutes
she asked leave to show me the catalogue of her lectures, a proof of
which she had just received from the printer. When she had gone to
fetch it, I promptly inquired:
“Why don’t you two young people improve this fine afternoon by a round
of golf?”
A gleam of animation over Morgan’s face betrayed that he regarded the
suggestion as eminently happy. But it was Edna who spoke first.
“If Mr. Russell will put up with my poor game, I should enjoy playing
immensely. But,” she added smiling confidently and regarding him with
her large, steady brown eyes, “I don’t intend to remain a duffer at it
long. I see,” she continued after a moment, “from your expression, Mr.
Randall, that you doubt this. I could tell from the corners of your
mouth.”
“I must grow a mustache to conceal my thoughts, it seems. I was only
thinking, Mrs. Spaulding, that golf is a difficult game at which to
excel.”
“Yes, but they say that care and determination and--and keeping the
eye on the ball will work wonders even for a woman. I shall be only a
moment in getting ready, Mr. Russell.”
“But what is to become of you, George?” asked Morgan as she
disappeared.
“I noticed that a sensitive conscience kept you tongue-tied. This is
probably one of the most self-sacrificing acts which will be performed
the present summer. But you will remember that Mephistopheles on a
certain occasion was equally good-natured.”
“Don’t be absurd. Is she very trying?”
“Dame Martha had some humor and no understanding; Mrs. Spinney has
some understanding and no humor. Here she comes with her catalogue of
lectures. There are over fifty of them, and from their scope she must
be almost omniscient. How are you getting on with the widow?”
“Mrs. Spaulding seems to me an interesting woman. She has opinions of
her own, which she expresses clearly and firmly. I like her,”
responded Morgan with a definiteness of manner which suggested that he
was not to be debarred by fear of banter from admitting that he was
attracted.
It seems that as they strode over the links that afternoon he was
impressed by her fine physical bearing. There were a freedom and an
ease in her movements, essentially womanly and graceful, yet
independent and self-reliant, which stirred his pulses. He had been a
close and absorbed student, and his observation of the other sex had
been largely indifferent and formal. He knew, of course, that the
modern woman had sloughed off helplessness and docile dependence on
man, but like an ostrich with its head in the sand he had chosen to
form a mental conception of what she was like, and he had pictured her
either as a hoyden or an unsympathetic blue-stocking. This trig,
well-developed beauty, with her sensible, alert face and capable
manner was an agreeable revelation. If she was a type, he had
neglected his opportunities. But the present was his at all events.
Here was companionship worthy of the name, and a stimulating
vindication of the success of woman’s revolt from her own weakness and
subserviency. When at the conclusion of their game they sat down on a
bank overlooking the last hole and connected conversation took the
place of desultory dialogue between shots, he was struck by her common
sense, her enthusiasm, and her friendliness. He gathered that she was
eager to support herself by some form of intellectual occupation,
preferably teaching or writing, and that she had come to Rock Ledge
with Mrs. Spinney in order to talk over quietly whether she might
better take courses of study at Radcliffe or Wellesley, or learn the
Kindergarten methods and at the same time apply herself diligently to
preparation for creative work. Of one thing she was certain, that she
did not wish to rust out in Westford. While her father lived, of
course her nominal home would be there, but she felt that she could
not be happy with nothing but household employment in a small town out
of touch with the movement and breadth of modern life. The substance
of this information was confided to me by Morgan before we went to bed
that night.
It is easy and natural for two young people vegetating at a summer
resort to become exceedingly intimate in three or four days,
especially when facility for intercourse is promoted and freedom from
interruption guaranteed by a self-sacrificing accessory. My complicity
at the outset had been pure off-hand pleasantry, but by the end of
thirty-six hours it was obvious to me that Morgan’s interest was that
of a man deeply infatuated. Seeing that the two young people were of
marriageable age and free, so far as I knew, from disqualifying
blemishes which would justify me in putting either on guard against
the other, I concluded that it behooved me as a loyal friend to keep
Mrs. Spinney occupied and out of the way. Consequently Morgan and Mrs.
Spaulding were constantly together during the ensuing ten days, and so
skilfully did I behave that the innocent pair regarded the flirtation
which I was carrying on as a superb joke--a case of a banterer caught
in the toils, and Mrs. Spinney’s manners suggested that she was
agreeably flattered.
