Reina Melcher Marquis

“ Ted had not desired talent in his wife. Would he desire it in his son? Would he cheer and encourage, would he even tolerate, a dreamer, a poet, a worker in mere beauty? Would he ever regard art as more than a shadow of life?
Sheila sought him now to learn that—with Eric's story to plead for itself.
Ted was in his den, a place sacred to those masculine pursuits and possessions which he did not share with her. Only for momentous affairs did she invade the shabby, comfortable, littered room, and now Ted glanced up at her from his pipe and papers with serious expectancy. ”

“ Oh, Sheila, you've been the making of me! What a girl you are!—what a woman! You'd always back a man up in his undertakings—if you loved him—wouldn't you?"
"Oh—if I loved him!—" And she looked past him with dreamy eyes. She had never looked like that before, though love had been named to her by others and in more persuasive language. To back up a man in his undertakings—because she loved him— Why, that would be life!
Ted had never had the superfine discernment of natures more delicately wrought than his, but he had the discernment of sex—as all young and healthy creatures have. ”

“ It is, perhaps, only after we have put many dreams and hopes behind us that we stumble upon life's real gift to us. And thus it happened for Sheila. It was as if, seeing that she held out her hands for gifts no longer, life capriciously resolved to thrust one upon her. But beneath the apparent caprice was a fine justice—for life was at last kind to Sheila through her son.
As Eric grew older, there sprang up between them such a comradeship as, even in her gladdest moments of motherhood, Sheila had never foreseen. ”

“ And when he spoke again, his voice faltered: "When a man knows a woman like you, Charlotte, he sees that happiness—or unhappiness—doesn't matter so much as he's thought. There are other things—better things—to live for. You've found them—and now I'm going to find them, too, my dear."
So, for the second time that day, Peter went from a woman who loved him. The night and the stars and the flowers had done their best to quicken his pulses; to blur his vision of the truth; to blunt his sense of absolute, unswerving honor. ”

“ Caldwell, wise gardener that she was, realized that one of the flowers which she had divined, stirring in the depths of Sheila's being, was pushing its way upward to the light, and that the moment had come for her to help it. She slipped her arms around the girl kneeling before her, as if seeking in love's touch inspiration for love's words.
"I think you will always want to be good," she said, "and I think you will always want to be beautiful. Women do, Sheila dear—even the women who are least beautiful and least—good. ”

“ Then, gravely, she inquired: "What would you think the biggest thing in life, Ted—if you were a woman—a woman like Alice North?"
He drew her down to his knee and whispered into her ear. She was very still for an instant, her whole body subdued, spellbound, by that whispered word. Then, with a movement singularly untender, she withdrew from his arms and stood erect—free—before him. The rich scarlet still flooded her cheek—now like a flag of reluctant womanhood—but he searched her eyes in vain for the glow that should have matched it. ”

“ But in the end Charlotte herself had defeated what the night was fain to do for her with its witchery; she had defeated the night's intents with her measureless honesty and generosity—to which Peter's own generosity and honesty could but respond. To use a woman like Charlotte as a barrier between himself and another woman was impossible to him. Neither for Sheila's safety, nor for any benefit to himself, could he do a thing so base. He recognized now that marriage with Charlotte—even without that utter love he had given to Sheila—might be a gracious, even a happy destiny for him. ”

“ Romance was still in our hearts, but we hadn't the courage to take it, publicly, into our lives. We had felt a great love, and been brave enough to deny it. But when we could have satisfied it honorably—we were afraid of the change in our lives; we were afraid of our children, of your father and Sheila's; we were even afraid of what the town would say! In the beginning we had striven not to dare. In the end we could not dare. It is sad that we should be like that, isn't it, Peter? It's sad that as the strength of our youth goes from us, the valor of our love should go too. ”

