Neith Boyce

“ After bad tea and delicious but deadly cakes, the Gays went on, taking their way through the picturesque alleys of the Ghetto, out past San Domenico—a warm glow of old red color on its hill—and through the Porta Fontebranda.
Alicia was fond of walking, and did not mind being stared at by the gentle-mannered populace. She was simply and charmingly dressed, still in white, which she wore as much as possible. She had gained in beauty since her marriage; she looked more blooming and more significant. The habit of asserting herself was growing on her from her association with George. ”

“ Alicia almost sobbed with anger. George shrugged his shoulders and was silent for some moments. Then he said: “I don't think we're apt to get much out of living about like this—except trouble. You don't like the people we meet, the unconventional people I like, or the life. You don't care for art really, or for study. You won't amuse yourself, or adapt yourself. You're bored, and you show it, and make me uncomfortable. I can't see why you want to stay over here.” ”

“ You talk like a b-boy of twenty with his first love affair.”
“There's something about first loves and last loves very much alike, I suppose. You can't have love without romance—that's what makes it. But, Stella, this is real.”
And the worst of it was that she couldn't but feel it was real; that his emotion was sincere and strong, and he strangely steadied by it. But emotion was one thing, duty quite another, in her creed; which she held none the less strongly for not always living up to it herself.
“It may be real,” she said drily. “But so, my friend, is Alicia's love for you. ”

“ And she was watching for George, who was painting an old brick church out by one of the gates. He was a little late today; Alicia looked at her watch again, and finding herself quite ready for luncheon, went down to the terrace. Ten minutes more passed—fifteen—twenty. Alicia paced the terrace from end to end, ceased to look at the view, ceased to think of the Duomo or of antique tragedies; and the upright line between her eyebrows, the first marked print of time on her charming face, deepened as always when she was uneasy, giving her, for all her new bloom, a careworn look. ”

“ A better or a worse man than he might have managed it, but he could not. His feeling now was a kind of fatalistic submission. If she would have it so, so be it. Let her have her will. Let his be the sacrifice. Clearly as he knew his own desire, he was not passionate enough about it to think it worth all sacrifice. He did not care enough for his life to sacrifice any other to it. And Alicia's revelation of herself, her passionate conviction that her love and life were bound up together, overwhelmed him. ”

“ Stella sat up and dried her eyes, keeping, however, in the strength of her hunger for the touch of love, a resolute hold of the friendly hand.
“How did George like it?” she asked abruptly.
It was a name just now difficult to mention between them, and yet not to be avoided. Alicia responded with an effort at ease and lightness:
“Oh, he liked it. He likes anything where Miss Morrison is just now, I think. He's like that, you know, when he's in love.”
“Oh—in love! Isn't that a little strong?”
“No, it is that. He gets absorbed, wrapped up in a person. ”

“ George walked to the foot of the stairs with her, and she bestowed another affectionate salute upon him. She had always been fond of him, from his boyhood up; partly, as she used to tell him, because he was so good looking.
“People have no business being ugly,” she would often say, with the serene consciousness that no one of her family could be accused of that incompetence.
George went slowly back into the large, dusky, quiet room, where Alicia stood before the wood fire. The place was a good setting for her. Everything in it was big and luxurious and costly. ”

“ Mackaye's decorated drawing-room with half an hour for Alicia alone.
She was waiting for him, looking very sweet and young in a dress of soft blue. Alicia, pathetically enough, tried to recapture for him as much as possible of her first bloom; she made her dress definitely more youthful, tamed her regal head to something almost girlish, coiling her hair loose and low; and her manner to her lover corresponded in softness and submissiveness. And, alas! she did the wrong thing. George preferred her infinitely when she was most the woman. ”

“ There had seemed to be no reason why they should not go on drifting about from one beautiful place to another, according to the season or the mood, making themselves comfortable and amusing themselves. There seemed to be no reason why they should live in America. Neither George nor Alicia, after an experience of softer and more civilized climes, had any idea of returning to their native city. George had no civic interests, and Chicago offered nothing else to him. If they went back, it was agreed, New York was the only possible place. ”

“ Isabel murmured, and this time she definitely got up, with a look that seemed to put him a hundred miles away.
“Don't be angry! I beg your pardon,” he cried precipitately. “But whenever I go to see you it seems to me I find Marvin or Mackaye there—until he went away. Did you send him?”
“How silly of you! Men like those two can take care of themselves. They do the right thing. Do you think they behave as you do?”
“And you think I can't take care of myself? I do the wrong thing? Well, perhaps I do. But you don't understand me. I don't see why you can't care for me a little. ”

