Tears
"Don't be pessimistic, Mother," said Alden, with a little break in his voice. Rosemary's tears woke all his tenderness. He longed to shield and shelter her; to stand, if he might, between her and the thousand pricks and stabs of the world.
"We'll have tea," Madame went on, brightly, ringing a silver bell as she spoke. "Then we shan't be quite so serious."
"Woman's inevitable solace," Alden observed, lounging about the room with his hands in his pockets. Man-like, he welcomed the change of mood.
"I wonder," he continued, with forced cheerfulness, "why people always cry at weddings and engagements and such things? A husband or wife is the only relative we are permitted to choose—we even have very little to say when it comes to a mother-in-law. With parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins all provided by a generous but sometimes indiscriminating Fate, it seems hard that one's only choice should be made unpleasant by salt water.
"Why," he went on, warming to his subject, "I remember how a certain woman angled industriously for months to capture an unsuspecting young man for her daughter. When she finally landed him, and the ceremony came off to the usual accompaniment of Mendelssohn and a crowded church, Ifeared that the bridal couple might have to come down the aisle from the altar in a canoe, on account of the maternal tears."
A Contrast
"Perhaps," suggested Rosemary, timidly, "she was only crying because she was happy."
"If she was as happy as all those tears would indicate, it's a blessed wonder she didn't burst."
Madame smiled fondly at her son as she busied herself with the tea things. Rosemary watched the white, plump hands that moved so gracefully among the cups, and her heart contracted with a swift little pang of envy, of which she was immediately ashamed. Unconsciously, she glanced at her own rough, red hands. Madame saw the look, and understood.
"We'll soon fix them, my dear," she said, kindly. "I'll show you how to take care of them."
"Really?" cried Rosemary, gratefully. "Oh, thank you! Do you suppose that—that they'll ever look like yours?"
"Wait and see," Madame temporised. She was fond of saying that it took three generations of breeding to produce the hand of a lady.
The kettle began to sing and the cover danced cheerily. Tiny clouds of steam trailed off into space, disappearing in the late afternoon sunshine like a wraith at dawn. Madamefilled the blue china tea-pot and the subtle fragrance permeated the room.
A Cup of Tea
"Think," she said, as she waited the allotted five minutes for it to steep, "of all I give you in a cup of tea. See the spicy, sunlit fields, where men, women, and children, in little jackets of faded blue, pick it while their queues bob back and forth. Think of all the chatter that goes in with the picking—marriage and birth and death and talk of houses and worldly possessions, and everything else that we speak of here.
"Then the long, sweet drying, and the packing in dim storehouses, and then the long journey. Sand and heat and purple dusk, tinkle of bells and scent of myrrh, the rustle of silks and the gleam of gold. Then the open sea, with infinite spaces of shining blue, and a wake of pearl and silver following the ship. Dreams and moonbeams and starry twilights, from the other side of the world—here, my dear, I give them all to you."
She offered Rosemary the cup as she concluded and the girl smiled back at her happily. This was all so different from the battered metal tea-pot that always stood on the back of the stove at Grandmother's, to be boiled and re-boiled until the colour was gone from the leaves. Alden was looking into his cup with assumed anxiety.
In the Bottom of the Cup
"What's the matter, dear?" asked his mother. "Isn't it right?"
"I was looking for the poem," he laughed, "and I see nothing but a stranger."
"Coming?" she asked, idly.
"Of course. See?"
"You're right—a stranger and trouble. What is there in your cup, Rosemary?"
"Nothing at all," she answered, with a smile, "but a little bit of sugar—just a few grains."
Alden came and looked over her shoulder. Then, with his arm over the back of her chair, he pressed his cheek to hers. "I hope, my dear, that whenever you come to the dregs, you'll always have that much sweetness left."
Rosemary, flushed and embarrassed, made her adieus awkwardly. "Come again very soon, dear, won't you?" asked Madame.
"Yes, indeed, if I may, and thank you so much. Good-bye, Mrs. Marsh."
"'Mrs. Marsh?'" repeated the old lady, reproachfully. Some memory of her lost Virginia made her very tender toward the motherless girl.
