VI
“MAMMA, give me the beads!”
Margaret turned reluctantly and looked down at the child, a girl between five and six years old, without even the ephemeral beauty of babyhood, and showing already a strong resemblance to her father. “By all means, only don’t swallow them; it’s after the doctor’s office hours,” she replied carelessly.
She was seated before her toilet-table clad in a silk kimono, and her maid had just finished doing her hair and gone in search of some minor accessories of the toilet, for her mistress was dressing for a large dinner at Mrs. O’Neal’s. Meanwhile Margaret sat looking into the oval mirror in front of her, making a keen and critical survey of her own face and figure. As she did so she moved a candle slightly, and thus throwing a stronger light on her features was startled by the haggard look in her eyes, the purple rings beneath them, the hollowing of her cheeks. Was she beginning to lose her beauty? The thought alarmed her,and she leaned forward looking at herself more closely. Yes, there were lines, and she was thin, deplorably, unquestionably thin. The vivid misery of her expression in this unguarded moment was apparent even to her. Heavens, did she look like that to others? The thought was pregnant with fierce mortification; she must be wearing her heart upon her sleeve! And Fox? Was she losing him? The keen pang of agony which had shot through her at the sight of Fox and Rose together, at the glimpse of that little scene by the piano, recurred to her with a burning sense of humiliation. Was she to taste this bitter cup also?
She had known for years the miserable mistake of her choice of White, she had grovelled in the dust of repentance, but there had been one drop of honey in the cup of gall, one saving grace in the situation; she was sure that Fox still loved her, that he would be true to her. No other woman had been set up in her shrine. She knew how deep the hurt had been, and she had fondly believed that she alone could heal it. Through all those arid years, those years of gayety, of luxury, of false happiness and false show, she had hugged her secret to her heart; Fox still loved her!
And now? What had she read in the kindledsympathy of that look at Rose Temple? She bit her lip, staring into the mirror with haggard eyes. Could he give her up? She, who knew so much of the brutal egotism of which a man can be capable, she who had seen such a nature as White’s revealed in the scorching intimacy of married life,—dared she picture Fox as unselfish enough to be still true to her, to content himself with comforting her wretchedness when love and youth and beauty—beauty such as she had never worn—might be his? Her sore heart throbbed passionately in her bosom. She had expiated her mistake, she had suffered for her fault, she had a right to be happy! She would be happy; it is the eternal cry of the human soul. “Every pitifullest whipster,” says Carlyle, “seeks happiness, a happiness impossible even for the gods.” And Margaret’s wilful soul cried out for happiness; why should it not be hers? She was shackled, it was true, with fetters of her own forging, but—the eager thought of liberty darted through her mind like an arrow—others had been so bound and were now free, others were making new lives out of the old, and the ease with which such ties can be dissolved was not the least of her temptations.
Her glance fell suddenly on the child, Estelle, playing soberly with the amethyst beads whichshe had begged for. The little girl had learned to be quiet; if she was noisy or in the way she was immediately dismissed to the nursery, and she had her lesson by heart; she was making no noise but a soft crooning sound as she fondled the beads. Her hair was flaxen, her face dull and not pretty, her eyes like her father’s. Margaret shuddered and averted her gaze; how cruel that she should look like him! And the baby, only two years old but already like him; she felt it her curse, the retribution of her loveless marriage, that these two living and visible links to bind her to her vows were both like the man she had married without love and without respect, because she could not give up her life and its luxuries to be poor. A marriage with Fox then would have meant the renunciation of everything which seemed to her essential to existence, it would have combined the miseries of cheap living and self-denial, of small and hideous economies, which made her shudder even to contemplate; she had always been a sybarite. Brought up by an extravagant, pleasure-loving mother, by a father who had spent all to live well, Margaret had been unable to conceive anything more horrible than genteel poverty, and White had offered her a dazzling vista of wealth, position, social success. She was very young,raw, untried, and the temptation had been too great.
As she sat there, idly, at her toilet-table, surrounded by all the beautiful and splendid luxuries of a boudoir which had been fitted up with reckless expense to meet her whims and self-indulgences, she remembered with keen self-contempt her excitement over her own magnificent wedding, her tour through France and Italy in a motor-car which had cost a fortune; then a keen pang wrung her heart as she remembered the boy they had killed in the little crooked Italian village and the people who had stoned them! She had felt it then as a cruel prognostication of ill luck, a terrible beginning of her married life and now, whenever she closed her eyes, she could see again the narrow street, the brown Italian houses, that seemed ready to topple over on them, the children playing, the vivid sky above—then the cry, the awful scene, the child’s dead face. She shuddered; so had her gilded dream of happiness ended; a cry, a rush of misery, and now her sore heart to hide, the dance of death to go on to the end unless—again came the haunting thought; it had beset her lately, tempted her, teased her. It was so easy, it would be so easy to break the bonds, and who could blame her? To be happy!
