X
Many a time he had pitied a woman for letting him get away from her,when she obviously wished to hold him and failed solely because she didnot understand her business. Like every other man, he no sooner began tobe attracted by a woman than he began to invest her with a mystery andawe which she either could dissipate by forcing him to see the truth ofher commonplaceness or could increase into a power that would enslavehim by keeping him agitated and interested and ever satisfied yet everbaffled. But no woman had shown this supreme skill in the art oflove--until Dorothy Hallowell. She exasperated him. She fascinated him.She kept him so restless that his professional work was all butneglected. Was it her skill? Was it her folly? Was she simply leadinghim on and on, guided blindly by woman's instinct to get as much as shecould and to give as little as she dared? Or was she protected by a realindifference to him--the strongest, indeed the only invulnerable armor awoman can wear? Was she protecting herself? Or was it merely that he,weakened by his infatuation, was doing the protecting for her?
Beside these distracting questions, the once all-important matter ofprofessional and worldly ambition seemed not worth troubling about. Theyeven so vexed him that he had become profoundly indifferent as toJosephine. He saw her rarely. When they were alone he either talkedneutral subjects or sat almost mute, hardly conscious of her presence.He received her efforts at the customary caressings with such stoliditythat she soon ceased to annoy him. They reduced their outward show ofaffection to a kiss when they met, another when they separated. He wastired--always tired--worn out--half sick--harassed by businessconcerns. He did not trouble himself about whether his listless excuseswould be accepted or not. He did not care what she thought--or mightthink--or might do.
Josephine was typical of the women of the comfortable class. For themthe fundamentally vital matters of life--the profoundly harassingquestions of food, clothing, and shelter--are arranged and settled. Whatis there left to occupy their minds? Little but the idle emotions theymanufacture and spread foglike over their true natures to hide thebarrenness, the monotony. They fool with phrases about art or love orreligion or charity--for none of those things can be vivid realities tothose who are swathed and stupefied in a luxury they have not to takethe least thought to provide for themselves. Like all those women,Josephine fancied herself complex--fancied she was a person of varietyand of depth because she repeated with a slight change of wording thethings she read in clever books or heard from clever men. There seemedto Norman to be small enough originality, personality, to the ordinaryman of the comfortable class; but there was some, because his necessityof struggling with and against his fellow men in the several arenas ofactive life compelled him to be at least a little of a person. In thewomen there seemed nothing at all--not even in Josephine. When helistened to her, when he thought of her, now--he was calmly critical. Hejudged her as a human specimen--judged much as would have old NewtonHallowell to whom the whole world was mere laboratory.
She bored him now--and he made no effort beyond bare politeness toconceal the fact from her. The situation was saved from becomingintolerable by that universal saver of intolerable situations, vanity.She had the ordinary human vanity. In addition, she had the peculiarvanity of woman, the creation of man's flatteries lavished upon the sexhe alternately serves and spurns. In further addition, she had thevanity of her class--the comfortable class that feels superior to themass of mankind in fortune, in intellect, in taste, in everythingdesirable. Heaped upon all these vanities was her vanity of high socialrank--and atop the whole her vanity of great wealth. None but thesweetest and simplest of human beings can stand up and remain humanunder such a weight as this. If we are at all fair in our judgments ofour fellow men, we marvel that the triumphant class--especially thewomen, whose point of view is never corrected by the experiences ofpractical life--are not more arrogant, more absurdly forgetful of theoneness and the feebleness of humanity.
Josephine was by nature one of the sweet and simple souls. And her lovefor Norman, after the habit of genuine love, had destroyed all theinstinct of coquetry. The woman--or, the man--has to be indeedinteresting, indeed an individuality, to remain interesting whensincerely in love, and so elevated above the petty but potent sextrickeries. Josephine, deeply in love, was showing herself to Norman inher undisguised natural sweet simplicity--and monotony. But, while menadmire and reverence a sweet and simple feminine soul--and love her inplays and between the covers of a book and when she is talkinghighfaluting abstractions of morality--and wax wroth with any other manwho ignores or neglects her--they do not in their own persons becomeinfatuated with her. Passion is too much given to moods for that; it hasa morbid craving for variety, for the mysterious and the baffling.
The only thing that saves the race from ruin through passion is therarity of those by nature or by art expert in using it. Norman felt thathe was paying the penalty for his persistent search for this rarity; oneof the basest tricks of destiny upon man is to give him what hewants--wealth, or fame, or power, or the woman who enslaves. Normanfelt that destiny had suddenly revealed its resolve to destroy him bygiving him not one of the things he wanted, but all.