"May I?" Rosemary faltered. "Do you mean it?"
Madame smiled and lifted her beautiful old face. Rosemary stooped and kissed her. "Mother," she said, for the first time in her life. "Dear Mother! Good-bye!"
An Unexpected Missive
"A letter for you, Mother," Alden tossed a violet-scented envelope into the old lady's lap as he spoke, and stood there, waiting.
"For me!" she exclaimed. Letters for either of them were infrequent. She took it up curiously, scrutinised the address, sniffed at the fragrance the missive carried, noted the postmark, which was that of the town near by, and studied the waxen purple seal, stamped with indistinguishable initials.
"I haven't the faintest idea whom it's from," she said, helplessly.
"Why not open it and see?" he suggested, with kindly sarcasm. His assumed carelessness scarcely veiled his own interest in it.
"You always were a bright boy, Alden," she laughed. Another woman might have torn it open rudely, but Madame searched through her old mahogany desk until she found a tarnished silver letter-opener, thus according due courtesy to her unknown correspondent.
Having opened it, she discovered that shecould not read the handwriting, which was angular and involved beyond the power of words to indicate.
A Woman's Writing
"Here," she said. "Your eyes are better than mine."
Alden took it readily. "My eyes may be good," he observed, after a long pause, "but my detective powers are not. Them'sandn'sare all alike, and so are most of the other letters. She's an economical person—she makes the same hieroglyphic do duty for both agand ay."
"It's from a woman, then?"
"Certainly. Did you ever know a man to sprawl a note all over two sheets of paper, with nothing to distinguish the end from the beginning? In the nature of things, you'd expect her to commence at the top of a sheet, and, in a careless moment, she may have done so. Let me see—yes, here it is: 'My dear Mrs. Marsh.'"
"Go on, please," begged Madame, after a silence. "It was just beginning to be interesting."
"'During my mother's last illness,'" Alden read, with difficulty, "'she told me that if I were ever in trouble, I should go to you—that you would stand in her place to me. I write to ask if I may come, for I can no longer see the path ahead of me, and much less do I know the way in which I should go.
A Schoolmate's Daughter
"'You surely remember her. She was Louise Lane before her marriage to my father, Edward Archer.
"'Please send me a line or two, telling me I may come, if only for a day. Believe me, no woman ever needed a friendly hand to guide her more than
"'Yours unhappily,
"'Edith Archer Lee.'"
"Louise Lane," murmured Madame, reminiscently. "My old schoolmate! I didn't even know that she had a daughter, or that she was dead. How strangely we lose track of one another in this world!"
"Yes?" said Alden, encouragingly.
"Louise was a beautiful girl," continued Madame, half to herself. "She had big brown eyes, with long lashes, a thick, creamy skin that someway reminded you of white rose-petals, and the most glorious red hair you ever saw. She married an actor, and I heard indirectly that she had gone on the stage, then I lost her entirely."
"Yes?" said Alden, again.
"Edith Archer Lee," Madame went on. "She must be married. Think of Louise Lane having a daughter old enough to be married! And yet—my Virginia would have been thirty-two now. Dear me, how the time goes by!"
In Trouble
The tall clock on the landing chimed five deep musical strokes, the canary hopped restlessly about his gilt cage, and the last light of the sweet Spring afternoon, searching the soft shadows of the room, found the crystal ball on the table and made merry with it.
"Time is still going by," Alden reminded her. "What are you going to do?"
Madame started from her reverie. "Do? Why, she must come, of course!"
"I don't see why," Alden objected, gloomily. "I don't like strange women."
"It is not a question of what we like or don't like, my son," she returned, in gentle reproof. "She is in trouble and she needs something we can give her."
"When people are in trouble, they usually want either money or sympathy, or both."
"Sometimes they only need advice."
"There are lots of places where they can get it. Advice is as free as salvation is said to be."
Madame sighed. Then she crossed the room, and put her hands upon his shoulders. "Dear, are you going to be cross?"
