Eden put her hand on his sleeve. "Tell it me," she pleaded.
For the moment he stood irresolute. "Tell me," she repeated, and moved back, motioning him to a chair.
Usselex took out his watch. "I must hurry," he said again. "But there," he added tenderly, "since you wish it, a moment lost is small matter, after all."
Again he glanced at her and hesitated as though expectant of a respite. Eden had her everyday air; outwardly she was calm, but something in her appearance, the twitch of an eyelid, the quiver of a nostril perhaps, revealed her impatience.
Usselex shrugged his shoulders, and for a second, with a gesture that was habitual to him, he plucked at his beard. "No," he repeated, "a moment is small matter, after all. H'm. Eden, some years ago I went abroad. During my absence a cashier whom I trusted, and whom I would trust again, speculated with money that passed through his hands. It was not until my return that I learned of the affair. But meanwhile, as is usual in such cases, he was on the wrong side of the market. The money which he had taken had to be accounted for. I had a partner then, and the cashier confessed the defalcation to him; it was the only thing he could do, and he promised, I believe, that if time were given him he would make good the loss. The amount after all was not large—fifteen thousand perhaps, or twenty at the outside. But my partner was not lenient. He came of a line of New England divines, and had, if I remember rightly, at one time contemplated studying for the ministry. In any event he was then an elder in some up-town Presbyterian church. But virtue is not amiable. Without so much as communicating with me he put the matter in the hands of the authorities, and when I returned the cashier was in Sing-Sing. Eden, you will hardly understand how sorry I was. He had a wife dependent on him—he had children. He had been with me longer than my partner had, and I liked him. Of the two I liked him the better. What he took I have never been able to view as a theft. It was what might be called a forced loan. Had I been here it would have been different; but my partner was obdurate. You see, the fault, if fault there were, was mine. The salary I gave him was small, and each day I allowed temptation to pass between his hands. People say that we should resist temptation. I agree with them; temptation should be resisted; but when a rich man preaches that sermon to the poor, he forgets that where temptation is vague to him it may be potent to his hearer. Oh, I don't mean to uphold derelictions, but to my thinking Charity is the New Testament told in a word. I think that forgiveness is the essence of the teaching of every founder of an enduring creed. However, that is not to the point. The fact remained, the cashier was sent to Sing-Sing, and since then I have done what I could to get him out. It was his wife that I was with to-day. Poor girl! I have been sorry for her; she is but little older than you, and she has had trials to bear such as might have sent another to worse than the grave." He paused, and plucking again at his beard, he looked down at the rug. Eden needed no assurance to feel that his words were heart-whole and sincere. She moved to where he stood and touched him on the arm.
"Don't tell me any more," she said, and as she spoke there came to her voice a tremulousness that was as unusual as it was sweet. "You must let me help her, too."
"Yes, Eden, that I will. It is good of you to speak that way. It is not only good, it is Edenesque. But let me tell you the rest. Governor Blanchford is in town. I went yesterday to the Buckingham, where he is stopping. He could only see me for a moment then, and this afternoon I went again with her. I am to dine with him this evening. When he returns to Albany I think the pardon will be signed." Again he paused and looked at his watch. "I must dress," he added; "will you forgive me—?"
"Forgive you!" she cried, "it is your turn, now: forgive me."
Usselex moved from her, her hand still in his, and when their arms were fully outstretched, he turned and holding her to him he kissed her on either cheek.
As he left the room Eden could have danced with delight. She ran to the piano and with one hand still gloved she struck out clear notes of joy. Presently, she too left the room, and prepared for dinner. When the meal was served she ate it in solitude, but the solitude was not irksome to her; it was populous with recovered dreams. Among the dishes that were brought her was one of terrapin, which she partook of with an art of her own; and subsequently, in a manner which it must have been a pleasure to behold, she nibbled at a peach—peaches and terrapin representing, as everyone knows, the two articles of food which are the most difficult to eat with grace.
Later, when the meal was done, Eden returned to the drawing-room. Mrs. Manhattan was unregretted. The summer had been fertile enough in entertainments to satiate her for a twelve-month. She had come and gone, eaten and fasted, danced and driven, with no other result than the discovery that the companionship of her husband was better than anything else. To her thinking he needed only an incentive to conquer the ballot. There was no reason why he should not leave Wall Street for broader spheres. She had met senators by the dozen, and he was wiser than them all. He might be Treasurer of State if he so willed, or failing that, minister to the Court of St. James. Even an inferior mission such as that to the Hague or to Brussels would be better than the Street. It was inane, she told herself, to pass one's life in going down town and coming up again merely that another million might be put aside. An existence such as that might be alluring to Jerolomon or Bleecker Bleecker, but for her husband there were other summits to be scaled.
And as Eden, prettily flushed by the possibilities which her imagination disclosed spectacular-wise for her own delight, sat companioned by fancies, determining, if incentive were necessary, that incentive should come from her, the portiére was drawn aside and the butler announced Mr. Arnswald.
"I ventured to come in," he said, apologetically, "although I knew Mr. Usselex was not at home. I wanted——"
"One might have thought your evenings were otherwise occupied," Eden interrupted, a little fiercely. The intercepted note of the preceding evening rankled still. That the young man should receive a letter from a strange woman was, she admitted to herself, a matter which did not concern her in the slightest. But it was impertinent on his part to suffer that letter to be sent to him at her house.
"This evening, however, as you see——" he began blandly enough, but Eden interrupted him again.
"What did you think of it last night?" she asked, with the inappositeness that was peculiar to her.
"You are clairvoyant enough, Mrs. Usselex, to know untold what I thought. It was of that I wished to speak to you. It is rare that such an opportunity is given me."
"To hear Wagner?"
"No, not to hear Wagner particularly." He hesitated and looked down at his pointed shoes, and at the moment Eden for the life of her could not help thinking of a dissolute young god arrayed in modern guise. After all, she reflected, it is probably the woman's fault.
"No, not that," he continued, and looked up at her again, his polar-eyes ablaze with unexpected auroras. "Not that; but think what it is for a man to love a woman, to divine that that love is returned, and yet to feel himself as far from her as death is from life. Think what it must be for him to love that woman so well that he would not haggle over ten years, no, nor ten hundred years of years, could he pass an hour with her, and then by way of contrast to find himself suddenly side by side with her, listening to such music as we heard last night."
"Mr. Arnswald, you are out of your senses," Eden exclaimed. A suspicion had entered her mind and declined to be dismissed.
"Am I not?" he answered. "Tell me that I am. I need to be told it. Yet last night, for the first time, it seemed to me that perhaps all might still be well. It was hope that I found with you, Mrs. Usselex; it was more than hope, it was life."
And as his eyes rekindled, Eden told herself that his attitude could have but one signification.
