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diff --git a/24132.txt b/24132.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8359239 --- /dev/null +++ b/24132.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1693 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Autres Temps..., by Edith Wharton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Autres Temps... + 1916 + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Release Date: January 3, 2008 [EBook #24132] +[Last Updated: August 29, 2017] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTRES TEMPS... *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +AUTRES TEMPS... + +By Edith Wharton + +Copyright, 1916, By Charles Scribner's Sons + + + + +I + +Mrs. Lidcote, as the huge menacing mass of New York defined itself far +off across the waters, shrank back into her corner of the deck and sat +listening with a kind of unreasoning terror to the steady onward drive +of the screws. + +She had set out on the voyage quietly enough,--in what she called her +"reasonable" mood,--but the week at sea had given her too much time to +think of things and had left her too long alone with the past. + +When she was alone, it was always the past that occupied her. She +couldn't get away from it, and she didn't any longer care to. During +her long years of exile she had made her terms with it, had learned +to accept the fact that it would always be there, huge, obstructing, +encumbering, bigger and more dominant than anything the future could +ever conjure up. And, at any rate, she was sure of it, she understood +it, knew how to reckon with it; she had learned to screen and manage and +protect it as one does an afflicted member of one's family. + +There had never been any danger of her being allowed to forget the past. +It looked out at her from the face of every acquaintance, it appeared +suddenly in the eyes of strangers when a word enlightened them: "Yes, +_the_ Mrs. Lidcote, don't you know?" It had sprung at her the first day +out, when, across the dining-room, from the captain's table, she had +seen Mrs. Lorin Boulger's revolving eye-glass pause and the eye behind +it grow as blank as a dropped blind. The next day, of course, the +captain had asked: "You know your ambassadress, Mrs. Boulger?" and she +had replied that, No, she seldom left Florence, and hadn't been to Rome +for more than a day since the Boulgers had been sent to Italy. She was +so used to these phrases that it cost her no effort to repeat them. And +the captain had promptly changed the subject. + +No, she didn't, as a rule, mind the past, because she was used to it and +understood it. It was a great concrete fact in her path that she had to +walk around every time she moved in any direction. But now, in the +light of the unhappy event that had summoned her from Italy,--the sudden +unanticipated news of her daughter's divorce from Horace Pursh and +remarriage with Wilbour Barkley--the past, her own poor miserable past, +started up at her with eyes of accusation, became, to her disordered +fancy, like the afflicted relative suddenly breaking away from nurses +and keepers and publicly parading the horror and misery she had, all the +long years, so patiently screened and secluded. + +Yes, there it had stood before her through the agitated weeks since the +news had come--during her interminable journey from India, where Leila's +letter had overtaken her, and the feverish halt in her apartment in +Florence, where she had had to stop and gather up her possessions for a +fresh start--there it had stood grinning at her with a new balefillness +which seemed to say: "Oh, but you've got to look at me _now_, because +I'm not only your own past but Leila's present." + +Certainly it was a master-stroke of those arch-ironists of the shears +and spindle to duplicate her own story in her daughter's. Mrs. Lidcote +had always somewhat grimly fancied that, having so signally failed to +be of use to Leila in other ways, she would at least serve her as a +warning. She had even abstained from defending herself, from making +the best of her case, had stoically refused to plead extenuating +circumstances, lest Leila's impulsive sympathy should lead to deductions +that might react disastrously on her own life. And now that very thing +had happened, and Mrs. Lidcote could hear the whole of New York saying +with one voice: "Yes, Leila's done just what her mother did. With such +an example what could you expect?" + +Yet if she had been an example, poor woman, she had been an awful one; +she had been, she would have supposed, of more use as a deterrent than +a hundred blameless mothers as incentives. For how could any one who +had seen anything of her life in the last eighteen years have had the +courage to repeat so disastrous an experiment? + +Well, logic in such cases didn't count, example didn't count, nothing +probably counted but having the same impulses in the blood; and that was +the dark inheritance she had bestowed upon her daughter. Leila hadn't +consciously copied her; she had simply "taken after" her, had been a +projection of her own long-past rebellion. + +Mrs. Lidcote had deplored, when she started, that the _Utopia_ was a +slow steamer, and would take eight full days to bring her to her unhappy +daughter; but now, as the moment of reunion approached, she would +willingly have turned the boat about and fled back to the high seas. It +was not only because she felt still so unprepared to face what New York +had in store for her, but because she needed more time to dispose of +what the _Utopia_ had already given her. The past was bad enough, +but the present and future were worse, because they were less +comprehensible, and because, as she grew older, surprises and +inconsequences troubled her more than the worst certainties. + +There was Mrs. Boulger, for instance. In the light, or rather the +darkness, of new developments, it might really be that Mrs. Boulger +had not meant to cut her, but had simply failed to recognize her. +Mrs. Lidcote had arrived at this hypothesis simply by listening to the +conversation of the persons sitting next to her on deck--two lively +young women with the latest Paris hats on their heads and the latest +New York ideas in them. These ladies, as to whom it would have been +impossible for a person with Mrs. Lidcote's old-fashioned categories to +determine whether they were married or unmarried, "nice" or "horrid," or +any one or other of the definite things which young women, in her +youth and her society, were conveniently assumed to be, had revealed +a familiarity with the world of New York that, again according to Mrs. +Lidcote's traditions, should have implied a recognized place in it. But +in the present fluid state of manners what did anything imply except +what their hats implied--that no one could tell what was coming next? + +They seemed, at any rate, to frequent a group of idle and opulent people +who executed the same gestures and revolved on the same pivots as Mrs. +Lidcote's daughter and her friends: their Coras, Matties and Mabels +seemed at any moment likely to reveal familiar patronymics, and once +one of the speakers, summing up a discussion of which Mrs. Lidcote had +missed the beginning, had affirmed with headlong confidence: "Leila? Oh, +_Leila's_ all right." + +Could it be _her_ Leila, the mother had wondered, with a sharp thrill of +apprehension? If only they would mention surnames! But their talk leaped +elliptically from allusion to allusion, their unfinished sentences +dangled over bottomless pits of conjecture, and they gave their +bewildered hearer the impression not so much of talking only of their +intimates, as of being intimate with every one alive. + +Her old friend Franklin Ide could have told her, perhaps; but here was +the last day of the voyage, and she hadn't yet found courage to ask him. +Great as had been the joy of discovering his name on the passenger-list +and seeing his friendly bearded face in the throng against the taffrail +at Cherbourg, she had as yet said nothing to him except, when they had +met: "Of course I'm going out to Leila." + +She had said nothing to Franklin Ide because she had always +instinctively shrunk from taking him into her confidence. She was sure +he felt sorry for her, sorrier perhaps than any one had ever felt; +but