Thursday night.
I am horribly sad tonight—lonely—discouraged. The doctor wants to know about my married life, about my husband. Why was I unhappy? Why is any woman unhappy? Because her love is trampled on, degraded—the spiritual part of it unsatisfied. Women are made for love and without love life means nothing to them. Women are naturally finer than men, they aspire more strongly to what is beautiful and spiritual, but their souls can be coarsened, their love can be killed. They can be driven—they have been driven for centuries (through fear of men) into lies and deceits and sensuality or pretence of sensuality.
The great tragedy of the world is sensuality, and it may exist between man and wife just as much as between a man and a paid woman. I don't know whether the Bible condemns sensuality between man and wife, but it ought to. I remember a story byTolstoy in which the great moralist strips off our mask of hypocrisy and shows the hideous evil that results when a man and a woman degrade the holy sacrament of marriage. That is not love, but a perversion of love. How can God bless a union in which the wife is expected to conduct herself like a wanton or lose her husband? And she loses him anyway, for sensuality in a man inevitably leads him to promiscuousness. I know this to my sorrow!
Perhaps I am morbid. Perhaps I see life too clearly, know it too well. I do not want to be cynical or bitter. Oh, if only those old days of faith and trust could come back to me! When I think of what I was before I married Julian I see that I was almost like a child in my ignorance of the animal side of man's nature....
∵
Friday.
Dr. Owen thinks my trouble is shell shock, but he is mistaken. I have taken care of too many shell shock cases not to recognize the symptoms. Can I ever forget that darling soldier boy from Maryland who mistook me for his mother? “They're coming! They're coming!” he screamed one night; you could hear him all over the hospital. Then he jumped out of bed like a wild man—it took two orderlies and an engineer to get him back under the covers. I can see his poor wasted face when the little doctor came to give him a hypodermic. There he lay panting, groaning: “Oh those guns! Oh those guns! They break my ears!” Then he sprang up again, his eyes starting out of hishead: “Look out, there! On the ammunition cart! Look out, Bill! Oh my God, they've got Bill—my pal! Blown him to hell! Oh, oh, oh!” and he put his head down and sobbed like a woman. That is shell shock. I have nothing like that. I know what I am doing.
∵
There was a storm today with great crashing waves, then everything grew calm under a golden sunset. I take this as a good omen. I feel happier already. The infinite peace of Nature is quieting my soul. I love the sea. I can almost say my prayers to the sea.
∵
Saturday.
The swimming master pays me extravagant compliments every morning when I splash about in the pool. I know my body is beautiful. Thank God, I have never imprisoned it in corsets.
I love the exercises I do in my room every morning. They bring back the play spirit of my childhood. When I get out of bed I slip into a loose garment, then I lie on the floor and stretch my spine along the carpet—it's wonderful how this exhilarates one. After that I take deep breaths at the open window, raising and lowering my arms—up as I draw my breath in, down as I throw it out. Then I lie down again and lift my legs straight up, the right, the left, then both together. I do this twenty times, resting between changes and taking deep breaths.
I sit cross-legged on the floor with my feet on a red and gold cushion and rotate my waist like an oriental dancer. I stand on my head and hands and curve my body to right and left in graceful flexings. I do this no matter how cold it is. I do not feel the cold, for I am all aglow with health and strength. Then, before my bath, I do dumb-bell exercises in front of the mirror.
I remember dining with my husband one night in a pink lace peignoir—we had been married about three years—and during the dessert, I excused myself and went into my bedroom and, posing before a cheval glass, I let the peignoir slip off my shoulders, and stood there like a piece of polished marble, rejoicing in my youth and loveliness!
How I hated my husband that night! He had taught me to drink. He had made me sensual. He had not yet assumed the coarse, red-faced brutish aspect that he wore later, but he had a coarse, red-faced brutish soul. Alas! his body was still fine enough to tempt me. And his mind was devilishly clever enough to captivate my fancy. He took away my faith,even my faith in motherhood.That was why I chiefly hated him.
