Alice Duer Miller

“ John could not defend Beatrice against the charge of being rude—she was rude at times, but it was this very quality in her, the fact that she was capable of being hard and ambitious, that made her tender devotion to Raymond all the more creditable. Of course if she had been one of these gentle, timid women who would not have known what to do with a life of large opportunity, the sacrifices she made for her husband would have been less. ”

“ Aunt Lucy was right—she was crying—dancing and weeping.
“Well, well,” said John, admitting everything. “I am sorry.”
“Sorry they're parting?” asked his aunt. “Yes, poor Raymond, it's too bad. The girl is a lady—a gentlewoman in the true sense of the word—just what he needs to enable him to support life with that hard, ruthless woman he's married to.”
There was never much use in arguing with Aunt Lucy, but John could not allow any one to speak like that about Beatrice. He himself had his rare moments of criticism of her, but he did not allow any one else to have them. ”

“ John saw Raymond and Beatrice growing old together with rich memories of gratitude and unselfishness to sweeten a companionship which would peacefully fill the void left by their former romantic love. Human relations, he said to himself, were valuable only in proportion to the sacrifices you made for them. ”

“ Aunt Lucy nodded: “I should like Raymond to have a good position—and to be happy and successful and independent. As for her—oh, well, there's a way of getting things without paying for them, if that's the idea of feminine morality in this country, as I believe it is.”
“You shock me,” said John. “There's a way of not taking things you don't intend to pay for. If I understand the situation correctly, Beatrice behaved not merely well but nobly—for of course she wants Raymond to succeed more than any one else does.” ”

“ It was John's opportunity, and he took it. He said simply and directly that his cousin must not feel regret for one of the noblest acts of his life—for there could not be virtue or honor or law or business or marriage or any organized society unless people were willing to make just such sacrifices as his to a code, to a moral principle; every one of character and worth did it in some form or another; and if these sacrifices did not bring wild happiness, they brought contentment and self-respect and an honorable peace. ”

“ Half past two—it struck John as a particularly unaccountable hour. Yet if there were anything wrong, why should they want him? She had said that they needed him—not herself only, but Barham. To be wanted by Lord Barham was an event in the life of any business man.
The Raymond Saunderses had always lived in a tiny apartment—really an old-fashioned flat—overlooking somebody else's garden in a district so far up-town as to have been almost suburban, although now fashion was creeping up to it. The sitting-room was full of pretty things, for Beatrice had taste, and poverty develops selectiveness. ”

“ What a sweet-looking girl—almost young enough to be Raymond's daughter! Fancy Raymond's having a love affair!”
John felt the irritation usually experienced when near relations say exactly what we expect them to say. “I must confess,” he replied stiffly, “that to my crude American eyes there is nothing whatever to indicate——”
“A tragic love affair,” continued his aunt as if he had not spoken, “which is now obviously ending. Yes, they are parting, poor things.”
John wagged his head. “And might I ask on what you base these assumptions, Aunt Lucy?” ”

“ You should think twice before you deprive a man of the one thing he has longed for vainly since he was a schoolboy.”
John really did not get the idea. “Oh,” he exclaimed, very bitter and sarcastic, “so in your opinion it would spell success for my cousin to accept a million dollars in exchange for his wife! I must confess that to me——”
“No,” said Barham, patient with difficulty, “I should not give him a million, which of course he would not take. I should simply stay here and see that he made it. Then and not until then would Beatrice move for her divorce. It would be very easily arranged. ”

“ When I refuse a man, I don't hope to tie a string to him. He and I parted that afternoon.”
John was not of an imaginative temperament, and yet when he read of the yacht in which Barham was going to take his bride round the world, of the rubies he was giving her as a wedding present, he could not help wondering what Beatrice, still saving odd pennies in the tiny flat, thought when she read such items. Had she no moments of passionate regret? He saw no sign of it, and his respect rose not only for her but for his own judgment.
That spring Raymond experienced one of his business disasters. ”

“ And then it came out that the great fact which John did not know was that Barham intended to give Raymond a million dollars. It was not put so crudely, but it was made clear enough, and John colored with anger and with a sort of family shame.
“Even I,” he said, “who am not in love with Beatrice, would not assume that a million dollars would compensate for her loss.”
“Oh, John, don't address the jury!” said Beatrice.
“It depends on the man,” Barham observed, in his almost unbearably quiet manner. “Not fifty millions—not all the money in the world would compensate me, because I've had it. ”

“ Beatrice? The idea shocked John more even than the suggestion of a divorce. He, a determined advocate of the established order, felt it was indeed threatened if Beatrice were going to begin to be humble.
“If,” he began stiffly, “you ask me as a lawyer whether or not a divorce could be obtained——”
“We ask you,” Beatrice interrupted, “or rather I ask you to try to make Lord Barham believe that Raymond would go to pieces if I left him. He seems to think this is just an egotistical fancy of mind.” ”

“ He felt convinced she did one day when he was talking to her about conscience and unselfishness and she broke out: “Oh, I'm against unselfishness, John—and I'm against walling up nuns and human sacrifice, too. The gods aren't placated—the nun's soul wasn't saved—useless suffering, John, absolutely useless.”
He examined his conduct to see if he had unconsciously betrayed his cousin's secret. Later he found out that Raymond had told her himself. “I thought it was her right to know, John,” Raymond had said, but John knew this was not the true reason. ”

“ And yet,” he continued after a second, striking his clenched fist on the back of a chair, “you can't go to a woman who's done what Beatrice has done to me, stuck to me through thick and thin—mostly pretty thin, I'm afraid—and say, 'Good-by, I've seen some one I love better.' I couldn't do that—and yet I suppose it was weakness—not to do it—weakness for which Lorna paid.”
“Now, look here, Raymond,” said John sternly, “you know perfectly well you did right. In this world we must act on principle, even if now and then the special case works badly.” ”

“ She's always been tender and devoted enough to him. Good heavens, when you think of her beauty and her brilliant ability—what she might not have done if she had been a man.”
“Oh, as a man—yes,” said Aunt Lucy, quite hatefully.
“When you think,” John went on, ignoring the interruption, “of all poor Ray's business failures, and what she has done for him—how to-day they are living on her little capital—I must say it seems to me that every member of his family ought to be abjectly grateful to her.”
“H'm—abject,” observed Aunt Lucy, “a very good word. ”

“ An astute friend had once said of him that he had made his success by combining innate American qualities—or qualities Americans like to think are theirs—of activity and daring and imagination, with an English method of presenting himself—a calm, imperturbable, superior, English manner. ”

“ The result was that while every one sympathized with him, they began to admit in private that he was a complete failure. “Poor Ray,” they said, “I'm afraid he's pretty hopeless,” which perhaps was just what he was. Certainly the dependence he had always shown now began sometimes to look a little like fear of his wife ”