“Mamma, it broke!” Estelle cried suddenly, with a quivering lip, “I didn’t do it!”
Margaret turned and looked at her. “No matter,” she said strangely, “it broke easily, didn’t it, Estelle? Thank heaven, one can break chains!”
As she spoke there was a knock at her door, and White himself entered. He was not a large man but his face was broad and heavy, his hair had been light but was now gray above the ears, and his jaws were slightly purpled by high living. There were some who thought him distinguished, chiefly those who always perceive a halo around officialdom and wealth. Actually he belonged to that type of man who has been in clubs, political and social, from boyhood, who has unlimited money, a mighty egotism and the unfailing preference for his neighbor’s wife. Meeting Margaret’s challenging glance he paused near the door, his hand on a chair, and looked at her with a cold fixed eye which neither changed nor wavered as he spoke.
“I have something to say to you,” he began in a hard dry tone; “it seems to me about time to speak out. I don’t know what’s come over you; you’re clever enough, but you seem to forget that I’m a public man. You were absolutely rude at thereception this afternoon, and your whims are intolerable. It’s all very annoying! If I choose to open my house to the public I expect my wife to accept the rôle and then to play it to the end.”
Margaret looked at him. “I fail to understand you,” she said ironically; “is this a lecture?”
“You may call it what you please,” he retorted angrily, walking to and fro; “you know well enough!”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m dressing for dinner—you’d better wait until another time,” she remarked with a yawn.
“There’s no time like the present,” he said harshly; “your manners were detestable to-day; you treated people like dogs!”
She laughed bitterly. “For instance?” she said, “Lily Osborne?”
“Mrs. Osborne knows better than to care!”
“She should!” Margaret mocked, “she should expect it; I congratulate you on her admirable humility.”
He gnawed his lip, the veins swelling in his forehead. “I warn you!” he cried fiercely, “I will not permit such behavior—your dance at the musicale is the talk of the town, and now youreceive people who come here with indifference—and I’m a Cabinet minister!”
“Which is a miracle!” his wife replied, laughing softly and provokingly; “you made a mistake in your marriage, Wicklow; you should have chosen a more popular person.”
“I’m aware of my mistake!” he retorted, still walking, and picking up first one knick-knack and then another and setting them down again; “I was a damned fool! I thought you witty and fond of society; I fancied you a success and you can be one if you choose, but everything’s upside down with your whims. You keep Fox hanging around here—you know that he and I are at sword’s points in politics, you know that he—”
“Leave him out please!” Margaret interposed in a cold, hard voice. She had risen and her eyes glowed with passion.
White turned a lowering look on her. “Fox didn’t marry you!” he said cuttingly, “he was too wise!”
She made no reply; she could have answered that she had given up Fox to marry him, but the sting of the insult cut her to the quick, his allusive familiar tone was a whiplash. She turned away, her white face set, a singular light in her eyes. The passion of her hatred of him at thatmoment was almost beyond restraint; her very flesh quivered under the throb of her maddened nerves. His coarseness, his brutality, his sensuousness revolted her; she felt, under the sting of his lecture, a mere bondswoman, and her fetters fairly burned into her soul. It seemed to her that she could no longer breathe the same air with him.
The child caught her sleeve timidly. “Mamma, don’t!” she whispered, “please don’t make papa look so—I’m afraid!”
Margaret looking down at her saw anew that hateful likeness. “Go away!” she shuddered, “you’re just like him—I can’t bear it; go, I tell you!”
The child’s hand dropped and her lip quivered with impotent anguish; she could not understand, but she read her mother’s chilled, repellant look and it frightened her still more; she drew her arm across her face and fell away with a sob. Margaret, whose heart would have been touched at another moment, hardly heard her.
“I want you to understand,” White began again, angrily, unmindful of the little girl’s presence, “my position. I’m a—”
Margaret interrupted him with an impatient gesture. “Gertrude is coming with my gown,”she said coolly, “I think you may spare me any more at present.”
White turned with a frown, and seeing the maid at the door with her arms full of white satin and lace, he gave way with a growl of discontent while his wife smiled calmly at the startled girl and bade her hurry; it was nearly eight o’clock.
At the dinner Margaret was the most conspicuous and observed figure at the table; she was strikingly dressed in white satin, her lace bodice fastened on the shoulders with jewels, her long, slender throat wound with pearls, and the black lace scarf—which she wore in deference to her hostess who was dining a cardinal—only accentuated the peculiar pallor of her face and the whiteness of her bare arms. She was radiant, witty, vivacious; her reckless tongue never ceased its unmerciful chatter. She talked Spanish to the Spanish ambassador, Italian to the Papal delegate who sat opposite, she entertained the cardinal. Every eye was on her; she was at once the most unusual and the most talked of woman in Cabinet and Diplomatic circles, and she had a wit as keen as it was unmerciful.