For three years my husband disgusted me with his unfaithfulness. No woman was too high or too low, too refined or too ignorant, for his passing fancy, if only she had physical attractiveness—just a little physical attractiveness. Anything for variety, shop girl or duchess, kitchen maid or society leader, they were all the same to Julian. He confessed to me that he oncemade love to a little auburn-haireddivorcéewhile they were in a mourning carriage going to her sister's funeral.Et elle s'est laissée faire!
He was like a hunter following his prey, like an angler fishing, he cared only for the chase, for the capture. That was the man I had married!
What a liar he was! He poisoned my mind with his lies, assuring me that all men were like himself, hypocrites, incapable of being true to one woman. And I believed him. The ghastly part of it is I still believe him. I can't help it. I have suffered too much. I can never have faith in another man, not even in Captain Herrick. That is why I shall never marry again—that is one reason.
∵
Sunday.
A wonderful day! I strolled along the board walk in my new furs, and met a young mother pushing a baby carriage with two splendid baby boys—one of them sucking at his bottle. Such babies! She let me hold the little fellow and I cuddled him close in my arms and felt his soft cheeks and his warm little chubby hands on my face. How I long for a baby of my own! I have thought—hoped—dreamed—
I went to the movies this evening with some friends and laughed so hard that I thought I would break something in my internal machinery.
When I returned to the hotel I found a letter from Captain Herrick—so manly and affectionate. He loves me! And I love him, more than anything in the world.I feel so well today, so glad to be alive that if Chris were here, I think I would promise him whatever he asked. I long to give myself entirely—my beauty, my passion, everything—to this man that I love.
And yet—alas!
Am I bold and vain to call myself beautiful?
∵
I find myself in my diary siding strongly with women against men in anything that has to do with emotional affairs, although I like men better than women. My tendency is always to blame the man. This is partly because of the hideous wrong that was done me by my husband and partly because I like to believe that, however blame-worthy women are in the sex struggle and, whateverfaiblessesthey may be guilty of, the fundamental cause of it all must be found in centuries of men's wickedness and oppression.
I have written about this with much feeling. In one place I say:
“Sometimes I feel as if there were a conspiracy of men—all kinds of men, including the most serious and respectable—against the virtue of attractive women. What a downfall of masculine reputations there would be if women should tell a little of what they know about men! Only a little! But women are silent in the main—through loyalty or through fear.”
And again:
“What happens to an attractive woman who is forced to earn her own living? In the business world? In the artistic world? Anywhere? I donot say that men are a pack of wolves, but—I had such a heartbreaking experience, especially in my brief musical career. I might have had a small part in grand opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, so one particular musical wolf assured me, if I would show a little sympathy with his desire to assist me in some of the rôles—occasional private rehearsals, and so on. Oh, the beast!... He gave the part to another girl (her voice did not compare with mine) who was less particular, and she made her début the next season. I went to work at Wanamaker's store!”
And still men pursued me.
I find this entry:
“Roberta took me to dinner yesterday at the Lafayette with her friend Mr. G——, a man of sixty, red-faced, fat and prosperous, the breezy Westerner type. He is giving a grand party at Sherry's and wants me to come. I said I was afraid I couldn't, my real reason being that I have no dress that is nice enough. He said nothing at the time, but kept his eyes on me, and this evening, when I got home, there was a perfectly stunning dinner gown—it must have cost $250.—with a note from Mr. G—— begging me to accept it as I would a flower, since it meant absolutely nothing to him.
“How I longed to keep that gown! I think I should have kept it if Seraphine had not happened in.
“'Isn't this lovely?' I said, holding it up. 'Do you think I can accept it?' Then I told her what Mr. G—— had said.
“She looked at me out of her kind, wise eyes.
“'Do you like him?'
“'Well—rather.'
“'Is he married or unmarried?'
“'I think he's married.'
“'Is he the man who gave Roberta her sables?'
“'Y-yes,' I admitted.
“She looked at me again.