Morgan’s statement that he had never contemplated marriage was true,
and yet in the background of his dream of the future lurked a female
vision whose sympathy and companionship were to be the spur of his
ambition and the mainstay of his courage. Had he found her? He did not
need to ask himself the question more than once. He knew that he had,
and, knowing that he was deeply in love, he turned to face the two
questions by which he was confronted. First, would she have him?
Second, in case she would, was he in a position to ask her to marry
him, or, more concretely, could he support her? The first could be
solved only by direct inquiry. The answer to the second depended on
whether the views which he had expressed to me as to the possibilities
of matrimonial content in circumstances like his were correct. Or was
I right, and did it all depend upon the woman? But what if it did? Was
not this just the woman to sympathize entirely with his ambition and
to keep him up to the mark in case the shoe pinched? There was no
doubt of her enthusiasm and interest when in the course of one of
their walks he had confided to her that he had dedicated his life to
close scientific investigation. Well, he would lay the situation
squarely before her and she could give him his answer. If she was the
kind of woman he believed her to be and she loved him and had faith in
him, would the prospect of limited means appall her? He felt sure that
it would not.
By the light of subsequent events, being something of a mind reader, I
know the rest of their story as well as though I had been present in
the flesh.
Before the end of the fortnight he made a clean breast of his love and
of his scruples. He chose an occasion when they had strolled far along
the shore and were resting among picturesque rocks overlooking the
ocean. She listened shyly, as became a woman, but once or twice while
he was speaking she looked up at him with unmistakable ardor and joy
in her brown eyes which let him know that his feelings were
reciprocated before she confessed it by speech. He was so determined
to make clear to her what was in store for her if she accepted him
that without waiting for an answer to his burning avowal he proceeded
to point out and to reiterate that the scantiest kind of living so far
as creature comforts were concerned was all which he could promise
either for the present or for the future.
When, having satisfied his conscience, he ceased speaking, Edna turned
toward him and with a sigh of sentiment swept back the low bands of
profuse dark hair from her temples as though by the gesture she were
casting all anxieties and hindrances to the winds. “How strange it
is!” she murmured. “The last thing which I supposed could happen to me
in coming here was that I should marry. But I am in love--in love with
you; and to turn one’s back on that blessing would be to squander the
happiness of existence.” She was silent a moment. Then she continued
gravely, “As you know, I was engaged--married once before. How long
ago it seems! I thought once, I believed once, that I could never love
again. Dear Horace, how wrapped up we were in each other! But I was a
child then, and--and it seems as though all I know of the real world
has been learned since. I must not distrust--I will not refuse the
opportunity to make you happy and to become happier myself by
resisting the impulse of my heart. I love you--Morgan.”
“Thank God! But are you sure, Edna, that you have counted the cost of
marrying me?”
“Oh, yes! We shall manage very well, I think,” she answered, speaking
slowly and contracting a little her broad brow in the attempt to argue
dispassionately. “It isn’t as if you had nothing. You have fifteen
hundred dollars and your salary, nearly two thousand more. Five years
ago that would have seemed to me wealth, and now, of course, I
understand that it isn’t; and five years ago I suppose I would have
married a man if I loved him no matter how poor he was. But to-day I
am wiser--that’s the word, isn’t it? For I recognize that I might not
be happy as a mere drudge, and to become one would conflict with what
I feel that I owe myself in the way of--shall I call it civilizing and
self-respecting comfort? So you see if you hadn’t a cent, I might feel
it was more sensible and better for us both to wait or to give each
other up. But it isn’t a case of that at all. We’ve plenty to start
on--plenty, and more than I’m accustomed to; and by the time we need
more, if we do need more, you will be famous.”
“But it’s just that, Edna,” he interjected quickly. “I may never be
famous. I may be obscure, and we may be poor, relatively speaking, all
our lives,” and he sighed dismally.
“Oh, yes, you will, and oh, no, we shan’t!” she exclaimed buoyantly.
“Surely, you don’t expect me to believe that you are not going to
succeed and to make a name for yourself? We must take some chances--if
that is a chance. You have told me yourself that you intended to
succeed.”
“In the end, yes.”
“Why, then, shouldn’t I believe it, too? It would be
monstrous--disloyal and unromantic not to. I won’t listen to a word
more on that score, please. And the rest follows, doesn’t it? We are
marrying because we love each other and believe we can help each
other, and I am sure one of the reasons why we love each other is that
we both have enthusiasm and find life intensely absorbing and admire
that in the other. There’s the great difference between me now and
what I was at eighteen. The mere zest of existence seems to me so much
greater than it used. There are so many interesting things to do, so
many interesting things which we would like to do. And now we shall be
able to do them together, shan’t we?” she concluded, her eyes lighted
with confident happiness, her cheeks mantling partly from love,
partly, perhaps, from a sudden consciousness that she was almost
playing the wooer.
