With the early spring Jane's book made its bow to the world. It had been widely advertised by the publishers and had the advantage of a conspicuous loneliness, since most books are brought out in the fall. The author was sorry when her work was actually in its final form, because she had so enjoyed the novelty of its various processes. The galley proof and the page proof interested her intensely; the choice of an illustrator seemed a momentous question of great import. The colour of the binding, whether the lettering on it should be gold or black, these details delighted her.
But the day came when a huge package arrived with her twelve copies allotted by the contract. She sat on the floor and looked over every copy, patting the covers, gloating over the beauty of the book. It was an experience she was never to repeat in all the freshness of the first time, and she drained it of sweetness.
She showed one to small Jerry, who approved it. Then she indicted one to Martin and sent it by messenger to his rooms, although she knew him to be still out of town. She wrote Jerry's name in his and put it on his dressing table. She carried one to Bobs herself.
So much for her own immediate and tangible result from her long labours. She had expected just such pleasurefrom it—but the surprising thing was the intangible effect, which she had not counted on.
Dinner and tea invitations flooded in from all sides, her own days at home became crushes. Everybody she knew talked about this book as if it were the only book ever written. The critics, worn out after an arduous season of more or less mediocrity, welcomed this new author because she had freshness; she piqued their tired faculties.
The newspapers and magazines sent people to interview her; one of the papers made much of her appearance in the Pageant of the Prophets—her romance with Jerry. They ran a reproduction of one of his portraits, not being able to get a photograph of Jane.
"I get a little ad. out of this, Jane," Jerry said, as he handed her that account.
"I don't like the publicity part," she sighed, and added as she read, "Oh, this is ridiculous, I won't have it."
"My dear, you'll find that advertising is the most important thing in art these days. This kind of thing is nuts and ale to your publishers."
"But, Jerry, how can it be? All this silly, untrue stuff about my private life."
"That's what they want. The D. P. care much more for your private life than it does for your work. The more they know—or think they know—about it, the more willing they are to buy what you have to sell."
"It's disgusting; it debases art."
"So it does; it also popularizes it."
"I suppose that is what we want, isn't it—a democratic art?"
"Yes, if artists are to live. But it has to be spoon fed, with a rich sauce of personality to get it down their throats," he grumbled.
"But my book isn't the popular kind—only a few people are going to read it—so why do I have to go through this cheap advertising? It will disgust the people who might read me, and the people it might attract will never read me."
"Don't expect the advertiser to have any judgment, Jane. All kinds of soap and all kinds of books are alike to him."
"Dear me, it is discouraging."
Mrs. Abercrombie Brendon insisted upon giving a dinner for Jane, with fashionable and literary folk asked to meet her. She found herself a celebrity of sorts, complimented and deferred to. It amused her greatly, but the most interesting thing was Jerry's attitude. His early resentment at her conspicuous new position had resolved into a semblance of pride in her triumphs. The night of the Brandons' dinner she continually was reminded of his attitude the first night he introduced her as his wife, at Jinny Chatfield's studio party. Then, as now, he had paid her court, possessed her, exhibited her.
Jane took her new position calmly. Her sense of humour saved her from any undue inflation of values. She accepted the comments of those who pretended they had read her book—relying on an outburst of adjectives to protect the falsehood—as sweetly as she did the over-serious consideration of some of the others.
"A masterly handling of the woman question, Mrs. Paxton," said the man who sat next her at table.
"I wish we might call it the human question; it is yours as well as ours, you know," she answered.
Her partner quoted the remark for weeks following the reiteration—"that brilliant Mrs. Jerry Paxton said to me the other night at dinner...." etc.
It is of just such trifles that reputations are built, the right word here, an exclamation there, and the thing is done.
"Well, Jane, you're a success as a celebrity," Jerry remarked on the way home.
"It is pleasant to have people friendly, but it is amusing to have them make such a fuss, isn't it? You've always known you were the kind of person you are; it seems strange that you have to do a special, conspicuous thing to get people to see it."
Jerry laughed.
"You ungrateful wretch," he exclaimed. "I don't believe you care a rap about this part of your success."
"I don't; I hate it. I'd like to slip away and not hear any more about that book. I loved writing it and the making of it, but this fol-de-rol seems so childish."
"Mrs. Brendon would like that 'fol-de-rol!' She thinks that dinner was a brilliant event."
"It was sweet of her, of course."
"You get more of an enigma to me, Jane, as time goes on. You haven't one iota of personal vanity. Now, I love every ounce of success I can get. I'd like to be perpetualguest of honour. I want all the pomp and circumstance I can manage. That's how vain I am."
"I understand it, in you, Jerry, but I seem to be entirely different."
So sensitive was Jerry to public opinion that by insensible degrees he drifted into an acceptance of Jane's new position. He deferred to her opinions, he even referred to her work.
"What are you busy with now, Jane?" he inquired.
"I'm working out an absorbing situation," she answered, and outlined it to him. He was interested and they discussed it for some time. "It's all I can do to tear myself away from my desk these days; I feel as if I just must have more time."
"Can't we manage with lunch later?"
"No, not if we get you ready for a model at two. I can't seem to get off any earlier in the morning."
"Why not?"
"Well, I have to do the ordering and get Baby bathed and off to sleep."
"Can't Anna do that?"
"No, she can't order, and I don't want her to bathe Baby."
"I might manage the ordering for a week or so, until you get the story along past the climax."
"Jerry! would you?" she exclaimed.
"Why not? I'm here all morning—might as well."
"You dear! That would give me a half-an-hour earlier start."
"Anybody who can get up in the morning, and goat her work the way you do, ought to have a free rein."
"Morning's my time, afternoon is yours; we're very well suited to each other in some ways, Jerry," she laughed.
"Where's Christiansen these days?" he asked.
"He's out of town—with his wife, I suspect."
"Poor devil! It's hard lines, isn't it?"
"Yes, but Martin is one of the few who are big enough to suffer."
"How do you mean?"
