"Then you are weak—simply weak!—You act as if I were proposing something actually wicked. It's not wicked at all; it's simply a practical benefit. Marriage without love might be wicked if there were any chance left of combining it with love; but now—! It's simply picking up pieces, making the best of things—straight commonsense...."She might still have had her way against him, as long as he continued to base his appeal on commonsense. But he changed his tactics again, this time as a matter of impulse. He had been slowly walking toward her in the course of his argument and now stood close by her, talking straight down into her eyes, till suddenly her mere physical nearness put an end to speech and thought alike. Something of her old physical attraction for him, which had been much stronger than in the case of Madge, returned to him with a force for the moment irresistible. There was something about her wide eyes, her parted lips, her bosom slightly heaving with the effort of argument.... He put his hand on her shoulder and slowly yet irresistibly drew her to him. He bent his head till their lips touched.So they stood for neither knew how long. Seconds flew by like years, or was it years like seconds? Sense of time was as completely lost as in sleep; indeed, their condition was very much like that of sleep. They had both become suddenly, acutely tired of life and had found at least temporary rest and refreshment. Neither of them was bothered by worries over the inevitable awakening; neither of them even thought of it, yet.As for Beatrice, she was for the moment bowled over by the discovery that some one cared for her enough to clasp her to his bosom and kiss her. What had she wanted all these years, except to be loved? A wave of mingled self-pity and self-contempt swept over her. She felt suddenly weak; her knees trembled; what did that matter, though, when James was there to hold her up? She needed strength above all things, and James was strong above all things. Tears smarted in her eyes and streamed unheeded down her cheeks."I was so lonely," she whispered at last, raising her welling eyes to him. "I have been alone so long ... so long....""James," she began again after a while, "life is so horrible, isn't it?""It is. Ghastly.""Oh, itisgood to find some one else who thinks so!""Yes, I know.""Anything is good—anything—that makes it easier to forget, isn't it?""Yes. And we're going to try to forget together."Presently the moment came when they had to break apart, and they did it a little awkwardly, not caring to look at each other very closely. They sat down on the rail, side by side but not touching, and for some time remained silently busy regaining old levels and making new adjustments. There was considerable to adjust, certainly. At last James looked at his watch and announced that it was nearly lunch time."When shall we get married?" he inquired, brusk and businesslike. It may have been only his tone that Beatrice involuntarily shuddered at. She told herself it was, and then reviled herself for shuddering. It was better to be prosaic and practical."Oh, as soon as possible.... Now—any time you say.""Yes, but when? When shall we tell people?""Oh, not just yet...." she objected, almost automatically."Why not? Why not right now—before the other?""You think...?""Yes—every moment counts." He meant that the sooner the thing came out the better were their chances of concealment, and she understood him. Yes, that was the way to look at things, she reflected; might as well do it well, if it was to be done at all. She warmed up to his point of view so quickly that when his next question came she was able to go him one better."And the other—the wedding? In about a fortnight, should you say?""Oh, no, not for a month, at least. At the very least. It must be in England, you see.""In England?""Yes, that's the way it would be...." If we were really in love with each other, of course she meant. He looked at her with new admiration.They made a few more arrangements. Their talk was pervaded now with a sense of efficiency and despatch. If they could not call reasons by their real names they couldcall steamships and railroads by theirs, and did. In a few minutes they had everything planned out.A maid appeared and announced lunch. They nodded her away and sat silent for a moment longer. It seemed as if something more ought to be said; the interview was too momentous to be allowed to end with an announcement of a meal. The sun beat down on them from the zenith with the full unsubtle light of noonday, prosaically enough, but the wind, blowing as hard as ever, whistled unceasingly around their exposed tower and provided a sort of counter-dose of eerieness and suggestiveness; it gave them the sense of being rather magnificently aloof from the rest of the world. The sun showed them plainly enough that they were on a summer-cottage verandah, but the wind somehow managed to suggest that they were really in a much more romantic place. Probably this dual atmosphere had its effect on them; it would need something of the sort, at any rate, to make James stand up and say aloud, in broad daylight:"Beatrice, don't you feel a sort of inspiration in fighting against something you can't see?""Yes, James," she answered slowly; "I believe I do—now.""Something we can neither see nor understand, but know is wrong and can only protest against with the whole strength of our souls? Blindly, unflinchingly?""Yes.""Inevitably?""Yes.""Even if uselessly?""Yes." Her eyes met his squarely enough; there was no sign of flinching in them."I'm glad you understand. For that's going to be our life, you know.""Yes, James; that shall be our life." They got up and took each other's hands for a moment, as though to seal their compact, looking each other steadfastly in the eyes meanwhile. They did not kiss again.CHAPTER VIIIONE THING AND ANOTHERSeldom have we longed for anything so much as for the pen of a Fielding or a Thackeray to come to our aid at the present moment and, by means of just such a delightful detached essay as occurs from time to time in "Tom Jones" or "The Virginians," impart a feeling of the intermission that at this point appears in our story. There is nothing like a digression on human frailty or the condition of footmen in the reign of King George the Second to lift the mind of a reader off any particular moment of a story and, by throwing a few useful hints into the discourse, prepare him ever so gently to be set down at last at the exact point where he is to take it up again. That is making an art of skipping, indeed. We admire it intensely, but realize how impossible it is in this case. Not only is such a thing frankly outside our power, but the prejudice of the times is set against it, so our only course is to confess our weakness and plod along as best we may.Why on earth every human being who ever knew him should not have known of his engagement as soon as it occurred—or long before, for that matter—Harry could never discover. That they did not, in most cases, was due partly to reasons which could have been best explained by James and partly to the fact that the person who is most careless of concealment in such matters is very often the one who is least suspected. And then so many men had been after Madge! So that when the great news burst upon the world at the dinner that Mrs. Gilson could not decently be prevented from giving, the surprise, in the words of ninety-nine per cent. of their well-meaning friends, was as great as the pleasure.That occurred about a week after James' sudden departure from Bar Harbor, a phenomenon amply accounted for by business. Trouble in the Balkans—there always was trouble in the Balkans—had resulted, it appeared, inOrders; and Orders demanded James' presence at his post. This from Beatrice, with impregnable casualness. Beatrice was really rather magnificent, these days. When she received her invitation to Mrs. Gilson's dinner she vowed that nothing should take her there, but the next moment she knew she would go; that nothing should keep her from going. Obviously the first guiding principle of destiny-fighting was to go on exactly as if nothing had happened.About a week after the dinner Harry received a note from his brother in New York saying that he was engaged to Beatrice; that the wedding was to take place in London in October and that he hoped Harry would go over with him and act as his best man. "I refrained from mentioning it before," added James, "because I did not want to take the wind out of your sails. We are also enabled by waiting to reap the benefit of your experience; I refer to the Gilsons. We are taking no risks; it will appear in the papers on Wednesday the sixteenth, with Beatrice in Bar Harbor and me in New York. Beatrice sails the following Saturday."That was all very well, if a little hard. James and Beatrice were both undemonstrative, businesslike souls; the arrangement was quite characteristic.Beatrice in due time sailed for home, and James followed her some three weeks afterward. Harry went with him, returning immediately after the wedding by the fastest ship he could get; he was out of the country just eighteen days, all told. The voyage over was an uneventful one; the ship was nearly empty and Harry worked hard at his new play. He had rather looked forward to enjoying this last week of unmarried companionship with his brother, but somehow they did not seem to have more than usual to say to each other when they were together. Rather less, in fact."You're looking low, seems to me," said Harry after they had paced the wet deck in silence for nearly half of a certain evening."I've been rather low, lately.""What—too much work?""Oh, I don't know. It's nothing.""Not seasick, are you?""I hope not." Both gave a slight snort expressive of amusement. This was occasioned by the fact that AuntCecilia had offered James the use of her yacht—or rather the largest and most sumptuous of her yachts—for his wedding trip, and he and Beatrice were going to cruise for two months in the Mediterranean. As for the time—well, he was simply taking it, defying McClellan's to fire him if they dared."It's funny, isn't it, our getting engaged at the same time," Harry went on after a moment. It was the first reference he had made to the coincidence."Oh, yes," said James, "it's one of the funniest things I can remember.""And the funniest part of it is that neither of us seems to have suspected about the other. At least I didn't.""Oh, neither did I; not a thing.""And practically nobody else did either, apparently.""No. It might have been just the other way round, for all anybody knew—you and Beatrice, and Madge and me."Harry could not but take away from that conversation and from the whole voyage a vague feeling of disappointment. Since he heard of James' engagement he had entertained an elusive conviction that love coming into their lives at so nearly the same time should somehow make a difference for the better between them. When he tried to put this idea into words, however, he found his mind mechanically running to such phrases as "deeper sympathy" and "fuller understanding," all of which he dismissed as sentimental cant. It was easy to reassure himself on all grounds of reason and commonsense; James and he were in no need of fuller understandings. And yet, especially after the above conversation, he could not but be struck by a certain inapproachability in his brother which for some reason he could not construe as natural undemonstrativeness.The wedding took place in an atmosphere of unconstrained formality. Harry was not able to get a boat until two days after it, and he could not resist the temptation of writing Madge all about it that very night, though he knew the letter could hardly reach her before he did:—"It was quite a small wedding, chiefly because, as far as I can make out, there are only some thirty-odd dukes in the kingdom. It occurred at the odd hour of 2:30, but that didn't seem to prevent any one from enjoying thefood, and more especially the drink, that was handed around afterward at Lady Archie's. Lord Moville, Beatrice's uncle, was there and seemed greatly taken with James. After he had got outside about a quart of champagne he amused himself by feeling James' biceps and thumping him on the chest and saying that with a fortnight's training he'd back him for anything he wanted against the Somerset Cockerel, or some one of the sort, most of which left James rather cold, though he bore it smiling. His youngest daughter (Lord M.'s), a child of about eighteen, apparently the only living person who has any control over him, was quite frank about it. 'Fido's drunk again,' she announced pleasantly to all who might hear. 'Oh, so's Ned,' said Jane Twombly, Beatrice's sister; 'there's no use trying to help it at weddings, I find!' Just then Lady Archie came running up in despair. 'Oh, Sibyl,' she said, 'do try to do something with your father. He's been threatening to take off his coat because he says the room's too hot, and now he wants old Lady Mulford to kiss him!' And off darts Sibyl into the dining-room where her father and Ned Twombly stand arm in arm waving glasses of champagne and shouting 'John Peel' at the top of their lungs. 'Fido!' she shouted, running straight up to him, 'put down that glass directly and come home! Instantly! Do you hear? You're disgracing us! The next time I take you out to a wedding you'll know it!' 'Oh, Sib,' pleaded the noble Marquis, 'don't be too hard on us! Only drinkin' bride's health—must drink bride's health—not good manners not to. Sib shall drink with us; here's a glass, Sib—for his view, view HALLO! would awaken the dead—' 'Fido, do you know what you're doing? You're ruining your season's hunting! Gout-stool and Seidlitz powders all the winter for you, if you don't go easy!' But still Fido refused to obey till at last the dauntless child went up and whispered something in his ear, after which he calmed down and presently followed her out of the house, gently as a lamb. 'She threatened to tell her mother about the woman in Wimbledon,' explained Jane to me. 'Of course every one knows all there is to know about her, including Aunt Susan, but he hasn't found that out yet, and it gives Sib rather a strangle-hold on him. Good idea, isn't it? Marjorie—Ned's sister, you know—has promised to work the same trick for me with Ned, when the time comes.'I hope I am not more straight-laced than my neighbors, but do you know, the whole atmosphere struck me as just a teeny-weeny bit decadent...."After he reached home Harry saw that it would be quite useless, what with Madge and other diverting influences, to try to finish his play in New Haven, so he repaired to the solitudes of the Berkshires for the remainder of the autumn. He occupied two rooms in an almost empty inn in Stockbridge, working and living for two months on a strict régime. It was his habit to work from nine till half-past one. He spent most of the afternoon in exercise and the evening in more writing; not the calm, well-balanced writing of the morning, but in feverish and untrammeled scribbling. Each morning he had to write over all that he had done the night before, but he found it well worth while, discovering that reason and inspiration kept separate office hours.Meanwhile Madge, though freed from the trammels of Miss Snellgrove, was very busy at home with her trousseau and other matters. She was supremely happy these days; happy even in Harry's absence, because she could feel that he was doing better work than he could with her near, and that provided just the element of self-sacrifice that every woman—every woman that is worth anything—yearns to infuse into her love. She had ample opportunity of trying her hand at writing love letters, but, to tell the truth, she was never very good at it. Neither was Harry, for that matter; possibly because he was now putting every ounce of creative power in him into something the result of which justified the effort much better.... But suppose we allow some of the letters to speak for themselves.Dear Inamorato: (wrote Madge one day in November) I'm not at all sure that that word exists; it looks so odd in the masculine and just shows how the male sex more or less spoils everything it touches. However! I've been hemming towels all day and am ready to drop, but after I finish with them there will be only the pillow cases to attend to before I am done. By the bye, what do you suppose arrived to-day?Four(heavily underscored) mostexquisite(same business) linen sheets, beautifully hemstitched and marked and from who ("GoodHeavens, and the woman taught school!" exclaimed Harry) do you think? Miss Snellgrove! Wasn't it sweet of her? That makes ten in all. Everybody has been lovely and we shall do very well for linen, but clothes are much more difficult. In them, you see, I have to please not only myself but Mama and Aunt Tizzy as well. I went shopping with both of them yesterday, and they were possessed to make me order an evening gown of black satin with yellow trimmings which was something like a gown Aunt Tizzy had fascinated people in during the early eighties. It wasn't such a bad idea, but unfortunately it would have made me resemble a rather undersized wasp. We compromised at last on a blue silk that's going to have a Watteau pleat and will fall in nice little straight folds and make me look about seven feet high. Aunt Tizzy is too perfectly dear and keeps telling me not to scrimp, but her idea of not scrimping is to spend simplymillionsand always go ahead and get the very best in theextravagantestway, and my conscience rebels. I hope to pick up some things at the January sales in New York; if you are there seeing about your play at that time we can be together, can't we? I still have to get a suit and an afternoon gown and various other things the nature of which I do not care to specify!I run over and look in on Aunt Selina every time I get a chance. She issodear and uncomplaining about being left alone and keeps saying that having me in the house will be as good as having Beatrice, which is absurd, though sweet. Heavens, how I tremble when I think of trying to fill her shoes!I must stop now, dearest, so good-night. Ever your own,MadgeO O O O O OThose O's stand for osculations. Do you know how hard it is to kiss in a small space? Like tying a bow-knot with too short a piece of ribbon.For Heaven's sake, my good woman (wrote Harry in reply), don't write me another letter like that! How do you think I feel when, fairly thirsting for fire and inspiration and that sort of thing, I tear open an envelope from you and find it contains an unusually chatty Woman'sColumn? How do you suppose poor old D. Alghieri would have written his Paradiso if Beatrice had held forth on the subject of linen sheets, and do you or do you not suppose it would have improved Petrarch's sonnets if Laura had treated him to a disquisition on the ins and outs of the prices of evening gowns?Remember your responsibility! If you continue to deny me inspiration my play will fail and you will live in disgrace and misery in the basement of a Harlem tenement in an eternal smell of cabbages and a well-justified fear of cockroaches, with one cracked looking-glass to see your face in and dinner served up in a pudding basin!The c. of my b. (that was his somewhat flippant abbreviation of child of my brain) is coming along well enough, considering. The woman is shaping quite well. What was the name you suggested for her the last time I saw you? If it was Hermione, I'm afraid it won't do, because every one in the theater, from Bachmann down to the call-boy, will call it Hermy-one, and I shall have to correct them all, which will be a bad start. I call her Mamie for the present, because I know I can't keep it. What would be the worst possible name, do you think? Hannah? Florrie? Mae? Keren-happuch and Glwadwys also have their points.Please forgive me for being (a) short-tempered; (b) tedious. I was going to tear up what I have written, only I decided it would not be quite fair, as you have a right to know just how dreadful I can be, in case you want to change your mind about February.