Morgan was equal to the occasion. “Until death do us part, Edna. This
is the joy of which I have dreamed for years and wondered if it could
ever be mine,” he whispered, as he looked into her face with all the
ardor of his soul and kissed her on the lips.
That evening he hooked his arm in mine on the piazza after dinner and
said, “You builded better than you knew, George. We are engaged,
and she’s the one woman in the world for me. I’ve told her
everything--everything, and she isn’t afraid.”
“And you give me the credit of it. That’s Christian and handsome. I’ll
say one thing for her which any one can see from her face, that she
has good looks and intelligence. As to the rest, you monopolized her
so that our acquaintance is yet to begin.”
“It shall begin at once,” said Morgan, with a happy laugh. “But what
about you, George?”
“I leave for New York to-night. Now that the young lovers have
plighted their troth my presence is no longer necessary. A sudden
telegram will arrive.”
“But Mrs. Spinney? We have begun to--er--hope--”
“Hope?”
“Begun to think--wondered if--”
“I were going to marry a woman several years my senior who has the
effrontery to believe that she can lecture acceptably on the entire
range of literary and social knowledge from the Troubadours and the
Crusades to Rudyard Kipling and the Referendum? Such is the reward of
disinterested self-sacrifice!”
“Forgive me, George. I knew at first that you were trying to do me a
good turn, but--but you were so persistent that you deceived us. I’m
really glad there’s nothing in it.”
“Thanks awfully.” Then bending a sardonic glance on my friend, I
murmured sententiously:
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is Winged Cupid painted blind.”
* * * * *
“Edna, why don’t you take a more active interest in these club
gatherings?” asked Morgan Russell one afternoon eight years subsequent
to their marriage. He had laid aside his work for the day, and having
joined his wife on the piazza was glancing over a printed notice of a
meeting which she had left on the table. “I’m inclined to think you
would get considerable diversion from them, and the study work at home
would be in your line.”
Edna was silent a moment. She bent her head over her work--a child’s
blouse--that he might not notice that she was biting her lip, and she
managed to impart a dispassionate and almost jaunty tone to the
indictment which uttered.
“Every now and then, Morgan, you remind me of Edward Casaubon in
‘Middlemarch.’ Not often, but every now and then lately.”
“That selfish, fusty, undiscerning bookworm?”
“You’re not selfish and you’re not fusty; but you remind me of him
when you make remarks like your first.” She brushed a caterpillar from
her light summer skirt, and noticing the draggled edge held it up.
“There’s one answer to your question about taking an active interest
in clubs. There are twenty others, but this is one.”
Her husband appeared puzzled. He looked well, but pale and thin, as
though accustomed to close application.
“I mean I can’t afford it,” she added.
“I see. Then it was stupid of me--Casaubonish, I dare say, to have
spoken. I was only trying to put a little more variety into your life
because I realized that you ought to have it.”
Edna gave a faint sigh by way of acquiescence. Marriage had changed
her but little in appearance. She looked scarcely older, and her
steady eyes, broad brow, and ready smile gave the same effect of
determination and spirit, though she seemed more sober.
“I’m a little dull myself and that makes me captious,” she asserted.
Then dropping her work and clasping her hands she looked up earnestly
at him and said, “Don’t you see the impossibility of my being active
in my club, Morgan? I go to it, of course, occasionally, so as not to
drop out of things altogether, but in order to take a prominent part
and get the real benefit of the meetings a woman needs time and money.
Not so very much money, nor so very much time, but more of either than
I have at my disposal. Of course, I would like, if we had more
income--and what is much more essential--more time, to accept some of
the invitations which I receive to express my ideas before the club,
but it is out of the question. I have a horror of superficiality just
as you have.”
“A sad fate; a poor man’s wife,” said Morgan with a smile which,
though tranquil, was wan.
“And you warned me. Don’t think for a moment I’m complaining or
regretting. I was only answering your question. Do you realize, dear,
we shall have been married eight years day after to-morrow?”
“So we have, Edna. And what a blessing our marriage has been to me!”
“We have been very happy.” Then, she said, after a pause, as though
she had been making up her mind to put the question, “You are really
content, Morgan?”
“Content?” he echoed, “with you, Edna?”
“Not with me as me, but with us both together; with our progress, and
with what we stand for as human beings?”