"I'll not play Guinevere to your Lancelot," she murmured. And turning her back on him she left the room.
The following day was unstarred by any particular luncheon, or at least by none at which Eden was expected. Her own repast she consumed in solitude, and as she rose again from the table, Mrs. Manhattan was announced.
Mrs. Manhattan was a woman of that class which grows rarer with the days. She was very clever and knew how to appear absolutely stupid. According to the circumstances in which she was placed, she could be frivolous or sagacious, worldly, and sensible. In fact, all things to all men. Born in Virginia, a Leigh of Leighton, she had married a rich and popular New Yorker. After marriage, and on removing to Fifth Avenue, she had the tact to leave her accent and her family tree behind. Her husband's great-grandfather was lost in the magnificence of myth; her own figured in Burke. If Nicholas Manhattan had been a snob—which he was not—that fact would have constituted his sole grievance against her. But from Laura Leigh, of a North country descent and a feudal castle in Northumberland, never an allusion could be wrung. In marrying a New Yorker she espoused all New York, its customs, its prejudices, its morals, its vices, everything, even to the high pitch of its voice; and so well did she succeed in identifying herself with it and with its narrow localisms, that in a few years after her arrival, not to visit and be visited by Mrs. Nicholas Manhattan was to argue one's self out into the nethermost limbo of insignificance.
Had Mrs. Manhattan been any other than herself, Eden would have sent back some femininely prevaricatory excuse. She was enervated still by the emotions of the preceding day, and her desire for companionship was slight. But Mrs. Manhattan was not only Mrs. Manhattan, she was a woman for whom Eden entertained a quasi-filial, quasi-sororal affection. She went forward therefore at once, her hands outstretched to greet.
On ordinary occasions it was Mrs. Manhattan's custom to salute Eden with a kiss, but on this particular afternoon she contented herself with taking the outstretched hands in her own, holding Eden, as it were, at arms length.
"You abominable little beauty," she began, "what did you mean by leaving me in the lurch last night? I came here expecting to find you in bed with the doctor.Mais pas du tout. Madame s'embellit à vu d'[oe]il."
"Laura, dear," Eden answered, when they had found seats, "don't be annoyed at me. I wanted very much to come. But you know the proverb: man proposes——"
"—And woman accepts. Yes, I know; go on."
"Well, I simply couldn't help it."
"Couldn't help it! What do you mean by saying you couldn't help it? Don't sit there with your back to the light; I want to look at you. Eden, as sure as my name is Laura Leigh, something has gone wrong with you. What business have you, at your age, to have circles under your eyes?"
"Presumably because I was unable to get to your dinner. I am really sorry, Laura. Did you have many people?"
"Of course I didn't. Nicholas won't let me give large dinners. There were only eighteen of us. I suppose I could have got the Boltens to come and take your place. But then you know how people are. Unless you invite them a fortnight in advance they think they are asked to fill up—as they are. H'm! I was mad enough. Nicholas was to have taken you in, and by way of compensation you were to have had your old flame, Dugald Maule, on the other side of you. Parenthetically, it is my opinion that he loves you still—beyond the tomb, as they love in Germany. However, that is not to the point; the dinner was a failure. Afterwards we all went to the Amsterdams; all of us, that is, except Jones, who said he had an engagement, which meant I suppose, that he was not expected."
"Jones, the novelist?"
"Yes, Alphabet Jones. Personally he is as inoffensive as a glass of lemonade, but I can't bear his books. He uses words I don't understand, and tells of things that I don't want to. Nicholas, however, will have him."
And at the thought of her husband's tyranny, Mrs. Manhattan shrugged her shoulders and gazed complacently in her lap.
"Laura, I don't believe your dinner was a failure."
"Well, not exactly a failure perhaps, but it is always upsetting to have people at the last moment send word that they can't come. It is not only upsetting, it's dangerous. It takes the flavor of the soup away. It makes everything taste bad." And as Mrs. Manhattan said this she glared at Eden with the ferocity of an irritated Madonna. "Now tell me," she continued, "what was the matter with you?"
"Really, Laura, it was nothing. I can't tell you." She hesitated a second and into the corners of her exquisite mouth there passed a smile. "I saw my husband in a cab with—with——"
"A woman?"
Eden stared at her friend with the astonishment of a gomeril at a contortionist. The smile left her lips.
"Did you see him too?" she asked.
"Why, no, you little simpleton, I didn't see him; but I haven't got a husband of my own for nothing."
"Do you mean that your husband deceives you?"
"Deceives me? no, not a bit of it. He only thinks he does. Is that what has been the matter with you?"
"Laura——"
"And was it because you caught your husband in a cab that you couldn't come to dinner? But, heavens and earth! if other women were to act like you no one would even dare to attempt to entertain. As it is," Mrs. Manhattan grumbled to herself, "the Mayor ought to pass an ordinance on the subject. He has little enough to do in return for his double lamp-posts."
"No, Laura, how absurd you are!" Eden exclaimed. "John was detained on business."
"Ah! I see." And Mrs. Manhattan looked at her in a gingerly fashion out of the corner of one eye.
"Yes, he sent me word that he was detained on business and for me to send word to you."
"That was most thoughtful of him. And it was after you got the note that the cab episode occurred?"
"No, it was just before."
"Yes, yes, I can understand." Mrs. Manhattan paused a moment. To anyone else save Eden the pause would have been significant. "H'm," she went on, "business may mean other men's money, or it may mean other men's wives. I do hope, though, you were sensible enough not to mention anything about the lady and the cab."
"Oh, but indeed, I did. He explained the whole thing at once."
"From the cab window?"
"When he came back, I mean—in the evening."
"Some little time must have intervened."
"Yes, two hours, I should judge."
Mrs. Manhattan nodded. "Well," she said, with an air of profound sapience, "no man ever talks to a woman for two hours unless he keeps saying the same thing all the time."
"Laura, that is not like you. You know perfectly well that friendship can exist between a man and a woman without there being any thought of love-making."
"Oh, I know what you are going to say. But there is the difference between love and friendship. To those who have witnessed a bull-fight, the circus I hear is commonplace."
"You mean to imply that my husband was enjoying a bull-fight?"
"I don't mean anything of the sort. But what a way you have of reducing generalities to particulars! No, I don't mean that at all. I am speaking in the air. What I meant to imply was that love has consolations which friendship does not possess."
"Laura, you don't understand. It is not a question of that. This woman's husband has got into trouble and John was trying to get him out."
Mrs. Manhattan eyed her again in the same gingerly fashion as before. "He said that, did he?"
Eden nodded.
"I hope you pretended to believe him."
"Pretended! Why, I did believe him. I believed him at once."