“ For she considered what her own unappeased gift had cost her—the hunger, the restlessness, the pain. She considered how, throughout all the years of her marriage, she had suffered her gift's insistence and its reproach. She thought of how she had never been able to look upon the miracle of the spring, the majesty of the stars, without an aching heart. All beauty had been transmuted for her into unassuageable sorrow—because she had been born to create beauty and had failed of her destiny. And it would be transmuted into sorrow for Eric, too—unless he were given the freedom she had foregone. ”

“ She—a wife, a mother!—cared for a man not her husband; cared for him in a way that made it torment to her to think of his marrying another woman. Hideous and unbelievable though it was, she cared for him so much. She had cared for him even while she was declaring to Charlotte—and later, to herself—that she loved her husband. She cared for Peter—even now, facing the truth and admitting it, she would not use the word, love—she cared for Peter, and she was Ted's wife, the mother of Ted's son. ”

“ Charlotte was a splendid, gallant creature; she might marry Peter. And then Sheila, feeling that envious pang again and still more sharply, demanded of herself in swift terror: "Am I jealous?—am I jealous of Charlotte because Peter may come to love her?"
Oh, it couldn't be that!—it couldn't! It was impossible that she should be jealous about any man but her husband. For she and Ted loved each other—they did love each other, whatever had been their mistakes with each other. ”

“ Charlotte looked at her with an expression new to the shrewd blue eyes that were habitually so cool and smiling. Then, with an impetuous and lovely gesture, she drew Sheila to her: "I'm so glad for you, dear!—so glad!"
A little while before she had been glad for the promise in Sheila's work. Now she used the same word, but how differently! For her mind had spoken before, and now speech leaped from her very heart.
"I have never loved a man," she said presently, in her outspoken way, "I have never loved a man, but I hope that I may some day—and that I may have a little child for him." ”

“ Only—Ted himself must keep what was his own! He had been man enough to win Sheila; now he must keep her!
Ted had been man enough to win her; and he, Peter, had not been! That was what he realized now—with measureless self-scorn. He had not even been man enough to know that he loved her; much less man enough to make her his. And now, because he could not make her his, his life was charred to ashes—but his soul was an anguished, unquenchable flame. He had long thought that he knew the worst of himself; his discreditable indolence ”

“ She agreed with him now—Oh, warmly enough!—that motherhood was the greatest thing in life for a woman; but she did not, she never would, believe with him that it must be the only thing. Nor should he believe it always, she told herself. She would prove to him that a woman could be both mother and artist. She would prove it to him, as she had dreamed of doing—but not just yet. They loved each other so dearly, they were so happy together, that she shrank from disturbing their harmony by any discussion or dissension. And discussion and dissension there would be before Ted could be converted. ”

“ Sheila had been married several months before she ceased to expect a miracle.
She had believed that moment of high rapture when, with Ted's face hidden against her breast, she had seemed to grasp life itself in her ardent young hands, to be but the forerunner of greater moments—of raptures and fulfillments compared to which the first awakening would appear no more than a pale shadow of joy.
Marriage, in some way mysterious and beautiful, would surely alter the world for her ”

“ She held him because her eyes were wistfully gray instead of triumphantly blue, because her voice was hauntingly plaintive instead of firmly buoyant; she held him because in her soul there was a strain of weakness, of timidity, of childlike helplessness and innocence that to him was at once piteous and exquisite. She held him by all those qualities—and shortcomings—most unlike Charlotte. He saw that Charlotte was, as Sheila had asserted, just the woman for a man of his indolent, dallying temperament; he saw that he needed such a woman. ”

“ A glow was upon the autumn fields on either hand; tranquility and silence seemed to be everywhere; tranquility and silence except for a weird crooning that now floated to them, a crooning indescribably mournful. And then they espied, crouching down at the roadside and almost at their elbows, a creature as weird and mournful as the sound.
"Crazy Lisbeth," whispered Sheila.
Lisbeth it was, Lisbeth grown old and more pitiful than ever; a ragged, unkempt being—yet strangely lifted above the sordidness of her rags and her beggar's life by her insanity. ”

