Robert Grant

“ He was fond of saying that more than one public man in the United States had come to grief politically from being a joker, and that the American people could not endure flippancy in their representatives. He liked to tell and listen to humorous stories in the security of a smoking-room, but in his opinion it behooved a citizen to maintain a dignified bearing before the world. Like other self-made men who had come to New York—like Selma herself—he had shrunk from and deplored at first the lighter tone of casual speech. ”

“ Each man in this puzzling world must live according to his own lights, and I, according to mine, am trying to make the most of myself, consistent with self-respect and avoidance of the low human aims and time-serving methods upon which our new civilization is supposed to frown. If I am neglecting my lawful opportunities, if I am failing to see wisely and correctly, I shall be grateful for counsel. Ah, Selma, for your sake, even more than for my own, I grieve that we have no children. A baby's hands would, I fancy, be the best of counsellors and enlighteners. ”

“ This was lost on Selma, who was fain to sympathize purely from the stand-point of righteousness.
"It was splendid," she said. "He had no right to prevent you living your own life. No husband has that right."
Mrs. Earle brushed her eyes with her handkerchief. "You musn't think, my dear, that I'm not a believer in the home because mine has been unhappy—because my husband didn't or couldn't understand. The true home is the inspirer and nourisher of all that is best in life—in our American life; but men must learn the new lesson. ”

“ Selma noticed that the cup in his hand trembled. While she kept her eyes lowered, as women are supposed to do at such moments, she was wondering whether she loved him as much as she had loved Wilbur? Not so ardently, but more worthily, she concluded, for he seemed to her to fulfil her maturer ideal of strong and effective manhood, and to satisfy alike her self-respect and her physical fancy. A man of his type would not split hairs, but proceed straight toward the goal of his ambition without fainting or wavering. ”

“ There are so many things we would like to do which we cannot; so many things which we do against our wills. We are perpetually squinting at happiness, but just as we get a delightful vision before our eyes we are whisked off by duty or ambition or the force of social momentum to try a different view. Consequently our perennial regret is apt to be that we have seen our real interests and our real friends as in a panorama, for a fleeting moment, and then no more until the next time. For Littleton this was less true than for most. ”

“ She had probably never put into words the reasons of her confidence, but her daily consciousness was permeated with them. To be an American meant to be more keenly alive to the responsibility of life than any other citizen of civilization, and to be an American woman meant to be something finer, cleverer, stronger, and purer than any other daughter of Eve. Under the agreeable but sobering influence of this faith she had grown to womanhood, and the heroic deeds of the civil war had served to intensify a belief, the truth of which she had never heard questioned. ”

“ Was everybody equal in Benham, Mrs. Littleton?"
"Practically so," said Selma, with an air of haughtiness, which was evoked by her recollection of the group of houses on Benham's River Drive into which she had never been invited. "There were some people who were richer than others, but that didn't make them better than any one else."
"Well, in New York it's different. Of course, every body has the same right to vote or to be elected President of the United States, but equality ends there. People here are either in society or out of it, and society itself is divided into sets. ”

“ Say that you do," she said, with shrill intensity.
"It is because I do see it that I am troubled, Selma. For myself I am no happier now than I was when we lived more simply. I can't believe that you will really find it a hardship to deny yourself such extravagances as our theatre party last week. Being a man," he added, after a pause, "I suppose I may not appreciate how important and seductive some of these social observances appear to a woman, and heaven knows my chief wish in life is to do everything in my power to make you happy. ”

“ Standing on a balcony in evening dress, in company with Mrs. Earle and Miss Luella Bailey, whom she had invited to view the procession from the River Drive, Selma looked down on the parade in an ecstatic mood. The torches, the music, the fireworks and the enthusiasm set her pulses astir and brought her heart into her mouth in melting appreciation of the sanctity of her party cause and her own enviable destiny as the wife of an American Congressman. ”

“ It isn't the best Americanism to waste one's time in pursuing frivolities and excessive luxury, as some of these people do; but there's nothing un-American in making the most of one's opportunities. As I've said to you before, Selma, it's the way in which one rises that's the important thing in the individual equation, and every man must choose for himself what that shall be. My ambition is to excel in my profession, and to mould my life to that end without neglecting my duties as a citizen or a husband. ”

“ We are right. Since we love each other, why should we not say so? I love you—I love you. The ugly hateful past shall not keep us apart longer. You say you loved me from the first; so did I love you, though I did not know it then. We were meant for each other—God meant us—did he not? It is right, and we shall be so happy, Wilbur."
"Yes, Selma." Words seemed to him an inadequate means for expressing his emotions. He pressed his lips upon hers with the adoring respect of a worshipper touching his god, yet with the energy of a man. She sighed and compared him in her thought with Babcock. ”

