But he had his vulnerable point.
When he saw money coming in faster than he could spend it, piling up at the bank, he felt that the time had come to change their way of living. The house that he had wanted to live in had been in his mind for years. It remained only to get an architect from Chicago and have the plans drawn for the stately mansion of his dreams.
Yes, one other thing—to persuade Mary that she too wanted it.
Mary had another son now—a frail infant in whom her life and thoughts seemed centred. It had been a question whether this child would live, and she still watched it with anxious care. She had not fully recovered her own health after its birth—she was thinner, looked much older. For the first time she was a little careless of her own appearance, thought nothing of her dress, and even her rich hair lost its lustre and sometimes straggled untidily from its heavy knot.
Laurence did not like this change in her—her total absorption in the nursery, her prevailing anxiety, which seemed to him exaggerated. His children had not reached the stage of development necessary to interest his mind. He was fond of them, proud of the two sturdy older ones, and concerned about the sickly youngest.But he could not see why Mary couldn't take a little interest in life outside them. It was partly his desire to give her another interest, something that she could share with him, that made him broach the subject of the house. He wanted a more social life—something that they could join in, beside mere parenthood. Magnificence would become Mary, if she only thought so. She was a beautiful and stately woman, in spite of her present neglect of herself, and would be in her proper place at the head of a big establishment. She ought to have more servants, to entertain, to wear rich dresses of silk, to be adorned with jewels. He wanted to see her so—he wanted more amusement, more gaiety. They were both young—why bury themselves in a mere daily round of work and care?
Mary at first opposed his idea, but languidly, from mere lack of interest in it. When he grew warm and petulant, and passionately accused her of not caring for anything that he did or for any of his wishes, she yielded the point without more ado. It was Laurence's money, of course he could do as he liked with it. She thought they were very comfortable as they were, but if he didn't like the house and wanted a bigger one, very well, let it be built. One house or another was much the same to her.
Laurence drove out with her one day to see the site he had selected—on the outskirts of the town, which was however rapidly growing. It was a big pasture, running from the road back to the edge of the lake—a rough piece of ground, thickly overgrown with weeds and with straggling willows under which the cattle gathered. But Laurence already saw it laid out inlawns and shrubbery, framing the great house of brick and stone that should dominate the town. Here would be the stables, there the gardens. There should be a boathouse on the lake, there should be a screen of rapidly-growing trees along the road, a splendid entrance with tall gates, a graveled drive leading to the house.
His face lit up as he eagerly explained it all to Mary, pointing with his whip, holding in the restive horses with a strong hand, turning the light buggy dexterously around the rough prairie hillocks and mud-holes. A bull came out of a group of cattle and looked at them sullenly with lowered head. The horses wheeled and started nervously. But Laurence with the lash of the whip and firm control, forced them to pass directly in front of the menacing animal, and continued his talk. Mary listened, wrapped up in her mantle, agreeing to all his suggestions....
It was a bright autumnal day, clear and crisp, with a strong breeze blowing. Yellow leaves from nut-trees and maples swirled in clouds along the ground and covered the road. Laurence wanted to drive a little further into the country; Mary assented, saying that she must be at home by six o'clock.
"You ought to get out more—even this little drive has done you good, you have some colour," Laurence said, leaning over to kiss her cheek.
She smiled, shut her eyes with pleasure, feeling the rush of the wind as they drove against it.
"Yes, I'd like to drive every day—you manage them so well."
"Then we will! I'll try to get away for an hour eachday, if you'll come, Mary.... But you always have some tiresome thing to keep you at home."
"Do you call the children tiresome things?" she asked, smiling.
"Well—I do, sometimes," he confessed. "They take so much of you.... I'd like to drive you away somewhere, now, away from all of it, for a while. I wish we could run away together. I hardly ever see you, Mary!"
"You see me every day, except when you're away—I should think you must be tired seeing me."
"I never see you alone, except at night and then you're always tired.... I want things arranged so you won't have so much to do, so that we can have an evening together sometimes—go out somewhere or be alone together, without your having to go and sit with some baby or other," said Laurence with sudden peevishness.
"Well, you know, bringing up a family isn't all pleasure," Mary reminded him with mild reproof.
"I should say it wasn't!... But there might be a little. You might think about me, once in a while, and put on a pretty dress and sing to me, the way you used to. You'll be getting old if you keep on this way!"
"With three children you can't expect me to look like a girl," Mary protested.
One of the trotters shied at a paper blown across the road, both horses reared and the light buggy rocked dangerously. Laurence lashed them, stinging blows, then checked their leap with a wrench, pulling them back on their haunches.