His face softened. "Never to you, if I know it, but why should strange women invade the peace of a man's home? Why should a woman who writes like that come here?"
"Don't blame her for her handwriting—she can't help it."
"I don't blame her; far from it. On thecontrary, I take off my hat to her. A woman who can take a plain pen, and plain ink, and do such dazzling wonders on plain paper, is entitled to sincere respect, if not admiration."
An Invitation
Smiling, Madame went to her desk, and in a quaint, old-fashioned script, wrote a note to Mrs. Lee. "There," she said, as she sealed it. "I've asked her to come to-morrow on the six o'clock train. I've told her that you will meet her at the station, and that we won't have dinner until half-past seven. That will give her time to rest and dress. If you'll take it to the post-office now, she'll get it in the morning."
Alden shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly, kissed his mother, and went out. He wondered how he would recognise the "strange woman" when she arrived on the morrow, though few people came on the six o'clock train, or, for that matter, on any train.
"Might write her a little note on my own account," he mused. "Ask her to take off her right shoe and hold it in her left hand, or something of that sort. No, that isn't necessary. I'll bet I could go into a crowd of a thousand women and pick out the one who wrote that letter."
The scent of violet still haunted him, but, by the time he had posted his mother's note, he had forgotten all about it and was thinking of Rosemary.
Planning for the Guest
Madame, however, was busy with plans for her guest's comfort. She took down her best hand-embroidered linen sheets, shaking out the lavender that was laid between the folds, selected her finest towels and dresser-covers, ransacked three or four trunks in the attic for an old picture of Louise Lane, found a frame to fit it, laid out fresh curtains, had the shining silver candlesticks cleaned again, and opened wide every window of the long-unused guest-room to give it a night's airing.
Downstairs, she searched through the preserve-closet for dainties to tempt an unhappy woman's appetite, meanwhile rejoicing with housewifely pride in her well-stocked shelves. That evening, while Alden read the paper, she planned a feast for the next night, and mended, with fairy-like stitches, the fichu of real lace that she usually wore with her lavender silk gown.
"Is it a party?" queried Alden, without looking up from his paper.
"Yes. Isn't company a party?"
"That depends. You know three are said to be a crowd."
"Still inhospitable, dear?"
"Only mildly so. I contemplate the approaching evil with resignation, if not content."
"You and I have lived alone so long that we've got ourselves into a rut. Everyonewe meet may give us something, and receive something from us in return."
Best Things for Strangers
"I perceive," said Alden, irrelevantly, "that the Lady Mother is going to be dressed in her best when the guest arrives."
A pale pink flush mantled the old lady's fair cheeks. At the moment she looked like a faded rose that had somehow preserved its sweetness.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Why do we always do for strangers what we do not willingly do for our own flesh and blood?" he queried, philosophically. "You love me better than anything else in the world, yet you wouldn't put on that lavender gown twice a year, just for me alone. The strange woman may feast her eyes upon it the moment she enters the house. She'll eat from the best china, sleep between embroidered sheets, and, I have no doubt, drink the wine that Father put away the day I was born, to be opened at my wedding."
"Not at your wedding, my son, but the day you found the woman you loved." Then, after a long pause, she added, shyly: "Shouldn't it be opened now?"
"It'll keep," the young man grunted. "After lying for thirty years among the cobwebs, a few more weeks or months or years, as the case may be, won't hurt it. Besides, I don't expect to have any wedding. I'mmerely going to be married. Might as well let the strange woman have it."
Old Wine
Alden's father had, as he said, put away on the day he was born all the wine that was then ready to be bottled. The baby girl had been welcomed gladly, especially as she had her mother's eyes, but the day the second Alden Marsh was born, the young father's joy had known no bounds. He had gone, at dusk, to the pale little mother, and, holding her in his arms, had told her about the wine.
"I've put it all away," he had said, "for the boy. He's to open it the day he finds the woman he loves as I love you."
The shelf in the storeroom, where he had placed it, had never been disturbed, though dust and cobwebs lay thickly upon it and Madame had always prided herself upon her immaculate housekeeping. It grieved her inexpressibly because Alden cared so little about it, and had for it, apparently, no sentiment at all. To her it was sacred, like some rare wine laid aside for communion, but, as she reflected, the boy's father had died before he was much more than a child.