—What a discreetly euphemistic phrase!—It has grown fearfully cold here, and we had the first skating of the winter to-day. I got hold of some skates and went out and, fired by the example of two or three people here who skate rather well, I swore I would do a 3-turn or die in the attempt. The latter alternative occurred. I am writing this on the mantelpiece.Farewell. Write early and write often, and write Altman catalogues if you must, but not if you are interested in the uplift of drahmah. Give my best to Grandmama, and consider yourself embraced.Io El Rey.Madge's reply to this missive was telegraphic in form andbrief in substance. It read simply "Sorry. Laura." "I would have signed it Beatrice," she explained in her next letter, "only I was afraid you might think it was from your sister-in-law Beatrice, and there's nothing forherto be sorry about."Another letter of Harry's, written a few weeks later, shows him in a different mood:Querida de mis ojos—You don't know Spanish but you ought to gather what that means without great effort—I have weighty news for you. I dashed down to New York on the spur of the moment day before yesterday and showed the first draught of my completed MS to Leo. My dear, he said IT WOULD DO! You don't know what that means, of course; no one could. You all think I have simply to write and say 'Here, play this,' and it is played. You know nothing of how it hurts to put ideas on paper, nothing of the dead weight of responsibility, the loneliness, the self-distrust, the hate of one's own work that the creative brain has to struggle against. Consequently, my dearest, you will just have to take it on trust from me that an interview such as I had yesterday with Bachmann is nothing less than a rebirth. He even advised me not to try to change or improve it much, saying that what changes were needed could best be put in at rehearsals, and I think he's dead right. So I shall do no more than put the third act in shape before I hand the thing over to him and dash home for the holidays. Atmosphere of Yule logs, holly berry and mistletoe!I really am absurdly happy. You see, it isn't merely success, or a premonition of success (for the first night is still to come); it's in a way a justification of my whole life. If this thing is as good as I think it is, it will amount to a sort of written permit from headquarters to love you, to go on thinking as I do think about certain things and to regard myself—well, it's hard to put into words, but as a dynamic force, rather than as a lucky fool that stumbled across one rather good thing. Not that I shouldn't do all three anyway, to be sure!—And every kind friend will say he knew I would 'make good'; that there never was any doubt my 'coming into my own,' and all the rest. Oh, Lord, if people only knew! But thank Heaven they don't!I am becoming obscure and rhapsodic. I seem to 'see'things to-night, like Tilburina in the play. I see strange and distorted conceptions of myself, for one thing; endless and bewildering publicity. Oh, what a comfort it is to think that no matter what I may be to other people, to you I shall always be simply the same stupid, bungling, untidyHarry!I love you with an intensity that beggars the power of human expression.I did a bracket this afternoon.Madge never received a letter from him that pleased her more. She was fully alive to its chaotic immaturity, and she smiled at the way he unconsciously appeared to shove his love for her into second place. But there was that about it that convinced her of his greatness as nothing had yet done. It seemed to her that when he spoke of the loneliness of genius and in his prophetic touch at the end about the different ways in which people would regard him he spoke with the true voice of a seer. It all made her feel very humble and solemn. To think that Harry, her Harry, that tall thin thing with the pink cheeks and dark brown hair and the restless black eyes, should be one of the great men of his day, perhaps one of the great ones of all time! Keats—Harry was already older than Keats when he died, but she thought he had much the same temperament; Congreve—she knew how he loved Congreve; Marlowe—she had often compared his golden idealism to that of Marlowe; Shakespeare...? No, no—of course not! She knew perfectly well he was no Shakespeare.... Still, why not, in time?... And anyway, Marlowe, Congreve, Keats—Wimbourne!So she dreamed on, till the future, which hitherto she had seen as merely smiling toward her, seemed to rise and with solemn face beckon her to a new height, a place hard to reach and difficult to hold, but one whose very base seemed more exalted than anything she had yet known....Now Madge was, on the whole, a very fairly modern type of young woman. Her outlook on the world was based on Darwin, and she held firmly to such eugenic principles as seemed to flow directly from the doctrine of evolution. She had long since declared war to the death on disease, filth and vice, to which she added a lesser foe generally known as "suppression of facts," and she had done a certainamount of real work in helping those less fortunate than herself to the acquisition of health, cleanliness, virtue and "knowledge." She thought that women would get the vote some day, though they weren't ready for it yet, and hadn't joined the Antis because there was no use in being a drag on the wheels of progress, even if you didn't feel like helping. She believed in the "social regeneration" of woman. It was quite clear to her that in the early years of the twentieth century women were beginning—and only just beginning—to take their place beside men in the active work of saving the race; "why, you had only to look at Jane Addams and Florence Nightingale to see—" et cetera.And yet, and yet....It was at least as fine a thing to become Mrs. Harold Wimbourne and devote a lifetime to ministering to one of the great creative geniuses of the time as to be a heavy gun on her own account, was what she meant, of course. But that wasn't quite enough. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Harry were not one of the great creative geniuses of the age; suppose there were no question of Congreve, Keats, Wimbourne and so forth; suppose being his wife meant being plain Mrs. Harold Wimbourne and nothing more—what then?"Well, I suppose I'd still rather be plain Mrs. H. W., if you will have it!" she retorted petulantly to her relentless self. But she soon became glad she had brought herself to the point of admitting it, for, the issue definitely settled, her mind became unaccountably peaceful....New Year's was scarcely over when rehearsals began, and Harry was in for another period of lounging in shrouded orchestra chairs and watching other people air their ideas, or lack of ideas, on the child of his brain. His lounging was now, however, quite freely punctuated by interruptions and not infrequently by scramblings over the footlights to illustrate a fine point. This rather bored the actors; Harry had become almost uncomfortably acute in matter of stage technique. But they had to admit that his suggestions were never foolish or unnecessary.In due time came the first night. It is no part of our purpose to describe "Pastures New" or its success in this place. If—which is improbable—you have to refresh yourmind on it, you have only to ask one of your journalistic friends—don't pretend that you haven't at least one friend on a newspaper—to show you the files of his sheet. There you will see it all, in what scholars call primary sources:—"New Yorkers Roar With Delight at Feminist Satire," and all the rest of it, like as not on the front page. Harry hated its being called a satire; that was such a cheap and easy way of getting out of it. For when all was over, when people had cried with laughing at its whimsical humor, poked each other with delight at its satirical touches—oh yes, there were plenty of them—quoted its really brilliant dialogue, sat enthralled by its swift and compelling action—for Harry had made good his promise that this play should have "punch"—when they had done all these things to their heart's content, still not a person saw the play who did not come away from it more fully convinced than ever he had been of—well, of what you had only to look at Jane Addams and Florence Nightingale to see. For there were really great moments in the play; moments when no one even thought of laughing, though one was almost always made to laugh the moment after. That was Harry's way, that was his power, to "hit 'em hard and then make 'em laugh just as they begin to feel smarty in the eyes," as Burchard the stage manager not unaptly put it."Pastures New" ran for six months in New York alone, and no one laughed harder or less rancorously at it than the "feminists" themselves—or all of them that were worth anything.Of course both Harry and Madge were tired to death by the time the wedding became imminent, and the final preparations were made in what might be called broad impressionistic strokes.Madge had at first intended to have a small informal reception in her own house, but Aunt Tizzy had been so disappointed that she had at last consented to let it be at her aunt's and attain the dimensions of a perfect tomasha—the phrase is her own—if it wanted to. Why not? Aunt Tizzy's house could hold it."Besides, my dear," argued Harry, "it's only once in a lifetime, after all. If you marry again as a widow you'll only have a silly little wedding, without a veil and no bridesmaids, and if we're divorced you won't have anywedding at all, worth mentioning. Much better do it up brown when you have the chance.""What about music?" asked Harry as the two stood in final consultation with the organist on the night of the rehearsal. "I've always wondered why people had such perfectly rotten music at weddings, but I begin to see now. Still, if wecouldhave something other than Lohengrin and Mendelssohn I think I could face marriage with a little better heart. What about it, dear?"Madge groaned. "Oh, anything! The Star-Spangled Banner, if you want!""I think I can arrange it," said the organist smiling, and he played the march from "Tannhäuser" and the march from "Athalie," which he always played when people asked for something unusual, and the effect was considered very pleasing and original. Altogether it was the prettiest wedding any one had seen in years, according to the testimony of those who attended the reception—which did become a perfect tomasha. But as tomasha-goers are notoriously biased their testimony probably wasn't legal and no respectable judge would have accepted it as evidence. The only legal thing about the whole affair was the ceremony, which was fully as much so as if it had been before a magistrate, which Madge swore it should be if she ever had to go through it again and regretted bitterly it hadn't been this time.... Well, perhaps, when she looked about her and saw how unaffectedly happy her mother and Aunt Tizzy and the bridesmaids and all the other good people were, she didn't regret it quite so much."Though it is rather absurd, getting married to please other people, isn't it?" she remarked as they drove off at last, leaving the tomasha-goers to carouse as long as Aunt Tizzy could make them."I think I'd do almost anything to please Aunt Tizzy," said Harry. "Now that it's all over, that is. Get married again, even.... After all," he added suddenly, shamelessly going back on all his professions of the last few days; "after all, you know, itwasrather a good wedding!"Which shows that he was just as biased as any one, at bottom!CHAPTER IXLABYRINTHSHow many people should you say could be packed into a three-hundred foot barkantine-rigged steam yacht, capable of fourteen knots under steam alone, for a night in late June, presumably hot, anchored in a noisy estuary off Long Island Sound without making them all wish they had never been born? We ourselves should hate to have to answer the question offhand. So did Aunt Cecilia, whom it concerned more closely than any one else, and she did not have to answer it offhand at all, having all the available statistics within reach. In fact, she had spent the best part of one hot New York June morning over it already, sitting in her darkened front drawing-room because it was the coolest room in the house, amid ghost-like furniture whose drab slip-covers concealed nothing less than real Louis Quinze. On her lap—or what Uncle James said if she didn't look out wouldn't be her lap very long—she held a magazine and over the magazine an expensive piece of letter-paper, on one leaf of which was a list of names and on the other a plan drawn in wobbly and unarchitectural lines—obviously a memory sketch of the sleeping accommodations of theHalcyone. Near what even in the sketch was undoubtedly the largest and most comfortable of theHalcyone'scabins she had written in firm unmistakable letters the word "Me," and opposite two other rooms she had inscribed in only slightly less bold characters the initials "H. and M." and "J. and B." So far so good; why not go on thus as long as the list or the cabins held and consider the problem solved? It wasn't as simple as that, it seemed. Some of the people hadn't been asked, or might be asked only if there was room enough, and the boys might bring in people at the last moment; it was very confusing. And not even the extent of the sleeping accommodations was as constant as might have been desired. It was ridiculous, of course, but even after all these years she could not be quite sure whether there were two little singlerooms down by the galley skylight or only one. She was practically sure there were two, but suppose she were mistaken? And then, if it came to that, the boys and almost as many friends as they cared to bring might sleep on the smoking-room sofas...."No ... no, I'm not sure how wise that would be," she mused, certain things she had seen and been told of boat-race celebrations straying into her mind. "The smoking-room cushions have only just been covered...."A ring at the doorbell. She glanced up at a pierglass (also Louis Quinze) opposite her and strained her eyes at its mosquito-netting covered surface. Her hair was far from what she could have wished; she hoped it would be no one she would have to see. Oh, Beatrice."Howdy do, dear," said Aunt Cecilia, relieved. "I was just thinking of you. I'm trying to plan out about the boat-race; it's less than a week off now."Beatrice sank languidly down on the other end of Aunt Cecilia's sofa. She was much hotter and more fatigued than Aunt Cecilia, but no one would have guessed it to look at her. Her clothes lay coolly and caressingly on her; not a hair seemed out of place."You see," went on the other, "it's rather difficult to arrange, on account of there being so many unmarried people—just the Lyles and the MacGraths and George Grainger for us older ones and the rest all Muffins' and Jack's friends. I think we shall work out all right, though, with two rooms at the Griswold and the smoking-room to overflow into. I'm tired of bothering about it. Tell me about yourself.""Nothing much," answered Beatrice. "I much prefer hearing about you. By the way—about the races. I just dropped in to tell you about Tommy Clairloch. He's coming. You did tell me to ask him, didn't you?""Yes ... oh, yes, of course. I had forgotten about Lord Clairloch for the moment. I thought he was going west the middle of the month.""He was, but he didn't. Tommy's rather a fool." Tommy, it may be mentioned, was in the process of improving himself by making a trip around the world, going westward. He had left home in April and so far Upper Montclair was his farthest point west. As Beatrice said, Tommy was rather a fool."Oh, not a bit ... only.... By the bye, dear, do you happen to remember whether there are one or two rooms down that little hall by the galley?""Two, as I remember it. But don't bother about Tommy. Really, Aunt Cecilia, don't. He needn't come at all—I'll tell him he can't.""Of course he must come.... That's it—I'll put him in the other little single room and tell the boys that they and any one else they ask from now on must go to the Griswold or sleep in the smoking-room. I'm glad to have it settled."Aunt Cecilia beamed as one does when a difficult problem is solved. It occurred to her that Beatrice might beam back at her just a tiny bit, if only in mock