XX
ON the morning following the departure of the geologists Gregory took the bit between his teeth and went in to Butte to see his wife. In his first moment of shock and confusion it had seemed to him best that Ora, whose subtlety he recognised, was the one to manipulate Ida’s still too formalistic mind toward the divorce court; but he was unaccustomed to relegate any part of his affairs to others, least of all to a woman. Nor did he think it necessary to inform Ora of his sudden decision. He might work almost double shift to keep her out of his thoughts and diminish temptation, and he might marry her and continue to love her passionately; but she would obtain little ascendency over him. He knew what he wanted; he had trained his will until at times it appeared formidable even to himself, and he was as nearly the complete male that regards woman, however wonderful, as the supplementary female as still survives.
He had few illusions about himself, and it had crossed his mind more than once, since the hope of divorce had dazzled both of them, that for a year or two or least there must be a certain amount of friction between a nature like his and a complex, super-civilised, overgrown feminine ego like Ora Blake. While he had sat with his legs stretched out to the fire and his eyes half closed, his body weary, but mentally alert, he had received certain definite impressions of an independent almost anarchical mind, contemptuous of the world and its midges save as they might be of use to herself; of a mind too well-bred ever to be managing and exacting in any vulgar sense, but inexorable in its desires and as unscrupulous in their pursuit as her father had been; of a superlative refinement coupled with a power of intense and reckless passion found only in women possessing that quality of imagination that exalts and idealises the common mortal attributes. Moreover,it was a mind that, the first joy of submission and surrender diminished, would think for itself.
Until that night when both had dropped the mask for a moment he had never thought of her as a complicated ego, merely as one from whom he felt temporarily separated after a union of centuries; and it had been the reluctant admission that he knew her very little, save as a gracious woman and his own companion, that had enabled him to school himself to spend long hours with her alone as before. He had tumbled blindly into matrimony once, and no matter how much he might love this woman, to whom he had seemed from the first to be united by a secret and ancient bond, he was determined none the less to marry the second time with his eyes wide open.
But although his glimpses of Ora’s winding depths gave him moments of uneasiness he always fell back upon the complacent reflection that he was a man, a man, moreover, with a cast-iron will, and that the woman did not live who would not have to adapt herself to him did he take her to wife.
Until the day before the party at the mines he had been content to drift, but a certain moment down in his own mine had given a new and abrupt turn to both thoughts and purpose. Ida might have spared herself her agonies of shame: she had not betrayed her love, but she had given him a distinct impression that she was employing her redoubtable feminine weapons to reduce him to his old allegiance. He had remembered for a poignant moment that he once had loved this woman to distraction, and during that moment he saw her again as the most beautiful and distracting of her sex. His brief surrender had filled him with fury. He had no intention of despising himself. From boyhood up he had had nothing but contempt for the man that did not know his own mind. If it had not been for this serene confidence in himself, he, who was constitutionally wary in spite of the secret and wistful springs of romance in his nature and the apparent suddenness of his bold plunges, never would have married Ida Hook, nor any woman, until he had sounded her thoroughly. But he had behaved like any hot-headed and conceited young fool, and, much as he now admired Ida, it both infuriated him and appalled him to feel even for a moment toward her as he had in his raw inexperienced youth.
He therefore made up his mind to go to her like a rational being and ask her to give him his freedom. They had made a mistake. They were reasonable members of an advanced civilisation, where mistakes were recognised and rectified whenever possible. He did not doubt for a moment that reason and logic must appeal as forcibly to a woman as to himself.
The door of his wife’s house was opened after the usual delay, and the maid told him that Mrs. Compton was upstairs in the billiard room “or somewheres.” He took the stairs three steps at a time lest his courage evaporate; but drew a long breath of relief when he entered the large square hall and saw nothing of Ida. He would have rung for the maid, but reflected that no doubt he had already provided enough gossip for the republic below stairs without admitting that he did not know his way round his wife’s house. He was about to knock on each door in turn when he noticed that one in a corner at the end of the hall was open and that it led into a narrow passageway. Beyond there was light, possibly in one of those boudoirs of which he had heard. Mrs. Murphy would have been sure to have a boudoir, and no doubt Ida, little disposed as she was to indolence, spent some part of her mornings in it.
He adventured down the passageway that terminated in a large room full of sunlight. He saw his wife standing in the middle of this room looking about her with a curious expression of wistfulness. The little hall was carpeted, but she heard him almost as soon as he saw her; she would have known those light swift footsteps in a marching army. He was inside the room before she could reach the doorway and close it behind her and astonished to see a deep blush suffuse her face. His quick darting glance took in his surroundings as he shook hands with her. The room was a nursery.
“I had two beds put in here and have just seen that they were taken out,” stammered Ida.
Her embarrassment was communicable, but he said gruffly as he walked to the window, “Didn’t know the Murphys had children.”
“Oh, yes, they had two little ones. Seven in all. I think it odd they should have left the toys here even if they are rich enough to buy toys every day. There is something sacred about a child’s toys.”
Ida was merely talking against time, but she hardly could have said anything better calculated to arrest his attention.
He turned and looked at her in astonishment.
“Do you mean to intimate—that you wish you had children? You?”
Ida’s brain as well as her body was very weary, but it sprang to action at once. “Oh, yes,” she said intensely. “Oh, yes! And I might have had two! They would be wonderful in this house.”
“But——” He cast about desperately. “With two children you could not have gone to Europe.”
“That wouldn’t have mattered.”