The marriage was not quite two weeks away. About the time that theordinary plausible excuses for Norman's neglect, his abstraction, hisseeming indifference were exhausted, Josephine's vanity came forward toexplain everything to her, all to her own glory. As the elysian hourapproached--so vanity assured her--the man who loved her as her complexsoul and many physical and social advantages deserved was overcome withthat shy terror of which she had read in the poets and the novelists. Alarge income, fashionable attire and surroundings, a carriage and amaid--these things gave a woman a subtle and superior intellect andsoul. How? Why? No one knew. But everyone admitted, indeed saw, thetruth. Further, these beings--these great ladies--according to all theaccredited poets, novelists, and other final authorities uponlife--always inspired the most awed and worshipful and diffidentfeelings in their lovers. Therefore, she--the great lady--was gettingbut her due. She would have liked something else--something common andhuman--much better. But, having always led her life as the conventionsdictated, never as the common human heart yearned, she had no keen senseof dissatisfaction to rouse her to revolt and to question. Also, she wasbreathlessly busy with trousseau and the other arrangements for thegrand wedding.
One afternoon she telephoned Norman asking him to come on his way homethat evening. "I particularly wish to see you," she said. He thought hervoice sounded rather queer, but he did not take sufficient interest tospeculate about it. When he was with her in the small drawing room onthe second floor, he noted that her eyes were regarding him strangely.He thought he understood why when she said:
"Aren't you going to kiss me, Fred?"
He put on his good-natured, slightly mocking smile. "I thought you weretoo busy for that sort of thing nowadays." And he bent and kissed herwaiting lips. Then he lit a cigarette and seated himself on the sofabeside her--the sofa at right angles to the open fire. "Well?" he said.
She gazed into the fire for full a minute before she said in a voice ofconstraint, "What became of that--that girl--the Miss Hallowell----"
She broke off abruptly. There was a pause choked with those dizzypulsations that fill moments of silence and strain. Then with a sob sheflung herself against his breast and buried her face in his shoulder."Don't answer!" she cried. "I'm ashamed of myself. I'm ashamed--ashamed!"
He put his arm about her shoulders. "But why shouldn't I answer?" saidhe in the kindly gentle tone we can all assume when a matter thatagitates some one else is wholly indifferent to us.
"Because--it was a--a trap," she answered hysterically. "Fred--there wasa man here this afternoon--a man named Tetlow. He got in only becausehe said he came from you."
Norman laughed quietly. "Poor Tetlow!" he said. "He used to be your headclerk--didn't he?"
"And one of my few friends."
"He's not your friend, Fred!" she cried, sitting upright and speakingwith energy that quiv
ered in her voice and flashed in her fine browneyes. "He's your enemy--a snake in the grass--a malicious,poisonous----"
Norman's quiet, even laugh interrupted. "Oh, no," said he. "Tetlow's agood fellow. Anything he said would be what he honestlybelieved--anything he said about me."
"He pleaded that he was doing it for your good," she went on with scorn."They always do--like the people that write father wicked anonymousletters. He--this man Tetlow--he said he wanted me for the sake of mylove for you to save you from yourself."
Norman glanced at her with amused eyes. "Well, why don't you? But thenyou _are_ doing it. You're marrying me, aren't you?"
Again she put her head upon his shoulder. "Indeed I am!" she cried. "AndI'd be a poor sort if I let a sneak shake my confidence in you."
He patted her shoulder, and there was laughter in his voice as he said,"But I never professed to be trustworthy."
"Oh, I know you _used_ to--" She laughed and kissed his cheek. "Nevermind. I've heard. But while you were engaged to me--about to marryme--why, you simply couldn't!"
"Couldn't what?" inquired he.
"Do you want me to tell you what he said?"
"I think I know. But do as you like."
"Maybe I'd better tell you. I seem to want to get rid of it."
"Then do."
"It was about that girl." She sat upright and looked at him forencouragement. He nodded. She went on: "He said that if I asked you, youwould not dare deny you were--were--giving her money."
"Her and her father."
She shrank, startled. Then her lips smiled bravely, and she said, "Hedidn't say anything about her father."
"No. That was my own correction of his story."
She looked at him with wonder and doubt. "You aren't--_doing_ it, Fred!"she exclaimed.
He nodded. "Yes, indeed." He looked at her placidly. "Why not?"
"You are _supporting_ her?"
"If you wish to put it that way," said he carelessly. "My money pays thebills--all the bills."
"Fred!"
"Yes? What is it? Why are you so agitated?" He studied her face, thenrose, took a final pull at the cigarette, tossed it in the fire. "I mustbe going," he said, in a cool, even voice.