sympathy. Especially as it was her guest.... But Beatrice remained just as casual as before, sitting easily but immovably in her corner of the sofa with her parasol lying lightly in her slim gloved hands. Aunt Cecilia noticed those hands rather especially; it seemed scarcely human to keep one's gloves on in the house on a day like this! Characteristically, she gave her thought outlet in words."Do take off your gloves and things, dear, and make yourself comfortable! Such a day! New York in June is frightful—eighty-eight yesterday, and Heaven knows what it will be to-day. You'll stay to lunch, won't you?""Thanks, perhaps I will," replied Beatrice listlessly."I never have stayed in town so late in June," ran on Aunt Cecilia, "but I thought I wouldn't open the Tarrytown house this spring—it's only for six weeks and it is so much extra trouble.... I shall take the yacht and the boys directly on up to Bar Harbor afterward; we should love to have you come with us, if you feel like leaving James—you're looking so fagged. You must both come and pay us a long visit later on, though I suppose with Harry and Madge in the Berkshires you'll be running up there quite often for week-ends...."Beatrice stirred a little. "Thanks, Aunt Cecilia, but I don't mind the heat especially. If James can bear it, I can, I suppose. I expect to stay here most of the summer."She was perfectly courteous, and yet it suddenly occurred to Aunt Cecilia that perhaps she wouldn't be quite so free in showering invitations on Beatrice and James for a while. There was that about her, as she sat there.... Languid,that was the word; there had been a certain languor, not due to hot weather, in Beatrice's reception of most of her favors, now that she came to think of it. There had been that wedding trip in theHalcyone, to begin with. Both she and James had shown a due amount of gratitude, but neither, when you came right down to it, had given any particular evidence of having enjoyed it. Everything was as it should be, no doubt, but—one didn't lend yachts without expecting to have them enjoyed!"That trip cost me over five thousand dollars," she had remarked to her husband shortly after the return of the bridal pair. "Of course I don't grudge it, but five thousand dollars is a good deal of money, and I'd rather have subscribed it to the Organized Charities than feel I was spending it to give those two something they didn't want!"Aunt Cecilia gazed anxiously at Beatrice for a moment, memories of this sort floating vaguely through her mind. She scented trouble, somewhere. The next minute she thought she had diagnosed it."You're bored, dear, that's the long and the short of it, and I think I know what's the matter. I'm not sure that I didn't feel a little that way myself, at the very first. But I soon got over it. My dear, there's nothing in the world like a baby to drive away boredom...."Beatrice tapped with the end of her parasol on what in winter would have been a pink and gray texture from Aubusson's storied looms but was now simply a parquet flooring. But she did not blush, not in the slightest degree."Yes," she answered, a trifle wearily, "I daresay you're right. Sometimes I think I would like to have a baby. It doesn't seem to come, though.... After all, it's rather early to bother, isn't it?""Oh, I don't want you tobother—! Only—" She was just a little taken aback. This barren agreement, this lack of natural shyness, of blushes! It was unprecedented in her experience."Only what, Aunt Cecilia?""Only—it's a sure cure for being bored. But Beatrice, there must be others, while you're waiting. What about your studies, your work? You haven't done much of that since you came home from abroad, have you? It's too late to begin anything this summer, of course, but next autumnI should think you'd like to take it up again, especially as you don't care so much for society, and I'm sure I don't blame you for that...." She beamed momentarily on her niece, who this time smiled back ever so slightly in return. "After all, it's nice to be of some use in the world, isn't it?"Why not have left it there, on that secure impregnable pinnacle? Why weaken her position by giving voice to that silly unprovoked fancy that had hung about the back of her mind since the beginning of the interview, or very near it? We can't explain, unless the sudden suspicion that Beatrice had smiled less with than at her, and the sight of her sitting there so beautiful and aloof, so well-bredly acquiescent and so emotionally intangible, exercised an ignoble influence over her. There is a sort of silent acquiescence that is very irritating.... And after all, was the impulse so ignoble? A word of warning of the most affectionate kind, prompted by the keenest sympathy—surely it was wholly Beatrice's fault if anything went wrong!"More than that, my dear, there's a certain danger in being too idle—a danger I'm sure you're as free from as any one could be, but you know what the psalm says!" (Or was it original with Isaac Watts? However!) "Of course marriage isn't so easy, especially in the first year, and especially if there are no children—what with the husband away at work all day and tired to death and like as not cross as a bear when he comes home in the evening—I know!—a young wife can't be blamed for feeling a little out of sorts sometimes. And then along comes another man...."Here Beatrice, to use a sporting expression, froze. From that moment it ceased to be question of two women talking together and became a matter of Aunt Cecilia apostrophizing a statue; a modern conception, say, of Artemis. Marble itself could not be more unresponsive than Beatrice when people tried to "get at her." It was not rudeness, it was not coldness, it was not even primarily self-consciousness; it was the natural inability to speak of matters deeply concerning oneself which people of Aunt Cecilia's temperament can never fully understand."Of course other men have things to offer that husbands have not, especially if they are free in the daytime and are nice and good-natured and sympathetic, and often a youngwife may be deceived into valuing these things more than the love of her husband. They are all at their best on the surface, while her husband's best is all below it. And that, I think, is the way most married unhappinesses begin; not in unfaithfulness or in jealousy or in loss of love, but merely in idleness. I've seen it happen so often, dear, that you must be able to understand why I never like to see a young wife with too little to do...."For Aunt Cecilia was personal, you see, to a degree. Did she imagine she was making things any easier, Beatrice asked herself with a little burst of humorous contempt, by her generalities and her third persons and her "young wives"? If she had been perfectly frank, if she had come out and said, "Beatrice, if you don't look out you'll be falling in love with Tommy Clairloch," there was a possibility that Beatrice could have answered her, even confided in her; at least put things on a conversational footing. But as for talking about her own case in this degrading disguise, dramatizing herself as a "young wife"—!She remained silent long enough to make it obvious that her silence was her real reply. Then she said "Yes, indeed, perfectly," and Aunt Cecilia rather tardily became aware of her niece's metamorphosis into the modern Artemis. She made a flurried attempt to give her own remarks, retrospectively, something of the Artemis quality; to place a pedestal, as it were, on which to take her own stand as a modern conception of Pallas Athene."I hope, my dear, you don't think I mean anything....""Not at all," said Beatrice kindly but firmly. "And now if you don't mind, Aunt Cecilia, I think I'll go up and get ready for luncheon."But Aunt Cecilia was afraid she had gone too far.A week later came the gathering of the clans at New London for the Yale-Harvard boat-race. Aunt Cecilia had not been to a race in years. Races, you see, were not in a class with graduations; they were optional, works of supererogation. But this year, in addition to one of the largest yachts extant and money that fairly groaned to be put into circulation, she had two boys in college, and altogether it seemed worth while "making an effort." And the effort once made there was a certain pleasure in doing the thing really well, in taking one's place as one of the greatYale families of the country. So on the afternoon before the race theHalcyonewas anchored in a conspicuous place in the harbor, where she loomed large and majestic among the smaller craft, and a tremendous blue flag with a white Y on it was hoisted between two of the masts. People from the shore looked for her name with field glasses and pointed her out to each other as "the Wimbourne yacht" with a note of awe in their voices."It's like being on theVictoryat Trafalgar, as far as conspicuousness goes," said Harry on his arrival. "Or rather," he added magnificently, "like being on Cleopatra's galley at Actium.""Absit omen," remarked Uncle James, and the others laughed, but his wife paid no attention to him. She was not above a little thrill of pride and pleasure herself.Muffins and Jack and their friends were much in evidence; the party was primarily for the "young people." They kept mostly to themselves, dancing and singing and making personal remarks together, always detaching themselves with a polite attentive quirk of the head when an older person addressed them. Nice children, all of them. Muffins and Jack were of the right sort, emphatically, and their friends were obviously—not too obviously, but just obviously enough—chosen with nice discriminating taste. Jack especially gave one the impression of having a fine appreciation of people and things; that of Muffins was based on rather broad athletic lines. Muffins played football. Ruth, the brains of the family, was not present; we forget whether she was running a summer camp for cash girls or exploring the headwaters of the Yukon; it was something modern and expensive. Ruth was not extensively missed by her brothers.They all dined hilariously together on the yacht and repaired to the Griswold afterward to dance and revel through the evening. All, that is, except Beatrice and James; they did not arrive till well on in the evening, James having been unable to leave town till his day's work was over. The launch with Uncle James in it went to the station to meet them and brought them directly back to the yacht to get settled and tidied up; they could go on over to the Griswold for a bit, if they weren't too tired."How about it?" inquired James as he stood peering at his watch in the dim light on deck."Oh, just as you like," said Beatrice."Well, I don't care. Say something."Beatrice was rather tired.... Well, perhaps it was better that way; they would have another chance to see all they wanted to-morrow night. This from Uncle James, who thought he would drop over there and relieve Aunt Cecilia, who had been chaperoning since dinner.His head disappeared over the ship's side. James walked silently off to unpack. Beatrice sank into a wicker armchair and dropped her head on her hands....It seemed as if scarcely a moment had passed when she became aware of the launch again coming up alongside and voices floating up from it—Aunt Cecilia and Lord Clairloch. Salutations ensued, avuncular and friendly. Aunt Cecilia was tired, but very cheerful. She buzzed off presently to see about something and Lord Clairloch dropped down by Beatrice.Tommy was very cheerful also, apparently much impressed by what he had seen at the Griswold. "I say, a jolly bean-feast, that! Never saw such dancin' or drinkin' in my life, and I've lived a bit! They keep 'em apart, too—that's the best of it; no trouble about takin' a gell, provided she don't go to the bar, which ain't likely.... Jove, we've got nothing like it in England! Rippin' looking lot of gells, rippin' fellahs, rippin' good songs, too. All seem to enjoy 'emselves so much!—I say, these Yankees can teach us a thing or two about havin' a good time—wot?"Beatrice listened with a growing sense of amusement. Tommy always refreshed her when he was in a mood like this; he kept his youth so wonderfully, in spite of all his super-sophistication; he was such a boy still. Tommy never seemed to mind being hot or tired; Tommy was always ready for anything; Tommy was not the sort that came home at six o'clock and sank into the evening paper without a word—She stopped that line of thought and asked a question."Why did you leave it all, Tommy, if it amused you so?""Oh, had enough of it—been there since dinner. Beside, I heard you'd come. Thought I'd buzz over and see how you were gettin' on. Have a horrid journey?"Beatrice nodded."Hot?""No, not especially." They were silent a moment. Tommy opened his mouth to ask a question and shut it again. And then, walking like a ghost across their silence, appeared the figure of James, stalking aimlessly down the deck. He nodded briefly to Tommy and walked off again.The effect, in view of the turn of their conversation, of Tommy's unasked question, was almost that of a spectral apparition. The half-light of the deck, James' silence and the noiseless tread of his rubber-soled shoes had in themselves an uncanny quality. Presently Tommy whistled softly, as though to break the spell."Whew! I say, is he often like that?"Beatrice laughed. Tommywasrefreshing! "Lately, yes. Do you know," she added, "he only spoke twice on the way up here—once to ask me if I was ready to have dinner, and once what I wanted for dinner?" Her tone was one of suppressed amusement, caught from Tommy; but before her remark was fairly finished something rather like a note of alarm rang through her. Why had she said that? It wasn't so frightfully amusing, come to think of it. Her pleasure, she saw in a flash, came not from the remark itself but from her anticipation of seeing Tommy respond to it....That was rather serious, wasn't it? Just how serious, she wondered? Joy in seeing another man respond to a disparaging remark about her husband—that was what it came to! For the first time in her life she had the sensation of reveling in a stolen joy. For of course Tommy did respond, beautifully—too beautifully. "Oh, I say! Really, now! Thatisa trifle strong, wot?" and so on. He was doing exactly what she had meant him to, and there was a separate pleasure in that—a zest of power!Heavens!For the first time she began to feel a trifle nervous about Tommy. Was Aunt Cecilia right? Had all her careful euphemisms about young wives some basis of justification as applied to her own case? She and Tommy.... Well, she and Tommy?... Half an hour ago she could have placed them perfectly; now her sight was a trifle blurred. There was not time to think it all out now, anyway; another boatload of people from the shore was even now crowding up the gangway; to-morrow she would go into the matter thoroughly with herself and put things, whateverthey might be, on a definite business footing. To-night, even, if she did not sleep....Everybody was back, it appeared, and things shortly became festive. There were drinks and sandwiches and entertaining reminiscences of the evening from the young people, lasting till bedtime. Thought was out of the question.Once undressed and in bed, to be sure, there was better opportunity. She slipped comfortably down between the sheets; what a blessing that the night was not too hot, after all! Aunt Cecilia had said ... what was it that Aunt Cecilia had said? Something about a young wife—a young wife ought to have something to do. Of course. These were linen sheets, by the way, and the very finest linen, at that. Aunt Cecilia did know how to do things.... What was it? Something more, she fancied, about valuing something more than something else. Tommy Clairloch was the first thing, she was sure of that. Aunt Cecilia had not said it, but she had meant it.... She was going to sleep, after all; what a blessing!... What was that other thing? It was hard to think when one was so comfortable. Oh, yes, she had it now—the love of a husband!Whose husband? The young wife's, to be sure. And who was the young wife? She herself, obviously. But—the thought flared up like a strong lamp through the thickening fog of her brain—herhusband did not love her! She and James were not like ordinary young wives and husbands.... How silly of her not to have seen that before! That changed everything, of course. Aunt Cecilia was on a wrong track altogether; her—what was the word?