"Oh, but you have. Now I know that you are quite Spanish to-night. It is your more ordinary mood of calm unvarnished--not to say brutal--directness that gives you your greatest charm as a comrade--even while you repel as a woman."
"Do I repel as a woman?" Isabel had placed one foot on the fender, one hand on the mantel-piece, and as she leaned slightly towards him, the red glow of the lamps and the mellow old scarf softening her features, the small square of neck dazzlingly white, and the position revealing the lines of her figure against the high flames of the logs, she looked more lovely than he had ever seen her. Like all racial beauties, bred by selection, she needed the arts of dress and furnishings to frame her.
It is only your accidental or peasant beauty that can defy "clothes"; and Isabel"s looks in ordinary ranch and riding costumes made no impression on Gwynne whatever. But to-night her appeal was very direct, although he had not the least idea whether she was posing or was entirely natural in an unusual mood. He had no intention of being made a fool of, however, and answered with the responsive glow in his eyes due a pretty and charming woman:
"Sometimes. Not to-night. If you would remain Spanish with no Revolutionary lapses, I make no doubt I should fall in love with you, and then perhaps you would fall in love with me merely because of my own lack of picturesqueness, and we should live happily ever after."
"What a bore." Isabel sniffed, and moved her gaze to the fire. But she did not alter her att.i.tude.
"Are you really happy?" asked Gwynne, curiously.
"Of course. So much so that it begins to worry me a little. My puritanical instincts dictate that I have no right to be quite happy.
What slaves we are to the old poisons in our blood! I live by the light of my reason, and all is well until one of those mouldy instincts, like a buried disease germ, raps all round its tomb. Then I feel nothing but a graveyard of all my ancestors. I don"t let them out, and my reason continues its rule, but they keep me from being--well--entirely happy, and I resent that."
"I should say it was not the Puritans but your common womanly instincts that were thumping round their cells. You have no right to be happy except as Nature intended when she deliberately equipped you, and that is in making some man happy."
"That is one of those superst.i.tions I am trying to live down while I am still young. Your mother is unhappy, under all her pride, because she has outlived youth and beauty and all they meant to her--she made them her G.o.ds, and now they have gone, and she doesn"t know which way to turn. Ennui devours her, and she is too old to turn her brains to account, too cynical for the average resource of religion, and too steeped, dyed, solidified, in one kind of womanism to turn at this late date to any other. But there are so many resources for the woman of to-day. The poor despised pioneers have done that for us. Of course it has not killed our natural instincts, and if I had not fallen in love when I did, no doubt I should still be looking about for an opportunity.
It is my good-fortune that I was delivered so soon. I wish all women born to enjoy life in its variety could be freed of that terrible burden of s.e.x as early as I was."
"I suppose you would like to rid men of it too."
"I do not waste any thought on men; so far as I have observed they are able to take care of themselves."
"A woman incapable of pa.s.sion is neither more nor less than a failure."
"I have seen so many commonplace women capable of it! Look at Mrs.
Haight and Paula."
"I never look at Mrs. Haight, but as for Mrs. Stone I can quite conceive that if she had better taste she would be almost charming. She embodies youth properly equipped."
"For reproduction, you mean. That is the reason that the silliest, the meanest, the most poisonous girl can always find a husband if she is healthy. It is no wonder that some of us want a new standard."
Gwynne laughed. "Schopenhauer suits you better when you are out on the marsh in rubber boots and a shooting-jacket. Do you realize that if you persist in this determination to camp permanently in the outer--and frigid--zone, you will never be the centre of a life drama? That, I take it, is what every woman desires most. You had a sort of curtain-raiser--to my mind, hardly that. First love is merely the more picturesque successor of measles and whooping-cough. In marriage it may develop into something worth while, but in itself amounts to nothing--except as material for poets. But the real drama--that is in the permanent relation. This relation is the motive power of the great known dramas of the world. Life is packed with little unheard of dramas of precisely the same sort--the eternal duet of s.e.x; nothing else keeps it going. Now, it is positive that a woman cannot have a drama all by herself--"
"Not a drama in the old style. But that is what we are trying to avoid.
Are there not other faculties? What has civilization done for the world if it is to be everlastingly s.e.x-ridden? What is the meaning of this mult.i.tude of faculties that progress has developed? What is the meaning of life itself--"
"Oh, are you aiming to read the riddle of life?"
"I mean to pa.s.s my own life in the effort. Men have failed. It is our turn. But if I say any more I suppose you will pinch me again."
"No," said Gwynne, smiling. "I feel much more like kissing you--ah!"