“'I can't decide for you, Pen; you must settle it with your own conscience; but I am sure of one thing, that, if you accept this dress, you will pay for it, and probably pay much more than it is worth.'
“It ended in my sending the gown back and missing the dinner party, which made Mr. G—— furious, he blamed Roberta for my resistance, and a little later he threw her over. Like most men of that type who promise women wonderful things, he was hard, selfish and exacting—a cold-blooded sensualist. And poor Roberta, indolent and luxurious, was obliged to go back to work—up at seven and on her feet all day for twenty dollars a week. She had been spending twenty dollars a day!
“What is a woman to conclude from all this?” I wrote despairingly. “I know there are decent men in the world; there are employers who would never think of becoming unduly interested in their good-looking women assistants, who would never intimate that they had any claim upon the evenings of pretty stenographers or secretaries; there are lawyers who would never force odious attentions upon an attractive woman whose divorce case they mightbe handling—'Dear lady, how about a little dinner and a cabaret show tonight?'—There are old friends of the family, serious middle-aged men who would never take advantage of a young woman's weakness or distress; but, oh dear God! there are so many others who have no decency, no heart! A woman is desperate and must confide in someone. She has lost her position and is struggling to find another. She craves innocent pleasure—music, the theatre, the dance.She is so horribly lonely.Help me, counsel me, she pleads to some man whom she trusts—any man, the average man. Does he help her? Yes, on one condition, that she use her power as a woman. Not otherwise. This is a great mystery to women—how men, who are naturally kind, can be so cruel, so persistent, so infernally clever in forcing women to use their power for their own undoing.”
∵
Tuesday.
Here is an interesting thing that Kendall Brown once said on this subject—I recorded it in my diary along with other sayings of this erratic Greenwich Village poet and philosopher:
“The sex power of women is the most formidable power ever loosed upon earth,” he declared one evening. “Thrones totter before it. Captains of industry forget their millions in its presence.Cherchez la femme!This terrible power is possessed by every dark-eyed siren in a Second Avenue boarding house, by every languishing, red-lipped blonde earning eighteendollars a week in a department store. And she knows it! Others have vast earthly possessions, stores of science, palaces of art, knowledge without end—she has atresorthat makes baubles of these—she is the custodian of life,she has the eternal life power.”
How true that is!
Again I wrote:
“It may be argued that women are willing victims of this man conspiracy, I sayno!Every woman in her heart longs to loveoneman, to give herself tooneman, to be true tooneman. Even the unfortunate in the streets, if she receives just a little kindness, if she has only half a chance and is encouraged to right living by some decent fellow, will go through fire and water to show her gratitude and devotion. But men give women no chance. They pluck the roses in the garden and trample them under foot. Here is the great tragedy of modern life—men wish to change from one woman to another, whereas women do not wish to change. A characteristic sex difference between men and women is that men are naturally promiscuous, but women abhor the thought of promiscuousness.”
∵
Sunday.
A wave of repulsion runs over me as I quickly turn the pages of my life with Julian. And then a faint whisper comes to me: “Thetruth, you have promised to tell it—at least to your own soul.”
The truth!
Slowly I turn back to what I wrote in those unhappy days:
“Why do I live with him? I no longer love him. At times I despise him and his slightest touch makes me shiver with disgust, yet I continue to endure this life—why?
“It is because of the great pity I have for him. He is weak and helpless, almost child-like in his dependence on me. I am the prop which holds up the last shreds of his self-respect. If I left him, he would drift lower and lower, I know it. Sometimes I pass some awful creature staggering along the sidewalks. He is dirty and uncared for. Long matted hair falls across his bleared and sunken eyes. I say to myself: 'But for you, Penelope Wells, that might be Julian.' And this gives me courage to take up my burden once more.”
∵
And again I find:
“I am beginning to fear. I have been looking in my mirror and it seems to me that my face is taking on the lines of animalism that I see daily becoming deeper in Julian's face. Must I continue this degradation? If I were helping him to raise himself—but I am not, not really. It's too heavy a weight for me to bear. I am sinking ... sinking to his level. I cannot stand it. It is killing me....