he had always paid her the supreme tribute of not showing it. His +attitude allowed her to imagine that compassion was not the basis of his +feeling for her, and it was part of her joy in his friendship that it +was the one relation seemingly unconditioned by her state, the only one +in which she could think and feel and behave like any other woman. + +Now, however, as the problem of New York loomed nearer, she began to +regret that she had not spoken, had not at least questioned him about +the hints she had gathered on the way. He did not know the two ladies +next to her, he did not even, as it chanced, know Mrs. Lorin Boulger; +but he knew New York, and New York was the sphinx whose riddle she must +read or perish. + +Almost as the thought passed through her mind his stooping shoulders +and grizzled head detached themselves against the blaze of light in the +west, and he sauntered down the empty deck and dropped into the chair at +her side. + +"You're expecting the Barkleys to meet you, I suppose?" he asked. + +It was the first time she had heard any one pronounce her daughter's +new name, and it occurred to her that her friend, who was shy and +inarticulate, had been trying to say it all the way over and had at last +shot it out at her only because he felt it must be now or never. + +"I don't know. I cabled, of course. But I believe she's at--they're +at--_his_ place somewhere." + +"Oh, Barkley's; yes, near Lenox, isn't it? But she's sure to come to +town to meet you." + +He said it so easily and naturally that her own constraint was relieved, +and suddenly, before she knew what she meant to do, she had burst out: +"She may dislike the idea of seeing people." + +Ide, whose absent short-sighted gaze had been fixed on the slowly +gliding water, turned in his seat to stare at his companion. + +"Who? Leila?" he said with an incredulous laugh. + +Mrs. Lidcote flushed to her faded hair and grew pale again. "It took +_me_ a long time--to get used to it," she said. + +His look grew gently commiserating. "I think you'll find--" he paused +for a word--"that things are different now--altogether easier." + +"That's what I've been wondering--ever since we started." She was +determined now to speak. She moved nearer, so that their arms touched, +and she could drop her voice to a murmur. "You see, it all came on me in +a flash. My going off to India and Siam on that long trip kept me +away from letters for weeks at a time; and she didn't want to tell me +beforehand--oh, I understand _that_, poor child! You know how good she's +always been to me; how she's tried to spare me. And she knew, of course, +what a state of horror I'd be in. She knew I'd rush off to her at once +and try to stop it. So she never gave me a hint of anything, and she +even managed to muzzle Susy Suffern--you know Susy is the one of the +family who keeps me informed about things at home. I don't yet see how +she prevented Susy's telling me; but she did. And her first letter, the +one I got up at Bangkok, simply said the thing was over--the divorce, I +mean--and that the very next day she'd--well, I suppose there was no +use waiting; and _he_ seems to have behaved as well as possible, to have +wanted to marry her as much as--" + +"Who? Barkley?" he helped her out. "I should say so! Why what do you +suppose--" He interrupted himself. "He'll be devoted to her, I assure +you." + +"Oh, of course; I'm sure he will. He's written me--really beautifully. +But it's a terrible strain on a man's devotion. I'm not sure that Leila +realizes--" + +Ide sounded again his little reassuring laugh. "I'm not sure that you +realize. _They're_ all right." + +It was the very phrase that the young lady in the next seat had applied +to the unknown "Leila," and its recurrence on Ide's lips flushed Mrs. +Lidcote with fresh courage. + +"I wish I knew just what you mean. The two young women next to me--the +ones with the wonderful hats--have been talking in the same way." + +"What? About Leila?" + +"About _a_ Leila; I fancied it might be mine. And about society in +general. All their friends seem to be divorced; some of them seem +to announce their engagements before they get their decree. One of +them--_her_ name was Mabel--as far as I could make out, her husband +found out that she meant to divorce him by noticing that she wore a new +engagement-ring." + +"Well, you see Leila did everything 'regularly,' as the French say," Ide +rejoined. + +"Yes; but are these people in society? The people my neighbours talk +about?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. "It would take an arbitration commission a +good many sittings to define the boundaries of society nowadays. But +at any rate they're in New York; and I assure you you're _not_; you're +farther and farther from it." + +"But I've been back there several times to see Leila." She hesitated +and looked away from him. Then she brought out slowly: "And I've never +noticed--the least change--in--in my own case--" + +"Oh," he sounded deprecatingly, and she trembled with the fear of having +gone too far. But the hour was past when such scruples could restrain +her. She must know where she was and where Leila was. "Mrs. Boulger +still cuts me," she brought out with an embarrassed laugh. + +"Are you sure? You've probably cut _her_; if not now, at least in the +past. And in a cut if you're not first you're nowhere. That's what keeps +up so many quarrels." + +The word roused Mrs. Lidcote to a renewed sense of realities. "But the +Purshes," she said--"the Purshes are so strong! There are so many of +them, and they all back each other up, just as my husband's family did. +I know what it means to have a clan against one. They're stronger than +any number of separate friends. The Purshes will _never_ forgive Leila +for leaving Horace. Why, his mother opposed his marrying her because +of--of me. She tried to get Leila to promise that she wouldn't see me +when they went to Europe on their honeymoon. And now she'll say it was +my example." + +Her companion, vaguely stroking his beard, mused a moment upon this; +then he asked, with seeming irrelevance, "What did Leila say when you +wrote that you were coming?" + +"She said it wasn't the least necessary, but that I'd better come, +because it was the only way to convince me that it wasn't." + +"Well, then, that proves she's not afraid of the Purshes." + +She breathed a long sigh of remembrance. "Oh, just at first, you +know--one never is." + +He laid his hand on hers with a gesture of intelligence and pity. +"You'll see, you'll see," he said. + +A shadow lengthened down the deck before them, and a steward stood +there, proffering a Marconigram. + +"Oh, now I shall know!" she exclaimed. + +She tore the message open, and then let it fall on her knees, dropping +her hands on it in silence. + +Ide's enquiry roused her: "It's all right?" + +"Oh, quite right. Perfectly. She can't come; but she's sending Susy +Suffern. She says Susy will explain." After another silence she added, +with a sudden gush of bitterness: "As if I needed any explanation!" + +She felt Ide's hesitating glance upon her. "She's in the country?" + +"Yes. 