He had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes blaze. His pipe was finished; he clasped his hands behind his head and almost lay down in his deep chair. "I am just tired enough to be completely happy, and if I can look at you I am willing to listen like a lamb all night."
"And be convinced of nothing." Isabel tossed her head and returned to her chair. It faced him and he could still look at her. They watched each other from opposite sides of the hearth with something of the unblinking wariness of a dog and a cat, and no doubt had they possessed caudal appendages they would have lashed them slowly.
"I don"t say that," he replied, in a moment. "I believe I intimated that I came here to-night with a purpose. It was to tell you that I have thought more or less about what you said in the boat that morning, and that I can understand, if I cannot agree with you. No doubt the times have bred a certain cla.s.s of women too good for mere matrimony. I have seen many that were miserably thrown away; although I will confess that the only remedy that occurred to me was a better man. But if you and your like--are there really any others?--if you, let us say, are groping towards some new solution of life, some happiness recipe that will benefit the few that deserve it, far be it from a mere man to--well--pinch you. You--you individually--have so many highly developed faculties that I can conceive your finding sufficient occupation through them, a filling up of time;--and no doubt idleness and the vain groping after s.e.x happiness are the princ.i.p.al reasons for the failure of so many women. But work does not give happiness; it merely diminishes the capacity and opportunities for unhappiness. I take it that you, with all your gifts and the immense amount of thought you have bestowed on the subject, are striving for something higher than that. Besides, I had your lucid exposition of your mission. I now have an additional reason for remaining in California--to watch the new century plant flower. Like other commonplace mortals, however, my instincts fight for the only solution of happiness I know anything about. I still think that as the wife of some ambitious public man you would find a far better market for your gifts than to stand as a sort of statue of Independence on the top of Russian Hill with only San Francisco to admire. And if you pa.s.sionately loved the man--"
"Now you are spoiling everything. But it is handsome of you to admit that I am not a fool; and that you have thought my theories worth turning over in your busy mind is a compliment I duly appreciate."
"Even a sneer cannot spoil your loveliness to-night, so I don"t mind the sarcasm in the least. But it is true that in my few unoccupied intervals--as, for instance, when Imura Kisaburo Hinamoto is shaving me, and I have, by an excess of politeness, made sure that he will not cut my throat--I have had visions of you on that ungainly pedestal with all San Francisco kneeling at the base. It is quite conceivable. I am a born leader myself. I recognize certain attributes in you. The town is on the qui vive to know you. Mrs. Hofer is determined that you shall be the sensation of her ball, and no doubt that will be the commencement of your ill.u.s.trious career. When you are really grown into your pedestal like one of Rodin"s statues, you are certain to have a most ill.u.s.trious and distinctive career--and accomplish much good. But you will be terribly lonely."
"I should not have time. And if I am a born leader, how, pray, could I yoke comfortably with any man? I should despise a slave, and the same roof will not shelter two leaders."
"I am not so sure of that, if both were working to the same end. It takes two halves to make a whole. If women have so far been the subordinate s.e.x, no doubt it is merely the result of those physical disabilities which enabled man to gain the ascendency during the long centuries of struggle with nature. But your s.e.x is rapidly altering all that. We shall see woman"s suffrage in our time--and be better for it. I have never been opposed to it--and that is proof enough of the progress the idea has made, for I am arbitrary and masculine enough. Then--now, no doubt--women will be as much partners as wives, and I grant the relationship might be vastly more interesting than marriage in the old style. And I will even concede that it may be the only sort of marriage for a man of my type--with a pretty woman, of course; hanged if I could marry the finest woman in the world if she were ugly; and if this be true--if men really need women enough to make such a concession as I am making this moment, then I fancy that women will retain enough of their original generosity to meet our demands."
"You do not need any woman. In England I fancied that your mother meant a great deal to you, but I don"t believe you have missed her at all--or that you will mourn when she returns to England. I was more than ready to take her place; you actually stirred my maternal instincts when you arrived, you looked so forlorn. But you spurned me, and now you have grown too independent even to ill.u.s.trate your own theories."
"I did not spurn you. Some day I may tell you why I did not come to you in my dark hours, but not now."
"Why not now?"
"Because I do not choose to. And seductive as you look I am not to be made a fool of to gratify one of your whims--of which you are quite as full as the least emanc.i.p.ated woman I ever saw."
To this Isabel deigned no reply, and a silence ensued. She transferred her gaze to the fire, and her mind revolved in search of new arguments, but it was tired and worked slowly. She concluded to change the subject and offer to read him the article in the Review, so complimentary to himself; but she turned her head to discover that he was sound asleep.