"Yes, that's a good way." Mrs. Manhattan tormented the point of her nose reflectively. "I used to too," she added. "Now I simply don't see. That I find even better. It makes everything go so smoothly. No arguments, no recriminations, perfect peace. Nicholas, as you know, is the most delightful man in the world. I have the highest respect for him. If he took it into his head to leave the planet and me behind, I should feel it my duty as a Christian woman to see that the trappings of my woe were becoming to his memory. But—but, well, I should feel that I had been vaccinated. I should feel that a minor evil had protected me from a greater one. In other words, I would not marry again. It is my opinion, an opinion I believe which is shared by a good many other people, that a woman who marries a second time does not deserve to have lost her first husband. Now, as I say of Nicholas, I have the greatest respect for him. He is charming. I haven't the vaguest idea how he would get along without me. I do everything for him, but I am careful not to exact the impossible. We get along splendidly together. He makes the most elaborate efforts to throw dust in my eyes, and I aid him to the best of my ability, but I always know what he is up to. I can tell at a glance where he is in any affair. The moment he gives up his after-dinner cigar I can hear the fifes in the distance—he is making himself agreeable to someone with whom he intends to pass the evening. The second stage is when he comes in of an afternoon with a rose in his button-hole. That means that he has been sending flowers and that the siege is progressing. The third stage is when he begins to smoke again. That means that the castle has capitulated and further diplomacy is unnecessary. The fourth and final stage is when he says in an off-hand way, 'Laura, I saw some stones this afternoon at Tiffany's.' That means remorse and reward—remorse at his own wickedness, and reward for my non-interference. There is nothing in the world that a man appreciates more than that. Yes, I certainly do my duty. Nicholas, as you know, was a widower when I married him. By his first wife he had one child and a great deal to put up with. Whereas, now—why, Eden, what are you crying about?"
"I am not crying." In a moment Eden had choked back a sob. Her eyes flashed the more brilliant for their tears, but her voice had lost its former gentleness, it had grown vibrant and resolute. "Laura, if he has deceived me, I will leave him."
"If who has deceived you? Surely Nicholas——"
"Laura, I am in no mood for jest. Last night I believed my husband, to-day I do not. If I can get proof, I leave him."
"That is what we all say, but we don't."
"If he has deceived me——"
"Eden, how foolish you are! No, but, Eden, you are simply childish. You are sunshine one minute and tornado the next. Why, I haven't a doubt in the world but that Mr. Usselex was trying to get the cab-lady's husband out of trouble. I haven't the faintest doubt of it."
"Nor had I before you came."
"Oh, Eden, forgive me. What I said was idle chatter. There, do be your old sweet self again."
Eden stood up and pinioned her forehead with her hands. "I wonder," she exclaimed, "I wonder—Laura, do you know that it is of a thing like this that hatred comes?"
"My dear, I had no idea that you were so much in love."
But as she spoke there came into Eden's face an expression so new and unlike her own, that Mrs. Manhattan started. "Sit down," she said coaxingly. "Do sit down." She took the girl's hands in hers and drew her gently to the lounge on which she was seated. "Eden," she continued, after a moment, "between ourselves, I think you are—how shall I say?—a little—" And Mrs. Manhattan touched her forehead and nodded significantly.
"I? Not a bit."
"So much the worse, then. It would be an excuse. Now listen to me. They say that when a woman gets to be thirty the first thing she does is to ignore her age, and that by the time she is forty it has escaped her memory entirely. I am not forty yet, but I am old enough—well, I am old enough to be wiser than you, and I say this—you can contradict it as much as you please, but I will say it all the same—you have more pride in yourself than love for your husband."
"Which means?"
"I mean this, that when pride gets the upper hand, love is bound to be throttled. In some, pride is a screen; behind it they rage at their ease: in others it is a bag of wind; prick it and behold, a tempest. With you, just at present, it is a screen; haven't I seen you torment your rings ever since I came in? Well, torment them, but for goodness sake don't change the screen into a balloon. There is nothing as bad form as that, and nothing as ineffectual. My dear, if you want to keep your husband, think of yourself not first, but last, or, if you can't think in that way, act as though you did."
"And be a hypocrite."
"Eden, you are impossible. Be a hypocrite? Why, of course you must be a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is Christianity's most admirable invention. Banish it, and what do you find? Not skeletons in the closet, but catacombs of distasteful things. No, Eden, be a hypocrite. We all are; everyone prefers it. There was a man once who got up in the morning with the idea of telling everybody the truth. By sunset he was safe in an asylum. People don't want the truth; they content themselves with sighing for it; they know very well that when they get in its way, it bites. It is vicious, truth is. It makes us froth at the mouth. If you haven't had the forethought to cuirass yourself with indifference, truth can cause a hydrophobia for which the only Pasteur is time. No, hypocrisy has had the sanction of pope and prelate. Let us hold to it; let us hold to what we may and not try to prove anything."
"What are you talking about then?"
"How irritating you are, Eden! I am talking about you. I am trying to give you some advice. No one gave me any. I had to gather it on the way. I come here, and finding you melancholy as a comic paper, I try to offer the fruit of two decades of worldly experience, and instead of thanking me, you ask what I am talking about." Mrs. Manhattan sank back in her ample folds and laughed. "Don't you have any tea in this house?"
"You are right, Laura; I am irritating, I am absurd." As she spoke, she left the lounge. The tragedy-air had departed. She rang the bell, gave the order for tea, and during the remainder of Mrs. Manhattan's visit, comported herself so sagaciously that she succeeded in casting dust in that lady's eyes in a manner which would have thrown that lady's husband into stupors of admiration.
When her friend at last decided to take herself and her experience away, Eden remained in the drawing-room. Down the adjacent corner she saw the sun decline. On the horizon it left an aigrette of gold. Then that disappeared. Day closed its window, and Night, that queen who reigns only when she falls, shook out the shroud she wears for gown.
How long Eden sat alone with her thoughts she could not afterwards recall. For some time she was conscious only of a speck of dust which Mrs. Manhattan had brought from the outer world and forgotten to remove. It was such a little speck that at first Eden had pretended not to see it, but when Mrs. Manhattan had been gone a few minutes it insisted on her attention. She could not help eying it, and the more closely she eyed it, the larger it grew. From dust it turned to dirt, from minim into mountain. And presently it obscured her sight and veiled her mind with shadows.
Strive as she might, she could not argue it away. She tried to reason with herself, as a neurosthene, aware of his infirmity, may reason with the phantasm which he himself has evoked. But this was a phantasm that no argument could coerce. Did she say, You are unreal, it answered, I am Doubt. At each effort she made to rout it, it loomed to greater heights.
