go away. I was full of pity, and a desire to help. I said I wanted
him to know that no matter how much we might disagree about some
things, I meant to learn to live happily with him. We must find some
sort of compromise, for the sake of the child, if not for ourselves;
we must not let the child suffer. He answered coldly that there
would be no need for the child to suffer, the child would have the
best the world could afford. I suggested that there might arise some
question as to just what the best was; but to that he said nothing.
He went on to rebuke my discontent; had he not given me everything a
woman could want? he asked. He was too polite to mention money; but
he said that I had leisure and entire freedom from care. I was
persisting in assuming cares, while he was doing all in his power to
prevent it.
"And that was as far as we got. I gave up the discussion, for we
should only have gone the old round over again.
"Douglas has taken up a saying that my cousin brought with him:
'What you don't know won't hurt you!' I think that before he left,
Harley had begun to suspect that all was not well between my husband
and myself, and he felt it necessary to give me a little friendly
counsel. He was tactful, and politely vague, but I understood
him--my worldly-wise young cousin. I think that saying of his sums
up the philosophy that he would teach to all women--'What you don't
know won't hurt you!'"
7. A week or so later Sylvia wrote me that her husband was in New
York. And I waited another week, for good measure, and then one
morning dropped in for a call upon Claire Lepage.
Why did I do it? you ask. I had no definite purpose--only a general
opposition to the philosophy of Cousin Harley.
I was ushered into Claire's boudoir, which was still littered with
last evening's apparel. She sat in a dressing-gown with resplendent
red roses on it, and brushed the hair out of her eyes, and
apologized for not being ready for callers.
"I've just had a talking to from Larry," she explained.
"Larry?" said I, inquiringly; for Claire had always informed me
elaborately that van Tuiver had been her one departure from
propriety, and always would be.
Apparently she had now reached a stage in her career where pretences
were too much trouble. "I've come to the conclusion that I don't
know how to manage men," she said. "I never can get along with one
for any time."
I remarked that I had had the same experience; though of course I
had only tried it once. "Tell me," I said, "who's Larry?"
"There's his picture." She reached into a drawer of her dresser.
I saw a handsome blonde gentleman, who looked old enough to know
better. "He doesn't seem especially forbidding," I said.
"That's just the trouble--you can never tell about men!"
I noted a date on the picture. "He seems to be an old friend. You
never told me about him."
"He doesn't like being told about. He has a troublesome wife."
I winced inwardly, but all I said was, "I see."
"He's a stock-broker; and he got 'squeezed,' so he says, and it's
made him cross--and careful with his money, too. That's trying, in a
stock-broker, you must admit." She laughed. "And still he's just as
particular--wants to have his own way in everything, wants to say
whom I shall know and where I shall go. I said, 'I have all the
inconveniences of matrimony, and none of the advantages.'"
I made some remark upon the subject of the emancipation of woman;
and Claire, who was now leaning back in her chair, combing out her
long black tresses, smiled at me out of half-closed eyelids. "Guess
whom he's objecting to!" she said. And when I pronounced it
impossible, she looked portentous. "There are bigger fish in the sea
than Larry Edgewater!"
"And you've hooked one?" I asked, innocently.
"Well, I don't mean to give up all my friends."
I went on casually to talk about my plans for the summer; and a few
minutes later, after a lull--"By the way," remarked Claire, "Douglas
van Tuiver is in town."
"How do you know?"
"I've seen him."
"Indeed! Where?"
"I got Jack Taylor to invite me again. You see, when Douglas fell in
love with his peerless southern beauty, Jack predicted he'd get over
it even more quickly. Now he's interested in proving he was right."
I waited a moment, and then asked, carelessly, "Is he having any
success?"
"I said, 'Douglas, why don't you come to see me?' He was in a
playful mood. 'What do you want? A new automobile?' I answered, 'I
haven't any automobile, new or old, and you know it. What I want is
you. I always loved you--surely I proved that to you.' 'What you
proved to me was that you were a sort of wild-cat. I'm afraid of
you. And anyway, I'm tired of women. I'll never trust another one.'"
"About the same conclusion as you've come to regarding men," I
remarked.
"'Douglas,' I said, 'come and see me, and we'll talk over old times.
You may trust me, I swear I'll not tell a living soul.' 'You've been
consoling yourself with someone else,' he said. But I knew he was
only guessing. He was seeking for something that would worry me, and
he said, 'You're drinking too much. People that drink can't be
trusted.' 'You know,' I replied, 'I didn't drink too much when I was
with you. I'm not drinking as much as you are, right now.' He
answered, 'I've been off on a desert island for God knows how many
months, and I'm celebrating my escape.' 'Well,' I answered, 'let me
help celebrate!'"
"What did he say to that?"
Claire resumed the combing of her silken hair, and smiled a slow
smile at me. "'You may trust me, Douglas,' I said. 'I swear I'll not
tell a living soul!'"
"Of course," I remarked, appreciatively, "that means he said he'd
come!"
