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diff --git a/6847-8.txt b/6847-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..64456d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/6847-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9471 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cytherea, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +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: Cytherea + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + + +Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6847] +This file was first posted on January 31, 2003 +Last Updated: June 20, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CYTHEREA *** + + + + +Produced by Michelle Shephard, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + +CYTHEREA. + + +By Joseph Hergesheimer + + +_For_ DOROTHY _Charming in the present and Secure with the past_ + + + + +I + +It was, probably, Lee Randon realized, the last time he would play golf +that year. He concluded this standing on a shorn hill about which the +country was spread in sere diminishing tones to the grey horizon. Below, +a stream held a cold glimmer in a meadow of brown, frost-killed grass; +and the wind, the bitter flaws where Lee stood, was thinly scattered +with soft crystals of snow. He was alone, no one would play with him +so late in the season, and there had been no boy present to carry his +clubs. Yes, this was the last time he'd try it until spring: Peyton +Morris, who had married Lee's niece and was at least fourteen years his +junior, had been justified in a refusal which, at its expression, had +made Lee cross. + +At worse than forty-five, he had told Morris curtly, he was more active +than the young men hardly out of the universities. To this Peyton had +replied that undoubtedly Lee had more energy than he; personally he felt +as old as--as Egypt. Ridiculous, Lee decided, trying to make up his mind +whether he might continue playing or return, beaten by November, to the +clubhouse. In the end, with numb fingers, he picked up his ball, and +walked slowly back over the empty course. The wind, now, was behind him, +and increasingly comfortable he grew reflective: + +The comparison of Peyton Morris's age with his, recalling the fact, +to be precise, of his forty-seven years, created a vague questioning +dissatisfaction. Suddenly he saw himself--a comfortable body in a +comfortable existence, a happy existence, he added sharply--objectively; +and the stout figure in knickerbockers, rough stockings, a yellow +buckskin jacket and checked cap pulled over a face which, he felt, +was brightly red, surprised and a little annoyed him. In the abrupt +appearance of this image it seemed that there had been no transitional +years between his slender youth and the present. He had an absurd +momentary impression that an act of malicious magic had in a second +transformed him into a shape decidedly too heavy for grace. His +breathing, where the ground turned upward, was even slightly labored. + +It was, Lee thought with all the intensity of an original discovery, +devilish unpleasant to grow old; to die progressively on one's feet, +he elaborated the fact. That was what happened to a man--his liver +thickened, his teeth went, his veins became brittle pipes of lime. Worse +than all that, his potency, the spirit and heat of living, met without +any renewal its inescapable winter. This might, did, occur while his +being was rebellious with vain hope. Today, in spite of the slight +clogging of his breath, his body's loss of flexibility, his imagination +was as vigorous, as curious, as ever ... take that nonsense about the +doll, which, in a recalled classical allusion, he had privately named +Cytherea. Peyton Morris would never have entered into that! + +Lee Randon, on one of his infrequent trips to New York, had seen it in +a confectioner's window on Fifth Avenue, and instantly it had captivated +his attention, brought him to a halt. The doll, beautifully dressed in +the belled skirt of the eighteen-forties, wore plum-colored silk with a +bodice and wide short sleeves of pale yellow and, crossed on the breast, +a strip of black Spanish lace that fell to the hem of the skirt. +It wasn't, of course, the clothes that attracted him--he only grew +conscious of them perhaps a month later--but the wilful charm, the +enigmatic fascination, of the still face. The eyes were long and half +closed under finely arched brows, there was a minute patch at the +right corner of a pale scarlet, smiling mouth; a pointed chin marked an +elusive oval beneath black hair drawn down upon a long slim neck, hair +to which was pinned an odd headdress of old gilt with, at the back, +pendent ornamental strands of gold-glass beads. + +Insistently conventional, selectly ordinary, in appearance, the stick +with a pig-skin handle hanging from his left arm, he had studied the +doll with a deepening interest. Never in life, he told himself, had he +seen a woman with such a magnetic and disturbing charm. Fixed in intent +regard he became conscious that, strangely, rather than small the figure +seemed diminished by a distance which yet left every feature clear. +With this he grew satirical at himself; and, moving resolutely down +the Avenue, treated his absorption with ridicule. But the vision of the +face, the smile, the narrowed eyes, persisted in his mind; the truth +was that they troubled him; and within three blocks he had turned. The +second view intensified rather than lessened his feeling, and he walked +quickly into the shop odorous with burned sugar. The doll was removed +from the window--it had come from Paris, he learned--and, after a +single covert glance, he bought it, for, he needlessly informed the girl +wrapping it in an unwieldy light package, his daughter. + +To his secret satisfaction, Helena, who was twelve, hadn't been strongly +prepossessed; and the doll--though Lee Randon no longer thought of it +as merely that--left downstairs, had been finally placed on the white +over-mantel of the fireplace by the dining-room door. + +There, when he was alone, he very often stopped to gaze at the figure; +and, during such a moment of speculative abstraction, he had, from the +memories of early reading, called her Cytherea. That, Lee remembered +vaguely, was the Cytheranian name of the mysterious goddess of love, +Venus, of the principle, the passion, of life stirring in plants and +men. But in the shape above him it had been strangely modified from an +apparently original purpose, made infinitely difficult if not impossible +of understanding. His Cytherea bore the traces, the results, of old and +lost and polished civilizations; there was about her even a breath of +immemorial China. It mingled with a suggestion of Venice, the eighteenth +century Venice of the princes of Naxos--how curiously she brought back +tags of discarded reading!--and of the rococo Viennese court. This much +he grasped; but the secret of her fascination, of what, at heart, she +represented, what in her had happened to love, entirely escaped him. + +Lee was interested in this, he reassured his normal intelligence, +because really it bore upon him, upon the whole of his married life with +Fanny. He wasn't, merely, the victim of a vagrant obsession, the tyranny +of a threatening fixed idea. No, the question advanced without answer +by Cytherea was not confined to her, it had very decidedly entered into +him, and touched, practically, everyone he knew, everyone, that was, who +had a trace of imagination. Existence had been enormously upset, in +a manner at once incalculable and clear, by the late war. Why, for +example, the present spirit of restlessness should particularly affect +the relation of men and women he couldn't begin to grasp. Not, he added +immediately, again, that it had clouded or shaken his happiness. + +It had only given him the desire, the safe necessity, to comprehend the +powerful emotion that held Fanny and him secure against any accident +to their love. To their love! The repetition, against his contrary +intention, took on the accent of a challenge. However, he proceeded +mentally, it wasn't the unassailable fact that was challenged, but the +indefinable word love. Admiration, affection, passion, were clear in +their meanings--but love! His brow contracted in a frown spreading in a +shadowy doubt over his face when he saw that he had almost reached the +clubhouse; its long steep-pitched bulk lay directly across the path of +dusk, approaching from the east; and a ruddy flicker in the glass doors +on the veranda showed that a fire had been lighted. To his left, down +over the dead sod and beyond a road, he could see the broad low façade +of his house with its terraced lawn and aged stripped maples. There, +too, a window was bright on the first floor: probably Fanny was hearing +the children's lessons. + + * * * * * + +That cheerful interior he completely visualized: Fanny, in the nicest +possible attire, sitting in the curly-maple rocking-chair, her slippered +feet--she had a premonition of rheumatism--elevated on the collapsible +stool she carried about with her; and Helena and Gregory hanging on +her knees. Gregory, of course, had tomorrow's task easily in hand, with +another star for a day's good conduct in school; but Helena, shining +in the gold and flush of her radiant inattention, would know nothing. +Helena, Lee Randon acknowledged, spelled atrociously. If it weren't for +the clubs and his spiked shoes he'd turn and go home directly, himself +supervise the children's efforts at education. But Fanny did it much +better than he; Helena and Gregory were closer to her; while they +volunteered endless personal and trivial admissions to her, he had to +ask them, detail by detail, what they were doing. + +After he had changed his shoes and secured the latticed steel door of +his locker he went up to the main room of the clubhouse, where, on the +long divan before the open fire, he found Peyton Morris lounging with +Anette Sherwin by a low tea table. The hot water, they informed Lee +comfortably, was cold, inviting him by implication to ring for more; and +then they returned to the conversation he had interrupted. Anette said: + +"I asked her from Friday till Monday, over the dance, you see; but she +wired she couldn't be sure. They are going to begin rehearsing at any +minute, and then shoot--it is shoot, isn't it?--the picture. What did +she tell you at the Plaza?" + +"The same thing," Peyton replied moodily. "I only saw her for a scrappy +dinner; she couldn't even wait for coffee, but rushed up to a conference +with her director." + +They were, Lee knew, talking about Mina Raff, a friend of Anette's +earlier summers by the sea who was beginning to be highly successful in +the more serious moving pictures. He had met her a number of years ago, +in Eastlake, but he retained no clear impression of her; and, admitting +that he hadn't gone to see her in a picture, wondered aloud at her +sudden fame. Peyton Morris glanced at him, frowning; he seemed at the +point of vigorous speech, then said nothing. + +"Mina is lovely now, Lee," Anette spoke in his place; "you will realize +that at once. She's like a--a wistful April moon, or corn silk." + +"I like black hair," Randon asserted. + +"That's amusing, when you think Fanny's is quite brown," Anette replied. +"Whom have you been meeting with black hair? There's none I can remember +in Eastlake." + +"There isn't anybody in particular," Lee reassured her; "it is just +an idea of mine." He had a vision of intense black hair swept about an +enigmatic still smile, of an old gilt headdress. "Mina Raff must have +developed if she gets half the pay advertised." + +"She'll get twice that when this contract expires," Peyton put in; "and +that will be increased again. No one on the screen can touch her." He +made these declarations in a manner both shadowed and aggressive. Lee +observed that he held a cigarette in one hand and a match in the other +with no effort at conjunction. + +"Mina simply tells you everything," Anette continued. "If she comes you +must do your best. It's perfectly marvelous, with so much else, that she +even considers it. I couldn't budge her when she was practically free." + +"How is Claire?" Randon abruptly demanded. + +"She's all right," her husband returned; "a little offhand, but no more +than usual. I want her to go to the West Indies and take Ira but she +won't listen. Why anyone who doesn't have to stay through these rotten +winters I can't imagine." A flaming log brought out his handsomely +proportioned face, the clear grey eyes, the light carefully brushed hair +and stubborn chin. Peyton was a striking if slightly sullen appearing +youth--yet he must be on the mark of thirty--and it was undeniable that +he was well thought of generally. At his university, Princeton, he had +belonged to a most select club; his family, his prospects, even +his present--junior partner in a young but successful firm of bond +brokers--were beyond reproach. Yet Lee Randon was aware that he had +never completely liked Peyton. + +His exterior was too hard, too obviously certain, to allow any +penetration of the inevitable human and personal irregularities beneath. +It might be possible that he was all of a piece of the conventional +stereotyped proprieties; but Lee couldn't imagine Claire marrying or +holding to a man so empty, or, rather, so dully solid. Claire he admired +without reservation--a girl who had become a wife, a mother, with no +loss of her vivid character. Her attitude toward Ira, now four years +old--wholly different from Fanny's manner with her children--was lightly +humorous; publicly she treated her obligations as jokes; but actually, +Lee knew, she was indefatigable. + +This was a type of high spirits, of highly bred courage, to which he was +entirely delivered. Fanny was a perfect mother, a remarkably fine wife, +but she bore an evident sense of her responsibilities. She wasn't so +good-looking as Claire, who at times was almost beautiful; but Fanny had +a very decided kind of attractiveness which Lee Randon wished she would +more bring out. She was a little too serious. He didn't actually +want her to drink and swear in public, that wouldn't become her; but +something of that sort, he felt, might help her. At times, when she had +had more than her customary cocktail and a half, he saw in her a promise +of what he desired. + +God knew he wasn't criticizing Fanny, he hastened to reassure even +himself: how could he, in the face of all she had brought him--the +freedom of money and undeviating devotion and their two splendid +children? His house was as absolute in its restrained luxury of taste +as was the unfailing attention to his comfort. It was purely for her +own happiness that he wanted her to be, well--a little gayer. She was +already developing a tendency to sit serenely on the veranda of the club +through the dances, to encourage others rather than take an active part +herself. + +Expanding in the glow of the fire and hot strong tea he forgot all about +his uncomfortable premonitions of age. Now it seemed to him that he had +never been younger in the sense of being merely alive; after the tonic +of the cold his nerves were strung like steel, his blood was in a full +tide. Lee was aware of a marked sense of pleasure at the closeness to +him of Anette; settling back, she willingly, voluntarily, leaned her +firm elastic body against him; her legs, as evident in woolen stockings +as his own, were thrust frankly out toward the flames. + +"I'll meet her," he heard Peyton say, and realized that they were still +talking about Mina Raff. She wouldn't attract him, Lee Randon, in the +least, he was sure of that ... no wistful April moon. What, then, did +engage him? He was unable to say, he didn't know. It was something +intangible, a charm without definite form; and his thoughts returned to +Cytherea--if he could grasp the secret of her fascination he would be +able to settle a great many disturbing feelings and needs. Yes, what +she mutely expressed was what, beneath his comprehension, he had come +to long for. He had never recognized it as the property of any woman nor +satisfied it in himself. + +Here, certainly, his loyalty, his affection for Fanny, weren't damaged; +he was, he thought, beyond assault there. It was only that, together +with his fidelity to his wife, an increasing uneasiness possessed him, +an unabated separate interest in life, in women. He was searching for +something essential, he couldn't discover what; but, dismissing the +problem of how he'd act if he found it, the profound conviction remained +that when his hopeful quest was over then indeed he'd be old, finished, +drained. Lee Randon secretly cherished, jealously guarded, that +restless, vital reaching for the indefinable perfection of his hidden +desire. For a flash it was almost perceptible in Anette, her head +half-buried in the darkness of the divan behind the rise and fall of her +breasts in a close sweater of Jaeger wool. + + * * * * * + +She stirred, smiled at him absently, and, with Peyton's assistance, +rose. The long room, unlighted except for the fire, was lost in +obscurity; the blackness against the window-panes was absolute. Outside, +however, Lee found a lingering glint of day; the snow had stopped, but +the wind had increased and was blowing over the open expanse of the +course in the high gaunt key of winter. His house, across the road, +showed regular cheerful rectangles of orange illumination: he always +returned to it with a feeling of relief and pleasant anticipation, but +he was very far from sharing Fanny's passionate attachment to their +home. Away--on past trips to the Michigan iron ore fields and now on +shorter journeys to eastern financial centers--he never thought of it, +he was absorbed by business. + +But in that he wasn't alone, it was true of the majority of successful +men he knew over forty; they saw their wives, their homes, they +thought of their families, only in the intervals of their tyrannical +occupations. He, in reality, was rather better there than most, for +he occasionally stayed out at Eastlake to play golf; he was locally +interested, active, in the small town of Fanny's birth. Other men-- + +He made a calculation of how much time a practising lawyer saw his wife: +certainly he was out of the house before nine--Lee knew lawyers who were +in their offices at seven-thirty--and he was hardly back until after +five. Nine hours absent daily through the week; and it was probable that +he was in bed by eleven, up at seven--seven hours' sleep; of the eight +hours left in twenty-four half if not two-thirds of the Sundays and +some part of the others were devoted to a recreation; and this took no +account of the briefcases brought home, the thought and contributary +preoccupations. + +More than that, his mind, his hopes and planning, were constantly +directed toward his legal concerns; the wife of such a man filled about +the position of his golf or billiards. Lee Randon had never analyzed +this before, and the result amazed him. With younger men, of course, it +was different; they had more time and interest for their homes, their +wives and children. Everything constantly shifted, changed, perished; +all, that was, but the unintelligible spurring need beyond any +accomplishment. + +In him it was almost as though there were--or, perhaps, had been--two +distinct, opposed processes of thought, two different personalities, a +fact still admirably illustrated by his private interest in the doll, +in Cytherea. Much younger he had been fond of music, of opera and then +symphony concerts, and his university years had been devoted to a wide +indiscriminate reading: sitting until morning with college men of poetic +tendencies, he had discussed the intricacies of conduct in the light of +beauty rather than prudence. This followed him shyly into the world, +the offices of the Magnolia Iron Works; where, he had told himself +optimistically, he was but finding a temporary competence. What, when +he should be free to follow his inclination, he'd do, Lee never +particularized; it was in the clouds nebulous and bright, and +accompanied by music. His dream left him imperceptibly, its vagueness +killed partly by the superior reality of pig iron and ore and partly +because he never had anyone with whom to talk it over; he could find no +sympathy to keep it alive. + +That it wasn't very robust was evident; and yet, throughout his youth, +it had been his main source of incentive. No one, in the Magnolia works, +knew the difference between the Glucks, Alma and Christopher, nor read +anything but the most current of magazines. At intervals Lee had found +a woman who responded to the inner side of him, and together they swept +into an aesthetic emotional debauch; but they came inevitably, in the +surrounding ugliness of thought and ascribed motives, to humiliating +and ugly ends; and he drifted with increasing rapidity to his present +financial and material sanity. + +What remained of the other was hardly more than a rare accelerated +heart-beat at a chord of music like the memory of a lost happiness, or +at the sea shimmering with morning. He never spoke of it now, not +even to Fanny; although it was possible that he might be doing her +understanding an injustice. Fanny, generally, was a woman in whom the +best of sense triumphed; Fanny was practical. It was she who saw that +the furnace pipes were inspected, the chimney flues cleaned before +winter; and who had the tomato frames properly laid away in the +stable. Problems of drainage, of controversies with the neighbors, were +instinctively brought to her, and she met and disposed of them with an +unfailing vigorous good judgment. + +A remarkable companion, he told himself; he had been a fortunate +man. She was at once conventional and an individual: Fanny never, for +example, wore the underclothes of colored crepe de chines, the elaborate +trifles, Lee saw in the shop windows, nightgowns of sheer exposure and +candy-like ribbons; hers were always of fine white cambric, scalloped, +perhaps, or with chaste embroidery, but nothing more. Neither did she +use perfumes of any sort, there was no array of ornamental bottles on +her dressing-table, no sachet among her handkerchiefs, her cambric was +not laid in scented flannel. Her dressing, a little severe, perhaps--she +liked tailored suits with crisp linen waists and blue serge with no more +than a touch of color--was otherwise faultless in choice and order; and, +it might be that she was wholly wise: Fanny was thin and, for a woman, +tall, with square erectly held shoulders. Her face was thin, too, almost +bony, and that magnified, emphasized, the open bright blueness of her +eyes; all her spirit, her integrity and beauty, were gathered in them; +her hair was pale and quite scanty. + +Yes, Fanny's eyes were her principal attraction, they were forever +startling, contrasted with the rest, not only remarkable in shade +but, as well, in light; in her quick unreasoning tempers, the only +perceptible flaw of her character, they sparkled with brilliancy. +The tempers, Lee decided, descending the narrow stony road from +the club-house to his gate, were an unavoidable part of her special +qualities: her quick decisiveness, her sharp recognitions of right +and her obdurate condemnation of wrong--these distinctions were never +obscured in Fanny--necessitated a finality of judgment open to anger +at any contrary position. Aside from that she was as secure, as +predictable, as any heavenly orbit; her love for him, beginning before +marriage, had quietly and constantly increased; her usual mood was +moulded to his need; nothing had ever contested the supremacy of his +place with her. + +Lee swung open the white wicket that broke the middle of his border +hedge and went up the path over the broad lawn; the house, an admirable +copy of locally colonial dwellings, was a yellow stucco, with a porch on +his left and the dining-room at the extreme right. Beyond the porch was +the square of the formal garden, indistinguishable at this season, and +the garage, the driveway, were hidden at the back. He mounted the broad +steps of field stone at the terrace, but, in place of going directly +in under the main portico, turned aside to the porch, past the dim bare +forms of the old maples. Just as he had anticipated, the glass door +showed him Fanny sitting in the maple slatted-back rocking-chair; +Gregory, in blue, was present, but Helena not to be seen. + +His wife's hands were lying idly in her lap, and she was gazing into +nothingness with an expression he had never before noticed, there was +a faint troubled doubt on her brow, a questioning expression about her +eyes. As he stood momentarily quiet he saw her hands slowly clasp until +he felt that they were rigid, and her mouth became pinched; her face +seemed actually hard. Gregory spoke to her, with his fat fingers on her +sleeve, but she made no reply, paid no attention to him. Lee could hear +Gregory's demanding voice; and then, gathering herself, Fanny sighed +deeply and smiled at her boy. She was wearing her pearls, her rings +sparkled in glittering prisms; and, as he opened the door, Lee Randon +wondered if he had forgotten an engagement to go out for dinner? + + * * * * * + +He asked at once if this were so, but found that they were staying at +home. She regarded him still, he realized, a little withdrawn in +the abstraction he had surprised. This, because it was so uncommon, +disturbed him, and he demanded what was worrying her. + +"Nothing, really. What made you suppose I was bothered?" Her reply was +instinctive; and then, after a pause, she continued, more insecurely, "I +was only thinking about some things.... Lee," she inquired, "you love me +very much, don't you?" + +"Why, of course," he spoke almost impatiently. + +"That is all I have, you see," she admitted; "and that was what was in +my mind. The other women I know are so different; they seem to have so +many more interests than I, and to care less for them than I do for my +one. It is exactly as though I belonged before the war and they came +afterwards. It is true--I am old-fashioned. Well, I don't care if you +don't! But, just the same, it's a problem; I don't want to be out of the +times or narrow; and yet I can't, I don't know how, and I honestly don't +want to, change. + +"It wouldn't be any better if I smoked more cigarettes or drank more +gin, that would be silly." Lee was startled by the similarity of her +words to his unformed thought. "No one likes fun better than I do, but +the fun now is so different," her voice had the sound of a wail, "it's +nothing but legs and getting kissed by anybody but your husband. I don't +want other men to kiss me, Lee, only you. And I want you to be glad +about that, to care for it more than anything else. You do, don't you?" + +Again she hesitated, and again he assured her, in a species of +annoyance, of his feeling. + +"It's because I adore you," Fanny insisted; "it may be awfully foolish +and ark-like to say, but you're all I want, absolutely." Her manner grew +indignant. "Some women at tea today laughed at me. They did nothing but +describe how they held their husbands' affections; actually that, as +though it were difficult, necessary; the details were sickening, and +reminded me of that old joke about leaving off your wedding ring. It +was all too horrid! And, underneath, they were bitter and vindictive, +yes--they were uneasy, afraid of something, of somebody, and treated +every good-looking woman as a dangerous enemy. I couldn't live like +that, I'd rather die: I told them they didn't trust the men they were +married to." + +"What did they say to that?" Lee asked, standing in the door. + +"Agreed with me. Alice Lucian said I was damned well right she didn't +trust hers. She loved him, too, but she didn't propose to take any +liberties with the sanctity of her bed. They all thought Claire was a +fool to let Peyton see Mina Raff like that in New York--the way to avoid +trouble was to make sure it couldn't begin. Has Peyton said anything +to you about Mina Raff? She is perfectly stunning, of course, and an +actress." + +"Not to me," Lee told her; then he recalled the prolonged attention to +Mina Raff on the divan at the Club. "What if he is crazy about her?" he +observed indifferently; "it can't come to anything. It won't hurt Claire +if Peyton sits out a few dances with a public idol." + +"I shouldn't think so either, but the others were so positive. I just +told them how happy we are together and how devoted you are--fifteen +marvelous years, Lee. It was plain that they envied us." She rose and +came close to him, her widely-opened candid blue eyes level with his +gaze. "Not the slightest atom must ever come between us," she said; "I +couldn't stand it, I've been spoiled. I won't have to, will I, Lee? Lee, +kiss me." + +He met the clinging thin passionate purity of her mouth. "No, certainly +not, never," he muttered, extraordinarily stirred. He asserted to +himself that he would make no such fatal mistake. The other, the errant +fancy, was no more than a vagrant unimportant impulse. "Don't let these +women, who cat around, upset you; probably they are thinking not so much +about their husbands as they are of themselves. I've seen that Alice +Lucian parked out in a limousine during a dance, and she was going right +to it." + +"It is foolish of me," Fanny agreed, "and not complimentary to our love. +I have kept you so long over nothing that you will be late for dinner. +I don't care!" Her manner bore a foreign trace of abandon in its radiant +happiness; and, with spread fingers on his back, she propelled him +toward the stairs. But, in their room, he failed to change his clothes: +he sat lost in a concentration of thought, of summoned determination. + +The interior, with dotted white Swiss curtains at the large windows, +both an anomaly and an improvement on the architectural origin, was +furnished largely in dull rubbed mahogany, the beds had high slender +fluted posts, snowy ruffled canopies and counterpanes stitched in a +primitive design. He possessed an inlaid chest of drawers across from +the graceful low-boy used by Fanny as a dressing-table; there was a bed +stand with brass-tipped feet, a Duncan Fyfe, she declared; split hickory +chairs painted a dark claret color; small hooked rugs on the waxed +floor; and, against the mirror on his chest of drawers, a big photograph +of Fanny and the two children in the window-seat of the living room. + +A dinner shirt lay in readiness on the bed, the red morocco boxes that +held his moonstone cuff links and studs were evident, but he ignored +those provisions for his ease. There was a strange, a different and +unaccountable, uneasiness, a marked discomfort, at his heart. The burden +of it was that he had a very great deal of which, it might well be, he +wasn't worthy. In Fanny, he told himself, as against everything else +discoverable, he had the utmost priceless security life could offer. +Outside the brightness and warmth and charm of their house the November +night was slashed by a black homeless wind. + +Her sureness, undeniably, was founded on the inalterable strength of +her convictions; against that sustaining power, it occurred to him, the +correctness of her beliefs might be relatively unimportant. Could any +more be required of a faith than its ability, like a life preserver on +water, to hold an individual safe from sinking? Strangely enough, the +one or two greatly powerful men with whom he had come in contact were +like Fanny, prejudiced, closed against all opinions contrary to their +own, impatient of doubt and self-questioning. + +Fanny, Lee Randon recognized, was indefatigable in her efforts to form +him in her own unassailable mould; she insisted in the most trivial, and +often tiresome, ways, that he should reach and maintain her standards. +He had been in return, more often than not, rebellious, humorously or +with a suspicion of annoyance; but now, suddenly, it seemed to him that +just that, the limitation of Fanny's determined attitude, was, perhaps, +the most desirable thing possible. If it were possible of acquisition! +Such a certainty wasn't his naturally--those two diverse strains in him +again; but one, he added, had been practically obliterated. The first +step in such a course of practical wisdom would be to put Cytherea out +of his life, dislodge her finally from his thoughts, and the over-mantel +downstairs. This, diplomatically with the doll, he could, of course, +do now, whenever he chose. With that, and whatever it represented, +accomplished, Lee had a premonition, his life would be secure, placid. + +The disturbance caused by Fanny's searching tenderness subsided a +little; and, as it dwindled, the other restlessness, the sense, yes--of +wasted possibilities and years, once more grew evident. By God, if Fanny +insisted on being, at any cost, herself, it would be unreasonable in her +not to recognize the same need in him. But Lee was obliged to add the +old and familiar and increasingly heavy provision: any individuality of +being, of desire, must not be allowed to impair the validity of their +common existence, their marriage. Fanny had an advantage over him there, +for all her aspirations turned inward to their love, their home and +children; and his ... but if he knew their goal he could have beaten +life. + + * * * * * + +Footfalls approaching over the hall--the maid to tell him dinner was +served--brought him sharply to his feet, and he hurried down to where +Fanny, who liked to do such things, had finished lighting the candles on +the table. In reply to the glance of interrogation at his inappropriate +clothes he explained that, trivially occupied, he had been unaware of +the flight of time. Throughout dinner Fanny and he said little; their +children had a supper at six o'clock, and at seven were sent to bed; +so there were commonly but two at the other table. He had an occasional +glimpse of his wife, behind a high centerpiece of late chrysanthemums, +the color of bright copper pennies and hardly larger; and he was struck, +as he was so often, by Fanny's youthful appearance; but that wasn't, +he decided, so much because of her actual person--although since her +marriage she had shown practically no change--as from a spirit of +rigorous purity; she was, in spite of everything, Lee realized, +completely virginal in mind. + +The way she sat and walked, with her elbows close to her body and her +high square shoulders carried forward, gave her an air of eagerness, of +youthful hurry. Perhaps she grew more easily tired now than formerly; +her face then seemed thinner than ever, the temples sunken and +cheek-bones evident, and her eyes startling in their size and blueness +and prominence. She kept, too, the almost shrinking delicacy of a girl's +mind: Fanny never repeated stories not sufficiently saved from the gross +by their humor. Her private severity with women who did, he felt, was +too extreme. The truth was that she regarded the mechanism of nature +with distaste; Fanny was never lost, never abandoned, in passion--Lee +Randon had wondered if she regarded that as more than a duty, the +discharge of a moral, if not actually a religious, obligation. It was +certain that she was clothed in a sense of bodily shame, of instinctive +extreme modesty, which no situation or degree of feeling could destroy. + +He understood, however, that he could not have Fanny as she was, +immeasurably fine, without accepting all the implications of her +character--other qualities, which he might desire, would as well bring +their defects. Lee didn't for a second want a wife like Anette. His +admiration for Fanny was, fundamentally, enormous. He was glad that +there was nothing hidden in his life which could seriously disturb her; +nothing, that was, irrevocable. Which had he been--wise or fortunate, or +only trivial? Perhaps, everything considered, merely fortunate; and +he wondered how she would have met an infidelity of his? He put his +question in the past tense because now, Lee congratulated himself, all +the danger was passed: forty-seven, with responsibilities that increased +every month in importance, and swiftly growing children; the hair above +his ears was patched with grey. + +"I don't like that centerpiece," Fanny observed, "I can't see you. +Still, it's as well, I suppose, since you didn't change. You look so +much better in dark clothes, Lee, thinner." + +"You shouldn't make me so comfortable." + +"You'd see to that, anyhow; men always do. Honestly, Alice Lucian was a +scream this afternoon, she said that she hated and distrusted all men; +yet I'm sure no one could be more considerate or dependable than Warner. +Now, if she had a husband like George Willard--" + +"What would you do," Lee asked, "if I spent my spare time with the very +young ones?" + +"I'd have a doctor see you," she replied coolly. "What in the world put +that in your head? Haven't you everything here a man could want? That's +exactly what they were talking about; it's so--so idiotic. Those +younger girls ought to be smacked and put to bed, with their one-piece +swimming-suits and shimmying. They give a very misleading impression." + +He lost the course of her speech in considering how little of themselves +women, old and young, showed each other. If Fanny meant, if she for a +moment thought, where the girls they were discussing came in, that there +was smoke without fire.... It was all devilish strange, the present day, +disturbing. The young men, since the war, had grown sober, and the +older men resembled George Willard. The exploding of so much powder, the +release of such naked passions, had over-thrown the balance of conduct +and pressure. How fortunate, he thought again, he was in having Fanny. + +They moved into the enclosure by the fire-place, where Cytherea was +remote in shadow against the chimney, and through the hall to the living +room for coffee. His wife placed the portable stool under her feet, and +silence enveloped them. At intervals the clear treble of the children's +voices was audible from above, and once Fanny called up for them to be +quiet. The room was large, it filled that end of the lower floor, and +Lee's gaze idly rested on the smoke of his cigar, veiling the grand +piano in the far corner. There were no overhead lights, the plugs for +the lamps were set in the baseboard, and the radiance was pleasantly +diffused, warm and subdued: the dull immaculately white paint of the +bookshelves on his left, silver frames on a table, harmonious fabrics +and spots of color, consciously and sub-consciously spread a restful +pattern. In reply to his comment Fanny acknowledged that she had seen +the snow; she hated winter, she proceeded, and thought that if it turned +out as bad as last year they might get away to Cuba and see Daniel. + +Daniel was Lee's brother, four years his junior, an administrador of a +sugar estancia in the Province of Camagüey; a man who, absorbed in his +crops and his adopted Spanish-tropical civilization, rarely returned to +the United States. This projected trip to Cuba they had discussed for +many Novembers; every year Fanny and he promised each other that, +early in February, they would actually go; and preparatory letters were +exchanged with Daniel Randon; but it always came to nothing. Either +it was impossible for Fanny to leave the children, the house, or the +servants, or Lee's affairs were in need of close supervision. + +Suddenly it annoyed him to discuss again, uselessly, Camagüey; it +had become only a vain pretence, a sustained mirage, of escape from +disagreeable days. While it was hot in Cuba, Daniel maintained, the +trade wind coming with evening made the nights cool; it was far more +comfortable, summer and winter, at La Quinta than in Eastlake. Cuba, +he made it seem, Havana and the colonias of cane, the coast and the +interior, was a place with none of the drawbacks of a northern land or +society; there were, certainly, conventions--the Spanish were a very +punctilious people--but they operated in a conveniently definite, Daniel +might almost say a sensible masculine, manner. He had not gone into +any further detail, but had sunk into his celebrated immobility of +expression. Lee, therefore, had drawn his own, natural, conclusions; he +had come to regard Cuba in the same light as that of the early Castilian +adventurers--an El Dorado, but of freedom rather than gold. + +A perverse restlessness settled upon him, and he put down his coffee cup +abruptly; the contentment in his surroundings vanished. Lee wanted to +be somewhere else, see something different, not so--so tranquil, +so complacently delivered to the uneventful. Fanny, he told himself +resentfully, would be satisfied to sit exactly where she was for a year. +She met his fleet scrutiny with a faint smile. Her face wouldn't be +greatly changed by old age, by death. She was like that, inside and out. +Whirling ungracious fancies passed through his brain. He shook his head, +and Fanny instantly demanded, "What is it, Lee, what is worrying you?" +Nothing, he replied, but she continued to study him until, giving it up, +she turned to the approaching dance; there would be a dinner at the Club +before it, and forty people from out of town had accepted. They must all +have a perfect time, she declared. Gregory could be heard laughing, and, +with a sense of relief, of escape, he volunteered to go up and see what +kept the children roused. He would only make them worse, Fanny observed, +he was as fidgety as Helena; but her tone carried to him her compelling +affection. + + * * * * * + +The darkened room where Helena and Gregory slept held a cold glimmering +whiteness; and the light he switched on showed a most sanitary bareness +and two severe iron beds. There was a moment's stillness as he entered, +the scrutiny of two rosy faces framed in blanket and sheet--there were +no pillows--and then there was a delighted vociferous recognition of his +presence. + +"You must sit on my bed," Helena insisted. + +"No, mine!" Gregory cried; and, as he settled by his daughter, "For +every minute you're there, father, you must sit here. Guess what I have +with me." Lee Randon had no idea, and Gregory produced a willow switch. +"That's for anybody who isn't good." + +There was a wriggle down under the blanket, and Lee leaned forward; "Are +those your feet?" he demanded; "do you go that far down, are you that +tall?" + +"Gracious, that's nothing," Helena cut in; "just see where I go." He +discovered that her active toes were almost under the end bar of the +bed. The covers were moulded by her firm body. In a few years, he +thought with a constricted throat, Helena would be grown up, flung +into the complex troubles of maturity. However, he knew, life wouldn't +greatly upset her--she had a calmness more stolid than Fanny's together +with his own sharpened sensibilities: it was probable that she would +marry soon. + +Gregory was different; while Helena, in small ways, was unamenable, he +was as good as the gold stars he continually got for admirable +conduct. He had a deliberate, careful mind and, already, a sense of +responsibilities. He spoke slowly, giving the impression that the +selection of words was a heavy business; where Helena's speech came in +careless rushes. Gregory, too, Lee Randon told himself, would not be at +a loss later. The two children actually demanded very little from him +now beyond the love they took for granted and its obvious return. But, +for his part, did he give them much, indeed, any more? Was there, Lee +wondered, a deficiency in his sense of parenthood? + +He knew men all of whose labor was for their children; they slaved to +have comfortable sums against their children's futures; they schemed and +talked, often fatuously, for and about their sons and, in lesser degree, +daughters. They were, in short, wholly absorbed, no more than parents; +at the advent of a family they lost individuality, ambition, initiative; +nature trapped them, blotted them out; it used them for its great +purpose and then cast them aside, just as corporations used men for a +single task and dropped them when their productiveness was over. + +But he wasn't like that, it might well be unfortunately. His +personality, his peculiar needs, had survived marriage; the vague +longings of youth had not been entirely killed. They were still potent +and still nameless; they had refused to be gathered into a definition as +exact as ambition. Lee had moved to Gregory's bed, and was holding one +of the small warm hands, inattentive to the eager clamor of voices. +Perhaps his ambition had vanished when he had left the first plan of his +future for the more tangible second: there wasn't much in the material +industry of iron founding, nor in his present wider activities, to +satisfy the imagination. + +Taking the place of that, he had an uncommon amount of energy, vitality, +a force of some kind or other. Whatever he undertook he followed with a +full vigorous sweep; he was successful in convincing a large proportion +of the people with whom he dealt that their ends were the same as his; +and here, as well, chance, fate, had been with Lee--no one, practically, +had lost through a belief in him. + +His situation today, he wholly and gladly admitted, had resulted from +the money Fanny brought him. Until his marriage he had been confined to +the Magnolia Iron Works; of which, it was conceivable, he would in time +be manager, maybe, much later, part owner. But, with fresh resources, +he tried fresh fields, investments, purchases, every one of which +prospered. He owned or operated or controlled an extraordinary diversity +of industries--a bottling works for nonalcoholic beverages, a small +structural steel plant, the Eastlake daily paper--a property that +returned forty per cent on his capital--a box works, purchased before +the war, with an output that had leaped, almost over night, from +thousands to millions, a well-known cigarette-- + +His energies, forever turning from routine paths and stereotyped +preoccupations, took him vividly into countless phases of existence. +He had accumulated nearly a million dollars and Fanny's affairs had +benefited greatly; his administration of her money had been rigid: +but--for whatever it was worth--his wife had, in liberating him from the +company of the super-hot cupolas, made it all possible. + +A fist, now, was softly pounding him; and Gregory's voice threatened +tears. "What is it?" Lee Randon asked. "You will have to excuse me, I +was thinking." + +The narrative which followed, the confused history of a two and a half +dollar gold-piece finally taken from Gregory by his mother, was broken +into by Helena's irrepressible contempt at his youthfulness. + +"He thinks the money is gone," she explained, "because Mother put it in +the bank for him. I told him when he got it there would be a lot more, +but he just wouldn't listen to me. No matter what anybody said it was no +good." + +"Well," Gregory inquired, "how much more?" + +"I don't know, silly; but packs." + +"Seventy-seven dollars?" + +"That depends on how long you leave it in the bank," Lee instructed him. +"If you didn't ask for it for twenty years--" + +"But I want it next Thursday," Gregory hotly interrupted; "won't it be +any bigger then?" + +"He does nothing but ask and ask questions," Helena added. Lee patted +Gregory's cheek: + +"Don't let Helena discourage you. If I don't put the light out your +mother will make me go to bed." + +There were breathless delighted giggles at the thought of that +absurdity. He leaned over his son. "Kiss me!" Helena cried. "Now kiss +me," Gregory echoed. "Kiss me back again--" + +The light went out with a sharp click, and the room was once more a +glimmering darkness, blanched and cold. The ruddy faces of the children, +their bright hair, even their voices, were subdued. Fanny, apparently, +hadn't moved; the light at her shoulder was reflected in the cut +steel buckles of her slippers; she had slight but graceful ankles. He +recognized this, drawing a sheaf of reports from his brief-case; but, +after a perfunctory glance, he dropped them beside him on the floor. + +"Really, Lee, your condition is getting dreadful," Fanny observed; "you +are too nervous for words. Go in and look at that doll you brought +from New York. She ought to teach you repose even if I can't." A swift +concern shadowed her eyes. "Are you doing too much, do you think? It +isn't necessary, you know. We have plenty. I don't understand why you +will go so hard at all those fool concerns of yours. There might be a +mortgage on us, from the way you work." + +The latter part of her speech he forgot in the calling of his attention +to Cytherea. Fanny had said that the doll might tranquilize him. The +opposite was more probable--Cytherea, what could be more disturbing? +Fanny hadn't noticed her smile, the long half-closed eyes, the +expression of malicious tenderness, if such a thing were possible, the +pale seductiveness of her wrists and hands, the finger nails +stained with vermilion. He tried to imagine a woman like that, warm, +no--burning, with life. It seemed to Lee the doll became animated in a +whisper of cool silk, but he couldn't invent a place, a society, into +which she fitted. Not Eastlake, certainly, nor New York ... perhaps +Cuba. What a vanity of nonsense his thoughts had led him back into: +Cytherea, a thing of wax, was on the over-mantel beyond the hall; Cuba +beyond the sea. + +The smoke of another cigar, precisely in the manner of the one before, +hung between him and the piano. His wife settled contentedly in the +curly maple rocker, her rings flashing in the swift drawing of threads +from a square of linen. + + * * * * * + +Early in the morning Lee Randon drove himself, in a Ford sedan, to a +station on the main line of a railway which bore him into the city and +his office. It was nine miles from Eastlake to the station, where he +left the car for his return; and, under ordinary circumstances, he +accomplished the distance in twenty minutes. The road was good and lay +through open rolling country, grazing and farmed land; he knew its every +aspect thoroughly, each hill and turning and old stone house, in the +pale green of early spring with the flushed petals of the apple blossoms +falling on the dark ploughed ground; yellow with grain; a sweeping +stubble with the corn shocked in which rabbit hunters, brown like the +sheaves, called to their dogs. + +Now it was sombre and, in the morning and evening, wrapped in blue mist; +the air had the thick damp coldness usually precipitated in snow; the +cattle, gathered about the fodder spread in the fields, were huddled +against the rising winds. The smoke of a chimney was flattened on a +low roof; and Lee, who had sometimes wished that he were a part of the +measured countryside life, had a sudden feeling of revolt from such +binding circumstances. He wasn't surprised, this morning, that it was +difficult to get men to work in the comparative loneliness of the farms, +or that farmers' sons went continually to the cities. + +When they couldn't get there they crowded into their borough towns, into +Eastlake, at every opportunity, attracted by the gaiety, the lights, the +stir, the contact with humanity. Before prohibition they had drunk at +the hotel bars, and driven home, with discordant laughter and the urged +clatter of hoofs, to the silence of star-lit fields. The buggies had +gone; High Street, on Saturday night, was filled with automobiles; +there was practically no drunkenness; but there was no lessening in the +restless seeking stream of men, the curiosity of the women with folded +hands and tightly folded lips. + +They all wanted a mitigation of a life which, fundamentally, did not +fill them; they had an absorbing labor, love and home and children, +the church, yet they were unsatisfied. They were discontented with +the primary facts of existence, the serious phases, and wanted, above +everything, tinsel and laughter. If a girl passing on the street smiled +boldly at such youths they were fired with triumph and happiness; they +nudged each other violently and made brazen declarations which, faced by +the girls, escaped in disconcerted laughter. Their language--and this, +too, was a revolt--was like the sweepings of the cow barns. + +Life, it occurred to Lee Randon, in this connection, was amazingly +muddled; and he wondered what would happen if the restraint, since it +was no better than sham, should be swept away, and men acknowledged what +they so largely were? A fresh standard, a new set of values, would have +to be established. But before that could be accomplished an underlying +motive must be discovered. That he searched for in himself; suppose he +were absolutely free, not tomorrow, that evening, but now-- + +Would he go to the office, to the affairs of the Zenith cigarette, and, +once there, would he come home again--the four thirty-seven train and +the Ford in the shed by the station? Lee couldn't answer this finally. A +road led over the hills on the right, beyond a horizon of trees. He knew +it for only a short distance; where ultimately it led he had no idea. +But it was an enticing way, and he had an idiotic impulse to turn aside, +follow it, and never come back any more. Actually he almost cut in, and +he had to swing the car sharply to the left. + +If he had been in trouble or debt, if his life had been a failure, he +would have understood his impulse; but as it was, with Fanny and Helena +and Gregory, all his flourishing affairs--why, it was insanity! However, +what absorbed him in his present state of mind, of inquiry, was its +honesty; nothing could be served by conventional protests and +nice sentiments. Lee had long wanted to escape from life, from the +accumulating limiting circumstances. Or was it death he tried to avoid? + +What became clearest was that, of all the things which had happened to +him, he would not, at the beginning, have deliberately chosen any. One, +it seemed, bred by the other, had overtaken him, fastened upon him, +while he was asleep. Lee knew a man who, because of his light strength +and mastery of horses, had spent a prolonged youth riding in gentlemen's +steeplechases for the great Virginia stables; a career of racing silk +and odds and danger, of highly ornamental women and champagne, of +paddocks and formal halls and surreptitious little ante-rooms. That he +envied; and, recalling his safe ignominious usefulness during the war, +he envied the young half-drunk aviators sweeping in reckless arcs above +the fortified German cities. + +Or was it, again, only youth that he lamented, conscious of its slipping +supinely from his grasp? Yet, if that were all, why was he rebellious +about the present, the future, rather than the past? Lee Randon wasn't +looking back in a self-indulgent melancholy. Nor was he an isolated, +peculiar being; yes, all the men he knew had, more or less, his own +feeling; he could think of none, even half intelligent, who was happy. +Each had Lee's aspect of having been forced into a consummation he would +not have selected, of something temporary, hurried, apologetic. + +He thought more specially of men celebrated in great industries, who +had accumulated power beyond measure, millions almost beyond count--what +extravagantly mad outlets they turned to! The captains of steel, of +finance, were old, spent, before they were fifty, broken by machinery +and strain in mid-life, by a responsibility in which they were like pig +iron in an open hearth furnace. What man would choose to crumble, to +find his brain paralysed, at forty-five or six? Such labor was a form +of desperation, of drowning, forgetting, an affair at best an implied +failure. + +That was the strength, the anodyne, of drink, of cocktails, that they +spread a glittering transformation about crass reality; people danced +at stated times, in hot crowded rooms, because life was pedestrian; they +were sick of walking in an ugly meaningless clamor and wanted to move to +music, to wear pearl studs and fragile slippers and floating chiffons. +"The whole damned business is a mess," he said aloud. Then, reaching the +city, he threw himself with a familiar vigor into the activities he had +challenged. + +Returning over the familiar road, in his small closed car, he was +quieter mentally, critical of his useless dissatisfaction; he was making +needless trouble for himself. Small things filled his thoughts, among +them the question of how much gin would be consumed by the cocktail +party Fanny and he were having before the dinner dance at the Country +Club. Peyton and Claire Morris, Anette and, if she came, Mina Raff, with +two men, and the Lucians. Perhaps twelve in all; two quarts. The Country +Club dances, principally made up of people who had known each other long +and intimately, decidedly needed an impetus; society was rather dreadful +without rum. Anette was an attractive girl; she had beautiful legs; +but they were hardly better than Fanny's; why in the name of God was he +captivated by Anette's casual ankles and indifferent to his wife's? + +Women's legs--they were even no longer hidden--were only a reasonable +anatomical provision exactly shared by men. Why, he particularized, did +he prefer them in silk stockings rather than bare, and in black more +than bright colors? Anette's had never failed to excite his imagination, +but Alice Lucian's, graceful enough, were without interest for him. How +stupid was the spectacle of women in tights! Short bathing skirts left +him cold, but the unexpected, the casual, the vagaries of fashion +and the wind, were unfailingly potential. Humiliating, he thought, a +curiosity that should be left with the fresh experience of youth; but +it wasn't--comic opera with its choruses and the burlesque stage were +principally the extravagances of middle age. + + * * * * * + +The orange juice and square bottles of clear gin, the array of glasses +and ice-filled pewter pitcher in which Lee mixed his drinks, were +standing conveniently on a table in the small reception room. Fanny, +in a lavender dress with a very full skirt decorated with erratically +placed pale yellow flowers, had everything in readiness. "Mina Raff +came," she announced, as he descended the stairs. "Anette telephoned. To +be quite frank I didn't much care whether she did or didn't. She used to +be too stiff, too selfish, I thought; and I never liked Anette." + +"Nothing but prejudice, that," he replied decidedly. "Anette has a +very good head. You have just heard stories from envious women." He was +careful to say nothing about her legs. "I haven't found her the least +bit out of the way; and she thinks a lot of you." + +"Bosh," Fanny said inattentively; "I know what she thinks of me. I am +surprised, Lee, that you do so well, because really you are nothing +but an impressionable old fool." She touched him affectionately on the +cheek, "But I can take care of you and Anette too." + +He didn't in the slightest wish to be taken care of in the manner she +indicated; yet there was nothing he could answer; and, at the sound of +a motor on the drive, he turned toward the entrance at the back. It was +the Lucians; and as he greeted them the whole small company swept into +the house. Claire, with her narrow dark vivid face, wore diagonals of +black and grey, with a long trailing girdle of soft blues and pinks. She +came up at once to Lee and kissed him with a warm friendliness. "Have +you seen Mina Raff?" she asked; "she's wonderful." + +As Claire spoke Lee Randon saw the woman who was becoming such a noted +personality. She was slim, neither tall nor short--Peyton Morris was +removing a voluminous white cloak with dull red stripes and a high +collar of fox. He had been wrong in his remembrance of her, for her +loveliness was beyond challenge. Yes, a wistful April moon described her +very well: Mina Raff was ashen blonde, her face was a very pure oval, +and her large eyes, the delicate slightly drooping mouth, held an +expression of devastating sweetness. + +She came forward promptly, and yet with a little touching air of +hesitation, and accused him, in a serious low voice, of having forgotten +her. That, he returned, was ridiculous, an impossibility. Pictures +of her were in all the magazines. Close by her he recognized that the +sweetness was far from sugary; there were indications of a determination +that reached stubbornness; already there were faint lines--skilfully +covered--at the corners of her eyes, and she was palpably, physically, +weary. It was that, he decided, which gave her the wistful charm. That +and something more. She was considered, he knew, and by the judges best +qualified, to have a very sure and perfect talent; and he had no doubt +that that possession stamped and qualified her. + +He was obliged to attend to the cocktails; and, at his back, a gay +chatter of voices rose. He had fleeting impressions of very different +people: a strange man in naval uniform with the insignia of a commander; +Anette in a scanty sheath of satin from which an airy skirt spread +to the left like a fan; Alice Lucian sitting on the steps with George +Willard: Frank Carver remote and lost in his bitter thoughts; Elsie +Wayland with the gold halo of an income almost a dollar a minute. + +Mina Raff, with Peyton Morris at her shoulder, smiled at him. "What +an adorable house," she pronounced; "I wish I could have it near the +studio." She waved Peyton away unceremoniously, "Come, everybody has +had enough drinks, and show it to me." They passed through the hall, +and into the quiet of the space beyond, lighted by a single unobtrusive +lamp. "What a satisfactory fireplace!" she exclaimed in her faint key, +as though, Lee thought, her silent acting were depriving her of voice. +She sank onto the cushioned bench against the partition. "How did they +feel, do you suppose--the people, the men and women, who belonged to +such things?" As Lee watched her it seemed that she grew more remote, +shadowy, like a memory of long vanished beauty made before his eyes +from the shifting firelight and immaterial shadows. Mina Raff lost her +reality in an unreal charm that compressed his heart. The atmosphere +around her stirred with re-created dead emotions. Then: + +"Ah!" she cried softly, unexpectedly, "what a wonderful doll." She rose, +with a graceful gesture of her hands up to where Cytherea rested. "Where +did you get her? But that doesn't matter: do you suppose, would it be +possible for me, could I buy her?" + +"I'm sorry," Lee answered promptly; "we can't do without her. She +belongs to Helena," he lied. + +"But not to a child," Mina Raff protested, with what, in her, was +animation and color; "it has a wicked, irresistible beauty." She gazed +with a sudden flash of penetration at Lee Randon. "Are you sure it's +your daughter's?" she asked, once more repressed, negative. "Are you +quite certain it is not yours and you are in love with it?" + +He laughed uncomfortably. "You seem to think I'm insane--" + +"No," she replied, "but you might, perhaps, be about that." Her voice +was as impersonal as an oracle's. "You would be better off without her +in your house; she might easily ruin it. No common infidelity could be +half as dangerous. How blind women are--your wife would keep that about +and yet divorce you for kissing a servant. What did you call her?" + +"Cytherea." + +"I don't know what that means." + +He told her, and she studied him in a brief masked appraisal. "Do you +know," she went on, "that I get four hundred letters a week from men; +they are put everywhere, sometimes in my bed; and last week a man killed +himself because I wouldn't see him. You'd think that he had all a man +wanted from life; yet, in his library, with his secretary waiting for +him, he.... Why?" she demanded, questioning him with her subdued magic. + +"Have you ever cared for any of them?" he asked indirectly. + +"I'm not sure," she replied, with an evident honesty; "I am trying to +make up my mind now. But I hope not, it will bring so much trouble. I +do all I can to avoid that; I really hate to hurt people. If it happens, +though, what can you do? Which is worse--to damage others or yourself? +Of course, underneath I am entirely