∵
And again:
“I am too heartsick to write....
“I began this a week ago in agony of soul when I tried to set down my feelings about a horrible night with Julian, but I could not. He has been drinking—drinking for weeks—neglecting his business, breaking all his promises to me. What can I do? How can I help him, strengthen him, keep him from doing some irrevocable thing that will utterly destroy our home and make me lose him? In spite of his weakness, his neglect, his faithlessness, I cannot bear the thought of losing him. My pride is involved and—andsomething else!
“He had not come home for dinner that night and it was ten o'clock when I heard the door slam. Julian came into the living room and as soon as I saw him my heart sank. He dropped into a chair without speaking.
“'Tired, dear?' I said, trying to smile a welcome.
“'Dead beat,' he sighed and stared moodily into the fire.
“I went to him and rested my hand lightly on his head and smoothed back his hair as he liked me to do. He jerked away.
“'Wish you'd let me alone,' he muttered fretfully.
“I drew back, knowing what this irritability meant, and we sat in silence gazing into the glowing ashes. His fingers beat a nervous tattoo against the chair and presently, with some mumbled words, he rose and moved towards the door. Now I knew the fight was on, the fight with the Demon, drink, that was drawing him away from me. I followed him into the hall.
“'Don't go,' I pleaded, but he pushed my hand from the door-knob.
“'I'll be back soon,' he said, reaching for his hat.
“'Wait!' I whispered. Deep within I breathed a prayer: 'Brave heart, have courage; nimble wit, be alert; warm, white body hold him fast.'
“'Come back ... before the fire ... I want to talk to you,' I leaned against him caressingly, but I could feel no response as I nestled closer.
“'Don't you care for me any more?' I questioned tenderly.
“He was still unyielding, his brain was busy with the thought of the brown liquor that his whole system craved. Purposely I drew back my flowing sleeve and placed my warm flesh against his face. He turned to his old seat before the fire.
“'All right, I'll stay for ten minutes ... if what you say is important.'
“When he was once more comfortable, I brought a cushion to his chair and snuggled down at his feet, with my head resting against him. I drew his half reluctant hand around my throat, then I exerted every part of my brain force ... to hold him. Ceaselessly I talked of our old days together—camping trips to the Northern woods of Canada, wonderful weeks of idling down the river in our launch, days of ideal happiness, spent together. I appealed to his love for me, his old love, and the memory of our early married life. He was unresponsive, and I could feel the restlessness of his fingers in my hair.
“Presently he pushed me aside, not ungently thistime but, nevertheless, firmly. Once more the struggle began, and now I must rely on the old physical lure to hold him.... Well, I won. I kept him with me but was it worth such a sacrifice? As I think ... I burn with shame.”
There are many entries in my diary like this, for my life with Julian was full of scenes when I tried so hard ... so hard ... all in vain!
∵
Here is another picture:
“Last night Julian came home in a hilarious mood. His habitual sullen look had gone and he almost seemed the man who had won me—before I knew him as he really is.
“'Come along, Penny,' he laughed as he caught me in his arms. 'We're going to celebrate. Dress up in that lacy black thing—you are seduction itself in it.'
“His praise made me happy and, responding to his mood, I changed my clothes quickly, and we set forth joyfully in anticipation of a pleasant evening.
“Everything went well through the dinner, although I hesitated when Julian ordered wine; but I was afraid to oppose him or to speak a single jarring word.
“'Drink up, Penny, and have some more. My God, but you are glorious tonight!' he whispered as he leaned across the table.
“I smiled and emptied my glass, and soon I became as reckless and jovial as he. We went from one cabaret to another, laughing at everything. All the world was gay. There was no sorrow anywhere—only onegrand celebration. Julian was never so fascinating. I was proud of his good looks, of his wit, of his strength as he lifted me from the taxicab and almost carried me into the house.
“'My darling!' I breathed as my lips brushed his cheek, 'I love you!'