"_I_ haven't told you!" was the reply.
8. I knew that I had only to wait for Claire to tell me the rest of
the story. But her mind went off on another tack. "Sylvia's going to
have a baby," she remarked, suddenly.
"That ought to please her husband," I said.
"You can see him beginning to swell with paternal pride!--so Jack
said. He sent for a bottle of some famous kind of champagne that he
has, to celebrate the new 'millionaire baby.' (They used to call
Douglas that, once upon a time.) Before they got through, they had
made it triplets. Jack says Douglas is the one man in New York who
can afford them."
"Your friend Jack seems to be what they call a wag," I commented.
"It isn't everybody that Douglas will let carry on with him like
that. He takes himself seriously, as a rule. And he expects to take
the new baby seriously."
"It generally binds a man tighter to his wife, don't you think?"
I watched her closely, and saw her smile at my naivet�. "No," she
said, "I don't. It leaves them restless. It's a bore all round."
I did not dispute her authority; she ought to know her husbands, I
&
nbsp; thought.
She was facing the mirror, putting up her hair; and in the midst of
the operation she laughed. "All that evening, while we were having a
jolly time at Jack Taylor's, Larry was here waiting."
"Then no wonder you had a row!" I said.
"He hadn't told me he was coming. And was I to sit here all night
alone? It's always the same--I never knew a man who really in his
heart was willing for you to have any friends, or any sort of good
time without him."
"Perhaps," I replied, "he's afraid you mightn't be true to him." I
meant this for a jest, of the sort that Claire and her friends would
appreciate. Little did I foresee where it was to lead us!
I remember how once on the farm my husband had a lot of dynamite,
blasting out stumps; and my emotions when I discovered the children
innocently playing with a stick of it. Something like these children
I seem now to myself, looking back on this visit to Claire, and our
talk.
"You know," she observed, without smiling, "Larry's got a bee in his
hat. I've seen men who were jealous, and kept watch over women, but
never one that was obsessed like him."
"What's it about?"
"He's been reading a book about diseases, and he tells me tales
about what may happen to me, and what may happen to him. When you've
listened a while, you can see microbes crawling all over the walls
of the room."
"Well----" I began.
"I was sick of his lecturing, so I said, 'Larry, you'll have to do
like me--have everything there is, and get over it, and then you
won't need to worry.'"
I sat still, staring at her; I think I must have stopped breathing.
At the end of an eternity, I said, "You've not really had any of
these diseases, Claire?"
"Who hasn't?" she countered.
Again there was a pause. "You know," I observed, "some of them are
dangerous----"
"Oh, of course," she answered, lightly. "There's one that makes your
nose fall in and your hair fall out--but you haven't seen anything
like that happening to me!"
"But there's another," I hinted--"one that's much more common." And
when she did not take the hint, I continued, "Also it's more serious
than people generally realize."
She shrugged her shoulders. "What of it? Men bring you these
things, and it's part of the game. So what's the use of bothering?"
9. There was a long silence; I had to have time to decide what
course to take. There was so much that I wanted to get from her, and
so much that I wanted to hide from her!
"I don't want to bore you, Claire," I began, finally, "but really
this is a matter of importance to you. You see, I've been reading up
on the subject as well as Larry. The doctors have been making new
discoveries. They used to think this was just a local infection,
like a cold, but now they find it's a blood disease, and has the
gravest consequences. For one thing, it causes most of the surgical
operations that have to be performed on women."
"Maybe so," she said, still indifferent. "I've had two operations.
But it's ancient history now."
"You mayn't have reached the end yet," I persisted. "People suppose
they are cured of gonorrhea, when really it's only suppressed, and
is liable to break out again at any time."
"Yes, I knew. That's some of the information Larry had been making
love to me with."
"It may get into the joints and cause rheumatism; it may cause
neuralgia; it's been known to affect the heart. Also it causes
two-thirds of all the blindness in infants----"
And suddenly Claire laughed. "That's Sylvia Castleman's lookout it
seems to me!"
"Oh! OH!" I whispered, losing my self-control.
"What's the matter?" she asked, and I noticed that her voice had
become sharp.
"Do you really mean what you've just implied?"
"That Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver may have to pay something for what she
has done to me? Well, what of it?" And suddenly Claire flew into a
passion, as she always did when our talk came to her rival. "Why
shouldn't she take chances the same as the rest of us? Why should I
have it and she get off?"
I fought for my composure. After a pause, I said: "It's not a thing
we want anybody to have, Claire. We don't want anybody to take such
a chance. The girl ought to have been told."
"Told? Do you imagine she would have given up her great catch?"
"She might have, how can you be sure? Anyhow, she should have had
the chance."
There was a long silence. I was so shaken that it was hard for me to
find words. "As a matter of fact," said Claire, grimly, "I thought
of warning her myself. There'd have been some excitement at least!
You remember--when they came out of church. You helped to stop me!
