Chapter 21

One afternoon she was reading in the hammock on the balcony before the upper sitting-room windows�the sitting room she shared with Helen and Winchie. She heard some one in the room, glanced up�Richard was before her. "Glad to find you alone," said he. "Do you realize it's several weeks since we've exchanged so much as a single word in private?"

"Something wrong at the shop?"

"No. I came especially to talk with you. How'd you like to go away for a week or so�to the sea or the mountains? We might take that trip through the Great Lakes."

"I'll see."

"You've been working very hard down at the shop. And by the way, you've caused an amazing improvement in Basil's work. He doesn't make those stupid mistakes any more. He used to make them every day. Yes�you've worked hard�and well."

She had no pleasure in these incredible compliments from Richard the difficult to please in chemistry. It was too disquieting to have him thus watchful and interested.

"Let's start at once," he proposed.

"Oh, I couldn't do that. I hesitate to leave here�when everything's at its best. In the fall�or next winter��"

"I see you don't want to go�with me."

His tone compelled her to look at him. His eyes�grave, searching�were fixed upon her. Instinct suddenly warned her of danger�what danger or where she could not see, but the warning was imperative. "Indeed I do," protested she, with a deceptive show of interest, though her skin burned as her fundamental and incurable honesty cried shame upon her�as it always did when she, compelled by her circumstances, could not avoid the lie direct. "But," she went on, "you can't expect a woman, with a household like this on her mind, to drop everything and fly at a few hours' notice."

He reflected, nodded. "That's true. Though, really, the servants are so experienced they'd go on just as well. My dear old aunt was thorough."

There was a little bitterness of hurt vanity in her smile of recognition at this ancient notion of Richard's about her part in that household. She felt that the t�te-�-t�te had already lasted too long. "Was Winchie in there?" she asked.

"I didn't see him," replied Dick.

She moved toward the nearest sitting-room window.

"What's the matter?" he cried, irritated. "Where are you going?"

"After Winchie. I haven't thought of him for an hour. Helen's away�at the Foster picnic��"

"The boy's all right. Sit down here and��"

But she was gone. She did not slacken her speed until she was safely clear of him. This new development of his threatened to become an annoyance, thought she; however, it couldn't last much longer; she would continue to keep out of his way; the laboratory would take hold of him and she would be once more forgotten and free. Meanwhile, she would avoid him.

And soon he did become once more absorbed, and resumed his accustomed shadowy place in her life�seen yet not seen, heard yet not heard, present yet absent; neither liked nor disliked, but unknown and unheeded�the place of many and many a husband in a marriage that seems happy and successful to the very servants in the household, to the husband and wife themselves. One evening he abruptly left the table. She saw, but did not note, his departure. When supper was over and she and Helen and Basil strolled into the sitting room, Basil took advantage of Helen's being apart to say to Courtney, "What's wrong with him?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied she. "Nothing, I guess."

"Didn't you notice? He was staring furiously at you, and left in a rage."

She shrugged her shoulders. That night she was in one of her reckless moods, was nervous, excited, with eyes the more brilliant for the circles round them. Richard appeared in the farthest of the long open windows. He frowned at Basil, said sharply to his wife, "Courtney, I'd like to speak to you out here a moment."

"It's chilly there," objected she. "Come in." And she went toward the piano.

Dick entered. His long aristocratic face was stern and his eyes glowed somberly. "Then let's go into the library," said he, in a tone so positive that from him it sounded like a command.

She hesitated, reflectively caressing one slim tapering arm. "Very well," said she, and passed into the hall, he standing formally aside at the doorway. In the library, she faced him with eyes half closed and chin thrust up and a little out. "Well?" she inquired.

As he looked at his sweet frivolous little child of a wife, his manner softened toward that of one rebuking a child's trespass. "I want you to go upstairs and wrap up your shoulders�or change your dress."

She glanced down. The bodice did not cover the upper curve of her bosom, had no straps across the shoulders or on the arms. In the back, it dipped almost to the waist line. She looked at him with a quizzical expression. "I'm quite warm enough, thanks."

"You understand me," said he, more severely.