“'You see, Penny, how wonderful everything is when you are reasonable. If you will only drink with me once in a while, I'll never, never leave you.'
“He placed me gently in a chair. Soon the room began to whirl around ... and I knew no more....
“This morning my head ached and a thousand needles were piercing my eyes. I rang for the maid and asked for my husband.
“'He brought you home last night, but he went out again later and he hasn't come back,' she said and her eyes did not meet mine.
“'Was I—was I?' I stammered, shame possessing me.
“'Yes, Mrs. Wells, you were....'
“God! What have I gained? I have degraded myself without doing Julian any good. I have sunk to his level and have not even been able to keep him at my side. I hate him! I hate myself even more!”
∵
I find a pitiful entry that I made only a few months before Julian was killed. In a fit of anger he had left me, accusing me of being a drag on his life, saying that I was to blame for all his follies. He was goingto be rid of me now. So he took all the money in the house and went off—I should never see him again. At last I had what I had longed for, my freedom, he had given it to me, flung it in my face. And then—
This is what I wrote six weeks later:
“Well, I'm a failure all right. Never again may I think well of myself or feel that I am entitled to the joys of life. For I'm just a plain moral coward. I couldn't even keep what was forced on me—my liberty.
“Last Wednesday he came back, such a miserable wreck of a man, so utterly broken in every way that it would have moved a heart of stone. Inside of me is a sorrow too deep for expression, but somehow a peace also. Now I am sure that my bondage will never cease. But I couldn't refuse to take Julian back when I saw what a state he was in. His spiritual abasement was such an awful thing that I could not shame him by even letting him know that I understood it.”
∵
Monday.
I walked for hours beside the ocean, watching the waves, the sky, the soaring gulls,—trying to tire myself out, searching into my heart for the truth about my life—about my illness. I cannot find the truth. I have done what Dr. Owen told me to do as well as I can and—I do not see that any good has come of it. I have stirred up ghosts of the past—leering ghosts, and I hate them. I am sick of ignoble memories. I want to close forever the door on those unhappy years. I want to be well, to live a sane life, to have a little pleasure; but....
∵
Thursday.
I am tired of Atlantic City. I am going back to New York tomorrow. No doubt I have benefited by these days of rest and change. My bad dreams are gone and I have only heard the Voices once. Dr. Owen will say that his prescription has been efficacious, but that is not true. I knowTheyare waiting for me in the city, waiting to torture me. Then why do I go back? Because it is my fate. I am driven on by some power beyond my control—driven on!
Penelope will cross the ocean. Her husband will die very soon. There will be war soon. She will go to the war and honors will be conferred upon her on the battlefields. Then she will go down to horror—to terror!
How that prophecy of Seraphine haunts me! All of it has come true except the very last. Horror! Terror! These two are ever before me. These two already encompass me. These two will presently overwhelm me unless—unless—I don't know what.
Seraphine is in New York, I have meant to go to see her, but—I am afraid, I am afraid of what she will tell me!
New York, Saturday.
I must set down here—to ease my tortured brain—some of the things that have happened to me since I last wrote in this book, my confessional.
When I got back to town I found an invitation to go to a Bohemian ball, and I decided to accept.Vive la joie!So I put on a white dress and went with Roberta Vallis and that ridiculous poet Kendall Brown. It was the first time I had danced since my husband died and I enjoyed it.
Such a ball! They called it a Pagan Revel and it was! Egyptian costumes and a Russian orchestra. Some of the Egyptian slave maidens were dressed mostly in brown paint. Kendall says he helped dress them at the Liberal Club. Good heavens! Kendall's pose of lily white virtue amuses me. He went as a cave man with a leopard skin over his shoulders, and I danced with him two or three times. His talk reminds me of Julian. How well I know the methods of these sentimental pirates! What infinite patience and adroitness they use in leading the talk towards dangerous ground! How seriously they begin! With what sincerity and ingenuous frankness they proceed, and all the time they know exactly what they are doing, exactly what effects they are producing in a woman.