She started up in a panic. "Fred! What do you mean? Are you angry withme?"
His calm regard met hers. "I do not like--this sort of thing," he said.
"But surely you'll explain. Surely I'm entitled to an explanation."
"Why should I explain? You have evidently found an explanation thatsatisfies you." He drew himself up in a quiet gesture of haughtiness."Besides, it has never been my habit to allow myself to be questioned orto explain myself."
Her eyes widened with terror. "Fred!" she gasped. "What _do_ you mean?"
"Precisely what I say," said he, in the same cool, inevitable way. "Aman came to you with a story about me. You listened. A sufficient answerto the story was that I am marrying you. That answer apparently does notcontent you. Very well. I shall make no other."
She gazed at him uncertainly. She felt him going--and going finally.She seized him with desperate fingers, cried: "I _am_ content. Oh,Fred--don't frighten me this way!"
He smiled satirically. "Are you afraid of the scandal--becauseeverything for the wedding has gone so far?"
"How can you think that!" cried she--perhaps too vigorously, a womanwould have thought.
"What else is there for me to think? You certainly haven't shown anyconsideration for me."
"But you told me yourself that you were false to me."
"Really? When?"
She forgot her fear in a gush of rage rising from sudden realization ofwhat she was doing--of how leniently and weakly and without pride shewas dealing with this man. "Didn't you admit----"
"Pardon me," said he, and his manner might well have calmed the wildesttempest of anger. "I did not admit. I never admit. I leave that topeople of the sort who explain and excuse and apologize. I simply toldyou I was paying the expenses of a family named Hallowell."
"But _why_ should you do it, Fred?"
His smile was gently satirical. "I thought Tetlow told you why."
"I don't believe him!"
"Then why this excitement?"
One could understand how the opposition witnesses dreaded facing him. "Idon't know just why," she stammered. "It seemed to me you wereadmitting--I mean, you were confirming what that man accused you of."
"And of what did he accuse me? I might say, of what do _you_ accuse me?"When she remained silent he went on: "I am trying to be reasonable,Josephine. I am trying to keep my temper."
The look in her eyes--the fear, the timidity--was a startling revelationof character--of the cowardice with which love undermines the strongestnature. "I know I've been foolish and incoherent, Fred," she pleaded."But--I love you! And you remember how I always was afraid of thatgirl."
"Just what do you wish to know?"
"Nothing, dear--nothing. I am not sillily jealous. I ought to beadmiring you for your generosity--your charity."
"It's neither the one nor the other," said he with exasperatingdeliberateness.
She quivered. "Then _what_ is it?" she cried. "You are driving me crazywith your evasions." Pleadingly, "You must admit they _are_ evasions."
He buttoned his coat in tranquil preparation to depart. She instantlytook alarm. "I don't mean that. It's my fault, not asking you straightout. Fred, tell me--won't you? But if you are too cross with me,then--don't tell me." She laughed nervously, hiding her submissionbeneath a seeming of mocking exaggeration of humility. "I'll be good.I'll behave."
A man who admired her as a figure, a man who liked her, a man who had nofeeling for her beyond the general human feeling of wishing well prettynearly everybody--in brief, any man but one who had loved her and hadgotten over it would have deeply pitied and sympathized with her. FredNorman said, his look and his tone coolly calm:
"I am backing Mr. Hallowell in a company for which he is doing chemicalresearch work. We are hatching eggs, out of the shell, so to speak. Alsowe are aging and rejuvenating arthropods and the like. So far we havedeclared no dividends. But we have hopes."
She gave a hysterical sob of relief. "Then it's only business--not thegirl at all!"
"Oh, yes, it's the girl, too," replied he. "She's an officer of thecompany. In fact, it was to make a place for her that I went into theenterprise originally." With an engaging air of frankness he inquired,"Anything more?"
She was gazing soberly, almost somberly, into the fire. "You'll not beoffended if I ask you one question?"
"Certainly not."
"Is there anything between you and--her?"
"You mean, am I having an affair with her?"
She hung her head, but managed to make a slight nod of assent.
He laughed. "No." He laughed again. "No--not thus far, my dear." Helaughed a third time, with still stronger and stranger mockery. "Shecongratulated me on my engagement with a sincerity that would havepiqued a man who was interested in her."
"Will you forgive me?" Josephine said. "What I've just been feeling andsaying and putting you through--it's beneath both of us. I suppose awoman--no woman--can help being nasty where another woman isconcerned."
With his satirical good-humored smile, "I don't in the least blame you."
