“American Paris is much amused these beautifully fine spring days with the ardent love-making of a recently divorced railway ‘baron.’ The lady is herself a divorcee of several years standing and is supposed to be engaged to a famous young literary man who is all unaware of what is going on.”
“American Paris is much amused these beautifully fine spring days with the ardent love-making of a recently divorced railway ‘baron.’ The lady is herself a divorcee of several years standing and is supposed to be engaged to a famous young literary man who is all unaware of what is going on.”
I know of five copies of this journal that were mailed with the paragraph marked. The five were received by Edna, Margot, myself, Mary Kirkwood, and Hartley Beechman. I have often mentally gone through the list of my acquaintances in search of the person who was responsible for this thing. I have some extremely unpleasant characters in that list. But I have never been able to suspect who did it. Not improbably the guilty person is some one in other respects not a bad sort—for almost any given cut from that vast universal, human nature, contains something of everything.
I had an engagement with Mary Kirkwood to walk in the Bois and have tea the afternoon of the day this paragraph reached me. When I arrived at her apartment she came down ready to go. Her costume was so lovely and I so delighted in her that I did not immediately note the heavy circles round her eyes nor the drawn expression of her mouth. I did not dream that she knew of the paragraph. I had read it and had dismissedit from my mind. The anonymous letter and the anonymous newspaper attack were old familiar stories to me, as they are to every man who attains distinction in active life. But as we drove toward the Bois I happened to catch a glimpse of her by way of the mirror in the frame of the taxi. I saw the evidence of suffering—and the wistful, weary look in her beautiful eyes.
“What is it?” said I. “You have had bad news?”
“Yes,” replied she.
“Can I help?”
“Don’t let’s talk of it now,” said she. “Wait until we are in the woods.”
Soon after we passed the entrance gates we descended and rambled away over the not too even ground, along the indistinct paths under the fascinating little trees. It was a gorgeous, perfumed May day. You know the Bois—how lovely it is, how artfully it mingles the wild and the civilized, suggesting nature as a laughing nymph with tresses half bound, half free, with graceful young form half clad, half nude. We rambled on and on, and after half an hour seated ourselves where there were leaves and the slim graceful trunks on every side and the sound of falling water like the musical voice of the sunbeams.
Mary drew a long sigh. “I feel better,” she said.
I looked at her. “Youarebetter. You have shaken it off.”
She met my gaze. “This is the last time,” she said. She looked away, repeated softly, thoughtfully, “the last time.”
“The last time?”
“We are not going to see each other any more. It is being misunderstood.”
I glanced quickly at her, and I knew she had read the paragraph. “That miserable scandal sheet!” said I. “No one sees it—and if they did why should we notice anything so ridiculous?”
She did not answer immediately. After a while she said: “Perhaps I ought not to say it, but—Hartley is sensitive. A copy of the paper got to him.”
“One to me. One to you. One to him.”
“No matter,” said she. “The mischief is done.”
“You do not give up a friend lightly,” rejoined I. The time to speak was at hand; I welcomed it.
“Hehas asked me to give you up,” said she simply. “And I shall do it.”
“But he has no right to ask such a thing,” protested I.
“Yes—he has. He and I are engaged—you knew that?”
“I imagined there was some sort of an engagement,” said I, still waiting for the right opening.
“There is only one sort of engagement possible with me,” replied she, with a certain gentle reproach.
“I know that,” said I. “But I remember the talk we had on the yacht.”
A flush overspread her paleness for a moment. Then she rose from the little rustic iron chair. “We must go,” said she.
“Wait,” said I. And I made a tactless, a stupid beginning: “You can’t deny that you do not love him.”
She turned coldly away and walked on, I following. “I think I’ll not stop for tea,” she said. “Will you hail the first taxi we meet?”
“You are offended—Mary?” I said. What a blundering fool love does make of a man!—unless he makes a fool of it.
She shook her head. “No—not offended. But when a subject comes up about which we may not talk there is nothing to do but drop it.”
In my desperation I reached for the right chord and struck it. “Do you know,” said I, “why I left the yacht abruptly?”
She halted, gave me a swift, frightened glance. The color flooded her face, then fled.
“Yes—that was why,” said I. “And—I’ve come as soon as I could.”
“Oh, why, why didn’t youtellme?” cried she. Then, before I could answer, “I don’t mean that. I understand.” Then, with a wild look around, “Whatam I saying?”
“I’ve come for you, Mary,” I went on. “And you are not going to rush into folly a second time—a greater folly. For—you do not love him—and you will care for me. You are right, we can’t discuss him—you and him. But we can, and must, discuss you and me.”
“I shall not see you again,” said she, looking at me with tranquil eyes that would have daunted me had I not known her so well, understood her so well—which is only another way of saying, had I not loved her so well.
“Why have you been seeing me day after day, when you knew that I loved you——”
“I did not know it,” replied she. “I did not think I could move you in the least—beyond a friendly liking.”
An inflection in her voice made me suddenly realize. “You came because it made you happy to come!” I cried triumphantly. I caught her hand. “You do care, Mary!”
She drew her hand away resolutely. “I shall keep my promise,” she said coldly. “I wish to hear no more.”
“You will not keep your promise. If necessary I’ll go to him and tell him—and he’ll release you.”
She gave me a look that withered. “You—do a cowardly thing like that!”
“No,” said I. “Butyouwill ask him to release you. You have no right to marry him. And I—I love you—and must live my life with you, or—I can think of nothing more futile and empty than life without you. And your life—would it not be futile and empty, Mary, if you tried to live it without me, when we might have been together? Together!—you and I! Mary, my love!”
“Why do you say those things, Godfrey?” she cried passionately. “To make me wretched? To make it harder for me to do what I must?”
“To make it impossible for you to do what you must not. Marry a man you don’t love—marry him when you love another! You’d be doing him the worst possible injury. No matter how much he loves you, he can recover from the blow of losing you. But the day to day horror of such a loveless marriage would destroy you both. He is a sensitive man. He would feelit, in spite of all your efforts to pretend. You—pretend! You could not do it.”
“After what has passed between him and me—the promises we’ve exchanged—the plans we’ve made—there is no going back! I don’t wish to go back. I——”
“Mary—I love you!” I cried. “I love you—and you love me. That’s the wall between you and any other man, between me and any other woman.”
She had waved to a passing taxi. It swept into the edge of the drive. She opened the door. “You are not coming with me,” she said. “And I shall not see you again.”
I laid my hand on her arm and forced her to meet my gaze. “You are hysterical now,” I said. “But you will be calm, and——”
She gave me a cold smile—it would have deceived those who do not understand the temperaments that can conceal themselves. “I am perfectly calm, I assure you,” said she.
“As you were the first time we ever met,” said I. “You’ve no right to marry any man but me, Mary. If you did you’d be wronging yourself—me—him most of all. That is the truth, and you will see it.”
She dragged her arm away, burst into violent sobs, sank upon the seat of the cab. I hesitated—obeyed a right instinct, closed the door, gave her address to the ignoring chauffeur, stood watching the cab whisk away. I was shaking from head to foot. But I had no fear for the outcome. I knew that I had won—thatwehad won.