Stuart nodded.
"Then what do you haggle for over a few dollars? Have I ever given you reason to repent our arrangement? Have I not helped you in business, in social matters put you where you never could go by yourself? And do you think my price is high?"
"Money is so scarce," Stuart protested, feebly.
"Suppose it left you only half a million, all told! What"s that, in comparison to what I have given? Think of that. I don"t complain, but you know we women estimate things differently. And when we sell ourselves, we name the price; and it matters little how big it is,"
Her scorn pierced the old man"s somewhat leathery sensibilities.
"Well, if it"s a question of price, when is it going to end--when shall I have paid up? Next year you"ll want half a million hard cash."
"There is no end."
The next morning, Mrs. Stuart returned to Winetka; the rupture threatened to prolong itself indefinitely. Stuart found it hard to give in completely, and it made him sore to think that their marriage had remained a business matter for over twenty years. And yet it was hard to face death without all the satisfaction money could buy him. The crisis came, however, in an unexpected manner.
One morning Stuart found his daughter waiting for him at his office.
She had slipped away from Winetka, and taken an early train.
"What"s up, Ede?"
"Oh, papa!" the young girl gasped "They make me so unhappy, every day, and I can"t stand it. Mamma wants me to marry Stuyvesant Wheelright, and he"s there all the time."
"Who"s he?" Stuart asked, sharply. His daughter explained briefly.
"He is what mamma calls "eligible"; he is a great swell in New York, and I don"t like him. Oh, papa, I can"t be a _grande dame_, like mamma, can I? Won"t you tell her so, papa? Make up with her; pay her the money she wants for Aunt Helen, and then perhaps she"ll let me paint."
"No, you"re not the figure your mother is, and never will be," Stuart said, almost slightingly. "I don"t think, Ede, you"ll ever make a great lady like her."
"I don"t think she is very happy," the girl bridled, in her own defence.
"Well, perhaps not, perhaps not. But who do you want to marry, anyway?
You had better marry someone, Ede, "fore I die."
"I don"t know--that is, it doesn"t matter much just now. I should like to go to California, perhaps, with the Stearns girls. I want to paint, just daubs, you know--I can"t do any better. But you tell mamma I can"t be a great swell. I shouldn"t be happy, either.""
The old man resolved to yield. That very afternoon he drove out to Winetka along the lake sh.o.r.e. He had himself gotten up in his stiffest best. He held the reins high and tight, his body erect in the approved form; while now and then he glanced back to see if the footmen were as rigid as my lady demanded. For Mrs. Stuart loved good form, and he felt nervously apprehensive, as if he were again suing for her maiden favors. He was conscious, too, that he had little enough to offer her--the last months had brought humility. Beside him young Spencer lolled, enjoying, with a free heart, his day off in the gentle, spring-like air. Perhaps he divined that his lady would not need so much propitiation.
They surprised a party just setting forth from the Winetka house as they drove up with a final flourish. Their unexpected arrival scattered the guests into little, curious groups; everyone antic.i.p.ated immediate dissolution. They speculated on the terms, and the opinion prevailed that Stuart"s expedition from town indicated complete surrender.
Meanwhile Stuart asked for an immediate audience, and husband and wife went up at once to Mrs. Stuart"s little library facing out over the bluff that descended to the lake.
"Well, Beatty," old Stuart cried, without preliminary effort, "I just can"t live without you--that"s the whole of it." She smiled. "I ain"t much longer to live, and then you"re to have it all. So why shouldn"t you take what you want now?" He drew out several checks from his pocket-book.
"You can cable your folks at once and go ahead. You"ve been the best sort of wife, as you said, and--I guess I owe you more"n I"ve paid for your puttin" up with an old fellow like me all these years."
Mrs. Stuart had a new sensation of pity for his pathetic surrender.
"There"s one thing, Beatty," he continued, "so long as I live you"ll own I oughter rule in my own house, manage the boys, and that." Mrs.
Stuart nodded. "Now I want you to come back with me and break up this party."
Mrs. Stuart took the checks.
"You"ve made it a bargain, Beatty. You said I was to pay your family what you wanted, and you were to obey me at that price?"
"Well," replied Mrs. Stuart, good-humoredly. "We"ll all go up to-morrow. Isn"t that early enough?"
"That ain"t all, Beatty. You can"t make everybody over; you couldn"t brush me up much; you can"t make a grand lady out of Edith."
Mrs. Stuart looked up inquiringly.
"Now you"ve had your way about your family, and I want you to let Ede alone."
"Why?"
"She doesn"t want that Wheelright fellow, and if you think it over you"ll see that she couldn"t do as you have. She ain"t the sort."
Mrs. Stuart twitched at the checks nervously.
"I sort of think Spencer wants her; in fact, he said so coming out here."
"Impertinent puppy!"
"And I told him he could have her, if she wanted him. I don"t think I should like to see another woman of mine live the sort of life you have with me. It"s hard on "em." His voice quivered.
Beatrice, Lady Stuart of Winetka, as they called her, stood silently looking out to the lake, reviewing "the sort of life she had lived"
from the time she had made up her mind to take the shop-keeper"s millions to this moment of concession. It was a grim panorama, and she realized now that it had not meant complete satisfaction to either party. Her twenty or more frozen years made her uncomfortable. While they waited, young Spencer and Miss Stuart came slowly up the terraced bluff.
"Well, John," Mrs. Stuart smiled kindly. "I think this is the last payment,--in full. Let"s go down to congratulate them."
CHICAGO, March, 1895.
A PROTHALAMION
_The best man has gone for a game of billiards with the host. The maid of honor is inditing an epistle to one who must fall. The bridesmaids have withdrawn themselves, each with some endurable usher, to an appropriate retreat upon the other coasts of the veranda. The night is full of starlight in May. The lovers discover themselves at last alone._
_He._ What was that flame-colored book Maud was reading to young Bishop?
_She. The Dolly Dialogues_; you remember we read them in London when they came out.
_He._ What irreverent literature we tolerate nowadays! I suppose it"s the aftermath of agnosticism.
_She._ It didn"t occur to me that it was irreligious.
_He._ Irreverent, I said--the tone of our world.
_She._ But how I love that world of ours--even the _Dolly Dialogues_!
_He_. Because you love it, this world you feel, you are reverent toward it. I have hated it so many years; it carried so much pain with it that I thought every expression of life was pain, and now, now, if it were not for Maud and the _Dolly Dialogues_, these last days would seem to launch us afresh upon quite another world.