George Howells Broadhurst

“ You! Who makes Fanny work harder than any hired girl in the city? You! Who has ruined my career? You! You and your selfishness!"
Taken aback by the suddenness of his denunciation, Virginia stared at him in surprise, as if not comprehending.
"My selfishness?" she stammered.
"Just that!" he sneered. With pretended indignation he went on: "And the things you were going to do for little Virgie! She was going to have a governess; she was going to learn music and painting when she grew up; she was going to have a horse. A horse! Ha! ha! The only horse she'll ever have will be a clothes-horse!!" ”

“ What is it?"
"Afterward," said the young wife in a low tone, as if ashamed to tell the rest: "it isn't love at all—he's just a stranger—inflamed with liquor—who has me in his power!"
Fanny, shocked, clasped her sister the more closely.
"Virgie!" she exclaimed. "Poor little Virgie!"
"Yes, it's horrible," said Virginia, with difficulty keeping back the tears. "Sometimes," she went on, "for days I can hardly look at him! And yet, strange as it may seem, I still love him! I love him to-day better than I ever loved him. Why? I do not know. ”

“ Virginia sighed as she replied:
"Yes—he has not much patience. He always takes the stand that man is the master, that women should have no will of their own."
Hadley shook his head as he replied:
"Old-fashioned notion that. The quicker he gets rid of it the better."
Virginia looked at him without speaking. There was an inquiring, wistful expression in her face, as if she longed to unbosom herself to someone, and yet had no one close enough, intimate enough in whom she could confide. Presently she said:
"Mr. Hadley, you've known my husband a number of years. Was he always as he is now?" ”

“ Virginia's new dress could wait—it was a whole month to graduation day anyhow—but business was not so good that one could afford to neglect a possible purchaser.
Four summers had gone by since John Blaine's death yet in that comparatively brief space of time, his widow appeared to have aged ten years or more. Now bent, infirm, a chronic invalid, she did not look as if she would long survive him. The world goes on just the same no matter whose heart is breaking, and time flies so quickly that the happenings of a decade seem only of yesterday. ”

“ Turning to her sister, she said through her tears:
"If the worst happened—Fan—if Dad died—we couldn't go on living here, could we?"
Fanny shook her head. Sagely she replied:
"No, I'm afraid not. Father's got no insurance. Mother says we've lived up to everything. I guess I'll have to go to work—"
"So will I," said Virginia quickly.
"What nonsense you talk, Virgie!" interrupted her sister almost angrily. "As if you were intended for work! Nature intended you to be a lady, and a lady you'll be if I have to work all the flesh off my bones. ”

“ But it was not the possession of these mere externals that made people look twice at Virginia Blaine. If she had had only beauty there would have been nothing to particularly distinguish her from the many millions of girls to whom Nature has been kind. Beauty per se has no permanent power to attract. One soon tires of admiring an inanimate piece of sculpture, no matter how perfectly chiselled. If a woman lacks intelligence, esprit, temperament, men soon grow weary of her society, even though she have the beauty of a Venus de Medici ”

“ Marie looks at Fanny; Fanny looks at Marie, and though we don't say a word, we think—oh! how we do think!"
Virginia smiled in spite of herself.
"They try it with me," she laughed.
"But how is it now?" went on Fanny with an attempt at dignity. "Now, I'm Mrs. James Gillie, sister of the rich Mrs. Robert Stafford, with whom I have just spent an evening at the opera and who I am now visiting in her French boudoir! Sometimes I don't believe it's real, and I find myself getting ready to wake up just in time to hear the alarm go off!"
"It is real enough, Fanny," smiled her sister. ”

“ It was a legalized form of prostitution, an approved system of cohabitation which must be horrible and detestable to any girl of decent instincts, no matter which way she looked at it, and yet it was a state of white slavery which society fully condoned and ever approved. Hundreds of virtuous girls thus sold themselves—to the highest bidder. The slums had no monopoly of the white slave traffic; it flourished equally well on fashionable Fifth Avenue, where its countless victims, for the honor of the system, managed to conceal their tears from the world. ”

“ Stafford smiled as he poured out another glass of wine. Grimly he said:
"You don't know me, Hadley, not after all these years, or you wouldn't talk like that. I'm not the man to be bullied or tyrannized or even lectured by a woman. My wife and I will understand each other perfectly. I shall make that quite plain from the outset. It's only right. I give my wife—my name, my fortune. I expect in return something from my wife. I think I've found just the right kind of girl—unspoiled by society notions, sensible on every point—"
"Even on that of letting you have your own way?" laughed Hadley. ”