In the tremor that beset her she groped in memory for a talisman. She recalled her husband's wooing of her, his attitude and indulgent strength. Yet had not Mrs. Manhattan implied that men are double-faced? She thought of his laborious days, yet had not Mrs. Manhattan defined business as often synonymous with other men's wives? She recalled his excuse and was mindful of Mrs. Manhattan's interpretation.
At each new effort the doubt increased, and still she kept arguing with herself, until suddenly she perceived that she had stopped thinking. Doubt was pushing her down into an abyss where all was dark, and still she struggled, and still she struggled in vain; she was sinking; strength was leaving her, for doubt is masterful, till with a start she felt that she was safe. It was not in memory she found a talisman, but in her heart. It was her love that worked the spell. Love, and confidence in him whose name she bore. The mountain dissolved into minim, the dirt into dust, and she took the speck and blew it back into the shadows from which it had come.
That evening Eden and her husband dined alone. But it was not till coffee was served and the servants left the room that either of them had an opportunity of exchanging speech on matters other than such as were of passing interest. For the rout which both were to attend that night Eden had already prepared. It was the initial Matriarch's of the season, and rumor had it that it was to be a very smart affair. On this occasion the waiters, it was understood, were to be in livery; and an attempt had been made to give the rooms something of the aspect and aroma which appertains to a private house. As a consequence those of the gentler sex who were bidden had given some thought to their frocks, while those who were not had garmented themselves in their stoutest mantles of indifference.
On receiving the large bit of cardboard on which the invitation was engraved, Eden had at first determined to word and dispatch a regret. Entertainments of that kind had ceased to appeal to her. At gatherings of similar nature which she attended she had long since divided the male element into the youths who wished to seem older than they looked, and the mature individuals who wished to appear younger than they were; while as for the women, they reminded her of Diogenes looking for a man. On receiving the invitation she had, therefore, determined to send a regret, but on mentioning the circumstance to her husband he had expressed the desire that she should accept. He liked to have her admired, and moreover, though the function itself might be tiresome, still she owed some duty to society, and there were few easier ways in which that duty could be performed. Accordingly an acceptance was sent, and as a reward of that heroism Usselex had brought her a plastron of opals.
That plastron she now wore. Her gown, which was cut a trifle lower on the back than on the neck, was of a hue that suggested the blending of sulphur and of salmon. Her arms were cased inSuède, into which she had rolled that part of the glove which covers the hand. Save for the wedding-token her fingers were ringless. She had nothing about her throat. But from shoulder to shoulder, from breast to girdle, was a cuirass of gems, flecked with absinthe and oscillant with flame. It was barbaric in splendor, Roman in beauty; it startled and captivated. And in it Eden looked the personified spirit of Bysance, a dream that had taken form. Her husband let his eyes have all their will of her. Even the butler was dazzled.
During the progress of the meal the presence of that person and of his underlings prevented any conversation of reportable interest. But while the courses were being served Eden noticed that her husband was in an unusually sprightly mood. He touched on one topic of the day, presently on another, and left that for a third. To each he gave a new aspect. It was as though he were tossing crystal balls. Now, when an educated man is not a pedant he can in discoursing about nothing at all exert a very palpable influence. Mr. Usselex talked like a philosopher who has seen the world. To many a woman there is nothing more wearisome than the conversation of a man who has nothing to desire and nothing to fear. That man is usually her husband. But with Eden it was different. She listened with the pleasure of a convalescent. She was just issuing from the little nightmare of the afternoon, and as he spoke, now and then she interrupted with some fancy of her own; but all the while deep down in the fibres of her being she felt a smart of self-reproach that mingled with exultation. Her suspicions had vanished. They had been born of the dusk and creatures of it. And she looked down through the opals into her heart and over at her husband and smiled.
The butler and his underlings had departed. The meal was done. Usselex smiled too. He left his seat and went behind her. He drew her head back, bent over, and kissed her on the lips; then mirroring his eyes in hers, he kissed her again, drew a chair to her side, and took her hand in his.
"Look at me, Eden," he said. "I love your eyes. Speak to me. I love your voice. They say that at twenty a man loves best. They are wrong. Youth is inconstant. It is with age a man learns what love can be. Do you not think I know? Look at me and tell me. Eden, joy frightens. Sometimes I wonder that I had the courage to ask you to be my wife. Sometimes I fear you think me too old. Sometimes I fear you may regret. But you must never regret. Any man you might have met could be more attractive than I, but no one could care for you more; no one. Tell me; you believe that, do you not?"
And Eden, turning her head with the motion of a swan, answered, "I know it."
"Eden," he continued, "my life has not been pleasant. I have told you little of it. In the lives of everyone there are incidents that are best left buried. If I have been reticent it has not been from lack of confidence; it has been because I feared to distress you. For years I did not understand; the reason of pain is seldom clear. At times I thought my strength overtaxed. I accused fate; it had been wilful to me. It had beckoned me to pleasant places; when I reached them the meadows disappeared, the intervales were quagmires, and the palace I had espied was a prison, with a sword for bolt. I accused justice as I had accused fate. Eden, men are not always sincere. There are people who do wrong, who injure, wantonly, in sport. And so I accused justice: I had expected it to be human; but justice is straight as a bayonet, and her breasts are of stone. It was long before I understood, but when I saw you I did. What I had suffered was needful; it was a preparation for you. No, justice is never human, but sometimes it is divine."
He had been speaking in a monotone, his voice sinking at times into a whisper, as though he feared some other than herself might hear his words. Eden's hand still lay within his own, and now he stood up and led her, waist-encircled, to the outer room. There they found other seats, and for a moment both were silent.
"If I have not questioned you," Eden said, at last, "it has been for a woman's reason. I am content. Had you a grief, I would demand to share it with you. It would be my right, would it not? But of what has gone before I prefer to remain in ignorance. It is not that I am incurious. It is that I prefer to think of your life as I think of my own, that its beginning was our wedding-day. I too am some times afraid. There are things of which I also have been reticent. I remember once thinking that to be happy was a verb that had no present tense. I do not think so now," she added, after a moment; and to her exquisite lips the smile returned. "There are so many things I want to tell," she continued. "Before I met you I thought myself in love. Oh, but I did, though. And it was not until after I had known you that I found that which I had taken for love was not love at all. How did I know? Well—you see, because that is not love which goes. And that went. It was for the man I cared, not the individual. At the time I did not understand, nor did I until you came. Truly I don't see why I should speak of this. Every girl, I fancy, experiences the same thing. But when you came life seemed larger. You brought with you new currents. Do you know what I thought? People said I married you for money. I married you because—what do you suppose, now? Because I loved you? But at that time I told myself I had done with love. No, it was not so much for that as because I was ambitious for us both. It was because I thought Wall Street too small for such as you. It was because I discerned in you that power which coerces men. It was because I believed in the future; it was because I trusted you. Yes, it was for that, and yet this afternoon—What is it, Harris?"