—her premises were false. That threw out her whole argument—everything—including that about Tommy.Gradually the sudden illumination of that thought faded in the evergrowing shadow of sleep. Now only vague wisps of ideas floated through her mind; even those were but pale reflections of that one truth; Aunt Cecilia was mistaken.... Aunt Cecilia was wrong.... It was all right about Tommy.... Tommy was all right.... Aunt Cecilia ... was wrong....Psychologists tell us that ideas make most impression on the mind when they are introduced into it during that indefinite period between sleeping and waking; they then become incorporated directly with our subconscious selves without having to pass through the usual tortuous channelsof consciousness and reason. And the sub-consciousness, as every one knows, is a most intimate and important place; once an idea is firmly grounded there it has become substantially a part of our being, so far as we can tell from our incomplete knowledge of our own ideal existence. We are not sure that a single introduction of this sort can give an idea a good social standing in the realm of sub-consciousness; probably not. But it can help; it can give it at least a nodding acquaintance there. Certain it is, at any rate, that when Beatrice awoke next morning it was with a mind at least somewhat more willing than previously to take for granted, as part of the natural order of things, the fact of the inherent wrongness of Aunt Cecilia and its corollary, the innate rightness of Tommy. (Possibly this corollary would not have appeared so inevitable if the matter had all been threshed out in reason; they are rather lax about logic and such things in sub-consciousness, making a good introduction the one criterion of acceptance.) With the net material result that Beatrice was less inclined than ever to be nervous about Aunt Cecilia and also less inclined than ever to be nervous about Tommy.The day began in an atmosphere of not unpleasant indolence. Breakfast was late and was followed by the best cigarette of the day on deck—Beatrice's smoking was the secret admiration and envy of all the female half of the younger section. A cool breeze ruffled the harbor and gathered in a flock of clouds from the Sound that left only just enough sunlight to bring out the brilliant colors of the little flags all the yachts had strung up between their mastheads and down again to bowsprit and stern. It was rather pleasant to sit and watch these and other things; the continual small traffic of the harbor, the occasional arrivals of more slim white yachts.Presently Harry and Madge and Beatrice and Tommy and one or two others made a short excursion to the shore, for no other apparent reason than to join the procession of smartly dressed people that for one day in the year convert the quiet town of New London into one of the gayest-looking places on earth. Tommy was much in evidence here, fairly crowing with delight over each new thing that pleased him. It was all Harry could do to keep him from swathing himself in blue; Tommy had become an enthusiastic Yalensian. He had spent a week-end with Harryin New Haven during the spring; he had driven with Aunt Selina in the victoria, he had been shown the university and had met a number of pretty gells and rippin' fellahs; what business was it of Wiggers if he wanted to wave a blue flag? Wiggers ought to feel jolly complimented, instead of makin' a row!"You'd say just the same about Harvard, if you went there—the people are just as nice," said Harry. "Besides, Harvard will probably win. You may buy us each a blue feather, if you like, and call it square at that."Beatrice smiled, but she thought Harry a little hard."Never mind, Tommy," said she; "you can sit by me at the race this afternoon and we'll both scream our lungs out, if we want."That was substantially what happened. Luncheon on the yacht—an enormous "standing" affair, with lots of extra people—was followed by a general exodus to the observation trains. Tommy had never seen an observation train before and was full of curiosity. They didn't have them at Henley. It was all jolly different from Henley, wasn't it, though? As they walked through the railroad yards to their car he was inclined to think it wasn't as good fun as Henley. One missed the punts, and all that. Once seated in the car, however, with an unobstructed view of the river, it was a little better, and by the time the crews had rowed up to the starting-point he had almost come round to the American point of view. It might not be so jolly as Henley, quite, but Jove! one could see!Tommy sat on Beatrice's left; on her right was Mr. MacGrath and beyond him again was Aunt Cecilia. The others were scattered through the train in similar mixed groups. Beatrice thought it a good idea to split up that way.... She began to have an idea she was going to enjoy this race.So she did, too, more than she had enjoyed anything in—oh, months! She couldn't remember much about it afterward, though she did remember who won, which is more than we do. She had a recollection, to begin with, of Tommy joining in lustily in every Yale cheer and of Mr. MacGrath trying not to thump Aunt Cecilia on the back at an important moment and thumping herself instead. He apologized very nicely. Presently Tommy committed the same offense against her and neglected to apologizeentirely, but she didn't mind in the least. (That was the sort of race it was.) Perhaps there lurked in the back of her brain a certain sense of joy in the omission.... She herself became infected with Tommy-mania before long.And the spectacle was an exhilarating one, under any circumstances. The noble sweep of the river, the keen blue of the water and sky, the green of the hills, the brilliant double row of yachts and the general atmosphere of hilarity were enough to make one glad to be alive. And then the excitement of the race itself, the sense of participation the motion of the train gave one, the almost painful fascination of watching those two little sets of automatons, the involuntary, electric response from the crowd when one or the other of them pulled a little into the lead, the thrill of bursting out from behind some temporary obstruction and seeing them down there, quite near now, entering the last half-mile with one's own crew just a little, ever so little, ahead! From which moment it seemed both a second and an age to the finish, that terrific, heart-raising finish, with its riot of waving colors and its pandemonium of toots from the water and cries from the land....On the whole, we suppose Yale must have won that race. For after all, it isn't quite so pleasant when the other crew wins, no matter how close the race was and no matter how good a loser one happens to be. Tommy was as good a loser as you could easily find, but not even he could have been as cheerful as all that on the ride back if his crew had lost. Indeed, cheerful was rather a weak word with which to describe Tommy by this time. Beatrice, doing her best to calm him down, became aware, from glances shot at him from various—mostly feminine—directions, that some people would have characterized his condition by a much sharper and shorter word. Involuntarily, almost against her will, Beatrice indignantly repelled their accusation. What nonsense! They didn't know Tommy; he was naturally like this. Though there had been champagne at lunch, of course....Rather an interesting experience, that ride back to town. The enforced inactivity gave one a chance to think, in the intervals of tugging at Tommy's coat tails. Why should she be enjoying herself so ridiculously? Whole-souled enjoyment was not a thing she had been accustomed toduring the last few years, at any rate since.... Yes, she had enjoyed herself more this afternoon than at any time since she had been married; but what of it? She attached no blame to James; it was not James' fault; nothing was anybody's fault. She was taking a little, a very little fun where she found it, that was all.The train pulled up in the yards and thought was discontinued. It was resumed a few minutes later, however, as they sat in the launch, waiting for the rest of their party to join them. She happened to be sitting just opposite to Aunt Cecilia, on whom her eyes idly rested. Aunt Cecilia! What about Aunt Cecilia? She was wrong, of course! She did not understand; she was wrong! Tommy was all right....So sub-consciousness got in its little work, till conscious reason sallied forth and routed it. Oh, why, Beatrice asked herself, with a mental motion as of throwing off an entangling substance, why all this nonsensical worrying about a danger that did not exist? What danger was there of her—making a fool of herself over Tommy when.... She did not follow that thought out; it was better to leave those "when" clauses hanging in the air, when possible.But Tommy! Poor, good-natured, simple, ineffective Tommy!She resolved to think no longer, but to give herself entirely over to what slight pleasure the moment had to offer She dressed and dined in good spirits, with a sense of anticipation almost childlike in its innocence.After dinner there was a general exodus to the Griswold. From the moment she stepped on to the hotel dock, surrounded by its crowd of cheerfully bobbing launches, she became infected with the prevailing spirit of gaiety. Tommy was right; Americans did know how to enjoy themselves!They made their way up the lawn toward the big brilliant hotel. They reached the door of the ballroom and stopped a moment. In this interval Beatrice became aware of James at her elbow."You'd better dance with me first," he said.They danced two or three times around the room in complete silence. Beatrice did not in the least mind dancing with James, indeed she rather enjoyed it, he danced so well. But why address her in that sepulchral tone; whymake his invitation sound like a threat; why not at least put up a pretense of making duty a pleasure? She was conscious of a slight rise of irritation; if James was going to be a skeleton at this feast.... She was relieved when he handed her over to one of the other men.But James had no intention of being a skeleton. He went back to bed before any of the others, alleging a headache. Beatrice learned this indirectly, through Harry, and felt rather disappointed. She would have preferred to have him remain and enjoy himself; she did not bother to explain why. But he was apparently determined that nothing should make him enjoy himself. James was rather irritating, sometimes. She said as much, to Harry, who assented, frowning slightly. She saw a chance to get in some of the small work of destiny-fighting."He's not been at all natural lately," she said; "I've been quite worried about him. I wish you'd watch him and tell me what to do about it. I feel rather to blame for it, naturally.""Oh, I wouldn't worry," said Harry. "Working in the city in summer is hard on any one, of course.""I'm afraid it's more than that, and I want your help. You understand James better than I do, I think.""No, you're wrong there. I don't understand James at all. No one really understands any one else, as a matter of fact. We think we do, but we don't. The very simplest nature is a regular Cretan labyrinth.""But a wife ought to be the Theseus of her husband's labyrinth, that's the point.""Perhaps you're right. Here's hoping you don't find a minotaur in the middle!"She didn't worry much about it, however. Tommy cut in soon afterward, and they didn't talk about James or labyrinths either. Tommy had not danced with her before that evening. She was going to say something about that, but decided not to. It was too jolly dancing to talk, really. Tommy danced very well—quite as well as James. They danced the contemporary American dances for some time and then they broke into an old-fashioned whirling English waltz; the dance they had both been brought up on. It brought memories to the minds of both; they felt old times and places creeping back on them."Do you remember the last time we did this?" asked Tommy presently."At the Dimchurches', the winter before I came here.""Didn't last long, though. You were the prettiest gell there.""I suppose I was.—And you were just Tommy Erskine then, and awfully ineligible!"What an absurd remark to make! If she was going to let her tongue run away with her like that, she had better keep her mouth shut.They danced on in silence for some time, rested in the cool of a verandah and then danced again. The room was already beginning to empty somewhat, making dancing more of a pleasure than ever. They danced on till they were tired and then sat out again."We might take a stroll about," suggested Tommy presently.They walked down the steps and out on the lawn. Presently they came near the windows of the bar, which was on the ground floor of the hotel, and stopped to look in for a moment. It was a lively scene. The room—a great white bare place—was filled with men laughing and shouting and slapping each other on the shoulder and bellowing college songs, all in a thick blue haze of tobacco smoke. They were also drinking, and Beatrice noticed that when they had drained their glasses they invariably threw them carelessly on the floor, adding a new sound to the din and fairly paving the room with broken glass. Many of them were mildly intoxicated, but none were actually drunk; the whole sounded the note of celebration in the ballroom strengthened and masculinized. It had its effect on Beatrice; it was a pleasure to think that one lived in a world where people could enjoy themselves thoroughly and uproariously and without becoming bestial about it."It's really very jolly, isn't it?" she said at last."Oh, rippin'," assented Tommy."Perhaps you'd rather go in there now?""No, no. Don't know the fellahs—I should feel out of it. Wiggers was right.—Besides, I'd rather stay with you."Beatrice wondered if she had intended to make Tommy say that.They wandered off through the hotel grounds and saw other couples doing the same. Doing rather more, in fact. After some search they found an empty bench and sat down.Tommy's education had been in many ways a narrow one, but it had equipped him perfectly for making use of such situations as the present. He turned about on the bench, leaning one arm on its back and facing Beatrice's profile squarely."Jove!" he said reminiscently. "Haven't done that since Oxford.""What?""That." He waved his head in the direction of the well populated shadows."Oh," answered Beatrice carelessly. The profound lack of interest in her tone had its effect."I did it to you once, by Jove! Remember?""No. You never did, Tommy; you know that perfectly well.""Well, I will now, then!"He did.The next moment he rather wished he had not, Beatrice's slow smile of contemptuous tolerance made him feel like such a child."Tommy, it's only you, of course, so it really doesn't matter, but if you try to do that again I shall punish you."Her power over him was as comforting to her as it was disconcerting to him. For a moment; after that she felt a pang of irritation. The idea of a married woman being kissed by a man not her husband was in itself rather revolting, and the thought that she was that married woman stung. As if that was not enough, the thought came to her that she could have stopped Tommy at any moment and had not. Had she not, in fact, secretly—even to herself—intended that he should do that very thing when they first sat down? She had used her power for contemptible ends. The thought that after all it was only poor ineffectual Tommy only increased her sense of degradation. All her pleasure had fled."Come along, Tommy," she said, rising; "it's time to go home."It was indeed late—long after twelve. The launch, as she remembered it, was to make its last trip back to theyacht at half-past; they would be just in time. Tommy walked the length of the dock two or three times calling "Halcyone! Halcyone!" but there was no response from the already dwindling throng of launches. They sat down to wait, both moody and silent.
"Then you are weak—simply weak!—You act as if I were proposing something actually wicked. It's not wicked at all; it's simply a practical benefit. Marriage without love might be wicked if there were any chance left of combining it with love; but now—! It's simply picking up pieces, making the best of things—straight commonsense...."
She might still have had her way against him, as long as he continued to base his appeal on commonsense. But he changed his tactics again, this time as a matter of impulse. He had been slowly walking toward her in the course of his argument and now stood close by her, talking straight down into her eyes, till suddenly her mere physical nearness put an end to speech and thought alike. Something of her old physical attraction for him, which had been much stronger than in the case of Madge, returned to him with a force for the moment irresistible. There was something about her wide eyes, her parted lips, her bosom slightly heaving with the effort of argument.... He put his hand on her shoulder and slowly yet irresistibly drew her to him. He bent his head till their lips touched.
So they stood for neither knew how long. Seconds flew by like years, or was it years like seconds? Sense of time was as completely lost as in sleep; indeed, their condition was very much like that of sleep. They had both become suddenly, acutely tired of life and had found at least temporary rest and refreshment. Neither of them was bothered by worries over the inevitable awakening; neither of them even thought of it, yet.
As for Beatrice, she was for the moment bowled over by the discovery that some one cared for her enough to clasp her to his bosom and kiss her. What had she wanted all these years, except to be loved? A wave of mingled self-pity and self-contempt swept over her. She felt suddenly weak; her knees trembled; what did that matter, though, when James was there to hold her up? She needed strength above all things, and James was strong above all things. Tears smarted in her eyes and streamed unheeded down her cheeks.
"I was so lonely," she whispered at last, raising her welling eyes to him. "I have been alone so long ... so long...."
"James," she began again after a while, "life is so horrible, isn't it?"
"It is. Ghastly."
"Oh, itisgood to find some one else who thinks so!"
"Yes, I know."
"Anything is good—anything—that makes it easier to forget, isn't it?"
"Yes. And we're going to try to forget together."
Presently the moment came when they had to break apart, and they did it a little awkwardly, not caring to look at each other very closely. They sat down on the rail, side by side but not touching, and for some time remained silently busy regaining old levels and making new adjustments. There was considerable to adjust, certainly. At last James looked at his watch and announced that it was nearly lunch time.
"When shall we get married?" he inquired, brusk and businesslike. It may have been only his tone that Beatrice involuntarily shuddered at. She told herself it was, and then reviled herself for shuddering. It was better to be prosaic and practical.
"Oh, as soon as possible.... Now—any time you say."
"Yes, but when? When shall we tell people?"
"Oh, not just yet...." she objected, almost automatically.
"Why not? Why not right now—before the other?"
"You think...?"
"Yes—every moment counts." He meant that the sooner the thing came out the better were their chances of concealment, and she understood him. Yes, that was the way to look at things, she reflected; might as well do it well, if it was to be done at all. She warmed up to his point of view so quickly that when his next question came she was able to go him one better.
"And the other—the wedding? In about a fortnight, should you say?"
"Oh, no, not for a month, at least. At the very least. It must be in England, you see."
"In England?"
"Yes, that's the way it would be...." If we were really in love with each other, of course she meant. He looked at her with new admiration.
