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diff --git a/old/6847-h.htm.2021-01-26 b/old/6847-h.htm.2021-01-26 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e0903d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/6847-h.htm.2021-01-26 @@ -0,0 +1,10846 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Cytherea., by Joseph Hergesheimer + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + .side { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + + +<pre> + +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: March 12, 2018 + + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CYTHEREA *** + + + + +Text file produced by Michelle Shephard, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + CYTHEREA. + </h1> + <h2> + By Joseph Hergesheimer + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h4> + <i>For</i> DOROTHY <i>Charming in the present<br /> and Secure with the + past</i> + </h4> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I like black hair,” Randon asserted. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “How is Claire?” Randon abruptly demanded. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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— + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Why, of course,” he spoke almost impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + Again she hesitated, and again he assured her, in a species of annoyance, + of his feeling. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What did they say to that?” Lee asked, standing in the door. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You shouldn't make me so comfortable.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “What would you do,” Lee asked, “if I spent my spare time with the very + young ones?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “You must sit on my bed,” Helena insisted. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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— + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” Gregory inquired, “how much more?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know, silly; but packs.” + </p> + <p> + “Seventy-seven dollars?” + </p> + <p> + “That depends on how long you leave it in the bank,” Lee instructed him. + “If you didn't ask for it for twenty years—” + </p> + <p> + “But I want it next Thursday,” Gregory hotly interrupted; “won't it be any + bigger then?” + </p> + <p> + “He does nothing but ask and ask questions,” Helena added. Lee patted + Gregory's cheek: + </p> + <p> + “Don't let Helena discourage you. If I don't put the light out your mother + will make me go to bed.” + </p> + <p> + 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—” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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— + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sorry,” Lee answered promptly; “we can't do without her. She belongs + to Helena,” he lied. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + He laughed uncomfortably. “You seem to think I'm insane—” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Cytherea.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know what that means.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Have you ever cared for any of them?” he asked indirectly. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + Mina Raff gazed up at the doll. “I have an idea the devil made you,” she + declared. + </p> + <p> + “You are to go with us, Mina,” Peyton told her; “if you will get your + cloak—” The two women left, and Morris demanded: + </p> + <p> + “What was that damned rot about the doll?” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Raff wanted it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, why not?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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— + </p> + <p> + “You are not very polite,” Mrs. Craddock said. + </p> + <p> + “Are you a mind-reader,” he replied, “or haven't I heard you?” + </p> + <p> + “It doesn't matter,” she explained, “but you were so far away.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “But you mustn't forget the chance of catching a gold ring,” he reminded + her. + </p> + <p> + “It's brass,” Mrs. Craddock asserted. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I've been told that about moving pictures.” + </p> + <p> + “The glare of the silver-foil reflectors is unbearable,” she looked up, + with a pointed and famous effect. “But you don't like me?” + </p> + <p> + “I do; aside from that, though, I'm not sure; probably because you are so + remote and cold.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It must be a nuisance,” he agreed. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What do women dress for?” he demanded; “is it to make themselves + seductive to men or to have other women admire and envy them?” + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + Lee Randon saw Fanny not far away, and he dropped into a chair beside her. + “Well,” he asked, “how is it going?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “You have it over her like a tent, Claire,” he insisted; “you're lovely + and human both.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + Fanny Randon's smile, her expression, were secure. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + “What are you thinking about?” + </p> + <p> + “It would take years to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish ... you might; but I didn't mean to say that, to let you know—” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Fanny doesn't like me,” she said at a tangent. + </p> + <p> + “Who put that in your head?” + </p> + <p> + “Fanny. She's hardly civil.” + </p> + <p> + “If you mean she's jealous, she isn't.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + Anette opened the door and an icy draft swept about their knees. “Not + yet,” Willard begged; “we won't be missed.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You must speak to him.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “I wish to Christ I had been sunk in the North Sea,” Morris broke in + bitterly. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + He came very near to her, slightly swaying. “Fanny, you are a darling, but + you are hard; you are hard as the Commandments.” + </p> + <p> + “That is not very kind, Peyton,” she protested; “but I have some common + sense.” + </p> + <p> + “Haven't you any uncommon sense?” he begged. “That's what I want. A little + just now might save everything.” + </p> + <p> + “You must try to find out,” she informed him; “I think I have been + successful with Lee; anyhow he ought to say so.” + </p> + <p> + “I do,” Lee Randon asserted quickly. “Fanny is wonderful. If I'm of no use + go to her.