"Laurence! You shouldn't lose your temper with the horses," remonstrated Mary.
"They have to know who's master," he answered curtly. "But you make me angry, talking that way about yourself. You're not thirty yet, and you want to live like an old woman! Why don't you put on a cap and spectacles?"
"Well, my mother wore a cap when she was thirty. At thirty a woman can't pretend to be young," said Mary, smiling.
"Pooh, your mother! A woman with your looks, too! You'd be more beautiful than ever if you'd take care of yourself. You haven't ever worn that silk dress I brought you months ago."
"Oh, I haven't had it made up—it's much too gay, Laurence! You know I never wear colours."
"Well, you ought to.... I should think you might want to please me, once in a while.... But you women! All you think about is children, and a man can go hang himself, for all you care. You wouldn't even want him around, if you could have children without him!"
"How you talk! Anybody would think you didn't care about the children!"
"I care a lot more about you than I do about them—but it isn't the same with you. What's theuseof having children if nobody's going to enjoy life—if everybody's just to go along doing their duty and raising up another generation to do the same thing? Hey, what's the use of it?"
"I don't think the use of it is enjoyment," said Mary. "It isn't meant to be."
"Just like you! How do you know what it's meant to be? Have you had any private revelation from God about it?... Well, I tell you that I don't see any usein life if there isn't any pleasure in it—and that I'm going to enjoymylife, anyhow, and when I don't, it will be time to quit!"
"Laurence, you're a pagan," said Mary gravely.
"A pagan is better than a psalm-singing hypocrite, that wants to take all the pleasure out of life!"
"Do you mean me by that?" she enquired gently.
"No, I don't mean you! You're not a hypocrite, whatever else you are.... If you'd only unbend a little, once in a while, and let yourself have a good time, you'd be all right. But you got a lot of foolish ideas into your head when you were a girl—and I know who put them there too. And you hang onto them like grim death, you're so obstinate you won'tevergive up an idea or anything else. You won't change—no matter if you see it makes me unhappy—"
He broke off suddenly, and for some moments they were both silent. They were now far beyond the town, out on the open prairie. Great fields of stubble from which the grain had been reaped, stretched on either side. In spite of the bright sun and the fresh wind, the outlook over these endless yellow-brown flats, broken by dull-green marsh or dark belts of new-turned soil, was not cheerful. Dreary, rather, and sombre was the prairie, its harvest yielded, waiting now for the sleep of winter. In the distance, a grey smudge on the horizon showed where lay the great sprawling smoky city. With his eyes fixed on this Laurence said:
"But I've known a long time that you don't really care anything about me."
"You shouldn't say such things—you know better.... It's only that we don't look at life in the same way."
"And you're contented to have it so! But I'm not. Why can't you see it more as I do, Mary? I think you would, if you cared about me."
"No, I can't, you are so personal about it. You want things so much for yourself, and you will always be disappointed, Laurence. Life isn't given us for our personal pleasure."
"You talk like a book or an old greyhead.... I don't think it's living at all to slide through life thinking about something else—not to want anything for fear you'll be disappointed! I think that's cowardly. It's better to try for things."
"Yes, but what things? I can't care much about worldly things—houses to live in and clothes to wear. Ican't, Laurence."
"You seem to think that's all I care for," he said bitterly. "But you don't understand me and don't try to. What I wanted isn't houses and clothes! It was something very beautiful, to me. Something that would last for our whole life—and beyond it. But you couldn't see it. Even now you don't know what I mean."
The suffering in his voice touched her, she leaned toward him and laid her cheek to his.
"I wish I could be what you want—I wish you could be happy," she said.
"Youcouldbe, if you wanted to be!... No, I'm not happy, and I can't be contented this way, Mary, I warn you, I can't be!"
The menace of his suppressed violence left her silent and impassive. He too fell into moody silence, and so they returned to the house.
That night the whole town was roused from sleep, to see a red glare in the sky where by day hung the grey smudge over the city. The news came over the wires—Chicago was burning. A strong wind blew the smoke over the prairie, the town was enveloped in a dim haze. Trains came in, bringing refugees. Later, crowded into all sorts of vehicles, they poured in. The town opened its houses to the flood of terrified homeless people. All night blazed that red light in the sky. The wires went down, but each new arrival brought a story of more complete destruction, of whole streets of wooden houses bursting into flame at once, of brick buildings melting like wax in the furnace. By morning the city of half a million people was in ashes.