"So many people are so selfish and small-minded that they can only cry and protest against afflictions, but there are some who welcome the bitter with the sweet—who grow big and fruitful with sorrow. Martin is like that. I think him the biggest man I've ever known," she added simply.
The studio crowd arranged a party in the Chatfields' studio which Jinny called a "coronation" in Jane's honour. It was to be a surprise and they told Jerry the details and gave him orders about getting her there, with no suspicion of the real nature of the event.
"It's sweet of you, Jinny, but Jane won't like it," he said.
"Yes, she will! Every woman likes to be made much of. She made her other début in my house and I want her for this one. We're so proud of her, we don't know what to do, Jerry!" she answered feelingly.
"All right. I'll get her there at nine o'clock, but I've warned you!" he laughed.
As it was, he had a great struggle to get Hamlet tothe feast. Jane was too tired to go anywhere, she said, and they could go to see Jinny any time. Then when he had finally induced her to go, she could not see why he insisted on her wearing her newest frock.
"Oh, I just like you in it and none of them have seen it. Suit yourself, of course," he said.
So with a sigh, Jane arrayed herself. Jerry thought she had never looked so well, with a deepened pallor of weariness and faint blue shadows about her eyes.
When they arrived at the Chatfields' the big studio room was empty, but in one end of it was a huge throne on a dais. Their host received them with great dignity and to Jane's astonishment drew her hand through his arm and led her to the throne.
"Sit there just a minute, Jane," he urged.
"But what for? What is this?"
He almost pushed her into the chair of state and the moment she was seated, music struck and a procession began of all the artist folk. They wore paper caps and robes and they approached the astounded Jane, who would have fled, had Chatfield not prevented. A page bore a crown of laurel leaves, which the head chamberlain set upon her head with appropriate ceremonial words. Then the various officials of her court presented her with the insignia of her royalty—a great pen, a huge key to her counting house—an exquisite gauze veil, the cloak of imagination was laid about her shoulders. Then a beautiful handmade book, entitled "The Coronation of Queen Jane the First," in which were all the names of her subjects, was offered.
Bobs, dressed as Ariel, brought her a crystal globe and explained in charming verse that she was to gaze into it and see life, know the powers of the air, follow the trail of the sun and moon into the realm of universal knowledge, whither she was to lead her subjects.
Jane's first feeling was one of protest as the position was forced upon her, but the spontaneity of their tribute, with its friendly impulse, melted her first embarrassment into gratitude and affection.
When they ended the ceremony, by singing "Auld Lang Syne," she was near to tears.
"Speech! Speech!" they cried, and she rose at once.
"My good friends, I feel sure that your acquaintance with the Cinderella story of plain Jane Judd will excuse Queen Jane the First for lack of royal words of thanks, but I am both touched and grateful, because you are the oldest friends I have in New York, and many times in the years back of us you've proved yourselves the truest.... Couldn't you let Jerry finish this speech? He makes so much better ones than I do!"
"No, no; down with the men!" cried Bobs.
"Long live Queen Jane!" shouted the host, and on the wave of sound that followed Jane floated into her own, in their world of dreams and visions and struggles, where she had for so long a time been a silent onlooker.
These days of stress, mental upheaval, and emotional unrest were having their effect upon Jerry's work, as well as upon his mind. He painted with a veritable fury. Melisande in the wood became the outlet for his surcharged feelings. Jane came upon him, one late afternoon, after Althea had gone, studying his work from every angle.
"Jerry, do you realize how this grows? I find it absorbing to watch."
"Do you, Jane?" gratefully.
"It has been like a miracle, like spring. First the bare outlines; then came the trees, sky, earth; then branches, clouds, the grass; then a sweep of colour, soft as a May wind; then you did something to it that made it a place of mystery."
"Does it have all that for you, Jane?"
"Yes, and more. It has the proof of my belief in your power."
"Why do you hate the portraits so?"
"Because they are not you—they are things to sell. You are clever enough to make people look as they want to look, not as you know they are."
"Heavens, Jane, that would ruin us!"
"There, you've said it. We are prostituting your soul to pay our rent."
"It's just a crutch, Jane. I'll discard it as soon as I can. Don't take it too seriously."
"I can't help it. You see, I take the creative instinct seriously; it is our share of Godhood."
"I know, but all of us have to pot boil."
"Not all of us."
"You chose manual labour instead, didn't you? But we aren't all made of the stuff you are, Jane."
"It isn't that. It is only that if you worship Godhood, even in yourself, you cannot prostitute it."
"But Baby and you and I must live. Doesn't the motive make any difference, to your mind?"
"We don't have to live in this house with those things about us."
"Yes, we do. The very wells of my soul dry up in poverty and ugliness. I'm not a genius, Jane, I'm only just a talent."
"When I am doing my share, you will be freer to grow, Jerry."
He made no answer to that. He began to put away the canvas.
"Won't you leave it out? Martin and Bobs are coming to dinner, you remember. They would enjoy seeing it."
"Better wait until it's finished," he said, but left it in easy reach.
Bobs arrived early to see the baby put to bed. She adored him, even to his mother's entire content. She referred to him as His Majesty, brought him gifts, surrounded him with adoration and incense.
"Great excitement in my shop to-day," she said, when they were down in the studio, waiting for Martin. "I got a commission for a fountain to stand in a public square in Columbus, Ohio."
"Good work, Bobs, we'll crack a bottle on it to-night and celebrate your luck," cried Jerry, wringing her hand.
"I am delighted, dear," said Jane. "Any plans for it?"
"Not yet. I'm in that agonized state of groping for the idea. You know—something inside clutching in the dark, darting here and there, trying to get hold of things that slip away. No torture like it."
"Also no satisfaction like the minute when the idea comes, like the night-blooming cereus, in the dark."
"Yes, that's the fun, and later, examining the leaves, the blossom, the calyx, the stem, saying to yourself, 'Why, of course, how else?'"
"Queer, isn't it, how it comes to each one of us differently—one plant for you, another for me, and still another for Jane," Jerry remarked.