“I think so. That is, relatively speaking, and provided I understand
correctly what you mean.”
She had not resumed her work, and her eager, resolute expression
indicated that she was preparing to push the conversation to a more
crucial point.
“I suppose what I mean is, would you, if we were going to start over
again, do just as you have--devote yourself to science?”
“Oh!” Morgan flushed. “I don’t see the use of considering that
conundrum. I have devoted myself to science and there is no help for
it, even if I were dissatisfied.”
“No present help.”
“No help at any time, Edna. But why resurrect this ghost? We burned
our bridges at the altar.”
“We did. And don’t misunderstand me, dear. I’m not flinching, I’m not
even regretting, as I said to you before. Perhaps it may seem to you
brutal--which is worse than Casaubonish--to ask you such a question.
Still, we’re husband and wife, and on an anniversary like this why
isn’t it sensible to look matters squarely in the face, and consider
whether we’ve been wise or not? You ask the use. Are we not both
seeking the truth?”
“Just as a tradesman takes an account of stock to ascertain whether he
is bankrupt. I suppose you are thinking of the children and--and you
admitted that you are a little tired yourself.”
“I wasn’t thinking of any one. I was simply considering the question
as an abstract proposition--by the light, of course, of our
experience.”
“It is hard for you, Edna; yes, it is hard. I often think of it.”
“But I shouldn’t mind its being hard if I were sure we were
wise--justified.”
Morgan leaned toward her and said with grave intensity, “How, dear,
are the great truths of science to be ascertained unless men--men and
their wives--are willing to delve lovingly, to sacrifice comforts, and
even endure hardships in pursuit of them?”
Edna drew a deep breath. “But you must answer me a question. How are
children to be educated, and their minds, bodies, and manners guarded
and formed in the ideal way on a small income such as ours?”
“I thought it was the children.”
“It isn’t merely the children. It’s myself and you--you, Morgan. It
breaks my heart to see you pale, thin, and tired most of the time. You
like good food and we can’t afford to keep a decent cook. You have to
consider every cent you spend, and the consequence is you have no
amusement, and if you take a vacation, it is at some cheap place where
you are thoroughly uncomfortable. And, of course, it is the children,
too. If you, with your talents had gone into business or followed
medicine or the law, like your friend Mr. Randall, we should have an
income by this time which--well, for one thing, we should be able to
keep the children at the seaside until October, and for another have
Ernest’s teeth straightened.”
“Perhaps I can manage both of those, as it is. But, Edna, what’s the
advantage of considering what might have been? Besides, you haven’t
answered my question.”
“I know it,” she said slowly. “You mustn’t misunderstand me, Morgan.
I’m very proud of you, and I appreciate fully your talent, your
self-sacrifice, and your modesty. I thought you entirely right the
other day in repulsing that odious reporter who wished to make a
public character of you before you were ready. I’m content to wait--to
wait forever, and I shall be happy in waiting. But, on the other hand,
I’ve never been afraid to face the truth. It’s my way. I’ve done so
all my life; and my growth mentally and morally has come through my
willingness to acknowledge my mistakes. Every one says it is fine for
other people to starve for the sake of discovery, but how few are
willing to do it themselves! If we were in a book, the world would
admire us, but sometimes I can’t help wondering if we would not be
happier and more satisfactory human products if you had done something
which brought you rewards more commensurate with your abilities. I’m
merely thinking aloud, Morgan. I’m intensely interested, as you know,
in the problems of life, and this is one of them.”
“But you know foreigners claim that we as a nation are not really
interested in culture and knowledge, but only in their money value.
What becomes of the best scholarship if we are ready to admit it?”
“Ah! but Professor Drayson told me only the other day that abroad, in
Germany, for instance, they give their learned professors and savants
suitable salaries and make much of them socially, because it is
recognized that otherwise they wouldn’t be willing to consecrate
themselves to their work.”
“Then the essential thing for me to do is to invent some apparatus
which I can sell to a syndicate for half a million dollars.”
“That would be very nice, Morgan,” she answered, smiling brightly.
“But you know perfectly well that if we go on just as we are to the
end, I shall be thoroughly proud of you, and thoroughly
happy--relatively speaking.” So saying she put her arm around her
husband’s neck and kissed him affectionately.
Although this conversation was more definite than any which had taken
place between them, Morgan was not seriously distressed. He knew that
it was his wife’s method to think aloud, and he knew that she would be
just as loyal to him and no less cheerful because of it. She was
considering a problem in living, and one which indisputably had two
sides. He had always been aware of it, and the passage of time without
special achievement on his part had brought it more pointedly before
him now that there were two children and the prospect of a third.