“ What you are proposing to do is to sacrifice your life—and my life, James Lyons, for the sake of a—er—fetish. Horace Elton, under the pretence of friendship for us, has taken advantage of your necessities to extract from you a promise to support an evil scheme—a bill to defraud the plain American people of their rights—the people whose interests you swore to protect when you took the oath as Governor. Is a promise between man and man, as you call it, more sacred than everlasting truth itself? ”

“ The great thing—the difficult thing to guard against in the whirl of this great city, where we are all striving to get ahead—is not to sell one's self for money, not to sacrifice the thing worth doing for mere pecuniary advantage. It's the great temptation to some to do so, for only money can buy fine houses, and carriages and jewels—yes, and in a certain sense, social preferment. The problem is presented in a different form to every man. Some can grow rich honestly, and some have to remain poor in order to be true to themselves. We may have to remain poor, Selma mia. ”

“ You're one of those American women—I've always been curious to meet one in all her glory—who believe that they are born in the complete panoply of flawless womanhood; that they are by birthright consummate house-wives, leaders of the world's thought and ethics, and peerless society queens. All this by instinct, by heritage, and without education. That's what you believe, isn't it? And now you are offended because you haven't been invited to become a leader of New York society. ”

“ Am I superficial and common? Do I lack the appearance and behavior of a lady?"
Selma accompanied these interrogatories with successive waves of the hand, as though she were branding so many falsehoods.
"Assuredly not, Selma. I consider you"—and here Mrs. Earle gasped in the process of choosing her words—"I consider you one of our best trained and most independent minds—cultured, a friend of culture, and an earnest seeker after truth. If you are not a lady, neither am I, neither is anyone in Benham. ”

“ Littleton departing, tickled by a pleasant sense of humor, caught through the parlor window a last glimpse of Selma's inspired face bowing gravely, yet wistfully, in acknowledgment of his lifted hat, and he strode away under the spell of a brain picture which he transmuted into words: "There's the sort of case where the cynical foreigner fails to appreciate the true import of our American life. That couple typifies the elements of greatness in our every-day people. At first blush the husband's rough and material, but he's shrewd and enterprising and vigorous—the bread winner. ”

“ Selma, who brushed her teeth but once a day, looked a little sharp at Flossy.
"It makes money of too much importance and it establishes class distinctions. I don't approve of such a condition of affairs at all."
Flossy shrugged her shoulders. "I have never thought whether I approve of it or not. I am only telling you what exists. I don't deny that money counts for a great deal, for, as Gregory says, money is the measure of success. But money isn't everything. Brains count and refinement, and nice honorable ways of looking at things. Of course, I'm only telling you what my ambition is. ”

“ It had never occurred to Selma that she might lose her husband. Even with his shortcomings he was so important to her from the point of view of support, and her scheme of life was so interwoven with his, she had taken for granted that he would live as long as she desired. She felt that destiny had a second time been signally cruel to her, and that she was drinking deeply of the cup of sorrow. She was convinced that Wilbur, had he lived, would have moved presently to Benham, in accordance with her desire, and that they would then have been completely happy again. ”

“ His mobile face was working with emotion; his eyes were filled with tears. "I will veto the bill," he said, grandiloquently. "The claims of private honor must give way to the general welfare, and the demands of civilization. You have convinced me, Selma—my wife. My point of view was old-fashioned. Superior ethics permit no other solution of the problem. Superior ethics," he repeated, as though the phrase gave him comfort, "would not justify a statesman in sacrificing his party and his own powers—aye, and his political conscience—in order to keep a private compact. I shall veto the bill." ”

“ The fact that you are free makes clear to me what I have not dared to countenance before, that you are the one woman in the world for me—the woman I have dreamed of—and longed to meet—the woman whose influence has blessed me already, and without whom I shall lack the greatest happiness which life can give. Selma, I love you—I adore you. ”

“ Selma flushed at the reference to divorce. Littleton's sad, simple statement wore on the surface no sign of a design to hark back to her experience with her first husband, yet she divined that it must be in his thoughts and she resented the recurrence. Moreover, separation, certainly for the present, went beyond her purpose.
"I have no wish for divorce or separation. I see no reason why we should not continue to live as we are," she answered. "To separate would cause scandal. It is not necessary that people should know we have made a mistake. ”