"It takes a clever woman to know how to flatter with the truth," said he. "Everybody always has been afraid of me--and is--except, of course, my wife."
He was always talking of "my wife" now. The subject so completely possessed his mind that he aired it unconsciously.
When she was not around he boasted of "my wife"s" skill in the art of dress, of "my wife"s" taste, of "my wife"s" shrewdness in getting her money"s worth. When she was there, he was using the favorite phrase "my wife" this--"my wife" that--"my wife" the other--until it so got on her nerves that she began to wait for it and to wince whenever it came--never a wait of many minutes. At first she thought he was doing this deliberately either to annoy her or in pursuance of some secret deep design. But she soon saw that he was not aware of his inability to keep off the subject or of his obsession for that phrase representing the thing he was intensely wishing and willing--"chiefly," she thought, "because it is something he cannot have." She was amazed at his display of such a weakness. It gave her the chance to learn an important truth about human nature--that self-indulgence soon destroys the strongest nature--and she was witness to how rapidly an inflexible will disintegrates if incessantly applied to an impossibility. When a strong arrogant man, unbalanced by long and successful self-indulgence, hurls himself at an obstruction, either the obstruction yields or the man is destroyed.
One morning early in February, as she was descending from her auto in front of the apartment house, she saw Brent in the doorway. Never had he looked so young or so well. His color was fine, his face had become almost boyish; upon his skin and in his eyes was that gloss of perfect health which until these latter days of scientific hygiene was rarely seen after twenty-five in a woman or after thirty in a man. She gathered in all, to the smallest detail--such as the color of his shirt--with a single quick glance. She knew that he had seen her before she saw him--that he had been observing her. Her happiest friendliest smile made her small face bewitching as she advanced with outstretched hand.
"When did you come?" she asked.
"About an hour ago."
"From the Riviera?"
"No, indeed. From St. Moritz--and skating and skiing and tobogganing. I rather hoped I looked it. Doing those things in that air--it"s being born again."
"I felt well till I saw you," said she. "Now I feel dingy and half sick."
He laughed, his glance sweeping her from hat to boots.
Certainly his eyes could not have found a more entrancing sight. She was wearing a beautiful dress of golden brown cloth, sable hat, short coat and m.u.f.f, brown suede boots laced high upon her long slender calves. And when she had descended from the perfect little limousine made to order for her, he had seen a ravishing flutter of lingerie of pale violet silk.
The sharp air had brought no color to her cheeks to interfere with the abrupt and fascinating contrast of their pallor with the long crimson bow of her mouth. But her skin seemed transparent and had the clearness of health itself. Everything about her, every least detail, was of Parisian perfection.
"Probably there are not in the world," said he, "so many as a dozen women so well put together as you are. No, not half a dozen. Few women carry the art of dress to the point of genius."
"I see they had only frumps at St. Moritz this season,"
laughed she.
But he would not be turned aside. "Most of the well dressed women stop short with being simply frivolous in spending so much time at less than perfection--like the army of poets who write pretty good verse, or the swarm of singers who sing pretty well. I"ve heard of you many times this winter. You are the talk of Paris."
She laughed with frank delight. It was indeed a pleasure to discover that her pains had not been in vain.
"It is always the outsider who comes to the great city to show it its own resources," he went on. "I knew you were going to do this. Still happy?"
"Oh, yes."
But he had taken her by surprise. A faint shadow flitted across her face. "Not so happy, I see."
"You see too much. Won"t you lunch with us? We"ll have it in about half an hour."
He accepted promptly and they went up together. His glance traveled round the drawing-room; and she knew he had noted all the changes she had made on better acquaintance with her surroundings and wider knowledge of interior furnishing. She saw that he approved, and it increased her good humor. "Are you hurrying through Paris on your way to somewhere else?" she asked.
"No, I stop here--I think--until I sail for America."
"And that will be soon?"
"Perhaps not until July. I have no plans. I"ve finished a play a woman suggested to me some time ago. And I"m waiting."
A gleam of understanding came into her eyes. There was controlled interest in her voice as she inquired:
"When is it to be produced?"
"When the woman who suggested it is ready to act in it."
"Do I by any chance know her?"
"You used to know her. You will know her again."
She shook her head slowly, a pensive smile hovering about her eyes and lips. "No--not again. I have changed."
"We do not change," said he. "We move, but we do not change.
You are the same character you were when you came into the world. And what you were then, that you will be when the curtain falls on the climax of your last act. Your circ.u.mstances will change--and your clothes--and your face, hair, figure--but not _you_."
"Do you believe that?"
"I _know_ it."
She nodded slowly, the violet-gray eyes pensive. "Birds in the strong wind--that"s what we are. Driven this way or that--or quite beaten down. But the wind doesn"t change sparrow to eagle--or eagle to gull--does it?"
She had removed her coat and was seated on an oval lounge gazing into the open fire. He was standing before it, looking taller and stronger than ever, in a gray lounging suit. A cigarette depended loosely from the corner of his mouth. He said abruptly:
"How are you getting on with your acting?"
She glanced in surprise.
"Gourdain," Brent explained. "He had to talk to somebody about how wonderful you are. So he took to writing me--two huge letters a week--all about you."
"I"m fond of him. And he"s fond of Clelie. She"s my----"
"I know all," he interrupted. "The tie between them is their fondness for you. Tell me about the acting."
"Oh--Clelie and I have been going to the theater every few days--to help me with French. She is mad about acting, and there"s nothing I like better."
"Also, _you_ simply have to have occupation."
She nodded. "I wasn"t brought up to fit me for an idler.
When I was a child I was taught to keep busy--not at nothing, but at something. Freddie"s a lot better at it than I."
"Naturally," said Brent. "You had a home, with order and a system--an old-fashioned American home. He--well, he hadn"t."
"Clelie and I go at our make-believe acting quite seriously.
We have to--if we"re to fool ourselves that it"s an occupation."
"Why this anxiety to prove to me that you"re not really serious?"
Susan laughed mockingly for answer, and went on:
"You should see us do the two wives in "L"Enigme"--or mother and daughter in that diary scene in "L"Autre Danger"!"
"I must. . . . When are you going to resume your career?"