'Prevented last moment. Longing for you, expecting you. Love from +both.' Don't you _see_, the poor darling, that she couldn't face it?" + +"No, I don't." He waited. "Do you mean to go to her immediately?" + +"It will be too late to catch a train this evening; but I shall take +the first to-morrow morning." She considered a moment. "'Perhaps it's +better. I need a talk with Susy first. She's to meet me at the dock, and +I'll take her straight back to the hotel with me." + +As she developed this plan, she had the sense that Ide was still +thoughtfully, even gravely, considering her. When she ceased, he +remained silent a moment; then he said almost ceremoniously: "If your +talk with Miss Suffern doesn't last too late, may I come and see you +when it's over? I shall be dining at my club, and I'll call you up at +about ten, if I may. I'm off to Chicago on business to-morrow morning, +and it would be a satisfaction to know, before I start, that your +cousin's been able to reassure you, as I know she will." + +He spoke with a shy deliberateness that, even to Mrs. Lidcote's troubled +perceptions, sounded a long-silenced note of feeling. Perhaps the +breaking down of the barrier of reticence between them had released +unsuspected emotions in both. The tone of his appeal moved her curiously +and loosened the tight strain of her fears. + +"Oh, yes, come--do come," she said, rising. The huge threat of New York +was imminent now, dwarfing, under long reaches of embattled masonry, the +great deck she stood on and all the little specks of life it carried. +One of them, drifting nearer, took the shape of her maid, followed by +luggage-laden stewards, and signing to her that it was time to go below. +As they descended to the main deck, the throng swept her against Mrs. +Lorin Boulger's shoulder, and she heard the ambassadress call out to +some one, over the vexed sea of hats: "So sorry! I should have been +delighted, but I've promised to spend Sunday with some friends at +Lenox." + + + + +II + +Susy Suffern's explanation did not end till after ten o'clock, and she +had just gone when Franklin Ide, who, complying with an old New York +tradition, had caused himself to be preceded by a long white box of +roses, was shown into Mrs. Lidcote's sitting-room. + +He came forward with his shy half-humorous smile and, taking her hand, +looked at her for a moment without speaking. + +"It's all right," he then pronounced. + +Mrs. Lidcote returned his smile. "It's extraordinary. Everything's +changed. Even Susy has changed; and you know the extent to which Susy +used to represent the old New York. There's no old New York left, it +seems. She talked in the most amazing way. She snaps her fingers at the +Purshes. She told me--_me_, that every woman had a right to happiness +and that self-expression was the highest duty. She accused me of +misunderstanding Leila; she said my point of view was conventional! +She was bursting with pride at having been in the secret, and wearing +a brooch that Wilbour Barkley'd given her!" Franklin Ide had seated +himself in the arm-chair she had pushed forward for him under the +electric chandelier. He threw back his head and laughed. "What did I +tell you?" + +"Yes; but I can't believe that Susy's not mistaken. Poor dear, she has +the habit of lost causes; and she may feel that, having stuck to me, she +can do no less than stick to Leila." + +"But she didn't--did she?--openly defy the world for you? She didn't +snap her fingers at the Lidcotes?" + +Mrs. Lidcote shook her head, still smiling. "No. It was enough to defy +_my_ family. It was doubtful at one time if they would tolerate her +seeing me, and she almost had to disinfect herself after each visit. I +believe that at first my sister-in-law wouldn't let the girls come down +when Susy dined with her." + +"Well, isn't your cousin's present attitude the best possible proof that +times have changed?" + +"Yes, yes; I know." She leaned forward from her sofa-corner, fixing her +eyes on his thin kindly face, which gleamed on her indistinctly +through her tears. "If it's true, it's--it's dazzling. She says Leila's +perfectly happy. It's as if an angel had gone about lifting gravestones, +and the buried people walked again, and the living didn't shrink from +them." + +"That's about it," he assented. + +She drew a deep breath, and sat looking away from him down the long +perspective of lamp-fringed streets over which her windows hung. + +"I can understand how happy you must be," he began at length. + +She turned to him impetuously. "Yes, yes; I'm happy. But I'm lonely, +too--lonelier than ever. I didn't take up much room in the world before; +but now--where is there a corner for me? Oh. since I've begun to confess +myself, why shouldn't I go on? Telling you this lifts a gravestone from +_me!_ You see, before this, Leila needed me. She was unhappy, and I knew +it, and though we hardly ever talked of it I felt that, in a way, the +thought that I'd been through the same thing, and down to the dregs of +it, helped her. And her needing me helped _me_. And when the news of +her marriage came my first thought was that now she'd need me more +than ever, that she'd have no one but me to turn to. Yes, under all my +distress there was a fierce joy in that. It was so new and wonderful +to feel again that there was one person who wouldn't be able to get on +without me! And now what you and Susy tell me seems to have taken my +child from me; and just at first that's all I can feel." + +"Of course it's all you feel." He looked at her musingly. "Why didn't +Leila come to meet you?" + +"That was really my fault. You see, I'd cabled that I was not sure of +being able to get off on the _Utopia_, and apparently my second cable +was delayed, and when she received it she'd already asked some people +over Sunday--one or two of her old friends, Susy says. I'm so glad they +should have wanted to go to her at once; but naturally I'd rather have +been alone with her." + +"You still mean to go, then?" + +"Oh, I must. Susy wanted to drag me off to Ridgefield with her over +Sunday, and Leila sent me word that of course I might go if I wanted +to, and that I was not to think of her; but I know how disappointed she +would be. Susy said she was afraid I might be upset at her having people +to stay, and that, if I minded, she wouldn't urge me to come. But if +_they_ don't mind, why should I? And of course, if they're willing to go +to Leila it must mean--" + +"Of course. I'm glad you recognize that," Franklin Ide exclaimed +abruptly. He stood up and went over to her, taking her hand with one of +his quick gestures. "There's something I want to say to you," he began-- +***** + +The next morning, in the train, through all the other contending +thoughts in Mrs. Lidcote's mind there ran the warm undercurrent of what +Franklin Ide had wanted to say to her. + +He had wanted, she knew, to say it once before, when, nearly eight +years earlier, the hazard of meeting at the end of a rainy autumn in +a deserted Swiss hotel had thrown them for a fortnight into unwonted +propinquity. They had walked and talked together, borrowed each other's +books and newspapers, spent the long chill evenings over the fire in the +dim lamplight of her little pitch-pine sitting-room; and she had been +wonderfully comforted by his presence, and hard frozen places in her had +melted, and she had known that she would be desperately sorry when he +went. And then, just at the end, in his odd indirect way, he had let her +see that it rested with her to have him stay. She could still relive the +sleepless night she had given to that discovery. It was preposterous, of +course, to think of repaying his devotion by accepting such a sacrifice; +but how find reasons to convince him? She could not bear to let +him think her less touched, less inclined to him than she was: the +generosity of his love deserved that she should repay it with the truth. +Yet how let him see what she felt, and yet refuse what he offered? How +confess to him what had been on her lips when he made the offer: "I've +seen what it did to one man; and there must never, never be another"? +The tacit ignoring of her past had been the element in which their +friendship lived, and she could not suddenly, to him of all men, begin +to talk of herself like a guilty woman in a play. Somehow, in the end, +she had managed it, had averted a direct explanation, had made him +understand that her life was over, that she existed only for her +daughter, and that a more definite word from him would have been almost +a breach of delicacy. She was so used to be having as if her life were +over! And, at any rate, he had taken her hint, and she had been able to +spare her sensitiveness and his. The next year, when he came to Florence +to see her, they met again in the old friendly way; and that till now +had continued to be the tenor of their intimacy. + +And now, suddenly and unexpectedly, he had brought up the question +again, directly this time, and in such a form that she could not evade +it: putting the renewal of his plea, after so long an interval, on the +ground that, on her own showing, her chief argument against it no longer +existed. + +"You tell me Leila's happy. If she's happy, she doesn't need you--need +you, that is, in the same way as before. You wanted, I know, to be +always in reach, always free and available if she should suddenly call +you to her or take refuge with you. I understood that--I respected it. +I didn't urge my case because I saw it was useless. You