"They say they are--how should I know?"
"I thought you might know from experience," she observed equably.
"I have never loved any woman but you, Margaret!" he said tenderly. "You know that!"
Margaret made no response. The statement seemed to demand something of her which she could not give. He took her hand again, caressed it, and finally kissed her. She looked at him steadily, coldly.
"Please--sit over there!" As her husband continued to caress her, she sat upright. "I want to say something to you, Larry."
"What is it?"
"There can"t be any more of _that_--you understand?--between us."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean--_that_, what you call love, pa.s.sion, is over between us."
"Why? ... what have I done?"
Margaret waved her hand impatiently:--
"It makes no difference,--I don"t want it--I can"t--that is all."
"You refuse to be my wife?"
"Yes,--that way."
"You take back your marriage vow?" (Larry was a high churchman, which fact had condoned much in the Bishop"s eyes.)
"I take back--myself!"
Margaret"s eyes shone, but her voice was calm.
"If you loved any other man--but you are as cold as ice!"
"Am I?"
"Yes! ... I have been faithful to you always," he observed by way of defence and accusation.
Margaret rose from the couch, and looked down at her husband, almost compa.s.sionately. But when she spoke, her low voice shook with scorn:--
"That is your affair,--I have never wanted to know.... You seem to pride yourself on that. Good G.o.d! if you were more of a man,--if you were man enough to want anything, even sin,--I might love you!"
It was like a bolt of white fire from the clear heavens. Her husband gasped, scarcely comprehending the words.
"I don"t believe you know what you are saying. Something has upset you....
Would you like me to love another woman? That"s a pretty idea for a wife to advance!"
"I want you to--oh, what"s the use of talking about it, Larry? You know what I mean--what I think, what I have felt--for a long time, even before little Elsa came. How can you want love with a woman who feels towards you as I do?"
"It is natural enough for a man who cares for his wife--"
"Too natural," Margaret laughed bitterly. "No, Larry; that"s all over! You can do as you like,--I shan"t ask questions. And we shall get on very well, like this."
"This comes of the rotten books you read!" he fumed.
"I do my own thinking."
"Suppose I don"t want the freedom you hand out so readily?" he asked with an appealing note. "Suppose I still love you, my wife? have always loved you! You married me.... I"ve been unfortunate--"
"It isn"t that, you know! It isn"t the money--the fact that you would have beggared your mother--not quite that. It"s everything--_you!_ Why go into it? I don"t blame you, Larry. But I know you now, and I don"t love you--that is all."
"You knew me when you married me. Why did you marry me?"
"Why--why did I marry you?"
Margaret"s voice had the habit of growing lower and stiller as pa.s.sion touched her heart. "Yes--you may well ask that! Why does a woman see those things she wants to see in a man, and is blind to what she might see! ...
Oh, why does any woman marry, my husband?"
And in the silence that followed they were both thinking of those days in Washington, eight years before, when they had met. He was acting as secretary to some great man then, and was flashing in the pleasant light of youth, popularity, social approbation. He had "won out" against the Englishman, Hollenby,--why, he had never exactly known.
Margaret was thinking of that why, as a woman does think at times for long years afterwards, trying to solve the psychological puzzle of her foolish youth! Hollenby was certainly the abler man, as well as the more brilliant prospect. And there were others who had loved her, and whom even as a girl she had wit enough to value.... A girl"s choice, when her heart speaks, as the novelists say, is a curious process, compounded of an infinite number of subtle elements,--suggestions, traits of character, and above all temporary atmospheric conditions of mind. It is a marvel if it ever can be resolved into its elements! ... The Englishman--she was almost his--had lost her because once he had betrayed to the girl the brute. One frightened glimpse of the animal in his nature had been enough. And in the rebound from this chance perception of man as brute, she had listened to Lawrence Pole, because he seemed to her all that the other was not,--high-souled, poetic, restrained, tender,--all the ideals. With him life would be a communion of lovely and lovable things. He would secure some place in the diplomatic service abroad, and they would live on the heights, with art, ideas, beauty....
"Wasn"t I a fool--not to know!" she remarked aloud. She was thinking, with the tolerance of mature womanhood: "I could have tamed the brute in the other one. At least he was a man!" "Well, we dream our dreams, sentimental little girls that we are! And after a time we open our eyes like kittens on life. I have opened mine, Larry,--very wide open. There isn"t a sentimental chord in my being that you can tw.a.n.g any longer.... But we can be good-tempered and sensible about it. Run along now and have your cigar, or go over to the country club and find some one to play billiards,--only let me finish what you are pleased to call my rotten reading,--it is so amusing!"
She had descended from the crest of her pa.s.sion, and could play with the situation. But her husband, realizing in some small way the significance of these words they had exchanged, still probed the ground:--
"If you feel like that, why do you still live with me? Why do you consent to bear my name?"
The pomposity of the last words roused a wicked gleam in his wife"s eyes.
She looked up from her article again.
"Perhaps I shan"t always "consent to bear your name," Larry. I"m still thinking, and I haven"t thought it all out yet. When I do, I may give up your name,--go away. Meanwhile I think we get on very well: I make a comfortable home for you; you have your children,--and they are well brought up. I have kept you trying to toe the mark, too. Take it all in all, I haven"t been a bad wife,--if we are to present references?"
"No," Larry admitted generously; "I have always said you were too good for me,--too fine."
"And so, still being a good wife, I have decided to take myself back." She drew her small body together, clasping her arms about the review. "My body and my soul,--what is personally most mine. But I will serve you--make you comfortable. And after a time you won"t mind, and you will see that it was best."
"It goes deeper than that," her husband protested, groping for the idea that he caught imperfectly; "it means practically that we are living under the same roof but aren"t married!"
"With perfect respectability, Larry, which is more than is always the case when a man and a woman live under the same roof, either married or unmarried! ... I am afraid that is it in plain words. But I will do my best to make it tolerable for you."
"Perhaps some day you"ll find a man,--what then?"
Margaret looked at him for a long minute before replying.
"And if I should find a Man, G.o.d alone knows what would happen!"
Then in reply to the frightened look on her husband"s face, she added lightly:--