A servant had entered the room, bearing a letter on a tray.
"A letter for you, sir," he said.
Usselex took the note, opened the envelope, which he tossed on the table, and possessed himself of the contents.
"Is the messenger waiting?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Very good. Say I will be there immediately."
The man bowed and left the room.
"I am sorry, Eden—"
"What is it?"
"Nothing of any moment—a matter of business to which I must attend." He glanced at the clock. "It is after ten," he added. "You will not want to leave for Delmonico's before half-past eleven, will you? Very good; I will be back long before then." He had risen from his seat, and now he bent over and took her hand in his. "I am sorry I have to go. It is so seldom we have an evening together. And I had counted on this."
Eden raised a finger warningly. "If you are not back in time," she said, "I will send for Arnswald and go with him."
"I can trust him with you," he answered, and left the room. In a moment he returned, hat in hand. "By the way, Eden, I forgot to ask—you have sent out cards, have you not?"
"Yes, the world is informed that Mrs. John Usselex is at home on Saturdays."
"Would you mind sending that announcement to some one whom you don't know? It's just for the civility of the thing."
"Certainly. Who is it?"
"A Mrs. Feverill."
"Feverill? Mrs. Feverill." Eden contracted her eyebrows. "Where have I heard that name before?"
"I don't think you have ever heard it."
Eden laughed. "She wears blue velvet, I am sure; but I will send the card. Where does she live?"
Usselex bent over and touched her forehead with his lips. "That is good of you," he said. "She will take it very kindly." And with that he moved to the door.
"But what is the address?" Eden called after him.
"The Ranleigh," he answered; and from the hall he added, in a louder tone, "I will be back in less than an hour."
"The Ranleigh," she repeated to herself. "The Ranleigh!" And then suddenly the wall of the room parted like a curtain; to her ears came a cry of violins, dominated and accentuated by a blare of brass. Mrs. Manhattan was at her elbow. Behind her was Jones; beneath was a woman, her face turned to hers. She caught the motion of Mrs. Manhattan's fan. Beyond, in a canvas forest, stood a man, open-mouthed, raising and lowering his right arm at regular intervals. And between the shiver of violins and the shudder of trumpets, she heard some one saying, "Mrs. Feverill, that is—rather fly. Stops at the Ranleigh." At once the music swooned. The opera-house dissolved into mist, and Eden was in a carriage, eying through the open window the cut of a passer's gown. In her lap were some flowers; she raised them to her face, and as she put them down again, a cab drove past, bearing her husband and the woman who was considered fly. And this was the woman he wished her to receive! She caught and pinioned her forehead in her hands. In the distance the shadow of the afternoon loomed again, but this time more monstrous and potent than before. And nearer and nearer it came—blacker than hate and more appalling than shame; in a moment it would be on her; she would be shrouded in it for evermore, and no defense—not one.
"No, no," she murmured. Her hands left her forehead. She clutched her throat as though to tear some invisible grasp away. "No, no," she murmured, "it cannot be."
"Look at me, Eden," some one was saying; "look at me; I love your eyes. Youth is inconstant. It is with age—"
It was her husband reassuring her even in his absence. "Speak to me; I love your voice." And memory, continuing its office of mercy, served as ægis and exorcised advancing night. In her nervousness at the parried attack, she left her seat and paced the room, the opals glittering on her waist. "But he told me," she mused, "he told me that the woman's husband was in trouble—that he was endeavoring to aid them both. What did I hear when I first met him? There was a clerk or someone in his office, a man whom he trusted who deceived him, who was imprisoned, and to whose people he then furnished means for support. It is criminal for me to doubt him as I have. Do I not know him to be generous? have I not found him sincere?"
She shook out a fold of her frock impatiently. "A child frightened at momentary solitude was never more absurd than I." For a little space she continued her promenade up and down the room, leaving at each turn some fringe of suspicion behind. And presently the entire fabric seemed to leave her. To the corners of her mouth the smile returned. She went back to the sofa and was about to resume her former seat when her eyes fell on the envelope which her husband had tossed on the table. Mechanically she picked it up and glanced at the superscription. The writing was thin as hair, but the lettering was larger than is usual, abrupt and angular. To anyone else it would have suggested nothing particular, save, perhaps, the idea that it had been formed with the point of a tack; but to Eden it was luminous with intimations. Into the palms of her hands came a sudden moisture, the color left her cheeks, for a second she stood irresolute, the envelope in her trembling hold, then, as though coerced by another than herself, she ran to a bell and rang it.
In a moment the butler appeared. To conceal her agitation Eden had gone to the piano. There were some loose sheets of music on the lid and these she pretended to examine. "Is that you, Harris?" she asked, without turning her head. "Harris, that man that brought the note for Mr. Usselex this evening was the one that came on Monday with the note for Mr. Arnswald, was it not?"
"I beg pardon, ma'am."
Eden reconstructed the question and repeated it.
"It was a young person, ma'am," Harris answered. "A lady's maid, most likely. She was here before on Monday evening, just before dinner, ma'am. She brought a letter and said there was no answer. I gave it to Mr. Usselex."
"To Mr. Arnswald, you mean."
"No, ma'am; it was for Mr. Usselex."
Eden clutched at the piano. Through the sheet of music which she held she saw that note again. The handwriting was identical with the one on the envelope. But each word it contained was a separate flame, and each flame was burning little round holes in her heart and eating it away. It was very evident to her now. She had been tricked from the first. She had been lied to and deceived. It behooved her now to be very cool. It was on business indeed that he had left her! Unconsciously she recalled Mrs. Manhattan's aphorism about business and other men's wives, and to her mouth, which the smile had deserted, came a sneer.
He is with her now, she told herself; well, let him be. In a sudden gust of anger she tore the sheet of music in two, and tossing it from her, turned.
At the door the butler still stood, awaiting her commands.
"You may go," she said, shortly. The shadow which twice that day she had eluded was before her. But she made no effort now to escape. It was welcome. She eyed it a moment. Her teeth were set, her muscles contracted. Then grasping it as Vulcan did, she forged it into steel.
About her on either side were wastes of black, and in the goaf, by way of clearing, but one thing was discernible, the fealty of Adrian. To save her from pain he had taken the letter on himself; he had accepted her contempt that he might assure her peace of mind. Through the dismal farce which had been played at her expense his loyalty constituted the one situation which was deserving of praise. With a gesture she dismissed her husband; it was as though he had ceased to exist. It was not him that she had espoused; it was a figure garbed in fine words. She had detected the travesty, the mask had fallen, with the actor she was done. She had never been mated, and now she was divorced. And as she stood, her hands clenched and pendant, the currents of her thought veering from master to clerk, the portière furthermost from her was drawn aside, the butler appeared an instant in the doorway, he mumbled a name, Dugald Maule entered the room, and the portière fell back.
