Frederic Arnold Kummer

“ Even before West’s coming, the subtle poison of dissatisfaction had begun to eat its way into Edith’s heart. Money had always appeared to her a vital necessity in life—her mother had taken care of that—but in the flush of youthful enthusiasm she had believed that, with Donald at her side, she could endure comparative poverty with a light heart, until he had made his fortune, as so many another man had done before him. ”

“ The nurse read the letter haltingly, as one reads an unfamiliar handwriting; it was signed, like all the letters, with initials only, and told him of Edith’s anxiety to see him, of her hopes and fears, and all the other foolish things that women write to men they love. To him it seemed a message from heaven, for he loved her very deeply, and her slightest word became a treasure to him, invested with a new significance; lifted from its commonplace surroundings; something to ponder over, and think about all through the long, weary day. ”

“ The dance, the swift motion of an ocean liner, the whirl of a motor car, are they not responsible for a multitude of sins; else why the ballroom flirtations, the love-affairs on shipboard, the eloping heiress and the chauffeur? Certain it is that there was something in the drive to Garden City at Edith’s side that morning, which engendered in West a more passive attitude, a more willing yielding to their growing love for each other, than he had felt while walking with her in the park the day before. ”

“ What West did not realize was the effect which his money and the pleasures and luxuries it could command would have upon this woman whose married life had been one long lesson in economy. He had no conception of the contrast in Edith’s life between a quiet existence in a Harlem flat and the land of dreams to which his money was the open sesame, the golden key, unlocking the barriers between poverty on the one hand and all that the heart could desire on the other. ”

“ She had not thought much about the future when she was with West—there did not seem to be any need for a future—the present had been all she had desired, but that she had desired very much. All this had passed, years ago, but still it came back to her, in a measure, when she thus first met him again.
He looked at her, in that curiously intimate way he had, and even his smile made her happy. She felt his glance sweep over her face, her whole body, and almost embrace her in its pleasant radiance—it thrilled her, yet she almost resented the way in which it left her helpless and confused. ”

“ Perhaps amusement is not the exact word—it was more than that to him, for he could have amused himself with many women. He was really very fond of Edith, more so, perhaps, than he himself fully realized, and in giving her pleasure he gave himself pleasure as well. The idea of making love to her, of coming in any way between herself and Donald, had never entered his mind. After all, we so rarely erect barriers against certain experiences in life until after they have occurred, by which time barriers are no longer of any avail. ”

“ Alice drew her mouth into a mirthless smile and regarded Edith critically. “I don’t believe you know Donald as well as I do,” she remarked at length. “You’ve always thought him quiet, and mild, and easy-going. You’ve even complained to me that he had no backbone—that he didn’t master you. You once said you’d have cared for him more, if he had. You’re like lots of women, Edith. You think because a man loves you, and treats you tenderly, he’s weak. You’d rather be beaten than petted, I guess. ”

“ She had begun to think about West in a way that caused her to feel guilty of disloyalty to her husband when no disloyalty had occurred—to desire to avoid the appearance of evil where no evil existed. All that she had done had been to liken her life with Donald, to what it might have been had she married West. It is a curious fact that the best of women are willing at times to compare the husband at his worst, with the lover at his casual best, and judge both accordingly. ”

“ Alice looked disgusted. “Don’t be absurd, Edith,” she said. “How could he? How could anybody? For heaven’s sake, don’t get yourself all worked up about nothing. I’m the only person in the world, outside of yourself, that knows anything about your affair with Billy West, and I certainly am not going to say anything. I wouldn’t have Emerson know for the world. He might change his mind about me.”
“Alice!” exclaimed her sister. ”

“ Money! Money! Nothing but money! You would put up your children at auction, and sell them to the highest bidder, just for money. You come here and blame me for all this trouble, and you haven’t sense enough to see that it is all your fault, and yours alone. Ever since Edith and I were married you have talked to her of nothing but my poverty, my shortcomings, my failures. You have preached discontent to her until she was ready to fall in love with the first man who came along with a little more money than I had. You are the cause of all this trouble—you, and nobody else. ”

“ One of the things about West which appealed to her most was his ever ready sympathy. Donald, made of sterner stuff, realized that sympathy, overdone, weakens one’s powers of resistance, and exaggerates one’s burdens. He expected his wife to bear what life accorded to her in the way of hardship as patiently as he himself did. West, on the contrary, was always sympathetic. Edith’s cares, her worries, her troubles, he at once made his own, and seemed only content if he could in some way relieve them. ”