selfish; I have to be; I always was. +Art is the most exhausting thing that is. But I don't know a great deal +about it; other people, who act rather badly, can explain so fully." + +From where Lee sat he could see Cytherea; the unsteady light fell on the +gilt headdress, the black hair and the pale disturbing smile. She seemed +to have paused in a slow graceful walk, waiting, with that wisdom at +once satirical and tender, for him. Together, slowly, deliberately, they +would move away from the known, the commonplace, the bound, into the +unknown--dark gardens and white marble and the murmur of an ultramarine +sea. He was rudely disturbed by the entrance of Anette and Peyton +Morris. "We're so sorry," Anette said in an exaggerated air of apology; +"come on away, Peyton." But the latter told Lee that Fanny was looking +for him. "We are ready to go over to the Club; it's ten minutes past +eight." + +Mina Raff gazed up at the doll. "I have an idea the devil made you," she +declared. + +"You are to go with us, Mina," Peyton told her; "if you will get your +cloak--" The two women left, and Morris demanded: + +"What was that damned rot about the doll?" + +"Miss Raff wanted it." + +"Well, why not?" + +Lee Randon turned away coldly. "Little girls can't have everything they +put their eyes on." Morris muttered, and Lee asked, "What's that?" The +other failed to reply, but his remark had sounded remarkably like, +"She can." Going, Lee looked back involuntarily: he hadn't, after all, +imagined Cytherea's quality, Mina Raff had recognized it, too; the dance +had lost its attraction for him. + + * * * * * + +The automobiles started in a concentration of accelerated gasoline +explosions, their headlights sweeping across the house and plunging into +the farther night. Fanny gathered her wrap closely about her throat. +"I'm cold," she asserted; "it was so nice at home, with the children, +and plans--I intend to take out that yellow rambler and try a climbing +American beauty rose there. What a lovely dress of Anette's; it must +be the one she's been talking about so much, that Miss Zillinger made; +really good for Eastlake. What was that man's name who was in the navy, +and did you notice his rank? The officers of the navy are a lot better +looking than army men. And Mina Raff, after all did you find her +interesting?" + +"Quite. She struck me as very intelligent." He had no wish to repeat the +conversation about Cytherea. It was queer, that; the more he considered +it the more significant it appeared to be. "Did it seem to you," he +asked, "that Peyton was very attentive?" + +"I didn't have time to notice. Do you think it's true about her getting +all that money? It looks almost wicked to me, with so many people +needing just a little. But anybody could see that she thinks only of +herself; I don't mean she isn't charitable, but in--in other ways." + +They were late, and the main floor was being emptied of a small crowd +moving into the dining-room. There the long table of the club dinner +reached from end wall to wall; and, with the scraping of chairs, a +confusion of voices, the places were filled. Lee found himself between +Bemis Fox, a younger girl familiar enough at the dances but whose +presence had only just been recognized, and Mrs. Craddock, in Eastlake +for the winter. Anette was across the board, and her lips formed the +query, "The first dance?" + +Lee Randon nodded; he was measurably fond of her; he usually enjoyed a +party at which he found Anette. That she liked him was very evident; not +desperately, but enough to dispose of most restraint; she repeated to +Lee what stories, formal and informal, men told her, and she asked his +advice about situations always intimate and interesting. + +The flood of voices, sustained on cocktails, rose and fell, there +were challenges down the length of the table and quickly exchanged +confidences. Bemis, publicly ingenuous, laid a light eager hand on his +arm, and Mrs. Craddock answered a question in a decided manner. The +dinner, Lee saw, was wholly characteristic of the club and its members: +they had all, practically, known each other for years, since childhood; +meeting casually on the street, in the discharge of a common living, +their greetings and conversation were based on mutual long familiarity +and recognized facts; but here, at such dances, they put on, together +with the appropriate dress, a totally other aspect. + +An artificial and exotic air enveloped whatever they did and said--hardy +perennials, Lee thought, in terms Fanny's rather than his, they were +determined to transform themselves into the delicate and rare flowers +of a conservatory. Women to whom giggling was an anomaly giggled +persistently; others, the perfect forms of housewife and virtue, seemed +intent on creating the opposite engaging impression; they were all +seriously, desperately, addressed to a necessity of being as different +from their actual useful fates as possible. + +The men, with the exception of the very young and the perpetually young, +were, Lee Randon knew, more annoyed than anything else; there was hardly +one of them who, with opportunity, would not have avoided the dinner as +a damned nuisance; scarcely a man would have put his stamp of approval +on that kind of entertainment. It was the women who engineered it, the +entire society of America, who had invented all the popular forms of +pleasure; it was their show, for the magnifying of their charms and the +spectacle of their gay satins and scented lace; and the men came, +paid, with a good humor, a patience, not without its resemblance to +imbecility. Women, Lee continued, constantly complained about living in +a world made by men for men; but the truth of that was very limited: +in the details, the details which, enormously multiplied, filled life, +women were omnipotent. No man could withstand the steady friction, the +inexhaustible wearing, of feminine prejudice; forever rolled in the +resistless stream of women's ambition, their men became round and smooth +and admirable, like pebbles. This, he saw, in Fanny's loving care, was +happening to him: she had spun him into the center of a silken web-- + +"You are not very polite," Mrs. Craddock said. + +"Are you a mind-reader," he replied, "or haven't I heard you?" + +"It doesn't matter," she explained, "but you were so far away." + +He told her something of what had been in his thoughts, and she rewarded +him with a swift speculative interest. "I hadn't realized you were so +critical about your guinea hen," she acknowledged. "Well, if what you +say is true, what can you do about it?" + +"Nothing," Lee returned non-committally; "I am comfortable." This, he +instantly decided, sounded unfair to Fanny, and he substituted happy. +Mrs. Craddock obviously was not interested in the change. "I get as +tired of this as you do," she asserted abruptly; "it's like being on a +merry-go-round someone else started and can't stop. You have no idea how +we get to hate the tunes." + +"But you mustn't forget the chance of catching a gold ring," he reminded +her. + +"It's brass," Mrs. Craddock asserted. + +The orchestra began in the other room and, though dinner was not over, +there were breaks in the table, couples dancing beyond. Anette rose, and +Lee Randon, taking her into his arms, swept out from the doorway. +"What was she talking about?" Anette demanded. "You," he replied +experimentally. "I like her; experience has brought her some wisdom; and +she knows men, too." + +"God knows she ought to," Anette's face was close to his, and he +caught the flash of malice in her eyes. Conscious of the flavor of an +acceptable flattery he didn't let this disturb him. "What a marvelous +dance," she proceeded; "there must be twenty men over. But I like it +better when the porch isn't inclosed, and you can sit on the bunkers." + +How was it that she contrived to make nearly everything she said stir +his imagination? Anette had the art of investing the most trivial +comments with a suggestion of license. It was a stimulating quality, but +dangerous for her--she was past thirty with no sign of marriage on +the horizon. He wondered if she really had thrown her slipper over the +hedge? It wasn't important, Lee decided, if she had. How ludicrous it +was to judge all women, weigh their character, by the single standard +of chastity. But this much must be admitted, when that convention of +morality was broken it had no more significance than the fragments of +a coconut shell. The dance came to an end and they returned to their +vanilla mousse, coffee and cigarettes. + +Some of the men were leaning over the table, drunk and noisy; a woman's +laugh was shrill, senseless. Senseless! That, for Lee Randon, described +the whole proceeding. He had looked forward to the dance with a happy +anticipation, and, now that it was here, even before he had come, he +was out of key with it. The efforts of the people about him to forget +themselves were stiff and unconvincing; their attitudes were no more +than masks held before their faces; there wasn't a genuine daring +emotion, the courage of an admitted thrill, to be found. And then, as if +to mock his understanding, he saw Peyton Morris with such a desperately +white face bent over Mina Raff that he had an impulse to reprove him for +his shameless exposure. + +Instead, he cut in on their dancing and carried her to the other end of +the floor. "I don't know why you did that," she complained; "you don't +like me. But you can dance, and with Peyton it's a little like rushing +down a football field. There! Shall we drop the encore and go outside? +My wrap is on a chair in the corner." + + * * * * * + +"I don't go to parties," she explained; "I am only here on Anette's +account. That was Oscar Hammerstein's idea--he wouldn't let his +actresses even ride in a public car; he said that mystery was a part +of their value, and that people wouldn't pay to see them if they were +always on the streets. Beside, I am tired all the time; you can't +possibly know how hard I work; a hundred times harder than you, for +instance." + +"I've been told that about moving pictures." + +"The glare of the silver-foil reflectors is unbearable," she looked up, +with a pointed and famous effect. "But you don't like me?" + +"I do; aside from that, though, I'm not sure; probably because you are +so remote and cold." + +"Thank God!" she replied. "You haven't stopped to think where I'd be +if I weren't. And yet, no one, in their work, is supposed to be more +emotional. It's funny, and I don't pretend to understand. The trouble +with me is that I have no life of my own: ever since I was sixteen +I've done what directors told me, for the public; it is time I had some +private feelings." + +"It must be a nuisance," he agreed. + +Another dance began, but neither of them stirred; from where Lee sat the +long doors were panels of shifting colors and movement. The music +beat, fluctuated, in erratic bars. A deep unhappiness possessed him, +an appalling loneliness that sometimes descended on him in crowds. Even +Fanny, the thought of his children, could not banish it. Above the drum +he thought he could hear the sibilant dissatisfaction of the throng +striving for an eternity of youth. The glass about the porch, blotted +with night, was icy cold, but it was hot within; the steam pipes were +heated to their full capacity, and the women's painted and powdered +faces were streaked--their assumption of vitality and color was running +from them. + +"Hideous," Mina Raff said with a small grimace. She had the strange +ability of catching his unexpressed thoughts and putting them into +words. "Women," she went on, "spend all their money and half their lives +trying to look well, and you'd suppose they would learn something, but +they don't." + +"What do women dress for?" he demanded; "is it to make themselves +seductive to men or to have other women admire and envy them?" + +"Both," she answered, "but mostly it's a sort of competition with men +for the prize. I'll tell you something about us if you like--we are +not made of sugar and spice and other pleasant bits, but only of two: +prostitute and mother. Not, of course, separately, or in equal parts; +some of us have more of one, others more of the other. That girl across +the table from you is all prostitute, the married woman you were talking +to is both, quite evenly divided; your wife is a mother, even with her +remarkable eyes." She stopped his obvious inquiry: + +"I am an artist, and no one has yet discovered what that is. Do you +remember the straw you used to get with a glass of soda water? You see, +often I think I'm like that, a thing for bright colors to pour through. +It's very discouraging. There is Peyton, and he'll want to dance." She +rose, slipping out of her cloak. + +Lee Randon saw Fanny not far away, and he dropped into a chair beside +her. "Well," he asked, "how is it going?" + +"It seems all right," she told him, with one of her engaging smiles. "I +was surprised that you talked so long to Mina Raff; I had the idea you +didn't like her." Women, he reflected, were uncanny. "Three women are +just plastered up in the dressing-room," she continued; "Sophie Tane +ruined her dress completely, and Crystal Willard has been sobbing for +an hour. Lee, there are horrid bruises on her arm--do you think he is +brutal?" + +He told her not to bother about the Willards, and then rose to get a +chair for Claire Morris. "Peyton is simply fascinated," Claire asserted +lightly. "This Mina ought to have something handsome for giving him such +a splendid time. She is a lovely wench, Lee." + +"You have it over her like a tent, Claire," he insisted; "you're lovely +and human both." + +"Thank you, darling; I'm human, fast enough, now that the drink is +dying. I believe for the first time in my life I am ready to leave +a dance before the last flourish of the music. Fanny, we are getting +older; it's hideous but so. We're getting on, but our young men are +gayer every day." + +Fanny Randon's smile, her expression, were secure. + +This made Lee restive, and, patting her hand, he left to dance with +Alice Lucian. "When this is over," she informed him, "we'll get Anette +and George, and go out to my car. There is a Thermos bottle of cocktails +hidden under the seat." The girl who had sat at Lee's right was dancing +with a tall fair-haired boy in a corner. Entirely oblivious of the rest +of the room, they were advancing two matched steps and then retreating, +their eyes tightly shut and cheeks together. A man fell in the middle +of the floor, catching his partner's skirt and tearing it from the +waistband. Everywhere the mad effort at escape! + +Lee Randon lost his impression of the triviality of the occasion: they +all seemed desperately searching for that something he had lost and +which was overwhelmingly important to him; and all the while the music +stuttered and mocked and confused a tragic need. Or it was like a +momentary release from deadly confinement, a respite that, by its rare +intoxication, drove the participants into forms of incredulous cramped +abandon. Positively, he thought, they were grasping at light, at color, +at the commonplace sounds of a few instruments, as though they were +incalculable treasures. Alice, when she danced, held her head back with +eyes half closed; and suddenly, with her mouth a little parted, she, +too, had a look of Cytherea, a flash of the withheld beauty which filled +him with restlessness. + +It startled him, and, sub-consciously, his arm tightened about her. She +responded immediately, with an accelerated breath, and the resemblance +was gone. Greatly to his relief, a man cut in on them, and once more he +found himself dancing with Anette. She asked him, in a murmurous warmth, +if he liked her, at all. And, with a new and surprising, a distasteful, +sense of lying, he replied that he did, tremendously. No, a feeling in +him, automatic and strange, responded--not Anette! He wanted to leave +her, to leave everyone here, and go. For what? At the same time he +realized that he would stay, and go out, drink, in the Lucians' car. He +had a haunting impression, familiar to him in the past weeks, that he +was betraying an essential quality of his being. + +Yet along with this his other consciousness, his interest in Anette, +lingered; it existed in him tangibly, a thing of the flesh, not to be +denied. She was all prostitute, Mina Raff had said, using the word in +a general sense rather than particularly, without an obvious condemning +morality. Indeed, it might easily be converted into a term of praise, +for what, necessarily, it described was the incentive that forever drove +men out to difficult accomplishment, to anything rather than ease. Good +or bad, bad or good--which, such magic or maternity, was which? + +"What are you thinking about?" + +"It would take years to tell you." + +"I wish ... you might; but I didn't mean to say that, to let you know--" + +"You didn't let me know anything," he broke into her period impatiently. +"If we get on together isn't that enough? It's really not necessary +to hide ourselves behind a lot of pretentious words. And what we feel +tonight hasn't a thing to do with tomorrow; probably then we'll be +entirely different; how can it matter?" + +"It does, though, because you might hate me tomorrow for being myself +tonight. What you think of me has to be big enough to guard against +that. You hurt me, Lee, very much, talking in that way." + + * * * * * + +Alice Lucian, with George Willard, passed them and nodded significantly +toward the entrance. "You will need a cloak," Lee told Anette; +"it's blowing colder and colder." She vanished up the stairs, to +the dressing-rooms, while Lee stood waiting with Willard. He didn't +especially like the latter, a man with an exuberant loud friendliness, a +good nature, that served as a cover for a facilely predatory sensuality. + +He was continually taking hold of feminine arms, bending close over +dinner dresses; and he used--with a show of humorous frankness--his long +knowledge of the girls of Eastlake as a reason for kissing them on every +possible occasion. + +Anette and Alice appeared, with their wraps turned to exhibit the silk +linings, bright like their dresses; and, at a favorable moment, they +slipped out into the malice of the wind beating on them from the +darkness. Anette was pressed tightly against Lee, Alice and George +Willard were vaguely ahead; and, after a short breathless distance, +they were in the protection of the shed. The Lucians' automobile had +an elaborate enclosed body: shutting the doors they were completely +comfortable, unobserved and warm. "No," Alice directed, "don't put on +the light; I can find it. There! We'll have to use the cap for a glass." +The aluminum top of the bottle was filled and refilled; the frigid +gin and orange juice brought Lee Randon a glow of careless well-being, +irresponsibility. + +The others had gone to the front seat, where they were squeezed into a +remarkably small space. Anette sat leaning forward, her chin propped in +her left hand and the right lightly resting on Lee's knee. A loose board +in the shed kept up an exasperating clatter. A match flared and Willard +lighted a cigarette. It was curious about Alice--only in the last year, +and for no reason Lee could discover, had she done things such as +this. Perhaps, with no children, and the money Warner had accumulated +comparatively lately, she hadn't enough to do. Of course, Warner, a +splendid individual, could not be called entertaining; he was totally +absorbed in his business, often away at the wood-pulp mill, in the +Laurentian Mountains, in which he had a large interest. + +Warner Lucian had nearly all the principal virtues--integrity, +generosity, courage, and he was as single in mind as Willard was +dubious; but, in spite of so much, it was clear that he had begun +to weary Alice. She was publicly indifferent to him, careless of his +wishes; she had even complained to Lee about her husband's good conduct, +explaining that if he would only have what she termed an affair he would +be more human. + +"I am still very cross at you." Anette spoke out of a gloom in which her +face was barely distinguishable. "You took all the niceness out of our +friendship and made it seem horrid; just as though you had pulled off my +clothes; I--I haven't the same feeling about you." + +His effort at honesty, at discovering the mystery of profound disturbing +needs, had been vain. Gathering Anette in his arms Lee kissed her. +She rested there for a moment; then, with her hands against his chest, +pushed him away. "I can't, now," she told him; "somehow it's all +spoiled. It seemed as though you were studying me disapprovingly. I'm +not just bad, you know." + +"I don't think you are bad at all," he replied irritably; "you brought +that into it. Why, in the name of heaven, should I?" + +"Fanny doesn't like me," she said at a tangent. + +"Who put that in your head?" + +"Fanny. She's hardly civil." + +"If you mean she's jealous, she isn't." + +"You hardly need to add that. Of course, I realize Fanny Randon couldn't +be jealous of me. Good Lord, no! Why should she be? No one would give me +a thought." + +Anette, wholly irrational, was furious. Damn women, anyway! It was +impossible to get along with them, since they hadn't a grain of reason. +He was superior to her temper, indifferent to it, because he was +indifferent to her. Suddenly the charm she had had for him was gone, the +seductiveness dissolved, leaving only Anette, a fairly good-looking +girl he had known for a great while. His warm response to her was dead; +whatever she had aroused and satisfied, or left in suspense, no longer +contented him. The memory of his interest in her, the thought he had +expended, was now a cause of surprise, incomprehensible. Lee wanted to +return to the club house and Fanny. + +There was an obscure indication of Alice's hands raised in the +rearrangement of her hair. George Willard half turned, facing the rear +of the car. "I can't see much," he said, "but it is evident that you +two have been fighting. Why don't you live in peace and happiness? The +trouble's all with Lee, too, you don't have to tell me that, Anette; he +is too cursed cantankerous; and it would serve him right if you'd come +up here with us." + +Anette opened the door and an icy draft swept about their knees. "Not +yet," Willard begged; "we won't be missed." + +"You may stay as long as you want," Anette replied, "but I am going +back." Positively her voice bore a trace of tears. What, what was it all +about? It was Alice who decided that they should return together: "The +bottle's empty, my hair net is fixed for the third time, and we had +better. You get out, George, please. No, I told you." + +Lee Randon welcomed the solid rushing of the wind; it swept in full +blast across the open of the golf course and made walking precarious. +Anette was lost, forgotten. If the chill air could only take the fever, +the desire, out of his mind and blood! He wished that he might be +absorbed into the night, the storm, become one with its anonymous force, +one with the trees he heard laboring on their trunks. Instead of the +safety of being a part of nature he felt that, without directions, he +had been arbitrarily set down on earth, left to wander blindly with no +knowledge of his destination or its means of accomplishment. + +Fragments of a dance measure were audible, and he returned to the +pounding music, the heat, the perceptibly chlorinated perfumes and +determined activity. He went at once in search of his wife; she had +apparently not moved from the chair in which he had left her. Meeting +her slightly frowning, questioning expression he told her simply, +without premeditation or reserve, that he had been out in an automobile. +Fanny was obviously not prepared for his candor, and she studied him +with the question held on her lifted face. Then banishing that she +proceeded to scold him: + +"You know how I hate you to do such things, and it seems precisely as +though my wish were nothing. It isn't because I am afraid of how you'll +act, Lee; but I will not let you make a fool of yourself. And that, +exactly, is what happens. I don't want women like Anette to have +anything on you, or to think you'll come whenever they call you. I can't +make out what it is in your character that's so--so weak. There simply +isn't any other name for it. I don't doubt you, Lee," she repeated, in +a different, fuller voice, "I know you love me; and I am just as certain +you have never lied to me. I'm sure you haven't, in spite of what the +girls say about men." + +He was cut by an unbearably sharp, a knife-like, regret that he had +ever, with Fanny, departed from the utmost truth. Lee Randon had a +sudden vision, born of that feeling returning from the shed, of the +illimitable tranquility, the release from all triviality, of an honesty +beyond equivocation or assault. Fanny, in her way, possessed it; but +that, he saw, was made vulnerable, open to disaster, through her love +for him. It was necessary, for complete safety, to be entirely insulated +from the humanity of emotions. That condition he instinctively put from +his thoughts as being as undesirable as it was beyond realization. Lee, +with all his vitality, drew away from a conception, a figure, with the +cold immobility of death. After all, he reassured himself, he had never +essentially lied to Fanny; he had merely suppressed some unnecessary +details in order to make their existence smoother. The welcome collapse +of his small affair with Anette proved the wisdom of avoiding the +exaggeration and difficulty of explanations. + +"Lee," Fanny said, changing the direction of their thoughts, "I don't +want to bother you, but I am uneasy about Claire and Peyton. He hasn't +left Mina Raff a minute this evening. And he has such an unhappy +expression, not at all as though he were enjoying himself." + +"I noticed that," Lee agreed; "but it will do him no good with +Mina--she's a cold potato, career's the only thing in her head." Then +he remembered what Mina Raff had told him about her individuality, her +personal desire; and he repeated it to his wife. + +"I don't think Claire is entirely wise," she went on; "but you can't +tell her a thing. She listens as sweetly as possible and then says that +she won't interfere with Peyton. Well, someone else will. Claire has too +much reserve, she is too well-bred and quietly superior. You wait and +see if I am not right; life is very vulgar, and it will take advantage +of her." + +"I wonder if you are? Well, as you say, we shall see. If Mina Raff fixes +her mind on him there will be a lot to watch." + +"You must speak to him." + +"Now there," Lee expostulated, "you make me sick. How--will you tell +me--can I speak to Peyton until he first says something? And when that +happens, as easily as not it may be a cable from Peru. You want to +interfere too much, Fanny, and insist that everybody follow your idea of +right." + +She retired into a silence of wisdom that merely looked down on him. Her +face was troubled, her lips tightly compressed. "What time is it?" she +asked sharply; "the ribbon of my watch is worn out. Oh, we can go home +with decency. It makes me rather sick here." + +He went below, for his hat and coat, and found the room beyond the +lockers, built as an informal café before the era of prohibition, +occupied by a number of men transferring the balance of fulness from a +row of bottles to themselves. + +He accepted a drink, more for the purpose of considering Peyton Morris, +moodily abstracted by the table, than for itself. It seemed to Lee that +the young man had actually aged since the cocktail party at his house, +earlier in the evening. Peyton's mouth was hard and sullen; his brow was +corrugated. "We're going home," Lee told him; "and it seemed to me that +an hour ago Claire was tired." + +"She didn't tell me," Peyton responded punctiliously; "and certainly +if she's low we'll go too." He rose promptly, and, with his outer garb, +accompanied Lee Randon. His step was uncertain, and Lee put a hand under +his elbow. "Liquored?" he asked casually. + +"Not in my brain," Peyton Morris returned: "it seems like I could never +get drunk again; but my dam' feet are all over the place. Thanks +for hanging on to me: I have an idea you are going to drop me pretty +quickly." + +"I don't want to question you," Randon said, "or in any way force +a confidence, but, Peyton, in addition to the relationship, I am +exceptionally fond of Claire; and, since helping you is practically the +same thing as helping her--" + +"I wish to Christ I had been sunk in the North Sea," Morris broke in +bitterly. + +They were up the stairs and standing on the emptied floor of an +intermission. Fanny, prepared to leave, was gazing about for him. +"You've been an age," she cried to Lee; "and, Peyton, Claire is at last +looking for you; although she'd kill me for saying it. You had better go +outside a minute, first, and clear your head." + +He came very near to her, slightly swaying. "Fanny, you are a darling, +but you are hard; you are hard as the Commandments." + +"That is not very kind, Peyton," she protested; "but I have some common +sense." + +"Haven't you any uncommon sense?" he begged. "That's what I want. A +little just now might save everything." + +"You must try to find out," she informed him; "I think I have been +successful with Lee; anyhow he ought to say so." + +"I do," Lee Randon asserted quickly. "Fanny is wonderful. If I'm of no +use go to her." + +"You don't know," Peyton muttered; "you can have no idea." + +"What in the world was he talking about?" she asked Lee in the +automobile. + +"Peyton is in love with Mina Raff," he admitted shortly, in a pressure +of conflicting emotions. + +"Lee!" she exclaimed; "are you sure? Did he say so? That is simply +frightful." + +"I imagine it's worse than you realize." + +"Do you mean--" + +"Nothing actual yet," he interrupted her impatiently; "perhaps +nothing you would bother about. But you'd be wrong. It's all in his +thoughts--some damned spoiled ideal, and as dangerous as possible." + +"Poor Claire," she said. + +"Of course, that's the thing to say," he agreed. "The man is always a +criminal in such situations." + +"You are not trying to defend him?" she asked quietly. + +"Maybe I am; I don't know. After all, we are jumping at conclusions; +Peyton was drunk. But, for heaven's sake, if either of them comes to you +don't just be moral. Try to understand what may have happened. If you +lecture them they will leave you like a shot." + +Fanny was driving, and she moved one hand from the wheel to his cheek. +"It isn't us, anyhow, Lee; and that is really all I care for. We are +closer than others, different. I don't know what I'd do if you should +die first--I couldn't move, I couldn't go on." + +"You would have the children," he reminded her. + +"They are nothing compared with you." It was the only time she had made +such an admission, and it moved him profoundly. It at once surcharged +him with gratitude and an obscure disturbance. + +"You mustn't pin so much to me," he protested; "you ought to think of a +hundred other things." + +"I would if I could; I often try, but it is impossible. It is terrible +to care for a man the way I do for you; and that's why I am so glad you +are what you are: silly at times, ridiculously impressionable, but not +at all like George Willard, or Peyton Morris." + +He had an overwhelming impulse to explain himself in the most searching +unsparing detail to Fanny, the strange conviction that in doing it he +would anticipate, perhaps escape, grave trouble. Lee Randon realized, +however, that he would have to begin with the doll, Cytherea; and the +difficulty, the preposterousness, of trying to make that clear to his +wife, discouraged and kept him silent. No woman, and least of any the +one to whom he was married, could be trusted to understand his feeling, +his dissatisfaction in satisfaction, the restlessness at the heart of +his peace. + +Fanny went up at once, but he lingered, with a cigar, in the living +room. A clock struck one. A photograph of Claire with her bridesmaids, +Peyton and his ushers, on a lawn, in the wide flowered hats of summer +and identical boutonnières, stood on a table against the wall; and +beyond was an early girlish picture of Fanny, in clothes already +absurdly out of mode. She had a pure hovering smile; the aspect of +innocence time had been powerless to change was accentuated; and her +hands managed to convey an impression of appeal. He had been, in the +phrase now current, crazy about her; he was still, he told himself +strictly. Well, he was ... yet he had kissed Anette; not for the first +time, either; but, he recognized, for the last. He was free of that! +A space, a phase, of his life was definitely behind him. A pervading +regret mingled with the relief of his escape from what he had finally +seen as a petty sensuality. The little might, in the sequence, be safer, +better, than the great. But he vigorously cast off that ignominious +idea. A sense of curious pause, stillness, enveloped Lee and surprised +him, startled him really, into sitting forward and attentive. The wind +had dropped, vanished into the night and sky: the silence without was as +utter as though Lee Randon were at the center of a vacuum. + + + + +II + + +On Saturday morning Lee telephoned to his office, found nothing that +required his immediate attention there and, the brief-case again in +evidence, stayed at Eastlake. Fanny, too, with her hair severely plain +and an air of practical accomplishment, was occupied with her day book. +She kept this faithfully; but Lee couldn't decide whether the obvious +labor or her pleasure in the accomplishment were uppermost. She +addressed the day book with a frowning concentration, supplementary +additions and subtractions on stray fragments of paper, which at times +brought him with an offer of assistance to her shoulder. But this she +resolutely declined--she must, she insisted, maintain her obligation +along with his. However, Fanny, like all other women, he thought, was +entirely ignorant of the principle of which money was no more than a +symbol: she saw it not as an obligation, or implied power, but as an +actuality, pouring from a central inexhaustible place of bright ringing +gold and crisp currency. + +However, Fanny had always been accustomed to the ease of its possession, +familiar with it; and that had stamped her with its superiority of +finish. How necessary, he continued, money was to women; or, rather, to +the women who engaged his imagination; and women were usually the first +consideration, the jewelled rewards, of wealth. As he visualized, dwelt +on, them, their magnetic grace of feeling and body was uppermost: sturdy +utilitarian women in the kitchen, red-faced maids dusting his stairs, +heavily breasted nurses, mothers, wives at their petty accounts--he +ended abruptly a mental period escaping from the bounds of propriety. +What he meant, all that he meant, was that beauty should be the main +consideration. Lee applied himself to far different values; and, before +he had finished, lunch was ready. + +"I have been thinking half the morning about Claire and Peyton," Fanny +told him; "I do feel that we exaggerated the situation last night; it +all seemed more immediate, bigger, than it will turn out. Heavens, as +you said, they can't do anything, nothing can happen." + +He was still inclined to believe that. "There is a tremendous lot of +talk and no result; yes--no one really does a thing. They want to, and +that's all it comes to." + +Fanny cast a glance of repressed attention at him across a lower +center-piece. "If you could be whatever you wanted, what and where, what +would you choose?" she asked. + +"Here, with you and the children," his voice replied without hesitation. +The youth of her expression was happily stained by a flush. He meant it, +Lee told himself sharply. But about Peyton-- + +"Of course, he was drunk last night, and he said nothing conclusive; he +was only wretchedly unhappy--wished he had been killed in the war and +all the romantic rest." + +"It is too much for me," Fanny decided generally; "but I am glad that +I was young when I was; being alive was quite simple then. I am +comparatively young, Lee, 'way under forty--well, two years--but you +can't realize how things have changed in such a short while. The women +we knew didn't even smoke then. Wasn't it only five or six years ago +they were first allowed to in nice cafés? And, not simply that, men +didn't, either, when they were with us. We used to go to Cape May; they +called the dances hops; and do you, oh, do you, remember the bathing +suits?" + +"I am not so certain about any great change," he objected. "I seem to +recall--" + +"Horrid people will always be horrid!" she exclaimed. "I knew one or two +very fast girls; but they were different about it from now, it was only +whispered around and condemned, and it's shouted out today. I wish I had +known you sooner; I would have done a lot better than your mother. I'd +like to have had you, Lee, as a little boy; but I suppose you're enough +that yet." + +His opposition to Fanny's maternal manner, directed at him, was stronger +than customary; she seemed to accept in herself every responsibility for +him; as though, whenever his actions were unfortunate, it had been +due to her imperfect control. With practically no experience of life, +guarded from its threatening aspects, her attitude was that, not without +patience, she brought him with relative safety through a maze in which +otherwise he'd be lost. This was evident now in what he felt to be the +complacency of her voice and expression; and a perverse impulse grew in +him to combat and shatter her blind satisfaction. Lee subdued this, in +the merest decency; but the effort left him thoroughly irritated. He +found, finally, an outlet for his annoyance in the restlessness of +Helena; and he ordered her from the table. + +This show of paternal discipline Fanny met with lowered eyes and a +silence that endured until Gregory had walked sedately from the room; +then she reminded Lee that he must never, absolutely never, correct his +children when he was in an ill temper. + +"That's nonsense," he returned shortly; "you ought to see that because +it's impossible. Even theoretically I don't agree with you--a child can +understand a punishment in which there is some warmth. You are dealing +with a little animal and not a reasonable being." To this Fanny replied +that her children were not animals. + +"Really, Fanny, you don't know what you are talking about," he asserted; +"we are all, men and women and children and giraffes, animals. You might +look that up in the dictionary." + +"I haven't any need to," she observed, with a calmness that further +tried him. "If the dictionary says that it isn't a very good one. And +if you are trying to tell me that Helena and Gregory are no better than +giraffes you're sillier than usual." + +"That isn't in the least what I said," Lee retorted, with widely +separated words. "I wasn't speaking of the comparative but of the +absolute. It is a fact that we are animals, more responsible and with +greater powers than the others, but animals, animals." + +"Then what is an animal?" Fanny demanded. + +"A mammal." + +A marked expression of distaste invaded her. "It has a nasty sound," she +admitted with her instinctive recoiling from life. "I don't see how we +got on this subject anyhow, it's too much like sex. It seems you are +able to discuss nothing else." + +"It is only nasty in your mind," he declared. + +"That's exactly like you, you all over, to blame things on me. It's +convenient, I must say, but not fair nor true: it was you who got in a +wicked temper and sent Helena, who was feeling miserable, away." + +"You always say the children are sick when they misbehave." + +"I wish I could be as sure of you as I was of that," she answered +quickly; "for instance, when you go out in automobiles at the dances +with women." + +"Now, we are beginning," he told her with emphasis; "we never had an +argument that didn't degenerate into this; and I'm sick of it." + +"I thought I was the one who was sick of it," Fanny complained; "I +wonder that I don't just let you go." + +"I wish you would," he said, rising; "I give you my word, I'd rather +be damned comfortably than have this endless trouble." In a position of +unassailable quiet behind his papers he told himself that the scene with +Fanny had been particularly vain because, underneath, he agreed with +her opinion about the casual expression of small emotions; he no longer +wanted it any more than she did. Yes, at last they were one there. And +yet he felt further from her even than before--whatever his marriage +hadn't satisfied, that he had stilled in minor ways, was now without +check. The truth was that it had increased, become more serious, +insistent. + +The tangible facts, the letters and memoranda, before him, retreated and +came back to his consciousness. Tobacco worms had been boring through +his cigars, and destroyed a third of the box. Helena passed, affecting +a grievance out of any proportion to its cause in him. Outside, the +country was flooded with a deceptive golden radiance; and he remembered, +suddenly, that Alice Lucian had told him to bring Fanny to the Club and +a tea that afternoon, which she was giving for Mina Raff. He repeated +this to his wife, in a conciliatory regret at his forgetfulness; and she +replied that if he cared to go she would come over later for him in the +car. Lee, standing at a window, thought he wouldn't; but, adding +that Peyton would be there, he decided that, in view of the possible +developments, his presence might be wise. + + * * * * * + +The early gloom gathered familiarly in the long main room of the +clubhouse; the fire cast out fanwise and undependable flickering +light upon the relaxed figures; it shone on tea cups, sparkled in rich +translucent preserves, and glimmered through a glass sugar bowl. It was +all, practically, Lee Randon reflected, as it had been before and would +be again. How few things, out of a worldful, the ordinary individual +saw, saw--that was--to comprehend, to experience: a limited number of +interiors, certain roads and streets, fields and views. He made his way +through life blinded to the customary and unaware of the strange; summer +was hot and winter, usually, cold; the spring became green under +rain; winds blew and the leaves fell in fall--of how much more was he +conscious? + +It was the same with regard to people; he, Lee Randon, knew a +great many, or rather, he could repeat their names, recognize their +superficial features at sight. But to say that he actually knew +them--that was nonsense! Why, he was almost totally ignorant of himself. +How much could he explain of Fanny's late state of mind? She had done +all that was possible to make it clear to him; with little result. Fanny +was an extraordinarily honest person; or, damn it, she seemed to be. He +had a reputation for truthfulness; but how much of what was in his mind +would he admit to his wife? The discrepancy between what he appeared +and what he felt himself to be, what he thought and what published, was +enormous, astounding. + +There, as well, was Peyton Morris; Lee would have sworn that he +understood him thoroughly--a character as simple, as obvious as Fanny's. +But here was Morris seated with Mina Raff on the stairs to the upper +floor, beyond the radius of the fire; and, though they were not ten feet +away, he could not hear a word of what they were saying. At intervals +there was an indistinct murmur, nothing more. Claire, at Lee Randon's +side, was sitting with her chin high and a gaze concentrated on the +twisting flames: talking generally had fallen into a pause. + +The door from without opened, Fanny entered, and there was a momentary +revival of animation. "Is Lee here?" she demanded; "but I know he is. +The fire is just as attractive at home, yet, even with nothing to do, +he'll hardly wait to give it a poke. Where's Peyton?" + +"On the stairs," someone answered casually. + +There was a movement, and Mina Raff approached. "It's so hot here," she +asserted. + +"It is warmer out," Fanny informed her; "I wonder what the weather is in +New York?" + +"I can't say, I'm sure; but I shall discover tomorrow morning. I have to +be back as early as possible. Then--work, work, work." + +"Mina has been made a star," Peyton Morris announced. But he stopped +awkwardly, apparently conscious of the warmth, the largeness, in his +voice. Fanny whispered to Lee that it was quite too outrageous. In +return, he asked, "What?" and, indignant, she drew away from him. + +The conversation died again. Lee Randon could see Mina Raff's profile, +held darkly against the glow; her lips and chin were firm. "Where," +Anette asked her, "shall you stay when you get back--at Savina Grove's?" +No, Mina replied, her hours would be too long and uncertain to allow +that; probably she would be at the Plaza. Lee had heard the Groves' name +mentioned before in connection with Mina Raff; and he made an effort +to recall the reason. The Groves--it was the William Loyd Groves--were +rather important people, financially and socially; and one of them, yes, +that was it, was related to Mina, but which he didn't know. + +More came back to him: Mina Raff's parents had died when she was a young +girl, and the Groves had rescued her from the undistinguished evils of +improvidence; she had lived with them until, against their intensest +objections, she had gone into moving pictures. Probably the Groves' +opposition had lasted until Mina's success; or, in other words, their +support had been withheld from her through the period when it had been +most needed. + +Yes, the girl had a determined mouth. If he, Lee Randon, had followed +his first inclinations--were they in the way of literature?--how +different his life would have been. Mina Raff had been stronger, more +selfish, than her environment: selfishness and success were synonymous. +Yet, as a human quality, it was more hated, more reviled, than any +other. Its opposite was held as the perfect, the heavenly, ethics of +conduct. To be sacrificed, that was the accepted essence of Christ; +fineness came through relinquishment. He didn't believe it, he told +himself fiercely; something deep, integral, in him revolted absolutely. + +Mina Raff had been wholly justified; the very people who had thrown +all their weight against her admitted it fully. It was only when such a +self-belief was without compensating result, value, that it was wrong. +But who could say what any outcome would be? Some people took the chance +and others didn't; he had not. Then the question came up of whether he +had not failed as it was? No one would agree with him that it might be +failure; he hadn't called it that. Suddenly, vehemently, he wished +that he could grow old at once, in a second; anything to quiet the +restlessness at his heart. + +Lee had a conviction that he ought to decide the case of the individual +against the world, the feeling that it was of the greatest importance +to him; but for centuries men had considered, without answer, just that. +The thing to do was to live, not to think; for it was possible that +those who thought, weighed causes and results, hardly lived at all in +the sense he meant. All the people he knew were cautious before they +were anything else; they existed primarily for their stomachs. The +widely advertised beauty of self sacrifice was golden only when it +adorned like a halo the heads of others. That was natural, inevitable +to the struggle for survival; it didn't answer Lee's question, which, he +felt, was of the spirit rather than the body. + +"It's getting late," Fanny said briskly. There was a general movement, +sighs and the settling of skirts. The lights were switched on, and the +fire, that had been a source of magic, became nothing more than ugly +grey charring logs with a few thin tongues of flame. Lee, with his +wife, stopped to say good-bye to Mina Raff; Fanny's manner was bright, +conventional; as palpably insincere to the other woman, Lee was certain, +as it was to him. He said: + +"I hope your new picture will go well." + +"Thank you," she responded, her slight hand lingeringly holding his; +"perhaps you will like me better on the screen than in reality." + +"Could you tell me which was which?" + +She hesitated. "Three months ago, yes, but not now; I'm not sure of +myself." + +"That was positively indecent," Fanny observed afterward; "she is as +bold as brass. I hope I am not as big a fool as Claire." + +"Claire and you are very different," he told her; "I have an idea that +she is doing whatever is possible. But then we don't know what we +are talking about: it's fairly evident that Peyton and Mina Raff are +interested in each other, they may be in love; and, if they are, what +does that mean? It isn't your feeling for the children or mine for you; +they are both love; yet what is it?" + +"It is God in us," Fanny said gravely; "and keeps us all, Helena and +Gregory and you and me, safely together." + +She seldom spoke to him of religion, but it dwelt closely, vitally, +within her, and not as an inherited abstraction or correct social +observation, but definitely personal in its intercommunication. Lee +Randon had none at all; and in her rare references to it he could only +preserve an awkward silence. That had always been a bar between his +family and himself, particularly with the children: he was obliged +to maintain an endless hypocrisy about the miracles, the dogmas and +affairs, of Sunday school and the church. As a child he had been so +filled with a literal Presbyterian imagery that, when a degree of reason +discarded figures of speech seen as concrete actualities, nothing had +been left. With the lapse of a purely pictorial heaven and hell, the +loss of eternal white choirs and caldrons of the unrepentant, only earth +remained. + + * * * * * + +He could recall in gloomy detail his early impression of Paradise: it +was a sombre plain floating cloud-like in air, with, doubling through +it, an unspeakable sluggish river of blood; God, bearded and frowning in +the severity of chronic judgment, dominated from an architectural throne +a throng of the saved in straight garments and sandalled feet; and, in +the foreground, a lamb with a halo and an uplifted cross was intent on +the baptism of individuals issuing unaccountably white from the thickly +crimson flood. + +Yet his children, in a modified Episcopalian form, were being taught the +same thing: the Mosaic God; Christ Jesus who took unto Himself the sin +of the world; the rugged disciple, St. Peter and the loving disciple, +St. John. The sky, they learned, was the habitation of light-winged +angels. The ark was still reported on its memorable voyage, with its +providential pairs of animals gathered from every zone, but there was +a growing reticence about Jonah. The persistence of such credulity, Lee +thought, was depressing; just as the churches, leaning on the broken +support of a charity they were held to dispense, were a commentary on +the poverty of the minds and spirits of men. + +Yes, the necessity of charging Helena and Gregory with such assurances, +their rigid bending into mental forms, large and small, in which he +had no confidence, put Lee outside the solidity of his family. In the +instruction, the influences, widely held paramount in the welding of +polite Christian characters, Fanny was indefatigable--the piece of +silver firmly clasped in the hand for collection, the courtesy +when addressed by elders, the convention that nature, birds, were +sentimentally beneficent. When Gregory brought out these convictions, +lessons, in his indescribably fresh eager tones, Lee listened with a +helpless disapproval. + +Everything, it seemed to Lee Randon, increased the position of +self-delusion at the expense of what he felt to be reality. His doubts, +for example, were real; with no will, no effort on his part, they +invaded his mind ceaselessly. Cytherea's disturbing charm was real, as +definite as Fanny's quiet actuality. However, he wasn't interested in +an abstract arraignment of life, but intent only on the truth about +himself. Lee wanted to discharge fully his duty to existence--in the +more inglorious phrase, he didn't want to make a fool of himself--and +yet it was growing more difficult all the while to distinguish folly +from sense. + +This affair, if it did exist, of Peyton's with Mina Raff wasn't so +easily determined as Fanny insisted. Perhaps, like his own, Peyton +Morris' life had been restricted by artificial barriers thrown about the +rebellious integrity of his fundamental being. Few children could +stand out against the combined forces of the older world; but it was +conceivable that, later, like a chrysalis, they might burst the hard, +superimposed skin and emerge triumphant. + +That damned problem of self-sacrifice! + +How much claim had men upon each other? What did children gain who +sacrificed their lives for their parents? It was supposed to bring them +nobility; but, at the same time, didn't it develop in the parents the +utmost callous selfishness; didn't the latter, as their needs were +exclusively consulted, grow more exacting, unreasonable? Was not love +itself the most unreasonable and exacting thing imaginable? + +Once surrendered to it, the tyranny of a beloved subject was absolute: +Lee told himself that the emotion he was considering--the most sacred +of earthly ties--ignominiously resembled the properties of fly paper. He +turned abruptly from that graceless thought: it was a great deal warmer, +and a mist, curiously tangible in the night, was rising through the bare +branches of the maple trees. + +"I am going to talk to Claire," Fanny said firmly. + +"It would do both of you no good," he informed her; "besides, you'll +have to take so much for granted." + +"Claire will tell me." + +"I wonder?" They were in their room, preparing for bed; Fanny, with +her hair spread in a thin brown tide over the chaste shoulders of her +nightgown, was incredibly like a girl. The mechanical sweep of her hand +with a brush kept a brief sleeve falling back from the thinness of her +arm. How delicately methodical she was--an indispensable quality in +the repeated trying contacts, the lost privacy, of marriage. So much +depended upon the very elusiveness which the security of possession, +habit, destroyed. + +"This love," he continued his speculations aloud, "isn't at all +understood--we are ignorant about it in spite of endless experience and +reports and poetry. Take us," he had one of his dangerous impulses of +complete honesty, "before we were married, while we were engaged, we +had an impracticable romantic attraction for each other. I know that +I thought of you all the time, day and night; and, just because you +existed, the whole world was full of prismatic colors; it was as though +an orchestra were playing continually and I were floating on the finest +music. You were like a figure in heaven that drew me up to you. + +"Well, that lasted quite a while into our marriage; at first I had +an even greater emotion. Then, as Helena and Gregory were born, it +changed." Midway in the brushing of her hair Fanny was motionless +and intent. "I don't say it decreased, Fanny, that it lost any of its +importance; but it did change; and in you as well as me. It wasn't +as prismatic, as musical, and there's no use contradicting me. I can +explain it best for myself by saying that my feeling for you became +largely tenderness." + +"Oh!" Fanny exclaimed, in a little lifting gasp; "oh, and that +tenderness," her cheeks were bright with sudden color, "why, it is no +more than pity." + +"That isn't just," he replied; "unless you want to speak of pity at its +very best. No, that won't do: my affection for you is made of all our +experiences, our lives and emotions, together. We are tied by a thousand +strings--common disappointments and joy and sickness and hope and pain +and heaven knows what else. We're held by habit, too, and convenience +and the opinion of society. Certainly it is no smaller than the first," +he argued, but more to himself than to Fanny; "that was nothing but a +state of mind, of spirit; you can't live on music." + +"Don't you think you have said enough for one night?" she asked, in +a calm voice belied by the angry sparkle of her eyes, the faint +irrepressible trembling of her lips. "Do you think I want to hear that +it is only convention and our neighbors that keep you with me? You have +no right to insist that your horridness is true of me, either. I--I +could hear music, if you would let me." She sank on the little cushioned +bench before her dressing table, where her youthfulness took on a +piercing aspect of misery. Fanny's declaration, not far from tears, +that she was just as she had always been was admirably upheld by her +appealing presence. + +The tenderness he had admitted, reduced by a perceptive impatience and +the sense of having been wholly, wilfully, misunderstood, carried him +over to her. He took Fanny, with her face strained away from him, into +his arms. "Don't be an idiot," he begged softly; "you ought to be used +to my talking by now. Let me go on, it can't come to anything--" She +stiffened in his embrace: + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"Nothing, nothing," he answered shortly, releasing her; "where is all +that certainty you assured me of? If you go on like this I shall never +be able to tell you my thoughts, discuss problems with you; and it seems +to me that's very necessary." + +"It has been lately," she spoke in a metallic voice; "nothing satisfies +you any more; and I suppose I should have been prepared to have you say +things to me, too. But I'm not; you might even find that I am not the +idiot you suspect." + +"I was giving you a chance to prove that," he pointed out. + +"Now you have discovered the fatal truth you can save yourself more +trouble in the future." She emphatically switched off a light beside +her, leaving him standing in a sole unsparing illumination. Yet in her +extreme resentment she was, he recognized, rubbing Vaseline into her +finger nails, her final nightly rite. Then there was silence where +once he had kissed her with a reluctance to lose her in even the short +oblivion of sleep. + + * * * * * + +Throughout Monday, at his office, Lee Randon thought at uncomfortable +intervals of the late incipient scenes with Fanny. They had +quarrels--who hadn't?