"And you'll not think less of me for giving way to a thing so vulgar?"
He kissed her with a carelessness that made her wince But she felt thatshe deserved it--and was grateful. He said: "Why don't you go over andsee for yourself? No doubt Tetlow gave you the address--and no doubtyou have remembered it."
She colored and hastily turned her head. "Don't punish me," she pleaded.
"Punish you? What nonsense! . . . Do you want me to take you over? Thelaboratory would interest you--and Miss Hallowell is lovelier than ever.She has an easier life now. Office work wears on women terribly."
Josephine looked at him with a beautiful smile of love and trust. "Youwish to be sure I'm cured. Well, can't you see t
hat I am?"
"I don't see why you should be. I've said nothing one way or the other."
She laughed gayly. "You can't tempt me. I'm really cured. I think theonly reason I had the attack was because Mr. Tetlow so evidentlybelieved he was speaking the truth."
"No doubt he did think he was. I'm sure, in the same circumstances, I'dthink of anyone else just what he thinks of me."
"Then why do you do it, Fred?" urged she with ill-concealed eagerness."It isn't fair to the girl, is it?"
"No one but you and Tetlow knows I'm doing it."
"You're mistaken there, dear. Tetlow says a great many people down townare talking about it--that they say you go almost every day to JerseyCity to see her. He accuses you of having ruined her reputation. He saysshe is quite innocent. He blames the whole thing upon you."
Norman, standing with arms folded upon his broad chest, was gazingthoughtfully into the fire.
"You don't mind my telling you these things?" she said anxiously. "Ofcourse, I know they are lies----"
"So everyone is talking about it," interrupted he, so absorbed that hehad not heard her.
"You don't realize how conspicuous you are."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it can't be helped."
"You can't afford to be mixed up in a scandal," she ventured, "or toinjure a poor little creature--I'm afraid you'll have to--to stop it."
"Stop it." His eyes gleamed with mirth and something else. "It isn't myhabit to heed gossip."
"But think of _her_, Fred!"
He smiled ironically. "What a generous, thoughtful dear you are!" saidhe.
She blushed. "I'll admit I don't like it. I'm not jealous--but I wishyou weren't doing it."
"So do I!" he exclaimed, with sudden energy that astonished anddisquieted her. "So do I! But since it can't be helped I shall go on."
Never had she respected him so profoundly. For the first time she hadmeasured strength with him and had been beaten and routed. She fanciedherself enormously proud; for she labored under the common delusionwhich mistakes for pride the silly vanity of class, or birth, or wealth,or position. She had imagined she would never lower that cherished prideof hers to any man. And she had lowered it into the dust. No wonderwomen had loved him, she said to herself; couldn't he do with them, eventhe haughtiest of them, precisely as he pleased? He had not tried tocalm, much less to end her jealousy; on the contrary, he had let itflame as high as it would, had urged it higher. And she did not dare askhim, even as a loving concession to her weakness, to give up an affairupon which everybody was putting the natural worst possibleconstruction! On the contrary, she had given him leave to go on--becauseshe feared--yes, knew--that if she tried to interfere he would take itas evidence that they could not get on together. What a man!
* * * * *
But there was more to come that day. As he was finishing dressing fordinner his sister Ursula knocked. "May I come, Frederick?" she said.
"Sure," he cried. "I'm fixing my tie."
Ursula, in a gown that displayed the last possible--many of thehomelier women said impossible--inch of her beautiful shoulders, camestrolling sinuously in and seated herself on the arm of the divan. Shewatched him, in his evening shirt, as he with much struggling did histie. "How young you do look, Fred!" said she. "Especially in just thatmuch clothes. Not a day over thirty."
"I'm not exactly a nonogenarian," retorted he.
"But usually your face--in spite of its smoothness and no wrinkles--hasa kind of an old young--or do I mean young old?--look. You've led such aserious life."
"Um. That's the devil of it."
"You're looking particularly young to-night."
"Same to you, Urse."
"No, I'm not bad for thirty-four. People half believe me when I say I'mtwenty-nine." She glanced complacently down at her softly glisteningshoulders. "I've still got my skin."
"And a mighty good one it is. Best I ever saw--except one."
She reflected a moment, then smiled. "I know it isn't Josephine's. Hersis good but not notable. Eyes and teeth are her strongholds. I supposeit's--the other lady's."
"Exactly."
"I mean the one in Jersey City."
He went on brushing his hair with not a glance at the bomb she hadexploded under his very nose.
"You're a cool one," she said admiringly.
"Cool?"
"I thought you'd jump. I'm sure you never dreamed I knew."