He was absorbed in his vocation; and the lack of certain
comforts--necessities, perhaps--though inconvenient, would not have
weighed appreciably in the scale were he the only one affected. But
though he was pursuing his course along the path of investigation
eagerly and doing good work without a shadow of disappointment, he was
aware not merely that he had not as yet made a concrete valuable
discovery, but might never do so. This possibility did not appall him,
but he recognized that it was a part of the circumstances of his
particular case viewed from the standpoint of a contemplative judgment
on his behavior. He was succeeding, but was his success of a character
to justify depriving his wife and children of what might have been
theirs but for his selection? The discussion was purely academic, for he
had made his choice, but he did not question Edna’s privilege to weigh
the abstract proposition, and accordingly was not depressed by her
frankness.
It happened a few weeks later that Edna received a letter from Mrs.
Sidney Dale inviting her and Morgan to spend a fortnight at the Dale
spring and autumn home on the Hudson. Edna had seen Mrs. Dale but
twice since their trip abroad. She had been unable to accept a
previous similar invitation, but on this occasion Morgan insisted that
she should go. He argued that it would refresh and rest her, and he
agreed to conduct her to Cliffside and remain for a day or two
himself.
Cliffside proved to be a picturesque, spacious house artistically
situated at the vantage point of a domain of twenty acres and
furnished with the soothing elegancies of modern ingenuity and taste.
Among the attractions were a terrace garden, a well-accoutred stable,
a tennis court, and a steam yacht. Mrs. Dale, who had prefaced her
invitation by informing her husband that she never understood exactly
why she was so fond of Edna and feared that the Russells were very
poor, sat, a vision of successive cool, light summer garments, doing
fancy work on the piazza, and talking in her engaging, brightly
indolent manner. Morgan found Mr. Dale, who was taking a vacation
within telephonic reach of New York, a genial, well-informed man with
the effect of mental strength and reserve power. They became friendly
over their cigars, and a common liking for old-fashioned gardens. On
the evening before he departed, Morgan, in the course of conversation,
expressed an opinion concerning certain electrical appliances before
the public in the securities of which his host was interested. The
banker listened with keen attention, put sundry questions which
revealed his own acuteness, and in pursuance of the topic talked to
Morgan graphically until after midnight of the large enterprises
involving new mechanical discoveries in which his firm was engaged.
Morgan was obliged to go home on the following morning, but Edna
remained a full fortnight. On the day of her return Morgan was pleased
to perceive that the trip had evidently done her good. Not only did
she look brighter and fresher, but there was a sparkling gayety in her
manner which suggested that the change had served as a tonic. Morgan
did not suspect that this access of spirits was occasioned by the
secret she was cherishing until she confronted him with it in the
evening.
“My dear,” she said, “you would never guess what has happened, so I
won’t ask you to try. I wonder what you will think of it. Mr. Dale is
going to ask you--has asked you to go into his business--to become one
of his partners.”
“Asked me?”
“Yes. It seems you made a good impression on him from the
first--especially the last evening when you sat up together. It came
about through Mrs. Dale, I think. That is, Mr. Dale has been looking
about for some time for what he calls the right sort of man to take
in, for one of his partners has died recently and the business is
growing; and Mrs. Dale seems to have had us on her mind because she
had got it into her head that we were dreadfully poor. I don’t think
she has at all a definite idea of what your occupation is. But the
long and short of it is her husband wants you. He told me so himself
in black and white, and you will receive a letter from him within a
day or two.”
“Wants me to become a broker?”
“A banker and broker.”
“And--er--give up my regular work?”
Edna nervously smoothed out the lap of her dress as though she
realized that she might be inflicting pain, but she raised her steady
eyes and said with pleasant firmness:
“You would have to, of course, wouldn’t you? But Mr. Dale explained
that you would be expected to keep a special eye on the mechanical and
scientific interests of the firm. He said he had told you about them.
So all that would be in your line of work, wouldn’t it?”
“I understand--I understand. It would amount to nothing from the point
of view of my special field of investigation,” he answered a little
sternly. “What reply did you make to him, Edna?”
“I merely said that I would tell you of the offer; that I didn’t know
what you would think.”
“I wish you had refused it then and there.”
“I couldn’t do that, of course. The decision did not rest with me.