--but they had usually ended in Fanny shedding some +tears that warmly recemented their deep affections. This latter time, +however, she had not wept--at the point of dissolving into the +old surrender she had turned away from him, both in reality and +metaphorically, and fallen asleep in an unexpected cold reserve. He was +sorry, for it brought into their relationship a definite new quality of +difference. He was aware of the thorough inconsistency of his attitude +toward their marriage; again two opposed forces were present in +him--one, Fanny, as, bound to her, he knew and cherished; and the +other--the devil take the other! + +He was organizing a new company, and, figuring impatiently, he pressed +the button for Mrs. Wald, his secretary. She appeared at once and +quietly, her notebook and pencil ready, took a place at his side. "Run +this out, please, Mrs. Wald," and an involved financial transaction +followed. What he wanted to ascertain was, with a preferred stock +bearing eight per cent at a stated capitalization, and the gift of a +bonus of common, share for share, how much pie would remain to be cut up +between a Mr. Hadly, Sanford, and himself? The woman worked rapidly, +in long columns of minute neat figures. "About thirty-four thousand +dollars, each, Mr. Randon," she announced almost directly. "Is that +close enough; or do you want it to the fraction?" + +"Good enough; send Miss Mathews in." + +Almost anyone on his staff, Lee reflected, knew more about the processes +of his business than he did; he supplied the energy, the responsibility +of the decisions, more than the brains of his organization; and +it perfected the details. The stenographer, Miss Mathews, was very +elaborately blonde, very personable; and, dictating to her, Lee Randon +remembered the advice given him by a large wielder of labor and finance. +"Lee," he had said, touching him with the emphasis of a finger, "never +play around with an employee or a client." + +He, John Lenning Partins, had been a man of eccentric humors, and--like +all individuals who supported heavy mental burdens, inordinately taxed +their brains--he had his hours, unknown to the investing public, of +erratic, but the word was erotic, conduct. On more than one occasion +he had peremptorily telegraphed for Lee to join him at some unexpected +place, for a party. Once, following a ball at the Grand Opera House, in +Paris, they had motored in a taxi-cab, with charming company, to Calais. +During that short stay in France John Partins had spent, flung variously +away, four hundred thousand dollars. + +The industrious, the clerks, efficient women like Mrs. Wald, the +middle-aged lawyers in his office, were rewarded...by a pension. It +was all very strange, upside down: what rot that was about the infinite +capacity for taking pains! He supposed it wouldn't do to make this +public, the tritest maxims were safer for the majority; but it was too +bad; it spread the eternal hypocrisies of living. He asked Miss Mathews: + +"You're not thinking of getting married, are you? Because if you do I'll +have your young man deported; I simply won't let go of you." + +"I don't see any signs of it, Mr. Randon," she replied, half serious and +half smiling; "my mother thinks it's awful, but I'm not in any hurry. +There are men I know, who might like me; they show me a very good time; +but somehow I am not anxious. I guess in a way it's the other married +girls I see: either they housework at home, and I couldn't be bothered +with that; or they are in an office and, somehow, that seems wrong, +too. I want so much," she admitted; "and with what clothes cost now it's +terrible." + +"Moralists and social investigators would call you a bad girl," he told +her; "but I agree with you; get your pretty hats and suits, and smart +shoes, as long as you are able. You're not a bit better in a kitchen +than you are here, taking dictation from me; and I am not sure you would +be more valuable at home with a child or two. You are a very unusual +stenographer, rapid and accurate, and you have a good mind in addition +to your figure. Why should you lose all that at once, give it up, for +the accidents of cholera infantum and a man, as likely as not, with a +consumptive lung?" + +"But what about love, Mr. Randon? That's what throws me off. Some say +it's the only thing in life." + +"I'm damned if I know," he admitted, leaning back from his wide +flat-topped desk. "I hear the same thing, and I am rather inclined to +believe it. But I have an idea that it is very different from what most +people insist; I don't think it is very useful around the house; it has +more to do with the pretty hat than with a dishpan. If you fall in +love go after the thing itself, then; don't hesitate about tomorrow +or yesterday; and, above all else, don't ask yourself if it will last; +that's immaterial." + +"You make it sound wild enough," she commented, rising. + +"The wilder the better," he insisted; "if it is not delirious it's +nothing." + +The road and countryside over which he returned in the motor sedan, +partly frozen, were streaked by rills of muddy surface water; the sky, +which appeared definitely to rest on the surrounding hills, was grey +with a faint suffusion of yellow at the western horizon. It was all as +dreary, as sodden, as possible. Eastlake, appearing beyond a shoulder of +bare woods, showed a monotonous scattering of wet black roofs, raw +brick chimneys, at the end of a long paved highway glistening with steel +tracks. + +Lee Randon was weary, depressed: nothing in his life, in any existence, +offered the least recompense for the misfortune of having been born. He +left his car at the entrance of his dwelling; Christopher, the gardener, +came sloshing over the sod to take it into the garage; and, within, he +found the dinner-table set for three. "It's Claire," his wife informed +him; "she called up not half an hour ago to ask if she could come. +Peyton was away over night, she said, and she wanted to see us." He went +on up to his room, inattentive even to Claire's possible troubles. + +He dressed slowly, automatically, and descended to the fire-lit space +that held Cytherea in her mocking, her becoming, aloofness. In the +brightly illuminated room beyond the hall Helena and Gregory were +playing parchesi--Gregory firmly grasped the cup from which he intently +rolled the dice; Helena shook the fair hair from her eyes and, it +immediately developed, moved a pink marker farther than proper. + +"You only got seven!" Gregory exclaimed; "and you took it nine right on +that safety." + +"What if I did?" she returned undisturbed. "I guess a girl can make a +mistake without having somebody yell at her. Your manners aren't very +good." + +"Yes, they are, too," he asserted, aggrieved; "I have to tell you if +you move to a safety where you don't belong." He shook the dice from the +cup. "Now, see there--that just brings me to your man, and I can send +him home." + +"I don't care," Helena informed him; "it's a young sort of game, anyhow. +Now I'm wearing waists and buttoned skirts I'd just as leaves write a +letter to Margaret West with no boys in it at all." + +She left the parchesi board, and crossed the room to the piano, where +she stood turning over sheets of music with a successful appearance of +critical interest. Gregory, silently struggling with the injustice of +this, gazed up with a shadowed brow at Lee. "I was going to beat her," +he said, "I was almost home, and she went away. She just got up like +nothing was happening." Helena put in, "Neither there was." Lee Randon +took her place. "You can beat me instead," he proposed. His interest +in the game, he felt, was as false as Helena's pretended musical +preoccupation; but he rolled the dice and shifted the counters, under +Gregory's undeviating scrutiny, with the conviction that parchesi was +not conspicuously different from the other more resounding movements of +the world and its affairs. Gregory easily vanquished him, and Lee rose +with a curt, unwarranted nod of dismissal. + + * * * * * + +Freezing cocktails in the pewter pitcher, in the repetition of minor +duties which, Lee Randon thought, now constituted four-fifths of his +life, he told himself that Claire Morris had never looked better: she +was wearing a dress of a soft negative blue material, high about her +throat, with glimpses of bright embroidery that brought out her darkly +vivid personality. Claire had a slim low-breasted figure, gracefully +broad shoulders; and her face, it might be because of its definite, +almost sharp, outline, held the stamp of decided opinions. Claire's +appearance, he recognized, her bearing, gave an impression of arrogance +which, however, was only superficially true--she could be very +disagreeable in situations, with people, that she found inferior, +brutally casual and unsympathetic; but more privately, intimately, she +was remarkably simple-hearted, free from reserve. She was related to Lee +through her father, a good blood, he told himself; but her mother had +brought her a concentration of what particular vigorous aristocracy--an +unlimited habit of luxury without the responsibility of acknowledged +place--the land afforded. + +The drinks had been consumed, the soup disposed of, when Claire said +abruptly, "Peyton is going to leave me." + +Although, in a way, Lee had been prepared for such an announcement, the +actuality upset him extremely. Fanny gasped, and then nodded warningly +toward the waitress, leaving the dining-room; at any conceivable +disaster, he reflected, Fanny would consider the proprieties. + +"When did he tell you?" Fanny demanded. + +"He didn't," Claire replied; "I told him. It was a great relief to both +of us." + +"Say what you like outside," Lee put in vigorously; "but at least with +us be honest." + +"I am, quite," she assured him; "naturally I don't want Peyton to go--I +happen to love him. And there's Ira. But it was an impossible position; +it couldn't go on, Peyton was absolutely wretched, we both were; and +so I ended it. I laid out all his best silk pajamas so that he'd look +smart--" + +"How can you?" Fanny cried; "oh, how can you? It is too wicked, all too +horrible, for words. I don't think you are advanced or superior, Claire, +you failed him and yourself both. It's perfectly amazing to me, after +the men you have met, that you don't know them. You must keep them going +in the right direction; you can't let them stop, or look around, once; +I only learned that lately, but it is so. They haven't an idea of what +they want, and they try everything. Then if you let a man go he is the +first to blame you; it's like winking at murder." + +"How could I keep him when he didn't want to stay?" Claire asked +wearily; "I am not too moral, but I couldn't quite manage that. Then +what you say might do for some men, but not Peyton. You see, he has +always been very pure; all his friends at Princeton were like that; they +were proud of it and very severe on the other. And afterwards, when he +went into the city, it was the same; Peyton would get drunk any number +of times with any number of men, but, as he said, he was off women. The +stage door, it seems, is very old-fashioned now. + +"When we were engaged, and he told me that he was really pure, I was +simply mad with happiness. I thought it was such a marvelous thing for +a girl to find. I still think that; and yet, I don't know. If he were +different, had had more experience, perhaps this wouldn't have hit him +so hard. He would have kissed his Mina on the porch, outside the dance, +and come home." + +"As for that Raff woman--" Fanny stopped, at a loss for a term to +express her disgust. + +"Why not?" Claire asked. "She wanted Peyton and went after him: he isn't +for her art, I believe, but for herself. I haven't talked to her; I +can't make up my mind about that. Probably it would do no good. Peyton +is splendidly healthy; it won't be necessary to tell her anything about +draughts and stomach bands." + +"Claire, you're utterly, tragically wrong," Fanny wailed. "I wish I +could shake sense into you. Up to a point this is your fault; you are +behaving in a criminally foolish way." + +"What do you think Claire should do?" Lee asked his wife. + +She turned to him, a flood of speech on her lips; but, suddenly, she +suppressed it; the expression, the lines, of concern were banished +from her face. "There is so much," she replied equably; "they haven't +discussed it enough; why, it ought to take a year, two, before they +reached such a decision. Peyton can't know his mind, nor Claire hers. +And Ira, that darling innocent little child." + +"Damn Ira!" Claire Morris exclaimed. + +"You mustn't," Fanny asserted; "you're not yourself. Mina Raff should +be burned alive, something terrible done to her." Fanny's voice had the +hard cold edge of fanatical conviction. "If she had come into my house +making trouble.... But that couldn't have happened; I'd have known at +once." + +"You are more feminine than I am," Claire told her. "I see this in a +very detached manner, as if it didn't concern me. I suppose I can't +realize that it has happened to us. It has! But if you are right, Fanny, +and it's necessary to treat a man like a green hunter, then this was +bound to occur. I couldn't do anything so--so humiliating; he could bolt +sooner or later. I did the best I knew how: I was amusing as possible +and always looked well enough. I never bothered Peyton about himself and +encouraged him to keep as much of his freedom as possible. + +"I don't believe in the other," she said to Fanny Randon in a sharp +accession of rebellion; "it is degrading, and I won't live that way, I +won't put up with it. If he wants to go, to be with Mina Raff, how in +God's name can I stop it? I won't have him in my bed with another woman +in his heart; I made that clear to you. And I can't have him hot and +cold--now all Mina and then the sanctity of his home. I've never had a +house of that kind; it was christened, like a ship, with champagne. + +"I have never cared for domestic things. I'd rather wear a dinner-gown +than an apron; I'd a damn sight rather spin a roulette wheel than rock a +cradle. And, perhaps, Peyton wanted a housewife; though heaven knows he +hasn't turned to one. It's her blonde, no bland, charm and destructive +air of innocence. I've admitted and understood too much; but I couldn't +help it--my mother and grandmother, all that lot, were the same way, +and went after things themselves. The men hated sham and sentimentality; +they asked, and gave, nothing." + +Fanny, it was evident, was growing impatient at what was not without its +challenge of her character and expressed convictions. "I do agree with +you, Claire, that we are not alike," she admitted. Her voice bore a +perceptible note of complacency, of superior strength and position. +"Just last week I was telling Lee that I belonged before the war--things +were so different then, and, apparently, it's only in my house they +haven't changed. We are frightfully behind the times, and you'd be +surprised at how glad we are. It was your mother's father, wasn't it, +who fell in love with the Spanish woman while he was in the Embassy +at Seville? My family weren't people of public connections, although +a great-aunt married Senator Carlinton; but they had the highest +principles." + +"They were lucky," Claire Morris replied indifferently; "I am beginning +to think it isn't what you have so much as what happens to it. Anyhow, +Peyton is going away with Mina Raff, and I am sorry for him; he's so +young and so certain; but this has shaken him. Peyton's a snob, really, +like the rest of his friends, and Mina's crowd won't have that for a +moment: he can't go through her world judging men by their slang and +by whom they knew at college. I envy him, it will be a tremendously +interesting experience." If her eyes were particularly brilliant it was +because they were surrounded by an extreme darkness. Her voice, commonly +no more than a little rough in its deliberate forthrightness, was high +and metallic. She gave Lee the heroic impression that no most mighty +tempest would ever see her robbed of her erect defiance. It was at once +her weakness and strength that she could be broken but not bent. + + * * * * * + +After dinner Claire, who was staying with the Randons until tomorrow, +played picquet with Lee; and his wife, her shapely feet elevated above +the possible airs of the floor, continued to draw threads from the +handkerchiefs she was making for Christmas. Claire played very well and, +at five cents a point, he had to watch the game. On a specially big +hand she piqued and repiqued. "That," she declared, "will pay you for +caputting me." The jargon of their preoccupation, "A point of six; yes, +to the ace; paid; and a quatorze, kings," was the only sound until Fanny +rose, decidedly. "I am going to bed." She hesitated at the door. "I hope +you'll be comfortable, Claire: I had some club soda and rye put in your +room, since you like it so well. Don't be too late, please, Lee; it +makes you tired starting so early in the morning." + +"You'll have to forgive me," Claire said, when Fanny had gone; "but I +don't--I never did--like women." + +"Do you think any more of men, now?" + +"Heavens, yes. I wish I could find someone to blame for what has +happened, Peyton specially, but I can't, not to save my life. It seems +so hopelessly inevitable. I don't want you to suppose I'm not unhappy, +Lee; or that I care only a little for Peyton. I love him very much; I +needed him, and my love, more than I can explain. As Fanny as good as +told me, I am a wild bird; anything, almost, with what is behind me, may +happen. It was just the irony of chance that this affair caught Peyton, +the immaculate, instead of me. I was awfully glad that I had an anchor +that seemed so strong; in my own faulty way I adored everything I had; I +wanted to be tranquil, and it had a look of security." + +"It isn't over, Claire," Lee asserted. "I haven't seen that young fool +yet." + +"Please don't bother him; and it's too much to drag out the moralities +on my account." + +"Moralities!" he echoed indignantly, "who said a word about them? I'm +not interested in morals. Lord, Claire, how little you know me. And +as for bothering him, he'll have to put up with that. He has invited a +certain amount of it." + +They forgot the game and faced each other across the disordered cards. +"If I won't argue with him," she insisted, "you can't. But we needn't +discuss it--he won't listen to you, Peyton's all gone. I never saw such +a complete wreck." + +"He can't avoid it," Lee went on; "I'll have to do it if it is only for +myself; I am most infernally curious about the whole works. I want to +find out what it's about." + +"If you mean love, he can't tell you; he hasn't had enough experience to +express it. You might do better with me." + +"No, I want it from the man; a woman's feeling, even yours, would do +me no good. You see, this has always been explored, accounted for, +condemned, written about, from the feminine side. Where the man is +considered it is always in the most damnable light. If, in the novels, a +man leaves his home he is a rascal of the darkest sort, and his end is a +remorse no one would care to invite. That may be, but I am not prepared +to say. No, dear Claire, I am not considering it in preparation for +anything; I want to know; that's all." + +"The books are stuff, of course," she agreed. "The grandfather of mine +who was killed in Madrid--it wasn't Seville--must have had a gorgeous +time: a love affair with one of the most beautiful women alive. It +lasted five months before it was found out and ended; and his wife and +he had been sick of living together. After it was over she was pleased +at being connected with such a celebrated scandal; it made her better +looking by reflected loveliness. She was rather second class, I believe, +and particularly fancied the duchess part." + +"It wouldn't be like that in the current novels, or even in the better: +either your grandparent or the duchess would be a villainous person, and +the other a victim. I'm inclined to think that most of the ideas about +life and conduct are lifted from cheap fiction. They have the look of +it. But that realization wouldn't help us, with the world entirely on +the other side." + +"No, it isn't," Claire objected; "and it's getting less so all around +us. Perhaps men haven't changed much, yet; but you don't hear the women +talk as I do. I don't like them, as I said; they are too damned skulking +for me; but they are gathering a lot more sense in a short while." + +"I don't agree with you there," he replied; "you are getting your own +infinitesimal world confused with the real overwhelming majority; you +haven't an idea how it feels and, in particular, of what it thinks +of you, smoking and gambling and damning your fate. It may be largely +envy--personally I am convinced it is--but they have you ticketed +straight for hell just the same." + +"It doesn't interest me." Claire increasingly showed the strain, the +unhappiness, through which she was parsing. Nor did it him, he ended +lamely, except in the abstract. This at once had the elements of a lie +and the unelaborate truth; he couldn't see how his curiosity applied +to him, and yet he was intent on its solving. The fixed mobile smile of +Cytherea flashed into his thoughts. His perpetual restlessness struck +through him. + +His attitude toward the Morrises was largely dictated by his fondness +for Claire. He had determined what, exactly, he would say to Peyton. +Yet, as a fact, he returned to his former assertion to Fanny; the boy +would make it difficult, if not impossible, to discuss such intimate +relationships. And as Claire had pointed out, the very openness +of Peyton's life would make him exceptionally far to reach; he was +particularly youthful in his hardness, his confidence in his acts and +friends and beliefs; yet all that couldn't help but be upset now. + +"Fanny will think I have designs on you," Claire remarked; "go up when +you like. I am not a bit sleepy." + +Lee had no intention of going to bed then, and told her so. It seemed to +him that, perhaps, with Claire, he might discover something that would +set his questioning at rest. Vain delusion. He asked what her plans +were: + +"I'll stay in Eastlake for the winter, and, in March, go to Italy, to +give Peyton his divorce--Florence; I lived a while at Arcetri; it's very +lovely." + +He had a momentary experimental vision of a small yellow villa among +the olives of the Florentine hills, of crumbling pink walls with +emerald green lizards along the stones, of myrtles and remarkable +lilies-of-the-valley. Twenty years ago it would have drawn him +irresistibly; but not now; he wanted--where his wants were articulate--a +far different thing. It had nothing to do with Italy, or any other +country; his intentness had been withdrawn from the surfaces of life, +however charming; they had plunged into the profounder mysteries of +being. Lee had gained nothing if not a certain freedom from exterior +circumstance; his implied revolt against trivialities, if it did no +other good, had at least liberated him from the furniture of existence. +However, it had begun to appear that this was not an unmixed blessing; +he had the uncomfortable sensation of having put out, on a limitless +sea, in a very little boat too late to arrive at any far hidden +desirable coast. + +Claire shivered, and, discovering that she was cold, he insisted on +her going upstairs. "To my pure sheets," she said, with a touch of her +familiar daring. Left alone, Lee was depressed by the hour; the room, +his house, seemed strange, meaningless, to him. There was a menace in +the unnatural stillness; Fanny's unfinished handkerchief, her stool, +were without the warmth of familiar association. It might have been a +place into which he had wandered by accident, where he didn't belong, +wouldn't stay. It was inconceivable that, above him, his wife and +children were sleeping; the ceiling, the supine heavy bodies, seemed to +sag until they rested on his shoulders; he was, like Atlas, holding +the whole house up. It was with acute difficulty that he shook off the +illusion, the weight. From outside came the thin howling of a dog, and +it, too, seemed to hold a remote and desperate interrogation. + + * * * * * + +He slept badly, in short broken stretches, with the Morrises constantly +in his mind; and what, in the slightest dislocation of reality, was +dream and what waking he couldn't determine; at times his vision +seemed to hold both--a door, the irrevocable door, swung open, the end +impended, but he was unable to see the faces of the man and woman; +when he looked anxiously a blind spot intervened. The morning found him +unrefreshed, impatient; and he was glad that his early breakfast was +solitary; Lee didn't want then to see either Claire or Fanny, he was in +no mood to discuss Peyton's seizure. That, it seemed to Lee Randon, was +exactly what had happened to the younger man--Peyton had gone within the +region of a contagious fever that had run through all his blood. + +Yet, at dinner, to his surprise, Fanny said very little about what had +entirely occupied their thoughts; she was quiet, reserved; her attitude +was marked by a careful dignity. Her gaze, even more than commonly, +rested on her husband. "I had a wretched night, too," she told him; "my +head is like a kite. I've thought and thought until my brain aches, it +is so full. But there are some things I decided; and if you don't agree +with them I'm sorry; because, Lee, I am right, I am indeed." + +"Of course you are," he replied; "but, possibly, only for yourself. I +mean, for instance, that you can't be sure you're right for Claire." + +"No, no, that's just the same as saying there isn't any right or wrong +at all, and you know better. Yes, what I am certain about is duty; you +must do that before everything else. Peyton's duty is to Claire and +their child. It is as clear as this soup. Nothing else matters so much, +or at all. Why, Lee, the world is made up of people doing their duty; +what, I'd like to know, would become of it if they didn't? You don't +seem to realize it, but there are loads of obligations I get dreadfully +tired of, like the Social Service when it is my month to follow the +accounts, and visits to Annie Hazard who has a cancer of the stomach and +is dying, and thinking every day what to get you and the children and +the servants to eat. Suppose, some morning, I didn't stir, but just +rested in bed--what would happen? What did happen last winter when I +had pleurisy? Why, the whole house went to pieces, and, when you +weren't worrying about me, while I was getting well, you were the +most uncomfortable man imaginable. I don't want you to think I am +complaining, or that I don't love every minute and stick and stone of my +home and life; I do. But you seem to forget about me ... that's because +the house goes along so smoothly. It would be a good lesson if you had +to live with some other woman for a while." + +"I'm sure every word is so," he returned; "no one could have a better +wife; you've spoiled me outrageously; I feel like that pig Christopher +has in a pen out by the stable." + +"You might think of something nicer to say," she protested. "You're not +easy to live with, either," Fanny continued; "you hardly ever agree with +what other people think; and you curse fearfully. I wish you wouldn't +swear like that, Lee. I object to it very much in Claire; I can't help +believing that she thinks it is smart or funny. And you encourage her. +If Claire had been different--no, don't interrupt me--this would never +have happened. You may say what you like about her good breeding: she's +been too flippant. I felt that last night. Claire doesn't accept her +obligations seriously enough. She's kept herself lovely looking, but +that isn't the whole thing." + +"What is the whole thing?" he demanded. + +"I've told you, but you won't listen--duty." + +"You put that above all the rest?" + +Fanny hesitated. "I said my head hurt because I've thought so much. Love +and duty, yes; I see them as the same. Duty without love would be hard, +and there isn't any love without duty." Fanny evidently grew aware of +her threatening incoherence. "It isn't necessary to tell you in so many +words," she said defensively; "you are only being contrary." + +"You have explained yourself beautifully," he hastened to assure her; "I +am the person who is at sea." + +"Why, Lee!" she exclaimed, surprised; "I don't know anyone who is so +decided. That's what makes me raging, you're so dogmatic. There, that +is a splendid word. Don't eat that apple, it isn't baked; I can see from +here." She rang. "Varney," Fanny addressed the maid, "take Mr. Randon's +apple out and see if there isn't another better done, please. I warned +you about that; he can't eat them uncooked." + +"Let me keep it," he protested; "it might have an excellent effect on my +disposition." + +"Don't interfere, Lee," she responded coldly: "yes, Varney. It's really +idiotic of you," she turned to him; "you are not a boy any more, you're +not even a young man, and you can't take liberties with your digestion. +You are quite like Helena with her prayers--if she feels very well she's +apt to forget them, but if she's sick she says them as hard as possible. +I wish she were like Gregory." + +"Gregory and you are cut out of the same gold cloth," Lee Randon +pronounced. + +"That was lovely of you, Lee." Fanny radiated happiness. "No one could +say anything prettier to his old wife." Dinner was over, and, rising, +she walked around the table and laid a confident arm on his shoulders. +The knife-like tenderness which, principally, he had for her overwhelmed +him; and he held Fanny against him in a silent and straining embrace. +For that reason he was annoyed at himself when, sitting through an +uneventful evening, his simile of the pig, enormously fat, sleepily +contented, in its pen, returned to him. It wasn't that he found an +actual analogy between the pig and life, individuals, on a higher plane, +so much as that he was vaguely disturbed by the impression that there +was an ultimate similitude between him, Lee Randon, and a fattened +somnolence of existence. + +After all, were his individual opinions and doubts expressed in a manner +forceful enough to diversify him from a porcine apathy? The pig, secure +against the inequalities of fate and weather, wallowed through life with +a dull fullness of food as regular as the solar course. Christopher was +his wife. Now that, Lee told himself, with a vision of the gardener's +moustache, sadly drooping and stained with tobacco, his pale doubtful +gaze, was inexcusable. He abruptly directed his thoughts to Peyton +and Claire Morris; how exact Claire had been in the expression of her +personality! What, he grasped, was different in her from other women was +precisely that; together with an astonishing lack of sentimental bias, +it operated with the cutting realism of a surgeon's blade. She had, as +well, courage. + +That was the result of her heritage; and he wondered if all strong +traits were the action of superior blood strayed into expected and +unexpected places? It was probable, but not susceptible of proof. The +pig's blood was that of the best registered Berkshire. God damn the pig! + +He asked Fanny if she had heard any further particulars of the proposed +rearrangement of the Morrises' lives; when they were to separate; +but she knew no more than he. "I hope he doesn't come here," she said +vigorously: "I should refuse to speak to him or have him at my table. +Outrageous! I can't make out why you take it so coolly. Mina Raff's a +rotten immoral woman; it doesn't matter how it's arranged. Why," she +gasped, "she can be no more than Peyton's mistress, no better than the +women on the street." + +"That is so," he agreed. But his following question of the accepted +badness of mistresses and streetwalkers he wisely kept to himself. +Were they darker than the shadow cast by the inelastic institution of +matrimony? At one time prostitutes were greatly honored; but that had +passed, he was convinced, forever; and this, on the whole, he +concluded, was fortunate; for, perhaps, if prostitution were thoroughly +discredited, marriage might, in some Elysian future, be swept of most of +its rubbish. Houses of prostitution, mistresses, like charity, absorbed +and dissipated a great deal of the dissatisfaction inseparable from the +present misconceptions of love and society. The first move, obviously, +in stopping war was the suppression of such ameliorating forces as +the Red Cross; and, conversely, with complete unions, infidelity would +languish and disappear. + + * * * * * + +He thought of this further in the darkened theatre to which, driven by +his growing curiosity, he had gone to see Mina Raff in the leading part +of a moving picture. It was a new version, in a new medium, of an old +and perennial melodrama; but, too late for the opening scenes, the story +for the moment was incomprehensible to him. However, it had to do with +the misadventures of a simple country girl in what, obviously, was +the conventional idea of a most sophisticated and urbane society. +Lee waited, and not vainly, to see the feminine grub transformed, by +brilliant clothes, into a butterfly easily surpassing all the select +glittering creatures of the city; and he told himself that, personally, +he vastly preferred Mina Raff in her plainest dress. + +It was strange--seeing her there; while, in fact, she was in New York +with far different things occupying her thoughts. Here she was no more +than an illusion, a pattern, without substance, of projected light +and shade; she had neither voice nor warmth nor color; only the most +primitive minds could be carried away, lost, in the convention of her +flat mobile effigy! Yet, after a little, he found that he as well was +absorbed in the atmosphere of emotional verity she created. It was +clear to him now that not the Mina Raff in New York, but this, was the +important reality. In herself she was little compared to what she so +miraculously did. Then--the final step in a surrender, however much +he hated the word, to art--he forgot Mina Raff completely. He lost her +partly in his own mental processes and partly in the unhappy girl she +was portraying: + +It was an uncomplicated story of betrayal, of a marriage that was no +marriage, and the birth, in circumstances of wretched loneliness, of +an illegitimate baby. The father annoyed Lee excessively; he was the +anciently familiar inaccurate shape of conventionalized lust without +an identifying human trait. Not for a second did Lee believe in his +grease-pencilled incontinence and perfidy; but the child he seduced, +incidents of the seduction charged with the beauty of pity, thronged +Lee's mind with sensations and ideas. However, it was the world +surrounding the central motive, the action, that most engaged him; +hardly a trait of generosity dignified it; and, exaggeratedly as a +universal meanness and self-righteous cruelty was shown, it scarcely +departed, he felt, from the truth. + +Why was it that virtue, continence, corroded the heart? Why did people +who, through predilection, went to churches, regard those who didn't +with such an insistent animosity? Why did the church itself seek to +obliterate--as though they were a breathing menace--all who stood +outside its doors? There was something terribly wrong in the reaction of +life to religion, or in the religion that was applied to life. It +began, in the symbolical person of Christ, with, at least, a measure +of generosity; but that had been long lost. Now the bitterness of the +religious rather resembled envy. + +In the picture flickering on the screen the girl who had suffered the +agonies of birth sat, with her baby on her young lap, in the forlorn +room of a village boarding house. The baby was sick, a doctor had left +shortly before, and one minute clenched hand rested on the mother's bare +breast. Lee found himself gazing fixedly at the girl's face: trouble +slowly clouded it, the trouble was invaded by fear, a terrible question. +He realized that the hand was growing cold--the baby was dead. + +Waves of suffering passed darkly over the mother, incredulity swiftly +followed by a frozen knowledge; she tried with her lips, her mouth, to +breath life into the flesh already meaningless, lost to her. Then the +tragedy of existence drew her face into a mask universal and timeless, +a staring tearless shocked regard as white and inhuman as plaster of +Paris. Emotion choked at Lee's throat; and, in a sense of shame at +having been so shaken, he admitted that Mina Raff had an extraordinary +ability: he evaded the impressive reality by a return to the trivial +fact. In the gloom there was only a scattering of applause, a failure +of approbation caused either by an excess of emotion in the audience, +or--this he thought more probable--a general uneasiness before a great +moment of life. The crowded theatre was wholly relieved, itself again, +in a succeeding passage of trivial clowning. + +Hatred pursued the youthful informally maternal figure: that, +eventually, she was saved by the love of an individual was small before +the opposed mass--women surrounded her with vitriolic whispers, women +turned her maliciously from house to house, a woman had betrayed her. +Finally the tide of Christianity rose, burst, in a biblical father +who drove her into a night of snow that was a triumph of the actual +substituted for the cut paper of stage convention. That she would be +rescued, no doubt was permitted; and Lee took no part in the storm of +applause which greeted this act of satisfactory heroics. + +The other spirit had appalled him: in his state of mental doubt--it +might equally have been a condition of obscure hope--he had been rudely +shoved toward pessimism; the converse of the announced purpose of the +picture. The audience, for one thing, was so depressingly wrong in the +placing of its merriment: it laughed delightedly at a gaunt feminine +vindictiveness hurrying through the snow on an errand of destruction. +The fact that the girl's maternity was transcendent in a generous and +confident heart, made lovely by spiritual passion, escaped everyone. The +phrase, spiritual passion, had occurred to him without forethought +and he wondered if it were permissible, if it meant anything? It did +decidedly to him; he told himself further that it was the fusion of +the body and all the aspirations called spirit in one supreme act of +feeling. + +It had been his and Fanny's ... at first. Then the spirit, though it +had lingered in other relationships, had deserted the consummation of +passion. That hadn't grown perfunctory, but it became a thing more and +more strictly of the flesh; with this it was less thrilling. There, he +believed, they were not singular; or, anyhow, he wasn't; he saw what he +was convinced was the same failure in the men past youth about him. But +in Fanny there was, he recognized, that fierce if narrow singleness of +impulse, of purity. His thoughts of other women were not innocent of +provocative conjecture--Anette's sinuous body, now as dead to him as +Alohabad, recurred to his mind--but in this Fanny was utterly loyal. +Yes, she had, a thing impossible for any man he had known, a mental +singleness of desire. + +Was it that which had in her an affinity with the oppressors of the +picture, which made her, mechanically, the vigorously enlisted enemy +of the actual Mina Raff? It startled him a little to realize that +Fanny--for all her marked superiority--was definitely arrayed with the +righteous mob. She was sorry for those who failed in the discharge of +duty to God and man, and she worked untiringly to reinstate them--in +her good opinion. That was it, and it was no more! All such attempted +salvation resolved itself into the mere effort to drag men up to the +complacent plane of the incidental savior. + +This recognition took a great deal of the vigor from his intended +conversation with Peyton Morris: anything in the way of patronage, +he reflected, would be as useless as it would be false. But he had no +impulse to forego his purpose; he was engaged to help Claire who was +too proud to help herself; yes, by heaven, and too right for the least +humiliation. If Claire suffered, it must be because the world was too +inferior for hope of any kind. + +Lee was not unaware of the incongruity of his position, for he was +equally ignoring the needs of two others, Peyton and Mina Raff. It was +evident to him now, since he had seen her in a picture, that she was +well worth the greatest consideration. She lay outside the stream of +ordinary responsibilities. What held him steady was the belief that she +and Peyton were not so important to each other as they thought; Claire +needed him more badly than Mina. There was a possibility--no, it was +probable--that Claire deserted would develop into an individual as empty +and as vacantly sounding as a drum. She had said as much. Her heritage, +together with its splendors of courage and charm, signally carried that +menace. + + * * * * * + +So much, joined to what already was thronging his thoughts, brought +Lee's mind to resemble the sheet of an enormous ledger covered with a +jumble of figures apparently beyond any reduction to an answer. He was +considering Claire and Mina Raff, Mina and Claire, at a hunt breakfast +at Willing Spencer's in Nantbrook Valley, north of Eastlake, when, +with a plate of food in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, he +collided with Peyton Morris, his face pinched and his eyes dull from +a lack of rest. The Spencer house was sparely furnished, a square +unimpressive dwelling principally adapted to the early summers of its +energetic children; and Peyton and Lee Randon allowed themselves to be +crowded into the bare angle formed by a high inner door. + +"Claire told you," the younger said. + +"Yes," Lee replied briefly. It wouldn't, after all, be difficult to talk +to Peyton; he was obviously miserable from the necessity of suppressing +what absorbed his entire consciousness. + +"Well, I suppose you think there's nothing to be said for me," his voice +was defiant; "and that I ought to be shot." + +"Very much to the contrary," Lee asserted; "there is so much to say +that it's difficult to know where to begin. With another situation +practically the same, I might have agreed with you thoroughly; but, with +Claire and what I have gathered of you, in this special one I can't." + +"It isn't absolutely necessary," the other pointed out; "Mina and I will +have a lot to ignore." + +"The first thing you'll have to manage," Lee observed sharply, "is to +grow up. You are not in a place to be helped by leather-headed satire +and visions of solitary grandeur. My interest comes only from Claire and +some personal curiosity; Mina Raff doesn't require anyone's assistance. +Of you all, her position is clearest. I don't know if you can be brought +to see it, but this is only incidental, a momentary indulgence, with +her." + +"What you don't seem to get," Peyton told him, with a brutally cold +face, "is that I may smash you; now, where you are." + +"That was possible," Lee agreed; "and you are right--I had overlooked +it. I think that's passed, though; I'm going to keep on as if it were. +Why, you young fool, you seem to have no conception, none in the world, +of what you propose to do. In a week, in your frame of mind, you'd have +a hundred fights; there would be time for nothing else but knocking out +the men who insulted you. You'll collapse over Sunday if you are not +absolutely and totally impervious to everything and everybody. The only +way you can throw the world over is to ignore it; while you appear to +have the idea that it should put a rose in your buttonhole." + +"You don't have to tell me it's going to be stiff," Peyton Morris +asserted gloomily. "I can take care of that. Claire and Ira are the hard +part. Lee, if anyone a year ago had said that I was like this, that +I was even capable of it, I'd have ruined him. God, what a thing to +happen! I want you to understand that we, Mina and I, didn't have a +particle to do with it--it just flatly occurred. I had seen her only +three times when it was too late; and if you think I didn't try to break +it, and myself, too--" + +Lee nodded. "Certainly. Why not, since it's bound to knock you on the +head? You've been very unfortunate: I can't imagine a man to whom this +would come worse." + +"If I can make Mina happy I don't care about myself." + +"Of course, that is understood," Lee Randon returned impatiently; "it +is nothing but sentimental rot, all the same. If you are not contented, +easy in mind, how can she be happy? You have got to believe entirely in +what you are doing, it must be right to you on every possible side; and +you can't make that grade, Peyton; you are too conventional underneath." + +"Sink your spurs in me," he said doggedly; "it's funny when you really +think about it. Why, only a little while ago, if I had heard of a man +doing this, I would have beaten him up just on general principles: +running away from his wife and child, with another woman, an actress, +that's what it is! I tell myself that, but the words haven't a trace of +meaning or importance. Somehow, they don't seem to apply to me, to us; +they can say what they like, but Mina isn't wicked. She--she loves me, +Lee; and, suddenly, that swept everything else out of sight. + +"But go back to me--you realize that I was rather in favor of what I +was, what I had. Brandenhouse is a good school and my crowd ran it. We +were pretty abrupt with boys who whored about; and, at Princeton, well, +we thought we were it. We were, still, there; and I got a heavy idea of +what I liked and was like. We were very damned honorable and the icing +on the cake generally. That was good after I left college, too; but +what's the use of going into it; I was in the same old Brandenhouse +surrounding. The war split us wide open. Or I thought it did; but, Lee, +by God, I don't believe it changed a thing. I got my touch of concussion +early, Ira was born, and, and--" + +"Disaster," Lee Randon pronounced shortly. + +"Call it that if you choose; there isn't much use in calling it at all: +it simply is." + +"With someone else, yes; but with you, no, not finally; you haven't +the character and disposition to get away with it. You don't, secretly, +approve of yourself, Peyton; and that will be fatal. The truth is that, +while you want this now, in a year, or two years, or five, you'll demand +the other. You think it is going to be different from everything else +in heaven and earth, you're convinced it's going to stay all in the sky; +but it will be on the solid familiar ground. Understand again--it isn't +your plan I'm attacking; but your ability; that and your real ignorance +of Mina Raff. + +"If you imagine for an instant that this love will be bigger than her +work, if you suppose that, against her acting, it will last, you are +an idiot for your pains. If I don't know the side of her you do, I have +become fairly familiar with one you haven't dreamed of. She is a greater +actress than people yet recognize, principally because of the general +doubt about moving pictures; but that recognition will come, and, when +it does, you will be swept out of sight. + +"No, you haven't the slightest suspicion of what it is about; that side +of her, and it's very nearly the whole woman, is a blank. She admitted +to me that she couldn't understand it herself. But what she is doing is +dragging into her genius what it needs. She loves you now, and tomorrow +she'll love a Belgian violinist, a great engineer, a Spanish prince at +San Sebastian. How will you take sitting in the salon and hearing them +padding around over your head? It's no good your getting mad at me; I am +not blaming Mina Raff; you are. I admire her tremendously. + +"In the beginning I said she could watch out for herself, and I +intimated that I was reasonably indifferent to what happened to you: it +is Claire I am concerned about. Unfortunately for her, and without much +reason, she loves you too. When Mina is done with you and you stray +back, from, perhaps, South America, Claire won't be here. I don't +mean that she will have gone away, or be dead in the familiar sense. +I haven't any doubt but that she would live with you again--she is not +small-minded and she's far more unconventional than you--what there was +of her." + +"If you or anyone else thinks that I don't admire Claire--" he stopped +desperately. "We won't get far talking," Peyton added; "even if all you +have said is a fact. You can't hit on much that I've missed. You might +just as well curse me and let me go." + +"Nothing of the sort," Lee Randon returned equably; "that's exactly what +I have no intention of doing. In the interest of Claire I must try to +open your eyes." The younger man said indignantly: + +"You talk as though I were a day-old kitten. It's cursed impertinent: I +don't seem to remember asking for so much advice." + + * * * * * + +Throughout their conversation they were both holding the plates of +sausage and scrambled eggs, from which rose a pungent odor, inevitable +to the occasion. And, in a silence which fell upon them, Lee realized +the absurdity of their position behind the door. "We can't keep this +up," he declared, and moved into the eddying throng, the intermingling +ceaseless conversations. Almost at once Peyton Morris disappeared, and +Lee found Fanny at his shoulder. Neither of them fox-hunted, although +they hacked a great deal over the country roads and fields, and they +had ridden to the Spencers' that morning. Fanny wore dark brown and a +flattened hunting derby which, with her hair in a short braid tied by a +stiff black ribbon, was particularly becoming. She was, he told himself, +with her face positively animated, sparkling, from talk, unusually +attractive. Fanny was like that--at times she was singularly engaging. + +"What did he say?" she demanded, nodding in the direction in which +Peyton had disappeared. "I have avoided him all morning." + +"An uncommon lot for Peyton," Lee acknowledged. "I almost think he has +been jarred out of his self-complacency. But, on the whole, that is +not possible. It's temporary with him. At one time I thought--in the +language of youth--he was going to crown me." + +"The little beast!" she exclaimed viciously. "If he had I'd have made +him sorry. I saw Claire a few minutes ago, and she asked me to tell +you, if she missed you, that she had something for you to see. Wasn't +it strange that she said nothing to me about it? I should think, in her +scrape, she'd rather turn to a woman than to a man. But Claire isn't +very feminine: I've always felt her hardness." + +"Then that's why she didn't speak to you," Lee assented superficially. +"I'll go over tonight, after dinner. They must be pretty nearly ready to +drop the fox, and it's beginning to drizzle." + +There was, soon after that, an exodus from the back of the house to the +fields beyond. It was a very fair hunting country, rolling and clear of +brush, with grouped woods on the surrounding hills and streams in the +swales below. The clouds were broken and aqueous, and the grass held +a silver veil of fine raindrops. Only an inconsiderable part of those +present were following the hounds; the others, in a restricted variety +of sporting garb--the men in knickerbockers and gaiters or riding +breeches, the women breeched and severely coated or swathed in wide +reddish tweed capes--stood, with a scattering of umbrellas and upturned +collars, in a semi-circle on the soggy turf. + +There was a baying of hounds from the direction of the stables, and +the Master swung up on a bright chestnut horse with a braided tail. +A huntsman appeared with a shuttered box, holding the fox, and an old +brown and white hound bitch, wise with many years of hunting, to follow +and establish and announce the scent. "If you are ready, Brace," the +Master said to his huntsman, "you may drop." A stable boy held the +hound, and, raising the shutter, Brace shook the fox out on the ground. + +The animal--in view of the commotion about to pursue it--was +surprisingly small, slim flanked; proportionately the tail seemed +extravagant. "I hope the brush won't get wet," a man behind Lee spoke; +"when it does they can't run." As it was, the fox, obviously, was +reluctant to start; it crouched in the rough grass and glanced fleetly +around with incredibly sharp black eyes. The men shouted and flung up +their arms; but the animal was indifferent to their laudable efforts. +The hunt, Lee Randon thought, had assumed an aspect of the ridiculous; +the men and women on expensive excited horses, the pack yelping from +beyond a road, the expectant on-lookers, were mocked by the immobility +of the puzzled subject of the chase. Finally the fox obligingly moved a +few steps; it hesitated again, and then trotted forward, slipping under +a fence. Lee could follow it clearly across the next field and into the +next; its progress was unhurried, deliberate, insolent. + +"Give him six minutes," the Master decided. + +When the time had gone the leash of the single hound was slipped. She +ran around in a circle, whining eagerly, her nose to the sod, and then +with a high yelp, set smartly off in a direction absolutely opposite to +that taken by the fox. She was brought back and her nose held to the hot +scent; again, with a fresh assurance, the bitch gave tongue, followed +the trail to where it went under the fence, and turned, instead of +bearing to the right, to the left. There were various exclamations. A +kennel man declared, "She knows what she's about, and the fox will swing +into Sibley's Cover." Someone else more sceptically asserted that the +hound was a fool. Her sustained cry floated back from under the hill; +and, in another minute, the pack, the hunt, was off. The horses rose +gracefully in a sleek brown tide over the first fence; and then there +was a division--the hounds scattered and bunched and scattered, some of +the riders went to the left after the palpable course of the fox, others +pounded direct for Sibley's Cover, and the remainder reined up over the +hounds. + +Although long association and familiarity had made such scenes a piece +with Lee Randon's subconsciousness, today the hunt seemed nothing more +than nonsense. He laughed, and made a remark of disparaging humor; but +he found no support. Willing Spencer, kept out of the field by a broken +collar bone, gazed at him with lifted eyebrows. Fanny and Lee turned +to their horses, held for them by a groom at a mounting block, and went +home. The rain had increased, but, not cold, Lee found it pleasant on +his face. They jogged quietly over the roads bordered with gaunt sombre +hedges, through the open countryside, into Eastlake. + +Nothing, he realized, had been accomplished with Peyton Morris; the +other was too numbed, shocked, by the incredible accident that had +overtaken him to listen to reason. Lee felt that he could hardly have +said more. He wondered what Claire had to show him. Still, he wasn't +through with her husband; he had no intention of resting until every +hope was exhausted. What particularly impressed him--he must speak of it +to Peyton--was that no matter where Morris might get he would find life +monotonously the same. It was very much like mountain climbing--every +peak looked different, more iridescent and desirable, from the one +occupied; but, gazing back, that just left appeared as engaging, as +rare, as any in the distance. Every experience in the life surrounding +him was the same as all the others; no real change was offered, because +the same dull response permeated all living; no escape such as Peyton +planned was possible. + +Escape, Lee Randon continued, happened within; it was not, he repeated, +a place on earth, or any possession, but a freedom, a state, of mind. +Peyton Morris, while it was quite possible for him to be destroyed, was +incapable of mental liberty, readjustments; he might drive himself on +the rocks, on the first reef where he disregarded the clamor of warning +bells and carefully charted directions, but he was no Columbus for the +discovery of a magical island, a Cuba, of spices and delectable +palms. Peyton had looked with a stolid indifference at the dangerously +fascinating, the incomprehensible, smile of Cytherea. Yes, if the young +donkey could be forced past this tempting patch of grazing, if he could +only be driven a short distance farther down the highway of custom, +Claire would be safe. + +But she must be made to think that such a conclusion had been purely +the result of Peyton's reserved strength, and not of a mere negative +surrender following doubt. And, above all, there must be no appearance +of Mina Raff having, after a short trial, herself discarded him. On such +trivialities Claire's ultimate happiness might hang. Truth was once +more wholly restrained, hidden, dissimulated; the skillful shifting of +painted masks, false-faces, continued uninterrupted its progress. A new +lethargy enveloped Lee: his interest, his confidence, in what he was +trying to prevent waned. What did it matter who went and who stayed? In +the end it was the same, unprofitable and stale. All, probably, that his +thought had accomplished was to rob his ride of its glow, make flat the +taste of the whiskey and charged water he prepared. However, shortly +a pervading warmth--but it was of the spirits--brought back his lately +unfamiliar sense of well-being. + + * * * * * + +The Morrises lived in a large remodelled brick house, pleasantly +pseudo-classic, beyond the opposite boundary of Eastlake; and, leaving +his car in the turn of the drive past the main door, Lee walked into the +wide hall which swept from front to back, and found a small dinner party +at the stage of coffee and cigarettes. It was composed, he saw at +once, of Peyton's friends; as he entered three young men rose +punctiliously--Christian Wager, with hair growing close like a mat on a +narrow skull and a long irregular nose; Gilbert Bromhead, a round figure +and a face with the contours and expression, the fresh color, of +a pleasant and apple-like boy; and Peyton. They had been at their +university together; and, Lee Randon saw, they were making, with a +characteristic masculine innocence, an effort to secure their wives in +the same bond of affectionate understanding that held them. + +Claire, who had smiled acknowledgingly with her eyes when Lee +approached, returned to a withdrawn concentration upon the section of +table-cloth immediately before her; she answered the remarks directed +to her with a temporary measure of animation vanishing at once with the +effort. Christian Wager, who was in London with a branch of an American +banking firm, had married an English girl strikingly named Evadore. +She was large, with black hair cut in a scanty bang; but beyond these +unastonishing facts there was nothing in her appearance to mark or +remember. However, a relative of hers, he had been told, distant but +authentic, had been a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Gilbert Bromhead's +wife was southern, a small appealing compound of the essence of the +superlatively feminine. + +Lee Randon, in a chair drawn up for him at the table, studied the women, +arbitrarily thrown together, with a secret entertainment. Evadore Wager +was frankly--to a degree almost Chinese--curious about the others. At +short regular intervals, in a tone of unvaried timbre and inexhaustible +surprise, she half exclaimed, "Fancy." Claire was metallic, turned +in, with an indifference to her position that was actually rude, upon +herself. But Mrs. Gilbert Bromhead made up for any silence around her +in a seductive, low-pitched continuous talking. A part of this was +superficially addressed to Claire and the solidly amazed Evadore; +but all its underlying intention, its musical cadences and breathless +suspensions for approval, were flung at the men. The impression she +skillfully conveyed to Lee Randon, by an art which never for an +instant lost its aspect of the artless, was that he, at least, older in +experience than the rest there, alone entirely understood and engaged +her. + +The men--even Peyton, temporarily--resting confident on a successful +bringing of their wives into the masculine simplicity of their common +memories and affection, said little. With eyes puckered wisely against +the cigarette smoke they made casual remarks about their present +occupations and terse references to companions and deeds of the +past. Only Peyton had been of any athletic importance; he had played +university foot-ball; and, in view of this, there was still a tinge of +respect in Bromhead's manner. A long run of Peyton's, crowned with a +glorious and winning score, was recalled. But suddenly it failed to stir +him. "How young we were then," he observed gloomily. + +Christian Wager protested. "That isn't the right tone. We were young +then, true, but Princeton was teaching us what it meant to be men. +In that game, Morris, you got something invaluable to you now, hard +endurance and fairness--" + +"In my day," Lee interposed, "the team was told to sink a heel in any +back that looked a little too good for us." + +"There were instructors like that," Gilbert Bromhead assented; "and some +graduate coaches are pretty cunning; but they are being discredited." + +Wager largely, obliviously, passed over this interruption. "We learned +decency," he proceeded, "in business and ideals and living; and to give +and take evenly. In the war and in civil life we were and are behind the +big issues. This new license and socialistic rant, the mental and moral +bounders, must be held down, and we are the men to do it. Yes, and I +believe in the church, the right church, we're all for that: I tell you +the country depends on the men the best colleges turn out." + +"My God, Christian, you must have made a lot of money lately," Bromhead +observed. "You talk exactly like the president of a locomotive works. +You have been dining with the best, too; I can tell that with certainty. +Answer us this, honestly--do you mention the Royal Family in your +prayers?" + +Evadore laughed. "Do you know, that's really awfully good. He does put +it on a bit, doesn't he?" + +"If you let Christian go on," Peyton added, "he'll talk about the sacred +ties of Anglo-Saxon blood and tradition, with the English and American +exchange ruling the world. Gilbert, how did your artillery company get +along with the Londoners?" + +"All right, if we were near a brick yard." + +Claire rose abruptly, and they drifted out to a reception room opening, +with a wide arch, beyond the hall. Gilbert Bromhead's wife hesitated; +then, confidentially, she told Lee that she adored to sit on stairs. +"Very well," he assented; "these of the Morrises' are splendid." He was +a step below her, and her knees and his shoulder settled together. + +"I like older men so much," she admitted what she had already +so adroitly conveyed; "patches of grey above the ears are so +distinguished." + +"Older than what?" + +Apparently forgetful that her gesture included Gilbert Bromhead she +indicated the rooms that now held the others. "Young men are so head +over heels," she particularized; "they are always disarranging things." +She laughed, a delectable sound. "I oughtn't to have said that, and I +wouldn't--to them. I might almost tell you the story about the man +in the department store and the drawers." Their contact was more +pronounced. "Isn't that English girl extraordinary? I didn't believe for +a minute that was her own color till I was close to it. Her hair isn't +dyed; but why does she wear that skimpy bang?" Again she laughed, a +pure golden melody. "But you admired it, I know you did; men are so +unaccountable. Could you trust her, do you think? It wasn't very nice to +make fun of her husband." Adroitly, without the flutter of a ruffle, she +moved to a higher step, and Claire--before Lee had any premonition of +her appearance--stood below them with chocolates. + +"She is rather attractive," his companion admitted, when Claire had +gone. "She doesn't like me, or Mrs. Wager, though; and I must say she +made it plain in her own house. I've been studying her, and there is +something wrong. Is she happy with Peyton Morris? I thought he was +right nice until you came." She turned for a better view, through the +balustrade, of the doors beyond, and then drew her skirt close so that +he could move up beside her. "It's just like a smoke-house in there," +she reported. "I don't truthfully think cigarettes are nice for a woman; +and I wouldn't dream of taking whiskey; in the South we never. You'd +call that out of date." She bent forward, arranging the ribbon of a +slipper, and her mouth met his in a long kiss. + +"What made you suppose you could do that?" she demanded; "how did +you know I wouldn't be cross with you? But ... somehow I didn't mind. +Although you mustn't again, so publicly. I wonder why, with you, it +seemed so perfectly nice, and not at all as if I had only met you?" + +There was a response to that as recognized, as exact, as the bishop's +move in chess; indeed, it was expected of him; she was hesitating, +waiting for it; but he was unable to reassure her with the conventional +sentiment. A month ago he would have commanded and developed an enticing +situation; but now, for Lee Randon, it was without possibilities, hardly +more than perfunctory. A shade of vexation invaded her bearing, and +she moved a significant infinitesimal fraction away from him. Then she +discovered a wind blowing down the stairs. "I have to take such good +care of myself," she told Lee, preparing to descend. "It is because I am +so delicate--I can get upset at nothing. Here you are all so strong; you +have an advantage over me. Gilbert, dear," she called from the hall, her +voice musical with tender reproach, "I can't see how you love me, you +stay away so far." + + * * * * * + +"What did the little ass say to you?" Claire asked. Lee was standing +with her by the piano, and the others were around the fireplace in the +farther spaciousness. "Nothing much," he replied. "You mean that she +never stopped. I'll admit she's skillful; but she needn't think I'm a +fool. But you will never guess what I want to tell you. My dear Lee, +that Mrs. Grove wrote me a letter. I have it here in my dress, for you +to read. It's a scream." He took the sheet of note paper: it was grey +with an address on East Sixty-sixth Street embossed in pale vermilion, +and had an indefinable scent. The writing was decisive: + +"MY DEAR MRS. MORRIS, + +"It is so difficult for me to express my disturbance at what Mina Raff +has just told me, that I am asking to see you here, at my house in New +York. Engagements make it difficult for me to leave at present. I hope +you will not find this impertinent from an older woman, threatened very +much as you in her affections by an impossible calamity--" + +The signature, Savina Grove, had the crispness of a name often attached +to opinions and papers of authority. + +"That's rather cool," he agreed. + +"Cool! The woman's demented. No, I suppose she thinks I am an honest +wronged woman or something objectionable of the sort. I was going to +throw it away when I kept it to amuse you." + +"It does, Claire; and I'm glad to see it; impertinent as she admits it +may be, you must consider. As Mrs. Grove writes, you are both caught." + +"If you think I'll go see her you are madder still." + +"I realize you won't; but worse things could happen. It's the only +possible approach to Mina Raff; I had a chance to try Peyton, but it did +no good. It seems to me this Mina ought to have some understanding." + +Claire Morris said: "You can do it." + +He reflected. "Well, perhaps; I'm your uncle; there are no brothers, +and what other family you have is away. It might be useful. Anyhow, she +would hear a thing or two about you from me." + +"Seriously, Lee, you'd only get angry: I can see Mrs. Grove as though +she were in the room--the utmost New York self-satisfaction. And I won't +have you discussing my affairs." + +"Absurd. A thousand people will be talking about them soon if this isn't +managed. I have an idea I had better go to New York and try what can be +done there. I got along well enough with the girl herself; and perhaps, +though it's not likely, Mrs. Grove has some influence." + +"Of course, I can't stop you," Claire said; her hand strayed over his, +on the piano. "I'm simply enraged at myself, Lee. Why, I should let him +go with cheers--except where I was sorry for him--but I can't. He is +such a sweet child; and, you see, he was all mine." + +"I can't leave before Thursday." He considered. "I'll have a wire sent +to the Groves, say something regretful and polite about you--measles." + +"Don't bother," she returned. + +Peyton came stiffly up to them. "I happened to mention, Claire, that we +had some champagne left, and it created the intensest excitement. I told +them it would do no good, that you were keeping hold of it; but they +insisted on a look at the bottles." + +"Get them, Peyton," she replied unhesitatingly. "I was keeping it, but +perhaps for now. This is a very appropriate time for you and me, and the +last of the cases left over from our wedding." + +An expression of pain tightened his mouth; he turned away without +further speech. "We'll have it in the dining-room," Claire announced; +"big glasses filled with ice." They gathered about the bare table, and +Peyton Morris ranged the dark green bottles, capped in white foil, on +the sideboard. He worked with a napkin at a cork: there was a restrained +sibilant escaping pressure, and the liquid rose in frothing bubbles +through the ice. + +It was, Lee thought, a golden drink, flooded, up to a variable point, +with an inimitable gaiety. In comparison