"Don't you remember your father at all?" asked Madame, with a sigh.
"I can't say that I do—that is, not before he died." The casket and the gloom of mourning had made its own vivid impression upon the child's sensitive mind. One moment stoodout quite clearly, but he forebore to say so. It was when his mother, with the tears raining down her face, had lifted him in her arms and bade him look at the man who lay in the casket, oh, so cold and still.
The Passing of the Father
"Say good-bye to Father, dear," she had sobbed. "Is Father gone away?" he had asked, in childish terror, then she had strained him to her heart, crying out: "Just for a little while! Oh, if I could only believe it was for just a little while!"
The rest had faded into a mist of sadness that, for a long time, had not even begun to lift. When he found his mother in tears, as he often did after that, he went away quietly, knowing that she longed for "Father," who had gone away and never returned. Later, he used to sit on the top step of the big Colonial porch—a fragile little figure—waiting, through the long Summer afternoons, for the father who did not come.
Once, when his mother was so absorbed in her grief that she did not hear him come into the room, he had laid a timid, trembling hand upon her knee, saying: "Mother, if you will tell me where Father is, I will go and bring him back." But, instead of accepting the offer, she had caught him to her breast, sobbing, with a sudden rush of impassioned prayer: "Dear God, no—not that!"
Time, as always, had done his merciful healing, which, though slow, is divinely sure. Madame was smiling, now, at some old memory that had come mysteriously out of the shadow, leaving all bitterness behind. She had finished mending the lace and had laid it aside. Alden took it up, awkwardly, and looked at it.
Tired and Unhappy
"This for the strange woman," he said, teasingly, "and plain black or grey silk for me, though I am fain to believe that you love me best. Why is it?"
"Because," she responded, playfully, "you know me and love me, even without fuss and frills. For those who do not know us, we must put our best foot forward, in order to make sure of the attention our real merit deserves."
"But doesn't immediately command—is that it?"
"I suppose so."
"What must I wear to the train—my dress suit?"
"Don't be foolish, son. You'll have plenty of time to dress after you get home."
"Shall I drive, or walk?"
"Take the carriage. She'll be tired. Unhappy women are always tired."
"Are they tired because they're unhappy, or unhappy because they're tired? And do they get unhappier when they get more tired, or do they get more tired when they get unhappier?"
The Arrival
"Don't ask me any more conundrums to-night. I'm going to bed, to get my beauty sleep."
"You must have had a great many, judging by the results."
Madame smiled as she bent to kiss his rough cheek. "Good-night, my dear. Think of some other pleasant things and say them to-morrow night to Mrs. Lee."
"I'll be blest if I will," Alden muttered to himself, as his mother lighted a candle and waved her hand prettily in farewell. "If all the distressed daughters of all mother's old schoolmates are coming here, to cry on her shoulder and flood the whole place with salt water, it's time for me to put up a little tent somewhere and move into it."
By the next day, however, he had forgotten his ill-humour and was at the station fully ten minutes before six o'clock. As it happened, only one woman was among the passengers who left the train at that point.
"Mrs. Lee?" he asked, taking her suit-case from her.
"Yes. Mr. Marsh?"
"Yes. This way, please."
"How did you know me?" she inquired, as she took her place in the worn coupé that had been in the Marsh stables for almost twenty years.
"By your handwriting," he laughed, closing the door.
With Bag and Baggage
A smile hovered for a moment around the corners of her mouth, then disappeared.
"Then, too," he went on, "as you were the only woman who got off the train, and we were expecting you, I took the liberty of speaking to you."
"Did you ask the man to have my trunk sent up?"
"Trunk!" echoed Alden, helplessly. "Why, no! Was there a trunk?"
She laughed—a little, low rippling laugh that had in it an undertone of sadness. There was a peculiar, throaty quality in her voice, like a muted violin or 'cello. "Don't be so frightened, please, for I'm not going to stay long, really. I'm merely the sort of woman who can't stay over night anywhere without a lot of baggage."