couldn't, I +understood well enough, have felt free to take such happiness as life +with me might give you while she was unhappy, and, as you imagined, +with no hope of release. Even then I didn't feel as you did about it; I +understood better the trend of things here. But ten years ago the change +hadn't really come; and I had no way of convincing you that it was +coming. Still, I always fancied that Leila might not think her case was +closed, and so I chose to think that ours wasn't either. Let me go on +thinking so, at any rate, till you've seen her, and confirmed with your +own eyes what Susy Suffern tells you." + + + + +III + +All through what Susy Suffern told and retold her during their +four-hours' flight to the hills this plea of Ide's kept coming back to +Mrs. Lidcote. She did not yet know what she felt as to its bearing on +her own fate, but it was something on which her confused thoughts +could stay themselves amid the welter of new impressions, and she was +inexpressibly glad that he had said what he had, and said it at that +particular moment. It helped her to hold fast to her identity in the +rush of strange names and new categories that her cousin's talk poured +out on her. + +With the progress of the journey Miss Suffern's communications grew +more and more amazing. She was like a cicerone preparing the mind of an +inexperienced traveller for the marvels about to burst on it. + +"You won't know Leila. She's had her pearls reset. Sargent's to paint +her. Oh, and I was to tell you that she hopes you won't mind being the +least bit squeezed over Sunday. The house was built by Wilbour's father, +you know, and it's rather old-fashioned--only ten spare bedrooms. Of +course that's small for what they mean to do, and she'll show you the +new plans they've had made. Their idea is to keep the present house as a +wing. She told me to explain--she's so dreadfully sorry not to be able +to give you a sitting-room just at first. They're thinking of Egypt for +next winter, unless, of course, Wilbour gets his appointment. Oh, didn't +she write you about that? Why, he wants Borne, you know--the second +secretaryship. Or, rather, he wanted England; but Leila insisted that if +they went abroad she must be near you. And of course what she says is +law. Oh, they quite hope they'll get it. You see Horace's uncle is in +the Cabinet,--one of the assistant secretaries,--and I believe he has a +good deal of pull--" + +"Horace's uncle? You mean Wilbour's, I suppose," Mrs. Lidcote +interjected, with a gasp of which a fraction was given to Miss Suffern's +flippant use of the language. + +"Wilbour's? No, I don't. I mean Horace's. There's no bad feeling between +them, I assure you. Since Horace's engagement was announced--you didn't +know Horace was engaged? Why, he's marrying one of Bishop Thorbury's +girls: the red-haired one who wrote the novel that every one's talking +about, 'This Flesh of Mine.' They're to be married in the cathedral. Of +course Horace _can_, because it was Leila who--but, as I say, there's +not the _least_ feeling, and Horace wrote himself to his uncle about +Wilbour." + +Mrs. Lidcote's thoughts fled back to what she had said to Ide the day +before on the deck of the _Utopia_. "I didn't take up much room before, +but now where is there a corner for me?" Where indeed in this crowded, +topsy-turvey world, with its headlong changes and helter-skelter +readjustments, its new tolerances and indifferences and accommodations, +was there room for a character fashioned by slower sterner processes and +a life broken under their inexorable pressure? And then, in a flash, +she viewed the chaos from a new angle, and order seemed to move upon the +void. If the old processes were changed, her case was changed with them; +she, too, was a part of the general readjustment, a tiny fragment of the +new pattern worked out in bolder freer harmonies. Since her daughter had +no penalty to pay, was not she herself released by the same stroke? The +rich arrears of youth and joy were gone; but was there not time enough +left to accumulate new stores of happiness? That, of course, was what +Franklin Ide had felt and had meant her to feel. He had seen at once +what the change in her daughter's situation would make in her view of +her own. It was almost--wondrously enough!--as if Leila's folly had been +the means of vindicating hers. + +***** + +Everything else for the moment faded for Mrs. Lidcote in the glow of her +daughter's embrace. It was unnatural, it was almost terrifying, to find +herself standing on a strange threshold, under an unknown roof, in a big +hall full of pictures, flowers, firelight, and hurrying servants, and +in this spacious unfamiliar confusion to discover Leila, bareheaded, +laughing, authoritative, with a strange young man jovially echoing her +welcome and transmitting her orders; but once Mrs. Lidcote had her child +on her breast, and her child's "It's all right, you old darling!" in her +ears, every other feeling was lost in the deep sense of well-being that +only Leila's hug could give. + +The sense was still with her, warming her veins and pleasantly +fluttering her heart, as she went up to her room after luncheon. A +little constrained by the presence of visitors, and not altogether sorry +to defer for a few hours the "long talk" with her daughter for which she +somehow felt herself tremulously unready, she had withdrawn, on the plea +of fatigue, to the bright luxurious bedroom into which Leila had again +and again apologized for having been obliged to squeeze her. The room +was bigger and finer than any in her small apartment in Florence; but it +was not the standard of affluence implied in her daughter's tone about +it that chiefly struck her, nor yet the finish and complexity of its +appointments. It was the look it shared with the rest of the house, and +with the perspective of the gardens beneath its windows, of being part +of an "establishment"--of something solid, avowed, founded on sacraments +and precedents and principles. There was nothing about the place, or +about Leila and Wilbour, that suggested either passion or peril: their +relation seemed as comfortable as their furniture and as respectable as +their balance at the bank. + +This was, in the whole confusing experience, the thing that confused +Mrs. Lidcote most, that gave her at once the deepest feeling of security +for Leila and the strongest sense of apprehension for herself. Yes, +there was something oppressive in the completeness and compactness of +Leila's well-being. Ide had been right: her daughter did not need her. +Leila, with her first embrace, had unconsciously attested the fact in +the same phrase as Ide himself and as the two young women with the hats. +"It's all right, you old darling!" she had said; and her mother sat +alone, trying to fit herself into the new scheme of things which such a +certainty betokened. + +Her first distinct feeling was one of irrational resentment. If such a +change was to come, why had it not come sooner? Here was she, a woman +not yet old, who had paid with the best years of her life for the theft +of the happiness that her daughter's contemporaries were taking as +their due. There was no sense, no sequence, in it. She had had what she +wanted, but she had had to pay too much for it. She had had to pay the +last bitterest price of learning that love has a price: that it is worth +so much and no more. She had known the anguish of watching the man she +loved discover this first, and of reading the discovery in his eyes. It +was a part of her history that she had not trusted herself to think +of for a long time past: she always took a big turn about that haunted +corner. But now, at the sight of the young man downstairs, so openly and +jovially Leila's, she was overwhelmed at the senseless waste of her own +adventure, and wrung with the irony of perceiving that the success +or failure of the deepest human experiences may hang on a matter of +chronology. + +Then gradually the thought of Ide returned to her. "I chose to think +that our case wasn't closed," he had said. She had been deeply touched +by that. To every one else her case had been closed so long! _Finis_ was +scrawled all over her. But here was one man who had believed and waited, +and what if what he believed in and waited for were coming