"I made sure of finding you," he announced jauntily, as he approached.
He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. In his button-hole was a flower, and in his breath the odor ofCrême de Menthe. It was evident that he had just dined. "Your man tells me that Mr. Usselex is not at home," he continued. "I fancied he might be going to the assembly too. I see that you are. You look like a queen of old time. No, but you are simply stunning."
He stepped back that he might the better enjoy the effect. Eden had sunk on the lounge again. In and out from her skirt a white slipper, butterflied with gold, moved restlessly.
"But you are pale," he added. "What is it?" He had scanned her face—its pallor was significant to him; but it was the nervousness of the slipper that prompted the question. To his thinking there was nothing more talkative than the foot of a pretty woman.
Eden shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't expect you," she said; "I am sure that I wouldn't have received you if I had."
"Ah, that is hardly gracious now."
"Besides, your reputation is deplorable."
"No one has any reputation, nowadays," Maule answered, with the air of a man describing the state of the weather. "You hear the most scandalous things about everyone. Who has been talking against me? A woman, I wager. Do you know what hell is paved with?"
"Not with your good intentions, I am positive."
"It is paved with women's tongues. That is what it is paved with. What am I accused of now?"
"As if I knew or cared. In my opinion you are depraved, and that is sufficient."
"Why do you call me depraved? You are not fair. Depravity is synonymous with the unnatural. Girls in short frocks don't interest me. Never yet have I loitered in the boudoir of a cocotte. Corydon was not a gentleman whom I would imitate. Neither was Narcissus. On the other hand, I like refined women. I have an unquestionable admiration for a pretty face. What man whose health is good has not? If capacity for such admiration constitutes depravity, then depraved I am." He paused. "H'm," he muttered to himself, "there's nothing of the Joseph about me."
But he might have continued his speech aloud. Eden had ceased to hear, her thoughts were far away. He looked at her inquiringly.
"Something is the matter," he said at last. "What has happened?"
Eden aroused herself ever so little from her reverie. "Nothing," she answered. "I wish you would go away."
"Somethingisthe matter," he insisted. "Tell me what is troubling you. Who is there to whom you can turn more readily than to me? Eden, you forget so easily. For months I was at your side. And abruptly, a rumor, a whisper, a wind that passes took you from me. Eden,Ihave not changed. Nor have you ceased to preside over my life. It is idle and useless enough, I know. With your aid it would have been less valueless, I think; but such as it is, it is wholly yours. Tell me, what it is that troubles you."
And Eden, influenced either by the caress of the words or that longing which in moments of mental anguish forces us to voice the affliction, though it be but to a wall, looked in his face and answered:
"A hole has been dug in my heart, and in that hole is hate."
"Hate? Why, hate is a mediæval emotion; you don't know what it means." And as he spoke he told himself she was mad.
"Do I not? Ah, do I not?" She beat a measure on her knee with her fingers, and her eyes roamed from Maule to the ceiling and then far into space. "There is one whom I think of now; could I see him smitten with agony such as no mortal ever felt before, his eyes filled with spectres, his brain aflame—could I see that and know it to be my work, I should lie down glad and willing, and die of delight."
She stood up and turned to him again. "Do I not know what hatred means?"
"Eden, you understand it so well that your conception of love must be clearer still."
"Love, indeed!" She laughed disdainfully. "Why, love is a fever that ends with a yawn. Love! Why, men used to die of love. Now they buy it as they buy their hats, ready-made."
"Then I am in that fever now—Hush! here is your husband. The tenor wasn't half bad, I admit. Mr. Usselex, I am glad to see you."
Maule had risen at Usselex's entrance and made a step forward to greet him. "I stopped on my way to Delmonico's," he added, lightly. "I made sure you were both going."
"Yes," Usselex answered. "The carriage is at the door now. We can give you a lift if you care to."
He turned to Eden. "Shall I ring for your wrap?"
For one second Eden looked her husband straight in the eyes. And for one second she stood dumb, impenetrable as Fate, then gathering the folds of her dress in one hand, she answered in a tone which was perfectly self-possessed, "I have changed my mind," and swept from the room.
On reaching her room Eden bolted the door. The maid rapped, but she gave no answer. Without was a whistling wind that parodied her anger. For a moment she looked through the darkness for that lighthouse which is Hope, but presumably she looked in vain. Then there came another rap, and she heard her husband's voice. Misery had offered her its arm, and she was silent. Her husband rapped again, entreating speech with her, and still she made no answer. Presently she caught the sound of retreating footsteps. She removed the opals, disrobed, undid her hair, and accepting the proffered arm, she took Misery for bedfellow.
It was hours before she slept. But at last sleep came. In its beneficence it remained until the morning had gone; then at noon-day it left her, and she started with a tremor like to that which besets one who awakes from a debauch. The incidents of the preceding days paraded with flying standards before her. They were victors indeed. "Væ soli!" they seemed to shout. They had been pitiless in their assault, and now they exulted at her defeat. They jeered at their captive; and Eden, with that obsession which captives know, thought only of release. In all the chartless future, freedom was the one thing for which she longed. Her wounds were many; they had depleted her strength; but in freedom is a balm that cures. Her strength might be irrevocable and the cicatrices not to be effaced, yet give her that balm, and come what sorrow could. As for resignation, the idea of it did not so much as visit her. Resignation is a daily suicide, and she had not enough to outlast the night.
The hours limped. The afternoon was on the wane, and still she toyed with sorrow until suddenly she bethought herself of the need of immediate action. Usselex would presently return, but when he came again to her room, he should find it empty. At once, then, she made her preparations, and telling the startled maid to complete them, and to follow with the boxes to her father's house, she started out on foot, her wardrobe packed, and ready for removal.
As Eden hurried through the streets, she was conscious only that freedom was her goal. Everything else she put from her. It was to her father she turned; it was through him that freedom would be obtained; and as she hurried she pictured the indignation with which he would hear her tale. He, indeed, was one on whom she could lean. Whatever other men might be, he, at least was above reproach. Had he not for twenty years been faithful to a memory. Surely her mother when she lived must have enjoyed that gift of gifts, perfect confidence and trust.
So far back in the past as her memory extended she saw him always considerate, gentle of manner, courteous to inferiors, deferential to women, unassuming, and exemplary of life. In very truth there was none other in the world like him. And when at last she entered his house she told herself she was safe, and when the door closed, that she was free.
She knew without inquiry where to find him, and hastened at once to the library, breathless when she reached his chair. He had been dozing over a book, but at the rustle of her gown, he started and rubbed his eyes.