"That is why it seems to me so important to cultivate your own, it is so essentially yours," Jane said, in her serious way.
"Yes, if you don't forget that, at a big flower show, you may be a violet in the chrysanthemum exhibit," Bobs teased.
Martin came in, on the laugh that followed.
"This sounds like a happy party," he remarked, as he greeted them.
"Bobs has an order, and she is exuberant," explained Jerry.
He proceeded to offer her various ridiculous suggestions as to fitting subjects for the fountain. They all went into dinner, laughing. But Jane's observing eye marked signs of weariness and feeling in Martin's face. He was his usual, spontaneous, interested self to the casual onlooker, but in moments when the others were talking, she caught him off guard, mask down.
Bobs and Jerry fell into a discussion over a line which Bobs quoted from Jane's book.
"But I don't agree with Jane's hypothesis, that every life is an end in itself, because it cannot be lived again: that the personal reaction to life, expressed in art, is of value, because it is individual."
"What is the individual's value, then?" Bobs demanded. "Yours, for instance?"
"I'm part of a whole. I'm an eye or an ear in the big organism. My job is no more important than—nor as important as—the function of the leg, or the arm."
"Then you think it is just accident that you happen to be the eye?" Martin inquired.
"Yes."
"I think you've been trained from the beginning of the world to be the eye," Jane said. "I believe your personality to be an asset that will never happen again, that you must live the fullest, freest life possible, so that you may be a normal, clear-sighted eye, and see truly."
"It puts a whole new emphasis on the individual, doesn't it?" Martin mused.
"It seems to me slightly lacking in a sense of humour,but that is not an unusual fault in women, I am told," smiled Jerry tolerantly.
"We think that is a fault of men," said Bobs. "Nobody with a real sense of humour could go on raving against women in careers as you do, Jerry."
"What has my sense of humour got to do with my objection to women with careers?" testily.
"Everything. If you had such a sense you would see that you are only concerned about the women who are getting intoyourcareer, the arts. It's the painter, the sculptor, doctor, lawyer, actress, opera singer, whom you want to rush back into the home. You don't bother about your cook, or your laundress, and all the women who serve you, staying intheirhomes."
"That's different."
"How is it different? They are made to stay at home, and bear children, according to your idea. Why shouldn't they be allowed to do so, and carry out Nature's intention?"
"They should, ideally."
"But in the world of fact, Jerry, women never have been devoted to this 'highest function' solely," Jane remarked. "They have always done their half, and more than half of the physical labour of the world, and borne the children besides."
"Under primitive conditions, maybe."
"But why should we suddenly limit her in the field of industry? Why suddenly decide that she is fit only to bear the young? Why shouldn't she go into new industries, if the old ones are taken from her?"
"Because she upsets all the relations of life if she pushes into industries where men naturally excel her."
"What are the industries where men naturally excel women, Paxton?"
"In labour requiring physical strength, and professions requiring great mental facility, like politics, government, diplomacy."
"Wait a minute, Jerry. What about the women in Europe at this very minute? They man the factories, till the soil, work the mines, make ammunition, run cars, motors, trucks; they are being sucked into all the industries of the world, and they are making good," cried Bobs.
"This war in Europe reduces those countries to the early stages, to rebuilding, reconstructing. It sets men and women back on the same plane of coöperative labour which exists in new settlements. But if this had not happened to us, I think we would have seen a marvel happening among women. Who is to say that, with this increase of machinery to replace man, with a lessening demand for bulk and strength, the sex with the greatest muscular fineness, the preponderance of brain and nerve tissue, would not become the one especially fitted to do the work of the future?" Martin said.
"You must admit, Jerry, that we've had no training in politics, government, and diplomacy," Jane objected.
"You all get away from my objection, that it upsets all our human relationships. What else is making all this domestic unrest, this increase of divorces? It is woman getting out of the home."
"Jerry,haveyou read my book?" demanded Jane.
"Let me answer that," said Martin. "Woman in the home or out of it, is only one manifestation of our social rebirth. In a world of environment changing hourly, the individual must change hourly, too, or lose his social value. Now, the real tragedy of modern life is not that woman is changing more rapidly than man, but that in our confusion, it is the most advanced type of woman who marries the most antiquated type of man, orvice versa. Ages of social evolution may lie between them."
"There you are, Jane; he has put our problem in a nutshell. You have married the most antiquated type of man," laughed Jerry.
"What does it matter whether men do this better, and women do that better? The thing is to add to the general store of wisdom of the race; we all have to pour in our share. A hundred years from now it will look as if each contributed about equal amounts, won't it?" asked Bobs.
"What about this enmity between men and women?" Jerry asked.
"Men don't want us to get their jobs. They won't see the true situation, and they blame us," Bobs answered; "that makes enmity."
"And women are superior, satirical, mad at us," he retorted.
"But you want to marry us, in spite of it, Jerry, so nothing interferes with our 'sacred function,' as you call it," Bobs laughed.
"There cannot be sex war, Paxton. That need is the very ground work of life. The mating instinct is notaffected by a change of labour for either sex. Mother Nature sees to that," Martin said.
"The gist of all you are saying is, that we need a new kind of marriage, a new kind of family, a new kind of parents, and a new kind of man. We've got the new kind of woman."
"We've got the new man. Why, Jerry, you're one of them," said Jane.
"I? Good Lord!" he exclaimed, and the discussion ended in laughter.
Talk drifted far and wide, as it was wont to do with these four friends. Jane persuaded Jerry to show them his picture, and they discussed it, methods of work, kinds of inspiration, all the questions of the creative process which forever intrigue artists.
It was eleven o'clock before Bobs rose to go. Jerry insisted upon walking to her studio with her, and Jane was glad of her opportunity to have a few moments alone with Martin. As the door closed on them, she turned to him.
"Martin, my friend, has it been an unusually trying visit for you?" she asked gently.
"Yes. My freedom has come to me, Jane."
"You mean she has gone?"
"Yes, poor soul, two days ago."
"Martin, I am glad, glad for you both."
She held her hands to him impulsively and he laid his eyes against them in silence.