They made a few more arrangements. Their talk was pervaded now with a sense of efficiency and despatch. If they could not call reasons by their real names they couldcall steamships and railroads by theirs, and did. In a few minutes they had everything planned out.
A maid appeared and announced lunch. They nodded her away and sat silent for a moment longer. It seemed as if something more ought to be said; the interview was too momentous to be allowed to end with an announcement of a meal. The sun beat down on them from the zenith with the full unsubtle light of noonday, prosaically enough, but the wind, blowing as hard as ever, whistled unceasingly around their exposed tower and provided a sort of counter-dose of eerieness and suggestiveness; it gave them the sense of being rather magnificently aloof from the rest of the world. The sun showed them plainly enough that they were on a summer-cottage verandah, but the wind somehow managed to suggest that they were really in a much more romantic place. Probably this dual atmosphere had its effect on them; it would need something of the sort, at any rate, to make James stand up and say aloud, in broad daylight:
"Beatrice, don't you feel a sort of inspiration in fighting against something you can't see?"
"Yes, James," she answered slowly; "I believe I do—now."
"Something we can neither see nor understand, but know is wrong and can only protest against with the whole strength of our souls? Blindly, unflinchingly?"
"Yes."
"Inevitably?"
"Yes."
"Even if uselessly?"
"Yes." Her eyes met his squarely enough; there was no sign of flinching in them.
"I'm glad you understand. For that's going to be our life, you know."
"Yes, James; that shall be our life." They got up and took each other's hands for a moment, as though to seal their compact, looking each other steadfastly in the eyes meanwhile. They did not kiss again.
ONE THING AND ANOTHER
Seldom have we longed for anything so much as for the pen of a Fielding or a Thackeray to come to our aid at the present moment and, by means of just such a delightful detached essay as occurs from time to time in "Tom Jones" or "The Virginians," impart a feeling of the intermission that at this point appears in our story. There is nothing like a digression on human frailty or the condition of footmen in the reign of King George the Second to lift the mind of a reader off any particular moment of a story and, by throwing a few useful hints into the discourse, prepare him ever so gently to be set down at last at the exact point where he is to take it up again. That is making an art of skipping, indeed. We admire it intensely, but realize how impossible it is in this case. Not only is such a thing frankly outside our power, but the prejudice of the times is set against it, so our only course is to confess our weakness and plod along as best we may.
Why on earth every human being who ever knew him should not have known of his engagement as soon as it occurred—or long before, for that matter—Harry could never discover. That they did not, in most cases, was due partly to reasons which could have been best explained by James and partly to the fact that the person who is most careless of concealment in such matters is very often the one who is least suspected. And then so many men had been after Madge! So that when the great news burst upon the world at the dinner that Mrs. Gilson could not decently be prevented from giving, the surprise, in the words of ninety-nine per cent. of their well-meaning friends, was as great as the pleasure.
That occurred about a week after James' sudden departure from Bar Harbor, a phenomenon amply accounted for by business. Trouble in the Balkans—there always was trouble in the Balkans—had resulted, it appeared, inOrders; and Orders demanded James' presence at his post. This from Beatrice, with impregnable casualness. Beatrice was really rather magnificent, these days. When she received her invitation to Mrs. Gilson's dinner she vowed that nothing should take her there, but the next moment she knew she would go; that nothing should keep her from going. Obviously the first guiding principle of destiny-fighting was to go on exactly as if nothing had happened.
About a week after the dinner Harry received a note from his brother in New York saying that he was engaged to Beatrice; that the wedding was to take place in London in October and that he hoped Harry would go over with him and act as his best man. "I refrained from mentioning it before," added James, "because I did not want to take the wind out of your sails. We are also enabled by waiting to reap the benefit of your experience; I refer to the Gilsons. We are taking no risks; it will appear in the papers on Wednesday the sixteenth, with Beatrice in Bar Harbor and me in New York. Beatrice sails the following Saturday."
That was all very well, if a little hard. James and Beatrice were both undemonstrative, businesslike souls; the arrangement was quite characteristic.
Beatrice in due time sailed for home, and James followed her some three weeks afterward. Harry went with him, returning immediately after the wedding by the fastest ship he could get; he was out of the country just eighteen days, all told. The voyage over was an uneventful one; the ship was nearly empty and Harry worked hard at his new play. He had rather looked forward to enjoying this last week of unmarried companionship with his brother, but somehow they did not seem to have more than usual to say to each other when they were together. Rather less, in fact.
"You're looking low, seems to me," said Harry after they had paced the wet deck in silence for nearly half of a certain evening.
"I've been rather low, lately."
"What—too much work?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's nothing."
"Not seasick, are you?"
"I hope not." Both gave a slight snort expressive of amusement. This was occasioned by the fact that AuntCecilia had offered James the use of her yacht—or rather the largest and most sumptuous of her yachts—for his wedding trip, and he and Beatrice were going to cruise for two months in the Mediterranean. As for the time—well, he was simply taking it, defying McClellan's to fire him if they dared.
"It's funny, isn't it, our getting engaged at the same time," Harry went on after a moment. It was the first reference he had made to the coincidence.
"Oh, yes," said James, "it's one of the funniest things I can remember."
"And the funniest part of it is that neither of us seems to have suspected about the other. At least I didn't."
"Oh, neither did I; not a thing."
"And practically nobody else did either, apparently."
"No. It might have been just the other way round, for all anybody knew—you and Beatrice, and Madge and me."
Harry could not but take away from that conversation and from the whole voyage a vague feeling of disappointment. Since he heard of James' engagement he had entertained an elusive conviction that love coming into their lives at so nearly the same time should somehow make a difference for the better between them. When he tried to put this idea into words, however, he found his mind mechanically running to such phrases as "deeper sympathy" and "fuller understanding," all of which he dismissed as sentimental cant. It was easy to reassure himself on all grounds of reason and commonsense; James and he were in no need of fuller understandings. And yet, especially after the above conversation, he could not but be struck by a certain inapproachability in his brother which for some reason he could not construe as natural undemonstrativeness.
The wedding took place in an atmosphere of unconstrained formality. Harry was not able to get a boat until two days after it, and he could not resist the temptation of writing Madge all about it that very night, though he knew the letter could hardly reach her before he did:—
"It was quite a small wedding, chiefly because, as far as I can make out, there are only some thirty-odd dukes in the kingdom. It occurred at the odd hour of 2:30, but that didn't seem to prevent any one from enjoying thefood, and more especially the drink, that was handed around afterward at Lady Archie's. Lord Moville, Beatrice's uncle, was there and seemed greatly taken with James. After he had got outside about a quart of champagne he amused himself by feeling James' biceps and thumping him on the chest and saying that with a fortnight's training he'd back him for anything he wanted against the Somerset Cockerel, or some one of the sort, most of which left James rather cold, though he bore it smiling. His youngest daughter (Lord M.'s), a child of about eighteen, apparently the only living person who has any control over him, was quite frank about it. 'Fido's drunk again,' she announced pleasantly to all who might hear. 'Oh, so's Ned,' said Jane Twombly, Beatrice's sister; 'there's no use trying to help it at weddings, I find!' Just then Lady Archie came running up in despair. 'Oh, Sibyl,' she said, 'do try to do something with your father. He's been threatening to take off his coat because he says the room's too hot, and now he wants old Lady Mulford to kiss him!' And off darts Sibyl into the dining-room where her father and Ned Twombly stand arm in arm waving glasses of champagne and shouting 'John Peel' at the top of their lungs. 'Fido!' she shouted, running straight up to him, 'put down that glass directly and come home! Instantly! Do you hear? You're disgracing us! The next time I take you out to a wedding you'll know it!' 'Oh, Sib,' pleaded the noble Marquis, 'don't be too hard on us! Only drinkin' bride's health—must drink bride's health—not good manners not to. Sib shall drink with us; here's a glass, Sib—for his view, view HALLO! would awaken the dead—' 'Fido, do you know what you're doing? You're ruining your season's hunting! Gout-stool and Seidlitz powders all the winter for you, if you don't go easy!' But still Fido refused to obey till at last the dauntless child went up and whispered something in his ear, after which he calmed down and presently followed her out of the house, gently as a lamb. 'She threatened to tell her mother about the woman in Wimbledon,' explained Jane to me. 'Of course every one knows all there is to know about her, including Aunt Susan, but he hasn't found that out yet, and it gives Sib rather a strangle-hold on him. Good idea, isn't it? Marjorie—Ned's sister, you know—has promised to work the same trick for me with Ned, when the time comes.'I hope I am not more straight-laced than my neighbors, but do you know, the whole atmosphere struck me as just a teeny-weeny bit decadent...."
After he reached home Harry saw that it would be quite useless, what with Madge and other diverting influences, to try to finish his play in New Haven, so he repaired to the solitudes of the Berkshires for the remainder of the autumn. He occupied two rooms in an almost empty inn in Stockbridge, working and living for two months on a strict régime. It was his habit to work from nine till half-past one. He spent most of the afternoon in exercise and the evening in more writing; not the calm, well-balanced writing of the morning, but in feverish and untrammeled scribbling. Each morning he had to write over all that he had done the night before, but he found it well worth while, discovering that reason and inspiration kept separate office hours.
Meanwhile Madge, though freed from the trammels of Miss Snellgrove, was very busy at home with her trousseau and other matters. She was supremely happy these days; happy even in Harry's absence, because she could feel that he was doing better work than he could with her near, and that provided just the element of self-sacrifice that every woman—every woman that is worth anything—yearns to infuse into her love. She had ample opportunity of trying her hand at writing love letters, but, to tell the truth, she was never very good at it. Neither was Harry, for that matter; possibly because he was now putting every ounce of creative power in him into something the result of which justified the effort much better.... But suppose we allow some of the letters to speak for themselves.
Dear Inamorato: (wrote Madge one day in November) I'm not at all sure that that word exists; it looks so odd in the masculine and just shows how the male sex more or less spoils everything it touches. However! I've been hemming towels all day and am ready to drop, but after I finish with them there will be only the pillow cases to attend to before I am done. By the bye, what do you suppose arrived to-day?Four(heavily underscored) mostexquisite(same business) linen sheets, beautifully hemstitched and marked and from who ("GoodHeavens, and the woman taught school!" exclaimed Harry) do you think? Miss Snellgrove! Wasn't it sweet of her? That makes ten in all. Everybody has been lovely and we shall do very well for linen, but clothes are much more difficult. In them, you see, I have to please not only myself but Mama and Aunt Tizzy as well. I went shopping with both of them yesterday, and they were possessed to make me order an evening gown of black satin with yellow trimmings which was something like a gown Aunt Tizzy had fascinated people in during the early eighties. It wasn't such a bad idea, but unfortunately it would have made me resemble a rather undersized wasp. We compromised at last on a blue silk that's going to have a Watteau pleat and will fall in nice little straight folds and make me look about seven feet high. Aunt Tizzy is too perfectly dear and keeps telling me not to scrimp, but her idea of not scrimping is to spend simplymillionsand always go ahead and get the very best in theextravagantestway, and my conscience rebels. I hope to pick up some things at the January sales in New York; if you are there seeing about your play at that time we can be together, can't we? I still have to get a suit and an afternoon gown and various other things the nature of which I do not care to specify!I run over and look in on Aunt Selina every time I get a chance. She issodear and uncomplaining about being left alone and keeps saying that having me in the house will be as good as having Beatrice, which is absurd, though sweet. Heavens, how I tremble when I think of trying to fill her shoes!I must stop now, dearest, so good-night. Ever your own,MadgeO O O O O OThose O's stand for osculations. Do you know how hard it is to kiss in a small space? Like tying a bow-knot with too short a piece of ribbon.For Heaven's sake, my good woman (wrote Harry in reply), don't write me another letter like that! How do you think I feel when, fairly thirsting for fire and inspiration and that sort of thing, I tear open an envelope from you and find it contains an unusually chatty Woman'sColumn? How do you suppose poor old D. Alghieri would have written his Paradiso if Beatrice had held forth on the subject of linen sheets, and do you or do you not suppose it would have improved Petrarch's sonnets if Laura had treated him to a disquisition on the ins and outs of the prices of evening gowns?Remember your responsibility! If you continue to deny me inspiration my play will fail and you will live in disgrace and misery in the basement of a Harlem tenement in an eternal smell of cabbages and a well-justified fear of cockroaches, with one cracked looking-glass to see your face in and dinner served up in a pudding basin!The c. of my b. (that was his somewhat flippant abbreviation of child of my brain) is coming along well enough, considering. The woman is shaping quite well. What was the name you suggested for her the last time I saw you? If it was Hermione, I'm afraid it won't do, because every one in the theater, from Bachmann down to the call-boy, will call it Hermy-one, and I shall have to correct them all, which will be a bad start. I call her Mamie for the present, because I know I can't keep it. What would be the worst possible name, do you think? Hannah? Florrie? Mae? Keren-happuch and Glwadwys also have their points.Please forgive me for being (a) short-tempered; (b) tedious. I was going to tear up what I have written, only I decided it would not be quite fair, as you have a right to know just how dreadful I can be, in case you want to change your mind about February.—What a discreetly euphemistic phrase!—It has grown fearfully cold here, and we had the first skating of the winter to-day. I got hold of some skates and went out and, fired by the example of two or three people here who skate rather well, I swore I would do a 3-turn or die in the attempt. The latter alternative occurred. I am writing this on the mantelpiece.Farewell. Write early and write often, and write Altman catalogues if you must, but not if you are interested in the uplift of drahmah. Give my best to Grandmama, and consider yourself embraced.Io El Rey.
Dear Inamorato: (wrote Madge one day in November) I'm not at all sure that that word exists; it looks so odd in the masculine and just shows how the male sex more or less spoils everything it touches. However! I've been hemming towels all day and am ready to drop, but after I finish with them there will be only the pillow cases to attend to before I am done. By the bye, what do you suppose arrived to-day?Four(heavily underscored) mostexquisite(same business) linen sheets, beautifully hemstitched and marked and from who ("GoodHeavens, and the woman taught school!" exclaimed Harry) do you think? Miss Snellgrove! Wasn't it sweet of her? That makes ten in all. Everybody has been lovely and we shall do very well for linen, but clothes are much more difficult. In them, you see, I have to please not only myself but Mama and Aunt Tizzy as well. I went shopping with both of them yesterday, and they were possessed to make me order an evening gown of black satin with yellow trimmings which was something like a gown Aunt Tizzy had fascinated people in during the early eighties. It wasn't such a bad idea, but unfortunately it would have made me resemble a rather undersized wasp. We compromised at last on a blue silk that's going to have a Watteau pleat and will fall in nice little straight folds and make me look about seven feet high. Aunt Tizzy is too perfectly dear and keeps telling me not to scrimp, but her idea of not scrimping is to spend simplymillionsand always go ahead and get the very best in theextravagantestway, and my conscience rebels. I hope to pick up some things at the January sales in New York; if you are there seeing about your play at that time we can be together, can't we? I still have to get a suit and an afternoon gown and various other things the nature of which I do not care to specify!
