Robert Grant

“ My dear, if Lucille—my daughter—could have seen the question as you see it, I should have been a happy mother. You ask my opinion. I recognize the solemnity of the trust. A blissful future is before you if you marry, welfare for your children and yourself. But in the other scale of the balance are the eternal verities, the duty one owes to society, the fealty one owes to Christ. You spoke of beauty. The most beautiful life of all is that which embraces renunciation for a great cause, even at the cost of the most alluring human joys and privileges. ”

“ Mrs. Wilson looked up at her, and observing the serenity of her countenance, knew that the issue was settled beyond peradventure. Yet she was in the mood to be generous as well as humble; moreover, her inquiring mind had not failed to notice the plea for humanity and to feel its force. She sighed gently, then patted the hand that held hers, and said:
"Perhaps, dear, you are right. At all events, go now and get some sleep. You must look your own sweet self when he comes to you."
A few hours later Constance, refreshed by slumber, was on her way to Lincoln Chambers. ”

“ George Prentiss laid especially solemn stress on these words, and as she listened to the announcement that, forasmuch as Emil Stuart and Constance Forbes had consented together in holy matrimony, he pronounced them to be man and wife, her nerves quivered with satisfaction at the thought that she was Emil's forever. The deed was done, and she was joyous that the doubt which had harassed her in her weak moments—whether she was ready to renounce her ambition to help in the great work of education for the sake of any man—was solved and merged in the ocean of their love. ”

“ Wilson leaned back among her cushions, and, drawing a pale pink rose from a bunch in a vase at her elbow, laid it along her cheek and inhaled its fragrance. "If she were an undiscerning, common spirit with workaday sensibilities, as so many of them are, she would not refuse, but—half the pleasure of giving would be lost. It is a privilege and the fashion to be charitable, but so much of our charity consists in filling the mouths and clothing the bodies of the wretched who will never be appreciably different or strive to be different from what they are." ”

“ The same is true of yourself; and it is a privilege, with all its responsibilities, a privilege I envy you. Who wouldn't be a multi-millionaire if he could? What is more alluring than power?"
Paul returned the pressure of his friend's hand. "You're a good fellow, Don. I suppose I'm hipped. That's not my way, as you know. Usually everything with me is rose color; I'm too good an American, if anything." He buttoned his well-fitting coat with a dignified air, as though the pride of the suggestion had stirred his pulses like a brass band. ”

“ If she were innocent—if she had been grossly wronged, and had sought the relief from her distress which the laws allow, and I liked her and he loved her, I shouldn't object. Or, put it in this way: I should prefer that Gordon did not marry a widow, but a girl with all the freshness of her life before her."
"Yes, indeed," murmured Constance.
"But plenty of young men fall in love with widows and marry, and no one thinks any the worse of the widows, or of them. I'd fully as lief Gordon married a divorced woman as one who had buried her husband. ”

“ Her absorbing thought, for the moment, was how to be true to her husband without being false to the church. Mr. Prentiss, in spite of his appeal, had left her conscience unconvinced, and now her clear-headed, fearless Emil had suddenly given her soul the cue to expression. Her brown eyes kindled rapturously and trustfully as she said:
"It's the life after all which counts, isn't it? Everything else is of secondary importance." ”

“ Discussions of the topic which she had listened to or read had played like lightnings around her oblivious head, but had served merely to intensify her repugnance to the blatant divorces and double-quick marriages, which she had seen heralded from time to time in the daily press, and which had recently been brought home to her with peculiar force by the events in Mrs. Wilson's family circle. Now the flare of the lightning was in her own eyes, and her brain was numb with the emotion of the personal shock.
"Would Mr. Prentiss marry me to you?" she asked, seeking as usual the vital issue. ”

“ Then she bent her shrewd eyes on Constance, and said with a quiet pithiness of utterance, which reminded the latter of her employer. "I was not tempted to marry again because I loved my husband, and could not forget him. But I've never been able to convince my common sense that it is fair to asperse the woman who marries again after the law has separated her forever from the man who has done her a grievous wrong, but to think it only right and fitting for a widow to take a second husband when the first whom she has loved, and who has loved her, is in the grave. ”

“ It wounded her to oppose her rector, yet the need of a champion for her husband's cause supplied her with speech, and gave to her countenance quiet determination. Constance possessed one of those lithe, nervous personalities, so frequently to be met with in American women of every class, the signal attribute of which is bodily and mental refinement. Her hair was dark, her face thin, her eyes brown and wistful, her figure tall and elastic; her pretty countenance had the charm of temperament rather than mere flesh and blood, and its sympathetic, intelligent comeliness suggested spiritual vigor. ”

“ As a consequence, competition—that absorbing passion of American character—is prone to take advantage of all the opportunities at its command, not merely to decorate the unprepossessing or provide the duck with the environment of the swan, but to make princesses out of goose girls by sheer gorgeous manifestations of the power of the almighty dollar. We all know that every woman in the world would prefer at heart to be called wicked rather than common, unless she were common—one of those extraordinary results of the tyranny of the social instinct which plays havoc with religious codes ”

“ We are perpetually on the look-out for discoveries which will enable our children to become the bright particular stars which we are not. So what more natural than that Mrs. Wilson, with her ardent bent for improving social conditions, should swallow—hook, bait, and sinker—the theory that the budding intelligence should be cajoled and humored, not thwarted and coerced? The idea thus pursued at kindergarten, that everything should be made easy and agreeable for the infant mind, had been steadily adhered to, and Lucille could fairly be said to have had her own way all her life. ”