"Has it hurt so deeply that you cannot be glad, Martin?"
"Jane, what does it mean to me now? I've bornemy slavery all these years without groaning, but my freedom has come too late."
"Martin, what a thing to say! Freedom can never be too late."
"Can you say that to me, Jane? Jane! Don't you know how I love you—how I want you—how deeply I need you, my beloved?"
"Martin!"
He swept her into his arms with swift passion. She lay perfectly motionless against his breast for several seconds, with his cheek against her hair. Then she slowly released herself, laid her palm against his face, and looked into his eyes.
"Forgive me," he whispered.
A sound caught her attention. She looked up, and past him. Jerry was standing in the door of the studio.
"Come in, Jerry," Jane said quietly.
He obeyed her, his face so white and set that he looked years older, like a stranger who had accidentally come in upon this, the most vital moment of her life.
Martin turned at sound of her words, with a sigh that was almost a groan. Jerry came across the long studio to them, looking at Jane. He stopped, facing her, still gazing at her.
"I have just told Jane that I love her," Martin said presently. Jerry nodded. "I think you ought to know."
"I have known it for some time," Jerry replied.
Martin shook his head.
"You could not have known it. I have only admitted it to myself in the last few days—since my freedom came."
"Your wife is dead?" Jerry asked quietly.
"Yes."
"What do you want me to do, Jane?" Jerry said.
"I want you to believe what Martin said—that he never knew he cared until now—that this hour brought the first word of sentiment between us. That it was an accident—an explosion. You do believe that, Jerry?"
"If you like."
"It is the truth."
"Don't let's talk about the truth of what has happened or what has not; the only question is: what are we to do?" Jerry cried sharply, like a man keeping difficult control of himself.
"I'll go," said Martin.
"No, you'll stay. Jane may need you," Jerry said.
"Very well. I am at her service entirely. I wanted to spare you," Martin said.
"You're a little late in considering me, Christiansen!" bitterly.
"Jerry, don't you see this is not anybody's fault? Martin didn't mean it to happen; I didn't mean it to; certainly you didn't. Can't we be quite patient with each other and try to get it straightened?"
"I'm trying to be patient, Jane, but I'm not a saint, and by God! the thing I want to do is to kick him, so don't begrudge me a few words; after all, you are my wife; this is my house, he has outraged my rights."
"Jerry, you haven't any rights in me or in our home apart fromourrights. Won't you understand that your honour is my honour, that only in so far as we let it get smirched can it be smirched."
"I can't match words with you, Jane. Say what you want and let's get through with it."
"Paxton, your wife has given me no reason to believe that my love is of any importance to her. Couldn't we...?"
"I'm not here to interrogate my wife, nor ask for any justification of her feelings. I only want her to decide what she wants me to do."
"Jerry, what do you want to do?" she asked him.
He hesitated several seconds.
"If you love him, I want to get out of your way as soon as possible," he answered.
"And if I do not love him?"
"Then I want him to get out."
Jane went over to the window and looked out into the early evening for some moments. The two men scarcely stirred. Then suddenly, as if something snapped, Jerry laughed.
"It's just like Candida, isn't it?" he said bitterly. "You, poet, must offer her high moments, and I, the dull husband, must offer my need of her!"
"Oh, Jerry, don't," said Jane, coming to him swiftly.
"Then for God's sake, put us out of our misery, Jane."
"I can't! I can't decide like this. It isn't fair to any of us. I don't know what I think—I'm all a seething misery of emotions and terror. I've got to have time. I've got to do it alone," she said breathlessly. "Can't you understand, Jerry? Martin's love is the biggest thing that has ever been offered to me; it is his whole being; I can't decide about it so!"
"What about my love?"
"You never offered me your love, Jerry; I have never known it for a moment since I married you."
"But we've lived together—we've had a child."
"I know; it never seemed sin to me, because I did not know what I was desecrating. Now I know that my soul received nothing from my senses, gave nothing to them, that is why I have been so unsatisfied."
"And our boy?"
Jane groaned in anguish at that thrust.
"That isn't fair, Paxton," Christiansen protested.
"It's none of it fair, if it comes to that. I'll take such advantage as I've got, rely on that."
"You love her, too!"
Jerry made no reply to that. Jane stood, her hands over her face. Then she spoke quickly.
"I want you to let me go away for a little, all by myself, with only Baby. I want you not to know where I am— I want to feel absolutely alone to work this thing out in my mind. Will you agree, Jerry?"
"How long will you be gone?"
"Not long. I promise to come back the minute my mind is made up."
"All right, if I have your word that you'll come back," said Jerry.
"Why, Jerry!" she exclaimed.
"I'm rather fond of the Bald One," he explained, using their love word for the baby.
She caught her breath for a second with the pain of it. Then she turned to Christiansen.
"You agree to this, Martin?"
"Yes."
"Then I will go in the morning. When I come back I will send for you."
"Thank you," he said, his eyes shining upon her.
He held out his hand and she laid hers in it. He lifted it to his lips. Then he turned to Jerry.
"I wish you would let me shake hands with you, Paxton."
Jerry hesitated a second, then he took Christiansen's hand and the big man went out.
"Thank you, Jerry, that was big of you," said Jane.
He smiled faintly and she saw how the last hour had deepened the lines in his face.
"You will want to make the preparations for your journey to-morrow. Can I do anything?"
"I'll tell you if I think of anything. I must decide first where to go."
"If you take Baby, you will need Anna, won't you? I'll get my meals somewhere else. I may even go stay at the club."
"That's very kind of you, Jerry. If Anna went with me, I could get Mrs. Biggs to look after the studio and cook for you, if you did want to stay here for a meal occasionally. Would you like that?"
"Yes, that's all right."
All of the next day Jane was busy with her preparations. She summoned Mrs. Biggs by telephone, announced the plan to Anna.
"But ain't this a bad time to travel with the baby?"
"No, I think not; a change will do all of us good."
"Mr. Paxton comin'?"
"No, just we three."
"Who'll take care of him?"