whiskey was brutalizing; sherry +was involved with a number of material accompanying pleasures; port was +purely masculine and clarets upset him; beer was a beverage and not a +delight; ale a soporific; and Rhine wines he ignored. Champagne held +in solution the rhythm of old Vienna waltzes, of ball rooms with +formal greenery, floating with passions as light as the tarleton skirts +floating about dancing feet. But it wasn't, he insisted, a wine for +indiscriminate youth--youth that couldn't distinguish between the sweet +and the dry. It was for men like himself, with memories, unrealized +dreams. Ugly women, and women who were old, and certainly prudes, should +never be given a sip. + +Peyton Morris again filled all the glasses; there was a clatter of +talk, the accent of the South, about Lee; but he grew oblivious of +it. Champagne always gave Fanny a headache; neither was it a drink for +contented mothers, housewives. Contrarily, it was the ideal, the only, +wine for seductions. It belonged most especially to masked balls, divine +features vanishing under a provocative edge of black satin. He thought +of little hidden tables and fantastic dresses, fragile emotion; lips and +knees and garters. It all melted away before the intentness of Claire's +expression. Peyton was doggedly holding to the rim of the table; Gilbert +Bromhead was very close to Evadore; the black sheath of her hair had +slipped and her eyes were blank; the blanched delicate hand of the South +nearest Christian Wager had disappeared, Christian's hand on that side +could not be seen. Peyton once more filled the glasses: + +"It must all go," Claire insisted; "I won't have a drop left." + +Wager's sentimentality overflowed in approved and well-established +channels: Princeton was their mother, their sacred alma--alma mater. +Here, under Peyton's roof, they had gathered to renew ... friendships +unbroken with their wives, their true wives; oceans couldn't separate +them, nor time, nor--nor silver locks among the gold. They must come to +London next December: anniversary of mutual happiness and success. Take +the children, the sons of old Princeton, to Christmas pantomine. + +"Once," Evadore told them, "I went to a night club. Do you know what +that is, over here? I don't believe I can explain it; but there are +quantities of champagne and men and principally girls; but they're not +girls at all, if you see what I mean, not by several accidents. It would +have been splendid, but I got sick, and it turned into a ghastly mess, +mostly in the cab. That was rather thick, wasn't it?" + +Claire rose, and Lee Randon heard her say, under her breath, "Oh hell"; +but there was another full bottle, and she had to sit again. He had +promised Fanny not to stay long, and, if he were coming home, she never +went to sleep until he was in the house. Lee wasn't drunk, but then, +he recognized, neither was he sober. Why should he be the latter? he +demanded seriously of himself. His glass was empty, the champagne was +all gone. Mrs. Gilbert Bromhead was perceptibly leaning on Christian +Wager, her skill blurred; Evadore's face was damply pallid, her mouth +slack; she left the table, the room, hurried and unsteady, evidently +about to repeat the thickness of the act that had marred her enjoyment +of the night club; Claire was openly contemptuous of them all. + +Outside, it had grown much colder, the ruts in the road were frozen, +treacherous, but Lee Randon drove his car with a feeling of inattentive +mastery. He saw some stars, an arc light, black patches of ice; and, as +he increased his speed, he sang to an emphatic lifted hand of a being +in the South Seas who wore leaves, plenty of leaves ... But none of the +silly songs now could compare with--with the bully that, on the levees, +he was going to cut down. However, in his house, he grew quiet. "Lee," +his wife called sleepily from their room, "you are so late, dear. I +waited the longest while for some of the addresses for our Christmas +cards. You must remember to give them to me tomorrow." + +Her voice, heavy with sleep and contentment and love, fell upon his +hearing like the sound of a pure accusing bell. He wasn't fit to have a +wife like Fanny, children as good as Helena and Gregory: he, Lee Randon, +was a damned ingrate! That bloody doll--he had threatened to put it +in the fire before--could now go where it belonged. But the hearth was +empty, cold. Cytherea, with her disdainful gaze, evaded his wavering +reach. + + + + +III + + +Fanny, where the Groves were concerned, was utterly opposed to the +plan which, Lee gathered, Claire had half supported. "It's really too +foolish," his wife told him; "what can Mrs. Grove and you have to say +to each other? And you won't get anywhere with Mina Raff. Indeed, Lee, I +think it isn't quite dignified of you." + +"That won't bother me," he replied indulgently. "I was wondering--you +haven't been away for so long--if you'd come with me. This other affair +wouldn't take half a day: you could buy clothes and there are the +theatres." + +"I'd love to." She hesitated. "When did you mean to go?" But, when +he said the following noon, she discovered that that didn't allow her +enough time for preparations. "You don't realize how much there is to do +here, getting the servants and the children satisfactorily arranged. You +might telephone me after you're there; and, if you didn't come back at +once, perhaps I could manage it." + +Lee telegraphed Mrs. William Loyd Grove of his intention; and, with a +table put up at his seat in the Pullman car for New York, he occupied +himself opportunely with the reports of his varied profitable concerns. +He had had a reply, sufficiently cordial, to his telegram, arranging for +him to go directly to the Groves' house; but that he had declined; and +when he gave the driver of a taxi-cab the address on East Sixty-sixth +Street it was past four and the appropriate hour for afternoon tea. + +The house, non-committal on the outside--except for the perceived +elaboration of the window draperies within--was, Lee saw at once, a +rich undisturbed accumulation of the decorative traditions of the +eighteen-eighties. The hall was dark, with a ceiling and elaborate +panels of black walnut and a high dull silver paper. The reception room +into which he was shown, by a maid, was jungle-like in its hangings and +deep-tufted upholstery of maroon and royal blue velvets, its lace and +twisted cords with heavy tassels, and hassocks crowded on the sombrely +brilliant rugs sacred in mosques. There was a mantle in colored marbles, +cabinets of fretted ebony, tables of onyx and floriated ormolu, ivories +and ornaments of Benares brass and olivewood. + +In the close incongruity of this preserved Victorianism Mrs. William +Loyd Grove, when she appeared soon after, startled Lee Randon by her +complete expression of a severely modern air. She was dressed for the +street in a very light brown suit, rigidly simple, with a small black +three-cornered hat, a sable skin about her neck, and highly polished +English brogues with gaiters. Mrs. Grove was thin--no, he corrected that +impression, she was slight--her face, broad at the temples, narrowed +gracefully to her chin; her eyes were a darker blue than the velvet; +and her skin at once was evenly pale and had a suggestion of transparent +warmth. The slender firm hand she extended, her bearing and the glimpse +of a round throat, had lost none of the slender flexibility of youth. + +"The first thing I must do," she told him in an unsympathetic, almost +harsh, voice, "is to say that I agree with you entirely about this +house. It's beyond speech. But William won't have it touched. Probably +you are not familiar with the stubborn traditions of old New Yorkers. +Of course, when Mrs. Simeon Grove was alive, it was hopeless; but I +did think, when she died, that something could be done. You can see how +wrong I was--William can't be budged." + +She was, he silently continued his conclusions, past forty, but by not +more than a year, or a year and a half. All that her signature suggested +was true: she was more forcible, decisive, than he had expected. Money +and place, with an individual authentic strength of personality, gave +her voice its accent of finality, her words their abruptness, her manner +an unending ease. + +"Mina said she might be here," Mrs. Grove went on, from an uncomfortable +Jacobean chair, "if something or other happened at the studio. But I see +she is not, and I am relieved." + +"Mrs. Morris regretted she couldn't come," Lee told her inanely; and his +hostess replied: + +"I can't at all say that I believe you--I was so upset I couldn't resist +the attempt. But I hope she understood that it was absolutely impossible +for me to go to Eastlake." + +He nodded, a shade annoyed by the briskness of her attack. + +"We are immensely concerned about Mina," Mrs. Grove went on. "You +see, with our son killed in the Lafayette Escadrille early in the war, +practically she has been our only child. She is a daughter of a cousin +of William's. Mina, I must admit, has become very difficult; I suppose +because of her genius. She is perfectly amenable about everything in the +world, until her mind gets set, like concrete, and then she is out of +reach. Tell me a little about Mr. and Mrs. Morris." + +Lee Randon spoke sharply for a minute or two, and a frown gathered on +his hearer's brow. "Why," she observed, "it is worse than I had hoped. +But I should have guessed from the name--Peyton Morris. I am very sorry; +you are fond of her, of Claire, that is evident." + +"I should not have come here for any other reason," he admitted. "I am +not much of a meddler: it is so dangerous for everyone concerned. Then +it might be that this was the best for all three of them." + +"What a curious, contradictory thing for you to say," she commented, +studying him. "You mustn't let William hear that; he's far worse than I +am." + +"I don't mean we can proceed from that attitude," Lee explained, "it was +a sort of digression. I want to do whatever is possible to break it up; +yes, purely for Claire." + +"I hope we may succeed." Her voice showed doubt. "William isn't always +tactful, and I've told him again and again he's taking the wrong +tone with Mina. What a pity the Morrises have turned out thoroughly +nice--don't tell me your Claire didn't curse me, I know these girls--it +is so much easier to deal with vulgar people. I can see now what it was +in the young man that captured Mina, she'd like that type--the masculine +with an air of fine linen." The tea-table was rolled up to them. "If you +would rather have Scotch or rye it's here," she informed him. "But even +the tea, you'll notice, is in a glass with rum; positively, soon no one +will look at soup unless it's served as a highball." + +Lee Randon did prefer Scotch: none better, he discovered, was to be +imagined; the ice was frozen into precisely the right size; and the +cigars before him, a special Corona, the Shepheard's Hotel cigarettes, +carried the luxury of comfort to its last perfection. Mrs. Grove smoked +in an abstracted long-accustomed manner. "Well," she demanded, "what is +there we can do?" + +"I rather trusted you to find that." + +"How can I? What hold have we on her? Mina is getting this nonsensical +weekly sum; her contract runs for two years yet; and then it will +be worse. Outrageous! I tell her she isn't worth it. And, now, this +tiresome Morris has money, too; and you say he's as bad as Mina. Have +you talked to her about Mrs. Morris? Mina is strangely sensitive, and, +if you can find it, has a very tender heart." + +"I might do that over here," he suggested. "In Eastlake it wasn't +possible. You've discouraged me, though; I suppose I had the idea that +you could lock her up on bread and water." + +She laughed. "An army of Minnesota kitchen maids would break into the +house; millions of people have voted Mina their favorite; when she is +out with me the most odious crowds positively stop my car. I won't +go with her any more where she can be recognized." Lee rose, and his +expression showed his increasing sense of the uselessness of their +efforts. + +"You mustn't give up," she said quickly; "you never can tell about Mina. +You will come here for dinner, certainly; I'll send the car to your +hotel at seven-thirty, and you will bring your bag. We can't argue over +that, can we? William will enjoy having you very much. Do you mind my +saying he'll be relieved? He is such a Knickerbocker. I needn't add, Mr. +Randon, that you shall be entirely free: whenever you want to go +down town Adamson will take you." The exact moulding of her body was +insolent. "Well, then, for the moment--" She gave him no chance at +refusal, but, with the curtness of her hand, the apparent vanishing of +all knowledge of his presence, dismissed him before he was aware of it +to the adroitness of the maid in the hall putting him into his overcoat. + + * * * * * + +In a double room at his hotel, repacking the articles of toilet he had +spread around the bathroom, Lee thought, but without heat, damn +that Grove woman. He didn't want to go to the Grove house, it would +complicate things with Fanny; and, if William did enjoy him, Lee Randon, +would he enjoy William? It was questionable in the present state of his +mind. Dinner, a servant at the Groves' informed him, would be at eight. +His bag was swiftly and skillfully unpacked for him--this always annoyed +Lee--and the water was turned into the tub. His room, richly draped +and oppressive as the one downstairs, had a bed with a high carved oak +headboard from which a heavy canopy, again of velvet and again crimson, +reached to the floor at its foot; and by the side of the bed ran a long +cushion over which he repeatedly stumbled. + +His immediate necessity was to telephone Fanny; she was delighted at the +sound of his voice; but, when he told her what had happened, where he +was, an increasing irritation crept into her voice. "I can't understand +it at all," he heard her say, so clearly that it reconstructed her, +expression and probable dress and setting, completely. "You asked me to +come over and shop, and go to the theatre with you; and now that I have +everything arranged, even Christopher pacified, you go to the Groves'. +It seems to me most peculiar." + +He couldn't help it, he replied, with a slight responsive sharpening of +his own speech; he had driven to the hotel, where he had secured their +room, and Mrs. Grove had made it impossible for him to stay there. +When he left--it would be late tomorrow or early the next day, Lee +thought--she could meet him and do as they planned. But Fanny refused to +agree: it would, now, be a needless expense. No, the other was what she +had eagerly looked forward to. Lee, drawing her attention once more to +the fact that it wasn't possible, was answered by so long a silence that +he concluded she had hung up the receiver. + +"Have a good time," Fanny said at last; "you will, anyhow, with the Raff +woman. I suppose Mrs. Grove, who seems to get everything she wants, is +fascinating as well." + +"Indeed, I don't know, Fanny!" he exclaimed, his patience almost +exhausted. "It hasn't occurred to me to think about her. I'm sorry you +won't do what I suggest; it's not different from what we first thought +of." + +"Good-bye," she answered reluctantly; "the children are here and send +their love. They'd like to speak to you, but probably you're in a +hurry." + +"I may be late for dinner now," he admitted. + +The receiver in his house was abruptly, unmistakably, replaced. No one +else, and for so little perceptible cause, could make him as mad as +Fanny frequently did. He put on his waistcoat, changed his money +from the trousers on the bed to those he was wearing, in a formless +indignation. This wasn't his fault, he repeated; positively, judged by +her manner, he might be doing something wrong. Fanny even managed to +convey a doubt of Mrs. Grove, Mrs. William Loyd Grove. But she couldn't +see how ridiculous that was. + +William Grove Lee liked negatively; there was, patently, nothing in +him to create an active response. His short heavy body was faultlessly +clothed; his heavy face, with its moustache twisted into points, the +clouded purple of his cheeks contradicted by the penetration of a +steadily focussed gaze, expressed nothing more than a niceness of +balance between self-indulgence, tempered by exercise, games in open +air, and a far from negligible administration of the resources he had +inherited. + +"You are a relative of the Morrises?" he asked Lee, turning from +the menu set before him in a miniature silver frame. This Lee Randon +admitted, and Grove's eyebrows mounted. "Can't anything be done with the +young man?" + +"How are you succeeding with the young woman?" Lee returned. + +"Oh, women--" William Grove waved his hand; "you can't argue with women. +Mina wants her Peyton--if that's his name; God knows I've heard it +enough--and there's no more to that." + +"It begins to look as though she'd get him," Lee observed; "I must say +we haven't got far with Morris." + +"Extraordinary." + +It was Mrs. Grove who spoke. She was dressed in grey, a gown cut away +from sheer points on her shoulders, with a girdle of small gilt roses, +her hair in a binding of grey brocade and amber ornaments; and above her +elbows were bands of dull intricately pierced gold. + +"I wonder what it's all about?" + +Lee gazed at her with a new interest. "So do I," he acknowledged; "I was +thinking of that, really, before this happened: what is it all about?" + +"I can answer that readily enough," Grove assured them; "anyone could +with a little consideration. They saw too much of each other; they ran +their heads into the noose. Trouble always follows. I don't care who +they are, but if you throw two fairly young people of opposite sex +together in circumstances any way out of the ordinary, you have a +situation to meet. Mina has been spoiled by so much publicity; her +emotions are constantly over-strung; and she thinks, if she wants it, +that she can have the moon." + +"You believe that, I know, William," his wife commented; "I have often +heard you say so. But what is your opinion, Mr. Randon--have you reached +one and is a conclusion possible?" + +"I can't answer any of your questions," he admitted; "perhaps this is +one of the things that must be experienced to be understood; certainly +it hasn't a great deal to do with the mind." He turned to William Grove, +"Your view has a lot to recommend it, even if it solves nothing. Suppose +you are right--what then?" + +"I don't pretend to go that far," Grove protested; "I am not answering +the questions of the universe. Savina has an idea there's a mystery in +it, a quality hidden from reason; and I want to knock that on the +head. It's a law of nature, that's all; keep away from it if you want +security. I can't imagine people of breeding--you will have to overlook +this, Mr. Randon, on the account of Morris--getting so far down the +slide. It belongs to another class entirely, one without traditions or +practical wisdom. Yet, I suppose it is the general tone of the day: +they think they can handle fire with impunity, like children with parlor +matches." + +"It can't, altogether, be accounted for so easily," Lee decided. "The +whole affair has been so lied about, and juggled to suit different +climates and people, that hardly any of the original impulse is left on +view. What do you think would happen if for a while we'd lose our ideas +of what was right and wrong in love?" + +"Pandemonium," Grove replied promptly. + +"Not if people were more responsible, William," Savina Grove added; "not +for the superior. But then, all laws and order were made for the good of +the mob. I don't need the policeman I see in the streets; and, really, +I haven't a scrap more use for policeman-like regulations; I could +regulate myself--" + +"And there," he interrupted, "is where Mina fails; she can't run herself +for a damn; she ought to have a nurse. Your theories contradict each +other, as well--you say one thing and do quite differently." + +She was silent at this, gazing at her hands, the beautifully made +pointed fingers bare of rings. On their backs the veins, blue-violet, +were visible; and there was a delicate tracery inside the bend of her +arms. But her face, Lee reflected, was too passive, too inanimate; her +lack of color was unvaried by any visible trace of emotion, life. She +was, in fact, plain if not actually ugly; her mouth was too large; on +the street, without the saving distinction of her dress, he wouldn't +have noticed her. + +But what, above the rest, engaged him was her resemblance to someone +he knew but couldn't recall. What woman, seen lately, had Mrs. Grove's +still, intent face, her pointed chin and long throat? She lifted her +hand, and the gesture, the suspended grace of the wrist, was familiar to +him. Finally Lee Randon, unable to satisfy his curiosity, exasperated +at the usual vain stupidity of such comparisons, gave up the effort. +William Grove informed Lee that he might accompany him to his club, +stay, or go as he willed. Mrs. Grove, it developed, would be at home, +where, if he chose, they might pursue the cause of Lee Randon's presence +there. + + * * * * * + +There was, Lee soon grasped, very little that was useful to be said. +They repeated what had been gone over before. Mrs. Grove explained again +Mina Raff's unpredictable qualities, and he spoke of Peyton and Claire +Morris. Beyond the admission of their surrender, Peyton's and hers, to +each other, Mina had told the Groves nothing; Savina Grove was ignorant +of what they intended. That it would begin at once was evident. "William +is always a little annoyed by my contradictory character," she observed, +gazing down at her slippers. They were grey, slight like a glove, on +slight arched feet that held his attention. The conversation about +the situation before them, expanded to its farthest limits, inevitably +dragged; they said the same things, in hardly varied words, a third +and even a fourth time; and then Lee's interest in it wholly deserted +him--he could excite himself about Mina no longer. + +This left him confronted with himself and Mrs. Grove. A clock on the +stairway struck ten. Her face hadn't a vestige of cordiality, and he +wondered if she were fatigued, merely polite in remaining in the room +with him? She needn't inconvenience herself on his account! It was +pleasant enough at the Groves'; without doubt--in her own world--she was +a woman of consequence, but he wasn't carried away by the privilege of +studying her indifferent silences. Then she completely surprised him: + +"I suppose you have been to all the cafés and revues you ever want to +see; but I almost never get to them; and it occurred to me that, if +you didn't too much mind, we might go. What do you think--is it utterly +foolish?" + +On the contrary, he assured her, it would amuse him immensely. Lee +Randon said this so convincingly that she rose at once. To be with +Mrs. William Loyd Grove at Malmaison--that, of all the places possible, +presented itself at once--would furnish him with an uncommon evening. +Consequently, driving smoothly over Fifth Avenue, a strange black river +of solidified asphalt strung with fixed moons, in answer to her query, +he proposed Malmaison, and the directions were transmitted into the +ivory mouth-piece beside her. At the moment when the day was most +threatened it had shown a new and most promising development. Over the +grey dress Mrs. Grove wore a cloak with a subdued gold shimmer, her hat +was hardly more than the spread wing of a bird across the pallor of +her face, and the deep folds of the gloves on her wrists emphasized the +slender charm of her arms. No young--younger woman, he decided, could +compete with her in the worldly, the sophisticated, attractiveness she +commanded: on the plane of absolute civilization she was supreme. In +the semi-gloom of the closed car, sunken in her voluminous wrap of +dull gold, with a high-bridged nose visible, a hand in its dead-white +covering pressed into the cushion, she satisfied his every aesthetic +requirement. Women, he reflected, should be primarily a show on a stage +carefully set for the purpose of their loveliness. Not many men, and +scarcely more women--so few were lovely--would agree with him there. +Argument would confront him with the moral and natural beauty of +maternity; very well, in such instincts, he thought with a resignation +quite cheerful, he was lacking. Birth, self-oblivion, was no longer +the end of his dream-like existence. Lee Randon wanted to find the +justification, preserve the integrity, of his personality, and not lose +it. Yes, if nature, as it seemed fully reasonable, had intended the +other, something incalculable had upset its plans; for what now stirred +Lee had nothing to do with breeding. Long-continued thought, instead +of making his questioning clearer, endlessly complicated it. There was +always a possibility, which he was willing to consider, that he was +lacking in sheer normality; and that, therefore, his doubts, no more +than neurasthenic, were without any value. + +He was ready to face this, but unable, finally, to accept it, to dismiss +himself so cheaply. Whatever it was, troubling his imagination, was too +perceptible at the hearts of other men. It wasn't new, singular, in him; +nor had he borrowed it from any book or philosophy: it had so happened +that he had never read a paragraph, satisfactory to him in the +slightest, about the emotional sum of a man and a woman. What he read he +couldn't believe; it was a paste of moralistic lies; either that or the +writer had no greater power of explication than he. But, while he might +deny a fundamental irregularity, the majority of men, secretly delivered +to one thing, would preach virtuously at him the other. He recalled +how universal were the traces of dissatisfaction he had noticed; an +uneasiness of the masculine world that resembled a harborful of ships +which, lying long and placidly at anchor, began in a rising wind to stir +and pull at their hawser chains. + +Lee didn't mean that this restlessness was confined to men; simply he +was intent on his own problem. The automobile turned into a cross-town +street; they met, entered, a mass of cars held at Broadway, advanced a +few feet, stopped, went on, and, twisting through the traffic, reached +Malmaison. He left his outer things at the door, but Mrs. Grove kept her +cloak, and they mounted in an elevator to the café floor. The place was +crowded with brightly filled tables surrounding the rectangular open +dancing space, and Lee signalled for a captain. That experienced +individual, with a covert glance at Lee Randon's companion, a hand +folded about a sum of money that would have paid the butcher for a week +at Eastlake, found, however, exactly what they wanted; and Mrs. Grove's +dominating slimness emerged by degrees, like a rare flower from leaves +of quiet gold. + +They sat facing each other. At a table on Lee's left, on a floor a +foot higher, sat a woman, Spanish in color, with a face like a crumpled +petunia. The girls of a larger party, beyond Savina Grove, were young, +with the vigorous nakedness of their shoulders and backs traced by black +cobwebs of lace. The music began, and they left to dance; the deserted +tables bore their drinks undisturbed while the floor was choked by +slowly revolving figures distilling from the rhythm frank gratification. +There was an honesty of intention, the admission that life and nights +were short, lacking in the fever at the Eastlake dancing; here, rather +than unsettled restraint, was the determination to spend every excited +nerve on sensation, to obtain the last drop from glasses the contents +and odors of which uniquely resembled the drinks of pre-prohibition. +These girls, consciously animating their shapely bodies with the +allurement if not the ends of creation, prostitutes of both temperament +and fact, were, Lee Randon decided, calmer--yes, safer--in mind and +purpose than were his most admirable friends. + +Certainly they were better defined, more logically placed than, for +example, Mrs. William Loyd Grove--her dress, her powdering and perfume, +the warm metal clasped about the softness of her arms, and the indicated +purpose about them, were not worlds apart. But the latter met its +announced intention; it was dissipated--normally--in satiety. But, where +Mrs. Grove was concerned ... Lee speculated. She was evidently highly +engaged, not a shade repelled, by what she saw; in a cool manner she +drew his gaze to a specially scarlet and effective dress: + +"With her figure it's very successful," she commented. + +What struck him immediately was that the proportions she had pointed out +and her own were identical; and Lee had a vision of Mrs. Grove in the +dress they were studying. The same thing, it appeared, was in her +mind. "Well," she challenged him, "I could, you know." This he admitted +discreetly, and asked her if she cared to dance. + +"Why not?" + +In his arms she was at once light and perceivable; everything a part of +her was exquisitely finished; he discovered more and more surely that +she was flesh and blood, and not, as he had regarded her, an insulated +social mechanism. Leaving the dancing floor, she was careless, in the +manner everywhere evident, in the disposition of her skirt. Lee had come +prepared for the pleasure to be had from on-looking; but he had become +the most oblivious of all the active participants. After a second brief +understanding with the captain, another quickly-disposed currency note, +there was the familiar smothered uncorking of champagne by his ear. To +Lee Randon's lavishness Mrs. Grove gave no attention, and he was obliged +to banish a petty chagrin by the knowledge that he had fully met the +obligations of her presence. The propping of her elbows on the table, +her casual gazing over the lifted rim of her glass, her silences, all +admitted him to her own unremarked, her exclusive and inalienable, +privilege. + + * * * * * + +She still, however, retained her personal remoteness from him; what +she gave belonged to him, in their situation, conventionally; it had no +greater significance; and, forming nearly all of the duty of life, +her life, she discharged her responsibility beautifully. She wasn't, +certainly, gay in the sense most familiar to him--Anette, in the same +circumstances, would have radiated a bubbling sensual pleasure, indulged +in a surface impropriety; any girl around them would have given more +than Mrs. Grove; everything, probably. But he preferred the penetrating +judgments, the superior mental freedom, of his companion. If she +were interested in a prostitute, she didn't, with a laborious +self-consciousness, avoid that term; she was neither obviously aware of +those fragile vessels of pleasure nor ignorant of them; indeed, Lee told +himself, she was more a part of their world, however continent she might +remain, than she was of Fanny's. + +Fanny, here, would have been equally fascinated and shocked; but, +essentially, she'd be hurt; and, at the same time, rebellious with the +innate resentment of the pure, the contained, for the free. She would +never have agreed to the champagne, either; they would have ordered +lemonades or claret cup; and, by midnight, gone back to the hotel. It +was now past two o'clock. There was no lessening in the vigor of the +dancing, the laughter, or in the stream of laden trays; no trace of +fatigue in Mrs. Grove. She had the determined resilience of a woman +approaching, perhaps, the decline, but not yet in it; of one who had +danced into innumerable sun-rises from the night before, destroying many +dozens of pairs of satin slippers. + +When it occurred to her to gather up the petal-like folds of her cloak, +get her hands into the gloves rolled back on her wrists, it was nearer +three than two. A hollow voice on the street called the number of the +Grove automobile, the door closed smoothly on them, and again she was +absorbed into the cushions and her wrap. But there was a change in his +feeling for her, an indefinable but potent boundary had been crossed: +they had looked together, informally, at life, at passion, and the +resulting sympathy had, finally, put aside the merely casual. Lee +lighted a cigarette, and, without speech, she took it from him, +transferred it to her own lips. + +Eastlake and Fanny, Helena and Gregory, seemed very remote; a quality of +his being suppressed at home here possessed him completely: in a black +silk evening waistcoat, with no responsibilities, no thought of time +or work, he was, lightly and wholly, an idler in a polite sphere. The +orchids in their glass holder, dimly visible before him, were a +symbol of his purely decorative engagement with life. Now Lee couldn't +reconcile himself to the knowledge that this was no more than an +interlude--with music--in his other, married existence. It was as +unsubstantial as an evening's performance, in temporary finery, of a +high comedy of manners. + +Savina Grove said, "It has been surprisingly nice." + +"Hasn't it," he agreed; "and, when you spoke, I was trying to realize +that it will be so soon over." + +Immediately after he cursed himself for a blunder, a stupid error in +emphasis, from which she drew perceptibly away. She extinguished the +cigarette, his cigarette, and that, as well, added to the distance +between them. + +"I should go back to Eastlake tomorrow afternoon," he observed, in a +manner which he made entirely detached. To that she objected that he +would not see Mina Raff, nothing would be accomplished. "She might have +dinner with you tomorrow night," she thought; "Mina gets back to the +Plaza a little before seven. But we can call the studio." + +In view of what he had already done, Mrs. Grove's proposal seemed +unavoidably reasonable. He would telephone Fanny again in the morning +and explain. Fanny, his wife! Well, he continued, as though he were +angrily retorting to a criticism from without, no man ever better +realized the splendid qualities of his wife. That was beyond +contradiction; and he sharply added that not Fanny, but the role of a +wife, a housewife, was under observation. Mrs. Grove was married, but +that didn't keep her from the Malmaison, at what Eastlake disapprovingly +called all hours of the night. She had no aspect of a servitude which, +while it promised the most unlimited future rewards, took the present +grace, the charm, from women. That--the consequent loss or gain--was +open to question; but the fact remained: for the majority of women +marriage was fatal to their persons. Only the rich, the fortunate and +the unamenable escaped. + +"In a very few minutes now," Mrs. Grove said, "you will be able to +sleep." + +"I've never been wider awake," he protested; "I was thinking of how +marriage submerged most women while you escaped." + +She laughed quietly, incomprehensibly. + +"Well," he insisted, aggrieved, "haven't you?" + +She leaned toward him; almost, he told himself, there was a flash of +animation on her immobile face. "Escape, what do you mean by that?" she +demanded. "Does anyone escape--will young Morris and Mina? And you?" + +"Oh, not I," he replied, thrown off his mental balance by the rapid +attack of her questioning; "I am tied in a thousand ways. But you +surprise me." + +"I could," she remarked, coldly, returning to her corner. "Your +self-satisfaction makes me rage, How do you dare, knowing nothing, to +decide what I am and what I can do? You're like William, everyone I +meet--so sure for others." + +"No, I'm not," he contradicted her with a rude energy; "and, after +all, I didn't accuse you of much that was serious. I only said you were +apparently above the circumstances that spoil so many women." + +"It isn't necessary to repeat yourself," she reminded him disagreeably; +"I have a trace of memory." + +"And with it," he answered, "a very unpleasant temper." + +"Quite so," she agreed, once more calm; "you seem fated to tell me about +myself. I don't mind, and it gives you such a feeling of wisdom." The +car stopped before the Grove house and, within, her good-night was +indifferent even for her. What, he wondered, what the devil, had upset +her? He had never encountered a more incomprehensible display of the +arrogantly feminine. + +In his room, however, re-establishing his sense of comfort, he found, on +a low table by the bed, a choice of whiskies, charged water, cigarettes, +nectarines, orange-brown mangoes, and black Belgian grapes, Attached +to an electric plug was a small coffee percolator; for the morning, Lee +gathered. His pajamas, his dressing gown and slippers, were conveniently +laid at his hand. He was, in fact, so comfortable that he had no desire +to get into bed; and he sat smoking, over a tall drink, speculating +about his hostess. Perhaps she had difficulties with the obdurate +correctness of William; but Mrs. Grove would have been too well-steeled +there to show any resentment to a virtual stranger; no, whatever it was +lay within herself. He gave it up, since, he proclaimed aloud, it didn't +touch him. + +The opened windows admitted the vast unsubdued clamor of New York; the +immeasurable force of the city seemed to press in upon the room, upon +his thoughts. How different it was from the open countryside, the quiet +scene, of his home in Eastlake. There the lowing of a chance cow robbed +of her calf, her udder aching, the diminishing barking of dogs and the +birds--sparrows in winter and robins in the spring--were the only sounds +that disturbed the dark. In the morning the farmer above Lee rolled the +milk down the road, past his window, on a carrier, and the milk cans +made a sudden rattle and ringing. Then Christopher washed the porches. +Fanny, no matter how late she had been up the night before, was dressed +by eight o'clock, and put fresh flowers in the vase. He hazarded the +guess that Mrs. Grove was often in bed until past noon; here servants +renewed the great hot-house roses with long stems, the elaborate flowers +on the dining-table. + +In the morning, as he had foreseen, the percolator was connected, cream +and sugar placed beside it; and before his shaving was over, he had a +cup of coffee with a cigarette casting up its fragrant smoke from the +saucer. His shoes might have been lacquered from the heighth of the +lustre rubbed into them; a voice the perfection of trained sympathetic +concern inquired for the exacted details of the suspended preparation of +his eggs. + + * * * * * + +His dinner engagement with Mina Raff, arranged through her secretary, +was for fifteen minutes past seven; and, meanwhile, as Mrs. Grove had +offered, Adamson drove Lee down-town. The afternoon had nearly gone +before he returned to East Sixty-sixth Street; but the maid at the door +told him that there was tea up in the library. This he found to be +a long gloomy room finished in a style which, he decided, might be +massively Babylonian. A ponderous table for the support of weightless +trifles filled the middle of the rug; there were deep chairs of roan +leather, with an immense sofa like the lounge of a club or steamer; low +bookcases with leaded glass; and windows the upper panes of which were +stained in peacock colors and geometrical design. + +The tea things were on a wagon beside the center table; there were +a number of used cups and crumpled napkins, and whiskey glasses, in +evidence, but Mrs. Grove was alone. She had been about to have them +removed, she told him, when he rang. "No, I am not in a hurry; and it's +such a disagreeable day you ought to have a highball." + +She was in black, a dress that he found unbecoming, with a collar high +about her throat and wide sleeves heavily embroidered in carmine. "You +will hate that one," she said of the chair he selected; "I can't think +why chairs have to be so very uncomfortable--these either swallow you +whole or, like a toboggan slide, drop you on the floor." Lee drew up a +tabourette for his glass and ash tray. The banal idea struck him that, +although he had met Mrs. Grove only yesterday, he knew her well; rather +he had a sense of ease, of the familiar, with her. The sole evidence +she gave of an agreement in his feeling was that she almost totally +neglected to talk. She smoked, absorbed in a frowning abstraction. A +floor lamp behind them was lighted, and there was an illumination at +the mantel, but the depths of the library were wrapped in obscurity: its +sombreness had increased, the air was heavy with the dust of leather, a +vague funereal oppressiveness. + +Lee's sense of familiarity increased, but his ease left him, driven +away by the strength of a feeling not exactly of being at home but of +returning to an old powerful influence. Mrs. Grove's head was in shadow. +There was a stir at the door, and William Grove entered. He was, he told +Lee civilly, glad that Adamson had been of use. "I walk whenever it's +possible," he proceeded; "but that way you wouldn't have reached Beaver +Street yet. Nothing to drink, thanks, Savina, but a cigarette--" Lee +Randon reached forward with the silver box and, inadvertently, he +pressed into Mrs. Grove's knee. He heard a thin clatter, there was a +minute hot splash on his hand, and he realized that she had dropped her +spoon. She sat rigidly, half turned toward the light, with a face that +shocked him: it was not merely pale, but white, drawn and harsh, and her +eyes, losing every vestige of ordinary expression, stared at him in a +set black intensity. + +"I'm sorry," Lee Randon said mechanically, and he offered the cigarette +box to the other man; but, internally, he was consumed with anger. +The woman positively was a fool to mistake his awkwardness; he hadn't +supposed that anyone could be so super-sensitive and suspicious; and it +damaged his pride that, clearly, she should consider him capable of such +a juvenile proceeding. Lee rose and excused himself stiffly, explaining +that it was time for him to dress; and, in his room, telephoning Fanny, +he determined to leave New York, the Groves, as early as possible in the +morning. + +Fanny responded from Eastlake in a tone of unending patience; nothing he +could do, her voice intimated, would exhaust her first consideration of +him; she wouldn't--how could she?--question the wisdom of his decisions, +even when they seemed, but, of course, only to her faulty understanding, +incomprehensible. + +"You make it sound as though I were over here on an errand of my own," +he protested cheerfully; "I'd rather be in Eastlake." + +Helena, she told him, had been bad again; there was a recognized +opinion between them that, while Gregory was like his mother, Helena +surprisingly resembled Lee Randon. "Well, don't be too severe," he +said. Someone had to be, the reply came, faint and indistinct. "Is there +anything else?" he asked. Of course, how stupid, she was keeping him; +the sound was now open and colored with self-reproach. She was so sorry. +"Damn!" Lee exclaimed, leaving the telephone with the feeling that Fanny +had repelled his affection. Women were beyond him. + +In this mood he was unprepared for the appearance of Mina Raff, +immediately after his name was sent up to her rooms, on the minute +arranged. What, next, about her occurred to him was the evidence of her +weariness. A short and extremely romantic veil hung from the close +brim of her hat--with her head bent forward she gazed at him seriously +through the ornamental filaments; her chin raised, the intent regard of +her celebrated eyes was unhampered. She didn't care where they went, she +replied to his question, except that she preferred a quiet place, where +they could talk. + +The St. Regis, he thought, would best answer this requirement; and he +had started toward the taxi-cab stand when she informed him that she had +kept her car. It was larger and more elaborately fitted than the Grove +limousine; in its deep upholstery, its silk curtains and velvet carpet +and gold mounted vanities, Mina Raff was remarkably child-like, small; +her face, brightening at intervals in the rapidly passing lights +outside, was touched by pathos; she seemed crushed by the size, the +swiftness and complexity, of her automobile, and by the gathering +imperious weight of her fame. She was still, however, appealingly +simple; no matter what she might do it would be invested with the aspect +of innocence which, admirable for her art, never for an instant deserted +her personality. + +Lee Randon, who liked her better with each accumulating minute, wondered +why he was completely outside the disturbance of her charm. As a young +man, he concluded, he would have been lost in a passionate devotion +to her. Mina realized to the last possible indefinite grace the ideal, +always a silver abstraction, of youth; the old worn simile of an April +moon, distinguished in her case by the qualification, wistful, was +the most complete description of her he possessed. Young men--Peyton +Morris--were worshippers of the moon, the unattainable; and when they +happily attained a reality they hid it in iridescent fancy. + +What now formed Lee's vision had, together with no less a mystery, a +greater warmth and implied reality from him. Cytherea and Mina Raff +shared nothing; somehow the latter lacked the magnetism essential to the +stirring of his desire. This, perhaps, was inevitable to his age, to the +swift passage of that young idealism: after forty, the nebulous became a +need for sensuous reality. Certain phases of Mina, as well, were +utterly those of a child--she had the eluding sweetness, the flower-like +indifference, of Helena, of a temperamental virginity so absolute that +it was incapable of understanding or communicating an emotional +fever. But, in the degree of her genius, she was above, superior to, +experience; it was not, for her, necessary; she was not changed by +it, but changed it into herself, into the validity of whatever she +intrinsically was. + +His thoughts returned to the unfortunate occurrence in the library at +the Groves'; his indignation at Mrs. Grove was complicated, puzzled, by +the whole loss of the detached self-possession which, he had thought, +was her most persistent characteristic. Her expression, in memory, +specially baffled him; under other, accountable, circumstances he should +have said that it was a look of suffering, of drawn pain. He couldn't +recall the appearance of a shade of anger; yet the spoon had fallen +as if from a hand numb with--with resentment. No other deduction was +possible. He wished it were permissible to speak to her again about +what--but obviously--had been no more than an accident; he objected to +leaving such a ridiculous misconception of himself lodged permanently in +her mind. But he couldn't bring it up again; and, after all, it mattered +very little. Mrs. Grove was welcome to whatever flattering of her +seductiveness her pride demanded. When he had dispatched, with Mina +Raff, his duty to Claire, succeeded or failed--the latter, he added, was +of course inevitable--he'd return to Eastlake and the Groves would go +out of his life. + +The curtain of what he had thought of as a play, an interlude, would +fall heavily, conclusively, and the music end. + + * * * * * + +At the St. Regis he chose the more informal dining-room with panellings +and high columns of wood, and medallions in white marble. It was neither +full nor empty, and they were conducted to a table set for two. Lee was +conscious of heads turning, and of a faint running whisper--Mina Raff +had been recognized. However, without any exhibited consciousness of +this, she addressed herself to him with a pretty exclusion; and, +pausing to explain her indifference to food, she left the selection of +everything but the salad to Lee; she had, she admitted, a preference +for alligator pears cut into small cubes with a French dressing. That +disposed of, he turned to her: + +"I noticed, at the Plaza, that you are hard at it." + +"Indeed, yes," she replied; "but we are still only rehearsing; not a +scene has been shot. You see, that makes it all so expensive; I want to +do as well as possible for the men who have money and confidence in me." + +This, from her manner, her deceptive look of fragility everywhere +drooping with regret, was patent. What she said, thought, felt, was +magnificently reflected, given visibility, by her fluid being. "But you +haven't come over here to talk to me about that," she said directly; +"you want me to give up Peyton." + +He nodded, relieved that she had made the introduction of his purpose so +easy. + +"I ought to tell you, before we begin," she warned him, "that I can't. +Nothing can convince me that we are wrong. We didn't try to have this +happen, we did all we could--but it was too late--to prevent it," Mina +Raff repeated Peyton's own assurance to him. "Things were taken out +of our hands. Why I went to Eastlake I don't know, it was dreadfully +inconvenient, and my director did what he could to keep me working. +But, as you know, I persisted. Why?" She stopped and regarded him +imploringly, through the romantic veil. "I haven't the smallest idea," +she continued. "Peyton had seen me again in New York; I knew then that +I meant a lot to him; but it couldn't have happened if I hadn't stayed +with Anette." + +Her voice, her wonderment, he thought, were colored by superstition. +Evidently, up to a certain point, she had resisted, and then--how +charming it must have been for Morris--she collapsed. She had convinced +herself that they were intended for each other. Lee asked, "How well do +you know Peyton?" + +"Not at all in the way you do," she admitted candidly; "I understand him +only with my heart. But isn't that everything? I know that he is very +pure, and doesn't ordinarily care for women--usually I have no feeling +about men--and that he played football at Princeton and is very strong. +You have no idea, Mr. Randon, how different he is from the men I am +thrown with! There are some actors, of course, who are very fine, +wonderful to work with; but the ones not quite so finished.... It's +natural, for many reasons, in a woman to act; but there is something, +well--something, about men acting, as a rule; don't you agree?" + +Lee did, and told her so with a growing pleasure in the rightness of her +perceptions. "Peyton is altogether different from the men of the stage," +he developed her observation; "and it is a capital thing he did play +football; for, in the next year or so, until he grows used to your +life, he'll have a collection of men to knock down. I'd like to tell you +whatever I have discovered about him, for your own consideration, and +Peyton is a snob. That isn't necessarily a term of contempt; with him +it simply means that he is impatient, doubtful, at what he doesn't know. +And first under that head come the arts; they have no existence for him +or his friends. A play or a book pleases him or it doesn't, he approves +of its limiting conventional morals, or violently condemns what he +thinks is looseness, and that's the extent of his interest." + +Mina Raff gazed at him blankly, this time from under the scallops of +the veil. "That is hard to believe," she objected; "he talks to me +beautifully about my pictures and a future on the stage. He says that I +am going to revolutionize moving pictures--" + +"I don't question that," he put in; "but did Peyton show you how it +would be done?" + +She hesitated, gracefully lowering her potent gaze. + +"Probably," Lee Randon added keenly, "it was to happen because you were +so excessively beautiful." There was no reply to this. "I don't need +to tell you," he admitted, "that I did my best to discourage him; and +I pointed out that the time must come when you would fancy, no, need, +someone else." + +"Oh, that was cruel!" she cried softly; "and it isn't, it won't be true. +Do you think, just because I happen to be an actress, that I can't be +faithful?" + +"It is all a question of degree," he instructed her, "of talent or +genius. Talent may be faithful to a number of things--a man or a country +or even an ideal; but the only fidelity of genius is to itself." + +"I hadn't thought of that," she reflected, sadly. + +"Why should you?" he demanded; "you are being natural; I am the +disturbance, the conventional voice sentimentally reading from the +call book. But you don't have those in moving pictures: it would be a +sentimentally stupid director. You must believe me: your acting will +always be incomprehensible to Peyton: he will approve of the results +and raise hell--for the comparatively short time he will last--with the +means. Tell me this: together with his conviction that you'd carry the +stage up into heaven, didn't he speak of your retiring?" + +The faint smile about her lips was a sufficient answer. That smile, he +recognized, pensive and unlingering, served a wide and practical variety +of purposes. "In the end," he insisted, "Peyton will want to take you to +a home in a correct suburb; that conception he'll never get away from." +She answered: + +"And what if I liked that, wanted it? You mustn't think my life is +entirely joyful." + +"I don't," he as promptly assured her; "but you will never get away +from it; you will never sit contentedly through long afternoons playing +bridge; you're cursed, if you want to call it that." + +"I saw Peyton's child," she said at a tangent. "He had hold of the +nurse's apron in such a funny decided fist. I wanted to hug him, but +I remembered that it wasn't the thing to do. She has that," a shade of +defiance darkened her voice at her reference to Claire. + +"Babies are no longer overwhelmingly important," Lee retorted; "not +in the face of emotion itself; they have become a sort of unavoidable, +almost an undesirable by-product." + +"They won't be with me," Mina Raff promised. + +It was evident to him that she saw herself in the role of a mother; her +face had a tender maternal glamour, her eyes were misted with sentiment; +a superb actress. "A baby of my own," she whispered; "a baby and a house +and Peyton." + +"Nothing duller could be imagined." Momentarily he lost his +self-restraint. "You have something inimitable, supremely valuable, and +you are dreaming like a rabbit. If you must be a mother, be that one on +the screen, for the thrilling of millions of limited minds." + +"He seemed to like me." She had paid no attention to him, back again in +the thought of the Morrises' son. + +"If he did," Lee dryly added; "he will very soon get over it; Ira won't +love you conspicuously." + +"Why--why that never entered my head," Mina was startled; "but, yes, how +could he? And I can't bear to have anyone, the most insignificant person +alive, hate me. It makes me too wretched to sleep. They will have to +understand, be generous; I'll explain so it is entirely clear to them." +Her voice bore an actual note of fear, her delicate lips trembled +uncontrollably. + +"You can't blame them, Ira and his mother, if they refuse to listen. +Eastlake as a town will dispense with you; and Claire's family--it +is really quite notable--will have their say wherever they live, in +Charleston and London and Spain. When Ira is grown up and, in his turn, +has children, they will be very bitter about your memory. However, +publicly, I suppose it will do you more good than harm. The public loves +such scandal; but, with that advertisement, the other will continue. It +isn't logical, I'll admit; except for Claire I should support you. That +is where, and only where, I am dragged into your privacy. And, too, for +your sake, it would have been better if you had hit on a different sort +of man, one without the background of such stubborn traditions. You +will have to fight them both in him--where they, too, may come to blame +you--and about you. There is a strain of narrow intolerance through all +that blood." + + * * * * * + +Mina Raff's eyes fluttered like two clear brown butterflies which, +preparing to settle, had been rudely disturbed. Then her mouth was +compressed, it grew firm and firmer, obdurate; as though an internal +struggle, evident in her tense immobility, had been decided against +what was being powerfully urged upon her. A conviction that here, too, +finally, he had failed, was in possession of Lee Randon, when he saw the +determination drain from her face: it assumed a child's expression of +unreasoning primitive dread. She drew a hand across her forehead. + +"I shall have to think," she told him; "I am very much upset. It makes +me cold, what you said. Why did you come to New York and talk to me like +this? Oh, I wish Peyton were here; he'd answer you; he isn't a coward +like me." + +"Since you are so tired, and I've been so very objectionable, I think +perhaps you had better go back to your hotel," Lee proposed. "It's +after ten." She rose immediately, but had to remain until the waiter was +summoned with their account. In her limousine she seemed smaller, more +lost in her fate and money, than before. She resembled a crushed and +lovely flower; and Lee reflected that it was a shame no one was there +to revive her. Mina Raff, at the Plaza, insisted, holding his hand in +a mingled thoughtfulness and pictorial misery, on sending him to the +Groves'; and his last glimpse of her, over his shoulder, was of a slight +figure hurled into upper expensive mansions by an express elevator. + +A car not the Groves' was outside their house; and, as Lee was passing +the drawing-room doors, William Grove called him in. He found there a +Dr. Davencott and his wife, obviously on terms of close intimacy with +the house. The physician was a thickly-built man with an abrupt manner +continually employed in sallies of a vigorous but not unkindly humor. +Lee gathered that his practice was large and select; and he quickly +saw the reason, the explanation, of this: Dr. Davencott had carried the +tonic impatience of earlier years among inconsequential people into a +sphere where bullying was a novelty with a direct traceable salutary +effect. But whatever harshness was visible in him was tempered by his +wife, who was New England, Boston itself, at its best. She had a grave +charm, a wit, rather than humor, which irradiated her seriousness, and +gave even her tentative remarks an air of valuable finality. + +To this Mrs. Grove contributed little. She practically avoided speaking +to Lee Randon; and he was certain that she was, cheaply and inexcusably, +offended at him. Then, in moving, her gaze caught his, their eyes held +fixed; and, as he looked, the expression he had seen on her face that +afternoon in the library, drawn and white with staring black eyes, came +upon her. It amazed him so much that he, too, sat regarding her in an +intentness which took no account of the others. One of Mrs. Grove's +hands, half hidden in green tulle, was clenched. She breathed in an +audible sigh and, with what appeared to be a wrenching effort, turned +from him to the general conversation. + +Lee Randon, losing his first impression of her attitude, was totally +unable to comprehend the more difficult state that had its place. +A possible explanation he dismissed before it had crystallized into +thought. At the same time, the restlessness which had left him for the +past twenty-four hours returned, more insistent than ever. He felt that +it would be impossible to remain seated, calmly talking, for another +minute. The conversation of the Davencotts that had so engaged him now +only sounded like a senseless clatter of words and unendurable laughter. +He wished they would go; that all of them except Savina Grove would +vanish; but why he wanted her to stay, why he wished to be alone with +her, and what, in such a circumstance, he would say, were all mysteries. +Lee determined to rise and make his bow, to escape; he was aware of +an indefinable oppression, like that he had often experienced during +a heavy electric storm; he had the absurd illusion that a bolt of +lightning.... Lee Randon didn't stir: he sat listening with a set smile, +automatic small speech, and a heart with an unsteady rising pound. + +The Doctor's stories, he thought, went on unsupportably; his wife was +wise, correct, just, to a hair's breadth. Good God, when would they +go? Now--there was a break in the conversation--he would rise and say +good-night. Probably they wanted to discuss things more personal than +his presence allowed and were waiting for just that. He was aware that +Mrs. Grove's gaze, as though against her resolute effort, was moving +toward him; but, quite desperately, he avoided it; he gazed up at a +chandelier of glittering and coruscating glass and down at a smooth +carpet with Chinese ideographs on a light background. He heard the +flexible vibration of the pleasure traffic on Fifth Avenue; and, perhaps +because it was so different, it reminded him of the ringing milk cans in +the early morning by his house. + +Lee Randon made a sharp effort to rouse himself from what threatened to +be a stupor faintly lurid with conceptions of insanity; and the result +of this mental drawing himself erect was even more startling, more +disconcerting, than his previous condition. It came from the realization +that what animated Mrs. Grove was passion. This was incredible, but it +was true; he had never before seen, nor imagined, such an instant +sultry storm of emotions held precariously in check. Beyond measure it +surprised and baffled and agitated him. He understood now that sense +of impending lightning; and, at the same time, he had a sense that +a peremptory brass gong had been struck beside him, and that he was +deafened by the reverberations. Mrs. Grove's still pallid face, her +contained, almost precise, manner, took on a new meaning--he saw them, +fantastically, as a volcanic crust that, under observation, had hardened +against the fire within. Then he was at a loss to grasp why he, Lee +Randon, was permitted to see so much. + +His thoughts returned to himself--the voices of the Davencotts, of +William Loyd Grove, echoed from a distance on his hearing--and he tried +to re-arrange his bearing toward his unsought discovery: this was of +enormous importance. He must at once regulate his approach to Mrs. +Grove, get himself firmly in hand; the situation, for him particularly, +had far-reaching unpredictable possibilities. For all her exactness, +Savina Grove had a very exclusive and definite attractiveness; and, +faced by such a dilemma, Lee had the best of reasons for doubting the +ultimate regularity of his response. + +But he was, he thought, mentally halting, racing absurdly to unjustified +conclusions; nothing, naturally, disturbing would arise; but that +assurance, the heights of reason, soon faded. There could be no doubt of +the cause of Mrs. Grove's blanched staring: just as there was no evasion +of the danger created by no more than his scant recognition. Passion +discovered was a thousand diameters increased; mutually admitted, it +swept aside all opposition. Lee Randon, however, had no intention of +involving himself there while, ironically, he was engaged in securing +for Claire Morris her husband; he didn't propose to compromise his ease +of mind with William Grove's wife. There was, as well, the chance that +she was a little unbalanced; progressing, he might involve himself in +a regrettable, a tragic, fix. He would not progress, that was all there +was to that! Lee felt better, freer already, at this resolution; he +wasn't, he protested inwardly, a seducer of women; the end itself, the +consummation, of seduction, was without tyrannical power over him. Lee +wasn't materially, patiently, sensual in that uncomplicated manner. No, +his restlessness was more mysterious, situated deeper, than that; it +wasn't so readily satisfied, drugged, dismissed. The fact struck him +that it had little or no animal urgency; and in this, it might be, he +was less lucky than unlucky. + +Mrs. Davencott rose and resumed her wrap, retained with her on the back +of the chair. Lee met the pleasant decisiveness of her capable hand, the +doctor grasped his fingers with a robust witticism; and he was replying +to the Davencotts' geniality when he had a glimpse of Mrs. Grove's face +turned slightly from him: the curve of her cheek met the pointed chin +and the graceful contour of her