"
"It would have been too late then," I heard myself saying.
"Well," she exclaimed, with fresh excitement, "it's Miss Sylvia's
turn now! We'll see if she's such a grand lady that she can't get my
diseases!"
I could no longer contain myself. "Claire," I cried, "you are
talking like a devil!"
She picked up a powder-puff, and began to use it diligently. "I
know," she said--and I saw her burning eyes in the glass--"you can't
fool me. You've tried to be kind, but you despise me in your heart.
You think I'm as bad as any woman of the street. Very well then, I
speak for my class, and I tell you, this is where we prove our
humanity. They throw us out, but you see we get back in!"
"My dear woman," I said, "you don't understand. You'd not feel as
you do, If you knew that the person to pay the penalty might be an
innocent little child."
"_Their_ child! Yes, it's too bad if there has to be anything the
matter with the little prince! But I might as well tell you the
truth--I've had that in mind all along. I didn't know just what
would happen, or how--I don't believe anybody does, the doctors who
pretend to are just faking you. But I knew Douglas was rotten, and
maybe his children would be rotten, and they'd all of them suffer.
That was one of the things that kept me from interfering and
smashing him up."
I was speechless now, and Claire, watching me, laughed. "You look as
if you'd had no idea of it. Don't you know that I told you at the
time?"
"You told me at the time!"
"I suppose, you didn't understand. I'm apt to talk French when I'm
excited. We have a saying: 'The wedding present which the mistress
leaves in the basket of the bride.' That was pretty near telling,
wasn't it?"
"Yes," I said, in a low voice.
And the other, after watching me for a moment more, went on: "You
think I'm revengeful, don't you? Well, I used to reproach myself
with this, and I tried to fight it down; but the time comes when you
want people to pay for what they take from you. Let me tell you
something that I never told to anyone, that I never expected to
tell. You see me drinking and going to t
he devil; you hear me
talking the care-free talk of my world, but in the beginning I was
really in love with Douglas van Tuiver, and I wanted his child. I
wanted it so that it was an ache to me. And yet, what chance did I
have? I'd have been the joke of his set for ever if I'd breathed it;
I'd have been laughed out of the town. I even tried at one time to
trap him--to get his child in spite of him, but I found that the
surgeons had cut me up, and I could never have a child. So I have to
make the best of it--I have to agree with my friends that it's a
good thing, it saves me trouble! But _she_ comes along, and she has
what I wanted, and all the world thinks it wonderful and sublime.
She's a beautiful young mother! What's she ever done in her life
that she has everything, and I go without? You may spend your time
shedding tears over her and what may happen to her but for my part,
I say this--let her take her chances! Let her take her chances with
the other women in the world--the women she's too good and too pure
to know anything about!"
10. I came out of Claire's house, sick with horror. Not since the
time when I had read my poor nephew's letter had I been so shaken.
Why had I not thought long ago of questioning Claire about these
matters. How could I have left Sylvia all this time exposed to
peril?
The greatest danger was to her child at the time of birth. I figured
up, according to the last letter I had received; there was about ten
days yet, and so I felt some relief. I thought first of sending a
telegram, but reflected that it would be difficult, not merely to
tell her what to do in a telegram, but to explain to her afterwards
why I had chosen this extraordinary method. I recollected that in
her last letter she had mentioned the name of the surgeon who was
coming from New York to attend her during her confinement. Obviously
the thing for me to do was to see this surgeon.
"Well, madame?" he said, when I was seated in his inner office.
He was a tall, elderly man, immaculately groomed, and formal and
precise in his manner. "Dr. Overton," I began, "my friend, Mrs.
Douglas van Tuiver writes me that you are going to Florida shortly."
"That is correct," he said.
"I have come to see you about a delicate matter. I presume I need
hardly say that I am relying upon the seal of professional secrecy."
I saw his gaze become suddenly fixed. "Certainly, madame," he said.
"I am taking this course because Mrs. van Tuiver is a very dear
friend of mine, and I am concerned about her welfare. It has
recently come to my knowledge that she has become exposed to
infection by a venereal disease."
He would hardly have started more if I had struck him. "HEY?" he
cried, forgetting his manners.
"It would not help you any," I said, "if I were to go into details
about this unfortunate matter. Suffice it to say that my information
is positive and precise--that it could hardly be more so."
There was a long silence. He sat with eyes rivetted upon me. "What
is this disease?" he demanded, at last.
I named it, and then again there was a pause. "How long has
this--this possibility of infection existed?"
"Ever since her marriage, nearly eighteen months ago."
That told him a good part of the story. I felt his look boring me
through. Was I a mad woman? Or some new kind of blackmailer? Or, was
I, possibly, a Claire? I was grateful for my forty-cent bonnet and
my forty-seven years.
"Naturally," he said at length, "this information startles me."
"When you have thought it over," I responded, "you will realise that
no possible motive could bring me here but concern for the welfare
of my friend."
He took a few moments to consider. "That may be true, madame, but
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