"It's good of you to come," he said, by way of greeting. "Why, Eden, I haven't seen you for two days. Sit down there and let me look at you. It's odd; I was going to you after the funeral. You know about General Meredith, don't you? He went off like that. He is to be buried this afternoon."
Mr. Menemon stood up and hunted for a match with which to light a lamp. "Yes," he continued, "he was only ill for twenty-four hours. Think of that, now! To tell you the truth, I haven't been very bright myself. I wanted to speak to you about it. All last winter I was more or less under the weather, and for some time I have been planning a trip abroad. Now that you have an establishment of your own, Eden, you won't want me." And as he said this, he smiled.
"Father, I have more need of you than ever."
"Yes," he answered, "I was jesting. I know you will miss me; but I will come back with the violets."
He had succeeded in lighting the lamp and, still smiling, he turned and looked at her. "The father-in-law element," he continued, and then stopped abruptly, amazed at the expression of his daughter's face. "What is it, Eden?" he asked at last.
"If you go abroad, I go with you."
For a moment he eyed her, as though seeking, untold, to divine the meaning of her words.
"Nothing has gone wrong, has it?" he asked.
"He has deceived me."
"Usselex?"
"Who else is there whose deception I would notice?"
"You are mistaken, Eden; it is my fault; he consulted me in the matter——"
"He consultedyou? But how is such a thing possible. He never could have consulted you, and if he had you would not have listened."
"Ah! but I did though. Between ourselves I thought it not uninteresting. After all, it was not his fault. I thought it unadvisable that you should learn of it before marriage, and afterwards, well, afterwards, it was immaterial whether you did or whether you didn't."
"Father, either it is not you that speak, or I am demented."
"There, my dear, don't take it so seriously. I can't call it an everyday matter, of course, but such things do happen, and as I said before, a man's a man for all of that. If he said nothing it was because—well, Eden, how could he? Ask yourself, how could he?"
"You knew of this before my marriage and you permitted the marriage to take place?"
"Well—er, yes, Eden. Frankly now, it was a difficult matter to discuss with you. You see, it was this way: a young girl like yourself, brought up as you have been, is apt to have prejudices which men and women of the world do not always share. And this is a case in point. Even now that you are married I can understand your disapproval, but——"
"Disapproval! Is that what you call it? Have you no other term? Father, it seems to me that you are worse than he. Had anyone told me that you could countenance such a thing I would have denied his sanity." She hid her face in her hands and moaned dumbly to herself, "I am desolate," she murmured, "I am desolate, indeed."
"No, Eden, not that, not that. Eden, listen to me; there, if you only listen to me a moment. Eden, it is not a thing that I countenance, nor is it one of which I approve. But the fault is not his. It is in the nature of some women that such things should be. It is a thing to be deplored, to be overlooked. The old law held that the sins of the father should be visited on the son; but we are more liberal now. Besides, it is part of the past; what use is there——"
"Part of the past? I saw him with her the day before yesterday, and——"
"Why, she is dead."
"Father, of whom are you speaking?"
"Of his mother, of course; and you?"
"I am speaking of his mistress, whom he wishes your daughter to entertain."
"Eden, it is impossible. I misunderstood you. What you say is absurd. Usselex is incapable of such infamy."
"He is, then, and he has the capacity to have me share it too."
"But tell me, what grounds have you for saying——"
"On Monday I was at the opera. In the stalls was a woman that stared at me——"
"Many another I am sure did that."
"And the next afternoon I saw him with her. He sent me a note saying he was detained on business. When he returned he made some lame excuse, which I, poor fool, believed. Previously I had intercepted a letter——"
"A letter?"
"Yes, a letter such as those women write. He pretended it was not for him, and for the moment I believed that too. Oh, I have been credulous enough."
"Eden, you must let it pass."
"Not I."
"Ah, but Eden, you must; you must let it pass. I will speak to Usselex."
"That you may, of course; but as for me, I never will."
"My child, you are so wrong. What can I say to you? Eden—"
"Father, he has deceived me. Wantonly, grossly, and without excuse. Speak to him again, I never will—"
"Eden—"
"—And if I ever see him it will be in court. It was for victims like myself that courts were invented."
At this speech Mr. Menemon stood up again, and paced the room; his head was bent, and he had the appearance of one in deep perplexity. From time to time he raised his hand and stroked his back hair. And as he walked Eden continued, but her tone was gentler than before:
"Father, you can never know. As you say, there are things of which it is not well to speak. But let me tell you: In marrying I thought my husband like yourself, one whom I could believe, whom I could honor, and of whom I should be proud. He was too old for me, people said. But my fear was that I should seem too young for him. Others insisted that I knew nothing of him, and all the while I hoped that he would not find me lacking. I wanted to aid, to assist. I was ambitious. He seemed possessed of the fibres of which greatness is the crown. I saw before him a future, a career which history might note. I dreamed that with the wealth which he had acquired and the power that was in him, he could win recognition of men and fame of time. It would be pleasant, I thought, to be the helpmate of such an one. How did it matter that he was an alien if I were at home with him? Father, I was proud of him. I was glad to be younger than he. What better guide could I find? Yes, I was glad of his years, for I had brought myself to think that when two people equally young and equally favored fall in love, it is nature that is acting in them. Whereas I loved not the man, but the individual, and that, I told myself, that is the divine. That is what I thought before marriage, and now I detect him in a vulgar intrigue. Is it not hideous? It took him six months to walk through my illusions, and one hour to dispel them. See, I have nothing left. Nothing," she added pensively, "except regret."
She remained silent a little space, then some visitation of that renegade Yesterday that calls himself To-morrow, seemed to stir her pulse.
"Father," she pleaded, "tell me; I can be free of him, can I not? You will keep him from me? you will get me back my liberty again?"
Mr. Menemon had resumed his former place at the table, and sat there, his head still bent. But at this appeal he looked up and nodded abstractedly, as though his attention were divided between her and someone whom he did not see.
"You are overwrought," he said. "Were you yourself, you would not speak in this fashion about nothing."
A sting could not have been more sudden in its effect. She gasped; a returning gust of anger enveloped her. She sprang from her seat as though impelled by hidden springs. "Nothing?" she cried. "You call it nothing to unearth a falsehood where you awaited truth, treachery where honesty should be, deceit instead of candor! You call it nothing to harbor a knight and discover him a knave, to give your trust unfalteringly and find that it has reposed on lies! Nothing to be jockied of your love, cozened of your faith! To wage a war with blacklegs and mistake that war for peace! Do you call it nothing to drown a soul, to make it a sponge of shadows that can no longer receive the light? Is it nothing to hold out your arms and be embraced by Judas? Is it nothing to be loyal and be gammoned for your innocence? Is it nothing to be juggled with, to be gulled, cheated, and decoyed? Is it nothing to grasp a hawser and find it a rope of sand? To pursue the real and watch it turn into delusion? Nothing to see the promise vanish in the hope? Is it nothing to take a mirage for a landscape, nothing to be hoodwinked of your confidence, to see high noon dissolve into obscurest night, a diamond into pinchbeck? Tell me, is it nothing to have trust, sincerity, and love for heritage, and wake to find that you have pawned them to a Jew? Do you think it nothing to be mated to a living perjury, a felony in flesh and blood? Is this what you call nothing? Is this it? Then tell me what something is."