"It—it wasn't that," he murmured.
"Yes, it was. You don't need to tell me polite fibs, you know. How far are we from the house?"
"Not as far," returned Alden, rallying all his forces for one supreme effort of gallantry, "as I wish we were."
She laughed again, began to speak, then relapsed into silence. Furtively, in the gathering shadow, he studied her face. She was pale and cold, the delicate lines of her profile conveyed a certain aloofness of spirit, and her mouth drooped at the corners. Her hat andveil covered her hair, but she had brown eyes with long lashes. Very long lashes, Alden noted, having looked at them a second time to make sure.
A Child of the City
The silence became awkward, but he could think of nothing to say. She had turned her face away from him and was looking out of the window. "How lovely the country is," she said, pensively. "I wish sometimes I never had to step on a pavement again."
"Do you have to?" he asked.
"Yes, for I'm over-civilised. Like the god in Greek mythology, I need the touch of earth occasionally to renew my strength, but a very brief contact is all-sufficient. I'm a child of the city, brought up on smoke and noise."
"You don't look it," he said, chiefly because he could think of nothing else to say.
Madame herself opened the door for them, with the old-fashioned hospitality which has an indefinable charm of its own. "How do you do, my dear," she said, taking the hand the younger woman offered her. In the instant of feminine appraisement, she had noted the perfectly tailored black gown, the immaculate shirtwaist and linen collar, and the discerning taste that forbade plumes. The fresh, cool odour of violets persisted all the way up-stairs, as Madame chattered along sociably, eager to put the guest at her ease.
Below, they heard Alden giving orders aboutthe trunk, and Mrs. Lee smiled—a little, wan ghost of a smile that Madame misunderstood.
Resting
"You don't need to dress, if you're tired," she suggested, kindly, "though we always do. Come down just as you are."
Mrs. Lee turned to the dainty little woman who stood before her, arrayed in shining lavender silk. The real-lace fichu was fastened at the waist with an amethyst pin and at her throat she wore a string of silver beads. Her white hair was beautifully dressed, and somewhere, among the smooth coils and fluffy softness, one caught the gleam of a filigree silver comb.
"Not dress?" she said. "Indeed I shall, as soon as my trunk comes. That is," she added, hastily, "if there's anyone to hook me up."
"There is," Madame assured her. "I'll leave you now to rest. We dine at half-past seven."
The sweetness of the lavender-scented room brought balm to Edith Lee's tired soul. "How lovely she is," she said to herself, as she noted the many thoughtful provisions for her comfort, "and how good it is to be here."
A silver-framed photograph stood on her dressing-table, and she picked it up, wondering who it might be. The hair and gown were old-fashioned, and the face seemed old-fashioned also, but, in a moment, she had recognised her mother.
The Newcomer in Green
Tenderness for the dead and the living filled her heart. How dear it was of Madame to have placed it there—this little young mother, just budding into womanhood! It had been taken long before she had known of Edith, or had more than dreamed of love.
The arrival of the trunk compelled her to brush away a few foolish tears. She did not stop to unpack, but only took out the dinner gown that lay on top.
Promptly at half-past seven, she went down into the living-room, where Alden and his mother were waiting to receive her. Madame smiled with pure delight at the vision that greeted her, but the young man forgot his manners and stared—stared like the veriest schoolboy at the tall, stately figure, clad in shimmering pale green satin that rippled about her feet as she walked, brought out a bit of colour in her cheeks and lips, deepened the brown of her eyes, and, like the stalk and leaves of a tiger-lily, faded into utter insignificance before the burnished masses of her red-gold hair.
A Fortunate Woman
Breakfast had been cleared away and Alden, with evident regret, had gone to school. Madame gave her orders for the day, attended to a bit of dusting which she would trust no one else to do, gathered up the weekly mending and came into the living-room, where the guest sat, idly, robed in a gorgeous negligée of sea-green crêpe which was fully as becoming as her dinner-gown had been the night before.
