These reforms were for a greater economy in the management of "Every Other Week;" but in their very nature they could not include the suppression of Beaton. He had always shown himself capable and loyal to the interests of the magazine, and both the new owners were glad to keep him. He was glad to stay, though he made a gruff pretence of indifference, when they came to look over the new arrangement with him.
In his heart he knew that he was a fraud; but at least he could say to himself with truth that he had not now the shame of taking Dryfoos"s money.
March and Fulkerson retrenched at several points where it had seemed indispensable to spend, as long as they were not spending their own: that was only human. Fulkerson absorbed Conrad"s department into his, and March found that he could dispense with Kendricks in the place of a.s.sistant which he had lately filled since Fulkerson had decided that March was overworked. They reduced the number of ill.u.s.trated articles, and they systematized the payment of contributors strictly according to the sales of each number, on their original plan of co-operation: they had got to paying rather lavishly for material without reference to the sales.
Fulkerson took a little time to get married, and went on his wedding journey out to Niagara, and down the St. Lawrence to Quebec over the line of travel that the Marches had taken on their wedding journey. He had the pleasure of going from Montreal to Quebec on the same boat on which he first met March.
They have continued very good friends, and their wives are almost without the rivalry that usually embitters the wives of partners. At first Mrs.
March did not like Mrs. Fulkerson"s speaking of her husband as the Ownah, and March as the Edito"; but it appeared that this was only a convenient method of recognizing the predominant quality in each, and was meant neither to affirm nor to deny anything. Colonel Woodburn offered as his contribution to the celebration of the copartnership, which Fulkerson could not be prevented from dedicating with a little dinner, the story of Fulkerson"s magnanimous behavior in regard to Dryfoos at that crucial moment when it was a question whether he should give up Dryfoos or give up March. Fulkerson winced at it; but Mrs. March told her husband that now, whatever happened, she should never have any misgivings of Fulkerson again; and she asked him if he did not think he ought to apologize to him for the doubts with which he had once inspired her. March said that he did not think so.
The Fulkersons spent the summer at a seaside hotel in easy reach of the city; but they returned early to Mrs. Leighton"s, with whom they are to board till spring, when they are going to fit up Fulkerson"s bachelor apartment for housekeeping. Mrs. March, with her Boston scruple, thinks it will be odd, living over the "Every Other Week" offices; but there will be a separate street entrance to the apartment; and besides, in New York you may do anything.
The future of the Leightons promises no immediate change. Kendricks goes there a good deal to see the Fulkersons, and Mrs. Fulkerson says he comes to see Alma. He has seemed taken with her ever since he first met her at Dryfoos"s, the day of Lindau"s funeral, and though Fulkerson objects to dating a fancy of that kind from an occasion of that kind, he justly argues with March that there can be no harm in it, and that we are liable to be struck by lightning any time. In the mean while there is no proof that Alma returns Kendricks"s interest, if he feels any. She has got a little bit of color into the fall exhibition; but the fall exhibition is never so good as the spring exhibition. Wetmore is rather sorry she has succeeded in this, though he promoted her success. He says her real hope is in black and white, and it is a pity for her to lose sight of her original aim of drawing for ill.u.s.tration.
News has come from Paris of the engagement of Christine Dryfoos. There the Dryfooses met with the success denied them in New York; many American plutocrats must await their apotheosis in Europe, where society has them, as it were, in a translation. Shortly after their arrival they were celebrated in the news papers as the first millionaire American family of natural-gas extraction who had arrived in the capital of civilization; and at a French watering-place Christine encountered her fate--a n.o.bleman full of present debts and of duels in the past. Fulkerson says the old man can manage the debtor, and Christine can look out for the duellist.
"They say those fellows generally whip their wives. He"d better not try it with Christine, I reckon, unless he"s practised with a panther."
One day, shortly after their return to town in the autumn from the brief summer outing they permitted themselves, the Marches met Margaret Vance.
At first they did not know her in the dress of the sisterhood which she wore; but she smiled joyfully, almost gayly, on seeing them, and though she hurried by with the sister who accompanied her, and did not stay to speak, they felt that the peace that pa.s.seth understanding had looked at them from her eyes.
"Well, she is at rest, there can"t be any doubt of that," he said, as he glanced round at the drifting black robe which followed her free, nun-like walk.
"Yes, now she can do all the good she likes," sighed his wife. "I wonder--I wonder if she ever told his father about her talk with poor Conrad that day he was shot?"
"I don"t know. I don"t care. In any event, it would be right. She did nothing wrong. If she unwittingly sent him to his death, she sent him to die for G.o.d"s sake, for man"s sake."
"Yes--yes. But still--"
"Well, we must trust that look of hers."