White watched her with an increasing feelingof uneasiness, he read defiance in her manner and began to dread some overt challenge; he had been untimely in his remonstrance, and he felt it too late.
Meanwhile their hostess loved the fair offender, and aided and abetted her in her wild sallies. Martha O’Neal was an old, old woman, the widow of a famous and wealthy jurist, and she was herself famous as a hostess and a social leader. Her eyes were still bright and keen, though her hair was white as snow; she knew everybody, everybody knew her; a worldly old woman who pursued society with the eagerness of a young débutante, played bridge for high stakes, smoked cigarettes in an exquisite holder of gold and amber, hurried to receptions, balls and routs with a tottering gait and a slightly vibrating head; a woman of large knowledge of the world, shrewd political partisanship and, withal, an eager and determined Romanist. Her dinners were famous; no more than ten ever sat down at her table, and usually five or six was the limit; she believed in conversation, not in isolated pairs. She had a service of gold, she would have no lights but candles. Huge candelabra were set in niches in her walls and on her table; her cut glass was famous, her roses the rarest money could purchase,yet nothing was lavish, nothing glaring or vulgar or new. The flavor of her old wine was as famous as the subdued taste of her surroundings; in a season of display and a city where riches are ostentatious, her drawing-room had the effect of space and repose, there was no crowding of useless and glittering furniture, no blaze of gold, no medley of bric-à-brac and sculpture. What she possessed represented the expenditure of a small fortune; for the rest, her beautiful mahogany, her rare silver were inherited.
The old woman, with the keen perception of long social training, had discovered all Margaret’s gifts as an entertainer, and her occasional outbreaks—as the famous dance and other not less bizarre performances—only gave her an additional value as an element of the unexpected. Mrs. O’Neal, therefore, rarely gave a dinner without asking Margaret, though she included Margaret’s husband with a grimace and a shrug. To-night she was delighted with her guest’s gayety, her wit, her endless vivacity, and she watched her across the wide table with some curiosity, much too keen not to observe the haggard misery which Margaret tried in vain to hide. The dark, Italian face of the delegate, the broad heaviness of White, who wore a perturbed frown, the keen, fine linesof the Spanish ambassador, the placid commonplace fairness of the ambassadress, the vivid coloring of Lily Osborne, the thin, ascetic face and keen eyes of the cardinal were all in sharp contrast to the pale face, the shadowy hair, the brilliant eyes of Margaret White. Mrs. O’Neal, watching her, wondered and was amused.
The dinner was a splendid affair, the delegate talked with the smooth ease, the habitual guarded courtesy of the Italian churchman, the ambassador was genial and responsive, the cardinal said little, throwing in a word now and then, but a word which set the ball rolling, and Margaret never failed. She had never appeared so witty, so sweet, so dangerously amiable.
It was over at last, the cardinal leaving early, and as he rose to depart, the women present being all ardent Catholics except Margaret, rustled forward to kneel and kiss his ring, while Mrs. O’Neal, following the old custom abroad, had bidden her footmen bring the candles, and the Romanists present were gathered at the head of the stairs to light his eminence to the door.
There was a little pause, and Margaret, a slender, white-robed figure, her shoulders veiled in a diaphanous black scarf, came forward to bid the cardinal farewell. White, who stood apartuneasy and conventional in the midst of the dramatic little scene, turned in time to see her kneel devoutly and kiss his eminence’s ring.
They drove home early through the lighted streets and neither spoke a word during the short drive to their own door. The footman helped Margaret with her wraps and attended her up the steps; White had entered ahead of her, and when the servants were gone and she had crossed the hall to the stairs he called her. She turned, with one foot on the lowest step and her hand on the balustrade, and seeing the deep flush on his heavy face she smiled a little with a slightly scornful shrug.
He looked across at her with an expression of savage anger, ill-suppressed. “Your conduct passes all patience!” he said bitterly, controlling himself with an effort; “you know where I stand, that I want to be President, and you flaunt your defiance!”
She returned his look, her head thrown back, her eyelids drooping, the delicate hollows in her cheeks apparent in the half light. “Pray, what is it now?” she asked provokingly.
He gnawed his lip, the cords standing out again on his forehead. “You know,” he said in a lowvoice, “you make yourself ridiculous by kissing the cardinal’s ring! I don’t care a damn for your religion, but I do care for the Protestant vote; they’ll have this in the papers!”
She laughed a tormenting laugh. “I’m thinking of becoming a Romanist!” she said.
He stared at her,—words were inadequate but his face whitened. The slim elegance of her figure in its splendid dress, her dusky hair, the dazzling white of her forehead, all seemed to him so many additional reasons to hate her. He had bought her for these things, for her charm, her wit, her daring, and she had turned every weapon against him and defied him. He felt a shiver of rage sweep through him, controlled it and turned away at last with clenched hands.
She remained standing, one hand on the balustrade, the other lightly holding her cloak which was slipping from her bare shoulders, and her eyes followed him with ineffable scorn and mockery.