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't know,” Peyton muttered; “you can have no idea.” + </p> + <p> + “What in the world was he talking about?” she asked Lee in the automobile. + </p> + <p> + “Peyton is in love with Mina Raff,” he admitted shortly, in a pressure of + conflicting emotions. + </p> + <p> + “Lee!” she exclaimed; “are you sure? Did he say so? That is simply + frightful.” + </p> + <p> + “I imagine it's worse than you realize.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor Claire,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, that's the thing to say,” he agreed. “The man is always a + criminal in such situations.” + </p> + <p> + “You are not trying to defend him?” she asked quietly. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “You would have the children,” he reminded her. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't pin so much to me,” he protested; “you ought to think of a + hundred other things.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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— + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I am not so certain about any great change,” he objected. “I seem to + recall—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Then what is an animal?” Fanny demanded. + </p> + <p> + “A mammal.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “It is only nasty in your mind,” he declared. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You always say the children are sick when they misbehave.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought I was the one who was sick of it,” Fanny complained; “I wonder + that I don't just let you go.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “On the stairs,” someone answered casually. + </p> + <p> + There was a movement, and Mina Raff approached. “It's so hot here,” she + asserted. + </p> + <p> + “It is warmer out,” Fanny informed her; “I wonder what the weather is in + New York?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “I hope your new picture will go well.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” she responded, her slight hand lingeringly holding his; + “perhaps you will like me better on the screen than in reality.” + </p> + <p> + “Could you tell me which was which?” + </p> + <p> + She hesitated. “Three months ago, yes, but not now; I'm not sure of + myself.” + </p> + <p> + “That was positively indecent,” Fanny observed afterward; “she is as bold + as brass. I hope I am not as big a fool as Claire.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “It is God in us,” Fanny said gravely; “and keeps us all, Helena and + Gregory and you and me, safely together.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + That damned problem of self-sacrifice! + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to talk to Claire,” Fanny said firmly. + </p> + <p> + “It would do both of you no good,” he informed her; “besides, you'll have + to take so much for granted.” + </p> + <p> + “Claire will tell me.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean by that?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I was giving you a chance to prove that,” he pointed out. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “Good enough; send Miss Mathews in.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “But what about love, Mr. Randon? That's what throws me off. Some say it's + the only thing in life.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You make it sound wild enough,” she commented, rising. + </p> + <p> + “The wilder the better,” he insisted; “if it is not delirious it's + nothing.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “You only got seven!” Gregory exclaimed; “and you took it nine right on + that safety.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The drinks had been consumed, the soup disposed of, when Claire said + abruptly, “Peyton is going to leave me.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “When did he tell you?” Fanny demanded. + </p> + <p> + “He didn't,” Claire replied; “I told him. It was a great relief to both of + us.” + </p> + <p> + “Say what you like outside,” Lee put in vigorously; “but at least with us + be honest.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “As for that Raff woman—” Fanny stopped, at a loss for a term to + express her disgust. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you think Claire should do?” Lee asked his wife. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “Damn Ira!” Claire Morris exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “You'll have to forgive me,” Claire said, when Fanny had gone; “but I + don't—I never did—like women.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think any more of men, now?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't over, Claire,” Lee asserted. “I haven't seen that young fool + yet.” + </p> + <p> + “Please don't bother him; and it's too much to drag out the moralities on + my account.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “If you mean love, he can't tell you; he hasn't had enough experience to + express it. You might do better with me.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Fanny will think I have designs on you,” Claire remarked; “go up when you + like. I am not a bit sleepy.” + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What is the whole thing?” he demanded. + </p> + <p> + “I've told you, but you won't listen—duty.” + </p> + <p> + “You put that above all the rest?” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “You have explained yourself beautifully,” he hastened to assure her; “I + am the person who is at sea.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Let me keep it,” he protested; “it might have an excellent effect on my + disposition.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Gregory and you are cut out of the same gold cloth,” Lee Randon + pronounced. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Claire told you,” the younger said. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I suppose you think there's nothing to be said for me,” his voice + was defiant; “and that I ought to be shot.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't absolutely necessary,” the other pointed out; “Mina and I will + have a lot to ignore.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “If I can make Mina happy I don't care about myself.