“ But stung into sensitiveness by Ted's taunt about her queerness, she kept her discovery of Other-Sheila to herself. Not even to Mrs. Caldwell, who was a friend as well as a grandmother; not even to Peter, who was all the while feeding her eager young mind with food both wholesome and stimulating, and becoming, in his task, a comrade who rivalled Ted in her affections, did she confide the existence of this other self. With self-consciousness came the instinct of reserve—not a lack of frankness, but a kind of modesty of the soul. ”

“ The tears filled Sheila's eyes again, filled and overflowed so that Peter gave an exclamation of concern and dismay.
"Poor Lisbeth!" she murmured. "Poor thing! And I who have my child am discontented. What is the matter with me?"
It was the question she had put to Ted long ago—after that other episode of Lisbeth—and he had been as bewildered as she. But there was no bewilderment in the glance that met hers now. Nevertheless, Peter did not answer her directly. But after awhile he said musingly:
"A bird's wings may be clipped, but its heart can't be changed. ”

“ You must give yourself utterly,—utterly—to your art! Art won't take less. Your husband must live for you—instead of your living for him after the fashion of most wives. And you'll be worth his living for—I'm sure of that."
"I—I don't understand," faltered Sheila. "I don't understand what it is I mustn't do for Ted."
Alice North held her hands more closely and fixed her luminous eyes upon her—eyes which, to many before Sheila, had seemed to shine with the light of a beautiful soul: "You mustn't do for him the one thing that you and he will want most—you mustn't have children for him! ”

“ I believed that in a marriage with you lay her chance to be both a happy and a wonderful woman. And then—Ted married her instead! But there's still something you can do for her. You can watch over her when I'm gone, Peter. You can put out a saving hand now and then, if you see she needs it. When I'm dead—and that will be soon, my dear—you'll be the only person in the world who understands her. If I can feel that you'll always be there ready to help her, I can die in peace. Bottled up genius is a dangerous thing. Sometimes I am afraid for Sheila! ”

“ Like a devotee, she watched Mrs. North's quick, graceful movements, her vivid, changeful face; like a devotee she listened to her sparkling, inconsequent chatter. This woman, handicapped by her womanhood, had done big things. Any word from her lips, any gesture of her hand was something to admire and remember.
It never even entered Sheila's head that, although she had done great things, Alice North might not be a great woman. It never occurred to her to ask how she had triumphed—at whose or at what cost. ”

“ And then she recalled Charlotte's words: "I sometimes question if those of us who catch a glimpse of a happiness perfect and transcendent ever experience the reality. I doubt, in fact, if any reality could stand unimpaired by that vision."
Charlotte was mistaken. There were visions which became realities; this final vision of hers would become a reality—and it would be none the less perfect and transcendent for that.
Sheila laid her hands on her husband's shoulders. "I'm glad that I've lived!" she said. And again, with a little sob, "Oh, my dear, I'm glad that I've lived!" ”

“ Caldwell's voice rose, grave and rich with the harmonies of life, through the peaceful room, and Sheila quivered responsively in the circle of her arms. To the young girl, womanhood, that only yesterday had been so far away, now seemed to be drawing thrillingly near with all its attendant mysteries. And in her next question she took a step to meet it:
"Grandmother, what is it?—the thing that will be mine?"
"Dear, how can I tell? It isn't the same for us all. For one woman it is love; for another it is work; for some it is, blessedly, both work and love. ”

“ You know that it was Ted, back of circumstances, that influenced you to make your vow of renunciation!"
It was what Sheila had so recently told herself, and she could not refute it now. Looking into her downcast, acquiescent face, Charlotte continued: "As for the vow—that's nonsense! It's mere morbid, hysterical nonsense. God never exacted it of you. He's never held you to it, you may be sure. If He's wanted anything of you, He's wanted you to use the talent He's given you. If you've been at all at fault, it's for wasting your talent. You have wasted it—you've wasted it to please Ted. ”