"Mrs. Biggs."
"Oh, her!"
Anna departed to attend to her dinner and Jane went into the nursery to lay out her son's travelling outfit. He was awake and crowing lustily. Presently, as she selectedor discarded small garments, Jerry came in and went to the cradle side. Small Jerry lifted his voice in greeting and displayed his entire smile.
"Hello, old man," said his father.
Baby gurgled back.
"All right for me to take him downstairs with me, Jane?" he asked.
"Of course. Take a blanket along in case it's cool down there."
She watched Jerry's deft handling of the baby as he wrapped him and tucked him into his arm. There was a mist in her eyes as he went out, and she dropped her hands in her lap, with the question as to whether she was doing the right thing. Was she being unfair to Jerry? Should she give it all up—stay where she was—let well enough be? Then she thought of Martin—of the rights to her consideration which his great offering made for him; she thought of her own rights—what it would mean to her to know a great love—to love greatly. Little Jerry's shrill cry from below brought her back. Her first impulse was right, to get away from all the things that pulled upon her—to see the horizon on all sides—to think to that line.
The piles of Baby's things were ready and she went to her own room to sit down in the dusk and decide where she should go. She did not know many places about New York, the summer places she and Jerry had considered would be too bleak and dreary now in the late winter. She thought back to the New Jersey towns she knew as a girl. There was one holiday she specially remembered, spent in Lakewood, with a maiden lady, Miss Garnett,who owned a little house and took people to board. She had never thought of it in years; the woman might be dead now, but she would try it anyway. She would like that cottage better than a hotel. She wired, asking a return wire at once.
The more she thought about the place, the more she decided that was where she would go. It was near New York and yet she could be alone there. She remembered walks and woods. She called the station and learned about trains. Then she set herself to her own packing. Once she stole out to the balcony and looked over. Jerry was singing "Ride-a-cock-horse," and little Jerry was trying to carry the tune with the strange noises he used in self-expression. They were unconscious of an intruder, so Jane slipped away again.
Shortly she came downstairs in her hat and coat.
"Jerry, do you suppose you and Anna could get him to bed to-night? I have some errands."
"We'll manage," he answered. "Can't I do anything for you?" he added.
"No, thanks. I'll be back at dinner time," she replied.
Jane finished her errands and dropped in upon Bobs for a little visit.
"Baby and Anna and I are going off for a little outing to-morrow. Look after Jerry a bit, will you, Bobs?"
"Sure. But where are you going?"
"It's a secret."
Bobs's eyebrows went up, but she said nothing.
"Didn't you ever want to get away from every livingsoul you know and think your own thoughts for a whole week?" demanded Jane.
"Often. Usually my crises come when I'm too poor to go anywhere, though."
"Jerry is generous with money, so I can go."
"Does he understand this—need?"
"I think so."
"Well, good luck to you, dear. Be careful of our child and get your think out," laughed Bobs as Jane left.
She would have marvelled had she seen her guest stop by the studio, where she and Jerry had begun their experiment, and lay her head against the door for a second, like a troubled child against its mother.
Life was so simple then, when she had accepted Jerry's wild proposal; it had grown so complex now, so woven of her own and other people's heart strings.
When she arrived at home she found big Jerry beside little Jerry's bed, one small hand clasped about his father's forefinger, while big Jerry sat very still for fear of waking him. Jane smiled at them.
"It won't wake him, see," she said, and slowly loosed the tiny fingers.
When Anna came up and announced dinner, she told Jane in delighted detail how Jerry had put the baby to bed. He refused to let her touch him, he had done it all himself.
"It tickled the baby!" she laughed, as she went off to her kitchen.
Later, at the table, they both fought off any return of emotional topics.
"Do you know when you leave?" he asked her.
"Yes, at ten."
"You will let me get you aboard the train?"
"We would appreciate it very much, thank you, Jerry."
"Shall I tell people you've gone for a visit?"
"Yes. I told Bobs."
"Is Mrs. Biggs coming?"
"Yes. She'll be here when we go. I invited Billy to come, too."
"That's right. Quite like old times."
"You must go about with your uptown friends and be very gay, so you won't be lonesome."
"I'll manage."
"I hope the Melisande picture will not be installed before I get back. I want to see that," she said.
"I'm nearly through with it, now."
"It's your best work, Jerry. I know it is going to be a success for you."
He smiled mirthlessly.
"Do you remember what I said on our way to be married?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know why I remember it—wasn't so very brilliant—but it comes to me. I said: 'this is the kind of thing they talked in the tumbrils.' We always face our crises with platitudes, Jane."
"Don't most people, Jerry? It's the child in us clinging to what we know, I suppose."
"As the Bald One clings to my finger!"
She nodded and rose.
"I still have packing to do. If you'll excuse me, I'll go right up."
"Good-night, Jane," he said steadily.
"Good-night, and thank you, Jerry."
"For what?"
"For understanding."
"But I don't. I don't understand anything about you. I don't know why you're going any more than I know where—but I'm trying to see that that doesn't make any difference, that it's your right to see this through your own way."
"Jerry, that's better than understanding, that's faith," she said softly, and left him pondering.
Before Jane went to bed a telegram came from Miss Garnett saying she would take them, so she had no need of anxiety on that score. The morning proved gray and cold. Breakfast was a silent affair.
Baby was the only cheerful member of the party which started for the station in a taxicab. He was so absorbed in the experience in hand that he provided a topic of interest.
"He's keen on taxicabs; this is his second one and see how he takes to it!" said Jerry.
"Mebbe he's going to be a 'chauffer,'" suggested Anna.
So with trivialities they managed to keep up appearances until Jerry was to leave them.
"Will you write to me, Jane?" he asked, bending over her.
"No, but I will send for you the minute I am sure of myself. We shall not be far away and we are to be comfortably housed in a place I know, so don't worry about us. Have a good holiday and forget us, Jerry."
"That's a good idea," he remarked.
