"Have you ever studied Greek politics?" he asked. "Do you realize, for instance, that it was the custom of statesmen and generals who were defeated by their political rivals, to go over to the enemy and lead an expedition against their homes?"
"Isn"t that putting it rather strongly?" asked Mrs. Channing.
"I don"t think so," he answered. "Didn"t the conquerors of both Salamis and Platasa afterwards sell out to the Persian king? And then you talk about the n.o.ble ideal of woman which the Greeks developed! Don"t you know that it was nothing but a literary tradition?"
"I had never understood that," said Mrs. Channing.
To which the other answered: "It was handed down from imaginary Homeric days. The Greek lady of the Periclean age was a domestic prisoner and drudge."
Section 3. Then, late in the afternoon, came Corydon; and this part of the adventure must have seemed stranger yet to the Channings. Corydon wore a shirt-waist and a ten-cent straw hat, trimmed with some white mosquito-netting, and an old blue skirt which she had worn before her marriage, and had enlarged little by little during the period of her pregnancy, and had taken in again after the baby was born. Also she was pale and sad-looking, much startled by the sight of the automobile, and the sudden apparition of elegance. She got rid of her armfuls of groceries and bundles, and seated herself in an inconspicuous place, and sat listening while the argument went on. For a full hour she never uttered a word; only once during the controversy over the "Greek lady", Mrs. Channing turned to her and asked, "Don"t you agree with me?" But Corydon could only answer, "I don"t know, I have not read much history."
And who was there to tell the visitor that this strange, wide-eyed girl knew more about the tragedies and terrors of the Greek temperament than she with all her culture and her college-degrees could have learned in many life-times?
The two stayed to supper, and Corydon and Thyrsis set out the meal upon the rustic outdoor table; they apologized for their domestic inadequacies, but Mrs. Channing declared that she "adored picknicking".
The evening was spent in more discussion; and finally it was decided that the visitors should stay over night at the hotel in town, and come out again in the morning.
Thyrsis concluded, as he thought the matter over, that the two must have been fascinated by this domestic situation, and curious to look deeper into it. Perhaps they saw "material" in it; or perhaps it was that Haddon Channing was really impressed by Thyrsis" powers, and sought to understand his problems and help him. Whatever may have been the motive for it, when they came the next morning, the critic took Thyrsis for a walk in the woods and proceeded to discuss his affairs. And meanwhile his wife had set herself to the task of probing the innermost corners of Corydon"s soul.
The burden of Channing"s discourse was Thyrsis" impatience and lack of balance, his fanaticism and his too great opinion of his own work. "My dear fellow," he said, "you are the most friendless human being I have ever encountered upon earth. How can you expect to interest men if you don"t get out into the world and learn what they are doing?"
"That means to get a position, I suppose?" said Thyrsis.
"No, not necessarily--" began the other.
"But I haven"t money to live in the city otherwise."
That was too definite for Channing, and he went off on another tack. He had been reading "The Higher Cannibalism", and he could not forgive it.
A boy of Thyrsis" age had no right to be seething with such bitterness; there must be some fundamental and terrible cause. He was destroying himself, he was eating out his heart in this isolation; he was so wrapped up in his own miseries, his own wrongs--in all the concerns of his own exaggerated ego!
They were seated beside a little streamlet in the woods. "What you need is something to get you out of yourself," the critic was saying--"something to restore your sanity and balance. It"ll come to you some day. Perhaps it"ll be a love-affair--you"ll meet some woman who"ll carry you away. I know the sort you need--they grow in the West--the great brooding type of woman-soul, that would fold you in her arms and give you a little peace."
Thyrsis was silent for a s.p.a.ce. "You forget," he said, in a low voice, "that I am already married."
The other shrugged his shoulders. "Such things have happened, even so,"
he said.
Thyrsis had taken his part in the conversation before this, defending himself and setting forth his point of view. But now he fell silent. The words had cut him to the quick. It seemed to him an insult and a bitter humiliation; here, at his home, almost in the presence of his wife! What was the man"s idea, anyway?
And suddenly he turned upon Channing with the question, "You think that I"ve married a doll?"
The other was staggered for a moment. "I don"t know what you"ve married," he replied.
"No," said Thyrsis. "Then how can you advise me in such a matter?"
"I see that you"re not happy--" the other began.
"Yes," said the boy. "But I don"t want any more women."
There was a pause, while Thyrsis sat pondering, Should he try to explain to this man? But he shook his head. No, it would be useless to try. "She is not in your cla.s.s," he said.
"How do you mean?" asked the other.
"She has none of your culture, none of your social graces. She can"t write, and she can"t sing--she can"t do anything that your wife does."
"I"m afraid," said Channing, in a low voice, "you don"t take my remarks in the right spirit."
"Even suppose that she were not what you call a "great woman-soul","
persisted Thyrsis--"at least she has starved and suffered for me; and wouldn"t common loyalty bind me to her?"
"I have tried to do something very difficult," said the other, after a silence. "I have tried to talk to you frankly. It is the most thankless task in the world to tell a man his own faults."
"I know," said Thyrsis. "And that"s all right--I"m perfectly willing. I don"t mind knowing my faults."
"It is evident that you have resented it," declared the other.
Thyrsis answered with a laugh, "Don"t you admit of replies to your criticisms? Suppose I"m pointing out some of your faults--your faults as a critic?"
Channing said that he did not object to that.
"Very well, then," said Thyrsis. "I simply tell you that you have missed the point of my trouble. There"s nothing the matter with me but poverty and lack of opportunity; and there"s nothing else the matter with my wife. We"re doing our best, and it"s the simple fact that we"ve endured and dared more than anybody we"ve ever met. And that"s all there is to it."
It was evident that Channing was deeply hurt. He turned the conversation to other matters, and pretty soon they got up and strolled on. When they came near to the house, he went off to see his chauffeur, and Thyrsis stood watching him, and pondering over the episode.
It was the same thing that had happened to him in the city; it was the thing that would be happening to him all the time. He saw that however wretched he might be with Corydon, he would always take her part against the world. Whatever her faults might be, they were not such as the world could judge. Rather would he make it the test of a person"s character, that they should understand and appreciate her, in spite of her lack of that superficial thing called culture--the ability to rattle off opinions about any subject under the sun.
So it was that loyalty to Corydon held him fast. So her temperament was his law, and her needs were his standards; and day by day he must become more like her, and less like himself!
Section 4. He returned to the house, entering by the rear door. The baby was lying in the room asleep, and out upon the piazza, he could hear Corydon and Mrs. Channing. Corydon was speaking, in her intense voice.
"The trouble with me," she was saying, "is that I have no confidence!
Other women are sure of themselves--they are self-contained, serene, satisfied."
"But why shouldn"t you be that way?" Thus Mrs. Channing.
"I aim too high," said Corydon. "I want too much. I defeat myself."
"Yes," said the other, "but why--"
"It"s been the circ.u.mstances of all my life! I"ve been defeated--thwarted--repressed! Everything drives me back into myself.
There is nothing I can _do_--I can only endure and suffer and wait. So all the influences in my life are negative--
"I was sick with the Nay of life-- With my lonely soul"s refrain!""
"What is that you are quoting?" asked Mrs. Channing.
"It"s from a poem I wrote," said Corydon.
"Oh, you write poetry?"
"I couldn"t say that," was the reply. "I have no technique--I never studied anything about it."