She gazed straight into his eyes before answering. "Yes, I do. But I prefer to pretend not to."

"I've spoken to you about my wishes in this matter before. Do you know what made me notice your�your nakedness? Pardon me for putting it that way, but I see I must speak plainly."

Her face expressed faint, contemptuous indifference. "I cannot talk with you. Your ideas of women ought to be buried in the grave with your grandfather. I do not dictate the cut of your clothes. You will not dictate mine." And she moved toward the door.

He put himself between. "I saw Gallatin looking at you with an expression�" He made a gesture of rage�a quiet gesture but significant. "I don't blame him. It's your fault. You've no right to tease a man who can be nothing to you. I speak frankly because��"

"Gallatin has seen thousands of women in just such dress as this," interrupted she. It enraged her to hear her lover's feelings for her, in which flesh was mere medium between spirit and spirit, thus leveled to the carnality of his own passion. "You," she continued icily, "read your own poisonous, provincial primness and�and vulgarity into his look, no doubt."

"You are an innocent, pure-minded woman, Courtney," said Richard, with more gentleness. "You follow a fashion, thinking of it only as a fashion. I assure you, that sort of fashion is devised in Paris by cocottes for the one purpose. If you knew men better, you'd appreciate it."

She appreciated the penetration of this remark, puncturing the pretentious haughtiness of her protest. She was surprised at his reasoning so shrewdly about a matter she would not have suspected him of having given a thought. But she must not let him interfere in her personal affairs. "Whatever its origin," said she, "it's the conventional fashion for women. I shall continue to wear it." And she looked into his eyes pleasantly. Now, it struck her as amusing, the anger of this alien, about the exhibition to others of what he regarded as his own private and personal treasure. Just one stage removed from the harem, such an idea as his. "And," she went on, aloud, "if your satrapship commands me to wear a veil over my face and muffle my figure in a loose black bag, I shall make the same reply. You can't realize it, but the old-fashioned ideal of good, pure woman was really something to be handled with tongs and disinfected."

"You're talking of things you, being a good woman, know nothing about."

"At any rate I know a mind that ought to be quarantined�when I smell it." And she made a wry face and started to leave the room. When she had got as far as the threshold, he cried, "Courtney!" and his tone told her that he had caught sight of the reverse view of her costume�the unimpeded display of slender dimpled shoulders and straight smooth back almost to the waist line. She pretended not to hear, went on to the sitting room. Yielding altogether now to the imp of the perverse, she displaced Helen at the piano and sang the maddest, most melting love songs she knew. Basil tried to keep to the far part of the room; but gradually the enchantment compelled. Forgetting Richard�though he had seen him glowering and fuming from the darkness of the veranda�he leaned upon the end of the grand piano. His eyes were down, but his burning face and his trembling fingers as he raised or lowered his cigarette proclaimed how the deep passionate notes of her voice were vibrating through him.

It was somewhat later than usual when she went upstairs. As she pressed the button just inside her bedroom door and the light came on�a soft pale violet light that seemed to permeate rather than to shine�she saw Richard in the window. His back was toward her and he was smoking so that the odor and the smoke would not come into the room. He threw the cigarette over the balcony rail and turned. The instant she looked at him, little as she knew of his character or noted his moods she saw she had gone too far. But she held a calm, undaunted front. "How you frightened me," said she, in a tone that had no fright in it. "I'm horribly tired. I must stop eating desserts. They wear one out." She stifled a yawn, took the small diamond sunburst from the front of her waist and laid it on the bureau. She seemed all but unconscious of his presence; in reality, by way of the bureau mirror, she was watching him as a duelist an adversary. "I shall fall asleep before I can get into bed."

"I shall detain you only a moment." His grave, exaggerated politeness did not decrease her inward agitation. "I simply wish to tell you," he went on, "that, as you seem determined to persist in your own mistaken way, I shall be compelled to ask Gallatin to stay away from the house in the evenings."