She laughed, half vexed, half amused. Then she laid a rug lightly over his knees, and softly replenished the fire. The room was deliciously warm, her own chair very comfortable. She too fell asleep.
She was rudely awakened. Gwynne was shaking her by the shoulder, and his face was white with consternation.
"Good G.o.d!" he exclaimed. "Do you know what time it is? It is two o"clock! Why did you let me sleep? Those old tabbies--"
"They must be asleep too," said Isabel, indifferently. "Come out, and I will hold the lantern while you saddle Kaiser."
XXVII
Mrs. Haight was hastily putting her parlor in order for the "Ten o"Clock Five Hundred Club." She was without a servant, having had four hired girls and three j.a.ps in the past month; during the last three days she had cooked for herself and Mr. Haight, "done all the work," and attended seven card parties. Mr. Haight, who had not had his dinner the night before until nine o"clock, and whose steak this morning had been burned and his coffee muddy, had gone down-town in a huff, threatening to move to the hotel unless his wife found a servant or her sanity.
Mrs. Haight, who wore a red flannel wrapper trimmed with black lace, which she believed became her style, shook up the sofa-cushions on the divan, where she longed to receive her guests reclining in Oriental voluptuousness, but had never dared, and dusted the table as if she were slapping an enemy"s face. The bed was not made, nor likely to be before night, and she too knew the penalties of burned steak and bad coffee, enhanced by the irritability of the insomniac. She had her redeeming virtues, no doubt; all have, even burglars and murderers, until they slip into the region of pathology; but this morning she looked and felt like a she-wolf; and few mammals are so dangerous, particularly a she-wolf that has never suckled young.
Her expected guests arrived promptly, glowing with the light dry cold, some wearing furs because they became the season, others thin cloth jackets over their shirt-waists. One had bundled herself into a broche shawl and "run over" hatless. Each, as she entered the parlor, cast a critical eye upon the silver spoon standing in lonely glory on the mantel-piece, and nodded or scowled, according to her bent. Mrs. Haight was far too cunning to detain them from the tables they fairly rushed at as the last member arrived, and it was not until they had "sc.r.a.pped" and wrestled and stormed at and abused each other for at least two hours, not until their ugly pa.s.sions were in full possession, and they threw down their cards with loud indignation that a subst.i.tute should be allowed "to compete for a prize, anyhow"--the subst.i.tute having won the spoon--that the hostess, with the peculiar slow fire in her eyes that marks the beast of prey in sight of its quarry, suddenly let it be understood that the high tension was to be relieved with a choice bit of scandal. It was some time since they had had one; propriety, like business honesty, being almost inevitable in a community little larger than a throne.
Mrs. Wheaton exclaimed: "Your eyes look like two burnt holes in a blanket, Minerva. What is it? Hurry up. I must run home and supervise a new Swede that speaks ten words of English. She asked me if I wanted young children for dinner. I suppose she meant chickens, but one never knows, and Anabel"s babies are just over the fence."
"It"s this, and it"s no joking matter, Sarah Wheaton. I saw Mr. Gwynne pa.s.s this house at three o"clock this morning, and on Isabel Otis"s horse. Now, I saw him going out to Old Inn, _walking_ before sundown.
He had plenty of time to say what he had to say and get home at a decent hour--which is long before half-past ten, and that"s what it"s been many a night. This thing has become a scandal to the community, and I for one won"t stand it any longer. Its downright immoral, and I"m not using too strong language purposely."
"Oh my!" exclaimed Dolly Boutts. "You could never make me believe anything against Isabel. He"s studying terribly hard--the judge told pa--and likely as not has insomnia. Englishmen are so terribly dull to talk to I shouldn"t wonder if it was hard work for them to learn anything."
"Insomnia!" cried Mrs. Haight. "I guess I have insomnia and I guess I know what I am talking about. What does a kid like you know of the wickedness of the world, or insomnia either? But this has gone just as far as _I_ intend to permit it."
"It certainly looks very bad, very bad," muttered Mrs. Wheaton, whose own light eyes were glowing. "What steps shall you take, Minerva? Or what should you advise me to do? I am sorry I had forgotten the girl. I should have kept the eye on her that I intended."
"It"s a matter for all, not for any one of us. I intend to bring it up at the Club Meeting this afternoon, and I expect you all to back me, for the thing"s a disgrace to the community, and all our girls will be talked about. In my opinion the best thing to do is to tell her to leave and go and live in that hot-bed of wickedness, San Francisco."