exposed long throat; there was the +shadow of a tormenting smile on the pale vermilion of her lips, in her +half closed eyes; her hair, in that light, was black. A sensation of +coldness, a spiritual shiver, went through Lee Randon; the resemblance +that had eluded him was mercilessly clear--it was to the doll, to +Cytherea. + + * * * * * + +When Dr. Davencott and his wife had gone Lee sank back into his chair, +more disorganized by his culminating discovery than by any of the +extraordinary conditions that had preceded it. Its quality of the +unexpected, however, wasn't enough to account for the profound effect on +him; that was buried in the secret of instinctive recognitions. "Well, +the thing for me to do is to go to bed," he said aloud, but it was no +more than an unconvinced mutter, addressed to the indeterminate region +of his feet. Savina Grove was standing by the door, in the place, +the position, in which she had said good-bye to the Davencotts. Her +flamboyant tulle skirt, contrasted with the tightly-fitting upper part +of her dress, gave her, now, in the sombre crowded furnishings, the rich +draped brocades, of the room, an aspect of mid-Victorian unreality. + +"It is for me, as well," she agreed, but so long after he had spoken +that the connection between their remarks was almost lost. However, +neither of them made a movement to leave the drawing-room, Savina Grove +returned slowly to her chair. "No one, I think, has ever found it out +like that." Her remark was without intelligible preliminary, but he +grasped her meaning at once. "How you happened to stir it in me I have +no idea--" she stopped and looked at him intently. "A terrible accident! +I would have done anything, gone any distance, to avoid it. I am unable, +with you, to pretend--that's curious--and that in itself gives me a +feeling of helplessness. All sorts of impossible things are coming into +my head to say to you. I mustn't." Her voice was brittle. + +"There is no need for you to say what would make you miserable," he +replied. "I am not in a position to question you; at the same time I +can't pretend--perhaps the safest thing of all--not to understand what, +entirely against your will, I've seen. I am very much, very naturally, +disturbed by it; but you have nothing to worry about." + +"You say that because you don't know, you can't possibly think, what +goes on here," she pressed a hand to her breast. "Why," her words were +blurred in a mounting panic, "I have lost my sense of shame with you. +It's gone." She gazed despairingly around as if she expected to see that +restraining quality embodied and recoverable in the propriety of the +room. "I'm frightened," she gasped. Lee rose instinctively, and moved +toward her with a gesture of reassurance, but she cried, "Don't! don't! +don't!" three times with an increasing dread. He went back to his chair. + +"Now I have to--I want to--tell you about it," she went on rapidly; "it +has always been in me as long as I can remember, when I was hardly more +than a child sitting alone; and I have always been afraid and ashamed. +The nicest thing to call it is feeling; but in such an insane degree; +at night it comes over me in waves, like a warm sea. I wanted and wanted +love. But not in the little amounts that satisfied the others--the men +and girls together. I couldn't do any of the small things they did with +safety: this--this feeling would sweep up over me and I'd think I was +going to die. + +"All that I had inherited and been told made me sure that I was horridly +immodest; I wouldn't, if it could be helped at all, let anyone see +inside me; I couldn't have men touch me; and whenever I began to like +one I ran. It was disgusting, I was brought up to believe; I thought +there was something wrong with me, that I was a bad girl; and I +struggled, oh, for days on end, to keep it hidden." + +It was strange, Lee told himself, that marriage, the birth of her son, +hadn't made her more happily normal; and, as if she had perceived his +thoughts, she added, "Even from William. It would have shocked him, +sickened him, really, more than the rest. He had to dominate me, be +masculine, and I had to be modest, pursued--when I could have killed +him." Her emotion swept her to her feet. "But I was, he thought, proper; +although it tore and beat and pounded me till I was more often ill than +not. Young William nearly grew up and, because of him, I was sure I had +controlled it; but he was killed. Still, in five or six years it would +be over; and now you, I--" + +"Nothing has happened," he heavily reiterated; "nothing has or can +happen. We are neither of us completely young; and, as you say, in a few +years all will be over, solved. We are both, it seems, happily married." +She interrupted him to cry, "Is anyone happily married? Don't we fool +ourselves and doesn't life fool us?" + +"It's the best course in a bad affair." + +"Bah!" She was infuriated at him. "You are like the others--worms in +chestnuts. It is bad because you are contented. I hate life as much as +you do, far more; but I am not satisfied; how could anyone be?" + +He, too, had risen, and stood close before her. "Don't make a mistake +about me," he warned her; "there are a great many men whom it would be +safer to tell this to. If I haven't had such a sharp struggle as you, +I've been wondering--yes, when I should have been happiest--about the +uselessness of most of living. I'm not safe at all." + +"I don't want to be safe," she whispered. + +With an involuntary and brutal movement he took her in his arms and +kissed her with a flame-like and intolerable passion. She made no effort +to avoid him, but met his embrace with an intensity that rivalled his +own. When he released her she wavered and half fell on a chair across +the low back of which her arm hung supinely. The lightning, he thought, +had struck him. Winding in and through his surging, tempestuous emotion +was an objective realization of what was happening to him: this wasn't +a comfortable, superficially sensual affair such as he had had with +Anette. He had seen, in steel mills, great shops with perspectives of +tremendous irresistible machines, and now he had the sensation of having +been thrown, whirling, among them. + +Savina's head went so far back that her throat was strained in a white +bow. He kissed her again, with his hands crushing the cool metallic +filaments of the artificial flowers on her shoulders. She exclaimed, +"Oh!" in a small startled unfamiliar voice. This would not do, he told +himself deliberately, with a separate emphasis on each word. William +Grove might conceivably come in at any moment; and there was no hope, +no possibility, of his wife quickly regaining her balance; she was as +shattered, as limply weak, as though she were in a faint. "Savina," +he said, using for the first time that name, "you must get yourself +together; I can't have you exposed like this to accident." + +She smiled wanly, in response, and then sat upright moving her body, her +arms, with an air of insuperable weariness. Her expression was dazed; +but, instinctively, she rearranged her slightly disordered hair. + +"We must find out what has happened to us," he went on, speaking with +difficulty out of the turmoil of his being. "We are not young," he +repeated stupidly; "and not foolish. We won't let ourselves be carried +away beyond--beyond return." + +"You are so wise," she assented, with an entire honesty of intention; +but her phrase mocked him ferociously. + +The tide of his own emotion was gathering around him with the force of +a sea like that of which she had already, vividly, spoken. There was +damned little of what could be recognized as admissible wisdom in him. +Instead of that he was being inundated by a recklessness of desire that +reached Savina's desperate indifference to what, however threatening, +might overtake her. He couldn't, he hadn't the inclination to, do less. +Reaching up, she drew her fingers down his sleeves until they rested in +his gripping hands. Her palms clung to his, and then she broke away from +him: + +"I want to be outraged!" Her low ringing cry seemed suppressed, +deadened, as though the damask and florid gilt and rosewood, now +inexpressibly shocked, had combined to muffle the expression, the agony, +of her body. Even Lee Randon was appalled before the nakedness left by +the tearing away of everything imposed upon her. She should have said +that, he realized, unutterably sad, long ago, to William Grove. But, +instead, she had told him; and, whatever the consequences might be, he +must meet them. He had searched for this, for the potency in which lay +the meaning of Cytherea, and he had found it. He had looked for trouble, +and it was his in the realization alone that he could not, now, go home +tomorrow morning. + + * * * * * + +In his room the tropical fruits and whiskey and cigarettes were by his +bed, the percolator ready for morning; and, stopping in his preparations +for the night, he mixed himself a drink and sat moodily over it. What +had happened downstairs seemed, more than anything else, astounding; +Mrs. Grove, Savina, had bewildered him with the power, the bitterness, +of her feeling. At the thought of her shaken with passionate emotion +his own nerves responded and the racing of his blood was audible in his +head. What had happened he didn't regret; dwelling on it, the memory was +almost as sharply pleasant as the reality; yet he wasn't concerned with +the present, but of the future--tomorrow. + +He should, probably, get home late in the afternoon or in the evening; +and what he told himself was that he wouldn't come back to the Groves, +to Savina. The risk, the folly, was too great. Recalling his conclusions +about the attachments of men of his age, he had no illusion about the +possibly ideal character of an intimacy with William Grove's wife; she, +as well, had illuminated that beyond any obscurity of motive or +ultimate result. Lee's mind shifted to a speculation about the cause of +their--their accident. No conscious act, no desire, of his had brought +it on them; and it was evident that no conscious wish of hers had +materialized their unrestrainable kisses. Savina's life, beyond +question, must have been largely spent in hiding, combatting, her +secret--the fact that her emotion was too great for life. + +However, Lee Randon didn't try to tell himself that no other man had +shared his discovery; indeed, Savina, too, had wisely avoided that +challenge to his experience and wisdom. Like her he deliberately turned +away from the past; and, in the natural chemistry of that act, the +provision for his masculine egotism, it was dissolved into nothingness. +He was concentrated on the incident in the library: dancing with her, +he had held her in a far greater, a prolonged, intimacy of contact; +something in the moment, a surprising of her defences, a slight +weariness in a struggle which must often seem to her unendurable, had +betrayed her. Nothing, then, than what had occurred, could have been +farther from his mind; he had never connected Mrs. Grove with such a +possibility; she hadn't, the truth was, at first attracted him in +that way. Now he thought that he had been blind to have missed her +resemblance to Cytherea. She was Cytherea! This, in a measure, accounted +for him, since, with so much to consider, he badly needed an accounting. +It wasn't simply, here, that he had kissed a married woman; there was +nothing revolutionary or specially threatening in that; it was the +sensation of danger, of lightning, the recognition of that profoundly +disturbing countenance, which filled him with gravity and a determined +plan of restraint. + +He recalled the fact that both Peyton Morris and Mina had insisted that +they had not been responsible for what had overtaken them; at the +time he had not credited this, he was certain that some significant +preliminaries had been indulged in; but positively Savina and he had +been swept off their feet. A sense of helplessness, of the +extreme danger of existence, permeated and weakened his opposing +determination--he had no choice, no freedom of will; nothing august, +in him or outside, had come to his assistance. In addition to this, he +was--as in maturity he had always been--without a convenient recognition +of right and wrong. What he principally felt about Savina was a helpless +sense of tragedy, that and a hatred for the world, for the tepid +society, which had no use for high passion. + +To have kissed her, under the circumstances, appeared to him not only +natural, but inevitable; and he was suffering from no feeling of guilt; +neither toward William Grove, in whose house he was a guest, nor to +Fanny--those widely heralded attitudes were largely a part of a public +hypocrisy which had no place in the attempted honesty of his thoughts. +Lee was merely mapping out a course in the direction of worldly wisdom. +Then, inconsistently leaving that promise of security, he reviewed every +moment, every thrilling breath, with Savina Grove after the Davencotts +had gone: he felt, in exact warm similitude, her body pressed against +his, her parted lips; he heard the little escaping "Ah!" of her fervor. + +He put his glass down abruptly and tramped from wall to wall, his +unbuttoned silk waistcoat swinging about his arms. Lee Randon now cursed +himself, he cursed Savina, but most of all he cursed William Grove, +sleeping in complacent ignorance beside his wife. His imagination, +aroused and then defrauded, became violent, wilfully obscene, and +his profanity emerged from thought to rasping sound. His forehead, he +discovered, was wet, and he dropped once more into the chair by the +laden tray, took a deep drink from a fresh concoction. "This won't +do," he said; "it's crazy." And he resumed the comforting relief that +tomorrow would be different: he'd say good-bye to the Groves together +and, in four hours, he'd be back in Eastlake. The children, if he took +a late train, would be in bed, and Fanny, with her feet on the stool, +engaged with her fancy work. + +Then his revolving thoughts took him back to the unanswered mystery +of what, actually, had happened to Savina and him. He lost her for +Cytherea, he lost Cytherea in her; the two, the immobile doll and the +woman torn with vitality, merged to confound him. In the consideration +of Savina and himself, he discovered that they, too, were alike; +yet, while he had looked for a beauty, a quality, without a name, a +substance, Savina wanted a reality every particle of which she had +experienced and achingly knew. He, more or less, was troubled by a +vision, but her necessity was recognizable in flesh. There, it might be +again, she was more fortunate, stronger, superior. It didn't matter. + +No inclination to sleep drugged the activity of his mind or promised him +the release, the medicine, of a temporary oblivion. He had a recurrence +of the rebellious spirit, in which he wondered if Grove did sleep in +the same room with Savina. And then increasingly he got what he called +a hold on himself. All that troubled him seemed to lift, to melt into a +state where the hopeless was irradiated with tender memories. His +mood changed to a pervasive melancholy in which he recalled the lost +possibilities of his early ambitions, the ambitions that, without form +or encouragement, had gone down before definite developments. When he +spoke of these, tentatively, to Fanny, she always replied serenely that +she was thankful for him as he was, she would not have liked him to be +anything queer. + +But if he had met Savina first, and married her, his career would have +been something else entirely; now, probably--so fiercely their +combined flame would have burned--it would be over. However, during its +course--he drew in a long audible breath. It was no good thinking +of that! He completed his preparations for the night; but he still +lingered, some of the drink remained. Lee was glad that he had grown +quieter, reflective, middle-aged; it was absurd, undignified, for him to +imitate the transports of the young. It pleased him, though, to realize +that he wasn't done, extinguished, yet; he might play court tennis--it +wasn't as violent as racquets or squash--and get back a little of his +lapsed agility; better still, he'd ride more, take three days a week, +he could well afford to, instead of only Saturday and holidays in the +country. + +It was a mistake to disparage continually the life, the pleasures and +friends, he had--the friends he had gathered through long arduous years +of effort. He must grow more familiar with Helena and Gregory, too; no +one had handsomer or finer children. And there was Fanny--for one friend +of his she had ten; she was universally liked and admired. Lee was, at +last, in bed; but sleep continued to evade him. He didn't fall asleep, +but sank into a waking dose; his mind was clear, but not governed by +his conscious will; it seemed to him that there was no Savina Grove, but +only Cytherea; her smile, her fascination, everywhere followed him. A +damned funny business, life! At times its secret, the meaning of love, +was almost clear, and then, about to be freed by knowledge, his thoughts +would break, grow confused, and leave him still baffled. + +Lee Randon was startled to find the brightness of morning penetrating +his eyes; ready for his bath, with the percolator choking and bubbling +in the next room, he rehearsed, reaffirmed, all that he had decided the +night before. No one was with him at the breakfast table elaborate with +repousse silver and embroidered linen and iced fruit; but, returning +upstairs, he saw Savina in her biscuit-colored suit in the library. +"William had to go to Washington," she told him; "he left his regrets." +She was, Lee perceived, almost haggard, with restless hands; but +she didn't avoid his gaze. She stood by the table, one hand, gloved, +slightly behind her on it. Bending forward he kissed her more intently, +more passionately, more wholly, than ever before. + + * * * * * + +"I hadn't meant to do that," he said; but his speech was only +mechanical, as though, when he had once made it up, it discharged +itself, in a condition where it was no longer valid, in spite of him. +Savina replied with a silent smile. Her drawn appearance had gone; she +was animated, sparkling, with vitality; even her body seemed fuller. + +"We shall have a long unbroken day together," she told him; "I have to +go out for an hour, and then it will begin, here, I think, with lunch." + +"I ought to be back in Eastlake," he confessed. + +"Don't think of that till it comes. Eastlake has had you a long time, +compared with a day. But there are days and days." They kissed each +other. "I'll go now." She kissed Lee. "Lunch will be at two." He kissed +her. He didn't leave the library until a maid announced that lunch was +ready and the fact of her return. At the table they spoke but little; +Lee Randon was enveloped in a luxurious feeling--where Savina was +concerned--of security; there was no need to hurry; the day lengthened +out into the night and an infinity of happy minutes and opportunities. +They discussed, however, what to do with it. + +"I'd like to go out to dinner," she decided; "and then a theatre, but +nothing more serious than a spectacle: any one of the Follies. I am sick +of Carnegie Hall and pianists and William's solemn box at the Opera; and +afterwards we'll go back to that café and drink champagne and dance." + +That, he declared, with a small inner sinking at the thought of Fanny, +would be splendid. "And this afternoon--?" + +"We'll be together." + +They returned to the library--more secluded from servants and callers +than the rooms on the lower floor--where, at one end of the massive +lounge, they smoked and Savina talked. "I hardly went to sleep at all," +she admitted; "I thought of you every second. Do you think your wife +would like me?" She asked the vain question which no woman in her +situation seemed able to avoid. + +"Of course," he lied heroically. + +"I want her to, although I can't, somehow, connect you with her; I +can't see you married. No doubt because I don't want to; it makes me +wretched." She half turned in his arms, pressed hard against him, and +plunged her gaze into his. + +"It often seems strange to me," he admitted, caught in the three-fold +difficulty of the truth, his feeling for her, and a complete niceness +in whatever touched Fanny. He attempted to explain. "Everything about +my home is perfect, but, at times, and I can't make out why, it doesn't +seem mine. It might, from the way I feel, belong to another man--the +house and Fanny and the children. I stand in it all as though I had +suddenly waked from a dream, as though what were around me had lasted +somehow from the dream into life." He repeated to her the process of his +thoughts, feelings, at once so familiar and inexplicable. + +She wasn't, he found, deeply interested in his explanation; she was +careless of anything but the immediate present. Savina never mentioned +William Grove. Animated by countless tender inventive expressions of her +passion, she gave the impression of listening to the inflections of his +voice rather than attending, considering, its meanings. She was more +fully surrendered to the situation than he. The disorganized fragments +of a hundred ideas and hints poured in rapid succession, back of +his dominating emotion, through Lee's brain. He lost himself only in +waves--the similitude to the sea persisted--regular, obliterating, but +separate. Savina was far out in a tideless deep that swept the solidity +of no land. + +She was plastically what he willed; blurred, drunk, with sensation, she +sat clasping rigidly the edge of his coat. But his will, he discovered, +was limited: the surges of physical desire, rising and inundating, +saturating him, broke continually and left him with the partly-formed +whirling ideas. He named, to himself, the thing that hung over them; +he considered it and put it away; he deferred the finality of +their emotion. In this he was inferior, he became even slightly +ridiculous--they couldn't continue kissing each other with the same +emphasis hour after hour, and the emphasis could not be indefinitely +multiplied; rather than meet the crescendo he drew into his region of +cental obscurity. + +Lee had to do this, he reminded himself, in view of Savina's utter +surrender: he was responsible for whatever happened. Even here his +infernal queerness--that the possession of the flesh wasn't what +primarily moved him--was pursuing him: a peculiarity, he came to think, +dangerously approaching the abnormal. In addition to that, however, he +was not ready, prepared, to involve his future; for that, with Savina +Grove, was most probable to follow. Fanny was by no means absent from +his mind, his wife and certain practical realities. And, as he had told +himself before, he was not a seducer. What adventures he had accepted +had been the minor experiments of his restlessness, and they all ended +in the manner that had finished him with Anette, in dissatisfaction and +a sense of waste. + +Savina stirred and sighed. "I must ring for tea," she said regretfully; +and, while the servant arranged the pots and decanters and pitchers, +the napkins and filled dishes, Lee paced up and down, smoking. When they +were again alone her fingers stole under his arm: + +"I adore you for--for everything." She had evaded the purpose of her +speech. He wondered, with the exasperation of his over-wrought physical +suspense, if she did. His ravishment had suffered a sharp natural +decline reflected in a mental gloom. For the moment he desired nothing, +valued nothing. And, in this mood, he became talkative; he poured a +storm of pessimistic observation over Savina; and she listened with a +rapt, transported, attention. It stopped as suddenly as it had begun, +in a silence coincident with dusk. The room slowly lost its sombre color +and the sense of the confining walls; it became grey and apparently +limitless; as monotonous, Lee Randon thought, as life. He was disturbed +by a new feeling: that perversely, trivially, he had spoiled what should +have been a priceless afternoon. It would never come back; what a fool +he had been to waste in aimless talk any of the few hours which together +they owned. + +He whispered this to Savina, in his arms; but she would permit no +criticism of him. It was time, she discovered, for them to dress for +their party: "I don't want you to go. Why can't you be with me? But +then, the servants! Lee, I am going to die when you leave. Tell me, how +can I live, what am I to do, without you?" Since no satisfactory reply +to that was possible, he stopped her troubled voice with a kiss. It was +remarkable how many they had exchanged. + +He had the feeling, the hope, that, with nothing irrevocable +consummated, their parting would be easier; but he began to lose that +comfortable assurance. Again in his room, in the heavy choking folds of +velvet draperies, he was grave; the mere excitation of the night before +had gone. What was this, he asked himself, that he had got into? What +had Cytherea to do with it? Ungallantly the majority of his thoughts +were engaged with the possibility, the absolute necessity, of escape. By +God, he must get out of it, or rather, get it out of him! But it wasn't +too late; he could even finish the day, this delight, with safety. +Savina would recover--she had already thanked him for his self-control. + +It was fortunate that she was a woman of distinction, of +responsibilities, with a delicate habit of mind; another might have +brought disaster, followed him to Eastlake. He recalled a story of +George Sand tearing off her bodice before the house of a man she loved. +Yet... why hadn't he gone quietly away, early in the morning, before +Savina was up? He was appalled at the depths to which he had fallen, the +ignominious appearance that interrogated him from the pier-glass; Lee +saw himself in the light of a coward--a cheap, safe sensation-maker. +Nothing was more contemptible. Damn it to hell, what was he? Where was +he? Either he ought to go home or not, and the not carried the fullest +possible significance. But he didn't want to do one or the other--he +wanted Cytherea, or Savina, on some absurd impracticable plane, and +Fanny too. Why couldn't he go home when home was uppermost in his +thoughts and do something else when it wasn't? Did the fact that Fanny +might happen to want him annul all his liberty in living; or, in place +of that, were they, in spirit and body, one? + + * * * * * + +It was inevitable to the vacillating state of his being that, finding +Savina in an exceptionally engaging black dress with floating sleeves of +sheer lace and a string of rare pearls, he should forget all his doubts +in the pleasure of their intimacy. Even now, in response to his gaze, +her face lost its usual composure and became pinched, stricken, with +feeling. Lee Randon was possessed by a recklessness that hardened him +to everything but the present moment: such times were few in existence, +hours of vivid living which alone made the dull weight of years +supportable. This belonged to Savina and him; they were accountable only +to each other. It was a sensation like the fortunate and exhilarating +effect of exactly the right amount of wine. The emotion that flooded +them had freed Lee from responsibility; sharpening one set of +perceptions, it had obliterated the others, creating a spirit of holiday +from which nothing prosaic, utilitarian, should detract. + +They hadn't yet decided where to go for dinner; and, drawing aside +into a small reception room to embrace and consider, they selected the +Lafayette, because its Continental air assisted the illusion of their +escape from all that was familiar and perfunctory. Their table, by +a railing overlooking the sweep of the salle à manger, was precisely +placed for their happiness. It was so narrow that the heels of Savina's +slippers were sharply pressed into his insteps; when her hand fell +forward it rested on his. Lee ordered a great deal, of which very little +was eaten; the hors d'oeuvre appeared and vanished, followed by the +soup and an entrée; a casserole spread the savory odor of its contents +between them; the salad was crisply, palely green, and ignored; and, +before it seemed humanly possible, he had his cigar and was stirring the +French coffee. + +"Shall we be late for the theatre?" he asked indifferently. + +"I haven't the least interest in it," Savina assured him; "I can't +imagine why we bought the seats. Why did we, Lee, when we have each +other?" + +"Our own private Folly." He smiled at her. + +"Not that," she reproved him; "I can't bear to think of it in a small +way. Why, it will be all I'll ever have--I shall never think of anyone +else like this again; and you'll go back, you'll go away. But I hope +you won't forget me, not at once--you must keep me in your heart for a +little." + +"I'll never be able to get you out," he declared. + +"You want to, then, and I am--" She lost control of herself as though +she had passed into a hypnosis, uniquely frozen with passion, incapable +of movement, of the accommodation of her sight; her breathing was slow, +almost imperceptible in its shallowness. "I am a part of you," Savina +went on when she had recovered. "It would kill me if I weren't. But it +does mean something." Her heel cut until he thought he was bleeding. + +"What?" he asked, through the thin azure smoke of the cigar. She shook +her head contentedly: + +"I don't care; I have--now, anyway--what I wish, what I've always wished +for--you. I didn't know it was you right away, how could I? Not even +when we had tea, and talked about Mina and your young Morris, that first +afternoon. It was the next day before I understood. Why wasn't it long +long ago, when I was a girl, twelve years old? Yes, quite that early. +Isn't it queer, Lee, how I have been troubled by love? It bothers hardly +anyone else, it scarcely touches the rest. There is a lot of talk +about it, but, all the while, people detest it. They are always wearing +dresses and pretentions they can't afford to have mussed. It--I am still +talking of love, Lee darling--breaks up their silly society and morals +... like a strong light thrown on something shabby." + +Once more he had the feeling that, before the actuality of Savina's +tragic necessity, his own speculations were merely visionary, +immaterial; yet he tried to put them into words, to explain, so far as +he was able, what it was in him that was hers. But he did this omitting, +perhaps, the foundation of all that he was trying to say--he didn't +speak of Cytherea. He avoided putting the doll into words because he +could think of none that would make his meaning, his attachment, clear. +Lee couldn't, very well, across the remnants of dinner, admit to Savina +that a doll bought out of a confectioner's window on Fifth Avenue so +deeply influenced him. He hadn't lost Cytherea in Savina so much as, +vitalized, he had found her. And, while he had surrendered completely +to the woman and emotion, at the same time the immaterial aspect of his +search, if he could so concretely define it, persisted. The difference +between Savina and himself was this: while she was immersed, +obliterated, satisfied, in her passion, a part of him, however small, +stayed aside. It didn't control him, but simply went along, like a +diminutive and wondering child he had by the hand. + +Cytherea, at this moment, would be softly illuminated by the shifting +glow of the fire and, remote in her magical perspective, would seem at +the point of moving, of beckoning for him with her lifted hand. + +"What were you seeing in the smoke?" Savina asked; and he replied with +an adequate truth, "You." + +"Why not just look at me, then, instead of staring?" + +"I see you everywhere." + +"Adorable," she whispered. + +No such name, no terms of endearment, occurred to him for her; why, he +didn't know; but they had no place in his present situation. He had to +think of Savina as removed from whatever had described and touched +other special women. The words which had always been the indispensable +property of such affairs were now distasteful to him. They seemed to +have a smoothly false, a brassy, ring; while he was fully, even gaily, +committed, he had a necessity to make his relationship with Savina Grove +wholly honest. As he paid the account she asked him if he were rich. + +"Your husband wouldn't think so," he replied; "yet I am doing well +enough; I can afford dinner and the theatre." + +"I wish you had a very great deal of money." + +"Why?" He gazed at her curiously. + +"It's so useful," Savina told him generally; but that, he felt, was not +completely what was in her mind. "What I have," she went on, "is quite +separate from William's. It is my mother's estate." + +"My brother, Daniel, has done very well in Cuba," Lee commented. Savina +was interested: + +"I have never been there; cooler climates are supposed to suit my heart +better; but I know I should love it--the close burning days and intense +nights." + +"Daniel tells me there's usually the trade wind at night." His voice +reflected his lack of concern. + +"I have a feeling," she persisted, "that I am more of Havana than I am, +for example, of Islesboro. Something in the tropics and the people, +the Spanish! Those dancing girls in gorgeous shawls, they haven't any +clothes underneath; and that nakedness, the violence of their passions, +the danger and the knives and the windows with iron bars, stir me. It's +all so different from New York. I want to burn up with a red flower in +my hair and not cool into stagnation." + +They were in her closed automobile, where it was faintly scented by +roses yellow and not crimson. She sat upright, withdrawn from him, with +her hands clenched in her lap. How she opposed every quality of Mina +Raff's; what a contradiction the two women, equally vital, presented. +And Fanny, perhaps no less forceful, was still another individual. Lee +Randon was appalled at the power lying in the fragile persons of women. +It controlled the changeless and fateful elements of life; while the +strength of men, it occurred to him further, was concerned with such +secondary affairs as individual ambitions and a struggle eternally +condemned to failure. + +Savina relaxed, every instinct and nerve turned toward him, but they +were at the theatre. + +The performance had been on, an usher told them, for almost three +quarters of an hour. Their seats were in the fifth row, the middle; +and there was an obscured resentful stirring as they took their places. +Plunged into darkness, their hands and shoulders and knees met. Savina, +scarcely above her breath, said "Ah!" uncontrollably; she was so charged +with emotion that her body seemed to vibrate, a bewildering warmness +stole through him from her; and once more, finally, he sank into +questionless depths. The brightness of the stage, at first, had no more +form nor meaning than the whirling pattern of a kaleidoscope, against +which the people around him were unsubstantial silhouettes, blind to the +ardor that merged Savina and him into one sentient form alone in a world +of shadows. + + * * * * * + +The spectacle on the stage, Russian in motive, was set in harmonized +barbaric color--violent movements under a diffused light: in the +background immobile peasant-like figures held tall many-branched +candlesticks; there were profane gold mitres, vivid stripes and morocco +leather; cambric chemises slipping from breasts and the revelation of +white thighs. It floated, like a vision of men's desire realized in +beautiful and morbid symbols, above the darkened audience; it took what, +in the throng, was imperfect, fragmentary, and spent, but still strong, +brutal, formless, and converted it into a lovely and sterile pantomime. +Yet there was no sterility in what had, primarily, animated it; the +change, it seemed, had been from use to ornament, from purpose to a +delight with no issue beyond that. Over it there hung, for Lee Randon, +the pale radiance of Cytherea. + +Other visions and spectacles followed, they melted one into the next, +sensations roused by the flexible plaited thongs of desire. Lee, +stupefied in the heavy air of his own sensuality, saw the pictorial life +on the stage as an accompaniment, the visualization, of his obsession. +It was over suddenly, with a massing of form and sound; Lee and Savina +Grove were pitilessly drowned in light. Crushed together in the crowded, +slowly emptying aisle, her pliable body, under its wrap, followed his +every movement. + +On the street, getting into the automobile, she directed Adamson to +drive through the park. "I don't want to go to the Malmaison," she told +Lee. Her ungloved fingers worked a link from his cuff and her hand crept +up his arm. The murmur of her voice was ceaseless, like a low running +and running over melodious keys. Then, in a tone no louder, but changed, +unexpected, she said: + +"Lee, I love you." + +It startled him; its effect was profound--now that it had been said he +was completely delivered to his gathering sense of the inevitable. +It secured, like a noose, all his intentions; he was neither glad nor +sorry; what was the use? His own feeling--if this were love and what +love was--eluded him. Above every other recognition, though, was a +consciousness of impending event. What happened now, in the car rapidly +approaching Central Park, was unimportant, without power to contain +him in its moment. They turned in at the Fifty-ninth Street entrance: +through the glass there was a shifting panorama of black branches, +deserted walks and benches and secretive water. He saw vaguely the +Belvedere, the Esplanade fountain, and the formal length of the Mall, +together with--flung against the sky--the multitudinous lighted windows +of Central Park West, the high rippling shimmer of the monumental lifted +electric signs on Broadway. Other cars passed, swift and soundless, +he saw their occupants and then they were gone: an aged man whose grey +countenance might have been moulded in sand with a frigid trained nurse; +a couple desperately embracing in a taxi-cab; a knot of chattering women +in dinner dresses and open furs; another alone, painted, at once hard +and conciliatory, hurrying to an appointment. + +The tension, his suspense, increased until he thought it must burst +out the windows. Between the shudders and the kissing he kept wondering +when.... It was Savina, at the speaking-tube, who commanded their +return. They left the Park for Fifth Avenue, Sixty-sixth Street. Lee got +out, but she didn't follow. He waited expectantly. The night had grown +very much colder. Why, in the name of God, didn't she come? + +"In a moment" he heard her say faintly. But when she moved it was with +decision; there was no hesitation in her manner of mounting the stone +steps. The maid came forward as they entered, first to help Savina, and +then to take Lee's hat and coat and stick. Savina turned to him, holding +out her hand, speaking in a high steady voice: + +"Thank you very much--wasn't it nice?--and good-night." Without another +word, giving him no opportunity to speak, to reply, she turned neither +hurried nor slow to the stairway. + +He was dumfounded, and showed it, he was sure, in the stupidity of his +fixed gesture of surprise. The emotion choked in his throat was bitter +with a sense of ill-treatment. To cover his confusion, he searched +obviously through his pockets for a cigarette case which he had left, +he knew, in his overcoat. Then, when the servant had retired, he +softly cursed. However, the bitterness, his anger, were soon lost in +bewilderment; that, with the appearance of resolving itself into a +further mystery, carried him up to his room. With a mixed drink on a +dressing-case, he wandered aimlessly around, his brain occupied with one +question, one possibility. + +Piece by piece, at long intervals, he removed his clothes, found his +pajamas and dressing-gown, and washed. The drink he discovered later +untouched and he consumed it almost at a gulp. Lee poured out another, +and a third; but they had no effect on him. + +In spite of them he suffered a mild collapse of the nerves; his hands +were without feeling, at once like marble and wet with sweat; his heart +raced. A pervading weariness and discouragement followed this. He was +in a hellish mess, he told himself fiercely. The bravado of the words +temporarily gave him more spirit; yet there was nothing he could do +but go to bed. Nothing else had been even hinted at; he turned off the +lights and opened the windows. Flares of brightness continued to pass +before his eyes, and, disinclined to the possibilities of sleep, he +propped himself up with an extra pillow. Then, illogically, he wondered +if he had locked the door; at the instant of rising to find out, he +restrained himself--if, subconsciously, he had, chance and not he had +worked; for or against him, what did it matter? + +He looked at the illuminated dial of his watch; the hands, the numerals, +greenly phosphorescent, were sharp; it was midnight. After apparently an +interminable wait he looked again--six minutes past twelve. The rumble +of an elevated train approached, hung about the room, and receded. Death +could be no more dragging than this. Why, then, didn't he fall asleep? +Lee went over and over every inflection of Savina's final words to +him; in them he tried, but vainly, to find encouragement, promise, any +decision or invitation. What, in the short passage from the automobile +to the house, could have so wholly changed, frozen, her? Had she, at +that late opportunity, remembering the struggle, the tragic unrelenting +need, to keep herself aloof from passion, once more successfully fled? +Was she--he was almost dozing--Cytherea, the unobtainable? + +He woke, stirred, convulsively: it was after one o'clock now. The +craving for a cigarette finally moved him; and, in the dark, he felt +around for those, the Dimitrinos, on the tray. The cigarette at an end, +he sank back on the pillows, deciding that he must take the earliest +train possible toward Eastlake. He had missed a directors' meeting +today, and there was another tomorrow that he must attend, at his +office. Then he grew quieter; the rasping of his nerves ceased; it +was as though, suddenly, they had all been loosened, the strung wires +unturned. What a remarkable adventure he had been through; not a +detail of it would ever fade from his memory--a secret alleviation for +advancing old age, impotence. And this, the most romantic occurrence of +his life, had happened when he was middle-aged, forty-seven and worse, +to be exact. He looked again at his watch, but now only from a lingering +uncertain curiosity. It was five minutes of two. + +The present peace that settled over him seemed the most valuable thing +life had to offer; it was not like the end of effort, but resembled a +welcome truce, a rest with his force unimpaired, from which he would +wake to the tonic winter realities of tomorrow. An early train-- + +In the act of dropping, half asleep, into the position of slumber, he +halted sharply, propped up on an elbow. A sense invaded him of something +unusual, portentous, close by. There wasn't a sound, a flicker of +audible movement, a break in the curtain of dark; yet he was breathless +in a strained oppressive attention. It was impossible to say whether his +disturbance came from within or without, whether it was in his pounding +blood or in the room around him. Then he heard a soft thick settling +rustle, the sound a fur coat might make falling to the floor; and, +simultaneously, a vague slender whiteness appeared on the night. A swift +conviction fastened on him that here he had been overtaken by fate; +by what, for so long, he had invited. Out of the insubstantiality a +whispering voice spoke to him: + +"Lee, where are you? It's so cold." + + + + +IV + + +Twice, the following day, Lee telephoned to Fanny, but neither time was +she in the house; and, kept at his office, he was obliged to take an +inconvenient train that made a connection for Eastlake. When Lee reached +the countryside opening in the familiar hilly vistas he had, in place of +the usual calm recognitions through a run of hardly more than an hour, a +sense of having come a long way to a scene from which he had been +absent for years. It appeared to him remarkably tranquil and +self-contained--safe was the word which came to him. He was glad to +be there, but at indeterminate stations rather than in Eastlake. He +dreaded, for no plainly comprehended reason, his return home. The +feelings that, historically, he should have owned were all absent. Had +it been possible he would have cancelled the past forty-eight hours; +but Lee was forced to admit to himself that he was not invaded by a very +lively sense of guilt. He made a conventional effort to see his act +in the light of a grave fault--whatever was attached to the charge of +adultery--but it failed before the conviction that the whole thing was +sad. + +His sorrow was for Savina, for the suffering of her past, the ordeal of +the present, and the future dreariness. There had been no suggestion of +wrong in her surrender, no perceptible consciousness of shame: it +was exactly as though, struggling to the limit of endurance against a +powerful adverse current, she had turned and swept with it. The fact was +that the entire situation was utterly different from the general +social and moral conception of it; and Lee began to wonder which were +stronger--the individual truth or the imposed dogmatic weight of the +world. But the latter, he added, would know nothing of this. Concisely, +there was to be no repetition of last night; there would be no affair. + +Lee Randon had completely and sharply focussed the most adverse possible +attitude toward that: he saw it without a redeeming feature and bare +of any chance of pleasure. His need for honesty, however special, was +outraged on every facet by the thought of an intrigue. Lee reconstructed +it in every detail--he saw the moments, doubtful and hurried and +surreptitious, snatched in William Grove's house; the servants, +with their penetration of the tone of an establishment, knowing and +insufferable; he lived over the increasing dissatisfaction with quick +embraces in the automobile, and the final indignities of lying names and +rooms of pandering and filthy debasement. The almost inevitable exposure +followed, the furies and hysterical reproaches. That, indeed, would +have involved them fatally: in such circumstances the world would be +invincible, crushing; holding solidly its front against such dangerous +assault, it would have poured over Savina and him a conviction of sin in +which they would unavoidably have perished. + +As it was, he had told her--with, in himself, the feeling of a +considerable discovery--that they were to a marked degree superior: +he could find no more remorse at his heart than Savina showed. This, +exactly, was his inner conviction--that, since he had given something +not in Fanny's possession, he had robbed her of nothing. It was a new +idea to him and it required careful thought, a slow justification. It +answered, perhaps, once and for all, his question about the essential +oneness of marriage. Yes, that was a misconception; marriage in an ideal +state he wasn't considering, but only his own individual position. To +love but one woman through this life and into a next would be blissful +... if it were possible; there might be a great deal saved--but by +someone else--in heroically supporting such an Elysian tenet; Lee Randon +definitely hadn't the necessary utopianism. + +Love wasn't a sacred fluid held in a single vessel of alabaster; +marriage didn't conveniently create shortsightedness. Lee couldn't +pretend to answer all this for women, or even in part for Savina. +Her attitude, he knew, in that it never touched the abstract, was far +simpler than his; she didn't regard herself as scarlet, but thought of +the rest of the world as unendurably drab. The last thing she had said +to him was that she was glad, glad, that it had happened. This, too, in +Savina, had preserved them from the slightest suggestion of inferiority: +the night assumed no resemblance to a disgraceful footnote on the page +of righteousness. It was complete--and, by God, admirable!--within +itself. No one, practically, would agree with him, and here, in the fact +that no one ever could know, his better wisdom was shown. + +About love, the thing itself, his perceptions remained dim: he had loved +Fanny enormously at the time of their wedding and he loved her now, so +many years after; but his feeling--as he had tried so unfortunately to +tell her--wasn't the same, it had grown calm; it had become peaceful, +but an old tempestuous need had returned. Yet, until he had gone to the +Groves', his restlessness had been trivial, hardly more than academic, a +half-smiling interest in a doll; but now, after he had left the realm +of fancy for an overt act, a full realization of his implication was +imperative. Without it he would be unable to preserve any satisfactory +life with Fanny at all; his uneasiness must merely increase, become +intolerable. Certainly there was a great, it should be an inexhaustible, +amount of happiness for him in his wife, his children and his home; he +would grow old and negative with them, and there die. + +But a lot of mental re-adjustment, understanding, was necessary first. +Suddenly the minor adventures and sensations of the past had become, +even before the completeness of the affair with Savina, insuperably +distasteful to him; he simply couldn't look forward to a procession +of them reaching to impotence. No, no, no! That was never Cytherea's +import. He didn't want to impoverish himself by the cheap flinging away +of small coin from his ultimate store. He didn't, equally, wish to keep +on exasperating Fanny in small ways. That pettiness was wholly to blame +for what discomfort he had had. His wife's claim was still greater on +him than any other's; and what, now, he couldn't give her must be made +up in different ways. This conviction invested him with a fresh sense of +dignity and an increasing regard for Fanny. + +What a shame it was that he could not go quietly to her with all this, +tell her everything. A lie was rooted, concealed, beyond removal at the +base of the honesty he planned. There was, of course, this additional +phase of the difficulty--what had happened concerned Savina even more +than it did his wife and him. He had Savina Grove, so entirely in his +hands, to guard. And the innate animosity of women toward women was +incalculable. That wasn't a new thought, but it recurred to him with +special force. As much as he desired it, utter frankness, absolute +safety, was impossible. Fanny's standard of duty, or responsibility, was +worlds apart from his. + +Bitterly and without premeditation he cursed the tyranny of sex; in +countless forms it dominated, dictated, every aspect of life. Men's +conception of women was quite exclusively founded on it in its aspects +of chastity or license. In the latter they deprecated the former, and in +the first they condemned all trace of the latter. The result of this was +that women, the prostitutes and the mothers alike, as well, had no +other validity of judgment. The present marriage was hardly more than +an exchange of the violation of innocence, or of acted innocence, for +an adequate material consideration. If this were not true, why was +innocence--a silly fact in itself--so insisted upon? Lee was forced +to conclude however, that it was the fault of men: they turned, at an +advancing age when it was possible to gather a comfortable competence, +to the young. By that time their emotions were apt to be almost +desperately variable. + +In his case it had been different--but life was different, easier, when +he had married--and his wedding most appropriate to felicity. Yet that, +against every apparent reason to the contrary, had vanished, and left +him this calm determining of his fate. Through his thoughts a quirk of +memory ran like a tongue of flame. He felt Savina's hand under his cuff; +he felt her sliding, with her arms locked about his neck, out of her +furs in the automobile; a white glimmer, a whisper, she materialized in +the coldness of the night. There was a long-drawn wailing blast from the +locomotive--they were almost entering the train-shed at Eastlake. When +Fanny expected him, and it was possible, she met him at the station; +but tonight he would have to depend on one of the rattling local +motor hacks. Still, he looked for her and was faintly and unreasonably +disappointed at her absence. An uncontrollable nervousness, as he +approached his house, invaded the preparation of a warm greeting. + + * * * * * + +Fanny was seated at dinner, and she interrupted her recognition of his +arrival to order his soup brought in. "It's really awfully hard to +have things nice when you come at any time," she said in the voice +of restraint which usually mildly irritated him. He was apt to reply +shortly, unsympathetically; but, firm in the determination to improve +the tone of his relations with Fanny, he cheerfully met the evidence of +her sense of injury. "Of course," she added, "we expected you yesterday +up to the very last minute." When he asked her who exactly she meant +by we she answered, "The Rodmans and John and Alice Luce. It was all +arranged for you. Borden Rodman sent us some ducks; I remembered how you +liked them, and I asked the others and cooked them myself. That's mixed, +but you know what I mean. I had oysters and the thick tomato soup with +crusts and Brussels sprouts; and I sent to town for the alligator pears +and meringue. I suppose it can't be helped, and it's all over now, but +you might have let me know." + +"I am sorry, Fanny," he acknowledged; "at the last so much piled up to +do. Mina Raff was very doubtful. I can't tell if I accomplished anything +with her or not." Fanny seemed to have lost all interest in Peyton +Morris's affair. "I had dinner with Mina and talked a long while. At +bottom she is sensible enough; and very sensitive. I like sensitive +women." + +"You mean that you like other women to be sensitive," she corrected him; +"whenever I am, you get impatient and say I'm looking for trouble." + +There was, he replied, a great deal in what she said; and it must be +remedied. At this she gazed at him for a speculative second. "Where +did you take Mina Raff to dinner?" she asked; "and what did you do +afterward?" He told her. "She was so tired that she went back to the +Plaza before ten. No, I returned to the Groves'. It's no good being in +New York alone. We'll have our party together there before Christmas." + +"I imagined you'd see a lot of her." + +"Of Mina Raff? What nonsense! She is working all day and practically +never goes out. People have such wrong ideas about actresses, or +else they have changed and the opinions have stood still. They are +as business-like now as lawyers; you make an appointment with their +secretaries. Besides that, Mina doesn't specially attract me." + +"At any rate you call her Mina." + +"Why so I do; I hadn't noticed; but she hasn't started to call me Lee; I +must correct her." + +"They played bridge afterward," Fanny said, referring, he gathered, to +the occasion he had missed. "That is, the Rodmans and the Luces did, +and I sat around. People are too selfish for anything!" Her voice +grew sharper. "They stayed until after twelve, just because Borden was +nineteen dollars back at one time. And they drank all that was left of +your special Mount Vernon. It was last night that you were at the St. +Regis?" + +"No," he corrected her, "the night before. Last evening I had dinner +with the Groves." This was so nearly true that he advanced it with +satisfaction. "Afterward we went to the Greenwich Follies." + +"I don't see how you had to wait, then," she observed instantly. "You +were in New York on account of Claire, you stayed three nights, and only +saw Mina Raff once." He told her briefly that, unexpectedly, more had +turned up. "What did you do the first night?" she persisted. + +"I dragged a cash girl into an opium place on Pell Street." + +"That's not too funny to be borne," she returned; "and it doesn't +altogether answer my question." + +"We went to Malmaison." + +"We?" she mimicked his earlier query. + +"Oh, the Groves. I like them very much, Fanny--" To her interruption +that that was evident he paid no attention. "He is an extremely nice +man, a little too conscious of his pedestal, but solid and cordial. +Mrs. Grove is more unusual; I should say she was a difficult woman to +describe. She dresses beautifully, Paris and the rest of it; but she +isn't a particle good-looking. Not a bit! It's her color, I think. She +hasn't any. Women would fancy her more than men; no one could call her +pleasant." + +"You haven't asked about the children." She had apparently heard nothing +of what had gone before. + +"Of course they are all right or you'd have told me." + +"Lee, you astonish me, you really do; at times I think you forget you +have a family. We'll all be dead before you know it. I'm sorry, but you +will have to get into the habit of staying home at least one night a +week. I attend to all I can manage about the place, but there are some +things you must settle. The trouble is I haven't demanded enough from +you." + +"That's silly," he responded, almost falling into his discarded +irritation; "I practically never go out without you. Unless you are with +me I won't be in New York again for weeks." + +"I should have thought you'd be back at the Groves's tomorrow. It's more +amusing there, I don't doubt; but, after all, you are married to me." + +"Good heavens, Fanny," he protested, "what is this about? You're really +cutting with the Groves--two excessively nice people who were decent to +me." + +"You are such an idiot," she declared, in a warmer voice. "Can't you see +how disappointed I was? First I had everything laid out on the bed, my +best nightgowns and lace stockings, for the trip; then I couldn't go; +and I arranged the party so carefully for you, Gregory had a practice +piece ready for you to hear, and--and nothing. I wonder if any other man +is as selfish as you?' + +"Maybe not," he returned peaceably. "What happened was unavoidable. It +was a social necessity, decided for me. I couldn't just run into the +house and out again. But there is no need to explain further." He left +the table, for a cigar, and returned. "You have on a new dress!" + +"I ought to be complimented," she admitted, "but I am not; it's only the +black velvet with the fulness taken out and a new ruffle. Clothes are so +expensive that I wanted to save. It isn't French, either. Perhaps you'll +remember that you said the new length didn't become me. No, you're not +the idiot--I am: I must stop considering and trying to please you at +every turn. I should have gone in and ordered a new dress; any other +woman you know would have done that; and, I have no doubt, would have +told you it was old when it wasn't. I wish I didn't show that I care so +much and kept you guessing. You'd be much more interested if you weren't +so sure of me. That seems to me queer--loyalty and affection, and +racking your brain to make your husband comfortable and happy, don't +bring you anything. They don't! You'll leave at once for a night in New +York or a new face with an impudent bang at the dances. I have always +tried to do what I thought was right, but I'm getting discouraged." + +"Don't lose patience with me," he begged gravely. "If I am worth the +effort to you, Fanny, don't stop. I do the best I can. Coming out in the +train I made up my mind to stop petty quarreling. No, wait--if it is my +fault that makes it easy, we're done with it." + +"From the way you talk," she objected, "anyone would think we did +nothing but fight. And that isn't true; we have never had a bit of +serious trouble." She rose, coming around to him: + +"That wasn't a very nice kiss we had when you came in. I was horrid." + +Lee Randon kissed her again. The cool familiarity of her lips was +blurred in the remembered clinging intensity of Savina's mouth. "Lee, +dear, blow out the candles; the servants forget, and those blue handmade +ones cost twenty-five cents apiece." They left the dining-room with +her arm about him and his hand laid on her shoulder. Lee's feeling was +curious--he recognized Fanny's desirability, he loved her beyond all +doubt, and yet physically she had now no perceptible influence on him. +He was even a little embarrassed, awkward, at her embrace; and its +calmly possessive pressure filled him with a restive wish to move away. +He repressed this, forced himself to hold her still, repeated silently +all that she had given him; and she turned a face brilliant with color +to his gaze. Fanny made him bring her stool--how sharply Savina's heels +had dug into him under the table at the Lafayette--and showed him her +ankles. "You see, I put them on tonight for you." Her stockings, he +assured her, were enchanting. A difficulty that, incredibly, he had +not foreseen weighed upon him: the body, where Fanny was concerned, had +given place to the intellect; the warmth of his feeling had been put +aside for the logic of determination; and he was sick with weariness. In +his customary chair, he sank into a heavy brooding lethargy, a silence, +in which his hands slowly and stiffly clenched. + + * * * * * + +On the following morning, Sunday, Lee rode with Claire Morris. Fanny, +disinclined to activity, stayed by the open fire, with the illustrated +sections of the newspapers and her ornamental sewing. Claire was on, +a tall bright bay always a little ahead of Lee, and he was constantly +urging his horse forward. "Peyton went to the Green Spring Valley for a +hunt party last night," she told him; "he said he'd be back." Why, +then, he almost exclaimed, he, Lee, had been successful with Mina Raff. +Instead he said that she would undoubtedly be glad of that. "Oh, yes! +But neither of us is very much excited about it just now; he is too much +like a ball on a rubber string; and if I were a man I'd hate to resemble +that. I won't try to hide from you that I've lost something; still, I +have him and Mina hasn't. They shouldn't have hesitated, Lee; that was +what spoiled it, in the end beat them. It wasn't strong enough to carry +them away and damn the consequences. There is always something to admire +in that, even if you suffer from it." + +The night had been warm, and the road, the footing, was treacherous with +loosened stones and mud. The horses, mounting a hill, picked their way +carefully; and Lee Randon gazed over his shoulder into the valley below. +He saw it through a screen of bare wet maple branches--a dripping brown +meadow lightly wreathed in blue mist, sedgy undergrowth along water +and the further ranges of hills merged in shifting clouds. A shaft of +sunlight, pale and without warmth, illuminated with its emphasis an +undistinguished and barren spot. On the meadows sloping to the south +there were indefinite spaces of green. Claire was heedless of their +surroundings. + +"What does surprise and disturb me," she continued vigorously, "is that +I haven't any sympathy for him. That is gone too; I only have a feeling +that he bitched it. As you may observe, Lee, I am not at all admirable +this morning: a figure of inconsistency. And the reason will amaze +you--I've rather come to envy what they might have had. I am afraid that +if the positions of Mina and me had been reversed I wouldn't have seen +you in New York. I found that out last night when I knew Peyton wasn't +going. What he said over and over was that everything could be just +as it was." She laughed, riding easily, subconsciously, on the snaffle +rein. "Peyton's simplicity is marvelous. In a year, or maybe less, he +will be quite the same as always. I had nothing to do with it; Peyton +and Mina will go on as fresh as daisies; yet only I'll be damaged or, +anyway, changed. What shall I do about it?" she demanded of Lee Randon, +so sharply that her horse shied. + +"About what?" he returned. "My senses are so dulled by your ingratitude +that I can't gather