Kendall spoke of the modern dance in a detached, intellectual way. He dwelt on one particular development in the fox trot—had I noticed it?—there! that naval officer and the languishing blonde were doing it now—which seemed to him unæsthetic. It might be harmful in some cases, say to a Class A woman. Being curious, I asked what he meant by a “Class A” woman and this gave Kendall his opportunity to discourse on fundamental differences that exist among women, so he declares. I wish I knew if what he saysis true. He assures me he has it on the authority of a Chicago specialist, but I never put much dependence on anything that Kendall Brown says. If this is true the whole romantic history of the world will have to be rewritten and the verdicts of numberless juries in murder trialspassionelsought to be set aside.
The statement is that physical desire is universal among men, but not among women. One-third of all women, Kendall puts them in Class C, have no such desire; therefore, they deserve no particular credit for remaining virtuous. Another third of all women are in Class B, the normal class, where this desire is or is not present, according to circumstances. The last third of all women make up Class A, and these women, being as strongly tempted as men (or more so), are condemned to the same struggles that men experience, and, if they happen to be beautiful, and without deep spirituality, they are fated to have emotional experiences that may make them great heroines or artists, great adventuresses or outcasts.
I am sure I do not belong in Class C, IhopeI belong in Class B, but I am afraid—
∵
I knewTheywere waiting for me. Last night I heard Them again—after the ball. It was a horrible night! I shall write to Dr. Owen that I must see him at once.
Top
New York, February ——.
Dear Dr. Owen:
Did you think I had vanished from the earth? I know I ought to have reported to you a week ago, but—I fear Penelope Wells is an unreliable person. Forgive me! I am in great distress.
I will say, first, that Atlantic City did me a lot of good. I came back to town happier than I have been for months, in fact I was so encouraged that I decided to amuse myself a little, as you advised. Last night I went to a rather gay ball with some friends, and I was beginning to think myself almost normal, when suddenly—alas!
I had a strange experience this morning that frightens me. I was sitting at my desk writing a note when I glanced towards the window where there is a bowl of gold fish, three beautiful fish and two snails. It amuses me to watch them sometimes. Well, as I looked up, the sunshine was flashing on the little darting creatures and I felt myself drawn to the bowl, and for two or three minutes I stood there staring into it as if I expected to see something. Then,presently Ididsee something, I saw myself inside the bowl—in a kind of vision. I saw myself just as distinctly as I ever saw anything.
In order that you may understand this, doctor, I must explain that Captain Herrick took me home from the ball. It was two o'clock in the morning when we left the place and it had blown up cold during the rain, so that the streets were a glare of ice and our taxi was skidding horribly. When we got to Twelfth Street and Fifth Avenue there came a frightful explosion; a gas main had taken fire and flames were shooting twenty feet into the air. I was terrified, for it made me think of Paris—the air raids, the night sirens, the long-distance cannon. Captain Herrick saw that I was quite hysterical and said that I mustn't think of going up to Eightieth Street. I must spend the night at his studio in Washington Square, only a few doors away, and he would go to a hotel. I agreed to this, for I was nearly frozen.
When we entered the studio I was surprised to find what a beautiful place it was. It seems that Captain Herrick has rented it from a distinguished artist. There is a great high ceiling and a wonderful fireplace where logs were blazing. I was standing before this fireplace trying to warm myself, when there came a crash overhead, it was only a gas fixture that had fallen, but it seemed to me the whole building was coming down. I almost fainted in terror and Chris caught me in his arms, trying to comfort me. Then, before I realized what he was doing, he had drawn me close to him and kissed me.
This made me very angry. I felt that he had no right to take advantage of my fright in this way and I told him I would not stay in his studio a minute longer. And I did not. I almost ran down the stairs, then out into the street. It was foolish to get so agitated, but I could not help it. I went over to the Brevoort and spent the night there. You will understand in a minute why I am telling you all this, it has to do with the vision that I saw in the bowl of gold fish.