true? If +Leila's "all right" should really foreshadow hers? + +As yet, of course, it was impossible to tell. She had fancied, indeed, +when she entered the drawing-room before luncheon, that a too-sudden +hush had fallen on the assembled group of Leila's friends, on the +slender vociferous young women and the lounging golf-stockinged young +men. They had all received her politely, with the kind of petrified +politeness that may be either a tribute to age or a protest at laxity; +but to them, of course, she must be an old woman because she was Leila's +mother, and in a society so dominated by youth the mere presence of +maturity was a constraint. + +One of the young girls, however, had presently emerged from the group, +and, attaching herself to Mrs. Lidcote, had listened to her with a +blue gaze of admiration which gave the older woman a sudden happy +consciousness of her long-forgotten social graces. It was agreeable to +find herself attracting this young Charlotte Wynn, whose mother had been +among her closest friends, and in whom something of the soberness and +softness of the earlier manners had survived. But the little colloquy, +broken up by the announcement of luncheon, could of course result in +nothing more definite than this reminiscent emotion. + +No, she could not yet tell how her own case was to be fitted into the +new order of things; but there were more people--"older people" Leila +had put it--arriving by the afternoon train, and that evening at dinner +she would doubtless be able to judge. She began to wonder nervously who +the new-comers might be. Probably she would be spared the embarrassment +of finding old acquaintances among them; but it was odd that her +daughter had mentioned no names. + +Leila had proposed that, later in the afternoon, Wilbour should take +her mother for a drive: she said she wanted them to have a "nice, quiet +talk." But Mrs. Lidcote wished her talk with Leila to come first, and +had, moreover, at luncheon, caught stray allusions to an impending +tennis-match in which her son-in-law was engaged. Her fatigue had been a +sufficient pretext for declining the drive, and she had begged Leila to +think of her as peacefully resting in her room till such time as they +could snatch their quiet moment. + +"Before tea, then, you duck!" Leila with a last kiss had decided; and +presently Mrs. Lidcote, through her open window, had heard the fresh +loud voices of her daughter's visitors chiming across the gardens from +the tennis-court. + + + + +IV + +Leila had come and gone, and they had had their talk. It had not lasted +as long as Mrs. Lidcote wished, for in the middle of it Leila had been +summoned to the telephone to receive an important message from town, and +had sent word to her mother that she couldn't come back just then, +as one of the young ladies had been called away unexpectedly and +arrangements had to be made for her departure. But the mother and +daughter had had almost an hour together, and Mrs. Lidcote was happy. +She had never seen Leila so tender, so solicitous. The only thing that +troubled her was the very excess of this solicitude, the exaggerated +expression of her daughter's annoyance that their first moments together +should have been marred by the presence of strangers. + +"Not strangers to me, darling, since they're friends of yours," her +mother had assured her. + +"Yes; but I know your feeling, you queer wild mother. I know how you've +always hated people." (_Hated people!_ Had Leila forgotten why?) +"And that's why I told Susy that if you preferred to go with her to +Ridgefield on Sunday I should perfectly understand, and patiently wait +for our good hug. But you didn't really mind them at luncheon, did you, +dearest?" + +Mrs. Lidcote, at that, had suddenly thrown a startled look at her +daughter. "I don't mind things of that kind any longer," she had simply +answered. + +"But that doesn't console me for having exposed you to the bother of it, +for having let you come here when I ought to have _ordered_ you off to +Ridgefield with Susy. If Susy hadn't been stupid she'd have made you go +there with her. I hate to think of you up here all alone." + +Again Mrs. Lidcote tried to read something more than a rather obtuse +devotion in her daughter's radiant gaze. "I'm glad to have had a rest +this afternoon, dear; and later--" + +"Oh, yes, later, when all this fuss is over, we'll more than make up for +it, sha'n't we, you precious darling?" And at this point Leila had been +summoned to the telephone, leaving Mrs. Lidcote to her conjectures. + +These were still floating before her in cloudy uncertainty when Miss +Suffern tapped at the door. + +"You've come to take me down to tea? I'd forgotten how late it was," +Mrs. Lidcote exclaimed. + +Miss Suffern, a plump peering little woman, with prim hair and a +conciliatory smile, nervously adjusted the pendent bugles of her +elaborate black dress. Miss Suffern was always in mourning, and always +commemorating the demise of distant relatives by wearing the discarded +wardrobe of their next of kin. "It isn't _exactly_ mourning," she would +say; "but it's the only stitch of black poor Julia had--and of course +George was only my mother's step-cousin." + +As she came forward Mrs. Lidcote found herself humorously wondering +whether she were mourning Horace Pursh's divorce in one of his mother's +old black satins. + +"Oh, _did_ you mean to go down for tea?" Susy Suffern peered at her, a +little fluttered. "Leila sent me up to keep you company. She thought it +would be cozier for you to stay here. She was afraid you were feeling +rather tired." + +"I was; but I've had the whole afternoon to rest in. And this wonderful +sofa to help me." + +"Leila told me to tell you that she'd rush up for a minute before +dinner, after everybody had arrived; but the train is always dreadfully +late. She's in despair at not giving you a sitting-room; she wanted to +know if I thought you really minded." + +"Of course I don't mind. It's not like Leila to think I should." Mrs. +Lidcote drew aside to make way for the housemaid, who appeared in the +doorway bearing a table spread with a bewildering variety of tea-cakes. + +"Leila saw to it herself," Miss Suffern murmured as the door closed. +"Her one idea is that you should feel happy here." + +It struck Mrs. Lidcote as one more mark of the subverted state of +things that her daughter's solicitude should find expression in the +multiplicity of sandwiches and the piping-hotness of muffins; but then +everything that had happened since her arrival seemed to increase her +confusion. + +The note of a motor-horn down the drive gave another turn to her +thoughts. "Are those the new arrivals already?" she asked. + +"Oh, dear, no; they won't be here till after seven." Miss Suffern +craned her head from the window to catch a glimpse of the motor. "It +must be Charlotte leaving." + +"Was it the little Wynn girl who was called away in a hurry? I hope it's +not on account of illness." + +"Oh, no; I believe there was some mistake about dates. Her mother +telephoned her that she was expected at the Stepleys, at Fishkill, and +she had to be rushed over to Albany to catch a train." + +Mrs. Lidcote meditated. "I'm sorry. She's a charming young thing. I +hoped I should have another talk with her this evening after dinner." + +"Yes; it's too bad." Miss Suffern's gaze grew vague. + +"You _do_ look tired, you know," she continued, seating herself at +the tea-table and preparing to dispense its delicacies. "You must go +straight back to your sofa and let me wait on you. The excitement has +told on you more than you think, and you mustn't fight against it any +longer. Just stay quietly up here and let yourself go. You'll have Leila +to yourself on Monday." + +Mrs. Lidcote received the tea-cup which her cousin proffered, but showed +no other disposition to obey her injunctions. For a moment she stirred +her tea in silence; then she asked: "Is it your idea that I should stay +quietly up here till Monday?" + +Miss Suffern set down her cup with a gesture so sudden that it +endangered an adjacent plate of scones. When she had assured herself of +the safety of the scones she looked up with a fluttered laugh. "Perhaps, +dear, by to-morrow you'll be feeling differently. The air here, you +know--" + +"Yes, I know." Mrs. Lidcote bent forward to