He kissed his son, shook hands with Anna. Then, as the engine bell sounded, he laid his hands on Jane's shoulders and looked into her eyes for a long second. Then he was gone. He left in Jane's mind an impression of an appeal he would not let himself make in words.
They found Miss Garnett's cottage just as Jane remembered it. There was something soothing about going back to it, as if she had slipped out of the years that had come since, into that other girlish self. She recalled her mother's pleasure in the holiday. How she wished that her frail spirit might come to visit them, and fall victim to small Jerry's charms.
Even Miss Garnett looked the same. She was the sort of dried-up creature which shows no age. She did not remember Jane, but she was interested in the baby. They were the only boarders, as it happened, so no one could be disturbed by the boy. They had two big, sunny rooms, with the balcony out of one of them, on which Jerry Jr. could sleep. It was comfortable and independent, the two things Jane desired.
The first day was spent in getting unpacked, settling Baby's routine. Jane gave her full attention to all these practical details before she so much as let her mind wander toward the problem she had come here to consider.
With the second day their régime was inaugurated. Late breakfast for Jane, an hour with Baby, bathing him herself, playing with him in the sun. A long walk while he slept. Leisurely luncheon—more Baby—a rest for all of them; then more walk, with Baby in his carriage, or a drive. It was not until she had been there several days that Jane remembered about her book. She smiled at the thought of how tremendously important it had seemed to her only a week ago to have a book published, and yet for days she had forgotten it.
"Living, living is the important thing," she said aloud,with the swift after-thought that it was Martin who had taught her that philosophy, Jerry who had given her the thing itself.
She went over every minute of her life with the two men, for in her thoughts they occupied places side by side. Her first reaction against her marriage with Jerry had passed. She saw it clearly as practical and unlovely but not as sin. Passion had had no place in her experience or her thoughts at the time of her marriage; it had certainly not been the moving force for Jerry, either.
She felt that Baby justified her somewhat. She had refused none of the responsibilities imposed upon her by her union with Jerry.
But, on the other hand, as she had said to him before Martin, her soul and her senses had found no common speech.
Intellectually she examined herself in relation to Jerry and found herself guilty. She had kept secret, between herself and Martin, the really big impulse of her life. Through a childish fear of ridicule, she had deliberately shut him out of the inner chamber of her thoughts and hopes. Was this fair?
To be sure, he had not shared with her his inner thoughts and ambitions. He had not sought to bring her into any closer mental relationship with him. Was he, too, held back by fear of her laughter?
When she looked into her mind, it was flooded with Martin. He was in every nook and cranny of it. He invaded it like an army with banners. Her whole growth and development had been so accelerated by him that itseemed as if she had stood in one spot always until he arrived. No wonder she had not turned to Jerry for companionship when she had been swallowed up, as it were, in the microcosm which was Martin Christiansen.
But when it came to the world of the senses, she had spoken the absolute truth when she told Jerry that she had never once thought of Martin with sentiment—in the ordinary sex sense of that word. He was master-counsellor, god, but never man-mate. So the moment of his passion had come upon her like a lightning flash, rending the heavens, levelling her house of life to the grounds, leaving her naked and terror-struck.
With the shock of it had come a vision of what love might be. With it had come a pitiless revelation of what her union with Jerry was. It was this cataclysm of her whole world that made her run away into solitude to try and get herself together.
She tried again and again to reconstruct the scene with Martin—to try to recapture her sensations of the moment she was in his arms. Had it been rapture, or only surprise? Had it been a surge of gratitude to him because he loved her? After all, he was the first man to say his devotion to her. Jerry had made no protestations of love; she had expected none. Were not her feelings, at the moment, those of any woman when she is told for the first time that she is loved?
She thought of herself as Martin's wife, living with him in all the daily intimacies of marriage; she found that her mind, here, turned swiftly away to their mental association. It was always Jerry she saw shaving, Jerryshe heard singing in his bath. She could not manage the transfer successfully at all, she found.
Then she tried to conceive of her life devoid of Martin. If she were still married to Jerry, and Martin was gone for good, what then? It seemed like saying "could you be comfortable without your right hand?"
Some days she bitterly regretted the death of the unknown Mrs. Christiansen which had precipitated this climax. It was so much easier, the old way, with Jerry and Martin both in her life. Again she was glad it had all turned out so, glad that Martin loved her, wanted her. Glad that she had to face a decision about Jerry.
There was one unescapable knot, no matter how she untangled the skein. She could not argue away the baby. He constituted Jerry's biggest hold upon her. For if Jerry had not given her love, he had given her something in its place which had aroused the one great passion in her nature. She loved Jerry Jr. with every throb of her heart.
Wasn't this mother love enough? It had filled her life so far. It was, with Jane, fierce and absorbing. Man and woman love had so many elements, so many complexities, such possibilities of tragedy and sorrow. Would she not better cling to what she had and let the rest go by? So she told herself one day, only to cry out the next: "No, no; that is the old nun Jane! I want it all—all."
Divorce was ugly to her. She forced herself to vision all its details. Explanations to their friends—arrangements about the child. She computed its effect upon littleJerry, torn between loyalty to his father and his mother, spending his time, now with one parent, now with the other. Growing up to a contempt for marriage, perhaps, or worse yet, contempt for his mother and father who publicly admitted their failure to keep their contract.
She tried to get Jerry's point of view in the situation by reversing it. Suppose that Jerry had told her that he wished his freedom, in order to marry Althea. How would she have met that demand? It gave her a pang to think of going away, with Baby, to some strange place, to try to make a new life for themselves. There would still be Martin in her life; who would be left to Jerry, if she left him? Would he turn to Bobs, who still loved him? She knew he would never succumb to Althea's plans. Would Martin's love for her, and her love for him—if she did love him—make up for all this havoc?
Could she, by any process, so divorce herself from old habits and associations as to decide this step with reference to her one self only? She had been saying to herself for years that she had a right to every rich experience life could offer, she had been greedy for more and more. But was there such a thing as continence? In order to get away from that despised word "self-denial" she looked upon the thing as a matter of spiritual health. If overeating was destruction to the body tissue, was greediness for experience also destruction to the soul stuff?