In this vision I saw myself enter Captain Herrick's studio just as I really did—in my white satin dress. Christopher was with me in his uniform. Then I saw myself lying on a divan and—Chris was bending over me, kissing me passionately. He kissed me many times, it seemed as if he would never stop kissing me—in the vision. All this was as clear as a motion picture. The extraordinary part of it is, that I neither resisted him nor responded in any way, I just seemed to be lying there—with my eyes closed—as if I were asleep.
I am very much distressed about this. Iknowthat I did not really lie down on Captain Herrick's divan—I would not have done such a thing for the world. IknowCaptain Herrick did not really kiss me in that passionate way, as I saw him kiss me in the bowl of gold fish, but Ifeelthat he did. I am afraid that he did. I can't get over the feeling that he did. This sounds like madness, doesn't it? A woman cannot be ardently kissed by a man without knowing it, can she? Perhaps I am mad—perhaps this is the way mad people feel.
Help me, doctor, if you can, and above allpleasesee Captain Herrick—he is an old friend of yours—and find out exactly what I did at his studio. I must know the truth. And I can't ask Chris, can I?
Yours in anguish of soul,
Yours in anguish of soul,
Penelope Wells.
P. S.—Please telephone me as soon as you get this and make an appointment to see me.
Top
During his thirty years of medical experience among neurasthenic and hysterical women, Dr. William Owen had never encountered a more puzzling case than the one before him on this brisk winter morning when he set forth to answer the urgent appeal of Penelope Wells. Here was a case fated to be written about in many languages and discussed before learned societies. A Boston psychologist was even to devote a chapter of his great work “Mysteries of the Subconscious Mind” to the hallucinations of Penelope W——. Poor Penelope!
When Dr. Owen entered her attractive sitting room with its prevailing tone of blue, he found his fair patient reclining on achaise longue, her eyes heavy with anxiety.
“It's good of you to come, doctor. I appreciate it,” she gave him her hand gratefully. “I expected to go to your office, but—something else has happened and I am—discouraged.” Her arm fell listlessly by her side. “So I telephoned you.”
“I am glad to come, you know I take a particular interest in you,” he smiled cheerily and drew up a chair. “We must expect these set-backs, but you areimproving. You show it in your face. And your letter showed it. I read your letter carefully—studied it and—”
“You haven't seen Captain Herrick?” she asked eagerly.
“Not yet. I have asked him to dine with me this evening.”
Penelope sighed wearily and twined her fingers together in nervous agitation.
“It's all so distressing. I can't understand it. Why did I see myself in that bowl of gold fish, so distinctly? Tell me—why?”
“You mustn't take that seriously, Mrs. Wells. These crystal visions are common enough—the books are full of them. It's a phenomenon of self-hypnotism. You are in a broken-down nervous condition after months of excessive strain—that's all, and these hallucinations result, just as colored shapes and patterns appear when you shut your eyes tight and press your fingers against the eye-balls.”
This did not satisfy her. “What I want to know is whether there is any possibility that I really did what I saw myself do in that vision? Do you think there is?”
“Certainly not. I believe you did exactly what you tell me you did—you spent a few minutes in Christopher's studio and then came away angry because he kissed you. By the way, I don't see why one kiss from a man who loves you and has asked you to marry him should have offended you so terribly, especially when you admit that you care for him?”
His tone was one of good-humored indulgence for capricious beauty, but Mrs. Wells kept to her seriousness.
“I didn't mean that I was really angry with Captain Herrick. I was angry at myself for the thrill of joy I felt when he kissed me and I was frightened by the wave of emotion that swept over me. I have been frightened all these days—even now!” She covered her eyes with her hand as if shrinking from some painful memory.
“Please don't agitate yourself. You must not get hysterical about this. You must have confidence in me and in your own powers of recuperation. And you must be sure to give me all the facts. Did I understand you to say that something else has happened—since you wrote me?”
“Yes, something quite unbelievable—it happened last night.”
“Tell me about it—quietly, just as if you were discussing somebody else.”