“ He caught his breath with the intensity of his certainty, the keenness of his realization of her enduring charm.
“Because I love you,” he said solemnly.
“You love me—oh, is that all?” and Isabel laughed. “Well, shall I ask you to sit down? There's nothing to say after that, I suppose.”
“There's a good deal to say.”
“Not about that. But we can talk of something else.”
“I can't,” George declared. “Nor think of anything else. Do you know that you haven't been out of my mind once for weeks? I'm simply possessed. ”

“ I can't help it. If I could care more for Alicia I would—but I can't help it that I've been caught by another woman. I can't marry Alicia when I don't love her.”
“Wait, wait, George! Don't, for heaven's sake, let your imagination, or whatever it is, run away with you now. You did love Alicia—can't you remember how you talked to me about her? And this new f-fancy—good heavens, you don't think you're serious about Miss Morrison, do you?” ”

“ You let a feeling of a few weeks, that may be gone tomorrow, come between us and crush me. For a woman you scarcely know, who doesn't love you, you do this to me. I won't let you—I won't let you be so weak, so cowardly—I won't let you spoil your life. If she doesn't love you, you can't be happy; and she can't love you as I do. No one can, no one. ”

“ George set his glass down sharply.
“Look here, are you sure about this?” he asked rather angrily. “It's easy to gossip, but you ought to be careful what you say about a woman—”
Stacey looked offended for a moment, then curious.
“I didn't know you were interested in Miss Morrison, old man, but this isn't gossip. She ought to be careful, herself, if she doesn't want things said. But she makes no bones about their intimacy—which may be purely Platonic, for anything I know. Only she goes about with him as much as she can in the Broadway gang—which isn't noted for Platonism. ”

“ George began in a cool tone. “You certainly looked so.”
“Did I? I suppose I was,” Alicia returned as coldly. “It seems to me we've been spending our days with the Hedges.”
“Well, we won't have many more to spend with them, at any rate. But they're as pleasant people as we're apt to see anywhere. I can't see why you don't get on with them.”
“They don't interest me, that's all. Mr. Hedge talks shop perpetually, and he has that irritating English way of condescending to a woman. And as you are always flirting with his wife I am deprived of the pleasure of her society.” ”

“ I have always told you, you know, that you idealized me, and, I feared, cared for something in me that really wasn't there at all—and just lately it has seemed to me that you were finding this out for yourself, and that this caused your unhappiness. But it's better to find it out now than later—too late. If I married you, and you were unhappy, I should want to kill myself, I think. Will you write me frankly about it all? If you wish I'll go on to Chicago now, instead of in March. I am at your disposal.
Always devotedly yours,
George. ”

“ You can get all of Europe you want in half the year—you're a good American, after all!” He smiled, ending in quite a cheerful tone, and let himself relax into an armchair. “I think we've hit on the right thing now. There are any amount of things in New York, really, to interest you.”
“Yes,” said Alicia hollowly. “I might go in for charity—or for politics—or society. Then, if you say so, let us go back. Only—I don't care one bit on my own account. If you would be happier here, alone—” she made a long pause, and George looked alarmed—“why, let us stay. ”

“ Who is this other, George?”
“You know—Miss Morrison.”
“And you care more—for her?”
“In a different way. She has a tremendous power—I can't resist. I know it's all wrong—everything is—she doesn't even care for me, I think—”
“Does she know?” breathed Alicia.
“Yes—she knows.”
A deep, painful color flooded Alicia's face and neck. She rose now and walked rather waveringly across the room and stopped with her back to George, moving some little bronze figures about on a table. The long train of her dress lying across a dark crimson rug made her look taller, more imposing, than she was. ”

“ XV The studio was a large, bare room high up in an office building on Broadway. Through the open windows the mild breath of the October night and the street noises entered together. At midnight the room was thick with smoke. At one end a man at the piano was playing a gay waltz, and several couples were dancing in rapid foreign fashion. Thirty or forty other people sat about on the long divans or clustered in corners talking, with frequent visits to the buffet, an enormous piece of oak covered with bottles and supper. ”