“But—don’t you realise that it is this last year of unusual advantages that has developed you so—so—remarkably? You hated children——”
“And do you suppose it was Europe that made me want children?”
“Oh, of course, nothing is as simple as that. You were taken out of yourself, out of your narrow self-sufficient little life; all your fine latent powers were developed——”
“But not altogether by Europe! Still, I don’t deny that it woke me up, gave me not one new point of view but many, developed me, if you like that better. Would you like lunch earlier? You get up at such unearthly hours——”
“I’m not hungry. I want to talk to you. That is what I came for. Won’t you sit down—no, not here! Let us go where there are comfortable chairs. I—I am tired.”
“Very well. Let us go down to the library.” As she walked before him he noted that her superb body, which usually looked as if set with fine steel springs, was heavy and listless.
The masculine looking room below restored his balance.
“You don’t look as well as usual,” he remarked, as he threw himself into the deepest of the chairs. “Yesterday was a hard day, and you had had those men on your hands for——”
“I am tired,” said Ida briefly, “but it doesn’t matter. What do you want to talk to me about?”
He did not answer for a few moments, then he stood up and thrust his hands into his pockets and scowled at thecarpet. Involuntarily Ida also rose to her feet and braced herself, crossing her arms over her breast.
“It is impossible for this to go on,” said Gregory rapidly. “It is unnatural. People don’t submit to broken lives in these days. I think you had better get a divorce and be happy. Mowbray seems to be a fine fellow. Of course no one doubts that he has followed you here. He could make you happy, and as soon as I am able—in a year or two—I shall give you a million; in time more.”
“Oh! Oh!”
“You surely cannot want to live for ever like—like—this!”
“I have no desire to marry again. Have you?” She shot the question at him, every nerve on edge with suspicion.
But the last thing in his mind was to betray Ora, and he answered promptly. “No. But I am absorbed in my mine, and my life will be more crowded every year with accumulating interests. You are a woman. You are young—and—and—you wish for children.”
Ida believed that after her revelation of yesterday he had come to let her down gently. She determined to throw her all on one heavy stake. If she lost, at least she would have had the satisfaction of telling him that she loved him; she had already sacrificed her pride, and there was a reckless sweetness in the thought of revealing herself absolutely to this man. When a woman loves a man not quite hopelessly she experiences almost as much satisfaction in listening to her own confession as to his.
She drew herself up, her arms still across her breast, and Gregory thought he had never seen a woman look so dignified and so noble.
“Listen, Gregory,” she said, with no tremor in her voice but deepening sadness in her eyes, “I regret that I have no children because they would be yours. I am willing to live and die alone because I have lost your love. I know how I lost it, but, as I look back over my crudity and ignorance, I do not see how I could have kept it. You were immeasurably above and beyond me. Nature, or some mental inheritance, gave you sensitiveness, refinement, distinction, to say nothing of brains. I had to achieve all that I am now. I was a raw conceited fool like thousands of American girls of any class, who think they are just alittle too good for this world. I had ceased to love you in my inordinate love of myself, and the natural consequence was, that as I made no attempt to improve myself, I lost you as soon as my halo of novelty had disappeared. I took for granted, however, that I was returning from Europe to the old conditions. When I discovered that you had no such intention I was piqued, astonished, angry. But when I thought it all out I understood. You were within your rights, and you have behaved with decency and self-respect. I have nothing but unmitigated contempt for two people that continue to live together as a mere matter of habit and convenience. They are the real immoralists of the world, and the girls that ‘go wrong’ know it and laugh at the reformers. Of course I never had ceased to love you down deep, but it took just the course of conduct you pursued to make me known to myself. I realise that it is hopeless—too late. I never intended to betray myself, but I did so in an unguarded moment yesterday. Otherwise I never should have told you all this. I have realised since then that I have lost you irrevocably, but at least if I cannot be your wife I will be no man’s, and I shall continue to bear your name—and see you sometimes.”
Gregory, feeling as if he were being flayed, had dropped upon the edge of a chair and buried his face in his hands. When she finished he said hoarsely: “I never dreamed—I never imagined—I thought you incapable of real feeling——”
“I think I was then. And since—Well, you are only a man, after all, and I made you think what I chose until yesterday—Do you mean——” she added sharply, “that you did not guess—did notknowyesterday?”
“It never occurred to me. I thought you merely were flirting a little——”
“Hi!” cried Ida. Then she got back into her rôle. “It doesn’t matter,” she said with sad triumph. “I am glad I have told you. As for the future? You have convinced Butte that we are the best of friends. Stay away if you wish unless I give an entertainment where your absence would cause too much comment. You don’t want to marry again, but you may feel yourself as free as air. And one day—when you are worn out, tired of the everlasting struggle in which you moneymakers work harder thanthe day labourer, with his eight-hour laws and freedom from the terrific responsibilities of money; when you begin to break and want a home, I will make one for you. There is the doorbell. Lord John is coming for lunch. I shall give him his dismissal—once for all.”
Gregory stood up and took her hand. He had a vague masculine sense of unfairness somewhere but he could not begin to define it, and he was as deeply impressed as discouraged. “You are a grand woman, Ida,” he said. “This is not an hour that any man forgets. I wish that you might be happy.”
“Nature never intended that people on this planet should be happy—only in spots, anyhow. And don’t worry about me. You have put me in the way of getting a great deal out of this old game we call life, and I am grateful to you. Good-bye.”
They shook hands and Gregory went out into the hall as the maid was admitting Lord John. This time the men made no pretence at politeness. They merely glared and passed.