help herself to a scone. +"Who's arriving this evening?" she asked. + +Miss Suffern frowned and peered. "You know my wretched head for names. +Leila told me--but there are so many--" + +"So many? She didn't tell me she expected a big party." + +"Oh, not big: but rather outside of her little group. And of course, as +it's the first time, she's a little excited at having the older set." + +"The older set? Our contemporaries, you mean?" + +"Why--yes." Miss Suffern paused as if to gather herself up for a leap. +"The Ashton Gileses," she brought out. + +"The Ashton Gileses? Really? I shall be glad to see Mary Giles again. It +must be eighteen years," said Mrs. Lidcote steadily. + +"Yes," Miss Suffern gasped, precipitately refilling her cup. + +"The Ashton Gileses; and who else?" + +"Well, the Sam Fresbies. But the most important person, of course, is +Mrs. Lorin Boulger." + +"Mrs. Boulger? Leila didn't tell me she was coming." + +"Didn't she? I suppose she forgot everything when she saw you. But the +party was got up for Mrs. Boulger. You see, it's very important that she +should--well, take a fancy to Leila and Wilbour; his being appointed +to Rome virtually depends on it. And you know Leila insists on Rome in +order to be near you. So she asked Mary Giles, who's intimate with the +Boulgers, if the visit couldn't possibly be arranged; and Mary's cable +caught Mrs. Boulger at Cherbourg. She's to be only a fortnight in +America; and getting her to come directly here was rather a triumph." + +"Yes; I see it was," said Mrs. Lidcote. + +"You know, she's rather--rather fussy; and Mary was a little doubtful +if--" + +"If she would, on account of Leila?" Mrs. Lidcote murmured. + +"Well, yes. In her official position. But luckily she's a friend of the +Barkleys. And finding the Gileses and Fresbies here will make it all +right. The times have changed!" Susy Suffern indulgently summed up. + +Mrs. Lidcote smiled. "Yes; a few years ago it would have seemed +improbable that I should ever again be dining with Mary Giles and +Harriet Fresbie and Mrs. Lorin Boulger." + +Miss Suffern did not at the moment seem disposed to enlarge upon this +theme; and after an interval of silence Mrs. Lidcote suddenly resumed: +"Do they know I'm here, by the way?" + +The effect of her question was to produce in Miss Suffern an exaggerated +access of peering and frowning. She twitched the tea-things about, +fingered her bugles, and, looking at the clock, exclaimed amazedly: +"Mercy! Is it seven already?" + +"Not that it can make any difference, I suppose," Mrs. Lidcote +continued. "But did Leila tell them I was coming?" + +Miss Suffern looked at her with pain. "Why, you don't suppose, dearest, +that Leila would do anything--" + +Mrs. Lidcote went on: "For, of course, it's of the first importance, as +you say, that Mrs. Lorin Boulger should be favorably impressed, in order +that Wilbour may have the best possible chance of getting Borne." + +"I _told_ Leila you'd feel that, dear. You see, it's actually on _your_ +account--so that they may get a post near you--that Leila invited Mrs. +Boulger." + +"Yes, I see that." Mrs. Lidcote, abruptly rising from her seat, turned +her eyes to the clock. "But, as you say, it's getting late. Oughtn't we +to dress for dinner?" + +Miss Suffern, at the suggestion, stood up also, an agitated hand +among her bugles. "I do wish I could persuade you to stay up here this +evening. I'm sure Leila'd be happier if you would. Really, you're much +too tired to come down." + +"What nonsense, Susy!" Mrs. Lidcote spoke with a sudden sharpness, her +hand stretched to the bell. "When do we dine? At half-past eight? Then I +must really send you packing. At my age it takes time to dress." + +Miss Suffern, thus projected toward the threshold, lingered there to +repeat: "Leila'll never forgive herself if you make an effort you're not +up to." But Mrs. Lidcote smiled on her without answering, and the icy +lightwave propelled her through the door. + + + + +V + +Mrs. Lidcote, though she had made the gesture of ringing for her maid, +had not done so. + +When the door closed, she continued to stand motionless in the middle +of her soft spacious room. The fire which had been kindled at twilight +danced on the brightness of silver and mirrors and sober gilding; and +the sofa toward which she had been urged by Miss Suffern heaped up +its cushions in inviting proximity to a table laden with new books and +papers. She could not recall having ever been more luxuriously housed, +or having ever had so strange a sense of being out alone, under the +night, in a windbeaten plain. She sat down by the fire and thought. + +A knock on the door made her lift her head, and she saw her daughter +on the threshold. The intricate ordering of Leila's fair hair and the +flying folds of her dressinggown showed that she had interrupted her +dressing to hasten to her mother; but once in the room she paused a +moment, smiling uncertainly, as though she had forgotten the object of +her haste. + +Mrs. Lidcote rose to her feet. "Time to dress, dearest? Don't scold! I +shan't be late." + +"To dress?" Leila stood before her with a puzzled look. "Why, I thought, +dear--I mean, I hoped you'd decided just to stay here quietly and rest." + +Her mother smiled. "But I've been resting all the afternoon!" + +"Yes, but--you know you _do_ look tired. And when Susy told me just now +that you meant to make the effort--" + +"You came to stop me?" + +"I came to tell you that you needn't feel in the least obliged--" + +"Of course. I understand that." + +There was a pause during which Leila, vaguely averting herself from +her mother's scrutiny, drifted toward the dressing-table and began to +disturb the symmetry of the brushes and bottles laid out on it. + +"Do your visitors know that I'm here?" Mrs. Lidcote suddenly went on. + +"Do they--Of course--why, naturally," Leila rejoined, absorbed in +trying to turn the stopper of a salts-bottle. + +"Then won't they think it odd if I don't appear?" + +"Oh, not in the least, dearest. I assure you they'll _all_ understand." +Leila laid down the bottle and turned back to her mother, her face +alight with reassurance. + +Mrs. Lidcote stood motionless, her head erect, her smiling eyes on her +daughter's. "Will they think it odd if I _do_?" + +Leila stopped short, her lips half parted to reply. As she paused, the +colour stole over her bare neck, swept up to her throat, and burst into +flame in her cheeks. Thence it sent its devastating crimson up to her +very temples, to the lobes of her ears, to the edges of her eyelids, +beating all over her in fiery waves, as if fanned by some imperceptible +wind. + +Mrs. Lidcote silently watched the conflagration; then she turned away +her eyes with a slight laugh. "I only meant that I was afraid it might +upset the arrangement of your dinner-table if I didn't come down. If you +can assure me that it won't, I believe I'll take you at your word and +go back to this irresistible sofa." She paused, as if waiting for her +daughter to speak; then she held out her arms. "Run off and dress, +dearest; and don't have me on your mind." She clasped Leila close, +pressing a long kiss on the last afterglow of her subsiding blush. "I do +feel the least bit overdone, and if it won't inconvenience you to have +me drop out of things, I believe I'll basely take to my bed and stay +there till your party scatters. And now run off, or you'll be late; and +make my excuses to them all." + + + + +VI + +The Barkleys' visitors had dispersed, and Mrs. Lidcote, completely +restored by her two days' rest, found herself, on the following Monday +alone with her children and Miss Suffern. + +There was a note of jubilation in the air, for the party had "gone +off" so extraordinarily well, and so completely, as it appeared, to the +satisfaction of Mrs. Lorin Boulger, that Wilbour's early appointment +to Rome was almost to be counted on. So certain did this seem that the +prospect of a prompt reunion mitigated the distress with which Leila +learned of her mother's decision to return almost immediately to +Italy. No one understood this decision; it seemed to Leila absolutely +unintelligible that Mrs. Lidcote should not stay on with them till their +own fate was fixed, and Wilbour echoed her astonishment. + +"Why shouldn't you, as Leila says, wait here till we can all pack up and +go together?" + +Mrs. Lidcote smiled her gratitude with her refusal. "After all, it's not +yet sure that you'll be packing up." + +"Oh, you ought to have seen Wilbour with Mrs. Boulger," Leila triumphed. + +"No, you ought to have seen Leila with her," Leila's husband exulted. + +Miss Suffern enthusiastically appended: "I _do_ think inviting Harriet +Fresbie was a stroke of genius!" + +"Oh, we'll be with you soon," Leila laughed. "So soon that it's really +foolish to separate." + +But Mrs. Lidcote held out with the quiet firmness which her daughter +knew it was useless to oppose. After her long months in India, it was +really imperative, she declared, that she should get back to Florence +and see what was happening to her little place there; and she had been +so comfortable on the _Utopia_ that she had a fancy to return by the +same ship. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to acquiesce in her +decision and keep her with them till the afternoon before the day of +the _Utopia's_ sailing. This arrangement fitted in with certain projects +which, during her two days' seclusion, Mrs. Lidcote had silently +matured. It had become to her of the first importance to get away as +soon as she could, and the little place in Florence, which held her +past in every fold of its curtains and between every page of its books, +seemed now to her the one spot where that past would be endurable to +look upon. + +She was not unhappy during the intervening days. The sight of Leila's +well-being, the sense of Leila's tenderness, were, after all, what she +had come for; and of these she had had full measure. Leila had never +been happier or more tender; and the contemplation of her bliss, and the +enjoyment of her affection, were an absorbing occupation for her mother. +But they were also a sharp strain on certain overtightened chords, and +Mrs. Lidcote, when at last she found herself alone in the New York hotel +to which she had returned the night before embarking, had the feeling +that she had just escaped with her life from the clutch of a giant hand. + +She had refused to let her daughter come to town with her; she had even +rejected Susy Suffern's company. She wanted no viaticum but that of her +own thoughts; and she let these come to her without shrinking from them +as she sat in the same high-hung sitting-room in which, just a week +before, she and Franklin Ide had had their memorable talk. + +She had promised her friend to let him hear from her, but she had not +kept her promise. She knew that he had probably come back from Chicago, +and that if he learned of her sudden decision to return to Italy it +would be impossible for her not to see him before sailing; and as she +wished above all things not to see him she had kept silent, intending to +send him a letter from the steamer. + +There was no reason why she should wait till then to write it. The +actual moment was more favorable, and the task, though not agreeable, +would at least bridge over an hour of her lonely evening. She went up +to the writing-table, drew out a sheet of paper and began to write his +name. And as she did so, the door opened and he came in. + +The words she met him with were the last she could have imagined herself +saying when they had parted. "How in the world did you know that I was +here?" + +He caught her meaning in a flash. "You didn't want me to, then?" He +stood looking at her. "I suppose I ought to have taken your silence as +meaning that. But I happened to meet Mrs. Wynn, who is stopping here, +and she asked me to dine with her and Charlotte, and Charlotte's +young man. They told me they'd seen you arriving this afternoon, and I +couldn't help coming up." + +There was a pause between them, which Mrs. Lidcote at last surprisingly +broke with the exclamation: "Ah, she _did_ recognize me, then!" + +"Recognize you?" He stared. "Why--" + +"Oh, I saw she did, though she never moved an eyelid. I saw it by +Charlotte's blush. The child has the prettiest blush. I saw that her +mother wouldn't let her speak to me." + +Ide put down his hat with an impatient laugh. "Hasn't Leila cured you of +your delusions?" + +She looked at him intently. "Then you don't think Margaret Wynn meant to +cut me?" + +"I think your ideas are absurd." + +She paused for a perceptible moment without taking this up; then she +said, at a tangent: "I'm sailing tomorrow early. I meant to write to +you--there's the letter I'd begun." + +Ide followed her gesture, and then turned his eyes back to her face. +"You didn't mean to see me, then, or even to let me know that you were +going till you'd left?" + +"I felt it would be easier to explain to you in a letter--" + +"What in God's name is there to explain?" She made no reply, and he +pressed on: "It can't be that you're worried about Leila, for Charlotte +Wynn told me she'd been there last week, and there was a big +party arriving when she left: Fresbies and Gileses, and Mrs. Lorin +Boulger--all the board of examiners! If Leila has passed _that_, she's +got her degree." + +Mrs. Lidcote had dropped down into a corner of the sofa where she had +sat during their talk of the week before. "I was stupid," she began +abruptly. "I ought to have gone to Ridgefield with Susy. I didn't see +till afterward that I was expected to." + +"You were expected to?" + +"Yes. Oh, it wasn't Leila's fault. She suffered--poor darling; she was +distracted. But she'd asked her party before she knew I was arriving." + +"Oh, as to that--" Ide drew a deep breath of relief. "I can understand +that it must have been a disappointment not to have you to herself just +at first. But, after all, you were among old friends or their children: +the Gileses and Fresbies--and little Charlotte Wynn." He paused a moment +before the last name, and scrutinized her hesitatingly. "Even if they +came at the wrong time, you must have been glad to see them all at +Leila's." + +She gave him back his look with a faint smile. "I didn't see them." + +"You didn't see them?" + +"No. That is, excepting little Charlotte Wynn. That child is exquisite. +We had a talk before luncheon the day I arrived. But when her mother +found out that I was staying in the house she telephoned her to leave +immediately, and so I didn't see her again." + +The colour rushed to Ide's sallow face. "I don't know where you get such +ideas!" + +She pursued, as if she had not heard him: "Oh, and I saw Mary Giles for +a minute too. Susy Suffern brought her up to my room the last evening, +after dinner, when all the others were at bridge. She meant it +kindly--but it wasn't much use." + +"But what were you doing in your room in the evening after dinner?" + +"Why, you see, when I found out my mistake in coming,--how embarrassing +it was for Leila, I mean--I simply told her I was very tired, and +preferred to stay upstairs till the party was over." + +Ide, with a groan, struck his hand against the arm of his chair. "I +wonder how much of all this you simply imagined!" + +"I didn't imagine the fact of Harriet Fresbie's not even asking if +she might see me when she knew I was in the house. Nor of Mary Giles's +getting Susy, at the eleventh hour, to smuggle her up to my room when +the others wouldn't know where she'd gone; nor poor Leila's ghastly fear +lest Mrs. Lorin Boulger, for whom the party was given, should guess I +was in the house, and prevent her husband's giving Wilbour the second +secretaryship because she'd been obliged to spend a night under the same +roof with his mother-in-law!" + +Ide continued to drum on his chair-arm with exasperated fingers. "You +don't _know_ that any of the acts you describe are due to the causes you +suppose." + +Mrs. Lidcote paused before replying, as if honestly trying to measure +the weight of this argument. Then she said in a low tone: "I know that +Leila was in an agony lest I should come down to dinner the first night. +And it was for me she was afraid, not for herself. Leila is never afraid +for herself." + +"But the conclusions you draw are simply preposterous. There are +narrow-minded women everywhere, but the women who were at Leila's knew +perfectly well that their going there would give her a sort of social +sanction, and if they were willing that she should have it, why on earth +should they want to withhold it from you?" + +"That's what I told myself