Penelope smiled wistfully. “How kind and wise you are! I will try to be calm, but—it is hard for me. I had a dream last night, doctor, and this dream is true. I have evidence that it is true. I did something last night without knowing it, and then I dreamed about it.”
“You did something without knowing it?”
“Yes, I put on a red dress and a black hat that I have not worn for four years, not since my husband died. For four years I have only worn black or white.”
“Do I understand you to say that you put on these things without knowing that you put them on?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know you did?”
“My maid told me so. You see my dream was so extraordinarily vivid—I'll give you the details in a minute—that, as soon as I awakened, I rang for Jeanne and questioned her. 'Jeanne,' I said, 'you know the red dress that I have not worn since my husband died?' She looked at me in a queer way and said: 'Madame is laughing at me. Madame knows quite well that she wore the red dress last night.' Then she recalled everything in detail, how I sent her to a particular shelf where this dress was folded away and got her to freshen up a ribbon and press the skirt where it was wrinkled. Jeanne is also positive that I put on my black hat. Then, she says, I went out; I left the house at five minutes to nine and came back about eleven. There is no doubt about it.”
“And you remember nothing of all this?”
“Nothing. So—so you see,” she faltered, then she leaned impulsively toward the doctor. “As an expert will you please tell me if it is possible for a woman to act like that unless her mind is affected?”
Dr. Owen tried to take this lightly. “I'm a fairly sane citizen myself, but if you asked me which suit I wore yesterday, I couldn't tell you.”
“You couldn't suddenly put on red clothes without knowing it, if you had been wearing black clothes for years, could you?” she demanded.
He laughed. “When it comes to clothes I might doanything. I might wear a straw hat in January. But I couldn't go out of the house without knowing it. Do you mean to tell me you don't remember going out of the house last night?”
“I certainly do not. I remember nothing about it. I would have sworn that I went to bed early,” she insisted.
“Hm! Have you any idea where you went?”
“Yes—I know where I went, but I only know this from my dream. I know I went to Captain Herrick's studio. You—you can ask him.”
“Of course. You haven't asked him yourself—you haven't telephoned, have you?”
“No, no! I would be ashamed to ask him.”
The doctor noted her increasing agitation and the flood of color mounting to her cheeks.
“Steady now! Take it easy. Have you any idea what you did at the studio, assuming that you really went there?”
Penelope hesitated, biting her lips. “I know what I saw myself do in the dream. I acted in an impossible way. I—I—here is a little thing—you know I never smoke, but in the dream I did smoke.”
“Have you ever smoked?”
“Yes, I did when my husband was living. He taught me. He said I was a better sport when I was smoking a cigarette.”
“But you haven't smoked since your husband's death?”
“Not at all. I have not smoked once since he died, not once—until last night.”
The man of science eyed her searchingly. “Mrs. Wells, you are not hiding anything from me, are you?”
“No! No! Of course not! Don't frown at me like that—please don't. I am trying my best to tell you the truth. Iknowthese things did not happen, but—”
Here her self-control left her and, with a gesture of despair, Penelope sank forward on a little table beside her chair and sobbed hysterically, her face hidden in her arms.
“There! There!” soothed Dr. Owen. “I was a brute. I have taxed you beyond your strength.”
“I can't tell you how grateful I am for your patience and sympathy,” murmured Penelope through her tears, and, presently, regaining her composure, she continued her confession.
“I want you to know everything—now. In my dream there was a scene of passion between Captain Herrick and myself. He held me in his arms and kissed me and I—I responded. We both seemed to be swept on by a reckless madness and at one moment Chris seized me roughly with his hand and—of course you think this is all an illusion, but—look here!” She threw open her loose garment and on her beautiful shoulder pointed to five perfectly plain purple marks that might have been made by the fingers of a man's hand.
“Extraordinary!” muttered the doctor. “Let me look at this closer. Have you got such a thing as a magnifying glass? Ah, thank you!”
For some moments he silently studied these strange marks on the fair young bosom, then he said very gravely: “Mrs. Wells, I want to think this over before giving an opinion. And I must have a serious talk with Captain Herrick.”