what you mean." + +"Well, here I am--a girl with her head turned by a glimpse at a most +romantic play, by cakes and champagne cup, and then sent home to bread +without jam. Since I've known of this it has taken most of the color out +of everyday things, they are like a tub-full of limp rags with the dye +run from them. I want Peyton, yes, I love him; but what I thought would +satisfy me doesn't. I want more! I am very serious about the romantic +play--it is exactly what I mean. I had read about great emotions, seen +them since I was a child at the opera, and there was the Madrid affair; +but that was so far away, and I never thought of the others as real; +I never understood that people really had them, in Eastlake as well as +Spain, until I watched Peyton miss his. And then it came over me in a +flash what life could be." + +"We are all in the same fix, Claire," he told her. + +"But not you," she replied impatiently; "your existence with Fanny is +the most perfect for miles around. Fanny is marvelous to you, and you +are as sensible as you are nice." + +"You think, then, that I haven't seen any of this romantic show you are +talking about?" + +"If you had you wouldn't let it spoil your comfort." + +The pig again! + +"Well, what is it here or there?" she cried. "I'll feel like this for a +little and then die alive. Did you ever notice an old woman, Lee? She +is like a horrid joke. There is something unconquerably vain and foolish +about old men that manages to save them from entire ruin. But a woman +shrivelled and blasted and twisted out of her purpose--they either look +as though they had been steeped in vinegar or filled with tallow--is +simply obscene. Before it is too harrowing, and in their best dresses +and flowers, they ought to step into a ball-room of chloroform. But this +change in me, Lee, isn't in my own imagination. The people who know me +best have complained that what patience I had has gone; even Ira, I'm +certain, notices it. I have no success in what used to do to get along +with; my rattle of talk, my line, is gone." + +"Those relations of Mina Raff's, the Groves," he said, shifting the +talk to the subject of his thoughts, "are very engaging. Mrs. Grove +specially. She has splendid qualities almost never found together in one +person. She is, well, I suppose careful is the word, and, at the same +time, not at all dull. I wonder if she is altogether well? Her paleness +would spoil most women's looks and, it seems to me, she mentioned her +heart." + +"Good Lord, Lee, what are you rambling on about? I don't care for a +description of the woman like one of those anatomical zodiacs in the +Farmers' Almanac." She turned her horse, without warning, through a +break in the fence; and, putting him at a smart run, jumped a stream +with a high insecure bank beyond, and went with a pounding rush up a +sharp incline. He followed, but more conservatively; and, at the solid +fence she next took, he shouted that she'd have to continue on that gait +alone. + +"Don't be so careful," she answered mockingly, trotting back; "take +a chance; feel the wind streaming in your face; you'll reach Fanny +safely." + +What, exasperated, he muttered was, "Damn Fanny!" He had jumped a fence +as high and wide as respectability; and he enormously preferred Savina's +sort of courage to this mad galloping over the country. What Claire +and Peyton and Mina Raff talked about, longed for, Savina took. He +involuntarily shut his eyes, and, rocking to the motion of his horse, +heard, in the darkness, a soft settling fall, he saw an indefinite trace +of whiteness which swelled into an incandescence that consumed him. They +had turned toward home and, on an unavoidable reach of concrete road, +were walking. The horses' hoofs made a rhythmic hollow clatter. Claire, +with the prospect of losing her love, had hinted at the possibilities +of an inherited recklessness; but here was a new and unexpected cause of +disturbance. + +Lee would never have supposed that such ideas were at the back of +Claire's head. He gazed at her, in spite of the fact that she had +ruffled his temper, even with an increased interest. In her direct way +she had put into words many of the vague pressures floating, like water +under night, through his brain. He would act differently; Claire wasn't +practical--all that she indicated couldn't be followed. It was spun +of nothing more substantial than the bright visions of youth; but the +world, he, Lee Randon, was the poorer for that. His was the wise course. +It took a marked degree of strength; no weak determination could hope +for success in the conduct he had planned for himself; and that gave him +material for satisfaction. + +He turned to the left, at the road leading past his driveway, and Claire +went up the hill into Eastlake alone. She had thought he was describing +Savina for her benefit! The truth was that he had been possessed by a +tyrannical necessity to talk about Savina Grove, to hear the sound of +her praise if it were only on his own voice. It assisted his memory, +created, like the faintly heard echo of a thrilling voice, a similitude +not without its power to stir him. The secret realms of thought, of +fancy and remembrance, he felt, were his to linger in, to indulge, as he +chose. Lee had a doubt of the advisability of this; but his question +was disposed of by the realization that he had nothing to say; his mind +turned back and back to Savina. + +He wondered when, or, rather, by what means, he should hear from her +again; perhaps--although it required no reply--in response to the letter +he had written to the Groves acknowledging their kindness and thanking +them for it. To Lee, William Loyd Grove was more immaterial than a final +shred of mist lifting from the sunken road across the golf course; even +his appreciation of the other's good qualities had vanished, leaving +nothing at all. He was confused by the ease with which the real, the +solid, became the nebulous and unreal, as though the only standard of +values, of weights and measures, lay absurdly in his own inconsequential +attitude. + + * * * * * + +The Randons had no formal meal on Sunday night; but there were +sandwiches, a bowl of salad, coffee, and what else were referred to +generally as drinks; and a number of people never failed to appear. It +was always an occasion of mingled conversations, bursts of popular song +at the piano, and impromptu dancing through the length of the lower +floor. The benches at either side of the fire-place were invariably +crowded; and, from her place on the over-mantel, Cytherea's gaze rested +on the vivacious or subdued current of life. Lee Randon often gazed up +at her, and tonight, sunk in a corner with scarcely room to move the +hand which held a cigarette, this lifted interrogation was prolonged. + +Mrs. Craddock, whom he had not seen since the dinner-dance at the club, +sat beside him in a vivid green dress with large black beads strung +from her left shoulder. She looked very well, he reflected; that was a +becoming dimple in her cheek. He had had the beginning of an interest in +her--new to Eastlake, and her husband dead, she had taken a house there +for the winter--but that had vanished now. He was deep in thought when +she said: + +"Didn't I hear that you were infatuated with that doll?" + +Who, he demanded, had told her such a strange story? "But she does +attract me," he admitted; "or, rather, she raises a great many +questions, natural in a person named Cytherea. The pair of castanets +on a nail--Claire used them in an Andalusian dance--might almost be an +offering, like the crutches of Lourdes, left before her by a grateful +child of the ballet." + +"I can't see what you do, of course; but she reminds me of quantities +of women--fascinating on the outside and nothing within. Men are always +being fooled by that: they see a face or hear a voice that starts +something or other going in them, and they supply a complete personality +just as they prefer it, like the filling of a paté case. That is what +you have done with this doll--imagined a lot of things that don't +exist." + +"If they do in me, that's enough, isn't it?" he demanded. "You're partly +wrong, at any rate--Cytherea is the originator and I'm the paté. But +where, certainly, you are right is that she is only a representation; +and it is what she may represent which holds me. Cytherea, if she would, +could answer the most important question of my life." + +"How tragic that she can't speak." + +"Yet that isn't necessary; she might be a guide, like a pointing +finger-post. I met a woman lately, as charming as possible, who +resembled her; and I'm sure that if I had them together--" he left the +end of his sentence in air. Then he began again, "But that could not be +managed; not much can, with advantage, in this world." From beyond the +hall, to the accompaniment of the piano, came the words, "She might +have been a mother if she hadn't looped the loop." Lee made a disdainful +gesture. "That is the tone of the present--anything is acceptable if it +is trivial; you may kiss wherever you like if you mean nothing by it. +But if it's important, say like--like sympathy, it's made impossible for +you." + +"If you were someone else," Mrs. Craddock observed, "I'd think you were +in love. You have a great many of the symptoms--the wandering eye and +wild speech." + +"I am, with Fanny," he declaimed, struggling out of the bench corner. +No one should discover the memory he carried everywhere with him. +The lights had been switched off in the living-room, but the piano +continued, and glowing cigarettes, like red and erratically waving +signals, were visible. Returning, going into the dining-room, he saw +that the whiskey had been plentifully spilled over the table. In the +morning the varnish would be marred by white stains. The stairs were +occupied, the angle in the hall behind which a door gave to the cellar +steps, was filled; a sound, not culinary, came from the kitchen pantry. +Even Fanny, with her hair in disorder, was dancing an eccentric step +with Borden Rodman. All this vibrating emotion created in him, sudden +and piercing, a desire for Savina. + +He wanted her, the touch of her magnetic hands, her clinging body, her +passionate abandon, with every sense. It was unbearable that she, too, +wasn't here, waiting for him in the convenient darkness. He had to have +her, he muttered. At the same time he was appalled by the force of his +feeling: it shook him like a chill and gripped his heart with an acute +pain. His entire being was saturated with a longing that was at once +a mental and physical disturbance. Nothing in his life, no throe of +passion or gratification, had been like this. Lee hastily poured out a +drink and swallowed it. He was burning up, he thought; it felt as though +a furnace were open at his back; and he went out to the silence, the +coldness, of the terrace flagging on the lawn. The lower window shades +had been pulled down, but, except in the dining-room, they showed no +blur of brightness. Through the walls the chords of the piano were just +audible, and the volume of voices was reduced to a formless humming. + +It had cleared, the sky was glittering with constellations of stars; +against them Lee could trace the course of his telephone wire. But for +that his house, taking an added dignity of mass from the night, might +have been the reality of which it was no more than an admirable replica. +There was little here, outside, to suggest or recall the passage of a +century and over. In the lapse of that time, Lee thought, more had been +lost than gained; the simplicity had vanished, but wisdom had not been +the price of its going. + +Of all the people at present in his dwelling, Fanny was the best in +the sense of old solid things; he could see her, with no change, at +the board of an early household. Compared to her the others seemed like +figures in a fever; yet he was, unhappily, with them rather than with +Fanny. God knew there was fever enough in his brain! But the winter +night was cooling it--a minor image of the final office of death; the +choking hunger for Savina was dwindling. He hoped that it wouldn't be +repeated. He couldn't answer for himself through many such attacks. Yes, +his first love, though just as imperative, had been more ecstatic; the +reaching for an ideal rather than the body of a woman. + +His allegiance to Cytherea, though, was in part to the former, to youth; +now it seemed to him he had preserved that through all his life. But the +latter, at least in its devastating power, was new. Lee recognized it +as passion, but passion to a degree beyond all former experience and +comprehension. Why had it been quiescent so long to overwhelm him now? +Or what had he done to open himself to such an invasion? A numbing +poison couldn't have been very different. Then, contrarily, he was +exhilarated by the knowledge of the vitality of his emotion; Lee +reconsidered it with an amazement which resembled pride. + +The penny kisses here--he was letting himself into the house--were like +the candies Fanny had in a crystal dish on the sideboard, flavors of +cinnamon and rose and sugary chocolate. They were hardly more than the +fumes of alcohol. But the party showed no signs of ending, the piano +continued to be played without a break; one sentimental song had been +repeated, without the omission of a line, a held note, ten times, Lee +was sure. Fanny paused breathlessly, with a hand on his arm: + +"They are all having such a good time; it is absolutely successful. +Isn't Borden sweet to bother teaching me that heel tap. Go in and talk +to Mrs. Craddock again; I thought you liked her." + +In the hall the victrola had been started in opposition to the piano +beyond, and the result was a pandemonium of mechanical sound and +hysterical laughter. Cytherea was unmoved, enigmatic, fascinating; the +gilt of her headdress shone in minute sparkles--Lee had turned on the +lights by the mantel. "You always come back to her," Mrs. Craddock said. +When he replied that this time he had returned to her, she shook her +head sceptically. "But I suppose you have to say it." He dropped back +into a corner of one of the benches; they were a jumble of skirts and +reclining heads and elevated pumps. The victrola, at the end of a +record and unattended, ran on with a shrill scratch. Cytherea had the +appearance of floating in the restrained light; her smile was not now so +mocking as it was satirical; from her detached attention she might have +been regarding an extraordinary and unpredictable spectacle which she +had indifferently brought about. It was evident that among what virtues +she might possess charity was not present. + + * * * * * + +After the last automobile leaving--shifted through the diminishing +clamor of its gears--had carried its illumination into the farther +obscurity of the road, Fanny, uncomfortable in the presence of disorder, +quickly obliterated the remaining traces of their party: she emptied the +widely scattered ash trays into a brass bowl, gathered the tall whiskey +glasses and the glasses with fragile stems and brilliantly enamelled +belligerent roosters, the empty charged water bottles, on the dresser in +the pantry, and returned chairs and flowers to their recognized places, +while Lee locked up the decanters of whiskey. Fanny was tired but +enthusiastic, and, as she went deftly about, rearranging her house with +an unfailing surety of touch, she hummed fragments of the evening's +songs. + +Lee Randon was weary without any qualification; the past day, +tomorrow--but it was already today--offered him no more than a burden, +so many heavy hours, to be supported. The last particle of interest had +silently gone from his existence. His condition was entirely different +from the mental disquiet of a month ago; no philosophical considerations +nor abstract ideas absorbed him now--it was a weariness not of the mind +but of the spirit, a complete sterility of imagination and incentive, +as though an announced and coveted prize had been arbitrarily withdrawn +during the struggle it was to have rewarded. There was no reason Lee +could think of for keeping up his diverse efforts. He sat laxly in his +customary corner of the living room--Fanny, he felt, had disposed of +him there as she had the other surrounding objects--his legs thrust out +before him, too negative to smoke. + +His wife leaned over and kissed him; she was, she had suddenly +discovered, dead with fatigue. The kiss was no more than the contact of +her lips on his. The clear realization of this startled him; now not +an emotion, not even tenderness, responded to her gestures of love. His +indifference had been absolute! There had been periods of short duration +when, exasperated with Fanny, he had lost the consciousness of his +affection for her; but then he had been filled with other stirred +emotions; and now he was coldly empty of feeling. It was this vacancy +that specially disturbed him: it had an appearance, new to all his +processes, of permanence. + +Outside his will the fact was pronounced for him that--for a long or +short period--he had ceased to love his wife. There was something so +intimately and conventionally discourteous in his realization that he +avoided it even in his thoughts. But it would not be ignored; it was too +robust a truth to be suppressed by weakened instincts. He didn't love +Fanny and Fanny did love him ... a condition, he felt indignantly, which +should be automatically provided against; none of the ethics of decency +or conduct provided for that. It wasn't for a second, without the +single, the familiar and ancient, cause, allowed. Fanny, least of any +imaginable woman, had given him a pretext for complaint. Yet, with +everyone acknowledging her to be the perfect wife, and he at the fore +of such praise, he had incontestably stopped caring for her. It was a +detestable situation. + +In the whole body of preconceived thought and action there wasn't a +word, a possible movement, left for him. He was, simply, a hyena; that +description, not innocent of humor, was still strikingly close to what +he would generally hear if the state of his mind were known. It was +paralyzing, but absolutely no provision had been made for men, decent +enough, who had stopped loving decent wives. Lee was not, here, +considering the part of his life involved with Savina Grove: Savina had +nothing to do with his attitude toward Fanny. This didn't hang on the +affection he might have for one at the superficial expense of the other: +Savina--while it was undeniable that she had done exactly this in the +vulgar physical sense--hadn't essentially taken him away from Fanny. +He had gone self-directed, or, rather, in the blind manner of an object +obeying the law of gravity. He couldn't argue that he had been swept +away. + +It wasn't, either, that he overwhelmingly wanted to go to Savina Grove, +he overwhelmingly didn't; and the strangling emotion, the desire, +that had possessed him earlier in the evening had been sufficiently +unwelcome. His only reaction to that was the vigorous hope that it +wouldn't come back. No, he had, mentally, settled the affair with Savina +in the best possible manner; now he was strictly concerned with the +bond between his wife and himself. The most reliable advice, +self-administered or obtained from without, he could hope for would +demand that he devote the rest of his life, delicately considerate, to +Fanny. She must never know the truth. This was the crown of a present +conception of necessity and unassailable conduct, of nobility. But, +against this, Lee Randon was obliged to admit that he was not a particle +noble; he wasn't certain that he wanted to be; he suspected it. Putting +aside, for the moment, the doubtfulness of his being able to maintain +successfully, through years, such an imposition, there was something +dark, equally dubious, in its performance. He might manage it publicly, +even superficially in private, and as a father; but marriage wasn't +primarily a superficial relationship. It was very much the reverse. +Its fundamental condition was the profoundest instinct that controlled +living; there no merely admirable conduct could manage to be more than +a false and degrading, a temporary, lie. How could he with a pandering +smugness meet Fanny's purity of feeling? Yet, it seemed, exactly this +was being done by countless other applauded men. But, probably, the +difference between them and himself was that they had no objective +consciousness of their course; happily they never stopped to think. It +was thought, he began to see, and not feeling that created nearly all +his difficulties. + +In a flash of perception he grasped that formal thought, in its aspect +of right conduct, was utterly opposed to feeling. While the former +condemned the surrender of Savina and himself to passion, the latter, +making it imperative, had brushed aside the barriers of recognized +morals. It had been a tragic, it might well be a fatal, error to oppose +religion--as it affected both this world and the impossible next--to +nature. + +Yet men could no longer exist as animals; he saw that plainly. They +had surrendered the natural in favor of an artificial purity. In a land +where sea shells were the standard of value, rubies and soft gold were +worthless. Lee was opposed to his entire world; he had nothing but his +questioning, his infinitesimal entity, for his assistance. Literally +there wasn't a man to whom he could turn whose answer and advice weren't +as predictable as useless. There was nothing for him but to accept his +position and, discharging it where he was able, fail where he must. + +There was, however, no need for that failure to be absolute; and the +underlying responsibility he had fully considered, subject to its own +attained code, would have to do service as best it could. Here he paused +to realize that the improved manners he had determined on were no more +than the expression of his growing, his grown, indifference. It should +be easy to be restrained in a situation that had small meaning or +importance. What struck him again was the fact that his connection with +Fanny was of far greater moment than that with Helena and Gregory. +His responsibility to them was a minor affair compared to the weight +increasingly laid upon their elders. Somehow, they didn't seem to need +him as sharply as Fanny did. Materially they were all three more +than sufficiently provided for, and spiritually, as he had so often +reflected, he had little or no part in his children's well-being. +Perhaps this, he had told himself, could be changed; certainly he was +solely to blame if he had stood aside from their education. + +He would see more of them--four days a week were now plenty for the +conducting of his successful enterprises in the city--and give them +what benefits his affection and experience held. In this he mustn't +contradict the influence of their mother; that, so late, would only be +followed by chaos; he'd merely be more with them. Helena was old enough +for a small tractable horse and Gregory must have a pony. All four, +Fanny and he and the children, would jog out in the spring together. +From that mental picture he got a measure of reassurance; a condition +resembling peace of mind again returned. As much as possible, against +the elements of danger, was in his favor. He might have had a wife +who, on the prevalent tide of gin and orange juice, of inordinate +luxuriousness, degraded him with small betrayals. Or he might have been +any one of a hundred unfortunate things. He took life too seriously, +that was evident; a larger degree of mental irresponsibility would be +followed by a more responsible accomplishment of the realities which +bore no more heavily on him than on other men; and in this the cocktails +had their office. + + * * * * * + +Lee agreed readily, therefore, when, on Friday afternoon, Fanny asked +him to bring Helena and Gregory from dancing-school. This was held in +the Armory; and, past five o'clock, mounting the wide stone steps in +the early gloom and going through the bare echoing hall, he joined the +complacent mothers ranged in chairs pushed against the wall in a spirit +of interested attention. The Armory, following the general literal +interpretation of the sternness of military usage, was gaunt, with a +wide yellow floor and walls of unconcealed brick. In a far corner, on a +temporary and unpainted platform, the pianist sat with her hands raised, +her wrists rigid, preparatory to the next demand upon her strongly +accentuated playing. Lee was surprised at the large number of children +ranged in an irregular ring about the erect brittle presence and +insistent voice of the instructor. + +What scant hair he possessed, carefully disposed to cover its +meagreness, was grey, and its color permeated, suggested, the tone of +his thin face. Surrounded by the cruel exuberance of the children, +he seemed incalculably worn, permanently weary, although he +was surprisingly sharp-eyed and adequate. It was, Lee thought +unsympathetically, a curiously negative occupation for a man; the small +graces of the dancing teacher, the bows gravely exchanged with childish +bows, the bent dancing with diminutive slips, the occasional fretful +tone of his voice, further alienated Lee Randon. But the children were a +source of entertainment and speculation. + +He saw Gregory at once, short and sturdy-legged, in a belted jacket and +white breeches; his son was standing peaceably, attentive, clasping the +hand of a girl smaller than himself with obstinate bobbed hair. This, +the high pointed voice in the center of the floor continued, was an +Irish folk dance; they would try it again; and the reiterated details +were followed by the sounding of a whistle and music. Lee had no idea of +the exact number of children engaged, but he was certain that there were +just as many totally different executions of the steps before them. Not +one had grasped an essential of the carefully illustrated instruction; +he could see nowhere an evidence of grace or rhythm. But, with a few +notable exceptions, all boys, there was an entire solemnity of effort; +the swinging of bare short legs, the rapid awkward bobs, were undertaken +with a deep sense of their importance. + +The Irish folk dance was attempted for a third time, and then +relinquished in favor of a waltz. Miniature couples circled and +staggered, the girls again prim, the boys stolid or with working mouths, +or as smooth and vacuous as chestnuts, little sailors and apparitions in +white, obviously enjoying their employment. During this not a word +was exchanged; except for the shuffling feet, the piano, an occasional +phrase of encouragement from the instructor, himself gliding with a dab +of fat in exaggerated ribbons, there wasn't a sound. To Lee it had the +appearance of the negation of pleasure; it was, in its way, as bad as +the determined dancing of adults; it had the look of a travesty of +that. Helena conducted a restive partner, trying vainly to create the +impression that he was leading, wherever she considered it advantageous +for him to go. The thick flood of her gold hair shimmered about her +uncompromising shoulders, her embroidered skirt fluttered over the +firmness of her body. + +She was as personable a little girl as any present; and, while she +hadn't Gregory's earnestness in what he attempted, she got on smoothly +enough. Seeing Lee, she smiled and waved a hand almost negligently; but +Gregory, at his presence, grew visibly embarrassed; he almost stopped. +Lee Randon nodded for him to go ahead. There were various minor +cataclysms--Helena flatly refused to dance with a boy who pursued her +with an urging hand. At this conspicuous reverse he sat on a chair +until the teacher brought him forcibly out and precipitated him into the +willing arms of a girl larger and, if possible, more inelastic than the +others. The ring was again assembled, and the complicated process of +alternating a boy with a girl was accomplished. + +"Never mind what he does," the instructor directed sharply; "always be +sure you are right." A shift was made further around in the line, and +the elder wisdom was vindicated. "Now, the chain." The whistle blew. +"Left and right, left and right." In spite of this there was an equal +engagement of rights with lefts. The assumption of gravity acutely +bothered Lee Randon: they had no business, he thought, to be already +such social animals. Their training in set forms, mechanical gestures +and ideas, was too soon hardening their mobility and instinctive +independence. Yes, they were a caricature of what they were to become. +He hadn't more sympathy with what he had resolved to encourage, applaud, +but less. The task of making any headway against that schooling was +beyond him. + +The dancing reached a pause, and, with it, the silence: a confusion of +clear undiversified voices rose: the face of an infant with long belled +trousers and solidified hair took on a gleam of impish humor; older and +more robust boys scuffled together with half-subdued hails and large +pretentions; groups of girls settled their skirts and brushed, with +instinctive pats, their braids into order; and there was a murmur of +exchanged approbation from the supporting, white-gloved mothers. Gregory +appeared at Lee's side; his cheeks were crimson with health, his serious +eyes glowed: + +"Well, do you like it?" + +"Yes," Gregory answered shyly. He lingered while Lee Randon tried to +think of something else appropriate to say, and then he ran abruptly +off. His children were affectionate enough, but they took him absolutely +for granted; they regarded him very much as they did their cat; except +for the conventional obeisance they made him, not so voluntary as it was +trained into them, they were far more involved with Martha, their black +nurse. Everywhere, Lee felt, they repelled him. Was he, then, lacking in +the qualities, the warmth, of paternity? Again, as he was helpless where +Fanny lately was concerned, he was unable to be other. + +It was increasingly evident that he had not been absorbed, obliterated, +in marriage; an institution which, from the beginning, had tried--like +religion--to hold within its narrow walls the unconfinable instincts of +creation. It hadn't, among other things, considered the fascination of +Cytherea; a name, a tag, as intelligible as any for all his dissent. But +cases like his were growing more prevalent; however, usually, in women. +Men were the last stronghold of sentimentality. His thoughts were +interrupted by a dramatic rift in the discipline of the class: a boy, +stubbornly seated, swollen, crimson, with wrath and heroically withheld +tears, was being vainly argued with by the dancing master. He wouldn't +stir, he wouldn't dance. The man, grasping a shoulder, shook him in a +short violence, and then issued a final uncompromising order. + +The boy rose and, marching with an increasing rapidity toward the +entrance, he struck aside a placid and justifiably injured child, +dragged open the door, and slammed it after him with a prodigious and +long echoing report. His contempt, holding its proportion in the reduced +propriety of the occasion, was like a clap of communistic thunder in an +ultra-conservative assembly. For a moment, together with all the others, +Lee Randon was outraged; then, with a suppression of his unorderly +amusement, he had a far different conception--he saw himself, for no +easily established reason, in the person of the rebel who had left +behind him the loud announcement of his angry dissent. Helena sought Lee +immediately. + +"That's his mother," she said in a penetrating whisper, indicating a +woman with a resolutely abstracted expression and constrained hands. +The children were gathered finally and formed into a line which, to the +drumming piano, moved and halted, divided and subdivided. Led by the +instructor it was involved in an apparently issueless tangle and then +straightened smoothly out. The dancing class at an end, Helena and +Gregory, wedged into the seat with Lee in the car, swept into an eager +chatter, a rush of questions, that he was unable to follow. A Sara Lane +was announced by Helena to be the object of Gregory's affection, and +Gregory smugly admitted this to be true. He was going to marry her, he +declared further. + +"Perhaps," Lee suggested, "you'll change your mind." + +"Why, Gregory has four girls," Helena instructed him. + +"Well," Gregory retorted, "I can marry them all." + +But what, under this reflected chatter, was his son like? What would +he be? And Helena! They eluded him like bright and featureless bits of +glass. His effort to draw closer to them was proving a failure; what +could he give them safer than their attachment to the imponderable body +of public opinion and approval? He had nothing but doubts, unanswerable +questions; and a mental, a moral, isolation. It was easier to remain +in the dancing class than to be sent out in an agony of revolt and +strangling shame. + + * * * * * + +Often, during his conversations with Fanny, she returned to the subject +of his late New York trip and stay with the Groves. She asked small +interested questions, commented on the lavish running of the Grove +house; she couldn't, she explained, get nectarines and Belgian grapes in +Eastlake; but when she was in the city again she'd bring some out. "Mina +Raff's limousine sounds luxurious," she acknowledged. But Fanny wasn't +curious about Mina; after the first queries she accepted her placidly; +now that she had withdrawn from the Morrises' lives, Fanny regarded her +in the light of a past episode that cast them all together on a romantic +screen. What mostly she asked touched upon Savina Grove. "Did they seem +happy?" she inquired about the Groves. He replied: + +"Very. William Grove was quite affectionate when he left for +Washington." + +A momentary and ominous suspense followed a sudden stopping of his +voice. + +"You didn't say anything about that before," she observed carefully. +"When did he go, how long was he away?" She put aside what she was +doing, waiting. + +"He left unexpectedly; just when I forget; but during the last day I was +there." + +"Lee, why didn't you say that Mr. Grove had gone to Washington? It seems +very peculiar." + +"I told you it had slipped my mind," he retorted, striving, in a +level tone, to hide his chagrin and an increasing irritation at her +persistence. + +"When did he come back?" + +"I don't know." Suddenly he gave way to a complete frankness. "He may +not be back yet." + +"Then you had dinner at the restaurant and went to the theatre alone +with her." + +"If it's possible to be alone with anyone, you are correct. What, in the +name of heaven, are you getting at?" + +"Only this--that, for some reason I can't gather, you lied to me. I have +had the most uncomfortable impression about her all along. Why?" Her +demand had a quality of unsteady emotion. "I have been so close to you, +Lee, we have had each other so completely, that I have feelings I can't +account for. I always know when--when you've been a little silly; there +is something in your eyes; but I have never felt like this before. Lee," +she leaned suddenly forward, her hands clasping the sides of her chair, +"you must be absolutely truthful with me, it's the only way I can live. +I love you so much; you're all I have; I don't care for anyone else now. +You have taken me away from my family; you are my family. Ours isn't an +ordinary marriage, like the Lucians', but worlds deeper." + +Yet, he told himself, in spite of her assurances the truth would ruin +them; besides, as he had recognized, it didn't belong exclusively to +him; it was, as well, Savina's truth. At any cost he had to protect +her. Lee replied by saying that it was useless to tell her facts in +her present unreasonable humor. "Why didn't you tell me he had gone +to Washington?" she repeated; her tone had a sharper edge. "Was there +anything you needed to hide?" Just what, he demanded, did she suspect? +Fanny didn't know. + +"Only I have had this worrying feeling. Did you go straight back from +the theatre or take a drive?" He was amazed at her searching prescient +questions; but his manner was admirable. + +"New Yorkers are not very apt to drive around their Park at night. They +are rather familiar with it. There's the afternoon for that, and the +morning for the bridle paths. I won't go on, though, in such a senseless +and positively insulting conversation." + +"You are not yourself since you returned," she observed acutely. "Sunday +night you were too queer for words. You couldn't talk to Mrs. Craddock +for more than a minute at a time. Did you call her Savina?" Mrs. +Craddock's name, he responded in a nicely interrogating manner, he +had thought to be Laura. She paid no attention to his avoidance of her +demand. "Did you?" + +"No." His self-restraint was fast vanishing. + +"I can't believe a word you say." + +"Hell, don't ask me then." + +"You must not curse where the servants can hear you, and I won't listen +to such talk, I'll leave the table. I wish you'd look in the mirror and +see how red and confused you are. It is too bad that I cannot depend on +you after so long, and with the children. You were sitting close to that +woman, and--and your arms; you were kissing." + +"I have her garter on my bureau." + +"Stop." Her anger now raised her above petty sallies. "I have stood +a great deal from you, but there is more I simply won't. Do you +understand? I've always done my duty and I'll make you do yours. I never +have looked at another man, nor been kissed, except that horrid one last +July at the Golf Club." While she paused, breathless, he put in that it +might do her good. "Oh, I see," she spoke slowly: "you think that would +give you an excuse. If I did it I couldn't complain about your nasty +affairs. How cheap and easy I must seem. You ought to be ashamed to try +to trick me." + +"If you are going to fly at conclusions you can sit in the tree alone," +he protested. "It's amazing where you have arrived from nothing. Let me +tell you that I won't be ragged like this; if you think so much of our +life why do you make it hideous with these degrading quarrels? You would +never learn that way if there was the slightest, the slightest, cause +for your bitterness. You have all you want, haven't you? The house and +grounds are planted with your flowers, you are bringing up the children +to be like yourself. I don't specially care for this," he made a +comprehensive gesture; "building an elaborate place to die in doesn't +appeal to me. What is so valuable, so necessary, to you, I never think +of. You are so full of your life that you don't consider mine, except +where it is tied up with your interests." + +"Lee Randon," she cried, "I've given you everything, it's all planned +for you, here. Nothing comes on the table that you dislike--we haven't +had beefsteak for months; when you are busy with your papers I keep it +like a grave; and if the house seems cold, and I can't find Christopher, +I don't bother you, but slip down to the furnace myself." + +"Make me uncomfortable, then," he retorted; "I think that's what I'm +sick of--your eternal gabbling about comfort and dinner. Let the God +damn furnace go out! Or burn up." + +"That's all I have, Lee," she said helplessly; "it is my life. I tried, +the last month, to be different, after watching you with gayer women; +but it only made me miserable; I kept wondering if Gregory was covered +up and if the car would start when you wanted to go home. But I won't +be sorry for it." Her head was up, her cheeks blazing. "I know, and +so ought you, what being good is. And if you forget it you will have a +dreadful misfortune. God is like that: He'll punish you." + +"You don't need help," he commented brutally. + +Detached tears rolled over her cheeks. "I won't cry," she contradicted +the visible act; "I won't. You take such a cowardly advantage of me." + +The advantage, he reflected, was entirely on her side. Within, he was +hard, he had no feeling of sympathy for her; the division between them +was absolute. With an angry movement she brushed the tears from her +cheeks. "I hate her," she said viciously; "she is a rotten detestable +woman." + +"On the contrary," he replied, "Mrs. Grove, if you happen to mean her, +is singularly attractive. There is no smallness about her." + +"Hell," she mocked him, "it is really too touching. When shall you see +her again?" + +"Never." At once he saw that he had made a second mistake. + +"How sad--never; I can't bear it. You both must have been wretched at +that long hopeless parting. And she agreed to let you go--back to your +wife and children." Fanny's voice was a triumph of contempt. "I ought to +thank her; or be magnanimous and send you back." + +"This is all built on a ridiculous assumption," Lee reminded her; "I +even forget how we started. Suppose we talk about something else; +Mrs. Grove, as a topic, is pretty well exhausted." Fanny, narrow-eyed, +relapsed into an intent silence. She faded from his mind, her place +taken by Savina. Immediately he was conscious of a quickening of his +blood, the disturbed throb of his heart; the memory of delirious hours +enveloped him in a feverish mist more real than his wife sitting before +him with a drawn brow. + + * * * * * + +Usually after such scenes Fanny had flowered in a tender remorse for +their bitter remarks, the wasted opportunity of happiness; but again she +left him coldly, unmelted. He was glad--a show of affection would have +been unsupportable. But his marriage was becoming precarious; Lee seemed +to be without power to execute his firm intentions; a conviction +of insecurity settled over him. The sense of a familiar difficulty +returned; there was nothing for him to do but order his life on a common +pattern and face an unrelieved futility of years. He remembered, with a +grim amusement, the excellent advice he had given Peyton Morris, +Peyton at the verge of falling from the approved heights into the +unpredictable. If he had come to him now in that quandary, what +would he, Lee, have said? Yet all that he had told Peyton he still +believed--the variety of life lay on the circular moving horizon, there +was none at hand. But now he comprehended the unmeasurable longing that +had, for the time, banished every other consideration from the younger +man. It had upset his heredity, his violent prejudices, and his not +negligible religion. + +Peyton, too, had fallen under the charm of Cytherea; but chance--was it +fortunate?--had restrained him. Lee had seen Morris the evening before, +at a dinner with Claire, and he had been silent, abstracted. He had +scarcely acknowledged Lee Randon's presence. The Morrises had avoided +him. Still, that was inevitable, since, for them, he was charged with +unpleasant memories. + +He collected in thought all the married people who, he knew, were +unhappy or dissatisfied: eleven of the eighteen Lee called to mind. +"What is the matter with it?" he demanded savagely, aloud, in his room. +He considered marriage--isolated for that purpose--as a social contract, +the best possible solving of a number of interrelated needs and +instincts; and, practical and grey, it recommended itself to his reason; +it successfully disposed of the difficulties of property, the birth and +education of children, and of society. It was a sane, dignified, way to +live with a woman; and it secured so much. Undoubtedly, on that count, +marriage couldn't be bettered. As it was, it satisfied the vast majority +of men and women: against the bulk of human life Fanny and he, with +their friends, were inconsiderable. But the number of men who struggled +above the common level was hardly greater; and he and his opinions were +of that preferable minority. The freedom of money, the opportunities +of leisure, always led directly away from what were called the +indispensable virtues. + +Men--he returned to the Eastlake streets on Saturday night--except those +lost in the monomania of a dream, didn't want to work, they didn't even +wish to be virtuous. They turned continually to the bypaths of pleasure, +that self-delusion and forgetfulness of drink. Yes, released from the +tyrannies of poverty, they flung themselves into a swift spending. +The poor were more securely married than the rich, the dull than +the imaginative--married, he meant, in the sense of a forged bond, a +stockade. This latter condition had been the result of allowing the +church to interfere unwarrantedly in what was not its affair. Religion +had calmly usurped this, the most potent of the motives of humanity; +or, rather, it had fastened to it the ludicrous train of ritual. That +laughable idea that God had a separate scrutinizing eye, like the eye of +a parrot, on every human atom! + +Lee changed his position, physically and mentally--he was lying in +bed--and regarded religion in itself. It was, in the hunger for a +perpetual identity, almost as strong a force as the other passion. But +were they conspicuously other? They had many resemblances. He didn't, by +religion, refer to Christianity which, he thought, was but a segregated +and weakened form of worship. It was, for example, against the Christian +influence that he was struggling. He meant the sense of profound +mystery, the revolt against utter causelessness, which had tormented to +no clearness so many generations of minds. He accepted the fact that +a formless longing was all that he could ever experience; for him, +uncritically, that seemed enough; he had willingly relinquished any hope +of an eternity like a white frosted cake set with twinkling candles. But +viewed as a tangible force operating here and now, identical--to +return to his main preoccupation--with love, it demanded some settled +intelligence of comprehension. + +What he wanted, he was drawn bolt upright as if by an inner shout, was +an assurance that could be depended on, that wouldn't break and break +and leave him nothing but a feeling of inscrutable mockery. He wanted to +understand himself, and, in that, Fanny and the children ... and Savina. +Obviously they were all bound together in one destiny, by a single +cause. Why had he stopped loving Fanny and had no regret--but a sharp +gladness--in his adultery with Savina? He discarded the qualifying word +as soon as it had occurred to him: there was no adultery, adulteration, +in his act with Savina; it had filled him with an energy, a mental and +nervous vigor, long denied to the sanctified bed of marriage. He wanted +not even to be justified, but only an explanation of what he was; and +he waited, his hands pressed into the softness of the mattress on either +side of him, as if the salvation of some reply might come into his +aching brain. Nothing, of course, broke the deep reasonable stillness of +the night. He slipped back on his pillow weary and baffled. + +There, to defraud his misery, he deliberately summoned the memory +of Savina, and of delirious hours. She came swiftly, with convulsive +shoulders, fingers drawn down over his body; he heard her little cry, +"Ah!" How changed her voice had been when she said, "I love you." It had +had no apparent connection with the moment, their actual passion. It +had disturbed him with the suggestion of a false, a forced, note. In +a situation of the utmost accomplishable reality it had been vague, +meaningless. I love you. It was a strange phrase, at once empty and +burdened with illimitable possibilities. He had said it times without +number to Fanny, but first--how seductively virginal she had been--on +a veranda at night. Then, though not quite for the first time, he had +kissed her. And suddenly her reserve, her protecting chastity, had gone +out of her forever. + +When had the other, all that eventually led to Savina, begun; when had +he lost his love? A long process of turning from precisely the orderly +details which, he had decided, should make marriage safe. He was back +where he had started--the realization of how men deserted utility for +visions, at the enigmatic smile of Cytherea. A sterile circle. Some men +called it heaven, others found hell. His mental searching, surrounded, +met, by nullity, he regarded as his supreme effort in the direction of +sheer duty. If whoever had it in command chose to run the world blindly, +unintelligibly, in a manner that would soon wreck the strongest concern, +he wasn't going to keep on annoying himself with doubts and the dictates +of a senseless conscience. What, as soon as possible, he'd do was fall +asleep. + +The crowing of a rooster pierced the thinning night, a second answered +the first, and they maintained a long self-glorifying, separated duet. +The wind which had been flowing in at the north window changed to the +south-west. + +The difficulties of his living with Fanny increased the next morning: it +was one of the week-days when he didn't go into town after breakfast. +He was dressed for riding, his horse was at the door, when, without +previous announcement and unprepared, she decided to go with him. He +could hear her hurrying upstairs--it upset her unreasonably to rush--and +suddenly, with the audible fall of a boot on the floor, there was the +unmistakable sound of sobbing. + +Lee went up, half impatient and half comprehending, and found her seated +on a bed, leaning her head in an arm on the foot-board. "Don't wait for +me," she cried in a smothered voice; "it makes you so nervous. Just go; +it doesn't matter what I do. You've--you've shown me that. Oh, dear, +I am so miserable. Everything was right and so happy, and now it's all +wrong." + +"Nonsense," he replied tonically; "it will take Christopher a few +minutes to get your saddle on. I'll be outside." Mounted and waiting for +her, his horse stepping contrarily over the grass beyond the drive, +he didn't care whether she came or stayed. When she appeared her eyes, +prominent now rather than striking, were reddened, and the hastily +applied paint and powder were unbecomingly streaked with some late +irrepressible tears. + + * * * * * + +When they had returned, and through lunch and after, a not unfamiliar +stubborn silence settled over Fanny. When she spoke it was with +an armor-like sarcasm protecting and covering her feelings. He was +continually surprised at the correctness of her attitude toward Savina; +his wife could know nothing; she was even without the legitimate +foundation of a suspicion; but her bearing had a perceptible frostiness +of despair. What, he wondered moodily, would next, immediately, develop? +Something, certainly--Fanny's accumulations of emotion were always +sharply discharged; they grew in silence but they were expended in edged +words. + +In a way he was glad that he had made the error of speaking about +William Grove's absence in Washington: it was a step toward a final +resolution, a tranquilization, of the pressure at home. He didn't know +what would bring it up, possibly a storm surpassing in violence all that +had preceded it; and then ... the open prospect of old age. Fanny should +not actually learn of the occurrence in New York, there must be no +mistake about that; she would act on the supposition that he had been +merely indulging in a more or less advanced dallying; but her patience +in that, he judged, was at an end. Well, he could ultimately, in all +sincerity, agree with her there. Not too soon, of course, for she was at +present deeply suspicious of such protestations; he would maintain for +a short while longer an appearance of annoyance, his old successful +indignations at her minor charges, and then let her see that she had +nothing left to combat from that quarter. + +But how, in the other implications of such a scene, would he act? +Until now his part in the inevitable frictions of matrimony had been +conditioned by a tenderness toward Fanny and a measurable supporting +belief that he was generally to blame. She had reduced him to the +compounding of excuses; after her attack, drawing away, she had managed +to make him follow her. Not cheaply, with the vulgarity of a gift, a +price outheld, but with the repeated assertions of his endless love. +Nothing less satisfied her. In this she was superior. But, even if he +surrendered his life to the effort, could he keep up that pretence of +a passion unimpaired? And had he, Lee asked himself over and over, the +wish, the patience, for that heavy undertaking? + +It was still fairly evident that he hadn't. All that he could hope for, +which they both could summon, was luck and the deadening hands of +time. He told himself, here, that it was more than probable that he +was exaggerating the proportions of the whole situation--Fanny had been +angry before; her resentment faded the sooner for its swift explosive +character. But this assurance was unconvincing; his presentiment, which +didn't rest on reason, was not amenable to a reasonable conclusion. +Of this he was certain, that Fanny never had harbored the suspicion of +what, for her, would be the very worst. Did she know? If she did, +he decided, it was only in the form of an unanalyzed, unidentified, +feeling. She wasn't a coward. His determination to keep smooth, by mere +politeness, the further course of their marriage seemed frivolous. That +might do, it was even indispensable, when the present corner was turned; +but for the moment-- + +What, in the name of God, had got into her? He grew increasingly +irritated at her arbitrary manner. Lee had kept forgetting that, where +Fanny was concerned, it was causeless, or no better than a wild surmise, +a chance thrust at random. He made up his mind that he wouldn't submit +to a great deal of her bad humor. And, in this spirit, he ignored a +query put to him bitingly: + +"Where is the paper cutter?" + +His gaze remained level on the page before him. + +"Didn't you hear me, Lee? I want the paper cutter. If it's on your night +table, get it." + +"Let Amanda go up." + +"She's out. I let both the girls go tonight. But I needn't explain." +She sat expectantly upright. Obliterating his cigarette, he returned, +without moving, to the magazine. Then he raised his head: + +"You can't hope for much from that tone of voice." + +"I'll always insist on your showing me some courtesy. I can't imagine +what you think I am. You lie to me as though I were a school-girl and +you haven't even common good manners. That trip to New York--I'll hear +the truth about it. Anyone could tell it was serious by the effect it +had on you. Put down your magazine, you might as well; you can't keep on +behind it forever. Why did you try to hide that Mrs. Grove and you were +alone?" + +"To stop all this!" He dropped the magazine upon the floor. "To save +my nerves and the noise of your eternal questions. I knew, if you found +out, what would follow; this isn't the first time." + +"You can't be completely trusted," she replied. "I have always had to +worry and hold you up. If it hadn't been for me--but there is no use in +going into that. You must tell me about the Grove woman." + +"At one time it was Mrs. Grove," he observed; "now it is 'the Grove +woman.' What will you call her next?" + +"You will have to tell me that," Fanny said. "Lee Randon, what must I +call her?" + +"Perhaps, if you knew her, you'd try Savina." + +"Not if it was to save me from dying. But I have no doubt of which you +preferred. Did you?" + +"Did I what?" He was aware that his speech was growing far louder than +necessary. + +"Call her Savina." + +"Yes!" He sat glaring at her in an anger which he felt swelling his +neck. + +Fanny's expression was obscure. At his admission she had shivered, +as though it had reached her in the form of an actually threatened +violence, and then she was rigid. "I knew that, all the while." Her +voice was low, with a pause between the words. "Savina"; she repeated +the name experimentally. "Very pretty. Prettier to say than Fanny; yes, +and newer. And, having called her that, you couldn't very well not kiss +her, could you?" + +However, his caution had again asserted itself over the dangers of +a lost temper. "You have made so much of this up that you had better +finish it yourself. Put what end you prefer on it; you don't need help." + +"The end," she echoed, in a strange and smothered voice. "Is this it? +But not yet." + +Lee's gaze rested on the magazine lying spread half on the Eastern +symbolism of a rug and half on the bare polished flooring. "Your story +is far more interesting than any in that," he commented, with a gesture. +"It's a pity you haven't turned your imagination to a better use." This, +he recognized, could not go on indefinitely. Fanny added: + +"But I was wrong--you'd kiss her before you said Savina. That, I +believe, is the way it works. It is really screaming when you think what +you went to New York for--to protect Claire, to keep Peyton Morris out +of Mina Raff's hands. And, apparently, you succeeded but got in badly +yourself. What a pair of hypocrites you were: all the while worse than +the others, who were at least excused by their youngness, ever could +dream of being. What was the good of your contradicting me at first? I +knew all along. I felt it." + +"What was it, exactly, that you felt?" he asked with an assumption of +calmness. + +"I don't understand," she acknowledged, for the moment at a loss. "It +was inside me, like lead. But, whatever happened, it will come out; it +always does; and you'll be sorry." + +Did the truth, he wondered, always appear, and triumph over the false; +was that precept of morality secure for those who depended on it? And, +as Fanny threatened, would he be sorry? But most assuredly he would, +for three reasons--Savina, Fanny, and himself; there might, even, be two +more, Helena and Gregory; yes, and William Loyd Grove. What a stinking +mess it was all turning out to be. Why wasn't life, why weren't women, +reasonable? But he could not convince himself that anything final--a +separation--threatened them. Fanny couldn't force an admission from him, +nor speak of this, investigate it, anywhere else. Savina was well +able to take care of herself. There was nothing to do but wait. In +the process of that he once more picked up the magazine. Fanny said +unexpectedly: + +"I ordered your Christmas present. It took all the money I had in the +Dime Savings Bank." He muttered a phrase to the effect that Christmas +was a season for children. This recalled his own--they wouldn't be +asleep yet--and, to escape temporarily from an impossible situation, to +secure the paper knife, he went up to see them. + + * * * * * + +They greeted him vociferously: before he could turn on the light they +were partly out of the covers, and the old argument about whose bed he +should sit on in full progress. Helena's was by the door, so, returning +her to the warmth of her blankets, he stopped beside her. The room, +with the windows fully open, was cold, but he welcomed the white +frozen purity of its barrenness. More than ever he was impressed by the +remoteness of the children's bed-room from the passionate disturbances +of living; but they, in the sense Fanny and he knew, weren't alive +yet. They imitated the accents and concerns, caught at the gestures, of +maturity; but, even in the grip of beginning instincts, they were hardly +more sentient than the figures of a puppet show. Or, perhaps, their +world was so far from his that they couldn't be said to span from one to +the other. Gregory, in mind, was no more like him than a slip was like +a tree bearing fruit--no matter how bitter. Helena more nearly resembled +her mother; that had never occurred to him before. + +It was undoubtedly true--her posturing recalled the feminine attitude +in extreme miniature. In that he felt outside her sympathy, she belonged +with her mother; to Gregory he was far more nearly allied. Gregory, +anyhow, had the potentialities of his own dilemma; he might, in years to +come, be drawn out of a present reality by the enigma, the fascination, +of Cytherea. Lee Randon hoped not; he wanted to advise him, at once, +resolutely to close his eyes to all visions beyond the horizon of wise +practicability. Marry, have children, be faithful, die, he said; but, +alas, to himself. Gregory, smiling in eager anticipation of what might +ensue, was necessarily ignorant of so much. Something again lay back of +that, Lee realized--his occupation in life. There he, Lee, had made his +first, perhaps most serious, mistake. While the majority of men turned, +indifferent, from their labor, there were a rare few--hadn't he phrased +this before?