"You do satisfy me," I insisted. "It isn"t that at all. But I think, perhaps, it would be wiser to go back. It"s rather a crucial time with me, now that Mr. Watling"s in Washington. I"ve just arrived at a position where I shall be able to make a good deal of money, and later on--"
"It isn"t the money, Hugh," she cried, with a vehemence which struck me as a little odd. "I sometimes think we"d be a great deal happier without--without all you are going to make."
I laughed.
"Well, I haven"t made it yet."
She possessed the frugality of the Hutchinses. And some times my lavishness had frightened her, as when we had taken the suite of rooms we now occupied.
"Are you sure you can afford them, Hugh?" she had asked when we first surveyed them.
I began married life, and carried it on without giving her any conception of the state of my finances. She had an allowance from the first.
As the steamer slipped westward my spirits rose, to reach a climax of exhilaration when I saw the towers of New York rise gleaming like huge stalagmites in the early winter sun. Maude likened them more happily--to gigantic ivory chessmen. Well, New York was America"s chessboard, and the Great Players had already begun to make moves that astonished the world. As we sat at breakfast in a Fifth Avenue hotel I ran my eye eagerly over the stock-market reports and the financial news, and rallied Maude for a lack of spirits.
"Aren"t you glad to be home?" I asked her, as we sat in a hansom.
"Of course I am, Hugh!" she protested. "But--I can"t look upon New York as home, somehow. It frightens me."
I laughed indulgently.
"You"ll get used to it," I said. "We"ll be coming here a great deal, off and on."
She was silent. But later, when we took a hansom and entered the streams of traffic, she responded to the stimulus of the place: the movement, the colour, the sight of the well-appointed carriages, of the well-fed, well-groomed people who sat in them, the enticement of the shops in which we made our purchases had their effect, and she became cheerful again....
In the evening we took the "Limited" for home.
We lived for a month with my mother, and then moved into our own house.
It was one which I had rented from Howard Ogilvy, and it stood on the corner of Baker and Clinton streets, near that fashionable neighbourhood called "the Heights." Ogilvy, who was some ten years older than I, and who belonged to one of our old families, had embarked on a career then becoming common, but which at first was regarded as somewhat meteoric: gradually abandoning the practice of law, and perceiving the possibilities of the city of his birth, he had "gambled" in real estate and other enterprises, such as our local water company, until he had quadrupled his inheritance. He had built a mansion on Grant Avenue, the wide thoroughfare bisecting the Heights. The house he had vacated was not large, but essentially distinctive; with the oddity characteristic of the revolt against the ba.n.a.l architecture of the 80"s. The curves of the tiled roof enfolded the upper windows; the walls were thick, the note one of mystery. I remember Maude"s naive delight when we inspected it.
"You"d never guess what the inside was like, would you, Hugh?" she cried.
From the panelled box of an entrance hall one went up a few steps to a drawing-room which had a bowed recess like an oriel, and window-seats.
The dining-room was an odd shape, and was wainscoted in oak; it had a tiled fireplace and (according to Maude) the "sweetest" china closet built into the wall. There was a "den" for me, and an octagonal reception-room on the corner. Upstairs, the bedrooms were quite as unusual, the plumbing of the new pattern, heavy and imposing. Maude expressed the air of seclusion when she exclaimed that she could almost imagine herself in one of the mediaeval towns we had seen abroad.
"It"s a dream, Hugh," she sighed. "But--do you think we can afford it?"...
"This house," I announced, smiling, "is only a stepping-stone to the palace I intend to build you some day."
"I don"t want a palace!" she cried. "I"d rather live here, like this, always."
A certain vehemence in her manner troubled me. I was charmed by this disposition for domesticity, and yet I shrank from the contemplation of its permanency. I felt vaguely, at the time, the possibility of a future conflict of temperaments. Maude was docile, now. But would she remain docile? and was it in her nature to take ultimately the position that was desirable for my wife? Well, she must be moulded, before it were too late. Her ultra-domestic tendencies must be halted. As yet blissfully unaware of the inability of the masculine mind to fathom the subtleties of feminine relationships, I was particularly desirous that Maude and Nancy Durrett should be intimates. The very day after our arrival, and while we were still at my mother"s, Nancy called on Maude, and took her out for a drive. Maude told me of it when I came home from the office.
"Dear old Nancy!" I said. "I know you liked her."
"Of course, Hugh. I should like her for your sake, anyway. She"s--she"s one of your oldest and best friends."
"But I want you to like her for her own sake."
"I think I shall," said Maude. She was so scrupulously truthful! "I was a little afraid of her, at first."
"Afraid of Nancy!" I exclaimed.
"Well, you know, she"s much older than I. I think she is sweet. But she knows so much about the world--so much that she doesn"t say. I can"t describe it."
I smiled.
"It"s only her manner. You"ll get used to that, when you know what she really is."
"Oh, I hope so," answered Maude. "I"m very anxious to like her--I do like her. But it takes me such a lot of time to get to know people."
Nancy asked us to dinner.
"I want to help Maude all I can,--if she"ll let me," Nancy said.
"Why shouldn"t she let you?" I asked.
"She may not like me," Nancy replied.
"Nonsense!" I exclaimed.
Nancy smiled.
"It won"t be my fault, at any rate, if she doesn"t," she said. "I wanted her to meet at first just the right people your old friends and a few others. It is hard for a woman--especially a young woman--coming among strangers." She glanced down the table to where Maude sat talking to Ham. "She has an air about her,--a great deal of self-possession."
I, too, had noticed this, with pride and relief. For I knew Maude had been nervous.
"You are luckier than you deserve to be," Nancy reminded me. "But I hope you realize that she has a mind of her own, that she will form her own opinions of people, independently of you."
I must have betrayed the fact that I was a little startled, for the remark came as a confirmation of what I had dimly felt.
"Of course she has," I agreed, somewhat lamely. "Every woman has, who is worth her salt."
Nancy"s smile bespoke a knowledge that seemed to transcend my own.
"You do like her?" I demanded.
"I like her very much indeed," said Nancy, a little gravely.
"She"s simple, she"s real, she has that which so few of us possess nowadays--character. But--I"ve got to be prepared for the possibility that she may not get along with me."
"Why not?" I demanded.
"There you are again, with your old unwillingness to a.n.a.lyze a situation and face it. For heaven"s sake, now that you have married her, study her. Don"t take her for granted. Can"t you see that she doesn"t care for the things that amuse me, that make my life?"
"Of course, if you insist on making yourself out a hardened, sophisticated woman--" I protested. But she shook her head.
"Her roots are deeper,--she is in touch, though she may not realize it, with the fundamentals. She is one of those women who are race-makers."