I run over and look in on Aunt Selina every time I get a chance. She issodear and uncomplaining about being left alone and keeps saying that having me in the house will be as good as having Beatrice, which is absurd, though sweet. Heavens, how I tremble when I think of trying to fill her shoes!
I must stop now, dearest, so good-night. Ever your own,
Madge
O O O O O O
O O O O O O
Those O's stand for osculations. Do you know how hard it is to kiss in a small space? Like tying a bow-knot with too short a piece of ribbon.
For Heaven's sake, my good woman (wrote Harry in reply), don't write me another letter like that! How do you think I feel when, fairly thirsting for fire and inspiration and that sort of thing, I tear open an envelope from you and find it contains an unusually chatty Woman'sColumn? How do you suppose poor old D. Alghieri would have written his Paradiso if Beatrice had held forth on the subject of linen sheets, and do you or do you not suppose it would have improved Petrarch's sonnets if Laura had treated him to a disquisition on the ins and outs of the prices of evening gowns?
Remember your responsibility! If you continue to deny me inspiration my play will fail and you will live in disgrace and misery in the basement of a Harlem tenement in an eternal smell of cabbages and a well-justified fear of cockroaches, with one cracked looking-glass to see your face in and dinner served up in a pudding basin!
The c. of my b. (that was his somewhat flippant abbreviation of child of my brain) is coming along well enough, considering. The woman is shaping quite well. What was the name you suggested for her the last time I saw you? If it was Hermione, I'm afraid it won't do, because every one in the theater, from Bachmann down to the call-boy, will call it Hermy-one, and I shall have to correct them all, which will be a bad start. I call her Mamie for the present, because I know I can't keep it. What would be the worst possible name, do you think? Hannah? Florrie? Mae? Keren-happuch and Glwadwys also have their points.
Please forgive me for being (a) short-tempered; (b) tedious. I was going to tear up what I have written, only I decided it would not be quite fair, as you have a right to know just how dreadful I can be, in case you want to change your mind about February.—What a discreetly euphemistic phrase!—It has grown fearfully cold here, and we had the first skating of the winter to-day. I got hold of some skates and went out and, fired by the example of two or three people here who skate rather well, I swore I would do a 3-turn or die in the attempt. The latter alternative occurred. I am writing this on the mantelpiece.
Farewell. Write early and write often, and write Altman catalogues if you must, but not if you are interested in the uplift of drahmah. Give my best to Grandmama, and consider yourself embraced.
Io El Rey.
Madge's reply to this missive was telegraphic in form andbrief in substance. It read simply "Sorry. Laura." "I would have signed it Beatrice," she explained in her next letter, "only I was afraid you might think it was from your sister-in-law Beatrice, and there's nothing forherto be sorry about."
Another letter of Harry's, written a few weeks later, shows him in a different mood:
Querida de mis ojos—You don't know Spanish but you ought to gather what that means without great effort—I have weighty news for you. I dashed down to New York on the spur of the moment day before yesterday and showed the first draught of my completed MS to Leo. My dear, he said IT WOULD DO! You don't know what that means, of course; no one could. You all think I have simply to write and say 'Here, play this,' and it is played. You know nothing of how it hurts to put ideas on paper, nothing of the dead weight of responsibility, the loneliness, the self-distrust, the hate of one's own work that the creative brain has to struggle against. Consequently, my dearest, you will just have to take it on trust from me that an interview such as I had yesterday with Bachmann is nothing less than a rebirth. He even advised me not to try to change or improve it much, saying that what changes were needed could best be put in at rehearsals, and I think he's dead right. So I shall do no more than put the third act in shape before I hand the thing over to him and dash home for the holidays. Atmosphere of Yule logs, holly berry and mistletoe!I really am absurdly happy. You see, it isn't merely success, or a premonition of success (for the first night is still to come); it's in a way a justification of my whole life. If this thing is as good as I think it is, it will amount to a sort of written permit from headquarters to love you, to go on thinking as I do think about certain things and to regard myself—well, it's hard to put into words, but as a dynamic force, rather than as a lucky fool that stumbled across one rather good thing. Not that I shouldn't do all three anyway, to be sure!—And every kind friend will say he knew I would 'make good'; that there never was any doubt my 'coming into my own,' and all the rest. Oh, Lord, if people only knew! But thank Heaven they don't!I am becoming obscure and rhapsodic. I seem to 'see'things to-night, like Tilburina in the play. I see strange and distorted conceptions of myself, for one thing; endless and bewildering publicity. Oh, what a comfort it is to think that no matter what I may be to other people, to you I shall always be simply the same stupid, bungling, untidyHarry!I love you with an intensity that beggars the power of human expression.I did a bracket this afternoon.
Querida de mis ojos—You don't know Spanish but you ought to gather what that means without great effort—I have weighty news for you. I dashed down to New York on the spur of the moment day before yesterday and showed the first draught of my completed MS to Leo. My dear, he said IT WOULD DO! You don't know what that means, of course; no one could. You all think I have simply to write and say 'Here, play this,' and it is played. You know nothing of how it hurts to put ideas on paper, nothing of the dead weight of responsibility, the loneliness, the self-distrust, the hate of one's own work that the creative brain has to struggle against. Consequently, my dearest, you will just have to take it on trust from me that an interview such as I had yesterday with Bachmann is nothing less than a rebirth. He even advised me not to try to change or improve it much, saying that what changes were needed could best be put in at rehearsals, and I think he's dead right. So I shall do no more than put the third act in shape before I hand the thing over to him and dash home for the holidays. Atmosphere of Yule logs, holly berry and mistletoe!
I really am absurdly happy. You see, it isn't merely success, or a premonition of success (for the first night is still to come); it's in a way a justification of my whole life. If this thing is as good as I think it is, it will amount to a sort of written permit from headquarters to love you, to go on thinking as I do think about certain things and to regard myself—well, it's hard to put into words, but as a dynamic force, rather than as a lucky fool that stumbled across one rather good thing. Not that I shouldn't do all three anyway, to be sure!—And every kind friend will say he knew I would 'make good'; that there never was any doubt my 'coming into my own,' and all the rest. Oh, Lord, if people only knew! But thank Heaven they don't!
I am becoming obscure and rhapsodic. I seem to 'see'things to-night, like Tilburina in the play. I see strange and distorted conceptions of myself, for one thing; endless and bewildering publicity. Oh, what a comfort it is to think that no matter what I may be to other people, to you I shall always be simply the same stupid, bungling, untidy
Harry!
I love you with an intensity that beggars the power of human expression.
I did a bracket this afternoon.
Madge never received a letter from him that pleased her more. She was fully alive to its chaotic immaturity, and she smiled at the way he unconsciously appeared to shove his love for her into second place. But there was that about it that convinced her of his greatness as nothing had yet done. It seemed to her that when he spoke of the loneliness of genius and in his prophetic touch at the end about the different ways in which people would regard him he spoke with the true voice of a seer. It all made her feel very humble and solemn. To think that Harry, her Harry, that tall thin thing with the pink cheeks and dark brown hair and the restless black eyes, should be one of the great men of his day, perhaps one of the great ones of all time! Keats—Harry was already older than Keats when he died, but she thought he had much the same temperament; Congreve—she knew how he loved Congreve; Marlowe—she had often compared his golden idealism to that of Marlowe; Shakespeare...? No, no—of course not! She knew perfectly well he was no Shakespeare.... Still, why not, in time?... And anyway, Marlowe, Congreve, Keats—Wimbourne!
So she dreamed on, till the future, which hitherto she had seen as merely smiling toward her, seemed to rise and with solemn face beckon her to a new height, a place hard to reach and difficult to hold, but one whose very base seemed more exalted than anything she had yet known....
Now Madge was, on the whole, a very fairly modern type of young woman. Her outlook on the world was based on Darwin, and she held firmly to such eugenic principles as seemed to flow directly from the doctrine of evolution. She had long since declared war to the death on disease, filth and vice, to which she added a lesser foe generally known as "suppression of facts," and she had done a certainamount of real work in helping those less fortunate than herself to the acquisition of health, cleanliness, virtue and "knowledge." She thought that women would get the vote some day, though they weren't ready for it yet, and hadn't joined the Antis because there was no use in being a drag on the wheels of progress, even if you didn't feel like helping. She believed in the "social regeneration" of woman. It was quite clear to her that in the early years of the twentieth century women were beginning—and only just beginning—to take their place beside men in the active work of saving the race; "why, you had only to look at Jane Addams and Florence Nightingale to see—" et cetera.
And yet, and yet....
It was at least as fine a thing to become Mrs. Harold Wimbourne and devote a lifetime to ministering to one of the great creative geniuses of the time as to be a heavy gun on her own account, was what she meant, of course. But that wasn't quite enough. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Harry were not one of the great creative geniuses of the age; suppose there were no question of Congreve, Keats, Wimbourne and so forth; suppose being his wife meant being plain Mrs. Harold Wimbourne and nothing more—what then?
"Well, I suppose I'd still rather be plain Mrs. H. W., if you will have it!" she retorted petulantly to her relentless self. But she soon became glad she had brought herself to the point of admitting it, for, the issue definitely settled, her mind became unaccountably peaceful....
New Year's was scarcely over when rehearsals began, and Harry was in for another period of lounging in shrouded orchestra chairs and watching other people air their ideas, or lack of ideas, on the child of his brain. His lounging was now, however, quite freely punctuated by interruptions and not infrequently by scramblings over the footlights to illustrate a fine point. This rather bored the actors; Harry had become almost uncomfortably acute in matter of stage technique. But they had to admit that his suggestions were never foolish or unnecessary.
In due time came the first night. It is no part of our purpose to describe "Pastures New" or its success in this place. If—which is improbable—you have to refresh yourmind on it, you have only to ask one of your journalistic friends—don't pretend that you haven't at least one friend on a newspaper—to show you the files of his sheet. There you will see it all, in what scholars call primary sources:—"New Yorkers Roar With Delight at Feminist Satire," and all the rest of it, like as not on the front page. Harry hated its being called a satire; that was such a cheap and easy way of getting out of it. For when all was over, when people had cried with laughing at its whimsical humor, poked each other with delight at its satirical touches—oh yes, there were plenty of them—quoted its really brilliant dialogue, sat enthralled by its swift and compelling action—for Harry had made good his promise that this play should have "punch"—when they had done all these things to their heart's content, still not a person saw the play who did not come away from it more fully convinced than ever he had been of—well, of what you had only to look at Jane Addams and Florence Nightingale to see. For there were really great moments in the play; moments when no one even thought of laughing, though one was almost always made to laugh the moment after. That was Harry's way, that was his power, to "hit 'em hard and then make 'em laugh just as they begin to feel smarty in the eyes," as Burchard the stage manager not unaptly put it.
"Pastures New" ran for six months in New York alone, and no one laughed harder or less rancorously at it than the "feminists" themselves—or all of them that were worth anything.
Of course both Harry and Madge were tired to death by the time the wedding became imminent, and the final preparations were made in what might be called broad impressionistic strokes.
Madge had at first intended to have a small informal reception in her own house, but Aunt Tizzy had been so disappointed that she had at last consented to let it be at her aunt's and attain the dimensions of a perfect tomasha—the phrase is her own—if it wanted to. Why not? Aunt Tizzy's house could hold it.
"Besides, my dear," argued Harry, "it's only once in a lifetime, after all. If you marry again as a widow you'll only have a silly little wedding, without a veil and no bridesmaids, and if we're divorced you won't have anywedding at all, worth mentioning. Much better do it up brown when you have the chance."
"What about music?" asked Harry as the two stood in final consultation with the organist on the night of the rehearsal. "I've always wondered why people had such perfectly rotten music at weddings, but I begin to see now. Still, if wecouldhave something other than Lohengrin and Mendelssohn I think I could face marriage with a little better heart. What about it, dear?"
Madge groaned. "Oh, anything! The Star-Spangled Banner, if you want!"
"I think I can arrange it," said the organist smiling, and he played the march from "Tannhäuser" and the march from "Athalie," which he always played when people asked for something unusual, and the effect was considered very pleasing and original. Altogether it was the prettiest wedding any one had seen in years, according to the testimony of those who attended the reception—which did become a perfect tomasha. But as tomasha-goers are notoriously biased their testimony probably wasn't legal and no respectable judge would have accepted it as evidence. The only legal thing about the whole affair was the ceremony, which was fully as much so as if it had been before a magistrate, which Madge swore it should be if she ever had to go through it again and regretted bitterly it hadn't been this time.... Well, perhaps, when she looked about her and saw how unaffectedly happy her mother and Aunt Tizzy and the bridesmaids and all the other good people were, she didn't regret it quite so much.
"Though it is rather absurd, getting married to please other people, isn't it?" she remarked as they drove off at last, leaving the tomasha-goers to carouse as long as Aunt Tizzy could make them.
"I think I'd do almost anything to please Aunt Tizzy," said Harry. "Now that it's all over, that is. Get married again, even.... After all," he added suddenly, shamelessly going back on all his professions of the last few days; "after all, you know, itwasrather a good wedding!"
Which shows that he was just as biased as any one, at bottom!
LABYRINTHS
How many people should you say could be packed into a three-hundred foot barkantine-rigged steam yacht, capable of fourteen knots under steam alone, for a night in late June, presumably hot, anchored in a noisy estuary off Long Island Sound without making them all wish they had never been born? We ourselves should hate to have to answer the question offhand. So did Aunt Cecilia, whom it concerned more closely than any one else, and she did not have to answer it offhand at all, having all the available statistics within reach. In fact, she had spent the best part of one hot New York June morning over it already, sitting in her darkened front drawing-room because it was the coolest room in the house, amid ghost-like furniture whose drab slip-covers concealed nothing less than real Louis Quinze. On her lap—or what Uncle James said if she didn't look out wouldn't be her lap very long—she held a magazine and over the magazine an expensive piece of letter-paper, on one leaf of which was a list of names and on the other a plan drawn in wobbly and unarchitectural lines—obviously a memory sketch of the sleeping accommodations of theHalcyone. Near what even in the sketch was undoubtedly the largest and most comfortable of theHalcyone'scabins she had written in firm unmistakable letters the word "Me," and opposite two other rooms she had inscribed in only slightly less bold characters the initials "H. and M." and "J. and B." So far so good; why not go on thus as long as the list or the cabins held and consider the problem solved? It wasn't as simple as that, it seemed. Some of the people hadn't been asked, or might be asked only if there was room enough, and the boys might bring in people at the last moment; it was very confusing. And not even the extent of the sleeping accommodations was as constant as might have been desired. It was ridiculous, of course, but even after all these years she could not be quite sure whether there were two little singlerooms down by the galley skylight or only one. She was practically sure there were two, but suppose she were mistaken? And then, if it came to that, the boys and almost as many friends as they cared to bring might sleep on the smoking-room sofas....