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Disaster,” Lee Randon pronounced shortly. + </p> + <p> + “Call it that if you choose; there isn't much use in calling it at all: it + simply is.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “What did he say?” she demanded, nodding in the direction in which Peyton + had disappeared. “I have avoided him all morning.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Give him six minutes,” the Master decided. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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—” + </p> + <p> + “In my day,” Lee interposed, “the team was told to sink a heel in any back + that looked a little too good for us.” + </p> + <p> + “There were instructors like that,” Gilbert Bromhead assented; “and some + graduate coaches are pretty cunning; but they are being discredited.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + Evadore laughed. “Do you know, that's really awfully good. He does put it + on a bit, doesn't he?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “All right, if we were near a brick yard.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “I like older men so much,” she admitted what she had already so adroitly + conveyed; “patches of grey above the ears are so distinguished.” + </p> + <p> + “Older than what?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <h3> + “MY DEAR MRS. MORRIS, + </h3> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + The signature, Savina Grove, had the crispness of a name often attached to + opinions and papers of authority. + </p> + <p> + “That's rather cool,” he agreed. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “If you think I'll go see her you are madder still.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + Claire Morris said: “You can do it.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't bother,” she returned. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “It must all go,” Claire insisted; “I won't have a drop left.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Morris regretted she couldn't come,” Lee told her inanely; and his + hostess replied: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded, a shade annoyed by the briskness of her attack. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “I rather trusted you to find that.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I may be late for dinner now,” he admitted. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “How are you succeeding with the young woman?” Lee returned. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It begins to look as though she'd get him,” Lee observed; “I must say we + haven't got far with Morris.” + </p> + <p> + “Extraordinary.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder what it's all about?” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Pandemonium,” Grove replied promptly. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “With her figure it's very successful,” she commented. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Savina Grove said, “It has been surprisingly nice.” + </p> + <p> + “Hasn't it,” he agreed; “and, when you spoke, I was trying to realize that + it will be so soon over.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “In a very few minutes now,” Mrs. Grove said, “you will be able to sleep.” + </p> + <p> + “I've never been wider awake,” he protested; “I was thinking of how + marriage submerged most women while you escaped.” + </p> + <p> + She laughed quietly, incomprehensibly. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he insisted, aggrieved, “haven't you?” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't necessary to repeat yourself,” she reminded him disagreeably; “I + have a trace of memory.” + </p> + <p> + “And with it,” he answered, “a very unpleasant temper.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The curtain of what he had thought of as a play, an interlude, would fall + heavily, conclusively, and the music end. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “I noticed, at the Plaza, that you are hard at it.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded, relieved that she had made the introduction of his purpose so + easy. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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—” + </p> + <p> + “I don't question that,” he put in; “but did Peyton show you how it would + be done?” + </p> + <p> + She hesitated, gracefully lowering her potent gaze. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I hadn't thought of that,” she reflected, sadly. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “And what if I liked that, wanted it? You mustn't think my life is + entirely joyful.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “They won't be with me,” Mina Raff promised. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “He seemed to like me.” She had paid no attention to him, back again in + the thought of the Morrises' son. + </p> + <p> + “If he did,” Lee dryly added; “he will very soon get over it; Ira won't + love you conspicuously.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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—” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “It's the best course in a bad affair.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't want to be safe,” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You are so wise,” she assented, with an entire honesty of intention; but + her phrase mocked him ferociously. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I ought to be back in Eastlake,” he confessed. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + That, he declared, with a small inner sinking at the thought of Fanny, + would be splendid. “And this afternoon—?” + </p> + <p> + “We'll be together.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Of course,” he lied heroically. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Shall we be late for the theatre?” he asked indifferently. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Our own private Folly.” He smiled at her. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll never be able to get you out,” he declared. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “What?” he asked, through the thin azure smoke of the cigar. She shook her + head contentedly: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “What were you seeing in the smoke?” Savina asked; and he replied with an + adequate truth, “You.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not just look at me, then, instead of staring?” + </p> + <p> + “I see you everywhere.” + </p> + <p> + “Adorable,” she whispered. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Your husband wouldn't think so,” he replied; “yet I am doing well enough; + I can afford dinner and the theatre.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you had a very great deal of money.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” He gazed at her curiously. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “My brother, Daniel, has done very well in Cuba,” Lee commented. Savina + was interested: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Daniel tells me there's usually the trade wind at night.” His voice + reflected his lack of concern. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Savina relaxed, every instinct and nerve turned toward him, but they were + at the theatre. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “Lee, I love you.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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— + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “Lee, where are you? It's so cold.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “I imagined you'd see a lot of her.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “At any rate you call her Mina.” + </p> + <p> + “Why so I do; I hadn't noticed; but she hasn't started to call me Lee; I + must correct her.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “I dragged a cash girl into an opium place on Pell Street.” + </p> + <p> + “That's not too funny to be borne,” she returned; “and it doesn't + altogether answer my question.” + </p> + <p> + “We went to Malmaison.” + </p> + <p> + “We?” she mimicked his earlier query. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't asked about the children.” She had apparently heard nothing + of what had gone before. + </p> + <p> + “Of course they are all right or you'd have told me.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?' + </p> + <p> + “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!” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “That wasn't a very nice kiss we had when you came in. I was horrid.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “About what?” he returned. “My senses are so dulled by your ingratitude + that I can't gather what you mean.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “We are all in the same fix, Claire,” he told her. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You think, then, that I haven't seen any of this romantic show you are + talking about?” + </p> + <p> + “If you had you wouldn't let it spoil your comfort.” + </p> + <p> + The pig again! + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “Didn't I hear that you were infatuated with that doll?” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “How tragic that she can't speak.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “Well, do you like it?” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” Lee suggested, “you'll change your mind.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, Gregory has four girls,” Helena instructed him. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” Gregory retorted, “I can marry them all.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “Very. William Grove was quite affectionate when he left for Washington.” + </p> + <p> + A momentary and ominous suspense followed a sudden stopping of his voice. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “He left unexpectedly; just when I forget; but during the last day I was + there.” + </p> + <p> + “Lee, why didn't you say that Mr. Grove had gone to Washington? It seems + very peculiar.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “When did he come back?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know.” Suddenly he gave way to a complete frankness. “He may not + be back yet.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you had dinner at the restaurant and went to the theatre alone with + her.” + </p> + <p> + “If it's possible to be alone with anyone, you are correct. What, in the + name of heaven, are you getting at?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” His self-restraint was fast vanishing. + </p> + <p> + “I can't believe a word you say.” + </p> + <p> + “Hell, don't ask me then.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “I have her garter on my bureau.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't need help,” he commented brutally. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary,” he replied, “Mrs. Grove, if you happen to mean her, is + singularly attractive. There is no smallness about her.” + </p> + <p> + “Hell,” she mocked him, “it is really too touching. When shall you see her + again?” + </p> + <p> + “Never.” At once he saw that he had made a second mistake. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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— + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “Where is the paper cutter?” + </p> + <p> + His gaze remained level on the page before him. + </p> + <p> + “Didn't you hear me, Lee? I want the paper cutter. If it's on your night + table, get it.” + </p> + <p> + “Let Amanda go up.” + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “You can't hope for much from that tone of voice.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “At one time it was Mrs. Grove,” he observed; “now it is 'the Grove + woman.' What will you call her next?” + </p> + <p> + “You will have to tell me that,” Fanny said. “Lee Randon, what must I call + her?” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps, if you knew her, you'd try Savina.” + </p> + <p> + “Not if it was to save me from dying. But I have no doubt of which you + preferred. Did you?” + </p> + <p> + “Did I what?” He was aware that his speech was growing far louder than + necessary. + </p> + <p> + “Call her Savina.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes!” He sat glaring at her in an anger which he felt swelling his neck. + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “The end,” she echoed, in a strange and smothered voice. “Is this it? But + not yet.” + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “What was it, exactly, that you felt?” he asked with an assumption of + calmness. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Gracious, you're thinking a lot,” Helena said. + </p> + <p> + “What are you thinking about?” Gregory added. + </p> + <p> + “A doll,” he replied, turning to his daughter. + </p> + <p> + “For me,” she declared. + </p> + <p> + “No, me,” Gregory insisted. + </p> + <p> + Lee Randon shook his head. “Not you, in the least.