Her impulse was to smile disdain at the infantile futility of this. And the smile did come to her lips, and lingered there to mask the feelings that came surging with the second thought. For she instantly realized how helpless she was. This man had no part in her life nor she in his; yet he could impose his will upon her absolutely because he could take Basil away from her�not merely for the unimportant evenings, but altogether. He could make it impossible for Basil to remain�could do it by a mere word to him. And she who fancied she had provided against every possible contingency had never even thought of this, the most obvious peril, and the greatest! Faint, she leaned upon the bureau, spreading her arms so that she seemed to be merely at ease. "But why tell me about it?" said she to him. "Why didn't you simply say it to him?" She smiled contemptuously. "And what will he think?"

Dick's calm vanished. "I don't care a damn what he thinks," he cried. "At least, he'll not be sitting round watching you half dressed."

She drew herself up haughtily. "Good night," said she.

"I was out on the veranda," Dick rushed on. "I saw him. He forgot Helen�forgot decency�honor�everything�and leaned there, giving himself up to a debauch. Yes, to a debauch! And you are responsible. Not he�not at all. You, alone. At least, anger doesn't make me unjust. And I will say too, you were innocent in the matter�like a willful child. Good pure women don't appreciate��"

"But I do," interrupted she. "I'm not the imbecile Aunt Eudosia sort you admire so much."

"I tell you, the man's in love with you," cried Richard.

She all but staggered before the shock.

"Yes, in love with you. That's why he came back here."

As steadily and indifferently as she could contrive she went to the sofa, seated herself. "Why, you yourself told me he was in love with Helen."

"I was mistaken. How could he be in love with her, when you're about? A man always takes to the best-looking woman."

She laughed with friendly conciliating coquetry. "I'm afraid you're prejudiced."

"I saw it this evening. The way he was listening to those love songs!"

"Are you sure he was thinking of me?"

Richard did not answer.

"Perhaps Helen's equally sure he was thinking of her."

Under cover of the talk she�hardly knowing what she, or he, was saying�darted this way and that, seeking an escape from the horror closing in upon her. She felt like a hiding slave, hearing the distant bay of the bloodhounds. How escape? How throw him off the scent? Was there only the one way?

"No, he cares nothing about Helen," Richard was saying. And clear and soft in his voice now was the note she dreaded. "At least, he didn't this evening. How could he when you were there? Courtney, you simply can't understand. You're modest and pure minded and innocent��"

"Then it was only this evening?" she interrupted. "I was hoping you had real reason for flattering me."

"Flattering you!"

"Certainly. Wouldn't it flatter you if I were to tell you Helen was in love with you? She's in love with somebody, by the way. It must be you�how could she think of any other man when you were about?"

Dick half smiled.

"And I must begin to tear my hair and foam at the mouth, I suppose," continued she. She rose, stamped her foot, in melodramatic imitation of jealous fury. "Helen shall keep to her room in the evenings! Do you hear, sir? When I think of the times I've let you take her up to your study�alone!�under pretense of working! You�with your shirt sleeves rolled up and your collar open!"

"You silly child!" Dick was amused now.

"But I don't blame Helen. How could she help it�with you leading her on��"

Dick laughed. "That's very shrewd," said he. "I own up. I guess I was having a jealous fit. But you'd understand if you could see yourself as I see you." And he clasped her.

"No�no!" she gasped.

Completely possessed by his mood he was too much the man to have the power to see that her mood was different. Holding her tightly, he said: "I do believe you acted that way this evening just to make me jealous. I admit I seem neglectful. But I love you, just as I always did."

She was struggling to escape as strongly as she dared�more strongly than her instinct of prudence approved�more strongly than her physical self desired, for she realized with horror that his mood was hypnotizing her will.

"Listen, dear," he said. "I've got a confession to make. While I was raging up and down on the veranda, all sorts of devilish thoughts came to me�suspicious��"

She ceased struggling.

"I got to thinking how long we've been living apart�and how, every time I made advances, you seemed to evade��"

She felt herself growing cold. He must have felt it, too, for he hastened on: "Please, little girl, don't get cross. I didn't really suspect. I'm not so ridiculous. I know a good woman could no more be false even in thought to her husband�than a nightingale could change into a snake."