Madame had observed that Mrs. Lee was one of the rarely fortunate women who look as well in the morning as in the evening. Last night, in the glow of the pink-shaded candles, she had been beautiful, and this morning she was no less lovely, though she sat in direct sunlight that made a halo of her hair.
The thick, creamy skin, a direct legacy from Louise Lane, needed neither powder nor rouge, and the scarlet lips asked for no touch of carmine. But the big brown eyes were wistful beyond words, the dark hollows beneath spoke of sleepless nights, and the corners of the sweetmouth drooped continually, in spite of valiant efforts to smile.
Why She Came
"I think I should have known you anywhere," Madame began. "You look so much like your mother."
"Thank you. It was dear of you to put her picture on my dressing-table. It seemed like a welcome from her."
Madame asked a few questions about her old schoolmate, receiving monosyllabic answers, then waited. The silence was not awkward, but of that intimate sort which, with women, precedes confidences.
"I suppose you wonder why I came," the younger woman said, after a long pause.
"No," Madame replied, gently, "for you told me in your note that you were troubled and thought I could help you."
"I don't know why I should have thought of you especially, though I have never forgotten what mother told me about coming to you, if I were in trouble, but two or three days ago, it came to me all at once that I was wandering in a maze of darkness and that you could show me the way out."
"I hope I may," the old lady murmured. "I shall be very glad to, if I can. What has gone wrong?"
"Everything," she returned, her brown eyes filling with mist. "Of course it's my husband. It always is, isn't it?"
Running Away
"I don't know why it should be. Is he cruel to you?"
"No, that is, he doesn't beat me or anything of that sort. He isn't coarse. But there's a refined sort of cruelty that hurts worse. I—I couldn't bear it any longer, and so I came away."
"Was he willing for you to come?"
"I didn't ask him. I just came."
Madame's glasses dropped from her aristocratic nose in astonishment. "Why, my dear Mrs. Lee! How could you!"
"Edith, please, if you will," she answered, wiping her eyes. Then she laughed bitterly. "Don't be kind to me, for I'm not used to it and it weakens my armour of self-defence. Tell me I'm horrid and have done with it."
"Poor child," breathed Madame. "Poor, dear child!"
For a few moments the young woman bit her lips, keeping back the tears by evident effort. Then, having gained her self-control, she went on.
"I'm twenty-eight, now," she said. "I remember mother used to say she always had her suspicions of a woman who was willing to tell the truth about her age."
"Sounds just like her," commented Madame, taking up a dainty lavender silk stocking that had "run down" from the hem.
"I've been married six years, but it seemslike twenty. Almost from the first, there has been friction between us, but nobody knows it, except you—unless he's told his friends, and I don't think he'd do that. We've both had a preference for doing the family laundry work on the premises."
Marital Troubles
"What?" queried Madame, missing the allusion.
"Not washing our soiled linen in public," Edith explained. "While I live with my husband as his wife, we stand together before the world as far as it is in my power to manage it. I do not intentionally criticise him to anyone, nor permit anyone to criticise him. I endeavour to look ahead, protect him against his own weakness or folly, and, as far as a woman's tact and thought may do, shield him from the consequences of his own mistakes. I lie for him whenever necessary or even advisable. I have tried to be, for six years, shelter, strength, comfort, courage. And," she concluded bitterly, "I've failed."
"How so?"
"We live in the same house, but alien and apart. We talk at the table as two strangers might in a crowded restaurant or hotel, that is, when he's there. I dare not ask people to dinner, for I never know whether he's coming or not. He might promise faithfully to come, and then appear at midnight, without apology or excuse."
All Sorts of Subterfuges
"He supports you," suggested Madame, glancing at the sea-green crêpe.
"Yes, of course. That is, the question of money hasn't arisen between us, one way or another. I have no children, father and mother left me plenty of money, and I don't mind using it in any way that seems advisable. In fact, if I had to, I'd rather pay the household bills than beg for money, as many a wife is compelled to do—or, for that matter, even ask for it. It isn't as if I had to earn it myself, you know. If I had to, I'd probably feel differently about it, but, as it is, money doesn't matter between us at all.