“ The chief blot on the triumph of individualism—on the American principle of the development of self—is that the choicest privileges of civilization should hang beyond the reach of those who are handicapped merely because they are handicapped. The destruction of the poor is their poverty, as my old school-master used to state, though I didn't know then what he meant. And it must be borne, as you say. Even here, where everything is possible to the individual, renunciation still stares the majority in the face as the inexorable virtue. ”

“ The idea of divorce is repugnant to you—though you have ceased to love the husband who deeply wronged you. You shrink even more from marrying again because your children's father is still alive. If he were dead, the bar would be removed, and you would not hesitate. I appeal to your common sense, Constance. What sound reason is there why you should sacrifice your happiness—the happiness of us both? ”

“ Wilson, now that she had partially recovered her poise, felt the impulse to elucidate this horrifying mystery. But though she wished to speak, the proper language did not suggest itself. How could one discuss causes with a mad woman? She raised her hands to put in place the tiara which had been crushed down on her brow.
"Look at her," cried Loretta, commandingly, addressing Constance and pointing. "Isn't she beautiful? She's civilization." ”

“ However clear-sighted and philosophical a college graduate, his first actual contact with the great world is apt to be depressing. Society seems so large and so indifferent; he is so insignificant and so helpless—he who six months ago was a hero in the eyes of his companions. Especially is this apt to be the case when one is translated from the dizzy democratic heights of college renown to a humble, humdrum social station. It was no revelation to Gordon Perry to find himself the son of a hard-working, inconspicuous boarding-house keeper, but it sobered him. ”

“ It was the maid's afternoon out, and Constance moved as though she were glorying in the occupation. Presently she said:
"Of course I'll dismiss Sophy to-morrow. I am proud to be a workingman's wife, Emil. We'll soon be on our feet again, never fear."
The suggestion of the servant's dismissal deepened the gloom on Emil's face. "I've half a mind to pull up stakes and move to New York," he muttered.
"And give up our home?"
He frowned at the involuntary concern in her voice. "What use is a home in a place where a man is cramped and circumvented in every big thing he attempts? ”

“ Absorbed in ideals, they neglected to take poor human nature sufficiently into account. We have lost the buffalo, but we have acquired a leisure class, and we must make the best of it, not the worst. We can't cut their heads off; this is a free country. It would be dreadful—dreadful, wouldn't it, if our institutions, of which we are so proud, were to produce merely the same old thing over again—a leisure class of voluptuaries?" Gordon paused for a moment and his smile died away at the vision which his words evoked. ”

“ Nay, more; though we crave almost by instinct individual lustre and personal safety, reaching out for luxury that we may grow superfine, must not we—we American women with ideals—mistrust the social beauty of a universe which still produces the masses and all the horrors of life? Can it fundamentally avail that a few should be exquisite and have radiant thoughts, if the rest are condemned to a coarse, unlovely heritage? ”

“ Suppose a multi-millionaire's daughter tires of her husband and runs away to South Dakota to get a divorce as quick as the law allows, do you call that a private concern? I guess not, Constance. The public—meaning such as you and me—naturally take an interest, and object to its being hushed up. The multi-millionaires have the money; we have the newspapers. We don't get any too much that's interesting in our lives. ”

“ Consequently, her wardrobe had a distinction of its own which proclaimed fashion yet defied it. Yet her clothes, striking and superb as they often were, constituted only a small part of her social effectiveness. Her gracious finished manners, and quick, tactful intelligence were the agents of a spirit perpetually eager to be occupied and to lead, and which had found a labor of love in directing what may well be called Benham's æsthetic renaissance.
For Benham's evolution had been no mere growth of bricks and mortar, and no mere triumph in census figures over other centres of population. ”

“ The clergyman's heart warmed at this revelation of spiritual vigor. "Here is a soul worth helping," he reflected. Then, in answer to her appeal, he exclaimed with righteous emphasis: "Ask your own heart, my dear woman. Would you dare trust these babies to your husband's keeping? This is a problem of right and wrong, and demands a severing of the sheep from the goats. You may banish that doubt forever."
Constance dropped her eyes to hide the tears of satisfaction which had sprung into them at his words. Her children were safe. ”

“ By the way," she continued, with a gentle sigh, "it is so difficult to know what attitude to adopt with the newspaper people. If one refuses them the house, their sensibilities are hurt and they are liable to invent falsehoods or write disagreeable paragraphs. If they are allowed to inspect everything, they publish details which make one's heart sick, and make one appear a vain fool. How is a person in my position to be courteous toward the power of the press and yet to maintain the right to privacy? Is not this superb?" she added, holding up a crest of diamonds in the form of a tiara. ”

“ Prentiss's most happy efforts from the standpoint of orthodoxy, graphic, eloquent, and practical. He set no narrow limits of a creed as the arbiter of truth, but declared that the opportunity to choose between the path of righteousness and the path of self-sufficiency or self-indulgence was offered to every one in the great struggle of modern life; that he who would follow the blessed Lord and Master must shun as evil that which was injurious to the highest interests of human society and thus hateful to God. As she listened Constance could not doubt that he had her in mind. ”

“ This had been her first impulse too, but a moment's reflection had proved to her that to do so was out of the question; that it would be an intrusion—a violation of that subtle code of nicety which governed her benefactress's life. Mrs. Wilson was the last woman to betray to the every-day world that she was sorely wounded. Was not endurance of suffering without plaint and with an unruffled countenance one of the tenets of her friend's æsthetic creed? So what right had a person like herself to invade her privacy? ”