It was pounding, pounding at the walls of her brain that he was on the very verge of the discovery; that unconsciously he was fighting against a suspicion which too long-pent passion was thrusting at him ever more pointedly. Another repulse, another jealous fit, and�five lives overwhelmed in ruin.

She lay quiet in his arms.

In those next few days she was whimsical, capricious, fantastic. Richard, once more wholly the man of science, was as unconscious as mountain peak of storms in the valleys far below. Basil and the others, but particularly Basil, watched her with a kind of dread. "I need a change�in fact, I must have it," she announced at the supper table. "Helen, let's go to Chicago and shop. The things in Wenona are hideous this spring."

"I need a change too," Richard startled them all by saying, "I'll go with you�and Helen can take care of the house and Basil�and Winchie, if you'll leave him."

"I don't want to be left!" cried Winchie. "You wouldn't leave me, mamma?"

Courtney did not hear. She was looking at Richard as if his words jarred upon her savagely, goaded her to the verge of outburst. She had been feeling toward her husband as she would have felt toward an inanimate object which had bruised her when she by accident stumbled heavily against it. She did not seek the source of this feeling, or let it disclose itself to her. She simply felt so; and when he spoke of going, it seemed as unthinkable that she should let him go as that she should leave Winchie behind. When she had herself in hand, she said: "This is a shopping trip. No men wanted or allowed."

"Not even me, mamma?" pleaded Winchie.

"Except you," said she.

And the two women and Winchie went the following day, to spend a busy fortnight in the Chicago shops buying for all three and for the house. As Courtney had limited means and exacting taste, the labor of shopping was hard and tedious, especially in those vast modern stores. For there the satisfaction of having everything under one roof is balanced by the vexation of the search for the needle of just what one wants and can afford through the mountainous haystack of what one does not want or cannot afford. The toil almost prostrated the two women�and poor Winchie who had to drag along since there was no one at the hotel to whom Courtney would trust him. But she felt more than repaid, not so much by her purchases, though she was on the whole content with them, as by the complete change in her point of view.

The atmosphere of the city is wholly different from that of such a place as Wenona. In Wenonas, the individual is important; the sky seems near, and its awful problems of the eternal verities�life and death, right and wrong�thrust at every one every moment of day and night. In a city, the sky yields to brick and stone; men see each other, not the universe; the eternal verities seem eternal bores, and life, of the day, of the hour, tempts with its�"Since you are mere maggot in rotten cheese�tiny maggot, one of billions�tremendous cheese�since you are to die to-morrow and decay and be forgotten�since you can fret and fritter all your years away over life and death, over right and wrong, without getting a hair's width nearer solving them�why not perk up�amuse yourself�do as little harm as is consistent with getting what you need, and have all the fun there is going? Don't take yourself solemnly!" The city's egotism is showy, but shallow; the country's, hidden but profound.

Viewed from Chicago, all the beauty, all the possibilities of happiness in her life in that lovely place on the shore of Wenona Lake stood out as in the landscape of a master painter; and all that fretted and shamed her and shot her joys with black thread of foreboding seemed the work of her own tainted imagination. "I'm harming no one," she now argued. "I'm free�Richard freed me when he made me realize I was to him not a wife but simply a carnal incident. And I am helping to make life there peaceful and even happy. The trouble with me is I'm still under the blight of my early training�a training in how to die, not in how to live. True, I do lead a double life. But how few human beings do not lead double lives of one kind or another? And where am I worse than thousands who long but have not courage or chance? Isn't it better to live in deceit with a man one loves than to live in deceit with a man one loathes?" If she and Basil were found out, they would be classed with the rest of the vulgar intriguers. But that did not make them thus low; it was not their fault that the world saw only coarseness for the same sort of reason that a man in green spectacles saw everything green.

She came back as much improved in mental health as in dress�and certainly the new clothes were a triumph. Also, her sense of self-respect seemed to be restored�"and whether I'm right in my way of looking at things or am deceiving myself, I'm certainly much the better for feeling I'm right."