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't want them, that's why,” Gregory specified. “Perhaps I'd like to + have a typewriter.” + </p> + <p> + “You're not very modest.” It was Helena again. + </p> + <p> + “It's father, isn't it? It isn't you.” + </p> + <p> + “Listen,” Lee broke in, “I came up here to be with two good children; but + where are they?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + “Once is enough,” he answered hurriedly. “I am sure you do it very + nicely.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Nothing. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “I thought it was outside home you objected to.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “You haven't been very definite yet.” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Grove—Savina,” she flung back at him. + </p> + <p> + “That is a name and not a fact.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “Only indirectly,” he replied with a gleam of malice; “neither of us did.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she call you Lee?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “In a minute more you'll be sick,” he warned her. + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “That needn't trouble you,” he assured her. + </p> + <p> + “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!” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + 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!” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +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. +</pre> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you leaving that for me to decide?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Cuba,” she broke in. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “When shall we leave?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “They are here,” she assured him. “William gave them to me when we were + married.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Really,” he protested, “there is no reason for you to be insulting, when + I deliberately led you astray.” + </p> + <p> + “You do flatter yourself,” Savina replied; “when it was I all the time: I + broke up your home.” + </p> + <p> + “You needn't boast so loudly and pain everyone about us,” he protested + cheerfully. She gazed contemptuously at the surrounding tables: + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “You are,” he echoed her. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't it nice?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing better could be invented.” + </p> + <p> + She investigated the pitcher. “The last drop.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “We can't stay there,” he continued decidedly; “I'll send for Daniel at + once.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps I had better see him first,” Lee suggested diplomatically, and + Savina assented. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Our telegraph system is undependable,” was all that the other, the + younger, Randon answered. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Divorces?” The single word was accompanied by a faint lifting of Daniel's + eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + There was no train for Havana, it developed, before tomorrow. “And, in the + meanwhile,” Lee inquired, “must we stay here? Savina will be miserable.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Christ, it was hot! + </p> + <p> + 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?” + </p> + <p> + “Why shouldn't it be?” he asked impolitely. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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—” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Your wife has an acute dilatation of the heart,” he pronounced. The + significance of his unguarded tone shocked Lee immeasurably. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “—not sorry. Willing ... with you. Don't be unhappy.” + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “No one can live blue like that.” + </p> + <p> + Then, with a glance instinct with dread, he saw that he was right—Savina + had died. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + “She is dead.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “How about you?” + </p> + <p> + “I was absolutely contented,” Lee replied. + </p> + <p> + “Isn't that a pale word for an act of passion?” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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: + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “Damned anthropomorfic rot! + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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? + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “That is very ingenious,” Daniel told him. “Do you notice that the smoke + is thicker in the east?” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “It is worse in Oriente,” Daniel informed him. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “If you are so cursed abstract, you may as well be in Eastlake as at La + Quinta,” his brother asserted. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “Bring it down to this,” Daniel's brevity was explicit: “what in the devil + are you going to do?” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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— + </p> + <p> + Daniel Randon was asleep. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cytherea, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CYTHEREA *** + +***** This file should be named 6847-h.htm or 6847-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/8/4/6847/ + + +Text file produced by Michelle Shephard, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Cytherea + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + +Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6847] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 31, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII, with some ISO-8859-1 characters + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CYTHEREA *** + + + + +Produced by Michelle Shephard, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +CYTHEREA. + + + + +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 THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CYTHEREA *** + +This file should be named cthra10.txt or cthra10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, cthra11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, cthra10a.txt + +Produced by Michelle Shephard, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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