"Friends of mine," she resumed, "have to resort to all sorts of subterfuges. I know women who bribe the tradespeople to make their bills larger than they should be and give them the difference in cash. I know men who seem to think they do their wives a favour by paying for the food they themselves eat, and by paying their own laundry bills. Then, every once in a while, I see in some magazine an article written by a man who wonders why women prefer to work in shops and factories, rather than to marry. It must be better to get a pay-envelope every Saturday night without question or comment, than it is to humiliate your immortal soul to the dust it arose from, begging a man for money to pay for the dinner he ate last night, or for the priceof a new veil to cover up your last year's hat."
Defiance
"All this," said Madame, threading her needle again, "is new to me. I live so out of the world, that I know very little of what is going on outside."
"Happy woman! Perhaps I should be happy, also, since this particular phase of the problem doesn't concern me. Money may not be your best friend, but it's the quickest to act, and seems to be favourably recognised in more places than most friends are. For the size of it, a check book is about the greatest convenience I know of."
The brown eyes were cold now, and their soft lights had become a glitter. The scarlet mouth was no longer sweet and womanly, but set into a hard, tight line. Colour burned in her cheeks—not a delicate flush, but the crimson of defiance, of daring. She was, as she sat there, a living challenge to Fate.
"Is he happy?" queried Madame.
"I suppose so. His ideal of a wife seems to be one who shall arrange and order his house, look after his clothing, provide for his material comfort, be there when he comes, sit at the head of his table, dressed in her best, when he deigns to honour dinner with his presence, ask no questions as to his comings or goings, keep still if he prefers to read either the morning or evening paper while he eats, and to refrainfrom annoying him by being ill, or, at least, by speaking of illness.
Quiet Rebuke
"I saw, once, a huge cocoa-husk door-mat, with the word 'Welcome' on it in big red letters. I've been sorry ever since that I didn't buy it, for it typified me so precisely. It would be nice, wouldn't it, to have at your front door something that exactly indicated the person inside, like the overture to a Wagner opera, using all the themes andmotifsthat were coming? That's what I've been for six years, but, if a worm will turn, why not a wife?"
"If you'll excuse me for saying so," Madame answered, in a tone of quiet rebuke, "I don't think it was quite right to come away without letting him know you were coming."
"Why not?"
"He'll wonder where you are."
"I've had plenty of opportunity to wonder where he was."
"But what will he think, when he finds out you have gone?"
"He may not have noticed it. I have competent servants and they'll look after him as well or better than I do. If I had left a wax figure in the library, in one of my gowns, with its back to the door and its head bent over a book, I could have been well on my way to China before I was missed, or, rather, that I was among those not present. If he has foundit out, it has been by the application of the same inductive methods by which I discover that he's not coming home to dinner."
Do You Love Him?
"Do you love him?" In the answer to that question lay Madame's solution of all difficulties, past and to come. To her, it was the divine reagent of all Life's complicated chemistry; the swift turning of the prism, with ragged edges breaking the light into the colours of the spectrum, to a point where refraction was impossible.
"I did," Edith sighed, "but marriage is a great strain upon love."
The silvery cadence of Madame's laughter rang through the house and echoed along the corridor. As though in answer, the clock struck ten, the canary sang happily, and a rival melody came from the kitchen, in cracked soprano, mercifully muted by distance and two closed doors.
"See what you've started," Edith said. "It's like the poem, where the magic kiss woke the princess, and set all the clocks to going and the little dogs to barking outside. Don't let me talk you to death—I've been chattering for considerably over an hour, and, very selfishly, of my own affairs, to the exclusion of everything else."
"But your affairs interest me extremely, I wish I knew of some way to help you."
"In the last analysis, of course, it comes tothis—either go on and make the best of it, or quit."
The Marriage Vow
"Not—not divorce," breathed Madame. Her violet eyes were wide with horror.