They brought part of the spoils of the city with them, but most of it came by freight a week after their return. Courtney and Helen were almost as excited as Winchie�and Winchie was quite beside himself�when the great packing cases and crates were opened, and the treasures of dresses and underclothes and "stunning" hats and fascinating shoes and slippers and parasols and blouses, and the furniture and pictures came into view from endless wrappings of paper and bagging and excelsior, of boxes round and square, boxes small and large, boxes fancy and plain. Everything, with not an exception, looked better than it had in the shop when it was bought. "You are a wonderful shopper, Courtney. These things seem as if they were made especially for us," Helen asserted. And Winchie, literally pale with emotion, screamed, "Mamma Courtney, let's go back and buy some more!"

For several days the agitation continued. Indeed, it was a month or longer before the last ripples died away, and the normal calm was restored. Helen had new clothes as well as Courtney�and never had she looked so lovely. Winchie was the most stylish person of his age in all that region. The Donaldson children had theretofore been disposed to feel somewhat superior because they had a real imported French governess; they now paid court to him and accepted his decisions about games as reverently as a company of New York men accept the judgments of any man with millions. And the new furniture and dishes, the new wall paper, the new cooking utensils, the new contrivances for plants and for cut flowers, some of which Courtney had had made from her own designs, were as successful as the clothes. Also, Courtney�and Helen too�had, through the stimulus of the city, a multitude of new ideas for house and grounds and gardens. These they proceeded to carry out, Basil assisting whenever he could get an afternoon away from the laboratory where Richard had now buried himself, oblivious of her, of them all. Altogether, May and June of that year made a new high-water mark of happiness. And when Helen, going to Saint X to visit and display her finery, returned in a self-complacent state of mind that indicated a complete cure, a complete restoration of her old-time content, Courtney felt as if the last cloud had disappeared from her horizon. Again and again during those tranquil, sparkling days she told herself�and almost believed�that at last her life was "settled right"�as nearly "right" as a human life could be.

One night when she had an appointment with Basil she found Helen still up as she was about to descend and admit him. Helen did not put out her light until nearly three quarters of an hour after the time. When she opened the lake-front door no one entered; not a sound. She looked out. The veranda empty; the lawns dreaming undisturbed in the moonlight; wave on wave of the heavy perfume of summer's flowers. But not anywhere Basil. Her trembling ceased; she darted to the edge of the veranda, everything forgotten but the supreme fact�he was gone. Gone! Why, she could not doubt; for, from time to time she had seen in his eyes the suspicion which, unjust though it was, she dared not discuss with him. Where had he gone? She must know, must know at once.

She gave not a thought to leaving the house�the dangers that made it impossible for them to meet at his apartment. She sped across the lawn, along the path through the pale splendor of the east flower garden and blossoming shrubbery, into the dark wood. And with her sped her old enemy�the specter dread of losing him�the ghost so easily started from its unquiet grave. She flitted on until she stood at the edge of the clearing, with wildly beating heart, looking up at the solitary building, gloomy in its creeper draperies. There was light from his bedroom window. She gave a quick gasp of relief. At least he was still within reach. The phantom beat of icy rains falling, falling ceased to freeze her heart.

Panting from the tumult of her thoughts rather than from the run, she knocked on the entrance door�knocked again, loudly�a third time�a fourth. She was shaking from head to foot. No answer�none. She tried the door; it yielded. She darted up the stairway, her body now fire and now ice. He was in his bedroom door, was watching her. As the light came from behind him she could not immediately see his expression; but she felt it was dark and angry. She flung herself on his breast�"My love�my love!" she sobbed.

His arms hung at his sides. He stood rigid.

"Basil! Put your arms round me. I'm cold�and so frightened."

He pushed her away.

She leaned against the door frame sobbing into her hands. Her long plaits hung one over either shoulder. She looked like a child, a broken-hearted child. "And you've been pretending to love me!"

"I do love you. That's the worst of it."

"Love!" She turned upon him passionately. "You call that�love? No matter what I did, wouldn't you know I'd done it for our love's sake? Yes, you know all that's I is yours�every thought�every heart throb." She was sobbing again, her arm on the door frame, her face against it. She was thinking how unsympathetic he was, how selfish and cruel�was asking herself why she did not hate him, cast him out of her life. But the very suggestion made her heartsick. Cast out him who was her life!