He slid into his white waistcoat and began to button it.
"Though you might know I'd find out," she went on, "when everyone'stalking."
"Everyone's always talking," said he indifferently.
"And they rattle on to beat the band when they get a chance at a manlike you. Do you know what they're saying?"
"Certainly. Loosen these straps in the back of my waistcoat--the upperones, won't you?"
"She glanced complacently down at her softly glisteningshoulders."]
As she fussed with the buckles she said: "But you don't know that theysay you're going to pieces--neglecting your cases--keeping away fromyour office--wasting about half of your day with your lady love. Theysay that you have gone stark mad--that you are rushing to ruin."
"A little looser. That's better. Thanks."
"And everyone's wondering when Josephine will hear and go on therampage. She's so proud and so stuck on herself that they're bettingshe'll give you the bounce."
"Well--" getting into his coat--"you'd delight in that. For you don'tlike her."
"Oh--so--so," replied Ursula. "She's all right, as women go. You know wewomen don't ever think any too well of each other. We're 'on.' Now, I'mfrank to admit I'm not worth the powder to blow me up. I can't doanything worth doing. I don't know anything worth knowing--except how todress and make a fool of an occasional man. I'm not a good house-keeper,nor a good wife--and I'd as lief go to jail for two years as have ababy. But I admit I'm n. g. Most women are as poor excuses as I am, yetthey think they're _grand_!"
Norman, standing before his sister and smiling mysteriously, said: "Mydear Urse, let me give you a great truth in a sentence. The value ofanything is not its value to itself or in itself, but its value to someone else. A woman--even as incompetent a person as you----"
"Or Josephine."
"--or Josephine--may seem to some man to be pricelessly valuable. And ifshe happens to seem so to him, why, she _is_ so."
"Meaning--Jersey City?"
His eyes glittered curiously. "Meaning Jersey City," he said.
A long silence. Then Ursula: "But suppose Josephine hears?"
He stood beside the doorway, waiting for her to pass out. His faceexpressed nothing. "Let's go down. I'm hungry. We were talking about itthis afternoon."
"You and Jo!"
"Josephine and I."
"And it's all right?"
"Why not?"
"You fooled her?"
"I don't stoop to that sort of thing."
"No, indeed," she laughed. "You rise to heights of deception that wouldmake anyone else giddy. Oh, I'd give anything to have heard."
"There's nothing to deceive about," said he.
She shook her head. "You can't put it over me, Fred. You've never beforemade a fool of yourself about a woman. I'd like to see her. I supposeI'd be amazed. I've observed that the women who do the mostextraordinary things with men are the most ordinary sort of women."
"Not to the men," said he bitterly. "Not while they're doing it."
"Does _she_ seem extraordinary to _you_ still?"
He thrust his hands deep in his pockets. "What you heard is true. I'mletting everything slide--work--career--everything. I think of nothingelse. Ursula, I'm mad about her--mad!"
She threw back her head, looked at him admiringly. Never had she soutterly worshiped this wonderful, powerful brother of hers. He was inlove--really--madly in love--at last. So he was perfect! "How long doyou think it will hold, Fred?" she said, all sympathy.
"God knows!"
&
nbsp; "Yet--caring for her you can go on and marry another woman!"
He looked at his sister cynically. "You wouldn't have me marry _her_,would you?"
"Of course not," protested she hastily. Her passion for romance did notcarry her to that idiocy. "You couldn't. She's a sort of workinggirl--isn't she?--anyhow, that class. No, you couldn't marry her. Buthow can you marry another woman?"
"How could I give up Josephine?--and give her up probably to BobCulver?"
Ursula nodded understandingly. "But--what are you going to do?"
"How should I know? Perhaps break it off when I marry--if you can callit breaking off, when there's nothing to break but--me."
"You don't mean--" she cried, stopping when her tone had carried hermeaning.
He laughed. "Yes--that's the kind of damn fool I've been."
"You must have let her see how crazy you were about her."
"Was anyone ever able to hide that sort of insanity?"
Ursula gazed wonderingly at him, drew a long breath. "You!" sheexclaimed. "Of all men--you!"
"Let's go down."
"She must be a deep one--dangerous," said Ursula, furious against thewoman who was daring to resist her matchless brother. "Fred, I'm wild tosee her. Maybe I'd see something that'd help cure you."
"You keep out of it," he replied, curtly but not with ill humor.
"It can't last long."
"It'd do for me, if it did."
"The marriage will settle everything," said Ursula with confidence.
"It's got to," said he grimly.
The Grain of Dust: A Novel Page 10