Day after day she pondered these questions as she tramped around the lake, or as they drove through the still, silver-gray forests, where the only hint of spring was an occasional whiff of arbutus as they passed.Jane found great peace and help from those straight, slim trees. They were so unfettered, so upstanding, so sure. She repeated over and over:
"Hast thou ne'er known the longings—Ambitions vain desires—The hope, the fear, the yearningWhich mortal man inspires?"
She gathered into her being all the calm of Nature, strength from her out-of-door life, wisdom out of silence and Baby's talk, but yet she could not bring herself to send for Jerry. She knew that both of these men were suffering, as they waited for her answer; she wanted not to hurt them, and still—she hesitated.
When the train pulled out which carried his family into unknown country, Jerry turned across town, determined to walk back to the studio and get to work. He had scarcely closed his eyes the night before, and he felt all edgy. Exercise and hard work was his prescription for himself. He set off at a good pace, through a part of town he was unused to, hoping that it would divert his thoughts. He made himself look at the shabby old shops he passed—at the people on the street. He searched all their faces for traces of such experiences as he was sampling, but they were usually vacuous or hardened or only worried. He wondered if his face mirrored his misery.
Jerry was a stranger to defeat. His life had been a happy-go-lucky affair. Since the death of his parents, when he was a little boy, he had known no acute sorrows. To be sure he had been poor, but he had not minded that especially. The very small inheritance, left by his father, had barely met the demands of his art education. But youth and health and enthusiasm were his, and such success as he had achieved came easily and naturally. So he had grown accustomed to believe that destiny held in store for him pretty much what he wanted.
His marriage with Jane, entered into on the impulseof the moment, was characteristic of the way his life had been ordered—or unordered. He had drifted along, taking what he wanted with a sort of unconscious selfishness as a central motive force. This was poor training for disappointment or tragedy.
Arrived at the studio, he tried to paint, but he could not put his mind on his canvas, so after an hour of labour lost, he gave it up. He wandered about the empty house, where every spot, every room, spoke of Jane and the baby. He could not bear it. He went to the club for lunch, but the men at his table poked fun at his gloom so he left them in a rage. He went to some picture exhibitions he had been meaning to see, but they bored him. He dodged a fellow artist or two, because he didn't want to talk. He tramped up the Avenue and through the Park.
Finally he gave up fighting his thoughts, he let them come. He had gone over the scene with Christiansen thousands of times. Sometimes it ran off in his mind as it had really happened. Sometimes he fell upon his enemy and beat him, sometimes he even killed him, but always the scene was dominated by Jane, who, for the first time in his acquaintance with her, was deeply moved, shaken to the very depths of her being. He realized it fully; it was the thing that frightened him. Jane was so sure, so true to herself. If, thus aroused, she saw her relation to Jerry in a new light, nothing on earth would keep her from severing that relation. It must be that she loved Christiansen, for he, Jerry, had never roused her so.
He thought back over the years, from the time she had applied to him for work, up to now. The years of the silent, mysterious Jane, coming and going like a silhouette against the screen of the studios. Her quiet sense of power had been like a pillow for them all to rest on. What a fool he had been not to see that power like that generated itself and spread like electricity.
He went over the weeks before the pageant, when he had forced her into a more personal relation with him. He recalled the really deep impression she had made on him, on all the audience, the night of the pageant itself.
For the first time he deliberately analyzed the motives that finally ended in his proposal to her.
"Anything she does to me now serves me right!" was his final comment on himself.
He laid aside any suggestion that she cared for him when she married him; he knew she did not. In fact, it was her indifference to him, her elusiveness, which had roused his senses—which had driven him to try to reach her by clumsy physical means—but he had failed.
Jane said that she had met Christiansen at the pageant for the first time, but was that the truth? Had he played some part in her life before that? Was it probable that a man like Christiansen would have been attracted solely by her performance of Salome—into such quick intimacy as theirs? Suppose he, Jerry, had been used as a cat's-paw between them. He flagellated himself for that suspicion. It was contemptible in the light of what he knew of Jane.
Could poverty have driven Jane into marriage? Shehad lived for years on what she made, apparently. She had no relatives, nor dependents. Besides, he thought she would have disdained surrender, on those grounds. It was a deeper reason than this, as she had said.
Worn out with his unusual self-scrutiny, he left the Park and went to call on Mrs. Brendon. She was at home and welcomed him gaily. He explained that Jane and the baby had deserted him and that he was a lone bachelor in search of friends and comfort.
"Which means you're a wolf in sheep's clothing," she laughed.
"I feel like the sacrificial 'lamb,'" he replied, and marvelled that he could talk so lightly.
"Well, there is nothing so good for husbands, I contend, as a dose of absence. Men need unsettling, they get so rutty. Business, club, home, ditto, ditto, ditto."
"I suppose it's also sauce for the goose?"
"Oh, yes. I hope Jane will get a beau and flirt with him abominably."
"Can you think of Jane flirting?"
"No, that's why I think she needs it. Jane takes life too seriously."
"It's rather a question about which is the better way to take it, don't you think?"
"Life? Not a bit. Take it any way you like, but don't take it hard."
"I find I get a trifle bored with those of us who take it too lightly."
"That's a Janeism, Jerry."
He laughed at that. She ordered him home to dress andback for dinner, and he accepted gratefully—glad of anything to kill time and keep his mind off of his troubles.
He sat next Althea at dinner, and, for once, she failed to reproach him for past misdemeanours and devoted herself to being agreeable. Several parties were planned on the spot, and Jerry joined in with enthusiasm.
"It is nice to see you enjoying your vacation so much," Althea remarked.
"A broken heart worn on the sleeve is a sad sight, you know," he replied.
He plunged with desperation into such diversion as his uptown friends offered. He knew what was ahead of him in the night hours spent in the studio. The first week passed somehow. His friends said Jerry had never been so gay and such good company. Jerry could barely remember where they went or what they did.
Bobs came in one night in the second week, about six o'clock, as Jerry was deciding where to go.