--lost in an edifice of the mind, scientific or aesthetic or +commercial, who were happily unconscious of the lapsing fretful years. + +That was the way to cheat the sardonic gathered fates: to be deaf and +blind to whatever, falsely, they seemed to offer; to get into bed heavy +with weariness and rise hurried and absorbed. Over men so preoccupied, +spent, Cytherea had no power. It was strange how her name had become +linked with all his deepest speculations; she was involved in concerns +remote from her apparent sphere and influence. + +"Gracious, you're thinking a lot," Helena said. + +"What are you thinking about?" Gregory added. + +"A doll," he replied, turning to his daughter. + +"For me," she declared. + +"No, me," Gregory insisted. + +Lee Randon shook his head. "Not you, in the least." + +"Of course not," Helena supported him. "I should think it would make you +sick, father, hearing Gregory talk like that. It does me. Why doesn't he +ask for something that boys play with?" + +"I don't want them, that's why," Gregory specified. "Perhaps I'd like to +have a typewriter." + +"You're not very modest." It was Helena again. + +"It's father, isn't it? It isn't you." + +"Listen," Lee broke in, "I came up here to be with two good children; +but where are they?" + +"I'm one." Helena, freeing herself definitely, closed her arms in a +sweet warmth about his neck. "I'm one, too," Gregory called urgently. +"No," his father pressed him back; "you must stay in bed. They are both +here, I can see." + +He wondered if, everything else forgotten, his children could constitute +a sufficient engagement; but the sentimental picture, cast across his +thoughts, of himself being led by a child holding each of his hands +defeated it. He was turned in another direction. + +Yet, tonight, they were remarkably engaging.... He had lost a great +deal. For what? He couldn't--as usual--answer; but the memory of Savina, +stronger than Fanny, metaphorically took Helena's arms away from his +neck and blurred the image of Gregory. "Have you said your prayer?" he +asked absent-mindedly making conversation. Oh, yes, he was informed, +they did that with Martha. "I'll say mine again," Gregory volunteered. +Again--a picture of a child, in a halo of innocence, praying at a +paternal knee to a fresco of saccharine angels! + +"Once is enough," he answered hurriedly. "I am sure you do it very +nicely." + +"Well, anyhow, better than Helena," Gregory admitted. "She hurries so." +Lee instructed him to confine his observations to his own performance. +Now was the time for him to deliver a small sermon on prayer to Helena. +He recognized this, but he was merely incensed by it. What could +he reply if they questioned him about his own devotions? Should he +acknowledge that he thought prayer was no more than a pleasant form of +administering to a sense of self-importance? Or, at most, a variety +of self-help? Luckily they didn't ask. How outraged Fanny would be--he +would be driven from the community--if he confessed the slightest of +his doubts to his children. If, say at the table, when they were +all together, he should drop his negative silence, his policy of +nonintervention, what a horrified breathlessness would follow. His +children, Lee thought, his wife, the servants in the kitchen, none knew +him; he was a stranger to his own house. + +If he had still, quite desperately, instinctively, looked to Helena +and Gregory for assistance, he had met a final failure. Brushed with +sleepiness they were slipping away from him. He was reluctant to have +them go, leave him; the distance between them and himself appeared to +widen immeasurably as he stood watching them settle for the night. He +wanted to call them back, "Helena and Gregory, Gregory!" But he remained +quiet, his head a little bent, his heart heavy. The tide of sleep, +silent, mystical, recompensing! It wasn't that, exactly, he was facing. + +Switching off the light he went into their playroom, scattered with +bright toys, with alphabet blocks and an engine, a train of cars and +some lengths of track, and a wooden steamboat on wheels gaily painted. +Already these things had a look of indifferent treatment, of having +been half cast aside. Gregory had wanted a typewriter; his jacket, at +dancing-school, had been belted like his, Lee Randon's. They each had, +in the lower hall, a bicycle on which they rode to and from school and +to play. "Will he need me later?" Lee asked himself; "or will it be +the same till the end?" But he had already decided that the latter was +infinitely better. + +He lingered on the second floor, putting off from minute to minute the +unavoidable taking up of Fanny's demands. She was, he knew, waiting for +his appearance to begin again energetically. In their room it struck him +forcibly that he must make some mental diagram of his course, his last +unshakable position. Certainly in admitting that he had called Savina +Grove by her first name he had justified Fanny's contention that he +had kissed her. Fanny should have asked him how many times that had +occurred. "A hundred," he heard himself, in fancy, replying. By God, he +would like to say just that, and have it all over, done with. Instead he +must lie cunningly, imperturbably, and in a monumental patience. Why? He +hadn't, pointedly, asked that before. Things here, his life, the future, +must be held together. + +After he had descended, he lingered in the hall: in the room where his +wife was sitting not a sound was audible, there wasn't an indication of +her presence. Lee turned away to the mantel-piece dominated by Cytherea. +Here, he addressed himself silently to the doll, you're responsible for +this. Get me out of it. I'll put it all in your hands, that hand you +have raised and hold half open and empty. But his, he added, in an +embittered lightness, was an affair of matrimony; it was a moral knot; +and it had nothing to do with Cytherea, with the shape, the sea, the +island, of Venus. She was merely disdainful. + +Fanny was seated in the chair, the exact position, in which he had left +her. And when he returned to the place he had deserted, she took no +notice of him. + +Her eyes were fixed in thought, her lips pinched. Was it only now, or +had he never noticed it before, that her hands resembled her face, bony +with a dry fine skin? Perhaps, heroically, she was thrusting the whole +subject of Savina Grove from her mind; he couldn't tell; her exterior +showed Lee Randon nothing, He waited, undecided if he'd smoke. Lee +didn't, he found, want to. She shook her head, a startled look passed +through her eyes, and Fanny sighed deeply. She seemed to come back +from a far place. It was, of course, the past, her early aspirations; +herself, young; but what, out of her remembrance, had she brought with +her? + + * * * * * + +Nothing. + +Her first words instantly dispelled what had many aspects of his last +hope for peace. "It is surprising to me that you could go up to the +children; but I suppose we must all be glad to have you pay attention to +them at any time." This minor development he succeeded in avoiding. "I +have been thinking hard," she continued, "and I have made up my mind +about you; it is this--you just simply have to be different. I won't let +you, us, stay like this. It is hideous." + +"You are quite right," he admitted; "and I have already agreed that the +change must principally be in me. If you'd explain it to me, what you +have decided on, we'll find out, if possible, how to go about it." + +"At least you needn't be sarcastic," she replied; "I am not as +impossible as you make out. You will have to be different at home--" + +"I thought it was outside home you objected to." + +"It's one and the same," she went on; "and I won't have them, it, a +minute longer. Not a minute! You have got to behave yourself." + +"You haven't been very definite yet." + +"Mrs. Grove--Savina," she flung back at him. + +"That is a name and not a fact." + +"It's a fact that you kissed her." Fanny leaned forward, flushed and +tense, knocking over her stool. "And that you put your arms around her, +and said--oh, I don't know what you did say. Did she mention me?" + +"Only indirectly," he replied with a gleam of malice; "neither of us +did." + +"I am glad of that anyhow." But her vindictive tone betrayed the words. +"Although I can easily guess why you didn't--you were ashamed. You did +kiss her; why won't you admit it?" + +"What's the good? You've done that for me. You have convinced yourself +so positively that nothing I could say would be of any use." + +"Did she call you Lee?" + +"Hell, Fanny, what a God-forsaken lot of young nonsense!" His anger was +mounting. "You can understand here as well as later that I am not +going to answer any of it; and I'll not listen to a great deal more. +Sometimes, lately, you have been insulting, but now you are downright +pathetic, you are so ridiculous." + +"You will stay exactly where you are until I get done." Her tone was +perceptibly shriller. "And don't you dare call me pathetic; if you only +knew--disgracing yourself in New York, with a family at home. It is too +common and low and vulgar for words: like a travelling salesman. But +I'll make you behave if I have to lock you up." + +Lee Randon laughed at her; and, at the contempt in his mirth, she rose, +no longer flushed, but white with wrath. "I won't have it!" Her voice +was almost a scream, and she brought her hands down so violently on the +table that, as she momentarily broke the circuit of the electric lamp, +there was a flash of greenish light. It was exactly as though her fury, +a generated incandescence of rage, had burned into a perceptible flare. +This, he realized, was worse than he had anticipated; he saw no safe +issue; it was entirely serious. Lee was aware of a vague sorrow, a +wish to protect Fanny, from herself as much as anything; but he was +powerless. At the same time, with the support of no affection, without +interest, his patience was rapidly vanishing. He was conscious of Fanny +not as his wife, nor as a being lost in infinite suffering, but as a +woman with her features strangely, grotesquely, twisted and drawn. + +His principal recognition was that she meant nothing to him; she wasn't +even familiar; he couldn't credit the fact that they had long lived +together in an entire intimacy. Dissolved by his indifference, the past +vanished like a white powder in a glass of water. She might have been +a woman overtaken by a mental paroxysm in the cold impersonality of a +railway station. "Stop it," he commanded sharply; "you are hysterical, +all kinds of a fool." + +"Only one kind," she corrected him, in a voice so rasped that it might +have come from a rusted throat; "and I'm not going to be it much longer. +You have cured me, you and that Savina. But what--what makes me laugh is +how you thought you could explain and lie and bully me. Anything would +do to tell me, I'd swallow it like one of those big grapes." She was +speaking in gusts, between the labored heavings of her breast; her eyes +were staring and dark; and her hands opened and shut, shut and opened, +continuously. Fanny's cheeks were now mottled, there were fluctuating +spots of red, blue shadows, on the pallor of her skin. + +"In a minute more you'll be sick," he warned her. + +"Oh, God," she whispered, "that's all he knows, all he feels! In a +minute, a minute, I'll be sick. Don't you see, you damned fool," her +voice rose until it seemed impossible that she could hold the pitch, +"can't you understand I am dying?" + +"No." His terseness was calculated: that, he thought, would best control +her wildness. "No one could be more alive. If I were you, though, I'd go +up to bed; we've had enough of this, or I have; I can't speak for you. +But, however that may be, and as I've said before, it has got to stop, +now, at once." + +If it didn't, he continued silently, he wouldn't be eternally +responsible for himself; never a patient man, what might follow the end +of his endurance was unpredictable. His feeling toward the woman before +him was shifting, as well; the indifference was becoming bitterness; the +bitterness glittered, like mica, with points of hatred. He felt this, +like an actual substance, a jelly-like poison, in his blood, affecting +his body and mind. It bred in him a refined brutality, an ingenious +cruelty. "A mirror would shut you up quicker than anything else," he +informed her; "you look like a woman of sixty--go somewhere and fix your +face." + +"It doesn't surprise me you are insulting," she replied, "but I didn't +expect it quite so soon. I thought you might hide what you really were +a little longer; it seemed to me you might try to keep something. But +I guess it's better to have it all done with at once, and to meet the +worst." + +"You talk as though there were no one but you in this," he said +concisely; "and that I didn't matter. You'll find that I have a little +to say. Here it is: I am tired of your suspicions and questions and +insinuations. You haven't any idea of marriage except as a bed-room +farce. You're so pure that you imagine more indecencies in a day than I +could get through with in five years. If there were one I hadn't thought +of, you'd have me at it in no time. It was pleasant at the Groves' +because there was none of this infernal racket. Mrs. Grove, no--Savina, +is a wise woman. I was glad to be with her, to get away--" + +"Go back, then!" Fanny cried. "Don't bother about me and your home and +the children. You brought me here, and made me have them, all the blood +and tearing; but that doesn't matter. Not to you! I won't let you touch +me again." + +"That needn't trouble you," he assured her. + +"Not ... when you have her ... to touch." She could scarcely articulate, +each word was pronounced as though it had cost a separate and strangling +effort. "You vile, rotten coward!" + +The flood of her hysteria burst so suddenly that, unprepared, he was +overwhelmed with its storm of tears and passionate charges. "You ought +to be beaten till you fell down. You wouldn't say these things to me, +treat me like this, if I weren't helpless, if I could do anything. But +I can't, and you are safe. I am only your wife and not some filthy woman +in New York." As she moved her head the streaming tears swung out from +her face. "God damn you." Her hand went out to the table and, rising, it +held the heavy dull yellow paper cutter. Before he could draw back she +struck him; the copper point ripped down his jaw and hit his shoulder a +jarring blow. + +In an instant of passion Lee Randon caught Fanny by the shoulders and +shook her until her head rolled as though her neck were broken. Even in +his transport of rage, with his fingers dug into her flesh, he stopped +to see if this were true. + +It wasn't. She swayed uncertainly, dazed and gasping, while her hair, +shaken loose from its knot, slowly cascaded over one shoulder. Then +stumbling, groping, with a hand on a chair, against the frame of the +door, she went out of the room. + + * * * * * + +Lee's jaw bled thickly and persistently; the blood soaked, filled, his +handkerchief; and, going to the drawer in the dining-room where the +linen was kept, he secured and held against a ragged wound a napkin, He +was nauseated and faint. His rage, killed, as it were, at its +height, left him with a sensation of emptiness and degradation. The +silence--after the last audible dragging footfall of Fanny slowly +mounting the stairs--was appalling: it was as though all the noise of +all the world, concentrated in his head, had been stopped at once and +forever. He removed the sop from the cut, and the bleeding promptly took +up its spreading over his throat and under his collar. That blow had +killed a great deal: the Lee Randon married to Fanny was already dead; +Fanny, too, had told him that she was dying, killed from within. It was +a shame. + +He was walking when it occurred to him that he had better keep quiet; +if the blood didn't soon stop he should require help; he was noticeably +weak. His feeling with regard to Fanny was confined to curiosity, but +mainly his thoughts, his illimitable disgust, were directed at himself. +His anger, returning like the night wind from a different direction, +cut at himself, at the collapse of his integrity. He was, in reality, +frightened at what had been no better than a relapse into a state of +mania; he was shocked at the presence, however temporary, of a frenzy of +madness. + +Nothing had altered his attitude toward the woman who was his wife; all +his active emotions for her had gone. Then his attention was drawn from +his personality to his life, his surroundings; they were suffocating. +Not to be borne! Nowhere could he discover a detail, an episode, that +had the importance of reality. He had a sensation of being wrapped in a +feather bed, the need to make a violent gesture--sending the white +fluff whirling through space--and so be free to breathe. This house, the +symmetrical copied walls, the harmonious rugs, symbols of public success +and good opinion, the standard of a public approbation, exasperated him +beyond endurance. He wanted to push the walls out, tear the rugs into +rags, and scatter them contemptuously before the scandalized inertness +of Eastlake. Lee had what was regarded as an admirable existence, +an admirable family--the world imposed this judgment on him; and the +desire, the determination, swept over him to smash to irremediable atoms +what was so well applauded. + +The thought fascinated him: to break his life wide open. He'd let it +go, it was worthless to him, the companies and bonds and the woman and +children, the jog-trotting on fenced roads, the vain pretentions of +the country club, the petty grasping at the petticoats--where they were +worn--of variety. Lee wished that he could do this in the presence +of everyone he knew; he wanted to see their outraged faces, hear +the shocked expressions, as he insulted, demolished, all that they +worshipped. The blood, he found, had stopped; his hurt was relatively +unimportant. The fever of rebellion, of destruction, increased in him +until it was as violent, as blinding, as his earlier fury; and he went +at once in search of Fanny. + +She had undressed, and, in a nightgown effectively drawn with blue +ribbons, she lay face down across the bottom of her bed. One shoulder, +immaculately white except for the leaden bruises of his fingers, was +bare, and an arm, from which her jewelled wrist watch had not been +removed, was outstretched. He stood above her, but, breathing faintly, +she made no sign of a consciousness of his presence. + +"Fanny," he began, speaking with an effort of calmness out of his +laboring being, "this is all over for me. As I told you so many times, +I've had too much of it. It's yours, anyhow, and the children are yours, +and you may do what you like with the whole affair. I'm done." Still she +didn't move, reply. "I am going," he said more impatiently, "tonight. I +want you to understand that this is final. You were too good a wife; +I couldn't keep even with you; and I can't say, now, that I want to. +Everyone will tell you that I am no good--you see, I haven't the shadow +of a cause for leaving--and the best thing you can do is believe them. +If I had what was recognized as a reason for going, I'd stay, if that +has any sense; you may put your own interpretation on it." + +She turned and half rose, regarding him from the edge of the bed. Her +face, no longer brightly mottled, was sunken, and dull with despair. "I +can't talk," she said; "the words are all hard like stones down in +my heart. You'll have to go; I can't stop you; I knew you had gone +yesterday, or was it last week? I saw it was a hopeless fight but I +tried, I had to; I thought your memory would help." + +"It wasn't Savina who did this," he informed her; "I want you to realize +that fully. Whatever happens, she is not to blame. All, all the fault +is mine; it would take too long to explain, you wouldn't believe me--you +couldn't--and so I am deserting you. That is the word for it, the one +you will use." Fanny gazed at him in a clouding perplexity. + +"I can't think it's true." Her voice was dazed. "A thing like this +couldn't be happening to us, to me. It's only for a little, we are both +cross--" + +He cut her short with the assurance that what he said he meant. +Sentimental indulgence, he felt, was dangerously out of place. She +slipped back, supine, on the bed; and, with short sobs, she cried, "Go! +Go! Go!" + +In his room he methodically and thoughtfully assembled the necessities +for his bag; he was arranging mentally the details of his act. Where, +primarily, it affected Fanny and the children, his lawyers could +handle it best; it was the present consequences to himself, the +step immediately before him, that demanded consideration. But his +deliberation was lost in the knowledge that he would go to New York +where, inevitably, he should see Savina. No one could predict what would +determine that; it would unfold, his affair with Savina must conclude, +as it had begun--in obedience to pressures beyond their control. An +increasing excitement flowed over him at the thought of being with her, +possessing her, again. There was no doubt of that in his mind; he knew +that Savina would come to him. She was far more ruthless in brushing +aside artificial barriers, prejudices, than, until now, he. The figure +of William Grove occupied him for a little, but he seemed insubstantial, +not so much a being as a convention to be smashed in his own house. + +Lee Randon decided not to speak again, to say good-bye, to Fanny. It +would only multiply the difficulties of his leaving; she might have +another attack of rage, or--worse--of affection. He was amazed at his +lack of feeling, a little disturbed: perhaps there was something fatally +wrong, lacking, about him, and he was embarked on the first violent +stage of physical and mental degradation. It couldn't be helped, he told +himself, once more down stairs, in the hall. Beyond, the stool lay where +Fanny had kicked it; and he bent over to pick up the copper paper cutter +from the floor. Putting it on the table, he reflected that Fanny would, +in all probability, destroy it. His handkerchief, stiff, black with +dried blood, was in the crystal ash holder with a mahogany stand; and +that, as unnecessarily unpleasant, he hid in a pocket. + +The electric globe in the floor lamp was yellow; it was nearly burned +out and would have to be replaced. This had been his special corner, +the most comfortable in the pen. But the pig, he remembered, had +been slaughtered last week; and he wondered if the parallel he +had established would hold true to the end. In the main aspect, he +concluded, yes. But the pig had died without experiencing what was, +undoubtedly, both the fundamental duty and recompense of living. The +pig, happily or unhappily, had remained in ignorance of Cytherea and the +delights of love; but, perhaps, if only for the moment, he had better +call that passion; it was a word of clearer, more exact, definition. + +He left the house walking, carrying his bag up the hill into Eastlake: +a train left for the city at eleven-fifty-eight. Lee turned, beyond his +property, and saw the light burning in what had been his and Fanny's +room; the rest of the house, except for the glimmer below, was dark. +The winter night was encrusted with stars. A piercing regret seized +him--that he was past the middle of forty and not in the early twenties. +To be young and to know Savina! To be young and free. To be young ... +the increasing rapidity with which he went forward had the aspect of an +endeavor to waste no more precious time. + + + + +V + + +The brief level voice of Savina Grove arranging over the telephone +an hour, very late in the afternoon, for him to call, gave Lee a +comparatively long time in which to examine his feelings, particularly +in connection with Savina. His state of mind, his intentions, he +realized, should be clear for the moment when he saw her. In general +they were; but the particulars, the details of any probable immediate +action, evaded him. He should have to consult her about them. What he +most firmly grasped of all was that he couldn't--what, in reality, he +breathed to himself was they--remain in New York. The comparatively +orderly and delayed legal arrangement projected by the Morrises and Mina +Raff seemed to have no application to the impetuosity of the situation +before him. However, he was advancing at a speed, to a position, for +which there was no warrant. None at all. Perhaps Savina, satisfied by +the one occasion which--he had been so careful to insist--must be the +last, would regard him as merely importunate. + +Strictly held to discretion by the fact of Fanny, Savina might have +found him then--more available than when free--only the acceptable model +of an indiscreet man. Yet, he reminded himself, he hadn't left Eastlake, +broken wide open his home, on account of Savina. This, he again +insisted, would have happened independently of her; his life in Eastlake +had broken up of its own accord; its elements had been too tenuous for +the withstanding any longer of the stress of existence. But, he was +forced to add, the collapse had been hastened by his knowledge of +Savina. And this brought him to the examination of what, at bottom, she +meant to him. What was her significance, her bulk, in his life? + +That could be approached only through an understanding of his feeling +for her, what it was now and what it might become; not conspicuously +easy of comprehension. Lee tried the old, the long inaccurately used, +word, love. He asked himself the question squarely--did he love Savina? +Damned if he knew! He might reply to that, he thought ruefully, if he +grasped what love was, what the blasted phrase meant. As it was, it +seemed to Lee, a dictionary of synonyms would be helpless to make all +its varied significances distinct. He tried a simpler approach--did he +want to be with Savina more than with anyone else? At last he had put +a question to himself that he could answer: he most assuredly preferred +being with Savina to anyone else he knew. But that alone would not have +taken him to her. + +A simple desire on his part, naive like a daisy, could not have +overthrown the structure of his being. Yet the connection between the +two, the woman and the event, was undeniable, his impulse to go to her +now irresistible. That last word, as fully as any, expressed what lately +had happened to him. He was considering the occurrences logically while +the fact was that logic hadn't been touched on, summoned, once. He had +moved emotionally and not intellectually; he hadn't known, from hour +to hour, in what direction he would proceed. Certainly nothing could be +said in his defense on the score of common sense; that, though, didn't +disturb him; at a time when he might have been said to rely on it, +common sense had failed him utterly. He had thrown that over his +shoulder. Nor was he searching for an exterior justification of his +present anomalous position, for, briefly, an excuse; excuses were +the furthest of all things from his mind. The truth was that he was +decidedly exhilarated, as though he had left the hard narrow road for a +gallop over the green. He was merely dwelling on, analyzing, the present +as it was becoming the newly promising, the opening, future. + +But he did need to understand--for an attitude, a choice of speech, if +nothing else--his feeling for Savina. It consisted principally in the +tyrannical desire to be with her, to sink in the immeasurable depths +of her passion, and there lose all consciousness of the trivial mundane +world. That, Lee felt, given the rest, the fact that he was here as he +was, was sufficient; but--again still--he had had no voice in it. +The passion had inundated him in the manner of an incoming tide and +a low-water rock. Abruptly, after a certain misleading appearance of +hesitation on the part of the waves, he had gone under. Well, it was +very pleasant. In his case the celebrated maxims were wrong. + +He left this, for the moment, and returned to what, actually, lay ahead +of him. Would Savina go away with him, leave the correct William, the +safety of their New York house in the style of eighteen-eighty? Lee +considered in her two impulses, not alike--her overwhelming passion, +herself generally; and her admission, no, cry, that she loved him, +or the special part he had in her. It rather looked as though he'd be +successful. It did for a fact. He had not been idle through all the day, +but had drawn from the Harriman Bank twenty thousand dollars. So +much had not been necessary; it was very bad business to segregate in +idleness such a sum of money now; but he enjoyed the extravagance of it. +Prudence, frugality, was no longer a factor in his affairs. + +His present personal liberty, more complete than it had ever +been before--than, he added lightly, it might ever be again--was +astonishingly soothing. Sitting comfortably in a room in his customary +hotel, there wasn't a pressure that could be brought to bear on him. It +was now twenty minutes past four, he was to go to Savina at a quarter to +six, and until then there was nothing, nothing, to force him this way +or that: no directors' meetings, gabbling East-lake figures, +responsibility, housewife or children. He hadn't realized the extent to +which he had been surrounded and confined, the imponderable mass of what +he had not only been indifferent to but actually disliked. He could lie +down--he had been up the entire past night--and be called in an hour; +he could sit as he was, in an unbuttoned waistcoat with his legs +comfortably spread out; he could motor or walk on Fifth Avenue; smoke; +drink--all in an inviolable security of being. + +Or, going back to that moment when he had, so mistakenly, turned aside +from visionary promptings to a solid comfortable career, he might--what +was it?--write. Perhaps his sharp regret at the loss of his youth was +premature, youth itself comparatively unimportant. But no, that would +involve him in fresh distasteful efforts, imperceptibly it would build +up a whole new world of responsibilities: writing would be arduous, +editors captious, and articles, stories, books, tie him back again to +all that from which he had so miraculously escaped. Savina would be +enough. What a beautiful body, so unexpectedly full, she had; how +astounding, intoxicating, was the difference between what she seemed to +be and what she was. Lee Randon thought with amused pity of the files +of men who must have passed by her, with the most considerate bows, in +ignorance of the inner truth. + + That discovery, while, naturally, it had not been entirely reserved +for him, had accumulated in a supreme delight, been kept back, like the +best of all presents, for the last. He was glad that it wasn't too +late for him to enjoy it. Here, suddenly, intervening in the midst of +a prosaic drudgery, a tepid and meaningless period, was a magnificent +relief. By God, would he take advantage of it! Would he! There was a +knock at the door, and the hotel valet hung a freshly pressed suit +in the closet; the shoes into which he intended to change were in a +perfection of readiness; laid out were a heavy blue silk shirt and a +dull yellow tie. Lee got these various carefully selected articles of +dress slowly, exactly, on. His pearl pin Fanny had given him! Well, it +was a good pearl, selected personally by a celebrated dealer; and Lee +was obliged to her, nothing more. He lighted a cigarette, collected his +hat and gloves, his overcoat and stick, and descended in the elevator in +a mood of unrestrained enjoyment. + +The door attendant, who knew him, whistled for a taxi-cab, commenting +lightly on the visible accident to his jaw. But, in spite of it, Lee had +an appearance, as he phrased it, of good luck. The world, he said, was +evidently in favor of Mr. Randon. The latter agreed that it had such a +look. He was positively jovial. He dismissed the cab before the familiar +entrance on East Sixty-sixth Street, and was admitted immediately: the +servant caught his coat, and he went into the drawing-room. There had +been, he saw, a tea; the confusion lingering from a crowd was evident; +the cups, on all the available surfaces, had not been removed; in a +corner were the skeleton-like iron music racks of a small orchestra; +ash trays were overflowing; and a sealskin muff, with a bunch of violets +pinned to it, had been left. + +Savina had gone upstairs, but she would be down at once. Lee was turned +away from the door when she entered; she was wearing a cloth dress of +dull red--hadn't he heard it called Cuba color?--with a heavy girdle of +grotesque intertwined silver figures. With a single glance behind her +she swept forward into Lee's arms, her mouth held up to his. + + * * * * * + +Listening closely to all that he had to say, she sat with her +hands quietly folded on crossed knees. Perhaps twice she nodded, +comprehendingly. "And so," he ended, "that is what has occurred. We are +not to blame ourselves too much, as I've explained; the thing happened +within itself, died of its own accord. But the past doesn't need our +attention now. The future is the thing. What is it going to be? What," +he hesitated, "can we make it? Maybe everything, or nothing." + +"Are you leaving that for me to decide?" she asked. + +"To a great extent I have to; I don't want to appear to take so much for +granted. And then, only you can measure what I have to offer. I believe +what I have done is considered serious, if not ruinous; but that I can't +help thinking is exaggerated. I haven't been struck down yet. I don't, +candidly, now, expect to be. You ought to come to this through your +head, and not the heart, which I'd naturally prefer you to use. What, +in fact, I am asking you is to go away with me, to live with me. I shall +not, and you couldn't, very well, return. It's quite final, in other +words. I must find out, too, if the irregularity upsets you. That need +only be temporary. Grove and Fanny, I am sure, wouldn't persist in being +disagreeable. But, if they did, we'd have to face that as well, the +consequences of my--my impatience. + +"No, don't answer so quickly. Do you know me, are you sure you'd be +happy, satisfied, with me? I have some money, not a great deal for +myself now; I should say fifteen thousand dollars a year. Fanny, very +rightfully--for herself and the children--will get most of what I have. +And then, are you wedded, if not to your individual life here, to New +York? We should have to go away to some place rather vague--" + +"Cuba," she broke in. + +The irony of that suggestion carried him back to the many vainly +projected trips there with Fanny. His brother was in Cuba, it was true; +but that might turn out excellently: Daniel would be able to help +them in the difficult readjustments to follow. He was intelligent, +unprejudiced and calm and, Lee added, remote from the values, the +ponderous authority, of a northern hypocritical society. Then he forgot +that in the realization that Savina was going away with him, that +she was to be his, not for a solitary stolen night, but for years ... +openly, completely. He lost his self control and kissed her, heedless +of the open doors. Now she was cooler than Lee, and pushed him away. +"William will be in at any minute," she explained: + +"When shall we leave?" + +"We might take a train tonight for Washington, since we'll need +passports and I have to have an income tax receipt, and we can manage +all that best there. Then Key West, Havana, anywhere. We will hope +to get off without trouble; but, if Grove interferes, accept the +consequences as they come." + +"Very well." Savina grew still quieter as the march of events became +headlong. "I can live without a maid for a while. Tonight I won't dress +for dinner, this will do very nicely for the train; and come as soon +after as I can pack a bag. There will be literally nothing in it; my +summer things are all out of reach. Washington will be convenient for +me, too. Unless you want to see William again--" She rose. + +"Not particularly," he acknowledged; "though I wouldn't drive around +the city to avoid him. Somehow--I may be blind--I can't think that I am +doing him an infamous wrong: that he lost you proves that. Why, under +the circumstances, should you, anyone, stay? I don't feel a particle +immoral, or even devilish. It's all so sensible and balanced and +superior. No, no, let William watch out for himself; his club, he's so +devoted to, won't fail him. Fanny and he will have their whole worlds to +sympathize with their injury. We don't need sympathy." + +Lee walked back to the hotel, the pig-skin wrapped walking stick +swinging from an arm, his bearing confident and relaxed. He stopped at +the desk for a conference with the porter--a basket of fruit from the +restaurant, and, if procurable regularly or irregularly, a drawing-room +on the Washington train. Then he went up and closed his bag: he had +time for dinner and several cigars afterwards; he wasn't hungry, but the +ceremony would kill the intervening two hours and more. + +The porter found him later and delivered his tickets, including the +check for a drawing-room, secured as irregularly as possible from +the Pullman conductor. There were, it began to seem, to be no minor +annoyances. At a few minutes before ten he was standing, as he had +arranged with Savina, with his bag before the hotel; and, just past +the hour, the cab which held her turned in to the sidewalk. She had two +bags, but one was very small--her toilet things, she explained--and +she was carrying a jewel case. There wasn't a tremor in her voice or +bearing, the slightest indication that they were going farther than +a theatre in the vicinity of Forty-fourth Street. Internally, Lee was +excited, filled with the long strange sense of holiday. + +"William went to the club," Savina told him with a smile edged with +malice; "everything was as usual when he left, but when he gets back +it will be changed. I'm sorry to miss his expression when he reads the +letter I wrote; he won't show it to anyone." + +"That sounds as though you really disliked him," Lee observed. Then he +remembered the hatred he had felt for Fanny. Matrimony had a brutal hand +for superficial relationships and conventions. He had spoken lightly +but, watching her, he saw the grimness of her passion strike the +animation from her face. The jewel case slid over the softness of her +wrap to the floor, her hand crept under his cuff, clinging to his arm. + +Going immediately to their train, they found the fruit in the +drawing-room; the porter stopped to knock at the door and discover +if they were in need of his attendance. They heard dimly the train's +muffled boring under the river and were conscious of the swimming lights +of the Jersey plain, the confused illuminated darkness of cities, +the tranquility of open country, the ringing echo of bridges and +the sustained wail of their locomotive. They were, again, reaching +Washington, close in a taxi-cab; Savina's jewel case again fell +unheeded; and again, after the shortest halt possible, they +were whirling south in a drawing-room where night and day were +indistinguishable one from the other. + +On the rear platform of the orange-painted train moving deliberately +along the Florida coast Lee was first aware of the still, saturating +heat; that, in itself, was enough to release him from the winter-like +grip of Eastlake. He lost all sense of time, of hurry, of the necessity +of occupation as opposed to idleness, of idleness contrasted with sleep. +The promise of satiation, of inevitability, steeped his being in a +pleasant lethargy. It was the same to him if they moved or stopped, +whether they arrived at the next destination or remained forever in a +sandy monotony of tomato fields or by a slow pass of water cutting the +harshness of palmettos. On the viaducts he gazed with half-closed eyes +across the sapphire and emerald green and purple water; or, directly +under him, he looked down incuriously into a tide so clear that it +seemed no more than a breath ruffling the sand beneath. + +Savina, who had discarded cloth for dull white linen--she wished, she +explained, to make the transition as sharply as possible--was more +alertly interested in their constantly shifting surroundings; they were +significant to her as the milestones of her incredible escape. On the +steamer for Havana, marking their effects deposited in a cabin with a +double iron bed and unpleasantly ubiquitous basins, she explained to Lee +that she never got seasick; but he might have gathered that, she pointed +out, by her willingness to undertake Cuba. Admitting that he had missed +this feminine subtlety, he arranged two deck chairs in an advantageous +angle, and they sat enveloped in a mildness which, heavy with the odor +of water-soaked wood, was untroubled by any wind. When the steamer left +its pier Savina put a hand inside one of his. The harbor lights dropped, +pair by pair, back into the night; the vibration of the propeller +became a sub-conscious murmur; over the placid water astern a rippling +phosphorescence was stirred and subsided. A motion, increasing by +imperceptible degrees, affected the deck; there was a rise and fall, +regular and sleep-impelling: the uneasiness of the Gulf Stream. Havana +floated into their waking vision, a city of white marble set in lustrous +green, profound indigo, against the rosy veil of a morning sun. + + * * * * * + +The fortunate chance that took them to the Inglaterra Hotel--the disdain +of its runner was more persuasive than the clamor of all the others who +had boarded the steamer--found them a room, they soon discovered, in +what was at once the most desirable and the most unlikely place. They +might have the chamber until Tuesday, Lee was told, in an English +inflected with the tonal gravity of Spain. It was hardly past eight in +the morning, an awkward hour to arrive newly at a city, he thought, +as they were carried up in the elevator. The details of the floor, the +hall, they crossed, engaged his interest; not alone for the height of +the ceiling, which was excessive, but because of the palms, the pointed +Moorish arches filled with green painted wood lattices; the totality of +an effect different from anything else he had seen. + +Their room, with the lift of the ceiling emphasized by the confined +space, was more engaging still: tall slatted doors opened on an iron +railed balcony, the bath-room was like a tunnel on end, and the floor an +expanse of polished mosaic in a pattern of yellow and grey. Lee walked +out on the balcony; directly below and across a narrow paved street +was a floridly impressive building obviously for the purpose of varied +assemblages, and on his left a park was laid in concrete walks, royal +palms on towering smooth dull trunks, unfamiliar trees with a graceful +dense foliage, and innumerable stacked iron chairs about the marble +statue of a man with a pointing hand. These details, however, were +slowly gathered from an effect the whole of which was bewilderingly +white, a whiteness intolerably luminous in the dazzling bath of the sun. + +It was a scene, a city, Lee recognized, more foreign to his own than +any he knew in western Europe; a difference that existed mainly in the +tropical heat, visible in languorous waves rising from blanched walls +and streets already--so early--fervent. Savina was filled with delight; +a positive color glowed in place of the customary uniform pallor of her +cheeks; she opened her bags with an irresistible youthful energy. "Think +what we have been missing," she called above the sound of the water +running into the tub; "and what we accepted so long for living. I +suppose the wonderful thing is that we escaped. Lee, do you realize that +almost no one does? They never never get away, but go from one grave, +from one winter, to another. Isn't it strange, when what we did is so +very easy. + +"I'd like to tell a hundred people in New York that they could get away +too, unfreeze themselves. When we drove horses I used to be surprised +that they went along so quietly in blinders; they never seemed to learn +that one kick would break into splinters the thing dragging on them. +People are like that, I was and you were, too--in blinders. We've torn +ours off, Lee. Tell me that you are glad." He was, without reserve. +Tranquilly finding his razors, he was aware of a permeating contentment +in what they had done. It was exactly as Savina had said--the forces +which had held them in a rigorous northern servitude had proved, upon +assault, to be no more than a defense of painted prejudices, the canvas +embrasures of hypocrisy. + +"It is astonishing, what so many people put up with," he agreed; "but +then," Lee added, in a further understanding, "it isn't so much what you +knock down as what you carry away, take everywhere, inside you. When an +arrangement like ours fails, that, mostly, I suspect, is the cause. +It needs a special sort of fitness. Take the hundred people you spoke +of--I'd be willing to bet not five of them could get away from the past, +or put out of their minds what they are brought up on. Privately they +would think they were wicked, damned, or some such truck; and, sure +enough, that alone would finish them." + +"I haven't a speck of that," Savina admitted serenely; "I am happy. +And I don't even have to ignore the thought of your wife and children; +they'll get along just as well, maybe better, without you. William +doesn't need me; he hasn't for a number of years. But we had to have +each other." + +Lee Randon considered this in relation to his feeling that he had not +left Eastlake, Fanny, because of Savina. He was still convinced that +his life had fallen apart of itself; but he began to see that Savina had +been more deeply involved in his act of liberty than he had suspected. +Without her it was probable that he would have continued to the end in +the negative existence of Eastlake; yet no amount of mere assurance that +that was the only admirable, the only permissible, course was valid with +him unless he had a corroborating belief. And all that he might once +have possessed had left him at the final blow dealt by the passion of +Savina and himself. + +She had been stronger than the assembled forces of heredity and precept +and experience; her strength was superhuman; it was incredible that her +slender body could hold such an impulse, a fury really, of vitality. +Women must have been like that in earlier ages of humanity; but they +were no longer; their passion had been wasted, spent, or turned aside +into exhausting by-paths of sensation. He had finished shaving and, when +they were dressed, they went down to breakfast in a dining-room with +a marble floor and walls lustrous with bronze tiling. They had tall +glasses of iced orange juice; and, with the last fragrant draught of +coffee, Lee lighted a long bland cigar. + +"If you like," he proceeded comfortably, "you may rush around and see +as much of the city as possible. There is a big omnibus at the door. +Personally, I am going to do nothing of the kind. I intend to sit and +smoke, and then--smoke and sit. I am done with the proper and expected +thing in every one of its forms. I have always hated churches; and the +spots where soldiers fell or martyrs were burned, monuments, just annoy +me; and picture galleries give me colds in the head. Above all else I +don't want to be improved; if I hear a fact of any sort I am going to +bed for the rest of the day." + +"I don't care about those, either," Savina assented; "but the stores, +yes. I have to have a mantilla and a high comb right away, now; and--I +warn you--if it's only in our room I'm going to wear them. If I could +get you into it I'd bring back a shell jacket covered with green braid +and a wide scarlet sash, or whatever an espada wears." + +"A guitar and a carnation ought to do," he responded. "Count on me for +nothing until the evening, when, if you care to, we'll drive along the +sea, one way and then the other, and have dinner where we happen to be. +I hope you will wear the most extravagant and holiday clothes--white, +and very ruffled and thin, would be nice, with emeralds." + +"It's a good thing I have a lot of money," she observed; "you have some, +of course, but it wouldn't begin to support your ambitions." + +"I don't even care which of us has it," he admitted; "so it's there. +A year ago I should have looked pained and insisted that I couldn't +accept, nor allow you to use, your own money. I don't exactly have to +ask you for a taxi-cab fare, though, luckily; but if you did bring +the emeralds I saw you wearing in New York don't throw them away on my +account." + +"They are here," she assured him. "William gave them to me when we were +married." + +"Splendid, together with Fanny's pearl," he replied placidly; "I was +afraid they had been a legacy from your mother. I much prefer them to +have been William's--it will give them such a Utopian sparkle." + +When Savina had gone, in a long brightly-painted car summoned from the +line backed at the plaza's edge, Lee Randon returned to their room. The +heat of the day, approaching noon, the ceaseless noise of Havana rose +diffused to the balcony where he sat until the circling sunlight +forced him to move inside. What amazing comfort! A curiously impersonal +admiration for Savina grew with the understanding of her exceptionally +perceptive being. She was what, above all else, he would have chosen for +a companion: her extraordinary feeling was sheathed, tempered, in the +satin of a faultless aesthetic sense; the delicacy of her body was +resembled by the fineness of her feminine mind; she was entirely, +deliciously, decorative. The black brocade mules by her bed were +characteristic of her--useless charming objects that had cost +twenty, thirty, dollars. Their sliding tap on the glazed floor was an +appreciable part of his happiness; Savina's bottles on a dressing-table +were engraved crystal with gold stoppers: it was all as it should be. + + * * * * * + +When she returned she redressed her hair, drawing it back across her +ears, put in at a provocative angle a fan-like carved shell comb, and +twisted a shawl of flame-colored silk--it was a manton, she instructed +him--about her shoulders. The guise of Andalusia was very becoming to +her. For a dinner, Savina wore the filmy white and emeralds; they went +to a restaurant like a pavilion on a roof, their table, by a low masonry +wall, overlooking the harbor entrance. The heat of the day, cloaked in +night, was cooled by the trade wind moving softly across the sea; the +water of the harbor was black, like jet shining with the reflections of +the lights strung along the shore; the lighthouse at Morro Castle marked +the rocky thrust of the land. The restaurant was crowded: beyond Lee +were four officers of the Spanish navy in snowy linen and corded gilt; +in the subdued light the faces of women, under wide flowery hats, were +illusive and fascinating; everywhere the deep crimson of Castilian wines +was set against the amber radiance of champagne. + +Directly below, shadowy trees hid the stone margin of the bay, and +an enormous tripod, such as might be used for removing the cargoes of +ships, raised its primitive simplicity. "Look, Lee!" Savina laid a hand +on his wrist. A steamer, incredibly large and near, was moving slowly +out through the narrow channel to the sea. Rows of golden lights shone +on its decks and from the port-holes, and a drift of music reached +him. "Some day soon," she went on, "we'll take a boat like that, and +go--where? It doesn't matter: to a far strange land. Hills scented with +tea flowers. Streets with lacquered houses. Villages with silver bells +hung along the eaves. Valleys of primroses under mountains of ice. +We'll see them all from little windows, and then it will be night. But, +principally, we will never go back--never! never! never! We will be +together for years. Let's go to the hotel now; Lee. I am rather tired; +it's the heat, don't you think? I am worn, and, because I am so happy, +a trifle dizzy. Not much. Nothing to worry about. But I only want you, +Lee; in my heart I don't care for the valleys and bells and scents." + +Yet, before they reached the hotel they stopped, Savina insisted, for +cocktails of Bacardi rum, fragrant with fresh limes and sweet with +a crust of sugar that remained at the bottoms of the glasses. In the +night--their beds were separated by the width of the balcony doors--she +called for him, acute with fright. "What is it?" she cried. "Hark, +Lee, that horrible sound." The air was filled with a drumming wail, +a dislocated savage music, that affected him like a nightmare grown +audible. + +"It's coming from across the street, from the Opera House," he told her; +"some kind of a dance, I'm certain." Patently it was an orchestra, +but the instruments that composed it, the measures woven of frantic +screaming notes and dull stale iterations, he had no means of +identifying. "Bedlam in the jungle," he said soothingly. She wished it +would stop. Soon he agreed with her; without pause, without variation, +with an insistence which became cruel, and then unbearable, it went +on. Lee Randon, after an uneasiness which culminated in an exasperated +wrath, found a degree of exactness in his description: it was, +undoubtedly, the jungle, Africa, debased into a peculiarly harrowing +travesty of later civilized emotions. Finally he lost the impression of +a meaninglessness; it assumed a potency, a naked reality, more profound +than anything in his previous knowledge. It was the voice of a crazed +and debased passion. To Lee, it seemed to strip him of his whiteness, +his continence, his integrity, to flay him of every particle of +restraint and decency, and set him, bestial and exposed, in a ball room +with glass-hung chandeliers. + +Incomprehensibly the fluctuating clamor--he could distinguish low +pitched drums--brought him the vision, pale and remote and mysteriously +smiling, of Cytherea. He thought of that torrential discord rising +around her belled purple skirt, the cool yellow of her waist crossed +with fragile lace, beating past her lifted slender hand, the nails +stained with vermilion, to the pointed oval of her face against the +black hair and streaming gold of the headdress. Nothing, it appeared, +could be farther apart than the muffled furious strains escaping in +bursts through the opened windows beyond and the still apparition +from the tranquility of his Eastlake house. He would have said, +unhesitatingly, that the formal melody of the eighteenth century, +of Scarlatti and harpsichords, was the music that best accompanied +Cytherea. But she dominated, haunted with her grace, the infernal +dinning sound of unspeakable defilements. Savina was racked beyond +endurance: + +"I can't stand it any longer," she told Lee hysterically, risen with +her palms pressed to her ears. "I can hear it with every nerve. It will +never go out of my brain. You must stop it. Can't you understand that it +is driving me mad!" Her voice grew so shrill, she trembled so violently, +that he had to hold her forcibly in his arms. When, toward dawn, it +ceased, Savina was exhausted; she lay limp and white on her bed; +and, across the room, he could hear the shallowness of her irregular +breathing. As a grey light diluted the darkness, the trade wind, the +night wind, dropped, and the heat palpably increased. Instantaneously +the sun-flooded morning was born, a morning that lost its freshness, +its pearly iridescence, immediately. He closed the slats of the balcony +doors: Savina at last was sleeping, with her countenance, utterly spent, +turned to him. The sharp cries of the newsboys, the street vendors, +were drowned in the full sweep of a traffic moving to the blasts of +multitudinous horns. When she woke, past ten, drinking the small cup of +black coffee which locally accompanied dressing, she was still shaken. +"That's the most cursed racket anyone ever had to endure!" A growing +irritation made harsh his voice. "You couldn't torment a worse sound +out of a thousand cats." She smiled wanly. "If we were like that in the +past," he added, "I'm glad we changed, even if we are worse in other +ways." + +"I could hear myself screaming and screaming," Savina said. In the +heated room she had an uncontrollable chill. "Lee, I can't bring myself +to tell you: something black and dreadful ... had me. There was no one +else. It was like a woods. The hands ripping at me--" With her face +buried in her embroidered pillow, half clothed in web-like garments +threaded with black ribbons, she cowered in an abject and pitiful agony. + +Later, he discovered that, within the scope of his possible knowledge, +his conjecture had been right: a danzon, a native Cuban ball--not, +the director of the Inglaterra gave him to understand, entirely +respectable--had been held in the Opera House. "But there won't be +another until after we leave," Lee reassured Savina; "they are rather +rare except at carnival." She shuddered. It was evident that the +distressing effect on her of the music lingered through the day; +her energy gave way to a passive contentment hardly removed from +listlessness. + +They drove, at the end of afternoon, on the Malecon, following the +curving sea wall from La Punta to the scattered villas of Vedado. The +sea and sky were grey; or was it blue? At the horizon they met without +a perceptible change; the water became the air, the air water, with +a transition as gradual as the edge of dusk. The tropical evening was +accomplished rapidly, as dramatically as the uprush of the sun: they +were gazing into the distance over a tide like a smooth undulating mist +... and there were lights crowning the Cabanas fortress; the passing +cars made the familiar geometrical patterns with the cold bars of their +lamps; they were wrapped in darkness; night had come. + +Savina didn't want to go back to the hotel, their room; and, after +dinner at the Paris, they went to Carmelo, where they alternated +northern dances with the stridor of a northern cabaret and drinks. +Savina's spirits revived slowly. To Lee she seemed to have changed in +appearance since she left New York--here, losing her air of a constant +reserve, she looked younger, daring. Her sharp grace, exposed in the +films of summer dress, had an aspect of belonging, rather than to the +character she had deserted, to a woman at once conscious of its effect +and not unwilling to have it measured by the appraising gaze of the +masculine public. In a way, without losing her distinction, she had +become evident; another woman, one less admirably balanced, would have +been conspicuous. Havana was like a, stage on which Savina--with a +considered bravado they had kept the Randon--tried with intoxicating +success a part she had long and secretly desired. + + * * * * * + +What, Lee found, he most enjoyed was the personal liberty he had first +experienced in New York, waiting to see Savina after he had definitely +left Eastlake. All the aspects of his circumferential existence, +island-like in the dividing indigo of a magic sea, pleased him equally. +Of course, without Savina Cuba would have been an impossibility; she +was the center, the motive, of the design of his emotions; but it was +surprising how contented he was strolling in the outskirts, in the +minor parks and glorietas and paseos, of the world of his passionate +adventure. He sat placidly in the Cortina de Valdez, looking across the +narrow water to the long pink wall of the Cabanas, while Savina +drove and shopped and rested. Carefully avoiding the Americans at the +Inglaterra, on the streets, he had no burden of empty mutual assurances, +the forced stupidities of conversations, to support. His days all had +the look of a period of rest after a strain of long duration. + +The strain, he realized, unknown to him at the time, had existed +negatively through years before he had grown openly rebellious. A +quality within him, in spite of him, had risen and swept him, under +the eyes of Cytherea, beyond every circumstance of his former life. +The resemblance between her and Savina he caught in fleet glances +which defied his efforts to summon them; and, where that similitude was +concerned, he was aware of a disconcerting, almost humiliating, shifting +of balance. At first, recognizing aspects of Cytherea in Savina, now in +Cytherea he merely found certain qualities of the woman. The doll, it +seemed, had not been absorbed in Savina; the distant inanimate object +was more real than the actual straining arms about his neck, the +insatiable murmur at his ear. Yet his happiness with Savina was +absolute, secure; and still totally different from her attitude toward +him. She often repeated, in a voice no longer varying from her other +impassioned speech, that she loved him; and, while this was a phrase, a +reassurance, no man in his situation could escape, he returned it in a +manner not wholly ringing with conviction. + +It was the old difficulty--he wasn't sure, he couldn't satisfy himself, +about its meaning. He was not, for example, lost beyond knowledge or +perception in his feeling for Savina; carried along in the tempestuous +flood of her emotion, he yet had time to linger over and enjoy the +occurrences by the way. He liked each day for itself, and she regarded +it only as an insignificant detail of their unity. All her planning, her +dress and ardor and moods, were directed to one never-lost-sight-of end; +but he disposed his attention in a hundred channels. Lee began to be +aware of the tremendous single economy of women, the constant bending +back of their instincts to a single preeminent purpose. + +Yet everywhere, now, women had concentrated in a denial of that: the men +he knew hadn't a monopoly of restlessness. Even Fanny, in the parading +of all her rings, had not been oblivious of it. But it wasn't so much +that women denied their fundamental urgency as it was that they wanted +it exercised under other, more rapturous, conditions. Inexplicably, and +a great many at once, women had grown aware of the appalling difference +between what they might demand and what they had been receiving. In +consequence of this the world of masculine complacency was being dealt +some rude blows. But Lee Randon couldn't hope to go into this; the +problem was sufficiently complicated from his side of the fence. There +were, immediately, the practical developments of his undertaking to be +met. He served nothing by putting them off. He must write, but through +his lawyers, to William Grove and find out what action he proposed +to take, what arrangements for divorce could be facilitated. A +letter--there could be no saving impersonality here--to Fanny was more +difficult. + +From Havana, his approval of Fanny was very complete; he understood +her, made allowances, now better than at any time during their marriage; +given what, together, they were, her conduct had been admirable. A +remarkably attractive and faithful woman, he told himself; it was a pity +that, in her estimation, her good qualities had come to so little. The +thing for him to do was to see his brother, and move part of the burden +of his decisions over to Daniel's heavy frame. + +The sugar estate of which he was Administrador was in the Province of +Camagüey, at Cobra; an overnight trip from Havana, Lee had learned. It +was Sunday evening now, and they would have to give up their room at the +Inglaterra Tuesday. Obviously there wasn't time to write Daniel and +have a reply by then. The other desirable hotels were as full as the +Inglaterra. He must wire, but the composition of his telegram presented +an unexpected difficulty: + +Lee didn't know how to explain the presence with him of Savina; he +couldn't determine how much or how little to say; and it was probable +that Daniel had had a cable from Eastlake. The mere putting down of the +necessary words of his message, under the concerned gaze of a clerk, +with a limited comprehension of English, was hazardous. The clerk, +he had discovered, would read in a loud voice of misplaced linguistic +confidence whatever Lee wrote, and there was a small assemblage of +Americans at the counter of a steamship company across the office. What, +it began to appear, they'd have to do would be to take the train +for Cobra on Tuesday. Yet they couldn't quite come down on Daniel so +unexpectedly; he lived, Lee recalled, on a batey, the central dominating +point of a sugar estate; and--unmarried--what accommodations he might +offer were problematic. Lee, from the heading of a letter, could not +build the proportions of a Casa Vivienda. Well, there would be a hotel +at Cobra! That answered his doubts--Savina and he would go to Cobra and +there communicate with Daniel. It would be easy to talk privately with +him. Lee didn't want his approval, but only his careful opinions and +reasonable assistance. + +He, Lee, would not produce Savina with the triumphant indication that +her resistless charm explained everything. He was no such fatuous fool! +But, studying her, he got a solid assurance from the superiority of her +person. Daniel would see at once that this wasn't the usual flight south +of an indulgence headed for paresis. Savina, his entire affair, demanded +a dignified reception. They were seated in the patio of the hotel, by a +pool and the heroic bronze statue of a dancing girl in a manton; on the +table between them was, at that hour, the inevitable small pitcher of +Daiquiri cocktails. He told Savina what had been in his thoughts, and +she nodded her approval: + +"I agree that we ought to see your brother, and, through him, +communicate with New York. At present things are much too uncertain. If +William, or your wife, were different they could have us held on a very +unpleasant-sounding charge. I know you detest conventions, but I must +say I am glad other people live by them; it makes it so comfortable for +us. Imagine, if William were a vulgar man, the fuss! But," she admitted, +"at bottom I shouldn't have cared. You are not half as disreputable as I +am, Lee. You have a proper look at this minute." + +"Really," he protested, "there is no reason for you to be insulting, +when I deliberately led you astray." + +"You do flatter yourself," Savina replied; "when it was I all the time: +I broke up your home." + +"You needn't boast so loudly and pain everyone about us," he protested +cheerfully. She gazed contemptuously at the surrounding tables: + +"The scheming presidents of concessions and their fat wives. Have you +noticed the men hurrying away apologetically in the evening, Lee? The +places on Sol and Gloria Streets! And, just as you meant, if they knew +who, what, we were, they'd want to have us arrested. You see, I am +infringing on the privileges sacred to men. It's all right for them to +do this, to go out to an appointment after ten o'clock and come back at +two satisfied--" + +"Savina," he interrupted her, "I know all that you were going to say, I +could repeat it to you in your own words. You were about to assault the +double standard. Consider it done. You are right. Everyone with sense +is right there. But if I hear it again I'll think I am at Aeolian Hall +listening to an English author lecture. I'll put you in your car on +Forty-second Street and send you home." + +"You can't send me home," she reminded him; "you are too proper and +have too many scruples. You'll have to stay with me now for life. I am +ruined." They laughed happily. + +"You are," he echoed her. + +"Isn't it nice?" + +"Nothing better could be invented." + +She investigated the pitcher. "The last drop." + +Lee Randon signalled for the waiter, but she stopped him; the strained +intensity of her face, the shining darkness of her eyes, set his heart +pounding. + + * * * * * + +They left for Cobra without even the formality of a telegraphed +announcement to Daniel Randon. Their compartment, in the middle of the +car, with the more casual open accommodations at either end, resolute +in its bare varnished coolness, indicated what degree of heat they might +expect in the interior. The progress of the train through the length of +the island was slow and irregular: Lee had a sense of insecure tracks, +of an insufficient attention to details of transportation that required +an endless, untiring oversight. Naturally they slept badly; and the +morning showed them a wide plain scattered with royal palms which +thickened in the distance. Such vast groves, Lee thought, robbed them +of the stateliness so impressive in parks and cities. The landscape, +tangled with lianas or open about massive and isolated ceiba trees, was +without the luxuriance of color he had expected. It was evident that +there had been no rain for a long period; and the crowded growths, grey +rather than green, were monotonous, oppressive. Other than Apollinaris +and the conventional black coffee of the train, and oranges bought +by Lee at a junction, no breakfast was possible; and they watched +uninterruptedly the leisurely passing land. Marks of sugar planting +multiplied, the cane, often higher than Lee's head, was cut into +sections by wide lanes; and announced by a sickly odor of fermentation, +he saw, with a feeling of disappointment, the high corrugated iron sides +of a grinding mill. It was without any saving picturesque quality; and +the noise of its machinery, a heavy crushing rumble, was perceptible on +the train. + +However, Savina was attracted by the high carts, on two solid wheels, +and drawn by four or six oxen, hauling the cut cane. But the villages +they passed, single streets of unrelieved squalor in a dusty waste, they +decided were immeasurably depressing. No one who could avoid it walked; +lank men in broad straw hats and coat-like shirts rode meagre horses +with the sheaths of long formidable blades slapping their miserable +hides. Groups of fantastically saddled horses drooped their heads tied +in the vicinity of a hands-breadth of shade by general stores. "I could +burst into tears," Savina declared. But he showed her pastures of rich +tufted grass with herds of well-conditioned cattle. "I wish we were +there," she said. But, when the train stopped at Cobra, Savina, +hesitating on the step, proposed that they go on into Camagüey, hardly +more than an hour distant. + +Their bags, put off, the rapid incomprehensible speech of the guard, +left them, with the train moving doubtfully on, at Cobra. It was, on +examination, more dismal than, from the detachment of the compartment, +they had realized. The usual baked ground, the dusty underbrush, the +blank façades of the low buildings that faced them from either side +of the tracks, had--in addition to a supreme ugliness--an indefinably +threatening air. The rawness, the machetes hanging about the booted +heels of soiled idlers, the presence everywhere of negroes with an +unrestrained curiosity in Lee and his companion, filled him with an +instinctive antagonism. "Do you think that can be the hotel?" he asked, +indicating a long plaster building with a shallow upper porch supported +on iron-footed wooden columns. Above its closely-shuttered windows, in +letters faded and blistered by the sun, reached the description, "Hotel +de Cobra." + +"We can't stay there," he continued decidedly; "I'll send for Daniel at +once." + +Without available help he carried their bags to the entrance of the +hotel, and went into a darkened room with a cement floor which had the +thick dampness of an interior saturated with spilled acid wine. There +he found a man, not different from those outside, who, incapable of +understanding English, managed to grasp the fact that Lee wished to see +Daniel Randon immediately. The proprietor assented, and urged them up +a stair. "I won't have you wait out here," Lee told Savina; "it will be +only for an hour or so." The room into which they were ushered had, +at least, the advantage of bareness: there was a wardrobe of mahogany +leaning precariously forward, a double bed deeply sagged with a +grey-white covering, a wash stand and tin basin and pitcher, and some +short sturdy rush-bottomed chairs. + +Its principal feature, however, was the blue paint that covered the +walls, a blue of a particularly insistent shade which, in the solidity +of its expanse, seemed to make all the enclosed space and objects livid. +The tall shutters on one side, Lee discovered, opened on the upper porch +and a prospect of the tracks beyond. "If I stayed here a night I'd +be raving," Savina declared. "Lee, such a color! And the place, the +people--did you notice that carriageful of black women that went by us +along the street? There were only three, but they were so loosely fat +that they filled every inch. Their faces were drenched with powder and +you could see their revolting breasts through their muslin dresses; +terrible creatures reeking with unspeakable cologne. They laughed at me, +cursed us, I am sure." + +"We'll have to put up with it till Daniel comes," he observed +philosophically; and, on the low straight chairs, they gazed around so +disgustedly that they both laughed. "I suppose he is out somewhere in +the cane." Savina asked what they would do if he were away. He might +be in Santiago. The company had other estates. "Not now," Lee decided; +"what they call the grinding season has just begun, and every hour is +important. The least thing gone wrong might cost thousands of dollars." +The correctness of his assumption was upheld by an announcement +unintelligible except for the comforting fact that Daniel was below. + +"Perhaps I had better see him first," Lee suggested diplomatically, and +Savina assented. + +Daniel Randon was both tall and fat, a slow impressive bulk in white +linen with a smooth impassive face and considering brown eyes. "This," +he said unremarkably, "is a surprise. But I am, of course, glad; +particularly since Venalez reported that Fanny was with you." + +"She isn't," Lee replied tersely; there had been no cable from Eastlake, +he saw, and he must plunge boldly into what he had to say. "I am sorry +to tell you that she is at home. But I'm here, and not by myself." +A slight expression of annoyance twitched at his brother's contained +mouth. "No, you are making a mistake. I have left Fanny, Daniel. I +thought perhaps you would have heard." + +"Our telegraph system is undependable," was all that the other, the +younger, Randon answered. + +"You don't know, then. A Mrs. Grove is with me; but she is that only +until the divorces can be arranged; and I counted on you--" + +"Divorces?" The single word was accompanied by a faint lifting of +Daniel's eyebrows. + +"She was married, too," Lee explained. "You will understand better when +you talk to Savina. We are not young feather-heads, Daniel; this is +serious, final. Really, we came to Cuba on your account, to see you. +When I tried to compose a telegram from Havana, telling you something of +the situation, I couldn't--all the idiotic tourists hanging about! Well, +here we are, or here I am, and Savina is upstairs, most anxious to meet +you." + +"Certainly," Daniel Randon agreed. He was silent for a moment in the +consideration of what he had been told. Then, "I can't have you on +the batey," he pronounced. He lifted a silencing hand against an +anger forming in instant unmeasured speech. "Not for myself," he +particularized. "You could have seven mistresses, of all colors, if the +place were mine. Please remember that it isn't. It's the company's. That +is quite different." Daniel was making, Lee realized, what for him was +a tremendous conversational effort. "Even if I were alone, except for +Cubans, it would be possible; but there is Mr. Stribling, with his +wife and, at present, grown daughter, from Utica; he is the Assistant +Administrador. Then we have George Vincent and Katharine--the Chief +Engineer with a very new bride from, I believe, Ohio. They are very +particular in Ohio. And others. You must remember that I have a +photograph of Fanny with the children: it is much admired, well known. I +couldn't explain your Mrs.