“ Why should a woman who does not find in her husband the necessary moral support suffer the tortures of a long agony in which she is defenceless, of a perpetual struggle in which she is miserably conquered; and, on the other hand, why should the husband who does not find in his wife the hoped-for companion or the desired slave, find the road to happiness forever closed to him? ”

“ What did bridge-playing mothers care about their daughters' happiness so long as they were able to procure for them rich men who could give them fine houses, servants, and automobiles? It was all hideous and ghastly, when viewed thus sanely, and Virginia shuddered as she thought of it. To such degradation as this she would never sink. Never would she marry a man whom she did not truly love. If it came to the worst she would go as domestic servant or even starve rather than surrender her self-respect. ”

“ Too full of egotism and self-importance to note her sarcasm, the young man beamed with self-satisfaction as he proceeded enthusiastically:
"Greatest thing you ever heard of! There's millions in it. My name will ring round the world. If only I can get the backing, my fortune is made—"
Fanny's face flushed with pleasure as she bent eagerly forward to hear every detail of this scheme which would some day make her a rich woman. Even if the dream never came true, the mere hope that it might was enough to give her a thrill. Virginia remained cold. ”

“ Jim and Virginia would soon be home. She must think presently of getting dinner.
The baby slept soundly in her little crib undisturbed by the noise of the wintry gale outdoors. Fanny sighed as she fondly gazed on the chubby little face. How unfair to bring such an innocent into the world, only to inherit trouble and want! What had become of the brilliant prospects for her daughter once held out when Virginia was a rich man's wife? Instead of improving, their situation grew steadily worse. Jim was making no progress. Instead of his salary being increased, it was always being reduced. ”

“ But you are not the man I married; you are another man. You are a stranger, a man inflamed with liquor, a man who comes and talks to me of love when it isn't love at all, a man whose every protestation of love is an insult. That's the man you are and I hate him—I hate him—!"
Staggered by her vehemence, intimidated for a moment by her angry outburst, Stafford let go her hand. Quick to profit by it, Virginia turned, but before she could make a step, he had caught her again by the arm. ”

“ He might think now that he cared for her very much, yet it might not be love which he felt for her at all, but only a horrible counterfeit, which goes by the same name and which, like a fierce flame, flares up suddenly and then dies down again. She was sufficiently sophisticated and world-wise to gauge at its true worth the violent attraction for the opposite sex which passion engenders in some men—an irresistible, uncontrollable desire, which must be satisfied at any cost, even at the price of their own happiness. ”

“ All that night, while the Gillies slumbered peacefully, Virginia tossed restlessly on her bed, thinking over what Mr. Hadley had told her. Try as she would, she was unable to banish thoughts of her husband from her mind. If he still cared for her, if he missed her, why didn't he come for her? If he himself suffered, why did he let her go on weeping out her heart in this way? Why should two human beings allow their pride to make them suffer so abominably? ”

“ One does not love at first sight, no matter what the dime novelists say—and what, perhaps, was more important, he respected her. Could every man say as much of the woman he married? Love would come later, he had no doubt of that, and after all, he thought to himself, it was not so much a question of "should he marry her?" as of "would she marry him?"
Once he made up his mind, Robert Stafford was not the kind of man to let the grass grow under his feet. He started on a new campaign—an honorable campaign, this time, on which he was willing to stake his happiness. ”

“ Virginia, always irritated by his gaucheries, pretended not to hear and went on with her book, but Fanny answered him. In a whisper she said:
"She's tired out." Anxiously she, added: "I don't like the way she looks to-day. I think it's the heart. I'll telephone the doctor to-morrow—"
Jimmie gave a snort of disapproval.
"Pshaw! What's the good?" he exclaimed contemptuously. "Those doctors can't do nothing; they're the worst kind of fakers. All they do is to look wise, scribble on a bit of paper some words no one can read—not even the druggist—and charge you a two-spot. It's to laugh!" ”

“ Virginia promptly differed with him and proceeded to give her reasons. Stafford was no match for her when it came to sociology and he could only grunt disapproval as she went on warmly to defend womankind from the ignominy of a degrading marriage, while Hadley, keenly interested, smoked his cigar and listened.
"A woman who will suffer in silence while her brutal husband stands over her with a whip is a disgrace to her sex," she exclaimed hotly. "She is no better than a shackled slave; her position in the man's house is that of a concubine." ”