Besides, Morgan, I thought you might think that we could
not--er--afford to refuse it, and that as you would still be more or
less connected with scientific matters, you might regard it as a happy
compromise. Mr. Dale said,” she continued with incisive clearness in
which there was a tinge of jubilation, “that on a conservative
estimate you could count on ten or twelve thousand dollars a year, and
his manner suggested that your share of the profits would be very much
more than that.”
“The scientific part is a mere sop; it amounts to nothing. I should be
a banker, engaged in floating new financial enterprises and selling
their securities to the public.”
There was a brief silence. Edna rose and seating herself on the sofa
beside him took his hands and said with solemn emphasis, “Morgan, if
you think you will be unhappy--if you are satisfied that this change
would not be the best thing for us, say so and let us give it up. Give
it up and we will never think of it again.”
He looked her squarely in the face. “My God, Edna, I don’t know what
to answer! It’s a temptation. So many things would be made easy. It
comes to this, Is a man justified in refusing such an opportunity and
sacrificing his wife and children in order to be true to his----?”
She interrupted him. “If you put it that way, Morgan, we must decline.
If you are going to break your heart--”
“Or yours--”
“Morgan, whichever way you decide I shall be happy, provided only you
are sure. If you feel that you--we--all of us will be happier and
er--more effective human creatures going on as we are, it is your duty
to refuse Mr. Dale’s offer.”
“It’s a temptation,” murmured Morgan. “I must think it over, Edna. Am
I bound to resist it?”
“Bound?”
“You know I may never be heard of in science outside of a few partial
contemporaries.” His lip quivered with his wan smile.
“That has really nothing to do with it,” she asserted.
“I think it has, Edna,” he said simply. Then suddenly the remembrance
of the conversation with his friend Randall recurred to him with vivid
clearness. He looked up into his wife’s eyes and said, “After all,
dear, it really rests with you. The modern woman is man’s helpmate and
counsellor. What do you advise?”
Edna did not answer for a few moments. Her open, sensible brow seemed
to be seeking to be dispassionate as a judge and to expel every
vestige of prejudice.
“It’s a very close question to decide, Morgan. Of course, there are
two distinct sides. You ask me to tell you, as your wife, what I think
is wisest and best. I can’t set it forth as clearly as I should
like--I won’t attempt to give my reasons even. But somehow my instinct
tells me that if you don’t accept Mr. Dale’s offer, you will be sorry
three years hence.”
“Then I shall accept, Edna, dear,” he said.
Three years later I took Mrs. Sidney Dale out to dinner at the house
of a common friend in New York. In the course of conversation I
remarked, “I believe it is you, Mrs. Dale, who is responsible for the
metamorphosis in my friend, Morgan Russell.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“An old friend since college days. I never saw any one so spruced up,
shall I call it? He has gained fifteen pounds, is growing whiskers,
and is beginning to look the embodiment of worldly prosperity.”
“It is delightful to see them--both him and his wife. Yes, I suppose I
may claim to be responsible for rescuing him from obscurity. My
husband finds him a most valuable man in his business. I’m very fond
of Mrs. Russell. She hasn’t the obnoxious ways of most progressive
women, and she certainly has executive ability and common sense. Being
such an indolent person myself, I have always been fascinated by her
spirit and cleverness. I’m glad she has been given a chance. They are
getting on nicely.”
“I think she is in her element now. I was at their house the other
day,” I continued blandly. “It seems that Edna is prominent in various
educational and philanthropic bodies, high in the councils of her
club, and a leading spirit in diverse lines of reform. They are
entertaining a good deal--a judicious sprinkling of the fashionable
and the literary. The latest swashbuckler romances were on the table,
and it was evident from her tone that she regarded them as great
American literature. Everything was rose color. Morgan came home while
I was there. His hands were full of toys for his children and violets
for his wife. He began to talk golf. It’s a complete case of
ossification of the soul--pleasant enough to encounter in daily
intercourse, but sad to contemplate.”
Mrs. Dale turned in her chair. “I believe you’re laughing at me, Mr.
Randall. What is sad? And what do you mean by ossification of the
soul?”
Said I with quiet gravity, “Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a year.
Morgan Russell’s life is ruined--and the world had great hopes of
him.”
Mrs. Dale, who is a clever person, in spite of her disclaimers, was
silent a moment. “I know what you mean, of course. But I don’t agree
with you in the least. And you,” she added with the air of a woman
making a telling point--“you the recently appointed attorney of the
paper trust, with a fabulous salary, you’re the last man to talk like
that.”
I regarded her a moment with sardonic brightness. “Mrs. Dale,” I said,
“it grieves us to see the ideals of our friends shattered.”