"No," Edith answered, shortly, "not divorce. Separation, possibly, but not divorce, which is only a legal form permitting one to marry again. Personally, I feel bound by the solemn oath I took at the altar, 'until death do us part,' and 'forsaking all others keep thee only unto me so long as we both shall live.' All the laws in the country couldn't make me feel right with my own conscience if I violated that oath."
"If the marriage service were changed," Madame said, nodding her approval, "it might be justified. If one said, at the altar, 'Until death or divorce do us part,' or 'Until I see someone else I like better,' there'd be reason for it, but, as it is, there isn't. And again, it says, 'Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder.'"
"Those whom God hath joined no man can put asunder," Edith retorted, "but did God do it? It doesn't seem right to blame Him for all the pitiful mistakes that masquerade as marriage. Mother used to say," she resumed, after a little, "that when you're more miserable without a man than you think you ever could be with him, it's time to marry him, and when you're more miserable with him thanyou think you ever could be without him, it's time to quit."
Envious Women
"And," suggested Madame, "in which class do you belong?"
"Both, I think—that is, I'm miserable enough to belong to both. I'm unhappy when he's with me and wretched when he isn't. As he mostly isn't, I'm more wretched than unhappy. In the small circle in which I move, I'm considered a very fortunate woman.
"Women who are compelled to be mendicants and who do not know that I have a private income, envy me my gowns and hats, my ability to ask a friend or two to luncheon if I choose, and the unfailing comfort of a taxicab if I'm caught in the rain. They think, if they had my gowns and my grooming, that they could win and keep love, which seems to be about all a woman wants. But these things are, in reality, as useless as painting the house when the thermometer is below zero and you need a fire inside to warm your hands by. I have imported gowns and real lace and furs and jewels and all the grooming I'm willing to take, but my soul is frozen and starved.
"My house," she went on, "isn't a mansion, but it has all the comforts anyone could reasonably require. As far as my taste can discover, it's artistic and even unusual. The dinner my cook sends up every night is asgood, or better than any first-class hotel can serve, though it may not be quite so elaborate.
The One Thing Lacking
"I myself am not so bad to look at, I am well dressed, and never untidy. I am disgustingly well, which is fortunate, for most men hate a sick woman. If I have a headache I don't speak of it. I neither nag nor fret nor scold, and I even have a few parlour tricks which other people consider attractive. For six years, I have given generously and from a full heart everything he has seemed to require of me.
"I've striven in every way to please him, adapting myself to his tastes. I've even been the sort of woman men call 'a good fellow,' admiringly among women and contemptuously among themselves. And, in return, I have nothing—not even the fairy gold that changes to withered leaves when you take it into the sunshine."
"You seem to have a good deal, dear—youth and health and strength and sufficient income. How many women would be glad to have what you have?"
"I want love," cried Edith, piteously. "I want someone to care for me—to be proud of me for what I am and the little things I can do! If I painted a hideous dog on a helpless china plate, I'd want someone to think it was pretty. If I cooked a mess in the chafing-dish or on the stove, I'd want someone to think itwas good, just because I did it! If I embroidered a red rose on a pink satin sofa cushion, or painted a Winter scene on a wooden snow-shovel and hung it up in the parlour, I'd want someone to think it was beautiful. If I wrote a limerick, I'd want someone to think it was clever. I want appreciation, consideration, sympathy, affection! I'm starving for love, I'm dying for it, and I'd go across the desert on my knees for the man who could give it to me!"
Kisses Classified
"Perhaps he cares," said Madame, consolingly, "and doesn't show it."
"You can tell by the way a man kisses you whether he cares or not. If he doesn't kiss you at all, he doesn't care and doesn't even mind your knowing it. If he kisses you dutifully, without a trace of feeling, and, by preference, on your cheek or neck, he doesn't care but thinks he ought to, and hopes you won't find out that he doesn't. But, if he cares—ah, how it thrills you if he cares!"
Madame's violet eyes grew dim. "I know," she said, brokenly, "for I had it all once, long ago. People used to say that marriage changes love, but, with us, it only grew and strengthened. The beginning was no more the fulness of love than an acorn is the oak tree which springs from it. We had our trials, our differences, and our various difficulties, but they meant nothing.