"I didn't mean it," he pleaded. "I was crazed with jealousy."

"Jealousy! Basil�Basil!"

"I can't help it. I'm human."

"But don't you know me? Oh, sweetheart�don't take from me all the self-respect I've got."

He seated himself, stared doggedly at the floor. There was a long, a heavy silence which he finally broke. "Courtney," he said, "we're both going straight to hell." He looked sternly at her. "We've got to get away from here."

She saw the resolve in his eyes, trembled, grew still. Then she remonstrated gently, "You'd forbid me to treat Winchie so, if I wanted to."

He continued to look straight and stern at her. "Either you go with me or I go alone."

Her knees grew weak. The room swam before her eyes. The big wave in the picture on the opposite wall swelled, lowered, seemed swooping down on her. "Oh, no�you wouldn't do that," she murmured. "No�you couldn't do that."

"I'll leave in the morning, unless you say you'll leave with me the day after."

She watched him, relentless and utterly inconsiderate, and her anger rose. "You've no right to go!" she cried.

"I must," he replied. "Do you mean to say you'll let me leave without you?"

"Yes�if you'd do it," replied she. "But you wouldn't. You'd not leave me to bear the whole burden alone. You'd not be a coward."

His florid face became crimson. He fought for self-control, gave up the hopeless struggle, flung himself down beside her. "I can't go�I can't," he cried. "But�how can I stay? It's dragging us down�down." He was almost weeping. "Courtney, you must see it's dragging us down."

For the first time she had the sense of strength in herself greater than his, of weakness in him. She caressed his fair hair tenderly. "It's only a mood, dearest�only a mood. It'll pass�and we'll help each other, and be strong. We'll look forward to the end of this. For, in a few years Winchie'll be off to school. Then�I shall be free to make my own life. I'll go away to visit�stay on and on�and gradually��"

"You must promise you will not live with him."

"I will do my best. But�I must protect Winchie�and us."

He grew red, then pale, was silent for a time. Then he said irritatedly, weakly, "But don't you see what a position it puts me in!"

"And me?" She said it very quietly, with a certain restrained pathos. But he sat glum and moody, thinking of his own plight.

He roused himself. "All right," he cried, in a tone of contempt�for himself and for her. He embraced her with a kind of insolent familiarity. "Then I'll stay. If I went, I'd only come sneaking back. I'm no longer a man. I'm a slave to you." And he held her at arms length and eyed her with an expression that told her he was making inventory of her charms.

"Please don't talk that way," she begged, offended and wounded by that expression in his eyes more than she dared admit to herself. "I know you don't mean it. I know you�love. I know��"

"Love�let's only talk of love," he interrupted.

She fell to wondering whether, when they were together in the dark, his unseen eyes had this look�and why it made his words and his caresses seem so different from the words and caresses of the darkness. She had never thought of it before; she hated to learn it then�just then; but she could not push away the monstrous truth that love and lust have the same vocabulary, the same gestures, the same tones, differ only in their eyes.

"What are you thinking about so solemnly?" he asked.

"I wasn't thinking solemnly," she protested with a hastily forced smile. "I was simply remembering how rarely we've been together alone�really alone�except in the dark, for a long long time."

"It's good to be able to see you," said he, and she felt like hiding in shame from his eyes. "You streamer of flame that's burning up my soul."

Her lips echoed his laugh. "What nonsense," she said.

"It's the truth," declared he. "But�burn on! I can't live without it."

The smile left her lips�it had not been in her eyes. "If I thought you��"

He stopped her mouth with a kiss. "Only love!" he commanded. "No thought."

"That's right," she cried eagerly. "No thought! Just feeling�just love. We must not think. It's the cause of our unhappiness."

And she tried to be as good as her word. "I do love him, and he loves me," she rebuked herself. "I'm unstrung�hysterical�full of crazy fancies. I mustn't�mustn't�fret at his way of loving. I must always think, 'What would become of me if I lost him?'" And she pretended to be in his mood; for the sake of a passion that had been, she simulated a passion that was not.