For a moment she stared at her father, her lips still moving, her small hands clenched, then, exhausted by the vehemence of her speech, she sank back again into the chair which she had vacated.
"No, Eden, not that," her father answered; but he spoke despondently, with the air of a man battling against a stream, and conscious of the futility of the effort. "No, not that; you misunderstand. I mean this: you have confounded suspicion with proof. Whoever this woman is, Usselex's relations with her may be irreproachable. Mind you, I don't say they are; I say they may be. I will question him, and he will answer truthfully."
"Truthfully? You expect him to answer truthfully. In him nothing is true, not even his lies."
"Eden, I will question him. If it is as you expect, he will tell me and you will forgive."
"Forgive? yes, it is easy to forgive, but forget, never! Besides, he will not tell the truth; he will deceive you, as he has deceived me."
"No, Eden," Mr. Menemon answered, "you are wrong." For a moment he hesitated and glanced at her. "I suppose," he continued, "I may tell you now. Perhaps it will help to strengthen your confidence."
Again he hesitated; but presently something of his former serenity seemed to return. "H'm," he went on, "it's a long story and an odd one. Previous to your engagement, Meredith was here. I wish, instead of lying across the square in a coffin, he could be here now. However, he came to see me one day. I happened to mention Usselex's name, and he told me certain rumors about him. The next afternoon I went to Usselex on the subject. 'I have already written to you on the matter,' he said; and sure enough, when I got back here, I found the letter waiting. Would you like to see it?"
Eden tossed her head. What had the letter to do with her?
"I will read it to you, then."
Mr. Menemon left his chair, went to a safe that stood in a corner, unlocked it, and after a fumble of a moment, drew out a manuscript, which he unfolded, and then resumed his former seat.
"It is not very long," he said, apologetically, and he was about to begin to read it aloud when Eden interrupted him.
"Tell me what is in it, if you must!" she exclaimed; "but spare me his phrases."
She had risen again and was moving restlessly about the room. Her father coughed in sheer despair.
"Well, I will tell it to you," he said. "But Eden, do sit down. Do wait at least until I can give you the gist of what he wrote."
"Go on; go on. Nothing matters now."
Hesitatingly and unencouraged, half to his daughter, and half to some invisible schoolmaster, whose lesson he might have learned by rote, Mr. Menemon fluttered the letter and sought some prefatory word.
"You see, Eden," he began, "this was sent me just before he spoke to you, and just after he had acquainted me of his intentions. You understand that, do you not?"
"Go on," she repeated.
"Well, from what I had heard, and what he practically substantiates here, Usselex is a trifle out of the common run. His earliest recollections are of Cornwall, some manufacturing town there; let me see—" and the old man fumbled with the letter and with his glasses. "Yes, yes; Market Dipborough, to be sure. Well, he was brought up there by his mother, who was of Swiss extraction, and by his father, who was at the head of a large shoe factory. I say his father and mother; but—However, he was brought up there. Well, to make a long story short, it appears that he was given a very good education; his people evidently were people of some means, and it was expected that he would study for the bar. He was put at some public school or other, the name is immaterial, and when he was on the point of entering Oxford, the Swiss lady or her husband, I forget which—at any rate, somebody died. Do you follow me, Eden? Well, he then learned that instead of being the son of the people by whom he had been brought up, he was not their son at all. And now comes the curious part of it. It seems that the Swiss lady had been, in years gone by, companion or governess, or something of that sort, to the Grand-Duchess Thyra of Gothland, who, as you know, became the wife of the King of Suabia. She died, by the way, a year or two ago. However, the Swiss lady was her companion or something of the kind, and in consequence was placed in close relations with her. In fact, she was, I suppose, what you might call a confidante. In any event, the Grand-Duchess happened to have for music-teacher a good-looking young German who took her fancy. The result of it all was that the Swiss lady agreed to pretend that the offspring was her own, and was handsomely rewarded for her pains. She left Gothland with the child, and it was not until she died that Usselex learned that instead of being her son, he was grandson of the Emperor. He had the bar-sinister, of course, but the ancestry was there all the same. I don't know that I or any other man would envy him it; but perhaps it is better than none. However, as soon as Usselex learned the facts, he packed up and came over here. Now you have that part of his existence in a nutshell. What do you say to it?" And Mr. Menemon coughed again, and glanced inquiringly at his daughter.
"I say he is so base I might have known he was of royal blood."
"Eden, you are singularly unjust."
"But what does his birth matter to me?" she cried. "It was not for the presence or absence of forefathers that I put my hand in his. It was for the man himself, for what he seemed to me, and when I find that I have been mistaken in him, when in return for my love I get deceit, when he leaves me for another woman, and has the infamy to ask me to receive that woman, then I say, that whether he be the son of a serf or the son of a king, our ways divide—"
"Eden—"
"Yes, our ways divide."
Urged by her irritation, she still paced the room, graceful as a leopard is, and every whit as unconstrained. But now, abruptly she halted before a portrait that hung from the wall. For a moment she gazed at it, then pointing to it with arm outstretched, she turned.
"Tell me," she asked, her sultry eyes flashing with vistas of victory. "Tell me how my mother would have acted, had such an indignity been put on her. Tell me," she repeated, "and through your knowledge of her, so will I act. Yes," she added, and then paused, amazed at the expression of her father's face. It was as though some unseen hand had stabbed him from behind. The mouth twitched in the contraction of sudden pain, the nostrils quivered, and he bowed his head; then, his eyes lowered and turned from her, he answered in a voice that trembled just a little and yet was perfectly distinct:
"It was such a thing as this that marred your mother's life; let it not mar your own."
For the moment Eden could not credit her hearing. The words seemed meaningless. She had caught them in a crescendo of stupor. "It is impossible," she murmured. She stared at her father, her eyes dilated, her heart throbbing, and every sense alert. "It is impossible," she repeated, beneath her breath. And as she stared, her father's attitude accentuated the words, reiterating that the avowal which had been wrung from him was not the impossible, but the truth. No, there was no mistake. She had heard aright, and presently, as the understanding of it reached her, she moved back and away from him. For the first time that day the tears came to her eyes. "I have drunk of shame," she sobbed; "now let me drink of death."