"No ... no, I'm not sure how wise that would be," she mused, certain things she had seen and been told of boat-race celebrations straying into her mind. "The smoking-room cushions have only just been covered...."
A ring at the doorbell. She glanced up at a pierglass (also Louis Quinze) opposite her and strained her eyes at its mosquito-netting covered surface. Her hair was far from what she could have wished; she hoped it would be no one she would have to see. Oh, Beatrice.
"Howdy do, dear," said Aunt Cecilia, relieved. "I was just thinking of you. I'm trying to plan out about the boat-race; it's less than a week off now."
Beatrice sank languidly down on the other end of Aunt Cecilia's sofa. She was much hotter and more fatigued than Aunt Cecilia, but no one would have guessed it to look at her. Her clothes lay coolly and caressingly on her; not a hair seemed out of place.
"You see," went on the other, "it's rather difficult to arrange, on account of there being so many unmarried people—just the Lyles and the MacGraths and George Grainger for us older ones and the rest all Muffins' and Jack's friends. I think we shall work out all right, though, with two rooms at the Griswold and the smoking-room to overflow into. I'm tired of bothering about it. Tell me about yourself."
"Nothing much," answered Beatrice. "I much prefer hearing about you. By the way—about the races. I just dropped in to tell you about Tommy Clairloch. He's coming. You did tell me to ask him, didn't you?"
"Yes ... oh, yes, of course. I had forgotten about Lord Clairloch for the moment. I thought he was going west the middle of the month."
"He was, but he didn't. Tommy's rather a fool." Tommy, it may be mentioned, was in the process of improving himself by making a trip around the world, going westward. He had left home in April and so far Upper Montclair was his farthest point west. As Beatrice said, Tommy was rather a fool.
"Oh, not a bit ... only.... By the bye, dear, do you happen to remember whether there are one or two rooms down that little hall by the galley?"
"Two, as I remember it. But don't bother about Tommy. Really, Aunt Cecilia, don't. He needn't come at all—I'll tell him he can't."
"Of course he must come.... That's it—I'll put him in the other little single room and tell the boys that they and any one else they ask from now on must go to the Griswold or sleep in the smoking-room. I'm glad to have it settled."
Aunt Cecilia beamed as one does when a difficult problem is solved. It occurred to her that Beatrice might beam back at her just a tiny bit, if only in mock sympathy. Especially as it was her guest.... But Beatrice remained just as casual as before, sitting easily but immovably in her corner of the sofa with her parasol lying lightly in her slim gloved hands. Aunt Cecilia noticed those hands rather especially; it seemed scarcely human to keep one's gloves on in the house on a day like this! Characteristically, she gave her thought outlet in words.
"Do take off your gloves and things, dear, and make yourself comfortable! Such a day! New York in June is frightful—eighty-eight yesterday, and Heaven knows what it will be to-day. You'll stay to lunch, won't you?"
"Thanks, perhaps I will," replied Beatrice listlessly.
"I never have stayed in town so late in June," ran on Aunt Cecilia, "but I thought I wouldn't open the Tarrytown house this spring—it's only for six weeks and it is so much extra trouble.... I shall take the yacht and the boys directly on up to Bar Harbor afterward; we should love to have you come with us, if you feel like leaving James—you're looking so fagged. You must both come and pay us a long visit later on, though I suppose with Harry and Madge in the Berkshires you'll be running up there quite often for week-ends...."
Beatrice stirred a little. "Thanks, Aunt Cecilia, but I don't mind the heat especially. If James can bear it, I can, I suppose. I expect to stay here most of the summer."
She was perfectly courteous, and yet it suddenly occurred to Aunt Cecilia that perhaps she wouldn't be quite so free in showering invitations on Beatrice and James for a while. There was that about her, as she sat there.... Languid,that was the word; there had been a certain languor, not due to hot weather, in Beatrice's reception of most of her favors, now that she came to think of it. There had been that wedding trip in theHalcyone, to begin with. Both she and James had shown a due amount of gratitude, but neither, when you came right down to it, had given any particular evidence of having enjoyed it. Everything was as it should be, no doubt, but—one didn't lend yachts without expecting to have them enjoyed!
"That trip cost me over five thousand dollars," she had remarked to her husband shortly after the return of the bridal pair. "Of course I don't grudge it, but five thousand dollars is a good deal of money, and I'd rather have subscribed it to the Organized Charities than feel I was spending it to give those two something they didn't want!"
Aunt Cecilia gazed anxiously at Beatrice for a moment, memories of this sort floating vaguely through her mind. She scented trouble, somewhere. The next minute she thought she had diagnosed it.
"You're bored, dear, that's the long and the short of it, and I think I know what's the matter. I'm not sure that I didn't feel a little that way myself, at the very first. But I soon got over it. My dear, there's nothing in the world like a baby to drive away boredom...."
Beatrice tapped with the end of her parasol on what in winter would have been a pink and gray texture from Aubusson's storied looms but was now simply a parquet flooring. But she did not blush, not in the slightest degree.
"Yes," she answered, a trifle wearily, "I daresay you're right. Sometimes I think I would like to have a baby. It doesn't seem to come, though.... After all, it's rather early to bother, isn't it?"
"Oh, I don't want you tobother—! Only—" She was just a little taken aback. This barren agreement, this lack of natural shyness, of blushes! It was unprecedented in her experience.
"Only what, Aunt Cecilia?"
"Only—it's a sure cure for being bored. But Beatrice, there must be others, while you're waiting. What about your studies, your work? You haven't done much of that since you came home from abroad, have you? It's too late to begin anything this summer, of course, but next autumnI should think you'd like to take it up again, especially as you don't care so much for society, and I'm sure I don't blame you for that...." She beamed momentarily on her niece, who this time smiled back ever so slightly in return. "After all, it's nice to be of some use in the world, isn't it?"
Why not have left it there, on that secure impregnable pinnacle? Why weaken her position by giving voice to that silly unprovoked fancy that had hung about the back of her mind since the beginning of the interview, or very near it? We can't explain, unless the sudden suspicion that Beatrice had smiled less with than at her, and the sight of her sitting there so beautiful and aloof, so well-bredly acquiescent and so emotionally intangible, exercised an ignoble influence over her. There is a sort of silent acquiescence that is very irritating.... And after all, was the impulse so ignoble? A word of warning of the most affectionate kind, prompted by the keenest sympathy—surely it was wholly Beatrice's fault if anything went wrong!
"More than that, my dear, there's a certain danger in being too idle—a danger I'm sure you're as free from as any one could be, but you know what the psalm says!" (Or was it original with Isaac Watts? However!) "Of course marriage isn't so easy, especially in the first year, and especially if there are no children—what with the husband away at work all day and tired to death and like as not cross as a bear when he comes home in the evening—I know!—a young wife can't be blamed for feeling a little out of sorts sometimes. And then along comes another man...."
Here Beatrice, to use a sporting expression, froze. From that moment it ceased to be question of two women talking together and became a matter of Aunt Cecilia apostrophizing a statue; a modern conception, say, of Artemis. Marble itself could not be more unresponsive than Beatrice when people tried to "get at her." It was not rudeness, it was not coldness, it was not even primarily self-consciousness; it was the natural inability to speak of matters deeply concerning oneself which people of Aunt Cecilia's temperament can never fully understand.
"Of course other men have things to offer that husbands have not, especially if they are free in the daytime and are nice and good-natured and sympathetic, and often a youngwife may be deceived into valuing these things more than the love of her husband. They are all at their best on the surface, while her husband's best is all below it. And that, I think, is the way most married unhappinesses begin; not in unfaithfulness or in jealousy or in loss of love, but merely in idleness. I've seen it happen so often, dear, that you must be able to understand why I never like to see a young wife with too little to do...."
For Aunt Cecilia was personal, you see, to a degree. Did she imagine she was making things any easier, Beatrice asked herself with a little burst of humorous contempt, by her generalities and her third persons and her "young wives"? If she had been perfectly frank, if she had come out and said, "Beatrice, if you don't look out you'll be falling in love with Tommy Clairloch," there was a possibility that Beatrice could have answered her, even confided in her; at least put things on a conversational footing. But as for talking about her own case in this degrading disguise, dramatizing herself as a "young wife"—!
She remained silent long enough to make it obvious that her silence was her real reply. Then she said "Yes, indeed, perfectly," and Aunt Cecilia rather tardily became aware of her niece's metamorphosis into the modern Artemis. She made a flurried attempt to give her own remarks, retrospectively, something of the Artemis quality; to place a pedestal, as it were, on which to take her own stand as a modern conception of Pallas Athene.
"I hope, my dear, you don't think I mean anything...."
"Not at all," said Beatrice kindly but firmly. "And now if you don't mind, Aunt Cecilia, I think I'll go up and get ready for luncheon."
But Aunt Cecilia was afraid she had gone too far.
A week later came the gathering of the clans at New London for the Yale-Harvard boat-race. Aunt Cecilia had not been to a race in years. Races, you see, were not in a class with graduations; they were optional, works of supererogation. But this year, in addition to one of the largest yachts extant and money that fairly groaned to be put into circulation, she had two boys in college, and altogether it seemed worth while "making an effort." And the effort once made there was a certain pleasure in doing the thing really well, in taking one's place as one of the greatYale families of the country. So on the afternoon before the race theHalcyonewas anchored in a conspicuous place in the harbor, where she loomed large and majestic among the smaller craft, and a tremendous blue flag with a white Y on it was hoisted between two of the masts. People from the shore looked for her name with field glasses and pointed her out to each other as "the Wimbourne yacht" with a note of awe in their voices.
"It's like being on theVictoryat Trafalgar, as far as conspicuousness goes," said Harry on his arrival. "Or rather," he added magnificently, "like being on Cleopatra's galley at Actium."
"Absit omen," remarked Uncle James, and the others laughed, but his wife paid no attention to him. She was not above a little thrill of pride and pleasure herself.
Muffins and Jack and their friends were much in evidence; the party was primarily for the "young people." They kept mostly to themselves, dancing and singing and making personal remarks together, always detaching themselves with a polite attentive quirk of the head when an older person addressed them. Nice children, all of them. Muffins and Jack were of the right sort, emphatically, and their friends were obviously—not too obviously, but just obviously enough—chosen with nice discriminating taste. Jack especially gave one the impression of having a fine appreciation of people and things; that of Muffins was based on rather broad athletic lines. Muffins played football. Ruth, the brains of the family, was not present; we forget whether she was running a summer camp for cash girls or exploring the headwaters of the Yukon; it was something modern and expensive. Ruth was not extensively missed by her brothers.
They all dined hilariously together on the yacht and repaired to the Griswold afterward to dance and revel through the evening. All, that is, except Beatrice and James; they did not arrive till well on in the evening, James having been unable to leave town till his day's work was over. The launch with Uncle James in it went to the station to meet them and brought them directly back to the yacht to get settled and tidied up; they could go on over to the Griswold for a bit, if they weren't too tired.
"How about it?" inquired James as he stood peering at his watch in the dim light on deck.
"Oh, just as you like," said Beatrice.
"Well, I don't care. Say something."
Beatrice was rather tired.... Well, perhaps it was better that way; they would have another chance to see all they wanted to-morrow night. This from Uncle James, who thought he would drop over there and relieve Aunt Cecilia, who had been chaperoning since dinner.
His head disappeared over the ship's side. James walked silently off to unpack. Beatrice sank into a wicker armchair and dropped her head on her hands....
It seemed as if scarcely a moment had passed when she became aware of the launch again coming up alongside and voices floating up from it—Aunt Cecilia and Lord Clairloch. Salutations ensued, avuncular and friendly. Aunt Cecilia was tired, but very cheerful. She buzzed off presently to see about something and Lord Clairloch dropped down by Beatrice.
Tommy was very cheerful also, apparently much impressed by what he had seen at the Griswold. "I say, a jolly bean-feast, that! Never saw such dancin' or drinkin' in my life, and I've lived a bit! They keep 'em apart, too—that's the best of it; no trouble about takin' a gell, provided she don't go to the bar, which ain't likely.... Jove, we've got nothing like it in England! Rippin' looking lot of gells, rippin' fellahs, rippin' good songs, too. All seem to enjoy 'emselves so much!—I say, these Yankees can teach us a thing or two about havin' a good time—wot?"
Beatrice listened with a growing sense of amusement. Tommy always refreshed her when he was in a mood like this; he kept his youth so wonderfully, in spite of all his super-sophistication; he was such a boy still. Tommy never seemed to mind being hot or tired; Tommy was always ready for anything; Tommy was not the sort that came home at six o'clock and sank into the evening paper without a word—She stopped that line of thought and asked a question.
"Why did you leave it all, Tommy, if it amused you so?"
"Oh, had enough of it—been there since dinner. Beside, I heard you'd come. Thought I'd buzz over and see how you were gettin' on. Have a horrid journey?"
Beatrice nodded.
"Hot?"
"No, not especially." They were silent a moment. Tommy opened his mouth to ask a question and shut it again. And then, walking like a ghost across their silence, appeared the figure of James, stalking aimlessly down the deck. He nodded briefly to Tommy and walked off again.
The effect, in view of the turn of their conversation, of Tommy's unasked question, was almost that of a spectral apparition. The half-light of the deck, James' silence and the noiseless tread of his rubber-soled shoes had in themselves an uncanny quality. Presently Tommy whistled softly, as though to break the spell.
"Whew! I say, is he often like that?"
Beatrice laughed. Tommywasrefreshing! "Lately, yes. Do you know," she added, "he only spoke twice on the way up here—once to ask me if I was ready to have dinner, and once what I wanted for dinner?" Her tone was one of suppressed amusement, caught from Tommy; but before her remark was fairly finished something rather like a note of alarm rang through her. Why had she said that? It wasn't so frightfully amusing, come to think of it. Her pleasure, she saw in a flash, came not from the remark itself but from her anticipation of seeing Tommy respond to it....
That was rather serious, wasn't it? Just how serious, she wondered? Joy in seeing another man respond to a disparaging remark about her husband—that was what it came to! For the first time in her life she had the sensation of reveling in a stolen joy. For of course Tommy did respond, beautifully—too beautifully. "Oh, I say! Really, now! Thatisa trifle strong, wot?" and so on. He was doing exactly what she had meant him to, and there was a separate pleasure in that—a zest of power!