“ CHAPTER IX It was on a cold raw morning, that William West arrived in Denver, and, as he made his way slowly from the sleeper to the waiting ’bus, he shivered under his heavy overcoat. He was not glad to be back. Denver and all its associations had faded into the pale background of past memories—his face was set toward the future, a future that promised all that joy of living, of loving and of being loved in return, which he so eagerly desired. ”

“ This falling back upon man’s universal belief that a woman’s happiness or unhappiness depends solely upon her clothes annoyed her still further.
“Don’t talk like a fool, Donald,” she exclaimed, throwing down her sewing angrily. “I’m tired, that’s all. For eight years I’ve darned stockings, collected trading stamps, done my own housework, and tried to imagine that the hats I’ve trimmed myself looked as though they came straight from Paris. When a woman has done that for eight years, she has a right to be tired.”
“But, Edith, it will not always be that way. ”

“ Emerson Hall was one of the things she wanted, and she bent all her energies to the task of making that young man conclude that life without her to share it would be but a barren waste.
Pursuant to her intentions, Alice had written to Mr. Hall, inviting him to spend his vacation with them at New London. She had asked Edith’s permission, and the latter had granted it gladly. The latter had never met Mr. Hall, but she felt as though she almost knew him, both because he had been an acquaintance of Donald’s and because Alice talked about him so much. ”

“ CHAPTER III During the year that preceded her marriage to Donald Rogers, Edith had seen a great deal of Billy West, and had liked him more than anyone except herself had realized. His was a personality, indeed, to compel the admiration of women. Tall, good-looking, of a reckless and laughter-loving type, he naturally appealed to that peculiar chord in the feminine make-up which responds so readily to the Cavalier in the opposite sex, while paying scant attention to the sturdy adherence to duty characteristic of his Roundhead adversary. ”

“ I tell you, Edith, husbands nowadays are getting to expect entirely too much. If they give you something to eat, and a place to sleep, they seem to think that they have done all that is required of them. I wouldn’t stand it, for one. I told your father he would have to give me what I was accustomed to, or I’d leave him. That’s the way to treat a man, my child. Don’t let Donald think you are a doormat.”
Edith scarcely heard her mother’s words as they rumbled on. Only one suggestion seemed good to her, and that was the latter’s plan to go to New York and see Donald. ”

“ Her voice trembled with fear, but she made no move to obey.
“Do what I tell you,” he said harshly.
“No! First I must know what I am to write.”
“You refuse?”
“Donald,” she cried piteously, “you can’t mean to ask me to give up everything—not now. Wait, dear—for Bobbie’s sake. No one has any claim on this money. I’ll give it all to you, to do with as you like, but I want Bobbie to have this summer. Don’t you see how well he looks—how brown and well and strong? I can’t let him go back to the city in all this heat—I can’t!” She was pleading now—desperately—for the sake of her boy. ”

“ Rogers. Life as I have seen it has not made me sentimental. Lawyers rarely are. Half a million dollars is a large sum of money. It means freedom from all the wretched, grinding cares of existence, that fret out one’s soul. Few things in life make much difference, after all, if one has a comfortable bank-balance. You ask your wife to give up all that this money means, and come back to poverty—comparatively speaking at least. It is a hard question for any woman to decide—a mighty hard question. ”

“ They belonged to that class which demands of life its luxuries almost before its necessities, and it is a curious fact that they nearly always get them.
After eight years of married life, Edith Rogers, busy with her child, her household cares and the various complexities of domesticity, had forgotten her husband’s friend as completely as though he had never come into her life at all. He, on the contrary, had thought of her continually, for his life in the West had been too keenly devoted to business to leave either time or opportunity for dalliance with the opposite sex. ”

“ The rose pink velvet carpet, the soft white bearskin rug beside the bed, the lovely wall paper, the exquisite hangings, the graceful mahogany furniture, all called to her compellingly. One of the maids, entering soft-footed, brought her some bouillon and the breast of a chicken, on a silver tray. The servant moved about noiselessly, pulling down the shades to shut out the afternoon sun. Edith drew her clinging silk night-dress about her throat, and sat up. ”