--Mrs. Grove. Who could? We haven't a +sister. Altogether I am sorry." He stopped uncompromisingly; yet, Lee +recognized, in all that Daniel had said there was no word of criticism +or gratuitous advice. He had voiced the facts only as they related to +him; to everything else he gave the effect of a massive blankness. + + * * * * * + +Argument, Lee saw, was useless. Extended to the heart of a tropical +island, the virtuous indignations of a hard propriety still bound their +movements. "All that I can suggest," Daniel went on, "is that you return +to Havana tomorrow evening; the company has offices there, and it will +be easier for me to see you. Camagüey is nearer, but gossip there +would have you in the same bed no matter how far apart your rooms were. +Decidedly not Camagüey." + +There was no train for Havana, it developed, before tomorrow. "And, +in the meanwhile," Lee inquired, "must we stay here? Savina will be +miserable." + +"Why not?" Daniel gazed about casually. "I lived with Venalez a month. +It is good enough if you are not too strict about a travelling beauty or +two who may be stopping as well." His apologies to Savina, in the room +above, were faultless. There was, simply, at the Cobra sugar estancia, +no satisfactory arrangement for guests; except for an occasional party +of directors, or a special mission, there were no guests. At his, +Daniel's central, in Santa Clara on the sea, he hoped some day to offer +them the hospitality of his own house. + +When he left, Lee made no revelation of what had been said downstairs; +Savina accepted the situation as it had been exposed to her. "I can't +allow myself to think of a night here," she told him; "it will be a +horror." She opened the slats of the long window shutters, and glowing +bars of white heat fell in a ladder-like order across a blue wall; the +segments of sunlight were as sharp and solid as incandescent metal. In +the cobalt shadow Savina was robbed of her vitality; she seemed unreal; +as she passed through the vivid projected rays of midday it appeared as +though they must shine uninterruptedly through her body. Lee considered +the advisability of taking her for a walk--there were, he had seen +from the train, no roads here for driving--but, recalling the insolent +staring and remarks she had met, he was forced to drop that possibility. + +Weary from the prolonged wakefulness of the night, Savina made an effort +to sleep; and, waiting until she was measurably quiet, Lee went out. The +heat was blinding, it walled him in, pressed upon him with a feeling of +suffocation, as though--between him and the freshness, the salvation, of +any air--there were miles of it packed around him like grey cotton. To +the left of the hotel, the bare plaza, half hidden in scrubby bushes, +there was an extended shed with a number of doors and fragments of +fence, heaped rusted tins and uncovered garbage; and, lounging in the +openings, the door-frames often empty, the windows without sashes, were +women, scantily covered, sounding every note in a scale from black to +white. Yet, Lee observed, the whitest were, essentially, black. What +amazed, disturbed, him was their indolent blinking indifference, their +indecent imperviousness, in the full blaze of day. + +They were, to Lee, significant, because from them he drew a knowledge +of Cobra. He could not, without such assistance, have arrived at the +instinctive understanding that interpreted the street into which he +turned. It was the street of a delirium, running, perhaps, for half a +mile; an irregular deeply rutted way formed by its double row of small +unsubstantial buildings of raw or gaudily painted boards and galvanized +sheet iron. They were all completely open at the front, with their +remarkable contents, pandemoniums of merchandise, exposed upon a +precarious sidewalk of uneven parallel boards elevated two or three feet +above the road. Mostly cafés, restaurants, there was still an incredible +number of banks--mere shells with flat tarred roofs and high counters +built from wall to wall. The receivers, the paying tellers, were many, +with the mingled bloods, the heterogeneous characteristics, of China +and Colonial Spain and Africa; and, back of their activity--there was a +constant rush of deposited money and semi-confidential discussion--were +safes so ponderous and ancient that they might have contained the +treasure of a plate fleet of Peru. + +Crowding in on them, challenging each other from opposite sides, the +restaurants were longer and shallow, with their groups of tables ranged +against walls decorated in appallingly primitive and savage designs: +palms like crawling spiders of verdigris set on columns of chocolate +rose from shores, from seas, of liquid bright muds in which grotesque +caricatures of men, barbarously clad or, swollen headed, in travesties +of civilized garb, faced women with exaggerated and obscene anatomies. +They, like the banks, were crowded; companies of negroes sat over dishes +of mucous consistency and drank, with thick lips, liquors of vicious +dyes. The prodigious women, often paler than the men, drinking with +them, gabbled in a loud and corrupt Spanish and, without hats on +their sere crinkled masses of hair, were unrestrained in displays of +calculated or emotionally demented excitement. + +A flat wagon passed, holding, on precarious chairs, a band furiously +playing an infernal jumbled music which, as it swelled, filled all the +occupants of the cafés with a twitching hysteria. Subdued masculine +shouts were pierced by shameless feminine cries; lust and rage and +nameless intoxications quivered like the perceptible films of hot dust +on the air. Negroes, Haitians with the flattened skulls, the oily skin, +of the Gold Coast, and Jamaicans glowing with a subcutaneous redness, +thronged the sidewalks; and sharp-jawed men, with a burned indeterminate +superiority of race, riding emaciated horses, added to the steel of +their machetes revolvers strapped on their long thighs. + +What, mainly, occupied Lee Randon was the nakedness of the passion +everywhere surcharging the surface of life. There was, in the sense +familiar to him, no restraint, no cover beyond the casual screens at the +backs of the restaurants; no accident to which the uncertain material of +life was subject was improbable; murder rasped, like the finger of death +on wire strings, at the exasperated sensibilities of organisms exposed, +without preparation, to an incomprehensible state of life a million +years beyond their grasp. It fascinated and disturbed Lee: it had a +definite interest, a meaning, for him. Was it to this that Savina had +turned? Had the world only in the adherence to the duty typified by +Fanny left such a morass as he saw about him? Was he, Lee Randon, +instead of advancing, falling back into a past more remote than coherent +speech? Nothing, he asserted, could be further from his intention and +hope. Yet, without doubt, he was surrounded by the denial of order, of +disciplined feeling; and, flatly, it terrified him. + +Lee insisted, hastily, that what he wanted--no, demanded--was not this +destruction of responsibility, a chaos, mentally and sensually, but the +removal of it as a rigid mob imposition on the higher discretion of his +individuality. The thing which, with Savina, he had assaulted was, in +its way, as unfortunate as the single reeking street of Cobra. Again, +the scene around him wasn't hypocritical, its intention was as +thickly evident as the rice powder on the black sweating faces of the +prostitutes. Hypocrisy was peculiarly the vice of civilization. His +necessity was an escape from either fate--the defilement of a pandering +to the flesh and the waste of a negation with neither courage nor +rapture. Damn it, couldn't he be freed from one without falling into the +other? Lee told himself that it must be possible to leave permanently +the fenced roads of Eastlake for the high hills; it wasn't necessary to +go down into the bottoms, the mire. + +He regarded himself curiously as, to a large extent, the result of all +the ages that had multiplied since the heated tropics held the early +fecundity of human life. A Haitian lunged by with out-turned palms +hanging at his knees, a loose jaw dropped on a livid gullet flecked +with white, and a sultry inner consciousness no more than a germinal +superstition visible in fixed blood--suffused eyes. He had an odor, Lee +fantastically thought, of stale mud. Well--there he was and there +was Lee Randon, and the difference between them was the sum of almost +countless centuries of religions and states and sacrifice and slaughter +He had a feeling that the accomplishment was ludicrously out of +proportion to all that had gone into it. For the only thing of value, +the security of a little knowledge, was still denied him. What, so +tragically long ago, Africa begged from the mystery of night, from idols +painted indifferently with ochre or blood, he was demanding from a power +which had lost even the advantage of visibility. His superiority was +negligible. It was confined relatively to unimportant things--such as +an abstract conception of a universe partly solid and partly composed of +ignited gases revolving in an infinity of time and space. He was aware +of sensations, flavors, champagnes, more delicate than the brutality of +a rape conceived in strangling gulps of sugar cane rum. On the outside +he had been bleached, deodorized, made conformable with chairs rather +than allowed to retain the proportions, powers, designed for the +comfortable holding to branches. But in his heart, in what he thought of +as his spirit, what had he gained, where--further than being temporarily +with Savina in the beastly hotel of Cobra--was he? + + * * * * * + +His thoughts had become so inappropriate to his purpose, his presence, +here that he banished them and returned to Savina. She was notably more +cheerful than when he had left her, and was engaged with an omelet, +rough bread, Scotch preserved strawberries, and a bottle of Marquis de +Riscal; most of which, she told him, had been sent, together with +other pleasant things, by Daniel Randon. She was unusually seductive in +appearance, with, over the sheer embroidered beauty of her underclothes, +her graceful silken knees, a floating unsubstantial wrap like crushed +handfuls of lilacs. "This room kills anything I might put on," she +replied to the expression of his pleasure. "After all, we shall soon be +gone. I got Daniel's servant to telegraph the Inglaterra we were coming +back. They'll have to watch out for us. After we see your brother there, +and make a beginning of our rearrangements, we will go on, I think. Do +you mind? South, Guadeloupe, perhaps, because it's so difficult to get +to, and then Brazil. I have an idea we won't stay there long, either, +but travel on toward the East. I do like islands, and there are +quantities, quarts, to see in the Pacific." She put her arms, from which +the wide sleeves fell back, around his neck, drew him close to her. "It +doesn't matter where I am, if it is with you. I love you, Lee, and I am +happy because I know we'll always have each other. We are not so very +young, you see, and there isn't a great deal of time left, not enough to +grow tired, to change in. + +"I wake up at night, sometimes, with that tiresome pain at my heart, as +though it were too full of you, and, for a little, I'm confused--it is +all so strange. I think, for a moment, that I am still with William, +and I can't imagine what has happened to the room. It frightens me +dreadfully, and then I remember: it isn't William and the house on +Sixty-sixth Street, but you, Lee, and Cuba. We're together with nothing +in the world to spoil our joy. And, when we are old, we shall sit side +by side at Etretat, I am sure, and watch the sea, and the young people +in love under the gay marquees, and remember. Then we'll be married and +more respectable than the weather-vanes. I want that on your account; +I don't care; but you would worry, I am afraid. You are serious and a +conscientious man, Lee. + +"But, before that, I want to spend all my feeling, I don't want a thrill +left, lost; I want to empty and exhaust myself." Her emotion was +so strong that it drew her away from him, erect, with her bare arms +reaching to their fullest quivering length. In the blue gloom of the +room shuttered against the white day, with her wrap, the color of +lilacs, lightly clasping her shoulders, she seemed to be a vision in +subdued paint. Lee was held motionless, outside, by the fervor of an +appeal to fate rather than to him. She was, the thought recurred to him, +too slender, fragile, to contain such a passion. Then, in a transition +so sudden that it bewildered him, her mouth was against his, her hands +straining him to her. She was ugly then, her face was unrecognizable in +an expression of paralysed fury. + +The heat, Lee protested, grew worse with evening; not a stir of air +brought out the dry scraping rustle of the palms, a sound like the +friction of thin metal plates. The balcony, if possible, was worse than +their room. In his irritation Lee cursed the scruples of his brother; +Savina, prostrate on the bed, said nothing. At intervals her hand moved, +waving a paper fan with a printed idyl from Boucher, given her in a +café at Havana. She had none of the constrained modesty, the sense +of discomfort at her own person, so dominating in Fanny. Lee finally +lighted a lamp: the hours, until the precipitant onrush of night, seemed +stationary; gigantic moths fluttered audibly about the illumination and +along the dim ceiling. When, later, he was on the bed, it was wet under +his sweating body. In a passing sleep Savina gave one of the cries of +her waking emotion. In a state of unconsciousness her fingers reached +toward him. From the balcony beyond them drifted a woman's challenging +laughter--one of the travelling beauties Daniel had mentioned--and he +could hear the bursts of discordant sound on the street of Cobra, the +combined efforts of rival bands hideous singly and together beyond +description. What a hell of a night, what a night in hell! + +The moths, defrauded in their hunger for light, blundered softly around +the walls; when Lee rose to light a cigarette they would, he felt, +gather at the match and beat it out with their desirous wings. Then +he heard a shot, and uplifted clamoring voices; all as unreal, as +withdrawn, as a simulated murder on a distant stage. He pictured the +flaring restaurants, the banks with corrugated iron locked across their +fronts; the faces of the negroes brought black and lurid out of the +surrounding blackness. Savina, awake, demanded a drink, and he held a +clay water monkey awkwardly to her lips. The faint double blast of a +steam signal rose at the back of the hotel, beyond the town; he had +heard it before and now connected it with Daniel's sugar mill. + +His brother hadn't perceptibly changed in fifteen years. During that +time Lee had seen him scarcely at all. Suddenly he was sorry for this: +Daniel was what was generally known as a strong man. Men deep in the +national finances of their country spoke to Lee admiringly of him; it +was conceded that he was a force. Lee wasn't interested in that--in his +brother's ability, it might be, to grip an industry by the throat. +He envied, speculated about, the younger man's calmness, the Chinese +quality of his silence, the revelations of his carefully few words. +Daniel, in past years, had been often drunk, various women had been +seriously or lightly associated with his name; but he appeared to have +cast them, the Bacardi and the blandishments, entirely aside. He seemed +as superior to the dragging and wearing of life as a figure carved in +stone, a Buddha, any Eastern presentment of the aloof contempt of a +serene wisdom at the mountain of its own flesh. Lee, beside his brother, +resembled a whirlpool of dust temporarily formed by the wind in a road. + +Daniel had never married, he had been too cunning for that fragrant +trap, as well. What were his vices? But were habits, self-indulgences, +held in the background, ruthlessly subordinated to primary activity, +vices? Lee wished now that Daniel had seen Cytherea; he was certain that +the other would have said something valuable about her. Through his long +contact with the naked tropics Daniel understood many things hidden from +him. He must know, for instance, about the Brujeria, the negro magic +brought through Haiti from the depths of Africa. Everyone in Cuba caught +rumors, hints, of ceremonials of abject horror. But of that Daniel could +never be brought to speak. Lee could even visualize him taking part, in +a cold perverse curiosity, in the dances about smothered fires. + +He thought there was a glimmer of day at the windows, but it was only +a flash across his staring eyeballs. From the plaza below came a low +sibilant conversation. It went on and on, until Lee, in an irrepressible +indignation, went out on the balcony and, in a voice like the clapping +of a broken iron bell, cursed the talkers into silence. + +Christ, it was hot! + +Savina was sitting up. "Isn't it tomorrow night, or the one after that?" +she asked. "This room is like a vault that I have been in a thousand +thousand years. I can't tell you how it affects me; it seems as though I +must stay here forever, that if I tried to get away I'd be forced +back. And I dreamed that everything I owned had been turned blue--my +nightgowns and nail files and travelling clock and the oranges. You +wouldn't believe how depressing a blue orange could be. We will forget +it as soon as possible, Lee. Do you remember how nice the room was at +the Inglaterra? I wish you'd feel my head: isn't it hotter than usual?" + +"Why shouldn't it be?" he asked impolitely. + +"It wouldn't be possible, would it, Lee, to have the night go on +forever, to have something happen to the scheme of things? Or perhaps +I'm blind." Her voice was plainly terrified. "Light a match, please. Oh, +thank you. What an idiot I am. Hold me closer; then I can forget, then +nothing else matters. I can never get close enough; I wish I could pour +myself into you." + +"You'll be able to, if this keeps up," he observed, with a note of +brutality. "They will find us, in the morning, in a bowl and two +pitchers." + +But there was no corresponding lightness in his spirit; periods like +this extended into an infinity of torment beyond time. A thinning of the +dark expanded through the room. A cerulean unnatural dawn crept about +him: there was the muffled clatter of horses' hoofs in the dust outside; +a locomotive whistled in a far universal key. Savina slowly became +visible; asleep, her personality, her vividness, were gone; she was as +featureless, as pallid, as a nameless marble of remote Greece. There +were marks across her feet where the mules chafed her; the mules +themselves were lying on the bare floor. He saw his clothes, the +familiar habit of the day, with a sharp surprise. + + * * * * * + +It had been a night without rest, without the coolness and assuagement +of a release from the fever of the day; and, Lee thought, he felt as +haggard as Savina looked. A wind that was hardly more than an erratic +stirring of super-heated dust agitated a loose slat in a shutter and +deposited a fine dun film across the floor. Savina put as much as +possible, so early, into her bags. Standing before a narrow mirror +nailed to a wall, with her comb, she turned. "My hair is soaked," she +wailed; "just putting my arms up is more than I can manage. Haven't you +been thinking about all the cold things in the world?" She slipped into +a chair, spent and dejected, with her hair clouding one shoulder. It +would, he repeated, be over soon, and he gazed at her with a veiled +inspection. Savina was so entirely unprepared for this, the least +hardship so new, that he was uncertain about the temper of her +resistance. + +Aware of his gaze, she smiled slowly at him, and, seated, again took +up her task with the comb. "I couldn't have you see me very often like +this," she proceeded: "it would be fatal. I don't mean that when I'm +finished I'm irresistible, but the process simply must go on in private. +I don't want to be a wife, Lee--one of those creatures in a dressing +sacque with hair pins in her mouth. I can't bear the thought of you and +a flannel petticoat together. That is where married women make a serious +mistake: they let their husbands see them while the maid is doing their +hair, or when they're smeared with creams, or, maybe, with tonsilitis." +She rose. "I won't be a wife," she chanted, "I won't be--" + +Her voice broke suddenly. Lee thought she had tripped, he lunged +forward, but she fell crumpling on the floor. "It's this hellish heat," +he asserted, lifting her to the bed. Her lips were open and dry, and +her eyes, without vision, stared at the ceiling. Lee wet a handkerchief, +dabbling it over her face; he had never before, he realized, seen a +woman faint. It was terrifying but not grave; they did it, he had heard, +very often. No wonder, after such a night. She had been gone over a +minute now; there must be someone in the place who would know what to +do. He put off moving, however, both because of his reluctance to leave +Savina alone and because of the difficulty of any explanation. He took +her hand; it was cold and damp, and her forehead was glistening with +minute globes of sweat. All the blood seemed to have been withdrawn from +her body. + +"I'll have to go for help," he said aloud, in a commonplace manner which +yet struck curiously on his hearing. There was a faint quiver of her +features, a scarcely perceptible sigh, and her fingers weakly closed on +his grasp. "How foolish," Savina murmured. She made an effort to raise +herself up from the pillow, but he restrained her; Lee commanded her to +be absolutely still. "The spirits of ammonia is in the dressing-case," +she whispered. He held the clouding aromatic liquid to her mouth and she +took it laboriously. "Don't call anyone, Lee," she continued; "I'll be +all right in a little. So much at once! You see, I haven't been used to +happiness. No wonder I was dizzy. But I fainted, Lee, didn't I? That's +unusual for me." + +He sat beside her, at once moved and detached from her weakness, +gently holding her supine hand. She mustn't worry, he told her at short +intervals. "Don't worry, this is nothing." + +"You'll give me time to dress for the train," she insisted. "As soon as +we get away from here I shall be better. We will, won't we?" + +"Get away? What nonsense! Of course. You will be up by noon, but there +is no good in your stirring before you have to. If Daniel comes, you can +see him here, in your bed. Or you needn't see him at all. It's just as +you feel." + +Even as she lay, prostrate, on the bed, he could see her collapse; the +strength, animation, interest, drained away from her; it seemed to Lee +that momentarily she was again in a coma. He leaned over and placed +a hand on her brow. Savina's eye-lids fluttered. Under her breast her +heart was scarcely discernible. Suddenly he didn't like it; abruptly +an apprehension, from which he was obliged to bar a breath of panic, +possessed him. Lee covered her lightly with a sheet, and went out, +softly closing the door. Before the hotel he caught the proprietor by a +shoulder and pointed up to his room. "Sick, sick," he repeated the term +with increasing emphasis, not successful in banishing his vagueness of +dismay. The proprietor smiled uncertainly, edging from under the weight +of Lee's hand. Then, "Get my brother, Mr. Daniel Randon, at once," he +commanded; "soon. Mr. Randon; the sugar--" Lee waved in the direction of +the mill. + +This the other again comprehended, and Lee saw a youth swing a bare leg +over a convenient horse and vanish behind the Cobra Hotel. He went back +to the room: Savina hadn't moved while he had been gone. She seemed +even weaker--a thing he would have declared impossible--than before. +He bathed her face and throat in water, and there was a murmur of +gratitude, of love, so low that, with his ear against her lips, the +individual words were lost. His disturbance increased and, when the +heavy firm steps of Daniel Randon had approached on the cement of the +corridor without, and he had knocked and entered, Lee pointed to the bed +with an unconcealed anxiety. + +Daniel bent over Savina with a comprehensive unmoved regard; he touched +a cheek, with a surprising delicacy, and then turned and faced Lee. The +latter said sharply, "She has fainted, but it's only the heat. She'll be +all right after a rest." As he spoke, more to himself than to Daniel, +in an effort of private encouragement, what confidence he had dissolved +before his brother's impassive negation. + +"It is more serious than that," Daniel Randon told him. "There is no +doctor here we can trust, but I'll send a gas rail car into Camagüey for +Fancett. It will take three hours or worse." He left promptly, closing +the door soundlessly; and Lee heard his voice from the plaza, not raised +but intolerantly domineering, issuing orders in a Spanish at once fluent +and curt. + +In the long-dragging succeeding period there was no visible change in +Savina; at intervals she spoke faintly, there was the dim trace, the +effort, of a smile; her hand, whenever he released it, slipped away. The +heat in the room thickened; the barred sunlight cut like white knives at +the opposite wall; a pungent odor of cooking peppers came in under the +door. Savina's bags, nearly packed, stood open on chairs; the linen +suit in which she travelled, the small hat and swathing brown veil, +were ready by her low darkly polished tan shoes; gloves, still in their +printed tissue paper, the comb, a small gold bag with an attached chased +powder box, a handkerchief with a monogram in mauve, were gathered on +the chest of drawers. + +Lee had heard the rail car leave for Camagüey: there had been a series +of short explosions, first scattered and then blending in a regular +pulsation soon lost over the vanishing tracks. The interminable +clip-clip of horses, dreary staccato voices, rose and fell, advanced and +retreated, outside. But, through all his attentiveness to Savina, +his crowding thoughts, he listened for the return of the car with the +doctor. What was his name? Foster, Faucett--no, it was Fancett. An +American, evidently. "The doctor is coming," he told Savina gently. +"Daniel felt that he had better see you. From Camagüey. A good man. I +want to get you out of here at once, and he will give us something." +Waves of rebellion passed over him, an anger at his impotence, at the +arbitrary removal of Savina from the sphere of his help. His coat was +off, his collar unbuttoned, and he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, +wet with sweat and the bathing of her head. + +To Lee, Savina appeared sunken; her cheeks, certainly, were hollower; +there was a shadow, like the dust over the floor, in each one; she had +ceased to open her eyes but they had retreated. A dreadful twenty-four, +thirty, hours; how brutally hard it had been on her. She hadn't +complained; he had been more upset, impatient, than Savina. What a +splendid companion! But that, he irritably felt, was a cold word of +description for her. What a force! She was that, magnificently, above +everything else. Beside her, other people--the rest of life--were flat, +tepid. + +There was a thin far vibration which grew into a flowing throb; Lee +identified it as the rail car. Perhaps the doctor had been absent. +However, Daniel would know what to do. The footfalls approaching the +door were multiplied: it was his brother and an elderly wasted man with +a vermilion sprig of geranium in the lapel of a white coat. He nodded +to Lee, pressed his hand, and went quickly to the bed. In the stillness +while Dr. Fancett took Savina's pulse Lee again caught the shallow +rapidity of her breathing. Daniel Randon stood with a broad planter's +hat held with the lightness of touch characteristic of him. The man at +the bed turned a speculative gaze upon Lee. + +"Your wife has an acute dilatation of the heart," he pronounced. The +significance of his unguarded tone shocked Lee immeasurably. + + * * * * * + +"But I don't understand that," Lee protested; "she has never had any +serious trouble with her heart before." He was halted by Daniel's brief +peculiar scrutiny. The doctor replied that this was not organic. "It may +be the result of unaccustomed and excessive heat; an accumulation of +the excessive," he added concisely. "Excesses." The single word followed +after a hesitation in which Fancett was plainly at a loss. His frowning +gaze was still bent upon Lee. "I know so little of Mrs. Randon's +history," he finally said. Daniel naturally had inferred, or perhaps +the doctor deduced, that Savina and he were married. They would be, in +a very short while, Lee told himself stubbornly. "You have ice on the +batey? Yes, at once, please. And a nurse can come from my office on the +Havana train this evening." Daniel nodded once, in acknowledgment. He +moved closer to Lee: + +"This is serious. You can't, of course, think of going on. I will see +that she is as comfortable here as she would be with me; everything +shall be done." + +Lee answered that he was certain of that. A feeling of helplessness +fastened on him, together with the incongruous speculation about the +propriety of a cable to William Grove. The absurd idea occurred to him +that Savina had two husbands; each with the right, if he desired, to be +at a side of her bed, each holding one of her limp hands. He dismissed +the elaborated thought in a rage at the triviality of his mind. Fancett +and Daniel had gone temporarily: Lee had heard the former making +arrangements to stay over night at the sugar estate. Savina's fast +superficial breathing now dominated the room. He was again seated beside +her, leaden-hearted and blank. + +It was so useless--this illness and suffering, now! The doctor had +seemed to insinuate that it might be traced to him, Lee Randon. What the +devil did he mean by that? It was the fault of Daniel, the immobile, as +much as anyone. In an airy room, under comfortable conditions, probably +it wouldn't have happened. Savina's suit, her shoes, the bags, hadn't +been disturbed. There was a faint tightening of her grasp, and he bent +close, but he distinguished only random words. + +"--not sorry. Willing ... with you. Don't be unhappy." + +It required an enormous effort, the sound was at once all but +imperceptible and burdened with an agony of labor. As he watched her he +saw what, he thought, was an illusion--the blueness of the room, of the +walls, seemed to settle on her countenance. It increased, her face was +in tone with the color that had so disturbed her, a vitreous blue too +intense for realization. He was startled: like a sponge, sopping up the +atmosphere, she darkened. It was so brutal, so hideous, that he spoke +involuntarily: + +"No one can live blue like that." + +Then, with a glance instinct with dread, he saw that he was +right--Savina had died. + +A calm of desperation swept over him. He must tell Daniel and the +doctor. But they would still need the ice. The revolting details! And +what had Fancett meant? It must all come out now--his presence in Cuba +with Savina--in a storm of publicity and condemnation. He regretted +this, because of Savina, dead. Alive she would have smiled her contempt; +but death was different. Anyone would acknowledge that. The dead should +be protected from slurs and scandal and obscene comments. A confusion +of small facts poured through him, and broke into trivial fragments any +single dignity of emotion; no generous sorrow saved him from the +petty actuality of his situation; even his sense of loss, he realized +dismayed, was dull. + +Savina was rapidly growing, at last, cold; her arm was stiffening in the +position in which he had left it; in a necessary forcible gentleness he +composed her body. But he didn't hide her--not yet--with a sheet. +That would follow soon enough. The blueness was receding, leaving +her pinched, but white. She had always been pale.... By God, he had +forgotten to tell them. Lee, stumbling down the stairs, found Daniel, +the doctor, and the proprietor of the hotel, Venalez, talking together. +As he approached there was a flash of premonition on his brother's broad +unstirring face. Lee said humbly: + +"She is dead." + +Fancett, with Daniel Randon, went up at once, but he lingered, facing +the Cuban. Venalez had a long brown countenance, with a disordered +moustache. His trousers were thrust into the customary dingy boots, +but his shirt was confined at the waist, and he had dispensed with a +machete. He grew uneasy under Lee's stare, and shuffled his feet; then, +behind a soiled thin hand, he coughed. It was clear that he wished +intensely to escape, but was held by his conceptions of the obligations +of conduct. "The suddenness--" Lee said, and then paused with a furrowed +brow; "that's what surprises me. She was as well as you, and singing, +yes--singing, that she didn't want to be a wife. I thought she had +tripped on the loose silk thing she wore; and then I was certain that +she had fainted from your heat." He bore heavily on the word your, and +then proceeded to curse the atmosphere, in a heavy manner suggesting +that it were a property, a condition, under the direction of the hotel +proprietor. From that he proceeded to damn Utica and the state of Ohio. + +"But you can't understand me," he added, illogically angry at that, too. +Daniel was again at his side, speaking. "There is nothing for you to +do here, and you may as well come to the batey with me. There are some +accidents that cannot be provided against. This is one of them. She will +be attended to; but you must explain about the cables." + +"I had better get her things," Lee replied. He couldn't leave the +delicate and beautiful trifles of Savina's living in the blue vault +above. "They were scattered about the room." That, as well, Daniel +assured him, had not been neglected. Her effects were to go over in +the wagon with them. Lee, jolting on a springless contrivance over +an informal road, kept his hand on the bags beside him. They were in +Holland cases which hid the sets of initials ending in G. A revolver was +shoved under the leather seat at the driver's left. There were the negro +women, half naked, lounging in their doorways. + +Telling himself that Savina was dead, he lingered over that term, at +once so definite and obscure. There had been a pain in her heart at the +Dos Hermanos, while they were having dinner, after the steamer, blazing +with lights and with music on the upper deck, had swept out of the +harbor. And, since then, at night, she had cried out. That, he had +thought, was the expression of her consuming passion. He hadn't killed +her; he would correct Fancett there. The doctor's glance, almost +suspicious, had been intolerable. Savina had whispered to him, at the +end, that she was sorry for nothing; she had begged him to be happy. + +He roused himself and asked Daniel if they had far to go, and learned +that they had almost reached the batey. Where, Lee added silently, +Daniel wouldn't have us. It might well have saved Savina. The same +ideas persisted in his mind. He wondered if, in the hurried packing, her +handkerchief had been neglected? It was one of a number that Savina had +bought in Havana. He had stayed outside, in the motor, smoking; and, +when she had rejoined him, after a long wait, she had displayed her +purchases. Her voice had been animated with pleasure at their reasonable +price. Things small and unimportant! His brain worked mechanically, like +a circling toy that had been tightly wound up and must continue until +its spring was expanded. + +The fundamental calamity was too close for any grasp of its tragic +proportions: Savina dead was far more a set of unpredictable +consequences than a personality. Alive she had drawn him into herself; +she had, with her body, shut out the world of reality if not of mental +query. Even the fervor of Cuba had seemed to pale before her burning +spirit. What, without knowing it, Dr. Fancett had meant--a thing Lee +himself had foreseen--was that Savina had killed herself, she had been +consumed by her own flame. But she hadn't regretted it. That assurance, +bequeathed to him in the very hush of death, was of massive importance. +Nothing else mattered--she had been happy with him. At last, forgetful +of the ending, he had brought her freedom from a life not different from +a long dreary servitude. He would need to recall this, to remind himself +of it, often in the years that would leadenly follow; for he must +be regarded as a murderer--the man who, betraying William Grove, had +debauched and killed his wife. + +That, of course, was false; but what in the world that would judge, +condemn, him wasn't? He had his memories, Savina's words. A sharper +sense of deprivation stabbed at him. Why, she was gone; Savina was dead. +Her arms would never again go around his neck. The marks of the mules +across her narrow feet! He put out a shaking hand, and Daniel Randon met +it, enveloped it, in a steady grasp that braced him against the lurching +of the wagon. + + * * * * * + +On the veranda of Daniel Randon's house Lee sat pondering over his +brother's emphatic disconnected sentences. "This conventionality, that +you have been so severe with, is exceedingly useful. It's not too much +to say indispensable. Under its cover a certain limited freedom is +occasionally possible. And where women are concerned--" he evidently +didn't think it necessary even to find words there. "The conventions, +for example, stronger in William Grove than his feelings, saved the +reputation of his wife; they kept Fanny alive and, with her heroic and +instinctive pride, made it possible for you to go back to Eastlake. If +you choose, of course. I can't enter into that. But, if you decide to +return, you won't be supported by noble memories of your affair--was it +of love or honor?--no, an admirable pretence must assist you. The +other, if you will forgive me, is no more than the desire for a cheap +publicity, a form of self-glorification. Expensive. The proper clothes, +you see--invaluable! The body and the intentions underneath are +separate. It is only the thoughtless, the hasty and the possessed who +get them confused." + +The veranda occupied all four sides of Daniel Randon's low, wide-roofed +dwelling, continuous except for the break where an open passage led to +a detached kitchen. Seated in an angle which might be expected to catch +the first movement of the trade winds sweeping, together with night, +from the sea, practically the whole of the batey was laid out before +Lee. The sun was still apparent in a rayless diffusion above a horizon +obliterated in smoke, a stationary cloud-like opacity only thinning +where the buildings began: the objects in the foreground were sharp; +but, as the distance increased, they were blurred as though seen through +a swimming of the vision. The great bulk of the sugar mill, at the left, +like--on the flatness of the land--a rectangular mountain shaken by a +constant rumbling, was indistinct below, but the mirador lifted against +the sky, the man there on look-out, were discernible. The mill, netted +in railroad tracks, was further extended by the storage house for +bagasse--the dry pulpy remnant of the crushed cane--and across its front +stood a file of empty cars with high skeleton sides. There was a noisy +backing and shifting of locomotives among the trains which, filled with +sugar cane, reached in a double row out of sight. + +The cars were severally hauled to the scales shed, weighed, and then +shoved upon a section of track that, after they were chained, sharply +tilted and discharged the loads into a pit from which the endless belt +of a cane carrier wound into the invisible roller crushers. The heavy +air was charged with the smooth oiled tumult of machinery, the blast +whistles of varied signals, and the harshness of escaping steam. Other +houses, smaller than Daniel's but for the rest resembling it, were +strung along the open--the dwellings of the Assistant Administrador, +the Chief Electrician, a Superintendent, and two or three more that Lee +hadn't identified. He had been, now, nearly four weeks with Daniel, and +the details of La Quinta, the procedure of the sugar, were generally +familiar to him. + +However, he had had very little opportunity to talk to his brother: the +difficulties, in Cobra and Havana, of shipping Savina's body back to New +York--William Grove, persuaded that it was unnecessary, hadn't come to +Cuba; a fire in one of the out-lying colonias of the La Quinta estate, +that had destroyed three caballerias of ratoon; the sheer tyranny of an +intricate process which, for seven months in the year, was not allowed +to pause, had kept Lee from any satisfactory communication of his +feelings or convictions. But, at last, returning hot and fatigued from +the clearing, by fire, of a tumba, Daniel had been sitting with him +for more than an hour, and he showed no signs of immediate change or +activity. + +"What you say is clear enough," Lee Randon admitted; "and yet--but I +can't see where--there is a sophistry in it." Daniel made a gesture +both curt and indifferent. "I tell you it would be better, even at the +destruction of the entire present world, to establish honesty. Since +you have referred to me--what we, Savina and I, did was, simply, honest; +but, again as you pointed out, its effect around us, for bad or very +possibly good, was brought to nothing by the way it was drawn back into +the victorious conspiring of sham. Even I don't know which, commendable +or fatal, it was; I haven't been able to find out; I hadn't time. But +Savina preferred the two weeks we had together to an infinity of the +other. Fancett may call it an acute dilatation of the heart, but it was +happiness that killed her. It's possible for me to say that because, +fundamentally, I didn't bring it to her. Savina found it, created it, +for herself. Through that time--was it long or short? The two weeks +seemed a life--she was herself, superior." + +"How about you?" + +"I was absolutely contented," Lee replied. + +"Isn't that a pale word for an act of passion?" + +"Perhaps. It may be." A troubled expression settled over Lee's eyes. +"There is something I should like to explain to you, Daniel, to ask you +about, but it would take a great many words?" He cast this in the tone +of a query, and palpably waited for the encouragement to proceed fully; +but Daniel Randon was persistently non-committal. He had no intention, +he said, of urging Lee to any speech he might later regret and wish +unpronounced. "It's about my attitude toward Savina," Lee proceeded; "or +it may be about a doll; I don't know. No, Savina and the doll weren't as +distinct as you'd suppose; they were, in the beginning and at the +end, one: Savina and Cytherea. That has given me some wretched hours; +because, when it was over, I didn't miss Savina, I couldn't even call +her individually back to my mind; and the inhumanity of that, the sheer +ingratitude, was contemptible. + +"I can explain it best by saying that Cytherea had always represented +something unknown that I wanted, that always disturbed me and made me +dissatisfied. She was more fascinating than any living woman; and her +charm, what she seemed to hint at, to promise, filled me with the +need to find it and have it for my own. That desire grew until it was +stronger than anything else, it came between everything else and me and +blinded me to all my life--to Fanny and the children and my companies. +But, before I saw Cytherea, I was ready for her: + +"Because of the conventions you uphold as being necessary to--to +comfort, nothing greater. My life with Fanny had fallen into a +succession of small wearing falsehoods, pretences. I had made a mistake +in the choice of a career; and, instead of dropping that blunder, I +spent my energy and time in holding it up, supporting it, assuring +myself that it was necessary. The most I would acknowledge, even +privately, was that, like the majority of men, I hated work. Like +so many men I was certain that my home, my wife, were absorbing as +possible. Wherever I looked, other lives were built of the same labored +and flimsy materials. Mine was no worse; it was, actually, far better +than most. But only better in degree, not in kind. It occupied about a +fifth of my existence, and the rest was made up of hours, engagements, +that were a total waste. + +"At one time I had enjoyed them, I couldn't have thought of more +splendid things; but the spirit of that period was not the same, and it +was the spirit which made them desirable. I suppose that could be called +my love for Fanny. I was glad to sit and discuss the hem of her skirt +with her. It was enough just to be coming home to the house where she +was waiting. I tell you, Daniel, my life then was transfigured. How long +did it last--four years, six, eight? I can't be exact; but if I speak of +its duration you will guess that it went. It went slowly, so slowly that +for a long while I was ignorant of what was happening. It left in the +vanishing of the little lubrications you insist are as needful for +society as for your machinery. They began as lubrications, evasions, to +keep the wheels turning smoothly, and they ended as grains of sand in +the bearings. + +"First there was Fanny's convention of modesty--it had been put into her +before birth--which amounted to the secret idea that the reality of love +was disgusting. She could endure it only when feeling swept her from her +essential being. When that had passed she gathered her decency around +her like Susanna surprised. Positively she had the look of a temporary +betrayal. So that, you see, was hidden in a cloak of hypocrisy. Then she +had the impracticable conviction that I existed solely in her, that +she was a prism through which every feeling and thought I had must be +deflected. Fanny didn't express this openly, it had too silly a +sound, but underneath, savagely, she fought and schemed and lied--more +conventions--for it. And, when the children were born, she was ready for +them with such a mountain of pretty gestures and ideas that I gave them +up: I couldn't fight their mother and the nurses and the maids in +the kitchen--the whole bloody nice world. For one thing I wasn't home +enough; when I got in for dinner they were either in bed or starched for +their curtesies and kisses. They are superior children, Daniel; yet what +they were taught to say sounds like the infantile sentimentalities of +the stage." + + * * * * * + +The capataz of the batey gang, a tall flushed Jamaican negro, passed +on a cantering white pony. The American wives, the flowers of Utica and +Ohio, went by in light afternoon dresses, one propelling a baby in a +cart. The Field Superintendent, lank and sun-dark under a green palmetto +hat, wearing a grotesquely large revolver, saluted Daniel from the open. +"Trouble at the cantina barracon," he called cheerfully. + +"It was then," Lee specified, "that all my loose ends were gathered up +in Cytherea. I have, I think, explained her. She was a doll, but it is +more useful, now, to picture her as a principle. I didn't realize that +at first: I took her to be an individual, the image of a happy personal +fate that, somehow, I had missed, but might still catch up with. + +"The wildest kind of a dream," Lee Randon proclaimed. "But when I +became aware of Savina, or rather of her passion, I was sure I had been +completely justified. She was, I believed, Cytherea. They looked alike. +They were the same! However, I mistook that sameness. I can understand +now, very clearly; it seems incredible that I had been so blind, so +fatuous, Daniel. I actually thought that there was a choice, a special +graciousness, existing and reserved for me." He laughed, not bitterly, +but in a wonderment that bordered on dismay. "I felt that I had found it +in Savina. I did get a lot there--more than I should have hoped for--but +not precisely that. At last I know." His voice was grave, and he paused +that Daniel might grasp the weight of what was to follow. "I had made +the mistake of thinking that I, as an individual, had any importance. +In my insane belief that a heavenly beauty, a celestial chorus girl, +was kept for me, I pictured myself as an object of tender universal +consideration. + +"Damned anthropomorfic rot! + +"It was a principle all the while," he cried; "a principle that would +fill the sky, as vast as space; and ignorant, careless, of me, it +was moving to its own end. And that--do you see, Daniel?--had grown +destructive. It had begun differently, naturally, in the healthy +fertility of animals and simple lives; but the conceit of men, men like +me, had opposed and antagonized it. Magnifying our sensibilities, we had +come to demand the dignity of separate immortalities. Separate worms! +We thought that the vitality in us was for the warming of our own hearts +and the seduction of our nerves. And so I left the safety of a species, +of Fanny and children, for the barrenness of Cytherea. + +"That's her secret, what she's forever smiling at--her power, through +men's vanity, to conquer the earth. She's the reward of all our fineness +and visions and pleasure, the idol of our supreme accomplishment: +the privilege of escaping from slavery into impotence, the doubtful +privilege of repaying the indignities of our birth." His rigid strained +face was drenched with sweat. "We made her out of our longing and +discontent, an idol of silk and gilt and perverse fingers, and put +her above the other, above everything. She rewarded us, oh, yes--with +promises of her loveliness. Why shouldn't she be lovely eternally in the +dreams of men? + +"Then, finally, Savina and Cytherea were merged again. In Savina her +passion, always abnormal, hadn't been spent; there she was younger than +the youngest girl I knew; incomparably more dangerous. She, too, had +been constrained by the artificial, by conventionality; and when +the moment of reality came it broke William Grove, Fanny, Helena and +Gregory--all the threads that precariously held us. She was stronger +than I, Savina was the goal and I was only the seeker--that was the +difference between us--and in absorbing me she was content." + +"That is very ingenious," Daniel told him. "Do you notice that the smoke +is thicker in the east?" + +"Not more in one direction than in another," Lee answered indirectly; +"in the east and south, the north and west, up above and underneath. +It's a good thing for our comfort that there's so much of it we can't +see the fires. If the books of physics are to be credited, the center +of the earth is liquid flame; certainly it is hot enough here to suggest +something of the sort." + +"It is worse in Oriente," Daniel informed him. + +"What I have said," Lee Randon continued, "came from my remark, the +one you disagreed with, about the need of an understanding everywhere! +Isolated, in a chance individual like me, it is worse than useless, +fatal. It destroys the support of a common cause with a humanity only +less resentful than sentimental. And this has brought me to the reason +why--in spite of her splendid proposal--I can't go back to Fanny: I +have grown too detached to give her effort a possibility of success, of +happiness for her." + +"If you are so cursed abstract, you may as well be in Eastlake as at La +Quinta," his brother asserted. + +"Your saying that is curious," Lee replied, "for it is exactly what I +told a man, in circumstances remarkably like my own, not long ago. I +explained that life was all monotonously alike; and that, therefore, it +didn't really matter where he changed to. I still think that most of +it is inexcusable, perhaps hopeless, but I can't subscribe to it. What +Fanny wants is contrition and the return to a time forever lost. I +shouldn't be able to persuade her that I hadn't been in a temporary +fever which, if she were sufficiently careful, would go and leave things +very much as they were. That is her strength, her necessity, and she +must uphold it until farthest old age and death." + +Daniel Randon rose and went to the railing of the veranda, gazing +intently into the hidden east. "You are right," he said, crediting Lee +with a contention he hadn't made; "that is the refuse on Jagües." + +"Helena and Gregory don't need me," Lee went on and on; "or, if you +prefer--I am no longer afraid of words--I don't need them. I believe, in +nature, that the length of paternity is measured by the helplessness of +the young. An elephant is more devoted than a crow. My obligation was +soon ended." + +"Bring it down to this," Daniel's brevity was explicit: "what in the +devil are you going to do?" + +"I haven't any idea beyond the realization that I can't stay here taking +up your room and Juan's time. It seems to me that for a month he has +done nothing but concern himself with my comfort. I did, in Havana, +while Savina was living, think of writing; but I have given it up +because it would involve me in so much that is disagreeable. The amazing +fact is that, since I have acquired a degree of wisdom, there is nothing +for me to do, nowhere to go. The truth, I have always heard, will make +you free; but for what, Daniel? What is it the truth will make you free +for except to live in the solitude of public hatred? When I refuse, as +I certainly shall, to return to Fanny the world where I might accomplish +something will be closed to me. + +"I could be a farmer if it weren't for the impossibility of my sleeping +through the early part of the night; my hands are too stiff to learn +a trade. I don't want to learn a trade!" he exclaimed. "And as for +starting more stock companies, rolling greater quantities of refuse into +cigarettes or bottling harmless colored water, or controlling a news +sheet in the interest of my other interests--" he could think of no term +sufficiently descriptive of his remoteness from all that. "I shall have +to be what a universal Eastlake will prefer to call me. I'd stay here, +at La Quinta, if you could find something for me to do--like picking the +limes fresh for the Daiquiri cocktails. Do you think your company would +carry me on its rolls for that? I could gather them in the morning and +evening, when it was cooler. Thank God, I haven't any material ambition. +I like the clothes, the life, of that nigger, the capataz, who rode by, +as well as most. I'd sit up on the mirador and keep--what do you call +it?--the veija, for months on end." + +The servant, Juan, small and dark in his white house coat, appeared with +a tray on which two glasses with stems held a fragrant amber liquid. + +"That is perfection," Lee murmured; "where else could it be found? +Advise me, Daniel," his voice was both light and serious. "You have +never been known to give advice, but certainly my case is unusual enough +to warrant extraordinary pains. Shall I make a neat hole at the proper +point in my skull; or, better yet, put half a grain of a drug that will +occur to you on my tongue and close my mouth on further indiscretions? +That has its aspects. But not so strongly after one of Juan's drinks; +they are distilled illusions, vain dreams still of hope. They have all +the brave ring of accomplishment without its effort. But I can see the +end even of them--atrophy. Soon Cytherea will go into the attic, have +her nose broken, and the rats will eat the clothes from her indifferent +body. Cytherea on a pearl shell in the Ionic Sea... I was one of her +train, Daniel." He leaned sharply forward-- + +Daniel Randon was asleep. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cytherea, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CYTHEREA *** + +***** This file should be named 6847-8.txt or 6847-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/8/4/6847/ + +Produced by Michelle Shephard, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +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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