Heavens!
For the first time she began to feel a trifle nervous about Tommy. Was Aunt Cecilia right? Had all her careful euphemisms about young wives some basis of justification as applied to her own case? She and Tommy.... Well, she and Tommy?... Half an hour ago she could have placed them perfectly; now her sight was a trifle blurred. There was not time to think it all out now, anyway; another boatload of people from the shore was even now crowding up the gangway; to-morrow she would go into the matter thoroughly with herself and put things, whateverthey might be, on a definite business footing. To-night, even, if she did not sleep....
Everybody was back, it appeared, and things shortly became festive. There were drinks and sandwiches and entertaining reminiscences of the evening from the young people, lasting till bedtime. Thought was out of the question.
Once undressed and in bed, to be sure, there was better opportunity. She slipped comfortably down between the sheets; what a blessing that the night was not too hot, after all! Aunt Cecilia had said ... what was it that Aunt Cecilia had said? Something about a young wife—a young wife ought to have something to do. Of course. These were linen sheets, by the way, and the very finest linen, at that. Aunt Cecilia did know how to do things.... What was it? Something more, she fancied, about valuing something more than something else. Tommy Clairloch was the first thing, she was sure of that. Aunt Cecilia had not said it, but she had meant it.... She was going to sleep, after all; what a blessing!... What was that other thing? It was hard to think when one was so comfortable. Oh, yes, she had it now—the love of a husband!
Whose husband? The young wife's, to be sure. And who was the young wife? She herself, obviously. But—the thought flared up like a strong lamp through the thickening fog of her brain—herhusband did not love her! She and James were not like ordinary young wives and husbands.... How silly of her not to have seen that before! That changed everything, of course. Aunt Cecilia was on a wrong track altogether; her—what was the word?—her premises were false. That threw out her whole argument—everything—including that about Tommy.
Gradually the sudden illumination of that thought faded in the evergrowing shadow of sleep. Now only vague wisps of ideas floated through her mind; even those were but pale reflections of that one truth; Aunt Cecilia was mistaken.... Aunt Cecilia was wrong.... It was all right about Tommy.... Tommy was all right.... Aunt Cecilia ... was wrong....
Psychologists tell us that ideas make most impression on the mind when they are introduced into it during that indefinite period between sleeping and waking; they then become incorporated directly with our subconscious selves without having to pass through the usual tortuous channelsof consciousness and reason. And the sub-consciousness, as every one knows, is a most intimate and important place; once an idea is firmly grounded there it has become substantially a part of our being, so far as we can tell from our incomplete knowledge of our own ideal existence. We are not sure that a single introduction of this sort can give an idea a good social standing in the realm of sub-consciousness; probably not. But it can help; it can give it at least a nodding acquaintance there. Certain it is, at any rate, that when Beatrice awoke next morning it was with a mind at least somewhat more willing than previously to take for granted, as part of the natural order of things, the fact of the inherent wrongness of Aunt Cecilia and its corollary, the innate rightness of Tommy. (Possibly this corollary would not have appeared so inevitable if the matter had all been threshed out in reason; they are rather lax about logic and such things in sub-consciousness, making a good introduction the one criterion of acceptance.) With the net material result that Beatrice was less inclined than ever to be nervous about Aunt Cecilia and also less inclined than ever to be nervous about Tommy.
The day began in an atmosphere of not unpleasant indolence. Breakfast was late and was followed by the best cigarette of the day on deck—Beatrice's smoking was the secret admiration and envy of all the female half of the younger section. A cool breeze ruffled the harbor and gathered in a flock of clouds from the Sound that left only just enough sunlight to bring out the brilliant colors of the little flags all the yachts had strung up between their mastheads and down again to bowsprit and stern. It was rather pleasant to sit and watch these and other things; the continual small traffic of the harbor, the occasional arrivals of more slim white yachts.
Presently Harry and Madge and Beatrice and Tommy and one or two others made a short excursion to the shore, for no other apparent reason than to join the procession of smartly dressed people that for one day in the year convert the quiet town of New London into one of the gayest-looking places on earth. Tommy was much in evidence here, fairly crowing with delight over each new thing that pleased him. It was all Harry could do to keep him from swathing himself in blue; Tommy had become an enthusiastic Yalensian. He had spent a week-end with Harryin New Haven during the spring; he had driven with Aunt Selina in the victoria, he had been shown the university and had met a number of pretty gells and rippin' fellahs; what business was it of Wiggers if he wanted to wave a blue flag? Wiggers ought to feel jolly complimented, instead of makin' a row!
"You'd say just the same about Harvard, if you went there—the people are just as nice," said Harry. "Besides, Harvard will probably win. You may buy us each a blue feather, if you like, and call it square at that."
Beatrice smiled, but she thought Harry a little hard.
"Never mind, Tommy," said she; "you can sit by me at the race this afternoon and we'll both scream our lungs out, if we want."
That was substantially what happened. Luncheon on the yacht—an enormous "standing" affair, with lots of extra people—was followed by a general exodus to the observation trains. Tommy had never seen an observation train before and was full of curiosity. They didn't have them at Henley. It was all jolly different from Henley, wasn't it, though? As they walked through the railroad yards to their car he was inclined to think it wasn't as good fun as Henley. One missed the punts, and all that. Once seated in the car, however, with an unobstructed view of the river, it was a little better, and by the time the crews had rowed up to the starting-point he had almost come round to the American point of view. It might not be so jolly as Henley, quite, but Jove! one could see!
Tommy sat on Beatrice's left; on her right was Mr. MacGrath and beyond him again was Aunt Cecilia. The others were scattered through the train in similar mixed groups. Beatrice thought it a good idea to split up that way.... She began to have an idea she was going to enjoy this race.
So she did, too, more than she had enjoyed anything in—oh, months! She couldn't remember much about it afterward, though she did remember who won, which is more than we do. She had a recollection, to begin with, of Tommy joining in lustily in every Yale cheer and of Mr. MacGrath trying not to thump Aunt Cecilia on the back at an important moment and thumping herself instead. He apologized very nicely. Presently Tommy committed the same offense against her and neglected to apologizeentirely, but she didn't mind in the least. (That was the sort of race it was.) Perhaps there lurked in the back of her brain a certain sense of joy in the omission.... She herself became infected with Tommy-mania before long.
And the spectacle was an exhilarating one, under any circumstances. The noble sweep of the river, the keen blue of the water and sky, the green of the hills, the brilliant double row of yachts and the general atmosphere of hilarity were enough to make one glad to be alive. And then the excitement of the race itself, the sense of participation the motion of the train gave one, the almost painful fascination of watching those two little sets of automatons, the involuntary, electric response from the crowd when one or the other of them pulled a little into the lead, the thrill of bursting out from behind some temporary obstruction and seeing them down there, quite near now, entering the last half-mile with one's own crew just a little, ever so little, ahead! From which moment it seemed both a second and an age to the finish, that terrific, heart-raising finish, with its riot of waving colors and its pandemonium of toots from the water and cries from the land....
On the whole, we suppose Yale must have won that race. For after all, it isn't quite so pleasant when the other crew wins, no matter how close the race was and no matter how good a loser one happens to be. Tommy was as good a loser as you could easily find, but not even he could have been as cheerful as all that on the ride back if his crew had lost. Indeed, cheerful was rather a weak word with which to describe Tommy by this time. Beatrice, doing her best to calm him down, became aware, from glances shot at him from various—mostly feminine—directions, that some people would have characterized his condition by a much sharper and shorter word. Involuntarily, almost against her will, Beatrice indignantly repelled their accusation. What nonsense! They didn't know Tommy; he was naturally like this. Though there had been champagne at lunch, of course....
Rather an interesting experience, that ride back to town. The enforced inactivity gave one a chance to think, in the intervals of tugging at Tommy's coat tails. Why should she be enjoying herself so ridiculously? Whole-souled enjoyment was not a thing she had been accustomed toduring the last few years, at any rate since.... Yes, she had enjoyed herself more this afternoon than at any time since she had been married; but what of it? She attached no blame to James; it was not James' fault; nothing was anybody's fault. She was taking a little, a very little fun where she found it, that was all.
The train pulled up in the yards and thought was discontinued. It was resumed a few minutes later, however, as they sat in the launch, waiting for the rest of their party to join them. She happened to be sitting just opposite to Aunt Cecilia, on whom her eyes idly rested. Aunt Cecilia! What about Aunt Cecilia? She was wrong, of course! She did not understand; she was wrong! Tommy was all right....
So sub-consciousness got in its little work, till conscious reason sallied forth and routed it. Oh, why, Beatrice asked herself, with a mental motion as of throwing off an entangling substance, why all this nonsensical worrying about a danger that did not exist? What danger was there of her—making a fool of herself over Tommy when.... She did not follow that thought out; it was better to leave those "when" clauses hanging in the air, when possible.
But Tommy! Poor, good-natured, simple, ineffective Tommy!
She resolved to think no longer, but to give herself entirely over to what slight pleasure the moment had to offer She dressed and dined in good spirits, with a sense of anticipation almost childlike in its innocence.
After dinner there was a general exodus to the Griswold. From the moment she stepped on to the hotel dock, surrounded by its crowd of cheerfully bobbing launches, she became infected with the prevailing spirit of gaiety. Tommy was right; Americans did know how to enjoy themselves!
They made their way up the lawn toward the big brilliant hotel. They reached the door of the ballroom and stopped a moment. In this interval Beatrice became aware of James at her elbow.
"You'd better dance with me first," he said.
They danced two or three times around the room in complete silence. Beatrice did not in the least mind dancing with James, indeed she rather enjoyed it, he danced so well. But why address her in that sepulchral tone; whymake his invitation sound like a threat; why not at least put up a pretense of making duty a pleasure? She was conscious of a slight rise of irritation; if James was going to be a skeleton at this feast.... She was relieved when he handed her over to one of the other men.
But James had no intention of being a skeleton. He went back to bed before any of the others, alleging a headache. Beatrice learned this indirectly, through Harry, and felt rather disappointed. She would have preferred to have him remain and enjoy himself; she did not bother to explain why. But he was apparently determined that nothing should make him enjoy himself. James was rather irritating, sometimes. She said as much, to Harry, who assented, frowning slightly. She saw a chance to get in some of the small work of destiny-fighting.
"He's not been at all natural lately," she said; "I've been quite worried about him. I wish you'd watch him and tell me what to do about it. I feel rather to blame for it, naturally."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry," said Harry. "Working in the city in summer is hard on any one, of course."
"I'm afraid it's more than that, and I want your help. You understand James better than I do, I think."
"No, you're wrong there. I don't understand James at all. No one really understands any one else, as a matter of fact. We think we do, but we don't. The very simplest nature is a regular Cretan labyrinth."
"But a wife ought to be the Theseus of her husband's labyrinth, that's the point."
"Perhaps you're right. Here's hoping you don't find a minotaur in the middle!"
She didn't worry much about it, however. Tommy cut in soon afterward, and they didn't talk about James or labyrinths either. Tommy had not danced with her before that evening. She was going to say something about that, but decided not to. It was too jolly dancing to talk, really. Tommy danced very well—quite as well as James. They danced the contemporary American dances for some time and then they broke into an old-fashioned whirling English waltz; the dance they had both been brought up on. It brought memories to the minds of both; they felt old times and places creeping back on them.
"Do you remember the last time we did this?" asked Tommy presently.
"At the Dimchurches', the winter before I came here."
"Didn't last long, though. You were the prettiest gell there."
"I suppose I was.—And you were just Tommy Erskine then, and awfully ineligible!"
What an absurd remark to make! If she was going to let her tongue run away with her like that, she had better keep her mouth shut.
They danced on in silence for some time, rested in the cool of a verandah and then danced again. The room was already beginning to empty somewhat, making dancing more of a pleasure than ever. They danced on till they were tired and then sat out again.
"We might take a stroll about," suggested Tommy presently.
They walked down the steps and out on the lawn. Presently they came near the windows of the bar, which was on the ground floor of the hotel, and stopped to look in for a moment. It was a lively scene. The room—a great white bare place—was filled with men laughing and shouting and slapping each other on the shoulder and bellowing college songs, all in a thick blue haze of tobacco smoke. They were also drinking, and Beatrice noticed that when they had drained their glasses they invariably threw them carelessly on the floor, adding a new sound to the din and fairly paving the room with broken glass. Many of them were mildly intoxicated, but none were actually drunk; the whole sounded the note of celebration in the ballroom strengthened and masculinized. It had its effect on Beatrice; it was a pleasure to think that one lived in a world where people could enjoy themselves thoroughly and uproariously and without becoming bestial about it.
"It's really very jolly, isn't it?" she said at last.
"Oh, rippin'," assented Tommy.
"Perhaps you'd rather go in there now?"
"No, no. Don't know the fellahs—I should feel out of it. Wiggers was right.—Besides, I'd rather stay with you."
Beatrice wondered if she had intended to make Tommy say that.
They wandered off through the hotel grounds and saw other couples doing the same. Doing rather more, in fact. After some search they found an empty bench and sat down.
Tommy's education had been in many ways a narrow one, but it had equipped him perfectly for making use of such situations as the present. He turned about on the bench, leaning one arm on its back and facing Beatrice's profile squarely.
"Jove!" he said reminiscently. "Haven't done that since Oxford."
"What?"
"That." He waved his head in the direction of the well populated shadows.
"Oh," answered Beatrice carelessly. The profound lack of interest in her tone had its effect.
"I did it to you once, by Jove! Remember?"
"No. You never did, Tommy; you know that perfectly well."
"Well, I will now, then!"
He did.
The next moment he rather wished he had not, Beatrice's slow smile of contemptuous tolerance made him feel like such a child.
"Tommy, it's only you, of course, so it really doesn't matter, but if you try to do that again I shall punish you."
Her power over him was as comforting to her as it was disconcerting to him. For a moment; after that she felt a pang of irritation. The idea of a married woman being kissed by a man not her husband was in itself rather revolting, and the thought that she was that married woman stung. As if that was not enough, the thought came to her that she could have stopped Tommy at any moment and had not. Had she not, in fact, secretly—even to herself—intended that he should do that very thing when they first sat down? She had used her power for contemptible ends. The thought that after all it was only poor ineffectual Tommy only increased her sense of degradation. All her pleasure had fled.
"Come along, Tommy," she said, rising; "it's time to go home."
It was indeed late—long after twelve. The launch, as she remembered it, was to make its last trip back to theyacht at half-past; they would be just in time. Tommy walked the length of the dock two or three times calling "Halcyone! Halcyone!" but there was no response from the already dwindling throng of launches. They sat down to wait, both moody and silent.