a week ago, in this very room, after my first +talk with Susy Suffern." She lifted a misty smile to his anxious eyes. +"That's why I listened to what you said to me the same evening, and why +your arguments half convinced me, and made me think that what had +been possible for Leila might not be impossible for me. If the new +dispensation had come, why not for me as well as for the others? I can't +tell you the flight my imagination took!" + +Franklin Ide rose from his seat and crossed the room to a chair near her +sofa-corner. "All I cared about was that it seemed--for the moment--to +be carrying you toward me," he said. + +"I cared about that, too. That's why I meant to go away without seeing +you." They gave each other grave look for look. "Because, you see, I +was mistaken," she went on. "We were both mistaken. You say it's +preposterous that the women who didn't object to accepting Leila's +hospitality should have objected to meeting me under her roof. And so it +is; but I begin to understand why. It's simply that society is much too +busy to revise its own judgments. Probably no one in the house with me +stopped to consider that my case and Leila's were identical. They only +remembered that I'd done something which, at the time I did it, was +condemned by society. My case has been passed on and classified: I'm the +woman who has been cut for nearly twenty years. The older people have +half forgotten why, and the younger ones have never really known: it's +simply become a tradition to cut me. And traditions that have lost their +meaning are the hardest of all to destroy." + +Ide sat motionless while she spoke. As she ended, he stood up with +a short laugh and walked across the room to the window. Outside, the +immense black prospect of New York, strung with its myriad lines of +light, stretched away into the smoky edges of the night. He showed it to +her with a gesture. + +"What do you suppose such words as you've been using--'society,' +'tradition,' and the rest--mean to all the life out there?" + +She came and stood by him in the window. "Less than nothing, of course. +But you and I are not out there. We're shut up in a little tight round +of habit and association, just as we're shut up in this room. Remember, +I thought I'd got out of it once; but what really happened was that the +other people went out, and left me in the same little room. The only +difference was that I was there alone. Oh, I've made it habitable now, +I'm used to it; but I've lost any illusions I may have had as to an +angel's opening the door." + +Ide again laughed impatiently. "Well, if the door won't open, why not +let another prisoner in? At least it would be less of a solitude--" + +She turned from the dark window back into the vividly lighted room. + +"It would be more of a prison. You forget that I know all about that. +We're all imprisoned, of course--all of us middling people, who don't +carry our freedom in our brains. But we've accommodated ourselves to our +different cells, and if we're moved suddenly into new ones we're likely +to find a stone wall where we thought there was thin air, and to knock +ourselves senseless against it. I saw a man do that once." + +Ide, leaning with folded arms against the windowframe, watched her in +silence as she moved restlessly about the room, gathering together +some scattered books and tossing a handful of torn letters into the +paperbasket. When she ceased, he rejoined: "All you say is based on +preconceived theories. Why didn't you put them to the test by coming +down to meet your old friends? Don't you see the inference they would +naturally draw from your hiding yourself when they arrived? It looked as +though you were afraid of them--or as though you hadn't forgiven them. +Either way, you put them in the wrong instead of waiting to let them put +you in the right. If Leila had buried herself in a desert do you suppose +society would have gone to fetch her out? You say you were afraid for +Leila and that she was afraid for you. Don't you see what all these +complications of feeling mean? Simply that you were too nervous at the +moment to let things happen naturally, just as you're too nervous now +to judge them rationally." He paused and turned his eyes to her face. +"Don't try to just yet. Give yourself a little more time. Give _me_ a +little more time. I've always known it would take time." + +He moved nearer, and she let him have her hand. + +With the grave kindness of his face so close above her she felt like a +child roused out of frightened dreams and finding a light in the room. + +"Perhaps you're right--" she heard herself begin; then something within +her clutched her back, and her hand fell away from him. + +"I know I'm right: trust me," he urged. "We'll talk of this in Florence +soon." + +She stood before him, feeling with despair his kindness, his patience +and his unreality. Everything he said seemed like a painted gauze let +down between herself and the real facts of life; and a sudden desire +seized her to tear the gauze into shreds. + +She drew back and looked at him with a smile of superficial reassurance. +"You _are_ right--about not talking any longer now. I'm nervous and +tired, and it would do no good. I brood over things too much. As you +say, I must try not to shrink from people." She turned away and glanced +at the clock. "Why, it's only ten! If I send you off I shall begin +to brood again; and if you stay we shall go on talking about the same +thing. Why shouldn't we go down and see Margaret Wynn for half an hour?" + +She spoke lightly and rapidly, her brilliant eyes on his face. As she +watched him, she saw it change, as if her smile had thrown a too vivid +light upon it. + +"Oh, no--not to-night!" he exclaimed. + +"Not to-night? Why, what other night have I, when I'm off at +dawn? Besides, I want to show you at once that I mean to be more +sensible--that I'm not going to be afraid of people any more. And I +should really like another glimpse of little Charlotte." He stood +before her, his hand in his beard, with the gesture he had in moments of +perplexity. "Come!" she ordered him gaily, turning to the door. + +He followed her and laid his hand on her arm. "Don't you think--hadn't +you better let me go first and see? They told me they'd had a tiring day +at the dressmaker's* I daresay they have gone to bed." + +"But you said they'd a young man of Charlotte's dining with them. Surely +he wouldn't have left by ten? At any rate, I'll go down with you and +see. It takes so long if one sends a servant first" She put him gently +aside, and then paused as a new thought struck her. "Or wait; my maid's +in the next room. I'll tell her to go and ask if Margaret will receive +me. Yes, that's much the best way." + +She turned back and went toward the door that led to her bedroom; but +before she could open it she felt Ide's quick touch again. + +"I believe--I remember now--Charlotte's young man was suggesting that +they should all go out--to a musichall or something of the sort. I'm +sure--I'm positively sure that you won't find them." + +Her hand dropped from the door, his dropped from her arm, and as they +drew back and faced each other she saw the blood rise slowly through his +sallow skin, redden his neck and ears, encroach upon the edges of his +beard, and settle in dull patches under his kind troubled eyes. She had +seen the same blush on another face, and the same impulse of compassion +she had then felt made her turn her gaze away again. + +A knock on the door broke the silence, and a porter put his head' into +the room. + +"It's only just to know how many pieces there'll be to go down to the +steamer in the morning." + +With the words she felt that the veil of painted gauze was torn in +tatters, and that she was moving again among the grim edges of reality. + +"Oh, dear," she exclaimed, "I never _can_ remember! Wait a minute; I +shall have to ask my maid." + +She opened her bedroom door and called out: "Annette!" + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Autres Temps..., by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTRES TEMPS... *** + +***** This file should be named 24132.txt or 24132.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/3/24132/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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