"Hello, Jerry."
"Hello, Bobs."
"Got a date?"
"No. I was just trying to make up my mind what to do."
"I've invited myself to dinner. Let's get Mrs. Biggs to fix us up something and have it here."
"Don't you want to go somewhere, where it's gay?"
"Noisy, you mean? No. Can't you stand it here?" she added.
"It's awful, Bobs," he admitted.
"I'll go talk to the Biggs; you light the fire and mix the cocktails," she ordered.
When she returned, he was lighting candles, brushing up the hearth, and generally playing host.
"All's well, steak in the ice box, and plenty of other things. Jane ordered things kept ready for you all the time, it seems. Just like her, isn't it? I never knew any human being take so much thought for others as Jane does."
"Yes, she does."
"I don't wonder you miss her."
He lifted such tragic eyes to her, that Bobs was startled.
"I've got to get used to missing her, Bobs," he said slowly.
"What do you mean?"
"I think I'm going to lose her," he broke off, unable to finish.
"You mean Jane has left you—for good?"
"She's gone to decide whether she will or not."
"Jerry, what's happened?"
"I've just got to talk to somebody, Bobs. I'm nearly crazy with this thing."
"Go ahead; I'm safe."
"Jane doesn't love me; you know that, just as I know it."
"Well, she's been a good wife, hasn't she?"
"The best. But there's somebody she does care about."
"Martin Christiansen?"
"You saw it, too?"
"No. I was only afraid of it. They had so much in common. He gave her all the consideration you did not."
"Oh, I know I've got no chance with him, but it doesn't make it any easier!" he cried.
"How did you know about it?"
"They told me. Jane called me in—said there had been an accident—that he had told her he loved her; she was all to pieces. I could see it, I never saw her so upset."
"Poor Jane! But why did she go away?"
"She said she had to be alone, to make up her mind what she must do."
"How like her!"
"So she took Baby and Anna and went somewhere— I don't know where."
He dropped his head into his hands, and Bobs said nothing. Her instinct was to comfort him, but she fought it down.
"I've been in hell, Bobs," he groaned.
"So has Jane, and so has Christiansen," she exclaimed.
"I know—I know."
"You can't go on forever, Jerry, and escape."
He looked up at that.
"Your marriage to Jane was the most selfish, cowardly thing any man ever did, and you've got to pay for it sooner or later!"
"Why, Bobs, I...."
"Don't let's talk about it. I know you, Jerry. I know why you married Jane, and you never gave her part of it one thought. If she's found a great, big, fine man, like Christiansen to really love her, I hope you'll stand out of the way and take your medicine, like a man."
"I didn't force her to marry me! What did she do it for?"
"That's her affair, but now the point is that she haslived up to her contract like a soldier. She's borne the slight you've put on her without one protest. She's a magnificent, full-grown woman, tied to a selfish, old-fashioned, little boy-man, and it's ridiculous."
"I think I get your estimate of me accurately."
"It's time for you to take stock, Jerry. You've had the opportunity of your life and you haven't made good. You don't understand Jane, nor appreciate her, nor care anything about her."
"That's a lie, Bobs; I love her better than anything in the world!"
Jerry's voice rang out in the big, still room like a rifle shot. Bobs stared at him, and his eyes blazed back at her. She rose and went over to him and held out her hand.
"I beg your pardon, old man; I had no idea you cared."
He wrung her hand for a second, and turned away from her.
"I wish you could help me a little to understand her," he said huskily.
"With all my heart, Jerry," she answered.
She took his arm and led him over to the couch, where they sat down side by side.
"I know we started out wrong. Everything you say about the way I married her is true. I guess you know as well as any one what a selfish brute I've always been."
"The thing is, how can you get Jane back?" Bobs broke in quickly.
"I haven't a chance in the world, Bobs! I know whatkind of a chap Christiansen is. What hold have I got on her?"
"Little Jerry."
"Oh, but that isn't fair," he said in the very words Christiansen had used.
"We're dealing with facts now—not philosophy. Jane loves that baby better than anything in the world; that is the only thing you've got to work on."
"How can I work on that?"
"You've got to win her love, Jerry."
"But what is there for her to love in me?"
"You've got to make something."
"But, Bobs, she's deciding it now. It's too late for me! I've lost my chance. I tell you if she walked out of here, with the Bald One, and went away to marry him, I don't think I could bear it! Just as Jerry Jr. and I were getting to like each other! I gave him his bath the night before he went away, Bobs, and he liked it."
Two big tears ran down Jerry's nose and dropped off into his lap, but he paid no attention to them.
"Maybe she'll give you time, Jerry. I think she ought to have this chance to be alone and decide, but she may not decide to do anything right away."
"Bobs, you know Jane will do it right off, the minute she decides, whatever it is. I know it, too. No, I guess you're right; I've had my chance and I've missed it. I'll pay for it the rest of my life, I know that."
"I'm sorry, old man; we all get it sooner or later," she said.
"Oh, Bobs, I understand now. Forgive me," he said brokenly, turning to her.
Billy Biggs came in with a "scuse me." He came to Jerry and offered him an envelope.
"For you, Mr. Paxton," he said.
Jerry tore it open, read it, gave it to Bobs.
"Good God!" he said, and started off upstairs, as fast as he could run.
Bobs read and re-read the message. Then she went to the kitchen.
"Put some dinner on for Mr. Paxton at once, Mrs. Biggs. The baby is sick and Mrs. Paxton has sent for him. He's going on the 7.30 train."
"The baby! Oh, Miss Bobs!" began Mrs. Biggs, but Bobs was gone.
She ran up to Jerry's room, where he was hurling things into his bag.
"Your dinner is on the table. Go eat it. I will pack the bag. You must keep up your strength, Jerry. You may be up all night."
"All right," he said, and obeyed her.
Half an hour later she saw him off.
"Good luck, old man."
"I'm afraid to go, Bobs," he said brokenly, "but it's something to do! Good-bye. God bless you."
"And you, and Jane, and Baby!" she cried after him.