“ Stella made a light upward gesture. “Up in the air, you know. One doesn't know exactly where he is—and he doesn't know, either, part of the time. But it's all right—he can't help landing all right, with you, Alicia, dear.” ”

“ For a moment she leaned against him and he held her close. Then with a strong effort she drew away. Neither spoke another word. They went out into the lobby, where the night clerk lounged at his desk. Isabel began to mount the stairs, trailing her cloak after her. George stood watching her till at the landing she turned for a moment before disappearing from his sight. Her last look at him was deep, strange, intoxicating and sad, too. It was a confession of emotion. ”

“ That's the way we begin! But if she does as she likes what are you to do? What kind of life would you live, anyhow? She doesn't get on with people—doesn't like them—they don't like her. She'll be a d-dead weight socially—”
George shrugged his shoulders. “You're talking from Alicia's point of view. You know I hate that world.” ”

“ Isabel was not an easy person to know, nor to get on with, either in friendly or business relations; and the difficulties made for her by this temperament were what had mainly, so far, stood in the way of her practical success.
She sat now quite silent, evidently absorbed in her own affairs. Her expression of meditative, rather melancholy, detachment was exactly what the painter had wanted to give his portrait; yet he was not getting on with it, further than mixing some colors on his palette for which he had no use.
“Will you have a cigarette?” he asked suddenly. ”

“ As an occupation, I mean. With your beauty, and the amount of money we can raise between us, we ought to be able to do something.”
“But you,” said Alicia more calmly. “You wouldn't care for that sort of thing—you'd rather paint over here. And I wanted—I want to do what would be best for you.”
“I'm not at all sure I would,” said George hastily. “I may get tired of painting any minute. And, at any rate, you know, you can't consider my interest apart from your own. ”

“ Its reality is just the reality of—well, primitive emotions. What could be more real than love and jealousy and mis-understanding and death? Of course, the expression is sometimes symbolic—it's a kind of picture writing—but I think the meaning is perfectly clear, don't you?”
Alicia's intensity of attention became rather strained; she, as well as Miss Morrison, looked across the table, with a deferential clearing of the field for the heavy masculine batteries. George Gay declined the action, however, simply saying, with a smile:
“It was clear and it was exquisite. ”

“ All along, the lovely aspect of the plain, its glowing colors barred by black cypress groves, drew them on; while they turned constantly to see the sky behind them lit with a gorgeous sunset, and against it the huge cliff-like masses of buildings looking black and dead, up to the tower of the Palazzo Publico, which rose into the light, a shaft of glowing red. ”

“ The information came finally through an acquaintance at his club—a newspaper man, unsuccessful playwright and general gossip.
“Isabel Morrison? Of course I know her. She's here in town now, and likely to stay here for some time, too, I fancy. She played a two weeks' engagement here with the Warde company, but when they went out on the road she resigned. You see, she's tied up with a man who's drinking himself to death, and she's trying—”
“What man? How do you know?” demanded George.
“Oh, everybody knows who knows either of them. He's a newspaper man, Jack Dolliver. ”

“ Mackaye, who forbade me to talk to you about it in her house. I really can't see why, or how she had the right to interfere. She told me that I was making you unhappy, and I know that it is true. I have felt it for some time past, and it seems to me that I have no right to go on doing it. If our marriage is going to mean unhappiness for you—and I can't help feeling wretchedly that it is—then it must not be. You are far too fine and lovely a creature to be wasted so. ”

“ Just because I want to see a man now and then—”
“It isn't that, and you know it, George. I never want to interfere with your pleasure—it's cruel to say I do—”
“Well, well, I didn't say it. Now don't cry; don't spoil the afternoon. We'll have a jolly time, just you and I—unless you want to ask the Hedges. Well, all right. We'll go out to the Osservanza, and have tea somewhere. Now do eat something—take some of that cream; it's bully. And then you must lie down and rest, and get your color back. Did you have a tiresome morning?”
“Rather,” said Alicia plaintively, but drying her eyes. ”

“ George asked, moving his glass around on the table.
Stacey shrugged his shoulders, “Don't know how far it goes. They're together a lot, I know that, and she told me herself she wouldn't leave town, on his account. It's too bad for her. She ought to be doing something. And then his crowd is a pretty tough one for a woman like her. The men are interesting, in a way—clever enough, but too Bohemian even for me, don't you know. The sort that can't live off Broadway. And the women—well, they aren't her sort. ”