“ In the fifteen years that they had been intimate friends Fred Hadley had grown so accustomed to these periodical outbursts from his old chum Bob Stafford that he seldom paid the slightest heed to his protests. Both self-made men, each had started practically in the gutter and by sheer dint of grit and energy forged his way to the front, the one as a captain of industry, the other as a promoter in railroading and finance. ”

“ The blow had fallen upon Virginia with the unexpectedness and appalling swiftness of a bolt from the blue. From a tranquil state of contentment and comparative happiness she suddenly awoke to the fact that she had made a terrible mistake, and when she realized the full significance of her misfortune, she sank nerveless on to a sofa in her boudoir and gave way to a wild outburst of hysterical tears. What could her life be henceforth? How could she hide from the world her shame, her humiliation, her degradation? ”

“ Innocence is, of necessity, the sister of ignorance. The conditions of modern existence render it impossible for any girl, once she has attained the age of fifteen, to continue unacquainted with the main facts of life, and some are initiated at an even tenderer age. How is it possible for any maiden to remain unenlightened in this regard these days when sensational, muck-raking prints throw the searchlight of publicity into every boudoir and spicy details of society's philandering fill column after column in the breakfast table newspaper? ”

“ That's all right, Fred—rub it in all you like. It's because I've been an ass myself that I can see more plainly than any one, perhaps, what cursed folly it is. We spend our time and substance on some wretched wanton, who never gives us a thought save how much money she can squeeze out of us, and what have we in return? Nothing. The years slip quickly by; we find ourselves getting old, and there's no one round who really cares a jot whether we live or die—except, possibly our relatives, who look forward to the latter. Genuine affection is absolutely foreign to our existence. ”

“ Fanny was silent. There are some crises in a woman's life when even a sister cannot advise, when a woman must decide for herself. Slowly she said: "But after all's said and done, dear—he is your husband and that makes everything right, doesn't it?"
"No," retorted Virginia bitterly, "it merely makes it legal."
"Legal?"
"Yes, lecherous old men of eighty marry girls in their teens—but does that make their relations right? Avaricious young men in their twenties marry women in their fifties. Does marriage make their relations right? ”

“ She could earn her own living. Perhaps she could get back the same position at the hotel, and if Fanny and Jim would have her, she could go and live with them. It would mean the sacrifice of many luxuries and much pride, but at least she would be able to lift up her head and look all decent people squarely in the face again. She would give him back all his jewels—every one. Much as she loved them, she would return them all—the diamond sunburst, the pearl necklace, the ruby cross—everything. ”

“ The table, with its corbeils of fruit, beautiful silver, floral pieces, snowy linen, fine crystal, the whole dominated by a superb electrolier, which cast color over all, was indeed a spectacle to delight and fascinate the eye. Jimmie was so overcome by the sight, that he nearly fell over the chair which the accommodating Oku held out for him. At last all were seated, Virginia at the right hand of the host, Fanny at the left, the shipping clerk at the other end of the table. ”

“ She stopped short, not knowing how much he might know of her difference with her husband. As yet the world knew nothing of the scandal that had shattered a home and as far as she was concerned it never would. After a pause she added timidly: "You see I am not rich—I have to support myself."
Hadley leaned forward and sympathetically grasped her hand. He had always liked Virginia. Her womanliness and spirit appealed strongly to him. Stafford had treated her like a brute. He ought never to have let her go. ”

“ For some time after the merry dinner in Robert Stafford's beautiful apartment Virginia saw but little of her wealthy suitor. In fact, she rather avoided him, preferring not to give the appearance of encouraging him, firstly because she had not yet made up her mind regarding the honor he had done her, secondly because it was not always easy to invent excuses for further delay in arriving at a decision. Yet, situated as she was, it was not possible to hide from him altogether. There were daily duties to be performed; the business routine of every day must go on. ”

“ The average society girl who gets married nowadays practically sells herself. She wants a man with money—a man who will give her jewels and clothes and an establishment that will make every other girl of her acquaintance green with envy. She gets him—for a consideration. That, no doubt, was the kind of girl he would one day get. She would offer herself, and if he liked the look of her he would buy her, and, having bought her, she would learn soon enough that there was only one master in the Stafford household. It was not necessary that they love each other. ”