“ Donald’s voice was strained—he was vaguely groping in his mind for some solid ground in the chaos that surrounded him. “I should have known, but I did not,” he continued; then began slowly to tear the check into bits.
“Women are the devil, aren’t they?” said Hall, as he rose and began to walk about the spacious veranda. “Perhaps her husband never even knew.”
Donald rose, and, going to the railing, dropped the pieces of the check in a shower upon the rose bushes beneath. “He never knew,” he repeated mechanically.
As he spoke, Edith appeared in the doorway. ”

“ My wife—my child—my business interests, all urge me to accept it—to make of myself that most contemptible thing in the world—a man who is willing to live on a woman—to share with her what she has got from her lover. ”

“ Why shouldn’t you look as well as possible? Of course, Donald would never care, but there are others. I heard several people at the hotel say last night that you were the best-looking and the best-dressed woman there.”
“I don’t care what they said, mother,” replied Edith, selecting a rose from a jar on the table, and putting it in her bosom. “I’d rather please Donald.”
Mrs. Pope sniffed audibly. “Oh, very well, my dear,” she observed. “Have your own way. It’s some satisfaction, at least, to know that you can buy a dress when you feel like it, without having to account to your husband for it. ”

“ It cut him bitterly to think of his treachery to Donald, a treachery in no way lessened by the fact that love was its motive, yet he argued to his conscience that the future happiness of both Edith and himself was at stake and demanded of him even the sacrifice of his friendship. ”

“ Like a ship at anchor, with all sails set and filled by a strong and ever increasing gale, it was inevitably certain that before long either the anchor must give, or the white sails of her reputation be blown to rags and tatters—bitter state, indeed, for a wife and mother! ”

“ You judge from the cynical, money-getting standpoint of Broadway. There are bigger and finer and nobler things in the world than money. It’s the right of the thing that counts.”
“Perhaps it is, Mr. Rogers, but most women don’t [Pg 286] look at things that way. They are creatures of impulse. Logic is not their strong point. You expect too much of your wife. I have known a great many women—in my time—and my experience is that the best of them have their price.” He noticed Donald’s dissenting gesture, but waved his interruption aside. ”

“ Donald leaned over the desk and fixed his eyes keenly upon those of the man opposite him. He felt the blood surging to his temples. “Why don’t you answer me, Mr. Brennan?” he went on, as the lawyer dropped his eyes. “Were they nothing more?”
His searching questions began to annoy the lawyer. “Why do you ask me such a question, Mr. Rogers?” he snapped.
“Only to find out how much you know. Mrs. Rogers has confessed everything to me. You can do her no harm by telling me the truth, and you will make it much easier for us to go ahead. Do you know?” ”

“ She smiled a trifle bitterly, as she spoke. “You have your business, your friends, your ambitions. In ten years I shall be an old woman; you will be just ready to enjoy yourself.”
Donald rose from the desk and began to walk about the room nervously. He was too sincerely fond of Edith to want to quarrel with her, and he knew, as well as she did, the truth of what she had just said. After all, he thought, perhaps the woman does have the worst of the matrimonial bargain, in circumstances, at least, such as those with which he and Edith were struggling. ”

“ Home-made dresses, dollar corsets, riding in surface cars, seem mighty hard, when you see other women in their autos, their Russian sables, their Paris gowns—women who spend more money on their dogs every month than I have to spend on Bobbie. It’s a thousand times harder for a woman to be poor than it is for a man. ”

“ Emerson Hall is a splendid fellow, and I’d be glad to see Alice marry him.” He came over to Edith and patted her shoulder affectionately. “I never expected to play the rôle of a matchmaker, but I’d be mighty glad to see Billy fall in love with some nice girl, who would appreciate him, and help him to make something of his life. Just sitting around New York, spending thirty or forty thousand a year, isn’t good for any man. With his money he ought to travel, see the world, take up some hobby, have children—that’s about the most human thing a man can do. ”

“ The man who expects too much of women is bound to be disappointed. Let your wife keep this money. With it she will be happy—contented. Without it, she will be miserable. She has tasted the pleasures of wealth—now—and her old life will seem doubly distasteful to her. Don’t be unreasonable. Remember that after all, she is, like most women, a good deal of a child.”
Donald took up his hat, and his face showed the disappointment he felt. “Mr. Brennan,” he said, “I’m sorry I can’t think as you do. ”

“ I suppose you will think me very disloyal and wicked, but, when a woman’s whole existence is made up, year after year, of wishing for all the things that make life worth while, and never, never being able to afford them, her love for her husband seems somehow to become dried up, and unimportant. ”